#(it’s not like she is ACTIVELY OFF PLANET and anakin is ACTIVELY AVOIDING THINKING ABOUT HER FOR TRAUMA REASONS)

[jew-flexive]

see this shit? this is not okay.

i ended up deleting all the comments because i didn’t know how to respond to this user’s reply, but oh my god. this is not how you talk to fic writers. i wrote eleutheromania FOR FREE at a time when i was working three jobs, going to grad school, and you know, living through a worldwide pandemic. i have said multiple times in the comments that writing the fic was incredibly personal to me and was informed deeply by my experiences with antisemitism and emotional abuse. i have also said in the comments MULTIPLE TIMES that i do not accept concrit on my work. that is not because i’m “not emotionally capable of dealing with anything that’s not blatant positive feedback.” it’s because i don’t post fic on a03 to get torn apart by internet strangers for not sufficiently including their favorite character. if you’re reading a fic and the author makes a choice you don’t agree with, click off. to me, that’s just common courtesy.

this comment was just so incredibly mean-spirited and i’m honestly a little baffled that someone felt like this was something they needed to send a complete stranger whose art didn’t vibe with them. not wanting to engage with concrit is not craving validation. ugh. i’m trying not to be upset because part of me feels like i’m proving their point but idk. it has never once occurred to me to send a message like this to someone. ever.

[jedimasterbailey]

Hey baby 😘 for the Jedi ask game I am going to focus on the most popular misunderstood Jedi that deserve all the love (sorry for the bombardment dear 🤣):

Mace: 14, 33, 41, 42

Luminara: 31, 34, 35, 45

Barriss: 30, 32, 36, 47

Mace 💜

14-How does Mace like to meditate?

I feel like Mace LOVES to mediate with others even though he can meditate alone just fine. He also comes off as plant guy to me, so I feel Mace’s favorite spot is in the Temple gardens with his Padawan Depa and later Caleb, but Mace wouldn’t turn anyone away, he would even let Anakin mediate with him if the man gave him a chance. Given his position within the Order and his fighting style (being able to channel dark side energy without giving into it), Mace is under a lot of stress at times so being around others be it loved ones or others, puts his mind and spirit at ease and I find that to be a beautiful thing. Most Jedi see Mace as an open and caring man instead of the intimidating Master others may see.

33-If Mace was able to survive Order 66, how would he live?

Mace would most definitely get the hell away from Coruscant as soon as he can and as far as he can. With all that’s happened, Mace would know he cannot take on the rising Empire alone especially wounded so he would need to flee and recoup somewhere safe until he can get back on his feet. I don’t believe he would return to his homeworld for obvious reasons, Mace would want to charter to some backwater planet where he can lay low and avoid Imperial attention. I don’t believe Mace would be want to be an active Jedi for a while because trauma, but he like Obi-Wan would do what he can to survive until he makes peace with what’s happened. I can see this going one of two ways. Either Mace lives a comfortable life of solitude helping out when he can or he could became a part of the Path and aid other surviving Jedi and Force sensitives in time of need, passing on his wisdom, possibly reuniting with Kanan in the process.

41-Is Mace more of a droid person or a critter person?

Mace seems to be a guy that’s all about life and with that comes critters. He would definitely be the dad that lets Depa bring in all the stray Tooka cats, birds, etc. because he enjoy taking care of things and being around animals help him relax like his plants.

42-What’s something Mace will never forget?

Okay I’m going to give a happy answer to this and a sad answer to this. I’ll start with the sad one to get it out of the way; I don’t believe Mace will ever forget the fact that if he had followed through in killing Dooku, that things could have ended differently. Maybe the Clone Wars would not have started that day and so many Jedi would still be alive. If you’ve ever read the Legends book “Shatterpoint”, you’d know that Mace constantly beats himself up over his decision to spare Dooku due to personal feelings. As for the happy one, I believe Mace could never forget all the milestones of his little girl (Depa) growing up from Padawan, to Knighthood, to making her a member of the Council, and to meeting his grand Padawan Caleb.

Luminara 💚

31-A Jedi Luminara looks up to the most?

Obi-Wan Kenobi 💙 I think Luminara would be in awe of someone who has dealt with so much tragedy in his life yet still chooses the light. Despite losing his Master and witnessing his death, taking on a Padawan when he wasn’t ready, losing his old flame, etc. Obi-Wan stays true to his Jedi ways and I believe that would inspire Luminara to do the same since she will inevitably deal with tragedy later. We don’t know anything about Luminara’s past, but given we don’t know who her Master was for sure, it’s safe to say that Luminara may have already faced grief and suffering in her past and perhaps leaned on Obi-Wan during those times only for her to return the favor. I would also say that Anakin isn’t far from being number one to her either since Luminara does openly praise him and trust him despite teasing him on his recklessness. I think she respects Anakin’s unorthodox way of thinking when she herself can’t think of another solution.

34-Luminara’s favorite food.

SWEETS! Luminara will never turn down a pastry, candy, etc. because she has the biggest sweet tooth and always has. You will always catch her eating a chocolate croissant or something with her morning coffee and she will always have her dessert after dinner. Barriss picks up on the habit as well because those two women need just has much sugar as they do caffeine to get through the days 😅

35-Luminara’s drink of choice.

A chai tea latte, hot or iced depending on the weather. Given the amount of stress Luminara is constantly under, she needs her caffeine (like Barriss only I headcanon her to be a huge coffee drinker) but she’s a classy lady that turns to tea more than coffee plus she loves some spice in her drink. Not to mention she can’t get drunk often so better to stay safe. Barriss knows that after a long day of work, that her Master loves to decompress with her chai and her Padawan will happily fetch that drink for her at the local space Starbucks anytime.

45-How was Luminara brought to the temple to become a Jedi?

I like to believe another Mirialan woman, possibly Master Katri (who I also headcanon to be Luminara’s Jedi Master) discovered baby Luminara on their homeworld of Mirial by chance as if the Force pulled them together. I also love the idea of Luminara possibly hailing from a very affluent family (like Dooku) or perhaps even Mirialan royalty of some sort but they happily give her to Katri as being a Jedi is a huge honor in Mirialan culture.

Barriss 💙

30-Her most embarrassing moment.

During a mission with Ahsoka and their respective Masters, Barriss gets caught by both Luminara and Anakin kissing Ahsoka in a closet or something. Anakin starts to laugh whilst Luminara is all stoic (even though she is trying so hard not to laugh and rub it in Barriss’s that she knew along) and is like “sorry to interrupt Padawan, carry on.” causing Barriss to blush real hard and almost faint this Ahsoka has to calm her down and reassure her everything is alright 🤣

32-Her thoughts on flying.

I don’t believe Barriss would have much of an opinion on flying. She can do it but she’s not obsessed with it nor does she hate it. To Barriss, flying is just getting from point A to point B and that’s that. She most definitely wouldn’t be pulling stunts like Anakin or Ahsoka because as a healer safety comes first 👍🏻

36-Her guilty pleasure.

Reality holotv, Barriss needs something to remind her that her life while traumatic and chaotic isn’t nearly as bad as others.

47-Her best quote.

I can’t remember which Medstar book it was but Barriss was explaining Jedi philosophy to one of the doctors she was working with and this particular quote made me love her all the more 💙

“A Jedi’s strength doesn’t come from her lightsaber but rather the strength of her heart.”

This quote has me feeling all the feelings for multiple reasons. One, it perfectly captures what it means to be a Jedi. It’s not about power, it’s about inner strength. Two, again with Barriss’s role as a teenage war hero and medic, she really does have to dig deep to find her courage in order to help people in disastrous situations. It’s not easy, but she does it and I find that kind of bravery beautiful. Three this quote just speaks to me on a personal level as I’ve dealt with plenty of traumas and tragedies in my real life but somehow I find a way through even when I want to give up. Barriss is an inspiration and she must have gotten that wisdom from somewhere either from Luminara herself or someone else in her Jedi family 💙💚

Original Jedi Ask Game Questions

[dankovskaya]

Okayyy another egregiously long sitting where I don’t think I even progressed all that much and I now have some actual (long, very long, unstructured) thoughts on characters and plot etc 👇

Well first of all since this just happened. Ok I love Merrin a lot and I love Cal and I love the unique dynamic that they have together BUT -- and I can accept that I might be one of maybe 5 joyless cunts that feel this way -- I was so hoping there would never be anything actually romantic between them. I love that after fallen order they (and the whole crew!) grew so close and familiar with each other and genuinely love each other etc + the game has been doing a really good job at displaying that familiarity in a convincing and endearing way but I so cannot describe the dread I felt in my stomach when they lingered on her putting her arms around him when they were riding the fucking. SPAMMEL. And I probably rolled my eyes at least 4 times during their little huddling for warmth in the desert cave scene 😭

But it sucks because I literally loved about 93% of their interactions that I’ve seen so far it’s just when there are those little Haha ooooo like-like? like-like? moments I’m just like. Anakin you’re breaking my heart. You’re going down a path I can’t follow. Being dramatic obviously it’s not like it ruins their dynamic or anything and Merrin’s methods of showing affection are so cute that I really don’t care That much in the first place I just can’t help but blame the 90000 star war fans who looked at fallen order and were like OOOOOO they’re in LOOOOVFVVVEEEEEEE 🥰😏🥰😏 literlaly just because they like. Touched hands that one time. And relate to each other as survivors of fucking genocides. What if we all killed ourselves. Whatever. If I’m not crazy and the rest of you also did not really want or expect Merrin to turn into an outright love interest please let me know.

Ok for the actual plot overall this thing with.... Help I already forgot the planet’s name I know it starts with a T. And like Dagan whatever the fuck. I mean. I know nothing about the High Republic era content because I just have never had any interest in it but I’m excited for this guy as a fallen Jedi antagonist and for me the most interesting moment in the game so far was after their first fight when Cal, even after watching him actively bleed his fucking kyber crystal and curse the Jedi Order, was still begging him to stay and help with the fight against the empire because there are so few of them left!!! It’s very different from how he approached Taron Malicos in the first game (from. memory.) and seems very informed by how his mindset has changed after fighting this same fight for so long etc... I was very confused initially tho about Cal’s interest in the lost planet as a potential hiding place from the empire? It made way more sense after he met up with Cere and told her about it and she proposed it could be a refuge for surviving Jedi + force sensitives + their families and I can now buy that as the driving motivation for the rest of the game or whatever but Cal did not mention anything like that 💀 All he seemed to see it as before that was a place where Greez and all his besties and whatever other people he cares about could hide from the empire which seemed incredibly odd because “hiding from the empire” is completely antithetical to all of his beliefs at this point and is quite literally why he had been avoiding the mantis crew for the past however many years? But maybe I just misunderstood something lmfao.

And on that last point I was worried the whole “we haven’t seen each other in a long time but now it’s time to get the gang back together but ooooo there’s some tension something happened....” thing was going to feel very forced and dumb but actually I think Greez Cere and Merrin all having (very respectable) reasons to want to split off and pursue their own goals and Cal being very pissed off about that and lowkey taking it personally because he projected his own mindset and self-enforced obligations onto them so hard that it felt like a betrayal and thus caused a mild amount of resentment which pretty much goes away as soon as he actually has a proper individual conversation with all of them again and is finally able to comprehend their perspectives was really good. Holy shit that was a long sentence. Really tho as soon as I heard that the mantis crew was separated and had to be reassembled I was like ohhhh goddamnit manufactured drama to pad out the playtime but it’s really not like that at all lmfao. Like I’m pretty sure at this point it’s basically wrapped up since the common goal has been established and again it was literally just due to Cal’s frankly inhuman expectations that he has for himself and his inability to imagine being able to live outside of that so as soon as he actually sits down and listens to their reasoning and possibly gets told that he has issues he’s like. That makes sense honestly my bad. Lmfao.

[willowcrowned]

Assassin Cody AU

Inspired by this post

Jango Fett is not a particularly busy man. He’s also not, as it comes, a particularly rich one. He is, however, a father, and that means if he can avoid it, he doesn’t take Boba on jobs. He also doesn’t leave Boba alone on Kamino, because he doesn’t trust the longnecks. This means that when Dooku asks him to take a hit on Amidala, a problem arises. The solution? Outsource the job.

He comes up with the perfect ruse— he’ll go off on a “job,” bringing Kote with him, and he’ll let Kote do all the dirty work while he takes a nice vacation with Boba. He won’t have to pay him, like he might if he conscripted Zam Wessel, who’s his other best bet, and he knows Kote will get the job done.

Kote is dropped off on Coruscant with some armor, some credits, several weapons (including a sniper rifle), a jetpack, and, curiously, some Kouhun worms. Jango leaves him there, telling him he’ll pick him up in a few days and to comm him if he needs to get out, and then he and Boba jet off to somewhere nice and sunny.

While Jango and Boba are on vacation, Kote is going through the file over and over again in a bar, eventually deciding to stake out the apartment. The glass will be a big problem— blasterproof, obviously, and blastproof— and the Jedi moreso. He’s not proud of his solution, but Jango did give him the worms for a reason. He tucks them into a droid and sends them off to the apartment, and then he waits for her to die.

She doesn’t die, and the jedi come after him. 

After a frankly terrifying speeder chase, he manages to lose them in a nightclub. The ginger one is doing shots by the bar, and the kid is wandering around, barging through people’s conversations and clearing space around himself by glaring at anyone who comes near him. By all rights, they should be distracted, but Kote gets the feeling that they’re both keeping an eye on the door. He’ll have to cause a diversion.

He ducks behind a table, checks that his blaster is silenced, and shoots the electrical panel on the wall next to him. Then he runs. The exit should be clear— there’s no way anyone could have gotten there faster than him, especially since both the jedi were on the other side of the room— but somehow they are. 

The kid grabs him and destroys his comm, and he knows jedi kids are already warriors, but he still just got beaten by a kid. It’s a little embarassing. And yet, h gets the feeling that this will be the least of his indignities in the coming days. 

(At least, he thinks, it’ll be hard for Jango to kill him while he’s under jedi protection. It’s a cold comfort.)

Obi-Wan is put out, to say the least. The man isn’t talking— not a word about who hired him, or why. They’ve done a bioscan, and it looks like he’s Jango Fett, a mandalorian bounty hunter. (He’s handsome, at least, Obi-Wan supposes, which makes the hours he spends staring at the man at least a little more tolerable.)

Then they get a report of Jango Fett on a holiday planet— one of the ones in the mid rim that consistently get renamed as new corporations buy them out— and Obi-Wan requests a more thorough bioscan. It comes back with two notable results. The first, artificial telomere extensions, implanted from birth— the hallmark of a clone. The second, a biological chip in the brain.

This? this is concerning. Full-body cloning is outlawed on most Republic planets, and for good reason. If Jango Fett is going around making clones of himself, and then training them, the Jedi have cause for concern.

Obi-Wan offers a deal. The Jedi will drop all charges for attempted assassination against Senator Amidala if the clone provides them with information.

“The alternative?” The man asks.

Obi-Wan frowns. “Indefinite imprisonment. You understand why we can’t let you go free, and it’s not like we can hand you over to judicial in good conscience— clone rights in Republic space are dubious at best, so there’s no guarantee you’d even get a trial.”

The man, whose name is Kote, comes clean. He tells Obi-Wan about Dooku, about the job, about the clones— everything (which, considering the limited data he must have been working off of, is very impressive indeed. Obi-Wan tells him this, and if he gets somewhat distracted by the man’s slight blush, that’s no one’s business but his own). It paints a worrying picture, and Kote seems to know it. He doesn’t, however, seem to know about the chip. And that? That scares Obi-Wan.

He agrees to have it taken out.

They do a biopsy, and oh, look at that, it turns out that they’re designed to ensure compliance with a series of executive orders, only able to be activated by the Chancellor. The Chancellor who is, at this very moment, trying to start a war. The Chancellor who is apparently working with Dooku, who is now a Sith lord. (Obi-Wan feels a bit guilty that Anakin is on Naboo right now, none the wiser as to what’s about to happen. But, well, better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?)

He, and the entire High Council, go to arrest the Chancellor that afternoon. The man starts out affable as always, but when Mace brings up the evidence— brings up Kote— a switch flips. 

Obi-Wan most certainly doesn’t draw his saber first— no, that honor goes to the Sith Lord— but he does get the last hit in. It’s a bit dishonorable, stabbing him from behind, but it’s not as if he wasn’t about to kill them all. Besides, he had threatened Kote, and Obi-Wan rather likes the man.

Anakin comes back to see the Republic in disarray, Dooku back at the temple being lectured by Yoda on bad decisions, the Separatist movement dissolving, the Chancellor dead and a Sith Lord, and yet, somehow, Obi-Wan ends up lecturing him about attachment, all the while hand in hand with Kote. Anakin is not pleased. 

Kote goes back to Kamino with Obi-Wan, and, because the Jedi legally own the clones according to Kaminoan law, they’re perfectly within their rights to do whatever they want. So they adopt them, fully and legally, according to Republic law. Since the Jedi are somewhat exempt from Republic law, though they have the full rights of any citizen, bar voting, this means the clones get rights too. 

(It’s a very neat solution, and Obi-Wan and Kote are very proud of it. (If they end up spending hours together working the kinks out, then so much the better. Anakin isn’t the only one who can find a lover.))

The Republic is saved, Anakin and Obi-Wan are maybe perhaps a little more in love with their respective partners than they’re pretending, and the clones spread out through the galaxy, fulfilling their various dreams.

Needless to say, when Jango comes back from his two week vacation, he is very surprised.

[dindjarins04]

CHAPTER THREE

I AM NO JEDI MASTERLIST

Still curled up on the small chair in Padme's living area, Anakin paces back and forth. He sighs and stops in the middle of the room while you calmly respond to the onslaught of Qui-Gon's messages.

