#Also I went back a second time after I started coloring just to make Anakin's ass bigger

[lilredghost]

Inspired by @ragnarlothcat's baseball fic, The Bottom of the Ninth! I love it so much 💕 (Click for better quality)

[phoenixyfriend]

When Obi-Wan gets to AotC, there's also about two dozen Anakin clones on-site. They're all girls because... IDK Anakin is trans. They have a hive mind and are developmentally a few years younger than Anakin himself.

It's incredibly unsettling to Obi-Wan.

It's almost definitely a "fuck with Anakin's already fragile mental health" ploy by Palpatine, along with a "what if Jedi Black Widows, for me, a Sith Lord. Wouldn't that be neat? That would be neat."

Anakin is torn between "this freaks me out" and "GANG OF BABY SISTERS LET'S GOOOOOOO."

(I just finished reading Like Real People Do by glimmerglanger, so this is definitely inspired by that and the obligatory 'lay back in bed and daydream variations on plot points of that fic you just really enjoyed,' and also a little by Same Heart, Same Blood by loosingletters.)

They're physically like 14-16 on average, and Anakin's vibrating out of his skin with a million conflicting emotions, but when he tells Padme she's just like "oh, you have a handmaiden gang!"

I told this to @willowcrowned and she suggested:

Once Anakin decides to repress the part of him that’s weirded out and just regard them as baby sisters he gets. A little strange about it The first time one of them dies he may or may not slaughter every person he can [in response to Padme's comment] Anakin starts worrying that he needs to get them cool matching outfits

I also chatted about it with @firebirdeternal and they said:

Gang of Unsettling Smol Siblings is exactly the Karma that Anakin deserves

Do you think the Clones have a kind of Collective Name that they use at first that eventually just kind of morphs into a new last name? Skysisters or something? Like Palpatine was trying to be clever and name them like the Nightsisters.

I initially went with "functionally one person" hive-mind but I'm torn.

I think maybe they're BASICALLY one person on Kamino but drift into Separate Consciousness once they're far enough apart physically that their minds don't blend from proximity anymore.

Then they start Dating (like half of them are dating Fett clones because they grew up with these dudes, it's like childhood friends romance), and Anakin loses his mind about Protecting Them and They're Too Young.

Padme: You're nineteen and we just got married, they can date. Anakin: THEY'RE EIGHT. Padme: And the Fett clones are ten and dying for us in the field. Get them rights before you panic about their love lives.

Firebird:

it could be worse, one of them could imprint on Obi-Wan. "Anakin I promise I won't yell at you for the next five stupid things you do if you can figure out a way to stop this baby from having a crush on me" (I like the idea of Obi-wan bargaining not with "I won't be mad at you ever" because they Both Know That's Not True, and instead haggling with specific allowances. Like he's handing out Stupidity Coupons)

Please imagine Mace and Obi-Wan's personal responses to the idea of suddenly having to deal with not one, not two, but OVER TWENTY SKYWALKERS.

Plo is delighted to take one off their hands.

So is Yoda.

Willow:

Mace is like. okay suicide isn’t the Jedi way but on the other hand. i physically cannot deal with this Yoda: a skywalker, you say? one who is tall enough to reach the top shelf, you say? such a skywalker, bring me

Anakin would be given at least one because fuck you, suffer with us, but he's still a padawan so Ugh, fine, no.

I want to say one stays on Coruscant to hang out with the Guard, and ends up half-adopted by Padme. She keeps dressing up the Aniclone left with her in handmaiden outfits and sending selfies to Anakin.

"Hanging out with the little SiL!"

Anakin has so many issues about WHEN his genetic material was acquired.

And there's some confusion from the Fett clones about how much of a hive mind is normal for Jedi. They are confused that the answer is basically none, and "this is WHY nobody clones a Jedi"

ONE OF THEM STEALS BOBA FROM THE ARENA ON GEONOSIS.

Firebird:

"I have followed in our progenitor's footsteps and acquired a sibling." holds up a struggling Boba "He bites."

Willow:

Ooooo okay so if they have a sort of hive mind then they probably don’t have names other than their designations on Kamino right BUT When they SEPARATE The one that picks Boba up on Geonosis gets a name specifically for that. Okay what if the one Padmé picks up gets some variant on ‘pretty’ because she’s always being dressed up BELLE Maybe Yoda’s Ani has a name that means thief? Because obviously Yoda is using Anakin to steal sweets

So, to make the timeline work...

I don't think anyone would give Anakin one of his sisters until after he's knighted at least.

So obviously when they're doing initial placements none of the sisters go to him or Obi-Wan.

Once he's knighted, of course they're already all placed with someone, and Anakin instead gets Ahsoka. He loves Ahsoka. She is also a little sister. He said so.

At some point afterwards, one of the sisters is left without a place because the Master that was in charge of her died in the field battle.

That sister then gets placed with Obi-Wan, because he's already mostly-successfully raised one Skywalker, so he can do it again.

Anakin gets to hang out with her basically all the time.

Ahsoka is very very jealous of this girl stealing Anakin's attention.

Anakin is oblivious to the rivalry.

He asks Barriss to look after them while he's discussing Adult War Things with Luminara and Obi-Wan, and Barriss gets an eye into This Mess, which is quickly colored by Ahsoka growing a puppy crush on the lovely Miss Offee herself.

Firebird:

Ahsoka: Ah yes, my nemesis. Anisister: Ah yes, my new older sister whom I want to impress so bad.

"I will impress her by being Stoic and Competent" "Oh my god she must think she's so much better than me what a bitch"

Anakin is oblivious to most things to be fair Anakin: Laser focused precision fighting machine who can read the tiniest body movements and predict your moves seconds in advance, who also cannot understand even the most basic social nuance. I was originally writing this as to Dunk on Anakin but then I made myself sad, because none of those things are really his fault.

So you know that post about like, Sasuke and Brooding, specifically in the context of "Brooding" as it's used to refer to Nesting Chickens? Grouchy and protective and sitting on a tennis ball trying to hatch it because they're just. "These are my Babies." Anakin Broods. Baby sisters. Must protecc. "I'm actually fine and extremely deadly in combat." "MUST PROTECT."

Bad Guy: [catches Ahsoka in a Trap] Aniclone: Must rescue sister! Aniclone: [fights, is not winning fight, gets ouched] Ahsoka tearing her way out of Trap: I lived bitch. Also: stay the fuck away from her. [murders so hard]

Ahsoka catches the Protective Older Sib feels by the traditional method: "Hey, only I'm allowed to be mean to them."

Willow:

Oh Anakin has no clue what’s going on. He walks in on Ahsoka glaring at the Ani and is like!!! Little sisters!!! Bonding!!! When Ahsoka was about three seconds away from tossing her out of the airlock. Ahsoka mistakenly assumes that Barriss has a crush on the Ani, and gets even MORE jealous.

Obi-Wan is like oh god. I can’t take care of an Anakin going through puberty again. He’s great with periods and other stuff because he read about a billion books. He is TERRIBLE with everything else, as he was the first time.

Barriss is like???? YOU'RE BOTH CHILDREN, PLEASE CALM DOWN, I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN DATING ANYONE, LET ALONE SOMEONE YOUR AGE.

IDK how old Obi-Wan's Aniclone is, probably physically the same age as Ahsoka?

Per @atagotiak on discord:

Also something something, similarities btw Anakin and Obi-Wan where like. "Am I a parent? That seems uncomfortable, I'm too young to be a dad to a kid this age, I mean I'm cool with being a mentor/caretaker but..."

Obi-Wan can't even sidestep parenthood this time.

"Is Anakin basically your dad?" "Uhhhhhh" [Muffled discussion] "So Obi-Wan is your dad." "Okay!" "WAIT NO I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS"

Ahsoka: She's stealing my brother, that BITCH. Obi-Wan's Aniclone: new sister new sister new sister gotta make a good impression

Firebird:

I feel like the Sister Squad would make very effective interstellar espionage agents Even like, kind of by accident. They just get encouraged to branch out in their interests and figure out what they want to do with their lives and end up all over the dang place, and since they're all pretty dang competent they tend to gravitate towards Important Positions wherever they end up. Except for one sister who just retires to raise Space Sheep.

I like that in this AU Palpatine is just like "I will create an army of Loyal Murderers who will obey my every whim and also be a big psychological lever on my Other Pet Murderer," and then they all just Baby Duckling imprint on the first Jedi to be nice to them instead and he has to just be like "Wait no not like that."

AND one of them Steals Boba

I want Obi-Wan's Aniclone to start dating Fives. All the sisters judge her for it, because he's a Goof. A very competent, ARC Trooper goof! But a goof.

Not as goofy as Anakin, though.

Firebird:

Who expects a clone of Anakin Skywalker to not make questionable lifelong romantic choices impulsively?

[glimmerglanger]

Soooo…….HotR Codywan proposal snippet if you’re still taking requests? I feel like they’d be absolute saps about it and I am Soft

