#would you believe luke and leia were the hardest to come up with?

[oceanera12]

Star Wars x Percy Jackson

Okay so this was a LOT harder then I thought it was going to be on the account that literally everyone in the GFFA is related to one another. So for the sake of my sanity (and yours) let’s just assume that no one is related so I can figure out what kriffing Olympian attributed to them (also we are keeping them all Greek to save me that headache)

Also to keep my sanity I split everyone up by Trilogy/TV Show so just assume each each are a new generation (with some overlapping)--

Also I’m not doing everyone because there is way too many kriffing characters so get ready for highlights and personal favorites. If you have anyone to add, comment or feel free to add! (Last “also”, promise! I stuck mostly with the big twelve to, you guessed it, preserve my sanity!)

Prequels:

Yoda is from Dionysus cabin--FIGHT ME ON THIS. I could not figure out why he talks like he does and came to the conclusion is he is definitely “drunk” on Kool-Aid. Also I like the idea of him growing vines and plants because of Dagoba. He is a camp councilor that’s been around for longer than anyone can remember by Chiron likes him well enough.

Mace is a child of Hades. ... I honestly don’t know why, but as soon as that image popped into my head I accepted it. Maybe it’s because of his stoic personality or maybe the fact he fights in a very angry style, to which I say, “skeletons ripping up from the earth”.

Qui-Gon-- for some bizarre reason the idea of Hypnos popped into my head and I now I cannot get it to leave me alone. So Qui is from Hypnos cabin. He gets a lot of sleep and even more visions of the future (such as a very powerful half-blood coming to camp and he’s now determined to find that kid)

Obi-Wan was tricky. I debated between a lot of cabins and none of them seemed to work for him. I finally settled on Hephaestus, which seems weird but let me explain. Obi-Wan feels like someone who would totally be into arts and crafts, if he could have. Hephaestus cabin usually has a good head and are quite smart

Anakin is from Zeus Cabin. Did you expect anything less? This kid is Mr. Lightning summoning, sword wielding, insane power with way too many emotions. (It was either that or Hephaestus but... “Chosen One” and all that)

Padme is 100% from Athena cabin. That’s it. Fight me.

Palpatine is a weird one because I’d usually just make him a monster or something like a Titan but... eh. I’m going Hermes because this boy knows how to lie and trick people (a lot like Luke, now that I think about it...). A friend of mine also suggested the child of Nemesis, the goddess of Revenge which could also work so pick your pick.

R2-D2 and C-3PO are satyrs. Very annoying, very loud, satyrs. 3PO goes on and on about the importance of nature and R2 follows behind him creating his own form of chaos. Most people avoid them.

Clone Wars:

Ahsoka is also from Athena cabin. I just like to picture her fighting with two knives and flipping around like a gymnast. But she’s more chill then Ares cabin--although she does love hanging out with those boys. She’s unofficially adopted by Ares cabin as a sister in arms so that’s cool.

Ares Cabin just consists of all the clones, okay? It was either that or Hermes but I just couldn’t imagine my boys without their military structure. Cody’s head of the cabin and has to try and keep all of his siblings in line-- very poorly, but he’s doing his best.

Satine is in Demeter Cabin. I wasn’t sure where else to put a pacifist but I thought it suited her well enough. Ex-girlfriend of Obi-Wan but they are on friendly terms (and there is a running bet on when they will get back together)

Rebels:

Kanan was really hard to figure out. I decided to make him Poseidon’s kid because he’s usually really chill in the show. For the most part, he’s really laid back and doesn’t use any water abilities unless he has too. Prefers to fight with a sword, but can use a crossbow surprising well. Has a street kid background so he gets along with the Hermes cabin really well and has kind of “adopted” one of the kids there (three guesses as to who)

Hera has to fly, okay? She has to be able to fly either a Pegasus or actually fly which leaves either Zeus, Apollo, or Poseidon as the main picks, which I don’t think any of those scream Hera. In fact, flip them, she’s a mortal that see’s through the Mist. She somehow got dragged into this world of monsters and demi-gods and is now chilling at the camp just for the heck of it. It may or may not have had something to do with her now-Boyfriend Kanan who may or may not have been on a quest at the time when he accidently destroyed her apartment because of a stupid hellhound.

Ezra is in Hermes cabin. This tiny little thief is wonderful and is a cute little blueberry. Kanan kind of unofficially adopted the kid so Ezra is usually drenched from swimming in the lake.

Zeb is from Athena cabin. Very skilled with a staff and very into battle meditation. Not super into the “intelligent” side of Athena, but he is in no way an idiot. Get’s into a lot of trouble with Ezra because why not?

Sabine I could totally see being the child of Apollo, but she joined Artemis Huntresses (maybe out of spite to her Dad but also because a bunch of warrior women? Heck, yeah!). Very artsy, excellent shot with a bow, and is much, much cooler then her dad.

Chopper is a very lazy, very stubborn Hellhound, fight me on this (and may have been the Hellhound Kana was fighting when he met Hera, but he’s now attached to this strange mortal woman who literally told off these two for destroying her house).

Original:

Luke was almost a child of the big three (specifically Hades for some bizarre reason--don’t ask me why, I don’t know how my brain got on that) but then I remembered that Hecate was a thing soooooo... Luke Skywalker, the son of Hecate, goddess of magic. He manipulates the mist and stuff like that. Also likes to fly Pegasi.   

Leia... okay, this is going to sound really weird but I kind of see Leia as a child of Aphrodite. Not obsessed with how she looks and all that stuff, but more like Piper. Very strong willed, determined, and keeps your attention. She fights for what she believes in (loves) and can kick butt. It was either that or Athena but... eh, let’s turn that on it’s side, shall we?

Han is Hermes. What did you expect?

Chewbacca is a satyr. I don’t know if you expected any differently, but I’m picturing Coach Hedge just not... insane. Very much likes to fight monsters and is very protective of Han.

Lando is... tricky. I’m going to go with Dionysus simply because of the party factor, but don’t cross him. He can mess you up.

Sequels:

Rey is unclaimed. She chills in Hermes cabin and has no idea who her Godly parent is... which she mopes about a lot. ((I literally could not figure out who’s daughter she would be because that’s kind of the whole Trilogy. And then it hit me like an out of control Pegasus.))

Poe is from Apollo cabin and can usually be found on a Pegasus. His favorite is nicknamed BB and is white with “orange” spots. Very good at flying and shooting a bow at the same time. Yes, he’s a show off and yes, he’s very good in a fight.

Finn is in Ares cabin. But he’s more like Frank in the sense of he’s definitely nicer then most of his cabinmates. Excellent fighter but does not have that stupid Ares temper... most days (don’t cross Finn or he will mess you up)

Rose gets to be a child of Hephaestus. She’s smart and is an engineer, simple as that.

Kylo/Ben is in Aphrodite cabin simply because I want him there. He’s prissy, full of himself, and a jerk and if that isn’t Aphrodite, I don’t know what is (I’m sorry, I just hated Aphrodite in the books and Kylo was kind of a “meh” character soooooooooo...)

[jasontoddiefor]

A gift for @thenegoteator :D

It took a Temple to raise a child, and Mace Windu was very much aware of this. However, it did not explain what Ahsoka Tano was doing at his door in the middle of the night. Ahsoka had deep bags under her eyes, which wasn’t too much of a surprise considering the current living arrangements of her lineage. While little Luke and Leia were relatively well-behaved newborns, they were still only a few weeks old. If their human caretakers didn’t wake up at every single little whimper, then the togruta with the superior hearing certainly would.

“Do you want to come inside?” Mace asked, not letting his confusion show. He was used to people coming to his door at the oddest hours.

“If—if I can?” Ahsoka replied as if only now becoming aware of her actions. In this, she reminded Mace of her Grandmaster and the many nights Mace had found Obi-Wan coming to his doorstep during the first months of Anakin’s stay at the Temple.

“My door is always open, Padawan,” Mace said – and watched her wince.

Ah.

So there was the problem.

“Caleb is currently sleeping in my bed as Depa is away,” Mace explained. “So please keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake him unnecessarily.”

The boy had already had a hellish enough month behind him, he needed all the rest he could get. Even though the war was officially over, enough planets refused to surrender, drawing out the battles until they had nothing but children left to sacrifice. It weighed on Mace’s shoulders, making him wonder whether he wasn’t too old to carry such burdens still.

Ahsoka nodded and followed Mace inside. He couldn’t recall whether Ahsoka had been in his room before, but from the way she eagerly looked around his quarters, taking in the sight of old instruments, books, and holos, he guessed she hadn’t. Well, at one point in their life, every Jedi had set a foot inside Mace’s quarters, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Ahsoka tore herself away from the sight and looked at him with surprise. “I—yes? That would be nice.”

“Then I will make a cup. Do you have any preferences? I believe I even have Obi-Wan’s favorite blend here.”

Mace had no idea whether he had bought it or if Obi-Wan had just left it here from himself when he came over. Knowing the other man, it was likely that the latter was the case. For a man claiming to be so very polite, Obi-Wan could be a right brat.

Mace’s kitchen was small, with only a few cabinets and one shelf, two cooking tiles, and an oven. He wasn’t much of a cook himself and preferred to eat in the cafeteria with everyone, frequently taste-tasting what the Initiates had prepared. He selected two uneven cups Depa had made for him when she’d been young from the shelf. Why she had decided to pick up pottery of all hobbies was beside him, but he supposed that she found the motion soothing. Devan did enjoy parkouring through the lower levels and Echuu was quite content playing the guitar to calm himself.

Perhaps Mace should focus less on why all three of his Padawans had decided they wouldn’t follow him into theatre so they could continue to make fun of him. Setting the water to boil, Mace searched through his cabinets until he found Obi-Wan’s favorite blend. The fruity tea was far from the blend he preferred, but Mace prided himself on being a good host. While he waited for the tea to finish steeping, Mace enjoyed the quiet of the night. For all that there were few sounds as dear to him as that of people walking, or in the case of some younglings and few selected Knights, running, down their large hallways, Mace could appreciate the quiet when the world came to rest.

With two finished cups in hand, he returned to the living room, where he found Ahsoka curled up on the sofa, no longer studying his quarters for any hidden secrets.

“Thank you,” she said when she accepted the cup from him. She held it in her hands as if to warm them, letting the steam hit her face. She breathed in once, twice, finding her rhythm again. Mace waited until she’d calmed enough to speak up.

“What brings you to my door, Padawan Tano?”

Ahsoka flinched and appeared to make herself even smaller as if attempting to vanish. When it became apparent that it didn’t work, that silence hadn’t been what she had sought him out for, she let out a sigh. “You keep calling that.”

“Calling you what?” Mace asked, his brow raised, playing oblivious.

“… Padawan.”

“Are you not? I was under the impression that you had returned to the Temple.”

“I did, but I still left,” Ahsoka replied. “I left and I was convinced that I had to leave and that it was good that I did. I still think I had to leave the Temple behind.”

“Then why are you torn?”

Ahsoka’s hold on her cup tightened and so, perhaps in wise anticipation, she set it on the table and buried her hands in her robes instead, hiding their twitching from view. Mace could trace all her mannerisms to her teachers and couldn’t imagine what it must be like to purposefully rip all those pieces from yourself when they had become so ingrained in your very being. Even Dooku, who’d fallen so far from their beliefs, had been unable to fully rid himself of Yoda’s lessons. Maybe it was for the best. Hope had become a scarce commodity during the war, yet Mace considered the possibility that in a decade, they wouldn’t be imprisoning a Sith anymore.

“But am I still a Padawan? A member of this Order?” Ahsoka asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she shook like the leaves on the trees in the courtyard.

“Has your Master told you anything different?”

Ahsoka paused. “…. No.”

Seeing that realization was settling within her, Mace nodded. “Then you should not doubt him. You are a Jedi, Ahsoka Tano, and you will remain one as long as you live by our tenets.”

That teased a startled laugh from her. “Compassion for all except people who cheat at push-n-pull?”

As if transported back ten years, hearing Anakin say the same, Mace snorted. “The similarities between you and your Master astonish me every time. Yes, Padawan Tano, compassion for all.”

This seemed to calm the youth as she reached for her cup again and emptied it slowly. “It’s good.”

Mace smiled into his own cup. “I’d be insulted if it wasn’t. Obi-Wan forced me to memorize all the steps for making it.”

The then young Knight had been frazzled, and Mace honestly couldn’t tell what it had been about and had forced Mace to learn how to make this tea until he’d more or less collapsed on Mace’s sofa, completely knocked out until morning when Anakin had picked him up.

“He does do that,” Ahsoka agreed. “I think this is the only thing anyone can make reliably now.”

“Sleep-deprived much?” Mace inquired.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe. I love Luke and Leia dearly, but they are demanding and need a lot of attention.”

That was honestly kinder than Mace would have described newborns at her age.

“There is a reason why we usually don’t have children this young in the Temple,” Mace said. “They are very handful. Do you get enlisted to help very often?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No, Obi-Wan, Skyguy, and Padmé got it covered, and I’m mostly just helping out somewhere else.”

She trailed off a little. This, perhaps, was another issue, but one that could be equally easily dealt with.

“Thank you then for going where you are needed,” Mace told her.

Ahsoka blinked. “Huh?”

“You will grow into a specific role someday, Ahsoka, and that needs time. Do not feel as if you need to earn back your place in the Temple. You don’t need to earn yourself a home you have always had. For now, trust me when I say that everyone you’ve helped is glad that you were there. It is an admirable quality to have a sense of where you are needed. Do not see it as being the odd one out.”

This was the hardest lesson to teach and learn, the fact that there was a path out there for you, but that it took time to see where it would lead. Too many of their Padawans now felt utterly lost without the structure the war had provided them with.

“Oh. I guess if you say so.”

“Yes, I do say so,” Mace agreed. Then, eyeing Ahsoka’s empty cup, he added on, “do you want another?”

“No.” Ahsoka yawned. “I think I might best head back.”

“You can also sleep here if you want, and don’t mind Caleb hogging the blanket. I won’t go to bed tonight anyway.”

Ahsoka squinted at him as if attempting to discern whether he was lying. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really—”

“Ahsoka, go to bed.”

Clearly feeling better already, she saluted and, after Mace showed her his bedroom, made herself comfortable in it. She took off her shoes and tossed her robe over a chair before climbing into the bed. Ahsoka had barely laid down when Caleb already turned around to curl around her, clinging like a little monkey. After a moment’s apprehension, she relaxed and was fast asleep. Stealing one last glance at the two Padawan, Mace returned to his living room, looking through the incoming reports.

Hectic as the aftermath of the war was, as much effort as caring for their children was, Mace wouldn’t trade it for a single thing in the world.

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[mandoalorian]

Return of the Jedi [Max Lord x gn!Reader]

Summary: You and Alistair are heartbroken when you find out opening week tickets for Return of the Jedi have sold out. So Maxwell calls an old friend and organises a special surprise for his little family.

Warnings: food mention

Word count: 2000>

Author’s note: I received a request to write a Maxwell Lord x neurodivergent!Reader from @smoldjarin . They provided me with so much information in regards to autism, stimming, hyperfixations and more. I had so much joy writing this and I hope you find joy in reading it too. I couldn’t have done this without Melissa. I just hope I done it justice. (PS— I wanted to include Melissa’s love for Star Wars in this. I think we all, as Pedro stans, love Star Wars).

Maxwell wanted to pull his hair out. He had no idea what you and Alistair were yapping on about, but, evidently, it was something you both felt very passionate about. He’d seen you enthusiastic like this before, sure, but this was the first time he’d ever seen Alistair so hyped up. His brown eyes were gleaming as he hopped up and down.

“He literally said ‘I am your father!’ you laughed and Alistair let out a long groan.

“Yeah but he’s the bad guy! And the bad guys always lie,” Alistair explained — and that statement alone was enough to make Maxwell frown. ‘The bad guys always lie’ ... Ironic, to say the least. But, Alistair did make an excellent point. “I don’t trust him.”

You giggled and pulled Alistair into your lap. You’d never found it easy, touching people and being so close to them, but Alistair has grown to be an exception. He was like a son to you.

“Well, I suppose all will be revealed next week.” you told the ebony haired boy, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

You and Alistair got along really well, and Maxwell couldn’t be more grateful, but it was the moments when you both babbled on about Star Wars that had him feeling the most clueless. Granted, he hadn’t found the chance to sit through the movies, but he wanted to because he knew how much it meant to you and his son.

He was also made blissfully aware that the third and final instalment of the trilogy was being released next week, because you and Ali couldn’t stop talking about it. Even in the moments when Alistair wasn’t there, you expressed your excitement to Maxwell. He found it endearing though. He loved it when you talked about your interests and current hyper-fixations. Which is why his heart broke when you read the Friday morning paper and found out all the tickets for opening week were sold out.

Max, despite having no interest in Star Wars, was devastated when he saw the look on your face. He especially didn’t want to be the person who had to break the bad news to Alistair.

“I was really looking forward to it.” You mumbled sadly, your eyes fixated on your cereal. You only had a little left to eat, but truthfully, you’d lost all appetite. These movies and this franchise meant the absolute world to you, and now no doubt you’d have the final movie spoiled for you at work or by the television.

“Oh darling,” Maxwell hummed, wrapping his strong arms around you and holding you tight. You relished in his warmth and found yourself getting lost in the comforting scent of his sweet musk cologne. “I know. And I’m sorry,” the silence between you both broke his heart. “Don’t worry honey, I’ll fix this.”

You weren’t sure how he could possibly fix this. There were simply no more seats available in the movie theatres. He couldn’t just spawn in more seats. What Maxwell Lord did have though, was power, influence and money— and when he put his mind to something, he was sure to get it done. You had never met anyone more determined than him.

He didn’t want to leave you that morning, but duty called and he had to go to work. You tried your hardest to push through the day, ignoring this morning’s revelation. You opted to meet up with a friend at the park, and got ice cream. But when you’re friend told you they’d got tickets, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. You deserved these tickets. It just wasn’t fair.

Maxwell was struggling to focus on his work too. He was running out of bright ideas, but he didn’t just want his statement from this morning to be another empty promise. He actually wanted to fix this. He’d do anything to make you and Alistair happy.

Then it struck him. If his life was a kids cartoon, an illuminated lightbulb would’ve popped above his head. He buzzed his assistant, Raquel, into his office.

“Mr. Lord?” she smiled, walking towards his pine wood desk. Maxwell combed his fingers through his golden locks of hair and looked up at the blonde girl.

“Do I know anyone who is in the uh— the new Star Wars movie?” He inquired.

