#I love leia organa

[starwlkerr]

jedi leia sketch :D

[jewishcissiekj]

Look listen hear me out if I was attracted to Batman I'd keep that to myself.

[starstwinkleplanetsshine]

No Time for Sorrows

Every time I watch A New Hope I'm struck by Leia's resilience and strength. She loses everything in the blink of an eye, and watches it happen, and yet goes on to be the ultimate badass. I always wondered what was going on within her, how she pushed her pain aside to get the job done. So I decided to write the events of Star Wars: A New Hope from her perspective with the context of her overwhelming pain and loss.

Summary:  During the darkest moment of her life, Leia Organa had to push forward and bury her pain deep inside her. There was work to be done, a star destroyer to escape from, Death Star plans to deliver, and a battle station to destroy. She had always been taught to put her duty above her feelings, what needed to be done above her emotions. And now, as her whole life shattered around her, she relied on that training. Suddenly alone in the galaxy, she somehow found the hope and strength to continue on and make her parents proud.

Read on AO3 here :) 

Leia Organa sat in her too-cold prisoner cell aboard the star destroyer that she had been dragged onto not more than two hours before. The cold steel around her was rivaled by the frozen blood in her veins and she couldn’t even feel how hard the bench was that she was now curled up on. She couldn’t feel her heart beating, and she wondered if it had stopped. She couldn’t hear anything but the ringing in her own ears. She couldn’t see anything but the too-bright white of the wall directly in front of her, the shadows beginning to become distorted from staring at one spot for so long. Too long. 

The tears wouldn’t come. They couldn’t. If she let herself cry, that meant she let herself acknowledge the horror that had just happened. If she let herself cry, that meant it was real. 

And it couldn’t be real. 

Even though she saw it with her own eyes. 

She felt nothing but numbness. The fear that coursed through her as she pleaded for Governor Tarkin to spare her planet had long faded, the terror of Darth Vader’s vice grip on her arm as he held her in place was a distant memory. Yet no matter how hard she tried, it played over and over in her mind. 

The vastness of space. The beauty of a thousand stars. Her planet, Alderaan, a beacon of hope and freedom and goodness in an increasingly dark galaxy, shining blue and green in the distance. A green beam of light. And then, suddenly, nothing but shattered rock. 

A thousand images flashed through her mind in that one second. The palace she grew up in. Appenza Peak capped with snow. The forest around her home. Her favorite ocean. Her nurses and handmaids. Her childhood. Kier Domadi. Her parents. 

Her parents. 

They were all gone now, scattered into space. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to think of something else, anything else, but that was impossible. What else was there to think about? Her entire life had blown up in front of her eyes, and in less than an hour she was going to be gone too. Her execution didn’t even scare her anymore, the thought of dying no longer made her want to run away as far as she could. She was no longer plotting her escape, thinking of some way to talk herself out of the situation. Clearly, the time for that was over. Clearly her time, like Alderaan's, had come. 

And strangely enough, that thought brought the smallest bit of comfort. At least she was going to see her parents again soon. 

She had just closed her eyes when someone burst into the room. 

It was a stormtrooper, but he didn’t say anything. He just stood there. Something deep within her told her that something was off, and through her shock and confusion words she didn’t remember thinking poured out of her mouth, 

“Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” 

“Huh? Oh the uniform.” The intruder took off his helmet in a flash to reveal a young man, Leia guessed around her age, with kind eyes and blonde hair. “I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you.” 

Something about this boy, something about the name he just uttered, stirred something deep within her, something she had never felt before. Or, maybe she had felt it, but so long ago it was like a memory from a dream. Whatever this force was pulled her off of her side and she sat on the hard bench. For the briefest moment, her pain eased. 

“I’m here to rescue you, I’ve got your R2 unit. I’m here with Ben Kenobi.” 

That name pulled her onto her feet in an instant. Ben Kenobi who rescued her and returned her to her parents when she was only ten years old. Ben Kenobi who fought the scariest things she had ever seen, who protected her when she was her most vulnerable. Ben Kenobi who cared for her more than a stranger should. Ben Kenobi who knew her birth parents and told her about them. Ben Kenobi who she hadn’t seen in nine years. Ben Kenobi who was a Jedi. 

“BEN KENOBI?! Where is he?” 

“Come on, I’ll show you.” 

She followed Luke out of her cell and into the hallway of the cell bay where she ran into another man and a Wookiee. It was clear right away that the three were hopelessly without a plan, and so she did what she had always done, what she was raised to do–take the lead and do what needed to be done. And as she was running from stormtroopers and telling her rescuers how to survive, she almost forgot about the searing pain coursing through her that had consumed her soul a few minutes before. She pushed it aside, into a small box in a dark corner of her mind, because what else could she do? Now that she had a chance, she needed to escape. Now that Ben Kenobi was here, she had hope again. Somehow, he heard her message and was here to save the day, to make everything right, just like he had done all those years ago. And a small part of her found comfort in the fact that he knew her parents, too. The thought of talking to someone who knew Bail and Breha, who could remember them with her, compelled her to move forward. 

