#or Ahsoka's trying to fix things with Vader before fighting

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

A long list of Clone Wars headcanons just cause

Sometimes Ahsoka will get the zoomies and how she handles that energy is roughhousing with Anakin who's more than willing to participate 

It becomes a show for the 501 because seeing the small togruta tackle the lanky ass nightmare that is Anakin Skywalker to the floor is hilarious 

They are both guilty of not knowing their strength so some people (cough cough Obi-Wan cough cough) caution them against it they don’t really listen tho which has resulted in some pretty hilarious injuries 

One of those injuries happened when they were playing around and Ahsoka shouldered Anakin so abruptly that he fell back on him tailbone and got the wind knocked out of him she sat by his side laughing her ass off

It took her an unreasonable amount of time to realize he was in pain and when she did she started apologizing like crazy she still gets embarrassed when people bring it up and still apologizes years later

There was another time when Ahsoka turned her back to Anakin when they were roughhousing and he pushed her so hard that she almost fell off of the landing platform they were standing on

He snatched her up by the stomach while muttering “I’m so sorry” and then he started frantically checking to make sure he didn’t seriously hurt her while Ahsoka laughed so hard she swears to this day that she pulled something 

Unfortunately when the laughter stopped she did realize she managed to sprain her wrist and when Anakin found he helped her wrap it

You’d think that they’d learn from these incidents but nope they still play fight like two big dogs 

Even tho Anakin and Ahsoka’s place is pretty clean it’s never really quiet there’s always gotta be some kinda noise 

Sometimes it’s Ahsoka’s music playing loudly in her room, sometimes it’s a holomovie in the living room, and sometimes it’s just them bickering in the kitchen

It doesn’t matter what it is it’s never truly quiet even at night there’s a small amount of noise from Anakin’s snoring (which he denies) and Ahsoka’s purring thing (which she also denies) 

As crazy as it sounds the people closest to them will admit that their noise is strangely comforting  

Anakin and Ahsoka are so freaking similar that it turns heads sometimes they’ll say something the other said but they’ve never heard like “This is where the fun begins” 

It’s stopped Obi-Wan in his tracks before it kinda freaks him out and worries him a little bit but it also puts a small smile on his face when the duo says the same thing at the same time

They’re also able to predict how the other will react once Ahsoka was teaching the clones tricks with her saber and they broke it they felt terrible but they were also terrified about Anakin’s reaction 

Ahsoka was the only calm one in the room and explained to the group that Anakin would pretend to be pissed for about an hour but then he’d “calm down” and ask for the parted to fix it and by that time rolled around she’d already have his favorite holo prepped and food from Dex’s

They listened to her with a healthy amount of skepticism and were happily surprised to find out the next day that she was right  

There was another time when Anakin and Obi-Wan decided to buy Ahsoka her favorite boba to soften the blow that she wasn’t gonna go on a mission Anakin told Obi-Wan that she’d be happy for a minute before asking what happened and he was right 

When Ahsoka got closer to Anakin the clones and everyone else she showed her secret passion for acting like she doesn’t know them in public when they piss her off

It worked a couple of times and one of those times Rex almost got arrested because the officer didn’t believe that they were the commander and captain of the 501st Rex didn’t blame the dude because he couldn’t prove it without Ahsoka’s help and she refused to back him up

Ahsoka finally dropped the act when the cuffs came out but she was still kinda reluctant

She did agree to take a break from that prank and she stopped doing it entirely when Obi-Wan had to bail Anakin out of jail (she bought a lot of boba for a very long time to make up for that one)

They will reference the prank occasionally by asking each other at random points in the day “Do I know you?” 

Like sometimes they’ll be out and Anakin will ask “Have we met before?” most of the time Ahsoka will answer “No actually we haven’t” (this girl is wearing his cloak he’s wearing one of her headwraps and his arm is resting on her head) 

Sometimes Padme will make a big deal of taking Anakin and Ahsoka out to do something just the three of them

Whenever Padme and Anakin show the smallest form of affection towards each other Ahsoka makes a big deal about gagging Anakin makes a bigger deal of “evening it out” 

Like if he kisses Padme and Ahsoka gags he’ll grab her and give her a big smooch on the forehead and then like the little shit that he is he’ll whip his lips calling her greasy

She gets him back by whipping the spit off her forehead with his robes (and also backhanding him which Padme kindly ignores)

Padme will sometimes tease her too like if she grabs Anakin’s hand then she’ll link arms with Ahsoka and make a small comment like “There now you’re even”

Sometimes Ahsoka will get them both back in the moments when they check on each other first she’ll make a big deal about saying “Well kriff me I guess” even if she doesn’t have a scratch on her 

Both Anakin and Padme will make a big deal about checking her for injuries with a couple of comments like “Oh my poor little padawan you have a scratch from training last night how did you cope”

I said in my first post that Ahsoka and Anakin have a playlist and I love the idea that they have different titles for them like “Obi-Wan’s least favorite playlist” “get ready to kick seppie’s ass” “the council pissed me off again” and stuff like that 

It’s all in good fun but they’ll never let anyone else see those titles because they know it’ll get a good scolding from Obi-Wan

The moment Obi-Wan knew Anakin had formed an “unnecessary attachment” wasn’t some big life-or-death moment on the battlefield 

In hindsight it was a pretty funny moment that was caused by Anakin’s stupidity cause he had broken a glass earlier that day and he thought he got all the pieces so he didn’t feel it was necessary to tell Ahsoka

Next thing he knows the poor togruta is gasping in pain and when he goes to check on her she’s sitting on the kitchen floor while the mother of all glass shards is sticking out of her foot 

Now you might be asking “How did Anakin miss a glass shard the size of his hand?” he honestly couldn’t give you an answer but he could tell you was in that moment he realized that he forgot to restock the med kit even though Ahsoka had reminded him about it earlier that day

All Obi-Wan got to see of this was a blur of Anakin holding his profusely bleeding padawan while yelling at the top of his lungs “Move she’s bleeding out!”

No one can really blame the man for dropping everything he was doing to chase after his former padawan and they also can’t blame him for assuming the worst like her being stabbed or shot

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he walked into the halls of healing but it wasn’t an embarrassed Anakin standing over a cackling Ahsoka as the healers scolded him for causing a scene

He makes a silent note to give Anakin a small lecture about keeping his emotions under control before checking on his giggly grand padawan

[commanderfoxdeservesbetter]

So Far Away: Part 1

Okay I keep reading the fics where Fox is named Dar’Vod after the Fives incident

And it keeps running in my head but imagine:

Rex, in the heat of his anger, calls Fox dar’vod and that’s the last he’s ever spoken to Fox when he’s alive

Their friendship is ruined and Rex, despite regretting the words, doesn’t try to fix the relationship and Fox throws himself into his work to avoid Cody’s prying of what happened

Well, the empire rises and Fox dies by Vader’s hand and Rex survives - guilt-filled - because Fives was right and he doesn’t know if that meant Fox was under the chip when he killed Fives or not and he never got to make amends and figure out the truth (and Rex knows it’s his fault and it’s just another burden added on that he’ll have to carry)

What I’m saying is: Fox stuck in a limbo, unable to march on because being named Dar’Vod means he is unwelcomed

And all the Vod’e - those who have died or are dying - pass him as they go to the Vod’e

Most All have tried to free him, tried to redact the title

Cody, most of all when he died, stated that the title was never meant to be given and Fox should be able to March on and yet when a barrier separates him from his vod’ika, he screams

Even Fives tried coming back to remove the title - talking with Fox for hours about he never blamed Fox for his death but still Fox cannot march on

It’s only when Boba (who died an unfortunate death by Vader earlier than he was meant to and knew a bit more of traditional Mando culture than his clone brothers) tells them only the person who gave Fox the title can remove it

And so the Vod’e wait

They wait and watch as more Vod join them

Echo (which was a cheerful reunion for the Domino squad)

Hunter (who got shot protecting Omega)

Omega (who took it upon herself to off herself to prevent the Empire using her - first thing she did was punch Boba for leaving her behind before learning of his unfortunate death which still makes her mad but not as much)

Howzer

Thire (the last of the Corries to have died but he gave a hell of a fight)

Bacara and Neyo

More and more and it dwindles to only four clones left

Gregor comes first, cackling and the 212th rejoice his return

Wolffe follows and he gets his Wolffepack back

Rex is stubborn though

He clings to life like it’s all he has, searching for the last clone because he refuses to leave a brother behind

Ahsoka helps him where she can, pointing him in directions that she can vaguely feel Kix but she has her own battles

And Rex searches

And he remembers

And regrets

And says his remembrances

He always includes Fox in his remembrance because while he was young in the war, time has brought a new perspective to their life and he knows that Fox was young too

Young and under the thumb of Palpatine

And so he searches and remembers and regrets

[nyxgoddessofstars]

Cuddles

Pairing: Ahsoka Tano X Captain rex Era: Rebels, Rebellion Rating: teen and up Summary: rex and ahsoka are expected their first child and rex is worried about being a bad father so he been taking long mission and this happens after ahsoka fights vader and lives and rex almost dies on his lastest mission and he was put on a Leave so him and ahsoka talked.

Prompts: “Our baby needs you too." And “Hello little one, I am your mommy/daddy.”

Rex sat on the edge of the bed and hid his face in his hands. He was still upset about being put on leave he was supposed to be helping defeat the empire not be put on a month long leave. Just then he felt a soft hand touch his bandages and he pulled his face out of his hands and ahsoka spoke smiling at him.

"welcome back rex how are you feeling"

Rex smiled at how much ahsoka had changed scenic she told him she was pregnant he spoke trying to stand up because he didn't want to bother ahsoka with his guilt and stress.

"Im fine soka I need to go give my report to general syndula"

Ahsoka looked worried as rex tried to limp to the door of their quarters she spoke. As rex held him self against the wall.

"rex tell me what wrong right now hera told me you already gave her your report"

Rex yelled he didn't realize ahsoka was still in the room with him.

"I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO LIVE THIS LONG AND I'M GONNA MAKE HORRIBLE FATHER AND I TAKE THESE MISSION HOPING I'LL DIE BECAUSE I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FORGIVE MY SELF IF I LOSE YOU AND THE BABY"

Ahsoka looked shocked and spoke her voice still soft touching her pregnant belly.

"rex look at me"

Rex did still having tears running down his checks ahsoka spoke wiping away his tears.

"me and the baby will be fine and also rex"

Rex hummed looking at his wife she spoke as rex brushed one of her stands of long white hair out of her face.

"I need you, Our baby needs you so please don't say that"

Rex spoke before kissing ahsoka forehead softly and ahsoka spoke back.

"alright soka I won't anymore"

"good now come on let's get you back in bed."

Ahsoka got settled beside Rex who was covered in bandages and she spoke nuzzling close to him making sure she didn't hurt him.

"how do you feel rex"

"fine quick question can the little one hear me or not yet"

Ahsoka smiled and nodded her head she moved up the bed so rex could be level with her stomach and he pressed his lips to the soft skin of it and spoke.

"hi there little one I know I haven't been able to talk to you when you were able to hear me but I'm your daddy"

Ahsoka smiled brushing his head and spoke talking to the baby.

"yeah and he's the best daddy you can get"

Just then rex felt a soft kick under his lips and he kissed the spot again but before he or ahsoka could say anything his com went off and he spoke trying to sit up but ahsoka kept him we're he was.

"Kriff I forgot I had this spy coming me today I need to find a better place then this"

"No rex the medical droid said bed rest for the next couple of days you can do it here just need to do voice only"

Rex grabbed his com and kissed ahsoka bump again before laying his head on it and spoke.

"Commander why can't I see you"

"my com is acting weird so we can voice only lieutenant"

Rex felt ahsoka body move to get a little more comfortable as the lieutenant kept speaking. After a while rex felt a shock of pain go though his body and rex groaned in pain and the lieutenant spoke.

"are you alright commander"

"yes I am lieutenant any thing else to report"

"no sir"

Rex turned off his com and griped the blanket beside ahsoka and tried not to hurt ahsoka who spoke rubbing the spot that was hurting him.

"here rex let's get you patched back up"

"I'm not making my pregnant wife heal my wounds"

"I'm going fix them commander that an order"

God damn it I finally got something done I hope you like it because this took me forever and I need to get some sleep because I'm a sleep deprived teen and I hope you enjoy it and here for reading all of this and fuck off I know ahsoka doesn't have hair but in this story she does

[gojifan97]

Ask game: AU where Vader found Luke when he was nine and potentially stealing parts from his ship. Please.

Vader didn't even mean to be on Tatooine. His ship broke down and had to make a pitstop there, despite Vader trying to go literally anywhere else.

While Vader was on the surface, he heard noises and found a mini-him stealing parts to fix his T-16. Instantly recognizing his son, Vader kidnaps takes him to the rescue Star Destroyer to show off his cool stuff and have some father-son bonding (and turn his son to the dark side)

The turning his son to the dark side thing doesn't work because Luke is so over the moon with all the cool stuff and ships there. Since Vader came when Luke is 9, his puppy dog eyes are at full strength, so Vader is helpless against requests like "Please let me fly that multimillion credit war machine. Pretty please?"

At least one officer complains and apparently gets something stuck in his throat since he mysteriously chokes out right then and there. Vader then takes Luke flying in his TIE Advanced.

This conversation happens.

Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

Luke: My uncle's name is pronounced Owen. And he told me my dad was a navigator for a spice freighter.

Vader: He WHAT?!

Vader may be mortally offended at his stepbrother downplaying his great piloting skills (enough that he'd kill him and burn his corpse if he wasn't busy with his son) but he's soon distracted by more piloting with his son!

Obi-Wan realizes Luke is missing and puts two and two together and sneaks aboard the Star Destroyer. Luke is happy to see the crazy hermit Ben and introduces him to his dad. His dad promptly ignites the lightsaber.

The two fight, but it's a draw since their fighting in a slanted hallway (Obi-Wan: It's over Darth, I have the high ground! Vader: And I have the hallway!) Then Luke intervenes and tells his dad to stop bullying the crazy old hermit. Luke likes seeing him!

At this point Palpatine calls and learns Vader's son is aboard. He tells Vader to turn his son to the dark side and become an agent of evil. Luke overhears and loudly refuses. Palpatine says to turn him or destroy him.

Vader doesn't like that, so at Obi-Wan's suggestion (and Luke's encouragement) he defects to the light side to save his son. The two fight their way out of the Star Destroyer. Obi-Wan is so done so he falls back into snarking with Anakin, while Vader snarks back.

Vader regains custody of Luke but keeps him in touch with his aunt and uncle, who spend about five minutes with Vader before realizing he is exhaustively melodramatic. This kindles friendship between Owen and Obi Wan, who's happy to share his pain.

Upon joining the Rebellion, Vader keeps the name (sounds cool) gets the white Vader costume from Infinities (Obi-Wan's idea). This conversation happens.

Vader: That looks utterly ridiculous!

Obi-Wan: What's that? I couldn't quite hear you over the screams of the countless innocents you slaughtered while working for a murderous dictator?

Vader: *seething* I said I'd wear it.

Vader also drags that Starkiller kid to the light with him and soon forces him to hang out with his son. Starkiller pretends not to like it for about five minutes. Also Luke loves Proxy once Vader erases his programming to kill Starkiller.

Vader's least favorite thing about the Rebellion is not being able to choke out incompetent officers any more. At one point he declares, "You have failed me for the last time." while raising his hand, only for Obi-Wan to push it down and say, "Because you've been relieved and transferred."

Obi-Wan secretly sympathizes with this desire.

Ahsoka and Rex are glad to serve with him again. Even if its a bit weird for their friend to now be a stoic-yet-still-melodramatic cyborg. The rebels are awkward at first, but after his tenth massacre against the stormtroopers, they are quite happy to have Vader on their side.

Obi-Wan arranges to have Anakin watch Leia since Luke is too nice and Leia takes more after Anakin's personality. He revels in Vader's glorious karma. Obi-Wan: Oh my, your ward not only disobeys you but is constantly backsassing you? I can't imagine what that must be like!

In other news, the Empire has touted its major improvements to the Star Destroyers' life support systems, citing the drastic reduction in officers dying of asphyxiation as proof of it!

[phoenixyfriend]

Ezra and Fulcrum’s Wacky Adventure

Ezra's attempt to save Ahsoka on Malachor by fucking around with space-time goes wonky, and the two of them end up in the first year of TCW... with Vader in pursuit.

"You're Ahsoka... from the future?"

"Sure am, Skyguy."

"And that's your padawan."

"A friend's padawan. His master died recently, and I'm keeping an eye on him until we figure something out."

"Right, right... and, uh, mister tall, Dark, and horrifying?"

"Oh, that's future you."

"..."

"Yeah, Palpatine's a Sith Lord and he's been grooming you for a decade. Shit’s fucked. Anyway, get ready to jump, Vader’s gaining on us."

I just have this mental image of hyper-competent "I am no Jedi" Fulcrum leading 20yo Anakin and angstiest ever Ezra on a merry ride called "avoid Vader before he kills us all."

Intermittently she tries to talk Vader down with "Padme's still alive!" and that sort of not-quite-reassurance, and Anakin is getting very concerned about... many things.

Smol Ahsoka is very "future me scares me." Like yeah Fulcrum is a badass but Fulcrum is also incredibly blase about like. Really horrifying things.

