#I like anakin a lot but how people talk about his turn can be quite hypocritical in a way that's unacknowledged.

[drunk-on-starlight]

It's interesting how Anakin broke every rule the jedi had and yet people still say those rules are why he fell.

[varpusvaras]

"It seems that for once, we've managed to get ourselves into a happy ending of sorts", Obi-Wan said. "This situation could've gotten seriously out of hand."

Anakin sighed deeply.

"You don't need to tell me that", he said. He both looked and sounded tired, but he was still smiling as he watched Ahsoka across the plaza. Obi-Wan looked over to her as well. She looked just as tired as Anakin, but she was also smiling as she spoke with Rex. That was a good sign. Obi-Wan still wanted to make sure that she was going to talk about all that had happened with someone. He should tell Anakin to make sure she would.

He would, in just a moment. First, he had other things to say.

"I am very proud of you", he said. "Both of you, for not letting your emotions take over you in a difficult situation like this. Ahsoka decided to trust you, even when everything seemed to be going wrong. I'm glad your teachings have made her subdue her impulses."

He had been unsure about pairing Anakin and Ahsoka together. They were very similar in great many ways, and he had been worried that they would just end up amplifying the traits they needed to learn to control. Things had seemed to be heading to that exact scenario, but thankfully, it instead seemed like Obi-Wan had worried too much.

Anakin twisted his smile into a half grin.

"Thank you, Master", he said. "I'm proud of her as well."

Obi-Wan smiled back at him. Before he could say anything else, though, he noticed someone approaching them.

"Senator Organa." Obi-Wan turned towards the man. "Good evening."

Bail Organa smiled at him. It was a polite smile, but still genuine enough, Obi-Wan thought.

"Good evening to you too, Master Kenobi", he greeted him in turn. "No more responsibilities for the night?"

"Not too many, at the moment, though I assure you, they never truly end", Obi-Wan said. "I'm sure you can understand. Though, it seems that you have a free night for once as well? The Temple is not in the direction of either the Senate or your apartments."

Organa tilted his head slightly to the side. He was still smiling, though Obi-Wan thought that he could see a small change in it. It was tighter, now. Still polite, but clearly a lot less genuine than just a moment ago.

Curious. Obi-Wan reached out, ever so slightly, and he was met with a wall as tall as the man himself, and behind that wall, he sensed a storm.

That was concerning. Obi-Wan had learned to trust and even like Bail Organa over the years, despite him standing securily on the field of politics. Even if they didn't always see eye-to-eye in their approaches to different situations, Obi-Wan knew for certain that Bail Organa of Alderaan was a good man. His readiness to help people directly where the help was needed had truly confirmed that to Obi-Wan.

Feeling such a turmoil coming from him now was enough to raise the alarms in Obi-Wan's mind. Was there something they had missed? Was he here to deliver bad news to them, extending a small courtesy by coming and telling them himself, instead of letting them be summoned in front of the entire Senate again?

"Oh, I'm here on a more personal matter", Organa said. Then he turned away from Obi-Wan to look at Anakin instead.

All the politeness that had been left on his expression disappeared immediately, leaving behind just an empty gesture. No, not quite, Obi-Wan realised. It was a mask.

Obi-Wan was even more worried now of what he was about to say.

"Evening, General Skywalker", Organa said. "I heard that all the charges they were considering on giving Padawan Tano were dropped. Congratulations."

Anakin seemed to realise that something was going on as well. He stood more guarded now, his own smile long gone.

"Thank you", he said still. He was testing where the situation was heading.

The smile on Organa's face sharpened. The mask was starting to crack.

Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about all of this.

"The situation must've been difficult to you", Organa continued. "I can only imagine how it feels like, to have the power of the Force on your side, but then be stopped by a single panel of security glass. Though, as I have seen the feats the Force can do, it wouldn't have been able to stop you, wouldn't it?"

Anakin frowned.

"I don't understand what-" He started, but stopped when Organa suddenly stepped closer. Anakin was tall, but Organa was even taller, and had broadness to him that Anakin's body had not yet begun to fill.

The smile was gone, now. The mask had dropped.

"It was fortunate that there were others present, wasn't it?" He asked Anakin, his voice low. If it had been anyone else, Obi-Wan would've seen him as a danger. "I'm just wondering, what would've happened, if it had been just you and Commander Fox there, with the piece of glass between you two? Tell me. Would you have stopped yourself?"

Anakin's face was a mixture of multitude of things. Anger. Confusion. His presence in the Force was swirling with all of them as well.

Bail Organa had only one feeling on him at that moment. Tightly controlled, cold fury.

Obi-Wan had to step in.

"What is going on?" He asked, both of them, really.

Anakin opened his mouth, but Organa was quicker to answer.

"General Skywalker demanded to be let in to where Padawan Tano was kept after her arrest", he explained. "Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard had to inform him that due to the nature of the suspected crime, the case was transferred over from the Jedi, by the orders of Admiral Tarkin. Who, if I may add, holds excecutive power over the Guard, instead of the Jedi. General Skywalker decided that this didn't matter. According to multiple witnesses, he turned rather aggressive towards Commander Fox."

Anakin bristled.

"I didn't even touch him!" He argued, his voice rising.

Organa wasn't phased at all by this.

"You had to be escorted out by armed Guards", he said, his voice still just as level. "Now, I think it's better you listen carefully, because I am not going to be telling this to you again in the future."

He leaned down, his mouth right at the level of Anakin's ear now.

"If I ever hear that you have even raised your voice at Commander Fox, or any of the Coruscant Guard, I can assure you, you will find that there will be consequences", he said. "Am I being clear? Stay away from him."

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. Anakin was still scowling, but there was something else making its way onto his face as well. Dread.

"Are we clear?" Organa asked. "I'm sure there are a lot of people who see this all as a much graver mistake than you do. I'm also sure they would be interested in the other unconventional matters you have engaged in."

Anakin opened his mouth, but nothing came out, so he snapped it shut just as quick.

"Are we clear?" Organa asked, once more.

"Yes", Anakin spat out. "We are clear."

"Good. I'm glad that we could arrive to an agreement", Organa said, sounding just like all the politicians Obi-Wan had heard in his life sounding like when they had just done business. He straightened his back, and stepped away from Anakin, and turned to look at Obi-Wan once again. "I'm sorry for bothering you, Master Kenobi."

"What was all of tha about, Senator?" Obi-Wan asked. "I'm afraid I don't understand why you are taking it upon yourself to interrogate Anakin on the behalf the Guard?"

Not that he was at all pleased with what he had just heard, nor did he have to wonder what other matters Organa was talking about. There just seemed to be a rather large hole in the story, that Obi-Wan was not able to fill out. Neither could Anakin, it seemed, as the confusion Obi-Wan had felt on him at the start of the conversation still lingered, strong as ever.

Organa leveled Obi-Wan a look.

"We all have people who we love, and who we wish to protect from all harm", he said. "Any harm. On that, I think General Skywalker and I can both readily agree upon. It is most disheartening, when the harm comes from the one place that is supposed to be safe, on top of everything else."

He glanced at Anakin.

"I think we can all also agree on that the Chancellor does not need to hear about this", he said. "I imagine General Skywalker already wishes to go tell all about this to his good friend, in order to have all of his actions rationalised, no matter how hurtful they are."

He nodded his head.

"Have a good rest of your evening", Organa said, and then turned around and walked away, with his head held high and without turning to look back once.

Obi-Wan watched him go for a while, before he turned towards Anakin. Anakin, who was now all but ready to boil under the surface. There was one more feeling Obi-Wan could feel on him now, though. Fear.

Obi-Wan sighed, and reached his hand.

"Anakin-" Anakin sneered, and stepped away.

"I'm going to talk to Ahsoka and Rex", he said, and marched away across the plaza before Obi-Wan could say anything more.

Obi-Wan sighed again.

It seemed like there was so much more they needed to talk about than he had realised.

[tennessoui]

anyone remember the divorce lawyer au?

(first ficlet posted here, along with the explanation post) (1.5k)

“Of all the gin joints in the world, you walk into mine,” the very familiar and incredibly grating voice of Anakin Skywalker greets Obi-Wan mere moments after he settles into a seat at the end of the bar. 

“No,” Obi-Wan says automatically, though he isn’t quite sure what he’s protesting. It’s an instinctive sort of no. A plaintitive no. A for the love of all things holy, I cannot be expected to deal with this now as well sort of no. 

Even though, technically, Mr. Skywalker is right. Of all the damn gin joints in the world, he happened to walk into one already hosting Anakin.

“Well,” Anakin sounds considering now. He doesn’t particularly sound as if he’s planning on leaving. ���I guess of all the dive bars in Vegas, you happened to walk into mine. But I’m pretty sure they sell gin here! Though I guess I don’t know how much gin needs to be sold at a bar before it’s classified as a gin joint.” Now his voice sounds even more considering. Closer too.

“What can I get you?” The bartender asks as she slides down closer to him. It’s not very loud in here, still relatively early and so not overly crowded, but she leans forward across the bartop as if having trouble hearing him.

Anakin sits down in the seat next to Obi-Wan rather aggressively, brushing their shoulders and thighs together. “You can put his drinks on my tab, thanks,” he announces. “We’re together.”

“We’re not together,” Obi-Wan tells her. “But yes, you can put my drinks under his tab. Much obliged. An old fashioned, thank you. A double. No cherry.”

“You got it,” the woman says, turning away to make his drink. 

Obi-Wan closes his eyes for a second to pray for patience before he turns to look at Anakin Skywalker.

He is just as beautiful as he was two weeks ago when he’d last stopped into Obi-Wan’s office, tearful, hungover bride in tow for a quick divorce before her plane ride back to Australia.

It isn’t fair.

“We could be together,” Anakin says. His eyes are dark, his head canted forward, his thigh still brushing Obi-Wan’s. “Just for the night.” “You know, I’ve always thought you were a lot less sober when you proposed to strangers,” Obi-Wan tells him drolly, accepting his drink from the bartender with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been picturing you absolutely sloshed stumbling down the aisle.”

“You’re not a stranger, Mr. Kenobi,” Anakin replies. “You’re my go-to divorce attorney.”

“Normal people do not have those,” Obi-Wan says, taking a sip of his drink. It’s strong at least, thank God.

“People get divorced all the time,” Anakin argues, leaning forward to rest his elbow on the bartop to look over at Obi-Wan. “You were the one that told me that divorce can be just as healthy as marriage.”

“Don’t remind me,” he mutters, taking another bigger sip. He really, really does not want to talk about marriage with Anakin Skywalker of all people. 

Yet somehow the words slip out of his mouth and off his tongue despite how much he does not want to talk about marriage with Anakin Skywalker. “How do you do it then?”

“Do what?” Guileless, innocent. Hell, he probably just has to blink wide blue eyes at his fuck of the night and they’d follow him down the aisle as quick as they can stumble.

“How do you—” he waves his hand and takes another sip of his drink. “Convince people to marry you. You’ve got a politician, a bride to be, who knows how many bridesmaids, a foreign dignitary, a man old enough to be your father, a veteran all under your belt. How are you dragging them all down the aisle? You can’t be—”

He cuts himself off. That good in bed, he’d been about to say. 

Anakin grins with his eyebrows raised like he knows it. “It depends,” he says. One finger traces over the countertop. The other hand falls to rest on Obi-Wan’s knee. “Sometimes we’re already in bed,” he murmurs, slow-like. “Sometimes we’re on our way there, in some dark corner booth and I’ve got my hands wrapped around her waist and she’s begging me to whisper dirty things into her ear, tell her what I’m gonna do to her. It’s sort of like marriage vows, you know? Dirty promises sound the same.”

He is far too handsome for his own good, Obi-Wan decides. If he were a little less attractive, he’d probably have a much harder time coaxing strangers down the aisle.

“I wouldn’t know,” Obi-Wan says stiffly, stopping Anakin’s hand from moving further up his leg. “I’ve never been married.”

The words are bitter; the wound is still bleeding. He downs his drink in one go and waves for another from the bartender. 

“You have a girlfriend though, don’t you?” Anakin’s nose wrinkles. “You’ll marry her probably. You’re the marrying type.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. “She’s not,” he says shortly. And then, to rip the bandage of the wound completely. “And she’s not my girlfriend anymore either.”

Anakin’s eyes go wide. “What?” “I asked. For her to marry me. And she said no.”

“She said no?” 

“While your disbelief is rather flattering, I’d like not to talk about it, thank you.”

“Why would she say no? To marrying you? Is she alright? Well, obviously not, but—I mean. I don’t understand. Or believe it.”

Obi-Wan’s lips thin, and he reaches into his pocket. “I assure you, if she’d said yes, she’d be wearing this right now and I would not be here.” 

He puts the ring box on the bar in between them and accepts a new drink from the bartender. Anakin looks down at the ring box silently.

“Well?” Obi-Wan asks. He doesn’t know what he wants Anakin to say. He’s sitting in the tatters of his longest relationship, ended because she did not want to marry him in the end and he could not live with that. And he is talking with a man who gets married and divorced more than  perhaps anyone else in the entire world. 

What could he possibly want to hear from Anakin Skywalker?

“‘M going to get you wasted,” Anakin says, and Obi-Wan figures that’s good enough.

