#but i thought his exile was 2 maybe 3 years and then i watched planet of fire and it was like yeah malkon was a toddler when turlough left

[whispers-of-gallifrey]

I've gotta stop thinking about Turlough's age and timeline bc its driving me insane. Like he was apparently exiled on earth for 8 years, which makes sense in terms of Malkon being an infant when he left. But on his side if he was at the school for the whole exile which it seems like he was, then did he look aged 10/11 when he arrived? That doesn't seem right since he was a soldier on trion but how else did he grow up alongside his classmates?

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

One of the many things that bothered me about VLD S8 is Honerva’s redemption arc. While I was never fully against the idea of Honerva getting a redemption arc, I just didn’t want VLD to do it because I knew that they would fuck it up if they tried. And low and behold, I was right!

But yeah, I wasn’t against the idea of her being redeemed. And I don’t mean “redeemed” as in “all is forgiven and she’s just a good guy now,” but more like a Darth Vader, “the things she did were inexcusable and she would never be able to right all her wrongs but she goes out on one good act to show that there was still good in her deep down and she at least had the potential to change.”

I know a lot of people don’t like the whole, “redemption=death” thing, which I understand, but I personally never had a problem with it.

Ok, so why didn’t Honerva’s redemption work? Well there are a few reasons but the one that baffles me the most is that, instead of trying to make her more sympathetic, season 8 seemed to go out of its way to show her being more evil and vile than ever.

And because I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna go through Honerva’s story in VLD and explain what I would change to make her redemption more believable.

(Keep in mind I am not a writer, this is just me ranting about my favorite character and how I personally would’ve written her.)

1. Realizing she’s Altean

I always thought it’s was weird that when Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” In the S2 finale, Haggar didn’t seem to react at all, she just kept attacking. It’s as if she didn’t care or already knew, which doesn’t make sense considering in the S3 finale and S8E2 it’s established that Haggar has no memory of who she was before she died. And in S4E3 she seems shocked by her Altean face (which also doesn’t make sense because her blue skin isn’t camouflage that’s just how she looks after the rift) so it seems like she didn’t know.

Wouldn’t it have made more sence if after Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” Honerva looked confused/shocked? If she became defensive and said Allura was lying/trying to insult her? There’s def anti-Altean propaganda in the empire so it would be considered an insult.

After that she starts questioning Zarkon. And when she looks into his mind, it’s out of genuine curiosity and desire to know the truth, not because, “the empire needs him” or whatever that meant.

And isn’t it a bit odd that she doesn’t seem betrayed at all when she finds out Zarkon has been keeping all this from her? She’s just like, “oh, you’re my husband? Cool.” Wtf???

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

Okay, I love Zonerva, but if we’re being honest, Zarkon was not the best husband. He enabled the shit out of Honerva, even when it was obvious that the rift was doing serious damage to her physical and mental health. To me, it seems like Zarkon was so blinded by the power the rift gave him that he didn’t realize/ignored the negative effect it was having on Honerva. In the same way he downplayed the negative impact the rift had on the planet.

I think that should’ve been explored more. Maybe Honerva notices that she’s been acting differently and is worried somethings wrong (think S5 Kuron). And Honerva tries to tell Zarkon that she feels strange and Zarkon just brushes it off.

And later, when Alfor visits Diaibazaal years later. Things are pretty much the same except when we sees Honerva, she is very obviously pregnant and Alfor’s there when Honerva falls and goes into labor (instead of a random quintessence seizure). Alfor and many Galran doctors try their best to save her and the baby but she dies in childbirth.

Zarkon goes ballistic. He’s yelling, throwing doctors across the room, and Alfor turns to the doctor holding Lotor and tells them to get the baby to safely, fearing Zarkon will take his grief out on the baby.

Zarkon turns on Alfor, blaming him for Honerva’s death and accusing him of letting her die so that he could get his way and close the rift. He lunges Alfor and roars at him to leave.

He spends the rest of the night grieving at Honerva’s bedside, when Kova jumps on the bed and starts gnawing on her finger trying to wake her up. This is what gives him the idea to bring her back with quintessence.

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re relationship didn’t get better after the war began. Zarkon hid her identity and her child from her for 10,000 years and essentially used her as a tool of war. It’s pretty fucked up.

I know it’s pretty well established that Zarkon treats Haggar with more respect than his other underlings, but I feel like it would be interesting to see that change overtime. We see that after Voltron comes back, Zarkon becomes very obsessed with Voltron/Black, and he and Haggar start disagreeing more and more.

Remember the moment where one of Haggar’s druids told Zarkon Haggar said he needed to rest and Zarkon hit them with his bayard and told them, “remember who your master is”? What if, instead of a random druid, it was Haggar who he hit?

I feel like that would be a good way to show Haggar and the audience just how much Zarkon’s obsession with Voltron is affecting him, and make the audience feel a tiny bit bad for her.

Then later in season 4, when Zarkon wakes up from his coma and finds out Haggar brought Lotor back to take his place he gets pissed. He puts a price on Lotor’s head and has Haggar arrested for treason. She steals a ship, escapes, and later on meets up with Lotor’s generals.

Her and Zarkon are officially broken up and her quest to reclaim her identity and get her son back begins.

4. Oriande

I never liked the concept of chosen/sacred Alteans. The idea that some Alteans are just born more powerful than others just feels iffy. My idea of Oriande is that it’s an Altean holly land, any Altean can enter it just depends on whether or not you can pass the White Lion’s trial. Passing the trial proves that your intentions are pure and and the White Lion will bless you with power.

I didn’t like how Honerva seemed to force her way into Oriande, I think it would be more effective if she had gone through normally because, at this point, her intentions were pure. She was going there to purge herself of the dark magic corrupting her and reclaim her memories so she could go get her son back.

I also like the idea that Oriande is a sorta link to the Altean after life, and you can speak with people you’ve lost. Allura gets to speak with Alfor, and Honerva speaks with her mother.

You could also have her be confronted by the spirits of the Alteans she helped destroy. Have the weight of her past actions bear down on her. An important part of any redemption arc is acknowledging the terrible shit you’ve done in the past, and that was severely lacking in Honerva’s arc.

Another interesting thing you could do is have Honerva talk to her younger self. The one that died 10,000 years ago. This kinda thing actually happened in 80s Voltron, young Haggar appearing in Haggar’s head trying to convince her to be good again.

5. Her relationship with Lotor

Now this is where the redemption arc really falls apart. I forget who, but one of the writers said after S5 that Haggar/Honerva was motivated purely by love for her son, but man did they do a bad job of showing that.

And it would’ve been so easy to fix that problem, just have her not be horrible to him. Have them have actual civil conversations, have her protect and defend him. Don’t have her reject him as a fucking baby!

Imagine if, after Zarkon destroys Lotor’s planet, instead of immediately deciding to

exile him, Zarkon says that this is the final straw and he’s going to have Lotor executed. But Haggar speaks up to defend Him. There’s actually a scene in DOTU where Zarkon tries to kill Lotor and Haggar gets on her knees and begs for him to be spared. (Though the scene was mostly played for laughs.)

she asks for mercy and justifies it by saying it would be unwise to kill his only heir. It’s a weak argument, Lotor’s a half breed and couldn’t realistically take the throne, but Zarkon does concede, he still loves her after all, and has Lotor exiled.

And Haggar isn’t spying on him because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s concerned for him. When Lotor confronts Haggar about sending her cronies after him, she says she knows he’s hiding something. Lotor asks if she’s threatening him, thinking she’s going to rat him out, but she says no, she’s not threatening him, she’s just trying to warn him against doing anything stupid because, with Zarkon seemingly on his death bed, the empire needs Lotor’s leadership.

At this point in the story, Haggar is questioning her loyalty to Zarkon, so I feel like it would make sense for her to be silently supporting Lotor from the shadows.

Then at the Kral Zera in season 5, It was weird to me how she was helping Lotor through Kuron while also telling him he couldn’t be emperor and trying to put Sendak on the throne. I feel like it would’ve made more sense for Sendak to just show up on his own without Haggar.

Haggar wouldn’t even be at the Kral Zera, she would just watch through Kuron.

And then we get to S6 when she actually reveals to Lotor that she’s his mom. This scene was just so poorly done. She never actually apologizes to him, she’s just like “yeah I forgot you were my kid and I never loved you, but were cool now right?” I remember when I saw S8E2 and it shows her after Lotor rejects her and she looks like she’s about to cry, I was just thinking, “this would be very emotional and sad IF she had actually apologized and made it clear that she genuinely loved him.” But she didn’t and I don’t know why!

And then we get to season 8, and of course everything in S8 is bad but Honerva’s story is particularly bad. She’s supposed to be motivated by love for Lotor yet she doesn’t act like she actually cares about him at all.

She manipulates his corpse and when she sees his gross melted body, she doesn’t even react that much. When a mother sees her child’s mutilated corpse, how do you think she reacts? Screaming? Crying?? Hurling??? But no. She’s just like, “...”

And then when she goes to the alternate reality and meets baby Lotor and he rejects her, her reaction isn’t disappointment or sadness, it’s anger and entitlement. She immediately decides, “ok, fuck this kid. Let’s destroy this reality.”

It just doesn’t make sense! This is the season you’re trying to REDEEM her! Why are you going out of your way to make her so vile?

6. Her S7-S8 plan

(Keep in mind I haven’t watched S7/S8 since they came out and barely even watched S8 to begin with, so I don’t remember some things and I can’t be bothered to rewatch them.)

Okay, starting with S7, she’s not in this season at all but in “The Ruins” the druid dude says that her final order was to hunt and destroy the Blade of Marmora. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense because she saw that it was Keith who brought Lotor’s actions to light, but that whole plot was really pointless in my opinion. (Was anybody really hoping for a rematch between Keith and that one random druid?)

If you want us to forgive Honerva for her crimes, you really shouldn’t keep adding more unnecessary crimes. It’s established that there were a lot of Galra war lords vying for power and pirates looking for money, just have it be that Kolivan got kidnapped by one of them.

Then you have her season 8 plan and I’m gonna be real with y’all, I have no idea how to fix this mess.

I feel like the basics of her plan could work. She tries to get Lotor and Sincline out of the rift but when she gets him he’s a melted corpse so the plan then becomes to use sincline to go to another reality to find a living Lotor, but opening all these rifts causes problems and the paladins have to stop her.

But all the shit with manipulating the colony Alteans, killing the White Lion, desecrating Oriande, and destroying Olkarion and entire realities, it was all so unnecessary.

Personally I would cut the colony Alteans from the story all together, there are other ways for Lotor to betray the team. It was a lazy way of making Lotor 100% evil and having Honerva manipulate them is unnecessarily cruel, especially in the season you’re trying to redeem her.

Here’s a very basic outline of how I would do this plot.

If we’re going by season 8’s logic that she needs a sacrifice to bring back Sincline, I would’ve had the Galra she killed at the Kral Zera be the sacrifice, not the White Lion. She stands on the pyramid and talks about how the empire stole her life from her and she wants revenge as she absorbs their quintessence into herself and then uses that to bring back Sincline.

Then when she finds Lotor dead she takes Sincline and uses it to go to another reality where she can be with her family.

The danger comes when she opens rifts to the other realities and rift creatures start coming out and causing damage. The paladins fight them and follow her into the rift to stop whatever evil plan she may have. Because the paladins don’t know that Haggar is now Honerva and all this is just to get Lotor back. They think this is all some plan for multiverse domination or some shit.

Meanwhile Honerva has just been rejected by little Lotor and seeing Voltron show up pushes her over the edge and they fight.

But when they find out the real reason she’s doing all this they start trying to appeal to her and convince her to give up and close the rift peacefully. And similarly to how the paladins had to sacrifice the castle to close the rifts created by the fight with Lotor, Honerva has to sacrifice herself to close the rifts.

In the end, I feel like a Honerva redemption arc could’ve worked if the writers were actually competent and actually made an effort to have her be sympathetic, but In canon, her reasoning, “If I can’t indulge in the simple joys of life, why should anybody else?” just doesn’t cut it.

It’s disappointing. VLD had so much potential. I’m thinking of just rewriting the entire series from the beginning. Hopefully putting all my thoughts out into the universe will help me move on.

[cinebration]

Written in DNA (Booker x Reader) [Part 3]

Booker wakes up in an unusual position.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Epilogue

Tagged: @lucy-sky​, @city-of-weird​

Warnings: none

Gif Source: dcnnatroya

Booker woke slowly, painfully. His head pulsed with each heartbeat. His tongue felt dry and gummy in his mouth, yearning for liquid relief.

His eyes peeled open.

The ground was moving beneath him. He stared down at it, struggling to orient himself. How could he see it do that when he was stationary?

Touch was the last of his sense to reawaken. He felt an arm wrapped around one of his thighs, his right wrist held in a hand. Something hard pushed into his chest, not quite uncomfortable.

He was being carried.

Booker tensed involuntarily.

“Awake now?” you asked.

He lifted his head and glanced aside to see your face in close profile.

You stopped walking abruptly and slung him off your shoulders with the ease of someone slipping off a backpack. He stumbled as his feet hit the ground, hung onto you for dear life.

It felt like grabbing hold of a pole. You didn’t so much as move as he unintentionally yanked on your arm to right himself.

“Are you a robot?” he heard himself ask.

You laughed. “No.”

The early morning sunlight chose to lance through the swaying tree tops, assaulting Booker’s eyes. He squeezed them shut, wishing he would wake from this strange dream.

You were still there when he opened them again.

In natural lighting, you seemed…normal. Ordinary. There was something deep in your eyes that he couldn’t quite see in the light, but you stood with a casualness that belied what he had experienced so far.

“Look, you basically went to a lot of trouble to break me out,” you said. “So I figure, I can go with you to see whomever your boss is, that way you don’t get in trouble.”

Booker frowned. “Why?”

“Because I owe you for opening the door. Plus, it’s been my first time out here in…ten years, I think. And I don’t have any friends, so.”

“So…”

“So right now, you’re my touchstone to the world. TV only taught me so much about what the world’s like right now, and we both know it gives a biased view of things.”

The meaning of your words sunk in as Booker watched you start off in the same direction you had been traveling when he had woken. Ten years away from the world?

Ten years trapped in that room?

In his two-hundred years on the planet, nothing had been as crazy as this.

He debated running off in another direction, but something told him you would hunt him down with all the skill of an apex predator. Why he thought this, he wasn’t sure, but you hadn’t killed him. Yet.

He still had to deliver you to Quynh…

Booker trudged after you.

~~

You had been following the road via the woods the whole night. When you finally stepped onto the asphalt road just outside of a mid-sized town, you had traveled fifty miles with Booker on your back for eight hours over uneven terrain.

Booker did the math as he trailed behind you. Fifty miles over eight hours meant you had averaged six miles an hour—or a mile every ten minutes.

He weighed about 180lbs.

It shouldn’t have been possible. Then again, very little he had experienced with you seemed possible.

Probable, he corrected himself. It wasn’t probable, but the…things had happened. He couldn’t ignore that.

You headed straight for the nearest diner. It hung just on the outskirts of the town, catering to overnight truckers. By the time Booker reached the door, you were already inside, ordering right at the counter.

“I ordered for you,” you said as he stepped up beside you. “Mind if we sit in a booth? I need to rest my back.”

Booker shrugged and followed you to the booth in a corner. You sat with your back to the wall, your position giving you a full sweep of the establishment.

Training, Booker noted, slipping into the bench seat opposite you.

A waitress strode over and poured out a mug of steaming coffee for Booker.

“Leave the pot,” you said, smiling.

The woman arched an eyebrow but set the pot down on the cracked tabletop. “Food’ll be right up.”

“Thank you.”

Booker watched you scan first the room, then the parking lot through the window. Your gaze settled on him after you were satisfied.

There was something unsettling about your stare. It wasn’t like you were looking through him. It seemed more like you were processing him like a computer crunching data.

He itched beneath that stare.

“How old are you?”

The question caught him off guard. “Two hundred years old, give or take.”

“How many times have you died?”

Something writhed within him. “Too many.”

The waitress returned, a tray laden with plates balanced on her hand. She set the dishes out on the table with practiced swiftness: waffles, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, toast. The whole shebang.

You smothered the waffles in butter and maple syrup. The first forkful went in your mouth. Your eyes fluttered closed, your back slumped against the seat. The ecstasy on your face almost brought a smile to Booker’s face despite his confusion and mistrust.

“I haven’t had these in forever,” you said. There were almost tears in your voice.

Booker forked some eggs and toast onto a plate. He ate slowly as you devoured your meal. Somehow you seemed to relish each bite despite the pace at which you ate.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought you were starving.

At last, on the second plate of food, you slowed. You finished another plate before you pushed the empty platters aside. Leaning back against the seat, you resettled your attention back on Booker.

“Are there others like you?”

His chest constricted. “Yes,” he answered, glancing away. “Are there others like you?”

A pause. Then: “I don’t know. I imagine so. I’m not exactly a top-quality specimen.”

“What does that mean?”

The waitress sauntered over. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thank you,” you said. “Just the bill.”

The woman set the bill down with a flourish. You looked pointedly at Booker.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t have money.”

“Of course you don’t.” He pulled out his wallet and counted out the necessary cash.

You reached over and pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the billfold before he could close it. “For the waitress,” you explained. “I have to use the bathroom. You gonna run out on me?”

Booker met your intense gaze. “No.”

You made a sound in your throat but got up and headed toward the restrooms anyway. Booker followed a moment later, realizing he needed to piss.

The restroom was thankfully empty. Booker stepped up to the urinal and tried to relax. His body still ached. How long had it been doing that? Maybe since before he had been exiled from the group. The thought poisoned his thoughts and soured the food in his stomach.

Shaking himself, he zipped up, flushed, and went to the sink. The cool water felt restorative over his hands. He splashed it onto his face, risked a glance in the mirror. His broken gaze reflected back to him, fractured by grief and shame and self-loathing.

He looked away.

The door to the bathroom opened. He glanced up to se you in the doorway.

“What?”

“We should get moving,” you said.

“You can wait a minute.”

“I’m a multi-million-dollar project. Waiting isn’t an option. They’ll come for me.”

Booker read the warning in your eyes and the tension in your voice. He turned off the faucet and snatched up some paper towels to dry his hands and face.

The government would want you back. And they’d love to get his hands on him, too.

He wasn’t going to stick around for that.

[thiswasinevitableid]

Hello! I hope you’re having a great holiday. I’m not sure if you’re still taking winter prompts, but I have a specific request. Have you ever written a sad/comfort holiday fic? Doesnt even have to be romantic. Maybe Aubrey is alone on Christmas but gets to video chat with Duck who reminds her she’s not alone - idk. Something like that would melt my heart. Thank you, again I hope you’re having a nice winter season!

Here you go, I hope this fits the bill! And thank you, <3

In retrospect, trying to fly back to Kepler early Christmas morning when there’s a snowstorm AND a pandemic was not Aubrey’s best plan.

She’s been visiting her aunt and uncle, her only remaining relatives on her mom’s side. It was in part because, after returning Sylvain home, it’s hurt a little less to think about her mom, so seeing the family wasn’t the painful ordeal it used to be. But it’s also because the memory of Dani reuniting with her family sits fresh and bright in her mind. Dani was cut off from them for years, wanting to see them but forbidden under the terms of her exile. Aubrey teared up when she watched her girlfriend be swamped in hugs by an overyjoyed, vampiric extended family. She’d never been cut off from her extended family that way, and a voice in the back of her head that’s she’s sure (okay, mostly sure) doesn’t belong to anyone but her told her it was time to reconnect. So off she flew.

Dani was supposed to come so she could meet them, but came down with a cold the day before they flew out. It turns out that Poinsettias are bad for vampires, and one snuck through Barclay’s careful monitoring of the Lodge lobby.

On the plus side, it meant Dani could stay with Dr. Harris Bonkers, who was not permitted as a carry-on for MJN Air and also was pretty clearly not a normal rabbit, something Aubrey isn’t ready to explain to her relatives.

The downside is it means she’s well and truly alone, sitting in O’Hare and cursing her luck, the weather, and over-priced salad she bought at a kiosk.

She’s far from the only stranded traveler, but everywhere she looks, she sees people in groups or duos, huddled up under vaguely non-denominational seasonal lights and tinsel or sipping fancy coffee.

There was a dinner at the Lodge tonight; it was probably the bomb, Barclay likes an excuse to bust out the fancy menu and make a hundred different things.

She picks up the book she brought, but can’t focus on it. Has the same problem with the games on her phone, the fidget snake Indrid gave her, or her favorite Youtube magic trick how-to series.

Dani is asleep, Barclay said she’d been out more or less all day, even though she felt way better, and Aubrey doesn’t want to call and wake her up. 

The shitty bucket seats near the gate that she sat down by at random are killing her, no matter how she perches or sprawls on them, so she shoulders her bag and trudges down the shiny concourse, looking for somewhere to sit.

It’s not that she’s never been alone, though even when she first traveled away from home she had Dr. Harris Bonkers. It’s more that she;s gotten so used to being around a bunch of people. First at the Lodge, then in Sylvain.

She’s gotten used to having a family. Being without it, on a day when everyone says you should be near them, reminds her too much of the first Christmas without her mom.

God, if she start crying in an airport, it’ll suck. In part because blowing her nose still sometimes leads to little bursts of fire. Janelle is still stumped by that one.

A sign on a little wooden post says the place she’s stopped in front of is open until 2 am. That’ll work. She glances at the name.

It’s the Bigfoot Bar and Grille.

She laughs a little louder than she means to, but it’s 10:30 P.M in an airport; no one gives her a second glance, all too busy doing their own weird thing in a liminal space.

The place has wi-fi, and she plus her phone in to the courtesy socket by her booth. She orders nachos and a root-beer float, because why the hell not, she’s in an airport, lonely, and hungry.

Her phone flashes, an incoming video call where the only thing in the caller I.D is a duck emoji.

“Hey, Lady Flame.” Duck grins at her from the couch; he’s in a Christmas sweater, and Winnie is whapping a shiny toy just out of frame.