OOOOOH! Oh! They're going to be SUCH saps, fair warning! Let's have some family time and sweetness and a proposal on this fine Friday morning! (No spice in this snippet, only SWEET).

~~~~~~~

Autumn slipped away, eventually, and Cody wasn’t sorry to see it go. Ben’s civil case wrapped up towards the end of the season, leaving him with enough funds to cover the memorial costs for his uncle and some extra, besides.

Mostly, he knew Ben put the money towards his school expenses and loans, though he also insisted on paying half when they bought a new bed for Cody’s place, replacing the one they’d broken so impressively.

Winter brought with it true cold, the dropping temperatures no longer teasing at freezing. Often, the sun didn’t rise until long after Cody was already up and working, but he was used to that.

And he had someone warm to curl up with in bed after a long and chilly day, burying his nose against the back of Ben’s neck so many nights.

Ben mostly slept over at the ranch, though he’d kept the apartment. He said, when they discussed it again, that he thought he ought to at the least keep it until the end of the school year. He’d stayed there through most of his work during finals, but….

But, in general, he went to sleep beside Cody and woke up beside Cody. In general, he was there, sharing meals just the two of them or with the rest of the family, going to the triplet’s games, or taking Anakin for walks with Boba.

He was there on New Year’s Eve, watching with a bemused expression as Boba and the triplets helped Jango load fireworks into the back of the four-wheeler.

“Aren’t fireworks...generally a summertime thing?” Ben asked, leaning against the porch as they loaded up box after box.

“New Years is during the summer where I grew up,” Val said, coming down the steps, offering out steaming cups of coffee - decaf, Cody hoped - as she did. “Jango and I were used to New Year's fireworks. So…” She shrugged.

“Do you do this every year?” Ben asked, expression curious, and Cody left them to it, making sure the four-wheeler was appropriately loaded up. He’d handled fireworks the past few years, but Jango wanted to take care of setting them off again, with Rex and Ahsoka volunteering to help with the lighting, so…

So, he ended up sitting beside Ben, huddled out on the porch and wrapped up in a blanket as the four-wheeler set off into one of the nearby fields. “Warm enough?” he asked, feeling the heat radiating from Ben’s body, all along his side.

In fact, it didn’t feel that cold on the porch, not with so many of them sitting so close together. But the air bit, still, cold and crisp, even with the blanket of clouds overhead. There’d been flurries, throughout the day, and they were starting to come down more heavily, drifting through the air, heavy and white.

“Mm, yes,” Ben said, arm curled around him, shifting to make room for Wooley on the step below them. He looked tired - but nearly midnight was late for both of them, early risers by nature and habit - with darkened circles under his eyes.

“We’ll go to sleep, after this,” Cody promised him, and got a smile in return, sweet and fleeting.

“No sleeping yet,” Val said, wading through the pile of them, followed by Bly, who started handing out cups. They didn’t keep champagne flutes or even enough wine glasses. Everyone got what was available, coffee cups, tall glasses, and even a few mason jars, already filled.

Most of them contained sparkling grape juice.

Cody and Ben got champagne, by the smell of it, and Ben raised an eyebrow. “Don’t drink yet,” Cody told him, with a little grin, and Ben huffed a laugh, opening his mouth, only to be cut off by Echo, who stood quickly, holding up a hand.

“Get ready!” Echo shouted, everyone shifting around, vibrating when he started counting backwards from ten.

Cody nudged Ben at one, gesturing to his cup, and they all managed to drink more or less on time as, off in the fields, the first of the fireworks went off with a flash of brilliant color and a crash of sound.

Ben made a sound, both surprised and delighted, and Cody set down his glass, curled an arm around Ben’s shoulders, and pulled him over, kissing him as the first seconds of the new year ticked over, feeling something stretch out, filling up the entirety of the space inside his ribs, realization unfolding not in a flash but in a sweet, inevitable wave.

He stared at Ben, when they pulled apart, Ben turning to watch the fireworks lighting up the night, and knew that he wanted to kiss Ben every New Year’s for the rest of their lives, wanted to sit and watch fireworks with him, hold him after a long day at work, eat breakfast beside him--

“Hey, man, fireworks are that way,” Fives hissed in his ear, at some point, while elbowing him in the ribs, and Cody shoved back at him, but blinked and shook himself, turning his attention to the show up in the sky.

They’d gone all out.

They usually did.

The fireworks echoed out across the fields, the sound held close by the cloud cover. Cody knew, from experience, that there would be cars parked out along the roads leading to the ranch, neighbors and people from further in town, who came out to see the show every year, watching colors chase each other, heralding in another year.

Ponds started the cheer, when the last of the fireworks finished echoing, leaving bright afterimages on the inside of Cody’s eyelids, and they all pushed themselves up, gathering blankets and cups while excitedly talking, half of them cleaning up the porch while the other half of them lit out for the fields, going to help find the firework casings, making sure nothing had landed where it ought not.

Cody ended up standing at the sink, rinsing off glasses that Ben dried, listening in as Echo’s girlfriend - who had never attended before - talked to Ben, her hair pulled back and her cheeks rosy.

He was glad Ben had someone to make conversation with. Cody’s thoughts were buzzing, thrumming along. He felt...not quite distracted. More waiting, with the tension in his gut of anticipation and something larger.

It was snowing in earnest by the time the clean up was finished and Jango, Rex, and Ahsoka returned as conquering heroes, to cheers and applause. The flakes swirled around them when Cody and Ben finally managed to say their good nights, stepping off the porch and heading back to their space.

Cody held Ben’s hand, gloves in the way, both of them leaning together as they crunched across the frozen ground.

Cody made it to his porch before he pulled Ben to a stop, standing there in the softly falling snow and just...looking at him for a moment. Seeing the whole future, spread out around him, feeling - feeling everything, all at once, wild potential just waiting for him to embrace it.

And he’d never been any good at ignoring that feeling, at hesitating once he knew what he wanted. Indecision wasn’t a valuable skill in his career, nor a feeling he’d ever been comfortable with. He exhaled, just looking at Ben for a long moment, lovely and cold and--

Everything he wanted.

“So,” Cody said, tugging on both ends of Ben’s scarf, pulling him in closer, cold noses brushing together when he went on, the words just slipping free, like they were meant to escape his lips, “What would it take to convince you to marry me?”

He was close enough to see Ben blink several times in rapid succession, eyes so clear and so bright, even as Ben asked, “What?”

Cody felt his mouth curve, pulling on the scarf again, stealing a fast kiss as Ben’s hands came up to rest on his sides. “A nice ring?” he asked, thoughts running ahead, wondering what kind of ring Ben might want. Something practical, likely. He wasn’t the ostentatious sort. He kissed Ben again. “A big wedding?” Ben’s hands squeezed, his breath came out in a pant against Cody’s mouth. “A fancy honeymoon?”

“Are you - are you being serious?” Ben asked, voice wavering, and Cody could acknowledge that this was...a bit sudden.

But he knew how he felt. He looked at Ben and saw the future unfurling outwards and wanted it, wanted to make it his, to shape it into being.

He made a rough sound, let go of the scarf to cup Ben’s face, and pulled him into a proper kiss, long and deep. And, when he pulled back, Ben looking dazed, he said, “Yeah, Ben. I’m being serious. What would it take? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

The snow was starting to fall in earnest, thick flakes swirling around them, landing on the copper strands of Ben’s hair and his eyelashes. His cheeks were tinged red from the cold. Maybe from the kiss, but Cody didn’t want to presume.

Not even with Ben swallowing, staring at him without blinking, eyes searching.

Cody wanted to prompt him for an answer, even though it hadn’t been very long, perhaps a heartbeat. Maybe two. And then Ben exhaled shakily and said, voice thick and quiet, “Well. You could ask. Properly.”

Cody groaned, the sound torn from his chest, fingers clenching in Ben’s hair as he rasped, “Will you marry me, Ben?”

He felt Ben shiver, watching his eyes flutter, delightfully, and had a moment to grin - feeling victorious, that same heady kick that came with looking over at the timer during a competition and knowing he had the best time - when Ben murmured, “Yeah, Cody. I will.”

And then Ben was kissing him as the snow swirled around them and the world went on, unnoticed.

[x-childish-x]

obi wan x femreader fanfic idea where they go with padme to mustafar to confront anakin. after force choking padme, anakin’s like “you turned her against me! now i shall take away what you love most” and at first obi wan’s confused, “what i love most?” then he realizes anakin’s talking about reader. reader starts to be force choked by anakin and then obi wan says prompt #22 from the main prompts.

What You Love Most

Pairing: Obi-Wan x fem!reader

Fandom: Star Wars

Warnings: force choking!, angsty Anakin, fluff, soft!Obi-Wan, Padme dies

Word Count: 1,476

A/N: Hello lovely Anon! This was really fun to write, and was such an incredibly interesting idea! I really hope you enjoy this and that it's what you wanted. Thank you so much for the request! Feedback is ALWAYS appreciated and welcomed! (e/c): eye color

Summary: Anakin tries to get revenge for Obi-Wan "turning" Padme against him, and you're both left to deal with the aftermath of the Sith's decision.

(gif not mine!)

You glanced toward C-3PO before rushing out of the ship after Padme. You watched as Anakin wrapped her up in his arms, your arm slowly twitching back towards your lightsaber, but you forced yourself to remain calm. Padme was your best friend, you knew you couldn't harm Anakin while she was still here, but everything Obi-Wan told you made it extremely tempting.

You stopped a few feet away from the pair, listening silently, and at the mention of Obi-Wan's name, Anakin's gaze flicked up. His eyes landed on you. His glare was so intense it left you feeling nauseous, feeling like Anakin thought you shouldn't be alive. You gave a soft nod of acknowledgment to the younger boy, your face neutral as he looked back to Padme.

As Anakin's speech continued, you felt yourself getting more riled, the idea of justice getting hard to keep away. Padme turned her head, using her peripheral vision to ensure you were still behind her as she slowly backed up, realizing how crazy Anakin was beginning to sound. Your hand locked around your lightsaber hilt as Anakin yelled at Padme, the urge to protect her taking over your body, not causing you to spare a glance back at Obi-Wan, who had now made his presence known.

"You're with him!" Anakin growled, "You brought him here to kill me!"

"Anakin, stop!" You yelped as he began force-choking Padme.

You went to unleash your lightsaber, prepared to battle the new-come sith, but you felt the force wrap around your waist and begin yanking you back. Obi-Wan's yell for Anakin to let Padme go filled your ears as you realized Obi-Wan was pulling you further away from the deranged boy. He was trying to protect you, pull you out of the line of fire.

A cry escaped your lips as you watched Padme fall. Obi-Wan flinched slightly at your cry, standing in front of you in an attempt to shield you from Anakin.

"You turned her against me!" Anakin screamed, his eyes filled with rage, "Now I shall take away what you love most!"

"What I love most?" Obi-Wan questioned, watching Anakin slide off his robe.

Anakin's eyes locked on you, watching you fight against the force around your waist, trying to get to Padme as tears streamed down your cheek. Obi-Wan's eyes widened, immediately filling with anger and panic as Anakin raised his hand and your gasp filled the air. Your hands fly to your throat, desperately trying to get away from the force on your neck, as the force on your waist drops, and you try to gasp for air.

“If you don’t let her go right now, I swear I will break every bone in your body," Obi-Wan practically growls as he yanks off his robe, his hand flying to his lightsaber.

Your vision is beginning to fill with spots. Your body is panicking, going into fight or flight mode as it tries to keep you alive. Anakin, the little boy you helped Obi-Wan train, is trying to kill you. You realize, as Obi-Wan's eyes meet yours, your hands feel numb now, and your legs surely wouldn't hold you up if it wasn't for Anakin's force around your neck.

Without wasting another second, Obi-Wan lunges at Anakin, shocking his old Padawan, who didn't expect his Master to make the first move. The shock makes the younger boy let go of you, and you crash to the ground, a wretched gasp for air leaving your lips. Tears begin to rush quicker down your cheeks as you struggle to gain focus again, your vision completely blurry as your ears just barely register the sound of lightsaber's clashing together. You struggle, trying to crawl to Padme at the very least, but instead, the darkness consumed your vision before you could.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

You groaned slightly at the feeling of your body being moved, jostled awake by the movement. 

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan's voice whispered, his eyes locked on your face in worry.

Your eyes slowly fluttered open, "Obi-Wan?"

You winced. Your voice sounded terrible. Cracking and hoarse, you sounded like you'd screamed for hours, making Obi-Wan frown, "Yes... I'm here."

"Don't..." You winced again, your throat burning, "Leave me."

Obi-Wan nodded. The distraught look on your face was more than enough to have him cradling you in his lap as he flew to Master Yoda. You'd fallen unconscious again, and although your force life was strong, Obi-Wan was immensely worried about you. He handed you off to Bail Organa, rushing back onto the ship to get Padme. 

The next time you awoke, you felt significantly better than the last time, and you smiled as R2-D2's beeps filled the air. Looking down, you spotted the droid at the side of your bed, whistling and beeping far too fast for you to understand, as you were still learning binary. 

"Good morning, sleepy," Obi-Wan teased, a smile on his lips as he entered the room.

"Morning," You mumbled back. Your voice sounded much better but was still sore, making you wince, "Thanks for saving me."

Obi-Wan walked further in, coming to sit on the side of your bed and grab one of your hands, "They said your throat will still be sore for a while."

You nodded, squeezing Obi-Wan's hand as a desperate feeling filled your body, "Where is Anakin? And Padme? What happened? Where are we?"

"Calm down," Obi-Wan smiled, projecting calming feelings through the force to you, "Anakin's... he's gone. I had to... he couldn't be saved anymore."

You frowned, squeezing the man's hand once more as you pushing comforting feelings to him, "I'm so sorry, Obi... I know how much he meant to you."

Obi-Wan simply nodded, nodding his head, "(Y/n)... Padme's gone... she passed during labor."

You gasped, your eyes widening in horror as you looked away from the older man. You supposed Anakin's visions had been correct. Padme was sentenced to die, but Anakin had never realized he was the reason she died in all his visions. Tears filled your eyes as Obi-Wan shifted, standing up.

"She... she left something for us-- for you. She asked if you would..."

You scrunched your eyebrows, confused by Obi-Wan's sudden nervousness. He quickly left the room before returning with a small bundle of blankets in his arms. Your eyes widened as Obi-Wan walked closer, and you realized what was inside the bundle of blankets.

"She had twins. They're being separated for safety, but... she asked if we'd take care of him, of Luke," Obi-Wan spoke softly, leaning down to show you the sleeping baby boy in his arms.

You reached out, taking the small baby from Obi-Wan, scooting over to allow the older man to lay beside you, "Normally I would expect to be married, hell even have at least gone on a date, before having a baby."

Obi-Wan smiled slightly, knowing you felt honored that Padme had asked you and Obi-Wan, "That could be arranged."

"Is it true?" You rasped, gently brushing Luke's tiny baby hair with your fingers. Obi-Wan hummed, watching you in awe, "That I'm what you love most... as Anakin said. Is that true?"

Your eyes flicked up to Obi-Wan, and he immediately felt himself smiling, getting lost in your beautiful (e/c) eyes. How could he not be in love with you? He grew up with you in the temple, trained with you, went on missions with you, and it was always you. Even his old master, Qui-Gon Jinn tried to get you two together, but Obi-Wan had always insisted there was a code to follow. But... not anymore. 

"Of course, you're what I love most," Obi-Wan smiled, "I have been since you slammed me to the ground on my first day of lightsaber training."

You laughed lightly, looking back to the baby in your arms as you smiled, "I love you too... it scared me, knowing I couldn't help you against Anakin."

Obi-Wan flushed. The idea of you worrying about him made him frown. He turned, lightly kissing the top of your head as he had many times before, only this time it was different, "There is never a need for you to worry about me." 

You sighed, knowing Obi-Wan wouldn't admit that he'd been scared of fighting Anakin also, "So, it's just us three now?"

"Just us three. I was thinking, we could go to Tatooine, build a life there, raise Luke."

You smiled, sure this wasn't what you wanted. No, you wanted Anakin and Ahsoka bickering over who could hold one of the twins. And you wanted Padme here, watching everyone coo over her babies. You wanted to be teasing Rex about his armor scaring the children. But... this would do. This, just you and Obi-Wan and Luke, was more than perfect. As long as you have Obi-Wan by you, you knew you could handle anything thrown your way.

[captainrexisboo]

Ice

-DJ Khaled voice- Another one.

What the fuck?? Four fics in just one weekend?? After two whole months of inactivity?? Aha, I am in no way as productive as you think I am. I’ve been sitting on all of these projects for almost three months now lmao- but they’re here now for your viewing pleasure, babes! This is a one shot Rex x Jedi!Reader, but they are not together. They do not get together. This is just Rex, pining for some oblivious Jedi General (you) and dealing with it by being grumpy and thinking he has the upper hand in teasing the reader. I left the gender of the reader pretty ambiguous I think? I hope?

No warnings apply, except I guess foul language if you don’t like that. And vague imaginings of semi steamy scenarios. Some angst if you squint. But really, it’s just fluffy pining, with a needy (and in denial) Rex. Comments, questions, reblogs and replies absolutely welcome and encouraged!

~

“T-take off the a-a-armor.”

The jaig eyes turned to you, the blue and white blending into the Pantoran ice and snow effortlessly. This would be the only environment suitable for their stark white armor as camouflage, and here you were demanding him stripped. Knowing you couldn’t read his bewildered expression, Rex tilted his head to you in a curious motion, “Why?”

“It’s fekkin’ f-freezin’ Cap,” you spoke through chattering teeth, pulling your robes tighter around you. He chuckled at your cursing, no other Jedi talked so blunt like you did, so casual. It was even worse when you were outside the temple, falling out of regulations and decorum the moment it was just you and your troopers. Hell, they didn’t even have to be your troopers. Force knows how often you’ve snuck around the barracks on Coruscant, going from battalion to battalion, whoever had furlough, making sure every clone gets at least a moment's worth of normalcy in their too-short life. Rex would be lying if he said it wasn’t endearing, and he may have felt a slight smidgen of pride that, aside from your own men, you seemed to find yourself in the 501st bunks the most.

“So? I’m perfectly toasty in this specialized insulated armor. You’re the one that decided not to wear your cold-assault gear until we got to the surface, General L/N,” Rex teased, drawing out your name and title nice and slow, biting back a bit of laughter at the way you scrunch your nose whenever you got annoyed, “Why would you want me to de-kit? To be cold with you?”

“Don’t c-call me that, Rex,” you bit out, groaning at the formality, and the chill going down your spine, “Y-you know I’m just Y/N.”

“I’ll stop calling you proper, when you stop being a Jedi,” he chided, prodding some more at the fire in the dim cavern, the only light being the glowing embers in front of you and whatever was being illuminated off the snow right at the mouth of the cave. Your ship had crashed into the freezing moon in the midst of a brutal blizzard, luckily right next to the base of a mountain with accessible caves. Unluckily, you were also 15 klicks west of your rendezvous point, with the wind and snow causing major damage to your transmitters and interfering with the signal in your commlinks. You weren’t going anywhere, or talking to anyone, until the storm let up.

You huffed at his strict persona, you know Rex only acted so dogmatic to rile you up. You saw how nonchalantly he acted around Anakin and Ahsoka, even Obi-Wan at times. No, with you it was entertainment, a game to see how much you could take before breaking, and he loved it. Even without the Force, you could see it in the shake of his shoulders at his quiet laughter, hear the coy smirk in the dip of his drawl, watching the extra swing in his stride as he walked away triumphant every time, so sure he had succeeded in driving you crazy. This time, he had nowhere to run.

Ignoring his baiting taunt, you crawled around the fire to sit right next to him, “P-please, Captain? I’m r-r-really kriffin’ c-cold, and while the fire is so delightful, I think i-it’d be in both o-our best interests to h-have a second source of heat.”

Rex nearly dropped his stick he was using to poke at the kindles, tensing slightly before clearing his throat, “Oh? And what ‘source of heat’ did you have in mind?”

“D-don’t play dumb,” you shivered again, pouting at how you stuttered while he sat a little too well composed for your liking, “I know the K-Kaminoans t-taught you all about s-s-survival tactics. I d-do it with my boys a-all the time. Strip to your b-blacks, m-me to my t-t-tunic, then I’ll wrap my robes around the two of us. B-body heat, Rex.”

Your boys. Your affectionate term for your ever-faithful battalion, that apparently frequently slept and cuddled with you in the most innocent and familiar of ways. Still, something about it made Rex’s stomach stir, his mouth twisting from a smirk into a silent snarl under his helmet. He wasn’t against ‘cuddle puddles’ with the vode, every single brother took part in them, and it wasn’t unusual to find a stray jedi or padawan compacted in the very middle of the pile. He knew for a fact that the 212th had regular arguments as to who’s turn it was to use General Kenobi as a pillow (and that Cody never partook in those bouts- no, he was always the General’s pillow). In theory, he knows it's more than a possibility for you to be a part of them, especially with your extremely relaxed extroverted personality, but actually hearing you say it out loud had something ugly rear its head to sour the Captain’s mood. He attempted to shoo the little creature away, trying to scare it off with a forced cough to make it scurry back into hiding and leave his inner peace alone. His mind clear again, he peered into your pleading doe eyes through his visor, seeing the flames flickering reflections off your irises in a whimsical dance. His gaze went lower, following the slope of your nose, before tracing the shape of your full pout, lips trembling and reddened from the cold, nearly beginning to chap. The slight clicking of your teeth as he watched you shiver under your robes made him resign to your request, sighing as he removed the cowled helmet, “Fine. Why you didn’t just wear your own cold-assault gear is beyond me, but I’ll help you stay warm this time.”

“Oh, thank the force,” you whimpered, immediately dropping the outermost robe from your shoulders, staying on your knees as he stood up to remove his layers. Rex nearly dropped his cuirass, watching you unwrap your tan-colored linen underneath to reveal a gripping white tunic, clinging to your every curve and muscle, no part of you left to the imagination except the actual flesh itself. You even discarded your boots and breeches, leaving you in opaque black tights. Without the safety of his helmet, Rex tore his eyes from you, desperate to hold onto some semblance of rectitude, taking a deep inhale through his nose before continuing his own removal. Rex could feel the tip of his nose numbing just slightly, shaking his head at what the hell was he doing-

“You know, if we get found like this-”

“We’ll s-say I got hypothermia and you were ‘d-doing your duty t-to protect the Jedi’,” you giggled, a little forced, hands coming up to rub at your shoulders, attempting to create some friction, but wincing at the iciness of your fingers, “Rex, hurry!”

Your whine of his name had him hesitant to remove the bottom half of his armor, already starting to feel something forbidden gathering in the depths of his stomach. He tried to fend off the feeling by turning his head to the stone wall and talking- though whether that was an effective decision remained to be seen. “I’m just saying, can’t you use the Force or whatever to warm yourself up? Isn’t that something you can do? I know you can use the Force for healing purposes, this’d be like that, right?”

“If I had f-followed the path of m-m-medical practice, sure,” your breath came out in little clouds as you puffed through another tremor, wrapping your dark robe around your shoulders as you waited for Rex to finish, “But, I didn’t, I chose the kn-n-nights, and so I’m here, and n-now I’m your problem.”

“My problem,” Rex grumbled under his breath as he sat back down, tugging at the final parts of his boots, not caring that you could actually hear him, “Skywalker is my problem. Tano is my problem. Kenobi can even be considered my problem at times, but you, General? No, no, no. You’re not my problem, you’re-”

Turning back around to face you, he nearly choked on his own spit. He hadn’t realized how close you were, and without his helmet, his nose brushed against yours in an innocent bunny kiss, the brief friction making him jump back nearly a foot away. A teasing chuckle left you at his skittish reaction, cocking your head to the side as you opened your robe back up and beckoned him closer, “Wrong way, Captain. C’mere.”

His throat felt tight, closing off almost everything, even air, and despite his discarded layers he was certain the back of his neck was beginning to sweat. The way you so carefully had folded your legs, thighs pillowing together in such an enticing way, leaning on your elbow to pronounce the slope of your hips and curve of your waist...he could so easily wrap his arms around you perfectly, before settling his head to rest on your chest and memorize the beat of your heart- the pinch of his nails digging into the meat of his palm drew him out of his mind before he could fall any further down that rabbit hole. He cleared his throat, throwing his gaze to the floor as his entire being tensed, “This…i-is not regulation, General.”

“Oh my maker you’ve been hanging out with Echo too much,” you groaned, throwing your head back dramatically, “Rex, please?”

He swallowed down a hard gulp of air, inching his way over to you, without looking up from the floor. You met him halfway, dragging your thickest robe behind you, and sighed in relief at the natural waves of heat coming off of him. Every single clone ran hot, and you trapped that heat by throwing the robes over the two of you, wrapping your hands around the back of Rex’s head and pulling him into your neck as you leaned against a standing rock.

One minute his eyes were counting cracks and jagged holes scattered over the cave floor, and the next they were gifted with a gracious view of your form, so close he could smell your clean body wash, a soft mint that tickled his nose, and he had to count to ten to control his breath so he didn’t just inhale you instead of oxygen. It was a concentrated effort made extremely difficult due to the delightfully sharp pressure of your nails against his scalp. You already felt like heaven, he had to tense himself from wanting to grab for more of you- which he didn’t have to do anyways. You had pulled him into you, his nose brushing over your neck, the tip still chilled, making a breathless giggle leave you, “Oh, your nose is s-so icy!”

