#like. he goes to tatooine to help children find their way home when there's a sandstorm

[byfulcrums]

The idea of Anakin trying to “fix” what he did as Vader (or more like redeem himself, since what he did can't be ‘fixed’) by helping people all over the galaxy as a Force Ghost does something to me

[arianeemorythethird]

it's been months but I'm still totally obsessed by a rexwalker jane eyre AU...

rex is jane, anakin is mr rochester. kinda. it's still the canon universe, just the clone wars went a little differently, and after the war ended the republic didn't fall.

and rex and anakin didn't serve together.

because anakin isn't a jedi, in this universe. padme's ship never landed on tatooine, so qui-gon never found and freed him, so...

so the first time they meet it's when widowed retired racer anakin hires jobless veteran rex as a bodyguard for himself and his kids.

he and the twins live in either a fancy nubian shuttle full of textiles and luxury furniture and gilded interiors, or a fancy house in remote country naboo full of textiles and luxury furniture and gilded interiors, surrounded by miles of empty swampy lakes and woods in all directions.

anakin and the twins live all alone in all this luxury, except for a couple of droids and each other, and it's kind of weird and lonely. but now there's rex!

rex and anakin have an immediate deep and powerful connection and spend a lot of time talking together when rex is in theory meant to be working. despite their apparent differences they just get each other like no one else ever has.

(awkward kids with nerdy common interests? yes. veiled deep and meaningful conversations about their shared trauma? also yes.)

also they spar together, probably. anakin says he just wants to keep in shape now he's given up racing fulltime, which checks out.

but wow, he's fucking strong. and his reflexes are unreal. which rex guesses checks out, for a podracer, but even so, wow...

rex spends a lot of time checking anakin out.

and trying not to notice anakin checking him out.

but also - rex doesn't want to think about how creepy anakin's life is but... it's kind of creepy...

he's out here alone with his young kids and two weird old droids, and rex. it's lonely. rex doesn't think anakin does well when he's lonely.

but surely rex's company is good for him?

rex likes him so much. he's certain anakin likes him too...

...and anakin does like him.

the problem is anakin has secrets too.

this is a jane eyre au!

but it doesn't go the way you think. padme is already dead.

the mad wife in the attic isn't padme - it's palpatine.

the mad parent in the attic responsible for the war and the exploitation of the clones (and also, not incidentally, padme's death.)

also the one who found anakin as a teenage racer on tatooine and trained him as a sith. anakin is darth vader, the apprentice sith who killed a lot of rex's brothers before he faked his death (with padme's help) and fled.

yeah, rex is gonna find anakin's red saber somewhere. it won't go well.

rex can forgive anakin for his own crimes, knowing he was forced to become a sith as a child and eventually left. but he can't forgive anakin for protecting palpatine. not now that rex knows palpatine is responsible for the war and for putting inhibitor chips in his and his brothers' heads.

and anakin knows palpatine ought to have faced justice for his crimes a long time ago... on top of everything else he abused and tortured anakin as part of his training too... but anakin still loves him as the father he never had.

anakin hates him as much as he loves him and he can't let go.

rex leaves him because he can't live with that. he just can't.

but anakin is half crazy with grief and loneliness and fucks up. palpatine escapes.

and when it comes down to palpatine or anakin's children anakin finally chooses right.

eventually rex finds out that palpatine is finally dead and the luxury home is gone. the kids are fine but anakin was badly burned, and probably more limbless than he started, but not fully toasted (if nothing else, because palpatine isn't there to immediately put him in a murder suit!)

but - "reader, he married him."

it's enough.

rex goes back.

[livinlavidavili]

On a peaceful day during the year of 41 BBY, the Force celebrates the birth of two beautiful, united souls, sending them to wander the galaxy and forge their own paths in hopes of one day meeting each other. Their destinies cannot be changed, nor can their journey- for it is their experiences that will shape who they are, and make one the better half for the other. 

One such soul is born on Tatooine, to a kind, discerning, gentle young mother who will do nothing but sit and hold her child for days after he is born. He will have hardships, and he will face difficulties that he wouldn’t even wish on his enemies as he grows older and encounters all sorts of situations on that dry planet of his. He will be radiant, a golden soul like no one has ever seen before- but he will also possess darkness. That darkness will frighten many, possibly even himself. And that, dear luminous beings, is where the other soul comes in. 

The other soul, born with pure, white light bathing her, is the epitome of hope and strength and joy. She will have a strong mind, and an even stronger heart- though it will certainly be put through its own turmoil, in her lifetime. 

It is her purpose to see the darkness within the other, and help guide him away. Just as it is his purpose to keep her from falling into the oh-so-easily-misconstrued theory that Jedi are supposed to refrain from all things that breed selfishness. Forever leaning on the other for support and love, the relationship they will form is something onlookers would sell their own soul for. 

Born to a couple on the planet of Stewjon, her path, unlike the first soul, gets a headstart with hardships. 

The second sweet Lili is born, her parents rejoice at the delivery of a beautiful baby girl, their celebrations continuing for at least a week after. Friends come and go to look upon her beauty, and her brothers Ewan and Owen spend almost every waking moment snuggling with her or asking their parents ‘when Lili can play ball outside’. 

For two years, this joy and adoration continues. The mother sits with her sweet girl and brushes her hair out after baths, singing and giggling with her as she braids the beautiful blonde locks she was blessed with. And the father, while less emotionally available as he is with all his children, still tucks her in at night and reads her a bedtime story- especially on the evenings where sleep does not come easy to her. 

During storms, Ewan will come to her room (unless of course she climbs into his bed first) and snuggle with her, holding her oh, so tightly until her anxiety goes away or the storm ends. And as for Owen, well… still very much a growing boy himself, Owen sits and colors with her at any chance possible. He wants to be an artist- and since his little sister liked to draw so much, too, what better excuse could he find to sit and draw with her? 

And then one day, on her way home from a ride in the woods nearby, the mother catches you, her sweet, flawless daughter floating a rock. As if it were nothing. Just as her baby boy many years ago had possessed such gifts. Such… horrid, terrible gifts. 

How could the Maker do this? How could she be gifted with a precious angel of a girl, only to recognize her powers just as they had seen in her older brother? Who, now, they’ve learned, happens to have found his way to the Jedi Temple anyway. These people truly never give up, it appears. 

And so, having learned from past mistakes that Jedi seem to be indestructible, and unable to put herself through another round of her child screaming as her husband held them underwater, she takes a few moments in the horse stables to collect herself for the next steps. 

But how can she truly collect herself when her heart, once again, has been cracked into two? Over a child- a child which will now disgrace their family, especially among those who learn of her gifts. Their family will lose such high ranking in Stewjon society, she may lose her titles of leadership in all female societal groups! Again! 

With a deep breath, she moves back out to the garden where her former angel was last seen, stopping just a few feet in front of you. Gods help her if she gets too close to that… monstrous magic of yours. Especially since you don’t know how to use it. 

“We- we must take a trip,” she breathes. “Just you and I. Alright? This instant.” If Ewan were to learn of what she was doing, he would try to stop it at all costs. She cannot be stopped- you have to go. 

[wingletblackbird]

Anakin and Padme and Family and Parenthood

A part of the tragedy of RotS is that Anakin and Padme both wanted a family, and would likely have made good parents. This desire is, in fact, fundamental to both their characters and informs their actions.

Firstly, we see Anakin's relationship with his mother in TPM. They are close, and this is a relationship that Anakin values throughout his life. Likewise, Padme also values family. She still lives at home when she goes to Naboo and this is something Anakin appreciates:

You still live at home,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect that.”

“I move around so much,” Padmé replied. “I’ve never had the time to even begin to find a place of my own, and I’m not sure I want to. Official residences have no warmth. Not like here. I feel good here. I feel at home.”

The simple beauty of her statement gave Anakin pause. “I’ve never had a real home,” he said, speaking more to himself than to Padmé. “Home was always where my mom was.”

Padme outright tells Anakin in AotC that, "Actually, I was hoping to have a family by now. My sister has the most amazing, wonderful kids." Anakin also smiles when he meets said children. He thinks that he "couldn’t help but be touched by the scene, a view of innocence that he had never known." What he sees at the Naberries is something he wants.

Anakin also admires how Padme cares about her family. "[Anakin] knew that she didn’t want to bring pain to her family. Anakin, who had left his mother as a slave on Tatooine, could appreciate that."

Anakin so respects the role family has, in fact, that he is glad to meet the Naberries and spend time with them. He is also honest with Ruwee about the danger Padme is in, because he respects the love he has for his daughter. Anakin knows family is important to Padme.

[Anakin] could not deny the way Padmé looked at her family, the love that seemed to flow from her whenever any of them entered the room, and he knew that if Ruwee or Jobal or Sola didn’t like him, his relationship with Padmé would be hurt.

All of the above shows again how much family is important to them both.

The AotC novelisation honestly goes hard into this importance of family and home. It is something that brings Anakin and Padme together. Eventually, the text outright unites them on that subject:

“Home again, home again, to go to rest,” Anakin recited, a common children’s rhyme.

“By hearth and heart, house and nest,” Padmé added.

Anakin looked over at her, pleasantly surprised. “You know it?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Anakin said. “I mean, I wasn’t sure if anyone else … I thought it was a rhyme my mother made up for me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Padmé said. “Maybe she did—maybe hers was different than the one my mother used to tell me.”

Anakin shook his head doubtfully, but he wasn’t bothered by the possibility. In a strange way, he was glad that Padmé knew the rhyme, glad that it was a common gift from mothers to their children.

And glad, especially, that he and Padmé had yet another thing in common.

So we can establish right here that Anakin and Padme have common values where family is concerned. They care about their family; they value their opinions; they want to shield their family from pain. They both want warmth and a home. Padme wants children. Anakin also does. It is implied in AotC, and outright stated in RotS. "This is the happiest moment of my life."

I've seen people say or imply that Padme did not value family, because she wanted Anakin to stay in the Order. This is not true. Padme suggests to Anakin that he stay in the Order in RotS because she was concerned about the war effort. She knew she couldn't stay in the Senate once the pregnancy came out, but did suggest hiding away for a bit to preserve Anakin's reputation first because: "Sometimes I think that the only reason the people of the Republic still believe we can win the war is because you’re fighting it for them—” Things were pretty desperate.

Another, perhaps lesser reason, is she is a bit worried that he will resent her, "I won't let you give up your future for me." They resolve that though and talk it through,

“I had been thinking—about going somewhere … somewhere else. Having the baby in secret, to protect you. So you can stay in the Order." “I don’t want to stay in the Order!” He took her face between his palms so that she had to look into his eyes, so that she had to see how much he meant every word he said.

Anakin was content to leave the Jedi Order for his family's sake. He makes that clear in the movies, books, and comics. It's very explicit.

Padme herself is not all about being a senator or politics, as she is often depicted. She is unused to any kind of life outside politics certainly, and that informs her decisions. She cannot divorce it from her life. However, she was "relieved when [her] two terms were up." She serves as a senator because she felt she "couldn't refuse", and, again, "was hoping to have a family by now." She's as happy about having a baby as Anakin is. This is what she wants for herself.

The reason we do not see Anakin leave the Order in RotS is because of his visions. He stays in the vain hope of getting access to information that might help him prevent these visions from happening, not because he doesn't want to leave or Padme is forcing him to stay.

Anakin and Padme's relationship does have it's issues certainly, but these do not stem from a lack of consensus where family and children are concerned. They both want the same things out of life. Had their sense of duty allowed it, they both would have left the Senate and the Jedi behind long before RotS to raise that family. Anakin and Padme are bound by the duality of duty v. desire that they both wrestle with.

Hence, the fact that Luke and Leia are unplanned is simply because Anakin and Padme chose to wait a bit, and keep their relationship a secret given the state of the Republic. A lot of people, no matter how amazing their marriage, would not want to start a family during a war. It's not a reflection on them negatively. Anakin and Padme both felt they were needed for a bit longer. At their heart though, the most important thing to either was their little, but growing, and much-wanted family. I argue even that their values of compassion and service flow out of and are informed by their home and family lives.

So, we've established now that Anakin and Padme both share the same family values, and have the same commitment to their family.

The last question I want to answer is if they would be good parents. I think this is a no-brainer, personally. Anakin and Padme both grew up with loving parental figures. They already have some idea of what this looks like.

Additionally, we see in AotC that for Anakin not only is protecting family important, specifically protecting innocence like what he was largely denied on Tatooine is important. He likes kids and is gentle with them. He would want to provide his children with what he never had as a child like peace, freedom, and stability. Anakin defined compassion as a Jedi's most important trait, this would translate well to fatherhood.

On Padme's end, we have her talk about how concerned she was that she was too young to be Queen. In AotC, she also tells Anakin "try not to grow up too quickly." I think there is a part of her that struggles with her childhood burdens. I think this would influence how she would raise her kids, as carefree and happy as she can manage.

In conclusion, I think that both Anakin and Padme would have been good parents. They both would love unconditionally. They would also do their best not to put undue pressure on their kids, (especially with their backgrounds), but support them kindly in their endeavors.

And thus, on a macro scale, RotS is tragic because we have the slaughter of all the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. On a micro-scale though, where the Skywalker family is concerned, we have a family that was torn apart.

Anakin falls. Padme dies. The twins are split up. This is a tragedy, and it is set up as one from the moment we hear Padme say, "Actually, I'd hoped to have a family of my own by now."

[siennahrobek]

Fic Idea Masterlist

Who He Is – Qui-Gon Jinn, right before the Naboo mission, is tossed forward in time where he meets a young Togruta padawan right off the coast of a battle. As she brings him to the base to meet with the High General, he talks a bit about his own padawan. (Time Travel)

Bending Jedi – The Jedi can bend the four main elements they have been keeping these specific abilities hidden away from the populous when they can, as people tend to fear them with what they can already do, the discovery of bending in Jedi would breed more distrust and fear. But the war has made that too difficult, as the Jedi are desperate to protect, and the clones are the first to discover the Jedi’s abilities, more than what they were told in their training. (Bending Jedi Avatar-Style)

Together Twins – An attack on Polis Massa forces Obi-Wan Kenobi to flee with both Luke and Leia Skywalker.

Chances – Trading their silence and obedience for the clones’ freedom at the end of the war, the Jedi find themselves nearly shunned and hated with the intense anti-Jedi sentiments that run rampant due to Palpatine’s influence. The clones refuse to accept this.

Order & Academy – After being rejected by Qui-Gon Jinn, initiate Obi-Wan Kenobi finds himself forward in time during that of the height of Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. (Time Travel)

Third Systems Unprepared – During the explosion where he received his iconic scar, Commander Cody’s chip was knocked around to the point of disuse. When the Chancellor calls on Utapau to Execute Order 66, Cody has no idea what it means, therefore unable to send the orders to the rest of the 212th Attack Battalion and much of the Open Circle Fleet. It changes a lot.

Reverse Psychometry – After coming back from his stint with the Dark Side, Quinlan Vos spends some time with Obi-Wan Kenobi and touches his cloak with an ungloved hand. Instead of his psychometry giving him flashes of the past, he’s fairly certain it gives him a flash of the future. One where Obi-Wan’s grief is overwhelming, everyone is dead, and Anakin Skywalker burns without his limbs. (Reverse psychometry)

Kamino Investigation – Instead of chasing Jango Fett off Kamino, Obi-Wan Kenobi stays on planet, giving the tracker to another nearby knight, while he investigates the clones and the events surrounding them.

Space Survival – An explosion goes off on the Negotiator, which is in low orbit over the Republic world for repairs. Obi-Wan Kenobi is aboard and holding as much of the ship together as he can for the evacuation of the wounded.

Bracca Detour – Upon an accidental detour to Bracca after being sent to Tatooine for exile with Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi finds Cal Kestis.

Lothal AU – Owen Lar’s disbelief and mistrust of Obi-Wan chases him away and the Jedi leaves with Luke (or Leia), eventually finding himself on Lothal where he befriends the Bridgers.

Bit Age Swap – Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker has no intention on taking a padawan just as the war is starting, despite being a knight for nearing a decade until his master, Mace Windu, comes to him with an orphaned padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose Master died on Geonosis and is determined to fight in this war, whether the Order likes it or not. Skywalker quickly discovers there is more to padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi than first meets the eye. (Smidge of Age-Swapping)

Din Djarin Au – With the Sith and Separatists defeated, Obi-Wan Kenobi and the 212th are finishing the last of the battles against the droids and stubborn Separatist leaders. It is on a planet, during one of these battles, where the droids are invading a city, that General Kenobi rescues newly orphaned and force-sensitive Din Djarin.

Stay Out of it – Obi-Wan and the 212thare in bound to Coruscant for a few days’ rest, refuel and new orders when Anakin and Padme’s marriage comes to light. And then, Obi-Wan can’t get back to the front quick enough.

This is Different – Coming back from Melida-Daan has proven more difficult than anticipated for Obi-Wan Kenobi and it only gets worse when he wakes up, decades later, only to be found – and accepted – by a monstrous Sith Lord, who seems to have some odd soft spot for him. (Time Travel)

Lineage Reconnection – Obi-Wan brings it upon himself to contact Qui-Gon’s lineage and friends to inform them of the news of his death. Yoda does what he does best and meddles. At least, it appears this time, it worked for the better of everyone involved.

Back with Hope – Obi-Wan Kenobi, a while after Order 66 finds himself back in time, reliving events. He doesn’t entirely know where to start with changing things until something changes for him. The Jedi receive a call from an unknown source – it is tiny clone children calling for their only hope – Obi-Wan Kenobi. (Time Travel)

Undying – It is on Bandomeer when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn discover that the former cannot die, and it is used to their advantage. Obi-Wan keeps his secret, even after Qui-Gon’s death, until he can’t anymore. It is the revelation of the Chosen One prophecy that his purpose is revealed – as a Guardian, Obi-Wan Kenobi cannot die until the Chosen One has brought balance to the Force.

