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phoenixyfriend · 3 years ago

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Vader Tries to Help

People encouraged me to share the dead dove concept! Yay! It’s a horrible concept with an undertone of comedic absurdity in the sense that you keep waiting to see what awful, incredibly stupid thing Vader is going to do next. Like it’s horrifying but it’s also very dumb.

By moving forward into the fic, you acknowledge that this is intended to be dark and liable to be upsetting, and that you are taking responsibility for your own engagement with the material.

This AU was helped along on discord by several parties but tbh I’m not sure how many of them actually want to be named.

Warnings: Mutual Extremely Dubious Consent (forced by a third party), drugging, irrational behavior (Vader), nonconsensual body modification, forced pregnancy, imprisonment, threatened torture of a child (not followed through on)

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Vader captures Obi-Wan a few years into the Empire. Because Vader is Anakin, but even worse on the emotional bullshit, he decides that he needs to keep Obi-Wan safe but harmless. Vader also got Luke in the whole 'capturing Kenobi' situation, so part of what Vader's thinking about all this is that Obi-Wan tried to protect The Baby and so Vader kind of owes him, obviously.

Palpatine lets him keep Obi-Wan "safe," because threatening Obi-Wan is a convenient way to make Vader shut up and do what he's told. Palpatine can kind of tell that threatening the toddler would make Vader lose his shit and attempt to kill good ol' Palps, so threatening the middle-aged depressed alcoholic being kept in Vader's guest room with Force-nullifying cuffs is pretty good. It's an additional layer of emotional torture on top of the electrocution of Vader himself!

Vader has Obi-Wan taking care of Luke, mostly, because Vader has Obligations and A Job, and Obi-Wan wouldn't hurt Luke, duh. He might try to escape with the kid, but he won't be successful, and Obi-Wan will definitely put Luke's safety first, so that probably won't happen.

This is all fairly normal for a variety of AUs, granted, and not very dark.

But see, Obi-Wan behaves. He's aware of how tenuous the situation is for him and his charge, so he plays nice. And Vader decides to reward that.

By giving him Cody.

There's an implied thought process there that Obi-Wan was fond of Cody, and Cody was fond back, and now that the Jedi aren't around, they can follow through instead of worrying about some silly Code. Vader's nullified the orders to kill all the Jedi, of course, possibly dosed their food with an aphrodisiac so they don't try to talk themselves out of What They Obviously Want.

Now, we’re going to make it a little darker, because why not make things worse by having Vader try to make things better?

Vader somehow twisted himself around to encouraging them to have a baby. This is accomplished through a combination of Sith Magic and nonconsensual surgery, and lots of questionable drugs.

Obi-Wan just wakes up in a hospital bed with a womb one morning, and is informed of the surgery then and there, after it’s already happened. The droid telling him about it is just like "in the Lord Vader's infinite kindness--" and Obi-Wan just.

Anakin.

What the fuck.

What in the actual fuck made you think this was a good idea.

(The Sith Chemicals, probably.)

I feel like Palpatine would maybe even order the pregnancy induction just to torture them by proxy because that's like eight levels of Fuck No and he barely has to do anything except tell Vader that he'd like to see what kind of children a Jedi Master like Obi-Wan has.

Luke needs friends, doesn't he?

Obi-Wan is having some very complicated emotions about all of this because Vader is, in his own absolutely insane way, trying to help.

Anakin wanted babies and Padme wanted babies so clearly, if Obi-Wan and Cody are in love, then they also want babies!

Cody and Obi-Wan very well might not be in love. Anakin definitely could have misinterpreted. It’s probably more angsty if they're just friends who ended up in this bullshit together.

(He's taking baby fever to new and somewhat horrifying heights, because... he would adore Obi's kids.)

(His family button is suprisingly large for a mass murderer.)

Vader Kindly Informs Bail That Obi-Wan Is Alive And Unharmed. Bail was a friend of Obi-Wan's, telling him this is only helpful and will keep Alderaan from getting more rebellious out of personal insult. Obviously.

Vader is almost offended when Bail implies he might hurt Obi-Wan. He kept his son safe, he owes him. Speaking of, don’t you have a child? How old is she, again? It would be Good for her to make friends, wouldn’t it? :)

Palpatine is just like... sitting back and eating evil popcorn as Vader runs around, ruining people's lives by trying to be less of The Worst than before.

Palps barely has to do anything, Anakin's fucking it up on his own!

Could have been just a sly "Kenobi is so attached to young Luke, but now that you've been reunited with your son, perhaps he'd be happier with a child of his own?" Come at it from both "make Obi-Wan happy" and "protect your relationship with Luke" angles.

Vader: I can't have babies anymore due to what you did to me on Mustafar. Obi-Wan: So you're punishing me by forcing me to have them instead? Vader: No! Children are a gift that you have been cruelly denied by the Order that held us in its chains! Obi-Wan: ...oh, right, you're insane. Forgot about that. Somehow.

Big dramatic speech about how the Jedi Order spent so long making them take lives, he’s giving Obi-Wan a chance to create it! To put something good and bright into the world!

Poor Cody is like. "General, I am very fond of you but I'm having a million panic attacks at the same time because of the mind control, and also Vader is under the impression that we're in love and I need to be your stud? I wasn't aware you could have children--" "I can't. Or at least, I couldn't, but Anakin is... creative." "...what."

I don't want to actually objectify Cody in the narrative past the point that Obi-Wan himself is, because nnnnngh racism and clone stuff, so I'm going to say Cody was in love with Obi-Wan, and would have been okay with at least discussing the whole baby schtick if not for the absolutely horrible circumstances.

Like if the war had ended normally, and Obi-Wan had expressed a desire to retire, unlikely as that was, then Cody may have suggested a dinner, and they could have gotten married and then eventually adoption...

(Cody had a lot of fantasies he didn’t let himself think about too hard.)

But no. It's this... weird Vader-inspired bullshit.

I'm just so invested in Vader trying to help but making things legitimately a million times worse.

He wants to help :) Oh god, he wants to help.

Why aren't people more appreciative of how hard I'm helping them? - the Anakin Skywalker story

With less time to stew and also getting handed what he wants, Vader could absolutely flip on a dime the second he saw Luke being protected, and go from “I hate you” to remembering that Obi-Wan said he loved him, and now he must keep Obi-Wan safe out of debt and he just... he’s playing house.

Vader throws Obi-Wan a baby shower after the pregnancy is confirmed. Bail is invited, because Obi-Wan doesn't have a lot of friends still alive. Vader decides Bail is top of the Obi-Wan’s Friends List.

This is the first time they've seen each other in two years. Obi-Wan is heavily pregnant despite Bail knowing full well he didn't have the plumbing for that before the Empire rose. Cody is there and emotionally exhausted but more lucid than most troopers. Luke is running up to Leia because New Friend!!!

....there may be MORE of the 212th and 501st at the baby shower, with “kill all Jedi” orders revoked, of course. But it will keep the children safe!! And Cody and Obi-Wan can see their surviving friends!!

Cody: I'd be much happier to see my surviving troopers if they didn't all still have chips in their heads. Obi-Wan: I feel much the same. Vader: [404 error]

Bail and his family might be there at blaster point, but aren't you happy to see them, Obi-Wan??

Obi-Wan's endless trauma is honestly somewhat curtailed by the incessant need to facepalm at Vader’s bullshit

Obi-Wan and Cody both outwardly have a very "there are much worse people I could be stuck with in this situation but obviously I wish I'd had a choice, no hard feelings" attitude at each other.

Internally, Cody is suffering because this is NOT how he wanted his crush to be realized, and Obi-Wan is just suffering, period.

Cody: How did he even choose which of us ends up pregnant? Obi-Wan: He thinks I need to be protected, and that he needs to keep me safe. Cody: ...he does realize that you're better at-- Obi-Wan: Cody, he's completely lost it. No! He doesn't realize!

I feel like over the course of the year or two this plot unravels towards Palpatine getting murder-deposed and Anakin getting locked down, part of the driving force to Vader not being Vader anymore is that Luke actually really loves Uncle Obi and always starts fussing and going "Ben's sad" whenever Vader dismisses what Obi-Wan wants in favor of what Vader thinks Obi-Wan wants, and Vader can't deny his child anything.

Luke cries because Palpatine Feels Wrong like, once or twice, and Anakin goes “oh, okay, assassination time.”

#Obi Wan Kenobi #Anakin Skywalker #Luke Skywalker #Commander Cody #Codywan #Darth Vader #Bail Organa #star wars #dubcon #situational dubcon #nonconsensual surgery #medical abuse tw #forced pregnancy tw #nonconsensual body modification #Vader Tries to Help AU #Phoenix Posts #dead dove do not read #dead dove

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tatooineknights · 3 years ago

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Prompt for you: Luke was brought up to be a Sith.

Nineteen.

That was how many years had passed since his presumed birth. It didn’t mean much to Luke Skywalker; the two individuals that tried to raise him died before he could even talk. Though he couldn’t remember their faces, he could remember the intense fire and in the sky and embers falling onto his skin. It was a dark night and the fire was bright. Rage. That was all he could remember feeling.

“We will take you to your father,” they told him.

His father was Darth Vader, the apprentice to their master. Luke didn’t know much about him — Palpatine made sure that the two only had fleeting moments with one another, short enough that less a hundred words had ever been said between the two, but Luke’s lingering eyes said thousands every time they crossed paths. The Sith Lord was titanic and ruthless, absolute in power and resolve, everything that a nineteen year old son would want to become. If only they could speak to one another.. but it was forbidden. Luke had flirted with the Dark Side of the Force to appease Palpatine but it was the determination of winning the attention of his father that made him become absorbed in it.

Luke looked at himself in the mirror of his small but neatly organized room; his shaggy hair was slicked back neatly with gel, his once vibrant blue eyes glimmered with the faintest hint of gold, delicate traces of purple scarring from his.. more insolent days.. danced around his neck, leaving his face untouched. His white jumpsuit was form fitting and made him stick out in the sea of darkness — another foolish hope that his father would notice. Luke combed his hair back with his fingers, smiling at his appearance before leaving his chambers.

“You are late, boy.”

The Emperor sat in the center of his room, his arms folded and a frown present on his face. “I am sorry, your highness,” Luke said and kneeled down to one knee. The Sith Master rose from his seat and peered down at the youth, unsure of what to make of him. At one point, he had pretended to be a paternal figure for Luke but once that longing Luke felt for his father became evident, it became an antagonistic one. He did not like competing against his own apprentice and made sure that Luke knew that.

“You have grown strong in the Force, my child. So much time has passed since you have come into our care,” Palpatine said, feigning compassion. Underneath his robe, he pulled out a foreign lightsaber and pointed it directly at Luke. “We almost missed you growing into a man. How would you like to finally have your own lightsaber?”

Luke’s eyes widened and he leapt to his feet.

“Yes, I figured as much. You have such a thirst to prove yourself. This particular one belonged to your father.. many years ago. He proved himself weak and lost it. Now, I give it to you,” Palpatine said and turned on the saber. Cyan light shone out of it and reflected onto the youth’s face, his hand extended and eager to reach for it. “Take it.”

Luke grabbed the lightsaber with his right hand and waved it into the air, slicing and stabbing into invisible opponents. The Emperor smiled behind him and went back into his chair. “You will become stronger than your father. That is why I give you this lightsaber. Tell me, boy, do you ever see yourself at my side? Ruling the galaxy together?”

The youth blinked and made sure to block his mind, for that was never a dream of his own. He longed to rule it, sure, but with his father. But a half-truth is still a truth. “Yes. It is my dream,” though not entirely the same dream as Palpatine’s.

“I thought as much. You’ve always sought adventure, jealous of those that got to escape this station. Now is your chance, Skywalker. I am going to give you an offer,” Palpatine said, sighing and presenting a sinister smile. “You can become the second in command of this great Empire. Yes, your youthful impulsiveness is just what it needs. Lord Vader has become.. too guarded and detached.”

“Lord Vader?”

“Not a Lord for much longer, I’m afraid. You’d love to learn more about The Force? Secrets few know of? I could make you a Sith.. become my apprentice.. and replace Vader. Yes, with that lightsaber, formerly his and now your own, you will end his life. And your own will begin. I do not care how long it takes though do not test my patience. Begone, my friend. Your true journey with the Force begins,” he says with a sickly laugh. Crimson guards appear from the shadows and escort Luke out of his chambers — his mind circling with confusion and dread.

The lightsaber in his right hand is heavy and he can feel a terrible weight clinging unto his soul; this was all a test, he assumed. The Emperor wanted to know who his allegiance was toward, him or his father. To Luke, this was a simple answer but he had no way of knowing if his father felt the same way. What if he sensed his disloyalty to the Emperor and killed him in his tracks? But maybe he wouldn’t.

Luke could hear the overhead intercom announcing Vader’s shuttle. He made his way to the hanger and watched in awe as the incredible Sith exited his vessel, a colossus amongst all. Luke gripped his new lightsaber tightly as Vader got closer and closer. What was he going to do? Was there any option?

“Vader,” Luke said loudly. “Father.”

Lord Vader suddenly went completely still and stared at his son, looking carefully at the lightsaber that was held in his grasp. Neither man made any movement as stormtroopers and officers passed over them both. “Hello, Luke,” Vader finally said, nodding at him as he began to walk away before stopping once more.

“My son.”

#luke skywalker #star wars #darth vader #emperor palpatine #ficlet

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hansoulo · 4 years ago

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lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall

༓ series masterlist ༓

Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him. The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

#boba fett x reader #boba fett/reader #boba fett fanfiction #boba fett x you #boba fett imagine #boba fett oneshot #star wars fanfiction

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mnmovdoom · 2 years ago

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DAY 24 - “I don’t want to do this anymore.” (SW: Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa)

( Set in the Ghostverse. A little companion to chapter 13 - Like Father like son, from my BobaLuke fic Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.)

*********

Luke had known that Leia would be furious the moment she learned that he had been involved in the attack to the New Republican prison-ship. Still, deep down, he had hoped that she'd understand his reasons.

If he hadn’t joined Bossk’s team, Boba wouldn’t have either and Luke wouldn’t have been able to make sure that there would be no bloodshed. But with him piloting the Slave I, Boba made sure that Bossk and Hondo kept the pirates from killing uselessly.

At the end of the day, the New Republic hadn’t lost anyone except for the three Imperial officers that were taken to Ord Cantrell to join their own. No lives had been lost, and Luke and Boba had gotten their fair share of the credits - in Luke’s opinion, it had been a good day.

But Leia didn’t think so, and when R2 announced she was trying to get to Luke, he knew what was coming. The happiness over Boba having given him armour remained unchanged, untainted by the innate knowledge that it would be a day of loss. But Luke was ready to accept it, even though it pained him.

Anakin had wanted to stay and give Luke moral support during the holo-call with his sister, but Jango eventually managed to convince him to give Luke space. Boba was a little reluctant in leaving, but he eventually followed the ghosts out of the room and, once the door closed behind them, it was just Luke and R2. Deep down, Luke would’ve preferred to do this with Boba’s and the ghosts’ comforting presences around him. But he had brought this upon himself, so it was up to him to sort this on his own.

As soon as he put Leia’s transmission through, a holo of her popped up, with her arms crossed and the type of irate expression Luke had genuinely thought was meant for Han alone. He didn’t say anything at first, not as Leia’s eyes narrowed and she studied him critically. Finally, she set her jaw and met his gaze:

“You’re wearing armour,” she noted without greeting.

“Boba just gave it to me,” Luke replied quietly, watching a myriad of emotions flashing through his twin’s face. He reached to her through the Force, because regardless of the physical distance between them, they were twins and had a link that was impossible to break.

Yet another kind of distance was now separating them, and while their bond couldn’t be severed, it could be irreparably damaged.

At that moment, Luke realised that was the case.

“We need to talk about you and Fett. And Vader,” Leia said sternly, her arms still crossed over her chest. Luke just nodded, so Leia continued. “Ever since you set out with Fett and… that ghost… you’ve been undoing everything we worked for all these years!”

“Because three Imps escaped and everyone else walked away alive?” Luke asked, raising both eyebrows for emphasis. His flippant tone only irked Leia some more, judging by how her eyes widened a little:

“No, because you’re going around killing people, Luke!!”

“They’re slavers and murderers, Leia!”

“They must be brought to justice! There’s still much work to do to uproot the Empire’s influence from the galaxy, and this is no time to go around killing crime lords as you please! What if everyone starts killing whoever they want instead of taking them to justice??” Leia’s tone was passionate, the kind that bordered aggressiveness and that she reserved to address pilots before missions. Luke had heard it plenty, but while it had awed him in the past, it hurt him now.

She didn’t want to understand.

“You’re not upset about that,” Luke pointed out, tilting his head to the side, barely needing to comb through Leia’s anger. It was the same issue as when they met in Chandrila and it had nothing to do with killing slavers and crime lords. “You’re upset that it’s me, and I used to be a symbol for the Rebellion.”

At his words, Leia’s expression became guarded. She worked her jaw, then took in a deep breath and her arms fell to her sides:

“Everyone knows it’s you who’s all over the HoloNet, Luke. You left without a word with your green lightsaber, and now-”

“But I’m no longer a symbol for the Rebellion, Leia,” Sighing, Luke rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m my own person.”

“You’ve always been your own person, Luke!” She sounded shocked, which earned her a sceptical look. “I don’t know what kind of lies Vader and Fett have been filling your head with, but-”

“Why do you think it’s them, why don’t you believe that’s how I see it when I look back??” Raising his voice now, Luke shook his head in disbelief and unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, holding it for Leia to see. “The pilot that destroyed the Death Star. The Jedi who everyone wanted to see wielding his lightsaber for show, the-”

“You gave us all hope, Luke!!” Leia’s eyes were wide and furious, her teeth bared in a snarl. Was she even aware of how her temper was so much like their father’s?

“That made you all think I can’t go my own way! That I’ll just… be your Jedi forever!” Frustration began to get a hold of Luke, no matter that he didn’t want to. “I’m your twin brother, Leia! I’m your friend, and Han’s and Chewie’s and Lando’s and everyone’s! Why are you so upset with how I’ve chosen to live my life if I’m not harming any of you or doing anything to bring down what you’re trying to do?? Why does it matter so much that I was piloting when those three Imps were taken if everyone else walked away with their lives??” There was no answer to that, so Luke kept going, pouring out how hurt he felt. “When we met in Chandrila I apologised for having disappeared and told you everything that was going on, I told you about our father. You know how much he means to me and that he saved me from the Emperor, but you couldn’t accept that I want to be with him and that he’s redeemed,” A pause for Luke to take in a deep breath and try to rein himself in. “But when you asked my help because of the pirate attacks on the convoys? I went to help you. If you need help again, I’ll help you. I didn’t change that much, Leia. Why can’t you just let me go my own way if you know I’ll go back to you?”

