#Overlord= Emperor Palpatine

[artbyblastweave]

Spend a lot of time thinking about the storytelling potential of the Fascist You Literally Can’t Kill.

 A lot of rhetoric on this site about IRL fascism highlights the inherent weakness of the fascist as it exists in real life, about how they turn on whoever’s on top of the pile at the first sign of weakness (I’m specifically thinking of a post by @quasi-normalcy here.) That’s true and good, and stories that metaphorically reflect that real-life weakness through a fantastical lens have value.

 I really enjoy, however, the worldbuilding and storytelling implications of a authoritarian society that’s basically brute-force-enabled by the fact the guy at the top of the pyramid actually is as powerful, if not more powerful, than their propaganda implies. My favorite beat in Mistborn was when the protagonists had their very sensible assumption that they were living in a story about the hollow facade and rhetorical flimsiness of fascism upended by the reveal that the Lord Ruler actually was a quasi-deific figure he claimed to be, and that he could depopulate the continent barehanded even you were to kill the rest of his ruling apparatus to the man, and there’s this very abrupt shift into frantically figuring out how to win along Lord of the Rings terms instead of realpolitik Hunger Games terms. There was a web serial I read called The Fifth Defiance where the whole world’s military apparatus is geared towards giving Evil!Superwoman enough of an entertaining fight that she doesn’t succumb to her depression and murder the whole planet; her empire is basically a failed state but geopolitically that doesn’t matter, only keeping this one powerful maniac pacified matters. That whole “Palpatine is like if the Scooby Doo villain started snapping necks” post is adjacent to this. I’ve yet to read The Locked Tomb (It’s next on the list) but I get the strong strong impression from the tumblr buzz that Emperor John Whatshisface occupies this conceptual niche.

Now often these veer back into being about the flimsiness of fascism because, you know, it’s usually one powerful (but very mentally unstable!) superhuman heading the whole shebang, and that turns into a synecdoche for how fascist states fail more broadly. I’m describing the “Evil Overlord” trope in more words than I need to. But if the guy the Fascist Cult is built around actually is incredibly personally powerful, innately powerful, that’s a fundamentally different thing than anything in real life where the head honcho position is much more fungible. There’s a real innate power there; people are flocking to something bad but the incentives are different because it is something real. You’re not modelling fascism accurately with that set-up. But you are modelling something very very interesting from a spec-fic perspective, if you’re willing to engage with the objective conditions presented by the metaphor.

[aestariiwilderness]

BB Season 3 Thoughts, Part II, since this is apparently a thing I'm doing at the moment *SPOILERS*

For the new episode. I have already forgotten what it's called. Aside from "The One Where Omega & Crosshair Become Hustlers"

So, from what I'm seeing from this, Crosshair is most relaxed and content (a) in an inversely proportional relationship to the aggravation of the people around him; bonus points if he is causing the aggravation and (b) when someone else -- ANYONE ELSE -- is in charge. Up to and including small blond civilian. That's when he can snark the most at the people soldiering on under the actual responsibility (see: Hunter, Rex), footloose and fancy-free in the knowledge that even when the plan goes wrong, it won't be His Fault. This is, objectively, hilarious. ("Smoker-Coded Angst Man Manifesting As the Physical Representation of a Hard-Bitten Hedgehog Perfectly Happy Being Smoker-Coded Angst Man: Film at Eleven"; "Younger Sibling Most Fulfilled In Life When Criticizing Older Siblings' Plans While Bringing Absolutely Nothing to the Table").

The extent to which he is taking this in "Life Changing Field Trip with Little Sister Less Than Half My Height" is both hilarious and concerning. (Seriously. Is there brain damage here? Is he just that determined to Not Be Making the Decisions? No wonder he identified so hard with the Empire, the man can't seem to function without an overlord to be bitter about).

Omega is setting her sights too low. JUST letting all the animals free? JUST helping Gregor? JUST helping Hera's parents? With a squad of elite commandos (who were also, when they met her, cocky nine-year-old morons with blasters and mild superpowers, I will grant you that) wrapped around her little finger against their better judgment, she could have pointed them at the Emperor by now and BANG. The next thing you know, through the power of plot, family, and completely unhinged clone shenanigans? Palpatine is a smoking pile of nerf nuggets, someone's lost a limb, Omega's hanging from the Senate Dome, and we're still retrieving Hunter after he accidentally grappled onto a passing speeder and got dragged three planetary blocks downtown.

Omega, having just survived prison, a prison escape, and a violent crashlanding into a planet that actually seems to be the geographical equivalent of Crosshair himself, flying high on step 45.7a of this escape "plan": wait we need the navicomputer so we can go back and rescue all the other prisoners! Crosshair (who was on step 2: survive?? Maybe?? Why is there a dog behind my seat??): what

Crosshair's biggest complaint with Omega's leadership: you're wasting my murder skills! Rampart wouldn't do this to me

Omega's first idea for a moral, peaceful resolution: um. Gambling. I've done it before and earned lots! (Crosshair, frantically rearranging everything he knows about his brothers in his head: you've what)

Omega's second idea for a moral, semi-peaceful resolution: RELEASE THE KRAKEN

Baby Goggles Victorian Street Urchin Child (which Crosshair was totally 100% down with beating into the ground at the slightest provocation, which is also 100% in character)

Omega, morphing into Hunter after five minutes with Crosshair in a mildly snarky mood: STOW IT

Omega, ship thief master. Han Solo wishes he had what she has

Scottish?? Imperial Officer??

All the clones. They're all so homeschooled

Crosshair, wearing a soft quilted jacket instead of the black gothic armor caked with blood his soul naturally craves: ugh mom why

Oh, don't even with this ominous music and Wrecker not smiling. Please. Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Is being miffed at Crosshair a rational reaction? Absolutely. Would they be in this mess without his, uh, everything? No, they wouldn't. Is being suspicious of Crosshair a rational reaction? Yes, and VERY HEALTHY TOO. Do I want them to be mad at him? 100% with this garbage man. Which is why it will be very hard to convince me that in the next episode, actual marshmallow Wrecker and currently-held-together-with-string-and-duct-tape Hunter aren't going to take one look at Crosshair, missing-stray-cat-with-one-ear-and-no-redeeming-qualities, and burst into tears.

[enkisstories]

Emperor’s Return - Prologue

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, what's left of the "New Republic" is engaged in a war with the conquering "First Order". After the destruction of their capital world, it’s not even the Republic army anymore, but a paramilitary group called the Resistance, that’s doing the fighting. Meanwhile the First Order is currently acting uncharacteristically passively, the result of their leader having went missing two months ago.

The planet Cerea is where the Resistance runs a secret program that is to help captured First Order personnel as well as the rare defectors to overcome their indoctrination and to decide what they want to do with their lives.

Most of the program's participants so far have chosen to fight against their former overlords. They have reason to, and it is an important cause, but ever so often Coach Iachary Ni wishes she could guide someone into a fulfilled civillian life instead.

At the moment three persons live in the convalescent home overlooking the river:

Former First Order pilot Corra Arrel, who wants to explore her newfound force powers, Resistance technician Rose Tico, who needs to revitalize after a shipwreck, and very much not-former First Order General Armitage Hux, who came to the Resistance in a battered freighter, just coherent enough to utter “Palpatine has returned”. It is this claim - the epitome of evil, that had been defeated a generation ago, being back among the living - that got Hux, Corra and Rose shipped to Cerea immediately.

There is no loyalty conflict Hux would be aware of regarding his use of a Resistance facility - he is always reliably on his own side, even though more often than not nobody else is.

Everyone had expected Hux to go ballistic at his semi-captivity, but truth is, the tranquil lifestyle agrees with the man. A steadfast believer in the tenet that there is nothing mystical about the Force, that it could get calculated, predicted and utilized, if only the force sensitives put effort into serious science, Armitage had at first felt silly when he had agreed to meditate with Corra. Getting your head empty, what could that be good for? An empty head was Kylo Ren's default state of being!

But then Iachary Ni had claimed that this exercise wasn't about emptying the mind, but about getting everything that was in there into balance. It wasn't hard to understand why that was desirable. If all the demons that had risen their ugly heads recently were back in the bottle, Hux would have an easier time convincing the Resistance (and by extension the New Republic, that he refuses to call anything other than “Republic Remnant”) of the alliance against Palpatine that he had proposed. After all the trouble the anarchists had given his First Order, it was high time for them to make themselves useful for once!

---

The shipwreck was chronicled here, refer to it if you feel confused. The story assumes familiarity with the Star Wars universe or at least the sequel trilogy. It takes place a year after The Last Jedi, shortly before the Palpatine reveal would have happened in canon.

[burnwater13]

Fennec Shand and Boba Fett in the throne room of Jabba's Palace. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 1, Stranger in a Strange Land. Calendar by DataWorks.

Grogu wondered what he would do in like circumstances. If the Emperor had to kneel before him and pay his respects… What would that look like? But Grogu had never worked for the Emperor, so imagining Sheev Palpatine groveling at his feet wasn’t quite right. No matter how funny as Grogu found it.

Nope, Grogu hadn’t really worked for anyone, except Ian when you counted the handful of times he lost at cards. Then he’d been sneaking food from the cafeteria for a week. Grogu wasn’t sure what Ian was doing with all the food he’d managed to liberate from the tyranny of the kitchen overlords, to use Ian’s words, but he was pretty sure his friend hadn’t been eating it. He had been a skinny kid for as long as Grogu had known him. 

Now, if Ian was still living, which wasn’t a certainty, but Grogu was pretty sure he was, what would be the point of having Ian bow and scrape before him? He’d lost that game of one two three fair and square. Grogu had already learned all the ways Ian had of manipulating the deck (because cheating was such a biased term). Ian had just gotten lucky. It was bound to happen one day. 

Grogu could just imagine the man Ian had grown up to be. He’d be about forty standard years old, which for humans was pretty old, again, according to Ian when they were taking an human biology course at the Jedi Temple. Poor Ian. He was old! Grogu wouldn’t be old for hundreds of years. Uff. That was weird to think about. He’d be a ‘child’ for decades while his best friend had grown old and decrepit. 

Grogu remembered the vids of humans who were nearly their end. If they had any hair it would be white or grey. Their skin would be loose, like a Hutt’s and they would move about as fast as a Hutt at full speed. Well, if that was the case Grogu absolutely couldn’t ask his best friend to grovel. If he got down on his knees, he might never get up! Yikes! No groveling for Ian. 

