#I mean no I’ve done everything intentionally I am a mastermind nothing to see here

[ishipbullshitso]

GONE PT. 2

Also read here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17402030/chapters/40993583

"There is something about you," she spoke confidently behind her chair. He did not reply, but the question lying on his tongue is implied.

"I've read about you and what you have done, but there is something missing. There is so much more that is not on paper." She rises from her chair, stalking closer to him on the other side of the table. He doesn't react to her hands spreading across his chest, nails intentionally digging into his skin. It has been many years since he has reacted in any way to a woman. All that mattered to him was a mission and no budding flower could stop him.

Her red lips brush across his cheek into a firm kiss on his cheek, leaving a crimson mark in its wake. Her teeth drag to his ear, nibbling on the lobe as she seats herself on his lap. This was not a chance of seduction; this was a test. She was testing him and he is passing with flying colors.

"Rest assured," she whispers, "I will find out everything that I want to know."  

Finally, he turns his head to look at her. If he had moved any more, they would have kissed, but it was all intimidation. Before she could react, he wrapped a strong hand around her throat, squeezing enough to cut off air. Her lips parted in fear. He tilts her head up and kisses at her jawline. Just for show.

"You won't find a damn thing about me that I don't want you to know." He shoves her to the ground and walks out of the office. She holds a hand against her throat in shock as the door closes behind him.

"This doesn't sound like him, brother?"

T'Challa knew that if there was one person who he could trust with the letter, it was Shuri. She was, somehow, the person who accepted him the most, despite her shooting him the moment T'Challa let N'Jadaka out of the cage. T'Challa paced around the lab, the words as embedded in his mind as his father's words in the Ancestral Plane (which he already checked to see if N'Jadaka was dead).

It has been 38 days.

"I know it doesn't sound like him. He wouldn't just leave Shuri." She gives him a complex look, unbelieving of even that. T'Challa knows he wouldn't go.

"He was trained-"

"He wouldn't just leave!" He pinches his bridge, frustrated. "I know him better than all of you. He wanted to stay." Shuri says nothing more, rereading the letter for his comfort. T'Challa settles to sit down in a seat, but it doesn't stop the thoughts attacking his brain. All of the possibilities.

Was he kidnapped? If he didn't log in his hours to the watch, then maybe he did have border duty and someone got in? Maybe someone in Oakland died and he saw it on his technology. Maybe he needed to go..

"Why would he address himself as Killmonger? I thought he didn't want to be called that anymore."

"He doesn't. There's got to be some reasoning behind all of this." Shuri walks over to him and places a hand on his shoulder. It feels warm, almost comforting, but T'Challa can't appreciate it as much as he should. "I just want him home."

"I'm sure Mother is happy," Shuri scoffs, "I think I saw her crack a smile when you told her that he is missing. If I didn't know any better, I would think that she was behind all of this."

It was a boiling, the rage that welt up in T'Challa. It's not impossible whatsoever. Queen Mother despises his being and everything he represents. Of course she would be happy that he was gone, especially if she is why he left. T'Challa stands, attempting to swallow down his anger.

"Perhaps I should talk to her." Shuri blinks numerously in her surprise, standing in front of her brother before he can move further. She puts a hand up, bewildered.

"Brother.. you are not considering that-"

"I don't know what happened in the eighteen hours between the time I last saw and when I realized he was gone. Mother is the only one who would truly want him gone. I at least have to ask." T'Challa hates this feeling. The panther beneath his skin has been digging to get out, to show some true vengeance to anyone who would dare to want harm upon N'Jadaka. Shuri's thinking it through, he knows it. Despite his poor mood, nothing cannot be considered at this point, even if it means accusing of his own mother of masterminding his lover's disappearance.

"You know how ugly this can get." Of course he knows, but not a cell in his body is not willing to take the risk. He walks up the spiral before Shuri calls his name again. T'Challa turns to his saddened sister.

