#like i GET where rey nobody could have been really cool and you could have done that!!!

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

I literally truly and honestly cannot fathom creating The Force Awakens, from the score to the cinematography to the costumes to the editing, and then being like “nah Rey isn’t Luke’s daughter” 

[bamgyw]

i’m so sorry for this rant in advance😭. for a little backstory i’m 20 and i’ve been with my boyfriend since i was 15. he is pretty much perfect. he is supportive of my passions, he is understanding, he is sweet, and we have sooo much in common. lately ive been feeling extra lost and down due to (most likely) going off of anti depressants that i have also been on for 5 years. i feel very confused about who i am and also have been disassociating which is something ive never experienced before. ugh im so sorry this is getting so deep😭. i really do love him but im just so confused on if i’m IN love with him anymore. i mean we try to be intimate but the past few years due to body changes and stuff it’s really hard for me to find pleasure in it. when i read fictional things i definitely enjoy that (thanks father rey🫡) but it’s so hard when it’s actually real life. in the past i’ve also become like infatuated or had “crushes” on other people during our relationship but obviously of course never acted EVER on these feelings. when i would look things up people would say these things are normal so i would try not to dwell on it. but right now there is nobody that i have feelings for (at least that’s real or someone i know) yet i still feel distant from my boyfriend. our lives are so intertwined in literally every aspect and we have so many memories together. i can’t possibly imagine my life without him and it scares me thinking of a future where he isn’t the one that i’m with. life would be so different than what it has been and he is my best friend as well. the thought of us not being together devastates me. even with all of these things i can’t help but imagine my life sometimes if i were to be with other people or just be single and move some where across the world and live all of these unrealistic dreams that i have. sometimes i feel like i’m settling. not because he isn’t good enough but because it’s the exact opposite. he is too good and deserves all the love in the world. i want to be in love with him so badly. i just don’t know if i am anymore. like are these fleeting feelings that will go away or is this just my mental illness speaking?? i don’t know anything anymore. all that i know if that I actually just don’t know anything at all anymore. everything hurts so much. being an infp on top of this makes it so much worse😩. i’m not even expecting you to know an answer to this of course but i haven’t even told anyone in my life the way i’ve been feeling. i’m scared that if i say it out loud things will change. i just hurt so much every single day and this has been going on for over a month now. somehow it feels like an eternity though. thank you for taking the time to even read or respond to this😭❤️

well first off, breathe and take this virtual kiss on your forehead. mwah. this is painfully complex, which makes it very human, too. and that is good. it means we're alive and functioning. i promise that all this hurt won't last forever. it never does. we got this !!

i'm sorry for taking so long to reply to you :(, i wanted my thoughts to be somewhat meditated so i could make sense and be as helpful as humanly possible.

also, please don't apologise. you all keep apologising when you think you're bothering me or annoying me or sending asks too long WHICH IS NEVER TRUE so yeah, there's none of that in reyville. we're all really cool no matter what.

and if only the act of sharing this has been useful in the slightest, even just for the relief value of venting, then it was more than worth it and i'm really glad you did !!

first thing is the going off meds. antidepressants are bitch. i don't know which ones you were taking specifically, but usually what they do is numb you out instead of taking away your pain, right? they don't make you feel less shitty, just limit your ability to feel at all. which is fucked up, because the day you stop taking them all the pain comes to you at once. and you don't know what to do with yourself and you feel miserable and you don't even know why.

so. i'm no one and i know nothing. still. i am your friend from the internet, which is a sacred bestie bond, so i'm gonna try to be as honest as i possibly can.

but ultimately you're the person who knows yourself the best (you're literally you), so the wisest and most valuable opinion is always your own, which is fucking scary because freedom is a prison. but you're cool and i trust you, so.

so (and again, i'm not a psychiatrist i'm a rando on the internet), i think you're right when you say that going off the meds might be a reason why you're in so much pain. you need to be patient and allow your brain some time to balance the chemicals and get used to working on its own.

but beyond that, you're feeling shitty and lost, which absolutely fucking sucks. your pain is here and widespread and tangible and so we need to cope with that now !!

when you talk about that inability to feel pleasure, again, mental illness is literally crippling. so you shouldn't press yourself about not being able to enjoy getting intimate with your boyfriend. just take your time and get comfortable with yourself first.

and don't get the concepts of love and attraction confused !! you struggling a little to get turned on does absolutely not mean that you love him any less. asexual people exist, and they date and get married !!

love comes in so many different ways, even within one person. so don't be scared because things aren't as they used to. even if you were feeling great emotionally, things like this happen all the time and it's alright !! your libido might not always be on the high, and so what? and with all that's going on inside your head, it's understandable that you can't enjoy getting intimate.

i feel like i can't advise you to tell your boyfriend about this because i don't really know him and i don't know how he would react. but you do know him !! so if you trust him and you think it's safe, in time and whenever you're comfortable, talk to him. your mental health is your right and duty, but this involves him as well, so maybe he deserves to know. (and he definitely will be able to help you. more than me, at least).

the precise point of it being not real is that there is no risk, nothing to lose. you're allowed to be at your most open and comfortable. that's why fic writing is often brought up in conversations about feminist sexual liberation, because in real life there are little to none safe spaces for girls. so they, we (assuming that you share this experience) wouldn't get a chance to explore our sexuality were it not for fiction. (i rambled i'm sorry).

still, i don't think your libido is entirely broken? you mentioned only getting turned on by fiction, but that's literally so common. if it weren't, the idol industry would totally crumble.

it's pretty simple, in fiction there's no danger to the relationship, no actual commitment and no threat of failure. it's not real, it has no effect in your life. so all those worries that clog up your brain in real life and that paralyse you—do i still love him, do i love him like he deserves, what would i do without him— those ugly but very necessary parts of a relationship are just gone.

that's the beauty of literature of any genre, it's a chance to try and fail without real consequences. an exploration.

but it can also be a great source of dissatisfaction, when real life feels dull and not enough. there's a beauty to that dullness too, though sometimes it is a little harder to see. that's where the deep bond with your boyfriend comes to play.

there's the line (this is stupid, sorry, it just reminded me of it) in the intro to the new ariana grande album. "how can i tell if i'm in the right relationship? aren't you really supposed to know that shit? feel it in your bones and own that shit?"

you mentioned he's your best friend, and i think that's so cherishable. personally, i value having someone to share life with so much, (i'm terrified of being alone, and now i'm supposed to insert some lame joke to make it goofy) but i also understand that great fear of not being satisfied in that kind of traditional, unbreakable concept of relationship.

i think fear of commitment is so much deeper than people usually make it out to be. he's perfect, but is he perfect for me? no one is ever gonna make me feel this safe and loved, but also, why does it feel like it's not enough? it fucking sucks.

but there's so many external things that can be triggering all those thoughts. things neither you nor your boyfriend can control.

there's the antidepressants. there's the fact that you've been with your boyfriend since you were fifteen?? that's so fucking young, you were babies !! you don't know how to live a life without your boyfriend because you practically never have. there's the combination of everything that just results in that anxiety storm which might also be causing you to wanna run away and live a completely different life !!

whatever you do, just remember that there's no such thing as a bad choice. you have a right to be curious and want to explore other ways of life, and you also have a right to look for stability with your boyfriend. they're both scary, and there's a lot of pondering to do. but i believe in you !!

your boyfriend is so important, and he deserves all the best. but the best is almost never pretending that everything's going fine so that he doesn't get upset. loving him like he deserves might mean talking to him earnestly about everything you're feeling, or even a sincere break up.

and please don't take this as me encouraging you to break up with him. only you know if that's the right choice. i just want you to walk without guilt into whatever path you think it's the right one.

as you think about all this, love yourself a lot. that'll make everything easier. (cliché but true) you need integrity and a lot of self-respect to make the best possible decisions, for you and for everyone you love.

please try to not get anxious. to keep your head a little cold and your heart calm. if not, your fears will turn into these irrational bloodthirsty monsters and every decision will feel like it's life or death. it's not, it's gonna be okay.

talk to yourself as you would talk to dear friend, be supportive of yourself. sometimes it even helps to put yourself in a third person pov and think about your problems as if they were happening to a character !! (again, the holy power of story).

and don't hesitate to send in as many asks as you need and talk to me about anything !!

i hope i didn't make too many stupid points during this long ass speech, and i hope i didn't tell you too many things you already knew. i really want you to feel better, and i trust that you will.

be strong !! a hundred thousand kisses.

[chiffaust]

SORRY IF TBIS AENDS TWICE LMAO ANYWAY I WAS THE ANON THAT SEND THE QUESTION ABOUT THE REQUEST UHH HERE IT IS (FEEL FREE TO WRITE IT WITH SOMEONE ELSE IF U WANNA AUAUAU)

so rei with a friend (they have a crush on rei but hasnt confessed yet) thats an idol too !!! cool, right??? readers group is finishing a concert, ending with a song where reader is the main vocals (which is pretty rare for em,, i was thinkin something like this) and the day after the concert reader goes missing, and the rest of their group is oddly quiet about it,, and then rei accidentally stumbles upon them like a month later?? reader ends up confessing they cut off contact with everyone except their group and hasnt left their house because they were getting stressed,, and end up confessing that they like rei,,,

FEEL BETTER S. REI

〝 ☆ 𓈒 SYPNOSIS  𝄒  sometimes you feel like giving up on your dreams and die

〝 𓈒  CONTENT WARNING 𝄒  descriptive implications of reader being depressed, self loathing, if theres anything else i missed please let me know!!

(n.) — note hihi its been a while since i posted anything huh.. this fanfic is fucking long and unproofread so ignore if i did grammatical mistakrs or someyhibg... i am sorry for making you wait for a whole month for something likr this cesarsbeloved merry christmas 🤗

Everything starts and ended in a flash—you are starting to wonder whether any of these are real in the first place.

You used to like being on stage like this; singing your hearts out with your unitmates, trying to capture as many peoples attention as possible.

But these past few days, you feel nothing but dread whenever you're on stage. Is it burnout or are you really not that into being an idol anymore? You didn't know either.

And shouldn't you do your best since that Rei Sakuma had actually agreed to hold this concert with you—the esteemed UNDEAD with a unit such as yours. What an unlikely joint of events.

Well, it's all coming to an end anyways. You've decided to give everybody something they haven't seen before in a while, but would they like it?

You're sure that your other unitmate could hold this off better than you—hell, their voice is better than yours anyways. Why did they even agree to let you do this?

There isn't any room for regret now, the show's coming to a close. With a heavy heart, you sang. Your skips a thousand beats a minute; there was nobody to cover up your mistakes, nobody to help you. Even if they could, it'll be too late and you'd already embarrass yourself in front of the huge crowds.

Well at least UNDEAD isn't currently on stage to see you fail first hand, you suppose.

This is just terrible, this is why you don't like being the main vocal.

Your song surprisingly went right, nothing terrible happens but there's still something that looms behind you—some sort of sense of shame?

The moment you walked off stage, you instantly ran towards the bathroom.

The tap water sinking into the drainer was nothing but another white noise to you. All of your thoughts and emotions are whirling inside of you—it all felt so overwhelming to the point where you're sure you can break the edge of the sink that seemed like you're holding onto dear life to.

You wouldn't say you're insecure about how you look, but you'd be lying if you said it's not hard trying to look at yourself in the mirror right now.

Sometimes you simply wish you could look like someone else; someone prettier and more talented than what you are right now it's going to drive you to the edge.

Oh, and how you wish you could punch the mirror right now.

This isn't right, you should remain your composure. You've worked so hard for this, have you not?

But do you truly deserve it?

You shook your head, trying to regain your composure once again. It's terrible that you just ran off like that—they're all probably worried about you.

Your lips formed a thin line as you looked at yourself in the mirror dead in the eye. You only scoffed before closing the tap, preventing anymore water waste. You felt like you should apologize to whoever was paying this place's water bill for wasting water.

But nonetheless, you remained your composure. Your thoughts are all repressed to the back of your head; at least for now.

You unlocked the bathroom door, and opened the door. You didn't expect to see anything the moment you open the door, but to your surprise none other than Rei Sakuma himself was standing afoot, his hands behind his back as he did nothing but smiled.

"Ah... Sakuma-san...?" You stuttered, suddenly gripping onto the doorknob for dear life. "D-did I made you wait for too long...? Aha, sorry if I did." You sheepishly apologized, closing the door behind you.

"Ah, no. I was simply waiting for you to come out."

"So.. Like... You wanted to go to the bathroom?"

"Fufu, as I had previously stated; no. I was concern over your wellbeing, thus followed you here." He chuckled.

It's really... Surprising, indeed. Why would the Rei Sakuma be so worried over your wellbeing? And what did he even expect you to do in there?

"Thank you, Sakuma-san." You thanked, unsure on what to do other than that.

"There's no need for formalities; we're friends, aren't we? You can just call me Rei-kun ♪"

"Rei... Kun, huh?" You muttered out the name. You couldn't help but smile at his words, even you could feel your cheeks heating up.

"[Name], shall we go back to the others now?" He asks, his smile never falters even slightly as he nudges his head to the direction the others are, you suppose.

If you weren't blushing before, you are absolutely blushing right now.

"... Sure." You replied. You still wanted to keep your composure, you didn't want to seem weird over such simple friendly gesture.

But that was so embarrassing...?? Why'd he call your name like that??

"Well, Sakuma—urm, Rei-kun. Was there another reason for you to do this?" You ask, walking alongside him as you passed by workers who were doing their job to finish cleaning up for the day.

"You're sharp, indeed." He smiled, turning his head to you, "I did notice something rather unusual about your performance just now—by no means I am trying to say it's terrible; I am simply rather curious. About you, specifically." He continues his monologue before his gaze falls upon you once again.

"You weren't acting like yourself, were you?" He asked, his tone sounded nonchalant over such question—too casual, is that the word?

His question is also ridiculous. You don't know what he means. No idols by all means truly act like themselves on stage, do they? It's just ridiculous.

"Fanservice, sultry clothes to keep the fans hooked—shouldn't you understand it, Rei-kun? You're an idol; an esteemed one, that is." You sighed, shaking your head. "I am sure even you don't want to reveal all part of yourself to the public, so isn't it... Quite a hypocritical question to ask?"

"It isn't about fanservice and whatnot, it's about how you acted so indifferently than the others; you looked sad, [Name]."

"... Please don't try to poke your nose into something you aren't apart of." Your tone was something of an angry whisper more than anything. You gritted your teeth, your hands curled into balls as you look away from him.

"Of course I wil not, that is something I am not qualified to do, but do well remember that we all love and care for you." Suddenly, his hands were on top of your shoulders.

