#specifically with 3PO

[chyarui]

Commander Wolffe, no introduction needed.

I had so much fun with his tattoos, if you couldn’t tell. After Fox’s depressing ones and Cody’s cute but simple one, I needed to go all out with Wolfy boy’s tat. Honestly, this man deserves a cool tattoo after having to deal with the torture of interacting with C-3PO. I could FEEL his annoyance through the screen (that sassy fucking eyeroll I swear you could feel it though his helmet)

Cody Fox Doom

[pensamentos-de-droides]

In an alternative universe these two take R2 and 3PO's place and are droid wives . Send tweet

[thermalprinter]

I found this pen at the book store... It's C-3PHO.....

[lightasthesun]

mansplain, manipulate, malewife, manwhore

or

Wolffe, Fox, Bly and Cody

[skywalkr-nberrie]

Ah yes, my favourite genre of Anidala has always and will forever remain the two of them flirting with one another in front of literally everyone.

Whether it be Yoda and OWK.

Or Padmé’s handmaiden.

Even in broad daylight. (Specifically in front of Rex and Ahsoka.)

Dire situations where they’re being held captive alongside other prisoners…

For God’s sake, at least show some restraint in front of Sith Lord Palpatine, Mace, and the Queen of Naboo, you guys 😭 c’mon!

Bonus:

OW not being above noticing how well Padmé knows her way around ANAKIN’S Twilight…

I ain’t even need to say anything for this one 😂

I’ll just end it by saying “poor 3PO and Jar Jar.”

[tossawary]

I don't have any solid ships for Luke Skywalker (I'm willing to be persuaded by any author bringing their best, though) and I think it's partially because Luke is such a vital part of the HanLeia ship to me.

My favorite part of HanLeia as a ship is honestly perhaps that Chewie and Luke (and C-3PO and R2-D2, of course) are Also There, just chilling, just hanging out. A chorus of tiebreakers to be ignored by Han and Leia as they please. "This is the love of my life, and that's my/her brother, Luke, and that's his/my partner, Chewie."

I like to think that Han and Leia cannot fully agree on who brought Luke with them into this relationship, though. Luke IS Leia's twin brother, yes, the other half of her soul. However, Han's argument is that Leia didn't actually KNOW that for years and HE'S the one who drove Luke into this Rebellion mess in the first place, Leia didn't send that initial message to Luke specifically. Han is being VERY stubborn about this just, like, because he can be. It's fun.

[hollowtones]

I remember you mentioning a childhood fear of the inspector gadget movie from 1999 and C-3PO, did the movie bicentennial man (also 1999) have any similar effect on you? The Robin Williams robot seems like it was developed in a lab specifically to scare young Holly.

You just reawakened a very specific memory of me being deathly afraid of Robin Williams for a few weeks (month?s?) as a kid because of posters for that movie. Thanks!

[tanoraqui]

I was thinking about Star Wars AUs, and thinking specifically that I really love the idea that Anakin specifically was the one person who COULD have stopped Order 66, even after it went out, thanks to his combination of genuine technical ability and fuck-off ridiculous Force power. Like,

A) I do love Anakin just having fuck-off ridiculous Force power, when he goes all-out. Force as the plot demands. The Force’s VERY specialest boy.

B) I also like Anakin’s normal-person but really good robotics skills coming in useful—he’s more than just the Force’s specialest boy! He’s an engineer and a darn good one at that! He built C-3PO in a cave at age 9 with a box of scraps! Whether he’s doing something to all the communication relays galaxy-wide or to the chips themselves, maybe also enabled by the connection he’s developed with the clones, let him use those a/v skills!

C) The TRAGIC irony!!! That he was the one person who could have saved them, just as the prophecy said!

D) Any AU like this should be focusing on the emotional messiness and character choices that make it different, and if they’ve grown and changed enough to narratively earn this deus ex machina, I think they should just get it. Also, it’s kinda funny if there’s all this hard work building up it, including uncovering the whole plot, defeating Palpatine, sufficiently defeating the Separatists… and then they’re staring down this one huge last impossible thing to overcome, Palps pressed the button before he died, and Anakin, focal point of the Force, is just like, “Actually, I say No.”

E) Which emphasizes that tragedy again! He could! Have just! Said! No!!

It’s great. i can only actually think of one fic like this off the top of my head, but i know i've seen it at least 2-3 times

[palfriendpatine66]

Woke up to Owen Lars thoughts. Specifically re: C-3PO.

Our guy Owen has avoided owning a droid for 20+ years because they remind him of Shmi. He’s had to deal with the Jawas the whole time and knows it would go a hell of a lot better with a translator, but every time he thinks about getting a protocol droid he thinks about Shmi. About how she doted on that insufferably annoying droid because it was her last connection to her son. And he decides he can go another year relying on gestures and paying more than the parts he’s getting are worth.

But now he only has Luke’s help for one more harvest and he’s not getting any younger - his joints ache more and more with each sandstorm - and he decides it’s time to face his ghosts. He can’t avoid reminders of the past forever. He sends Luke for some droids.

And the boy comes back with C3P0

The droid doesn’t look the same - he’s been treated to some upgrades over the years and some fancy gold plating they couldn’t have afforded to give him - but he gives his designation and it’s not just a similar robotic voice dragging up memories that both haunt Owen and remind him of better times. But it’s him, without a doubt. C-3PO human cyborg relations. Shmi’s most prized possession. Returned back to her home and final resting place, back to the last piece of her son.

To Luke.

And when the stormtroopers break down the door and pour in, he has a moment of pure relief that Luke isn’t home. That this time it won’t be a Skywalker’s body found broken in the desert.

He should have known. An R2 unit had rolled up and interrupted Shmi’s humble funeral and Anakin had swept away to whatever dangers waited for him in the stars. He’d brought the two droids with him and the Lars were left to mourn and heal and carry on under the harsh suns. They looked after themselves and weathered the heat and the sand like everything else that was born, and fated to die, in the desert.

But not Luke. Luke wasn’t born on Tatooine, even though the boy has the desert in his blood. Owen sees the same relief written in Beru’s eyes as he takes her hand. Luke isn’t going to die here.

He has the stars in his blood too.

Owen just hopes the boy will meet a better end than his father. That his story won’t end so soon.

[tiniinbookland]

it's a little funny how i told my therapist on Wednesday that i'd show up in a better mood on Monday because i'm going to see Star Wars in cinema and i'm hyped!!

what a fucking fool i've been

anyway, random thoughts i had throughout the movie, in order of me remembering them:

this is epic

seeing the grey in Obi-Wan's beard so large is so important to me

Artoo my specialest boy, he's the king

Anakin and Obi-Wan are two halves of the same idiot sometimes

i'm smiling so much even tho i know what's coming

Dooku doing a backflip down that balcony is so extra for why

need to punch Palpatine in the face

just drop him down the elevator shaft → Obi-Wan saying drop and then dropping with the Chancellor still hanging to them is sending me

Palpatine is regretting everything now huh

another happy landing, i need to eat him

hey, i read about the business on Cato Neimodia in February!

Anakin would've been such a great dad, LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS

it's going downhill from here i am not ready

is it Boga time yet, where is Boga, Boga? BOGA!

need to skin Palpatine alive

brain, Anakin, USE YOUR BRAIN I KNOW YOU GOT ONE

Obi-Wan's stance, his nonchalance, he's HIM

getting both angry and desperate about Anakin not consciously realising the lighting that's frying Palps is coming from Palps himself

PLEASE THE BRAIN, YOU'RE ACTUALLY A SMART GUY MAN i hate it here

i need to die

Boga my beloved

thinking about that letterboxd comment of Windu falling out the Windu

you're laughing. i'm sitting here in agony and the people around me are laughing

if the guy next to me takes out his phone one more time i'll shove it down his throat

how can all the Jedi have betrayed you specifically Anakin, CAN'T YOU SEE IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE

thinking about the random analysis posts i've accumulated in my head that make this so much worse, including but not limited to Artoo telling 3PO Anakin doesnt talk to him anymore, Artoo being told to wait by the ship only for Anakin to never return, Palpatine calling Cody about Order66 first bc he knows Obi-Wan is a threat...

what if i threw myself down these rows of chairs

i need a hug actually. and a big jedi robe for comfort

Palpatine needs to die a painful death. episodes 6 and 9 didn't do enough there

where's my blåhaj when i need him

i'm in pain

oh hey that lava splash is actually from Mount Etna

PLO KOON 😭😭😭😭

who even am i anymore

Anakin seriously needs a friend his own age, just a single one could've done so much

need to gnaw on Obi-Wan

so many beautiful shots in this

we should all die actually

"he's still alive!" i don't think he wants to be

that doesn't conclude my thoughts but those are the ones i can scrape together atm lol. very much got quite inside and out throughout the film, in the end i just sat there staring blankly with tears in my eyes and now i'm. in the car with my dad listening to linkin park, so yeah, i'm doing wonderfully

[harrington-stevie]

trust you | anakin skywalker: episode VI

Summary: You and Anakin have been paired to attend an event on the Jedi Temple, all because Poe Dameron insisted. The Jedi seems unprepared for the outcome of being in the spotlight, and you're faced with his vulnerabilities for the first time. (Ps: This is exactly how I imagine him during a specific scene from this chapter 🥺)

Warnings: vulgar language (as always), panic attack

Word count: 4.8k

----

Anakin:

As soon as we landed on Coruscant, we were all warmly welcomed by every person who had been waiting for us to come back from our mission. We were greeted by the engineers, other Jedi and even a few Droids, which celebrated Artoo's return as well.

