#i love owning cheap ass lightsabers

[constellation-skirmishes]

i love having duel sabers that can connect to make a staff. i love spinning my lightsabers. i love doing choreography. i love being a nerd. its so fun to do haydens spin like heheehoohoo i can do the spinny while DUAL WIELDING !!!! LOSERS !!!!!

[hanasnx]

okay okay here is some more ani+ hands content as promised

so i can't get the idea of anakin being smug about it out of my head. bc like, it’s such a fucking ego boost for this man that you’re falling apart for his literal hands 

_____

like it starts off all innocent, with you having little doodles of anakin and some of your other friends in your little sketchbook that you never let go of

until you eventually start drawing anakin more and more… bc he’s just so pretty and drawable yk. like he’s got the curls and the scar and just how intense his eyes can be so you can’t help but draw him. until one day you watch him going on about the different parts of his lightsaber and how he’s planning to tweak it and yada yada but you’re just watching his hands bc lord almighty

you tell yourself it's an innocent, purely artistic fascination but that is NOT the case when you’re touching yourself at night thinking about ‘em so later on as you get closer (as friends or as enemies, you decide), he finds your notebook one day bc it fell out of your stuff or something and there are just these beautiful sketches of… his hands?

and at first, he’s confused? bc that couldn’t possibly be the case but his curiosity takes over, he leafs through to see different images of himself - his eyes, his side profile, him that one time he showed up with a bedhead - but most importantly his hands. He recognizes them as his own because of the level of detail and the thin rope bracelet on his left. so he becomes a man on a mission to test this theory ofc. handing you your things, letting the sleeves of his robes slide back more than necessary. taking every opportunity to put his arm around the small of your back as he needs to move past. working on his lightsaber or R2 whenever you’re around, noticing how one of the most intelligent, witty people he knows becomes simply mesmerized just watching him tinker with stuff

and now that he’s confirmed his theory? you bet your ass he is gonna use it night and day. i’m thinking of him goofing around with some of the men from his troops until he’s shoving one of them up against the wall with something like “is that how you’re gonna talk to a general?” and then he lets him go and they’re all laughing about it as they go their separate ways but when he walks past you, you hear him whisper like “you wished that was you, don’t you?” and your brain fucking short circuits. him when one day he’s trying to focus on something and all you can hear is you rambling about something or the other under he gets up puts his hand over your mouth and he feels you go pliant under him just looking at him with these bedroom eyes bc omfg you can feel how the pads of his fingers are roughly pressing into the flesh of your cheek “Just let me finish this thing without talkin’ my ear off, and maybe i’ll fuck you stupid properly, hm?” he says casually, as if he isn’t wearing the world’s smuggest look on his face. and you bet your ass this man will deliver “wanted my hands on you, is that it?” “look at you, drooling over my hands like some cheap lower-level slut” “Want my fingers in your mouth? Or around your throat until they leave pretty little bruises, hm? bcs I can make that happen” “gonna make you hump my fuckin arm until you make a fuckin mess like i know you will”

“greedy little pussy is taking my fingers like you were made for it, goddamn”

him making you watch while licks his fingers off after having his fingers in your pussy

okay i'm done for now

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☥ “it’s such a fucking ego boost for this man that you’re falling apart for his literal hands”

100%

☥ “just how intense his eyes can be so you can’t help but draw him”

i love describing anakin’s eyes as intense. they’re just so present, so demanding, his gaze so severe and unforgiving. yes. intense. i love it.

☥ “he recognizes them as his own because of the level of detail and the thin rope bracelet on his left.”

the fucking rope bracelet detail. omfg. it’s so simple, so him

☥ “taking every opportunity to put his arm around the small of your back as he needs to move past.”

as i said in my last post,.,.,,.,, yes. hand at the small of your back supremacy

☥ “him when one day he’s trying to focus on something and all you can hear is you rambling about something or the other under he gets up puts his hand over your mouth and he feels you go pliant under him just looking at him with these bedroom eyes bc omfg you can feel how the pads of his fingers are roughly pressing into the flesh of your cheek”

stoppppp stop stop. shutting you up manually with just a big hand over your mouth im fucking drooooling. i’d be lookin up at him with crazy fuck me eyes fr you’re so real for saying this suffu

☥ “‘look at you, drooling over my hands like some cheap lower-level slut’; ‘want my fingers in your mouth? or around your throat until they leave pretty little bruises, hm?’; & ‘gonna make you hump my fuckin arm until you make a fuckin mess like i know you will’”

cheap lower-level slut😳💕🥴🫦😵‍💫 i think about this a lot. just,,,,, the coruscant detail, adding “cheap” makes me go so crazy. omfg. i love degradation; imagine those finger pad shaped bruises littering your neck im feral; & arm kink🚨arm kink🚨 im freeaaakaksigjngng i wanna fuck his arm so fucking bad this made me soooo 😵‍💫😵‍💫 insane. using the word “hump” god. chefs kiss.

☥ “‘greedy little pussy is taking my fingers like you were made for it,’”

this. this. this. this. insinuating you were created for the sole purpose of sex, for being obedient, for being his hole. oh god yes. i cant even fucking breathe i gotta sit down im so dizzy imagining his thick fingers stuffed inside a drippy pussy i’m sooooo😭😭

☥ “him making you watch while licks his fingers off after having his fingers in your pussy”

STOPPPPP STOP FUCKING STOPP i cant take it anymore i feel like i gotta break shit rn

the big show he’d make of it,.,.,. side eyeing you while he fucking licks his fingers clean. until his eyes are full on boring into yours as he’s sucking the remnants of your finish off his skin and you’re wishing you were the one to do it.

licking your cum/squirt off his fingers together, making out with his digits and melding your tongues through and around them… like the disgusting, impatient, greedy perverts you are.

[comrade-kenobi]

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Frankie Morales- Frankie x Reader (Daycare!AU)

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I don’t know how good this is, but i thought it was cute. Happy Halloween, my loves!

Frankie and Ellie’s costumes are perfect, change my mind lmaooo

(Also I’m referencing a very specific thirst trap on tiktok with the readers costume because it’s burning into my brain forever, in a good way.)

“Are you doing anything for Halloween?” Frankie asked sheepishly, busying himself with putting Ellie in the car so you couldn’t see how nervous you were making him. 

“Nope.” You replied with a light shrug, trying to think of the last time you’d actually had Halloween plans. 

“Well,” Frankie started, ducking his head out of the car, and looking at you for the first time since he’d gained the courage to ask the question. The way the setting sun had lit up your face made him lose his breath, and his courage, for a moment. 

“You’re, uh, more than welcome to come trick or treating with Ellie and I.” He finished, all in one breath. You smiled at his quickened words, and Frankie could feel his face warming up under your gaze.

“I’d love to.” You replied, as a beautiful smile graced your perfect features. He watched as you considered something for a moment, and then spoke again. “What are you guys gonna be?” 

“Baby yoda,” Frankie answered proudly. Thinking of how goddamn cute she looked when he’d put her in the costume to try it out.“Ellie’s going to be baby yoda.” 

“And you?” You asked, quirking your brow with a little grin. 

“I bought a cheap Mandolorian helmet, I figured that would work.” He said, suddenly feeling a little self conscious at his lack of effort. 

“Perfect.” You replied, “I’ve got a Star Wars costume at home that I think still fits. It’s a date.” 

Frankie smiled like an idiot the whole ride home. He knew ‘it’s a date’ was just an expression, but the two of you had been getting closer lately; and that gave him hope. More hope than he’d honestly had in a long time. Besides, the idea of the three of you going out in matching costumes was enough to keep him smiling for weeks to come. 

---

When Saturday finally rolled around, 4 o’ clock couldn’t come soon enough. Normally Frankie’s weekends flew by, but today seemed to drag on forever. He’d cleaned the whole house, thrown up some spooky decorations, and gotten Ellie ready with some time to spare. So he took it upon himself to have a photoshoot with his little yodito. 

Frankie was finishing up taking, what he considered to be, the cutest pictures in the world when there was a knock on the door. His heart leapt into his chest when he looked at the time. 4 o’ clock on the dot. It was definitely you. He took a deep breath and collected himself before he opened the door. 

“H-hey…” He stuttered, freezing in place with a dumb look plastered onto his face. He knew you were dressing up, but he was in no way prepared for what he saw. There you stood, smiling in his doorway in black jedi robes, and black thigh high boots.The costume wasn’t skimpy, but God was it sexy. You were showing a sinful amount of the soft skin of your thighs, and the glow of the red lightsaber against your face threatened to awaken something deep within him. 

“Hi” you replied, either not noticing or completely ignoring just how taken aback Frankie was by your outfit. 

“I-I, uh, like your costume.” Frankie said, moving out of the way so you could come in. His eyes briefly wandering to the curve of your ass as you brushed by him. 

“Thanks” you replied, anxiously fiddling with the sash that draped down between your legs. 

“It was sexy Anakin Skywalker, or a Jawa.” You continued, your face scrunching up in embarrassment as you listed your options. 

“I’m glad you went with this one.” Frankie said, quickly realizing how creepy that could have sounded and rushing to further explain himself. “I’m not a huge fan of Jawas.” 

“I’m happy I made the right choice then” you smiled, a comfortable silence settling between the two of you. Though, that silence didn’t last more than a few seconds before Ellie started happy screeching. 

She’d noticed you were here from her place on the floor and crawled over to you at the speed of light. The ears of her costume flopping wildly as she went.

“Hey Ellie-Belly!” You squealed, scooping her up into your arms and covering her little face with as many kisses as she would allow. 

“Frankie, this is the CUTEST thing I have ever seen.” You gushed, playfully pinching Ellie’s cheek before nuzzling your nose against hers, making her laugh. 

“Isn’t it.” He agreed proudly, his heart swelling in his chest as he watched the way you and his daughter interacted. He’d been so worried when he first dropped Ellie off all those months ago, and now he was so glad that he had nothing to worry about. You loved her like she was your own, and Frankie couldn’t be more thankful. 

“Ready to get going, Mando?” You asked, jerking your head towards the plastic helmet that sat on the coffee table. 

“Ready, Master Skywalker.” He replied, completely unable to suppress the child-like grin growing on his face. 

---

Every house you’d gone to swooned over your costumes, Ellie’s in particular. And who could blame them, she was the cutest baby either you or Frankie had ever seen. 

“Aren’t you just the sweetest family ever!” A kind older lady gushed as she placed a few candies into Ellie’s pillow case. 

“Thank you.” Frankie replied, thankful for the cover of the helmet. It hid his blush from you, and this kind stranger. 

“Have y’all been able to take a picture together yet?” She asked, her eyes happily darting between the three of you. 

“No ma’am, not yet.” He responded, looking over toward you. You looked back at him and smiled, shifting slightly to move Ellie higher up on your hip. 

“I can take one for you if you’d like,” the lady offered. Frankie looked over at you and you nodded at him, rather enthusiastically. 

“We’d love that, thank you.” Frankie answered, opening up his camera app and handing the woman his phone. 

The three of you stepped off of her porch and onto the sidewalk. Ellie dove into Frankie’s arms on the way there, she’d spent the whole night hopping between the two of you, never really sure of where she wanted to be. Frankie gladly took her and she snuggled into his chest. 

“Ready?” The lady asked, “Get in close!” 

Frankie put his free arm over your shoulders, and you wrapped your arms around his waist with your head resting perfectly on his chest. Ellie lifted up her head and made an excited squeal, clapping as the two of you hugged. 

“Perfect!” The lady exclaimed from her porch, before walking down and handing Frankie his phone. 

The two of you thanked her and headed on your way. You only made it to another few houses before Ellie started yawning. 

“I think it’s time we head back.” Frankie said, kissing the crown of his sleepy daughter's head. 

“I think so too,” you replied as Ellie started reaching her arms out towards you. Crying lightly when you didn’t take her fast enough.

Ellie fell asleep in your arms on the walk back, so you put her right in her crib when you got home. 

“You know,” you started, walking out of Ellie’s room. “It’s still pretty early, you want to watch some scary movies?” 

“Together?” Frankie asked, causing you to chuckle. 

“Yeah together, pizzas on me this time?” Your smile made Frankie weak, and he wondered for a moment how he could ever deny you. 

“Sounds good to me.” He replied, a happy warmth settling in his chest at the idea of you sticking around longer. 

---

The two of you snuggled up, dangerously close, on the couch to enjoy some good pizza and bad movies. The longer the movie went on, the closer you got to him. You’d taken to hiding behind Frankie’s back, and squeezing his arms every time the music got suspenseful. At one particularly bad jump scare you’d practically jumped into his lap, your face turning red as a tomato once you’d realized what you’d done. 

When the first movie ended Frankie noticed the goosebumps on your skin, and the way you shivered when he moved away to get another slice of pizza. 

“Are you cold?” he asked, his fingers lightly brushing the cool skin of your arm to check.

“A little” you lied, trying to play off another shiver, but failing miserably. 

“I’ll get you something a little warmer.” He chuckled, heading off to his room to find you a pair of his sweatpants and a flannel. 

“I have a question,” he began when he got back, holding the clothes just out of your reach. “Why do you have a sexy Anakin costume?” 

“Don’t ask…” you groaned playfully, covering your face in embarrassment. 

“Fine,” he conceded with a laugh, tossing his warm clothes your way. “Keep your secrets.” 

---

Frankie wasn’t sure what was sexier, you in the costume, or you in this clothes. He had to force himself not to stare. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but there was something about the look of his flannel on you that drove him crazy. 

The both of you settled back onto the couch and continued watching movies. Laughing at the cheesy lines, arguing about which classic killer was the scariest, and practically yelling at the tv every time the protagonist did something stupid. 

“We should do this more often,” you said almost dreamily as you smiled up at him. 

“You said that…” Frankie replied in disbelief. A near love-drunk smile playing at his lips as he looked down at you. 

“Yeah…” You nodded, smiling back at him, wider this time. Then you rested your head on his shoulder and went back to watching the movie. Frankie had to resist the urge to pinch himself, because he was sure he must be dreaming. 

Later that night, after you’d left and Frankie had gone to bed, he was scrolling through his phone. There he found the picture of the two of you with Ellie, he’d forgotten all about it. His heart skipped a beat when he finally looked at it. It was perfect. You were holding each other close, huge smiles painted on your faces as you both looked at Ellie. Who was looking back at the both of you, hands clasped together, mouth open wide, and eyes sparkling with pure joy. 

Frankie laid back in bed and closed his eyes, thinking that if this was a dream, it was a hell of a good one; and he never wanted to wake up.

Tags: @mrpascals​ @yespolkadotkitty​

[moonlit-imagines]

Secret Not Safe

Cal Kestis x pregnant!reader

warnings: pregnancy

a/n: ahhhh yay thank you!!!!! super happy you liked it 😘

prompt: @queen-destenie: “heyyoo! last request i sent *chefs kiss* maGNIFICENT. your latest ones with pregnant reader and Cal tho are 😫. my heart! soooo, if you have the time, could you do a pregnant reader that knows she’s pregnant and has not told anyone. her and Cal face an enemy, like a Sister, who can sense she is pregnant. Cal, our precious boi, is mad she would go into a fight like that and reader is like 😞. if that makes sense?? thanks boo! love your writing 💜”

There was something about fighting alongside Cal that made you feel alive. In the face of danger, you still felt safe. You both gave it your all to make sure the other one got out okay.

Today felt different, though. You couldn’t find the right time to break the news, so you had to play the same part as before. Just. Act. Normal.

“She’s just ahead.” Cal marched alongside you, ready for this fight. This was a rematch that had to be fought, it was the only way to advance in the mission.

“Are you sure we should be doing this? There could be a way to avoid her.” You sheepishly told Cal, which raised his suspicions.

“I’ve never known you to back down from a fight, y/n.” He chuckled with a hint of concern. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” You brushed off his question and faced front, feeling his eyes study your profile. “Can’t believe she’s still alive.”

“This won’t take very long. If I beat her once, I can beat her again, especially with your expertise.” He reached for you hand and traced your palm with his thumb while you were busy listening to the sounds of nature. “I’ve got your back.”

“And I’ve got yours. Let’s kick some inquisitor ass.” You stepped into the danger zone, alerting the Ninth Sister of your presence.

“Well, well, well.” She laughed at you and your boyfriend. “Did you miss me?” Cal’s jaw squared and you noticed the upgrade...

“New hand, huh? Got one to match the leg?” You joked, which she joined into your laughter.

“You’re gonna regret ever crossing me.” Her saber ignited and pointed to you.

“Good to know, Masana.” The final straw was you using her real name, she came charging towards you, causing Cal to jump into the danger zone and defend you. You ignited your own lightsaber and leaped over the Ninth Sister, drawing a line across her back, the agonizing scream echoed through the forest.

“You’re better off surrenderring, Sister.” Cal chimed in as he pushed his block, breaking her stance. She stumbled back and retreated to the opposite side of your battlefield.

“Is that so?” Her mischievous smile grew and she gave you an unsettling look. You feared the worst, but tried to reason with yourself. She can’t possibly know. I’ve hidden it from Cal...She turned her gaze back to Cal. “I’m going to do you a favor here, traitor.”

“Leave?” He suggested with his lightsaber clenched in his fist, knuckles white.

“Oh, even better.” She replied, but you were holding your breath. Cal noticed the Ninth Sister repeatedly focus on you, which worried him dearly. “Or would you like to tell him?” Your jaw dropped and your head quickly turned to Cal.

