#ezra: genuinely yes

[a-corndog-named-schibbs]

Headcanon that Zeb is the only person on the Ghost crew (possibly in the entire galaxy) who has First Name Privileges when it comes to Kallus. If only so we can get the following exchange:

Zeb: Glad you're back, kid! I can't wait to tell Alex!

Ezra: Who's Alex?

Zeb: ...You're kidding, right? There's no way you've forgotten about Alex while you were gone

Ezra: I'm pretty sure I'd remember if we had a guy named Alex on our crew

Zeb: He was with rebel intelligence?

Ezra: ???

Zeb: He's former ISB?

Ezra: ?????

Zeb: *sighs heavily* Blond guy with the muttonchops?

Ezra: ......

Ezra: ...Wait, Agent Kallus?

Ezra: HIS FIRST NAME IS ALEX???

[ak319]

Yan Socialite brother x reader

(Warnings: Strictly platonic , not incest)

Ezra Alvarez , your younger brother, has always been your number one supporter. From a young age, he was taught that tradition dictated the older sibling would inherit the business and the farms—essentially, everything. This meant all the power would eventually be in your hands. But Ezra wasn’t a moneygrubber seeking favor, he genuinely admired your intelligence, strength, and the way you cared for the family, especially him. From the moment he gained consciousness, he aimed to be your best friend and sole confidant. He longed to be the person you turned to for counsel, and slowly but surely, things were unfolding just as he wanted.

Let's start from the beginning. Ezra and you were quite different in many ways, largely due to the contrasting upbringings you had. For example, while you cherished solitude and indulged in expensive hobbies like horseback riding, archery, and swordsmanship within the privacy of your estate, not to mention almost always busy learning and handling the business with your father. On the other hand, Ezra thrived in social settings. As a fashion designer, it was his job to attend lavish parties and stay connected with the latest trends. However, his socializing had a deeper purpose, to monitor the people in high circles and gauge their intentions toward his family, especially you.

Ezra was always vigilant, keeping tabs on potential rivals and meticulously recording this information. He made sure you were aware of everything you needed to know, and thanks to his discreet tactics, you were advancing. The way he giggled looking up at you when you patted his head in praise was endearing, if he were a puppy, his tail would surely have been wagging.

Ezra would do anything for his older sister because you're the best sister in the world! Despite being used to receiving expensive trinkets, he always gets teary-eyed when you gift him something special. Given your usually stoic and aloof demeanor, he can't help but cry tears of joy when you show him affection and smile at him. He ceaselessly rambles on about his latest projects and clothing line while you sit there, reading a book and nodding along, often clueless about what he’s saying. Yet, he still cherishes these moments because it’s only HIS sister who takes time out of her busy schedule for HIM. How could he not be grateful? That would be a crime. No other sister would ever do this for their brother! Anyway, back to designing some jockey apparels for you. You really need new ones.

As much as he dislikes your boisterous hobbies, he uses them as an excuse to spend time with you. He eagerly asks you to teach him, no matter how dirty his nails or clothes get, or how much he might risk getting sunburned. Every bit of it is worth it when someone like you is his mentor.

Your parents reprimended you for spoiling your baby brother but you always shrugged it off saying "How can I not spoil my only baby brother?." That's right sister, I am and will be always your only brother. He always makes sure to pass a victorious smirk to his parents who could only sigh in defeat at both of you.

Whenever it rains, he remembers how you love the rain while he hates it because it's all muddy but on the other hand memories of him as a kid getting scared of the thunder and you holding him in your bed in your protective embrace always warms his heart. Maybe this is where the habit of cuddling you has developed. Even now when something in his life goes wrong or he is having a tantrum , only your the one who can calm him or otherwise he is crying screaming and complaining for days and yes this is a true incident , the whole estate was close to becoming deaf if you hadn't come back from your academy bringing some new jewels and his favourite pastries for him.

Speaking of the academy, Ezra had to swallow the urge to throw another tantrum or cling to your feet when the time came for you to leave for further studies. He knew you had to do this for your own sake and the future of your family business. So, instead, he became like a second mother to you, sending letters to make sure you weren’t skipping classes—even though he knew you weren’t that kind of a person. He frequently asked about your meals and sports activities, but the part he hated most was even thinking about you having a potential lover. God, he couldn’t help but crumple up the third letter when he wrote about it, but he had to know. The thought of being secondary in your life, in everything, terrified him. What if you brought home a gold digger?! That’s how he saw anyone who came close to you. They didn’t care about your personality or charm, they were after that KA-CHING! And him being one of your top prized assets, he wasn’t about to let that happen.

His heart however calmed down when you replied with a simple 'No' about the question. Yay! Whenever you came back from academy , he was even more excited than your parents, who always found his enthusiasm adorable. How he ran back and forth scolding the servants for not cleaning your room properly , not having your favourite dish up to notch like DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS PROPERLY! He wouldn't stop yapping when you sat for tea after dinner but no matter how much you were exhausted from your journey , you still listened to him.

As cunning, witty, and sophisticated he was, Ezra made mistakes too, and in his mind, the worst mistake was failing at a task you assigned him. He would cower under your anger, fully aware that he had messed up. He was still learning the ins and outs of the tedious household budget—something he would have to manage for you one day—but it was boring, okay? Numbers just weren’t his thing. Even if you scolded him, he always waited for your apology, which you offered in your own way—like taking him out to his favorite café or silently sharing a cup of tea in his room. Moments later, he’d be hugging you, petulantly whining about you getting angry at him. He hated how you chuckled at his childish attitude, but deep down, he loved it too.

Life was going well until, one day he received a letter that you were unable to attend father's funeral due to work back in the academy. He knew it was a lie , you WOULD NEVER abandon your family like this , even your mother was skeptical. But since there was no sign of you coming back, he handled his grieving mother and the arrangements himself as much as he was dying inside due to your absence. Where were you? They needed you. You were their head now. He was worried sick.

After the guests left , it was only his uncles and aunts who sat in the living room while he came down after putting his mother to sleep.

"Ezra, dear boy. You must be tired, but there is something we need to discuss with you." The words made his blood boil, and he fought the urge to slap the indifferent looks off his father’s brothers and sisters. He knew exactly why they were still here—they were nothing but vile, disgusting pieces of filth, circling like vultures after the family’s money. He had always seen the malicious intent in their eyes when they interacted with you, and it broke his heart how you treated them as family while they plotted to push you out of the way. But he kept up the façade of a nice, obedient nephew, knowing that it would be handy for a moment like this. Where were they when he was struggling to handle everything? They only arrived at the last minute for their sibling's funeral. His poor father had died surrounded by snakes. But he swore he would never let the same happen to you. He would never betray you, his blood, like these filthy excuses for humans.

He wanted to throw up as they offered their insincere condolences, but he remained firm. They inquired about your absence, talking shit about your cold behavior for not being there, and this was his cue to play his cards right. Slipping into his favorite role as the bimbo younger brother, he wept, agreeing with their criticisms, and even cursed you, despite how much it made his heart ache. Eventually, they began to open up, believing in the hate and jealousy he pretended to harbor for you. While they didn’t reveal your whereabouts, they made it clear they deemed you as an unworthy heiress. He fake-laughed through his tears, gaining their trust the best that he could. They even had the audacity to suggest dividing the property among themselves, without even considering his mother as the rightful owner of anything. Oh, they were going to be obliterated.

He then promised to hand them the papers during a party he was going to arrange that too in a ferry. Acting on the information you once gave him, he contacted some gunmen for emergencies, making the necessary arrangements. Oh what a sight it was to see the ferry filled with the corpses of his treacherous relatives. One of the assassin came and informed that they had you abducted and thrown into a mental asylum on your way back to the estate for the funeral. His mouth hung agape at the revelation, his whole body seething with fury, and without wasting a moment, he set out to bring you back. But not before ordering the ferry to be blown up in the middle of the sea. He cackled maniacally from the dock as he watched the explosion, then leaped onto the back of one of the hitmen like a kid, gleeful at the destruction of those who had wronged you.

Once you were back and grieved a bit which only lasted for a few moments before you had to take care of covering up the bloodshed your baby brother did. But at the end you did it and currently Ezra was beside you on the arm of the chair while you worked on your late father's study table , now yours. "You are not mad at me, are you?" He asked softly, voice almost breaking at the end.

"You did what had to be done. I would have done the same to anyone who came after my family like this," you said, hearing him sniffle beside you. You gently caressed his arm, your gaze still fixed on the parchment. "Don’t cry, you know how much I hate seeing you cry, Ezzy." You felt him lay his head on your shoulder, his soft brunette locks brushing against your ear.

"Thank you… I couldn’t fucking stand them anymore, doing such… such a horrendous thing to you."

He suddenly burst into giggles, his feet dangling. "But it was fun! You know, before his death, Uncle Auden wore that hideous yellow sack coat. I saw it through the binoculars—God, he looked like a penguin getting on the ferr-!"

"Ezra." Your warning tone almost made him flinch. "What did I tell you about speaking ill of the dead?"

"I think they deserve a pass." His pout was defiant yet playful, and you couldn’t help but smile. His laughter was light, a contrast to the heaviness of this week.

He couldn't be more blissful than this. You looked as if you were made to sit in that chair, and he felt immensely proud to have cleared the path for you. He always would. As his heart pondered the future, a frown creased his brow. The thought of a day when you might stray, bringing a partner into the estate, unsettled him. Though that day seemed far off, he was already prepared to make their life hell. After all, the chances of you siding with a partner over him were slim. He has got his older sister wrapped around his manicured pinky.

➺Ezra x reader x hubby

[the-flys-buzz]

princess and the frog is good!!!!!! or just older animated movies in general? fox and the hound, the aristocats, the land before time...... i used to love dinosaurs.......

dad. i can no longer sleep peacefully. do we have a heating pad. a. and we might have to go to the store.

woe. your child is stuck as a human now. erm.