“Who's fault is that,” Rex grumbled into you, mumbling to try to keep his lips from mouthing over your exposed collarbone. What he couldn’t stop was the delighted shiver that ran through him as your hands started massaging the tired planes of muscle in his back, making him lose a bit of discipline and dropping flush against you. He made a horrified sound, the breath strangled in his throat as he felt a nervous sweat thickly dripping over the back of his neck, before that sweet amused sound left you once again.

“Rex, you're so tense! Here, lemme just-”

Your hands worked in smooth motions, rubbing deep into his tired tissue. He could feel his eyes roll back into his head, biting the swell of his lip to keep any lewd sounds from leaving him, focusing on syncing his breath with the flow of your touches. His form was finally slack, keeping you trapped underneath him as his arms tentatively found their way around your waist, holding you to him, his face buried in the crook of your neck. You hummed at the coverage of him over you, leaning to nuzzle against the side of his head, the prick of his blond tickling the tip of your numbed nose. You whispered to him, eyelids growing heavy as you curled into him, “Thank you, Captain.”

Your breathing evened out, deep and slow, your hands coming to a rest, stopping on the small of his back and between his shoulder blades. Rex couldn’t believe it; you had fallen asleep in his arms. His eyes slowly peeked open, and he wiggled a bit, getting to a place where he faced you instead of the rock you were both leaning on. His eyes were nearly level with your jawline, he could trace the profile of your parted lips, still threatening to chap in the cold air, but your breath didn’t stutter anymore from the chill. He really was helping keep you warm.

He had dreamt about those lips, memorized the way they shaped his name, watched the direction you preferred to run your tongue over them while you were deep in thought. He licked his own lips in just that way, thinking about how maybe it’d feel if he were to do that to yours.

Maker, he was awful. Thinking about his wretched togue playing at your perfect lips, while you laid so peaceful and trusting underneath him.

Rex prided himself as a man of honor, he wasn’t so foolish as to attempt anything, but even just thinking about you in this vulnerable way as you let him hold you… he felt slimy, unworthy to be in your good graces. He let out a shuddering breath, not in the cold but in longing, exhaling your name as his arms brought you impossibly closer to him. For however long the two of you had, however long the storm lasted, he would treasure this. He would treasure you. 

He was a fool for fighting you on this. Being lulled by your breath to join you into rest as the blizzard raged on, the only thing he would change would be how late he was in agreeing to your conditions. When you both awoke, with the snow settled and communications running, when you were both with your respective teams, and yourself in proper gear, Rex would still have tonight in his memory. He would still be holding you in his arms, breathing you in, and playing the memory of your heartbeat, the soft thumping tempo so soothing, on repeat in his mind.

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: infinitely varied Ship: obikin Summary: Sometimes your husband decides to develop an artificial intelligence capable of free choice and something called a soul and succeeds in the middle of a Thursday night. Or, more concretely: he's in the middle of succeeding because said intelligence first has to learn how to speak.Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. AN: Happy birthday @ghostwriterofthemachine

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Noam Chomsky

I.

Life was a query of expectations, margins on doorframes, bucket lists, first loves, broken hearts, and happy middles because only fools would settle for a happy ending when they had so many decades left to live. The thought never failed to bring a smile to Anakin’s face, no matter how frustrated, remembering the simple way Obi-Wan had proposed. There had been no fancy dinner, particularly stunning outing, or anything resembling outlandish romantic gestures. Anakin would have appreciated them because every act would have been colored by Obi-Wan’s love, but now, older and wiser than the rash youth who’s fallen in love at first heated debate, he preferred the way their proposal had actually gone down. A quiet Sunday morning, eating breakfast together on the sofa while the news droned in the background from Anakin’s old radio, a hesitant “I don’t need forever, but I want the present”.

And, well, for all his genius, Anakin could be a bit of an idiot sometimes, but not when it came to this.

Married life was interesting.

Somehow nothing changed, except also everything. They had bought a real house, moved out of their old apartment and made more compromises than Anakin had ever thought himself capable of, for they hadn’t been like fighting an uphill battle but dancing together. It had made him happy to paint the entrance hall in the shade of green Obi-Wan preferred if he got to paint the kitchen in the light blue he wanted.

Obi-Wan got the attic for his office where his antique book collection looked right at home, and Anakin got the basement where the hum of his servers and the generator powering them annoyed nobody else.

It was as close to white-picket-fence as it could be with two queer men, no kids, a bratty cat, and an anxious dog under one roof. His childhood self would be appalled to see how much Anakin, always the whirlwind, had settled. To a nine-year-old, Anakin probably looked very adult.

Anakin, however, did not feel very grown-up, banging his head against his desk in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan had gone to sleep hours ago, and so had Anakin until inspiration had struck and he’d snuck out of bed to return to his favorite project.

A.H.S.O.K.A may not be a child, but Anakin certainly could relate to exhausted parents when they complained about their children in endless repetitions. To this day, Anakin didn’t know why his mother figured it would be great parenting to encourage her WarGames obsessed kid to dig into the world of artificial intelligence when WOPR nearly started a nuclear war, but he’d forever remain thankful.

Or, he’d resume being thankful when he could finally get A.H.S.O.K.A to learn. He’d rewritten her code a thousand times. It was his ever-constant companion, from his first awful-looking early 2000s website to its current incarnation. A.H.S.O.K.A could solve simple logic puzzles, given that he fed her enough data. Her solutions to tasks could be downright hilarious, but they were not enough. He wanted her to be smarter, better, capable of gaining true understanding.

Perhaps, it was a dream for the future and not a Thursday night.

Anakin didn’t have any work tomorrow morning as he worked as a freelancer, so he could afford to pull an all-nighter. But his dear husband had planned a nice afternoon for them, so Anakin should call it a night or a morning as a glance at the clock told him.

Staring at the many lines of code again, Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his by-now cold tea. Obi-Wan would definitely complain that Anakin had snatched his favorite mug once he got up and couldn’t find it in the kitchen. Anakin had bought it at the last linguistic convention Obi-Wan had taken him to.

Language is a process of free invention, it read in delicate cursive before the rest of the quote disassembled in pure chaos.

Huh.

Now there was a thought. Anakin got out of his chair and left the basement, haunted by fixed principles and infinite combinations. Up in the attic, carrying Obi-Wan’s computer downstairs again, Anakin thought on interpretations and free creations. He was as giddy and nervous as he’d been on the morning of his wedding day, which had started similarly early. Connecting Obi-Wan’s computer, and more importantly, the priced result of his thesis, to Anakin’s server felt a little like unwrapping birthday presents.

language_acquisition_prediction.exe

Enter.

II.

Obi-Wan was not surprised when he woke to an empty bed. Anakin had a habit of suddenly pulling all-nighters or getting up early before the sun even thought of rising. Given that he couldn’t smell breakfast yet, Obi-Wan deduced that Anakin had pulled an all-nighter again. He slowly crawled out of bed to avoid disturbing Artoo and Threepio sleeping to his feet. Obi-Wan was pretty sure he shared his bed more often with his pets than he did with his husband.

He walked down the stairs to the ground level and went by the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of tea. To his displeasure, Obi-Wan couldn’t find his favorite mug and so had to settle for another. After another thought, he decided to make a second one for Anakin, lavender this time so Anakin would hopefully crash after breakfast. He put both mugs on a small tray together with a couple tomatoes. Obi-Wan usually wasn’t one for eating a full breakfast on workdays – that was the influence of Anakin and his mother’s kitchen – but he was the expert in smalltime snacks. With both in hand, he walked down the second flight of stairs, down to the basement. As expected, he found Anakin at his desk, clinging to what was bound to be a cold cup, staring intensely at his screens, which were running one program or another.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan greeted him and kissed Anakin’s cheek.

“Mo-orning,” Anakin replied, a yawn interrupting him halfway. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Eight,” Obi-Wan said. “How long have you been up?”

“Uuuh.” Obi-Wan didn’t need to see Anakin’s face to know the answer. “Did you even go to sleep?”

“I did sleep for a while!” Anakin argued. “But then I had an idea, I mean, look at this!”

Obi-Wan gave the screens a closer look. Despite common misconceptions, he was not technically illiterate. Privately, he blamed the fact that Anakin was quite well known for his tech know-how and Obi-Wan tended to talk more about literature given that he was filling in as a lecturer in the British Lit. department. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan had gotten his professorship with a program he’d written, and the code currently displayed on the screens looked very similar to a section that had given him stress nightmares. “Is that my thesis?” he asked.

“Yes, sorta, partially?” Anakin replied. “I kind of took it apart a lot and maybe corrupted it a bit, but that’s not the important part! Look what she’s doing with it.”

She could only refer to one person, intelligence. There were a few constants in their life, their new house the most recent one, and Ahsoka was probably the longest. Obi-Wan didn’t know why Anakin hadn’t set her aside already, he was happy enough to leave other started-never-finished projects lying around, but the last time he’d even just suggested such, Anakin had looked heartbroken.

Obi-Wan looked at the screen Anakin was pointing at and began to read.

script input: inhibition auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˌɪn.ɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: outstanding

script input: better auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˈbet̬.ɚ/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˈbet.ər/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: rhoticism? query: define

The text continued for a while, though apparently Ahsoka only picked out the mismatched parts in her analysis.

“Is that ‘Must have done something right’?” Obi-Wan asked, the connection between the words suddenly starting to make sense.

“Yes!” Anakin grinned. “I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her sounds properly because I hadn’t equipped her with a sound analysis program before and I figured that if babies just learn by listening to their parents, Ahsoka could learn by listening to us.”

“So you fed her audio of us singing?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, confused, or just plain tired but decided to settle on confusion for now and let the course of the conversation determine where they’d end up.

“That too, but I actually just started by playing old voice messages. I figured getting her used to just one phonetic inventory would be enough for now. Honestly, for the first hour, I wasn’t even sure whether that would be of any use because she had no symbols to connect the sounds to, and I thought using the IPA might bias her.”

Because, of course, Anakin never deleted any of Obi-Wan’s voice messages and just kept them on his phone. The fact that he just glossed over it as if it weren’t anything special either made Obi-Wan smile.

“It’s cute that you think we have the same inventory,” Obi-Wan commented. “But continue. You just let her listen to sounds and then? Don’t tell me you gave her written texts.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and confirmed another one of Ahsoka’s queries before answering. “No, I gave her the IPA then and let her listen to the full inventory and then analyze which ones we use.”

That made enough sense. Obi-Wan was reasonably sure it was a great deal more complicated than Anakin was lying it out right now, but it was still within the realm of possible and not downright sci-fi. There were enough programs that could analyze speech and filter out patterns, recognize even emotions and tone. Feeding data to a computer wasn’t too different from the way babies learned, though, as far as Obi-Wan knew from talking to people with children, they didn’t like their progeny being compared to lines of code.

“And you accomplished this by feeding my thesis program, which is meant to predict the language acquisition of children, to Ahsoka?”

“Yes, that, uh, happened more or less,” Anakin said, his nose scrunched up just so that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t certain. “I’m pretty sure I like, wrote some of it down. Not all of it because I knocked out at like 4 a.m., which resulted in pretty interesting inquiries on the great vowel shift.”

Obi-Wan froze. “She’s asking about the great vowel shift?”

There was a difference in the size of the Atlantic between analyzing sounds and recognizing a six-hundred-year-old change in pronunciation.

“Not really,” Anakin said. “She just noticed the patterns? And had inquiries? We’ve been following up on it since, mostly by also giving her written text, but I think that might have backfired and confused her a bit. I’m thinking of synching up the input with a visible feed so she’d learn to associate an actual object with the sound, but I’m not sure whether that wouldn’t just lead to her matching data instead of actually learning its relevance. Can teach an AI what an apple looks like, sounds like, tastes like, but that doesn’t mean you can teach it what an apple is and all that.”

Anakin smiled impishly, and unfortunately, despite his generally messy appearance, Obi-Wan still thought he was handsome. “Please don’t cite my book back at me like that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment and pinching his nose, Obi-Wan tried to focus. This was not how he expected to start his free day. He needed to wake up and possibly grab his notes to sort out this mess. This almost made him wish the car was still wrecked and Anakin would spend all his free time fixing that. “Did you have to start her on English of all languages?”

Anakin was fluent in two other romance languages; it would have been much easier to deal with a French AI than an English one. Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka’s latest question and promptly frowned.

script input: bear auditory input: /beər/ match found: bare analysis: mismatch diagnosis: failed word formation query: bear = bare? query: deletion >bare<?

“How long has she been doing that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Doing what�� oh, that’s new.”

So Ahsoka had jumped from matching sounds to text to comparing sound to words and then referencing those words against one another. That was a logical step, but also a step Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure she should be doing without prompting.

“She thinks bear and bare are related because they have the same sound. Didn’t really expect that turn of events. Should I show her those are two different words?”

“Does she even know what a word is yet?” Obi-Wan asked in turn.

“No.”

“Then teach her what a word is first— after breakfast. I want your pancakes.”

“You never want pancakes on a Friday.”

“My husband also never decided to rope me into teaching an artificial intelligence morphology before.”

Obi-Wan needed a proper meal for this. He could talk to his students on an empty stomach, but he could not deal with the latest brand of Skywalker insanity without something sweet first.

“I haven’t—”

Ever the negotiator, Obi-Wan decided to shut Anakin up with a kiss. “After breakfast.”

Ahsoka’s many questions could wait for an hour.

[hannya-writes]

A White Demon love song

Title: A White Demon Love Song

Fandom: Star Wars

Pairing: Obi wan Kenobi x reader

Other characters: Anakin, a Mandalorian? It can be Din Djarin if you like

Category: Romance, Sad, Song fic maybe?, Implied sex scenes.

Warnings: Almost Sith!Obi Wan

Author's note: the first time I wrote this... It was in spanish cuz that's my first language, and I had to translate myself, which was weird and freaking frustrating, but I like the results! Hope you like it!

• • •

Obi wan had hear about "The Killers" bar. It was far away from the center of Coruscant and the jedi temple, it was a place were one could contract a mercenaries, have a nice drink and hear some music. It was one of the very few nice bars in the area. It also was the place where Master Yoda had been informed about the presence of a Jedi, but not just any jedi: someone claimed that Y/n Y/l/n was there every night.

Obi Wan and Anakin where assigned to look out the place. As they grew closer, publicity got heavier. Almost all of the paper and screens announced a singer by the name "Dragon Owl". By his side Anakin sighed in boredom, but he didn't dared ask why were they going to that place, the only data Obi Wan had have him as that they were looking for a death jedi.

As soon as they got to the hidden entrance the Jedi master felt a weird sensation through the force. He couldn't quite place the feeling it provoqued in him, but it was familiar.

A voice reached them and Anakin stopped in the middle of the stairs. Unlike Obi Wan, he recognized the force signature and the voice of the singer: it was Y/n Y/l/n's voice. She had hummed that song to him at night to help him fall asleep.

— Anakin? — Obi Wan made him get back to reality, making him move after seconds of music. His feet moved in a hurry, wishing to see the person singing. He had to see if he was being fooled because it couldn't be Y/n, she was dead, Count Dooku had killed her.

The Sith had gloated about his lost. He had told him how hard she had fought him, how he had tortured her. But there she was, eyes closed in concentration, her mouth open while singing.

— no — he muttered to himself incapable of believing what he was seeing.

— she's alive? — Obi Wan said under his breath, as surprised as Anakin by the vision in front of him. — it can't be... She...— Her eyes opened and Obi Wan felt as if someone had hit him with a blaster. It had to be a clone of Y/n.

"Let us be in love" she sung and the Jedi Master felt a knot in his throat "Let's do old and gray" a headache started with those words as memories came back "I won't make you cry" Y/n was crying in his memories as she cupped his face "I will never stray" no, she hadn't said those words. She had said "You will never stray, you will do your part"

— what are you talking about? — he remembered himself asking her, a smile in his face as she laughed with sad eyes.

— will you let us be in love tonight? — she asked and he lifted an eyebrow.

— I will let us be in love forever — he answered to her delight before taking her closer to kiss her.

He remembered that night a couple of years ago. How the kisses turned wet, how he had traced patterns through the naked skin. How she had whispered love words in his ear while he moved against her, inside her making her moan in pleasure. Her barely audible voice calling for him, singing "Obi wan" like it was the only words she knew. The pleasure, the sweat, the lust. The dangerous need to posses her in every possible way. Then the morning after, her quiet sobs as she explained that they couldn't be together, how it was better to forget. She confessed she had a vision of him falling to the dark side because of his love for her. Why she couldn't allow it to happen so she erased all the memories that made him love her. And he forgot.

Until that moment, with that song. She had made him forget and ran away so he wouldn't fell in love with her again. But she was there singing about the past, about an unreachable love when he was right there dealing with feelings that he was forced to forget.

He wanted to walk towards her, kiss her, hold her in his arms. He wanted to sooth the pain away. It hurt him to listen to her singing about something he could fix, because he could fix her broken heart.

The song ended slowly and someone asked for a big applause for the Dragon Owl. Y/n bowed for the clapping audience and went to the little stair to walk down of the scenario, she had a big smile in her lips. Obi wan felt a brand new blast in his chest seeing her smile, it had been a life time since he saw her smile. He walked towards her to help her get down, he was going to offer his hand but someone beat him to it.

A gloved hand offered it's help and she took it in her left hand, she winked at the person and Obi Wan saw that hand guided to a man with a mandalorian armor, the beskar shone under the bright light.

His muscles tensed acknowledging the treat a mandalorian supposed, however his hands turned into fists when Y/n turned and stretched out to kiss the mandalorian helmet, not in any place but in the spot where the lips of the man should be. As an answer the man took out one of his gloves and caressed her lower lip, as if making a promise to kiss her.

Obi Wan knew that little touch over her lower lip could mean a lot of other things, but the intimacy in it annoyed him. Hand in hand, the couple walked to the back door and he followed with Anakin right behind him.

They kept the distance with the couple, waiting for the right time, the perfect moment to pull Y/n away from the mandalorian. Her loud laughter made Obi Wan jealous, he wanted her away from that man.

Funny enough in that moment she shoved the man while laughing, the man got closer and pressed her to the closer wall. His bare hand pushed the helmet up to uncover his lips, his free hand cupped her face gently, tumb caressing her cheek.

— oh, my dear Mandalorian — she sighed the words charged with a tender love that made Obi wan's gutt twirl.

Anakin gasp was barely audible. From all the people in the galaxy, Y/n was about to kiss a Mandalorian. A Jedi and a Mandalorian. He couldn't avoid thinking about Obi Wan and the Duchess of Mandalore subtly flirting. On the other hand, what he was seeing was everything but subtle. Y/n hands getting the helmet off a bit more, a chaste kiss turning lustful.

A deep blush formed in his face and felt angry, annoyed by this man, kissing Y/n in that way in an alley. He was not going to let it happen, he stepped out to protect Y/n but Obi Wan had moved a couple of seconds before, he ran the little distance and kicked the man away from the supposedly dead Jedi.

The mandalorian huffed trying to get back the breathe he had lost from that powerful kick, he tried to stand up but an invisible force was pushing him to the ground. Somehow his helmet had got back to cover his face.

— how dare you put your hands on her? — Obi Wan voice was calm but hide a underline of danger. If someone had asked him why did he do that, he would have answer that he saw a threat against Y/n. The truth however was he moved because he couldn't stand to see the woman he loved with another man. It made him get mad and jealous. His fear of losing her again was in control.

— Obi? — Y/n said in a surprised tone, eyes open in a expression of astonishment. Her eyes took in every detail in him, from his clothes to the bear. She couldn't stop herself from thinking "it's really him". But there was something wrong, his stance, his lightsaber on and in his hand ready to kill the enemy and the enemy was the man dressed in beskar. — wait! — she jumped in front of her lover.

Y/n felt the force, forcing her to back off, step by step with a strength but carefulness that she found amazing.

Obi wan brandished his light saber aiming for the head, but the lightsaber stopped midair. His eyes turned to Y/n, hand reaching for his weapon, stopping him.

— Stop! — she ordered and the force keeping her still vanished, a second later she let go his saber. She walked quickly to get back in front of Obi wan. — Obi Wan, look at me — she asked looking at man she was still in love.

— Are you willing to die for him? — the question held rage even being said in a low tone. His hand moved to get the lightsaber closer to her, the blue flame of it almost touched the skin of her neck. She made an expression of pain but held her ground.

— I'm not doing this for him, it's for you — she clarified and her eyes looked at those of the Jedi. However for the first time, they weren't of that baby blue color she loved so much, they were golden. — you are good man, an excellent jedi, you are a role model, I won't let you stain your hands with blood —

— Master! Stop! — Anakin said standing behind Obi Wan, looking horrified how Y/n walked towards the Jedi master without getting away from the lightsaber.

— you lied, you didn't love me— loathing was the only thing in his voice.

— but I did and I still do — she muttered with the very first step to get closer to him.

— you left, you faked your dead Y/n — he was threatening, his expression made her feel fear and a deep desire to ask for his forgiveness.

— It was necessary — she claimed standing by the hilt of his lightsaber, the blue fire bit on her neck and she made an expression of pain. Her hands reached his, holding the weapon.

Only then with the touch of her hands he reacted, his mind finally processed what he was doing. He was holding his lightsaber against Y/n. He had hurt her in her delicate neck

Obi wan didn't put resistance as she disarmed him and went to hug him while stating seven words that made him relax.

— I only love you Obi Wan Kenobi — she said softly and he hug her back, nuzzling his face in the crook of her neck, in the side that wasn't hurt.

— My apologies, I didn't meant to hurt you — he said in a low and barely audible voice, she sighed holding him close. — I don't know what happened to me —

— I know — she answered not knowing what else to say, she couldn't tell him he had tasted the dark side, that he had acted motivated only by his feelings. How could she tell him? How could she explain to him that was the only path they could take while being together? How would she explain she left because it was getting out of hand? How could she tell him he had killed a squadron of clones because they had looked at her too long? How could she confess that his love for her will turn him into a sith? — It's fine, everything will be fine— she lied looking at Anakin with sadness.

The young man looked at her and she almost smiled, the pressure of Obi Wan's arms around her made her stop, along with a soft petition that sounded more like a demand.

— Stay with me — those words make her tremble and understand, there was no way to avoid destiny.

— of course, Darling —

[ariainstars]

Thank You, Disney Lucasfilm… For Destroying My Dreams

Warning: longer post.

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

So… I watched The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Again.

Sigh.

I guess it has its good sides. But professional critics tend to dislike it and even the general audience doesn’t go crazy for it. I wonder why?

  The Fantasy

When his saga became a groundbreaking pop phenomenon in the 1970es, George Lucas reportedly said that he wanted to tell fairy tales again in world that no longer seemed to offer young people a chance to grow up with them. The fact that his saga was met with such unabashed, international enthusiasm proves that he was right: people long for fairy tales no matter how old they are and what culture they belong to.

“Young people today don’t have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did… All they’ve got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. All the films they see are movies of disasters and insecurity and realistic violence.” (George Lucas)

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for more than thirty years. I love the Original Trilogy but honestly it did not make me dream much, perhaps because when I saw it the trilogy was already complete. The Prequel Trilogy also did not inspire my fantasy.

