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swan-orpheus · 2 years

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So I’ve been thinking about the Finale of Kenobi way too much, as to be expected I suppose. And the line that is haunting me is when Vader says, “The same way, I will destroy you.” They could have written that any number of ways but they chose this:

“You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker, I did.”

“The same way, I will destroy you.”

Neither one was actually trying to bodily kill the other, despite appearances. and there is no way that Vader thought for a moment that he had crushed (physically), Obi-Wan when he was walking back to his ship because he would have felt him die. He was trying to crush him spiritually, to crush the light. When Obi-Wan has flashes of Luke and Leia, it is not because they need him. He does not move the rocks because he has to save them, I do not believe, as some folks have suggested. Leia is already safe, Luke is in no real danger. Reva, as we know, was going to put down her lightsaber and carry him back to the Lars homestead. And at this point, Obi-Wan cannot be certain that Luke is in any danger. He is only in one frame of his vision. It isn’t their ultimate safety that is at stake during this battle, it’s Obi-Wan’s.

The children don’t need Obi-wan when he is down in that dark pit struggling to hang on, he needs them. He needs them to turn on the light so that he doesn’t give in to despair. This entire time he has been depressed, alone and afraid. Qui-Gon seemingly won’t answer him, everywhere there is fear and sadness and people dying in part because of the jedi, and then he learns that his old pupil and old friend is still alive, dark and mangled, but living, after a fashion. The thought of seeing what has befallen him since their fight on Mustafar must be utterly terrifying.

And as an aside, we know that Reva could sense a little of what Obi-Wan was going through when they speak at the wall. She wants to kill him and makes it clear at last, but she can feel that Obi-Wan does not want to kill, cannot kill “Anakin”. I think that Obi-Wan has been feeling extra guilty because even after everything Vader has done and will do to the people he sees around him, he simply cannot bring himself to kill him which must seem like a horrible betrayal of their trust in him. The least that he can do is to turn himself in. (My opinion of Reva honestly shoots up even more when you consider that she is particularly gifted at knowing what people are thinking and feeling and that she doesn’t blame him for not being able to kill his old friend, even after what Anakin did to her. Like at some point she really despised him, held him responsible, but I think she gets it now.)

Obi-Wan’s earlier words to Leia about what the Force represents to him really stuck out to me as well. It exemplifies his fear of the dark, and peripherally his crushing guilt over Anakin. I always felt that if Obi-Wan had a flaw, it was his too firm adherence to the Jedi Council, to the rules. He was always wary of straying too far from protocol or orthodoxy unlike his master who balanced rules with intuition. Qui-Gon was mindful of the dark but he didn’t fear it. Obi-Wan on some level was always a little fearful of Anakin and desperate to stay within the light, to maintain control. And fear as we know is the path to the Dark Side.

And you better believe that Darth Vader has been able to sense this fear the entire time -each time that they connect through bad dreams, the bacta tank, shared memories, or in battle. Darth Vader knows, and he is trying to exploit that. I think that the “weakness” he refers to in their battle is the lingering affection that Obi-Wan has for his old Padawan. Darth Vader wasn’t out to kill his old master. He wanted to destroy Obi-Wan Kenobi and leave something else in his place, something dark and without hope, just like himself.

I just like to think that they both showed up to this fight with similar intentions-to turn the other.

On a final note (this is getting far too long lol), I just love the line “Then my friend is truly dead” mirroring what Luke said in Jedi, “Then my father is truly dead” because as we know, this line occurs shortly before Luke brings Anakin back to the light and it definitely left him with something to think about.

I think this line is what causes him to really lose it and to start shouting “OBI WAAAN’ at the top of his struggling lungs. Somehow, his old master still hit him in a vulnerable spot. That vulnerability remains despite everything that Darth Vader has tried to do for the past ten years to kill Anakin and I think that this is truly the beginning of the end even as it marks the beginning of Vader’s true rise to prominence. I feel that when we see him in Rogue One tearing things apart and crushing people, or when he is savage af in ANH, it is the lingering rage from this battle we see in the finale, how for Darth Vader, at least, this conversation was never really finished and perhaps now never will be. I think it is amazing that he manages to hide this from the Emperor, the fact that Anakin is never completely gone. This is the chink of light Luke needs later to turn his father. So from a certain point of view, Obi Wan really does help his friend in the end.

“Then my father is truly dead” must have really hit him hard later on, reflecting back, again, on this fight. I am just so gobsmacked by how much this adds to the entire thing!! aaaahhhh, to the complexity of their relationship. *chef’s kiss*

#star wars #kenobi spoilers #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #darth vader #finale talk #my bonkers babble #i need Dark Kenobi fic now ahahahah #he can just turn for a little bit as a treat #the Emperor phones the Grand Inquisitor like #'where the *&^$ is he? still chasing Kenobi'#and the GI is like "sigh*#'join me and together we will rule the galaxy as bffs'

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clonewarsarchives · 3 years

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Any resources for texturing in the clone wars style?

sorry, I don't have a helpful answer >.<

Now, do you mean 1) How do they add/render textures in the show? or 2) How can one achieve a similar ‘texture’ as a fanartist?, 3) examples of textures used in the show, or do you mean something else?

Furthermore, what kind of texture are you referring to? fabrics, nature, materials, hair and skin or the brushstroke art style, for example? I am not an artist myself so I can’t answer anything about how to draw those in the Clone Wars style, and the few sources explaining the show’s process, of which most focus on the first three seasons, don’t go too deep in the technical aspect. My go-to guy is Joel Aron, CG Lighting and Effects Supervisor. He explained stuff like snow (1.15), lava (2.03), fire (2.05), water (3.01-02), mist (3.12) in the featurettes.

For fabrics, they usually have a swatch of pattern, then repeat and overlay it on the costume. The "repeat and overlay" seems like a pretty common cheat, since that’s how they do it for the lava on Mustafar and the Nal Hutta landscape. Hair and skin is something I barely remember hearing, so nothing to add there yet.

In Dave Filoin's words, he "have texture artists who literally paint every single character right down to their eyeball, because [he] wanted that human touch on everything". In The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2009), there’s this passage about finding the show’s “painterly” style:

While the studios struggled to streamline the technical elements of the production, Winder and Filoni hired Andrew Harris, who had worked on the Matrix trilogy and Cars (2006), as CG supervisor to help set up the pipeline as well as hone the look of the show. "The biggest challenge was how to accomplish the interesting and illustrative look that Dave had imagined for the show," Harris says. "Fortunately, Dave and I shared a similar sense for what the show needed to look like. He wanted something richer, warmer, and ultimately more hand-touched and gritty. He wanted a Ralph McQuarrie painting."

Realizing that "painterly" look took a long time, during which Filoni experimented by actually painting on the characters to simulate a textured style. "Looking at Ralph's paintings, you have this whole vocabulary of strokes and gobs of paint that define shapes and tex-tures," Filoni says. "I started doing these chalky and oily textures on the characters to see how that looked and also how we were going to deal with shadow and color."

Filoni wanted a hand-brushed paint job over everything and urged the artists to stop gunning for photographic realism and opt instead for artistic interpretation. "I needed them to stop thinking about what photographic wood or leather looks like and just paint wood or paint leather." Texture artists Tim Brock and Steve Ly latched onto that idea and applied the painterly approach to character models with astonishing results.

While the faux paint jobs looked good on paper, capturing them on actual frames of animation was another story. But, like many great discoveries, the key breakthrough was found by accident while the team was looking at a render of a droid.

"The render looked like a small toy of a super battle droid," says Filoni. "It looked like a great toy, but that was not the way I wanted to go." Harris took the render home and returned with a very simple solution. "I turned off the specular highlights and focused heavily on allowing the hand-painted textures to be seen," remembers Harris. "Oddly, the things that we chose not to use in the show are some of the things that you normally rely on computers to provide quickly and easily."

Harris's solution was the final key ingredient in the development of the show—the team decided that, from that moment forward, there would be no reflections or highlights on the models. "We don't care if something plastic reflects light or that the surface of wood reflects it a little less," recalls Filoni. "We just wanted the painted texture to be the end-all. That was how the show was going to work."

#Star Wars Insider has couple more design crew interviews #haven't read them yet but it's on schedule #cwainbox #the clone wars #Anonymous #art book

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little-diable · 4 years

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Clean up your mess - Kylo Ren (smut)

(Credit to gif owner)

Enjoy my loves. xxx

He only just got back from Mustafar, cheeks still dirty, dry blood was prominent on his features as he chased after her. Kylo felt tired, exhausted, the built up adrenaline was slowly leaving his body.

“Fuck, (y/n), stop.” His jaw was clenched, hands tightly grasping his saber, boots were crunching against the snow, tears streamed down the sides of her face, snowflakes were falling down on the forest, goosebumps clear on her body.