//@the-flys-buzz (HE SUFFERS WITH ME.)

“.,,?? A. Are you alright.?? i have heating pad I can run and get it if you’d like. Though, you’d have to stay with Jake.”

[mothiir]

Ezra seems like the type who tells you that the emperor granted him a vision of you being his personal serf, and also kissing him, and also marrying him and giving him blowjobs every day. And of course the emperor doesn’t just send these visions for no good reason, so obviously you have to do exactly as He says.

hahahah maybe. tbqh haven’t got a handle on his personality quite yet. Here’s a little snippet of the Black Templar fic I still haven’t finished:

—

“So,” says Isaiah, trying not to quail under the flinty gaze of his Captain. Ezra is a head shorter than he, but more experienced by far, and possessed of the calm authority that comes with knowing that you have the Emperor’s favour above all else. “I was thinking —“

“Were you?” says Ezra. His expressions are impossible to read: the scar across his mouth gives him a sneer of permanent disapproval, and calcified burn tissue on his temples prevent him from even quirking a brow. “Because I do not think you were thinking — I think that you saw a pretty girl, and you lost your damn mind —“

“WhatiftheEmperorputherthereforme?” Isaiah says, in one garbled rush of sound. Ezra exhales — once, twice, thrice — and it is only when the Captain turns his face away a little does Isaiah realise that he is laughing.

“What if the Emperor —?” The breathy chuckle breaks into a caw of genuine amusement; a sound so alien that Isaiah almost reaches for a weapon. “What if the Emperor put her in your path, eh? What — on His Golden Throne, fighting the forces of Chaos, and He decided to take time out of His busy schedule to help you get your dick wet?”

Isaiah is completely at a loss for words — phrased like that, the suggestion seems almost heretical. “…yes?” he hazards, hands sweating inside his gauntlets.

[scarredsurvivor]

I AM, THEY'RE COMING WITH ME . . .

AND I'M ON MY WAY OUT . . .

Hi. I'm David. David Radford. You probably know me as one of jigsaw's first victims. Yes, I survived, no, I'm not in some weirdo mental hospital. Well, not any more at least. Better safe than sorry, am I right?

But uh, yeah. Some few things about me are, I have two other brothers, a few cousins. All identical, in some sort of way. Uh, I like cats, specifically black ones.. I'm twenty five, and my birthday is on Halloween. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

I also love smoking, and hating on the government. I also work at the local hospital. I'm the middle child out of all of my brothers, aaaand.. Yeah, that's about it. I'm not really that interesting, but uh. Tune in to whatever weird shit I decide to put on this thing. Cya.

hey! im romeo.. ezra... jonah... (prefs in order), but you probably know me as @whereismyfoot 😭. some of you who read my intro on there might already know my boundaries, and about me, but ill go over all that again!

like i said, im romeo, im bisexual (mainly female preference), and taken by two lovelies <333. my age preference is 14+, seeing as mod is also 14+. there will probably be dark, and possibly nsfw themes, just so you know.

nsfw asks allowed, but i draw the line at r@p3 threats, inc3st, and just genuinely gross shit like that. thank youu!!

please don't interact if this makes you uncomfortable, and click off. im not going to change my blog for you, despite all of these warnings. anywayyy.. yeah!! here are some head canons, or just things about david that i follow! (open to more)! ;

- speca, david, and adam are brothers

- david is bisexual, with no preference (he gets no bitches anyway.)

- i don't really care what pronouns you use for him, he may or may not be tmasc. idk. you decide i guess LMAO.

[alphasmoonlit-selfships]

Just a little rebel lass with a bark just as strong as her bite 🐺✨

I made a Star Wars Rebels, Mandalorian oc/self insert, with the ability to shape-shift into a space-wolf/lycan species (cause why not?)!

I’m still learning more about Star Wars, I have been re-diving into a lot of it my main blog because of Sabine/Ezra (the beans) and it developed into wanting to create a self insert 🤍 one who is Mandalorian, because I genuinely love the lore, culture and language of the group (Sabine being a strong motivating factor 💜).

Danielle would definitely star in somewhere in Rebels canon, sometime around season 2, maybe as a contact/client for the Ghost crew to provide them with some intel or so, and likely join their little group after they learn more about her ;w; (I love found family, ah).

Can you also tell I’m re-obsessed with THG and ABOSBAS too? I’ve fallen for the soundtrack and songs and it just fits what I have going for with Dany here~ definitely a lass with strong vocal song, the rebels could use song and music to strengthen their spirits 😌

While it’s more for the found family and platonic relationships! I have also thought, why don’t I insert Atsushi or Jason into Star Wars too 👀😳 make it an Au within an Au 🙌🏼 perhaps (─‿‿─)♡ and make them a Jedi or a pilot? 😍 heck yes!

We shall see 😊 I definitely love the design I have going for my self insert here! 🙌🏼

[altairpyxis]

April Fools Birthday Gone Wrong

*On april fools day aka Kallus' real birthday*

Ghost crew: *acting* Happy Birthday Kallus !!

Kallus: *also acting* What ? But it isn't my birthday ?

Ezra: That's the point lol *throws an april fools cake*

Kallus: *dodges it* haha, very funny Bridger.

Ezra: .....dangit Sabine now I owe you 15 credits *walks away*

Sabine: *secretly taking out his real birthday cake* oh you do now.....

*On april 2 aka Kallus' "birthday"*

Ezra: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALLUS !!!

Zeb: TODAY ISN'T HIS- *realises* oh yeah happy birthday babe

Kallus: It isn't today.

Ezra: Yes it is you told me *genuinely believes it*

Kallus: *smirks* oh yes I forgot, happy late april fools day.

[aliendxde]

minecraft hcs - hss prime

rhys: tends to prefer watching other people play, either in real life or youtube. when they play it’s fairly basic, make a base, farm, mine, make a villager breeding prison and repeatedly kill and revive them in order to get the best enchantments possible, collect loot, raid structures, kill the enderdragon. yknow. basics.

autumn: mostly plays in creative mode, focuses on building and landscaping. takes pictures of her builds with 8000 shaders and posts them on reddit. will cry if you grief her build, even if it’s a dirt hut. downloads way too many building mods and texture packs, someone save her storage disk.

julian: makes fun of his friends for playing on easy mode or with keep inventory on, precedes to die in lava and rage quit. joins his sister’s minecraft world just to rearrange her sorting system and dye her sheep brown & grey.

payton: doesn’t quite understand how to play and is scared of most mobs so she plays on peaceful mode with daylight cycle turned off. still somehow manages to die. collects random items and gets overly attached to them (her inventory and chests are a mess), enjoys decorating her house and builds an endless amount of farms so she can have every animal.

wes: usually only plays with other people or on servers because he likes to mess with everyone. yes, this has resulted in several witch hunts. somehow manages to both make an in-game economy and break it in every server he joins. gets absolutely stacked within the first few days of playing, but will still die to a skeleton.

mia: switches her skin every session. pretends to not be interested but actually really likes (and is really good at) playing mini games like sky wars, the hunger games, and parkour maps. maybe not the best at building but great at instructing others on what to do, and placing certain people in charge of jobs. managed to figure out the triangulation method to find the stronghold on her own, thought everybody knew how to do it.

nishan: typically plays on hard mode, likes to challenge himself with speedruns. has absolutely been called out for using a bot to cheat before. likes to tinker with redstone aka make absolute behemoth monstrosities that are technically functional. he uploads tutorials on his youtube channel.

sakura: hardcore mode ONLY. definitely has a long running hardcore mode where she’s maxed out basically everything and has drained several ocean monuments. extremely efficient systems for everything like sorting, transportation, farming, looting, etc etc etc. calls people noobs unironically for playing anything less than hardcore. her winstreak on bedwars is in the quadruple digits..

ezra: follows other players around and becomes friends so they’ll give him stuff and doesn’t have to go mining himself. finds out music discs exist and immediately wants to collect all of them, is surprisingly dedicated to that goal even though he hates going to the nether or deep dark. gets genuinely frustrated if someone kills him as a prank. fascinated by note blocks and learns redstone just to use them better.

[covetyou]

halloween fic recs

now that clown!Dieter is out there for the world to enjoy, I thought I'd throw together some seasonally appropriate fic recommendations.

aliens, monsters, witches, ghosts, serial killers, you get the gist.

heed individual fic warnings, but almost all are smut and include dark themes or monster/alien fucking. sometimes both. 'tis the season.