This drive took her into a garbage chute, out of it, running down hallways from stormtroopers, firing her blaster wildly behind her, flying across a chasm clinging onto the boy who broke her out of her cell, and finally into the flight bay where she saw the oldest and most run down ship she had seen in her life, but at least it meant escape. It meant one member of the last Alderaanian royal family was going to survive, it meant she could tell her planet’s story. 

And as she ran into the room she saw him, her hero, Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Fighting Darth Vader. 

Blocked by stormtroopers, separated by a chasm, she watched as Obi-Wan, her Ben, looked over to them as they ran into the room. She watched as Luke walked towards the chasm, peering at the action curiously. And Leia couldn’t be sure, but she could swear she saw the smallest smile appear on Ben Kenobi’s face. She was just forming a plan on how to get him out of there, she had seen him fight more enemies at once and she knew he had faced Darth Vader before, so she was sure he would do it again. Maybe they could get the falcon over there, or they could take out the stormtroopers and Ben could jump over the chasm leaving Vader behind, or…

In an instant, Vader’s blade cut through the space where Obi-Wan had just been standing and he was gone. 

“NO!” Luke’s voice echoed across the large room and caused all the stormtroopers to turn and fire. She shot back at them, with her and Han yelling at Luke to run to them, to leave so that they could escape. 

“Luke! It’s too late!” She screamed above the blaster fire and wished with everything in her that he would run to them. Too late. Too late for Ben Kenobi. Too late for her parents. Too late for Alderaan. She barely heard Han tell Luke to blast the door, and he must have because it began to shut and the last thing Leia saw was the hulking figure of Darth Vader striding towards them as the door closed on him. Luke ran to the Falcon and Han and Chewbacca rushed to power up the ship as quickly as they could. Leia felt the ship take off and exhaled for the first time in a while. She didn’t even realize she had been holding her breath. 

She watched as Luke slowly, purposelessly, limped to the bench and dejarik table where he sat down with a thud and laid his head on the table. A thick silence and palpable sadness filled the air, and so Leia did what she was taught to do in times of crisis: she turned her attention to others. She did her best to find any solution she could. She did her best to help those around her. 

She found a worn, sand colored poncho on the ground and brought it over to Luke, gently laying it over his shoulders and sitting down next to him while placing a hand on his back. They sat in silence for a while, Luke doing nothing but shaking his head and tracing lazy circles on the table. Leia recognized his shock. 

“I just can’t believe he’s gone.” The pain in his voice was real, she knew it all too well. The words could have been coming out of her own mouth, and for a brief moment a flash of anger rose within her. She just lost her entire planet, her home, everything and everyone she had ever known and loved. Everyplace she walked as a child, every tree she climbed when life got too harsh. All gone. He still had a home he could run back to, a people and a place he was familiar with, a people and a place he could call his own. Didn’t he know she had lost so much more? Didn’t he know she could never go home again? Didn’t he know how much pain she was in? 

‘No’ She told herself. ‘How could he know?’

So she banished those thoughts of anger and comparison, it wasn’t fair to anyone. It wouldn’t help, it would only make her bitter. But most of all, it wouldn’t be what her parents would want of her. 

“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done.” She didn’t know if she was talking to Luke or herself. She hoped he couldn’t hear how the words were sticking in her throat, how the pain of another loss was weighing on her like the mountains of her home she would no longer see. He didn’t know, he couldn’t know, but losing Ben Kenobi stung her every bit as much as it did him. In an odd way, knowing he was alive, knowing he was near, was like a tether to her parents. She knew that he was one of the only beings she knew who could share at least a small part of her grief, who could remember her parents with her. And now even that was gone. 

Now she truly was alone. 

-----

“Come on buddy, we’re not out of this yet.” Han came sliding into the room and broke into their grief. In moments, they were up and running to their places, ready to take on whatever the Empire was about to throw at them. 

Neither of the boys could have the faintest idea of how much Leia Organa was breaking apart inside. Neither of them could know how every step took every bit of strength she had in her, how every word was the hardest thing she had ever had to say, how every breath was like fire in her lungs, burning her whole body. 

But there was work to be done, so she kept her mask on. 

She was a politician, after all. And a Princess. She was used to her feelings and personal life taking a back seat. 

Leia found herself in the cockpit with Han Solo after they had escaped the TIE fighters that had chased them. 

“Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh?” The smugness in his voice got on Leia’s nerves instantly. “You know, sometimes I even amaze myself.” Leia tried to treat everyone with kindness, except arrogant men who talked down to her. 

“That doesn’t sound too hard.” She didn’t try to mask her disdain. She sighed, reminding herself to act like a Princess. “They let us go, it's the only explanation for the ease of our escape.” 

“Easy? You call that easy?” Even Han’s voice made Leia want to punch him in the face. She thought about the countless chases she had been in since working with the rebellion, and the pilots that got her out of the many scrapes she found herself in. She thought about a friend of hers, a certain green Twi’lek rebel captain, who would certainly fly circles around Han, and not just because she had a better ship. 

“They’re tracking us.” 

“Not this ship, sister.” She decided to ignore his arrogance and disrespect. 