I tried my best to not cringe at every hug or every handshake someone pulled at me, but I didn't want to look like a dick any more than I already do. So, I just nodded and gave them a smile before heading towards Luke and C-3PO who were waiting for me expectantly.

I rushed to my son, and he quickly pulled himself at me and wrapped his legs around my waist, slightly squeezing me with his small arms. "Hey, bud. It's good to see you".

Luke pulls back and looks at me with a big smile and I see how his big blue eyes sparkle with happiness. "You're back, dad. I wanna know everything. Did you fight the bad man? Did you shoot him? Did they die?".

His bombardment made me laugh as I shook my head from the amused remarks he made. I pull him back for another hug and feel him clinging to my neck, I could feel his energy seeping through my body. It made me feel immediately relieved from being back again.

Luke drops himself from my grip and holds my hand, looking back at the commotion that was still happening in the hangar. People were cheering for (Y/N) and Cal, exchanging hugs as Poe watched with his arms crossed against his chest. He's not really well known around the Temple, but he nods with a grin when people compliment and greet him.

I feel the little boy giving my hand a squeeze, making my eyes dart to him. "Can I go hug Miss (Y/N)? I've heard she was on the mission as well".

My throat suddenly tightened and I tried too hard to swallow. I keep looking at him like it was a hard decision to make. It didn't strike me that he would like to welcome her at all. Not after telling him many times he shouldn't be too close to anyone I didn't trust. And matter-of-factly, the little bastard loves to do the opposite as I say sometimes. My face falters and I give him an apologetic look.

"But dad, everyone is hugging her. I wanna give her a hug too!" His words stung, they felt like a stab on an open wound.

"They're all friends, buddy. We're not her friends, remember?" I crouch down to his level, trying to reason as my hand rests over his shoulder. Luke frowns over my words and Goodness Sake, I swear I can see disappointment.

"That's because you don't want me to be friends with her. I already told you she's nice to me!" He shoots an angry glare at me and diverts from my grip. Seconds later, he's running towards the group of people around the others.

I stand up huffing, shoving my hand over hair pulling the strands feeling on edge. This little shit always goes against my rules and it pisses me off. But I'm never one to punish him, for some reason it doesn't feel right to do that. My mother never did that to me either way.

Behind me, 3PO mumbled something pretty incoherent and it sounded muffled. My eyes roamed through the hangar, they landed on a shadow standing across the area. I couldn't see much from the distance, but I sensed the presence and it felt like I'd seen it before. My stomach tied to a knot and I felt the blood rising to my head. Suddenly I felt a pressure in my chest, my feet wouldn't move.

I tried to sprint to the other side of the hangar, not daring to look away from the person standing on the corner of the wall. I decided to run after them, but by the time I got there, I was met with nothing. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust my sight and making sure it wasn't some kind of illusion, or a trick. I still had this feeling on my body that I knew who it was, but couldn't actually pinpoint it.

My heart was racing and hammering against my ribcage. I felt my blood pressure pick up as though I was having a heart attack. I couldn't just breathe decently, and I had to lean against the wall for support otherwise I'd drop to the floor and embarrass myself.

After a few minutes trying to calm down, my feet dragged me into the small group of people who were just having a conversation after celebrating our return. I watched as Poe was sitting on the floor talking to Luke. I swear to God this boy loves to make acquaintances with every person he sees. I'm not sure it's exactly a good idea to let him get to know other people, but I let him this time, he seemed pretty involved.

I shifted my sight and was met with Cal and (Y/N) laughing over something they were talking about. She glanced at me for a slight second, enough for me to catch her eyes before she returned her gaze to her friend. It felt different, weird to look at her after what happened back there. She didn't seem too frightened like she did before we went out on the mission.

Before we landed, Poe had invited us for a drink later that day. I tried to refuse many times, but he made sure he would convince me to go so I would get rid of my "grumpy face". I really wanted to go back to my place and get some rest, spend time with my son, and get some distraction. I just wasn't the biggest fan of going to the bar and drinking, nor do I like to interact with other people like I did before. It's plain boring to me.

-

I ended up going to the bar with Dameron, who also invited (Y/N) and Cal, obviously. Not only I didn't have the greatest time of my life, but I also had to deal with him asking (Y/N) to be my plus one at this sort of event the Temple was making.

And here I was, sitting next to her at our table for six. Cal was sitting across from us, his bored expression radiating through the place. He had a friend beside him, who was having a conversation with the nerd next to me. Motherfucking Poe was happily sipping on his glass of water, nodding to his sister.

I kept fidgeting my fingers under the table, not really interested in being at one of these events where they praise people for doing their work. In fact, I consider this such bullshit, given that we are all fighters out there. Kestis would constantly look at me like he wants to choke me to death, and I'm sure he just about planned the entire thing.

"So" Poe's sister spoke up, we all whipped our heads waiting for a response. "When did you and Skywalker start dating?"

The man next to her almost choked on his water, clearing his throat.

"What?" My eyebrows shot up in confusion and I could hear the crack in my voice. "We're not- She's not my-"

"We aren't really-" I heard (Y/N) speak up at the same time, sensing her nervousness.

"These two?" Cal chimed in simultaneously, and I glanced at him, knowing the bitterness in his tone. With a sly smirk on his face, he shook his head in amusement. "They literally hate each other".

The expression plastered over Dameron's face, I recognized he didn't know where exactly my relationship with her stands. His sister was as surprised as he was, while the dumbass sitting in front of me seemed to be having fun.

"Shut up, Cal" (Y/N) seethed through gritted teeth. "I'm sorry, he likes to make up things just for his entertainment".

Is he lying, though? I wasn't the biggest fan of hers, and I surely didn't want to be at this fucking event sitting next to her. Especially if I have to face Cal on the other end of the table.

She gave Poe's sister a forced smile, clearing her throat. "We're not together. Your brother paired us for the event, but that's about it".

I shot him daggers, my eyebrows still knitted together. I'm going to have a fucking headache from this conversation. The pilot lifted his hands in surrender as his face flushed red.

"Hey, I didn't know that either. If anything, I thought they were together" He explained, pointing his index finger between (Y/N) and Cal.

It's not like it's debatable, their friendship is somewhat too strong, and they always look at each other as if they're in love. Maybe I'm seeing things the wrong way, but I'm sure Kestis definitely feels passionate about her.

Now, at least I was having some fun. The redhead in front of me blushed, his lips pursed and he huffed. I felt (Y/N) shift beside me and shove her forehead over her hand, running the fingers through her hair.

"No one is dating anybody, Poe" He seemed to be having a hard time coming up with words, I watched as Cal tried to get rid of his hoarse voice while taking a sip of his water.

"Oh, really? You always seem pretty close" I push, receiving a warning glance from him. The curve of my lips pull into a smile and I tilt my head, faking my reaction.

"No. We're just really good friends" Cal clenches his jaw and I can feel his hands turn into fists besides his body under the table.

"Then why are you blushing?" I hear myself egging him, feeling his stare burn into me. Before he could speak up again, his friend cut him off.

"Okay, let's go get something to eat!" She stood up from her chair, grabbing him by his forearm. Kestis was pissed at me by the way his eyebrows were frowning and his hands were still closed.

I wiggle my fingers as I wave at him, watching as both of them disappear through the crowd of people dancing and conversing. I noticed (Y/N) was staring at me in shock, eyes widened and arms crossed over her chest.

"You're such a dick!" She protests before leaving the table, snapping the napkin over her empty plate.

This is just great, things are going exactly how I imagined they would. Like shit, as always.

"Wow, this is like a second-hand embarrassment table" Poe muttered with a nervous chuckle.

"This was your idea!" I angrily point at him with my robotic arm and he swats it away, rolling his eyes.

"Nope, my idea was to try to have some fun. Catch up and spend time together. The 'being a jerk' idea was all yours" He playfully smiles as he taps me on my shoulder. I shrug him off, fuming.

"Fuck off" I get up from my seat and walk over the hall of the Temple. From a distance, I can see the kids playing with the nurse Droids and a few Padawans as well. At least someone is having decent fun in this fucking place.

I wander through the numerous groups of people talking, while they eat their dinner and sip their drinks. They're smiling at each other, laughing and enjoying themselves. This is why I hate this kind of event, forcing myself to get here every time and watch as they all look at me like I'm some kind of superhero. Deep, I know. They only get to see my shell, my outer behavior. No one can see or know what really happens inside my head, what I feel in my body.

They can sense the somewhat darkness seeping through my blood vessels, but I don't let anyone feel more than that. Not the intrusive thoughts, not the grieving or the sorrow, or even the hatred. I had to create a shield to protect myself from having empathy and it comes with the price of seeing people distance themselves from me. I watch as they look at me with fear, they avoid looking at me.