"What if.. what if he sent you that letter for a reason? Is it really worth going down the rabbit hole to find him?" T'Challa unclenches his fist, contemplative. He already knows the answer before it leaves his lips and Shuri couldn't have expected a different response.

"He's worth it all."

T'Challa almost runs out of the room, saluting the guards despite the build up of tears in his eyes.

"Is this your idea of changing my view of this damn place? Taking me to a forest ain't it, bruh." T'Challa rolled his eyes and hurried him along the trail. Technically, it was another week before N'Jadaka was even allowed out of his cell. As King, he'll break as many rules as he sees fit for the situation.

"Alright, stop and follow me closely," T'Challa advises, stepping in front of him to guide him through the thick leaves. Wakanda was beautiful beyond compare and as King, he was doing a better job of letting the world see what Wakanda truly is and what they are capable of. The rest of the world thought Wakanda was poor and in need, but N'Jadaka thought Wakanda was poor and in need for a completely reason. How do you reverse the way someone bred themselves to think of their disgusted home?

They hiked another five minutes and in that time, Erik had resolved to gripping the back of his robe and ducking his head to dodge the leaves.

"Nigga if you're going to kill me, go ahead and do it."

"I am not going to kill you! Bast, why would you say that?" N'Jadaka shrugs behind him.

"It's just one of your many options, King." T'Challa knows he only refers to him as King when something bitter is in his mind. He sneers the term out, no matter how much he tries not to for formality. T'Challa is only trying to help him, but sometimes the customs of Wakanda seem to make it worse for the both of them. He shakes the thought away as they finally reach their destination.

The quiet roar of the water becomes louder and they emerge through the trees. N'Jadaka looks around, confused, but T'Challa elects to speak before he can say anything.

"I found this place when I was 13. I used to come here all of the time when I was stressed. I built a small hut over there," T'Challa points to the nearly invisible house, "for when I wanted to get away for a while. Come." N'Jadaka follows T'Challa acrosses the shallow of the waterfall to the hut. It had obviously went through some renovations before their trip here today, obviously by the hand of T'Challa. N'Jadaka had a feeling no one else knew about this place.

"So you never took Nakia here when you wanted some one-on-one time?"

"Nakia had made it very clear a long time ago that she has no intention of being my queen. It just took me a long to accept that." T'Challa replies as he opens the door. It had all of the necessities were here for living. A bed, a small "kitchen," a hallway leading to a bathroom in the back. The place was stocked in food. "And no, this place was just for me."

"Then why did you show me then?" T'Challa tossed him a water bottle, which N'Jadaka caught easily, chugging it down in a couple of gulps. T'Challa watches a couple of drop drip from the sides of his mouth, then remembers his place and looks away. It isn't unseen by the war criminal, who suppresses a smile behind the bottle.

"I assumed you wouldn't want to live anywhere near people anytime soon, so I thought-"

"That you would give me your old play house?" T'Challa drags out a heavy breath, thinking this was a horrid idea. N'Jadaka sits on the bed, one leg raised. He presents his teeth, the gold reflecting off of the outside line shining through. "I thought I still had a week left."

"You do," T'Challa replies, "I wanted you to have options since I can't let you leave, and I know that you want to leave and if I could-" N'Jadaka laughs, low, but it is enough to cut the king off once again.

"Just shut up. I'm fine being in a palace or whatnot. It gives me some satisfaction that they still have to deal with me despite all of this shit." T'Challa nods and motions for him to come on so they can leave.

"Hey, King," N'Jadaka waits for him to turn around, "am I really worth all this effort you're putting into me?"

For the first time, N'Jadaka looked like he wanted that answer, like he needed to hear some sort of confirmation. T'Challa knew his perspective of N'Jadaka was changing from the constant interactions to purposely makes with him. It's changing into something T'Challa needs to cut off before it reaches a point of no return.

"You're worth more than your life led you to believe you was worth, N'Jadaka. Come, we have to sneak you back in before Okoye realizes you're gone."