“Hi!” She waves, “Indrid tell you I was bored?”

He shakes his head, “Nah, he’s asleep. Zonked out on a carton of nog and two dozen cookies. Barclay mentioned you got stuck when we were at the Lodge earlier. Thought you might like some company.”

“I really, really would.”

“Even if I don’t got much excitin to report?”

“I’m, like, this close to ripping out the speakers in this terminal; they’re all playing Muzak Christmas Carols.”

Duck grimaces

“I know, right? Frosty the Snowman is bad enough on it’s own.”

“Yeah, never cared much for that one. Always liked ‘Silver Bells.’“ He mumbles a little on the admission.

“Duck, you’ve never lived in a city.”

“So? Kinda fun, imaginin Christmas in a different place.”

“0/10, would not recommend.”

He snickers, says encouragingly, “c’mon, gotta be a song that puts you in the Christmas spirit.”

“I kinda like the ones from the Rudolph movie, the one with the kinda creepy animation. Mom liked to sing them to me when I was little. She’d be, like, decorating the tree and singing to herself and let me help and-”

She sniffs, not noticing the tear until it falls.

“Sorry. I’m still getting used to talking about her like that to people.”

“S’okay. You don’t have to.”

“I...I kinda want to. Even though I did it a bunch this week, I couldn’t talk to my relatives about the whole fire-guilt-surprise you’re a god thing.”

The view shifts, Duck adjusting the laptop so the small Christmas tree is in the background.

“What else did she do?”

And so Aubrey tells him; about the year of the badly burnt cookies that they ate anyway, of her mom reading her the same picture book, even when she got too old for it, because it was a tradition for the two of them. Of her mom wearing the flamebright pendant at Christmas parties and Aubrey always asking if she could wear it this year.

Eventually, the harried waitress puts her food down before dashing off to cover eight other tables.

“Better let you go, don’t want those nachos gettin cold.”

“Yeah. Cold nachos are sad. Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Any time. And Aubrey? Know it feels like, being stuck there tonight, but you ain’t alone. And I don’t mean in some weird, woo-woo way. I mean we’re all thinkin about you, and we’ll all be waitin for you tomorrow. It ain’t like before you came to Kepler, when there wasn’t anyone waitin for you at the next stop, or the one after that. Where there wasn’t really a home. You got a home now, hell, you got two of ‘em, one on each planet.”

Aubrey wipes her thumb under her eye.

You ain’t alone, Lady Flame, you’re just a little further away than usual.”

“Yeah” the words sink in and she smiles, brighter this time, “yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Merry Christmas, Duck.”

“Merry Christmas, Aubrey.”

[disregardcanon]

i did some star wars sequels rewrites today! i’m not going to sit here and say they’re good enough to make a whole new trilogy of movies around or anything, but i like them.

a few major changes include: kylo has some more consistent characterization and is the big bad, rose tico is a former stormtrooper (insert fic rec), and the stormtrooper revolution.

So, one important sequels change is that Snoke is his own character. He was a Palpatine sycophant who was eighteen years old when the chancellor became the emperor, and watched from a close advising position, studying how Palpatine managed to manipulate those around him and his use of the force. Palpatine figured him out quickly, of course, but Snoke’s ability with the force was far beneath him and at the time, his primary goal was keeping Palpatine in power. 

He studied the best tactics for keeping storm-troopers in line, the best ways for lording power over those with some and those with none, and he undertook extensive study on Darth Vader. He was able to figure out exactly who Darth Vader was, and he studied all available information on Anakin Skywalker. He figured out exactly the ways that Palpatine manipulated this man into becoming his guard dog, and took notes. Someday, he would need one of his own. Snoke was never exceedingly powerful- only smart. If he was powerful enough, he might have struck the Emperor down himself to get that power. 

After the fall of the Empire, he tracks down imperial loyalists and sets himself up a stronghold far enough out in the outer rim that no one from the New Republic is going to come to its rescue. He offers a spot of honor to Brendol Hux for implementing a stormtrooper program with stolen children. 

Then, he starts bribing territories to join them. He starts conquering. The First Order is becoming a small, but mighty force. By the time that Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school is gaining traction, he has his own small country. He goes to visit, claiming that he will be on the look out for force sensitive youths in his area. Luke does not trust him, at all, but allows him to stay a few days out of curtesy for a fellow force sensitive who isn’t an enemy combatant. 

Snoke’s strongest force power, similar to Ahsoka Tano, is reading force signatures. He is able to pick up on the the frustration and entitlement radiating off of young Ben Organa-Solo in waves. He whispers in the boy’s ear about the good old days, when he could have had a place of honor and power instead of a life of living in his mother and uncle’s shadows, without being able to utilize the full power of the force. 

He comes from the line of Darth Vader, after all. Most powerful man in the galaxy- able to have whatever he wants. Why should he be restricted to a children’s summer camp where he is only allowed to wave around wooden sticks? 

Little Rey, daughter of no one of importance beyond the love they gave her, feels something is wrong. She runs to Master Luke’s room and says that Ben feels wrong. Luke follows her to the door of Ben’s room, and feels the anger and resentment radiating off of him in waves- strong enough to kill. Strong enough that it means he will kill. 

Luke tells Rey to run to the room with the other children and then run to the ship to fly away. Then, he opens the door quickly and quietly. Luke tries to kill his sleeping nephew who feels like murder, and is instead knocked out with a force choke. 

“Master Snoke warned me that you would try to kill me,” Ben says, clamping his hand down so hard that it nearly ruptures the arteries in Luke’s throat. 

Rey hears the sound of children’s dying screams so close behind her that she’s too afraid to try to wake the other children- she just runs. Runs and runs and runs towards the ship that Luke was helping to teach her how to fly recently, and she runs until she can run up the stairs. 

She hears heavy breathing coming from behind her, and turns around. 

“Little Rey,” Ben says, smile quirking on his lips, “it figures you’d be the one to survive. You were always stronger than the others.” She feels her breath hitch in her throat. 

“I don’t think that I’ll kill you,” he says, “I think I could use an apprentice.” She pushes sideways, hitting at the button that closes the hatch. He rips out his lightsaber with a hiss, crystal corrupted to a bright red, and slashes at the door of the Millenium Falcon. 

Rey hears the hissing as he grinds at the metal, and she rushes through the halls to the pilot’s chair, gearing up the ship. Then, she pushes the button forward. She flies and flies, adrenaline coursing through her veins- before she lands on the deserted planet of Jakku. 

She blocks out her memories of the temple, and makes a home of her ruined ship as she tries to get it flying again. 

She eventually gets it back to the point where it’s functional, but she’s afraid enough that she doesn’t fly it- until Finn shows up. 

That’s how they get the Falcon. The rest of the plot doesn’t change for the rest of the first movie. 

Cue Beginning of the Second Movie

Finn has been in a coma for three months, Page Tico is returning to the Resistance after a few months of shore-leave with a sister that no one knew existed, and Rey has been training with Luke and now is Good At Lightsaber Force Ways.

Kylo Ren is caught in a depressive, angry, tantrum funk because lo and behold, killing his dad didn’t magically make any feelings go away. It just made him feel gross and angry and it didn’t get him any closer to his goals. He monologues at his burnt to a crisp Darth Vader mask. He destroys First Order property. He force chokes some guys. 

Snoke is like. Okay. We gotta channel this into something productive. The goddamn primadonna is destroying all my plans. And he notices that Kylo is obsessing over this one girl and is like. Okay let’s channel that into a Padme Amidala thing. Sew the seeds of Darth Vader’s obsession with one woman who led him to the Dark Side and how this is a perfectly normal, dark side thing just as long as he GETS HER. This will keep Kylo focused on one, small side quest and away from that Maybe I Should Just Kill the Old Bastard And Be Done With It thoughts that Snoke has been feeling coming off of him. 

I don’t have the whole plot thing down, because I doing this for fun and free on the internet, but the main things are

1. Rose is a former storm trooper who was inspired by Finn to desert the First Order and help the Resistance. She just lost the girl who took her in and called her sister, and she is angry and frustrated with Finn that he’s not immediately the person that she wants him to be. 

2. Rey doesn’t believe that Kylo needs to be redeemed, but that he needs to be confronted. She goes with him to beat Snoke, then he tries to convince her to come with him because she is a “nobody” who was left with Luke to train, and if Luke had bothered to track her down after she escaped with the Falcon instead of fucking off to exile she wouldn’t have grown up alone. He is “the only one who understand her” and the “only one who loves her” and Rey doesn’t buy into it and gets tf out. 

3. One of the most important conversations in the film is between Rey and Luke, as he tells her the true story of Anakin Skywalker, and how his love for Luke finally brought him back from evil. 

4. As the newly appointed Supreme Leader, Kylo decides that his goal is to get rid of the people who still hold claims to the legacies he wants solely for him (his mom and uncle) need to die, and that he will get Rey and rule the galaxy. 

5. Rey and Finn reunite with the Resistance base, and they talk about some Revelations and hug tf out of each other. They lose the base and Luke dies, checking off one of Kylo’s to-do list. 

6. Leia moves the base to a new location, and says that soon, she will face her son herself. She brought this terror into the world, and she’ll take it out of it. 

The next one opens with Finn, Rose, and Poe leading an assault on a storm trooper training facility, where they free children and convince an older battalion led by Jannah to desert and join the cause. 

The climax comes when the protagonists break up into 2 groups- the ones who will infiltrate the ranks of the stormtroopers and turn them against the brass, and then Leia and Rey, who will allow themselves to be captured and take down Kylo Ren themselves. They allow themselves to be dragged to his new chambers and he like, shows off all the opulence of Rule ™. 

“Don’t you think that I’ve done well for myself, mother?” 

“You’ve certainly done something,” she mutters. 

“I am the heir to the legacies of Vader, Skywalker, Organa, and Amidala,” he says, haughty and entitled, “who better to rule the galaxy? With my own queen by my side, of course,” He sends Rey a look, and she rolls her eyes at him. 

“I taught you nothing, didn’t I?” Leia asks. 

“Considering that you were never around, yes,” he says. He goes onto claim that he was a self-made man, all the while calling claim to the legacies that he’s “entitled” to. 

“I wasn’t present enough, I will admit,” she says, “but you’ve outworn my sympathy. And my regret.” 

“Leaving me with an uncle who treated me just like any other student,” Kylo Ren seethes, “you only did what a mother should, right? Ignoring her child.” He was special; why didn’t anyone treat him that way?

“I wasn’t perfect,” she says, “but I didn’t cause this, Ben. You did this yourself. Just like your grandfather.” Kylo takes out his lightsaber, and he stabs. He twists it, and he brings the blade back in. Leia falls to the ground, dead.

Rey lets out a scream, because this monster- he thinks that he can just kill everyone because they didn’t treat him enough like a king. He’s killed both of his parents, people that Rey is sure she loves far more than he ever did.

Rey struggles against the hold of those stormtroopers and lets out a growl. 

“You are a monster,” she hisses. 

“One that you’ll come to love,” he says, and there’s a smile on his face. He’s run his mother through and he’s smiling. 

“I will never love you,” she spits. He shakes his head indulgently, and walks towards her. He puts a hand gently under chin, tilting it upwards to look him in the eyes. 

“Once I destroy that stormtrooper,” he says, “you’ll have no other choice. There will just be me, the only one who deserves your love.” Rey has been a feral, desert creature for most of her life, and she leans forward, mouth bumping against the fragile skin of his inner arm. 

Then, she leans in and chomps down in a devastating bite. This time, it’s Ren’s turn to howl in pain. 

He reaches in the force for her blue lightsaber, and clutches it in his hand. 

“This was my grandfather’s, you know,” he says, “it’s finally back in the right hands.” Rey smiles, big and wide and nasty. 

“He would hate the man that you’ve become,” she says, smashing the red blade into his blue one. Then, as they fight, she goes on to spin the story of Anakin Skywalker, a loving man who fell down a dark path to try to save the one person he felt hadn’t betrayed him and his unborn child, who spent years an emotionless husk before he finally saved Luke’s life, defying his master for love and love alone. 

“You killed the people who loved you for power,” she says, “Anakin Skywalker would be so disappointed in you.” Kylo hisses, and he misses her blow for one that cuts her along the arm. 

“I love you,” Kylo says. Rey shakes her head.

“You don’t know what love is,” she says. This is where the “team turn the stormtroopers against the brass” come in. Finn, Rose, Poe and their stormtrooper brigade has been working through the ship, culling the officers who were children of imperial officers who thought that it was alright to steal other people’s children to mold into the soldiers to fight the wars keeping them in power. 

Finn bursts open the door to the throne room, and Kylo and Rey both turn their heads to see him for a moment. 

“Oh,” Kylo Ren says, “it’s just your stormtrooper.” 

“His name is Finn,” Rey hisses, but Kylo just keeps laughing. How insignificant. Nothing but a stormtrooper- a nameless, worthless soldier designed to keep those worth more in power. Rey growls, and continues their fight. 

Finn can tell that he’s being completely ignored by Kylo, and runs in close. He sets off a blaster bolt in Ren’s direction. 

Though Ren is perfectly capable of stopping a bolt mid-air, he doesn’t even notice it coming until it cuts into his back. 

He falls to the ground in excruciating pain. He starts screaming, and tear-drops fall down his face. 

“The stormtrooper did this?” he squeals. Rey smiles down at him, and nods. Finn walks up beside her, and takes her hand in his. 

“But you’re nothing,” he says, “you’re not force sensitive, not royal-” Finn puts his boot to Kylo’s chest, and pushes him down. This stormtrooper doesn’t even have the gift of Kylo’s love that makes Rey special. He’s nothing.

“I’m not,” he says, “I’m just a stormtrooper.” He’s wearing a jacket that looks all too familiar- and Kylo’s breath hitches as he realizes that’s his father’s jacket. Nobody, smuggler Han Solo. 

The troopers that restrained Rey look between themselves, then they throw down their guns, and rip off their helmets. 

“We’re with you, FN-2187,” a woman with medium brown skin and black hair says, smiling widely. Finn nods at her, and smiles. 

“No,” Kylo says, shaking his head even as he feels the life leaving him, “this- this can’t be. I’m special. This was all supposed to be mine.” The new Empire- the legacy- the stormtroopers- the love and devotion of the most powerful force user of a generation. 

They were supposed to be his. How has this Finn taken everything from him?

What Kylo doesn’t understand is that Finn and Rey looked at each other, and decided that they were worth something; they were the first ones who ever did that for each other, and there’s a bond there too deep for anyone to wrest from their hands.

Rey smiles, and kisses Finn on the lips. Then, she kicks Kylo in the head. He doesn’t ever wake up. 

After that, Finn and Rose start a program that helps match former stormtroopers with job opportunities and lives in the new republic, that runs adjacent to Rey’s home for wayfaring force sensitives. Poe collaborates with both of them, flying new recruits back and forth from where they’re coming from to when they’re going and starts campaigning for the importance of a proper air force in the nascent new republic, and other people- politicians, start building it. 

The heroes of this war are going to work more from the ground to try to undo the damage that was already done. Someone else can try to make sure that governments happen and don’t collapse.

[kyluxtrashpit]

TROS Review

Okay here is my extremely long (almost 4k words >.>) review of tros. And that’s without the 2k meta on redemption arcs I also have filed away lmao. First off: I am not leaving the kylux fandom. It’s not a good enough movie to warrant that. Second: I might make a post of things I wished we’d gotten later, but this is already WAY too long lmao. Warnings for spoilers, opinions, and general negativity

EXPLICIT RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

So. I have watched the thing. I went in knowing the spoilers and oh boy, am I glad I did. Still, overall this movie was… not great lmao. It’s messy and the pacing is off and there are some very weird and straight up Bad moments, but I’m not actually upset about it anymore. It’s more like ‘there’s a lot to unpack here’ except we’re not going to unpack it or even throw away the whole thing, it’s just gonna become that one box that’s still packed and untouched from when you moved 3 years ago. It’s there, but you rarely think about it beyond the occasional ‘maybe I should finally unpack that? Nah, too much effort’

I see a lot of people writing fix it fic and that’s totally valid but tbh… I don’t think it’s worth the effort for me. I think I’m just going to pretend it never happened and write my kylux the way I always have. Maybe I’ll do something with tros at some point, maybe some mean!Hux + redeemed!Ben because I’m awful lmao but for now, it hasn’t changed my plans at all. Which is actually a good thing tbh

Anyway. I’ll start with the good simply because there’s less of it lmao. Best thing about the movie? Everyone in it is looking like a fucking snack. It’s great. These people have always been hot, but this movie really nailed that. Also the trio stuff was fun and felt genuine. I LOVED the hints that Finn is Force sensitive, and I liked him in this movie even though I wish he got more story/time. I enjoyed Rey at the beginning, but her actions and plotline made less and less sense as the movie went on. Kylo was fun; I had gotten worried after that interview that said he’s calm now but he wasn’t lmao, like at all, so that was good. Also I didn’t like how Hux died but I’m endlessly grateful Kylo wasn’t the one to kill him. That might’ve actually ruined the ship for me

The visuals were excellent (save that strobing near the beginning; I’m not epileptic, but I had to close my eyes because it was too much). Some of the jokes hit will, as did some of the emotional bits (Chewie’s “death” was very well-executed and Rey’s scream broke my heart). Weirdly enough, C-3PO is kind of the heart of the movie, which I did not expect at all. Lando’s appearances were too brief but good. I also loved D-O a lot and he’s very cute. I liked seeing a bunch of new planets and environments, however briefly. The acting was also really great throughout on most accounts. I really enjoyed 2 of the Hux scenes (when he’s sitting in that board meeting making a face like he’s mentally eviscerating everyone in the room and when he gets so excited to finally get to blow something up and then Kylo shuts him up with the Force BUT WITHOUT HARMING HIM!!!)

That’s kind of it tbh. The movie overall is really messy. I’ve seen people say it feels like a fever dream and it really does. I’ve seen descriptions of people dreaming the plot of tros and they’re less weird. The pacing in the first chunk is way too fast and there’s way too much to take in. Then things get weird in the middle. Then, well, that ending. It feels like it’s trying too hard to be liked. It’s ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘mention of hope without showing it’, etc. etc. on and on throughout it. Some of those are fun, but it got tiring very quickly. And it made it impossible for me to suspend disbelief long enough to actually get into it

I also saw a lot of reviews saying if you didn’t like tlj, you would like this one. That was not correct. I disliked this for many of same reasons I disliked tlj, but it also managed to hold tfa’s weaknesses as well. Honestly, tros feels like the worst aspects of tlj mixed with the worst aspects of tfa, mixed with way too much nostalgia and then blended up with a good heaping of mania and desperation to keep it going. It tried so hard, wanted to be liked so badly, and you can feel that watching it. It doesn’t feel genuine

It also feels like every single movie in the ST was actually from a different trilogy. None of the 3 connect to each other. You can’t say tros is a successor to tlj or tfa; it’s totally on a different path, which I’m honestly not sure how they managed that. As much as I felt tlj wasn’t a true continuation of tfa, tros feels like its own trilogy mashed into one movie. There wasn’t one consistent plot or character thread to follow between all 3 movies

I think bringing palpatine back was the first fundamental mistake. It didn’t fit. And after creating Kylo and Snoke to be very specifically Not Sith, why bring the Sith back all of a sudden? Palpatine has had his day and he didn’t need this. No one did. Much as he was creepy as hell and that was well done, it didn’t feel right to have him there. Also, I really don’t like the implication he procreated at any point skdfjskldjk

As for Rey… I know I’m in the minority here, but I never found here to be a good narrative foil for Kylo. The connection between the two doesn’t really interest me at all (and this was one of the reasons I didn’t like tlj). It worked better if they were related, which was the biggest reason I was a proponent of Rey Skywalker, but that didn’t happen. The commonalities they have are just: 1) can use the Force, 2) have been lonely. The contrasts are: 1) light vs dark (sort of; this is less explicit in tfa and I miss that greyer view of the Force) and 2) had a family vs didn’t. And that’s pretty much it. In order for 2 characters to contrast and hit the ‘complimentary opposites’ sweet spot, you need much, much more than that. Finn has and always will be a better foil for Kylo and it’s a damn shame they abandoned that in tlj and even more so in tros. I have more thoughts on her that I’ll get to later too

I did like Rey in the beginning, but the longer it went on, the less I could rationalize her actions. Why is she doing that? Why is she trying to ditch her friends all the time? Why does she heal the cave snake? Why does she stab Kylo when he’s just become a non-combatant? Why does she heal him after? Why is she trying to reach out to the spirits of past jedi? Why did she Do That after she wakes up in the end? Why did she then seem to not even care that Kylo died right after? None of this is explained. Show, don’t tell, is great, but you can’t just make massive leaps like that. I didn’t get it. None of this felt like the character I’ve gotten to know over the last few years, nor did it feel consistent within the movie itself

That said, I want to discount one complaint I’ve seen: I got no impression she’s exiling herself on Tatooine at the end. It’s very clear she’s just doing a quick funeral ritual for Luke and Leia. The Falcon is still there, ready for when she’s done. I don’t get where the ‘she’s all alone in the desert again forever and ever’ comes from because it’s clear she’s not. It’s just a private ceremony (plus obvious fanservice). That’s it

For Finn: I liked that his character got to be a lot cooler here. I’m sad that he didn’t get half the attention and plot he deserved, but at least he wasn’t treated as a joke and a coward. My tlj complaint for Finn was that he went through the exact same arc he did in tfa over again; here, he doesn’t. He’s clearly grown into himself. That I liked. But damn, he was supposed to be a main character and he really got sidelined hard. It’s also very clear finnrey was planned at some point but didn’t end up in the final cut. The tease with that felt cruel tbh. He deserved to get to tell Rey he loved her on screen

