#but i had a cinephile phase i do not want to go back to

[solacereigns]

he likes pulp fiction /derogatory

[maryrealbloody]

mary, cinema, and the love of her life

In my early 20s, I've been the kind of 'cinephile' who rarely rewatches her favorites. That's totally different from when I was younger because if younger me fell in love with a movie, she would get totally consumed by it. That meant I would watch it at least once a day. Until it's in my bones. But in my early 20s, I had a troubling weight loss and I entered a somewhat mental catatonic state. I weighed 88 pounds. I stopped reaching out to friends. I worked then watched movies. I lived in a shared house with strangers. That was all. Watching movies then felt like sprinting away from my life, just a process to stop my brain from thinking.

I started getting into movies because as an only child, that meant I was left home alone over the weekends while both of my parents went to their jobs. So for about 10 hours every weekend since I was 8, I had the TV all to myself. I was a loner. I watched whatever was airing on the movie channels, from comedy movies that might not have aged well, to gory slashers, to beloved cult classics. Most of these movies accompanied me while I killed time, becoming my window to worlds I might not be able to touch. It still filled me with wonder to be able to see different perspectives without leaving the house. When I was 8, my favorite movies were the first Friday the 13th and High School Musical. When I got to high school, I had a John Hughes phase. Teenage me cried to Some Kind of Wonderful. Teenage me swore Heathers was something I'd never get over from. My movie-watching habits followed me well into college. But it has evolved. It just wasn't my window to other worlds anymore. It's an escape. It meant that for at least 2 hours, I don't have to think about myself. I just couldn't wrap my head around the facts of life. Only movies gave me any semblance of meaning. Part of the reason why I was sad was thinking I don't have enough time to watch every movie I've been dying to see, much less do anything else apart from that. I can't be the only person who feels like they're running out of time. In the middle of the pandemic, I was holed up in a house with people I barely know while I had a breakdown. I was only 22 and I didn't know anyone else who was also specifically going through what I was going through back then. Movies remained my comfort. Life went on.

2024 has been a surprising year for me. I reconnected with the genuine love of my life. It was something I didn't plan at all. I cried while watching Past Lives because I thought of him the entire time. I thought how badly I fucked up by cutting him out of my life because my life was a whirlpool of chaos four years ago, and it wasn't fair to get him swept up in that whirlpool. But in 2024, we reconnected. I consider it a miracle that neither of us were married; maybe this really is our time because we needed those years apart to become better people. This year, we travelled. I got to watch less movies than I usually do. However, I took this as a good sign. For the past four years, drowning myself in movies meant I wanted to avoid thinking about being alive. Now I could watch movies the way I used to when I was younger: letting it linger within me because there's nothing to run away from anymore. The thing that destroyed my life four years ago no longer impact me.

In 2024, I moved in with the genuine love of my life. This year, I had a deeper understanding of that line from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind about being exactly right where I'm meant to be.

I thought things would never get better. But right now I'm alive. And I've been rewatching favorites with my beloved, curled up with our cat. Rewatching movies now means I get to experience the movie through his eyes; that is such a lovely place to dwell in.

[levitatingbiscuits]

I don't go here but I have been seized by the idea for an obikin au

OK so imagine: Obi-Wan and Anakin are celebrity actors. They run in totally different circles; Obi-Wan acts in dramas and arthouse films and keeps getting snubbed by awards ceremonies, but he's got a dedicated fanbase of cinephiles raving about his acting techniques and how he masterfully embodies every character etc. etc. He doesn't make a whole lot of money, but he's an ✨️artiste✨️

Anakin, meanwhile, is an action hero blockbuster star. He's the type who has a toxic and devoted Twitter standom, a cult of cringe nerdbros worshipping him a la Elon Musk or Keanu, a fuckton of RPF, the works.

Their fanbases HATE each other. They're convinced from the bottom of their hearts that the 2 are bitter rivals. They pore over interviews and tabloids for the slightest HINT of animosity. Obi-Wan had to private his Twitter account because of the barrage of hate from the Stanakins. Anakin has never been cast in anything artsy because all the auteurs are on Obi-Wan's side, so he's stuck doing Marvel movies and action franchises while Palpatine, Disney's greedy CEO, uses him as a dancing monkey.

