#Shara somehow ends up in all my stories

[dirthara-dalen]

Had this in my drafts for a bit. Finally decided to finish it the other night. I've been wanted to make a post for each of my major Clone Wars OC's with info about them, which will be below the cut. So who better to start with than Ligastar's descendant Lee! There are several canon divergences in Lee's story lol. This is a part 1. Parts 2 & 3 will also be focusing on the prequel era. (I will be linking the posts together)

Lee is the youngest member of the family by two minutes. He has an older twin brother named Sio. He and Sio are the first force sesntives in the family in about three thousand years. As infant's he and his brother shared a very strong bond with one another through the force. The sheer power of their combined thoughts was so painful that it caused them both to cry non stop until Sio somehow cut himself off from the force.

With special permission from the Order Lee's family, Master Sifo-Dyas was allowed to raise and train his son in a similar fashion to how Ligastar was trained. Growing up Lee was considered a prodigy in both dueling and the force. He was also permitted to have a relationship with his family and this was purely due to his connection to Ligastar. Being the first force sensitive Starwing in well over 3 millennia had some perks. When he was 13 he reunited with his older brother and began working with him to restore his bond as Sio had the ability to manipulate them just as Ligastar's brother Cain could.

Lee also made history in the order becoming the second youngest padawan, after Vernestra Rwoh, to undergo the trials at 14. It was during his very first that became a force walker. The first spirit he ever bound was none other than Solaris Xeno, his ancestors older brother and the one family member with the most knowledge of force walking. He kept this a secret of course.

His final trial was assisting Qui-gon and Obi-wan with the negotiations on Naboo. Now, I have a join canon with my friend @myth-and-mischief in which Lee has a friendship and later a romantic relationship with her oc Shara. I plan on making a separate post about their relationship later. In my personal canon he has a friendship and later a romantic relationship with a Miraluka named Seren Marr, descendant of Visas Marr.

^ This is Seren

While Lee is on Naboo he senses his fathers murder in the force and this nearly makes him break. Unbeknownst to the order Lee has been receiving training from various family members from the past via his force walker abilities. Such individuals include Revan, Ligastar, Ky'relea, Cain, Scourge and Solaris. So he is very skilled in the usage of the dark side as well as the light.

He holds it together and pretty much participates in the entirety of the Phantom Menace. When they first return to the temple Lee is knighted and gets his first padawan. A 9 year old chiss boy he and his father had found, Enzo Vera. Enzo will be getting his own post but he is the descendant of Vilkas/Vector and Ryn/Solaris through his mothers parents.

Lee does end up assisting Obi-wan in defeating Maul but even he fails to save Qui-gon as the only person he knows of to survive a saber directly to the gut was Ligastar with Valkorion's help. During all of this he secretly begins dating Seren as they are the same age but ti doesn't last long as Seren is taken off world by her own master to train elsewhere. So Lee takes Enzo to Alderaan to train.

To be continued in pt 2

[rinskiroo]

Pistolas At Dawn - 12: Reject

The horses were stomping and skittish upon reaching Niima Outpost.  No one blamed them for it.  The air was heavy set with flies and carrion birds, and it seemed a pack of coyotes and been through at some point.  The Rangers left them tied up out past the signpost, partly to calm their nerves, and partly to keep them from stamping through any tracks.  Snap was methodically walking the perimeter of the town, searching for clues.  He was the best tracker Poe had ever seen, so he let the man be and do his own thing.  The right thing to do would be to lay the bodies to rest, build them a funeral pyre, but with so many, it would have to be a communal event.  While Snap scoured the town, section by section, the other four pulled the bodies together and set them alight.  It was back breaking, sweaty, disgusting work, but they all agreed it was best if someone like Unkar Plutt didn't tarry between this life and the next.

Not that Poe was any more superstitious than most folk.  There were indeed things beyond his understanding.  Hell, Maz Kanata was an enigma all her own.  Not that he really thought some mystical energy field was controlling his destiny, but there was no denying there was something.  Sometimes it was better just to go along when she got one of her 'feelings' than to argue.  And she wasn't the only one.  Lately it seemed more and more people were having 'feelings'.

"Is this really what we should be doing?"  Jess asked as she pulled her gloves off and wiped the sweat from her brow.  "We're supposed to be looking for the Hermit, not the First Order."

"We're still the law in these parts,"  Poe replied as he spit on the ground.  Not that it did much, the awful taste of this place was still stuck to his teeth.  He grumbled at them to get back to work, then headed towards where Snap was crouched down sniffing a leaf or something.

It was a whistle, just subtle enough.  Low and just pitched upwards at the end.  Poe stopped mid-step; he'd know that note anywhere.  He could almost hear the click of her tongue that followed and the rustle of cloth and leather.  He swallowed as his eyes found the cloud of dust being kicked up and though he doubted the whistle he heard, he couldn't doubt the sound of hooves racing across the dirt.  He took off towards the fences, his hat flying off his head as he ran, his bandana falling from around his mouth and flailing around his neck.

In one quick stroke, he had pulled the knot from the wood fence.  His steed, a jet black quarter horse with just a splash of white painted on his face, was already moving when Poe took one step and then another, his hips swinging upward and into the saddle.  The voices of his team were calling behind him, confused as to where he was taking off to, but his focus was on chasing down the ghost.

She was a chestnut Arabian, lean and oh so fast.  She listened to no one, heeded no calls, except those of Shara Bey, his mother.  Shara had been the law when he was a boy, but was shot down whilst chasing a group of bandits that had been attacking wagon trains heading west.  It was a loss Poe had never quite recovered from.  And yet, here she was, sprinting across the dusty plains.  He pushed Black One harder, faster, they needed to catch this apparition.

"Ma!"  he shouted, though it was doubtful his voice could be heard through the cloud of dust or over the thundering of the hooves.  He'd never be able to catch her; she'd always been faster, and it wasn't just her horse.  Shara had been a better rider, better lawman.

She stopped up on the ridge, only about thirty feet away in a straight line, but to reach her, he'd have to ride around.  She'd be gone again by the time he got there.  So Poe stopped as well, horse and rider breathing heavily as he looked up at her, a vision.  While he was worn from the hard ride, she appeared relaxed and composed, sitting high in her saddle with her dark, wavy hair moving around her face in the gentle breeze.  He blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand; he knew she couldn't be real.

"Be strong, mijo.  Your friends will need your strength."  Her words were on the wind somewhere.  Her voice was clear in his head, but the image of her didn't move, wasn't speaking.

Black One stamped left and right after a moment, uncertain perhaps.  Poe wondered if the horse saw what he saw or thought his rider had gone mad.  "Ma!"  he shouted again.  "Come on home, Ma!"

Shara smiled down at him, warm as he remembered, then looked out across the open lands around them.  Her hands lifted, pulling up on her reins and guiding her chestnut horse away.  Poe gave his quarter horse a quick jab with his heels, pushing them forward to go around and up.  When he made it to the top of the ridge, she had gone.  There was no trace of her on the plains, or in the hills.  There weren't even hoof marks other than his own.

When he finally trotted back into the razed town, it seemed his team had already finished their tasks without him.  They were waiting for him, already on their horses and ready to leave this town of the dead behind them.  "Everything all right, Poe?"  Snap asked.

Poe glanced back over his shoulder, wondering if the ghost of his mother had returned, but she hadn't.  "Yeah.  Find anything?"

"There was an old man in the center of town.  At least, I think that's what he was."  Snap frowned, trying to keep a hold of his wits.  "Pretty sure he was tortured for information.  They headed back east when they were done.  Seems they didn't take anything though.  Place was picked clean by scavengers after they had cleared out."

Poe paused and looked back at Snap.  His brows pinched together in thought and then he glanced over towards Finn.  "Rey said she was here?  Saw the place with her own eyes?"

Finn nodded.  "Yeah, must have been right after it happened.  Said the uh, bodies were still fresh."

He nearly laughed as he shook his head.  They'd called her that before.  Scavenger.  "Always knew there was something a little off about her."

"What?"  Finn said defensively, sitting a bit forward on his horse.

Poe took his hat from Snap as his friend brushed past on his horse.  As he placed it back home on his head, his eyes scanned west and east, his horse trotting in a circle as he decided.  “We’re going back to Jakku.  I’ve got a--”  He groaned under his breath even as the words left his mouth.  “Feeling.” 

[starrlikesbooks]

22 books coming out in 2022 I cannot wait for!

The Ivory Key I've already read, and thought was so fun. It's an Indian inspired heist fantasy featuring 4 siblings, all completely at odds and with their own intentions they're willing to backstab for. It's also the start of a duology that seems like it's going to be great.

Hopepunk is another I've already read- it's the aggressively positive book we need right now. This book has music, radical love and acceptance, and some lesbian scifi.

Into the Midnight Void is the sequel to Beyond the Ruby Veil, a book where you just sit and watch the world be burned by a feral lesbian. I've read this one and it is even BETTER than the first book somehow.

Lakelore looks fantastic- it's led by two nonbinary teens, and involves a secret world under a lake. It feels very queer Twilight Zone to me, and I cannot wait.

She Gets the Girl is a sapphic romcom that feels like a quintessential 90s romcom movie somehow. If you love wingman-to-lovers the way I do this book is going to make you ecstatic.

Seasonal Fears is the sequel to Middlegame! No idea what this is going to be about, but SEQUEL TO MIDDLEGAME!!

I Kissed Shara Wheeler is Casey McQuiston's (RWRB, One Last Stop) YA debut! It's sapphic and involves a girl going missing. Sounds lit!

Milo and Marcos at the End of the World is another I've already read. This is an emotional story of internalized homophobia and the intersectionality of religion and queer identity. This will make you feel. Also the romance is very cute!

Wrath Goddess Sing is a trans retelling of greek mythos, with a transwoman Achilles!

We All Fall Down sees queer teens recast as archetypes in a war/game they don't even know they're playing with magic they don't even know is real!

Hell Followed With Us is a fantastic piece of queer horror! I have read this one already, and it was SO GOOD. This is about a transguy running from the evangelical cult that both ended the world and turned him into a literal monster.

Silk Fire is a queer scifi about dragons and necromancers and politcal scandal, and it sounds super interesting!

It Sounds Like This is a Snow White inspired marching band book with an ace love interest! I love this author already, and am so excited to see how she does this one!

Blood Like Fate is the sequel to Blood Like Magic. If you read the first one you know why I'm jumping up an down in anticipation for this book!

The Drowned Woods takes place in the same world as the wonderful The Bone Houses, and is about a ramshackle crew (always a love of mine) trying to destroy all magic to screw over a corrupt government.

Monsters Born and Made is about a family of sea monster trainers! The MC has to infiltrate the chariot races her monsters are used for, and which she and her people have never been allowed to be involved in themselves.

The One That Got Away hits so many marks for me- the MC is thrown into the spotlight, when it turns out her sibling is marrying a prince, she's forced into a dating show, pitted against the girl her ex cheated on her with, and is fueled by revenge! And bisexuality, of course.

The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a magical murder mystery told chapter by chapter by different authors! Including the fabulous Margaret Owen.

Monster is about a girl meant to be sacrificed to a monster, who instead allies herself with it. I'M PUMPED!

Unnamed Iron Widow Sequel is, of course, the sequel to Iron Widow. Not only was that one of my favorite books of the year, but the ending SHOOK me. So excited for the next part of the story!

[furiosophie]

maybe a little more oh the things we left behind epilogue fluff??? ;u; i know the entire epilogue was fluff but i am insatiable

yes very good thinking anon and sorry for the long wait my brain is just a heap of goo right now but here we go - some ottwlb fluff set between the Mandalorian war and the very last scene of the fic, a small compilation of how Din found the rest of their family:

oh the things we found

small TW for mentions of blood and trauma

Din doesn't in any way plan on becoming a magnet for Force-sensitive children, he really doesn't, but it happens regardless, something about his unique combination of Force-null beskar, Force-conduit darksaber, and Force-bond husband drawing them in like moths to a flame.

He finds Rey first, on a recon mission out to Jakku, casing a distress signal from a lost covert. She can't be any older than Ben, who is seven now and an absolute terror, but in comparison to him, she doesn't listen to Din one bit, her whole life just a series of defying the authority figures around her. She dangles from a rope above him, in the hollowed-out remains of an Imperial Star Destroyer, sticking out her tongue at him. "I'm not coming with you!" she declares while Din tries to position himself in a way that will allow him to catch her if she slips. "I'm waiting for my family. They're coming to get me!"

He doesn't have the heart to tell her no one in their right mind would ever willingly come back to a place like Jakku. He places all his rations, most of his credits, and, just for good measure, some bacta spray on the ground below her like he's making some offering to an ancient feral god and leaves with an ache in his chest.

"She won't come with me," he complains to Luke later, pacing up and down in the living area of the Mudhorn while Luke brews tea. They don't technically live in the Mudhorn anymore, have their own quarters in the ruins of Yavin's temple, but they always end up here regardless, whenever one of them comes back from a mission, whenever they need it to be just the two of them, away from everyone's worries.