And Poe: Poe was okay in this one. He felt to me like a different character in tfa and tlj, but this one managed to mesh the two characterizations well. He’s a bit of a hothead who doesn’t think (tlj), but he also really cares about people and is trying his best to lead (tfa). That was very successfully done. However. Poe is the one character with the most backstory. He’s got novels, comics, all of it. Where in the fuck is this history of being a spice runner in all that??? Sketchy as hell to make your one Latino character being a drug runner but you know. It also felt like a HUGE retcon of the one character that actually has fully revealed backstory. Also his thing with Zori was just weird and forced and exhaustingly heterosexual. Completely pointless tbh

As I was rereading this, I realized I forgot Rose but really, that’s because she does pretty much nothing. She has very few lines, never comes along. It’s like they forgot she was there. Or just didn’t care. It was really sad and a huge disrespect to everything KMT has gone through. Both her and her character deserved more

For Hux: I liked the 2 scenes I mentioned above, but other than that I was disappointed. I said this on twitter already, but the biggest crime they committed was getting rid of his fanaticism. Tlj may have turned him into a joke, but at least he was still a zealot. Here, it’s clear he gave up his last fuck like a year ago. It’s 9 am and he’s had 6 glasses of wine because he’s lost the will to live and it’s all pointless. Might as well fuck around and give the Resistance info that might lead to the end of everything he’s worked for his entire life because nothing matters and at least Kylo will lose. That’s dumb and violently ooc. I get him being a traitor to Kylo, I am DOWN for that, but not to the FO. He cares about the FO. He is fanatically devoted to the FO. That was ridiculous and wildly out of character. Also the FO is just gone in favour of Palpatine’s fleet as soon as Hux dies? What happened to them? Are they still out there? Who even knows? WHAT A FUCKING WASTE

Also Pryde? Fuck that guy and fuck JJ/LF/Disney for thinking it’s okay to have an old imperial kill Hux. Especially since the visual dictionary today confirmed Pryde knew Brendol and our Hux had known him for years. The possible implications are gross as fuck. If anyone was going to kill Hux one on one, it should have been Finn (with a wonderful stormtrooper rebellion arc involved) for the sake of both characters. I’m personally going to choose to believe Hux was wearing a blaster proof vest (thank you, Delilah Dawson, for putting those into Black Spire as canon) and faked his death. He’s living in blissful exile with Millie now or rebuilding the actual FO and ready to take over as the Emperor he deserves to be

Oh and Leia’s scenes did feel weird. I appreciate them trying to incorporate her, but it didn’t quite work. I feel like having her be offscreen yet present would’ve worked better than most of what they used. Some worked better than others though. I also have some Thoughts about her death but I’m about to get into the second half of the movie stuff and I’ll cover that there

Now Kylo. My darling, sweet, disaster boy. So. Okay. I knew no matter what happened his end would be controversial. And I have a lot of feelings on redemption arcs that can be distilled into one thing: if they’re written well, I like them, no matter how much bad the character has done; however, they are almost never written well enough. One of the first things I said coming out of tfa back in 2015 is ‘that’s going to be a disappointing redemption arc in a few years’. It was never about what ending I wanted (I actually favour something more grey than simply ‘oh he’s good now’ or ‘dies evil’, but that was way too ambitious for them to attempt so I never bothered to hope for it), because I knew it was coming. So this didn’t really bother me beyond the fact that it was too sudden. I do blame that partially on tlj, because it took Kylo from conflicted and torn apart to ‘yeah, I’m in charge now’, but I still think this was not the way to do it. Anyway. I have a 2k word rant somewhere about redemption arcs and when they work and when they don’t that I never posted and this is the much, much shorter version of that

Also. Okay. One more thing on this. So I usually don’t like redemption arcs because they’re written badly, but my least favourite redemption arcs are those that end in death. The only one I can think of that actually worked was Vader’s, but it doesn’t work as well with Kylo. Why? Because redemption is about making amends, not being punished. It’s about choosing to stop doing bad shit and instead to do good things to make up for what you’ve done. In self-sacrifice, not only does it send the message that the only path to redemption is death, but also it means you do literally one thing and then die. That’s it. One good deed, die, you’re done. That’s too fucking easy. True redemption is waking up every single day, for the rest of your life, and continuing to choose to do good. You know that evil is easier, feels better; you’ve done it. But you’re making the choice to keep doing good and to make amends instead. And you do that for years. Decades, even. That is SO MUCH harder to do than just one good thing and then immediately dying without showing if that change is lasting or not. That is how redemption is achieved: in making that choice not once, but again and again and again. So yeah. I didn’t like that. Death redemptions aren’t convincing to me because one choice is easy; consistently making that choice over the rest of your life is much, much harder

End of point: if they were going to redeem Kylo, he needed to live and work to make up for his past mistakes in order to make it impactful. It’s a damn shame he didn’t

Also: having Leia die for the sake of a man, son or not? FUCK THAT. And, even worse, if we follow the movie’s logic: Leia died trying to reach and save her son. Which lead to… him dying anyway?! Which means Leia’s death is meaningless and she died for literally nothing. Fuck that. FUCK THAT. What the fuck. That’s bullshit

Again on the redemption: Kylo just… kills his good friends the KOR without a shred of hesitation? Also the KOR literally never speak? And Kylo says literally one word (‘ow’) after the redemption? I admit, it was fun watching him fight and also watching him get hurt. If I ignore the context of it, watching him crawl out of the pit, scrabbling on the ground, so hurt he can’t even stand up? Fuck. That was good shit tbh. Also those big, desperate puppy eyes. They’re even worse with him as Ben instead of Kylo. Bravo to Adam for playing such a convincing sad boy. I hate that his scar got healed though; I liked it

Now. The whole ending and the plot stuff. Rey being a palpatine is… okay. Fine. I don’t like it but whatever. Seems like an unnecessary excuse to bring him back. Also Luke and Leia knowing? How? Luke knew Rey for literally 1 day. And how would Leia know? And why not tell Rey, who was so desperate for answers to her past when they thought Palpatine was dead? It makes no sense. It’s just very unnecessary. Not to mention the line “you’re a palpatine” is not a thing any real human being would ever say, jfc that was clumsy and unrealistic dialogue. I don’t mind Rey going a bit dark for some time, but this was not the way to do it. Also I was really hoping for a resolution beyond ‘dark siders dead, light sider alive’ because the dichotomous nature of the Force MAKES NO SENSE. Balance is needed. Leaving the only Force user alive a light sider means something dark will come again for the sake of it – Rey should’ve gone grey and tbh tfa made me hope this trilogy would end with all surviving Force users grey. So that was disappointing

Now. The kiss. Straight up: I do not ship it. I don’t mind if other people do, but I do get touchy when they go out of their way to prove there’s nothing inherently problematic about it. I ship kylux; it’s problematic as hell. That’s a good part of why I like it. So I’m fine with r*ylo shippers as long as they do the same. Problem is: most don’t and go around insisting it’s actually the highest romance possible while leaning on incredibly misogynistic and racist tropes to prop up that argument rather than accept their ship has some questionable parts to it (like kyluxers do). It’s more a problem with the fandom for me than it is the ship in theory. Still, I don’t like it and that’s what matters for this

The fact of the matter is it felt extremely sudden and out of place. The entire first half of the movie is Kylo being an aggressive, creepy asshole to Rey. I can theoretically entertain the idea of Kylo having feelings for her (though I don’t), but I cannot see the other way around, not when Rey has so many kind, wonderful people around her. Which is why this feels so weird. There was not enough build to it. I saw a cam clip off reddit before I went in, so I had accepted it was happening but I expected a lot more lead up to it to make it not seem so sudden. None of that was there. There was no build up or reaching of understanding so it reads exactly like those versions of it I dislike: there is nothing wrong with a man berating you and insulting you and attacking you and you should love him for it. That is not enemies to lovers. That’s just abusive bullshit

And then the death. Both of them. Rey dies from… what exactly? It’s never shown at all. And same with Kylo. The leaks said it was Force exhaustion, which a) why? And b) that’s not clear in the damn movie. You need to explain things!!!! And also that means Leia, Luke, Kylo, and Rey all died (even if one didn’t stick) from using the Force too hard. Meanwhile Darth Maul survives getting cut in half and Palpatine survives falling down a shaft in a space station that explodes 2 minutes later (and, you know, all the wacky Force shit he did in this movie too). The fuck? It’s dumb. I hate it

Also the dyad thing was weird. I know the early leaks had it more explained, then the leaks said they cut it, but now it looks like they left in 3 lines of dialogue with it and cut the rest. Again, explanations people! This is not a thing in previous canon! Maybe in the EU, but that’s not canon anymore! The fuck!!!! The idea is dumb and forced to begin with, but the execution made it worse

And now for the final, largest criticism I have. A confession: I am not a star wars fan by nature. I’ve always liked them, but I preferred other sci-fi more. I’m more of an invasive species who forcibly carved my way into this fandom ecological niche because I really loved Kylo lmao. But if there is one thing star wars is defined by, I don’t think it’s love or family or any of those common themes people say. It’s hope. That’s the thing star wars does well. Even when things are darkest, it keeps the hope alive and it makes you feel that. Good will triumph. There is reason to believe in heroes, even when they stumble

This movie is not hopeful. Rogue One, a masterful tragedy, still manages a message of hope despite every single lead character dying. This one doesn’t. And tbh, I think tlj missed on this a bit too (a lot of talk about having hope, not a lot of showing us reasons to be hopeful), but it was still there. Tros does not feel hopeful. The Skywalkers are all dead. Rey has decided to download the legacy (why? No idea! The whole message was ‘don’t be afraid of who you are’ and she just then decided to become someone else? Makes no sense!!!). Anakin’s sacrifice meant nothing because Palpatine came back (and it is CRIMINAL we never got an Anakin and Kylo scene). Han and Leia’s and even Luke’s (a bit) deaths meant nothing because yeah, Kylo turned back in the end, but then he died anyway. They all gave their lives to save him and it was all for nothing. He’s still dead. Palpatine is gone and so is his fleet, but what about the FO fleet? Are they still out there? Are there brainwashed stormtroopers still trapped in its clutches (also, they were so close with Jannah and Finn to adding depth here, but nope, the stormtroopers are still cannon fodder in every fight scene even though they’re literally slaves!!!!)? Who knows!

This movie only feels conclusive in that so many characters we love are dead. That’s it. There’s more questions than answers and so much left unresolved. There’s no sense of hope in it. There’s barely a sense of victory. It’s not satisfying. Even the celebration at the end feels weird and like it’s trying to force you to be happy. The jedistormpilot hug was good, but the lesbian kiss was such a cheap attempt at trying to appease people calling for representation. The moment with Lando and Jannah at the end was probably the most hopeful part of the movie and neither of them are lead characters

Idk. I know this is pretty negative. But I didn’t really enjoy this movie. Some parts were fun, or funny, or exciting, or emotional. But overall? No. This was not a satisfying conclusion for any of these characters, either the new or the old. They missed. Hard. Not one character was truly done justice. And it’s disappointing. But it’s over now and I have no intentions of letting it dictate my fandom activities. I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen and call it a day

[ladyoutlier]

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

In which Crowley and Aziraphale inherit the Earth.

[Read on AO3] | [Chapter 2]

Chapter 3: The Moon and I Love You’s

Aziraphale and Crowley’s after-lunch relaxation on the outdoor patio was interrupted before it even began by a sapling which had sprouted right outside the front door. The tree didn’t fit at all in with the surrounding ones. Instead it looked rather demented, taking on a more black tinge than green. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the plant was sucked down into the earth.

“What was that?” Aziraphale asked, following Crowley outside.

“An apple tree sapling.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s getting less and less subtle with each try. It’s actually really funny to watch him struggle.”

“I almost feel bad for him. If, of course, it wasn’t such a despicable thing he’s trying to do.”

“Exactly. If you want to be despicable, you better at least be good at it. It’s just sad otherwise.”

They took a seat at the nice metal table in their front garden. Really it was all one big garden and the need to specify whether it was the front one or the back one was unneeded, but for simplicity’s sake, the table was located in front of the cottage.

“So what’s Plan B on this human making scheme?” Crowley asked, stretching out in the sun.

“Actually, I’m not sure that making a human is what God intended for us.” Aziraphale fiddled with his hands.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s just that it is impossible for us to create a living being. Our experiment at the riverbank proved that much.”

“Yeah, but we already knew that before we tried. You still wanted to give it a go anyway. Why the change of heart?”

“I might of had a small conversation with the Almighty when you left.”

“Rather one sided I’d imagine.”

“Less so than usual actually.”

“Oh?” Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“There was some specific signs in the surroundings that suggested that I, uh, was being heard.”

“Uh, huh.”

“I’m serious.”

“Then, what’s God say? What are we supposed to do?”

“She, well, showed a bit of interest when I discussed our, um, desire to return to our lives.” Aziraphale looked to Crowley to read his reaction, but the demon’s face was stoic. “She lightened up when I expressed interest in spending it with you.”

“So what? God’s playing matchmaker?” Crowley’s face flicked through a series of emotions from embarrassment to spite.

“I, um, don’t know if it’s that far. Rather, I think She just wants us to enjoy each other’s company while here.”

“So just bloody well do what we have been doing?”

“That’s our purpose anyway. Everyone else I’m sure has their own.”

God bit Her lip and looked away. Yeah, everyone else had a purpose too… This wasn’t at all just a drunken impulse that was going rather well considering.

“Well, fine. If we’re just supposed to have a good time, let’s do that. Treat it like an extended holiday.” Crowley stood up. “Let’s go anywhere. World’s our oyster. See the sights. Where you want to go?”

“That’s a very open ended question. We’re already at the nicest place on Earth.”

“Debatable.”

“This might be a bit sooner than I expected, but I’d like to follow up that to the moon and back comment you made last night.”

Crowley smiled. “Coming right out with the big guns, eh? To the moon then.”

*

While the empty expanses of space would most definitely bring a swift end to any unfortunate humans that found themselves within it, the same can not be said about ethereal and occult beings. As such, Aziraphale and Crowley could find themselves stargazing within the craters of the moon with absolutely no repercussions. It was only mid-evening, but in the universe beyond the planet, it looked as late as midnight.

“In all my time on Earth,” Aziraphale began, staring at the grand blue orb in front of them. “I never took the time to see what the planet looked like from a larger perspective. There is, of course, the miniature in Heaven, but it hardly looks as fantastical as this.”

Of course, to mere mortals, there is no sound in space. If one was able to attempt a conversation on the moon, the other participating party would not be able to hear any of it. However, the rules of reality bend around the will of immortals.

“Haven’t seen it in a while myself.” Crowley stretched an arm out to the stars. “Spent enough time out there in the pre-Earth days.”

“Pre-Earth days?”

“What? Never told you, did I? Helped make some of those. Was a long time ago though.”

Aziraphale took his eyes off the constellations to look at Crowley. “Back when—”

“Yeah, back then. Like I said, long time ago.”

The angel looked back out to the stars. They shone with a bit more of a mischievous glow now that he knew Crowley had played a part in their creation. He had always appreciated the celestial bodies of the universe just as he appreciated every plant, animal, and human on Earth, but now, with this added information, the stars suddenly gained quite a bit of value.

“They’re stunning, dear,” Aziraphale said. “There is a reason after all why humanity has spent the ages staring at them. Do you remember which ones you did?”

“Eh, so so. That blob of ‘em over there. Those speckled ones up there. Just the sporadic oddballs.”

Aziraphale suspected that the demon most definitely knew which ones he had made as well as every name humans had given them. If he didn’t want to go into the specifics, that was fine. Perhaps, it was just that company is what he valued more than conversation right at this moment. Just the two of them off in the stars. Exactly as he had wanted to do during Armageddon. 

This was a strange realization for Aziraphale to come to in this happy moment. It disrupted the mood greatly, but he had thought it and now he couldn’t forget it. When Crowley had wanted him to run away to Alpha Centauri together, he had invited Aziraphale to the one thing he still had left from his angel days. All that he had left in regards to faith. Well, it hadn’t worked out then, but now, here they were.

“I’m really glad you took me here, Crowley.”

“Yeah, well the fly up here is Hell in itself, but other than that, it’s no big deal.”

A shooting star darted across the sky and off to somewhere behind the Earth. Instead of a wish, Aziraphale decided on an action. He slid closer to Crowley, and laid his head down on the demon’s shoulder.

“Maybe not to you, but it’s a big deal to me.”

Crowley stiffened as he looked back to Aziraphale. As far as skin on skin was concerned, the angel’s hands were the only thing he was familiar with in the slightest. Their body swap of a couple days ago hardly counted. When they traded bodies, their physical forms merely resembled the other but without the familiar characteristics. That was completely controlled by their ability to act as one another.

Aziraphale putting his head on his shoulder was completely different entirely. With the context and the words he was saying and— It left Crowley more than a bit flustered. He tried to relax. Let his muscles loosen. Allow a smile to fall on his face. He carefully draped his arm around the angel.

“You’re right. I guess it is kind of a big deal.”

Outer space is a frozen wasteland. Without an atmosphere, the sun doesn’t heat anything up. If one was to find themselves cast out of the airlock of a rocket and somehow had the ability to no longer require oxygen, one would quickly freeze to death. However, in this one particular spot on the moon’s surface, the temperature matched that of a glorious summer day. By all known laws of physics, this didn’t make any sense, but God was fine with making an exception just this once.

Elsewhere, an agreement between two parties that very much didn’t agree on anything had been reached. 3,444,684 angels would be returned to Heaven upon the release of 3,713,598 demons back to Hell. It was a messy deal that had caused quite a bit of strain to both sides, and more than a handful of fist fights had spawned from it, but it had been completed and both Above and Below were back on track for normalcy. Although, there was a lot of paperwork that still needed to be done to account for everyone’s new jobs. 

It used to be rather simple. Those that worked for Heaven stayed in Heaven and those for Hell in Hell. Now, an angel couldn’t know whether their cubicle neighbor was on the same side as them or not. Still, as strange as times were, loyalties were hard to kill. A demon working for Heaven still had Hell’s goals at heart. It was very hard for everyone to understand, but that was the thing with God. She was rather impossible to understand. Ineffable even.

Not that any of this currently affected the angel and demon stargazing on the moon. No, as far as they were concerned, everything was going perfectly fine.

*

When Aziraphale and Crowley returned to their cottage in Eden, the sun was just beginning to rise although it still couldn’t be seen above the Wall. They had been out all night, and although they were thousands of years old, they rather felt like giddy teenagers returning home. To tie this whole comparison together, when they opened their front door, Hastur was sat in their living room much like a strict parent would when their child missed curfew. The Duke of Hell rolled an apple about in his hands.

“This is the last time I’m going to tell you to eat this,” he said, standing.

“C’mon Hastur! This is really pathetic. Giving up this easily,” Crowley replied, striding in.

“Hardly giving up. This is just the last chance I’ll have before I’m given my old job back.”

“What do you mean by that?” Aziraphale asked, joining them inside.

“Deal went through. Heaven and Hell is all sorted, and everyone’s taking their old jobs back. I will be too. Everyone has stopped caring what God intended with these reassignments. Everyone in Hell anyway.”

“Wait. So who’s taking up my job then?” Crowley asked.

“No one. Without humans here, Earth has been designated as a waste of time. I wouldn’t expect to see much of Upstairs down here either.”

“So Above and Below are just leaving us here?”

“Consider it your exile. Have fun, Crowley.” With that, Hastur tossed Crowley the apple and proceeded to sink into the ground back to Hell.

Silence filled the cottage as Hastur’s black smoke dissipated. The sounds of Eden leaked through the walls. The wind hadn’t died down from yesterday, and the rustling flora could easily be heard inside. Crowley threw the apple into the kitchen’s trash bin. He missed, and seeing the demon had no plans to go pick it up, Aziraphale went to properly dispose of the fruit.

“I guess we really got the whole world to ourselves then, angel,” Crowley said as Aziraphale returned.

“You would think they would see more value for the Earth than just the potential to persuade humans to either side.”

“No, I wouldn’t think that at all. It’s all a competition. Remember both Heaven and Hell were dead set on destroying this place for their war.”

“Fair point. It really is a shame. Earth has many grand marvels besides humans.”

“Well, we’ve got all the time in the world to see them.”

The day went on, and many conversations filled the hours. Talks about the past, reminiscing on memories. The first World’s Fair in 1851. Oh, that was a magical day. The many evenings of setting up camp on the Silk Road. It was a tiresome trip even for celestial beings like themselves. The fall of the Roman Empire. A rather sad day for the both of them. Just story upon story upon story. 

Somewhere in the mix of things, Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves up on the Wall. The Eastern Gate was privy to the company of an angel and a demon yet again, and this time, it was the correct ones. The intimacy of the night before had not disappeared.

“I am going to miss having humans down here with us,” Aziraphale said, swinging his legs over the edge. “Most of our stories involve them in one way or another. The joy or the sadness at what they’ve done.”

“Yeah, hard to cause michieve when you’re the only one here with me. Can glue all the coins I want to the ground. You’ll hardly fall for it more than once.”

“Well, now that you’ve told me, I’m inclined to believe that I’ll never fall for it.”

“I have my ways,” the demon smirked.

The sun was setting behind them. They swapped sides of the gate to watch it. Eden below glowed under the warm orange light. Their cottage was little more than a speck in the sea of green. It was much more quiet up on the Wall than it had been in Eden. Peaceful in its own way.

“As lonely as the world may be with just the two of us in it,” Aziraphale began. “I’m rather glad you’re the one accompanying me here. As much as I love the Earth, I don’t think I would last long on my own. It would become a dreadfully miserable experience fast.”

“Have to agree with you on that one. Painfully boring. And you’re not bad company yourself.”

Aziraphale smiled and laid down. Crowley joined him. It was beginning to get dark and a few shimmering stars began to make their presence known. It wasn’t the same as seeing them from space, but it was still special in its own right. Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s hand. The demon pretended not to notice.

“Crowley?”

“Mmhmm?”

“We’re kind of on our own now, aren’t we?”

“Figured it was that way for a while.” Crowley looked at the moon which was only a thin sliver. “But really became that way for good with the whole End of the World thing.”

“Yes, that’s true I suppose. However, now we’re alone alone. There’s not even mankind to ally ourselves with.”