“At least the information in R2 is still intact.” If anything happened to that droid, or that information, everything would be lost. Everything she sacrificed would have been for nothing. 

“What’s so important? What’s he carrying?” 

“The technical readout for that battle station.” Her words were biting, not trying to mask her annoyance. “I only hope that when the data’s analyzed a weakness can be found.” She felt her tone shift, her voice drop. She thought about what would happen if they couldn’t find a weakness, what if they couldn’t stop that weapon, what if–No. There had to be something. “It’s not over yet.” In the back of her mind, she knew it never would be. 

“It is for me, sister. Look, I ain't in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess.” Hearing that title nearly knocked the wind out of her. How can you be a princess of a place that no longer exists? “I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.” What a luxury it must be to pick and choose what you care about, she thought. How lucky he must be to not need to stop this evil. How jealous she was that this fight wasn’t real for him, wasn’t intensely personal. She wondered what that felt like. 

“You needn’t worry about your reward.” Her words were cold as Hoth, her pain turning into icy fury and shooting daggers directly into him. “If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.” She shot out of her chair, her anger propelling her as she used all her willpower to stop hot tears from bursting out of her eyes. She still hadn’t let herself cry and she was not about to break down in front of this arrogant asshole. She was moving so blindly she ran right into Luke. “Your friend is quite a mercenary.” Her disgust was dripping with every word. “I wonder if he really cares about anything. Or anybody.” Before her anger could explode out of her, she stormed down the hallway in search of a private room. 

-----

Before long, the Falcon was circling around Yavin IV and Leia could breathe a sigh of relief. This was the closest thing she had to a home now, and she knew there were people down there who shared her pain and grief. Fellow Alderaanians who were off planet because of the rebellion, or fellow senators and rebel leaders who worked closely with her father. With every step, she reminded herself there was still work to be done. 

Soon, the three of them were in the base and shuttled to a flight bay. And there, like an oasis in the desert, stood her old family friend Vanden Willard. Commander Willard had been in Leia’s life since she was a child, he was an old friend of her fathers and was always present at any birthday or celebration. He was always kind, and he always made Leia feel safe. But most importantly, he was Alderaanian. He knew exactly what she was going through, almost exactly what her pain was. Seeing him made her pain ease even the tiniest bit, because she knew she wasn’t alone. She knew there were others like her out there going through the same shock, grief, anger, sadness, and confusion. She was on her feet in an instant, walking over to him and putting her arms around him in a gentle hug. She was surprised when she felt a smile form on her face, but she knew it was either feel the joy of an Alderaanian standing in front of her or cry at the horror of what happened just hours ago. She chose to smile. 

“You’re safe. When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst.” ‘No please, she thought. Please don’t talk about our home. Not here, not now.’

“We have no time for sorrows, Commander.” What she meant was that she couldn’t let herself stop moving long enough to truly acknowledge what happened. She couldn’t think about it for more than a few seconds for fear of breaking down completely. She couldn’t allow herself to feel the weight of the crushing loss because she didn’t know if she could ever recover from it. If she let herself crumple now, she was afraid she would never be able to stand tall again. 

So she pushed forward, like she had always done. Like her parents taught her. 

“You must use the information in this R2 unit to help plan the attack.” She continued, walking swiftly ahead. She had a job to do, a role to play. She always did. “It’s our only hope.” 

Time seemed to stop moving entirely and also move too fast. Leia lost track of it ever since the rivers on Alderaan stopped flowing, like her tether to reality was lost with her home. She found herself in the briefing room surrounded by a hundred pilots as she listened to General Dodonna explain what they had learned from the plans that were hidden in R2. She was only half listening until she heard her name,

“An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia” Didn't they all know that wasn’t her name anymore? “has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station.” Leia let out a shaky breath and thanked the force. At least for now, her sacrifices meant something. The general continued explaining how a small, one-man fighter could approach the battle station and exploit its weakness, and Leia found herself looking to the blonde haired boy who had helped her escape. She didn’t understand why, but she felt pulled to him, like there was a golden string binding the two of them, drawing them together. 

“The target area is only two meters wide.” General Dodonna’s voice broke through her reverie and caused the whole room to stir. Leia had only flown a handful of ships in her life, but she knew that was a near impossible task. She saw Han roll his eyes in the back of the room and share a look with Chewbacca, and then she noticed Luke. He wasn’t complaining or grumbling to the boys around him like the others, he was quiet. He looked at Leia for a moment while the general continued to explain that a precise hit to the shaft that leads to the reactor system would start a chain reaction that would bring the whole station down. 

“That’s impossible, even for a computer.” A whiny voice came from the crowd. Somehow Leia knew Luke was about to speak before he opened his mouth. 

“But it's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp-rats in my T16 back home. They’re not much bigger than two meters.” His voice was quiet, gentle, and not loud enough to get everyone’s attention as General Dodonna continued speaking, but Leia heard it and it brought a small smile to her face. She was warmed by his natural optimism. 

“Then man your ships. And may the force be with you.” The general ended his briefing and all the pilots got up and began to head to their ships, many of them grumbling about the impossible odds of what they were about to attempt. 