Luke hands him a steaming cup and places a soft kiss on his temple. "Don't worry," he says, in that cryptic tone of his, the one he uses to tease Din when he's being daft about something that's impossible for him to know. "She will." And that's that.

Din goes back. Once, twice, three times, until the sparse crowd of locals looks at him with pity in their eyes. She does come with him eventually, after his eighths visit, when he draws the darksaber on a dune beast and turns around to find her looking at him with the type of recognition in her eyes that he's only ever seen in the way Luke looks at Ben and Grogu.

"She's like you," he accuses when Luke greets them at the bottom of the Mudhorn's ramp, Rey perched high on his shoulders, her arms wrapped around his helmet so tight it's hard for him to see. Luke just smiles and reaches out so Rey can tentatively take his hand. The change is instant - as soon as their palms touch her whole body relaxes as if something in her is finally at peace and Din has to reach up to keep her from sliding off his shoulders. And well. That's that.

Finn is next, standing tall in front of a group of terrified kids, in a backroom of the imperial laboratory they just raided, his eyes ablaze and lips turned up into a snarl. "I'll fight you," he snaps even as Din can see his hands shaking around the mop he fished out of the supply closet as a makeshift weapon. "I'm not scared, I'll fight you!" And really all Din can do in response is pull his helmet off and fall to his knees with his hands raised above his head.

It seems to work because he gets all of them into the Mudhorn eventually, Finn curled up on the copilot's seat, staring out in wonder at the endless expanse of space while the rest of the kids are rolled up into every available blanket in the captain's quarter. It's a bit of a rough start - where Rey felt turmoil because of the things swirling inside her without guidance, all Finn has ever known is supervision and people telling him to be something he's not, his connection to the Force tempered down in all the wrong places, too silent and too loud all at the same time, and in the first weeks, Din spends a lot of time hugging him close to the beskar plating of his chest, taking strolls under the quietness of Yavin's trees like he used to do with Ben. Finn quiets eventually, just as Rey did, the two of them getting on like a house on fire.

Shara is the one who brings Paige and Rose Tico, two sisters left stranded and alone by the still raging unrest of the remnants of war, and there is barely a discussion before she decides to take them in herself, the two of them glued to Poe the second they step off Shara's ship.

He finds Armitage last, standing over the dead body of an Imperial officer, blood on his hands and all across his face, just a sliver of yellow in the green of his eyes. Din has bruises on his arms for a week from how hard the kid strains against him as he tries to drag him out of the Star Destroyer before it self-destructs, but he figures, all things considered, they'll be able to handle that too.

He turns out to be a menace, of course, too smart for his own good, and way too stubborn to let Ben get away with his teasing, which always seems to end up Luke and Din having to physically drag them away from each other. Din tries to do for him what he did for everyone else, to hold him close and comfort him, but he only ever succeeds in the quiet of the night when he finds him at the very top of the temple wrapped up tightly in Luke's arms, both of them holding onto each other for dear life, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks tear-stained, darkness hanging around them like rain clouds.

Armitage takes a shine to Bo-Katan though, amidst all of his defiance, a fact that seems to confuse her as much as it does Din, and he knows that that will probably spell disaster in the future given how fast and feral Armitage takes to swinging a lightsaber, but to his relieve the Armorer steps up to pull him to her workshop by the back of his neck and balances the murder in his eyes with ever-evolving engineering challenges.

And so it takes a bit, quite a while in fact, but they find their balance eventually, their weird ever-growing family, all of them slotting into each other in a way that sometimes makes Din wonder if this was their doing too, Luke's and his, if in bending the universe around them, and in becoming one in the Force they somehow became a beacon for all those who are lost.

He wonders about it on the nights when, even after Han settles down on Yavin more or less permanently to be closer to Ben, and even after Paz bashfully asks to officially adopt Rey who's been glued to his shoulders for months, and even after Armitage makes it very clear that he doesn't plan to ever be adopted by anyone, Luke comes back from an excursion to find Din pilled into their bed with a bunch of wayward Foundlings.

"Sorry," Din mumbles sleepily as Luke steps over a snoring Paz who's taken up guard in the hallway, "It just happened."

"Is there room for one more?"

"Unlikely," Din sighs as he always does, but Luke finds a spot anyways, shuffling the kids around until they are just awake enough to demand a story from him.

"It's late," Luke smiles as Din pulls him closer to lean their foreheads together in greeting, Grogu climbing up from where he was tucked beneath Ben's chin to settle in between his dads. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

"Just one!" Rey pleads from her spot at Din's side, Finn's head popping up behind her in a show of support and Luke raises a warning eyebrow as Poe and Rose scoot closer from where they were sprawled over Din's legs. "You always say we need to be curious about the world around us!"

"It will help us sleep," Armitage argues from his spot at the end of the bed, the one he takes to pretend he doesn't care about any of this, and starts scooting close too, shoving at Ben to make space.

"They make a good point," Din interjects gently and pulls Armitage out of the way and between them before Ben can get up enough to headbutt him with Din's helmet, which is a constant on his head on those nights where they all feel pulled towards each other.

"Traitor," Luke laughs, letting Armitage nestle in closer to him, but he'll tell them about his travels anyways until they are all knocked out and snoring peacefully and Din can press a quick kiss to Luke's lips without having to listen to a cascade of "ew" and "gross".

And so, in the end, he always drifts asleep knowing he doesn't fully understand it, not really, how they all manage to fit so perfectly into each other's lives, how he managed to find this, this place that is domestic in a way nothing in his life has ever been, but he figures he doesn't have to understand it, not when he also knows with absolute certainty that they are all exactly where they are supposed to be.

[literarilytrisha]

My Rating: 4/5 ⭐ Genre(s): ya, contemporary, romance Published: May 3, 2022 by St. Martin's Press Content Warnings:  homophobia, bullying, racism Quick Reaction:  📝👀🌊💞🥺 

Description:

Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny. But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes. On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square. Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too. Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places. 

My Thoughts:

      “She feels like spine of a book about to crack and spill out all the love story guts.”  

Isn't it just the worst when your moms move you from a progressive state to one far more conservative? This is the complicated status for one Chloe Green who goes from sunny SoCal to Alabama for high school. For the past four years she has somehow survived the hollow halls of Willowgrove Christian Academy and she's so close to victory she can taste it.

What makes it even better? Beating her arch-nemesis and beautiful prom queen, Shara Wheeler. The two have competed academically for years but Chloe knows this time she's going to be the ultimate victor.

With a month towards graduation, Chloe can taste the sweet victory until Shara kisses her and vanishes. Who even does such a thing? She soon discovers Shara kissed two others the same night - her boyfriend, Smith and then another boy named Rory. What does it mean and more importantly why?

Shara - why did you have to go and make things so complicated?

Unable to just brush it off, Chloe decides to hunt down Shara and demand the answers. The three form an alliance but along the way they learn more than a few things about themselves. Some of which will change things forever but that's what growing up is all about. Sometimes you unlock who you really are and other times you do a kiss and run.

All's fair in love and war they say and this time it's really going to be a battle royale. Shara may have started the puzzle but Chloe is not only going to solve it, she's going to destroy it.

      “What do you say when The Girl tells you that you're The Girl to her?”  

Before I say anything else, I must fully gush about Casey McQuiston's writing and how much I love the banter. I can't even say how many times I end up squealing or awwing but it's very, very often. Who can blame me at all? The other thing I have to highlight is just how memorable McQuiston makes their characters and how they really do become larger than life.

What didn't I enjoy then? Given I gave this four stars rather than a five. Two main things and one of them is an issue I had with One Last Stop as well.

1. I was letdown by Shara when she finally came into the picture because there was so much built up about her. She was more lackluster than the other characters who were really sparkling. I also didn't love the romance between Shara and Chloe. It seemed rivals to lovers but it just really didn't fit well into the category for me. Since there was a lot of obsession on both sides even from the start. Likewise, Chloe is a very difficult character to like but I started to come around to her towards the end of the book. The very same with Shara. I didn't love her as a character but appreciated her a bit more towards the end of the book.

For me, my investment was much more with Georgia, Rory and Smith. The friendships and found family vibes really are top tier and what won me over. I loved how flawed, messy and real all of it is. Growing up in a small town is so difficult, especially when you're trying to skip around to your own beat and having those who get it is vital. It's really everything and this book shows it in spades.

2. The tone of the novel is a little off and this is the issue I had with One Last Stop, Both books were trying to be two different things meshing together and it just didn't gel for me.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a ya contemporary but also a mystery. I saw comparisons to Gone Girl and similar things, which did not really work? The mystery is very, very light and not really what the book is in my opinion. This might be one reason I was disappointed! This really is more of a coming of age queer ya contemporary. Having the right mindset when going into the book makes it more enjoyable!

The signature lovable style and distinct characters still won me over, however. I will always read anything Casey McQuiston puts out because I really do enjoy their books. The writing style just works so well for me and I am a say yes to witty banter.

What really works for me most of all, though, is the hopefulness throughout the book and the obvious beating heart of positivity and acceptance. It's a radiating warmth I just want to curl up in. A sort of sunshine we all need to cascade down on us.

      “I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us.”  

I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a queer coming of age story tackling all kinds of issues, including identity crises and questioning sexuality. It's a safe haven for those who usually feel invisible to be heard. It's for the ones who want to find themselves in pages and linger in the breaths before the sighs. It's a book I would recommend!

p.s. I noticed the faberry comparisons and, yes, I can see it.

[la-galaxie-langblr]

End of year reading tag!

Thanks sab @bulletnotestudies :)

Did you reach your reading goal for the year (if you had one)?

Yeah! My goal was 52 books and I somehow managed 74?? There were a fair few short stories in there but still

What are your top 3 books you read this year?

Hhhhhhhhhh Red, White and Royal Blue, Cemetery Boys and The Henna Wars, it was difficult to choose those 3 though, I read so many good books this year

What's a book you didn't expect to enjoy quite so much before going in?

The Raven Cycle - the premise of the books didn't really sound like my thing but my bestie was obsessed with the characters so I decided to give it a go, and yes they are all my children now. It's also very Words and Sentences, if you know you know :)

I ended up really enjoying The Bell Jar as well but idk what that says about me so I won't elaborate bdksgdskhsskd

Were there any books that didn't live up to your expectations?

The Thursday Murder Club, The Falling In Love Montage and Wuthering Heights - I really thought I would like The Falling In Love Montage but it just fell a bit flat for me, I thought Thursday Murder Club was overhyped in general and Wuthering Heights is just my least favourite book I've ever read 😆

Did you reread any old faves?

I read RWRB for the first time in January this year and I've reread it 4 times since, it gets better every time you reread it! Other than that I read Heartstopper start to finish many times, and I reread The Book Thief and Little Women!

Did you dnf any books?

War and Peace - I got like a third of the way through it but I just did not have the attention span for it, I will finish it one day out of spite though. There was also a nonfiction book called Presbyterians and the Irish Language, it was fairly interesting but I just wasn't in the mood for it at the time.

Did you read any books outside of your usual preferred genre(s)?

The Raven Cycle and The House On The Cerulean Sea - both books have elements of fantasy to them (magical realism? Idk) which is normally not my jam, but thanks to the persuasive powers of my bestie and the knife gang I read them and I have 0 regrets (come to think of it my bestie has very similar taste to the knife gang 👀)

What was your predominant format this year?

Physical, but there were a decent amount of audiobooks and ebooks as well

What was the longest book you read this year?

The Goldfinch - 771 pages, it's a good thing I enjoy Donna Tartt's writing style or the plot would have made me give up part way through.

What are your top 3 anticipated 2022 releases?

Heartstopper Volume 5, I Kissed Shara Wheeler and A Million to One, thanks 2021 for introducing me to amazing authors that I want to read every upcoming book by!

What books from your tbr did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?

Cinderella is Dead, This Poison Heart, all the books I just got for Christmas (of those, especially Felix Ever After!!)

Tagging @sammiestudiesstuff, @mirai227, @peachblossomstudy, @helianthuscryptid and anyone else who wants to do it! (no pressure though!)