Fulcrum's had a long time to come to terms with "Vader is probably Anakin" and a week or two to come to terms with "Vader is DEFINITELY Anakin and also trying to kill me and this child (teenager) I'm currently in charge of." She's coping by making very morbid jokes and being scarily calm about things, and just overall Very Unperturbed about, like, an explosion going off two feet away from her.

She keeps dropping bombs like "Yeah, all the clones have mind-control chips in their heads with orders to kill us or themselves and I remember like a solid half of you trying to kill me in particular, it was a very formative experience for how I dealt with the rise of the Empire" with the most unassuming, bland smiles.

Everyone's horrified except Fulcrum herself and Ezra, who grew up in the Empire and has never known anything else, but ALSO he's consistently freaking out and having negative reactions to shinies and even some of the older clones because even painted phase one armor is setting off 'These are stormtroopers' PTSD.

So there's:

- that general "Vader fucks around and everyone, including Sidious and Tyranus, is trying to figure out the identity of this absolute motherfucker wrecking everyone's shit with no restraint or apparent care in target allegiance"

- "a friend from The Future shows up to tell you about the horrible, horrible fate everyone is going to suffer, now you have to fix it"

- "Future Me tried to kill The Little Sister?????"

Do you think your teenager is traumatized now, Anakin? Think again! In eighteen years, it's going to be so much worse, and it's going to be in large part your fault!

Fulcrum, smiling: Humor makes the trauma bearable.

Anakin: [concerned noises]

@atagotiak: I have this mental image of Anakin and Fulcrum making the very inadvisable decision to spar

Fulcrum thinks she’s able to handle it. She’s not.

She has the skills! But. Uh. Panic attacks are fun, especially when they take the form of "my brain flipped a switch and I could no longer process that this was a spar and not a fight to the death."

Ezra suggests that maybe she'd be better off sparring with General Kenobi instead of Skywalker. Ezra can spar with Mini-Soka and Anakin, he's fine with that. He knows Vader is Anakin but it's just a Fact, like "there are this many stars in the Chommel sector." It's certainly true but he has no emotional connection to this information.

Tia: It’s not great for Fulcrum mentally and also tbh it seems like there might be a risk of her injuring Anakin. Probably not too seriously just because the sabers aren’t gonna be full power but still, seems like something to avoid

Does she flinch around non-Rex 501st clones? Probably!

Fulcrum: Here's a list of clones we're likely to encounter that I'm not going to panic around.

Anakin: ...there’s only three names on this list.

Fulcrum: Yeah.

Tia: Trying to figure out what her opinion of Bail Organa must be. Which is complicated by how I haven’t seen Rebels.

I mean yeah there’s some degree of trust and respect and stuff there. But in the novel at least I didn’t really get any friendship vibe from them. To be fair I’m pretty sure they barely knew each other at the point.

“He’s trustworthy but a much sneakier motherfucker than anyone gives him credit for.”

"We aren't friends but I would lay down my life for him without hesitation"

"He's very soft compared to Jedi or clones but he's almost stupidly brave and apparently tried to help when he saw the Temple go up in flames, it's wild."

"But you're not friends?"

"Nah, future Bail was kind of my boss and I saw him once every two years if that. He has my ultimate respect, though. Ten outta ten, would become a black ops agent for again."

Tia: “Also his office is very fun to break into”

The looks that last one gets her.

Obi-Wan was nodding along because Yeah, he Gets It, Bail is incredibly impressive for a politician, he's a good man with a good heart and nerves of steel! Obi-Wan also finds him worthy of total loyalty! This is all--his office is What.

Fulcrum: Hey, you wanna know something terrible?

Anakin: No.

Fulcrum: Too bad, telling you anyway.

Fulcrum gets a lot of mileage out of being the future version of one of Anakin's current Five Most Important People (Obi-Wan, Padme, Ahsoka, Palpatine, Rex) since the twins haven't been born yet and Shmi's already dead.

Also, Tia pointed out that Caleb is like eleven at this point, and that’s very awkward for Ezra.

[padawansuggest]

AU where Obi-Wan and Luke get to Vader long before he was expecting to destroy Alderaan, which is basically an incredible thing that I think would have made it hard for them to bring him back from, and instead of Obi-Wan antagonizing him and getting ghosted, they capture Vader and take him with them, because Obi-Wan has had a theory goin for the last 20 years on an idea to try. So, with the force, you can create illusions of things. I like the idea of Obi-Wan forcing Vader to not only confront Luke and Leia (he draggin that tin can back to Bail and is gonna make him pay for their Uber), by telling him that’s his kids, but also forcing him to confront the fact that Obi-Wan will never love anyone as much as he loves the child he raised. I truly believe that Obi-Wan spent his whole life past his knighting caring about no one more than Anakin, and being a sith never stopped that. So, I kinda want Obi-Wan to show him a force vision of Obi and Ani when Obi-Wan first took him in as a kiddo, just a memory of them together. A playful one where ADHD Ani wanted to get up and play, but grief-recovering Obi is tired and depressed but still loves this kid, and just yanks him onto the couch with him for a nap and some decent cuddles together while Ani complains and talks about everything in the universe he can think of till he literally talks himself to sleep and Obi just gently lays his head on that little chest to listen to Ani’s heartbeat before giving him forehead kisses and passing out too.

Mainly. I just want Vader to confront something from his childhood, something completely sugar sweet that makes everyone else go ‘wtf Vader had a loving caregiver who would cuddle him???’ And absolutely breaks Vader to the point where Ani shines through and he just says that he’s so tired of everything why can’t they go back to that??

Anyways. I just had the sudden idea of Ani using force visions of him and Obi when they were much younger as a focus point for sanity to the point where he becomes an actual asset for the rebellion and even Bail and Mon Mothma are excited to have him back and they get him out of that horrible suit and fix him up as well as they can to convince the galaxy that General Skywalker is back after such a long captivity, and that drags Rex and Ahsoka (and probably Cody too) off to find them with great caution and then excitement when they can feel Ani’s broken force signiture again and know it’s him but he’s super fragile but It’s Him.

Anyways. What I really want after that. Is Ani to say he convinced Vader to save one of the creche kids and they’re still out there, but he keeps having to send hunters out for him cause the emperor keeps using him for testing and he’s got a guy he thinks can finally nab the kid for good and it’s Grogu and Din is the one they send for him and it take them like a year to get back to them cause Din ends up Being Hunted and he refuses to give the kid up (like a lot of other bounty hunters have done when they eventually decide the kid isn’t worth it) and then Din gets there and a buuuuunch of Mandos follow behind all annoyed that their covert got found in the process and now that the rebellions problem and it’s a full ass reunion at this point.

They pick up Yoda from the swamp and get both Luke and Leia some intense Jedi training (THEY BOTH DESERVE TO BE BADASS JEDI FIGHT ME) and Grogu becomes the communal baby and Obi goes back to annoying the fuck outta Ani by calling him his twin brother, which makes BOTH of them squeak all angrily at him, and Ahsoka and Rex are sus af about Ani being back but accept that he’s using force visions from his still thriving connection to Obi to stay sane and tbh he’s mainly just planning to survive to the end of the war (tbh Obi and Ani and Yoda are only gonna survive to the end of the war, that’s really all they got in them at this point and Ani is getting more fragile from holding back the crazy at this point) and Bail survives and Obi flirts with him constantly (which Bail reciprocates much to the twins eye rolling annoyance cause ewwwwww old men flirting) and Ani is all ‘lol have you two ever acted on that constant flirting?’ And they just both go super red and look away cause ya but it was a very long time ago shut up Skywalker and it’s cute.

If Cody shows up (yes) then he immediately assigns himself as the Bail and Obi bodyguard cause these old men stupid and Bail complains but he did some crazy shit in the clone wars too okay he’s just as dumbass as the Jedi.

Also Boba and Fennec eventually show up saying they had a shitty runin with Jabba and Fortuna which lead to both of them getting dead a lil bit and having a change of heart on this whole ‘bad guy’ thing which lead to them murdering the fuck outta both of them and now they control Tatooine and whatcha gonna do about it and also can we join your ‘kill the emperor’ club we bored af so they come along for the fun too.

Who else am I missing? Caleb and Ezra? They they came with Ahsoka and Rex. Cal? Ya they found him sittin on a rock bein all Jedi and shit and were like ‘damn, that’s a baby. Anyone gonna adopt that?’ And like ten Mandos fought for the honor of being his new parent. Kam? They find him when they have their showdown with Palpy and Luke is all ‘I’m gonna train him’ and everyone lived happily every after. Except Obi and Ani and Yoda who become young force ghosts and annoy everyone forever now. Thanks.

[vagrantblvrd]

The one where the Empire is more of a presence post-Endor than in canon.

Events take place (more or less) the same as in the show, only Din ends up hiding out from the Empire?

Boba still kills Bib Fortuna and takes over Jabba’s old throne and the whatnot and Din is like, ah, yes, this seems like a good place to hide out for a while?

(Because Boba and Fennec have his back and anyway, why would the Empire have any interest in a place like Tatooine???)

And then this ~smuggler strolls on in and while the whole place goes dead silent.

And Luke - who is, of course, posing a smuggler because association with this Solo jackass and all and the Empire’s looking for some hotshot X-wing pilot,and anyway, simplest and most effective cover identity really - is just like, “Been a while, Fett,” like a gunslinger walking into town for a showdown.

Din’s convinces someone’s going to die (and not of fun), but Boba just starts laughing and Luke cracks a smile and then things get back to normal?

Except for the bit where Boba gestures for Din and his kid to follow to his office or whatever, and then shenanigans?

Things in which Boba realizes Din and his tiny green gremlin kid won’t be safe with the Empire hunting them, but Skywalker is supposed to be a Jedi and he’s just...he’s good in a way most people aren’t, right?

Even if he and Bob have their issues thanks to Solo and the whatnot he’s sure Skywalker will help Din and his kid out - kid’s Force-sensitive so that’s got to get him interested, and anyway.

Shenanigans involving exciting space shoot-em-ups and pew-pew blaster/laser sword fights and Din being like “How is this better for me and the kid???” what with the Empire also after Luke and friends for the whole killing the Emperor and Vader and whatnot.

But also they go to this hideaway place somewhere after a close call, Luke’s prosthetic hand ruined and in need of repair and while Din helps where he can, but the thing is trashed and it’s more liability than anything else.

(But also that moment with Luke trying to get it to a manageable state in the middle of the night or whatever and Din wanders in and quietly offers to help, what with Luke getting hurt saving Grogu and such. Quiet conversation and oh no, he’s hot moments and the whatnot.)

Cut off from Luke’s usual friends and contacts and he still hesitated before telling Din he knows a place they can go, someone who can help fix his hand and anyway, nowhere else to run at the moment, so.

Off they go to some near-forgotten little place and this hideaway and Din, this is Luke’s dad, you may have heard of him by another name but we’ll not be talking about that just yet, and anyway, anyway.

Din who gets the feeling he’s missing something, what with the significant looks Luke and Anakin share, and then Ahsoka turns up and is old pals with Rex and Cody and this Kenobi guy she brings with her and just, idk, random AU where the Empire is still present and it’s just.

~Spy shenanigans and Obi-Wan and Anakin not dying and just. Jumbled mess of things because it’s late and I’m tired and yes. /o\

Also, also, Din Pining over Luke and Anakin side-eyeing him because his dumb kid (takes after Anakin like that too) is likewise Pining and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka off to the side sipping tea and enjoying the show because it’s so entertaining???

(Skywalkers, okay, amazing idiots.)

Some Plot somewhere/somewhen when this pair of Mandalorian bounty hunters stroll into an Imperial base with, idk, the intent to turn either Han or Leia in because the Imperials got their hands on Grogu andt his is their best plan, and anyway.

Luke wearing Mandalorian armor to rescue Grogu and Din being super distracted once they’re out of there and headed somewhere safe. Whoever is with them is like >:DDDDDDDDD because Din keeps staring at Luke and it’s both hilarious and adorable, and anyway.

Yes???

[andorlorian]

a little bit insane ahsoka and luke au

the lovely @picazos-angsty-typist inspired me to just post my au ideas as opposed to giving them away, and this one is my absolute favorite! it's an au in which 19 year old ahsoka finds the time travel crystal from the lego star wars christmas special and is transported onto tatooine right before a new hope. then she gets to go along through the original trilogy and be best friends with luke! (this is honestly just an extremely convoluted way to get my favorite characters to be best friends. this au is for me <3.) extremely long elaborations and plot stuff in bullet points under the cut:

okay so 19 year old ahsoka! it would be about 2 years post order 66 and about 6-8 months since the ending of the ahsoka novel, so she's traveling the world and doing fulcrum things, attempting to build a rebellion with bail organa. this, naturally, means she needs to hide from the empire.

because it needs to be life day for the crystal to work, that's the day this all starts (in ahsoka's original timeline). ahsoka finds out randomly that it's life day, and has a moment remembering the day before order 66, before the empire. 

she gets into a skirmish with the empire close by kordoku, the planet with the time travel stone on it. she feels a pull from the force, like there's a safe haven on the planet below, so she lands and immediately knows why: she's in front of a jedi temple. she knows she'll be safe inside from the empire. she walks in, and seals the temple with the force

she picks up the weird rock thing in the middle of the room, as it's singing to her through the force. the second she touches it, a wormhole opens up, and she's dropped directly in the middle of a tatooinian sandstorm.

we the audience know that she's time traveled, but ahsoka has no clue. and as I'm assuming she doesn't have much experience wandering ancient abandoned jedi temples (in her time, very recently, they'd been populated and upkept), she wouldn't suspect she was hallucinating. she assumed the rock somehow teleported her, but the sand and the wind of the sandstorm make it impossible for her to find the rock. where before it had been singing to her through the force, she couldn't feel anything now.

she has no choice but to try and find shelter from the storm and wait it out. she finds a sort of cave, a small hideout, so she sets up her small camp. having nothing else to do, she opens herself up to the force to meditate, hoping to locate the rock and find more information about her new situation. however, she instead discovers something she wasn't expecting: the faint and utterly familiar force prescence of one obi-wan kenobi

it feels damaged and weak, almost as if he'd cut himself off from the force somewhat, but there was no denying that it was obi-wan. ahsoka thanked the force for sending her to the rock, as she assumes it had just sent her to obi-wan and nothing else.

during this force meditation, she also discovers the planet that she's on is tatooine. this heavily reminds her of anakin, hearing echoes of their conversation as they crossed the desert from what seems like a million years ago. 

once the storm settles, she makes her way through the tatooinian desert, and just as the suns are coming up and she knows she would need to find shelter, she happens upon the Lars farm.

she meets Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke. they are kind and good people, and do not hesitate to offer ahsoka a place to stay + some food and water. ahsoka rests up somewhat, but insists on helping them in return.

this part I haven't quite nailed out yet. tatooine side quest featuring ahsoka and luke doing whatever one does on a moisture farm. I assume ahsoka would offer technological help as she's a good mechanic (perks of master skywalker) so maybe they're going around and fixing vaporators?

that day and into the night, she and luke really hit it off. she learns more about tatooine and more about how they've been affect by the war. however from the way luke talks about it, the empire has been around as long as he can remember. this strikes ahsoka as extremely odd, and wonders what else is going on, but fixing things doesn't leave much room for another galaxy warping revelation, so she doesn't dwell on it immediately.

she and luke discuss kind of everything. they become buddies bc that's important to me. the next day, she tells them she's looking for obi-wan kenobi. "do you know someone named obi-wan kenobi?" luke does his little "do you think she means old ben kenobi?" number which is fun n nostalgic hehe.

owen seems to freeze. he hasn't heard that name in quite some time, and it doesn't exactly conjure pleasant memories. he reluctantly agrees to let luke point her in the right direction, and she buys a speeder from them (they try to give it to her but she insists on paying. ahsoka ftw)

ahsoka manages to avoid the tuskens on her way into the jundland wastes and runs into.... this really old dude. this is when she really has to confront the time travel of it all. she and obi-wan have a Talk. there's still a little bad blood between them considering obi-wan was on the council that condemned her without remorse or apology, but they're both so relieved to see the other alive.

ahsoka learns that it's been 19 years since order 66, since the empire took over. she remembers the day it happened, what only feels like 2 years ago to her.

she mentions that luke helped her find him, and obi-wan freezes. this obviously gets noticed by ahsoka, and obi-wan drops the real bomb on her: luke is anakin and padmé's son. obi-wan tells her that anakin died in order 66 and padmé died with the rebellion, that he's here both to hide out and to protect luke. she remarks in her head that the whole chosen one thing is ridiculous, that pinning the entire galaxy's hopes on a nineteen year old kid that up until now obi-wan has refused to even CONSIDER training (skywalker trauma lolz) but she can sense the strong emotions from him, that he wouldn't have it in him to stand up to the empire alone, so she drops it.

as to how padmé died: i hate the way that she dies in the prequels so I am deleting it. this is my canon. she actually survives and stays with the rebellion for a good 3-5 years before she's killed in a rebel vs. empire conflict. ahsoka is especially devastated to learn about her death from obi-wan (who bail organa risked communication with to tell him, as he was also close with padmé). 