Grogu wondered what he should do to make things comfortable and accessible for his friend. He needed to be respectful of their differences and not make it seem like Ian was on his last leg (although Grogu had no idea what that phrase was actually in reference to… it didn’t seem very nice). 

His dad often reminded him that you needed to meet people where they were. You couldn’t force them to come to you… unless you were the Daimyo and then if you didn’t show up Fennec or the Gamorreans brought you to the throne room, typically in binders. Well, Grogu wasn’t the Daimyo and he didn’t want poor, old, almost gone Ian to suffer like that just because of the bet they made. That wouldn’t be balanced. 

Grogu sighed. If only he knew where Ian was. Then he could do just what his dad suggested. Meet his friend where he was. Grogu was still young, had an excellent refresher on the use and application of the Force after his summer spent at Luke’s Jedi Sleep Away Camp, and was flexible. He could jump more than a couple meters straight up if he had to. Steps, instead of ramps, wouldn’t be a problem for him, no matter what sort of supportive home environment Ian was living in. 

Maybe he could suggest to his dad that their next ‘mission’ involve locating Ian? It would be a good test of Grogu’s skills and he would be able to pilot the N-1 and introduce Din Djarin to his best friend. It would be great. But would his dad think that sort of trip was appropriate and worthy? Hmmm.

Maybe if Grogu explained all of Ian’s better qualities to the Mandalorian, his dad would realize that it was a mission of mercy to visit such a fine human before their inevitable parting? Although that was pretty tricky. Mandalorians as a group seemed pretty used to partings. His dad didn’t really seem to miss Mandalore, or the Tribe, or the other Mandalorians. Grogu wondered if he was just suffering in silence over those partings, but then the last time Greef Karga asked him when he was going back to Mandalore, Din Djarin had replied ‘When I’m cold and not a moment before that’. 

But then, maybe he just saw all the tragedy for what it was? All those Mandalorians who had gone before him and it was too much to bear? Grogu wouldn’t want to go back to the Temple on Coruscant if he could avoid it. He’d think about all the people who hadn’t made it out. Their ‘songs’ had ended there and, given the people Grogu knew best, those songs had been pretty short to begin with. Dank Farrik!

Then Grogu realized that he’d just have to give it a try. He’d ask his dad if they could use finding Ian as a bounty hunting exercise and see what he said. And, because Master Yoda was always whispering to him, ‘time was there not like the present’… or words to that affect.

“You want to try and find someone you knew twenty five years ago at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and all you have to go on is that his name was Ian and he was good at cheating at Sabacc?”

His dad’s summary of what he had explained was pretty good and very depressing. Womp rats!

“What the hell. You’ve given yourself quite the challenge. He’d be about 40 now. Brown hair and what color eyes?”

Brown hair? That didn’t seem likely, but did human eyes change color as they aged? He had no idea. He tried to describe them to his dad.

“Kind of a green, gold mix? You mean hazel. Okay. That’s something to go on. Did he have a last name? You Jedi seem to be a mixed bag on that count.”

Huh? Grogu had no idea if Ian had a last name. He never mentioned a family name. Or the names of any family members. That wasn’t actually very surprising given the age the Jedi took younglings into their training program. He’d always said he’d traveled on his own. A solo adventurer. 

“Solo huh? Sounds familiar. Okay, that gives us something to start with. He sounds like a guy who used to hang out at a diner on Corellia.”

Yippee! That was great! He just had one suggestion for his dad.

“You want me to bring a cane? Because he’s so old? Kid, I don’t know where you got that idea from. Humans aren’t old until they’er almost fifty.”

Images of Boba Fett and Fennec Shand in the throne room of Jabba's Palace. Images from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 1, Stranger in a Strange Land. Captions read: 'That's weird. I used to work for him.' - Boba Fett; 'It's even weirder for him.' - Fennec Shand.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Ideas #19: Star Wars, but make it Empress Palpatine

The thing I love about Star Wars is that, force powers aside, the situation is one we all can easily see happening. (It can be difficult to believe that a mostly peaceful, benevolent Federation of Planets can spawn on Earth and come to encompass a good chunk of the galaxy a la Star Trek, but the rise and fall of an authoritarian state is all too easy to imagine, even in another galaxy.)

But when asked to given an example of an authoritarian ruler, I can only think of examples like Emperor Palpatine - which is to say, even looking at the wikipedia page on the subject I can't find a female example. So I thought... what if? Or more specifically, what if it was Empress Palpatine?

Just imagine it:

Specifically, imagine a universe where absolutely nothing changes except for Palpatine's gender. This has a few cascading effects in how Palpatine relates to Ankain and how the senator/chancellor is viewed by the galaxy at large, but does not change the overall course of events.

Instead of a wise old man, Palpatine is a wise old woman, presenting a matriarchal, grandmotherly care towards Anakin. This has the side effect of pulling Anakin in two more "opposed" directions - maternal from Palpatine, paternal/fraternal from Obi-Wan - instead of Palpatine and Obi-Wan "competing" for the same slice of the father-figure pie, as it were. Again, it changes nothing in the long run, just the dynamic of how their influences over Anakin play out.

For instances, a boy may tell his mother things he'd never tell his father, and vice versa. Also, there is a tendency to assume women are more compassionate and empathetic, so Anakin going to the woman he's closest to with his problems might raise fewer eyebrows than running to another male in a position of authority.

It might also put a subtle mother-in-law/daughter-in-law tension between Palpatine and Padme if Anakin keeps going to his mother figure with issues one might traditionally expect to be brought first to a wife.

This dynamic could be even more interesting to the explore than the mother/father of Obi-Wan and a female Palpatine, as there might be something I almost hesitate to call Cersei-like about it. Both are powerful women in politics from Naboo, but, without knowing the Sith plot in the background, it looks a lot like young, beautiful Padme's star is rising while old, aging Palpatine's star is falling. I'm sure an enterprising Sith can find some way to manipulate Anakin with that.

But otherwise... everything stays exactly the same. Fall of the Republic, rise of the Empire - and, later, fall of the Empire. The only difference is we have an Empress.

Perhaps it makes some parts of the Rebellion harder, as a female overlord might be assumed to care more for her subjects than a male, or at least speak as if she does in a manner that might be subconsciously believed more, but otherwise makes no difference.

And that's it really. All this idea boils down to is: give me Star Wars, but give me a slightly different set of interpersonal relationships between the antagonists, and, consequently, between the major figures in their lives.

Bonuses include: 1) all too often female representations of evil involve sexual deviance and/or extreme sexualization. Not here. Palpatine should be as sinister, tyrannical, and sexless as her canon counterpart. This should be especially clear in the differences in how Palpatine and Padme dress. 2) Everyone in the Jedi Temple reading a different set of problems into Anakin's friendship with the Chancellor. And 3) Luke, at some point, having learned Darth Vader is his father and seeing the relationship he has with the Empress, being force to wonder if Empress Palpatine really is his grandmother.

As always, feel free to adopt this bunny. Just let me know if you ever do anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[afandomroom]

Star Wars the Force Unleashed Ninjago AU: 

Under the Overlord's command to wipe out all remaining Jedi, Lord Garmadon comes to the planet of Kashykk, hunting down the Jedi Ray Smith.

There, he finds Ray and his son, a very powerful force wielder named Kai. Garmadon cuts down Ray infront of Kai, but also cuts down his soldiers, taking Kai to be trained as his secret apprentice and assassin.

Years later, having endured the brutal training of the Sith, Kai is the dark assassin known as Starkiller. He never knew any other name. 

The time has finally come, for Kai/Starkiller to aide Garmadon in overthrowing the Overlord, and Kai/Starkiller is more than ready. 

But first, a test- extinguish the remaining Jedi

First on the list - Find the elder Jedi general, Ronin, and kill him. Return with his lightsaber as proof. 

To help him complete his task, he is joined by his droid companion (I can't decide between Zane, Pixal, and Echo. Proxy, the original droid in the story, is rather glitchy, so Echo might make sense) and the ex- ace fighter pilot (either Skylor or Jay. The original character, Juno, is excellent with machines and mechanics, but also somewhat sassy so...). 

While he refuses to admit it, he falls head over heals for Skylor/Jay the second he met her/him. Sith aren't allowed to have connections, not like that, so he's prepared to deal with her/him should she/he become a...liability.

He fails his mission to kill Ronin, instead blinding the man and leaving him to fall to his death. He isn't aware the elder Jedi survived when he reports back to Garmadon.

And so continues his missions. He is sent to kill the Jedi Krux, who has a secret apprentice called Harumi. His final mission is to kill the insane Jedi Mystake.

When he returns to Garmadon, he is met with an unpleasant suprise- The Overlord discovered Kai/Starkiller exists, and orders Garmadon to kill his apprentice.

Kai/Starkiller would be saved and revived by Garmadon , however, and once more he would be manipulated by the dark man. 

Reuniting with Skylor/Jay and Echo/Zane/Pixal, Kai/Starkiller claims he wants to build a resistance. Rather, he actually wants to find the empire's enemies for Garmadon, but Skylor/Jay now wish to join a rebellion, and this is a perfect plot for luring them out. 

Step one: Find Ronin, and get him to "train" Kai/Starkiller. 

they find him, drunk on a planet after being blinded. To their surprise, he's not alone, joined by his apprentice - The young Nya Smith.

Kai/Starkiller doesn't know why, but he feels a strong connection to her, as does Nya to him. 

Step two: Save Lloyd from the empire, and later Koko from Harumi

Afterwords, they will meet with Koko and Ronin's contacts on another planet, and plan out the rebellion from there.

throughout this time, Kai/Starkiller is conflicted. He begins to see through the corruption of the darkside, begins to care for and appreciate these people he's surrounded himself with. He admits to how important Echo/Zane/Pixal is to him, how much he loves Jay/Skylor. 

he begins to remember his past, and recognize Nya.

He begins to rebel against his teacher, and ultimately decides to join the light in their fight against the dark.

but was that decision made to late?