"It's too quiet,"

"That's a good thing," You reply. "I'd rather not have to deal with blasters," You look and see him looking down at you. "Perhaps if you sat down, you wouldn't be so anxious,"

"Can you at least pay some attention to me rather than your holopad?" He asks with a huff. You roll your eyes and place it down.

"You're such a child,"

"Maybe I just need a distraction,"

"Oh and I'm the perfect fit for your distraction?" You tease as he sits down in the chair opposite you.

"Yes," He says. "So...why do you think we weren't allowed to see each other for 10 years?"

"Well, those 10 years were the most vital part of our training, maybe we were just too busy with training to make friends," You shrug as you stand to pour yourself a glass of water. Anakin stays silent as he thinks of different reasons for the Jedi keeping you separate. "Enough about us...what's your story with Padme?" You cringe at yourself. Smooth, (Y/N), that was real smooth.

"We met on Tatooine, I saved her planet and that's it," You quirk a brow and turn around, leaning against the table you got your water from.

"Really? I thought you two had something more, considering the way you talk to her," You say, sipping your water.

"Heh, jealous?" You choke on the water at the question.

"That's absurd," Anakin chuckles and shakes his head.

"Whatever you say, princess,"

"Quiet, mudscuffer," Then, Obi-Wan strolls in.

"Captain Typho has more than enough men downstairs. No assassin will try that way. Any activity up here?" He asks as you move back to your holopad to send your last couple of messages to your master.

"Quiet as a tomb. I don't like just waiting here for something to happen to her," Anakin complains as Obi-Wan checks a palm-sized view scanner he has pulled out of his utility belt. It shows a shot of R2 by the door, but no sign of Padme on the bed.

"What's going on?" Obi-Wan asks.

"She covered that camera. I don't think she liked us watching her," You roll your eyes.

"What is she thinking?"

"Actually, all of this was (Y/N)'s idea," You look to see the men staring at you.

"I programmed R2 to warn us if there's an intruder,"

"It's not an intruder I'm worried about. There are many other ways to kill a Senator,"

"I know, but we also want to catch this assassin. Don't we, master Jedi?" You respond with a smirk.

"You're using her as bait??"

"It was her idea... No harm will come to her,"

"I can sense everything going on in that room. Trust me," Anakin adds on as you finish your last message and put down your holopad.

"It's too risky... and your senses aren't that attuned, young apprentice,"

"And yours are?"

"Possibly," You roll your eyes at the duo.

"You know, I can sense everything too, Qui-Gon has been teaching me well,"

"I do not disagree, I was his padawan as well," Obi-Wan says as he moves to look out of the window.

"The water is empty, I'll get some more, comm me if anything happens," Obi-Wan nods as Anakin walks beside him.

"You look tired," Obi-Wan states as he examines Anakin.

"I don't sleep well, anymore," He responds truthfully.

"Because of your mother?"

"I don't know why I keep dreaming about her now. I haven't seen her since I was little,"

"Dreams pass in time,"

"I'd rather dream of (Y/N). Just being around her again is...intoxicating," He smiles to himself but Obi-Wan gives him a look of disapproval.

"Mind your thoughts, Anakin, they betray you. You and (Y/N) have made a commitment to the Jedi order... a commitment not easily broken...and remember she is also a Jedi,"

"I understand Master...but there's just something about her. Being around her again...it brings a forgotten but familiar feeling back," Anakin grins, gently touching his chest.

"Anakin, (Y/N) is already on thin ice with the Jedi Council, please don't try and ruin this for her," Anakin looks up at his master.

"I...I won't," You return with a sigh.

"I couldn't get any water!" You exclaim. "Too many procedures to fill up one jug of water," You sigh placing it down. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" Anakin and Obi-Wan share a discreet glance.

"No, it's been very quiet," Obi-Wan answers to Anakin's relief. But then, you all stop and look at each other.

"Is it just me?"

"No, I can sense it too," All three of you run and burst into Padme's room. Two creatures stand on their hind legs as Padme lays deadly still. Anakin springs onto the bed and slices the creatures in half with his lightsaber. You see a droid outside and race after it, crashing through the blinds and window. Okay. Bad idea. You did NOT think that through.

You fly through the glass window and fling yourself at the probe droid, grabbing onto the deadly machine before it can flee. The droid sinks under the weight of you but manages to stay afloat and fly away, with you hanging on for dear life, a hundred stories above the city. The droid sends several protective electrical shocks across its surface, causing you to almost lose your grip. As you dart in and out of the speeder traffic, you disconnect a wire on the back of the droid. Its power shuts off. Shit! You and the droid drop like rocks. You realise the error of your ways and quickly puts the wire back. The droid's systems light up again and it takes off.

Sweat begins to build on your forehead. You did not think this through what so ever and you have no idea where Anakin or Obi-Wan is. The last thing you remember is Padme's deadly still body. Is she dead? That sudden thought sends a pang of regret in your gut. Did you allow your best and only friend to die?

The droid bumps against a wall, hoping to knock you loose. It moves behind a speeder afterburner to scorch you. It takes you wildly between buildings and finally skims across a rooftop and you are forced to lift your legs, tenaciously hanging onto the droid.

"Would you stop?!" You growl as the droid heads for a dirty, beat-up speeder hidden in an alcove of a building about twenty stories up. When the pilot of the speeder, a scruffy looking person who is most likely a bounty hunter, sees the droid approach with you hanging on, she pulls a long rifle out of the speeder and starts to fire at you. Explosions burst all around you. "I have a bad feeling about this," You say.

Finally, the droid suffers a direct hit and blows up and you fall fifty stories until a speeder drops down next to you, and you manage to grab onto the back end of the speeder and haul yourself toward the cockpit. You struggle to climb into the seat and you sigh in relief when seeing Anakin driver and Obi-Wan in the passenger seat.

"That was wacky! I almost lost you in the traffic," Anakin said.

"What took you so long?" You ask as you finally sit correctly in the seat you tumbled into.

"Oh, you know, princess, I couldn't find a speeder I really liked, with an open cockpit... and with the right speed capabilities...and then you know I had to get a really gonzo colour..."

"Qui-Gon will not be happy about your recklessness," Obi-Wan chimes in.

"Well, I know who to follow now," Anakin zooms upward in hot pursuit of the bounty hunter as she fires out the open window at you with her laser pistol.

"And Anakin, if you'd spend as much time working on your saber skills as you do on your wit, young Padawan, you would rival Master Yoda as a swordsman," Obi-Wan says, scolding both of you.

"I thought I already did," Anakin replies smugly.

"Only in your mind, my very young apprentice. Careful!! Hey, easy!!" Obi-Wan says as he grips the sides of the speeder as Anakin deftly moves in and out of the oncoming traffic, across lanes, between buildings, and miraculously through a construction site, the bounty hunter still firing at you.

"Sorry, I forgot you don't like flying, Master," You watch with a small smile at the way these two communicate. It reminds you of how you and Lumarina shared a lot of jokes and banter just like these two.

"I don't mind flying... but what you're doing is suicide!" You barely miss a commuter train.

"I agree with Obi-Wan on that account," You say as you duck.

"Master, you know I've been flying since before I could walk. I'm very good at this and (Y/N)...just trust me," You roll your eyes as he laughs and Obi-Wan gasps as Anakin makes another narrow turn.

"Just slow down!" The bounty hunter and Anakin race through a line of cross-traffic made up of giant trucks. The speeders bank sideways as they slide around right-angle turns between buildings. The bounty hunter races into a tram tunnel. "Wait! Don't go in there!" Obi-Wan says but Anakin zooms into the tunnel after the hunter. You see a tram coming at you. Anakin brakes, turns around, and race out, barely ahead of the charging commuter transport."You know I don't like it when you do that!" Obi-Wan growls. "We also have another person with us, try not to kill three Jedi!"

"Sorry, Master. Don't worry, this guy's gonna kill himself any minute now!"

"No, you're going to kill us!" You scold, slapping his head. The hunter turns into oncoming traffic, deliberately trying to throw Anakin off. Oncoming speeders swerve, trying to avoid the hunter and three Jedi. The hunter does a quick, tight loop-over and ends up behind all of you. She is now in a much better position to fire at you all with her laser pistol. To avoid being hit by the laser bolts, Anakin slams on the brakes and moves alongside her. She now fires point-blank at Obi-Wan.

"What are you doing? He's gonna blast me!"

"Right, not a good idea," Anakin quickly turns and swerves away. Suddenly, the hunter throws a bunch of explosives in your direction. You stand and use the force to hold them away from your speeder as they explode. Out of a cloud of smoke and ball of flames Anakin tears after the hunter.

"(Y/N), that didn't do much help!" Obi-Wan slaps out the small fire on the dashboard.

"At least we're not dead!" You exclaim, sitting back down. The hunter goes up and down, through cross-traffic. There is a near miss as a speeder almost hits you. The hunter turns down and left between two buildings. Anakin pulls up and to the right

"Where are you going?! He went down there, the other way,"

"This is a shortcut... I think,"

"What do you mean, 'You think?' What kind of shortcut?! He went completely the other way! You've lost him!" You exclaim from behind him.

"Guys, if we keep this chase going, that creep's gonna end up deep-fried personally, I'd very much like to find out who in the hell he is and who he's working for..."

"Oh, so that's why we're going in the wrong direction," Obi-Wan says sarcastically. Anakin turns up a side street, zooming up several small passageways, then stops, hovering about fifty stories up. Obi-Wan folds his arms. "Well, you lost him,"

"I'm deeply sorry, Master,"

"Great job Anakin, he went completely the other way," You groan, unhappy for losing the bounty hunter. Anakin looks around front and back. He spots something. He seems to start counting to himself as he watches something below approach.

"Excuse me for a moment," Anakin then jumps out of the speeder. You and Obi-Wan watch as he jumps on the hunter's speeder about five stories below you. You quickly jump into the driver's seat and follow after them. You deftly gain on the rogue speeder. The two speeders dive through oncoming traffic and then through cross traffic. You then see Anakin drop something and you quickly catch it. You then notice it's his lightsaber. You sigh and hand it to Obi-Wan.

"I'm going to have to admit, this has been the most fun I've had since Naboo," You say as you follow the speeder as it crashes onto the ground.

"Naboo? You mean with Maul?"

"Well, everything leading up to that," You say as you talently spin around oncoming vehicles.

"Spinning is not flying!" Obi-Wan groans. "This is the first time I've ridden with you and your already matching Anakin's recklessness," You chuckle as you land. You grin as you land and wipe the sweat from your head. Obi-Wan looks at you before chuckling. You also laugh as he gets out and helps you out. "I will have to admit, that was something different,"

"Probably something the council will frown upon," You joke before seeing him. "Anakin!"

"She went into that club," Anakin said, pointing to the bright sign.

"Patience," Obi-Wa reminds as he hands Anakin his lightsaber. "Here. Next time try not to lose it,"

"Sorry, Master," Anakin reaches for the lightsaber, but Obi-Wan holds it back. "A Jedi's saber is his most precious possession,"

"Yes, Master," He reaches for his lightsaber again, but Obi-Wan pulls it back.

"He must keep it with him at all times,"

"I know, Master,"

"This weapon is your life!"

"I've heard this lesson before..." You and Anakin say at the same time. Obi-Wan finally holds out his lightsaber and Anakin grabs it.

"But unlike (Y/N), you haven't learned anything, Anakin,"

"I try, Master,"

"However, you should thank (Y/N) for catching it for you," Obi-Wan says before stepping away.

"Thank you...you've lost your lightsaber?" He teases as you follow Obi-Wan.

"Yeah, but I found it," You defend.

"How long did it take you?"

"3 lectures from my master and one full rotation,"

"Really? Where was it?" You look down. "(Y/N)," He says in a sing-song voice.

"It was under my bed," Anakin laughs loudly and you also chuckle as all three of you enter the nightclub.

[sullustangin]

Fearful Avoidant Attachment and the Single Spy

Caveat:  I’m not a counselor of any sort, and I’m applying labels to fictional characters.  Don’t take this too seriously.

This post has been kicking around in different forms in my prompt document for awhile.  I will start posting my Yavin fic this weekend.  A major element of this fic will be the dynamic between Theron and the playable character/love interest.  Their interactions will be informed by how I view his attachments. I’ve put some of this into the fic series already.

“Attachment” in the Star Wars universe is the idea, according to George Lucas, that Jedi should love everyone but not get attached.  “Attached” in this context is possession, greed, being willing to do things for individuals rather than the greater good, and ultimately the fear of loss.  Attachment is a negative concept in Jedi philosophy.

However, I would argue that while this philosophy is in the back of Theron’s head, Jedi attachment concepts are not what makes Theron’s personal life messy.  It’s the personal context surrounding that teaching and his life events that shape this.  So let’s look at real life attachment theory. 

In its most basic form, attachment theory is the idea that children need to develop a positive relationship with a caregiver to turn out ok. If the child is neglected, then they will have problems forming healthy attachments to others.   There’s a lot of caveats to this theory.  Some put the threshold of ‘must have positive relationship by x age’ to age 2 or age 5.  Others state that this is problematic, because if a child loses their caregiver and passes into the hands of a less affectionate or downright abusive caregiver, then their positive attachment formation by age x doesn’t count for much.

There are several different types of attachment that a person can have.  A secure attachment is what most healthy relationships are rooted in. People feel safe and secure within themselves and within the relationship. Jedi can be attached in this fashion, even if they don’t call it this; the Jedi have orderly boundaries and a clear understanding of what their associations entail. They have care systems for younglings and padawans, which were like pre-modern apprenticeships.   They are secure within themselves as Jedi and in their relationships outside the order.  They are at peace.

An insecure attachment has a flaw in it; something is wrong in how the person relates to themselves and others in relationships, platonic, romantic or otherwise.  One type is dismissive or avoidant; the attachments are actively avoided, so the person is often isolated and rejects others and their friendly overtures.  Another type is anxious or preoccupied; people tend to get very clingy or possessive with anyone they latch onto, which can cause the relationship to self-destruct (hi, Anakin).

Then there is fearful avoidant attachment, the label I think fits Theron Shan, our favorite high-quality spy and absolute emotional disaster.  In theory, Theron tries to avoid deep emotional attachments because he’s scared of being left behind or not having those attachments reciprocated. At the same time, he desperately wants those attachments and relationships, but the potential of failure makes him avoid or even sabotage the relationship.  That results in an on-going war between Theron and his feelings. To quote Psychalive, “the person [he wants] to go to for safety is the same person [he is] frightened to be close to. As a result, [he has] no organized strategy for getting [his] needs met by others.”

Why does Theron have attachment issues?

Some accuse Satele Shan or Jace Malcom of being “bad parents.”  There’s a problem with this premise: although there is a biological relationship, neither Satele nor Jace had a parent-child relationship with Theron. Jace didn’t even know Theron existed until the child was 26, so he couldn’t act in any capacity.  Satele gave Theron up to be raised by someone else; she opted out of the role of mother and did not talk to him as mother-and-son until Theron was 26.  There isn’t an abusive or neglectful relationship here because there isn’t a relationship, period.  Much like romantic relationships, it’s better to have no relationship than a bad one. Jace and Satele didn’t raise Theron.  They were strangers to him until he was an adult.  They were never his caretakers.  Who did Theron have attachments to?

Theron was raised by a Jedi named Ngani Zho, who had been Satele Shan’s master when she was a padawan. After Satele gave birth in a cave on some planet, Zho took the child and raised him as his own son.  This was irregular, honestly.  Jedi younglings that express some sort of control over the Force are typically put into a creche at the Jedi Temple; we’ve seen this in the Star Wars prequel films.  Guss Tuno references this in SWTOR, as he was chagrinned to be in class with a bunch of five-year-olds in bathrobes.  Theron was raised by Zho directly and they were constantly traveling, based upon comments we read in The Lost Suns comic and in the novel Annihilation. Theron never entered the creche because he never manifested signs he was Force-sensitive – not even a little like Guss.

Zho traveled with Theron until the boy was an adolescent. Then, Theron was told by Zho to travel to the Jedi Temple at Haashimut to receive more training; he could do no more for him.  The trip through a desert nearly killed the boy.  When Theron had recovered, it fell to Master Till’in to tell him he would not be a Jedi.  Ever.  

Instead of telling Theron or notifying Satele about the boy’s lack of Force aptitude, Zho sent him onward and then disappeared.  There is no indication that Zho told anyone where he was going or why.  When Theron met Zho again at age 23, the Master’s mind was scrambled and confused; he couldn’t give any answers to Theron about anything.  Was there a mission he had been set on?  Or did he just wander off on his own?

For storytelling purposes, it’s convenient to pair Zho’s departure with the aftermath of the Treaty of Coruscant.  In the year Theron turned 13 (3653 BBY), the Great Galactic War ended with the Treaty of Coruscant, wherein the Sith Empire enforced demands on the Republic.  The Sith won. Zho leaving could be tied to this (through a mission or quixotic urge), but the source material isn’t clear on the timing.  

Theron’s life suddenly became very uncertain.  His entire life had been built up to becoming a Jedi.  To some extent, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Theron probably felt like he was a failure.  We know he tried to fix this; in The Lost Suns, he acknowledged pursuing access to the Force through the Matukai Force tradition – being an ascetic. In Annihilation, he recalled and took particular umbrage at the “arrogance” of the Jedi – those that made him feel like any other path was second (or third or less)-best. This diminished over time, but the revelation about his lack of Force Sensitivity probably left Theron feeling very insecure about himself and who he was as an adolescent/young teen.

In terms of his relationships, Zho was gone with no forwarding address.  The man Theron called his father was no longer reachable, and for another ten years, there would be no closure as to what happened to him.  Zho had actively endangered Theron by sending him through a desert to Haashimut.  Did he gamble that the boy’s Force Sensitivity would manifest in a life-threatening crisis or something?  Who knows? Theron never went into the Jedi creche, so he didn’t have close peers or friends beyond pen pals at best.  Theron had not spoken to his bio parents at all to this point, and he probably didn’t know many (if any) non-Force Sensitive kids.  With his expulsion from Jedi society, Theron’s entire relationship network was gone.