“I’m sorry, Cal.” Your body shook out of fear, “I’m pregnant.” With a mighty laugh, the Sister taunted Cal for unwittingly walking into battle with his pregnant girlfriend.

“Back out of this one, y/n. I have it from here.” Cal snapped in a cold tone and charged for Masana Tide, lifting his lightsaber and catching her right wrist, detatching her newest limb. You stood on the sidelines with your nails near your teeth. You had faith in Cal, but this news had got to be distracting.

Cal was kicked to the side, falling with a grunt. It didn’t look like he’d be getting back up. This was it, you had to tag back in. Your saber ignited once more and you jogged towards the Sister, ducking underneath her legs and causing her to stumble again. You took this opportunity to slice her other cybernetic off, her leg. This was your chance to get rid of her, especially after the cheap move she pulled.

“You’re the traitor, Masana.” You stabbed her in the chest and she fell back with a thud. After making sure she was truly gone this time around, you rushed to Cal’s side and helped him back to his feet. “Are you okay, Cal? I’m so sorry, I really am.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” He asked, looking at your stomach instead of your eyes. You sighed and swatted away at the bugs swarming near you.

“I didn’t know how to tell you. There was never a good time.” You explained to your boyfriend, beginning to sniffle and let tears loose.

“Why could the Ninth Sister sense it when I couldn’t?” Cal asked, kicking around the rocks. Your heart was breaking now that he refused to look at you, you just wanted to reach out and hug him, but you didn’t believe he would let you.

“I...purposely hid it from you. I’m not sure how she figured it out.” You put your head down in shame and noticed Cal walk off without a word. You hated his silent treatment, it was so powerful. You stood there frozen, you didn’t even want to go on. The mission was important, but it wasn’t as important as Cal.

“Are you coming?” He called you in a sharp tone, it only made you cry more. You followed a considerable distance behind, noticing him peer back to check on you every so often. After a while of snapping twigs and crunching leaves below, he stopped dead in his tracks and you did the same. Without warning, Cal turned back to you and rushed forward, pulling you into his arms with his hand tangled into your hair. “I love you, y/n. We’re going to be great parents.”

[princesssarcastia]

The Rise of Skywalker Review

Well, I actually went to see it!  I wasn’t sure that I would, but I’m honestly glad, because now i’ve got thoughts.

The first twenty minutes or so seemed really slapdash and disjointed, like they wanted to set up things for later but didn’t want to take the time to set them up well.  Everything was really rushed and shallow for that period.

But! This movie had a lot of poe-rey-finn interactions which I enjoyed deeply.  Rey and Poe sniping at each other, Finn and Rey being adorably close and caring, Finn and Poe being adorably close and caring.  They feel like they’ve actually spent time together! Excellent.

Leia’s scenes felt a little weird, like they were shoehorned in, but i still miss her so I’m kinda glad for her presence anyway.  Having her train Rey, pick up where Luke left off and push her to the finish line, makes me delighted.  Yes, Leia is force sensitive!!  She trained with her brother!!  She knows how to pass on what she learned!!!  She built a lightsaber!!!!!! excellent. (sidenote her lightsaber was sick.  i loved it. i want one)

I also liked how we got to see some diverse planets and terrain.  did they do their best on that front? no.  would have loved to see some more weird-ass alien planets, or even weird-ass terrain that actually exists in the real world, but they’re deathly afraid of being like the prequels, soooo.

The whole thing with the “sith dagger” and C-3P0′s memory was a shit storyline.  Here’s a magic item that will do everything we need! Give you the location of your navigator thing!! Magically fit against the skyline of the wreck of the deathstar, even though it’s an ancient artifact and the deathstar is constantly battered by incredibly powerful waves on an alien planet! ugh.  dumb.

If that droid from the old shipwreck was gonna have that knwoeldge the whole time,,,,,,, why not just let Rey befriend the droid,,,,,,,,instead of doing a “psych! gotcha!” with C-3P0′s memory. 

JJ Abrams being afraid to give real consequences to the new trio’s actions was shit.  Let them kill Chewie!  Let them essentially kill C-3P0! Or leave it out of the equation entirely!!!  These fake-outs cheapen emotional responses and motivations of the heroes of our story.

and hey, speaking of cheapening shit, why the ever-loving FUCK did they bring Palpatine back.  why.  I hate that.  I hated that SO MUCH IT WAS SO DUMB.  SO.  DUMB.  so darth vader redeemed and sacrificed himself over nothing, huh??  Anakin Skywalker, dumb bitch to the end, couldn’t even die right, because palpatine was fucking alive the whole time.  fuccking hell.  any hey, guess what?? Jedi can force-heal people, too! ha ha ha hahahahaha ha h  h a stupid anakin for believing palpatine had unique force powers and turning to the dark side, when really, it was a light-side power all along!!! (kill me)

(side note: healing being a power of the light and not the dark is thematically better, but uh.  see petty retconning below)

Making Rey his granddaughter is inarguably worse than having her be a true nobody, which was my number one pick.  I might even have been fine with it if she discovered it on her own!! But noooo, we need to have Kylo Ren and Luke tell her who she is.  Oh yeah, they knew who she was the whole time, lol! Isn’t that cute, stupid women having to be told who they are and what their legacy is. 

Which also makes her previous conversation with Kylo in TLJ cheap too! Look, I get it, we all hated TLJ, and Rian Johnson’s choices.  But...having Kylo tell Rey who she is twice, in two separate movies, and tell her two separate things each time, and have it be played straight both times, is just.  so.      dumb.   petty retconning of other people’s work is kind of disgusting.

That being said, in this movie I didn’t feel like Rey’s storyline was about anyone but her.  I mean, palpatine elements for sure, but except for being told whose granddaughter she was, she was basically in control of her own destiny.  I liked that a lot.

Rey’s fight with Kylo on the wreck of the death star? *chef’s kiss*.  Amazing.  Incredible.  Lightsaber duels have gotten so much better and I love them.  somewhere inside me my five-year old self is screaming for joy and picking up her toy lighsabers.  Ridley and Driver have, unfortunately, very good chemistry in their scenes together, and the tension while they fought was so good. 

Poe as a former drug dealer makes me tired.  Poe Dameron, who idolizes Leia and had rebellion pilots for parents, was a drug dealer?? You kidding me?? ugh.

Also, if i’m being petty, I hated the way force ghosts could interact with reality. 

Lando Calrissian!! Lando I love you.  I love you so much.  The idea of all those people coming to the Resistance’s aid is pretty cool tbh, and I liked it.  I liked Lando playing ambassador and politician for the resistance. 

I absolutely hated the ““planet-killing-cannon”“ palpatine’s fleet had.  These fucking,  fan-pandering morons just cannot let the idea of a planet-killer go, can they?  It’s not like a shit ton of ships, the biggest fleet in the galaxy, able to blockade hyper-space lanes and entire planets, would be a good enough threat, oh no.  audiences aren’t smart enough to respond to something that complicated, so we need to make it SUPER OBVIOUS, just like in TLJ.  “the death star but bigger/portable” is dumb.

Finn finding other defectors was so fucking cool, I love that for him.  Also, like, Im pretty sure they were all force-sensitive like he is, which I think is amazing.  Confirming Finn’s force sensitivity was the best decision they made in this movie, tbh. 

The driving problem of this movie was, in my opinion, the exec and creative teams being unable to stick to their guns with Kylo Ren as the big villian.  Twice, people reached out to him for redemption: his father in TFA, and rey in TLJ.  Twice, he rejected that offer, and ascended to Supreme Leader.

But instead of letting him do that, they instead turned him back to the light for little to no discernible reason.  What, his mother dying finally pushed him over the edge?? You kidding me???? He LITERALLY murdered his father in cold blood. i call bullshit. 

And because they couldn’t let kylo be the main villian, they also had to bring back palpatine.  Look man, Adam Driver abso-fuckin-lutely has the chops to be a big bad.  He’s really good at his job, actually, and I believe he could carry the weight of being the scary leader and face of the dark side.  But no, y’all are chicken.

I mean, even though I hated him turning back, driver-as-ben-solo was fucking lit.  He was so good for those, what two minutes?? The tension during his rush to Rey??? Him fucking with the KNights of Ren?? His switcheroo with Rey, the way he nods and bows a little when the Knights all step back, knowing they’re about to get their asses kicked?? Oh my god! It was so fun to watch.  You could tell, even from that much, he’s a cocky little shit, and would have been so fun to watch for three movies instead of three minutes.

Their kiss at the end when he dies?? boo, hiss, no thank you.  Not a fan.  I’ll concede their chemistry as actors, but that was not romantic chemistry between their characters.  nuh-uh no way no how.  gross.

Overall, like a 5/10.  Wildly inconsistent.  I really liked some parts, and enjoyed other parts out of context, and really hated other parts. 

ps— me, watching the ot3 hug Like That™: NOW KISS.

[kariachi]

We are finishing! Season! 3!! Today is Roundabout day. Season finale, I’m finally gonna be something approaching up-to-date, at least with regards to Kevin, who is the only thing that matters

I’m just going to preemptively say Fuck the Forever Knight sideways with a pineapple

That house looks like something out Dexter’s Lab, if Dexter had been into shoddy constructionwork.

Goddamnit! Think of your neighbors before you build shit that fails that explosively in your garage!

Billings. I should’ve fucking guessed. Your constructionwork sucks and you suck.

Did that man just take a break to build a lightsaber? Stay on track, Billings!

Ben vanished and Max and Gwen had to turn to Phil, those poor two, they don’t deserve this.

(btw is case you haven’t picked up on it, I still don’t trust Phil further than I could throw him. He spent four series being a sack of shit and now suddenly he’s a good guy? I think not.)

Don’t go in there, that machinery looks like it could collapse at any moment!

Max acknowledges the ‘hunk of junk’, does not acknowledge that it’s a danger to everyone and thing within 60 ft of the damn house. We had a pumphouse in better shape that wasn’t half the size and we had it torn down as a safety hazard

“Sure brings back memories though, right Max?“ I’m with Gwen, wtf does that mean?

Max is hiding shit, of course he is. Is it Plumber shit? Immortal shit? He and Phil used to be supervillains shit? Who the fuck knows

“Ever since Ben fought Vilgax, I’ve been tracking the Omnitrix to further study it’s abilities.“ Because that’s not suspicious at all. Especially given who else has been tracking the Omnitrix and it’s bearer for a good while now

(am I saying Phil has ties to the FN? No, I’m just not not saying it)

Yes Phil, many machines work like that, most with any sort’ve radio or wifi whatever do, which we already knew the Omnitrix had by the time Ben fought Vilgax because that’s how the fucker tracked it down. You didn’t find out shit, you’re just taking credit for information that was handed to you on a plate.

Okay, this map on this show is a disaster, but I’m going to estimate Ben is in the Germany/Austria/Switzerland region. But anything could be true given this is the least accurate to real life Europe map I’ve ever seen as far as landmasses

Okay, Phil says Switzerland, I say we head to Austria.

Max he’s already grounded.

Also who the fuck is calling? And why does Phil ‘I’m tracking the Omnitrix’ Billings still have a landline? You’re in the suburbs, man, are you even legally allowed a landline?

Oh look, we cut to the FN, or at least one of his stupid jets. More openly evil than Bezos

Oh my gods that is the smallest round table I’ve ever seen! And if way too big a space that’s clearly not even set up for it! FN you fucking loser!

Okay though, okay, backing up, entering ‘pick at details mode’. The table looks like it’s set to seat eight and it already has at least six. Counting out the FN we have, going clockwise- Kevin, then Vin, then Charmcaster, Billy, and what is probably Simon though if it is I will have to slowly kill a bitch. So, I gotta say, smart move putting Vin between Kevin and Charm, because if those two were next to or across from each other it would probably be unsafe for everybody. Having Vin in particular in that spot is smart because 1) he’s managed some sort’ve management of Kevin before (which is better than FN has managed even if it didn’t last) and 2) he’s bigger than both of them put together so Kevin would have to go through or around him to get at Charm’s throat.

But, on Vin in particular- what the fuck dude?! You get into the evilest looking vehicle in the show so far, owned and run by a creepy adult corporate nasty, see a bunch of kids are involved, why the fuck are you and the children still here? This better get touched on because if you’re actually okay with this set-up you are not half the man I thought you were

If Kwarrel were here the FN already would’ve had his gear wrecked and been thrown out the jet, woulda happened as soon as he saw even one of the children “Why are there kids here?“ “They’re your coworkers“ and out the jet he’d go

Charmcaster, unimpressed

Seats to either side of the FN are empty

And because there is no adult in existence with any of the skills the children have, apparently.

Kevin, also unimpressed and glaring off in the direction of Vin and Charm, presumably at Charm specifically

Oh gods, Vin’s special skill is ‘loyalty’ what the fuck is he a digidestined?! Although I guess when you’ve specifically gone out and gathered up the children least likely to do a single thing you say the way you want it done...

Charmcaster’s spells, if she can manage to cast any decent ones without a copy of Shel Silverstein involved

Billy’s skill is money. Bitch you own three major franchises you do not need the 10-yo for his money. The most dumbass golddigging attempt I’ve ever seen, and I watched OV!

Also nobody is impressed so far. Nobody.

Okay 1) they gave Simon a helmet and he is adorable. 2) I am going to kill every adult in that room. Painfully.

Kwarrel wouldn’t stand for this!

oh my gods Simon is too damn precious how did I not like him in his premiere?

Oh look, it’s a Ben. Welcome to the cesspit, Tennyson

Kevin, not fucking having it

Simon is happy though

“What are you thinking?! He’s obviously gonna betray us the first chance he gets!��� Kevin talking sense. He watches tv, he knows how this goes.

Honestly even without the betrayal risk, you wouldn’t be able to blame Kevin for not wanting Ben involved here. They’ve got the same skill set, as far as FN is concerned, and Kev already very clearly has issues about being seen as the lesser option, which FN has previously played into.

Vin trying to talk sense, it’s not working especially because I’m still angry with you

Kevin demanding Ben’s reasons for being here.

Ben’s reasons being ‘because my family thinks I’m the boy who cried FN’

“Why should we trust you?“ “Because Grandpa and Gwen don’t.“ “What? What does that even mean?!“ Kevin looks about this close to throwing in the towel and quitting right here and now. ‘Fuckit, I’m leaving and replacing you all with a rat’

FN stopping shit before it gets too out of hand

And we cut back to the Tennysons with still no sign from Vin that he has any problem with kids being involved in this mess

“We’ve been tracking the Forever Knight’s movements over the last few months“ “Who is ‘we’?“ “Best to just focus on the task at hand, Gwen“ Max pls

‘We came to the conclusion he was recruiting some sort’ve team’ what was your first clue?

Phil made Gwen a magical girl armor transformation.

Gwen is Pleased. Also dangerous.

The fuck sorta ugly-ass building is that? Did they hire a weaverbird to build it, what the hell?

Kevin, continuing to be a little shit, as per the norm

I’ll admit, I appreciate the transformation sequences if just because they’re nothing special enough for me to note and so it takes seconds off the time I have to liveblog. It adds up when you’re stopping to type every few seconds.

Ben pls

Ben- runs in to intimidate researchers into giving them access to whatever Billy- already got his father to pay the people to let them in

Again, may I say, the FN has money. He doesn’t need Billy’s! He has his own! He’s just cheap!

Kevin is just gonna spend the whole of part I giving Ben shit

The fuck we looking at

It is becoming more and more blatant that the FN got Simon here by inviting him to a fake birthday party and have I mentioned I want this man to smolder down to ash?

Time portal. We’re constructing a time portal. If this is Paradox’s premiere I’m cancelling this damn series. We can try again when people learn to fuck off on the time travel plots (they’ve been done well three times and all of them were in Pern books)

He is having Kevin and Ben construct a time portal. Together. Kevin does not look impressed by his coworker.

1) Ben you’ve been the dweeb forever. 2) Finally somebody on this show acknowledges Kevin’s mullet. 3) I’m with Kevin on the ‘let’s see if he can keep up’ thing, given one of them built an Omnitrix and the other I’d be surprised to see set the time on a vcr

“You’re the one with a mullet!“ “Yep.“ Oh gods! Oh damn! The fact he just looks so damn smug as he says it, like ‘you can’t get under my skin about things I’m actually cool with’, this little disaster! And Ben just looks like he’s gonna punch him. Are we sure they didn’t swap bodies prior to this or something?

FN starts pulling the ‘you will do as I say’ and that’s when Kevin starts getting prickly. Of course it is. Again, this is why I keep giving him rankers, do you really wanna see how long a Weyr would last if he was on a chromatic?

These boys today. Ben is just itching for a fight and Kevin is... The change between Kevin before the FN threatens to start putting them in their positions his own damn self and after is very pronounced. One he’s being a little shit and enjoying it, the other he’s very... I’m really not sure how to word it, distanced maybe? Like he emotionally stepped back from the situation

Simon you precious little bean, put a happy birthday sign and some balloons on a piece of machinery. And a little party hat.

Billy was not prepared for Simon. He doesn’t deserve Simon.

Well, Gwen is infiltrating shit at the fucking 6 minute mark, which is a shame because I was hoping to have more of her and the adults doing their thing so we could get some more interactions between the child antagonists.

This child

And of course she ends up in the vent right above the lab the others are working in, it’s not like we’ve got another episode and a half to fill.