she and obi-wan spar, both to get Ahsoka's mind off of the everything about this situation and because it's been so long since either of them have been around another jedi. it's cathartic for both of them. (ahsoka beats obi-wan easily btw haha)

obi-wan offers to officially knight her as a jedi knight, as that was what the council had intended after the whole fiasco and he says "you're just as experienced and powerful as I was when I was knighted." but ahsoka declines. she isn't ready to be considered a jedi yet, and may never be.

this is when a new hope really starts. obi-wan and ahsoka find luke unconscious in the jundland wastes, and that sequence goes pretty much the same. r2 is beeping and trilling like crazy because ahsoka!!!!!! that's one of his best friends!!!!!!! luke is like "you know this droid?" and ahsoka freezes, because how exactly does she explain to the nice dude she met yesterday that actually she's from 17 years in the past and was very close with both of his parents, who both were extremely close to r2?

she does in fact explain all of that to him when they get to obi-wan's house. she has no idea how she got here or why, but she did know anakin skywalker and padmé amidala naberrie, and tells him as much as she remembers about them. luke misses both of his parents like an ache in his chest, wishing more than anything he could have known them. 

obi-wan offers his own perspective on it, and tells how anakin died (which ahsoka is just as eager to know). obi-wan, on the spot, says that another jedi fell to the dark side and joined sidious, and that anakin died defending the temple. (he obviously couldn't say that vader was his pupil, because ahsoka would see through that immediately.)

luke asks why he couldn't have lived with his mother in the rebellion, but obi-wan says that she wanted him to be safe from the galactic conflict and stay with anakin's family. (which is partially true, but the whole sith-sensing-the-overly-powerful-skywalkers was a big factor as well.) obi-wan says he's truly sorry that luke never got to know her.

after learning about the message r2 brought, ahsoka knows she has to get to the rebellion however possible and rejoin the fight. obi-wan agrees, and gives his little elevator pitch to luke about becoming a jedi and joining the rebellion. when obi-wan gives luke the lightsaber, a million memories with anakin flash through ahsoka's head. luke still comes to same conclusion at the end of that conversation: he's willing to guide them out of tatooine, but he can't join the galactic conflict, at least not now. 

however, as they're leaving, they find the destroyed jawa crawler. luke, as before, realizes it means the stormtroopers found his family. ahsoka knows that only despair waits there for him, and urges him not to go, but when he doesn't back down hops in the speeder with him (for protection and emotional support). 

luke gets to have more emotions about the fact that the empire killed his /entire family./ ahsoka doesn't try and use it to convince him to go, only offers to help him bury them. she openly uses the force to move things around and make things easier, while luke is still in shock, almost numb. they're buried next to shmi and cliegg. 

luke is ANGRY at the empire. he is PISSED. he decides to go with them to fight not because he longs for adventure, but because he wants to hit the empire where it hurts. ahsoka can recognize that isn't the thought process of a jedi, but she feels the exact same way after learning about anakin and padmé. 

now it's mos eisley time. i feel like han would definitely like/admire ahsoka at first, but ahsoka would not like him. she finds him deplorable and a little annoying, and joins in on the whole bagging on the falcon jokes. this leads to han getting his feelings hurt and he's like fine :( we are not friends then >:(. 

the interesting thing is that chewie and ahsoka actually know each other! they were both kidnapped by bossk and hunted for sport in that one clone wars arc, so they're both like "oh hey person who was there for one of the most terrifying and traumatic times in my life! what's up!" they become fast friends yet again, and chewie is like "wow you did not age at all. are you sure you're not a wookiee?"

on the millennium falcon, she and obi-wan get started on luke's training. he asks her about his parents constantly (what they were like, what they did, where they came from, etc). she also talks about what the jedi were like (providing a less rose-colored-glasses perspective, but still with a lot of positives). 

she feel the same pain obi-wan does right before they get to alderaan, and can feel bail and breha organa in particular (having known them fairly well after the ahsoka novel). 

they get pulled into the death star's tractor beam. ahsoka can feel the cold and horrible presence of vader, a sick dread building in her the closer they get to it. they go to hide under the floorboards of the falcon. han knows how the empire operates better than anyone, which ahsoka is shocked to learn is much different than the Republic or the empire she remembers. (i imagine she lived in a more transitional period, so while the empire was terrible during her time, they were only getting started.)

she tries to go with obi-wan to shut off the power beam, but obi-wan still does his "I must go alone" little number. sensing the end of something, but not what it is, she hugs him goodbye. he's still obi-wan and she missed him dreadfully. he tells her to protect luke. 

she along with luke refuses to indulge han's obi-wan slander, and when han says "great at getting us into trouble!" she says "you should have met anakin."

then it's princess rescue time as it should be. that goes exactly the same except ahsoka is much better at defending them from the stormtroopers lol. leia still does the blasting and "somebody has to save our skins!" line because I love that

ahsoka can tell immediately that leia is padmé's daughter. she had probably heard of leia, being in the rebellion for about six months before time traveling, but now having met her it's completely obvious. she doesn't vocalize this immediately though, planning to discuss it with obi-wan. 

yes I'm keeping the garbage monster scene because I think it's funny :)

ahsoka goes with han and chewie after the stormtroopers while luke and leia head for the ship. also ahsoka + han banter because I think it's funny

she can see obi-wan and vader's fight (which I'm hoping will be a lot more like their fight in rots. a new hope is incredible but the lightsaber fights got way better as time went on. their final fight deserves to be epic). she tries to run and help obi-wan but luke pulls her back. "he can handle it," he says. "we need you to help us get to the falcon."

however when obi-wan is killed, both of them are distraught. his voice appears in ahsoka's head, telling her not to face vader yet, telling her to run. chewie literally has to hold her back and carry her to the ship. 

they blast their way out of the death star, none of them having the time to dwell on what just happened. 

ahsoka and luke are both numb. luke lost 3 parental figures in one day, and obi-wan's death after going through order 66 just brings it allll up again. leia is also hanging out in the numb dead parents circle, because her entire planet got blown up today and obi-wan's death just feels like another nail in the coffin. all three of them can sort of feel each other's emotions, and unconsciously they're comforting each other with the force. it's a healing moment for all three of them

han is kind of awkwardly standing in the background. "there wasn't anything any of you could have done," he says, in a rare show of emotion. (i like han wanting to help them despite his i-don't-care-about-anything facade.)

this doesn't stop him from saying he's only in it for the money later though. leia gets to blow up at him about it same as in the movie because she deserves it methinks.

they make it to the rebellion, and a few of the people who've been in it from the beginning recognize her (mon mothma maybe?). I also like the idea of ahsoka being something of rebellion legend, having been one of the last jedi who presumably died fighting the empire for the rebellion. 

also general hera syndulla gets to be there bc i love her. she is the one who shows the plans to the pilots and explains the plan. she also references the rogue one crew because i love them also. 

ahsoka in an x-wing with the red team attempting to blow up the death star. when vader makes an appearance, she can sense him in the starfighter nearby them, the same cold and evil presence. she personally goes to fight vader and defends the rest of the team from him, somehow falling into a perfect rhythm and anticipating every move. she doesn't kill him obviously, but she gets close. the things that happen stay the same: they sustain heavy casualties, she survives the battle, han comes back to save the day, luke is the one who blows up the death star.

luke, han, chewie, and ahsoka get medals in the end, because each of them were instrumental in the blowing up of the death star (and a lot more pilots survive thanks to Ahsoka's defense). there are references to the phineas and ferb star wars special because I want it. 

there's a bit after the official end of a new hope in which she's talking to Luke like "I can't stay. this isn't my timeline. I have to go back. and if I can go back, maybe I can try and save the jedi. maybe I can fix things." however luke changes her mind. "maybe you're in this timeline for a reason. maybe NOW is when you can change things. I would've died without you in the battle of yavin. plus, how am I supposed to become a jedi without you?" luke + leia + han + chewie + r2 + 3po all convince her to stay. they are all very attached to ahsoka at this point, and ahsoka realizes she doesn't really want to leave them either.

also. because the battle is over and they all have a moment to breathe, she tells leia that she's positive she's padmé and anakin's daughter too, not just because of the physical resemblence but also her force sensitivity. there's no doubt about it.

ahsoka agrees to train both of them in what she knows, though she warns that she wasn't a master or even a knight.

it ends with the whole crew hanging out on the falcon (han, leia, luke, chewie, r2, c-3po, and ahsoka)

those are my bullet points for the episode IV section of this! if people want to see where this goes in the rest of the trilogy let me know I have so many notes about this au

also tagging: @togrutanduin @padme--amygdala @bisexualobiwanrights @grimthejedisith @senator-nahberries you get to watch me lose my mind in real time <3

[redrobinhoods]

Age of Heroes | Chapter 10, Telos

AO3 Link | 3340 words (approx) | Prologue, Chapter 9, Epilogue

Chapter Summary: Ahsoka learns what Anakin has done

“There is a wildness to you, young one. Seeds of the dark side planted by your master. Do you feel it?” - Mortis

Ahsoka stood silently beside Anakin on the observation deck that stretched the length of the building. Neither had said a word since the call to Darth Sidious, for it had been Darth Sidious that Anakin had called. The droid units of the Separatists had been shut down by Anakin’s hand. He had ended the war. But not as a Jedi, as a Sith. The Sith had ended the war. And yet, supposedly the Sith had also orchestrated the war. Ahsoka had yet to determine the purpose for that. It couldn’t have been solely for the destruction of the Jedi, and yet, the Clone Wars had been the perfect Jedi trap. But Anakin couldn’t be a Sith lord, he was the Chosen One. It had to be a trick. There had to be something that she was missing, something that made the events of the last day make sense. Perhaps Obi-Wan still held the missing piece of the puzzle, Maul. She hadn’t heard from Obi-Wan since the call in the barracks. And yet, she couldn’t picture him dead. Not by Cody’s hand. Cody, who had perhaps become more faithful to Obi-Wan than he was to the Republic and had impudently treated her as his equal on any occasion. No, she couldn’t picture that. It was just as unlikely as Rex trying to kill her or Anakin; she wouldn’t even consider the scenario.

A beeping from inside the control room caught her attention before the reason for its chime, a Naboo starship, came into view. “Padme.” Anakin muttered. As Anakin turned to make his way to the landing platform, Ahsoka’s comm went off. Anakin stopped and looked back over his shoulder to her.

“You go ahead, Master.” Ahsoka said, not that he would’ve stayed behind anyways. Once Anakin had rounded the corner, she pulled her comm up before her. The call was from Rex’s frequency and some of the fear inside her abated. “This is Ahsoka.” She said out of habit as the hologram opened in her hand. She floundered for what to say when it was Jesse who appeared. “Lieutenant, what’s wrong?”

Jesse took a deep breath and spoke in a deliberately steady manner. “Commander Rex is in critical condition, sir. He was attacked at the Temple.”

“By who?” She’d sensed that he had been hurt but hearing it from Jesse was different. The bit of fear that had diminished reared back up inside her. They had been at the Jedi Temple.

Jesse paused to take a deep breath. “I don’t know, sir. The attacker was long gone by the time I arrived. Is Lord Vader with you?”

Lord Vader. That was how Sidious had addressed him too.

“He’s… preoccupied. I’ll let him know.”

“The Separatist leaders?”

“Dead. And we shut the droids down. I guess the war is over.”

Jesse nodded, looking around furtively for a few moments. Ahsoka wondered where he was; if he was by Rex’s side at a medical center or if he was still standing in the Temple ruins. “I’ll pass that on to Rex if he-, when he wakes up.”

“Thank you, Jesse.” She forced a small smile, one that she was certain looked as fake as it felt. The clone nodded and the hologram disappeared. Once she was sure the connection had ended she pressed her hand to her forehead, fighting back the pain that was surging within her. She couldn’t bear to imagine why the 501st had been at the Jedi Temple. Not now, she couldn’t handle it now. She could grieve later. Rex would pull through, she still had Anakin and Padme, she herself was still alive. They would all be okay.

The crunch of metal broke her from her concentration. The wall of the facility behind her had crumpled in. She looked around, hoping to see someone, anyone, who she could blame for the destruction. There was nobody else. She shuddered as the new voice praised her actions, humming approval, asking how good it had felt. It was right. It had felt good. And that horrified her. She couldn’t stand to be alone anymore.

She followed the hallways she had gone down before to the main landing pad. On her entrance to the facility, they had been busy with the sound of machinery and beings. Now it was quiet, and the halls teemed with dread. When she was approaching the landing pad, Anakin and Padme’s raised voices reached her before they came into sight.

“…cost? You’re a good person. Don’t do this.

“I won’t lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of. And I’m doing it for you. To protect you.”

Ahsoka stepped into the doorway, hanging back in the shadows.

“Come away with me.” Padme stepped towards Anakin, pushing his hair away from his face fondly. “Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind while we still can.”

“Don’t you see? We don’t have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him and together, you and I can rule the galaxy, make things the way we want them to be.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Padme’s eyes met Ahsoka’s as she stepped away from her husband. “Ahsoka, come here.”

Ahsoka made her way slowly across the landing platform to Padme, who enveloped her in a hug before turning back to Anakin, her arm still around Ahsoka. “Does Ahsoka know what you’ve done? Did you tell her what you’ve done?” When Anakin didn’t answer, she continued. “Obi-Wan was right, you’ve changed.”

Anakin’s face twisted into a rage that Ahsoka had previously only seen reserved for Separatist generals. “I don’t want to hear any more about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me. Don’t you turn against me!”

“Anakin!” Ahsoka reached out to hand to her master, who pushed it away.

“Ahsoka, look what they did to you. The Jedi cast you out. They were willing to let you take the fall and wash their hands of the matter. Don’t tell me that you’ve accepted their attempt at an apology, I know that you can hardly stand to set foot in the Temple anymore. They turned against us, Ahsoka. But we made it right. We ended the war.”

“At what cost? By allying ourselves with the Sith?” Ahsoka stopped as her anger threatened to resurface. She felt as if she could bring down the entire facility if she wanted. It’s what the voice wanted.

“For now. We can reshape the galaxy, the three of us. We can bring peace to the entire galaxy, not just the Republic, make things the way they should be. Beings need to be made to see what is best for them.”

Ahsoka felt Padme shudder. “Anakin, you are going down a path I cannot follow.”

“Because of Obi-Wan? Because the lies of the Jedi have reached you too?”

“Because of what you’ve done, what you plan to do. Stop now, come back to me. We’ll disappear, leave all of this behind.”

Anakin’s gaze fixed on something above them. “Liar!”

Ahsoka and Padme turned to see Obi-Wan standing on the ramp of the ship.

“No!”

“You’re with him. You brought him here to kill me.” Anakin snarled and Ahsoka found herself stepping between Padme and her master.

“Anakin, please.” Ahsoka said. ‘Kill Obi-Wan’ the voice in her head said.

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan began to walk down the ramp. Ahsoka grasped Padme’s arm and pulled her away.

“You will not take her from me!” Anakin screamed.

“Your anger and your lust for power have already done that. You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind until now- until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy.”

“Obi-Wan, don’t, please don’t.” Padme begged from behind Ahsoka. Obi-Wan spared a passing glance their way then looked back to Anakin.

“Do you truly believe that Palpatine will allow you to keep them alive? He has already lost you your clone commander, will you let him take your padawan too?”

“Don’t lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I’ll give you one chance to walk away, Obi-Wan. Retire. The fight is over, the war is over. I’ve ended it. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new empire.”

Obi-Wan scoffed in disbelief. “Your new empire? We swore our allegiance to the Republic, to democracy, not an Empire.”

“If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.”

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.”

“Anakin.” Padme begged.

Anakin spared one long look at his wife and padawan before he turned back to Obi-Wan and ignited his blade. “You will try.”

Ahsoka’s heart sunk as Obi-Wan’s blade rose to meet Anakin’s and she grasped Padme’s hand. Anakin had asked her to keep Padme safe. That had been Anakin before. The man before her now, the man fighting his closest friend, was Darth Vader. There was a difference. Anakin’s last act had been to ask Ahsoka to protect his wife before he had let himself fall to the dark side. But that wasn’t entirely true either. His last act had been to deploy the 501st one last time. Ahsoka was starting to realize where that might have been.

Once the dueling men had stepped out of sight, Ahsoka felt a tug on her arm. She followed Padme back onto her ship and took the offered seat across from her. It took some time for her to find the courage to speak. “What did Anakin do?”

“He… Obi-Wan said- he said that Anakin killed younglings. There was a security hologram.”

They fell silent again. Tears began to well in Ahsoka’s eyes as she allowed herself to acknowledge what had happened. Anakin had killed younglings, he had been at the Temple, the 501st had been at the Temple. Anakin and the 501st had killed the Jedi. Her mentor, her men, her brothers, had killed the Jedi. One family had slaughtered another. And if Rex had been injured after the initial attack and Obi-Wan had seen the security archive then there was a good chance that her closest friend would die by her grandmaster’s blade. Tears began to fall as she realized that she hated them, she hated them all. She hated Rex, who had killed her people. She hated Obi-Wan, who had murdered her men and could possibly be a traitor. And she hated Anakin, for fostering the murder of the Jedi, for falling to the dark side, for turning on everyone who loved him. Ahsoka buried her face in her hands as all the pain she had ever felt crashed in on her. She could feel Padme’s hand on her shoulders, but through the touch she could also feel Padme’s pain. She drew that pain in and made it into her own. Anakin was dead now, killed by his own blade, by his own hubris. But he had asked her to keep Padme safe. Ahsoka would keep Padme safe.