I'm still not convinced my team trusts me completely, but they never showed me otherwise. I've had Cal as my wingman for a couple of years now and we never really had arguments over the time, just now it seemed like I've crossed some lines when I confronted (Y/N). He's not the first person to hate my guts right now, and he sure won't be the last either. Neither will she, for a fact.

I found her leaving the ladies room just in time when she was met with my eyes roaming around the area, looking for her. (Y/N) shifted her gaze when she noticed my glance. From her demeanor, I realized she was trying to get rid of me, shoving herself among the people as she tried to blend in. My feet were quick to follow her, trying not to knock everyone down while I swimmed through the crowd. Jesus, I wouldn't take her for someone who can run that fast without having a regular exercising routine.

My hand grazed her wrists, aiming for her waist instead. The mere touch burned my skin, it was foreign after so long. It was completely odd for me to hold someone - a woman - by the waist. She turned over, trying to shove my hands off of her, not being strong enough for my fingers to slip.

"Let me go, Skywalker. Or I'll scream!" (Y/N) tried to stand at least an arm span from me. Her small hands eagerly held mine as she still struggled to get rid of my hold.

"Hey, calm down now. Let me talk for just a minute" I lowered my chin and showed some empathy before she decided to lose it and make a scene.

"I think you've said enough for today" She didn't move her hands from mine. I could feel (Y/N) was having a difficult time trusting me after the stunt I pulled, her eyes were squinted and her forehead was crinkled with annoyance.

I rolled my eyes, knowing I wasn't in the right for making excuses. I just wanted to have my fun with the guy, I didn't do any harm to him. "Look- I'm... sorry. I was an ass, I recognize that and I didn't mean to make you feel embarrassed".

Her expression dropped a little, but I can see she was going to be sarcastic. She was chuckling, looking at me with taunting in her eyes. "You really had me there, Anakin. For a moment I wasn't sure you had the word "sorry" in your vocabulary".

And then, the next second, (Y/N) went back to the previous angry look, shoving both of my hands from her waist. I rolled my eyes before letting out a groan as I scratched the back of my neck. "Why make this hard and just say you don't want my apology?".

She places one hand over her waist, while pinching her chin with the other. I swear to God, I barely have any patience for this kind of game. "Huh, come to think of it, I might actually just forgive you. The way you're grimacing, it must have been really hard for you to say that word".

I watch her send me a small smile before turning on her back, walking back to our table. I must be a really bad person if people think I can't just apologize when I do something wrong.

Before I even consider taking another step, I hear my name being shot out from the small stage. Here we go again with the show. Master Yoda was sitting down on a stool, holding a microphone in his tiny green hand, waving for me to come over.

Shit.

I forced a smile, feeling everyone's eyes burn into my back as I walked towards him, immediately balling my hands into fists from instinct of self protection. I might as well have social anxiety if that's even a thing. I stood there in front of dozens of people, some were clapping their hands, some were whistling and then there was Cal, who was definitely not even masking the way his eyes were rolling.

There was a speech, which I didn't manage to listen to. I was too busy keeping my eyes on Luke as he looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes, probably proud of his father for being there. Like I'm a motherfucking God. I'm sure this place belonged to Obi-Wan more than anything, although it was obvious he would go against it just like me. Whatever Yoda was yapping about just about sounded muffled to me, and I wish I could just kill myself.

"To the bravest Jedi Master, here is to" He celebrates, extending his little arms to me as he holds a fucking medal. "Proud of you, we all are".

I hear the claps again, the cheering and the warming celebration right above my eyes. But I don't feel it, I don't agree with all the adoration and admiration. My head whips to where Luke stands, he's jumping around and celebrating his own father. My own eyes glint with gratitude for having him next to me. He's my anchor, the angel sent from heaven to help me stay whole.

"I- Uh- Thank you for the support..." I heave as I feel a lump in my throat. "But I don't think I deserve this. I'm not sure it's good enough for me" My voice barely comes out, my hands are trembling as I hold the microphone with one, while the other grips the medal.

There's silence and shuffling around the hall. I'm sure Kestis would stand up and just scream saying I suck. But it never came. In fact, the only sound echoing through the room was from running feet. When I came to realize, my boy was standing right in front of me, holding the hem of my blazer. I look down at him, there's a frown on his face and it hits me. I disappointed my child too.

"But you're the bravest Jedi Master, dad! Everyone says you're the chosen one, you deserve it" He goes through his sentence nodding at every word he says. "You're a good person, daddy. We are proud of you".

I stare at him with my jaw slack and my mind spiraling, going blank as the words freeze in my mouth. The moment I take in everything he just said, my body can't help but keep completely stagnant. Yoda protests again, saying his last words as if he agrees with Luke, but it's hard to focus on my surroundings. I just step out of this torture and get a hold of the boy, pulling him into a hug as he wraps himself around my torso.

Even with my body feeling tense, closing my eyes didn't make a difference at this point. I squinted them shut as much as I could, clinging to Luke as if it was the last thing I had to do. It still wasn't enough for me to shake off the draining feeling, nor was I able to avoid listening to the murmuring as they went back to what they were doing. My hands were still shaking and feeling numb, my eyes shooting up immediately.

I clear my throat, pulling away from him just enough to speak. It came out hoarse and strangled. "I'll be right back, alright? Get back to your friends".

My blurry vision sent a shockwave through my body and I stiffened, every cell shooting an alarming feeling straight to my brain. I shake my head, trying to make sense of what's in front of me but everything seems too distorted. My boots heavily drag me out of there, leading me to a corner where no one would bother or ask questions about me. It becomes too hard to walk, my fingertips graze the wall like it was soap, slipping through it, and I can hear my blood pumping so loud that everything else becomes a haze.

I walk into a small room, which was probably a janitor's room, dropping to my knees as soon as I close the door behind me. My first instinct is to punch the wall, release the nerves stuck on me. I can feel the sweat dripping down my neck and my forehead, my hair sticking to the damp skin. The blazer and tunic are suffocating me and I have to force myself to undress before it gets harder to breathe. I groan when I notice the numbness over my body, my heart rate quickly picking up. I pace around the small room, breaking and throwing anything I see in front of me.

Just let it out, Skywalker. It will go away. It has to.

"You're so... fucking... ridiculous!" I say to myself as I keep walking in circles, kicking and punching. My airways become smaller each breath I take and I start wheezing.

"You're lame, Anakin. Fucking. Lame" My hands fly up to my face and I start smacking myself on the forehead for reassurance.

For a second, I lean against the small shelf in front me. I can feel something shift inside of me, my eyes became extremely dry and it burned. I snapped out of my thoughts when the door - which I could've sworn was locked - opened. (Y/N) stood there, shocked to see me like that.

She doesn't even take the hint, rather than just walks in and locks the door with both of us inside the small room.

"Anakin, what's wrong?" She looks at me, worried and scared. Her hands hesitantly reach out to my arms, but I grab her wrists before they touch me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" My tone was husky from the whisper screaming and from the anger.

She shifted her eyes between mine and my trembling hands gripping her. I could still barely see, my eyelids were twitching and they felt too heavy.

"Your- your eyes" (Y/N) motioned her hands, pulling them back, placing them over her mouth. "You're-"

My knees gave out before I could fucking yell at her again. I groaned so loud that it was deafening this time, my hands pulled my hair from the roots. The hot tears started to prick and I tried to blink them away. "Get out, now!"

I felt her startle next to me, taking a step back, and it was enough for me to get myself distant from her. I didn't need anyone seeing me like this, especially her. With my eyes closed and my fists clenching hard, I sit down and lean against the wall. I rest my elbows against my knees and shove my head back against the wall multiple times.

"Go away! Go away! Go away!" I scream out, my throat burning from the action and my head throbbing from the bashing.

"Anakin! Look at me, now. Please, it's just me" She speaks through a wavering voice. I feel one of her hands resting against my flesh one, the warmth spreading through my skin.

The touch always burned, it didn't feel repelling, it just felt awkward. Strange. It was hard to accept the gesture.

I shook my head for what felt like an entire minute, my mouth mumbling incoherent words and I still leaned against the wall. Her hand hovered over my jawline and I immediately clenched it, my arm instinctively shot upwards to grab her forearm and she yelped from the sudden action. "It's okay, Anakin. No one knows".

Slowly my eyes opened to meet her face standing inches from me, respecting the distance even though her hand was barely touching my face. The gears in my head started working against my will, my nose flared in rage and I immediately wrapped her throat around my metal hand. I stood right up, pushing her against the wall as she choked with the impact. Her hands gripped my arm with mercy, she tried to gasp for air as she tried to speak.

I didn't feel guilty, I didn't feel sympathetic, I didn't feel anything. All I could see right now was red and I could tell my eyes were bloodshot from how angry I was. And then her behavior shifted again by the way she was looking at me, she was panicking. She couldn't look at me just like she was doing seconds ago. I tilt my head and release her, but not fast enough to catch her before she drops to the floor on her knees. I can feel it now. I know that feeling.

The panic attacks almost never came with the deadly feeling of snapping someone's neck. And now I know why I feel the way I just did. The darkness I've been told about too many times before. If you let it in, you can't control it. It's been dormant for years, I know I feel it coming to the surface when I can't control my own emotions. This time, it was finally reaching out to the surface and breaking out of it. I stepped out and walked backwards until my back hit the wall again, watching as she stood on her feet.