Seriously, I love her, but I was really looking forward to seeing more of the dynamic between the characters that are already present in the lab and adding her changes the odds there. If they’d waited another fur minutes with her I’d have been good, but this feels too early and is setting my hackles up that they’re going to throw a load of Gwevin into what was shaping up to be a full marks episode so far

1) Yes Gwen, wtf are they doing, 2) I see everyone but Kevin and Ben so wtf is going on there?

Well, she seems to be leaving to regroup with the adults, so there’s hope there

“Watch wearers“ I’m gonna throw that man off something tall

Ooo, Ben’s been promoted to ‘Loser-son’ and also might be losing his nerve? Either that or the just ran out of ways to shoot back at Kevin verbally.

Rush and XLR8

Boys both going at 456 mph through a fucking tube

‘You boys are gonna have to hit 888 miles an hour’ Vin, have you considered fucking right the hell off? Has the FN? I’m with the boys that’s fucking insane

They pass each other in the tube and Kevin finds the energy to still joke on Ben, because some things just matter

SImon and Billy get distracted from doing their jobs by Simon drawing a picture of them and Ben in which Billy is taller than Ben. Billy is pleased. Simon is precious.

Ya kniw what I need? I need a fic where this time/space portal opens up and UAF/OV Kevin tumbles out, judges the shoddy construction, and then fucking handles this mess. I don’t know what FN wants, but I’m fairly certain a bigger, meaner, stronger, more violent Kevin is not it. And so it would please me.

When there is enough speed and lasers going around to cause earthquakes

Gwen has successfully let the rest of her team into the Weaverbird Nest

Gwen that is not a shortcut that is a vent. A vertical vent.

Charmcaster magicking up a portal, for extra specialness

So she stabilized the rift and also made FN a fuckign space/time cuff.

Simon got to her, she’s in a party hat

This child really needs to stop talking like she’s the fairy that blesses/curses the king in a 90s fantasy film

“I will only require on of you to accompany me into the rift. It’s your time, Ben.“ Fucking welp.

Everyone except Ben, Kevin, and the FN has a party hat

Kevin, baby, this is not safe or fun let somebody else go do not let your well-battered pride and your issues get your hurt or worse

“I’m sick of him getting everything when I’m obviously better!” My son. My dearest son. My precious child.

“Are you questioning me?“ Said in the most intimidating voice FN can manage and all I can think is, dude, how long have you been working with this child? Did you not actually meet him in all that time? Was he dealing with a body double. Did you think opening a rift in space and time would somehow change the fundamental aspects of his being that resonate throughout every Kevin that has ever been?

“The grease child is right!“ Okay, it’s official, somebody needs to find Kevin a shower and some soap

Kevin and Billy all for kicking Ben’s ass

And then Charm joins in the fun, because why not

“All this pettiness proves that Ben is worth more than all of you combined“ I’m gonna kill ‘im.

Charmcaster just looks defeated at that line. Like, honest to fuck, stick a fork in her, she’s done.

Kevin, on the other hand, doesn’t, not even a bit. He is straight up trembling with his anger. Or hurt? Both most likely, though I think the anger is in the lead.

Billy, meanwhile, looks shocked and angry at being called out like this.

And Simon looks just straight shocked.

And no response shown from Vin.

Ben, no, this is a very bad idea.

And we cut to the old folk and Gwen.

Welp, looks like everyone is all together

The ‘good’ news is half the children really wanna hit something right now. Especially Kevin.

‘Take out the Tennysons to prove your worth’ Welp

And there our hero goes with our Big Bad

I think we’ve hit part II and it only took like 3.5 hours. I’m gonna be a while longer I think.

Ancient Egyptians telling ancient Egyptian bad jokes

Gotta give the show one thing- at least it’s Egyptians are black

Also too drunk to be impressed by two weirdos stepping out a glowing purple portal. I can’t even roll my eyes because somebody needed to laugh at the FN

Ben: Unimpressed by FN’s taste in vacation spots

FN is using Ben to track alien attempts to contact Earth. The first of which was here, apparently.

Also this adds a whole new level of jackass to his behavior towards the other kids, given he could’ve very easily and truthfully pointed out that he needs a feature on the Omnitrix that Kevin’s watch presumably doesn’t have, but instead used the whole thing as an opportunity to tear the other kids down further. tl;dr: I cannot wait to see him become reboot!Kev’s first kill

We want to prevent the alien contact. Why? Who the fuck knows. Who the fuck cares. I want to stop him just out of spite.

And so we learn that he wants to get rid of all Omnitrixs so that he can take over Earth. Wonder how that would play out with regards to Kevin’s watch though. Because his didn’t come from space, to my knowledge we don’t know where it came from. Fuck, it could be contact from another dimension that lead to it (I mean, you saw OG!Kevin, whose to say Reboot!Kevin doesn’t also have some serious weirdness going on there that, combined with the fact his house has two radio towers in the backyard, that could lead to him getting messages from other dimensions like that). tl;dr: If FN succeeded, would that just lead to him having to worry about a Kevin he can’t use Ben against, rather than Ben himself?

‘Forever Nut’ that’s a good one, nice job Ben!

‘Forever Losers’ Ben’s on a roll

Ben out to kick this man’s ass

“I’m too powerful“ I really wanna drop OG!Kevin on this dude, I really do. Or fuck, can you picture him vs Kevin 11k? He’d be drawn and quartered, possibly eaten, within a minute and a half.

Well, there goes the Sphinx

Timed out and still raring to go

FN comes all the way out to ancient Egypt to stop aliens making contact, turns out they didn’t even do it

Kidnapping the child

Back to the present day, in the lab, with the fighting about to begin

Charmcaster and Kevin v Gwen. Charmcaster is already smug. Kevin, meanwhile, is offering her the chance to back down and not get hurt. Which, for Kevin, is pretty nice.

Billy and Simon v Phil. Is certainly a thing, but nothing interesting

Vin v Max. Both using the concept of ‘family’ against each other. Forklift v forklift. I wish I was surprised.

FN and Ben are in renaissance Italy now. Florence specifically.

Ben: I will stop you! FN: Kid I already kicked your ass. Ben: Well you’re gonna have to do it again!

Oh look, it’s the descendants of those two guys from ancient Egypt. It’s nice to see that their friendship has carried down through the ages.

“Serve your leader” has that worked on any of the people you nabbed? Besides maybe Vin? Because I’m fairly certain if you called yourself Kevin or Billy’s ‘leader’ to their faces they’d come at you harder than Ben is

FN, so far you have gone to two places and times, neither of which was where aliens made contact. Have you considered, quite possibly, that the problem is you?

You know Kevin is in a foul mood when he’s down to destroy Gwen.

Gwen, trying to give the ‘FN is a using pos’ realization to at least Kevin

Charmcaster interrupting her and also do you really think you of all people are the one who should be trying to bolster Kevin’s confidence? I mean, your history with him is enslavement and reading his private poetry to a crowd. You should be glad he’s not going after you.

Vin v Max, moved on to segway racing. And slapfights.

...small Phil and Max. By which I mean like, late teens. Apparently this is the third ‘alien contact’ option. Also Phil built that deathtrap as a teenager and he’s living in his parents’ old place. That is an old-ass suburbs given we don’t know how the fuck old these two are

Oh for fuck’s sake, have you considered getting a fucking hobby Forever Bitch? Take up scrapbooking or something, get into Minecraft

We’ve still got 7 minutes btw. We’re going faster in this half, but we’ve still got a third of the episode to go

Ben Shockrocking it up

Vin vs Max take 3- racing matchbox cars

Max decides to have a conversation with Vin, find out why he’s working with FN despite the latter being about as pleasant as a rabid zombie skunk in your pillow.

...1) Vin has a child. 2) That child is grown. 3) That child is a lawyer (congratulations Mr. Vin’s Kid) 4) Between said lawyer child moving on with their life and LaMoron being a dick Vin was lonely so he joined up.

“This is the closest thing to a family I have now“ One would think the fact you have a child would say otherwise, but if the fact that you seem to be totally fine with a bunch of kids being drug into this mess, including a 6-yo, says anything about your parenting then I’m not really surprised.

Max offers to let him become a Tennyson, which, if the family reunion episode is anything to go by, he may already be

Max and Vin are friends now. Phil is still being pursued by children. And Charm and Kev are still trying to take Gwen out.

“Once I finish you off, Forever Knight will easily choose me over Tennyson“ Oh Billy no... Have I mentioned I really wanna kill hat man? Painfully?

Simon is about to obliterate a man for the chance at being best friends with Billy. I would be even more concerned if he wasn’t FUCKING SIX-YEARS-OLD, VIN

Phil is going to survive via appealing to Simon’s inner and outer juice-loving six-yo

Welp. Sorry Billy.

Ooo, Gwen almost blasted Charm before Kevin deflected it, good job son!

“Kevin finish her off“ Bitch you finish her off

“Why? All we were supposed to do is keep everyone away from the portal.“ My son talking sense and also notably sticking only to orders. Out of spite, because he wants to, because the last time he tried to bend orders the FN nearly killed him? (and do any of the others know that that’s a risk I wonder, that if the FN doesn’t feel you’re doing your job ‘right’ he’ll decide to just off you)

“You’re soft“ You’re the one that wanted him to do the dirty part, Charm

Charm tries to kill Gwen and Kevin just fucking, shatters her amulet in retaliation.

Charmcaster: This is why you’ll never be Forever Knight’s right hand! Kevin: I handle things my way.

I love my child.

Kevin literally just used his last second before timing out to vine Charmcaster to the ceiling

That moment when you have a crush but hate that you have it, I recognize the look. Been there.

“Well yeah, I’m not a monster.“ On the topic of saving Gwen. My precious child

Gwen: *heading for portal to figure out what’s going on* Kevin: *heading for the portal because he’s got revenge to take*

Somebody needs to kick FN’s ass. And then eat him. Slowly. Painfully.

FN damn near killed Ben before Kevin fucking saved his life! Literally, man was gonna strike Ben down!

“I’m here for that ungrateful tin can!“ Yesss!!! My son!! Kick his ass!

Gwen is helping!

“You wanna know why I didn’t choose you? It’s because you’re just a cheap Tennyson knock-off.“ .....

.....

......

........

..........this motherfucker gotta go

Ben joins the fray!

“Cheap knock-off, huh?“ I, for one, am proud to be here for my son’s first kill

FD does not get to stop alien contact because he’s being dogpiled by a bunch of pissed-off preteens. Good.

The children got a hold of FD’s portal control. Gwen is gonna be working portals, Kevin is on ‘keep the FD from killing Ben’ duty. This was his decision. Which says a lot about how he feels about the FD

Kevin, looking for some sort’ve explanation for the fact FD is a dick and will always be a dick, because this is what abused children do

“I was the best fighter you had.“ “You were only a useless pawn.“ “I’m nobody’s pawn!“ My son

Battle in the rift

FD demands Kevin hand over the Tennysons “and make yourself for once“. Gwen is concerned he may do it when I believe anyone who can read facial expressions and/or a room knows who he’s growling at

“Kevin, think about this, you’re not a bad guy!“ “See, that’s where you’re wrong“ At which point Kevin lets go of the Tennysons and fucking dives at Forever Dipshit

Kevin sacrifices himself to take out FD and what’s Ben’s reaction? “Kevin, no! I’m the cool one!“

These fucking children.

“And Kevin steals the spotlight again“ “You really wanna be trapped in the past?“ “Alright, I’ll let him have this one“

Glad to see Ben recalling the tale. Glad to see he’s still grounded. Gwen is Good. Fuck off Vin.

1) the portal is still open 2) FD’s helmet came through it. Whether that’s because Kevin threw it through it as he beat the living hell out of him remains to be seen

And season 3 is over.

11/11, because my son fucking deserves it no matter what else goes on

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Optimus Prime vs. Gundam

Giant Robots. Y’know what?- I dig giant robots.

Anyone remember that?- god, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen a good giant robot battle show.

The second time that either combatants’ franchises are entering the arena. With the last time a transformer being used was back when Starscream fought against Rainbow Dash, and the last time someone that piloted a Gundam was when Zechs Merquise fought Tommy Oliver, this is bound to be a fun matchup.

During the introduction, they mention that the Transformers were originally Japanese toys, meaning that this isn’t an East vs. West battle. It’s more like… East vs. Adopted East.

Optimus Prime′s Preview.

So, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.

I think most people who grew up in that time period knows who this guy is. 

(Yeesh, with experience like that, Amuro is going to need a crapton of firepower to get past that).

We get a history on the Autobot Decepticon War, and how the ‘Cons are basically a bunch of people who love military dictatorships. And how they gunned down a guy named Orion Pax. And as Boomstick said, Robot Gandalf rebuilt Orion into the much more iconic Optimus Prime.

And we get to see his Vehicle Mode get a card too! After all, Optimus is in fact a

Robot in disguise.

So that.

And a nice little notecard tells us what happens to the trailer when Optimus transforms.

(The question has finally been answered!)

And for those of you wondering what’s up with that Action Master and Powermaster stuff that’s under his Transformations tab, here’s what’s up (more or less):

(Man, this got really complicated).

Regardless, they go on to explain a lot of Optimus’ feats and stats. Like his arsenal of weapons…

Oh, and the Matrix is given it’s own explanation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get it’s own page, but what’s there to know?- It’s a piece of Robot God.

And it appears that Optimus has a sense of honor. Which could lead to a weakness, as he does not like sacrificing others.

(But desecrating their bodies?- That’s nothing).

Optimus’ feats gives him a massive edge too. Overall, it just feels like there’s a lot going for Robot Jesus.

And you know that scene in the original movie where Optimus is all “One shall stand. One shall fall.”?- That’s the end quote. And I gotta say:

That makes me want to DARE! Dare to believe we can survive! DARE! Dare to keep all my dreams alive!

………

Optimus is a badass, and that was another movie reference.

Amuro Ray′s Preview.

If they were trying to get people invested in the Gundam series, then I’d say that they did a pretty good job. After all, it’s a show that uses giant robots to fight Nazis. Who doesn’t like seeing Nazis getting their asses kicked?

But… If they were trying to simplify things, then they didn’t do that great of a job.

(This is an average of at least 4 models per medium).

But thankfully, they are only covering the OG Gundam, and any model that it could scale to.

(I think the size advantage is what prompts people to think that Gundam would win).

Regardless, Amuro Ray’s backstory is… actually quite intense. He’s a civilian who got drafted into a war?- That’s rough. Almost as rough as being a civilian who got gunned down and turned into a commander- Oh!- Another Optimus comparison.

Amuro gets his own page, and he has an… interesting set of codenames. Going over his own skills is also impressive too.

He gets a system that’s similar to the Epyon, only significantly less intense and PTSD-inducing.

The arsenal is also impressive. Especially the Beam Rifle. Like Boomstick said, it’s like a hundred tanks in the form of a single pistol. Unfortunately, like a pistol, the Beam Rifle has limited Ammo. So Amuro might want to be careful when using it.

(Here’s hoping that Amuro doesn’t have to use this feature).

And Amuro’s psychic powers are given a rundown. and given that so far we’ve seen a radioactive spiderbite, a floating head in a tube granting teenagers their abilities, and special fruit giving people powers, I have to agree that the reasons behind why Newtypes have theirs is really really dumb. Couldn’t have been cosmic radiation, I guess.

But that last part is really really funny.

I want to know who was behind this, because I want to give them props.

Amuro’s Newtype powers would certainly close any speed gap, similar to Naruto’s sage powers or Kenshiro’s Toki.

And the feats are a sight to behold. Though, when comparing it to the stuff Optimus has blown up or survived… It’s not looking good for Amuro.

Especially since the suit has no real defenses against intense heat, outside of a one-time use shield.

I have no real way of judging the end line. It doesn’t feel as impressive as Optimus’.

The Battle Itself.

Since Torrian is moving over to RoosterTeeth to do Gen:Lock, this battle is primarily being animated by Kristina and several other animators. Optimus will be voiced by Richard Barcenas, while Gundam RX-78-2′s pilot Amuro Ray will be voiced by David Matranga. Sayla Mass will be voiced by Lindsay Jones (Watch your cheese puffs, Amuro). Audio led by Chris Kokkinos and Music by Therewolf, and is called Wings of Iron.

So, the battle starts with Amuro breaking into the Ark (because the Transformers series is known for their subtlety (Optimus constantly dying and coming back to life, and the ARK?- Seriously? How about they add some more bible references while they’re at it?)), and Optimus attacks Amuro.

And partway into the fight, we find out why Optimus attacked: He mistook Amuro for a Decepticon. Makes sense. Amuro mistook Optimus for an enemy robot suit. So there’s a good reason for each of them to be fighting each other- They mistook the opponent for an enemy.

The battle starts in space, where both of them are firing at each other, and using their melee weapons against the other. With Amuro using his totally-not-a-lightsaber beam sword against Optimus, and Prime using his energy axe right back.

Amuro is constantly using his Newtype powers to keep up with Optimus, as he does claim that Optimus holds the speed advantage.

And we get this beautiful clash between the two combatants. It gives me goosebumps.

It helps that the music, Wings of Iron, give the battle a very 80s vibe. It really helps the overall fight sequence and makes it feel like a clash between icons.

Plus, Prime constantly transforming throughout the battle just reeks of fanservice. But, in the good way. It’s not often that the Transformers use their vehicle modes when combating an opponent, and it’s just really nice to see it in action.

Optimus even cuts through Amuro’s shield in the battle, and renders Amuro defenseless.