Lineage Last – Anakin and Ahsoka both leave the Jedi Order after she is accused – and proven innocent – and although Obi-Wan understands, the fact that he they left, and he is the last of his lineage doesn’t hurt any less.

Amor – Obi-Wan has been to war before; no one needed to convince him to wear at least some armor. Now how much, that is a different story.

Canon Switch – Anakin Style – After saying something he would come to regret; Anakin Skywalker finds himself in a universe where Obi-Wan had died on Naboo... and Qui-Gon had lived. It is not nearly as he dreamed it would be. (Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence – Time Travel)

Canon Switch – QuiGon Style – A heartbroken Qui-Gon survived Naboo while his padawan did not. Barely surviving for the next ten years, Qui-Gon finds himself in a universe where the opposite is true. (Time Travel)

Dooku Set Up – Tired of Palpatine’s schemes, Count Dooku thinks of defecting when the master Sith Lord is killed. Someone is setting him up and Dooku reaches out to the only person he desperately hopes can help - his grand padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Extra Weird Jedi – The Jedi end up being different than the clones had expected. More odd, dangerous, intriguing. The Kaminoans had told them one thing, the populace’s view of the Jedi. But up close, working with them? It’s so much different.

Baby Counselor – Obi-Wan Kenobi is the youngest member of the Council and is known a bit as the Council baby – at least with other masters – and those on it, are not afraid to treat him that way. It just a tad changes things.

Crechemaster Obi-Wan – When the war comes to an end, Obi-Wan Kenobi decides to become a creche master while Anakin and Padme expect their first child. But when the Senator dies of a cause that is no one’s fault, Anakin is left bereft and leaves his children behind. Obi-Wan takes Luke and Leia into his creche clan.

To be Chosen – Jedi Luke Skywalker is thrown back in time to that where the Order still exists. Finding he cannot go back; he constructs a new life and home into the Temple. Several years later, even though Master Yoda tries to keep a specific initiate away from his sight, Luke encounters him anyways and thinks, perhaps he and Obi-Wan were linked, always meant to be. Perhaps it was Luke’s turn to give back to his master. To be Chosen. (Time Travel)

Kamino Defense – Peace is restored after the war, although the work isn’t done. In response to the controversy surrounding his padawans marriage to Senator Amidala, Obi-Wan accepts a post to protect the clones and their young from power hungry warlords and greedy businessmen on Kamino while the Senate debates what to do with them.

Burned Deep – A thousand years ago, the Jedi chained themselves to the Senate and Republic and dismantled their military as a show of good faith. Now the Senate controls the Jed strictly to keep them from taking over. The Temple becomes a beautiful cage, their stringent parameters for missions a leash. In this world, when the war begins, Jedi are let loose as more of attack dogs than Generals. (Alternate Universe – Canon History Divergence)

Jumping Ages – In an attempt to use what she thinks is a Sith weapon, Ventress just ends up causing some chaos for Obi-Wan and the crew as he ends up popping in at different ages and stages of his life over the course of an unknown amount of time. The only one who doesn’t seem to be rattled is Cody. (De-Aging/Age Regression)

Padme Lives – After surviving Order 66, Padme is forced to hide away with her children, leaving Obi-Wan free to find surviving Jedi and learn about the clones’ predicament.

We Are Burning Stars - Instead of on a faraway planet, fighting the last battles of the war, Obi-Wan Kenobi is walking aside his Commander in the Jedi Temple when Order 66 hits.

Revolving Suns - Raised by Obi-Wan Kenobi, teenaged Luke Skywalker finds himself back into the Clone Wars while General Kenobi falls into an unexplainable coma.

[tennessoui]

FeralObi anon here. How do you come up with these so fast?? Are you an infinite number of ideas and worlds in human-shaped form? I love both of those ideas. The first one kills me tho, Obi gets his first kind touch in years from lil Anakin. Also you can have lil Anakin coming home one day with a skulking, snarling nonverbal murder puppy and saying brightly, "He followed me home, can I keep him?" Schmi thinks this is definitely worse than the time he brought a krayt dragon home.

ah! hello! yes this is the first idea of a feral obi-wan who meets anakin when he's still on tatooine. i will also still do the second idea because like. i liked them equally as much rip me

but i told myself these were going to both be very short snippets and instead this one is uh 2k so i'll post the second one tomorrow instead of tonight!

(ficlet where obi-wan is captured by pirates/unspecified forces at a young age and then tortured for a decade before he escapes to tatooine when anakin is like 6. obi-wan, after a decade of torture is....not alright in this fic though he's only here at the end) (2k)

Shmi had known that when she sent her little Anakin away to follow after the stern-faced, warm-eyed Jedi Master, that this would not be the last time she ever saw her boy. She couldn’t explain how she knew, just as she had not been able to explain how she became pregnant, but she knew beyond a doubt that one day, she would see her little boy back in her arms.

She just hadn’t known it would be so soon.

“He died, Master Jinn died,” Anakin mumbles into the front of her dress, unwilling to move his head far back enough from her hug that he could talk clearly. “On Naboo. And the stupid Jedi council refused to train me even after I was so amazing in the air. Mom, I destroyed a blockade! Entirely! And they wouldn’t--they didn’t--” his little face scrunches up and then he’s bawling into his hands.

A slave, a born slave, knows intrinsically the injustice of the galaxy. It is not often they know hope.

“Oh my boy,” she whispers, smoothing a hand over the top of his head. She has questions. She has so many questions about everything he’s just said and what those strangers have put her son through, but the most important thing is a question she cannot wait until he has cried himself out to ask. “Is your chip gone, Ani? Did they remove your transmitter?”

Because she had sent him away from her so that he could be free. And that had been her own twisted version of hope, that her son could know a life she never would again. If the Jedi masters had proven to be just like every other master in the world, she would find herself sobbing into her own hands.

“Yeah,” Anakin sniffles and wipes at his ruddy cheeks, pulling back a few steps. “They removed it and everything. And--”

He pauses and drops his satchel to the ground in front of her. “They gave me credits. To buy you. For my trouble.”

He spits out the last three words like they’re the most disgusting thing in the entire world. As if Shmi’s freedom isn’t laying at their feet, mere centimeters away.

“Republic credits are no good here,” she hears herself say faintly.

“Padme, the handmaiden you met, she talked to the queen about me I guess,” Anakin mumbles, kicking his feet. “And when the queen learned that the Jedi didn’t want me even after all that, Padme says the queen says I’ll always have a place on Naboo. Me and my family. And then she took the Jedi credits and gave me these instead. It should be enough, Mom.”

Shmi sits down on the floor. With shaking hands, she opens the bag and looks inside. Yes. Yes.

There’s more than enough.

There’s enough to buy her freedom and take her boy away from Mos Espa. There’s enough to take her boy away from Tatooine completely.

“I…” she says. “Ani, I…”

“Padme said she’d send a ship for us,” Ani reports as if their lives are not changing right in front of their eyes. “In two days ‘cause I told her it might take a little bit of time to get Ben to come with us. But we can’t leave without him.”

This is said fiercely and with his arms crossed tightly over his little chest.

Shmi stares at him.

“I’ve already left him once!” Anakin says, stomping his foot. “But that was okay, because I knew you would bring him food and water and stuff. But if we’re both gone, no one’s going to be there for him.”

Shmi bites at her lip. There’s a lot of things happening very quickly right now, and she doesn’t know how to process half of them.

Her son has come back, after only being gone for a week and a half.

He has apparently either endeared himself so much to the queen of Naboo that she was willing to give him the money necessary to buy his mother from slavery and also promise him sanctuary on her planet. He says he’s done this by single-handedly ending a blockade, which is something she just cannot even think about right now.

He has told this queen--queen--that he will gladly live on Naboo with his family. Yes. Alright.

His family seems to include his imaginary friend, Ben.

Anakin has been talking about Ben for years now, ever since he was six and a half years old and sent by Watto to retrieve any scraps he could from what looked to be a crashed pod in the Wastelands. She’d let him ramble on about the ghost of a friend, because she’d known it to be something all children go through and experience. She hadn’t thought Anakin a lonely child, not with the friends he made in Mos Espa, but she’d always known that Anakin had a wandering spirit, ill-suited for Tatooine. If he liked to imagine an older man from a strange world hiding in the caves of the Wastes, then she wasn’t going to say anything.

“You have been leaving him food, haven’t you, Mom?” Anakin asks, almost accusatory. “I told him to expect you and everything.”

No. Shmi has not been traveling to the edge of the Wastelands every day during her precious few hours of free time in order to leave food to be picked apart by womp rats and desert critters and not her boy’s imaginary friend.

“Ani,” she says cautiously, quietly, “we cannot...we won’t be able to bring Ben with us when we go.”

Anakin, predictably, does not react well. “Why not!” he yells, backing away from her even further and looking as if she is the enemy. “Padme’s fine with it!”

“Aren’t you a little old for imaginary friends?” Shmi asks desperately, feeling cold suddenly even though the heat of the mid-morning sun has not abated at all.

If anything, her son looks more offended. “He’s not imaginary! Saying...saying that he’s not coming with us...is...is a bunch of poodoo!”

“Anakin!” Shmi gasps.

“Come on,” her boy says forcefully, grabbing at her hand and tugging her towards the door. She gets on her feet reluctantly and has half a mind to pull back just because he needs to learn that this sort of behavior is not okay, war hero or not. “We’re going to buy you from Watto. And then we’re going to go visit Ben!”

---

Buying her freedom takes less time than Shmi Skywalker ever thought it would. It feels distant as well, as if it’s happening to someone else.

It doesn’t help that her Ani is impatient and surly by turn, spilling the coin out onto Watto’s counter and barely waiting for him to finish counting it before he’s looking at the price of renting a four-person speeder parked outside.

“You won’t survive out there on your own,” Watto sneers, even as he’s passing her the kill-switch of her own slave chip. “Days. It’ll be days until the Hutts find out there’s a newly freed slave with no connections out there in the open. Ripe for the pickin’.”

Watto doesn’t have to tell her any of this. She knows. Gods, does she know.

But Anakin seems so sure about possessing the favor of the Queen of Naboo, or at least her handmaiden, which might be close enough to the same thing. She thanks Watto--she thanks him and then doesn’t even know why--and meets Anakin outside.

He’s bouncing around the speeder, little hands clutching his satchel to his chest. “Good!” he says when he sees her, hopping onto the machine and putting the parcel between his feet. “I got Ben something called a fig on Naboo, but I don’t know how long it’ll take for it to go bad. Apparently they’re sweet.”

Shmi goes along with it. Shmi doesn’t know why she goes along with it, but she does. She can see this is important to her boy, and though she’d rather spend the afternoon and early evening saying goodbye to her friends, she will allow Ani to say goodbye to his imaginary friend. Maybe she’ll even talk to it. “Hi, hello, I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the imaginary blue milk and delicacies I’ve left out for you this past week and half. Oh no, it was no bother. My son insisted.”

The ride is quick--Anakin has always been a driver to push the limits of any engine he comes across--and before she knows it, he’s dismounting on a piece of desert and rock that look exactly the same as the last four pieces of rocky terrain they’ve past.

“Ben!” Ani calls, satchel clutched firmly in his hands as he makes his way deeper into the crevices of the landscape. “Ben, it’s Ani! I’m really sorry that I left! Ben? Ben! I’m back now! Ani’s back!”

It’s actually...quite pathetic, to watch her boy speak so pleadingly to the cold stone faces of the rocks around them, but if this is what he needs to do to say goodbye to his life on Tatooine, Shmi won’t say a word.

“Ben--” Anakin draws in a breath to call again, but then there’s movement out of the corner of Shmi’s eyes, and something jumps from the rock down to land on her boy.

She screams and darts forward, but the thing on top of her son snarls at her in guttural warning.

“No, Ben,” Ani coos, stroking at the face that yes, is human, now that it’s not in unnaturally fast motion. “That’s my mom, Ben.”

Ben--Ben??--growls anyway, pinning the boy--her boy--beneath him with his legs and arms.

“She’s fine,” Ani murmurs gently, one hand reaching up to stoke over the beginnings of a beard on Obi-Wan’s face “Oh Ben, I’m sorry.”

The man on top of Shmi’s child finally looks away from her and at her boy, which is both better and worse.

“Ani,” Ben drawls out, as if the word--or perhaps forming the word--hurts him.

Anakin is happy. Shmi can tell he’s happy without even being able to see much of him. It’s like the very air vibrates with his joy. “Yes!” her son says. “Ani. Ben.” He taps the man’s chest. “Ben. Ani.”

The man buries his head into Anakin’s hair, hands rubbing up and down his sides and his arms and his face.

Shmi needs to say something, wants to say something about this strange man touching boy like he owns him, but the memory of his growl and the flash of his golden eyes stops her from stepping forward.

“Anakin, get away from him,” she hisses instead of stepping forward and tearing the stranger off of her son. She has the distinct feeling Anakin wouldn’t let Ben go anywhere, not with the way his little hands are holding so tight to the man’s shoulders. The man’s shoulders that are covered with one of her old tunics that Anakin had told her became unsalvageable after its last wash.

“No,” Anakin says, tightening his hold on his...friend. “He says you didn’t give him food the entire time I was gone! He’s hungry.”

Shmi thinks there’s a very good possibility that this Ben is going to eat her, but she knows not to say anything of the sort. Not when it’s two against one.

“He hasn’t said anything!” She cries instead.

Anakin huffs at this and pats at the feral’s head. “Maybe not to you, but he talks to me.”

Shmi stares at him and wonders if there’s something she’s supposed to be doing or saying here. The man won’t allow her to tear him off her child, she knows that automatically. But she can’t--she doesn’t know--

“Anakin,” she tries, desperately.

But Anakin doesn’t even look at her, too busy petting over the man, who has at least allowed him to sit up. “Hey, I’m sorry, I thought she would,” he tells him in an undertone. “I really thought she would, but I’m back now. I’m not going anywhere without you again--”

He extends his hand and Ben presses his cheek against it with enough force that it pushes him back slightly.

“You’re coming to Naboo with us, Ben,” Anakin promises, clutching at the ends of the man’s long hair. “Or I’m not going at all.”

To Shmi, it sounds like a threat.

The way her son’s eyes flash an unfamiliar golden color makes her feel cold as a Tatooine night. She shivers, but no one notices.

[starlightrows]

3 — The Pariah

The Queen of Tatooine Masterlist

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Pairing: Boba Fett x reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: Non graphic violence, fire, hypothermia

Summary: Tempers rage in your small town, you are blamed for the less than savory change in patronage

Eventually the storm blew itself out, and your steady flow of patrons returned to eat, drink, stay the night, and move on. As autumn turned to winter, the storms and rain became more frequent, and began getting colder. Frost settled over the ground each night and melted by mid day.

A few weeks after Boba Fett had left your inn, on a chilly morning, you noticed a shift in the townspeople’s attitude towards you. Instead of quiet resentment or unspoken distaste, now they glared at you in the market. You were just trying to pick up some things you needed. More flour, a replacement pitcher for the one you knocked off the bar and broke, soap, and sewing needles. Many of the vendors would not speak to you, one of them wouldn’t even let you look at her wares. Confused and offended you tried to ask what you had done to have service refused, she met your gaze

“Your business is turning our town into a trading post for criminals and mercenaries” she spits “you can buy your soap somewhere else”

“I don’t choose who comes through this town” you point out

“Doesn’t matter, you let them stay” she snaps the box of cut soaps shut and gives you a look, trying to intimidate you into leaving

When you turn around, many of the other vendors at the market, and citizens of your town have gathered around the soap stall. Their voices rise up from their whispers to angry shouts and accusations.

People begin blaming you for their loss of profit, their stolen property… then the accusations get more and more fanatical. The storm that knocked over a large tree and damaged someone’s speeder, another man’s daughter running away to the next town for a boy, the town children’s new interest in playing “bounty hunters and thieves”.

You back away, try to leave the market and get back to the inn. But the crowd follows you, calling out horrible names and slurs. You pick up the pace and try to block them out, but the faster you go— the faster they get.

You’re running now, running to get away from the mob that seems to be growing with each house or business you pass. You’re almost there, if you can just get to the door. The head of the mob catches you by the fabric of your shirt and yanks you back. To your horror, the rest of the mob surges forward and breaks down your door.

Several men shove you and kick you to the ground every time you try to get up. You beg them to stop, to let you go, to make the rest of the townspeople stop what they’re doing.

You can hear them inside. Smashing your glasses, using rocks to shatter the windows, flipping the tables, ransacking the kitchen, probably stealing your money and your food.

Then there’s smoke rising from the back window. Someone must have knocked coals out of the hearth. People come pouring out of the inn, disappearing back into the town and surrounding woods carrying armfuls of your stuff and coughing as black smoke billows out of your home.

The men who had been keeping you down scattered off with the rest of the crowd. You got up on your knees as the flames overtook the inn… your business… your home… burning before your eyes, and you were powerless to stop it.

The sky darkens as ugly grey clouds mask the sun. You drag yourself away to the edge of the forest just in time for the rain to begin falling. Luckily the rainfall helps to beat back the red hot tongues of fire that have engulfed your home.

You sit for hours, half waiting for the mob to return and continue beating you with sticks. But there is only you, the rain, the ruins of your inn and the smoke that begins to rise into the sky. Rain comes and goes, and the sun begins to set behind mountains. The fire seems to have gone out. You know it’s dangerous to try to poke around in the wreckage, but you have no choice.