[albatris]

HI hello hope you're enjoying this nice rainy Tuesday, I was listening to 'The Only House That's Not On Fire (Yet)' and I know it's a ATDAO bop and I was just curious as to how exactly? May I request a Ramble? As in-depth as you would care to be? Thank you thank you

hey hey hello hi!! I am enjoying this nice rainy-Tuesday-that-is-now-a-not-rainy-Thursday c: I hope you're enjoying it also, hope you're goin good, hope you're up to all sorts of cool stuff!

thank you for the question!!! I am always always excited at any opportunity to ramble about ATDAO song choices so as soon as I saw this in my inbox my thoughts started going a billion miles an hour

anyway, hey, yeah, ramble time! ramble might be a little fuzzily-worded because my brain is a little fuzzily-everythinged but hopefully it makes enough sense ahaha

ok, so!

this one is a bit of a peculiarity on the ATDAO playlist, actually! it falls into the category of "this song doesn't have an awful lot of direct plot relevance and is mostly just here because Vibes" yet, somehow, if pressed to name the song on the playlist that encapsulates ATDAO best as a whole, I would say it comes pretty close to the top spot :P

so, yes, a lot of the specifics of the lyrics don't particularly fit if we're thinking in literal terms......... the ENERGY is unparalleled though. HOWEVER I do have some particular parts of the song I can direct your attention to, of course, which I'll get into in a sec -

but ya, as for the song as a whole? it's the cheerful, upbeat acceptance of a series of completely bizarre circumstances! it's just a good bop for being like Welp I Guess This Is My Life Now. and being so accustomed to the completely bonkers state of your reality that it's all just completely mundane to you, which parallels to ATDAO so nicely

plus the start of the second verse, like so

I feel strangely regular / but honestly I prefer it to the usual bizarre / damn that oxymoron

AND the very...... feeling....... concept.....? of this being the only house that's not on fire yet is just kind of like........ I mean, whatever the narrator of the song is involved in, it very much gives me the impression of being entirely at the whims of some force that's volatile and completely incomprehensible

with the "yet" being crucial

But something keeps me as a pet / the only house that's not on fire yet

combined with the general tone of the music gives me the image of just like. sitting on ur front porch sipping a margarita, having just watched the rest of your street devolve into chaos and fire knowing you're completely at the mercy of something bizarre and all-powerful and just being like. "hm. yikes. anyway--"

it's a good tone for the general state of the ATDAO world, which is full of people going about their everyday lives against this bizarre backdrop of ever-present looming apocalyptic dread, completely at the whims of a chaotic and indifferent universe

like

the world is ending! the world is ending! a reality-warping sinkhole just opened in your local bowling alley! but in more pressing concerns, you're almost out of milk, you should try and get to the store before it closes or your mum won't have anything for her cereal tomorrow morning

another point I wanna address is the bridge (?) which is just

the punchline is that there is no punchline

repeated over and over, which is the kicker for this song in its relation to ATDAO imo

'cause like

the theme in ATDAO that keeps coming back and the main......... antagonistic......... concept? force? The Thing The Protagonists Are Constantly Up Against And Struggling With In Some Fashion Or Another? is simply "there is no meaning to this, there is no answer, there is no grand puzzle to be solved, this is all just cold and unfeeling cosmic machinery that doesn't even know you exist"

quite literally, if this is the universe's idea of a joke, there's no punchline

like, the things that happen to Tris and Noa (and Shara and Kai), the things that set the plot in motion, these are acts of chance, these are people being in the wrong place at the wrong time, these are ordinary human people getting swept up into the gears of this endless grinding machine they can barely comprehend and There Is No Point To It. There Is No Motivation Behind It. it happens because it happens!

and there's this shift from like..... seeing it through this very human lens, being angry AT something, being angry AT a particular force, trying to reason with it, trying to plead with it, trying to make it hear you......... to the realisation that there's nothing on the other end of it, there's nothing there to hear you, nothing to take the force of your anger and fear. and like, you knew you were alone, but you're only just realising you're ALONE

n just. "there is no punchline" just clicks FANTASTICALLY for that

(n of course, that's..... grim. so it bears repeating that, like...... the whole heart and soul of ATDAO is people coming face-to-face with the reality of an uncaring unfeeling universe and deciding, Hey, No, Fuck You. it's people caring about people, intentionally, purposefully, violently, no matter the costs! it's the human capacity for love and kindness and connection in the face of horror and indifference! and it matters! even if it doesn't matter at all, it matters!! it matters here and now in this tiny speck of time and space!! love is at the centre of everything!! it's the single greatest act of defiance against the nothing!!!!)

(and that's not relevant to this post at all, I just would have hated to leave on that sort of note LMAO)

long story short: tune good c:

[ghirahims-trophyhusband]

WAIT SORRY I DIDNT LOOK AT THE TAGS. 1 3 and 5 for alwin GHSDF

It’s cool lmao. No worries!

1. How did you discover your F/O’s content?

Through my love of the first Monster Hunter Stories game tbh! I’d never really anticipated a sequel because I don’t like to hype myself up over something that hasn’t been officially confirmed, so seeing the game get announced at last year’s E3 (I’m pretty sure that was when I saw the game get mentioned but if not, it was in October/November time) alongside MonHun Rise had me YELLING I was so happy to see a game I adore with my whole heart got a sequel!

From there I watched every trailer the second it dropped, checked the official website repeatedly for details and updates, and when I got the game, I got through all the areas in 2 days LMAO (I haven’t finished the game yet though! So no spoilers past me knowing that Oltura exists and I have to revisit the previous areas (if you don’t know the name, it will make sense later on ;0 ))

3. Describe the first time you watched/played/read your F/O’s source material

WELL as I mentioned, I’m still going through the game but I have seen all the areas (save for post game of course!) and I’m still determined to see the game to the end on my PC, as I’m recording my blind reaction to things!

I wont lie though, I was VERY sleep deprived as I played the game though on PC, plus I did storm through the story because I really want to see what happens to the cast and baby boy Razewing Ratha. I woke up at 3am, didn’t fall asleep and decided to wake up at 5am and talk to my friend Gravity whilst we both waited for the game to release. Once it did, I kinda entered something of a trance because I was DETERMINED to get all the cool monsters, but I did and still do adore the story wholeheartedly despite how drained I was! I played from 7am to 8pm because yes, I both hate and love myself LMAO. (believe me, I was just as obsessive over the first MHST game lol)

I can still confidently say what the plot points are though! Even though I was so tired I still SOMEHOW retained the plot in my mind lmao. I mean, I had been waiting for this game for MONTHS, counting down the days to the second, so the information of the game has stuck to me like glue.

I will not be watching anyone play the game until I’ve completed for myself, but I have watched one or two videos for help, as at one point Nergigante was kicking my ass and I fainted to him 5 times, so I used an Arekkz video for what the best storyline armour was at that point in the story.

5. If your F/O is from a series, were you into the source content from the start or did you come in later? If you came later, what was the most recent release when you got into it?

If it were the MonHun Stories games only, I have been into the series from the start! Even watching a fan translation of the first game when it didn’t initially release in the west.

If we’re talking about the main series though, my first game was MonHun Tri on the Wii! I never finished the game though, only getting as far as Qurupeco I believe (or maybe even just Great Jaggi) and didn’t touch the series again until MonHun World and Iceborne had been out for a fair while.

The reason why World was my first proper main series game was because of how much I love Stories so I decided to give the main games another go and after playing for just a few hours, I immediately fell back in love with the series! It was sorta like returning to an old friend who just gets me (bc of course, BIG MONSTERS and I LOVE big monsters) and hey! I even nabbed Shara Ishvalda of all characters as a comfort character ghdjkfgd.

[reylorabbittrail]

Long, Barely Coherent Thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker

Since some of you wanted to hear my thoughts about “The Rise of Skywalker”, I’ve taken some time to write them up and provide context for why I responded the way I did.

A small preamble: I didn’t hate it. Hate is a strong word. And there were moments that I liked. Some that I even loved. However, the aggregate feeling for the movie overall was disappointment. For certain elements, it went beyond that into something genuinely painful and I don’t think that will make sense unless I also go into why I loved the previous two installments of this trilogy.

Also, if you loved this movie, I’m very happy for you. This is about my personal response to a piece of media and I make no judgements on those who enjoyed what you saw. I wish I could join you.

Finally, I will be talking about some sensitive subjects, including child loss and abuse. Please be aware of that before reading further.

Okay, so what was my overall impression of The Rise of Skywalker?

Soulless. Cowardly. Incoherent. Badly paced.

I spent large portions of the movie unable to get into the action because the pacing was so breakneck. There was no time to breathe. Consequently, there was never enough time to recover from one rush before another started. If everything is exciting, nothing is.

I think that this was a deliberate choice to cover up the lack of sense behind the exposition. Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron looks dead inside as he temporarily takes up the mantle of Basil Exposition to explain that somehow or other, Emperor Palpatine has returned and there’s a hard time limit on destroying his fleet.

This is a fine example of a running problem throughout the movie. Whereas both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi used visual storytelling to move the story forward, things in TROS were explained through dialogue time and again. And the dialogue was incredibly clunky.

But back to the story. We are given a paper thin explanation of the Emperor’s return, and immediately are thrown into a fetch quest to find the Big Bad. I’m sure it will make an exciting video game adaptation.

The thing though is that the fetch quest makes no sense. One of the wayfinders is found in the first two minutes of the movie. Yes, it’s in the hands of the bad guys. But does the audience not remember that our heroine is bound to the villain? Why couldn’t she try to use that bond to get at the directions? Why does the Resistance not try to use that bond? Has she hidden from them her connection to Kylo Ren? Either she’s built up a wall of mistrust between her found family and herself by keeping the bond a secret, or she’s revealed all and no one thinks to try to use that bond to their advantage. It’s just conveniently overlooked.

Oh, a sidenote. Wayfinder. Why? There is an in-universe word for such objects already. It’s a holocron. Why not use holocron? We throw Star Wars-isms at the audience all the time. It would be an Easter Egg to the diehards while not bothering the general audience one iota.

Back to our fetch quest. We head to the desert planet of Pasaana. There’s a festival going on. A festival about family. Rey looks longingly at children and infants. A child gives her a fertility necklace. And then suddenly she’s connected by her bondmate through the force.

Now it’s no secret that the Rey and Kylo dynamic is one of the reasons I loved the first two movies in the trilogy. The actors have great chemistry. More importantly, the characters have interesting conflict. And yet that conflict seems off in this movie. TLJ left them complicated enemies. But they feel out of character. I don’t understand what each is trying to get out of their encounters. I have to do massive amounts of work to understand their actions and the dialogue doesn’t help. Because it doesn’t ring true.

Setting such details aside, Kylo rips off the necklace in a moment worthy of the Phantom of the Opera and for once it’s an action that makes sense, having both the subtext of obsessive love and jealousy, and the text of offering a clue for analysis to Rey’s location. Bravo. The writers did something right.

Meanwhile, we get a clunky reintroduction of Lando Calrissian. Has he been stuck on this desert for over 7 years? Longer? We just don’t know and he doesn’t tell us. Our heroes hitch a ride and then we get a fun speeder chase.

Okay, a couple more questions. There’s some good stuff here. The omnipresence of the First Order helps convey how thorough their control is. But why doesn’t Rey hotwire the speeder? It was established two movies ago that she’s a good mechanic. And on Jakku that kind of skill makes sense. Why hand that off to Poe? And why this Trio stuff. It’s fanon. We have just been assuming that Finn’s best friends would form the new Han, Luke, and Leia. Because reasons. None of them textual. It was a failure of TFA to not establish this dynamic if this was an essential element of Star Wars that had to be there from the start.

Which gets to the heart the problem in fandom which is that Star Wars is different  for every fan. What is essential to the series is subjective. For me, Star Wars is light sabers, hyperspace, the Force, epic battles, strange world with one biome only per world. So I’ve never felt like something was missing. But if an essential element was a very particular character dynamic (like a good guy Trio), then I can see why some fans felt let down. As if all the pieces were there but never got put together.

Back to Pasaana. We have a brief descent into the underworld in which Rey has a moment of true Jedi compassion and is rewarded when her compassion for the monster leads to an exit from said underworld. Nice. Mythically coherent. And hey, we also get one of the MacGuffins we’ve been searching for, so, bonus.

 Now we get the arrival of Kylo and his backup band. What was the point of these dudes? I mean, they look cool and I can’t wait to edit videos of them to classic NKOTB. But narratively, why are they there? Why did Kylo reforge the mask? Why all these questions in the third act when we should be in the process of tying up loose ends.

Rey, in a moment reminiscent of bull leaping from Crete, goes out to stall them? I guess? And then ends up in a battle of wills with Kylo that leads to her inadvertent use of Force Lightning.

Okay, another side trip. Are they trying to make out that Dark Side Powers are genetic? Because that’s all I can figure. Really, it’s kind of gross because it suggests that darkness isn’t a human trait that we all carry and must confront, but rather that Rey’s specific problem is a dark legacy. Which, that’s Kylo’s story. He’s the one grappling with the legacy of Vader and how that led his family to fear his darkness rather than aid him in confronting it.

Anyway, we have Rey briefly thinking she’s killed Chewie and that sets our heroes off to our next quest location and another set of problems: Why did we make the Latino man a drug runner and car thief? No, this isn’t just putting an unneeded real world spin on the universe. This is about narrative consistency. Because in a bid to make Poe Dameron an ersatz Han Solo, they broke his actual in-universe back story that had been established in comics and novels. That Poe Dameron was a pilot in the New Republic Navy, the child of war heroes Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. He grew up on Yavin IV. When did he have time to be a smuggler? He’s only a few years older that Ben Solo.