The thing is, Obi-Wan barely knows the guy?? They were both discovered by Director Qui-Gon Jinn and acted in one film together (Anakin's debut as a child star), after which Obi-Wan got dropped from the mainstream like a hot potato, but he's not bitter about it. Sure, it would be cool to have a star on the Hollywood walk of fame and a mansion in Beverly Hills, but he's proud of his career (even if Palpatine's bought off everyone to ensure he NEVER gets an Oscar. Or a Golden Globe. Or a kid's choice award.)

Unbeknownst to him, Anakin's actually his biggest fan. Obi-Wan's the one who inspired him to get into acting, Anakin's seen all his films, he may or may not have posters from Obi-Wan's short-lived teen heartthrob phase, and Obi-Wan was so nice to him in the one family film they co-starred in when Anakin was a tot.

He's also stupid, and he's got Palpatine and Jinn in his ear, so he genuinely believes the tabloids and gossip blogs when they say Obi-Wan hates his guts. He's heartbroken, but he's sure not gonna SHOW it, so he lets people believe he hates Obi-Wan and does nothing to stop his fans from being awful to him. (He might even want to punish his favorite actor for not liking him back, because Obi-Wan said in an interview that he's never even watched Anakin's movies! EVERYONE'S seen Anakin's movies!! That's obviously a snub!!!)

(Obi-Wan hasn't even seen his own movies. Screens give him migraines.)

But everything comes to a head when ambitious young director Padmé Amidala casts them alongside each other, 10 years after their last film together...

[shit-talk-turner]

I saw the comment about 8 1/2 (the movie about film making and writers block). Alex is culture vulture. Brilliant writers embed themselves in external worlds and reflect internally on them. Taylor has always been a cinephile but so has he. If you watch 2008 interviews for TLSP, it seemed as though that time pushed him towards foreign cinema. Alexa played a role as well. My mistakes were made for loving you screams cinematic tone!

I think Arielle was the breath of fresh air that came with fame. These 4 boys were now on the North American radar and along with it came all the cliches. But in my personal opinion, there wasn’t much of an intellectual intrigue there. He had to sort of come back to his artistic roots. I am willing to bet that played a part in his attraction to Taylor too. She’s a huge David lynch fan (long before him) and lynch borrowed so much from the neo noir and avant garde movements. I’ll touch on that in a blog (I’m doing a cinema write up for body paint right now. I did the lyrics one on tumblr a few days ago)

Tbhc to me will always be the Taylor album. I followed her Instagram religiously (I always found her interesting to be fair. Wild card). She definitely offered a lot of imagery that he used for certain lyrics. Obviously every artist has a muse. The rest is all his talent and his world of creation. The muses catapult the creation that has been stagnant.

I don’t think she’s hinting as much as she is caught in nostalgia. Healing is in stages right ? I think the timing is questionable but as much as she reflects back, I think we all know and she knows there isn’t any going back. It’s a cathartic release if anything.

A romanticized farewell. In my humble opinion as a grown adult, I don’t think she wants to profit off his fame or this fandom. She responded to one post since their breakup in which someone put her down for her old ways. She is tagged almost daily but doesn’t play on it.

I think her hinting is romanticized nostalgia.

He does it and we don’t really go after him for it. He does it with lyrics. She does it with her Instagram stories. Same release, same reflection, different methods. But we seem to believe one is more acceptable.

8 1/2 was also a movie Loren Humphrey was mentioned introducing him to. Same with all the French cinema. Once you’re immersed on a path everything else aligns. With the French new wave films came the rest of the ingredients. French girl, French clothing, and the romanticism of cinema.

I’m bias because this is my realm of studies back in the day and I thoroughly enjoyed EYCTE. This album reeks of elements used in eycte. I do like this new phase.

Every artist has a phase. This seems to linger because it’s multifaceted. He will always find something to create out of it.