She felt betrayed, felt angry at him, he had left without any notice, hadn’t told her anything about his whereabouts, left her confused and scared - she’d always worry about her husband.

“You promised Kylo, promised you’d never do something like this again. I can’t keep on worrying-” gloved hands finally got a hold of her cold wrist, pulling her back against his front, sobs wrecked through her.

She was overreacting, but (y/n) couldn’t stay as rational as she’d like to be in situations like these, knowing that Kylo had way too many enemies to count, way too many people would like to see her husband dead, something that made her insides churn.

(Y/n) kept on struggling against his hold, tried to get away from him, knowing that he’d do anything to calm her down and make her forgive him, something she wasn’t ready for.

“Calm down, love.” His voice was deep, calm, collected, his hold on her only got tighter. “You are leaving me no choice here.” She fell limp in his hold, he was finally able to carry her back to the base.

Kylo placed her down on their shared bed, black bedsheets were shallowing her frame, he placed his lightsaber down on the nightstand, slowly pulling off his gloves, running a hand through his dirty hair. He moved his thumb along her lips, stroked her cold cheeks, slowly waking her up, eyes wandering over her features, taking in her beauty, god, how much he loved his wife.

“Did you just-?” Kylo swept her off the bed, not leaving any room for protests as he carried her towards the bathroom. He placed her down on the sink, legs wrapped around his middle, he ran a hand through her wet hair, dark eyes glistering in the dim lit room.

“I’m sorry, but you know that there are some things that I have to keep from you,” Kylo whispered against her lips. He hated fighting with her, it was exhausting, would drain his energy, (y/n) was just as stubborn as he was, just as passionate as he was, never backing down from a fight.

She sighed, knowing that she had lost that battle a long time ago. Her hands grasped his, she pulled him in for a kiss, lips moving against each other, tasing themselves, she missed him more than he could probably ever imagine.

Kylo stepped away from her, he started to fill up the bathtub, hot steam began to surround them. Her eyes were watching him, eyes focused on his now exposed chest, fingers were tingling, she wanted to feel his abs underneath her fingers.

“Come here.” She grasped his awaiting hand, Kylo pulled her flush against his chest, hands moving along the zipper of her dark robe, the satin fabric felt soft underneath his fingers.

Kylo attached his lips to her neck, she was completely bare underneath his touch, lust began to flood through both of their veins. (Y/n)s hands were working on his trousers, helping him step out of them, length already hard and throbbing, just for her.

He sunk into the hot water, a groan escaped him, tense muscles began to loosen up in the water, Kylo held her hand as she placed herself down in front of him, back against his chest. Her strong husband couldn’t keep his hands off her body, he had to touch her, to feel her, it had been way too long, Kylo was starving.

“I love you.” (Y/n)s eyes were closed, mind focused on the way his fingers were moving up and down her upper body, tracing the skin around her boobs, inhaling the scent of her shampoo as she leaned her head backwards.

“So beautiful, my darling wife.” Kylo whispered into her ear, enjoying the way her breath hitched in her chest, soft, delicate fingers grasping his legs. (Y/n)s mouth left a silent moan as his fingers ran up and down her folds, she was dripping, wetness coating his fingers, even underneath the water.

His length was throbbing against the small of her back, Kylo needed to feel her around him, the air around them was thick, force radiating off him, pulling her closer, as much as possible. He dipped two fingers into her core, walls perfectly molding against his fingers, pulling him into her heat, Kylo loved to touch her, he could go on for days on end like this, teasing her, feeling her tremble underneath his fingers, he had her at his mercy, just what he needed.

“Oh Ky’.” (Y/n) harshly bit down on her lip, nails clawing into the skin of his thighs, he knew her body like the back of his hand, knew what would make her cum in a mere second, she was ready to let go.

Kylo slowly turned her around, now that she was straddling his hips, he could attach his lips to her nipples, Kylo loved her boobs, loved to trace her stretch marks with his tongue, worshipping every inch of her beautiful body. (Y/n)s hands found his member, enclosing her fingers around him, pumping up and down his length, teasing his tip with her thumb.

“I need you Ky’.” He needed to be inside of her, needed to stretch her walls, needed to burry himself deep into her core. He grasped her behind, stabilized her as she sunk down on his length, she needed a few seconds to adjust to his size, he had been away for way too long.

She grasped his biceps, rolled her hips against his, water began to leave the tub, the mirror was foggy by now, sweat was pooling on both of their foreheads. Kylo kept on sucking on her nipples, rolled them around between his teeth, hips meeting her thrusts, trying to get deeper into her, closer to his wife.

“You feel so good around me.” She loved to be praised by him, it only urged her on, made her pick up her speed, bouncing on his hips as fast as possible. Her walls began to clench around him, Kylo could feel the way her pussy began to flutter around him, indicating that her orgasm was near.

His head was tilted backwards, hands moving down to her middle, squeezing her skin.

“Cum for me,” he moaned out as he lost all control over his body. “Oh god Kylo.”

His name left her lips like a prayer, thanking him for being that good to her, the knot in her stomach began to explode, adrenaline was pumping through her, wet hair clung to her forehead as she came around him. Kylo followed soon after, releasing himself into her, he sucked on her lip, muffling his moans, Kylo kept on thrusting his hips upwards, riding her through her high.

#kylo ren #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #Kylo smut #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren smut #starwars #adam driver #supreme leader kylo ren #adam driver imagine

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star-killer-md · 4 years

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It's getting late and I need some thots.

Do we think Kylo is a good dancer? Like ballroom dancing? Maybe he could really like throw it down with the knights???

Idk I personally feel like Mr. Big and Scary there is perhaps too big? And has 2 left feet? And can't do anything with rhythm???

How we feeling about this tonight?

Okay so I wrote this out once and accidentally deleted it and immediately wanted to die cause it was so long and had gif references and oh my god IMGOINGTOSCREAM. Anyway it's no longer morning and I’m so mad but here are my two cents (under cut cause it’s long):

I think Kylo Ren is graceful in the heaviest of ways. Now I know those would probably be considered opposite terms, but bear with me for the sake of the thot.

I don’t just mean heavy physically, though he is. He’s big and fills doorways, towering over almost everyone. His energy too--his presence—holds weight. He takes up all available space in every room he enters. And it’s incredibly important to keep in mind that Kylo knows this. It shows in the way he carries himself, the awareness of his effect.

He contains such power within himself, and his consciousness of this is what truly instills fear in those he meets in battle. There is something horrific and damning in facing a man who could cut you down in a single stroke and knows it.

The way he fights is harsh--strong swings with purpose. Kylo Ren is heavy and strong and merciless on the battlefield. But he’s precise.

I’m thinking particularly of ballroom dancing for the sake of this response, and one of the pillars for a successful dance is that same awareness. You have to be in constant control of your body’s musculature, always thinking about the way your limbs exist in a space. To glide, to float, to take just the right step in just the right way—all of it requires an immense amount of focus and perception which Kylo certainly possesses.

Ballroom dancers show their skill, their craftsmanship, in convincing the audience that their feet are never touching the floor—that they are sailing through thin air. And we see that same precision, that control, in the hard, fast, and take-no-prisoners method of Kylo’s fighting.

For the purposes of this argument, I’m going to cite specifically his fight on Mustafar. As Kylo Ren slides through the fire, his movements are so refined, so smooth, so undeniably graceful.

The placement of his feet, the way his head moves still through the frame, his upper body unwavering and blade never shaking as it’s buried in his target's chest. The sheer amount of strength and purposeful tensing of muscles to achieve such an attack all while flowing over the uneven terrain requires an unfathomable amount of skill. The same skills, in fact, one might see exhibited by a couple waltzing across a stage.

Kylo Ren has complete and utter mastery over his power and by extension over his body where it resides.

He is ruthless and cruel and often even barbaric, but still he hardly ever takes a hit himself. The only times we see him injured is against opponents which insight some amount of negative emotional response or distraction. Certainly in the battle on Mustafar he is filthy, drenched in muck and blood, but he is lethal and mostly untouched. That is not something which could be achieved through a berserker, blood-lust driven frenzy.

Every move is calculated. Each saber swing, each advance, each retreat, all of it is strategized and planned. This is a fighting style he’s chosen consciously and worked to perfect. It’s heavy, but it’s controlled and there is terrific beauty in that.

Kylo Ren possesses all the skills of a masterful dancer, though he applies them a bit paradoxically. He is full of paradoxes in any case, so this comes as no surprise.

In short, Mr. Big Scary Murder Space Prince can dance, in all his hulking, graceful glory. Though, whether or not he could actively be convinced to do so is an entirely different debate.