See Lucasfilm has a Story Group that is supposed to help keep narrative consistency between the various media released. And I can’t help shake the feeling that the Story Group was ignored or stonewalled. To please who? The fans? Which fans? Because I would be under the impression that the fans who read the novels and the comics, who dig the trivia aspects of the universe, would be the first to desire the universe to remain coherent.

The Kijimi stuff is fun. Babu Frik is adorable. C3PO is touching. There’s good moments. There really are.

We now go to the infiltration of the Star Destroyer (Does it have a name? Nerds, help me out here. Usually I know this sort of thing.) Again, good moments. I like the implication that Rey’s Force Powers disturb Poe, but it’s never brought up again. One of dozens of Chekhov’s guns left unfired. This is incredibly sloppy in the plotting. Hux is the mole!?! Fun. Yet, again, wasted. And out of character, but I’m sure that’s not going to bother the general audience. Rey gets caught sneaking around in Kylo’s bedroom? Priceless, and some good imagery (smashing the altar to Vader) combined with incredibly clunky dialogue and some more serious questions that never get answered.

The whole time Kylo thought Vader was talking to him it was Palpatine? Why the hell does he still have that mask on a pedestal? He just couldn’t bear to get rid of a collectible? He hadn’t had time to konmari yet? And just what does smashing the pedestal symbolize? Is this the start of Kylo breaking free? We’ll probably never know.

Rey escapes on the Falcon. After getting the worst character reveal in the Saga. I’m sorry. Rey Palapatine is just dumb. I liked that she was a nobody. It allowed her to be the Forces solution to the manipulation and abuse heaped upon the Skywalkers. She was brought into the story and bound to the last scion of House Skywalker as a corrective. She wasn’t overpowered. (No really. She executed a few very basic Jedi skills in the first two movies, none of them exceptional.) And her skill level makes sense the moment you understand that she is bound to Ben Solo. She is literally downloading his training. She can do what he can do. Even her fighting style mirrors his. Fun fact: if you watch the scene in The Last Jedi where she’s practicing sword forms on Ach-to, and compare them to Kylo in his duel with Luke, they’re identical. To a move. Rey is powerful because the Force chooses its vessels. No one was asking who Mace Windu’s parents were. Or Ki-Adi Mundi’s. But Rey is skilled because a very clear in universe device means she has access to Ben Solo’s mind and that included every skill he ever learned.

Alrighty, so now our team is on to the next step in the quest, the ocean moon of Kef Bir, one of the many moons in the Endor system. (No, it’s not the Forest or Sanctuary Moon with the Ewoks.) We meet Jannah, another wasted character. She is pretty and could have been cool. But she exists for us to realize that Finn is probably Force Sensitive and that he broke conditioning not due to innate morality but because he’s not a Muggle.

Which brings me to my gripe with how Finn’s character was treated. He spent the whole movie running around shouting Rey. That’s it. That’s his arc. I don’t mind that he can feel the Force. But I feel like his development was regressed. He had a clear character arc in the first two movies. From a man running away from responsibility to one willing to fight for a friend, to a man willing to commit to cause. This movie should have had him building on that, and perhaps like Moses returning to free the rest of the Stormtroopers who are canonically child soldiers brainwashed into fighting for the bad guys.

Back to the plot. Rey takes off for the Death Star, searches the haunted house and yet again has her moment in the cave, this time confronting a dark vision of herself. Dang that was cool. Would have liked to see more of that. Anyway, she confronts Kylo and he smashes the holocron. Emphasizing for us how pointless this fetch quest has been. Girl could have hopped a ride in his TIE at any point and dealt with the fallout after they dealt with the emperor.

They fight. It wasn’t a bad fight. Just not my favorite. It did emphasize though that Kylo is never ever fighting on the offensive with her. Never in three movies has he ever taken an advantage of an opening for a killing blow, and never was it more obvious than in this fight. Kylo gets distracted, Rey stabs him mortally, and this act seems to wake her up from whatever possessed her in the throne room. She heals him and runs away.

This brings up another thing that bothers me. I know the filmmakers were working with some severe challenges with their footage of Carrie. I don’t think it was badly used for the most part. But I was left baffled at what exactly was going on here.

I was not baffled at Kylo/Ben’s confrontation with Han. This was the high point of the movie for me. It was pitch perfect in tone, and touched on the one an only sin Ben ever committed that wasn’t connected to a war objective, the murder of his father. And it made clear that the prodigal was loved and wanted and it wasn’t too late to come home. The heart of Ben’s problem has been the conviction that he has done too much wrong to come home, and while it is only a memory, it is a true memory of the man who loved Ben enough to walk straight into Hell though he knew it would probably be the death of him. I can forgive this scene for throwing the lightsaber  into the ocean. I realize that most of the audience doesn’t know that you can heal kyber crystals. Yes, the saber was a metaphor for Ben’s damaged and unstable soul, and yes, it would have been poetic (and badass) for him to show up later with a healed lightsaber, stable and blue and looking like something an angel would fight with. But I’ll forgive that for the poetry of what happens on Exegol.

And then we go to my low point. I’ll set my costumer’s beef with Luke Skywalker’s wig aside. It looked cheap and that’s all I’ll say. It was more the deliberate middle finger to TLJ in the lines while ignoring that Luke’s most iconic and Jedi-like moment in the original trilogy was casting aside his lightsaber in an act of compassion. Yes, Rey was burning her ship and throwing away her weapon for the wrong reason.  And it was a deliberate echo of Luke who also was appalled when his fear was twisted by the Dark into an attack on his nephew. She is overcome with the same shame and fear of self. Luke can speak to this in a real way. With better dialogue, it might have worked for me. Alas, it didn’t. Instead we got more exposition to provide us with an extra lightsaber. And more questions about why everyone in this family gave up on Ben Solo.

Here’s the thing. If Leia remains untrained, lots of things make sense: her instinctive but infrequent use of the Force; her fear for her son and sense of inadequacy in dealing with he struggles with darkness, her unresolved issues with her father which lead her to hide her parentage not only from the galaxy but also from her own son. All of this is undone by the training reveal and makes us wonder why everyone was willing to help a descendent of Palpatine but not their own flesh and blood. And in a movie that used dialogue to explain nearly everything, these lacunae stand out more than they would in a film that trusted the audience more. See you could have had Luke say “We messed up. We gave in to fear. And we didn’t want to make the same mistake with you. Rey. I’m the son of Darth Vader. I know more than any man that we are more than our bloodline. And forgetting that with Ben was the worst mistake of my life.” But  he didn’t. Which in a movie which tells as much as or more than it shows seems like a deliberate choice.

Have you noticed that I’m ignoring the space battles? That’s because they’re forgettable. I just didn’t care about them. Especially since the galactic conflict remained essentially unresolved. Back to the Force Plot, the only plot that matters.

Rey confronts Palpatine. Yawn. At this point I just don’t care. For most of the movie, she hasn’t seemed like my Rey. I couldn’t relate and by this point I’ve lost interest so I’m more wondering where did all these people come from. Are there concessions? How much does a hot dog and Coke cost on Exegol? Does this stadium have bathrooms? Nice to see that it’s built like the AT&T one down the street with the sliding roof panels. And then my boy Ben Solo arrives and the film is good again. Without a word of dialogue (besides “ow”) Adam Driver delivers the best performance of the movie, showing that the Han Solo of the trilogy was there the whole time in his son. Was there ever a more Han Solo thing than running into a Dark Side temple in your pajamas, armed only with a blaster? And then Rey passes him Anakin’s saber. OMG. Brilliance. The best part of the movie. For a moment I thought that they would at least wrap it up well. And for a moment they’re side by side and all is right in the world. And then Palpatine throws Ben in a pit.

I hate this. I don’t hate this movie but I hate this moment. For three movies we’ve set up that Rey and Ben (He’s Ben now; don’t’ @ me.) are equals in the Force. They have a Yin/Yang dynamic that made this work. The natural conclusion here should have been that they take out Palpatine together. Because both have a beef with him. This is the man responsible for ruining the lives of four generations of Skywalkers. And while Ben is at the bottom of a pit, Rey stands alone, calling on the Jedi to help her.

The Jedi that are ignoring the Skywalker at the bottom of the pit.

Including Ben’s grandfather that he’s been begging for years to help him.

Including his uncle who promised to always be with him. (We were robbed of Ghost Luke trolling Kylo. Robbed I tell you. Mark Hamill would have nailed that.)

Ben is at the bottom of a pit being ignored while the Jedi transform Rey into their sacrificial lamb for Girl Power points.

So, yeah, I hated how Rey defeated Palpatine. It was wrong. It wasn’t in union with her bondmate. It wasn’t through the power of love and compassion. It was Space Wonder Woman meets Harry Potter. And then she dies. Because the Jedi only ever viewed people as tools in their grand battle with the Sith.

But Ben. Oh, Ben loves Rey for who she is. And he climbs out of the pit without a lick of help from anyone and cradles her lifeless form in the most heartbreaking Pieta, and you can see on his face the moment he make his decision and gives everything of himself to bring her back. It was beautiful, and they share the most pure, the most perfect kiss.

And then he dies.

And that’s where the movie breaks me. Because he didn’t have to die. It doesn’t make sense. Why does Leia hold on until this moment? Why does Maz seem satisfied? Where did Ben go? Why does he go unmourned? Where is his Force ghost? This movie just leaves us with more questions.

And the very end kills me. Rey is on Tatooine. A dead world that holds no importance to her (or Leia, I might add). She buries the Skywalker sabers. A funeral. She sees the ghosts of Luke and Leia bless her as she takes on the Skywalker name. A name that she could have taken in a life-affirming way through marriage, but that appears as scavenged from the dead that she has surrounded herself with as she ends the movie an eternal child, side by side with a stolen droid.

It makes no sense.

But whence my nerd rage? Why do I care? Why have I devoted over 3K words to this?

Because the first two movies in this trilogy made me care about these characters.

When I first saw The Force Awakens, I connected immediately with her loneliness. Loneliness is something I get viscerally. I have always been socially awkward and had difficulty making friends. I rarely felt known or understood and I understood that deep longing to belong. When Rey was being interrogated by Kylo Ren, that was what struck me. He notices her loneliness.

And you realize that Kylo is projecting. That he is seeing in her a kindred spirit. He too is lonely, and trapped by fear into being stuck in a place that he knows in his heart of hearts is a dead world. He too is trapped by relics of the past.

So, you see, Rey and Kylo were both me. I had lived that loneliness. I had experienced profound isolation and the sense that no one truly understood me. I desperately wanted them to find their belonging and heal their wounds. And that’s certainly the story that TLJ picked up on and continued.

But there was more. I became fascinated with the question of how the son of Han and Leia fell, and I could see the possibilities in the pattern of their characters: Leia, the woman driven by duty, trying to build the New Republic to make a better galaxy for her son, and leaving her son vulnerable to predation in the process; Han, a man who had only just stopped running from responsibility, and who’s own lack of father figures left him feeling inadequate as a father. Throw in a villain who can groom and psychically abuse their son and you have the ingredients for a tragedy.

And because I identified with Leia, Ben became, in a way, an additional child. A parent’s greatest fear is that in trying to do the right thing for your child you inadvertently make things worse. Poor Leia. She needed a mother to tell her child mattered more than a bill in the Senate. That the galaxy could wait. But Palpatine killed her mother. Both her mothers, because he was as complicit in the death of Breha Organa as he was in the death of Padme Amidala Naberrie.

So when Ben Solo died, it was like losing a child. And anyone who knows me personally knows that I do not choose that phrasing lightly. And being a mother, there is always a sense of survivor’s guilt. The sense that if you had done the right thing, it wouldn’t have happened. It doesn’t matter if that isn’t the truth. It’s how it feels.

I have met so many people online who identify with Ben Solo because they were abused as children. Who like him processed their trauma in unhealthy ways. It’s not where I come from, but I have the capacity to empathize and hear the message they’re inadvertently being told: that if you do bad things because you’ve been groomed and manipulated and brainwashed, you can’t come back. Even if you turn your life around, it won’t matter. You’ll only find peace in death and you will die unremembered as punishment for your sins. And your family will replace you with someone nicer and easier to live with.

But I can hear you saying: It’s not that deep. It’s fake and in space. It’s just a story.

Well, here’s the problem:

1)    The brain does not distinguish real people from fictional characters. The part of the brain that produces serotonin and dopamine can’t distinguish fact from fiction. This is actually why art has the power to heal. The catharsis experienced in a work of art can help us process trauma because we relate to the characters in the story. But the flip side is that stories can cause genuine trauma. If we related to characters in a story and they are treated unjustly, we feel that injustice and it hurts as badly as if it were real.