The Last Jedi accomplished something that no TV show, book or film had managed in years: it made me dream. The richness of colorful characters, multifaceted themes, unexpected developments, intriguing relationships was something I had not come across in a long time: it fascinated me. I felt like a giddy teenager reading up meta’s, writing my own and imagining all sorts of beautiful endings for the saga for almost two years.

So if there’s something The Rise of Skywalker can pride itself on for me, it’s that it crushed almost every dream I had about it. The few things I had figured out – Rey’s fall to the Dark, Ben Solo’s redemption, the connection between them - did not even make me happy because they were tainted by the flatness of the storytelling reducing the Force to a superpower again (like the general audience seems to believe it is), and its deliberate ignoring of almost all messages of The Last Jedi.

Many fans of the Original Trilogy also were disillusioned by the saga over the decades and ranted at the studios for “destroying their childhood”. Now we, the fans of the sequels and in particular of The Last Jedi, are in the same situation… but the thought doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow. What grates on my nerves is the feeling that someone trampled on my just newly found dreams like a naughty child kicking a doll’s house apart. Why give us something to dream of in the first place, then? To a certain extent I can understand that many fans would angrily assume that Disney Lucasfilm made the Sequel Trilogy for the purpose of destroying their idea of the saga. The point is that they had their happy ending, while every dream the fans of the Sequel Trilogy may have had was shattered with this unexpectedly flat and hollow final note.

I know many fans who dislike the Prequel Trilogy heartily. I also prefer the Original Trilogy, but I find the prequels all right in their own way, also since I gave them some thought. However, it can’t be denied that they lack the magic spark which made the Original Trilogy so special. Which makes sense since they are not a fairy tale but ultimately a tragedy, but in my opinion it’s the one of the main reasons why the Prequel Trilogy never was quite so successful, or so beloved.

Same goes for Rogue One, Solo, or Clone Wars. They’re ok in their way, but not magical.

The sequel trilogy started quite satisfyingly with The Force Awakens, but for me, the actual bomb dropped with The Last Jedi. Reason? It was a magical story. It had the spark again that I had missed in the new Star Wars stories for decades! And it was packed full of beautiful messages and promises.

The Force is not a superpower belonging solely to the Jedi Anyone can be a hero. Even the greatest heroes can fail, but they will still be heroes. Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night. Failure is the greatest teacher. It’s more important to save the light than to seem a hero. No one is never truly gone. War is only a machine. Dark Side and Light Side can be unbeatable if they are allies. Save what you love instead of destroying what you hate.

Naively, I assumed the trilogy would continue and end in that same magical way. And then came The Rise of Skywalker… which looks and feels like a Marvel superhero story at best and an over-long videogame at worst.

Chekov’s Gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

(Anton Chekov, 1860 - 1904)

If you show an important looking prop and don’t put it to use, it leaves the audience feeling baffled. There is a huge difference between a story’s setup, and the audience’s feeling of entitlement. E.g. many viewers expected Luke to jump right back into the fray in Episode VIII, because that’s what a hero does, isn’t it? The cavalry comes and saves the day. And instead, we met a disillusioned elderly hermit who is tired of the ways of the Jedi. But there was no actual reason for disappointment: in Episode VII it was very clearly said (through Han, his best friend) that Luke had gone into exile on purpose, feeling responsible for his failure in teaching a new generation of Jedi. It would have been more than stupid to show him as an all-powerful and all-knowing man who kills the bad guys. Sorry but who expected that was a victim to his own prejudice.

A promise left unfulfilled is a different story. The Last Jedi set up a lot of promises that didn’t come true in The Rise of Skywalker: Balance as announced by the Jedi temple mosaic, a new Jedi Order hinted at by Luke on Crait, a good ending for Ben and Rey set up by the hand-touching scene which was opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding scene. Many fans were annoyed about the Canto Bight sequence. I liked it because it felt like the set-up for a lot of important stuff: partnership between Finn and Rose whom we see working together excellently, freedom for the enslaved children (one of whom is Force-sensitive), DJ and Rose expressing what makes wars in general foolish and beside the point. So if we, the fans of Episode VIII, now feel angry and let down, I daresay it’s not due to entitlement. We were announced magical outcomes and not just pew-pew.

The Star Wars saga never repeated itself but always developed and enlarged its themes, so it was to be expected that delving deeper, uncomfortable truths would come out: wars don’t start out of nowhere, and they don’t flare up and continue for decades for the same reason. In order to find Balance, the Jedi’s and the Skywalker family’s myths needed to be dismantled. Which is not necessarily bad as long it is explained how things came to this, and a better alternative is offered. The prequels explained the old political order and the beginnings of the Skywalker family, and announced that the next generation would do better. The sequels hardly explained anything about the 30 years that passed since our heroes won the battle against the Empire, and while The Last Jedi hinted at the future a lot, The Rise of Skywalker seemed to make a point of ignoring all of it.

  The Skywalker Family Is Obliterated. Why?

Luke was proven right that his nephew would mean the end of everything he loved. The lineage of the Chosen One is gone. His grandson had begun where Vader had ended - tormented, pale and with sad eyes - and he met the same fate. Luke, Han, Leia, all sacrificed themselves to bring Ben Solo back for nothing. Him being the reincarnation of the Chosen One and getting a new chance should have been meaningful for all of them; instead, he literally left the scepter to Rey who did nothing to deserve it: merely because she killed the Bad Guy does not mean she will do a better job than the family whose name and legacy she proudly takes over.

I do hope there was a good reason if the sequels did not tell “The New Adventures of Luke, Leia and Han” and instead showed us a broken family on the eve of its wipeout. It would have been much easier, and more fun for the audience, to bring the trio back again after a few years and pick up where they had left. Instead we had to watch their son, nephew and heir go his grandfather’s way - born with huge power, branded as Meant to Be Dangerous from the start, tried his best to be a Jedi although he wanted to be a pilot, never felt accepted, abandoned in the moment of his greatest need, went to his abuser because he was the only one to turn to, became a criminal, his own family (in Anakin’s case: Obi-Wan and Yoda) trained the person who was closest to him to kill him, sacrificed himself for this person and died. And in his case, it’s particularly frustrating because Kylo Ren wasn’t half as impressive a villain as Vader, and Ben Solo had a very limited time of heroism and personal fulfilment, contrarily to Anakin when he was young.

The impact of The Rise of Skywalker was traumatic for some viewers. I know of adolescents and adults, victims of family abandonment and abuse, who identified with Ben: they were told that you can never be more than the sum of your abuse and abandonment, and that they’re replaceable if they’re not “good”. Children identifying with Rey were told that their parents might sell them away for “protection”. Rey was not conflicted, she had a few doubts but overall, she was cool about everything she did, so she got everything on a silver platter; that’s why as a viewer, after a while you stopped caring for her. Her antagonist was doomed from birth because he dared to question the choices other people made for him. It seems that in the Star Wars universe, you can only “rise” if you’re either a criminal but cool because you’ve always got a bucket over your head (Vader / the Mandalorian) or are a saint-like figure (Luke / Rey).

One of Obi-Wan’s first actions in A New Hope is cutting off someone’s arm who was only annoying him; Han Solo, ditto. These were no acts of self-defense. The Mandalorian is an outlaw. Yet they are highly popular. Why? Because they always keep their cool, so anything they do seems justified. Young Anakin was hated, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen attacked for his portrayal. For the same reason many fans feel that Luke is the least important of the original trio although basically the Original Trilogy is his story: it seems the general audience hates nothing more than emotionality in a guy. They want James Bond, Batman or Indiana Jones as the lead. Padmé loved Anakin because she always saw the good little boy he once was in him; his attempts at impressing her with his flirting or his masculinity failed. Kylo tried to impress Rey with his knowledge and power, but she fled from him - she wanted the gentle, emphatic young man who had listened to her when she felt alone. Good message. But both died miserably, and Ben didn’t even get anything but a kiss. Realizing that his “not being as strong as Darth Vader” might actually be a strength of its own would have meant much more.

The heroes of the Original Trilogy had their adventures together and their happy ending; the heroes of the Prequel Trilogy also had good times and accomplishments in their youth, before everything went awry. Rey, Finn and Poe feel like their friendship hardly got started; Rose was almost obliterated from the narrative; and Ben Solo seems to have had only one happy moment in his entire life. Of course it’s terrible that he committed patricide (even if it was under coercion), but Anakin / Vader himself had two happy endings in the Prequel Trilogy before he became the monster we know so well. Not to mention Clone Wars, where he has heroic moments unnumbered.

The Skywalker family is obliterated without Balance in the Force, and the young woman who inherited all doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from all this. The Original Trilogy became a part of pop culture among other things because its ending was satisfying. We can hardly be expected to be satisfied with an ending where our heroes are all dead and the heir of their worst enemy takes over. What good was the happy ending of the Original Trilogy for if they didn’t learn enough from their misadventures to learn how to protect one single person - their son and nephew, their future?

For a long time, I also thought that the saga was about Good vs. Evil. Watching the prequels again, I came to the conclusion that it is rather about Love vs. War. And now, considering as a whole, I believe it to be essentially Jedi against Skywalker. The ending, as it is now, says that both fractions lost: they annihilated one another, leaving a third party in charge, who believes to be both but actually knows very little about them.

Star Wars and Morality

After 9 films and 42 years, it still is not possible to make the general audience accept that it is wrong to divide people between Good and Evil in the first place. The massive rejection of both prequels and sequels, which have moral grey zones galore, shows it.

It is also not possible without being accused of actual blasphemy in the same fandom, to say the plain truth that no Skywalker ever was a Jedi at heart. As their name says, they’re pilots. Luke was the last and strongest of all Jedi because he always was first and foremost himself. Anakin was crushed by the Jedi’s attempts to stifle his feelings. His grandson, too. A Force-sensitive person ought to have the choice whether they want to be a Jedi or not; they ought not to be taught to suppress their emotions and live only on duty, without really caring for other people; and they ought to grow up feeling in a safe and loving environment, not torn away from their families in infancy, indoctrinated and provided with a light sabre (a deadly weapon) while they’re still small. A Jedi order composed of child soldiers or know-it-all’s does not really help anybody.

The original Star Wars saga was about love and friendship; although many viewers did not want to understand that message. The prequels portrayed the Jedi as detached and arrogant and Anakin Skywalker sympathetically, a huge disappointment for who only accepts stories of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. The Last Jedi was so hated that The Rise of Skywalker backpedaled: sorry, of course you’re right, here you have your “hero who knows everything better and fixes everything for you on a silver platter”. The embarrassing antihero, who saves the girl who was the only person showing him some human compassion, can die miserably in the process and is not even mourned.

Honestly: I was doubtful whether it would be adequate to give Ben Solo a happy ending after the patricide. I guess letting him die was the easiest way out for the authors to escape censorship. (I even wrote this in a review on amazon about The Last Jedi, before I delved deeper into the saga’s themes.) The messages we got now are even worse.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

A parent can replace a child if they’re not the way they expect them to be. A victim of lifelong psychical and physical abuse can only find escape in death, whether he damns or redeems himself. An introspective, sensitive young man is a loser no matter how hard he tries either way. A whole family can sacrifice itself to save their heir, he dies anyway.

Rey

Self-righteousness is acceptable as long as you find a scapegoat for your own failings. Overconfidence justifies anything you do. You can’t carve your way as a female child of “nobodies”, you have to descend from someone male and powerful even if that someone is the devil incarnate. You are a “strong female” if you choose to be lonely; you need neither a partner nor friends.

In General

Star Wars is not about individual choices, loyalty, friendship and love, it is a classic Western story with a lonesome cowboy (in this case: cowgirl) at its centre. Satisfied? 

The father-son-relationship between Vader and Luke mirrors the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, saying that whoever we may want to kill is, in truth, our kin, which makes a clear separation in Good and Evil impossible. The “I am your father” scene is so infamous by now that even non-fans are aware of it; but this relationship between evil guy and good guy, as well as the plot turns where the villain saves the hero and that the hero discards his weapon are looked upon rather as weird narrative quirks instead of a moral. 

In  an action movie fan, things are simple: good guy vs. bad guy, the good guy (e.g. James Bond may be a murderer and a misogynist, but that’s ok because he’s cool about it) kills the bad guy, ka-boom, end of story. But Star Wars is a parable, an ambitious project told over decades of cinema, and a multilayered story with recurring themes.

A fairy tale ought to have a moral. The moral of both Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was compassionate love - choose it and you can end a raging conflict, reject it and you will cause it. What was the moral of the Sequel Trilogy? You can be the offspring of the galaxy’s worst terror and display a similar attitude, but pose as a Jedi and kill unnecessarily, and it’s all right; descend from Darth Vader (who himself was a victim long before he became a culprit) and whether you try to become a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker or a Sith trained by his worst enemy, you will end badly?

Both original and prequel trilogy often showed “good” people making bad choices and the “bad ones” making the right choices. To ensure lasting peace, no Force user ought to be believe that he must choose one side and then stick to it for the rest of his life: both sides need one another. The prequels took 3 films to convey this message, though not saying so openly. The Last Jedi said it out clearly - and the authors almost had their heads ripped off by affronted fans, resulting in The Rise of Skywalker’s fan service. It’s not like Luke, Han and Leia were less heroic in the Sequel Trilogy, on the contrary, they gave everything they had to their respective cause. They were not united, and they were more human than they had once been. Apparently, that’s an affront.

The Jedi are no perfect heroes and know-it-all’s and they never were, the facts are there for everyone to see. Padmé went alone and pregnant to get her husband out of Mustafar - and she almost succeeded - although she knew what he had done and that he was perfectly capable of it (he had told her of the Tusken village massacre himself) because she still saw the good little boy he had been in him; Obi-Wan left him amputated and burning in the lava, although he had raised Anakin like a small brother and the latter had repeatedly saved his life. But Padmé was not a Jedi, so I guess she still had some human decency. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda lifted a finger for the oppressed populations of the galaxy during the Empire, waiting instead for Anakin’s son to grow up so they could trick him into committing patricide. Neither Luke nor Leia did anything for their own son and nephew while he became the scourge of the galaxy, damning his soul by committing crime after crime. On Exegol, Rey heard the voices of all Jedi encouraging her to fight Palpatine to death. After that, they left her to die alone, and the alleged “bad guy”, who had already saved her soul from giving in to Palpatine’s lures, had to save her life by giving her his own. The Jedi merely know that “their side” has to win, no matter the cost for anyone’s life, sanity, integrity or happiness.

Excuse me, these are simple facts. How anyone can still believe that the Jedi were super-powerful heroes who always win or all-knowing wizards who are always right is beyond me. Luke, the last and strongest of them, like a bright flickering of light before the ultimate end, showed us that the best of men can fail. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But it is wrong and utterly frustrating when all of the failure never leads to anything better. If Rey means to rebuild the Jedi order to something better than it was, there was no hint at that whatsoever.

  And What Now?

The Last Jedi hit theatres only 2 years before The Rise of Skywalker, and I can’t imagine that the responsible authors all have forgotten how to make competent work in the meantime; more so considering that Solo or The Mandalorian are solid work. Episode IX is thematically so painfully flat it seems like they wanted us to give up on the saga on purpose. The last instalment of a 42-year-old saga ought to have been the best and most meaningful. I had heard already decades ago that the saga was supposed to have 9 chapters, so I was not among who protested against the sequels thinking that they had been thought up to make what had come before invalid. I naively assumed a larger purpose. But Episode IX only seems to prove these critics perfectly right.

The last of the flesh and blood of the Chosen One is dead without having “finished what his grandfather started”?

Still no Balance in the Force?

And worst of all, Palpatine’s granddaughter taking over, having proven repeatedly that she is not suited for the task?

Sorry, this “ending” is absurd. I have read fanfiction that was better written and more interesting. And, most of all, less depressing. I was counting on a conclusion that showed that the Force has all colours and nuances, and that it’s not limited to the black-and-white view “we against them”. That’s the ending all of us fans would have deserved, instead of catering the daddy issues of the part of the audience who doesn’t want stories other than those of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. I myself grew up on Japanese anime, maybe that’s one of the reasons why I can’t stand guys like James Bond or Batman and why I think you don’t need “a great hero who fixes the situation” but that group spirit and communication are way more important.

It was absolutely unexpected that Disney, the production company whose trademark are happy endings and family stories, would end this beloved and successful saga after almost half a century on such a hollow note. Why tell first a beautiful fairy tale and then leave the audience on a hook for 35 years to continue first with a tragedy (which at least was expected) and then with another (unexpected one)? And this story is supposed to be for children? Like children would understand all of the subtext, and love sad, cautionary tales. Children, as well as the general audience, first of all want to be entertained! No one wants to watch the legendary Skywalker family be obliterated and a Palpatine take over. The sequels were no fun anymore; we’ve been left with another open ending and hardly an explanation about what happened in the 30 years in between. If you want to tell a cautionary tale, you should better warn the general audience beforehand.

The Original Trilogy is so good because it’s entertaining and offers room for thought for who wants to think about its deeper themes, and also leaves enough space for dreams. Same goes for the first two films of the Sequel Trilogy; but precisely the last, which should have wrapped up the saga, leaves us with a bitter aftertaste and dozens of questions marks. 

We as the audience believe that a story, despite the tragic things that happen, must go somewhere; we get invested into the characters, we root for them, we want to see them happy in the end. (The authors of series like Girls, How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones ought to be reminded of that, too.) I was in contact with children and teenagers saying that the Sequel Trilogy are “boring”; and many, children or adults, who were devastated by its concluson. There is a difference between wanting to tell a cautionary tale and playing the audience for fools. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. Who watches a family or fantasy story or a romantic / comedic sitcom wants to escape into another world, not to be hit over his head with a mirror to his own failings, and the ones of the society he’s living in. Messages are all right, but they ought not to go at the cost of the audience’s satisfaction about the about the people and narrative threads they have invested in for years.

This isn’t a family story: but children probably didn’t pester the studios with angry e-mails and twitter messages etc. They simply counted on a redemption arc and happy ending, and they were right, because they’re not as stupid as adults are. I have read and watched many a comment from fans who hate The Last Jedi. Many of these fans couldn’t even pinpoint what their rage was all about, they only proved to be stuck with the original trilogy and unwilling to widen their horizon. But at least their heroes had had their happy ending: The Rise of Skywalker obliterated the successes of all three generations of Skywalkers.

If the film studios wanted to tease us, they’ve excelled. If they expect the general audience to break their heads over the sequels’ metaphysics, they have not learned from the reactions to the prequels that most viewers take these films at face value. Not everybody is elbows-deep in the saga, or willing to research about it for months, and / or insightful enough to see the story’s connections. Which is why many viewers frown at the narrative and believe the Sequel Trilogy was just badly written. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. As it is now, the whole trilogy is hanging somewhere in the air, with neither a past nor a future to be tied in with.

The prequels already had the flaw of remaining too obscure: most fans are not aware that Anakin had unwillingly killed his wife during the terrible operation that turned him into Darth Vader, sucking her life out of her through the Force: most go by “she died of a broken heart”. So although one scene mirrors the other, it is not likely that most viewers will understand what Rey’s resurrection meant. And: Why did Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon Jinn? What did the Sith want revenge for? Who was behind Shmi’s abduction and torture? Who had placed the order for the production of the clones, and to what purpose? We can imagine or try to reconstruct the answers, but nothing is confirmed by the story itself.

The sequels remained even more in the dark, obfuscating what little explanation we got in The Rise of Skywalker with quick pacing and mind-numbing effects.

Kylo Ren had promised his grandfather that “he would finish what he started”: he did not. Whatever one can say of this last film, it did not bring Balance in the Force. What’s worse, the subject was not even breached. It was hinted at by the mosaic on the floor of the Prime Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but although Luke and Rey were sitting on its border, they never seemed to see what was right under their noses. It remains inexplicable why it was there for everyone to see in the first place.

We might argue that Ben finished what his grandfather started by killing (or better, causing the death of) the last Jedi, who this one couldn’t kill because he was his own son; but leaving Rey in charge, he helped her finish what her grandfather had started. The irony could hardly be worse.

Episode IX looks like J.J. Abrams simply completed what they started with Episode VII, largely ignoring the next film as if it was always planned to do so. We, the angry and disappointed fans of The Last Jedi, may believe it was due to some of the general audience’s angry backlash, but honestly: the studios aren’t that dumb. They had to know that Episode VIII would be controversial and that many fans would hate it. The furious reactions were largely a disgrace, but no one can make me believe that they were totally unexpected. Nor can anyone convince me that The Rise of Skywalker was merely an answer to the small but very loud part of the audience who hated The Last Jedi: a company with the power and the returns of Disney Lucasfilm does not need to buckle down before some fan’s entitlement and narrowmindedness out of fear of losing money. And if they do, it was foolish to make Rey so perfect that she becomes almost odious, and to let the last of the Skywalker blood die a meaningless death. (Had he saved the Canto Bight children and left them with Rey, at least he would have died with honor; and she, the child left behind by her parents, would have had a task to dedicate herself to.)

The only reason I can find for this odd ending is that it’s meant to prepare the way for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which - hopefully - will finally be about Balance. We as the audience don’t know what’s going on behind the doors. Filmmaking is a business like any other, i.e. based on contracts; and I first heard that Rian Johnson had negotiated a trilogy of his own since before Episode VIII hit theatres. Maybe he kept all the rights of intellectual property to his own film, including that he would finish the threads he picked up and close the narrative circles he opened, and only he; and that his alleged working on “something completely different” is deliberately misleading.

Some viewers love the original trilogy, some love the prequels, some like both; but I hardly expect anyone to love the sequel trilogy as a whole. What with the first instalment “letting the past die, killing it if they had to”, the second hinting at a promising future and the third patched on at the very last like some sort of band-aid, it was not coherent. I heard the responsible team for Game of Thrones even dropped their work, producing a dissatisfying, quickly sewn together last season, for this new Star Wars project and thereby disappointing millions of GoT fans; I hope they are aware of the expectations they have loaded upon them. George Lucas’ original trilogy had its faults, but but though there was no social media yet in his time, at least he was still close enough to the audience to give them what they needed, if not necessarily wanted. (Some fans can’t accept that Luke and Leia are siblings to this day, even if honestly, it was the very best plot twist to finish their story in a satisfying way.)

I’m hoping for now that The Last Jedi was not some love bombing directed at the more sentimental viewers but a promise that will be fulfilled. “Wrapping up” a saga by keeping the flattest, least convincing chapter for last is bad form. Star Wars did not become a pop phenomenon by accident, but because the original story was convincing and satisfying. Endings like these will hardly make anyone remember a story fondly, on the contrary, the audience will move to another fandom to forget their disappointment.