You haul yourself up, shivering on unsteady legs and step over what used to be the front wall. Blackened wood, melted and misshapen silverware, the hearth and chimney still stand. The entire upstairs has collapsed. It’s jarring to see burnt bed frames with charred mattresses covered in ash. There’s nothing left. What little you had that actually belonged to you was gone or burned beyond saving.

Night is falling and you’ll freeze if you don’t figure out some way to get warm or have shelter. You’ll figure out what to do tomorrow if you live to see the dawn. You continue to pick through the rubble until you find something you might be able to use. The wash basin you kept in the back and used to bathe and do your laundry. It’s made of metal and miraculously intact.

Dragging it away is more effort than you expected, it’s always been an awkward item to move around. But nevertheless you drag it away from the wreckage, just inside the treeline. Using two sturdy y-frame tree branches you prop it up against the wind, and set about making a small fire to stay warm.

Thank the Maker, it didn't rain again that night. And the fire reflected back against the bottom of the tub and kept you warm all night. At first light you’re up, putting out your campfire and picking through the rubble again to find anything that could be useful. You don’t find much… just an old hunting knife your father had left to you and an iron cup.

You decide your best course of action is to walk the 45 miles to the next settlement and either seek justice for what’s happened to you… or disappear and not make any trouble. The trek to get there will take three or four days, and that’s if you make good time. Might as well get a head start.

————

Word traveled quickly about what had happened. Many mercenaries, bounty hunters and their quarries alike arrive in town to stay at the inn and find that it’s been burned to the ground and the innkeeper has been driven out of town.

The desired effect of reducing criminal activity and foot traffic through the area does occur. But not before they’ve pillaged, vandalized and reaped havoc upon the entire settlement.

The one person in the criminal underworld who seems to miss out on this information is Boba Fett. He returns to your settlement to find the entire town struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. Your inn is nothing more than a scorch mark on the ground it once sat on with a blackened brick hearth in the center.

His heart aches and his mind turns to dark thoughts of what could have happened to you, and who was responsible for it. He storms back into the settlement, and finds the nearest groveling peasant. It just so happens it was one of the men that kicked you down while your home burned.

“What happened here?” Boba demands. The man cowers from him and doesn’t answer. “I asked you a question. What happened?”

“It was the innkeeper” the man says hastily “She let all the criminals and mercenaries in the galaxy stay under her roof… and they ransacked the town”

He doesn’t buy it… something here doesn’t add up “I don’t believe you” growled pointing a blaster at the man “Either convince me, or tell me the truth”

“No no it’s true I swear! We drove her out of town hoping the crime in our settlement would stop”

Boba nods and lowers his blaster “Thank you”

The man looks relieved for a brief moment before he sees Boba raising his blaster again. Boba dispatches him quickly without so much as a word.

We drove her out of town, the man had said. He had no remorse for what happened. No concern for you, your livelihood they had uprooted. Boba was disgusted by it.

Boba returned to the ruins of your home and began to search for any signs of you, and where you might have gone. It doesn’t take him long to find the remnants of your smaller camp fire and the metal tub you used for shelter. A good sign that you were thinking on your feet and likely survived the fire.

He thought about you, put himself in your shoes and went through what must have been going through your mind. Where to go? What to do? Obviously remaining here would not be an option. So what’s the next step? Finding somewhere safer to go.

He knows of two other settlements in this region of your planet. One is 45 miles northeast and the other 62 miles southwest. Both are long trips to take on foot with no supplies. But if you were thinking strategically you would have chosen the 45 mile hike. There’s water sources in that direction and it’s a shorter distance. So that’s the direction he takes off.

————

It’s been three days and you’re not making good time as you hoped you would. No food and cold weather makes your movements slow. You’ve been drinking water but you can only trick your stomach for so long. Plus you’re traveling in the forest just within eye sight of the road because you don’t want to be seen by other travelers. The last thing you need is another angry mob.

Your head hurts and your stomach is bloated from drinking so much water, but you’re so hungry and exhausted from walking. You sit beside a tree near the stream you’ve been following up higher into the mountains.

You wonder what the new settlement will be like. You wonder what you will do there given that you have no money and nothing to trade. You wonder if they would help you take your money and land back if you explained what happened to you. Or would they too cast you out and leave you to fend for yourself. Winter is well on its way. If they don’t help you, you’ll be dead in a matter of weeks. If not from hunger, then exposure to the cold.

These are dark and scary thoughts. Normally you would push such thoughts away and busy yourself with work, but that’s not an option now. You have nothing but time, and your mind races with all the things you’ve lost.

You’ll never get married or have children. You’ll never get to expand your garden. You’ll never start the projects you’ve always dreamed of doing. Making your own clothes. Learning to paint. Writing stories. None of it. All your hopes and dreams will fade with you into the icy cold winds that will take you.

You have to try your inner voice urges you, you have to try to make it

That thought propels you forward. You force yourself to get up and keep walking towards the next settlement. You have to pause every 50 yards or so to rest against a tree, but you don’t let yourself sit back down. You have to keep going.

Meanwhile Boba takes a speeder and begins tracking you. He can tell you’re slowing down. Good because he’ll catch you soon, but bad because that definitely means you’re getting weaker. Suddenly he can see you on the tracking system in his helmet. He can see how slowly you’re moving. He gets off the speeder and goes on foot to catch up with you.

Switching off the tracking system he follows you from a distance for a moment or two. He calls out your name as gently as he can. You whip around and stumble sideways clinging to a tree to hold you up right. There is fear in your eyes. Usually when he’s hunting a bounty that is a mark of satisfaction for him, to strike fear and command respect. But you are not a bounty. He calls out your name again and removes his helmet and hopes you’ll recognize him.

He’s too far away and your vision is too blurry. In your sleep and food deprived mind he’s one of the people that burned down your inn and beat you on the ground. But you’ve poured all of your remaining energy into pushing forward, and have nothing left to put up a fight. You lean against your tree and stare blankly at the figure that you’ve decided is definitely here to kill you.

Boba approaches you slowly with his hands raised to show you he’s not going to hurt you. His face becomes more and more clear to you as he gets closer. You search your mind for the name that goes with his face you recognize. It’s not until he’s right in front of you, catching you by the arms as your knees buckle under you, that you find the name you’re searching for.

“Boba?” Your voice is small and weak, you barely recognize it “You came back?”

He takes you into his arms and pats your back “Of course I came back”

Tag List: @cannedsoupsucks @otterly-fey @paige6768 @littledragonlady

[the-witty-pen-name]

Rekindling

Part Two of The Necklace (2/3)

Read Part One Here

Obi-Wan x Reader (f)

Warnings: none; fluff and angst 

Word Count: 1.4k

Based on this Request:

“If you still need that inspiration... maybe an obi-wan thing where he makes the reader a beautiful necklace when they were young padawans and they get separated bc reader goes om a long mission but when they meet again as adults she still wears it and then he confesses his feelings (a bit of anakin teasing his master about his obvious feelings sprinkled in perhaps😂)”

A/N: Like part one, parts in italics are flashbacks! Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you like Part Two! Thanks again to @katevino for the request!

My tags are also now open for anyone who would like to be added! Also my requests are currently open!

Part three will be posted Thursday and will contain smut so this can be read as a two part fic or a three part fic. This one reads like it can be the end even though there is another part coming!

“When are you leaving?” he asked you, tears threatening to fall as they filled the corners of his eyes.

“Tomorrow morning,” you reply unable to meet his gaze so you keep your eyes fixed on the pattern of the tiles on the floor.

“How long will you be gone?” he sniffles, looking back up to you. He puffs out his chest slightly, like he’s trying to prevent strength and you don’t know if that’s for your or his sake.

“Indefinitely,” you respond after a sharp intake of breath to steady your breathing. “Master Yoda said it’s more like a relocation than one mission. I’m to accompany my Master as he is needed on Alderaan. Obi-Wan, I don’t have a choice.”

You weren’t children anymore, and it was so incredibly foolish of you both to have allowed your feelings to overcome you both this way. He had only just returned from Tatooine, the Jedi Consul meeting with Qui Gon-Jinn and the boy they brought back as the two of you spoke. Silent looks of desperation and sadness exchanged between the two of you. You were already torn apart once, and now just as he returns back to you, you are being sent away again.

“Let’s run away together,” he says suddenly, taking your hands.

“Obi-Wan…”

“We can leave the Order,” he begins quickly, letting his emotions completely take control. “We can move far away from here and just be together. We can get married, and just not have to hide anything. I want you, and I always have. I’d leave right now if you wanted. I care more about you than anything else in this lifetime. We can go to Naboo- I know you said you’d always wanted to visit and I promise you it’s beautiful.”

“Obi-Wan,” you say shaking your head, cutting him off. You keep your eyes closed tightly, trying to keep tears from spilling uncontrollably. “No.”

He sighs, but his breath is so shaky. You both are trying your best to find composure. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, resting his forehead against your own.

“I’m going to miss you,” you say, and you just now realize there is a steady stream of tears rolling down your cheeks.

“(Y/N), please,” Obi-Wan says, not entirely sure what he is even asking as he lifts his thumb to your cheek to wipe away the tears.

“We dedicated ourselves to the Jedi Order,” you say, trying to talk yourself out of his plan that you so desperately just wanted to surrender to. “Obi-Wan, we have been so incredibly blinded by our emotions. How can we allow ourselves to be so selfish as the galaxy is faced with the possibility of war?”

“I suppose you’re right darling,” he sighs. You both had responsibilities that weighed more important than your own personal tragedy.

“You should do your best to forget about me,” you struggle to say, stepping back from his embrace. “We should move forward from here like nothing ever- we never happened. Focus and commit to the code we pledged to uphold. It was all a mistake.”

“Darling, loving you was never a mistake.”

And with that, you were gone. Unable to bear being near him for another moment. It was too painful.

It had been ten years since you had last been at the Jedi Temple. As you navigate the halls to find your sleeping quarters, you notice the feeling of home you once felt here no longer existed for you. Perhaps that feeling all those years ago was Obi-Wan, you wonder. Finding your quarters, you survey the emptiness of the room. It was so incredibly sparce, and you imagine how you would decorate it if time permitted you to stay.

You feel uneasy, the Temple now feeling foreign to you when it was once the only place you had ever known. You remember back to that last conversation with him and how miserably you failed to forget and overcome your feelings. You wondered if Obi-Wan had been more successful. He must have, you think, you know Obi-Wan very well and he always excelled in areas of the Force you struggled with. You try your best to let the thoughts of him slip away to the back of your mind and try to get settled.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Anakin were just returning back to the Temple. Anakin ruthlessly pestering Obi-Wan with questions.

“I think she is still in love with you, Master,” Anakin said with a grin, happy he was successful in making Obi-Wan flustered. “I sensed something when you two were talking.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, “I must insist you stop bringing up these theories of yours.”

“They aren’t theories, Master,” Anakin chuckles, shaking his head at Obi-Wan. “And deep down you know I’m right.”

Obi-Wan sighed heavily, crossing his arms, thinking on how to respond to Anakin. “Anakin, it was over ten years ago. You need to put this to rest.”

“You need to stop running from your feelings, Master.”

“I wasn’t the one who ended things,” he says, exasperated. “She was the one who was stronger than me- she always has been. Now, please, don’t bring her up again.”

“I’m sorry Master,” Anakin says earnestly.

“It’s okay,” he replies with a sad smile. “It’s nothing more than reuniting with an old friend.”

“Of course.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Obi-Wan says, noticing how Anakin is saddened.

“I only care about your happiness, Master,” Anakin replies, the conversation finalized.

Obi-Wan walked back to his quarters, still overcome with memories of what feels like a past life with you. His thoughts weigh heavy as they shift to the realization that you are finally here. How much he longed for a day when you’d return home to him. Now that you were here, and he could feel your presence echoing in the halls again, he found himself disappointed. He spent years hopelessly wishing for you to come back, and the circumstances now add to the harsh realization those hopes will always be just that.

He was meditating when you arrived at his door. The tension in the air between the two of you was heavy as he watched you look around his room. You were just taking a moment to observe what he had on display, the mementos allowing you to form some kind of narrative of the life he’s led since you’d last seen him.

“I’m really happy to be back,” you say finally, your voice cutting through the weighted atmosphere. He pondered his conversation with Anakin. He was so quick to dismiss Anakin’s observation and now he feels a pull at his heart as he wishes that Anakin is correct.

“How do you like it on Alderaan?” he asks, holding his hands behind his back. Part of him genuinely wanted to hear about your mission and the specialty of your work, but it was more of a stall tactic to avoid the actual questions he was dying to ask you.

“It’s not home, but I like it fine,” you smile, looking back to him. Your heart feeling like it’s beating faster than it ever has before. The social niceties and the catching up questions were killing you inside. Your mind was scrambled and you frantically tried to find more to say. You could only think about him, and how he was finally right there in front of you. Looking at you the same way he always had.

“It’s a shame you cannot stay longer,” Obi-Wan says, his eyes looking nervously down on the floor before meeting your gaze again. “I wish we had more time… Oh, (Y/N), things ended so terribly when I last saw you. I feel heartsick thinking about it. I tried to find you the next day, give you a proper goodbye but you had already gone.”

“That was my doing,” you admit, looking down at your feet as he takes a few daring steps closer to you. “I knew if I had saw you again, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

“Oh darling,” he whispers softly, pulling you into his chest. His strong arms wrap around you tightly, the familiar warmth of his chest helping to calm you. You hadn’t even realized you had started crying until you felt the dampness of his tunic against your cheek. You rested your hands gently on his chest as he held you tightly, resting his chin on your head.

This feels like home, you say to yourself, the wave of anxieties and clutter in your mind vanishing at his touch. You could stay there just like that forever. Years you spent struggling with your thoughts and emotions, only ever just making them worse, and the one thing you needed was just to be with him- and it was all just so painstakingly clear.

“I’m not leaving you again,” you whisper softly.

Taglist:

@blackirisposts​

[dalekofchaos]

Rey’s lack of motivation and stake in the Sequel Trilogy

I have a question to ask you. What are Rey’s motivations? What are her wants and goals and why is she even drawn to the conflict between The First Order and The Resistance?

Rey’s motivations in the Sequels.

Rey wants to find her parents.

Wants to bring back Luke Skywalker

Rey wants to find her place 

Wants Ben to return to the light

Has no real motivation to be on either side of the conflict, but chooses The Resistance anyway

Says she wants to kill Palpatine in cold blood, was close to giving in

Now she chose to fuck off to Tatooine and we see very little in her motivation to do....ANYTHING

Let’s compare Anakin and Luke’s motivations.

What are Anakin's motivations?

Wants to leave a life of slavery and come back and free his mother

Wants to become a Jedi and become a hero

Wants to protect Padme

Wants to save Obi-Wan

Wants to stop Dooku and end the war before it can begin

Wants to be a good master to Ahsoka

Wants to clear Ahsoka’s name

Wants to stop the war

Wants to save Padme and his children's lives at the cost of the Jedi and doing whatever it takes and becomes Darth Vader

What are Luke’s motivations?

Luke is a farm boy who dreams of leaving his mundane life.

Luke discovers that his father -unlike what his uncle told him, was a heroic Jedi Knight

Luke, is reluctant and refuses the ‘call to adventure’, but after the Empire murders his Aunt and Uncle, he decides to Join Obi-Wan on the quest.

Save the Princess

Luke is angered by Obi-Wan’s death at the hands of Darth Vader, and seeks retribution.

Destroy the Death Star and save the Rebellion

To be trained by Yoda

Save Han and Leia

Luke discovers his father, the heroic Jedi, is none other than Darth Vader. After years of training, he sets out to redeem his father and turn him back to the light.

After the redemption of his father and fall of the Empire, Luke goes on a journey to restore The Jedi Order

Compare Rey and Luke’s journeys in ANH and TFA. Rey wanders around and stuff is handed to her. Luke takes initiative and works for what he has. Let's compare ANH with TFA

Luke screws up on watching R2, then chooses to chase him down. He makes another mistake by spying on the Tusken Raiders instead of getting the hell out of dodge. This leads to him being knocked out, and rescued by Ben Kenobi.

Luke initiates the meeting with Ben Kenobi, and it happens because of his early bad decisions.

His aunt & uncle are killed, but thanks to his screw-up with R2 & the raiders, he and the droids are spared.

He chooses to follow Kenobi to Alderaan instead of staying on Tattooine.

He chooses to accept Kenobi's instruction in the ways of the Force, even though most people think it's a myth and a joke. Even though he's bad at it and doesn't seem to get any results at first.

He makes the decision that they're going to rescue Leia, potentially dooming their escape from the Death Star. This sets off a chain of events that leads to Kenobi's death.

Then he chooses to help fight the Death Star, even though he's not a member of the rebellion. He was offered a job with Han, and he could have ensured his safety by leaving with them. Instead he chose certain death.

Finally, he chooses to trust a literal voice in his head instead of the targeting computer.

Let's contrast that with Rey.

BB-8 runs into her. She tries to send him away, but relents and lets him follow her home.

She chooses not to sell him for food.

Finn wanders into camp on his own initiative.

The camp is attacked because BB-8 is there. The camp would have been attacked no matter what Rey did. The other scavenger was, I'm pretty sure, from the same camp. And if she'd sold him, BB-8 would also have still been in the camp.

She is forced to take the Millennium Falcon when the ship she wanted to use was blown up.

She chooses to go with Finn and bring BB-8 to the Rebellion Resistance.

She stumbles upon Luke's lightsaber, and runs away from it.

She accidentally runs into Kylo Ren while hiding in the forest.

