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redrikki · 3 years

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May The Fourth Masterpost

Prequels/Clone Wars Era

May the Force Get With You- You’d think Anakin Skywalker’s conception would be pretty epic, mythic even, but you’d be wrong. Turns out, the Force is a lousy lay and a worse father. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, The Force, Salty Narrator)

Second Wind - Ahsoka takes the wrong exit of the the world between worlds and ends up with a second chance at saving her master. (Ahsoka Tano, Shmi Skywalker)

Pain Management - Anger can get a slave killed. Shmi teaches her son some coping strategies. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Watto)

The Force Is In the Details - The chance cube lands on red and now Shmi must learn to manage with a freedom she never asked for. Written as part of the Jedi Fest Rogue Robin challenge as a continuation of The Force is in the Details. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Padme Amidala, Jedi Council)

The Anchor That You Can’t Leave Behind - On the queen’s yacht headed back to Naboo, Anakin and Padmé miss their mothers but Obi-Wan can’t get why. (Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose - When Obi-Wan told him he was free at Qui-Gon’s funeral, Anakin took him at his word. There may, however, have been something of misunderstanding. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

For Amidala - Her handmaidens had all poured so much of themselves into Amidala, it was like they were part of her now. Padmé didn’t know if she had the strength to let one go. (Padme Amidala, Sabe, handmaidens)

Wordspring - Anakin’s words dry up in the middle of his fourth month at the Temple. If Obi-Wan can’t get them flowing again, maybe someone else will. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sheev Palpatine, various Jedi)

Nothing to Write Home About - A month after losing his wife, Cliegg Lars decides to write to her son. Anakin Skywalker gets the pen pal he never knew he needed. WIP. (Anakin Skywalker, Cliegg Lars, Owen Lars, Beru Lars, Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala)

For the Greater Good - Count Dooku has never seen the appeal of Anakin Skywalker, but, when the Chosen One breaks with the Council over the treatment of the clones, he decides acquiring the boy’s allegiances might be worthwhile after all. WIP co-written with @grand-duc and @thendstartsnow (Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, Palpatine, Clone Troopers)

Once More With Feeling - A redeemed Anakin travels back in time post-RotJ and decides to unfuck the timeline with mixed results. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Sheev Palpatine, Jedi Council, bunch of other people)

Bridal Carry - On Naboo, it’s tradition for the groom to carry the bride to their marriage bed. With Anakin’s new prosthetic, it’s more difficult than it sounds. (Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker)

Secret Tunnel - War in the Outer Rim! While fighting on the mining world of Mumblety, Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano is tasked with mapping the tunnels along with a team of clones. When trouble strikes, will she have what it takes to save the day and complete the mission? (Ahsoka Tano, Echo, Fives, Anakin Skywalker)

No Place Like Home - Ahsoka’s return to the temple after her first deployment was strange, made even stranger by the fact that it should’t be strange at all. (Ahsoka Tano, Rex)

Eat, Snip, Love - Ahsoka can’t remember the last time she had a home cooked meal. Anakin and Padmé are determined to change that. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala)

Love and Support - After Padmé is shot at a conference, her mother insists she come home. Padmé, of course, is going no where. Episode tag to 3.07 “Assassin.” (Padmé, Ahsoka)

Across a Crowded Room - It’s a party in his honor, but it turns out the Hero With No Fear isn’t good with crowds. Padmé to the rescue. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Lightening Rod - Anakin gets electrocuted…again. It probably says something bad about his life that he’s getting used to it. (Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Coming Out of My Cage, Doing Just Fine - On the way back from Kadavo, it finally hits her. In this war, Ahsoka had been outmatched, outmaneuvered, and outgunned, but she’d never felt powerless. Not like she did in that cage on Zygerria. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker)

In Our Bed After the War - After the mission to Zygerria, Padmé and Anakin have a difficult conversation. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Domestic Life Was Never Quite My Style - Despite her best efforts, Padmé is pregnant. Now she has a difficult decision to make. (Padme Amidala, C-3P0)

You Call That Family? - In an AU where Anakin has left the order to be Padme, Obi-Wan encounters unexpected resistance when he goes to collect the twins. (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala)

Birthright - The Force called him to his family and Anakin is not prepared to give them up. Not even to the Jedi Council. (Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, baby Skywalkers)

If Not For These Bad Dreams - Fives has dreamed about killing every Jedi he’s ever met except General Skywalker. Turns out he’s not the only one. (Fives, Kix, Tup, Jesse)

Dateline Felucia - Embedded with the troops on Felucia, a reporter from HoloNet News paints an intimate portrait of the men of the 212th Attack Battalion. (Cody, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Waxer, Boil, clone troopers)

Ahsoka the Vampire Slayer - Ahsoka is the Chosen One, the Slayer, or at least she was until she died. She got better, but now there’s a new Slayer in town and things with her Watcher are strained at best. Add in a bunch of zombie mind control bugs and Ahsoka’s week could be going better. BtVS fusion. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Barriss Offee, Luminara Undili)

Bursts of Stardust - Collection of short tumblr prompts. (Everyone ever)

Rogue One

The Lord’s Estate - Every lord must have an estate. Lord Vader’s is Mustafar. (Vader, Palpatine)

Peace is a Lie - Sometimes Vader wakes up and can’t remember what war he’s fighting. (Darth Vader)

A Cog In Something Turning - Cassian hadn’t meant to give K-2SO free will. Good thing for both of them he’s a terrible slicer. (K-2SO, Cassian Andor)

Original Trilogy

Sea of Sorrow and Sand - Ben Kenobi is an island in a sea of sorrow and sand. Beru Lars has come to drag him back to shore. (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Beru Lars)

What Remains - What remains of a relationship built on lies? Nothing, as Darth Sidious will soon find out. (Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Padmé Amidala’s preserved corpse)

On This Strange and Mournful Day - The events of Vader Down go very differently. The father and child reunion is only a motion away. (Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Dr. Aphra)

After the Funeral - Han offers Luke some unexpected support after the funeral of the guy who tortured him. (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo)

A Cynic’s Guide to the New Golden Age - The second Death Star goes kabloowie and takes the galaxy with it. It’s a new golden age of piracy and Aphra’s got some looting to do. (Dr. Aphra, Luke, 0-0-0, BT-1, Black Krrsantan)

The Last Truce We Ever Came To - Darth Vader is dead but he won’t leave Leia alone. (Leia Organa, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker)

Sequel Era

Red Fish, Blue Fish - Leia bought an aquarium for her child like her father before her. In a perfect world she could raise Ben to fill his grandfather’s legacy. Too bad he had more than one. (Leia Organa, Ben Solo, Angst)

A Matter of Precedence - FN-2187 wasn’t the first, except for the time he was. Others have defied the First Order before, but none quite as spectacularly. (Finn, First Order)

So You Want to be a (Space) Wizard - Finn finds a mysterious book, takes an Oath, and starts one hell of an Ordeal. Crossover with Young Wizards. (Finn, Poe Dameron, Rey)

Old Haunts (All We’ve Ever Known) - Anakin and Obi-Wan as snarky Force ghosts during The Force Awakens. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, TFA cast)

Lady in Waiting - Rey’s spent so much of her life waiting it’s hard to know when to stop. Luckily, Poe’s there to give her the push she needs. (Rey, Poe Dameron, Leia Organa, Finn)

Not a Drop to Drink - On Luke’s island, Rey couldn’t quite get her mind around the sheer amount of water stretching out towards the horizon. (Rey, Luke Skywalker)

#star wars #may the fourth be with you #my fic

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anghraine · 7 years

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“the words are all escaping” - fic

I tried to wrap this up last night, but ... ajkdfjdf finally!!

fandom: Star Wars

characters: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker; Jyn/Cassian

verse: script AU (overlaps with and continues in tongues and quiet sighs, while more directly following from threshold of a dream, part of the past, but now you’re the future, and waking up in a minefield)

length: 6.2k

stuff that happens: Months after the destruction of the Death Star, Jyn and Cassian remain inseparable, bound into a relationship they can’t quite define, and a rebellion that’s hiding out on an ice planet. Naturally, they’re models of self-awareness, maturity, and open dialogue.