🔪 = dark 🩸 = gore

ghosts

psychomanteum by @whatsnewalycat - series - Dieter x f!reader - little bit spooky, little bit ghosty, overall incredible. did it scare the shit out of me because it mentions sitting in a dark room and I'm that scared of the dark? maybe it did.

the haunting of dieter bravo by @idolatrybarbie - oneshot - Dieter & reader - smut free spooky shenanigans! genuinely terrifying, and I would like more.

vamps

haunted by @theywhowriteandknowthings 🔪 - oneshot - vampire!Joel x f!reader x vampire!Tommy - vaguely "haunted" house, hot af vampire brothers, DP? literally what is there not to love.

bleed for me by @saradika - series - vampire!Din Djarin x f!reader - this series had me gripped from start to finish.

other spooky creatures

the devils backbone by @ezrasbirdie 🩸- series - alpha!Frankie x omega!ofc - a/b/o fic with monsters and fucking, but no monsterfucking. it's gory, spooky, scary, and just so so good.

boundless by @spacecowboyhotch - series - Marc Spector x f!reader - a witch and a witch hunter, can it get any better. it's early days but I'm so excited for more.

week of horror masterlist by @sweetercalypso 🔪 - event - every single fic has been perfectly spooky and horny thus far. we have ghosts, poltergeists, incubus/succubus, ghostface, vamps, it's got it all.

oh honey by @lincolndjarin 🔪🩸- series - Joel x f!reader - horror and suspense, gory as hell, monster fucking. incredible. criminally underrated.

dream within a dream by @gasolinerainbowpuddles 🔪🩸 - oneshot - incubus!Ezra x f!reader - so beautiful, so creepy, also kind of sad and hot at the same time?

jizz fingers by @gasolinerainbowpuddles - oneshot - splorgimum!Joel x f!reader - insane alien crackfic. that's it. read part 2 too.

mothman fever by @beskarandblasters - oneshot - Joel x f!reader - I've legitimately been thinking about this ever since I read it.

serial killers

slasher!Joel by @toxicanonymity 🔪- oneshot collection - Joel x f!reader - it's funny, it's dark, it's creepy, it's horny. he's a pathetic little murder man and I love him.

sanity is a cozy lie by @patti7dc 🔪🩸- series - Joel x f!reader - incredible serial killer Joel series with a twist. I cannot get enough.

hostage by @atticrissfinch 🔪- oneshot - Joel x f!reader - creepy serial killer in the woods? yes.

scream queen by @hellishjoel 🔪- oneshot - ghostface!Joel x f!reader - it felt like reading a scene from a movie. the ending got me so good.

do you have any spooky recs? send 'em my way!

[vavoomed-for-crowley]

Since everyone is sharing their experience with meeting David Tennant, here's my story:

Of course, I was just as nervous to meet him as most people but I was able to steady myself before it was my turn by taking a few breaths (just because I tend to be nervous at eye to eye conversations in general). In the end, I had to re-do my Photo-Op with him three times because of my glasses and felt really bad for the people in line having to wait even longer because of me. Which is why I was so nervous the third time, that I broke off a part of my Sonic Screwdriver while trying to pack away my glasses. I apologized while fumbling with the screwdriver to not waste any time and he was so kind, said it's okay and already placed a hand on my back while I did so. We did a pose where we both hold the screwdriver together and it's such an amazing picture. Our hands even form a heart, which was not on purpose but it's such a cute detail. In the end, I was able to look into his eyes again and apologize once more (for taking so much time when actually, that was not a problem to anybody. As my therapist would say, the stress is just made up by my head).

At the end of the day, I went to get this photo signed and I was first in line. Which I was not prepared for. The first thing I said to him was that I hope he gets to enjoy the day here despite his schedule. Which, for some reason, made him look up at me in surprise. He then said he does and I handed him the bracelet I made. A rainbow bracelet that says "Ally" and told him it's a thank-you for all his support of the community and that he helps many people with this, like @ineffable-ezra (Yes, I mentioned you like I had promised). He looked at it and said "Thank you so much! I really appreciate this!" He did not smile. He just looked genuinely thankful.

Sometime later, I saw that he forgot the personal dedication. Which was okay but everyone else had one so I went back to the line and asked if it would be a problem to get the dedication real quick. You must know, his schedule was already delayed and I didn't want to cause any more stress. And it was okay. The fan that was in front of me, talked to him a bit too long but his manager didn't interrupt them nonetheless, even though time was running out. Afterwards we got told that they don't want to be rude but he has to get to the airport. So I just said I'm sorry to be here again (like, how many times do I get in the line again because something goes wrong) but he forgot the personal dedication. And he looked so surprised! "I forgot to write your name? I'm sorry!" Told him it's okay and that it was lovely to have him there and that I hope he enjoyed it.

The thing is, when I read other stories, most people made more out of their time with David. But if you know how stressful a few minutes of delay can be for the entire schedule, you don't want to cause any more trouble. And I really tend to worry myself too much with thoughts like this.

David was so kind nonetheless and didn't let me feel like he was stressed (even though he rushed out to get his flight at the end of the day).

I'm just very grateful I got to meet him at all. He was so kind. Of course I wish I could've or would've said some more. Like I wanted to tell him I hope the bracelet fits because I wasn't sure about the size and such things... But for someone with a neurodivergence, I just need my few seconds of preparation which I haven't had. And when I think about it, it's the small details I enjoy so much nonetheless. His surprised look when I said I hope he enjoys the day, like this question was really unexpected for him or the gentleness when I was nervous and genuine appreciation for the bracelet.

We all know he's a sweetheart but I think events like this truly show how lovely he really is.

[pennylambchops]

guys can we talk about just how genuinely sad and awful pennys life was

(tw for suicidial mention)

her parents got arrested INFRONT OF HER, honestly not sure how old she was but im gonna assume somewhere between 14/15 yo. but, how traumatizing must that be?? and the guilt she must feel because after the police was called because her and ezra faked seizures THATS WHEN THEY GOT ARRESTED OVER GROWING POT

her whole st cassian school experience. they bullied her relentlessly for "being a lesbian" (i do like the headcanon but she canonically isnt technically one), she got bullied for everything she did, had boys writing that no no d word on her locker, being pushed up, down, and to the side of the stairs, her backpack being constantly burned, EVEN THE TEACHERS BEING A LITTLE MEAN?? and im telling yall being bullied for ur idenitiy like that is NOT FUN its one of the most awful feelings as someone who went through it, and im sure so many queer people can relate to this experience it is beyond awful

literally just read this

🙁??

4. okay imagine devoting your life to a man just for everyone to turn on him but then switch up once he becomes a crazy misogynistic asshole and YES i know she maimed him but she does no wrong in my eyes

5. AND THEN HE CALLED HER A "FEMENIST LESBIAN" LIKE THE KIDS WOULD DO TO HER ASWELL FUCK YOU JK-47

but yeah, ive seen so many ppl who read legoland and then just focus on how "batshit crazy" penny was (which yeah she kinda was) meanwhile just glazing over how terrible everything was for her? i would start going batshit crazy too

[peachy-panic]

It's Nice To Have A Friend

Here it is, the chapter I've been mud-wrestling with for a literal month. Jaime and Ezra finally meet :)

(yes the title is a t-swift reference)

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-adjacent, brief mentions of past foster system, mentions of grief/parental loss

< PREVIOUS

The car radio carries on for several minutes after Sebastian kills the engine, then, eventually, that shuts off too. The silence they’re left with is all the more heavy given the remote location. Still, neither of them make a move to get out. Sebastian will gladly wait all day, if that’s what Jaime needs. 

A couple of times, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye; Jaime’s hand twitches toward the door handle, then flattens back against his thigh. 

“We don’t have to do this today,” Seabstian says. “No one will be upset if you want to back out and go home.”

“I know,” Jaime answers too immediately to be completely true. Sebastian glances over to find the familiar crease between his brows. He waits him out a few more seconds. 

“Whatever it is, you can say it.”

Jaime takes a breath. “It’s just him here?” he asks. “Your friend Ezra? No one else?”

“No one else,” he promises. “Ezra’s partner won’t be back until he gives him the word.”

Sam, of course, was perfectly happy to skip out for the day in the sole interest of making Jaime more comfortable. Sebastian finds himself, not for the first time, marveling at the generosity of this group of people he has found himself entwined in. He can’t imagine handling this contract without their support. 

“And you won’t…” Jaime pauses. 

He gives him a second to find his words. “Won’t what, Jaime?”

“You won’t leave me alone with him?”

Sebastian grinds down hard on his molars and pointedly does not let himself think about the kinds of situations Jaime may have found himself in during past contracts to make him ask something like that. He absolutely does not let it show in his expression. 

“Not if you don’t want me to,” he promises. 

Jaime lets a narrow wisp of a sigh slide between his lips. “I think I’d feel better if you stayed with me.”

And that… sort of knocks the wind out of him. Because, on one hand, that could be a crock of shit fed to him by handlers to make him feel reliant on the person who holds his contract. On the other hand, Sebastian has somehow made the jump in Jaime’s mind from active threat to someone he feels better around in the presence of strangers, and that is not a privilege he is about to take lightly. 

“Then I’ll stay,” he says. 

“Okay,” Jaime breathes, sounding genuinely relieved. He nods once, setting a look of determination over his features. “I’m ready.”

****

Jaime positions himself slightly behind Sebastian as they approach the door.

“We can tap out at any time,” Sebastian reminds him. “Just give me the word and we’ll go.” 

Jaime nods, even though Sebastian isn’t looking at him. He stands stiffly, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, as Sebastian knocks. A few seconds later, the door swings inward and Jaime forces his feet to stay planted where they are. 

The man standing in the doorway is nothing like the image Jaime had in his head. He didn’t have much to go on, physically, from Sebastian’s description, but in hindsight, Jaime realizes he was picturing someone more like himself. Someone shrunken and cowering, someone visibly less alive to the naked eye. 

The man he presumes to be Ezra is none of those things. He stands taller than both Jaime and Sebastian, with light brown skin and dark hair twisted into a bun at the crown of his head. Like the sweater he wears over a pair of jeans, the smile that spreads across his expression is unmistakably warm. He looks strong. He looks like nothing could ever scare him. Jaime can’t help but stare. 

“Hello.” Sebastian gives a small wave. 

“Sebastian.” Ezra nods. “Glad you could make it.” They don’t reach for a handshake or a hug, but the familiarity is obvious anyway. His eyes shift to Jaime. “Hi, there,” he says. 

Jaime swallows. “Hello, sir.”

“Ezra, please,” he says, and his smile doesn’t falter a bit. “There are no formal titles in my house. What would you like me to call you?

Jaime turns to Sebastian, who offers an encouraging nod. They’d talked about it beforehand—that Jaime is safe and allowed to use his real name around Ezra, and that he already knows that Sebastian knows it, too. That doesn’t make it any easier to get used to. 