Leia made a point to find Commander Willard to tell him the details of what happened to their home. As much as it pained her to talk about it, he deserved to know the truth. He needed to know it. There was so much rumor and speculation in the air and in the whole galaxy about the destruction, Leia needed him to know what really happened. But even as she was reporting it, it was like she was recounting something from a dream, something that didn’t really happen to her. She still hadn’t let herself accept the finality of it. She still hadn’t let a single tear fall, although her eyes did well up as she hugged the Alderaanian commander again. Their shared grief snuck into her soul and threatened to cause her to collapse, so she decided to find Luke Skywalker before he took off. As she approached him, she could see and feel that something was off. 

“What's wrong?” They didn’t have long, the horrible battle station was orbiting the planet above them and they were running out of time. 

“Oh, it's Han. I don't know, I really thought he’d change his mind.” Leia was once again struck by the hopefulness the boy carried within him, he saw goodness within everyone, no matter how deep it was buried. She wished she had his altruism, but years of politics and helping her mother rule their planet sucked that out of her. 

“He’s got to follow his own path. No one can choose it for him.” 

“I only wish…Ben were here.” That made Leia balk. Again she felt that flash of anger, that bolt of disbelief. ‘And I only wish my planet hadn't been destroyed.’ she wanted to shoot back at him. ‘I only wish my father were here, he would know what to do. I only wish I could sit in front of my mother as she undid these heavy buns on the sides of my head and sang ancient songs to me.’ she wanted to scream into the sky. ‘I knew Ben too, I miss him too.’ She wanted to spat in his face. She knew the boy in front of her didn’t mean to hurt her, she knew he probably hadn’t had to deal with this much pain before. She knew that comparing their grief wasn’t fair, but didn't he know? Didn’t he know she had lost so much more? Her anger and pain and sadness was building inside her and she feared it would come pouring out if she opened her mouth, so she leaned forward and gave Luke a gentle kiss on the cheek. She remembered what her mother always taught her: that when she wanted to scream, she should respond with kindness. And so that’s what she did before walking away and finding comfort in her fellow forgotten Alderaanian. 

She walked as quickly as she could into the strategy room and took a sharp breath when she didn’t see her father standing there. She had rarely been here without him, as one of the leaders of the rebellion and a brilliant tactician, he was almost always standing around the table with her, giving her the courage and strength to speak her mind and make her voice heard. No matter whatever odds they were facing, Leia always believed they would succeed if her father was there. She believed in him like a little child, and a part of her still imagined he would walk through the door and tell them all to trust in the force. But he wasn’t going to, he was never going to utter those words to her again. Being in this room without him was like losing him all over again, and once more she pushed the tears away, pushed the pain down. There was work to do. 

“Standby alert. Death star approaching.” A voice over the speaker came blaring into the room, shaking Leia out of her thoughts. “Estimated time to firing range: fifteen minutes.” She felt a chill go down her spine, the thought of seeing that battle station scared her more than anything else. She wanted to destroy that thing more than she had ever wanted anything, and not just to get justice for Alderaan. She knew that destroying the Death Star was the only hope for the rebellion, there was no way they could survive with this weapon in the Empire's hands. If they didn’t succeed, this planet would soon be gone too. And then which would be next? She had to stop them, she had to make sure no other planet, no other people, would suffer like Alderaan had. 

She used her pain as fuel to push her forward and continue her fight against the darkness. 

She stood and listened as the X-wings approached the Death Star and made their attack. Run after run ended without success and they were losing men faster than she would have liked. But still, she held onto hope. She had to, there was no other option. She gave orders and suggested tactics and buried herself in the task at hand to keep her mind off the grim chance that they might not make it out of this one. 

They were running out of time, and everyone knew it. 

General Dodonna spoke to the red team and gave them orders for their next attack run. Leia knew that was the squad Luke was assigned to, and she desperately wanted to tell him to be safe, to trust himself and his skills. She didn’t know why, but she had this deep belief in him. She didn’t know why, but she felt like he was the key to all of this. But like her other feelings, she pushed those down. The first group started their run and before long Red Leader’s voice came over the speaker, 

“I'm in range, target coming up.” Everyone leaned forward, praying to everything and anything they believed in. This might be their last chance. “Almost there…” An explosion, crashing. Another X-wing down. “Almost there…” Leia wanted to scream at him to go faster. 

“I can’t hold them.” Another crash. Red Leader was the only one left in the trench. 

“It’s away!” The whole room leaned in more. He shot it, but now they waited to see if he hit it. ‘He had to,’ Leia thought. This had to work. 

“Negative.” Red Leader’s dejected voice came through. “It didn’t go in. It just impacted on the surface.” Leia’s heart sank even lower and she felt an overwhelming sense of dread. She couldn’t accept that everything her parents had worked so hard to build for so long could come crashing down. And she couldn’t do anything to stop it, just like she couldn’t do anything to save Alderaan. She shared a desperate look with the General. 

She heard another crash and looked at the screen. There was only one minute until the Death Star would be in firing range, and then it would all be over. She wondered if it would be quick, or if they would have time to see everything crumbling around them. She inched her way over to General Dodonna, the look of fear and resignation clear on her face. There was no need for a mask anymore. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and was grateful for the comfort. At least she would see her father soon. 