This was written for @therebelcaptainnetwork’s Friday prompt, “Surprise,” and this one from @skitzofreak:

It all sounds wonderful but if you ever felt like exploring SW languages again, I personally am enamored of the whole “language of Alderaan” theme going on in your Now You’re The Future series.

The obvious option for those prompts seemed to be Jyn’s decision to learn Alderaanian in in tongues and quiet sighs, and what happens after, so there’s that. But it’s really more about language and words in general, what goes unspoken and what gets said, and how that takes Jyn and Cassian from waking up in a minefield to quiet sighs and beyond.

How did this possibly spin out of control? The world may never know

So not exactly the prompt, but I hope you enjoy anyway! :)

last time on the Script AU:

Jyn waited, silent. Words did not often come easily to her, and she knew better than to risk them when she didn’t understand. Cassian, though, always found something to say; he’d find words sooner or later.

If she thought about it, Jyn would have guessed that Cassian grasped about half of what she didn’t say. For one, they rarely needed more than a few words to understand each other; some things she could communicate without even that much. Others he picked up on, whether she meant him to or not, because—well, spy.

It all started, though, with one of the few issues that Jyn and Cassian did openly discuss. At length. They didn’t want to, of course. It was just that, with them, you need to go to the med-bay couldn’t really be negotiated in glances and a few muttered (Jyn) or pithy (Cassian) words.

On Cassian’s side, he hounded her to see a medic for every trifling cold or fever. Sometimes they turned out to be more than trifling, fine. But not most of the time.

Jyn would have shrugged off his fussing, but she wasn’t that much of a hypocrite. Even months after their escape from Scarif, she had yet to release her iron grip on Cassian’s medical care, particularly when it came to the spine he’d smashed defending her. If that made her overprotective, well—for one, he had all the self-preservation of a TIE pilot, and for another, he didn’t seem to mind. Cassian wasn’t a hypocrite, either.

Usually.

“You’re going to get your implants evaluated,” she informed him, six months after the Death Star exploded over Yavin 4.

Cassian had just collapsed onto their bunk with a relieved sigh. Now, he turned his head just enough to peer in her direction. “Since when?”

“They recommend biannual check-ups.” Jyn still loathed the doctor, whose name she had long since forgotten, but she thought she could trust him that far. Mostly because she’d seen Cassian starting to hide a slight limp. And he tensed whenever he changed position—not noticeably, to others, but very little about him ever escaped her notice. Amazingly, losing everyone else she ever loved made her a bit watchful of the one person she had left.

“They recommend, not require,” he said, disappearing into their four blankets. “It’s not safe.”

(Jyn had stolen three of the blankets on recruitments. The first time, she shrugged smugly when Cassian stared and asked how she’d managed to steal a blanket larger than she was. The third time, she agreed that yes, they should probably give the extras to other people, and no, she wasn’t going to. He didn’t ask again.)

“Not safe?” Jyn asked, more puzzled than irritated. She tossed her datapad on the desk and slouched in their one, very uncomfortable, chair. “You think they’ll try anything with me there?”

A muffled snort was just audible. “No.”

Jyn waited. She was very good at it, when she bothered to be.

At last, Cassian said, “It’s the anaesthesia. I don’t know what I’m saying until it wears off.”

Half a dozen snide responses sprang to mind. Regretfully, she suppressed all of them.

“I know that,” said Jyn. “Last time, you said that I was poetic.”

“Did I?” She thought his voice actually trembled. “I wasn’t thinking of, ah, that.”

“You also asked me if you were a cyborg,” she said, giving up on the chair and the chilly temperature of their quarters at night. Worse than chilly. Even Jyn got cold on Hoth.

After the galaxy’s quickest change of clothes, she grabbed the datapad and one of the blasters she’d discarded with her holster, and climbed into bed. Shivering, Jyn tried to find some opening in the tangled mass of blankets, with no effect until they gave a dramatic twitch and lifted.

She crawled under, stowing the blaster under her pillow. Cassian didn’t do that, but he was painfully careless—except about organization—when he felt safe. Jyn never felt safe. Not completely, and certainly not with the Empire combing the galaxy for them. Fine, it didn’t seem like Imperial spies ever managed … anything, given their total failure to find Alliance bases over twenty years, but you could never be sure. And Jyn had good reason to know that Rebels sometimes defected, if very rarely; they just didn’t tend to live long afterwards.

(Cassian tried to keep her from those missions, at first. Jyn, whose qualms about murder did not extend to traitors, simply packed as usual and slipped into the ship before he arrived. When he found her in the co-pilot’s chair, he opened his mouth to say something stupid and unnecessary, so Jyn just propped her boots up on the panel—which he hated—and stared at him. They never exchanged a word about it, but after the fourth time, he gave up altogether and Jyn kept her feet on the floor.)

Jyn gave an exasperated sigh when she saw Cassian under the blankets, sprawled lengthwise on his stomach. He often slept that way, and the thin bed had to be hell on his spine, but she wished he wouldn’t leave his back unprotected. Jyn scooted closer, keeping her back firmly on the mattress, the door in sight, and her blaster in reach. Then she pulled one of her legs back and took out her datapad, resting it against her thigh.

Cassian turned his head to peer at her. “What are you doing?”

“Making the appointment,” she said.

Startled, he propped himself up on an elbow. “You can’t—”

Watch me, she thought, and brought up the medical logs. She wasn’t lying; without a pause, she clicked on the appointment panel and started tapping. A, N, D, O—

“Jyn, no.” Cassian tried to grab the datapad, but she was faster. Jyn pinned down his free arm and held the pad away.

After a moment’s consideration, she narrowed in on his weakest side. “You won’t be any good at field work if you fuck up your back. Are you seriously going to risk that because you say stupid things when you’re high?”

He winced. “It’s not that. Let go of me.”

She did, keeping a suspicious eye on him.

“It’s too dangerous,” he told her, in a patient tone that she always found exceptionally grating.

Not for the first time, Jyn wished that Kaytoo had survived. They hadn’t been close, as such. He was Cassian’s. Not his property, but a companion, a friend. Jyn wouldn’t have called him her friend. But she’d been willing to guard him with her life after two weeks of bickering. She’d gotten a kick out of the bickering, honestly. She suspected she’d get even more of a kick out of Kay’s response to the fact that Cassian won’t get his cybernetics upgraded was an actual sentence that existed in the galaxy. A true sentence, even. In his memory, she concluded that the odds he’d have taken her side were probably about … eighty-six percent.

Cassian closed his eyes. “Jyn. What are you thinking?”

She wasn’t one to turn away an opening, least of all when it required only the truth. “That Kaytoo would have already dragged you to the med-bay.”

He flinched.

“You think he wouldn’t have insisted on upgrades?” she said ruthlessly.

After a thin, sharp breath, Cassian said, “Kay didn’t have much of a grasp on secrecy.”

She nearly rolled her eyes. Anaesthesia left him outspoken and distracted, but inane chatter hardly counted as dangerous revelations. Only Cassian would consider his passing thoughts secrets. But it seemed strange that he’d consider that worth risking his fitness for fighting the Empire. Unless … wait. He thought it unsafe, not merely undesirable. Danger, secrecy, loss of control—

“You’re talking about giving up intelligence?” asked Jyn, moderately annoyed with herself.

“What else would I be talking about?”

“You?” She shook her head. “Oh, nothing.”