And the battle finds its way to earth (because what battle in space doesn’t find its way to earth?), and the battle rages on.

And if you’re worried about Torrian’s absence will mean no flips, then don’t worry! They have flips.

(Ahh, flips. It doesn’t feel like a 3D DEATH BATTLE without ‘em).

And after a brutal clash (And a good ol’ Optimus one liner), we get to the final clash.

Finishing blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Well, Amuro… Just tell Death that Optimus sent you. Those two are basically drinking buddies, so Death should have a a beer that he’d be willing to share with you.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, Optimus held the experience advantage, obviously. But, there were many other advantages. And Optimus’s stats are just…

GodDAMN! That is just… Absurd. And they go out of their way to disprove the Refinery feat being an outlier, by referencing the cartoon, and another bot of similar power.

And as for being able to fire into space from the ground…

There’s a notecard for that too. It looks like Optimus Just had the Touch! He had the power!

YEAH!

Overall impression.

For this being a few new animators first time being the primary animator on this project, I originally felt the need to go easy when it came to the animation. Turns out, I didn’t need to. The animation is really solid, and it feels like two robots battling it out instead of just two humans with CGI robots over their bodies.

The music is really awesome, and the explanations that they give for their math feel really solid. I was prepared for Optimus to lose, and to have to make a morbid joke about it, but it actually feels like there was some awesome math behind it all.

The rundowns are fun to watch and listen to, and as a person who can’t really hate Rodimus, I have to commemorate them for not making a cheap shot at the guy (I blame Hasbro for Optimus’ death, not Hot Rod).

Solid animation, plus awesome music, add in a fun rundown, and a pinch of awesome statistics, and you get a good rating of 9.2/10.

Next Time…

This battle is a long time coming. And with the new media surrounding the two, I’d say the way the battle’s going to be portrayed will be really great.

(Ignore Optimus’ hand please).

Because it’s going to be live action!

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Blüdhaven Bird vs. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael Ford’s Top 50 Castlevania Enemies

Castlevania is one of my absolute favorite video game series of all time, particularly the Metroidvania titles. A big reason for that is just the sheer variety of monsters you can fight. Drawing from basically every mythology and pop culture, you’d be hard pressed to find a monster not on display here; there’s Goetic demons, succubi, Christian demons, mummies, valkyrie, Greek mythological beasts, Wizard of Oz characters... there’s a lot of shit being thrown at you. It also helps the artists seem to have this unspoken belief that every time they do a palette swap, a small child dies, so there are tons of one-shot monsters that appear in a single room, or a scant few rooms.

So here I’m going to countdown my fifty favorite fiends being thrown at the Belmonts, Alucard, and Soma by Dracula. Here’s the criteria:

1. The monsters have to be from a Metroidvania game - Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissonance, Chronicles of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia are all fair game.

2. No Death or Dracula. As far as I’m concerned calling them a favorite is cheap, because they’re ALWAYS awesome. Same thing for any fight against a Belmont, which includes the Whip’s Memory.

Other than that, bada bing bada boom. Be forewarned: My three favorite monster types are Sexy Monster Girls, Skeletons, and Jojo References. You’ll see a lot of them, especially the former one. Now without further ado, let’s dive into Dracula’s castle and see what I’ve chosen:

50. Medusa Head

Various

There’s no denying that these enemies are the biggest pain in the ass in existence, always appearing in treacherous areas like Clock Towers packed with spikes or areas packed with bottomless pits… but quite frankly, the series just wouldn’t be the same without these stupid fucking things. They’re just such an icon, as much as Dracula and Death I’d say, and an icon of gamer frustration. Gotta give respect!

49. Ladycat

Order of Ecclesia

The first sexy lady monster on the list, these are cute cat girls, plain and simple, and they can give Shanoa the power to turn into a cute cat girl herself and befriend them.

48.  Kyouma Demon

Aria of Sorrow

Appearing to attack from mirrors and resembling an ugly old guy, this demon is probably a reference to Hanged Man of Stardust Crusaders. Alright, I’ll admit it’s a bit of a stretch, but the Chronicles of Sorrow games are stuffed with Jojo references; even if THIS isn’t meant to be one, don’t worry, there’s plenty more down the line.

47. Arachne

Aria of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia

There’s not much for me to say here except… hot spider woman. A+. Fuck yes.

46. Yeti

Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia

As mysterious and hard to find as he is in real life, the yeti appears in the very first area of Dawn in the background, and on a lonely mountain bridge in Order of Ecclesia. In each place, he’ll make like a guard in Metal Gear and get a ! over its head before fleeing into the background like a little bitch. If you’re quick, you might be able to kill it and reap the rewards

45. Skeleton Glass

Harmony of Dissonance

Harmony of Dissonance is not the most memorable Castlevania game in terms of bestiaries, but damn if you’ll ever forget the Skeleton Glass! Appearing in a group in one hallway and being easy to kill, they seem to exist solely so you can farm tons of EXP before moving on. In a game of otherwise unremarkable opponents, these skeletons stand out.

44. Sand Worm

Portrait of Ruin

Sand Worms appear in scant few locations; a one-time encounter appears early in the first desert area and then another one at the end of the map. Sinking into the sand the first one comes out of lets you step a round its insides for a free HP Up. Look, I don’t have much to say, I just really love sand worms as a concept and this just hits all the right keys for me.

43. Human Face Tree

Symphony of the Night

Since this guy only appeared in the Sega Saturn version of the game that only came out in Japan, I have not personally had the honor of fighting this guy. BUT HOLY SHIT LOOK AT HIM. How could I NOT love him?

42. Mad Snatcher

Order of Ecclesia

Wielding an anachronistic chainsaw and being some unholy mashup of Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and the Creeper, this freak is one of the cooler, yet simultaneously deadly, enemies to pop up in Order of Ecclesia. This game’s already throwing so much shit at you, and now you have some slasher mashup with a gas-powered saw in a time when the latter didn’t exist; Castlevania is some crazy shit, son.

41. Flea Man

Various

One of the classic enemies of the series, this is yet another monster it just doesn’t feel right to not have in the game. They also come in all kinds of varieties, whether they’re riding dragons, wearing armor, being dropped by eagles, being born from trees, or just straight up throwing knives, so no matter how you see a Flea Man, there’s a good chance it won’t be the same as the last time.

40. Wallman

Order of Ecclesia

Wallman gets a spot solely for being the funniest fucking boss of all time. You can beat him in under twenty seconds if you’re quick enough, since the goal is to absorb the glyph he uses to hide inside a wall… while he’s inside the wall. Cue the most obvious result happening, and cue you getting a shiny medal for taking no damage.

39. Nova Skeleton

Symphony of the Night, aria of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia

There’s just something so charming about magical green skeletons that shoot incredibly deadly dick lasers at you. And if that’s not cool enough for ya, check out what they can do with just about any attacking glyph in Order of Ecclesia. Your inner Star Wars fan will squee in delight as you slaughter your way through Transylvania with a big fucking lightsaber.

38. Jersey Devil

Order of Ecclesia

Look at this guy. He’s just so damn cute for a monstrous bat-horse-dragon creature. He’s so cute it keeps me from wondering why the Jersey Devil is in 18th century Transylvania.

37. Nyx

Portrait of Ruin

It’s pretty cool Konami owns Yu-Gi-Oh, but that brings up a disturbing question: why are there not more Yu-Gi-Oh references in Castlevania? Well they finally threw us all a bone with Nyx, a cute demon nurse carrying a big ol’ syringe that clearly is taking cues from Injection Fairy Lily.

36.  Malachi

Symphony of the Night, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

Here we have what is basically Cthulhu… though sadly not named as such due to a translation oversight. Still, a giant evil demon squid being is as Lovecraftian as you could hope for, and the presence of Cthulhu certainly makes the monster mash of the game an even more exciting affair, no matter the name he’s under.

35. Werebat

Order of Ecclesia

Half-human, half-bat, all sexy, as any lady monster in Castlevania should be. And of course, big plus for giving out a glyph that lets Shanoa become a sexy bat-lady too.

34. Schmoo

Symphony of the Night

You may think these guys are on here because if you kill enough of them, they may drop the mighty, unstoppable Crissaegrim… and you’re right! But honestly, I think in a weird way these flying, bloody sacks with faces on them are kind cute, in the way a hideous gory Castlevania monster can be.

33. Waiter Skeleton

Aria/Dawn of Sorrow

Yet another weird and funny skeleton, these guys do nothing but toss spicy curry at you to attack. In Dawn, they toss their curry and then run headfirst into a wall and die. The weird skeletons Dracula employs give me life, I swear.

32. Wakwak Tree

Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

And the award for the funniest fucking name goes to… Aside from having the most goofy name imaginable, they’re also one of the weirdest enemies in the series, being tress that… grow Flea Men. What.

31. Jp Bonepillar

Harmony of Dissonance

An unholy combination of the Scarecrow enemy (bounces around and deals damage) and the Bone Pillar (shoots fire) this is an unusually yet delightfully gruesome skeletal beast. I mean, look at that thing! I mean I guess Dracula technically IS Vlad the Impaler, and he liked to do stuff like this… never would have guessed he’d use his arts & crafts projects as weapons, though.

30. Galamoth

Symphony of the Night

Galamoth has quite a reputation for being hard as balls (as long as you don’t have that Crissaegrim). And… he is! His HP bar is so big that it doesn’t even appear in the bestiary. And he’s a giant cyborg demon from ten thousand years in the future, which is pretty hardcore. It’s kinda sad he never appears again after Symphony, because with his desire to usurp Dracula and rule over the netherworld, he could be a pretty interesting antagonist, especially in games taking place after the Chronicles of Sorrow where Dracula is definitively dead.

29. Miss Murder

Order of Ecclesia

Finally, a Castlevania enemy based off of the kuchisake-onna! At least partly; kuchisake-onna are not known for opening pocket dimensions and attacking from pocket universes. It’s like a cross between the kyouma demon and kuchisake-onna, and while this monster isn’t necessarily a hot monster girl like you’d expect when I put a lady monster on the list, it IS a really cool monster.

28. Fake Grant, Trevor, and Sypha

Symphony of the Night

While it’s one thing to fight against cruel imitations Alucard’s old partners, the best part about this fight is thinking how it must effect Alucard emotionally to be forced to fight and kill monsters wearing the faces of the only friends he has ever had. Dracula’s kind of a dick for doing that to him.

27.Yorick

Symphony of the Night, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

This is one of my favorite skeletons in the whole series. It’s not only a hilarious enemy concept – a skeleton chasing its own head that it has dropped around – but it’s an amusing allusion to Hamlet to boot! And in some games, when you kill him, his head sticks behind. What’s not to love?

26. Erinys/Valkyrie

Aria/Dawn of Sorrow

Yet another hot monster, this time, what appears to be a hot angel. Why angels are working for Dracula is a mystery, though Erinys is named after the Furies, so THAT makes sense. A valkyrie though? That’s something. Also, the valkyrie got a sexy update to not be a palette swap, so that’s good shit. Still, I might like Valkyrie better in Aria, where her soul basically gives you a Stand with some impressive jiggle physics.

25. Persephone

Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

One of the Metroidvania’s most enduring antagonists on handheld games is this adorable demon maid. Armed with kung fu moves and a mighty vacuum cleaner, she’s ready to kick ass, take names, and maybe have an orgy with witches and succubi like in that one room in Dawn. Awww yeah.

24. Old Axe Armor

Portrait of Ruin

Old Axe Armor is a monster that appeared in a couple of the old-school games, and then came with a playable version in the form of an equippable armor in Symphony of the Night. But in Portrait of Ruin, if you fight and kill 1000, you can unlock a special mode where you play as a mysterious redhead lady Old Axe Armor (evident from official art) and play through the castle. It’s a really cool and challenging special mode, and that hot Axe Armor in the artwork is pretty easy on the eyes.

23. The Creature

Various (Particularly his Portrait of Ruin appearance)

The Creature is a mainstay of Castlevania, and one of the better ones to boot; he’s a lot better than snoozefests like the mummy boss. While he does appear in Symphony of the Night, his look there really sucks; in Portrait of Ruin, however, he not only looks awesome, he comes armed with machine guns and rocket launchers! And in the bonus dungeon, the most deadly room contains TWO AT ONCE. Beat that and you’re truly a hardcore motherfucker.

22. Nemesis

Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow

Who isn’t a sucker for cute ghost girls? One of the ghost swordsman group of monsters, she’s a cutesy little huntress who stabs at you with a rapier and glows. She’s not too tough, but she tries her hardest, and I love her for it.

21. Cagnazzo

Aria of Sorrow

Cagnazzo, on the surface, appears to be little more than an unremarkable demon whose name shouts out to The Divine Comedy. But get his soul and you’ll see why he’s so awesome: HE LITERALLY GIVES YOU STAR PLATINUM. YOU GET A FUCKING STAND FROM THIS GUY THAT PUNCHES ENEMIES AND SHOUTS “ORAORAORA!” The Chronicles of Sorrow duology is where they really stopped playing coy with the JJBA references, and I love every single one of them.

20. Astarte

Portrait of Ruin

(Link to artist)

This hypnotic Egyptian woman is one of the sexiest monsters in the series – canonically even! She charms Jonathan if you try to use him and makes him try and kill Charlotte, making this one of a scant few boss battles it’s actually smart to use Charlotte in. Hope you got a good spell handy!

19. Tsuchinoko

Aria of Sorrow

Tsuchinoko REAL… pain in the ass! This thing is already dug halfway into the ground half the time you enter the single room you can find it in; the other half, if you can’t kill it quickly, it might bounce about a bit, poison you, and flee. And of course if you want 100% completion and to get that Soul Eater Ring a little easier, you need to snag this little brat’s soul. You’re not gonna feel like the epic badass you will after getting that Sky Fish soul, but you’ll likely feel accomplished nonetheless.

18. Frozen Half

Symphony of the Night

What would be yet another unremarkable palette swap is interesting for two reasons: the first is that it is, according to its bestiary entry, a servant of the aforementioned Galamoth, the giant time traveling cyborg lion man. The second is that she is a trans woman. Yeah, the servants of the most powerful boss in Symphony of the Night are icy trans ladies. Fuckin’ rad.

17. Mad Butcher

Order of Ecclesia

Out of all the horror monsters one could expect to show up in Castlevania, did anyone ever expect Leatherface to pop in? Appearing as a normal enemy in a few locations, the Mad Butcher is the kind of awesomely bonkers shout out that makes me love this series! Also, as pointed out earlier… chainsaws did not exist when this game takes place. That makes this guy even weirder, yet even more awesome.  

16. Lerajie

Portrait of Ruin

Taking a male demon and turning it into a lady? With a  sniper rifle? Who gets her own voice acted lines???? Smart move Konami, real smart move. I’d hit it.

15.  Lilith/Succubus

Various

A couple of mainstays of the Metroidvania handheld titles, they tend to be palette swaps of each other. Sexy, naked palette swaps. They tend to get used for some suggestive room jokes, such as the Lilith and Succubus in the bathhouse of The Arena in Aria, or the bedroom orgy in Dawn. And of course, I’d be remiss to not mention the most notable appearance of the Succubus: her boss battle and cutscene in Symphony of the Night, where she tries to trick Alucard in a dream but realizes all too late that fucking with the head of Dracula’s son is probably not the best idea if you want a long life.

14. Skull Bartender

Portrait of Ruin

See, this is why I love this series. Sometimes they crank out something so silly and stupid I can’t help but love it. Here we have a skeleton that greets you with a “Welcome,” tosses cocktails at you, and dies like a bitch. He also only appears in a single room, one that is hidden, so you have to go out of your way to find him. Boy is he worth it.

13. Blackmore

Order of Ecclesia

You thought the Jojo references would end once Soma was out of the picture? HA! THINK AGAIN, SUCKER! Blackmore is a garishly dressed man with a name that’s a musical reference, loves to pose, and has a massive shadow coming out of his back that, when hit, causes damage to synchronize with him. I guess at this point since they already had Dio and Star Platinum and the stone mask, they might as well just make a Stand user into a boss battle.

12. Medusa

Symphony of the Night, Portrait of Ruin

One of the original four monsters that pop up from time to time, and is quite frankly almost always hot when she shows up. In Symphony, she has that well-toned ass going for her, and in Portrait, she’s not only HUGE, but she has big ol’ titties. And the hotness aside, it’s just a lot of fun to reenact one of my favorite films (Clash of the Titans) every time she shows up by killing the shit out of her.

11. Enkidu

Order of Ecclesia

One lone specimen of this hulking monster appears in the game, and it raises so many questions. Why is he carrying that pillar? What is the White Dragon doing with him? Why is there only one of him? It’s monsters like these, these one-shot monsters that appear in only one area and raise so many questions that are never really answered, that really make this series what it is.

10. Chronomage

Aria of Sorrow

It’s the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland… and he can use The World. How can I NOT love this stupid enemy?

9. Jiang Shi

Order of Ecclesia

How absolutely bonkers; a Chinese hopping vampire as a bonus boss? And not only that, he’s infinitely refightable due to only being able to be sealed after his fight, so if you’re in the mood to kill some more hoppy suckers, boy are you in for a treat!

8. Sky Fish

Aria of Sorrow

One of my favorite cryptids made it into the game, and boy will you never fucking forget it when you see it. Usually nothing more than a blur, getting the ability to stop time does nothing but slow it slightly, giving you a limited time frame to kill it for a rare soul drop… did I mention it only appears in two rooms of the game and that you need to have frame-perfect timing to catch this thing before it zips offscreen? It’s so fucking frustrating, but you will feel satisfied upon getting that soul. I know I always do.