He chooses to kidnap her because he senses something special about her.

After her first exposure to the Force, she learns how to use some of it, successfully, and escapes from Ren. And to her credit, escaping and trying the Force out is a choice she made, rather than something that passively happened to her.

Then she, um, is standing there when Han is killed.

She chooses to fight Kylo Ren, and beats him in her first lightsaber battle after closing her eyes and thinking about the Force.

She sort of chooses to go summon Luke back to civilization - I say sort of because it's not clear why she was picked to go over, say, Leia.

Luke makes mistakes, and he is an active participant in his story. Rey is just kind of there, most of the time. She doesn't make mistakes, but she doesn't really do much else.

Rey has no personal stake in this war or motivations and she’s supposed to be the main protagonist.

Rey has never left Jakku before TFA and she tells Han that ”she never knew so much green existed” when they go to Maz’s castle.

In other words Rey must have had very limited knowledge of the world outside of Jakku and all she has heard from it are stories.

Rey who barely knows anything about the rest of the galaxy, to the point that she didn’t even know that forests existed what exactly is her personal stake in the current galactic conflict?

In TFA we saw The New Republic’s capital systems blown up by Starkiller Base and we never saw a reaction from Rey. We do see Finn and Han’s reactions. Also worth noting about Rey is that if she was unconscious throughout her involuntary travel to the Starkiller Base she was never actually aware of the Starkiller Base until just before Han, Finn and Chewie started planting the explosions in order to sabotage it.

Luke, while he had no personal attachments to Aldeeran did actually get to see the horrible aftermaths of it’s destruction.

But Rey was barely affected by the destruction of the Capital systems. Most characters were not as affected as they should have been in my opinion but we didn’t even get to see her have an emotional reaction to it.

This was probably the greatest genocide in Star Wars history and our main heroine is unaffected by it? Finn has a reaction to it and he’s supposedly NOT the main protagonist?

Rey really has no reason to care about the state of the galaxy. She only seems to care if people she knows are in danger.

The fact that she is supposed to be our main hero of this trilogy when she has next to no personal stakes in the well-being of the rest of the galaxy feels wrong to me.

Finn actually has stakes in this conflict since the FO took his family and childhood away from him and Poe has stakes because he actually lives in the New Republic and doesn’t want it to be under FO’s rule. Yet neither Finn nor Poe are considered the main protagonist? But oh wait, I forgot we can’t have a black or Latino man be the leading protagonist in Star Wars

The more I think about it is Rey has no goals or agency as a protagonist. She’s just whatever the plot demands her to be. Rey doesn’t actively take the initiative and make decisions, and simply react to the world around her. There is never a reason given as to why she wants to be a Jedi. Sure, she’s heard the stories about them, but she doesn’t dream to be one like Anakin, and the writers are so obsessed over her parents that they never develop any other motivation besides that. She has to be strung along the story so she can take part in it, hence she is repeatedly chased and kidnapped throughout TFA to get her to the Resistance where she decides to find Luke because she has nowhere else to go. Part of the reason she doesn’t even train with Luke is because she has no reason to, as she’s just supposed to find him. Rey joins the fight simply in reaction to learning that Luke is responsible for Ben’s fall. She’s only ever a Jedi and a member of the Resistance out of necessity- she has no where left to go and has to fight in self defense- so they try hamfist in some motives that she needs to stop herself from becoming like Palpatine but there is no tension as it’s the final act. By the end of the trilogy it’s not even clear if the Jedi Order will return because Rey never seems to want to be one and we can only assume they will return for meta reasons- because the audience knows the ST is a copypasta of the OT.

What exactly was Rey’s motivation for getting involved in the Galactic conflict before TROS? Luke was told that his father was killed by Darth Vader and later his family gets murdered by the empire so he had personal stakes to get involved in the conflict.

Anakin was a Jedi and had lived in the Republic for ten years by the time of the Clone Wars begun so he had personal reasons to get involved in the conflict.

Rey meanwhile grew up so isolated of Jakku that she had no idea forests existed and she didn’t lose anything and the FO attacked her on Jakku. In fact she wanted to return to Jakku after she had dumped BB-8 with the Resistance. Her primary motivation in TFA was to reunite with her family but the movie never establish that her family’s absence was connected to the galactic conflict in any way.

That connection isn’t established until TROS so what was her motivation until than? The Death of Han? A guy she had known for two hours? Finn? A guy she also had maybe only knew for about two hours total by the time of their hug in TLJ? Also she seemed to have completely forgotten about Finn by the time she want on a quest to redeem the guy that has far as she should have known by that point was still in a coma with his spine permanently damaged because of Kylo.

Rey’s motivation seems to either be finding her family or her dealing with her existential crisis neither had much of a connection with the galactic conflict until TROS

[gffa]

I have often given Qui-Gon Jinn a hard time because he’s so often used in STAR WARS fandom as a weapon to beat on other characters I love and it makes it difficult to like him, as well as it overshadows who the character himself is. So, to help balance that out some, I wanted to do a set of recs to remind myself–and just share some happiness in!–that I actually do very much like Qui-Gon! He’s a good person who really loved the people around him, he cared very deeply, he had an amazing friendship with Yoda (seriously, that Yoda’s the one he reaches out to when he becomes a Force Ghost, that even after death, Qui-Gon loves his Jedi family, it gives me feelings in my feelings place every single time), and one of my favorite things about Master & Apprentice is that I often got the impression that he knew he was kind of obnoxious sometimes, but he was at peace with it, he was fine with that. That was a straight shot to my heart, I love that dude! So, here have some fics that celebrate that Qui-Gon is actually a really great character. He may not always be the central character, but I remember him being well portrayed in these and they gave me good Qui-Gon feelings! STAR WARS - QUI-GON JINN FIC RECS: ✦ Reprise by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & dooku & mace & cast, time travel, 491.1k wip    Ben Kenobi dies aboard the Death Star in the year 0 BBY. He wakes up shortly thereafter in the Jedi temple in the year 41 BBY. Haunted by memories and regret, Ben must forge a new path for himself in the Jedi Order of his youth while navigating the murky waters of time travel. Crafting a better future from bitter experience is hard, but learning to heal is even harder. Major AU. ✦ The Way Back Home by Anakinstopyourpanakin, happygiraffe, obi-wan & qui-gon & bant & tahl, 39.5k wip    He had been missing for nearly four years. How could Obi-Wan be alive? It was too good to be true, and simultaneously too horrifying. What had been done to the innocent child who was currently falling asleep against his shoulder, and did his wounds run too deep for Qui-Gon to mend? ✦ When the world gets too heavy put it on my back by nematoda, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon, 29.8k    Obi-Wan is different when it comes to relationships. Not in a bad way, just… different. Studies of platonic love in the life of Obi-Wan Kenobi, exploring the master/padawan relationship with Qui-Gon and eventually with Anakin. ✦ Shadows of the Future by stormqueen873, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & cast, 129.3k    ObiWan lost the duel on Mustafar, but instead of dying, he finds himself on a ship leaving Tatooine, with his old Master and a familiar young boy. As events begin to unfold, can he stop the future he knows from occuring? ✦ No Galaxy for Good Jedi by Annie_Walker, obi-wan & anakin & padme & qui-gon & dooku & yoda & cast, some obi-wan/satine, sith!qui-gon, 124.8k wip    Obi-Wan Kenobi was only a young padawan when he ran away with three-year old Anakin. He had no choice after his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, fell to the Dark Side by Master Dooku’s manipulations. ✦ Masters and Padawans: Three Generations by GirlwithCurls98, qui-gon & obi-wan + obi-wan & anakin + anakin & ahsoka, 24.6k    Three generations of incredible bonds. ✦ What Is My Heritage? by Marnie, qui-gon & yoda, 7.7k    Qui-Gon, age 13, tries to find a place to belong. ✦ Coming Home by Marnie, qui-gon & yoda & dooku, 18.1k    A story telling how Qui-Gon comes to be Dooku’s apprentice. ✦ Trust Me by Charmisjess, dooku & qui-gon, 2k    A certain Jedi Master is less than pleased about being laid up with the flu. ✦ Triviality and QuiGon by Charmisjess, dooku & qui-gon, 4.1k    The Council’s infinite cruelty gives Dooku the most brutal of punishments: quality time with the Padawan and his plantlife! ✦ Rainy by Charmisjess, dooku & qui-gon, 26.8k wip    A seemingly easy mission goes horribly wrong for Padawan Qui and Master Dooku as they struggle to battle an insane adversary, poisons and curses, and an awful lot of rain. ✦ The Luckiest Man Alive + Letting Go by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & dooku & yoda, 7.9k    Yoda, Dooku, and a twenty four year old QuiGon go to the small planet of Omartia to pick up a forcesensitive infant. + Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go to pick up a Force-sensitive child. On the way back, Qui-Gon is faced with the fact that someday very soon, he will have to let Obi-Wan go. ✦ Lineage by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & xanatos & cast, 35.9k    AU!Jedi Apprentice. Book I: In which master and apprentice meet for the first time, enjoy a disastrous adventure courtesy of Xanatos DuCrion, and reap the fruits of patience and fortitude. A fanciful retelling of the original. ✦ Lineage II by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 40.9k    A year or so has elapsed since the last time we saw our heroes. BOOK 2: In which master and apprentice investigate an evil brainwashing plot, attend a boisterous wedding, and battle the enemy within. ✦ Lineage III by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & dooku & xanatos & bant & cast, 49.4k    AU!Jedi Apprentice. Book III: Master and apprentice face an important rite of passage, grapple with a traitorous plot within the Temple’s walls, and discover the limits of obedience and intuition. Appearances by Bant Eerin, Xanatos DuCrion, Yan Dooku, and others. ✦ Lineage IV by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & siri & adi gallia, 39.3k    Master and apprentice endure a stint with the Agri-Corps, and find that trouble has a way of coming home to haunt them. Featuring a pile of bantha poodoo, a tentacled carnivorous plant, a desperate escaped convict, and a highly provocative young woman. ✦ Lineage V by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & tahl (& some qui-gon/tahl) & dooku & cast, 50.7k    An evil scientist wreaks havoc when she captures Jedi Knight Tahl Uvain for purposes of obscure research; Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan rush to the rescue, only to be embroiled in further trouble; and Master Dooku joins in the hunt with characteristic aplomb. ✦ Lineage VI by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 66.2k    Master and apprentice undertake a risky undercover mission to expose conspiracy in a far-flung sector; a comedy of manners abruptly transforms into a nightmare when their cover is blown; and a desperate escape gambit strikes deep at the foundations of trust. ✦ Lineage VII by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & siri & adi gallia & some obi-wan/siri, 74.5k    Sent to the aid of their fellow Jedi on a disastrous mission to New Apsolon, master and apprentice contend with brainwashing, genocide, conspiracy, and the perilous realm of the heart. ✦ Lineage VIII by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 83.4k    Hard on the heels of the mission to Apsolon, master and apprentice find new troubles - in their own backyard. Jenna Zan Arbor faces prosecution for her crimes; the Jedi grapple with the disastrous realities of corruption and personal loss; Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon undertake perilous and disparate quests. ✦ Lineage IX by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & dooku & cast, 61k    A year after parting ways, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon struggle to complete their self-appointed quests for enlightenment and justice. ✦ Lineage X by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & dooku, 49.2k    The war-ravaged world Melida-Daan is backdrop to a manhunt, an occult conspiracy, a bitter guerilla conflict, and a test of ultimate loyalties. ✦ Lineage XI by ruth baulding, obi-qan & qui-gon & cast, 56k    The disastrous situation on Melida-Daan takes a turn for the worse; the Jedi dispatch a team to capture a dangerous murderer; and Qui-Gon Jinn and his former apprentice face the consequences of their rebellion. Series finale. ✦ Snakefic by esama, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & yoda & cast, 6k    It was only the matter of time before the egg hatched. ✦ Strokes of Colored Grey by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon, 9.5k    ObiWan has been drawing since he was a small youngling, but only a few people know, including his teacher, Vianro Dleka, and the elderly, trustworthy archivist, KinWan Terius. But what happens when his master discovers his secret? ✦ Pies, Books, and Swords, obi-wan & qui-gon/tahl, 1.2k    Qui-Gon Jinn has made quite a good name for himself, as far as holonet cooking shows go. ✦ They Are by Charmisjess, dooku & qui-gon, 1.7k    This is their moment, their eternity. They think its going to be like this forever. ✦ Strongest Stars by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & chirrut & cast, 2.6k    The Force works in mysterious ways. A few quiet moments in the dark create a touchstone spanning across three generations, two orthodoxies, a war, time, space, and the galaxy. A maverick meets a visionary and listens for a song. Spoilers for Rogue One, sort of? ✦ Anecdotally by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 14.6k    The biggest stories are always made up of smaller ones. Here are some of the forgotten moments in the life of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Will feature a wide variety of genres, characters, eras, and AUs. Oneshots from whenever inspiration strikes. ✦ the floor under our feet by FoxGlade, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & qui-gon & dooku + background pairings, 4.5k wip    or, the adventures and exploits of Qui-Gon’s three adopted children. ✦ A Long, Long Time Ago by ruth baulding, dooku & qui-gon + qui-gon & obi-wan + obi-wan & anakin + anakin & ahsoka, 5.8k    A wisdom tale handed passed down through the generations poses troublesome questions for a line of masters and Padawans, from Dooku to Ahsoka Tano. ✦ Family by lilyconrad, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & darth maul & cast, sith!obi-wan, 6.8k    Seven years after the duel on Naboo, Obi-Wan Kenobi has turned to the dark, Maul has turned to the light, and young Anakin is caught somewhere in-between. Can Qui-Gon rescue his Padawan before it’s too late? ✦ Fountain of Force by esama, qui-gon & cast, final fantasy 7 crossover, 8.9k    In which Qui-Gon Jinn comes from Gaia. ✦ Midwinter Sun by orphan_account, dooku & qui-gon, 4.2k    Padawan Jinn is a rebel and Dooku is very much not ready. ✦ Jedi In Winter by bluedragoninamber, obi-wan & qui-gon & dooku & yoda, 12.3k    In which Yan Dooku understands regret and tries to make things right. Something new will be born from the ashes of the old but exactly what remains to be seen. ✦ A New History by Annie Walker, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & dooku & cast, time travel, 533.4k wip    During a heated battle, Dooku escaped into the past! Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker follow to stop him, but discover that Dooku went to the past where Obi-Wan is a young padawan to a very much alive Qui-Gon Jinn. Now, the two must go undercover to stop Dooku’s plans from coming to fruition in order to save not only the future, but also young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. ✦ In the Heart of the Force by ReneeoftheStars, ahsoka & qui-gon, 1.7k    Ahsoka Tano travels back to the world between world’s. Searching for answers, she comes across a past event that only makes her question the past even more. ✦ Stitches and Time by ladyarcherfan3, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & ocs, 4k    Alara Nel is a seamstress who keeps getting an unusually large number of orders for Jedi robes from an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Over the years, she learns why and gets to know the Jedi a little bit better. ✦ The Uses of a Sandwich by Laura Kaye (laurakaye), obi-wan & qui-gon & oc & cast, 17.6k    A few months after being taken as a Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi faces a challenge: meeting his Master’s first apprentice. ✦ untitled by elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon, 3.1k    Anonymous asked: if you’re still accepting prompts: smol padawan obi-wan letting slip his law abiding exterior and letting loose the terrifying intensity beneath it. preferably in defense of qui-gon or something. ✦ The will of the Force by Lysore, obi-wan & yoda & qui-gon, 2.7k    Obi-Wan piqued Yoda’s interest early on, except the Grand Master of the Order had known for just as long that the Initiate was destined to be Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan. ✦ I thought I fought this war alone by stonefreeak, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 3.7k    Obi-Wan is thirteen years old, just about to start learning Ataru from his Master. Obi-Wan is sixty-one years old, dead and one with the Force since four years back. Obi-Wan is both, and neither. ✦ The First Trial by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon, 2k    Accompanied by his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, young Obi-Wan Kenobi undergoes his first trial and rite as a Padawan Learner on the frozen planet of Ilum. ✦ Hearts Entwined by KeeperofSeeds, obi-wan & shmi & qui-gon, time travel, 6.5k wip    stolen moments between Padawan Kenobi and Shmi Skywalker, glimpsed by Qui Gon Jinn, and his continued attempts to understand both this strange new addition to the Temple and the unexplained relationship between the pair ✦ The Orchards by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 3.6k    When young Obi-Wan Kenobi is injured on a previous mission, Qui-Gon Jinn refuses to accept further off-planet missions until his Padawan’s recovery. Yoda assigns the pair an in-Temple mission of utmost importance while Obi-Wan heals. Master and Padawan welcome the change of pace. ✦ The Path of Totality by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & yoda & qui-gon & cast, 1.8k    Before going their separate ways into exile, Obi-Wan Kenobi shares with Yoda a lesson of wisdom he’d learned from his late Master, Qui-Gon Jinn. A lesson of darkness, light, and hope. ✦ Finding Balance by Raven_Knight, qui-gon & dooku & jocasta, 1.4k    Eleven-year-old Padawan Jinn is left behind while his Master goes on a mission off-planet. Qui-Gon is left in the care of Jocasta Nu, and he’s not exactly enthusiastic about it. ✦ Warmth by Tomatosoupful, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & xanatos & tahl & shmi & cast, child endangerment, time travel, 59.8k wip    Time Travel AU. Anakin has woken up in the past. Time to say hello to past friends, right? Only problem, Anakin is a walking talking human disaster and makes a lot of stupid decisions. Stealing a Jedi baby from the temple certainly isn’t the smartest thing he’s done. ✦ Abducted by devilinthedetails, obi-wan & qui-gon, 1.6k    In trying to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a planetary leader, Qui-Gon finds himself abducted and in need of Obi-Wan’s rescue. ✦ Trust Fall by devilinthedetails, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon, 1.4k    Two generations of Masters and Padawans. Two generations of trust falls. ✦ Something Borrowed, Something New by Raven_Knight, qui-gon & dooku/jocasta, 1.6k    Qui-Gon Jinn had only been claimed as Knight Dooku’s Padawan for three weeks before he’d managed to get himself into trouble with his Master. ✦ In Memoriam by ruth baulding, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & evan piell, 6.4k    In the midst of a desperate escape from the Citadel, Obi Wan mourns a friendship. A tribute to Jedi Master Evan Piell. ✦ One Day by ruth baulding, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & shmi & bail/breha & palpatine, 9.9k    A single moment in time, on five different planets. A birth, an election, a discovery, a marriage, and a mission. Because all things are mysteriously united in the Force. ✦ They Are by Charmisjess, dooku & qui-gon, 1.7k    This is their moment, their eternity. They think its going to be like this forever. ✦ The Exchange by MissLearn, obi-wan & anakin & some anakin/padme & ahsoka & qui-gon & rex & cast, time travel, 77k wip    ROTS Obi-Wan and Anakin are swapped with their younger, TPM, selves. It changes things, in both parallels. ✦ Family by lilyconrad, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & darth maul & cast, sith!obi-wan, 6.8k    Seven years after the duel on Naboo, Obi-Wan Kenobi has turned to the dark, Maul has turned to the light, and young Anakin is caught somewhere in-between. Can Qui-Gon rescue his Padawan before it’s too late? ✦ Fountain of Force by esama, qui-gon & cast, final fantasy 7 crossover, 8.9k    In which Qui-Gon Jinn comes from Gaia. ✦ Rewrought by esama, obi-wan & qui-gon & maul, time travel, 4.4k    Bit o time travel ✦ Lion Jinn by esama, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & cast, 5.7k wip    Qui-Gon Jinn reincarnates as a lion. ✦ Brothers (working title) by Charity_Angel, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & padme & shmi & yoda & cast, 17.3k wip    In which Qui-Gon has a very near miss on Naboo, Obi-Wan is very stubborn, and they end up breaking a lot of rules accidentally as a result. All because of that kid they picked up on Tatooine. ✦ untitled by legobiwan, yoda & dooku & qui-gon, 1.5k    Yan Dooku was getting too old for this type of thing. He had rushed into the healer’s ward, Qui-gon’s limp body in his arms. That in itself had been a feat, as the boy’s gangly limbs were everywhere, but somehow the older Jedi Master had been able to deposit his wayward Padawan on a bed before an errant arm took his nose off. ✦ Drifting Starlight by Pandora151, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 60.3k    Just before the fateful Battle of Naboo, Qui-Gon Jinn is brought to the future, to the Clone Wars. He doesn’t know why or how, but he knows one thing for sure: He never, in a million years, expected the galaxy to end up like this. ✦ Although He Smiles by AutumnChild22, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 86.9k wip    She’d counted the 750 steps down from the Temple. She’d said her goodbyes, and left Master Anakin standing below the great pillars. What more could the Force want from her? ‘Everything’ sums it up nicely. Waking 13 years in the past, Ahsoka faces a harsh reality. As events begin to unfold, she faces a ticking clock that times a galaxy’s end. ✦ A New History by Annie Walker, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & dooku & cast, time travel, 533.4k wip    During a heated battle, Dooku escaped into the past! Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker follow to stop him, but discover that Dooku went to the past where Obi-Wan is a young padawan to a very much alive Qui-Gon Jinn. Now, the two must go undercover to stop Dooku’s plans from coming to fruition in order to save not only the future, but also young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. ✦ The First Trial by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon, 2k    Accompanied by his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, young Obi-Wan Kenobi undergoes his first trial and rite as a Padawan Learner on the frozen planet of Ilum. ✦ Hearts Entwined by KeeperofSeeds, obi-wan & shmi & qui-gon, time travel, 6.5k wip    stolen moments between Padawan Kenobi and Shmi Skywalker, glimpsed by Qui Gon Jinn, and his continued attempts to understand both this strange new addition to the Temple and the unexplained relationship between the pair ✦ Highly Dissatisfied by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon, 1.1k    Obi-Wan enters the quarters he shares with his Master, intending to ask for help in preparation for his exams. Qui-Gon, however, is dealing with a far more urgent matter. ✦ playing yourself like a red three by EclipseMidnight (EternalEclipse), obi-wan & xanatos & qui-gon, 7.7k    As usual, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s mission has gone spectacularly sideways, this time before they even reach the planet they are meant to be helping. Luckily for them, they get some help from an unexpected source. ✦ so far the suns by blackkat, mace & qui-gon, 1.3k    “My old friend,” Qui-Gon tells Mace, quiet, and his presence comes closer. “I fear I made several mistakes in the past weeks, and I would ask you to correct them for me.” ✦ The Cry by batsojopo, obi-wan & qui-gon & xanatos & ocs & cast, 4.2k    This is my version of how Obi-Wan Kenobi arrived at the Jedi Temple. ✦ kybersong by Shadaras, obi-wan & qui-gon, 1.6k    Obi-Wan Kenobi goes in search of his lightsaber’s crystal heart. ✦ What Have We Become by Batsutousai, feemor & qui-gon & obi-wan & anakin & cast, time travel, 43.7k    One of Feemor’s greatest regrets, was that he never had the chance to get to know his brother-padawan, but the Force is willing to give him one more chance. And maybe, if he’s lucky, he can finally make amends with his former master and save them all in the process. ✦ We Start and End With Family by Batsutousai, feemor & qui-gon & obi-wan & yoda & cast, time travel, 8.8k    Qui-Gon had been mostly joking when he’d originally brought up the idea of a lineage dinner, but when his former padawan grabbed for the idea with both hands and a desperation Qui-Gon didn’t understand (and privately hoped he never would), he knew he would never be able to refuse. ✦ turning dust right into gold by blackkat, mace/qui-gon & depa & cast, 1.3k    Mace knows Depa too well. She’s absolutely going to do something terrible, particularly for Mace’s dignity. ✦ A Price to Be Paid by Peach_Bitters (Starf), qui-gon & dooku & cast, 3.1k    Young Qui-Gon learns there’s a price to be paid for his curiosity. ✦ For the Future of the Order by thetorontokid, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 3.9k    There are important lessons to be found in the Jedi Temple crèche.