His grip on your shoulders were firm—so warm for a self proclaimed vampire. His smile was so gentle too.

"I will not force you to tell me about your problems, but if you ever need someone to talk to please remember that I'm always available." With that, his hands left your shoulders, and thus he turned his back on you, leaving you there.

He stopped on his tracks and glanced back at you, he suavely smiled at you with a wave before he walks once again. "Don't be too late, alright? Your unitmates must be worried sick about you."

Perhaps you should've listened to his advices, but are you going to? No.

It's been... Months? Since you last saw Rei, you hadn't even went outside for a while. You feel so dirty for not doing so, the only source of light in your room was from the computer screen.

Your whole place is a mess, but you felt no motivation to clean up; no motivation to do anything anymore, not even to eat.

Your phone was left with thousands of unread messages from your immediate family, all voicing their concern about your sudden disappearance, but you knew they all had ulterior motive and didn't bother—you just can't bother anymore.

Your friends had been understanding of your situation, but you had allowed none to go inside your apartment—either way, it's pretty disgusting.

You soon lean back onto your chair, feeling nothing but eternal dread. How did you end up like this...? You used to be so bright and cheerful. How did you turn into a loser who hasn't seen the sun in weeks?

You want to change, you want... To go outside for a change. You haven't hanged out with your friends in a while, you want to hang out with them again, you wanna laugh with them again.

But do you even have the motivation to even put a deodorant on? You must smell pretty disgusting for not showering in a while. Ah, you'll just force yourself to.

You didn't really think too much about what to wear. You simply put on whatever clothes that was the closest to you. A hoodie and a tracksuit, it's fine. It's starting to get chilly outside anyways.

You grabbed your phone and other essentials before going to unlock the door. You stare back at your apartment, sighing through your nose at the ugly sight. Alas, you left.

The leaves are starting to fall down, the atmosphere is starting to get colder—the winter days are near. Ah, just what happened to fall?

You felt terrible; you've made so many plans with your friends this fall but only to end up standing them up like this. But surely they understand, right?

And how is Rei doing today? Does he miss you?

... Why would you even want to know. Him missing you or not is the least of your concern. You should be trying to fix your life that's in shambles right now, not think of that bastard.

Your attention focused on the cobblestone path, silently passing by different people with different lives—ah, how you envy them. They are all probably living a normal, comfortable life with their loved ones.

A normal life without needing to overthink about the simplest mistakes you make and even if they did, they'd come back home with someone to comfort them. How envious you are of them, really.

You shook your head, trying to shake those loathing thoughts away. Ah, must you really think of that right now? Just focus on... Trying to interact with another human being or something.

You continued afoot; to where? Not that you have a peculiar place in mind to go, but the park is always the prettiest in times like these. Maybe you should go there.

And thus you followed with your idea. The moment you were in the park, you covered your your lower face with your scarf. There was so many people here, it'd be a terrible thing if someone were to find out you're here.

You doubt everybody thinks you're dead, but still. Being caught in a park like this would be embarrassing.

From where you were standing, you could already see the lake frozen up as the atmosphere grows colder around you—the snows are piling up at the side of the pathways, much enough for children to already start playing with it.

The laugher goes through your ear and left the other as you further walked near the railing of the lake.

Christmas is near... You wish you could spend it with your friends and family this year, but you don't think you can after going on a sudden unplanned hiatus like this.

A rather melancholic feelings arisen within you. Ah, this is just terrible. You grip on the railing tighter, trying not to let a single tear fall.

From the corner of your eyes, a man came a close, leaning on the railing also besides you. The distance between you two is big, but it still felt awkward nonetheless.

"Christmas... It's the most wonderful time of the year, don't you think so?" The man asks. You would've just nodded or replied with a short yes like any other person would, but his voice. He isn't just some random guy—his voice was rather familiar.

You look over to your side to see the Rei Sakuma standing right beside you.

Wait, how did he know you're here? Or does he genuinely think you're a random person? Wait, what are you even supposed to do now?

Should you show your identity to him? Should you just pretend to not know him? What should you do?

"I-I guess." You coughed, pulling on your scarf farther onto your face as you glance away from the man.

He would be lying if he said he didn't knew it was you, but you don't seem to be too ready to disclose everything from the looks of it, so he'll just pretend; he'll simply pretend that you both are nothing but strangers by lucky circumstances.

"The snow... Does it remind you of anything, may I ask?" His question was a weird one. Well, it's Rei Sakuma... He is known to be an eccentric, so you suppose his questions are oughtta be eccentric too.

"... Well, I suppose it takes me back to when I was a dumb kid, playing the snow with my friends." You responded, smiling fondly at the memory. "My friend accidentally hit me with a snow so hard I accidentally fell and slipped down and hurt my head. Funny story."

"Fufu, that is a wonderful story. It brings back many nostalgic memories of me and my little brother in the past."

"I suppose." You replied once again.

Soon silence followed. The lack of conversation made the situation awkward, for you at least. There was white noise of children laughing and people talking, but it doesn't matter.

"I have a question for you, if you don't mind answering it." He suddenly spoke, his gaze didn't stray away from the distant buildings and his smile stays the same.

"Ah...? Go on?"

"Whenever you think of Christmas, does anyone come to mind? Christmas is a wonderful time of the year; even you have someone who you cherish deeply, no?"

You stayed silent. To him, his silence says it all.

"Ah, my apologies. A rather rude question to ask someone whom you've just met, huh?" He tried to damage control everything. "I apologize again, stranger. You must have somewhere else to go."

He pushed himself away from the railing, and soon turned his back on you. It reminds you all like that moment you shared with him on your last show.

"Until we meet again, kind stranger." He turned his head back to you for one last time.

Before he could leave, you instantly grab ahold of his biceps. His smile never falters yet you can see the confused look on his face.

"Sakuma Rei-kun. Please don't leave yet." You brought your scarf down, flashing him your face for a few moment.

"Ah, [Name]-chan. It's been a long time, hasn't it?" He asks, flashing you a closed eye smile as if he did not just try to pretend that you both are nothing but strangers.

"How did you know I was here?" Was your first question to him before you let go of his arm.

"I did not. It was simply a coincidence." His response deadpanned you mentally. "Perhaps even God has decided we'd be more a fit to be together and brought us in the same path once again...?" He chuckled at his own unfunny joke.

Your heart skipped a beat at his statement. Well, that was simply just a joke. He likes to tease around, yeah. It's a joke, don't get your hopes too high...

"I'm sorry for disappearing. I... Should've told you sooner that I'd be on hiatus, huh? Well, sorry. I'm a bad friend; if you even think of me as one..."

"No, don't fret over it, [Name]. I was concern about your sudden disappearance, but I'm sure you have your own reasons—whatever it is, I truly do hope that it's settled."

"I have been so lonely without you, you know? Without my best friend beside me, just who will I tease otherwise?"

"You are not funny, Rei-kun." You replied.

"Fufu, alright, alright. I'm sorry." He apologized, yet the chuckle he lets out says otherwise.

"But it has truly been a while, [Name]. I'd like to know more about everything that happened during your disappearance. Shall we grab a cup of hot tea?"

"Nothing happened. I was just fighting my own demons during my hiatus, I guess."

"Oh? Are you saying you summoned a demon during your break?" He asks, looking genuinely confused at your statement.

"It's... A slang." You muttered out.

"Ah, I see. What a weird slang, fufu. Perhaps I'll ask the children about it later." He chuckles, leaving you dumbfounded yourself.

You couldn't help but chuckle at his own words. Seriously, this guy such an eccentric.

An "I love you..." suddenly rolled down your tongue before you could even realize it.

Silence soon followed once again. You weren't sure whether you said that loudly or not, but the look on his face says the former.

"You... Love me?" He asks, bringing his hand to his chin as his cheeks were tainted with pink hues.

"Uhm, no... I didn't say—uhm, you're dreaming. Nothing about this is real." You stammered out, trying to hide the fact that you're far more than embarrassed that you accidentally confessed to him.

"Fufu, there's no need to be embarrassed about it, in fact; I do love you too."

Those words that rolled down his tongue, it was... Too surreal, you suppose? No way the Rei Sakuma from the unit UNDEAD would like—no, love you back, right?

What a strange turn of events.

[bucky-seifert]

The Rise of Skywalker came out 3 years ago today and it is a movie that still sometimes occupied my headspace. So, I felt the need to make a list compiling my thoughts about it.

My feelings are all over the place, but it's fitting because the movie is all over the place. I do ultimately like it despite it's problems, which I will mention below.

Things I like

The opening sequence is great. The way Kylo Ren approaches the Sith Citadel and Palpatine is seriously badass.

Exogol is an awesome planet in my opinion. I admit I'm a sucker for strong primary colors, though.

There is some really fun action sequences

The dynamic of the 3 leads is fun and they have good chemistry, especially between Poe and Finn.

Despite the lack of planning, the trilogy manages to have a thesis of “Where you come from does not define who you are”. Finn was a storm trooper for a fascist military junta, Poe was a spice runner for a crime lord, and Rey is descended from one of the most dreaded figures in galactic history. Despite this, they were all able to move past that, and become good people.

Rey Skywalker. It symbolizes how she truly found what she was looking for this whole time, a family, and she now has a found family.

Everything Kylo Ren

Lando. Just everything Lando. More Lando is only ever a good thing.

The moment of Poe expressing how he didn’t feel ready next to Leia’s body.

On an emotional level I found it satisfying.

The Han Solo cameo was a great and moving scene.

I think Sith Troopers just look cool

How in the final battle the skills of all 3 leads came into play.

Hey finally some Y-Wings and B-Wings.

Things I'm indifferent, come down the middle or am just iffy about

Reylo. It’s not that it didn’t feel built up, it’s just something I always found myself indifferent toward.

Rey Palpatine. While it serves the above mentioned thesis, I still have mixed feelings on her being a Palpatine. It does explain where her power comes from, but also it would have been interesting to just have her be a nobody.

Battle of Exogol. An awesome battle in concept, it just should have been longer in the movie with more shots of space combat so it really felt like a huge battle. What was there made it feel underwhelming.

Leia scenes felt awkward but that isn’t something you can really blame on the film makers, and they probably did the best you could ask for.

“Somehow Palpatine has returned”. It’s a terrible line but I kind of love it because it’s so terrible. Same applies to "They fly now"

Things I did not like

Xyston Class Star Destroyers. Especially after how awesome the Resugence class SD is, the Xyston feels lazy by comparison

All the stuff appealing to those that raged at The Last Jedi, which is what most of Beaumont’s dialog is

The insane pacing in the first half that didn’t give the big story beats enough time to land.

How it supposedly all takes place in the span of 16 hours. That is something my brain just can't accept unless it's not our standard measurement of an hour.

Lack of Rose.

Why couldn’t the Death Star II wreckage have just been on Endor?

Fake out deaths

That stupid freaking dagger.  Seriously that whole dagger was contrived as heck even by Star Wars standards and Star Wars is already very contrived.

The fact that the Disney execs were too cowardly to give us Finn/Poe

Ultimately tried to cram too much story into a single 2 and a half hour long  movie.

Why did they replace Kylo’s TIE Silencer with a TIE Whisper? The Silencer was so dang cool I don’t get it.

[phoenixkaptain]

The most confusing part of the sequel trilogy to me has always been the whole debacle of Rey’s parentage. For one because I think it would have been cool if she was Luke’s daughter and even now I’m like “couldn’t he have adopted her? Come on, let Luke be a dad…”

But also because it makes no sense??? They gave it this whole idea of it being weird that Rey wouldn’t be related to notable people, like that she had to be related to someone famous to be a powerful Jedi and that’s just not how the Force works!

Anakin Skywalker is literally the exception and not an exception to this rule because while yes, he is the Force’s kid, he is also Shmi Skywalker’s kid and does anyone know who the fuck Shmi Skywalker is??? Is Shmi Skywalker famous??? Is Shmi Skywalker a powerful Jedi???

You don’t need to be a powerful Jedi to give birth to a powerful Jedi, look at literally every single Jedi that was presented to us in the prequels, we literally don’t know ANY of their parents!!! Mace Windu isn’t related to a powerful Jedi that we know of! Yoda isn’t related to a Sith lord! Why does it matter that Rey’s parents were “nobody” like yeah bitch that’s every single Jedi ever.

Just because Anakin fucked around and had kids that doesn’t make him normal! And I feel like a strong case could be made that Anakin’s kids are strong because they’re the Force’s grandkids, not particularly because they were a Jedi’s kids, you know?

I just don’t understand! Why was it a big deal? Why did they have to make her related to Palpatine? Why did they have to make her related to anyone? Either make it the literal only option that makes sense (Luke) or cut it entirely! Yoda was powerful as fuck, he didn’t have to prove his parentage! Obi-Wan Kenobi was the best, and he didn’t have to prove to anyone anything! How come Rey has to be related to someone for her powers to make sense? Why can’t she just be weirdly powerful because goddamn the Force sometimes makes random people weirdly powerful? Why’s there got to be a reason?? Is Jedi power passed on by fucking nepotism in the sequel trilogy???

There are countless Jedi I could name that were powerful despite being related to fucking nobodies, why does it matter if Rey is the same way? And don’t say “well she’s the protagonist-“ because Obi-Wan is the protagonist of the prequels and we never have to have a big reveal about his grandma being a sith lord, so what gives??

But also there’s that line where someone asks Rey for her name or whatever and they don’t just accept “Rey” as an answer. People in Star Wars sometimes don’t have last names, what the fuck are they supposed to say?? Why the fuck do they need last names, they are weird fucking aliens they don’t need family names, what fucking sense does it make to force every character to have a last name?? Is Yaddle a fucking noob because she’s second-name-less? Would Chewbacca have been questioned? Why does Rey have to have a last name when she could just fucking not and live a perfectly happy life??

What the actual fuck is up with parentage in sequel Star Wars lore??? Leia was adopted by Bail Organa and Bail and Breha Organa both raised her therefore they are her parents. Owen and Beru both raised Luke, but we can assume they felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of Luke calling them his parents. That doesn’t mean they raised him any less, obviously, Beru just didn’t have to be called “mom” to know she was raising a kid. Does parentage really actually matter though? Luke wanted to get off of Tatooine when he still thought he dad was freightor pilot. Leia was still part of the Galactic Senate before she knew her birth mother was a senator. Obi-Wan was a depressed man and, if anything, knowing who he was related to would have made him more depressed because he would’ve known who he disappointed.