7. Graham

Aria of Sorrow

(Link to artist)

I ain’t talking about regular Graham here; I’m talking about that… thing he turns into, that horrifying, visceral, nightmarish amalgamation of body parts and organs. This might be some of the most fucked up imagery the games have ever thrown at you; I honestly think this thing should be mentioned up there with Legion and Beelzebub as one of the most unsettling monsters in a Metroidvania title.

6. Slogra

Symphony of the Night, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

Death has a couple of cool bodyguards, but Gaibon is much less cool due to being a standard gargoyle-esque demon. Slogra, on the other hand, is a weird  demon with a yellow beak and a big spear who looks like an emaciated turkey man. It’s not the weirdest design in the series, it’s not super out there, but it’s simple, sweet, and kinda cute in an ugly way.

5. Alura Une

Symphony of the Night, Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

My vote for the best sexy monster in the series is the Alura Une, a lovely lady monster that rises out of an equally lovely flower. Called Venus Weed when she first appeared on the scene in Symphony, she would go on to become a mainstay in Metroidvanias after under the name Alura Une. Her incredible sexiness is on full display in her soul’s abilities, especially in Dawn, where she lovingly embraces Soma and kills anyone dumb enough to fuck with him.

4. Legion

Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin

(link to artist)

Legion is considered to be one of the more disturbing Castlevania bosses, which is hard to argue with; it’s a massive, flying ball made entirely of corpses that is a one-monster zombie apocalypse, spewing out shambling zombies while you fight. And even if you manage to break through the outer shell, what you get on the inside is… really, REALLY not pretty, no matter the game. It’s appearance in Aria may be its best, what with the horrifying atmospheric buildup consisting of the several rooms prior being devoid of music, the only sound the groaning of the dead as they shamble towards the boss room in the background. Brrrrr.

3. Beelzebub

Symphony of the Night

Beelzebub has quite a reputation as one of the most disturbing and grotesque bosses in the series. And I have to say… COME ON. It’s just a giant, gory, rotten corpse hanging from meat hooks and attracting monstrous flies to attack! what’s so gross about that? Whether you can stomach Beelzebub or not, there’s no denying he’s a pretty memorable boss fight, and hey, if it’s too much he IS skippable!

2. Zephyr

Dawn of Sorrow

Look, I’m sure you saw this coming a mile away. The knives, the time stop, the fight on the clock tower… it’s fucking Dio. Konami literally did not give a shit and just put Stardust Crusaders DIO right in the goddamn game and had him go at you with The World. Shame you can’t get the Cagnazzo soul in this game; it would have made this battle perfect.

1. Gergoth

Dawn of Sorrow

I’m sure some people will find this a weird choice. Gergoth is kind of a strange enemy, all things considered, but he’s the most fascinating one in my book. He has a backstory just vague enough to be tragic but leaves you wanting more, he has an incredibly memorable boss fight with loads of attacks and a memorable fall smashing through dozens of floors of a condemned tower, a really gruesome yet also somewhat adorable design… Gergoth is really a perfect summation of what I love to see in Castlevania bosses.

[hegagergerk]

My reactions to The Last Jedi

I have mixed feelings about The Last Jedi. There are some aspects of it that I loved, but there was a lot that I really didn’t like. I’ve seen it twice, and each time I left the theater thinking, “Well. Huh. I don’t know what I feel.” I felt this uncertain about The Force Awakens, for comparison, but I left Rogue One knowing I liked it.

I also want it known that I am a fan of Rian Johnson and his work. I LOVE Brick, and Looper was pretty great. So I was pretty excited going into this film.

Perhaps, if this had been the first in a trilogy, I might be able to overlook the parts that I don’t like, as I did in The Force Awakens. But this is the second part - the meat of the story. And honestly, the whole thing felt gamey.

SPOILERS (and unpopular opinions) under the cut.

Pros:

It’s a beautifully shot, visually striking film. 

Adam Driver shirtless

Adam Driver, period. Love that boy

I love what they’ve done with Luke (the grumpy old hermit schtick), and I loved what little time we spent on Ach-To. The location was beautiful, I loved the Caretakers and the Porgs, and I loved Luke’s take on the Force and the Jedi.

Rey Random is the best answer to her backstory and the explanation I was hoping for. I loved the mirror cave sequence. It’s an even better touch that not only were they random people, but they were awful and neglectful. Ouch. Didn’t think they’d go that far.

I love that Rey and Kylo want to fuck each other. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I’m okay with Luke trying to murder Ben and then regretting it, even though I understand why many people are not. I actually really like the exploration of Luke’s character, and the digging into his personality flaws and weaknesses - namely, that he was prideful of his own legacy, which gave him several blind spots with regards to his nephew, and led to his biggest failure as a Jedi. It’s true - it is, initially, out of character, but I think this lapse in judgment was more horrifying to Luke himself for that very reason, and resolves for me, at least, why he would isolate himself like he does. 

I liked Luke’s death. I liked that it’s hinted that he was ready to go, anyway, and he got to go out heroically in the end.

I LOVED Luke and Leia’s reunion. Oh my god. The tears. I just. Can’t get over it. Especially knowing that Carrie Fisher wrote that scene? Fuck me

Cons:

It feels like 3 different films crammed together into 2 ½ hours. One of these films, I very much wanted to watch, but was never given enough of (Rey’s story). Another of these films, I wanted to want to watch, but found myself losing interest as time wore on (Finn’s story). The remaining one - I could have done without entirely, and I ended up resenting completely by the film’s finish (Poe’s story). 

Some of the humor worked, but a lot of it really didn’t - especially the gag about zapping dudes into walls at dramatic/semi-dramatic moments (Hux, Poe, and Finn). Granted, humor is pretty subjective, but for comparison, I either loved or had no issue with the humor in both The Force Awakens and Rogue One.

The preachy bits were REALLY. FUCKING. PREACHY. Like, dude, I agree with the points you’re making, but wow, I’d appreciate if you didn’t insult my intelligence by being so god damned ON THE NOSE about it. I thought this movie was about ~ambiguity~ And yes, I’m talking about the “don’t abuse animals”, “it’s a WAR MACHINE”, and “men don’t respect feminine women” thing. I felt like these moments were 4th-wall-breaking and did nothing to serve the story or the characters, not to mention being out of place in a Star Wars film (Star Wars is cheesy, but not THAT kind of cheesy).

Rey’s part of the story ends about 2/3 of the way in. After her battle with Kylo, she pretty much disappears from the narrative, only making a quick cameo at the end of the film. Seriously. The movie pretty much belongs to the male characters after she confronts Snoke. 

Rey never truly suffers any lasting consequences for her choices, whether emotionally or physically. Compare this to Luke’s defeat by Vader in Empire, which leaves him physically maimed and emotionally broken and betrayed. Rey is sad when she admits the truth of her parentage, yeah, and she’s not happy when Kylo usurps the First Order command, but even if this betrayal devastates her, we don’t get to see her break down under these revelations. It might be hard for Rey to acknowledge her shitty parents, but does verbalizing this hinder Rey in any way? Does it introduce an obstacle that seems impossible to overcome? Is it truly her lowest point? Ask the same questions of Kylo becoming the Supreme Leader, with regard to Rey’s feelings. Is this betrayal on the level of Anakin to Padme? Hell, even on the level of Obi Wan to Luke? Rey wrestles with Kylo over the lightsaber, nopes the fuck out, and then magically appears on the Falcon, hollering jovially about how swashbuckling and fun it is to be gunning down the First Order. In other words, she feels like she’s had an easy time of it. We really needed a scene where she shows some emotional wounds - whether when Kylo is passed out and she’s about to leave him, perhaps looking down at him with longing and sorrow, deliberating on why she should, but can’t, kill him - or whether at the end, sharing pain with Leia. But it’s like her failures don’t touch her or her story.

I’m a huge Reylo stan, but I’ve got to be honest - Kylo and Rey’s dynamic, while easily the most intriguing thing about the movie, ended up being severely underwhelming. Four conversations, and then she’s ready to go-to-bat for him? When they were touching hands in the hut, I literally was like, “Wait. Is that it? Did I blink and miss something?” They chopped Reylo down to the barest minimum of relationship progression, leaving out a lot of story-telling beats that would have bridged the gap between their antagonism and their intimacy. I felt cheated out of their story, and I really wanted to be on board with them, considering their shared loneliness and character comparison/contrast was something I was extremely excited about going into this film. I’ve read one-shot fanfics with more elegant development than this film.

I’m NOT a Snoke stan, nor was I terribly interested in his backstory or in coming up with random ass theories involving his backstory, but damn. Snoke’s abrupt dismissal from the narrative, despite being an awesome scene in isolation, feels cheap retroactively, and I can empathize with the fans who feel let down about his meaningless identity (especially when they were taunted by LF for giving enough of a shit to come up with theories about said character). The truth is that, since the sequel trilogy takes place within an established universe - and Star Wars, at that - we, the audience ARE owed a bare minimum amount of explanation for Snoke’s existence, his power, and his goals. Where was he 30 years ago, when Palpatine was in power? If you can’t at least give me something, my suspension of disbelief is shattered. And no, it’s not my fucking job, as a member of the audience, to fill in the blanks with regards to basic storytelling. At this point, why the hell couldn’t Snoke have been Darth Plageius? Or Palpatine reborn? Or whoever the fuck. If any further context had been given to him, it could only have added some meat to the story - its not like this information would have detracted from Kylo’s killing of him (if anything, it would have made that moment even more awesome). I mean, you had to hold my hand about “evil arms dealers” and “animal rights” and “she wasn’t interested in LOOKING like a hero”, but you can’t give me some damn context for Snoke? And no, I don’t give a fuck that Palpatine had no backstory in the original movies - right, we knew everything we needed to know about him, which was that he was a super powerful Force-wielder who took control of the galaxy. I wasn’t wondering, “Hmm, I wonder where that other super evil bad guy was 30 years ago while he was coming to power!” about Palpatine, because there was no frame of reference for that - and now, with the prequel trilogy, there’s definitely no need. But hey, for Snoke? Yes. Yes, that sort of information is relevant here. Even your most basic bitch casual fan left The Force Awakens wondering, “I wonder what that Snoke guy, who is most certainly older than 30 years of age, was doing three decades ago?”

Finn’s whole story was underwhelming, as much as I liked both he and Rose together. Nothing of consequence came of their story, whether by plot movement or emotional revelations - save that he decided, somewhat sloppily, to die for the Resistance (because he didn’t want to be an apathetic asshole like DJ, or whatever), only to have his choice undermined at the last minute. Nothing about his arc resonated with me. Perhaps because there just wasn’t enough time devoted to him? As much as I hate the whole “Finn is always sidelined uwuwuwu” discourse, I have to agree with them here. Furthermore, I feel like his prior-stormtrooper-ness is totally irrelevant to the portrayal of his character? It was bad enough in The Force Awakens that he didn’t seem affected by having to kill his fellow stormtroopers, and it has continued to be irrelevant in The Last Jedi. I was really hoping for some sort of moment where he and Rose connected over the deaths of Paige and his stormtrooper brethren, people killed while fighting in militaries, whether by choice or by force. This personal soul searching would have been much more poignant than the preachy babble (none with which I disagree, let it be noted) we got. I mean, the revelation that the Resistance and the First Order both get supplied from the same people who vacation on Canto Bight doesn’t really add anything - stakes, revelation, dimension - to the actual story. Like, do I suddenly not care about the Resistance getting blown out of the sky? Should I actually root for the First Order to wipe them out, so that the war will stop? Does this information seriously tempt Finn away from the whole stupid conflict? Does it change ANYTHING for ANYONE? (Hint: It doesn’t). 

I absolutely hate that Poe is being groomed to be Leia’s “good” son. Like, if I could kill something with fire in this movie, it would be this. I absolutely hate that Leia didn’t even spare her son and her brother a backwards glance at the end of the film, when they set off to flee through the caves. Perhaps this wouldn’t sting so much if Carrie were still alive and there was a chance of filming a reunion and reconciliation between mother and son, but that is not to be. 

I hate that Poe, who is NOT a main character, who was a perfectly killable side character in the previous movie, actually has the most dynamic arc in the whole film. Somehow, in a film that is supposed to be about a young woman, and in the midst of several intriguing female characters both old and new, it’s the most boring male character who gets the most agency and screentime. (I love that people were worried that Kylo would usurp Rey, but honesty…it was Poe).

Poe also has a higher kill count than Kylo Ren in terms of people who died because he was a Stupid Male, and yet Kylo Ren is the villain whose redemption is merely teased, as opposed to set into action? I mean, Poe was better at wiping out the whole resistance than the actual Supreme Leader, but nobody thinks he needs a redemption arc? oh, I guess he Learned From His Failures, so its all good.

Anytime someone said “spark”, I died a little inside.

“Hope is like the sun” - kill me now please

Leia spacewalking is an idea that I like on paper, but thought it was awkward in how it played out on screen.

Wow, so, Finn and Rey - two characters I was dying to have reunite - have NO actual dialogue exchanges. But we have enough time for Poe to say Hi to Rey but like Poe is the main character now don’t you know Like, what the fuck.

Okay, venting done.

[jynersoandtonic]

Hidy ho you guys, time for this Luke Skywalker stan to make a post all about him in TLJ. i suggest you read this post too, a spoiler free review.

Non spoiler summary is that the execution of these bat shit wild crazy plot points are better in context in the film, and i feel that Luke’s character isn’t betrayed any more in TLJ that TFA already did to him, and they almost 100% redeem it, in my eyes. There are also so Iconic™ Luke Skywalker moments later in the film that are really great.

Spoilers under the cut.

really on the spoilers though. like full scene descriptions coming. i wouldnt read this if i havent seen the film or have no plans to beecause you think rian johnson has fucked it all up. i may change your mind.

ok yall i thought this film would fucking betray me, luke skywalker, and mark hamill, based on the shit i had read about it. But, honest to god, it genuinley wasnt terrible and even vaguley on the good side.

in tfa they already fucked up his whole character by making him loose hope, abandon his friends, and blame everything on himself. i really do think that in tlj they sort of redeem him. its the kind of redemption that if the character was actually properly written, WOULD have, COULD have, and SHOULD have taken place about a month after kylo betrayed him. yoda coulda talked to him ages ago about how its not all his fault, and he would have happily trained rey, with his ever present hope. but you know what, that possibility was already shit on with tfa, so im not even gonna go there.

my biggest issue with his redemption in tlj is that it happens so slow, and is kinda half assed. he sees r2 play leias original message and slowly agrees to train rey because she wont stop bugging him about all the shit that has hit the fan in his absence. rey has a fight with luke after he finds out shes talking to kyle ron through the force, who claimed that luke tried to kill him after he sensed the darkenss in him. luke clarifies that for a breif minute he thought about it, but didnt act on it. similar in a what to in ROJ when luke cuts of darth vaders hand and then looks at his own mechanical hand, i think. kyle ron didnt know that (cos he was asleep and all of a sudden saw luke with his lightsaber lit above him) and burned the motherfucker down. rey goes and finds kyle ron and leaves luke. 

time for luke redemption part one. yoda talks to him after rey leaves and convinces him that the jedi (as a religion and fancy text book teachings) really must end. rey knows what she needs to know. yoda and burns down the tree with the texts in it, i think luke (and rian johnson) FINALLY get it. it kinda goes back to ESB with luke being like yoda and thinking he cant ever train anyone because theres too many rules and whatnot, and yoda is like luke, saying no, rey has hope and feels the force and thats what really matters, not these jedi texts honestly, this scene is really good, and it took me back to the pure times with luke and yoda on dagobah.

anyway, lukes absent for awhile and shit goes down with kyle ron and he kills snoke to save rey but neither will turn sides for each other so rey goes back to the resistance. blah blah reylo nonsense, back to luke.

as we know, luke fuckin astral projects himself across the galaxy to help the resistance. i thought this was gonna be bat shit crazy, but it was surprisingly ok? he goes out and faces this whole fleet of first order ships firing directly at them and then comes out perfectly fine, just wiping off his shoulder like the intergalactic icon he is.  kyle ron is fucking pissed and goes down to meet him. the resistance and realises that hes doing this all to buy them time to escape. oh boy does my son dunk on kylo so fuckin hard. like damn son he is slick as FUCK and beats down kyle ron in tru luke fashion, without actually hurting him. its fucking glorious. i wont reveal all, but fuck, is my boy on FIRE with them obi wan vs vader one liners. kylo realises that luke isnt actually there and he cant kill him. get fuckin rekt haters. this scene is honestly so satisfying it nearly makes up for the bullshit the writers did to luke previously.

well, we flashback to reveal that luke was actually just projecting himself and he poofs away like obi wan. even though this is already spoiler central, i wont tell you my exact emotions about the death scene, because its such a beautiful cinematic moment you have to feel for yourself. i think his death was fitting in context, because he really does save the rebellion and give them hope as luke should have. leia and rey do make points that he didnt die is sadness or pain, but at peace. it isnt a cheap shot death like hans was. i like that he was the one that gave them hope, even after leia herself admits there was no hope left for the rebellion, being gone except for about 50 people. luke really embodied what he TRULY stood for in his final moments, being ‘a new hope’.

honestly my only problem with the stuff in TLJ is that now theyve killed han and luke, and carrie is no longer around,  it feels like the ot is gone. i think if luke had his ‘redemption’ in TLJ and then this death in 9 it would have been a perfect send off. but that being said, mark hamill loves luke so much, and they made it really fucking clear that luke dosnt fuck around when it comes to force ghosts, that he will be back.

well, that about sums in up in terms of 1 hour post movie thoughts. i really do think you have to see it for yourself and have hope in episode 9!