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Star Wars Wednesday

(Returning to the "Luke and Mara Accidentally Kidnapped Darth Vader" series. Last time, Luke fixed Vader's prosthetics and Vader got a surprise when he learned the kid's name)

"Ah." Mara's face wrinkled in a combination of anxiety and distaste. "He found us."

Luke finished helping the "prisoner" reattach his legs and hopped up. "Why didn't we know he was coming?" he asked, "Usually their heebie-jeebies precede them!"

Mara backed away from the door as the tip of a lightsaber melted through the center. "Luke," she gulped, "I don't think the Ninth Brother is here for us."

Vader readjusted his oxygen mask, marveling at how much more mobility he had now, and made a decision. He could let the Inquisitor find them, but better to draw them all further in, where there was no escape. He stood, adjusted his balance, and opened the hidden door Vanee often used. The children both jumped in surprise.

"How'd you know there was a door there?" Mara asked.

"I have been here for a very long time," Vader answered dryly. "I've seen it used often enough."

Luke couldn't say that he found the dark passageway particularly inviting. But this whole castle had what he and Mara liked to call "bad vibes", and that made it very hard to guess whether there was any particular danger down the secret tunnel. For all he knew, there were automated turrets, or droids in there. And one of them was unarmed!

Luke unholstered his blaster and handed it to the man they'd pulled from the bacta tank. It looked like a child's toy in his hand. "Just in case. I've got some other weapons if everything goes sideways, so you hang on to that."

Vader could guess what "other weapons" the boy meant. He'd glimpsed, just for a moment, a familiar shape in the boy's inner jacket pocket. Unless he'd stolen the blade, it suggested that he had received at least a modicum of training. Vader suspected he would know who had taught him and whether they yet lived once he saw the blade itself. They did tend to be unique to each Jedi.

[[MORE]]

What if the boy spoke the truth? Not just what he believed was the truth, what if he truly was-

No, it was impossible. The child had died.

Hadn't they?

Had they?

An uncomfortable doubt began to pick at him, and he resolved to have the boy tested as soon as this "Ninth Brother" was dealt with. An Inquisitor having the gall to break into Darth Vader's fortress and start cutting through doors was unusual enough to be considered a problem. Vader suspected this was probably an assassination attempt, unwittingly foiled by a pair of young teenagers who apparently got a kick out of exploring forbidden places.

"You have a lightsaber?" he asked Luke bluntly. They'd already used the Force in front of each other. There was no point in wasting time on pretenses.

"Um..."

"It will be of more use to me than your blaster, should we encounter hostiles," he reasoned.

Luke knew he was right, but he didn't like the idea of handing it over. There were so few pieces of his home he'd been able to save from the fire. Even though Uncle Owen had regretted letting Old Ben give him the blade on his birthday, it had saved Luke's life more than once.

Reluctantly, he took it from the hidden pocket and held it up. "Please be careful with it," he warned, "It was my father's. It's all I have of him."

Vader knew that hilt. He knew every plate and seam of it. And when he ignited the blade, it glowed the same blue he had wielded all through the Clone Wars. Confusion and anger twisted through his mind. The last time he'd seen this blade, it had been on this very planet. When Obi-wan Kenobi took it and walked away, leaving him to burn.

"Where did you get this lightsaber? Who gave it to you?" he hissed, even as they crowded into the tunnel.

"A hermit?" Luke seemed more concerned about the Inquisitor, who was nearly through the door now. "He was a friend of my father's. Or, he used to be, I guess. I'm not sure if he's alive still. Not a lot of humans survive the Jundland Wastes long."

Kenobi.

It had to be Kenobi.

That this child claiming to be his son suspected Kenobi was dead was interesting. Even more so was the mention of Tatooine. Darth Vader quickened his pace, leading his would-be rescuers toward the secondary chamber where his armor was kept. The sooner he had his suit and his lightsaber, the better.

Darth Vader wanted answers, and the Ninth Brother apparently trying to kill him was getting in the way.

[sagedgeek]

Jakku

Part 1 of Whispers of Fate (A Rey Djarin fic)

A/N: This is a fic I’ve been toying around with for a while and primarily why I created this account. So here’s my first fic for the Mandalorian/Star Wars fandom! I’m excited to see how it goes. Also, this takes place only a short while before Din finds Grogu. He will definitely come into play in later chapters.

Rating: Gen (Platonic)

Word Count: 4.0k

Masterlist ~ Next Chapter

Jakku.

Din had to admit he was not all that impressed, and he didn’t exactly have high expectations to begin with either. Desert planets had never been his favorite. Primarily because of the heavy armor and thick padding of his under armor’s tendency of trapping sand in places it shouldn’t be possible. After his first time on Tatooine, he’d spent the better part of a day cleaning out the dry sand and repolishing his armor. It also wasn’t very exciting to chase runaway bounties across a deserted planet, hiding somewhere along the repeating pattern of large sand dunes and rural settlements. For most hunters it would be a hopeless endeavor, and that’s why the bounty had such a high price with the guild, but for him it shouldn’t take longer than a day… hopefully.

He ended up having to park the Razor Crest a long way from the only known outpost he could find on the map. The planet was ridden with scavengers, all of which probably desperate for scrap and could care less about potentially marooning a stranger on this maker-forsaken planet. Even this far out Din has doubts he’ll return to his ship in the same condition it’s in. As old and scrappy looking his ship may be, it still flew which meant it was still of value and would result in quite the payday for whatever scrapper may stumble upon it. It’s a better chance than landing at the trading post though, considering the most condensed population of scrappers would be around the very outpost they used to trade their scrap.

Good thing his next bounty is on Maldo Kreis. It would be a nice contrast to the blinding sun and the burn of dry oxygen.

He sighs as he takes one last glance outside the cockpit viewport before powering down the Razor Crest and beginning his trek across this barren planet. 

Civilization was scarce and unless this Rodian smuggler was willing to take his chances in the middle of the barren desert, there weren’t many places he could hide.

He follows the fob, wandering out in the direction of the Niima Outpost. So, if he becomes absolutely desperate, the scrappers and traders who supposedly wandered the surrounding desert each day might have spotted a misplaced Rodian during their wanderings and point him in the right direction.

After about an hour of walking, the fob had led him past several scrapped Imperial ships which seemed to be growing in abundance and concentration the closer he came to the settlement. He lifts his hand to adjust his visor view settings to see if he can track a fresh trail of footprints,

Nothing.

He keeps the setting on and continues walking.

He is led in the direction of an old AT-AT, half buried beneath the sand, and there he finds a set of fresh footprints circling the outside that had wandered from the opposite direction. It wasn’t exactly what he hoped to find. The footprints were far too small and humanoid to fit the Rodian he was looking for, but it is the first sign of life he’s found in these outskirts so far. His next best bet would be to continue towards the small civilization further South. So, he scans for heat signatures along the skeleton of the AT-AT and sure enough he finds two. One of which, he assumes, being the owner of the small footprints he just found.

He crouches slightly and pulls his blaster from its holster as he stealthily moves around the walker to keep from drawing attention to his arrival. He ducks into the open belly of the machine, blaster ready. His visor highlights the silhouette of the smaller figure crouched just around the corner, and the other further in, close to where the head must be located.

He senses the incoming attack before it lands and his free hand darts down just in time to catch the staff swinging towards the portion of his gut not protected by his cuirass. He tilts his helmet to the side with a smirk growing across his mouth beneath it as his eyes settle on a tiny little thing with a much too large starfighter helmet jostling around atop their cowl and goggle-covered head. They grunt in frustration, putting their entire body weight into trying to tug the staff out of his grip. He tugs back just enough to rip it from their hands and toss it behind him, out of the way.

“Hey!” And the single word is enough that he can identify the small person as a young child, perhaps female. But the outburst also drew the attention of his arrival to his target. He heard a panicked rustle from the next room over and his head snaps to the side, growling in frustration at the inconvenience.

There goes the element of surprise.

“Get out of here you bug sucker!” A tiny fist collides with the padding over his abdomen and he glances down at his tiny assaulter. He gives a simple shove to their helmet to move the kid out of his way and starts further into the walker to follow the panicked scuffling. He points his fob towards the direction of the noise, and he smiles as he picks up his pace in time with the hurried beeping tone.

This wouldn’t take very long at all.

“Hey! Get back here!” He ignores the kid and leans around the corner to keep his blaster pointed in preparation. He comes around just in time to find the Rodian halfway through a cut out at the side of the head of the walker.

Soon Din’s chasing him across the large sand dunes. It didn’t take much effort, just a few long strides and an easy aim of his fibrecord from his wrist to trip him.

As he finishes securing the cuffs he hears a high-pitched screech just as a hard weight collides into his side. It makes him stumble slightly, and he pulls out his blaster, spinning it towards his attacker as he regains his footing.

“Stand down!” He growls at the young child. They were still wearing that oversized helmet they’d reclaimed their weapon.

“No!” They yell at him, pointing the end of their staff at him threateningly. “Leave him alone!”

Din tilts his helmet to the side curiously, but he doesn’t lower his blaster.

“Is he your father?” He highly doubts it, but it didn’t hurt to ask. Mandalorian’s weren’t the only ones to collect Foundlings… Although for all he knows this kid could have green scaly skin underneath that helmet and oversized tunic.

“No,” she scowls, “I met him yesterday.”

He lowers his blaster and sighs. He reaches down and pulls his captured bounty to his feet, giving him a good push in the direction of his ship in a complete dismissal of the child. They’ll give up soon enough. From his experience, children’s attention spans were extremely thin.

“Doe girl sa insistent.” The bounty mutters to him in Huttese.

Girl… Din notes.

“I can see that.” Din mutters in response. It didn’t take a genius to realize the girl was stubborn and plucky. He knew that when the child tried attacking him, a Mandalorian, with a stick.

“Hagwa hurt cheekta.” the Rodian begged for her, eyeing the twitch of Din’s fingers hovering over his blaster.

Din tilts his head then turns to glance at the girl. “I don’t hurt children,” he replies gruffly, then nods towards the girl to address her. “Go on home kid.”

The girl doesn’t budge an inch, and she doesn’t lower her staff either.

“Ya sa noah wompa tah care che cheekta.”

Din found it amusing that this bantha had the gall to try and guilt him into being released. He wasn’t going to buy into it, and he gave him another push to spur him into a brisk pace forward.

She follows them, because of course she does. She stews for a good while on their journey, but in typical child-like fashion, her curiosity wins over her stoniness and soon she’s peppering him with questions which he promptly ignores, hoping she’d lose interest and go on her merry way.

“Doe girl will nopa leave,” The Rodian muttered, “Mee know.”

“I can understand you y’know Rodey,” the girl quips as she flips the visor of her helmet up and pulls down her goggles to glare at the reptilian humanoid, “I’m not stupid.”

“Karking girl.”

Din shoves him and finally turns around to face the girl with a heavy sigh. “What will it take for you to go home?”

She nods her head at his prisoner. “For him to keep up his promise.”

“And what promise might that be?”

“He say that he’d take me to see his ship and even lemme fly it if I gave him my portions! And now I got no food or water, and I haven’t gotten to seen his ship.”

Maker help him.

He turns his back to her again and continues to walk. He notices that this time the girl’s footsteps don’t immediately pick up behind him like before, and he buckles.