Raquel was expecting some question about the latest oil numbers, or a request for more supplements — so to say she was taking aback by her boss’ query was an understatement.

She thought for a moment. “Well, Harrison Ford has been a long time investor for Black Gold. He attended last year’s charity gala. Do you remember?”

Of course Maxwell remembered. How could one forget about being in the presence of Hollywood A-Lister Harrison Ford? “Harrison’s in Star Wars?” Maxwell quizzed, trying to hide his piqued curiosity. “Bring me his number. I have to make a call.”

———

Maxwell was so excited to get home and share the good news with you and Alistair. You greeted him just as you normally did, with a loving embrace and a gentle kiss.

“How was your day sweetheart?” your boyfriend asked, smoothing out your hair.

You shrugged. “Fine I s’pose,” you told him. “How was work?”

Maxwell’s grin only grew. “Bring Alistair in.” he beamed.

You called for the boy who had been playing with his action figures in his bedroom. His mom had dropped him off about an hour before Maxwell got home. You and Ali snuggled into each other on the crushed velveteen sofa as Maxwell paced backwards and forwards. It wasn’t nervous pacing though, he was bubbling with anticipation.

“I hope you’re all excited for tomorrow night,” Maxwell began, before flashing three pristine Return of the Jedi tickets before yours and Alistair’s eyes. “Because I met with my good friend Han Solo for lunch and he has given us access to a private screening on Sunday night. So we get to see the movie before the rest of the world.”

You felt like you were in a dream. He’d done it. He’d actually fixed it. You didn’t know how and you knew better than to question him, but it didn’t matter because he somehow managed to fix this and it was all to you and Alistair. You’d found it so hard to find someone who loved you for you, who didn’t mind your stims and who encouraged your hyperfixations. But Maxwell was that man and you couldn’t believe how lucky you had gotten.

Alistair bounced up and jumped on his dad, almost knocking him over in the process. Maxwell wrapped his arms around the six year old and picked him up.

“Daddy! Thank you thank you thank you!” he squealed, unable to contain his ecstatic grin. “I had no idea you were friends with Han Solo!”

Maxwell smiled. “Oh yeah, me and Han go way back. I used to co pilot with him on the—“ Maxwell paused for a second as he tried to recall what Harrison told him. He had to get this right. “—Millennium Falcon?”

Both yours and Alistair’s jaw dropped. Gods, he was good at this. Maxwell may have been a brilliant businessman but he was an even better father.

“Does that mean you know Luke and Leia too?” Alistair asked.

“Oh yes.” Maxwell nodded, despite having no idea who Luke and Leia were.

“And Chewbacca?”

Chewbacca? Maxwell thought. What kind of name was that? Never the less he smiled and nodded. “Absolutely.”

“And Artoo and Threepio?”

Maxwell blinked. “Yep.” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Wow daddy,” Alistair hummed, snuggling into his dad’s chest. “I’m so excited.”

Maxwell dropped Alistair the ground and kneeled to his level. “You should put on your jammies and have an early night. That way, tomorrow will come around quicker.”

“Okay!” Alistair agreed enthusiastically before running back into his bedroom.

“And remember Ali!” Maxwell called. He cleared his throat and pointed his finger. “I am your father.”

That was it. That was the last straw. You’d tried your hardest to hold back your laughter as Max humoured his son, but seeing your boyfriend do a Darth Vader impression was something else.

Max sighed and sat down next to you, pulling your body into his lap. “I love you so much, my dear.”

You grinned and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you too. I can’t believe you did all of this.” you revealed.

“I always keep my promises.” he replied with the most genuine smile.

———

The movie was a success, and even Maxwell enjoyed it, which was very unexpected.

“I can’t believe Darth Vader was telling the truth,” Alistair sighed, exasperated. It had been a long day for sure, and his cheeks were still rosy with excitement. “I’m so glad Darth Vader isn’t my dad.”

Maxwell tutted.

“But he turned good in the end,” You smiled, taking Ali’s hand. “He saw what truly mattered. He had to save his son.”

Yeah, the parallels between Vader and Luke and Maxwell and Alistair were interesting to say the least.

“Daddy, who was your favourite character?” Alistair asked.

Maxwell thought for a moment. “I liked that guy in the green armour, he was cool. He sorta reminds me of, well, me.”

“Boba Fett?” Alistair quirked an eyebrow. “Oh daddy, no one is as cool as Boba Fett.”

Maxwell feigned a gasp. “Not even your old

man?”

Alistair giggled and rolled his eyes. “I liked the Ewok!” he announced and then tugged on your hand. “Who did you like?”

“I like Leia,” you beamed. “She’s strong and beautiful...”

“Just like you.” Maxwell whispered, brushing his

lips against yours.

The night came to an end and you couldn’t have been happier. As you lay in bed, you thanked Maxwell for all he had done. He was truly the best boyfriend in the world. He loved you so much, and he swore in that moment, as you fell asleep in his arms, that the next promise he’d make would be a promise to himself.

He was going to marry you.

———

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[yelena-bellova]

Don’t Be Afraid: Poe Dameron x Solo!Reader - Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: Two Roads Diverged

Series Masterlist

Plot: Y/n and Ben confront each other after years of not seeing each other.

Warnings: Language, minor character death, violence, angst but that’s fairly obvious.

Word Count: 5.5k

A/N: Without a doubt, this was the hardest chapter to write so far. I had to take periodical breaks because I was hurting my own heart 😂 The title is also inspired by the Robert Frost poem. The next chapter will be the last one that takes place during TFA and then it’s onto TLJ! (Excuse the uncountable amount of typos)

——————

“Come on, Ben, where are you?” Y/n mumbled to herself, Yavin 4 was large and she was looking for one person. She didn’t know where her uncle had built his training academy and the pitch black night sky didn’t help her in her search. She wasn’t near giving up though, she’d fly the entirety of the planet to make sure that her brother was safe.

Use the Force, Y/n…

She almost steered the Falcon into a clearing of trees she was so spooked by the voice she’d heard. She turned around to see who had stowed away on the ship, yet found no one. 

Use the Force to find him, Y/n

She shook her head and turned back around, “I’m going insane, I have to be.”

Let it guide you to where you need to go...

Y/n growled, she’d seen and heard more ridiculous things, “Okay, Force entity or whatever the hell you are, we’ll do it your way.”

She shut her eyes, as she’d seen her mother do several times, and tried for the first time to let the Force guide her. Her hands rested on the controls of the Falcon as it hovered above an empty field, waiting for her captain to tell her where to go. Y/n breathed deeply as she tried to picture where Ben was, after a moment she saw the temple’s structure clearly and opened her eyes. She turned the ship left and sped towards where she needed to be. She couldn’t explain the intricacies of how she knew that she was near it, she just knew. 

Her dreadful suspicions were confirmed when she saw the flames.  

Y/n landed the Falcon far enough away that it wasn’t in danger of being catching on fire and booked it down the ramp. The smoke caused her to cough but she ran towards the collapsing building regardless. 

“BEN!!” she screamed, “Ben, where are you?!” 

Littering the ground were dead bodies of Padawans, the stench of death covered only by the overwhelming scent of the fire. Y/n began to panic as she checked the lifeless faces for Ben’s. She turned in circles, frantically scanning for any sign of her brother, or anyone still alive for that matter. After a few minutes of searching, a shriek rang through the air that caused her to whip around,

“RUN!!”

A young girl was running towards her as if her life depended on it, “Run!!” 

Y/n looked around confusedly as to what she was supposed to be running from, but found nothing. When she turned back to the girl, she was suspended in the air clawing at her throat manically. She looked like she was trying to scream for help, but the life drained from her face before Y/n could try and aid her. The girl’s eyes closed and she crumpled to the ground to reveal the culprit of her murder.

Ben stood behind her with an outstretched hand and a menacing glare.

Y/n stood frozen, shock overtaking her body as she watched her brother drop his posture at the sight of her. He jogged over to his sister, a concerned look on his face,

“Y/n, what are you doing here?”

As Ben approached her, she took a step back from him and held a hand up in self defense, “Ben, what the hell was that? What’s happened here?” 

“Luke,” he stated, “He sensed my power, he tried to kill me. He turned most of his students against me too.”

“W-What?” Y/n stuttered, “How is that possible?” “He’s afraid of what I can do,” Ben stated, full of pride and anger, “I’ve discovered more power than him or any other Jedi could ever dream of having. And he,” he pointed towards the burning wreckage “Tried to kill me in order to stop me from fulfilling my destiny.”

“Ben, that can’t be true. Y-your destiny is to be a Jedi, why would Uncle Luke want you dead?” 

“No, the Jedi are a dying breed, as they deserve to be. I’ve put an end to them, and Luke received what was coming to him.”

“Ben,” Y/n whispered, “What did you do to him?” 

Ben’s eyes bore into Y/n’s, adding to the intensity of their moment, “I killed him.” Y/n stumbled back, her hand shakily reaching up to cover her mouth. Her brother, her best friend, had killed their uncle and his students. She couldn’t even recognize the person standing in front of her, this wasn’t the Ben she’d grown up with. And while she hadn’t been there to witness what had transpired, she knew that he was telling her a distorted side of the story. It couldn’t have been that simple as Luke trying to kill his own nephew.

“Did you do all of this?” she raised her voice while pointing to the burning temple, “The fire? How many other Padawans did you kill? What am I supposed to tell Mom when she finds out you killed her brother?”

“Don’t go back, come with me.” “What are you talking about?” “Y/n,” Ben stepped towards her, she was in just enough shock to not back away from his presence, “We both know the gift you have, the power you hold if you just gave into it. Snoke could teach us both, if you come with me.” “Who’s Snoke?” Y/n asked.

“He’s wise, he’s opened my eyes to the true nature off the Jedi. He’ll take us both as apprentices,” Ben urged as twisted joy rose in his voice, “You and I could bring order to the galaxy together.” Y/n couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She knew that the Dark Side now surrounded her brother, she could see it in his darker than usual eyes. The way he spoke of murdering their uncle and the power he contained, it wasn’t Ben. But she refused to believe that he was completely gone.

“No,” she said, worry audible in her voice, “Ben, whoever this Snoke is, he-he’s messing with your mind somehow. This is not who you are,” she took his hand, “Come home with me, I’ll help you. Mom can help you. Just come back home.” Ben’s brows furrowed, his face hardened and he yanked his hand out of Y/n’s grip, “You’re turning into one of them, a Jedi.” He spat the last word as if it was poison, Y/n shook her head quickly, “Ben, I’m not a Jedi, I’m your sister and I don’t believe the things you’re saying. This isn’t my brother-”

“Your brother is dead!” he yelled. 

Y/n’s breath caught in her chest at Ben’s words, he looked like a mad man. Hair untamed, pupils blown in the worst way, jaw clenched and a threatening stance. Tears began to flood her eyes, there was no way to reason with him. 

“If you’re going to go down this path,” she cried, “Do not expect me to follow you.” She didn’t make it more than three steps when her brother took hold of her arm with a vice like grip, keeping her in place.

“If you’re not with me, you’re against me.” Ben whispered ominously.

Y/n looked up, taking in the possibilities of what might happen next. There was only one if Ben was only dealing in black or white choice making, and Y/n was sure it was going to break her heart. “Then I suppose I’m against you.”

The siblings stared each other down much like they had when they were bickering children, the temple’s flames spreading around them. Y/n had stupidly left her blaster in the ship, she had no weapons on her while her brother had his clipped to his waist. She looked down and saw her brother’s hand slowly move to his saber, as if to not alarm her to his plan. Ben didn’t give his sister enough credit for how attentive or quick she was, her eyes flickered again to his movements and snapped into action. She shot her hand out and summoned the freed lightsaber to her hand, igniting it quickly and raising it. Ben’s eyes swelled with rage, she’d been practicing using the Force while he’d been away and she wasn’t going to make it easy on him. Though he could see the anguish in her eyes at the though of fighting him, he could try and use her emotions against her to catch her off guard. 

His opened his free palm behind him, the lightsaber from the deceased Padawan flying from her hand and into his. Y/n saw it zoom through the air and as he ignited to raise the blue blade, she pried her arm from his grip and turned to meet it with her own. She’d only held a lightsaber once in her life, when she was a child and Luke let her try his out, much to Han and Leia’s chagrin. She didn’t have the training or skill that Ben did, but she was determined not to let her brother hurt her. She had to fight him, the person she loved most in the galaxy, even if it almost killed her.

Ben spun around with his blade with the goal of hitting her torso, but Y/n moved fast enough to block his hit. She walked backwards in fear as Ben moved towards her with an animalistic look in his eyes, like she was prey to be slaughtered. He raised his saber above his head and slammed the blade against hers with so much force, Y/n thought she might drop her weapon. She held tight to it and took a clumsy swing at his leg, which he easily dodged. He aimed again at her abdomen, a hit he almost made if she hadn’t thought quick and spun to her right, just as he’d done a moment before. Ben was her teacher, he was showing her how to fight without him even realizing it. Though the strikes he was trying to make were to kill, the ones she made were to block. Ben’s vision was compromised, the only end goal he had at the moment was to eliminate anyone who objected to his twisted endeavors. In that moment, Y/n realized that she may not be exempt from his delusions simply because she was family.

Ben growled as he swung his saber towards her legs, Y/n sprung into the air and crouched down when she hit the ground again to dodge the swing he took in the air above her. Ben swept her legs out from under her, Y/n fell on her back and watched as Ben lowered his blade towards her neck. He was going to kill her. She raised her lightsaber up to meet his and let out a cry as their eyes met, she’d never thought in a million years that they’d be in this position. She pushed the blade away and rose to her feet quickly, tears began to hit her cheeks. She began moving backwards again, closer to the flaming temple as they twisted their wrists to block each other’s hits. The heat that surrounded them was harsh, sweat began to bead and stream down their faces. After dodging another hit from Ben, Y/n kicked him in the stomach and caused him to fall back, but she made no effort to try and run from him. She’d seen what had happened to the helpless Padawan. She stood there amongst the flames, awaiting her brother’s next move,

“Don’t do this, Ben,” Y/n yelled, “I love you.”

He snarled as he stood up and came charging towards her, Y/n spun around and raised her blade to meet the one that come crashing down against it. They were facing away from each other, back to back and weapons raised, the flames closing in on them with only a tight path left to escape. Y/n was putting all the strength she had into pushing Ben’s saber away, but he was much stronger than her and she felt her body giving into it’s sadness.

“Don’t do this to me, Ben,” she whined, the lump in her throat practically choking her, “Please don’t make me do this.”

“There is nothing,” Ben hissed from behind me, “You could possibly do that could hurt me.” Y/n groaned as she tried to continue pushing Ben’s blade away from slicing through her chest, when suddenly a memory came into her mind,

“Wanna bet?” Summoning all the strength she could, she shoved up and pushed the saber away from her. She ran through the flames and they licked at her legs, she could hear Ben’s cry of anger and that was her cue to stop running. She turned around to see her brother sprinting towards her, a few hundred feet away, lightsaber drawn and furious. Y/n raised a hand up towards him and used the Force to shove Ben backwards, he flew through the air and landed painfully after slamming into a tree. 

Y/n’s eyes pooled with fresh tears as she waited a few seconds to see if he would rise, when he didn’t she ran to his limp body. She knelt down next to him, he was knocked out cold. She shakily placed her fingers against his neck to feel for a pulse, holding her own breath until she found his. Was she supposed to be relieved? Ben had fallen to the Dark Side, had tried to kill her in his manic state, yet it was her innocent brother that lay helpless in front of her right then. She took a few seconds to sob over him, thinking of their parents, their home, all the memories she cherished with him. He’d been the one to bring her to Han and Leia, she owed him everything for what he had done for her. He had given her a new life, one he would now be absent from.

“I’m not going to give up on you,” she promised, “One day, I’ll bring you back home.” With that, she gently touched his hand, deactivated her lightsaber and ran towards the Falcon. Once she was in the air, she set course for a return to Chandrila and jumped to lightspeed. She wept furiously in the pilot’s seat at what her brother had done, what she’d done, how their lives had just taken two very unexpected turns. And while she had promised to bring him back, she knew it would be a long time before she ever saw him again. Y/n had thrown the lightsaber on the co-pilot’s seat when she’d entered the cockpit, she hesitantly picked it back up and examined it. Ben had committed horrible acts with the weapon, he’d slaughtered their uncle and his students, he’d tried to kill his own sister. She should have left it there, but something in her compelled her to take it. She had no intention of picking it up ever again, unless she needed to, though she felt safer holding onto it. She hid it in a deep pocket of her coat, and vowed to never show it to anyone. For the rest of the journey home, she sat with her knees to her chest crying.

Han and Leia were waiting outside when she returned. After making sure she was okay, they were both furious with her. They demanded to know where she’d gone, she lied and said that she hadn’t been able to sleep and decided to take a flight. She apologized, went inside and locked herself in her room for the day. 

A few days later, she planned on telling them the truth. But before she could, an X-Wing showed up outside the Solo homestead. It was Luke. He had survived somehow and broke the news to their family that Ben had turned to the Dark Side. Han yelled, Leia sobbed, but Y/n stayed silent. 

Han and Leia separated soon after that, Y/n chose to stay with her mother. Han had agreed she should, he was planning to return to a life of smuggling and didn’t want his daughter caught up in the business. Han took Chewie, Y/n and Leia took C-3PO and the Solos abandoned their home. 

Luke went into hiding.

The First Order rose to power.

The Resistance was formed.

For the rest of the galaxy, the war began at a certain point in time. No one knew that the war truly began on Yavin 4, the night that a brother and sister aimed their weapons at each other. —————

“You’re a monster!”

I stood silent, my tears freezing to my face as I stood face to face with my brother. There weren’t enough words to describe how I was feeling at the sight of him…Furious for having just killed our father, heartbroken over the fact that he had slipped further into the Dark Side, and determined to protect Finn and Rey from his wrath. 

“It’s just us now,” Ben’s eyes flickered to me, “Han Solo can’t save you.” The remark hit home, but he was about to learn that we could defend ourselves quite effectively. Especially after the events that had transpired through the day. 

Rey grunted and raised her blaster towards him before I could tell her to drop it, Ben raised his hand and she flew through the air screaming. Finn yelled her name just before she hit a tree and fell to the snow covered ground. I stood there watching in horror, Finn raced to her side and cradled her head in his lap.