Cassian heaved a sigh and gave up. Pushing the blankets away—Jyn grumbled in protest—he dragged himself upright. Fine. Jyn sat up, too, much more smoothly, and stuck the datapad under her blaster.

“Do you really think I’d let you betray the Rebellion?” she said. “To those people?”

He smiled faintly. “I forgot that you disliked the medics so much.”

Undeterred, she pressed on, “You do really think so.”

“No!” Alarm flashed into his blank expression, and his hand twitched on the blankets. “I told you, not if you’re there. It’s just … not certain you will be, and I could say anything.”

“Not certain?” she repeated. “What are you talking about?”

They’d both spent enough of their lives identifying shapes in the night to make each other out. Jyn, aware that he would see past the slanting dimness, scowled. Hopefully, it would look more menacing than usual in the shadows.

He dropped his gaze to his hands, splayed out just in front of him. “You might not be there. That’s fine, but …”

“I wouldn’t leave my cat alone with people who have to be terrorized into basic ethics. Much less my—” Her frown deepened, and she made a vague gesture in Cassian’s direction. “Whatever you are.”

“You don’t have a cat,” he said, thankfully ignoring the last bit.

“I might if you didn’t keep saying it’d freeze to death or get eaten by taun-tauns.”

“Well, it would,” said Cassian.

“Not if—” About to expand on her cat-related grudges, she snapped her mouth shut. He’d almost won, there. “This isn’t about the cat I will one day acquire. It’s about you going to the med-bay.”

With a cautious look, and the slower speech he used when picking his words, he said, “It’s not that I distrust you.”

“Do you know something I don’t? Is there a solo operation coming up?” She’d never had one, not without Cassian lurking around or at least back in the ship, but Jyn wouldn’t put it past Draven. Even with open antagonism gone, he was harsh, demanding, and near as paranoid as Saw. Not vindictive, usually, but he might have some warped Draven logic for separating them. Or maybe—

Horror crept up her spine. Jyn felt her eyes widen.

“Wait, are they reassigning us?”

“No, no.” Cassian looked appalled. He grasped at her hand, his voice falling into its most soothing tones. “Nothing like that. It’s only that I can’t … I don’t assume—”

“That I’ll stick around when things go bad?” she said coldly.

Cassian sighed and started to unclasp her fingers. With a glare, Jyn seized his wrist, making no attempt to gentle her grip.

“It’s not bad, Jyn. Just a little uncomfortable.”

“It will be if you don’t get those implants repaired,” she retorted. “But you’re right.”

Cassian eyed her with very reasonable skepticism. “Oh?”

“Yes,” said Jyn coolly. “It’s probably a minor adjustment that won’t even take much time. Choices are so difficult, though. Missing a couple hours of paperwork or leaving you to betray Rebellion secrets? I just don’t know.”

He fell quiet, responding to neither the sarcasm or the argument for a good minute. Even then, he didn’t speak, just frowned and dropped his gaze to their linked fingers. Jyn thought she’d been quite clear, really, but Cassian studied her palm as if he might find some revelation in the callouses and lines.

Not a performance, Jyn realized. He knew she cared, but he didn’t understand. For all the furious protectiveness that lived in her skin, her blood, he didn’t see it. Cassian, who saw so much. He didn’t know.

Jyn had no idea what to say. Strung between residual annoyance and shock, Jyn felt a rare urgency to find some words, however inadequate, but they all blanked out of her thoughts.

For no particular reason, her mind instead jolted back to the hangar on Massassi. Not the electrified gravity that sprang into being as Cassian approached, the thrill of trust and more, but Kaytoo slouching over to her. His voice had fallen into a Kaytoo approximation of friendliness.

I’ll be there for you. Cassian said I had to.

“Jyn?” As usual, Cassian looked concerned—the sort of concern that moved rapidly towards fear. That was pretty usual, too.

“You’re pinching my fingers,” replied Jyn, which was about the last thing she would have chosen to say.

Cassian relaxed his grip, thankfully without trying to withdraw again. “What is it?”

“Listen,” she told him, fumbling but determined to barrel through. “You’re going to get your spine checked, and I’m going to be there. I won’t let anything dangerous happen. Is that good enough?”

The shadows obscured him, but Jyn saw Cassian wet his lip, the way he always did—except undercover—when he felt unsure or tense.

Evenly, he said, “You swear that you’ll stay?”

It was one of the only things he’d ever asked of her. A staggering amount of trust, too, when she thought of Cassian, and the Rebellion, and—

She knew he trusted her. She did. She couldn’t possibly have doubted it after Rogue One, had no reason to doubt it over the months since, would be outraged at anything else. Still, something in her flared bright. Outside of their team, burned away on Scarif, nobody else had trusted her in a very long time. Rightly so, except her mother and Saw, but she … it was … she didn’t know. If she couldn’t describe the nameless thing between them, she could think: there’s nothing like this.

Jyn rolled her eyes and lifted her free hand. “May the Force strike me down if I lie.”

“And you’ll see a medic, too?”

Her throat itched, with more than emotion. As she’d done for the last three days, Jyn swallowed down on it.

“What for?” she demanded.

The tickle got worse. Cassian, who'd been ignoring his crunched spine, fixed a steady gaze on her.

Jyn scowled. “Are you planning on using words sometime soon?”

“You coughed all night.” Somehow, he managed to make his voice and expression even more neutral than before.

“Not all night,” she insisted, though she honestly didn’t remember. “Anyway, the only problem is the air. It’s too dry. And cold, obviously. There’s nothing—”

She was babbling. From Jyn, that could only make her ten times more suspicious than she seemed already. Sure enough, Cassian’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s not any drier than usual.”

Jyn opened her mouth to say something dismissive and crushing. She would have, too, but instead she caught her breath and snatched her hand away, just in time.

Damn it, she thought, and sneezed.

In the few seconds it took to Jyn to open her eyes, Cassian had already filched the datapad and started typing.

“That better be for you,” she told him.

“Mmhm,” said Cassian, not even trying to sound convincing.

She wiped off her hand on her sleepshirt. “Cassian. It’s a cough.”

“You’re too careless,” he said.

“You’re a cyborg!”

They glared at each other, more obstinate than angry. Jyn tried grabbing at the datapad, but Cassian kept it from her by the simple expedient of holding it above his head.

“I could take you,” she threatened.

He lifted his brows. “But my spine, Jyn.”

That was cheating. But Cassian had no compunctions whatsoever about cheating, except when it didn’t matter. Not that a few sniffles really mattered. Just to him.

Annoyance and cough notwithstanding, she felt a quiet pleasure at that. Memories of those years when nobody cared whether she lived or died always remained with her, icy undercurrents to every thought or feeling. Against those, Cassian’s incessant worry shone, set her alight even at its most irritating.

Like now.

“I’ll go if you go,” he said.

Jyn folded her arms, trying to think of some alternative. Nothing sprang to mind. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Cassian retorted, and pulled out of arm’s reach to finish her appointment. She could have wrestled him for it, but he was right, damn him; she wouldn’t risk hurting his back. Instead, she waited until he finished and relaxed his guard, then lunged for it, checking the last message. Sure enough: ERSO, JYN and a line of symptoms more detailed than she herself had noticed.

Vindictively, she typed ANDOR, CASSIAN and started listing everything from her real concerns to the most trivial observations she could think of.

“Headaches and chills?” he said when she finished. “On Hoth?”

“Don’t want to be careless,” replied Jyn.

They both mumbled under their breaths as they retreated back beneath the blankets, though Jyn felt more grumpy affection than anything else, and no doubt Cassian did, too. When he twisted around to lie on his stomach again, she made her sigh as long-suffering as possible, but set a steadying hand against his back.

After a long moment, Cassian said into his pillow, “Want me to go with you?”

Startled, Jyn blinked. She hadn’t thought about it.