“Guess so. Thing with humanity was more a figmental alliance anyway though.”

“It was still a comforting thought. That we were a more powerful number than two.”

“You wanted an army, angel?”

“No! Of course not. I—” Aziraphale caught Crowley’s eyes and instantly rolled his. “If you keep kidding me like this, I might stop loving you.”

God about spat out the water She had been drinking to fight Her hangover. Crowley had a very similar reaction, minus the drink.

“Sorry? Wha—what was that?”

“I love you.” Aziraphale smiled. He lifted up their joined hands. “What did you think this was about?”

“I dunno. I guess— I mean—just that, well, I thought—I dunno.” Crowley rather frantically ran his free hand through his hair.

“I’m taking the fact that you haven’t removed your hand from mine to mean that the feeling is reciprocated?”

“Yes! Lord—Hell—whatever, yes! Course I love you! Have been since we were here on the first go around.”

“Very glad to hear it.” Aziraphale moved in closer to Crowley, removing all empty space between them. “Would make it difficult to go on for 6000 years without knowing that.”

“Yeah, would be difficult, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t imagine that.”

“Sorry, dear. Hope I can make it up to you.”

“You already have, angel. You really already have.”

The angel and the demon began to feel drowsy although such a thing was not possible. God had gotten Her wish. There was no tap-dancing their way out of this one. Ineffable Husbands was most definitely canon. They had exchanged I-love-you’s. There was no undoing that. As big of a mess as this whole plan had been, somehow it had worked out. And of course it had, She was God after all. Even Her drunk decisions were the right ones. At least that’s how She justified it.

As Aziraphale and Crowley fell asleep in one another’s arms at the very spot the two of them had met, God decided that it was time to restore the world to the way it was. And with that, She flipped the world reset lever back up, and the morning two days after the Apocalypse finally came.

Humans returned to the planet along with the 6 millennia worth of history they had created. A certain Adam Young was fast asleep in bed with his canine friend at his side. A Madame Tracy and a Sergeant Shadwell slept, leaned against one another on a couch with the tele still playing in the background. An Anathema Device and a Newton Pulsifer clung to one another in the bed of a certain Jasmine Cottage. Heaven and Hell, having already sorted out their problems, didn’t notice the restoration of the world. Eventually they would, but for now, they had stacks of paperwork left to attend to.

And Aziraphale and Crowley, had they also not been asleep, would’ve found themselves in a certain Soho bookshop’s back room with a series of empty liquor bottles around them. 

When they would wake the next morning, the first thing Crowley would do, after celebrating the return of the world, was miracle a crisp, red apple and take a massive munch out of it, and Aziraphale would be quick to tell him off for letting all that juice run down his face onto his nice carpet. Of course, he wouldn’t actually be mad. In fact, quite the opposite, but they had a banter to keep up.

They would spend the rest of the day wandering. Re-experiencing everything they had grown to take for granted. And their journey would take them to a nice piece of property for sale in South Downs that looked quite similar to the place they had spent the past few days that no longer existed. Of course they would buy it, and it would only be after they did, that they noticed a rather familiar looking statue in the back garden. Now, however, its eyes would be open, and instead of them taking on the grey/brown color the rest of it had, they would be two different colors: one blue and one gold.

[Read My Other Fics]

[gh03st-writer]

Madam Kadara

Summary:  Phoenix Ryder got herself exiled after joining the revolt on the Nexus when both the Arks and Pathfinders were nowhere in sight. After over a year of coping with losing her family and being stranded in a whole new galaxy, she finally gets word of an Ark docking the Nexus: the Ark Hyperion. The arrival of the Hyperion and its Pathfinder shakes Phoenix’s world and forces her to consider her position as an information dealer on Kadara.

Pairing: Reyes x OFC

chapter 2

Chapter 3: Promises of Dreams Never Deliver

The sun had set on Kadara hours ago, the oranges and purples filling the sky slowly turned to black and filled with stars as Phoenix and Reyes drifted to sleep in Reyes’ room in Tartarus.

           A banging at the door woke them and Phoenix groaned, “Maybe if we ignore them they’ll go away.”

           The banging became more persistent as the person on the other end shouted, “Madam Kadara, I know you’re in there, Sloane wants to talk to you!”

           “Tell Sloane, it’s late and I couldn’t care less about what she wants,” Phoenix shouted back, “I’m not a lap dog, I don’t come running when called!”

           “Sloane said that you might say that,” the voice remarked, “She told me to mention that it was about a Doctor Carlyle.”

           Phoenix’s ears perked up at the mention of Harry Carlyle, she weighed her pros and cons, hesitating a moment before replying, “I’ll meet with Sloane in an hour.”

           The sound of footsteps could be heard as the owner of the voice walked away, more or less happy with Phoenix’s reply. A sigh escaped her lips as she began to get up, untangling herself from Reyes. Phoenix stretched as she stood, Reyes stayed laying on the couch and wondered aloud, “Who’s Doctor Carlyle?”

           Phoenix thought about how she should reply, and if she were honest she would say that Carlyle was someone special, “A friend.”

           Reyes knew that there was more to her relationship with Carlyle than she was letting on, “You’ve never mentioned them before.”

           Phoenix knew she would have to tell him the truth about Carlyle, especially since the simple mention of his name was able to make her agree to meet someone in the dead of night, “I’ll make you a deal, be in my room in Kralla’s Song when I finish talking with Sloane and I’ll tell you anything you want,” she smirked, “Free of charge.”

           Reyes considered her offer before taking her hand and pulling her down towards him, “Deal.”

           She laughed as their lips met and they started to melt into each other again. Reluctantly, she pulled away, “Keep that up and I’ll miss my meeting with Sloane.”

           It was Reyes’ turn to smirk, “Would that be so bad.”

           She shook her head playfully and walked towards the door, “Maybe, maybe not, but tonight’s not the night I want to figure that out.”

           Tartarus was still quite alive with the sounds of patrons and bartender alike. Phoenix barely registered the noise as she left the club and headed towards the lift to the Port. Her mind ran through every possible thing Sloane could tell her but one question kept popping into her mind: how the fuck did Sloane know about Harry.

           She reached the Outcast headquarters and stopped at the guards, “Sloane requested to see me.”

           The guard on her left, a new one by the looks of it, puffed his chest out to make himself seem more intimidating, “Head in, but don’t even think about trying anything.”

           Phoenix looked the guard over, her walk from Tartarus to Outcast headquarters had given her enough time to turn her mood from annoyed to aggravated, leaving her with little to no patience for people who thought they could intimidate her. She glared at the new guard and glanced at the older guard that stood on the other side of the door, “You should teach the rookies some manners.”

           The older guard was about to say something but was interrupted when Phoenix used her biotics to slam the newer guard against the closest wall as she walked through the door. She could hear the older guard muttering and telling the newer guard he should pay attention to who he’s talking to.

           The other guards parted ways to let Phoenix through, knowing why she was here. She entered the room where Sloane sat atop her throne as if she were the high and mighty ruler of Kadara. Sloane laughed, noticing Phoenix’s mood, “Who got all your panties in a twist?”

           Phoenix rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her, “I was told you had information about Doctor Carlyle.”

           Sloane leaned back in her seat and smiled, “Not really, I just needed something to get your attention.”

           Phoenix clenched her jaw with enough strength that borderlined on breaking her own teeth, “I don’t take well to being lied to, how the fuck do you even know about him?”

           Sloane chuckled, “I have my sources, but don’t worry Madam Kadara, I won’t air your dirty laundry out to dry,” she paused for a moment, “I just need information and I heard you were slumming it with that third-rate smuggler Vidal.”

           “Information isn’t cheap,” Phoenix stared Sloane down, “My usual price plus a hundred credits for lying to me and another hundred for your smartass remark.”

           Sloane nodded and transferred the credits, “Sounds fair, knew my mouth would cost me something,” she contemplated her request for a moment, “Now, tell me about the Human Pathfinder.”

           Phoenix shifted so that she was leaning to her left, “She’s become quite the hot topic in Andromeda recently, her SAM implant has given her the uncanny ability to interact with the Remnant and restore Vaults, helping boost the viability of previously unlivable planets.”

           “Does she have a name,” Sloane questioned.

           “Ryder,” Phoenix replied, “Artemis Ryder.”

           “Thank you, Madam Kadara,” Sloane’s voice patronizing, “I appreciate your time.”

           Phoenix contemplated the reasons why Sloane would want to know about the Pathfinder, deciding that the need to know probably came with the territory of trying to rule an entire Port on an outlaw planet. She turned and headed towards the door, stopping short of the doorway as she considered the implications of Sloane knowing about the Pathfinder, “Oh, and Sloane, I’m sure you’ve already figured out that the Pathfinder and I are family, so that means if you decide that the Pathfinder needs to be removed, I will personally make sure that such a decision will be the last thought you ever have.”

           Sloane chuckled, “Is that a threat?”

           Phoenix smiled sweeter than syrup, “It’s a promise.”

           The guards eyed Phoenix as she left, very well aware of the danger she posed to their leader. She passed the newer guard who she slammed against the wall earlier and noticed how he averted his gaze when she walked by, “You know son,” she grabbed his attention, “Let our little interaction be a warning that when you try to intimidate someone like me, you need a bigger gun.”

           The older guard chuckled to himself as Phoenix continued her walk away from Outcast headquarters and towards Kralla’s Song. She rolled her shoulders out as she walked, the tension she was building up in her muscles nearly made her want to jump into one of Kadara’s many acidic lakes.

           The door to the club slid open as she entered and the music flowed out onto the Port before the door shut behind her. Umi nodded to acknowledge Phoenix’s entrance and Phoenix returned the greeting with a tired wave of her own.

           Phoenix entered her room to find Reyes sleeping in her bed, his shirt tossed on the floor. She laughed at how domestic he made the whole room look; it reminded her of her own apartment on the Citadel that she shared with Harry before the Initiative was born. It made her wonder, if they had never boarded the Nexus and crossed dark space, where would they be now.

           She began to undress down to her shirt and underwear before sliding in next to Reyes. He stirred as she laid against him, his back to her. The bed shifted as Reyes turned so that he was facing her as he wrapped his arms around her, his voice raspy from sleep, “What took you so long?”

           Phoenix smiled and subconsciously ran a hand down his arm, “Sloane likes to hear herself talk.”

           He laughed as a yawn escaped his lips, “I think you’re the only one who thinks that.”

           “Mmm, you’re probably right,” Phoenix’s smile evident in her voice. She watched him, took in every feature of his face, it made her feel like everything was how it was supposed to be; that they weren’t two criminal bosses trying to survive in an unforgiving galaxy, and instead, they were just two people finding happiness in the comfort of one another.

           Reyes knew that look in her eyes, the misty far off dream of a home they were promised but never given, “Would you like a map?”

           It took Phoenix longer for her to register his words than she would like to admit, “Why would I want a map?”

           “Because, I think you’re lost in my eyes,” Reyes grinned.

           “I hate you,” Phoenix laughed and playfully pushed him away, “Can’t you learn any new pickup lines.”

           He hummed and pulled her back into him, “Never.”

           She softly shook her head and smiled, “I can’t stand you.”

           “Good thing we’re laying down,” he teased.

           Phoenix laughed, it was moments like these that helped her to forget for a brief moment that she was one of the most infamous women in Andromeda.

That she was anyone at all really.

There was a soft silence in the room as the two of them enjoyed each other’s comfort and drifted off to sleep. Phoenix knew that she would have some explaining to do when they woke up. Reyes isn’t one to forget about the deals he makes; especially when it’s with her.

[the-delusion-of-a-dreamer]

Ok thats it. Salty rant time. Be warned this is gonna get long so its probably gonna go under a read more. Lets start with some quick misconceptions I see about Satine. Ima break this down bit by bit because I Am Tired. Satine’s government is not about not allowing anyone to be in touch with their culture. It’s about building a culture of violence only in the name of defense. Lets start with the easiest stuff to tackle and i’ll get to the deeper stuff as we go. (warning: i get real salty)

1. “Inaction is never ok. Satine’s pacifist ideals are naive and stupid. You can’t just choose not to act.”

Firstly, ideas like this imply Satine is not aware of the fact that neutrality is a conscious decision (rush loving hell brain “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice) Satine knows this. She has decided not to get involved for a reason. 

And you know what that reason is? Her planet is practically dead, forests are nearly gone, the air quality is terrible, and most of her people are dead. Mandalore can literally not sustain another war. It is falling apart. That alone is a good enough reason for neutrality. Mandalore would literally be destroyed if they joined the war effort, so lets get that straight right here and now.

“Well pacifism is still stupid and Satine was naive for believing it would ever work.”

Firstly, don’t you think you would be a little turned off violence too if you saw most of your people and your family slaughtered? yeah? thats what i thought. (look i know that was salty but seriously come on)

Not to mention Satine has never advocated pacifism to the point of not defending ones self. She advocates for always trying to use ones words first, but she has blatantly said just because she is a pacifist does not mean she won’t defend herself. She carries a deactivator pistol, and her guards all have electrostaffs.

And before anybody is like ‘oh so she can be armed but her people can’t?’ that is literally never even implied y’all like. the REACHING- ahem. We see in her first episode the concordian has a gun, and presumably if no one was allowed weapons there would be a check for someone coming to the capital of mandalore, the capital CITY even. But assuming somehow he just. managed to smuggle weapons in, it is also later said that offworlders are not allowed their weapons, thus also implying mandalorians are allowed their weapons.

I’m quite sure theres more I’m missing but the point is: she has never denied anyone the right to defend themselves.

2. “In rebels all of the exiled mandalorians were poc. satine is racist.”

Ok, this one is gonna be a hard one for me to tackle especially being white. I don’t want to sound like I’m not taking this concern seriously but. That is literally not what Filoni was trying to establish at all. I’m not going to deny there is definitely racism going on there, but it can all be traced back to Filoni (who has said this) not wanting to make more character designs. Mandalorians are known for their diversity and he said he did not want to work on different designs so he basically just made a women and a men model and copy and pasted. 

Was it wrong? Definitely. Was it stupid? Oh boy was it ever. Was it ever meant to be a statement showing us how racist satine is? no.

The exiles we see are from REBELS and there are considerable fewer models and they probably realized they had to make up for what they pulled in tcw. 

Anyone else notice how the Kryze clan did not take off their helmets? Thats very likely because they did not want to contradict what we saw in tcw but nor did they want to get into a bunch more trouble for showing the kryze clan as blonde hair and blue eyed. (full disclaimer thats just a theory on my part though.)

3. the final and big one “Satine was a dictator who was committing cultural genocide because she exiled death watch. She didn’t allow people to practice their warrior ways. Thats what mandalorians are, satine is bad blah blah”

Ok you know what I can kind of understand that some people must have missed some pieces of the episodes or something but like. Frankly there is some real clownery in this. Mainly because:

“Our warriors were exiled to Concordia, they died out years ago.”

Ok lets tackle this one part out of time. Firstly, although yes i get why people find it upsetting that they were exiled, this would have been right after the war. The new mandalorians won, a larger portion of mandalorians wanted peace rather than their warrior ways of the past. And really, can you blame them? As established earlier, the constant war has been destroying the planet. Not to mention the wars killed most of Satine’s people, so whatever warriors that were sent there? There weren’t many.

And secondly? ‘they died out years ago’ if they have already died out, this implies they were exiled long before Satine would have assumed the throne. Given, her father, the duke may very well have been who exiled them, but she was not directly responsible. Is that an excuse? No not entirely, maybe when she took on the throne after her fathers death she should have done something, but we can’t even know if the warriors were alive by then.

(Also if it had been the other way around, and the true mandalorians had won, I have doubts the new mandalorians would have simply been exiled and not killed. But thats merely speculation on my part.)

“But kassie! what about the mandalorian civil war! Satine was around for that!”

Yes, and that was the new mandalorians fighting each other. That was not the true mandos, that was what we now know as death watch. They wanted to return to what their culture was before, but as I previously established this was not sustainable for mandalore.

Death watch was the very worst of what the mandalorians of old were, they were simply war hungry extremists. They were not the true mandalorians people seem to think they were, they were a totally different group of people. The true mandalorians had mostly (if not completely) died out by this point.

Satine ended the war, not through strongarming anyone or being a dictator and going ‘well i have the power here listen to me’ no she approached the clan leaders and all of them were tired of the war. They all agreed to end it, and THEN death watch was banished to Concordia by Satine.

Given, Satine did seem to naively believe death watch had given up its fight, but that’s it. 

Satine then worked to restructure Mandalore’s government into a more democratic one (theres a reason she is a duchess and not a manda’lor guys come on) she wanted to ensure a Mandalore that was united, which is also why Bo dedicates her rule to her sister for the record, because she does what Satine was trying to do, which was unite everyone.

Lets look at the definition of dictator shall we? 

Dictator:  a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.

This is. Literally not Satine. Not only did she not obtain it by force, she is not the sole ruler (which is what manda’lor literally translates to by the way) she has advisors and senators, she has a council she must confer with, which we all see in show. Also the simple fact that she is the duchess and not a manda’lor implies less power.

So in conclusion: Satine is someone who has lost so freaking much, and she saw suffering and she tried to stop the suffering, she tried to keep more people from suffering the fate she did. She was trying to keep Mandalore from literally collapsing on itself. 

Did she always go about it in a perfect way? No that is not what I am saying at all! But she gets a lot more flack than she strictly should considering all she did was do everything she could for her people. She tried really hard to be a responsible leader, she tried so hard to keep everyone together. She wanted nothing more than peace, and maybe thats naive, but I think its a future worth fighting for, even if your way of fighting is with your words rather than a blaster.

I mean after all, by keeping out of the war she was also one of the few people not playing directly into Palpatine’s hands. In fact, she tends to throw a wrench in his gears. But that’s another essay for another time.

Thanks if you made it through this rant but I had to get it off my chest. I’m really tired of all these misconceptions. If you have any further questions feel free to pop into my inbox and ask! I’ll answer as best as I can, considering there’s actually very little canon material on this haha.

[renegade-skywalker]

Out of the Abyss, Chapter 17

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2  / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17: A Bad Feeling

After years in exile, ex-Jedi General, Eden Valen (now going by Vale) continues to clean up after Revan and Malak’s mess of a war, only to find herself forever cursed with their unfinished business. As an ill-fated lead brings her to Tatooine, Eden finds that Revan’s mysterious plans go beyond the Republic, beyond the Outer Rim, and into the utter unknown. (A novelization of The Sith Lords and beyond)

Chapter Summary: The deep breath before the plunge... Vale attempts to interrogate the HK claiming to belong to her while Rell reports to Admiral Onasi  on the all-too quiet Harbinger as things continue to get stranger.

---

3951 BBY, Nespis VIII, Docking Bay Erebus

“I’ll do you a favor,” Mical breathed as they entered the now-dilapidated docking bay, “I won’t ask how you managed that.”

“Good,” Erebus replied, silencing the droid manning the garage and sending him up in sparks. With another wave of his hand, the loading ramp to his ship descended, and without a word, Mical rushed onto the ship and Erebus right after him.

“In there,” he directed towards the cargo bay once inside. “You’ll find a place for that thing, I’m sure.”

Erebus’ ship was outfitted for the transport of delicate goods, unsure what the Star Forge had use of for a ship like it but thankful he had found one, nonetheless. This ship had been his home for the past few years, and whether he was being chased by his Sith masters or no, he intended on keeping the thing, if he could. But first -

“Where to?” Erebus said from the controls, scrambling, knowing they hadn’t much time. “Where are you headed?”

“You’re being awfully generous,” Mical called ominously from the cargo bay, “How large of a sum do you expect when this is all over?”

“I’m not interested in money,” Erebus spat. “We need to get out of here, fast.”

A ship had blackened the sky upon their escape. Erebus first thought it was the debris from his escape plan clouding the city, but when the dust had cleared and the shadow remained, he afforded himself a glance upward to realize that Nihilus’ resurrected flagship, the Ravager , was in orbit overhead. Somehow, he knew Nihilus hadn’t been after him after what happened on Tatooine. Erebus wasn’t that important to him - only when he delivered a relic of note did Nihilus ever seem to care - but now that he had relics once belonging to Exar Kun, well, maybe now Nihilus might bother trying to find him. And seeing his ship on the same planet sure wouldn’t help.

“I need to get to my crew,” Mical said again, now entering the cockpit, looking over Erebus’ shoulder while he fussed at the navicomputer. “We need to plan a drop off.”

Erebus side-eyed Mical, almost glaring at him.

“As if we have time for that,” he muttered, “Where to? ”

Mical’s mouth opened, as if to answer, but a sharp thrum pierced the air, a shaft of light emerging from nothingness, instantly silencing them both. A flickering silver light cut through the cockpit, dividing Erebus and Mical from the viewscreen. A lightsaber.

“I’m getting tired of this,” Erebus uttered with disdain despite the genuine fear creeping over his bones as his eyes traveled the length of the silver beam to the hilt that created it, and the woman now appearing at its command beside him, close enough to feel her breath on his neck.

“Dantooine,” she said through a shuddered breath, “Plot a course for Dantooine.”

Erebus was about to retort with another witty rejoinder, as a defense mechanism if nothing else, but as the realization struck him his throat grew dry, the words suddenly stilled in his throat, stuck.

In his lapse of response, Mical sputtered to life, logging in the coordinates to Dantooine as if from memory, the navicomputer chiming pleasantly as he finalized their destination. Erebus remained fixed, watching the woman with rapt attention, realizing he knew her, realizing now just how old she’d grown and how much time had passed - her black hair now streaked with grey, her once lively amber eyes now dull, dark and angry. Even her lightsaber had changed, faded from a bright cyan to a pale silver in the din of his salvaged ship. Erebus had had one other Master before Atris, only one other instructor, briefly, before his reassignment as prospective Historian. As if any more pieces of his past needed resurrecting, as if he needed some reminder, some warning of the things to come.

“It’s good to see you again, Master Vash,” he croaked after a moment, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I wish I could say the same, Aiden.”