[miraivan]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I saw the new Star Wars movie, and I have a lot of Thoughts that it seems most people who have seen it haven’t had. So here there are in a VERY SPOILERY format under the cut. Please do not click if you haven’t seen the movie. Mostly I am just sad.

This is gonna be ramble. Just got back from the new Star Wars movie, and I'm still digesting it in my head, but I wanted to put my thoughts down because overall I think I came out of this movie really unhappy with it, and I want preserve my thoughts before I start reading other reviews or whatever. I didn't hate everything, but overall I left feeling unhappy. So, in no particular order:

Too many characters doing too many stupid/unimportant things. Lots of plots kind of everywhere, a lot of which just weren't interesting/felt tedious. Number 1 was the casino detour which was so stupid it hurts, and it amounted to nothing but a big waste of time. It gave Finn something to do, I guess, but it was really dumb. Maybe the betraying dude will come back at some point, but mostly that whole sequence left me twitching in my seat.

The whole movie felt like one of those movies where shit keeps happening just to fuck the situation up a little more so they have to keep running? It's a common theme in some movies and I absolutely hate it. The exit is clear and then suddenly EVENT happens and the exit is moved back five paces, then it happens again and again and again. It's a cheap and unrealistic way of building suspense, and gets absurd when you push it to the scale this movie did with people running from a planet to space ships, to smaller space ships, to another planet, to a door, to a tunnel, etc. It's just exhausting and tedious. It's not exciting, it's frustrating. And the longer everyone important to the plot lives through events like these, the less and less meaningful they are. Not that I want important people to die, but if they don't then there are literally no stakes. I don't care (much) about the secondary/background characters. Obviously I don't want the Rebels to all die, but when 20 ships are being picked off one-by-one and 19 of the ships have faceless background characters on them and one has all the main cast... there's just no fear. It's just tedium to get to the next sequence because I know everyone in the main cast is not about to be blown up.

Kylo Ren is such a fucking baby whiny manchild brat asshole dick. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS CHARACTER. I do not understand his motivations or why anyone likes him. His actor's choices for the role are also often mindboggling.  There were a few moments where he had some personality and interesting traits, but overall I just don't understand him. I cannot comprehend what went so terribly bad in his pampered little baby boy life that he got so seduced to the dark side by Snoke that he's totally down with killing his family, and also all these millions of Rebels. I just don't get it.  I don't get why he hates Luke with such a fiery passion, either.  Hating Luke I get, but the whole scene where he says FIRE EVERYTHING ON THAT MAN.... why? Why do you hate Luke so much? There's one scene where Luke maybe tried to kill him, and I get that was traumatizing for him. But, where did the fiery rage come from? I can make excuses for it, like Snoke convinced him Luke was some crazy asshole, or whatever. But it just doesn't make sense. That's just me making excuses for the movie's bad writing. There's no good explanation for why Kylo was so seduced so thoroughly. When you compare his upbringing to Anakin's, it's like a joke.  Anakin makes sense why he went to the Dark Side. We got a real understanding of his descent into the Dark Side and how he was seduced, and how he thought it was his only out/the only way he could protect people he loved/etc. There's none of that with Kylo.  Basically the only explanation is that he's a psychopath, and like... that could be okay? Some people are psychopaths. Hux is probably one.  But I don't think that's the interpretation we're meant to have for him. We're meant to think he's got light remaining and that he's redeemable, I just don't see how.

As he is he's just an utterly unlikable, nonredeemable character. Because he has no logical motivation for his petulant behavior, he's unsympathetic and since he's unsympathetic I can't root for his redemption. Even if he was turned to the light side, he'd still need to die for all the shit he's done. There's just no coming back from that. He's not a villain with shades of grey to him, he's just all black and that makes him really uninteresting to me.

Did they really need to kill off Luke like that? What an anticlimactic and unnecessary death. The stuff before it was interesting/cool, and the whole projection thing was very neat. I get why it would've exhausted him so much... but so much to the point of death... ehhhh. That seemed unnecessary. I suspect he'll be around as a Force ghost, but. Meh. It was very underwhelming after what was otherwise a cool fight sequence.

I'll never understand why they don't land their ships and things closer to their destination. Like the huge cannon thing, why not land it within immediate firing range? Why land 5 miles away?

Didn't need Rose randomly kissing Finn. Not sure where that was coming from? Was it just to try to drive a wedge into the Finn/Rey romance/relationship that seems way more natural and obvious? If it amounts to nothing then I guess whatever. She's a fangirl and was dying so whatever. But if it turns into a romance I'm gonna be seriously side-eyeing everything.

Overall there was too much happening and not enough down time. When I think about this compared to Empire Strikes Back, there's just no heart to it the way Empire had. This just has too many characters and kept trying to follow them all. They needed to focus on just Rey and Finn, with everyone else pivoting around them as secondary characters. Their reunion should've felt like Leia rescuing Han in RotJ. But instead we're following Poe (who is relevantly unimportant, I'm sorry, he just is) for huge parts of it, and what he's doing is largely uninteresting/tedious/boring because he's fighting in battles we are almost positive he won't die in, and causing trouble that we almost certainly know won't affect the major plot of the show. In fact, I'm almost positive if you removed most of Poe's solo scenes the movie would progress just fine on its own.

And instead of giving Finn something useful to do, they just sent him off on some illogical chase to some other planet to fuck around for a few hours? What? Why not just send everyone with him? Why not at least send as many people as could possibly fit onto that ship to get them to safety? Why not try to do more trips like that to other nearby planets?  If they could get to that casino world so easily in that ship why was it taking so long to get the other ships to that old rebel base planet?  Also, why didn't they fly the freighter into the Star Destroyer way earlier? Why was that not even a consideration? Why just let the Admiral die pointlessly when they could've planned from the start that after abandoning ship she'd fly it straight into the Star Destroyer? Why couldn't THAT have been the plan she was saving all along to tell Poe? And not wanting to tell him because he'd be angry about it, but it would've proven that she really was a capable, desperate war general and would've made a lot more sense that just having her sitting in her chair piloting (WHY IS SHE EVEN PILOTING??) the ship. How does that thing not have auto pilot? Aughhhh, that was all so stupid.

I don't know why everyone is frothy about the porgs. They were kind of cute when the first showed up, but got real old real fast. Overused. The salt dogs were much more interesting and way less gimmicky feeling.

We should've seen more of Leia's Force abilities prior to her flying through space.  Don't get me wrong, that was awesome, but I wanted to see more build up prior to that, or at least a few words somewhere that she'd had some Jedi training.

I did like how Snoke was the one orchestrating the link between Rey and Kylo, but I think it's absolutely moronic that Rey didn't tell Luke that she was having these visions/connections. How did she not think that was a *little* important?  I would've also liked to have seen more actual Jedi training for her. Lifting the X-Wing out of the water, running with Luke tied to her back, actually sparring with the lightsaber instead of just swinging it at a rock. I was so excited for her to meet Luke and train from him, but I feel like almost all of their time together was wasted. She wouldn't open up to him, and he wouldn't open up to her, and the training she got was sort of half-assed/stories. Some interesting moments, but just nothing really deep. (I also still think it's really dumb that the rebellion was depending SO MUCH on finding Luke that they based the whole first movie around finding the map to him, but once they finally found a way to him... they sent one random girl they'd just met. And Chewie. Why didn't they at least send a couple of people? Or at least someone Luke knew?)

Speaking of the previous movie, we got several scenes there that gave the impression that Rey was originally trained as a Jedi and witnessed Kylo's attack on the others. Didn't we? I distinctly remember a scene of her as a small child watching as a shadowy figure with a lightsaber attacked and her being abandoned on Jakku by her family. And I remember her reaction and visions when she touched Luke's lightsaber the first time. I'm TOTALLY FINE with her parents being nobodies (if that's even the truth), but it doesn't explain those visions. I'm totally fine with her naturally being awesome with the Force and I like the idea that as Kylo grew stronger in the Dark Side someone would grow equally strong in the Light Side, but I still feel like Rey needs more explanation for why she can do the things she can do. Maybe that'll be in the third movie, but I suspect we're just supposed to believe she naturally knows how to influence minds, sword fight and lift rocks, and I don't quite buy that.

I'm trying to think of more things I liked. Seeing Leia was wonderful. She's a hardcore badass, but of course it was tinged with a lot of sadness. I wanted a much better reunion between Luke and Leia and it's sad to know that even if she were alive we wouldn't get it because they decided to kill off Luke. I'm not opposed to Luke dying, but it didn't serve a really big purpose. Just bought them a bit of time to escape from a retarded situation they put themselves into... Wait, sorry I'm complaining again.

Ugh, I dunno. Everything I'm thinking about is annoying me. Yoda's scene was weird. Can he just show up whenever? Why then? Why not during a more important moment? The way he talked made it seem like he hadn't seen Luke in a long time, but showing up then just seemed random since he didn't stop Luke from destroying the Jedi books.

A whole host of native nuns living on that tiny island was kind of weird/unnecessary.

Ugh, I dunno. Overall I just wanted a more streamlined story, following the main character, where shit *actually happens*.  Other than Kylo killing Snoke, almost nothing happened in this movie. The rebels moved from one location to another taking ridiculously huge casualities and killing some Imperials too, and that's about it. I think the whole movie took less than a week. (Gotta love their magical time travel.)

The visuals were stunning, and it was great to see some characters interacting again, but a much better story would have involved the rebels escaping to a small base, having some quiet down time with just our main cast all together (Rey, Finn and Leia, maybe Poe), and following them as they went as a group together to confront Kylo (or vice versa). Spreading everyone out in varying storylines did no service to the story, and weakened it a lot in Finn and Poe's case because their stories weren't interesting.  Rey's was the only interesting storyline and should've been the main/central one, but it felt quite sidelined at times.

The Force Awakens wasn't perfect, but it definitely felt better written, with much better pacing and characterizations than whatever this was.  I felt like this was just really jagged and poorly put together, with lots of superfluous/time filling scenes, many of which went on for way too long.  I constantly felt bored, thinking, "Get back to the main plot!" while I'm watching yet another pointless space battle.

I'm really sad/diappointed. I love Star Wars. I was so pumped and ready for this movie, and I just don't think I liked it. I can't see myself settling into excitedly rewatch this the way I could other Star Wars movies. There's just no heart in this one for me. It's almost all empty action.

Ugh. Convince me I'm wrong.

[heyktula]

59 + kylux please (idk when you posted the meme, hope im not too late)

59: mistaken identity (I’m deeply sorry that it took me so long to get to this--but I hope you like the result!)

It’s the fourth ruined console this week, smoking and sparking and melted. They’ll have to laser-cut the fucking thing out of the kriffing wall in order to replace it, and the custom finish they use on the Finalizer’s interior durasteel panels isn’t fucking cheap because Hux thought he could afford a bit of luxury, could afford some fucking matte black panels, because he hadn’t banked on having a fucking toddler with temper tantrums and a lightsaber on his fucking flagship.

Hux is completely fucking done. 

Fuck billing him for the repair expenses, Hux decides. Fuck it.

He’ll just have Lord Ren assassinated.

It takes less than a week for Hux to identify his future assassin. The Knights of Ren are rarely seen without their masks. They don’t all use the training facilities—Hux assumes they have training space in their rooms, though he hasn’t been down there since they arrived because he doesn’t care to know what they’ve done to the section of his ship designated as theirs—but one of them has been using the common facilities late at night.

Presumably the knight thinks no one else is awake, but he clearly doesn’t understand that General Hux is always awake, always watching—and so Hux has a front-row seat via the security feed to a remarkably young human adult male with a non-regulation haircut, beauty marks scattered across his face, and a truly phenomenal physique running through the same series of training moves every night between eleven pm and one am.

Tonight, Hux has the security feed broadcasting over a secure channel to his private datapad, and he’s standing outside the room in question, waiting for the knight to finish his training, which should be—ah,  yes, there. The knight finishes his last series of moves, and then pauses in the center of the room, bent over panting with his hands on his knees.

Hux slips into the room, and executes the code that simultaneously locks the doors, shuts off the security feeds, and turns the lights down to forty five and a half percent. He’s already halfway across the room when the knight notices him and throws out a hand, stopping Hux in his tracks with one of his banthashit force techniques.

"Oh, come now,” Hux says. “I don’t really think that’s necessary, do you?”

The knight hesitates, and Hux notices again how very young he is. The security feed really hadn’t done the man any favours—he’s easily twice as beautiful up close, with a slightly crooked nose and lips that Hux would love to bite until they bleed.

The knight staggers back and lowers his hand, and Hux finds himself free to move again.

“It’s only,” Hux says, advancing again with a slightly slower pace, as though he is stalking the  younger man—which, truthfully, he is. “You look so beautiful when you’re training. You must be one of his best knights.”

“I am,” the young man says unsteadily. “One of his—his best.”

“But not the best,” Hux says casually. He’s close enough to touch the other man now, and be damned if the other man isn’t exactly his height, and kriffing hell, those lips are just made for cocksucking. Hux lifts his hand and places it on the younger man’s bare chest, pressing his fingers into sweat-damp skin.

“I could be,” the man insists.

“Yes,” says Hux, and he drags his hand up the man’s chest to his jaw, caresses the young man’s cheek with his thumb. “You could be.”

There is a droplet of sweat on the man’s cheek. Hux brushes it away with his index finger, then pulls his hand away, watching the way the knight sways toward him before stabilizing.

Hux lets him gain his footing, lets him think this is over—and then takes three quick steps toward him, bringing his arm up quickly and shoving the knight in the chest. The knight yelps and goes over backward, and before he can get up, Hux has pressed his boot into the other man’s crotch.

The knight stills underneath him, breathing heavily.

“You could be one of his best,” Hux says, letting his voice drop and go throaty. “Or … you could be one of mine.” He takes a moment to get his breathing under control, because it wouldn’t do to appear affected this early. “Do you want to be good for me?”

“Yes,” the knight breathes.

“Good,” Hux purrs, and he pushes his boot down harder into the knight’s crotch.

His right boot makes an irritating squeak as he heads back to his quarters twenty minutes later, but he’s satisfied with his progress.

Lord Ren is glaring at him on the bridge the next day.

Typical, Hux thinks, but he doesn’t let it bother him, because his plan is in motion, and Lord Ren won’t be a problem for much longer.

The second-tallest knight, Hux’s knight, is hovering behind Lord Ren, though, and Hux makes a specific point of letting his hand casually graze over the knight’s robe as he passes by. Just so the knight knows that he’s there. 

Just so the knight knows he’s watching.

“You were staring at me today,” Hux breathes into the knight’s ear later. They’re in the training room again, and the knight is naked to the waist, Hux straddling him and pinning him down.

“Y-yes,” the knight says.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Hux says. “People will notice.” He shifts upwards, onto all fours, and carefully shuffles backwards, until his hips are aligned over the knights.

“I was careful,” the knight insists. “Nobody saw.”

“Lord Ren might have seen,” Hux muses.

The other knight inhales sharply, opens his mouth—and Hux drops his hips, grinds down onto the knight, and the other knight moans and contorts upwards, pressing what feels like an awkwardly large dick up against Hux’s crotch.

Hux tips his head up to cover for the eye roll that he can’t quite repress, and lets the knight continue grinding on him.

There’s a wet spot on Hux’s jodhpurs when he leaves the training room that night.

It’s not his.

Hux is proud of how smoothly his plan is going. It won’t be long now—and it’s well-worth the inconvenience of the knight’s ejaculate, because it gets Hux that much closer to Kylo Ren’s execution.

Hux is standing on the bridge. Lord Ren refuses to look at him, which Hux finds hilarious because they’re in the midst of a discussion about a rebel base that they’re planning to attack that evening, and Ren is being such a fucking child about the whole thing.

Hux makes eye contact with the knight that he fondly thinks of as his from across the room, and subtly taps his temple with his finger. Continues to speak to Lord Ren about deployment of stormtroopers and the number of units Hux will agree to release to him while vividly imagining sucking the knight’s cock.

The knight doesn’t so much as twitch or react, and Hux is so, so proud of him.

“... will that be satisfactory, Lord Ren?” Hux asks.

There’s a sharp burst of static from Ren’s vocoder, before Ren turns on his heel and stalks out.

Hux’s knight keeps watching Hux, and Hux winks at him before going back to his console.

“I want more,” the knight breathes. “I want more, I want more, I want—let me—”

Hux swallows, tips his head down to grimace, and swallows again, before looking back up at the knight. “I could be convinced,” he says gently. “But I would need you to do me a favour.”

“O-oh?” the knight says.

He always looks so shattered after an orgasm, and Hux loves it, loves him, loves watching him fall to fucking pieces underneath Hux’s tongue, and oh, fuck, the things he and this knight will be able to do once the knight has assassinated Kylo Ren for him …

Hux stands back up. “What would you do for me?”

“Anything,” the knight breathes. “Anything, General, please—I would do anything for you.”

Hux lets himself grin. “I need you to kill Kylo Ren.”