#anon #dr. b answers #dr. b talks #sorry I got carried away #seriously my first draft was so much better #I'm going to go cry in a hole #anyway kylo ren can fucking dance and I will die on this hill #also he def throws it back with the knights #he shakes that fucking ass and kuruk makes it rain #kylo ren #kylo ren imagines #kylo ren thots

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jasontoddiefor · 4 years

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(Grandpa Vader) Vader is putting Rey down for a nap and doing his best approximation of what his suit will allow for singing which doesn’t sound nice to him but his Rey of sunshine loves it

TW for Vader’s physical health bc oh boy

His throat ached. Usually his support suit forced air in and out of his lungs. It had taken long to get used to the involuntary movement, but after so many years Vader had gotten used to it. Now he loathed breathing on his own. The Emperor forced him to do so at times for his disobedience. He turned off Vader’s life support and his meager protection against Force-lightening, which meant he had to breathe manually. Not many had managed to drive him so far in battle that he had to breathe on his own, but Ahsoka did come to mind. When his pain had echoed in the Force, she had certainly been taken aback for a moment before resuming her assault.

He wondered what she would think of him now. The whole procedure exhausted him quickly, never mind how dangerous it was to his own health.

And yet here he was, all machinery turned off so he could produce a low vibration in his throat. He used to have a good voice before he fell, or so he had been told. Singing had been entertaining then, now it was just a torture he could hardly manage. Humming was much easier for him. The notes rumbled deep at the back of his throat, a half-forgotten lullaby he recalled his mother singing to him.

The child sleeping soundly on his chest wasn’t complaining. Rey was a fussy baby. Not so much out loud, she hardly screamed or cried, Force-sensitive children rarely spoke early when they were surrounded by others who were gifted like them. Some of the calmest rooms in the Jedi Temple had been the rooms for their youngest. They only started making noise when they were around three years of age, and then spoke full sentences rather quickly. There would be no telling how Rey would develop, similarly likely with only Luke and him to look after her. They were both strong in the Force, and so was she, even if she had been born prematurely. Then again, Anakin had been born in the desert, Vader on the shores of Mustafar and Luke from tragedy and the coldness of space. If anything, they were stronger for it.

Vader breathed in again, held it for a few moments, then slowly pushed the air out of his lungs again. The movement was precise, deliberate. He exercised as much control over the movement as his suit and his muscles allowed him too.

It was supposed to be a joyful melody, the kind that made you forget about all the hardships of the day. Vader used to associate it with safety and the sky, all his hopes and dreams. He doubted it would mean the same to Rey, locked up as she was in their quarters. She was too young now to truly understand what was going on and would be for years to come, but one day in the future she would have to leave this haven. No child should be raised a prisoner, yet Vader was forcing his granddaughter and his son to endure it for their own safety. He had to dispose of the Emperor soon so he could give his family what they always out to have.

It was getting harder to concentrate. Vader could feel his control, the absolute best and sharpest in the galaxy, starting to slip. He couldn’t continue on like this much longer, but he loathed to stop. Rey was so warm, full of content and happiness in his arms where she had been crying out in the Force before. It had been so loud, Vader had expected Luke to abandon his shift all together and just return to their quarters. But his son too had a role to play, couldn’t only be Rey’s father and the wonder Vader knew him to be. No, he had to hide away as another mechanic in the Star Destroyer’s ranks as to not draw any attention to himself.

Perhaps Vader should have brought them to Mustafar or hidden them away somewhere else, but then he’d never be quick enough to come to their aid should they call out to him.

“You’re in pain.”

Vader slowly turned around to see Luke standing in the entryway of the nursery, leaning against the door frame. Tired as he was, Luke looked so incredibly young. Vader knew he had gotten a few comments about it, they had aged Luke up considerably on his forged ID, but given his wisdom, Vader sometimes even believed it. He had been a snot-nosed Padawan still at Luke’s age. Unable to move forward or truly understand how the Force worked.

“You don’t have to suffer for us, Father,” Luke continued.

“I know.”

But he wanted to. In another world, somewhere kinder perhaps, he would be able to hum or sing for his granddaughter without walking towards death's door, but not in this one.

Luke only shook his head and finally stepped close. He did not take Rey from Vader, he merely sought out the control panels that reactivated Vader’s machine-assisted breathing. He looked up to Vader and when he nodded, Luke turned it on again.

Air was pushed in and out of his lungs once more against his will, overriding his autonomy and keeping him alive. It was a blessing and a curse at once.

“It is an unpleasant sound,” Vader told Luke when he had adjusted to the switch.

“Because it’s the last thing your enemies hear?” Luke asked.

Then he snorted, his lips curled to a smile so reminiscent of his mother, it would have taken Vader’s breath away.

“I’ve never associated it with harm,” Luke said. “And I don’t think Rey does either. She likes it. Her own personal lullaby.”

His breathing was everything but a kind lullaby, yet Rey was still sleeping. She was comfortable, swaddled in a thick warm blanket, lying in the arms of a blood-drenched mechanic nightmare. He wondered if she’d think the same when she was old enough to see the gore Vader created on his path through the galaxy. She would have to witness it someday to know Vader would never let any harm come to her, and yet he didn’t want her to ever be exposed to such horrors. It was bad enough Luke got to see the worst this war had to offer even though he was stuck on the ship.

“You’re joking.”

“No, really.” Luke grinned. “I play a recording of it when I put her to sleep. It works like a charm. Doesn’t it, my little Rey of sunshine?”

Rey, of course, didn’t reply or react in any way, but she was still warm and alive and untroubled.

It was enough for now.

#star wars #darth vader #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #rey of jakku #rey skywalker #what even is her character tag #ask #anon #prompts #in an endless universe AUs #Anonymous #fanfic

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have-a-hiddles · 3 years

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Tagged by @eyanril, so I’m following her format.

Rules: List the first and last lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!) See if there are any patterns. Then tag 10 authors!

Tagging: @juniorstarcatcherfiction, @oh-great-authoress, @britinthewoods, @ngoc12thefangirl, @bighound-littlebird, @phelfromgrace, @maulfrk, @dying-suffering-french-stalkers, and anyone else who wants.

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1) A Perfect Storm (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Hux and Rose stranded on Crait, Character(s): Hux/Rose )

All too-familiar aching pain raced across his entire frame as Hux gasped a ragged breath down his bruised throat. // The wars might go on out there, among the stars, but for them, everything to come would be very different, no matter what they discovered.

2) The Dangers Of Nar Shadda Casinos (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Posing as a couple on Nar Shadda, Character(s): Hux/Rose )

Rose hurries down a roughhewn street, although she tries to not look like she is hurrying. // He can.

3) A Change Of Mind (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Hux making his decision to turn against Kylo, Character(s): Hux, Pryde, Palpatine)

Hux swallowed hard, watching the set of Allegiant General Pryde’s shoulders as the older man watched the Supreme Leader’s antics amidst the smoke and ruin of Mustafar. // But he would never answer to a Sith Lord again.

4) A Drop Of Water And A Little Pity (Fandom: Hunchback of Notre Dame, Subject: Quasimodo's thoughts and feelings while on the pillory, Character(s): Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Frollo)

He looked down at the cracking, wooden floorboards that supported him, trying desperately not to think about the slice of leather and metal across his back. // “Belle…”

5) A Rose Among Thorns (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Rose is Hux's handler while he spies for the Resistance, Character(s): Rose/Hux)

“Say that again?” Rose demanded, her voice was somewhat drowned out amid the bustle of Ajan Kloss. // Life and, as it turned out, love was what had happened while they had been busy making other plans.

6) Fate Decided And Dawning (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Ben and Rey making and trying out their new lightsabers, Character(s): Ben/Rey)

Despite his attempts to burnish the lightsaber pommel’s greyish finish to a silvery shine, it remained weather worn. // They both waved to BB-8's strident burbling welcome as they returned to the ship that for now, they called home, just as the stars began to shine brightly above them.

7) Interlude: Of Desire And Decision (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Hux and Seela finally get to consumate their relationship, Character(s): Hux/OFC)

One of the perks of being on the Tantive was that just about everything one could need was within a short walking distance. // "I will never stop loving you.”

8) Memory Past And Pursued (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Rey is seduced by Ben proficiency in the kitchen bay, Character(s): Ben/Rey)

"Never thought I'd miss my calligraphy set," Ben mused. // Ben curled around her, cradling them together in a kind of nest, as they drifted into a dreamless, contented sleep.

9) Howling Of the Heart (Fandom: Game of Thrones, Subject: Sandor survives and is pissed about it, Character(s): Sandor/Sansa, Arya, Bran, assorted OCs)

Everything was burning. // It suited him well enough; he didn't care for those types of games anyway, and he knew he could face any reservations they'd express... if they dared to.

10) Interlude: Of Help And Healing (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Hux has surgery and Seela helps him recover, Character(s): Hux/OFC)

Seela hung up her flight jacket, leaving her in a sleeveless top and some loose fatigue pants. // "Love... your mother could well be alive!"