“I know you don’t trust them,” he added.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “It’s not a big deal, but you can. If you—”

“Okay,” said Cassian, and that was that.

When he woke after his repairs, Cassian didn’t say anything about the Rebellion, though he did prattle on about her eyes for a good three minutes. Jyn thought about disrupting that, too, but decided against it. She didn’t … mind, and he wouldn’t remember anyway. But she added her enjoyment of Cassian on anaesthetics to her collection of things I will never tell him, ever. He always turned unfocused and clingy and peculiarly sweet, at least with her, and—she preferred his real self, but it was nice in its own way.

The first time, she also turned out to have bronchitis, which Cassian was insufferably smug about. But he acceded to the one-year appointment without any infection to bargain over, and Jyn sat nearby and distracted him with inane questions when he so much as hinted about past or present work. It wasn’t difficult; even the simplest questions could kick him into incoherent tangents—she still wasn’t sure how have you tried the eggs? they’re terrible turned into a grisly description of his sisters’ deaths, and that into liking flowers.

The third time, a year and a half after the Battle of Yavin, Cassian made the appointment himself. He didn’t even ask Jyn if she would accompany him, just assumed she would and gave her the day and time (two months beforehand, of course). But things were a bit different by then.

Most significantly, the Rebellion no longer regarded Jyn as an unreliable accessory of Cassian’s, useful as a symbol and muscle and little else. Even Draven had come to treat them as a unit, Andor-and-Erso, rarely in need of differentiation. They treated themselves as a unit, staying within arm’s reach whenever possible, more soothed than electrified by casual touch.

Even in bed, they slept tangled up instead of sticking to the careful distance they once maintained. They’d been too starved and nervous to dare more, at first. But when they had nightmares, or worked themselves into dead exhaustion, or got sedated for some reason or another, Cassian would curl himself about her, and Jyn started to feel cold and uneasy when he didn’t. She didn’t say so; that stayed the same. Instead, she yanked him hard enough that he ended up sprawled over half her body, face against her shoulder and arm braced over her waist. They both laughed, but they did sleep that way more often than not, mostly because Jyn rested better with an arm over his unguarded head or back, and Cassian with her heart beating against him.

Also, they were warmer that way.

That did matter, given that they both hated Echo Base as much as ever, and couldn’t escape on missions near as much as they would have liked. Hyperspace might be cold, but it was nothing like that, and they both felt more at home on their ship than anywhere else. There, they could complain, or adapt codes, or fuck, or go over mission plans in peace, or anything. They even shared the occasional memory as they flew—not mentioning why it mattered, or any significant detail, but they were children of the revolution and needed few explanations.

The thing was, whether they slept in their quarters or their ship or some miserable hide-out elsewhere, they trusted each other, if no one else. Jyn and Cassian did fight now and then—not frequently, but the doors just about iced over when they did—they’d seen and done too much together to doubt much of anything.

Yet for all that, the changes didn’t seem much more than a bit. They’d felt themselves an inextricable pair from Scarif onwards. From almost the moment they set foot on Jedha, they’d hovered and grasped at each other. Jyn realized she’d trusted him when Cassian slipped away to kill her father, and she trusted him again when he went rogue for her. And they still spoke in silences, or in circles, or not at all. Hell, Jyn had yet to find a word for what they were to each other: too stable for lovers, too dependent for partners, too fierce for companions, too much for friends. Maybe Cassian knew a word in his language, but that hardly helped.

In any case, their whatever-it-was had Jyn stubbornly parked beside Cassian’s cot for the third time. Since the medic turned out to be a mild-mannered doctor who immediately and persistently addressed Cassian in Alderaanian—something nobody else had ever done—Jyn had plenty of time to come up with potential tangents.

She didn’t use any of them.

Cassian woke in a sleepy haze, smiling as soon as he saw her. “Estás aquí.”

Jyn knew exactly seven terms in Alderaanian: infanta, capitán, hola, bien, cómo está, qué, and viva la rebelión. She frowned, though she could guess at this one.

“Hey.”

He boosted himself by his palms, sitting up and glancing around. “Pensé que …”

Qué was “what,” but add another word and she had no idea what he was talking about. Jyn took a stab anyway.

“I’m always here. How do you feel?”

To her increasing alarm, he didn’t respond in any way except to look dazedly at her. After a few minutes, he spoke again, still in Alderaanian. But it was too long and rapid for Jyn to even guess at.

“Cassian, I can’t understand you,” she told him.

He unleashed a bright smile and said something else, just as incomprehensible. Nervous, Jyn switched on her datapad’s recorder.

By the time the doctor returned, he’d spent a good forty minutes earnestly talking to her, carrying on a one-sided conversation in total obliviousness to her confusion. Jyn had no idea what he said, no idea if he might be betraying some secret, no idea of how to uphold her promise. Cassian didn’t even seem to notice that she wasn’t responding.

Perhaps it would have seemed less bizarre if he ever used his language with her. Now and then, Jyn did hear people mixing scraps of Alderaanian in with their Basic—but never Cassian. As far as she could tell, he thought in Alderaanian when he spoke in Alderaanian, and in Basic when he spoke in Basic. Whether that was true or not, he certainly kept his languages as strictly regimented as he did everything else. On very rare occasions, he did forget random words or phrases in Basic, but he didn’t replace them with Alderaanian, just talked circles around the sudden blanks until she guessed what he meant, or he remembered them himself.

The exception to his rigid separation—the only exception, as far as Jyn could tell—was Leia Organa. He invariably addressed her as Infanta or Doña Leia. Even so, he didn’t use those elsewhere, only with Leia herself.

Really, thinking back, the only time Jyn could remember hearing any significant amount of Alderaanian from him was in the first weeks after Scarif. They had fairly safe, low-classification missions while Cassian finished healing, but those missions often involved Alderaanian. Mostly, though, it was because they needed a co-pilot while Jyn learned to fly, and they got Shara Bey.

She was technically an X-Wing pilot, but divisions in the Rebellion were more like guidelines, and she could fly anything. She also came from … Jyn didn’t remember, but another ex-colony. Anytime Bey didn’t expect Jyn to be present, she spoke to him in Alderaanian and he responded in it. That mostly meant that, as soon as she overheard them, Jyn halted where Bey wouldn’t notice her and Cassian could pretend not to.

The two of them might be the most staggeringly attractive people Jyn had ever met, but it didn’t have anything to do with jealousy. She wouldn’t know that if it clubbed her with her own truncheons, except when it came to Cassian’s obnoxiously perfect aim (and she always crushed him at hand-to-hand, so). But Jyn liked listening to them talk. Although she didn’t want to be weird about it, she found Alderaanian remarkably pleasant. And she felt an obscure satisfaction at hearing Cassian use his own language, the one he’d grown up with, and dreamed in, and carried on every syllable.

At least usually. Right now, Jyn sat frozen in horror, recorder notwithstanding. She’d promised and she had no idea what he was saying and it could be anything—

She’d always sort of wished that he didn’t switch every single word to Basic with her, that she could understand what he murmured when they were safe and waking up together, what Antilles or the princess or Dameron called out in the halls. It could be useful, too. She just … she never said anything. It was his choice, and Jyn didn’t have the time, and none of that mattered.

Staring at him as he cheerfully chattered on, Jyn thought: yes, it did.

She would damn well make the time.

On consideration, Jyn didn’t ask Cassian to teach her Alderaanian. She didn’t even mention it to Cassian. If asked, she couldn’t have given any better reason than I don’t feel like it, and probably wouldn’t have bothered with that much. A shrug, maybe.

In fairness, the things Jyn didn’t mention to Cassian could have filled the Death Star—if it still existed, hah. They included, but were not restricted to:

For all her complaints about learning to fly, she’d actually enjoyed it. His irritation just amused her.