Parentage and bloodlines and whatever don’t fucking matter in Star Wars. They’ve never mattered in Star Wars. We don’t know jackshit about where Han comes from genetically, but does that make him lesser? No! So why does Rey have to prove a blood relation to a powerful man to prove to the writers that she’s worth a damn?

[takerfoxx]

Okay, Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, Thrice Upon a Time! The final Rebuild film, the definitive grand finale of one of the most popular, influential, controversial, and utterly batshit anime series there is. The Eva swan song of Hideki Anno himself, who was both made and broken by this franchise several times over! It is finally done. We got our closure.

So what did I think?

...

I kinda loved it.

Yup, it's good! Kind of great in some ways. Perfect? Hell no. Problems? Things that bugged me? Things I would have done differently? Most certainly yes.

But that's kind of the authentic Evangelion experience, isn't it? A messy story with a troubled production that is equal engaging, inspired, flawed, brilliant, horrifying, heartbreaking, problematic, thought-provoking, exhilarating, and just about every other adjective you can think of, good or bad. It will draw you in. It will break you. And it will ultimately end on a bizarre note that leaves you unsatisfied in a manner that you just can't get out of your head.

But before all that, let's start off with me gushing. Mari in Paris slaying rogue Evas with the Effiel-freaking tower? Bad. Ass. I know Anno's built up this reputation for offering something unapologetically cool only to yank it away, but let's face it: the man does love his robots, and he does deliver when he feels like it.

And after that, we get what is probably my favorite extended sequence in any incarnation of Evangelion, ever. And that's the whole part taking place at the survivors' village.

I. Fucking. LOVED that whole bit. Following Rei Q as she slowly became part of that community, how they welcomed her and helped her learn how to be a person, to form connections and make decisions for herself. Her childlike curiosity and joy in learning how to do simple tasks was soul food that hit like only the best comfort sequence of a hurt/comfort story could. And seeing grown-up versions of Kensuke, Touji, and Hikari, now with jobs and families and all that? Yes, please.

Granted, there were parts that...weren't so heartwarming. I'm used to seeing Shinji going into comatose states, especially after Kaworu's inevitable death, but the bit where Asuka force-feeds him was...really uncomfortable! Kensuke. Dude. I know you mean well, but maybe sticking those two in the same house when he's in that state wasn't the brightest idea.

Still, I should have learned. Every time Rei starts to reach out and connect with others, she dies, and this was no different. Yeah, that hurt. I should have seen it coming. I've seen it play out before, should've anticipated it happening here. Damn.

And...fuck. Seeing all those decapitated Rei heads made me hate Gendo even more than I already did. Good job getting the crowd to cheer for the good guys, I suppose.

Though, hey. Does the big decapitated Rei head and those other flashbacks mean that End of Evangelion did actually happen more or less, just without Shinji's involvement? Did almost everyone get turned into tang, Asuka eaten by the mass-produced Evas, and then washed up on the shore to fortunately not get strangled?

Okay, skipping ahead to the finale. It was big, it was tense, it had me going, "C'mon! I just lost Rei! Don't take Asuka away too!" But she went down. Again. Yeah, that's when I made my always watching the red and blue girls die post.

I admit, I got really tense when the crew held Shinji and Misato and gunpoint. Not that I expected them to shoot Shinji, but I was worried that something might kill them. Like, we've only known them for a little bit, but I do like them, and c'mon, nobody wants to see Touji's little sister die. Fortunately that doesn't happen, but it did have me concerned.

Though Gendo's brain blow? Yeesh.

Finally, we get Shinji vs. Gendo! You know, there are two ways they could have played this. First, give us what we've been wanting for years with an actual robot fight, or they could instead go with the more Evangelion route with something more cerebral.

Fortunately, they are smart and gave us both. The robot fight was cool (erm, mostly, but I'll get to that later), but the real meat is when they stop fighting and start talking, giving us that long overdue heart-to-heart we've been waiting more than two decades for.

I'll admit, I hate Gendo. Not in that he's a bad character, but he is so thoroughly infuriating that I just wanted to see him lose. But when we finally let him explain himself and got to see what he was like growing up, I'll admit, I did start to feel for him. Like him, I also have trouble making connections and shun the company of other people. I could empathize. I mean, not in the part about falling in love, but the rest of it? I got it.

And yeah, when he finally admitted that he was wrong and hugged Shinji, that got to me a little. Like, the man is still a monster, but given this show's history, that moment meant a lot. Granted, it wasn't a redemption, as he had done way too much to really be redeemed. But it was a reformation of sorts. Personally, I don't think he deserved to be reunited with Yui, but I'll let that bit go.

Rei! Yeah, I was glad to see Rei Prime. Long hair looks good on her! Damn, was she just chilling with Yui all those years?

After that is just so much emotional catharsis. We get to say goodbye to all these characters, say goodbye to Evangelion in general (seriously, that scene with all of the liberated souls really hit me), and Shinji finally gets the happy ending he always wanted. He resets the world for good, erasing both Angels and Evas, letting everyone get a chance at life. We glimpse Asuka, Kaworu, and Rei alive and well in the train station, with a now grown-up Shinji and Mari playfully flirting, as happy as can be. It's done. They won. We won. We can finally say goodbye.

Okay, criticism time!

Firstly, let's briefly touch base with stuff I've brought up about the last few movies. First, even with the advancements in technology since the first movie, the CG was all over the place. Sometimes it looked fine, other times it was like a PS1 cutscene. The ice breaking was particularly bad, as was all those mannequin Rei's. The Shinji vs. Gendo fight was well-directed, but man, the animation quality just did not measure up, especially when it would cut to the traditionally animated characters. The freaky Rei face could go either way, since it was meant to be disturbing, but even still.

The soundtrack issue wasn't as bad as before, and most of the time it did work quite well, but it could still get distracting at times.

And finally, okay, let's talk about this one last time. Firstly, it does seem I got Anno mixed up a little with Miyazaki when it comes to not liking Otaku and their boob fascination. Anno's issue was how abusive people were to him for the original finale of Evangelion and for finding Rei cute rather than creepy (that last one was kind of his fault, though), and the guy is perfectly okay with boobs. Okay, fair enough. But did'ja have to have so many creepshots? Nudity itself is fine, as it showed how detached both Rei and Asuka were from humanity, but some of those camera angles, man. Like, dude.

Well, whatever. It's a problem with all anime. Moving on.

Okay, let's talk about Mari!

Now, I got introduced to her mainly through fanfics and doujins, and she's pretty much accepted as part of the gang now, so I had a pretty good grasp on her personality at least. And let's face it: it's cool to finally have someone with no baggage who just thinks that piloting an Eva is awesome!

Still, I was surprised by how little of her there was. Like, I expected her to be a bigger deal. I get that they didn't want to get complaints of her being the Poochie by overshadowing the classic characters, but if she was Shinji's endgame (which, I'll admit, is still probably the best option for him, or at least the one with the least amount of baggage), then couldn't they have interacted more before then? Like, built up an actual relationship? She had more romantic tension with Asuka, to be frank. And if you hadn't looked her up and learned of her backstory like I did, you would've been confused as fuck when she popped up in Gendo's flashback or what the hell was going on during her talk with Fuyutsuki.

I'm not saying she should just push Asuka off to the side or anything. Just...give us enough to justify her being there, that's all.

As for Asuka...eh, her new backstory doesn't really work for me. Like, we already have a clone with a cloning complex. Having another doesn't make much sense, to be honest. Like, it explained her motivations okay, but I just feel her original backstory was more potent.

And finally, let's talk about the ending! Is it a lovely ending that felt earned? Kind of! Was it kind of unsatisfying? A little. Is it the ending I would have gone with? Nope!

Look, you know me. I like for things to have consequences, and to be frank, a full reset to create a world where everyone is alive and happy feels a little too neat.

So what would I have done? Well, I would still have done the (almost) everyone lives thing. Like, Asuka gets reformed and ejected like we saw. Give us a scene where Rei is absorbing the souls or essences or whatever from all the other Rei's and have her be reborn into a new body THAT DOESN'T TURN INTO TANG! Have Shinji make his wish or whatever to erase Angels and Evas, but NOT reset the world.

Like, sure, have Mari come in and save him and Rei, and they all get out. Have Asuka's escape pod wash up on a beach and let her out, and she finds Shinji, Rei, and Mari lying not far off, maybe have her give Shinji a small smack as comedic payback for the strangling thing, then they all link arms and walk off toward the village. Then over the credits, we can see what almost looked like was going to happen. The AAA Wunder's crew returns to the village, Sakura and Touji get a big hug, Ritsuko tells Misato's son about his mother's sacrifice and comforts him. The rest of the pilots arrive and are greeted by everyone, with Mari hamming it up, Asuka looking annoyed, Shinji embarrassed, while Rei is looking around in confusion like she recognizes the place. Maybe have Hikari and her kid give her a big hug or something.

Then we get a montage of the LCL slowly dissolving all over the world, cities being purified, the oceans being cleaned, and those Ark pods from the AAA Wunder starting new life. We see the kids...well, maybe not get older (Eva curse and all that), but maturing and participating in rebuilding the world. Forests are planted, animals repopulate, things are healing. Then as an after-credit scene we can have Shinji and Mari flirting in the train station to show that everything turned out all right.

But that's what I would do, not what Anno would do. And Evangelion has very much been Anno's story in every possible way, and to him, it was important to create a world completely without Evangelions. So how could I be mad?

So, this wraps up Neon Genesis Evangelion! And on the whole, I'm pretty damned satisfied. It was a messy journey, and I'm glad of it. And you know what? I'd say these movies actually bumped Evangelion up several places in my favorite anime list. Like, top five, possibly.

Hideki Anno? You crazy bastard, you did it. You actually ended Evangelion. It took you three tries, but you finally pulled it off.

So, what else is there to say, except...

[agirlwithachakram]

hope you don’t mind me throwing this into the reblogs as I have a GREAT DEAL to say about this movie and trilogy

@obstinatecondolement

It's such a relief that people can finally express dissatisfaction with TLJ without immediately being branded as reactionaries who are elevating the evil, fanservice-blinded J. J. Abrams  over the virtuous innovator   Rian Johnson who supposedly breathed new life into the franchise. Like... sorry, I genuinely thought it was a bad movie that seemed to exist purely to spite TFA, a movie I enjoyed and wanted to see a sequel of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯

Yeah the discourse was a huuuge mess. There are aspects of TLJ that I genuinely like, such as the casino planet sequence giving us a window into the broader world besides these two factions having what could otherwise look like a ridiculous slapfight. Sure, we see planets destroyed, but we don’t tend to see the personal fallout of the tyranny, like Rose’s home, like the urchins. And I like that anyone can matter, anyone can have the force. Rey can be a nobody! She doesn’t have to be an heir to great power to have great power. The little boy who uses the force to summon his broom! great little moment. Also the crystal planet looks COOL as FUCK.

But like you said, it is not so much in conversation with Ep VII as giving it the finger, from the moment Luke tosses the lightsaber away (hey asshole, Mara might want that back if Rey doesn’t), when that is CLEARLY not what was intended when they wrote the last scene in TFA. And you’re always taking risks when you show that the previous generation of characters suck. Han being kind of a crappy dad and ditching Leia to keep pulling cons and smuggling makes sense, especially after their kid went evil. Luke giving up hope forever...yeah, you’re gonna need to show me more than just the one incident to make me buy that. It’s like Toph becoming a cop. No the fuck she did not and I’ll need about twenty seasons to buy that she did.

Like TROS also seems like it sucked (although I have not bothered watching it, because I was so disappointed by TLJ), but holy fucking moly, there was a hot second there where you were automatically an evil blackpilled edgelord if you didn't like TLJ and thought it was reasonable to expect a sequel to not openly despise the movie it directly followed on from!

Yeah. Hideous times. I may have been caught up. :/ I never loved it, but I did want it to make sense because I wanted my Star Wars to be good. (Which, at least now we have Andor. Which is phenomenal.) Luke Skywalker was the first love of my life! Star Wars was my first fandom, my first real obsession. I was eight. I never really dislodged its claws from my heart. So TLJ was very confusing for me. I also loved TFA.

TROS is pretty terrible, but it...also seems to exist to spite TLJ, so if you can tolerate the Reylo of it all, we at least get to see our trio doing quests together at long krething last. and Poe isn’t weirdly and artificially treated like a dumbass. (he is however given a past female love interest, which is weird, but IIRC, Oscar Isaac is a true ally and turned off his usually perpetually on fountain of chemistry with her. I do think JJ hates me personally because the role she plays in the story could sooooo easily have been Mara. but what can you do. Poe is also given a DRUG RUNNER BACKSTORY like I guess to mirror Han or whatever but UH HEY GUYS MAYBE DON’T?)

Also, yeah, the Laura Dern thing was such telling-not-showing bullshit. If Poe was wrong you can't just give us no reason to believe that he might be wrong and then dernus-ex-machina a justification out of thin air and expect us to go along with it?

Everything about that is really weird. “Just trust authority, especially when they’re acting shady!” should sure as hell not be part of the rebel/resistance ethos. And I thought there was a reason she was being tight lipped, I vaguely remembered her thinking there was a mole, but I just rewatched and...nope! She is just keeping her mouth shut for no apparent reason. No one knows you, ma’am. Everyone knows him! He’s their cool boss! You are, in fact, NOT strategizing well if you make the guy they know and like your enemy.

And like...when Rose and Finn’s mission gets a bunch of people killed, that just felt like a WILD ex post facto outcome that literally no one could have predicted. But it still could’ve been avoided if. Holdo. had just. told the commander. Any. Damn. Thing. At all.

dernus-ex-machina

lolol

There is something Rian Johnson likes to do that I think is good, which is that everyone has to look stupid at one point or another. I’m not against that. In theory. But the execution of it in this movie doesn’t work once. Not Rey’s little grass force moment, not Finn getting tazed, not Poe’s entire arc. If Rian had made a standalone flick, I bet he would’ve made a pretty good one. Instead he came to twist the characters to fit his own ideas, and in this case, it just didn’t work.

In conclusion: All That Shit is too big a price to pay to hear two beautiful actors say my name a few times. but I might hit the back five seconds button anyway while I’m here.

rewatching TLJ. Poe's story is exactly as stupid and infuriating as I remember. people keep stating his bad qualities because he doesn't actually live up to them and rian wants the story to work i guess.