11) Love Forged And Forgiven (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Everyone's leaving Ajan Kloss and loose ends need to be tied up, Character(s): Finn/Poe, Ben/Rey, Hux/OFC)

Finn didn’t move. // "I'll never let you go, sweetheart."

12) Interlude: Secrets And Sharing (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Aftermatch of Leia's funeral, Character(s): Hux/OFC)

"You did good out there, Armie," Seela said as they headed back to the hangar to continue inventory and putting together supply packs for those leaving soon. // She actually laughed in shock for a second before catching him in a sweet kiss. "I love you, too freykaa."

13) Hope Remembered And Renewed (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Leia's funeral/memorial, Character(s): Ben/Rey, Hux/OFC, Poe)

"You should attend, Armie," Seela urged. // Something we finally have enough of.

14) Interlude: Of Chaos And Caring (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Bunch of vigniettes after Voices Within and Without, Character(s): Hux/OFC, Ben/Rey, Finn, Poe, Kaydel)

The realization that he should be dead hit him harder than a blaster bolt. // And for the first time, Armitage Hux felt hope.

15) Voices Within And Without (Fandom: Star Wars, Subject: Ben Solo deserved better, Character(s): Ben/Rey)

What parts of his body that he could feel were in agony as he scrambled for purchase on the jagged rockface. // “Wow. You have no room to be twitting me about Ben.”

16) Why The Caged Bird Sings (Fandom: Game of Thrones, Subject: Sandor and Sansa make love AFTER the battle against the dead, Character(s): Sandor/Sansa)

Sitting at the high table in the great hall of Winterfell, Sansa struggled to sort out her emotions following their narrow victory against the Army of the Dead. // "Ah, fuck me!" he swore in disgust.

17) The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night (Fandom: Game of Thrones, Subject: Sandor and Sansa make love BEFORE the battle against the dead, Character(s): Sandor/Sansa)

Sansa took a deep breath, watching the cloudy vapor swirl above her face. // So help her, Seven; if she managed to live through the rest of this night, she was going to find Sandor Clegane and she was going to make her dreams real.

18) Of This, Our Time (Fandom: Hiddlestoners, Subject: Shameless self-insert fantasy, Character(s): Tom Hiddleston/thinly veiled version of the author)

He was definitely lost and that was not a good thing; especially since the August evening sky was gloomy with rain clouds. // Very soon...

19) Mating Habits (Fandom: Hiddlestoners, Subject: Tom is a museum curator, Character(s): Tom Hiddleston/OFC)

Free museum days were fantastic. // “Wild Irish Elks couldn't stop me.”

20) Soothe the Savage Beast (Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Subject: Introducing Sigyn!, Character(s): Loki/Sigyn, Odin, Thor, Frigga)

Sometimes she wished she’d never come to the palace, that she’d stayed in her little village in Vanaheim, safe with her own people. // "We will face it. Head on. Together."

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

Patterns: I seem to like "establishing shots" for opening lines and maybe somewhat abrupt ending lines.

Fave Opening Line: “Say that again?” Rose demanded, her voice was somewhat drowned out amid the bustle of Ajan Kloss. I just like how it opens in the middle of conversation. Way to toss the audience in without their swimmies.

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sparrowsabre7 · 4 years

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Say Something Nice About Every Star War part 4 Revenge of the Sith

The opening crawl starts with a fun single exclamation. “War!”

The silent shot of the Venator class Star Destroyer over Coruscant*, followed by drums and then the interceptors flying over its bow and spiralling into chaos remains I think my favourite opening of any Star Wars film. Yes, A New Hope’s is more iconic and is still great, but ROTS’ is the perfect synergy of all of that.

I love the design of the interceptors, I like that they are almost like the bastard children of A-wings and TIE fighters. The ARC-170 is cool too, making that classic warplane noise with its engines.

The duel with Dooku parallels Luke vs Vader in Return of the Jedi very nicely. Anakin and Luke are both faced with the same decision, being goaded by Palpatine, but while Anakin gives in to his anger, Luke ultimately rejects it.

“His fate will be the same as ours” is such a great foreshadowing line. Like sure, it’s weird Lucas dialogue, but it works here.

General Grievous is a great design, though I wish he had been a bit more like his Clone Wars (Tartakovsky) counterpart.

Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen are finally allowed to sell the friendship in this one. No more chiding master and unruly student, they work together well, they bounce off each other, we get the sense they are seasoned veterans now.

We have another moment in Padme’s apartment where Anakin lays his feelings bare. It’s interesting that the two times he’s most honest about his emotions is when he’s in Padme’s bedroom.

“Hello there!”

Obi-wan’s pose in the Grievous duel.

Shorter than it should have been but the duel is still fun to watch

Anakin’s conversation with Palpatine in the squid lake opera is moody and atmospheric and Ian McDiarmid sells this moment really well. Yes, he’s being very blatant about his Sith knowledge, but I feel like that’s deliberate. He wants Anakin to figure it out, he wants him to come to him of his own accord.

The Battle of Kashyyyk is very nicely laid out with the trenches and the droids emerging from the water. Just visually very interesting, a lot of stuff going on.

The silent (or it was silent until the blu-ray release) scene of Anakin and Padme staring across Coruscant to each other is probably the most soulful and thoughtful scene Lucas has filmed since Binary Sunset. This notion of the separation between them and how this moment is not centred on love but uncertainty. I feel this would probably have hit better on Padme’s end if the Rebellion senators subplot was left in as that also contributes to their division.

I like the little flickshot hidden lightsaber reveal from Palpatine. Something about it just satisfies me.

Mace Windu finally gets a duel, even if it is a little leisurely paced

Though it sort of stumbles in the final moment, all the steps to get to Anakin’s turn worked for me: it came from a place of good intentions, but those intentions were clouded by jealousy and fear. With the puzzle pieces put in place from Attack of the Clones it’s reasonable to me that Anakin would want to save his wife from death.

Circling back, I like that when Anakin says Padme will die, her first reaction is “and the baby?”. And Anakin doesn’t seem to care at this point, he’s so focused on keeping Padme, he doesn’t want to lose the thing he has, not what he might have. That right there points out this drive to save Padme is not driven so much by love, but by selfishness.

Order 66 montage is crushing and John Williams does not let up.

Yoda riding Chewbacca’s back is funny.

Ewan McGregor trying hard not to laugh at “killing younglings.”

The dual duels are both really fun to watch. No they don’t always make sense from a choreography point of view, but they are entertaining.

Yoda vs Palpatine still makes the 7 year old in me go crazy.

Yoda’s “failed I have” sounds so broken.

Though it’s cheesy as hell the whole lead up dialogue to Obi-wan vs Vader still hypes me up each time.

“YoUr nEw EMpIRe!?”

Ewan sells the “your were my brother” dialogue, even though some of it is a little Lucasian.

Intercutting Padme’s death with Vader’s birth/Anakin’s death with the twins’ birth is a nice parallel.

That *wheeze* THUNK noise when the helmet goes on.

Padme’s funeral with the japor snippet is nicely framed

The Harry Potter scene at the end apes Binary Sunset in a satisfying way to end the Lucas saga that brings it full circle.

*Does this actually make Coruscant the only planet to be featured in the opening crawl pan twice? I - Naboo, II - Coruscant, III - Coruscant, IV - Tatooine, V - I think nothing at first before getting to Hoth, VI - Forest moon of Endor, VII - Jakku, VIII - D’Qar, IX - Mustafar

#star wars #say something nice #revenge of the sith #films

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mantra4ia · 5 years

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The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Reaction Episode II (spoilers ahead)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I must preface my opinions with the one central point of view that has never wavered: you can be a Star Wars fan and a film critic simultaneously.

Dislikes (big and small)

So in this new trilogy, does everyone know all about the secretive Sith? No one knows where Exogol-Sith-home-world is without a wayfinder. Yet some random spice traders know who the Sith are and that they have a runic language, but nearly the entire Jedi culture disappeared until the tale of Luke Skywalker revived it. This dislike is not isolated to RoS, but it's so odd considering that in the prequels and OT, the Emperor did not put the knowledge of the Sith right out in the open.

Too much telling, not enough doing. I detest plot reveals via exposition, because a majority of the time explain-y dialogue is far inferior to natural conversation. But for two-thirds of the movie, I couldn't settle into the world because I felt like I was being told a Star Wars story instead of being in it. Case point 1: Poe's argument that Rey is training instead of being on the front line to try to verbally push the narrative that she's not just naturally too-gifted. Case point 2: Explaining Force heal to the audience (via droid) after its already been demonstrated as if we can't interpret how it works. AND YET we get no planet captions? Who's advice are you listening to? Disney could spell everything else out in dialogue when it was unnecessary and borderline condescending to audience, but when it mattered you couldn't give us planetary captions so I blinked and missed the fact that we opened with Kylo Ren kicking a** and taking names on freaking Mustafar! That was a great scene. Epic. Kylo’s on a mission, and there ain’t no questing here - it’s as fast and direct as the throat punch. He’s tired of being jerked around, he’s in a position of power to demand answers, and he’s going for the head of the Emperor, all while I was like...was that Mustafar, that was Mustafar, except now we just left Mustafar. DAMMIT.