This is important to understand -- Theron had been raised to not have attachments that would lead to selfishness or fear of loss, but he was raised to be able to love and care for others.  He lived in a structure that fostered good psychological attachments (secure attachments) to the order and to his fellow sentients without possessiveness or jealousy. Theron knew his mother gave him up. He knew one day Zho would give his care over to another Master.  He knew one day, he would leave the Temple to go out into the galaxy.   Theron knew how the galaxy worked and his role in it...

..and then it was torn away from him.  No more masters, no more knowledge of what came next, no way to ever work with his mother as a Jedi.  His life to that point had been an illusion -- he was never able to access the Force, and Zho knew it.  This left Theron as insecurely attached, as nothing that he anticipated for his life would ever happen, and he knew nobody that would accompany him into this new life. 

External to all this, the Republic Theron was raised to serve was on the losing end of war.  How the galaxy worked, as far as Theron knew to that point, was going to change.  After Till’in told Theron the truth, all we know is that he spent some time in Haashimut before going elsewhere. We the viewer have no idea what happened to Theron from adolescence until he was 16, when he entered SIS per Annihilation.  This may be a canon math/timing error, or it could be reasonable; Theron might have been able to get permission to join a government organization at 16.  If Theron was in foster care or a ward of the state or something else, whoever was involved didn’t make an impact worthy of mention thus far in SWTOR canon.

Theron described Zho in The Lost Suns as “never reliable.”  That was a 23-year-old looking back.  Yet, he referred to him as his father in Annihilation three years later, and even eight years later in SWTOR: KotFE, he mentions that “Master Zho would be proud.”  This seems contradictory.  Additionally, in both The Lost Suns and Annihilation, SIS Director Marcus Trant expressed concern about Theron and his issues.  Theron was a workaholic.  Being a workaholic is actually a sign of having attachment issues; a person attaches themselves to work, not people   Theron expressed desires to run away, go on vacation, and do new stuff… but he never did these things – couldn’t get away from the job.

Attachment theory states that a child has difficulty with attachments if they are abused or somehow neglected by their caretaker. The desert march definitely strikes me as falling into one of those categories, but again, Zho’s logic isn’t readily offered up to the viewer, nor are many details about Theron’s life as a traveling youngling.  That all said, Zho’s traumatic departure probably caused attachment issues that had no other herald.

Why do the labels “fearful” and “avoidant” fit Theron?

Theron Shan as the player met him in Forged Alliance SWTOR was a professional.  Flirting was ignored, mildly acknowledged, or, rarely, fully reciprocated. There was no physical contact between Theron and his asset. This doesn’t seem off or irregular until his romance is compared to that of Lana Beniko. She didn’t have the same issues expressing affection for her asset on Imp side; she touched their face and gave them a hug by the time the spies went under deep cover after Rakata Prime. Even if the player did not romance Lana, Lana herself was keen to make a team and bust open the conspiracy; she wasn’t as willing to go it alone.  

Avoidant people tend to refrain from contact, and they like being independent.  They don’t do well in teams.  Sound familiar?  Fearful avoidants also have the concern that they will fail their partner or that their partner will fail them.  If the player was Imp side, Theron was a jerk well into the Rishi storyline.  Eventually, Theron did come around.  His dialogue and follow-up letter reflect the fact that he actually did want these connections and attachments.  He enjoyed the time he had with the player.  

This is particularly pronounced if Theron was romanced by the player on Rishi and Yavin; first physical contact occurred on Rishi with a kiss.  If the player was Pubside, the fade-to-black and his comments on Yavin indicate they had sex.  Those episodes of affection, paired with the Pub post-Yavin letter and dialogue, really emphasize the connection that was formed.  Interestingly, Theron did not get a fade-to-black with the Imperial player. One might argue that he knew they were going to leave him, and so he couldn’t –wouldn’t—get attached.

…. And then Ziost happened. Theron refused to ask for help. He didn’t want to depend on that attachment.  He was distant on Ziost, regardless of how far the relationship went, and if Pubside, he declined a drink afterwards.

Whatever transpired between Ziost and the Eternal Fleet Incident, it’s clear that a romanced Theron and the player never defined their relationship.  There were certain boundaries that never were crossed.  He’d “like to think” the player is dreaming of him, but he didn’t want to presume.  Even after Theron got into a romantic relationship on Odessen, he still struggled with his ability to be attached, as evidence by his letters and expressions of affection and concern throughout the KotFE/KotET expansions.  

One might argue that the traitor element of the Nathema Conspiracy was partially caused by Theron’s attachment issues: his independent streak, his inability to ask for help, his lack of faith in others to do the job right (not telling anyone the truth), his lack of faith in himself (his willingness to understand why the player might dump/exile him). If romanced, he gave one of his Holonet messages the subject line “I love you,” but even then, he did not clue the player into his self-made mission.  Certainly, the Nathema Conspiracy happens because of Theron’s desperate desire to save the galaxy and the player at any cost – including the relationship itself and his life.

For those who let Theron live, the attachment issues have faded as Theron has gotten engaged/married and/or reformed a relationship with his bio parents… or the writers have moved on from Lana and Theron as companions.  Regardless, we have to keep in mind that Theron is closing in on 40, and he has grown as a character since he first appeared in Star Wars media at age 23 (baby and adolescent only in flashbacks).  His issues with his relationships, the Jedi, the Republic, and his bio parents have changed over the course of 17 years.  In the last story patch, people who have romanced Theron received letters from both Theron and his mother about how good the player is for him, and it’s very satisfying to see how far he has come.

How does this label of ‘fearful avoidant’ manifest in your fanworks?

Since not everyone is into fic, I’ll drop this behind a cut. 

Basically, my version of Theron wants love but is terrified of all the feelings and closeness that come with it.  When people get close, he draws away, but still wants them to be close.  Theron has had good relationships, but if it gets too serious, he runs.  That’s the case for his last major relationship prior to my oc; his Mirialan girlfriend was drawing a tattoo to mark their relationship, and she wanted him to meet the parents. Theron noped out of there pretty hard by taking a long mission off Coruscant and sort of forgetting to tell her.  There are several times where he takes a big step with Eva (my oc)– disclosure, physical intimacy, caring for her or letting her care for him – and then he just doesn’t contact her for the next few days.  He dives into work to avoid her.  Toward the end of their initial relationship, that will turn into weeks and months.  He is freaked out when he does things with her that are intimate, sexual or not.  He has a lot of fear that he will be left again, so he leaves first. 

Theron also sets up a lot of rules and boundaries that the partner has to dance around to get in.  After 300,000 words, I just completed a slow burn with the Rishi kiss, because Theron wouldn’t get involved with Eva until after the op to expose the conspiracy was over.  There will be more rules once they get to Yavin.  

When I was doing research on this, I read a clinical study that found that people with avoidant attachment issues are particularly fastidious about safe sex.  They don’t want attachments to their lovers in the form of a disease or a child.  Anxious attachments tend to eschew this and take the risk so they can be bound to someone. This is part of why I gave Theron a male birth control implant, but there will also be reference to his back-up (condoms) and back-up back-up (PreP) to ensure there aren’t any adverse consequences for him.

Theron is often alone, but that doesn’t make him lonely by default.  In part, that might be due to his avoidance of attachments.  Dude can pick up people at a bar and get laid. Theron isn’t adverse to sex, just intimacy.  He can find someone to hook up, but that doesn’t mean there is anything beyond sex attached to it.  Theron can and does get dates, and he can have relationships ... but that doesn’t mean he can make a healthy connection to the other person.  I think his issues are more emotional/internal than they are caused by not getting enough physical contact or affection from others.  People want to love him.  People reach out to him to be friends or have a relationship.  He just doesn’t want it; he avoids it.  I imagine that this is partly the case with Jace and his SIS coworkers.

The last fearful avoidant feature I’ll give Theron in my series is the tendency to idealize relationships after they’re dead and over. When the relationship is no longer available, it is held up and made glorious, partially to enable the person not to pursue a different relationship; it’ll never be as good, so why try?  This also calls in the tendency for fearful avoidants to fear not only screwing up the relationship themselves, but that others won’t live up to their expectations. Theron is a mess after the Eternal Fleet incident and never moves on from Eva.  It’s reasonable when he thinks she’s alive, but for a good two years, he thinks she’s dead… and he can’t.  With anyone else.

Unlike the game, I eventually send Theron to a therapist to deal with the fearful avoidant attachment issues.  I figure if I’m going to give a fictional character a real-world label, I need to give him a real-world solution that might work.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

ohh i saw your answer about the sequels of star wars. id love to read you tear through the whole trilogy

Well, I’ve avoided this ask long enough. Part of the reason is this is really a huge topic, far too much for one ask, so I’m going to have to do this at a very high level.

In short, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy is what one gets when you slap together the goal of selling merchandise and making tons of money, being as risk averse as humanly possible, adding a handful of warring directors with incredibly different visions, and having virtually no imagination when it comes to the imagining and writing of characters.

And we get this beautiful, awful, franchise that for reasons beyond me people seem to actually like (though interestingly, no one seems to like all of it, they may actually like one or two of the films, but no one says all three are actually in any realm of good).

With that, let’s begin.

The Force Awakens

For me this is easily the most tolerable of the sequel trilogy: it’s not great, it’s not terrible. It’s thoroughly watchable, you can be taken along for the movie’s journey and not raise your eyebrows too much at the action and leave the theater feeling this maybe wasn’t a complete waste of your time.

There’s a good reason for that. That reason is called the most blatant form of plagiarism I have ever seen in cinema in my life.

“The Force Awakens” is just “A New Hope” wearing a mustache. Only, it’s one of those cheap mustaches you get from a party store that, if you stare at it too long, just looks like the most false and awful thing you’ve ever seen. The mustache actively makes it worse. “The Force Awakens” is “A New Hope”, but worse.

Seriously, every major character, every major plot point, every major scene I can go directly back to “A New Hope”.

Our story begins when the Resistance, at great cost to our valiant heroes including torture at the hands of the Emperor’s second in command, sends a file out into the wilderness to be received by his people. This file contains plans for the Death Star.

The film then focuses on Luke, er Rey, getting involved in the Resistance, boarding the Death Star, and successfully destroying at the same time even at the lost of a beloved mentor that she just met (trading in Obi-Wan for Han Solo). 

Our evil empire is run by an evil emperor who is so evil he sits in a chair, is served by very Moth Tarkin-esque human storm troopers, and has a second in command who revels in the Darth Vader get up (for no other reason that it makes him feel cool but we’ll get into this).

It’s “A New Hope”. Rey is Luke, Han Solo is Obi-Wan, Poe is a kind of Han Solo, Kylo Ren is Vader, Snoke is Palpatine, Hux is Tarkin, BB-8 is R2-D2, etc.

“But that’s not terrible,” you say, “I liked A New Hope?”

First, it is terrible, it gives a very bad sign of where the sequel trilogy is headed and is just lazy writing. It means that those who produced this franchise were so terrified of taking risks, of possibly ending up mocked as the prequels were, that they will deliver exactly what the original trilogy was. And what’s that? Uh, evil empires, scrappy desert kids, AND MORE DEATH STARS!

That brings us to point number two, the world of Star Wars after the events of the original trilogy shouldn’t support such things. And, if it does, my god what a bleak existence this place has turned into.

The First Order being able to rise easily from the Empire’s remains means that Luke accomplished nothing. Anakin sacrificed himself and had his moment of redemption for nothing. There was no happy ending to the Original Trilogy, our heroes failed miserably, and there is no indication that our new band of heroes can possibly succeed in their place. (More on this as the movies progress).

We now are in a galaxy where this new Republic is so pathetic that Leia doesn’t even give it the time of day and builds her own private army to battle the Empire. The First Order is able to not only rebuild a massive army by raiding villages on many different worlds and stealing children and do so successfully for at least ten years but is able to build a Death Star bigger than any we’ve ever seen before. 

And the movie tries to convince us these are completely new problems, that Luke Skywalker is a hero (remember this is TFA, not TLJ yet), and that somehow these things just sprung up out of nowhere. BUT YEAH, RESISTANCE, WOO!

As for Rey, she’s like... a worse version of Luke. Her only motivation through the entire series is her trauma at being abandoned by her parents. That’s it, there’s nothing else to her, nothing else she ever wants or feels conflicted by. She struggles with the dark side because... the dark side? Genetics? Unclear? She’s absurdly, ridiculously, powerful in a way that’s acknowledged but never that acknowledged (we’ll get into this) and the movies just fail to sell me on her in any way.

Honestly, an easy fix for me would have just been making Rey a much younger character. I could believe a fourteen-year-old having stayed in the desert, scrounging for scraps, believing her parents are coming back every day now. As a twenty-something year old... It starts getting hard to believe she never left. (Also, this gets the benefit of getting rid of Reylo, which is always a plus for me).

As for Kylo Ren, I legitimately walked out of TFA thinking he was supposed to be comic relief. He’s what happens when someone desperately wants a likable, redeemable, villain and we get... Well, as a reminder his opening scene is one of genocide: he pillages and destroys a town with no regret and brutally tortures a man for information. We’re told he’s like this “because evil evil Snoke” and that may well be but throughout the film (and the series) it becomes clear that Kylo Ren’s main motivation is he deseprately wants to be cool. He wants to be a badass like Vader, he dresses in Vader cosplay (either ignoring or not knowing that Vader only dressed like that because his body was completely destroyed), he has these huge temper tantrums and nobody respects him because he’s a toddler in a Vader suit. 

He murders his own father, his parents who (at least in the films themselves) show every willingness to take him back and forgive him what he’s done, so that he can fully embrace his own “evilness”. In other words, he commits patricide to feel cool about himself, then it doesn’t work. 

And the movie series really banks on me feeling conflicted about Kylo Ren or at least wanting him to be redeemed. Granted, the wider internet seems to love him, I just can’t.

Oh, before I forget, the other thing I love about Kylo Ren is that the movies insist he’s a) strong in the Force b) is equal to Rey. Rey consistently beats the shit out of him with 0 training. Kylo Ren has been training in the Force for years. Guys, they are not a Dyad, Rey is far far far stronger than he is and for whatever reason the films never want to admit it. Because I guess we like things coming in pairs now.

But yes, “The Force Awakens”, at a distance not great nor terrible, but a rip off of a movie we’ve already seen that left me going “Welp, the next one’s probably The Empire Strikes Back then I guess we’re getting Ewoks”. I was sort of right on that and sort of wrong.

The Last Jedi

So, JJ Abrams clearly had a vision of where he wanted this sequel trilogy to go. He set up these big questions such as what’s up with Finn, who are Rey’s parents and why was she left on this nowhere planet, will Kylo Ren be redeemed and how, who is Snoke, etc.

Now, I’m not saying these aren’t stupid questions. To be frank, they kind of are. Finn being Force Sensitive was the most inconsequential thing I’ve ever heard of, Rey’s parents should not have been used to drive the plot the way it was, as spoken above I’m clearly team gut Kylo Ren, and that Snoke was actually just Palpatine being the world’s largest cockroach is a beautiful but hilarious answer.

That said, what Johnson did was he decided, “You know what, I’m going to take every trope of Star Wars and completely flip it on its head and absolutely doom the sequel to this movie.”

And by god, he did.

We get a weirdly pointless movie in which Poe, SINGLEHANDEDLY, completely obliterates the Resistance. He first obliterates their bombers by failing to follow command, then goes and bitches about how he’s not put in command when he clearly shows no ability to understand how a military works, actively subverts orders which in turn obliterates the entire Resistance fleet until the only survivors can fit on the Millenium Falcon. They have no ships, no weapons, barely any people, and are ultimately doomed doomed doomed.

We have Finn’s weird subplot with a suddenly introduced character Rose in which the pair aid in Poe’s blowing up the resistance (they send sensitive information using the communication equipment of a guy they do not know, who fully admits to being shady and out for his own skin, and are flabergasted when he betrays them). 

Rose herself is this weirdly sweet person who seems forced into the plot to a) provide a love triangle for Finn and Rey b) provide this forced sunny outlook that I didn’t really need in the film.

We get Rey never really being trained, going into the Cave of Wonders for a few seconds, falling in love with Kylo Ren over weird Force Skype calls (where I did not need to see him shirtless, thank you film) and being horrifically betrayed when Kylo Ren turns out not to be a great guy. Never saw that coming, Rey. 

As for Kylo Ren, well... God, we get Emperor Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, the Emperor. I’m not even that upset about the anticlimactic murder of Snoke (that was kind of funny, especially in the context of Palpatine going, “Bitch, please, you’re in my chair” immediately in the next film) but just Kylo Ren being emperor. And also that the Resistance only escapes at all because he’s so dumb he made their dumb plans seem smart (i.e. concentrates all his firepower on an illusion for ten minutes while Hux goes, “Emperor, sir, we could actually destroy the Resistance right now.”

Now, you’ll notice I didn’t complain about Luke. A lot of people are upset he became a grumpy, miserable, old hermit who sits around waiting for death. Frankly though, in this universe, that’s exactly where he is. He left “Return of the Jedi” thinking he’d saved the world, he’s resurrected the Jedi Order, and all is well. Only a decade later, his students are all murdered by his nephew, the Empire’s back, and he accomplished nothing. He’s an utter failure as a Jedi (though Luke never realizes he knew jack shit about the Jedi Order and was in way over his head but I guess that’s beyond him). Why shouldn’t he go sit on a rock and wait to die? 

Now, did he have to drink that blue dinosaur milk? Well, I guess it was funny, gross but funny so... Sure, I guess he did. But I do like that he gave Rey 0 training, they had one meditation session and then he whined about how Obi-Wan was such a stupid asshole. And then Rey ran off to be with her boyfriend, who then told her that her parents were gutter trash (which again, was funny, but I don’t think that was supposed to be funny).