“I thought you might appreciate that,” Ben said, causing me to flashback to six years ago when I’d done the same thing to him, “Irony can be cruel, can’t it?” I turned to him, a new wave of anger sweeping over me as I examined my brother’s state. His injury from Chewie’s shot was bleeding, turning the snow beneath his side to a red dotted pattern. “I didn’t believe it when I felt your presence,” he remarked, “I didn’t think you’d be so foolish as to come here.” “It was foolish of you to think I wouldn’t try and stop what you’re doing here,” I retorted, my tears had stopped for now to be replaced by rage, “If you think I’m going to let you get away with what you did, you’re insane.”

He took a slow step towards me, looking me over, “You’ve been training, you’ve kept your powers hidden, you don’t want anyone to know the truth.”

“Get the hell out of my head, Ben,” I growled, stepping towards him.  

“You hide it from your mother, you’re afraid that when she looks at you, she’ll see her son.” “Stop it.” We were circling each other, glaring and waiting for the other to make the first move.

“You don’t want your precious pilot to know, or else he may be afraid of you.” “I swear, if you don’t stop-“ “He was here the other day, you know. I searched his mind too, and the first thing I saw was you.” “You’re going to pay for what you did to him.” “And the one person who believed in you, the one person who saw what you could do and didn’t fear you-“ “Shut the fuck up or else-“ “Is dead!” I let out a cry, unclipped my lightsaber and ignited the blade. I surged forward with every intention of silencing him, but he’d been expecting it and met my saber with his own. We attacked and blocked each other’s hits at a dizzying speed, both of us had grown in our skillset over the past six years. We began to move through the forest as we fought, a few tree branches becoming collateral damage. I swung furiously, much like he had attacked me years ago while he stayed more calculated. I let my anger guide me in my attack, Ben had fucked my life up long ago but now, he had gone way too far. He’d captured Poe, he’d probably tortured him, he’d taken Rey, he’d injured her, he was planning to kill everyone in the Resistance and he’d murdered our father. I had every right to what I was feeling. We spun around each other, our sabers hit and we pushed into our stance, face to face,

“How are you going to live with yourself after what you did in there? You killed our father,” I snarled.

“Our father?” Ben grunted, struggling to hold his position for a fleeting second, “Ben Solo is dead. And he was never your father, you’re a worthless orphan who your brother should have left to die. You were never really a part of their family.” 

“FUCK YOU!” I exclaimed, shoving Ben backwards and sending him stumbling for his footing. He regained it quickly as I launched myself at him, me expertly swinging the blade and him perfectly dodging them every time. The worst part was, he looked almost pleased when I’d come at him. It was like he wanted me to keep attacking him. 

At one point, he slammed his blade down on top of mine above our heads and we grasped onto one another’s forearm. We looked like mirror images of each other with our jaws clenched and strained sounds escaping our throats.

“You want to kill me, don’t you?” he taunted, “I can feel your anger, you want to avenge him.” I groaned as we pushed against each other, putting all my strength into holding my stance,

“I should.” 

Ben panted, “That anger, you need to give into it. Y/n,”

The eye contact we made was softened at the mention of my name, for just a second we felt like siblings again. I saw him hesitate and felt his genuine need for my presence back in his life. It may have been six years since we’d last seen each other, but he’d trained with our uncle for years before that. It had been 12 years since we’d simply been Y/n and Ben.

“Join me. Don’t be afraid of who you are.” 

His words were, ironically, like waking up from a bad dream. I realized the position I was in; ready to kill my brother in a fit of rage, breaking the promise I’d made that night amongst the flames. This wasn’t me, this wasn’t going to be how I avenged my father. He’d been the one to inspire me to stop fearing the gift I possessed, his words had been what had swayed me. In no way was I about to let Ben’s blow me in the other direction. 

I did the unthinkable and deactivated my blade with Ben’s only a few inches from my face. He stumbled forward a bit but caught himself and stopped his saber from slicing my throat. I stepped back, breathing heavily as our eyes met again, he was expectantly waiting for my answer,

“No, I’m not this. Dad did believe in me, just like he believed in you and I won’t let what he did for me be done in vain.”

Whatever softness I’d seen in Ben’s eyes disappeared as soon as I’d mentioned our father. His scowl returned, the same one that had scared me the last time we’d fought. He let out a growl and came charging towards me, saber drawn. I barely had time to raise my weapon before an identical blue blade clashed against Ben’s from our side. I turned, coming face to face with Finn,

“Get to Rey.” Finn put all of his weight into pushing my brother’s saber away before drawing him away from me. I listened and ran back to where we’d started, back to where Rey still lay unconscious. I knelt down in the snow and lifted her limp torso into my arms,

“Rey, wake up,” I shook her lightly, ”Rey, Finn and I need you, c’mon, please wake up.”

After a few more seconds of pleading, she moaned quietly and her eyes fluttered open. I exhaled in relief, she quickly sat up and looked around,

“Are you alright? Where’s Finn?”

“I’m okay, but Finn’s in trouble, we’ve gotta go.” I replied, standing up and pulling her with me.

She looked down at my other hand and saw the deactivated lightsaber, “Y/n, you’re a-“ 

“Yeah, we’ll talk about it later,” I rushed, barely having finished my sentence when we heard Finn’s scream.

We ran through the forest until we were closer to Ben, his back was turned to us. Finn lay face down in the snow and I could see Poe’s jacket ripped up the back. I spotted something in the distance, the handle of Uncle Luke’s saber was sticking out of a pile of snow. In sync, mine and Ben’s hands went forwards to summon it but it didn’t budge. I strained a little harder, there was no way I was going to let Ben take it. It finally began to wiggle before flying through the air towards me...

And landing in Rey’s outstretched hand.

I dropped my arm and gaped at her, she looked equally surprised as she stared at the weapon. My shock turned to happiness as we looked to one another, I nodded to let her know it was okay she’d been the one to catch it. She returned the gesture and just like on Jakku and on the freighter, we were a team. Ben looked more surprised and confused than both of us combined. Rey gripped the lightsaber with both hands, raising her arms up and I did the same. Ben activated and spun his expertly, we activated ours, and it became a blur after that.

We charged toward him, our blades fitting awkwardly together as we danced through the forest. Rey was a bit more aggressive in her fighting, accidentally cutting through a few trees as she swung at Ben. It was shocking at how good she was considering she’d never used one, to my knowledge. We moved backwards as Ben attacked both of us, stumbling through a thin path surrounded with rock formations. When there was a brief second where Ben was determining his next move, Rey and I leapt onto the rocks and ran as he swung wildly at them. I jumped off when they reached their end while Rey somersaulted off as if it was as natural as walking. She was undeniably skilled and when we survived this, she and I would be having a long talk.

Rey cut through a tree (no doubt one we’d probably slammed through earlier in the Falcon) to distract Ben and we continued running. I could sense Ben’s frustration towards Rey, I didn’t know if he’d interrogated her or not but there was something strange between them. I struck Ben’s blade and shoved him backwards, only angering him further. He spun the weapon in his hand before coming at me, Rey was there to block his aim. As we moved deeper into the forest, I caught a glimpse of what was behind us. The base’s destruction was now reaching the surrounding land and the planet itself was beginning to crumble. Anxiety began to course through me as I realized that we may not be getting off the planet. 

Ben slammed his blade against ours and backed us up until we reached the edge of a now cracked piece of earth. The rest was falling into the core of the planet. Ben had both me and Rey pinned, one wrong move and our lives would come to an end. We both groaned as we pushed against the the crackling red saber, Ben moved his face closer to Rey’s,

“You need a teacher,” he stated loudly over the sounds our blades were making, “I can show you the ways of the Force.” Rey’s face changed to confusion, “The Force?” “Rey, don’t listen to him,” I grunted, “He’ll lead you to the Dark Side.”

She looked between the two of us and closed her eyes, concentrating on something. I was perplexed only momentarily until I realized that was probably how I looked when I meditated. I closed my own eyes and reached out to her through the Force, trying to pull her from going down Ben’s path. 

She reached back out and met me with no hesitations.  

We both opened our eyes and both ducked away from Ben. He turned to meet us and we both began striking his blade continuously, he was trying to calculate his next move but it wasn’t much use. He was outnumbered and outmatched, his hopes of winning were extremely slim. Rey struck and sliced off a piece of Ben’s clothing, before I jabbed him in the shoulder causing him to groan. He began walking backwards away from us, we didn’t let up as our blades crashed into each other’s again. I kicked him in the chest and he fell against the snow, Rey and I stood waiting for him to either stay down or try again. He moaned as he stood up and lunged towards Rey, leaving me surprisingly out of his attack. He grabbed ahold of Rey’s wrist and she cried out, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Rey forced Ben’s red blade into the snow and I took the opportunity to give Rey some insurance. I spun around and slammed my blade against Ben’s, making it almost impossible for him to even have a shot at hitting her. He growled in frustration just before Rey overpowered him and slammed her saber down against the hilt of his. It sliced through and the red disappeared, he was without a weapon. I backed away and Rey swung upwards, hitting Ben in his face and chest. My heart stopped as I waited for him to rise, Rey stood with her blade ready to strike again if he did get up. He looked up to us to reveal an ugly bloody gash across the right side of his face. Out of reflex, I almost went and knelt down next to him to help him. His dark eyes bore into both of us, but settled on mine, “I will find you, wherever in the galaxy your precious base is hidden, and I will kill you and put an end to your pathetic Resistance.”

I fought back my tears at the sight of him, he may have looked like my brother but Ben Solo would never do or say what he had. I’d held out hope for years that I could bring him back, I’d promised my mother I’d try…But it was more than apparent that Ben had made his choice a long time ago.

“Then I guess you were right all those years ago,” I replied, “My brother really is dead.” As we held eye contact, the earth began to crack and it split the three of us apart. Me and Rey on one half and Kylo on the other, injured and defenseless. I took one last look at him, committing the image to my memory before turning to Rey,

“Finn.” We deactivated our sabers and ran off into our half of the forest. It didn’t take us long to retrace our steps and find where our friend still lay. Rey cried out his name before we rolled him over, specks of ice decorating his face. We both began to weep over his body, it was unlikely that he would survive an injury this extreme. Then again, it didn’t matter. We had no way off of the planet. Rey rested her head on Finn’s chest and I put a hand on her back, feeling tremendous guilt for having dragged them into this. 

We were going to die at any moment now, my mother would lose both her daughter and husband on the same day she was reunited with them. I’d never see Poe again, never get to hold him, kiss him, love him when I’d just been given the chance. As I cried, Rey took my hand and squeezed tight, reminding me that I wasn’t alone. She was with me and I’d never been more thankful for her.

Just then, I heard a familiar set of thrusters and bright white lights washed over us. I looked up from Finn’s still form to see the most beautiful sight I could have seen in that moment.

The Falcon in all her glory with Chewie in the cockpit.

I joyfully sobbed and looked to Rey as Chewie landed near us. We couldn’t lift Finn between the two of us so we waited impatiently for the Wookie to exit the ship. He ran out and lifted Finn carefully in his arms, Rey grabbed the blasters that had been dropped while I handled the lightsabers. We rushed onboard and I began calling orders out,

“Rey, you stay with Finn,” I said, she didn’t need to be told twice, “Chewie, you fly and I’ll co-pilot.” Me and Chewie ran to the cockpit ad began frantically flipping switches and adjusting controls. The earth began to crumble beneath us and we took off at just the right time, one second later and we would have fallen in. We flew through the destruction and I had to bite back the tears at the thought of never getting to bury my father. His body in a matter of seconds would cease to exist, just like the planet. I was leaving him there in a sense and it crushed me.

I looked at our radar, “I’m picking up X-Wings behind us, job’s done. Now let’s go home.” Chewie growled his approval and sent us safely hurdling through lightspeed. It was then, and only then, did I close the door the cockpit and fall apart. My knees hit the ground and I sobbed, Chewie knelt down and wrapped his arms around me. The two of us sat there crying into one another, mourning my father in a way that only a few in the galaxy would understand. 

A/N: This is the chapter that changes the entire story, it sets a lot of things in motion too. Things that will be explained and explored in later chapters. GAH I’m so excited!! Also, every chapter going forward will have Poe in it. Hope you liked it! Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist.

Taglist: @m1rkw00dpr1ncess @springfox04 @constantdisgrace @holybatflapexpert @seninjakitey @tammythompson-singslikea-muppet @leilei-draws @eternal-fandoms @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @imaginecrushes @eternallyvenus @thescarletknight2014 @simplybarnes @captain-america5 @breyasficletblog @caseymcflurry @stumbleonmywords @april-14-blog @i-ievu @ultrunning @desperatelytryingtosavemyself @caswinchester2000

[pocketmouse18]

Thank you so much to @herosofmarvelanddc @cloudypaws and @mtab2260 for the tag! This was so much fun to think about :)

(fair warning, I wrote too much for many of these...)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just 2 :)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

450,577 if I did my math right!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Officially? Just 1 - Agents of Shield (two, I guess, if you count MCU as separate, since I use characters from both...). Off the record, many more than that! I have lots of bits and bobs from other fandoms that I tinkered with when I was younger, still getting the hang of writing, not brave enough to post things, etc. etc. Some of those include X-Men, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Fosters, Star Wars, the Hunger Games, the 39 Clues, and a few others I can’t remember. None of those will likely see the light of day, mostly because they’re unfinished, not very good, and just not reflective of who I am as a writer anymore, but they were fun to play around with at the time :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I just have the two, but The Important Thing is to Try wins, hands down, with 1227. Shoulder to Shoulder has 95, though, which I’m also very proud of! Important Thing has a definite advantage, being as long as it is, so I don’t know if that’s really a fair comparison between them.

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes! Or at least, I always try to! I just can’t believe someone would be kind enough to take the time to tell me what they thought of my story, so I always want to take the time to thank them and return the favor :) Plus, as I’ve learned, it’s a fantastic way to get to know some really lovely people!

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Well... I technically only have one story that has an ending, at least on Ao3, and it’s not an especially angsty one, since it ends in Phil and Melinda getting married :) I have some angsty chapter endings in Important Thing, if that counts? I’m not even sure if any of my unpublished fiddlings have angsty endings (most don’t have endings at all lol)... I don’t mind writing angst, but I don’t know if I’m capable of making something without a happy (or at least hopeful) ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Not really, unless you count AoS/MCU crossovers (which I guess technically count, but also I would argue it’s not a true crossover since (and I will die on this hill) AoS is a part of MCU canon). When I was younger I was a fan of playing around with crossover AUs more so than the actual characters crossing paths (so like, what if these characters from XYZ were demigods or went to Hogwarts or what have you, and not so much what would happen if the X-Men met Luke, Leia, and Han on one of their space adventures). I started writing a crossover between AoS and the Marvel Rising cartoon once (which again, not sure if that’s a true crossover, since Daisy was in Marvel Rising, but I digress), where Coulson tasks Daisy to work with Kate Bishop and Rayshaun Lucas to collect and train a team of young Inhumans, starting with Kamala Khan, but I ran out of steam pretty quickly when it got too plot heavy.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think so. I’ve had some people not understand some choices that I made, but they asked it in a way that I thought was perfectly nice, and I was happy to talk about it with them. Sometimes people get “mad” at me when I cause pain and suffering, but I know that’s all in good fun :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, not for me. I don’t read it or write it, personally. Writing a kiss is hard enough!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Important Thing is probably too long and unwieldy to ever steal :P

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone once asked me on FFN if they could translate Important Thing to Russian, which was basically the coolest thing I’ve ever been asked!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A fic, no. I’d love to try sometime! I had a friend in college who I co-wrote with A LOT, though, so I know I enjoy that process, given the right partner. We wrote several short plays together (ranging from ~15-50 minutes in length, including one that we wrote in a single afternoon!), selected scenes from a larger (unfinished) play inspired by historical letters we found in an archive that were sent between a man from Massachusetts serving in the American Civil War, his wife, and his 8-year-old son, and several scripts for TV sitcoms (2 pilots for 2 different shows, plus additional eps for those pilots, and a couple of later eps for a different show that a classmate of ours wrote the pilot for - we were trying to practice what it would be like to be on a staff with a showrunner haha). The sitcom scripts in particular I’m very proud of, and could talk somebody’s ear off about if asked (one’s about ghost hunters and one’s about a DnD party!), but maybe that’s better saved for another post ;)

13. What's your all-time favorite ship?

That’s a very hard question for me! Mostly because shipping stuff is usually one of the last things to register for me when I’m thinking about shows/books/movies I like haha... I’m always a sucker for Philinda, and younger me was rather taken with Percabeth, I suppose.

14. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hmm, several, really. The aforementioned AoS/Marvel Rising crossover I think could be really cool if I got it to work, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. I also have a WIP that’s like an angstier version of a Hallmark Christmas movie AU where Daisy has to come home to her small town right before Christmas and figure out what she wants out of life, but I’m a little stalled out on that one, mostly because I’m waffling on who the charming love interest should be and because I don’t have enough of a plot, just lots of feelings about coming back home to a place you thought you had left behind lol.

I’d put Important Thing and it’s (as of yet) untitled sequel on here as things I want to finish, but I’m much more determined to see those through, so I don’t think they qualify for the “never will actually write” part of this question :)

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know if other people agree with this, but I think I write pretty decent dialogue. My “training” (if you can call it that) is in, as you might have figured out by now, script and screenplay writing (those were the only creative writing classes I took in college). So having a sense of the rhythm a conversation needs to have and how to write dialogue that sounds mostly like how people really talk (but shined and tightened up enough so that it’s not actually like verbatim dialogue, which is far less interesting to read!) is something that I feel like comes pretty easily. I also think I do okay with similes and metaphors - my brain tends to work in that way. It’s easier for me to think of stuff (feelings, especially) in terms of comparing it to more familiar things than to just think of the thing directly, if that makes sense?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

If I was being honest, this would be a very long section, but I know it’s not fun to read a big ol’ paragraph of someone self-criticizing, so I’ll keep it to one or two items ;) A big one for me is pacing, I think. I tend to write more than I need to and to over-explain things, so my chapters get very long and sometimes don’t really go anywhere? Until all of the sudden, they DO, because things need to HAPPEN! I’m a pretty rigorous self-editor, but I do have a really hard time cutting out sections (unless they’re really just not working), so even if it would help the pacing to leave out this conversation between character A and character B, I often can’t make myself cut it. I also think I struggle sometimes with balancing my ‘showing’ and my ‘telling,’ especially in the sense of me over-explaining certain things - like when it comes to feelings/facial expressions/etc, for example. I compensate for that in Important Thing by making it a part of a few people’s POV, but it’s not really a good habit to have in general. Also spelling! I’m really bad at spelling and run my stuff through robust spellchecks and text-to-speech before I post anything to make up for it :)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do it with some regularity, although I always get nervous about doing it wrong! It’s hard to avoid in AoS, where characters are spies and should (in theory, at least) have a working knowledge of multiple languages (”We’re spies, I thought we all learned languages?!”). Even in an AU, where characters aren’t spies, I like to try and pay homage to that, plus pay homage to certain characters’ native languages or just general multilingualism. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around people who speak more than one language, so I feel like it’s a natural part of groups of people to have more than one language spoken. I have a pretty good handle on written Spanish, a patchy idea of French, plus I know some Russian phrases from my dad and some German words from my grandfather, but I do rely on internet translation a lot. I usually run stuff through google, then run it backwards to see just how far off the initial translation was, then consult some actual, like, language learning sites to see if there’s particular idioms or common phrases that use different words than what google will give me, then run those words through backwards in the place of the original words to see if I can massage the whole thing to sound reasonably competent. Languages like Russian or Mandarin (which have their own alphabets/characters) are the hardest, since I have to also try and do a transliteration. I always try to put an apology/disclaimer in the notes any time I write in a language that isn’t English, because I’m sure I make lots of mistakes.