On a side note, I like The Mandalorian, exactly for the reason that that is a magical story; not as much as the original trilogy, but at least a little. Of course, I’m glad it was produced. But it’s a small consolation prize after the mess that supposedly wrapped up the original saga after 9 films.

We’re Not Blind, You Know…

- Though Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) has Darth Vader’s stature, his facial features are practically opposite to Vader’s creepy mask. This should have foreshadowed that his life should have gone the other way, instead of more or less repeating itself. - As a villain Kylo was often unconvincing; by all logic he should have been a good father figure. (Besides, Star Wars films or series never work unless there is a strong father or father figure at their center.)

- Like Vader, Kylo Ren was redeemed, but not rehabilitated. Who knows who may find his broken mask somewhere now and, not knowing the truth, promise “I will finish what you started”. - The hand-touching scene on Ahch-To which was visually opposite to Anakin’s and Padmé’s should not have predicted another tragedy but a happy ending for them. - The Canto Bight sequence was announcing reckoning for the weapon industry and freedom for the enslaved children. It also showed how well Finn and Rose fit together. - Rey was a good girl before she started on her adventures. Like Anakin or Luke, she did not need to become a Jedi to be strong or generous or heroic. - Rey summons Palpatine after one year of training. Kylo practically begged for his grandfather’s assistance for years, to no avail. Her potential for darkness is obviously much stronger. - Dark Rey’s light sabre looked like a fork, Kylo’s like a cross. - The last time all Jedi and Sith were obliterated leaving only Luke in charge, things went awry. Now we have a Palpatine masquerading as a Skywalker and believing she’s a Jedi. Rey is a usurper and universally cheered after years of war, like her grandfather. - The broom boy of Canto Bight looked like he was sweeping a stage and announcing “Free the stage, it’s time for us, the children.”

Rey failed in all instances where Luke had proved himself (so much for feminism and her being a Mary Sue): - Luke had forgiven his father despite all the pain he had inflicted on him. She stabbed the „bad guy”, who had repeatedly protected and comforted her, to death. - Luke never asked Vader to help the Rebellion or to turn to the Light Side, he only wanted him back as his father. She assumed that you could make Ben Solo turn, give up the First Order and join the Resistance for her. She thought of her friends and of her own validation, not of him. - Luke had made peace by choosing peace. Rey fought until the bitter end. - Luke had thrown his weapon away before Palpatine. Rey picked up a second weapon. (And both of them weren’t even her own.) - Luke had mourned his dead father. Rey didn’t shed a tear for the man she is bonded to by the Force. - Luke went back to his friends to celebrate the new peace with them. Rey went back letting everyone celebrate her like the one who saved the galaxy on her own, she who were tempted to become the new evil ruler of the galaxy and had to rely on the alleged Bad Guy to save both her soul and her body. - Luke had embodied compassion when Palpatine was all about hatred. Where he chose love and faith in his father, she chose violence and fear. - Luke had briefly fallen prey to the Dark Side but it made him realize that he had no right to judge his father. Rey’s fall to the Dark Side did not make her wiser. - Rey has no change of mind on finding out that she’s Palpatine’s flesh and blood, nor after she has stabbed Kylo. Luke had to face himself on learning that he had almost become a patricide. Rey does not have to face herself: the revelation of her ancestry is cushioned by Luke’s and Leia’s support. Rey is and remains an uncompromising person who hardly learns from her faults.

This is cheating on the audience. And it's not due to feminism or Rey being some sort of “Mary Sue” the way many affronted fans claim. Kylo never was truly a villain, Rey is not a heroine, and this is not a happy ending. The Jedi, with their stuck-up conviction “only we must win”, have failed all over again. The Skywalker family was obliterated leaving their worst enemy in charge.  Rey is supposed to be a “modern” heroine which young girls can take as an example? No, thank you. Not after this last film has made of her. Padmé was a much better role model, combining intelligence with strength and goodness and also female grace. The world does not need entitled female brats.

Bonus: What Made The Rise of Skywalker a Farce

- The Force Awakens was an ok film and The Last Jedi (almost) a masterpiece. The Rise of Skywalker was a cartoon. No wonder a lot of the acting felt and looked wooden. - “I will earn your brother’s light sabre.” She’s holding his father’s sabre. - Kylo in The Last Jedi: “Let the past die. Kill it if, you have to.” Beginning with me? - Rey ends up on Tatooine. - The planet both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. - Luke had promised his nephew that he would be around for him. - Nope. - Rey had told Ben that she had seen his future. What future was that - “you will be a hero for ten minutes, get a kiss and then die? (And they didn’t even get a love theme.) - “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” On a desert planet with a few ghosts. What of the ocean she used to dream about? - Ben and Rey were both introduced as two intensely lonely people searching for belonging. We learn they are a Force dyad, and then they are torn apart again. - Why was Ben named for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first place, if they have absolutely nothing in common? - The Throne Room battle scene in The Last Jedi was clearly showing that when they are in balance, Light Side and Dark Side are unbeatable. Why did the so-called “Light Side” have to win again, in The Rise of Skywalker, instead of finding balance? - Luke’s scene on Ahch-To was so ridiculously opposite to his attitude in The Last Jedi that by now I believe he was a fantasy conjectured by her. (Like Ben’s vision of his father.) - Anakin’s voice among the other Jedi’s. - He was a renegade, for Force’s sake. - The kiss between two females. - More fan service, to appease those who pretended that not making Poe and Finn a couple was a sign of homophobia. - We see the Knights of Ren, but we learn absolutely nothing about them or Kylo’s connection with them. - Rose Tico’s invalidation. - A shame after what the actress had gone through because for the fans she was “not Star-Wars-y” (chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire). - Finn’s and Rose’s relationship. - Ignored without any explanation. - Finn may or may not be Force-sensitive. - If he is: did he abandon the First Order not due to his own free will but because of some higher willpower? Great. - General Hux was simply obliterated. - In The Force Awakens he was an excellent foil to Kylo Ren; no background story, no humanization for him. - Chewie’s and 3PO’s faked deaths. - Useless additional drama. - The Force Awakens was a bow before the classic trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker kicked its remainders to pieces. - The Prequel Trilogy ended with hope, the Original Trilogy with love. The Sequel Trilogy ends on a blank slate. - “We are what they grow beyond.” The characters of the Sequel Trilogy did not grow beyond the heroes of the Original Trilogy. - The Jedi did not learn from their mistakes and were obliterated. The Skywalker family understood the mistakes they had made too late. Now they’re gone, too.

  P.S. While I was watching The Rise of Skywalker my husband came in asked me since when I like Marvel movies. I said “That’s not a Marvel movie, it’s Star Wars.” I guess that says enough.

P.P.S. For the next trilogy, please at least let the movies hit theatres in May again instead of December. a) It’s tradition for Star Wars films, b) Whatever happens, at least you won’t ruin anyone’s Christmases. Thank you.

[writer1]

A Pirates Mer

Chapter 1

Summary: Anakin is a mer living in a tiny cover, but what happens when a pirate ship arrives? What will he do with his second encounter with hand, the first leaving him with one arm?

A/N: this is a fic I've been thinking about doing for a while, I hope you like it!! ❤️

Warnings: mention of death, angst.

Anakin swims around his cove, he’s lived in this little cove ever since he was a youngling. He’s never left, even after his mother died. Anakin swims lazy circles around the reef, he searches it for some empty shells, or the pretty things that humans always seem to lose. His left arm is used to sift through sand and move rocks and grab things, while his bag is slung over the shoulder of his stump.

His right arm ends just below his elbow, he and his mother had been swimming in open ocean when Anakin’s arm had been caught in a fishing net. His mother had gotten him out just before he would have been hauled into the boat, but his arm was mangled and infected. It had to be amputated, at least that’s what his mother had told him, Anakin was only three at the time, so he doesn’t remember the experience well. Anakin hums as he finds a gold ring with a shiny red rock in it, he drops it into his bag, feeling sadness well up in him. He knows that his mother would have loved it.

His mother had loved collecting the little trinkets and things from humans, and lots of them would wash up in the little cove, getting stuck in the reef, or washing up on land. She even found a little box with a human figure in it, she had told him that when they are working, it could play beautiful music. But it was broken, even when dried out, it never uttered a peep.

Anakin had tried to fix it once, he even went up on land, but it was no use. There were too many missing parts, he still looks for more pieces to try to fix it though, even now. Anakin has never seen an actual human before, but his mother has, she even befriended one. But others found out about her and she had to swim as far away as possible.

He sighs, he misses his mother, she passed away about two years ago. She had been sick, and nothing Anakin could do would help her. He pushes the memory away, he would much rather think of happy memories of his mother, that's what she would have wanted.

Anakin swims down to the sandbed, his brilliant aqua colored tail shining in the sun, he lays down and spreads out, feeling the sun warm him. He’s in the mood for a sunny nap at the moment, he closes his eyes, letting the sounds of the ocean lull him to sleep.

xxx

Anakin’s eyes open slowly as he shivers, the sun is gone. He blinks in confusion, he wasn’t napping that long, was he? Anakin looks up to see a large dark shape above him. A ship. Anakin eyes widen considerably and his mouth gapes open.

This is the first time Anakin has seen a ship in his cove. Yes, he has seen many go by, but never have they come in. He swims up to it, there's a long rope with a metal thing attached to the end of it, it’s sitting at the bottom of the cove, Anakin doesn’t remember what it’s called. He hears a splash, and then there's two smaller boats in the water, heading to shore.

Anakin can hear laughter and cheers coming from it and he smiles, now that the humans are gone he can take a closer look at this ship! Anakin swims up, popping his head out of the water and looking up, the sails are unmarked, his mother told him what that usually means. Pirates.

He hums as he slowly swims around the ship, he loves it!. Anakin wishes that he could get on and see what it looks like up there, but that’s impossible.

“Hey!!!” Anakin is pulled out of his thoughts by yelling, he turns to see a blond haired man staring at him from the beach, along with about 9 others. “Do you need help!? Where did you come from!?” Anakin feels fear grip him as he dives down, the last thing he hears is a gasp from the human’s. They must have seen his tail.

xxx

Rex can’t believe his eyes, he just saw a mermaid. He turns to his brother’s and sister. “You guys saw that too, right?” They all nod, and Rex sighs. He’s heard the stories, he’s a pirate captain after all, but he never believed them until now.

“He l-looked s-s-scared.” Rex turns to Stutter, he’s the youngest out of his brother’s at 16. “Yeah, I saw it too, he looked afraid of us.” Fives agree’s and Rex nods, the look of terror in the mer’s face was sad. When they had first seen the man, they had thought he was a shipwrecked sailor or something, but the beautiful aqua tail had proved otherwise.

“We’ll keep an eye out for him, maybe apologize for scaring him. It seemed like he was only admiring our ship.” Everyone else nods, and Rex’s older brother, Cody, walks over, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Good thinking Rex, for now let’s do some relaxing, it’s been quite a while since we last stopped at land.” Rex nods, following Cody as he walks towards the ocean again, his other brother’s following. He hopes to see the mer again, Rex really does feel bad for scaring him.

xxx

Anakin lays in his little underwater cave, it’s been about a day since the human’s saw him, and he doesn’t know what to do. He's terrified that they’ll try to hurt him, but he’s also curious. They looked so interesting, Anakin’s pretty sure that they’re all related, since they looked quite alike. And maybe they could help fix the music box?

Anakin huffs, he feels so conflicted. He can’t decide on what to do, he knows that they could be dangerous, but his mother met a nice human once, they can’t all be bad, right? Anakin sits up, he’s decided that a quick look at the human’s won’t hurt. He won’t speak to them or let them see him, but he will get to see what they are like.

He swims out of his cave, bringing his bag since the pirates might have dropped something off of their ship, maybe. He immediately see’s the pirate ship above him, since his cave is close to it.

Anakin quickly swims up, as soon as his head is out of the water he hears laughing coming from the beach. He goes under and darts to a rock that’s close to the beach, he can feel the sandy bottom scraping his tail, but he does have a good view of the pirates from here.

Anakin peeks out from behind the rock, watching the pirates. They do sort of look alike, but they’re also different. One has blond hair, he’s the one who yelled at him, the one next to him has brown hair and a scar on the corner of his forehead, curling around his eye and forehead.

The third has a marking on the corner of his forehead, Anakin has no idea what it means. The one next to him has a blue handprint on his weird thing on his body, all of them have the weird things.

Another one has a bald head and a giant cog looking marking on his head while the one next to him has hair like the other three besides the blond, and has a little bit of a marking peeking out of the hair on the side of his head. Another one has a scar over one of his eyes, and he’s sitting next to one with a shaved head, just not as shaved as the blondes.

And the last two are younger, one is a teenager, he has what looks like splatters of color on his shirt. The other is a young girl, with dark skin and what looks like birthmarks on her cheeks and forehead.

Anakin continues watching them as they laugh and joke with eachother, until one of them, the one with the handprint, see’s him. “Hey, the mer’s back!” Everyone turns to see Anakin duck down behind the rock, he chirps quietly as he hears them discussing things together. He doesn’t leave, they don’t seem mean, or cruel.

“Hello?” Anakin hears the voice, peeking his head back up. All the pirates are looking at him, they’ve come closer, all knee deep in the water. “H-Hello.” Anakin stutter’s out timidly, peeking out a little more. Rex smiles kindly, trying to seem less scary, Anakin chirps a little nervously, making the pirates look at him questioningly. “I’m Rex and these are my brother’s and sister, we’re sorry for scaring you yesterday. We didn’t mean to.”

Anakin squints his eyes at Rex, then gestures to the other’s. “What are their names?” Rex smiles, then he starts gesturing to each of his brother’s. “This is my older brother Cody, the two right next to him are the twins, Fives and Echo.” Rex gestures to the one with the scar curling around his eye, then the one with the small marking on his forehead, and lastly the one with the hand print, Anakin hums as he watches.

Rex then moves towards more of his brothers once he’s sure that the mer understands. “These two are Jesse and our doctor, Kix.” Rex gestures to the one with the cog marking, and then too the one with the little bit of a marking sticking out. “The grumpy one with the scar over his eye is Wolffe, while the man beside him is Gregor. Then last is our youngest two, Stutter and Ahsoka.”

Everyone chuckles at what Rex says about Wolffe, Anakin finds all their names interesting, he chirps happily. He still stays against the rock, eying them nervously, he doesn’t trust them yet. “Hello, I’m Anakin.”

The one with the scar around his eye steps forward. "Well, it's very nice to meet you Anakin. As Rex told you, I'm Cody. We hope to get to know you while we're here." Anakin nods, then he swims out slowly from where he was hiding. All the pirates stare at his tail, they think that it's beautiful, but Rex is the most memorized by it.

“You won’t try to capture me, right?” Everyone’s eyes widen, and they shake their heads, “Of course not, I’m the Captain of my crew and brothers. I give you my word that no one is going to capture you, Anakin.” Anakin nods, believing every word Rex says. He likes this human, he likes all of these humans, but especially Rex. “Thank you.”

Rex smiles at Anakin. “We were just about to have lunch, would you like to eat with us?” Anakin smiles, nodding and following the crew up to the beach, he pulls himself up, sitting beside Rex. he notices that the Captain’s face changes color, Anakin never knew that humans could do that!

xxx

Rex watches as Anakin eats the fruits they brought, the merman had never had them before. Anakin has probably never had any human food before. He seems to be okay out of the water, as long as he drinks a lot of it while he’s out. The rest of Rex’s family had went back to the ship to get some rest from the heat of the sun, leaving Rex alone with Anakin. Rex smiles as Anakin nudges him, the Merman points to an apple core.

“Do you have more of that? I like it.” Rex chuckles, grabbing another apple from beside him and handing it over to Anakin. The Merman bites right into it, chirping with happiness, making Rex smile. Rex doesn't know why but he loves the sound of Anakin's chirps. Rex then decides to ask a question that had been bothering him and the crew, but they were to polite to ask. “What… what happened to your arm Anakin.” Anakin freezes as he looks up at Rex, he thinks for a minute before he whispers-- “Humans.” Rex freezes as he looks at Anakin sadly. “I… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, not your fault. You are a good human.” Anakin smiles comfortingly at Rex as he rubs his stub. Rex smiles back then glances down at Anakin’s tail. “Your tail is very beautiful Anakin, may I… may I feel it?”

Anakin freezes for a minute, he eyes Rex nervously and the pirate captain thinks that he may have overstepped a boundary when Anakin offers his tail out. “Just be gentle, please. The scales are kind of sensitive.” Rex nods seriously, then he gently takes Anakin’s tail in his lap and strokes it gently. It feels a little dry from being out of the water, but it doesn’t have the slimy, sticky mucus that most fish possess. The only thing about it that feels even remotely like a fish are the scales.

“Should it be this dry?” Anakin looks up at Rex, then he lays on his back and reaches out, feeling his tail. “No, it’s not supposed to be. I should get back in the water, and you should probably get out of the sun too.” Rex nods sadly, he likes talking to Anakin. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later?” Anakin gives Rex a smile, then a nod.

“I’ll come back up and visit tomorrow, same time?” Rex nods, and with that Anakin jumps back into the water, he gives Rex one last wave before he dives down. Rex stands up and get’s into the one boat left and he rows back to his ship, excited to see the merman again tomorrow.

xxx

Rex is in love. And he is in love with a kriffing mermaid. Rex and his crew have been docked near the little island for about a week now, and Anakin has visited them almost every day. Rex had denied it at first, telling himself that he only cared for the mer as a friend. It took Cody having a talk with him to make him realize that what he was feeling was love.

Rex doesn’t know what to do, Cody had told him that he should confess to Anakin, but Rex doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. All of his siblings know, and they’ve all been trying to give him advice. He sighs heavily into his hands as he lays on his bed, he has no idea what to do.

Rex turns over in his bed and tries to fall asleep, he hopes to come up with a solution in the morning.

xxx

Anakin swims around his little cave in thought, he’s trying to figure out what he should do. Today he had figured out that he had fallen for Rex, the human. Anakin wants to tell him, he really does. But he doesn’t want Rex to be disgusted with him. Anakin isn’t human, he can’t walk or play on land like Rex and his family can.

He fears that Rex may leave as soon as he finds out, he doesn’t want to lose his human. Anakin has come to love Rex’s family as his own as well, Cody, Gregor and Wolffe are like older brother’s. While Stutter and Ahsoka are like younger siblings to him. Although Jesse, Kix, Echo and Fives are kind of a mix of the two. But also the best friends Anakin could have. He doesn’t want any of them to leave, he doesn’t want to be alone again.

Anakin wishes that his mother was here, she would have given him some advice that would help, or she would have held him close and told him that everything would work itself out. He lies down in his bed and closes his eyes, at that moment he decides that he’s going to tell Rex how he feels, no matter the consequences.

xxx

Everyone is having some fun, they swim around in the water and take turns swimming with Anakin. It was a little game started by the younger two, Ahsoka and Stutter, but soon enough everyone wanted a turn, and Anakin was happy to oblige. At the moment he’s swimming Jesse around underwater, he keeps an eye out for a tap on his shoulder, that is the signal that Jesse needs air. As soon as Anakin feels it he swims up to the surface, allowing for Jesse to get some air.

“That never gets old!! You can swim so fast Anakin.” Jesse laughs as he swims away from Anakin, who whistles happily. “Thanks Jesse. But I think that I need a little break now, I’m getting kind of tired.” Jesse nods. “Of course, why don’t you go rest up on the beach with Rex? I’m sure that he would love the company.” Anakin nods with a smile, then swims off towards the beach. Rex is sitting with his feet a little in the water, he smiles when Anakin swims up.

“Hey Anakin, you here for a rest too?” Anakin nods, then pulls himself up onto the beach beside Rex. They sit in silence for a few minutes, enjoying eachother’s company. Then Anakin frowns, he wants to tell Rex now, this might be the only time he’ll have the nerve to. “Rex? Can I tell you something?” Rex glances at Anakin, face full of confusion. “Yeah, of course you can. What is it?”

Anakin frowns, he’s so scared that Rex will hate him. “Promise me that if I tell you, you won't hate me.” Rex gapes at Anakin. “Anakin!! I will never hate you, I promise.” Anakin sighs, swallowing thickly. “I…” Anakin sighs, he can’t stop the fear from stopping him from speaking. “Anakin? What is i-!!” Anakin quickly presses his lips against Rex’s in a soft, delicate kiss. Rex’s eyes widen, then drift softly closed as he sighs with content. After a few seconds Anakin pulls away, then he looks down and closes his eyes. He waits for Rex to yell, scream or push him away with disgust but it never happens.

What does happen is Rex softly places his hand under Anakin’s chin and lifts his face up gently to face him, the look of disgust that Anakin was expecting is replaced by Rex’s gaze filled with so much love and comfort. “I love you, Anakin. I love you more than anything.” Rex presses his lips to Anakin’s, making the mer’s heart skip a beat. They both pull away again when they hear yells and hoots from Rex’s brother’s and sister, Rex turns to see Fives yell- “Took you two long enough.”

Rex is about to jump up when Anakin throws himself into Rex’s arms, making the captain laugh. “I love you, Rex!!!” Anakin yells out, making Rex laugh and press a kiss to his forehead softly. “I love you too, Ani.”

xxx

Rex and Anakin lay on the beach, Anakin is on top of Rex, his head is cushioned on his human’s chest. It’s been two days since they had confessed their feelings for eachother, and everything has been going well until today. Rex frowns, Cody and Rex had both taken stock of supplies, and they were definitely getting way too low. Which means that they are going to have to leave the little cove soon to grab some supplies, and take on a few delivery jobs to make some money.

Rex knows that it would be too hard for Anakn to come with them, they would have to stop every day at least once for Anakin to jump in the water. And they would have to hide him from anyone that may hurt him. Rex and his family would gladly do all this for Anakin, but they run the risk of him drying out or getting found, and it may be too hard on the merman to be away from the place that he grew up, away from his mother’s treasures.

Rex knows that he’s going to have to tell Anakin, and now is as good a time as any. “Anakin?” Anakin looks up at Rex with a smile, he sits up and presses a kiss to Rex’s soft lips. “Yeah, Rex, is something wrong?” Anakin caresses Rex’s cheek, he doesn’t like seeing a frown on his human’s face. Rex sighs. “Anakin, My brother’s, sister and I… We have to leave.” Anakin’s eyes widen as tears fill them, breaking Rex’s heart in two.

“Why? Did I do something wrong? Is it because I’m not human?” Rex’s eyes widen as he pulls Anakin against him softly, but firmly. “No, I promise. That’s not it, I wouldn’t want you to change for the world, Ani. We’re running out of supplies and money, we just have to go buy some more and get a few jobs, then we’ll be back.” Anakin whines sadly as Rex softly kisses his tears away. “Can’t I come with you?” Rex sighs sadly as he gently pets Anakin’s tail. “I’m sorry Anakin, but it’s too risky. You could dry out, or someone could find out about you. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you, neither would my brother’s and sister.” Anakin nods tearfully, and Rex gently kisses his temple. “We won’t be gone for long, only two to three months. And we were running low already when we got here, so we will be here longer than a week when we return, okay.”

Anakin looks up at Rex. “When are you leaving?” Rex sighs. “Tomorrow.” Anakin hugs Rex close with his one arm, nuzzling into what he now knows is his shirt. “Promise me you’ll come back.” Rex presses his forehead against Anakin’s. “I promise, Cyare. Nothing will keep me away from you.” Rex gently kisses Anakin’s lips softly, running his hand through Anakin’s hair as he does. Neither of them want this night to end, knowing tomorrow they would be separated.

xxx

Anakin sits on the beach as he waves to the leaving ship, everyone is on board waving to him as well. Rex and his brothers and sister said that they’d be back in about three months at most, and Anakin hopes that they’re right. Anakin keeps waving until the ship disappears over the horizon, then he dives down to his cave below. He knows that Rex will return, he trusts his human to come back to him.

Anakin hugs the shirt that he’s wearing close to him, Rex had given him two of his shirts to wear while he was gone. One is the one Anakin is wearing and the other is being kept on shore. Anakin wants the other to continue smelling like his human, his Rex. who will return in only a few months time.

xxx

The pirate captain smirks as he watches the other ship leave, leaving the merman waving. His ship is hidden behind some rocks across the cove, he watches as the merman dives beneath the waves, him and his crew are going to make so much money when they capture the young mer.

Taglist: @ahsokatano-thetogruta @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @lightning-wolffe @barissoffee

[nimsajlove]

Found you!

I finally found a almost okay way to save Dogma. Take this, I will go to bed now! This is related to this small series.

Ao3    Brothers-AU     Part II

