#and so on the same day u become a hero to the galaxy u lose the one last part of home u had left

[stealingpotatoes]

luke and biggs… thoughts?

many thoughts + it means luke has a type

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Steven Universe - How the show fails to handle emotion, irrationality, and trauma

I have a better understanding of why SU is the way it is now. Why it is very dramatic, and why the characters often act in ways that are entirely out of proportion

When making a critical post about the handling of Flame Princess in Adventure Time, /u/samhadj01 attributed part of the problem to be that Rebecca Sugar was responsible for Flame Princess’s conceptualizing, and wrote her and Finn the same way that she writes SU characters - in a heightened emotional state, where they are feeling the EXTREMES of their emotions at all times, yelling at the top of their voice when angry, crying their eyes out when sad, and hurting each other. The reddit user said this made it difficult for the writers to figure out where to take Flame Princess next.

I challenged this reddit post’s claim that Rebecca writing FP’s first episodes meant that the crew didn’t know what to do with her. There is a lot of oversight in the AT crew, and Rebecca was just one cog in the wheel, even if she was full of ideas that ended up getting used. If she came up with a bad idea it would be the responsibility of her colleagues to put it back on track, and I don’t even think FP’s initial portrayal is the problem - the issue is she was completely marginalized after the fact, and bizarrely rewritten to lose her early immaturity without there being enough progression into that new stage. Following this she was basically written out of the show, with the exception of when she’d be useful to show off another character’s development (Finn, PB, even Cinnamon Bun).  

WITH THAT BEING SAID, I thought Samhadj made a good point about SU.  

Rebecca Sugar always loved writing music into her stories because it was the purest form of expression. You can hear how much love she puts into her music. She wanted to create a show where she could really sell emotions, where she could fill it up with songs that the characters would sing to express themselves and their troubled feelings. She wanted all the characters to be expressive, emotional, angry. She wanted Steven to be a character that helps everyone else learn to deal with their emotions, much like how her brother Steven helped her, as she’s said before. 

The issue is that, in order to facilitate this, she would need to write characters who would BE in these conflicts, feel heightened emotions at all times. 

So Rebecca conceptualized the gem species. 

Even though they take the form of adults, the gems are incredibly stunted. They remain the same for thousands of years. They are not equipped to process emotional trauma, having lived in a society where you have to cover up all your flaws and feelings at the risk of being shattered.  The show follows several Crystal Gems who rebelled against this system, but still haven’t figured out what it means to be free from this systematic oppression. They’re trying to live peacefully, but they’re prisoners still, in their hearts. 

Steven is the catalyst for change that points out the things that upset them, and forces them to deal with their emotions. He acts as emotional support and encourages the crystal gems to grow.  Steven also has much growing up to do himself. He has to confront the truth about what it means to BE a crystal gem, to have inherited the gem of the person who started the revolution, and Steven over time learns how messed up everything is. He is overcome with the desire to fix it, while still learning about himself.  

Why is this sort of storytelling a problem?

For the characters to have heightened emotions all the time, it means they have to keep getting in conflicts that reveal these emotions. It is these conflicts that make the show feel overdramatic and edgy - how characters will lash out and hurt each other, all the time, because they had a bad day, or something reminded them of something that hurt them. 

More urgently, who they are lashing out against. While the Crystal Gems hurting each other in season 1 makes sense, it is when they start taking things out on Steven himself that things become straight up toxic. 

Steven has to bear the brunt of EVERYONE’s problems, AND his own. He chases after Pearl in “Rose’s Scabbard” and nearly falls to his death while she ignores him, he fights with Amethyst when she is insecure about Jasper, he has to deal with Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting. He has to deal with all the townies and their stupid conflicts as well, Lars and Sadie’s fighting, so on. And ON TOP OF ALL THIS, people are trying to kill him all the time!!!!! But he is getting absolutely no meaningful support, and this is obvious, because the show itself acknowledges this later on. 

You start to ask the question, is this even worth doing? The characters around Steven display incredible immaturity, and after a certain point, they stop feeling like heroes.  They feel like leeches who are taking advantage of a young boy. 

Things get RIDICULOUS in the final season. Even after the episodes where Amethyst acknowledged the shitty status quo of everyone leaning on him, Steven then has to deal with the emotional problems of the Diamonds themselves, who it turns out lashed out the entire GALAXY because they didn’t know how to talk about their feelings?! For millions of years?!?! To be turned around by one teenage boy, even after a revolution where many of their gems expressed why they were wrong???!!!  

I think it was these final episodes of Steven Universe that completely shattered any remaining suspension of disbelief about the diamonds.

I’m no alien to ancient, immortal characters in charge of millions demonstrating incredible immaturity. Look at Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Marceline would lean closer to the Amethyst side of the spectrum where she lashes out against everyone, while PB would be on the Pearl or Diamonds side where she’d pretend to act all rational and coolheaded and then do something insanely bad like crash a wedding or manipulate children. Pretty yikes, even up to the finale.  However, the difference is that AT is a more lighthearted wacky show where immaturity can slide for jokes, and most of the issues these characters have are inward facing. They identify and work on their problems themselves, with some support but not much interference from outside. They also do NOT act crazy all the damn time, and have plenty of moments before, during, and after their development where they are fully supportive friends. I enjoyed learning more about these characters and their pasts, because the immaturity never broke my suspension of disbelief.

The DIAMONDS, on the other hand, never get any sort of character development. I was excited to learn more about their creation, and how they came to be these insanely powerful beings that controlled a fascist society where emotion is not allowed. Why is it this way? Why do they want to keep it like this?

We never find out. We just see Steven embarrassing White Diamond after she attempts to murder him, and then she immediately goes full 180 redemption. It makes no damn sense! 

Steven Universe Future attempts to address the issues with everyone Steven knows being emotionally dependent on him, but Future forgoes genuine themes about healing in favour of its edgy focus on how Steven has become “damaged”. 

I was shocked watching SU Future’s first few episodes. I was astounded that the show would deconstruct itself so thoroughly, and have Steven address the exact things that were on MY mind. He realised that he’d been used.

How ballsy is that for the show to have the protagonist literally tear it to pieces in the final few episodes? 

However, any hopes for Steven directly addressing these issues, communicating with his friends and HEALING were dashed about half way through, when he only kept escalating.  Steven got so outraged that he shattered Jasper, and attempted to kill White Diamond while also injuring himself. He started to see himself as a monster. He becomes a murderer. He turns into a kaiju at the end since that’s how his perception of himself is different.

I was really disappointed that the show had wasted its entire runtime to build this up. 

The emotion that Rebecca Sugar was trying to capture was Steven’s pain, anger, the disconnect he had with his friends.

Future did not spend ANY time in demonstrating that Steven’s friends were acknowledging his pain. In fact, quite the opposite - they kept dismissing all of his feelings about Ruby and Aquamarine, and Greg was revealed as The Literal Worst when he thought his perfectly normal conservative upbringing was way worse than Steven literally getting tortured by aliens every other day and having no friends or education.  When Steven has his breakdown, they all cROWD him and start yelling at him. They have absolutely no regard for Steven’s boundaries at all. It’s almost like Steven’s friends are P-zombies at this stage. 

I did not like how Steven was portrayed as a dangerous, out-of-control killer. It’s not just that he SAW himself as this - it’s literally what he was.  You can do bad things because of your trauma, but it won’t turn you into a monster. If you act like a monster, that is your responsibility. 

And then the series ends with the hug, but we do not see Steven’s actual healing process or reconnecting with his friends. We only get a brief goodbye episode. 

After watching Obsidian, I cannot help but compare these scenarios. Obsidian was about Marceline healing from her emotional trauma. It was still very much a part of her, but she was learning to recognise when it was damaging her life, and communicate with others about it. It’s about learning to accept your cracks.

If SU Future had been about dealing with trauma properly and healing, it could have been the best series on Cartoon Network, and fully redeemed the weaknesses of the original show. 

However, Rebecca and the SU crew decided to focus too much on Steven’s pain, and Future ended up exacerbating the issues of the show. 

[hungrywhovianjedi]

Twin Moons

Chapter one of my Star Wars A/U fic

read the epilogue here  also find the full fic on my FF.net and AO3 here FF AO3

premise:  Obi-Wan never took Luke to Tatooine in fact they overshot the force forsaken dustball completely and instead Luke grew up on the planet Lothal being trained to become a Jedi like his father before him. Ezra Bridger is an orphan loner who only makes an exception to his solitude for one boy. The boy who helped him out when he was seven, and that Ezra always seems to get into trouble.

Chapter summary: snapshots into the life of Obi-Wan and Luke as the boy grows up on Lothal, and a meeting with a hungry little boy who really wants a jogan fruit

Lothal wasn’t an unpleasant planet, but from the start one thing was clear to Obi-Wan, it wouldn’t be somewhere they could stay forever. The one blessing of the place was the abundant amount of untouched countryside. It was in this countryside, a fair distance from Capital City, that he purchased a small hut that he and Luke could live in. 

Luke… Luke was everything he believed Padme would have hoped for. His blonde curls and bright blue eyes were a spitting image of Anakin, and Obi-Wan would have been lying if he said that it didn’t send a pang of grief through his heart. Then there was raising the boy. Sure he had practically raised the child’s father, but that was from the age of nine on, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the needs of an infant, he had taken time in the Temple to assist Master Yoda with caring for the younglings that was not to say he was particularly good at it however. 

Exactly how bad he was at caring for younglings became clear when Luke began crawling, and he realized how hazardous everything was, that was also when the old jedi had stopped carrying his saber with him in the house. These things truly come into focus, when a nine month old, trying to pull himself up your leg accidentally activates your lightsaber nearly losing his toes. No no he wasn’t very good at this. 

When Luke was two, he began to train the boy. Luke was a natural, already he was able to call a toy from across the room, or even hold full conversations with his “uncle” through the force. Obi-Wan thought that better. He was Luke’s uncle, had loved his father like a brother. So he became Uncle Ben. The first thing that Ben needed to teach him, was something not commonly taught in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, shielding. It was something Masters taught padawans before taking them on risky missions, but now it had begun to be a necessity of life. 

He had seen the propaganda being streamed on the holonet, had seen Vader, a ghastly specter in all black, flanked by his enforcers. The inquisitors, force sensitive beings whose only driving goal was to hunt down the last of the “treasonous jedi” Vader’s robotically deep voice had informed the galaxy. He and his inquisitors would not rest until the galaxy was safe from the Jedi at last. It was horrifying, each one wore a mask but one, a tall man that Ben knew well. He had been a kind man, a guardian of the temple one he had spoken with often. He didn’t know his name, but his sorrow at seeing what he had become was great. The others were likely fallen Jedi as well, he didn’t want to know who else might be behind those masks, it was bad enough the force screamed at him who was behind the mask of Vader. The flashing lights on the front, others would assume were a control panel, likely thinking the man was no more than a machine, but Ben knew could hear the labored breathing of a man who would die without that mask. He did that. 

Luke stirred in his arms, the toddler having fallen asleep while they watched Holo-programs for children. A stab of guilt went through him. He had cursed this child’s father to a fate worse than death by leaving him on the shores of Mustafar. 

“I’m sorry Anakin, I failed you. I failed you” he looked down at Luke, “but I won’t fail him. I promise now I will not make the same mistakes with your son that I made with you”

Attachments were forbidden in the Jedi order, yet, despite trying his hardest to keep to the code, when he felt the love of attachment to his padawan, and even his grand padawan Ahsoka, he never saw what harm could come of it. He did however see the other side of it. Luminara... her padawan Barris, he had seen the hands off way she handled the girl, and in the end it led to her destroying the lives of not only those injured or killed in the blast, but Ahsoka and Anakin as well. He knew that the way the Council had ruled at that time had been one of the final blows to Anakin’s trust in them. That was the action that had lost him his padawan, it was why he didn’t go to the council for help when things got bad. 

Luke wouldn’t have an easy time being raised in the ways of the force, but Ben knew he had little choice in the matter. The boy must learn to protect himself, especially if Yoda was right, and this boy and his sister were the last hopes of the galaxy. 

The third year came and went quickly, and Ben crafted Luke his first practice Saber, really it was a wooden rod, since they didn’t have access to the Kyber needed to make a real practice saber, and began teaching the boy his forms. They did it by moonlight outside, as the hut was too small and doing it during the day would draw too much attention. 

He taught the boy his basic Katas, he began with form one, and realized how difficult it would be to teach a three year old child the patience needed to learn saber forms. Instead the Jedi Master made a game of it. 

It took months of their “game” Luke called it clack. Ben and Luke would each take a training saber, and they would clack them together, the goal was to break through and touch the other, and to avoid the “clack” of the sabers. Soon, he noticed Luke picking up some of his forms, as he had been careful to feed the basic stances of Shii cho into the game, and by the time his fourth birthday came Luke had learned all of the Kata’s of form one. It was then that Ben told him. Taught him that the game they played was really training to use a lightsaber. That was the first time he showed the boy his father’s saber. That was also the night that Ben told Luke a story. 

He told a story of a young queen from Naboo, and a brave slave boy from Tatooine. He told the boy the story of an army of brothers, who became like family a young woman who became their sister, and for now, he left out all the heartache that went with it, let the little one live with the happy memories of the family who would have loved him. 

By the time Luke was five, he was a natural of form one and had easily began to learn form two, it wouldn’t be long before he moved into form three Soresu, which Ben was looking forward to, his own mastery of the form making it the one easiest for him to teach. It was also when Ben began teaching Luke the way to find peace inside of the force. 

Meditation had always been Anakin’s worst skill, the boy had always had a nervousness about him, that caused him to seek out alternative methods. Luke however seemed to have Padme’s patience, as he found it easy to dive into the force. Ben barely had to guide him. 

He guided the boy with recitation of the Jedi code. 

“There is no emotion, There is peace”  Luke took a breath, “take all of your emotions, and release them, Luke” 

“There is no ignorance, there is knowledge” Ben closed his eyes taking hold of Luke in the force and guiding him, “release your questioning mind to the force, allow it to answer you” 

“There is no passion, there is serenity” The force flowed through him, “release your control, allow the force to guide you” 

“There is no chaos, there is harmony” he felt Luke relax, allowing the force to take him deeper, “in the force all is equal, feel it there balanced before you” 

“There is no death, there is only the force” Luke let out a breath, and Ben felt it too, a gentle sigh in the force, he could almost see the hands of Padme reach out and wrap around Luke. it shouldn’t be possible, non force sensitive people shouldn’t have a presence as such, even jedi do not keep their own energy when they die, yet there was no  denying Padme’s presence, just for a moment then she was gone. 

That wasn’t to be the last time he felt Padme in the force, the senator appearing that night as he did his own meditation 

“Hello Master Jedi” came the soft voice of his friend. 

“Padme, how is this possible? You were not sensitive to the force, yet I felt you with Luke and can tell you are real now” 

Padme simply smiled and sat beside him, his meditation scape the room of a thousand fountains, “I’ve never known the great Obi-Wan Kenobi to question the force” she chuckled. “I suppose you could say I’m not truly here, but part of me is. It’s hard to explain, like a piece of me stayed behind when I died, I just remember being so scared, so cold. I reached out and someone answered, and it was like I split then. A part of me, the part speaking to you now, went with Luke, I suppose as some sort of guardian. The other with Leia”

Ben rubbed at his beard, “it is somewhat of an unknown what really happens when we die. Master Yoda says we rejoin the force, yet nobody has ever spoken with someone who is dead before” 

“Now you have, I wanted to say something to you” Padme began, “Thank you, thank you for taking care of my son” 

Ben didn’t know what to say, instead he just smiled, and nodded. 

He came out of his meditation then, feeling lighter than he had for five years, confident in the fact that at least one of Luke’s parents was proud of what he was doing for their child. It was good that he came out of meditation when he did, as a sleepy Luke walked into the doorway, rubbing his eyes. 