Of the characters introduced in the movie, the only one I really liked was the hacker, and it was for the actor/the beautiful way in which he gracefully exited stage left with zero shame going, “You all knew I was going to betray you!” You beautiful man, you.

Rise of the Skywalker

First, when something is called “Rise of the Skywalker” you know you’re in for a rough time.

But anyways, TLJ was filled with a controversy Disney didn’t want (half their audience hated it, half loved it, but at least they sold those penguin dolls) so they desperately get Abrams back. Only, what he clearly wanted from his series has been shot to hell, and now he’s left with Emperor Kylo Ren, a completely obliterated Resistance, a dead Luke, a love interest he never planned to introduce for Finn, Rey’s parental crisis being solved with trash people, Snoke just suddenly dead, Hux planning revenge, and then some.

And so, Abrams goes the brave and hilarious route of shouting “PRETEND THAT LAST MOVIE NEVER HAPPENED”

We open to a fully functioning Resistance (their bomber fleet is back, their fleet period is back, they have all their fully trained personnel). We have Rey getting the Jedi training she needed this time from Leia, who is now a Jedi, because yay feminism rammed down my throat to make the audience feel better. Rose says “It’s cool guys, I don’t want to join the adventure this film, I’m going to stay here and work on robots” so that she can gracefully exit the entire plot. Kylo Ren is demoted from Emperor in two seconds when we discover that a) Snoke was apparently Palpatine b) for unexplained reasons Palpatine’s alive (and I am now convinced that man will never die). Kylo Ren tells Rey at the first opportunity that he lied about her trash parents AND REALLY SHE’S A PALPATINE! THIS WHOLE TIME, REY! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. I’M SUPER SERIAL THIS TIME, REY.

Basically, in the course of an overly long movie, Abrams desperately shoves in everything he was trying to get out of the series, while sobbing, and sobbing even harder when things like Finn being Force Sensitive or Lando having a secret daughter get caught. I actually agree with the Producers on this, by the way, the Finn trying to tell Rey something scenes were weird and indicative of a love triangle but him being Force Sensitive instead... It says a lot that the movies did not change when it was removed, at all. And Lando was just this strange cameo who was in the film to make us feel nostalgic.

And this isn’t even getting to the ridiculous 24 hour time limit (which made me think there should have been some video game style clock in the corner letting us know when Dawn of the Third Day is coming), Palpatine’s other secret army on a secret Sith planet that can be easily taken down by taking out one navigation tower, Rey’s hilarious struggle with the dark side in which she has a vision of herself in a cape hissing, Kylo Ren’s hilarious redemption in which the movie in the form of Leia and Han Solo says, “Alright, Ben, it’s time to stop being evil” and he says “okay”, the fight with Palpatine in which I’m supposed to believe he dies for reals because... I have no idea why I’m supposed to believe he’s dead. The Reylo, god the Reylo, and Kylo Ren’s tragic, hilarious, death.

And then, of course, the ending where Rey decides she’s a Skywalker now.

I actually did laugh all the way through “Rise of the Skywalker”, you can’t not, I mean it’s a hilariously awful movie. The only thing that might have made it more hilarious was if we actually did get those Ewoks.

TL;DR

They’re all bad movies, if you want more specifics than this, you’re just going to have to ask me questions.

[siennahrobek]

He hadn’t realized it, but Alpha-17 had been waiting for this moment. This time. Whatever.

His loyalty had always been to the Republic, rather strictly, thanks to his training and upbringing, even though it never seemed like the government had cared about him or anyone else. It was something he was used to. The trainers didn’t care about anything but what they were being paid. The Kaminoans didn’t care about anything aside from progress in their work and perfection from the clones. Before, it hadn’t mattered. He did his job; that was his purpose, his whole reason for being. There was nothing else.

And then the war started. The Jedi came.

And then, despite the death and fighting and everything else, the jedi cared.

General Shaak Ti and General Kenobi had been adamant to save the clones still in tubes during the first invasion of Kamino, despite the fact that it would have been more efficient and easier just to destroy them.

They had been steadfast in saving lives.

Time had gone on and the jedi fought alongside them. Died alongside them. They encouraged speech and individuality and names.

Alpha-17 didn’t exactly know when his outlook had shifted but it had and now, he had committed mutiny against his planet, against everyone, to save his brothers from being brainwashed completely, to have the one thing they had freedom of taken away. He had committed mutiny to help them, to help the jedi. The Jedi that the clones had been made for, the jedi that had accepted them so readily and the jedi whose fates were intertwined with their own.

It would be about three days until they would arrive and virtually every single clone was working nonstop. The city was near completely torn apart by the time the ships under Kenobi’s command came into their space and kept off to the side of the planet, far enough away that they could make an escape if a ship began to fire upon them.

Alpha-17 and Commander Colt messaged the ships, indicating their safe orbit around the planet. Several gunships come down to the planet side with an entire slew of jedi and clones. Commander Colt had found General Shaak Ti and sagged in relief but Alpha-17’s attention was behind her, where General Kenobi strode off the gunship with Commander Cody and Captain Rex by his side.

Storming up to them, Alpha-17 stopped in front of the trio, staring at General Kenobi up and down with such intensity, he nearly thought the Jedi would combust into flames.

“Uh…sir?” Captain Rex questioned.

“At least you’re wearing some armor again,” Alpha-17 told the general instead, rather gruffly. General Kenobi’s smile was a bit weak but no less genuine. “Where is that scamp of an apprentice of yours, he’s usually right behind you.”

“It is good to see you, as well, captain,” General Kenobi greeted. “Your blunt honesty has been sorely missed. I am sorry to say that…that Anakin’s allegiance lies with the Empire now.”

“The Empire that tried brainwashed my brothers and tried to kill all the jedi,” Alpha-17 replied, flatly. Wordlessly, General Kenobi nodded. Alpha decided not to say any more on the matter. “We have a war room set up. Your bridge said you need to try and contact any of the jedi out in the field.”

“Yes, we have warned many, but now we have to plan on what we are going to do as well as thoughts on where to rendezvous,” General Kenobi explained. “It is also a bit of a roll call, as we don’t…know who survived.

“Master Kenobi,” a new voice called out as a human man walked towards them. Alpha-17 looked over and watched him warily.

“Alpha-17, this is Battle Master Cin Drallig,” General Kenobi introduced to a long-haired Jedi. “I think you two will get along fairly well. Master Drallig, Captain Alpha-17.”

“Well met, Captain,” the battle master greeted. Alpha-17 imagined with a title like battle master, General Kenobi was probably, irritatingly, correct. He did sound like someone he would perhaps get along with. “I have a feeling we may be working together often.”

Alpha-17 took his hand with the shake. “Why would you say that sir?”

Battle master Drallig just smirked. “Just a feeling.”

The captain led them towards the inner workings of what was left of the city and towards the large room with a nearly just as big holo table. There were already several jedi and nearly just as many clone officers standing around the edges.

He watched as General Kenobi, flanked by General Ti and battle master Drallig, straightened himself, taking a deep breath before the giant holo table flickered to life, the visage of several jedi and sometimes their respective commanders with them popping up in blue form.

There was many of them.

He imagined it was a relief to the other jedi. Alpha-17 tried to take stock of all those who were standing around. There were a few that Alpha-17 recognized, including Wolffe’s general, General Koon and Bly’s as well, General Secura but for the most part, he knew very few of them. The former looked as calm and put together as always, even though his arm was bandaged up to his side. General Secura was leaning forward, her own holo call trembling as her eyes nearly blazed which looked still intimidating even with the slew of wrappings around one of her lekku.

“As many of you are aware,” General Kenobi started, coolly. “The Republic has fallen, an Empire has rose in its place with the dark lord of the Sith at its head. We have been deceived and in it, the Temple has been lost. Former chancellor – now emperor – Palpatine is the Sith Lord we have been searching for.”

There were gasps all around, horrified stares and even a bit of pained denials.

“Right under our nose,” General Secura snarled.

“It is…very good to know that many have you survived,” General Kenobi interrupted. “We have a lot more pressing matters to attend, however. One of my communications officers, Menace, will take down everyone’s names of here and I will want you to tell him your situation so we can keep track. If you are not with your soldiers and/or do not have access to a holo table and are listening via long distance commlink, Menace will be your voice and ears if necessary. Whatever you need,” he continued, gesturing to the clone that was sitting in the corner, surrounded by equipment. He looked up and waved, indicating his presence.

There were nods around the table.

“We are currently on the planet Kamino, picking up any supplies and the clones that wish to come with us,” General Kenobi started up again in explanation, keeping his back straight and his posture perfect that even Alpha could appreciate it. “We do not know how much time we have so we are quickly working to evacuate all the young ones, the clones and then any resources they want to take.”

“I know…. I know they were chipped and that is not their fault,” a general Alpha-17 didn’t recognize said warily, swallowing heavily. “And they have the right to choose… but can we trust them?”

There were very few bristles but mostly shifts in posture with glances away from the Jedi.

“I have worked much with Alpha-17 during the beginnings of the war,” General Kenobi replied, firmly. He could see General Shaak Ti and a few others straightening with a near looming presence. “I trust him. Although first loyalties were to the Republic and the Jedi second, since the Republic has been replaced with an Empire…”

General Secura snickered with a gleaming grin. “Loophole.”

“And with him is my Commander, Colt, who I do trust,” General Shaak Ti cut in, seriously. Although her expression was as collected as he had ever seen it, her tone was underlaid with something that would not be argued. Commander Colt smiled faintly, just slightly shy at the praise.

“It appears that you are doing well in facilitating our survival, General Kenobi,” General Tapal commended with a nod. The Lasat General shifted while his padawan, a young human child, glanced up at him and grinned, keeping himself so close to his master that he was nearly hanging onto him. General Kenobi acknowledge him and then glanced towards Healer Che to take over.

The twi’lek healer had been one that Alpha-17 knew, he had spent some time in the healers, ward and he had come to respect the master healer. She was no argument and never took any crap from anyone.

“The chips within the clones are not difficult to remove,” Healer Che started to explain, pulling up diagrams and scans, clicking and swiping through some of the holo table as she sent the visuals to the others across the galaxy. “If one has the right droid or scanner, it is a very simple surgery. The only problem is you need a level five minimum atomic scan to find it which I don’t think many ships have. If you have the requisite medical droid, I would just allow them to do it. It does not take long, and the recovery time is short,” she added, calmly. “If you have a scanner capable of the level of scan and excellent medics with steady hands, they can remove it fairly easily if you would like.”

“However,” Commander Colt cut in. “If you find yourself in a pinch and being surrounded by activated brothers, we do have a pulse that will nullify the effects of the chips for several hours,” he added, pulling up his own research to replace that of the healer. It showed schematics on a small generator. “Only use it once and only if necessary because we don’t know the effect of several pulses. It should give you enough time to escape. I will have General Kenobi’s officer send you the specs of its creation. All ships should be able to scramble up the parts fairly easy.”

“That is a start,” General Koon rumbled through his mask and vocoder, shifting his wounded arm. Alpha-17 could see Commander Wolffe barely concealing a snarl right next to him. “Is there any other way to avoid the chips being activated? Do we know how they are activated?”

“Currently, at least the Empire’s voice does that with specific orders,” Alpha-17 found himself stepping up to speak. “It started with Commander Cody after he got a call from the emperor. We suspect he probably contacted, or tried to contact, the Marshal Commanders and from there, the Commander’s orders would relay the activation.”

“Proximity also appears to be a large way of the activation being spread,” Commander Colt added.

“So, we limit communications as much as possible, especially with the clones until they can be de-chipped,” General Secura shrugged. “That seems mostly doable.”

“But where do we go from here?” an older jedi rumbled.

“Right now, we move away from the Empire. Start moving towards the outer rim, towards wild space,” Battle master Drallig started, his voice rather booming in the room they were in. “The Empire will start to scramble what forces and resources they have to come after us and our men. They know current locations so move, group together if you can. If you are near another jedi or fleet that has not been activated, join together.”

“I am working on which planet would be the best to retreat to,” an older woman with tightly bound white hair, stepped forward. Her voice was no nonsense and serious with no room for argument. “I have a team as well helping to figure out the best place to go. Because we need a planet that is inhabitable to accommodate as many as we can, outside of the Empire’s view and not within their memory.”

“You have not gotten there yet,” one of the field generals noted.

She shook her head. “Not quite. I am working as quickly as I can. We cannot be running around trying to find a planet. It will be some time for all of us to come together, but we will keep in touch.”

“Ration your food, take care of each other,” General Shaak Ti added. “And fuel, get it where and when you can. I imagine very soon the Empire will make getting resources very difficult, if not impossible, to gather. Gather what you can.”

“I imagine we will have quite the fleet,” General Billaba hummed. The padawan next to her barely suppressed a snicker.

“That leads me to my next point,” General Kenobi added, glancing between Commander Cody and Alpha-17.

Alpha narrowed his eyes, suspiciously as he waited for the general to continue.

“Like I told the jedi here, I have offered the clones a place with us,” he started slowly. “And like I said, I know I didn’t particularly have the authority to do so but…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Master Koon assured with a bit of a chuckle. “I do believe it would have been unanimous.”

“And well, Alpha-17 and Commander Colt had already committed mutiny with the intent of following us,” he added, glancing at Alpha-17 with a dry, vaguely amused look. There was something else there in his look that Alpha-17 wasn’t entirely sure on. “However, I have noted that if any freed clones do not wish to make this journey with us, we will let them go to wherever they would want, with our blessings.”

Alpha-17 was a little surprised by the nods around the room, although even he could tell there was some vague disappointed even through the calls.

“I will relay it to the others,” Commander Cody said, although Alpha-17 knew him. His tone had a tint of dryness. “Don’t expect any other answers, however.”

“Same here on Kamino,” Alpha-17 grunted.

He doubted anyone else could see it but something in General Kenobi’s shoulders shifted.

“Besides,” Commander Colt interjected. “We don’t really have any experience with cadets, we could use some help with the tubies,” he admitted.

“Tubies?” a general echoed.

“Babies,” General Shaak Ti amended with a smile.

“We are not abandoning the galaxy,” General Kenobi announced with a breath. “But we need a plan. We must rebuild, regain strength before we can do anything about the Empire. We will not abandon people, nor the rest of the clones.”

“But we do need a plan,” General Koon agreed, nodding.

“Which we will do,” battle master Drallig assured.

“We will find somewhere very ancient, old and obscure. Far from minds and memory,” the white-haired woman added. “A place of refuge where we can plan our next moves.”

“Does anyone have any questions?”

“I’m sure I can speak for everyone when I say numerous,” General Billaba noted with a curiously raised brow. “But I do imagine you will not have much time to gather from Kamino and get away before the Empire catches up.”

“Menace will gather a list of everyone,” General Kenobi started again. “Please keep in touch with him and his team with updates on your positions as you move so we can keep together. Everything we add will be coded. He has a few things to send to you as well.”

“We have survived thus far,” General Koon rumbled, the vocoder easy and low, nearly crackling through the call. “And if we work together, we will continue to survive this.”

***

“That seemed rather successful, Master Kenobi,” battle master Drallig noted with a sly smile as they walked out of the war room. The large holo call had lasted a little longer, with more questions, answers and suggestions. Commander Cody, Captain Rex and Alpha-17 walked behind, following the jedi easily. The others had filed out, the six of them were some of the last few, leaving only Menace and his team to gather a list and give out necessary information. “Many are alive,” he added, glancing over at the other generals.

“There is hope,” General Shaak Ti agreed, calmly. “And we must also keep in mind, there are very possibly still others who have lived but were unable to make contact. We should have Menace’s team to search for other commcodes to send messages, just in case.”

General Kenobi nodded. “That is a good idea, Master.”

“I will return to the ship and set it up,” she hummed.

“I have something you need to see,” Alpha-17 announced, shooting a glance at General Kenobi. His mouth had been moving before his brain caught up but at this point, he figured it would be a good moment to do it. He was met with a rather fond but confused look. “It won’t take long.”

“Alright,” General Kenobi replied with a small shrug. “Commander Cody, Captain Rex, would you mind going with Master Drallig and Master Shaak Ti back up to our ship for a final count on what field Jedi have responded and survived?”

Commander Cody gave the both of them a rather suspicious look but the few of them walked off towards the landing platform where their gunship would be waiting. Alpha-17 barely waited before he gestured for the general to follow, unwilling to impart answers as he walked through what was left of the city. They got towards his destination and opened the door.

Good, they were still waiting for their transportation to one of the cruisers.

“Hey guys,” Alpha-17 greeted a group of younglings, gruffly, his voice mumbling through, trying not to sound too fond of the inhabitants of the room. “I brought you someone you’ll want to see.”

The room was full of a small group of cadets, nearly a dozen of them. They were all the same, as the clones were, and the expressions on their faces were nearly exactly the same as well but their voices shifted into different types of gasps and light screeches.

One of them stepped forward towards General Kenobi, eyes shining as he stared up at him. General Kenobi just glanced down and then looked back up at Alpha-17, quite thoroughly confused. It was almost comical.

“Is that…” one of the children asked.

“Yes,” Alpha-17 affirmed.

“General Kenobi!” they cried in shock, nearly tripping over one another to get a closer look. General Kenobi just smiled warmly down at him, taking it in stride as he walked forth into the gaggle of children although he was completely bewildered and puzzled, and it showed.

“Hello there,” he greeted softly as he let the kids climb over him.

“Seven!” one of them shrieked, making the captain crinkle his nose in some irritation. General Kenobi just shot him a small laugh, shaking his head. He had no idea what was going on but if there was one thing the alpha clone knew, he loved children. The young clone glared at the captain with a firm pout, shaking his head vehemently. “You did not tell us we were going to meet our finder.”

“My apologies,” General Kenobi said, already holding a child in his arms and several others clinging to his legs as he turned towards the captain. “I’m your what now?”