We see the repair on Kylo's mask but not the repair of Luke's saber, or Rey building her own saber? TLJ broke the most iconic lightsaber and RoS just fixed it off screen (see point above)? I suppose this shouldn't be shocking since they introduced Palpatine IN THE CRAWL, but it was disappointing.

Did like the opening crawl, did not like how it was used as Palpatine’s business card. I think my exact words were: did they really, what kind of movie am I here for?

Leia's death. I don't buy for a second that establishing a Force visitation with Kylo across the galaxy was enough to kill her. TLJ (in my opinion) demonstrated enough to establish her as a powerful force user, which Rise of Skywalker doubled down on using the flashback training scene. So no, I don't think the exertion of it was enough to take her life unless it was inferred that she either wasn't recovered from the events of TLJ or that the Force sensitive impact of Luke's death was taking an extended toll on her, or that she was somehow already overdoing it trying to use other Force abilities behind the scene to protect the resistance/ reach out to Luke. I understand that with Carrie Fisher's (rest in peace) sudden death it would make certain practical sense for Leia to die if fitting, but put all that explanatory dialogue to some good use for once and build up tension so that Leia's death makes sense.

Luke's Force ghost being underutilized. From the beginning I didn't have a problem with Luke's conclusion in Last Jedi (minus a subtle eyeroll at the noble sacrifice trope being easily confused with honor) because it doesn't bother me whether a character is living or not as long as they are still growing. I thought, I hoped, I legitimately put money on the fact the Rise of Skywalker would use Luke in the training of Rey or the haunting of Ben and that he would play an active Force ghost role. He was used for damage control. That was infuriating.

Han Solo. I recognize the irony of this moment being in both my likes and gripes. While I liked seeing Han bestow Ben forgiveness, even if he was just a memory and not a ghost, it quickly became a hollow sort of nostalgia. FULL POST HERE.

Why in the world is there an arbitrary 16-hour frame before the Exogol fleet strike? The Last Jedi gave us a slow space chase and now what, the executive team thinks that the polar opposite is the answer? So you already have to wrap of an entire saga in a 2-3 hour real world runtime, and you've decided to amp up the pace and cram that into 16 hours of Star Wars time just for funsies while the Emperor broadcasts propaganda to kill morale? Rushed, forced, we just spent a chunk of the movie at Fyre Festival in a space desert, don't tell me there wasn't more time to allocate for imminent doom.

So essentially, we had a StarKiller base in TFA, mini-Death Star canon in TLJ, and a thousand Death Star planet killing cannons on Star Destroyers? LET that part of THE PAST DIE!

The execution of Leia training Rey. The idea was wonderful...in practice you can really tell the dialogue was built around her, and the scenes suffer for it. Execution, for the sake of preserving the character Carrie built, may have been accomplished by Tricia or Joely Fisher or her friend Meryl Streep as a way to still honor her.

A case for triple / quadruple convenience. Star Wars has always been a universe of happy coincidences, but Rise of Skywalker takes them to new extremes to the point it smacked me out of the movie. Every movie has it's own unique level of “good faith reserves” after which point plot conveniences elicit “you've got to be kidding” reactions. This happened to me during the setup of Force healing. FULL POST HERE.

Execution of Finn's character. Apart from his force-sensitivity and connection to the trooper defectors, I think Finn's plot regressed in this film each time he had to follow in Rey's wake every time she went solo, (going after Rey in the sciff, yelling Rey in the Death Star battle, Rey I have something to tell you). I thought that we had gotten past this in TLJ when Finn found purpose in the Resistance and something worth fighting for, but old habits die hard.

Scavenger hunt questing and the damn Sith Dagger. If part of this was in the crawl, that might have been good with me. I get that Rey's a scavenger – it's good to see her in her element like TFA, climbing through the Death Star at the culmination – but it's far too time consuming to do the double header of dagger/wayfinder and coincidental. She could have been standing anywhere on Kef Bir, the oceanic moon of Endor, but she happened to be standing exactly where she needed to be with no reference to force power, and the tides hadn't moved any part of the wreck and the topography hadn't changed at all for the protractor on the dagger to work?! I’m a nerd about mathematical, logical tools, but they don't work well in a Sith alchemy plot! Even when we try for logic, the convenience appears, which could have been passable if I still had good faith. In the words of John Mulaney, “you spent it already?!”

Nostalgia aside, where are the stakes? They're trapped in a sand cave / wait, no they're not. They're being hunted through Fyre Festival and they don't have a get away ship / oh yeah they do, and its fully fueled, parked in the open, not stripped for parts. There are about five different “fake” deaths where the tension releases so fast, and two real deaths of spies that should have been given beats but were skimmed over: Chewie's dead / but no it was the wrong transport, 3PO's peril / never mind we've got backups, Zori wants to turn Rey in for bounty / then they have the quickest fight in Star Wars and are on good terms. Instead of taking big risks and getting reward, this film banked on unraveling the plot by the flip of a two-headed coin and settling for surprise “Oh, they did wot now?” instead of awe.

“Retconning” The Last Jedi / plucking it out of the timeline. Rise of Skywalker, in many ways, feels like a direct sequel to The Force Awakens. Direct slaps to TLJ include but not limited to: Holdo maneuver “one-in-a-million,” and Luke plucking Rey's saber from the fire. “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect (except when its Kylo’s),” and Luke lamenting about going into exile as a mistake. Concepts that could have been accepted, some even verbatim foregone conclusions from TLJ, were it not for terrible execution clearly framed at goodwill appeasement.

So, the Knights of Ren were window dressing? They just follow Kylo around like bouncers and when he turned to the light, they turned on him? A) Like the praetorian guard for Snoke, they are supposed to be loyal to Kylo and if they’re not we should get to see that, B) they just made Ben look boss as he took them out. Epic saber fight, lackluster idea, especially when the Knights were so speculated on and could have had mythos. Take them out of the film and put Luke's ghost in. Problem solved.

Rey as a Palatine / OP (Overpowered) Rey. All the one-ups that ensued between Rey and her grandfather. No thank you. I don't mind that she has power and is very naturally and diversely talented, don't let lineage play a factor. It was vastly more meaningful when she was ‘ordinary.’ I could go into a whole dedicated post on this.

Hux as a spy? No, I can't imagine that's what TFA set him up for. Interesting concept - I don’t want you to win, I want Kylo to lose - terrible setup. The Last Jedi did it better, Benicio del Toro is one of the only things I'll give Canto Byte credit for.

What even is the point of Zori apart from a character used to deliver a plot point of security clearance? She is very much used to prop up Poe's story. I like the idea of the character, I don't dig her role, and even more so I don’t like how the destruction of her planet first was used to fish for emotion. Invest more in Poe's struggles ascending to acting general.

Palpatine overall, from his intro in the crawl to his motives – He's such a cool, larger then life character, it shamefully never feels like we JJ knows what he wants out of the Emperor as his villain. Palpatine's motivation for decades was the dark, unnatural Sith ability to live forever sought by his master Plagueis before him, yet in RoS he's so utterly content to say “kill me so that you can ascend to Empress and I can flow through you (possess you)” – and then the discovery that draining the “Dyad in the Force” can regenerate him changes the plan immediately. Principally its an interesting idea using him as a puppet master to tie *all* the trilogies together, but for me it didn't work as nothing else about his character felt cohesive. And then when his own Force lightning is blasted at him, hasn't he learned to stop using it (throwback: Mace Windu) and pick up a saber and fight. Fool my once, shame on you, fool me twice and I'll cut you down. Wouldn't it be so great if, despite his wizened state, he still had latent combat skills? We were sooo robbed of that opportunity.

“Undermining” Anakin’s arc as the chosen one. I don't think bringing in Palpatine undoes Darth Vader's sacrifice – because Anakin still brought peace and balance to the Force when he sent Papatine back to the shadows. Balance restored by nature is not a permanent state, so it makes sense that the balance Anakin brought would eventually be challenged - but it does take away from the satisfaction of his story, especially considering that we do not see him return in physical form.

I get the "Be with me" use of Force ghost voices from all the Star Wars mediums. It was teed up right in the very beginning of the training montage. But you’re STAR WARS, you are making history. Go big, take a risk, PUT THE FORCE GHOSTS ON SCREEN (or at least a few from the central saga)! Give me Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, maybe Mace, Luke, and Leia bestowing their energy on Rey, or go home! I mean my goodness, the Emperor had Snoke clones, but they were just sitting around as props in tank. If you wanted to go really big you could get all the clones of his main Sith disciples on screen (Snoke, Maul, Dooku), and have him force drain them to illustrate Sidious matching the power of the Force ghosts. But instead Disney played it safe.