"Oh shit, let's go. That woman hurts like a bitch." They don't talk any more on the way back, not that they needed to. Their minds were in different places, content in their own thoughts.

T'Challa knew that wasn't what he wanted to say, but he can't afford to say any more than what he did say. It was sufficient enough for N'Jadaka, though.

"How dare you ask me such a thing." Ramonda places a hand at her chest, leaning back in her chair. T'Challa stands tall, proud, eyes focused solely on his mother. "If I wanted the boy gone, I'd tell him myself."

"You have yet to speak a word to him since the day he threw me off of Warrior Falls years ago. He is my lover and all you've done is tell me how much you hate him, and now he is gone and you want me to think that you have absolutely no part in it." Queen Mother glares at her son, their prides battling each other in the way they speak.

"Do you even know what that boy has done? Who he is?" T'Challa almost rolls his eyes.

"Mother, I've memorized his file by memory and I know him better than anyone in-" Queen Mother smacks her hand on the table.

"Wrong! You don't know everything. I've done research into your bed warmer and he is not all that he seems." Ramonda gets up and walks down the hall to her room, T'Challa following closely. There is no way that she could have found out more about him.

"Who have you contacted?" She opens a drawer and shoves a file his way. A paper file?

"It matters not. Your consort has a darker past than you think." T'Challa opens the file. It's N'Jadaka in images and reports with classified marked in red on top of the file. Except his name isn't Erik Stevens as his alias. It's Isaiah Malachi Robinson. He closes the file, electing to read more later. What matters is his mother.

"Who did you get this from? Tell me at once!" Ramonda backs away from T'Challa.

"I don't know. I asked for someone to give me more on him since he decided he was going to sex his way back to the throne and they dropped it off at the border."

"You're telling me you got a secret file on N'Jadaka and you have no idea who they are or what they are a part of? Do you realize you could've put Wakanda in danger? Do you realize you could've put N'Jadaka in danger?" T'Challa is all but yelling at this point, pacing around the room. Queen Mother glares and drives a finger into his chest.

"If you hadn't opened your legs for a snake, I wouldn't need to put anyone in danger." He shakes his head and turns away from her, angered.

"If he is in danger and it is because you dug in grounds you had no right to be in, I will not hesitate to come after you when this is done." She gasps, reaching for him, but he denies the gesture. "You know, all he wanted was to be accepted by you. He tried to be good for you and all you do is treat him like he is nothing. You are wrong." T'Challa walks right out of the door with the file in his hand. Queen Mother doesn't call for him to come back.

T'Challa doesn't expect her to, either.

Isaiah Malachi Robinson

Age: Classified

Race: Classified

Profession: Classified

How could N'Jadaka not tell him about this? This isn't military and this isn't when he worked for Klaue. T'Challa scans the images of his lover. He hates the fact that it gives him comfort to see those images. In some, he is smiling and surrounded by other people carrying weapons like his. In others, his face is battered, his body covered in wounds that T'Challa barely noticed across his bronzed skin.

What was he into?

"Operation: Mwokozi" Savior? Swahili? He's been in Africa this whole time and no one knew.

T'Challa wants to be upset. N'Jadaka never told him about this or even hinted that he was involved anywhere in Africa until he walked right into Wakanda. He wants to be mad, but he knows he's not going to stop. He can't.

Isaiah Robinson was in Ethiopia. He knows Ethiopia and he knows the Rift Valley in the background. He was there. Right under his nose, N'Jadaka was here all along.

T'Challa begins to pack, calling Shuri via the Kimoyo beads.

"Brother."

"I am going to find him and I'm starting in Ethiopia. You've got to take over while I am gone."

"Ethiopia? What did Mother-"

"She found something out and it may mean he is in trouble."

"Just keep me updated!"

"If I can," T'Challa turns off the communication and lifts the bag.

The step onto the plane doesn't feel like a confident stride into finding N'Jadaka.

It feels like he has no idea where the hell N'Jadaka is going to lead him, but he has to try.