"Anakin-"

I swallow the enormous pain in my throat. "You need to go". She struggled to disagree, her head shaking hesitantly. My chest was heaving, everything hurts and I'm still feeling numb as fuck. "Just go!"

It took me that long to finally break down and I did right in front of her. In front of someone I so much despised for failing to do her job and now I'm paying for being exactly who I promised myself I would be. The pain in my stomach was nauseating and I had to slump down against the wall, this time not giving a fuck I looked like a crying baby. I had too much in my head already.

She tried to hold my chin up to face her, and I watched as her hand stayed frozen only a few inches before she decided against it and carefully gripped my skin. (Y/N) stares at my soul intently, eyes roaming through my face as I hold back the urge of grunting.

"It's okay, it's not the time to be tough. I know I'm not your favorite person right now but let me help you" She tries to coax in a soothing voice.

I have the hardest time getting myself to react, as my body is still struggling against the episode I just had. I want to push her away, I want to swat her hand away from me, I hate that I feel too vulnerable to avoid any physical contact. I just can't. "I'm bad. I'm so bad" I rasp.

I can't even speak. I feel my throat burning, my skin burning, my lung burning. Every inch of my body feels like it's on fire. And I can't fight against it this time. She withdraws her hand from my face, sliding it against my robotic hand, closing it tightly. "Hey, you need to fight against it. You're still you".

I shake my head in disbelief and let out a gruff laugh. I haven't been myself in six years. I just work through it so I won't lose it. Everyday is a battle against the darkening feeling just for the sake of Luke's life, because he doesn't deserve that kind of father. He doesn't even deserve this father. "You don't know shit about me".

I expect her to back up and leave, but she stays crouched on my eye level, still gripping my hand. Her lips are pursed in a thin line, and her irises are boring into mine. I recognize that look, she's trying to figure me out, I shut it down and drop my head. "Stop it".

"They were yellow" She said in a whisper, and I shot my head up again. "Your eyes. They were-"

"I know... I've seen it happen before, once" I try to not make a big deal out of it, but there's only so much I can do about that. Because I know I can't avoid it from happening anymore.

"I'm not good. I'm not good for anyone" My confession almost came out as a sob. This time, I couldn't handle the stress and I couldn't even think about what I was going to do after what happened.

She's going to see me as a joke, as a pussy man who gets medals for being the bravest Jedi Master, while behind closed doors, he falls to his knees and cries his sorrows.

I'm not the Jedi I should be.

@jackie-on-the-loose @adorbzliz @himesuedi @kingdomhate @himesuedi @cl0esblogg @littlecoffeeadict @readingthingsonhere

[physalian]

Character Types: Femme Fatales & Comic Relief

These two have nothing in common except the one thing I hate about them: By design, they exist to fulfil one shallow purpose, so I’m lumping them together.

—

Comic Relief

Characters that only serve one purpose in the cast stick out like a sore thumb. “Comic Relief” characters exist solely to be funny, as if the rest of the main cast is incapable of humor, and that this character is incapable of any serious moments. Instead of distributing different flavors of humor—sass, dry wit, jokers, pranksters, dark humor, dad jokes and puns—the writer comes up with their grumpy group of heroes, then I guess thinks “oh I need somebody funny to cut some of this seriousness”?

But on top of that, as this character exists just to be funny, there’s usually comparatively less development and rich character nuance for the comic relief over the other heroes. They get whatever crumbs are left over after every other more important character has eaten.

If they do have some tragic backstory or any serious moments, they are still the one desperately trying to cut the tension and either annoying other characters and the audience in the process, or being quite tone deaf in their endeavors.

The one everybody hates: Jar Jar Binks

The one some people hate: Olaf

The one that subverted himself right quick: Sokka

Prequel apologists, step aside. The writing is still terrible and Jar Jar even in Clone Wars features in episodes (“Bombad Jedi”) I routinely skip on rewatches. Maybe he’s funnier for little kids? I haven’t seen every piece of SW media out there but I can’t recall a single moment where Jar Jar has any moment of depth or seriousness and he’s frequently the most inconvenient element of any mission he winds up on.

Honorable mention for C-3PO, far less irritating but still largely a bumbling idiot (I love him, to be clear, he’s just always in the wrong place at the wrong time). The droid factory shenanigans on Geonosis comes to mind, as well as when he was so useless, he was riding around in a sack on Chewie’s back because he got disassembled in ESB.

Jar Jar is funny, but he’s only funny, and most often incompetently funny.

Olaf’s dark humor is what saves him for me personally. “I’ve been impaled” still makes me chuckle no matter how many times I see Frozen. Not only that, but he does have the big heart moment of the movie with Anna. He has zero tragic backstory, he was basically born yesterday, but he’s not a one-dimensional cardboard cutout.

Another honorable mention to, like, 8 out of 13 Dwarves, specifically Bombur, in the Hobbit trilogy. A combined 9 hours of movie and they chose to fill it with Mirkwood River Rapids™ instead of making up development for the heroes.

Sokka, on the other hand, looks like he’s going to be the sarcastic comedic relief, but he becomes so much more and wastes no time doing it. Compare him to the version of him written by the Ember Island Players. He’s been essayed about to death and there’s nothing more I can say about him that hasn’t been said before so I’ll leave it here: Sokka (and Toph) is comedic relief done right.

The whole cast is funny when they want to be, serious when they have to be. No one character gets designated “the funny one” or “the hopeful crying one” or “the buff one” no matter what Fire Nation propaganda wants you to think.

Final honorable mention to Leo Valdez. He has a ton of depth and nuance to him, but is very much "the funny one" of the Seven. Comparing Percy's trip to Ogygia with Leo's and one was a rather sullen "you could have this peaceful escape if you left your destiny behind, but you won't, noble hero" and the other was a bizzare romcom that, to me, wasn't funny, and just created a whole new set of issues surrounding Calypso's character.

—

Femme Fatales

Femme Fatales exist to look pretty, kick ass, pretend to be strong female characters, and be something for the male characters and male viewers to guiltlessly lust after because she’s asking for it. This is not a badass woman protagonist. The classic depiction of this trope is the shallow accessory to a male character, a seductress meant to either manipulate the hero into straying off his moral high ground, or to pit him against another man.

So.

Black Widow.

In Iron Man 2, you can argue that she’s supposed to be shallow. She plays it very close to the chest as a spy and has no reason to let any other characters, especially Tony, behind her mask. It’s not her movie.

In this movie specifically, though, she is this trope exactly. The bodysuit, the perfect hair, the whole changing in the back of the car, her provocative fighting style. She is eye candy that can kick ass, the only thing missing is an attempt at seducing Tony but you'll still catch him looking. That’s the femme fatale.

Extremely popular in 80s and 90s action movies as an accessory to the male protagonist but they've existed as long as film has. If he doesn’t have a damsel in distress to save, he has a sexy leg lamp to woo.

But Black Widow shows up in another decade’s worth of movies and dies to motivate the boys (and because her life matters less than Clint’s because he’s got a family while she can’t have kids), only getting a solo film after they killed her off, but in that time, they gave her plenty to do.

Natasha has many moments with depth, most of them in Age of Ultron and Winter Soldier, but she does have them. She laughs, she cries, she jokes, she’s smart and resourceful in moments where she doesn’t have a male character to impress, she has strengths beyond her physical attributes, and she has flaws. And, she and Steve Rogers miraculously weren’t written a romantic subplot in Winter Soldier.

On the one hand, Natasha knows exactly what she is and her fighting style fully leans into using the weapons she has as a woman… but on the other hand, in creating her character, the writers chose to lean into sexing her up.

I love her character, I just don’t love what they did with her.

—

Both of these character tropes tend to feature in scripts that aren’t the best to begin with. A strong, nuanced cast of heroes doesn’t usually have that one outlier that completely drops the ball.

All I’m asking for is to not designate any one character as the bearer of whatever you forget to give the rest of the cast. “Oops I forgot the funny, let me add in a comic relief, here’s Bob,” is a disservice to Bob. “Oops I forgot the women, let me add in this femme fatale, here’s Nyxandra,” is a disservice to Nyxandra.

Let every character have some funny moments.

You want a femme fatale? Go right ahead, honestly, but maybe don’t make her the only lady in the cast? If she’s a femme fatale because she wants to be, that’s great, but maybe have a woman who proves that you do, in fact, know how to write women?

[mariacallous]

“My predictions about achieving full self-driving have been optimistic in the past,” Musk admitted to investors in 2023. “I’m the boy who cried FSD." He certainly has. Many times. Indeed, Musk has a long history of making outlandish promises and unfulfilled predictions about his businesses—and it's a habit that seems hard to break.

On the Tesla earnings call with investors in late April, Elon Musk reportedly sounded aggrieved as he was forced to acknowledge a woeful 71 percent dip in profits. On the defensive, and seemingly grasping for positive spin among the dire results, Musk promised something implausible: The carmaker would become the world’s leading robotics company, ushering in the “closest thing to heaven we can get on Earth.” (He has since doubled down on this, stating that demand for his robots will be insatiable, and earlier this month he claimed that robots will number in the tens of billions and be like “your own personal C-3PO or R2-D2, but even better.”)