“Ben, I had a bad dream” 

Ben smiled and opened his arms, “come here Luke, tell me about it” 

~~~~~~~~~

Luke Skywalker knew he several things fir certain. One he had no parents, Ben told him they were heroes, his father a Jedi knight. Two nobody could ever know he was a jedi, Ben hid from him the worst of it, but he was aware that they were hunted. Three Ben Kenobi was the best father figure he could have asked for. Those of course were the obvious things, he knew he was loved. He knew he was safe, but he couldn’t help but be lonely. Sure he had Ben, and he enjoyed training to become a Jedi like Ben and his father were before the purge, but Ben was the only person he knew. He was seven years old, and he had no friends. He had tried talking to the person from the dormant tether in his mind, but they didn’t seem to like him, or they didn’t know how to talk to him more likely. Ben wasn’t very willing to tell the seven year old Luke why he had a quiet tether in his mind or why it was clearly a little girl his age, maybe Ben would tell him when he got older. 

Until then, he helped Ben run the little garden behind their hut, and trained his saber katas behind the fence Ben built last summer. 

Today he was doing his katas while Ben went up on the bluff to trade with one of the traveling farmers for some of the things they didn’t grow, that he heard the hum in the force. It was odd, sounding almost like the hum that came when Ben lowered his shields to teach Luke a new skill, but different. It wasn’t a very strong hum, and he didn’t think whoever had it had been trained at all. At least not by someone like Ben, his shielding was awful! At least he assumed it was a boy, as he hooked his father’s saber back to his waist and climbed up the fence to look over. 

Huddled behind a boulder nearby, was a boy around Luke’s age, with black shaggy hair, and a dirty old orange jumpsuit. He was eyeing Ben’s Jogan tree hungrily. Luke dropped down and snuck around to the gate of the fence, and opened it. Continuing to move quietly, he moved so he was behind the same boulder as the boy. 

“Are you hungry?” Luke asked.

The boy shot up into the air with a loud scream, that made Luke giggle, and hold out the tart he had brought out for a snack after his training.

“Here, it’s a jogan fruit tart, it will be better than a raw one off of my uncle’s tree” for a moment Luke wondered if the boy spoke basic, and started to try and think of other ways he may word it, he didn’t know many languages yet, it was one of the few things that Ben had any trouble teaching him. 

“Wait, you’re just giving it to me?” oh good, he did speak basic, less struggle for him then.

Luke nodded, “Yes, Ben always says when people are hungry you should help them… so are you hungry?” 

The boy nodded enthusiastically and wolfed down the tart. Luke was shocked how quickly the sweet treat disappeared.  Then the boy grinned at him when it was gone “you’re right, that was really good”

Luke grinned back “I’m glad, my name is Luke Skywalker by the way” 

The other boy held out his hand, “Nice to meet you Luke Skywalker, my name’s Ezra Bridger” 

Luke shook his hand, he had a good feeling about Ezra Bridger, and when he reached out to the force, it seemed to have  a good feeling about him too.

[super-cerulean]

Two Way Street

Request:  Hi sweetheart, can I request a #10 & #13 from Jason Todd prompt challenge? Sorry to bother u. I love ur blog (The prompts were Jason being Jealous of the reader and Dick and the reader being jealous of Jason and Kori)

Warnings: Language 

Part One/ Part Two

Jason Todd had been a friend of yours before you had even become a superhero. You met him after he had become Red Hood while he was doing an undercover mission at the bar you worked at. The two of you became quick friends and it didn’t take long for you to figure out who he really was. Though you thought what he did was cool and noble, you never really saw yourself doing it. Some people were cut out for staying up all night exchanging bullets with the criminal underworld and some weren’t. You didn’t think you were cut out for that kind of life. Of course, there were all types of ways to be a superhero and you ended up finding that out the hard way. Being a vigilante didn’t fit well for you, but apparently being a Green Lantern did. At least that’s what everyone told you after the ring had dragged you halfway across the galaxy. From then on, you found yourself doing a lot of things you wouldn’t have even dreamed of; one such thing being assisting Jason’s brother Dick on a mission.

Getting the call from Nightwing was surprising, but it wasn’t the first time you had been asked to assist another hero. Jason had done it plenty of times under the guise of “extra training” when he needed back up or wanted you to use your ring to help with something. If you hadn’t known him as well you might have gotten angry that he was using your powers for his own gain. Unfortunately, you’d known him long enough to have asked for the Red Hood’s help enough times to allow him the freedom of using you in the same way. Karma really could be a bitch sometimes.

Despite not having any experience working with Dick or in Bludhaven, you knew him well enough had been bored with life between your own missions so you suited up, charged your ring and went out. Dick was working on a case where alien technology was involved, so he wanted help from someone who was more familiar with it. Of course, being a close friend of Jason and a nosey person in general, you knew Kori and you knew they had a thing going on. Why he'd asked for your help instead of hers was intriguing to say the least and the question burned in the back of your mind  for most of the mission until he finally decided to bring it up.

“So um. Besides this mission, I kind of need your help with something,” he said while you were travelling to your next destination. Your ring allowed you to fly on your own, but you didn’t feel like dealing with Dick travelling across rooftops so you made a small plane construct for Dick to ride in. It was a lot quicker and made it easier to talk to each other.

“And what would that be?” You slowed your own speed, trailing parallel to the construct to better hear him over the sound of wind in your ears. Dick leaned onto the front of the plane, his hair flying away from his mask and exposing the entirety of his face. His eyes were covered by his mask, but you could still read most of his expression. He seemed nervous, biting his lip as he figured out what he wanted to say.

“It’s kind of dumb, but I needed help with something with Starfire.”

“Okay? You’re starting to freak me out with this cryptic shit,” you responded.

“Well I've been trying to figure out what we are for the longest time but she really doesn't seem like she wants to be in a relationship. So I asked her about it and we got into a huge fight because I said I wanted to have an actual relationship and she wanted to keep things the way they are. So I said, fine but if you don’t want to take this seriously, then neither will I.” You paused, eyes wandering away from his face as you though then returning with a confused look.

“...so, because you wanted a more serious relationship…you broke up?”

“I don’t know, there isn’t anything to really break up since we apparently aren’t that serious. I want to be with her and all, I just wish she would...you know, think me as more than a dick appointment.” He paused, seeing you quirk a smile at his choice of words, and sighed. “No pun intended.”

“Okay, so what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to help me make her jealous.”

“Me? She will kick. My. Ass. I've only been a Green Lantern for like half a year, I couldn't take her in a fight.” You turned suddenly so that you were facing him, slowing to an almost complete stop. “Not only that, but trying to make her jealous? That’s kind of fucked up.”

“I won’t let it go that far, I just want to do something to find out if she cares about me as much as I care about her. I know it’s a shitty thing to do, but I don’t think she realizes how it feels to not know where we stand.” You were quiet, turning around again and guiding you to the location you needed to go for your mission and deconstructing the plane once Dick had stepped out of it. “I just really need someone to help with this and you’re the best candidate.”

“Why?”

“You just got into this whole hero circle so it wouldn't be completely insane for us to be flirting. We’re kind of in similar circles and you’re obviously not bad looking.”

“Oh haha, you're so funny,” you retorted. Even though you were still teasing each other, you were actually thinking about his proposal. He was right that Kori would likely not get angry enough to fight you, but it was kind of odd. His intentions were good but you had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

“I know we’re not that close and all, but I feel like I’m running out of options. If you’re not comfortable with it, it’s fine though. I can ask someone else or find another way.”

“You know what? Fine, if this blows up it'll be in your face so I don't have that much to lose.” Dick broke into a grin at your agreement to help him and you rolled your eyes.

“Absolutely, if Kori really does get mad, I’ll tell her it was all me. And if it doesn’t work and whatever sliver of a relationship I had is ruined, at least I can say I made a new friend.”

“I’m glad you’re making jokes to cope with this, because that’s more than likely what’s going to happen.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Dick responded. He turned to walk away, but suddenly faced you again. “Oh, and don’t mention this to Jason. I know you guys are close but he’s also close with Kori and I don’t want him to ruin the plan.”

“You do realize we started sharing an apartment like a month ago, right?” You narrowed your eyes at him, crossing your arms over your chest. Maybe you should have just told him to find someone else. Jason was now your closest friend and lying to him didn’t feel right; even if it was to help his brother out.

“Yes, but it’ll be fine. We’ll let him believe it with Star for a while until the plan is done. Then, you can tell him and laugh about how dumb this is.”

After a moment of heavy thought, you finally sighed in defeat. “...Alright, I guess that's fair.”

“So you’re in?”

“Yeah, I’m in.

Dick had apparently thought everything through before he even asked for your help. He wanted to start off small with random video chats while he was at the Titan’s Tower and inviting you over to hang out with him when he knew Kori would be there. You didn’t put much thought into it because the plan wasn’t really yours, so you weren’t even sure it was working. He wasn’t doing much outside of hanging out and talking to you more. When he asked you to help make Kori jealous, you thought he would be acting overly flirtatious, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Whatever it was, you were at least glad you didn’t have to do much either. The only real indication that anything was different came a few days in when Jason brought it up.  

It was a lazy day where both of you were relaxing after going through hell doing Red Hood and Green Lantern work respectively. Jason was sitting in an armchair opposite to you in sweat pants and a plain t-shirt while you reclined on the couch in your own pajamas. Dick had been texting you back and forth for a while since you had gotten home and you were laughing at the dumb things he’d been talking about. Despite the whole situation, Dick was actually pretty fun to talk to. If he didn’t end up dead in a ditch, you’d be glad to keep up a friendship with him. It was while the thought had crossed your mind that Jason suddenly spoke up.

“I heard that you and Nightwing have been working together a lot…” You looked up, seeing Jason glancing at you over his book. His eyes remained on the page, but he was waiting on a response from you as he read.  The fact that he even knew about it surprised you, so when he spoke you had to take a moment to find a response.

“Yeah, I guess we have.” Jason didn’t react much besides nodding at first, so you thought he was done with it. He seemed to not care much about the whole thing other than being curious as he continued to stare down at the pages in his book. Then, he surprised you again by pressing a bit further into his inquiry.

“I didn’t know you two were that close.”

“Well we weren’t, but he asked me to help him on a case and we’ve been talking a lot since then.” You watched Jason carefully. He seemed like he wanted to say something more, but he was biting his tongue. You wondered just how much Kori had told him and what Dick had been doing on his end. Having the effects of his plan ripple into your house was a bit unnerving, but you kept your promise to Dick not to say anything to Jason. He seemed fairly nonchalant about it, so you didn’t think too much about him asking you. The only thing that worried you was that Dick’s plan might interfere with your own relationships, but that seemed to not be the case. At least that was what you thought.

He may have looked cool as a cucumber to you, but he was internally fuming. Kori had only told him about your relationship with Dick the night before and he was even angrier a day later than he had been when he first learned of it. It took so much willpower to come off as nonchalant mentioning it to you that he could have been a lantern himself. His anger was pretty much boiling inside him, but he refused to let it show. Instead, he stuck to playing it cool, using the book as a way to keep from losing it. In all honesty, he had been planning to read from it to calm himself down a bit, but he ended up reading the same page over and over again because he was distracted. Distracted by you smiling and laughing at text messages that were likely coming from his brother.  

Denial was his first thought when he found out, thinking there must have been some kind of misunderstanding. Maybe that’s why it didn’t piss him off as much. It wasn’t until he noticed the shift in your behavior that it really sunk in as real. It wasn’t a lot, but he knew you well enough to know that something was different. Especially the way that you spent much more time on your phone. He didn’t have to see your phone to know who you were texting and the thought alone made him want to throw his book out the window.

What did he think he was doing?

First, he has a huge fight with Kori and now he decides to reach out and start flirting with you? He knew Dick had a bit of a reputation, but this was just ridiculous. And of all people, he had to start talking to Y/N. One of his best friends and his roommate. It was so out of the blue that Jason had no idea what to do with all this sudden anger. He didn’t want to talk to you about it because that might end up in an argument. It really wasn’t his business to be telling you who to talk to and Jason knew that. Still, he couldn’t just turn off his feelings. He was angry and whether or not it was warranted, he had to do something about it or at least get more information before he started freaking out.

Not long after Jason had asked you about Dick, you found yourself being dragged further into the mess again. Just as you were heading into the kitchen to prepare lunch for yourself, your phone rang and drew your attention away from the refrigerator. The caller ID read “BIG Richard” and was followed by a slew of eggplant emojis. Initially you had it set to Little Richard to be funny, but Dick had seen it and changed it himself immediately. Cracking a small smile, you answered his call and pressed the phone to your ear.

“Y/N, is Jason at home right now?” You hummed in thought at his question, doing a quick walkthrough of your apartment to check and see if he was out. After you’d looked around you responded to Dick, telling him that Jason wasn’t at home.

“I thought so. Kori’s gone too and I heard her talking about the outlaws with Beast Boy on her way out. They must be out on a mission together.”

“Wow, you really are a detective.”

Dick ignored your sarcastic comment and questioned you again. “You said they come by your apartment after missions sometimes, right?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Jason didn’t take much from his room when I checked so it’s probably not a long one.”

“Okay then, I’m coming over.”

“Seriously? They probably won’t even come here.”

“Maybe not, but at least you’ll be in my incredible company.”

“Do we really have to do this at my house? Jason’s been acting weird about it already.” It wasn’t noticeable at first, but he was certainly acting differently. He seemed less apt to talk to you and was in a bad mood fairly often. You didn’t want to think it had been because of everything going on with Dick but it couldn’t have been a coincidence.

“Oh trust me, I know. He told me off about it the other day.” You paused what you were doing, at this.  

“Wait, he did? What did he say?”

“He asked me to meet up with him and he was asking if we were dating. I brushed it off and just said we were talking, but he actually got mad about it.”

“Did you tell him it’s not real?”

“Of course not, that would ruin everything. I just told him we’re both adults and can make our own choices.”

“Well that explains his shitty attitude.” You hesitated, chewing your lip as you leaned against the kitchen counter. “Did he say why he was so pissed off?”

“No, but I can probably guess why. I just hope this is working as well on Kori as it is on him.” You chose not to ask him to elaborate more, instead opting to focus on him instead. This wasn’t about you and the thoughts that were starting to form in your mind were just going to be trouble in the long run. It was better to just let it go and worry about what was going on in the present.

“Let’s hope not for your sake,” you replied. Dick laughed at your response and ended the call, letting you know he was on his way. You agreed and said you’d set up something for you both to do, but you couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling in your chest.

Dick was at your apartment for hours before anyone came back. To pass time, you’d been watching random tv and relaxing on your couch together with pretty much all of the snacks you’d been hiding in your room. You were sitting on either side of the couch with your legs crossed over the middle and tossing popcorn back and forth, trying to catch it in your mouths when the front door opened. Dick shot you a sudden look and you almost choked laughing at his expression.  

There was chatter coming from the entrance so you knew Jason wasn’t alone. You were already shaking your head, knowing that Dick’s plan had worked and you weren’t going to hear the end of his “genius” for at least a full 24 hours. Unfortunately, you were going to be seeing the results up close and personal instead of through dramatic retellings via phone.

Roy was the first one to notice the two of you in the living room. Well, he saw the snacks more precisely and wasted no time in leaping over the couch and stealing some. It was then that Jason and Kori noticed that Dick was there with you. They had already changed out of their costumes and Roy smelled like alcohol and cigarettes so they likely had gone out somewhere after they were done with their mission. You could already sense the tension in the room, so you busied yourself with saving your snacks from Roy’s greedy hands.

“Oh come on, you can share some of this with your guests!” He protested, trying to keep you from taking the bag of candy he’d taken.

“Yeah, some. Not the whole bag. Give it back, Harper!” Roy laughed when you lunged at him and Dick balanced the popcorn on his arm away from the couch so that it wouldn't spill everywhere while you were fighting for your snacks. Roy was another hero you were well acquainted with as he often came by and stayed with Jason when he was in town. He hadn’t crashed overnight at your new apartment yet, but he came by often enough.

“Would you two fight away from the food so you don’t ruin it all!” Dick kicked at Roy, who fell to the floor in front of the couch with a dull thump. He laughed, adjusting into a sitting position between the couch and coffee table where he stole candy from another bag.

“Oh I’m sorry, am I disturbing date night?”

“No, but you are disturbing the peace and I’ll send your ass flying to Metropolis if you don’t cut it out!” You heard shuffling behind you and turned to see what the others had been doing while Roy was stealing food. Kori was walking around into your kitchen while Jason had paused near the entrance and was staring at Dick with narrowed eyes. Before you could say anything, he was talking.