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[mha-platonic-yanderes]

Settling In: Family Dinner

Inspired by @i-cant-sing

If there was any word to describe the past week, you would choose quiet.  A schedule was set for your time spent here and rarely it would deviate. Rei would wake you up to watch the sunrise with you and  you’d get ready for the day with her. The outfit she chooses always sits on the bed waiting for you while she does your hair. Mornings are spent in either the sun room or the library, with Rei always watching. Though, she leaves to cook. She always left you to cook. If nobody else was home, that means you’d be left alone. Fuyumi would come by for dinner some nights and take your afternoons. Enji wasn’t home during the day, but joined you all for dinner every night before you could retire to your new room. Even if the schedule is slightly smothering, it’s easy to keep up with.

There were no chores or responsibilities for you to do, unlike your old homes. It was relaxing—too relaxing. There was no stress, so you created some. Tonight, instead of Rei, Enji, and maybe Fuyumi, the other two Todoroki children were coming over. You don't know what to expect, so you stress over it.

Fuyumi warned you that they weren’t as accepting as she was, that they weren’t as involved with the family as she was. You don’t want to make a terrible first impression. You don’t want your new siblings to hate you.

Fuyumi comes home earlier than her siblings, coming immediately home from work. Meetings, she says, that’s why she couldn’t have come sooner. You remember that she’s a school teacher. It’s easy to imagine what those meetings are about. Though, she doesn’t give you time to daydream about her, as she’s asking you questions.

“So Y/N, you’ve been here a week? Have you been enjoying your time here?” Fuyumi does your hair, extremely careful not to hurt you. She’s taken this responsibility from Rei for today. Rei’s been busy at the store and in the kitchen all day, leaving you with Fuyumi. You don’t mind that; she’s nice.

“It’s quiet.” You don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, but it’s the truth.

Fuyumi takes it well, “That’s good. Mom picked out some good books for you, did she?”

The library in the Todoroki estate may be massive, but most of those books Rei says are too mature for you. She’s regulated you to books below your reading level. They’re for children younger than you. But she doesn’t like to watch television and the laptop they’ve provided has only been gathering dust.

“If I’m honest, they’re a little boring.”

Fuyumi chuckles, “She’s a little out of touch from reality at times. I’ll grab you some books you’ll probably like better. I used to do a lot of reading when I was your age.”

“What’d you read?”

“Romance, mostly.” Fuyumi admits, “occasionally fantasy. I wasn’t trying to read anything too dark and neither should you.”

Too dark. Too mature. You wonder where that threshold is for them. You suspect it’s a lot higher than most people’s standards. You don’t dwell on this thought too much longer. Finding faults in your caretaker’s lifestyle isn’t the best way to stay in their good graces. 

“How was school this past year?” She rests both hands on your shoulders. She’s done with your hair, but she isn't letting you go. You could probably move her to get out, but there’s no need. Fuyumi is nice and interested in what you have to say. Why would you leave her?

“Alright.” You reply. Even if it isn’t the truth, you wouldn’t speak it, “Don’t know where I’m heading now, though. We’re too far from my old school.”

“Father mentioned Somei and Mom talked about homeschooling.” Fuyumi replies, “We’ll have to see which one concedes first.”

You can’t imagine Rei fighting Enji on anything, especially something as trivial as where to take you to school. Though, you’d prefer if she concedes. Homeschooling seems like a nightmare.

“Oh, alright.” You respond. There’s nothing else to say on the matter and you hope Fuyumi lets up soon because you don’t know what to talk about anymore. Almost like a savior, a knock is placed on your door. It isn’t as strong as Enji’s—Fuyumi and Rei don’t knock at all—so, you assume it’s one of the brothers.

Fuyumi calls out to the person on the other side for you, “Hold on!” She finally lets up to open the door. You fiddle with the edge of your dress. The tulle is a bit itchy, but the smooth, holographic hearts covering the entire dress provide a nice change of texture. 

You look up to see a tall, white haired guy. He’s broad, built like Enji as opposed to Rei. Though, the rest of his features seem to come from her. He stands in the doorway looking at you, then back at Fuyumi—who’s back to holding you on your shoulders again, causing you to continue to sit still in the vanity’s stool.

He takes another look at you and your fingers fiddle with the dress more. He’s unnerving and hasn’t said a thing he walked in. You start to speak, but he looks up at Fuyumi and asks, “What kind of quirk bullshit has justified this?”

That’s not what you expected. 

You think to object, no quirk stuff has happened here—at least, that you know of. Though, Fuyumi immediately comes to your defense, “Natsuo! You can’t just ask something like that! Have some respect.” 

“Do you really expect there isn’t an ulterior motive behind this.” Natsuo replies, “You know how he is with quirks.”

“He’s gotten better!”

“Prove it.”

“Uhhh, Natsuo, sir.” You break up the siblings' argument, “No quirk stuff has happened, really.”

He grabs a hold of your arm, looking at it thoroughly before heading to the next one. You don’t know what he’s looking for. Bruises? Burns? Scars? You have none of them from your time here. 

You wouldn’t have anything quirk related anyways—you’re quirkless.

“Is this the lie he’s told you to say?” Natsuo asks, “You aren’t going to be able to lie. I see through his bullshit.”

“Natsuo!”

You want this conversation to end. Natsuo’s and Fuyumi’s hands are both icy cold and you don’t like the attention. Plus their argument is painful to listen too, especially considering it’s about you.

“Natsuo, sir…” You say, “there’s no quirk… anything. Really! I don’t have a... quirk.”

He lets go of your arm and it drops to your side. He stands up again. Fuyumi lets your shoulders go, moving to your side.

“Hey, chin up kiddo!” Fuyumi replies, smiling her everbright smile, “there’s nothing wrong with that!”

You didn’t even realize you were staring at the ground, but your feet soon come into view through watery eyes. Fuyumi’s fingers wipe away the tear that slips through.

“Hey, sorry kid.” Natsuo’s hands are in the pocket of his jeans and his shoulders are raised, “I have the habit of assuming the worst.”

“It’s fine.” You reply, laughing through the soft tears, “I should be over it by now, anyways.”

“Let’s head out of here.” Fuyumi takes your hand, leading you out of your room, “Father should be bringing Sho home soon. He’ll just love you, he won't be able not to."

Despite the ominous nature of Fuyumi’s statement, you let yourself willingly be led to the living room. Besides, where else would you go, anyways?

___

Gratefully, the three of you leave your room. The room was getting tense between the sibling pair. You don’t want to be the reason they fight, do you? They always look so close in the photos on the wall—even if nobody looks happy in those photos.

Natsuo leads the way. He walks with his shoulders back and his head held high. He has confidence, something you’ve started to lack now that you’re around all these powerful quirk users. You feel the cool air radiating from in between him and Fuyumi. She walks right behind you. If you stopped, she’d crash right into her. 

But you don’t stop. You walk down the hallway and head towards the living room. There, two figures step in through the door. The first is the boy with half red hair, half white hair. The photos on the wall show him to be significantly younger and without the bright red scar covering one eye. He wears U.A.’s school uniform. One of the old children in your last home went there as well. The other person is Enji. He’s in his hero uniform still—flames and all.

Before anyone can say anything, Natsuo speaks up, “Father’s not using her. I already asked. She’s quirkless.”

He doesn’t say it in a negative way, but him bringing it up at all stings. You’re inadequate compared to them. They all scream of powerful quirks, but you don’t even have a quirk to begin with.

And now, you’re getting the suspicion that quirks are what this family truly cares about. Which leaves you in a terrible position—quirkless, surrounded by powerhouses.

“Alright.” Shoto deadpans, then slips his shoes and coat off. A cool wind blows in from outside, but it’s no different than standing between the cold Todoroki children.

Enji asks his sons, “Do you really think so low of me?”

“Yes.” Natsuo and Shoto reply instantly.

Luckily, Rei comes to your rescue, guiding you to a seat at the kitchen table. Whilst they talked, she set everyone’s plates wordlessly. She cooked this meal for everyone and you feel a slight pang of guilt, knowing that six mouths is a lot to cook for. You had smaller homes than that, which sometimes saw it too tiring to cook for their size. And Rei cooked a lot—much more than she’s cooked for the other meals you’ve had here. 

Your plate is filled. You can’t imagine that you’ll eat all of this, but you’ll eat as much as you can. You wouldn’t want to make Rei sad, now would you?

“Thank you Rei, for dinner.” You reply, before taking a bite. As you sigh in pleasure, Rei’s other children echo their thanks. The food is so good that you block out all sound in order to focus upon it.

“Y/N, are you there?” Fuyumi jokes from her seat beside you.

“Oh! Uh, yeah.” You exclaim, then ask, “Did you need something?”

“Father just asked how your day was.” Fuyumi replies.

You tell him, “It was good.” He sits at the head of the table, just like last time. You don’t sit next to him, Fuyumi does. You sit directly one seat to the left than the seat you’ve been sitting in. You don’t mind, especially because to the other side of you is the one brother you’ve barely heard speak: Shoto. 

He looks at you—he’s watching you. You can see him do it out of the corner of your eye. It’s unnerving to say the least. But you put your head down and continue eating, making sure to pay attention. Luckily, they don’t ask you too many questions. Most of the attention is on Shoto and Natsuo. They’ve returned home—the family all together, Rei calls it. You don’t ask about the other boy in the photos. He’s obviously not a part of the family anymore.

“May I be excused?” You ask as soon as you're finished eating, not keen to just sit there and listen to their conversations.

Enji doesn’t hold you back this time, giving you a silent nod. You take your plate to the kitchen and then head to your room, making sure not to bother them anymore. You don’t want to be seen as a bother anymore than you already are, do you?

[haleigh-sloth]

I have a question but why do you think so many people are against Dabi/Touya getting a redemption arc or getting saved? Like some are against him being saved but are all down for Shiggy and Toga to be saved? I usually see the same argument and it’s frustrating! Like before I explain myself just want to say I’m not hating on Shiggy or do I feel like he’s any less worth saving but I see these arguments that leave me baffled. So the arguments I have seen before is some people don’t think Dabi/Touya can be redeemed or saved because he has murdered 30+ people, but like Shiggy has probably killed the same amount of not more people so that logic doesn’t really cut it. So why does it make a difference? Like why are people so against Dabi/Touya being saved or redeemed?

Well, I'll start this by saying that Shigaraki has ABSOLUTELY KILLED MORE PEOPLE HOLY SHIT DUDE. It's not even up for debate 😂 that boy flattened two cities with the touch of a hand. Shiggy is my favorite hands down and I'll defend the boy til I die but he has done so much more damage. That's kind of the point to his arc--actually. But anyways~

Content Warning of abuse below the cut a bit further down--

So with that--I've wondered the same thing you're asking. Why is Touya getting so much hate? Why not redeem him? Well, there's a few reasons that I have seen:

Endeavor- This is the first and foremost reason I can see for Touya having so many antis. This is something I can't grasp or fathom--Why do so many people like Endeavor? Or more like--why do so many people want to see an abuser thrive and his victim be put down? I can understand wanting to see an abuser better himself AND wanting to see the victim thrive, and I can see people wanting the abuser to be put down and the victim to thrive. But to just want the abuser to come out on top? No. Fuck you. (not you anon). So for whatever reason that I cannot fathom, people can't stand the idea of Touya surviving, being saved and redeemed, because it means that Enji has failed (which he already has but--again I really don't understand that side of the fandom and quite frankly I don't want to). So yeah, Endeavor has a lot of ridiculous fans. Hawks- I've already talked about how ridiculous some of the Hawks-stans are. I'm sorry but---they're fucking ridiculous. Some of them need to step away from their computer, go outside, breath some outside air, and shut the fuck up. And let me tell you---we sometimes joke about how the hero-stan side of the fandom lacks critical thinking skills and can't read past the surface--but I want to disagree with to an extent. I can tell you right now, Hawks's stans saw THIS:

And they knew. Seeing Hawks remain in the dark while Dabi walked toward the light. They knew what this was foretelling. And they didn't like it. And then this happened:

And they DEFINITELY did not like that. And then Dabi went and made fried chicken out of him and they found more reason to hate him with all their being. Hawks was kind of set up to die heroically--and even though his arc is pretty bad right now, I still think that at this point that’s the best ending for him. For me, he’s gone too long without even remotely thinking of changing his ideologies, and has been backing Endeavor unquestionably for a bit too long now. It’s just not looking good for him survival-wise. And his stans either SEE this very clearly and are in denial and need something to hate in order to deal with it, OR they really just aren’t looking as deep into the story as they need to. Those panels I used above though honestly tell it all. That being said he very well may survive and not have any consequences from his low point at all--but then he gets thrown in the “BNHA’s shittiest written arcs” pile. But whatever. 

Also--shoutout to the blogs I follow and people I talk to who genuinely LOVE Hawks’s character but like--aren’t ridiculous about it and don’t harass people in their inboxes about it. Who also try to understand his character and not just make him out to be a uwu baby that never did anything wrong. TRUE Hawks-stans if I ever saw em.

Shouto--This is FAR less common than the other two reasons, but I have seen a few people who think this. They love Shouto (understandably--he’s a fluffy boy who needs a hug from his big brother Touya), but they think that Touya is going to be Shouto’s “final boss”, or his mortal enemy or something. Which--idk if they just refuse to read into Shouto’s awesome character on purpose or not, but he is not about to go out there and try to kill his big brother, who he never got to know, who he KNOWS suffered because of their father, and who is very very clearly in physical, mental, and emotional pain. Again--Shouto-stans are a  far less part of the problem. But I’ve seen this misunderstanding of Shouto’s character go around a few times. 

This next one is also big, and kind of falls into the same category with Endeavor up top--but it’s such a huge issue that I’m seeing that it needs its own paragraph: People don’t understand children’s behaviors, abuse, abusive family dynamics, and just child psychology in general. Child psychology is hard to understand--but also very simple. It’s hard as an adult to think back to how black and white the world was when you were a kid. Your parents were your safe place--they were your guardians. Or rather--they were supposed to be. This isn’t always the case though. And the Todoroki family exhibits a lot of realistic aspects of abuse. Even though the Todoroki backstory was very messily written--one thing is absolute: Endeavor emotionally abused his child. The issue is that Shouto’s and Rei’s physical abuse was shown FIRST in the story--and THEN we were shown what really happened with Touya wasn’t so easily identified as abuse (I mean it is--to me, but not to everybody). And people got stuck on comparing Touya’s and Shouto’s childhood instead of viewing them as two completely separate crimes Endeavor committed against his family. And they misunderstand Touya’s behaviors. Peep back at when I said that your parents are supposed to be your safe place--well, for Touya, Enji WAS his safe place, his guardian, his world. And then suddenly all of that disappeared without reason (good reason I mean). And that takes a serious toll on a child. I could honestly go on and on and on about this topic in particular but it’s not necessary for this ask. The point is---people don’t think Touya was actually abused or that he suffered as a child. They seriously lack an understanding when it comes to stuff like that. And they aren’t shy about showing it to the rest of the internet. 