“Come. You can see my ship.” He reluctantly mutters and Din hears her excited gasp and tiny footsteps chasing after him until the girl is trotting passively at his side, the top of her head reaching just below his elbow. She looks up at him from beneath the orange tinted visor of her helmet as if sensing his gaze. She pulls down the cowl covering her face to show off her bright smile, all teeth except the one tooth missing in the front and Din allows the slightest smile to break out in return only because he knew she wouldn’t be able to see it.

***

“WOAH!”

The girl leaps into a quick sprint once they reach the top of the sand dune. The Razor Crest now visible in the distance.

By the time he and the Rodian caught up, the girl had circled the ship at least twice. Her helmet had been discarded near the hangar door which now reveals the messy braid of brown hair falling over her shoulder.

Din lifts his arm to tap a button on his wrist gauntlet and the boarding ramp slowly hisses and begins to lower. Before the ramp even hit the sand, the kid is back beside him, jumping on the balls of her feet in anticipation, her helmet tucked securely beneath her left arm.

“Don’t touch anything,” Din instructs in a gruff tone. She nods obediently and sticks to his side as he guides his bounty up into the hull.

That’s when the Rodian started to get a bit finnicky and he pulled away from Din’s grip, trying to retreat from the ship like he just realized what was happening.

” Mee have credits. Mee can wamma twice myo bounty.”

Din pulls him further into the ship, ignoring his pleads. He gives him one last push backwards and with a final hiss he’s sealed in carbonite.

Job well done.

“Hey! What’d you do to him!” The girl rushes forward, hand slapping against the solid carbonite outline of the reptilian’s leg.  

“He’s fine. It’s just to keep him quiet while I fly.”

“Ohh,” she muses, taking a step back and tilting her head to glance at the two other carbonite slabs behind him. She points at them. “Were they noisy too?”

Din shrugs and sits down on a crate near the open ramp to adjust his vambrace. “You could say that.”

That seemed to be good enough of an answer for her and she approached him with the same wide grin from earlier, fists balled up at her side in excitement. “I didn’t like him anyways! I just wanted to see his ship! Can I fly your ship now?”

“No.”

“What?!” She whined. “but you said I could!”

“No. I said you could see it.” He stands up and points to the crate he was just sitting on. “Sit. I’ll make you food.”

She obeys, but only with an indignant huff and a pout. She turned her glare onto the floor and crossed her arms over her chest. It’s silent for a good while as Din heats up some broth for her and he’s surprised to find that he likes it much better when the girl Is chattering rather than silently brooding.

“You got a name?” He asks after awkwardly clearing his throat.

“Rey,” she answers with a huff.

He turns with the small bowl of soup in his hands and offers it to her.

“How old are you?”

“Seven, I think,” she responds as she makes grabby hands for the bowl before promptly slurping it up in just a couple of gulps then handing the bowl back to him. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome kid.” Din hands her a cup of water as he takes the bowl from her and she does the exact same as she did the broth.

“I can fly you back home. Where do you live?”

“I live in that walker!” Rey exclaims, her excitement growing at the prospect of being able to fly even if she wasn’t at the wheel.

Din pauses and looks at her. “That’s where you live?”

“Yeah!”

He grits his teeth, turning to face her fully. Maybe that Rodian wasn’t lying to pull a fast one on him after all. “Where are your parents? Who looks out for you?”

Rey’s face puckers in thought. “Well, my parents aren’t here right now. They’ll be back though… but um… Unkar kinda looks out for me for now. He gives me rations for good scrap.”

“Where are your parent’s Rey?” Din hopes he doesn’t receive the answer he knows he will. Maker knows he cannot afford to care for a Foundling right now…

Rey shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

“How long have they been gone?”

“638 Days,” she responds quickly.

Din grunts, grumbling under his breath because of course. Her parents weren’t coming back anytime soon that was a given, they probably sold her off to that Unkar fellow as a slave to earn a quick buck. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence; in fact, it was a familiar story for many Foundlings he’s come across through the years. But to leave a child as young as this one was cruel and disgusting, especially to leave them on a planet the likes of Jakku! Most would never be able to survive, and he wonders how it was possible this girl was able to for as long as she had. He slaps his hand against the control panel on the wall beside the ramp and it slowly raises into place. He moves towards the ladder leading up to the cockpit without another word to her.

“Wait! Mister where are you going?” Rey jumps up to follow him, looking up at him from the bottom of the trail of rungs.

Again, Din ignores her and continues his way into the cockpit. He takes a seat in the pilot’s chair, grinding his teeth together in frustration. He supposed he could just drop her off with the clan when he made it back to Nevarro. It had been a while since any new Foundlings had been introduced considering he was the only one to really leave the covert as of late. She’d be well taken care of, he’s sure. Celebrated even.

He begins flipping through the switches on the control board to start up the engines.

“Sir, are you flying me back to the walker?” Rey asks. For the first time that day she sounded unsure and a bit nervous, but Din is far too wound up by the frustrations of his new predicament to care.

“No. You’re coming with me. Now strap in.”

“What?! No! I can’t leave! What if my parents come back for me and I’m not here?! I have to wait for them!”

Din pauses for only a moment to sigh before continuing about his ritual of prepping the ship for takeoff. “They aren’t coming back for you kid.”

“Huh?”

He turns around when he hears the brokenness in her voice, and he frowns. She clutches her helmet to her chest, chin tucked down to rest against it as tears formed in her eyes.  He takes the moment to note that maybe the way he broke the news was a bit too harsh.  So, instead of risking saying something else that would trouble her he points to the co-pilot’s seat behind his.

She shakes her head. “What do you mean they’re not coming back? Do you think they died?”

Din didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t well versed when it came to emotions, especially the emotions of children. They were sensitive creatures and were quite unpredictable in his experience. So, instead, he completely veers around the question.

“I will take you back to my clan and you will be well taken care of. I will even look for your people if they are to be found, but I am not leaving you here.” His tone and words weren’t up for dispute and she seemed to understand as much.

She stares at him through glassy eyes but doesn’t utter a word.

Din sighs in resignation, “I’ll let you help pilot the ship.”

Anything to keep her from crying.

Rey’s eyes light up then and her head lifts slightly from where she had hidden it behind her helmet. “Is-is it sandy?” She pauses and when Din tilts his helmet to the side in question, she continues hesitantly, “where-where you would take me… is it sandy there?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay,” Rey nods slowly, inching towards the seat Din had gestured towards earlier.

***

Rey was a natural at flying. She was eager and a very quick learner. She told him about the training simulator she’d found just a couple weeks back as well as a training computer. So Din taught her a couple advanced things, and her utter fascination when they entered hyperspace was enough to distract her from her earlier woes and able to make him smile beneath his helmet. The streaks passing by through the windshield illuminating her wide, glassy eyes. After an hour or so, her sad demeanor about leaving home had diminished completely and was now fueled with excitement and curiosity at getting to traverse the galaxy for the first time.

So, here he sat, an hour after entering hyperspace, answering question after question with as few words as he could possibly manage.

“Why do you wear that helmet? And all that armor?”

“I’m a Mandalorian.”

“What’s a Mandalorian?”

“We’re Warriors.”

“Cool! I wanna be a Mandalorian!”

“Maybe one day.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Maldo Kreis.”

“Where’s that?”

“A ways away.”

“Are you gonna pick up another guy like Rodey?”

“Yes.”

“Is that your job? Are you a bounty hunter?”

“Yes.”

“Cool,” she was silent for all of two seconds. Which was just enough for Din to release a breath in hopes she had grown tired of asking questions…

She had not.

“What’s your armor made of?”

“Beskar.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mando.”

“Is that really your name?”

Din sighs one final time. His helmet is propped against the head rest in defeat as he tilts it to the side.

“You ask a lot of questions,” he grunts.

The kid huffs and falls back against her seat. “Sorry,” she mutters.

Din stands from the pilot seat and gestures for her to stand up as well, holding out his hand to help her to her feet. “Come. I’ll show you how to use the fresher and then you can sleep until we reach our next destination.”

She’s tentative, but she takes his hand and doesn’t let go as she follows him down into the hull. He shows her how to work the fresher and the stream of water pouring form the wall has her squealing in delight, rushing forward to cup it in her hands and watch it spill over her fingers. He adjusts it to a temperature that would be comfortable for her. Then he does a silent onceover of her clothes and leaves to fetch her something to wear once she was clean. Her current outfit looked to be nothing more than a few rags held together by the wrappings around her wrists and feet and the tie around her waist. He places them on the sink.

“You can put this on after you’re clean. I’ll buy you better garments when we are in Nevarro, but for now this should do.”

Rey nods her head enthusiastically, eager to step into the fresher. Din steps out, the door sliding shut behind him so she could have privacy, and he moves further into the hull to begin preparing his own dinner. He made a point to begin heating up another portion of broth for the little one as well. She could probably do for some added nutrition with how small she appeared for her age.

He didn’t risk taking off his helmet to eat. Instead, he lifted the edge to take occasional sips and by the time he was done and discarding his empty bowl, Rey was stepping out of the fresher with sopping wet hair still done up in her messy braid and a wide grin on her face.

“That was so fun!” She exclaimed. “I’ve never done that before.”

She wore the large upper half of his old flight suit sinched to fit around her waist using the ribbon and the trousers she’d arrived in. The thick material barely fit over her small frame, the collar just barely managing to hang on her shoulders. Mando doesn’t say anything in response and simply holds out the fresh bowl of broth he’d just heated up.

Rey stared at the offered portion with wide eyes. “More?” She asked as if she couldn’t quite believe he was really offering it to her.

“Yes. You need to eat.” Din states with his arm still outstretched towards her.

“But I already ate.”

“I want you to eat more.”

Rey gave him a stink eye, lips pursing in suspicion. “You aren’t trying to plump me up to eat me or somethin’ are you?”

As amusing as the accusation was, Mando’s tone remained unamused. “No. Now drink.”

She takes it from him and greedily gulps it down like she was afraid he’d change his mind and Din begins to feel guilt remembering his original intention of leaving her behind to starve on that scorched planet. He’s glad he found her, she’d make a strong Mandalorian one day and she’d do the tribe proud. They would take good care of her.

He stands to begin making up a bed for her on the floor. He gathers as many blankets and cloths he could find, knowing Kreis would be far colder than what she was used to.

She’s at his side in a matter of moments, looking down at the warm cocoon of blankets he’d built on the floor.

“Time to sleep little one,” he tells her, balanced on one knee as he pulls back several layers of blankets for her and gesturing for her to climb beneath. She scrambles over to hurry and snuggle herself beneath the mound of soft blankets and Din gently settles the cloths back over her shoulders. She yawns, hand snapping up to cover her mouth as her eyes squeezed shut for a moment before they opened once more to blink up at him with a tired smile.

“Thank you Mr. Mando.”

“You’re welcome, kid.” He shuffles awkwardly, adjusting the blankets again before standing upright. “Do you need anything?”

She looks up at him anxiously, chewing on her bottom lip. “Ummm not really… but um… can I ask you one last question? I swear I won’t ask no more!”

Din sighs and nods his head.

“Why wouldn’t you leave me on Jakku?”

He pauses as he searches for the right words to explain it to her as he taps a button on his vambrance to dim the lights of the hull. She had no family and no proper home. By creed he was honor bound to take her. No Mandalorian could leave an abandoned child behind. They were Foundlings… and he was once a Foundling.

“This is the way.”

That was the way.

~ Next Chapter ~

[jennana501]

Attachment and the Jedi Way

SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN AND STAR WARS REBELS

I always know a story is quality when what I want to say about it to my mother and sisters is too difficult to text, and I have to drive over and talk with them in person. Such was the case when I watched the Mandalorian Chapter 13. There were so many juicy details, plot developments, and general excitement about the long awaited appearance of one of our favorite Star Wars characters that I couldn’t stand being restricted by phone when I wanted to gush a million things. We were all so stunned with the emotion of her appearance. Truly a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. 

But after all the sweet outer frosting on the Chapter 13 cake had been licked clean, I dove into the center of this delectable episode and began to savor in its indulgent but substantial core. I have many thoughts about Thrawn, where Rex can be (is he dead or alive?) and where the season is going to go from there. What has interested me the most is Ahsoka’s reaction to our newly named green baby friend, Grogu. 

First I must say how much I love Rosario Dawson’s performance. I feel she knows who Ahsoka is and what she has gone through. I am reminded of little ‘Soka in her very first appearance in the Clone Wars animated movie when she takes care of the way less loveable baby Hutt. Seeing that she is  charmed by Grogu and that she clearly thinks he is cute makes me feel all sorts of warm fuzzies. Their very mythical and silent conversation in the moonlight shows how in tune with the force Ahsoka has become and that Grogu himself is much more than meets the eye. 

And yet when it comes to it, Ahsoka says she cannot train Grogu. The reason: his attachment to Din. I was surprised at first. Ahsoka does not see herself as a Jedi, at least as far as her association with the order that raised and trained her. I didn’t think I’d hear about attachment from someone who has forgone the Jedi way, especially since Ahsoka appears to have indulged in an attachment or two.

I immediately realized she was on to something. I recall Grogu’s moments of using the force: saving Din from the mudhorn; using the Force to save everyone from a giant fireball; Force healing Greef Karga; and Force choking Cara Dune. The latter example stands out to me as being the most violent use of the Force we see from little Grogu. He perceives that Din is in danger and acts against what we now know is his training to hurt someone in a manner that is often consistent with the dark side. 

Sure he is innocent and adorable. But he is also dangerous. And Ahsoka is right. It’s his attachment to Din that turns him from benevolent force using baby, to emotionally fueled deadly force bomb.

But I’ve seen Star Wars Rebels. I know that a Jedi can have relationships with other people and not turn to the dark side. You can love and still listen to the will of the Force. The Jedi were wrong. So I’m here to look into what attachment is, how you can love and not have attachment, and how Grogu might still become a Jedi, or at least the new wave sort of Jedi. 

First we must look at the poster child for attachment issues: Anakin Skywalker. The Clone Wars TV show could be renamed- Star Wars: Attachment and How it Disrupts Nearly Every Mission the Republic Assigns Anakin. He prioritizes Padme, Ahsoka, R2, and even Obi-wan over everything else. He is constantly  defying the orders of his commanders and putting the mission in danger. 

This all comes down to what happened to Anakin’s mother. 

When Anakin is taken from Tatooine, he has to leave his mother behind, with whom he shares a strong bond and attachment. When he is brought before the council and they say “he is too old”, what it really means is “he has already attached himself to something other than the Force.” Why else would being “too old” matter? The Jedi prefer blank slates for a good reason. Very small children have not developed strong attachments.

Anakin does turn into Darth Vader, after all. 

It would appear the Jedi are very right to say that Anakin should not be trained. He is ripped away from his mother; the man who believes in him is killed; and he is forced to be trained by someone who treated him with bitter indifference. After losing his mother he has no help, no advice, no direction other than to stifle his negative emotions. 

So instead of processing his grief and finding peace, he latches onto Padme. This attachment he will never abandon. He trains harder and becomes more powerful to always be able to keep Padme alive. The guilt Anakin feels for not being able to save his mother gives fire and passion to his obsession with Padme. And this obsession slowly erodes their relationship. 

Anakin says things like “There’s nothing more important than the way I feel about you.” (Hostage Crisis) During the Mortis Arc when he sees a vision of his mother, they have this conversation: 

“The only love I feel in my heart is haunted by what would happen should I let go.” 

“Then it is not love. It is a prison.” 

“But I have a wife…she’s everything to me.” 

“She’s not your destiny.” 

“But I love her.” 

We see the very ugly side of Anakin’s obsession and jealousy in the arcs that involve Clovis. Anakin's insecurities are valid, but they simply drive home the point that his attachment to Padme will eventually unravel him and lead to violence. 

Anakin and Obi-wan have a very interesting conversation during the episode “The Rise of Clovis” that reveals that Obi-wan is worried for Anakin and senses Anakin’s anger pitted towards the man he perceives as his rival. 

Obi-wan: Master Yoda is feels that your judgements concerning Rush Clovis are clouded. 

Anakin: I believe he can’t be trusted.

Obi-wan: Yes, but there is more isn’t there? I sense a deep anger in your by my simply saying his name. 

Anakin: He almost got Senator Amidala killed and I would have been responsible. 

Obi-wan: The Senator has risked her life many times. She’s quite capable of taking care of herself. 

Anakin: They had a relationship...once. I simply feel she is vulnerable to her emotions. 

Obi-wan: She is, or you? 

Obi-wan then empathizes with Anakin, telling him that he knows what it’s like to harbor feelings for someone. He tells Anakin to not be ashamed of these feelings, but that he must make the rights choice “for the order”. The conversation ends with Anakin becoming very angry, asserting he knows what his responsibilities are and Obi-wan leaves the room, leaving Anakin to deal with his distress alone. 

 And since Anakin is denied the support he needs, he resorts to controlling, intimidating behavior. He commands Padme to stay away from Clovis, is cruel to him, and chooses to punish Padme emotionally for Anakin's own insecurities. When tensions reach their peak, he attacks Clovis. This fully expresses Anakin's own fear and rage at the idea of losing Padme to another man. 

Anakin’s unchecked and untreated attachment to Padme, as we all know, results in the ultimate ruination of the both of them, the Jedi Order, and the Republic. He will never out anything about her. She is his center. Nothing else matters. 

This is not Anakin’s fault. This is the fault of the Jedi. Their teachings about attachment are unhelpful at best, and this stems from their crippling confusion over the difference between “attachment” and “love”. 

It makes me wonder if they even know what they are talking about at all. Their advice about attachment involves regurgitating confusing platitudes.  