“Ahsoka.” Ahsoka lowered her palms to meet Padme’s teary gaze. “Did you know?”

“No. Did you?”

“No.” Padme’s hand left Ahsoka’s shoulder to join her wet hands. “I don’t think anybody knew.”

Ahsoka had done nothing to stop him. She was still doing nothing. In the grand scheme of the galaxy, all she had done was nothing and for nothing. Beneath the hate that festered in her she made a resolve. It would all be worth it if she could keep Padme safe. The agony within her chest, the war that was for nothing, the deaths of thousands of clones and Jedi, she could justify it all if she could save Padme and the child. She could keep them safe.

---

The 212th descended quietly down the Acclamator ramp. Before them marched their accompanying members of the Coruscant Guard with Maul. Nobody had spoken in hours, except to give a short instruction on the flight path of the Venator or the offloading of many of the troops onto the Acclamator. At the bottom of the ramp they were met by the newly crowned Emperor Palpatine and the commanding officer of the Coruscant Guard.

Palpatine turned to Commander Fox and waved a hand in Maul’s direction. “You have your instructions. Take him to his cell, I will deal with him personally later.”

“Sir.” Fox nodded and signaled for eight of his men to join the escort.

The Emperor turned back to the group of 212th officers before him. “Where is your commander?”

“Dead, sir. The Jedi killed him.” Crys answered quietly.

“Very well, offload your men and report to the barracks. Your legion will be needed in the coming days.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the men of the 212th departed, the Emperor turned to an approaching guardsman. “Commander Thire, report.”

“We couldn’t find the Jedi, Your Majesty, but my men are still searching. Captain Kagi reports your shuttle to be ready, sir.”

The Emperor nodded and gestured to his accompanying guardsmen who had not been summoned by Commander Fox. “Come. My apprentice is in grave danger.”

---

Ahsoka’s head turned as Obi-Wan walked back into the room. Padme stood up at the sight. “Is Anakin alright?”

Obi-Wan cast them a mournful look and shook his head. Ahsoka stood up and squeezed Padme’s hands before walking past Obi-Wan to the landing ramp. She stopped at the top of the ramp to give R2-D2 a last fond pat.

“Ahsoka.” Padme called after her.

“Ahsoka, this facility is falling apart. Come with us.” Obi-Wan begged.

Ahsoka looked back up to them. She had come to this decision while waiting for Obi-Wan or Anakin’s return. She hadn’t decided on what to do if Anakin had returned, but she had for Obi-Wan. Perhaps Anakin had been wrong, Obi-Wan was not a traitor. He would keep Padme safe. With Padme safe, her promise was fulfilled. Anakin needed her. “I��ll find my own way out.” She said before she descended down the landing ramp. Obi-Wan had been right. The facility was collapsing. But Anakin needed her, so she kept going. The Force was her ally, it would be her guide.

In the end, she crested a blackened hill to see two clone troopers and a hooded figure with a medical capsule between them. She ran over to them to stare into the medical capsule and nearly vomited from the sight of Anakin’s charred body. One of the clones took her by the shoulder and pulled her back. A familiar presence in the Force greeted her.

“You. You were at the landing pad.” That had been merely days ago, a lifetime. For a moment, the hot atmosphere of Mustafar became duracrete tarmac and victory hung in the air. But only for a moment.

“Yes.” The commander answered, following after the medical capsule.

Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, then followed after them. She found herself seated in the shuttle between two guardsmen, their plastoid armor radiating heat even through her bodysuit. She took notice that their boots had begun to melt, then realized that hers had as well.

“Ahsoka Tano.” The Emperor walked over to stand before her. This scene felt all too familiar. Standing before Palpatine, surrounded by the Coruscant Guard. But this time, Anakin wasn’t there to defend her. She stayed silent. “Are you loyal to your Empire?”

Ahsoka looked to the medical capsule her master now lay in, her stomach still churning at the thought of what Obi-Wan had done. She didn’t know who she was loyal to anymore. Maybe her life had turned into a game of choosing between two evils. So she chose.

“Yes.”

---

Ahsoka followed the medical droid to the far corner of the room. She was wondering if Rex was even here when the droid stopped and gestured towards a bed. She hesitantly thanked the droid and moved to Rex’s side. She’d have never known it was him if it weren’t for the droid. Most of his face was covered by a breathing apparatus with several tubes snaking out to a nearby machine. She recognized the crisscross of fabric that stretched from his hip to his shoulder as bacta patches and wondered if his condition was stable or if the facility was running out of medical supplies.

She sat on the small stool by the bed and took his hand in hers. She’d rarely held the clone’s hands, mainly doing so when they were dying. She hoped Rex wasn’t dying. Then she started to cry. She lay her head down on the medical bed next to Rex and sobbed into the fabric.

She sat up when she heard a coughing-choke and gripped Rex’s hand tighter. She watched anxiously as he struggled against the breathing tube for a few moments before starting to relax into it. She tentatively reached out with her other hand and cupped his face, stroking the soft flesh under his jaw with her fingers. She could feel his heartbeat through the skin, and it calmed her panic. He was alive. He relaxed further into her hand and she watched as his heartbeat returned to normal on the monitor.

“Hey Rexter.” She smiled as he weakly squeezed her hand in response. She should’ve still been mad at him. Right now, she should be furious that he had attacked her home, killed her people. She had been on the flight back to Coruscant, until she’d walked into the 501st barracks. She’d never seen her men look so broken before. Many of them had been crying, some still were. Others were staring blankly at the wall, which she found to be far worse. None of them could look her in the eye. And now, she had never seen Rex look so haunted, even under the sedatives. She was glad that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell her what he had done.

She found her hand leaving his and running lightly over the bacta patches across his torso. She hadn’t often seen lightsaber marks on living beings, certainly not this close and not on the clones. There were marks from a surgery outside of the patches, and she wondered how many millimeters Rex had been from death. The medical droid probably knew. She didn’t want to know which Jedi had done this. It still horrified her to think that the Jedi were traitors, but yet, Jedi had nearly taken her closest friends from her. It was hard to reconcile the peacekeeper image of the Jedi with the medical equipment surrounding Rex and likely surrounding her master as well. It was hard to reconcile the peacekeeper image with Anakin’s charred body.

“Anakin’s alive. He’s terribly injured, but Emperor Palpatine said that he’s going to live.” She brought her hand back to wipe tears from her eyes. “I don’t know what comes next, but we’re all going to make it. I promise.” She felt the muscles in Rex’s neck twitch and his brows contorted in pain as his throat contracted against the tube. She began stroking his neck until his muscles had once again relaxed. “Don’t, you can tell me everything later.” She brought her hand back to his and lifted it to her lips for a light kiss. “I won’t leave you again.”

She sat by him for a long time, examining the little scars that cut through his hand and forearm. Smattering from bomb shrapnel, a scar across a knuckle from a blaster bolt, the thin line across his thumb from when he had once caught her and cut himself on her akul-tooth headdress. Sometimes he watched her, other times his eyes were far away. When they were too far, she’d stroke his palm until his attention turned back to her and she’d give him a sad smile.

It was his turn to stroke her hand when a new medical droid came over with news of Anakin, and he let her lay her head on his shoulder and cry when the droid had walked away.

[gffa]

Every time I put together a list of STAR WARS fic recs, I keep wanting to add to it because, here’s the thing about this fandom, people keep writing more amazing fic. I’m especially fond of this set because it contains a whole bunch of novel/novelette length fics that made for incredibly satisfying readings, like, sure, we’re all worried about what TROS might bring, but it’s a lot easier to relax for awhile when I have twenty novels worth of fic to distract me. So, here, have a bunch of crying about some of the incredible fic this fandom has given us, before I decide, no, I’ll wait until I read just ten or twenty more fics (because I have them sitting on my reader to read already!) and cry about them at everyone, too. STAR WARS FIC RECS: TIME TRAVEL RECS: ✦ Legacy by myrlendi (thehistorygeek), luke & leia & obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, time travel, 130k wip    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. ✦ The Desert Storm by Blue_Sunshine, obi-wan & jedi & cast (too many to tag), time travel, 409.3k wip    The storm screams at him, and Obi-Wan Kenobi screams back. PREQUELS RECS: ✦ One Thing You Lack by maychorian, obi-wan & anakin, ~1k    Considering how easily Anakin wins at just about everything, it’s only fair that Obi-Wan have the best of him in at least one area. ✦ Adrift by Ripki, obi-wan & anakin & padme & yoda & palpatine & cast, 32.5k    In the aftermath of painful revelations, Obi-Wan and Anakin struggle to come to terms with the heavy price of secrets. But the war gives no respite and soon enemies are closing in, putting the Team’s honesty, loyalty and trust in each other to the test. ✦ Help me, Master by fireflyfish, obi-wan & anakin, 2.4k    Obi-Wan Kenobi watched in a kind of numb horror as Anakin Skywalker coiled his legs and summoned the Force to his command. ✦ Anamorphosis by saltyavocado, obi-wan/padme & anakin & cast, 33.5k    A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image. ✦ Knightrise by Deviant_Accumulation, obi-wan & yoda & satine & ahsoka & cast, 22.4k wip    “Strong enough to fight the Sith Lord, you are not.“ And just like that the fight drained out of Obi-Wan, the barely scraped together agitation running out of him like water from a broken glass. He looked at Yoda, the other Master already hobbling towards one of the back exits, his presence burning with focus, obviously expecting Obi-Wan to follow. ✦ Ensuring The Future by Shouting_at_God_in_Latin, obi-wan & anakin & mace & cody & yoda & cast, 44.1k wip    When both Yoda and Darth Sidious have a vision of the future, both send reinforcements to Cato Neimoidia. One fleet is sent to kill Obi-Wan Kenobi, the other is to save his life. The fate of the Light requires Obi-Wan to stay alive until years after the end of the Clone Wars, but can he even survive Cato Neimoidia? ✦ Rainfall on Geonosis by ealcynn, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cody & cast, 33.9k    Obi-Wan Kenobi attempts to land his troops at Point Rain. Geonosis is not kind. ✦ Trust Fall by devilinthedetails, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon, 1.4k    Two generations of Masters and Padawans. Two generations of trust falls. ✦ Lay Me Down by TrickyTricky, rex & obi-wan & cast, 7.9k    War is hell, and the terrible fate that lies in store for the clone troopers casts its long shadow over them even now. ✦ -when skies are hanged and oceans drowned, by glorious_clio, bail/breha, 1.1k    Bail’s had enough, and goes home to Breha. They know just how to take care of each other. ✦ 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. ✦ Vestiges by Quark_Logic, obi-wan & anakin, ~1k    While duelling in the Death, Obi-Wan tries to connect with Anakin through their old Force Bond, not really expecting it to work. OBI-WAN/ANAKIN RECS: ✦ not too particular, not too precise by AozoraNoShita, obi-wan/anakin & padme & ahsoka, modern au, 8.4k wip    Obi-Wan and Anakin both run food blogs and they have Opinions about each other’s recipes. Then it turns out they live in the same apartment building and they have the same friends and when they finally meet? It’s like a cooking competition meets a rom-com. Kind of. ✦ Upfall by bell (belldreams), belldreams, usomitai (belldreams), obi-wan/anakin & obi-wan/satine & ahsoka & cast, NSFW, 71.1k wip    Anakin is doing just about everything he can to hold himself together; it won’t last. ✦ Transactions and Negotiations by zarabithia, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, modern au, light d/s, 5.3k wip    Obi-Wan Kenobi is Anakin Skywalker’s favorite client. ✦ This time we’ll fall together by liv_k, obi-wan/anakin & padme & yoda & cast, 27.6k wip    In the aftermath of Order 66, Anakin Skywalker’s miraculous survival after his confrontation with the new Sith Apprentice Darth Vader ignites a sparkle of hope in the remaining Jedi, in the fledgling rebellion and, above all, in his former Master, who thought he had lost everything to darkness. But darkness is generous, and it is patient. ✦ Home by little_tales, obi-wan/anakin & shmi & mace & qui-gon & cast, NSFW, time travel, 39k wip    Time travel fix-it story with a bit of a twist. After his death, Obi-Wan wakes up on Tatooine, in the body of his padawan self. But instead of trying to prevent Anakin from Falling, he decides to change the future by stopping Qui-Gon from ever meeting the little Ani. ✦ After the Pillars Come Down by Virgo827, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, 19.7k    Anakin, Obi-Wan, & Ahsoka investigate the death of a Senator, and an accusation against the Jedi Order. But as the shadow of their last offensive campaign looms over them, the Jedi find it harder and harder to come to terms with what the war has made them. ✦ In the Heat of the Moment by Gwendolyn (storiesofchaos), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 5.5k    In which Anakin and Obi-Wan are stranded on some lonely desert planet, and what first appears to be a dull, annoying mishap turns out to be full of pent-up desire and feelings that come to light. ✦ Mutual Acquaintances by Ghost_Owl, obi-wan/anakin & obi-wan/satine & anakin/padme & padme/satine & cast, 36.6k wip    In which Satine’s distress call puts Obi Wan under Council scrutiny, Anakin offers to save her for him as a Totally Platonic Favor, Satine would like one good day, please, Padmé has everything under control, and Maul manages to cause an even bigger problem than before. ✦ Adrift and Entangled by WhiteMoose, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & padme & maul, some torture, 68k wip    After the Hardeen operation, emotions are raw. But before anything can be fully sorted out, the boys are sent to Christophsis for their next mission. Things don’t go as planned, and they find themselves alone in an unknown system with no hyperspace capabilities and no effective means of communication. ✦ Distractions by SingManyFaces, obi-wan/anakin 1k    Being distracted by Obi-Wan wasn’t anything new, but the circumstances always were. ✦ untitled by subskywalker, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, some d/s, 1k    “Remember dear one,” Obi-Wan reminded him as he pet his curls with one hand while the other stroked his cheek gently. “If it gets to be too much or if your need a break just tap our signal, okay?” ✦ The Seduction of Anakin Skywalker by DontCallMeShirley, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & obi-wan/anakin/padme & cast, 20.2k    Anakin is falling to the dark side. Obi Wan and Padme concoct a scheme to bring him back. ✦ So Warm by amyfortuna, obi-wan/anakin, 1.2k    Anakin needs body heat. Well, maybe he needs a little more than just body heat. ✦ untitled by subskywalker, obi-wan/anakin/padme, sith!obi-wan, sith!padme, 1k    Anakin falls in increments and everything else happens in between. ✦ Dear Fellow Traveler by Glare, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, modern au, 17.4k    When strangers Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker both miss their flight, they become unlikely partners in the quest to get home. ✦ Satisfying Victory by zarabithia, obi-wan/anakin/ahsoka, NSFW, 3.4k    The Force gives and Ahsoka takes. (Or, Ahsoka goes back in time and is totally going to fix everything. But there’s another order of business to attend to first.) ✦ Cinnamon by birdcat, obi-wan/anakin, 2.4k    “Was it the same dream, today?” It took Anakin a moment to process Obi-Wan’s question. “Yes.” ✦ The Lives We Live Before the Present Moment by lyhoradka, obi-wan/anakin, 1.2k    The Jedi’s best-kept secret is that the Force lies. (Anakin finds Obi-Wan a flower.) ✦ Immortals by SingManyFaces, obi-wan/anakin/ahsoka, vampire au, ~1k    They tried to picture their lives without Obi-Wan, but they couldn’t. ✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & dooku & cast, NSFW, time travel, d/s undercurrents, 102.5k wip    Second chances are very rarely given, but the Force smiles upon two of its favorite children and returns them to a time before their actions have met their consequences. ORIGINAL TRILOGY RECS: ✦ Yet Peace by theLoyalRoyalGuard, obi-wan & luke & cast, 3.7k    Grieving and unable to part with his best friend’s son, Obi-Wan raises Luke. Turns out, he’s pretty good at it. ✦ Hidden Relics by Burning_Nightingale, aphra & ahsoka, 1k    When Aphra goes searching for Sith relics on Malachor, she gets more than she bargained for. ✦ More Than Just a Treat by JessKo, obi-wan & luke & beru & owen, 1.3k    Beru and Luke bake cookies for Old Ben. REBELS RECS: ✦ we don’t have to have everything at once by Burning_Nightingale, thrawn/eli & thrass, 12.3k    Eli is reunited with Thrawn by chance on a mission for the Ascendancy; their changed circumstances give both the chance to voice things previously left unsaid. ✦ Lights In The Storm by Burning_Nightingale, thrawn/eli & faro, 13k    An Admiral being asked to investigate reports of smuggling at a tiny listening post in the ass end of nowhere would in normal circumstances be insulting - but Admiral Ballenrost is asking as a ‘personal favour’, and one does not turn down that sort of request from a man of his standing, even if one is the Imperial Navy’s most unorthodox and sole non-human flag officer. ✦ A Second Honor and Privilage by katsu, thrawn/eli & cast, NSFW, 10k    Eli and Thrawn smut held together with a thin veneer of plot. ✦ Dear by ambiguously, kanan/hera, fem!kanan, 4.8k    Kanan’s life has been a mess ever since Order 66, but now she has a new business partner and a new job to do. What could go wrong? SEQUELS RECS: ✦ Coneflower Honey by ambiguously, leia & rey & ben & finn, 3.2k    General Organa is seriously ill. The Supreme Leader of the First Order is the only person in the galaxy who knows what’s wrong with her. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE!