The last reason which I think kind of encompasses all of these reasons: People don’t understand redemption arcs--because they’re not your run of the mill Heroes vs. Villains story. It makes it to where it’s not clearly obvious whose side you should take. I guess people don’t like that---but I love it. Why not take BOTH sides?

You get to have more fun this way imo. You get to watch and see how the two sides come together--rather than just stick to one ideology til the end. I think it’s because people don’t like having their ideals, beliefs, and values challenged. It may be personal for some people--but forgiveness is a touchy subject as well.  And I also think a lot of people very much think that the rules of our reality should exist within fiction. People forget that fiction exists for us to escape reality--I don’t know why this is so easily forgotten. But what’s cool about fictional stories is that everybody can have a happy ending--no matter how many atrocities they committed, people they hurt/killed, because guess what? NOBODY ACTUALLY GOT HURT! 

But anyway---these are the conclusions I’ve come to regarding why Touya has so many haters. Some are legitimate reasons (the last two I listed) and some are just outright ridiculous (the first three I listed). 

I’m not bothered though. I would LIKE to say that when these villain-saving chapters come out I’ll laugh hysterically at all the villain-haters’ reactions---BUT I already blocked almost all of them. 😂

[bonkers-4-hatter]

⇸ Words: 4,027

⇸ TW (Again): This fanfic has mentions of kidnapping, violence, assault, choking, strangulation, forced kissing, forcing self onto the reader at certain points and of course, Yandere themes and actions.

⇸ If any of the above does trigger you, please do not read. All characters are 18+ as mentions of everyone attending college are in the story.

⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸⇸

Nagisa was your first real friend.

Actually, he was the first person to actually talk to you at all when you came to Iwatobi. Being a foreigner it made a lot of the students steer away from you, but Nagisa never made you feel that way. His bright smile was the first thing that greeted you everyday at the school’s gate. It was something that you always looked forward to.

He of course introduced you to the rest of the swim team and you all became good friends, but Nagisa spent the most time with you by far. He was always at your house, pulling you to try new cafes and places to eat and just have fun. It was part of his energetic nature, wanting to go and do something, try something, but he wanted to do it with you the most out of everyone in the group. You never really gave it much thought through the years. You were close friends, you just thought it was him wanting to spend as much time with you before you went back to America...but now, you're rethinking everything he’s done and said to you over the past three and a half years.

Your hands shook, making the picture that illuminated on your phone screen shake back in response. You were simply letting the group know when you would be leaving. You were going back to America for University and while the rest of the group was excited for you and your new endeavor, some were making plans to hang out with you one last time for a while, Nagisa didn’t say anything in the group chat, the only indication that he was even seeing the messages was his profile picture showing up underneath the messages.

It wasn’t long until your phone notified you off the hook, one message after another. You thought the group chat was blowing up, but no...it was Nagisa messaging you privately with words you’ve never heard him speak to you, nor anyone before in your whole time of knowing him.

Nagi<3: You think you can leave me?

Nagi<3: You’re supposed to stay with me! How could you leave like that? After all we’ve been through? All those times I was there for you??

Nagi<3: I won’t let you leave (Y/N), you belong here with me...I’ll make sure you won’t leave the city let alone the country!

Nagi<3: I love you (Y/N)! Don’t you get it? We’re supposed to be together damnit! Why can’t you see that? You can’t be that dense.

Nagi<3: Is it because you like Haru? Makoto? Rei? Are you playing hard to get because you’re a slut? Flirting with them and ignoring me?? Is my attention not fucking enough for you? Have to go whore yourself to the rest of the group?!

Nagi<3: ...I’m just angry, you’re not a whore (Y/N), I really do love you! Please stay here, we’ll get a place for ourselves, I’ll take care of you (Y/N), have I ever let you down? Fucking say something! Please!

Nagi<3: I need you (Y/N), you’re my whole world and I won’t let you slip away...

It was too much for you to handle. With shaking hands and tears streaming down your face, you quickly blocked Nagisa from all social media along with his contact in your phone. He scared you with his words...he seemed obsessed, delusional even. You knew he cared for you, but you only thought it was as a friend. The way he dropped the word, ‘love’ made you shudder.

Saying he loves you and then going around and accusing you of being a whore and going around to the other guys in the group made you unsettled. Taking a few deep breaths, you sat your phone down making a mental note to not look at it for the rest of the night. Your eyes scanned the room, boxes still scattered around; some filled, taped and labeled and others empty or even waiting for you to build the boxes. Deciding that the best thing to do was get the packing done as soon as possible even if you were still a bit apprehensive. The lingering words that Nagisa sent you still swirled in your head as you went about packing everything with a new found mission to get out as soon as you could.

--

With a satisfied huff, you stacked one of the final boxes in the corner of the almost empty room. You felt a wave of relief wash over you as you wiped your brow and turned toward your phone that was on the nightstand. It was face down, but you did hear it go off, the vibrations echoed in the room, but you ignored it all together. It’s been hours since then and with the majority of everything packed and ready to go, it was time for bed. You had plans with Gou tomorrow to have brunch and just talk, a final hangout before you left.

After doing your nightly routine, you were settled in bed, the cool sheets feeling great on your heated skin from the manual labor you did. Your gaze settled on the phone still in place on your nightstand face down. You felt silly, you blocked Nagisa it should be alright, the notifications were probably Gou just double checking on your guys’ plans for tomorrow. With a final sigh, you quickly grabbed the device and turned it back around and pressed the side making it light up. Scrunching your eyes at the sudden intrusion of light on your poor retinas, you turned the brightness down so your eyes could adjust.

Going through notifications from various apps and social media, you quickly replied to Gou who did message you to confirm your plans for tomorrow. With a final kissy emoji at the end of your sentence and a tap of your finger, the message was sent to her. As you continued to go through what you missed the past few hours, your eyes stopped at a notification for a text message from an unknown number.

You could feel the anxiety bubble inside of you as you stared at the number, you didn’t want to even look at the message itself, but something told you to. With a shaky breath, you tapped on it and waited as your phone loaded the message.

You’ll regret that (Y/N), I’m coming for you…

That’s all it said. A fucking cryptic message calling you out by name. A threat that hung over your head and one that made the breath catch in your throat. A message not even ten words long made fear build up inside of you. Now, every creak and sound could be a potential threat at least that’s how your mind perceived it.

You knew this was Nagisa telling you this, but he was Nagisa, he...he wouldn’t do anything terrible...would he? Words are one thing, but the truth came out with someone's actions. Your eyes shifted toward your door, in the dark everything was more intimidating and menacing. Now fully sat up in your bed, you pulled your knees to your chest as much as you could and just stared at the door that was draped in the shadowy curtain of darkness. Your mind kept playing out a scenario of Nagisa coming through your bedroom door, a crazed look in his eyes and a weapon to hurt you with…the very thought made you shudder.

Between the packing and the interaction with Nagisa, you were exhausted. As you continued to stare at the door, you could feel your poor eyes start to droop, the exhaustion finally catching up with you as you tried your hardest to stay awake, wanting to be on alert if anything did happen, but all of that went out the window as you felt yourself slip into a restless slumber.

A softness touched your face making you shift in your sleep, but something else made you alert, a soft voice filtered through your room. You were home alone, your parents were away on a business trip, it was just you there should be nobody else talking in your house. Your eyes snapped open, trying to adjust to the darkness that surrounded you.

“You’re cute when you’re asleep.” A hand cupped your cheek making your whole body stiff at the contact. Flailing about, you pushed yourself up against your headboard as the figure only laughed and walked toward your door where the light switch was. You already knew who it was based on the voice and your mind instantly went to your death.

With a simple flip of the switch, light flooded your vision and there stood Nagisa, the same crazed look in his eyes that you pictured earlier, but no weapon, nothing to connect you to your demise. His footsteps seemed heavier as he stalked his way toward you like an animal about to attack its prey. “I was pissed off at you (Y/N), is that why you blocked me? Did I scare you?” he came to stop in front of the foot of your bed, his gaze lingering on you. You could feel your breathing become labored the longer he stared at you.

“What’re you doing here?” Ignoring his question, you sent him a glare, back still against the headboard not moving an inch.

“Coming to see you (Y/N)-chan.” Sending you a wink, he laughed at your visible shudder. “You’re scaring me Nagi.” His gaze was fixated on you so intensely, it sent another shiver down your spine.

He didn’t answer you. Instead, he left his spot by the foot of the bed and made his way toward you, his steps becoming heavier with each step. Your eyes glanced to the bedroom door and without a second thought, you bolted from your bed throwing the covers at Nagisa hoping to slow him down a bit. Your feet pounded against your wooden floor, your hands reaching out to grasp the doorknob, the thought of freedom just inches away.

Thud

The wind was knocked out of you, your body colliding with the hard floor, delicate skin skidding to a stop as a weight settled on top of you, not only pinning you in place, but making it hard to breathe due to the weight being directly on your chest. “Always playing hard to get, do you do this to the other guys (Y/N), like the slut you are?” His words were nonsense and not giving them a second thought, you started to thrash on the floor, your freedom was your only thought. You didn’t care about the bruises that would litter your body after this. He just laughed at your attempt to break free, even though he was the smallest of the group, he was just as strong as the others. With no luck, there was one thing left.

“Help! Somebody call the cops, I need help!” You yelled this at the top of your lungs, sucking in as much air as you could from your somewhat crushed chest. Before you could yell again, a hand was wrapped around your throat cutting off what little air you were getting.

“Shut up! Jesus, first ignoring me, blocking me, making me go to these fucking lengths to get your fucking attention!” Giving your throat a bit of a squeeze, nothing but a wheeze escaped you, your hands flying up to try and pry his constricting hands off so you could get air to your needy lungs.

“If you just stayed here, we would’ve been fine (Y/N), but you just had to go back to America! Is nothing good enough for you!? Why’s that (Y/N)? Answer me!” All you could do was continue to gasp and hit his hands. You could feel tears spring to your eyes, sliding down your face as Nagisa continued to choke the life out of you.

You could see black spots starting to fill your vision. “I fucking love you (Y/N)!”, by some miracle, he let up his hold on your throat. You greedily started to suck in as much air as your burning lungs could, but he still had a hold of your throat and the squeeze he sent was evident of this. “You’ll see how much I truly love you, don’t worry, we’ll be happy at my house. Just me and you and nobody to interrupt us.” Leaning down, he placed a tender kiss to your forehead before finally letting your poor, bruised throat go. Still settled on your chest, he peered down at you.

“They’ll look for me! You can’t keep me locked away forever! This isn’t how love works Nagisa! You need help!” His smile slipped, but he regained it quickly before leaning down and capturing your lips in a kiss, holding your face in his hands so you couldn’t move away. Not granting him access, he bit your lip enough to draw blood making you gasp at the pain giving him enough time to slip his tongue in and explore his new territory. His tongue glided over your teeth, the roof of your mouth, even sliding along your own tongue. It wasn’t romantic in the slightest, it was dominating, possessive and it made you feel vile inside. When he decided to break the kiss, he was flushed, breath labored with a love sick smile plastered on his face.

“They won’t be looking for you silly.” Those words made you freeze in terror. Images of horrific deaths flashed through your mind. Your mind raced wondering what he would do to dispose of you. What twisted fantasy was he going to fulfill? “You’ll be right there with them, alongside everyone we know as happy as can be.” Licking his lips, his gaze settled on your swollen lips, but flickered back up to your eyes to finish his thought.

He wasn’t making sense, his words were nonsense to you. He didn’t give an explanation to his words, he just traced your lips with his thumb, his focus solely on the place his mouth was moments before. It was as if he was in a trance, like he was playing out his own fantasy in his mind.

“You’re going to tell everyone that you changed your mind about going back to America.” His thumb stopped tracing your lip, dragging down your bottom lip, your chin and straight down your now bruised neck. Your breath hitched as he applied the smallest amount of pressure to his thumb, pressing into it. His eyes bore into yours as he continued to rattle off his plan.

“Then, you’ll move in with me, the house I told you about on the edge of town, big enough to raise a family in.” His hands came back up to cup your cheeks, your mind reeling at his sentence. Children? Just something else tied up with the delusion he was putting forth. Fingers started to caress your skin, the contact making you flinch.

“It’ll be perfect (Y/N), us together in our house, still surrounded by friends and family, all you have to do is be good and follow what I say...or we can do this the hard way,” One hand left your cheek and traveled back down to your throat, fingers drumming against the abused skin.

“What’s the hard way…” Your voice was hoarse and held a twinge of fear that much was obvious. Nagisa smirked at the tone of your voice. He knew he had the upper hand here and one way or another, he was going to have you. You had an inkling of what the hard way was, but you wanted to hear it from him.

No words were said as the hand that was drumming against the bruised skin of your throat moved upwards, brushing past your cheeks making a shudder run up your spine before his fingers slid into your locks only to have him grip your tresses and yank your head to the side. A squeal of pain flew from your mouth as his laughter rang through the silent room.

Leaning down, hands still having a death grip on your hair, he leaned down to your ear, his hot breath fanning it. Ignoring the burning sensation of your poor scalp from how hard he was gripping and pulling your hair, he started to speak.

“The hard way is when I’m not so nice,” He stopped for a moment and nibbled on your earlobe making that vile feeling crawl back up. “I’ll take you, but you get nothing of yours, just the clothes on your pretty body, I’ll take you back to our house and lock you up there, probably have to chain you up so you don’t escape. Nobody will come over, you won’t be able to contact your friends, your family, nobody ever again. It’ll just be me and you. Everyone will mourn you and never know what happened to little ole (Y/N).”

Either way, you would still have to go with him, but the bleakest silver lining was you could still see your family and friends, you’d just have to put up a front. That still sounded better than being chained in a house while everything mourned and looked for you with no resolve.

His chuckle broke your thoughts. “I’ll give you a minute to think about your options, but I already know which you’ll be picking.” With that, he started to place kisses on your cheek, your chin, and down the column of your neck, the pressure on the bruises making you wince as his lips grazed over the skin.

He was right though, there was only one logical option, the easy way… as much as you hated to admit it.

“Nagisa...I choose th- ahhhh!” He gave a quick bite to your collar bone before you could finish your sentence.

Feeling a wet sensation on the infected area, you guessed he was licking at the spot. “The easy way. Of course you do (Y/N)-chan, I knew you’d pick that.” Pushing himself back, he stared down at you, a smile gracing his face, nothing malicious and crazed about it, just a genuine smile, the one you’ve seen countless times with friends, swim competitions, just the smile Nagisa was known for.