The silence that settled between them was loaded. Leia’s expression in the holo was unreadable, and Luke couldn’t get to her through their damaged bond. He could feel her presence in the Force, but not her . Realising he was still clutching his lightsaber, Luke clipped it to his belt again, seizing the opportunity that he was looking away from Leia to speak again.

“I’m just doing what feels right for me, Leia. I’m helping people in the only way I can.”

“You can help people by helping the New Republic! Namely by not killing criminals without a trial and by breaking out Imperial prisoners!” Leia snapped, and at her tone, Luke shut his eyes for a moment.

Like their father, Leia was unforgiving when defending what she loved.

And Luke wouldn’t be her downfall:

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Luke muttered, looking at Leia’s holo again. “I’m not a Rebel, I’m not a New Republican, I’m not a Jedi. I’m Luke Skywalker, and I want to live my life doing what feels right to me, not to an institution,” He paused again, to try and steady his voice. “Do I still have my sister and friends?”

There was no immediate answer. Leia, with a perfectly schooled face, looked impassively at Luke. That was the face of a politician, of someone willing to sacrifice the personal to achieve the professional, and Luke swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“You’ll always have your sister, Luke,” Leia said quietly, with the intonation of a farewell.

The transmission was cut.

For a moment, Luke stared with empty eyes at where Leia’s holo had been, suddenly so drained that he didn’t even hear R2’s sad beeps and didn’t respond when he gently bumped against his legs. It was like a part of his heart was finally no longer there, an aching piece that had been slowly tearing itself off from the whole.

It hurt, yet Luke wiped his face to the back of his flesh hand.

It hurt, but he would live.

#whumptober2022 #no.24 #I don't want to do this anymore #Star Wars #fic #Luke Skywalker #Leia Organa #my writing #set in the Ghostverse

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spell-cleaver · 4 years ago

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DAY 31: WHUMPTOBER: Today’s Special: Torture - Left For Dead @whumptober2020

Last day, and last prompt!! I actually finished this challenge holy shit. This one was written when i was very tired, so don’t expect the same quality as the others, but it’s!! The!! Last!! One!! I’m excited, and i’m proud :D

His side was in agony, his legs shaking, but he dragged himself forwards, branch by bloodied branch, and tried not to vomit.

The ambush had been devastating.

Luke— Luke had barely been at war for a few weeks, and he didn’t know what to do here. The strike team were all dead. All of them. Even— even the commander, and the captain, the one who’d smiled at him and reassured him when he looked like he was in over his head… they were all dead.

That Imperial team had utterly obliterated them. Hunted them for sport.

And Vader had been there.

Luke… hadn’t seen him, per se. But he’d heard that respirator—the wheezing, rasping sound he’d heard on the Death Star when Ben had been killed, the one that so many Rebels told stories of—and the Force had run cold around him, warning him… And then he’d turned his head to warn his comrades and—

He’d been too late.

They’d told him to run.

He was still running.

He’d— he’d felt all of his friends die, with an intensity he didn’t want and didn’t need, that crippled him as he ran and made him want to collapse into the undergrowth and never move again. But becoming food for the trees would not them; it would not help Han and Leia, waiting for him; it would not help Ben, who had died for him; and it would certainly not help his aunt and uncle, who had lived for and raised him. He wanted to stop, but he didn’t want to die—and so he would just keep running.

And running.

It was when he stumbled upon a black heap in the woods that he screamed.

His side hurt—he’d been shot at as he booked it away from that strike team. His leg hurt, and he limped badly; he’d twisted it in a tree root. His head throbbed, like his heart had metastasised into his temple; he’d bashed it hard on that tree root as he went down. That was when he’d first thought about not getting up again.

Even so, even through all the pain and fear and panic… he recognised the dark lord lying limp in the middle of the glade.

He drew his blaster and crept forward.

That… that was Vader alright—though his infamous breathing was nowhere to be heard. It was… stuttering, almost, the respirator. And Vader was propped up against a tree, one of his arms hanging limp enough that Luke knew it was… off. Either that was absolutely shattered and limp and broken, or that was a prosthetic that had had a few crucial wires cut. Knowing what he’d heard about Vader, he was inclined to think the latter.

Luke should run.

He should take the opportunity that was the fact Vader hadn’t spotted him yet, and run.

But…

Vader seemed unconscious. He was lying half-upright against a tree, his arm limp, his breathing erratic, utterly still. Luke had a blaster.

He could end it here and the galaxy would be all the better for it.

He drew his blaster and crept forwards.

Lifted it, flicking it to kill, and took aim—

Then tossed it away from him, grunting, disgusted with himself.

He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hands. Stars, he was pathetic.

“You are most pathetic.”

Great. Luke gritted his teeth. So the monster wasn’t unconscious, and Luke was probably dead.

“Yeah, I know that already,” Luke said. “I’ve been told that. But I’m not about to kill a man in cold blood.”

Vader’s helmet didn’t move, but Luke could feel his gaze on him. “Pathetic.”

Luke scowled.

“You truly care so much about the fact that a man seems powerless in your inability to take the upper hand?” Vader growled. “I am not powerless.”

And then there was something around Luke’s throat.

Something around his throat, and he was yanked into the air, gasping, head pounding and lights flashing, his neck screaming—

He landed back on the ground, chest in agony, pain spearing up his leg again and making it worse.

“Let that be a demonstration to you, boy.”

Luke gritted his teeth and rubbed his throat. “I still don’t want to kill you when all you have to fight back is a few petty tricks.”

“Petty tricks…”

It was a low blow. Luke knew that. Especially since he wanted to learn the Force himself.

He didn’t care.

He wasn’t going to kill someone when they couldn’t even stand up.

“Strange morals,” Vader goaded, “from a boy who destroyed a million people on the Death Star mere weeks ago.”

Luke snapped his eyes open and snapped his head to look at Vader. “What!?”

“Am I incorrect? I recognise your signature, boy. Would that I had shot you down before that freighter had appeared.”

Luke clenched his jaw. “That was you. And it was you who destroyed my squadron now.”

“That was Doctor Cylo and his sadistic minions,” Vader informed him. “I was simply observing. If I had been in command, you would have died with them.”

Luke clenched his fists to stop them from shaking.

“What even happened to you!?” he asked. “You didn’t look like this when you were slaughtering. Did you trip over a tree root or something?”

“You are the only one foolish enough for such a stunt, I feel. Cease your yammering.”

Luke stared at Vader’s limbs. The fact that he wasn’t standing… that implied the legs weren’t working either. “Someone sabotaged your suit?”

Vader said nothing.

Luke, goaded on by his silence, said, “Your companions sabotaged your suit? And left you to die?”

“I told you,” Vader growled, and suddenly the lightsaber leapt off his belt to scythe through the air at Luke, lit and leering; Luke dived out of the way only to cry out when he hit the ground—“to cease talking. Continue trekking through the undergrowth with your injuries and die of infection or starvation or something equally ignoble. I have no time for you—I have no interest, nor do you have any importance.”

“The fact that you haven’t killed me yet makes that clear,” Luke muttered. “Though you’ve certainly killed everyone else.”

“Your friends are Rebels. You are a Rebel.”

“You killed my father.”

Vader scoffed… then froze.

“You were with Kenobi on the Death Star,” he realised, slowly.

Luke frowned. “Yes? You— you cut him down—”

“Obi-Wan,” Vader ground out, “was your—”

“What?” Luke could see where this was going. “No! He was going to be my teacher, but then you killed him. He wasn’t my father.” Vader didn’t react to that beyond a huff, at first, but Luke folded his arms and said, “My father was his student.”

And then Vader jerked his head up.

“His… student…” he repeated, very clearly.

Luke frowned. “Yes. Anakin Skywalker. This was his lightsaber—” He reached for his belt, only to grasp plain air.

Vader had already summoned the lightsaber to hover in front of him, examining it closely. “This…” he said hoarsely. “This was your father’s lightsaber.”

Luke nodded.

He felt exposed saying this to Vader. He felt— why was he talking to him!? Why hadn’t he just killed him, or just kept running!?

Because he was tired.

Because he was curious about Vader, and scared of him at the same time.

Because a part of him knew that if he didn’t confront him now, when he was weakened, he might never get another chance to confront him and walk away alive.

He was so, so tired. Everything hurt.

Then—to his immense astonishment—Vader tossed it back to him.

Luke gaped, but caught it—sort of. It bounced off his arm and into the undergrowth, and he scrabbled to get it back.

“You are Anakin Skywalker’s son,” Vader said.

Luke scowled. “Yes. What—”

“You are skilled in piloting. Are you also a skilled mechanic?”

“What?”

“Are you a skilled mechanic?”

“Yes, but—"

“Fix my legs. Now.”

Luke gaped. “What? You— I just told you that you killed my father, and—”

“I did not kill your father, Luke. He is not dead.”

Luke had not told Vader his name.

“What!?” Hope soared in his chest, only to be soured by sense—Vader was lying. Of course he was. “My father is dead—Ben told me—”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is a liar and a fool. Of course he lied to you. But I will tell you the truth… if you fix my legs.”

Luke shuddered—shook his head, and shuddered. “No. No, why should I ever believe you?”

“If you help me, I will tell you where your father is now.”

Luke shouldn’t.

He really, really shouldn’t.

But… the Force, he thought, was telling him that Vader wasn’t lying.

“You will not get off this planet without me anyway, Luke,” Vader said softly. “All your Rebels friends will assume you died with the others. No one is coming to rescue you. But I will help you escape.”

Luke closed his eyes. “Just if I fix your legs?”

“That is my only price.”

Luke swallowed.

This made no manner of sense at all.

But he wanted to know about his father.

He needed to know about his father.

“Alright,” he said, and stepped towards Vader.

#whumptober2020 #whumptober #my writing #random words on a page #luke skywalker #darth vader #for darkness shows the stars #flash fiction #flash fiction: star wars

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25centsoda · 4 years ago

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An Unintended Side Effect 7/?

Before we get to the story, a note: This will be going on hiatus until January 9th when I’m done with the Winter Exchange Fic event, but I’ll be posting chapters up to this one on my AO3 account until then! Next Monday I’ll post a link to this story on AO3. Thanks for reading, and thanks to sorayume for reading over this before I published it!

Luke was determined to wrest more time off the drugs for himself. Vader wasn’t always able to sit with him while he ate in the mornings, and after several days without an escape attempt of any sort his father wasn’t watching him all that closely. How much trouble, after all, could he get into while he could barely focus on anything?

This mission, however, was simple enough to hold onto.

He was determined not to take anything Vader gave him, or ordered given to him, just to be safe. He’d get one of the officers or 501st to get him water if he really needed it. Try as Owen and Beru had, there’d been hard times a few seasons on the moisture farm. Luke knew what hunger and thirst were like; he’d be fine.

Rather than eat the breakfast that was delivered to him by a Stormtrooper, Luke waited until they left and flushed it down the ‘fresher, pouring the water down the sink. Then he went back to the couch in the main part of his rooms to wait for his father to retrieve him for the day, if he came. He was glad not to be falling asleep mid-morning again, but now that he didn’t have a fresh dose to pull him under again he was realizing there wasn’t much - or really anything - for him to do, unless he wanted to run through katas or other exercises, which would just make him miss food and water all the more.

It was going to be a long day.

-------

Unfortunately, his hunger strike didn’t make it that far. He was able to pull off a pretty convincing act, or at least he thought so, but Vader was not so easily fooled. It didn’t take the Dark Lord long to realize his son suddenly had a normal reaction time when an officer walked up to them on the bridge and Luke turned to look at the woman immediately.

Vader sighed. “Luke.”

“What?” Luke said, obstinate and refusing to look at his father.

“I know you have done something, my son. What did you do this time?”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

It wasn’t technically a lie. Inaction, after all, wasn’t doing something.

“Luke.”

He caved. Over half a day without food or water (and the resultant headache) after weeks of being drugged made him ill prepared to fight, particularly if his father was going to resort to pressing on him with the Force like that.

But it was worth the try.

“Fine, I haven’t eaten or drank anything all day, happy?”

Addressing a nearby Stormtrooper, Vader said, “Get this boy water and a meal, immediately.” To his son, softer, “Sit down, I know you must be fatigued.”

Luke sighed, but sank gratefully onto the stool some technician scurried over with. “Thanks,” he murmured to the man, embarrassed. What the crew outside of the Stormtroopers that babysat him thought of his near-constant presence on the ship and his tendency to faint if he walked around for too long, Luke didn’t even want to know.

“Father,” he said, looking up at the Dark Lord, “can I at least eat somewhere else, that’s not in front of the entire bridge?”

Vader seemed for a moment like he would deny this request, but he caved pretty easily too, when Luke asked for things that weren’t release.

“Yes, but someone will have to watch you.”

When the Stormtrooper came back with a tray, Vader directed him to take it and Luke to the officer’s lounge and to ensure that he actually ate the food and drank the water, then to report back. Luke would be able to rejoin him or return to his rooms afterwards, if he wished.

Luke sulked as he picked at his food, electing mostly to drink the water in the hopes that he wouldn’t fall asleep immediately. The ‘trooper didn’t say anything, even though Luke recognized his Force signature as a guard he’d had often, and for that he was grateful. It’d be a week at least before his father even started to let down his guard again, if he ever did. Maybe Luke would let the next couple opportunities slide by, get Vader to think he was giving up.

Having eaten just enough to stave off the nausea of an empty stomach, he pushed the tray across the table. “Finished. Can I go back to my room now?”

“Are you sure, your highness? There’s still quite a lot left.”

Sighing, he took one more bite, then pushed the tray away again. “Yes. I’ll eat at dinner later, anyway.”

“Very well, sir.”

------

Unknown days later, Luke laid across the couch in his father’s office, head in Vader’s lap, eyes closed as he listened. Vader’s fingers carded through his hair. He hadn’t been let out of his sight unless necessary since the attempted hunger strike, and Luke didn’t bother to look for opportunities to try anything else. Information, however, was easier to come by, as his father took him to nearly every meeting. The main issue was paying attention when every distraction shattered his focus like glass.

“Supplies are good, sir, we shouldn’t even need to refuel for several cycles yet. Prisoners are scheduled to be transferred tomorrow.”

Prisoners? Transferred?

Luke fought to keep the frown off his face so his father wouldn’t know he was listening. Either he’d be sent out of the room or all the way to sleep if Vader found out.

“Good, Admiral. Dismissed.”

He felt the dark sun of his father’s attention turn to him as the hand stilled in his hair, but didn’t react.

“Luke,” the Dark Lord rumbled. “I know you are awake.”

“Mm, barely,” he lied, blinking his eyes open. “Was that Piett?”

“It was nothing of your concern, my son. Sleep.” Vader said, pushing the Force into the last word.

Luke fell into darkness.

-----

Midmorning, after Piett left with the empty breakfast tray to attend to something on the ship, Luke paced the main room of his suite, trying to hold onto the Force as long as he could before the drugs stole it away from him. Reaching out, he felt something odd; there was someone familiar on the ship, possibly multiple someones. He stopped dead in his tracks and gathered the tatters of his focus, trying to find the source of that feeling again. He felt the dark mass that was his father, but turned away; that wasn’t what had caught his attention.

Suddenly, he remembered what he’d overheard in Vader’s office the previous day.

Prisoner transfer.

It could be rebels!

Quickly, before the thought could slip away from him, Luke retrieved the bottle of antidote the Emperor gave him. It had been a while since he had last had it, although he couldn’t quite figure out the exact number of days, so it should be fine. He downed it, grimacing at the bitterness, then went back to the door out of his rooms.

Now how to get the door open…

Just as he thought that, mind still slow from weeks on the tranquilizer despite Palpatine’s antidote, the door slid open to reveal R2D2.

“Artoo?” Luke said, baffled.

R2 beeped excitedly and began rolling down the hallway, presumably expecting Luke to follow. Shaking himself again, he ran after the droid.

“How did you find me? What are you doing here? Who else is here?” he asked, catching up.

The astromech trilled and beeped, but he couldn’t quite parse out the binary. Something about the Princess and being glad to see him.

“Is Leia here?”

R2D2 didn’t answer, instead rolling up to the wall and connecting to the interface, doing something that closed off the hallway behind them. On the small screen next to him, words began scrolling.

“I SAW YOUR NAME IN THE DATABASE WHEN I RELEASED PRINCESS LEIA. WE WILL MEET HER AND LANDO CALRISSIAN IN THE HANGAR, CHEWBACCA IS WAITING IN THE FALCON.”

“Lando? Were you not able to go ahead with the plan to rescue Han?”

“I WILL EXPLAIN LATER. NOW WE MUST GO.”

With that, R2 disconnected from the wall and rolled away, continuing down the hallway. Luke followed.

Somehow, they didn’t run into any Stormtroopers. He had a bad feeling about that, but he forgot all about it when they reached the hangar and he saw his friend.

“Luke, is that you?” Leia cried, running to hug him. He caught her with an oof, laughing.

“Leia! Oh, I started to think I’d never see you again!”

“What happened to you, you’ve been missing for weeks!”

They separated from their hug but continued to hold hands. He glanced at the hallway behind them, still thankfully empty, but he could feel a bunch of ‘troopers headed their way.

“What are you waiting for, come on! Chewie’s gonna take off without you if you don’t hurry up!” Lando shouted, hanging out of the Falcon.

“Not now, we have to go. I’ll catch you up on the way.” Luke said, letting go of Leia’s hand.

As soon as they climbed up the ramp into the Falcon, rows of ‘troopers stormed into the hangar, the static of stun shots buzzing around them as the ramp closed. Within moments, however, they were off, without so much as a tractor beam holding them back.

Luke collapsed to the shouts of his friends the moment they entered hyperspace.

#an unintended side effect #fanfiction #fanfic #star wars #my writing #luke skywalker #darth vader #father #leia organa #r2d2 #aaaaaaand he's out #hope that works out for him #:)

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thesoobfiles · 4 years ago

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a meeting orchestrated by the force – a. skywalker

Request: @originalposter-96, Can I ask for an Anakin Skywalker imagine? The reader knew him as she was in his training, but when he turned away for the dark side, she doesn’t see him for a long while. When they meet again, she’s a singer in a band. Now, as Darth Vader, he’s surprised to see how much she’s changed. She was performing at a party that he showed up to after feeling the force bond between them. She fails to see him in the crowd as her band performs ‘Slim Pickens’ by the Offspring. After the song, he couldn’t help but worry about her. He doesn’t know how to settle his feelings when he sees her. Once he finds her, they reunite at last and he tries to reassure her that he still cares for her.