Also, I tend not to italicize words that are in other languages, because it looks weird on the page to me to set the other language apart like that (and because I italicize mainly for internal thoughts or emphasis, and usually what’s being said in another language isn’t internal or being emphasized). I put a rough translation at the end so we don’t have to pause the story for a parenthetical translation, but because the translation’s not right there, I try to either put in enough context clues that a person can still understand what’s going on, or I make sure that what’s written in another language isn’t critical to the overall understanding of the scene.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Officially, it’s AoS, since that’s the only fandom I’ve published for. I think the first true fandom I wrote fic for was probably either Harry Potter (entirely populated with OCs lol, I just liked using the world/setting), Percy Jackson (a mix of OCs and canon characters), or X-Men (all canon characters). I was a bit of a latecomer to fanfiction, though, like, I wrote a ton as a kid, but mostly original stuff, because I didn’t know that fanfiction in its current form was even allowed until I was in high school lol.

Oh! I almost forgot one! I’m not sure if this really counts as a fandom, but it’s definitely the earliest version of fanfic I wrote haha... I was like 12 and I wrote more than one story of an OC joining Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, and then also one of that same OC becoming a knight of the Round Table, so like... do what you will with that information haha.

19. What's you're favorite fic you've written?

I can’t choose between my two darlings :( I mean, okay, technically it’s probably Important Thing. That story’s my baby. It’s huge and I’ve been working on it for almost 2 years, and I’ve poured a lot of my heart and soul into it. I’ve fallen in love with the universe I built in it, so much so that I wrote an entire prequel and have very concrete plans for a lengthy sequel. But I can’t not crow about Shoulder to Shoulder (the aforementioned prequel!), too... I’m just really proud of that one - it has a lot of firsts for me. First completed story. First romance-focused story. First foray into expanding the Important Thing universe. But yes, if I have to choose, then Important Thing wins. That’s a story that I started writing exclusively for myself - to give myself characters I could relate to and to explore a style of AoS fic that I loved reading - and that’s a story I will always and forever be proud of.

I think most people have probably answered this tag game at this point, so I don’t want to accidentally retag anyone! If you haven’t yet, and would like to join in, please do! This is your invitation <3

[wutroows]

special (han solo x reader)

pairing: han solo x reader request: little request but anything Han Solo?! he deserves more 🥺🥺 requested by: anon a/n: i had a plot in mind for this but then changed my mind mid way through because with han you never know what to expect and now i realize that

the falcon was awfully quiet after blowing up the death star. han had basically become a hero, and that meant you were one, too. you did have a part that day, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as what luke had to do that day. han was technically apart of the resistance now, but he liked to refer to himself as a lone wolf still, even if he had you and chewie every day. 

han had been on and off the falcon all day, and it was finally evening. he claimed it was old business between him and a friend, so you brushed it off not wanting to get involved in his business. you knew han too well, letting it go would be easier than holding onto it for no reason. 

either way, he was finally home.

the truth was, you had ended up falling in love with him after a while. it was the first thing you told yourself not to do at the beginning of your friendship, when he and chewie took you under their wing (basically) and added you into the crew of the falcon. you were only a mechanic, but you were a hell of a pilot. some days, when chewie was taking a nap (as wookiees do), han would sit you in the co-pilots seat, and you would put the falcon into hyperspace, talking for what felt like days. 

you were used to staying up late when han was out. it was usually only you and chewie. you didn’t understand shyriiwook very well, but you could hold conversation with him since he understood english like the back of his paw. han told you once, shyriiwook had more than 150 different words for ‘wood’ depending on texture and underlying factors, and 15 or so varying words meaning ‘violence’. chewbacca tried his hardest to speak basic a few times, but you immediately told him to not strain his voice and that he was fine the way he was. 

you, han, and chewie were truly an iconic trio in the eyes of everyone who knew you. leia and luke thought the same. luke took a liking to you, since you’d sat down with him and let him talk about his interest in the force and obi-wan sat there with him, occasionally telling you more about it. you didn’t know the old man for very long, but he seemed like a kind, soft soul. he definitely deserved to live longer than he did, and luke took it hard. after obi-wan died, you spent more time around luke than han. as much as he hated to admit it, he did feel a little jealous.

what was there not to like about you? you were sweet, beautiful. everything he looked for in a partner, he found in you. he hadn’t thought about falling in love again since qi’ra, and that didn’t end that well. to say he had trust issues was an overstatement, since he knew you would never break his heart. he was scared.

for you, han was different than other people you liked. you never really fell in love with anyone else other than han. he was different. it sounded weird, but he truly was different than everyone else you’d met. for one, he was beautiful. his eyes shown like stars and he always had that knowing smirk on his lips like he knew what you were going to say before you said it. it drove you mad, how he looked at you. his personality was definitely the seller for you. at first, you thought he would be a stuck-up, horrible person to be around, but the longer you hung around him the more he opened up. he told you everything about him, and only you and chewbacca knew more about him than he knew about himself. 

you fell in love with him even after you’d told yourself not to. 

you sat in the living area of the falcon, chewbacca sat beside you. a giant arm was wrapped around your shoulders and you could hear soft snores coming from him. he was cute, he was like a dog sometimes. albeit a bit bigger than a dog. you were always awake this late when had was out. chewie had insisted he stay up with you, but here he was, sleeping. you wouldn’t hold it against him, he worked hard every day and he needed extra shut eye. 

han was reckless, all the time. no matter how many times you had to yell at him for almost getting himself killed, it seemed like he never changed. 

the falcon’s door opened, slowly. as if han didn’t want to wake you up when he should know by now you would be awake, always worrying. you couldn’t sleep until you’d seem him walk through the door most days. chewbacca had to sleep next to you usually every night to make sure you fell asleep. 

“han!” you whispered out, the falcon finally being filled with a sound other than the wookiee’s snoring. he turned, eyes wide like he wasn’t expecting you to be awake. “why are you still awake?” he asked you after a moment of looking at you. wiggling your way out of chewbacca’s death grip, you took long strides and took him into your arms with one swoop. “you should know better, idiot.” you told him, taking in his scent. some days, he smelt different than usual. today he smelt like some type of gas. 

“don’t call me an idiot, idiot.” he retorted. you could practically feel him roll his eyes as you pulled away from his hug. you looked up into his eyes, and he raised his eyebrows as you did. “expecting something?” he laughed, and you lightly smacked his shoulder after hearing his words. he was truly something special. 

“han?”

“yes?”

“i think.. i think i’m in love with you, han.” 

his head tilted to the side, and his lips formed what seemed to be a soft pout. he looked cute when he did that, like he was innocent. you knew for a fact he wasn’t after seeing so much, but you liked to see him like how he was right now. 

“you heard me, han.” you told him, sitting down on a chair that lando had left behind in the falcon. he wanted to leave something behind for han as a parting gift for the falcon. you loved lando like a brother, much to han’s dismay (at first, until he ended up loving him just like you). 

“i know i heard you. my ears just don’t want to believe what you told me is true.” he uttered out after a moment. he slowly sat down next to you and you turned, looking at him with your bottom lip sucked awkwardly between your teeth. “you’re not.. mad? or upset?” you asked him, and he shook his head.

“y/n. i’ve liked you for a really long time.” han said, and you furrowed your eyebrows. it didn’t seem like he liked you like you liked him. he treated you like a sibling most days, but there were times he looked at you like you were his everything (but there were times where he looked at chewie like that too, so you couldn’t get your hopes up too high). 

“han, i’ve liked you for.. forever. i told myself not to, but the more i pushed it away the more thoughts of.. you, just.. dominated my mind. thoughts of.. just, being with you.” 

han chuckled. he felt flustered for the first time in a long while. he was happy he found you, at least. someone who brought out the good in him, someone who loved him for who he was. “enough sappiness, y/n.”

“i love you, han.”

“i know.” 

“...”

“...”

“you know? say it back!”

“i love you too.”

[stardustkenobi]

Razbliuto

Kylo Ren x Reader

Warnings: canonic typical violence, angst, mention of loss 

A/N: Hello everyone! This might be a series, it might not be, but i just wanted to write some Kylo fic okay? Okay. Cool. This takes place somewhere between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker!

Razbliuto [ros-blee-OO-toe] – noun. The feeling a person has for someone he or she once loved but now does not.

“You still call me Ben in your mind.”

His voice was steady, perhaps even uninterested behind that Godforsaken mask as he swept into the prison hold you had been situated in for approximately five days now.

You narrowed your eyes up at the man who was once your best friend, your partner in crime, before standing up. The one that would make goofy faces over Master Skywalker’s shoulder after you had been scolded for, once again, letting yourself center your focus on your anxieties rather than simply letting go.

“I figured my mind was a safe space for me to retreat away from the ridiculous amount of interrogation that you and your watch dogs have put me through over the past few days.” Despite your…predicament, you found yourself to be just as capable of confronting Kylo Ren with a tone as chillingly calm as his own. Dripping with disinterest, trying so desperately to disguise the fact that you were almost trembling.

He stopped in front of you, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Not when you’re calling his name out like that in your mind.”

The fall of the Temple, albeit years ago now, was not something you were likely to ever forget. The putrid smell of smoke and burning flesh still filled your nose as you woke from nightmares now and again – it was only magnified here, what with the sterile walls and complete and utter silence between grueling interrogation sessions.

“Your name.” You said simply, trying to push him as far as you could. Maybe you’d make him angry enough to let you go, or even end it all for you. Maybe he’d wipe your mind and try to take you on as a student, like he tried to so many years ago. You had no way of knowing if you had been compromised and were almost positive that even though you ranked high in the chain of command with the Resistance, there would be no attempt to rescue you. No attempt to make a prisoner exchange. You weren’t even sure if they would take you back if you somehow managed to escape and you prayed that they would put you on an escape pod with no coordinates and let you float through space. It seemed like the best punishment for letting yourself succumb to the torture you had been subjected to – you’d never see your friends again and you’d have to live with your guilt until you finally met your end.

His hands came up to the mask, unhinging it with a mechanic hiss that felt as cold as his demeanor toward you. He lifted it up, then tucked it under his arm. “Is this what you wanted?” He asked, deep brown eyes so uncharacteristically cold. So unlike they had been the last time you had seen his face, on your knees and begging him not to leave with Snoke and the others he had managed to convince to come with him.

You steeled your jaw as you tried your very best to not let him on to the fact that seeing his face was the worst form of torture he could have inflicted on you. “Yes.” You growled, voice cracking despite your efforts to make the simple word drip with acid.

A knowing smirk traced his lips and it was enough to bring you to your knees for him all over again. “Ben Solo is dead.” He said simply, his posture not changing in the slightest. “He was gone the minute I left the ruins of the temple.”

His voice in all of its unmodulated glory and his eyes on yours brought back memories of running through the fields of Naboo on excursions that your master allowed every once and awhile. Your first kiss in the cockpit of his father’s beloved ship, the one that you had spent hours on after he and his wife came to save you and Luke from the carnage their son had inflicted on what was everything to the two of you.

“It doesn’t have to end the way it did last time.” He continued, taking advantage of your uncharacteristic silence. “You don’t have to walk away. You can stay and be with me and we can build something together, like we used to talk about.”

All you could see was the inside of that very same cockpit – how Han and Chewbacca sat rigidly silent at the helm of the ship. How Leia held you as she cried silently. How Luke had found a blanket for you and wrapped you in it before leaving to sit in the gunner’s seat, despite the fact that there was no imminent threat. He couldn’t bring himself to watch his sister cry, to watch you cry as you stared out into hyperspace with complete and total numbness. To watch the man he considered to be a brother white knuckle the controls of his Falcon, at a loss for words because the ship felt a little lighter with the notable absence of his only son.

“It still kills her, you know.” You growled suddenly, trying your hardest to ignore the part of you that screamed to run into his arms and kiss him with the force of a thousand suns. “I see a part of her die each and every day she wakes up and goes to the bridge, knowing that it’ll be another day that you won’t return to her.”

His jaw tightened at the mention of his mother, the one thing from his old life that could still make him keel over with the force of that pull to the light. It had dulled since Han Solo had died, but the reoccurring dreams of the last time his mother had looked over his face with the knowledge from his former master that there was a conflict in his heart, that look that could convince the most closed off of people that she saw into their hearts and knew and understood everything they felt? That was enough to make him question everything.

It was your turn to take advantage of the silence that ebbed from both his lips and his mind. “It kills her that she has lost everything, everything because you made the worst decision you could have. You are the reason that her husband and brother are dead and she clings to me, the closest thing she’s had to a daughter, like it’s her last chance at breathing in clean air.” She snapped, eyes hard. “She’s probably searching for me right now, has probably sent her best pilot –“

You were silenced when you surged backwards into the bench you had slept on ever since arriving on the First Order controlled ship. He wouldn’t ever hit you, or try to hurt you in any way, shape, or form, you told yourself. Pushing you back was his way of putting you in your place without raising a hand to you. “The best pilot,” He sneered, looking down at you with total disdain. “You’re talking about isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. I snapped him like a toothpick and I know for a fact that General Organa wouldn’t ever dare send her pet back this way. Too great of a risk, even to save you.”

It wasn’t his words about Poe that cut you to the core, or even the insinuation that Leia would rather keep him safe over you. It was the fact that he was now looking at you like he looked at every other Resistance prisoner, as if you were nothing but the dirt beneath his boots that some unlucky bastard had the honor of scrubbing clear before he went to grovel at the feet of his master. You, who had once been the subject of his praises and sweet nothings and promises of his forever after you had both passed the trials? You were now just another piece of rebel scum. Nothing. Not when you turned him away and pushed him further and further toward the anger that made him bend toward the dark in the first place.

The thing was, Kylo Ren almost hoped that you would be the one to push him back the other way. To drive him back into his mother’s embrace because deep down he was so, so sorry for every single misstep he had taken since the moment he was born. For the disgrace he had brought to his family and for the disappointment that he knew lived in Leia’s heart and would continue to for the rest of her life if he never came back.

The desire kept him awake at night and he did his damned best to keep it from Snoke during the most invasive of probs from his master, the puppeteer pulling all of his strings. He was sure as hell scrambling with all of his might to hide it from you now as you sat before him for the first time in years. Same eyes, just broken and hardened with all of the carnage you had seen because of him.

“You know there’s only one way this ends up favorable for you.” He finally said, voice taught. He was teetering again and you were starting to become aware of it as you reached out to him with the Force, trying desperately to grasp for any fraction of the man he once was.

You shook your head. “I would rather die –“

He scoffed, tossing his helmet to the floor with a clang. “You and I both know that I wouldn’t let you die.” He said, leading you to believe that there was definitely a possibility that he was teetering on his allegiances. “You can either stay here or go.”

You opened your mouth to say that you would be more than willing to leave, but were interrupted before the words left your mouth.

“If you leave, you will tell me the location of General Organa’s secret base.” He said simply, flicking an invisible piece of dust off of his tunic. “Then your mind will be wiped and you will be a spy for us. At the end of the war, if you do well, you will return to me and rule by my side.”

You scoffed this time, opening your mouth once more, only to be silenced by his words once more.

“If you stay and don’t submit, you’ll be tried for crimes against the New Republic and we will eventually pull the location of the base from your mind.” He said simply, leaning against the wall as if he was simply telling someone what he wanted for dinner that evening. “If you do…” He trailed off, licking his lips. “If you stay and you give yourself to me, it’ll be just like it used to be.” He was desperate now as he watched you. Definitely teetering. “We can train together, get stronger.”

“You could come back with me.” You breathed, shaking your head. “We don’t have to stay here. You know she’d take you back in the blink of an eye.”

“That part of me is gone.” He snarled, trying to convince himself more than you. “But I still love you, Y/N. That part of me never went anywhere. If you stay, I won’t ask you to give me the coordinates of the base anymore. I won’t ask you to send your friends to their demise. I won’t make you fight them if you so choose and I won’t bring them up. This can be a new start for you.”

The tears in your eyes threatened to betray you and you quickly dwindling resolve as you shook your head once more. “You never use to speak in clichés, Ben.”

His eyes hardened once more at your words. “Never call me that again.”

“No.” You snapped back, sitting up straighter. “If you really still love me, you have to know that I only love the man I knew before he destroyed the temple. I don’t know a damn thing about you except that you have taken everything so, if you really want me to stay and…And submit to you? You’ll have to cope with me calling you by your goddamn name because fuck, Ben, you took everything from me!” The tears you had tried so desperately to hold back were now flowing freely as you stood, marching up to stand right against his chest. You thrust a finger into his face accusingly, eyes hard. “You’re taking everything from me right now – the friends that have come to replace you and your father and uncle? You’re giving me the ultimatum to either lead them to their deaths or still give them a fighting chance, but never see them again. How can you say that you love me, but make me choose between you and them?”

Kylo Ren tightened his jaw once more, studying you over and over again as he remained silent. Part of him was trying not to tremble from your close proximity, part of him was trying not to snap and give you no other option but to stay and submit or to stay and have your mind wiped because all he knew is that he wanted you back. Preferably chosen on your own accord.

“I’ll expect your answer in the morning.” He said after a long silence, taking a step back and picking up his mask. His eyes never left you as you collapsed onto the floor, chest heaving from the exertion of pent up emotions. The minute he stepped over the door frame, the door slid shut, leaving you in darkness once more.

The only difference being that now your nightmares would be plagued by a set of once warm brown eyes, dimples, and beauty marks dappled across a face that you used to kiss over and over again until your face and his were rosy.