—----------

“Marriage is important to me,” Obi-Wan slurs out countless hours later. They have migrated from the bar to a low-level booth, and Anakin has his arm curled around the top of it with his fingers playing with the ends of Obi-Wan’s hair. “I couldn’t com…pro…mise.” He sounds the word out carefully and deliberately. 

“You shouldn’t have to for something that’s important to you,” Anakin decides, and Obi-Wan nods. That’s what he thinks too. That’s why they’d broken up. That’s why Obi-Wan still has the ring.

“All sales final,” he quotes and rubs his hand over his beard. “What am I gonna do with it now?” 

“Give it to someone else,” Anakin suggests once Obi-Wan picks up the ring box again to look at it. “Someone who wants it.”

“Nobody wants it,” Obi-Wan says. That’s the problem.

The other problem is that his drink is gone. This is a very big problem and easy to solve because Anakin’s drink is right next to his empty glass, and Anakin will let him have his drink, Obi-Wan is sure of it. Anakin has been very lovely tonight.

“That’s my drink,” Anakin says. “Get your hands off it.”

“I’ll trade you for it,” Obi-Wan mumbles, gesturing to the ring box. Anakin stills completely.

“You…will?”

“Yes,” he decides. And then a thought occurs to him, terrible and mean and brutal. “Unless you don’t want to marry me either. But you want to marry everyone.” He scowls, though he thinks it may look more like a pout. “Don’t you want to marry me?”

Anakin’s hand carefully resumes its light stroking of Obi-Wan’s hair. “Yeah,” he says. His voice is rough. Obi-Wan likes the way it sounds. “Yeah, I do.”

“Good then,” Obi-Wan says and takes Anakin’s drink. After all, what’s Anakin’s is now his if they’re engaged to be married. “I’m sure you know where the closest chapel is. Though I’m quite disappointed so far.”

“Why?” Anakin’s face is awfully close to his. When did he move? “Aren’t I providing for you like a good husband should, baby? You’ve got my drink and everything.”

“I was told you’d put your hands on my waist and whisper dirty things into my ear,” Obi-Wan says. “And so far you’ve just been playing with my hair.” “I like your hair,” Anakin says. “And I don’t want to tell you what I’m thinking of doing to you. I think I just wanna show you.”

Obi-Wan blinks. His face is hot. Anakin is flushed all over too, eyes focused somehow despite the amount of drinks he’s had. His breath smells sweet, like the cocktail he’s been drinking for the last hour. Now Obi-Wan’s breath probably smells the same. “Well, I suppose tomorrow morning I won’t have to ask you if your latest marriage has been consummated.”

Anakin smirks. “No, you won’t,” he agrees. It’s a promise. 

[imagitory]

Review: Wish (2023) [SPOILERS]

Evening, everyone! Tonight my mother and I went to go see Disney's most recent film, Wish, which fortunately came to theaters in my area right before its formal American release date. I'd been very curious to see how this tribute to Disney's last 100 years of filmmaking would turn out, and now that I've seen it...well, I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I want to be very clear both that I was going into this with a rather sunny outlook and that there are things I really liked in this film...but overall, it felt like a lot of the good ideas it had were only half-baked, and I found myself -- forgive me -- "wishing for something more" than what we got.

For a more comprehensive deep-dive...a cut!

The Good!

+The single best element in this film for me was Chris Pine's performance as our villain, Magnifico. There are definitely some things I can critique about Magnifico's overall storyline and "character arc" further down, but Chris was clearly having a grand old time being an egotistical, sassy jerkwad, and it totally showed. Even in his villain song This is The Thanks I Get?, which just screamed "passive-aggressive abusive parent," you can hear how much fun Chris was having in the studio, recording it. I just about always enjoyed when Magnifico was on screen, and I actually did really like the idea that a lot of his villainy is rooted in him being obsessed with control over everyone and everything. In a weird way, Magnifico's turn to the Dark Side parallels Anakin Skywalker's in the sense that he lost so much in the past that he's determined to never lose anything important to him again -- especially the power he's accrued to make himself feel strong, after having felt so powerless. I find that very interesting, and I kind of wish that aspect was really highlighted more in the story, but we'll talk about that later.

+Asha was a likable enough heroine, even if I found her to be a lot like a two-way fusion of Mulan and Anna placed in a vaguely Snow-White-ish role in her clearly Seven-Dwarf-inspired friend group. Ariana DeBose portrayed her rather well, both acting and singing-wise. I also liked the "social justice" bent to Asha's character where she wants better things not just for herself and her family, but also Rosas overall -- in the French translation of her main song "This Wish," they even push this further by having Asha wish "to see the world happy again someday." We haven't seen a heroine really express this kind of desire for a positive change in the world since Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that's cool! Plus representation in mainstream media for previously underrepresented groups is always nice. ^.^

+As much as I don't think they all got enough focus as individuals, I liked Asha's friend group! Especially the fact that it is a friend group made up of people that are around the same age as our protagonist, which -- let's be honest -- isn't that common for Disney heroines. Often with "sidekick groups," you're more likely to have situations like Cinderella with the mice (who are more like cutesy sidekicks than equals) or Snow White with the Dwarfs (who are all quite a bit older than our heroine)...so a friend group made up of peers with their own personalities and motivations was kind of fun.

+The setting of Rosas itself could be pretty. I liked a lot of the Mediterranean-inspired architecture, especially inside Magnifico's tower.

+The combination of 3D and 2D-esque animation was also interesting! It really served to give the film its own distinctive visual style that sets it apart from other Disney projects, which I always appreciate.

+Star was...cute. Obviously just designed to sell plushies and definitely reminded me way too much of Kirby, but cute enough. I do think it's kind of cool that they're never gendered at all in the entire movie, because it'd be silly to think of a sweet little androgynous ball of stardust as being specifically male or female.

+I liked the idea of Simon "betraying" Asha, only to be turned into a pawn by Magnifico in the process, but not being treated unsympathetically by the story for it. Didn't love the full execution of the idea, but hey, that's what the negative section is for.

+The idea of everyone finding the power inside of themselves to stand up against Magnifico (because they're "all stars," and presumably all have the magic needed to make their wishes come true) was a little predictable, but still sweet. I have problems with how the film wrote it (which we'll get to), but the idea itself was wholesome and fitting.

+I like several of the songs, just on their own -- I added This Wish and Knowing What I Know Now on my ITunes as soon as I first heard them prior to the film's release, and now I've added At All Costs too: it's a really pretty duet! (Gorgeous work, Chris and Ariana!) I'll leave my praise here, though, because sadly the soundtrack is going to get a lot of discussion in the less positive section.

The Not-So-Good...

+This film being "Disney's 100th anniversary film" really got in the way of this movie telling a compelling and unique story sometimes. The whole movie really twisted itself into a pretzel trying to check off all the usual Disney tropes, and there were points that certain choices made the story seem incredibly stilted. For instance, one common Disney trope is a dead parent, so of course Asha has lost her father -- but we learn so little about him and he ends up playing such a small role in Asha's arc and story that it seems like an unnecessary detail. Asha's grandfather honestly plays more of a role in Asha's motivation throughout most of the film, so it would've made just as much sense to have Asha's grandfather be the one who believed in stars having power, rather than her father. Another example is the concept of the cute animal sidekick who's just there to make jokes -- as much as Valentino the goat didn't annoy me personally, he added just about nothing of value to the story whatsoever aside from comic relief, in contrast to other funny sidekicks like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid or Olaf from Frozen, who also serve a plot purpose and have a developed relationship with the protagonists. Then there's Asha being cut from the same "naive, awkward, wide-eyed idealist" cloth as many of our Disney Revival heroines like Anna, Rapunzel, and up to a certain point even Mirabel are; Star being in a similar vein to cutesy, innocent sidekicks like Pua, Crikee, and Baymax while Valentino is more akin to sassier, comic ones like Mushu and Sisu; her friends literally being based on the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White; our heroine getting a pretty standard "I Want" song and the villain getting his own solo number that doesn't really take any risks...oh yes, and we mustn't forget the trope of the Storybook opening, which (I'm sorry) I know was supposed to be a reference to Snow White, Cinderella, and Enchanted, but just gave me Shrek vibes the entire time. I was waiting for Shrek to rip out the page and use it for toilet paper any minute. It just felt a lot of the time like the movie was very paint-by-numbers, rather than throwing in much that was surprising or different.

+This isn't even touching all of the pointless meta references to other Disney movies. Asha wearing the Fairy Godmother's cloak and getting a wand like hers at the end -- the mushrooms crowing "we love crazy!" the way Hans did in Love is an Open Door -- Asha riding the reindeer the way Kristoff did in Frozen 2 -- Magnifico using green smoke hands a la Ursula -- the ending with those obvious Wendy and Peter Pan look-alikes, come on, really??? That was just painful.

+As much as Magnifico was an awesome idea for a character and Chris Pine's performance was beyond entertaining, the movie did not always write him as well as they could've. From the very start, we see this guy is an egotistical control freak -- obsessed with his own image, incredibly hard-to-please, arrogant, vain, desperate for attention and unwavering praise and adoration from all of his subjects, and determined to keep an iron grip on everyone else's wishes because of the power it gives him. He's ALREADY a terrible person, from the start -- and yet the film tries to introduce this dark magic book that gets no explanation or backstory whatsoever and has no real characterization or presence, so it leaves no real impact on the audience corrupting him and making him a bad person, when it didn't need to! Magnifico was already the villain this film needed! Just let him fall head-first into madness without the book prompting anything! Even if Magnifico "lost everything" in the past, that doesn't make him a good person, if he takes everyone's wishes away from them and hoards them all to himself, only to grant a few now and again when it would make him look good.

+This above point actually leads nicely into one change I really, really wish the film had been ballsy enough to make -- have Asha already be Magnifico's apprentice, not trying to become it at the start of the story. Give our villain and hero a real relationship, with history that started before the events of this film! Asha lost her father at the age of 12...how interesting would it have been -- whether to make Magnifico more of an anti-villain or show how manipulative he really is -- if he'd tried to fill that fatherly role for our main character and twist her to serve his ends? What if At All Costs was rewritten to be about Magnifico not just being determined to hold onto all of the kingdom's wishes, but also this apprentice he sees as an extension of him and his legacy, while Asha is determined to protect this Star she's accidentally summoned and the suppressed wish of hers it represents? This change would've made Asha's break with Magnifico so much more powerful for both of them -- it would've both justified Magnifico's descent into madness and given Asha more reason to feel like it was her responsibility to stop Magnifico. You even could've then played more with Asha's relationship with Queen Amaya too, in this kind of a scenario.

+Oh yeah, and on that note, Queen Amaya. OOH, this really annoyed me -- okay. So this woman is supposed to be a good guy, in this story. But as I touched on earlier, Magnifico was already a pretty awful person, hoarding people's wishes away in order to make himself powerful. Was Amaya truly so blind to that? Did she truly never question anything, ever? But no, really, she only turns on Magnifico after he starts using the dark magic book and actively threatens her. Only that makes her turn from him, and it's pretty damn immediate. Now okay, I hear you saying, it's like Amaya sings in Knowing What I Know Now, right? "The good in him, I've watched it melt // I was blinded by the love I felt"? Excuse me, lady -- but Magnifico wasn't a good person, before. He was just playing a part so as to stay powerful and adored by the masses. And if the story wants to claim otherwise, and act like that dark magic book was responsible for Magnifico going bad, then why would our Queen decide to keep him locked up in his staff's crystal forever? If the book was responsible, then Magnifico would be the Frodo or Golum to the book's One Ring -- he'd be a victim, in such a scenario: one in need of help and pity, not punishment. So either Amaya is a selfish person who only cared about her husband's mistreatment of others when it affected her, or she's a needlessly cruel person who decides to punish her husband for a vice that anyone could fall prey to. Either way, I don't want this woman ruling anyone! Make this woman a straight-up villain, same as her husband, and have the whole monarchy come crashing down after she and Magnifico both go down in flames! VIVE LA RESISTANCE! (Playing into my idea with Asha being Magnifico's apprentice all along, maybe there could even be a twist on the Evil Stepmother trope with Amaya, where she's jealous of how much Magnifico has tried to groom Asha as his apprentice, rather than spending time and/or starting a family with her or something.)

+As I touched on earlier, there wasn't even close to enough time to develop all of these characters properly. Since our heroine and friends are most similar to Snow White and her friends the Seven Dwarfs, let's compare cast size. Snow White is 83 minutes long and has a cast of ten (Snow, the Prince, the Queen, and the Dwarfs) -- Wish is 95 minutes long and has a cast of fourteen (Asha, Magnifico, Star, Valentino, Amaya, Asha's mum and grandpa, and our seven Friends). This results in us getting the vague idea that "Grumpy" role Gabo is sweet on our "Bashful" role Bazeema, but no time to develop their relationship or give it any kind of conclusion; the others saying "Sneezy" role Safi apparently loves the castle chickens with no sympathetic explanation why, to the point that he gets super excited about a chicken growing to a giant size for no real reason; "Doc" role Dahlia having a crush on Magnifico that is then dropped immediately after Asha turns against him; oldest kid and "Sleepy" role Simon feeling incomplete without the dream he gave Magnifico and "betraying" Asha as a result in an attempt to get it back, only to get stabbed in the back by Magnifico, and then have no time for a proper redemption after he's unhypnotized; Asha's grandfather turning on a dime about whether or not he wants to know what his wish was if Magnifico thought it was dangerous; Magnifico getting some justification in his backstory for his bad behavior, but Amaya's backstory being a complete black hole before she married Magnifico when you'd think it'd explain all the more why she stuck with him so long; and Asha's mum having her wish crushed to dust by Magnifico and then given back without us EVER LEARNING WHAT IT EVEN WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE, even after we see just about everyone else's wishes as soon as somebody picks it up and Asha's mum's wish gets picked up multiple times!! Come on, if you're going to set up NOT showing it, you may as well have a pay-off for it!! At least give us some moment where Asha's mum hugs her in relief and acknowledges that her daughter was her wish! That would've been a nice "aww" moment for everyone!