He'd give anything to find him.

WHERE DO YOU THINK N’JADAKA IS?? 

[lucaumbriel]

The Last Jedi spoilers (and a huge wall of text) under the cut

The opening was way too similar to Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion, sorry, the “Resistance” has just destroyed the First Order’s big bad weapon, but despite this the bad guys are stronger than ever (no, seriously, they apparently have defacto rule of the Galaxy or something now, because apparently the destruction of one system means the entire Republic is gone somehow) and the good guys are on the run.

Rey is seeking training from Luke, which is also a plot point lifted directly from ESB, but is done in a completely different way so it’s not something I hold against the movie. The training itself, however, is lack luster and feels more like something you’d see stretched out across an entire episodic season crammed into as little screen time as possible between everything else that’s going on. And I really didn’t like how they started going the route of “well, the Jedi need to die, but that doesn’t mean there are not going to be any more force users”, like they were going to have Luke get Rey to gut the tradition and legacy and keep everything else to sort of found a brand new order without any of the “you should fear the dark side because it’s the dark side and don’t ask questions about it because you shouldn’t be asking about that” and the removal of emotions and attachments and so on, and then go right back to “actually, nah, Rey’s gonna tell Luke that the Jedi are cool and that’s gonna change his mind and he’s even gonna acknowledge her as a jedi cause the jedi are cool and we wouldn’t want to stray from that or anything even though Kylo explicitly said he’s not gonna be a sith”. Like, there were so so many other arguments Luke could have used to show how the Jedi are not the undisputed good guys (just look at the people who try to say how “the jedi are the actual bad guys” cause they steal babies and enforce a specific lifestyle and doctrine and anyone who doesn’t agree with everything gets thrown out, instead of just “the Jedi were egotistical, they all died cause Palpy fooled them”, which is the single weakest argument for “the jedi weren’t actually that good” I think I’ve ever seen and that entire scene just feels pathetic and annoying).

Which brings me to the next bit and my major criticism with the movie: they try to do to much. It feels like two or three movies, or most of a Netflix mini-series crammed into two and a half hours. It doesn’t let you really digest anything that’s happening and everything from the subplots to the main plot feels rushed and there are a lot of little things (like the fight between Luke and Kylo) that feel really tacked on despite them actually being pretty important overall to the story. Like, they could have stopped the film at several points (most notably after everyone got in the base), but it’s like they kept coming back with “and one more thing” (the bad guys have a canon that can blast through it, which actually would have made an interesting cliff hanger, if this were the Netflix mini-series it feels like), and then “one more thing!”, and then “one more thing!”

The conflict between Poe and the Admiral feels unnecessary. Yes, Poe was wrong to go behind her back, and more wrong to try and mutiny because the Admiral did actually have a fully fleshed out and usable plan that would have worked perfectly if Poe hadn’t sent Finn and Rose off to infiltrate the flagship and allow the code breaker to betray them for money, but his actions were still justified because instead of explaining the plan to him or anyone else, she intentionally kept him the dark and obfuscated what she had planned for no reason what so ever, seriously, there was no reason she couldn’t say “we’re going to load people in the shuttles, yes, I know they’re shielded and unarmed and will never outrun the destroyers, that’s why I’m going to stay behind and pilot the cruiser, we’re gambling on them not looking for smaller ships, so this should provide a decent distraction, the shuttles will be going to a fortress world were they’ll have enough power to contact our allies”, but no, she never says that, instead she just tells him “trust me” and “hope” and when he finds out about the shuttles she blows him off. Yeah, Poe is a hot head and all, but she’s a shitty leader if she can’t be asses to explain a simple plan to someone who you have no indication of being a defector or spy or anything else. The entire time it feels like either she’s the traitor like Poe thinks, or she’s trying to trick a traitor by using Poe or some shit but there’s no actual payoff to the entire subplot except “Poe was wrong and should have blindly trusted his leader who’s first conversation with him involved her verbally bitch slapping him and acting like he’s been nothing but a detriment to the entire Resistance.”