---

3951 BBY, The Harbinger, Outer Rim Vale

If Vale was good at anything anymore, it was repairing droids. Always had been, always would be. She was good enough that she made a living of it on Tatooine, when milking a living of any kind was near impossible. Good enough that she was often commissioned by Jedi Masters and Knights alike to fix any bugs in the protocol droids roaming the Academy grounds, wherever she happened to be studying. Good enough that Revan once asked her to repair her personal droid, as a joke, just to piss Alek off once. And now, she was repairing a droid that looked an awful lot like that one - an HK, its shining hull the same shape, its eyes set in the same half-malevolent glare - only it was a newer model, silver instead of bronze, and this one had claimed she was its Master.

Shit, don’t call me that Ede, Alek had muttered to her once he had unofficially become her instructor during the second leg of the war, indignant but somewhat amused when she had jokingly called him Master while sparring. We’re friends, right?

Friends. She almost snorted at the thought, with only the half-aware HK intelligence module to ridicule her for it. Asra had been a friend. Darek could have been one - and perhaps could still be a friend, once this was all over. So could Orex, so could Glitch. They reminded her of the people she’d served with alongside on Dxun, aside from the fact that Orex had actually been one of them . Her troops were the closest thing she’d had to a family since Aiden. Perhaps even more so. There’s something about the closeness of the end of the world and its impending immediacy that brings people together, keeps them on the same page… it had brought her and Alek together, at least that’s how she saw it, initially. Until it separated them once they’d become dangerously entwined, and utterly tore them apart.

After a few adjustments, the HK flickered to life, its eyes now aglow in the din of her appointed dormitory aboard the all-too-quiet Harbinger, suspiciously still since the salvage team returned from the frozen wreckage outside, still no news from Rell.

“Greeting: It is a pleasure to see you alive, Master, provided my receptors are not off-focus,” the disembodied head of the HK mumbled as it gurgled to life, its vocabulator no doubt still recovering from the jolt Zaalbar gave it back on Tatooine. “How may I be of assistance?”

“First thing’s first,” Vale began, placing the head on the generously spacious desk on the far side of the room. “I’m not your Master. And second, where the hell did you come from?”

“Pointed Recollection: Why, you purchased me, Master.”

Vale hung her head, already annoyed as she began pacing, thankful the HK wasn’t completely reassembled yet.

“I know that,” she replied, wracking her brain for the memory of the transaction, coming up just a bit too short for her liking, “It was two weeks ago, part of a large shipment if I’m remembering correctly.”

The HK remained silent, but it didn’t counter her claim.

She knew she was, in fact, correct. But it had been a week of busy orders, many customers looking to buy, to sell… only now a part of her realized this was all on purpose. If only she’d thought to bring her shop log along with her before the blast. She’d always made a point of keeping records, regardless of the transaction, and now with everything from the past few days weighing on her brain, her memory felt clouded, leaving her unnervingly unsure. And now she had nothing to weigh her memory against, she’d have to go on gut alone.

“I take it ownership occurred when the transaction was completed,” Vale stated, tentative, anxious to hear how the droid would phrase things. If HK models were known for anything, it was for their unique choice of words, which is why Revan had one specifically designed to kill on sight but only after cracking wise.

“Assertion: That is correct… Master .”

Vale let out a hollow laugh, unsure if the droid was being smart with her or if this one was naturally annoying. Protocols of any variety were the most challenging to crack, especially when ancient, but fascinating nonetheless. Their developed personalities could sometimes be traced to their wiring, a history of damages and repairs either written into their code or evident in the state of their plating if it hadn’t been completely replaced. But often there were missing pieces, ticks and traits that could only be explained as having been acquired over time, gleaned from experience and some sort of artificial evolution. But this HK model was new. She’d seen its innards, some of which were still strewn across her neatly-made bed on the other side of the room, and they were immaculate. Before the damage Zalbaar had done to the thing, it wasn’t likely this droid had seen action of any kind, at least nothing outside a factory…

She’d gotten lucky in the past month… more new droids than usual, which was something, since Vale had never actually seen any new droids in Anchorhead at all. A few were sold to her at the beginning of the month after a ship crashed out in the Dune Sea, likely spilling half of its contents across the sand like a bread trail to the city. Several scavengers had come in asking for more coin than they were worth, but Vale liked to think she could tell who needed the money more than the others. She still did business as routinely as usual, offering only the fairest price she could afford if she wanted to stay in business, if she wanted to eat that week, if she wanted to pay the cooling bills. But the other set of shiny new droids she recalled were sold by a young woman, a Zeltronian desperate to get off-world, willing to part with all of her belongings if it meant she could make it on the soonest shuttle. Whether she was a plant or one of the myriad of salvagers taking advantage of the crash was responsible for this planted HK, Vale was yet unsure, but she knew the answer was close somehow.

“So what kind of service can I expect from you, as your… Master?”

“Humble Explanation: As a premier-model HK-series protocol droid I am equipped to assist in a number of personal tasks, whether it be a question of translating binary sequences or nullifying any hostile targets.”

Vale only watched the disembodied HK head waiting for a reaction, though she knew she would receive none, before muttering, “Hm, thought as much.”

HK’s were clever in their ability to appear domestic when their true purpose was more akin to a personal bodyguard. But that got her thinking… did this mystery seller want her protected? Did they somehow know about the price to be placed on her head? As if they anticipated a swarm of mercs and bounty hunters to come and claim the sum?

“And as your Master,” she began, rounding on the desk again, placing both hands flat on its cool surface, leveling herself with droid’s line of vision, “I need you to tell me where you came from. Who sold you, and if not that, then who made you.”

“Unfortunate Confession: I cannot, Master. My memory begins and ends with you.”

Vale only smiled, though her expression soured.

“I doubt that,” she said, “You seemed to have a good idea of what you were doing, what was happening.”

Vale recalled those final moments in Anchorhead as painstakingly as she could, closing her eyes for only a moment and instantly placing herself there again. The HK had stirred once Asra had disappeared from the back of her shop, as the others made their first attempt at escaping ahead of her while Vale held the bounty hunters off, distracted them with the destruction of her store front, stalled only by the very HK before her.

“You knew there were people after me, after the price on my head. You knew where I kept my kriffing blaster rifle,” she could almost laugh, re-imagining the HK reach behind her to grab the gun, firing enough rounds to nullify the hostile targets that entered her shop with intention of killing or capturing her. “Explain that.”

“Impassioned Defense: Master, it is my job to keep you safe. I may have appeared deactivated, but my processor was on standby. Several interested parties visited your place of business in your absence. I merely kept tabs on them.”

“...Huh,” was all she managed. The droid was likely telling the truth, but she knew it wasn’t all of it. My memory begins and ends with you. Was that it’s way of telling her it had been programmed to follow her, somehow? To serve her? Or perhaps deliver her to someone else?

“If that’s so, then please report.”

She did her best to appear interested, neutral if anything. Protocol droids of any variety could detect some level of interest, though many failed to pick up on the nuance of human sarcasm.

“Recalled Observation: The day before your arrival, the shop was not empty, as it should have been in your absence, Master,” the droid began, as if aware that Vale was at rapt attention, “Several interested parties entered the establishment under the impression that they were not watched. A mercenary, a bounty hunter, and a man.”

“A… man?”

Vale could have questioned the HK’s suspiciously poetic rendering of a single scout from each interested party, as if there was any true distinction between a merc and a bounty hunter other than level of freelancing if anything, but doubted the droid would respond to any such suspicion.

“Affirmation: Yes, a man. Clothed in black. Facial structure similar to yours, Master. Likely from the Ploo Sector, Serroco System.”

“Interesting,” Vale countered, raising a hand to her chin in thought, “Did this man… do anything? Or take anything?”

Detailed Recollection: No, Master. Though he did… touch a great number of things. The counter, for one. The doorframe. Your tools. And the-”

“That’s enough, I get it,” she said, raising a hand to shut the HK up if it didn’t already get the hint. Vale had done as much as she’d meandered Aiden’s ship once she realized it was his, admiring his handwriting, his work, realizing that every surface smelled like him, spoke of him. Even if she could no longer feel the Force, the entire vessel thrummed with his energy, heavy with his presence even when he was not there. Perhaps her shop had felt the same to him, even if he had tried to kill her moments later, his teeth bared like a beast in thrall.

“No discernable affiliation for the… man , I take it?” she ventured, grimacing slightly as she said it, still uneasy to say his name, even if it meant nothing to the HK.

“Confident Assertion: Not that I could detect, Master.”

“But what of the others?” she countered, ready to be snarky again now that she reckoned the droid had nothing else to say about her brother, “A bounty hunter and a mercenary are easy to spot?”

The HK remained silent, its eyes’ lights blinking rapidly as if buffering, before it could respond.

“Master, I-”

“Miss Rissian?”

Vale’s head spun around to the console on the far wall by the door, the disembodied voice startling her before she realized what it was.

“Miss Rissian, if you have a moment.”

It was Captain Maris, his voice tense but urgent over the inter-ship communication console.

Vale swiftly shut the HK off, dislodging a wire at the back of its head, before sweeping across the room to the console, answering Captain Maris’ call immediately.

“Yes, Captain?”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Captain Maris said as his face appeared on the screen, a wave of static rippling from top to bottom as his image rendered before settling, his pale face and fair hair set in a blue-white hue. “I just wanted to confirm that the ship will be resuming its scheduled arrival on Telos after a quick detour.” His expression soured for a moment before continuing, “We need to refuel, but we should be arriving on Citadel Station only a day later than originally expected.”

“That is… good news, Captain,” Vale responded, almost unsure of how her alias should be answering instead of herself. “Is there anything I need to-?’

“No worries,” he said, before she could finish voicing her thoughts, “You can remain in your quarters for the time being. Meals will be served as usual, if you need sustenance. The ship should be-”

The feed gave out just as the ship lurched, Vale’s senses akimbo as she regained her steadiness, “Captain? Captain, can you read me?”

A flash of memory - rain, static, interrupted calls as she commed her platoon, stationed at the temple on Dxun, their words drowned out by both the weather and something… else … something darker, something deeper than the rain-soaked mud that caked their boots and kept them from being quiet - and it was gone, just as fast as it had come. Vale blinked, and waited, hearing only static again for a moment before a voice cut through the white noise.

“- see to it, Miss Rissian. If you need anything just report to -”

The static sliced through his words again, filling the silence with even more uncertainty. As the comm went quiet, Vale could only glance out the window at the two ghost ships still hanging in the distance, stilled by time and something more mysterious, something darker.

“Sure thing,” she responded to no one, glancing at the console only to find it frozen, and back at the HK only to find it deactivated, just as she’d left it. Vale sighed, shoulders slumping, knowing she wouldn’t be sleeping for a good long while….

---

3951 BBY, The Harbinger, Outer Rim Rell

“You can confirm it? The ID? Everything?”

Rell had only ever met Admiral Onasi in person once, but even given her limited experience in the man’s presence she knew he was a man not often ruffled, unfazed by anything other than duty, driven by purpose. But now the man’s eyes were wide, almost manic, though he maintained an outer calm ever-present on his face as he questioned her now via holo. His image flickered in the space before her, a ghost in miniature on the console at her fingertips as her hands braced either side of the Harbinger’s monolithic conference table, replaying the mission in her mind over and over again, sure she had every detail down to the tee.

“I’m sure of it,” she affirmed. “The make and model, the carbon scoring you described, and then some. The layout is exactly the same, every nick and scratch accounted for interior-wise, though I can’t say the same about the hull.”

“And the navicomputer? Did you try to access it?”

Ithiris had taken the lead on that as well, searching every crevice of the starcraft, poking and prodding where she could. The ship had certainly been in recent use, despite some evidence otherwise, but the still-warm astromech proved that the ship had only been inactive for a day or two at most. The lack of life on both ships, not to mention the ... bodies … made Rell want to think these ships had been here for years, but the evidence just didn’t add up. And neither did the navicomputer. It had also been in recent use, since the only logged activity viewable was from a couple of days ago, coordinates to the exact spot where these two ships now hung in uncertain balance. But otherwise…

“Voice-locked,” Rell sighed, “Couldn’t crack that code no matter how hard I tried.”

And in fact, she had. It was part of her job description afterall…

Admiral Onasi nodded in understanding, though he looked none too happy at the news.

She shook her head, recounting her intrepid exploration of the Dynamic-class freighter, fearless until she came upon the body in the security room. It was one thing seeing the scarred body of the mangled man on the abandoned ship at first, but there was something about the lifeless body of the woman in the cloak, her face somehow unreadable though Rell could count her every feature, as if every detail was outlined as normally as any other face, but instantly forgettable - not because it was plain, but because it was… cloaked somehow, as if she were programmed to be forgotten upon trying to remember her. Rell shivered still, unsure if this detail was of any use to the Admiral, seeing as she was not the woman he was looking for.

“And the old woman,” Onasi said, as if his thoughts had touched on Rell’s, “She’s-?”

“Confirmed dead by several medics, sir. No ID on her either.”

Admiral Onasi seemed unconcerned with the woman’s identity, as if he may already have some idea of who she was, might have been, or knew of someone he could ask for further clarification. Someone far above her paygrade.

“What of the droids?”

“The…” Rell floundered, her memory malfunctioning as she processed the question. “The what?

“Droids,” he repeated, “What of the droids on board.”

Rell swallowed, resuming her usual professional calm as she laid out the ghost ship’s contents again, its layout, its every detail, as far as her recent recollection could tell her.

“Husks,” she answered after a moment, the image clearing once she got a hold of herself, “A disassembled HK unit was in the main hold, slumped up against the canteen, and a badly damaged astromech was found in the garage, still sparking enough to potentially cause a small fire.”

“Reparable?” Admiral Onasi asked so quickly, so swiftly, the inherent upturn to the question falling flat as he said the words.

“The HK unit is missing parts,but the astromech looks to be in better shape, given the circumstances. Nothing a mechanic can’t fix.”

“Good, good,” the Admiral mused, seemingly pleased as he absently stroked his beard, combing his fingers through it as if Rell were not there. She felt as if she were intruding on a private moment, wondering if the Admiral perhaps forgot this was a visual call and not purely an audible one. “Good.”

The last word he said with some finality, alluding to a potential end to this call, or perhaps a purpose. Rell wasn’t sure what her next objective was, let alone what was even going on.

“Make sure the ship and all contents are brought back to Telos, I’ll make sure my people are there to greet you and take it from there. The Exile as well.”

Rell nodded as she stood at attention, happy to hear some directive, suddenly more at ease despite how little any of this made sense to her.

“What about the other specimen, sir?” she asked, almost regretting it the moment she did.

“The specime-? Oh, you mean the body.”

“Well the bodies, plural, yes sir.”

“The bodies.”

Admiral Onasi wasn’t so much asking as he was repeating it, as if he almost didn’t believe it himself. Rell had no idea what any of this meant, let alone who the two bodies were once, but what had allowed for a once-violent standoff to end in apparent stalemate despite both vessels housing dead bodies… Not to mention that the Sith vessel was oddly empty, despite needing a fleet of a crew to operate. But from what she knew of what the Sith had been once, she ventured it may have not been too much of a stretch to assume the near-destroyed man they’d found had somehow held the ship together himself. She’d heard horror stories of what Darth Malak had done to deserters, to those that still followed Revan, even after she was defeated, even if they still followed his cause. She shuddered at the thought, hoping Admiral Onasi would continue before she had to step in again.

“We’ll take care of that as well,” he said finally, offering her a polite smile though none too pleasant, “I can take it from there. Just let us know when you expect to land.”

“Will do, Admiral,” she affirmed again, “We’re expected to in about-”

“Officer Amara,” a rap came at the door moments before it opened, Captain Maris stepping in before awaiting her response. “Admiral Onasi,” he nodded, his face grave before facing Rell again, apparently keen on having the Admiral listen in on what he was about to say, “It appears we may have a bit of a situation.”

“A situation?” Admiral Onasi asked, his holo-clone crossing its arms as he asked the question, doubt clouding his face even more clearly now.

“A few of our crew members have gone missing in the past twenty minutes,” Captain Maris announced in a hushed whisper, only loud enough for Rell to hear and the for the mic to pick up. “Either our communications have been tampered with or…”

“Or what, Captain?”

Maris turned to Admiral Onasi now, brows knit.

“I’d rather not consider it,” he said, voice hushed still, “I’m not a superstitious man, but-”

The lights cut out for a moment, Admiral Onasi’s flickering image the only light in the room as the ship seemed to sway slightly, the lights returning only to find Rell’s wide eyes on Captain Maris’ increasingly worried expression. Rell nodded slightly, as if confirming his fear, feeling the doubt she’d sensed on the freighter grow tenfold.

“I don’t like the sound of th-”

And with that, Admiral Onasi’s image disappeared entirely, the room plunged into sudden darkness, impenetrable black swallowing the windowless room whole.

“Captain-”

“Agent Am-”

Rell readied herself, hand at her holster before she truly realized what was happening, before her senses could catch up in real time as the lights slowly returned… and Captain Maris was nowhere to be found.

---

3951 BBY, The Harbinger, Outer Rim Vale

The caff had grown cold hours ago but Vale continued to sip it, suffering through its bitterness as she fought down the urge to explore the ship, to pay the mess hall a visit and maybe grab a snack… or a three course meal.

Vale was a woman of extremes when anxious. Either she could go hours without eating or down entire helpings of food without ever feeling full. The aching hunger or the temporary relief of eating continuously provided her with the same satisfied feeling that came with avoiding something, enough to push her worries to the back of her mind to instead focus on baser needs. But the caff wasn’t cutting it, at least not anymore, and if anything it was only making things worse. Captain Maris mentioned that meals would be served as usual, though she was sure the mess hall wouldn’t be devoid if snacks should she go looking for some…

She was about to sweep from the room before pausing at the mirror fixed to the wall, almost startled by the unfamiliar silhouette that met her peripheral vision. Still clad in her foreign garb, Vale suddenly felt strange, tugging at the clinging fabric as if it might strangle her if she didn’t change into something more… comfortable.

Sighing, she crossed to her bed, rummaging through what other items Mission had grabbed before sending her off on her rendezvous, though none of the team were too clear on what would happen next regardless of outfit choice. Inside her pack there was a set of sleeping clothes, it seemed, not quite suitable to wear during meetings but certainly better than what she was currently wearing. Slipping into a loose-cut mint-green shirt that exposed her midriff, adorned with gold -threaded sleeves that stopped just short of her elbows, along with a pair of deep burgundy loose pants that tapered at the ankle, she wondered why this wasn’t the original outfit of choice upon departing. Still unused to clothes that didn’t feel like a second skin, this new garb at least didn’t have a tendency to cling to her limbs in a way that reminded her of groping hands and unwelcome advances, instead giving her room to breathe.  

“Much better,” she said to no one, glancing at the disassembled HK in the corner before reaching the door… only a knock came rapping at it just before her palm hit the panel to open it.

“Miss... Rissian?”

Vale paused, startled.

“Miss Rissian, a word, please.”

The voice was garbled, quick, and Vale was already on edge, not on her usual game due to the lack of sleep and overcompensation of caff.

“Maker please,” the voice said again, though this time it sounded more like it was talking to themselves and not any perceived party, and it was with that that Vale decided to open the door.

Only to find no one there.

She paled, blood freezing in her veins.

Someone was here moments ago, and now the hall was empty, the lights uncharacteristically dimmed.

Maybe they’re refueling, Vale told herself, commanding the door to close again as she steadied her nerves. Or preparing to refuel. Saving energy until we arrive.

Glancing out the sorry excuse for a port window her room offered, Vale glanced at the grand expanse that was space, noting that it was empty. No planets, no stations, no way points in sight. They’d left the Sith vessel to hang in the middle of space for the rest of eternity while Vale noticed that the smaller cargo freighter was attached to the hull for transport, but they’d yet made hyperspace since then, drifting somewhat aimlessly until they’d made preparations for the jump… or so she’d assumed.

She needed to find Rell. Something wasn’t right.

Vale paused again, re-examining her pack and its contents, eyeing her weapons and her non-alias related clothing, considering foregoing the charade entirely. But something told her not to. At least… not yet. Something told her she’d be back here again, before all was said and done. Whatever that meant. Ever since she’d lost sight of the Force - stopped feeling it, channeling it - she’d had thoughts like these, just as sure but of unknown origin. A gut feeling, she ventured. Whatever it was, she trusted it, but something about the HK caught her eye.

“Rise and shine,” she cooed, re-enabling the intelligence module, “How do you feel about going for a little walk?”

“Surprised Statement: Master, my joints are aching for a stroll,” he garbled, eyes flickering before glowing at full capacity, “Except I cannot seem to feel my-”

“That’s because your heads not attached, dummy,” Vale quipped as she tucked a shock stick in her pocket - something these pants seemed wealthy in, to her pleasant surprise, both pant legs generous in the amount of hidden room they offered. “Now, I need to know I can trust you to follow me and follow orders. Are we clear?”

“Bemused Declaration: Master, that is my precise programming. Lead and I shall follow.”

Vale hinted a sense of sarcasm, only highlighted by the droid’s complete lack of emotion. All dorids lacked facial expression, though Vale always found the HK models to be particularly cold compared to others.

“Good, now try to stay quiet. Don’t say anything unless inquired and…” she wanted to say search for hostiles but knew better than to promise anything, lest the bastard get trigger-happy. Or maybe that was just Revan’s model… Vale tried not to dwell on it. “Don’t get yappy, alright?”

“Mild Indignation: Master, I would never.”

Yes, sarcasm, she sighed, keeping her mouth shut for her own benefit as well as the HK’s. Definitely sarcasm.

“Alright, let’s move out.”

It didn’t take her long to reattach the rest of the HK’s limbs’ together, mildly surprised that Zaalbar’s annoyed trashing hadn’t done more damage - not that she’d blame him.

Vale nodded at the HK, waiting until it slowly nodded its head in return before making for the door again, nervous as she touched her palm to the panel once more. Pressing firmly, realizing her skin was clammier than expected, the door slid open, a rush of tepid air meeting her expectant face as the hall opened up much as it had before. Oddly dark and oddly empty.