[thelordofdarkreunion]

The Ultimate Collection of Sci-fi Music

For all you sci-fi fans out there, and for your listening pleasure.  This is a collection music/soundtracks from some of my favorite sci-fi franchises.  I decided the easiest way to do this would be with youtube links, so simply click on the song title to get there.  Feel free to add on to this if you want to.  Listed by franchise, includes Star Wars, Halo, Warhammer 40k, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doom, Mass Effect, and Titanfall.

Star Wars:

Star Wars Theme- John Williams

Imperial March-  John Williams

Duel of the Fates-  John Williams

Battle of the Heroes-  John Williams

The Throne Room-  John Williams

Across the Stars-  John Williams

The Emperor’s Throne Room (Palpatine’s Theme)-  John Williams

March of the Resistance- John Williams

Kylo Ren Arrives at the Battle (Kylo Ren’s Theme)-  John Williams

Grievous Speaks to Lord Sidious- John Williams

Cantina Band-  John Williams

The Mandalorian Theme-  Ludwig Goransson

Halo:

Halo Original Theme-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Halo Reach Theme-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Winter Contingency-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

One Final Effort-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Finish the Fight-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

117-  Neil Davidge and Kazuma Jinnouchi

Unsullied Memory-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

We’re the Desperate Measures (ODST Theme)- Martin O’Donnell

Flood Theme- Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Covenant Dance-  Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori

Warhammer 40k:

The Lord Inquisitor Prologue Soundtrack- Adam Harvey

Dawn of War Space Marine Theme- Jeremy Soule

There is Only War-  Doyle W. Donehoo

Forged in Battle-  Doyle W. Donehoo

For the Glory of the Emperor-  Doyle W. Donehoo

Schindelgeist-  Doyle W. Donehoo

Children of the Omnissiah-  Guillaume David

Overlord-  Guillaume David

Blasphemer’s March- Doyle W. Donehoo

Reprieve and Reprisal-  Doyle W. Donehoo

For the Craftworld-  Doyle W. Donehoo

Khaine’s Wrath-  Doyle W. Donehoo

Guardians of the Galaxy:

Awesome Mixtape Volume 1- Various Artists

Awesome Mixtape Volume 2- Various Artist

Doom:

The Only Thing They Fear Is You- Mick Gordon

BFG Division- Mick Gordon

Super Gore Nest- Mick Gordon

Flesh and Metal-  Mick Gordon

Hellwalker-  Mick Gordon

Cultist Base-  Mick Gordon

Meathook-  Mick Gordon

At Doom’s Gate (Doom Original Theme)- Booby Prince

Mass Effect:

Mass Effect Main Theme-  Sam Hulick and Jack Wall

Spectre Induction-  Sam Hulick and Jack Wall

Breeding Grounds-  Sam Hulick and Jack Wall

Vigil-  Jack Wall

The Illusive Man-  Jack Wall

Suicide Mission- Jack Wall

Leaving Earth- Clint Mansell

Mars- Sam Hulick

Rannoch-  Cris Valasco and Sascha Dikiciyan

I Was Lost Without You- Sam Hulick

And End Once and For All- Clint Mansell

Titanfall:

Titanfall 2 Main Theme- Stephen Barton

Fold Weapon Test- Stephen Barton

The Battle of Typhon- Stephen Barton

Cosmology- Stephen Barton

Welcome to the Marauder Corps (Militia Theme)- Stephen Barton

Peace and Order by Force (IMC Theme)- Stephen Barton

Demeter- Stephen Barton

Wallrunner- Stephen Barton

Bang Bang- Grace

And, last but not least, in my opinion, the theme song for all humans in sci-fi, from Starship Troopers to Star Trek to Tumblr’s own humans-are-weird to all of the franchises listed above:

Resist and Bite- Sabaton

I hope you enjoyed.  As I said before, feel free to add to this should you wish.

[gffa]

Dear Palpalums-- I'm a GFFA Archievist looking for information about the history of Emperor Palpatine and Jedi Master Yoda's wedding day. Considering your depth of writings and reach, I trust that this is a subject you and your committee have a wide breadth of knowledge on. I look forward to your response. Warm Volcanic Regards, mochi

Dear mochi, This appears to be an obscure reference to more than one shitpost, but it checks out.  We will hold a meeting of the Committee Of Things That Fandom Is Now Allowed To Post About and pass this motion into law, so that you may create more shitpost photomanips of Emperor Palpatine in a wedding dress on his most special of days.  Please do so at your earliest convenience, I want that manip on my desk by Space Monday. - Cordially Yours, Your New Overlord Palpalumi

[jedivoodoochile]

🟣 MARA JADE 🟣

Mara Jade Skywalker was a Force-sensitive human female who was during different times in her life, an Emperor's Hand, a smuggler, and later a Jedi Master who sat upon the Jedi High Council. She was raised as a servant and assassin to Emperor Palpatine and became a high-level Force-using operative. As an Emperor's Hand, Jade carried out the Emperor's bidding, killing Rebels and corrupt Imperials alike with cold professionalism, even as a young woman. As Palpatine's assassin, she received top-notch training from experts in a variety of fields as well as training in the Force, which was continued by Luke Skywalker years later. After Palpatine's death, she received his last command, which was to kill Luke Skywalker; however, the death of her Master caused her to go rogue. Eventually she joined smuggler chief Talon Karrde, becoming one of his best smugglers and his second-in-command. During the predations of Grand Admiral Thrawn, she was forced to work with Skywalker, and developed a grudging respect for him. During the Galactic Civil War, Mara Jade proved herself skilled in a variety of fields; she was a good pilot and mechanic and trained in the use of both a blaster and hand-to-hand combat even without relying on the Force.

Over the years, she continued to work for Karrde and interact with Skywalker intermittently, training at his Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 for a short period of time. She was groomed by Karrde to take over the Smugglers' Alliance and had a brief relationship with Lando Calrissian as part of that role, although she later admitted it was a charade. She also continued to grow closer to Skywalker and worked alongside him on numerous occasions, including the Almanian Uprising and the Corellian Crisis. The two finally realized in 19 ABY while on a mission to Nirauan that they were in love, and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

After marrying Skywalker, Mara Jade took the surname Skywalker and devoted her life to the New Jedi Order, becoming a Master in her own right. Shortly before the Yuuzhan Vong War, she fell ill due to deadly coomb spores that she'd been infected with by a Yuuzhan Vong agent. She used the Force to slow their progress even as she continued to fight against the alien invaders on numerous battlefields including Dantooine and Ithor, but the disease was only purged from her system after the birth of her son Ben in 26 ABY. After becoming a Master, Jade Skywalker took her niece Jaina Solo as an apprentice until she reached Knighthood. During that time, she participated in Jedi offensives against the Yuuzhan Vong, aiding in the war effort. After the fall of Coruscant, she helped Cal Omas become elected as the Chief of State as the New Republic reorganized itself into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. Jade Skywalker ultimately saw her efforts against the Yuuzhan Vong rewarded in the war's final battle on Coruscant with the death of Supreme Overlord Shimrra Jamaane.

In the following years, Jade Skywalker was active during the Dark Nest Crisis and the subsequent Swarm War, wherein she helped to thwart the expansionist plans of Raynar Thul and the insectoid Killiks who were spreading into Chiss space and subverting many other people into becoming Joiners under the influence of several Dark Jedi. Jade Skywalker was insistent that the Jedi who had joined Killik communities would be withdrawn, as they were using their skills in combat against the Chiss, provoking them. She continued to serve by the side of her husband as a Jedi Master during the Second Galactic Civil War, first serving alongside the Galactic Alliance against the rebellious Confederation. The re-emergence of the Sith Lady Lumiya was another threat that Jade Skywalker had to confront, but though she and her husband skirmished with both Lumiya and the fallen Jedi Alema Rar on multiple occasions, the darksiders escaped. As the war escalated, Jade Skywalker was killed by her nephew, Jacen Solo, whom she had learned was a Sith and therefore saw as a threat to her family personally, to the Jedi Order, and to the galaxy at large.⭕

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Star Wars Alien Species - Nosaurians

The Nosaurians were native to New Plympto, a verdant jungle planet on the outskirts of the Corellian sector near the border with the Deep Core. Although they themselves had little interest in questions of their own evolutionary origins, xenobiologists speculated that the species' forebears were predators who, like many carnivores on the world, used their luminescent mouths to attract prey such as insects. After evolving sentience, the Nosaurians organized themselves into competing clans and eventually city-states.

As early as 27,500 BBY, the Nosaurians had contact with the nearby Corellians, and at least one member of the species had left his homeworld and joined the galactic community by 25,000 BBY. However, not until about 10,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire did the species have regular relations with offworlders. These early visitors, traders from Corellia, visited the world and made contact. The Corellians named the Nosaurian homeworld after the Plympto system, a minor reach on the Corellian Trade Spine hyperlane. New Plympto itself became a part of that trade route, located on it between the planets Jumus and Duro, and Nosaurians spread along the trade lanes of the Corellian sector. Nevertheless, the world was only marginally integrated into galactic society, being far off the path of most visitors to the Core.

With the introduction of galactic technology and trade came the Nosaurians' entrée into galactic government. Although the species joined the Galactic Republic, their debut began what would be a long chain of events that the Nosaurians interpreted as marginalization at the hands of Humans. For one, the world was placed under representation of the senator from the Corellian sector. When the Nosaurians petitioned the Republic for a representative from their own species, their request was denied. Second, the Republic chose to build its New Plympto consulate on the world's only natural satellite, Karsten Moon, rather than on the world itself. The world became caught up in galactic conflicts, falling briefly to Darth Revan's Sith Empire from 3959 to 3956 BBY, but remaining part of Republic space during the New Sith Wars of 1004–1000 BBY.

Meanwhile, the Corellians seemed more eager to exploit New Plympto's resources, scant as they were, than to help develop its infrastructure and people; most Corellian investment into the world was limited to the purchase of the spice ji rikknit. The Nosaurian economy became increasingly dependent on the export of rikknit eggs and ji rikknit, and for centuries, this served as the only real engine of economic development. Some Nosaurian clans and city-states grew their wealth by participating in the trade, but Corellians rather than Nosaurians were the major beneficiaries of the industry. Unsustainable harvesting practices depressed the population of rikknits on the world, and by the administration of Republic Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum, the impending extinction of the rikknit threatened the entire trade. Attempts to breed the crustaceans in captivity failed. Things came to a head when environmentalists pressured the Republic to outlaw the rikknit trade or, worse, took to sabotaging shipments and infrastructure. At one point, for example, the Ho'Din environmentalist Maki Salak attempted to poison a stash of ji rikknit before it could be shipped from Karsten Moon. Chancellor Valorum sided with the environmentalists; he approved a law that made rikknits a protected species, outlawed ji rikknit, forbade the export of rikknit eggs—and effectively turned almost all of New Plympto's Nosaurian population into criminals. New Plympto fell into a depression, and the Nosaurians pointed their fingers at the Republic and its invasive laws as the source of their troubles. Hundreds of thousands of Nosaurians fled their homeworld and settled on other Core Worlds.