The day after Hux’s discussion with his knight, Kylo Ren destroys another console.

Hux shrugs it off.

The problem is temporary, and not worth the inevitable migraine.

“I want to see it,” Hux muses as he rotates his gloved fingers inside the knight’s ass, holding the knight’s hips still with his other hand. “I thought I might like you to do it in private—but no, I’ve changed my mind. I want to watch.”

The knight pants underneath him, black curly hair in complete disarray around his face, lips bitten, honey-brown eyes hazy with lust. “You—you want—to watch—me—confront—Kylo Ren.”

“Have you thought about how you might do it?” Hux asks, pulling both his fingers out, pouring lube on his glove, and then working three fingers back inside the knight. “How you might kill him?”

“With my, uh, saber?” the knight asks.

“Don’t sound so uncertain,” Hux says, curling his fingers up hard against the knight’s prostate.

The knight bucks his hips up into the air, gasping and coming untouched all over his own chest.

“Figure it the fuck out,” Hux says casually. He pulls his fingers out of the knight, and then pulls his glove off completely, drops it on the floor with its mate. Hux has no intention of bringing lube-soiled gloves back to his room—but maybe the knight will use them to jack off later—who knows what kind of perversions he holds. “I want him assassinated, and quickly.”

“And you promise,” the knight says, voice raw and broken. “You promise—that after I … subdue Kylo Ren.”

“Kill,” Hux specifies.

“That afterwards … you’ll let me fuck you?”

“Yes,” Hux says. “I promise.”

Hux looks down at his datapad when it pings, sees a meeting invitation from Kylo Ren to a conference room on the second deck. The invitation gives him pause for a moment—he’d expected it to come from his knight—but then he recalls that none of the knights had been issued datapads, so this makes perfect sense.

“Lieutenant Mitaka,” Hux says casually, tucking his datapad into the pocket of his greatcoat. “The bridge is yours.”

Mitaka snaps into a salute, nods his head as Hux departs.

Hux is half-hard by the time he reaches the conference room, wondering if his knight has started already, if he’ll open the door to a mess of blood and guts and gore, if he’ll open the door just in time to hear Kylo scream, the sound crackling through the vocoder—or if he’ll open the door before things have even properly gotten going, and will then be able to watch the entire assassination, from start to finish.

Hux takes a deep breath outside the conference room to compose himself, and then walks in.

There is only Kylo Ren, standing in the middle of the room. Hulking in the middle of the room. The conference table has been pushed aside, and the chairs all shoved against the wall.

“Kylo,” Hux says coolly, and he busies himself by pulling his datapad out of his pocket, and dismissing a few notifications. “Will your knight be joining us?”

“Not so much,” Kylo says, and there’s a click and then an odd hissing sound. “It’s just you and me, General.”

Hux’s blood runs cold, because he recognizes that voice. He recognizes that voice, because how could he not recognize that voice, because—

“You,” Hux spits.

“Me,” Kylo Ren says, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

They’re the same fucking lips that Hux has been watching contort in pleasure as he’s fingered or sucked orgasms out of the knight, the knight Hux had been seducing specifically to assassinate Kylo Ren, the knight that Hux had thought was his—

“The whole time,” Kylo confirms. “It was me the whole time.”

“I’m leaving,” Hux says flatly. “This meeting never happened.”

“I think,” Kylo says, running his fingers down the sides of his surcoat, and then pulling the surcoat over his head and dropping it on the floor. “That you owe me a fuck, General.”

“I owe you no such thing,” Hux snaps.

Kylo is standing right next to him now—still taller than Hux, but less so now that the mask is off. He ducks his head next to Hux’s ear. “You’ll find,” Kylo breathes, “that I’m quite subdued at present.”

Hux is not overly surprised when he turns to leave and realizes that he can’t, that Ren has locked him into place with the force.

But with Kylo this close to him, with Kylo’s gloved hands hovering just above Hux’s waist and his hot breath in Hux’s ear, knowing exactly how Kylo pants when Hux touches him, how his voice gets breathy and uneven when Hux twists his fingers on Kylo’s cock the way Kylo likes, how Kylo’s hips jolt when he orgasms …

… Hux finds that he doesn’t mind all that terribly.

After all, subdued is subdued—and if Kylo’s not dead, at least Hux can make use of his cock on occasion.

.

[angelsaxis]

zennistrad’s response.

Wow that’s a doozy lmao.

Now I should seriously wonder about a person who thinks accusations of racism are only “vaguely decent” and not, you know, serious things that need to be considered in the film/movie making industry. You can’t take someone who’s had an established character before, and clearly had no problem with authority (Poe is seen coordinating with Leia in TFA, and he’s a decent person in the canonical books) and completely change it to fit some lesson that ultimately isn’t even good because the “teacher” turns out to be wrong in the first place. What RJ did was take a Latinx character and turn them into a stereotype. He then had two white women physically and verbally berate him for the duration of the first half of the movie. He sidelined a black character and specifically added a female Asian character to break up the chances of Finnrey/Finnpoe. It’s bad writing. It’s racism. Star Wars is a massively influential franchise and anything they do in the movies can and will influence the general culture surrounding it. Racism in movies is a more serious, far-reaching deal than “oh yeah that’s the only half-way decent critique of the movie”.

Continuity is necessary to have a decent trilogy. Most people aren’t even sure of the timeline of TLJ and how it lines up with TFA because it appears have happened directly after, but then it wouldn’t make sense for the resistance to be on its last legs in a space chase with a new Death Weapon from the First Order. Continuity means Rey + Luke’s opening matching to what we saw in the end of TFA--instead, we get a bad opening with Luke throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder for a cheap laugh (which didn’t even happen in my theater), which completely clashes with what was literally supposed to happen for the first minute of Rey and Luke’s meeting. That’s not a nitpick--it’s bad writing. Bad writing makes a movie bad.

If the audience sits there confused and saying “what?” outloud, they’re not going to enjoy the movie to its fullest extent possible. Instead, every ounce/pound/ton of confusion and distaste for certain things just piles on and gets TLJ a 52% score on Rotten tomatoes lmao. I don’t even see how wanted the second movie in a trilogy to follow the basic rules that the first set down would be “nitpicky” because that’s literally the most standard, basic expectation for fans to have, and Rian Johnson couldn’t even do that. 

Characterization is included in continuity. (A) Finn never actually joined the Resistance. It’s a continuity error to make it seem as if Finn now owes his life and body to the Resistance, and it’s shitty that suddenly Rose is the moral compass for something that doesn’t even apply to Finn. It’s bad writing. It’s also bad writing that his iconic character be sidelined for a plot that was more comic relief than actual substance. If Rian was trying to teach anything there, it was lost in how badly he wrote it.

(B) Rey and Poe already met in the novelization (that’s also where Poe’s established character is from). If Rian Johnson can’t be assed to follow some basic setups from extended sources of canon, the audience will not be assed to look past those and see the “deeper themes” of the movie. Now, instead, he’s re-introduced the Star Wars franchise to “tiers of canon”, which is what ruined the EU.

(C) And speaking of Rey--she has absolutely no real reason to trust Kylo so soon after everything that happened in TFA. It doesn’t make sense for someone who ran from, cried because of, and physically attacked Kylo Ren (who, I must add, tortured/harmed the other two protags) to suddenly say “I sense the good in him” after a few Skype calls. This doesn’t make sense to Rey’s character, for whom it’s always been established that Rey hates Kylo Ren, and he hates her. It wasn’t even clear what her plan was going to be for turning him. She showed up in a space coffin and then just followed Kylo or talked to Snoke for the entirety of that segment.

Consistency will not “bog down” the plot lmao. How difficult is it to keep these things in line? Rian Johnson (supposedly) went to film school; he’s a writer and he felt the need to ignore everything that already existed because his ego made him write The Last Jedi before TFA was even finished.

I’ll tell you now that I’m not one of those people that’s memorized all the nuances of Luke. Other people are able to explain it better than I can, but Luke is hardly self-absorbed and says/cries out numerous times “I need to help/save my friends!” People who have hard-ons for Luke and study his character to the same extent you do make the argument that Luke wouldn’t have had such a sharp turn from what’s been established of his character (it’s also weird/bad that, after not speaking for what’s canonically 15 years, the most Luke says to Leia is a line. Bad characterization). 

As for the next paragraph; Rian Johnson himself said in an interview that it’s meant to be romantic/sexual tension. Rey’s “self importance” (which isn’t even accurate anyways lmao) wouldn’t have been present in this movie if Rian Johnson had actually followed anything in TFA. I’m not even going to get into why it’s really bad to have a violent, emotionally unstable man and the woman/girl (she’s 19) he’s been pursuing in any kind of romantic/sexual tension situation.

I don’t have really any comments on the Rey siblings theory. Although it would have made a better plot point to have them be related, because then it could be shown that Rey, raised by sand and abandoned, turned out good, and Kylo, who had loving parents, turned out evil. It would be a “why did we switch?” along with Finn’s clearly being raised by evil but turning out good. I’ll admit I was leaning more towards their being cousins of some kind. It seemed kind of dumb to market the sequel trilogy as a “continuation of the skywalker saga” only to let RJ do this. 

Continuity problems arise again because Rey had stopped caring that she didn’t know who her parents were in TFA, but she’s made to be super emotional and sensitive about it in TLJ, and for whatever ungodly reason Kylo knows about them (and says she was sold despite her never having been owned in TFA, not to mention the fact that her parents clearly left her, not having died on Jakkuu).

And thanks for assuming that the only places I’ve seen reactions to/reviews of TLJ was from “isolated spaces”! That’s certainly a substantiated claim to make, what with you knowing exactly where I get all my critiques, opinions, and views of TLJ from (I mean it’s not like I could ever take polls or read any other material besides what’s on Tumblr and metacritic, right?). 

Although I’d like to point out that it’s extremely arrogant (and racist lmao)  to dismiss every claim by POC fans that TLJ has serious problems as “vaguely decent”. And assuming what I meant by characterization to begin with isn’t arrogant at all. And I’m not sure you can say “it’s far from subtle” wrt to the mirror in the lake cave because, clearly, a substantial amount of people missed it and it’s barely even a scene that’s spoken about besides “that weird cave”.

Just a heads up: if people are meant to like a movie, the movie has to be consistent, feel like a member of the trilogy family, and not spit in fans’ faces lmao.

Whether you see this or not, don’t respond. But others are welcome to hop on with points I may have missed.

[secretreylostan]

So, unfortunately, I’m out. 

I just tried to read a fanfic story and all I see is Ben Solo fading out into the Force. Dumb. 

Do you think she kept his shirt, maybe?

I said ��Lame’ out-loud so many times during this movie, beginning with the exclamation point in the opening crawl.

This movie was not only horrible, but it left no room for imagination, at least not anything that isn’t totally ridiculous. Ben Solo, back from the dead... Lame. That’s a lame story to write and a lame story to read. 

Did anyone used to watch the show Sisters back in the day? Teddy (Selma Ward, love her) was married to a guy played by George Clooney named Falconer, who I absolutely adored.  At one point his character was blown up; it was so fucking terrible. After, Teddy went into this traumatic blindness and hallucinated him for a couple episodes, allowing all of us, including Teddy, to say farewell. It was tragic that he was dead but we got to say goodbye, even though the premise was a bit absurd. It worked. It was wonderful.

Not this. 

There was no build-up, nothing but lame exposition and empty threats, (”I will turn you to the Darkside.” Yeah, sure, Jan.) 

And then, no closure. We don’t even hear him say her name.  

It would have been better had they not kissed. They never even SPOKE! Jesus, them kissing was like, “er Okay? Are we sure they are even into each other like that?” (And props to the other folks who noted how terribly it was shot, you couldn’t even see Adam Driver’s face. Looked like it was a bad film school re-imagining). 

What happened to ‘Let me look at you with my own eyes’? Did this trilogy not deserve its redemption moment too? And don’t give me that “But the Han chat...” Fuck that.  

Oh and I guess Rey facing a convergence on Ahch-To wasn’t enough, she had to face another one, eh? Lame.

Getting rid of the scar was LAME. Oh, it’s a visual representat- No. No it wasn’t. It was dumb. It was cheap.

Terrible; what a terrible fucking job they did. The movie is so lame that we aren’t even talking about how Rey made her own cool-ass lightsaber and it was yellow, you guys. Awesome. But by that point, I didn’t even give a shit because we were on Tatooine for no good reason and I just wanted to go home and start my life over.

Don’t even get me started on how Finn and Rose were just lame exes who unfortunately still have to work together. Wrong. Incorrect.

Jannah - unnecessary. 

Wiping C3PO - unnecessary. 

Keri Russell’s character, whatever the fuck her name was - unnecessary. 

AND POE DAMERON WAS A SPICE RUNNER??? Fuck that. 

OH and HUX!! HUX!!! Why did they do you so dirty, Hux? You were a good enough bad guy on your own, you didn’t need that old white man to come and usurp you. If you were good enough for Snoke, you were good enough for me. 

Never mind the gratuitous old lady kiss at the end. Representation is great, but what the fuck was that?

Please someone take me to the universe where Bernie Sanders is president, I don’t have anymore student loan debt, and Episode 9 was the epic fucking movie it should have been. 

At least now I’m free of this pain. 

#savebensolo

Me @ JJ who I had trusted with my heart and my babies

[escailyyy]

A grandaughter's problem

“Ah so there’s my little lightsaber, come to visit your old granddaddy eh?” Obiwan Kenobi huffed wheeling his wheelchair down the hall of his retirement haven, towards the angry form of his most rebellious granddaughter Kira, rolling his eyes at her revealing clothes he raised an eyebrow in the way only a retired member of the Special Joined, Equanimity Division of Intelligence (J.E.D.I) order could “you just missed Rey and Daisy, who by the way had a very interesting piece of gossip to share”

“Daisy and Rey don’t know anything” Kira snapped crossing her arms over her scantily clad chest, taking in his subtle chastisement and making a beeline for Obiwan’s linen closet, emerging minutes later clad in one of her grandfather’s old black Jedi Council tunics and sweatpants three sizes too big “they need to stay out of my bloody life, what gives them the right to butt in?”

“So, you haven’t been receiving flowers for a whole week in a row coupled with Slayer CD’s?” Grandfather Kenobi wondered raising an eyebrow “and you haven’t been refusing to let them read the cards that come with said gifts?” Wheeling himself to the adjacent kitchen Obiwan reached for the ever-boiling kettle that was a hallmark of the Kenobi household “have some tea Kira”

“FINE, I’ll tell you…but only because you’re you and because you’re not being a pain in the ass like Tweedle Dee Dee and Tweedle Dee Dum” Kira accepted the tea with a grudging smile and groaned “Gramps I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me!! I swear one minute I’m fine, going about my life, punching the crap out of my competition in the ring and one minute I’m not and then everything goes bloody sideways, and it’s all my stupid fault for saving Ben’s life”

“Kira, calm down, I assume it’s a long story yes?”

“Of course it is arghhh I just want to punch the bloody asshole”

“Start with the beginning, why did you have to save Ben’s life?”

Obiwan sighed, he often told himself had done a good job with the girls, Luke and Leia could vouch for that, after surviving the fall of the Emperor’s drug empire and with Anakin (no longer Vader) living out his remaining days in a high security glorified nursing home, Obiwan Kenobi hadn’t planned on one day being contacted by social services just about ten or so years later with the news that the secret son he’d had with Satine, who was supposed to be living a happy tragedy less life in Mandalore, was dead and unless he claimed custody of his son’s three orphan children the girls would be shipped off to some place far like Jakku.

So Obiwan had stepped up, retired to a modest house near the beach in Yavin IV and raised the girls himself with the occasional help from what was left of his friends.

Funny how the reason he’d abstained from mixing too much with Leia’s family was because he thought her own set of pre teen triplets were already enough work for Han and her her and in the end it turned out that it was Obiwan who found himself handing out sage advice to her.

Kenobi didn’t regret raising the girls away from Coruscant, if anything he was glad Rey, Kira and Daisy had gone to small town schools and roamed the beach and woods to their hearts content.

He just hadn’t counted with their strange fascination towards the Solo boys.

Anakin (Mustafar blast him) liked to laugh trough his life support and tell him he deserved it for all the grief Obiwan ever put his former Padawan trough.

“The beginning…Well, I guess it started last year when that bantha shit of Ben Solo said I wouldn’t know how to dress like a real girl even if Jessica Pava herself let me borrow her whole wardrobe, which is a load of… ”

“Was this before or after you ruined Kylo’s chance with Rey by showing her that video of him trashing his tattoo parlor after talking to Han” her Grandfather interrupted with narrowed eyes

“a bit after, the next day I think” Kira admitted ruefully “in my defense I have nothing against Kylo, he’s just a violent weirdo who doesn’t deserve Rey”

“Kira! You told Rey that Kylo had torched the falcon with Han inside!” Obiwan scolded “And belittle him infront of her every time you get a chance”

“He’s not good enough for her! Someone’s got to make sure she knows it” Kira protested crossing her arms over her chest.

“And Daisy with Matt?”

“Those two can ruin their relationship on their own”

“KIRA LAN KENOBI” Obiwan snapped raising his voice to scold her once again “sabotaging the happiness of your sisters is not something I approve of”

“But Grandpa!”