Then a familiar voice came through the pilots’ channel. 

“We’re going in full throttle.” Luke’s gentle voice floated through the air holding a desperation and confidence she had never heard from him. Something about it made her heart flash with hope, if only for a moment. Maybe all wasn’t lost, not yet. 

He started his run with Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles, two accomplished pilots Leia knew from their years of service. Leia knew that Wedge had been with the rebellion since the earliest days of the civil war and she trusted his skills. Leia held her breath. 

She listened as Luke gave orders to the other two men with assurance and authority, and she was impressed by his ability to take the lead. It was a side of him she hadn’t seen, and in a strange way, she was proud of him. The tiny flame of hope in her chest burned a little brighter. 

And then he turned his computer off. 

“Luke, you switched off your targeting computer. What’s wrong?” Leia’s heart began to beat faster and she didn’t remember the last time she took a breath. 

“Nothing. I’m alright.” She didn’t know why, but for some reason, she still trusted him. An explosion. A droid scream. “I’ve lost R2!” Her father’s droid, the loyal, feisty astromech who had been in their service for a few years now. Leia felt C3PO turn to look at her, but it was all she could do to keep her focus forward, staring, unmoving. She couldn’t handle many more losses. 

“The Death Star has cleared the planet. The Death Star has cleared the planet.” The alarm and voice came blaring over speakers in the rebel base. Her hope extinguished and she let out the exhausted breath she was holding. This was it. She failed. Everything her father built, everything he was, about to be destroyed. She finally looked to C3PO and shared a terrified glance. 

An explosion. Leia’s shattered heart cracked even more, thinking Luke was gone. She looked at the screen on the table, and was confused when she saw his signal was still strong. And then she heard a sound she thought she would never hear again. 

A whooping, a cry of triumph. She had only met Han Solo today, but she knew it was him. 

The flame in her heart reignited. 

“You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home.” Han’s excited voice came ringing through the channel. She took a shaky breath as she prayed once again. Accepting her death was easy, having hope that they might survive was a lot scarier. If she had hope, that meant she had more to lose. But she held onto it anyway. 

Luke made it to his target, fired at it, and then flew out of the trench. Everyone held their breath. 

There was a loud bang and the ground they were standing on shook slightly. Leia wondered if they had failed, if the Death Star really had fired at them, when she heard Han’s voice. 

“Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!” 

Leia almost couldn't believe it. Relief flooded through her and for the first time since she lost everything she took a full breath. She felt a flicker of joy reenter her heart, and she welcomed it like an old friend. The pain was still there, she knew it always would be, but she knew her parents would want her to accept the joy when it came. After all, she did this for them. 

As soon as they got word of Luke’s X-Wing touching down she sprinted through the halls and into the hangar, not caring what she looked like. She could hear cheers and clapping all around her, and the air was filled with infectious exuberance and relief. They did it, they survived. And, at least for today, they won. 

“Luke!” 

“Leia!” She threw her arms around the blonde boy, letting him spin her around. She laughed freely, laughter that she thought would never again come from her mouth. For the first time all day, she didn’t feel guilty. She didn’t feel a dark shadow hanging over her. The Death Star was destroyed, they were still here. The Rebellion lived to see another day, and now it had the hope of continuing on. She could never get Alderaan back, but she could fight with everything in her to protect and keep what she still had. 

And she had the strangest feeling that the boy who was spinning her around was now one of those things. 

“Hey!” Han Solo's voice came ringing across the space as he rushed over to them. Luke launched himself into his arms and all three of them were smiling widely. 

“I just knew you’d come back! I just knew it!” 

“Well I wasn’t gonna let you get all the credit and take all the reward.” Han’s voice didn’t match his words, though, and Leia knew he came back for much more than that. She didn’t think before launching herself straight into Han’s arms. 

“Han, I knew there was more to you than money!” she felt his arms around her and for just a moment, everything felt okay. Luke joined in their hug and for the smallest second, Leia forgot about her pain. The three of them held each other before a mechanic arm lowered the damaged R2-D2 down from Luke’s X-wing. It snapped them all back to reality, but the mechanics assured them all that they would fix him and he would be good as new. Luke reassured C3PO that he would be alright before putting his arm back around Leia. 

The three of them, Leia sandwiched in the middle, walked with their arms around each other into the base, their smiles wide and their hearts light. Her pain hadn’t left her, she knew it never fully would, but she had the most peculiar feeling that she would be okay. She looked at the two men around her and the Wookiee following behind, and knew she wasn't alone. She knew she would never be able to have her mother and father back, but she also believed, more than most, that family was more than just blood. And so with her head held high and her smile wide, she let herself celebrate their success with everyone. And as she walked into the celebration, she swore she could hear her mother and father’s voice like a distant echo whisper softly to her, 

“We’re so proud of you. We love you.” 

“I Know” She whispered back. 