“My name is Jaime,” he says after only a short beat of hesitation.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jaime. Please, come in.”

The house is beautiful. Big, but not arrogant. It’s not immaculate and sleek like Mr. Torley’s or Bryan’s, but well lived-in. Taken care of in a way that reflects how cherished it is to the people who live there. Mostly, Jaime just keeps thinking this house belongs to Ezra. 

“You’re welcome to keep your shoes on or take them off,” Ezra says, immediately clocking the silent way he watches the two of them for a cue. “However you feel most comfortable is fine with me.” 

Sebastian slips out of his sneakers, but Ezra keeps his on, leaving Jaime momentarily torn. In the end, he decides to follow his Keeper, bending down to untie the high-tops Sebastian bought for him. 

“Smells incredible in here,” Sebastian says, stepping further into the house. 

“I’d be flattered, but I think you’d say the same if I’d ordered pizza.”

“And it would be true either way.”

Jaime watches from a detached distance, surprised at their easy banter. He’s not sure he’s ever seen this side of Sebastian, but it immediately sets him a little more at ease. Ezra is obviously someone he trusts.

“I’m finishing up a few things in the kitchen,” Ezra says, leading them further into the house. “The two of you can keep me company at the bar, if you’d like.”

Sebastian pulls out two stools along the raised counter that separates the kitchen from the living area, and Jaime climbs obligingly into his. It feels intrinsically wrong to be sitting like a houseguest while someone else cooks, but he supposes that is exactly what he is expected to be tonight. His mind supplies the memory of his twenty-four hour contract on Christmas eve, where he spent the night at a lush family dinner, pretending to be a rich man’s arm candy, which does nothing to settle his nerves. He forces his thoughts back to the present. 

“Would you like something to drink?” Ezra offers, already pouring himself a glass of wine. Jaime eyes the liquid, once again looking to Sebastian for a cue. 

“I’m fine, thanks,” Sebastian says. He told Jaime beforehand that he would stay sober in case he—in his words—needs to play getaway driver at some point, but that Jaime is welcome to drink if he likes. 

“Jaime? A drink?” Ezra offers, tilting the neck of the bottle toward a second empty glass. 

He swallows, remembering the burn of each sip that Mr. Torley would coax down his throat. “It’s alcoholic?” he asks stupidly. 

“Doesn’t have to be,” Ezra says easily. “I’ve also got iced tea, coffee, lemonade.”

“Water?” 

A small smile quirks at the corner of Ezra’s mouth, but it doesn’t feel unkind. “Of course.” He pours a glass of water from a filtered jug and sets it in front of him. 

Jaime takes a few sips, mostly to have something to do with his hands, and observes quietly. He finds himself watching Ezra closely, fascinated and curious and bewildered, as he makes his way around the kitchen. There is a certain practiced grace to his movements that Jaime recognizes with a bit of a chill. The way his fingers poise around the handle of a knife in just the perfect way, how he stands with his shoulders back, even when he’s looking down at a cutting board. He can feel the pull of muscle memory in his own back, feel the brush of a handler’s fingers on his spine, hear them whisper in his ear, stand up straight, trainee.

A morbid thought invades his mind: that Ezra’s skill in the kitchen—and whatever other learned skills he brought with him from his time as a Companion—are part of the reason his partner was drawn to him in the first place. 

But Sebastian called him his partner. That word implies a level of equality. And that… Well, that opens the door to even more questions. Jaime hasn’t allowed himself to think much about it since entering the system, but now he has to wonder: is that kind of relationship equality even possible for someone with a past like Ezra’s? Like his own?

It’s such a surreal thought. He still hasn’t quite wrapped his head around it.  This person in front of him—this person with a real name, a real home, a real partner, a life—used to be a Companion. Used to be. It’s not a sentence that even makes sense in his head. For as long as Jaime has been acquainted with the system—both inside of it and out—there has been no way out short of a body bag. 

It’s built into the structure. It’s a lifetime commitment. Companions can be reassigned designations, transferred to different locations, and even shifted to government-direct work when they reach a certain age, but no one ever retains their freedom in the end. There are barriers too tall to escape: high tech locks on the back of their collars, unbreakable metal binding it together. Trackers embedded under their skin, into the surface of their skulls behind their ears. All their money and resources are drained the moment they “sign the contract.”

But here is Ezra, in the flesh, defying everything Jaime believed to be true. 

The thought unsettles him. Sitting still and watching someone else prepare a meal for him unsettles him. The empty patch of skin at his throat where Jaime knows a collar used to exist unsettles him. But he can only fix one of those problems. He shifts on his barstool, inching toward the edge, and clears his throat. 

“Can I help with anything?” he asks.

Beside him, Sebastian tenses. He begins to say something along the lines of, “You don’t have to—”

But Ezra interjects before he can finish the thought. “You’re certainly welcome to, if you’d like,” he says. “The sourdough is cooling now; it should be ready to slice, if you’d like to do that?”

Relief sags his shoulders. Out of instinct, he looks to Sebastian, who offers a smile that he takes as approval. Jaime slides off of his stool, and Ezra sets him up with a cutting board and a serrated knife. Out of the corner of his eye, Ezra works steadily at his own workstation, piping a bag of frosting over some puff pastries. 

The conversation picks up again. Every once in a while, one or both of them make an effort to pull Jaime in, but he is more than happy to just listen. The soft cadence of their voices and the repetition of the task in his hands slowly lulls him into something more like relaxation.

“Sebastian mentioned you like cooking,” Ezra says, passing Jaime a basket for the bread.

“I do,” he says. Briefly, he wonders if Ezra had the same thought that Jaime had about him and his partner. He wonders if he should say something in Sebastian’s defense, to make it clear that Jaime is never obliged to do the cooking, but Ezra chuckles before he can.

“I’m sure Tate is happy to have someone around who knows how to use a skillet.”

“He always helps me,” Jaime adds quickly. 

Ezra and Sebastian share a quick smile. “That’s good to hear. I’m sure he has a lot to learn from you.”

Sebastian feigns offense with a dramatic scoff. “You tell a guy about your affection for frozen burritos once!” 

“Well,” Ezra says, reaching behind himself to untie his apron. “I can only hope this meal will hold up to your sophisticated palate.”

The three of them carry the food into the dining area. The table is long—long enough to make Jaime question just how many people a fugitive like Ezra keeps in his circle.

“So,” Ezra says, folding into the chair at the head of the table. Jaime and Seabstian each take one side of him. “For the main, we have beef brisket with rosemary and garlic. On the side: smashed fingerlings and roasted Brussels sprouts with a chili oil infused honey glaze. And the sourdough, of course, with some freshly churned sea-salt butter.”

“Oh my god,” Sebastian says, looking out over the spread with genuine adoration. “Thank you so much, Ez. It all looks amazing.”

“Let’s not leave it to sight, shall we? Dig in.” 

As both Ezra and Sebastian reach for serving spoons, he must catch a flash of Jaime’s hesitation, because without looking up from the task at hand, he says, “No one goes hungry in my home, Jaime. I expect you to serve yourself as much as you want, eat what you like and ignore what you don’t, and know that I will be thrilled if you reach for seconds but not disappointed if you do not.”

Jaime blinks at him, and Ezra looks up just long enough to meet his eyes. 

“Are you okay with that?”

In the back of his mind, he remembers the face of the woman who ran Jaime’s last group home. My boys don’t go hungry, she told him on his first night. He thinks she would have liked Ezra. He reminds him a bit of her. And that’s the thought that makes him nod in agreement and reach for the last unclaimed spoon. 

For a few minutes, Jaime allows himself to slink back into the background, happily listening to the easy back-and-forth between Sebastian and Ezra. The food is incredible, but Jaime knew it would be. After all, they are trained to be the best.

“What else do you like to do, Jaime?” Ezra asks, pulling him into the conversation. “Beyond supervising Sebastian in the kitchen.”

His fingers twitch around his fork at the unexpected attention, but he recovers quickly. “I like to run,” he says. It’s an easy enough answer—WRU-approved and the one personal fact he’s already divulged to Sebastian as well. 

“Speed or long distance?”

“Either,” he says. “Both.”

“Well, I bet that made morning sessions a bit more bearable in training, at least.”

Jaime goes still. Across from him, Sebastian’s fingers clench around his fork. Neither of these things seem to deter Ezra’s co-conspiratorial smile in the slightest. Jaime, anxious under the silence, is the first to speak. 

“I’m… I’m not allowed to dis—”

“Discuss the confidential training periods,” he finishes softly. “I know.”

And it’s so bind-bendingly bizarre, because he’s hearing those words, in that cadence, from the mouth of a man who has a house and a partner and a life that stretches far beyond anything Jaime has allowed himself to hope for, but it’s undeniable. Ezra used to be like him. Ezra knows what it is like to be in his shoes, and he is on the other side of it. And still, he remembers the rules as easily as breathing. 

“Jaime,” Ezra says carefully. “You don’t have to divulge anything you do not wish to. I won’t push you. But for what it’s worth—which I fully recognize is very little at this point—whatever you say to me will never make it back to anyone who might hurt you. I know you have not been allowed to speak freely for some time, but you can do so here, if you’d like.” A small smile cracks through his somber tone. “Or, alternatively, you can make things up. Lie to me all you want, I won’t get mad. It’s your choice.”

Slowly, Jaime brings his eyes back to his plate, pushing around a piece of meat with his fork, because nothing about this evening is easy to process quickly. After a moment, he clears his throat and says, “I like soccer.”

The admission is followed by a whoosh of air expelling from his lungs, because he hasn’t talked about—or even let himself think about—that part of his life in so long. Most days, it feels more like a detail about a character he read in a book rather than a piece of his reality. A reality that suddenly feels not so far back. 