“Dick, can I talk to you for a minute?” You looked back at him with raised eyebrows, and he gave you a quick smile before agreeing and hopping over the couch. Roy was quick to take his spot and the bowl of popcorn he’d left in his wake while they disappeared down the hallway to your rooms.

“Want any snacks, Kori? There’s a bunch here,” you called out, trying to relieve some of the awkwardness from the situation.

“Oh so you offer her snacks but when it’s me you snatch them away like a little gremlin?”

“Yes, because she didn’t run over here like a wild animal to steal them,” you said, returning Roy’s glare with one of your own. Kori came around with a smile, laughing at Roy’s face and looking over the selection of foods on your table. She sat down between the two of you, picking out something she liked and crossing her legs onto the couch.

“How was the mission?”

“Way easier than we thought it would be,” Roy responded simply.

“Which means boring,” Kori added. The three of you sat together and talked for a while, falling into an easy conversation. You were glad that even though Dick had you wrapped up in his little scheme that you were still cool with Kori and your friendship was fine. At this point, you kind of wished the whole thing was over so you didn’t have to worry about it anymore. Of course, things were never that easy.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Jason returned to the living room, his entire stance changed. It was easy to tell he was pissed off by the way he walked and Dick followed behind him, not looking much better. You hadn’t heard anything but they’d clearly gotten into an argument while the rest of you were chatting.  Jason had thrown his jacket back on while Dick was watching him with a furious gaze.

“Come on, Kori,” he said. You raised your eyebrows, glancing at her as she looked over the back of the seat with as much confusion as you held.

“Why?”

“Because,” Jason said, glancing at Dick, who was still fuming. “We have a date.”

Tag List

@jason-todd-rh @chidroichan-blog @queen-fighter @hyp-oh-critical @roseangel013bf

[narkinafive]

THE 5K WORD UPDATE

WOO

i always forget that 5k words is actually like. 20 pp double spaced. that’s weird and wack. anyway

as always read and critique as u will 🎈

Few franchises can match the breadth of Star Wars, and fewer still can claim to be as iconic. Not only have the characters, dialogues, settings, and aesthetics been directly referenced and lovingly parodied across all genres, so too has John Williams’ music. Yet Williams’ music is perhaps most referenced, riffed on, and remixed within the franchise itself; it is difficult to find a piece of Star Wars media which does not contain any number of Williams’ leitmotifs, such as the bombastic “Main Title” fanfare, the sweeping majesty of the Force theme, or the foreboding, villainous “Imperial March.” Within the many, many Star Wars related properties that require the use of music, composers for the franchise’s “lower tier” [properties], i.e. any property outside of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” are presented with a difficult challenge: how does one emulate and reference Williams’ original, titanic score, keeping a coherent sonic aesthetic, without copying him directly, and allowing space for the composer’s own musical language? 

[Williams score vs typical scifi musical conventions recap]

“Traditionally, music for the sci-fi genre would use a language inspired by twentieth-century musical modernism-atonalism, twelve-tone technique, aleatoric music, and so forth-or would use electronic instruments, timbres, or even musique concrete to provide the musical equivalent of futuristic or hyper technological worlds… Stanley Kubrick in [2001: A Space Odyssey] chose to combine images of deep space and unseen worlds with a compilation of repertoire orchestral pieces--after having rudely rejected Alex North’s original score. The selection spanned from classic pieces like Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, 1896) and Johann Strauss Jr.’s The Blue Danube (An der schonen blauen Donau, op. 314, 1866) to contemporary art music like Gyorgy Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna (1966), Atmospheres (1961), Requiem (1963-65), and Adventures (1962)... Yet Kubrick’s choice was also the consequence of a lack of trust in film composers. ‘However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brhams. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music from the past and from our own time?’ Lucas rejected the modernist and electronic options and chose Kubrick’s approach. He wrote the script while listening to the late romantic symphony repertoire…”

[cont’d]

The larger Star Wars chronology can be broken into three general eras: the Original Trilogy era (OT), which focuses on the time represented by the films A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Rogue One, the Sequel Trilogy era (ST), which is comprised of the films The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the TV series Star Wars: Resistance, and the Prequel Trilogy era (PT), as represented by the films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Solo, as well as the TV series The Clone Wars. Of these properties, Williams has obviously scored the lion’s share of the films; Rogue One’s soundtrack was composed by Michael Giacchino, Resistance by Michael Tavera, Solo by John Powell, and The Clone Wars by Kevin Kiner. Kiner’s other work for Star Wars was the score of another TV series, Star Wars Rebels. Rebels occupies an interesting place within the greater Star Wars chronology, qualifying as a prequel due to taking place before the events of A New Hope, yet both aesthetically and narratively more aligned with the OT, rather than the PT. Though Rebels is nominally a prequel, Kiner’s musical language sets it firmly within the OT era, with frequent sonic callbacks to Williams’ score, with each aesthetic connection serving not only to link the viewer to the OT era, but also, through its absences and deviations, highlight the narrative differences between Rebels and the original films. This is particularly exemplified in the parallels and contrasts between the heroes of Rebels and the OT, Ezra Bridger, and Luke Skywalker.

From the outset, several contrasts and parallels can be drawn between Ezra Bridger and Luke Skywalker: both are orphans from provincial areas of the galaxy, both are accidentally caught up in insurrectionist rebel activity against the Empire, and both discover that they can wield the powers of the Force. They are even roughly the same age, born within days of each other. Contrasts do abound, however. Ezra receives several years of Jedi training from a former Jedi, while Luke receives very little; Ezra is actively involved with the Rebellion from the beginning, while Luke steps in at the last second to secure one of the Alliance’s largest victories; Ezra’s primary motif is connected to the twin moons of his home planet of Lothal - this, in contrast to the famous scene of Luke Skywalker gazing into the twin sunset of his planet of Tatooine; and so on. Even their character designs are oppositional; Luke is very white, blond-haired and blue-eyed, an exceptional pilot, but somewhat naive when it comes to the rougher parts of the galaxy, while Ezra is coded as Jewish or Middle Eastern (his parents’ names are Ephraim and Mira--this, along with his large nose, points to a certain ethnic origin. Mira, in flashbacks, even wears a headscarf, and is one of the few human women in the larger Star Wars universe to do so), with dark hair and darker skin, has never flown in a ship in his entire life, and is well-acquainted with the less savory aspects of growing up homeless and alone in the Empire. When it comes to their roles in the Rebellion, though, both Luke and Ezra initially start their adventures with the promise of Jedi training, and find themselves drawn in to the major political and martial action of the Galactic Civil War. 

Set five years before the events of A New Hope, the backdrop of Rebels depicts the formal declaration of the Galactic Alliance, the establishment of the famous rebel base on the planet of Yavin IV, and numerous references to the secret construction of the Death Star, alongside several integral character cameos, including Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, and Obi-wan Kenobi, while the main thrust of the story centers on the crew of the Ghost, an early rebel cell, and the journey of its newest crew member, Ezra Bridger. Described by Dave Filoni, Executive Producer and creator of Rebels, as a con artist, and Taylor Gray, the character’s actor, as a [street smart thief], Ezra happens upon the crew of the Ghost as they commit a minor act of terrorism against the Galactic Empire, stealing several crates of supplies. Rather than pick a side in the conflict, Ezra elects to steal a crate of the same supplies for himself, outrunning the comedically incompetent Imperial police force, and dodging the members of the Ghost crew as they try to get the supplies back, until Ezra is forced to seek refuge on the Ghost to escape the marginally more competent TIE figher pilots. After helping the crew in distributing the supplies - namely, food - to a nearby refugee camp, Ezra is convinced by the Ghost’s pilot and leader, Hera Syndulla, to assist in a rescue mission. Despite his initial capture and subsequent escape from Imperial custody, Ezra chooses to see the rescue mission through to the end, and witnesses the Ghost’s second-in-command, Kanan Jarrus, wield a lightsaber, revealing himself as a survivor of the presumed-extinct and quasi-legendary Jedi Order. Recognizing that Ezra has the same gift as him, Kanan offers to train him to wield the Force in order to continue fighting against the Empire, dispelling any notion that the Jedi are gone with a triumphant declaration, “Not all of us.” Ezra agrees, and thus begins their partnership which will last for the next four years, as Kanan, who never technically made it past the rank of apprentice, passes on his fragmented training, and they both become more and more deeply entwined with the Rebellion. 

Luke’s introduction to the Rebel Alliance is equally accidental, though one can argue that it was ordained by the Force, or a similar higher power. When his uncle and adoptive father Owen purchases a pair of droids for the farm, Luke discovers a secret message hidden within one of them: Princess Leia’s plea to a mysterious Obi-wan Kenobi for aid. Luke’s first instinct is to help her, seeking out the reclusive loner Ben Kenobi for more information--with the added gratification of disobeying his uncle, who is currently keeping him tied to the family farm, and will not let him leave the planet. When the Empire, inevitably, comes looking for its stolen property--stolen Imperial secrets hidden within one of the droids--Luke is too late to warn his aunt and uncle, and finds his homestead burned to the ground. Grief stricken and alone, Luke begs Obi-wan to take him with him to Alderaan, in order to learn how to be a Jedi like his mysterious father. After hiring smuggler Han Solo to take them to Alderaan, they instead find the Death Star, and Luke convinces Han to mount a daring, ill-planned rescue of the Princess. While they do rescue Leia, they lose Obi-wan as he stalls the Imperials, buying them time to escape. Thoughts of becoming a Jedi are pushed to the background as Luke volunteers to be a part of the attack on the Death Star, despite Han’s insistence that he should take his cut of the money and run. Up against a behemoth of a killing machine, it is Luke and his superhuman abilities which allow him to fire the shot which destroys the Death Star and everybody on it, immediately cementing him as not only a hero, but the hero, from both a Doylist and a Watsonian perspective. 

These parallels are further underscored by their respective musical motifs. Consider Luke’s theme, the “Main Title” fanfare. In the words of Williams himself, from the liner notes of the original 1977 LP release: 

When I thought of a theme for Luke and his adventures, I composed a melody that reflected the brassy, bold, masculine, and noble qualities I saw in the character. When the theme is played softly, I tended towards a softer brass sound. But I used fanfarish horns for the more heraldic passages. This theme, in particular, brings out the full glow of the glorious brass section of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Comprised primarily of perfect intervals, the theme begins with an ascending fifth, an opening salvo so famous that music students everywhere, yours truly included, use it to identify perfect fifths in other contexts. As Lucas notes, the principal instrumentation is in the brass section, immediately conferring an old-world heroic air to Luke. [SWO hero’s journey quote]. [insert sheet music here, recap] As a theme, it is punchy, energetic, deliberately and intrinsically tied up in the “Rebel Fanfare,” and generally underscores moments of onscreen heroism and valiant derring-do. 

By contrast, while Ezra’s theme is also played by the horns, they are muted, thinner, ringing out more softly over shimmering, sustained strings. [insert sheet music here, recap] Ezra’s theme mostly serves to underscore the character’s moments of emotional reflection, rather than his superhuman action, which is usually accompanied by the “Force” theme, the “Rebel Fanfare,” or the Ghost’s musical motif. 

Luke’s theme in its first non-diegetic appearance, that is, its first appearance outside of the main titles, is a little different than one would expect; the melody is still a solo, but played in the horns rather than the trumpets, with a lighter, less brash underlying harmonization. Instead of an alternating [rest - quarter - rest - quarter - triplet - triplet] pattern, the rhythm is much simpler, with chord bursts on the second and fourth beats. [insert sheet music] Steven Galipeau, in his analysis of Luke Skywalker as a modern myth, writes of this narrative moment, “We meet [Luke] as a discouraged, frustrated young man stuck on his uncle’s farm, dreaming of going to the galaxy space academy with many of his friends. As he goes with his uncle to meet the Jawa sand trawler and the droids they bring, his aunt calls out his name: ‘Luke! Luke!’ The music and sequence immediately set him apart.” Simple, full of youthful energy, this moment is an aural demonstration of Luke at the beginning of his journey. He is not yet the hero of the Rebellion, nor the famed last of the Jedi; he is simply Luke, whose primary goal at this moment in the narrative is to leave his little hometown, by any means possible. Furthermore, beyond being the first narrative iteration of the title fanfare, it is the first recognizable melody in quite some time. While the audience is treated to several recognizable motifs in the opening sequence, such as Princess Leia’s theme, the Rebel Fanfare, and the original theme for Darth Vader and the Empire (the Imperial March would not be introduced until the next film in the sequence, Empire Strikes Back), the music of the sequence of the droids wandering across the desert is highly reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; Lucas even used Stravinsky as a temporary score during the editing process. Famous for inciting a riot in the streets of Paris at its premiere, the Rite of Spring, and by extension, Williams’ scoring of this scene, is strange and almost frightening, meandering and unmoored--perfect for representing the precarious journey of the droids, but difficult to recognize as a melody in the traditional sense. The return to standard melodic form also functions as an auditory notice, as it were, to the audience, politely calling attention to the arrival of the protagonist. 

The first iteration of Ezra’s theme plays as he observes the crew of the Ghost handing out food supplies to a group of poverty-stricken refugees who live in a small cluster of ramshackle tents, named “Tarkintown” in universe, clearly a reference to the Hoovervilles of the 1930s. One refugee thanks Ezra directly for his efforts, putting a hand on his shoulder, but walks off before Ezra can weakly admit that he actually had no part in this. Deeply affected by this refugee’s actions, he retreats out of the village, and watches the Ghost crew and the villagers from afar. His whole world has clearly been shaken by the events of the day so far, and he is taking time to process them all; rather than abscond with the supplies stolen from Imperials, the crew of the Ghost chooses to give most of them away (though a crate of weapons is sold to a shady businessman for income). Ezra’s first instinct had been to sell them himself, to any number of the black market dealers with which he has become familiar growing up. Of the many confusing aspects of this situation, one thing which must be puzzling him is why the crew had even offered him refuge on their ship. Surely if they were like any other thief or smuggler, they would have left him behind to be killed by the TIE Fighter pilot, either as a punishment for stealing the crates in the first place, or simply to get him out of the way. (Later, he will be even more shocked that they turn around to rescue him from an Imperial Star Destroyer, one of the Empire’s largest and most heavily guarded space vessels, despite having accidentally left him behind earlier in their haste to escape.) Now, however, this emotional confusion, coupled with a handy tug from the Force, compels him to sneak aboard the Ghost and snoop, where he stumbles on Kanan’s lightsaber and holocron, a treasure trove of Jedi information that only Jedi can open, which he promptly steals. 

Similarly to the example above, this moment cements Ezra’s place as the protagonist of the series. It arrives more than fifteen minutes into the episode, the bulk of which had been taken up by instances of Williams’ motifs; the Imperial March, the TIE Fighter theme, and the Rebel Fanfare are quite prominent in the first fifteen minutes, while Kiner’s most prominent theme is his theme for the Ghost crew, as its old members size up its eventual new one. In a flurry of exciting motifs that recall the thrilling spaceflight chases of the OT, the slowness and pensiveness of Ezra’s theme, in contrast to the previous ones, also brings the audience’s attention to the forefront. The musical change signals a similar change in mood, content, and focus, from heroic action to emotional reflection. Indeed, this is the first truly character driven moment of the series, and the first moment of an onscreen character struggle, as Ezra tries to reconcile the altruism he has just seen with the cynicism he has known for his entire life. 

[better setup] In the middle of his rescue of Princess Leia, Luke and Leia, separated from Han and Obi-wan and on the run from a pack of Stormtroopers, nearly run off the edge of a platform into a bottomless pit. With a genius move straight from a swashbuckling pirate film, Luke throws a rope across and swings him and Leia to the safety of the other ledge of the hallway. The accompanying motif is appropriately heroic, 

Ezra was born on “Empire Day,” the day that the Clone Wars were ended and the Galactic Empire was declared by Palpatine, formerly Senator, then Chancellor, and now Emperor. (It was that same day that the Emperor launched his assault on the Jedi Order, wiping nearly all of them out in one overwhelming blow. Incidentally, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were born two days later.) For Ezra, Empire Day comes with its own baggage--this day is also the anniversary of his parents’ arrest for treason, which left him homeless and alone. This Empire Day, however, Ezra is not alone, but instead has joined up with a rebel cell determined to cause some mayhem and headaches for the Imperial occupiers. With Imperials distracted by preparations for a local parade, and their search for a particular Imperial data-worker named Tseebo, Ezra and the rebels happily ruin the parade, and, while hiding in the abandoned apartment which used to be Ezra’s childhood home, discover Tseebo already there. Tseebo was, by Ezra’s admission, a friend of his parents, though Ezra himself wants nothing to do with Tseebo now, who “went to work for the Empire, after they took my parents away.” (While it is left intentionally vague, there is a distinct possibility that Tseebo had a hand in his parents’ arrest and imprisonment.) In the years since, Tseebo has allowed himself to be implanted with cybernetic enhancements by the Empire in order to increase his productivity, before downloading several caches of Imperial secrets, and attempting to flee. With all of the information in his head, Tseebo is little more than catatonic, able to walk and spout random information, but not truly understanding what is going on around him--until some turbulence aboard the Ghost appears to knock him back into consciousness. Seeing and recognizing Ezra, and perhaps knowing that he has a limited amount of time, Tseebo frantically tries to tell Ezra that he knows what happened to his parents, who he had presumed to be dead all this time. Sadly, Tseebo cannot remain lucid for very long, and Ezra must go and help draw the pursuing Imperials off of their tail, in order to get Tseebo to Hera’s rebel operative, the mysterious Fulcrum. Ezra will not discover the true fate of his parents for some time; at this point, however, he claims it is merely a moot point, telling crewmate Sabine, “I've been on my own since I was seven, okay? If I'd let myself believe my folks were alive, if I let myself believe they'd come back and save me, I'd never have learned how to survive.” 