Rey’s return to Tatooine and taking on the name Skywalker. FULL POST HERE with better options than appropriating the name Skywalker, especially considering that the plot does plenty to fulfill the film’s marquee during the Final Order Battle on Exogol when Rey embodies the Force of the Jedi and they will her to RISE. Taking on the name by contrast seems to trivialize via overkill what was delivered on (imperfectly, but powerfully).

The death of Ben Solo / “the redemption”: This depends on largely on what how you define and merit redemption. I can see why some loved it and others hated it – if you define redemption as “Kylo turned good after all that universe wrecking carnage and now he has access to light side force ability?!” then I can see where you didn't like or want his redemption arc, and might be satisfied with his death as a conclusion. If, like me, you didn't see Kylo's redemption not as the act of turning good but rather turning to face his own reflection / the thing he most feared – himself – exactly like Rey – and that's what allowed him access to the light side abilities to heal, that's fascinating as h***. My gripe is I don't think Ben needed to die for the redemption to work or as a way to finish his arc. (FULL POST HERE) Again, why another Luke-themed noble demise? It could have worked for Luke’s character because Rise of Skywalker follows TLJ and gives you room to breath and play. But there’s nothing after this episode for Kylo in the same way.

So peace was created by defeating Palpatine and his fleet? Nah. First of all, Rey killed Darth Sidious exactly like he “wanted” her to and yet he didn't possess her as promised, while an order of Sith stand around watching– okay, was the Emperor really that attune in his Force Cognizance that he expressed with full confidence to his followers “whatever happens, the ritual will be complete. Don't move, sit back, enjoy the show”? And there's still the fragmented First Order (see the previous point above). Not every First Order officer and ship were loyal to or trusting of the Emperor and his comrade General Pryde, so it would stand to reason they didn't all heed the call to the final order and join the fray. What happens to them now that their Supreme Leader (Kylo) abdicated and then died? Yes, they are far fewer in number and they no longer have the firepower of Exogol behind them so they retreat into that shadows and regroup like opposition always does. I don't believe for a second that they all gave up or were defeated by the groundswell of Resistance. And now we are right back to where Return of the Jedi left us almost beat for beat.

Initial Reaction *** Episode I *** Episode III

#star wars #star wars saga #star wars ix #rise of skywalker #sw: the rise of skywalker #dislikes #reaction'd #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker review #tros #leia's death #ben's death #anakin skywalker #rey skywalker #force ghost #empress palpatine #mustafar

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rebelsofshield · 5 years

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics (10/30/19 and 11/6/19)

Wow. It’s been a wild two weeks. Yes, two weeks. Life has been a thing and Panels Far, Far Away has fallen a tad behind as of late. So now, for your reading pleasure we have two solid weeks of Star Wars comics. So happy belated Halloween, say hi to your good Doctor, and prepare to rescue some Wookiees.

Star Wars Adventures #27 written by John Barber and Michael Moreci and art by Derek Charm and Tony Fleecs

It’s not just Marvel that has joined the journey to The Rise of Skywalker. IDW Publishing is launching its own story of the struggle between the First Order and the galactic resistance these coming weeks. Whereas many other stories have concerned themselves with just how the Resistance restructures itself in the wake of the disastrous events of The Last Jedi, Adventures instead follows a lone Wookiee’s attempt to save his homeworld from tyrannical occupation. That’s right, it’s Chewbacca and a Porg vs the First Order.

Despite the prevalence of cute sidekicks and slapstick humor, there is a genuine sense of stakes and tension in John Barber’s Chewbacca tale. Sure he may be lugging around a pet Porg with him, but this is his home and Chewie could not be more invested in its safety. Derek Charm draws Chewie with an unexpected ferocity and determination and uses some of his trademark creative layouts to have our Wookiee hero springing across the page and breaking panels with strides and jumps. It makes for an investing little story that I can’t wait to dive further into.

This week’s back up story proves to be less impressive, but still entertaining. Our three droid heroes, C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8, find themselves alone on Garel having been overlooked once again by both the First Order and their friends on the Resistance. However, when a young orphan needs help, they decide to take matters into their own hands. There isn’t anything quite as engaging as the Chewbacca segment, but it’s nice to finally see our robotic friends taking matters into their own hands and proving their worth. Tony Fleec’s pencils can’t help but bring to mind the shortlived Droids animated series from the 80s, but it works well here and gives this new story a pseudo-retro vibe.

Score: B+

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle #5 written by Cavan Scott and art by Francesco Francavilla and Charles Paul Wilson III

Yes, yes, I know. Halloween was over a week ago, so this, hopefully annual, celebration of all things creepy in Star Wars is a little delayed. Luckily, this final issue of Return to Vader’s Castle proves to be the strongest of the bunch, even if it comes nowhere close to reliving the heights of its predecessor.

The biggest struggle with this year’s Vader’s Castle series has been the mismatch of artists with source material. While Cavan Scott took us to even more twisted and dark little Star Wars horror stories, the artists tasked with bringing these to life, while often talented, felt out of place with the decidedly more sinister narratives. While frame artist, Francesco Francavilla turned in impressive work on a regular basis, the tales themselves struggled. It is disappointing that Francavilla doesn’t get the opportunity to do a full issue on his own like Derek Charm did last year, but Charles Paul Wilson III lives up to the task and delivers the most visually cohesive installment of this miniseries.

While Colonel Hudd tries his best to escape from Mustafar with the help of an unexpected ally, his captor, Vanee, recounts a creepy rebellion at Vader’s Castle by the planet’s natives. Writer Charles Soule had hinted at the mystical relationship that the Mustafarans had with their planets lava in his Darth Vader ongoing and Cavan Scott dives further into that here. The result pits Darth Vader up against a local mystic and a horde of lava zombies. Yes, lava zombies, and yes, it is as cool as it sounds.

Charles Paul Wilson III crafts some delightfully creepy and bizarre character designs for the lava zombies and their Mustafar masters, and colorist David Garcia Cruz brings it to life with an effective mix of striking reds, purples, and oranges. The end result is the first installment of this miniseries that feels visually consistent throughout and lives up to its goals as an all ages horror book.

Score: B+

Star Wars Allegiance #4 written by Ethan Sacks and art by Luke Ross

The conspiracy on Mon Cala comes to light in the final issue of Star Wars Allegiance. Just who has been setting the citizens of the watery planet and the Resistance is revealed even as the First Order arrives in orbit. Also, Finn and Poe fight some bounty hunters.

Star Wars Allegiance is a very fine little comic. That’s it really. It’s fine. The strongest point of this comic since its start has been its story of a war-weary Princess Leia and her relationship with a planet she helped plunge into hardship almost forty years prior. It is a dramatic backdrop for a narrative and helps solve a logistical question for the Resistance as we head into December’s big final showdown. However, as an actual prequel to the final installment of this latest trilogy, the result feels decidedly lackluster. The central cast of new generation heroes are mostly given little of consequence to do and more often than not, particularly in the case of Rose and Rey, feel written out of character or reduced to their most basic form. The Finn and Poe section proves more fun than the material granted to our heroines but the end result still feels decidedly inconsequential.

Fans looking for a piece of connective tissue linking the time between the Battle of Crait and the start of The Rise of Skywalker are best served by checking out Rebecca Roanhorses’ novel Resistance Reborn, which covers similar ground as Allegiance but with greater depth and fidelity. As it stands, Allegiance is a fun appetizer for a larger meal. Decent art, decent story, decent characters.

Score: B-

Star Wars Doctor Aphra Annual #3 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Elsa Charretier

When they first appeared in last year’s Doctor Aphra annual comic, Nokk and Winloss, a bi-species monster hunting couple, quickly endeared themselves as two of Star Wars’ most creative and lovable additions in sometime. It is both a treat and a worry that the fate of these two seems so inextricably linked to galactic chaos ball, Doctor Chelli Aphra.

Writer Simon Spurrier and artist Elsa Charretier look to change that up here by giving Aphra her latest opportunity at redemption, and maybe a little revenge too. In a complicated scheme, Aphra uses her new found access to Imperial files to help Nokk track down a man who deeply wronged her and also give her husband and Wookiee bounty hunter, Black Krrsantan, some closure on the way.

Spurrier gets to play with his trademark layered storytelling even more than usual here. The added page length and relatively self-contained nature of this story allows him to play with perspective, plotting, and pacing to an even more controlled degree than usual and the result is a narrative that is filled with twists, turns, and betrayals. It may not be the most memorable tale that Spurrier has crafted on Aphra, and is nowhere near the delightful heights of last year’s annual, but the result is still a very solid and fulfilling little chapter that provides some closure to this comic’s supporting cast.

