#also the leia is anakin's daughter rant is for another day i have many thoughts about that

[adelcrait]

I just finish all of your "Lost and Found" fanfic and I love it! I love your writing. its history, Luke and Anakin's relationship. All! I love all. I also like how Leia and Luke aren't siblings. I'd rather they weren't from the same family, as I can't imagine or appreciate Anakin being her father. Being Luke's dad already, I love it! I think it's because I like fathers taking care of their boys. I'm looking forward to more chapters! Have you ever thought of writing a story about Anakin meeting Luke earlier? Like, being a baby or a small child. Or even after everything that happened at the end of Star Wars, but while everyone thinks Darth Vader is dead, he is being taken care of by Luke?

Or even, Luke not being Padmé's son, but only Anakin's? Like, Luke is a miracle of the Force. Which made Anakin concede, as he was in a situation of great darkness, After everything that happened and he lost a lot of his body, so the Force gifted him with Luke. And unfortunately, Anakin has to hide it for quite some time of the others. As he tries to come to terms with everything his bizarre body went through on the gallows, he still has to protect his magic and wonderful son.

Sorry. these are great ideas I had in my head!

Thank you so much, anon!!!! I chose not to make Luke and Leia siblings in Lost and Found because, as you said, I have a hard time imagining Leia being Anakin’s daughter. I know it’s canon, and if I squint real hard I could see some similarities in personality, but it’s difficult (although it’s something I often think about). However, I can see Luke and Leia as siblings... but of different parents? In my head, and since I’m a big ROTJ fan, I associate Luke as Anakin and Padmé’s son, but Leia as Bail and Breha’s daughter... and I think Leia would be fine with that tbh.

I also love the trope of grumpy old men with repressed emotions being the parental figure of an overpowered child. My absolute favorite! Found Family! Angst! I eat that shit up!!!!!!!!!

As for your ideas,

“Have you ever thought of writing a story about Anakin meeting Luke earlier? Like, being a baby or a small child.” I have thought about this, but never wrote anything because I don’t know how to / don’t like writing children. All the Luke & Vader stories I have written (and never posted) have always been of Luke being at least in his late teens. This way they can talk about life, share opinions, train in the Force, argue about "grown-up" things, etc. I just can’t see that happening with young kids, and I haven’t seen a baby up close in probably decades. Although the idea of baby!Luke is really cute.

“Or even after everything that happened at the end of Star Wars, but while everyone thinks Darth Vader is dead, he is being taken care of by Luke?” OOOH I have read a lot of fics like this! It’s really angsty and bittersweet. Especially when they fix Vader’s torture machine (his suit) and Vader slowly starts to physically heal. I don’t think I’m writing this because of the problems Luke would have to go through: restoring democracy, pretending that Vader is dead, taking care of Vader somewhere the Rebellion can’t find them, processing everything that has happened… I feel like it would be a lot. Also, I don’t really know what mental situation Vader would be in this scenario. From the post-rotj Vader!Lives AU fics that I've read, Vader is miserable and thinks he doesn’t deserve "redemption" because the only good thing that he’s done was killing the Emperor, so it’s hard to get him out of that stupor. Even now just thinking about how I would write Vader's internal monologue is sending me into hell loops of mental acrobatics that I don’t know how to untangle. It’s definitely an interesting idea, that’s for sure. If you want fic recs with this idea, tell me!

“Or even, Luke not being Padmé's son, but only Anakin's? Like, Luke is a miracle of the Force.” Now, this!!!!!!!!! I think even in canon we can agree that Luke is a miracle of the Force. He’s an eldritch type of cryptid with a power that can shatter entire planets if he’s not careful. Blame his dad, sure. Maybe Padmé’s humanity is the only thing that’s preventing him from going full God Final Boss Mode. See it this way: if Anakin is the literal child of the Force, but still had a biological human mother, can you imagine how batshit powerful Luke would be if the Force created this child and based the genetics on The Anakin-fucking-Skywalker, the first eldritch horror monster of the galaxy? I’m literally shaking just thinking about it. Luke would be unstoppable.

...Also it would be hilarious if Luke was a toddler and accidentally exploded a spaceship because he threw a tantrum or something. I think it would be interesting seeing him grow up and adjust his powers to a non-destructive and functional level. That is, if Anakin is not a Sith in this AU. If Vader is raising him…. well, I don’t think the galaxy would be seeing peace any time soon... or Luke would still grow up to be good because he’s the literal manifestation of the Force and the Force has had enough of Vader’s bullshit… Yeah anon, I agree, this idea is super cool.