“Just continue your story”

“Well, then I told Ben that how would he know, since the only time he’s ever been interested in girls clothes was when he’s trying to take them off some poor unsuspecting soul”

“It all escalated from there until he said that from looking at my chest he understood why guys ran away from me”

“And you punched him in the face” Obiwan guessed wisely

“I did”

“You know his hostility might have had something to do with your single-minded tendency of ruining his brother’s happiness” but her grandfather’s observation got ignored by Kira

“But every time we’ve seen each other since then is the same thing” Kira kept on talking “he was always bloody remarking on the fact that I’m too boyish and tough and violent, and screw him I might not be all boobs and ass like Bazine but I’m not a bloody guy!”

“Isn’t that Bazine the girl you called “skanky cabaret stripper” after the Solo’s last New Year’s Eve party?“ Obiwan recalled the moniker being repeated with way too much frequency whenever Kira complained about Ben Solo’s womanizing and why that made Kylo and Matt entirely wrong for Rey or Daisy

"That’s the one, she’s got fake: nails, boobs, hair, teeth and personality"Kira listed angrily before returning to the subject at hand "so last week after debating it out with Rey in Han’s garage I got fed up, I just went downtown, bought a couple of dresses that would make even someone like Solo stop and pay attention and showed up at Poe’s birthday bash with Rey”

“Yes, I remember, incidentally Daisy told me that you and I quote "looked like a goddess of darkness, but got angry and left early’ and those were her exact words”

Kira smirked she HAD looked like a goddess thank you very much, that red and black one shoulder cocktail dress with her best skull printed fishnet stockings and loose hair had been enough to make her stand out even next to Phasma (which was a feat considering Phas had the term ‘Chrome Queen’ down to a trademark and Kira always looked like a punk rock Hobbit when they hung out together) “here’s the thing Granps, Hux was there too, he tried flirting with moi, which made me laugh at every three words he said”

“Why? Didn’t you want boys to notice the pretty dress? Daisy said Hux was your type” Obiwan had long ago accepted the fact that his girls were grown up, honestly after having to give them the talk before puberty and managing to survive ten or so years of synchronized periods, he considered the whole talking-about-boys thing the least traumatic of conversation topics.

“Hey one, ew it’s Hux, he doesn’t count as a boy because he’s a ginger and please feel free to take offense, gingers are the devil” Kira pointed out making her grandfather laugh “two, everytime Armitage Hux tries flirting with me it’s only because he’s trying to look casual when he turns around to make an actual move on Phasma, constipated and anal retentive as he is” Kira snorted “and three, it wasn’t a PRETTY dress, it was a badass masterpiece of clothing that was dug out from a ceremonial tomb in the ruins of Jedha and restored to its original glory by a black market Tailor”

“Kira what have I told you about doing your shopping in the ill-obtained-goods district of Coruscant?” Old Kenobi interjected with exasperation

“It’s a dress Grandpa…Or two or three, the tomb of Wesi Ker isn’t going to miss them and they came at a lower rate than the designer garbage General Organa loves to dress Rey in”

“Force give me patience” Grandfather said elevating his eyes to the sky “Don’t change the subject young lady, what did Hux do that you left early?”

“Hux? Nothing, didn’t I just tell you that Hux has a weird fetish for gigantic and blonde bi ladies?” Kira snapped, recalling Hux smarmy compliments “it was Ben! He’s the one who called me hot one moment and as soon as he saw Hux said I looked like cheap a skin girl, the idiot, chauvinistic, pompous bantha anus that he is”

“I take it you also punched him for the remark” in fact if she hadn’t it would have been a sign of the Apocalypse for Old Kenobi

“Of course not, it was Poe’s birthday, I promised Rey that there would be no punching”

“Then what..” old Obiwan raised his finger to ask

“…I took advantage of the slit in the leg of my dress to knee him in the nuts” Kira elaborated then she added for good measure “like a lady good and proper”

Privately Obiwan hoped it had hurt as much as Kira’s pride “so you left early” he deduced with a knowing look

“And ended up saving Ben Solo’s life, when I should have left him to die”

“I take it there’s more to the story than just leaving early then”

“Look I was going to! I even made nice with Poe and everything, bought him this very nice empire era X-Wing air freshener as a gift and abstained from insulting Finn’s obvious bad taste in boyfriends” Kira protested hotly “But Poe, the bloody Tautun, had to make a whole spectacle out of it and Daisy was begging me to stay because she’s Daisy and since Solo is Poe’s best friend, he attempted to cajole me into letting him drive me home, Grandpa, the gall of him! as tough I’m some simpering little idiot who doesn’t know what nasty shit he uses the Millennium Falcon for”

“Kira, didn’t you carpool in Rey’s car that day? Ben Solo might be a scoundrel but I’d have to agree on that one” Obiwan interrupted “I know, I know, you’re Kira Kenobi and can take care of yourself, but don’t blame an old man for being a worrier”

“I was planning to use my speeder, since Phasma brought it and I knew she’d be crashing with he’s-just-a-good-colleague Hux in his fancy Coruscant penthouse”

“A speeder in a dress? Force help me Kira! Not even your grandmother ever did that and believe me, I saw Satine wear a lot of strange clothing when escaping assassination attempts back in the day”

“Solo said the same thing…Well give or take a few ‘do you plan on flashing all the Commonwealth district’ and 'Kira let me drive you home blah blah blah’ oh and when I wouldn’t listen to him he kissed me but that’s unimportant what’s important is that Dabba the Hutt’s minions…”

“Kira?” Obiwan leveled her another Jedi Council eyebrow raise “Ben Solo kissed you?”

“He did, I was trying to get away from him, he followed me to the parking lot and kissed me” She squirmed under her grandfather’s all knowing look

“Ben, the scoundrel you’ve been complaining about since you were thirteen, that Ben” Another Jedi Council eyebrow

“Yes that Ben, the same one I slapped minutes later”

“The Ben that you claim not to like”

“Grandpa! I really don’t like him, he’s an egocentric prick with a hero complex and a wandering dick” Kira didn’t like the laughter in her grandfather’s eyes not one bit and okay maybe that first kiss hadn’t been that bad and maybe he’d tasted like cigarettes and corellian wine but she absolutely still hated him

“Oh the follies of youth my child”

“Anyway, he kissed me, and don’t look at me like that I slapped the grin of his face and told him I’d never in a million years be a notch in his bedpost then he got angry and told me he’d see me in hell for that lie and I thought that was it, except it wasn’t because as he was leaving the parking lot to join the party Dabba the Hutt’s minions ambushed him”

“What is it with Solo men and angering Hutts? I could tell our one or two stories about Han in his Hutt days that would make even you feel like vomiting” Obiwan huffed as he put two and two together “he might be my namesake but Ben takes after his father too much, why didn’t they just name the boy Han junior?”

“I know! But guess what it turns out this time it wasn’t Ben’s fault” Kira smirked “I know shocking isn’t it”

“Very” her grandfather agreed bring the mug of tea to his lips

“So the twilek and the togruta mobsters ambushed him because that skank of Bazine is now Dabba the Hutt’s sidepiece, and pummeled Ben into submission before stuffing the idiot in the back of a van” then she paused “this is the part where I decided to be an idiot too and followed them in my speeder” she HAD been forced to rip her dress but the shorter length had suited her just fine

“Did you subdue them with a blaster or did you let your fist do the talking?” Obiwan hummed putting his mug down

“A Blaster but how did you know?” In fact she’d followed them into a warehouse and had started shooting warning blasts as soon as she saw Solo tied up with a bag over his head

“I raised you Kira, I know everything” was the sage answer she got

“Anyway there was I shooting at some Hutt minions, saving Solo’s ass, handing him my spare gun and he suddenly gives me that look!” Kira grumbled opening her eyes exaggeratedly and fluttering her eyelashes while trying to imitate Ben “you know the look, the pathetic one Kylo gives Rey when she’s not looking”

“Ahh the Bambi eyes”

“Yes and it’s ridiculous because I’m beating the shit out of those dumpsters for him and we’re right in the middle of a fight, what the hell Grandpa? I didn’t ask for the Bambi eyes!” Kira got angrier “that’s Matt’s deal, hell it’s Kylo’s too, but I am Kira Kenobi and I could have lived the rest of my life perfectly happy without knowing Ben was capable of directing that look at me”

Obiwan knew exactly what look she was talking about, the one that only a Skywalker could replicate, a gaze that was a mixture of awe, worship and admiration with just the right ammount of love that made mooncalfs look tame. Leia had a habit of sporting Bambi eyes whenever she looked at Han after the war.

In hindsight maybe the triplets had inherited the look from Shmi Skywalker, the blame for this couldn’t be laid exclusively at Anakin’s door.

“So he gave you the Bambi eyes and…”

“And now I’m doomed”

“Perfectly understandable”

“No I mean yes, I mean” Kira fisted her hands “We were fighting and he’s looking at me like I’m his new religion or something and then we’re tying up the twilek and the togruta and getting the hell out of Dodge in my speeder and it felt so right grandpa” she took a deep breath and a gulp of tea “and then I’m dropping him off at the Senate building and he’s kissing me again, only this time I kiss him back because dammit who can resist those stupid brown eyes when they have that look”

“So that’s why you think you’re doomed” Obiwan agreed “you’re right dear, you are very much doomed, has he asked you to marry him yet?”

“After we broke apart from that kiss”

“And now he’s sending you flowers” Grandfather chuckled “if you dislike the gesture why don’t you tell him to stop?”

“Because then I’d have to talk to him!” Kira replied then she smiled a little bit momentarily lighting up the perpetual scowl on her face “besides nobody has ever sent me flowers before, all the guys that like me are way too scared”

“What do your sisters think about it?”

“Oh Force if they knew it’s him I’ll never hear the end of it from Rey, they all know scoundrels are so not my kriffin type”

“Exept one scoundrel apparently is”

“I blame the Bambi eyes” Kira crossed her arms over her chest “and you grandpa are not allowed to tell anybody capisce?”

“Who would I tell?” Obiwan lied knowing fully well what his next topic of discussion with Anakin would be when they met up for senior discount brunch in his penitentiary’s cafe

“So what do I do? I don’t want to like him, he’s still an asshole with a hero complex and a womanizer track record”

“Trust the force?” Her grandfather joked earning him a glower from Kira “just follow your instincts Kira, that’s what my old master used to say”

“Your old master died a virgin”

“Actually Qui Gon lied to the Jedi Council about that but that’s a story for another day”

“So it wasn’t just you and vader who lied about that?…You know you Jedis had a ton of double standards” Kira needled in, much like the eldest Solo triplet, Kira had also done a stint in the Secret, Institution for Terror and Hostility (S.I.T.H) that opposed the Jedi order during her teens.

Obiwan had breathed easily when Kira’s fascination with the emperor (who was rumored to be related to the triplets mysterious mother) had dwindled from Sith tendencies down into a simple knack for collecting empire related memorabilia. As opposed to Kylo’s much more painful experience at the hands of Snoke the last head of the Sith organization.

“And that’s a lesson to learn from the old Jedi order that Luke took into account” Obiwan cut off good-naturedly “avoid double standards” he sent her a pointed look “anything else you’d like to share? I can see it’s eating you, trust me my dear if he likes you everything will be fine”

“His last flowers came with tickets to a Black Sabbath concert” Kira confessed ruefully “I didn’t exactly talk to him, but I might have sent him a text telling him to pick me up in three hours”

“I don’t know what millennials are calling that nowadays but in my time we called that a date”

“It’s not a date! I don’t do dates, dates are for pathetic people like Matt and Daisy”

“Does Ben Solo know that?” Obiwan chuckled

“Shut up Grandpa” Kira put her head in her arms and let out a scream “Force I’m so kriffin doomed”

And Obiwan did as a good grandfather would and didn’t voice his agreement out loud “it’s all right Kira, if he gets too out of hand you can just punch him again”

“What if I don’t want to punch him?” Kira raised her head from her arms

“Then you don’t punch him, simple as that”

“I don’t want to be a notch in his bedpost, I’d die if I’m just a game for his stupid nerf herder ass”

“Kira any man that even thinks that you’re the type of girl that gets used like that, deserves all the pain he’ll get when you disabuse him of the notion”

“Thanks Grandpa, that…Made me feel oddly better”

Obiwan sighed leave it to Kira to be comforted by thoughts of violent retribution “You have a Jedi blessing to break that boy’s bones if he doesn’t behave”

“And here I thought you couldn’t be a sweeter old man” Kira smiled “thank you, I really needed to hear that”

Oh Anakin would have a life support field day when Obiwan shared the latest Grandchild gossip, that’s for sure, but in the meantime Obiwan Kenobi poured more tea and listened to Kira’s dramatic death threats towards the man she liked.

He wished Satine could see him now, she would laugh too.

An: lils happy early birthday, Dark Rey was fun to write. Lilithsaur dear this fic was inspired by Franco and Sarita’s relationship in PDG. Also the girls love for quirky Grandpa Martin..

[itsaliveblog]

TROS

Spoilers obv.

This movie was such a boring pandering “fix” to probably the best star wars movie and instead of pushing the franchise forward we just had six podraces and THE SAME VILLAIN FOR ALL NINE GODDAMN MOVIES.

Nonconsensually messed with C3PO’s head twice, for no reason, cause the lil one had the answers all along?

Jar of Snokes

Were all the hooded zombies in the stadium Snokes??

HE LITERALLY MADE SNOKE. IN A JAR!

Where are the jedi kids

Did Rey retire? We don’t need jedi anymore? Or?

They really just killed hux like that, huh?

Why kiss.

What was Finn gonna tell Rey. Why did Poe wanna know? 

Extremely weak OT3 or?

lol milisecond lesbian kiss. I mean I’m here for it but.

SO MUCH EXPOSITION. WHY EXPLAIN ALL THIS

Why Lando say Zori’s line? He wasn’t there was he? What?

Why Lando talk to lady about where she came from? Why not like. “Let’s find out where you’re going” The past isn’t important? We’re your family now? Or does she like have memories of the family she’s stolen from?

Rose and Finn relationship was so. Distant? Strained? Like did they break up between movies.

Can’t believe there are a million deathstars now. They’re just. right there. pocket sized. On ships now. Old-ass ships.

Blowing up the capital ship was extremely graphic?? Like panning into the control room and seeing people in there and fire, and then the Moff(?) getting blown out was like. Very visceral and personal and seemed not star wars.

What was Rey’s character arc? Like we set up three movies of her being conflicted and distracted and seduced by the dark side. And the solution of that arc was. It’s okay the Jedi approve of you now? Or. You get to choose your own family? And now that she calls herself a Skywalker she’s complete? There never seemed to be a moment of like. Internal reckoning. It always seemed conflicting. Until she was like, “out of force” then it was like, jesus moment? that was extremely harry potter.

Loved (I didn’t) the montage of planets from the good star wars movies. (hey at least we had a porg moment)

Seriously the Hux death? Were there like, petitions to get rid of him? What was that? Is it cause fangirls liked him? Or that Hux/Ren was a thing?

I don’t know if I’m allowed to complain about how it takes two women sacrificing themselves to redeem a man, since he just like, turns around and re(?)-sacrifices himself?

What was the nonsense about the bond? If Ben didn’t show up, would the emperor not have been able to revive? Did he eat the bond? Was that their force? Why force inside body and not all around us? Isn’t it just like, an elemental force to harness, not something you’re born with?

Loved (didn’t) that the message of the last movie “hey don’t kill yourself you gotta stay alive and protect people not just blindly die” is just “die for other people as many times as possible” Arguably only Ben’s sacrifice was the culmination of a character arc, like I came home, I’m not beyond saving, I’m willing to be vulnerable and whatever. But also like. Time to die and not face the multiple genocides I exacted lol.

I can’t get behind Leia’s sacrifice. Like even if she knew that Rey would heal Ben and that would bring him back, she still died in the equivalent of yelling “hey look over there!” to let her son get stabbed? She gave up her lightsaber because she saw the death of her son, so she didn’t want to have those powers? Or was worried she might go Anakin and go dark to save him? Is her arc literally like “Now I’m okay killing my kid” Or? Like, what if we had the Han scene before the stabbing, with Leia, as a less exact echo, just a good callback. And like, maybe no one gets stabbed? That’d be wild.

For real, why kiss? He just had to physically get the girl? To make the sacrifice worth it? They kept talking about taking hands? why not just be like, kindred spirits??

I laughed that there were so many “female” storm troopers. Not a lot of speaking lines, mostly just screams and grunts, but definitely sounded like ladies.

Really hated that the build-up (that I saw) to a balanced Gray force was super a lie. Like this one Rey is all in white, and kylo in black, and they both come together and it woulda been perfect like, Rey’s arc is: dark isn’t evil. Just be aware of your emotions and don’t let them run away from you and blow up wookies. Don’t be as rigid as the jedi because failure becomes crippling. And then it’s just. Nope. All light side now, sith are gone forever balance is fake.

I can’t believe they straightwashed R2 and 3PO lol. BEST FRIENDS.

I liked:

Ren being shocked that Chewie had died. Very good subtle regret and being scared of himself again, but also Rey.

Han solo moment got me even tho it was kinda cheap repetition and seemed like HEY DO YOU GET THAT SCENE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO NOW? But it was sweet and he said Dad and it was I love you.

My army has two dads.

lightsaber pass cause it was like. the dorkiest magic trick and we have fun don’t we.

Luke admitting he made a mistake and that running away isn’t the solution.

Poe silently checking back in on the kiss, and being like aiight, when she still wasn’t down. I respect it, and it was funny. (But also why trust the audience to understand that and require exposition for much easier stuff???)