- maha (also Taylor’s titty video got me banned from my one account on IG but I’m still using the other haahahah) 🙈🙈🙈

THANK YOU!!!! Hahah we love this analysis and the helpful throwback info!

[canarycontessa]

four writing tips that helped me get out of my own way

- Use a pen for drafts. 

Get used to scratching things out, cramming things in the margins, breaking up pages as new tangents form and then zigzagging back to the original WIP. Go out of your way to not only forget making any of it look pretty, but to make it as ugly as possible (while still being readable to you, of course). And don’t even think about typing it yet because that backspace key is just another eraser. Get over the idea of erasing or covering over your mistakes, because there are no real mistakes in the first draft stage. 

The more you desensitize yourself to your rough draft legit LOOKING rough, the less you’ll have any self consciousness and/or perfectionism shutting you off from your creative flow. Once you get used to the sloppiness, you stop giving a fuck about appeasing your inner critic/editor (editorial input isn’t needed until several drafts later, after all) and just let the words come at will. 

This enables you to have fun with your rough draft and therefore keep coming back to it. You become a kid again, splashing paint all over the walls and not caring that you can’t take anything back. It’s about the journey.

- Deliberately multi-task while writing. 

Emphasis on "deliberately". This sounds really counterintuitive, right? Why would I set out to intentionally half-ass something?

It probably doesn't work this way for everybody, but if I sit down to write in complete silence and with nothing else going on, I will get jackshit done. It's too much pressure. Instead, all I can think about is the blank page mocking me, the deafening silence around me and how my entire future happiness is riding on whether I can get anything down. Then I start thinking about what I fake I am, how I’m bring dishonor to my family ... etc, etc. I’ll probably end up closing my document and getting up to do something else. I’ll come to dread the empty page and write less and less as time goes on, all the while beating myself up for it. It’s not pretty.

If, however, I have my notebook in front of me, pen in hand while I watch the news, flip channels, listen to a podcast or Youtube video, have a conversation with two other people, then half my focus is elsewhere. There’s less room for those unhelpful thoughts, the pressure is off me and, best of all, I open myself up to free associate and draw inspiration from what’s around me. My pen is moving. Words are happening. And before I know it, I’ve added 10 more pages to my project.

As far as what your other task should be, it can be practically anything. I’m a cinephile, so I love movies; I’ll have films, video essays, music videos, etc. playing while I write. Sometimes I go to the park, watch people play chess or walk their dogs while listening to music. The best of all for me is boring data entry. Something about having to keep up the pace of my keystrokes while still having a notepad for me to jot down whatever floats up out of the abyss. I’ve had some of my best ideas and especially dialogue while doing data entry.

This really goes back to that first tip and the idea of letting go of your self consciousness. It’s easy to get bogged down in it when you’re taking the rough draft phase too seriously. Plus I find that after a while I’m shunting more of my focus over to my writing as I pick up speed anyway.

- Your downtime is sacred. Respect your downtime. 

Momentum can’t last for hours and hours on end. Let yourself wind down, set your notebook/document aside and come back to it later. This can take the form of switching gears by working on a completely different WIP, shifting formats (going from a manuscript to a rap verse or essay or tv pilot script), or just stopping your writing altogether and doing something else. It's not a flaw if you can't keep going that day, esp if you're back again the next day. 

This goes well beyond the usual cliche of "be patient with yourself uwu" or “let inspiration guide you”, though there is a little truth to both. This isn’t about patience, or self care, or anything like that. It’s about an inner alchemy that can only take place if you know when to come to a stopping point.

There's this concept called "the boys in the lab" or "the boys in the basement" and it goes like this: you give the boys (your brain, your imagination, subconscious, whatever you want to call it) enough juicy raw material to work with (whatever you've written or outlined that day, notes, dialogue snippets, essay fragments, etc) and then back off. Exit the laboratory. The boys can’t work if you’re still in there nitpicking every little thing and micromanaging them. Get the hell out of their way, and I promise that when you poke your head back in tomorrow, you’ll find all sorts of new things being cooked up in there.

This is where those lightning bolt ideas come from. When something that never occured to you hits you at a traffic stop. When you wake up out of a dead sleep and scramble for a pen and paper so you can jot down something that came to you in a dream. When you get the solution to a problem while you’re in the shower.