I admit that I’m guilty of overusing the Force in my stories, but these two are literal space wizards that are capable of so so so many cool things that my brain is salivating at the creative possibilities. 

Thank you for this ask! Have a nice day wherever you are!!!!!!!<3

[thatnerdyfangirlcat]

*Spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker ahead*

I saw Rise of Skywalker yesterday

I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

**This is where spoilers begin**

I have mixed feelings about Rey being a Palpatine and all, but I absolutely LOVE the way they did Ben's redemption arc! In that scene with his memory of Han, there's not even words to describe how I feel about it (that may be because I have similar feelings about my parents. More on that later). I almost started sobbing when Ben called him "Dad", because we never got to see that in the previous movies.

Ben never chose a side. Sure, he was led to the Dark side by Snoke, but he couldn't do it, even just killing the father he convinced himself that he hated was hard enough. And that's what made me such a huge Ben Solo fan. And in that scene with his memory of Han, you realize Ben was never a Skywalker. He was always a Solo. He was too much like his father: stubborn, crafty, impulsive. He also loved very, very deeply. Even when offered the rule of an entire galaxy, Ben refuses to kill Rey, and though it may have been because he wanted her to rule beside him, I really think, deep down, he was lonely and scared, and she was the only one left who would give him a chance. And when Rey said she wanted to take Ben Solo's hand, I was like, "There it is. That's his realization moment." I was sort of right, that was like the catalyst. It wasn't until Leia used the last of her life to call out to her son one last time, and Rey healing him (after stabbing him with his lightsaber) that he really realized his mistakes. I'm so sad that he died, but his sacrifice was, of course, out of love, just like his father (I believe Han knew on some level Ben was going to kill him, but still tried to bring him back). Also, it's probably for the best. No one would have accepted him. He slaughtered so many people, destroyed so many families, just their relationship (whatever it might have turned out to be) could have caused a war on its own.

I'd have to say Ben is my favorite character. And, like any antagonist-turned-whatever, I relate to him the most. I relate to that anger and loneliness and ambition. I feel disconnected from my parents, my whole family actually, and kind of abandoned. It sometimes scares me how much I want to hurt others sometimes. But, so far, I haven't turned into a Sith apprentice, so I guess I'm good.

Anyway, that's my Ben Solo rant. I'm gonna talk about Reylo for a while. I gotta say, from their first meeting, I was like "yep, that's going to be the most controversial thing about this, and it's totally going to be canon one way or another." Basically, if there was a canon ship or a death, I predicted it (I'm just that good). I love Reylo. I ship it with all of my being. Because she was the only one who saw the light in him, and he was the only one who could maybe understand the darkness she was so scares to confront. I read a thing that they're like two parts of one protagonist, and they really are. They fit together. A Skywalker and a Palpatine. Imagine how powerful their kids would be, little floating balls of lightning, throwing spaceships at one another.

Anyway, that's my Rise of Skywalker Rant. If you disagree with anything I've said, that's fine. If you think I have some wrong information, let me know. This is just my thoughts about some parts of the movie, I might do more later.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Edit:

Yes, I'm doing this on the same day. I'm retracting my statement. Ben should have lived. He should have done what his grandfather couldn't, he should've risen. Literally called "Rise of Skywalker" for a reason. I'm mad. I'm actually really mad that they killed Ben. We don't need a catharsis, we need a Reylo. We need the fictional power couple of the century. The whole point is that love conquers! It's always been that! Luke showed Vader that familial love he never got, and it redeemed him! Anakin's possessive love was his downfall! Rey showed Ben a kind of love that he never had, not unconditional love, but that true understanding of another human being, and Ben gave her the same thing! Why the heck wouldn't they be together?! Sure he gave her his life force or whatever, freaking SHARE IT! And why didn't we see her mourning him? He didn't get a funeral? All he gets is a kiss and he's gone forever? I don't believe that. I can't believe that. I'm freaking angry. We get Palpatine-Skywalker kids in the Exanded Univeree books, but not the canon movies? That be mega dumb. (Explanation: Luke marries Palpatine's daughter, Mara Jade, and they have a son named Ben. Also Han and Leia actually have three kids, twins Jaceyn and Jana, and Anakin.)

Anyway.

This makes me really mad. They couldv'e made it work. But they didn't. Maybe they didn't want to make too many people mad, but they missed an incredible opportunity here. I just hope we at least get to see more of their relationship in like Expanded Univeree stuff or something. And if not I'm disowning Disney Star Wars and just keeping the original trilogies

That's it sorry

[thelastjaedi]

TROS Rant

This post will contain spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker, so below the cut is spoilers.