Over all, the film feels like an action movie, with a lot of space battles, amazingly choreographed fight scenes, lots of big loud energetic moments like them crashing through the casino, it doesn’t feel like a Star Wars movie so much as an abridged season of Clone Wars or Rebels.

Oh, and how can I forget Rey. She continues to be a Mary Sue, never suffering any real complications or failings, even in this film, her absolute biggest fuck up, getting herself captured thinking she can turn Kylo to the light side and together defeat Snoke, results only in Kylo killing his only superior and acquiring supreme control over the First Order, and then she escapes with no real consequences otherwise. And if you say “well putting the immature, hot headed, egotistical, man-child in charge of the First Order instead of the highly powerful, nearly all seeing, calm, collected, and very powerful mastermind who put the First Order together in the first place” a bad outcome from this and something that has in any way actually strengthened the Order, especially since we already see the conflict between Kylo and Hux growing worse and worse with every scene they’re in, then I don’t really know what to tell you except maybe watch the movie again and actually pay attention.

The fight scene between Kylo and Luke was awesome, though, again, very action movie and, like I said above, adds to the list of “they tried to do too much in one movie”. I like that if you pay attention, you can see that it was pretty obvious he was never actually there. Not only “how did he get into a base there’s supposedly only one way out of” but “how did he even get there in the first place?” the only ship we see is the sunken X-Wing that’s probably been there for way too long for it to still be usable, and then not only is he not even scratched by the ATs, he doesn’t even have any dust on him period, he’s using a lightsaber that we just saw sundered, and he’s adamantly refusing to even block Kylo’s attacks. The dice thing, however, was stupid and makes no fucking sense at fucking all. I was waiting for him to say the line, but he never did, you’re supposed to become more powerful that he could ever imagine, damn it.

Luke’s ascension also feels kinda tacked on and forced, epic as it was. Makes me think they were planning to kill each of the main three at the end of their particular movie. We’ll see how that holds up...considering.

Kylo’s continued indecision was good, as was the twist with him killing Snoke and then taking command instead of turning. I also liked the fact that he used his apparent execution of Rey to cover his actual execution of Snoke, which reminded me of the “you will kill Luke Skywalker” thing with Mara Jade in the comics, though I am a little disappointed that after everything from the first film, this is all we get with Snoke unless he revives himself somehow. Which would be stupid, honestly.

The fight scene with the honor guards was awesome, though Rey continues to prove that someone who grew up fighting rats on a farm with a staff is a match for much better trained fighters. I was fine with the scene, up until she and Kylo were both being choked out and she’s the only one who figures out how to escape and then gets to save Kylo. With everything else on top, it just adds to my dislike of her writing as I’ve discussed above. How Kylo finished off the last guard was awesome, though, and everyone in the theater cheered cause it was awesome.

All of this, and any other things I might have forgotten, I still loved this movie and it was great. Great fight scenes. Great space combat. The casino scene with all the aliens was great. Luke was great. Leia was great. That scene between Luke and R2, especially once he played the message, was great. Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose maybe not great but they were ok. The scenes that reminded me of other movies, comics, TV series were all great (except maybe the elevator scene that paralleled Return’s Luke/Vader scene, that just felt kinda weird). The pieces were all great, it’s the bits between them that are more...eh, and while some of them are necessary, others, like I’ve said, feel tacked on or fall into “and one more thing” near the end.

Overall, I would rate this as one of the better Star Wars movies. It’s better than Empire (the filler of Star Wars), and definitely better than most of Clone “I hate sand”/forced romance Wars. If it had been a mini-series instead of a whole movie or some of its points had been cut from here and put in some EU materials or another movie somewhere, I think it would have come out better because they would have had more time to flesh things out and work with more of the points they raised up instead of it feeling rushed and crammed together. Empire, for its faults, still handles its two plots better than Last Jedi handled it’s three or four.