In 24 BBY, the Nosaurians were caught up in a chain of events that would alter their society drastically. In what came to be known as the Separatist Crisis, the rogue Count Dooku and his allies declared a Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS), a government free and separate from the Galactic Republic. The CIS offered New Plympto membership and promised to recognize the legality of the rikknit trade. The Nosaurians saw little choice. They seceded from the Republic and declared themselves members of Dooku's new coalition.

When the Republic refused to recognize the Confederacy and the secession of its member worlds, the Clone Wars were officially declared. A hostile contingent of Republic clone troopers landed on New Plympto, led by a Jedi Master named Dass Jennir. Meanwhile, the Separatists bolstered the Nosaurian forces with battle droids. Nosaurian forces put up a stiff resistance to Jennir and his clone troopers in confrontations such as the Battle of New Plympto in 19 BBY, and his campaign against them led many Nosaurians to develop a hatred of the Jedi.

The war was ongoing when Palpatine declared himself Emperor and enacted the New Order in 19 BBY. After the defeat of the Confederacy, things grew worse: Palpatine turned his eye toward retribution against the Nosaurians for siding with the Separatists. The Nosaurians kept up their guerrilla war against the Republic-cum-Empire. Their former enemy, Dass Jennir, switched his allegiances when he found himself targeted by his former soldiers, the clone troopers. Without their droid allies, however, the Nosaurian resistance was a much weakened force. The Empire dispatched a brigade of clone troopers from the 501st Legion to crush them once and for all, and the Nosaurians and their Jedi ally knew theirs was a lost cause. In a last stand against the 501st, the Battle of Half-Axe Pass, the Nosaurian Commander Rootrock and his forces were wiped out. Nosaurian fighters who surrendered were summarily killed, while refugees trying to flee the world—mostly women and children—were rounded up and sold into slavery on Orvax IV. Despite his own misgivings about their enslavement, Darth Vader visited New Plympto to oversee the conquered planet.

Citing the species' "primitive" level of development and "undistinguished" culture, the Imperial Procurator of Justice added New Plympto to a list of "expendable" alien homeworlds and thus opened the door for the Empire to legally enter the world and extract any useful resources by force without concern for the native population. The Empire seized the world's money-making enterprises, razed entire city blocks in Phemiss to make way for more "orderly" construction, and commandeered the rikknit trade. It also continued to round up and sell countless Nosaurians as slaves, an example to other would-be opponents of the New Order. Those Nosaurians who had been offworld during the wars grew disillusioned when they felt pro-Human bias in the Core Worlds and the galactic government intensify.

The Nosaurians did not just lay down; in 1 BBY, they rose up against their Imperial overlords. The resistance organized and rallied behind the one-eyed General Fefar Blackeye. His forces employed guerrilla tactics and harassed the Imperials for two years in a vicious campaign. In 1 ABY, Blackeye found himself hemmed in by Imperial forces. At sundown, his sun-singing brays betrayed his location. He was captured, shipped to Coruscant, and placed in a cage at the zoo with a group of non-sentient primates. He lasted for six months before killing himself. Back on New Plympto, the resistance crumbled without him.

When the Empire fell at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY and the New Republic was formed, New Plympto was once again able to communicate with the outside galaxy. News of General Blackeye's fate reached the species and strengthened their anger and resentment toward the Humans who seemed perpetually in charge of galactic affairs. The Nosaurians rejected overtures to join the new government, seeing little difference between the Humans of the New Republic and those who had come before. The world entered a period of isolationism during which the Nosaurians attempted to repair their devastated economy. Nevertheless, the world fell within Grand Admiral Thrawn's sphere of influence during the Thrawn campaign of 9 ABY.

In 18 ABY, the Corellian sector planet of Sacorria declared itself independent of the New Republic. New Plympto threw its allegiance behind the First Corellian Insurrection, and the New Republic declared war. The rebellion faltered and failed, and the Nosaurians once again found themselves on their own. With reluctance, they finally agreed to join the New Republic out of economic desperation. The New Republic enacted programs to rehabilitate the planet and its economy, which was still reeling from the Imperial occupation. Nevertheless, Nosaurian attitudes toward Humans barely budged. In 23 ABY, the world seceded once again to join the alien-friendly Diversity Alliance of the Twi'lek Nolaa Tarkona. Thousands of Nosaurian fighters joined the Diversity Alliance's armed forces to defend it against the New Republic before the Diversity Alliance was defeated.

In 26 ABY, shortly after the fall of neighboring Duro, New Plympto once again came under attack, this time from extragalactic beings known as Yuuzhan Vong. Many Nosaurians died in the initial invasion, and the world's defenses crumbled. The alien invaders used the world as an advance base for further incursions into the Corellian sector.

Like history repeating itself, the Nosaurians put up a stiff resistance. The Twi'lek Jedi sisters Alema and Numa Rar traveled to the world and helped lead the campaign. The resistance demolished Yuuzhan Vong biohatcheries, Shaper damuteks, and religious shrines, and received additional support from the New Republic; Kyp Durron, for example, ran supplies to the Nosaurian fighters, and spacers worked to smuggle Nosaurian refugees off the planet. After a year of unremitting harassment and disruption, the Yuuzhan Vong abandoned New Plympto in 27 ABY. They did not leave quietly, however, and unleashed a viral plague upon the planet that reduced almost 7 million Nosaurians into liquid goo and left the world unable to sustain life. The Rar sisters happened to be offworld at the time with a few thousand refugees escaping aboard ore freighters.

After the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong in 29 ABY, the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances—the reconstituted New Republic—quarantined New Plympto. Decontamination experts visited the world and found nothing but a sea of liquefied, jelly-like biomass as deep as a Human's ankle. With no homeworld to go back to, Nosaurian refugees were resettled by the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. New Plympto was later declared a memorial, along with other planets devastated by the war, such as Barab I and Ithor.

Among friends, Nosaurians were perceived as cool-headed and congenial. To outsiders, however, they were known to disdain Humans—and, to a lesser extent, other species—for what the reptilians considered a history of mistreatment. This attitude began in the days of the Old Republic and festered and deepened under the regime of the Galactic Empire. By the time the Yuuzhan Vong War broke out in 25 ABY, Nosaurians still had a reputation for surliness and hotheadedness from outsiders. The despoliation of their planet during that conflict deepened this sullen humor and plunged many Nosaurians into a miasma of hopelessness and dismay.

Nosaurians tended to live in the mossy, coastal swamps of their homeworld. Their population fluctuated with the times. New Plympto was home to some one billion Nosaurians in the days of the Old Republic, but this number dropped to a mere 20 million after the Clone Wars. Under Imperial occupation, the numbers fell to 7 million.

The species was divided into clans. Some of these lived in isolated villages, while others banded together to create city-states, the highest form of government on the world. The city of Phemiss was considered the planetary capital. Nosaurian cities featured domed, earthen homes with rounded entrances and window-bearing turrets. These buildings were typically amassed into rings that centered on a shared courtyard used for communal feasting and child-rearing. Although these arrangements made Nosaurian cities feel disorganized and difficult to navigate to offworlders, Humans made up 4% of New Plympto's population, and most cities featured offworlder districts that followed a layout more familiar to non-Nosaurians.

The Nosaurians relied on outside traders for much of their food, communications gear, high technology, and weapons. In exchange, they offered simple products and their world's major export, the eggs and ovum sacs of a native species of crustacean known as the rikknit. These eggs were a component in the production of several intoxicating substances, including the spice known as ji rikknit.

Upon molting his or her down feathers, a Nosaurian typically apprenticed to a master from his or her clan for a few years to learn a trade. Many Nosaurians took up mundane vocations such as candlemaking, fishing, or piloting local transports known as swoopshaws. Others took darker-tinged occupations such as raiding. A few Nosaurians were clanless, and thus outcasts in Nosaurian society. Xant Flashheel, for example, operated from Phemiss and took risky jobs to make ends meet. Many others relied on the rikknit trade or rikknit hunting for their living. Rikknit harvesters became experts at arboreal locomotion, climbing trees using crampons known as tree-claws and brachiating to get into position. They then spread a net a few meters below a rikknit nest. Bracing themselves in place, the hunters used a sharp harvest blade to cut the food caches and slit the ovum sac of the rikknit above. When done properly, this harvesting did not kill the animal. Nevertheless, rikknits could and did fight back, so rikknit harvesters learned to fight skillfully despite the staggering heights, bracing themselves against the tree bark with their foot claws. Their harvest tools doubled as deadly weapons, and even a few non-Nosaurians used them for combat purposes. Some Nosaurian harvesters worked illegally; Glarc Leapfar was one of the more successful rikknit poachers and the leader of a group who operated in a forest called the Hajial Chase; nevertheless, his group made efforts to harvest rikknit eggs sustainably.

Marriages were monogamous and typically arranged by the partners' clans. Young males sparred with one another in public bouts of head-butting to prove their physical prowess and, they hoped, their desirability to the clans of unmarried females. Members of the species could form fierce bonds with their mates and their families; the Nosaurian Bomo Greenbark traveled to three different worlds to track down his wife and daughter, who had been sold into slavery after the Empire took control of New Plympto.

Nosaurians were proud of their culture and conscious to keep their old ways alive. They were not afraid to fight to protect that which they valued and could be determined combatants when provoked. A Nosaurian could turn claws, horns, and teeth against an adversary, and young males were known to cross horns with rivals in a skull-bashing display of dispute resolution. In times of war, Nosaurian forces employed everything from simple axes, force pikes, knives, and polearms to advanced blasters. Their armies used guerrilla tactics: they kept to jungles, subsisted on locally available substances like nectar, communicated silently over long distances using mouth flashes, and set up only temporary camps of dome-like tents. They were not beyond torturing prisoners of war.