Because it’s not, he reminds himself. It wasn’t very long ago at all. 

Across from him, Sebastian perks up, eyes alight. “You do?” he asks, sounding genuinely surprised and disproportionately happy. “Did you play?”

Jaime nods.

“Is that one a lie or a truth?” Ezra asks, still grinning ruefully at him. 

“It’s true.”

“Good to know,” Ezra says. “I played soccer, too. Very briefly, when I was young. But I’ve always enjoyed being active.”

“It…” Jaime begins, surprising himself by being the one to offer up more information. “It helps. Moving, I mean. Sebastian has been running with me sometimes.”

Ezra turns to Sebastian, one brow raised. “Has he now?”

“He’s being nice,” Sebastian says. “What I actually do is kind of limp behind him while he leaves me in the dust.” He casts a glance at Jaime on the last part, and he has to duck his head to hide the smile playing at his lips. 

“If you ever want another workout partner, I’ve got a gym set up in the basement. You’re welcome to it any time. No soccer nets, I’m afraid, but I’ve got plenty of cardio and sparring gear, if you’re interested.”

“Sparring?” Jaime asks. 

Ezra nods. “Mixed martial arts, kickboxing. I’m not a professional by any means, but I can hold my own.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sebastian says. 

At this, Ezra’s smile goes a little crooked. “I’m full of surprises,” he says, then turns back to Jaime. “Speaking of… I’m guessing I’m not the only one with some questions tonight. Shall we address the elephant in the room?

For a few seconds, Jaime doesn’t breathe. He watches him, rapt and curious and inexplicably nervous. 

“I gave Sebastian my permission to tell you anything he already knows about my story. Can I ask you what he conveyed?”

Jaime’s gaze once again dips to the smooth column of Ezra’s throat, unobstructed by metal that Jaime has been told, time and time again, is indestructible. Immovable except with the explicit allowance of a high-clearance Handler.  “That you used to be… like me,” he whispers. 

Ezra nods. “I was a contracted Companion for many years. I was seventeen when I was taken in—though of course, my file stated otherwise. I was well into my twenties by the time I got out.”

“How?” The question escapes before he can reel it in, but Ezra doesn’t look offended. He seems to have expected it. 

“There are specifics that I won’t get into right now, not yet, for the safety of the other parties involved,” he says. “But I killed the last Keeper of my contract.”

The sharp intake of breath next to him tells Jaime that this is new information to Sebastian, too. 

For a dizzying moment, Jaime is swept up in a technicolor fantasy: he is towering over the lifeless body of James Torley, droplets of blood collecting at the tip of a knife and splashing into his dress shirt. A shiver runs down his spine. He pinches his thigh to ground himself.

“You ran?” he asks, a bit breathlessly. “They didn’t track you?”

A wry smile pulls at Ezra’s mouth. “They couldn’t.”He turns his head, pulling his ear forward and brushing his hair back to reveal a thin scar where his tracker would have been. Jaime stops breathing.

“I had the right people on my side at the right time,” he explains, turning back to him. “There was someone who could safely extract the tracker without setting off any of the emergency failsafes. I had someone else who was able to remove my collar as well. It was staged as a murder-abduction. Someone kept me sheltered for months, in a house in the country. I laid low. The case eventually ran cold, and I was deemed a casualty. Not so much a missing person, but a financial loss the government had no choice but to write off. And now I am here.”

No one makes a sound for a long time.

“I can’t promise you an answer,” Ezra follows up. “Not about everything. But you can ask me anything you’d like to know.”

There are a hundred questions spinning in Jaime’s head—most of them incoherent, some of them he’s afraid to know the answer to. He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and asks, “How long?”

“Since I’ve been out? Nearly a decade.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Jaime asks. “Of being found?”

“They haven’t found me yet.”

“But they could.” Jaime’s heart is hammering inside his chest. He can’t stop the words from escaping any more than he can control the sudden tremble in his hands. 

Ezra softens his expression, letting out a long breath. “Yes,” he concedes. “They could. But, Jaime, I have spent so many years being afraid. I have fought hard for the life I have now. I refuse to let fear control me again.”

Jaime can’t remember what a life looks like without fear. He has been afraid for as long as he can remember. 

In his very first memory of true terror, he is six years old. They had just moved to a new house, and the layout was still unfamiliar. There was thunder and lightning, so loud it shook the window in his bedroom. Jaime stumbled into the hallway, fingers plugged into both ears, desperately searching for his parents to make the noise go away. But between the fear and the darkness and the newness of the house, he couldn’t find their room. He couldn’t find them. In his mind, in that moment, he was entirely alone in the world. He ended up curled against the wall, wailing into the knees of his pajama pants, until they found him. 

That was the night he learned what it felt like to truly fear the loss of his parents, even if it only lasted a few minutes. Four years later, when that fear came to fruition, he thought the worst had happened. Nothing else could ever hurt him that bad again.

Then life spent the following years proving to him that there are always new things to be afraid of, new things to hurt him, new lows to reach: cruel foster parent, hungry nights in a locked room, a disciplinary board staring him down from the wrong end of a table, a man in a shelter standing over his bed, a stranger in a bar and a cloth pressed over his face, dark gray coveralls and blinding white lights, hands on his body, cuffs around his wrists, pain and pain and pain and—

And what Ezra is telling him now scares him, too. Existing so long in the system without the knowledge of a way out is a hell of its own, but this is a labyrinth he isn’t prepared to face. 

“Maybe…” Sebastian speaks up, eyeing Jaime cautiously. “Maybe we should table this conversation for now.”

“It’s a lot to take in at once,” Ezra agrees, keeping Jaime’s gaze. “I don’t want to overwhelm you. Let’s put a pin in it for now? You can always ask me questions later, if you want.”

Grateful for the out, Jaime takes a few deep breaths and nods. Wordlessly, Sebastian reached forward and nudge’s Jaime’s water glass closer to him; not a command, but a concern. Jaime takes a long drink, focusing on the cool stream down his throat. 

“So,” Ezra says after a few long moments of quiet. “Would anyone like dessert?”

****

While Sebastian laces up his shoes by the front door, Ezra pulls Jaime to the side. 

“Here,” he says, handing him a small slip of paper. “Sebastian already has my number. Now you have it, too. It’s not just for looks; I want you to use it if you need to. For any reason at all, you can call me and I’ll pick up. Okay?”

“Thank you,” Jaime says.

Ezra nods. For the first time all night, there seems to be a brief moment where Ezra is not entirely in control of his emotions. He blinks at Jaime a few times through an unreadable expression, then takes a deep breath to smooth his face into perfect neutrality once more. Jaime shivers, seeing a flash of his own reflection in his eyes. 

“I’m glad you allowed me to meet you tonight,” Ezra says. “I will make no demands of your time in the future, but I hope this won’t be the last time. You are welcome here whenever you’d like. It might be good for you to have a friend right now.” He shrugs, bringing his smile back to the surface. “It might be good for me, too.”

***

@whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik  @pumpkin-spice-whump @finder-of-rings @melancholy-in-the-morning @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world @inpainandsuffering cicatrix-energy @quietly-by-myself @whumpsday @extemporary-whump @the-whumpers-grimm @thebirdsofgay @firewheeesky @whumperfully @hold-back-on-the-comfort  @termsnconditions-apply  @cyborg0109  @whumplr-reader  @pinkraindropsfell @whatwhumpcomments @honeycollectswhump @pirefyrelight

[everyponie]

posted this on Twitter but I'll also post it here, I am taking a break from predator doxxing/hunting. I have a lot going on in my life right now. Yes, I will still be working on the Ezra case, but other than that I am not taking on anything else. I don't want to disappoint anybody but im genuinely just so worn thin and tired. It's not healthy to constantly consume abusive content on a regular basis, no matter the intentions. This isn't fun for me to do. I'm sure ill get back into it in a few weeks or months, I'm not sure. But for now I need to focus on moving out and getting my life together. I hope you all can understand and still stick around while I take a break from it. I know a lot of you guys come to me for help, and I do want to help you, but I am one person and can't help everyone. Please stop sending me random proshippers and predators to dox for you, because I won't do it. If you have incriminating evidence against someone, make a police report or a cybertip on IC3.

-IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION REGARDING THE EZRA/TOONIMAL CASE, PLEASE FORWARD THAT TO ME-

if what you are sending me is NOT related to the toonimal case, you will be ignored. I hope you all can understand, thank you.

regular dms about other things are fine btw!

[fanaticsnail]

Sooooo I kinda desperately want to join the OC discord you posted a while back? But I’m legitimately terrified, I’ve never done this before and my OC is kinda niche but kinda fun? Also I’m the Assassin’s Creed/One Piece anon (if you’ve even seen it, I know there were asks problem for while). Sorry for bugging!

But basically- Ezra. Adopted child of Pell, friends with Vivi.

Pell is part of the OP version of the Creed, a hidden group working to protect poneglyphs, carriers of the Will of D, and take down Celestial Dragons, scattered across the blues. Pell found Ezra while escorting Cobra before Vivi was born, and brought her home.

She’s a stealth and poison expert with a preference for knives, a massive vendetta against Crocodile, and while I’m still working on how *exactly* this sassy little shit ended up with the Kid pirates, that’s ideally where I’m putting her. Partially because it deeply amuses me to think about pasty goth queen covered in knives arguing with Kid about wearing sunscreen while he’s burning to a crisp under the Alabasta sun.

There is nothing to fear about the OC Discord. This community founded by @discordantwritings has been absolutely amazing. We are all massive fans of one another's OCs, alongside genuinely enjoying one another's friendship and company.