Leaning down, he placed a quick kiss on your lips, a nice chaste kiss that in another situation you would’ve loved, but in this instance it didn’t feel right, but starting now you had to put up a front, an act to please him, to ensure you had the chance to see your friends and family even though you’d still be kidnapped by your once friend.

“Now, let’s get some of your things to take over to our new house, right sweetie?” With a shaky breath, you nodded, trying to have a smile on your face as Nagisa finally got up from on top of your chest, holding out a hand to help you up, grabbing it, he hauled you up and pulled you in close to him, holding you to his chest.

Holding you in his grasp, he had his arms wrapped around you squeezing you a bit, feeling your body and taking comfort in the fact that you were finally his. “I love you (Y/N)-chan, I know you won’t say it back yet, but you will...I know you will.” Pulling back from the hug, he smiled at you once more.

“Let’s get your stuff, whatever you want to bring my cute (Y/N)-chan.” You didn’t say anything as you started to get your stuff ready, packing as much as you could in what bags you had. Nagisa was doing the same, the smile still plastered on his face as he even hummed while doing so. With everything happening so quickly, you haven’t been able to wrap your mind around what was happening, the situation. You could feel yourself crumple, the clothing dropping from your hands and knees buckling as you slumped down onto the floor.

You knew there was no way out. The tears started to pour, something you hoped to never show in front of your captor, but your resolve was crumbling fast. A loud sob escaped you as you curled onto the cold, wooden floor. The hands that started to rub your back made you flinch on contact. The once soothing notion only made you curl more into yourself wishing to disappear into a floor, wishing it would just open up and swallow you whole.

Nagisa's hands continued to caress your tensed self, as small ‘shhh’s’ came from him in hopes of comforting you. “I hate when my (Y/N)-chan cries.” Your position didn’t last long before you were pulled up, limbs heavy and numb.

Nagisa pulled you into your bed, on top of clothing that you were in the middle of packing before. With tears still streaming down your face, you were pulled flushed against his chest, his arms wrapped around your middle as he nuzzled into the curve of your neck, kissing the still tender skin around the area. Placing a few more kisses onto you, he pulled back and leaned back against your headboard bringing you with him. Kissing the top of your head, he settled his chin on the top of your head. “You’ll feel better once we get you settled, don’t worry (Y/N)-chan, I’ll take care of you.”

True to his word, Nagisa did take care of you. Nobody really thought too much about you and Nagisa getting together, the guys noticed the looks he’d give you during school and hangouts and Gou was just absolutely happy that you had a boyfriend. Your parents were happy that you ‘changed your mind’ about going back to America and Nagisa…

Nagisa put up the perfect facade.

He was true to his word, letting you still see your friends and family, but he was always watching and you knew this after trying to escape a few times, throat clenching at the memories of your punishments for trying to run away. If you obeyed, you were showered with praise, gifts and affection from Nagisa. He still let you go to school, work, as if everything was picture perfect.

“(Y/N)-chan, my sweet little (Y/N)-chan.” Nagisa’s hands caressed your sides as you were trying to cook dinner in the kitchen. Some of your friends were over and you were trying to finish the main course, but he had other plans. You could feel his hand slip over the curve of your bottom, giving your backside a firm squeeze as he placed lazy kisses on the back of your neck, sweeping your hair to the side.

“I’m trying to finish dinner Nagi, please we can do this after.” You tried to shake him off as you turned the silvers of meats over that were frying in the pan to cook on the other side. Chuckling, he didn’t even bat an eye at you trying to push him away, his hands coming back, both circling around you to grope at your chest and grinding himself into your backside. The force made you lean into the stove more, the heat emitting from the device hitting some exposed skin but not enough to seriously burn you yet.

“That’s cute that you think you have a choice (Y/N)-chan,” Groping your chest again he laughed at your gasp and even thrusted up into your bottom, your hands gripping the sides of the counter on either side of the oven. “Keep cooking while I have my fun and remember to keep it down we have guests in the next room and if you don’t,” He leaned down to your ear before whispering, “I’ll have to punish you later.” Gulping, you nodded mutely at his words.

Doing as you were told, you continued to cook the dinner as Nagisa continued to do what he pleased with you just as he does every single day.

That’s how your new life has been and unfortunately how it always will be.

[shihalyfie]

How would you describe the relationship between each respective goggleboy and 'rival'? Ive seen different interpretations but im curious what you think! Not to mention that the fans are sometimes arguing over who the 'rival' actually is, like with Daisuke where some people say its Ken and others say its Takeru. (I dont think there are actual rivals in the show, except for maybe Manga!Kiriha who outright says he will be just that with Taiki.)

One thing to keep in mind is that the word "rival" has kind of integrated itself into anime lingo as a full-on English loanword, so it comes from expectations of anime tropes more than anything. While even official staff has used that word in talking about Digimon, as you say, it never really fit to begin with, because not only has Digimon TV anime never been a particularly conventional shounen series in many ways, that term was also mostly coined in light of series where that term made a lot more sense. As in, they were more likely to be actually competing over something (in sports, or something tournament-based like card games); in that sense, a "rival" would be someone who might be antagonistic by being on the other side of the field, but would have a mutually positive relationship with the other person overall because the competitiveness would keep both of them on their toes and allow both of them to improve together. Digimon is not the first time this term has started getting overapplied to contexts where it doesn't really fit at all (it's been going on in Super Sentai for years), so people generally have a greater perception of it broadly meaning "two characters who have differing opinions on how something should be done due to their differing personalities, and sometimes fight over it", but in Digimon especially, it really does seem like trying to smash a square peg into a round hole.

The short answer: Xros Wars is probably the only one you can make a real argument for.

The long answer, in detail:

Adventure: I cannot emphasize enough that Adventure, being a series that was really big on that whole trope subversion thing, is a series that casts the trope of "rivalry" as "getting in a lot of fights" as a bad thing -- it's actually pretty unsubtle about it, because the word "rival" itself is explicitly used in Adventure episode 44, by Jureimon trying to manipulate Yamato. Or, in other words, "hey, if you saw someone who's supposed to be your supportive friend as someone you had to constantly compete against for no good reason, wouldn't that be really messed up?" Adventure does not even bother with or remotely believe in the idea that fighting somehow is a sign of how good friends you are, at least, not as long as that fighting is a sign of genuine hostility and refusal to communicate (which is why Yamato punching Taichi in 02 doesn't count). Every time Taichi and Yamato got in a fight back in Adventure, it was heated and ugly, and everyone in their presence was horrified, and once they sorted out their issues in Adventure, their appearances in 02 and Kizuna involved properly talking things out and making an active attempt to understand each other's feelings. There's a bit of bickering between them due to said opposing personalities, but it's never over anything serious (see the contrast in Kizuna between them having a bit of a minor row at the beginning, but high-fiving right after and spending the rest of the movie practically counseling each other).

02: Straight-up does not exist. Daisuke may have seen Takeru in that way due to the Hikari issue at first, but he was really running in circles getting absolutely nowhere about it, Takeru was mostly like "okay, you have fun with that," their only major argument about anything was the very serious issue in 02 episode 11, and it still resulted in Daisuke trying to understand Takeru's feelings. I think all of it boils down to Daisuke himself just not having that kind of personality to begin with, because he's friendly and supportive before anything else, and the whole thing with Takeru became a non-issue after a fashion (way before we even get into Kizuna, at that). Ken has the word "rival" sometimes applied to him in official franchise media, but nobody ever believes it. Sure, Daisuke and Ken have fairly complementary personalities, but they seem to both be aware of this fact and actively using it to help each other. It's very, very, very hard to imagine them ever getting into any kind of fight the way Taichi and Yamato used to in Adventure. It's just not happening! They're "best friends" who enjoy each other's company and actively hang out, and...yeah, that's it.

Tamers: Also does not exist! I know a lot of people really try to say it's Ruki because she's the one with the lone-wolf attitude and aggravated Takato at first, but my impression of Takato's attitude with her wasn't out of any competition but more that he'd like it if she didn't try to pick fights with him. Which she does actually stop after a while, mind you, and you could even make an argument that she's more of a foil to Jian than Takato, because Jian's the one who was completely pacifist at first, with Takato caught in the middle. In the end, Ruki never actually attains a particularly close relationship with Takato compared to Jian, nor does she really keep up a particular competitive streak with Takato; she kind of pops in and out at her leisure because of her more independent streak, and Jian ends up more of Takato's right-hand man (which is why the franchise presumably picks him as the secondary character to feature whenever they do "secondary characters"), but neither Takato nor Jian are prone to conflict and the entire trope is just fundamentally absent. The Tamers trio, is, ultimately, a trio.

Frontier: Takuya and Kouji are probably the first pair to really look like a proper execution of the trope, and at the very least they align pretty perfectly to how it's known in Sentai: a more hot-headed, aggressive lead with a more cool-headed and cynical right-hand man, where they end up often prone to conflict over dispute on how to best lead the team. However, while it's much more of a conventional execution than Adventure (since Adventure had Yamato actually be more prone to being an emotional fuse bomb whereas Taichi was often too chill more than anything), there being any conflict isn’t gone into that deeply beyond just "their personalities are complementary", and in that sense it's not far off from Adventure itself.

Savers: The series kind of baits you into thinking it might go this way when Nanami taunts Tohma about how he had to resort to a Masaru-esque tactic to beat her (it's one of its early red herrings about Tohma supposedly betraying the group), and it does have traces at the start because of how blatant of a foil Tohma is to Masaru, but one thing important to consider is that while the "rivalry" of what's being competed over is barely even relevant in most Digimon series to begin with, Masaru and Tohma don't even have a "group" to lead -- they're the employees under DATS who are being given orders from above, and are dealing with situations as they come. Masaru ends up leading the charge a bit, but he's not actually a leader in any shape or form, and Savers is more of a story of Masaru's coming-of-age than anything else, so while the series mostly has to do with his personal philosophy more than Tohma's, it ultimately lets the two of them pursue their lives their own ways. Masaru's worst bout of infamous anger is at being hurt over Tohma's apparent betrayal, not against him personally.

Xros Wars: I would say this is the only series to date where the term "rivals" properly applies, and it's because they're fighting over something concrete: the Code Crowns, and eventually Digital World territory. So in this case, for the first two parts, the answer is obviously Kiriha; Nene was a rival at first, but after various events happened she allied with Xros Heart early into Death Generals, and while Taiki and Kiriha had a relationship of mutual respect, Kiriha still considered him an opponent over what they were competing for until eventually the Xros Heart United Army fully came into formation. In the manga version, Kiriha does invoke the word "rival" in the above sense of competing to polish one's skills, but ironically, its version of the Death Generals arc involves them being much more in-tune with the same goals, so it might actually apply less because Taiki kind of responds with "uh, sure...?" since he's not nearly as interested in self-improvement. In Hunters, while it initially seems like it might be Yuu, the answer is really Ryouma, and note that Ryouma never really forms a particularly close relationship with Tagiru; it's just that he's the person most at the forefront for competing with Tagiru in the Hunt, to the point he's the first person chosen to wield the Brave Snatcher and turns out to be a bit of a foil for Tagiru in terms of actually having admired Taiki this whole time.

Appmon: Also does not exist. Rei tried to do the whole schtick in terms of competing for the Seven Code Appmon at first, but Haru was having none of that and immediately reached out to him emotionally, worrying about his welfare, and although Rei had a bit of a detached relationship with the other Appli Drivers thereafter, it really was friendly more than anything, just a bit awkward. Haru and Yuujin aren't even on the table, since their relationship is "best friends" akin to Daisuke and Ken.

Adventure: reboot: Also does not exist, considering that Taichi and Yamato bickering over the best way to approach things is limited to the very beginning of the series (and one of those times was with Yamato and Sora, not Yamato and Taichi, at that). In fact, I think most of these kids have been acting separately for most of the series anyway...?

[marchioness-caprina]

Mentor Day

Note : In This AU, Hawks is adopted by the todoroki Family, enji is a good dad and dabi is not a villain. And Todoroki's Mom is a Hero.

Pairings : Jealous! Hawks x Reader

Writing style: 3rd Person

Warning : Cussing

Word count : 3623

3rd Person's POV

" I'm so excited for Today! I can't wait to meet your Mentors! " Kirishima yelled with enthusiasm punching the air.

Everyone was gathered around Ground Beta for the sole reason that the Head of Agencies they were currently interning in were coming over to discuss the growth of the students, also because they chose U.A as the meeting Venue knowing that it's one of the places in Japan that is Highly guarded and secured and the School was Near the City so if anything were to happen they could always get there in a jeepy. There was another Reason but it wasn't disclosed to any of the students and nobody questioned it.

" Shut Up shitty Hair! " Bakugou snarled smacking Kirishima who seemed to be unaffected by Bakugou's ' affection ' towards him.

" Hey aren't You and Tokoyami Under Hawks's? The number 2 Pro Hero!? " Mina pointed out and suddenly everyone's attention was now settled on Y/n and Tokoyami.

Tokoyami had an unreadable expression but his face mostly showed that he was awkward and uncomfortable with the Topic. Not because of His Mentor... It's because of His Mentor's Interest.

Y/n on the other hand looked annoyed pissed, it was very obvious that neither of the two wanted to talk about it because of the lack of answer and their current expressions.

" So... What's it Like to be Under Pro Hero Hawks? " Momo began to press deeper onto the subject and was oblivious to her two classmate's look of disapproval. And it seems like she wasn't the only curious one.

" Well? " Jiro raised a brow when they didn't hear an answer. The two were very hesitant until y/n finally spoke up.

" Tokoyami-kun would I be breaking the law if I talk shit about him? "

" Eeehhhh!? " Everyone was confused as to why the sudden change of their classmate's personality took shift at a questionable rate.

" Technically there's no law about that and since he's not here to hear it... It's fine " Tokoyami answered with a straight face and his response got everyone questioning their experience even more.

" What the hell happened to you two while you were there? " Denki asked staring at the two. Tokoyami was hesitant but y/n just looked pissed and angry .

She showed irritation that could match Bakugou's.

" That's not something you should be asking me... You should be asking y/n that... I just had the unfortunate privilege to witness... That.... And I know a very dark secret I wish to unlearn " Tokoyami muttered at Everyone was fidgeting with curiosity while staring at y/n who looked like she was about to explode any minute now.