The arrest of his parents was clearly a traumatic event for Ezra, one he, truthfully, hasn’t processed until the events of this episode. Part of a Jedi’s training is learning to deal with one’s emotions in a healthy manner; Ezra, who refused to believe the possibility that his parents were alive, finds himself blocked, unable to tap into or use the Force beyond small bursts of instinctual panic, until he tearfully admits his fear that they may still be out there, and have been for all these years, to Kanan. Open to the Force, in battle with the Imperials, Ezra demonstrates the beginnings of his remarkable skill in connection, particularly with animals and other creatures, until, backed into a corner, he uses the Dark Side in order to summon a monster. With the Imperials beaten back, and Tseebo safely in the hands of the rebels, Sabine finds Ezra ruminating over the days’ events in one of the ship’s turrets, events which have shifted the galaxy on its axis, upping the stakes and changing the characters’ views of each other permanently. Sabine, who had previously treated Ezra as something of an irritating stranger with a misplaced crush, finds a kindred spirit in him as someone who has had their family torn apart by the Empire. For his belated birthday present, she gives him a data-disc which she had picked up while hiding in his childhood home; on it, amidst all the other corrupted data, is an old family photo of his. Too grateful for words, Ezra barely even notices her leave, his attention fixed on the image, as the camera exits the ship, zooming away as the Ghost heads off towards parts unknown, and his musical motif resounding in a full, stately, horn chorus. [insert sheet music]

In a pair of episodes chock full of this motif, [insert count here], this iteration in particular stands out from the rest. Firstly, it is clear that this final iteration is meant to be louder than the others, at least a mezzo-forte rather than a mezzo-piano; secondly, all the voices are working together in a moment of greater homophony, instead of a single voice over an aesthetic accompaniment. These changes, in part, reflect Ezra’s newfound awareness of his own feelings regarding the disappearance of his parents. Rather than shame, which causes him to hide and suppress his emotions as he has done his entire life, he admits his fear and overcomes it, and he lets his joy and happiness at seeing the photo come out fully, rather than trying to save face in front of his peers and continue to keep playing the part of carefree, scrappy, ne’er-do-well. It is a turning point in several ways, both narratively and musically; from this moment on, Ezra will begin making leaps and bounds in his Jedi education, going on to construct his own weapon in the next episode. 

[Luke example - death star run?]

[fix this part lmao] Sadly, Ezra’s quest to find his parents ends in tragedy. When a Force-inspired dream pushes him [find his parents again?], Kanan and Hera reveal that they have been trying to do the same for months. Ezra’s parents, according to Tseebo, were arrested and taken to an Imperial prison--one of thousands--somewhere in the galaxy, though soon after, news comes from the Rebel leadership of a prison break; guided by the Force, Ezra is certain that the prison break was orchestrated by his parents. Brimming with excitement and pursuing this new lead with a mildly alarming doggedness, Ezra returns to Lothal to find Ryder Azadi, the former governor of the planet, and friend of his parents. Azadi, a Rebel sympathizer, allowed the Bridgers to make their anti-Imperial broadcasts, and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned with them. Ezra, again, perhaps guided by the Force, seems to know what has happened before it is even said; though Mira and Ephraim did orchestrate the prison break, they perished in the attempt. His mourning spills into the next episode, where he and Kanan have to devise a way to get new supplies to the Rebellion without alerting the Empire to their covert benefactor’s identity--who is none other than Leia Organa, in a cameo appearance. Leia finds Ezra quietly crying over the photo of his parents that Sabine had saved for him. His musical motif this time is in the strings, not the horns, and loops repeatedly. 

[Ezra’s journey from start to finish recap] Initially, Ezra joins the Rebellion not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is convenient to him at the time; the Ghost functions as a roof over his head, its crew members as a new set of parents and siblings, and its missions as a source of food and income, along with the added bonus of learning how to use an incredibly powerful, specialized weapon, despite the target it paints on his back. Filoni himself states [need src] that Ezra decides to join the Ghost not only to learn how to use a lightsaber, but because he is in need of a family, having lost his own parents at the age of seven, when they were arrested for their underground, anti-establishment radio broadcasts. Ezra’s larger journey over the course of Rebels is re-learning how to think beyond himself, and learning what needs to be done for the greater good of this fight against tyranny to which he has dedicated himself, not just the good of his family and friends--but, as one would expect, at the very beginning of his story, he is far more selfish than selfless. It is more than halfway into the first season before Ezra begins to truly comprehend the Jedi lessons Kanan has attempted to teach him, beyond lifting rocks with his mind, as he finally admits and begins to face his fears while in the middle of a vision quest (presided over by the disembodied voice of Master Yoda). Over the course of the series, Ezra has frequent, deep brushes with the “Dark Side” of the Force, becoming more inclined to fight, hurt, or even kill in the name of pragmatism and gaining victories for the Rebel Alliance. [more]

This is not to say that Kiner never chooses to use Ezra’s theme in a heroic context. Most notably, in the series finale, Ezra’s theme plays triumphantly over his great sacrifice, as Ezra summons enormous, semi-legendary whale creatures called the Purrgil, to destroy the Imperial blockade over Lothal, and spirit away the remaining ships to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, with both Thrawn and Ezra still on board. From a Doylist perspective, Ezra, of course, would have to sacrifice himself in some manner, to explain his absence in the events of the original trilogy; Yoda on his deathbed tells Luke, “When gone am I, the last of the Jedi you will be,” leaving, unfortunately, no room for any other scrappy young Jedi in the galaxy, lest the entire narrative of the OT fall apart. It was inevitable that both Kanan and Ezra would have to vanish, though while Kanan died, Ezra merely disappeared, with Filoni confirming that both he and Thrawn are alive, somewhere off the edge of the map. It’s a fitting moment for his theme to return; a far cry from his introduction to the viewer as a scrappy street rat, Ezra has fully come into his own as a Jedi, and understands the role that he plays in the greater drama of the Rebellion, happily and willingly letting himself be taken out of the game in order to save his planet, and the victorious music confirms it. His journey has transformed him, and his music, from shy and unsure to confident and powerful, though the core remains the same.

In the latter half of 2019, several new Star Wars properties are set to launch, including the video game Jedi: Fallen Order, the seventh season of the revived Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show, and, of course, the ninth and final film in the so-called “Skywalker Saga,” Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Each of the listed properties’ accompanying trailers, with music scored by Gordy Haab, Stephen Barton, and BLAKUS, composers for the video game Star Wars: Battlefront II, Kiner, and Williams, respectively, have one shocking thing in common: the “Main Fanfare” theme is nowhere to be found. In the trailer for Jedi: Fallen Order, Haab’s score is much more reminiscent of Alan Silvestre’s Marvel’s Avengers in its melody and harmony than anything else. 

[sheet music examples]

Though there are two instances of Williams’ themes in the score, they are both short and incomplete; we hear a somber and foreboding four notes of “The Imperial March” as the protagonist gazes anxiously at his broken weapon, and we hear just the beginnings of the Force theme as the title of the game is revealed, though the theme is reharmonized in order to blend with what will doubtless become the protagonist’s own leitmotif. Similarly, in the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, Williams chooses to only incorporate one of his themes, “Princess Leia’s Theme,” with splendid, yearning sixth intervals over long, drawn out horn crashes, partially as an homage to the late Carrie Fisher, and partially due to Leia Organa’s rumored key role in the film itself. For The Clone Wars season seven trailer, Kiner does not use any of Williams’ original score; instead, the trailer begins with the theme he created for the breakout character of the show, Ahsoka Tano, before moving into entirely his own new material. 

Though the so-called “Skywalker Saga” is ending, Disney has planned nearly another decade’s worth of Star Wars content in the form of spin-off titles, television series, games, books, comics - any and every medium imaginable, and there are currently no signs that production is slowing down. Perhaps it is inevitable, then, that all traces of Luke Skywalker, visual, narrative, and musical, are disappearing from the greater Star Wars landscape as the universe continues to expand and include new protagonists and stories. Die-hard fans will of course decry this as an attack on a precious childhood memory, as they do for any piece of Star Wars media released after 1998. [Kiner demonstrates it’s possible to have the best of both worlds] 

****SWIV “Imperial Attack” repurposed for SWR “Gathering Forces”

“Ezra’a Theme” “The Desert and the Robot Auction”

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-wars-composer-kevin-kiner-on-following-in-john-williams-galactic-footsteps

[iliketowrite1996]

My Eyes Deceive Me (It’s still the same)

TRIGGER WARNINGS AND THEMES- ‘Depression, loss of relationship, if you have not seen Infinity War do not read this.

Being an Avenger can be hard, and it can be even harder on those that we love.

Our hero has just learned that the hard way.

Purposefully did not pick a name so that you can imagine any Marvel Avenger or hero.

’What would you do? What would you say?

How does it feel? Pretend it's OK

My eyes deceive me, but it's still the same

Pretend it's OK;’’- ‘’Pretend It’ Okay’’ by Little Mix

    Six months. That’s ow long he’s been without you.

    Six months.

    Six long.

    Agonizing.

    Grueling.

    Torturous.

    Frightening.

    Lonely.

    Months.

        He knew that being an Avenger meant that there would be downsides. For one, he’s had to hear from other how hard it is sometimes. Not just physically, but emotionally. Mentally. You give your all to protecting people and sometimes it still is not enough.

He has heard stories from other Avengers, on how hard it is on their families. He has listened to Clint and Scott as they vented about the pressure on their families, about the pressure to be an Avenger and appear ‘’normal’’ and have the families that they love so dearly.

‘’Nothing worth having is ever easy, I guess,’’ Clint had said, earning himself a silent toast from Scott.

The clink of their glasses filled the semi empty bar of Tony’s house before both men had taken a sip of their respective drinks, wincing as the liquor burned as it slid down their throats.nursing a glass of water himself. The ice cold water was frigid and bracing and shocking- much like the fight he’d had with you earlier in the night.

It’s what’d made him storm out of your place in the first place, not caring who or what cared as he’d stormed out of the apartment building- away from you and away from the yells and the insultss an the toxicity of words that head even better left unsaid.

Oh, how he wished he hadn’t have said half of what he did to you.

This is the thought that made him stand, pidgin a goodnight to the other two gentleman and putting on his oat, racing downstairs and onto the sidewalk to make his way to you.

He’d opted out of an alcoholic beverage

It’d made him miss you even more. He’d decided that even if you were still angry at him- because, yeah, he should not have lied about how hurt he really was after the last mission- it’d be best to home.

Suddenly, he missed you even more than he had when he was on any mission.

And he needed to be close to you.

He remembered going home to you that night.

Pulling you into his embrace.

Pressing kisses to your forehead a you slept, lips slightly parted as your snores filled the room.

You’d startled awake then, letting out an exhausted groana s you checked the time on the clock: 12:00 am

‘’Baby, what’s wrong,’’you'd cuddled closer to him, eyes shut as you attempted to fallback into your slumber.

‘’Nothing, baby. Go back to sleep.’’

    Five words. Five words that he’d said so often that he became like routine whenever he’d come to your home or his- wherever you’d happen to be. When you were asleep, ti was the one time you weren't’ about him or life or aliens attacking from outer space or anything else. You looked peaceful. Serene.

    Happy.

    Those were things that he wanted you to feel all the time. You’d told him that he makes you happy, and he had thought that, that was enough.

    And though he devoted himself to you, he knew that this life was one that would be difficult for you. It’s why, only three days later, he’d purchased a diamond ring. It wasn’t too expensive and it wasn’t too fancy, but the promise that he’d attached to it held more worth than any item of jewelry he ever could have given you.

    With The ring would come promise of love.

    Faithfulness.

    To try to make you happy.

    Protection.

    Now, six months after he was meant to propose, he sits alone in his apartment, staring at the ring. The moon is bathing him in a delicate glow, ut that is a stark contrast from the turmoil and rage that bubble inside of him even now.   

    He’s lost you. He always knew that being a member of the Avengers could mean he would lose you, but he never really prepared himself for that statement to become a reality.

    It wouldn't;that be so hard if it wasn’t so… sudden. Agonising. Had he predicted that all you two had worked to have together could fade away so quickly, he could have done something to prevent it.

    There is seldom a moment when he doesn’t think about you. Everytime he thikshe’s over it… he’s right back at the start.  It is a vicious process, It truly is. He cries, screams, yells. Cals himself. Tries to banish any thought of you from his brain. Moves on. Continues about his day.

    Pretend that it’s okay.

    Everywhere he goes, he sees you. In a stranger or in the way someone is talking, he finds you. His eyes and his ears deceive him. He thinks he hears your voice, thinks he sees you as he walks down the street. Even the wind seems to whisper your name,the warm breeze seeming to mock him since he feels nothing but the cold, bitter stinging of life without you.

    It takes all he can to bring himself back to the moment,  back to reality, when he thinks about you You’re not here. You’re not talking to him. And he knows that, deep down, nothing’s going to change.

    But sometimes it can get so hard pretending it’s okay.

    Chasing after you is like chasing a light, he thinks- it’s a bright and beautiful idea, but he doesn't know if he’ll ever actually touch it, touch your face or arms or hair or lips, ever again. He has the memories of you, sure. Pictures and playlists and moments so wonderful and so intimately romantic that they are forever in his mind.

    Even your memory is beginning to fade, now, though, because he knows that it’s too late. Your relationship is over, and he feels he has no one but himself to blame. He wonders if he could have done anything to stop it, anything to save you and to save this relationship.

    That’s the price he pays for being an Avenger- he’s lost you.

    Six months.

    Six long, long months.

Six agonising.

    Grueling.

    Painful.

    Tear-inducing.

    Months.

    He doesn't know what sparks him to jump into action. Maybe it’s the possibility that there could be hope to save the future that he wanted to have with you. Maybe it’s because he’s tired of being without you, and wants to do something about it.

    So he sincerely hopes that he and the others can come up with a plan to save you, and to save the others.

    Because Thanos might have snapped, and he might have won the battle.

    But he is determined to never let him win the war.

DISCLAIMER- I do not own the rights to Little Mix or any of their songs. I do not claim ownership, this song just inspired this story. The rights belong to their rifle owners. I own no Marvel characters or their fictional worlds, countries, galaxies, planets or cities. They also belong to their rightful owners.

@ashanti-notthesinger @destinio1 @afraiddreamingandloving @starsshines-blog @airis-paris14 @syreanne @chaneajoyyy @90sinspiredgirl @shemiahsmelanin @zillmonger @skysynclair19 @marvelpotterlove @constantlycravingtheunknown @imaginewhoever @wakanda-inspired @pocmarvelworks @theunsweetenedtruth @dreampovx @adrioola21 @supremethunda @thisiskayesworld @mcusocialimagines @priya212 @kumkaniudaku u  @airis-paris14 @wakanda-inspired @bidibidibombaclaat @destinio1 @oshasimone @allabster @alexundefined

[phantombones]

              (  ooc: jinx. she/her. 22. music & tv heaux. )

I HAD TO DO ... THINGS TO SURVIVE. SOME OF THEM WERE VIOLENT... SOME, DEGRADING...ALL OF THEM GAVE ME A NEW PERSPECTIVE. 

ARTEMIS CARROW really is the spitting image of KARLA SOUZA, right? For someone only TWENTY-SIX ( SCORPIO ) years old, ARTEMIS has been forced to endure so much. Yeah, that PUREBLOOD has been scraping by at the sanctuary for SEVEN MONTHS now, working as an UNSPEAKABLE in the DIVISION OF RESEARCH. SHE/THEY identifies as AGENDER and is known to be DISTANT and CRYPTIC but also CURIOUS and MACHIAVELLIAN. Best of luck surviving through this. 

CHARACTER PARALLELS: Sherlock Holmes ( Book & Elementary TV Series ), Natasha Romanoff ( Marvel Comics ), Rosa Diaz ( Brooklyn 99 ),  Alice Quinn & Julia Wicker ( The Magicians )

PINTREST: [ x ] 

 [ ABUSE MENTION ] Artemis has always felt that she’s been the perfect example of her family as well as what they stand for. Even though her and her twin brother were not biological children, it wasn’t until Apollo started to defect from the family that it was revealed. While this should’ve fueled her to want to prove even more she was part of the family -- it only served as another reason to stay with the Death Eaters to protect her brother, her only blood, her sun. Something she had in common with her cousin Jac was her protective nature of her family members, and it was then she was able to further emotionally bond with both Jaq and Val, realizing they knew all about the horrors she’d also been subjected to. She didn’t possess the social grace her brother inherited but she was the one who followed more than questioned. She was the one who had a different and more desperate hunger to survive than her brother did. Apollo was good at surviving, yes, but he was just too GOOD -- Artemis was able to choke out her innocence and suffocate it for survival. MORALLY G R E Y. { The image of deception }. Someone who hates neutrality and takes the side of the oppressor because it was her only choice, her duty. Part of a side that had her twin brother, the person she will protect with her life — and has before. She took all the hurt Apollo was supposed to get as children. And she did so willingly. She saw how he was as an asset and her family saw it as weakness -- something she realized from a young age. But Artemis is by no means a hero. And she is by no means a good person & will never feel like or think herself as one, no matter how much repairing she does. [ ABUSE MENTION OVER ]