The Palpatines Ultimately Win

Rey, a palpatine, ends up taking everything that belong to the skywalker family: the legacy saber, the millennium falcon, Han’s blaster, leia’s ex machina saber, the chosen one prophecy, the last skywalker’s life force, and their name/legacy. And her first act as a skywalker is to bury their sabers on the planet they all hated. The planet where Anakin was enslaved and where his mother’s life was stolen from him. The planet Luke could not wait to get off of and where his aunt and uncle were murdered. The planet where Leia was enslaved by a crime lord.

And the worst part is that Palptine gets what he always wanted: the lifeforce of a skywalker is used to keep a palpatine alive.

It Makes Everything the Skywalker Family Went Through so Pointless

If they were going to undo RotJ’s happy ending, they should have made the ending of the sequels even happier and more triumphant.

But instead, Anakin’s sacrifice amounted to nothing because Palpatine just lives on to completely wreck his family. Luke was a complete failure when it came to rebuilding the Jedi order. Palpatine manipulated/groomed Ben Solo since infancy, turning him against his family. Leia‘s wish was to create something better than the Republic and the Empire, but the New Republic was destroyed by the First Order. She wanted her son back, and Han sacrificed his life to try and bring their son back. Luke did too in TLJ. He gave his life to manufacture a situation where he could apologize and acknowledge what he did to his nephew, and in such a way to where Ben could not act out without ending up with another family member’s death on his hands. And then with the whole “salt purifying wounds” symbolism of the planet in general, it felt like the first steps to repairing this family. This story’s trajectory seemed to be about saving the last skywalker from the mistakes of the previous generation and in doing so, allowing the new generation to learn from those mistakes and build something new. Han, Luke, and Leia gave their lives to try and right that wrong and bring the last scion of this bloodline home. And when Ben FINALLY makes the right choice, he is excluded from the final fight against Palpatine via yeet pit, and then dies 2 seconds after finding the happiness and acceptance he was never allowed to have with Rey. 

They Did The Character of Ben Solo So Dirty

They took a huge retconnish step back after TLJ paved the way for something really cool in TROS. He was finally free to be his own person, out from under the thumb of an abusive master, leader of his faction, and resolved rather than conflicted. Resolved to do what, we will never know—would he have acted as an anti hero against palpatine’s sith army? Would he have been dethroned by Hux/Pryde and have to operate independently? WHO KNOWS. But instead of exploring anything NEW with him, TROS has him reforge that mask (for no given reason), still be conflicted about everything, and have to plot with Rey to overthrow yet another abusive master. He just repeated his arc in TLJ, but with prequel-level dialogue with Rey and a RotJ-Vader ending. Except he gets NO LINES in the last act beyond “ow”. After his scene with Leia-induced-memory!Han, he essentially becomes a mute. Also that scene where Luke gives Rey Leia’s lightsaber, saying that she always knew Ben would fall so she gave it up and wanted Luke to pass it on to someone worthy? What? Give up on your son I guess. Way to destroy Leia’s character and make her look like a terrible mother.

And because of how exhaustingly how contrived the whole reylo angle was presented in general, the kiss scene probably felt REALLY forced for the general audience. Like the actors played the scene well—Adam’s facial expressions of utter hopelessness and regret upon finding her dead was absolutely gut wrenching. But his death happens SO fast: he meditates, she wakes up, they kiss, the music swells and you think everything is going to be ok—then he drops dead 2 seconds later and neither the audience nor Rey are given enough time to process that. It moves on to the celebration montage ripped straight from RotJ’s remastered version—AND HE IS NEVER SEEN OR MENTIONED AGAIN! Not even as a force ghost on Tatooine with Luke and Leia when she proclaims herself a Skywalker. Are they going to edit his force ghost into the scene 20 years later when they remaster this film? Or are we just going to pretend this character never existed and he was not the hero--because he really was the hero of this film.

Balance is Never Restored

Did that “Journal of the Whills” passage in the TFA book even matter? In the end, balance was never reached. The light won the day and the darkness perished. Again. History literally repeated itself. So what’s the next fascist regime or sith zombie that’s going to sprout up in 30 years? There was no resolution or catharsis between the two aspects of the force. It was just “Sith avatar Sideous bad, Rey jedi avatar good, don’t think too hard, enjoy the holidays and see you in 30 years when we want to see what Rey Skywalker is up to!” And you know that’s coming — they did not even give us closure to the Skywalker saga because they can always make movies about her and any of her false-Skywalker decedents! It’s SO UPSETTING. 