Words: 1.8k

A/N: alright, so for the sake of the imagine, Vader is not a crispy boy and didn’t get severely burned on Mustafar. also, the Outlander Club on Coruscant is real; it’s the club Obi-Wan and Anakin went into in Attack of the Clones to catch the shapeshifter… and i don’t know if there’s something wrong with my inbox or something but it isn’t showing me the ask so i can’t respond to it… anyways, hope you enjoy!

You were the lead singer in a band, ‘Toy Soldiers’. The band consisted of a Twi’lek drummer, a Rodian bassist and a Gungan guitarist.

All of you were just starting out, amateurs, but everyone could tell you guys had talent.

The gang was in high demand, eventually being booked at the Outlander Club on Coruscant; everyone was excited because this was only your third gig and everyone already wanted you guys.

Everyone was well acquainted with each other and was buzzing with excitement as they set up; you, on the other hand, were oddly quiet. Something about this place made you feel a very strong connection with a man you had lost many years ago, 10 years to be precise. You shook it off and placed your hand on the mic, ready to sing your heart out.

Little did you know, that man felt the same connection you had and was on his way there.

Darth Vader was ordinarily more machine than man; his intimidating suit paired with his prosthetic arms and legs made this so. He rarely had the opportunity to lounge around without his suit given his position.

Vader often had trouble rekindling with the Force; however, he couldn’t deny the strong pull he felt to a certain club he visited in his youth.

(Y/N).

Darth Vader hadn’t seen (Y/N) since he was Anakin Skywalker, but he abandoned that name long ago in favor of his new moniker.

Take me for a ride

I’m the one you pushed aside

But it’s coming back to you

Yeah it’s coming back to you, hey!

He left his quarters in a hurry and boarded his starship immediately.

Run to the sound

Take it back and double down

‘Cause it’s coming back to you

Yeah it’s coming back to you

Wearing his everyday suit would obviously make him stick out like a sore thumb; so, he packed the only clothes he still had: his Jedi robes. He knew it was risky; he knew there was the slight chance someone might recognize him as a Jedi, as Anakin Skywalker, but he grabbed them anyway. He sloppily landed his ship and quickly made his way over to the Outlander Club. He changed into his old rags; the clothes that had so much bad history woven into the fabric, it made him sick.

Well

Well we’re pouring gasoline

So dance around the fire that we once believed in

He walked in and the first thing he say was you; he was taken back by the sight and froze to the spot. You’ve changed so much, but at the same time, not at all.

It’ll never be the same, now

‘Cause there’s nothing left for us to be

Give it up the champions of greed

So come around and have another round of me

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you sing before; when would you guys, as Jedi’s, have time to sing? He shakes the memory from his head and basks in the smoothness and the raw intensity of your voice.

Dance f***er dance, let the motherf***er burn, hey!

You belted the lyrics with all of your soul and you feel oddly connected to it as well. This song makes you think of a time when the Empire wasn’t around; when Anakin was still by your side.

Snake’s in the grass while you are living in the past

Say what’re you gonna do?

Yeah what’re you gonna do, hey!

For some reason, the connection you felt earlier this evening is only getting stronger. It’s been so long since you’ve felt this connection, let alone so strongly. He must be here, but how?

Earn never learn

When you’re cheering while it burns

Yeah we’re coming after you

Yeah we’re coming after you, hey!

You are too caught up in your thoughts to notice, but the crowd is going wild. They love you guys and you’re too in your feelings to enjoy it.

Slim Pickens well he does the right thing

And he ride the bomb to hell

Yeah he rides the bomb to hell

It is truly unfortunate, the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker; doing what he thought was the right thing. He left – no, slaughtered – the Jedi Order: the remaining Padawans, Knights and Masters were all left to the same fate.

Watch the pulse, it quickens after every little sting

If you’re gonna go to hell

Drinking up you might as well

Your heartbeat picks up as the connection grows stronger; Anakin always had that effect on you. You couldn’t see him as the club was filled to the brim, but your Ani walks closer with every word that leaves your mouth.

Are you really gonna take it like that?

Riding on the missile with the cowboy hat, and

Well the world is gonna end

So dance around the fire that we once believed in

You’re brought back to Order 66, seeing the bodies of your Jedi friends thrown to the floor with reckless abandon. The brilliant life that once filled their eyes replaced by a dull shade of its former color.

Wanna tear it down again, now

‘Cause there’s nothing left for us to be

Give it up to the sons of anarchy

So come around and have another round of me

Tears form in the corners of your eyes and you blink them away; when you and your teammates were practicing this song during rehearsal, you didn’t feel such a strong connection with it. Why now?

Dance f***er dance, let the motherf***er burn, hey!

But, now, here. In this cantina, singing this song, with the pull of long forgotten connection, with the possible presence of Anakin Skywalker…

Are you really gonna take it like that?

Riding on the missile with the baseball bat, and

You mentally slap yourself on the wrist and try to focus on singing the rest of this song without falling apart.

Well we’re pouring gasoline

So dance around the fire that we once believed in

It’ll never be the same

The takers and the liars that we all believed in

Well we’re going down in flames

So dance around the fire

We dance around the fire

‘Cause it’s never left for us to be

Give it up the champions of grief

So come around and have another round of me

Hey, hey!

Dance f***er dance, let the motherf***er burn, hey!

Applause immediately erupts from the audience; you can sense joy in all of the attended, but there is one who feels worry more than anything else… You and the rest of the ‘Toy Soldiers’ take a bow. You begin to pack up your equipment into your ship.

By now, all of the members in your band had packed up their equipment and have decided to mingle with the locals. You just finished talking with the manager about the revenue when you felt someone coming towards you, someone familiar.

You turned around expecting one of your bandmates, but were instead met with a face you hadn’t seen in a decade. The cooper color of his eyes are unfamiliar and are in the place of the dazzling blue you loved so much.

You whisper his name, “Anakin…”

A name the Dark Lord resented until it left your lips, “(Y/N)…”

You stand there, your feet stuck to the ground of the bar, unsure of what to do.

Was this really happening or is this a fever dream? You thought; however, you weren’t sick and the strong connection you felt earlier suddenly made sense.

“You-you left the Jedi Order…” You stuttered out, “You left Padmé and the baby, you left Obi-Wan… and you left me…”

He was left speechless and didn’t know what to say. The Sith Lord was worried about you and he quickly acted on instinct… Those feelings he had for you all those years ago suddenly came gushing out like a waterfall and his feet carried him over here; however, now that he was standing in front of you, he had no words for his former lover.

Yes, he did leave the Jedi Order; he no longer held their ideals and couldn’t serve under their corruption any longer.

Yes, he did leave Padmé and the baby; however, even though he no longer loved her, he didn’t plan on killing her and their unborn baby.

Yes, he did leave Obi-Wan; his best friend and mentor had sought his death and only one of them was coming out of there alive.

And yes, he did leave you; he thought you had been slaughtered during the order and he couldn’t bear the thought. He had shut that part of himself off; he put it under lock and key and melted the key.

He hadn’t felt the tug of your shared force bond in so many years; maybe it was due to the location or maybe it was destiny. A meeting orchestrated by the Force to bring Anakin back to the light...

Vader closed the distance and engulfed the young woman in a hug, her face buried in his chest, his Jedi robes still holding the scent of Anakin Skywalker, “Now that I have you in my arms, I’ll never let you go again.”

You look up at his face and are met with the ocean blue eyes of the Jedi you fell in love with so many years ago.

You break out in a smile and wrap your arms around his frame.

Anakin Skywalker had come home.

#anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker #sith anakin #sith anakin skywalker #anakin #anakin skywalker imagine #darth vader #star wars #star wars x reader #darth vader x reader #anakin skywalker reader insert #hayden christensen

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theladyfromplanetx · 4 years ago

Text

Dear Lawrence Kasdan So, You Say You Love Han Solo

Dear Lawrence,

I hear there’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on about the Han Solo movie you’re EPing and have co-written with your son. I wish I could tell you I was sorry to hear that, but in all honesty I’ve been hoping for the last few years that someone would kill this project with fire and then nuke it from space for good measure. Sure, most of the reason that large chunks of the nerd world have responded to the very idea of this film is that a lots of people, including me, think it’s a fool’s errand for any actor other than Harrison Ford to strap on Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster. But ever since the release of The Force Awakens, I’ve had a second reason for saying:

to this venture.

I kind of hate to say it, Lawrence, but it’s not me: It’s you.

You see, the The Force Awakens did something to me that even The Star Wars Holiday Special, painfully delivered prequel lines about sand, and the very existence of Jar Jar Binks couldn’t do: The Force Awakens made me regret that Star Wars is still a thing.

It made me regret that children were being introduced to something that used to be innocent and good-hearted by a film that shows that the end game of youthful heroism is failure and running away (and that Han should have stuck to his initial demand of $10,000 all in advance in A New Hope).

It made me angry that nobody among the-powers-that-be looked at it, took a deep breath and said “wait a minute. In shadow-rebooting A New Hope, do we really need to make two of the biggest characters in film history pathetic runaway losers and the other a heartless automaton who would kill her son on (not a)Death Star unless hapless sucker Han showed up to do her bidding and die trying to bring him home…even though that request made not a lick of sense given that the Force-sensitive parent who could actually have had an influence was the bidding mother would have just blown Kylo clear out of the sky had Han not shown up to (1) solve her problem by getting yet another (not a)Death Star shield down and (2) die?“

It made me rue how far we’ve fallen as a critical thinkers when we can be hoodwinked so easily that we spend a couple of billion at the movie theatre on a film that’s dressed up to look and feel like Star Wars, but is utterly life- and hope-denying at its core and presents a kind of nihilism that we’d probably reject as an audience if the words STAR WARS weren’t plastered on it.

Oh, also, the story doesn’t really make any sense.

As you can see, eighteen months later, I can still get a bit aggrieved by all this. However, to quote one of the most egregiously jaw-dropping placeholder lines in The Force Awakens, that is “a story for another day.” (Sorry, Lawrence and JJ, but in a past life, which I call the late 1990s, I went to film school and put in my time in the screenwriting trenches as well. You know and I know that line right there would have gotten you laughed out of an on-line screenwriting class at an unaccredited diploma mill.)

The story for today is that I’m not really keen on the idea of you touching the character of Han Solo again, both because of TFA and because of whatever happened to upend the Solo standalone’s directors. The weight of the evidence coming from the usual suspects (aka unnamed sources) is that the disagreements over the tone of the film and the character of Solo became so vast that somebody had to go. Lord/Miller, as I’ve read in the millions of lines of digital type about this and to which I’m now adding, saw the film and the character as funny, while you insisted that Solo was not funny, but was selfish and sarcastic. Other descriptors of Solo that have been thrown around and attributed to you re: Solo are “narcissistic,” “uncaring,” “out for himself,” and “mean.”

Oh, and you’ve also been quoted as saying you “love Han Solo.”

And therein lies the problem.

Now no one wants a Han Solo movie…hm. I could just stop there for a lot of the fandom, but I’ll proceed.

No one wants a Han Solo movie in which Solo keeps trying to get Chewie to pull his finger, but I’d like to propose, Larry, that perhaps Lord/Miller weren’t the only problem here, because it seems that you actually don’t love the same character that the audience loved in the Original Trilogy. You love the darker version of the character that was tossed around in story conferences and in early drafts and you love the darker story that Lucas toyed with, but decided against using (thank the Makers) in Return of the Jedi. You love the Han Solo that Lucas and Leigh Brackett introduced as the “before” Han at the beginning of A New Hope, but not the “after” he became by the end of that film and the “after-after” he became by the end of ROTJ. Now that Lucas and his lighter view of the Star Wars universe are no longer on the scene, it feels like you’re trying to retcon Han Solo to win a battle you fought and lost long ago and in the process create a smuggler whose heart isn’t actually made of gold anymore.

I know that’s not a very nice thing for me to say, but I can’t help but say it, given how you and JJ had your way with the character in TFA, because he certainly wasn’t the character we left at the end of ROTJ. Nor, I should note, is he the character that we met in Bloodline, the Disney/Lucasfilm novel released after TFA and set five years before it, in which Han and Leia are still happily married and Han is pretty much an identifiable older version of ROTJ Han. TFA Han was an awkward mash-up of a script portraying an aged version of the character we met at the beginning of A New Hope and an actor playing hard against the script to show us a broken man wandering the galaxy and trying to make it work.

That impetus — to remake a beloved hero in a less heroic image — is kind of ugly in any context, despite all the folks who will insist “BUT IT’S REAL” as if real had anything to do with a franchise that for forty years has appealed to the little, innocent part of us that still wants to believe in Santa. It’s particularly a problem when applied to the character of Solo and the role that character plays for Star Wars.

Solo’s not the kid who, twenty minutes into the Original Trilogy, decides he wants to be a Jedi and spends the next five hours and forty minutes of film becoming just that. He’s not the character with royal roots who has been fighting for the good guys since before the first film started and continues to do so until the trilogies end.

He’s the character who has to find his better angels, who has to change in order to become the hero/man/boyfriend/partner/friend he decides he wants to be. He’s a guy who has to overcome his natural instincts for self-preservation. He needs to learn to say “I’m sorry.” He’s snarky, FUNNY, and sometimes grudgingly follows the conscience he’d rather not have in order to do the right thing. He’s not always really convinced about the whole “religion” thing, he’s had some rough times, he’s done some rotten things, and he likes money.

It’s no big mystery why Solo is a fan favorite. It’s Harrison Ford, yes, but its also because Solo is as much like all of us as someone can be in a universe with hyperdrives, lightsabers, and Wookiees. He gives the Star Wars universe some identifiable grounding — and HUMOR. (If you don’t believe me, see: prequels.)

And by the end of Return of the Jedi, Solo became the person we’d all like to believe we are or can be— the one whose better angels have won out and given him a real shot at a happily ever after.

Oh, right, that didn’t happen. Well, it did for 30 plus years, and then it didn’t. Thanks, Larry. Always good to remind myself of Han Solo’s utterly pointless death scene in TFA, a death that many of us steeled ourselves against because we were pretty sure it was coming. It was gutting, though, not because it happened, but because it came at the top of act three of a film that had already stripped the character of his OT arc and also because the death was utterly devoid of heroic meaning or salvific result, given that all it did in the context of the film was turn Darth Emo into Darth Lyle Menendez and make Leia sit down and look somewhat upset.

But it can’t just be a pointlessly sad death of a character who, for all the talking up JJ did about cool rogue Han Solo, wasn’t played that way and didn’t come off that way, right? We all know that when you take down an iconic character like that, you do it with the endgame all planned out. You know exactly how that death — of a parent who rouses himself from his brokenness and ennui to risk his life for son he believes is likely already beyond his reach because the woman he loves has asked him to — will reverberate across the sequel trilogy and, ultimately, we’ll see that Solo’s final act WAS heroic. In fact, it was Kenobi-like. Aslan-like. Christ-like. You gave Solo the ultimate 180-degree arc, didn’t you? He died to save his kid, he died so everybody else could live, and you know it, right, Larry? You’ve got this whole thing mapped out, right, bud? I mean, c’mon, you love Han Solo, so you wouldn’t strip the character of his growth, throw him down an endless shaft (holy cow, dude, you literally shafted him!), and walk away to write another movie about him NOT being a hero, would you?

Oh.

Maybe you did.

So…you’re telling me that it’s possible Han’s final act was utterly futile, solely a device to tell us Darth Emo is really, really evil ? I think we already knew that, given the platypus mask, Vader lust, and the blowing up of a solar system. But, hey, thanks for getting people in our already messed-up world to argue that patricide can be justified; what’s been missing from our pop culture crap stew for the last decade is Star Wars fans arguing that the vastly immoral may be moral because they identify with the patricidal emo character whom they want to end up with the Mary Sue whose mind he attacked in the TFA version of a rape scene. I’ll never know how you avoided feminist outrage there, but count your lucky stars that feminists were so happy to have a female (not)Luke Skywalker in Star Wars that they overlooked that.

So now you move onto the Han Solo film, wherein, after meeting loser, regressed, lost, runaway and dead Han in TFA, we’re going to meet selfish, sarcastic, mean, narcissistic, and out for himself but not funny Han.

Can’t wait. By which I mean I could have happily waited forever, because I wasn’t waiting. I WASN’T WAITING, LARRY.

I get it, though. I’ve seen most of your work. You’re a serious filmmaker — you went from Larry to Lawrence. The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, Accidental Tourist, Mumford. I’ve seen ’em all. God help me, I even saw Dreamcatcher…but that’s a story for another day. What I know from those films is that when you’re calling the shots, nothing is black and white. Everything is a shade of gray.

What I also know is that those films are not made for the part of us that still wants to believe in Santa and that gray is not a good color for Star Wars. Star Wars became the cultural touchstone it is precisely because it jumped into a very gray period in our history, with gas lines and Soviets and malaise, with a black-and-white, good versus evil morality that made everyone just a little bit happier when they left the theatre. You didn’t question if the heroes were heroes or the villains were villains. In its own goofball way, Star Wars — with its complete faith in the power of hope — was countercultural.

Now? The new Star Wars took one look around at our current culture and instead of being countercultural, happily jumped right into the morass and is swimming around in the sludge of relativism. Heroes become failures and run away. Evil characters are given some sort of justification for being evil. Rebels fighting against the Empire are portrayed as assassins instead of people fighting a monstrous evil. The Resistance is some kind of non-governmental paramilitary group. Luke Skywalker thinks the Jedi must end. Oh, and the last two films you’ve written focus on a less noble version of the character you claim to love.

Star Wars is starting to look like a reflection of the worst of us as adults and as a society, instead of a goofy, lovable, out-of-this-galaxy inspiration to kids (and the kid in everyone) to be the best version of themselves.

Hey, I’m sure everyone at Lucasfilm is just fine with this, because these films, despite their shaky worldview, are also printing money, but, Larry, consider that maybe Wonder Woman has proven that there’s still a huge audience for naivete, goodness, and hope. Since you now have Ron Howard, who’s specialized in empathetic leads even in complex films over the years, can you maybe jettison the gray and try to create just one more time not the Han Solo that you love, but the Han Solo that is a combination of you, George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Harrison Ford, and Leigh Brackett?

That’s the Han — the funny, snarky, constantly-irked one who talked a good game about being out for himself but somehow never was when the chips were down — that the audience has loved for forty years, because, in the end, CS Lewis was as right about this as he was about most things:

Oh, and if you could de-age Harrison Ford so he could play the role, that’d be great too…kthxbai.

Best,

Annie

Written in 2017 by Anne Michaela.

#Star Wars #The Force Awakens #Solo #Lawrence Kasdan #Medium.com #sequel trilogy #original trilogy #Han Solo #Anne Michaela #Iron Ladies #2017

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pulpwriterx · 4 years ago

Text

A STAR-CROSSED DYAD

What if Ben and Rey didn’t meet for the first time on Takodana?