I don't think I've interacted personally with a few of the members here, there are so many of them. I peruse around the archives and enjoy learning about all of the niche subjects and peculiarities of their OCs. I obviously have a preference for the fishfolk OCs, and there has been ships sailing and fictional relationships forming between them.

The reason I haven't been as active as I usually am here is because I've been writing and drawing for the OCs and their ships in the chat. I'm obsessed with all of them.

These are some of my OCs I talk about there, and not here.

Cove: miserable, middle-aged Fishman who is just sad he's never been someone's special someone.

Picture 1: Cove and Penelope (who belongs to @discordantwritings ), Picture 2: Cove and Orylans (who belongs to @jinbeioyabun ), Picture 3: Cove getting his miserable face squished.

And Matteo: who's ultimate 'type' is "yes." He is afraid of love, but he has fallen hard for Pancake.

Pictured: Matteo and his fishfolk lover, Pancake (who belongs to @okanadafreakingfan )

The way I am already obsessed with Ezra.

You need to join the server, my love.

I have been chipping away at a little picture to go with your ask, attempting to use brushes and shading for an assassin's creed style Kid Pirate poster...

...but you're saying there's a Kid-Pirate OC I can chuck in there too?

It so far, btw. Bit dodgy with the line work, but I'm still learning how to do art with my phone and fingers. So many brushes:

Join the server so we can talk about Ezra! I have to know more. I am also a sucker for Pell. Honestly, Ezra would be welcomed with open arms. Love a badass character who can hold their own against the Kid Pirates.

[teaveetamer]

How does Raxis's orientation, gender, and skin color matter? And why does yours matter?

Why does me being a queer woman matter when a cishet white man accuses me of being queerphobic and misogynist?

Assuming you're the anon Ezra keeps getting who is complaining about us pointing out his age (since I got this right after I reblogged one of those), you probably read his blog right? Considering Raxis claims to be such a great progressive ally and co-opts all that progressive language, I'd think people who follow him would understand why this is so important?

Okay, I'll be very clear, cut because this got long, I'm not repeating it ad nauseum after this post.

His gender, sexual orientation, and race wouldn't matter if he hadn't made it matter. Raxis is not only a bully, he's a bully who constantly appropriates the language of social justice. My very first direct interaction with him was literally me calling his ass out for using the murder of Roe v. Wade as a bludgeon to win a fandom argument. Which happened, like, right the fuck after that decision came down and most women in America were fucking traumatized from literally having our rights stripped from us. And I wish our relationship ended at that "apology" but he hasn't changed and he keeps doing it.

He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other women) of being misogynistic and having internalized misogyny. He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other queer folk) of being queerphobic. He is the one who accuses BWIIDT (who is mixed race) for being out of line for thinking Cap (another white man!) has written racist elements into his fic (unintentionally or not). He consistently uses our oppression as a justification for why it should be okay for him to bully us.

If you are going to use our identities as part of your justification for harassing us, then we have every right to point out that these are identities that we hold and you don't. We have every right to point out that the opinions of a cishet white man about misogyny, queerphobia, racism, etc. do not matter as much as ours because you have never fucking experienced it like we have.

The role of allies is to amplify voices in spaces where we are not respected (e.g. with other cishet white men), not to lecture marginalized people for being "bad queers" or "bad women" from your throne of privilege.

It's especially fucking slimy because he pretends to be super progressive live and in concert, but when he slinks back to his buddies he laughs at us for being upset about being misgendered:

(Yes because you repeatedly misgendered me for months and only started correcting yourself and your anons when I called your shit out. You are literally "the misgendering type" but it's cute how you tried to act like I was being unreasonable for wanting the basic human respect of being referred to by my proper pronouns)

Accuses us of trying to hide behind "identity politics" when we're talking about the fucking oppression we face:

(Always a great sign when a cishet white man accuses queer women of "trying to use identity politics as a shield" when they're talking about their own fucking oppression. An even better sign when a cishet white man brags about "out identity-politicking" queer women when they're telling you to stop fucking throwing their oppression back in their faces. Whining about "identity politics" whenever marginalized groups try to voice anything is frankly such an alt right dogwhistle in itself at this point and I genuinely hope he's just not aware of it.)

Bullies queer women on his side who disagree with him and try to say basically exactly what I'm saying right now. That straight men can't appropriate the language we use to describe our oppression:

(usernames censored for the privacy of those being harassed and those not participating in harassment. This conversation has so much fucking more btw holy shit.)

Accuses me, specifically, of being "desperate to be a victim". I'll remind you I quite literally tried to give him grace despite him consistently using my oppression as a bludgeon to win stupid fucking fandom arguments and harass people (see also, the link above about me calling him out for the Roe v. Wade thing):

(Yes, Raxis, I fucking loved pouring my heart out about how my dad would kick me out for being queer and how I've faced sexual harassment. Tee hee. I'm having soooooo much fun "being a victim". I don't 'argue', I tell you, because your horrible treatment of people and my feelings about it are not up for debate.)

And engages in racist behavior like calling being black a "multiplier" to deflect from criticism and mocking a WoC when she posts about how racism upsets her.

(Yes Raxis, WoC tend to get "big mad" and "suffer" when they encounter racism, you ghoul. Before you ask, the blacked out part just wasn't relevant to the conversation.)

And this is just the stuff I got out of a quick keyword search because I don't want to expend that much energy on this. God only knows what else is buried in there.

This tells me you aren't actually an ally. You're an "ally" when it's convenient for you or when you think it'll make you look good, but your allyship is conditional, and the second you're "crossed" by someone you claim to champion you throw their trauma back in their faces. Not even your supposed friends are safe from it, so what chance did we have of not getting harassed by you?

"But there's queer women in the Edelgard fandom who like him!" Okay? So he can't be engaging in harmful shit just because he has a queer friend? When has "I have a [blank] friend" EVER been an actual good faith defense against criticism? News flash, we're not a monolith, and just because some women and queer folk might like you or even agree with you doesn't mean you get to tell me how I should respond to my own fucking oppression. It is not your place to accuse me, a fucking queer woman, of having "internalized misogyny" or "internalized homophobia" every time I say something you don't personally like.

Frankly, from what I've seen of their server, it's less "queer women like him" and more like "queer women are too afraid to say anything against him" because whenever they try he cries to his pro-genocide mod buddy (THAT is a whole fucking story) who threatens to ban them.

And I'm not going to add these screenshots because I feel icky airing her personal business like that so explicitly, but I do have them. The woman involved in the censored screenshots above posted, in the server, about how unsafe she felt because she'd been threatened and silenced by cishet men for trying to talk about queerphobia. She left the server entirely after that.

And let's not forget what started this: he's thirty five years old and in many cases he's pulling this shit on people who are significantly younger than him. Exceeding a decade his junior in some cases. I point that out primarily for the power dynamic inherent to that. Not only is he privileged on the basis of race, gender, and orientation, he's fully developed and he knows what he's doing. He has the privilege of age and experience.

Fuck dude, he started going after some folks on Tumblr when they were still like? 18? 19? Not children, but fucking close.

I'll be very explicit because I know he's going to take this and try to accuse me of ageism, because that's what he always does when he gets called out for appropriating the language of social justice: you are a fucking adult. You have been an adult the entire time you have been in this fandom. As an adult, it's your job to be a fucking adult in these situations. Not to verbally abuse and harass inexperienced teens and early 20 somethings because they don't agree with your video game opinions. You are a grown ass 35 year old man man who thinks he's cool because he can "beat up", "cow", and "bitch slap" teenagers and early 20 somethings who are still developing, figuring themselves out, and learning how to express themselves in an articulate manner. Many of whom are already dealing with varying levels of actual trauma based on their upbringings (abusive, hateful, uncaring, or just generally unpleasant environments) or how they've been treated because of their identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, disability, sometimes multiple all at once) or both. That is why I keep bringing up your age.

It is quite possibly the single most embarrassing thing I have seen someone in fandom brag about. Not even just because you did it, Raxis, but because you're proud of it and you genuinely think it makes you look cool. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself.

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "A Fool's Hope"/"Family Reunion And Farewell"

*singing*

~I'm glad that you were here with me/Here at the end of all things.~

Live reaction version.

Yeah be prepared for a lot of Lord of the Rings quotes and song lyrics in this one, lol.

Hey, don't blame me, the writers were the ones who made it clear they were hopeless Tolkien nerds.

And yes I am packaging both (all three?) episodes together. This is how it was aired, this is how it was experienced, you're gonna get the full treatment.

This does mean though that I will be very stingy with the pictures. Apologies. Blame Tumblr, not me.

Anyway, we start off the finale by gathering all the disparate parties that we completed the Friendship Fetch Quests for. Rex, Kallus, Gregor, Wolffe, Hondo, Melch, and Ketsu are all Back For The Finale. Which is a trope that I absolutely love in all shapes and forms, and it's even more appropriate for this show given that Ezra's main character "superpower" is literally making friends.

The connections and bridges he built all come back to aide him, not for any selfish motives of their own or because "the enemy of my enemy", but simply because Ezra has asked them to come.

"It's for Ezra," is all Hera has to say, and Hondo is immediately, genuinely pledging, "For that boy, there is nothing I would not do."

It is... incredibly heartwarming.

And I told y'all Hondo was a romantic at heart, and genuinely misses the days when the Jedi were around. And also that in the Rebellion Era, the Jedi still represent the nobility and goodness of the past.

After the titlecard, which still has no fanfare, we get this scene:

Come, you all knew I was going to cap it. Sabine's concern is so soft, the hand she places on Ezra's shoulder and the way she asks if he's okay so gentle.

The visual similarity in this scene and two scenes prior to this are interesting. This scene is firstly visually reminiscent of the Kanan-Hera scene in the beginning of "Kindred" (inviting comparison to the main canon ship of the show), and also the Kanan-Ezra scene at the beginning of "Jedi Night" (which emphasizes again that Kanan and Sabine are the two Most Important People in Ezra's life).