[zoryany]

“Do not give me that look.” for the royal imperial Skywalker AU ;)

Royal Imperial Skywalker AU - previous parts

Prompt me!

He hadn’t seen Han since dinner the night before, having been sent straight to his room following the conversation with his parents. Luke sensed his... guest had fallen asleep before he’d made it back to his own room, and he sighed as he settled in for the night, not wanting to think about what would be waiting for him in the morning. The conversations were far from over, and though he could suspect that he was living in a fantasy if he thought his relationship with Han could persist, Luke still worried about what was to come next.

When he regained consciousness the next morning, Luke nearly leapt out of his skin when the first thing he saw in the dim light of his room was Leia perched on the foot of his bed.

“What are you doing here?!” he shouted, jolting upright in his bed.

His sister met him with a single raised brow. “We haven’t had the chance to talk in private since you got back.” She sounded almost bitter about that. “So you aren’t going anywhere until we do.”

It had been several years since they’d shared a room but, even now, Luke could still feel a pang of discomfort when they were apart for prolonged periods of time. As children, the two of them were nearly inseparable, either one of them throwing a tantrum if they were kept apart for too long. Probably the hardest thing about running from home was being away from Leia for so long. But, with all the excitement of the last day, Luke just wanted some peace. The night prior hadn’t been nearly long enough.

“C’mon, Leia,” he groaned. “I just woke up. I’m not prepared for this conversation in the least.”

The laugh his sister let out was sharp and nearly derisive, acidity emanating across their bond. “Yeah, well, you should’ve thought about that before you ran away. I’ve hardly spoken to you since you got back - at least, not in private - and as your sister and twin, I demand answers.”

Running his fingers through his hair, Luke sighed. He had missed Leia. He did want to tell her everything, to reconnect and feel his twin be right there for him, once again. But he was still tired - still trying to sort through everything from the night before. 

“You know you’re the first person I wanted to talk to about any of this.” Luke finally peeled back his covers and pulled himself out of bed, sluggishly dragging himself towards his closet. “If I had my way, we could’ve had a proper heart to heart before Mother and Father pulled me aside.” Rifling through his clothes, Luke picked out the most comfortable and casual outfit he owned, calling out to Leia as he changed from his pajamas. “Unfortunately, you know as well as I do how they can get.”

Emerging from the doorway of his wardrobe, he found Leia standing just outside its threshold. “Yeah, I suppose I do...” For a moment, she looked sympathetic, but a second later she punched him lightly on his upper arm and resumed her position on his bed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you left me, little brother, and I’m still deciding what it’s going to take for me to forgive you.”

“I’m older,” Luke protested, automatically, striding to take a seat on his bed as well. “ - Nevermind, that doesn’t matter. You know what it was like on our birthday, though. How much it all was. I just... couldn’t take any more.”

For a long moment that seemed to stretch on into eternity, she regarded him, as though appraising everything she thought she knew about her other half. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and pained. “I know. I was there. But... you didn’t even try to talk to me - to any of us...” 

Do you know what you mean to us? 

The guilt rose in Luke once again, because really, he didn’t. And perhaps he’d been selfish, through it all, focusing solely on their actions and how they treated him rather than what they might feel or actually want for him. No, he had not doubted their intentions, but his consideration for them had fallen to the wayside in his desire to have some time to himself. He’d never wanted to harm any of them any more than they ever wanted to harm him. They were, he supposed, all too stubborn to recognize this fact in the moment.

When Luke couldn’t immediately find the words, Leia cut in again, her expression shifting completely. “Your hair is a mess, you know.” True, he hadn’t cut it in weeks... “I bet that’s gonna be the next thing Mother has to say to you.”

He grimaced, but tried to laugh it off. “Maybe, but Han likes it, at least.” Leia’s look instantly shifted, her expression appearing as though she’d swallowed a bug whole. “Oh, c’mon, don’t give me that look.”

“What do you see in him?” she demanded. “You can do so much better, Luke.”

“I’m glad you think so, sis,” he said, rolling his eyes, “but I do happen to think he’s just right. His co-pilot is quite the character, too. You’d like Chewie. Wookiees make excellent companions.”

It was Leia’s turn to roll her eyes, meeting him with that penetrating glare she’d mastered at an early age. “Oh, I’m certain I would, but I would have never expected you to take up with a... scoundrel like him.”

He couldn’t help the frustration that began to build within him. Nobody understood Luke better than Leia, but those sentiments were disconcerting, to say the least. “Oh yeah? And who did you expect me to take up with? Some spoiled noble who’s known nothing but luxury? That isn’t me, Leia, and you know it.”

She met him with a funny sort of look, one he couldn’t quite interpret, and her mind suddenly became blocked off. “You’re right... I do know that, but - Luke, I worry you don’t understand your worth. I’m not convinced that Solo recognizes it, either, and I just - you know I have only ever wanted the best for you.”

Luke’s feelings about that were conflicted. On the one hand, he was so grateful for how much his family cared for him, especially his sister, who was the other part of his soul. On the other, though, he was growing increasingly tired of the prejudice they were all directing towards Han.

“Leia... Han didn’t know who I was until just a couple days ago.” That also hadn’t been by choice. It was incredible, what a few weeks of growing his hair and becoming unkempt could do, when it came to appearing entirely different than the well-known Imperial Prince. It was only when a certain Admiral Piett had arrived on Ord Mantell that he’d had to reveal his identity to Han. And when he had... “It didn’t make a difference to him. He was, well, reasonably shocked, but he still just.. he’s only ever seen me as Luke, and not some prince to be worshipped. And before you say anything about what I supposedly deserve, that’s really all I’ve ever wanted from anyone. So the fact that he’s always seen me for me has been... refreshing. And I don’t want to lose that.”

As much as he’d always been able to read his sister, when her shields were up, he had difficulty interpreting Leia’s expressions. There were so many conflicting emotions flickering across her face that he simply did not know where to start, but she made it stony and attempted to remain nonchalant. “I understand that,” she conceded,” but I don’t understand the appeal of someone like... him. I’m sure you’d be able to find someone a little less... infuriating, if you tried.”

Oh, no. That didn’t bode well. Leia had never been discriminatory against those who held a lower social status than them, but it was easy enough for her to slip into something resembling as much when someone insulted her.

“Leia... what did he say?”

Suddenly, she appeared awkward, nearly scandalized. “What makes you think he said anything?”

Shaking his head, Luke tried to make his laugh as breezy as humanly possible. “Because. I know you, and I know him. And you wouldn’t be this vehemently against him if he hadn’t said something.”

A knock at the door saved Leia from answering directly, but it did give her an entirely new direction to head towards.

“Luke?” came Han’s hesitant voice before the door cracked open. “Are are you - oh. Ahh, hi, Princess. Nice to, um, it’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” came Leia’s cold reply. “You know,” she continued, “you should maintain the proper respect when addressing the Imperial Prince. To you, he is Your Highness. Or Prince Skywalker.”

Han raised his brows, scoffing. “Yeah, lady, I think the two of us are a bit beyond that, at this point.”

Luke groaned, not wanting to deal with this conflict quite this early. “Please, you two, not now. Can we just be civil? I know everyone has reasons to be upset with me but... Can I just have five minutes to collect myself?”

“Oh!” scoffed Leia. “You better believe we all have reasons to be upset with you. I thought, as twins, we had some kind of agreement when it came to honesty.”

“Yeah!” Han chimed in. “Don’t forget that we still gotta talk about why you never told me who you really were.”

This... was not what he’d wanted. At all. Just seconds before, he’d seen Leia showing Han disdain, looking down on him for his choices in partners. Now, out of the blue, they were both ganging up on him, and Luke decidedly did not like it.

“Alright!” he shouted. “Whatever. What do you want from me? What do you want me to say? That I just wanted to have someone - anyone - treat me like a normal person? To look at me like... like Luke, and not the Imperial Prince? To find someone worthy of my time and, hells, my heart, who knew me for me and not my heritage? Because if that’s the case, well, you both have wanted the same thing for me. And I’m sorry I lied to you both, but, well, if you can come up with an alternate plan, I’d love to hear it!”

Both his sister and his guest appeared taken aback. It was rare for Luke to engage in such an outburst, but he felt good in doing so. It was a weight off his chest. “I - I love you both,” he declared, stating as much to Han for the first time (and, Force, wasn’t that something...), but Luke looked at the two of them with a matching intensity. “I’m not expecting the two of your to like each other, but I do hope the both of you can respect what I want and why I’ve done what I have.”

As different as Han and Leia were, the expressions they wore were nearly identical. Of course, it was Leia who spoke first, her diplomatic prowess coming through, but he could sense a similar sentiment from Han.

“You know we care for you,” Leia insisted. “You must. And... we know that you care for us. But...” The hesitation in his sister’s voice was unknowingly mirrored in Han’s body language. “Do you get what it does when you leave without a trace?”

“Or when you hide the truth?” It was eerie to see Han so easily align with Leia’s point of view.

“I guess...” Luke really hadn’t considered it. He always tried to do right by his loved ones, but when his desire for freedom took hold, he sometimes forgot how his actions could affect them. “I am sorry, to both of you. And to Mother and Father. I... I don’t regret running. If I hadn’t, I’d never met Han.” Leia’s expression soured, slightly, but there was understanding echoing across their connection. “But I do... well, knowing what I know now, I wish I’d gone about it differently.”

Something like triumph lit up his sister’s face, mirrored in a more subtle way in Han’s features, and Luke felt that he’s managed to appease them both, even if he’d wronged them somehow in the process.

“Yeah,” agreed Leia, “you’re not wrong there. Glad to see you’ve come to your senses.” She turned a heavy look towards Han before grinning back at Luke. “Well, the two of you have exactly fifteen minutes before I barge back in here. We aren’t done talking, Luke, but I’m not about to push you in this state. Just know that you still have a lot to say - both to me and our parents.”

As Leia breezed out of the room, Luke hoped desperately that Han would not say anything about what his sister had just said. Thankfully, the smuggler knew better, and chose to focus on the present, instead.

He knew there was a reason he had been drawn to this particular captain.

[hungrywhovianjedi]

Twin Moons

Chapter one of my Star Wars A/U fic

read the epilogue here  also find the full fic on my FF.net and AO3 here FF AO3

premise:  Obi-Wan never took Luke to Tatooine in fact they overshot the force forsaken dustball completely and instead Luke grew up on the planet Lothal being trained to become a Jedi like his father before him. Ezra Bridger is an orphan loner who only makes an exception to his solitude for one boy. The boy who helped him out when he was seven, and that Ezra always seems to get into trouble.

Chapter summary: snapshots into the life of Obi-Wan and Luke as the boy grows up on Lothal, and a meeting with a hungry little boy who really wants a jogan fruit

Lothal wasn’t an unpleasant planet, but from the start one thing was clear to Obi-Wan, it wouldn’t be somewhere they could stay forever. The one blessing of the place was the abundant amount of untouched countryside. It was in this countryside, a fair distance from Capital City, that he purchased a small hut that he and Luke could live in. 

Luke… Luke was everything he believed Padme would have hoped for. His blonde curls and bright blue eyes were a spitting image of Anakin, and Obi-Wan would have been lying if he said that it didn’t send a pang of grief through his heart. Then there was raising the boy. Sure he had practically raised the child’s father, but that was from the age of nine on, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the needs of an infant, he had taken time in the Temple to assist Master Yoda with caring for the younglings that was not to say he was particularly good at it however. 

Exactly how bad he was at caring for younglings became clear when Luke began crawling, and he realized how hazardous everything was, that was also when the old jedi had stopped carrying his saber with him in the house. These things truly come into focus, when a nine month old, trying to pull himself up your leg accidentally activates your lightsaber nearly losing his toes. No no he wasn’t very good at this. 

When Luke was two, he began to train the boy. Luke was a natural, already he was able to call a toy from across the room, or even hold full conversations with his “uncle” through the force. Obi-Wan thought that better. He was Luke’s uncle, had loved his father like a brother. So he became Uncle Ben. The first thing that Ben needed to teach him, was something not commonly taught in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, shielding. It was something Masters taught padawans before taking them on risky missions, but now it had begun to be a necessity of life. 

He had seen the propaganda being streamed on the holonet, had seen Vader, a ghastly specter in all black, flanked by his enforcers. The inquisitors, force sensitive beings whose only driving goal was to hunt down the last of the “treasonous jedi” Vader’s robotically deep voice had informed the galaxy. He and his inquisitors would not rest until the galaxy was safe from the Jedi at last. It was horrifying, each one wore a mask but one, a tall man that Ben knew well. He had been a kind man, a guardian of the temple one he had spoken with often. He didn’t know his name, but his sorrow at seeing what he had become was great. The others were likely fallen Jedi as well, he didn’t want to know who else might be behind those masks, it was bad enough the force screamed at him who was behind the mask of Vader. The flashing lights on the front, others would assume were a control panel, likely thinking the man was no more than a machine, but Ben knew could hear the labored breathing of a man who would die without that mask. He did that. 

Luke stirred in his arms, the toddler having fallen asleep while they watched Holo-programs for children. A stab of guilt went through him. He had cursed this child’s father to a fate worse than death by leaving him on the shores of Mustafar. 

“I’m sorry Anakin, I failed you. I failed you” he looked down at Luke, “but I won’t fail him. I promise now I will not make the same mistakes with your son that I made with you”

Attachments were forbidden in the Jedi order, yet, despite trying his hardest to keep to the code, when he felt the love of attachment to his padawan, and even his grand padawan Ahsoka, he never saw what harm could come of it. He did however see the other side of it. Luminara... her padawan Barris, he had seen the hands off way she handled the girl, and in the end it led to her destroying the lives of not only those injured or killed in the blast, but Ahsoka and Anakin as well. He knew that the way the Council had ruled at that time had been one of the final blows to Anakin’s trust in them. That was the action that had lost him his padawan, it was why he didn’t go to the council for help when things got bad. 

Luke wouldn’t have an easy time being raised in the ways of the force, but Ben knew he had little choice in the matter. The boy must learn to protect himself, especially if Yoda was right, and this boy and his sister were the last hopes of the galaxy. 

The third year came and went quickly, and Ben crafted Luke his first practice Saber, really it was a wooden rod, since they didn’t have access to the Kyber needed to make a real practice saber, and began teaching the boy his forms. They did it by moonlight outside, as the hut was too small and doing it during the day would draw too much attention. 

He taught the boy his basic Katas, he began with form one, and realized how difficult it would be to teach a three year old child the patience needed to learn saber forms. Instead the Jedi Master made a game of it. 

It took months of their “game” Luke called it clack. Ben and Luke would each take a training saber, and they would clack them together, the goal was to break through and touch the other, and to avoid the “clack” of the sabers. Soon, he noticed Luke picking up some of his forms, as he had been careful to feed the basic stances of Shii cho into the game, and by the time his fourth birthday came Luke had learned all of the Kata’s of form one. It was then that Ben told him. Taught him that the game they played was really training to use a lightsaber. That was the first time he showed the boy his father’s saber. That was also the night that Ben told Luke a story. 

He told a story of a young queen from Naboo, and a brave slave boy from Tatooine. He told the boy the story of an army of brothers, who became like family a young woman who became their sister, and for now, he left out all the heartache that went with it, let the little one live with the happy memories of the family who would have loved him. 

By the time Luke was five, he was a natural of form one and had easily began to learn form two, it wouldn’t be long before he moved into form three Soresu, which Ben was looking forward to, his own mastery of the form making it the one easiest for him to teach. It was also when Ben began teaching Luke the way to find peace inside of the force. 

Meditation had always been Anakin’s worst skill, the boy had always had a nervousness about him, that caused him to seek out alternative methods. Luke however seemed to have Padme’s patience, as he found it easy to dive into the force. Ben barely had to guide him. 

He guided the boy with recitation of the Jedi code. 

“There is no emotion, There is peace”  Luke took a breath, “take all of your emotions, and release them, Luke” 

“There is no ignorance, there is knowledge” Ben closed his eyes taking hold of Luke in the force and guiding him, “release your questioning mind to the force, allow it to answer you” 

“There is no passion, there is serenity” The force flowed through him, “release your control, allow the force to guide you” 

“There is no chaos, there is harmony” he felt Luke relax, allowing the force to take him deeper, “in the force all is equal, feel it there balanced before you” 

“There is no death, there is only the force” Luke let out a breath, and Ben felt it too, a gentle sigh in the force, he could almost see the hands of Padme reach out and wrap around Luke. it shouldn’t be possible, non force sensitive people shouldn’t have a presence as such, even jedi do not keep their own energy when they die, yet there was no  denying Padme’s presence, just for a moment then she was gone. 

That wasn’t to be the last time he felt Padme in the force, the senator appearing that night as he did his own meditation 

“Hello Master Jedi” came the soft voice of his friend. 

“Padme, how is this possible? You were not sensitive to the force, yet I felt you with Luke and can tell you are real now” 

Padme simply smiled and sat beside him, his meditation scape the room of a thousand fountains, “I’ve never known the great Obi-Wan Kenobi to question the force” she chuckled. “I suppose you could say I’m not truly here, but part of me is. It’s hard to explain, like a piece of me stayed behind when I died, I just remember being so scared, so cold. I reached out and someone answered, and it was like I split then. A part of me, the part speaking to you now, went with Luke, I suppose as some sort of guardian. The other with Leia”

Ben rubbed at his beard, “it is somewhat of an unknown what really happens when we die. Master Yoda says we rejoin the force, yet nobody has ever spoken with someone who is dead before” 

“Now you have, I wanted to say something to you” Padme began, “Thank you, thank you for taking care of my son” 

Ben didn’t know what to say, instead he just smiled, and nodded. 

He came out of his meditation then, feeling lighter than he had for five years, confident in the fact that at least one of Luke’s parents was proud of what he was doing for their child. It was good that he came out of meditation when he did, as a sleepy Luke walked into the doorway, rubbing his eyes. 