As a child, she was always fascinated on things far away from her, things she couldn’t touch because what she grew up in, the reality was just so REAL & scary, that she found a way to escape it. This manifested mostly in her DEEP DEEP DEEP DEEP LOVE of the stars, the cosmos, the galaxy, so she’d look up muggle philosophers for more info. The only reason she knows so much is because her brother not only pushed her to learn more but would help her obtain knowledge ( & hide it away ) as well. Book upon book stashed in secret locations around their manner.  

Apollo and Artemis couldn’t have been any more different. Truly reminiscent of their Greek counterparts, they were like the sun & the moon. Waxing and waning, always in sync, always there for each other and both shining in their own ways. Artemis loved Apollo more than she loved anyone else in the entire UNIVERSE. When she realized that how he was was not how her parents wanted him to be -- she knew she needed to step up. During her years at Hogwarts, she began to harden. Still harbouring a deep love for the solar system, she kept it more to herself. A girl who would once walk barefoot around the Astronomy Tower in awe of it now only looked to the stars as a guilty pleasure, as a distant memory. It was then she was truly the epitome of what her parents always wanted her to be and the only reason she was, was to protect Apollo. 

She felt that if she could compensate for the both of them, her and her brother, that they wouldn’t target Apollo. For a while, it worked, until Apollo became so vocal her become a renowned blood traitor ( A CARROW?? A BLOODTRAITOR?? ) with a target painted on his back that she desperately tried to cover. Artemis felt she had no choice to become a monster, to become so machiavellian, not only as a defense mechanism but using the NEED to protect him as the only fuel and reason she did what she did. It was all for him, she was convinced, it was the only reason she could live among the darkest part of the sky was because no matter what, Apollo, her brightest star, was still shining.

Her parents used this against her her entire childhood. Amycus knew the bonds of twins well. They knew her devotion to her brother was unwavering -- they hated it. They resented it because their perfect daughter was more dedicated to him than the cause so they tested her over and over again. What they had hoped to do failed completely -- but Artemis was excellent at wearing a mask that seemed to fit & be glued to her skin. The twins properly grew apart when whisperings and gathering of both sides started and Artemis immediately flung herself into the Death Eater ranks, Apollo to the Order. But when the zombie outbreak, that had been the Death Eaters fault, her father & aunt’s fault, it woke Artemis up. Not only did the zombies start to ravage muggles, but everything they knew, the Ministry, and working as an Unspeakable was where she saw the inevitable destruction that Inferi would bring ... Artemis went to find Apollo immediately. When the two reunited, they worked together to survive and did a good job being off the radar for a week or so, before Artemis watched as Apollo got bitten. 

She couldn’t accept his fate. They’d finally been reunited, they were going to face the end of the world together, they were going to leave the world as they’d come into it -- together. Fate had other plans. Artemis and Apollo talked, cried, laughed, lived and got to know each other again for 23 hours and forty five minutes until Apollo passed out from the fever that would then take his life. Artemis was distraught, but she’d known this was coming, even though she was not prepared for what she had to do next. [ DEATH TW ] He was unresponsive, but he looked the same, and he was coming to attack her with a fury & force she’d never seen before -- he was an Inferi. Artemis wanted to let him take her, wanted to die as she didn’t want to imagine a world without him, where everything she’d done meant NOTHING as she’d failed to do the one thing she’d always wanted to do -- protect her twin. In the end, a killing curse through his chest after several slicing curses, yelled through tears is what put him down. Artemis didn’t know how she’d ever be able to forgive herself, and sat in that room with his dead body for a day before forming a plan. Before realizing what she needed to do. [ END OF DEATH TW ]

Artemis finally saw what her brother was trying to tell her about the Order, she finally saw what he saw their parents for -- monsters. Not survivors like her and her cousins. Not products of their environment. One she was well on her way to becoming ( though, she knew she was one the minute she had started, really ) & Artemis knew she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t do something about it. Her brother wouldn’t die in vain, and that’s when she turned to Hogwarts for help after taking the Dark Mark. She had nothing to lose, really, and everything to gain. When she got there, she promised to give them EVERYTHING, easily betraying the Death Eaters, knowing she was doing the right thing for both her survival and her conscience but more importantly for the survival of man and wixen kind. Luckily, with all the right information and the UNBREAKABLE VOW to serve & never betray while still giving them information they needed to at least try to level the playing field, she was reluctantly accepted into Hogwarts facing biweekly Veritaserum questioning sessions for months until she was vaguely trusted to make sure her loyalty is in the same place it was when she was grieving her brother ( Artemis always grieves Apollo ).

Naturally, her love for knowledge ( as she was a Ravenclaw in school ) propelled her into becoming an UNSPEAKABLE and it’s probably one of the aspects of her life she enjoys most. Artemis likes to sometimes talk in riddles because she likes to see who can keep up with her and almost everything she does in that sense -- confusing & frustrating -- is a defense mechanism. Her observant nature means she notices everything, although she doesn’t always understand it ( especially Muggle culture ) she’s always interested. Though she often seems to be neutral in demeanor, she never is in mindset, be sure to know that Artemis is watching you, observing you, collecting data to use against you as well as just because she simply doesn’t understand people as much as her brother did. Definitely the more sociable and pleasant of the two, Apollo had a gift with people and was always just kinder, more open than she could ever be. His gift was his heart that hers, though it’s her most prized possession that she felt was a curse at times, was her mind.

FUN FACTS: 

has a cute ass giggle!!! idk if you’ll ever get it out of her but she does!!

one of those characters u play who’s smarter than u and ur just like lol how i fucking play this character

pluto is probs her fave planet!

speaks spanish 

has never done a drug in her life and only drinks socially, even then she’s not the biggest drinker as she’s not a fan of anything that dulls her mind -- no matter how much pain it may carry

she loves wizarding chess but her fave person to play against is her betrothed/probs husband at this point Wes who I haven’t decided where he is but he’s not a Good Guy, a darksided ex-Gryffindor but is Artemis’ mindmate ( like soulmate but mind wise )

truly draws the line at zombies w/ these death eaters like yall that’s too much!!!

loves talking about the stars and a part of her is happy to be back at hogwarts, but she knows she’s hurt people and finally feels and feels GUILTY 

truly wants to be better, for her brother but also for herself now, because humanity is at the end of the line and she thinks maybe help saving it will help ease the guilt 

would kill her ‘dad’ Amycus if she could but they’re all about keeping him alive in the dungeon but she’s like ehhh nope

like her name sake she’s the protector of young girls/women and really hated to ever have to hurt any, would avoid it, has a very warped sense of morals/honor but is trying to Learn

artemis loves her cousins, jacqueline and valeria, and having them as family she still loves reminds her she’s capable of it even with apollo gone. she does care for them even if she acts sometimes distant, she’s just not the best at expressing that love

is agender, never felt a connection to either gender and tbh artemis? doesn’t really fuss with her gender? one of the best things about her mind is that she’s so open to so MUCH, it just makes sense but she also believes gender, sexuality, and the worry of them is arbitrary. 

THERE’S MORE BUT ill stop for now!! if you’d like to plot just LIKE THIS and i’ll come to you!!!

[hurlumerlu]

TLJ spoilers :

The thing with The Last Jedi is that it did not steer the story in the direction I would have chosen... but ultimately I think that was for the best (and it’s not something I usually admit). I’m putting a few of my thoughts under a cut, mostly to put them somewhere.

The things I didn’t like : - The conflict between Holdo and Poe felt incredily artificial. I feel like they were trying to offer a storyline where no side was entirely right nor entirely wrong, and that’s laudable, but as most of it relied on “miscommunication for the sake of the plot”, it felt more frustrating than anything else.

-Still about the Poe vs Holdo thing : Holdo not sharing her plan with her exhausted and panicking troupes did not make her very sympathetic (and Leïa justifying it with “she doesn’t feel the need to be seen as a hero” was dumb, that’s not the point !), and Poe talking to Holdo like that in their first scene was extremely grating and unprofessional. Seing him lose his cool could have been interesting if it had been gradual ! But that was not the case here. I wish both sides had been made more sympathetic than irritating.

-Third point about Poe : dude leads a mutiny and basically keeps being in charge after that like that was no big deal ? I mean, yes they weren’t enough officers left and yes, I think Holdo fucked up and I understand the actions of the crewmembers but they still should have faced consequences ! Not because I want my Star Wars movies to be realistic, but because without consequences that particular plot segment feels even more unnecessary.  - Actually, I would just have done away with the entire mutiny sequence.

-Who decided that DJ should stutter ? It was bad and, I felt, slightly offensive.

-It was kind of unavoidable, what with the necessity to establish all those storylines, but the begining of the movie felt all at once too fast (individual scenes were too short) and too slow (too much exposition). - I really, really wish all the characters didn’t constantly call Leïa, well, “Leïa”. She’s their general ! - “We will not win by killing the things we hate but by saving the things we love” was way too cheesy (and silly) for my taste. Things I whish had been done differently : - I wish the Finn/Phasma fight had been longer (I also hope, against all logic, that Phasma will come back). I was so hyped for it ! And while it was a great sequence, it was so important on a symbolic level that its relatively short length made it kind of underwhelming.

- Poe felt... well, I will not say “ooc” because I don’t think the Poe we were shown in TFA and his comics could never act like he did in TLJ, especially exhausted, a few day after having been tortured by the First Order and right after seeing many of his friends die. But he did felt so much less hopeful and loving, it was a bit of a bummer. I get why they made those choices, but I would have loved it more if they had wrote him differently.

-The chase scene with the fathiers was the one action scene I didn’t really like. It was narratively important but felt a bit too videogame-y. - Keeping Finn and Rey appart for the whole movie was, I think, a smart move. Their reunion and hug was that much more satisfying. However I wish we had seen them together a bit more after that hug. For exemple, I would really have loved it if Finn had been standing beside her. EDIT : beside her when she severed the Force bond. I fogot to finish my sentence. - I don’t think the movie should have ended with only the white boy ? Having the two other kids in the shot would have felt more powerful to me. Things I loved : - Finn and Rose’s storyline was amazing, and pretty much all I want from Star Wars. It was the part that truly remembered that the Star Wars movies are, first and foremost, kids movie, and truly reveled in it. The casino scene was a breath of fresh air (I almost wish it had been longer), and the rest of their adventure was simple and efficient. Boyega and Tran had excellent chemistry, and I was at the same time anxious when they were in danger and excited to see how they would overcome the obstacles in their way. Plus it was nice to see another brand of Star Wars vilainy, in the form of the arms dealers. DJ was not exactly a memorable character, but I thought it was nice to see a character who has no problem being kind and “doing the right thing” (giving Rose her necklace back) when it’s easy, but is still fundamentally selfish. - I also found interesting that Finn and Rose’s view of heroism and “doing what is right” kind of swapp, during the movie ? At the begining Finn mostly wants to protect Rey (at the possible cost of other lives) and Rose is disbeleving that people would be willing to abandon ship rather than face a heroic death, while at the end Finn chose the heroic death and Rose chose to protect one live at the possible cost of many. It’s kinda mirrored in the fact that Holdo condemns Poe’s suicide attack, but ultimately sacrifice herself in a (really impressive) suicide attack, while Poe is very much against the idea of running away and end up (rightly) pushing for it at the end. I don’t entirely know what to make of it, but i do like it. - Luke ! I had been spoiled about him trying to kill Ben Solo when he was his pupil and I was very worried about that plot point going in. I did not see how they could make it work, but they did ! Furthemore I think TFA had backed Luke’s character into a corner with this idea of self-imposed exile, and that TLJ worked with that in the best possible way. It was still Luke,my Luke, the one who’s conflicted and a bit impulsive and always trying to be a good person. Sure his desire to do the right thing had crippled him and led him to do nothing (I can relate), and sure, his goodness did not shine through as brightly as it did when he was young, but it was there and I loved it so much. I was also worried they would make him too serious but he was often genuinly funny. (and nothing contradicted my gay!Luke headcanon, which is always a plus)

- The bad guys. Star Wars vilain are not my thing. I don’t even care for Dark Vader that much. But Hux was delightful as a sniveling, self-important chewtoy and Kylo Ren finally transcended the “interesting concept of a bad guy” category, right into the “I finally see why you’re such a threat and I want you to die in the most epic way possible” category. He’s still pathetic and a complete human disaster, but his vilainy feels now more personnal than generic. I loved this transformation, and I loved that his ultimate fall to the dark side is so clearly treated as a choice. I really, really hope they don’t give him a redemption arc, it would make his arc in this movie feels entirely pointless.

- Finn and Rey truly, uh, self-actualize, in this movie ? I don’t know how to say it but you can see them becomming who they’re meant to be and I loved that. - My feelings about Rey are a bit more mixed. Ridley’s performance didn’t always convince me and I felt like Rey’s absolute conviction that she could turn Kylo came too fast ? But I loved that she makes that mistake because she, like Luke, is trying so hard to be a good person, and because she does not yet believe that she can be the hero of this story (something Kylo plays on really well). The scene in the dark place on the island, where she ask who her parents are and only see herself ? I had chills. Yes it’s heavy handed, but the mirror is more or less telling Rey that she made herself, and i really think it’s powerful.  - I’m also quite happy that she’s not a Skywalker. I have no problem with the Skywalker saga ending tragically (with their last heir succombing to the dark side and dying a vilain) as long as the Star Wars saga ends happily. I love that Rey is important simply because she’s Rey. - I think it was a bold move to make “failure” one of the most important theme of the movie. Not just because “failure is the best teacher” is a pretty cool message, but also because for once we feel like the Resistance is heroic not because of what they accomplish, but because they absolutely never give up their fight against space!fascism. I loved that. - “We are what they grow beyond”... if anyone had told me that Yoda would one day make me so emo, I would have laughed at them. But I did sob at the line (it made me feel 15 again). - I also cried at Luke and Leïa reunion’s scene. They had me at “I know what you’re going to say, I changed my hair.” which is pretty much the first exchange they have.

- The whole movie was gorgeous ? I love the action sequences and I particularly loved just how big the red salt planet felt. The galaxy truly felt gigantic. - “The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just begining. And I will not be the last Jedi”. Yes please. - Rey and Finn’s hug was amazing. - b i n a r y  s u n s e t

- Leïa and Holdo absolutely had a an affair when Han left the Resistance and I think that’s beautiful.

[stfumoffathaters]

That io9 article

As you may or may not be aware, io9 used a story about Russell T Davies knowing who the next Doctor is a jumping off point to run an attack article on Steven Moffat’s history of comments about a female Doctor. As you might expect from the previous snippet I posted, it is rather an unfair representation, so let’s unpack it a bit: 

It looks like the new Doctor has been cast. After accepting an award at the British LGBT Awards, former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies told Guys Like U that the next season already has its next Doctor. Davies was responding to a question about whether the new lead should be a woman, a question posed to current showrunner Steven Moffat multiple times over the years. And he’s been very consistent.

Moffat’s been answering this question since at least 2013. Exactly one day after it was announced that Peter Capaldi would take over as the new Doctor, Moffat explained his decision to DigitalSpy, saying that it “didn’t feel right” to cast a woman at the time since he didn’t think enough fans would want one. He even went so far as to say female fans were the ones most adamantly against it.

It’s absolutely narratively possible [that the Doctor could be a woman]... And when it’s the right decision, maybe we’ll do it. It didn’t feel right to me, right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it... Oddly enough most people who said they were dead against it – and I know I’ll get into trouble for saying this – were women. [They were] saying, “No, no, don’t make him a woman!”

To start with, it seems slightly unfair to start an attack on Moffat over this by using Russell T Davies; a man who previously gave this bizarre quote on the subject in 2008: 

“I am often tempted to say yes to that to placate everyone but, while I think kids will not have a problem with [a female Doctor], I think fathers will have a problem with it because they will then imagine they will have to describe sex changes to their children. I think fathers can describe sex changes to their children and I think they should and it’s part of the world, but I think it would simply introduce genitalia into family viewing. You’re not talking about actresses or style, you’re talking about genitalia, and a lot of parents would get embarrassed.”

I still don’t even know what the fuck this means, unless the Doctor is suddenly going to become a nudist after regeneration. Yes, Russell has learned over the years but it’s definitely still the worst thing either of them has said on the subject.