„General, it is a pleasure to greet you again on Kamino.“, the steady voice of a Kaminoan echoed over to her. Ahsoka took one step over the rest of the ramp and looked up, Shaak Ti followed the prime minister half a step back. Ahsoka eyed her briefly, outwardly she seemed as calm and controlled as ever. But a little nudge in the Force was enough; she openly spread her grief in front of the younger Togruta. Okay, take a deep breath! She glanced at Rex, and he nodded curtly. Well, they were still on schedule. „I want to get this done quickly. The Jedi Council has been promised the clones by the Supreme Chancellor and I'm here to get everyone on their cruisers.”, she explained quickly and Lama Su nodded slowly and deliberately. „Of course, all cadets are ready to leave the facility. As well as the clone staff.“, he explained and showed the way, with stiff steps she followed him. As they stepped into the bright hallways, her stomach turned. No good memories clung to this place! But before Ahsoka could squint her eyes, two hands fell on her back. One was long and slender and exuded a deep energy that forced her body to relax. The other was rough and warm, she looked up and when Jesse nodded safely, her head calmed down. He knew where to go, he would help her! „And what about the rest of the men?“, she asked and her group stopped, Lama Su gave her a sharp look. „We don't have any other troops here. The embryos cannot be handed over to the Jedi yet.“, he tried to chide her. She wasn't a child anymore! Unasked, Jesse handed her a holoprojector. Why was he so well prepared? Why was she so badly prepared?! With stiff fingers she switched on the projector, it showed a picture of a helmet camera. It was maybe only a few months old and a small text at the bottom said it was from Jesse's helmet.

Lama Su looked at the room and folded his hands. „You were not allowed to enter there.“ „And yet you would have withheld these men from us. I demand all living clones and all preserved bodies that are in these halls!“, Ahsoka growled softly and when the Kaminoan showed no movement, Shaak Ti stepped closer to him. One of her hands rested on her lightsaber. „They are owned by the Jedi now.“, she clarified and Lama Su blinked angrily at her.

*~*

„That went pretty well.“, Jesse muttered and Ahsoka rocked her head thoughtfully. She was so damn tired! Her hand hurt again and the muscles of her bandaged thigh twitched from time to time after the long walk through the facilities in the city. Nonetheless, her gaze was attentive as she watched as clones of various colors pointed a mass of cadets at the cruisers. In between, some soldiers brought containers of stunned or dead clones back to their battalions. „It could have been worse.“, she admitted quietly when her comlink demanded attention. „We have got everyone on the cruiser, we can take off. Cody has assured me that he and General Kenobi will monitor everything else.“, the voice of Rex rang out and Ahsoka breathed a sigh of relief, she wanted to get away from here as soon as possible! „We also have visitors.“, the Commander pushed after and Ahsoka hesitated. Visitors? „What kind of visitor is that?“, she asked alarmed and made her way to her cruiser with Jesse in tow. „Friends vod'ika, they're friends.“, Rex assured her and she could swear to hear him smile. Sighing, she cut the connection and quickened her pace. With Jesse's protective hand behind her back, she entered the landing bay and was briefly amazed at how empty everything looked around her. Then she spotted the people at the top of the ramp of the cruiser and with long strides she bridged the distance until two hands grabbed her by the waist and whirled her through the air.

„Only our Jedi could do something like that!“, Wrecker roared and Ahsoka saw from the corner of her eye how Jesse's shoulders tensed and Rex shook his head indulgently. „Watch out Wrecker, otherwise you won't make friends here.“, Echo warned, his smile taking the bite out of his words. Ahsoka grinned when she was back on solid ground and turned to Hunter. „What can I do for you?“, she asked, she was so happy to see familiar faces. Even so, her body seemed to think this was enough for a day. Her hand throbbed, her head ached. „We were worried and want to help, General Tano.“, Hunter explained calmly and even Jesse relaxed again, most of them could actually deal with Hunter. She wanted to answer, a hand pressed to her throbbing forehead, as a sharp voice preceded her. „General, sit down. Now.“, Burnes growled and came out of the cruiser to them. He didn't have his helmet on and his stubborn stare assured Ahsoka, that he would call Kix to it if necessary. She quickly turned to the Bad Batch, but Hunter was already studying her and then shook his head. „We're going to ask Commander Cody what we can do. Tell uns, when you are feeling better.“, he calmed her down and with that the Bad Batch disappeared quickly and quietly. Oh shit, she didn't mean to offend the men! But her head... „It's okay, they don't hold it against you. Listen to Burnes.“, Echo mumbled while he stepped to her side and Burnes nodded satisfied and went back into the cruiser, the others followed him. Hardly in the hangar, Jesse grabbed Ahsokas other arm and he and Echo pushed her onto one of the containers full of groceries and provisions standing around. Burnes had already opened his backpack and was holding a couple of pills in the palm of his hand. Without asking, Ahsoka took them and bowed to her fate. Her head throbbed and her leg hurt. Then he pulled out something else and handed it to her, it elicited a small laugh from the Togruta. She considered protesting, but then she took the unadorned teether and wedged it between her teeth. The weight between her jaws calmed her and her muscles relaxed again. Sighing, Rex took off his helmet across from her and eyed her critically. „You have to take care of yourself. We only just patched you up again.“, he mumbled and wordlessly she nodded, he was right. She had walked around too much today and maybe tried to get more into her head than she should. But this was more important than what was going on in her head. More important than the fact that she woke up bathed in sweat at night and found no rest on her own. She was glad of every waking second in which she did not have to see the hateful yellow eyes.

„General?“, asked another clone and Ahsoka looked up, Appo approached with quick steps. A blue arrow on a bronze background adorned his helmet. She gave him a smile, he was one of the few survivors from the 501st, who she had welcomed all with open arms. The council had given her without further ado Anakin's cruiser, which offered more space than her own. „The Chancellor asked for you. If you're not feeling well, then I'll-“ „No, it's okay, Captain.“, Ahsoka mumbled and started to get up. The painkillers seemed to hit slowly, and her head wasn't throbbing as hard for a long time. Still, a hand shot out and held onto her. „Take it easy, General.“, Burnes warned and grumbling, she sank back on her bottom, lacking the energy to argue with a medic. Not to mention Burnes or Kix, who were always on her heels. „I will talk to Chancellor Organa, you stay here.“, Rex mumbled and when Ahsoka didn't protest he patted her knee once, then he left the hangar with Appo. Well, if she was condemned to sit down, she would just have to take care of other things! She picked up her comlink. It took a while for Kix to finally respond. „Not now!“, he grumbled and it made Ahsoka smile, even if her eyes were suddenly very heavy. She gave Burnes a suspicious look, there must have been a sleeping pill in between! The medic returned her gaze like innocence itself. „Kix, get me when you wake the first one again. Yes?“, Ahsoka asked and her voice was suddenly quiet and small, she was so damn tired! She heard Kix laugh softly. „I will, don't worry. Thank Burnes for me won’t you?“ „Idiot.“, Ahsoka complained and switched off her comlink before she sagged against a shoulder next to her. Jesse. Echo sat on her other side on the container and pulled her legs onto his lap. „Sleep vod'ika, we'll keep watch.“, Jesse assured her and with a sigh, Ahsoka gave in and closed his eyes.

The first thing she felt again was the teether that was still stuck between her fangs. Then there was that warm hand that snuggled up against one of her montrals and satisfied she pressed a little against the warmth. Her head was bedded on something soft, did they got new pillows? No... A loud rumble and hasty apologies straightened her memories. The hangar. The sleeping pill. She had slept dreamlessly... Soft voices joined the noises around her and sighing, she carefully stretched her stiff legs, someone laughed softly. The sound ended with a low gasp. „Don't wake her up.“, one of the men warned, she was sure it was Hevy. „Be quiet yourself!“, answered oneother brother still a little breathless, Cutup. The noises grew louder, it sounded like a little scramble. Oh no... Puffing, she turned her head and buried her nose in the fabric under her head. The smell was familiar, her robe? „Carry on like this and I'll call Rex.“, Kix grumbled, was he here? Slowly the amount of noise increased, and Ahsoka rolled onto her back, panting, and rubbed her face with one hand. How long had slept? „Stay down, you don't have to go anywhere.“, Droidbait mumbled close to her, then it was probably his hand that was so comfortably warm on her head. Grumbling softly, she blinked up and took the teether out of her mouth, her head resting on Droidbait's lap. He greeted her with a warm smile. „How long have I been out?“, she mumbled and began to get up, his hands coming to her aid. Next to her feet, Kix leaned against the container and watched her, his critical gaze following every movement. „6 hours.“, Hevy commented and when Ahsoka looked down, she saw him and Cutup sitting on the floor. They both smiled up at her and she almost missed the worry in their eyes.

6 hours? „Have you started yet?“, she asked Kix and swung her legs from the container, her brothers on the floor got up again and Droidbait put the robe around her shoulders. Kix nodded. Kriff! „We started with Dogma, it's not like we had a lot of choice.“, he mumbled darkly and Ahsoka's heart contracted painfully. The 501st hadn't gotten many men back. Most of them would be buried in the next few days. „I'm sorry.“, she mumbled and rubbed her face again, the teether she slipped into a pocket of her robe. „It‘s okay. You just didn't have to endure it alone.“, Kix tried to comfort her. Ahsoka knew he wasn't mad at her. All of her brothers would have liked to relieve her and Jesse of some of the burden they had to bear. For exactly three days, all the men had known what Ahsoka and the ARC soldier had found on Kamino. „Where's Jesse?“, she asked and hopped off the container, Droidbait got up too. „By the cells, he wanted to keep an eye on them for you. Fives and Echo have joined him.“, Cutup explained and Ahsoka nodded, okay. With great strides she set off. „Was Dogma awake already?“, she asked Kix, he shook his head. „No, the medication should only fade in the next few minutes.“

*~*

The corridor outside the cells was more crowded than Ahsoka had expected. Most were unlocked, the older clones sat inside and in front of the cells on the floor and watched over their brothers. „Why did we choose this again?“, Ahsoka mumbled, she hated to see the men in the narrow rooms. Even if the bunks had been equipped with cushions and pillows. „Because the medbay is full with the injured of the past few days and confused cadets. The quarters are also almost overcrowded and here we have them under control, should the men be confused.“, Kix reminded her just as quietly and led them to a cell at the end of the row, on the way they met Echo and Fives. Droidbait, Cutup and Hevy stayed with them and Fives gave her a warm look. Jesse was waiting in front of the last door, he had his helmet on and was leaning in the doorway. „Hey.“, Ahsoka greeted carefully and put a hand on his arm. He looked tense. „He's going to hate us.“, Jesse whispered, even through the helmet he still sounded hoarse and tired. Kix put a hand on Jesse's neck and Ahsoka saw him lean into it and exhale deeply. „We can fix this. I promise.“, she tried to calm him down and pulled his helmet down to her for a gentle Keldabe kiss. Jesse's shoulders slumped, the weight of the equipment seeming to push them down. „Thank you. Thank you for staying with us.“, he muttered and Ahsoka tried to smile encouragingly, she didn't know if she succeeded. „Go and sleep a little, we were both on our feet too long. I'll stay here.“, she answered softly and Jesse nodded slowly, straightened up again and when Kix took a half step back into the corridor, he followed.

For a few seconds she watched Kix lead Jesse step by step. Guilt welled up in her at the thought of how long her brother had carried a huge burden almost alone. But now the others could take care of him, she knew that Kix would personally bring him to his bunk. A little reassured, she turned to the cell and entered. Dogma lay motionless on the bunk at the other end of the small room. All of this didn't look to uncomfortable, but her stomach still rumbled at the sight. Dogma's previous life had ended in a cell, was it fair that he should wake up in one now? The thought weighed on her mind and she leaned against the wall, listening to the noises from the hallway. The soft voices of the men formed a constant humming in the background, they radiated a calm that she had never known before! She had been surrounded by the clones for much of her youth, and pain and tension had never left the men's minds. The pain was there now, too, but above it was the certainty that the war was over. The final battles would be rather unspectacular without the Chancellor and Dooku. Downright easy!

A rustle tore her from her thoughts, Ahsoka turned her head and watched Dogma sit up with trembling arms, he blinked a few times in confusion before his gaze found her. He stared at her and Ahsoka's stomach contracted painfully, he looked so alone. Then suddenly a hard laugh escaped him. „Ha! I'm dead.“, he stated dryly and Ahsoka's heart slipped into her pants. What?! „Um ... no.“, she answered hesitantly and Dogma looked at her critically. Carefully he swung his legs off the cot and sat up properly. „With all due respect Commander, you are not particularly convincing.“ Was he joking?! Ahsoka slowly pushed away from the wall and took a tiny step closer. Dogma watched her closely, like an animal that is expected to be attacked at any time. „Dogma you are not dead.“, she clarified again and he seemed to want to reply something, but the beeping of her comlink interrupted him and immediately his mouth snapped shut. Sighing, she picked it up. "General, we will need more space.", one of the men reported and the sigh that was now escaping her was almost fond. Even if her stomach was still cold and hard. „Lay out my study, that of Commander Rex and Captain Appo's, with exercise mats. I don't think we all mind sharing the rooms with others if the children can sleep in a bunk.“, she decided and the trooper at the other end seemed to smile, it accompanied his answer. „Yes sir, it's as good as done.“, he announced and the connection was terminated. When Ahsoka turned her gaze back to Dogma, he seemed confused again.

„General?“, he asked hesitantly, so that was the inconsistency he was hanging on to… That was fine with her, maybe she could start here to convince him of his survival. „Yes.“, she replied calmly and evenly. The corners of Dogma's mouth pulled down, he frantically wiped his face with one hand. „But I was… dead! There was nothing there. There…“ He broke off, his hands trembled almost uncontrollably and he turned pale. Kriff, that here was almost worse than bringing Echo back to life. At least he hadn't doubted anything that much. „It's okay Dogma.“, she muttered, no reaction. He just kept shaking, his gaze fixed on the floor. Was that what she looked like when she had a panic attack? Ahsoka slowly approached the clone and crouched in front of him, he winced violently when her hand appeared in his field of vision and Ahsoka hastily pulled it back. „It's okay, you're safe.“, she assured, trying to sound as firm as Rex when he talked to her in the dark after a nightmare. Dogma swallowed hard. „But the others… And Krell. And Kamino!“, he managed and gritted his teeth, a violent sob shook him and Ahsoka hastily reached out to him, caught him at the shoulders and instead of flinching he sagged and another sob broke out of him. Ahsoka slowly worked her way up until she was sitting next to him on the bunk with his head resting on her shoulder. The fabric was wet under his cheeks. „It's okay, I've got you.“, she mumbled and was infinitely thankfull when she felt Dogma trying to take a deep breath. „You are home.“

[fangirlings-things]

When I look at you

Fandom: Star Wars

Pairing: Anakin Skywalker x female reader

Word count: 1.8K

Summary: Anakin is supposed to be protecting you, but it turns out he does far more than that

A/N: I was having some loving star wars days and this is the result. let me know what your thoughts are, lots of love 💖

gif is not mine

“Senator Vustolt” Master Obi-wan Kenobi nodded his head in respect at the man he was referring to. His expression was calm, stern. His light saber hang by the waist of his Jedi clothes. The smile on his lips was sympathetic, friendly even. He wasn’t distant and cold like other Jedi Masters you had encountered before in Coruscant. No, not at all. In fact from what you had learned about Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was quite a good, reasonable person.

“Master Kenobi” the Senator returned his respectful nod in appreciation, a small smile also taking a hold of his lips as he did so. “I suppose you’re here because the Chanceler asked you to accompany me to the meeting of the Senate today?”

“That is correct” Obi-wan replied, being capable of noticing the small hint of satisfaction in the man’s tone. Differently from many other members of the Senate, that thought the overprotection of the Jedi, that had been firmly requested by the Chanceler after some received vicious attacks, to be unnecessary, Senator Vustolt considered it to be 'quite essential in such troubled times', as he had said himself more than once. “I’ll safely escort you to the meeting and then bring you back here, to your quarters”

“What about my daughter?” the Senator placed one of his hands on your shoulders, the squeeze he gave on it making you smile at how worried he was. The Jedi had been protecting you both for more than a month now and still, he seemed to be always on the point of bursting out of nervousness. “I can’t leave her here without you any protection”

“My Master has ordered me to stay here with her, Senator Vustolt” Obi-Wan's Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, spoke for the first time ever since they had both entered your father’s quarters, minutes ago. He had his hands joined in front of his body and unlike Obi-Wan’s Jedi clothes that were light, his had a dark tone of brown. His eyes went from the Senator to you as he said. “Your daughter will be very well protected”

If your father noticed the intensity of the Padawan's gaze on you, he did not express any reaction at all. He only seemed incredibly relieved by the news he had just been given. “That is quite appropriate. Thank you, Master Kenobi and you too, Anakin”

“Anything to help” Anakin smiled tenderly at your father, eyes back on him. You could already feel your face getting less flushed, now that his eyes had finally turned away. Everytime he looked at you like that, it made you feel helpless in such a way that you couldn’t even explain. Nor did you want to.

Looking at Obi-wan, you saw that his gaze went from you to his Padawan and then back at you. He sensed something in there, of course. He knew Anakin probably better than anyone else and also, had the Padawan/Master force connection in his favor. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise you if Obi-wan already knew everything. Even if he did though, he did not say anything regarding the matter. Instead, his eyes went back to your father and he smiled again. “Shall we go, Senator?”

“Yes, immediately” your father turned back to you and kissed your forehead lovingly for a brief second. “Be safe, my child”

“I will be, father” you smiled at his affection and watched as Obi-wan and Anakin exchanged a look, a silent conversation made between two people that knew each other all too well. On the next few moments, the Jedi and your father left the quarters. Once the doors were closed behind them, you turned to Anakin. “I…”

You didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence, though. His lips were on yours before you could even notice his approach. They tasted just like you remembered, a taste so good and addicting that you felt like the Force itself was pulling you towards him.

“Anakin” you mumbled out his name from between your joined lips, eyes closed and body quickly heating up because of his proximity.

“(Y/N)” he replied, smiling against your lips as his hands went to the sides of your face, fingertips caressing your skin. Your hands moved towards his chest, like they had life of their own. The desire you felt for him was there as always, just growing inside of you by each moment. Too fast. Oh, so fast you could barely handle it. “I have missed you”

You deepened the kiss at that, tongue touching his as your mouths moved together in perfect synchrony. You kissed and kissed until air had completely left both of your lungs. “It’s only been a few days” you sighted happily when your lips disconnected, resting your forehead against his chest and breathing in his scent.

“And it has felt like forever” one of Anakin’s hands went to your hair, fingers going between the strands like he loved to do. “Have you not missed me at all?”

“You know I did” you said, fingers clenching at the front of his Jedi clothes like he would just disappear at any moment if you didn’t. Honestly, you feared something like that. Jedi’s had a very strict code about attachment and the sense of duty. What you two had… was already a transgression of the rules he should follow. You didn’t want to leave him but also, you didn’t want to cause him any trouble with the Jedi Council. You knew about his past, the fact he had been a slave once and got released at the time by Obi-Wan’s Master, who promised him the training of a Jedi. There was no way you would him to give that up because of you. “Very much”

One of Anakin’s hands went under your chin and he pulled it up gently, making you take your head out of his chest and face him eye in the eye. His had such a beautiful, electric color. From up close, the scar on his face seemed bigger and deeper. You raised one of your hands and touched it slightly, smiling at the wound. He had said before that he did not like it but you, you loved that scar. Just like you loved everything else about Anakin Skywalker.

He kissed you again, just as deeply and eagerly as he had done before. You kissed him back just as much intensely, mind being a blur because there was nothing else that mattered in that moment. Nothing that wasn’t Anakin and the way he felt and made you feel.

As the kiss went on, hands all over at each other, you knew very well where it was heading. It always lead you there. And you loved it, like he did. But something in the back of your mind bothered you, made you nervous and not in the mood for doing such thing.

“Anakin” you said his name between kisses, one last moment of hesitation before pulling away and with your hands on his chest, you looked him in the eye, face blushed and lips swollen due to the kisses. “Can we just… be together, today? Not this. Just…”

He realized what you wanted, and noticed the concerned expression you had on your face, your beautiful features filled with something he couldn’t identify. “Of course, my love. Here” he grabbed one of your hands with his and slowly walked you around the room until you both reached the closest couch of the hall of your father’s quarters. He sat down and pulled you with him. You then found yourself with your back pressed against his chest, his arms around you in a way that made you feel incredibly comfortable and safe. In that place, with him, it seemed like nothing in the entire galaxy could ever reach or hurt you both. “What’s concerning you?”

You sighted heavily, closing your eyes for a long moment and then opened them again, to face the door by which your father Obi-wan had left before. You could feel Anakin’s breath against your neck and it calmed you. “I had a dream. A bad one”

“What was it about?” he kissed your hair, inhaling the smell of it deeply. Many times before, he had told you that he adored your hair and for the way his hands would always be touching it and he would kiss the top of your head constantly, you had no reason to not believe it.

“You” you said, shaking a bit in his arms. The images of the dream came rushing back into your mind and they tormented you. “I saw you fighting. Losing. There was blood and so much pain” you fought the tears that wanted to escape your eyes hardly, but some of them managed to win.

“I am fine, my love. I have no interest of getting into a fight anytime soon” he squeezed you even more tightly in his strong arms and even though that didn’t sound like Anakin at all, you knew he was trying to comfort you. “You had dreams before, about me fighting. You told me about them” he said, and that was true. Ever since you two began to form a bond after meeting, even before you got together, you started to dream about him fighting. You would always wake up with the sound of his light saber still on your ears, and the effect would take a while to pass. “Why did this one disturb you so much?”

“Because you were fighting Obi-wan” you told him, moving around the couch until you sat straight, facing him. You could see the confusion on his beautiful features and eyes as he processed what you had just told him. “You were fighting your Master”

“(Y/N)” Anakin said your name with that tone that always got to you, the one who made clear the affection he had for you. With one of his hands, he cleaned the tears from your face one by one. “I won’t fight Obi-wan, ever. He’s my Master and my friend. Why would I ever do that?”

“Y-you had turned to the Dark Side” you said in a burst, fearing you wouldn’t have the strength to do so. You looked away, not wanting to see the hurt look that would probably come from those words. You feared he would think you did not trust him for even supposing such a thing, but you had to tell him. “I saw your light saber, it was red. You were a Sith. And I was so worried Obi-wan would hurt you and I would never see you again”

His hands grabbed yours, squeezing it. Still, you felt like you couldn’t face him. “(Y/N), look at me” hearing his request, you couldn’t say no. You turned your head to him and when your gazes met, you saw his expression was not hurt or angry. No, it was calm. He did not seem even slightly shaken by your statements. “It was just a dream. I won’t turn to the Dark Side. I won’t fight my Master, it won’t happen. There is nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing”

You nodded your head in agreement, trying to push away the dream that had been too real. Anakin pulled you into his arms again in a hug and you felt once again, safe in there. According to your dream though, he was the one who needed safety. “You know just how much I love you right?”

You weren’t looking at him, but you knew he smiled. You could perfectly picture that smile with your eyes closed. “Yes, and I love you too. More than you can imagine”

Five weeks later, your dream proved itself to be not only a dream, but a premonition of what was to happen.

Little by little, you began to see the Dark Side in Anakin.

[passable-talent]

what about,,, modern au,,, punk mucisian au,,,, anakin with tattoos pLEASE

may I introduce u to my new favorite gif...

also. plot twist! what if,, and hear me out,, you’re the musician, and he’s the fan?

i made an entire setlist for this fuckn au of my taste in punk-ish rock-ish music to base certain lines, moods, and lighting off of. it exists. i’ll hand it over if you ask.

stumbled over this headcanon as i wrote but,,,, modern au anakin absolutely grew up in nevada. desert. middle of nowhere. close to vegas and the racing. automobile industry. thank u for ur time  

This whole ‘music’ thing was actually working out. Imagine that. 

You were gaining fame slowly- your record company still didn’t get you big gigs, but you got something. 

Something like this, in fact. A small, dingy laser tag place, but it was perfect nonetheless. Perfect for you. You felt right at home- it was too hot, and the audience was still loud, since the music hadn’t started. The stage was small, but the lights were bright, and you were standing behind the curtains that had been hung barely a foot from the wall. 

“Ready?” you heard Padme ask- Padme, the lead guitarist, your best friend. She was on stage, currently, hidden from the crowd by a blanket of black. On the other side of the stage, you knew, was Ahsoka, the drummer, a little tiny teenager you’d picked up last summer when your original drummer quit, and beside her was undoubtedly Aayla, your bassist. You were lucky- you were surrounded by such great friends that you could pull your weight without having to play the guitar. Which was good for everyone- you were an awful guitar player. 

“Anytime, loves,” you said, a smile lighting your lips. You’d almost overdosed on the anti-anxiety pills this morning- the feeling of playing a gig still unfamiliar and nerve wracking. 

But you heard the music start, and started to sing. 