On the call, despite tanking worldwide sales for his company’s aging cars and cratering demand for the Cybertruck, Musk asserted the “future for Tesla is brighter than ever.” He batted away the precipitous fall in sales as merely “near-term headwinds,” urging investors to ignore the non-autonomous-car business and assess the “value of the company” on “delivering sustainable abundance with our affordable AI-powered robots.”

Still, even though Musk has a long history of broken promises, investors seemed soothed by tales of crushing market domination for Tesla, not as the car company it is today, but as the robotics behemoth Musk claims it will soon become.

WIRED examined the history of Musk’s pledges on everything from Full Self Driving, Hyperloop, Robotaxis, and, yes, robot armies, with a view to reminding ourselves, his fans, and investors how reality in Elon’s world rarely matches up to the rhetoric. Tellingly, Musk’s fallback forecast of “next year” turns up repeatedly, only to be consistently proven wrong.

“My predictions have a pretty good track record,” Musk told Tesla staff at an all-hands meeting in March. Here's a chronological look at that track record.

19 Years of Broken Promises

August 2006: False Start

“[Our] long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars,” wrote Elon Musk in the Tesla Secret Master Plan hosted on the Tesla website 19 years ago. “When someone buys the Tesla Roadster,” he added, “they are actually helping pay for development of the low-cost family car.”

In Master Plan, Part Deux, written 10 years after the first plan, Musk reiterated that, even though Tesla had not yet delivered on the 2006 promise, it still planned to build an “affordable, high-volume car.” 2016 came and went without an entry-level car. In January this year, Musk said that—finally—Tesla would start producing the affordable model in the second half of 2025.

However, in April, Reuters reported that Tesla had scrapped plans for the cheap family car. Musk posted on X that “Reuters is lying (again),” eliciting the Reuters response that “[Musk] did not identify any specific inaccuracies.” A Tesla source told Reuters that instead of the long-promised cheap family car, “Elon’s directive is to go all in on robotaxi.”

August 2013: Hyperloop Hype

While he did not directly own any of the Hyperloop companies, in a 58-page white paper titled “Hyperloop Alpha”, Musk wrote of a “new open source form of transportation that could revolutionize travel.” It didn’t. The Hyperloop was shuttered in 2023, 10 years after it was first proposed—but even as late as 2022, Musk was still promising that Hyperloop could go from Boston to New York City “in less than half an hour.”

A form of magnetic levitation (maglev) capsule in an air-evacuated steel tube on stilts, Hyperloop was described on the company’s website as being an “ultra-high-speed public transportation system in which passengers travel in autonomous electric pods at 600+ miles per hour.” This description has since been removed but was documented by Electrek. Engineers from Tesla and SpaceX worked on Hyperloop for two years before the project was taken up by other companies in 2017.

Musk said at a tech conference in 2013 that his Hyperloop idea—which wasn’t new; George Medhurst of London first discussed the idea of moving goods pneumatically through cast-iron pipes in 1799—would be a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table.” Hyperloop One—later Virgin Hyperloop—raised around $450 million from various investors, including Richard Branson, with a passenger test achieving a speed of 107 mph, almost 500 mph less than Musk originally proposed.

Cynics have long alleged Musk’s floating of Hyperloop was a ruse to kill California’s high-speed rail project, a belief boosted by a claim in Walter Isaacson’s 2023 authorized biography of Musk. “Musk told me that the idea originated out of his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” wrote Isaacson, claiming that Musk thought that “with any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled.”

September 2013: Driverless Pioneering

In 2013, Tesla posted a job opening for an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Controls Engineer who will be “responsible for developing vehicle-level decision-making and lateral and longitudinal control strategies for Tesla’s effort to pioneer fully automated driving.” Musk says: “We should be able to do 90 percent of miles driven [autonomously] within three years.”

October 2015: Full Autonomous Driving

“Tesla will have a car that can do full autonomy in about three years,” promises Musk. Then in December 2015: “We’re going to end up with complete autonomy,” pushes Musk, “and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.”

In January 2016: “I think that within two years you’ll be able to summon your car from across the country,” muses Musk.

June 2016: “I consider autonomous driving to be a basically solved problem,” says Musk. “We’re less than two years away from complete autonomy.”

November 2018: “I think we’ll get to full self-driving next year,” Musk tells Kara Swisher.

October 2016: Autonomous Charging

“Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York—from home in LA to let’s say dropping you off in Time Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself—by the end of next year,” vows Musk, who can’t resist upping the ante by stressing that this cross-country journey will be made “without the need for a single touch, including the charger.”

A snake-like automatically-deployed charger plugged by Musk the year prior was trialled, but never made it into production.

Then, less than a year later, in April 2017: “I think we’re still on track for being able to go cross-country from LA to New York by the end of the year, fully autonomous,” Musk tells TED Conference curator Chris Anderson in a fireside TED chat.

“Still on for end of year,” says Musk of the coast-to-coast autopilot demo. “Just software limited,” he adds.

April 2017: Being Boring

Musk floats the idea of congestion-beating tunnels beneath cities with cars shot along on skates at 125 miles per hour. “By having an elevator … you can integrate the entrance and exits to [a] tunnel network just by using two parking spaces. And then the car gets on a skate. There’s no speed limit here, so we’re designing this to be able to operate at 200 kilometers an hour.”

This is the first outing for Musk’s Boring tunnel concept. The Boring Company was supposed to deliver an underground maze of tunnels where passengers could travel in autonomous vehicles at 150 miles per hour.

The goal, said Musk, was to build one mile of tunnel per week. “Finally, finally, finally, there is something that I think can solve the goddamn traffic problem,” boasted Musk.

So far, only Las Vegas has one short system, the 1.7-mile LVCC Loop. Forty feet below the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Boring Company’s tunnel opened in 2021 and currently takes paying passengers between three stations in chauffeur-driven Model Y Tesla cars which slow to just 15 miles per hour when the tunnels get congested.

August 2017: Brain Chips

Elon Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 with the aim of merging artificial intelligence with the human brain via an implantable interface. In 2017, the claim was that his Neuralink brain chip startup’s first product would be on the market “in about four years.”

In the second half of 2020 Musk shows the hardware’s ability to read the brain activity of a pig with a surgically implanted chip transmitting data wirelessly. He describes the AI-powered chip as “a FitBit in your skull with tiny wires” and then predicts the tech could one day cure paralysis and give the human race telepathy and superhuman vision.

In 2024, seven years after that initial four-year prediction, the first human trial subject receives a Neuralink implant (though some researchers show frustration over a lack of information about the study.)

November 2018: Special Delivery

“Probably technically be able to [self-deliver Teslas to customers’ doors] in about a year,” writes Musk on X.

January 2019: FSD Finally?

“When do we think it is safe for full self driving?” asks Musk on a Q4 earnings call. “Probably towards the end of this year.” Then just a month later, in February, he’s certain. “We will be feature complete [with] full self-driving this year,” promises Musk on an innovations podcast. “The car will be able to … take you all the way to your destination without an intervention this year. I’m certain of that. That is not a question mark.”

By April, Musk is repeating this claim, promising during a four-hour Tesla presentation billed as Autonomy Day, “We expect to be feature-complete in self-driving this year, and we expect to be confident enough … to say that we think people do not need to touch the wheel and can look out the window probably around the second quarter of next year.”

“In the future, any car that does not have autonomy would be about as useful as a horse,” Musk tells Lex Fridman on the MIT’s researcher’s podcast, also in April 2019. Full autonomy from a Tesla would arrive “very, very quickly,” Musk says, adding, “I think it will require detecting hands on wheel for at least six months.” Such detection is still required.

Two years later, in January 2021, Musk on an earnings call states: “I’m highly confident the car will drive itself for the reliability in excess of a human this year. This is a very big deal.” But by December, appearing for his third time on the Lex Fridman podcast, Musk is asked again when Tesla would solve Level 4 FSD. “It’s looking quite likely that it will be next year,” he says.

Fast-forward to May 2023 and Musk is telling CNBC’s David Faber “I mean, it does look like [full autonomy is] gonna happen this year.”

April 2019: One Million Robotaxis

“We expect to have the first operating robot taxi next year with no one in them,” claimed Musk on Autonomy Day. “Next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the road,” he promises.

Fast-forward to April's earnings call this year, and Musk says that Tesla will unveil its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, next month. Initially a paid ride-hailing service with up to 20 Model Y vehicles supervised remotely, if it hits the June target this is a far cry from Musk’s 2019 expectation that Tesla would have 1 million driverless robotaxis on the road by the following year.

If a small number of Tesla’s robotaxis do turn up in Austin, people may be unwilling to be seen in the cars given the public backlash against Musk’s role at DOGE and his controversial public statements and salutes. Federal regulators are also sniffing around. On May 12 this year, it was revealed that NHTSA has written to Tesla asking for extensive details on the robotaxi rollout. “As you are aware,” the long letter to Tesla stated, “NHTSA has an ongoing defect investigation into FSD collisions in reduced roadway visibility conditions.”