Moving on, the argument that Moffat’s statements on this are consistent (ie. consistently anti a female Doctor), there’s this from their own website. As for the answer Moffat gives, there is nothing there that wasn’t true at the time according to polls. He wasn’t saying most women were ‘vehemently’ opposed to it, he was saying that most of those that were were women. As far as I can remember from polls that were conducted around the time, more men were against overall but of those that were vehemently against more were women. There’s an argument that people not being ready for a female Doctor (which I wasn’t at the time) is no reason to not actually do it, but when there would have been huge BBC pressure to keep everything stable, I’m not surprised that he didn’t and went with Missy instead. 

Moffat would later shy away from the “women don’t want a female Doctor” defense and double down on suggesting it could happen one day, but not that day.

Speaking at the Hay Festival in May 2014, he said he’d consider casting a woman in the role, but only when the time was right, adding that it shouldn’t be a forced “political decision.”

A person will pop into the showrunner’s head and they’ll think. “Oh, my God, what if it was that person?” And when that person is a woman, that’s the day it will happen... It will not happen that somebody sits down and say we must turn the Doctor into a woman. That is not how you cast the Doctor.

Beyond the fact that “political decision” is a loaded term that justifies continuing the status quo, Moffat is kind of a hypocrite.

For example, during the same Q&A session, Moffat revealed that Capaldi was the only person he brought in to audition for the Doctor. The “person that popped into his head”:

Peter Capaldi just kept popping into my head. I got him round to my house to audition. And he didn’t know he was the only person auditioning.

This mirrors his selection of Matt Smith, who had previously auditioned for Sherlock (another role Moffat defended as quintessentially male back in March). This means only those in Moffat’s immediate line of sight stood a chance, and no one else was given an opportunity to show what they could bring to the role.

The political decision thing is a fair point, but the full context of the quote is interesting:

“A person will pop into the showrunner’s head and they’ll think. ‘Oh, my God, what if it was that person?’ And when that person is a woman, that’s the day it will happen.

Casting is the dark arts of television. It is everything. That decision is central and absolute to everything you do. It’s the difference between a television programme and a sensation.

So you don’t mess around with that; you don’t cast for any other reason than for passion and for aesthetics. It’s not a political decision, it’s an aesthetic decision and will always be.” 

I’m not sure whether Moffat realises that and considers deliberately casting a white man just as political as casting a woman or a POC; as some of his comments about casting Bill Potts would indicate; or simply doesn’t understand that it’s not politically neutral, which is problematic.  

The charge of hypocrisy on the other hand is a reach. The worst that can be said of the Capaldi decision is after an immensely stressful anniversary year Moffat wanted to work someone who he got on well with; who liked his work, a known fan of the show; and a brilliant actor who was perfect for the part. Had it been pretty much anyone other than Peter it would have been approaching unacceptable. In regards to Matt Smith, it’s simply bullshit. To start with he auditioned for Watson, not Sherlock, and was told he would be more of a Sherlock. Secondly, we know through Neil Gaiman the role was offered to a black actor (it’s not specifically said to have been 11, but the circumstances for 9 and 10 don’t fit) before it was offered to Smith. Thirdly, and finally, this from Andy Pryor:

“And then with Matt [Smith], Steven Moffat [the writer] really didn't want a younger Doctor, but I just insisted on auditioning Matt because he's an old man in a young man's body."

So, the idea Moffat always wanted Matt (when outside of the Sherlock audition he had likely never seen him, if he was involved in that audition at all) is complete nonsense. 

He says a woman “could” be the Doctor, if she’s the first person to pop into his head. But after over 50 years of white men, it’s absolutely always going to be a white man that pops in there first — especially if the person who is the showrunner is himself a white man who surrounds himself with roles that are traditionally played by white men.

Yes, it’s difficult to argue this isn’t an element sometimes, but I don’t think it necessarily applies to the casting of either Capaldi or Smith, Capaldi because of the aforementioned reasons and Smith because he had to go through an audition process and the guy who initially popped into Moffat’s head was black, inferring from Gaiman’s statement.  

However, it’s not just about women not getting the opportunity to try out for the role, though that’s a big factor. Moffat never really thought about having a woman be the Doctor because he thinks they’re better suited as the Doctor’s companions, saying as much during a BAFTA talk in 2015.

There’s an aspect to it where you could say that if you made the Doctor female you’d lose a fairly unique rare role model, I’m not sure if I’m completely persuaded by that argument purely because I don’t think the Doctor is the role model of Doctor Who. He isn’t. Because you can’t really base yourself on the Doctor. He’s off the spectrum, barking mad, from space and has lots of mysterious abilities that we do not. How do you base yourself on that? The role model is actually the other character, his best friend, the person who deals with this out of control, overgrown schoolboy racing around the universe being rather too imperious and too interfering for his own good.

This isn’t the only time that Moffat has said he doesn’t see the Doctor as a role model, but his track record doesn’t support the companion being the true hero (and not just because he’s called the Doctor the “hero figure”).

While companions are given more character development, coming into the Doctor’s life to learn something about themselves and teach the Doctor something in the meantime, Moffat’s defense is pretty insulting. It assumes that only men can be emotionally stunted, hyper-intelligent weirdos who roam the galaxy causing and solving mischief.

We’ve had male companions in the past, albeit typically alongside female ones. And in his argument, Moffat never says the companion has to be female here, but he is saying that the Doctor is male, so the only female lead in the show could be the companion. And as he describes companions, they’re put in the uncomfortable position of being the Doctor’s emotional core. This reinforces the stereotype that it’s a woman’s role to bring emotional balance to a man, but men can’t or shouldn’t do the same for a woman.

I’ve already covered the first bit of this, where I’ve said he’s arguing that the Doctor isn’t really a role model, which is why the argument that making the character a woman would not be specifically a loss of a unique male role model (which is an argument I’ve seen put forward by a female writer of DW tie-in books in Doctor Who Magazine). A hero figure and a role model aren’t necessarily the same thing, especially given the multiple deconstructions of what the Doctor actually is during Moffat’s tenure.

Also, ‘it assumes that only men can be emotionally stunted, hyper-intelligent weirdos who roam the galaxy causing and solving mischief’? Errrr, River Song and Missy, anyone? Definitely Clara’s style too, it’s only her humanity that stops her being the Doctor, not her gender (and there’s sort of a fix for the former). 

‘but he is saying that the Doctor is male, so the only female lead in the show could be the companion’. He’s very specifically not saying that, but if you misunderstand if not deliberately misread what he says you are going to continue making an arse of yourself. The rest is rather undermined by Rory and Danny being much more the emotional balances in their relationships with Amy and Clara than vice versa. 

It gets even more muddled when you consider Moffat’s actual track record. A 2014 study showed that Moffat’s female companions had, on average, fewer speaking lines than Davies’, and Amy failed the Bechdel Test far more times than her predecessors. Clara did improve the scales, and Bill has been pretty solid so far, but the numbers still tend to fall below what existed before.

Ughhhhhhhh. Long time readers and followers of this discourse will be aware of the so-called study the author references here, which was discredited (well, by us, at least) because of falsified data and bias, and no rigour whatsoever. This is the point where this becomes a loaded article, attempting to prove an assessment already decided (much like that study!)

Moffat himself was asked about the accusations of sexism later in 2015, replying that he understood the concerns, in theory, but also didn’t think they applied to his show specifically. He also added that his wife is a “powerful woman,” which is always a helpful defense.

It’s a big and complicated issue and I never quite know how to respond to it. The general point being made by these people is correct. We need better female role models and representation on screen. We need all of that. Maybe this is my dim-wittery but I do not understand why Doctor Who of all shows is singled out as a misogynist show. And I’m really not like that. I’m sure I’m to the left of a lot of my detractors, but I don’t want to argue with them because I think generally they’re right. We do need to do better.

The interview was not just about sexism, but took in a range of topics and oh, look; the ‘powerful woman’ quote was not a defence but in response to one of a series of questions about his themes; this particular one being ‘you’ve often introduced a strong woman with an enigma at her core’, to which Moffat responds: ‘It’s hardly something only I’ve done. And I’m married to a very powerful woman.‘ Presumably meaning that his character creation is in part inspired by his wife. 

As for the quote...he’s not saying he doesn’t deserve criticism, but when questions need to be asked about shows such as Game of Thrones, The 100, maybe even Once Upon A Time (in my opinion, please do not ask what I mean by this) it is very unfair to single him out in particular. 

Moffat’s years-long pattern has been to evade the question with a “maybe at some point,” or defending his decision to cast male Doctors for... insert his latest reason here. I honestly don’t believe Moffat ever seriously considered a woman for the job during his tenure as Doctor Who’s showrunner, and probably still wouldn’t be if he were sticking around next season.

He’s continually said he’d think about it, pointing to his choice to turn The Master into a woman, but his hiring practices have continually put himself in situations where a male Doctor was a given. And his reluctance to alter his (male) Doctor and (female) companion dynamic is apparent.

This is all a belief, and it’s therefore difficult to disprove, but I have already disproved or significantly undermined the bits based on facts. It’s not known whether or not women auditioned for Eleven, either. 

There’s also his attitude that selecting a woman would be a forced political choice, instead of something that could serve and grow the narrative. It’s even echoed in his advice to new showrunner Chris Chibnall, published in March of this year, saying his next Doctor should be a “friend” instead of someone who serves an “agenda.”

Just choose the best person for the job and any other agenda, however worthy, should be ignored. It has to be the best person for the Doctor that Chris is writing for... Chris is going to be working with the actor for quite a few years and it is a pressure cooker. It can be tough, so you need to choose your friend wisely. So long as it works for the good of the show, that’s fine.

I mean, I have genuine issues with the political choice idea, but there’s an argument here that he genuinely just might not want to get people’s hopes up or protect Chris Chibnall from backlash of dashed hopes as his friend, or both (especially if he didn’t yet know the casting, where he could be under orders from above to be diplomatic if asked)? 

Additionally, he could well be saying that if you decide you’re going to make this change, you do that as part of the narrative and then cast for it, rather than casting first and then writing around it. Which would make sense, because it’s how he cast Missy and Bill. The friend thing is ‘choose someone you can actually stand to work with’, nothing more. 

Moffat’s most recent answer to this question came just a few days ago in an interview with BBC Radio 4 (via We Got This Covered), Moffat went into how he chose Smith and Capaldi as his Doctors, saying it wasn’t a matter of purposefully choosing white men for the job, it just so happened that the perfect actors for the job were both white men. What are the odds, right?

“I didn’t not cast a woman… I cast a man. I didn’t [cast a woman] because I wanted to cast Matt Smith and I wanted to cast Peter Capaldi. I didn’t think it was a terrible idea, I just thought, ‘I want to cast those people’ – that was it.”

Of course, we know that he didn’t see anyone else and he didn’t want to let any one else’s thoughts intrude onto his mystical process of waiting for someone to pop into his head. This is why Moffat’s reasons are so elliptical and confusing: he didn’t affirmatively rule out women, he just never gave anyone but his preferred choices any thought whatsoever. So when asked to defend it, he can’t, really.

Hmm, okay. We’ve been over that Moffat’s probable first choice to play Eleven was a black man but even if it wasn’t, Matt didn’t just pop into Moffat’s head as anything other than the results of the audition process. He proved himself more suited for what Moffat wanted as a result of that. There may have been subconscious bias involved in that decision but that statement just isn’t true. 

Despite Moffat’s insistence to continue playing the same tune, there are hopes the new showrunner will change things up, giving audiences a female Doctor or having the iconic character regenerate as a person of color. The actor’s been picked, so it’s too late to petition, but it’s never too late to hope. Casting a more diverse Doctor would revitalize the show, encouraging a new audience while challenging current fans. So, what does Chibnall himself have to say about it?

Nothing is ruled out, but I don’t want the casting to be a gimmick and that’s all I can say.

Shit.

For once, I completely agree, though I note the statement was made before Moffat’s advice was given. And tbh Chibnall has no real excuses left, and puts the show at risk of stagnating if he doesn’t change. 

[nspx]

Tumblr user Nina nspx’s star wars fic rec vol. 2

An anon asked me for an ahsoka/anakin fic rec and i accidentally deleted the ask (i’m dumb!!) BUT because i love ahsoka and i love anakin and i love their relationship and how they helped each other, i’m gonna do a completely separate fic rec for the anon (i hope u see this lmao sorry for deleting the ask). 

but anyway, since the last time i did a rec i had 22 bookmarks on ao3 (i did the last one on october 19th 2015?? how time flies) and now i have like 80+, i decided to do much more than just an anakin/ahsoka rec, but a general star wars fic res

DISCLAIMER: none of these fics feature anakin/ahsoka in a sexual relationship because i am Not About That BUT they do feature other pairings. anyhow. 

These are fics u need to read. need to. sorry, i don’t make the rules. this is gonna be so long. i’m sorry (not)

AHSOKA/ANAKIN

A River Flowing by Barkour

A shadow has left the force, but other threats remain as Padmé and Anakin prepare for the birth of their child.

Part 2 of Peachy

The only issue i have with this fic is that it hasn’t been updated in forever. It’s so good tho!! i’m pretty sure i read this one at least four times. anakin doesn’t go evil (which is something the anon asked for!! here u go) but not everything is perfect - duh, it is a star wars fic, we don’t know what happiness is here - and AHSOKA IS SO WELL WRITTEN!! so good. it also dives into life after the jedi, being a civilian, being dirt-poor and living on coruscant and ALSO!! padme/ahsoka is well developed in this. so good. so great. 10/10 must read

Assassination Attempt No. 23 by pieandsouffle

Tatooine's only senator (or, indeed, one of the only people from that desert planet who is capable of reading and writing, or actually understands what the word 'politics' means), Anakin Skywalker, seems to be one of those rare individuals who attract bounty hunters like flies zero in on a bantha corpse.

The senator!anakin au. what more do u need in life? shenanigans ensue

Old Shadows by Sildae for Windona

Ahsoka asks Anakin about his past after the events on Kadavo and Zygerria.

My babies. My poor heart. 

Obi-Wan and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad (Life) Day by wreckageofstars

It's Obi-Wan Kenobi's life day, but good luck telling the galaxy that.

Anakin and Ahsoka are little shits. obi wan and padme are drinking buddies?? sign me the fuck up. the end

hold on to me, 'cause i'm a little unsteady (ws!obi-wan au) by QueenWithABeeThrone

the one where Obi-wan falls off a ship and gets the Winter Soldier treatment, Anakin doesn't fall to the Dark Side but still loses his limbs, Ahsoka can fly with a one-of-a-kind wing-pack, and Padmé gives birth to twins and a Rebellion.

TBH. SO GOOD. ANAKIN AND AHSOKA ARE AWESOME IN THIS. ALSO IN THIS SERIES BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

angels choking on their haloes QueenWithABeeThrone

Anakin hadn’t been lying, when he said he could never kill Obi-wan like he was being asked to, no matter what Obi-wan’s become.

or: Mustafar, in reverse.

Part 1 of hold on to me, 'cause i'm a little unsteady (ws!obi-wan au)

GO READ THIS. it’s unfinished (hasn’t been updated since early 2016, i weep) BUT. still worth a read. really worth it. the second part of this verse ends on the nastiest, most delicious cliffhanger. I WEEP

and hey, a honorary mention, since i haven’t actually read this fic but it was in my ao3 history 

Perturbations by the_dragongirl

Anakin makes a different choice, the day Ahsoka leaves the Jedi Order. His actions will determine which of the many possible points of balance in the Force will become the new equilibrium

Part 1 of A Shift in Equilibrium

this has a lot of kudos so?? what the hell. give it a read and tell me what you think

this is it for the anakin/ahsoka part of the rec

OTHER

Fundamental Force Carriers by tanarill

The Sith Lord Darth Vader lived his life. He probably didn't live it well, but he lived it as well as he knew how. At the end there, he'd even managed to woman up and kill Sidious. But he was dying, and at peace with the past.

The past wasn't at peace with him.

Part 1 of Probability Matrices

honestly, this fic is just SU CH a delight. it’s well written, it’s got some real cool science facts for your everyday nerd needs BUT IT’S ALSO THE CRACKIEST CRACKFIC TO EVER CRACK. like. vader dies and goes back in time and he’s got 0 fucks to give about the jedi’s opinion?? he’s here to make things right whether the jedi like it or not??? such a funny, amazing fic. 12/10 on this. nice. 

Echoes of Mortis by wreckageofstars

Post-Mortis Arc AU. In a universe where the Father failed to take away Anakin's vision of the future, the Hero With No Fear struggles with the knowledge of what he will become and the knowledge of who, exactly, is responsible. Drastic steps are taken and in the process things go a little bit...sideways.

tbh. so good. also a post-mortic fic (i’m a hoe for mortis). i won’t say too much about this one because i don’t want to spoil anything. i was on the edge of my seat while reading this fic AT ALL TIMES. AT ALL TIMES. I HAD TO READ THE LAST CHAPTER BEFORE READING ON TO MAKE SURE ANAKIN WOULDN’T GO ALL EVIL. i was so pleasantly surprised. it’s just so - poetic. anakin really does a lot of growing in this, i think. brilliant fic 

those immortal dead by notbecauseofvictories

I care more for that long age which I shall never see than for the little of Time that I hold

Padmé Amidala is forgotten, not gone.

This is a five times padme amidala’s legacy lived on, basically. it’s got poe in it as well!! and rey, my daughter. what more do you need from a fic? so well written, so poignant, so beautiful

Palpatine Ad Portas by izzythehutt