Alpha-17 groaned lightly and shook his head, nearly bringing his hands up to cover his face, the cadet staring at him, intently. He let out a sigh of resignation and then a breath as he began to clarify. “General Shaak Ti, when she visits the cadets, she tells them about the Jedi. She tells them a lot of things,” he explained. “I don’t know how it happened or where it came from, but she told a class once about Jedi finders, their role in bringing children to the Temple and into the Order. She explained their importance and how many children had relationships with their finders growing up. When she was asked…she rather insinuated that our… the clone “finder” was, well, you,” he explained, a bit uncertainly. “It kind of snowballed from there and now nearly every young cadet class knows and well, thinks that way.”

General Kenobi stopped and stared at him for a long moment. Even Alpha-17 could determine his reaction.

And he kept staring.

Would this man just have a reaction already?

And then, abruptly, he burst out into such laughter to the point that Alpha-17 nearly thought he was crying. The general hugged the child in his arm closer and laughed some more, his shoulder and whole body shaking from the movement. Apparently, he found this hilarious, Alpha-17 mused.

“I would love to be considered your finder, dear ones.”

He was glad he had brought General Kenobi here, for this small moment.

***

He had originally intended on going to General Kenobi’s flagship, but he was redirected towards a modified cruiser that had appeared not long ago by the battle master Drallig. The trip was quiet and although Alpha-17 was fairly certain he wasn’t anywhere near force sensitive, even he thought he could feel the gratitude and happiness echoing off of the General.

He had made the right choice, starting his mutiny without approval.

As they walked off the gunship and onto the docking bay of the venator, General Kenobi let a small, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome, general.”

General Kenobi opened his mouth to say something else, but his eyes caught sight of another, and his gaze dragged over the area. He stepped back, nearly tripping over a box as his eyes widened.

“Sir?”

The general practically flew across the docking bay. Alpha-17 caught sight of the battle master, Drallig, at the other end, alongside another jedi. Dark skin, even darker hair, weird yellow stripe over his face and nose. Alpha-17 felt like he had seen him before. Nonetheless, Alpha-17 jogged after him, quickly on his heels.

The general nearly threw himself at the other jedi, tightening his grip around him in a fierce hug. Such public display Alpha-17 hadn’t seen from his general was rather rare so this must have been an importance person to him. Kenobi tucked himself into space, squeezing the man tightly. The other jedi looked utterly surprised but before he could even think of hugging – or not – back, General Kenobi hastily pulled away a few steps and didn’t even meet the other Jedi’s gaze.

“My apologies, Quinlan,” he murmured, shaking his head. “That was uncalled for, I do sincerely apologize for touching without permission. I will take my leave.”

The other Jedi – Quinlan – looked just confused and befuddled in a way that almost, just almost, would have made Alpha-17 laugh. He didn’t even think a jedi couldhave that expression. General Kenobi hurriedly shuffled away down the hall, presumably towards the bridge.

“What was that about?” Quinlan asked, glancing at the battle master for answers but his eyes ended up trailing general Kenobi as he walked away. Alpha-17 was ready to follow him but for the moment, somehow his feet wouldn’t move.

The battle master sighed and frowned. “Anakin Skywalker has fallen to the dark side, and he is now the new Sith apprentice. He is the one who led the attack on the Temple.”

Some kind of understanding fell upon the Jedi’s face as it twisted into something horrified of some type.

Alpha-17 didn’t know what that meant.

“Force,” he whispered under his breath.

And then he took off after the general. Alpha-17 rolled his eyes and sighed, barely catching a glimpse of the battle master before jogging off after him. “Again,” he muttered, keeping just behind the unfamiliar jedi.

“Obi-Wan!” the jedi shouted out.

General Kenobi stiffened and hesitated before finally stopping. He let out a soft sigh and turned around, forcing himself to look up at the man. “Quinlan,” he greeted, fairly evenly despite the shaking in his voice.

“Hey, hey buddy,” Quinlan murmured, carefully putting his hand on General Kenobi’s pauldron. “Master Drallig told me about Anakin. I’m so sorry, Obi-Wan.”

General Kenobi took a shaky breath. “I don’t…I don’t think I can really talk about it right now,” he admitted quietly, just barely leaning into the other jedi’s touch.

“Alright,” he agreed, and he didn’t seem to bothered by the notion. He quite quickly changed the subject which ended up being a good call. “Dex says you have a friend for life, ya know.”

Glancing at him, General Kenobi ended up with a small smile. “You were one of the jedi that Dex said he had.”

“Yeah. I found Master Windu. He’s in pretty rough shape but I think he might make it through, probably because I got him into a bacta tank quicker. Wanna hear how I took over the entire medical venator star cruiser,” Quinlan said with a grin.

An eyebrow raised on General Kenobi’s face but there was a relief in that, probably due to the fact that a jedi he knew was alive. “You…took over a ship? Full of clones around Coruscant.”

The long-haired jedi laughed. “Oh, let me tell you. It was kind of awesome. Not as hard as I thought, considering. But since I am a shadow, so you know, it is part of my skill set,” he winked and it made the general smile back at him, although lightly.

Alpha-17 just walked and listened as the jedi went to a full, long tirade about how he had taken over the ship and escaped with the clones. He couldn’t help be grateful, the jedi had rescued hundreds of his brothers, some of which may have been killed outright due to the fact they were sick or wounded. Still, he already had the feeling that this Quinlan character was kind of annoying.

“Dex is amazing, let me tell you,” Quinlan had said with the biggest grin. Something must have been going on with General Kenobi in the force or whatever because practically every time the man twitched, the other jedi would get happier and speak brighter. “I made a plan and needed some guys to help me out. Within the hour, the hour, Obi-Wan, he had gotten me a lineup of dozens of beings to pick from for my heist. He has got some serious connections!”

General Kenobi smiled and it was warm. Alpha-17 could almost feel it. “Dex is good like that,” he agreed. “I found Kamino because of him.”

Quinlan continued to explain the rest of the couple of days. His plan had been mildly impressive and well thought out, even Alpha-17 could begrudgingly admit. The jedi did not go in halfcocked and impulsively. And the fact that he checked to make sure there wasn’t a jedi on board, so the chips probably hadn’t been activated was probably smart. At least he didn’t jump aboard the first ship he came across and took over the bridge, just hoping nothing would go wrong.

There were a couple medical stations across the galaxy and several more pelta-class medical frigates that traveled with wounded soldiers aboard. There wasn’t a medical station orbiting Coruscant, as they were around the rest of the galaxy. Clones weren’t allowed to be treated on planet mingled with the regular citizens, although the Jedi often treated clones in their own Healing Halls frequently. They didn’t just go around turning people away who needed care.

One of the large venator cruisers had been converted into somewhat of a medical station, or at least, used as one. It was the main place where clones were treated for illness or injuries, when they could make it there. It was a good one to take over, he imagined, if one had a good plan. Which apparently the master jedi had.

There must not have been any jedi stationed at the medical facility during the time because Quinlan explained how he made sure that none of the chips had been activated. He had shut down communications with jammers around the ship and eventually took it over, locking up most of the natborns that weren’t cooperative and confiscating long range commlinks. Men were locked in certain portions of the ship to where they were stationed, at least those just handling the ship. Medics themselves were dechipped so they could continue to help those who needed it. Everything was neat and tidy and even Alpha-17 had to be impressed.

It was not only a well-thought-out mission and operation but a successful one as well. Quinlan had brought back an entire venator crew of clones with as well as many other, although wounded, brothers as well.

By the time he was done, General Kenobi’s smile was rather wide, and he offered his congratulations to the other jedi. He was thankful, Alpha-17 quickly realized. Not only had he saved people that General Kenobi valued, but he had kept his mind off of Skywalker. He hadn’t even pushed; he didn’t even ask. Nothing circled back to it.

The jedi explained about the Commander he came across, Hound, and how he had helped him. The guy was a mad man and apparently, Quinlan appreciated that sort of thing. They had rather hit it off, along with his mastiff, Grizzler, who went everywhere Hound did.

Alpha-17 wasn’t sure whether he should be worried.

“Do we know who all survived?” Quinlan asked, nudging General Kenobi gently.

“One of the officers, Menace, is compiling a list of those who have responded or were present at the meeting,” General Kenobi replied with a nod. “As far as I could tell during the meeting, it seemed quite a fair few had blocked communications or escaped in time. Aalya was one of them,” he assured. “She looked just a little banged up but okay. Her troops weren’t activated.”

Tension fell from Quinlan’s shoulders. “Thank, Obes.”

“Of course,” he added. And then, his commlink beeped urgently. General Kenobi opened it up and a gruff voice burst though. “This is Kenobi.”

“Master Kenobi,” battle master Drallig replied. “You should get back down to the loading bay. Something has happened.”

Several medical officers rushed down the halls around them. Alpha-17 caught one of them by the arm, stopping him abruptly. “Officer, what is going on?”

“A ship came out of hyperspace a few minutes ago!” the soldier reported, worriedly. “It open fired on one of our ships and then stopped. We think it is full of activated clones and there are injured jedi,” he said before pulling away and running off again.

General Kenobi swallowed heavily and the three of them chased after the group back down the hall. The loading back was a mad house of yelling officers and wounded soldiers. Out in space, it could be seen one of the ships was partially on fire with several fighters surrounding it, ready to destroy if necessary.

“Whose ship is that?”

A rolling cot ran down from a ship towards the hall. Alpha-17 watched as General Kenobi stared wide eyed. The man on the gurney was a male, a jedi from the robes, he imagined with short blonde hair that was practically soaked in blood. There was a lot of blood.

A lot.

General Kenobi’s breath got caught in this throat, his eyes wide and his hand gripping Quinlan’s vambrace so tight he thought it would crack. “Master Feemor,” he whispered.

“Feemor?” Quinlan muttered under his breath. “Where…”

Alpha-17’s old general backed up a few steps as a realization came across him. “Oh God, Ahsoka,” his head whipped around, frantically. “Where is Ahsoka? Has anyone seen Ahsoka Tano?!” he shouted out, turning and turning and turning.

“I…I’m here, Master,” a new, feminine voice announced, although rather quiet. The three of them turned around. There was a clone next to her although he had quite a few mechanical parts, more so than Alpha-17 had seen on any others. A Togruta jedi was standing there, her arms hugging herself and her eyes downcast.

General Kenobi sighed in relief. “Ahsoka, what in the galaxy happened?”

[ilonga]

new chapter of Master Krell!

ao3

Anakin's second introduction to the Jedi Temple is nearly as strange as the first.

Sure, the first time it'd been completely overwhelming—his first time off planet, and suddenly he was on Coruscant, the capital, in the heart of the Jedi and already being presented to the Jedi Council. But now he's returning, and in the meantime he's seen a Jedi die, a planet nearly collapse under siege, and blown up an entire droid control ship from the inside out. 

And he's returning not as a terrified to-be reject, but as a Jedi padawan.

None of this feels real.

Obi-wan had cut his hair, back on Naboo, and arranged his new Padawan's braid; apparently it was tradition for the Jedi Master to do it, but after correspondence with the Jedi Council and Master Krell it had been decided that in the interests of smoothing out his transition, Anakin would be skipping out on most of the formalities and ceremony.

Anakin's not quite sure how he feels about that, yet. Maybe the formalities would have made it feel less like the ground was falling out from under his feet but, then again, maybe they would have made it even worse.

He'd said his goodbyes back on Naboo—to Jar Jar, the clumsy but kind and good-hearted Gungan, to R2, that crazy daredevil of an astromech, and to Padme, the brave and brilliant Queen (he still can't believe she had been the Queen all along, that he knows the Queen of a planet). He'll miss them, he thinks, though of course not nearly as much as everyone he'd left behind on Tatooine; his heart aches for his mother, for Kitster, and the rest.

What does your heart tell you?

His heart says he'll meet them all again someday—the Naboo and the Tatooinians. So it must be true. 

"Nearing the atmosphere," the pilot says, and Anakin looks up only to meet Obi-wan's uneasy gaze. 

"Best strap in," he says, though it looks like there's something else at the tip of his tongue. "Just a few more minutes now, and you'll meet Master Krell for the first time. He'll be waiting at the Temple."

"Okay," Anakin says, though what he really wants to say is I know. Obi-wan's repeated himself enough on this trip that Anakin's practically got his words memorized.

Obi-wan watches him for another moment before turning away.

"Landing sequence activated," the pilot says. Anakin cranes his neck around the safety restraints to get a look at the planet's surface. The last time they'd come here, he'd been both too nervous and too far from any viewports to get a good look.

It's. . . incredible.

Seeing Coruscant from afar had been nothing compared to this.

The entire surface is covered in glittering, distorted metal structures as far as the eye can see, shooting up for the skies with fervent vigor. As they get closer, he can see what looks like hundreds and thousands of ships and speeders, descending from the skies and rising from below and twisting and weaving between buildings and streetlights. His eyes catch on a strangely shaped metal dome to the side, rising out of the masses like Gardulla's palace in its glory days.

"Uh," he says quietly, tugging at Obi-wan's sleeve before he can think the better of it. "What's that over there?"

"Hm?" Obi-wan says, startled at the contact, but then follows his gaze and sees what he's pointing at. "Ah. That's the Senate Rotunda—it's where all the galactic governmental duties are carried out. It's where Queen Amidala went before, to request aid against the Federation's blockade."

His gaze catches on something else and he gestures to Anakin. "If you look over there," he says, pointing ahead, "you can see the Temple in the distance. We're very close now."

Anakin follows his line of sight. All he can see are the spires, really, and the hint of the rectangular form below. Their first visit had been rather rushed; he doesn't remember much but high ceilings and long hallways, and the endlessly intimidating Council Room. Hopefully they can skip out on that part this time. He's been accepted for certain, right? No need to go through the tests again?

Obi-wan coughs delicately and Anakin realizes with a start that he'll be living at the Temple now. If all goes well, for maybe even the rest of his life.

The thought settles strangely against his chest and he jams his hands under his seat to stop them from shaking.

"Just a few minutes now," the pilot says. 

They pull ever closer.

*

They land without much fanfare. 

If he had been just a little bit less nervous, Anakin would have begged to watch the landing sequence from the cockpit—the Naboo pilots had been so nice to him, and this ship has got to be one of the most beautiful he's ever been on in his life—but as it is, he stays glued to his seat instead.

Obi-wan is the first to get up, and gestures for Anakin to follow him with a jerk of his head. On the landing pad, he recognizes Master Yoda and Master Windu. Behind them, there's a tall alien whose species he's never encountered before and a few other figures he remembers from the Council Room.

"Knight Kenobi," Master Windu says gravely. Suddenly Master Qui-gon's absence feels like a gaping hole—everyone keeps shifting as if to accommodate someone who isn't actually there. Obi-wan glances to the side and meets Anakin's eyes instead; he purses his lips and quickly looks away. 

"Commend you, for the feat you have achieved in defeating the Sith, we do," Master Yoda says. "A great deed you have done, young Kenobi."

Obi-wan blinks. He looks to the side again. "I only did my duty," he finally says.

Master Yoda speaks again, but this time, Anakin doesn't catch what he says. He's trying to take in as much of his surroundings as possible without being too obvious.

There are about six others with him and Obi-wan right now—Master Yoda, who's still speaking, Master Windu, three others he remembers from the Council, and the imposing reptilian figure who has both sets of his arms crossed. Could this be the Master Krell Obi-wan had mentioned before? The one who Obi-wan had said would take over Anakin's training?

The figure huffs and trains his gaze on Anakin, and Anakin quickly looks away. 

The rest of the hangar is a cavernous, elegant space; transports and shuttles of various builds line the walls, with Jedi (mechanics? Mechanic Jedi?) dotting the walls here and there, busying themselves with repair work. The floor below them has its tiles arranged in a bright, colorful pattern, almost reminiscent of Naboo's palace though not nearly as ostentatious. 

A passing mechanic (Jedi?) looks up and meets his eyes. She's a blue Twi'lek, probably just a few years older than Anakin himself. She grins and waves.

Hesitantly, Anakin waves back.

"We've bored you two enough for now, I should think," One of the Masters from the Council says, and Anakin snaps his attention back to them. "Shall we move on to a more pressing order of business?"

"Ah - yes. Yes, of course." Obi-wan says. He turns to Master Yoda. "If you would - "

The reptilian figure steps forward and speaks, cutting through Obi-wan's hesitant stutters. "That is more than enough, Knight Kenobi." 

"Master Krell - " The same Jedi from before says - Master Billaba, Anakin remembers now. She'd been in the Council Room during his original examination, but had barely spoken at all. Her voice is nice, Anakin decides. Soothing. "Perhaps we should take it with a bit more . . . patience?"

Master Krell - so Anakin was right, he was the mysterious Master Krell - concedes and steps back. "My apologies, Master Billaba. I am . . . eager to begin."

"Understandable." Master Billaba says lightly, but her gaze continues to rest on him. Is there something Anakin's missing, here? Some friction between the two of them? Master Billaba hadn't spoken for or against him during the examination - but maybe she was one of the ones that didn't want him trained, and even Master Krell's appointment didn't change his mind. Maybe he'll need to be on his best behavior to impress her. Or maybe it'll be better to avoid her entirely. Out of the corner of his eyes Anakin sees Obi-wan fold his arms into his sleeves.

"Then, if I may?" Master Krell says, beginning to move away from the group. The surrounding Masters nod their consent, followed by Obi-wan with a few seconds' delay. Vaguely Anakin wonders how Master Qui-gon would react to all of this, if he could see it now. Would he be happy Anakin was being trained? Upset, that he had been replaced by a different Master? Would he have changed his mind entirely, decided that Anakin should have been left behind after all? "Come with me, Skywalker."

Anakin can do nothing else but follow.

*

They walk down the long, winding hallways for what seems like forever before Master Krell finally decides to speak.