2)    Ben Solo was written to be sympathetic. He is the child of beloved characters. His backstory is one filled with pain. He was failed by every family member who should have protected him. He was abused physically and mentally for years. Recently published materials exonerate him from the destruction of the Jedi temple. It was all part of a plot to push him to the Dark. All Ben ever wanted was to be loved for who he was. And that was snatched away from him.

3)    I can’t turn off my brain. I can’t stop asking questions and trying to make sense of things. I can help but see the Chekhov’s guns and the symbols and the messages, however inadvertent.

4)    It is a grand failure of a movie if it only works on a surface level and not when you start digging deeper. Every other Star Wars movie, including The Phantom Menace, rewards the person who can’t turn off their brain. This was the first one that falls apart so completely the second you start asking questions.

I wish I could like this movie. I was prepared to like it if not love it. And while I got Ben’s redemption and the Rey and Kylo romance that I wanted, I feel like I got nothing. Like they don’t matter at all.

I am planning to start new hobbies in the new year. I got some war gaming miniatures painting sets for Christmas and I’m glad I have a new special interest to pour myself into. I have enjoyed sharing my love of Star Wars trivia with my kids but it just hurts too much at the moment to spend time thinking about a franchise that has been so  badly mangled. I’m probably in the bargaining stage of grief at the moment. I wholly buy the theory that there was happy ending filmed and someone blinked in the game of chicken, leaving us the mess that we were handed.

I’m also planning to get back to writing. If even Disney can’t tell a fairy tale properly anymore, it’s time for a new batch of writers to get out there and tell the stories I want to hear. I am sick of grimdark fantasies and cynicism masquerading as sophistication. I may write a fanfic or two to fix the story in my mind, but I think that ultimately I need to be creating original works. I know that there are children eager to believe in happy endings, plenty of women who believe that Byronic heroes can be redeemed, and not a few men who will buy both if the story is well told.

[budapsht]

sum thougts about ballmastrz 9009

 so here is my opinion about the season , but more about the characters themselves. if you are interested, then welcome under "read more", and sorry about my english :,)

so the second season came out more invigorating and epic (especially the end hinting at a continuation). I was even surprised at some of the behavior and history of some of the characters, although in some places I still had some misunderstandings. I know that the show more claims to be a hodgepodge of anime references, but I still do not want to deny the fact that it wants to present something more serious. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the characters.

Crayzar:  this character aroused my suspicion in the first season, and believed that he was most likely using Gez for some personal purposes. But the second season made him a friendlier guide, and even intervened if he saw that something was not going according to plan. Well, on the other hand, he seems to expect that in the end there will be more warriors who can unite with the balls, remember Ace and Shara. The ending shows that he favors leptons and took them with him as a team against the enemies of the earth (or whatever). Bottom line: now it is more fun for me: D

Gaz Digzy: well Gaz is Gaz. Her character became less selfish after she led the team to victory, and even shows some concern. Well, ahem drinking alcohol makes her a little man, not thinking about a certain action? Lol i don't know. And yes, I see that her belly makes Gaz more funny, but .... I believe that she somehow gets rid of it. By the way, she gets rid of this in the final, oops spoilers. Sorry: ,,)   Probably it was a big surprise for me that she is the daughter of a rich man, although I thought that her story would be similar to Ace, well, i.e. she will also be an orphan, but successful in the future. But no. I like that she kind of realized that she would still remain an excellent mentor, even if she was not a total leader leading the team. And uh ... a hint of Dee Dee and Gas together? Although I see more spark between her and the baby ball lol.

Baby Ball: bruh who deserve i little piece of happy. And he got it. The truth is not for long, since having a body the ball loses its functions with Ace. But I also saw evolution in his character: he appreciates his team, although he hides it. His relationship with Ace requires something more, but both of them seem to have enough of what is (at least for the formation of strength). And yes, Ball and Gaz make together a good company. Hmm, moar  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Flipp: I do not really like this person, because of his eternal retelling of his super power, but he is apparently very proud of it? ahah, unfortunately he doesn’t sympathize with me much, but I probably didn’t expect him to turn out to be .... selfish. Especially in one of the episodes of season 2, for me it became, well, very unexpected. Well, he was able to realize his attitude towards his own kind of creatures. Perhaps I would like to see a little more to understand.

Ace: the boy became much more in the spotlight than expected. This resulted in the fact that he almost nearly killed (!) Gas in the penultimate episode, but nothing happened. But in general, I especially can’t say any strong changes about him, except that he managed to get a little sick with star disease and find adoptive parents. Dude you don’t need it, your family is your team.

Lulu:  she's cute. Her relationship with Bob seems more productive than Leto and Dee ahah :D. In any case, she is a strong girl who loves plants and knows a lot about dancing. True oppression of her congeners makes me strain._.

Bob: uwu over9009 And yes, it is not useless and complements the company.

Dee Dee: Dee Dee is still a hot-tempered girl, however her story about the hunt for monsters made me look at her in a new way. In any case, where did she get such superb combat skills? Here's the answer. She seems .... together with Gaz make up a good company ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) , and I still do not understand her obsession for Leto? Are opposites attracted? I do not understand.Yet. ._.

Leto Otel: my true introvert, all he needs for happiness is his team and that’s it. He seems a bit more lively this season, but on the other hand, I still don't think he has feelings for Dee Dee (although he was extremely enthusiastic when he found out she was a vampire hunter lol), despite the kiss. He just needs ... a friend  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Backgrond characters: although not immediately, but towards the end you can see some as secondary participants in the action. And yes I didn’t have enough of my biker boy: ,,). I think that you can come up with something else, please do not put it on the shelf so early, plz x50000

also were’s these guys? i saw them only in s1ep1 and that’s it. I hope so, they appears in the future.

[runawaymarbles]

Fanfics With Epic Worldbuilding

This reddit thread got me thinking about epic fics that take canon and expand it in incredible, thoughtful ways-- some that seem seamless, and like they could be canon if the creators had gone in another direction, and also alternate universes with very cool canon integration. So. On that note. Here’s some of my absolute favorites. (And feel free to let me know some of yours.) 

(More rec lists here) 

The Changeling & Armistice, by @annerbhp | Harry Potter | 180k, 320k  Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

This is the best take on Slytherin house, and especially women in Slytherin house, that I’ve ever seen. Features: traditions, mythology, history and types of magic that aren’t part of the canon universe but feel like they should be. (And a cast of wonderful original or almost-original characters.) 

 A Curious Carriage of Crystal and Cold by @etharei | X-Men | 115k  Charles, a miner from a poor village in the countryside, saves the life of Erik Lehnsherr, scion of a successful business family and the richest man on the planet Eisen. Charles is a telepath and somewhat anxious about it, while Erik abstains from relationships because the lights flicker and doors open and electronics vibrate when he gets too excited. Also featuring a long-suffering sister, a foul-mouthed bodyguard, and a best friend with a heart that is definitely not gold.In which there are princes, spaceships, long journeys, and old secrets uncovered

This is just. A whole sci-fi world. Class structure, different forms of etiquette, government structure, real history, fake history, and practical considerations about toilets in space. 

 The Eden!Verse, by @improbabledreams900​ | Good Omens | 550k  Picking up where canon leaves off, [the] Eden!verse chronicles Aziraphale & Crowley's adventures through great losses, gains, and life's cosmic curveballs. From a village on Earth to Heaven, Hell, and Eden itself, Aziraphale and Crowley make many new friends, learn God's plan for them, and discover what it means to love each other. 

The first fic in this series is relatively self contained, but by the second one it’s exploring heaven, expanding on biblical canon and the laws and hierarchy of angels, and weaving lots of different theological and mathmatical theories together. The plotting is so good it makes me want to cry. Also, the original characters are fantastic. 

 Home Out in the Wind by @bomberqueen17​ | Star Wars (Sequel Series) | 320k Poe gave up a lot of things when he defected to the Resistance, but there's always more to lose. War is an expensive lifestyle. You've got to keep your affairs in order and do the best you can with what you have. He owes this former Stormtrooper a life-debt, and beyond that he knows the kid's exceptional, so he's going to do everything he can to get the kid a fair start in this messy business. Finn wakes up and has no idea what to do beyond joining the Resistance, but he knows he’s got to keep up with Poe somehow. 

Dameron family history! Lore, history and culture that’s so well integrated that I had to do some Googling to make sure it wasn’t already Star Wars canon! Other planets! Drugs! Songs! Original characters I would pledge loyalty to forever! The most well-developed OT3 I’ve seen in this fandom! (There’s also a second series, The Lost Kings, about Shara and Kes.) 

The Lay of Looking-Glass Land by KL_Morgan | The 100 | 175K Clarke wakes up wearing the tattoos of the Ice Nation. (OR: Soulmates, parallel worlds, and Ice Queen Clarke; oh my. Canon divergent from 2x16.)

Intricate! Rituals! Grounder lore and mythology! And a wonderful what-if ‘verse being explored more in the sequel.

Pantheon, by Yahtzee | X-Men | 130k  In the year 96 AD, all Rome is aware that their gods have begun to Mark certain people with their gifts -- the healing power of Apollo, the metal control of Vulcan, the deathly touch of Pluto, or the mental powers of Minerva. When those gifts fall to slaves or barbarians instead of the Romans themselves, strict control is necessary. Then a gladiator from Judea meets an enslaved scribe from Britannia, and the repercussions will shake the Empire itself.

An amazing integration of X-Men canon into Roman mythology and life, re-imagining of mutations, and epic scale. You could make a religion out of this. 

Honorable Mention: 

All Things Shining by Askance and Standbyme | Supernatural | 140k  Something in the world is waking up.It isn’t long before it’s brought to the attention of the Winchesters and Castiel: miracles are spreading across the country, the paranormal seems to be shrinking back on itself—and it all has something to do with the missing prayer book of a traveling preacher who died over a century ago. Dean is convinced it’s all the lead-up to another Apocalypse; Sam and Castiel aren’t so sure. Regardless, it sends them out on a less-than-typical road-trip, following the Mississippi and remnants of a very old story that seems increasingly to call to them. And along the way the trio learn much more about themselves—and the consequences and origins of love—than they’d ever have anticipated.

I last read this fic in 2013, but I remember loving the religion that it created. It’s got a lovely fairytale/folklore vibe. And a mythological crack ship that’s... strangely beautiful. Putting it in the honorable mentions because I don’t remember how it ends. 

Redemption Road by multiple authors | Supernatural | 650k  Redemption Road is a fan-generated, large-scale AU project created by members of the SPN and Dean/Castiel fandoms.

This is another one I read once in 2013, but it also had some pretty spectacular expansions of Supernatural mythology, and lovable original characters. It’s set up like a season, with episodes and subplots. 

[inkoutsidethelines]

1, 11 and 21 for the fanfiction questions, please? ^^

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Answered :D

11. Who is your current OTP?

If I’m being perfectly honest, all my favorite ships are OC/Canon ships in various fics I’m reading.  It’s not my fault if fanfic writers have more time to get me invested in ships than actual movies.

But my favorite canon MCU couple is definitely Pepperoni.  Getting me to read a fic where one of them ends up with someone else would be a hard sell.  There are a handful of authors I already follow that I’d give it a shot if they wrote it.  But that’s a couple I don’t want to break up.

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Oh boy.  So here we go.  Back to Quizilla.  Let’s see how much I can remember.

It was a Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic called “Shara’s Choice”.  Shara was the OC main character.  And I happen to remember that I originally planned to name her Sarah, only I mistyped the name, and then decided I liked the way “Shara” looked.  She had existed in Ancient Egypt like all the other characters, but she somehow died tragically (I don’t remember how, but I’m pretty sure magic was involved?).  She was reborn modern day, like all the other characters.

And I think…I think she was a retired secret agent?  Which, you know, pretty impressive for a teenage girl.

Because of Quizilla’s format, I was trying to make it a “Choose Your Own Adventure” type story, and the choices that the reader made would decide who her ultimate love interest was, and what kind of ending she got.  I think the options for her love interest was Yugi Moto, Seto Kaiba, and Bakura.  So, yeah, three potential love interests.

And I think there was a subplot in there about Seto and Mokuba having had a sister that was adopted by Shara’s family?  Possibly?

WAIT.  I GOT SOMEONE TO MAKE A BANNER FOR THIS FIC.  I THINK I STILL HAVE IT SAVED.

…okay, so it turns out I had several banners made, and uh.  The quality of the banner is good, I’m not knocking the people that made them for me.  But they include actual lines from the fic and it slapped me in the face with memories and now I’m crying, but here they are.

[abadzone]

A Weekly Song: Episode 11 – Goldie Presents Metalheads (or is that Metalheadz?)

Goldie Presents Metalheads - Inner City Life

There were a lot of anthems in the air in the mid-90s. By anthem, I mean popular tracks that stuck around; that seemed to exemplify a movement, a state of mind… for want of a better term, an attitude. Examples: Soul II Soul’s Keep On Moving and Back II Life (However Do You Want Me), The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony, Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy, Pulp’s Common People.