In retrospect, neither survival nor fighting the Empire were luxuries.

Back in the beginning, she’d been relieved that he was so skittish. Before him, Jyn rarely risked unnecessary touch, still more rarely liked it, and almost always had a secondary motive. She felt pretty sure it was the same for Cassian.

Jyn didn’t bother making friends because a) she didn’t much like people, b) Rebels tended to the loud and obnoxious, and c) Cassian was all she wanted. It wasn’t purposeful, and she’d never leave. (She felt definitely sure it was the same for him.)

Jyn knew that Cassian resented it when people assumed that he, or Bey, or whomever, felt any sort of personal grief over Alderaan. (Even though he had too much decency to say so, even in private, even to Jyn.)

She also knew that people joked she was his new droid. Jyn didn’t care. Anyone who thought Kay could be replaced wasn’t worth her time.

She enjoyed the brief period when they’d barely kissed, but let people believe they were a couple. They did it solely because intelligence preferred to bring in the spouses/partners of spies, and they were determined to work together or die together. But it was fun.

Although Jyn had certain issues with Cassian’s obedience (not as unthinking or as omnipresent as she’d once thought, but still more than she’d like), she did sometimes wonder what it would be like if—maybe—in other contexts—anyway.

She rescued a tooka-cat when they stopped for fuel on the way to Jedha.

She had no idea what to call their relationship. They loved each other, certainly. But she couldn’t pinpoint any fundamental change since they left for Scarif, and didn’t really believe one existed. They were we and us and Jyn-and-Cassian; she could think of nothing else, except home.

In short, Jyn could keep her mouth shut and her feelings inconspicuous when she wanted to. It was what made her, against expectation, such a good intelligence agent. She certainly could keep her secrets, even (sometimes) from Cassian.

The only difficulty came when Bey turned out to be stationed halfway across the galaxy, and Jyn had to ask Princess Leia for a recommendation instead. She neither liked nor disliked Leia, who had the same unforgiving idealism and brisk competence as Cassian, but without any of his restraint or caution. She respected her well enough, however, and Skywalker, too. That formed part of the reason Jyn didn’t wait for him to leave, though a smaller part than her suspicion that Leia already told him everything.

Regardless, Jyn was quite genuinely taken aback when, instead of offering a recommendation, Skywalker and the princess invited her to study with them. It turned out that the two of them had already been trying to teach each other their ancestral tongues: Alderaanian for Leia, some obscure Tatooine language for Skywalker (Soliskan?).

“All right,” said Jyn. She had some reservations, mostly about keeping it from Cassian, but couldn’t think of any better alternative. Belatedly, she tacked on, “Thanks.”

It worked better than she expected, for a stupid reason. All sorts of people had been pulled from across the Alliance to support Echo Base, regardless of their actual specialties, stuck in work that required approximately zero brainpower.

In fact, the main hangar appeared to be run by another intelligence officer, a Major Derlin. Jyn wouldn’t even have known he was intelligence if not for the fact that a) Cassian and Leia had mentioned his extremely striking moustache, and b) he’d been Cassian’s first commander, and earned his still-burning hatred by trying to “fix” Kay. Jyn thought about it and adopted his antipathy, but even so, sticking spies in base administration? Saw would have never wasted people like that.

Spending half her time doing mundane tasks on base didn’t improve her low opinion of Alliance Command. It did help her go over lessons in her head, though.

On the bright side, it turned out that Leia (unsurprisingly) and Skywalker (very surprisingly) could keep secrets, too. Cassian knew that she was up to something, of course, but not what, and the fearless duo never gave her away. For a good four months, Jyn ran through vocabulary and conjugations as she made rounds on taun-tauns.

She still couldn’t understand much of what she heard, and only bits and pieces of what she and Skywalker dug up to read. But she could say some things, and know what they meant, and why. Occasionally, she even had to guard herself against reacting to little bits she picked up. It’d be a long stretch she didn’t understand, then sangre, a shorter stretch, tiene que, and a few words later, volcán, and she’d have to tamp down on the what the hell? that immediately sprang to mind. Jyn decided that counted as progress.

At the end of those four months, deliverance arrived. Not linguistic deliverance, but by that point, Jyn would have accepted the deaths of several languages to get off Hoth.

She arrived in their quarters to find Cassian packing … everything, as far as she could tell. Not that either of them had much, but—

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Good news,” said Cassian, nodding at the datapads on their bed.

Jyn left Cassian to organize their clothes—they were both happier that way—and went over to see. Her datapad was blinking yellow: not an emergency, but urgent. They hadn’t gotten that one since … she had to strain to remember.

Since we get posted on Echo Base.

She was already smiling as she flicked the screen on.

REASSIGNMENT: SUBTERRA BASE, CORONET CITY

“Corellia?” Jyn burst out. Without even thinking about it, the smile broaded into a wide grin. “Thank the Force.”

“It’s dangerous,” said Cassian in his most sententious tones, setting a second bag aside to turn to her. “A Core planet, lots of Imperials, lots of criminals …”

She beamed. “I am a criminal.”

“Well, we’re all—”

Jyn was scoffing even before he managed to finish. “Please. You’ve never met a decent rule you didn’t love.”

His sigh and shake of his head would have been more effective without the crooked smile that accompanied them.

“This isn’t temporary?” she asked. “Or wasting us on maintenance again? We’re going to be doing actual work out of Subterra?”

“Looks like it,” said Cassian. He bit down on his lip, halfheartedly restraining himself.

She read over the few details on her datapad. “I’ll take a wild guess that the base is below the city. There are a ton of enclaves down there, if I remember right.”

Nodding, he said, “Yes. I’ve only got a few contacts, though. We haven’t really dealt with Corellia beyond ship components and such, and I’ve never done much with acquisition.”

“Opportunity calls,” said Jyn lightly. “I’ll take an underground base over an ice one any day. And I know some people.”

Cassian slanted a glance her way. “I’m sure you do.”

“Coronet is amazing, too,” she said, and started stripping the bunk with infinitely more enthusiasm than usual. “If we don’t get ourselves killed. They’ve got all sorts of people, and they sell everything imaginable. You won’t believe the coats.”

“You got into the Corellian black market for coats, hm?” He looked very solemn. “And here I didn’t even know you liked them.”

Just yours, she very definitely did not say.

“Oh, yeah,” said Jyn. “You know me, blowing my credits on nice clothes in a place with thousands of illegal weapons.”

He gave up, eyes crinkling and creases denting his cheeks. “Sounds like you.”

They finished their packing in cheerful silence, aided only by the occasional smile. At the end—after resisting the impulse for a good twenty minutes—Jyn moved towards Cassian as casually as she could. He’d notice, but come up with his own explanation.

Neither said anything, not needing it, and she waited a few seconds for them to settle back into stillness. Then she grasped his shirt and pressed their mouths together, enjoying his muffled sound of surprise near as much as their lips and mingled breaths, his hands sliding up her back and her fingers in his hair. For one oxygen-deprived moment, she thought of licking into his mouth, pushing him into the bed—

No, she told herself firmly. They’d packed and the ship would be warmer.

When Cassian pulled away, a little breathless, he said, “I didn’t make the decision.”

“I know,” Jyn replied, and kissed him again.

Just a little, though. They had places to go and data to steal. Within the minute, Jyn and Cassian slung their bags over their shoulders and headed out.

Graciously, she left one of her blankets behind.

There were no tearful goodbyes. They didn’t have the networks of affection that people like Skywalker and the princess built up. Jyn did send a brief message to those two, thanking them for their help and wishing them well, but that was about the extent of her on-base relationships. By the time she and Cassian reached the hangar bay, Jyn itched to be gone, enduring a not-brief-enough discussion of their objectives with Draven before climbing into the ship.

“I’m not sure you ran away fast enough,” Cassian called out after her, once the doors slammed shut behind him. “He might have missed the point.”