“Ben, I had a bad dream” 

Ben smiled and opened his arms, “come here Luke, tell me about it” 

~~~~~~~~~

Luke Skywalker knew he several things fir certain. One he had no parents, Ben told him they were heroes, his father a Jedi knight. Two nobody could ever know he was a jedi, Ben hid from him the worst of it, but he was aware that they were hunted. Three Ben Kenobi was the best father figure he could have asked for. Those of course were the obvious things, he knew he was loved. He knew he was safe, but he couldn’t help but be lonely. Sure he had Ben, and he enjoyed training to become a Jedi like Ben and his father were before the purge, but Ben was the only person he knew. He was seven years old, and he had no friends. He had tried talking to the person from the dormant tether in his mind, but they didn’t seem to like him, or they didn’t know how to talk to him more likely. Ben wasn’t very willing to tell the seven year old Luke why he had a quiet tether in his mind or why it was clearly a little girl his age, maybe Ben would tell him when he got older. 

Until then, he helped Ben run the little garden behind their hut, and trained his saber katas behind the fence Ben built last summer. 

Today he was doing his katas while Ben went up on the bluff to trade with one of the traveling farmers for some of the things they didn’t grow, that he heard the hum in the force. It was odd, sounding almost like the hum that came when Ben lowered his shields to teach Luke a new skill, but different. It wasn’t a very strong hum, and he didn’t think whoever had it had been trained at all. At least not by someone like Ben, his shielding was awful! At least he assumed it was a boy, as he hooked his father’s saber back to his waist and climbed up the fence to look over. 

Huddled behind a boulder nearby, was a boy around Luke’s age, with black shaggy hair, and a dirty old orange jumpsuit. He was eyeing Ben’s Jogan tree hungrily. Luke dropped down and snuck around to the gate of the fence, and opened it. Continuing to move quietly, he moved so he was behind the same boulder as the boy. 

“Are you hungry?” Luke asked.

The boy shot up into the air with a loud scream, that made Luke giggle, and hold out the tart he had brought out for a snack after his training.

“Here, it’s a jogan fruit tart, it will be better than a raw one off of my uncle’s tree” for a moment Luke wondered if the boy spoke basic, and started to try and think of other ways he may word it, he didn’t know many languages yet, it was one of the few things that Ben had any trouble teaching him. 

“Wait, you’re just giving it to me?” oh good, he did speak basic, less struggle for him then.

Luke nodded, “Yes, Ben always says when people are hungry you should help them… so are you hungry?” 

The boy nodded enthusiastically and wolfed down the tart. Luke was shocked how quickly the sweet treat disappeared.  Then the boy grinned at him when it was gone “you’re right, that was really good”

Luke grinned back “I’m glad, my name is Luke Skywalker by the way” 

The other boy held out his hand, “Nice to meet you Luke Skywalker, my name’s Ezra Bridger” 

Luke shook his hand, he had a good feeling about Ezra Bridger, and when he reached out to the force, it seemed to have  a good feeling about him too.

[unexpectedreylo]

Closing Arguments For Reylo

After it seems like we’ve spent a year anticipating this movie--from the film wrap in February to the teaser trailer in April to the Vanity Fair stuff in June to the D23 trailer at the end of August to the Road To TROS stuff to this final trailer and the onslaught of press for the film--we’re finally in the home stretch.  

Who will live?  Who will die?  Will Reylo ride off into the sunset, a HEA at last for a Star Wars couple, will it end in tragedy or worse yet, will it end in a vague incoherent muddle?  After all, no fairy tale ends with “they lived ambiguously ever after.”

I think we’re all going to be nervous sitting in the theater come Dec. 18-20 because whether we believe “leaks” or not, we’re just not going to know for sure until we see the film.  I’m almost as nervous about their misusing/under-using Adam in this film as I am about the filmmakers blowing Reylo.

Yet of all of the sequel films, I’m the most confident about this one going in.  This is the last film in this story and it’s not going to end with the message that the Skywalker family was somehow a mistake or some curse upon the galaxy that needed to be eliminated, while the few positive aspects about the Skywalkers are handed off to Rey because she’s such a nice girl.  It’s not going to end like Romeo and Juliet.  It’s not going to end without redemption for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo.  The final chapter in the series is not only going to redeem him but everyone else who screwed up before him.  It’s going to end this conflict and a Jedi Order 2.0 is going to arise.  There will be a big party at the end.  It will give you cavities and possibly blood sugar spikes.  

As far as I’m concerned, Rey and Ben being together--in LOVE--is an integral part of that happy ending.  Cinderella gets her prince.  Beauty finds true love with the man who had been the Beast.  Anastasia marries Christian Grey and has a baby.  There’s just no such thing as a heroine who cheerfully ends up without her lover and in spite of what a lot of people think, Star Wars spends far more time utilizing traditional storytelling tropes (though in new ways) than subverting them.  Like I wrote in my piece about gothic romances, the woman gets the man, the manor, and the money.  Rey walks into TROS already with the metaphorical substitutes for the manor (the Falcon) and the money (the objects associated with the Skywalker family).  She’s already in with her potential mother-in-law.  All she needs is for Ben to show up to the metaphorical/literal wedding.

And everything is pointing toward that happening.  I’m not saying TROS will end with Ben and Rey in a wedding or Rey waddling about preggers.  Maybe it will end that way, maybe it won’t.  But it will at minimum pair them together a la Han and Leia at the end of ROTJ.  

First, let’s take on the only legitimate, in-universe obstacles to Rey and Ben being in a romantic relationship.  No, I don’t mean that they could be related.  What I do mean is that there are two things that would prohibit romance:  one is obvious...no Bendemption.  But I’m certain it is going to happen.  The other is the old school Jedi prohibition against forming attachments, including romantic relationships.  Many fans expect this deeply unpopular rule to be cast aside.  But in the name of fairness, it bears pointing out that so far, this deeply unpopular rule hasn’t been cast aside in the movies.  Sure there was a bit in the TLJ novel implying Luke wasn’t fond of this deeply unpopular rule but on the other hand, he lived it.  Generalissima Leia did lots of other things but never became a Jedi herself.  Maybe she was too busy.  Or maybe she’d rather bonk Han to her heart’s content than become a space nun.  There’s been some recent news that Leia was originally set to finally take up the Jedi mantle in the last ST film, something that obviously changed after Carrie’s passing in 2016.  Note that this would have been after Leia had become a widow.  Several months ago I’d listened to a podcast containing an interview with former Lucasfilm employee J.W. Rinzler.  He revealed that while the expanded universe was allowed to go nuts with Jedi romances and marriages, Lucas kept grumbling that “Jedi aren’t supposed to marry!”  He disliked Mara Jade partially for this reason.

Of every argument against Reylo happening that is the one that no one seems to take seriously yet it’s far more likely to be an issue than a sudden revelation of Rey Skywalker-Solo.  The question is were Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams willing to say, “Hey George, your rule sucks so we’re gonna throw it out” to Lucas’s eternal annoyance?  Or, is the coupling of Rey and Ben supposed to have happened all along, even in Lucas’s drafts?  Are Rey and Ben a glaring exception to the rule?

My argument is that they are going to be an exception.  Reylo is not just about hot people hooking up, it’s about mystical forces coming together in a union that will bring the peace and stability that has evaded the galaxy since the Clone Wars.  In other words, it’s a divine marriage.  Ben and Rey are not ordinary Force users.  They are extraordinary among the extraordinary.  We already know Ben’s tremendous raw power comes from being literally the great-grandson of the Force itself.  Rey I’m sure is something very similar, a demigoddess of sorts.  Ben and Rey will demonstrate one can love deeply without it corrupting into selfishness, possessiveness, obsession, and everything else that led Anakin into believing killing his comrades to save Padmé was a really good idea.

Okay, let’s look at some hard evidence.

What’s the one word that keeps coming up over and over again with Rey and Kylo/Ben?

Intimacy.

Or some variation thereof:

“At the premiere I heard somebody in the balcony say, “Yesssss!” You can see Adam was training hardcore throughout the whole process. It’s fun but it also has a specific purpose, which is the increasing feeling of uncomfortable intimacy. That was sticking with the theme of trying to give Rey the hardest thing you could possibly give her, which would be unavoidable intimate conversation with this person that she wants to just hate. This was just one more way of upping that ante.”--Rian Johnson, Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2017

“It’s all about those Force connection scenes. The keyword being intimacy. And the idea that this was a way to just, why not step that up?(...)And so it was just another way of kind of disrobing Kylo literally and figuratively a little bit more, and pushing that sense of these conversations becoming increasingly more intimate.”--Rian Johnson, People magazine Dec. 23, 2017

“They just had this horrific fight, but Rian wanted this incredible intimacy and this cascading, twinkling waterfall of sparks from the fight before.”--Ben Morris, ILM Visual Effects Supervisor, Collider Dec. 25, 2017

“Even to the point where Adam flew to Ireland just to be off camera for Daisy’s stuff, which was essential because they’re such intimate conversations.”--Rian Johnson, People magazine Jan. 6, 2018

“That came about first and foremost from wanting a sense of intimacy”--Rian Johnson, Force of Sound Documentary Feb. 20, 2018

“And have it, you’re in their heads with just that intimacy.”--Matthew Wood, Supervising Sound Editor, Skywalker Sound Feb. 20, 2018

“Having a big sound there just didn’t have the intimacy that the scene demanded. It can be so hard to get the balance right to where the audience is feeling the same thing as the characters.”--Michael Semanic, Re-recording mixer Skywalker Sound, Postperspective Feb. 21, 2018

“But we fall back on romance because it's the best analogue we have. Rey and Kylo's relationship is more intimate than that. They've literally been in each other's minds. Rey's seen his deepest fears; he's seen the past she's buried. None of us have had that experience.”

“My point is romance may not be the endpoint of that. (Though it may be.) The analogue may be misleading, because it's an analogue. Their connection is deeper and stranger and far more complicated. I think TFA/TLJ covers those complications wonderfully, with Ep IX promising more.”--Jason Fry on Twitter Nov. 26, 2018

“At times it’s more intimate, sometimes less intimate.”--Adam Driver, Entertainment Weekly, December 2019

Relationships that are intimate aren’t necessarily romantic or sexual in nature but in modern parlance, it’s often used as a euphemism for a romantic or sexual relationship, or for sex itself i.e. “Tyler and Kaitlyn weren’t intimate until they got married.”  Because of that, it would be hella weird if they described a familial or friendly relationship in this way.  If I didn’t want my audience to believe there’s anything that could possibly be sexual happening between my characters--especially between an eligible attractive man and an eligible attractive woman--I would avoid using the term “intimate.”

If that doesn’t sell it for you, consider these statements:

“It’s the closest thing we’ll ever get to a sex scene in Star Wars”--Rian Johnson re the hand touch in TLJ.  (Who the hell says that about cousins?  Or just friends?)

“it is certainly true there is a romantic drama...”--Rian Johnson, some Japanese interview from 2017.   (By the way this was misquoted into stating there was no romance in TLJ at all.)

“I (Rian) disagreed with John (Williams) twice regarding the score. For example, there's a scene where Kylo Ren and Rey touch hands, before they are interrupted by Luke Skywalker. When John wrote the score (for this scene), he was very protective of Rey's character, exactly as is Luke. Kylo ('s presence) was menacing, musically speaking. It's a valid point of view, but I didn't think of the scene like that. I wanted it to stay on Rey's POV: I wanted that we could believe in this romance.”--Rian Johnson, Classica magazine April 25, 2019 (Note: this is an interview from English to French then translated here and here back to English but the word “romance” is the same in both languages.)

The above statements and various others we’ve all seen over the years are helpful to explain what we’ve seen in the past two films:  they’re building toward something.

On one level, the filmmakers are building toward another alliance between our space children, like what they had in TLJ.  It’s obvious that they will need to team up to defeat Palpatine because who else could?  It’s also obvious that they are key to the Force being in balance.  There has been interesting speculation on Twitter about how those forces will come together and the symbolism of a marriage by uniting mystical objects.

But being Force buddies in a tag team match against Palpatine isn’t quite high enough stakes.  Nor is “might makes right” the message of Star Wars.  These two have to be willing to fight for each other, to the death if necessary.  They have to have something to live for as well.  They have to have the secret sauce that Darth Sidious doesn’t have.  And what I’m talking about is love.  Not just the compassionate love of agape (that’s what Anakin was talking about in AOTC but he meant it differently of course) or the friendship love of philia but also the powerful, creative love of eros.  It’s basically what was happening in the throne room scene in TLJ.  They were fighting for each other and the future they saw when they touched hands.  Come on, nobody is going to do any of that just to find an apprentice or to convince someone to join an insurrection you barely spent any time with yourself.

A divine marriage between the two most powerful Force users will end the war and herald in a new age.   Either they are a new incarnation of the Prime Jedi or they will become the mother and father to this incarnation.

Plus they will kiss and get in a lot of nookie.  The end.

Credits:  r/starwarsspeculation, @reylo-evidence-collection, r/starwarscantina, @reylo5 (Instagram),

[swinfinities]

Long Live the Queen: Part Sixteen

Padmé took a long, deep breath. It had been years. Long, heart-wrenching, war-torn years. A long time ago, she had been a senator and a diplomat. Negotiation and diplomacy had been her weapons of choice. Now, somehow, she was a general, coordinating attacks and deploying troops, waging war against the most hated man in the galaxy—a man that she had once considered a mentor and a dear friend.

Padmé had only begun to realize that she shouldn’t be so surprised by where she had ended up. Her entire life had been war. Even as a newly-elected queen, war had found its way to the peaceful world of Naboo. She had hardly been a teenager then. She often wondered then if she was really ready for such responsibility. She still wondered.

But it didn’t matter now. The past was the past. The only thing she had the power to change now was the present. And now it was time for action. It was time for her son to come home.

Home. She wasn’t sure where that was, anymore. It had been Naboo. But now that was only a world tainted with sad memories. She hadn’t been back since the Clone War ended. After a while, Padmé just sort of accepted that she was now someone without a home. Like a Purrgil, drifting amid the stars.

But Luke had a home. At least, Padmé hoped Luke would still treat it like his home. For all its faults, Tatooine had kept her son safe for years. Hopefully it would again.

Until they all jumped right back into the danger.

The battered old Corellian YT-model freighter thundered down from the sky, kicking up a miniature sandstorm as it came to rest on the sand.

“It’s a wonder that thing still flies!” coughed Owen Lars.

Padmé’s reunion with the Lars family had been a much sweeter one than she had anticipated. In spite of the way that she had left things, running off in the middle of the night with their nephew and that “crazy old wizard.” They hadn’t spoken in years. For all they knew, Padmé and Luke were both dead, or left rotting in some Imperial prison.

But, as always, Owen and Beru brought Padmé back into their home with open hearts and tearful eyes. And Padmé forgot why she could have ever expected anything different.

When the dust had cleared and the roar of the freighter’s engines died off, Padmé’s heart leaped when the first pair of feet came strolling down the boarding ramp.

She hardly recognized him. She remembered leaving behind a little boy, blonde-haired and starry-eyed. Scared, but ready for adventure. He had returned now a young man, with a strong body and an even stronger resolve shining in his blue eyes.

He was dressed in Jedi robes, the long brown cloak flowing in the wind, his blonde hair shining in the light of the suns—his father’s lightsaber hanging at his waist.

Padmé broke down into tears. Because he looked just like Anakin.

Luke held his mother, and she let herself melt into his arms. The two wept together for a while, happy to just be together again.

“Oh, Luke,” Padmé sobbed. “I can’t believe I ever let you go.”

“It’s alright,” Luke said. “It’s okay. It was supposed to happen. It… well, this was my destiny.”

Padmé had never really understood the Force, at least not in the way that a Jedi did. But she had often heard them speak of destiny and the will of the Force. Now she prayed—to the Force, if it would listen—that destiny wasn’t going to lead them into disaster.

After a few minutes, Obi-Wan Kenobi exited the freighter, followed closely by the diminutive figure of Master Yoda.

Padmé finally pulled herself away and dried her tears, freeing Luke to greet his aunt and uncle. 

“Obi-Wan,” said Padmé. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And you as well,” he said, bowing slightly. “I was hoping that at least a few tears would be shed on my behalf, but—”

Padmé laughed. “I’m glad the swamp didn’t do much to weaken your sense of humor.”

 “That remains to be seen,” Obi-Wan replied. “But I am glad, at the very least, for a dry pair of boots.”

Padmé smiled down at Yoda, leaning on his gnarled wooden cane.

“Master Yoda,” she said.

“Your Highness,” he replied.

I am a queen no longer, she thought to reply. But she knew better than to argue with one as wise as Yoda. After all, she hadn’t lived for nine hundred years. So, she was just glad to let the warmth of his smile soften her war-hardened heart for a short, happy moment.

“Not too poorly, the war has treated you, I hope?” Yoda asked.

“As good as any war can treat someone, I suppose,” Padmé sighed. “There are worse days, and there are less worse days.”

Padmé laughed softly, but it was a sad laugh.

“But I don’t need to tell you that,” she said.

“Mmm,” Yoda grunted in reply, shaking his head. “A terrible thing, this war is. Much death have I sensed. Yes, and pain. Much pain still to come, I fear.”

“Well, if your plan really does work, Padmé, hopefully we stop this war before it really gets started,” said Obi-Wan.

“We’re going to need all the help we can get,” Padmé said. “Even three Jedi may not be enough. Which reminds me… Luke?”

He spun around, turning away from his embrace with his Aunt Beru.

“There’s … someone you need to meet,” Padmé said.

She walked up to her son, placing her hands on his shoulders, which were already almost too tall for her to reach.

“This may be hard for you to hear, and… I know you’re probably tired of so many secrets. But it was so important that this was kept a secret, even from you. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I promise you. But it was the only way to keep the two of you safe.”

“I don’t understand—” Luke started to say.

“There is…” Padmé said. “There is another Skywalker.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Or was it surprise?

“What?” he gasped. 

Padmé looked toward the entrance of the old Lars homestead—the one that had been their home for more than a decade. She motioned for someone to come.

A young woman stepped out from the shade. She was dressed in a simple white robe, her hair done up in two elaborate buns on either side of her head. A white hood was draped gently over her head to shield her porcelain skin from the garish sunlight.

“Luke,” Padmé said. “This is your twin sister: Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan.”

*****

“You know,” Luke said. “It’s funny.”

“How’s that?” Leia replied.

“How you got picked to be Princess of… what is it? Alderaan. And I got shipped off to Tatooine of all places, living on a moisture farm. You know, there’s not a kid in Mos Eisley that wouldn’t kill for a chance to set foot in a palace, let alone live in one.”

“Living in a palace isn’t really as glamorous as you think it is,” Leia said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure it’s really hard waking up to the butler bringing you breakfast in bed every day. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to step out of bed and wonder ‘which balcony shall I sit on to sip my tea today?’.”

Luke tried (rather poorly) to mimic the snooty sort of accent that he had heard many of the core-worlders and Imperial-types use.

Leia socked Luke in the arm. They both laughed.