That inner alchemy is no joke. And even if you don’t get some grand epiphany, there’s the more mundane but still highly useful phenomenon of viewing your work with “fresh eyes” (especially useful while editing/revising). Your words will run together if you stare at them for too long. Step back when you notice this happening.

- Don’t talk about your projects with others until they’re finished/published. 

And even then, learn to be your own cheering section. Cultivate a quiet sense of pride in your own achievements and let your portfolio speak for itself. This applies to so much more in life, but with regards to writing: You can talk an idea to death, if you’re not careful. It happens all the time. Don’t get addicted to the rush of achievement you feel when you talk about what you’re going to do, when you haven’t even done anything yet. Stop putting your self-esteem in other people’s hands by seeking their validation and opinion on everything you do your writing. And as cynical as it sounds, not everyone wants you to prosper and thrive. So with all that in mind, remember:

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-tye-sheridan-terrence-malick-mud-new-psychological-thriller-detour/

Interview: Tye Sheridan on Terrence Malick, ‘Mud,’ and His New Psychological Thriller ‘Detour’

Harper (Tye Sheridan), a young law student, believes that his stepfather was involved in the devastating car crash that left his mother comatose. He drowns his suspicions in whiskey until he finds himself engrossed in conversation with a volatile grafter, Johnny (Emory Cohen), and his stripper companion, Cherry (Bel Powley). As daylight breaks and the haziness of promises made becomes clearer, how will Harper handle the repercussions (not to mention the violent duo now on his doorstep)? Employing a split-narrative structure to tell this tale of deception and murder, writer/director Christopher Smith takes his audience on a thrill ride full of hairpin turns, where it’s never quite clear what or who can be trusted.

Young Tye Sheridan burst on the scene as one of the boys in Terrence Malick’s epic, The Tree of Life. He then held his own opposite Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon in Jeff Nichols’ poignant Mud, and has been wowing audiences ever since in films such as Joe, The Stanford Prison Experiment, and X-Men: Apocalypse. I sat down to talk with 20-year-old Tye Sheridan in Los Angeles about his latest film, Detour, and his impressive career which includes a role in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming futuristic film, Ready Player One.

Danny Miller: I remember talking to Jeff Nichols about Mud several years ago and he spent most of the interview talking about you. I remember how impressed he was at the way you took the actor who played Neckbone in that film who had no acting experience under your wing during the shoot.

Tye Sheridan: But I didn’t really have any acting experience either! I mean, I had spent five months on a Terrence Malick film but I don’t know if you know very much about how he works —

Not a typical movie experience, I assume!

To say the least. He uses a very unconventional style of filmmaking. And that’s how I learned! I was about 13 when I worked on The Tree of Life.

But weren’t you working as a child actor before that?

No, not at all, I really had no aspirations to act back then. I was always interested in telling stories but I always thought I’d become a novelist or something.

So how did you end up being in that very high-profile movie?

I grew up in a really small town between Dallas and Houston. Terry had sent out all these casting directors throughout the state of Texas and they ended up recruiting about 10,000 kids to audition for the three roles of the sons. I just kept getting called back and called back and finally got cast in the movie. It was crazy! But shooting that film felt like being at a really great summer camp, I still didn’t feel like, “Okay, now I’m an actor,” it was more like this really cool experience. It wasn’t until I made Mud and then my third film that I really fell in love with it and thought, “Yeah, this is what I want to do!”

Did you have a clue at the time that your initial experience with Malick was not a typical acting experience.

No, not back then, how could I know? Remember, we never even had a script so I didn’t even know what the film was about! I remember when I finally saw the movie, I was totally confused. Terry shoots so many scenes that never make it into his films — we could have made seven or eight films out of all that footage!

Wow, do you think any of it will ever see the light of day?