July 2020: Level Five Is Alive

“I’m extremely confident that level 5–or essentially complete autonomy–will happen … this year,” Musk said in a video message at the opening of Shanghai’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference. “There are no fundamental challenges remaining,” he stated.

Then, in the following December, Musk shifts the goal line and doubles down. “I’m extremely confident that Tesla will have level 5 next year,” Musk tells Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer SE. How confident? “100 percent,” replies Musk. Musk also tells Döpfner that a human will possibly step onto Mars by 2024.

As recently as April this year, Musk states on an earnings call: “We’ll start to see the prosperity of autonomy take effect in a material way around the middle of next year … There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously, fully autonomously in the second half of next year,” he adds.

March 2025: Babysitting Robot Army

Musk has been promising Tesla would produce a humanoid robot—Optimus—since 2021. At an all-hands meeting earlier this year he promised this “robot buddy” would “clean your house, will mow the lawn, will walk the dog, will teach your kids, will babysit, and will also enable the production of goods and services with basically no limit.” He predicted that “hopefully” Tesla will be able to make about 5,000 Optimus robots this year. “That’s the size of a Roman legion,” he stated.

Musk then claimed Tesla would make “probably 50,000-ish [Optimus robots] next year.” He further claimed that Optimus “will be the biggest product of all time by far—nothing will even be close. It’ll be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made. Ultimately, I think we’ll be making tens of millions of robots a year.” Mere seconds later, he upped the ante even further, stating that, no, Tesla would actually make “maybe 100 million robots a year.”

However, in April he told investors that production could be impacted by the restrictions on rare-earth metal exports China implemented in response to President Trump’s tariffs. There’s no date yet for the launch of Optimus.

Finally Making Good?

“So many people are convinced [that Musk] is a miracle worker,” says auto journalist Ed Niedermeyer, author of the 2019 book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. “People see his wealth on paper and assume there’s nothing he can’t do. As the world constantly rearranges itself in his favor, they keep believing in him. This cannot keep going forever.”

When it comes to his car business at least, Musk seems fully aware of what’s at stake. Perhaps this is driving his never-ending FSD optimism? My “overwhelming focus is on solving full self-driving,” he said during a June 2022 interview with three Tesla fanboys. “It’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”

Earlier this year, Kelley Blue Book reporter Sean Tucker wrote: “Elon Musk is fond of telling investors that Tesla is now an automation company, not an automaker. But the company’s signature products are cars. Unless it can change its strategy to develop new products with widespread appeal, its high watermark as an automaker may be in the past.”

With plummeting sales and increased scrutiny, Musk may soon come to rue the fact that he hasn’t managed to make good on so many assurances since 2006 when he wrote, in a foundational pledge, that Tesla’s goal—still not delivered, and supposedly finally starting production next month—was to produce an affordable family car. Maybe next year?

[callipraxia]

Lying here at 7am, sneezing my head off because of ragweed, and I had a thought about the novelization of Revenge of the Sith.

Early in said novelization, there’s a retrospective on a couple of important moments in Anakin and Padme’s early marriage, specifically around how, since Anakin, as a Jedi trainee, doesn’t own things or have much ability to acquire them, which is an Issue when it comes to giving his new wife a wedding present…so he ‘gives’ her C-3PO, to be ‘a friend’ while he is, as he frequently is, absent, and there’s a sweet moment where Padme politely invites Threepio to join her staff, because on Naboo, droids as high-functioning as Threepio are considered beings, not property. Anakin also notes that technically, since his builder (Anakin himself) owns nothing, Threepio kind of owned himself even before this. Then later, she gives him R2-D2 as ‘a friend’ in return, at which point Anakin starts modifying him this way and that until Artoo eventually obtains at least as much cognitive function as Threepio, setting the stage for the bond the droids have throughout the series. All very nice…but then jump to the very end of the book, immediately after Padme dies and Bail Organa adopts Leia. Y’know. The moment when he casually orders that Threepio undergo a mind wipe to forget…pretty much everything. Who “the Maker” was, all about his years of service to Senator Amidala, where the Princess came from and the fact she has a brother, etc. Then cut forward about twenty years to the beginning of A New Hope, where Threepio fussily keeps scolding Artoo about how “Master Luke” is his owner now and he should therefore forget the mission from their previous owner. It never seems to occur to Threepio, after his years on Alderaan, that they could think for and own themselves, even though again, in the novelizations, Threepio has technically done so for longer than Artoo has; the only difference is that Artoo still remembers everything, whereas Threepio only remembers, at most, the past twenty years.

Clearly, droids did not enjoy the same legal privileges on Alderaan that they did on Novelization!Naboo…but why is that relevant? Threepio, recall, was said to have legal rights on Naboo as a member of Padme’s staff. At a stretch, since Anakin couldn’t technically own Artoo either, one could make an argument that Artoo was still legally Padme’s property and therefore automatically passed into the ownership of her daughter when Padme died*, since Anakin and Padme and Threepio seem to have been the only ones who realized at that time how sentient the astromech had become, but there was really no doubt about Threepio: if Stover’s writing in the official novelization is taken as on any level canonical, then Threepio, as a high-functioning droid, was an employee; certainly this is the case within the pages of the book in question, where he meets the same ends. Padme no more owned him than she owned Jar-Jar or the Handmaidens who acted as her body doubles or her other Senate aides...at least on Naboo and areas where its laws applied, like the embassy on Coruscant, I suppose. They were not in Naboo space at the time of Padme’s death, and apparently the idea that droids could be autonomous was culturally alien to Alderaanians…but we see in TCW that Bail had worked pretty closely with Padme for years. They were political allies, but also friends. They’d risked their lives together before - in the Committee of 2,000 conspiracy, in that episode of The Clone Wars where they investigated a murder together, and arguably, Padme had put her life in his hands without a second thought again on Empire Day when she made that “how liberty dies” remark in the midst of the rest of the Senate’s enthusiastic endorsement of Palpatine’s announcement. Padme also was shown to have a real Problem with the discovery that slavery still existed in the galaxy when she met Shmi and Anakin as a girl, and considering she later married an ex-slave who had…rather strong feelings about the subject, it’s hard to imagine that she didn’t get personally emotionally invested in the issue as well. Anti-slavery measures would have probably been part of her political platform, especially in that gap between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones where there wasn’t a war that depended on slave soldiers to consider. It never, in all that time, came up with Bail? He never said, “It’s strange how you treat that protocol droid of yours - you act as though he were a person,” to which Padme could only reply that “by my planet’s laws, he is”? Padme never voiced any discomfort with the Alderaanian stance on high-functioning droids in all their years of working together? Why would her good friend not think twice about treating one of her staffers as his property before the poor woman’s corpse was even cold? Even if he disagreed, he ought to have at least had the thought “oh wow, I am disrespecting my friend’s memory here,” or even a hesitation about his legal right to give orders about Threepio’s memory, given that there would of necessity have to have been some interstellar agreement on whether Planet A’s laws about droids applied to droids from Planet A when they were on Planet B, especially if Planet B was neutral space like Coruscant, the place where Bail would have been most familiar with Threepio. I’m American and reasonably historically literate; American history was never my favorite branch of history, but I know all about the sort of trouble it causes when people don’t agree about whether laws from one state in a republic apply in another. See also: the American Civil War? And more recently, the issue of gay marriage, back when states determined that individually. Didn’t cause a war that time, but anyone who had the political awareness of a tree branch probably knew of the issue and, however dimly, probably something of why it was such an issue.

It’s now 9am, and yeah, yeah, I know, all this was necessary to protect the Chosen Twins because Threepio is a bit of an idiot, or it would have taken too much time/been too much at the tail end of a plot as dark as that of RotS to have a quick scene where Threepio agreed to become Bail’s property in order to stay with Leia, etc etc. But considering that Bail’s one of the good guys, it’s pretty messed up to realize how casually someone’s rights could just get hand waved away the moment they no longer had anyone politically powerful immediately on hand to defend them. It’s hard not to think…with his memory gone, Threepio doesn’t even know that he was supposed to have rights, and most humans cannot communicate fluently with Artoo. Bit disturbing to put oneself in that position, to wonder, as messy as the world’s getting…who’s the one person standing between us and having our rights almost as casually overwritten? Not quite as casually, I suppose, since mind wipes don’t exist for us (…yet…probably), but almost. Not something Lucas probably meant to put there, given that he didn’t write the official novelization and his apparent failure to think out the droid issue especially well**, but there’s where my brain’s going on this sneezy, sneezy morning.

* Note: this is totally ignoring the issue of whether this is moral and ethical or not. Also ignoring the issue of how that even stacks with the assiduous efforts to conceal that Padme’s child/children hadn’t died with her, in which case, being legally dead/never personified, it’s hard to consider them her legal heirs anyway.

** See also this video essay: https://youtu.be/WD2UrB7zepo?si=HcttHLpZFGnU5bNb

[stonathandreamer]

Stonathan!Star Wars AU

Chapter III: Destiny Lies Elsewhere

🔸 Stonathan Masterlist

🔺 My AO3 account

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⏪ Chapter II | Chapter IV ⏩

Summary: While fixing R2, Jonathan and Mike discover a hidden message in his memory bank: a boy and a girl asking for help from someone called... 'James Hopper.'