Each heralded an aspect of British youth poking its head above the parapet of the relative safety of its own dedicated teenage bedroom audience and making serious inroads into mainstream culture. Pop was already embedded in TV shows, movie soundtracks, documentaries, but now more “marginal” sounds were becoming a part of mainstream culture, making their voices heard in clubs and on pirate stations but also represented on TV and public radio. The old hierarchies were breaking down, just a little.

Some context: at the end of the eighties, everything changed in British yoof culture. First you had acid house and the dance/rock crossover, a sort of cross-pollination of club culture and the indie scene that itself grew out of post-punk, electronica and a broader early eighties multiculturalism (remember that? It’s become a dirty word now, as if human beings haven’t always been multicultural, as if people mixing socially is somehow now unfashionable. If you visit the town in the next valley over, that’s being multicultural. So is visiting your next door neighbour. Your identity and traditions won’t be erased by doing so). 

In the early nineties there was Madchester, then came shoegazing which begat a great many bands that later became household names via Britpop, a media-invented idea AKA Cool Britannia that grouped all manner of different bands and outfits under one cultural umbrella for easier export to the rest of the world. There was also British hip-hop (and trip-hop); you had techno and rave and its various sub-genres, there was bhangra, ragga, dark ‘ardkore which evolved into jungle and later, drum ‘n ‘bass. I remember first becoming really properly aware of it at the Notting Hill Festival in either 1993 or 1994 where I registered a sound system playing something that sounded like breakbeats and techno with dub or ragga inflections, something fast and new. It caught my ear and it got into my brain and burrowed right down into my digestive tract. I loved it. British youth culture was rapidly morphing into bountiful new shapes, a creative Hydra with many and ever more collaborative heads, each one abundant with new ideas and potentials.

Every year is the best year ever for music** because there’s always something new happening somewhere, but in retrospect (especially the middle-aged kind of hindsight) perhaps not every period is as fertile as others. There was a lot going on in the mid-nineties, and I, a music loving “underground cartoonist,” was in the middle of it.

That is, in early 1994, I had no idea what I was doing. I was recovering from an ill-advised and short-lived marriage plus a resultant nervous breakdown; I was skint, I was lonely and I was ambitious; I had big ideas of how I could so something different with comics and help make them into a communications and storytelling art form that would be as fluid and abstract as music. Little did I know, it was already doing that with or without me, but anyway, ah! …the hubris of youth. I was a ball of confusion, a knot of creativity with a burning need to put it somewhere. (I did, but that’s another story.) I wanted something to change, I wanted to be changed, but I didn’t know what or how.

It was around this time that I became aware of this. I forget when exactly I heard Inner City Life for the first time, but of all the anthems around, this one captivated me the most, made its way onto the internal tape loop in my mind. It sounded like it was from the future, but it seemed to coalesce from everything surrounding me.

Certainly I heard it in the DnB clubs that emerged around that time – maybe at the Mars Bar, to which me and my mate Caspar would trek from the western suburbs so we could experience the dizzy heights of happening central London nightlife. There were many drum ‘n’ bass anthems, for sure, but this one made it onto TV. Seeing the video on some late-night yoof show was cathartic somehow – it opened with a shot of a shopping trolley going over the balcony of a tower block not unlike the one my gran lived on.

“Come to me…”

Diane Charlemagne was familiar to audiences for her appearances with Urban Cookie Collective, who’d had a couple of chart hits, but this was something else. Suddenly she was a sepia-toned diva calling across the rooftops and the airwaves, acknowledging the loneliness and burden of pressures that living in the big city brings. She was joining dots as if all the different anthems were pins on the urban map of modern British music. The tower blocks and council estates were marked just as surely as the pennants atop the Houses of Parliament were.

“I need to be, I need to be…

Living free”

The track was credited to Goldie presents Metalheads (later Metalheadz), known to me for a track called Terminator, but Inner City Life was an entirely different beast, a kind of yearning mutant soul music fuelled by both paranoia and tenderness.

In mainstream terms, it wasn’t the huge hit that some of the other anthems mentioned at the top of this piece were, but for me it remains one of the definitive statements of 90s British music. It transcends all barriers, classes, backgrounds and yes, to my ears, it was a statement of the kind of hopeful (and multicultural) Cool Britannia a lot of other acts were being marketed as, but Inner City Life was the true dark horse, the outsider who found its way up from the streets.

Before finding its way onto Goldie’s sprawling debut album Timeless (as one movement in the opening title track), Inner City Life was remixed and re-released so many times, I lost count. I had the original 12” single and another pressing that featured mixes by other DnB luminaries, my favourite being Doc Scott’s version that showcased Charlemagne’s vocals.

I loved the way the music itself was so mutable and yet remained recognisable, no matter whose hands touched it. There was an egalitarianism to the way Goldie (and his partner-in-production Rob Playford) shared the track, allowing numerous interpretations. In fact, he’s still playing around with it – a new mix was made available last year for Record Store Day.

Over the years, all sorts of superlatives have been heaped upon Timeless, which is certainly a great album and a defining document of that mid-to-late nineties era of extreme creativity in British music, but I’m not sure anything could ever match the feeling the initial release and the remixes generated in me.

And just to give you a sense of what a beautiful song it is, one that stands the test of being stripped to its basics, here’s a version featuring Jhelisa Anderson – yes, she of The Shamen fame and a formidable solo artist in her own right. Listen and enjoy.

Notes

Diane Charlemagne died in 2015 of kidney cancer at the terribly young age of 51. She was rightly celebrated by the DnB scene and beyond. 

The cover version of Inner City Life featuring Jhelisa is by German Jazz outfit [Re:jazz] from their album Point of View and it also features on Goldie’s “Masterpiece” Ministry of Sound mix collection.

At the end of 2009 when I moved from the UK to the USA, the wrong box of vinyl was sent to a charity shop and I accidentally gave away both the original 12” single version of Inner City Life, several remixes, plus a whole load of other DnB vinyl I hadn’t intended to part with. Still kicking myself about that. Oh, well… someone found ‘em and enjoyed them and the money went to a good cause, so, good karma, eh? I still have the CD collection…

*Consider the similarity between the two videos of Bittersweet Symphony and Unfinished Sympathy. One has Richard Ashcroft walking down a British street in one single, unbroken shot, the other had fellow Brit Shara Nelson doing the same in east LA. Two people from two musical collectives walking towards each other, at opposite sides of the planet at different ends of western culture.

**To paraphrase David Stubbs. I think.

Not everybody loved Britpop.

Metalheadz - still going, listen more.

[kylos-girl-blog]

Moving On Is Hard To Do

(A/N: Hey, hey! This was part of a story that I wrote for my OC, but I decided to change her whole arc and do something else with her entirely. I liked this little one shot a lot though so I decided to turn it into a reader story, hooray! Takes place after Ben's fall (approximately 2 years after) So I don't think the Resistance has recruited Poe at this point and he's still with the New Republic navy stationed on Mirrin Prime. Also, a Kaadu is the big animal the Gungans rode in A Phantom Menace, for reference.)

Warnings: None really, a little bit of angst, little bit of fluff. Reader gets harassed just a little but thats about it.

You hated parties, or at least you did once you had gotten older. Now that you were on Hosnian Prime working with Senator Berenko it seemed like there was some gala or meeting every time you turned around.

You hated forcing a smile and dancing with every Tom, Dick and Harry that came your way. Who bowed, making a big show telling you how pretty and smart you were, all while ogling your breasts. It made you cringe when they touched you, made your skin crawl.

To them you were just a bauble, something pretty to hang on their arms and make them feel good about themselves. They tried to talk to you but all they wanted to talk about was how gorgeous your eyes were, how pretty you looked, no one ever actually spoke to you like you were a human being, who by most accounts was smarter than they were, which was why you hated parties.

Now you were backed into a corner as some Senator from who the force knew where, was leering at you. He was your father’s age for makers sake, but he insisted you accompany him to this military ball. You backed farther away, as politely as you could, the manners that had been drilled into your head since your childhood refusing to be overridden, as you forced a smile and politely refused his offer for the second time.

“I’m so sorry Senator. I really can’t, but I thank you for your offer all the same.”  Your voice was firm as you said this, and you took another step back as he moved closer. This man, Amarkin you finally remembered, had no concept of personal space, and despite his larger stature he moved quick. His graying blonde hair swept to the side to hide what you were sure was a receding hairline, over a wrinkled forehead colored like the underbelly of a kaadu. It was obvious the man never really went outside in the sunlight, too busy lining his pockets with ill-gotten funds and drinking enough Corellian whiskey to drown a large rat.

“Why not?” He pouted, much like a spoiled youngling told he couldn’t have his favorite sweets, “It'll be too late to work on the archives, and there are no major bills coming up to help Berenko with. Come now, I have no one to go with, since my wife is off planet. I insist you accompany me. We can make a night of it.” his eyes roamed down the length of you, and somehow by a miracle of the force you were able to repress the shudder of revulsion that crept its way up your spine.

The way he said the end part made bile rise in your throat. You knew exactly what he meant by that statement, he’d been trying for months to lure your someplace where he could be could be alone with you. You weren’t dumb enough to fall for it though, which you knew frustrated him.

“-I really can’t Senator, because I-“

“Because she's already agreed to go with me.” A smooth voice behind the older Senator said. They both looked to address the man in a pilots jumpsuit, He had dark hair and eyes with an olive complexion, you recognized him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place where.  A small orange and white BB unit rolled up next to him.

You breathed a sigh of relief and gingerly stepped around the Senator to stand beside him, mouthing a thank you to your savior before turning to face Amarkin once again.

“Oh, Dameron. Didn’t know you two even knew one another.  Don’t you have duty that night?” The agitation in his voice was palpable, but Dameron didn’t even flinch as he put his arm around your shoulders pulling you flush to his side.

“I’m off that night. So, I ran into my friend here and asked her to go.” Dameron said winking at you, making your face grow hot.

Defeated, and a little more than angry at being thwarted the Senator left, throwing a “If he has duty again that night you know where to find me.” Over his shoulder.

You breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed slumping against Dameron’s side, as Amarkin turned a corner, leaving you and the handsome gentleman who saved you alone.

“You alright?” he asked squeezing your shoulder. You nodded.

“Thank you. I have no idea how I was going to get out if that if you hadn’t come along.” You laughed, and he smiled down at you.

“You looked like you were in distress, besides, I know he doesn’t like the word no. Seems to barely understand it from what I’ve seen in holo’s to be honest.”

You put out your hand and formally introduced yourself. He shook it, it was warm, rough and calloused.

“Poe Dameron.”

“Commander Dameron? As in the son of Shara Bey and Kes Dameron?  You’re commander of Rapier squadron, right?” It was hard to hide the excitement in your voice as you said this, nearly bouncing out of your shoes. His parents were legends, ones that your parents had only known in passing during their time in the Rebellion.

“You know your stuff. I’m impressed.”

You snorted a little. “Please don’t be. I’m just a history nerd who knows way too much trivia for her own good.”

There was a very loud, unimpressed series of beeps from below the two of you, the BB unit that had accompanied him was not happy about being left out of the conversation and let both of you know it.

“Oh, I’m sorry buddy, this is BeeBee-ate.”

You smiled and said hello to the little droid, who beeped a very polite greeting.

“He’s adorable.” You practically gushed.

“He’s my right-hand man, don’t know where I'd be without him.”

BB-8 beeped a response that made you shake with repressed laughter as you covered your mouth.

“That’s not entirely true BeeBee, I’d have made it out of there. Eventually.” His cheeks seemed to darken in embarrassment for the briefest of moments before he cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his back pockets nervously.

“You’re Senator Berenko’s aide, right?” you nodded. “I also work on the Republic’s archives in my free time. We’re here for the annual military inspection. I was on my way to send some files off when Amarkin cornered me.”

There was a few moments of silence as the two of you stood in the hall, neither of you sure how to act on what was happening between you.

BB made what could be only be the droid equivalent of an exasperated sigh and rolled up behind you bumping himself against the back of your legs pushing your toward Poe.

‘If you don’t ask your I will for you.’  He chimed at Poe, who turned another, deeper shade of red.

Poe cleared his throat nervously, “So, listen, I really am free that night if you wanna go.”

Now it was your turn to turn scarlet. It had been so long since someone near your age had offered, and here was the most irresistible pilot asking you to go with him. You would have been stupid to say no.