When the Emperor Palpatine moves the Empire Day Celebration to Naboo, Darth Vader is forced to confront a past he had thought better buried and forgotten. Admiral Piett becomes the reluctant confidante of the monarch, caught in the middle of a deadly Sith cat-and-mouse mind game. Meanwhile, the young Rebel who blew up the Death Star returns to his mother's home world to pay his respects on the anniversary of her death--unaware of his father and the Emperor's presence on the planet and the very grave danger he is in.

Part 2 of In Loco Pirates-Verse

fucked me up really bad, tbh. vader goes to naboo. luke is there. it’s brilliant, but so painful. read at your own risk (but do read it)

Hello From the Other Side by DarthNickels

Kylo Ren is destined to take up the mantle of Vader. The Force can be incredibly literal.

MY FAVOURITE IMPERIAL OFFICER PIETT IS IN THIS!!! and he hates kylo so much, he thinks he’s such a pale imitation of vader, he’s so disgusted by him. i live for it. 10/10

The Sith Who Brought Life Day by ophelia_interrupted for Binder-lover

An Imperial officer loses a bet and has to get Darth Vader a present for Life Day.

i feel like this is such a star wars fic classic that everyone’s already read ages ago except me. the style on this feels really like. (don’t judge me if i’m way off on this lmao) catcher in the rye. reminds me old american classics. that type of feel. it’s so good!!

Into the Archives by skygawker

After hearing the legend of Darth Plagueis the Wise from Palpatine, Anakin decides that his best chance to save Padme is to break into the restricted Holocron Vault of the Temple Archives to search for information about Plagueis. Predictably, all does not go according to plan. Revenge of the Sith AU.

My tiny son anakin is such a mess in this. and you can tell this is au because anakin and obi wan actually talk about anakin’s feelings?? what?? what are those?? anyway. so good. it hasn’t been updated since feb 2016 but like?? my fics havent been since july 2015. figures

for a hundred miles through the desert by wreckageofstars

[“There's no water, on Tatooine,” Luke said finally. “I mean, no large bodies of water, like you have on other planets. Pools, lakes. Oceans.”

“Well, yeah,” Han said, eyebrow raised at the sudden change of subject, tone still sharper than he meant for it to be. “Place is a dustball. So?”

The kid still wouldn't look at him.

“So,” he said, face carefully blank, like it so often was these days, “I never learned how to swim.”]

Han has a hard time coming to terms with Luke's fall to the dark side during Dark Empire; so does Luke. 

This is some serious EU shit, but it’s pretty good on its own as an AU scenario. I LOVE the meta on this. love

and rise, rise in the desert sand by hollytrees

Padmé and Anakin keep in touch after TPM.

(Or, the author has started writing Fialleril's Pen Pals AU, possibly because they hate themselves.)

THIS ONE IS SO PAINFUL AND HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL!! it’s got one chapter but it’s so worth it

Never Heed by dogmatix, norcumi

The Sith Emperor is dead.

A clone visits one more pyre in his long life.

Part 4 of Ghosts of 66

This is Rex coming to Vader’s pyre. fuck mE UP. like HONESTLY. THERE’S ONE BIT IN THIS THAT MAKES ME WANNA CURL UP AND CRY EVERY TIME. actually two bits. three bits. the whole damn story. anyhow

Mercy is the Mighties' Jewel by akathecentimetre for TheCrackedKatana

They've chased each other all over the world - yet somehow, they will always end up here. Modern-day spy!AU with illustration by JakartaInn.

The Obi-wan and Ventress spy au of your dreams. what more do i need to say?

TFA FIC

to lie with your soul in the grave by plinys

Poe casts a glance at the door, he can see their mothers through the semi-transparent glass, it’s too quiet to hear them talk, but he knows whatever it is it can’t be good. The kid sitting next to him seems to have the same idea.

“So, who talks first?” Poe says, breaking the silence between them.

Tbh.. don’t judge but when tfa came out i liked kylo (i’m more.. conflicted about him now) and i read a lot of kylo fic in that time period. i was never a reylo, so i read a lot of other kylo fic, which was mostly either kyhux or kylo/poe WHICH THIS FIC IS ABOUT. THEY KNEW EACH OTHER GROWING UP. THEY WERE IN LOVE. all i remember from this fic is that it’s so well written. give it a read if you’re into this sort of thing

I read like three more kylo/poe fics that are also very good, so. anyway. here goes

saying that I love him but I know I'm gonna leave him byselenedaydreams

“This could be us one day.” Poe whispers half to himself as he finally turns towards Ben, finding a curious expression on his face. “This could be us.” He repeats, this time with more excitement. “You and me. Pilot and copilot. Traveling the universe together.”

Poe has never seen Ben smile at him the way he’s smiling now but Ben’s reaching for his hand and lacing their fingers together so it must be good. “Together.”

Lost To Me by red0aktree

Poe met Ben Solo when he was too young to even know what it meant to meet someone.

Poe met Kylo Ren years later.

Separating the prince of the First Order from the boy he grew up with proves more difficult than the pilot could ever imagine.

Melting Away by SF2187

Before he was Kylo Ren, he was in love with the best pilot in the Republic.

what i like about these fics is that (from what i remember) they don’t erase the fact that kylo is a raging asshole now. nice

excavate me (from all the girls I've tried to be) by Shadows_of_a_Dream

“Rise, Skywalker.”

“I told you,” Rey hisses through gritted teeth. “He’s gone.” Like everyone else. Like all the girls I’ve tried to be. Like all the girls I might have yet become, because I’m going to die alone on this unknown sea.

The mask returns his lightsaber to his belt. And like a crashing wave, like a renewed flame, like the weight of a planet falling squarely upon her shoulders, the mask looks at her and says, “I was talking to you.”

Part 1 of I never asked to tread the skies (but if I shall, I suppose I'll fly)

This one is so... intense. so intense. and so good. 20/10

need somewhere to begin by doubtthestars

Anthology of the War

1//The first time she officially meets Poe, she divulges secrets that aren't hers to tell. 2// If he had been born in any other family, Ben Solo would have been a soldier. 3// When she sees Rey, Leia only has a brief moment to reflect on all of their wrongs.

Read. That is all.

Trial by nymja

Kylo Ren kneels in the snow before her.

“Do it,” he demands.

Rey breathes in through her nose. Her hands are shaking. Her blade starts to burn the skin of his exposed neck. Do it for Han.

--

Luke takes Rey to face The Cave.

Part 4 of Do or Do Not

So cool.

Lessons Learned by nymja

“You’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t learn patience, first.”

“I’m the strongest knight here!”

The Jedi looks around the room, eyeing the skull of his grandfather with pointed distaste. “Yes, well. Good work.”

Part 1 of The Sad Grandpa Trilogy

Forceghost!obi-wan is so disappointed in kylo. it’s great. READ THE WHOLE SERIES BECAUSE IT’S GOLD!! it’s so good!! the next one is about rey and forceghost!anakin in the desert and that fic is so interesting because in it, anakin isn’t really as much of a grandfather figure as he is a friend figure and one of his corporeal forms is a warning to rey. like a mirror in the force (to her, to ren, it’s so brilliant). honestly i could talk forever about the next fic in this series because anakin is SO WELL WRITTEN. SO WELL WRITTEN. 

THE CLASSICS

tbh @fialleril​‘s Double Agent Vader verse gets the biggest shoutout (love u fia you’re my inspiration) for sheer amazingness. i won’t list any of the fics in the verse because u need to read all of them. yes, all of them. get to it

ACTUALLY. you should read all of fia’s work. all of it. (on the offchance that fia actually reads this, i can’t wait for anabasis i am so pumped)

ALSO!! another must read is @phil-the-stone‘s pocket full of sand 'verse. it’s such an Iconic piece of star wars fanfiction!! like bye, everyone needs to read this

ALSO another one of hers because?? why not. nursery ‘verse!!! i’m so heart eyes over nursery verse. i’m forever flattered because some of my headcanons are in this!! best thing i’ve ever done. (phil writes mostly b99 and ouat now, but still check it out, her writing is so good)

other fandom must-read authors include:

1000-alshain

actual-leia-organa

threadsketchy

star-vault-ofthe-heavens

darthnickels

cadesama

ygrittebardots

@anghraine

@izzythehutt

FF.NET MUST READ AUTHORS ARE: 

Mathematica 

irnan (all of their work, i’m not kidding, writer goals)

frodogenic (they wrote darth vader’s limplet and other hilarious fics, honestly, star wars humor at its finest)

motchi 

a bunch of others, though you might find more in my previous rec 

Now. Since we’ve come to the end of this ridiculously long rec, it’s time for me to shamelessly plug my own blog. you can find more tumblr fic in my tag here, you can find my writing here and on ao3 *whispers* leave me a comment, you can find my bookmarks here (and find fics i did not include that are also very good)

have fun reading!!

[insert-witty-comment]

Welcome back to the madhouse.Last time on Hawkins Book Club, we learned that Nichols was personally watched over by God, UFO stealth systems can be foiled by college students, aliens can’t design a functional user interface for shit, the Star Wars galaxy is real, furry aliens exist, there’s an intergalactic empire trying to take over Earth, the majority of alien abductions are actually carried out by the government, a floppy disk can contain enough data to reprogram the human brain, there’s a whole bunch of souls of abused kids just floating around and swapping bodies with each other, the CIA is really bad at assassinations, you can find your destination by bleeding all over a map, you can buy your own isolation tank from a commercial supplier, Eleven was a complete pansy who should have punched out the Demogorgon (according to Moon), UFOs were intentionally designed to look like a 3D vagina, aliens are avid gamers, Nichols lives within driving distance of me and God is a Stranger Things fan.That said, we are now at the 1997 book The Black Sun: Montauk’s Nazi-Tibetan Connection. The Order of the Black Sun, as you may recall, was the magical cult in which high-ranking Nazis tried to time travel by screwing each other in a mass orgy while this guy watched, so prepare yourself.Once again, the Prelude is back, and basically recaps the previous books, but with one addition;“In the wake of all this, Long Island experience the horrible tragedy of TWA Flight 800 where hundreds of individuals died as the result of an unexplained in-flight mishap. Although many theories have been put forward, the media refuses to seriously investigate the most probable cause of the situation;Structural failure?“a particle beam emitted from a Brookhaven Labs facility which activated a nuclear missile.…That works too, I guess. So basically those books is going to be all about those dastardly Nazis.The Introduction finally explains what “Synchronicity” is;“Synchronicity is called the fabric of time because it is the principle by which we recognize or know the phenomenon of time. If different actions are aligned and intercede within one frame of reference, they are said to synchronize… What is not so obvious is that people, places and things can also manifest beyond the laws of probability. Synchronicity, but its very nature, enables us to make associations that we might otherwise pass by.”This is genuinely kind of an interesting idea. Moon then reaffirms that the Nazis will be the focus.Chapter 1 retells the story of how a Nazi U-boat landed at Montauk with significant amount of treasure to bury, and how the crew went on to become barbers in Queens. Prior to that, a significant amount of U-boats were spotted by Montauk residents in the water that the US military never fired upon. Moon concludes that his meant the Nazis had access to Camp Hero through an underground dock. He goes on to talk about the German Bund Nazi supporters that had a large camp right next door to the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Apparently these Nazis also conducted “Bon meetings”, which connected to an ancient Tibetan animistic religion which were closely monitored by the FBI.Chapter 2 begins with a woman named Cindy contacting Nichols and Moon, claiming that her husband worked at Camp Hero. She showed them blueprints of the base’s underground and told them that the base was still being used. Specifically, Cindy’s husband was once of three mechanics working at the Camp… to maintain the lawn mowers. I guess even time-traveling Neo-Nazis want to make sure their grass is perfectly mowed in front of their secret base. Immediately after that conversation, her husband was fired the next day. A bit later, Cindy also told the duo about several Bigfoot sightings around Montauk, which Moon interprets as being another connection to Tibet via the Yeti. Soon after that, Cindy’s father called and revealed the following information;“He can stick his finger into a live electric circuit and feel no shock. An hour later, he could shake someone’s hand and they are liable to receive the shock. I decided to meet the man.”Well, with info like that, who wouldn’t? “Max” then reveals that he was fascinated with UFOs since he was a boy, and in fact literally built his own working flying saucer.“Max claims to have travelled around the United States in his home built UFO with eight women. They would travel the countryside looking for luminous spots on mountains where they hoped to find gold. Some of these spots proved to be false leads, but many precious metals were found, processed and sold for a considerable profit. The money was split between him and the eight women.”….Yeah…..This book…..So because of this, the military hired Max and he was stationed at Camp Hero to serve as a courier. He reveals that the Nazis did indeed visit the base several times. He also states that when a UFO crashed in Amagansett in 1995, the military approached him and asked if he wanted it. When he declined, they took it away themselves. He also attended the Bon meetings, which “were held to tell people what they could say and couldn’t say or tell people what they could and could not do.”“Obviously the people at these meetings were tied into a completely different reality… It sounds like an Aryan race outpost that was halfway between this dimension and another.”Moving on.Chapter 3 kicks off with a discussion of the infamous ���Birth of a Nation,” you know the film that portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as the saviors of the white race. Well, this film reveals that founder of the KKK was a man named (big shock) Ben Cameron, and the film was semi-endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson. Moon also states that the Klan’s emblem was identical to a symbol revered by both the Montauketts and Crowley’s gang.“The book I read further stated that the Klan decided to put ‘meaningless occult symbols’ on their garments. This is a whitewash if ever their[sic] was one. One has to wonder if the writer was personally deluded, deliberately misleading or just making up his own mind.”Pot, meet kettle. I’m sure you’ll get along nicely.“The Klan was obviously using magic for its own purposes. The inner meanings were for initiates only.”Obviously. The name synchronicities continue;“All of this took on an even more profound meaning when I received a letter from a woman who said that her mother knew both Ewen Cameron, once the head of the CIA’s MK-Ultra mind control project, and also Alexander Duncan Cameron Sr., the father of the same Duncan Cameron featured in ‘The Montauk Project’.Well, well, we finally have a link between the Montauk Project and MKUltra. So it turns out that my previous hypothesis was incorrect, and in reality Ewen Cameron is Martin Brenner.“Ewen Cameron has been written up in several un-biased books as one of the most evil monsters to inhabit the corridors of the noble profession of psychiatry. His systematic torture of patients through what he called ‘psychic driving’ is well documented. It is well documented. It is a system whereby one’s own words, particularly of a traumatic content, are repeated over and over on a tape loop which plays continuously on a tape recorder. Combined with various forms of mental stress and deprivation, psychic driving is designed to make one totally lose one’s marbles. This aspect of Cameron’s work was done in conjunction with the CIA. Most of it took place at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada, where he employed many former Nazis. The CIA settled out of court with several people who were tortured by Cameron while he was working under the auspices of the agency.”Fascinating, but then the woman who’s giving Moon all of this information drops a massive bombshell on us;“She also told me that her mother had very esoteric understandings about time travel and had mothered a child with Ewen Cameron.”Oh yeah, Season 2 theorists rejoice. You might want to hedge your bets on this side. Moon comes into contact with this woman who is described as lucid, but suffering from PTSD. She reveals the following;“Her birth was carefully planned, and she was considered to be reincarnation of Innana, the Sumerian goddess…. Anna’s family is of pure Aryan lineage and is traceable beyond Germany.”….Okay. So apparently the ancient Sumerian Aryans were “enlightened and positive”, but became corrupt, and infiltrated every secret organization on Earth; the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, the Freemasons and everything else. These people are called “the Controllers”. Cameron was one of these people and believed that she was the incarnation of Innana, whose energy he could harness as power. To guarantee this, the Cameron lineage was kept pure since the beginning of time all in order to establish a New World Order composed of Aryans. He may have also been involved with sending Rudolf Hess traveling through time and met with John F. Kennedy’s parents.“At affairs like these, Ewen would put on a show. Women from various programs would attend to the men’s sexual desires. Ewen would arrange sexual partners and engage in what could perhaps be best described as the perverted occultism of the rich and powerful.”Well, now we know where Jack got the urge to go on his infamous sexual endeavors from.“Anna was personally quite traumatized by her association with Ewen Cameron. Consequently she began to study psychology to understand his pathology. She says he was overtly homophobic but also a latent homosexual. He amused himself by brutalizing young men as well as women. Ewen was well aware that Anna hated him, but he was gleeful about this because he knew no one would ever believe her over him.”Charming. Anna then describes that the intent of these Controllers was to afflict their subjects with Multiple Personality Disorder, with one personality serving as the blank, programmable one and the other acting as a cover.