Epilogue: 

The party went late into the night and she didn’t return to her room until the morning hours. When she did she was tired but full of light. It wasn’t until she was alone in her dark room that the pain of the earlier events came to her again, and she found herself staring numbly into her mirror. The room around her was small for a princess, but very large compared to the other rooms on the base. She had decorated it as best as she could to match the Alderaanian style, but now everything about it mocked her. She looked around the room slowly, and every inch of it reminded her of what she lost. With a scream that she didn’t recognize as her own, she tore down the paintings of Alderaanian forests she had once loved, pulled down every tapestry and fabric, smashed every piece of art she had taken from her childhood room. She couldn't stand the reminders of what she had lost, and her fury and pain propelled the destruction. 

She didn’t stop until she looked down to her bleeding hands to see a beautiful holopicture encased in glass, moments away from being smashed. Her breath caught as she saw the smiling faces of her mom and dad staring back at her, the gleaming crown on her mothers head wrapped in the traditional braids of royalty, reminding her of what she would never become. Leia saw herself sandwiched between them, her dress perfectly white and the buns on the sides of her head perfectly placed. She was wearing exactly what she was wearing now, the traditional appearance of an Alderaanian princess. She didn’t know how long she stared at the picture, but eventually she was numbly putting it on her bed, keeping it away from the destruction around her. She slowly walked back over to her mirror, walking over broken glass and crushed pottery. She didn’t recognize who she saw. 

Slowly, deliberately, Leia unpinned her hair. She uncurled the buns, layer by layer, until her hair hung in two braids hanging down onto her chest. She looked at the black stains on her white dress, stains from grease and whatever was in that trash compactor. She saw the tears in her dress towards the bottom, rips she got running for her life. The dress that once symbolized her royalty now stood tattered and stained, and, oddly, it made her smile. That's how she felt. 

She once again stared at her hair. While just a hairstyle to an outsider, an Alderaanian knew the power those buns held. Only a princess was allowed to wear her hair like that, and only from the Day of Demand until the day of her coronation. It was the ultimate symbol of her position, power, and status. Braids held high significance in Alderaanian culture, often showing one's position or occupation. People wore different braids for different occasions, and every one of them had a meaning. 

The one’s Leia had been wearing told the whole world she was a Princess of Alderaan. 

Without even telling her fingers what to do, Leia undid the braids that held her title and let her hair fall loosely around her shoulders. Staring at herself in the mirror, looking at her insignificant hair and desecrated dress, she was finally devoid of symbolic meaning. She was barely recognizable as herself anymore. Finally, she looked on the outside the way she had felt on the inside all day. 

She vowed to herself that she would never wear those buns again, and in doing so, renounced her title as a princess. She watched in the mirror as a single tear fell down her cheek. It was the first tear she had cried all day. And as the rest of the rebels continued to celebrate outside, she let her world fall apart around her. 

Finally, she let herself go. Finally, she crumpled to the floor amidst the destruction she had caused and wept until her tears ran out and her voice was hoarse. 

And there she stayed until the morning sun rose, as it always does. 

As it always will.

[supertaliart]

A continuation of my previous Skywalker Twins comic - feat Yoda part 3

[stealingpotatoes]

What do Luke, Leia, and more importantly PADMÉ (and the whole gang really) react to Anakin having siblings - and those siblings being literal Dathomiri Force Gods that Anakin also was instrumental in killing

can u imagine if they DIDN'T die tho

(donation doodles! // tip jar)

[stars-n-spice]

Happy Mother's Day :)

To all the wonderful space moms of the galaxy 🩵💫

[ianmckellen]

no one: anakin & leia: you're old OBI-WAN KENOBI | 1.02 // AHSOKA | 1.05

[guadalajarawontdonow]

i'd panic too if one guy who should get brown contacts and one girl with big ass brown eyes were both staring at me

[dmitryanya]

happy may the fourth to my favorite scene in the whole franchise

[faint-taste-of-almonds]

yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.

[fellthemarvelous]

It pisses me off to see the way some Star Wars fans are so dismissive of Reva, Third Sister.

She's complex. She's interesting. She's clever. She's intelligent. She's strategic. She's conflicted. She's traumatized. She's scared. She's angry. She's a survivor.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series literally opens with her and her friends watching one of her Jedi mentors get gunned down by clone troopers during Order 66.

She was a FUCKING CHILD!!! They were in the middle of a lesson when the clones walked in and started shooting everyone!! These were Anakin Skywalker's troopers and they were executing every single Jedi around them.

These children had NO idea what was going on. They were scared and they tried to run to safety.

We remember this scene from Revenge of the Sith and we all immediately knew what it meant.

These are the same bodies that Obi-Wan Kenobi found when he and Yoda returned to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant after having to kill so many of Anakin's clone troopers just to survive.

These are children that the Jedi Council wasn't there to save.

Palpatine snuffed out the light of the Jedi in one swift act of terrorism and then blamed the Jedi for their own genocide after taking over the entire galaxy.

And in times of war, the weakest among everyone always suffer the most.

This is what Reva, Jedi youngling, remembers most about the end of the Clone Wars.

Anakin Skywalker, hero of the Clone Wars and former padawan of the great Obi-Wan Kenobi, murdered all of her friends and injured her.