“I’d love to.” You breathed.

~~~

You'd never had so much fun in your life, dancing and talking for hours, you were incredibly grateful for the distraction, even if only for a little while. Senator Amarkin glared at you and your handsome date all evening, stewing in his own muck as he got drunker and drunker. He tried several times to approach you and ask for a dance, but Poe wouldn’t let him, slyly sneaking your away every time he saw him get close.

That was how you both wound up on the open patio. The fresh air was wonderful and Mirrin Prime's city was much calmer than Hosnian Prime’s capital. You were both leaning against the carved railing looking out at the skyline chatting quietly about different things. Your parents, your jobs, where you had both grown up. It was so nice to talk to someone who understood what growing up with parents who had been in the Rebellion was like, there had only been one other person who you had been able to talk this freely with.

“I've never seen you fly before, but a few of the senators have told me it’s incredible to watch. Better than some of the racers in the Five Saber’s.”

“Do you have any experience flying?” he asked as he moved a little closer to you.

“I don’t particularly have an affinity for it." You answered shaking your head. "I’m sure if I was shown what to do I could at least off planet, but nothing like the feats you pull off."

“Where’d you get these?” He asked holding up your wrist to admire the gold bangles. The intertwined birthstones glittered in the city’s lights, reminding you of when you had first gotten them.

“A friend. He gave then to me for my birthday when I was nineteen.” You answered simply.

“Do I know this friend?”

You shook your head, Ben and Poe had never met, which had been surprising considering how close their parents had worked during the Rebellion. “I don’t think you two ever met, but you probably knew of each other. I think a lot of us who had parents in the Rebellion know of one another, but we're all so spread out, not many of us meet.”

He nodded his agreement. “True, we should have a club, where we all talk about our parents and their stories. I’m sure your dad would love it.” he teased, you giggled like a school girl.  “Oh please no. We'd be there for hours. I don’t think he’d ever leave the stage.”

The two of you stared for a moment, silent, for the first time all night, leaning closer to each other in the dim lighting.

A shout interrupted the calm stillness of the air around you, and you turned your head away at the last second. Several other officers were leaving the gala, laughing and shouting as they stumbled over their own feet. They had to have been drunk you thought shaking your head as you laughed to yourself, your heart thundering in your rib cage at the thought of how close you had been to kissing him. 'Not yet.' your heart sighed, not ready to let go just yet. That stubborn thread of hope unable to be cut, even after two years.

The moment gone, Poe tugged at your elbow to get your attention. You could tell he was a little disappointed but he didn't push, and you were all the more grateful for it.

“I think he’s gone if you want to head back inside?” It was getting a little chilly.

“Yes, besides you owe me another dance.” You said entwining your arm with his, trying to lighten the mood between the two of you once again.

“As many as you want. We have all night.”

It was so nice to finally have a connection with someone, but there was a nagging voice in the back of your mind, making you feel terrible for having fun like this with anyone else, even as Poe entwined his fingers with yours and led you back inside to the brightly lit ball room.

Ben was gone, and the sooner you accepted that, the sooner your heart could move on.

-

Even though Ben Solo was dead a part of his feelings still lingered inside Kylo Ren. Every now and then they bubbled to the surface like a toxic sludge to pester him. He was normally able to push it back down, back into the deepest recesses of his soul, but today he couldn’t seem to make it stop.

He picked up his datapad and stared at the article. He kept tabs on the Republic, it was part of his responsibility to try and stay one step ahead of them, watch for weaknesses. That’s what he told himself at least.

‘Thought you might like to see this.’ Hux had sent. He could almost hear it in the man’s sniveling voice.

Today’s article was frivolous in its subject matter. It talked of a military ball, one the New Republic had been hyping up for weeks. His lip curled in disgust, what a waste of time.

The front holo picture was what caught his eye first.

He stopped and stared at the holo of her. She was smiling up at some pilot, while he twirled her around on the dance floor her eyes sparkling in happiness.

It was like a punch to the gut.  That smile, the way her hair fell, everything.  He almost tossed the thing across the room but thought better of it. Stars, she was more beautiful than he remembered.

Shaking with rage, he read the caption under the holo. “Republic Commander Dameron and Senatorial Aide (L/N)”

There was some speculation as to what their relationship was, but it went no further.

Another holo caught her as she laughed at something Dameron said to her and It took all of his training to force the bubble of emotion that welled up inside him back down again.

So, she was a Senator’s aide now too. He slammed the datapad down on the table and left the room, wanting to break everything in his path.

The image of her smiling like that at anyone else was driving him nuts. He hated it, hated the way he felt, hated that Ben Solo's feelings for her had not dissipated.  If anything, they were stronger now that he was free to feel them as much as possible. This Sith had gotten one thing right, Peace was a lie.

He stomped into the training facility and flicked on a switch, determined to destroy something, and distract himself from these emotions as they warred inside of him.

By the end of the session, he was dripping with sweat his black hair sticking to his reddened face as he took deep, nearly gasping breaths as he worked through the pain. He had destroyed at least three training droids and had exhausted himself past the point of caring, or at least that’s what he told himself.

After showering he went to eat, sitting at the small table in his room, the datapad still face down where he’d threw it earlier.

He stared at the stupid thing, It was taunting him, laughing as if he was too weak to push past his feelings for her, but he had to, if he was going to become like his grandfather, he had to move on.

He couldn’t stop himself as he picked it up and let his fingers glide over the screen, accessing files he hadn't opened in almost two years.

Holo's and pictures and every message she’d ever sent. He couldn’t quite bring himself to delete them just yet, justifying keeping them so he could remind himself of what he couldn’t afford to be weak about.

Her soft voice was pleading in the first one as she looked straight into the commlink. ‘Please, please answer me.’ Fat tears rolled down her cheeks before she wiped them away with the back of her sleeve and tried to keep her composure.

She was sobbing in the next begging, pleading with him.

“Please, please come back. Please answer me. Let me know you’re okay.”

That had been the one to break his heart the most, he had replied to it, in a moment of weakness just to let her know he was safe, it hadn’t been a lie either, but he had paid for that one word, Snoke had made sure of that.

Eventually he watched them all, with a sort of detached numbness. He glanced at the date of the last one, it was after he’d destroyed the new Jedi order.

She had sent it not even knowing if he would ever receive it. Her bright eyes looking into the lens as if she was resolved to whatever had happened to him. Did she know, he wondered, or was she in the dark as to what exactly had happened?

‘I don’t know where you are, I don’t know what happened, I just wanted to let you know I’ll be here. If you ever need me, I’ll be right here. I-“  he shut it off before she could finish and tossed it to the other side of his bed, staring up at the ceiling, his heart, soul and mind at war with one another.

Ben Solo was dead. His feelings and attachment to his family and friends had made him weak, unable to take his true place in the galaxy. She was just another one of those things that weakened him.

[ap-trash-compactor]

God yes I do in fact literally want to make a clone of Ziarian so I can record his whole play through and all his interactions w Shara

I did finally managed to do some screen recording without killing my computer tho. I screen recorded almost all their convos on Corellia to the end including one that made my heart hurt and is probably my absolute favorite in the whole game — where she tells the Ziarian to let himself get captured and tortured in order to plant false info and he’s like “what the fuck” and she’s like “I know it’s bad! I don’t like it either!” and he’s like “…hey, hey, are you doing alright?” and she’s like “…sorry” and he’s like “no, no worries, I’m down for a little light torture, I’ll do it for you babe” because he literally would do anything for her 😭 and it reminded me of my early game headcanon about what the offscreen convo for their hookup was like and how he definitely tells her that he can be whoever she wants him to be, and he’s only partly saying it as a sexy thing. turns out, it’s something that in fact he then ends up living up to for the rest of the class story, because he always does anything she asks of him, and does it without complaint, no matter what it does to him. all that matters to him is that she needs him to do whatever it is. 😭😭😭

anyway he of course told old man keeper to get fucked when the dude suggested going into hiding because there’s no way he would abandon Shara. ever. it’s funny I kind of expected him to be the “secret shadow dude” ending but like….. nah. he and Asha stayed for very different reasons but they both stayed.

and yea i have been thinking about the delicious implications of and AU where Shara somehow finds out about the brainwashing being compromised and Ziarian somehow arranges things so she, and not X, gets to give him a new keyword. this definitely involves her having qualms about it and him reassuring her by saying “you’re my keeper” with layers. 😂

[mnemehoshiko]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi [BULLETPOINT TRASH EDITION]

A  SPOILERS AND OPINIONS ABOUND AND POOR FORMATTING CHOICES

(with bonus citing of external canon sources mainly the visual dictionary leaks)

Short version: I FUCKING LOVED THIS MOVIE ON SO MANY LEVELS AND IASDFSDFDASFASDSFDSFDSFSSAFDSADFSDF

Long version:

I enjoyed TFA. But it was very much a safe remake movie because JJ can literally only do remakes and monster movies. I’m also still bitter over Into Darkness BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE HERE FOR SO I’M GONNA MOVE ON.

I really enjoyed Rogue One. It broke new ground etc etc but it had the freedom to do that because it wasn’t dependent on anything ultra important.

TLJ had the awkward positioning of figuring out how to move the main story forward in new and interesting ways AND not remake ESB. And I’m going to be super honest, I was 20% certain they were going to go Rey Skywalker??? Mainly because fanboys are amazingly uncreative but also because it would be a very safe way to go. Ohhhhh, of course Rey has the force. It’s because she’s of the Skywalker bloodline. ALL MAKES SENSE IN THE WORLD AGAIN.

As soon as Luke tossed that saber off the cliff, I knew that all my expectations were going to be subverted. AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!!

AND ON THE TOPIC OF LUKE, there seems to be two camps the

HELL YEAH LUKE SKYWALKER camp or the

OMG RIAN YOU RUINED STAR WARS AND LUKE ANDFS@#EWREWRWE camp, to which I’m like

so like did you watch the Original Trilogy my dudes?

No really did you watch the “OMG SHE’S PRETTY WE TOTALLY NEED TO RESCUE HER!!”

the “WELP BRB HEADING TO DAGOBAH WITH NO WARNING BECAUSE REASONS!!!!”

“NO WAIT MY FRIENDS NEED MY HELP SORRY GOTTA GO”

“BRB I JUST GOT MY WORLD VIEW TRAUMATIZED AND I NEED TO FALL IN THE ABYSS LIKE AN EXTRA (TM) BITCH”

“OH HEY I’M GONNA FIGHT MY DAD IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT I HAVE NO TRAINING WHATSOEVER BECAUSE YOLOOOOOOOOO”

like Luke Skywalker lives on impulse 

much like his father

like according to the visual dictionary, Leia was supposed to be his first student and she like said no due to like politics and family stuff

but lbr she probably looked at Luke YOLO Skywalker and was like....yeah no my dude you are a messssss

never be the first grad student

also like IF REYSKY was a thing

you’re basically saying 

YES I WANT MY HERO LUKE SKYWALKER

TO DROP A KID OF A SANDY WASTELAND THAT EVEN HE BELIEVES IS NOWHERE

which like my dude, he’s from Tatooine and if he’s saying Jakku is nowhere. then like that place is like purgatory

like I STRONGLY BELIEVE if like Rey was his kid he AT LEAST would have dropped her 

somewhere with reliable foster parents

and like water

LOTS OF WATER

OKAY I’M DONE RANTING ABOUT THIS

ANYWAY like I can totally believe with like Luke seeing the #darkness + probably Snoke’s influence in his head his immediate response was OMG WE GOTTA KILL IT and then went...oh wait this....is not a chill idea maybe we should talk shit out first/meditate etc

and like IMMEDIATE REGRET AFTERWARDS

honestly this is like textbook Male Skywalker bullshit 101

I HAVE DONE A THING!!!  i regret everything now

THIS IS A HORRIBLE SEGUE BUT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY AVENGING SPACE ANGEL LEIA ORGANA!!!!!