Ezra sits in the exact same pose, in the exact same place, that we saw Kanan meditating at, suggesting that he is also hearing the echoes of things to come, having similar visions of the future. This is certainly supported by his dialogue, where he mentions, "Something's changed... Something's happening." and that he's had a vision of Palpatine sending Thrawn back to Lothal.

Honestly I'm surprised it took Palpatine so long, lol. Thrawn: Treason supposedly takes place over the course of... a week? And the events of "Rebel Assault" to "A World Between Worlds" can't have been more than three or four days.

(This is why I reject the official canon timeline for Rebels, Season Four's events are crammed into the space of a month or two AT BEST.)

But anyway, Palpatine is pretty pissed off about the whole Temple thing so yeah, he's sending Thrawn back to retrieve Ezra personally. This seems to be a big ol' sticking point for our favorite blue bastard because he is NOT HAPPY when he turns back up.

You can't blame him really. He'd barely left Lothal and his TIE Defender project got literally blown up, so he had to spend the budget meeting arguing for what was essentially a smoking crater, and the wager he made with Krennic et. all. ultimately went nowhere because he lost on a technicality, and then the Emperor starts questioning his loyalty because his old Ascendancy friends showed up during the shenanigans, and then Palpatine dismissed him to go clean up the mess on Lothal and fetch him back a teenager for Sith sorcery bullshit.

...He'd had a very bad week, is what I'm saying.

I got off topic there, where was I?

Oh yes, Ezra's risky gamble. Fun fact, that was the original title of the episode, "Ezra's Gamble". I assume they axed it because it would give too much away. And like I've said before, if they could have avoided showing Ryder in footage taking the Dome for the finale previews, they could have really sold his false betrayal.

Pryce does not look like she's having a good week either lol.

Ezra continues to be cryptic about things, yet another hint to us that he's gotten "insider information" from the Force, as it were, and has made plans according to multiple possible outcomes. This is just one of the reasons why he outmaneuvered Thrawn, the other major one being that there was no possible way for Thrawn to predict Ezra throwing space whales at him lol.

This interference by the Force could have been a bit of a Deus Ex Machina but I think it's pretty clear that the Force only shared what might happen and left Ezra to figure out a solution on his own.

And his solution was space whales. XD

That comes later though, after this very risky gambit with letting Ryder broadcast their location to Pryce. A lot of things could have gone wrong. Hera might not have made it back in time. Ryder could have decided to genuinely betray them. Rukh could have gotten in a lucky strike and incapacitated him.

We are apparently putting a LOT of trust in the Force today.

This action setpiece is a great one so I'll just cover a few of my favorite highlights:

All the shots that track Sabine as she jetpacks around the battlefield.

Ezra versus Rukh.

Zeb going full feral with the minigun.

And of course on the other side of things Hondo trying to count the number of times he'd been collided with pulling off this exact maneuver they're using lol. The blockade seems to have thinned from "Rebel Assault", not as many capital ships?, so maybe I was right in that Thrawn called for reinforcements to repel the attack. Still gives Ezra the highest kill count by proxy at the end of things.

Oh and once again there's a moment where someone threatens Sabine in order to force Ezra to surrender. <3 Love that.

Pryce is awfully smug until the Ghost shows up, lol. (To heroic Main Theme fanfare into the Rebel Alliance theme of course.) Someone on the writing team understood the power of a good Eucatastophe. (Tolkien term, it means "the sudden happy turn to good".)

The clones also get a leitmotif fanfare as they debark the Ghost.

And we get a lovely Force Theme as Ezra gets his most badass shot.

Hell yeah.

The wolves sequence is amazing. The dramatic chorus, the chaos, the wolves skirting the veeeeeeeeeeery boundary of what's allowed on a Y7 show lol.

You know some of the troopers got ate.

One last shoutout to Hera using the Ghost to straight up smack a gunship out of the air and now we've come to the end of the setpiece. It can be hard sometimes to fill a full episode with one action sequence but this episode pulls if off perfectly. It never feels stale or boring, there are multiple bits and moments that just work. (I've always loved the moment where Ezra lunges for Ruhk's energy staff and uses the momentum of Rukh lunging for the same to straight up yeet him off the platform.)

Ezra's completely nonphased at Hondo's slung arm shoulder hug now aww.

Moving right along into the next segment...

This soft intro with Ezra talking to his parents' picture, telling them they are the inspiration behind his actions, how he wishes they could meet his new family, how he knows what he needs to do, but he's afraid. T_T Hgn he's precious and so mature and I love him so so much.

He knows what he might have to do, guys. He knows he might never actually see Lothal again and he's still prepared to make that sacrifice if he has to.

He's SUCH a good Jedi you guys I can't.

Kallus gets a token line here about his defection which is... okay. But again, really needed more from this arc for it to have a full impact.

"We come to it at last; the great battle of our time."

One casual wolf threat later, Pryce has agreed to transmit the victory codes and our heros fly off to the capitol to pull off their boldest venture yet.

I will never ever get over this moment. Sabine so attuned to Ezra even without the Force that she can tell just by looking at him how distracted and sad and scared he is.

How Ezra so clearly wants to tell her but holds back, and substitutes instead a declaration of absolute faith and trust.

And how she sees right through that and knows Something Weird Be Up With The Boy, Yo.

But like so many other conversations between the two, things are left unfinished, the mission and circumstances taking precedence.

Love the two quipping back to Pryce tho. <3

Still a crapton of air pollution over the city. This would clear up dramatically in the climax, for a bit of a symbolic moment.

There are SO many callbacks to previous moments in the show in this sequence, I noted a couple of them in my original liveblog but I'm certain there's a few I missed.

The music cue is great too, as is the effective silence once they've taken the bridge. A little bit of musical breathing space before things get hairy again, courtesy of Rukh ambushing the others back at base and stealing a gunship.

You know? I'm not quite sure what the plan was for if they managed to destroy the Dome before Thrawn got back. Seems a little shortsighted to blow up all the fighters and equipment and your city shields. A single Star Destroyer is more than capable of leveling cities and there are several in orbit around Lothal.

This honestly lends even more credence to the idea that, Force visions aside, Ezra was largely making this up as he went and had NO idea what he was doing lol.

Indy Ploy versus Xanatos Gambit. Indy Ploy wins by virtue of there was no way the Xanatos Gambit could predict the level of crazy Ezra's ideas were.

Amazing how empty the streets are when they've been emptied of Imperials.

Thrawn arrives, per schedule, and parks right over the Dome so that can't launch, lest they create catastrophic collateral damage. Important to note, for the people who want to nitpick No Endor Holocaust scenarios, the show specifically details that the city shields put out by the Dome deflected the Star Destroyer wreckage when the purrgil came, and that the Rebels directed the Dome to explode over the bay, not the city. The Cadet Academy is also a completely different building.

I mean, sure the debris from the Dome probably isn't great for the bay's ecosystem but honestly the water was probably already super polluted from the factories, they had to clean it up anyway.

Where was I? Right, Thrawn getting to be really awesomely creepy. The placid, "Are you quite finished?" gives me chills every time. Once again let me praise the expression work on this show because Ezra's soft Oh Crap look is amazing.

The dawning horror on Sabine's face too.

And then this music cue! The tension is drawn out just long enough for us to fully appreciate the horror.

:((((((

They even give us a nice wide-shot to appreciate just how much damage just those few seconds of bombardment did.

I had a rant here originally about the dumbass headcanon that Thrawn targeted empty buildings in this sequence (that may or may not have originated from Timothy Zahn himself) but if you've been following me you already know how I feel about it. It's asinine and I won't entertain it. Moving on.

Backed into a corner, Ezra knows he has no choice but to give himself up to Thrawn. This track in the score, "Sabine Sees Ezra" perfectly captures the sorrow and drama. It starts with a strained version of Ezra's theme, that doesn't resolve, fading instead into mournful original strings. Hera's entreaties for him to stay are painful, we can't help but think of what must be in her head--she just lost Kanan, she's afraid to lose him too. But Ezra is a Jedi. He is the guardian of Lothal. So he must make the sacrifice no one else can. He can't choose to be selfish.

So while Hera and the others try to figure out a way around the problem of Thawn, Ezra goes to confront it head on, secretly signaling to Chopper, who has been entrusted with so much of this plan.

And Sabine sees him.

It's a consistent theme throughout their relationship. She sees him. She notices him. She's attuned to when he's upset. She perceives him in a way that's unique from everyone else.

And he trusts her so implicitly that he silently asks for her help here, and after a moment of agony she does it, because she trusts him too.

These two just break my heart. :(

Sabine keeps looking back at the empty spot where he had been. T_T

There's a theme here about attachment and loss again, and it comes from Sabine. Like a Jedi, she's able to let go of her fear of loss and trust Ezra, whatever happens, and is able to encourage Hera to do the same. Her theme plays out here, strongly, before giving way to an excerpt of the Main Titles theme, uniting the Rebels in their heroism.

Ezra's theme playing again here, skittish and frightened. Once again the expression work is heartbreaking. Ezra looks like he's steeling himself, holding back his fear. He's resigned to his purpose, but that doesn't mean he's enjoying it.

AND NOW WE GET MY FAVORITE HANNIBAL LECTURE/SHUT UP HANNIBAL EXCHANGE! :D

The dialogue between Thrawn and Ezra here is so good.

"You could have chosen to let your people die. However... you chose to be a Jedi." Jedi cannot help what they are, the Jedi Code is like an itch he cannot help it *sobs in Kenobi feelings*.