Earlier, there had been the dull ambient sounds of officers milling about, going about their duties, but now all Vale heard were the engines running, the halls quieter than they should be otherwise.

“Stay close,” Vale said, pulling a palm-sized holopad from her pocket, “But not… too close.”

The HK unit nodded and Vale loosed a breath, thankful this one was good at following directions. At least so far.

Glancing at the holopad, she tried to upload a map of the ship but found that the connection was fuzzy. Slapping the thing against the heel of her palm, the image jolted slightly before coming into focus. The light flickered, offering her a brief window to examine the layout of the floor she was on and the route to the bridge before the entire thing cut out, the light flickering and shuddering out of existence.

“Communications are more than just jammed,” she whispered, half to herself and half to the HK unit. Something or someone wasn’t just tampering with the systems on this ship but draining the power somehow, sapping it dry. “What the hell did they find on that thing?”

Goosebumps rose on her skin as she asked the question, as if giving the words open air made it seem more real, more mysterious and more… strange, a bad feeling creeping in and settling over her like a shroud, doubt and worry making itself right at home as she thought back to the objects hidden in her pack, the things they’d found on Tatooine and what had happened there...

The rest of the hall stretched on, lifeless, though lights promised some activity further down, where the hall branched out to other sections of the ship. Captain Maris hadn’t spoken with her that long ago, had he? How much had happened since then? And if this ship was anything like the ones Alek had commanded during the war, then there would be no shortage of officers going about their routine responsibilities, whether they were on active duty or not, preparing for battle or simply going through the motions, keeping the ship running…

Vale thought of a joke, something about taking up journaling once this was all over, but realized that the thinly veiled dark humor masquerading as humor at all would be lost on the droid, something better intended for Asra. She wondered what they’d all do next, if the hunt would lead them further down Revan’s rabbit hole along with her, or if they might find something more profitable, something worth pursuing, something that might allow them all to eke out a living without chasing ghosts.

Instead, she chuckled, at nothing and no one, knowing (or hoping) that the HK wouldn’t react and would allow her this small thing, this one human thing, despite the fear coiling inside her, ready to spring, ready to-

“General,” a voice cut through the dark, thick with the heat and loud with the rain from outside, “Where to?”

Eden looked ahead to only find more impenetrable darkness. Abandoning her eyes, she reached out with the Force to find the entire temple laid out before her like a starlit field, rooms illuminated like star maps, lifeforms glowing like distant planets catching the light as they continued in orbit. Behind her, her troops stilled, awaiting orders. Ahead there were beasts, creatures that had long since made these halls a home, allowed their darker energies to penetrate their simple minds and twist them… but something else lingered here. Someone… though no longer living. And something… hungry for what might be living beyond its walls.

“We go right,” Vale said in the present, the memory ringing clear as it overlayed her current consciousness like a kaleidoscope, inwardly joking again that this was something to journal about, something to remember. The memory was clear now, the temple on Dxun. Orex had been at her side, then. He may have even been the one to ask the question.

The HK remained silent at her side, playing along, quiet as promised. The hall ahead was barren as well, but there were echoes here, evidence of some not-so-distant activity. Vale glanced at the HK and nodded, as if in silent reminder that it follow along and stay silent as she took the lead again. She took a step forward.

As soon as she entered the next leg of the hall, the hair on the back of her neck prickled, her elbow grazing something solid even though she was at least a foot from the wall. Vale spun around, meeting the HK with a grimace.

“Please take a step back,” she whispered, “I said follow close by, but not right up my-”

She paused, straining her ears, her eyes, her senses, pushing them to the limit. The hair on her arms now stood up, her ear sensing something shuffling beside her, though she saw and felt nothing… but it was almost as if the space beside her sighed, as if the shadows shifted before settling, as if-

“Amused Query: Up your what, exactly, Master?”

“You know what I meant,” she hissed, turning back to the HK, annoyed, “Just… stay a step or two behind, is all.”

She didn’t like this. None of it. The hall shouldn’t have been this empty, nor this quiet, even though she swore she could sense something just on the edge of hearing, on the edge of feeling, on the edge of seeing…

It was as if she could feel the Force rippling around her, but was unable to tap into it, as if she were on the verge of channeling the Force but unable to find the right channel to tune into, forever her phantom limb.

“Confident Assertion: I can follow orders, Master,” the HK said quietly, its mechanical eyes providing little light to the dimly lit hall, “So long as you can lead the way.”

She took it as a challenge, sighing as she turned towards the hall and its closed doors again, wondering if any of them worked, wondering how she managed to inherit such a sarcastic droid at a time like this, figuring it was just her luck and she shouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest.

“Let me know if you sense anything,” she said over her shoulder as she ran her fingers over the shock stick still snug in her pocket, “Movements, voices… tell me if you pick up anything.”

“Pointed Observation: The hall is empty, Master,” it said, its voice level but sinister somehow, “However, there are movements up ahead, at the end of the hall and approaching the junction.”

Sure enough, up ahead was an intersection, a cross between four hallways converging into one. The end of the hall directly before them was completely dark, only the emergency lights outlining the dysfunctioning panel on the wall, thankfully leaving the blast door open for them to pass through.

“I’m not sure where he’s gone but since all the comms are down-” a voice said, starting off muffled but growing clearer as Vale inched onward, “I don’t know, but if we want to secure the-”

“We should just continue with the drill,” another voice cut in, urgent, “We’re still not sure what caused the- shit. ”

Two officers appeared in the junction ahead, the man on the left approaching the panel that likely controlled the entire intersection, before he noticed Vale’s silhouette further down the hall. He paused, hand on his holster, but he didn’t move beyond that, he only asked, “Identify yourself officer.”

Vale raised her hands slowly as if in friendly surrender, mustering up what she remembered of her cover story if asked anything beyond her name.

“Lan Rissian? I’m bound for Onderon, or at least Citadel Station. I was brought on board to-”

“Ah, right, the diplomat,” the other said, a Twi’lek she realized as his dark green lekku took shape, stepping out of the shadows and into the poorly lit junction beside his partner. “Are you alright?”

Vale took stock of herself, as if she weren’t already sure before being asked, though she glanced warily at the stretch of darkness that stood between her and the officers, as if she knew they were not quite alone, “I think so, yes.”

Both officers glanced at one another before eyeing the HK behind her with equally wary expressions, the shadow between both parties revealing nothing and no one, though Vale’s senses said otherwise.

“I didn’t pass this through customs,” she explained, as if being interrogated or brought to task, “He was disassembled when I brought him on board. It. Whatever,” she was nervous now, though unsure exactly as to why, “There’s a log of it, I just… felt safer going beyond my room if I wasn’t alone.”

Neither officer answered, but neither seemed to object or suspect her story. It had been true, after all…

“Have you heard from anyone at all?” the human asked, glancing at Vale now instead of the HK, though he still seemed a bit on edge because of it.

“No, not for a while anyway. Just a message from Captain Maris but that must have been an hour ago.”

He nodded, looking to his partner as they exchanged knowing glances.

“It’s not unusual for this sort of thing to happen out in the Outer Rim, as I’m sure you’re aware, Miss Rissian,” the Twi’lek said, crossing his arms and mulling it over, as if trying to convince himself just as much as he was her, “Independent systems are known to set up satellites in more remote parts of the Rim to jam systems, block communication and otherwise weave panic in passing ships, especially if they hail from the Republic. I’m sure we’ll be out of it in no time, especially since we’re nearing the waypoint now.”

The waypoint. They must have been really far out there, nearing the Unknown Regions if anything, a blackhole not far off if they were navigating this carefully.

“We’re telling everyone with a functioning door to meet in the med bay,” the human man continued, pointing a thumb over his shoulder, “All crew are required to update their vaccinations before re-entering Republic Space. Plus, with the systems malfunction we could do with the headcount. At least until we can get things up and running.”

Both soldiers sounded just as unconvinced as they looked. All she did was nod in response, taking the man’s advice about heading to the medbay, a maw of dread taking root in her stomach as she moved passed the two officers, grimacing in an attempt at ‘ thanks ’ before moving towards the only of the working doors in the junction.

The officers watched as walked on, as if waiting until she was out of view before speaking further or going about their business. She could feel the HK humming beside her, as if itching to speak.

“Just spit it out,” she said once they’d turned another corner, drawing closer to the medbay if her memory served her correctly.

“Pointed Observation: Master, I have a bad feeling about this.”

Vale could only roll her eyes and suck in a breath.

“I’m getting really tired of that phrase, y’know that?”

[nautilusopus]

Serious non-troll: What if you like the cop-outs and the scrambled bullshit plots and the nonsense towers of half-constructed ideas? I agree that for example Nomura is a goddamn crazy person but I find his convulsions fascinating and want to see more of them.

i mean, you’re entirely within your rights to do that. it’s just frustrating that there’s visibly no effort put into any of it, and he’s just writing for the sake of what makes the trailer look good, and that’s been 100% to the detriment of the story ever since he’s started doing it

i’m not even inherently opposed to ridiculous convoluted bullshit. i’m one of those pretentious fuckheads that unironically likes End of Evangelion and thinks it made perfect sense, obviously, duh, with all its absolute nonsense of adam and lilith and rei being a god-analogue from absorbing both the white and black seeds and allowing shinji to dictate the ultimate outcome of third impact in the culmination of a couple of really fucking long and extremely obtuse character arcs. i mean, hell, i’m 38 chapters into a fic that is running off nothing but weird high-concept ideas of how reality and parallel universes work and abstract metaphor andsleep deprivation. in any other circumstances, i’m fine with convoluted batshit nonsense.

i think the best way to explain the heart of the issue is to look at what happened to the matrix trilogy. or actually wait this is tumblr, everyone’s in high school and would’ve been foetuses or something when Revolutions came out. homestuck, then. we’ll look at homestuck. 

okay so homestuck. remember when that was as big as it was? initially, the big stumbling block was the slow pace of act 1 where john just kind of fucks around throwing glass at clown dolls for a while and if you weren’t into that kind of humour that was where the comic immediately lost you, but what ultimately got the ball rolling was [S] WV: Ascend. the general metric back then was if you weren’t hooked by that one, you wouldn’t like homestuck at all, and for many people that was the point of no return. the reason WV: Ascend was as big of a deal as it was is that we’ve been seeing a bunch of disconnected nonsense happening all over the place, and this is the first time we see our first major time loop actually closed, with the promise of a few more being set up. all that supposed joke nonsense we’d been watching the whole time? it actually mattered, surprise! from there, the narrative spends a lot of time introducing a lot of new concepts – we have captchaloguing and paradox slime, and time travel, and doomed timelines, and exiles and future versions of planets from a parallel universe the metanarrative being perpetuated by the author being diagetic and fuck knows what other things i’m forgetting about. and then, to throw you for a loop twelve whole other characters show up on top of that. so then the narrative needs to spend time establishing who these people are and what their relevance to the story is – which it does, by having them be active participants in the first arc as things go on. this ultimately culminates in [S] Cascade, where we see all these different concepts eventually tie into one another because they were deliberately set up to, and it’s at that point that you figure, well shit we’ve hit a point where all the time travel stuff has finally come to a head. and with it, you’d expect it to also bring all the character stuff to a head too, but instead hussie has an entire extra act to go so we can’t have that resolve yet. 

so in the meantime, here are 20-ish whole other characters doing some other things. but we don’t have time to establish what’s effectively the silmarillion by now, so we have to speed past it, meaning we aren’t given a chance to care about these new people. but we can’t have a chance to care about them either, because we still have to tie all this into 5 whole previous acts that are meant to feed into this. at this point, homestuck is visibly collapsing under its own weight. character arcs are forced to fart around in circles because the status quo can’t change because we still need to make it to endgame with these character dynamics more or less intact. but that’s boring to read so we’ll do this entire “what if” thing and then retcon it all out of existence, and then have the fact that you can retcon things suddenly become vital to the resolution of the coming in place of anything we’ve already established previously – not the time travel, not the parallel universe with the trolls, not even the whole thing with the Scratch leading to the alpha kids being here in the first place – when the mechanic was only introduced in the first place to sloppily patch a story together that had long since devolved into infodumps that served to paint hussie further and further into a corner as he was forced to define his lore to get the plot to keep moving forward despite the fact that the narrative wasn’t focusing properly on the people that could make that happen anymore because the story had since switched focus from those people almost entirely. 

and in the meantime the damn thing got eaten up by filler, and suddenly characters from that filler are showing up like they were totally relevant to the main story the whole time even though literally nothing they did in their own subplot had any direct bearing on the story at large, unlike the initial 12 trolls. why yes, Alternate Universe Calliope was a completely necessary addition to the story! didn’t you see our important sidestory thing where they do Stuff, and then her showing up in the climax to resolve some other things that are sorta disconnected from the main plot anyway?

not to mention the shipping. nothing ruins a story faster than throwing in a love triangle or eight, and then immediately invalidating all the character growth that happened on top of that anyway by having it literally never happen. not that it would’ve mattered anyway, because remember, we never actually got to have any of this really developed to begin with. 

by the time we hit end of act 6, there’s been so many new concepts haphazardly stapled onto the story and so many threads brought up and discarded entirely when we already established back with [S] Cascade that the story works best when they actually do this and it is doable, that it stops being merely complicated and off the wall, and starts being spread too thin, incomprehensible, and ultimately no longer part of a whole narrative deliberately comprised of interlocking storylines. shit’s just kinda happening at you, and rather than getting to see parts of a text interacting as a result of them coming from somewhere for the express purpose of then going to somewhere, you’re just being asked to accept that, yup, that’s a thing that’s going on right now. neato. sure is some stuff happening and whatnot. and in the end, for all that posturing, it didn’t even do anything. in pre-cascade homestuck that wouldn’t have even been a full flash. a bunch of nonsense happens, and then They Fightan Good, and then it’s over and there’s not a single time paradox or meta-interaction to be found. none of the stuff they built up to over all these years mattered, and neither did any of the stuff they just threw in, either. 

i’m sure you see what i’m getting at with this. 

(also he treats the women in his stories like shit and quite frankly i’m sick of it and even more sick that people keep giving him a pass for it because it’s practically reached parody levels at this point , so there’s that)

i have no problem with convoluted twisty bullshit in and of itself. but it has to accomplish something aside from just existing, and nomura doesn’t do that. by his own admission, kingdom hearts wasn’t planned, and it shows really badly. characters and entire story mechanics and plot lines are introduced solely for the sake of introducing them. they don’t go anywhere or build to anything, because they can’t, because fuck we have to stall for kh3 shhhh just keep adding more soras and hopefully no one will notice. i think the last time any of this actually mattered was kh2, and even that had a lot of the issues i’ve mentioned here. as a result of all of this, the character arcs suffer a lot, and you’re left with nothing but a big ball of plot twists that goes nowhere, and a bunch of characters that only somewhat have anything to do with any of it. 

i don’t feel like it’s overly nitpicky to find this kinda gross and seriously insulting of the audience’s intelligence. it’s just lazy time-stalling. i get that people sometimes really don’t care about stuff like narrative and character development and are just here to see riku punching mike wazowski in the teeth or whatever, but i think it’s disingenuous to pretend that these aren’t nonetheless important parts of a game’s construction – especially a studio that used to openly pride itself on selling games with a focus on story. 

and the genuinely frustrating part is, no one cares. people are gushing all over everything square puts out because it’s square, so they know they don’t have to put effort into their stories. i’m well aware i’m in the minority for saying that these games are bad. but i also thought we were done with treating, “it’s just a video game, bro! why do you care so much about the story having quality as a narrative? this isn’t an english class!” as a valid rebuttal. 

maybe i should’ve used the matrix trilogy instead. most people hate movies 2 and 3 for the weird “YOU’VE ALREADY MADE THE CHOICE/EVERYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINNING HAS AN END NEO” shit and the bonkers christ-allegory ending. i hate it because neo is about as interesting as the rock that cracked goofy’s skull open.

[rise-above-the-grave]

bleed the blood to a river of fire

5 Times Bail Organa Nearly Dies, and the 1 Time He Does

*6*

He is four, and the water closes over his head with a roar like a dragon, dragging him down, down, down to the dark abyss of the ocean’s floor. The sand touches his feet, his calves, his back as the riptide drags him past rock outcroppings and tongues of stone, abrading his skin until it bleeds scarlet ribbons into the blue, blue water. He screams, and it dribbles from his mouth in a stream of bubbles. Fingers claw at the waves, feet scrabble against the ground, and he heaves his small, frail body in defiance of the might of the ocean.

He wins.

*5*

He is fourteen, and the Alderaanian Civil War has begun. His House—the Antilles of the Southern Reach—has allied itself against the ruling House Organa in the desperate hope of gaining more political and economic power. They fight what Bail believes to be a lost war, shedding blood and begetting pain and death the likes of which Alderaan has not seen in a millennia, since House Organa first took the planetary throne.

Bail is sent, against his wishes, to Coruscant. There he lives with—and serves as aide to—his uncle, Bail Antilles III, who is Alderaan’s current Senator. It has been Madera’s—his mother’s—wish, since he was a boy, that he become Alderaan’s next Senator—a wish that Bail himself chafed against since he was old enough to understand what it meant.

“I know you do not want to be here,” his uncle says on the speeder ride to his apartment, after picking Bail up at the spaceport. “But try to make the best of circumstances. Who knows—you may even find that you enjoy politics.”

“I want to be a historian,” Bail says, surly and angry—angry with being sent away from home, angry with being sent to his uncle, angry with his mother and his father and his family, angry with the war that has exiled him. “Not a politician.”

His uncle smiles. “As you say, nephew.”

For all his anger, however, Bail does his duty, and does it admirably. He follows his uncle, taking notes and taking names, memorizing faces and thoughts and agendas. He finds he is good at discerning motives, and even better at exploiting them.

He is good at politics, his uncle finds—better, even, than Madera had dreamed.

“He is a natural,” he tells his sister when next they speak, “for all that he resents it.”

Two years into the war—two years into Bail’s exile, wherein he studies under his uncle and applies to the University of Coruscant (and is accepted, for all that he is only sixteen)—the war catches up to him.

He is walking to the transport station after a long day at the Senate building when Bail senses that he is being followed. He quickens his pace, trying to reach the station before his pursuer can catch up—but to no avail.

“Your Family has been a thorn in the Organas’ side for too long,” says a voice behind Bail. He turns to see a face ugly with a sneer and a scar. The man is tall and clearly Alderaanian, with amber eyes and golden hair, skin Southern Continent dark. He presses a blaster into Bail’s side and says, “Maybe this will teach them their place.”

He fires.

Passersby hear the blaster discharge and rush to see what happened. Bail lays in a slowly spreading pool of blood, gasping against the pain and the darkness closing in over his eyes, trying to remember how to stay conscious. There are screams, and cries for help, and then the sirens of police droids arriving on the scene. He hears a scuffle, and then the man who shot him screams, “Glory to the Organas!” before he is silenced.

Then darkness claims him, and he knows no more.

*4*

He is nineteen, betrothed to the future Queen of Alderaan, and he lies in a growing pool of his own blood. It runs down his neck, stains the collar of his white shirt, muddies the ground to clay. The sky above is as red as the pain in his body, and it is all he can do to drag in one breath after another, after another, after another.

“Mother.” Breha kneels above him, her hands pressed against his weeping neck, slit jugular to spine. “Mother, please. Stay with me,” she orders, and it is a breath, a whisper, a plea born of desperation and need. “Stay with me, Bail.” And once more, “Stay with me.”

Bail reaches for her. He yearns to comfort her, to assure her that he is going to be fine. That all is well. That nothing is wrong.

His fingers tap an unsteady rhythm against the ground, and he falls still and silent.

Then: nothing.

The empty, haunting gaze of the Lord of Death stares down at him, as eternal as the vacuum of space, as commanding as the waves of the ocean that had nearly drowned him as a child. Bail sees him, and stares back.

“Not yet,” Bail says, dredging the words from his soul. It takes all the weight and strength in his body, mind, heart to speak beneath the gaze of Death himself, but speak he does. “I’m not done yet.”

“No,” the Lord of Death says in return, and in his voice echoes the voices of a hundred million men, women, and children, each a different color, different temperament, different hue. “No, you are not done yet.”

Bail wonders, suddenly, if this is the Force.

The Lord of Death touches Bail on the temple—and Bail wakes.

*3*

He is thirty-three and Padmé Amidala almost dies.

Two days later, a bomb embedded in the engine of Bail’s speeder explodes while he is climbing into it. He is thrown through a window and three meters across the hangar, breaking both bones in his right arm, five ribs, and his skull on impact. It is the internal bleeding, however, that nearly claims his life.

Two days in bacta later, and Bail is once more on his feet, fighting in the Senate against the formation of an Army of the Republic. No one could tell, unless they knew, that he had just days before been at Death’s door.

He smiles, and laughs, and pretends that he does not remember the crunch of bone as he landed on the permacrete floor, nor the rip of skin from his cheek, shoulder, arm, hip.

He smiles. He laughs. And he pretends.

*2*

He is forty-five, and he is grabbed on the way back to his apartment from the soup kitchen he volunteers at, and has volunteered at once a week since before the rise of the Empire.

They beat him nearly to unconsciousness, then shove him in a dumpster crammed into the back corner of a forgotten alley. His blood coats the waste and refuse dumped into the dumpster, and the smell and taste of iron mingles with that of rotted vegetables and rat shit.

He tries to climb out, clutching at the edges of the dumpster and shoving at the lid.

He fails.

He falls unconscious two minutes later, drowning in the taste of his own blood. The refuse cushions him, holds him close and warm until his guards find him an hour later, led there by their Queen’s directions.

Bail will only learn later that his wife knew where to find him because of a dream his daughter had.

Neither of them will tell her that her dream was a prophecy, or that it saved his life.

*1*

He is fifty-seven and there is a star in the daylight sky.

Bail sees it, and knows it for what it is.