The Nosaurian voice was typically high-pitched and twittering, and spoken Nosaurian sounded like a chorus of musical hisses, trills, tweets, and warbles. Nevertheless, their vocal tone dropped into bass, coarse honks, and woofs when angry, disturbed, or upset. The written form of the language employed two separate alphabets that could be used in conjunction and relied on metaphors and imagery related to nature, the seasons, and the weather. Nosaurian morphology allowed the species to speak Basic; most Nosaurians knew the language, but preferred to avoid it due to its Human associations. A typical Nosaurian had both a personal name and a clan name. Personal names tended to be non-Basic terms, such as the masculine names Bomo, Clegg, Fefar, and Moco; and the feminine names Mesa and Resa. Clan names, on the other hand, were often compounds of two Basic terms. Examples included Blackeye, Farlock, Flashblade, Fishgather, Greenbark, Holdfast, Leafhorn, Leapfar, Limbfree, Minkfruit, Riverwander, Rootrock, Seawatcher, Sunsinger, and Tallmeadow.

Nosaurians retained an ingrained trait from their evolutionary past. When on their homeworld, twilight triggered the overwhelming urge to "sing down the sun." Although the compulsion could be resisted, most Nosaurians brayed as loud as they could as day turned to night. The behavior was so ingrained that Nosaurians went through the nightly ritual even when indoors or out of sight of the sun. Nosaurians who left New Plympto did not lose the behavior, either, but their distance from their homeworld threw their internal rhythms off and resulted in their "singing" at strange, seemingly inexplicable times. This compulsion could all but counteract a Nosaurian's attempts at stealth; if the pursuers knew of the quirk, they could simply wait for the Nosaurian's vocalizing to give his or her location away.

The Nosaurians, a species of sentient bipedal reptiles. They had lithe, long arms and short legs in proportion to their bodies. Each hand featured three or four fingers and an opposable thumb, and each birdlike foot three forward-pointing toes; some members of the species had a fourth, backward pointing toe as well. All of these digits sported sharp claws. Nosaurian musculature was similar to that of a Human. Their hides were tough and covered in scales. Light green to black pigmentation was most common, but other scale colors included blue, green, yellow, orange, red, brown, white, gray, and black. Nosaurians often had markings of another hue such as a lighter belly and chin or a mask about the eyes. Members of the species were nimble acrobats with acute combat reflexes.

One trait that distinguished Nosaurians from other reptilian species was a crest of horns that grew atop their heads. Most members of the species displayed six bony spikes of varying lengths, although children could have fewer, and some adults had many more, often growing on the back of the skull as well. These horns were quite strong; the Nosaurian Bomo Greenbark once broke chains over his head spikes, and members of the species used their spikes as defensive impaling weapons. Nevertheless, they were not indestructible, and Nosaurians often wore protective gear to prevent horn damage. The older and more pugnacious the Nosaurian, the more likely he or she was to have suffered a broken horn. Some individuals featured hornlike protrusions on other parts of the body, including the cheeks, chin, knees, and shoulders.

A pair of small eyes lay below the horns. The sclera and iris could be of any number of colors, including pink, yellow, white, brown, and gray. The species saw only in black and white, although they typically learned to distinguish the subtle differences of what other species perceived as color, at least much of the time. Nevertheless, this monochromatic vision sometimes led to problems interpreting technological devices such as datapad screens that assumed the user had color vision.

A long, beaklike snout full of sharp teeth and perforated by two nostrils was another distinctive Nosaurian facial feature. The lower canines sometimes protruded from the mouth even when closed. Nosaurians had the ability to light up the lining of their mouths at will. The resulting flash was bright enough to briefly illuminate a room and even blind someone, but it could not be sustained for long.

Nosaurian children were covered in a coat of downy feathers of the same color as their scales. As the Nosaurian aged, these feathers fell out, lingering latest on the head and elbows. During adolescence, beginning at age 11, the remaining feathers molted, leaving the Nosaurian bald by age 13. Most members of the species wore clothing as a matter of habit, and females sometimes hung long, diaphanous ribbons from their horns.

A typical Nosaurian stands 1.4 meters or 4.6 feet tall and weighs 75 kilograms or 165 pounds.

Nosaurians age at the following stages: 1 - 10 Child 11 - 15 Young Adult 16 - 45 Adult 46 - 79 Middle Age 80 - 99 Old

Examples of Names: Fefar Blackeye, Bomo Greenbark, Clegg Holdfast, Churra Leafhorn, Moco Minkfruit. Languages: Nosarians learn Basic, as well as their own language, which is a complex collection of sounds featuring barks, warbles, and hissing, plus a written language consisting of two alphabets and metaphors about nature, the weather, and seasons.

[permian-tropos]

The Spider and the Mouse (3806 words) by PermianExtinction Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Aftermath - Chuck Wendig Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Gallius Rax, Darth Maul Additional Tags: Speculations about Palpatine's Methods of Dark Sideyness, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Lowkey Galli Palpatine Vibes, Lowkey Trans Galli Vibes, Spider Maul, Galli's Orphan Gang, Jakku, Set Mid Clone Wars but before Maul's Canon Reappearance, Force-Sensitive Gallius Rax Summary:

A trash hauler crashes in the Jakku desert, and a group of former Anchorite orphans scramble to it, to pick it clean of anything useful, and to eliminate any intruders who've crossed the line into the territory belonging to their mysterious overlord, the Emperor.

Their leader, Galli, has no idea to expect someone who knows his master all too well.

Slightly late birthday present for @ajax-daughter-of-telamon!

[consummate-deviant]

I reckon I’m gonna talk about Hordak for a minute

So, I feel the need to talk about Hordak.  This is, perhaps, not unusual.  Once upon a time ago, writing stupidly long pseudo-essays about characters I rather liked used to be my thing… and it’s still a bug that bites me from time to time.  The timing certainly seems right!  Homeboy has been the topic of conversation lately, thanks to the recent release of She-ra season 4, and the manifold feels associated with it.  I’m fond of Hordak, as it were, so I don’t mind sharing my perspective on the subject, since there’s some confusion as to his appeal.  

The two stances I see taken on Hordak most often, by those who don’t like him, I should specify, are as follows:

A.) He’s an irredeemable villain who has done terrible things, and I don’t see why anyone would like him.

And

B.) He’s a lame, nonthreatening villain.

I’m not going to be engaging with mindset ‘B’ quite as much as with mindset ‘A’ in the following post, in part because the reasons why he’s so lame and nonthreatening are kinda tied to what I’ll be discussing by implication, but mostly because my response to mindset B can be summed up with the following: “You are not wrong, at all.  However, that’s literally the entire point of his character, so while you aren’t wrong to be disappointed if you were hoping he would be a more measured, megalomaniacal sort, it’s also not a failure on the part of the writers, since his lack of suitability for the role he was trying to play was always going to be what his story was about.”

Mindset ‘A’, though... well... that’s a bit tricky.  Ultimately “irredeemable” is a personal value judgment.  The threshold a character must cross before one audience member feels they no longer deserve forgiveness can vary quite wildly from another, and while trying to pass one’s personal opinion off as an objective fact is something of a pastime on the internet, I am- and I cannot state this emphatically enough- NOT your dad… probably. At least, I hope to god…  Look, odds are really good that I’m not your dad, so… you do your thing and shine like the crazy diamond you are.  I probably can’t change your mind, and considering I don’t even know you, it’d be kinda creepy if I thought I could! What I can do, though, for those genuinely curious how anyone could consider him redeemable, is share my own perspective on the character, and why I think redemption is the direction the story is going, based on how I’ve read the text thus far… So I’m gonna do that.  Let’s go over Hordak as he has appeared in the She-Ra reboot.

Part I: Season 1 Hordak

Now see, when we kick things off, I totally get where both the ‘A’ group and the ‘B’ group are coming from.  Hordak, as he appears in season 1, seems ruthless, intimidating, and single-minded.  Hordak doesn’t carry the conflict in season 1, serving as more of a background presence while Catra and Shadow Weaver, who have a more personal investment in the central narrative, do all the heavy lifting of antagonizing the heroes and angsting.

This keeps the attention off of Hordak, which is precisely how he likes things.  When people aren’t going out of their way to interact with him, then it’s easy for him to control what few interactions he does have.  That’s what season 1 shows us: Hordak, when he has perfect control over his own narrative.    Every scene that features him is shot with a low angle, often with his form either concealed in shadows or with his face partially out of frame.  When he speaks, he’s always calm and distant… but calm in that ‘he could totally fly into a rage at any instant’ way that keeps people on their toes.  Pragmatic, taciturn, perfectly measured and groomed,… pretty tall!  By any metric a reasonable person can measure a competent, intimidating villain, Hordak circa season 1 seems like he’d pass the test.

Part 2: Season 2-3 Hordak

Here’s the thing... though... about season 1 Hordak... that we learn pretty quickly when we transition into season 2:  Season 1 Hordak is a massive fraud.  Like, seriously, he’s a fabrication created out of necessity to hide a single, prevailing truth:  Hordak is an awkward dork who is kinda terrible at being an evil overlord.  

I’ve seen some people describe Hordak’s season 2-3 character development with the expression “You thought I was Ozai, but I was actually Zuko this whole time!”  Now, I like this expression fine.  I’ve borrowed it a time or two in the past, but with regard to Hordak, I prefer to phrase it like this: “You thought I was Emperor Palpatine, but I was really the Wizard of Oz this whole time!”  The former expression gives someone an idea of the tropes of the character pretty well, but the latter does a better job, I feel, of showing the relationship between season 1 and later seasons with Hordak.  Hordak is a competent, unflappable, all-seeing leader… hey, hey!  Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain! Hordak’s past… as a mindless clone created to lead other mindless clones in a mindless clone army… has left him laughably unprepared for the task of leading others.  He’s smart, like, in a general bookish sense, but he has no charisma, no interpersonal talents to speak of, and doesn’t really seem to have any grasp of how to motivate his underlings, save to reward talent with promotion.

Out of necessity, Hordak keeps his true self buried underneath multiple layers of protection.  The first layer is the season 1 illusion: Delegate direct command of his soldiers to a single adjutant, interact with that adjutant just enough to keep them in line, and remain in his sanctum all day, like the geeky shut-in he is.