Well, I was in his office just recently, and I know that he’s working on a big extended directors cut of The Tree of Life so I’m looking forward to seeing that. But at the time I just wondered why most of the stuff that we shot wasn’t in the film. It’s funny, because when we wrapped the movie, they put together this big reel of outtakes for us, using all those scenes that didn’t make it into the film, and I remember thinking, “Oh, this is going to be such a funny family movie about these three kids!” Well, not exactly. At the first screening, all three of us boys were like “What the hell is this?” But I loved that whole experience, and I love Terry. It was great working with him.

It’s incredible that you basically carry Mud, your second film, even though you’re acting opposite big Hollywood heavyweights. I also remember your Arkansas accent being dead on accurate. Was that a challenge?

No, not really. I mean, I grew up in the middle of east Texas, so I had that thick accent to start with. After Mud, I became a lot more conscious about getting rid of it because I didn’t just want to be that kid who does Southern dramas!

This is such an interesting part. I love movies where there’s not necessarily a clear-cut distinction between good and bad and right and wrong. And coming from a home where my own parents divorced when I was young, I so got Harper’s tendency to create this suspicious scenario about his stepfather.

Thank you for saying that, that’s what was so interesting to me, too, and not everyone picks up on it. I think we often do have these psychological build-ups in our head about different people in our lives and Chris Smith really explores that in this film.

I also loved the split-screen device that was used. I don’t want to give anything away but it became clear to me that what I first thought was happening in those was very different from what they were really showing.

Yeah, that was amazing, and I know people have different interpretations of that. There are things that most people probably won’t ever pick up on and I don’t want to give any spoilers, but there are things with my clothes and other objects in the scenes that give clues as to what’s really going on. But I’ve always loved movies like that where you realize certain things in the end that change everything. It makes you want to watch the movie over again. I felt that way with A Beautiful Mind.

Yeah, and The Sixth Sense was obviously another big one in terms of learning something later on that changes all your subsequent viewings. I really enjoyed your chemistry with Emory Cohen and Bel Powley. Such good actors and Emory’s character was really interesting. Totally menacing but with all these surprises.

I loved working with those two, they were so great. My very first day of shooting was the scene when Emory comes to the door with Bel and tells me we’re going to Vegas. I didn’t know Emory that well yet because he just showed up a few days before we started shooting and I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him much. When I met him, I thought, “Oh, what a nice, sweet guy.” And then we shot that scene and he just scared the living shit out of me! I remember going to Chris that day and saying, “Oh, shit, I had no idea he was going to be that scary!”

You have such an interesting career — and you’ve already had the experience of making these gigantic studio blockbusters along with these tiny low-budget indies. Do you hope to keep doing both?

Absolutely. What fuels me as an artist is a story that I feel needs to be told. I always ask myself that question when I read a script, and sometimes I get an immediate answer. It just sticks out like an odd color. That’s when I know I have to pursue a role, no matter what the medium or the format or the budget. That’s how I felt about this film. And to be honest, I was also consciously thinking that I wanted to do something that was more mature, I felt I was ready to take on a young adult role instead of all of the coming-of-age films I’ve done.

I think this marks the end of your “He’s the kid from The Tree of Life” phase.

I hope so! (Laughs.) I really appreciate Chris taking a shot on me for this different kind of part.

There were some very physical scenes in this film. How was it shooting those — like that intense fight between you and Stephen Moyer?

Those were fun! Stephen has done a lot of stunt work in True Blood and other projects and we talked a lot about it beforehand and worked it out. But I feel like in every movie that I do I’m always punching someone or getting into a fight in at least one scene. There’s one shot here that’s so great — the slo-mo shot of Stephen rolling onto the back patio with the sun reflecting through the sprinkler.

I assume you did that in one take only?

Yeah, we had to get it one take! Chris was all excited about doing that scene “Tarantino-style!” He loved referencing directors in his work. He’d say, “Let’s do the Malick shot,” or “Here’s our Paul Thomas Anderson shot,” it was hilarious.

I could tell from watching this movie that Chris Smith is a real movie lover.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And you can see the poster of Paul Newman in Harper in my bedroom, he loves that stuff!

I know you just finished shooting Steven Spielberg’s new movie. The caliber of people you’ve worked with for someone who just turned 20 is truly astounding.