[oceanera12]

Breaking Down Time Travel AU’s: feat. the Star Wars Universe

Most of these involve Obi-Wan weirdly enough (probably has something to do with traversing all three trilogies...)

If not Obi-Wan, then it’s Anakin (probably has something to do with how much regret he has on his actions)

(I know I’ve seen some with Ahsoka involved or Rex and Cody involved. A few Star Wars Rebels with Ezra or Kanan are also out there. But mostly, it’s Anakin and Obi-Wan)

Now there’s a few main starting points so let’s run through them.

Obi-Wan after leaving Anakin to die on Mustafar

Obi-Wan on Tatooine after a few years of just watching Luke and he’s depressed and wants to fix the past

Obi-Wan’s death in A New Hope (most common/main starting point)

When he’s a ghost and decides he’s had enough of the univere’s kriffing mistakes.

Anakin after he’s left to die on Mustafar

Anakin when he’s been Vader for a little while and is regretting his life decisions

Anakin after he kills the Emperor and then dies (most common/main starting point)

Just as important as where they start from is where they end up and this applies to both Anakin and Obi-Wan (and pretty much anyone who does the “time travel fix-it au” with a character)

Episode I. There’s a lot of spots in the movie where the time traveler will pop up so I’m clumping them together. We got the meeting with the trade federation, on Naboo, on Tatooine, back on Naboo a little before Maul shows up and I think there’s a few that are after Maul (most of those are in Anakin’s case, though) (Also, this is a very common starting place)

During Anakin’s apprenticeship. After Qui-Gon’s death, just at any point. This can be either Obi-Wan or Anakin.

Before Episode I. Most of these involve Anakin time-traveling and it’s before he fell to the dark side. He goes back, with his body (so he’s older Anakin) and has interactions with padawan!Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to learn a lesson or something.

Before the Clone Wars or during the Clone Wars.

Right after Order 66 (this one is kind of rare but I think I’ve seen one with Obi-Wan deciding to raise Luke instead of leaving him with his uncle and aunt... or maybe that was an AU)

The goals of the characters usually come down to one main point: Make sure Anakin doesn’t ruin the entire galaxy.

Yes, these also involve overthrowing Palpatine, removing the chips from the clones, preventing the Jedi Temple bombing so Ahsoka doesn’t leave the Order, etc. But it can be narrowed down to that point right there. ((This is for EVERYONE who travels through time. Heck, most Luke time travel adventures is him trying to keep his Dad on the lightside.))

How they travel through time is also brought to one point: The Force. Enough said.

The Method of Time travel:

Travel backwards with their current state (their bodies, minds, memories, skills, etc.) Eg: Obi-Wan jumping back to Naboo, but not in his old self. This makes it so there is two Obi-Wan’s running around (padawan!Obi-Wan and master!Obi-Wan)

Travel back with only their mind and memories. Eg. Anakin being put back in his Padawan!Anakin body so he can’t do those cool flips he could when he is older, but he does know what to do to change some things from happening.

Travel back with mind, memories, skills, but still in their old body. Eg. padawan!Obi-Wan taking on Maul but with the experience and skills of someone fighting in the Clone Wars and fighting Sith Lords (in other words, Maul is dead before he even has a chance).

Other random points that come up often:

Telling the council vs. not telling the council

Trying to fix relationships between people (Obi-Wan trying to be a better Master to Anakin and vice versa)

Random pairings (By the Force, there are too many to list and some of them just make me gag-- sorry but I don’t see the appeal in having Master!Obi-Wan dating Qui-Gon Jinn while Padawan!Obi-Wan is standing right there.)

Fixing the Jedi Code

Fixing the Jedi Order

Fixing the Senate

Overthrowing Palpatine through various means

Removing the clone’s inhibitor chips

Changing people’s occupations/roles (eg.- ”The Senate recognizes Senator Skywalker of Tatooine”)

Trying to redeem Anakin

You get the picture

The result of most of these Time-Travel AU’s are as follows:

Anakin doesn’t Kriff up the Galaxy.

[thatwitchrevan]

‘at every moment’

summary: au scenes where Anakin does something different and better, changing his path. basically a bunch of mini fix-it fics. mild language, some canonical character death, and some mild non-canonical violence.

-

Anakin takes Padmé’s hand and smiles at her. The smile is pained and somehow hollow, even though he’s usually too sincere for his own good, and she gets the sense that despite how much pain he’s in, he doesn’t fully realize how terrible she feels. “Padmé, listen to me,” he implores her, drawing closer. “I can overthrow the Emperor and we can rule together.” He touches her cheek, soft and loving, but she wants to recoil. She can’t stop seeing the younglings he’s killed. 

“It can be just like you want,” he promises her, and his voice is as sweet as ever, but she knows all his promises are empty.

“No.” She shakes her head, and she’s crying. She’s never been more afraid in her life - seeing everything else fall apart around her was one thing, but out of anyone she thought she at least knew him. “That’s not what I want. You have to know that.”

She shudders around a deep breath. She’s trying so hard to stay strong, to think of their future and not break down in this moment. “Come with me. Let’s get on the ship and run away. Let’s go have our baby in a safe place and just be together. We can worry about the Republic another day.”

It’s a compromise, and she hates compromise, but until now she didn’t realize just how desperately she needs this family.

Anakin is shaking his head; he looks as scared as she feels. “It’s too late, Padmé. I’ve done things I can’t fix. There’s no going back now.”

“No, we’re not going back. But we can get out of here. You have a choice, Ani. At every moment you have a choice.”

She pulls his hand against her stomach, where he can feel his child kicking wildly. “Do it for your child, Ani. They need you. I need you.”

With her eyes holding him steady, Anakin finally gives in. It breaks him, but he nods, crying now because he’s messed up and he doesn’t know if he can save her on his own. He’s lost, and all he has to guide him now is her voice. She leads him back to the ship.

-

Anakin watches Ahsoka walk away, but as she gets halfway to the steps he realizes he can’t just watch anymore. “Ahsoka!”

She stops and turns, but her eyes are hard and ready to fight as he runs to her. “You can’t stop me, Anakin.”

He reaches her and pulls her into his arms without hesitation. “I don’t want to stop you,” he says, and despite how tight he’s holding her she can hear in his voice that he means it. “I want to say goodbye.”

Ahsoka freezes, then hugs him back, sighing. “You’ll be alright without me.”

Anakin chuckles, a warm and familiar sound that causes her heart to clench again and almost changes her mind. “No, Snips, I really won’t. But you’ll be fine without me, and that’s what matters.” He pulls back, putting his hands on her shoulders and meeting her eyes with a soft, sincere smile. “You’re a better Jedi than any of us, and I’m so sorry we failed you.”

When Anakin sees her eyes fill for at least the third time, he hugs her again, but loosely this time, ready to let her go. “I love you, Ahsoka, and I’m so proud of you.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face in his chest, muttering ‘I love you, too’ against his robes. 

-

“You have a twin sister,” Vader hisses, his mask hiding his surprise. He thinks out loud, tries to provoke his son out of hiding, but in his mind he’s reeling at the idea of having a daughter, wondering if she looks like Padmé. “If you will not be turned, perhaps she will.”

And that angers Luke like nothing ever has. All the threats against his life, all the attempt to subjugate him, all the betrayals of his father - that simmers quietly beneath the surface, a rage fueled by sadness. But his anger over his sister explodes into a star. Now he’s not only fighting Vader. He’s finally trying to kill him.

It would have made Anakin Skywalker proud to know his children loved each other so deeply, so fiercely, and would guard each other with the most fiery anger. He should have been there to guard them himself, rather than the one hunting them.

If only Obi-Wan hadn’t kept them from him - no. No, he reminds himself, this was his fault. He has to live with it. 

But was it not his Master’s bidding that he attack his own son? He pauses, and Luke takes advantage of his hesitation, knocking him down and striking repeatedly, furiously. Anakin tries to block with his own lightsaber, but he's getting weaker, and Luke will still kill him. Perhaps he would deserve it.

His master laughs and makes his way down the stairs, coming to watch Vader die. Why should he give the bastard the satisfaction?

“Luke,” he cries, his brain not yet caught up with his heart on what he's doing.

He has to call out a second time before his son stops, tired and seething, and looks at him with a very familiar impatience. His eyes seem to be saying 'why should I listen to you now, when I’ve given you every chance?' But he says nothing. 

“Luke,” Anakin begs again. “Will you help me?”

Luke is momentarily confused, but he seems to understand what his father means. He nods, his jaw set firm. Quickly he turns, facing the Emperor instead of Vader, his lightsaber humming ominously. 

Vader forces himself to stand, his own lightsaber held in a defensive position, and they move toward the Emperor, who has realized now what they're doing and begins to laugh.

“Fools.”

-

Anakin's ears ring with the promise of power, the ability to prevent death. He could be sure Padmé wouldn't leave him - she could have the long, happy life she deserved and Anakin could finally get some fucking sleep.

But something's wrong, and he knows it. He respects Palpatine, admires him, but... The hungry look in the Chancellor's eye, the way he knows too much, exactly how to get Anakin's attention. It's all too deliberate.

Anakin's used to being controlled. Treated like an object, even. He'd thought Palpatine was one of the few who would encourage him to make his own choices, but in this moment at the opera he realizes it's a lie. He could go along with it, see what Palpatine can offer. Or he can refuse to be controlled.

Palpatine gives him a look that's meant to be reassuring, to say 'I know exactly what you need, and I can help you get it'.

But really, it's smug. It reminds Anakin of the day they'd met, what Palpatine had said to him that day when he'd become barely less of a slave. "We will watch your career with great interest."

Anakin is quiet for the rest of the performance, and then after he says goodnight to the Chancellor, he goes quietly to the Jedi Temple and meets with the Council to report on Palpatine.

-

Leia's eyes may as well be steel when she's looking at Tarkin. Vader thinks he's rarely seen a being with more hatred, more anger. She's dangerous, that's certain. And she's more use to them dead if she won't give up her fellow rebels.

Tarkin is insistent, though. The man is almost as stubborn as she is. He leans into her space, forcing her to back into Vader to get away. "I grow tired of asking, so this will be the last time. Where is your rebel base?"

Organa seems to break finally, looking out the viewport at calm, peaceful Alderaan. She's hardly more than a child, but as far as she knows the whole planet as well as her rebellion rest entirely on her shoulders.

"They're on Dantooine," she says, defeated. Tarkin nods, unable to disguise his smug triumph. "There, you see? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He turns to the officers, a wicked gleam in his eyes. "You may fire when ready."

"What?" Whether it was hope or naivety that made the princess concede, the betrayal is palpable. Vader has been beyond caring for so long that even though to him, wasting an entire planet seems excessive, he's not about to protest. And yet there's something about Leia that cuts right to where his conscience used to be. Or maybe it's that he reminds her of someone he's forbidden himself to think about except when he's alone.

The weight of a world on her shoulders. The pain, the desperation to not let her people down.

He remembers a girl on Naboo who dressed like a servant but fought like a queen. Leia, though, is without recourse. She has no army, no bodyguards, no Jedi protectors, and she's all but dead.

Vader remembers a time he wanted to help that girl carrying the weight of a world. He wanted to save her. He steps forward, grabs Tarkin's arm instead of Leia's.

Tarkin looks at him like he's grown an extra head. "Vader, what are you doing?"

"Stop the attack." Vader looks at the officers, hoping the blankness of his mask is still imposing even in defiance of the Grand Moff. "Hold fire. Do not attack the planet."

Tarkin pulls away from him, glaring. "I am the one in power here. We will demonstrate the power of this station."

Vader looks at Leia. There is still so much anger in her eyes, but she's looking directly up into his helmet and Force, she really does remind him of Padmé. There's hope underneath that anger, fighting to the surface, waiting for a spark to ignite it. It surprises him to realize that he wants to give her that spark. 

He ignites his saber. This isn't a time for any more words so he merely acts, killing Tarkin and every other Imperial on deck in the space of a minute - enough time for someone to set off an alarm and Leia's hard look to melt into slack-jawed, wide eyed wonder as he deactivates his saber and takes her binders off. 

"Come with me," he says. "You're going home."

-

Shmi Skywalker lets out a final breath and goes limp in her son's arms. Anakin has never felt more lost in all his life.

Even through all these years away from her, he'd had the knowledge that his mother was out there somewhere, surviving as she always did. She had given him life, a name, and as much of a childhood as they could afford. She deserved so much better than dying in a desert. She deserved better than to be a slave in the first place.

She deserved a better son.

Anakin sobs as he holds her for an eternity. Only after he has no air left in his lungs and is simply too exhausted to cry does he start to move her. He lays her gently, reverently on the ground so he can stand and compose himself, think about what he's doing. He feels the burning in his heart, the anger. He wants to tear every being in this desert limb from limb, make it all pay for what's happened.

But even as his hand goes to his lightsaber, he knows there's only a few beings on this planet responsible for his mother's death, and killing any of them won't bring her back.

Anakin leaves his saber on his belt and does the very last thing he wants to do right now. He closes his eyes and he meditates.

The anger isn't going anywhere. To hells with what the Jedi say - it wouldn't be right if he wasn't angry. Nobody deserves his anger on their behalf more than Shmi. But if he kills everything he can find, it's going to change him in a way his mother wouldn't have wanted. Maybe the universe didn't care what she wanted or deserved, but Anakin does. 

He takes a deep breath. Then he picks his mother up and holds her very close to his chest.

There are a few Tuskens who try to stop him as he walks out of the camp. He reflects their blaster fire back at them and keeps walking, leaving a few burning corpses instead of a whole village. Maybe that will be enough to balance the scales without ruining his soul. Either way, he's bringing his mother home.

[agent-barnes40]

Watching The Empire Strikes back

The old sounding theme

Didn’t Mark Hamill get into an accident before filming this one?

What is up with the Dalek looking probes?

Mark Hamill looks so young.

He sounds so young.

Bruh, Luke wtf?

Y’all I fucking see it! I paused it at 4:27 and for a moment thought that Han was being played by Adam Driver. I definitely see the resemblance now.

Rip Chewie’s original actor

Wheretf is Leia?

There she is.

SPACE MOM LOOKS SO YOUNG

Rip Carrie Fisher while we’re here

Damn, Carrie talks so quietly during this scene.

Damn, Leia’s sass is amazing.

Leia hiding her feelings. Are we positive that Leia wouldn’t be an awesome Gen-Z?

Everyone walking in-between Leia and Han as they fight, iconic!

The angry “YOU COULD USE A GOOD KISS!” Sounds so much like Ben/Kylo. It’s nuts.

Above scene is at 6:27.

3P0! R2!

“OH SWITCH OFF!”

Han looks feral, that’s all I’m saying.

Han’s concern for Luke and Leia warms my heart.

“Between ourselves, I think Master Luke is in conciderable danger.”

“That’s right. My friends right out in it.”

Han, admit it, you’re attached to Luke.

“Then I’ll see you in hell.”

Damn Han.

Ya’ll I forgot that most of the “cgi” was stop motion in these first three.

The old force theme.

Rancor? Thingy is cool.

R2 willing to freeze for his Skywalker master makes me want to cry.

R2 DONT SOUND SAD!

Are we close to shoving Luke into a tauntaun yet?

The rebellion people being concerned for Leia’s worry over Luke and Han while C3P0 just walks up.

Leia closing the doors to the base and Chewie looks so sad.

I’m legit about to cry. They mimicked Chewies cry from this to put into TROS when they tell Poe, Finn and Chewie that Leia’s dead.

Shelby is joining me in my watch of Star Wars.

We’re shoving Luke into a tauntaun now!

Obi-Wan absolutely dissing Qui-Gon.

Glad to know the Tauntaun died of the cold,

Han wielding the lightsaber!

They’re so happy to have found Luke and Han

The bacta tank

Luke is like, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED WHILE I WAS ABOUT TO GET EATEN!?

The iconic Laserbrain scene.

Chewie laughing and Han looks so betrayed.

NERF HERDER!

Have I mentioned I love Leia?

The sad look on Han’s face when Leia calls him scruffy.

Luke’s like PLEASE DONT GET ME IN THIS!

I forgot Luke and Leia kiss!

3P0 casually mentioning that it isn’t a rebellion signal

Oop, here comes Anakin “So, do you like my plan?” Vader Skywalker.

The Falcon absolutely wreaking Han.

Han and Luke silently communicating.

Vader’s egg.

Vader casually killing someone while talking.

Have I mentioned I love Leia?

The stop motion is amazing.

THE AT-AT!

3P0 casually reminding R2 to be safe.

Luke trying to save his friend

Han running back for Leia.

Han catching 3P0.

Anthony Daniel’s autotune.

The very old sounding theme.

Luke gets his dumbass traits from Anakin.

Carries scream.

Where in the hell is the scene where 3P0 rips the warning on a door?

R2 being worried about Luke.

“Take Evasive action!” Almost dies.

The scene where Han is on the pole and his ass is on display, thank god Harrison Ford got paid for that.

Leia trying to fly falcon shows that she’s a Skywalker and has that natural ability to fly.

Had to switch over to my computer.