“Studies on MPD show that these individuals have an IQ above the normal range, a great amount of creativity and above average psychic abilities. It is also true that if you split a personality, the pineal gland will activate and the person can become psychic. The element of possession also comes into play as one is prone to pulling in exterior forces when being tortured. These forces will usually manifest as a beast of demon. Once MPD is achieved, further programming can be achieved by what is now known as Stockholm syndrome. This is when a victim bonds with his or her captor or controller.”That explains why the Demogorgon was attracted to Eleven. Anna also participated in out-of-body experiences and time travel as well. She also has scars on her lungs identical to that of Duncan Cameron, and the chapter ends claiming that Ewen Cameron’s death was faked and he worked for a foreign intelligence agency and Hubbard was a goddamn hero for calling him out on his horribleness and of course, lots of sex magick was involved.In Chapter 4… wait a minute.I just realized that Moon completely forgot to actually talk about the child in question. Seriously, he mentioned her (I’m going to assume she’s a girl for obvious reasons) twice and then never spoke of her again, instead electing to focus on her mother and his favorite subject; sex magick. Maybe Chapter 4 will explain this?Eh… not really. It basically states that the Camerons’ genetics give them a greater ability to travel between dimensions. Moon speaks with two Celtic shamans named Cameron who elaborate on this.Chapter 5 talks about the “Kennedy Connection”. A friend of Moon’s named Claudette says that she was raped by a German scientist who was connected to the Nazis in the 1950s, and ended up marrying him due to the social mores against giving birth while unwed. He frequently disappeared when they went to Montauk on vacation. Also;“The most bizarre story she had to tell was this German scientist’s dealings with the late Robert F. Kennedy. She said that while Kennedy was Attorney General, he would sometimes visit their house Queens. He always showed up in a limousine. The driver would wait outside while Booby came in the house. These visits were typified by her husband retrieving LSD sugar cubes from the refrigerator which he and Booby would consume and go ‘tripping’.Ah, the good old days, when the Attorney General could go off to trip out with a Nazi rapist and no one would care. Now it’s all “Russian collaboration” this and “Election hacking” that.Moon then goes off on a bizarre tangent when he claims that JFK Jr. was bisexual. He spends a large amount of writing trying to prove this and comes to the conclusion that the only thing that connects this to the Project is that JFK Jr. rented a house next to Camp Hero. Also;“Arnold Schwarzenegger, the poster boy of Aryan genetics also married into the Kennedy clan. He is the star of ‘Total Recall’, a movie that used a device similar to the Montauk Chair as its main theme. His psychic signature has literally been blasted over America’s air waves by nature of his tremendous stardom.”Uh-huh. I have no idea why Moon is so obsessed with linking Total Recall to Montauk, but let's just move on. Moon then describes how Joseph Kennedy Sr. had pro-Nazi leanings in the 1930s and appointed a Nazi sympathizer named Tyler Kent to manage confidential telegrams between Churchill, Kennedy and Roosevelt. Scotland Yard ultimately arrested Kent when they found that he was hiding telegrams in his apartment and Kennedy disavowed connection to him. Finally, a Scottish genealogy book ended up genetically linking the Kennedys to the Camerons.“This book said that both families trace their roots to the Scottish Isle of Skye, the isle of witches. Perhaps the Kennedy mystique of Camelot is real magick at work and not just a media illusion. All of you know that if JFK Jr. was ever nominated for president, he would be elected on the female vote alone. There is also a frenzy people feel about electing a Kennedy. It is magick.”This book….Chapter 6 discusses the Teutonics. It essentially claims that the Teutonics were involved with Egypt due to similarities between Norse and Egyptian mythology. The Vikings tapped into magical powers via runes as well, and the Nazis continued this belief. This is because the Celtic and German people have a sort of sacredness in their blood. Hitler was able to harness this old pagan power that was suppressed by the “ruling clergy” to convince the country to go to war.Chapter 7 talks about Lion Gardiner. He was a part of the Dutch “House of Orange” and had “royal blood”. In addition, every European king traced back to the Sumerian “gods” (aka aliens) who mated with human women, hence their special bloodline. There’s a brief history about the House of Orange that I’ll skip over for the sake of brevity.Chapter 8 covers some of Gardiner’s escapades on Long Island. In 1658 a guy named Samuel Parsons visited his friend’s wife Elizabeth Howell. She handed her newborn baby over to Parsons, started singing a Psalm, and started screaming about a witch, as one does. When her dad Gardiner came over she stated that she saw a “black thing” at the foot of her bed. She clarified that this thing was a shadow or something conjured by the Gardiners’ servant Goody Garlick. Over time, Elizabeth began to fall seriously ill and continued to claim that Garlick was bewitching her with pins. Eventually she died, and Garlick was put on trial for witchcraft. The “evidence” was that she dispensed herbs, owned a black cat, acted as a wet nurse for children and used “counter-magic” to help Gardiner with his animals. She was defended by her husband and Gardiner himself, and managed to get her off. This apparently heralded in “an era of black magic practices on Long Island which still exist to the present day.”Chapter 7 is titled “Project Paperclip and the Hamills”. The former was an Allied plan to save Nazi scientists and war criminals for their own use, and the latter was the family of a Muppet Show guest.“Since I have known Preston, people close to him have disputed his contention that he even knew Mark Hamill. I have asked Preston’s father about this. He remembers Mark as a young boy who cleaned up leaves from their backyard.”…..No, I’m still not convinced; you’re going to need more than that. Regardless, multiple people claiming to have a connection to Hamill have contacted Moon, but most of them disappeared shortly thereafter. In 1992, Nichols ran into Hamill in a Long Island mall, and that actor mentioned that he was prohibited from speaking to Moon. He also said that he was working on a sequel to the Philadelphia Experiment movie that was backed by the government.“When the movie was released, Doug Curtis was listed on the credits and, lo and behold, the Executive Producer was a man by the name of Mark Levinson. This seems to be an obvious play on the name ‘Mark’ and the ‘Levinson time equations’ mentioned in ‘The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time’. It was as if Mark was rubbing it in our faces.”Okay, this I can believe.“Shortly after this time period, it was reported on ‘CBS This Morning’ that when virtually all the homes in a section of Malibu burned during the brush fires, Mark Hamill’s house was miraculously saved. He appeared for a brief minute or two and said he did an occult Indian ritual which preserved his house.”Alrighty then. Also, seeing as how Hamill looked rather different in later years due to plastic surgery from a car accident, Moon begins to speculate that the Mark hanging around now is actually a body double. Moon points out that this accident did occur while the Montauk Project was in full swing. He then starts saying that Mark’s father was a Lt. Col. James Hamill who was an integral part of Operation Paperclip, specifically the acquisition of the V-2 rocket team. The “evidence” for this is that Mark’s father was stated to work in Navy intelligence and the Lt. Col. Hamill looked much like him and was old enough to be his father. This segways into the next chapter.So Moon was contacted by the German publisher of his books, Jan von Helsing. Von Helsing claimed that he was born psychic “from a mother who could read spirits” and his father was involved in psychic research. Despite this, he didn’t care much for the paranormal and became involved with the “punk rock music scene”, until a skinhead of all people told him that he saw Helsing’s aura and that his “crown chakra was not function properly”. This bizarrely helpful skinhead convinced Helsing to stop taking drugs alcohol and, um… meat, which somehow resulted in him falling into a one and a half week coma, during which he saw visions of “pyramids and domed houses.” Later, he met an aura reader, who claimed that Helsing was involved in time travel, and a part of his soul is stuck in another time. He then went on to meet Cameron’s half-brother Al Bielek who informed him that he was one of only eighteen people on the planet who had a “triple aura”, all of whom came from another universe as it was being destroyed. Their souls or whatever emerged to begin a rebirth and rebuilding process. According to Helsing, himself, Bielek, Cameron, Nichols, Moon and of course Mark Hamill are part of this special group. Cameron added that people have seven layers of information that manifest in a double lattice structure. People with triple auras have three of these things. Anyway;“The idea that triple aura individuals come from another universe is paralleled in Duncan’s own readings. Duncan sometimes referred to 637 people who came in from the Old Universe. There is an even further synchronicity at work here because Duncan’s psychic memories parallel the Star Wars movies almost to a tee.”Oh, we’re back to this.“There is a lot more information yet to come forth with regard to the whole subject of Star Wars. Preston Nichols was involved with the sound production and has publicly claimed in lectures that psychics were used to project into the filming so that people would come and see the movie several times.”………….….“The Star Wars series itself was based upon George Lucas’s ‘Journal of the Will’. Although it has not been publically released, this journal contained the dreams and inspirations of Lucas, a man who is reported to have lived at Montauk. The use of the word ‘will’ is a distinct parallel to Aleister Crowley’s concept of the will. When one unleashes the will, whether is through George Lucas or any other individual, the truth has a way of coming forth. The truth we are concerned about, lest anybody wonder, is unlocking the secrets of time.”……………………..“It seems clear that both Duncan and George Lucas were pulling from the same source. When we consider that Mark Hamill was once a roommate of Duncan, a childhood friend of Preston, and eventually became the brother-in-law of George Lucas, there is less room for speculation. There was an active but unseen influence working on all of them. It seems that Hamill, Lucas and Preston (who worked as a sound engineer for these movies) all contributed to remind the population at large of its ancient legacy and predicament.”I….I’m at a complete loss for words right now, so let’s just move on. Chapter 11 is just a long description about how secret societies and the government are suppressing Helsing’s work which has something to do with the Aryans and the Jews and I don’t know let’s keep moving.Chapter 12 starts off by claiming that Steven Spielberg is involved in this whole mess too due to making Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of the Third Kind which revealed some of the truth about Nazis and aliens, respectively. Apparently a couple of people gave him copies of the first book. What follows is a colossal amount of horseshit over the course of several chapters that will try to break down here;*Dr. Felix Kersten was the personal doctor of SS commander Heinrich Himmler, who in fact did not want to actually murder every single Jewish person on Earth, and is essentially portrayed as a somewhat sympathetic figure instead of the utter fucking monster he was.*Hitler suffered from syphilis and his mental state was decaying rapidly, and was constantly being shot up with drugs by a “Dr. Morell”.*There was an art dealer who looked exactly like Hitler who was involved with Montauk in the 1960s and the Soviets might have covered up his escape. Also, Hitler might have had literal clones made of him.*Otto Skorzeny was a complete badass and managed to find a hidden Cathar treasure and later went on his own adventures after the war.*The Kaaba in Mecca was part of the Great Pyramid’s original capstone and was given to Abraham by Tahuti, Muhammad derived his “power” from the Great Pyramid as a result and was nurtured and supported by “the Goddess”, Allah is apparently more feminine than masculine in reality.*The Cameron family is literally the lineage of Christ. Also, Montauk was part of Thule, which was the capital of the mythical land of Hyperborea (“That’s what the Greeks called Iceland, you know”). Thule itself was the source of all life on Earth. Seeing as how the Earth geometrically forms out a void, Thule is the center of this void and is thus the titular “Black Sun”. Also, “SS” does not stand for Schutzstaffel, but instead it stands for Schwarze Sonne, meaning “Black Sun”. Thulium is also a “psychic gas”, which aliens require in order to survive on Earth. A whole bunch of “Thulists” met at an Artic base called Point 103 in 1945 to get in telepathic contact with a mystical source “at the center of positive forces on the planets”, called the “Manisolas” which are bio-machines that are manifestations of the morphogenetic grid.*Vrihl is still in play and is described as a magical force “set in motion by orgasm for the purpose of invoking beings from the ‘Outside’”. These beings are called the “Onoma”, the “deepest archetypes of the subconscious and are said to be the keys to evoking the Elder Gods or Forgotten Ones”, which in turn inspired H. P. Lovecraft. The Nazis tried to use it for this purpose meaning that this book is seriously claiming that the Third Reich tried to summon the Demogorgon from the Upside-Down. I’m not quite sure what to feel about that. Also, they used Vril to make flying saucersPutting the brakes on, we arrive at Chapter 22. So the guy in charge of the Nazi Vril project, Dr. Viktor Schauberger, fled to America after the war and was recruited by Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, he created the Cosmotron, a large particle accelerator. However, when he found out that his supervisors were planning on using it to manipulate the grid, he managed to break out of his contract and returned to Germany, where he died a few days later.Speaking of which, Chapter 23 goes into more detail about the Nazi flight from Germany after the war. So essentially the I.G. Farben Corporation worked to move scientists, equipment and money to neutral countries. Farben was responsible for providing the Zyklon B gas for the concentration camps and future Pope John Paul II sold it for them in his youth. The United States government gave them support before the war in exchange for chemical warfare research, but they were investigated after the war. One of the members of Farben was a man named Leo T. Crowley who also running the FDIC and was in charge of all enemy property confiscated during the war. Regardless, the investigation ruined Farber.“Today, I. G. Farben exists but only as a shadow of its former self. That it survives at all is puzzling. I can only guess that it is some sort of weird PR ploy whereby holocaust victims can make claims against it. Perhaps the real goal is to simply haunt the Jews. On the other hand, there may be latent hopes to rekindle the company under the rise of a new Reich.”…..Sure. Oh, and also an SS General named Reinhard Gehlen helped form the CIA and staffed it with some former SS agents.Chapter 24 talks about the Nazi shenanigans in Antarctica. So apparently Hitler decided that Antarctic would be a great place for a secret base called “Neuschwabenland” and sent a navy detachment down there in 1938. This is where the Spear of Destiny was hidden after the war and there might be a Nazi UFO base down there guarding the entrance to the Hollow Earth.Chapter 25 continues an investigation of the National Archives, which revealed that the OSS went to Tibet for reconnaissance purposes that ended up with the agents giving the Tibetans a large radio transmitter. Apparently the trip was actually meant to find traces of the prior Nazi expedition, which segways into Chapter 26. These expeditions were led by a Dr. Ernst Schafer of the Ahnenerbe for studying the Tibetan political and religious practices, specifically their sexual practices.“On his expeditions, Tibetans were filmed having intimate sex in public, the pictures of which included a fifteen year old girl masturbating in public on a bridge beam.”And you thought Jonathan Byers was a mildly creepy voyeur. Anyway, the Tibetans handed over their 108-volume sacred script to the Nazis, which were later taken by the Soviets. Chapter 27 then claims that five days before Hitler “allegedly” shot himself, the Soviets found six Tibetans lying dead in a ritual circle in the cellar of a Berlin building, one of which was wearing green gloves. Apparently this guy advised Hitler for whatever reason, along with a whole bunch of other occultists. Chapter 28 expands on this by stating that the Bon religion is based on the Black Sun and the mysterious “Goddess”. Moon then proceeds to bash Buddhism for a bit, claiming that it was based upon a patriarchal system. Also, Shangri La is a real thing. There’s a whole discussion about the Bon magick that continues through Chapter 29. Chapter 30 discusses the Shensi Pyramids again, and the Nazi expeditions to Tibet to retrieve magical tablets that would teach them how to obtain a “powerful consciousness”, and had a mining operation meant to dig up a substance vital to this goal. Chapter 31 confirms that the Nazis did indeed go looking for the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, just like in Indiana Jones. The Romans seized them at first from the Middle East, before the Visigoths took them in the Sack of Rome, and taken to a cave where they were rediscovered by Otto Skorzeny’s commandos. Some of the treasure was dumped in a salt mine and the rest went to Himmler. Somehow the Ark ended up in Ethopia. Chapter 32 talks a bit about magical “White Gold and Occultum”, which was contained in the Ark.Chapter 33 expands on this by claiming that an alien “Blue Race” produced royal bloodlines. Chapter 34 describes Napoleon’s life a bit and states that he used Occultum, which was found in mummies. Chapter 35 talks about Crowley some more and his contact with an entity called LAM, which is linked to the blueprint room Moon mentioned in the previous book.“Magicians in the past have referred to that blueprint room as R’lyeh, a region which contains the sleeping or hidden god Cthulu… All of the gods within R’lyeh are known as the Forgotten Ones which is another name for the Elder Gods or Elder Race. This can be extended as well to the Blue Race.”So Lovecraft was right all along, who knew? Also, Atlantis relied upon an addiction to a phosphorus substance called “Zro”, which allowed them to achieve a higher state of being.Finally, we reach the Epilogue which matter-of-factly states that Prescott Bush, (the father of President George Bush Sr.) literally stole Geronimo’s skull with the Skull and Bones society. Why? So they could eat the residual Occultum residing in the bones of course! This practice apparently continued at Montauk. Moon ends the book with one final exclamation that the Black Sun is the source of creation;“Today, it has come into full view for the world to see. The powers of creation can be accessed by any free soul who wishes to reach for them. The Black Sun is alive and kicking and is no longer reserved for those who would perpetrate evil against man or life. It breathes the fire of life and love. It is the hidden god, Mon, talking. In this sense, it is also the ultimate synchronicity in terms of puns. It is MON-TALK!”And with that God-awful pun out of the way, Moon presents one final Author’s Note warning the readers to stay away from people claiming to sell white gold, with one guy in particular managing to scam a whopping ten thousand idiots.“New Age people are now being targeted for all sorts of scams, particularly in the financial arena. As the Romans used to say ‘Caveat emptor’(buyer beware).“But you can totally trust me guys! Buy my next book!”And with that, we finish Montauk’s Nazi-Tibetan Connection. What did we learn? Well, we learned that there’s a pretty good chance that Brenner may be Eleven’s actual father if we go upon this. Also, we never found out about the child herself in all of this by the way. I guess that’s something to look forward to, right? Also, both the Cthulu Mythos and the Star Wars galaxy are real.Join me next week on Hawkins Book Club and we’ll take a look at Montauk: The Alien Connection.Thanks for reading, and Stay Strange.The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time OverviewMontauk Revisited: Adventures in Synchronicity OverviewPyramids of Montauk: Explorations in Consciousness OverviewEncounter in the Pleiades: An Inside Look at UFOs Overview via /r/StrangerThings

[ladytemeraire]

#its so insane when u think abt it as a 'they never acted on it' love story #like u finally reunite w ur bestie and childhood crush u think its gonna be great finally flying togehter properly #u think maybe u'll say smthn when u get back from this if u survive #u dont even consider that HE might not survive #and so on the same day u become a hero to the galaxy u lose the one last part of home u had left #and u know its not the same as leia but my god ur planet might as well have just blown up #cause theres nothing left of the place u called home. nobody to share ur childhood memories with #the one escaped tatooine first. the one u always loved. hes gone #and worst of all nowhere to put that overwhelming love you've been keeping inside all this time. it has to stay in ur chest forever

Going absolutely feral over these tags OP (bolding mine because damn that line took me out at the knees)

luke and biggs… thoughts?

many thoughts + it means luke has a type