Only when this particular song really kicked into gear did you toss open the curtain, and the cheer went up, almost drowning out the music. You were certainly the fan favorite of the band, only because you were the most expressive. You didn’t have an instrument, so you got to run around on stage, and kneel down to reach out, brushing your fingers to the crowd’s as you sang, like God to Adam. 

It really wasn’t a looks thing- for some, it might be, but not to most. Hey, if there was anyone that should really get the attention, it was Padme. She was unfairly beautiful. 

The great thing about being a punk artist was that most of your fans were, too. They came with their tattoos and snuck in their weed, their ripped jeans always leaving with a few more holes than they arrived with. A band like yours, so dominated by women, had really caught on with a female crowd, but there were always guys here, too. You never really cared to know if it was their dicks or their ears that brought them.

There was a little bit of a problem, though. You were well known for trying to make connections with as many fans as you could- not for your sake, but for theirs. You loved taking selfies, touching their fingers, winking at them during a particularly suggestive lyric, guys and girls alike. Which lead to a little problem, one that Ahsoka loved to refer to as your ‘wattpad fantasy’. 

Growing up when you had, you’d all been all over the internet, into each of its corners. You knew the common trope that teenaged fans had with their favorite artists- that they’d catch the eye of the main singer, and get dragged backstage after the show.

You had the opposite fantasy. Too many times did one or another audience member catch your eye, and yeah, sometimes you did consider catching them before they left after the show. It never worked- either you lost track of them, or you didn’t have the guts to go through with it. 

When you laid eyes on him, though, you wanted so desperately to go through with it tonight. 

You tried not to be obvious, you really did try to be subtle- but whenever the multicolored lights caught his hair, your gaze was pulled back to him, no matter how much you wanted to give equal attention to every audience member brave enough to wrestle their way to the front row. 

But you also wanted to make sure he knew. That you’d noticed him.

With one or two lyrics, lines like “tell me that you love me, even if it’s only for tonight”, you let your eyes catch his, hoping to whatever powers there might’ve been that he’d be looking back at you. 

The halftime break, the intermission, came faster than expected, and you dropped into the one room the laser tag place set aside for you, and tried to clean as much sweat from your scalp and hair as you could. 

“Alright, what is it?” Padme asked from behind you.

“What to you mean?” you asked, glancing at her through the mirror you were using to try to artfully smudge your eyeliner. 

“You’re favoring the left side of the audience. What, find a wattpad boy?”

“Another one?” Ahsoka called from the other side of the room, rubbing sore callouses on her palms.

“Yeah, yeah,” you waved them off with a laugh, “let me dream.” 

Act II came around, and back to the stage you went, trying to be even more subtle this time around. Still, you kept track of him- he hadn’t moved far. Maybe, if you watched him carefully enough, you’d get to meet him before he left. 

It was hard to do, and you hadn’t yet been successful. You really weren’t supposed to offer fans any ‘free’ attention, or at least, that was the way your manager had put it. If you let everybody take a picture with you, then no one will buy backstage passes. 

A sentiment that your anarchist side absolutely resented. Fuck capitalism, you wanted to chill with your fans. 

But hey, back on topic! It was amazing how you could totally tune out during a song, and tune back in, still strutting around the state, still singing perfectly. Luckily, you’d brought yourself back to reality, right when the second to last song was about to end. 

When it faded away, you stepped to the center of the stage, readjusting your mic quickly and letting a real smile come over your face. 

And this- this was it. No matter how fantastic any show was, it would never top this. You always went out with the same song, way back from your first album, one of the first you’d ever written. You heard Padme start to strum.

“And with that, we’re coming to the end,” you said over the guitar, speaking to the audience like you knew every person there. “So I want you to all sing along with this one. Every damn word. Because tonight- this is a night none of us are going to forget.” You’d said it a hundred times, and yet, you meant it every time. When you stopped speaking, you started singing, abandoning your strutting and stomping for just standing at the front of the stage, looking at them all. 

“It was a fall night, late night-” There was a reason you always ended with this song. It was so beautiful, and so sensual. It was a promise, between you, and your band, and your fans, a promise that it was all for them, not for whatever rode in their wallets. A promise that you would keep looking out for them. 

And when you began the chorus, you dropped to your knees, getting that much closer to them, your smile so genuine, because you could hear them, every single one of them, like they were performing for you. It was their night as much as yours, it was their music more than it was yours. 

A hundred voices welling up around yours was always what kept you awake at night, kept you coming back, pushing through the looks that people gave you when you said you were trying to make it in the music industry, pushing through the late nights where you couldn’t make it through that lyric. This song, right here, this was what brought you back, kept reminding you what mattered. 

You stopped singing, and they continued without you. They always did- they would see how you just looked at them all, with the realest smile they’d ever seen, and they sang for you. 

You couldn’t help it. You watched him- and he was singing, too. 

This time, you knew for sure. You knew he was watching you, too, and when your eyes locked, the voices around you all swelled to a crescendo, like a soundtrack to the scene you were living through. 

You had to snap yourself back into the world to pick up the second verse. It stayed just as intimate, just as amazing, all the way to the end of the song, when you sang the final note, and just stood there, basking in it, in a world made just for you. 

The stage lights flickered out, and you disappeared into the dark. 

Over your earpiece, one of the roadies informed you that your mics were off, and that’s exactly the way you liked them. You dropped onto the stage, hanging your legs over the front of it. You were still a few feet from the closest little fence, but it was closer than you’d been to them yet. 

“Hey, guys,” you hissed toward anyone within earshot. That alone, in the dim light, gathered a crowd of twenty or so who had noticed you. You always did this at the end of the show- just to let them hear their name on your tongue. 

And maybe, today, to find him. 

You looked to a girl who had her hand outstretched to you, and you took it briefly.

“Hey, what’s your name?” you asked, and she shouted back “Oran!”

“Oran, almost like the color, huh?” You were so much more at ease now than you were, before the show. “I bet you hear that all the time.” You turned to someone else, always trying to make it through as many people as possible. 

How many could you touch base with before turning to him, so that it wouldn’t be suspicious? Was three enough, or should you do one more?

No, when you caught his eyes, there was no turning back. 

“Hey, what’s up,” you said, fighting to keep your heartbeat under control. 

“Anakin,” he said, then pulling a bright yellow card out of his jacket. That, you’d recognize anywhere- that was a backstage pass. 

Like the universe was aligning for you. 

“Well, Anakin, if you’ve got a pass, I’ll see you later, yeah?” As you usually did from a person who had a pass, you moved on quickly, giving this time to others who wouldn’t get more. You heard six or seven more names before Ahsoka was tugging on your shoulder. 

“Alright, alright,” you groaned, throwing your legs over the stage again and standing up, but not before blowing one last kiss toward the small crowd you’d gathered. 

As soon as you made it back, into where the speakers cluttered up all of the space, you collapsed against Ahsoka, laughing as she struggled to hold you up.

“What, thinking about your wattpad boy?” she said, throwing you to your feet.

“Oh, not again,”  Aayla whined, “he’ll be no different than every other one that you dream of finding at next week’s show, and then never see again.”

“No, no, this one’s different!” you insisted, grabbing onto Padme’s shirt. She brushed you off with a laugh.

“Oh yeah? How?” 

“His name is Anakin,” you said, rubbing your lower lip between your teeth. “And he’s got a backstage pass.” 

“What??” Came the collective cry, and you shushed them all before your manager appeared. 

It was showtime, baby. 

There were two or three of them, in total. The passes tended not to sell too well, and there were only a few available, anyway. The band just wasn’t quite big enough to pull that kind of fandom, save for a few die-hards who would one day get to pull out a photo and say ‘see? I was there at the beginning.’ 

Anakin was the last of the bunch. 

“Great to meet you,” you said, shaking his hand for real this time. His eyes were damn intense- no wonder you’d been mesmerized by them. 

“You too,” he said, and introductions went just as seamlessly with the others. Padme hugged him, and Ahsoka, little firecracker, gave him a playful punch for telling her that she looked taller when she was on stage. 

Now- there’s a reason Padme’s your best friend in the world. 

“Hey, it’s getting late,” she informed you, as though she were telling you to wrap it up. But she was smarter than that, and had set up the perfect trap.

“Oh,” Anakin said, looking slightly guilty and quite disappointed. “Well, I-” 

“Nah,” you cut him off, smacking the back of your hand against his chest, “You paid for fifteen minutes, you’ll get them. We’ve just got to start packing up. You can chill with us, if you want.” No matter the fame difference between the five of you, he was just another guy in his early 20′s, the same as the rest of you, save for eighteen year old Ahsoka. He meshed well with the lot of you, and even helped load ‘Soka’s drums into the truck. 

And, hey- he knew what he was getting into when he climbed into the back of the van with the four of you.

And what he was getting into was a bumpy-ass ride to one of the shittiest hotels the area could offer. It wasn’t even midnight, and you didn’t feel like climbing into bed just yet, so you let him follow the four of you upstairs so you could grab your phone and room key before leaving them to entertain themselves for the evening. 

“Come home alive!” Aayla called as a farewell, and Ahsoka snorted from where she was laying on her bed. 

“Come home capable of walking,” she said, and Padme saved you by slamming the door shut. 

“So what’s there to do around here?” you asked him, shoving your hands into your pockets. You walked close to him, shoulders almost brushing with each step, and his smile was just for you.

“Are you kidding? Absolutely nothing. You’re lucky you found the laser tag place.” You looked toward him with a laugh, the ugly carpeting of the hotel hallway stretching on forever in front of you.

“Seriously? How could you survive?”

“Hey, not every town is downtown LA.” 

“I’m flattered you think I’m famous enough to live in LA.” You stopped at the elevator, punching the down button. He nudged your shoulder playfully, those piercing blue eyes flicking over your face. 

“You’re gonna be. You guys are really good.”

“Good to know I have your blessing for my career.” 

“I’m serious!” he said with a laugh, and when the elevator door opened, he let you inside first. 

“Yeah, yeah. So if there’s nothing to do around here...” You tilted your head at him, watching as he rested his shoulders back against the buffed metal wall. “What do you do?”

“Find a friend’s basement to smoke in,” he said with a laugh, and you couldn’t help but join him. “Mostly we go see movies, or sneak onto a roof, if we’re lucky.” You narrowed your eyes, letting your gaze slide to the elevator buttons. 

“A roof, you say?” 

“I don’t want to get you in trouble-”

“Anakin, answer me this-” You pulled out your phone to check the time. “Do you think the lobby security agent of this Comfort Inn is going to be dedicated enough to check the roof at 12:23 AM?” The world outside this elevator didn’t exist as his lips turned up into a smirk.

“No, I don’t think they will.”

“In that case-” You slipped your second knuckle against the highest number on the wall- 6. Not very impressive, but it would do.

Once the elevator went down to the lobby, and back up again, you stumbled your way to the stairwell and up, finding the door that said ‘roof access- do not enter’. Since when do you ever listen?

If you listened to some red sign on a door, you wouldn’t have your head on Anakin’s shoulder, looking up at more stars than you’d ever seen in your entire life. 

You’d grown up in California, too close to some of the largest cities in the country to ever see the night sky like this. He’d grown up here, where there were warehouses for shipping to Reno, or Vegas, or Salt Lake City, but none of those cities were close enough to steal the sky.

“See those two, right on top of each other?” He asked, pointing to an area a few degrees up from the horizon.

“Yeah, I think,��� you said, and he lifted his left arm, where he had a constellation pattern tattooed between his elbow and wrist. 

“It’s this one. The phoenix. The first constellation I actually saw in the sky.” You reached out, taking hold of his elbow, and positioning his arm, from your perspective, just next to the constellation. “My mom took me out to a field and showed me the stars,” he said, and though you couldn’t see his face, you could hear the fondness in his voice. “For a long time, I wanted to be an astronaut.”

“Me too,” you said with a laugh, “but I wasn’t good enough in math.” 

“My mom’s friend Watto says I’m too good with cars to fly a ship.”

“Wouldn’t that make you better?” You asked, readjusting so that your shoulder pressed to his. It was a little cold.

“You’d think so, right?” You were such a loud person, that all too often you fought against silence- not tonight. You let it envelope you, bringing with it peace. You could hear Anakin breathing, and it was so calming, your eyes slipped closed.

“You’re going to fall asleep up here,” he said, a hint of playfulness in his voice. 

“Shut up,” you groaned, “I had a long day, and you’re warm.” 

“You should go back to the room, then.” You rolled over onto your stomach, then, taking a good look at him. 

“But that would mean that this night has to end.” He lifted his chest up by planting his elbows down, bringing himself closer to you. 

“You said it yourself,” he said, voice smooth and quiet, “this is a night we’re not going to forget.”

“But that doesn’t mean I want it to end,” you breathed, unable to look away from him. You barely noticed it when he begun to lean forward, but then his lips were on yours, and that you certainly took notice of. 

Your eyes fluttered closed, thanks to the shock and the welcome nature of it, and you leaned into it. He brought his furthest hand up and let it slide to the back of your neck, as though he could keep you from pulling away. You wouldn’t.

Your lips were still parted when he pulled away, your mind struggling to catch up. He’d- he’d just-

Calloused fingers brushed your hair back, and you opened your eyes to their touch, being drawn right back to his gaze. 

“Then it doesn’t have to.” 

-🦌 Roe

part 2

[10-porgs-in-a-trenchcoat]

Meilooruns and Gundark Snot and Hutt Slime, Oh My!

For @pinkiemme as part of the 2021 Star Wars Fun in the Sun event. Big shoutout to @lilhawkeye3 - thanks so much for organizing this event! I had a lot of fun with this prompt, and I hope you enjoy it! @starwarsfandomfests

Rated G, ~2k words, no major things that need warnings

AO3 

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

“What’s this all about, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked.

“I owe Dex a favor … never imagined he would call it in for this.”

It was a rare day off for both the 501st and the 212th while they were on leave on Coruscant. Luckily for them, their leave coincided with the beginning of Coruscant’s summer, and it was on such a warm sunny day that Obi-Wan rounded up Anakin, Ahsoka, and Rex for a trip to Dex’s Diner at the request of the diner’s owner. Outdoor seating had been added for the season, and the group sat themselves down at a table under a large umbrella as Obi-Wan went inside the diner to inform Dex of their arrival.

“Gotta say, this is not how I imagined spending my day off,” murmured Anakin as he drummed his fingers on the table.

“Beats meditating in the temple like Master Yoda would want me to do,” Ahsoka responded.

“I just can’t believe I’m going to eat something other than standard issue rations,” said Rex. He wore his full armor, without his helmet, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to Ahsoka. “If the men knew where I was they’d be jealous.”

Obi-Wan soon came back out from the diner, followed by a Besalisk man carrying covered trays in two of his hands.

“Everyone, this is my friend Dex, the owner of the diner,” Obi-Wan said as he introduced the Besalisk man with him. “Dex, this is Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and Captain Rex of the 501st.”

“Wonderful to meet you all! Any friend of Obi’s is a friend of mine!” Dex greeted them all in a booming boisterous voice. “I have concocted some original flavors of ice cream I hope to serve at the diner later in the season, and I have invited you all here to sample them.”

Obi-Wan sat down next to Anakin, and the four of them watched as Dex sat his trays down on the table and took off their covers. On each tray were two small bowls containing scoops of blue ice cream and spoons.

“First, I am starting you off with some standard sweet bantha milk ice cream to cleanse the palate.”

“Ice … cream?” Rex asked, curious and confused. He watched the others take bowls before grabbing the last one for himself, and after seeing Ahsoka shove a spoonful into her mouth, he followed suit.

“Good isn’t it?” Ahsoka asked him.

Rex nodded as he finished his bite. “It’s … cold. And sweet. Not too much though, just the right amount.”

“You’ve never had ice cream before, Captain?” Dex asked in disbelief. “You clones are putting your lives on the line for the Republic every day and you don’t even get to enjoy the simple luxuries of life? Unacceptable! I’m sending some back to your barracks with you, enough for your whole battalion!”

“That’s very kind of you, sir. Thank you.”

“No, thank you.” Dex pulled a small comm device out of his apron pocket and pressed a button. A short moment later, a procession of server droids came outside to the table, each holding a tray similar to the ones Dex brought out.

“Now if you’re ready, here is my first original creation: meiloorun melon tart! Give me your honest feedback, please.”

The first droid in the procession set down the tray and pulled off its lid, revealing four bowls of magenta-colored ice cream with swirls of orange. Everyone grabbed a bowl and dug right in.

“Not bad,” commented Anakin. “has a nice tangy flavor.”

“This is delicious, Dex,” said Obi-Wan, “I appreciate how the sweetness doesn’t overpower the natural flavor of the fruit.”

“This tastes almost like real fruit,” said Rex before taking a second bite of it.

Ahsoka, meanwhile, took one bite and set her spoon down. “It’s way too bitter,” she said.

“I think you need to get your taste buds checked, Snips,” Anakin teased her.

“Come now, what may be appealing to humans may not appeal to people from other species,” Obi-Wan admonished him.

The next flavor of ice cream Dex had them sample was called jogan fruit cookie dough. The ice cream itself was white, and it contained chunks of purple cookie dough as well as chocolate chips. Obi-Wan ate it silently, then gave a small smile and nod of approval to Dex.

“It’s a little too sweet for me,” said Anakin before he dug his spoon in to take a second bite.

“I think it’s the perfect blend of sweet and sour,” Ahsoka told Dex.

Rex, however, suddenly dropped his spoon onto the table. His face scrunched together in a wince, with his lips puckering together.

“Is it too sour for you, Rexter?” Ahsoka asked, a teasing lilt in her tone.

All Rex could do in response was nod. His face slowly relaxed, and he picked his spoon back up.

Next, Dex had a serving droid bring them glasses of water, and he also advised them to have another bite or two of the blue bantha milk ice cream as a palate cleanser. As Obi-Wan surveyed the colorful assortment of ice cream on the table, and the varying opinions from his friends, he thought that Dex really couldn’t go wrong with any flavor.

That is, until Dex served them ice cream that was a mossy shade of green with flecks of brown and gray. “Kalpa sea thread!” he declared.

Obi-Wan, Anakin, Rex, and Ahsoka all glanced at each other uncertainly. None of them imagined that Kalpa sea thread and ice cream were a winning combination. Regardless, the shrugged and dug in.

Ahsoka started with a small spoonful, but then followed up with a larger one, making sure to get some with plenty of gray and brown flecks. When she finished that bite she gave her review: “Honestly, I don’t taste anything.”

“It tastes … odd.” Rex commented.

Obi-Wan finished his bite and stared down at his bowl, stroking his beard as he did. “I suppose … if the meiloorun melon wasn’t available, this would do in a pinch.” His tone was even, neutral, the voice of someone giving a diplomatic answer. Dex responded by quirking a skeptical brow at him.

Anakin, on the other hand, scarfed down the contents of his bowl in only a few bites. “This is fantastic!” he proclaimed. “Got that nice herbal zest, a bit of mint-“

“You like it … and you said I was the one who needed to get her taste buds checked?” Ahsoka asked, raising a brow in skepticism.

“Hey! Like Obi-Wan said, different species of people like different flavors sometimes.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only human here who-“

“We don’t need to reach a consensus, we just need to be honest in our assessments.” Obi-Wan interrupted Ahsoka. Both Ahsoka and Anakin shot him a look, as Obi-Wan’s non-answer to Dex had not gone unnoticed by them.

“You could not have said it better, Master Kenobi,” said Dex before motioning for the next serving droid in the procession.

The droid set down the platter and removed its cover to reveal ice cream that was a pale green, with chunks of yellow and gray candies embedded in the ice cream.

“What is this?” Anakin asked as he took his bowl, staring at its contents quizzically.

“Gundark Snot – only because that’s what the coloration reminds me of! I promise you no Gundark parts or excretions were involved in the making of this flavor!”

“You got close enough to a Gundark to see that?” Rex asked as he took a bowl for himself.

“A story I shall regale you with another time, Captain.”

“It’s a good one too. I was there,” added Obi-Wan before he had his first bite of the ice cream. He grimaced in response to how it tasted, and once he swallowed it down he gulped down some water. “I can’t say I enjoy this, Dex,” he said apologetically.

“Me neither,” Anakin said after he had a bite of it. “Tastes like raw meat.”

Rex merely shook his head as he stared down at his bowl, looking as if he was thinking of a way to succinctly and diplomatically express his opinion on it.

“This is great!” Ahsoka chirped in between spoonfuls.

Anakin, Rex, and Obi-Wan gawked at her.

“What? I never imagined ice cream could taste so savory. Got a nice bit of salty tang to it too!”

“Well, I guess I can count on it to be a hit with my Togruta customers,” shrugged Dex.

After another glass of water and a few bites of blue bantha milk ice cream to cleanse their palates, Dex served up the final round of ice cream.

“Hutt Slime!” He proclaimed, gesturing to the bright yellow ice cream before them.

Anakin scowled at the name. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at Dex. Ahsoka and Rex glanced at each other and then shrugged.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the Gundark Snot, maybe I’ll like this too,” Ahsoka said before she took a bite of the Hutt Slime ice cream. Almost immediately she grimaced at the taste and shook her head. “Or not … it tastes kind of like what a baby Hutt smells like … it has a funky aftertaste, too.”

“Bet you don’t remember little Stinky so fondly now, eh, Snips?” Anakin teased her. He looked down at his own bowl, considering its contents with a furrowed brow, and it wasn’t until he saw Obi-Wan take a bite that he had one as well. He nearly gagged on it as he swallowed it down.

“I don’t care for this,” Rex said plainly after sampling the contents of his bowl. He chased it with water and another bite of blue bantha milk ice cream, only to wince and shudder at the combined taste of the blue bantha milk and the Hutt Slime aftertaste.

Not even Obi-Wan could keep a neutral expression. He shook his head and forcefully pushed the bowl of ice cream away from him. “This is not your best work,” he said to Dex.

“They can’t all be winners, I suppose.” Dex shrugged. “But a few of them were good, right?”

“They were culinary masterpieces, my friend.”

--

“I gotta say, Obi-Wan, this is not how I imagined spending my day off.” Anakin said. He and Ahsoka were at work loading temperature-controlled crates into the back of their speeder. Each crate contained a large tub of ice cream in their favorite flavors: Kalpa sea thread for Anakin, meiloorun melon tart for Obi-Wan, Gundark Snot for Ahsoka, and blue bantha milk for Rex. Dex also informed them that he would send a variety of flavors, including his experimental ones, to the barracks where the 501st and 212th were quartered during their time off the front lines.

“But I still had a good time, and I now know where to get the best ice cream on Coruscant.”

“Agreed … do you think I could lure Masters Windu and Unduli to Dex’s to try the Gundark Snot?” Obi-Wan asked, his tone laced with mischief.

“Most definitely. I want to see their faces when they try it.” Anakin answered.

“I wish I got a picture of your face when you nearly choked on the Hutt Slime,” Ahsoka said to Anakin. “Or Rex’s when he had the sour cookie dough flavor!”

“Or yours when you had the Hutt Slime, Commander,” Rex shot back with a smirk.

“When we get back we’ll all have to sample our least favorite flavors again to get pictures of the amusing faces we make,” said Obi-Wan as he ambled into the front passenger seat of the speeder. Ahsoka and Rex climbed into the back of the speeder, utilizing the crates of ice cream as armrests and leg rests.

“Just how I imagined spending my day off on a nice summer day, choking down some more of that Hutt Slime,” murmured Anakin as he hopped into the driver’s seat and started up the speeder.

“You could always invite Senator Amidala to join us!” Ahsoka suggested. “I bet she’d love it!”

“No way I’m subjecting her to that, Snips.” Anakin shot back as he took off, driving the speeder back to the Jedi Temple. As he drove along, he thought that taking Padme to Dex’s for ice cream wouldn’t be a bad idea for a covert date at some point during the summer. She would like the jogan fruit cookie dough.

[daydreaming-nerd]

I Can’t Control Myself (Anakin Skywalker x Reader)

Another great Anakin smut request! I’m currently working on the other one right now and plan to get it done tonight. I hit a road block with that one but this one came to me pretty quickly so I’m hoping that this will get my juices flowing for the other one! 

Request from Anon:  “Hi I just found your blog and it rocks darling 😘 Could you do a smut 5 with an akin skywalker please (I love my baby ani❤️) but also adding fluff 1 at the end please Thank you so much. P.s I understand if you cannot do it 💙💕”  

“If I start, I won’t be able to control myself”

“Have you always been this beautiful?”

Summary: y/n, a princess and Anakin, her Jedi protector have been agonizing over each other for a long time now but what happens when one of them finally takes the first step? (This doesn’t cut right to the chase I’m sorry) 

Warnings: Smut, light teasing, fluff 

For about a month now Anakin had been my body guard. After rumors of a  uncertain attack on me grew with the intentions to kill me so I could never rise to power as queen one day. At first hew had stayed in the background and watched from afar. But as I grew more comfortable with his presence I found myself asking little favors of him like helping me get stuff off the top shelf.

When everything really started was when I had a meeting with neighboring planets and I asked him what dress I should wear and he replied with.

“I prefer the blue one, but in my opinion you will be equally as beautiful in either your majesty,”

After that day I fell hard and fast for the young and handsome Jedi. If only there wasn’t that stupid code. 