Elsa Charretier has been a regular feature of IDW’s Star Wars comics for some time, and it’s nice to finally see her make the jump to Marvel’s line of adventures. Her exaggerated and stylized characters work well for a tonally varied comic such as this and it’s nice to see the Star Wars line branching out a bit in visual representation. Colorists Edgar Delgado and Jim Campbell don’t always do the best at bringing her complicated pencils to life and the result sometimes feels too heavily inked, but the comic still maintains a unique visual aesthetic that succeeds more often than it stumbles.

Score: B+

Star Wars Doctor Aphra #38 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Caspar Wijngaard

Even with the announcement that renowned speculative fiction writer Alyssa Wong will be taking over Doctor Aphra early next year, there still hangs an air of finality around “A Rogue’s End.” Many of the major players among the last thirty eight issues of this series have come back to play and Aphra’s future feels more in flux than ever. With her wayward father now in the clutches of Darth Vader and her former droid sidekicks/torturers back in her orbit, Aphra has more to lose than any other point in her twisted history.

It’s the father daughter relationship between both Doctors Aphra that really takes up most of the meat of the story here and it helps the comic feel like it is approaching a full circle conclusion to the first issue penned by Kieron Gillen over three years go. Spurrier finds expansive creative real estate here, charting the reunion, frustration, and possible reconciliation of these two in the span of twenty some pages. It feels organic and emotional and ups the stakes considerably for the next two issues.

Spurrier also gets the chance to write Darth Vader more than he has in previous issues here. The result is pitch perfect and delightfully sinister and unstable in a way that feels right in line with some of the great comics for this character over the last four years, even if it ends up covering some familiar ground.

Caspar Wijngaard’s pencils are dependably striking here and helps the comic look better than it has in quite sometime. Colorist Lee Loughride feels more at home now than in last issue and characters and environments feel more lively and defined. Aphra herself still feels a little awkwardly rendered, but she is the exception, not the rule, to an otherwise visually impressive issue.

Score: A-

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brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

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❓

Reflections || Accepting

Nova Heart || Anikeni

~Does my muse trust yours~

Anakin sleeps. Fever-wet brow, deep hollows below closed eyes. Old scars and healing wounds. A sickness of the mind so deep that even she cannot reach him entirely. This rest is fitful and the nightmares are so real they threaten to choke everything in miles around his presence. She has been more than once in these few hours tempted to tie him down to the makeshift bed. To make a choice for him and course-correct. Never go to Mustafar and find some way to secret him back home where he can get the care and rest he needs. To maybe bring her Anakin back from the abyss he's fallen into, or at least some semblance of their former normalcy.

But to do so would be to admit that her trust, her absolute faith in him, had broken right along with his sanity. That there are, in fact, limitations appended to her promise that wherever he was, she would be too. That maybe loving each other just wasn't enough. And that she cannot do. She would sooner burn the galaxy down to the foundations, sacrifice everything that ever existed. She would give up the living Force before she would betray him.

So she mops his brow with a cool cloth and lets his hand curl in hers. She becomes an anchor, a beacon in the dark. Her trust remains inviolate.

~Does my muse dislike yours~

"I almost had you!"

She throws down the practice sabre, it's green blade disappearing after she lets go and it makes a defeated, metallic thunk when it lands. Her face is flushed green, dark strands of her hair stick to her cheeks and her neck having escaped the tight confines of its braid, and no one with olfactory senses in the room can miss the distinct but vague floral scent that rises from her skin.

"You did," Anakin says mildly, unbothered by her outburst, at least on surface level.

He did not tell her she let her guard drop, nor that she was distracted and thereby allowed her speed to be effected. He knows how much that stings coming from anyone but the masters, and from them it's murderous. Just like she doesn't dare utter the words 'I hate you'. Because even if he knew she was just frustrated, it would eat him alive. And she could never dislike Anakin. "We take five, and go again."

~Would my muse kill someone for yours~

Anakin is on Coruscant. She can only imagine the cruelty being imposed on him by the Emperor. Imagine because she is languishing in the Halla sector, currently locked in her quarters avoiding it's Moff. His crime is that he is both insufferably arrogant and mind-numbingly boring. His only real desire is to regale her with tales of his bravery and genius in the war, and in crushing the Jedi. He speaks of personally having a hand in dispatching General Skywalker, and claiming several of the young Jedi's victories as his own.

Clearly, he cannot read his audience.

To entertain herself in her solitude, she pulls out her datapad and keys in a specific encryption. She scans through faces, through condensed personnel records. Certain Moffs, admirals, courtiers...who thought they could replace Anakin as the Emperor's right hand. But what they fail to see when they look at her Za'lali is exactly what a man is capable of when that hand is cut off... And that he has two others, always. Kenobi escaped, much to her disappointment, though in no situation would she put him above Anakin. She has been gathering rumours as young women collect flowers and young men collect hearts. The strongest of the whispers point to either the Outer Rim or the wild-space beyond. It's only a matter of ti- The chime on her door breaks through her thoughts. Shouting, pounding on the door, demanding she come quickly. It would seem that the Moff had ingested something that did not agree with him and required emergency medical attention.

She smiles languidly, before deleting one of the records.

~Would my muse kill your muse~

"No, and do not ever think to ask that of me." She means it. The seriousness etched not only in voice but visage too is harder than any other thing she has ever said to him. A deep verdant blush creeps about her cheekbones though there is nothing romantic about it. It's spoken in the way she rises up where they'd been lounging seconds before, his hand that had been tucking strands of hair behind her ear left hanging in place until it falls out of sight in shame, discomfort. His Presence is as turbulent as her own though held in an infinite check. Emotions as hotly burning stars are dangerous things within the Temple walls.

It has never been easy for her to be angry with him, and isn't so now. She only has indignation to stand on. But for him to ask if she would do such a thing is so utterly galling she can't even begin to unpack the flicker-flash of temper. She would willingly die for him. She would think it a gift to slaughter half the galaxy in his name. But that he would even think to ask if she would ever hurt him, much less... It's...it's... "I could not do it, Za'lali. Not really. And...you must forgive me for that."

~Would my muse save yours~

If Melakeni had a heart it would be in her throat. Choking her slowly until black spots danced before her eyes. It is lucky that she does not, she's hyperventilating as it is, having run from the final push of the assault. She'd known something was wrong long before they'd reached the breach. She'd heard his scream through the Force and had nearly staggered under the weight and the pain from it.

By the time she'd found him the scene before her felt almost serene, which was wholly incongruous to the reality of it. Two others were fawning over Master Kenobi, but she only saw Anakin. And the Senator wrapped around him. Consoling him, holding his long and lithe frame...missing one of his limbs. His face is so pale, his body in such shock, she's surprised he's still upright. Her eyes narrow, murderously so, as she surveys the two of them. The jealousy is bitter in her throat. But the Senator is...just that. She has no place here and even if Keni herself had to participate in battle, she is still a Consular knight, a healer and Anakin falls under her care.

She strides like small thunder to present herself to them both, and with great care she gingerly wraps an arm around him, pulling him from the other woman's embrace. "You should report to one of the other healers, Senator. You wouldn't want your wounds to fester. Skywalker is in good hands now."

~Does my muse find your muse attractive~

When he was a child Keni's affection was entirely based on the fact that he seemed so lost and so lonely, so very out of place. She always hated the cruelty of the other children who thought themselves superior to him simply because they'd had the misfortune of being snatched away from their families sooner. It grew as they did. It became something no less protective but infinitely more attentive when they started maturing, and Keni began to notice exactly how he was growing into the man he would become. And then even that slowly began to change to, though she couldn't say when. But standing here in her quarters, turning her head over her shoulder to see him leaning in the doorway? Everything inside of her seizes up. She can drown in his eyes. There are entire other worlds that linger in those depths that she has never seen before. She wants to run her fingers through the burnished gold curls now lingering close to his shoulders like strangler vine. She wants to kiss the lips slowly drawing into a smile meant only for her. She swallows hard as her mouth has gone suddenly dry, sets down her brush. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

"Anakin. I wasn't expecting to..."

She rises like a rogue wave and perhaps with as much grace spills across his chest when she finds herself beside him. Breathing him down into her lungs, every cell in her body joyful that he has returned, whole and with only a week long need to sleep. But even haggard, exhausted, utterly spent in every possible way, he is still beautiful. He is still Anakin. "Welcome home." ~Is my muse disgusted by yours~

"Incredibly, utterly, totally inedible." Her whisper is a breath, the words meant to impart the height of displeasure, though they carry none of it in their seductive tone. A specific sort of tease meant for no one else to hear. Arms wound up behind his neck, legs wrapped around his hips. Every thing soft about her body is gently pressed into his as though with enough desire they can transcend physical limitations and become literally one body with two souls. A moment later she gives lie to the feigned disgust by sealing her lips to his throat, a long leisurely lick of his skin, indulging in the texture, the warmth, and absolutely the taste of him. It has nothing to do with feigned cannibalism, not that she's sure it counts considering they are different species, but the little sounds the restrained affection draws out of him is worth every bit of the game.