+Okay, I said I was going to talk about my problem with the songs, so here goes. As I said before, I listened to the soundtrack before watching the movie, and even when I did, I could immediately sense a problem: these songs did not tell me much of anything about the movie, just on their own. Welcome to Rosas, which is pretty much just an exposition dump about the kingdom and how Magnifico founded it, didn't really paint a picture of our setting or characters much at all, the way opening songs like Belle or The Family Madrigal do. This Wish, although pretty, was something I could hear just as easily on the radio -- it didn't feel as tied or necessary to understanding our heroine the way something like Part of That World does. I'm a Star, quite frankly, felt like a lot of inspirational word salad, rather than anything particularly memorable or revelatory -- why else wouldn't it even be worthy of a musical salute in the reprise, where Asha remembers that she and everyone else are stars during the climax? Even after reading summaries of the plot and spoilers from the storybook for this film, I could not figure out for the life of me how At All Costs would fit organically into such a story, being sung by our villain and hero. It wasn't until I saw the film that I saw how the filmmakers decided to fit it in and honestly...the song didn't help tell that particular scene at all. It's a really pretty song and I like it a lot -- but it lacked any of the irony or contrast that kind of a scene that introduces the difference in focus between our hero and villain required. If the scene itself is needed to understand what's supposed to be going on while the song is playing, then the song is not effectively telling the story and is therefore unnecessary. There wasn't even a particularly Spanish or Mediterranean flair to the soundtrack to help set the stage, aside from the occasional flourish of castanets -- instead it sounded very contemporary, which I guess is appropriate, since it was largely written by pop composers rather than any musical theater talent.

+There were also points where the songs felt the urge to shove in a bunch of extra words just because, rather than have the words flow well and really mean something. I'm a Star is most guilty of this, of course, but even in This is the Thanks I Get?, we hear Magnifico gripe that "I let you live here for free and I don't even charge you rent" -- mate, THAT MEANS THE SAME THING! If you live somewhere for free, then you are NOT paying rent!

+Knowing What I Know Now is a bop and I like it (aside from Amaya's stupidity), but I'm sorry, all I can think when I hear it is "This is clearly trying to be Ready as I'll Ever Be from Tangled the Animated Series, but that song blows this out of the water." However fun the song can be, it would've been so much stronger if it actually addressed the contrast between the characters and revved us up for a big final battle, instead of it just being our eight underdeveloped characters psyching each other up.

+The idea of everyone being stars was a lovely idea, but the execution of Asha remembering this fact and using it to defeat Magnifico was terribly handled. First off, there was no revelatory phrase or action that prompted Asha to remember this fact, so her suddenly saying that "they're all stars" came out of nowhere. Second, even putting aside that there'd be no way any of her friends could hear Asha from all the way up on the tower if they're stuck in the courtyard below, there's no reason I can see for Asha's friends or family to know what the hell she was even TALKING about. They weren't there when the I'm a Star number happened! And the way that number made it seem, just based on the visuals, it looked like the "star" power came from a person's dream, since it's the same glow that returns to Asha's grandfather when he gets his dream back, but most of the town's dreams have been already yanked out by Magnifico at this point! I think the idea is that since everyone is a star, even with that big piece of them and the power accompanying it taken out, they still have enough stardust inside of them to be powerful enough to chase their heart's desires...but yeah, I'm sorry, for all the word salad I'm a Star threw around, this world-building aspect was really not made clear, and because of that and the lack of a proper callback to this plot turn, the climax didn't hit as strong as it should've.

Overall, this film felt a lot like a batch of unbaked chocolate chip cookies that someone decided to throw a bunch of brightly colored sprinkles on top of, just because they could. A lot of ideas just don't feel like they were fully developed, and there was a lot tossed in that didn't contribute to the overall taste or bring the disparate elements together in a cohesive whole, instead feeling more like a distraction than anything of actual substance. That doesn't mean I couldn't eat it -- I like eating cookie dough as much as the next person -- but that doesn't mean it felt like a complete, finished product worthy of great praise. Instead I'm left looking at the wasted potential and wishing the movie had carved out its own path more, one distinctive to itself, rather than just be a mashup of previous Disney concepts and tropes. I won't act like there's nothing to like here, nor that it's completely lacking in heart: I actually would love to see fandom for this movie re-imagine it in ways that could've improved the story and characters, because there were SO many good ideas here...but for me personally, this movie left me colder than it should've and -- like Asha after meeting Magnifico -- a bit disappointed.

So I make this wish...to have Disney make a film better than this.

Overall Grade: C-

[xstarkillerx]

Hey hey hey :)

I saw your post about wrestling Anakin into submission and I was just thinking...I'm 6'0 ft and a gym rat. I could literally take him in both ways. I dunno but wrestling for his cock, seeing the rush in his eyes at the challenge......

Omfg sorry

Original post referenced

NO don't be sorry because I legit think turning him on might be one of the only ways to avoid him being a sore loser. Because listen, he loves sparring, it's one of life's greatest past-times, but he can easily turn sour if he feels like he should be winning but isn't. * (Accidently went on a sfw, off topic tangent about Anakin and him being Shii-Cho critical because he's arrogant)

In the throws of it though, when it could be anyone's game, when you're both panting and sweating but your muscles still have some steam in there, that's when you see the rush in his eye. There's a subtle tell that a lot of Anakin's peers, people who don't quite know how to read him, overlook or attribute to his arrogance;

if Anakin manages to disarm you in combat, gains possession of your saber, has the undeniable upper hand– if he wins and yet he chooses to discard the sabers and taunt you to engage in hand-to-hand combat, oh boy that's how you know you've got him. Because listen, Anakin likes hand-to-hand combat as much as the next guy, but obviously saber fighting is where it's at for him, he also fights in Djem So, with foundational roots (via Obi-Wan) in Ataru, ending the battle quick is what's fun for him... unless it feels like it's leading to something else.

So that's what I'm picturing, right. You were sparring, he disarmed you but instead of ending the fight as he usually would and resetting back to square one, he tosses the Sabers aside and continues the fight hand-to hand. Maybe that's when he starts to realize he underestimated you. Anakin can fight, he's a swordsman but you, you've got brute athletic strength. He's having the time of his life as you both lose your breath together, trading blows, dodging kicks, bruising each other.

He'd never let you win, you know this, so it's a very genuine thing when you do. He isn't even upset when you get him on his back with his arms pinned under you, I think he'd laugh a pure laugh just from the joy of it, the kind of laugh he lets out on the rare moments he feels at home in his skin, when he's racing, or flying, or after a good fight. It would be infectious, ticking the skin of your face with how close you are to him. The moment would settle though, and all that would be left is the thick air between you two, hearts pumping, bodies close, and a solid warmth against his stiffening cock. Adrenaline fueled sex, two warriors, two athletes, two friends and sparring partners, solid strong bodies against each other. I think there would be something warm and bright about it, the kind of sex were you can't stop smiling at each other, as your tired body works to make him know he's been bested.

In the post where I talked about dominating Anakin as a person much shorter than him, I talked about having to be smart about it, having to know how to shift the balance of power in your favour because he can easily flip you over and take the reins back. In this situation though, the battle for dominance was the foreplay. He'd make some playful efforts to regain control, flipping over, trying to make you cum first, but he knows he's been beat and gladly accepts you taking what you want from him.

Sorry this isn't as erotic as the other one was, as I was writing it I kind of realized how much joy he would probably get out of being challenged this way, to the point where it would bring out a very bright and joyful side of him. Intellectual, mental, or hierarchical domination, anything that may actually make him feel disrespected or less than, is a definite no-go with him, but this stuff I think he absolutely loves. It's fair, it takes a considerable amount of effort that he can feel in his body, it makes sense to him.

[ooops-i-arted]

Season 3 Episode 2 child development thoughts?????

Hey so you know how I've been beating the drum FOREVER of "won't it be so cool when Grogu feels more confident in himself and can be more proactive in the story?" WELL NOW WE DID IT!!!

Maybe not quite that level yet but HE SAVED DAD!! He did it!! Even when he felt afraid, probably overwhelmed, likely fighting the instinct to stay with Dad and use the Force, he did it! He conquered his own fears and kept his clarity of mind (like a Jedi) and used his Force powers and what he'd been taught by Din to quickly and readily get Din help. I AM SO PROUD OF MY BABY!!! Look at how far he's come from a little scared baby hiding in a pod!!

Scooting back to the beginning, I loved how he proudly showed Peli he could jump (and she praised him like the good aunt she is). And.... was that Grogu's first word? It did sound a bit like "Peli." This is one of a few instances we get over this episode and the next of Grogu "talking." Not stock baby sounds, but clearly trying to emulate the speech of adults in his life. We know the species can speak Basic (Yoda, Yaddle, Oteg, Vandar) so either Grogu has been strongly discouraged from trying to speak before he was taken in by Din (my personal theory) or he has a physical issue in his mouth structure that makes it difficult to speak (also a possibility but I'm not very knowledgeable, just what I've picked up from the wonderful speech pathologists at my job). I still think the real reason is a mute child is more marketable because most people don't actually like kids unless they're being cute props and not acting like actual kids. (Exhibit A: The reaction to young Anakin and Leia and being called brats for.....acting like normal kids. But let's move on from a personal pet peeve of mine.)

We've seen Din talk more and more to Grogu throughout the season as he grows more comfortable in a caretaker role, and he continues this by teaching Grogu about "their" culture. (Grogu is officially a Mandalorian now!) It's plot-relevant but it's also wonderful to see Din take an active role in Grogu's education. Din has seen the dangers of the galaxy and wants Grogu prepared, and I think he enjoys having someone to share his knowledge with and teach and parent. Grogu is clearly into it, facing Din, listening closely to him (and we KNOW when he chooses not to listen, he shows it).

Grogu showing empathy for R5 and being worried about it shows that he is developing social-emotional skills. Kids are pretty egocentric by design; they can't always meet their own needs and have to make sure they can direct an adult to get their physical, emotional, and mental needs met. Preschool is when we start teaching respect and compassion for others more purposefully (it should be modeled at all times - kids emulate what they see) because they're typically in a classroom setting and interacting with people more. While Din does do a lot of violence and killing for money, Grogu has also seen him speak politely to others, take care of people like Frog Lady when they need help, respect others' space by ducking in Kuiil and the Anzellans' dwellings, talk respectfully to others even when they disagree, so on. Din is actually a pretty good model, you know, minus the violence and the killing. I do my best to model at all times what I want my kids to act like, big moments (guiding them in using words when upset) and small (saying excuse me when I bump them, please and thank you when I ask them to do something, etc). It pays off because now my class sees and learns the expectations and by this time of the year, they aren't typically yelling across the room "Miss L he took my toy!" they're saying "I was using that, please give it back" and then coming over if needed to say "Miss L, can you help me? I was playing with that and [Friend] took it." Grogu has absorbed what Din is showing him. In turn, we see this again when Din takes Grogu's concerns seriously and reacts accordingly. To Din it's just a droid, but Grogu is worried, and Grogu can trust that Din will respond to that worry and reassure him either verbally, letting him watch on the scanner, or by fetching their poor droid friend. Grogu learns from Din because he trusts him and believes in him - just like my students learn from me and value what I say because I have demonstrated that I care about them, will treat them with respect, and can be a reliable person when they need me, and we have built a relationship off that.

We also once again see Grogu demonstrate a secure, healthy relationship with Din and the worth of Din's parenting by immediately going into his pod and sealing it when asked. A child who does not have consistent expectations or boundaries will test them to try and figure them out. Grogu knows that Dad means what he says and trusts that Din is telling him to get in the pod for a good reason, and will come get him when pod time is done. So he listens.

I loved seeing Grogu try to save Din. He's acting independently, but it's clear he's learned some skills from Din and Luke. He's able to successfully sneak right up to Din and would've probably gotten him out if the machinery hadn't clanged. He listens to Din when told to go, which had to be hard - it's scary to leave Dad even when Dad isn't in trouble! But he really shows off his cognitive skills. He's able to think through sneaking up to Dad. He's able to focus and use the Force well enough to leap several times. He shows memory skills by being able to track their path back to the N-1 and then show Bo the way back. He reacts quickly and adapts to any obstacles, even though he was scared. We see later when he's with Bo, he's much more scared and hesitant. He was definitely afraid of those dangers, but was able to push through it and not be ruled by emotion alone. That's a great show of maturity and I'm so proud of him!! His display of memory skills continues as he "communicates" to R5 to take him to Kalevala, remembering what Din has taught him. I also wonder if this will keep motivating him to keep trying to speak. Grogu wants to communicate so much! He knows it would be easier and I bet he's bursting with things to tell Din!