She had to play dead amongst the dead bodies of her friends, and that's how she survived. She witnessed Anakin Skywalker murder all the Jedi in the temple with no one there to stop him because the other Jedi Masters were being executed in a war they had never wanted to enter into in the first place.

She blames herself for not being able to save her friends because she wasn't strong enough to fight back. No youngling was ever going to be strong enough to stand against Anakin Skywalker. She wanted revenge against Anakin Skywalker, and she was just as desperate to get to Obi-Wan Kenobi as he was. She wanted to kill Anakin Skywalker just as badly as Darth Vader wanted to kill Obi-Wan.

She was alone in a galaxy that tortured and executed surviving Jedi. She spent ten years plotting her revenge against Anakin. She was angry at Obi-Wan for not being there to stop Anakin, and rightfully so.

The Republic fell. Reva and her friends were left unprotected. She was the only person she relied on because everyone else failed her. She was only a child when she lost everyone.

And it's clear she was conflicted by her role as an Inquisitor. She doesn't have the training the other Inquisitors do because she volunteered to be an Inquisitor while all the others were tortured and terrorized into falling to the dark side. She only wanted access to Anakin so she could get justice for what he did to her and her family.

Unlike Anakin, Reva couldn't find it in herself to harm a child. She was seeking revenge solely against Anakin Skywalker. Luke and Leia are the same age she was when she watched her friends and family die in front of her.

Yes, she was prepared to torture Leia, but she consistently hesitated, and when Tala walked in, Reva turned away. She stopped. Yeah she was mad, but she didn't have to go through with it. She'd already planted a tracker on Lola. She was already planning on allowing them to escape so she could locate their secret base. She just needed to bait Obi-Wan. Her plan worked perfectly, and she didn't even have to hurt this child who was annoying the shit out of her (not realizing she was dealing with Anakin Skywalker's offspring).

She went to Tatooine to kill Luke, but she couldn't. She hunted him down without bothering to kill Owen or Beru. She only cared about one thing. Getting justice for what happened to everyone she had been unable to save at the end of the war. She was only a child, and when she realized she was about to kill a defenseless child just to get revenge, she couldn't do it. She saw her face when she looked down at Luke and cried when she realized she couldn't do it.

She was so horrified by what she had been prepared to do and returned him to Owen and Beru alive. She fell to her knees and sobbed because she thought she failed her family in the end.

Obi-Wan was there for her this time. He reminded her that by showing mercy, she was giving her friends and family peace. She was not going to become the monster that Anakin Skywalker was.

Obi-Wan helped her and reminded her that she gets to decide who she wants to be from this point forward. She refused to become Anakin Skywalker, and a weight was finally starting to be lifted from her shoulders. A weight she had been carrying for ten long years.

She did what she thought she had to just to survive. She had only been a child with no guidance because everyone she loved died. She survived by joining the ranks of the enemy so she could plot her revenge. Obi-Wan showed her mercy at the moment she needed it most. He wasn't angry with her. He was compassionate. She survived Order 66 just like he did, but she had been defenseless when they were thrust into a galaxy that tortured and killed Force sensitive individuals and those who helped them. He had failed Reva during Order 66, and he wasn't going to fail her this time.

She is getting a second chance at finding her path in life despite the bad things she did. Everyone deserves a second chance. She was robbed of her childhood and had to grow up overnight. She had to learn how to survive. And that's exactly what she did. Just not in the way she expected.

[swedenis-h]

Leia and her emotional support droid (he’s the only thing she has left from Alderaan)

[girlrandomstuff]

“leia would have loved anakin, she just hated vader” Leia Organa, literally raised in a matriarchy, would have HATE Anakin ‘as your husband i demand’ Skywalker

[orion-kenobi]

I absolutely love how the alleged Virgin Birth of Anakin Skywalker is (at least in film) never elaborated on at all ever. We don’t know how it happened. Nobody in universe knows how it happened. It just did. 12 year old Anakin asks Obi-Wan where babies come from and Obi-Wan explains as delicately as he can, then adds “Not you though.” Darth Vader’s fun fact about himself at Imperial getting to know you activities is that he just spawned one day. Luke and Leia aren’t even phased when they learn this because their dad was Weird Enough already.

[threebea]

Rewatched Return of the Jedi and forgot how Han and Leia's romance sets up what unselfish love looks like to compare with in the prequels and also gives us context why love can be dangerous for a Jedi.

(Note: this isn't an!dala bashing I like an!dala)

With Han! (Yes! Han the non-Force sensitive.)

Han, we must remember has been out of the loop because of his Carbonite freezing, but even so he wakes up to: someone who loves you. Before that he had Leia declaring: I love you!

He gets very clear signs from Leia that she is in love with him. Like. Very clear out loud signs. In the Ewok village when they reunite they hug.

But he's still jealous of Luke.

So when he finds Leia crying after Luke says he's leaving to face Vader and that he's Leia's brother, his first reaction is jealousy. He gets mad when she refuses to tell him what's wrong. He accuses her of being able to tell Luke but not him, implying obviously she thinks Luke is more important to her.

His fear she doesn't love him back makes him angry.