“Worrying about Draven’s feelings definitely keeps me up at night.”

He actually laughed as he made his way to his seat, flicking on switches and controls. Changes came in flickers and waves: the building roar of engines, the cockpit lighting up, the control panel humming to life. She always felt that there was nothing quite like that very specific moment—those few suspended seconds when stagnation transformed into action.

For all her impulsivity and his caution, they were the same in this. They needed to be doing, not just thinking about it.

“Back to the real fight,” he said, with the exact note of satisfaction that she felt.

Jyn had waited months for the right moment. This, she thought, was it. But it had to be just right. She took a deep breath and counted to four.

Carefully, she said, “Que la Fuerza nos acompañe.”

Cassian started so violently that he dropped his headset. Turning to her, he stared without a word, lips parted in utter surprise. Then he smiled brilliantly—still incredulous, but smiling.

“When did you learn Alderaanian?”

“I didn’t,” said Jyn, “not really,” but words kept tumbling out of her mouth. “I mean, I’ve learned some things, not many, it was the princess and … I thought I should know. Or that I … it’s useful, right?”

Cassian’s smile faded, but only to a softer one. “It is.”

To her intense relief, he left it at that. She had no idea what else she could say. But in this moment, Jyn was happy, and Cassian was happy, and that seemed like enough.

“Okay.” Jyn picked up the headset, listening carefully while Cassian recovered his seatbelt and adjusted the controls. After a few minutes, she exhaled. “We’re cleared for take-off.”

They looked at each other.

“Que la Fuerza nos acompañe,” said Cassian, and they escaped into the sky.

#therebelcaptainnetwork #skitzofreak #promptfic #script au #otp: welcome home #star wars #jyn erso #cassian andor #luke skywalker #leia skywalker organa #this is ... jfc idek #way more WALLS OF EXPOSITION than i would have liked and a gazillion tangents and. so forth #also i was trying to avoid spoilers for the end of minefield #and working within the plot restrictions #aaaaand 'well i guess it has surprises and alderaanian IN it so that counts???'#but i still like it anyway so it gets to be posted :P #anghraine's fic

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miss-musings · 7 years

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In Defense of TLJ’s Finn/Rose Subplot (SPOILERS)

I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the film as a whole, but of the Finn/Rose subplot specifically.

Now, I have some legitimate problems with the subplot; I’m not saying it was 100% flawless and amazing and completely necessary. There are definitely parts of it that should’ve been deleted, extended or changed.

For instance, I thought the whole “animal abuse” angle was a little heavy-handed; and the sequence where they trashed the whole town could’ve been about a minute or two shorter; and some of the dialogue and shots of BB-8 could’ve been cut down; and how the casino felt a little to “Earth” or “real-to-life” and not alien or foreign or fantastical enough to feel like a Star Wars planet; and how the culmination of the subplot -- ie, Rose (presumably) falling in love with Finn -- was a shot where Rose saves Finn from sacrificing himself for the Resistance, and then when their friends are endangered because she stopped him... as the First Order is literally blowing up their hideout... she takes that opportunity to kiss him. And then collapses. Like, I got the point, and I liked her line about “saving what we love,” but it just felt a little disjointed tone-wise.

HOWEVER.

I felt like this subplot had a lot of positives and gave us a look at some topics/themes/perspectives that I felt like we needed at this point in the trilogy/franchise.

An example: so, in the first movie, the First Order are evil. They raid the village on Jakku, killing everyone. They raid Maz’s place on Takodana, killing a lot of people and causing massive destruction. They blow up several planets. Etc.

But, in this movie, we see the wider ranging impact’s of the First Order’s regime on the galaxy’s population at large. Rose tells us about how her home planet was exploited by the First Order for its resources, and then the regime tested the weapons on its people. On Canto Bight, we see how wealthy some have become because they sell supplies to the First Order (and the Resistance), and the grim and abusive reality that exists behind this facade of extravagance and wealth (ie, the animals and kids who work with them are both maltreated).

I think it’s also important to remind the audience, that while we follow the main plot of the Resistance vs. the First Order, Jedi vs. Sith, etc., like 95% of the people in this galaxy are just carrying on with their daily lives. They’re not pilots or Stormtroopers or Force-wielders or whatever. They’re just everyday people.

Well, somewhat.

This was something that made the Clone Wars series so strong, was that we got to see how people outside of the War itself were living. How it impacted their lives. And it’s another thing that I think makes this sideplot somewhat successful.

It also showed us that the desire to rebel against the corrupt and abusive establishment/status quo is alive and well in the hearts of young children; that like our heroes of all three trilogies, they have the desire to change their lives/destinies... that they have hopes of better lives. Of adventure. Of heroism. Of peace. Of happiness. Just as Luke did when he looked at the Twin Suns in “A New Hope.” That sequence showed us that Holdo was right. Even if their allies didn’t come to save them today (in TLJ), the hopes of the Resistance are alive and well in the hearts of the downtrodden, like the little kids on Canto Bight.

NOW.

The biggest criticism I’ve seen of the subplot is that it was pointless. That it didn’t accomplish anything. That Finn and Rose went all that way, got captured, and then lucked their way into an escape. That they didn’t do what they set out to do, which was turn off the tracking device so the Resistance could escape the First Order. That their plan failed.

But, the defense I have for that is:

Since when did anything in Star Wars go according to plan?

Especially in the original trilogy.

Episode 4: Luke and Obi-Wan try to get the droids to Alderaan, but it’s destroyed and they get captured. And then, while they DO rescue Princess Leia and get away from the Death Star, Luke loses Obi-Wan in the process and then they lead the Empire right to the base on Yavin 4. Great job, you guys. I guess the trench run and blowing up the Death Star went according to plan, but that seems to be more of an exception than the rule. And, plus, you know, had to end the movie on a happy note.

Episode 5: The evacuation of Hoth is somewhat successful. But, Han & Co.’s attempts to escape the Imperial Fleet don’t go so well. They get tracked by Boba Fett to Cloud City, Han’s “friend” Lando betrays them, and then when they try to save Han from Boba Fett, they fail. That whole side plot was nothing but failure. The heroes got captured. Han got tortured, frozen in carbonite and taken. Vader was successful in luring Luke into a trap. Luke got his hand cut off, and his friends had to come back and save him. And Vader would’ve caught them if R2 hadn’t reactivated the hyperdrive.

Episode 6: The infamous “It’s a Trap” line exists for a reason. The Empire essentially lures the Rebels into attacking the Death Star / Endor. When Han & Co. try to take down the shield generator, they’re caught. Lando & Co. get drawn into a gigantic space battle they weren’t anticipating. Yes, it all works out in the end, but that’s because this is the ending and the good guys HAVE to win, because that’s how Star Wars works.

A quick look at the prequel trilogy:

Episode 1: The Jedi’s plan to negotiate fails when the Trade Federation tries to kill them; their plan to escape Naboo partially fails because they have to stop off at Tattooine for parts where they get attacked by Darth Maul. The re-taking of Naboo is mostly successful: the Trade Federation is defeated; the droids stopped; and Darth Maul killed. However, Qui-Gon dies in the fight.

Episode 2: Obi-Wan was somewhat successful in finding out about Jango Fett and Count Dooku, but then ultimately got captured. And then when his rescuers, Padme and Anakin, came to save him they got captured too! And then, while our heroes were ultimately rescued, a they did ultimately kick off A WAR THAT ENCOMPASSED THE ENTIRE FUCKING GALAXY!!! Let’s not forget that.