~Would my muse go on a date with your muse~

If she were to be honest, Coruscant is an eyesore. More than that it is the thing from deepest nightmare, thousands of layers of ever increasing scar-tissue atop the body of a dead or dying world. There is no sun here. No real wind to speak of, no life giving waters. The only greenery that exists are the cultivated kind set aside only for the incredibly fortunate wealthy, and the Temple gardens which are necessary to help provide food. The light is as loud as the people, and since the day she stepped foot on this world, it has caused her a perpetually low-key anxiety that she cannot shake. She still has the occasional nightmare of her own world becoming like this if they let outsiders in.

The only soothing thing about it is being up here on the roof. Laying back and staring up at the skies, watching ships break atmosphere in one direction or another. Fingers laced in the small space between them. Listening to him spin stories of the places they will one day go see together that are nothing like this monstrosity. This is the only time they seem to have to be together unimpeded by things like Masters and politicians, ever increasing missions of importance. And she wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a glimpse of trees.

~Would my muse kiss yours~

They pass one another in the halls, and fingers brush accidentally against the other's before they continue one, each as silent as barren worlds. Contemplative hours give each of them the meaning of patience. During a mission briefing from Master Yoda, they sit opposite of one another in the semi-circle. A shared gaze perhaps no more than seconds before their field of vision is full of holo star maps and battalion formations. A meal taken in the dining hall together. A cup is lifted and sipped from. Set down. The other takes it up and has their own drink. They eat in silence. The water pouring down over them both, the small confines filled with breath-stealing steam. Her forearms brace against the wall. His lips find a particularly tender spot at the name of her neck and he whispers a term of endearment across her skin. He sits on the edge of the exam table, anxiety fluttering the tips of his fingers inside the sleeves of his robes. There's a thousand different things he could be doing. That he thinks he ought to be doing. That this isn't a necessity, and that is why she insists. Better to loose an hour for a thorough neurological scan than the alternative. And at least this way, he has a touch of privacy. She steps into the small space between his parted knees. She presses her mouth to the outside corner of his lips. There are a hundred ways to kiss someone that you aren't allowed to. There's a hundred intimacies that go unnoticed. Anakin and Melakeni know them all.

~Would my muse betray yours~ "You are distracted, my little apprentice." She raises her eyes to her Master's, and is once again reminded of darkest Nekotrig. Of the dozen superstitions, the most compelling being the tale of how having it's lack of light falling on a person would kill them. The same could be said of his glittering black gaze. "I am sorry, Master." He raises an infinitely sharp and deceptively delicate looking quadranium stiletto, tests it's heft then balances it perfectly on the tip of one long and elegant finger. The keenness of the double edge could slice a whisper in half, it's strength allowing for deeply penetrating injuries. A sentient could bleed out in a matter of seconds. "Is it the Skywalker boy? You two are very close...friends." She doesn't hesitate to lie. "I do not know what you mean, Master. He is merely my clan brother. And is often injured. Careless of him, I know." She is only grateful to the Living Force that she has no heartbeat to escalate and prove her falsehood, and it pains her to reduce Anakin to nothing more than someone inept at taking care of himself. But she knows better. One wrong word, one moment of her Master's displeasure and... Accidents happen, or so they say.

"Next time allow Offee to see to him. You cannot play nursemaid forever." She lowers her gaze so that she can squeeze her eyes shut without him noticing, the hood of her cloak offers what scant privacy that it can. She licks her lower lip. "Yes, master."

~My muse's favourite thing about yours is~

Everyone else could make an argument were it common knowledge of just how much Melakeni loves Anakin that it is because he is young, he is handsome, he is the Hero With No Fear. They could say it comes down to the brilliant blue of his eyes, or the way his smile lights up entire sectors. They could say it is because he is the perfect Jedi...strong, courageous, compassionate to a fault. And she would not be able to say any of these things are a lie. But that isn't why she does. She loves that he is a quiet spirit, sometimes too nervous inside of his own skin, sometimes too thoughtful by half. But it is because he is gentle and puts so much of himself aside for the good of others. He believes very much in what the Order was supposed to stand for that he'd risk life and limb at any moment to uphold that ideal. He is perfect because he isn't at all. He has very real emotions, strong and grounded in love. That kind of selflessness is not something the Order ever taught him. If anything that was something they'd hoped he'd grow out of, given time. But then again, the Order never quite understood him. They are gone now, shattered and broken as they tried to make him. What few of them who have survived now hide like animals, which is something Keni cannot bring herself to be upset about. She crosses the catwalk of the Executor soft as snowfall until she comes to rest at his side. Though her arms remain at her side, her Presence envelopes him with every ounce of love she possesses.

Come to bed, Za'lali. We have hours still before we arrive. ~The thing my muse dislikes about yours is~ She watches him agree to what Palpatine wheezes about and lowers her eyes demurely, not for a moment allowing the sneer to curve her lips and bare her teeth. Flesh crawls at the mere idea of rending him apart fang and claw. Everything inside of her seethes that the ancient Sith lord still draws breath, still holds his invisible chains around Anakin. Who accepts the snide comments made with a grace that even in the courts at home she could never hope to duplicate. The not-so-veiled threats, the constant goading of hands that belong nowhere near him much less stroking his arm, his back, wherever they like with impunity. She can see now that it is better that she be sent away for these kind of affairs. She wants to create a new ocean for Coruscant out of the blood she wishes to spill. She doesn't only because she does not wish to make things worse for him. And just maybe she cannot help but to be angry with him. It seems Anakin has finally learned patience.

#mynameisanakin #Images of Broken Light|Anakin Skywalker #Pools of Sorrow-Waves of Joy|Anikeni #Across the Universe|Star Wars AU

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rebelsofshield · 6 years

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 10/24/18

Doctor Aphra’s grand prison escape scheme comes to a climactic conclusion and Tales from Vader’s Castle pays tribute from some of the strangest parts of the franchise’s past.

Star Wars Adventures Tales from Vader’s Castle #4 written by Cavan Scott and art by Derek Charm and Robert Hack

I have long praised IDW’s Star Wars Adventures series for its willingness to tell stories that wouldn’t be touched by most other Star Wars media. Willing to tell stories of lighthearted excitement with the entirety of the franchise at its disposal, Adventures has never been afraid to give the spotlight to bit players and forgotten worlds. Even with this in mind, I never expected to see the Ewok tie in media of the 80′s (both Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor films and the Ewoks television series) resurface.

However, that’s just what Cavan Scott does. Fans of this campy and bizarre era for the franchise are sure to get a kick out of how Tales from Vader’s Castle contextualizes the various aspects of Endor such as the Dulok and Gorax. The result is also one of the decidedly creepier installments for the franchise and even features an oddly unsettling homage to The Wicker Man.

Even if the transitions between Endor and Mustafar are a bit rough, the frame narrative also reaches a head as the scary reality of what the cast has stumbled into becomes apparent. Scott finds a smart way to up the scare factor without alienating the comic’s intended all ages audience and the result makes some unexpectedly unsettling twists.

Who would have expected that an Ewok horror story would make for the best issue so far for this event series? Score: A-

Star Wars Doctor Aphra #25 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Kev Walker

“The Catastrophe Con” was marked by its dense and sprawling plotting which featured numerous factions and characters scheming against and manipulating one another for their own benefit with the series’ rogue archaeologist at its center. The entire arc was building to this moment of karmic retribution for Aphra and writer Simon Spurrier and artist Kev Walker let loose with a sense of malevolent glee.

With Accresker Jail plummeting to the planet below and both Aphra’s former murder droid allies and Darth Vader loose in its walls, “The Catastrophe Con’s” finale lives up to its name from the get-go. Aphra is forced to make some heart-wrenching decisions to save herself and some of her reluctant allies and, for perhaps the first time in the series, we see the true emotional toll this life of hers has brought. Spurrier also isn’t afraid to hide from consequences as the series once again up ends its status quo and several staple characters meet their early ends. Spurrier’s extra length script also leaves plenty of twists that are both hard to predict, but also smartly seeded throughout the last five issues.

Also, those in need of their Triple Zero fix are sure to get more than enough of it here.

It would come close to being a perfect finale, but it’s hard not to feel that certain elements, particularly Vader’s involvement and the “Force-Fungus,” can’t help but feel too similar to the series’ last standout finale in issue #13. It feels like the one element that is lagging in this otherwise overstuffed but tightly plotted narrative.

Score: A-

#Star Wars #Star Wars Comics #Marvel #review #reviews #IDW Publishing #Doctor Aphra #Simon Spurrier #Kev Walker #Cavan Scott #Derek Charm #Robert Hack

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