"Young Skywalker," he says. "You have heard by now that you are to be my Padawan, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Anakin says quickly. He wonders when Master Krell found out. Had he volunteered? Been forcibly assigned to him? Had he just found out before they landed in the hangar, or known days in advance?

"Good." Master Krell says, keeping his gaze trained on the hallway ahead. "This means, of course, that for the next decade or so until you become a Knight, you are under my authority as my Jedi Padawan. I will teach you, direct you, and train you every day until you meet and surpass the qualifications necessary for Knighting. I can make you into the greatest of the Jedi, as befitting of your title of prophecy - but only if you listen, and obey. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," Anakin says again.

"Excellent." Krell says, leading them further down the hallway. Maybe any moment now, they'll be coming up on Anakin's new rooms. His own rooms - he can hardly believe it.

"You will be the very best of us, Skywalker," Krell says, sounding rather less like he means it as a compliment and more like he means it as an order. "The very best."

Anakin doesn't know how to respond to that, but he's saved from the efforts by Master Krell's satisfied huff.

It rather seems like his new Master prefers the silence.

[writer1]

Rex x reader: Changes

You were a Jedi before the purge, you were reckless and broke the rules. But you broke a major one, you fell in love and later married a clone. Not just any clone but Anakin Skywalker's clone Captain, Captain Rex.

You and Rex loved eachother more than anything, but you lost him after the purge. It's been fifteen years and you miss him every day, you wish to see him again but you don't think that it's going to happen.

You met up with Ahsoka about ten years after the purge, and you've been helping her with fulcrum business ever since.

She's sent the ghost crew to find someone that can help with finding a new base, but for some reason she won't tell you who they are.

You've asked a few times but all she ever says is that it's a surprise and she gets excited, you don't understand what the surprise would be. Maybe it's an old friend from the clone wars. It's been two days and you have started getting impatient.

"Y/n, the ghost crew are back." You smile and follow Ahsoka to where the ghost attaches to the ship, you can't wait to find out who it is.

The ghost crew walks out, smiling you wonder what they're smiling about when an old man with a white fluffy beard walks out from behind them, freezing when he sees you. You can't believe it, it's Rex.

"Rex?" You walk closer to him when he looks down and pushes past you.

"I'm sorry, I have to talk to Commander Tano." You feel hurt encompass your heart, Rex just completely ignored you. He didn't even care that you both haven't seen eachother in fifteen long years, you stifle a sob as tears come to your eyes and Hera walks over to hug you.

She knows that Rex hurt you, she doesn't know your past but she can tell that you have a broken heart. You hug her and bury your face into her shoulder, you can't hold the tears back any more.

×××

It's been about two months since Rex joined the rebellion and he's been avoiding you the whole time, you should have known that he wouldn't love you anymore. You only dated for two years, he must have fallen out of love with you. You wonder if he maybe found someone else, but it seems that you aren't the only one he's avoiding.

He's hardly talked to Ahsoka as well and she's been feeling very hurt over it as well. You don't understand why he's acting like this, it's really pissing you off. So you and Ahsoka came up with a plan, she's asked Commander Sato to send both you and Captain Rex on a mission together.

Once you're on the planet, you will corner Rex and talk to him about what's happening. You and Ahsoka hope to find out why he's doing this.

You and Rex head out on a mission, heading to lothal to see how things with the empire is going. It's pretty bad when you search but then you lead Rex into a field, finally able to confront him.

"What's wrong with you." You ask him bluntly, and he turns around do fast you fear he might have whiplash.

"What?"

"Why have you been avoiding Ahsoka and I. Did we do something wrong, I understand if you don't love me anymore but to ignore Ahsoka. Your little sister, that's not right Rex." He stares at you with wide eyes, you stand there waiting for an answer.

"I... I don't hate you." What other reason does he have to avoid you then.

"Then why Rex!" You yell, completely pissed off now. You don't care what the Jedi taught you about controlling your feelings. You're done!

"Why have you been avoiding me! Why did you not even spare me another glance when you got to the rebellion! Why did you break my heart." The last part is whispered, Rex is looking at you with tears in his eyes. You don't understand. You suddenly see a blaster shot fly past your head and turn to see a large group of storm troopers running and shooting at you.

You and Rex start running, only to realize that there's another group of storm troopers running from the opposite direction.

You pull out your lightsaber and start deflecting shots as Rex starts shooting, you're fighting your hardest but it's to no avail as you get shot in the arm with a force inhibitor and pushed to the ground. Loosing your lightsaber, you're staring at the end of a blaster barrel.

You try to think of a solution when you hear a growl, you look up to a grey blur striking the storm troopers, they start running in fear, when the blur slows down you realize that it's a giant bipedal Wolf. You can tell that you would only reach the bottom of its chest when you're standing straight, it's gigantic.

You stare at it in fear, until you see the tattered remains of Rex's pants on it and look over to see Rex's armor on the ground. You put two and two together, realizing that this is Rex, your husband. You watch him run, standing up and following him, leaving your forgotten lightsaber behind.

You follow him into a cave, composing yourself outside for a few minutes before walking in. You see your husband's now large for sitting in the back, you walk over and realize that he still teaches your face while sitting.

You walk close to him, making your steps loud as not to startle him. You place a hand on the back of Rex's shoulder, feeling the grey fur underneath of it. You feel him flinch and he growls.

"Get away from me." He says quietly, his voice is so much different from the man you knew. But it's still Rex's voice, you don't know how you can tell with how deep and growly it's gotten but you somehow know. You try to ignore the feeling of hurt that comes from him growling at you.

"No. I'm not leaving you Rex." He grows again even louder.

"I SAID LEAVE! Please." The last part is whispered, almost a plea. You feel so bad for Rex, you start to softly run your hand up and down his shoulder, wondering how long he's been going through this alone when you suddenly realize.

"Is... Is this why you've been avoiding me? Why you completely ignored me when the ghost crew brought you?" Rex is shaking now and he nods, you feel tears come to your eyes as you realize that the past few months of him actively avoiding you wasn't because he hates you but the opposite. He wanted to protect you, and he was afraid of what you would think of him.

"Oh Rex." You exclaim, you can't believe that he's gone through this alone. You wonder if his brothers even know.

"Do Wolffe and Gregor know?" Rex shakes his head and you sigh, he's been going through something this big all alone. Not even telling his own brothers. You walk around his side slowly and he freezes, you can tell that he's terrified of you seeing him.

You reach the from of him and can finally fully see what's happened, he's changed so much. His head is a wolfs while his body is more human esque, you can see that his body is much more muscular than when he's human.

You look into his eyes and feel your heart clench, they're yellow and filled with fear. A tear falls down and into his fur, so you reach your hand over slowly, stopping when he flinches. You freeze, as soon as he looks at you once again you reach over and softly wipe the tear away.

You move your hand down to his snout, there's white fur where his beard is when he's human. You can see white fur speckled all over him, but theres quite a bit on his stomach. You hear him whimper in fear, so you lean down and kiss his forehead.

"Oh Rex, it's okay sweetheart. I'm not leaving you, I promise."

"You need to leave, cyare. I could hurt you." You sigh and lean your forehead against his, giving him a keldabe kiss. You try to put all your love for him into it.

"You'd never hurt me, Rex. You're still you, fur and all." You kiss his forehead again and he finally breaks, pulling you against him softly until you're sitting in his lap. He lays his chin on your shoulder since he's taller than you and starts crying softly.

He's trying to hide it from you, feeling embarrassed but he can't help it. He loves you more than anything and staying away from you these past few months has killed him.

"I'm so sorry, cyare. I know that I broke your heart, and hurt Ahsoka. I'm so sorry." You shush him, rubbing the back of his head softly.

"Shhh, I forgive you sweetheart. I'm not happy that you ignored and avoided me but I understand why, I still love you more than anything." Rex pulls you closer, you reach up and kiss his shoulder softly. You can't believe that the whole reason he was avoiding you was because he is a werewolf now.

"I love you so much, cyare. I was so scared of losing control and hurting you, or you being afraid of me." You wish that he had told you sooner, but you are going to fix this. You won't let anyone or anything hurt him.

"I'll never be afraid of you. Like I said, you're still Rex. Just fluffier." You run your fingers through his fur for emphasis, getting a little chuckle out of him. You smile but you have to get back to more serious matters.

"You're going to have to tell Ahsoka, and your brother's. When did this even happen, Rexter?" You ask him and he sighs, snuggling into you.

"It was only a month before the ghost crew came and got me, I was bitten by a strange creature. Next thing I know I'm hiding from my brothers who were shooting at me, I told them after I was human again that I was searching in another place for the monster."

"Oh, Rex. You should have never had to go through that, and you won't have to go through this alone anymore. Okay. I promise." Rex nods, he loves you so much. More than he could ever say in words. You kiss him on his shoulder again, you know that you and Rex will work through this. And neither of you will ever part again, no matter what happens. Even if this is permanent, he's still Rex. And that will never change.

Taglist: @captainrexisboo @a-dorin

[threadsketchier]

So I saw the prequels prior to the Originals and it always bothered me how Luke got dumped on a death planet of Tatooine considering the state of that environment and shot that when down in the previous films while Leia got a life of privilege. I was hoping Bail would argue against splitting the twins. I obviously knew why it had to go that route because it had to align and follow up with the Originals. I guess it came off that Luke wasn’t really wanted...?

I already wrote a ficlet somewhat addressing this misconception.

Also, frankly, I’m getting kind of tired of rehashing the same issue - why do people keep assuming that the Larses don’t matter and don’t have a right to be in Luke’s life just because they live on Space Australia?  Why do their feelings not count just because they’re low-to-middle-class moisture farmers who don’t live in a palace on Space Switzerland-Utopia?  Why the fuck do people assume that Luke wasn’t wanted just because the Organas have a personal preference that was obviously previously established before shit hit the fans and they wanted a daughter and Bail, as a senator and Viceroy - essentially co-leader of his planet - is a fucking rational guy who understands the necessity of making hard decisions dictated by logic over emotions?

The twins weren’t just “split up because that’s how the movies have to go,” it does make internal sense within the narrative that it was safer to hide them in vastly separate locations to prevent both of them from being discovered at the same time and thus lost together, or for their latent Force bond to make them a psychic target if they grew up together and established it, acting like a beacon for Vader and Palpatine and any minions of theirs.  It sucks, it’s painful, it has awkward consequences for them later on when Leia’s a bit too loose with her lips, but that’s why these movies have a tragic backstory.  It has to suck real hard before it gets better.

Does it seem crazy that Leia wound up raised in such a screamingly obvious position as daughter of a then-Imperial Senator and princess of a highly prominent Core world being trained to follow in her biological mother’s footsteps and become a senator herself, thus occupying a very exposed role in the Empire, right under the Emperor’s and Vader’s noses?  Yeah.  But also remember that the Superman/Clark Kent illusion can actually work in real life.  Assumption is a powerful thing.  Your average Joe Citizen would assume that someone as otherworldly as Superman, an alien with the ability to fly, strength to bench-press skyscrapers and jumbo jets, heat vision, and other amazing things, would never stoop to living as a normal, humble, inconvenienced human being.  It’s not merely the hiding behind a pair of glasses and hunching over a little with a nerdy tone and habits - it’s the entire idea that a Clark Kent could even exist in the same person of Superman.  They don’t understand that he was raised as a human and actually desires this life, and doesn’t feel the need to lock himself away permanently in his dope Fortress of Solitude and never interact with the very people he wants to save and protect.

Vader was lied to by Palpatine about the nature of Padmé’s death, but there was no disputing that she actually died.  In his crushing despair, Vader accepted with heaps of self-flagellation that his child was dead.  He didn’t even know he had two children.  In his mind, whenever he saw Leia - surely they were in each other’s circles at least at a distance before Rogue One and ANH - even if she reminded him of Padmé six ways from Sunday, he would not assume she was his daughter, because as far as he was concerned his child was dead.  The OT establishes that latent Force-sensitivity also does not automatically make two related Force-sensitives consciously aware of each other until they mutually know one another as being related and Force-sensitive, so not even torturing Leia revealed this to him.

But I’m going off on a tangent.  Let’s break this down:

Tatooine is nothing but a source of anguish for Anakin and his personal loathing for the place made it ideal as a hiding place.  And no, I’m not just haha joking about sand.  He was a slave there and buried his mother there after slaughtering an entire village of natives he knew in his heart that he shouldn’t have.  It holds nothing but misery and failure for him.

Yes, Tatooine is abso-fucking-lutely a galactic cesspit.  It’s ruled by the most vile mob boss in the galaxy, is rife with nasty wildlife that’s out to kill you, and is haunted by the troubles brought about by strife between colonizers and the native population.  It is indisputably a dangerous place.  But it wasn’t Tatooine that killed the Larses.  It was the Empire.  Just because they look like Soft Folks™ doesn’t mean they were - Owen and Beru knew how to take care of themselves, and they certainly knew how to take care of a child in this environment.  They survived to middle age just fine, and would’ve kept going if it wasn’t for those fucking stormtroopers.  Just because they didn’t live a life of luxury also doesn’t mean they were dirt poor either.  When we meet Luke in ANH, he’s a healthy young lad who still has the privilege to fuck off with his buddies around his farm duties.  Life may be tough but it’s not squalor and deprivation for him.

But honestly, even if they WERE dirt poor, they’re still Luke’s family, and they very obviously loved him.  I almost feel like I shouldn’t have to restate it, but I will: Owen and Beru loved Shmi, and upon hearing that Anakin died and left behind a baby son, why wouldn’t they be moved and compelled to take Luke in, and why wouldn’t they deserve to have the chance to raise him in their memory?  Even though they’d be sad that Luke was orphaned, they might even see this as a blessing to be able to raise Shmi’s grandson and Anakin’s son.

As much as he bitched about chores as a teenager, Luke learned damn valuable skills growing up on a Tatooine moisture farm that, coupled with the Force, saved everybody’s asses at the Battle of Yavin, and went on to make him an ideal squadron leader.  Wealth and privilege are not always the best foundation, or at least certainly not the automatic one, for a person to learn good character either.

The Organas are human too.  Faced with a difficult choice, they decided to take this poignant opportunity to fulfill a dream they’d been deferring for some time.  Sometimes parents wish for a specific child, and that’s their prerogative (except IRL they don’t actually get to pick, they get whatever kid they gestate).  If they’d taken Luke and let Obi-Wan take Leia, we’d be having the same argument about Leia growing up on Tatooine.  There was no inequality in this decision.  Bail and Breha wanted a daughter, there was a daughter present among the twins, so they chose her.  This does not mean they valued Luke any less.  Since the twins couldn’t be raised together for their own safety, it might as well have come down to a coin toss.  Bail isn’t evil for exercising a shred of his personal emotions and desires in a situation where he otherwise knew he’d have to restrain himself.  Also, he’d be smart enough to respect the fact that both children had actual family elsewhere in the galaxy and wouldn’t think any less of the Larses just because they live on Tatooine.  The only way his decision would be careless or heinous was if he knew Luke was being taken to people who were abusive or so destitute they couldn’t even care for themselves, much less a third person, and he did nothing about it - but we know this is not that situation.

How do you feel about non-wealthy people living in harsh places here on Earth raising their children?  Would you expect all the rich people in the world to go take those children away from them and adopt them just so they could grow up “privileged” instead?  Think about how that sounds for a moment or two.

Honestly, if Bail had tried to argue about taking both twins because he felt taking Luke to his legal family on Tatooine was “cruel” or “neglectful” because of the planet’s “risky environment and poverty,” I’d hope either Obi-Wan or Yoda would have enough sense to smack him upside the head for being so thoughtless as to insult these people for being seemingly beneath him.

There is more to life than money and power/prestige, and Leia’s upbringing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  She was no pampered, air-headed royal spending her days sitting idle being hand-fed space grapes while her “poor” brother ate sand cookies.  She had to undergo intensive academic, political, and physical training from young childhood in order to prepare her to become a covert Rebel agent while she was still a teenager, as if being a child senator wasn’t already stressful and demanding enough.  Sure, she never lacked for anything, but that is an incredible amount of responsibility to saddle on someone who wasn’t even an adult yet (like her bio mother).  Luke was blessed with far more freedom and peace in his childhood than his sister.  And him living on Tatooine with his father’s surname wasn’t nearly as dangerous as Leia existing within the heart of the Empire while actively engaging in Rebel activities that could have cost her her life, even without getting into the whole “daughter of Anakin Skywalker” business.

Also, just because we joke about Tatooine being Space Australia doesn’t mean every single day of Luke’s childhood was THAT eventful.  It was more likely 80% dull farm life and 20% mayhem, and that 20% would be mostly Luke’s fault for being a crazy nut like his parents and getting himself into trouble he could have avoided in most cases.  In other words, growing up there might not have been nearly as “deadly” as we make it out to be.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

"my hatred of Ahsoka" - okay, you've got me curious. What's the beef?

Hey anon! Warning this is going to get very VERY long and their will be major spoilers for Star Wars Rebels (SWR), The Mandalorian and The Clone wars (TCW) so if you don’t want to be spoiled please watch those shows before reading this. Also if you like Ahsokas character please skip this because this does get salty. Obviously if you like the character that’s fine I’m just explaining my beef. Also I’ll be going into a fair bit of details to give background and context to the scene just in case you haven’t seen certain series to try and minimize confusion.

So I’ll break this down into parts because as I said I have a lot to say.

-Jedi or Not?