You can see how it could lead to hate, this kind of situation. Hating Luke and Leia two people he adores because he thinks they're together, which would lead to him suffering unable to let go of his feelings for Leia and Leia suffering from his anger as well. He could destroy all their relationships with his anger, and he's just a normal non-Force sensitive guy.

And Luke and Leia aren't even a thing. He's just assuming! He's letting his emotions control him.

He's about to stomp away with a: bitter forget it! As she sobs.

But he stops! He stops giving into his negative emotions and he goes back to comfort her without demanding answers. He holds her because he loves her. He lets go of his negative emotions and possessive jealous feeling. His love is stronger than his fear.

Then on Endor he point blank asks her if she loves Luke. She answers Yes, not realizing unlike the Skywalkers he didn't get the memo from the Force about the family stuff.

And he is disappointed, but he says he'll step aside. He loves Leia and he's willing to let her go for her happiness.

That's what romantic love without possessive attachment looks like. He loves her. He puts his own initial negative emotions aside.

-

I always wondered why as a kid this was the romance I liked out of all other movie romances. (Usually I hated romance in things.)

At first I thought it was because there's not a lot of emphasis on it, but now I realised when Han has all the opportunities to do the classic Alpha Male stuff, he doesn't. In other movies he would have walked away and let her cry by herself to make drama. Have the stakes higher. They'd get together in the end but it would be after Han does something heroic and Leia throws herself at him or something. Which would make Leia a prize even though she never had to be.

But Return of the Jedi cuts through it. Han comes back, holds her even though she might not love him. That's incredibly powerful. That moment he holds her and apologizes and lets her cry and is there for her despite his jealously. Even now it's pretty refreshing considering the archetype people associate Han with.

And Han doesn't heroically save Leia to win her. They get held up. She has her gun ready to blast their attackers. They smile at each other. That's the moment he says the words I love you out loud. When she is about to save them.

It's obviously contrasted with Anakin and Padme.

Once again it is very clear how Padme feels. They both verbally reinforce their love for each other.

But Anakin isn't thinking of what Padme would want or asking what she would want. Through out the movie he's obsessed with the idea of her death. Letting himself be corrupted and ultimately killing people so that he doesn't have to feel losing her. Unlike Han, he puts his negative emotions and possession of her above his love for her.

And just like Return of the Jedi is different for Han coming back and holding her, Revenge of the Sith is different because usually movies emphasis all-consuming love as a good thing. Love so strong you would do anything to save them is shown as being selfish in RotS because Anakin does it. He does anything and everything. He makes himself unrecognizable.

He will stop at nothing to keep her. And then the moment he thinks Padme herself is the one trying to take herself away from him. When he thinks she's chosen the other side or Obi-Wan or however you interpret the moment and not him, he doesn't let her go. He doesn't love her enough to see her happy, he attacks her. That's what attachment does. It isn't about the love he truly feels for her, it's about the fear of losing her. His negative emotions ruling him. He lashes out and hurts the person he's supposed to be saving because it was about him, not about her. She became a prop. An icon of his fear of loss.

He wasn't acting on his love when he joins Sidious, he was acting on his fear. It is a selfish moment and ends in everyone suffering.

I can see why there was supposed to be more of a love triangle with them and Obi-Wan in the earlier concepts just to heighten the contrast with Leia and Han.

Han accepts that Leia chooses Luke (even though she didn't). He says he'll let her go to be happy.

Anakin accuses Obi-Wan of turning Padme against him (even though he hasn't). He attacks her when he thinks she's going to leave him.

Anakin's love by itself has never been the problem. It's what love so easily can become if darker emotions are controlling you. The Jedi forbid these kind of relationships because of the powers they hold and how easily love can turn to fear, anger, hatred, and suffering. And because they have powers most do not, how devastating that can be. Jedi learn emotional regulation so they don't get overwhelmed and hurt people. Palpatine made an effort to chip away at those teachings by using Anakin's trauma against him and encouraging him to dig into his negative emotions. That he's right for indulging in them and that it's human and normal to do so.

Sidious tries to do this with Luke. He's taking Luke's love for his friends and emotions and trying to get him to strike him. Use his fear to put him on the path to the Darkside. To give into his hatred and violence.

Then Luke remembers the cave. Killing Vader would be to kill himself, just as Anakin had once done. Winning the fight would be losing his soul.

He lets go of his fear for his friends and his hatred for Sidious and he refuses to fight. He sees the only way forward is love. That when Yoda said he must face Darth Vader before he can be a Jedi this is what he meant. In facing Vader he is facing his own darkness.

This is all to say the Jedi teaching doesn't only apply to Jedi. (I mean it's based on real world practices it's not just fantasy nonsense). But it makes sense that it's very important for Jedi.

This is also why I prefer the release viewing order. It gives a lot more context to the prequels that can get lost in the shuffle. Rather than trying to make prequel concepts fit for the OT, OT concepts are actually being expanded on in the PT. Looking at it the other way around is working backwards from the true starting point.

Tl;dr: Han shows what love without attachment looks like.

Thanks for coming to my blorbo talks.

As always YMMV.

[noramsblog]

Love at first yell