I know, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been! I guess it’s all downhill from here. (Laughs.)

Detour is now available in theaters, OnDemand, and on Amazon Video and iTunes.

[levitatingbiscuits]

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#5

I don't go here but I have been seized by the idea for an obikin au

OK so imagine: Obi-Wan and Anakin are celebrity actors. They run in totally different circles; Obi-Wan acts in dramas and arthouse films and keeps getting snubbed by awards ceremonies, but he's got a dedicated fanbase of cinephiles raving about his acting techniques and how he masterfully embodies every character etc. etc. He doesn't make a whole lot of money, but he's an ✨️artiste✨️

Anakin, meanwhile, is an action hero blockbuster star. He's the type who has a toxic and devoted Twitter standom, a cult of cringe nerdbros worshipping him a la Elon Musk or Keanu, a fuckton of RPF, the works.

Their fanbases HATE each other. They're convinced from the bottom of their hearts that the 2 are bitter rivals. They pore over interviews and tabloids for the slightest HINT of animosity. Obi-Wan had to private his Twitter account because of the barrage of hate from the Stanakins. Anakin has never been cast in anything artsy because all the auteurs are on Obi-Wan's side, so he's stuck doing Marvel movies and action franchises while Palpatine, Disney's greedy CEO, uses him as a dancing monkey.

The thing is, Obi-Wan barely knows the guy?? They were both discovered by Director Qui-Gon Jinn and acted in one film together (Anakin's debut as a child star), after which Obi-Wan got dropped from the mainstream like a hot potato, but he's not bitter about it. Sure, it would be cool to have a star on the Hollywood walk of fame and a mansion in Beverly Hills, but he's proud of his career (even if Palpatine's bought off everyone to ensure he NEVER gets an Oscar. Or a Golden Globe. Or a kid's choice award.)

Unbeknownst to him, Anakin's actually his biggest fan. Obi-Wan's the one who inspired him to get into acting, Anakin's seen all his films, he may or may not have posters from Obi-Wan's short-lived teen heartthrob phase, and Obi-Wan was so nice to him in the one family film they co-starred in when Anakin was a tot.

He's also stupid, and he's got Palpatine and Jinn in his ear, so he genuinely believes the tabloids and gossip blogs when they say Obi-Wan hates his guts. He's heartbroken, but he's sure not gonna SHOW it, so he lets people believe he hates Obi-Wan and does nothing to stop his fans from being awful to him. (He might even want to punish his favorite actor for not liking him back, because Obi-Wan said in an interview that he's never even watched Anakin's movies! EVERYONE'S seen Anakin's movies!! That's obviously a snub!!!)

(Obi-Wan hasn't even seen his own movies. Screens give him migraines.)

But everything comes to a head when ambitious young director Padmé Amidala casts them alongside each other, 10 years after their last film together...

783 notes - Posted May 11, 2022

#4

Reva lay perfectly still beside the cooling bodies of her crechemates, and tried very, very hard not to cry.

The clone troopers with blue paint on their armor were roving around throughout the fallen forms scattered like trash all over the temple. Occasionally, a blaster went off. The lightsabers, in contrast, had all long since gone quiet.

If they find me, Reva realized, they’re going to shoot me.

None of the clones were on the walkway anymore, at least not for the moment. They had seen Knight Skywalker swing at her, had seen her fall along with all her brothers and sisters. None of them noticed that his saber hadn’t cleaved all the way through her helmet; he’d swung too high. Maybe he was more used to killing people his own size.

Younglings weren’t a threat, not like knights or masters. She supposed that that’s why the clones were checking the grown-ups’ bodies first.

She slowly moved her arms underneath her, choking back a whine when her elbow hit something fleshy and crispy and small enough to roll away. She thought it might have been a piece of either Mirax or Phad, but she couldn’t bring herself to check who it belonged to.

Reva got on her hands and knees and crawled. Over Tane, around Muna, their eyes staring at her unseeing as she left them behind. She was slow, playing dead whenever the Force told her to, hiding in plain sight. She’d always won hide and seek when she played with her crechemates. All she had to do was find somewhere to hide, and then she’d be safe.