He holds the glass of brandy in his hand—the glass of brandy he had been seeking to drown his sorrow in—and the shattered watch that Leia had given him for his forty-sixth birthday in the other. He had always thought that, so long as the watch remained ticking close to his heart, his daughter would be safe.

It does not tick now, broken as it was by the wall that he had thrown it at, when he had learned of the meteor storm that destroyed the Tantive IV—the meteor storm he knew was as likely real as a cover for the Empire’s discovery of her treachery.

He sees the star—and knows that it is the Death Star, come at last in all its grand destruction, to cast judgment on him and his planet for his traitorous thoughts and actions.

There is the sound of a thousand dragons roaring.

There is the groan of the earth giving way.

There is a thousand screams, a hundred thousand, a billion all crying out as one, his voice among them.

There is green.

And then there is nothing.

[mylatinlinernote]

Post-GoF thoughts

So spoilers below the cut if you are not into that sort of thing.

I got into Harry Potter when the first movie came out. If I recall correctly, fandom was still waiting for OotP and of course, we all went wild with speculation. 

This is my first re-read of GoF since that time. Fandom and Canon have changed quite a bit but it is interesting the change in perspective over ten years can bring. 

No sterling insights here. Just a couple of things that stood out and or I have yet to find a proper answer for.

1. Book-Karkaroff: I mean, does anyone else think me may be a former Hogwarts student or was even (canon-suspect) a transfer/exchange student? My evidence, weak as it is, is as follows

A) Other characters JKR wrote as having English as a second/third/fourth language are written with rather stereotypical accents. Karkaroff speech lacks that. Igor’s language abilities appear superior to Madam Maxime, the students of Beauxbatons and Drumstrang, and the Bulgarian Minister whom Fudge was talking to at the Quidditch Cup.

B) Karkaroff refers to Hogwarts as “good old Hogwarts”. I dunno. It is an odd phrasing unless he has spent a period of time there in the past, maybe even as a failed DaDa teacher who was somewhat popular with the Slytherins. However, he is not explicitly welcomed back by Dumbledore or the staff and there is no reference made to any previous association except to Severus and the Deatheaters.

C) A trial under the Wizengamot. I used to think that, possibly, if Karkaroff was a foreign national, maybe he would have been exiled or extradited for his crimes while on British soil. That isn’t how it works in the real world obviously but, maybe the wizarding world was different and this was once a point towards Igor being British. Now, granted, since Fantastic Beasts and more information about Grindelwald being available, it has been presented that magical governments can be judge/jury/executioner with regards to any crimes committed on their soil regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator. HOWEVER, the reigns of Grindelwald and Voldemort were unusual times in wizarding law enforcement and governance, so who knows.

2. I remember there being lots of debate, excitement, and speculation about the identity of Florence. You all remember Florence? The girls Bertha Jorkins spied kissing a boy behind the greenhouses. Said boy hexed Bertha good when she started to tease him about it.

Here is the scene from Chapter 30 of GOF:

Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold....and Harry saw his own face change smoothly into Snape's, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly. "It's coming back...Karkaroff's too...stronger and clearer than ever..." "A connection I could have made without assistance," Dumbledore sighed, "but never mind." He peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles at Harry, who was gaping at Snape's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention." "I'm sorry," Harry mumbled. Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin," he said. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity...yes, indeed..." Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Harry or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Snape's had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin. "He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir, I only said I'd seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday...." "But why. Bertha," said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving girl, "why did you have to follow him in the first place?"

Previous to this scene, Harry was watching Dumbledore’s memories about Barty Jr’s trial. Was Dumbledore talking about the boy who hexed Bertha or did he suspect something afoot with regards to her trip to Albania, Wormtail/Barty etc?

Sirius knew Bertha as a nosey girl a few years above them in school, which gave rise to speculation that the boy in question was sirius. Another school of thought was that it was Snape, given both the predilection for hexing as well as being a common thread through all the memories in the penseive.

The sweet summer children we were, once believed that JKR wouldn’t just introduce a scene like this without some eventual pay-off. I guess it still bothers me that we don’t know who she is given all the other extra crap JKR has thrown at us. 

3. Credit to Sirius here. When he isn’t talking directly to Snape, he is actually taking a mature stance towards his former foe when Harry is throwing around his wild accusations. It may not be one that reflects growth and reflection on the part of Sirius towards his treatment of Snape, but he does not indulge Harry and is quick to remind him that Dumbledore trusting the greasy weirdo needs to be enough to satisfy Harry for now. Didn’t really pick up on that the first time.

4. Alice Longbottom as an auror is very much a fanon creation. Frank was the auror, Alice was Mrs. Longbottom. Also, I wonder what the age difference is between The Longbottoms and the Maurauders+Lily. The film certainly makes the Longbottoms appear older, which is a feat since the Maurauders look like the oldest teenagers on the planet.

[corellian-smuggler]

THE LAST JEDI SPOILERS REACTION - SPOILERS BELOW

So as you may know, I made the enormous mistake of seeing The Last Jedi in theaters Thursday night. I don’t know what on earth I was thinking, because TFA left me angry and upset and all of the promo leading up to this film was horrific. But I reasoned that I would need to at least be informed--being on tumblr with everyone inevitably arguing about it and without having seen the film would have been miserable. I also wanted to see the movie without spoilers so that my opinions wouldn’t be influenced prior to viewing. But also, despite having very low expectations, I couldn’t help but have just the TINIEST hope that maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad as I was anticipating? Maybe at least I would be able to enjoy the storylines of Rey, Finn, and Poe? Maybe Luke’s role wouldn’t be THAT bad? And of course, I wanted to see Carrie Fisher in her final film.

As a result, I found myself in the theater with my twin brother, reasonably pessimistic but just the tiniest bit--despite myself--hopeful.

I have never suffered so much during a film in my entire life. There were multiple moments that made me consider getting up and walking out.

If you don’t want spoilers, DO NOT CONTINUE READING, because I am about to detail exactly why I was so upset.

1. The blatant assassination of Luke Skywalker’s character. Yes, he dies at the end of the film, but they killed him long before that. I don’t know who I was supposed to be seeing onscreen, but it was NOT Luke Skywalker. I’m starting with this because it was, in my opinion, the biggest, and most inexcusable transgression made by Rian Johnson (though don’t worry, there are multiple very close runners-up!). I started crying because of what was happening in front of me. First of all, the fact that Luke’s “first instinct” upon sensing the conflict in his nephew was evidently to ignite his lightsaber to kill him is without fail the most disgusting obliteration of a character I’ve ever witnessed. Who wrote this script??? Did they just not ever watch the original trilogy? The entire point of Luke’s character was his REFUSAL TO GIVE UP ON PEOPLE, and his UNWAVERING DEDICATION TO HIS FAMILY, and his INSISTENCE that his father could be saved. Did they miss the fact that even though Vader had ALREADY murdered countless innocent people and served the Emperor and aided in the establishment of a tyrannical, oppressive fascist regime, Luke’s IMMEDIATE reaction was “I won’t fight him, he’s my father, I have to save him.” Did they miss the part where Luke chose to THROW AWAY HIS LIGHTSABER rather than give in to fear and hatred and violence, even if it meant his father killing him? Even if it meant the rebellion’s demise? Did they miss the part where Luke’s FAITH--in humanity, in his family, in the Jedi and the Light Side of the Force--IS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF HIS CHARACTER?? THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF STAR WARS?? THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY?!?! THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH, WITH LUKE BEING THE VERY EMBODIMENT OF IT????? And for some reason I’m suppose to sit there and believe that Luke’s first impulse in sensing the “conflict” in Ben--his own nephew, who hadn’t even done anything bad yet--was to KILL HIM??? To kill HAN AND LEIA’S CHILD?!?!?!?! What the ever loving FUCK kind of travesty is that? Character assassination doesn’t even seem an adequate term for what this is.

And that’s just ONE PART OF IT. There’s also the fact that his nephew and Snoke are running around DESTROYING THE GALAXY and BLOWING UP PLANETS and Luke is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE GALAXY WHO CAN DEFEAT THEM, and he DOESN’T CARE. Rey literally shows up and tells him that Leia is begging for his help, that there are two powerful Dark Side Force wielders that they’re powerless to fight, and that Han is DEAD. And Luke doesn’t fucking care. Sorry, but a Luke Skywalker who doesn’t race off to help his loved ones is not Luke Skywalker at all. Once again, this is 100% entirely and completely incompatible with all three films of the OT. Add to that the fact that Luke spends the entire first 2/3 of the film bitterly sneering at himself--about how stupid he was, mocking the very notion of Luke Skywalker as a hero, shitting all over the Jedi, calling himself a vain, ignorant failure... It honestly felt like a personal attack. It was literally the way that angry, dangerous male Star Wars fans who insist that the rebels were terrorists and glorify the Empire and say that the Jedi were no better than the Sith talk about Luke: with spite and disdain and cruelly irreverent, angry scorn designed to cow and hurt the people who think of Luke and the rebels as heroes. Except it wasn’t some reddit post. It was happening onscreen and coming out of Luke’s own mouth.

I honestly, truly do not understand how any fan of the original trilogy could ever think that Luke Skywalker would be tempted to murder his nephew, or turn his back on the Jedi, or be unwilling to go to Leia after learning Han is DEAD, or just not care about the fact that without his intervention, billions of people would die or be enslaved. I was literally crying tears of fury and horror and disbelief and grief. And then, what? He has 5 seconds of remorse and uses the Force to project himself across the galaxy to buy time for the resistance, and then he just? Dies? 

What the fuck was the point of having him be in the movies, then? What was the point of including him in the films if all that they wanted him for was to destroy his legacy, make him out to be a coward, rip every single thing that was ever true about Luke Skywalker to shreds, and then give him a quick “redemption” and kill him off like he was nothing? He just fucking dies off on that island after years of hiding from his problems, and even at the very end insisting to Leia that he won’t try to save Ben, that he’s not a hero, that he’s nothing? I am just, so angry that my anger is the only thing standing between me and utter devastation. I literally watched Rian Johnson murder Luke Skywalker and piss on his grave. He did everything in his power to kill any notions that anyone had of Luke Skywalker as the hero he is.

2. Kylo Ren apologism. This was easily the second biggest thing I had a problem with. First and foremost, the fact that they had the AUDACITY to write off his fall to the Dark Side on LUKE SKYWALKER OF ALL PEOPLE. They were so desperate to make him “sympathetic” and “relatable”--and to contrive some bullshit reason for Luke to be in exile--that they decided to make LUKE be at fault?!?! It wasn’t enough that they had to imply in interviews that Han and Leia were “neglectful,” now they also have to tell us that Luke was trying to murder him? First of all, that still doesn’t excuse mass murder, let’s just be clear on that. NOTHING they could have written would have been a valid excuse for what Kylo Ren has done. Nothing would make it “ok” or understandable. 

So once again, the writers have gone out of their way to make one of the OT heroes look like a piece of shit for the sake of the new characters, no matter what a disservice it is to the original trilogy, to the fans who love it, and to the characters who MAKE Star Wars STAR WARS. I literally wish I could look Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson in the eyes and demand that they try to explain themselves. I wish I could look them in the eyes and ask how they could have EVER thought it was acceptable to suggest that Luke “failed” his nephew, that he tried to kill him. I want to ask them to explain to Star Wars fans why they thought it was ok to sacrifice Luke Skywalker to the Kylo Ren storyline--to destroy Luke to create that monster.

And that’s not even speaking of the fact that they are literally asking the audience to sympathize with a fascist murderer. Half of the movie was trying to get viewers to “rethink” what they thought they knew about Kylo Ren, to see that it wasn’t his fault, that it was awful LUKE who tried to kill him, and what would we have done? Kylo Ren aids in blowing up billions of innocent people. He orders the death of a whole village of innocent people. He serves the supreme overlord of a paramilitary organization bent on conquering and enslaving the galaxy. He might not be officially Sith, but he IS the Dark Side, which is, in case the writers forgot, a PERVERSION of the Force and pure EVIL. How DARE Rian Johnson, in a reality where we turn on the news daily to find school shooters (which Kylo Ren has done), terrorist attacks (which Kylo Ren has participated in), rapists (which Kylo Ren has symbolically done), racists (Kylo Ren aids a racist military regime), and entitled, wrathful white pissbabies (which Kylo Ren is), and ask us to SYMPATHIZE with the embodiment of ALL of those things??? How can he dare expect us to have empathy for this man? And at the expense of LUKE SKYWALKER? 

And then there’s the fact that not once, but TWICE Kylo Ren is referred to as “just a boy,” first by Snoke and then by Luke. Funny, Kylo Ren was a grown man when he destroyed the Jedi Order, when last I checked. But please, tell me again how he’s only a CHILD, just like society does every time any twenty/thirty-something white man rapes/kills/shoots people. Snoke also says that Kylo Ren has “too much of Han Solo’s heart” in him. Now, granted this is coming from Snoke, so it was most likely just to manipulate and torment Kylo Ren, but nevertheless, as it was consistent with the near constant theme of infantilizing and humanizing Kylo Ren, it ENRAGED ME. Kylo Ren has not one single SLIVER of Han Solo’s heart in him. If he did, he would never have joined the Dark Side, or the remnants of the Empire. He would never have murdered countless people in cold blood. He would never have participated in a genocide. He would never have tortured innocent civilians. He would never have KILLED HIS FATHER or have ordered his army to KILL HIS MOTHER. Kylo Ren is NOTHING like Han Solo.

The forced romance with Rey and Kylo was absurd. First of all, I swear to you there are countless shitty fanfics that did this exact same fucking premise of the Force connection--right down to the lack of clothes--so literally we were fed bad fanfiction. Kylo Ren tortured Rey, killed her mentor before her eyes, mortally wounded her only friend, terrified her, invaded her mind while taunting her that he could take whatever he wanted and could invade all her private thoughts and feelings in a scene heavily coded as a metaphorical rape, and almost killed her in the last film. And yet, we’re supposed to believe that because, oh, that’s right, LUKE APPARENTLY TRIED TO KILL KYLO REN, that just excuses all those things Ren did to her and now she has romantic feelings for him? Someone please call up all the women in the world who have been beaten or raped and tell them about something traumatic that had happened in their abuser’s past; they’ll be sure to have romantic feelings for them then!!!! The scene where he had his shirt off?! As though he’s some desirable heartthrob eye candy, and not a WHINY, ENTITLED FASCIST DARK SIDE MURDERER and the VILLAIN of the franchise???? It was sickening.

And yet, I’m not even sure what any of it was trying to accomplish? They went through all that trouble to woobify him and make him “sympathetic” (*derisive snort*), but then he still ended up succeeding Snoke as the new Emperor 2.0 and establishing himself as DECIDEDLY evil, even heartlessly ordering the death of his own mother, and Luke AND LEIA now both said that he can’t be redeemed. So what was the point of all that woobification??? Because now rey will try to redeem him in IX? Yeah, hard pass on that, thanks.

Someone please explain to me why they are literally plot point for plot point giving Rey Luke’s exact story, but also at the same time ripping that story away from Luke as though he hadn’t already done it all before? 

3. Rey as a result was entirely unlikable in the film. I went from enjoying her character in the last movie despite all the film’s flaws and the fact that they destroyed Han, Luke, and Leia for her sake, to simply hating her. She came across as ridiculously stupid--walking straight back into the custody of the First Order mere days after having escaped, because now she’s in love with the man who violated and tortured her and killed her father figure and blew up multiple planets? Wtf? And not only that, but what had been a feminist achievement--a female protagonist of a Star Wars film--was turned into a young woman “understanding” the pain of a fascist murderer and “fixing him” with her love. But failing? So again..... what was the point? To make Rey look stupid? Well, they succeeded. It basically just felt like Rian Johnson getting away with putting his own weird sexual fantasies onscreen as much as he could get away with.

4. Finn and Rose were entirely irrelevant. Finn was BLATANTLY demoted from co-protagonist to supporting role, and his side-plot with Rose was so sloppily done that it was obvious his character was an afterthought at best. But we know why that is (racism. It’s because racism). Their little side-trip to casino planet was visually incompatible with the rest of the Star Wars films, rushed, poorly executed, and, above all else, entirely pointless. They accomplished literally nothing and would have died had it not been for Whatsherface Holdo. And that kiss at the end was so out of nowhere that I was literally in disbelief. They’d literally only known each other for a few hours, and yet somehow we’re already having talk of “saving what we love” and kissing???? It was so uncomfortable and fell so flat and was so obviously only included to shove Finn out of the way so that Rey could want Kylo Ren and try to soothe his Man PainTM. Because, once again, racism. Finn’s entire sequence of waking up, by the way, serving as cheap, demeaning comedy at his expense, was weird and unnecessary. Someone please explain to me why they needed to have him walk around base naked and squirting water all over the place? What even was that? Another moment that didn’t feel like it belonged in a Star Wars movie. Oh, and his being framed once again as a traitor and a deserter for trying to get off the ship in the escape pod. Uh, hey so, pretty sure Finn isn’t ENLISTED and therefore he wasn’t DESERTING, first of all, and second of all, pretty sick of this trend of making the heroes look like cowards while trying to make the villains look like victims.

5. Just general bad writing, mischaracterization and sloppy work. Literally nothing happened for the whole movie. The resistance ran away from the First Order for like two hours of screen time while Luke milked alien animal titty and sneered at Rey and refused to help his sister. Then the resistance almost escaped but didn’t and had to keep running away. Then the resistance almost escaped again but didn’t and had to keep running away again. And then they again were almost safe but weren’t, and finally had to run away for good. It was so underwhelming that I literally couldn’t even believe it was approved. Who signed off on this? The whole thing was just a ship running away from another ship with lots of mentions of “almost out of fuel!!!!” and then getting in a different ship to keep fleeing. 

Also, Leia did literally NOTHING in the whole movie except almost die, slap Poe in the face, stun Poe, and look sad. So? K cool. Also they made it a point to say that they were broadcasting a distress call with Princess Leia’s personal code “because people believe in Leia,” but then they said the distress call was received and ignored by their allies. Indicating that no one actually believes in or cares enough about Princess fucking Leia to go to her aid. Because they just really had to drive in the knife that the OT characters are irrelevant and sad distortions of what they once were. Oh, and as a result evidently the First Order was able to blow up multiple planets and no one else in the galaxy tried to stand up and stop them from trying to take power?

Poe for some reason was characterized as this trigger happy, impulsive, irresponsible hothead who blundered around a lot and almost got the resistance destroyed multiple times and then this was never resolved. He just kept blundering until the end when Rey lifted the boulders for their escape. So, AGAIN, making the heroes look bad for no reason.

That Holdo character was so dumb I don’t even understand????? Why couldn’t she just tell the resistance what the plan was???? Literally they were all on a ship running out of fuel and thinking she was planning to just keep running til they ran out of gas and all got blown up. That entire nonsense situation wouldn’t have happened if she had just told the people whose lives were in her hands that she wasn’t just giving them up for dead. And if she was planning to die herself anyways, why didn’t she lightspeed at the First Order sooner? And how did a collision at light speed not obliterate the entire ship? How the hell did Finn and Rose walk away from that? So sloppy, so many plot holes there.

All that build-up to Snoke and he was irrelevant and now dead. They literally just presented us with the half-baked Emperor rip-off and then said “nah JK” and disposed of him. He was entirely pointless. Why not just start off the trilogy with Kylo Ren as the Supreme Leader, then, for all the effect that Snoke had (none) on the story?

Rey went “straight to the Dark Side” while meditating and was sneaking around with Kylo Ren and Luke didn’t trust her motivations at all, but then Yoda just appears and says that Rey already knows everything she needs to know about being a Jedi without Luke needing to teach her (um, what? how? Two days prior she didn’t even know what the Force even was?) and then that’s just magically resolved and she’s just now somehow all good to take up the mantle of the last jedi in the galaxy? Despite her overt foray into the Dark Side, which was seemingly without remorse? Despite the fact that she legit didn’t have a single second of training other than Luke telling her “the Force binds all living things and the Jedi shouldn’t have fucked with it”? Also, how could she do a Jedi mind trick without trying? How could she levitate stones without training? How could she best Luke with no training? Entirely inconsistent with the previous two trilogies, as was every word that came out of Yoda’s and Luke’s mouths. And then Snoke calling her a Jedi? SHE WASN’T A JEDI!!!! 

Leia saying “I changed my hair” as her first words to Luke? What the hell was that? I understand that it was a nod at what Han said to her in VII, but it was out of place and wrong. She should have run to him and hugged, like she did every single other time they reunited in the OT. 

The whole thing about Luke’s death being at peace seemed like they needed Rey and Leia to explain it to the audience, because otherwise no one would get it because it made no sense. Also the way they lowkey implied that Luke had finally gotten “purpose” with his death, as if he hadn’t already had purpose BEFORE when he was SAVING THE WHOLE GALAXY???? As if Luke needed to be redeemed???? Why was I given a story in which Luke Skywalker, the HERO, was in need of a redemption? And am I to understand that he just, exerted himself to death? Uh, ok......? Where’s that meme of Padme saying “Guess I’ll die” when you need it?

Also why was the ancestral Skywalker family lightsaber calling to Rey if she’s not related to them (assuming that Kylo Ren was telling the truth)? Why was she seeing Luke in her dreams? Because she’s “The chosen one”? Didn’t we already HAVE a chosen one? And speaking of that... wasn’t that supposed to have brought balance to the Force? And it... didn’t?

I’m glad that Luke legit asked who the fuck Rey was to be the one to be sent to him, because that made literally no sense whatsoever.

The scenes were cutting all over the place and felt choppy. The pacing was rushed and the plot forced in many places. The tone was all over the place. The humor was inappropriate and fell flat. It visually did not look like Star Wars. In fact, I felt like Rian Johnson did everything in his power to give us a movie that was as un-Star Wars-like as possible.