The first layer is pretty nice, and seems to have bought him quite a few years running the horde… but what happens if, say, some uppity Force Captain decides to pester him with personal status reports… or some absent-minded inventor decides to raid his lab for a six-sided hex driver?  Personally interacting with his minions for too long will reveal the illusion he’s been hiding behind!  Well, fear not... This is where the second layer of protection comes in handy.  

Yes, Hordak’s second layer of defense: blustering, shouting, and intimidating.  Threaten them with dire consequences for bothering him, let them visit the planet with nearly-enough-atmosphere for a few seconds… do everything in his power to frighten them so badly they never want to directly interact with him again.  What should happen if this second layer fails him, though? They learn of the most terrifying secret in Hordak’s entire arsenal.

...There is no third layer…

Nope. If a minion is plucky enough to peak behind the curtain of his grand illusion, and then bold enough to stand their ground at the explosion of hot air that follows… he has basically no follow-up left.  One of my favorite nonverbal scenes in the entire series is the moment where he realizes that his screaming is having no visible impact on Entrapta.  There’s a look on his face that seems to say ‘What the hell am I supposed to do now!?’… like, it’s clear the dude has never needed a third step to scare someone away before.

Ah, but you, my savvy reader, have no doubt cottoned on to the error in my argument thus far.  Establishing that Hordak is an awkward, introverted nerd doesn’t really change the fact that he built the Etherian horde.  The fact that he’s not especially competent doesn’t change the bad deeds his committed!  Well, rest assured, you beautiful person who can claim no paternal relation to me, I agree!  However, characterizing Hordak like this goes hand in hand with the other big reveal of season 3: his backstory.  

Now, cards on the table, I’ve been taking Hordak as he comes, and up until this point I didn’t really have any strong idea of whether they were going the big-bad or redeemed-bad route with him.  It wasn’t until season 3, when his origin was revealed, that I genuinely began to suspect that the redemption path was where the writers were headed, because it re-frames his actions in a subtle, but pretty important way.

With no Horde Prime, when one looks at Hordak, they see a man who orchestrated a corrupt and oppressive system for his personal benefit, who holds others in disdain due to self-aggrandizement, and is motivated by a desire to be seen as greater than everyone else. That is a character who would be very hard to convincingly redeem. While I’m loathe to raise the specter of Steven Universe discourse here, it’s a lot like the notion of redeeming the Diamonds… and, while I have no strong feelings about that show one way or the other, suffice it to say I can at least see why their redemption is controversial.  

Horde Prime shifts the context of Hordak’s actions, though.  Now, Hordak is a man who perpetuates the very system he is, himself, a victim of, because it’s the only system he knows.  His conflict with others is born from the projection of his own self loathing.  Said self-loathing comes from his chief motivation, which is to be acknowledged as worthy by an authority figure who has no interest or desire in ever offering him that acknowledgment.

Such a character is still flawed and villainous, because of course it is. If a character has done nothing wrong, they don’t need redemption in the first place.  It’s a lot easier to accept the struggles of a flawed character if they’re a victim of oppression rather than its source.  To borrow the SU comparison one final time, the Horde Prime twist reveals to us that Hordak isn’t a diamond, he’s just another one of the countless gems caught in their system.  

By the by, does “perpetuates a system they, themselves, are victims of, suffers from conflicts born of projected self loathing, and desire to be acknowledged by an authority figure who has no interest or desire in providing said acknowledgment” sound familiar?  I hope so!  It ties into my final point of the day.

Part 3: Season 4 Hordak (aka “Hordak and Catra have basically the same arc”)

  Now, implying similarity in the character arcs of Hordak and Catra has, historically, been a fraught endeavor.  Even I, Hordak stan extraordinaire, felt that we needed to see a bit more of where the writers were wanting to take Hordak before we went and made comparisons.  Then season 4 happened… and guys… the subtitle of season 4 may as well have been “Hordak and Catra have basically the same arc.”

Well, that’s a bit of an oversimplification.  Catra had people she could perceive as her peers, which granted her a social circle outside of her direct superiors whom she could feel camaraderie with, which added a dimension to the emotional turmoil she felt, but in broad strokes it seems to be a comparison that the writers are inviting us to make.  Their alliance in season 4 is based around their commonality.  They motivate one another by feeding into the insatiable hunger both of them feel for external validation… in that regard, they bring out the worst in each other, and thus season 4 ends with both of them brought to their lowest point.

At the end of season 4, if the princesses had never arrived, and Double Trouble hadn’t been there to finally force her to confront the emotions she insistently projected onto others, Catra would have assumed the mantle she claimed from Hordak.  She would have ruled the horde, devoid of satisfaction or happiness, and any children she took into her numbers she would have treated in exactly the same way Shadow Weaver treated her, and the same way Horde Prime treated Hordak.

To escape that fate, she needed her chance to face the system that oppressed her, and then the chance to face herself… and only once she had done both, could she start to move forward again.  That’s why we see the start of her recovery in the final scenes of the season.  Catra did unspeakably terrible things- by the end of season 4 her atrocity count easily rivals Hordak’s- and not everything can be blamed exclusively on others, but we, as an audience, have seen enough of what made her the way she is… that’s why most of us are onboard with her eventual redemption.

Catra is, beneath all the layers of spite and illusions of who she thinks she should be, a sweet kid who ultimately wants to reconnect with a friend she fears abandoned her, and to be respected and appreciated by the authority figures in her life. Hordak is, ultimately, a hikikomori dweeb who, not too long ago, was content to spend the rest of eternity with his gamer girlfriend in his lab, pretending to put together a portal machine. 

The villain of She-ra is Horde Prime, and the system he put into place to feed his arrogance at the expense of those trapped within it.  For those inside that system, like Catra or Hordak, they don’t cross the line and become truly irredeemable until they are given a clear and unambiguous chance to escape from that system and change their life for the better… but refuse to grasp it.   Even then… sometimes it takes them a little while to see the hand being offered to them… and sometimes that hand is in the form of a fist.

In conclusion

Look, guys, I’ll be real with you… I made a play at pretending that I wrote this for some point or another… but I kinda didn’t.  When I get into a fandom headspace, words get stuck in my head, y’know? When they do, they buzz around like bees until I write ‘em someplace… so here we are.

I’m not so arrogant as to assume I can change anyone’s mind with my 4 AM word vomit about the emaciated bat villain in my favorite children’s cartoon.  This is just a thing I wrote!  Maybe if you agree with it it makes you happy, and if you disagree with it then it doesn’t get’cha too worked up!  I was gonna include Hordak’s relationship with Entrapta into the proceedings… but honestly, that would have doubled the length of this thing, and would have been kinda tangential to the point.  I may do a more shippy essay thing later on… but if there’s one thing I learned from the last time I wrote a bunch of these… it’s that planning them out never works well.  I guess if people wanna see it I can write it though.

Anyway, I’m rambling, so I’m gonna letcha go!  Thanks for listening to my TED talk.  Remember, villains are an artform, people are complicated, and hot cocoa is the best winter beverage.  I’m going back to fanfic writing until the next bout of insomnia!

[dalekofchaos]

Things that would’ve been better than ending TROS on the extinction and suffering of the Skywalker saga

Rey takes Kylo’s hand at the end of TLJ. Rey realizes that her place is by Kylo’s side and has found her belonging. The dark side is more comforting than the light. Kylo Ren and Rey become the Supreme Leader and Empress. Instead of Crait, Rey tells her equal “I know where Luke is” Kylo and Rey lead The First Order to Ach-To. The Last Jedi faces this dark union. Luke is prepared and faces them with his old Green Lightsaber. Rey has fully embraced the dark side, along with her fellow Supreme Leader. The three of them are all evenly matched, but when Rey mentions what they will do to Leia next, Luke loses it and loses his focus. He is completely focused on Rey, but when Luke lets his guard down, Kylo stabs Luke in the back and Rey lands the killing blow. Rey smiles, with her glowing yellow eyes. “At last, The Last Jedi has fallen.” Kylo will say. “Next The Resistance will die and then this war will be over and we can bring a new order to the galaxy” With his dying breath Luke says “Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong. The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi.” Cuing to Leia and Finn. Rey then takes the Skywalker Lightsabers and bleeds both crystals and forges a Double Lightsaber. The Last Jedi ends with the coronation and wedding of the Supreme Leader and Empress and our Sith overlords embrace in a kiss. Episode IX, A New Order is about Leia and Finn bringing back Rey and Ben or do what must be done. And honestly, I would just have Finn joining them. Have a revelation that The New Republic gave The First Order permission to take children as their indoctrinated child soldiers and Kylo points out Poe Dameron killed his friend Slip. Rose is easily persuaded. “Who is responsible for your sister’s death? Dameron. She died for The Resistance” “My world died because of The First Order.” Kylo looks at her and say “Under Snoke’s orders not mine, join us Rose and together we can bring a new Order together” Finn and Rose are Knighted as Knights Of Ren and kill Poe. Together Rey, Kylo, Finn and Rose burn The Resistance down and bring the New Order to the galaxy. Fuck a happy ending, let the Dark Side reign supreme.

Rey and Ben kill The Emperor together and live on Naboo. It’s the place where it all began, a simple trade dispute on a distant world changed the course of the galaxy for nearly 70 years. It’s the homeworld and final resting place of Padme Amidala, the only Skywalker to have their remains buried. By burying the Skywalker lightsabers in Amidala’s mausoleum it finally unites the Skywalker family once more, with their remains laid to rest together and at peace in a world that they loved. For Rey’s part, she gets to come home as well, returning to the homeworld of the Palpatine family. Even if I didn’t like Rey being a Palpatine, it would’ve been the perfect way to end the story. One Palpatine used his homeworld as a pawn in bid of obtaining ultimate power and destroyed a family. His granddaughter returns to make things right by destroying her grandfather and returning the family’s legacy to their rightful resting place. It ends on the marriage of Rey and Ben, both of whom are at peace.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Emperor Palpatine

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

There are villains. There are memes about villains. There are villains who are memes. And then, high above all of them, sitting on a lofty throne all his own, is Emperor Sheev Palpatine, a character so insanely incredible that it’s frankly quite baffling that even George Lucas at his worst still couldn’t make him awful… No, that was good old J.J. Abrams. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Palpatine is pretty much the archetype for the evil emperor in modern fiction, a mysterious evil sorcerer in dark robes who commands the main villain from afar and contains power beyond anything thought possible. But what’s interesting to note is that Palpatine really has three distinct eras to him: the original trilogy, where he was basically an outside context last minute threat who only had a presence in the third act of Return of the Jedi; the prequel trilogy, which is his best showing and where the Sheev we’ve all come to known and love really got to spread his wings and fly; and finally, the sequel era, the worst showing of Palpatine hands down, where he is randomly slapped into a film with no foreshadowing or buildup to pander to nostalgia.