Today was a peaceful day, I woke up and wrapped myself in my morning robe and quietly walked to he terrace outside my room to find Anakin standing on the balcony meditating like he always does. I tiptoed my way to the garden patio to have my breakfast as I always do. I’ve lived in this palace my whole life and I can’t think of a day where I didn’t have breakfast in the rose garden. As the maids brought me my breakfast I felt another familiar presence approaching.

“Good morning your Majesty,” said Anakin 

“Good Morning to you as well Master Skywalker, I hope I didn’t disturb you while you were meditating.” I said taking a bite of my pastry.

“Quite the opposite, your presence helps me focus,” he said with a smile “Though I felt a disturbance this morning.” 

“Oh, is everything alright?” I asked.

“Don’t worry princess no harm will come to you,” he said sitting down next to me while the maids also brought out his breakfast. 

“I’m not worried as long as you’re here,” I said with a smile.

---------- 

 The day was simply too beautiful not to be outside. I grabbed my scissors and went into my beloved rose garden to cut roses to bring into my room while Anakin watched me from the terrace. The whole garden was somewhat of a maze, with rows and rows of different colored roses as I disappeared from Anakins sight to pick the pink roses I suddenly felt as though someone was watching me. I turned around to see a man in a mask who made a cold chill of fear run down my body. Before I could even scream for him Anakin jumped out from behind me ignighting his lightsaber before I knew it the masked man lie on the ground lifeless. 

Panic began to set in me as I realized what might’ve happened. 

“Your majesty are you alright?” said Anakin turning towards me. My breathing became shallow and I slowly started to sink to the ground. My knees would’ve hit the damp grass if it weren’t for Anakin pulling me into his arms. “Shh it’s alright now you’re safe.” he said pulling me into his chest attempting to calm me down.

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

After the incident Anakin and my father decided that it was no longer safe for me at the palace and so my handmaidens packed my bags and we took a discrete transport out to the beach house where my family used to vacation. 

As soon as I finished unpacking a grabbed a basket of fruits and bread as well as a blanket and made my way over to Anakin’s room where we was also unpacking.

“I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch on the beach with me?” I asked.

“I’d love that,” he beamed.

We made our way out to the beach and set up for lunch. I cut up some apples and pears and set them on a plate but before I could even think about digging in a gust of wind blew sand onto the blanket and onto the fruit.

“No!” I said in frustration causing Anakin to laugh. “don’t laugh at me!” I said smacking his arm.

“Don’t worry your majesty, I was only thinking about how I was just about to tell you how much I hated sand,” he said with a smile on his face.

��You know you don’t have to call me your majesty right?”

“Yes Princess,” he said cheekily.

“No!,” I smiled “y/n, call me y/n.”

“alright, y/n” he said.

The rest if that day was spent eating lunch and frolicking on the beach Anakin was even able to take a pink seashell he found and make a necklace for me.

That night after we had gone to bed I snuck out in my pajamas to the balcony that overlooked the sea. The air was cold and it caused the hair on my skin to rise, but I didn’t mind. Out here I could breathe, and think. I sat on the floor and leaned against the mansion of a beach house as I looked out over the moon reflecting over the tranquil crashing waves. I thought about what transpired in the garden that day. The feeling I got when the masked man stood behind me. never in my life had I truly thought about death and dying and what came next and all of the sudden that all seemed so real the second I saw him. I had never been so scared in my entire life.

“You scared me half to death, I couldn’t sense you sleeping and I thought something had happened.” said Anakin from behind me wearing nothing but a pair of pants and his Jedi robes over his bare chest. 

“I’m sorry Ani I guess I just needed some air,” I said.

“You shouldn’t be out here all alone it’s dangerous,” he said.

“Well then have a seat,” I said patting the spot next to me. “See it’s not dangerous anymore.”

“you’re freezing,” he stated taking his robe off and draping it around my shoulders.

“Ani I’m fine really,” I said trying to give it back.

“Nope my job is to protect you from everything from bounty hunters to the flu,” he said making me smile.

There was a short silence as we sat there looking at the ocean before us.

“Ani, have you ever been afraid of dying,” I asked out of the blue.

“Only once, when I was little I used to go pod racing and one time my pod went out of control and I thought I was going to crash.” he said “Why? Are you still shook up from today?”

“I suppose so,” I sighed “I just can’t shake the feeling I got when I turned around and saw him standing there.”

“You know you don’t have to worry anymore right? I’ll never let anything happen to you.” he said.

“I know,” I sighed putting my head on his shoulder.

We sat there in silence for the rest of the night until I finally fell asleep on his shoulder. The lat thing I remember was Anakin carrying me back to bed, covering me up and pressing a kiss to my forehead.

---------- 

The next afternoon we went up to the prairie for lunch where the wild tauntauns lived. The whole prairie overlooked the sea and thousands of wildflowers grew in beautiful vibrant colors that contrasted the ripe green of the grass.

“This is much better than that sandy beach,” said Anakin

“I think there is beauty in the sand that is often ignored for the the beauty of the ocean. When you think about it sand is incredibly useful, we use it to make glass and in it we find beautiful shells we can turn into beautiful jewelry.” I smiled holding onto the necklace Anakin had made for me the day before causing him to smile.

“So you could say that you and the sand have very little in common,” He started “Your beauty cannot be ignored, it is something unbelievable. It not only pleases my eyes but warms my heart.”

I smiled at him and looked down to hide my flushed cheeks. 

After lunch Anakin tried to convince me that he could ride one of the wild tauntauns but I told him it was impossible which he took as a challenge. The next thing I knew he was on top of a raging tauntaun holding on for dear life. I laughed as his face became more and more worried. The wild creature eventually bucked him off and I laughed until it stepped on him. I looked closer and he was trying to get up but couldn’t.

“Ani!” I cried fearing the worst. 

When I got there I dropped to my knees and tried to roll him over. When I did he was laughing. I smacked him in the chest and he grabbed my arms pulling me down to him and rolling down the hill.  

---------

That night after Anakin went to bed I snuck out again and went down to the beach. I walked until my feet were submerged in the water. In the moment the sea was calling to me. I untied my robe and let it fall into the shallow water. The cold breeze hit my bare body. I waded further into the water till it almost covered my shoulders. I stood where I could still touch the sandy sea floor and I let the water wrap around my naked form. For once I felt completely free. I heard splashing behind me and I saw Anakin swimming out towards me, my heart stopped as I realized he would notice I’m completely naked under the dark water. I frantically looked for my robes on the shore only to find a similar pile next to mine. 

“If Master Obi Wan knew I was swimming around like this he would kill me!” Shouted Anakin from a couple yards away causing me to giggle.

We both floated around ignoring the tension between the two of us until I stepped off a drop off and gravity pulled me to the bottom of the four foot drop. Almost instantly I was pulled up by my arm and into Anakin’s strong arms.

“I gotcha, I gotcha,” he said reassuringly as I coughed up a little water. 

We sat there for a second, the tension was greater than it had ever been in this past month. Without thinking I put my hand on his cheek and pushed a piece of wet hair away from his face. I looked down at his lips and started to move in but he stoped me.

“If I start, I won’t be able to control myself,” he said.

“I don’t want you to,”

With that his lips slammed onto mine and my arms wrapped around his neck. His hands wandered up my waist pulling me closer to him. The kiss was hot and needy. Tension from many weeks finally being cut. He brought his hand around my thigh and pulled it so I would wrap my legs around his waist and he began to walk towards the shore. We never broke the kiss even as he walked past our forgotten clothes, up the stairs and into his bedroom. 

He gently laid me on the bed and began kissing my neck.

“Oh Ani,” I moaned out.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said in between sloppy kisses moving his way down my body till he got to my heat. He peppered kisses along my inner thighs before licking a strip all the way up my sex causing me to scream out in pleasure and tug his hair.

He began eating me out vigorously, absolutely ravishing me. He sucked on my clit as his arms hooked under my thighs to burry his head even deeper. I felt my self getting closer and closer as his tongue began lapping at my clit at a relentless speed. I felt my orgasm build up and within a matter of minutes I was a moaning mess for I had felt pleasure I had never felt before.

“I’ve been waiting a lifetime to hear those sounds leave your mouth,” he said making his way back up to me. I could feel his hard dick rutting against my thigh. “are you ready?” he asked. I nodded.

With that simple gesture he began to push his rock hard cock into me causing me to scream out in both pleasure and pain. I grabbed his neck and pulled him down to kiss me again, a kiss full of heat of the moment passion and with that he bottomed out in me causing us both the moan into the kiss. 

Breaking apart he gave me a minute to adjust before he started a slow pace.

“You’re so warm and wet,” he said building up speed it wasn’t long before he was pounding into me making me scream in pleasure. I ran my hands down his back leaving scratch marks making him let out a strangled moan.

“You feel.. so good,” he cried.

“I’m so close Ani,” I said.

“Me too,” he breathed out “On three...one”

“Fuck Ani!” I screamed getting closer.

“two...THREE!” he screamed as he bottomed out in me burying his seed deep inside me setting off my second orgasm of the night. 

He sat on his elbow above me and looked down at me like I was the world.

“I love you,” He said out of breath.

“I love you to Ani,” I beamed and he went in to give me another kiss. 

He finally rolled over and pulled me into his chest. I looked up at him with stars in my eyes.

“Have you always been this beautiful?” he asked innocently.

“You’re too good to be true Anakin Skywalker.” I smiled.

There was again a silence as he started to fall asleep before I finally asked him.

“Ani what about the Jedi code?” 

“Let’s not talk about that now. You’re finally all mine. I wanna enjoy the moment you’re finally in my arms.” he said pulling me closer.

I agreed with him. Troubles can be left for tomorrow. Right now I finally had everything I ever wanted.

AN: guys I’m sorry that it didn’t cut right to the chase I just wanted the tension to build and got carried away. 

[amariaamaris]

Of Realm Travel and Mishaps

I decided to actually write my idea, I hope that you enjoy!

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Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, general to the 501st is highly agitated and there is no hiding it. First he was brought into the Jedi order as a child (willingly), then he went through training with Obi-Wan, Senator Amidala had her life threatened, then the first battle of the Clone Wars, all the battles, deaths, and betrayals after that. The Jedi Order forcing him to take Padawan Tano on, which he grew to love and see as a little sister. He didn’t even want to think of the shit show with the father, daughter, and son. Followed by the order betraying the both of them and Snips - Ahsoka Tano - walking away. More battles, more fighting, more deaths... Anakin just wanted it to end, all the men he lost, his Padawan, the separation from his wife; who is now pregnant. Now this the counsel giving him a seat only to deny him the rank of master.

“This is outrageous, it’s unfair... how can you be on the council and not be a master?” Anakin wished that he would allow himself to say more, but he kept himself just barely censored. Even as his resentment anger boiled beneath the surface of his skin like magma. “Take a seat, young Skywalker.” He barely stops himself from violently lashing out at Mace Windu. Feeling as though his mouth is full of cotton and his tongue weighed down by lead. Knowing that more and more when he stands in front of the Council, all he feels is disgust.

Anakin using all of his willpower practically spits out his next words as he takes a seat. “Forgive me master.” Right as the council moves to start their next order of business... well lets just say that something strange happened. A rip seems to happen in the air of the atmosphere. Then for a split second the very air is sucked out of the room, straight to where the rip is. With an almost audible popping sound; a young woman with extremely wild curly hair is thrown out tumbling head over arse onto the floor. While the whole of the Jedi Council gapped in shock at what they just witnessed.

They all silently watched as the woman gives a soft groan and slowly heaves herself to her feet. “Oh, bloody hell.” They can barely make out her muttered words as she rubs her pounding head with one hand. Hermione slowly looks around the architecture of the room and furrows her brows. “This can’t be right...” She starts to fiddle with the golden time turner in her hands that seems to have some sort of wispy atmosphere in it. “My calculation had to have been off. I did all the research required, I know that this was meant to help me find...”

The woman starts muttering as she fiddles with the time turner. Everyone in the room is blinking at her, trying to figure out what to do with a woman that just got spit out of some sort of rip in space. Obi-Wan, finally finding his voice and ever the diplomat. “Excuse me miss, who are you?” Barely stopping in her muttering glances up at them, then looks back down at time turner. When the realization sinks in, Hermione freezes. Slowly she looks up and really takes the time to study the room.

Her eyes widen in shock as some sort of wispy light dances around her and seems to caress her. Then the realization seems to sink in and much to the councils embracement she lets loose a string of very colorful curses before finally seeming to settle one (that the council actually understood). “Fuck... This is bad!”

Yoda finally speaks up, since the rest of the council seems to be recovering from her colorful language. “Lost are you?” Hermione having gone back to fiddling with the time turner, doesn’t look up as she responds. “No no no... I am going to kill Harry, Ron, the twins, Draco, Zabini, Nott, and Sirius Black when I get my hands on them. I might just throw in Severus for the shits and giggles of it.” She stops fiddling with the time turner allowing it to land on her chest and hang from the chain. “I don’t have time for this. I need space, I need to think, I need more information. I’m just going to go.”

Then without further ado, she whirls around and walks right out of the door. Letting it close behind her, not caring for who they are and what they are thinking. Shaak Ti speaks up from her seat on the council, “Fascinating.” Mace Windu finally seeming to lose his temper lets out and aggravated breath. “Now wait a damn minute. We’re letting that random woman leave when she just appeared out of nowhere, with no explanation?”

Obi-Wan and Anakin look at each other, silently communicating in a way that only a master and padawan can. “We can gather a small group of our men to go and find her, to get some real answers from her.” Obi-Wan waits a few moments for any response to his offer, when finally there is a collective, but silent agreeance to his words.

As one, Anakin and Obi-Wan stand up and leave the room, but when the doors close behind them; there is no sign of the woman anywhere. Anakin gets on the coms getting a group of ten of his men to start look for the woman. Obi-Wan does the same and they split off. Both of them going different directions, hoping that they may be able to corner her. Anakin’s last thought before he focuses on the task at hand is how much he wishes that Ahsoka and Rex could be there to help (cracking jokes while working on whatever mission they were given).

----

Hermione, knew that she couldn’t just stay outside of the chambers she just left. She knew she had to figure out what went wrong or rather... what went horribly right. First, she had to get far far away, eventually those idiots were going to break out of the stupor. Hermione wanted to be as far away as she could when they did. Even though a big part of her was doubting that any of this worked, she could still feel the ley lines. She was still connected to them, as she watched waves of pure light dance around her. Hermione, once again gave herself over to them.

“Take me to him, if I am right and he is here. Please, please take me to him.” Hermione felt the leys react to her plea and before she knew it, she felt a soft pull and the feeling of moving very very fast. Hermione found herself standing outside of what looked to be a cell. Immediately she felt her stomach drop, “No...” the word barely had enough breath backing it to make a sound... but it was there.

Looking through the strange energy screen, she could see Sirius, curled up in the corner. His body in the tightest ball she thinks that she has ever seen. “Sirius,” No reaction, not even a twitch. Hermione bites her lips and studies the cell screen, looking for any sort of weak part. The moment she finds it Hermione starts to gather the lay lines to her. They come willingly to their mistresses call. Then without a moment of hesitation she slashed her arms toward the weak part. The whole gridding to the cell collapsed in, Hermione softy smiled and softly caressed the ley lines in silent thanks. Carefully they brushed against her cheeks and settled into their natural flows.

Sirius still gave not reaction to what was going on around him. Hermione sprinted forward and dropped to her knees. She studied Sirius as she checked him over for any wounds, carefully she reached out and softy touched him. “Sirius? Sirius... it’s me, it’s Hermione.” Still no reaction not even a twitch even though he was breathing, he was just staring at the wall.

Softly, oh so softly, Hermione slowly moved Sirius to that she could face his body towards her. She cupped his face in her hands and started to lightly tap his cheeks. “Sirius, come back to me. Come back to the land of the living, come on. Sirius, it’s Hermione...” Still nothing, Hermione sighs and bites her lips as she slowly looks around.

She hears Sirius make a small noise and then, she hears a rough raspy voice. “Kitten?” Hermione’s eyes widen and she whips her head to look at Sirius. “Sirius!” She watches as he quickly blinks then he reaches his shaking hands up and carefully touches Hermione’s face. “What are you doing here Kitten, you shouldn’t be here.”

Hermione gives Sirius an exhausted smile, “There’s a lot you need to be caught up on... I thought that it was obvious, I’m here to raise hell on the assholes who had the audacity to throw you in a cell. I’m also here to rescue you. So, care to help me with a little jail break padfoot?”

Sirius stares at Hermione blankly for a split second before his brain caught up. Hermione watches with satisfaction as a decidedly Black wicked grin spreads across his face. “Oh, kitten why didn’t you just start with that!” Hermione gives an excited grin back to Sirius and start to lead him out of the cell and down to the controls. “What did the leaders of this society do to you kitten?”

Hermione allows herself a few moments to let the tension grow before she speaks. “For one they tossed you into a jail cell for no reason and two... they are completely and utter idiots. Don’t try me padfoot! I can tell from your eyes that they just threw you in a call without a trial. You didn’t deserve that the first time and you sure as hell didn’t deserve it this time.” Sirius takes a moment to study Hermione, then gives a soft smile. “You’ve grown up a lot kitten... I especially love your newly found vindictive side.”

Hermione gives a wicked grin in response, “I hope you still remember how to turn into padfoot.” and pulls the level to let every... single... prisoner... out.

All hell proceed to break loose.

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I’m so excited! the little chat I did for this inspired me (don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about my other works), so I had to write something. I already have the second part halfway planned. Let me know what you think! As always, constructive criticism is welcome! Peace, love, and joy!

[oceangenasi]

D&P and Merther for the shipping ask game???

Yax I would die for you except you’d probably stop me from dying with your EMT wizardry and then where would we be

🖤 D/P 💙

1. What made you ship it? I have eyes? But seriously, I like to joke about how my ships are either softboys and their badass women or queerbait m/m angst.... and then there’s this shining exception. A canon m/m ship that gets a love story and a happy ending :’’’) I started watching the show very casually, knowing David was queer but not that D/P was endgame and then the next thing I knew I had ascended to another plane of existence

2. What are your favorite things about the ship? I am never not thinking about the Dynamic... it’s the complementary aspects of their personalities for me!

You’ve got David: flamboyantly queer and deeply dramatic, who’s had intense emotions his whole life that have scared people away but he’s also brave and unique and creative and wonderful. He’s everything that Patrick didn’t know he needed. He’s been hurt a lot of times and he almost doesn’t believe that he’s capable of being loved so wholly and completely. Enter Patrick.

Patrick is so straight-laced and repressed and invested in being well-liked that he had built up a whole seemingly perfect life that was making him deeply unhappy. I don’t think that even Patrick knew he was capable of loving David the way he does, because he hadn’t cast off his old life and gone on that emotional journey until he met David. His “you make me feel right” speech is my favorite bit of the entire show. Patrick found himself in finding David.

They balance each other: Patrick grounds David, providing him the unconditional love that David can flourish with, and David brings beauty and color into Patrick’s life.

I also adore how much casual intimacy they get on screen, all the kisses and shoulder touches. It’s incredibly healing to watch after so much queer angst and suffering, when we get representation at all.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Yeah, Patrick’s not perfect. I get very pissy when people trash David for his actions surrounding the barbecue and/or the wedding and imply he was being unfair/selfish -- because even if he was, Patrick has a responsibility to communicate his concerns if he wants David to respond to them. Patrick has a tendency to avoid/repress his feelings and that can be incredibly damaging in a relationship if not addressed. David can’t read Patrick’s mind, nor should he be expected to. He doesn’t need to magically intuit Patrick’s distress from Patrick’s micro-expressions or whatever the fuck -- Patrick needs to step up and tell David when he doesn’t like David’s behavior. Yes, I’m projecting like hell when it comes to this but it is something that made me furious during season 6 and the discourse surrounding it.

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

💙 Merthur ❤

1. What made you ship it? I watched the first episode and was like “oh wow this show is even gayer than I’d heard it was.” No but seriously... fellas, is it gay to be literally and canonically someone’s other half? Fellas, is it gay to stare intensely into each other’s eyes at every given opportunity? Fellas, it is gay to dedicate your entire life to serving and protecting someone? Fellas, is it--

2. What are your favorite things about the ship? ah jeez where do I even start... Arthur is Merlin’s whole world. Merlin’s magic is “only for Arthur” and Merlin’s magic is... everything he is. I literally don’t know how you could read that as Merlin not being in love with Arthur. I genuinely and honestly think this interpretation is backed up by commentary by the actors and writers: Merlin loves Arthur, and that’s not even a point of debate. I adore Merlin as a character (son boy baby sweetheart sunshine child) and his unwavering faith in Arthur, his dedication, his tenderness, the years spent protecting someone who didn’t even know how much Merlin had done for him.... it gets me good.

And then there’s what Merlin is to Arthur! Setting aside the stuff Arthur doesn’t know about, which I will talk about in a moment, Merlin is possibly the only person in Arthur’s life who has always, always treated him as a person first and a prince second. Merlin’s unwavering faith and freely given friendship are because he sees the best in Arthur, not because of Arthur’s hereditary right to the throne. Merlin is Arthur’s first and truest friend -- I know the knights and Gwen care for him, but there is a component of social discrepancy to their relationship that Merlin simply has ignored. Merlin’s disrespect is because he fundamentally views Arthur as his equal, which is a gift Arthur didn’t even know he needed. Arthur was touch-starved, emotionally repressed, and incredibly lonely before Merlin came into his life. (Yes, the similarities between my two OTPs are well-known to me.) Just because Arthur struggles to express his emotions (thanks, Uther) and doesn’t have the same plot opportunities as Merlin to show how much he’d sacrifice for Merlin, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Merlin as deeply as Merlin does him. This is why I like writing Arthur POV so much -- I like describing how fundamental and immutable a concept Merlin is to him. He takes Merlin for granted, yes, because there is literally nobody else that he is so vulnerable around or trusts so completely. This is why the magic reveal was so temporarily devastating to Arthur -- it broke something he’d built his entire life around. Or at least, that’s what he thought.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Canon is a trash fire and I hate a lot of things about season 5, because it had some stellar opportunities that got rushed and squished by the way they timed the plot.... but I actually really, really like the finale. I think that considering what they’d done with the plot up to that point, it was brilliantly executed and gorgeously acted. There wasn’t enough time to do everything I would have liked with the magic reveal*, but in the last episode they hit every one of my buttons at least once. Arthur witnessing a competent Merlin, Arthur experiencing realistic grief and anger but being able to see how deeply Merlin loves him... Setting aside the plotholes and the timing, the people who made the show realized what was critically important in the finale, and it was digging deep into the relationship between Merlin and Arthur. This is why it completely and totally wrecks me, incidentally, and why I can’t watch the last part of the episode because it actually unhinges me too much. I’m not joking, I went into some kind of grief spiral the first time I saw it that took me a literal week to recover from. I care about things too much and feel my feelings too intensely, but we been knew.

Oh, and an even spicier opinion on later seasons/the finale: I don’t think that Morgana “isn’t really evil” or that her fall was “unnecessary.” I think that Morgana was indeed capable of being a fiercely good and loving person, but I also think that people with the kind of anger she carries can be dragged into some very dark places. I don’t think it was unrealistic, I think it was painful to watch, and there’s a difference. She didn’t get the support she needed -- she was gaslighted, manipulated, and tortured -- and I think that the same person who could be good in another situation is absolutely capable of becoming monstrous, considering the hand she was dealt. I have very similar opinions on her as I do on Anakin Skywalker, which is to say: her evil was both believable and tragic. She was a product of her circumstances, but her actions are not excusable, and she is responsible for how she responded to her trauma.

*I can and will read every damn magic reveal on ao3 because it’s really important to me that Arthur understand what Merlin has done for him. Truly, truly conceptualizes how crucial Merlin has been in helping him build his kingdom. That’s the one thing that I wanted to see so badly that never happened in canon.