The long-lost siblings sat alone together in one of the small cabins of the ship that was speedily carrying them back towards the fourth moon of Yavin. It was quiet, except for the dull vibration of the hyperdrive echoing through the cold, metal walls.

Leia sighed and shook her head.

“All this time,” she muttered. “I never knew I had a real family. I mean… my parents—”

“You mean Her Royal Highness, Queen of Alderaan?” Luke tried the accent again.

Leia shot him a look.

“My mom and dad,” she corrected. “Are my real family, of course. But I always thought my birth parents were dead. Then, a few years ago, I met Padm—er… my real mom. Our mom. But I had no idea who she was. Still, I always had this weird… feeling when I was around her. I don’t know... I don’t know how to describe it.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Luke.

“And then… I started getting involved with the Rebellion,” Leia continued. “My dad didn’t like it, but… it was where I belonged. I’ve been lucky enough to see behind the Imperial curtain, so to speak. I know what really goes on in the Empire. And I decided a long time ago that I can’t sit around and wait for someone else to stop it. Anyway… I saw mom around the Rebel base on Yavin a lot, at least whenever I was allowed to be there, which wasn’t often. I knew she was someone important. She hardly ever showed her face to anyone outside of High Command. Only a few people knew her name. It was only a couple weeks ago that I found out why. My dad just sat me down with her one day and explained the whole thing. That Padmé was my birth mother. That she was Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo. That I have a brother. That my father is—”

Leia choked on the words.

“Anakin Skwalker,” Luke finished for her. “Jedi Knight. That’s who our father was. Darth Vader is… something else.”

Leia sighed. “I cried and cried for days after that. I don’t know if it was happy or sad, or sometimes both. I was so excited to have this new family, but just so sad that I missed out on it all before. Eventually, I ran out of tears to cry. And now… now I just don’t know how to feel.”

Luke placed his hand on hers.

“Afraid,” he said. “That’s how I feel, anyway.”

“I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to be afraid,” Leia said.

Luke looked down at his feet, sheepishly. “Fear begets anger, anger begets hate, and hate begets suffering. It is natural to feel fear. It’s what you do with it that matters. Do you turn inward or do you turn outward? At least… that’s what Obi-Wan always says.”

“I’ve heard lots of stories from my dad about Master Kenobi. It’s kind of crazy that the hero from my old bedtime stories is sitting in the next cabin over.”

“And I never even knew he was a Jedi. All my life, he was just the old hermit that lived on the edge of the Dune Sea. Then, all of a sudden, he is a Jedi Master, and I am supposed to just leave everything behind and become a Jedi, too.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leia. “I really can’t imagine what that must have been like. Being so alone for so long…”

“Don’t be sorry. I guess I was scared for a while. And then I was angry for a while after that. But I wasn’t alone, not really. Obi-Wan and Yoda helped me. They made me into who I’m supposed to be.”

“You think it’ll be enough?” Leia asked.

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to win.”

“I… don’t know.”

The Skywalker siblings were quiet for a while.  The silence made it easy for the weight of everything that was about to happen start to sink in.

“Do you… do you think we’re going to make it through this?” Leia asked, clearly forcing back tears.

Luke didn’t say anything for a long time.

“I’ve been taught that I shouldn’t fear death,” he said at last. “That I should… how does Yoda put it? ‘Rejoice for those that transform into the Force.’ But… somehow… I know that we’re going to see dad again. And that’s all that matters.”

“How can you know?”

“A feeling.”

[hauntedfalcon]

Happy Christmas, Star Wars Is Over

that was a thing I saw with my own two eyes 

“we have to End the Saga! ... but also leave ourselves opportunities to make more money” you really clearly cannot have it both ways 

there was... so much about that movie that I would have been able to tolerate... if the trio had been together the whole time 

but the instant Rey left the group, it became a terrible movie where stupid things happened for no reason, and there was nothing good going on to balance that out 

the trio interactions were, give or take one uppity Poe, everything I wanted 

they were so good together 

literally I yearned for two whole movies and I finally got what I wanted for a little while 

anyway as for the rest of the movie, you know the trolley problem? 

they had a couple options for tracks to follow after TFA and TLJ 

and instead they just... steered the trolley off a cliff 

what hit me hardest was the moments where Rey had the helmet on in Luke’s X-wing, and the moment where she sleds down into the Lars homestead 

cute moments! recognizable moments! music cues that helped us recognize them 

but the actual takeaway was that she had received absolutely no development since the first time we saw her put on an X-wing pilot’s helmet or sled down a sand hill 

none of them did 

when people kept asking her in TFA who she was, I never took that to mean “tell us your family name” or “which extremely powerful being gave you your powers” but what is your identity and how do you find it for yourself 

which is a theme that could have been explored if they weren’t busy driving the fucking trolley off the cliff 

what did any of it really mean? what’s the plan for the future? in thirty years does it all start over again when another Sith lord turns out to still be debatably alive? 

also everybody saying “we have to do this or the General died for nothing” like by that point? she had already? died? for nothing??? 

she projected herself through space to distract her shitty son long enough for Rey to stab him! that was the point!!! 

that was the death of her son that she foresaw at the end of her Jedi path! coming to terms with that and making it happen herself for the good of the galaxy could have been a thing!!!

all of these plot points are stupid, but there was a coherent way to connect them, and the movie just kept trying to contradict itself instead

disrespectful honestly 

keeping her corpse under a sheet until Kyle faded away was extremely disrespectful 

also not a fan of how they tried to build scenes around the scraps of extra Carrie Fisher footage they had to work with 

I maintain Leia should have been the one to do the jump at the end of TLJ, and then we wouldn’t have had to deal with this bullshit 

Rey should have been a Kenobi

Rey Should Have Been A Kenobi 

but moreover, Rey Should Have Been Able to Forge Her Own Identity Independently of a Lineage

which would have done wonders for the trilogy and put her on equal footing with Finn’s character concept 

if, let’s say, Palpatine was not a thing in this movie, and let’s say she ended up in Transport Tug of War with Kyle anyway, and she still accidentally Force-lightninged the ship and had to deal with that afterward? 

that would have been interesting! grappling with your own capacity for doing evil is interesting! “you have a capacity for doing evil because of your wrinkly granddad” is NOT 

imagine the conversation in the ship after the lightning where Finn says he gets it and Rey says he doesn’t, and Finn says yes, yes he does, because everyone has the capacity to cause harm regardless of the scale of it, but it’s the choosing that counts 

imagine if these characters got to say things to each other that actually mattered to the plot 

what a waste of Jodie Comer

why hire Jodie Comer and only put her onscreen for five seconds 

that’s like hiring Thandie Newton and killing her off after twenty minutes, or hiring Ming-Na Wen and killing her off after one epis--oh wait 

I was listening hard during the Every Jedi Talks At Once bit and it did my heart good to hear Qui-Gon again 

no Chirrut Îmwe though. see? disrespectful 

my beloved Finn 

my beloved Finn 

my beloved Finn is finally confirmed Force sensitive, and there is no time to build on that afterward 

my beloved Finn meets more people who broke First Order conditioning and refused to fire on civilians, who escaped and lived free, and we get a thirty-second conversation about it and it’s never mentioned again 

that should have been the A-plot 

my beloved Finn held. Poe’s. hand. and it was clearly a thing they do regularly 

my beloved Finn was so competent 

my beloved Finn was a GENERAL 

and that’s it. that’s all I’ll ever get of my beloved Finn 

Lucasfilm is not going to mention him ever again 

I am getting emotional now, back to things that made me angry  

what the fuck are they trying to pull with Poe 

a spice runner? a spice runner??? 

no nope no you’re not making him the Han of the sequel trilogy Abrams 

and then the whiplash of him being given command and wishing he had Leia’s guidance again and getting guidance from Lando instead and immediately acting on it? there’s actual Poe! right there! 

I don’t understand who it is they keep trying to convince us he is, but the real Poe always comes through in the end, thank you Oscar Isaac 

the hug 

the hug and the focus on Finn holding both of them and crying with relief 

I sure did miss Rose 

introducing just enough new characters for everyone to have a ~safe~ potential love interest was so transparent

there’ll be a comic book or a novel set decades down the line where some background character will be mentioned in passing as Finn and Jannah’s kid, and that will be that 

that being said now that we have Jannah you can pry her from my cold dead hands 

the fact that they didn’t even talk about why Lando left the fight??? 

the leaks I read were from an earlier cut of the movie where Lando told them he had a young child who was kidnapped by the First Order

he didn’t get to say anything about it this time??? it was implied to have been Jannah but they didn’t even get that much? they want us to believe he’s been hanging out on One Party Every Forty-Two Years Planet just because?????

hyperspace gets more and more watered down with every consecutive movie

it’s to the point where even the purrgils don’t seem that special anymore

the disposability of all the ships was almost as irritating as all the planet-hopping 

ships, just like lightsabers, are entirely renewable resources, there is one around every corner  

my “the Force is really just the ghosts of dead Jedi intervening for the living” theory is still going strong, especially now that Luke could lift his X-wing 

Yoda had to do it in ESB because Yoda had more dead Jedi friends  than Luke :) 

I legit squealed “WEDGE” when he appeared for 1.9 seconds

afterwards my best friend was like “what’s a Wedge? was it that Mike Pence guy” and I lost it 

Leia’s lightsaber was so pretty but I’m sad the blade wasn’t red in this canon 

Disney hopes you enjoyed 1.5 seconds of lesbian representation in a Star Wars movie, now never ask for anything again 

Dominic Monaghan was also there for some reason 

I’m running out of things to say, everything else in this movie was too fucking stupid to even talk about 

especially That 

we’re not talking about That 

at least we’ll always have The Mandalorian (pending any fuckery in the finale) 

[darthvader-love]

Insomniac AU (part 1?)

{{ Insomniac au- Person A can’t sleep due to traumatic experience but shortly after they meet their new neighbor and end up in their apartment/house they fall asleep. Soon enough the only way they can rest is if person B is with them even if it scares them. }} Above the skies of a planet in a galaxy far far away, lights could be spotted. The lights of explosions. Red and green ones clashing and causing explosions. But what the inhabitants of the planet didn’t know was the level of conflict that was displaying itself above, in the clouds.  Indeed, they did not know that in one of the x-wings flew one of the recently having become infamous rebel champions, Luke skywalker. Nor would they ever believe that Darth Vader himself was on his tail, getting closer and closer in his own, remodeled tie fighter. Yet what did they know, they were just simple people.  Luke, on the other hand, knew all too well what kind of trouble he was in. The young man had felt the presence of Vader as soon as he had entered the system and knew he was in for a long battle. The to be Jedi had been with the fleet since their last encounter on Bespin, slowly recovering from the shock of the news but also the wounds inflicted upon him. Indeed, Vader had done quite the number on him. It baffled Luke that he was never told about the truth of Vader by anyone, not Obi-wan, not his uncle or aunt. Not that he blamed them, had he known, Luke might have taken different, rash actions.  Yet the news and the fight had had a big effect on him, especially his sleep. His face told the story of that to anyone who saw him. He had become paler, there were bags under his eyes that seemed to be permanently glued on and his whole demeanor seemed to have changed from energetic and sometimes mischievous to someone that was constantly cranky and irritable.  Even Leia had asked what was going on with him, and he just told her “nothing” Or he’d chuckle and smile a little “I’ll be fine.” Was always the response he gave last, ensuring the conversation about it ended there. Of course, he now knew this had become a bigger problem than he could have imagined now that he was in a dog fight with Vader.  He could tell from the first moment they had entered into just the regular battle, Luke his reactions were off, slower than usual. Not only that but he actually missed shots he normally would have nailed. It was becoming a problem. Leia had seen it as well. “What is going on Luke?” She had asked through the communicator. “Nothing! Just warming up!” was what he had told her and continued the battle.  It wasn’t until Vader showed up that he realized he was in even bigger trouble. The cold, unmistakable force tendrils of Vader reaching out to him, almost as if they were trying to find a connection with him. Luke had fought those off as Vader and he joined into battle, both trying to shoot each other out of the sky, or so it seemed. Luke was surely trying to.  It was after a few moments Luke realized Vader had been trying to herd him towards the executor, the infamous flagship of Vader himself, and had only escaped that fate by a few parsecs. Turning towards the planet below them, getting closer and closer. He was determined not to get captured by the sith lord, whose presence grew with every second, the cold feeling in Luke’s gut increasing with it.  Spiraling towards the planet, they resorted to shooting at each other, and in a last ditched effort to not go down unless he took the sith lord with him, Luke turned around by flipping his ship and shot directly at Vader, getting himself shot in the process. What happened next wasn’t very surprising, as both ships lost control, and in huge clouds of fiery smoke, they spiraled towards the planet surface.  Luke tried to desperately get his ship to cooperate, and to not hit the fast approaching city on the planet surface, and succeeded, by only hitting a few acres of forest. His ship shook, and he did in his seat, his helmet protecting his head from the impact and the bumpy ride. He didn’t know what happened to Vader, but he didn’t need to know now, as his ship slowed down and came to a halt.  Smoke filled the cockpit, making luke cough. His comlink was dead, and he couldn’t see thanks to the blackness of the smoke. The rebel attempted to free himself from his seat frantically and got lucky as it released him without a hitch, the seatbelt being flung to the side.  Getting out of the cockpit proved a harder obstacle. It seemed to have become so dented Luke couldn’t open it. However, the force was with him once again, as he had constructed a new lightsaber from the artifacts the rebels apparently had with them.  Taking the green blade, he cut himself a way out and climbed out of his fiery wreck, and fell onto the forest floor, gasping and taking in the fresh air. That was a close one. Yet he still felt this ringing in his chest, as if the force was warning him. Telling him to get to his feet. Luke looked to his ship and then got up to his feet, running to the edge of the forest, but he didn’t get far before the ship exploded. Sending him flying.  His ears rung from the sound and he held them, groaning in pain. Small cuts covered his body thanks to the shrapnel that flew around, and he was sure he had broken a rib when he impacted a tree. Yet it was still not enough to get him to lose consciousness. And Luke wasn’t surprised by that even though he really felt tired, his head feeling more heavy than it had ever done, almost too heavy to pick up from the forest floor.  The inability to lose consciousness right now seemed a blessing but it had been plaguing him for weeks. He had tried everything to try and sleep too, from drugs to just plain hitting himself in the head at one point to just try and get a few hours of rest. The most he’d get every few days was 2 hours, way to little for someone with an active lifestyle like him. Yet even the medics he had spoken to didn’t know what to do about it. Trying drug after drug, without result. Luke had almost begged at one point for them to help him and the force to let him rest, but that might have attracted the attention of Leia, and she had enough to worry about.  Gasping, Luke his train of thought was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a dark force presence nearby, a very familiar one. Had his ears not be still ringing, he would have heard the even breaths of Vaders vocoder. Looking up, looks eyes went wide. “Vader.” He acknowledged him as he dragged himself to his unwilling feet, taking out his lightsaber.  Vader, his father, remained silent for a moment as he seemed to analyze him, his emotionless mask, trained on him. Vader, his steps were slow and methodical as he moved forwards. Luke noted that he did not look one bit damaged by the impact with the ground which was a disappointment. It might have evened out the playing field.  “Young Skywalker.” Vader finally greeted him back, coming to a halt not far from him, Luke stood his ground. “I see your ship has had to bear the brunt of your foolishness.” The sith lord commented, looking to his exploded x-wing. Luke gritted his teeth. If Vader hadn’t come after him neither of them would be here.  “However, it is of no hindrance to me. Surrender Luke.” He added before Luke could get a word in between, though he did not feel like talking much. He was having a hard enough time focussing on standing upright with his lightsaber, watching Vader’s every move. Vader had yet to get out his own crimson blade.  “Never.” Lukes response seemed to not even faze the sith lord that remained quiet once more, pacing a little from side to side. Luke could make out the darker force energy that was reaching out to him and did his best to push his shields up, not that it was much use at this point.  As he did so, his sleep deprivation suddenly hit him. As if all the hours of lost sleep suddenly dawned upon him and he had trouble keeping his eyes open. Luke staggered backward a bit, trying to uphold his balance, as the world spun around him.  “What are you doing!?” Luke spat at Vader, knowing he was indeed the cause of this sudden loss of control. Silence filled the air once more, Vader’s breathing is the only thing that could be heard, together with the sound of the burning wreckage. “I am merely making you aware of your own weakened state.” The sith said, while surprisingly sounding victorious.  The heaviness grew and grew and grew, Luke trying his hardest to fight it off. Why now of all times to suddenly be tired!? “Stop!” Luke demanded after another bout of dizyness hit him, his body seemingly not responding to his commands to run.  Vader just took another few steps forward, raising his hand slowly, pointing it at Luke. “Sleep.” It was a simple command but one that had a huge impact on the rebel, as his eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the floor, no longer able to keep himself up. He dropped his lightsaber, it rolling far away from him.  The last thing Luke heard and saw was Vaders boots and cape closing the gap between them and that cold, methodical breathing that had haunted him since Bespin. ((Do I need to continue this or do you guys have a different writing prompt for me to try? Thanks for reading!))

[whatstheproblembaby]

Fic: Triptych

@klaineharmony requested I do Javetherine Halloween fic, and when I got this idea, I couldn’t NOT. ~1380 words, PG-13 for cussing but not content.

“This is absolutely the hardest part of being in a poly relationship,” Kath said, flopping backwards onto the mattress.

The exhausted sigh she let out turned into a yelp midway through as Jack poked her in the ribs.

“This? This is the hardest part?” he said, plopping down by her right side. “We’ve told all of our parents what our relationship status was. In the middle of your family’s formal Thanksgiving dinner, no less.”

“We’ve figured out how to get all three of us to sleep comfortably in one bed,” Davey added on from where he was leaning against their dresser. “I landed on the floor so many times….”

“We’ve had full-on conversations about making sure we all feel like equal participants in this relationship, regardless of who gets to spend more time with whom,” Jack said, rubbing Kath’s thigh.

“You used ‘whom’ correctly,” Davey said. “I may swoon.”

He threw his head back and fanned himself dramatically, pretending to slump toward the floor. Kath reached up to the head of the bed, grabbed a throw pillow, and chucked it at him.

“Hey!”

“You two aren’t funny,” Kath grumbled as she sat up. “Yes, okay, technically there are harder things to coordinate in a poly relationship. But we’ve been trying to figure out a group Halloween costume for like three hours now, and we’ve gotten nowhere!”

“If you would just go with my first suggestion-”