I was also wondering if he was able to control his pod, and yes, he finally can! This shows that not only he has matured enough to be more independent, he is trustworthy enough that Din knows he won't wander off and will be safe. The last three pods have all had controls via Din's gauntlet. Grogu could open and close the red-and-white one but we saw no ability to control it. But now he gets a big boy pod! This will really help him be more independent and proactive and safe and I think it will be good for him, so that he can keep developing his self-confidence in his own independence while still being safe. Din probably feels better knowing Grogu can escape dangers and isn't as totally reliant on him as he was in previous seasons.

Overall this was a really solid episode for Grogu. We've really seen how he's learned and matured. I hope this season gives him even more character development, and while I maintain my opinion that Disney would prefer a mute, cute-baby-noises character to better sell merch.... I hope I'm wrong and we're building up towards Grogu speaking!!

[mythical-illustrator]

hi!!! I’m sliding in with some ships for your OCs that I’d love to know your thoughts on 🥰

Helena x Fennec Shand

&

Grace x Jesse 👀

excited for your HCs 💙💙

A lot of these are how they get into a relationship rather than an established relationship because that's where my brain went.

Helena (human, spider-sona)and Fennec(human) Shand. This screams some enemies to lovers trope with potential doomed endings.

Very black cat + spider man energy .

Helena - spider woman of coruscant

fennec - bounty's hunter.

They definitely met when Helena saved one of Fennec's bounties and was running away.

Fennec, an excellent sniper wondering why she can't hit this damn woman in a stupid white gaudy suit

Helena keeps webbing her to walls.

Making quips and Fennec's very beautiful facial expressions.

Now its personal for Fennec.

Starts stalking spider-woman because she keeps getting in her way. Several more public chases have ended with spider- woman getting involved

No one escapes this woman

She will have to change her approach to more subtle works. Which starts making her an even better marksmen.

Helena looks up this known bounty hunter - despite several people's concerns over having met said bounty hunter.

Stars keeping a special eye out for her

One day Fennec shows up at Helena aunts gun range. Que Gay panic but also secret identify panic identify

Helena thinks Fennec's must know, and starts hanging around the sniper.

Helena - oh no she's hot!

Tries to flirt her way out of trouble when she gets caught 😵‍💫

Fennec thinks this pretty woman is just flirting. And she looks like a strong and capable fighter so she starts flirting back.

Flirting turns into talks, turns into showing off her gun skills.

The next thing Helena knows is she has a date. And then another and then another.

Helena - am I dating my enemy!

Before she realizes it she actually likes this quiet woman with her sass and strong silence and she doesn't know that she's spider-woman.

Fennec likes her cocky and quip filled new love interest and is setting out to seduce the fuck out of her.

Fennic screams the touching flirt- very physical. Dragging a hand up her arm, chucking the chin. Sharing air space. (Driving Helena to distraction). She's definitely brushed a few hot zones that are driving super senses wild.

fennec knows she's keeping secrets but who isn't so it doesn't bother the bounty hunter.

Now Fennec's isn't always on Coursant but when she is- she visits her new lovely almost girlfriend (she'll woo her don't you fret love. A few more make out sessions in the gun booth Should do the trick.)

Helena is so close to giving in. She loves Fennec's touches. They've definitely almost fucked in that booth. Some very very heavy petting.

Her other visits are ducking around spider-woman.

Eventually someone will take a hit out on spider-woman - and they will hire fennec Shand.

How it ends can either be really happy, or really sad.

My happy ass wants some angst that they get into a fight across the city and then dramatically Helena s mask either gets ripped off or Fennec actually lands a hit and Helena calls her a nick name or something that only her almost girlfriend would know.

Gods I'm gay 😵‍💫

Anyway!

Grace (half twi'lek former night sister turned Jedi healer)and Jesse (clone trooper of the 501st). (I'm not as familiar with Jesse but I'll try my best ) 😜

Now this one I had to think about.

Jesse takes his job very seriously but has a humorous streak to him.

I think they'd definitely start off as friends that accidentally stumbled their way into a relationship without noticing.

Grace is a Jedi healer on the move quite a bit during the war but would pay the 501 a visit often first because of Anakin, then to get to know the men he trusts the most.

She would spend a lot of time in the medic base with kix

Kix is the clone I think Jesse is the closest with in the close circle company.

At first hes super formal around the Jedi,

He calm reserved demeanor tries to reassure him that he can relax.

Jesse would make some sort of qip about her more non traditional Jedi look: "that's why they're called shadow people, where there's farm animals there is a farmer" boy is he lucky he's cute.

Something something - didn't know that Jedi knew what color was?

He starts hanging out around the med bay more to talk to the Jedi healer.

He says it's to help his best bro Kix but Kix isn't having any of that.

She stars showing him some basic first aid then answering questions about Jedi and then the force and their her background as a former night sister.

He starts telling her about missions, Rex, the Domino Twins. Ashoka. Training with ashoka.

Kix is like...I'm a third wheel in my own medical house?

Grace tries keeping a arms length distance but she loves hearing his opinion on things. Hearing his stories.

Jesse is a very passionate and animated story teller.

Sometimes their stories get sad, like the nature of the war, the loss of his brothers. The Senate.

Jesse is very honest even if it's a little silly sounding sometimes.

Grace starts spending more and more time with the 501st if she isn't ordered elsewhere.

She starts eating with Jesse and the other arc troopers.

Running and training with him, seeking him out to spar with.

Then shore leave happens and Grace is convinced to go to 79 by some other clones.

She isn't sure she- a jedi- would be welcome but she goes.

She feels awkward at first, sitting and drinking and watching the men be themselves.

Eventually he downs a shot(or 8) and asks her to dance with him.

It's all over the place, lots of twirling and spinning and she almost smacks several people with her lekku.

When their dancing and they have to get real close because of it, they almost kiss but grace pulls away at the last seconds

She pulls away because Jedi and emotions and she doesn't know what to do.

Jesse is freaking out because holy fuck he's in love with one of their Jedi commands.

Kix is phased and thinks they're both idiots.

He gets the entirety of the company to start setting them up in shenanigans.

I'm talking about locking them in storage closest. Making them sit next to each other. Other nonsense Rex pretends he doesn't see.

Then umbara happens.

Grace - who wasn't there comes rushing back. Mad and concerned and afraid and all the things a Jedi shouldn't be.

She's thing and ranting and Jesse is just watching her Pace the medical room- kix left a while ago to check on everyone.

And finally he tosses is helmet to the ground pulls her in and kisses her. Tells her he's sorry if that's against her code but he might die tomorrow and he's not going to die without knowing what she tasted like.

Idk secret secret relationship happens that everyone pretends they don't know about.

Thank you for the ask, they were fun and I hope you enjoyed them. 😊

Tag list

@anxiouspineapple99 @dangraccoon @clonemedickix @sev-on-kamino @523rdrebel @secondaryrealm

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

We do like to cuddle-pile Obi Wan, lol. ….forgive me the urge to nitpick-

I would definitely say that Obi Wan probably blamed himself a lot in his exile and would wake up at 4am remembering the dumbest faux-pas, but I doubt he would turn that into a fault of everyone else the way fandom does- and possibly that's why fandom does it, but it still misses the mark for me.

…tbh I do object to the 'fact' that Obi Wan had less support, or that he seemed to handle it worse, or even that he was so much lower on self-confidence. All we are shown in TPM of the actual apprenticeship is him insisting on teaching Anakin with or without the Order's support, and the council deciding to keep them, and then him being quite gentle with Anakin for one or two scenes and smiling, the end. Timeskip 10 years. Anyone can headcanon that things were deeply difficult going forward, and idk what happend in the various novels and comics (except for the one I did read) but tbh….

I forget if it's a deleted scene or not, but aotc has him confiding in Mace and Yoda and taking counsel from them about his doubts surrounding Anakin. And then we get the clone wars- which, frankly, it seems strange to me to conclude from watching Anakin get support and communal teaching help that obviously that did not also apply to Obi Wan and Anakin- why? I took it the other way around. Anakin routinely cribs Obi Wan's words when talking to Ahsoka, and the way other jedi don't hesitate to have teaching moments with him and with Ahsoka, and the way they look out for them- I watched all that and I never once thought this was something Obi Wan and Anakin were deprived of. I concluded that this was most likely how it was for them, too. That we can learn the most about them from it.

Ultimately I understand the urge to choose angstier interpretations, so I get it. I don't think it's terribly well supported, but there's wriggle room when it happens off screen and anyway what's fun is fun. And I'm not really going to go to war with those books being formative for so many people. I'm not. (I'm not)

(oh, the self-confidence thing- again, it's funny, I don't quite see it! Obi Wan and Qui Gon have their tension, but Anakin's apparent arrogance reads much more brittle to me.)

I must admit I have this thing where when the portrayal goes a little too much into the concept that Anakin was this terrible burden that it was a great injustice for Obi Wan to undertake- there's a point where it hits a nope for me. Maybe it would have been, if Obi Wan had actually been an abandoned abused teenager with a child unexpectedly foisted upon him, but.. he wasn't.

I always find the melodrama around Obi Wan being Anakin's master a bit funny. Basically a teenage dad! Struggling single parent! Traumatized child in the care of a traumatized child! Eldest daughter syndrome etc..... Yes, he was grieving, and it must have taken courage on his part to present that ultimatum to the council, and had he had to leave the Order to train Anakin, I can see how that would have been deeply challenging, true. But like,

It's the clone wars cartoon that really renders it for me. Anakin was.... I think quite objectively less ready for knighthood at the end of aotc than Obi Wan was at the end of tpm, but the cartoon basically has it happen right away. He was an actual teenager. He, unlike Obi Wan, canonically did not really want a padawan at that time. Also, he had to raise a padawan in a warzone? Hey, he also had just lost a parent, wow, the parallels. The show also establishes quite thoroughly that jedi learn to look after children and teach... possibly even before becoming padawans themselves, judging by Ahsoka, and that there is also a good degree of communal teaching even with the apprentice system, judging by Ahsoka. But never mind all that

So we're cuddle-piling the 25 year old trained teacher with a solid support system who was applying for a position that he expected to include raising a padawan, i guess... truly the meowest of meows, the burdenest of burdens. No wonder Anakin fell!

[unmaskthewriter]

Haven’t I Given Enough? {Anakin Skywalker x GN! Reader}

A/N: Welcome back dearest readers! I apologize for the unannounced hiatus. I needed time to focus on my health and I finally feel like I have a moment to breathe and work through a lot of the writers block I had.

I do not give permission for any of my work to be copied, published and/or translated on any platform including Tumblr.

Summary: You say goodbye to a friend you once knew, and hello to a new threat. Inspired by Gilded Lily (Sped Up) by Cults

With that said, please enjoy this sequel to Ocean Eyes. If you have not read it, please read Ocean Eyes {Anakin Skywalker x GN! Reader} here!

Word count: 1310

Warnings: violence, angst

GIF CREDIT GOES TO ROSIETHESLAYER

Now it’s been long enough to talk about it

You were stationed on Jabiim, escorting civilians through the Path when you felt his presence. An old friend, someone who was very dear to you in the past during your time serving as a Jedi on Coruscant. You turned away from a family resting in the corner to face him.

“Master Kenobi?” You call out, approaching quickly.

“Master {Y/L/N},” He let out a breath he wasn’t aware of and enveloped you in his arms. You felt comfort in his presence. You pull away slowly, your hands resting on his shoulders, “I am quite relieved to see you are alright. Where have you been all these years?”

“Just outside of Mos Espa. Occasionally Tala asks for my help with the Path. She told me she needed me for some high priority passengers… I suppose that means you.”

“Yes, and someone else,” Obi Wan Kenobi ushers forward a small girl, “Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.” He introduces her.

“It’s nice to meet you. Are you a Jedi too?” She asks, looking up to you. You take her hand with a smile. Obi-Wan can sense the overwhelming thoughts racing through your mind.

I’ve started not to doubt it, just wrap my head around it

“Why, yes I am. It is so nice to meet you.” You stand straight and look to Obi-Wan who nods.

“Tala, do you mind watching her? I must discuss something with {Y/N} here.” He explains to which Tala nods. You and Obi-wan walk off, waiting until Leia is out of earshot of the conversation.

“So, how did you of all people get involved in a rescue mission for the Princess of Alderaan?” You question with a mild smirk playing on your lips.

“{Y/N}, I never wanted you to find out this way… I understand you and Anakin shared a closeness that under normal circumstances would have had you both removed from the Jedi Order..” obi-Wan begins as you stop in your tracks. He turns to face you.

“She is Anakin’s child, isn’t she..?” You speak softly, looking down at the ground as you process this information.

“Well, yes, but… there is another as well. A young boy on Tatooine by the name of Luke. He is under the care of his aunt Beru and uncle Owen.” Obi-Wan explains gently, walking over and placing a hand on your arm, squeezing gently to comfort you.

“O-oh… Lars? The moisture farmer?” You question further, pressing your lips together for a moment.

“Yes, but Anakin is unaware of this and so it shall remain. Their safety is my highest priority.” Obi-Wan explained to you. You pause for a moment before nodding in understanding. Had you misunderstood his affections? Perhaps he was just being a friend and you mistook it for more than just friends. You had to put your feelings aside, and recognize that the past is the past.

“I will do what I must to protect them, just as you do, Obi-Wan. Thank you for bringing forward this information.” You force a small smile, taking his hand. He squeezes yours softly.

“Hey! You’re gonna want to see this.” Tala rushes over, beckoning for the two of you. As you followed, you realized the doors to the hangar had been sealed shut by an outside force.