Episode 3: Obi-Wan and Anakin’s plan to rescue the Chancellor was like a 95% success. There were some minor hiccups, and General Grievous got away, but the Chancellor was saved and Count Dooku was defeated. Then Obi-Wan’s plan to defeat General Grievous is a success. But then his and Yoda’s plans to defeat Anakin and the Emperor, respectively, don’t go as they’d hoped. Obi-Wan DOES defeat Anakin, but leaves him alive; and Padme dies giving birth; meanwhile Yoda fails to defeat the Emperor and the Republic is lost amid the First Galactic Empire.

And then in our new trilogy:

Episode 7: Poe’s plan to get the map from Lor San Tekka goes awry when they’re attacked, everyone’s killed, except Poe who’s captured and has to hide the plans with BB-8. Finn’s plan to escape with Poe is also a partial failure, as they get stranded on Jakku and he’s separated from Poe and believes him to be dead. They successfully get BB-8 off planet and away from the First Order, but then get “captured” by Han and Chewie. Han’s plan to convince the gangs to leave doesn’t work, and they barely escape on the Falcon. The plan to get BB-8 on a “clean ship” at Maz’s also goes badly when the First Order attacks and Rey is kidnapped and the others almost captured. The overall plan to blow up Starkiller and rescue Rey is successful, because this is a Star Wars movie and we need a happy-ish ending in our first part of the trilogy to get people invested in the heroes, but we do lose Han.

Then, with our one spinoff movie:

Rogue One: Jyn and Cassian are successful in finding Bodhi and Galen’s message on how to destroy the Death Star, but there are hiccups in HOW they do it. They get caught in a street battle. They get spotted and almost captured by the Stormtroopers. Then they actually get captured by Saw’s people. Their plan to kill/rescue Galen pretty much fails, as Galen is killed by Rebel bombs when Jyn was hoping to save him, but then Cassian fails to shoot him when he has the chance. And, of course, the big finale is ultimately a success, but at a large price and with several hiccups. Rather than getting in and out by stealth (which I assume was the plan for at least Jyn, Cassian and K2SO) the whole Rogue One team is spotted and a large battle ensues on all sides. EVERYONE ON THE TEAM DIES! Major Rebel leaders are captured/killed. While the goal of the mission was accomplished, it didn’t go ACCORDING TO PLAN.

As I said: plans in Star Wars, especially those concocted by the heroes against a larger force, rarely go as planned.

I don’t see why people are shocked that Finn and Rose were unsuccessful in their mission considering:

1) They failed to find the right the Master Codebreaker considering that they made ZERO effort to be inconspicuous or stealthy while on Canto Bight. They parked right on the beach, despite being told not to, which should’ve told them that the police were going to be called to sic them eventually. And, as we see during their ride later there were plenty of out-of-the-way places where their shuttle wouldn’t have been spotted. They also made no effort to blend in with either their attitudes or their clothes and looked like a bunch of weirdos that I’m surprised weren’t thrown out of the casino for breaking dress code. Like, it should’ve been clear to the audience that these two -- while they might’ve “known” what they were doing -- did not have the capabilities to execute their plans successfully. They were set up for failure. They weren’t necessarily the right people for the job. Or should’ve had other, more or equally capable people on their team, like someone who is good at infiltration / smooth-talking people into helping them.

2) Finn’s knowledge of the First Order’s protocol was enough to be legit, but should’ve thrown up some red flags for us, the audience. It’s been at least a few days, possibly a week or two, since the Starkiller Base was destroyed. I mean, we have no idea how long it was from when Rey brought Finn back to the Resistance Base to when Rey left to find Luke. I’m guessing not more than like a day, considering she’d never even fucking met Poe. And considering that the Rey/Luke stuff if about simultaneous to the Resistance evacuation thing, it can’t have been more than two weeks from when Starkiller Base was destroyed, IMO. So, in those two weeks, or probably less, the First Order has to know (from Phasma, if no one else), that Finn helped the Resistance infiltrate the Starkiller Base. They know that a traitor is working for their enemy and their systems are vulnerable. Surely, they would’ve changed some protocols, security procedures, code clearances, or whatever between Finn’s defection and the Resistance’s evacuation. If not on purpose, then at least by chance. How does Finn know the First Order hasn’t upgraded its coding system since he was with them? Especially given that it’s Snoke’s ship, so you know it’d be upgraded first and/or have a higher security setting than your regular ship.

3) It was clear from the offset that DJ (Benicio del Toro’s character) was interested in helping them only because it suited him at the time. He was very much out for himself, had a questionable moral compass (like stealing the ship on Canto Bight), and was ultimately only interested in the money. Why some people were so shocked or felt so let down when he betrayed them is baffling to me. Maybe if you’re like a 5 year-old. Also, if you rewatch the movie, you’ll notice there’s a little look that DJ gives whenever he hears Poe talking about Holdo’s plan to use the transports to escape. Like a little “Huh, that might come in handy later” look.

4) The entire point of the sequence was to show that the reality behind the war is a lot more “gray” than it is “black” and “white.” As DJ shows Finn and us, there are people who don’t have any allegiance and have no problem selling arms to both sides. There are people whose lives have been negatively impacted by the First Order, or the Resistance, or both. That’s a point that Game of Thrones/ASOIAF series does very well of hitting: that the grander wars tear apart the lives of the “small folk,” who ultimately don’t care who wins or loses so long as their lives are peaceful and secure. Remember that Palpitine rose to power as Emperor on the idea that he could bring PEACE AND SECURITY to the Republic as an Empire, because the Republic had failed and the Jedi had failed, and he was the only one who could help the “small folk” attain the lives they wanted. Or whatever. Sorry, for the digression.

5) There were clear hints throughout the infiltration sequence that Finn and Rose were going to get caught. Like DJ’s “betrayal,” I don’t get why people were so shocked by this.

NOW.

All that being said, I do agree that the overall effect on the story was missing. Finn and Rose, at the end of the day, accomplished nothing either as people or as a story element. Yes, narratively, it helped world-build and gave us some good thematic material (grayness in a world built on “black” and “white,” light and dark, etc.). But, they didn’t DO anything, even as they were escaping. I guess Finn killed Phasma, but that’s about it. Holdo tearing through the Supremacy could’ve killed Phasma and it wouldn’t have made much difference. We didn’t see Finn maybe planting seeds of rebellion/resistance in the minds of his fellow Stormtroopers. We didn’t see them steal any like piece of equipment like a Master Key or some kind of important file that might’ve come in handy later in this movie or in the next one. So, in that sense, yes, the sideplot was weak and pointless.

At the end of the movie, all it did was bring Finn and Rose closer together.

But, then again, you could say the same thing about the Han and Leia sideplot in Episode 5. What difference would there have been plot-wise if Han and Leia had been captured right after leaving Hoth than later on Cloud City? Han probably still would’ve been tortured and then taken by Boba Fett. Luke still would’ve been lured into a trap. Leia & Co. probably would’ve still failed to save Han, etc. In a way, you could argue that THAT whole sideplot was filler only to:

buy time for Luke to train with Yoda so he could stand something of a chance against Vader in the Cloud City duel

do some world-building (asteroid field, giant worm thing, Cloud City, bounty hunters, Lando, etc.)

bring Han and Leia closer together as part of a romance subplot

show us their desperate flight to escape the Empire, only to seemingly succeed and then ultimately fail by getting captured.

Hey, wait a minute.... isn’t that exactly what this subplot did, too?

It was filler (as was the Resistance’s arbitrary 18-hours of fuel limitations or whatever) to buy time while Rey was off training with Luke / having Force-bond sessions with Kylo Ren.

It did some world-building (Canto Bight, master code breakers, kids who are Rebels at heart, animals and humans who can’t live in peace because of the war, etc.).

It brought Finn and Rose closer together as part of a possible romance subplot.

It showed us their desperate plight to save their friends only to almost succeed and then ultimately fail by getting captured.

Congratulations, everyone, you just watched Rian Johnson subtly rewrite The Empire Strikes Back and give it to you in the guise of a new storyline.