I’m mostly disappointed because it would have been nice to see a resolved view of the force that is not so black and white. Like maybe the Sith were a perversion of what the dark side is: a cancer or parasite that has corrupted it. TLJ opened the door for so many nuanced and honestly really intelligent concepts that TROS just threw out the window for “cool force powers”.  There is absolutely no “peace” in the force, it’s used with straight up aggression constantly save for the force healing/life transferring, which is overused in this film and has therefore lost any substantial weight in the story because of it.

Rey Repeats the Mistakes of a Past Generation

She literally repeats Leia’s mistakes. She is a Palpatine, but in choosing to hide that from everyone (besides Finn, I guess) by taking another family’s last name, she is essentially lying. That did not work out so well with Leia, who hid the fact she was Vader’s daughter from everyone besides Luke and Han. It got out, her political career was tanked, she lost the trust of a lot of her friends, and it helped alienated her son from their family. 

And what is this nonsense about Luke and Leia having always known she was a Palpatine all along, but never said anything? Even though she was aware of Rey’s desperation to know where she came from and why her family left her behind? Did she just omit the truth from Rey just like she did Ben? WHAT? THIS IS SO HORRIBLE.

If they had to make her a Palpatine, why not have her own it and be like “it is not my bloodline that defines who I am, but the choices I make.” Which is a nicer message and juxtaposes with Kylo who accepted his dark legacy because he felt like he had no other choice—especially when everyone who was suppose to help him thought he is another Vader/a lost cause anyway. 

I personally really like the message that she was no one, and you did not have to be anyone special to be a hero. I also hate how her bloodline diminishes her struggle with her affinity for the dark side. Her backstory as an abandoned orphan provided enough reason for her to struggle with the pull to the dark side. But this reveal oversimplified that and just chalked it up to her genes. And to say that her power was a result of her heritage, and not because she was a chosen vessel of the cosmic force is a mistake. 

Rey and Kylo’s Force Bond is Terribly Misused

Their force bond (which was arguably the most compelling part of TLJ) was turned it into exposition fodder and weaponized. It was originally created for the purpose of allowing these two opposing forces to TALK to each other rather than fight. TLJ established that they could not use the force on each other OR harm each other through the bond for a reason: so they could communicate and learn from each other. It really felt like foreshadowing for some sort of catharsis or resolution between the light and dark aspects of the force. Especially with the whole spiel about balance, and how the light and the dark are both natural parts of life and the force (warmth, cold, peace, violence, death and decay that brings forth new life ect). That was such a lovely and spiritual interpretation. 

But instead of expanding on that idea, TROS not only made them able to fight each other through it, but he took it to video-game-super-power level extremes. And it was just plain absurd. Were some scenes cool? Yeah, I thought him pulling the legacy saber out from behind his back to fight the knights was great, and the teleportation was hinted at in TLJ, but I hated their lightsaber fights. It was too over the top with the flipping and such. I really liked TLJ’s message that the force is not a super power, but rather a mystical force that guides you if you are open to letting it work through you. This movie just spat in the face of that idea. 

And it’s so annoying that they described their bond as this mystical “dyad” that occurred because of who their famous grandparents were—THAT IS SO INFURIATING! It’s not the will of the force that these two people on opposing sides were linked so deeply, but because of their family legacy. Bloodlines are all that matter apparently—not that the force is working through these two similarly broken people in an effort to fix and balance itself. And ultimately refine the incomplete view of the force that the Jedi and Sith tore the galaxy apart over. 

I also hated how the bond is described “two as one”, but then one dies without the other (twice!) and Rey can wound him without so much as a flinch. If the bond is really one life force/spirit inhabiting two bodies, shouldn’t they have to die at the same time? Or at least be able to feel each other’s pain? Or be able to share this life force they supposedly already share and both survive? Like you can’t kill one without killing the other, sort of deal? It just feels like it was hyped up to be this immensely powerful thing, and that in order to defeat Palpatine, they would have to do so together. But all that exposition seems pointless after one half of the dyad survives without its counterpart. And it is never addressed after. Like what even is the point of any of this yin yang stuff if yin can just die off with no consequences? Was the entire point of that plot thread meaningless exposition? And if the explanation is that Palpatine stole their force bond to revive himself, that’s straight up stupid. TROS will have wasted this unique connection that had so much potential for good and for meaningful resolution and fabricated yet another way to empower the already OP villain. 