One key feature about Ahsoka in SWR is that she repeatedly insists that she is not a Jedi. However despite insisting she is not a Jedi she continually participated in Jedi activities, Din goes to find her to train baby Yoda, she goes with Kanan and Ezra to Malachore, the Jedi council contacts her for help even with Mandalore and she was even planning on returning to the order shortly before Order 66 happens, and during the Rise of Skywalker every voice we hear is a confirmed Jedi that is dead, BUT we also hear Ahsokas voice and Filoni himself said she’s not dead. Why is Ahsoka able to do this trick of speaking to Rey when not dead? Why is she even participating in this VERY Jedi moment and acting as a Jedi guide to Rey despite her continued I distance even in the Mandalorian that she is not a Jedi? And this is all that I remember off the top of my head. She insists she’s not a Jedi while overall trying to pretend she is one and this seems like it’s solely for the purpose of her being allowed to not die while all the other Jedi characters are brutally killed in a lazy way to explain Yoda’s line about the Jedi in the original trilogy which goes on to my next point:

-Ahsoka comes back to life when no one else can

In TCW their is an episode where Ahsoka, Anakin and Obi-Wan are trapped in this strange planet where the force seems much more powerful and the Son and Daughter live who are embodiments if the dark and light side of the force respectively. During the events of the episode Ahsoka is killed by the brother and then subsequently saved by the gravely injured Daughter who gives Ahsoka her remaining life force. Given that the father (also seemingly a manifestation of the force itself) the scene reads as the force interfering to prevent Ahsoka from dying.

In season 2 of Rebels, Ahsoka comes face to face with Darth Vader himself and goes into a battle to the death. Later on in an episode I loath with every fiber of my being “A World Between Worlds” after being forced to watch his mentor Kanan die a very brutal death Ezra finds a realm that seems to have inspired the portals in RWBY where time is meaningless and their are portals showing various events in time. Ezra finds the portal showing the dual between Ahsoka and Vader where we see Ahsoka stab the crumbling ground beneath her and Vader in attempt to save him from being killed by the holocron s blast and he raises his saber to kill her. In order to keep her from dying, Ezra pulls her out and saves her life. In this moment Ezra realizes he could save Kanan, his mentor and father figure whom he just had to watch brutally die, with Ahsoka, whom Ezra had just saved in the same manner, follows him and prevents him from saving Kanan saying that he wanted to save his family and thus wanted to die this way and Ezra shouldn’t interfere, which really to me reads as Ahsoka realizing Ezra saving Kanan via time travel risks HER then actually dying and selfishly saying that to save her own ass rather then believing Ezra shouldn’t interfere with events of the past. The whole way Kanan died also has some ableist undertones which I won’t get into which also further makes these episodes that much harder to swallow and I’ll be happy to elaborate for anyone whose curious as to why I think this. Anyways since again Loth Wolves which are again heavily tied to the force was the one who guided Ezra to this place that exists outside of time we ONCE AGAIN have the force going out of its way to keep Ahsoka alive. It’s especially frustrating since the force refused to help the Jedi slaughtered during Order 66, refused to help Kanan despite him doing what the force basically ordered him to do which lead to his death, and refused in general to help like anyone doing the will of the force which led to their death.

What is Ahsoka doing that is so important the force over and over again feels she has to be saved but no one else ever does anything that is deserving of being saved in the same way and just has to die and stay dead? Why is no other character that is a good guy ever allowed to come back and be saved like Ahsoka?

- She is being shoved into EVERYTHING

This statement may feel like an exaggeration but it’s kind of hitting a point where it’s not so much anymore. She’s obviously in the Clone Wars, she makes another appearance in season 7 despite leaving the order to figure things out on her own and again participate in Jedi business (while this is honestly an understandable return it does show a bit of a pattern). She then makes her appearance in the Rebels era acting as Fulcrum over several seasons. Her next appearance is in the Mandaloran as the Jedi Din is searching for to potentially train baby yoda (avoiding the name to avoid unnecessary spoilers). I can’t help but wonder why they threw in Ahsoka other then to tease at the Ahsoka series and completely throw off the line time and actively retcon the Rebels timeline.

For those of you confused by this, let me explain. Originally when the Rebels epilogue took place we where told it was 5 years later after the fall of the empire. However we also know the Mandalorian takes place 10 years after the fall of the empire. This is important because in the Mandalorian Ahsoka is currently looking for Thrawn and Ezra ALONE but in the Rebels epilogue Sabine and Ahsoka leave together. The original plan of leaving Ezra lost for 5 years was bad enough but now it’s been changed to 10 years and the show and description have no mention of Sabine and is all about Ahsoka.

Rather then using a character that wouldn’t mess up timelines or even just in general let us find out other characters fates instead Ahsoka is used and at times it feels like people think she is the ONLY animated female character to exist in all of Star Wars. Why not have one of the Padawan from the clone wars be Fulcrum? Why couldn’t say Ventress or Cal be the Jedi Din searches for? Why couldn’t Kanan be allowed to live and be the one to search for his Padawan? Their are just so many options to give other characters a chance to shine but over and over again it’s given to Ahsoka.

I know she’s a very popular character and most people would disagree with me, and that’s fine these are just my frustrated and pissed off opinions. Feel free to disagree with me it’s just my two cents after all.

[brooklynislandgirl]

💖 for a stabby girl with plants.

A Less Spicy Shipping Meme

How likely they are to enter a relationship with them:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Would they…

Make the first move? Yes | No Say “I love you” first? Yes | No Cheat on them? Yes | No Be the jealous type? Yes | No Plan the dates? Yes | No Initiate the first kiss? Yes | No Remember anniversaries? Yes | No If by First Move would Beth explain that she has feelings for Anakin, then yes. Desires that have no solid shape and morph from one to another, yes. Demand in her soft way that he dance with her in the rain and point out someone who is, according to the definitions of his Tradition, stuck on the Wheel of their Karmic destiny and need his help to move on to their next life? Absolutely. But she might actually be one of the least forward people to ever draw breath. Beth absolutely positively does not use the L word. Being demisexual takes a lot of build up to even acknowledge having feelings and she thinks that cheating is maybe one of the stupidest activities on the planet. She might be inclined to spend more time with her World Tree or fighting against the Technocratic Union, or feed rougarou off her own flesh so as to spare any future victims, but mostly Anakin will always know where he he can find his Verbena. And it isn't with someone else.

Beth is also not the jealous type. She is far more inclined to envy the things she wants, or to wish for him to see her the way he sees others, but it doesn't translate well across as jealousy. Dates can be a nebulous thing when you are mentoring someone. There are things that must be shown through outside eyes. There are liminal spaces between mundane and magick that are romantic alone with experience and connotation, and when two people are so closely bonded, anything can be a date. But in this arena, Anakin excels. The city is his home, he knows hidden histories and secrets she's never gleaned, and he has an almost preternatural sense of exactly what she needs, and when. Except that she might like him to kiss her. Beth is a bundle of neurosis when it comes to Anakin. He's nearly a decade younger than her. He's been taken advantage of by nearly everyone he's know except his mother. She is supposed to be teaching him the ways of their kind. And yet. There's something about his warmth. The bright intelligence in his eyes. The way he says that one particular F word like it's a promise or a dare. They speak the same language even if the accents compliment if not aligned to one another seamlessly. But for as often as she leaves hints laying around, he doesn't seem to notice. And that's okay.

BOLD WHAT APPLIES: Their Relationship Is:

friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | master and apprentice | cabal mates Belle Santé is Beth's three story house in the lower Garden District that also serves as a community clinic, where fees are based on ability to pay {or not pay, as the case may be}. All of her works within the dwelling, the grounds, and in its umbral reflection have been dedicated to the health and restoration of those who need it. It was no surprise then that Anakin was drawn to it by his Destiny. She considers it as much his place as it is hers, and she appreciates the fact that Anakin is keen on helping her in the clinic, in the garden. She can see him healing bit by bit, growing. The unfortunate downside is that there are feelings that ought not be spoken. Boundaries that ought not be crossed. They become blurrier every day.

PUBLIC Displays of Affection: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection

Anyone spying the pair of them on the street could assume that they are, in fact, a long-standing couple. Anakin and Beth don't seem to really care what the public thinks. They are enshrouded in their own little bubble most of the time anyway. Of course those foolish or brave enough to make a pass at her will find a: that she's oblivious to them, and b: just how menacing Anakin can become with a particularly foreboding glance, or standing to his full height.

PRIVATE Displays of Affection:

hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection Behind closed doors the only thing that changes is perhaps the nature of conversations. They tend to become a lot more intimate regardless of the subject matter, and Beth has told Anakin that nothing is off table to be talked about. Most of their evenings end up with drinks on either the atrocious sofa in the sitting room, or on the furniture on the lanai. A tangle of limbs and often throw blankets, and sometimes even Bug. At some point, she's accepted both of them to the point that there's nothing odd with him coming to bed in what he still insists on calling her room. The bed is big enough that one could put three more Anakin's in it and still have room to spare. They've never talked about why that is when Beth herself is so small. The attic belongs to him now, and he still has his own room.

Do they stay together?

yes, this is endgame | yes but someone is gonna die tragically {but this time, it’s not one of them} | something is keeping them apart | they part ways as friends | they part ways as enemies | they’re on-again-off-again | they have a super messy breakup | it was just a fling | other

BONUS:

What terrible pet names would they give each other? Oddly enough, neither really calls the other by terrible pet names. She's very careful to pronounce Anakin with all three syllables, though sometimes she might call him keiki, as in kid. Anakin enunciates the th in Beth. And he doesn't ever call her Elizabeth.

[ct7567329]

Really need this now... can I have a Fives x reader where reader gets her period on a small-ish mission and at first gets really flustered about it and reluctantly tells Fives because they'll be working closely in the same sector but she doesn't actively do anything about the ~situation~ itself and then it gets real bad. And after that Fives is literally ready to abandon his post so that he can be with you. And they go back to their apartment on Coruscant and Fives just helps her get comfortable

Better Now: Fives x Reader

Ni copad at gotal'ur gar Pal'vut - I want to make you mine

You muttered an explicit under your breath as you looked at the date. Your monthly visitor was, hopefully, coming today and it was the last thing you wanted to deal with. The war has been heating up on Felucia and the 501st was heading there now; which meant you were too. The 212th was already on Felucia, so you had no clue why the 501st was also needed, but you didn't feel like questioning it. You groaned and rolled out of your bed.

Your bed has felt cold ever since Fives spent the night there. Just three days ago after a night of games and drinking, you woke up with a half dressed Fives next to you. Honestly, you didn't mind it at all and wanted every night to be like that. Regardless, you woke up and gasped, waking Fives up, which lead to him gasping as well. It was an awkward interaction. He apologized and quickly left the room.

You and Fives haven't talked since.

You quickly braided your hair and got ready for arrival at Felucia. It wasn't long before you found yourself on the bridge, staring out into the funnel of hyperspace. The blue haze always seemed to mesmerize you, which tended to calm your nerves. A cold rush of air slowly hit your back, your indicator that someone new entered the bridge. You tugged at the hem of your Jedi robe, wrapping it around you.

"General!" a voice called from behind you. You turned your head and saw Rex; Fives and Echo trailed not too far behind him. "What's the latest intel from Felucia?"

"Uhm, I-. That's a General Skywalker question, sorry," you stuttered, quickly turning away from them.

Rex raised and eye at Fives and Echo. It was very unlike you to not know every last detail about an upcoming mission. Echo shrugged as Fives scratched the back of his head.

"We'll be arriving soon, be ready to head out on the gunship. I want to make this mission quick," you commanded, still facing towards the windows.

They three men saluted and left the bridge, making their way to the hangar. You took a deep breath before heading down to the hangar as well. All the men were already in the gunships once you got to the hangar. Usually you and Anakin would be in the sam gunship as Rex, but that meant you being closer to Fives.

"(Y/N)! Let's go!" Anakin yelled at you, motioning you to the gunship. You stood between two ships, hesitant to which one you wanted to ride in, but you decided to bite the bullet and ride with Anakin; and Fives. You sensed Fives' eyes fixated on you. It took every ounce of self control to not look back at him. "Don't make this awkward," you thought to yourself as the gunship neared the surface. Right before you landed, you felt an all too familiar sensation in your lower abdomen. You ran your hands over your face and through your hair, tugging lightly. This was the last thing you wanted to deal with. All you could think about was getting off this planet before it got any worse.

"I'm going to take Rex and a couple men west! (Y/N), you take Fives and some men east!" Anakin commanded before hopping out of the gunship.

You cursed under your breath and jumped out of the ship, taking your men east.  They didn't hesitate to follow your lead and followed you into the quiet lush forest. Quiet. That was odd.

After keeping a steady pace for a few miles, you told the men they could rest. The pain in your lower abdomen was becoming unbearable. You leaned over an overturned boulder, putting pressure on your stomach, groaning in the process.

"You alright General?" Fives asked, approaching you from behind.

"I'm fine...Fives.." you hesitated on his name, "go rest."

"Yes, sir," he replied with worry, obeying your order.

~~~

A few hours later, you and a few other men woke up to an explosion, followed by Anakin and his squad rushing past you.

"A heads up would be nice!" you yelled at him, turning on your saber. You rushed into battle, trying to ignore the pain, but the pain was intensifying at an alarming rate. After taking down only a couple droids, you turned off your saber and rushed to the nearest spot to hide, pressing your knees to your chest.

"General?" a familiar voice asked, taking off his helmet, "Are you sure you're alright?"

You looked up to see a very concerned Fives. You shook your head and laid back down on the ground as Fives began to com Kix. "No!" you gasped, "Get Anakin!"

"Yes, sir?" he replied confused, but compiled to your orders. It didn't take long for Anakin to be by your side, and realize what was wrong.

"Fives. I'm ordering her and evac. She can take care of herself, now get back to battle" he commanded before rushing back into the heated battle.

"General," Fives addressed Anakin before he got too far, "With all due respect, I wish to travel with her."

"Fives!" Anakin, yelled with venom, "I don't find that necessary. Now listen to orders and get back out there."

Fives took a deep breath, "I'm going with the General, General."

"Fives, if you don't-" Anakin began to bark before his eyes met yours, "fine, just go."

~~~

Once on Coruscant, you requested the pilot to drop you off at the Jedi Temple platform. You immediately got off and hopped on a speeder, nodding at Fives to hop on behind you. He sat behind you on the speeder and wrapped his arms around your waist for balance. You winced at the new sensation on your stomach as you started up the speeder.

Your final destination was an apartment a little ways away from the Jedi Temple. It was a simple one bedroom place, but you and Anakin split the rent on it monthly. It was a decent enough place to call a secret home. You pulled a key out of your pocket and unlocked the door, allowing you and Fives to enter.

"I'm going to lay down, help yourself to anything," you mutter, avoiding eye contact with him.

"Can I help myself to knowing what's wrong so I can help you?" he replied, realized his word play didn't quite work out.

You sighed, "You've heard about girls having that thing once a month. I usually get them a little worse than most. I don't think you want to hear anymore. But, I really just want to lay down. Again, you're welcome to anything. You can put on some of Anakin's lounge wear if you wish, that will be in the bedroom. Make yourself comfortable." You placed a hang against your forehead and walked to the bedroom, where you changed into something more comfortable and instantly collapsed on your bed.

You weren't sure how long you've been sleeping, but you were awoken by a sinking sensation on the bed. You eyes opened to meet Fives'. He was sitting on the end of your bed watching you.

"I'm sorry General. I did some reading on the holonet and it seems like you may want company. Just want to be here if you need anything. I found some tea in your kitchen and made you a cup," he mumbled, handing you the cup of tea. "If you need cuddles, I can to that too."

"What?"

"Nothing," he quickly responded, "Nothing."

"Oh," you hummed, "I would have taken up that offer."

Fives softly smiled and laid down next to you, wrapping you up into a little spoon. "Better?" he whispered.

"Yeah, much better."

He pushed his lips against the back of your head, giving it a soft kiss, "I'm sorry about the other night."

"Don't be," you turned around to face him, "don't be at all."

"Why? I slept with my General. I don't care what I was doing or what I was on. That was not okay that I just did that!" he insisted, taking his hands off you.

"Fives, I promise. It was absolutely okay!" you laughed, picking up his hand and putting it back on your waist.

He exhaled deeply, "General I-"

You pushed your lips against his softly, shutting him up. Fives shut his eyes and placed his hand on the back of your head, giving you a slow, passionate kiss. It was euphoric on both ends.

"Call me (Y/N)," you smiled, pulling away from this kiss.

"Well, (Y/N), you may be feeling physically miserable, but you look stunning," he winked, "Are you feeling any better?"

"After that? Absolutely! But some more cuddling couldn't hurt," you smiled back, turning over to be his little spoon again.

"Ni copad at gotal'ur gar Pal'vut," he whispered against your neck.

This got a happy laugh from you, "I know mando'a, di'kut. If we're coming clean, then I've wanted to make you mine since the day I was assigned to the 501st."

"Really?"

"Really. I've broken many Jedi Codes before, what's one more?"

Fives leaned over you to kiss you cheek and smile, making sure you knew that you just made him the happiest man in the galaxy."

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[gffa]

@ap-trash-compactor replied:

1/7 I wanna preface this by saying I agree with everything you’re saying here but I think there’s another layer to how Raffa’s story functions both textually and meta-textually, and to what it illustrates about how many people in the Galaxy /might/ perceive the Jedi, which I personally haven’t seen addressed yet. Sorry in advance if this is something you’ve heard/read/discussed ten million times already, but... 2/7 If you took Raffa’s story out of Star Wars and put it into a contemporary drama, changed the word “Jedi” to the word “police,” and made the particulars about a high-speed car chase? I think it would sound pretty believable. And I think this illustrates something Palpatine does through the mechanism of the Clone Wars to make the position of the Jedi especially vulnerable or precarious wrt to public opinion. 3/7 Even if every single Jedi engages w the power and authority of their military or police role only in the best intentioned, most good-faith way imaginable (which the Umbara arc tells us doesn’t always happen), any time you are in a role where you, even have without wanting or intending to, exercise the power of life and death other lives, you will cause pain and be a target for resentment. Someone will lose someone, and be angry. 4/7 No matter how good or how well-intentioned or how compassionate they are, during the Clone Wars the Jedi are forced into the role of a state authority exercising the power of life and death. They are not only a cultural minority during the Clone Wars. They are also a branch of the state, and in that role they sometimes either kill people, or are involved in events where people die and where, no matter their intentions, they are the face of the state and the voice of authority. 5/7 Many of the military and police actions shown in different episodes of this series leave destruction in their wake. The Jedi’s participation is barely by choice and almost never by preference— but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. 6/7 There are not many Jedi during the Clone Wars. Certainly there are not many compared to the problems they are trying to fix. I have no doubt Luminara tried her best, wanted a different outcome, and gave Raffa all the comfort she had the time and the opportunity to give... But if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your only direct experience of the Jedi is like the one Raffa describes? You’re probably primed to consume all of Palpatine’s worst lies. 7/7 If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them.