“Never tell me the odds!”

Oof, Dagobah.

Here comes the green dwarf who drinks coke every day.

Luke’s X-wing.

R2 falling into the water

R2 scream

Yoda should show up soon.

Vader’s egg.

Anakin’s crusty head.

Han catching Leia

Leia getting pissed

Han flirting

Here comes Yoda, the coke drinker.

Yoda’s so damn high. I’m meaning weed type of high

R2 getting beat by Yoda.

You know for a fact Yoda was beating R2 because he remembers Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker’s way too damn modified Astromech.

How the fuck is Frank Oz still alive?

3P0 wants his husband.

Oop, here comes the kiss scene with Han and Leia.

Han calling Leia by her first name for the first time.

“Scoundrel?”

“I happen to like nice men.”

Finally!

Fucking 3P0!

Han looks so vulnerable.

Oop Palpatine.

Vader’s egg.

Ian McDiarmid has been playing Palpatine since 1980.

Anakin learning that Luke Skywalker is his son and having to pick between killing him and wanting to finish raising Luke. It’s quite sad actually.

R2 getting drenched scares me.

Luke hiding his distaste for Yoda’s food.

Yoda and Obi-Wan talking.

I’m gonna be honest, I hate Yoda. He’s an old man who is doesn’t want change until literally episode 8. He may have taught Luke something but Luke had to learn the way of the force by himself.

Also, Yoda scares me.

Have I mentioned that I love Leia?

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

C3P0 yelling at the Mynock.

Leia faceplanting into the Falcon.

“I am not a committee!”

I don’t like the Luke/Yoda training scene.

The only thing that I believe that Yoda taught look was to absolutely fear his connection with the force.

The whole under the tree Luke/Vader “fight” was to allude to “hey, Vader is this Anakin guy we keep talking about.”

Is that Boba I see?

The light speed fail x2.

“Shut up!”

I don’t like this Luke/Yoda training scene either.

“No! Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

Unpopular opinion: Palpatine should’ve killed Yoda.

The soft flute force theme.

Bruh, I forgot Han landed the Falcon on Vader’s ship.

Leia turning 3P0 off.

“He’s a card player, gambler, scoundrel. You’d like him.

“Thanks.”

You can see Anthony Daniels or his stand in breathing in the 3P0 outfit.

Boba following them.

Again, I hate each and every single Yoda/Luke training scene.

“Han. Leia!”

Yoda constantly belittling Luke’s compassion for his friends that he sees as his family. This is why I don’t like Yoda.

The landing on cloud city.

I forgot how much Cloud city looks like Corucant.

Lando Calrissian

Han pointing to himself, *me?*

Lando Calrissian.

“What have you done to my ship?”

“Your ship? Hey, remember, you lost her to me fair and square.”

They are literal children and I love it.

Lando immediately flirting.

Also, what the fuck was George Lucas thinking on letting 5ft something men get chest to chest with Carrie and try to intimidate her with their height whilst trying to flirt with her?

Wtf was he thinking! Carrie Fisher is 4ft something and I feel bad for her.

“She’s the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.”

Chewie going to look for C3P0.

The soft force theme.

The force theme turning to the imperial march.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, you let 12-year old Ahsoka Tano on a battlefield with Anakin fucking Skywalker, the man who stared General Grevious in the face and basically told him to fuck off, and you’re not letting Anakin’s literal son go save his sister and future brother in law! So shut the fuck up dead guy and let Luke save his friends.

Yoda can go die for all I care. I forgot how much of an asshole he is.

God, I fucking hate Yoda.

Leia’s Bespin outfit.

Leia worried over 3P0 is the sweetest thing. This shows just how great of a mom she’ll be.

“I don’t trust Lando.”

Have I said that I appreciate how pretty Harrison Ford is?

Yo! Mandalorian!

Also, chewie finding C3P0!

Leia covering her body when she realizes Lando is watching her is something I thought I’d never relate to but whelp, here we are.

Lando Calrissian is very creepy actually in how he treats Leia every chance he can get.

Han’s ready to punch him.

“Would you join me for a refreshment?”

“No!” I never realized how protective Chewie is of Leia until this scene. Chewbacca immediately is ready to rip Lando apart.

“Having a problem with your droid?”

Han immediately realizes how vulnerable Leia can get when C3P0 is involved and when people she’s intimidated by. Han drew away Lando’s attention on 3P0 to him.

Han drank his appreciating women juice.

Is Boba wearing a death watch thingy on his shoulder?

Leia looks so damn scared.

Han grabbing Leia’s hand tighter to protect her.

Chewie trying to work on C3P0.

The imperial march.

Han’s super pale. “I feel terrible.”

Leia’s vulnerable and even though Han’s hurting he jumps in to protect her and how angry Leia gets, that’s when everyone knows that Leia’s feeling and anger is her protection emotion.

Honestly, I’m ready to skip the rest of Lando’s scenes.

Carbonite.

Okay so when Vader tells the Troopers to put Han into the carbon freezer, Chewbacca attacks, if you notice, Vader just lets him. It’s not because, “hey let’s not anger the Wookiee more.” It’s because according to a scene in The Clone Wars animated TV show, Chewbacca saved Anakin’s padawan, Ahsoka. I like to think Vader was finally paying his debt to the Shriwook for saving Ahsoka.

Han calming down Chewie by telling him to look after Leia.

Han and Leia’s second kiss

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Leia looks so damn sad and scared.

Chewie literally pulling Leia into his body to try and lessen the pain she was in.

The fact that Luke doesn’t realize that it’s Han.

Luke slowly realizing that he didn’t see Han with Leia and Chewie.

The only lightsaber fight between Luke and a Vader that I remember.

I’m not gonna comment on Chewie chocking Lando.

That force jump.

The biggest plot twist in cinematic history, according to the Internet, is about to happen.

R2 getting electrocuted

R2 going to fix his husband.

Oop, Luke’s hands about to get cut off.

Mark Hamill’s scream.

“Luke, there is no escape. Don’t make me destroy you. Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.”

“I’ll never join you!”

“If you only knew the power of the dark side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”

“He told me enough. He told me you killed him.”

“No. I am your father.”

“No, no, that’s not true. That’s impossible!”

“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

The iconic “Noooo.”

“Luke. You can destroy the emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Come with me. It is the only way.”

Skywalker men are such idiots and always are so dramatic.

The poor film editor, having to make it look like Luke is falling and is just playing with the footage they got of Mark Hamill writhing around.

And here we see just how powerful Leia and Luke are.

“Leia. Hear me. Leia”

“Luke.”

Luke’s just swinging his legs.

Light speed fail x3

“Luke.”

“Father.”

“Come with me.”

“Ben. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Luke, it’s your destiny.”

Mark Hamill is such a talented actor

Welp, Anakin’s gonna kill everyone.

“May the Force be with you.”

Luke’s fake hand.

The chills I get during the ending music.

And that was The Empire Strikes Back. All in all a good classic.

[disneydreamlights]

Until We Meet Again

AO3 | FFN

Summary: Stuck in the World Between Worlds, Ahsoka pulls her master in for one last conversation.

A/N: *drops this here and flees quietly* Anakin and Ahsoka deserve so much better.

Anyways first foray into writing for Star Wars, so that’s always fun.

She shouldn’t be here. That was the consistent thought that ran through Ahsoka’s head as she wandered the World Between Worlds. She’d told Ezra that messing with the past any more than necessary was a bad idea, and being in this place just kept the temptation there. With the knowledge she had now, she could change so much of the past, even when she knew it was wrong to harbor that desire. Yet despite Ezra making it out through back to Lothal, she couldn’t find the portal back to Malachor.

“What would’ve surprised people was how kind he was. He cared deeply about his friends. He looked out for them until the end.”

That was her voice echoing out into the endless abyss of empty space surrounding her. It was what she’d said to Ezra when she had first told him about her master. She winced at the realization, not wanting to think about Anakin. She still had a bit more until she came to terms with that.

“He is like no other Jedi. Passionate, impulsive, but I trust him with my life!”

“You’re reckless little one. You never would have made it as Obi-Wan’s Padawan, but you might make it as mine.”

“Fighter crashed, I saved the day, you’re welcome.”

“You taught me well. I can handle anything.”

It was all just snippets of conversations between them. Swirling around in the Force with no source. For a moment, Ahsoka felt like she was going to be overwhelmed by the memories of them. They had to be coming from somewhere. Because she had to make them stop.

Her answer came from one of the portals. Something about it almost felt as though it was calling to her.

“Anakin, good luck.”

“But because of you I did survive.”

“I knew you’d come looking for me.” “I never doubted you for a second.”

“I can’t let you die Ahsoka.”

Each memory that played out as she got closer to the portal was like a stab to the heart. She tried to ignore them, unable to face how much had changed. How the master who would sacrifice the world to keep her safe was the same person who had tried to kill her just hours earlier. She stopped in front of the portal and looked through it, determined to see what the Force wanted her to see, and ignore the voices from her past.

It was a moment she could never forget, the moment she had turned away from the path of the Jedi. She watched in silence as her younger, hurt counterpart continued down the steps away from the temple, and away from Anakin. Knowing what he had become, knowing this would be one of the final times she would see him, it was her biggest regret. She could have done more if she’d stayed in the temple.

For a brief moment, Ahsoka contemplated running through the portal and stopping her younger counterpart from leaving, but she quickly dismissed the idea before it could settle in her head. Even if she had succeeded in convincing herself to return, there was no guarantee it would fix the timeline. There was a chance it could make it worse. “Remember what you told Ezra,” she mumbled under her breath, “You can’t change the timeline.”

She took a deep breath to try to keep herself calm, and continued to watch the portal. She watched as Anakin turned away once her montrals disappeared below the horizon. After a moment, almost as though for him it was sinking in that the young Ahsoka wouldn’t come back, Anakin started for the temple. She remembered how he’d said he’d understood why she’d left, but the way he looked so deflated told her that even if he understood wanting to leave the order, he was still far more hurt than she could’ve imagined. “Anakin.” He heard her as he passed by the portal and looked at her. Before he could respond, she reached through and pulled Anakin into the portal.

Anakin stumbled through, having been pulled into the strange world. Ahsoka managed the same, and for a moment, they stood opposite of each other, staring. She couldn’t believe herself. Why had she done that? She hadn’t even thought about it, just reacted. For a moment, they both just looked at each other. Anakin trying to figure out where he was and what was going on, and Ahsoka still attempting to process just what she had done.

Anakin gathered his bearings first as he looked at her as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Ahsoka?”

“Anakin.” Her voice came out as hardly more than a whisper as she nodded.

Seeing the wide grin on his face hurt far more than she could ever say. “You grew up.” Anakin, this Anakin, was practically throwing his pride for her into the Force, so unlike the Vader she had just faced moments ago. It just didn’t make sense how in less than a year from this he’d fall so far.

“It has been a while.” Ahsoka couldn’t fight off the small smile on her face.

“How long?”

“Twenty years.” She looked away, unable to bring herself to see how he reacted.

“You...twenty…” Anakin took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Is the war finally over? Did we win? How’s Pad–”

“Anakin.” The pain in her voice was more than enough to shut him up. He waited for her to answer. “Please, don’t ask me. I can’t...It could change the past.” If he knew anything she knew, things could get better, or they could be so much worse. This was Anakin, and the knowledge that he caused so much tragedy could either drive him right over that edge he was evidently a lot closer to then she’d ever imagined, or it could cause him to go marching into the Senate right now, lightsaber at the ready to stab Palpatine in the chest and be done with it. Ahsoka wouldn’t chance it.

He didn’t respond right away. “No details then. Just...I need to know.. I need to know if everything is worth it.”

“It’s not.” Ahsoka could offer that much. “The war changed the galaxy forever.” She couldn’t help the bitterness that seeped into her tone. It took away almost all of her closest friends. Even after everything, it would never be worth it.

Anakin hugged her. Whether it was an attempt to soothe her pain or stop his own Ahsoka wasn’t sure, nor did she care. She hugged him back, relieved for just a moment to have him back. “I miss you, Skyguy.” Almost as though he knew what happened to him, Anakin hugged her tighter the moment she told him, hoping he could give her slightly more support.

Anakin pulled away from the hug first, unable to look at her. “I die in the war, don’t I?” She didn’t respond. How could she respond? “Ahsoka.”

“At the end.” She knows that had to be when he fell. Darth Vader showed his face only a few months after the Clone Wars ended, and the Clone Wars ended the night the Jedi fell. It was technically true; while his body lived based on the cold reception she had received it was very obvious the Sith was not her master. Not anymore. “I wasn’t there when it happened.” She didn’t elaborate why, he didn’t need her to.

“Guess that just means you’ll have to avenge me, doesn’t it?” He let out a laugh, but it was clear that it was more for her sake that he was joking around about his own death than him finding anything to laugh at. “Well, the younger you will anyways. This you I’m sure has already done it with how well I trained you.”

“I’m working on it. Not all of us have prophecy given powers to beat Sith Lords you know.” The moment the words left her mouth, she winced. Anakin’s joy fell silent.

“Dooku’s master?”

“Dooku’s replacement.”

They fell quiet again, neither of them really knowing what to say to each other with the reveal. For Anakin, it was the proof that the war meant nothing in the long term for him if the Sith not only lived, but killed him. “Do you know how he did it?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “I don’t, but knowing you? Padmé and Obi-Wan were probably in trouble and you rushed right in to protect them.” Given that Padmé’s funeral had been broadcast for everybody to see and nobody had heard from Obi-Wan since the Clone Wars ended, it was her current working theory. They died and Anakin fell after losing everybody he had left besides her.

“Senator Amidala, why would I–” At the pointed look Ahsoka gave him, Anakin fell silent. She knew about the two of them back when she was still his Padawan after all. “Alright, maybe that theory isn’t so unreasonable after all.”

“It’s completely reasonable.” She nudged him lightly, and he laughed, unable to deny it. “Come on Skyguy, you and I both know she’s your girlfriend.”

“Wife, Snips. We’ve been married for two years now.” Anakin smirked. They were married the entire time she was his Padawan? If it wasn’t for the rules against attachments, and how Anakin probably kept it secret so he could remain her master, Ahsoka would’ve been hurt by the fact that he never told her. And then it seemed to sink in what he said, because the lightened atmosphere between the two once more darkened. “You said I probably went down trying to save Obi-Wan and Padmé...was I at least successful.”

“Anakin, I c…” Ahsoka let her denial fall silent as she noticed the look of desperation in his face. “You don’t. I saw her funeral on the HoloNet, and nobody’s seen Obi-Wan since.” She didn’t tell him about how Padmé had died pregnant. It would only hurt him more.

Not that the news of Padmé’s death didn’t hurt him enough. Anakin crumped, leaning into her as though he’d gotten older by twenty years just from that statement alone. This had to be a hard day, between losing his Padawan and learning that the two of them would die. “Tell me, what happened? Maybe I can save her, stop us both from--”

“I don’t know.” Ahsoka cut him off before he could keep going. “I wasn’t there, I just knew you were both gone. That it was just Rex and I left.”

That brought a slight smile to Anakin’s face. “At least you had Rex with you. If nothing else, somebody was able to keep watching your back.”

“He’s never let me down before.” Ahsoka smiled back. “Just like you didn’t either.” It wasn’t the full truth, but Anakin hadn’t fallen to the dark side yet. This Anakin had done his best, had never failed her.

Even with the bond between them no longer present, Ahsoka could feel Anakin’s relief in the Force. That she hadn’t chosen to abandon him because he’d failed her. “Why did you leave then?”

“I needed to find myself, after everything.” Ahsoka put a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “She needs to work that out too. I promise you, this isn’t the last time we meet.”

Despite feeling nothing but regret at how their last conversations had gone, Ahsoka knew telling him that was the right choice just by how much more at peace he seemed. She too felt more centered than she had since she’d learned the identity of the man behind the mask. “I shouldn’t keep you here any longer. I have a Sith Lord to hunt, and you shouldn’t waste anymore time with Padmé than you already have.”

“Haha, very funny.” The way the smile reached his eyes told Ahsoka he did, in fact, appreciate the fact that he would tease her like this. “But I suppose you’re right, it has been a while since I’ve been on Coruscant, and my lovely wife did manage to save you from whatever punishment the Senate may have been forced to enact.”

Anakin stopped teasing a moment later as he reached into his pocket and pulled out her Padawan beads. “I was going to hold onto them, in case you ever decided to rejoin the Order, but I can tell, even with the lightsabers, you’re not a Jedi.” She looked at him in surprise, but Anakin continued. “I can imagine given that, when I…” He stayed quiet for a moment. “When everything happens, I doubt you managed to have anything of mine. I know they’re probably a reminder of the pain you’ve gone through, but they’re also a symbol for every moment we spent together, training. You should have something to remember me by.”

Ahsoka was silent for a moment. He was right, in that the beads were mostly a reminder of everything she had left behind, but they were also her tie to Anakin, and she knew he wasn’t offering them to her lightly. “Thank you, Master.”

Anakin dropped the beads into her hand, and she wrapped them around the hilt of one of her lightsabers. He went to turn around, but stopped for a moment, instead choosing to give her one last hug. “I’m proud of you.”

She returned the hug briefly before pulling away. “I know.”