In “The Revenge of the Sith"; Anakin goes to Yoda to seek his counsel. Anakin is told that “attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is.” When Anakin asks what he must do to overcome attachment, Yoda tells him simply to “train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”. 

Thanks Yoda, I’ll get right on that. 

Anakin needs to “let go”, apparently, and if he is holding onto something dangerous, what should he be holding onto instead? No one ever explains. The Jedi simply tell him to “let it go”. 

It’s no wonder that Anakin can’t ever consider letting go of Padme. For all he knows, that means cutting her out of his life and never speaking to her again. Or worse, does that mean letting her die the next time her life is in danger? Does it mean he should replace love with indifference? He has no idea. As he is given no tools, Anakin fixes nothing and plummets to his unavoidable demise.

Divorce papers and deleting Padme’s number isn’t how Anakin is to overcome “attachment”, and it was never going to be. Obi-wan tried this method with Satine, and though he didn’t fall to the dark side, he never recovers from the bitterness and regret he feels.

In “Voyage of Temptation”, Anakin and Obi-wan discuss his and Satine’s relationship. Obi-wan explains his Jedi duties forced him to leave Satine after forming a strong bond and love with her over the year they were together on Mandalore. The Jedi teachings dictate that he let Satine go. So, obedient Padiwan that he was, Obi-wan cuts off his relationship with Satine. The results show that this was not the way. If the goal of the Jedi is to avoid negative emotion, then this technique fails and perhaps cripples Obi-wan forever.

Anakin: “As Master Yoda says: ‘A Jedi must not form attachments.’”

Obi-wan: “Yes, but he usually leaves out the undercurrent of remorse.” 

I’m here to tell you today that Obi-wan perhaps gets screwed over by the Jedi Code more than any other Jedi. Obi-wan does not have an attachment to Satine. Sure he says “Had you said the word, I would have left the Jedi Order” but that’s only because that is what he has been taught. He is taught you only have two options: love someone or be a Jedi. 

Obi-wan loves Satine. He has a relationship with her. Some even think, myself included, that he is physically intimate with her. Qui-gon no doubt encouraged this relationship. He probably carefully nurtured Obi-wan during this time, helping him be able to love without forming an attachment. But Obi-wan is not able to see that he could love Satine and still be a Jedi. Leaving the order means that his Jedi journey would be over. If he had realized love and attachment are separate things, he could have been a Jedi and could have had Satine's love, too . 

Qui-Gon nearly convinces Obi-wan to be different: Obi-wan could have been a Jedi with feelings and love. Satine is a person who values duty above all, just as Obi-wan does. She respects that he answers to the Force. They would have been able to perfectly rule together with that mutual understanding. He could have been her force wielding husband without being attached to Satine and falling to the Dark side. 

True attachment is so dangerous to a Jedi because if they attach to a person, an idea, or a cause then they are not attached to the will of the Force. 

This is the missing detail Anakin and Obi-wan needed. Obi-wan could have been completely attached to the Force, even while loving Satine and even becoming her husband. Anakin needs to know that he could attach his center to the Force, and that this would not interfere with a deep and meaningful relationship with Padme. While centered in the Force, Anakin could be Padme’s husband loving and living with her, but ultimately his duty is to the Force, just as her duty is ultimately to the Republic. 

We know all of this is possible because of two characters from Star Wars: Rebels. Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla share what is essentially a marital bond. They love, live, and lead together. They are physically intimate, but they do not have each other as their centers. We see evidence of this in the episode “Call to Action”, when Hera leaves Kanan in the hands of the Empire. She  knows that if she risks saving Kanan then everyone else will be killed. 

If Hera had an attachment to Kanan like Anakin had to Padme, she would have risked everything to get Kanan back. Since Hera is not one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, she would have failed and the rebel cell would have been stopped dead in its tracks. 

We also see evidence that Kanan is not attached to Hera. At the very end of their journey, after Kanan and Hera have fully expressed their feelings to each other, Kanan sacrifices himself for Hera and the others by using the Force to hold back an explosion. Though it appears as  Kanan is doing this because of his love for Hera, that is not the true motivation. If Kanan has an attachment to Hera, things would have gone differently. 

It is heavily implied leading up to this event that Kanan knows it is the will of the Force that he is to die. He knows this because the Force is his center and not  Hera. If his center is attached to Hera, I believe two things would have happened. Kanan would have tried and failed to save himself along with Hera and the others.  His actions would have been motivated by selfishness and desperation to extend his time with Hera. If Kanan tries to save himself, the conflagration consumed them all. The only way Kanan can prevent this is to draw upon the dark side of the Force. This would have thrown Kanan out of balance with the Force, and put him in very real danger of falling to the dark side. 

Instead, Kanan allows the will of the Force be done: he dies and his time with Hera comes to an end. Hera knows this about Kanan, and has always accepted the possibility he would choose the Rebel cause over their time together. Kanan knows the same of Hera. This mutual respect is the foundation of their love for each other. A Jedi can have a love and a bond with someone as long as they understand that ultimately, if the Force wills them to do something they must do it, regardless of how that affects their lives together.

So, can Grogu live like Kanan? The issue with Grogu, however, is that he already has attachment. His center is his adopted father, Din. Grogu is currently like Anakin, and if Din hands Grogu over to Ahsoka, they will have very Anakin-like troubles. From whom is Grogu going to learn? Ahsoka is unable to teach Grogu how to let go of deep attachment and center on the Force. Ezra Bridger can. 

In the second part of this post, I will discuss how Ezra Bridger is one of the most important Jedi who has ever lived, because he will be able to Grogu learn to let go, attach to the force, love and live, and yet do what needs to be done. 

[elenamiria]

School’s in Session

Cobb Vanth x Reader

Rating: 16+ (I make up my own ratings at this point oh well) Summary: You, the teacher at the school in Mos Pelgo approaches Cobb to ask him for a favor - helping teach you how to protect yourself and the children if needed. When he goes above and beyond the call of duty you find yourself falling for the charming Marshal. Fic for @wolfangelwings​ for the 600 follower giveaway! (It turned out a bit more fluffy than spicy I hope you don’t mind 🥺) Word Count: 1.5k Warnings: Kissing, suggestive talk, fluff, gn!reader Masterlist &Tags (send an ask or message me if you’d like to be added):  @a-dorin​ @blxwjobsforclones​ @lynnie51​ @katrynec​ @mistermiraclee​ @theelvenvalkyrie​ @anakinswhore​

When you had been asked to take over as the teacher you had been surprised. Having been living and working as a moisture farmer with your family you had little idea why they picked you. However, it was the previous teacher, who had decided he was far too old to continue making the long trek from school to village each day, who recommended you as you had been his star student years ago. Retaining your sharp wit and thirst for knowledge had been easy with such a supportive family, who had always encouraged you to pursue greater things if you so chose but Mos Pelgo was your home and you couldn’t see that changing anytime soon. 

When you accepted the position the whole town was elated, you couldn't go anywhere without someone stopping to quip on how lucky they were to have you, always causing your face to heat and a quiet ‘thank you’ to flow from your mouth. It took several long months of training before you were ready to take on the role, with it being such a small town you were in charge of a wide age range of children and learning how to balance all of their learning at once was quite a challenge. It was something that you quickly found great joy in however. The second facet of your job was the safety of all the children. The school had been relocated a ways out from the village after it was freed from the Mining Collective in order to protect the most precious inhabitants of the village. 

So, every morning you gathered up all the children and made the trek to the school and every afternoon you would make the journey back, ensuring each child returned home safely. It was an easy routine to fall into and never one you worried about until the Tusken Raiders attacked. Even then you weren’t necessarily worried about the Tusken Raiders themselves it was the thought that you were taking some of the most vulnerable on the same path everyday at the same time and you worried a group like the Mining Collective could use that against the village. With that thought in mind you did the most logical thing you could think of and asked the Marshal to train you. 

Cobb had listened to your concerns and took a pause to think about the situation before he spoke, “How bout this, I’ll train you to use a blaster. But I’ll do you one better, as long as I’m free I’ll make the hike with you to and from the school.”

You had eagerly agreed feeling a weight off your shoulders and true to his word the very next day he was up waiting outside your house bright and early. There was something about him still blinking away the sleep from his eyes as he barely held onto his helmet that had you smiling like a fool at him, taken aback by the cuteness of it. You offered him a soft, “Good morning Marshal.”

He gave you a groggy smile before speaking, voice gruff from sleep, “Good Mornin’ teach’, and just Cobb is fine by me.”

The nickname had another smile covering your face and as you started the rounds of gathering the children up the two of you fell into an easy banter. You found it easy around Cobb, he was easy to talk with, easy to laugh with, and he was certainly easy on the eyes (not that you'd ever dare admit that to him). And the two of you fell into this rhythm each morning and each afternoon, and on the weekends when there wasn't any school he would meet up with you to train you on how to use a blaster. At first you had been nervous, scared of somehow letting him down, though he reassured you constantly and perhaps you let your stance falter occasionally just to have him come up behind you to adjust it. 

Falling for Cobb had never been part of the plan but like everything else it happened easily, the smiles he'd shoot you, the slight drawl in his words, and the way he seemed to relish in flustering you - always quipping about how pretty you looked or how your skin glowed under the Tatooine suns.  After months of this back and forth it became clear to you and the Marshal that your feelings both ran deeper than friends. However with your shy nature Cobb assumed if anyone was going to make a move it was going to have to be him, something that he was more than alright with. 

It happened on a day when school wasn't in session, you had gone up to the school building having forgotten some papers there that needed grading. Once you arrived you decided to stay there and take care of it, considering how hot the day was you were keen to stay inside for as long as possible. Lost in your work you barely noticed how much time had passed until a certain someone came strolling into the building. Looking up from your work you gave him a warm smile as you teased, "I don't know if you've noticed but school's not in session today sheriff." 

Cobb laughed lightly as he approached your table at the front, sending you a dashing smirk in response, "I don't know if you've noticed darlin' but I'm here for your lesson."

Your face creased in confusion for just a moment before the realization struck you that far more time must have passed than you thought and that you were late for your appointment with the Marshal. Shooting out of your seat you stammered out an apology as you hastily gathered up your things and started to scurry around to front of the desk where Cobb was standing. You had moved so quickly he had no time to tell you that it was fine and before he could blink you were before him, his hands found your waist as he stopped your movements with a short, "Whoa there darlin' you don't need to rush on account of me, I wasn't here to scold you."

When his warm palms settled on you it was as if all coherent thought flew from your head and you blinked rapidly as your breathing hitched. Staring rather blankly at him all you could manage to spit out was a short, "You weren't?"

Laughing again, and unintentionally causing your face to heat, Cobb shook his head - "No, I figured you were busy up here and so I came to keep you company teach'."

His words filtered through your hazy brain, he was there to spend time with you? Just you? Your eyes flickered down to his lips which were curved in his signature style and before you could stop yourself or even really think through the decision you were leaning forwards to press your lips to his. It took only a second for the Marshal to respond eagerly to you, his hands squeezing your waist and causing a short whine to leave your throat as your lips moved together. Your hands abandoned the papers you were holding, allowing them to flutter to the ground, in favor of grasping onto his shoulders as the kiss heated. His scruff scratched at your face delightfully and you opened up to him eagerly when he nipped at your bottom lip. You hadn't even noticed that the two of you were moving backwards until your legs bumped into your desk, a startled squeak leaving your mouth as you broke apart. Eyes sliding open you stared at Cobb for just a moment before both of you shared in a sweet laugh, wide grins adorning each of your faces. Biting your lip you looked down shyly before meeting his eyes again and whispering, "Well, that was nice."

"I'd say more than nice teach' and I'd be more than happy to do that again if you find yourself so inclined." He said, voice faltering only slightly as he regained his composure. Another smile covered your lips as the fact that he wanted to kiss you more sunk in and your eyes shone with happiness as you questioned, "You wanna kiss me again Marshal?"

His eyes narrowed playfully as he urged you up on your desk, your hands shoving things out of your way as you sat on it and you innocently spread your legs to make room for him to stand close to you. Cobb's hands settled on your upper thighs, though not inappropriately but you'd be lying if you said it didn't set your heart racing, and he near growled out - "Oh, I wanna do a whole lot more than kissing darlin' but I'll let you take the lead on this. Whatever you wish is my command."

You shook your head at his playful words, your hands exploring his chest and the nape of his neck as you shot him a light smirk, "Hmm, I think what I wish for right now Cobb, is another kiss from you if you'd be so kind."  

His breath noticeably hitched at this and he leaned forwards, teasing at your lips with a whisper of 'as you wish' before capturing your lips with his once again.   

[mightydragoon]

Luke and Leia vs the Galaxy

@silvereddaye 

.Our favourite Space Twins against the Empire with varying degrees of success. 

1. Legacy ---myrlendi (thehistorygeek)

Three months after the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker goes in search of a rumoured Jedi temple in a secluded part of the Mid Rim. He finds within the temple nothing but a strange artifact, which unexpectedly brings him much closer to the Jedi of old than he ever thought he would be.

When Luke fails to return from his mission, Leia goes after him, retracing his steps to the ancient temple — and to the past, to the time of the Clone Wars and the waning years of the Old Republic. Under suspicion by the Jedi Order, the twins struggle to find a way back to their own time while trying to keep their knowledge of the future from affecting the past.

This, however, turns out to not be as simple as it seems.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15221810/chapters/35304947

2.  Skywalker Family Values- Ariel_Sojourner

Camp Chippewa is proud to be the Empire’s foremost camp resort for privileged young adults. Located on the picturesque forest moon of Endor, your child will have the opportunity to participate in wholesome outdoor activities and socialize appropriately with their peers. We invite your offspring to join us for the experience of a lifetime and a bright future in service of the greater glory of the Empire.

On opposite sides of the galaxy, on opposite sides of a civil war, Darth Vader and Padme Amidala unwittingly send Luke and Leia to the same camp during school break. Chaos naturally ensues.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258124/chapters/32883750

3. Back To The Future - PinkEasterEggs

Teenage Princess Leia, heir to Alderaan's throne and her twin, Luke Vader, heir to the Imperial throne, get thrown back in time with the chance to save their parents before it's too late. With the Force finally on their side, they decide to have a little fun whilst they try and save their father's soul.

What could go wrong?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217674/chapters/53048092

(Part of the Back To The Future series. https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648657) 

4. No Time Like The Present - PinkEasterEggs

In a Galaxy where Princess Leia Organa and Imperial Prince Luke Vader didn't Time Travel to save their father's soul, a deadly discovery by their biggest enemy throws their entire lives upside down. Yet again.

Now on the run from the Empire, the Skywalker Twins find it their mission to bring peace back to the Galaxy once more. And with Darth Vader on their trail, that mission is far more complicated than they originally believed.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24754825/chapters/59851300

(Part of the Back To The Future series. https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648657)

5. Great as the Sea-- Valkirin

Rescuing the last of Alderaan's survivors was an important duty, not an obsession, and Leia did not need to take a break. She did not have time to think about Darth Vader, the Force, or Luke Skywalker. It’s just her luck that the Force sends her with Luke Skywalker to a time where Darth Vader is about to rise.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384253/chapters/25491066

6. turn my sorrow into treasured gold - cosmicocean:

“It might be better for you to die,” Obi-Wan muses as she holds her children in her arms. Padmé looks up at him and arches an eyebrow.

“I didn’t mean literally,” he clarifies.

“I know what you meant. I’m thinking about it.”

Padmé survives childbirth, dies as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, takes her children with Obi-Wan, and runs.

Pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7435467

7. The Assassin's Blade - LadyVader23

Two years after Order 66, Padme is both an assassin for the Rebellion and a mother of twins. She will stop at nothing to bring democracy back to the Galaxy, even if it means killing Imperials to do it. But news of suspicious assassinations reaches Sidious, who dispatches Vader to hunt down this mysterious assassin. What Vader discovers will change the fate of the Galaxy.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432867/chapters/48475367

8. anything is possible the second time around cloverblob

Leia Organa is sure that she died. She laid herself down, ready to become one with the Force. Except that she isn't dead--she hasn't even been born. So how did she end up on Tatooine? And why would fate bring her right here, right now?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941050/chapters/52364929

9.  Influence of Time Cateyes1401 and  SkylaDoragon

A freak accident sends Luke, Leia, and Vader splitting off to different points of the galaxy, over twenty years in the past. While Vader is careful to correct any errors his sudden appearance may cause in the timeline, Luke and Leia are not so cautious.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333248/chapters/48211621

10.  Laying Down the Sand - Knitzkampf

An AU set at the time of ESB. Han Solo abandons Luke, Leia and Chewie to settle some unfinished business and sparks a series of events that challenges each one's destiny and the fate of the galaxy. An epic tale of friendship, love, family and lightsabers.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921947/chapters/22232960

11.  Binary Sunsets, Binary Siblings - Coffeesforcatchers

The projection was as blue as the Tatooinian sky, making it hard for Luke to discern its features. But as the audio began to play, Luke felt his heart seize in his chest.

"Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."

Luke stared at the droid, his mouth open. "That's my sister!"

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111466/chapters/32514372

12.  Deja Vu - oncomingstorm42

Time travel AU fix-it wherein Luke and Leia are sent back in time to halfway through The Phantom Menace. They proceed to unscrew the timeline and save their parents while also kicking ass.

(note* Private story. To read you must have an AO3 account) 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10408782/chapters/22984893

13. Heralding Home -planningconquest

Family can be what we make of it. It can be lost and found and comes together in strange and amazing ways.