“They are here… I can feel it.” You whisper, turning to Obi-Wan, “You must do everything to help these doors get open. I will make time.” You mention, pulling the hood of your cloak over your head and walking to the blast doors.

“W-wait, you can’t just give yourself up for us!” Obi-Wan argued, rushing after you.

“Vader thinks I am dead, Obi-Wan. He won’t see me coming. Force knows you would be doing the same.” You argue, pulling your arm back from his grasp. You navigate the tunnels to the blast doors.

“I wish to speak to someone on the other side.” You state.

“If this is your attempt at buying time, you have failed miserably. Anakin Skywalker isn’t here.” A female’s voice spits at you.

“How do you know his true name? Only.. you were there the night of Order 66. You saw him.” You begin putting the pieces together, your mind running frantic.

“Stop. Stop it!” She demands, breathing shakily as the stranger falls back into the memories of that night. The doors open and you are escorted to the outside.

You feel him, although it feels as though he is hidden deep down somewhere, and masked by someone else. You hear the clinking of his uniform as he approaches, stopping a mere ten or so feet before you.

“I had not wished to meet you under such circumstances.” You begin, remaining calm and poised as you stand before the Sith Lord.

“Yet, here you are, alive and breathing. The final piece to a mystery.” He responds, taking a few steps closer. You can feel him trying to probe your mind for information, something he never found himself capable of before.

“What's it supposed to mean?”

“He’s not the only Jedi I seek.” He states simply. Obi-Wan.

“I will not fight you, Anakin. I will not allow you to follow this anger and hatred in your heart. It is not the Jedi way-“

“Such blind faith in the Jedi who couldn’t protect you!” He raises his voice and for a moment, you can feel Anakin breaking through the surface, if only for a moment. You took a deep breath, your mind wandering for a moment.

You were standing alongside Tutso Mara, a fellow Jedi knight, supervising the work being done in the hangar.

“With a munitions expert such as Jackar, we will be properly-“ You began. Before you were able to finish your sentence, an explosion erupted just a few feet from you. The ground beneath you rumbled, as shrapnel from the nearby ship went flying in every direction like great balls of fire. Many were thrown back from the blast, including yourself. You felt your eyes burning from the small pieces of fiery shrapnel that had blasted in your direction. You cried out for help.

“Somebody, please..” you cough, trying to push yourself up, “I can’t see.”

“I do not blame the Jedi for that day.” You claim, remaining calm and steady with your emotions.

“I do.”

“So it’s our fault you turned to this? The Sith are elusive, you cannot tell me you found what you first sought after with them.” You argue, taking a step closer.

“It is no one’s fault but mine, {Y/N}…” Anakin draws his saber from his waist. “The time of the Jedi has come to an end. If you do not join me, you will die a blind and foolish person.”

I remember when you told me it’s an everyday decision

“It is not I who is truly blind, Darth.” You drew your lightsaber, the hum of its power almost bringing comfort to you. You waited for him to strike but he never did. You grounded yourself, feeling the Earth beneath your feet for his presence. You could feel his hesitance, his questioning. Just as you thought it was over, you heard the doors overhead open and the ship engines power up. You slowly turn back to face Darth, gripping your saber tightly.

But with my double vision, how was I supposed to see the way?

Darth sheathed his saber as the woman from earlier gave the command for the storm troopers to begin firing. You fought to the end, giving the ship just enough time to escape the Empire’s clutches for another day before falling to the ground, defeated.

“I won’t make the same mistake twice.” You hear Darth say before your world turns black and you feel all breath escape your body.

Haven’t I given enough, given enough?

Always the fool with the slowest heart

[undulinoted]

What are your Star Wars rare pairs?? (Very curious!!)

Hi anon, hope you're well!! This is a good question bc the more I thought about it the more I was like... ARE these rare?! lmao, I'm sure there are fans with much rarer pairs out there than these but my favourite rare pairs atm are:

- Darthfett (Vader/Boba)

- Satidala (Satine/Padmé)

- Windwalker (Mace/Anakin)

- Palpakin (Palpatine/Anakin) - here's the part where you run away screaming from my blog lmaooooo

- Droidcaptain (K-2SO/Cassian)

- Melshian (Melshi/Cassian)

also special shoutout to my fav Star Wars pair ever, ✨Thranto ✨, but I felt it wasn't quite rare enough to include, even though Eli is a novel character and not gonna be as recognisable to some fans, it's still Thrawn's most popular ship I'm pretty sure, so :') and i also rlly love Kalluzeb 🥺

I started writing some reasons for why I enjoy these pairs below but only got two done bc I'm currently sick and my brain is not working so well lol but yeah, if anyone ever wants to hear more ask away!

-----

Darthfett

lando knows what's up lol

Imagine trying to crack something, anything, the tiniest spark of affection, between these two bucket heads. Honestly just such a fun challenge lol. This pair kinda stems from how if Vader needs a bounty hunter? He hires Fett. This is obv meant to imply that Boba is the best at what he does ofc but I have a very active imagination and when you ALSO ship Rexwalker then it adds some lovely angst to the ship. Also. These two men are seriously closed off, lonely and harboring resentment. They get each other 💁‍♀️ Boba also has balls of titanium steel bc he's one of the only people in the galaxy not protected by Palpatine that can talk Like That to Vader and not get force choked to death on the spot, so. I think Vader likes that 😏

I've read some pretty good fics for these two! Quite a lot of the time Boba is very turned on by just the Look of Vader's suit and how ominously powerful he is and like... same?!? 💚🖤

boba is me 🫠

ALSO also, I just have to throw this in here

jsghxhdh it's so funny, Vader's just like ffs NO but there's no real heat behind it he just looks done lol

Satidala

Yknow that one Clone Wars ep where Satine and Padmé have to investigate a mysterious outbreak of illness at a school on Mandalore? I've watched that ep an unhealthy amount of times lmao - the way Satine greets Padmé and their little moments 🤭

👀👀

They also have dinner together!!! And they change their outfits so many times throughout the ep, which, according to my calculations backed up by zero proof, was done in the same room as each other which all points to the logical conclusion that they were having lots of lesbian sex. Anyway, I just think they look neat together, and imagine the Longing 🤌 They're both so busy but will always put their duties first so in true wlw fashion they would be writing in their diaries about the other and doing a lot of window gazing :')

queens 👑

to be continued maybe lol, thanks anon!

[clonewarsarchives]

TALKING TARKIN (#125, MAY 2011)

In his varied career, actor Stephen Stanton has provided the voices of a vast array of characters, from Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Empire at War to Darth Maul in Star Wars: Battlefront II. His latest role is as the snide Captain Tarkin in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Words: Jonathan Wilkins

How did you become a voice actor?

I’ve been pestering people with my cartoon voices ever since I was a kid. I used to try to imitate the voices that actors like Daws Butler (Snagglepuss, Yogi Bear) did. I originally came out to California to go to film school, but even back then, if anybody needed a narration or something like that, I'd do it. Then I decided it was really taking up a lot of my time, so maybe I should think about it as a career. So I moved into acting full time.

Were you excited about playing such a well-known character as Tarkin?

Absolutely. I originally went to see Star Wars as a teenager. I was familiar with Peter Cushing's work from all the Hammer horror films, and one of my favorites was Island of Terror (1966). There was a scene where he gets his hand chopped off that really freaked me out as a kid. I went to see Star Wars and I was like, Wow! This movie is great and it's got Peter Cushing in it!

When the chance came to audition to play Tarkin in The Clone Wars, I thought, They're looking for a young Peter Cushing sound-alike, and so I immediately started doing my research and turned in my audition tape.

What was your audition piece?

It was a scene from "The Citadel." I think Tarkin might have been a sergeant in the script, but it was just a page of sample dialogue from the episode.

It was really straightforward, because there wasn't much else to do except Peter Cushing, only younger. So I re-watched Island of Terror and watched the BBC television series Sherlock Holmes. Dave Filoni suggested that I watch the 1960s movies where he played Doctor Who so I got the DVDs, only to find he was already playing an old man back then!

What sort of nuances and vocal characteristics did you pick up?

Well he definitely had a cadence that's very particular to him. When he rolls his 'r's, that's something that's very Peter Cushing. I listened to a lot of dialogue just trying to pick out when he rolls his 'r's, and when he doesn't, and that up-and-down style.

What made Tarkin so tricky is that there is no performance of him as a young man; there's only the Tarkin that we know on the Death Star. So I had to create that based on what I knew of the character in A New Hope and what I could hear from Peter Cushing as a younger man, and combine the two in order to come up with the young Captain.

He still has to sound like the cold-blooded, heartless Tarkin who kills everybody on Alderaan to prove a point, but now he has to be this vibrant, younger character, too. He's still proper, he's still distinguished, but he's not quite that cold-hearted murderer yet. We're not quite sure how it gets to be that he's one of the few people that gets to order Darth Vader around: "Enough of this, release him!" And Vader listens to him, no questions asked.

Anakin and Tarkin are fractious from the start. Did you have a back-story for their relationship?

Dave Filoni is very good at giving reasons why characters interact the way they do. He talked to myself and Matt (Lanter, Anakin Skywalker) before we started recording and explained that we were exploring the relationship, because, when were first introduced to Vader in A New Hope, you can tell that people who were around him in the Death Star think he's just this creepy guy that hangs around with Tarkin. No one thinks of him as the supreme villain that we all do.

Did you know how Tarkin would look when you recorded the voice?

No. There are a lot of things that are very confidential on The Clone Wars—scripts, images and so forth—so I didn't see what he was going to look like until I got there on the day of the session. When I went into the booth, they said, "Oh, we've got a picture for you of what he's going to look like." I saw a picture, and thought, That's incredible, that's great, it's him.

This is not only a much-loved character from Star Wars, but also a much-loved actor. Did you feel a sense of pressure playing the role?

Oh, you better believe it! I think that most of the pressure just came from myself, because I wanted to do it right. I'm such an admirer of Peter Cushing, and I realize that Peter Cushing is more than an icon. Tarkin is iconic, but Peter Cushing as an actor is so revered and he did so many great things.

Of course, Peter Cushing appeared alongside Christopher Lee (the live-action Count Dooku) in many classic Hammer horror films. So the big question for a lot of Hammer fans is: Do you think Tarkin and Dooku will ever meet?

That was the first thing that went through my mind! I was sitting right next to Corey Burton, and we were both wondering whether there was a scene in here somewhere where the two of us talk! I'm sure they've thought about it. It'd be great to see these two icons of cinema meet in animation; that would be wonderful, don't you think?

If you could play another character on the show, which would it be?

I did the voice of the older Obi-Wan Kenobi in the video games. I think everyone's love of Obi-Wan is really based on that original performance by Sir Alec Guinness—how can you not love that guy? That'd be fun to do again. Admiral Ackbar would be fun to do. There's a little bit of Winston Churchill in him I think. He's a great character.

Would you like to play Tarkin again?

Oh, absolutely. They've got a long way to go from the character we just saw in "The Citadel" to the guy commanding the Death Star in Episode IV. I'd love to see how that whole relationship develops between Anakin and Tarkin. What do those two guys have to go through to get to the point where, after everything that's happened, they are working together? I'm all for it.

REBEL FRIENDS

Stephen Stanton on his earlier career in special effects working with Phil Tippett on projects such as Alien 3 (1992) and Batman Returns (1991).

Very early in my career, I was doing both voiceover and visual effects. I was young, I wanted to do everything, so I tried and it kind of wore me out. Working with Phil Tippett was great. Phil has such a legacy with Star Wars and Lucasfilm. I also worked with Richard Edlund early in my effects career. He's another Star Wars alumnus and another incredibly talented guy. It was through Phil that I actually got to meet Ray Harryhausen, another person who inspired me as a young filmmaker. These are all guys that have done so much in the entertainment industry and to inspire me in my own career.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Okay but I would LOVE to here your heretical opinions on Padame if you ever want to share them or any of your other views on star wars prequel characters. Your character analysises are INCREDIBLE and really fun to read <3

Oh boy, are you sure about that? Well, the ask has been made so here, we, gooooooooooooooo!

Padme’s one of those strange characters who appears as one thing but in actuality is quite different. Because she appears as the first thing, and it’s something people really like, most people accept that at face value and if she’s not always consistent--well, she came from a series of screenplays written by George Lucas.

Padme comes across as a very noble, kind, and courageous character who is also quite politically savvy. At fourteen, against all odds, she saves her planet from invasion when the Senate did nothing, secured herself an ally in the chancellor (nevermind him being secretly Palpatine), and even after relinquishing her title as queen remains a major player in the senate for years and is seen as enough of a threat to warrant several assassination attempts (one so bad she has to be guarded by Jedi and sent home to Naboo for several weeks). 

And I’m not saying she’s not any of these things. Padme is very courageous, is one of those odd politicians who... believes she stands for what she believes in (more on this later), and has a remarkable political career.

However, she’s also romantic to the point of being completely and utterly delusional, self-centered, and frankly a little nuts.

(Yeah, you knew you were waiting for me to say something terrible, WEREN’T YOU?!) Right, so what’s wrong with Padme?

Well, if you look closely at a few of her choices, the ones that never seemed to make much sense, then you can look at her other choices and... Well, it all sort of comes together. 

That’s right, I’m talking about “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”.

Attack of the Clones we have the very lackluster and strange romance of Anakin and Padme.