Thrawn pontificating about how petty things like ethics get in the way of being efficient. He picks at Ezra from several different angles in this conversation, first by deriding the moral code of the Jedi, then by pointing out that their righteousness did not save the Jedi in the end, all that's left are frightened poorly trained children--a clear dig at Ezra himself. He laments what a shame it is that the Jedi didn't apply their powers in a way he deems would have been effective, implicitly suggesting that the Jedi should have used their power to dominate and conquer--Might Makes Right, after all, if you have the means to achieve a certain end you should use it.

Ezra tanks that calmly, pointing out that the Force isn't a weapon.

So Thrawn switches tactics, now lamenting that he must destroy Lothal (no you don't you asshole you can literally just disobey orders and defect, the total genocide of Lothal is entirely within your power to prevent) and oh, isn't it such a shame about Sabine.

And that hits Ezra's berserk trigger lol.

He snaps back at Thrawn. You're a tyrant, a bully, you didn't make or earn any of this, you just took it because you could, because you think your strength makes you right.

Thrawn essentially confirms that, "Yeah, having power does make me right." before leading him down to where the Temple doors have been set up for his meeting with the Emperor. Which kind of makes me think Thrawn wanted the opportunity to dress Ezra down and soften him up for Palpatine's manipulations because he could have just had the troopers shove him into the hanger first thing.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra keeps looking around in astonishment, wide-eyed, at the sight of the Temple doors.

Palpatine cloaks himself in white like an angel of light for this final temptation, wearing the guise of a friend or kindly old grandpa. It's every bit as unsettling as it seems.

Meanwhile with the B-Squad, Mart reveals that--like Chopper--he has also been entrusted with a crucial part of Ezra's "Just in case" plan. (Theirs is an underrated friendship, fanficcers you have let me down, again, why do I have to write all the things I wanna see more of?)

That shot of the wolves running alongside and under the Ghost. *chef kiss*

I have no idea when Ezra found time to figure out a signal the purrgil would respond to but I very much want to see that scene.

Sabine: "He [Ezra] knows what he's doing." Lol are you sure about that, 'bine? I think he had no clue the whole purrgil thing would work.

Palpatine is so slimy here, ugh. Acting like he did Ezra a favor by desecrating the Jedi Temple. Ezra's all ready to fling back anything ol Sheev throws at him here until Palpatine takes aim right at the heart of his greatest weakness.

Because after all this time, Ezra has never quite fully gotten over and accepted the loss of his parents. He's still at heart a lost little boy who misses his mom and dad.

The score goes almost Stravinsky-esque here, suggesting the Faustian nature of the deal Sidious is offering.

Meanwhile down in the gullet of the Dome, the Rebels are working feverishly to regain control of the the shield generator. There's some great coordination here between the teams and the control, Sabine really shines as a leader.

Word of God behind the scenes confirms Ezra is seeing THE day his parents were taken, his seventh birthday, when he could hear his mom and dad calling for him but didn't come because he was goofing off.

Hey uh, can this boy's life stop being ENDLESSLY SAD please? That'd be nice.

Love how Gregor calls for "something drastic" and Zeb immediately thinks, "Right, yeeting myself at the enemy." lol.

Gotta respect a man whose strategy is to fling himself full force at the enemy.

And the obligatory Make TCW Fans Cry Moment with Gregor here.

Palpatine keeps digging. This is your heart's desire isn't it? Don't you deserve this? All you have to do is open this one little door. He tries to keep Ezra's attention and focus on himself, even when Ezra asks what will happen to his friends if he makes this choice.

You can undo their deaths, Palpatine promises, about Ezra's parents. You can save them. I can help. It's the exact temptation he offered Anakin all those years ago.

"I have the power to give you what you want. You won't have to face this loss."

Like a devil, what he offers is a two-edged sword. What he is offering can't actually exist. Because if Ezra goes to be with his parents on the day they were arrested, how will he be able to make it here to open the door for Palpatine? Will Palpatine have to trap him in a closed loop, retrieve him from wherever he will end up in the alternate timeline, to ensure he can't fix this one fatal mistake?

See Palpatine doesn't care about breaking the timeline, he will gladly do it and rule over the ruins. But if Ezra reaches for this vision, he dooms his friends. He allows Palpatine to gain power beyond his wildest imaginings, turn himself into lord and master of time itself, a physical god.

So Ezra must deny himself, accept the loss, and let go.

And he does.

The Emperor's hologlamour flickering and failing as his rage ascends is really effectively creepy. Also HOW ABOUT THEM RETURN OF THE JEDI PARALLELS?

Years down the line, yet another pure-hearted Jedi boy will stand before the Emperor, throw his offer in his face, and tell him where to shove it. Even the dialogue mirrors Luke's.

"You're wrong. I have a family. I don't need anything from you."/"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

"Unfortunate. Destroy him!"/"So be it, Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!"

Poetry. Pure poetry. <3

Ezra gets a nice little face off against the Royal Guards, with some lovely whump in the form of whatever those pikes are doing to him, but manages to weasel himself out of the situation. And then somehow fights his way all the way up to the bridge. So proud of him.

The Rebels get the shield up just in time to prevent Thrawn's full scale bombardment, Rukh frying rather dramatically in the process. Lol and ouch with how irreverent Zeb is over the comm.

So now all that's left to do is break the stalemate and remove Thrawn from the chessboard.

HELL YES.

Oh hoooo man this twist isn't even really a twist it just makes too much sense for Ezra, for his character, for the themes of the show, for how to take Thrawn out as a threat while respecting his acumen as a strategist. (Gotta throw something at him he would never suspect lol.)

The musical build-up is amazing. Dooming low bass notes, drolling percussion. The strings build up, crescendo-ing.

AND THEN THE "WRATH OF NATURE" CUE FROM "THE CALL" COMES IN WITH GLORIOUS FULL ORCHESTRA.

The Hyperspace theme comes in as well, and the purrgil proceed to utterly decimate Thrawn's fleet. By proxy this gives Ezra probably the highest kill count on the show, as the purrgil must have taken out the orbital construction stations, a good chunk of the Star Destroyers up there, and all three of the ones above the city. (Somehow Palleon survives to join the Council of Evil in Mando Season 3 lol.)

Sabine looks SO confused, ha ha.

What a great shot.

Thrawn tries to get in a final, Taking You With me speech only for Ezra to be like, "Joke's on you that was the plan all along. You're not taking me with you, I'm taking you with me."

I do love Thrawn's increasingly panicky WTF expressions as things progress.

THIS ADORABLE #MARRIED BANTER BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AND THEN HOW THEIR THEMES ARE TONALLY INTERMINGLED IN THIS CUE.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra's left arm hangs limp after Thrawn shoots his shoulder and the pained grimace he gives when he turns around to seal the door behind them.

He looks exhausted.

Pained grimace number two as Ezra raises his injured arm to wind up IN AN EXACT TABLEAU OF THE POSE KANAN HAD AT HIS OWN HEROIC SACRIFICE.

HELLO YES, ALSO ANOTHER ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AS SHE BEGS HIM TO GET OFF THE CHIMAERA.

ALSO IT BEARS EMPHASIS BUT LOOK HOW THE GLASS SHARDS STILL WHEN EZRA RAISES HIS OTHER ARM.

EZRA IS LITERALLY HOLDING THE OXYGEN INSIDE THE BRIDGE WITH THE FORCE, WHILE HOLDING THRAWN AND THE DOOR IN PLACE, WITH AN INJURED ARM.

Ezra Bridger is the greatest shut up.

The purrgil charge up. Everything goes white. His theme bellows at full heroic volume and then...

Quiet.

Utter awed quiet.

Right, so you wanna know the other of the two times I cried at this show? Ezra's sacrifice right here. Waterworks.

"We set out to save the Shire, and it has been saved. But not for me. I have been too badly hurt. The last pages are for you, Sam."

Sabine is handed Ezra's lightsaber by Chopper, and takes up his mantle, finishing his mission and leading all the rest of them to safety as the launch the Dome and blow it. (Her journey to becoming co-protagonist is complete.)

Chopper gives us a final goodbye message from Ezra (that makes me sad again), and they soar over a triumphant freed populace.

Fade out and then...

*SOBS ABOUT THE BOOKENDS FOREVER*

Shot for shot. Shot. For. Shot. And I am UNDONE.

Lothal is free. The Empire never had a chance to retake it. Likely couldn't spare the manpower from the rest of the galaxy, first off, also replacing all those ships they had in orbit has gotta be expensive, and I suspect Palpatine just put glassing Lothal on hold until the Death Star was completed. And well... we know how that turned out lol.

The Fellowship broke, but they seem to all keep in touch, if Sabine's voiceover is any indication. Kanan's legacy lives on. Our crew found peace.

And last...

A sworn promise to find a precious friend and bring him back home.

The finale of Rebels is near perfection. With a very few quibbles here and there (the purrgil could have been just a smidgen more set up, Kallus's arc still needs to have some decent onscreen content for his redemption happy ending to be earned) it is the best Rebels has to offer.

The callbacks and bookends undo me. The music is full of wonderful dramatic cues. The animation is gorgeous. Everything comes to full completion and it is a very satisfying end.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Four is almost a bit nostalgic, returning to the tightly written narrative of the first season, but even more tightly tied together. None of the episodes feel wasted or superfluous. The major character death midway through is given plenty of narrative weight and time for the characters to adjust and grieve. Objectively it's probably the best season overall, none of the episodes are misses.

Even with the unanswered mysteries, the season feels solid, and a fitting conclusion to the overall Rebels saga.

---

And that was Star Wars: Rebels, the little show about a Found Family that could. It is my favorite new Star Wars content and what actually dragged me back into fandom after years away. It is heartwarming and exciting, poignant and hopeful and I'm so so glad I was taken on this journey.

Here's hoping the lost son of Lothal can make his way home soon.