ONE: MEETING AND PARTING

Rey sat on her berth on the Millennium Falcon.

Holding a torn pair of leggings.

Crying.

Chewbacca knocked.

Rey let him in.

“I’m sorry, Chewie. I just…I don’t know what to do. What if Master Luke doesn’t want to train me? What if…”

She closed her eyes.

“What if I’m in love, Chewie?”

Chewie told her that even if she was?

It was alright.

***

“Where am I?”

It’s obvious where I am. I’m alone in an interrogation room with a hideous monster, a man so hideous and inhuman, he has to wear a mask.

“You are my guest.”

“Where are the others?”

Dead, I’ll bet.

Maybe it’ll be worse for me.

Maybe he’s just enough of a man to…holy mother Force how far are my legs manacled apart?

“You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends? I have no idea. You still want to kill me?”

He sounds happy about it.

But is he even a man, under that mask?

I had better find out.

In case he’s thinking about doing something to me.

I’m helpless.

He could do anything to me.

“That’s what happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask.”

There is something about him; something that makes me feel like…my life has been a long journey, leading to this room.

This day.

This…?

Fate?

I don’t want this to be my fate.

I don’t want him to be my fate.

He took his mask off.

And stood up.

Mocking her with the fact that he was not a monster.

In Rey’s mind, she was screaming.

Oh no!

It was him.

The Demon Lover, both the Dark Prince whose dusky, saturnine good looks might waylay you in the deepest part of the forest and the Great Beast. The Great God Pan, himself, who would ravish you with his hungry mouth and his big stiff prick after taking you far far far from the path, so far from the path that you might never ever ever want to go back again. This was Man in the Black Mask, her Imperial Lord and Master, in his shiny black jackboots you could see your face in. He was the man that she had waited for on Jakku. And he had always returned to her. The man from the most forbidden of her fantasies. The most shameful of her secret dreams.

She knew him.

She had always known him.

Rey wondered if she looked frightened.

She was.

But not of him.

“You think you came for your new friends. But you came to find me, again. Forget about them. They’re strangers to you. Tell me about the droids.”

And then she was talking.

Giving him some kind of answer.

Talking.

Kylo Ren was still talking.

We’re alone in this room.

He could do anything, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Why should I?

Oh no.

There it was.

The thought she didn’t want to be having.

She continued to resist his attempts to get information out of her, but it was her thoughts that disturbed her.

Why am I like this?

It's because I know this black-hearted son of a bitch would be good for it.

I’d have to kill him later, I would have to, otherwise I would be damned.

Because I know I can come for this bastard until he his balls are empty.

Then I’d have to kill him.

If I did that, the Galaxy would be better off and nobody would know what I did.

Rey was shocked that she had even thought such a thing.

He stopped asking her questions, and looked puzzled.

Rey tried, but she couldn’t stop these thoughts.

They were as unwelcome as a bizarre sexual dream; the kind where you are doing things you would never do, with people who's faces keep changing, and you wake up wondering what your body was thinking when you enjoyed anything so weird.

He's a big man. He has to be almost as tall and burly as Darth fucking Vader. And under that black outifit? Unlike Vader, he is a whole man. Hung like a stallion...

She closed her eyes, to make them go.

These thoughts.

She was beginning to be really afraid.

“…I can take what I want.”

And he did.

He took her thoughts right from her mind.

He took her loneliness, and her desperation.

She tried to hide her deepest secrets from him.

But he knew them.

Don’t let him know about your dreams.

Don’t let him know what you were thinking about him.

“And Han Solo? You feel like he’s the father you never had? He would have disappointed you.”

“Get out of my head!” Rey sneered.

And before she got rid of him?

An angry thought fired out of her mind.

Oh, you bastard, I am going to kill you, but before I do? I’m going to fuck you until your eyes cross!

Kylo Ren recoiled, like she had slapped him.

She heard metal bolts clanging after the blast doors in the interrogation room slammed shut.

“What?”

“Did you forget how to read minds? I said you’re a bastard and I am going to kill you.”

“That was only the first part. I heard the second part, too. I’m not that stupid, Rebel Girl. You have to give me the information, first. Business before pleasure. Just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll free you. And we can talk about you and me.”

I waited for you and I waited for you,and I was so glad when I found you. Why do you have to be this man?

“I’m only one man, Rey. The man you know. The man who loves you. You waited for me for a long, long, long time. In your fear. And you loneliness. But I’ve been looking for you for a long, long, long time. I knew it was you, Rebel Girl. I knew the minute I saw you. Just give me the information. I’ll unlock you from this device, and we can begin our part of the journey. Together.”

And then?

Though she had been waiting so long to hear those words?

Rey began to resist him.

“I’m not giving you anything.”

“We’ll see.”

Not just to resist him, but she could see into his mind.

She heard what he was thinking.

Like he had said it.

“You! You’re afraid! You’re afraid you’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader!”

He looked afraid.

But then?

He looked angry.

But not just angry.

Surprised.

“I knew you were strong in the Force. But not like this.” He told her.

“What?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. And if I am afraid? I’m not afraid that you might kill me! And as for you fucking me until my eyes cross? I will burn you down, Little Rebel Girl. You made yourself forget what a man like me can do to a girl like you? Then I’ll soon remind you.”

Then Kylo Ren broke the connection between them.

Rey was furious.

“Will I? What makes you think that even if I do, I’ll be so impressed! I know exactly what men like you are like! I’ve been on my own, and dealing with them since I was 14 years old! Flyboys and rogues and ruthless pirates and First Order pilots! Some of you are a good time while it lasts, some of you are a disappointment, but either way, then you’re gone, and I’m forgotten! Well I don’t need men like you to remember me! Or to look after me! I can look after myself! I only need a man like you for one thing! So if you’re done fruitlessly rooting around in my mind, Flyboy, and you’re not going to give me anything but a hard time, you can either let me go or kill me! Because I am not telling you shit!” she shouted.

“Flyboy? You think I’m just some flyboy? You don’t really know me, after all these years, do you, little girl! You don’t want to!”

“Oh, please! Don’t make me laugh! You’re just a jumped-up Flyboy in a two-bit Darth Vader costume!”

Why am I goading him?

What is the matter with me?

Then, Rey had an idea.

Make him forget about the map.

Buy some time.

And why not indulge yourself?

This is what you want.

Take it.

He laughed.

He was enjoying this sparring.

“You’ll burn for that, Little Rebel Girl.”

“Talk is cheap, masked man. So, after all this fuck talk, are you going to kiss me, Flyboy, or just stand there and look stupid?”

“You want me to kiss you? While you’re strapped to a gurney? You must have really missed me, Rebel Girl.”

“Maybe I did. But who knows, maybe in the past year your Master had you gelded! Just my luck you'd become some monk, who hasn’t got any real balls. Just kill me and get it over with.”

For a moment, she thought he would slap her, the way he got right in her face.

But he wasn’t angry.

“You’re a real cunt, Little Rebel Girl.”

If he says cunt to me again, I will break out of this thing and rape his face.

“Is that a threat, or a promise?”

Rey blushed red as fire.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes. You did.”

“Get out of my head! I can’t even tell what I’m saying or thinking, anymore! And you know what? You have a cunt, Flyboy! Because if you had a cock you wouldn’t be calling me grammar school names!”

Again, Rey thought he was going to slap her.

But Kylo Ren kissed her, instead.

He pressed his body against hers and kissed her like he was the dark Satanic prince of all the ruthless pirate flyboys, the black-hatted badguy of her dreams.

Because?

He was.

It was very good.

It felt romantic, even.

She was sorry when they had to come up for air.

He didn’t move away from her, and that was just fine.

“Does it feel to you like I have a cunt, Rebel Girl?”

“That’s not fair, Kylo!”

“Fair is for the good guys. Did I ever tell you I was one of the good guys?”

“You know what it feel like to me? It feels to me like you’re as crazy as I am. Why did you stop, Flyboy?”

Got to keep this going.

Give my friends some time.

I’ll kill him later and no one will ever know what I did.

“Because you’re strapped to a gurney, Rebel Girl. I may be a lot of things, but I've never paid for a woman or taken her against her will.”

“Oh, I’m willing, alright. What do I have to do? If I had my hands free I would have got my tits out! Here, you do it! Take your gloves off. You can move my clothes aside.”

“And do what? Give you a cheap feel?”

“No. Give me what you’ve got for me there in your trousers, Flyboy. Get one of my feet loose so I can get these leggings down.”

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to release your feet so you can escape?” he teased her.

Rey felt like screaming.

So, she did.

“Fuck you! Stop playing games with me and just rip it.”

“Rip what?”

“Rip the fucking seam between my legs! Rip my leggings open! I’ll sew them, later. What do you need, a declaration? Fine. You turn me on, Kylo Ren. I like Imperial Flyboys with jackboots so polished I can see my face in them. You know that. So get on with it!”

“I hope you don’t think if you seduce me, I’ll forget about the map. No, I didn’t forget it. Like I said, Rebel Girl. Business before pleasure.”

He went for his mask, to put it back on and without touching him, she pushed him to the ground, screaming in frustration.

“Holy mother Force, this shouldn’t be so difficult! Skip the badguy speech, and forget the map. I’ll never give it to you, so rip my leggings, let down your flies and let’s fucking go! You need more fuck talk? Fine. I like fuck talk! I want your massive stiff Imperial cock, Flyboy. Rebel Girl though I am? I only fuck for Imperials. And you’re the most Imperial man in the Galaxy. I want you inside me. I have no idea why you’re not fucking my brains out, right now!”

Kylo Ren stood up.

He pointed his finger at her.

Emphatically.

“You’re crazy, Rebel Girl. You’re just crazy. But you know what? You’re lucky I like crazy girls!”

He approached her and took off his gloves.

He moved her clothes aside so that her breasts were exposed.

“And there is no man in the Galaxy who’s more Imperial than me.” He growled.

“I know.” Rey couldn’t help but reply.

This time, he kissed her like he was punching her in the stomach, except instead of pain spreading through her belly, it was filled with pleasure and warmth.

His hands, in his black leather gloves that were suffused with the warmth of his body were all over her tits.

And he had gotten even harder.

“Fuck, Kylo, you’re a monster! I made myself forget what a monster you are!” she gasped.

“You bet I am. You asked for it, Rebel Girl. Now you’re going to get it.”

He kissed her again and she saw red, red like blood, and Rey was lost, bound upon a wheel of fire.

The next she knew, Kylo Ren had his hand between her legs, and he was kissing her breasts, and sucking her nipples.

“Oh, Kylo, I wish I could touch you, and hold your head against my body!” she gasped

Kylo, my Lord, my Imperial Lord and Master my Great Beast, my Dark Prince…

Rey started wiggling, trying to wiggle out of her leggings, to wiggle his hands inside her leggings when she heard the sharp sound of the cloth ripping, and they both gasped and looked at each other.

There was no turning back, now.

It wasn’t a game, anymore.

His fingers entwined in her bush were incredulous for a moment, before they went to work.

Rey cried out, sharply.

Almost in anger.

“You’re not faking, Rebel Girl. You’re so wet.” He gasped.

Kylo stopped, licked his fingers, and his eyelids fluttered shut and open again.

Heavy lidded now, with lust.

“That was very dirty.” She panted.

“Let me take you to my bed. I’ll remind you what a good dirty fuck is.”

“Even if I don’t tell you where the map is?”

“Fuck it. All I can think about right now is how much I want your sweet Rebel cunt. I want to lick it. I want to fuck it.” He moaned.

“Hard?” she panted.

“So fucking hard.” he promised.

Rey felt like…like…this was something she didn’t even understand.

A meeting of two minds, two hearts, two souls, two bodies that had once been one, and were desperate to be united, again.

It was something terrible and yet wonderful.

“Holy mother Force, that’s the dirtiest thing anyone’s ever said to me! I can't wait that long for you to get me out of the room, and to wherever your rooms are! I need you, now! I think you just made me come a little!"

He winked at her, smirking, infuriatingly.

“I’m about to make you come a lot.”

Kylo Ren unbuckled his belt, unfastened his surcoat, pulled his tunic up under his chin, and unfastened his pants.

Rey didn’t know how she pulled him towards her; her hands were bound.

It didn’t matter.

She closed her eyes, panting with anticipation and felt something burning between her thighs; the long, thick scepter of the king of her secret dreams.

“Shit! I can’t…I have to unlock one of your legs. If you try to kick me in the head, I will kill you right after I’m done fucking you!” Kylo Ren warned her.

“That’s what I was planning, anyway! Not if I kill you, first!"

"We'll see."

She laughed a little, and so did he.

It was just talk, just sparring.

Kylo Ren unlocked one of Rey’s legs, and grabbed her ankle in his huge hand.

“My leg doesn’t go up that far!”

“It does now.”

He kissed her again as he slowly thrust his cock into her.

Their bodies, so close together, his breath on her neck, her sighs, his moans, his cock moving inside her?

It was like a dream, almost.

Lust, fire, and madness.

The slick, wanton pleasure of a half-waking dream.

***

“…please! You can’t do this to me!”

“No, not for you! I won’t come for you! I’m damned if I come for you!” Rey cried out.

“But this is what you wanted! What we wanted! It was your idea to do it here, and now, like this, not mine! Shit! How can you be so cruel?”

He freed her hand, and held it in his.

Rey opened her eyes and saw desperation in Kylo Ren’s face.

“Rebel Girl, please! I’ve given you what you wanted. My hands have been all over you, and I’m your fool, your stupid cunt-struck fool! You’ve got my cock inside you and I’m naked before you. Please, please I need you to make me feel like I’m a man, and not a monster.”

You did this.

You seduced this man.

Finish it.

“…if I come for you, will you think I’m a monster?” Rey panted.

“No. You need my darkness. I need your light. Neither of us is a monster.”

Rey let it go.

The hell with it.

We’ve done worse.

Kylo freed her other ankle and Rey wrapped her legs around his waist.

He freed her wrists and she put her arms around his neck.

He kissed her and breathed the dark, hot, flames that animated him into her.

Rey's whole body burned.

He thrust deeply into her, over and over again.

“Fuck! Oh fuck! If this is what hellfire feels like, I can’t wait to be damned!” Rey howled.

Kylo Ren laughed a growling Satanic chuckle, from deep in his chest.

“You already are, Rebel Girl. I told you I would burn you down. Now, do you feel it? The true power of the Dark Side? My power? My fire?”

Rey saw stars.

The stars that belonged to Kylo fucking Ren.

“Say it.”

She squeezed his hand, gasping, gulping for air.

He stopped.

She slapped his face, and he laughed, and kissed her, hard.

“What the fuck?” she demanded.

“I told you to say it.”

“Get on with it or I’ll head-butt you, knock you on the floor, jackhammer you into a lower floor and rape your face!” Rey shouted.

"Holy mother Force, no wonder I love you!” he replied.

Kylo Ren kissed Rey again, while lifting her off the gurney, then he put Rey on the floor, slid his hand under her ass and pushed her legs open as far as they could go.

All without missing a stroke.

And then he really gave it to her.

Hard.

Fast.

Relentless.

Only a man who was so fucking bad could be this fucking good.

She felt like she’d just been hit on head with a board.

But in a good way.

Rey screamed something horrible, some vile nonsensical conglomeration of dirty words and cursing.

It was him.

Gods help her, it was.

This was him, this was the man.

“Son of a bitch! You’re him! You’re the one!” she snarled.

“You bet your hot little ass I am. Come for me, Rebel Girl. Come for your Imperial Lord and Master.”

Oh, that was it.

Come for him?

She was going to fucking explode.

“Kylo…hold me, hold me, I'm coming and my fucking eyes are crossed! Oh Kylo, my Lord, my Imperial Lord and Master, my Dark Prince, Kylo…Kylo…Kylo!” she howled.

But Kylo Ren, at the height of his pleasure was beyond words.

He only made the most wonderful, animal sounds.

He pulled out of her, got his hand between them and Rey felt a wet stickiness against the thigh of her leggings.

“And it’s Ben, Rebel Girl. You know I want you to call me Ben when we make love.”

The big man collapsed on top of her as Rey collapsed all over the floor, and for a long time they were a sticky, sweaty, panting inert jumble of arms and legs making an absolute mess of things.

He moved first.

Ben.

That was a real name, Kylo Ren sounded like a made up name.

She already felt less like she had to grab a sharp object and drive it through his heart, them slit her own throat and passionately kiss him goodbye while they were dying.

Now that he was just, well, Ben.

Ben kissed the top of her head, and held her tightly.

“Fuck me, why did you have to happen? I had everything planned so well.”

“Oh gods, Ben, why? Why did he have to be you?”

“Fate. Destiny. Bad luck. But, I won’t be cruel to you. I promise. Thank you, Rebel Girl. For giving me your light.”

“Well, my name is Rey, right?”

And then?

He laughed.

It made her laugh, too.

It was a strangely beautiful moment in an ugly place, and neither of them wanted it to end.

But it did.

***

Rey sat on the bunk, in the little room on the Falcon.

She had taken off her leggings, and she was going to sew the rip in them.

A little further down the leg from the rip, there was a crusty white stain.

Rey picked at it, with her fingernail.

It seemed like quite a lot.

She went to clean it off, with some water from the glass beside her when a sob escaped her throat.

So, I found him again.

My long lost good looking bastard of a flyboy, today.

He told me he came by it, honestly, his father, Han Solo was the same, before him.

Han must really have been a lousy father, because his son, Ben, AKA Kylo Ren, killed him.

The same Ben, AKA Kylo Ren who I seduced into making love to, no, fucking me while he was supposed to be interrogating me, while I was strapped to a gurney.

Well, he had to unstrap me while were fucking, and we did some of it on the floor.

But the real problem is, it turns out, he’s the one.

How do I know?

Well, a girl knows when she’s finally found the big bad man of her dreams, her Dark Prince, her Imperial Lord and Master, especially when he’s fucked her so good that both of their eyes crossed.

I knew when I met him on Jakku.

It’s only that I’m sure, now.

Lucky me, he’s tall, and handsome, as big as a Wookie and hung like one, and he’s one hell of a good fuck.

Maybe the best fuck in the Galaxy.

He should be, he’s the baddest badguy in the Galaxy.

No man in the Galaxy is more Imperial than him.

Unlucky me, he’s Kylo fucking Ren, the murderous mystic and warlord the Resistance is sworn to defeat.

But he’s also Ben.

Ben Solo.

I’ve heard of Ben Solo.

He’s a hotshot flyboy and a dashing ruthless pirate.

And a renegade Grey Jedi.

Typical of me to pick on a man who’s good side is like most people’s evil twin.

But even so?

Ben was a gentleman.

He wanted to take me to bed, but I couldn’t wait.