THIS is probably the REAL reason everyone hates the subplot, even if they don’t consciously realize it. In the same way everyone seemingly hates on TFA for being too much like A New Hope, this movie was tonally and sometimes plotwise too much like The Empire Strikes Back.

And while some of that is appropriate and expected, we the audience have a right to be angry when movie franchises repeat themselves too much to the point of being uncreative.

Anyway, I’ve rambled about this enough. I just wanted to defend the subplot because, while it has problems, I think it has merit to the overall darker and more desperate tone of the movie, the world-building both on a physical and a thematic level (the grayness), and allowed for some nice (but cheesy) character moments.

SO.

TL;DR : Does it have problems? Yes. Is it too similar to The Empire Strikes Back’s subplot when you really thing about it? Yes.

But does that mean it’s total garbage? No. Or even if it is:

(Side note: after writing all of this out, I stumbled onto this article that touches on the same topic, and one of the same things that I brought up, but in a little more detail. Read if you want. I don’t care.)

#the last jedi #finn and rose #rose and finn #finn x rose #rose x finn #tlj #the last jedi spoilers #star wars #star wars spoilers #tlj spoilers #canto bight #star wars episode 8

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redrikki · 4 years

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May the Fourth Masterpost

Prequels/Clone Wars Era

Second Wind - Ahsoka takes the wrong exit of the the world between worlds and ends up with a second chance at saving her master. (Ahsoka Tano, Shmi Skywalker)

Pain Management - Anger can get a slave killed. Shmi teaches her son some coping strategies. (Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Watto)

For Amidala - Her handmaidens had all poured so much of themselves into Amidala, it was like they were part of her now. Padmé didn’t know if she had the strength to let one go. (Padmé Amidala, Sabé, handmaidens)

No Place Like Home - Ahsoka’s return to the temple after her first deployment was strange, made even stranger by the fact that it should’t be strange at all. (Ahsoka Tano, Rex)

Eat, Snip, Love - Ahsoka can’t remember the last time she had a home cooked meal. Anakin and Padmé are determined to change that. (Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala)

Love and Support - After Padmé is shot at a conference, her mother insists she come home. Padmé, of course, is going no where. Episode tag to 3.07 “Assassin.” (Padmé, Ahsoka)

Across a Crowded Room - It’s a party in his honor, but it turns out the Hero With No Fear isn’t good with crowds. Padmé to the rescue. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Lightening Rod - Anakin gets electrocuted…again. It probably says something bad about his life that he’s getting used to it. (Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi)

In Our Bed After the War - After the mission to Zygerria, Padmé and Anakin have a difficult conversation. (Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker)

Domestic Life Was Never Quite My Style - Despite her best efforts, Padmé is pregnant. Now she has a difficult decision to make. (Padmé Amidala, C-3P0)

Birthright - The Force called him to his family and Anakin is not prepared to give them up. Not even to the Jedi Council. (Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, baby Skywalkers)

If Not For These Bad Dreams - Fives has dreamed about killing every Jedi he’s ever met except General Skywalker. Turns out he’s not the only one. (Fives, Kix, Tup, Jesse)

Bursts of Stardust - Collection of short tumblr prompts. (Everyone ever)

Rebels Era

With the Rest of the Miscreants - Boy meets galaxy and learns to live in it. A lost baby Jedi adapts in four ‘easy’ steps. (Caleb Dume, Janus Kasmir)

Cloak, No Dagger - In light of the intel from Gorse, Hera and Ahsoka rethink mission protocols while putting on a show for the ISB agent watching them. (Hera Syndulla, Ahsoka Tano)

Tag - Sabine and Ketsu, bounty hunters extraordinaire, argue about how to sign their work. (Sabine Wren, Ketsu Onyo)

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Depa stumbled free of the maze, back into the atrium for the Lothal Temple. There was just one problem. The man kneeling between the desiccated bodies of the ancient Jedi was not her master. (Depa Billaba, Kanan Jarrus)

Swordsmith - Ezra makes his lightsaber. It’s not his life, except in all the ways it is. (Ezra Bridger, Ghost Crew)

Graffiti on the Walls of the Heartland - Three works of art Sabine made for crew members and one she made for herself. (Sabine Wren, Chopper, Hera Syndulla,Kanan Jarrus)

Chicken Soup for the Jedi Soul - Four meals Kanan cooked for his crew and one he made for himself. (Kanan Jarrus, Ghost Crew)

Ain’t No Fun (Life on the Run) - Ain’t no fun living life on the run but, with his Hera and their crew by his side, Kanan finds it isn’t always so bad. (Kanan Jarrus, Ghost Crew)

Wild Blue Yonder - After the events of “The Brotherhood of the Broken Horn,” Hera decides it’s high time Ezra learn how to fly. (Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger, Zeb Orrelios)

A Distraction - Kanan’s been blinded. There’s nothing Hera can do to fix it so Chopper gives her something she can. Written as part of the Jedi Fest Rogue Robin challenge as a continuation of A Distraction. (Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus, Chopper)

Then My Hair’s Too Short - Apparently, Ezra had a new hair cut. That’s fine, it’s his head after all. Kanan just wished he had mentioned it. (Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger)

The Blind Beggar - When Ezra objects to Kanan taking point on a mission, Kanan decides its time they had a talk. (Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Ghost Crew)

Cut to the Heart - Sabine found the stupid thing in a cave, but now the Darksaber is taking over her life. Kanan gives her a little perspective. Tag to 3.13 “Trails of the Darksaber.” (Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus)

Rebel Moments - Collection of short tumblr prompts (Ghost Crew)

Rogue One

The Lord’s Estate - Every lord must have an estate. Lord Vader’s is Mustafar. (Vader, Palpatine)

Peace is a Lie - Sometimes Vader wakes up and can’t remember what war he’s fighting. (Darth Vader)

A Cog In Something Turning - Cassian hadn’t meant to give K-2SO free will. Good thing for both of them he’s a terrible slicer. (K-2SO, Cassian Andor)

Original Trilogy

Sea of Sorrow and Sand - Ben Kenobi is an island in a sea of sorrow and sand. Beru Lars has come to drag him back to shore. (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Beru Lars)

What Remains - What remains of a relationship built on lies? Nothing, as Darth Sidious will soon find out. (Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Padmé Amidala’s preserved corpse)

On This Strange and Mournful Day - The events of Vader Down go very differently. The father and child reunion is only a motion away. (Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Dr. Aphra)

After the Funeral - Han offers Luke some unexpected support after the funeral of the guy who tortured him. (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo)

The Last Truce We Ever Came To - Darth Vader is dead but he won’t leave Leia alone. (Leia Organa, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker)

Lego Star Wars - The Freemaker Adventures

Disembodied - Roger loses his head and, frankly, it’s getting old. (R0-GR, Rowan Freemaker, Kordi Freemaker, Zander Freemaker)

Sequel Era

A Matter of Precedence - FN-2187 wasn’t the first, except for the time he was. Others have defied the First Order before, but none quite as spectacularly. (Finn, First Order)

So You Want to be a (Space) Wizard - Finn finds a mysterious book, takes an Oath, and starts one hell of an Ordeal. Crossover with Young Wizards. (Finn, Poe Dameron, Rey)

Old Haunts (All We’ve Ever Known) - Anakin and Obi-Wan as snarky Force ghosts during The Force Awakens. (Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, TFA cast)

Lady in Waiting - Rey’s spent so much of her life waiting it’s hard to know when to stop. Luckily, Poe’s there to give her the push she needs. (Rey, Poe Dameron, Leia Organa, Finn)

Not a Drop to Drink - On Luke’s island, Rey couldn’t quite get her mind around the sheer amount of water stretching out towards the horizon. (Rey, Luke Skywalker)

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redrikki · 5 years

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Star Wars Fic Masterpost