" Well if you Must know. On the first week I had to endure a bunch of whiny one night stand's Drama and Rage while trying to get them to go fuck themselves and trust me... Persuading a bunch of love struck delusional hoes to go home and keep silent for the rest of their lives isn't a very charming job. I had to suck in every single cheesy pick up lines that'll have anyone gagging, I had to endure being dragged around through the wonderful 'skies' like a ragdoll in the most unfortunate hour and I had to deal with Birdman's constant fuckery every single day so yeah... It wasn't that bad.... It was terrible. " Y/n's tone was forcefully dragged out and polite but her hostile expression got everyone shuddering.

Yes, Hawks was a flirt and he'd flirt with her with every chance he got, much to y/n's dismay. But knowing Hawks's reputation she brushed it off like it was one of his most common habits and got used to ignoring him, he was nice though and she felt like a sheltered child. Hawks never let's her go out to patrol on her own unless it's with Him and only Him. He constantly brings her gifts and snacks to which she is thankful and greatly flattered but she didn't like hearing Rumors about her with the Pro Hero himself. Overall she was thankful that she was being treated well but she didn't appreciate the special treatment.

Tokoyami on the other hand knew of his Mentor's love and affection for his Classmate, if he knew any better he found out that Hawks had imprinted on y/n like a new born chick. The reason Tokoyami knew that was because of the gifts, the flirting, Hawks's constant need to be around y/n, His possessiveness and Don't even get Tokoyami started on How much Hawks talks about y/n during patrol. Hell, Even when Hawks is literally stepping on a Villain's Face he'd still talk about How ' Perfect she was ' . At most of all, his Classmate was very unaware of Hawks's actual feelings and he's afraid he couldn't blame her simply because of Hawks's reputation as a 'playboy'.

" Wow.... I didn't think it would be like that.... Hawks's still pretty cool though " Sero muttered and that left y/n gawking at him because the least they could do was sympathize with her!.

" No shit " She grumbled sarcastically and she felt two hands grab hold of her shoulder behind her and speaking of the Devil, Hawks was already here.

" Hey there chicken nugget, what are you kids talking about? " Hawks asked leaning down , resting his chin on y/n's shoulder while both of his hands clamped down on each side of her shoulder blades protectively.

" Nothing Hawks, we were Talking about Nothing " Y/n who was already immune to the Touchiness of the male behind her was nonchalant on her reply and she sounded bored but her expression clearly showed ' Oh No, Not this Shit Again ' .

" Oh really? Well ok then baby bird but I have to say You look Perfect little dove but that is to be expected by my Epitome of beauty " Hawks grinned rubbing his cheeks against y/n's own in a very affectionate manner.

" Yeah, Yeah. Get off me Birdman you're getting that irritating Chicken stench on me " Y/n grumbled pushing him away from her to which she was successful with.

" Aww~ But you felt so soft " Hawks whined in an almost childish way.

Everyone was witnessing the very thing Tokoyami dreaded and they were choking on their own spit after seeing the interaction between the two.

They and so many questions yet so little answer and they knew they couldn't just bombard y/n with questions, not when Hawks was around.

" Uhh... You two seem.. Close" Denki commented to where he earned a proud grin from Hawks.

" No we're Not. He's just being A flirt, you'll Get used to it " Y/n snickered rolling her eyes at Hawks who was trying to hug her.

" You should have heard How much He talks about her at Home... He's like a broken Radio. Y/n this and that " Todoroki snorted and his comment got everyone gaping.

It didn't look that way to everyone else, it was clear that the Pro Hero liked her if throwing himself around her wasn't enough, the look in his eyes definitely spoke otherwise.

" So this is the little Lassy Hawks have been talking about? " Fatgum along with the rest of the pro Heroes Were slowly gathering towards them.

" This is Her? She's adorable in person . Keigo Never stops talking about her at home" Another voice came from a woman with white hair, and is almost identical to Shoto.

" .... Hah! You should hear what he has to say when he's asleep " Dabi murmured with a laugh.

" .... You Talk about me? " Y/n asked staring at Hawks who was nodding his head, a smirk plastered on his face.

" Ewww, Stop that. It's annoying and creepy " Y/n sighed shoving Hawks away.

" Isn't she lovely? " Rei mumbled a small chuckle escaping her lips as Dabi stared at her in bewilderment .

" So you're not gonna question their age gap?..... Really mom? " Dabi snorted and enji stood behind him, patting his back.

" You know how your mother is " Enji muttered staring down at his son.

" You have a point.... "

____________________

By now everyone was gathered around, some of them chatting with their mentors and some were meeting their classmate's other mentors.

Rei, Enji and Dabi were intently observing Keigo who looked so close to snapping, sure his face looked playful and relaxed but they knew him well enough to know that it was Keigo's facade.

On the other side was Y/n and Hawks talking to Fat gum, well it was only y/n showing enthusiasm about their conversation, Hawks had never left her side the whole time. Always trailing behind her like a lost puppy.

" That's really cool! I heard from Kirishima that you have two Forms? " Y/n's eyes gleamed with curiosity.

" Why yes little lady " Fat gum answered as he nervously glanced at Hawks. He could feel the raging intensity of Hawks's Jealousy radiating brighter than the sun's ray. To which y/n was oblivious of.

" Ya know buddy, you really have nothing to worry about when it's me " Fat gum stated his words directed towards Hawks who let out a sigh and gave him a genuine smile for once.

" Sorry, I couldn't help it when it comes to my little dove " Hawks chuckled slinging his arm around her shoulder and y/n immediately reacted by shoving his arm away without even glancing at him.

" Stop talking about me like I'm not here " Y/n muttered to which Hawks replied by doing it again and y/n shoved his arm again.

Fat gum was both entertained and a bit awkward with the situation until he spotted his side kick. Tamaki whom he had kindly asked to pick up something for him

" Anyways! That's enough you two, I'd like you to meet Tamaki Amajiki. He's my sidekick " Fat gum proudly introduced Tamaki who froze in his spot and began trembling nervously.

" Oh wow! I've heard so much about him! Our class was introduced to him before! But I never got to see his face clearly because he had his face on the wall the whole time! Let's start all over again. Hey I'm y/n l/n! Nice to meet you senpai... For the second time " Y/n grinned putting her hand out to shake his.

Tamaki who was nervous and flattered that someone remembered him shakily reached out his hand to shake hers but a look of pure shock flashed through his face when Another hand met his.

" Nice to meet you Buddy " Hawks grinned in an odd and threatening manner squeezing poor Tamaki's hand .

" U-u-uhh" Tamaki stuttered at y/n was annoyed at Hawks's actions.

" Hey! I was the-- you know what? Never mind. Anyway, senpai I heard stories about you from Kirishima-kun! And I think you're really cool! And you're cuter up close! " Y/n tried easing the nervous senior with compliments in order to atone the actions of Hawks. But Hawks took it in a different way.

Tamaki flushed red and Hawks let go of his hand with disdain, his eyes having a deadly glint and his smirk almost looked threatening and sadistic.

Fat gum who witnessed the scene knew he fucked up by calling Tamaki over, the Todoroki family were astonished to see how reactive Hawks could be when y/n was involved. At home he was really hard to read and when they thought they knew him Hawks suddenly surprises everyone by proving them wrong. But now his expression looks so raw and unmasked.

" Tsk, He doesn't Look much to Me " Hawks suddenly spat out in an irritated tone.

Y/n elbowed him after seeing Tamaki's expression.

" He doesn't mean that! He's just really insensitive... Aren't you Hawks? " Y/n glared at the man beside her and he scoffed looking away.

" You're actually really powerful Senpai! Trust me! Kirishima talks about you all the time it's adorable seeing him look up to someone who's equally as cute as Kirishima " Y/n tried covering the damage done by Hawks and Tamaki was conflicted. He didn't know who to believe anymore.

Another scoff was heard from Hawks and before he could make another comment y/n stepped on his feet making him wince.

" Ouch! " He grumbled looking down at y/n who was glaring at him threateningly.

Jealousy bubbled at the very core of Hawks, She called two men cute at the same time and she dared to do it in front of him! He praised men who aren't him. Sure they aren't official but isn't it clear that he was showing how much he could give her? He knows he's enough but it seems like his little dove was very dense. It's starting to irritate him. He didn't feel good inside and he really wanted to punch a bitch. Was she taunting him? Oh she definitely was. Just look at how she looks at them , it really makes him want to rip off someone's throat.

His wings began to bristle and rose intimidatingly the edges becoming sharp and ridged, jealousy was getting the best of him.

With a rough Tug, he dragged her away forcefully even with the harsh protest from the girl.

" Hey! Ok this is getting out of hand! " Y/n pulled her hand away and Hawks looked back at her with a gaze that could kill.

" Stop taunting me Y/n. I'm not handling it well " Hawks muttered but his voice was rough and demanding. Y/n shivered at how her name rolled out of his tongue. He never uses that tone or calls out her name like that unless she's in deep shit.

" Clearly, you're mad about shit I didn't do so go cool off or something " Y/n shot back her expression was out of sheer anger and Hawks responded by spreading his wings and he flew off without another word.

With a sigh y/n went back to her classmates, she was unaware if the stares that were thrown her way.

" A lovers quarrel? " Mt. Lady mumbled.

" Definitely a Lovers Quarrel " Fat gum confirmed.

" Is no one seriously questioning the fact about their age gap? " Dabi stated and Rei gave him a cold glare. Even shoto was seen glaring at him from his group.

" Ok fine jeez " Dabi shrugged shoving his hands into his pockets.

_____________________

20 minutes had passes and Hawks was still gone, by that time everyone was gathered around, the class was seated on the ground as the Pros started giving out their opinions and deductions on hm their performance.

Rei began to feel worried about her adopted son that had raged out of the area. Enji tried reassuring her that Keigo was old enough to take care of himself.

And on cue Hawks had arrived holding a box in his hand, he looked calmer now and more relaxed.

" Keigo dear, are you ok? " Rei asked approaching the male.

" Yeah I'm fine... Just needed a little breather.... " He muttered, his eyes glued to y/n who was listening intently to the discussion. Rei noticed this and a smile graced her lips.

" Go get her dear " Rei encouraged the male and Hawks flashed her a grin.

" Oh I will. And I'm going to make sure you're going to have a daughter in law soon " Keigo smugly stated and Rei's eyes widened only to have the woman laugh.

Luckily the little lessons the Pro's were conducting had finished and everyone was free. As the students began to stand up. Y/n was pulled away immediately by Hawks. And once she was a few feet away a box was shoves towards her. She was caught off guard but managed to hold it in her hands as she lookes up at Hawks questioningly.

" What's this? " The girl asked suspiciously.

" You like that doughnut shop near our agency yeah? I was flying by and decided to buy some for you as a Sorry present.. I admit that I went overboard... " Hawks explained rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

" What!? I can't accept thi---"

" Eat it or Throw it. I'm giving it to you and that's final so do what you want with it... Although it would be a waste if you throw it away... I did go out of my way to buy that for you with my own money even though I was still angry---"

" Ok fine you don't have to guilt trip me! I'll accept it ok?.... But you did say I could do what I want with it so... I'm sharing this with everyone " Y/n smiled and Hawks snapped his head towards her his eyebrows furrowed.

" What? No. I bought that For YOU not for them " Hawks grumbled and the girl gave him a playful smirk.

" You did say it was mine and I could do whatever I want with it " She replied slyly and Hawks turned away stomping his way towards Rei, Enji and Dabi.

" Ooo... You got it Bad. She's denser than a--"

" Don't finish that Touya I swear " Hawks glared at Dabi who only laughed at his protectiveness.

" Just be patient Keigo, she is young and she probably still doesn't have Love on her mind yet " Rei assured Keigo while rubbing his back.

" Tsk. You better not give up. You're a Todoroki after all , and I already acknowledge her as a daughter in law... No crazy woman would stomp their feet on the number 2 hero like that " Enji nodded and Hawks should be delighted but his eyes were glued to the girl.

She was sharing the doughnuts he bought for her and the last straw came when she had fed Kirishima with a doughnut.

His fathers on his wings bristled and the ends began to sharpen, his eyes darkened at the sight and his teeth were gritted.

The girl took notice of this and approached him. God he was losing it. One wrong move and he might forget the fact that she's still a minor and just go straight up to breeding her if he had to. Fuck everything she does is turning him on . He is smitten.

" Hey what's wrong? "

" You have the guts to ask me ' What's wrong?' Oh why don't ask that to all the other guys you fed doughnuts to? The ones I bought for you! You're so oblivious it's starting to piss me off little dove. Was I not subtle enough? I fucking Like---mphf--" Hawks was cut off when a Doughnut was shoved in his mouth by the girl in front of him.

" Shut your worm Hole You stupid Birdman, I like you too ok? But please stop being so annoying. I'm also protecting your reputation as a Hero here. I can't have you all over the tabloids stating that you like a high schooler. You'd be seen as a pedophile you dumbass " The girl finished and was about to pull her hand away from his mouth when he grabbed hold of her wrist, he kissed her finger gingerly before licking and sucking on that very finger she held the doughnut .

She froze, Dabi Froze, Everyone froze.

" What the fuck? " Katsuki was she first to speak up.

" I second that ' What the fuck ' " Y/n muttered and Hawks gave her a look that could have her melt into a puddle. A smug and triumphant grin plastered on his face as his arms wrapped around her waist possessively.

" Awww~ it warms my heart to know that you're protecting me that way. For a moment there I thought you don't care and all that shitty jealousy was so worth it because you told me you like me in the end.... " Hawks cooed his face nearing hers and she immediately distanced her face away from him.

" Hawks get off me! " She yelled her face was flushed and he had the sudden urge to kiss her right now.

" You'll have to pay for making me jealous though. It was not a very pretty feeling " Hawks grinned before his wings spread open and gave one strong flap and he was already flying her away from the scene.

" Holy shit.... Dude " Denki muttered staring up at the sky.

" Enji! Do you think we should renovate the house? " Rei asked enthusiastically.

" I think we just might have to " Enji replied.

" .... I ship it though " Mina stated and the girls gave an unspoken agreement to her statement.

" So... How many chicks do you think they'll have? " Dabi asked and Rei smacked him.

" Touya! " Rei scolded making Dabi chuckle.

" Nah it's too early... He won't knock her up just yet... Or will he? " Dabi grinned and this time Rei had frozen him in place.

" Touya! Stop that! " Rei fumed.

Dabi shut up immediately fearing Rei's wrath after seeing her angry expression.

[diningwiththeasquiths]

PTSD!Poe from that one post has moved into my head and lives there rent-free now. So here's a Gingerpilot ficlet. 😏

Poe doesn't know why he'd been such a dick to his friends. Again.