Still, he made sure I came, and came again, and when he did, he pulled out and here it is, on my leggings.

Apologized, after, for ruining my leggings, after he locked me in the room and came back with some wet towels and some dry ones.

Told me he wasn’t sure if I had an implant, that was why he pulled out.

I told him I had one.

Ben offered me a pair of First Order uniform pants; I declined.

But I did take the unopened package of knickers.

I’ve never worn knickers, before; these First Order ones are a very high grade of cotton, they are quite comfy, very nice.

Always so thoughtful, my man, he guessed perfectly the size and style I would like.

Ben knew I needed his darkness; he said he needed my light.

So, later, after he murdered his father, we almost killed each other with lightsabers.

I gave him a nasty scar for killing Han.

And hurting Finn.

But he asked me to be his student; he wanted to teach me the ways of the Force.

He knows what’s between us, and so do I.

He’s my man, I’m his woman, and we belong to each other.

That’s why he couldn’t understand why I called him a monster.

Couldn’t understand why I left him bleeding in the snow.

The look on his face, I’ll never forget it.

He was a hell of a fighter.

Better than me; he was trying not to kill me.

A hell of a lover, too.

He’s the one, he’s your man, you’re his woman, and he offered to be your teacher. To look after you, and give you something like a life. A life with him. And you left him broken-hearted and bleeding in the snow.

Because he’s also a monster.

Yes, Little Rebel Girl, you’ve had a big day.

Rey crumpled her leggings into a ball, threw them aside, and since nobody could see her doing it?

She cried.

PART 2: A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE

#reylo #reylo daily #reylo romance #reylo smut #tfa reylo #kylo x rey #star wars sequel trilogy #ben solo #reylo canonverse au

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ladyvader23 · 5 years ago

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An Analysis Of "Missing And Presumed Dead" by HeartofStars

This was submitted as a submission, and honestly, as an author, I have never felt so honored. I do not cry, but I cried. To know something you’ve written has touched someone so much to write such a lovely, in-depth, super thoughtful analysis of it without being asked or forced to by a teacher... I’m completely blown away.

I felt that HeartofStars put so much effort into this and it really touched me so I’m reposting, if only for my own self to look at in the future.

And to my readers, thank you. I’m just writing because I love the drama that is the Skywalker family. If it brings any sort of enjoyment, especially during the insanity that surrounds us, I’m happy to share.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you know, I’ve been reading your wonderful story Missing And Presumed Dead since around the end of October, and have gushed at you about it in the comments and on Discord ever since. But instead of just squeeing about it for the millionth time, I thought I’d do something more: while I wait to find out whether Vader will indeed find Luke in time, I’m going to analyze just why the story is so good, using all my knowledge of film, media, philosophy, and Star Wars canon.

Ultimately, Missing And Presumed Dead is so good because it does several things well: it creates tension and conflict almost effortlessly, it places the idea of characters before plot without dragging down the plot,and finally, it is not only perfectly compliant with the characters the way they are in Star Wars canon; unconsciously or not, the story actually delves deeper into the characters, creates emotional moments that make us cry, and heightens our love of these characters.

For those who haven’t read this amazing story–and WHY haven’t you?–many, many spoilers follow.

First of all, let’s tackle the “characters before plot” issue. Before I dive into this, I want to make clear that I am in no way saying that Missing has no plot, or that plot is bad. It is chock full of plot, in fact; but the important thing to note is that the plot, first and foremost, is incredibly simple. In stories, the simpler the plot, the better; and the more the audience(the reader) can keep track of it and what is going on. Missing does that, and it also does something else: the hook is strong. A question often asked of screenwriters or filmmakers when pitching a story is, “Could you describe it in one sentence?” And in this case, the answer is, “absolutely.” In one sentence, the story is: following the events of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is so determined to keep Vader from pursuing him that he fakes his death. There are other things wrapped up in this:

Does Leia know? Answer: Yes. She helps Luke fake his death.

How will Vader respond? Answer: Terribly.

But the reader will find those out as he or she goes along; maybe those questions are at the back of our minds already. They may even drive our interest in reading the story. But regardless, we only need that one hook: Luke fakes his death. That’s enough.

So we’ve established that you create a simple, powerful plot; and from there, what you do is essentially to good storytelling. You put the characters first. You allow them to drive the plot, instead of the other way around; and that, in the end, is what makes it so addicting to read. Luke’s selflessness is what motivates the plot point of him being captured by Black Sun. Leia’s love for her brother is what drives her to travel to Dagobah. Darth Vader’s twisted love for Luke and desire to get revenge motivates him to follow Leia to Dagobah, which in turn leads father and daughter to learn the truth of their relationship…and so on and so forth. Character motivates plot, at every turn; and yet, simultaneously, the plot is never forgotten. It is never “loose,” to use the term; the plotting is tight, leaving no room for plotholes, and yet there are none. (Much as I love the story, I did look for them.) Character and plot are woven together seamlessly, keeping us attached to the story and begging you to know what happens next.

Following on the first point, Missing And Presumed Dead uses this intermingling of character and plot to create intense conflict and tension. Seriously. I’ve read the comments, and everyone–including me–is BEGGING for another update as soon as the chapter is finished. That’s a sign of great writing! As the “guru of screenwriting,” Syd Field, says in his now-famous book on screenwriting, “drama is conflict.” And you sure love your drama. But there are two kinds of conflict that this creates; for the sake of this paragraph, we’ll focus on Darth Vader’s character. In the Hero’s Journey, there are two types of conflicts: internal and external, both different forces working on the character. The external forces are the easiest to create; they’re in the plot. Some of the external forces, for example, are Luke’s apparent death and learning that Leia is his daughter. But what drives him to take action in first trying to get revenge for Luke’s death, and then in finding Luke, are the internal forces. For this story, those are as follows: his guilt–over what happened at Bespin, and over what he did to Leia before he knew she was his daughter–his love for Padme, turned into intense self-loathing, a desire to keep his children from this fate, and finally, his conflicting duties as Sith and father. Eventually, these external and internal forces lead him to express to Luke that he cares about him, in one of the best scenes of the story, which moves the plot forward yet again.

And this leads into my last point, which has to do with the Star Wars characters themselves. What George Lucas wanted to do, in the 1970s, was created a fun adventure film based on serials he’d loved as a kid. And, on the outside, that’s what it looked like. Star Wars looked like a “kid’s thing,” which has led people to dismiss it as such; however, that is far from the truth. Lucas made it for kids; but he also poured themes of psychology and philosophy, stories from myths and universal truths that we all believe, into the story, so that when the same children who watched it in the ‘70s grew up, they suddenly saw those deeper themes, and loved Star Wars even more. This is, no doubt, why so many of us are writing Star Wars fanfiction…but I digress. You have an incredibly deep understanding of these characters, and the philosophy behind them; and THAT is the reason why we’ve kept reading this story, and why it’s grown in popularity.

Let me give you an example. Sigmund Freud, a psychologist in the early 20th century, invented a rather disgusting theory of the relationship between parent and child(namely, father and son because people were sexist back then): that a man’s deep, unconscious desire is to marry his mother and kill his father. It is called the Oedipus Complex, because those two disgusting things are in fact the plot of the ancient Greek story, “Oedipus Rex.” This, Freud claims, is the reason behind the rivalry that exists between a father and his son. Lucas, in the Original Trilogy, at first seems to comply with that; Luke’s greatest enemy was his father, in both a physical and a psychological sense. No doubt any young men who’d been forced by their dads to fight in Vietnam felt vindicated. But then, in the following film, Lucas flipped that idea on its head; the goal of the son, he says, is not to kill his father, but to reconcile with him. At the beginning of Return Of The Jedi, Luke has a need–this is another of those internal forces–to find humanity in his father, because that will mean there is humanity in him as well. It’s like in Lord Of The Rings; Frodo decides to try to redeem Gollum because it will mean that when the Ring is destroyed he, too, can come back.

And you play this out spectacularly. At the beginning of your story, Luke is terrified of Vader, horrified by him; but there is an unconscious need to know that his father is a good person, and more importantly, that he cares about him. So soon after ESB, however, he is tormented by memories of Bespin and ruled by fear; so, even when he is injured beyond belief he still believes that Vader is a terrible person, and rightly so, because Vader has given him no reason to believe otherwise. This ties into Vader’s character; as said before, he struggles with his duty as a Sith and his duty as a father. Essentially, it is the struggle between remaining controlled and becoming free, which is the belief of one philosophy of determinism; we are unfree, our choices determined by everything else, until the motives change and we are aware that we are being controlled. Vader, due to his characteristic stubbornness and self-loathing, does not believe he can become free; he only makes further demands of Luke, trying to tell him that he loves him, yet the words do not quite come out. But thanks to Vader’s relationship with Leia–which, by the way, is a fantastic subplot I did not in the least expect when I started reading this last October, as it delves into a relationship less explored in fanfiction–Vader is eventually able to “stop being a Sith for five minutes” and really talk to Luke. I think I mentioned this moment before, but it is beautiful; it is the moment when both Vader’s and Luke’s arcs reach their full crescendo. Luke learns that his father loves him, as he has unconsciously hoped for the whole time; and Vader learns to put aside fear and Palpatine’s influence and become a father. It made me cry, and it’s a moment built on everything I’ve mentioned thus far: your interweaving of character and plot, the dramatic tension of the story, and the way you stay true to the Star Wars characters. This specific dynamic between them inspired their dynamic in my own story, Family Finds A Way, that Luke and Vader both need these things from one another, they both need to become son and father, but have no way of expressing it because they know nothing about one another.

I believe Kierkegaard said it best: “In ethical terms, Abraham’s relation to Isaac is quite simply this: the father shall love the son more than himself.” This ethical duty is what Vader achieves; and, in turn, begins to improve on his relationships with both Luke and Leia(though he still has a long way to go).

I wish I could say more about this story; I want to say more about how you nail Leia’s character more than I’ve seen before, how you weave Han into the story in a way that is both dramatic and hilarious, how absolutely funny some of the lines are, how human the characters act. But I think I’ve said all this to you on Discord to you or in the comment section; and I wanted to touch on how this is not just fanfiction, what you’ve written. This is art, and I hope you know that it has helped all of us a lot, especially in these trying times, with the coronavirus and all.

So, maybe that was waay too long, but I am not ashamed! I’ve wanted to do a meta analysis of this story for the longest time, and since I’m not on Tumblr, this is the only way I could do it.

Looking forward to the next chapter, and hoping Vader finally manages to find Luke!

-HeartOfStars

#never expected this #idk what to call it #fan review #maybe?#analysis #MPD #Star wars #fanfiction #other people's fantastic writing #crying #submission

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disregardcanon · 5 years ago

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i did some star wars sequels rewrites today! i’m not going to sit here and say they’re good enough to make a whole new trilogy of movies around or anything, but i like them.

a few major changes include: kylo has some more consistent characterization and is the big bad, rose tico is a former stormtrooper (insert fic rec), and the stormtrooper revolution.

So, one important sequels change is that Snoke is his own character. He was a Palpatine sycophant who was eighteen years old when the chancellor became the emperor, and watched from a close advising position, studying how Palpatine managed to manipulate those around him and his use of the force. Palpatine figured him out quickly, of course, but Snoke’s ability with the force was far beneath him and at the time, his primary goal was keeping Palpatine in power.

He studied the best tactics for keeping storm-troopers in line, the best ways for lording power over those with some and those with none, and he undertook extensive study on Darth Vader. He was able to figure out exactly who Darth Vader was, and he studied all available information on Anakin Skywalker. He figured out exactly the ways that Palpatine manipulated this man into becoming his guard dog, and took notes. Someday, he would need one of his own. Snoke was never exceedingly powerful- only smart. If he was powerful enough, he might have struck the Emperor down himself to get that power.

After the fall of the Empire, he tracks down imperial loyalists and sets himself up a stronghold far enough out in the outer rim that no one from the New Republic is going to come to its rescue. He offers a spot of honor to Brendol Hux for implementing a stormtrooper program with stolen children.

Then, he starts bribing territories to join them. He starts conquering. The First Order is becoming a small, but mighty force. By the time that Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school is gaining traction, he has his own small country. He goes to visit, claiming that he will be on the look out for force sensitive youths in his area. Luke does not trust him, at all, but allows him to stay a few days out of curtesy for a fellow force sensitive who isn’t an enemy combatant.

Snoke’s strongest force power, similar to Ahsoka Tano, is reading force signatures. He is able to pick up on the the frustration and entitlement radiating off of young Ben Organa-Solo in waves. He whispers in the boy’s ear about the good old days, when he could have had a place of honor and power instead of a life of living in his mother and uncle’s shadows, without being able to utilize the full power of the force.

He comes from the line of Darth Vader, after all. Most powerful man in the galaxy- able to have whatever he wants. Why should he be restricted to a children’s summer camp where he is only allowed to wave around wooden sticks?

Little Rey, daughter of no one of importance beyond the love they gave her, feels something is wrong. She runs to Master Luke’s room and says that Ben feels wrong. Luke follows her to the door of Ben’s room, and feels the anger and resentment radiating off of him in waves- strong enough to kill. Strong enough that it means he will kill.

Luke tells Rey to run to the room with the other children and then run to the ship to fly away. Then, he opens the door quickly and quietly. Luke tries to kill his sleeping nephew who feels like murder, and is instead knocked out with a force choke.

“Master Snoke warned me that you would try to kill me,” Ben says, clamping his hand down so hard that it nearly ruptures the arteries in Luke’s throat.

Rey hears the sound of children’s dying screams so close behind her that she’s too afraid to try to wake the other children- she just runs. Runs and runs and runs towards the ship that Luke was helping to teach her how to fly recently, and she runs until she can run up the stairs.

She hears heavy breathing coming from behind her, and turns around.

“Little Rey,” Ben says, smile quirking on his lips, “it figures you’d be the one to survive. You were always stronger than the others.” She feels her breath hitch in her throat.

“I don’t think that I’ll kill you,” he says, “I think I could use an apprentice.” She pushes sideways, hitting at the button that closes the hatch. He rips out his lightsaber with a hiss, crystal corrupted to a bright red, and slashes at the door of the Millenium Falcon.

Rey hears the hissing as he grinds at the metal, and she rushes through the halls to the pilot’s chair, gearing up the ship. Then, she pushes the button forward. She flies and flies, adrenaline coursing through her veins- before she lands on the deserted planet of Jakku.

She blocks out her memories of the temple, and makes a home of her ruined ship as she tries to get it flying again.

She eventually gets it back to the point where it’s functional, but she’s afraid enough that she doesn’t fly it- until Finn shows up.

That’s how they get the Falcon. The rest of the plot doesn’t change for the rest of the first movie.

Cue Beginning of the Second Movie

Finn has been in a coma for three months, Page Tico is returning to the Resistance after a few months of shore-leave with a sister that no one knew existed, and Rey has been training with Luke and now is Good At Lightsaber Force Ways.

Kylo Ren is caught in a depressive, angry, tantrum funk because lo and behold, killing his dad didn’t magically make any feelings go away. It just made him feel gross and angry and it didn’t get him any closer to his goals. He monologues at his burnt to a crisp Darth Vader mask. He destroys First Order property. He force chokes some guys.

Snoke is like. Okay. We gotta channel this into something productive. The goddamn primadonna is destroying all my plans. And he notices that Kylo is obsessing over this one girl and is like. Okay let’s channel that into a Padme Amidala thing. Sew the seeds of Darth Vader’s obsession with one woman who led him to the Dark Side and how this is a perfectly normal, dark side thing just as long as he GETS HER. This will keep Kylo focused on one, small side quest and away from that Maybe I Should Just Kill the Old Bastard And Be Done With It thoughts that Snoke has been feeling coming off of him.

I don’t have the whole plot thing down, because I doing this for fun and free on the internet, but the main things are

1. Rose is a former storm trooper who was inspired by Finn to desert the First Order and help the Resistance. She just lost the girl who took her in and called her sister, and she is angry and frustrated with Finn that he’s not immediately the person that she wants him to be.

2. Rey doesn’t believe that Kylo needs to be redeemed, but that he needs to be confronted. She goes with him to beat Snoke, then he tries to convince her to come with him because she is a “nobody” who was left with Luke to train, and if Luke had bothered to track her down after she escaped with the Falcon instead of fucking off to exile she wouldn’t have grown up alone. He is “the only one who understand her” and the “only one who loves her” and Rey doesn’t buy into it and gets tf out.

3. One of the most important conversations in the film is between Rey and Luke, as he tells her the true story of Anakin Skywalker, and how his love for Luke finally brought him back from evil.

4. As the newly appointed Supreme Leader, Kylo decides that his goal is to get rid of the people who still hold claims to the legacies he wants solely for him (his mom and uncle) need to die, and that he will get Rey and rule the galaxy.

5. Rey and Finn reunite with the Resistance base, and they talk about some Revelations and hug tf out of each other. They lose the base and Luke dies, checking off one of Kylo’s to-do list.

6. Leia moves the base to a new location, and says that soon, she will face her son herself. She brought this terror into the world, and she’ll take it out of it.

The next one opens with Finn, Rose, and Poe leading an assault on a storm trooper training facility, where they free children and convince an older battalion led by Jannah to desert and join the cause.

The climax comes when the protagonists break up into 2 groups- the ones who will infiltrate the ranks of the stormtroopers and turn them against the brass, and then Leia and Rey, who will allow themselves to be captured and take down Kylo Ren themselves. They allow themselves to be dragged to his new chambers and he like, shows off all the opulence of Rule ™.

“Don’t you think that I’ve done well for myself, mother?”

“You’ve certainly done something,” she mutters.

“I am the heir to the legacies of Vader, Skywalker, Organa, and Amidala,” he says, haughty and entitled, “who better to rule the galaxy? With my own queen by my side, of course,” He sends Rey a look, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“I taught you nothing, didn’t I?” Leia asks.

“Considering that you were never around, yes,” he says. He goes onto claim that he was a self-made man, all the while calling claim to the legacies that he’s “entitled” to.

“I wasn’t present enough, I will admit,” she says, “but you’ve outworn my sympathy. And my regret.”

“Leaving me with an uncle who treated me just like any other student,” Kylo Ren seethes, “you only did what a mother should, right? Ignoring her child.” He was special; why didn’t anyone treat him that way?

“I wasn’t perfect,” she says, “but I didn’t cause this, Ben. You did this yourself. Just like your grandfather.” Kylo takes out his lightsaber, and he stabs. He twists it, and he brings the blade back in. Leia falls to the ground, dead.

Rey lets out a scream, because this monster- he thinks that he can just kill everyone because they didn’t treat him enough like a king. He’s killed both of his parents, people that Rey is sure she loves far more than he ever did.

Rey struggles against the hold of those stormtroopers and lets out a growl.