With a wave and a stay safe, Anakin left to return to Coruscant in his time, and Ahsoka turned around to see Morai, sitting on the arch of the portal behind her. “So, that one leads back to where I need to go?” The bird nodded, perching herself on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Then let’s go.” With one last glance around her, Ahsoka exited the World Between Worlds to return to the Sith temple on Malachor.

She needed to get out of there as soon as possible, after all, she had a promise to keep.

[smokeybrandreviews]

The Tragedy of Rey Palpatine

I really, really, like Rey Skywalker, in concept. I think she could have been an amazing character and the perfect torch-bearer for the mythos going forward. After The Force Awakens, i was all in with this new trio of characters. Say what you will about Abrams, dude knows how to build a character. He knows how to write a story and Rey’s began wonderfully. She had all of the potential to be held in the same esteem as Mara Jade, Leia Organa, and Ahsoka Tano. Hell, Disney even introduced Chelli Aphra in the Vader comics, another brilliant, female character of Asian descent. Each of these characters were fleshed out, nuanced, and felt real. There is a humanity to them and, i imagine that’s where Abrams wanted to take Rey. Then The Last Jedi happened and ruined almost everything. I think it did a great service for Kylo Ren, overall, but everything else got a big fat Rian Johnson/Kathleen Kennedy sh*t all over it.

Abrams set up a ton of intriguing plots to explore going forward. The hints that Finn may be Force sensitive, the mystery of how Mas got a hold of Anakin’s lightsaber after Vader cut Luke’s hand off in Empire, who the f*ck was Snoke; All threads that could have been elaborated upon to embellish the new characters and give an opportunity to pass the torch on with the new characters. More than anything, the enigma of Rey Skywalker could have driven this trilogy of films in a direction for the ages. The seeds were there for greatness. Why did she hear Obi Wan in that flashback? Why was she spared by the Knights of Ren? Why did Ren know exactly what girl that trooper reported about? The only answer we got was that Rey was the spawn of a Palpatine clone and it was stupid.That reveal was the dumbest sh*t in Rise of Skywalker and there was a lot of dumb sh*t in that movie. Rise spent way too much time apologizing for what Last Jedi did to the mythos and had literally no time to fix the characters going forward. That’s how bad Kathleen Kennedy let Rian Johnson f*ck up.

I like the Last Jedi as a space opera. Hell, i even like it as a Star Wars side story in the vein of Solo or Rogue One. If those events happened in between VII and VIII, cool. But to be a mainline entry? Are you kidding? It just gets so much wrong about the overall lore while simultaneously sabotaging all of the character development and good will fostered by it’s predecessor. The level of f*ckery in The Last Jedi is ind of amazing. At it’s core, The Last Jedi s a fanfic, filled with OC characters, trying to “subvert” expectation to be more than it can or has any right to be. Rian Johnson wanted to make his movie, mythos be damned. Trilogy be damned. Kathleen Kennedy was okay with all of that as long as Johnson pushed her agenda and virtue signaled for all the “Girl Bosses” out there, which he did. The end result was a usual cool, collected, Resistance Ace, Poe Dameron, literally committing treason. We got a regression in the character of Finn, a former Stormtrooper turned rebel scum, a traitor to the First Order who literally got into a lightsaber duel with Vader’s grandson to protect his maybe-love interest, try to runaway like a f*cking coward, only to be tasered into a drooling mess by Rian Johnson’s Jar Jar binx. And the sh*t they did to Luke? That mess is criminal and an entire essay for another time. The Last Jedi f*cked everything up, forcing Abrams to course correct for two and half hours. This sh*t killed any momentum the Disney films had, it killed any semblance of a cohesive narrative going forward, and, worst of all, it murdered any semblance of Rey being more than a poorly written Mary-sue.

These new trilogies had every opportunity to be great. If they had someone with a reverence, a respect, for the source material helming Lucasfilm, they would have been. Look what Filoni has done with The Clone Wars and Rebels. Look what Favreau is doing with Mando. This might be a little glib but, considering Disney is bringing him in for a Star Wars trilogy on their own, look what Feige has done with the MCU? Hell, all things Marvel at this point. When you focus on dope stories and compelling characters, the narrative takes care of itself. When you focus on agenda and pushing divisive material, you can’t help but destroy what you hope to build. Kennedy is letting her ego cut her off at the knees when, if she just reined that sh*t in a bit, she could have been standing tall and walking into the future with her OCs intact. Instead, she has people in her own organization apologizing for her f*ck ups as the value of the legacy property you were gifted, tanks at a hilariously exponential rate. So how do we fix Rey and, effectively fix this entire trilogy?

First off, she needs to be a Skywalker. That is an absolute necessity. I would make her Luke’s kid. That would explain away her proficiency with the Force, the fact she pilots like a champ, and has that hole Force Dyad bullsh*t with Ren, like her dad and aunt kind of have. Rey would be an organic growth of the Skywalker legacy while simultaneously bringing a refreshing conclusion to it with Episode IX. I would build the familial relationship between Kylo and Rey, one representing either side of the Force, both fighting to discover something about themselves within, over the course of this trilogy. I would have made Rey Luke’s kid; A proper Skywalker. I would have made her mother Mara Jade, opening up a whole situation that could have been embellished into at least two spin-off tales with a ton of ramifications going forward. I mean, imagine a story where Luke had to fight off the Knights of Ren AND his nephew before Ben donned the mask, as his pregnant wife ran off into space to avoid the overall destruction of the New Jedi Order. That sh*t writes itself.

You get a side story of Mara Jade and a young Rey on the run, being chased by the Knights over the years, until she leaves Rey on Jakku, ultimately meeting her fate in a last stand battle, like her nephew, at the hands of several Knights on some nameless planet. Or Tatooine, i dunno. That’s an entire film. That’s a brand new, female lead you can explore. It’s organic. It homages the lore. It’s respectful of the overall mythos. It’s literally better than anything Disney has done with the mainline titles so far. Hell, you can even explore how Luke met Mara. Maybe she was one of the reformed Knights. Maybe she was one of the surviving Force Sensitives after Order 66. Maybe she used to be an Inquisitor but turned on Paps once Vader saw the light. Personally, i would skew more toward her being a former Inquisitor, seeking out Luke for revenge but, upon finding him, falls in love after several clashes. That gives Mara depth and allows for her to grow over a novel or two. Maybe a stand alone film. Luke would self-exile after losing to Ren but not because of the L, more because he thinks his wife and unborn kid are long dead. He’s heartbroken and knows he isn’t strong enough to fell his own nephew so Luke runs away. He goes into exile, like Yoda and Obi Wan before him, all the way to Ahch-to, searching for some killer app to finish Snoke before he can really get started. Imagine how much emotional resonance the ending of Episode VII could of held, going this route. Luke staring at Rey with such apprehension and regret. He immediately knows this is his daughter. That she's live. That she's here to ask him to do what he can't.

You'd spend the a good chunk of Episode VIII building that relationship. Showing Luke being cold and stand-offish because he knows Rey is his kid and he regrets his choice to run. He knows that Mara survived for years without him, probably dogged by First Order assassins. That the woman he loved, died alone after abandoning her child to strangers on a backwater planet somewhere in the galaxy. He knows this adult woman standing before him, is his and Mara’s living legacy and he doesn’t want her anywhere near the conflict to come. She’s demanding to be trained. He’s dismissive and curt, until the Dyad with Ren kicks in. Just being on the Force rich planet of Ahch-to increases Rey’s sensitivity, allowing Snoke to tether her to her cousin. When she goes straight to the dark, that’s Ren’s influence. When she cracks the rock and wigs Luke out, that’s Ren’s influence. In order to combat that growing corruption, Luke decides to train Rey to combat the dark. We actually show look acting like a master, teaching Rey sh*t instead of just, you know, “go cut that rock”. We show her learning from Luke, growing in confidence with her abilities. This entire sequence can take the place of literally all of the Canto Bight nonsense. No one liked any of that and it kills the momentum of the entire narrative going forward. Replace it with Rey actually being trained and you not only give her an opportunity for much needed character development, but you give Luke so much more of an arc and a means to have him bow out with substantial grace. If you decide to go the “Luke Dies at the end” route. Personally, i would have nixed Leia in VIII considering things and moved forward with Luke as the survivor but that's another story. I'd have to rework all of VIII and I don't feel like doing that right now. Leia’s death would devastate Ren, flooding him with a boost in the Dark Side, enough to slay Snoke and raise him to Supreme Leader without the need of Rey’s help. This would lead into a version of Colin Trevorrow’s version of Episode IX, which i think is a superior narrative overall but we’ll get there when we get there. Maybe.

The climax of the Last Jedi could be exactly the same but now it has so much more depth. It has so much more resonance for the trilogy going forward. Luke’s sacrifice would mean something  as we watched him slowly come to terms with his daughter being the hope going forward, effectively replacing him in the narrative. Most fans would be okay with this as, even though he never tells Rey he’s her father outright, the audience kind of knows. It’s hinted at. The reveal can come in IX somehow or in his last regards to Leia. He apologizes for Kylo but reassures her that, even if he passes, her niece will carry on the fight. Luke tells Leia of Rey's parontagem she says “I know” like her husband, and promises to continue Rey's training to best of her abilities. Kylo gets his shadows chase. Luke’s last words have so much more impact. We have an emotional investment in Rey because the torch had been properly passed. I, personally, would rework the majority of the plot while i’m at it. I’d fix Poe, continue exploring Finn and his connection to the force, and find a way to make Rose Tico relevant without being trite. I mean, you can have the Canto Bight stuff but draw it back considerably. It doesn’t need to be an entire third of the whole f*cking movie.

I like the character of Amilyn Holdo, too, but her arc was stifled by nonsense politics and shallow development. All of that mediocrity kind of made her an easy target to hate, a lot like Rose. In my story, she’d still take the helm from Leia in Last Jedi but would have had an appearance in Force Awakens. She didn’t need to have a ton of facetime, maybe a shout out at the round table toward the end of VII or getting off the ship at Mas’ bar with Leia. Hell, a f*cking holo transmission would be enough of a mention, Holdo just needed a presence in that movie to be legitimized for the next. Rose was fine as is, she just needs more agency and not that bullsh*t, half-assed, love triangle that was literally dropped like a hot track on Soundcloud in the middle of a chase movie. That sh*t was stupid and it doomed Rose before she had a chance to even get started.

Episode IX would start like Rise, Kylo slaughtering his way toward the wayfinder, but revealing that planet was Mustafar instead of whatever planet he was on originally. Ren has been planetside for weeks, searching for the wayfinder dealy and the planets dark side alignment is taking it's toll on him.  The mcguffin is deep in the wreckage of Vader's demolished castle, the deep subdivision and what not. Kylo makes his way to it, fighting dark side shades of his grandfather in Anakin form, goading him about his weakness, feeding into Ren's inadequacies about being weaker than his pap-pap. Kylo finds the mcguffin and takes off toward the Outer reaches in an effort to unlock more power. After the climax to VIII, Rey returns to Ahck-to to find Luke gone and the growing pull to the dark within her as the Dyad is wide open and Ren's spiral is pulling Rey along toward the drain, too. She feels him getting closer to full Sith, all of that pain and rage, multiplied considerably by his anger toward his grandfather's shades. Kylo basically flies to the outer reaches to find a Lost sage of the Darkside. It's not a Jedi or a Sith, but a being that thrives in the Dark, like whatever Maul is, but gigantic and monstrous. He learns from that creature, all the while leaving Hux to command the Last Order in his stead, second by General Pryde. The two of these cats have a battle for power, Pryde suspecting Hux of being a traitor, Hux trying to stave of attempts for his seat at the head, all the while pounding the Rebels as they continue to fight. The Knights of Ren are off, clashing with Finn, Poe, Chewie, and Rose as they search for another means to find a way to Rey, as she has the map and R2 with her on Ahck-to where she is training for the final battle. The majority of the film continues to follow the basic plot of IX, mcguffin chasing and what not, with Finn, finally adept enough in the force, to adequately take Rey’s place in those narrative spots.

We have the whole montage of training on both worlds; Force ghost Luke showing Rey more advanced techniques and Ren taking on a full-on, Vader shade, like Luke, in the Outer Regions or whatever. Eventually, the remaining main characters decide to split up as the pressure of the Last Order continues to deplete their resources. Finn fixes Anakin’s lightsaber and begins to train with it under the tutelage of Mas, who is all in with the Rebels now, as they go after the other mcgiffin on Endor. He still meets the other former stormtroopers or whatever and they still help in the final battle but, instead of Rey and Kylo, it Finn and a few Knights of Ren. Maybe two, I dunno. Anyway, he beats them with Anakin's saber, gets the mcgissin and returns to the Rebel base, stormtrooper backup in hand. Poe and Lando try to drum up support for a final strike on the Last Order’s base and you get that whole shtick with Keri Russell's character. I'd take her helmet off, too. Why the f*ck  would you hide Keri's face? Shes adorable! Finn and Lando try their best, but it seems like a no-go so Lando stays to work his magic as he and Chewie return to the Rebel planet. Rose can return to the Rebel planet and take charge of strategy or whatever as Leia secludes herself within the base. I dunno. Rose is kind of hard to place because she has no discernible talents but I imagine anything is better than what they did to her originally. Anyway, Rey is able to develop enough self-control to force the Dyad closed, cutting Ren's influence off from her but, at the same time, her influence off from Ren, completely. That's gonna have big ramifications later.

Around the end of the second act, Ren sees a force projection from his mother pleading with him to turn back to the light but he waves her off. Like her brother, Leia uses the last of her strength in this effort and she dies, pushing Ren over the edge, forcing him into full Sith. Since Rey closed the Dyad, Ren has no semblance of Light to keep the Dark at bay and he just absorbs SO much of it. It multiplies his strength in the Force and Ren is able to slay the Dark Sage, take it's power, and return to his fleet. Sh*t, the sage might be an actual Sith, Like, the people Sith and Ren kills him, effectively exterminated the race. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Anyway, Ren arrives to find Hux is the traitor so he allows Pryde to kill him. Pryde takes command and they raise their newly constructed, massive, fleet along with a brand new flag ship. Mobile, lightspeed ready, and far more deadly than any planet cannon, Ren is ready to begin his march of devastation. Our heroes arrive on the First Order hideaway and the battle ensues. Finn boards the flagship, clashing with the remaining Knights of Ren, his hit squad of former Stormtroopers at his side, as Rose uses her tech skills to drop the shields or whatever they were doing with horses on that spaceship at he end of IX. Rey arrives on the planet, Ren sensing her returns to the surface, to face off with each other. Ren is brimming with the dark, Rey knows he;s too far gone to save and she resolved to do what is necessary to end his tyranny. She ignites Lukes green lightsber, which upsets Ren and then Leia's  yellow saber, which sends Ren into a legit rage. Yeah, Rey dual-wields now because it's cool. Poe does his whole lone ranger whatever as he's the last of the vanguard and sh*t. All is lost.

The reinforcements show up in the nick of time and sh*t happens. Big ass sky battle with spaceships and explosions and sh*t, while Finn, Rose, and that black chick accomplish their task on the flagship. Shields dow, sh*t stats blowing up, fun times. Rey gets wrecked by Kylo, who is all the way Dark, no redemption, yellow rage eyes and everything. She’s getting dumped on until she forces the dyad open, allowing Ren to see the Force ghosts of Jedi Masters of old, as they all appear behind Rey, including Leia, Luke, and Mara Jade. They speak that bullsh*t, lay hands on Rei's lightsabers giving her a jump in power, and Rey defeats Ren in a harrowing duel. It has to end in a lightsaber clash. How can it not? Finn wrecks the remaining Knights and the flagship falls as the Rebel fleet overcomes the last of the Last Order. Ren is defeated, dying slowly, lamenting his choices. In his last moments, as the Force ghosts fade, the last few left are his mother, uncle, and grandpa. The last thing Ben sees as he dies is the face of the man he’s chased for so long. Poetic. Tragic. Requisite celebration on a jungle planet ensues while Rey is off, giving Ben a proper Jedi bonfire. Finn approaches, objecting to the respect shown, but she tells him that, in the end, Ren was still a Skywalker. If Vader can be forgiven, so could Ben. The two watch as the flames rise into the night sky. We get a scene of a shadow tracing the insides of Uncle Owen’s joint on Tatooine, generators firing on, mechanics coming to life. Rey is seen, all by her lonesome, igniting her new, personal, lightsabers; Gold, I guess? Is that what color they were supposed to be? A young kid arrives, inquiring about why the old Lars place is lit up for the first time in decades. He asks her name. She hesitates, looking over her shoulder to see the force ghosts of Anakin, Leia, Luke, Mara, and Ben; Her entire family. She gives a knowing smile and answers, “Rey. Rey Skywalker.”

This is just a rough outline of how i would have written this trilogy. I might embellish a little bit, maybe write it up as a proper fan fiction, but i don’t know. There’s a lot to unpack and i don’t really want to spend the time actually fleshing out this narrative but, i believe this is far superior to anything Disney has done. It fixes Rey, sets up Ren as a actual antagonistic force, kills anything resembling a Reylo romance, returns agency to Finn and Poe, fixes Rose, makes Mas a factor, and wraps everything up nicely. You get answers to the questions from before, the Knights of Ren have a presence throughout the entirety of the trilogy, and even divisive characters like Holdo get a shot at relevance outside of agenda. More than anything Rey being a Skywalker feels earned. It feels organic. It feels right. This is the bookend the Skywalker story deserved, not the rushed, politic laden, ego trip we got.