I think you and I are very much on the same page!  I have discussed this before (the public’s turning on the Jedi), but I’m always down for discussing it again!  Especially when I love pretty much allllll of this. If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them. You are spot on with your summation, to the point it’s almost hard for me to respond with anything because I feel like all I can do is bang my fist on the table and go, “Yes!  This is what I’ve been talking about!”  Though, of course, there is a lot going on here that’s making it complicated. This post that you’re responding to is focused more specifically on the theme of unreliable narrators + the close associations this season has had with Revenge of the Sith (the moments that make us sit up and go, “Oh, that’s foreshadowing for stuff in ROTS!” like Padme’s pregnancy, Anakin’s advice to Rex, etc.), but there’s also what you’re talking about here--that it’s been a long-running theme in the GFFA that public sentiment turned against the Jedi and that the causes of that are fascinating. I said a bunch of times that Rafa’s hurt in this episode is valid, that there’s room for both the Jedi acting with honorable intentions and that people don’t trust them, don’t draw comfort from them, that these things are not mutually exclusive and you’re hitting on exactly why--because they were put into a situation where, if they’re not 100% perfect, then they’re going to fall off the pedestal they’ve been put onto.  That any flaw they have will then get magnified a hundred times. Luminara seems to have made a point to go back and try to talk to Rafa, to tell her a phrase that is narratively meaningful within Star Wars on a meta level, like, that says to me that she has really good intentions!  But that Rafa doesn’t draw any comfort from it, as a non-Force sensitive and someone who probably is left to the Republic’s shitty welfare services (which isn’t the Jedi’s jurisdiction, they’re not social workers and we can’t expect them to be), doesn’t undercut Luminara’s presumed good intentions, just as Luminara’s presumed good intentions don’t undercut Rafa’s hurt. And that it’s understandable--because, as the Maul arc in season 5 says, the Jedi aren’t doing the things that they used to do, that crime is flourishing because they’re being so busy with this war they’ve been drafted into.  Even Star Wars: Propaganda makes it clear that public sentiment turned against the Jedi because of a cultural absence, rather than anything they actively did. This is all by design from Palpatine, that he’s keeping them so busy putting out tire fires on Ryloth (who were being slaughtered by the Separatists), on Mon Calamari (who were being enslaved by the Separatists), on Kiros (who were being kidnapped and taken into the resumed Zygerrian slave empire), that they don’t have time to do the things they used to, like take care of a lot of the criminal elements or the outreach programs that we see hinted at in the supplementary material. The Jedi had to make a choice between fighting in a war where entire worlds were being enslaved, that there were only so many of them and they were dying, that they died in droves on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and they’re dying every day in the war, that they were literally one out of six billion in the galaxy at their height, and that they had a million expectations placed on them.  They have very little political capital/power, yet they’re expected to solve all the problems in ways that will last.  They’re expected to police the Underworld, but also not police the Underworld because then they’re restricting people.  They’re expected to be social workers.  They’re expected to fight and die in a war that the public itself refuses to stand up in.  And when they don’t live up to those impossible perfections, they’re torn down. This is not to set aside that of course there are instances of people like Trace and Rafa, where the destruction wreaked by chasing down someone like Ziro is going to sometimes cause people to get hurt and, honestly, I don’t feel like Rafa really blamed Luminara for that, given the acknowledgement of the crowded platform she was trying to avoid.  But if she had?  That, too, would have been reasonable and understandable!  That it doesn’t matter if the Jedi were doing literally everything they could, that doesn’t mean there’s not also room for Rafa’s hurt.  And that, even if I think there was absolutely nothing that Luminara could say that would have given Rafa comfort, that doesn’t make Rafa’s hurt/viewpoint any less empathizable. My blog tends to focus on the Jedi side of things because those are the characters I’m interested in, not because they’re the only element that matters. In the meta we’re responding to, a lot of the focus is on Luminara and the Jedi because that’s my jam, that’s the part I thrive on, but we’re definitely in agreement that Rafa’s feelings are not wrong and it’s not hard to see where they come from! I do take issue with the idea of--whether it’s true or not, we can all argue about it all day long, but it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not--that if the Jedi are remote and distant from the galaxy, that that narratively is approved of how they then “kind of brought their downfall (aka, violent genocide) on themselves”.  That’s something I’ve seen skirted around in commentary from the creators and I’m wary of it leaking into the narrative in a more substantial way.  But that’s an entirely separate issue from the fact that anti-Jedi sentiments exist in the narrative and that they led to the Jedi Purge/Jedi genocide. As part of the propaganda and manipulations Palpatine did, yes, absolutely, that is one of the most fascinating things!  And that doesn’t mean that there’s not validity to those feelings, even if they’re rooted in propaganda and manipulation! But that, just as there’s room for Rafa’s hurt despite Luminara’s intentions, there’s room for the Jedi’s good intentions despite the public’s hurt and/or mistrust. My thing is that I tend to look at why the Jedi act the way they do and I usually come away with empathy for how they got into the situations they did.  Like, take their alignment with the Republic, which was an organization with corruption down to the roots by the time of the Twilight of the Republic, that that association absolutely led to their downfall/genocide.  But what else could they do?  Being part of the Republic in that way allowed them to actually help people, to have negotiating power, to form treaties that would be honored even when they were no longer on a given planet.  If they weren’t under the jurisdiction of the Senate, they could not have helped as many people as they did, especially because how would they even be able to afford starship fuel or housing costs?  Would they charge people for their services?  That’s a disaster waiting to happen! There’s room for both “the best option for the Jedi was to be part of the Republic and try to improve the system from the inside, which is what they did” AND “the being part of the Republic is what ultimately fucked them”, those things are both true! but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. Spot on!  I have fun looking at what Luminara’s intentions likely were and what the context of the structure of the show entails, that Rafa’s character doesn’t have to be a reliable narrator to be valuable (and I say this as someone who actually really loves the unreliable narrators of SW, which honestly is almost literally every single character, very few are ones you can take at face value without seeing the circumstances for yourself), but to Rafa it doesn’t really matter what Luminara did or didn’t say, because that’s not what she was looking for or what she got out of that conversation.  I can’t say I would act differently in her position! And that’s exactly what Palpatine did.  He pulled the Jedi in so many different directions, made them responsible for things that literally no group could possibly have survived with public sentiment intact, and even if the Jedi had been literally perfect (which they weren’t), it wouldn’t have mattered, given that the entire point of the prequels is that you gotta choose between Shitty Option A and Shitty Option B. It’s the galaxy’s worst ever version of, “Which would you rather?” except its real and you have to play the game, because not playing gets you fucked over even faster, like it did with Mandalore.

[disneydreamlights]

Across the Stars: Chapter 1

AO3 | FFN

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Summary: Tensions between the Separatists and the Republic are climbing as the Senate debates whether there is need for an army. Anakin Skywalker, Senator of Tatooine, has recently returned to Coruscant to speak against its formation, resulting in an assassination attempt that forces him to reunite with long time friends Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and the newly knighted Padme Naberrie for his own protection. [Anidala]

(Or, an Attack of the Clones Roleswap AU)

A/N: What’s this? I’m publishing a multi chapter that’s actually a part of a series? Yes, yes I am. Updates should come every Wednesday since I actually completed this one before getting the genius idea to post it. After that it’ll just be whenever I finish another fic for it will be when the next one is posted. 

The air around Anakin felt charged as he worked on piloting it down for a landing. Normally, he was eager to return to Coruscant after a few days away from the capital planet, Tatooine still far from his favorite planet (though it got better every day. He was proud of Beru for all the help she provided, and he was doing a lot of effort on his own since he’d been voted into the Senate) but tonight was different. The air around the city had felt tense, prompting Anakin to be glad of his decision to fly a small, inconspicuous ship down to the planet. Somebody was after him, he just wasn’t really sure why.

He felt a flash of something, a warning in the air to be careful and wary. He closed his eyes, trying to remember what Obi-Wan and Padmé had taught him years ago, and immediately turned the steering wheel, rolling out of the way of a projectile that had nearly caught his ship. That would’ve grounded it instantly. “Kriff.”

He heard the beeping of his Astromech companion and security detail, yelling at him for his risky flying. “Come on Artoo, we’re fine.” More angry beeps. “I didn’t get hit.”

More beeps, this time sarcastic and irritated from Artoo. “If you’re just going to try to yell at me, be useful and call Mom.”

A holographic projection of his mother appeared moments later. “What is it Ani?”

“You’re already landed, right?”

“Ani?”

“Mom please.” He felt it again, the same disturbance, and this time swerved out of the way of the second attack.

Shmi Skywalker shook her head. “Of course we have, the last person on the cruiser just disembarked. Is something wrong?”

Well, if he was honest, he wanted to say everything was wrong. But he wasn’t about to worry her, plus it wasn’t like he didn’t have things under control in regards to whoever was firing at him. “I think somebody let slip that I wasn’t flying in with the rest of the delegation from Tatooine. I’ve got the situation under control and I have Artoo with me, so I’m fine. We’ll still be landing soon.”

“You ask me not to be worried, but it’s never easy.”

Anakin chuckled. “I promise I’m fine mom. Leave the worrying to Threepio. He’s always been better at it. Just make sure to clear the landing platform. If this goes wrong I don’t want our friend hurting anybody else.” Before she could respond, he hung up, not wanting to worry his mom more in case another attack came. “Ready Artoo? Time to make a landing.”

He was pretty sure R2 was ready to kill him by the time they finally touched down on the platform as he approached rapidly, wanting to avoid a third fire from their mysterious and very murderous new friend. In fact, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t in the ship at all as the bad energy continued to flow around him. “Artoo, let’s go.”

The droid and Anakin emerged from the ship, Anakin pulling up a hood on his cloak to hopefully avoid detection from whatever assassin has his trail. Barely a minute after he was off the ship and approaching the entrance to the building, he was pushed forward, scarcely out of the blast radius with his faithful droid. And he looked behind himself to see the small ship that he had arrived on was absolutely destroyed. “Message received.”

Somebody didn’t want him on Coruscant.

They’d regret trying to get him to leave.

-x-

“Peace is our objective here, not war.” Palpatine’s voice pulled Anakin out of the stupor he’d fallen into as the senator from Malastare concluded his request for aid from the Republic to deal with the Separatist threat coming onto the planet. If he was honest, had the senator not been pushing for the Military Creation Act, Anakin might have felt sympathy, but the creation of an army was not an action Anakin would ever defend. Not one founded on individuals forced to join an army.

He felt his mom squeeze his hand, though she stepped back before he moved the pod out, not wanting the attention on her, but rather on everything Anakin would say. “My fellow senators, when I arrived on Coruscant today to come to this very meeting, an assassin made an attempt on my life. I was fired at three times, and while my skills behind the wheel of a ship saved my life today, had the assassin only been slightly quicker on the uptake when I landed, it’s likely I wouldn’t have made it off the ship alive at all.”

The crowds started to talk amongst themselves, a sign to Anakin that he needed to push. “The reason I was targeted today was because of the bill we’re supposed to be voting on today. Of all the senators against the creation of the creation of an army, I’ve been the loudest, most open about my displeasure, and the one who everybody knows is willing to do anything to get the results I want. Somebody here wants to take that a step further, just to make sure that the bill gets through.” He looked over the other pods, and felt Bail’s approval much to his relief. The speech hadn’t been gone over or discussed with his former mentor, and Anakin had been slightly worried that bringing it up in the Senate would be unwelcome, but it seemed to have been a good idea, even if no prior words had been drafted.

Despite the approval from Bail, the Senate was getting tense, and shouting was beginning. “Ani–” His mom put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. He had to make his statement clear to the others.

“You’re all booing me, and for what? This whole idea is a joke. You don’t raise an army for protection. You raise an army if you want to start a war. It won’t deter the Separatists. It will embolden them, and then the fighting will be brought right to our planets. Our systems. Our people. You have to stop living in your delusions.” He slammed his fist on the pod in front of him. Not his best move, but far from his worst in the Senate. “People will die. Civilians drafted for combat will die. The people you force to fight this battle will be nothing but slaves.”

He had people’s attention, and their ire judging by the ever increasing yelling from the other pods. Which was good, it was what he wanted from the other senators. He wanted them to remember his words. “This ‘security measure,’” he said the words full of disdain, “that we’re all voting for is nothing short of a declaration of war on the Separatists, and unless you want to claim that you were the one who brought war to the Republic, you’ll vote with me against this bill.”

The outrage in the Senate was tremendous, but Anakin smirked, having done his job at riling up the chambers. Voices rang against each other as Mas Amedda called for order within the Senate to try to regain a semblance of control amongst the Senators.

After a few minutes, the Senate calmed down, and Palpatine spoke. “Due to the lateness of the hour and the seriousness of this motion, we will take up these matters tomorrow. Until then, the Senate is adjourned.”

-x-

Unsurprisingly, within an hour the Loyalist Committee was summoned to the Chancellor's office. Not a surprise, if Anakin was honest. He’d stirred up a storm in the Senate and even if Palpatine wasn’t mad at him (unlikely) the announcement that he’d nearly been a victim to an assassination attempt less than an hour ago was likely not welcome for him to hear, especially since Palpatine had been trying to get Anakin’s favor since he’d arrived on Coruscant five years prior.

Much more surprising to Anakin, was the presence of several Jedi in his office. Council members, if he recalled the faces correctly. He looked them over for Obi-Wan or Padmé in their midst, and quickly squashed down his disappointment at neither of his friends being present. “Senator Skywalker.” He looked down to see Yoda walking over. “Your tragedy on the landing platform, terrible. Seeing you alive brings warm feelings to my heart.”

“Thank you, Master Yoda. I’m just thankful I’d chosen to fly myself into Coruscant. The loss of life had I been on a transport with the rest of the members of my delegation would have been much greater.” Admittedly, a small part of Anakin still stung with resentment over the fact that Yoda refused to accept him into the Jedi Order, but he had mostly put it behind him. “Do you have any idea who may have sent the assassin?”

Windu approached as well, joining the conversation. “Our intelligence network thinks it may have been remnants from Jabba’s gang seeking revenge against you from when you overthrew them and brought Tatooine into the Republic.”

Anakin shook his head. “I think you’re wrong, Master Jedi.” He watched Windu raise an eyebrow and took it as a sign to continue. “I think the Separatists are behind these attacks.”

The room was silent, as though they were processing what Anakin had said. He didn’t blame them. Accusing the Separatists of wanting to kill the single person who was actively against the formation of a military against them wasn’t logical. But every part of Anakin just knew it was right.

“You mean to imply Count Dooku?” Windu asked, clearly skeptical of Anakin’s accusation.

“Not one hundred percent, but nobody else in his Confederacy would have the means or motive.” Or motive. He thought of Senator Bonterri for a moment. Onderon was a member of the Separatist movement, but she was certainly unlikely to try to level an attack on him given how closely they had worked when he’d been a teenager running around the Senate floor. He had little doubt the other senators who had left would be similar. Almost no other member of their group would have an interest in killing him if his hunch was correct.

“Count Dooku is a political idealist, not a murderer.” Master Mundi corrected Anakin, but he said nothing, letting the Jedi have their say.

“He was also once a Jedi, Senator. He couldn’t assassinate anyone. It’s not in his character.”

“Once.” Anakin frowned at Windu’s defense. “As in he’s not a Jedi any longer. There’s no reason to believe he would still hold to Jedi beliefs, and even then, I’m not arguing that he’s the killer, only that he hired one out.”

Before Windu could respond, Yoda spoke up. “Matters not, the killer’s identity does. For certain Senator in grave danger you are.”

“Master Jedi.” Palpatine looked away from the window he had been near to give a kind smile to Anakin, as though he truly wanted to protect him. “May I suggest the Senator be placed under the protection of your graces.”

“You really think that’s a wise decision under these stressful times.” Bail spoke up, and he was right, the Jedi council didn’t need to spare anymore Jedi from whatever peace keeping mission they were on.

“Chancellor, with all do respect, I don’t need protecting, I can handle myself–”

“I’m sure you can, Senator.” The Chancellor cut him off. “I know you are a great pilot, and have a lucky streak, but the situation right now is dire. I understand that you do not want the help of the Jedi, but perhaps you might be willing to accept the extra security if it were Jedi you were familiar with. Perhaps an old friend like Master Kenobi, or Knight Naberrie.”

Anakin clenched his hands into fists, feeling his nails dig into the palms of his hand. He desperately wanted to see Obi-Wan and Padmé again, that much was true, but he having his friendship with them used as a weapon against him soured his mood for a possible reunion, which further sank as Windu revealed that the two had just returned from a border dispute.

“Please, Anakin. You know how much I’ve desired to look out for you since you asked for our help. Allow me to arrange this one thing for you, my boy.” There was nothing more he could do with Palpatine’s plea like that, and while Anakin was sure there was some ulterior motive to what was going on, he had his hands tied.

With nothing else he could do, Anakin turned to face Windu. “Tell Obi-Wan and Padmé I’ll be in my apartment, and that I look forward to seeing them again.”

It wasn’t until he left the office that he smiled as he realized just exactly who he was seeing again.

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