*CRIES A LOT*

RIAN JUST LOVES LEIA AND CARRIE SO MUCH

*UGLY SOBBING*

LEIA USED THE FORCE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

EAT IT FANBOYS!!!

FUCKING IT!!!

LIKE I KNEW BUT LIKE PURE PROOF IN FUCKING CANON

LEIA! IS! FUCKING! FORCE! SENSITIVE!!!!!

also i’m 99% certain Luke didn’t teach it her that trick so like my homegirl literally DID THAT

i just love leia so fukcing much and yes okay the cgi was kind of wonky BUT I DON’T GIVE A FUCK BECAUSE MY GENEARAL/PRINCESS JUST USED THE FORCE LIKE A BOSS THAT SHE IS

Also i just love Leia so much in this

like That Shot on Crait with her eyes over the collar is like 

POETIC CINEMA

no really someone hook a girl up and give me that shot as a lock screen

Also that scene post mutiny showing up in a 3000-thread count couture bathrobe, a matching cane, and blaster? #AESTHETIC

also personal opinion but Billie Lourd in that scene wasn’t acting as much as oh god i’m in trouble face that all children go through

**MORE UGLY SOBBING*

OKAY LETS TALK ABOUT POE ONLY BECAUSE IT’S MY BLOG AND I DO WANT I WANT

*steps on step stool*

I DID NOT CARE ABOUT POE DAMERON IN TFA BECAUSE IT WAS SUPER OBVIOUS THAT HE WAS GOING TO DIE AND ONLY GOT TO LIVE BECAUSE OSCAR ASKED JJ TO LIVE AND OSCAR ISAAC IS PRETTY BUT LIKE THAT’S ALL I GOT OUT OF THE MOVIE.

*climbs off soapbox* Poe in this film GAINED SOME DEPTH, sadly it seems to be very polarizing and I think that’s in part due to the fact that it’s pulling on backstory from the EU, primarily Shattered Empire and the Poe Dameron Comics. Shattered Empire doesn’t directly include Poe but it involves his parents, Shara Bey and Kes Dameron. His mom, Shara, went on a mission with Leia and some others for some reason I can’t remember BUT ANYWAY SHE’S A BOSS. A HERO OF THE REBELLION. Poe literally grew up around heroes. One of his squad mates in Poe Dameron is another hero from the rebellion. He has a very wide-eyed view on the concept of heroism? For him it’s daring deeds and important war-changing missions, he’s very much a soldier and not at a leader. At least not yet. You get this immediately from the fight scene with First Order and the bombing run and the aftermath of it. 

Poe sees what’s in front of him which is a destroyed Star Destroyer (?), Leia sees the whole picture which is a single ship destroyed at the cost of a significant part of their fleet. Yes, there were heroes but a resistance can’t survive on dead heroes.

You see this again in his willingness to go after the high-risk plan to somehow hack the main ship to get them to stop tracking them. He’s thinking YES THIS IS THE BOLD PLAN MISSION OF MY DREAMS!!! Except it fails, and yes I completely understand that this could have been avoid with like communication but to embark on communication? You need to let go of your ego. Ego is not a BAD THING, but sometimes it can prevent us from being our best self. The best leader we can be. And Poe does learn this as you can see with Leia passing the baton of leadership to Poe on Crait. As Poe realizes that a dramatic last stand isn’t worth the loss. It’s better to run to let the rebellion live than to die in a burst of glory. Those are the hard choices a leader has to make.

OKAY MOVING ON BECAUSE I SUCK AT TRANSITIONS, LETS TALK ABOUT ONE OF MY SONS, FINN TICO

I LOVE MY SON AND HIS TRANSITION FROM BEING A MERE FIRST ORDER DEFECTOR TO A MEMBER OF THE REBELLION !!!!!!! First I loved the fact that his characterization followed naturally from TFA which TO RECAP consisted of:

 realizing that the First Order is a horrible idea; 

getting the fuck out via some convenient pilot dude who (supposedly) dies; 

meeting a girl who STRAIGHT UP ATTACKS HIM under the hearsay of a droid

realizing she’s the BEST THING SINCE TROOPER RATIONS and attempting to flirt because running away from a organization is best done in at least a pair

getting caught up in Resistance nonsense you are 1000% Not Here for because YOU KNOW THE FIRST ORDER and you know losing odds

aforementioned Girl is taken by the First Order and you’re like WELP GUESS I GOTTA TEMPORARILY JOIN this horrible idea to save girl

Tries to save girl but gets knocked out

END OF MOVIE

TLJ PICKS UP immediately after this in which his first and only thought is FIND REY AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS NONSENSE. THIS IS NOT WORTH DYING FOR Y’ALL ARE CRAZY. Which lets be real, you’re dealing with an organization.....that can destroy an entire space system that you have personal experience with. You’ve just been attacked by the First Order, the Resistance is worse off than they were BEFORE YOU WENT TO (attempt) SAVE REY. Finn’s main priority is WELP THIS IS A LOSING CAUSE GONNA GET MY FRIEND AND BOUNCE BECAUSE I DON’T WANT HER TO DIE.

Then it hit’s him like a shock. Figuratively and literally because Rose shows up.

BEFORE I TALK ABOUT ROSE I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT PAIGE ALSO KNOWN AS i was pretty sure she was gonna die but it felt natural-ish and I also know need to buy Cobalt Squadron for like TICO SISTER FEELS. But during that bombing run you immediately got the sense of

what she was doing was already extremely risky

YOU’RE IN SHIP FULL OF BOMBS

and that her last moments were of someone incredibly important to her

and like eventually TO ALL OF US AND MEEEE

I’m going to be honest and say that this plot was probably the weakest for the audience and for me. I understood what they were trying to cover but I feel some sections got cut for the final version.

BUT BACK TO CHARACTERS, FINN!!!!

had to deal with the struggle of moving past Rey as his sole guiding focus of his story?

Also people are like OMG WHY IS HE SO WIDE EYED ON CANTO BIGHT?!?! THAT’S OOC!!!

and i’m like my dudes

he’s never been outside of the pod of stormtroopers like EVER

HE’S FROM A LIFE OF MONOCHROME AND NOW INFUSED IN A LIFE OF COLOR

Finn: OMG THIS PLACE IS AWESOME Rose: this place is trash and I’m gonna fight it

Also can I give a shout out to that section where he’s explaining the plan to Poe and like Rose is like AHEM I’M HAPPY TO HAVE A FELLOW NERD BUT ALSO I CAN TALK!!!!

Poe on the otherhand is like....ah yes...cute nerds are talking....OH WE CAN BLOW SOMETHING UP FOR FREEDOM!!! YES SOUNDS GREAT!!!

Also his interactions with DJ are essentially him seeing a potential future for himself

and like trash meta moment, unlike Kylo “I Make Poor Life Choices” Ren, he makes the decision to reject that future for himself.

Like Finn’s arc in this movie I would argue is to stop being a passive observer in the narrative and to start CLAIMING his space in the narrative that is Star Wars

like FANON!Finn is very much the Resistance automatically accepting him and him become The Dude in The Resistance

this movie ACTUALLY DID THE CHARACTER WORK for him to become a leader in the Resistance

Look I really love Finn and he finally got the character development he deservessssss

MOVING ON TO MY NEWEST DAUGHTER!!!!

ROSE!!! TICO!!! BEST DAUGHTER!! GOOD DAUGHTER!!! MY SMOL ENGINEER!!

Okay, first off. I will like forever and ever be thankful to Rian for casting Kelly Marie Tran SO JOT THAT SHIT DOWN

BUT MNEME SHE ABUSED--

finish that sentence and i will unhinge my maw to consume your filthy soul

AHEM, I mean you’re entitled to your opinions

which are wrong

SERIOUSLY THO, every time someone goes “Rose straight-up shocked a black boy till he passed out!!!!!” I’m like

okay one, he’s canonically 23 years  old

like as a black woman and one with a little brother I’m very cognizant of the impact of black violence in media and the constant view of black boys as adults

but also HE’S 23

two, Rey straight up clobbered him under the hearsay of BB-8 saying that “oh that dude has my dad’s jacket” compared to Rose catching him escaping via escape pods after catching 2/3 people doing the same thing earlier that day + losing her only living family

like if this is the hill you want to die on!?!?!?!?

I JUST REALLY ROSE BECAUSE SHE’S THE ENGINEER TAKE NO SHIT DISNEY PRINCESS OF MY COLD DEAD HEART SPACE

I just she’s so quick and smart but  get put into the ANTI-SOCIAL ASSHOLE BOX???

like yes she’s very good and detailed at her job

She also wants to fight everyone

like if i wrote an academia au (but Mneme you do---) she would be like the HELLO CLASS THIS IS OUR EXAM ALSO BONUS POINTS IF YOU GO ON A FIELD TRIP WITH ME ^_^

Student: Dr. Tico, that field is a protest.

Dr. Tico: I HAVE SIGNS AND HANDCUFFS!!!!

I just really loved her arc on Canto Bight and her care for the little people and also the emphasis it’s not the wide dramatic actions that make the resistance but the people that make it thrive.

“We win by saving what we love.”

Mneme that kiss was sexless--

THE GIRL JUST KNOCKED A SHIP OUT OF THE WAY OF A CANNON, GIVE THE GIRL A BREAK

She’s be more than down to climb him like a tree later.

OKAY WHILE WE’RE STILL DEALING WITH THE RESISTANCE

I UNDERSTAND WHY ADMIRAL AMILYN HOLDO DIED AND THE SHOT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND ELEGANT AND JUST 

#POETIC CINEMA

but also *UGLY SOBBING*

so like yes I understand that this probably could have been solved via OPEN COMMUNICATION but

Poe has literally just been demoted for flyboy antics

Poe initial interaction with Admiral Holdo consists of “soooo do you understand the situation” in front of a bunch of upper level brass

like maybe if he was like HEY HOW CAN I HELP it would have been better but he literally goes

HI ADMIRAL PLEASE LET EXPLAIN YOUR JOB AFTER I JUST MANAGED TO GET A HUGE CHUNK OF THE FLEET DEMOLISHED

cue Oscar Isaac’s prettiness

so like I understand but also I DISAGREE

also when Amilyn talks to Leia when Poe is like being carted onto the transport saying “I like him!” I’m 99% certain it was implied that she was also down to bang

actually knowing what I know from Leia, Princess of Alderaan

she’s TOTALLY DOWN TO BANG

OKAY LETS FINISH UP THIS NONSENSE WITH REMAINING TWO CHARAS ALSO KNOWN AS THIS IS A BIASED REVIEW AND IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU-KNOW-WHO YOU CAN LIKE STOP HERE AND GO

......

.....

....

*looks around* okay they’re gone?

*TAKES  OUT MIC*

FIRST THING FIRST, I HAVE BEEN REY NO ONE SINCE FOREVER AND NOW I AM VALIDATED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD~~~~

It also follows from what Maz said in TFA, “you know they aren’t coming back.” This movie is Rey coming to terms with the failure that her parents inflicted on her, abandonment, and realizing that she doesn’t need some grand legacy to save the galaxy. Being herself is enough, and that’s so so beautiful to meeeeeeeeeeeeee. *weeps*

#POETIC CINEMA

SECOND, KYLO’S ARC WAS GEARED TOWARDS MEEEEEE!!! THANK YOU FOR VALIDATING ALL THE CHARACTER SHIT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT KYLO REN SINCE TFA THAT I THOUGHT WAS FUCKING OBVIOUS!!!!!!

Them: KYLE RON WAS TOTALLY DOWN TO KILL HAN AND UNREMORSEFUL. Me: ???? did we watch the same movie??

did you like look at the lighting in that scene???

the facial expressions??

LITERALLY EVERYTHING BEFORE THAT SCENE ABOUT BEING SEDUCED BY THE LIGHT?!!?!?

Kylo himself in TLJ: i didn’t hate him

THIS CONFLICT, THIS UNBALANCEDNESS CONTINUES THROUGH OUT THE FILM!?!? Also, I’m going to be hella honest 

pre-TLJ: Renperor is such a horrible trope because Kylo Ren is a disaster human being who has no business and no interest (see Bloodline) in ruling??? LIKE YOU ARE ASSIGNING COMPETENCE TO MY SON WHERE THERE IS NONE

post-TLJ: alright, I can Work With This and I’m 99% certain he is going to be ousted because the FO is like who is this human disaster with the political savvy of a blunt post 

like any credibility was lost as soon as he decided to have force tantrum when Luke showed up

and the SHOOT THAT SHIP OUT OF THE SKY!!!! moment

like my son leads wears his trash heart on his sleeve and EVERYONE KNOWS IT

honestly the fact that he managed to lie about killing Snoke is a miracle

but this CANON!renperor 

this Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, which i am like laugh my ass of over, is not some triumphant Dark Fuck Prince??

He’s broken man who has thrown so so much into rejecting the light, becoming the monster that his uncle he feared he would become and realized that he done fucked up. 

He tells Rey, Let the past die, kill it if you have to.

LITERALLY CANNOT LET THE PAST DIE

does copy his namesakes dramatic robe dropping so like there’s that

Also pre-TLJ: meh there’s a 50/50 chance he’s a virgin but lol it will never but touched on in canon

Post-TLJ: oh god he’s a virgin i will fight you on thissss

AND NOW BECAUSE I AM THAT PERSON REY AND KYLO’S OVERLAPPING ARCS

*SCREAMS* FORCE BOND FORCE BOND FORCE BOND

oh did i mention FORCE BOND!?!?!?!?!

Okay yes Snoke helped it along but like THAT LAST SCENE WITH THE DICE AND KYLO LOOKING UP AND SEEING REY

Snoke is dead bitches

what is it

it’s the Force

it was so good to meee

Honestly that face was peak “I’m disappointed but not surprised, I left all your shit on the porch. *SLAMS DOOR IN FACE*”

Like THE INTIMACY OF THOSE FORCE BOND SCENES

and like the evolution and like ASDFDSFSDAFDS

this was so good to me y’all

so good

no really i like never rec meta but like this *kisses fingers* http://corseque.tumblr.com/post/168629533017 good shit 

THAT REGENCY TRASH PROPOSAL OF FAILURE

so good

so awful

congrats Kylo, you’ve surpassed your granddad in poor wooing skills

Like literally I can see Anakin standing next to him Force Ghost!Stylez and is just like appalled

so appalled

okay i’m done I’m going to think about star wars and start throwing all my money at the EU YET AGAIN