On Anakin’s end, his infatuation with Padme makes a lot of sense. She was part of the party that rescued him from slavery, she was very kind to him, and was the prettiest girl he’s ever seen in his life. Ten years later, always having harbored a crush on her memory and keeping it alive through whatever news he hears of her, she’s grown into a very beautiful woman and Anakin is by chance introduced back into her life. I get why Anakin falls head over heels for Padme, I’ll get more into this later and how their relationship has some major issues (aside from the obvious), but I understand why he marries this girl out of nowhere even when it could get him thrown out of the Jedi. (As an aside, since this is more of a Padme post, I think Anakin was spurred on in part also by the death of his mother and his massacre of the Tusken Raiders. Anakin’s life was flipped upside down in a very short amount of time, one of his great emotional ties is suddenly gone, and I think he has this internal crisis that culminates in him deciding to marry Padme. Without this, he and Padme may have become lovers, but I don’t think he’d marry her).

On Padme’s end... it’s a little less clear. Anakin has grown into an attractive young man, yes. Take out all of George Lucas’ dialogue, and maybe Padme finds Anakin very charming. However, Padme secretly marries a Jedi she’s known for three weeks. Now, I’d be a bit more forgiving of this, love is love and we can’t always think rationally, but there’s some other things.

Unlike Anakin, Padme hasn’t been spending the past ten years romanticizing her memory of Anakin Skywalker. When they met in Phantom Menace, Anakin was not only five years younger than her, he was nine-years-old. To fourteen-year-old Padme, Anakin was not then dating material and was instead this poor boy in slavery. Which means while Anakin has build up justifying this rapid romance, Padme really doesn’t. What this means is that her romance with Anakin reads a lot more like a romantic fantasy. Cute dashing bodyguard shows up, saves her life, through contrived circumstances they’re sent back to beautiful Naboo where they spend time together, only cute bodyguard is a Jedi and can’t marry, which makes their love excitingly taboo! 

Everything Padme does, before and after this point, lends itself to this overdeveloped sense of romance. Padme wants to be whisked away, wants to have this secret unsustainable marriage with a man who cannot be married, she’s in love with the idea of being in love. Given how little time she spends with Anakin, how little they really know of each other, I’d say she’s more in love with the idea of Anakin than Anakin Skywalker himself. And this isn’t a bad thing necessarily, or at least not a grievous flaw, however, that’s not all. 

Padme chooses to marry Anakin knowing he murdered an entire village of men, women, and children. She marries him almost immediately after the massacre of the Tusken Raiders. Note, she does not learn about this later and have to come to terms with it, she is right there. She is on Tatooine with him and sees him go to do it and then return. 

Padme doesn’t take it... particularly well, that said, she also seems to shove it under the carpet immediately. She, first, marries Anakin within days after this event. She second, never really has a “holy fuck, Anakin” conversation with him. And worst yet, she never confesses to anyone else. Padme is a hypocrite and willing to sacrifice everything she believes in, albeit I believe unwittingly, for her romantic fantasy.

She tells no one about what happened. An entire village was brutally massacred, those who are already poor and oppressed and have no voice, by a man who is supposed to be a protector of all people in the galaxy. I’m sorry, Anakin, but if Padme was who you think she is then she would have to tell the Jedi Order at the very least if not the Republic. Instead, there are no consequences, only Anakin’s descent into guilt and madness as three years pass with it festering in the back of his mind.  Padme does not stand for the poor, for the people, or for justice. She only does so when it does not conflict with her own interests, i.e. her actions regarding the invasion of Naboo. More, I do not believe Padme has the introspection to realize this about herself, she never realizes that not narking on Anakin was very very very bad. Three years pass and she lives the whirlwind romantic fantasy that she and Anakin both want. They’re secret lovers/spouses, meeting up at the oddest hours of the day and... This is three years of this ridiculous affair. Three years to come to terms with the fact that something must change. And then the kicker, Padme gets pregnant, and this is where the extra delusional comes in.

The child should have been a signal of the end. There can be no more secret now. Padme is having a child, presumably out of wedlock, and even if space is very very very different from our society I imagine this would be quite the scandal that could even get her thrown out of the senate. I believe Padme mentions as much to Anakin. More, Anakin is no longer a lover, he is now a father. What’s supposed to happen now? They raise this secret child, instructing them that Anakin is only a father in private, never in public?

Anakin and Padme briefly flirt with the idea of Anakin leaving the order. Anakin even wants to do so, but it... never happens. Now is the time it absolutely should happen. Yes, Anakin’s a big part of the war effort, but he could at least start talking to the Order and they could decide if it’d be a slow or fast exit. 

My theory, Padme’s too in love with the fantasy. Anakin leaving means he’s no longer a Jedi, it means he’ll come to Naboo, be unemployed and be around. Anakin visiting will no longer be this romantic, fraught with the danger of being found out, passionate, short lived event for Padme. It’ll become real life. He’ll be a real, ordinary man, she’ll be a real, ordinary, woman, and that spark of romance will be gone.

I don’t think Padme wants that. 

Which is why, even with the child on the way, we see Anakin and Padme continue to play out this ridiculous secret lovers fantasy. And then, of course, Anakin goes insane off screen.

Padme is told that, once again, Anakin has murdered dozens of children. Of course, this is a terrible thing to be told and she can’t process it. She needs to find Anakin and confront him, but people always criticize Lucas here and feel it’s out of character for Padme to have run to Anakin in sobbing hysterics with no plan of enacting vengence.

Frankly, I think it’s very in character. She did nothing about the Tuskens, remember? I think at the end of the day, the murder of the Jedi children means very little to her. What hurts Padme the most is that the fantasy of Anakin she married is not real. The Anakin she married would never murder the Jedi children, betray the Republic, or do any of what he’s done. And I think Padme only has that strong, iron, will when she knows the world she’s in. With the Trade Federation, her stance was obvious. Her people were being oppressed, butchered, and invaded. In this case, the world she knew no longer exists.

The Republic is gone, perhaps hasn’t existed in thirteen years, as it turns out the senator who had always been her biggest supporter was a Sith Lord. The Jedi are gone, children murdered by Anakin while those in the field are picked off by their own clone soldiers. Padme’s world has fallen apart, and I think that makes it much harder for her to be the girl we saw in Phantom Menace. In time, perhaps, she would have joined the rebellion but... I do think Padme might have also given into despair.

So, yeah, that’s Padme for you.

[tennessoui]

Prompt: "You're a terrible cook" (aka me wanting more kuwsk or recipe for disaster content ;D )

yes!!! ive been meaning to write more recipe for disaster content for soooo long so this is the perfect excuse. (obi-wan is his daughter, ahsoka's piano teacher, until ahsoka refuses to learn anymore. desperate to keep talking, obi-wan offers to teach anakin, chef, how to cook. obi-wan is a terrible cook.)

this is just fluff and bickering and them being married and ahsoka (nine now) being too long suffering for her age.

(1k)

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin coughs as he opens and closes the kitchen door rapidly, trying to fan out half the smoke. “You’re a terrible cook.”

“I’ve made a few mistakes,” Obi-Wan allows, coughing himself as he steps away from the stove. “You’re the one that keeps leaving me unsupervised.”

“Baby, I leave Ahsoka unsupervised in the kitchen and she’s nine years old.”

“Which I believe to be a parenting folly, as she is a child—”

“You know what she isn’t, Obi-Wan? On first name basis with all the firefighters in this city.”

“Careful, you almost sound jealous, love.”

“I’m not jealous, but I do think our taxes could be used for other things—”

“I agree, perhaps fixing the pothole you love to fly over out on 12th street, before you give me permanent neck and shoulder damage—”

“Who are you texting. We’re having a disagreement.”

“Cody. I’m telling him not to bring the troops out to the house. We’re fine.”

“You understand that it’s not normal to have the chief of the fire department as a contact on your phone, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cody is deputy. Mace is the chief.”

Anakin opens and closes his mouth several times before he finally pulls himself together enough to shake his head with something that feels a lot like awe. “You’re the worst cook I’ve ever met in my life.”

Obi-Wan blinks imperiously at him from a scant foot away. Whenever they bicker, space seems to evaporate from between them, much like the boiling water Obi-Wan never remembers to cover on the stove. “Half your job is to teach terrible cooks how to cook. I am what you made me.”

Anakin lets out something close to a scream before he launches himself at his husband and kisses him roughly against the counter. Of all the people he could have ever fallen in love with, he chose Ahsoka’s piano teacher, who turned out to be the most stubborn and petty son of a bitch this side of Coruscant. He attacks his mouth with his own, pressing him hard against the edge. The fire alarm is still going off.

But that’s alright. Anakin has become quite adept at kissing people as the fire alarm goes off. Not people. Just this one man. 

They separate just as quickly as they came together, though Obi-Wan’s hands stay locked around Anakin’s waist.

“Forgive me, darling,” Obi-Wan murmurs, tilting his head to press a fleeting kiss against Anakin’s lips. He kisses him again half a second later. Anakin accepts each kiss as being from the love of his life and therefore what he deserves.

“Mm,” Anakin replies, as if he has to think about it. As if Obi-Wan has just destroyed his third saucepan and Anakin is actually mad. They’ll get another one. He’ll get Obi-Wan. It evens out. “I don’t know.”

“Now I can’t tell if you’re mad about dinner or about the fact that this marks the 20th recipe in your draft book that I cannot cook. How can you go forward with publishing a book called Recipes So Simple My Husband Can Cook Them if I cannot?”

“Maybe I have another husband,” Anakin replies, leaning forward to kiss him. He’s always been addicted to the sweetness of his husband’s kisses.

“Who also cannot cook to save his life?” Obi-Wan says. “Darling, you may just have the weirdest type I’ve ever seen.”

Anakin kisses him quiet and then pulls back. Almost all the smoke is gone, so he surveys the kitchen with interest. “What was it this time, baby? It was a recipe for a salad.”

“The instructions on how to cook the chicken were too vague,” Obi-Wan defends himself immediately. “And I…may have gotten a bit of flour in the fire. Which didn’t help.”

“No,” Anakin says, “I don’t think it would. Flour, Obi-Wan? The recipe doesn’t even call for much—”

“Dad? Obi-Wan?” The voice of his daughter calls from the entry hallway. “I’m home!”

Both adults rush out of the kitchen to the hall in order to greet her with a smile.

She looks between the both of them and sniffs the air. “Oh,” says Ahsoka. “Take-out for dinner again?”

Obi-Wan splutters and sets about defending himself, holding out his hand to guide Anakin’s daughter into the kitchen. He can make her her afternoon snack. There’s no way cheese and crackers can be fucked up. 

Anakin takes the free moment to go into his study, carefully locking the door behind him. A draft of his next cookbook is in a locked drawer in his desk, and he fishes it out to flip to the twentieth recipe. “Spell out steps for chicken?” He writes quickly before he forgets. He reads over what he already has skeptically. He doesn’t particularly know how he can be more straight-forward than what he already has typed.

“Add note: Remember everyone, flour is highly flammable. Best to not add any near an open flame.” He reads over the words before shrugging and closing the draft.

The dedication on the second page catches his eye, and he stops to read it with a quirk of his lips. 

To my husband, OWK.

I promise to cook our every meal for the rest of our lives, 

If you promise to set my place at the table and make sure that it’s always next to yours.

Also if you promise to never touch a anything more culinary complicated than an EZ-bake oven ever again.

Love,

Ani

His husband is going to feel like such a dick when he reads it. He’ll probably cry.

Anakin can’t wait to kiss away his tears. For that, and for every other part of their future together, two of those really long notes played in perfect melody. Harmony. Whatever.

It’s not like Anakin knows anything about music, after all. That’s Obi-Wan’s job.

[chloe-skywalker]

Why Am I Here? - Darth Vader

Darth Vader x daughter reader

Warnings: none

Word count: 1,612

Summary: Reader gets “”invited”” to spend some time with the Empire. For reasons only Darth Vader knows, but will he tell? Or keep her guessing.

Authors Note: I’ve been thinking of making a whole series with a similar plot. So I’m trying this imagine out see how people like it. If you do and want to see more like this or with a similar plot comment below or say something in a reblog!

P.S. Its my Birthday Month!!!! YAY!

Masterlist

Star Wars Masterlist

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Y/n stood there confused as to why she was here. Nothing about her should interest the Empire. She never given anyone any clues or hints as to if she is with the rebellion.

But yet they came to her senate booth and asked her to come with them. Not that she would have had a choice anyway. When they brought her to a ship, from there they took her to as they put it ‘Where lord Vader is staying’. When the troopers escorted her to a room, they told her this is where she will be staying. In the room was a huge bed, a big bathroom, and a closet. A closet that was full of her own clothes plus some other outfits that were beautiful. But it wasn’t just the closet that had things she owned in it. It was the whole room. There was small things from her room at home scattered all over. All the thoughts in her head stopped once the door opened to reveal the man that had her brought here.

“Why am I here?” Y/n asked with a strong voice. She truly is curious as to why they took her from her home. “Do you talk or are you just gonna stand there?”

Vader just stood there staring at Y/n before asking. “Do you know who I am?”

“Of course I do. Your Darth Vader.EVeryone know who you are.” She nodded, the look in her eyes was very confused as to why he would ask that specific question. But there was another emotion that Vader couldn’t place.

“Is that all you know me as?” he asked trying to get a sense of how to approach why he brought her here.