(Note* Modern Au but still same principal applies) 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17130767/chapters/40288283

14.  Like Fire in Our Bones --- acuteneurosis

With all of the most important things in the galaxy literally exploding around her, Leia is given the chance to go back and help keep a promise she never personally made.

But then, for Skywalkers, saving the galaxy was always a family matter.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735813/chapters/46710241

15.  I am as Strong as the Seas are Stormy (And as Proud as an Eagle's Scream)- RhiannonOfTheRoses

Leia Skywalker is only hours old when the Empire rises.

Leia Organa is twenty-three when it finally falls.

OR: The one in which Leia Organa is explored, and her life is uncovered.

16.  Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns chancecraz

I went to sleep on the worst day of my life and woke to find myself in the past on the second worst day of my life. As experiences go, I don’t recommend it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8543680/chapters/19586203

(Part of the Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns series https://archiveofourown.org/series/825216)

17.  Runaway SilverDaye

Imperial Prince Luke runs away from home to escape his overprotective father Emperor Vader. Jumping from planet to planet he finds himself creditless on Tatooine. While working for more money to leave the planet, Luke meets an old man named Ben Kenobi. But Luke knows he can't stay in one place for long for surely his father is hunting him down.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630196/chapters/33813027

18.  take the spade from my hands (and fill in the holes you've made) A_Different_Type_of_Flower

With her dying father's last request, eighteen-year-old Leia Organa sets out for the Outer Rim to find an exiled Jedi master and a brother she knew nothing about.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219026/chapters/20908517

19.  Sparks SpellCleaver

Vader had every intention of ignoring that petty—if notorious—burglar on Coruscant, until evidence suggested that this "Angel" had Rebel ties.

Meanwhile, Luke never expected his father to actively hunt him down, and he doesn't like it.

20.  the price of forgetting - surabayuh

 Vader always thought that epiphany would come in waves; in the middle of meditation, perhaps, or a dream while he was resting, giving him unimaginable glee and satisfaction at its revelation.

He’d never thought epiphany would sledgehammer him here, at cell room number 2187, in the middle of an interrogation session, with an unconscious Alderaanian Princess laying on the floor.

(Part of the  the bang the war-drums series) 

(Note* Read the rest of this series seriously its so good) 

21.  heirs of the desert -- surabayuh

There was something about her, something familiar beyond the hairstyle or the attire; It was like a hole in his chest mended back by her presence. They walked closer to one another, slowly, slowly—like a planet realigning to their axis.

Dreams of a different life, a different reality, haunting him for as long as he could remember. Dreams of lush greeneries, of clear blue waters, of a high castle, of a brunette with bright brown eyes crinkling with laughter.

Leia, her name was Leia and he felt like he had known her his whole life, as if he'd known her as old as he had known time.

Around them, the Force sang.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22226950/chapters/53070706

(Part of the  the bang the war-drums series)

22. taste the regret (it's bittersweet.) - surabayuh

Han Solo didn't want much, really; he only agreed to pilot his way away from the grips of Jabba the Hutt, and maybe have a little adventure along the way. That was why he said yes to that old man's offer, back in Tatooine, why he came back to aid the Rebellion, back in Yavin.

But then again, who knew that somewhere down the line, he would have to be the middle-man in a galactic family drama that could determine the very fate of the universe?

Well; certainly not him.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22452316/chapters/53646223

(Part of the  the bang the war-drums series)

23. Endings and Beginnings, and Everything in Between - ITookTheOneLessTravelled

Dad might be mad at them, but Leia doesn't regret it. Luke and Leia Skywalker might be only fifteen, but they'd never have left their Dad in an Imperial prison cell to rot.

OR: Anakin raises the twins. Everything changes, but also nothing does.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757639

24.  No Heroes on the High Seas - SpellCleaver

When Luke's aunt and uncle are executed by order of the Emperor's right hand, Lord Vader, he flees his home to search for his sister and the mother he never knew. But then Obi-Wan Kenobi stows away aboard the same ship, Vader gives chase, and Luke is dragged into a conflict that his family are at the very heart of.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092340/chapters/40194893

25.  Ad Utrumque Paratus - obeyingthemuse

It's hard to bring balance to the Force when the only method you've seen is your black-cloaked psychic cyborg sorcerer dad with a severe breathing problem throwing an old man down the Death Star reactor shaft. As much as Luke would like to see the not-yet-Emperor dead, he doesn't want to be arrested by his unusually attractive(?) war-hero dad and spend the rest of his indeterminate time in the past dropping Ewok beats in a jail cell. Also Leia would probably kill him. But not before breaking him out of jail.

So when the twins wake up on Tatooine decades in the past, they play it safe. They take over a planet, reconnect with their adoptive and real parents without weirding them out (too much), and accidentally cause the Chancellor perpetual near-death experiences.

Nailed it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168628/chapters/16273712

Tags 

Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker 

[tessiete]

(2) In a world where Anakin doesn’t exist and Qui-Gon is alive and is being an amazing grandpa to Korkie and super supportive dad to both Obi-Wan and Satine… I am 100% sold!! This is such an incredible AU!! I can’t get enough of it! With that being said, do you mind writing more stories set in this world/universe? If you don’t mind, then for the Spotify ask I‘d choose #7 with Qui-Gon, Korkie, Obi-Wan and Satine. However, the ficlet can be based on whatever song you like the most on your playlist

Hello! To my dear @anakin-skywalker-is-my-hero - alright, so I know we talked privately because I wanted to make sure this would be something you liked, and you very graciously let me include Anakin...

But then...

The song you picked was um...”Mommy, What If?” Which is a children’s lullaby, because I like to relive my childhood as often as possible, okay? Yes. Essentially the Canadian version of Sesame Street (Sharon, Lois & Bram), was my #7 Spotify wrapped.

Anyway, that meant that I actually ended up writing a lot more about Korkie & Anakin than anyone else.

Mind blown, they’re only like 3 years apart. Anakin is only 5 years older than Ahsoka. WHAT IS GOING ON OVER THERE!?

So, while in this AU is does very much end up still being Obi-Wan & Anakin, platonic soulmates, right now they’re just too far apart in terms of maturity to make that a thing.

All this to excuse myself, but I do really hope you like this fic! <3333

NO SINGLE EFFORT

Kiorkicek Kryze has learned a secret. 

And it’s one he doesn’t think that anyone else around him knows. Not Master Windu, who always looks at him with a frown, but slips sweets into his hands when others aren’t looking. Not Knight Vos, who once let Korkie try out his lightsaber in exchange for his word that he’d not tell Master Kenobi how the glass panel of his datapadd got shattered. And definitely not Padawan Briss, who claimed to have sneaked into the Forbidden Archives one night, and met a ghost that granted wishes to those brave enough to look for him.

There are no Forbidden Archives, and there are no ghosts - he’d asked Master Kenobi - so he’s convinced that Padawan Briss must not know much of anything, let alone his secret.

Masters Jinn and Kenobi don't know it either, he's certain, for they're much too old, and much too serious to even imagine the wonderful thing Korkie has found.

There is a boy who lives in the wall.

Korkie hadn’t known it at first. He’d thought himself quite alone in his room, as he lay awake in his little bed. The light of Coruscant’s city streets were too far below the Temple to be seen, the cacophony of life too distant to be heard, and Korkie’s thoughts far too quick to be quieted by sleep, so to pass the time, he’d tapped out a pattern upon the wall.

After that, he’d knocked again, enjoying the sound. The soft percussive beats fell like rain from his fingertips. He knocked louder, like thunder, striking the wall with the flat of his hand. Then with his littlest finger he knocked as gently as he could, just to see how small a noise could be. 

And then, the wall knocked back.

Startled, Korkie cautiously tried again - three sharp raps. And three sharp raps came back. He traded knocks with the wall for hours, until he fell asleep, and then the next night, he knocked again. And so did the wall. Soon, a sort of language developed between Korkie and the echo in the wall. Two small knocks were made in greeting, and two small knocks replied. Sometimes he knocked out the fractured rhythms of Mandalorian marches he recalled, sometimes the taps were secret codes for the echo to decipher. Sometimes they meant nothing at all but comfort. And sometimes, the wall would send its own patterns back.

Then, one day, after a month of such late night encounters, Anakin Skywalker looks at him from over morning meal with his head tilted to the side, his short braid brushing over his shoulder, and says, “Oh, you’re the boy in the wall.”

Korkie feels silly then, for he’d begun to think of the little knocking ghost as his own, something part of himself, held safe between the walls and revealed only to him, at night, in the dark, and alone. But everyone knows about Padawan Skywalker. He is Master Jinn’s padawan. He is bright, and loud, and strange. He is the Chosen One. There is nothing secret about Anakin.

Even Master Obi-Wan seems unsettled by Anakin, and watches him out of the corner of his eye. 

But Anakin is afraid of nothing. He gives Korkie an appraising look, staring in a way that Korkie’s mother had taught him was rude, and reaches to take a second helping of yuka seed pudding without asking first. Korkie doesn’t know what to say.

“I’d kind of thought it was only my imagination,” says Anakin, instead.

“I thought you were in mine,” says Korkie.

Anakin talks with his mouth full when he replies, “Well, anyway, I guess it’s better that you’re real. I’d rather a friend who can go places with me.”

So Korkie does. Anakin Skywalker is a whole head taller than him, and comes from a planet with a desert you can live in. He speaks six different languages, and knows about a million ways to slice a droid, but he also is new to the Temple, and doesn’t mind when Korkie needs extra help in finding his way. And in return, Korkie helps him with the other things - the things that Anakin can’t do so well. He helps with his Basic, and remembering when to bow, and in what order. He helps with ID chits, and chain codes, and how to navigate the holonet. He lets Anakin have his commlink when he breaks his own, and doesn’t protest when it’s returned with cinder smudges and scorch marks.

And at night, when everyone is asleep, when Korkie knows that Anakin thinks most of home, he knocks on the wall between them to remind him he is not alone.

And Anakin knocks back.

“What is it that you’re saying to me?” he asks, when next they meet. Master Jinn is always over for tea, and Master Obi-Wan makes frequent calls for counsel, so they are in company more often than not, and more often than not, they choose to be these days.

“Oh, nothing,” says Korkie, prodding at his holocam until a staticky, and uncertain solar system is thrown into the sky. It flickers out of existence just as quickly as it came, and Korkie sighs. “Just old songs my belli used to sing to me.”

“Let me have that,” says Anakin. He grabs the holocam from Korkie’s fingers, and turns it over and over in his hands. “Who’s your belli?” he asks.

“From Mandalore,” Korkie explains. “My buir. Who I came from.”

“Oh!” exclaims Anakin. “Your mom!”

Then he goes very silent for a moment, his brow furrows, biting at his lip and concentrating very hard on the cam in his hand. 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to talk about your mom.”

“Oh,” says Korkie. “Why not?”

Anakin shrugs. “Master Jinn says we’re supposed to let go of the past. And my - my mom said we don’t look back.”

Korkie thinks about this, while Anakin pries open the belly of his unit, prodding at the silicon innards. 

“Master Obi-Wan has never said that.”

“Well, does he talk about your belli?”

“No,” concedes Korkie. “She only makes him sad.”

“Like I said,” he says, restoring the metal plate, locking it in place, and handing the device back. “Try it now.”

Korkie thumbs the switch, and the two boys are caught in the orbit of a million worlds, and a billion tiny stars. They rotate through the air, casting glittering light over their faces, and the burnished glow of their hair.

“Perhaps they don’t say anything only because they have no mothers of their own, and they don’t know what it is to miss them.”

“The Jedi don’t have moms or dads,” insists Anakin, scowling at the stars.

“Well, we do,” says Korkie.

Anakin has nothing to say to that, and so emboldened, Korkie presses his suit.

“Maybe, perhaps, we can do both?” he suggests. “Maybe we can talk about them to each other, and not to our masters, and that can be our secret, and that way no one has to be sad.”

For a moment, Anakin says nothing. He sits as still upon his knees as Korkie has ever seen him, his eyes tracking one bright object then the next. Finally, after an eternity, he nods slowly, as if unconvinced, but unable to resist.

“Okay,” he says. “Our secret.”

And Korkie grins in delight.

That night, their mouths pressed to the wall, and then their ears in turn, they speak to each other about their homes.

“Shall I go first, or you?” asks Korkie, his voice low and eager.

“Me,” replies Anakin. “I’m the oldest.”

“Alright. What is your mother’s favourite colour?” He turns his ear to the wall as soon as he has finished, not wanting to miss a word of Anakin’s response. He presses close until the cartilage pinches, and his temple beats out his pulse against the flat.

“Blue,” he says. “Like the skies. Like my eyes. What about your mom?”

“Blue, too!” he says, and in his excitement, he nearly forgets himself. “And my eyes are blue like yours.”

“Of course,” comes the voice. “We are brothers, after all.”

They sit in silence for a moment after that, because it is difficult to speak through the wall. It is hard to be precise, and harder still to think of good questions. None of them really show anything about what it is they miss most.

“Did your mom ever sing to you at night?”

“Yes,” says Korkie. “Did yours?”

“Yeah. And during the day. Everyone sings on Tatooine. To tell the time.”

“Sing me one,” says Korkie, “For late at night.” And he falls asleep to Anakin’s voice humming softly from behind the wall. 

In the Archives, Korkie asks him about the song.

“It’s about the market at the Pika Oasis,” Anakin says. “Old women go to sell their fruits, but sometimes, everyone is too poor to buy anything.”

“Could you buy anything?” Korkie asks.

“No. We were always too poor to buy,” says Anakin. He almost says something else, but changes his mind, and says instead, “I know another one you’d like.”

“Okay!” Korkie agrees.

Anakin checks his shoulder to make sure they’re completely alone, and leans low over his holotext. Korkie leans closer to hear. In a sweet, lilting voice, Anakin sings words that Korkie has known since birth.

“Buir, buir!” he goes. “Te ik'aad pir'ekulor, te ik'aad pir'ekulor par gar, a te kar cuyir dar teh te kebii'tra, bal Ni dar'taylir tion'jor. O meg, o meg, kelir Ni vaabir?”

“That’s Mando’a!” Korkie shouts. His eyes are wide, and his surprise so great that it awakens some holobooks on a distant shelf. They flicker blue, before steadying again, and going back to sleep as Korkie wrestles his emotions back into a respectable form. “How do you know Mando’a?”

“My mom,” says Anakin, smiling like a felinx. “She learned from the traders, and then she taught me.”

“Sing it again,” Korkie demands.

So he does, and when he’s finished, Korkie frowns and tugs on his own short braid.

“It’s almost right,” he says. “But you sound funny.”

Anakin bristles. “That’s exactly how I learned it.”

“No, no,” says Korkie. “It’s just the tune. It should be more like this.”

And that night, Korkie sings Anakin to sleep as he recalls the strange reciting tones of his belli’s gentle voice.

This goes on until one day, Master Jinn tells Anakin - who informs Korkie in turn, who then tells his master who, of course, already knows - that they have been assigned a mission. They are being sent to a nearby Core world in order to mark the first anniversary of a long-awaited conurbation of planets.

Anakin is thrilled. 

Master Qui-Gon is calm as ever as he lays his hand along Obi-Wan’s forearm, and presses a palm to his cheek.

“We’ll return soon,” he says. “And under far less duress than the last time we ventured forth.”

Obi-Wan smiles, but it is a grim little thing, and Master Jinn’s words do nothing to chase the tremulous shadows from his eyes. 

“It’s only a few days,” agrees Anakin. “And we’re going to attend a banquet!”

He grins at Korkie, who feels similarly uneasy. He sidles closer to the thick folds of his master’s cloak, and reaches up to find buried between them his father’s hand. His palm slides easily into Obi-Wan’s and they take comfort in how they cleave to each other.

“Be careful,” says Master Obi-Wan.

“Always, my padawan,” replies Master Jinn.

They leave without a backward glance, and Korkie eats alone with his master that night.

It is only later, after the sun has set, and he’s tucked tightly beneath the soft blankets of his bed, that Korkie reaches out to knock against his wall, and is surprised when no one knocks back.

He knocks again, but still, he is alone, and in the silence of his lonely room, he begins to cry.

He knocks, and weeps into the down of his pillow, and weeps, and knocks again.

And then, someone knocks back.

But the sound comes from his door, and is followed by the hiss of pneumatics, and the warm spill of light from the hallway beyond.

“Kiorkicek?” calls his master, with the light at his back. “What’s wrong?”

He cannot say, and only cries louder, calling out for his master, and relief from the dark. The Jedi doesn’t hesitate. He sweeps into the room, the edges of his robes gilded with bronze, and leans over to pull Korkie into the cradle of his arms. He clings to his father, his legs kicking free of the blanket to wrap about his waist, and his arms thrown about Obi-Wan’s neck. 

But though he reaches for Obi-Wan like he reached for his mother, it doesn’t feel the same. His father holds him, but doesn’t rock him in his arms. He rubs circles on his back, but does not press a kiss to his brow, or stroke his hair. He whispers in his ear, but he does not speak his tongue. He is nothing like his mother.

Until he starts to sing.

It is not a song of Mandalore, or of desert markets in the Outer Rim. It is neither happy, nor sad, but something balanced in between, like dawn. He sings of night. He sings of light. And he sings of them, together, promising himself to Korkie until time beyond knowing. 

Gradually, his breathing calms, and his cheeks dry, and he goes willing, and boneless back beneath the covers as Obi-Wan tucks them both into the narrow confines of Korkie’s bed.

“Is that a song from your belli?” murmurs Korkie, held close to Obi-Wan’s chest.

“No,” Obi-Wan whispers, so quietly that only the stirring of golden hair may mark it. “It is a song from the Jedi,” he says. “It is a song from Master Jinn.”

And together, they fall asleep.