“You are a monster,” she hisses.

“One that you’ll come to love,” he says, and there’s a smile on his face. He’s run his mother through and he’s smiling.

“I will never love you,” she spits. He shakes his head indulgently, and walks towards her. He puts a hand gently under chin, tilting it upwards to look him in the eyes.

“Once I destroy that stormtrooper,” he says, “you’ll have no other choice. There will just be me, the only one who deserves your love.” Rey has been a feral, desert creature for most of her life, and she leans forward, mouth bumping against the fragile skin of his inner arm.

Then, she leans in and chomps down in a devastating bite. This time, it’s Ren’s turn to howl in pain.

He reaches in the force for her blue lightsaber, and clutches it in his hand.

“This was my grandfather’s, you know,” he says, “it’s finally back in the right hands.” Rey smiles, big and wide and nasty.

“He would hate the man that you’ve become,” she says, smashing the red blade into his blue one. Then, as they fight, she goes on to spin the story of Anakin Skywalker, a loving man who fell down a dark path to try to save the one person he felt hadn’t betrayed him and his unborn child, who spent years an emotionless husk before he finally saved Luke’s life, defying his master for love and love alone.

“You killed the people who loved you for power,” she says, “Anakin Skywalker would be so disappointed in you.” Kylo hisses, and he misses her blow for one that cuts her along the arm.

“I love you,” Kylo says. Rey shakes her head.

“You don’t know what love is,” she says. This is where the “team turn the stormtroopers against the brass” come in. Finn, Rose, Poe and their stormtrooper brigade has been working through the ship, culling the officers who were children of imperial officers who thought that it was alright to steal other people’s children to mold into the soldiers to fight the wars keeping them in power.

Finn bursts open the door to the throne room, and Kylo and Rey both turn their heads to see him for a moment.

“Oh,” Kylo Ren says, “it’s just your stormtrooper.”

“His name is Finn,” Rey hisses, but Kylo just keeps laughing. How insignificant. Nothing but a stormtrooper- a nameless, worthless soldier designed to keep those worth more in power. Rey growls, and continues their fight.

Finn can tell that he’s being completely ignored by Kylo, and runs in close. He sets off a blaster bolt in Ren’s direction.

Though Ren is perfectly capable of stopping a bolt mid-air, he doesn’t even notice it coming until it cuts into his back.

He falls to the ground in excruciating pain. He starts screaming, and tear-drops fall down his face.

“The stormtrooper did this?” he squeals. Rey smiles down at him, and nods. Finn walks up beside her, and takes her hand in his.

“But you’re nothing,” he says, “you’re not force sensitive, not royal-” Finn puts his boot to Kylo’s chest, and pushes him down. This stormtrooper doesn’t even have the gift of Kylo’s love that makes Rey special. He’s nothing.

“I’m not,” he says, “I’m just a stormtrooper.” He’s wearing a jacket that looks all too familiar- and Kylo’s breath hitches as he realizes that’s his father’s jacket. Nobody, smuggler Han Solo.

The troopers that restrained Rey look between themselves, then they throw down their guns, and rip off their helmets.

“We’re with you, FN-2187,” a woman with medium brown skin and black hair says, smiling widely. Finn nods at her, and smiles.

“No,” Kylo says, shaking his head even as he feels the life leaving him, “this- this can’t be. I’m special. This was all supposed to be mine.” The new Empire- the legacy- the stormtroopers- the love and devotion of the most powerful force user of a generation.

They were supposed to be his. How has this Finn taken everything from him?

What Kylo doesn’t understand is that Finn and Rey looked at each other, and decided that they were worth something; they were the first ones who ever did that for each other, and there’s a bond there too deep for anyone to wrest from their hands.

Rey smiles, and kisses Finn on the lips. Then, she kicks Kylo in the head. He doesn’t ever wake up.

After that, Finn and Rose start a program that helps match former stormtroopers with job opportunities and lives in the new republic, that runs adjacent to Rey’s home for wayfaring force sensitives. Poe collaborates with both of them, flying new recruits back and forth from where they’re coming from to when they’re going and starts campaigning for the importance of a proper air force in the nascent new republic, and other people- politicians, start building it.

The heroes of this war are going to work more from the ground to try to undo the damage that was already done. Someone else can try to make sure that governments happen and don’t collapse.

#the sequels #sunkelles writes #finnrey

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lukeleiahan · 5 years ago

Text

Ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece

I read an AU, and I had to follow up...

Essentially, the Empire falls when Luke and Leia are five, and now their parents figure out how to go from here. Lot’s of appreciation for Bail and Breha Organa and Owen and Beru Lars, a generous helping of Sabe, and precious baby!twins Luke and Leia.

Also on AO3, read the fic that inspirated this here.

Five weeks after the fall of the Empire

It starts, like many great things, with a knock on the door.

(No, that's not right. It starts with an old man, who isn't really that old at all, bringing a baby in the middle of the night. Or maybe with a freedwoman dying in the arms of her son. Maybe even with that same slave woman, not free yet, giving birth to that same son.)

Beru is standing in the kitchen, preparing a small dinner for her family. Luke is sitting to her feet, quietly playing with the spare mechanical parts Owen organised for him. He likes mechanics, that boy of theirs. Likes playing and tinkerin g and building and fixing things. He's got a talent for it, like Shmi always said her son, Luke's father, had.

It's the thought of Luke's father that makes Beru tense up. She isn't really expecting anyone, and while that doesn't have to mean anything...

Well, Beru's never really been a trusting person. She's freeborn herself, but her mother had been born a slave, and she's never really felt safe from the slavers. And ever since Old Ben gave them Luke, that little boy that is both Beru and Owen's sunshine, and told them only that Anakin was dead and the Empire wasn't to know about the boy...

Well, Beru's tense. She wishes one of her friends was here, or Owen. But wishing for something won't make it true, and so she puts down the bowl and bends down to Luke.

“Stay here, darling, please. I'll be right back.” She tells him. He nods, and then he smiles at her. He shines, whenever he smiles, that precious boy, and Beru drops a kiss on his forehead.

The woman at the door doesn't seem particularly dangerous, but that doesn't have to mean anything. Her clothing is dark blue, practical but with intricate details that remind her of water flowing. It's a beautiful effect, and one that immediately makes it clear that this woman is not of Tatooine.

Then Beru's eyes reach the woman's face, and she gasps. She's staring, she realizes distantly, but this... Old Ben said...

“I'm not Padme.” The woman says, sounding both resigned and sad, as though this is not the first time she's said it. “I know I look like her, a lot, but I'm not. She was a dear friend of mine, though.”

That's why she sounds sad, Beru realizes, and tries to get herself under control. It can't be easy to look so much like a dead friend.

“Come in.” She says, and steps aside. The house seems so small, so dirty and cheap, with this woman inside, but she doesn't seem to notice it. Now that the first shock has passed, Beru can see the differences between this woman and Padme. Padme had been... less purposeful in her movements, maybe, and her face hadn't seemed quite this sharp.

“What is you name?” She asks, once the woman is sitting down at the small table and she's brought her a milk. Luke is still in the kitchen, playing quietly. She doesn't want him to come out. Not yet.

It might not be the fair, or even particularly likely, but it has always been Beru's fear that one day, one of Padme's family would come and take Luke away from them. He's her boy, her son in everything but name, but she is very aware that there is no official adoption, nothing to stop rich offworlders from taking him away.

But that's not a reason to be impolite, at least not yet. So she smiles and sits down next to the woman.

“Sabe. Sabe Nertay.” The woman says, taking a polite sip of the milk. Her face is like a mask, completely unreadable. Then she takes a long breath, and looks Beru in the eyes.

“The Empire has fallen. I don't know if you've heard about that, out here, but it has. The Emperor is dead, and so is Lord Vader.” She says it in a rush, as though she has been waiting for a long time to say these words.

Beru has heard rumors, of course she has. But there are always rumors. She doesn't usually put much stock into them, and this time... well, it's not like life was so different under the Empire than it was under the Republic.

But it is important to the woman in front of her, and it caused her to come all the way to Tatooine, so Beru stays quiet.

“Padme... she fought the Empire, you know. She fought it before it had ever been founded, and she died... It was clear that the Emperor, that he'd want to use the kids, and Vader...”

Sabe stops for a moment, trying to regain her composure. In that moment, Luke comes in, smiling at Sabe, but heading for Beru.

“I made something for you!” He says with a smile, handing her the mechanics he was tinkering with before. They fit together, somehow, and when Beru takes it, she realizes it's a small holo recorder. She doesn't quite know how he made that out of some small junk parts, but that's her boy.

“Thank you so much. It's amazing!” Beru tells him, hugging him close. She is very aware of Sabe's eyes on them, but she doesn't look. She just looks at her boy.

“This is Miss Sabe Nertay.” She tells Luke. “Say hi to her.”

Luke goes over to Sabe, holding out his hand to great her. “Hi Miss Sabe.” He says, smiling. The woman seems shocked for a moment, then she takes Luke's offered hand, and smiles at him. It looks fairly honest, too.

“Hi Luke. It's nice to meet you.” She says, something almost... amazed in her voice. Luke looks at her. Beru doesn't know whether he realizes the tension in the room, the weirdness of this woman here in her kitchen, but she thinks he might. He's five, but he's also a perceptive sort, her boy.

“It's nice to meet you too.” He says, shaking her hand seriously.

“How about you go get your uncle, darling?” Beru says, and Luke runs off. Sabe looks after him, that amazed look still on her face. Beru can relate.

“He has her smile.” Sabe whispers, almost to herself.

She debates staying silent. Sometimes, she knows, listening is the best thing to do, but yet... she has to know.

“Are you going to take him away?” She asks, voice steady. She's not going to let the woman know her terror.

“No.... no, of course not. I would never... you have raised him for five years. He's yours. I'm not … I'm not going to steal him... He's Padme's son, but he's... he's yours, too.” Sabe says. She seems... insecure is the wrong word, but she doesn't truly seem to know how to handle this, either.

“Is he safe?” Beru asks. Another terror rises. If Sabe is not there to take Luke away, then why is she here? Is there anything else, something more terrible than even the Empire, coming for her boy?

“Yes.” Sabe says, louder than she was probably intending. She looks Beru in the eyes. “He is safe. Vader... Vader was the danger. Vader and the Emperor. They're dead now. They can't get him. They're dead.”

It shouldn't cause so much relief, Beru thinks, that this stranger, this offworlder, tells her Luke is safe. But it does.

“Why are you here, then?” Beru asks.

“I think... I think your husband should be here to discuss this?” Sabe sounds insecure now. It causes Beru's nerves to ratch up again, but she tries to control that. She thinks of what Shmi would have done.

“How did you know Padme?” She asks. Luke has asked about his mother. Not that often, but it's natural for him to be curious, and Beru knows so little.

“We were little girls.” Sabe says, sounding grateful to have something to talk about that she is comfortable with. “On Naboo, we do our civil service young, you know? We elect our princesses when they are about twelve, and out of these prinesses, we elect our queens.

“I started training as a handmaiden at the academy when I was twelve, and two years later I was sworn in to become handmaiden to the new queen. That queen was Padme. She was fourteen, like me, and she took the ruling name Amidala.”

“That's very young.” Beru can't help but say. Fourteen. She remembers being fourteen. She'd been a child. Of course she'd been. To imagine being in charge of a planet at that age... it's terrifying.

“It's how we do it on Naboo.” Sabe says, sounding unconcerned. “You have noticed we look the same. That's why I was chosen to be one of her handmaidens, you know? Us handmaidens, we are not just there to help the queen with her clothes and hair, we are also there to be decoys in dangerous situations. I was always the one who looked the most like her, so I was usually the decoy.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It was, I suppose, but I knew what I was signing up for. It was a huge honor, you know. To impersonate the queen. And it was an amazing thing to share, with a friend such as Padme. She wasn't just the queen to me. We were all close, all of us handmaidens and Padme, but the two of us, she was... I never had a sister, but Padme became my sister. I served as a handmaiden for both her terms, and we stayed friends afterwards. She still had handmaidens as a senator, but... I left the service. I became a teacher. I've always wondered.... if I'd stayed...”

Beru takes her hand. There isn't really anything she can say. She wants to tell this woman it's not her fault, but she doesn't even know how Padme died. It would feel like lying to promise something like that.

The door opens, and Luke's chatter fills the room. He's telling Owen about building the holo recorder. Owen is listening, but he's also looking at Sabe with suspicion. Of course he is. Strange offworlders appearing isn't usually a good sign on Tatooine, and he's just as afraid of someone taking Luke away as she is.

“How about you look at those vaps in the garage.” He says, voice gruff but affectionate, running his hand through Luke's hair. Luke grins and runs off.

“So, what's going on.” He says, looking at Sabe. He's not quite glaring, but it's a near thing. Sabe does not seem intimidated, though.

“The Empire has fallen. The Emperor and Vader, they are dead.” Sabe says, looking him in the eyes, the way she did with Beru.

“So what? You gonna take Luke away from us now? 'Cause that's not happening.”

“No. Nobody is going to take Luke away. You are his family. But...” Sabe looks like she's trying to find the right words.

“But what.” Owen says flatly.

“He has a sister. Luke. He has a sister.” Sabe says, and she's looking at both of them now. Beru covers her mouth with her hand.

“Leia.” She whispers. Sabe's head wips around to her.

“Obi-Wan told you?” She asks.

“Old man told us jack shit.” Owen gruffs. He is willing to be nicer, though, now that Sabe told him she's not going to take Luke. “It's a Tatooine thing. Twin names. Luke and Leia... they're only given together.”

“We thought she might have been stillborn. Or died later, something like that.” Beru adds. Luke has asked for his sister. He has asked for her a lot. He was convinced she was there with him, he's dreamed of her. She thought it might be the knowledge that she had existed at one point, or that touch of the desert that allows him to see things others don't, allowing him to communicate with his dead sister. To know she lives...

“I didn't know that.” Sabe says, looking slightly fluxomed. “The thing is... I'm here because it's safe now. As long as the Emperor and Vader lived... if the twins had met, the danger was too high they would have found out.”

“So you do want to take him.” Owen says, defensive again. Beru hears the fear, but she doesn't think Sabe does.

“No! But … they are twins. They should be able to meet. Just meet. Bail and Breha... Leia's adoptive parents, they understand. Leia is theirs, the way Luke is yours. They'd never expect you to give him up. But we thought... we thought they should meet. They have a right to know the other exists. And Leia... she's asked about him. About her brother.”

“Luke's asked, too. About Leia.” Beru says, before Owen can say anything. His hand finds her, warmth and protection and safety.

“We thought they should meet. If you agree. You could come visit, bring Luke. Bail and Breha would be happy to welcome you. And Obi-Wan, of course.”

“I don't see what the old man has to do with anything.” Owen growls, but there is considerably less bite in it. A second set of adoptive parents... Beru can believe they understand.

Sabe seems confused. Beru wonders whether it's the hostility towars Old Ben, or the fact that they refer to him as an old man. He isn't, not really. Beru doesn't think he's much over forty, but he holds himself like a man at least twice his age. He behaves like that, too, so to think of him as Old Ben just feels more natural than anything else. And well... Owen's never liked the man. Too close to Anakin, to the Repbulic, to the sort of things and people that would endanger Luke. Beru doesn't share the dislike, but she understands it.

“He doesn't have to come. You are Luke's parents, not him. But he is an old friend of Bail's so I'm to invite him as well.” Sabe says diplomatically. For a moment, there's silence.

“What is she like, Leia?” Beru asks, and for the first time since Luke left, Sabe truly smiles. She takes out a small holo, places it on the table and let's it play. A small girl, Luke's age, with dark eyes and brown hair in braids, is sitting on the floor, flipping through the pages of a book. After a moment, she looks up, smiling at whoever is recording the holo, and Beru's heart melts. That's Luke's smile on that girls face.

She looks at Owen, and knows that they've both decided in that very moment.

Four weeks after the fall of the Empire

It's a day of celebration. It should be, by all rights.

The End of the Empire, and the Beginning of the New Republic, capitalized for importance, and what it means, now, after a month of celebrating and working and organizing a new government, should be a celebration.

And yet, the mood in Bail's brand new chancellors office is somber. They've all seen too much war, lost too many friends.

“To the lost ones.” He says, raising his glass. Breha, Mon, Carlist, Garm Bel Iblis and Sabe mirror the gesture silently, each of them deeply in thought.

The new government is running, sort of. Bail has been elected the new chancellor, more or less happily. The senate has it's old powers back, and there are three different motions started that should, if they go through as planned, at least put up some strong protections against another Palpatine. Nothing is guaranteed to stop a determinated, manipulative, powerful being like Palpatine to come and take over again, but at least with these new laws it should be more difficult. Bail hopes.

He'd once thought that there was no way for the republic to fall, either, and he'd been wrong. He won't let himself be sure of anything like that anymore.

“Padme should be here.” Mon says, looking at the empty spot at their table wistfully. They always leave a space for her, when they're together like this. The Empire tried to ignore her, but they won't. They won't forget her.

“She knows. In the Endless Sea, Padme knows what has happened.” Sabe says, a quiet conviction in her voice. It's a Nabooian belief, the Endless Sea of the afterlife, but Bail has always found comfort in the idea that Padme is there now, watching over them.

“She deserves her rest. Her and all the fallen.” Garm says.

For a moment, they all stay silent, remembering all their lost friends. Too many of them, Bail thinks. Too many good people died in this fight. Then, Garm gets up.

He looks tired, Bail thinks. They all do, tired with exhaustion and grief and a sense of fear that doesn't seem to want to disappear, even though the Empire is defeated. And his marital troubles won't have gotten easier, either. How someone so passionate about democracy could marry a supporter of the Empire, he'll never understand.

It makes Bail all the more happy about his own marriage. He smiles at Breha, and feels warmth in his heart when she smiles in answer.

“I have an early morning tomorrow. The Imperial forces don't decomission themselves, after all. I'll turn in. A good evening to all of you.”

“Don't remind me. I'll come with you. Good night.” Carlist sighs.

“I'll go, too. My son has been having nightmares these last weeks, all the changes, probably, and the battles, and I promised him I wouldn't be out too late.” Mon says, standing too. “Winter and Leia don't have that problem?”

“Not yet, though it might still come. Currently they're still fascinated by all the changes, especially Leia.” Breha says.

“Consider yourselves lucky, then. We'll see us in the morning. Good night.” She says, smiling, and together they leave.

Bail waits until they're out of the room, then he stands up and picks up one of the holos of his daughters he has standing on his desk. Winters white hair shines next to Leia's brown, and both their smiles glow. They're healthy and happy and safe, he tells himself, just a few rooms down, guarded by Artoo, in hearing distance. Protected by Artoo and two guards in the corridor, to make sure no vengeful imperial gets any ideas.