“Should I know you as more than that?” Y/n tilted her head in more confusion and also now curiousness. What did he mean by that? Should she know him as more?

“You will be staying here awhile. I hope that this room is up to your liking. We’ll talk later.” With that statement, he turned to leave the room. It was obvious to Y/n that that was not the answer he was looking for from her.

“Wait-” Y/n started but he left the room before she could continue. There were more questions running through her head now than there were before he came in.

^      ^       ^

“Lord Vader requests your presence.” A Stormtrooper stated as he entered the quiet room. 

Y/n let out a sigh of annoyance. “You can tell Lord Vader that I decline his request.”

The Stormtrooper left reluctantly. Y/n was sure that was not the answer the trooper wanted. Nor Darth Vader.

After about 20 to 30 minutes the door of her room opened. Low and behold Darth Vader entered the room. Y/n couldn’t help but smirk a tiny bit at the frustration in Darth Vaders walk and demeanor. It was quite comical. “Hello to you too.”

“You declined. What makes you think you are allowed to decline a request from me?” Even though he concealed it well Y/n could tell Darth Vader was frustrated with her previous actions.

“Oh, I know that I’m not supposed to. But it got your attention now didn’t it?” she tilted her head with a smile tugging at her lips.

Vader’s suit let out what could be considered a sigh. “I’m assuming you have something you want to say.”

y/n nodded at his assumption. “I have questions.”

“You may ask them.” he moved to sit on the couch in the room he had provided her. Waiting for her to start asking said questions.

“Why am I here?” Was the first one and most obvious out of Y/n’s mouth.

“I have my reasons.”

“Are they valid for keeping me here without my consent?”

“Yes” Vader nodded

“Can I know the reasons?” Y/n asked to hope that she could get more than another one-worded answer.

“Soon.” he replied, smirking behind the mask.

“What does that mean?” Y/n groaned, this was getting her nowhere.

“You’ll find out soon.” Vader rephrased

“How far is soon?” she rolled her eyes at his vagueness.

“Have a goodnight, y/n.” Darth Vader stated as he got up and headed for the exit.

“Will we talk about this again?” Y/n asked standing up really quickly off the bed. Heading to follow him out the door.

“Soon.” Was the last word that left the Sith as he left, with the door shutting behind him.

“UUUUGGGGHHHHHHH” Y/n screamed, falling back onto the large bed. This was ridiculous. She was getting nowhere. Y/n had a feeling that she was going to e there for a long while. The least he could do was answer some of her questions if he was gonna keep her there. Hopefully, he will tell her more ‘soon’ as he puts it.

^      ^      ^

“You requested me?” Y/n snarked walking into what looked to be Darth Vaders room.

“I’m shocked you came. Your learning.” he seemed to snark back.

“Yeah, sure. Why’d you call me here?” Y/n questioned while switching her weight to one hip, moving her arms to hug around herself.

“Do you know my history?” Vader asked what was a very random question to the young woman.

“What do you mean?” she tilted her head in confusion.

“Before I became Darth Vader.” he elaborated, turning to face her.

Y/n shook her head, casting her eyes down as she answered. “No. i heard it was forbidden to talk about who you were before. So no one does.”

“To some people it is. Most in fact.” Vader agreed with her statement.

“But your gonna tell me?” Y/n’s eyes widened in shock.

“Yes.” It was a simple answer but it scared Y/n. What happens to people who know? That question just kept running through her mind.

“Am I allowed to know?” She asked after letting out a deep breath that was shaky. 

“It’s my story to tell, Y/n.” Darth Vader smiled under his mask at her.

“Right” Y/n let out a light shaky laugh. It was one of their rare moments between them where whatever wall that separated them came down. Which Y/n didn’t know how to feel about. But Vader couldn’t help but feel immensely happy with those moments.

“Before the Empire, I was a Jedi. I didn’t follow the code completely. I was married, in secret to the love of my life. Right before the rise of the Empire, when things changed she was pregnant. I was to be a father. . . . She died in childbirth. Because of me. An I wasn’t there for her. I made a lot of decisions I regret, and that was one of them.” Vader explained, looking solemnly towards the floor as he thought about his past actions.

“What was your name?” Y/n asked once he stopped explaining, Some of the things he had just mentioned sounded very familiar. Her breathing picked up as she waited for his answer. 

Vader decided to make a decision to show her his true face. No one has seen his face other than the Emperor since he turned from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. Once the helmet was off Vader turned to face the young woman, maskless. “I think you know.”

“Oh my-” Y/n gasped moving her hands up to cover her mouth. So many thoughts running through her head. 

“Y/n-”

Y/n held her hand up to stop him from saying more. “You know. You knew the whole time, and didn’t tell me! That's why I’ve been here this whole time. Isn't it!?”

Vader or maybe Anakin, could see how she was starting to feel upset. Betrayed even. But he knows she’s been held in the Empires custody long enough she deserved to know. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with a whimper.

“I wanted us to get to know each other first. Establish a relationship before I told you.” he explained, hoping she would understand. But he knew that it’d still probably take time with her. Over the last couple months they have been getting to know each other, just slowly.

“Well, I do know some stories about Anakin Skywalker. My father.” Y/n spoke after letting some time pass, playing with her fingers nervously, aware that things will forever be  changed.

Vader- or Anakin nodded in understanding. She had put it together and now she knew why he took her and why he’s treating her the way he is. He walked up to her, giving her a small smile. “I know we have a long way to some with our relationship, but I would like to make this work..” Vader softened his stature trying his hardest not to seem intimidating to his daughter. Not wanting to frighten her. “I’ve missed to much of your life up till now. I’m not missing any more of it.”

Y/n looked him in the eyes still not sure about all of this. But something was telling her that he is being truthful, and that she could trust him. He has protected her since she's been there. “Can you tell me more about my mom? And about you, or at least who you use to be?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. I can do that.” He nodded, and couldn’t help how much his smile grew. The fact that she was willing to get to know him made his heart swell. She wanted him to tell her about Padme, he hasn’t been able to talk about her since he lost her. Maybe they could have a slightly normal father daughter relationship.

[phoenixyfriend]

Anakin, Shmi, and the Jedi Babies

(Plus Jango)

A scene from the Anakin and the Jedi Babies

Warnings for: canon-typical discussion of slavery.

Shmi is eleven years old when the stranger comes.

He’s tall, and covered in the kind of dark clothes that are hell in the desert. He’s got some armor, too, but not as much as the Mandalorians she sees walking around sometimes. His expression is mean, even though he’s smiling, and she thinks the trader is scared of him.

He’s buying her.

“Now I just need a name for the ownership paperwork,” the trader says. She thinks he’s sweating.

“The sale is already completed, yes?” the stranger says. He tilts his head and purses his lips, still smirking. “No sudden fees coming my way?”

“Of course not, honored customer,” the trader simpers.

“Anakin Skywalker.”

Shmi’s heart stops. That’s her family name.

The trader gets a little paler, as he realizes why this man is here. Shmi watches the calculations fly, wondering if he can maybe squeeze out a few extra wupiupi on this sale. Former slaves freeing family, even family they don’t know, always fetches the highest price.

The stranger—Anakin—leans across the counter and looms over the trader, smiling in the most threatening way Shmi’s ever seen. “No sudden fees, right?”

“Well, there will be the code transfer f—”

“I’m the most dangerous person in this city,” the man says, smile dropping away like flies from a bantha. “Don’t make me prove it, friend.”

The sale is secured, the codes handed over, the detonator passing hands.

Shmi falls into step next to Anakin, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides. He takes her a few blocks away without a word, and then into a shallow spot in an alleyway, right where foot traffic won’t be a bother.

“Hey,” he says, dropping to one knee and placing himself where, even when she sets her gaze low, he’ll be there. He smiles at her, hesitant but far, far kinder than what she saw in the shop. “Do you want me to deactivate your chip now, or once we’re on my ship? I can’t remove it until we’re out of here; I’m no surgeon.”

“…now, please,” she whispers, and watches him punch in the numbers and codes to neutralize the bomb she’s carried inside herself since she was three. It’s done in less than two minutes.

“Do you want me to break this?” he asks, voice soft.

She nods, and watches in fascination as he crushes it in his fist with seemingly no effort.

He smiles at her, tosses the shards into the nearest compactor, and then offers her the hand that isn’t in a glove. She takes it, like she used to take her mom’s before they were separated, and follows him through Mos Pelgo. He’s family. He’s cleanly, clearly freed her. She should be able to trust him.

“Where are we going?” she manages to work up the courage to ask.

His stride stutters a bit, his hand squeezing hers, but his voice is even when he speaks. “Well, I would like you to stay with me, but if you have… have any family to return to, that you know how to find…”

“I don’t know where my mom is,” she says. “She got sold when I was four.”

He squeezes her hand again, and she dares to look at his face. His eyes are squinted, angry, and focused on the horizon. She’d call it stormy, if she’d ever been to a planet of water, but she was a child of the desert. She could feel his anger, and it wasn’t hot and sharp and blinding enough to be a storm of sand.

(She felt that it could be, in the intuition that had kept her alive these past years.)

“I see,” he says. “I’m… okay, then. I’d try to find her if I could, but I don’t know how to do that.”

Shmi shrugs. “She was sent to Jabba’s. I don’t think she’s… um. She’s probably dead, now.”

He’s silent in response to that.

“How did you find me?” she asks, because her intuition says to trust this man to keep her alive, even if she thinks she may not trust his temper.

He thinks about that for a second, and then lets go of her hand for a moment to brush aside a layer of his tunic.

A lightsaber.

Her eyes dart up to his, wide and maybe a little awed. He grins, a little more carefree than before.

“Jeedai?”

“A full Jedi knight, believe it or not,” he confirms. “The Force led me to find you. I don’t think I’d have been able to do locate you without it.”

“Wizard,” she whispers, and then he pulls her into his side and out of the way of a large, too-fast-for-these-streets speeder.

He swears under his breath in a language she doesn’t recognize.

“So, I’m going with you,” she says. “Um, where… where do Jedi live?”

“The Temple is on Coruscant,” he tells her. “But I’ve got business in Mandalorian space, so that’s where I’m based out of right now.”

“Okay,” she says. Mandalore… maybe that’s why he’s got armor like one of them. “I… I heard that Jedi are all called Master, so—”

“No,” Anakin snaps, turning around and getting to one knee in front of her again, hands on both her shoulders, stopping her in a fraction of a second with a look so intense that it scares her. “No, you are never to call me that. You are never going to bow your head to a master again, okay? You are free, and you are family.”

She stares at him for a long second, and then nods. She thinks her head jerks a bit too sharply, but he’s scary. He cares so much that it frightens her. He must be able to tell, because he closes his eyes and visibly forces himself to calm down.

“I was freed when I was nine,” he tells her. “By a Jedi Master. And I know… I know how uncomfortable it is to live like that, where the word means something different to you than it does to everyone else. I became a Jedi, so I learned to make it mean what it was supposed to, respect for teachers and—and elders. But you, you’re not a Jedi, you’re just a girl, and you matter, and—don’t make yourself say it. Please.”

“Okay,” she says. “Do I just… do I just call you Anakin, then?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine,” he says, and his hands twitch on her shoulders. She thinks he wants to pull her into a hug, but is forcing himself to stop. “Or Ani, if you want, my—my mom used to call me that. Seems like something to keep for family.”

“Okay,” she says again. She can do that.

“Or, um,” he hesitates, and then barrels on. “We’ll be in Mandalore. They say ori’vod to mean older sibling. So, er, you can call me that. If you want. You don’t have to.”

She’ll have to practice. It looks like it means a lot to him. “I’ll think about it.”

“Great,” he says, and dithers for a moment before he stands up and turns around, black robes flaring. “Come on, let’s get out of the sun.”

He leads her to just outside the city limits, where there’s a small ship waiting, enough for a half-dozen people on longer trips, maybe. She doesn’t know much about ships, but this one’s covered in scratches and pits, like it’s been in fights and come out the other side.

They open the door, and are met with wailing.

Anakin rushes past her, shouting, “Ben!”

Shmi doesn’t follow immediately, but he’s been pretty insistent that she’s family, not property. She’s allowed inside.

She finds Anakin in the main room, holding a baby and bouncing it in his arms as he hisses a demand to a boy only a few years older than Shmi herself.

“—my kids, Jango!”

“I’m here to babysit the ship, not the baby!” the teenager argues back.

Anakin scoffs and turns his attention to the baby in his arms. Shmi isn’t entirely sure, but she thinks the baby is definitely less than a year old. It quiets in his arms, tiny hands fisting in the fabric she knows is still too hot from the sun outside.

“Shmi, you can sit down,” he tells her, distracted. “I’d love to talk more but I think I need to make a bottle for Ben. I’ll be back in a few.”

She looks around, sees a bench, and sits down. She presses her hands together in her lap, keeps her eyes on the japor charm her mother left with her years ago, hanging around her wrist. She can wait. She’s patient. She’ll figure out how freedom works eventually.

“Mmmmmmbook!”

Shmi jolts in her seat as a very small body collides with her leg, blue and white and giggling. The head of that small body turns up to stare at her with massive eyes, and she sees the child’s face is orange. Togruta, she thinks, and very young.

The little one pushes a flimsi book onto Shmi’s lap and pats at it, grinning up at Shmi with tiny, pearly teeth.