Word Count: 3.2k

A/N: I know, I know, I'm taking too long to update this story. Sowwy 🥺🥺, but I want to make sure everything is pitch perfect and that I have a perfect balance between faithfulness to the OG and my crazy creativity - in fact, I have the entire original trilogy story ready here in me big brain. 🧠

This chapter is slightly shorter, but worry not, my faithful! The next chapter will be released in a few days. Promise. 🤞🏻

Also, I shouldn't have made Karen and Ted such good parents to Jonathan and Mike. If you watched Star Wars, you know why I feel this way... 💔

The Bi hearts dividers were made by Cafekitsune. You can check them here. They're amazing!

The Star Wars dividers were made by Firefly Graphics. You can check them here. They're amazing!

“Help us, James Hopper…”

“You’re our only hope.”

The holographic message plays repeatedly as Jonathan and Mike crouch closer to the three-dimensional image of the two teenagers asking for help from a ‘James Hopper,’ both equally curious and mesmerized.

“R2, what is this?” Jonathan’s voice is low, lower than normal, not wanting to disturb his and Mike’s focus on the message.

“And who in their right mind has a bowl cut?” Mike arches an eyebrow, his attention on the boy specifically, who stands a few feet behind the girl.

R2 beeps in response, as if unaware of what the boys are asking him.

“What is what? Oh, R2!” C-3PO scolds the astromech for his apparent lack of etiquette around their new masters. “They asked you a question. What is this hologram you’re playing right now?”

“Help us, James Hopper…”

“You’re our only hope.”

The holographic image of the girl turns around quickly, like someone is approaching them, before she crouches down and then the message restarts.

“Help us, James Hopper…”

“You’re our only hope.”

R2 beeps again, responding to Mike and Jonathan, and C-3PO translates the droidspeak.

“Oh, he said it’s nothing, sirs. Just a malfunction. Old data. Ignore it.”

“Who are they?” Mike asks, eyes still focused on the boy’s image.

“I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure, sir.” C-3PO replies. “Our former master, Captain Antilles, had a habit of resetting part of our memories before any trip - security protocol, he says - but I believe they were important passengers aboard our ship. Our captain had orders to—”

“Is there more of this recording?” Mike interrupts the protocol droid, using a screwdriver that was on the floor next to him to point in the direction of the hologram, and R2 beeps, his answer apparently not satisfactory enough for C-3PO, who scolds him yet again.

“Behave yourself, R2! You’re going to get us in trouble.” He says, taking a step closer to the astromech and leaning down, close to R2's height. “It's okay, you can trust them. They're our new masters.”

R2 beeps.

“He claims to belong to a ‘James Hopper,’ a resident of these parts, and it is a private message for him. Quite frankly, sirs, I don't know what he's talking about. Our former master was Captain Raymus Antilles of the Tantive IV. But considering everything R2 and I have been through, it doesn't surprise me that maybe his circuits are glitching.”

R2 beeps in response to C-3PO's assumption, cursing the protocol droid in Binary.

“Rude.” C-3PO retorts, smacking the astromech's domed head.

“James Hopper.” Mike murmurs the name, frowning. “You mean… Old Jim?”

“Jim Hopper.” Jonathan nods, looking at his younger brother. “The old man who lives in a hut in the Jundland Wastes, near the Dune Sea.”

Old Jim is an elusive figure in these regions of Tatooine, a hermit, considered by some, like Ted Wheeler, a madman and a crazy old fool. A very brave loner, by the way, since no one is crazy enough to live in the Jundland Wastes, which is part of the Tusken Raiders’ territory.

In a galaxy of trillions of beings, there could be millions of Hoppers, perhaps a few dozen on Tatooine alone, and the chances of old Jim being this James Hopper that R2 refers to may be low, but Jonathan has the feeling that all of this is more than mere coincidence.

Mike, meanwhile, being the curious brat he is, can’t control his curiosity to hear the whole message and figure why these two teens are asking for help from a (supposed) old guy from Tatooine. He stands up, still holding the screwdriver in his hands.

“R2, can you play the whole message?”

The astromech beeps in response and Mike looks at C-3PO with a raised eyebrow, waiting for the translation.

“He said Master Jonathan connected some wires wrong on the new holoprojector, shorting out his recording system.”

“Hey, I told you that holoprojector was for an R5 model, not an R2 unit!” Jonathan frowns at the translation, feeling insulted for his work. He huffs, but gets up from the ground and walks towards R2, taking the tool from Mike’s hands to try and fix the issue. “Let me see what I can do for you, little buddy.”

Jonathan pulls the holoprojector from the astromech’s domed head and asks Mike to hold the small piece of equipment while he tries to fix the wires. The holographic message still playing. The older teen squints his eyes as he analyzes the wires.

“Oh, I see the problem.” He mumbles, his words slightly incoherent because of the screwdriver between his lips. “This blue wire shouldn’t be plugged into that port. Just wait a sec.”

Jonathan carefully handles the wrong wire, inserting it into the correct slot and using the screwdriver to reconnect the spare holoprojector.

“Aaaaand… There you go!” As soon as the piece is snapped back in place, the hologram disappears.

“Hey! Bring the bowl cut dude back!” Mike grumbles in a somewhat childish manner, gesturing to where the hologram was, but the astromech droid pretends not to understand what Mike is asking of him, earning another scolding from C-3PO.

“What do you mean ‘what message,’ R2? The one you just played! The one inside your rusty, old circuits, you useless bucket of bolts!”

“MICHAEL! JONATHAN!” Karen Wheeler's voice echoes through the house, coming from the kitchen, calling out to her children, interrupting them.

“Damn it.” Mike mutters under his breath and rolls his eyes. His mom’s timing is always perfect (sarcasm).

“Coming, Mom!” Jonathan responds, gesturing for Mike to follow him, briefly glancing at the two droids. “We’ll still want to hear the rest of that message.”

The brothers leave the garage, Mike giving R2 one last look before following Jonathan.

Once the two droids are alone, R2 beeps a question to C-3PO.

“No, I don't think they like you, R2… And I don’t like you either.”

“Jer wih tuster mo vey

Qui neb be og ezen on

Wok lapti nek seb not van

Goc jarraz bas deg zorze zot

Lapti nek, rat a ran wim joct co jappi qaff

Lapti nek, kiv ba ha top wep jex pi va bep

Lapti nek, rat a ran wim joct co jeppi qaff

Wow!”

In the kitchen of the Wheeler homestead, Karen Wheeler dances and sings as she finishes preparing dinner. Today's menu is roast cushnip with fral, a Nevarro classic she learned from her friend, Sue Sinclair, and blue milk ice cream for dessert, all made by Karen's magical hands. She would have had a delicious meiloorun pudding too had Ted not eaten all the fruits yesterday as his so-called ‘midnight snack.’

Speaking of the devil, Ted Wheeler is already sitting at the table, eating what's left of the blue-milk cheese Karen made this morning for breakfast. The man can't go without chewing something for more than half an hour, it’s amazing, really. He has the appetite of a Rancor. Ted claims it’s because of the manual labor he does every day on the farm, but Karen can tell a lie from afar. Still, she decides to humor her husband and let him think she’s been fooled.

“Ab queck zenick fesi

Jem wih tuster mo vey

Qui neb be og ezen on

Wok lapti nek seb not van

Wah toc peg qui doz gee pif ezact

Goc jarraz bas deg zorze zot

Lapti nek, rat a ran wim joct co jappi qoff

Lapti nek, kiv ba ha top wep jex pi va bep

Lapti nek, rat a ran wim joct co jappi qaff—”

“Are you singing that crap again, Mom?” Jonathan interrupts Karen’s cheerful singing as he enters the kitchen, making a mock disgusted face as he hears her singing Lapti Nek for the two hundredth time this month. “Do you even know what Lapti Nek means, Mom?”

“Of course I do, honey.” Karen responds with a smile, not taking Jonathan’s distaste for her favorite song personally. She knows very well that Jonathan has a very specific taste in music and that he either dislikes or hates 95% of the music in the Galaxy – surprisingly, he likes the Naboo Opera. Shocking, I know. She turns down the volume to better talk to her son, still swaying to the music. “It means ‘Shapin’ Up And Workin’ Out’ in Huttese.”

Jonathan raises his eyebrows, genuinely surprised that his mother knows Huttese. Karen smirks at her oldest child, as if to say ‘yes, I'm a woman full of surprises, darling,’ causing Jonathan to scoff and roll his eyes, but a ghost of a smile appears on the edge of his lips.

Mike appears behind his older brother, listening to their conversation and sending a quick glance at Jonathan.

“Hey, I think Mom picked the perfect song for dinner.” He gestures to Ted with his head, grinning at Jonathan. “Don’t ya think?”

Ted, who has just finished eating the rest of his wife’s delicious cheese, notices Mike’s gesture and stops mid-munch, his inattentive brain trying to grasp the subtle message as Jonathan and Mike look at each other, stifling their laughter. Ted arches an eyebrow, clicking his tongue as he pulls a piece of cheese from his teeth.