“There is something else we have to do.” He says. It's been on his mind since the Emperor and Vader died, and now is the time to start doing something about it.

“Luke.” Breha says, putting down her glass. Bail nods.

Sabe seems confused. He never outright told her about Leia's biological parents, never sat down and told her the whole sad story of Padme's last days, but he didn't have to. Sabe knew Padme so well, knows him so well, had prepared Padme's body for the funeral, and Leia just looks like Padme. It wasn't difficult for her to piece it together, as he knew it would be.

But because they never talked about it, she doesn't know about Luke. Doesn't even know enough to suspect anything like this. Maybe he should have told her, but … well, people have always said that the Jedi can read minds. Obi-Wan had denied it, when Bail asked, years ago, but nobody ever truly explained the Sith to him, either, so he couldn't be sure. And though he trusts Sabe with his life, and more importantly with both his daughters lifes, the first rule of espionage still holds: One can't reveal a secret one doesn't know.

Breha knows, though, because she is his wife and he could never keep something like this from her, and she takes the lead.

“We need to call Obi-Wan.” She says.

“What are you talking about?” Sabe asks. She knows Obi-Wan, of course she does, but neither Bail nor Breha ever corrected her assumption that he died with the rest of the Jedi.

And she'll have assumed they'd contact the Naberries first, probably. They'll have to do that, too, Padme's family has a right to know, but it can wait a bit longer. Just a bit.

“Luke is Leia's twin brother.” Bail tells her. Sabe stares.

“It wasn't... it wasn't safe, to raise them together. Obi-Wan and Master Yoda... they said something about... I don't know, combined Force presence? It didn't make very much sense to me, but they were absolutely sure that if the children were raised together, the Emperor and Vader would find them. So Obi-Wan took Luke to be raised by Anakin's stepbrother and his wife on Tatooine.”

“Leia has... Padme had...” Sabe stumbles over her words, clutching her glass of wine as though it would provide her safety. Breha walks over to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“Twins. Yes. Now that it's safe, they have a right to know.” Bail says. They had a right to know since the beginning, he thinks, but now is the first time since their birth that it's a possibility.

“Are we sure? That it's safe. Are we sure?” Breha asks. Her voice doesn't betray it, but Bail knows she's scared. He is, too. Leia has never quite been safe, never really been out of danger. Neither of their daughters have, on account of being the princesses of Alderaan and the daughters of two rebels, but with Leia it has always been more immediate, the danger. The thought that she might be safe now is so strange. What if they've overlooked something?

“As far as we know, the only people who would pose a direct threat to Leia and Luke due to them being Padme and... Anakin's children are Vader and the Emperor, and they are dead.” He hesitates over Anakin's name, only briefly, but Sabe notices. Of course she does.

“What about Anakin? He died when the Jedi fell, did he not?” She asks. She's not asking whether he is Luke and Leia's biological father. Of course not. She'd known of Padme and Anakin's relationship before even Bail had. But there are things he'd never told her. Things he never wanted to speak about to anyone. He takes a deep breath, seeks stability in his wife's eyes.

“No.” He says, and tries not to get caught up in memories.

(Fire and smoke, Padme on a table, a child being murdered by clone troopers, Obi-Wan and Yoda suddenly broken old men, a newborn's cry)

“Anakin Skywalker did not die when the Jedi fell. He died with the Emperor, a month ago.” Bail says. No one knows exactly how those last hours went inside the Imperial palace. All Bail knows is that the Alliance forces won the battle against the Imperial forces, and that when they came to clean up the palace, Vader and the Emperor had both been found dead. Bail himself had done the identification.

Anakin Skywalker had looked somehow both so old, scarred and tired and dead, and so very young. He'd only been 28 years old.

“What are you talking about?” Sabe asks, shouts, really. He's happy that the girl's room is far enough away that they won't hear. They're too young for this conversation. Much too young.

He should have explained all of this to her before, but he hadn't dared risk it. Hadn't dared take the risk that she'd get caught and talk, hadn't had the strength to deal with it himself.

He's only ever talked about it once, when he told Breha the day he brought Leia home. He'd broken down then, completely, and he hadn't ever talked about it again.

But he'll have to do it again. Now, and then at least once more.

“Vader. Anakin... was Vader.”

“What? How?” Sabe is pacing, he notes distantly. Breha has moved to stand by his side again, a supporting presence he's grateful for.

“I don't know. I thought … I thought, when Master Yoda called, that we were there to pick them up, Padme and Anakin and Obi-Wan and even Master Yoda. They survived the … the purge, they're calling it, aren't they? They'd survived, and when Master Yoda called I thought I was going to pick them up, and we were going to figure out what to do next.

“But then... Padme was giving birth, and when I asked Obi-Wan about Anakin, all he would say was that he'd 'fallen'. That was the word he used, 'fallen'. Didn't really understand it until I was introduced to Vader.

“And Padme... the med droid said she was fine, you know? I kept asking, because she was pale and so damned silent, but the med droid kept insisting she was fine. She named Luke and Leia, and then she... I don't know. She slipped away.” There are tears in his eyes, and he can't break down again, he can't. He focuses on Breha's hand in his, willing himself to focus.

“Slipped away? What does that mean?” Sabe asks, tears running over her cheek, but she's refusing to break down, too, just like Bail, and isn't that a testament to how much they're all politicians, all spies, that they won't let themselves break down over the death of a friend?

“Master Yoda said she 'lost the will to live'. As though that's a cause of death. I … you and Dorme and Yane, you were the ones who prepared her for the funeral. You saw how... you saw that there were no obvious injuries. Nothing to indicate what could have killed her. I still don't know how she died.”

It's something that's been bothering him since that day. Lost the way to live , what bullshit . Padme was desperate, and she was grieving, and she might have given up, but one doesn't die of that. Not without other things happening. And the med droid said she was fine...

And yet, the Sith... He's never voiced this thought out loud, but well... the Jedi were never open about the extent of their powers. And the Sith are supposed to be worse...

“That doesn't make any sense!” Sabe yells, throwing her hands up.

“We've been puzzling over it for years.” Breha says, calm and compassionate. “There is no answer we can see, but we can't help her now. We can help her children, though.”

There's a long silence. Then.

“Where is he?” Calm. Focused. She was a handmaiden to the warrior queen Amidala, a spy for the Rebel Alliance against a fascist empire. It shows.

“Tatooine. Beru and Owen Lars are his parents now, at least that's what Obi-Wan said he was planning. We'll have to talk to them, make plans with them.” Bail says.

“I'll go. I'll talk to them. Bring them here.” Sabe says, running her hand over her dress. She wipes the tears of her face, resolute in the face of having a mission. Bail knows he won't talk her out of this, and he doesn't want to. He can't go himself, the new chancellor leaving would be seen as weakness. And Breha as the queen of Alderaan would draw way too much attention. Sabe though, a gouverness and former handmaiden, she can go wherever she wants whenever she wants.

“Bring Obi-Wan too, if he wishes, but the important ones are Beru and Owen and Luke. We need to figure this out, all of us. We're in this together.” Breha says, equal parts queen and friend.

Sabe nods.

“I'll be leaving in the morning.”

Six weeks after the fall of the Empire

The air is tense when Sabe leads the Lars' through the halls of the chancellors residence.

They had considered having Bail, Breha and Leia meet them at the shuttle, but it had been decided that it would be less weird for the children, if they didn't meet each other for the first time in a crowded and busy station. Not to mention the possible media attention that would be the new chancellor of the brand new New Republic, his wife the queen of Alderaan and one of their daughters meeting a family of poor moisture farmers from the territories.

Beru and Owen are holding hands, and every now and then they whisper in a language Sabe doesn't understand. She's fairly sure that they're talking about the wastefullness of such grand halls standing empty. If this were Naboo she'd argue, probably, if only out of patriotism, but after having seen their home on Tatooine, warm and small and lovely and enough , she can't quite disagree with them.

Luke, though, is running around them, always either a few steps ahead or behind them. He sticks close enough to them that Sabe always has him in her sights, and she knows that Beru and Owen, too, always watch him, but he doesn't seem to feel the tension.

He seems so fascinated, by everything, just like he'd been on the flight here. Sabe's ship, Nabooian build but stationed and customized on Alderaan for the last few years, had interested him just as much as the grand houses here, and the art that decorates the wall. He's staring at it all in childlike wonder, and Sabe can't help but smile at his genuine amazement.

Finally, they reach Bail's office. She opens the door and let's the Lars' go in first.

Leia is sitting on the floor, a book in front of her. Sabe wonders whether she was truly reading it, or whether she was just pretending. Leia is good at picking up on tension, so she might have just been trying to put her parents at ease. She's looking up now, though, staring at Luke.

It must be so weird for her, Sabe thinks. Five years old, and suddenly she's moving to another planet, and the Empire is gone, and her father is the new chancellor, and on top of that she now has a brother whom she's never met.

Then again, it must be quite weird for Luke too, to suddenly leave Tatooine, if only for a week, and visit a sister he never knew about on Coruscant. Though... he had been so excited about it. She turns to look at him, and finds him clutching his aunts hand tightly. He looks shy, suddenly, in a way he hasn't been with her … ever, she thinks. Maybe it's because she came to him, to his planet, into his house, and was offered milk and hospitality by his aunt. Maybe it's just this place that must be so strange to him.

“Welcome to Coruscant.” Breha says, straightening and holding out her hand to Owen and Beru. For a tense moment, they don't move, then Owen takes the hand. Sabe breathes a quiet sigh in relief.

“I'm Breha Organa, I'm Leia's mother. This is my husband Bail, and this is our daughter Leia.” She says, smiling at Beru and Owen. She offers her hand to Beru, and Bail steps closer.

“I'm Beru Whitesun Lars.” Beru says, her voice not betraying any nervousness. “This is my husband Owen, and this is our nephew Luke.” She shakes Bail's hand, too, and Owen follows suit.

There's a silence, again, and the Leia moves. She's up to her feet and running to Luke before anyone truly notices, and then she's hugging him. It's an absolutely adorable sight, and Sabe has to bite her lip not to break out in tears.

Padme would have loved this, she thinks. Padme would have loved seeing her children together.

“I'm Luke.” Luke tells Leia, looking at the floor, mostly. He doesn't seem to be too scared, though, and he's let go of Beru's hand when Leia hugged him.

“I know that.” Leia says, smiling, her eyes warm. Any worry about how they'd get along disappears in that moment, and Sabe feels a little bit of the tension leaving the room. They're all different people, from completely different backgrounds, but they'd all do anything to see these two children happy. It's quite something.

Leia takes Luke's hand and starts showing him around the room. Luke let's her. They'll be best friends before dinner, Sabe thinks. She hopes Winter won't be jealous. But then, she's spend some time with Luke now. He'll be Winter's best friend, too. At least he'll try.

“Come sit with us.” Bail says, leading Owen and Beru towards the table. There are some refreshments there, water and wine and some biscuits. “Did you have a good journey?”

Owen's not looking too happy, grim and worried and probably scared, but it's Beru who speaks.

“Yes. We have never been off Tatooine, and Luke has been fascinated by it all. And Sabe has been very kind.” It's awkward. Incredibly awkward. But Luke and Leia are running around the room together, holding hands, so... that's that.

Bail doesn't ask after Obi-Wan, and Sabe is glad for it. It had been strange, to realize just how much Beru and Owen distrust Obi-Wan, but Sabe accepted it. She'll have to ask about it at some point, but she had been relieved when Obi-Wan had decided to stay on Tatooine for the moment, to make plans, he'd said. He'd probably realized his presence at this meeting would only make things more difficult.

“What's your plan here?” Owen asks, gruff and hostile. He's scared, Sabe thinks, terrified of losing Luke to some rich coreworlders he doesn't know and doesn't care about. She hopes that Bail and Breha see it too. But she shouldn't have worried.

“For the moment, just to let the children play.” Bail says, looking at them. “For the future... that's for us all to discuss.”

“We're not taking him away from you.” Breha says firmly. “He is yours, like Leia is ours. But they are siblings. Twins, even. They have a right to know each other.”

It reassures Beru, Sabe thinks, though Owen is not quite convinced.

“What does that mean? Are we supposed to come live here? Because I'm not leaving Tatooine, that's for sure.”

“You don't have to.” Bail says. “Nobody would ask that of you.”

It would be easier, Sabe thinks, if they moved here, and closer to Naboo, too, but it wouldn't be fair. They have their own lifes, and nobody is expecting Bail and Breha to move to Tatooine, so why should the Lars move?

“We could just have them visit. Every few months, at least, you bring Luke here or we bring Leia to you. And com calls work too. We could set up a permanent holonet connection, so that the kids can talk to each other as often as they want.” Breha adds.

“We don't have to decide now.” Beru says, taking her husbands hand. “We're here for the week, and we've had a long journey.” She looks at the kids, talking quietly. They're still holding hands, and are intensely focused on some game Leia is showing Luke. They look different, blond and blue eyed with tan skin to brown hair and eyes and pale skin, but their expression is the same. It's one of Padme's expression, the one she always had when reading some complicated law proposal. For a moment, the resemblance almost takes Sabe's breath away.

“Luke asked after her, you know. Leia. He's asked after her since he could talk, and the last few days, when he knew she's alive and there and he can see her... he's only stopped talking about it once we reached Coruscant.” Beru says, her eyes never leaving the children.

“Leia too. I don't know how she knew... she's always talked about her brother. We didn't tell her, but … she'd dream about two suns and the desert, and her brother. We never knew what to tell her.” Breha says.

“Now we can just tell them the truth.”

xxx

The adults are still talking, important things and meaningless small talk, but that doesn't matter.

In a corner in Bail Organa's office, two children sit, a girl and a boy, a princess and a farmboy, twins. They have never met each other before today, yet they have known each other their entire life.

They hold hands, and soon they will not need words to communicate anymore. At the moment, though, they still do.

“I missed you.” One of them says.

“I missed you too.” The other answers.

They are five years old, and yet, for a moment, they are more wise than any of the adults.

“We're together now.”

#star wars #beru whitesun #owen lars #bail organa #breha organa #sabe #mon mothma #leia organa #luke skywalker #i have so many headcanons that i can write into this au #like that the organas always intended to tell leia about her biological family and especially luke #or that bail never understood how padme died but suspected the sith #which means he follows the same theory as most fans do #and that also means that he had unlike the fans two suspects #he was so terrified of vader knowing about the twins because he considered it quite possible that it was vader who killed padme #also he's really traumatized by the whole thign #also sabe knew about leia but it was like just not talked about #i might write more in this au but i know myself so i won't promise anything #farmboy #twinsies #queen of everything #whitesun #farmer #senator rebel #queen #my writing #sw

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force-dyad · 5 years ago

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“Try for Some Remorse” A Look At Palpatine’s Role In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

It has been said by many, including the creator: George Lucas that Star Wars is a children’s story. Star Wars largely encompasses themes of forgiveness, redemption, compassion, and hope. Dave Filoni himself has stated that “There’s a redemption for most characters– if not all characters– in Star Wars films and there’s an arc and a path to when they let go and stop being selfish.” This is an important read to have on the Star Wars franchise when going into The Rise of Skywalker because we can assume that Kylo Ren, the wayward son of Han and Leia, is on a path towards redemption. He and Rey are set to right the wrongs of the generations that came before them. My personal read of the story makes me think that we will get a happy ending where Ben Solo comes back to the light and his family. I believe he will be forgiven and given a chance at his new life, a life that Anakin was never able to live. So where does Palpatine’s ending fall in all of this?

Palpatine. Sheev Palpatine (as was revealed in the 2014 novel, Tarkin by James Luceno) is not a sympathetic character. He is probably one of the only characters that the majority of the fandom agrees will need to go in order for the Skywalker family (and the galaxy alike) to live in peace. His selfishness and need for power is Voldemort like in that actual human life is expendable to him. He only cares about one thing: gaining the most power. In the Rebels episode, “A World Between Worlds” it is revealed that whoever controls the world between worlds will control the very universe. In that same episode, our heroes, Ezra and Ahsoka, just nearly escape Palpatine in his quest to access the portal. This episode just reinforces how knowledgeable Palpatine is in terms of the machinations of the force, and highlights what his final game plan will be. Now that we know that he is back, corporeal or not, we can assume that he will attempt to use Rey and Kylo, to access this portal, given the magnitude of importance that the portal holds.

So we can assume that Palpatine will assuredly be back to his schemes of trying to control the Skywalker (Kylo) in order to control the Universe, given his track record of controlling the Skywalker (Vader) to control the Universe (badumtss). But I think he will have a different end than the one in Return of the Jedi. Darth Vader finally “murders” his master at the end of ROTJ, but The Rise of Skywalker trailer including his laugh at the end emphasizes that whatever happened in Episode VI was not enough to truly get rid of the phantom menace. According to George Lucas, the Sith cannot come back as force ghosts, so I don’t think that is how Palpatine will return. I can’t pretend to know how he’ll return, but I’m just crossing the force ghost option out due to the rules imposed by Lucas (though I realize that they can change at any time, but since a lot of the current Lucasfilm team worked under Lucas, I believe they’ll want to respect his vision). Whatever form of Palpatine that Kylo, Rey, and the resistance go up against will have to be defeated in a way that has not been attempted before. The traditional “final battle” will have to be subverted in order for Palpatine’s destruction to feel believable. If a murder is the simple solution to destroying Palpatine, the ultimate villain, then why was the sequel trilogy even made? According to Kathleen Kennedy, Palpatine was always a part of the plan, and I believe her, but like I’ve said, they’ll have to do something different. Before The Force Awakens came out, Kathleen Kennedy gave a quote “I think we can’t explore in quite as much detail issues of compassion, the way [Lucas] did in terms of the values of the Jedi. But we’re going to get there, let’s put it that way. In the arc of all three movies, that will increase.”

In Return of the Jedi, we see Darth Sidious egging Luke on as he fights his father, Darth Vader. Darth Sidious encourages Luke to embrace the anger inside of his heart, “Your hate has made you powerful, let the hate flow through you, and your transformation to the dark side will be complete” he goads Luke on to embrace his feelings of hatred, and anger to embrace the power of the dark side so that Luke could defeat Vader, but the true lesson that one must learn is that fighting is not the way to defeat your enemy. Rose Tico sums up all of Star Wars in The Last Jedi when she tells Finn: “That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate. Saving what we love.” Luke proves to be the walking embodiment of that quote once again when he faces off against his nephew, Kylo Ren. Luke has blame to share with regards to Ben’s fall, and though he knows that he can not save him, he still goes to confront him to help save his family and the resistance. Since he is a force projection, he cannot use any offensive tactics against Kylo, nor can Kylo hurt him in any way. He bides time for the resistance to escape, while ensuring that his nephew does not kill off the resistance. Ultimately, Luke chose not to fight two times: against his father, and against his nephew. I think letting go of negative emotions and doing anything possible to protect people is the true way towards balance. Kylo Ren is not at that part of his journey (yet), but I think he is on his journey towards letting go. While Luke and Kylo’s confrontation on Crait was about saving the resistance on the surface level, I believe that the color of the salt going from white to red back to white during the course of their confrontation is symbolic of healing wounds, both Ben and Luke’s. While it’s not a light sided emotion to have anger, it is healthy to confront it. Maybe not in the way Kylo has done so far, but I believe that he’s on the journey towards letting go of his anger, resentment, and hatred.