[smokeybrand]

The Tragedy of Rey Palpatine

I really, really, like Rey Skywalker, in concept. I think she could have been an amazing character and the perfect torch-bearer for the mythos going forward. After The Force Awakens, i was all in with this new trio of characters. Say what you will about Abrams, dude knows how to build a character. He knows how to write a story and Rey’s began wonderfully. She had all of the potential to be held in the same esteem as Mara Jade, Leia Organa, and Ahsoka Tano. Hell, Disney even introduced Chelli Aphra in the Vader comics, another brilliant, female character of Asian descent. Each of these characters were fleshed out, nuanced, and felt real. There is a humanity to them and, i imagine that’s where Abrams wanted to take Rey. Then The Last Jedi happened and ruined almost everything. I think it did a great service for Kylo Ren, overall, but everything else got a big fat Rian Johnson/Kathleen Kennedy sh*t all over it.

Abrams set up a ton of intriguing plots to explore going forward. The hints that Finn may be Force sensitive, the mystery of how Mas got a hold of Anakin’s lightsaber after Vader cut Luke’s hand off in Empire, who the f*ck was Snoke; All threads that could have been elaborated upon to embellish the new characters and give an opportunity to pass the torch on with the new characters. More than anything, the enigma of Rey Skywalker could have driven this trilogy of films in a direction for the ages. The seeds were there for greatness. Why did she hear Obi Wan in that flashback? Why was she spared by the Knights of Ren? Why did Ren know exactly what girl that trooper reported about? The only answer we got was that Rey was the spawn of a Palpatine clone and it was stupid.That reveal was the dumbest sh*t in Rise of Skywalker and there was a lot of dumb sh*t in that movie. Rise spent way too much time apologizing for what Last Jedi did to the mythos and had literally no time to fix the characters going forward. That’s how bad Kathleen Kennedy let Rian Johnson f*ck up.

I like the Last Jedi as a space opera. Hell, i even like it as a Star Wars side story in the vein of Solo or Rogue One. If those events happened in between VII and VIII, cool. But to be a mainline entry? Are you kidding? It just gets so much wrong about the overall lore while simultaneously sabotaging all of the character development and good will fostered by it’s predecessor. The level of f*ckery in The Last Jedi is ind of amazing. At it’s core, The Last Jedi s a fanfic, filled with OC characters, trying to “subvert” expectation to be more than it can or has any right to be. Rian Johnson wanted to make his movie, mythos be damned. Trilogy be damned. Kathleen Kennedy was okay with all of that as long as Johnson pushed her agenda and virtue signaled for all the “Girl Bosses” out there, which he did. The end result was a usual cool, collected, Resistance Ace, Poe Dameron, literally committing treason. We got a regression in the character of Finn, a former Stormtrooper turned rebel scum, a traitor to the First Order who literally got into a lightsaber duel with Vader’s grandson to protect his maybe-love interest, try to runaway like a f*cking coward, only to be tasered into a drooling mess by Rian Johnson’s Jar Jar binx. And the sh*t they did to Luke? That mess is criminal and an entire essay for another time. The Last Jedi f*cked everything up, forcing Abrams to course correct for two and half hours. This sh*t killed any momentum the Disney films had, it killed any semblance of a cohesive narrative going forward, and, worst of all, it murdered any semblance of Rey being more than a poorly written Mary-sue.

These new trilogies had every opportunity to be great. If they had someone with a reverence, a respect, for the source material helming Lucasfilm, they would have been. Look what Filoni has done with The Clone Wars and Rebels. Look what Favreau is doing with Mando. This might be a little glib but, considering Disney is bringing him in for a Star Wars trilogy on their own, look what Feige has done with the MCU? Hell, all things Marvel at this point. When you focus on dope stories and compelling characters, the narrative takes care of itself. When you focus on agenda and pushing divisive material, you can’t help but destroy what you hope to build. Kennedy is letting her ego cut her off at the knees when, if she just reined that sh*t in a bit, she could have been standing tall and walking into the future with her OCs intact. Instead, she has people in her own organization apologizing for her f*ck ups as the value of the legacy property you were gifted, tanks at a hilariously exponential rate. So how do we fix Rey and, effectively fix this entire trilogy?

First off, she needs to be a Skywalker. That is an absolute necessity. I would make her Luke’s kid. That would explain away her proficiency with the Force, the fact she pilots like a champ, and has that hole Force Dyad bullsh*t with Ren, like her dad and aunt kind of have. Rey would be an organic growth of the Skywalker legacy while simultaneously bringing a refreshing conclusion to it with Episode IX. I would build the familial relationship between Kylo and Rey, one representing either side of the Force, both fighting to discover something about themselves within, over the course of this trilogy. I would have made Rey Luke’s kid; A proper Skywalker. I would have made her mother Mara Jade, opening up a whole situation that could have been embellished into at least two spin-off tales with a ton of ramifications going forward. I mean, imagine a story where Luke had to fight off the Knights of Ren AND his nephew before Ben donned the mask, as his pregnant wife ran off into space to avoid the overall destruction of the New Jedi Order. That sh*t writes itself.

You get a side story of Mara Jade and a young Rey on the run, being chased by the Knights over the years, until she leaves Rey on Jakku, ultimately meeting her fate in a last stand battle, like her nephew, at the hands of several Knights on some nameless planet. Or Tatooine, i dunno. That’s an entire film. That’s a brand new, female lead you can explore. It’s organic. It homages the lore. It’s respectful of the overall mythos. It’s literally better than anything Disney has done with the mainline titles so far. Hell, you can even explore how Luke met Mara. Maybe she was one of the reformed Knights. Maybe she was one of the surviving Force Sensitives after Order 66. Maybe she used to be an Inquisitor but turned on Paps once Vader saw the light. Personally, i would skew more toward her being a former Inquisitor, seeking out Luke for revenge but, upon finding him, falls in love after several clashes. That gives Mara depth and allows for her to grow over a novel or two. Maybe a stand alone film. Luke would self-exile after losing to Ren but not because of the L, more because he thinks his wife and unborn kid are long dead. He’s heartbroken and knows he isn’t strong enough to fell his own nephew so Luke runs away. He goes into exile, like Yoda and Obi Wan before him, all the way to Ahch-to, searching for some killer app to finish Snoke before he can really get started. Imagine how much emotional resonance the ending of Episode VII could of held, going this route. Luke staring at Rey with such apprehension and regret. He immediately knows this is his daughter. That she's live. That she's here to ask him to do what he can't.

You'd spend the a good chunk of Episode VIII building that relationship. Showing Luke being cold and stand-offish because he knows Rey is his kid and he regrets his choice to run. He knows that Mara survived for years without him, probably dogged by First Order assassins. That the woman he loved, died alone after abandoning her child to strangers on a backwater planet somewhere in the galaxy. He knows this adult woman standing before him, is his and Mara’s living legacy and he doesn’t want her anywhere near the conflict to come. She’s demanding to be trained. He’s dismissive and curt, until the Dyad with Ren kicks in. Just being on the Force rich planet of Ahch-to increases Rey’s sensitivity, allowing Snoke to tether her to her cousin. When she goes straight to the dark, that’s Ren’s influence. When she cracks the rock and wigs Luke out, that’s Ren’s influence. In order to combat that growing corruption, Luke decides to train Rey to combat the dark. We actually show look acting like a master, teaching Rey sh*t instead of just, you know, “go cut that rock”. We show her learning from Luke, growing in confidence with her abilities. This entire sequence can take the place of literally all of the Canto Bight nonsense. No one liked any of that and it kills the momentum of the entire narrative going forward. Replace it with Rey actually being trained and you not only give her an opportunity for much needed character development, but you give Luke so much more of an arc and a means to have him bow out with substantial grace. If you decide to go the “Luke Dies at the end” route. Personally, i would have nixed Leia in VIII considering things and moved forward with Luke as the survivor but that's another story. I'd have to rework all of VIII and I don't feel like doing that right now. Leia’s death would devastate Ren, flooding him with a boost in the Dark Side, enough to slay Snoke and raise him to Supreme Leader without the need of Rey’s help. This would lead into a version of Colin Trevorrow’s version of Episode IX, which i think is a superior narrative overall but we’ll get there when we get there. Maybe.

The climax of the Last Jedi could be exactly the same but now it has so much more depth. It has so much more resonance for the trilogy going forward. Luke’s sacrifice would mean something  as we watched him slowly come to terms with his daughter being the hope going forward, effectively replacing him in the narrative. Most fans would be okay with this as, even though he never tells Rey he’s her father outright, the audience kind of knows. It’s hinted at. The reveal can come in IX somehow or in his last regards to Leia. He apologizes for Kylo but reassures her that, even if he passes, her niece will carry on the fight. Luke tells Leia of Rey's parontagem she says “I know” like her husband, and promises to continue Rey's training to best of her abilities. Kylo gets his shadows chase. Luke’s last words have so much more impact. We have an emotional investment in Rey because the torch had been properly passed. I, personally, would rework the majority of the plot while i’m at it. I’d fix Poe, continue exploring Finn and his connection to the force, and find a way to make Rose Tico relevant without being trite. I mean, you can have the Canto Bight stuff but draw it back considerably. It doesn’t need to be an entire third of the whole f*cking movie.

I like the character of Amilyn Holdo, too, but her arc was stifled by nonsense politics and shallow development. All of that mediocrity kind of made her an easy target to hate, a lot like Rose. In my story, she’d still take the helm from Leia in Last Jedi but would have had an appearance in Force Awakens. She didn’t need to have a ton of facetime, maybe a shout out at the round table toward the end of VII or getting off the ship at Mas’ bar with Leia. Hell, a f*cking holo transmission would be enough of a mention, Holdo just needed a presence in that movie to be legitimized for the next. Rose was fine as is, she just needs more agency and not that bullsh*t, half-assed, love triangle that was literally dropped like a hot track on Soundcloud in the middle of a chase movie. That sh*t was stupid and it doomed Rose before she had a chance to even get started.

Episode IX would start like Rise, Kylo slaughtering his way toward the wayfinder, but revealing that planet was Mustafar instead of whatever planet he was on originally. Ren has been planetside for weeks, searching for the wayfinder dealy and the planets dark side alignment is taking it's toll on him.  The mcguffin is deep in the wreckage of Vader's demolished castle, the deep subdivision and what not. Kylo makes his way to it, fighting dark side shades of his grandfather in Anakin form, goading him about his weakness, feeding into Ren's inadequacies about being weaker than his pap-pap. Kylo finds the mcguffin and takes off toward the Outer reaches in an effort to unlock more power. After the climax to VIII, Rey returns to Ahck-to to find Luke gone and the growing pull to the dark within her as the Dyad is wide open and Ren's spiral is pulling Rey along toward the drain, too. She feels him getting closer to full Sith, all of that pain and rage, multiplied considerably by his anger toward his grandfather's shades. Kylo basically flies to the outer reaches to find a Lost sage of the Darkside. It's not a Jedi or a Sith, but a being that thrives in the Dark, like whatever Maul is, but gigantic and monstrous. He learns from that creature, all the while leaving Hux to command the Last Order in his stead, second by General Pryde. The two of these cats have a battle for power, Pryde suspecting Hux of being a traitor, Hux trying to stave of attempts for his seat at the head, all the while pounding the Rebels as they continue to fight. The Knights of Ren are off, clashing with Finn, Poe, Chewie, and Rose as they search for another means to find a way to Rey, as she has the map and R2 with her on Ahck-to where she is training for the final battle. The majority of the film continues to follow the basic plot of IX, mcguffin chasing and what not, with Finn, finally adept enough in the force, to adequately take Rey’s place in those narrative spots.

We have the whole montage of training on both worlds; Force ghost Luke showing Rey more advanced techniques and Ren taking on a full-on, Vader shade, like Luke, in the Outer Regions or whatever. Eventually, the remaining main characters decide to split up as the pressure of the Last Order continues to deplete their resources. Finn fixes Anakin’s lightsaber and begins to train with it under the tutelage of Mas, who is all in with the Rebels now, as they go after the other mcgiffin on Endor. He still meets the other former stormtroopers or whatever and they still help in the final battle but, instead of Rey and Kylo, it Finn and a few Knights of Ren. Maybe two, I dunno. Anyway, he beats them with Anakin's saber, gets the mcgissin and returns to the Rebel base, stormtrooper backup in hand. Poe and Lando try to drum up support for a final strike on the Last Order’s base and you get that whole shtick with Keri Russell's character. I'd take her helmet off, too. Why the f*ck  would you hide Keri's face? Shes adorable! Finn and Lando try their best, but it seems like a no-go so Lando stays to work his magic as he and Chewie return to the Rebel planet. Rose can return to the Rebel planet and take charge of strategy or whatever as Leia secludes herself within the base. I dunno. Rose is kind of hard to place because she has no discernible talents but I imagine anything is better than what they did to her originally. Anyway, Rey is able to develop enough self-control to force the Dyad closed, cutting Ren's influence off from her but, at the same time, her influence off from Ren, completely. That's gonna have big ramifications later.

Around the end of the second act, Ren sees a force projection from his mother pleading with him to turn back to the light but he waves her off. Like her brother, Leia uses the last of her strength in this effort and she dies, pushing Ren over the edge, forcing him into full Sith. Since Rey closed the Dyad, Ren has no semblance of Light to keep the Dark at bay and he just absorbs SO much of it. It multiplies his strength in the Force and Ren is able to slay the Dark Sage, take it's power, and return to his fleet. Sh*t, the sage might be an actual Sith, Like, the people Sith and Ren kills him, effectively exterminated the race. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Anyway, Ren arrives to find Hux is the traitor so he allows Pryde to kill him. Pryde takes command and they raise their newly constructed, massive, fleet along with a brand new flag ship. Mobile, lightspeed ready, and far more deadly than any planet cannon, Ren is ready to begin his march of devastation. Our heroes arrive on the First Order hideaway and the battle ensues. Finn boards the flagship, clashing with the remaining Knights of Ren, his hit squad of former Stormtroopers at his side, as Rose uses her tech skills to drop the shields or whatever they were doing with horses on that spaceship at he end of IX. Rey arrives on the planet, Ren sensing her returns to the surface, to face off with each other. Ren is brimming with the dark, Rey knows he;s too far gone to save and she resolved to do what is necessary to end his tyranny. She ignites Lukes green lightsber, which upsets Ren and then Leia's  yellow saber, which sends Ren into a legit rage. Yeah, Rey dual-wields now because it's cool. Poe does his whole lone ranger whatever as he's the last of the vanguard and sh*t. All is lost.

The reinforcements show up in the nick of time and sh*t happens. Big ass sky battle with spaceships and explosions and sh*t, while Finn, Rose, and that black chick accomplish their task on the flagship. Shields dow, sh*t stats blowing up, fun times. Rey gets wrecked by Kylo, who is all the way Dark, no redemption, yellow rage eyes and everything. She’s getting dumped on until she forces the dyad open, allowing Ren to see the Force ghosts of Jedi Masters of old, as they all appear behind Rey, including Leia, Luke, and Mara Jade. They speak that bullsh*t, lay hands on Rei's lightsabers giving her a jump in power, and Rey defeats Ren in a harrowing duel. It has to end in a lightsaber clash. How can it not? Finn wrecks the remaining Knights and the flagship falls as the Rebel fleet overcomes the last of the Last Order. Ren is defeated, dying slowly, lamenting his choices. In his last moments, as the Force ghosts fade, the last few left are his mother, uncle, and grandpa. The last thing Ben sees as he dies is the face of the man he’s chased for so long. Poetic. Tragic. Requisite celebration on a jungle planet ensues while Rey is off, giving Ben a proper Jedi bonfire. Finn approaches, objecting to the respect shown, but she tells him that, in the end, Ren was still a Skywalker. If Vader can be forgiven, so could Ben. The two watch as the flames rise into the night sky. We get a scene of a shadow tracing the insides of Uncle Owen’s joint on Tatooine, generators firing on, mechanics coming to life. Rey is seen, all by her lonesome, igniting her new, personal, lightsabers; Gold, I guess? Is that what color they were supposed to be? A young kid arrives, inquiring about why the old Lars place is lit up for the first time in decades. He asks her name. She hesitates, looking over her shoulder to see the force ghosts of Anakin, Leia, Luke, Mara, and Ben; Her entire family. She gives a knowing smile and answers, “Rey. Rey Skywalker.”

This is just a rough outline of how i would have written this trilogy. I might embellish a little bit, maybe write it up as a proper fan fiction, but i don’t know. There’s a lot to unpack and i don’t really want to spend the time actually fleshing out this narrative but, i believe this is far superior to anything Disney has done. It fixes Rey, sets up Ren as a actual antagonistic force, kills anything resembling a Reylo romance, returns agency to Finn and Poe, fixes Rose, makes Mas a factor, and wraps everything up nicely. You get answers to the questions from before, the Knights of Ren have a presence throughout the entirety of the trilogy, and even divisive characters like Holdo get a shot at relevance outside of agenda. More than anything Rey being a Skywalker feels earned. It feels organic. It feels right. This is the bookend the Skywalker story deserved, not the rushed, politic laden, ego trip we got.