6. Somehow also an awful rehash of Empire Strikes Back?? If you were paying attention to the plot, it’s not hard to figure out that they were trying to subtly give us Empire Strikes Back in disguise. Film starts with the evacuation of the rebel--oops sorry, resistance base. Proceed to have two of our main heroes being pursued by the Empire across the galaxy, while the Force Sensitive Protagonist is off trying to persuade the Exiled Jedi Master to train her, and he doesn’t want to. Then she ventures into a Dark Side cave and has a disturbing (and just weird?) vision. Then, while Secondary Heroes try to outrun the Empire First Order, she convinces the Exiled Jedi to train her against his best judgment, but she has More Force Visions of her friends of the man whose dick she seemingly wants to suck and so she Leaves Exile Planet to go have a Confrontation with the Evil Force User where she learns a revelation about her parents and is invited to join the Dark Side but Makes An Escape. Then more fleeing from the Empire First Order. Then she rejoins the other lead characters in time to Escape Again, with some slight deviation from the plot--jumping ahead for Luke to die à la Yoda at the beginning of ROTJ, just as she reached her “Dagobah” a film early, as well.

They literally tried to sell us the exact same movie--but they used the same template with all the wrong actual content. They made a cheap knock-off of ESB and filled it with a Luke Skywalker in disgrace, a protagonist flirting (in more ways than one) with the Dark Side, the normalization of the Dark Side, and the destruction of central Star Wars themes.

So, all in all, they are simply reselling the original trilogy but also undoing the original trilogy and assassinating Han, Luke, and Leia as they go. I left the theater the instant the credits rolled. The ONLY positive thing I can say about it is that Mark and Carrie (RIP, she was hard to watch) gave good performances, even though their characters were ruined. I am heartbroken and obviously very angry. I am aware that this was supposed to be a review but became instead an angry rant, but I am as unapologetic of that fact as is Rian Johnson for what he’s done. In my opinion, Star Wars is irrevocably destroyed. The damage following VII was considerable, but this film just really took the cake. This is not my Star Wars, and I will never make the mistake of seeing another Star Wars movie again.

[djjelo]

Justice League & The DCEU

Accepting that I’m in the minority. What I’ve loved about the DC universe is the dark tales. The tales of earth in jeopardy, heroes who’ve turned evil, Villains to heroes. Stories like Superman:Red Son that suppose the hero crash landed in Russia, not Kansas, and how that affected the way Kal-El would turn out. Stories like The Dark Knight Returns (no, not like the film in-name-only) where our vigilante ‘hero’ who tries retirement from being Batman is haunted by his choice. Plagued by the choice,even. Realizing that the costume he wears is really Bruce Wayne, not The caped crusader, and the consequences he faces returning to Gotham as an older man fighting a new war. There’s ‘Kingdom Come’, a dystopian tale of the Justice League that has our heroes battling their offspring, relatives and protégés , resulting in an all out war that engulfs all nations and nearly destroys earth. ‘Flashpoint’, a dark story that has The Flash doing his best to get back to the point in time where he feels he can make the difference and what his past choices have led to...a place where his friends are now enemies with each other hellbent on mutual destruction. Batman, again, in ‘The killing Joke’, battles Joker to near death. Realizing that if he would kill the clown villain that he may be without true purpose. There’s more...but, often, these stories are considered to be DC comics best tales. They’ve been reprinted, they’ve been retold. They’ve been loosely adapted to live action film which ultimately watered down the initial idea of the art. The stories have been animated and they’ve been sequelized and retold again and again on pages. Even though these stories were told as a reaction to the original tales of these heroes, from a golden era where battling Nazis and bank robbers inspired hope to the readers, the titles I’ve mentioned are known as DCs best sellers. The reason why DC became a powerhouse publisher. The numbers are there. I’m sure someone, somewhere is recalling when Superman stopped a train from running over a dog, or when Wonder Woman helped a lost child reunite with a family, or when Aquaman helped clean up an area of an ocean. Maybe someone can recall when The Flash was fast enough to slow down a speeding car from running a red light and causing an accident. I’m sure. But, whoever you are out there ...you’re in the minority of sales. Sales are votes. I know that the primary idea was that heroes should inspire and that these stories helped build into that mythology. The stories laid the groundwork for other legends like ‘TDKR’ or ‘Kingdom Come’ to happen. Yet, when these dark stories emerged from print, they crushed it with mega sales across the planet. Somehow, when adapted to the silver screen, that caused distress among an audiences everywhere. I didn’t get it. Just like ...I don’t think McDonalds makes the worlds best hamburger...yet, there it is. The planets best selling hamburger. I disagree with that opinion but the sales dwarf whatever the hell my thoughts are. I don’t piss and moan much about it as I’ve accepted that people want their shit hot and fast so they can take a fast hot shit. Meanwhile, I’m over at Holy Chuck and baby...that’s a hamburger ! So, when people bitched and moaned about Man Of Steel being too dark, that their Superman doesn’t kill, I thought to myself ‘Which Superman would that be?’ When BvS came out and people gripes about Batman ‘Not being a killer’ or ‘Superman’ isn’t supposed to be moody�� I wondered to myself ‘Which story are they complaining about?’ Batman kills lots in TDKR. Superman self exiles himself in Kingdom Come and is super moody. Wonder Woman is practically militant in Kingdom Come. These are DCs best selling stories. Sadly, instead of translating these mighty tales to film, they’ve been adapted and then relayed to some wonky, stock holding round table of asshats who chose to say shit like ‘too dark’ and ‘not enough light’ and even worse ‘not funny enough’ Before I leave the impression that I think the DCEU is flawless I’ll inject and digress towards my opinions ...loved Man Of Steel. Easily the best Superman I’ve seen on film and it’s a gorgeous looking movie. BvS has moments of awesome mixed with moments of true diarrhea and that’s because many, especially the audience that voted with dollars, had this screwed up reaction suggesting that ‘Superman was too dark’. He’s an alien on Earth ...alone and one of the last of his species. Affleck completely rocked it as Batman. Not one scene prior to Ben in the warehouse comes close to that type of awesome. When he’s training in that film we could believe that this Batman kicks ass. We also finally see Bruce as a detective and technician within the bat cave. He nailed it as Bruce. But, that death thing doe. I could talk all day about the terrible casting for Luthor and the unnecessary addition of Doomsday. I’m on that team. Then, because BvS undelivered at the box office despite the $1billion it generated, Suicide Squad came at us like a bullet of spit. We’ll never know the actual film that director intended us all to see because the studio got cold feet when they saw the dailies, suggesting the film was ‘too dark’ despite the title of the film ...wait for it ... “Suicide Squad” and what that meant. None of them were supposed to live but hey...marketing could’ve gone with ‘Almost Suicidal Squad’. Could’ve worked, maybe? Then ‘Wonder Woman’ happened and the studio and audience did a collective sigh because it brought in the big dollars which means it worked on a level that shareholders and audience members could agree upon. I liked WW but it’s far from perfect. Where the hell did that laser beam come from at the climax ? Diana shoots lasers?! Now, on the eve of the release of ‘Justice League’ all reviews point to ‘fun’ and ‘great jokes’ with ‘not too dark, like MoS or BvS’ and I’m over here scratching my head apart. Which stories were they reading ?! The stories that sold less than half of TDKR ? Or ‘Flashpoint’ ?! Marvel films are transforming into parody, popcorn fodder, and very little discussion happens after that. For example, I’m sure that no one is going to be talking about Guardians 2 the way that people were talking about Guardians1 except for ‘not as good’. Thor:Ragnarok was fun, fast paced and had me laughing out loud a bit but it won’t be this memorable film that I’ll want to replay years from now. In fact, most of the new Marvel films have a disposable feel where I never feel anything is at stake really...just stuff happening without any true resolve. Maybe that’s why I’m so hopeful for the upcoming Infinity War because Thanos kills everyone in the Marvel Universe. Sorry...spoiler alert ? Mostly, it’s this ...when I watch a DC movie I want to see the dark. That’s why I go !!! I want to to reflect and have thoughts and discuss with my friends who or what or when could be different. The change. The twist. I do not hope for my DC films to be like Marvel. But, with regards to Marvel, I mostly just hope for Thanos to kill everything just so we can all move on to something else. We need alternative. That breeds new stuff and new stuff is cool. That’s why these dystopian and dark messed up stories were so badass to begin with. Because they offered us, the readers and potential theatre audience, the opportunity to see ‘what if’. Yes, I know Marvel printed that stuff first and yea I was a fan of their tales. But, no one ever really dies in Marvel, do they. Or DC...they’re guilty too. That’s why the publishers printed these What If stories to begin with ! Otherwise it’s onwards towards the never ending. This type of shit removes the stakes at hand. That’s why the dark ‘what if’ stuff is awesome ...it follows through. It ends things and allows new shit to start. Otherwise we see Magneto die, again. We see Lex Luthor go to prison, again. Do you think Batman might capture the joker, again? How about Wolverine...will he escape the treacherous mutant bad guy...again? I got chubbed when Marvel announced Wolverines death. But, wouldn’t you know it...he’s back. So is Magneto. So is Lex. Pretty sure The Joker is murdering someone with laughing gas and laughing about it. Shocker, isn’t it? A lot of people will take a dump on the film makings of Snyder and what he tried to do with the DCEU. For all the stuff he tried that didn’t work, and some of it didn’t for me too, he def tried to do something different than what was done before his efforts. His reward was getting heaps of po0p thrown at him by keyboard warriors seeking a McDonalds hamburger. These same viewers who reward ‘same, same again’ and fuel the stockholders to sequelize and trilogize stories that we’ve loved at first into this endless, stakes free world, where nothing changes. It’s all safe and they’ll see you soontimes, even if they have to recast. But, get excited cuz this time they’ve got XYZ director at the helm. He’s supposedly got more influence than the shareholders and the board of boredom, donchaknow. I am super excited about seeing Justice League because I’m a slut nerd for comics to film, an admitted sorry ass zombie slave, hypnotized to sleep walk over to the box office regardless of who or what is directing or starring. For example, Taika Waititi didn’t put my ass into a chair. It’s not a perfect hypnosis ...I skipped seeing Suicide Squad in the theatres, I passed over Spider Man:Homecoming and I won’t be seeing Ant Man 2: Ant Harder. I really saw Thor 3 for The Hulk and the wondering of how badly they screwed over the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline but Thor’s triceps looked huge and the first three times he failed was funny. The 20 times after that not so much. Anyways, the initial tracking after opening weekend for MoS fared shittily for the rest of what could have been the DCEU and sadly we won’t be seeing the ‘what if’s’ and instead we are getting served the ‘you knew it !’ versions of these movies. Also, a studio and round table so desperate to catch up to the financials of their competitors that instead of doing their bestest to tell great stories that they did for us on the page, they’re serving us some McDonalds hamburgers. Enjoy the super size. It’s only an additional buck more.

[phantoms-lair]

Voltron AUs part 2

 Here’s my second AU. This one is way more serious. It also contains some spoilers for Season 3, So I’m gonna put it under a cut.

This is based on a theory I had about ‘Shiro’ in Season 3 that was thankfully debunked in episode seven. Like everyone and their cousin, Peter and I didn’t believe Shiro was really Shiro (both of us think Shiro’s been Yui Ikari’d, though I’m beginning to think he’s in a different reality). But, as Black reacted to him, at the same time Peter and I had a terrible thought.

What if Shiro was Zarkon?

Like, the most important thing to the Galra Empire was to take down Voltron, So while Haggar’s tending to his wounds, they hatch this scheme to use her magic to make him look like Shiro down to the arm. Then she creates a copy of Shiro’s mind (using the same method as in the clone theory) and makes Zarkon’s mind and personalty dormant so ‘Shiro’ will be more realistic.  Then at the perfect time, she’ll break the Spell, and Emperor Zarkon will be in the perfect position to destroy the Paladins.

Seeing Zarkon in episode seven proved this wasn’t the case, but this AU goes with ‘But what if it was’. The infiltration was a success and at the crucial moment, Haggar releases the spell and Zarkon’s mind is free.

The only problem? It’s actually free. For the first time in ten thousand years his mind if free from the effects of the Ooze’s corrupted quintessence. And he’s aware of what he’s done. What’s he’s turned his people into, what he’s done to his closest friends.

Zarkon is horrified. 

And to make matters worse, the ones he’s meant to betray to their deaths are children. Of the Earthlings, only the one he replaced was fully grown and Kaity’s just barely into adolescence. This is wrong. Beyond wrong. Not to mention Shiro’s mind is still there, he still feels what Shiro felt towards them. And he makes his decision.

Emperor Zarkon is dead. He’s not worthy of the Black Lion, and now he understands why. But of Being Shiro is what they need, he’ll be Shiro. He’ll fight against the corrupted mass his empire has become and remove it’s cancer from the galaxy.

Meanwhile Haggar doesn’t know what went wrong. Why did her spell fail? Why is her Emperor still that pathetic Earthling? She needs to get him back and fix what went wrong.

To which Zarkon doesn’t have enough Nopes.  He avoids Haggar and the druids at all costs, something none of the other castle residents think twice about, since he’s been their prisoner twice.

There is one other person/entity aware of the deception. The combined consciousness of real Shiro/Black Lion. Though broken there are still scraps of the bond to Zarkon. He could sense him which was why he wasn’t allowed to pilot.But through the bond he could sense the genuine remorse and regret. Since he is doing his best to help, he’s giving him a chance, but if he reverts he’s going to be so much space dust. Until then, this is hilarious.

He’s going to get revealed at one point as not the real Shiro. Either eh’s forced to give himself away, or the guilt overcomes him. He doesn’t tell the whole truth of who he is, but that he was sent to infiltrate and turned sides.

 He tells them everything he knows about the Galra Empire's working (verbally if forced to give himself away and if overcome by guilt he write several reports to give to them) and how the Galra with the most power are puppets of the Quintessence Ooze. He doesn’t give his real name, but asks to be called Kuro instead. He also tells them Zarkon is dead or good as. “Haggar’s the one who exiled Lotor in the first place. She doesn’t like or trust him. She never would have recalled him if there was any chance of Zarkon recovering.” 

Absolutely no one trusts him, but the fact that he would willingly die if that was their decision helps (his only stipulation is the Earthlings not watch. he still has the face of one of their friends and they don’t need to see that.). One of the Blades tests that by going into an executioner's stance and attacking. It's a test, but one that draw blood, basically leaving a shallow cut on his throat rather than taking his head off. But Kuro didn’t run or even try to fight back. He would calmly face his death if that’s what was wanted.

He had the exact opposite reaction when Allura made a snide comment about ‘leaving him somewhere for Haggar to find’. It’s only lucky that the Paladins find him in the process of spacing himself, and he still has to spend time in the healing chamber for the damage done. But yeah, the mere thoguht of being reclaimed by the Galra is enough to send both Siro and Zarkon’s tactical minds into a panic

Hunk is the first to start trusting Kuro again, followed by Lance. Both because they didn’t have as strong a personal emotional bond as Pidge and Keith to Shiro and because they’ve both been controlled by the Bakku. They know what it’s like to not be in control of your actions and have far more sympathy towards him. If any of his intel helps find the Holts, that would be a good in route to Pidge.

Keith gets captured at some point and without him they can’t form Voltron to save him. Kuro thinks of a way to save him. Problem is, it’s a suicide mission. Keith would escape, but whoever went in would die. Kuro doesn’t mention this to anyone, just starts gearing up. The life of a paladin of Voltron vs ‘Evil Emperor Zarkon’ is no contest in his mind. And even if Keith hates him, he still cares for him. It’s as he leaves he’s feel a purring in the back of his mins that’s familiar to both Zarkon and Shiro and he almost cries. Black’s forgiven him, at least enough to let him pilot him to save Keith. (Which is what brings Keith and the Alteans to at least grudging respect)

I also want to do a bit where they get brought into the Lion’s mindscape and Kuro’s convinced the jig is up. They’ll see who he is in his mind, that he’s Zarkon. Only when he get there he’s still looking like Shiro. Black Liojn/Shiro greets them all and explains to his confusion “In here, you’re who you truly are. And no matter who you were, you’re Kuro now.” And maybe as an aside only Kuro can hear “You weren’t lying when you told the Emperor Zarkon was dead”

Also Kuro’s feelings on Allura are complicated. He remembers being her favorite Uncle and wants to spoil her rotten. But that has to contend with memories of killing her father and destroying her home, which leaves him wracked with guilt. If you combine that with Shiro possible having romantic feelings for her, that is a landmine of emotions that Kuro is terrified to touch.

Snippet bits:

"Even though I was controlled, I still did terrible things. If you must call me something, call me Kuro. In his language Shiro means white and it's fitting. He was the light of hope for the universe. I'm the opposite. A black mark on it. But I would rather die right this minute as Kuro then spend another second as who I was forced to be"

"Why is that witch obsessing over you?" Allura demanded. "She knows you've turned traitor by now. Why is she trying to recapture you instead of killing you?"

Kuro gulped. "It's difficult to talk about - I'm trying alright?!" he exclaimed at the looks Allura and Coran were giving him. He buried his face in his hands. "She is...she was.... She was my wife, okay?"

The silence around the table was deafening.

"In case you've forgotten, Alteans and Galra were allies. She was strong and smart and...kind. So very kind.  We...we even had a son." He hated that he could feel his human eyes tearing up. He wished he was strong enough to hide his feelings, but he couldn't help but think about when Lotor was born and how different he'd have grown up to be if everything hadn't gone so horribly wrong.

"And now, I don't know how real any of our relationship was. Looking back with clear eyes, she was being manipulated by the Ooze long before the planet exploded. She was one of the Altean alchemists working on it and well, the ones that survived are the druids if that tells you anything."

Allura let out a little gasp.

"I made many bad decisions before things went wrong, and I thought I was doing them for her sake. But I was a tool long before I was being controlled. And now I don't know is that's some small part that's still my wife trying to get her husband back, or if the witch doesn't want to loose her favorite tool. But either way, if she gets her hands on me, she'll use the tainted quintessence at her disposal to turn me back into a monster. One worse than any of her robeasts."

"Anyone sitting here?" Coran inquired

Kuro shook his head. "You know there isn't." Kuro was well aware he was the single least liked person in the castle. He was a spy and an infiltrator after all. One who had gotten there by impersonating someone they loved dearly. And they didn’t know the half of it. "I miss it though. The closeness"

"From before you were outed?"

"Then too, but I also have all of Shiro's memories of before that. And with the Holt's before even the Paladins. And on the other side of things, my team before the corruption happened. Three bands I was proud to call my brothers. Now one's dead, one's missing, and one hates me. All of which is my fault."

"They don't hate you. Well, Lance and Hunk don't hate you, and I think Pidge is coming around. Keith's a bit, well, Keith."

"And Allura hates anything connected to the Galra, and rightfully so."

"Not rightfully so." Coran shook his head. "The Galra did many terrible things, yes. But She was just as venomous at the ones who's who risked everything to save us. And how she treated Keith was beyond the pale." he sighed. "I wanted to say something, but didn't know how, not with what she's been through."

"What you've been through too." Kuro gently reminded him. "The Galra cost you so much. I cost you so much"

"You were controlled and manipulated," Corna reminded him.

"That shouldn't have mattered!" Kuro clenched his fists. "I should have been strong enough to resist it."

"I can't tell you how often Lance and Hunk think that about the Bakku. They've gotten past it, mostly. Still a few nightmares." More than a few honestly, especially on Hunk's part.

"In the end they still saved the day though. I destroyed everything."

"Someone helped them. No one helped you."

"Someone tried. And I killed him for it." Kuro said bitterly.

"Perhaps. But I think Alfor always knew it wasn't really you. He knew his best friend wouldn't start a war like that."

Kuro's head whipped up. "You know who I am?" he asked, fear in his voice.

"I know who you used to be." Coran corrected. "You told us yourself, didn't you. There was no way for Zarkon to still be alive."

Kuro...Zarkon flinched. "Are you going to tell Allura?"

"No, at least not until she can handle the reality that we were just as much to blame as the Galra."

"But-"

"It was an Altean Alchemist who convinced everyone to keep the rift open. It was the same Altean who manipulated the Emperor who loved her into ripping it wider. And it was the King of the Alteans who destroyed the Galran home world."

"Only because there was no other choice." Zarkon growled.

"Perhaps, but an interesting thing I realized. We never told the Earthlings, when we explained things in the beginning. If it was so forgivable why not mention it? Allura's put Altea up on a pedestal. And until she can accept our hands aren't completely clean," he sighed. "She still has some growing up to do."

"So what now?"

"Nothing changes, though would you mind indulging me in a curiosity."

"Certainly, I told you before, any knowledge I have is yours."

"Well this is a bit personal. 'Emperor Zarkon' would never have agreed to be permanently turned into another species. But if Haggar, or should I say Honneca-"

"Haggar, please." Zarkon pleaded. Foolish is might be, he wanted to keep the memory of his wife separate from what she became.

"Right, if Haggar could change you back, she would have long ago."

Zarkon grinned. It wasn’t friendly.  "We decided that I should have sole control of turning back, once I regained my memories. That way we wouldn't have to worry about her changing me at the wrong time. The control was a glyph of tainted quintessence." He rolled up the sleeve of his right arm, past the prosthetic to reveal faded purple markings."

"Huh, Thought a glyph would be more glowy."

"Oh it would be," Zarkon's grin was downright ferocious. "Remember how different the Galra crystal was from the standard Balmeran one? It takes significant time to corrupt them to the point they won't actually purify our systems. Last time we visted the Balmora, before I was outted, I asked for a small bit of Crystal. Just a sliver broken off from the battle, not enough to power more than a toy, but enough to disrupt a glyph."

Coran could see a small scar through the center of the glyph, now that it was brought up. "But that would mean-"

"I can never revert to my old form. I will be in this human body till the day I die."

“Does that make you human then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I am. I don’t now who I am.” He leaned back.  Shiro’s mind isn’t gone from my own. And I know his thoughts and experiences influence me, but I have no clue to what degree. Am I truly a clone of Shiro with some Galra memories? Am I a traitorous Galra, trying to escape my own guilt by pretending I’m human? If I’m not Zarkon and I’m not Shiro, who am I?”