This is where I believe the final confrontation comes in. Like I said, I think it would be too much of a retread if Kylo and Rey confronted Palpatine and it ended in Palpatine getting the chop via Lightsaber. The Last Jedi already showed us this through Snoke. Snoke tried to have Kylo kill Rey, but Kylo, in a grab for power and to save Rey alike, killed him with the Skywalker saber. Now will The Rise of Skywalker give us the same ending for the biggest bad of them all? I don’t think so because murder is inherently evil. In an interview with Bill Moyers, George Lucas said “…everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives. And you can either help somebody, you can be compassionate toward people, or you can treat some people with dignity or not. And one way you become a hero, and the other way, you’re part of the problem.”

And the other way, you’re part of the problem. I believe that redemption for Ben Solo is inevitable, and I believe he will live and strive towards being a balanced individual for the rest of his life. That being said, I think that when he and Rey finally confront Palpatine, it’ll take a different route than Vader pushing Sidious down the reactor shaft. I do believe that Ben Solo will definitely resent Palpatine for all that has happened to his family because of his influence, but I think that it will end differently. Vader had to deal with years of Palpatine belittling him. From what we know, Kylo already had that type of relationship with a “master” aka Snoke and he already murdered him.

One of the reasons why murdering Palpatine will not work is because we have seen skilled force users such as Yoda, Mace Windu, and Anakin fight him (or throw him down a shaft), but he has gotten away each time. (I mean, maybe he won’t be in his old body in TROS, but I believe he, or maybe his soul, must have escaped somehow.) An ending where Palpatine is destroyed in the same way as ROTJ will lead to many questions for Disney like “So this is not the end of the timeline for the Skywalkers since Palpatine will probably be able to come back, right?” They have to figure out a way where the death of Palpatine will be believable and true to the message of hope and choosing the light, so that people don’t question it. (Remember: If you don’t see what happens to the body, anything is possible.)

This leads me into talking about how I think he will be defeated… Through compassion. Now you may be asking yourself: what? And trust me, I understand the hesitation…Sheev “Darth Sidious” Palpatine is probably the closest thing we get to the devil in the story. J.J. Abrams referred to him as the ultimate evil. But there are many examples in children’s media that help inform how the end of the Skywalker Saga could go. Children’s media tries to teach us that murder is not the way to finish the evil. Specifically I want to talk about Voldermort and Lord Ozai from Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender, respectively.

In Harry Potter, Voldemort is the ultimate evil. He is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He’s someone that does not care about the humanity around him. He kills Harry Potter’s parents and attempts to murder Harry Potter, which is his ultimate downfall. In Harry Potter, there is a prophecy that says that someone will kill Voldemort but that “neither could live while the other survives,” but like all great stories, prophecies are not truly activated until someone seeks to prevent their fate. This ultimately leads to his defeat; but his defeat wasn’t as simple as Harry shooting the killing curse at him. During the final confrontation, Harry uses a disarming spell (basically a defensive mechanism). Harry tries to appeal to Voldemort’s humanity.“It’s your one last chance,” said Harry, “and it’s all you’ve got left… I’ve seen what you’ll be otherwise… Be a man… try… Try for some remorse…” Even through all the pain and horror and destruction that Voldemort has caused Harry Potter’s life, he still tries to appeal to Voldemort / Tom Riddle’s humanity, much like Dumbledore, who always called Voldemort by his given name. Appealing to his humanity is appealing to what Voldemort hates the most, as his number one fear is mortality and losing his power. Sound familiar? A Sith lives without love because they reject any emotion that will bring them closer to the light. A famous Dumbledore quote is: “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.” Pity: “the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.” Voldemort’s end is ultimately due to his own hubris and misunderstanding of wand lore. His own hubris brought him down, not Harry.

Another similar scenario is Avatar Aang in the series Avatar: The Last Airbender In this story, Aang must defeat the evil Fire Lord who has seeks to conquer through destruction. The previous Avatars all tell him that he must kill Ozai to bring an end to the war, but still Aang cannot. Avatar Aang is an air nomad who has been taught to respect all life, so the act of murder is something that he cannot come to terms with. When Aang finally confronts Ozai, he reiterates that they do not have to fight and goes on to use defensive moves against Ozai, avoiding the fire bender. It isn’t until he reaches his Avatar State (aka all the avatars join forces and he becomes all powerful) that he starts using brute force, but before he strikes the killing blow, Aang returns to his own body and stops it. In order to stop Ozai, Aang takes away his bending power, leaving him powerless.

Both of these methods have brought in complaints from fans. Why wasn’t this ultimate evil power attacked by the main protagonist? People found the final battle in Harry Potter to be anti-climactic since Harry uses his signature spell of expelliarmus, something that everyone from his peers to the Death Eaters (Voldemort’s followers) criticize and call him weak for using. With Avatar, it’s the same argument: where’s the death? But I put forth that these people should not be looking for destructive mechanisms in a children’s story. Those methods are always painted in bad light. We might think that that will be the true way to get rid of evil in the world, but as adults, we see things differently than children. One of the reasons why evil prevails is because of lack of empathy and compassion. It is foolish to say that evil will be defeated completely through showing those things towards evil people, but that’s the only way to defend the light.

I think Ben Solo showing compassion towards Palpatine is not at all about Palpatine getting a redemption arc. I think the only way for Kylo to truly heal is to let go of any and all anger. I would even go as far as saying that he will forgive Palpatine. Not because he deserves forgiveness or because of any true feelings of fondness towards him, but because letting go of the resentment and anger and grief that Palpatine has caused is the only way to truly move on. Kylo holding a grudge or attacking Palpatine in anger will not fix the force. I believe that through showing Palpatine some kind of compassion, Palpatine will go on a self-destructive path. This way, we’ll have a different way of defeating evil that ultimately shows us the reason why the sequel trilogy had to exist to fix the Skywalker story. It also shows us that we must choose the light in as many situations as possible and let go. The key to a happy life is being able to let go: of fear, of anger, and the negative emotions that led to two Skywalkers falling to the dark side.

Thanks for reading! And of course, thanks to BlindManBaldwin for posting the original post about Sheev’s role in IX + Compassion and for talking through this with me! Check out my podcast on it on Soundcloud, or wherever you find podcasts!

#sheev palpatine #kylo ren #star wars #is this meta?#meta #the rise of skywalker #bendemption #darth sidious #i edited this on mobile and it ate the text!!!!! good thing i saved this somewhere else

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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1, 8, 9, and 15 please!

1. What's something you've written that you know is OOC and you just don't care?

I’ve probably done this, but in my mind, if I didn’t care, then chances are I don’t consider it OOC in the first place.

I read something a long time ago, I think in the letter column of a Wizard Magazine, that said that sometimes people do things they wouldn’t normally do, so it only follows that fictional characters need to be allowed to do “out-of-character” things once in a while.

Like that episode of Camp Camp where David drops the F-bomb for the first time. It has an impact precisely because he never talks like that most of the time, so when he says it, it really means something.

Other times, you do it as a plot contrivance. Like when Goku tried to escape Namek in Frieza’s spaceship. He seemed awfully sure of where to go and what buttons to push, even though he knows nothing about piloting and he’s never even seen the controls of this ship before. But it doesn’t matter, because the ship is in no shape to fly anyway, and the point is to build suspense. It’s more important to make the audience wonder if Goku has a chance, than to admit that he’d be utterly lost on Frieza’s bridge controls.

As it happens, I just posted a new story (plug!) which is a Bulma/Chi-Chi thing. I suppose making the two of them lesbians was pretty OOC, because their heteronormative relationships are a pretty big part of their characters, at least in my mind. In Bulma’s first appearance, she was on a quest to wish for a boyfriend. In the scene I used as a starting point, Chi-Chi is worried about her son on Namek, so I had to figure out how she even had a son with Goku in this story and could turn around and dump Goku for Bulma.

But I think I managed to skin that cat pretty well, and I managed to work within other traits of their characters, so it’s not like this pod-person deal where I’ve got two gay characters who happen to look like characters from a popular anime. So I guess that’s as good an answer as any.

8. Something you love to see in dialogue.

I like it when dialogue gets interrupted with non-verbal cues, like “Hey, where do you think you’re goi--URK!” And then they’re getting stabbed or shoved off a cliff or whatever. Some other examples.

“So are you going to kiss me, or are you just going to stand there and--mmmmmm!”

“Lord Vader, I regret to inform you that we have lost contact with the Millennium Falcon, but I assure y-ou... agh... y-- ghhhh!”

“It’s like I said before, base camp, there are no tentacle monsters in Tentacle Monster Cavern. Now, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to pack up and head back before-- No... no...! AIIIEEEEEE!”

It’s just a good trick to use.

9. What's your fandom's most overused trope?

This kind of goes for any fandom, I think, but it irks me how people want to always tweak the concept into something barely recognizable. For me, the whole point of reading (or writing) fanfic is because I ran out of the source material and I want more. To give you an idea, I love Marvel’s recent run on Darth Vader, because it’s not just Darth Vader comics, they look and read and feel like the character from the movies. A lot of Dark Horse Vader stories seemed to fall short of that ideal. I’ve been meaning to check out IDW’s Star Trek: TNG comics for the same reason. They look like they’re trying to resemble the TV show as closely as possible.

On the other hand, Star Trek: Picard looks like a waste of my time, because it’s not TNG, it’s Captain Picard and he’s like 25 years older and with a bunch of new characters I don’t care about. It feels like fanfic because that’s how a lot of fanfic operates. Like, we can’t just do a Vegebul story, we gotta have Bulma run a coffee shop and then she gets abducted by aliens and turned into a sex slave and Vegeta’s a magic alien shrimp who gives her advice on how to escape and how is this a Dragon Ball story anymore?

I don’t want to be too hard on fanfic writers for coming up with these zany ideas, but at times it seems like these are the rule and not the exception. I remember the Tenchi Muyo! fandom years ago, and it seemed like every other new story was the cast moving to the United States for no apparent reason, except that the writer probably felt more comfortable telling stories in a more familiar cultural setting. And that’s fine, to a point, but where does “American High School AU” stop being a trope and start being a crutch?

But I’m a grumpy old man about these things, so you may not want to take me too seriously on this.

15. We all project onto our characters. Where has your personality or life choices leaked onto the page the most?

I’ve noticed that occasionally I’ll have character get into this “what-if?” game where they regret something and then they’ll cite old lore to explain how they blame themselves for such-and-such. I thought that was me just being attentive to continuity, but maybe that says more about me than I care to admit.

I created Luffa as a power fantasy, someone who could just walk right through a bunch of pointless bullshit and suplex it into submission. Living in the United States in 2020, I find myself noticing more and more public figures that could use a good suplexin’. Make of that what you will.

#ask duhragonball #magnumthecreator001

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elained1 · 5 years ago

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Skywalkers: and the lack of support for the Mother/child in the SW universe

So I guess I’m writing a meta? Is that what this is called?

Let’s think back to 2012 when Disney purchased Lucasfilm. If I were to put myself in the shoes of someone who had a say in how to continue the Skywalker saga, or to wrap it up, here’s my take on what I would do based on what has been done. And this is taking into account just one of the overarching themes we’ve been presented thus far in the Star Wars movies (and I’m kinda going from movies alone here because that is what I’m most familiar with); that is, the failure of the mother/child relationship.

Example 1: Anakin/Shmi.

The prequels were the tale of Anakins’ i.e. the Chosen Ones’ fall to the dark side. I love how this story was executed, if not all of the dialogue and plot points (insert cheesy/awful romantic dialogue here). His major turning point is the death of his mother (slaughter of the sand people including non-combatants) and I think most would agree in the saying that if Anakin had his mother around, or at least kept in touch with her, he probably would have been able to keep a better handle on his life. She encourages him, comforts him, wants the best for him, all that good mother stuff. Even to the point of relinquishing him to Qui-Gon, a dude she barely knows who ends up being killed like 3 days later, and a Jedi Order of which she probably knows little about save for the fact that they are the “good guys” who can give him a better life. So this was definitely a failing of the Jedi order I think. When thinking about the “chosen one” and how much importance Qui-Gon and later Obi-Wan seems to put on it, one would think that the “mother of the chosen one” would accord you at least some status. Or some impetus to rescue from a backwater planet, from the control a literal nobody slaver (Watto), himself who is a complete side note to the larger universe. Why leave here there, practically presumably to die, when she is the one with the most key insight into Anakin as a person and the one most invested in his future? I digress. Jedi Order/SW universe gets -100 points for this.

Example 2: Padme/Luke/Leia.

Here is our second example of how this universe fails mothers, and their children. Padme/Queen Amidala was my absolute FAVORITE character in Ep. 1. She is BADASS. She has AGENCY. She does shit, fools everyone, isn’t afraid to make waves, and goes against the advice of practically every male character in the movie in order to accomplish her goals. She humbles herself, self-sacrifices, and uses all the tools at her disposal to save her people. And she’s like supposedly 14 (eye roll but whatever I don’t know why they couldn’t have made Anakin and Padme both like 18 in this movie and it still would’ve worked) The people of Naboo wanted her to stay as queen for as many terms as possible and wanted to change the constitution to keep her in power, but she refused that and became a badass senator. Now AoTC rolls around, and yes she still has agency, and I wish someone had talked George into writing better dialogue for those two because all the elements of a good love story were in the plot, but she still kicks ass and takes charge, making her own decisions and entering into a “forbidden” marriage (at least from the jedi standpoint) of her own free will. Then RoTS rolls around, and she’s pregnant.

This is when everything falls apart. For practically the whole movie, she sits around and waits for Anakin, and is a literally plot device for his fall. SIGH. Why on earth would the current queen of Naboo care if Padme was pregnant out of wedlock (from their point of view)? Is this the pre-1950s? Why couldn’t she keep being a senator if she wanted? She can’t have a nursery built next to her senatorial office and some nannies if she wants? For heaven’s sake the lady liberated Naboo and is a heroine she should be able to have her cake and eat it too if she wants, and retire to Lake Country. And yet her pregnancy is viewed as such a negative thing for her career-wise/in general in that movie. Let’s not mention the fact that apparently sonography is also not around cause she somehow doesn’t know she’s carrying twins? Were any women/medical professionals consulted at all during the writing/directing of this film? Anyway. Then we reach her death due to a “broken heart” I guess even I think we all know this mama bear fierce lady would fight tooth and nail for her children, just as she did her planet. I really wish they would make it canon that Palpatine somehow transferred her life essence out of her with the force, because really that’s the only plausible reason I can accept for her death. So: SW Universe -1000 for this one.

Example 3: Leia/Ben

Third time is the charm right? Not. Man this poor family. So your dad is Darth Vader, and you’ve got the force yourself, you’re rebellion icon/leader, Princess, Huttslayer, basically all around Badass that is Princess Leia. Post fall of the Empire, which is accomplished in your, what? Twenties? You’re interested in a political career and the future of the galaxy. Your man is usually pretty reliable when it counts. And here again you have a brother indoctrinated into all those Jedi ways and you would think would be able to help you if you have a force sensitive kid and yet, the SW universe fails you again. I mean, obviously these movies wouldn’t exist if these relationships weren’t tragic.

But how freaking tragic is it that this badass powerful woman falls pregnant, and then has her poor baby is TARGETED in the womb (what I’ve gathered from tumblr since I haven’t read the books), and no one can figure this out/sufficiently protect this kid??? To be honest I never really thought the Han/Leia pairing would work out that well, and I wasn’t a huge fan of her being made Luke’s sister in ROTJ. I wanted Luke to get the princess when I was 6, shoot me. Anyway. Regardless. The SW Universe fails again to provide this mom what she needs to have a supportive relationship with her son. He was left with droids a lot. Didn’t one try to freaking murder him once? Wtf? He couldn’t come with her to senate meetings? He didn’t have a non-hackable non-human nanny to keep him close to his mom when she was embroiled in debates? Dad couldn’t have dialed in more via skype/hologram? You would think she’d have a freaking staff entourage that would travel with her all the time and keep him close like the royal she is. Han couldn’t take him out on the Falcon with Chewie when she had a particularly busy week? Sigh. Again. No balance between career/being a mother seems achievable, despite this being some super advanced technologically universe. I guess that’s why it’s a long time ago in a galaxy far far away? SW Universe -10000 for this failure.

So this brings me to how I would really love how this Skywalker family to end up. First off I want happiness for Leia. Familial happiness, which means either Ben redeems himself and comes home to her (good lord if this happens somehow I will be a sobbing mess). She could also practically adopt Rey, which I hope does happen. The best way for this to happen? As I have said, Ben redeems himself (hopefully not as a last ditch thing ala vader) and then LIVES, in order to atone and rebuild. I hope Leia knows this or witnesses this, and that she doesn’t die without knowing it which would reduce me to tears even more. Rey,is adopted as Leia’s daughter, and welcomed into the family BEFORE any whiff of relationship between her and Ben which I think has already happened. Anyway this becomes even more solidified due to her either implied will happen or does in the movie happen marriage to Ben. Honestly folks I know Rey is an amazing female character and a strong person but she is also flawed too and the one who has caused her to grow and face her flaws? Ben. The one who is her opposite but ideally suited for her future life as a force user? Ben. The one ideally placed to understand her and her trials? Ben. He is her helpmeet people. Through them, the legacy of a POSITIVE Jedi Order can continue. Ben knows the hypocrisy and flaws of the old ways, and Rey does too. They can make a new order/legacy. And you had better BET that the man who felt abandoned by his family as a youth, and the woman who was literally abandoned by hers, would be taking good care of their children and finding a balance between work/life. If Lucasfilm is really putting forward a strong female protagonist, which I have to believe they are, they can show her as flawed as well (they have), they can show her as being powerful and having agency in and of herself, they can show her choosing to have a romantic relationship (if she chooses) without weakening her character and for ONCE I would also like it if they could show that you can have your own life path and also blend that with motherhood/family if you so choose. C’mon Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy!!! I’ll have been waiting 27 years for this!!!! Anyway that is all for my Sunday morning rambling.

#reylo #star wars #bendemption #prequel #sequel trilogy #tros speculation

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