“Ad’ika, she just got here,” the-teenager-that-is-probably-named-Jango sighs, dropping into the seat next to Shmi. “Let her rest.”

“Sto-wee!” the baby Togruta insists, patting at Shmi’s leg. The little one tries to climb up onto the bench, and Shmi reaches out to help after she realizes the toddler is about to slip. She receives, in thanks, a delighted grin and a montral to the ribs as the child hugs her.

“’m Soka!” the little one introduces.

“She’s one of Skywalker’s,” probably-Jango says. “He showed up with those two a few months ago in the middle of a chaak’la snowstorm.”

“No!” Soka insists, slapping her little hand on the book a few times. “No ‘ssip! Book!”

Jango lets his head fall against the metal wall behind them. “Fine. No gossip.”

Shmi looks at the little girl, and then back at the book. She’s… well, she can read. Mostly. She can read better than most slaves her age, but this is Basic, not Huttese.

She cracks it open to the first page, finds herself relieved that it really is a children’s story with small words and big letters, and starts reading it out loud. She goes slow. The story is about an eopie trying to find its way home after getting lost, asking other farm animals for help. There are plenty of pictures, and sometimes Soka pats at the book and shouts the name of an animal. It’s very cute, overall.

About two-thirds of the way through, she stumbles. It’s a word she hasn’t seen before, long and with repeating letters that she can���t quite figure out how to say. She pauses, long enough that she’s sure little Soka is confused about why she’s stopped.

“Happabore,” Jango mutters.

Shmi lifts her head, but he’s not looking at her. She looks down at the book again, mouths the letters to herself, and thinks that yes, that probably fits. She keeps reading aloud, letting little Soka tell her about her favorite animals, and when she finishes and looks up, it’s to find Anakin standing across from them.

He’s leaning against a doorframe, bottle-feeding the baby named Ben, and watching them with an expression Shmi thinks might be ‘wistful.’

“Skyguy!” Little Soka cheers, sliding off the bench so she can toddle over to the man as fast as her little legs can carry her. “Skyguy, gots a fweind!”

He smiles indulgently and lets her hug his leg. “I can see that, Snips. You guys have fun?”

“Uh-huh!” the little one tells him. She raises her hands at him. “Up!”

“Sorry, hun, no can do,” Anakin apologizes. “I’m feeding Ben, and I need both hands for that.”

She pouts, and he jerks his chin at Shmi and Jango. “Go back to the bench and you can help me feed him, okay?”

Soka races back.

“Fett, go get the ship powered up,” Anakin says as he ambles over, voice the kind of casually commanding that gives Shmi goosebumps. It’s not familiar, not the way an owner is, but it’s… it’s a voice that’s very used to having authority. “I want us out of here as soon as possible.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am the commanding officer according to Jaster,” Anakin says, and Shmi watches him raise an eyebrow. “I know it’s not much of a mission, but I am in charge until we’re back on Concord Dawn. You want me to tell him you’re playing at insubordination?”

Jango makes a face, sticking out his tongue. Anakin waits.

Jango goes to start the ship.

“Teenagers,” Anakin mutters, shaking his head. “I want to say I was never that bad, but I’d be lying.”

Soka giggles, bouncing in her seat as Anakin carefully lowers himself down next to her. “Okay, okay, settle down. He’s cranky, kiddo.”

“Wanna help,” Soka stresses, reaching for the bottle. Anakin shifts away from her, keeping it out of her reach. “Skyguy!”

“Slow down, Snips,” he chides. “Climb on my lap and we can hold him together, okay?”

Shmi fiddles with her japor snippet, but she can’t help her fascination with the dynamic presented. Anakin obviously isn’t related to Soka by blood, but he’s adopted her as his own. They haven’t said as much, but it’s obvious. He can’t stop smiling as he talks the girl through holding the bottle for her baby brother, even though it’s obvious from the outside that he’s the one actually holding it, and her, and the baby.

The ship hums to life around them. Anakin tilts his head, as if listening to something, and then goes back to the baby.

It’s another minute before Anakin says, “Okay, that’s enough. I need to burp him. Go on, scoot.”

Soka grimaces as well as a two-year-old can, and slides off of Anakin’s lap onto the bench. He stands and presses the baby up to his shoulder, patting it on the back. There’s a towel there already, something Shmi hadn’t noticed earlier.

“I’m going to go check on Jango,” he tells them. “Shmi, can you get Soka in her seat? I’ll tell you how to buckle her in, but I promised Jango he could fly us back and I want to sit up there to make sure he gets us into hyperspace without, say, exploding.”

It’s only a minute or two to get both of them sat down and buckled in, and Soka spends the entire time until lift-off telling Shmi about how much she likes eopies. This continues well until they end up in hyperspace, the jolt of it making the little one squeal in excitement, even if Shmi feels her stomach drop out. Shortly after, the boys wander back in.

“We’re good for a couple hours,” Anakin says. “Nav computer’s got it until we jump back out. Anyone want a snack?”

“Me!” Soka screeches, bouncing in her seat. “Jan-Jan, snacktime!”

Anakin’s eyebrows climb up towards his hairline. “Well, seems like you’ve got a fan, Fett.”

“Shut up,” Jango grumbles, but he does go over and pick Soka out of her child seat, setting her on his hip and going in the direction of what Shmi assumes is the galley.

“You doin’ okay?” Anakin asks, carefully taking the seat next to her. He sits Ben up on his lap, but the baby has trouble staying in that position. Anakin takes his hands, letting tiny fists curl around his thumbs, to help him stay up.

“It’s a lot,” she says. “But I am happy to be free.”

He grins at her. “Glad to hear it. It’s a lot to adjust to, I know, but… I’m happy to have you with us.”

She nods, eyes on the baby that’s swaying from side to side as Anakin moves his hands, like a very, very small speeder pilot.

“Is he, um, yours?” Shmi asks. “Or did you adopt, like Soka?”

Anakin’s smile, so full of love, drops off. He presses his lips into a thin line, and for a moment, Shmi wonders if she’s made a horrible misstep.

“What… what do you know about Jedi relationships?” Anakin asks, voice quiet.

“Nothing,” she admits, but she’s not ashamed of that. Nobody knows much about the Jedi.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than to her. “Okay, so… okay. There are a couple ranks in the Order. Younglings go in the crèche, communally raised in groups, and then when they’re five or so, they get to become Initiates. A few years later, usually between ten and fourteen, they can enter an apprenticeship to a Jedi Knight or Master, and the apprentice rank is Padawan. When the apprenticeship is done, they become Knights, basically journeymen, and at some point after that, Masters. There are positions that technically rank higher, councils and heads of divisions, and there’s stuff outside the apprenticeship system, like the service corps, but that’s not super relevant. It’s complicated but we’re only focusing on the apprenticeship path for knights.”

He hesitates, and then continues. “One of the ways to become a Master in the Order is to successfully raise a Padawan to knighthood. I was never an Initiate, because I came to the Order so much later than most. I immediately became a Padawan, and my master was freshly knighted. The relationship between master and padawan is… it’s family. Some of the more orthodox of the Order don’t like to put it in those words, but it really is.

“If I ever talk about my Master, just know I’m not talking about any of the owners I had before I was freed. I’m talking about the man who raised me, the man I saw as a father. He may not have seen me as a son, more a brother, but he was only sixteen years older than me, and… anyway. Jedi lineages are family. Your Master is a parent, or an older sibling, and your Padawan is a child to bring up as your own,” he finishes this off with the kind of deep, heavy breath that she thinks precedes grief. She can’t tell.

“My master is… well, he’s not in a position to teach anyone anything anymore. Ben here is all I have left of him.”

Oh.

Oh.

Anakin doesn’t look at her, just stares down at the baby that’s gotten cranky again, and rearranges Ben to lie sideways in his arms. He smiles down as the baby burbles up at him, and tickles at the baby’s stomach. Ben grabs at Anakin’s fingers and kicks at the air, laughing in the manner of all children that small.

The man hums, and Shmi is more shocked than she should be to hear one of the lullabies she’s heard in slave quarters all her life.

“He’s your son now,” she says, more firmly than she feels. “He is yours to raise and care for, and I can tell you love him as much as any parent.”

Anakin lifts his head, staring at her like he can’t quite believe she’s there, and tears collect at the edges of his eyes.

“Thank you, Shmi Skywalker,” he says, and she feels like there’s more weight in those words than there should be. He licks his lips, eyes darting away for a second, and then asks, “do you want to hold him?”

She steels herself, and nods.

This is her family now.

Hers.

[nevertheless-moving]

Follow-up to my previous ask: do Jedi who want/need to have a wedding or HELP with a wedding eventually learn to turn to Anakin for research? "Yeah, I was asked to officiate something on Alderaan, but I have no idea what the right way to--" "LET ME GET THE DATAPAD do you know who's getting married? What's the bride wearing? Does the groom seem happy? Are they in LOVE or is it political?"

this is a hidden side of Anakin that most Jedi never see, but the ones who do can never unsee it. like most people at the temple think he avoids creche duty because he doesn’t like babies (which valid, a lot of jedi struggle with infants, jedi babies shout and also shout). until they get a random mission with him where anakin has to rescue some orphans and when it’s time to let go of the baby because ‘you’re a general and he’s a baby who has to go to orphanage’ he starts visibly crying and runs off for a little while, coming back scowling at everything and Luminara’s like yikes ok that’s what that face means and also he has some attachment issues with babies got it not going to say anything.

It’s the same thing with weddings where he’ll bitch and complain and avoid those diplomatic missions but when he gets them he shows up with several datapads about that regions religious history and textile industry and Cere Junda is impressed because she always heard skywalker was a bit of slacker on mission prep. then during the flight she realizes that all of the research is hyperfocused on weddings, nothing about the treaty that it’s supposed to be signifying, or the generations of war, except where relevant to wedding planning. 

So Knight Junda is running around foiling assassination attempts and talking to war councilors convincing them that mutually assured destruction is not a sustainable tactic of peace and convincing them to go along with the republic supervised demilitarization. 

Meanwhile Anakin is micromanaging the floral arrangements and having long spa day with the first groom where he gets him incredibly hyped up about the concept of marriage as the start of the next phase of his life, which is sort of helpful but also not because the first groom was in an affair with a high level priest and now he’s nobly broken it off because “He’s going to be a married man!” and the priest is pissed. Seemingly simultaneously, he’s harassing the kitchen because they’re not paying attention to the the second groom’s family’s dietary restrictions dear force don’t you know there’s a cultural taboo against flightless avians?!?!? That night he has a long conversation with the bride-to-be’s mother which does prevent one of the assassination schemes but Knight Junda is too busy fighting off lizard ninjas in the sewers to appreciate that right now.

The day of the wedding Junda has two fractured ribs and is gaping at Anakin who just stormed into medbay (this is the first time she’s seen him in a week), manhandled her into some awful velvet version of her robes and marched her to the ceremony. She’s too exhausted to fight back against this manic side of Skywalker and this will go in her very strongly worded report.

They get to the ceremony and maybe it’s the painkillers but the other knight is reluctantly blown away and the guests are in awe. The clearing radiates love and serenity in a way only usually the home of a 40-year blissfully married couple can. It’s an outrageous use of force imbuing and if Junda wasn’t partially under it’s affect she would be more disturbed. 

two of the senators that had been at loggerheads this whole kriffing mission are holding hands and sitting next to each other. The acoustics are inexplicably good for an outdoor ceremony and the choir is angelic.

A ripple of gasps pass over the gathering as a perfect cascade of sun showers begins immediately before the opening ceremony, a soothing patter on the fabric canopy above. The rain fades away softly as the three begin to say their vows, not quite soaking through the covering, a clear sign of divine blessing.

Knight Junda has to fight the urge to scream because Knight Skywalker just clearly used the force to alter the weather, a force practice that she’s only familiar with in legend, legends that spoke of 100 Jedi Masters working in tandem to alter barometric pressure, and Anakin is making subtle shoeing motions with his hands and the clouds are moving away is no one else seeing this.

No one else is seeing it of course because they’re too focused on the perfect vows and the gorgeous ceremony and the ceremonial exchanging of ribbons and oh lords above that was a grace winged hawk trio that just passed overhead the ultimate symbol of harmony!

Afterwards, the high triad and their associated councilors send a glowing mission report to the high council who is very pleased. They specific mention how helpful and incredible that remarkable anakin skywalker was, a little intense but gosh the results!! Please send him for all our weddings!

Cere Junda is standing before the council wrestling with herself because she wants to complain but Skywalker did end up fulfilling a critical need of the mission, but she would have preferred if he had explained his rationale better because in the moment it seemed like he was coopting the assignment for his own pleasure, and, in fact, she’s still not convinced that his success was entirely intentionally and not just a happy outgrowth of his obsessive behavior. 

So that’s what she says. And the council draws their own conclusions about who-did-what with the ninja fighting and the mother-of-the bride soothing. 

And she doesn’t ever explain to anyone what it was like to walk into a room expecting to get help with aggressively negotiating with a governor only to be surrounded by floating pastries while Knight Skywalker and several strange matronly women squealed at each other at a pitch she didn’t know human males could reach.

And when the council asks if they would recommend sending Anakin on another wedding-involved assignment she simply gives a carefully neutral non-answer. And when Master Tiin comes back from the joint mission looking vaguely shellshocked she just quietly pulls him aside so they can joint meditate what the fuck what the fuck at each other.