But if you pretend none of that dumb dyad shit happened, Ben Solo’s death is one of the ONLY things about this movie that makes sense thematically. I’m not happy that he died. I do not think it was necessary. But I am trying to make peace with the fact that it is a beautiful sacrifice. I always felt like their arc was reverse Padme x Anakin, and Anakin’s entire fall to the dark side was because he wanted to become powerful enough to save the person he loved from death. He never achieved that because his love for Padme and his motivations were inherently selfish. He wanted her save her so he could keep her beside him. Ben, however, rights that wrong and selflessly gives his life for the one he loves. He does so knowing that he will die, and does not even hesitate, because he wants her to live even if he can’t be with her. So in that way, and excluding the dyad stuff that makes his death confusing and nonsensical, I actually felt like it was fulfilling. Sort of. One of the only things that came close to feeling well thought out in that movie, I suppose. But it still did not land quite right because of how poorly it was orchestrated. I genuinely do not think people picked up on the subtle romance hints they dropped around those two. Like the tropes are there, but it’s almost entirely subtext and not something the general audience picked up on until the shirtless scene and even then it was more of a meme. But regardless of whatever romance was set up in the previous films, I felt like their entire arc in this film was dysfunctional as fuck and not cathartic at all. It was very juvenile and reduced to a series of “join me! No! —sword fight— Join me! No! —sword fight—” Did I enjoy some of their banter, yes. But it was not nearly as satisfying as their exchanges in TLJ. 

The Retconning of TLJ and Extended Material 

It felt like TROS was trying so hard to pacify everyone who hated the direction TLJ took the narrative. And so much of the movie’s run time is spent retconning what was revealed in that movie, with no explanation other than “from a certain point of view” loopholes. And there were so many tasteless digs at TLJ. The comment about the Holdo maneuver. Luke catching the lightsaber and raising that ancient, sea-corroded x wing from the water on Ach-to. Rey’s parents becoming nobodies to protect her from Grandpappy Palps. Leia unable to get a single ship to answer her distress calls at the end of TLJ, but Lando can fetch the whole damn galaxy in an End Game like fashion.

Poe is randomly a drug smuggler despite his backstory already being established as being a part of the New Republic’s Navy and having Rebel Heroes for parents. 

Chewbacca already got a medal in the comics, so that scene was so redundant. Did the writers even consult with the Lucasfilm’s story team?

Leia was trained as a Jedi and only gave it up because she knew her son was going to turn to the dark side. It was already established in Bloodlines that Leia chose to be a senator because the galaxy needed her in politics more than it needed her with a laser sword. That was where she could do the most good. And she sacrifices everything--even her family--for the sake of building something better and new. But that sacrifice is reduced to her giving it up because she essentially has given up on her son before he is even born? I just do not understand why that flashback was necessary. Or why she needed a lightsaber. It is like it was included to pacify people who were upset with Leia using the force to save herself in TLJ, but an explanation is not needed because we have already established in the films and in extended material that she is force sensitive.

I don’t even want to talk about the vats full of Snokes.

Finn being force sensitive is cool, and I could totally see the potential in that from TFA, but it goes absolutely nowhere and his character is back to being Poe’s sidekick and Rey’s lost puppy. Rose gets absolutely NO screen time, and is sidelined the entire film to pacify people who hated her character in TLJ. I do not need FinnRose to be canon, either. I loved their development in TLJ because Rose challenged and progressed Finn as a character. And even though I always thought FinnPoe was going to be endgame, I never thought they would sweep her under the rug. Speaking of Finn and Poe, they queer-baited everyone with Stormpilot, only to give both of them hetero love interests. Finn and Poe have so much natural chemistry and meaningful interaction, especially in the last resistance novel that came out, that it was a slap to the face to see Finn psuedo-paired with Jannah/Rey and Poe paired with Zori.

Hux was set up to have all this ambition and a tense rivalry with Kylo Ren. But he gets shot by a random new character for helping the Resistance he hates so much-- that is incredibly nonsensical. There was so much potential for a First Order civil war between Kylo Ren and Hux, and he was hyped up in the comics to be a very dangerous adversary. What a waste. 

Were there moments in the film that were fun and enjoyable, sure, but I find that all of the problems eclipse those moments. It’s really hard to find stuff I actually liked about it. C3PO was great, but I felt like him getting his memories restored removed the weight of his sacrifice. Much like everything else in this film. There were way too many fake out deaths for anything to be meaningful. The movie itself was, admittedly, gorgeous. The Death Star ruins was such a magical set. The soundtrack was beautiful as ever. But I just feel so depressed and sorry for the tragedy that was the Skywalker family after watching it, that I cannot even enjoy the parts that were enjoyable.