She didn’t know how long she crawled, inch by aching inch. Long enough that bluish predawn light was starting to show through the windows. It had been nighttime when the attack started, but before bedtime. She thought, for one detached, floating moment, that the commissary droids might be making breakfast right now, unaware that no one was coming.

Reva heard boots marching against the marble floor, mosaics scuffed with the remnants of deflected blaster shots, and froze, heartbeat rabbiting in her throat. A panel in the wall beside her opened; a cleaning droid, barely tall enough to reach her knees when she was standing, beeped frantically and corralled her into the network of tunnels throughout the temple that it and its brethren used to move around, then slammed the panel shut behind her. 

“What’s that?” said an indistinct voice from outside, slightly distorted by a helmet.

“Cleaning droid. Keep moving, trooper, we need to round up any traitors that might be hiding,” came an identical voice, and the boots she’d heard earlier marched away. 

The tunnels were cramped, but they were a great hiding place. She just had to go further in and no grown up would be able to reach her, because they wouldn’t fit. Especially not… him. He was too tall. He’d towered over her, in the few seconds he’d looked at her before he—

Reva started crawling again.

The tunnel came out in the nursery. She wished it hadn’t.

Most kids came to the Order after a few years, when their Force sensitivity started manifesting, but a lot of people left their newborns on the Temple steps if they couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of them. The babies weren’t always Force sensitive, but they needed a place to stay until the Jedi could find them an adoptive or foster family. So they stayed here.

Or they had.

Reva didn’t look too closely at the overturned cribs or the little bundles of blankets on the ground. She didn’t want to know if this had been Knight Skywalker’s doing or a clone’s. A lot of these kids never would have become Jedi, anyway, but they’d died just because the Jedi had cared for them when no one else would.

Reva heard a soft, frightened coo. She whipped around, and saw two huge eyes peering at her from inside a wastebasket in the corner. The baby squeaked and hid, the lid coming down as they ducked to hide.

“It’s okay,” Reva croaked. All at once, tears flooded her eyes. Someone else had survived. Another youngling had survived.

She crept over, knelt, and opened the wastebasket. She stuck her hand in, tentatively patting the little head. She carefully lifted the baby out when tiny clawed hands reached for her, frantically hushing him when his big dark eyes started to grow wet.

“Please, Grogu,” she implored, “You have to be quiet.”

Grogu was still a baby, but he was also almost 30 standard. He was the nursery’s longest resident by far. He’d only just begun to walk, which is most likely how he escaped the fate of the other infants; the clones hadn’t known any of them could do that yet. Grogu was supposed to move into the creche with the big kids and begin training with them in only a few months. Master Yoda had been so excited.

Knight Skywalker hadn’t known Grogu could walk, either; before last night, he’d avoided all the younglings like the plague. He’d been nicer when he was younger, but then he turned nineteen and something had changed.

“It’s all right,” Reva whispered, bouncing him slightly in her arms. “I’ll get us both out of here alive, I promise.”

915 notes - Posted June 23, 2022

#3

it’s so funny when people think cody is the boring clone trooper when cody literally body slams his metal opponents. cody is the MOST crazed he’s just a goddamn professional about it

2,284 notes - Posted May 12, 2022

#2

I love Mandalorians so much. They're all digging their own graves all the time and arguing about how this method of grave digging is much better than that OTHER guy's method of grave digging. Sometimes they get into wars with each other about whose grave is better. It never occurs to them to stop digging.

2,923 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Sometimes, when Luke wondered about his father, he thought he might have remembered him. Just a little bit.

He remembered warm arms holding him close. He remembered sad blue eyes. He remembered a hoarse voice swearing to watch over him.

He’d thought he made it up. First, because Uncle Owen had gruffly told him that he’d never met his father before he died, and then because he’d learned exactly who his father was and what he was doing during Luke’s childhood. An empire isn’t built in a day, after all.

But when he asked Leia about their mother and listened to her talk about remembering her face so clearly, he couldn’t help but wonder who that man with the bristly beard and the tired eyes had been.

3,805 notes - Posted January 16, 2022

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