“We are not going as Luke, Han, and Leia, Cowboy!” Kath said. “I know no one else is gonna think twice about it, but I literally wouldn’t be able to kiss Davey if he was dressed as my twin brother.”

“Oh, I’m sure one of our weird-ass friends would have a lot of questions if we went as a trio where two of the members are siblings,” Davey said, coming to sit on Kath’s other side. “Remember trying to watch Cars with Smalls?”

“I repressed everything after she started asking where baby cars come from in that universe,” Kath said as Jack shuddered. “Please don’t try to unearth those memories.”

“That’s a low blow, Dave. Fine, the Star Wars idea is out.”

“As are Cosmo, Wanda, and Timmy, for similar reasons,” Davey said.

“Someday I’ll find an excuse to dye my hair pink,” Kath said, sighing again.

“So...what do we do?” Jack asked.

The bedroom was quiet for a moment until Davey spoke up.

“Should we just not coordinate?”

“Are people in romantic relationships even allowed to do that?” Jack teased. “How will the general public know we’re all together?”

“Given that you can’t go a block without putting your hand in both Davey’s and my back pockets, I’m not too worried,” Kath said, making Davey snort.

“And since when have we ever been like most people in romantic relationships?” he asked. “Then we’d have to do something horrific like a plug and socket costume.”

“Wouldn’t it be a plug, socket, and metal fork, since there’s three of us?”

Jack guffawed as Davey pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe that’s where your brain went first.”

“I see your point, Dave,” Jack said once he’d stopped laughing. “We’re definitely not like anyone else.”

“So let’s do our own things,” Kath said, growing excited by Davey’s suggestion. “We’re not likely to accidentally promote incest or pedophilia that way, that’s for sure.”

“And you could still be Han Solo if you wanted,” Davey said. “It’s not like you need Luke and Leia for him to be recognizable.”

“The both of you are very persuasive, do you know that?”

“Oh, we’re well aware,” Kath said, nestling into Davey’s side. “How else would we be able to get you to stop painting and eat dinner with us when you’re in the zone?”

“You-”

“There’s no stopping us, Jackie,” Davey said, pulling Kath closer. “We’re a force of nature.”

Jack gaped for a minute before saying, “You were wrong, Ace. The hardest part of being in a poly relationship is realizing how whipped you are by your partners.”

“You love it,” Kath said, reaching out and taking his hand.

“Never said I didn’t.”

_________________

“Almost ready?” Jack yelled from the living room. The three of them had decided to surprise each other with their costumes before heading out to Medda’s annual Halloween bash, so he had had to get dressed at work in order to not spoil anything.

“Just a sec!” Kath called back, hearing a similar response from Davey in the bedroom. She peered in the bathroom mirror, adjusting her wig and adding one more bobby pin before stepping back to get as full a view as she could.

“Good job, Katherine,” she muttered to herself as she took in her black pleated skirt, gray sweater, and red-and-gold striped tie. The frizzy wig completed her Hermione costume perfectly, and would be much easier to deal with at the end of the night than if she’d ratted her natural hair. She grabbed her black robe off the hook on the bathroom door and swung it on as she wandered down the hall to the living room, her attention focused on getting the fastener to close right.

When she looked up and saw her partners, she started laughing so hard that she was brought to tears.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” she gasped between spurts of giggles.

“No one’s ever going to believe we didn’t plan this,” Davey choked out, holding his stomach to support his own laughter. His red wig bobbled on his head.

“If I didn’t think we were meant for each other before, this seals it,” Jack said, pulling off his round, lensless glasses to wipe his eyes. “Jesus.”

Katherine let out one last whoop of joy before pulling herself together enough to take in Jack’s and Davey’s costumes. The clothes weren’t much different from her own - gray sweaters, black slacks, and red-and-gold ties, though Jack’s was tied neater than Davey’s. Jack also had a lightning scar painted on his forehead, while Davey had added a blue sweatband to his look to keep his wig anchored.

“Going for the deep cut, I see,” Kath said, pointing at Davey.

“If it was good enough for the Starkids…,” Davey said with a shrug. “Now all I need is a Nerf sword.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find one somewhere,” Jack said. “But seriously - after all our discussion of the Golden Trio as being too cliche for a group costume, we somehow decided individually to be them?”

“I never actually went as Hermione as a kid!” Kath said, a little defensively. “I figured I may as well make up for that now.”

“Ron deserves more appreciation,” Davey said vehemently. “Every kid wants to go as Harry or Hermione, usually, but they wouldn’t have made it through the seventh book without Ron!”

“Easy, Dave, none of us are disagreeing with you,” Jack said, holding up a placating hand. “And I figured I had the tie and sweater already - may as well just go with it.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Kath said. “Davey and I would look pretty silly if we showed up like this while you were dressed as Chewbacca or something.”

“You mean to tell me you wouldn’t force me to change if you two were dressed like this and I showed up in something completely different?”

“She might not, but I would,” Davey said, making Kath start laughing again. “I wouldn’t be able to handle the incohesiveness of the narrative.”

“Only an English teacher would say that,” Jack grumbled. “You’re such a stereotype, Davey.”

“Wrong: I’m a wizard,” Davey said. “And I will absolutely hex your ass if we’re late to Medda’s party and they drink all the apple cider sangria without us.”

Kath gasped. “The sangria!”

“Let’s go, then!” Jack said, gesturing toward the door dramatically. “God forbid I stand in the way of you two and your sangria.”

“Hey,” Kath said, situating herself between Jack and Davey as they headed out the door. “Happy Halloween, Harry and Ron. There’s no one else I’d rather go on a world-saving extended camping trip with.”

She pressed kisses to both of their cheeks, and her boys each wrapped an arm around her waist in return. Much as she loved that apple cider sangria, this moment was the best treat of her Halloween.

[j-whirl44]

A Binding Ache Remains Within

Hey hi what’s up you ever love a key relationship and dynamic between two characters that is actually so intricate and beautiful but the main medium of the franchise they’re in never really takes time to explore it????

Or is it just me?

Anyways I wrote this Poe & Leia fic because I love them both so much and their mother & son bond will always be the death of me. It’s sort of in a “Missing Scene” format in three chunks from TFA, TLJ, and TROS.

This in general was just very cathartic for me to write and it’s a dynamic Ive wanted to write about for a while I just didn’t know how lmao.

Enjoy!!

Title From: I’ll Be Your Skin by Sara Kendall

Read it on Ao3 (x)

1: D’Qar Resistance Base

Poe woke up with a splitting headache for the second day in a row. He squeezed his eyes shut just as quickly as he opened them, the harsh light of fluorescents above mixed with the buzz on machines by his side overstimulated him.

He tried again, this time using his arm that wasn’t bound to wires and needles to shield his face as he slowly opened his eyes. He let out a long breath as he groaned and tried to get up from the stiff and cold medical cot.

He’d been confined to the med bay since he came back to D’Qar two days ago. He lumbered in limping and filthy and about to pass out. People watched him as if they’ve seen a ghost and Poe suspected they might have thought they were. It’d been a week and a half since he was taken by the First Order and since losing Beebee-Ate he had no way to securling send a signal from Jakku letting them know he was alive.

Though he wished he wasn’t.

He tried to talk to Leia immediately, but the General shook her head and sent him to get patched up with a look in her eye that told Poe now was not the time to argue.

A nurse wailed next to him as he tried to get to his feet. He looked at her with a tinge of annoyance.

“I need to talk to the General. I’ve been tied up here for two days now. I’m fine,” he said trying his hardest to drown out the pounding between his eyes. He could tell the nurse saw right through him, but nevertheless most people on this ship are aware how Poe can be when he sets his mind to something. She walked up to him carefully removed the various mechanisms in him.

Poe nodded his thanks and turned to rush out of the small room before the nurse wailed at him again. She handed him some sort of pill and a cup of water. Poe looked hesitant at it. The nurse pointed at his head. Poe blushed and took it, instantly he felt some of the weight in his head decompress. He looked back at her with a grateful look as he went to go find Leia.

“Poe? What are you doing here,” Leia asked as he stepped into the briefing room where she and a few other officers were going over their daily checklist.

“Doc gave me the all clear, did my droid come back? What’s happening,” he asked. The room was still and silent, save a few beeps from monitors. Poe didn’t like it.

“I’m afraid there’s been no sign of Beebee-Ate since he was sent off with you to Jakku. We have reason to believe the First Order has him-”

“No,” Poe interrupted, other officers around him went stiff at the intensity he just cut of the General, but Leia didn’t flinch, “No he escaped when…” Poe trailed off. His head pulsed as he tried to remember everything that happened since being captured and tortured. His eyes widened, “Beebee-Ate! I-I told the First Order he had the map to Luke. They know.”

He said the last two words more to himself than the room. His hands clumped into fists. His shoulders drop. Gasps are heard around the room as he feels their eyes burn onto him. Leia cleared her throat, which snapped everyone’s attention back to her.

“Give us the room please,” she said. The room made its way out the door. The two of them stood across from each other in silence.

Poe’s mouth was dry, he couldn’t look in Leia’s direction. “Sit, Commander,” she said as she walked and took a seat at one of the tables near the window. He didn’t move, his body bristled with fear and shame. “Poe,” Leia whispered. The sound of his name snapped him back to the present just enough to take her invitation. He sat stiff and focused on his hands.

“What happened. We heard about the attack on this village…”

‘The village,’ Poe thought. They attacked so fast and so strong against unsuspecting people. He sees flashes of it now, the screams, the sounds of blasters, the heat of his exploded x-wing on his back as he watched Kylo Ren kill Lor San Tekka.

Then he remembers being on the ship. How dark and cold it was. Being strapped into the chair, IT-O droid next to his face; Kylo Ren himself in front of him. Remembers him invading Poe’s mind. Breaking through whatever defenses Poe tried to put up to keep him from seeing where the map was. More importantly who had it.

But he got it anyway, after what felt like hours of agony Poe gave in showing the scene right there for Kylo. Leaving his droid out in the open.

He failed the mission. He failed the Resistance. He failed…

“Poe,” Leia said again, which again brought the pilot out of his own head. She looked at him with the same kind eyes she always did. She reached out and grabbed his forearm and squeezed it. Poe felt himself relax a bit. “It’s not your fault,” Leia said. He bit back a sarcastic laugh; his face twisted around as it tried to stay neutral. Leia furrowed her brow, “There was no way you could’ve known about the First Orders ambush because we didn’t even know about it.”

“I should’ve saw the signs,” he counted. Leia scoffed.

“What signs, Commander? There were no signs. We both were after the same thing. We thought we got to it first. We clearly didn’t-”

“Maybe they were tracking my X-Wing somehow. Has anyone ran diagnostics yet? Maybe I-” Poe stopped when Leia smacked him behind the head. He yelped as he ran a hand to rub the spot.

“In case you forgot in that thick skull of yours, Commander Dameron, you’re part of a crew. A whole resistance. It’s not just you that makes mistakes. This wasn’t your fault,” she said.

There she went again, those eyes now stared at him with a mixture of anger along with the kindness. Like any mother would look at her son when they were being difficult.

Poe sunk in his chair. She was right; it wasn’t his fault. In the beginning maybe, but everything that came after…

“But now I really have led them straight to it, General, Kylo Ren-he…” he didn’t know how to continue. He knew how much it hurt Leia to talk about he son. Her real one.

“What happened. Please, tell me,” she urged.

Poe cleared his throat, “He...forced his way into my mind. He saw my memories,” his fists on the table clenched tighter, “old and new.”

Leia looked away, face as stoic as ever, but Poe could see through the cracks.

“General I’m sorry. He was too powerful. I was too weak, he saw me store the part of the map on to Beebee-Ate. He knows,” he hesitated, “he knows where it is.”

Silence again fell between them as they both looked down at the floor.

Poe felt defeated. He felt like shit; lower than shit even. He remembered what he was thinking while he was still tied up after the interrogation, he thought all there was left to do was die. He failed the mission and he failed hard. He was ready and willing to accept whatever fate the gods had in store for him.

His eyes started to sting as he blinked back tears. He jumped when Leia’s hand grabbed his own.

“Poe, that still isn’t your fault. You were being tortured,” Leia said, the last word thick in the air, “you didn’t have a choice in the matter. What’s important now is you’re back here and you can help us fight like you always have.”

Poe was always so in awe of her. He’s known this woman almost all his life. Known what she’s gone through, whether it be first hand experience or through the little stories he was told by his father. He’s seen her still be so vulnerable yet strong all these years. It inspired Poe to just be a better person.

“I failed everyone, I failed you, General,” he said ashamed.

“You haven’t failed yet. Luke still hasn’t been found by anyone yet. We can still do this,” she said as she squeezed his hand, “together.”

Poe closed his eyes. A few tears finally fell as he nodded.

He thought of his parents and what they say to him right now.

And then he thought it’d probably be everything the General just did.

2: Resistance Escape Pod; Above Crait

“A mutiny, Poe? Really?” she said as she looked down at the unconscious pilot in front of her. He looked peaceful and it was one of the times he wasn’t actively being a pain in the ass. She smiled a little as she remembered the dumbstruck look on his face right before she stunned him, “You got your love of flying from your mother but your impulse from your father,” she said with a slight chuckle.

It had only been a few hours since Leia had woken up after being spaced. She heard quick news about what Poe was doing and all she could do after hearing about it was roll her eyes and head towards the bridge to do all but drag that man out by the ear.

Leia knew there was not a lot of men out there like Poe. His heart was big, although sometimes his ego was bigger. He would sacrifice himself before letting anyone fall in his place even though losing him would be a major blow to the Resistance. Not only for morale, but there isn’t anyone that can fly a ship like him; except maybe his mother.

Leia remembered when she died. Hearing word from Han who heard from Kes. Her heart ached; knowing they had a young son. She arranged a trip to Yavin 4 where Poe and Ben zoomed around the backyard together, blissfully unaware of the heaviness in the visit.

----

The adults sat under the little piece of the Great Tree planted there six years prior. They laughed as they recounted stories of the war. The sticky situations Han and Kes would get into when left unsupervised. They also mused about Shara and her pilot skills.

“I just hope he’s more like her than me,” Kes said. The three watched as Poe and Ben played in the cockpit of Shara’s old RZ-I. Leia smiled as Poe explained the inner workers of the A-Wing as Ben watched with wide eyes.

“Looks like he’s on his way to that already,” Luke said, “Shara was the best of them, Poe will be too. It’s in his blood.”

Kes smiled as he raised his cup of ale towards the sky, “I just hope he won’t have to fight like we did. Sacrifice as much as we did,” he said solemnly.

Leia looked again at the two boys, “yeah, me either,” she said.

Back in the present, Leia’s teeth chewed at the inside of her cheek at the memory. They were all still so hopeful back then; wary but hopeful. They wanted to believe darkness was defeated on Endor. 

----

But it wasn’t. The two boys that played in the cockpit of that fighter ship were now on opposite ends of an ever growing battle that got more dire by the day.

That was the last time Leia or Han ever saw Kes and Poe, but she always kept tabs on them. It wasn’t very hard, Poe’s reputation and familial lineage preceded him at any military level. All Leia had to do was pull up his reports. When the time came and the First Order was too big to be ignored as a legitimate threat she knew she had to ask Poe to help lead the Resistance. He had the same spark as his mother. 

“Passion is something we desperately need these days,” she had told him. And Poe being Poe he didn’t hesitate when asked.

He had grown so much into his father’s look, Leia almost thought it was him sometimes when she saw him out of the corner of her eye.

She reached down and touched his cheek with the same hand that had slapped him days before after that stupid dreadnaught mission that got him demoted and good fighters killed. She was angry with him but a part of her heart also ached for him. She saw the look in his eyes, how elated he was they sank the ship but how conflicted he was in himself for doing it in a way that cost so many lives.

And much like everything these last few weeks there wasn’t any time to dwell on it. Everything moved so fast and if you tried to get bearings on anything you’d be too consumed by grief and war and you’d crumble.

“The life of a soldier,” she thought. It was cruel. It was unfair. Leia wanted nothing more than to clear Poe of his conflicted feelings. Like any mother would do when she saw a son struggling.

But in this moment she was still his superior and she had a whole Resistance to rebuild. She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“This is for your own good, idiot.”

3: Ajan Kloss

Her face was covered and Poe was at least a little thankful for that. If he couldn’t see the General’s lifeless face maybe he could believe she wasn’t really dead. She wasn’t really gone.

He started at the sheet in front of him, he willed it to move. He wanted a sign this wasn’t really happening. Begged for it.

Nothing. Utter stillness.

Poe clasped his hands together and rested his forehead as he let out a bitter laugh.

Of course, death happened around him all the time. He even caused some of it. He’s had plenty of ghosts that followed him around. That came to him at night as he tried to sleep, but none dare compared to the pain in his heart right now.

Leia trusted him in all things, even when he didn’t deserve it. The two of them worked side by side to build the fight against the First Order. The late nights, the early mornings. The near misses and the celebrations. It was all done at each other’s side.

Poe thought back to when his mother died. His dad was stone faced through all the formal military funeral proceedings, but the night after the service Poe walked by his dad’s office and heard him crying, it made Poe’s heart break. He wished he remembered more of his mother outside the war stories and medals.

He made a note in his mind to make sure Leia’s story wasn’t so serious. She’d be remembered as a great war hero of course, but also as a headstrong woman who in any situation was never afraid to speak her mind and knock people down when they needed it. Poe smiled; he needed it a lot it seemed.

His throat tightened as he now remembers his new acting position.

“General. You named me general,” he said. General Poe Dameron. He was excited at the new title, he just wished it was under much better circumstances.

He reached out involuntarily reached out and before he could register what he was doing he was holding her hand. It was cold and weak and Poe didn’t like the feeling. The reminder. He gave it a tight squeeze before letting go. He gently placed her arm back by her side and covered her again. “I won’t let you down, Leia,” he said.

But what was he to do now? He failed to get the support her needed. They barely made it out of Kijimi and Kef Bir alive and now this blow to their already dwindled forces. It was hard to find hope in any of this.

“But hope is what you were all about huh,” he said, “was.”

He wondered truly how long anyone in this war would have survived if it wasn’t for Leia and her abundance of hope. After all she’d been through, she still believed there was good in even the most wicked of people. Her dying moments, Poe understood, made that note abundantly clear.

There’s so much Poe still wanted to learn from her, but now that was all gone. He just felt lost and undeserving of the tasks that now fall onto him. He needed his friends. He needed a sign.

He really needed Leia.

Lando came in soon after and tried to squash Poe’s worries, but honestly nothing stuck to his brain. He felt himself shutting down, the grief, he thought, may finally get to him.

He closed his eyes, still sat by her side. He needed a minute before he swallowed his sadness down and stood up.

He stood up, suddenly as determined as ever. He wasn’t going to let Leia die in vain. He walked up to her covered body and placed a kiss on her forehead.

Shoulders tight and fists clenched, he walked out towards the fight.