So let’s take a look at our old pal Sheevy and see what makes him one of the greatest villains of all time, and one of the worst.

Motivation/Goals: Palpatine is motivated by one thing, and one thing only:

He spends the entire prequel trilogy building this up, working behind the scenes and manipulating both sides of the Clone Wars to his advantage so he can be given more and more political power. This works out beautifully for him, allowing him to dispose of his pawns like Dooku, take over the senate, seize absolute power, amass an army of clones, and of course execute Order 66. But most importantly, he is able to manipulate the frustrated and hurting Anakin to his side, mostly because the Jedi are a bunch of bumbling, archaic morons who put so much restrictions and belittle him so much that this creepy, predatory man is able to feed into his insecurities and send him tumbling to the Dark Side.

In the original trilogy, Palpatine is pretty content with letting Vader handle the affairs of the Empire, at least until Luke shows up and the Rebels become a substantial threat. Once the time comes, he has Luke and Vader get together and puts them up against each other, thinking the outcome is either that he gets a new apprentice/keeps his old one in check, or corrupts Luke somehow into killing his father and joining him as the new Sith. He didn’t count on Vader turning, but ah well.

The thing is that throughout these six films he remains remarkably consistent in his goals. He wants power, and if he can’t keep that power he’s going to make sure as many people suffer on his way down as possible. He’s almost cartoonishly evil in the best way possible!

And then came the sequels.

His motivations in the sequels are, quite frankly, impossible to discern, because they seem to change every scene. If he’s behind Snoke and the First Order, it’s easy to guess that he probably wanted Rey dead, right? Because that’s sure the vibe Snoke gave in The Last Jedi. But no, after it seeming like he wants her dead for most of The Rise of Skywalker, as soon as she shows up his plan is suddenly for her to kill him so he can transfer into his body. And then he changes that a short time later to “I am going to suck the life out of Rey and Ben so this shitty clone body can be great.” It’s like they’re cramming three or four different Palpatine plots into the twenty-five minutes of screentime Palpatine has in this film, and there is just absolutely no thematic cohesion anywhere. It’s just a mess.

Performance: If there is one thing that is always consistent with Palpatine, it is that Ian McDiarmid is absolutely fantastic as him. This man is able to take the most cliché, generic evil overlord archetype imaginable and transform every single line of dialogue he spouts into a meme, and even when he’s the absolute worst version of this character possible and strapped to a giant Sith dialysis machine on some Sith planet where he makes Snoke clones and verbally berates Adam Driver, he still finds time to be hilariously awesome.

Final Fate: Palpatine seriously underestimated Anakin, and ended up chucked down into the Death Star, where he died. He certainly didn’t have a poorly-explained clone backup of himself anywhere that would rise up decades later to completely override any victories the heroes ever had by ensuring that the entire lineage of the Skywalkers was destroyed and then usurped by his own spawn.

Best Scene: In a scene that justifies the entire existence of the prequels, shows off McDiarmid’s acting chops as he pulls off some actual subtlety as Palpatine, delivers some great background lore, and helps make Revenge of the Sith as awesome as it is… well, have you heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

Best Quote: Look, I could put just about anything he says in Revenge of the Sith here. I could put just about anything he says here. This man is an absolute meme machine who spits out only the finest quotable soundbites you will ever here. But look, I’m tired of not singling out great lines, so let me give you the one I quote the most. It’s one of his greatest quotes, and yet it is unbelievably simple. Two words and a ridiculously hammy inflection is all this man needs to be a meme:

Final Thoughts & Score: Sheev Palpatine is a man of extremes. Every aspect of him is so large that when he does something, he does it with the full force of his entire character. Revenge of the Sith will eternally be his best showing in the entire franchise, because he just spends the entirety of his screentime being the most insanely impressive scheming, manipulative bastard imaginable while somehow managing to cram in time for a sick spin through the air or a monologue about his former master at the space opera house. He manages to singlehandedly redeem the prequels if only by existing in them, and he helps elevates Revenge of the Sith into being the only one of those films that is generally accepted as being legitimately awesome. And while he is absent for much of the original trilogy, seeing as he wasn’t exactly conceived of right off the bat, he manages to make the most of his appearance in Return of the Jedi by being just as delightfully malevolent as ever, goading Luke and Vader into a duel and shooting lightning from his fingertips.

There are few villains who are just this completely basic and cliché that could ever hope to be great, but thanks to McDiarmid’s portrayal, he has gone on to be one of the single most iconic villains of all time, and one of the most iconic characters of all time. The guy is practically a living meme, from his name to his actions in the prequels, and he has certainly inspired many an evil overlord after him. For a character so seemingly unoriginal, it can be hard to believe he probably deserves an 11/10, but he most definitely does. He’s just become a staple of the franchise, to the point where some people feel it just ain’t Star Wars without him…

...Including, unfortunately, J.J. Abrams and a few other writers. Palpatine managed to be shoehorned into the prequels by being a surprise twist villain for The Rise of Skywalker (and as we’ve all seen from their recent animated movies, out-of-nowhere twist villains are great!), and it is without a doubt the most stupid and embarrassing showing one could possibly imagine for a character of this caliber. His motivations seem to change every time he opens his mouth, a lot of his dialogue is just uninspired, and while he does get a somewhat striking design here it’s hampered by the fact that his entire existence and role are really unexplained in the film and he feels like he was slapped in for the sake of being there. 

There’s also the fact that his mere existence and the fact he ends up being responsible for Ben Solo’s death means he completely overrides the entire franchise, comes out on top with his granddaughter usurping the Skywalker name, and succeeds entirely at wiping out the Skywalker lineage. This entire nine film series was just buildup to Palpatine ultimately winning, and just when things couldn’t get worse, Disney decided to take away the one thing that made this Palpatine hilarious – the idea that, with his hideous scarred face, he was able to bang a woman and conceive a child – and completely toss it out the window by saying this Palpatine was actually a clone. Not in the movie, of course, because that would make way too much sense, no; it was confirmed on Twitter.

I think it goes without saying Clone Palpatine gets a 1/10. And this is through no fault of McDiarmid; he’s still genuinely great in the role, even if the role is stupid, his character’s actions are stupid, and just everything about the character’s existence is stupid. He’s certainly not phoning it in at all, and ignoring everything else about the film Clone Palpatine is at least somewhat amusing on his own. There’s also the fact that this Palpatine most definitely has an incredibly striking design and looks really cool, despite the unbelievable lameness of what he actually is:

But how he is utilized within the franchise and what he ultimately accomplishes and represents is too much for me to actually forgive in the context of Psycho Analysis. When the most redemptive thing I can say about Clone Palpatine is that his actor is at least trying and his design is cool despite the awful writing and story relevance, that is not the sign of a great character. That is the sign of a great actor desperately trying to salvage a trainwreck.

But it’s like I said earlier; Palpatine is a man of extremes. If he’s gonna be a great villain, then by god is he going to be one of the greatest villains of all time. And if he’s going to be a crappy villain? Well then he’s gonna sit among the worst ever. I kind of respect that about good ol’ Sheev; he just can’t do anything in half measures. I guess as a Sith he really does deal in absolutes, be it absolutely amazing or absolutely awful.

UPDATE: I stand by all my criticisms of Sheev Clonepatine, but dammit, there’s just too many hilarious memes, and I can’t really hate Ian McDiarmid’s performance. Yes, I’ve come around quick, but I guess it is true: when Palpatine succeeds, he succeeds epically and hilariously, and when he fails, he fails epically and hilariously. His role in the story and the stupidity of him being here at all is a 1/10 for sure, but I think he’s just hilarious enough to edge into the “So bad it’s good” category of 3/10 alongside his bouncing baby boy Snoke. 

Just remember: No matter what Disney tries to tell you, Palpatine fucks.

[twoidiotwriters1]

Home- Chapter 13 (Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo x F!Oc)

Words: 2,206

Mastelist:

Chapter 12 / Chapter 14

Ben’s POV

From the moment I saw her in the Jedi temple, I knew that girl would bring me trouble and time only made me confirm it. The fights with the other students were constant, they always found some way to bother me, my nose, my ears, my freckles, my hair…

My parents expected me to make friends, I always listened to their great adventures together with my uncle Luke and I must admit that I always wanted to have something like that. As a child, I wanted to be like my father, I wanted to drive the Milenium Falcon, but I also wanted to help my mother with those political issues that she always tried to explain to me. But all of that was gone when Luke offered to train me away from them.

At first I was upset, I thought they were getting rid of me, but they made me understand that, if I wanted to control the force, I’d have to go with my uncle. I finally agreed, not knowing that could be my downfall.

When Kiara arrived, things were a little strange. I wasn’t thinking about making friends, but with her, I didn’t even try. The conversations were very varied, she could be talking about training and suddenly change the subject and talk about the stars. Without waiting for it, when we had to separate, I always hoped to see her again. After the cliff incident, our relationship improved and the connection grew stronger.

I felt like I could tell her absolutely everything and she knew she could do the same with me. I told her about the voices, the nightmares, when the dark side promised me all the power I ever imagined I could have and she always managed to say the right thing.

The years passed, we both grew and I noticed details of her that simply fascinated me; her subtle freckles, her eyes, her hair, lips, voice, laughter, hugs, her sweet words… Despite having a strong character, she always managed to return to her noble side, especially when she was with me. We defended ourselves against anyone who’d try something bad, we did together some missions, they were almost always good and we were a great team.

Without realizing it, little by little I fell in love with her and she with me, although at first I wanted to deny it, I didn’t last long, once I kissed her, there was no going back. We knew the risks, the Jedi code. I still remember the time he discovered us…

"You know the rules.”

"We don't want to do any harm, it just happened!” She said with tears.

I feel a pain in my chest just seeing her in that state, I would do anything to prevent her from being like this.