“Hey!” Finally, “For your information, I’m in shape, Michael!”

“Of a puffer pig’s.” Mike mutters under his breath, while Jonathan can’t help but laugh this time.

“Michael!”

Karen, overhearing the argument between her husband and children, intervenes before the situation turns into another week-long silent treatment incident like last month’s.

“Enough. All three of you.”

“But Kare—!”

“Ted.”

“Fine.” Ted huffs and sinks into his seat, knowing he’ll never win an argument with his wife when she uses that tone of voice. He grumbles under his breath, sending his sons a dirty look that lacks any threat. The truth is, Ted likes to play-bicker with his sons because he almost never loses—whenever he’s about to lose an argument, he’ll send the boys to their rooms or give them a bunch of chores to do, unless the boys call for help from their mother, of course, and then the story changes. Karen rolls her eyes at her husband’s grumbling and finishes setting the table, gesturing for her sons to sit down.

Mike’s eyes widened at the sight of his mom’s delicious-looking food.

“Fuck, I’m starving—OW!”

“Watch your mouth, young man.” Karen scolds her son, giving him a light slap on the ear and sitting down on the opposite side of Ted to eat.

“Sorry.” The teenager mutters softly and turns his attention back to his food, serving himself a large portion and eating in silence.

Jonathan chuckles softly as he watches Mike being scolded by their mother, like every big brother, Jonathan likes to sometimes see Mike getting a scolding from their parents here and there, and turns his attention back to Ted.

“You know, Dad, I think those droids Mike found in the desert got lost from someone.”

“Why do you think that?” Ted asks, his mouth full of food, earning a dirty look from Karen for his lack of table manners. He just ignores her.

“Well, I came across a recording while I was fixing R2’s damaged holoprojector. It says he belongs to someone named James Hopper.” Karen immediately glances at her husband upon hearing that name. “I thought he might be referring to old Jim. Do you know what he’s talking about, Dad?”

“Mm.” A negative grumble from the Wheeler man.

“I wonder if he’s related to old Jim?”

“That wizard is just a crazy old man.” Ted ends the conversation, his tone becoming slightly irritated at the mention of old Jim’s name. “Now, tomorrow, I want you and Mike to take that R2 unit and the talkative protocol droid to Anchorhead and erase their memories. That’ll be the end of it. They belong to us now. They were in the desert. Mike found them. Finders keepers.”

Karen remains silent, listening to the conversation and looking at her husband. Mike notices the look and tries to decipher what his mother is trying to tell Ted, but can’t think of anything else other than… Do his parents know this James Hopper guy? Or are they hiding something about old Jim? There’s something more to this oddly coincidental story.

When Jonathan doesn’t say anything else, not wanting to start an argument with his father, Mike chimes in.

“What if this James Hopper guy comes after R2?”

“He won’t.” Ted answers, taking a sip of the blue milk. “James Hopper died many years ago, around the same time as Jonathan’s parents.”

“My parents?” The mention of Jonathan’s biological family catches the older teen’s interest. “Did he know my parents? My mother? My father?”

“I told you to forget it, Jonathan.” Ted gives him a serious look before turning his attention back to his food. Jonathan divides his gaze between Ted and Karen, silently begging for more information about his biological family, which he has always dreamed of knowing more about. But alas, his adoptive parents remain silent, though Karen sends him an apologetic look. When his silent pleas yield nothing, the boy sighs softly and turns his attention back to the plate of food in front of him. “Your only concern right now is getting those two droids ready for tomorrow, Jonathan. I want them ready to work on the condensers and do other chores around the house.”

“Fine.” He answers quietly.

The conversation cooled down for a few minutes, the only noises that could be heard in the kitchen were the clatter of cutlery, plates, glasses and the occasional murmur of pleasure whenever someone took a bite of the delicious meal prepared by Karen.

Until Mike broke the silence.

“You know, these droids were a real find! 3PO will be able to help Mom a lot with the chores around the house and R2 is in very good shape. He will be very useful in keeping the moisture vaporizers in order!”

Ted grunted in response, while Karen warmed to her youngest son’s optimism, stroking his hair and gently pinching his cheek, making Mike’s cheeks blush. He hated/liked it when his mother babied him.

“Speaking of which…” Jonathan cleared his throat. “Since you’ll be getting extra help on the farm now, I’ve been thinking about moving up my enrollment at the Imperial Academy to this year.”

“You mean leaving next semester? Before the harvest?” Ted’s tone of voice indicated he didn’t like Jonathan’s idea at all, but it was for reasons unbeknownst to the teenager.

“Dad, come on! You have plenty of droids now! And you have Mike, too.”

“But the harvest is when I need you the most. And Mike still has trouble handling the vaporizers.” Jonathan uses all the strength he has inside of him not to roll his eyes at hearing this excuse for the millionth time. The same stupid excuse every single time. “Just one more year, Jonathan. Look, we’ll make good money on this harvest and I’ll be able to pay for more droids to do the hard work and then… You’ll be able to go to the Academy next year. You have to understand that I need you here, son.”

“But it’s another whole year!” 304 days to be precise. That’s how long it takes for Tatooine to circle the Twin Suns.

“It’s just one more season, Jonathan, don’t be so dramatic.”

At that, Jonathan scoffs in annoyance, wiping his mouth with a napkin and getting up from the table.

“Whatever. You said the same thing when Robin left.” He stands up from the table, the chair scratching against the floor.

Ted stares at his adopted son with a neutral gaze, not letting the whirlwind of emotions behind his glasses show while Mike just watches the situation in silence. Karen, on the other hand, doesn’t hide her concern about Jonathan’s reaction and the obvious disappointment and letdown on his face when Jonathan learns he’ll be stuck on Tatooine for another year. “Honey, where are you going?”

“Nowhere, apparently.” Jonathan mutters in a typical teenager petulance accompanied by a slight roll of his eyes before turning to his mother to answer her properly. “I’m going to finish cleaning those droids.”

Karen sighs as she watches her son’s retreating figure disappear down the hallway that leads to the garage. Ted glances at his wife briefly, his expression still neutral, but Karen knows what’s going on inside his empty head. Mike, on the other hand, taps his fingers on the table, sucking his lips.

“So… Since Jonathan vanished and the air here is a bit heavy… Can I eat while watching the HoloNet? Good Morning, Coruscant is starting soon!”

Ted grumbled in response, and Mike couldn’t tell if it was a positive or negative grumble, and turned to Karen, asking for clarification. The woman sighed softly, but nodded, giving the boy permission to go watch his show in the living room. Mike wasted no time in grabbing his plate and running towards the couch, thanking his mom in the process.

Once the boy was out of earshot, Karen turned to her husband.

“Ted, honey, you know Jonathan can’t stay here forever. His only friend is gone. You know how much this means to him.”

For the first time since this conversation began, Ted Wheeler didn’t grumble or grunt. He stared at his wife for a few moments with a thoughtful expression before shaking his head briefly, dispelling his thoughts and returning his attention to the food.

“I’ll make it up to the boy next year, Kare. I promise.”

Karen sighs and shakes her head. Oh, this airheaded husband of hers.

“Jonathan’s not a farmer, Ted. There’s too much of his mother in him.”

That makes Ted stop eating and give his wife his full attention. Karen shares Ted’s concerns for their children, especially Jonathan, but she knows there’s nothing crueler than leaving a little bird that longs to fly trapped in a cage for the rest of its life. As much as it breaks her heart to let Jonathan go, Karen knows it’s part of a mother’s job to let her children go when the time comes. And it’s about time for Jonathan to fulfil his dream and leave Tatooine to explore the Galaxy.

Ted, on the other hand, doesn’t want to take that risk. To risk Jonathan meeting the same fate as his biological mother.

“I know, Kare,” he says quietly, putting his fork down. “I know, and… it scares me. I don’t want to lose him like we lost her.”

As night falls, Jonathan goes outside to admire the beautiful sunset, or rather, the sunsets, of Tatooine. The twin stars Tatoo I and Tatoo II slowly descend, disappearing into the sandy horizon, casting a purple hue in the skies. The wind becomes colder and colder with each passing second, a harbinger of the freezing night that’s to come. Scorching hot during the day. Freezing cold at night. That’s Tatooine, the most backwater world of the Arkanis Sector. A prison that Jonathan feels he will never be able to escape, either because his parents won’t let him, or because Jonathan won’t allow himself to leave. He could just throw it all away and say “screw it, I'm leaving!” Yes, but he doesn't want to. The idea of ​​leaving his parents behind, leaving his brother behind, doesn’t sit well in his heart. It’s like asking to leave a part of his body, a part of his soul behind.

Jonathan sighs and lowers his head, kicking a small rock near his feet before going back inside. He will never leave Tatooine.

Never.

[stealingpotatoes]

hiii, love your art <3 just wondering, do c-3po and r2d2 have any sorta role in your star wars au (specifically anakin raises leia/ padmé raises luke)? they r my favorites, and i wanna know :)

pretty much just their Clone Wars roles!!! c-3po's Padmé's protocol droid (who is completely clueless abt her rebel activities lol), and r2's Anakin's astromech and best buddy <3 with whom anakin learnt the hard way that astromechs aren't the best nanny droids