"Whatever punishment it is, I must be the one to face it, she’s not to blame for anything," I say in front of my uncle.

"No, this is about us," she complains.

Luke stare at us, I don't know if he's angry or not. For the first time, I can't see what he thinks.

Suddenly he sighs and looks at the sky for a few seconds until he returns to us.

"I won’t give you any punishment,” He says lowly. "I spoke to your mother about this,” I look at him surprised. "And she's right,” He laughs, "I don't know how I didn't see it coming from the beginning…”

Kiara takes my arm and I can see how she blushes.

“So..?”

"I can't force you to separate, that would make things worse, right?" We both wait, “I'll only ask you to be discreet, I don’t want displays of affection in public and I don’t want to surprise you in the other's cabin, you’re still young."

The memory always makes me smile, we fulfill what he asked for, only that sometimes she did go to my cabin or I to hers. At that time I was happy, I never thought I could be.

 I imagined a lifetime at her side. That was what I’d planned to do, but I caused our downfall myself. I kept hearing the voices getting louder and louder and I couldn't control it.

They promised me power, to control the entire galaxy, they made me see all the obstacles of the Jedi, they also helped me to see the truth; They wouldn't allow my life with Kiara, somehow that was still forbidden and if I didn't join them I would lose her forever. I saw my future, on the throne with her by my side, ruling all the planets. That became my goal, but I still resisted.

Until Luke tried to murder me, that only confirmed everything Snoke was telling me about my teacher, the light side became weak in my body, I destroyed everything and only accepted those who surrendered to the dark side, only my other half was missing.

I didn't think I was capable of hurting her, that was never my intention, but the power blinded me and for many years, my nightmares were about that moment; her cries, when her heart stopped, when I lost all connection to her. I didn't measure the consequences until later.

I heard the story of my grandfather and how love led him to destruction. Snoke taught me that what I did had been the right thing to do after all, if she didn't understand my fate, she was just a distraction. That's what he told me every time I woke up crying for her loss.

But now, as always, she turns my whole plan around, she managed to distract me from my goal, but I also allowed it. Our connection only grew stronger.

I asked my grandfather for help and tried to relate his story to mine. My frustration only grew with each day she was still on my ship. I tried to train her, somehow, even if I didn't want to admit it, I was hoping that she would move to the dark side and my vision still stands. But all of this only led to further conflict. I could feel the light side strength with every word Rey and Kiara said to me.

I caused massive damage throughout the galaxy and although not everyone fled upon seeing my mask, they managed to destroy it and see beyond my soul. I can't with that much pressure, I want power, but not this way. The thoughts I had when I was young come back strongly.

But I'm not a teenager anymore, and although Snoke taught me all about the dark side and Luke tried to explain the light side to me, I've already created my own side. No more Sith or Jedi. I have to decide.

 Omniscient narrator

As Ben reasons the decisions he’s made in a long time, the first order prepares for another attack with its new overlord, awaiting directions. Snoke's death took allies of the first order by surprise, but the target still stands. Conquering the entire galaxy and fighting the resistance will always be the goal.

The debate within Ben Solo continues, however, his new position forces him to continue and continue investigating his destiny. Kylo Ren travels the planets in search of a map to find a Sith temple and destroy whoever stands on his way until he succeeds.

Holding the map in his hands, he wastes no time and arrives at the temple on the planet Exegol where he meets one of the most powerful leaders and receives orders that he must decide whether to obey or ignore.

————————————————————

Kiara’s POV

I can't believe these old books keep working. A map… blah blah blah… Sith… Jedi blah blah blah…

So many words and symbols, everything is so complicated.

"Something new?" The female voice makes me jump and I accidentally hit my eye with my hand. I grunt. "Sorry, I didn't want to scare you,” says Rey sitting next to me.

"Doesn't matter,” I settle in my place. "Answering your question, no. We continue with the same.”

"You're good?" She says pointing to my eye.

"Yeah, it's not that easy to get used to having a robotic hand," She nods. I pass her the book I was reading.

"How was the training?" Now she sighs.

"I was distracted, it’s inevitable.”

"I can imagine.”

Sorry my star…

"I feel like we’re missing something... something that’s clearly in these books," She says with frustration.

"I know.”

In that, a pilot calls us.

"Kiara, Rey, the Falcon returned!"

We run to the landing area. Rey steps forward and meets Poe, while I’m shocked to see the Milenium Falcon on fire.

Poe and Rey start arguing, after a few minutes, I go over to them and give Poe a hard hit on the shoulder.

"And why is that?" He complains looking at me angry.

“You're supposed to be the best pilot– I entrusted you with the Falcon, and this is what I get? What did you do to my ship, Dameron?”

"Oh, come on. Are you going to scold me too?”

“It's my ship!”

"You didn’t take care of BB-8 as I asked you!” He defends.

"What?" I look at the droid, who has a few rough places. "What happened to him?"

"AHA!" Poe exclaims. At that Finn arrives and the three argue again.

In the distance I hear Chewie's roars.

"I know that, buddy! We'll fix it,” I look sadly at the ship, but I know it’ll be fine.

"Is there a spy or not?" I hear Rey ask Poe.

Poe and Finn's mission was to receive a message from an alleged spy on the first order. Rey and Poe continue arguing and Finn tries to calm them down without success. Poe’s in a bad mood, I suppose he has very good reasons, we’re all very tense and I can understand it.

"No, you’re both here, training, for what?" Poe says. "You’re the best fighters we have. We need you there, not here!”

"It's true," adds Finn. I feel very guilty for not helping, but this is somehow complicated. The two men leave and Rey watches me.

"I know, but I won’t say something stupid like ‘you wouldn’t understand it’ is not fair to them,” I say letting out a sigh.

We both follow them. Poe and Finn gather all of the resistance to say the spy's message: The first order is still moving and everyone is surprised when Poe mentions that Emperor Palpatine has returned.

I remember the stories about him, Luke told us everything that happened along with Darth Vader. It sounds crazy, but everyone thinks of a possibility. The dark side always has its tricks.

"He planned his revenge. His followers have been building something for years,” Poe continues. "The largest fleet the galaxy has ever known. He calls it the Final Order.”

The fleet will destroy everything in its path, but it’s contained on one planet: Exegol. That name sounds familiar to me. Among the ancient books, Luke knew about this planet and tried to find it, or at least the Sith counselor.

Rey and I share a look and I nod as she goes through the book that can help us find the planet.

After a few minutes, Rey prepares the Falcon, ready to face her fate.

I walk to the Falcon, where Finn, Poe, Rey, Chewie, BB8 and C3PO are. They convince Rey that she cannot go alone on such a dangerous mission.

"If you think you’ll go without me, you are very wrong.”

"Are you sure you can do it?" She says eyeing me up, I smile at her.

"I'll be fine.”

Everyone says goodbye, and we prepare things. I wait for Rey to finish talking to Leia to get closer.

"I feel a conflict in you, darling,” I shrug.

"I honestly don't know what to expect from this anymore."

“That's part of the adventure. It's what Han always thought,” I bite my lip. "I'm sure he’s proud of you, Kiara," I smile, "And so am I.”

I bend down a little to hug her.

“You were always like a mother to me. Thank you.”

As we parted, she touches my cheek.

"We still have a lot to talk about. When you come back.”

—————————————————————————

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Poe asks when we walk.

"These are the coordinates that Master Luke found," answers C3PO.

Just as we get closer, the music plays and a stage full of colors, dust, and decorations strikes us.

“The Acky Acky Festival of Ancestors. This only happens every 42 years,” reports the droid.

I smile at the big celebration.

"It seems fun!"

"We're not here to have fun," says Poe, pushing my shoulder as he passes. I sigh and we all walk separately among the people, looking for some clue to what Luke was looking for.

I observe amazed at the great culture and party that the locals have. Families dance and have fun.

My star…

I turn to look everywhere when I hear his voice, but I don't find anything, that until my gaze finds Rey's. Her eyes are fearful.

"It's Ren. He knows where we are, we won't last long in this place.”

“Great.”

Taglist:

 @oopsiedoopsie23​

@blackheartedspider​

@fandomshit6000

@thewinterschildren178​

[novelconcepts]

Look, okay, it wouldn’t solve all or even most of my issues with RoS, but the Rey-Palpatine thing could have been so much more reasonable and less “when the fuck did Palpatine have time to sire a child while he was terrorizing the galaxy and his face looked like THAT.” All they had to do was make her his great (or even great-great, but like--great is fine) granddaughter. If they absolutely MUST have her related to Palpy (which, like...sure, Jan, fine, whatever), tossing an extra generation in there solves the problem of Palpatine-fucks being utterly unlikely.

‘Cuz, like, the way it is now, we’re all forced to imagine he had a kid DURING the OG Trilogy, and...no one wants that. But if she was his great-grandkid? A simple fix.

1) Senator Palpatine, to keep up appearances as Generally Nice Dude, takes a wife and has a child.

2) Darth Sidious, once his plan to wreck Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi Council goes as every evil overlord hopes, abandons said wife and child. He never wanted them in the first place, they were just there to make him look good. Ain’t no Sith Emperor got time for a family.

3) Palp’s child grows up resenting their father for reasons of neglect and abandonment and also probably all that fascist murder. They pass this hatred on to their kid.

4) By this point you have someone whose whole awareness of their grandfather boils down to “he treated my parent like shit and also kills people, like, whenever he feels like it”. Palp isn’t going to care he’s got a grandkid, and this person is going to grow up absolutely hating their grandfather.

5) Fast-forward to them having a kid, finding out she’s the most powerfully Force-sensitive soul in a generation--and they hate this man in charge. They hate him enough to work against him in any way they can. They hide the child.

That’s it. Simple fix. Keeps from asking why Emperor Palpatine would pause to have a child, draws a nice clean line from the Senator Palpatine we saw in the Prequels to the tyrant we know from the OG Trilogy. Naturally, this would work best if we’d seen bits and bobs of it sprinkled through the new movies to lay the groundwork, but there’s...frankly, a lot of things that demanded groundwork to earn the payoff they tried for in RoS. Does it fix everything? No. Does it make me love the fact that they went from the “everyone can be a hero” narrative back to the “you are not your blood” narrative we’ve already seen with Luke? Not really. But that is all they had to do to at least make it make sense.