He just feels so... angry and irritable all the time. Nothing he does is ever enough. And nobody seems to care as much about their cause as he does.

Still, he shouldn't have snapped at Rey like that.

She and Finn have been steering clear of him since the incident. It's probably been one time too many... No wonder they'd rather avoid him.

Right now it's far past midnight. He's aimlessly walking around the base, tense and restless. A few times he'd grabbed a bottle of booze from the not-so-secret stash in the Falcon, just to help him sleep. But it made him feel guilty; what if there was an emergency and he wouldn't be able to fly?

So now he's pacing around in big circles in the hope of tiring himself out.

When he walks past Hux's room for the fifth time, he notices the light is still burning. Of course Hux is still awake. Poe stops and quietly stands on his tiptoes to peer inside the dirty window of the little cot they housed him in.

Hux is sitting with his back to the window, bent over a small, rickety desk. He's taken off his jacket and Poe can count the knobs of his spine through his thin undershirt.

In a split second he's made his decision and is knocking on the glass. The sound is soft but Hux still jumps, startled. He lets him in without question though, which strengthens Poe's resolve.

He's noticed the way Hux has been looking at him ever since he joined their cause. It flatters him, really. And it's something he can use. Yeah, this will definitely help him take his mind off things for a while, and hopefully even relax him enough to fall asleep.

"Hey Hugs. Care for some company this fine evening? Don't think I haven't noticed you checking me out." Hux opens his mouth, probably to argue, but Poe talks right over him: "You totally have been! And it's fine, in fact I find it very flattering. And it makes me wonder... Would you like to have your way with me? Right now, I mean? Just say the word Hugs, and I'm yours."

Not his finest work. Thankfully, Hux doesn't seem to mind his straightforward approach.

"I don't have any... supplies," is his only reply, practical as always.

Poe curses, not in the mood to sneak all the way to the medbay for some lubricant. And he doesn't want to take ages with the preparation either. He just needs to stop feeling so much for a while.

"You've got soap here, right? Yeah, you're a clean guy. Let's use that."

It works surprisingly well. It's not long before Poe is on his knees and elbows on the bed with Hux's cock up his ass.

Hux feels good inside of him, it's not exactly painful but intense enough to distract him from everything else. Hux grips his fleshy hip tightly with one hand and pushes Poe's head down to the thin mattress with the other.

The only sounds in the room are their laboured, heavy breathing and the creaking of the narrow bed. Poe absent-mindedly hopes it won't break underneath their combined weight and movement.

He's getting close now. Supporting himself on a forearm and shoulder, Poe wraps his hand around his dick and moans into the sheets. Nearly there.

Stars it feels good. Who knew Hux could fuck like this. His thrusts are constant and precise, almost machine-like. Poe never wants it to end.

It does end, of course. Soon enough he tenses up and groans, coming all over the sheets and his fist in thick spurts. He nearly topples over. Hux is thrusting more slowly and shallowly now, probably feeling him clenching around himself.

After Poe relaxes into the aftermath of his orgasm, another wave of something makes its way through his body. It constricts his chest. Before he fully understands what is happening he is heaving with loud sobs.

Hux pulls away from him completely as soon as he realises what's going on. Were Poe to look behind him he'd see a stupefied look on Hux's face, which morphs into an uneasy frown.

Curling in on himself, Poe can't do anything else but lie there, breathing heavily with tears still streaming down his nose and stubbled cheeks. He feels completely overwhelmed all of a sudden.

After a few moments, a careful hand is placed on his back. It radiates warmth and feels somewhat grounding. A thumb strokes him ever so slightly, in an attempt to soothe. When Poe's breathing calms down a bit, Hux seems encouraged to start rubbing his back in slow circles.

Eventually Poe starts to feel more in control of himself again. His body unfolds and he lies on his side, facing the rough wooden wall. He makes no attempt to get up. He doesn't want to walk out into the night and be all alone again, but he also doesn't feel like talking or otherwise engaging with Hux. Except for touch, he likes it when Hux touches him. He just wants to lie here and accept whatever kindness Hux is willing and able to give.

Hux eventually cleans them both up a bit and maneuvers them underneath the soiled sheets. Poe gratefully lets it all happen. When Hux reaches out yet again, placing a comforting hand on his waist, Poe moves himself closer, silently encouraging Hux to wrap his arm around him. Now they're pressed together tightly, securely. Suddenly Poe feels exhausted. He exhales shakily and any remaining tension leaves his body.

They end up falling asleep just like that.

When morning comes and Poe opens his eyes, Hux is already out of bed; he's seated at his tiny desk and sips a mug of something steaming hot.

"Hey. Sorry for what happened last night," is the first thing Poe blurts out in a raspy voice.

"It happens to the best of us."

"Don't tell me you've broken down like that after sex before."

"Well. I usually hide it better."

Poe cracks a smile at that and huffs out a laugh through his nose.

Suddenly he faintly hears his own name being called. Apparently people are looking for him. His heart rate immediately shoots up. Perhaps something's happened?

"I gotta go."

"Of course," Hux says, standing up and handing him his trousers.

"I'll see you around, okay?" Poe says, whilst quickly getting dressed.

After Hux gives him an affirmative nod, Poe slips out the door. He's enjoyed his time with Hux more and on a much deeper level than he thought he would. Definitely something to explore further at a later date. If he doesn't perish in a space battle before they can meet up again, that is.

They're still calling his name. When he hurries towards the area where the sound is coming from, he can see that the people shouting are Finn and Rey. They look very relieved to see him. BB-8 rolls after them and lets out a big beep when he spots his human. He quickly zooms past Finn and Rey, and Poe crouches down to hug his droid hello. The cool, round shape feels more comforting than it has felt in a while.

"Hey... We were wondering where you were," Finn says carefully as they walk up to him.

"Just out and about," is Poe's vague answer. "Had a bit of a rough time last night," he adds, feeling like he owes them at least part of the truth.

"Yeah we figured-"

"We've been talking and thinking about ways to help you," Rey interjects, bumping into Finn's side in a familiar way. She seems as determined as always.

Poe isn't sure if there's a solution for what he's going through right now, but the fact that they care and want to help does make him feel less alone.

Of course they will always be there for him. He's got the best friends in the galaxy. And his enemy-turned-ally-turned-lover is not so bad either, apparently.

Smiling at them a bit sheepishly, he counts himself lucky and thinks that perhaps it will all be okay in the end, somehow.

[dontcallmecarrie]

since things hit the fan in my life again, here, have a shatterpoint 

.

Ben Organa was an antisocial bastard, he’d be the first to admit it. 

An aloof loner, who’d survived the hard life of a bounty hunter with nothing but his blaster and the will of the Force going for him— which, in turn, didn’t really do much for his social skills outside of very specific situations such as keeping a cool head while under enemy fire.

Other than that, though?

Ben would be the first to admit his social skills had peaked sometime before puberty hit, and it’s only been downhill since.

See? He was self-aware! 

If he wasn’t being shot at, or in the middle of yet another barroom brawl, or picking up another contract, he was so far out of his element it wasn’t even funny.

Apparently he had a reputation for being one of the “strong, stoic and silent” types, which was hilarious if one knew that behind his mask and frankly very impressive shields, Ben was screaming internally whenever he wasn’t cursing in every language he knew.

Such as right now, when his ship’d conked out on some hellscape. Again. 

This time, though, there were at least people around— even if the only trading post around wanted to charge him an arm and a leg for the parts he needed to leave and while he could technically afford to sell one of the lightsabers he’d been stuck with, he had the feeling he’d need them in the future. Even if that meant the only other alternative to getting off this rock was to try his hand at scavenging around for parts, and...

Ugh. He hated sand. He’d find it in his armor for weeks after this, he just knew it.

.

So.

Turns out he’s not the only Force-sensitive person on this rock. Great.

.

So.

Turns out said Force-sensitive is a ridiculously strong little girl who’s dead-set on staying on this rock. To the point where she damn near threw him through a sand dune when he suggested leaving, and somehow managed to get him to mentor her on the basics while they looked for parts for his ship and how did Ben get himself into these situations, again?!

.

Rey was a nightmare with that staff of hers. 

Ben looked at her practicing, and thought about the cylinder that’d been taking up space in his rucksack since Korriban, and frowned thoughtfully.

.

Giving Rey the lightsaber was a mistake Ben regretted immensely.

She’d been hard enough to deal with before, all starry-eyed and so eager to listen to what little he knew about the Force it’d been exhausting for him to even watch; now, it seemed she’d got it in her head he was some sort of rogue Jedi, which was so far off the mark he couldn’t even—

.

Rey was decent with her staff, but...he felt twitchy, seeing the way she handled the lightsaber in her hands. 

No technique, no finesse and she had so much potential it was a waste— oh, blast. Ben scowled at a nearby dune as he felt his resolve crumble.

“Hey, what do you know of lightsaber forms?”

.

Ben’s ship was finally ready to go. 

This was a good thing, he reminded himself. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, it was sheer happenstance that his ship’d broken down after his latest contract and no, he didn’t feel guilty about leaving Rey behind, no, absolutely not...

“I’ll be back,” Ben found himself promising. 

Then, because the look on her face was downright painful to see, he turned to scowl at a nearby dune to hide his flush and hastily added, “In a year or so. Maybe. Just to see if you’ve improved on your shielding by then, until you get a real teacher.”

.

Ben was an antisocial bastard, he’d be the first to admit it.

...which is why he was mystified as to why Rey always looked to happy to see him, whenever he stopped by for a visit.

Okay, well, no, he also had made it a habit to bring over food rations and some datapads whenever he was in the sector— but while he understood why she’d appreciate the food, he couldn’t figure out why she’d want what was essentially glorified homework. 

.

Years ticked by. 

Years ticked by, his reputation as a bounty hunter was growing by the day and Rey still refused to leave that sandy hellscape no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise.

Ugh. The things he put up with for his friends.

.

For once, Ben hadn’t planned on dropping by Jakku. 

Unfortunately, nobody told that to the First Order.

.

He stared at the little droid.

The little droid stared back.

He scrubbed a hand down his face with a groan. 

“Looks like we’re doing this, then.”

.

...and you can probably tell where I ran out of steam.

From here we’d reach canon, where Ben’s slightly more amenable to being a mentor-figure of sorts for Finn [while being blissfully oblivious that he’s basically been treating Rey as his Padawan for literal years now], Rey proceeds to scare the crap out of everyone because she shows up out of nowhere and just. Goes toe to toe with the best the First Order has to offer, because she’s basically a full-blown Jedi at this point and doesn’t have any qualms about going feral if anyone looks at her friends wrong.

Which, when combined with the different dynamics of this world, with a new Jedi Order that’s [rightfully] suspicious of just who trained this super-powerful newcomer who’s basically an entity unto herself, well...

Because I don’t want to sideline Finn in this mess [and for maximum cosmic irony], he gets a glimpse of the suspicion aimed their way and promptly turns around and goes “hey, so you said you’re good at running from your past...” and next thing we know, the galaxy gets even more of a scare when they hear Darth Calamity has an apprentice.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

ohh i saw your answer about the sequels of star wars. id love to read you tear through the whole trilogy

Well, I’ve avoided this ask long enough. Part of the reason is this is really a huge topic, far too much for one ask, so I’m going to have to do this at a very high level.

In short, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy is what one gets when you slap together the goal of selling merchandise and making tons of money, being as risk averse as humanly possible, adding a handful of warring directors with incredibly different visions, and having virtually no imagination when it comes to the imagining and writing of characters.

And we get this beautiful, awful, franchise that for reasons beyond me people seem to actually like (though interestingly, no one seems to like all of it, they may actually like one or two of the films, but no one says all three are actually in any realm of good).

With that, let’s begin.

The Force Awakens

For me this is easily the most tolerable of the sequel trilogy: it’s not great, it’s not terrible. It’s thoroughly watchable, you can be taken along for the movie’s journey and not raise your eyebrows too much at the action and leave the theater feeling this maybe wasn’t a complete waste of your time.

There’s a good reason for that. That reason is called the most blatant form of plagiarism I have ever seen in cinema in my life.

“The Force Awakens” is just “A New Hope” wearing a mustache. Only, it’s one of those cheap mustaches you get from a party store that, if you stare at it too long, just looks like the most false and awful thing you’ve ever seen. The mustache actively makes it worse. “The Force Awakens” is “A New Hope”, but worse.

Seriously, every major character, every major plot point, every major scene I can go directly back to “A New Hope”.

Our story begins when the Resistance, at great cost to our valiant heroes including torture at the hands of the Emperor’s second in command, sends a file out into the wilderness to be received by his people. This file contains plans for the Death Star.

The film then focuses on Luke, er Rey, getting involved in the Resistance, boarding the Death Star, and successfully destroying at the same time even at the lost of a beloved mentor that she just met (trading in Obi-Wan for Han Solo). 

Our evil empire is run by an evil emperor who is so evil he sits in a chair, is served by very Moth Tarkin-esque human storm troopers, and has a second in command who revels in the Darth Vader get up (for no other reason that it makes him feel cool but we’ll get into this).

It’s “A New Hope”. Rey is Luke, Han Solo is Obi-Wan, Poe is a kind of Han Solo, Kylo Ren is Vader, Snoke is Palpatine, Hux is Tarkin, BB-8 is R2-D2, etc.

“But that’s not terrible,” you say, “I liked A New Hope?”

First, it is terrible, it gives a very bad sign of where the sequel trilogy is headed and is just lazy writing. It means that those who produced this franchise were so terrified of taking risks, of possibly ending up mocked as the prequels were, that they will deliver exactly what the original trilogy was. And what’s that? Uh, evil empires, scrappy desert kids, AND MORE DEATH STARS!

That brings us to point number two, the world of Star Wars after the events of the original trilogy shouldn’t support such things. And, if it does, my god what a bleak existence this place has turned into.

The First Order being able to rise easily from the Empire’s remains means that Luke accomplished nothing. Anakin sacrificed himself and had his moment of redemption for nothing. There was no happy ending to the Original Trilogy, our heroes failed miserably, and there is no indication that our new band of heroes can possibly succeed in their place. (More on this as the movies progress).

We now are in a galaxy where this new Republic is so pathetic that Leia doesn’t even give it the time of day and builds her own private army to battle the Empire. The First Order is able to not only rebuild a massive army by raiding villages on many different worlds and stealing children and do so successfully for at least ten years but is able to build a Death Star bigger than any we’ve ever seen before. 

And the movie tries to convince us these are completely new problems, that Luke Skywalker is a hero (remember this is TFA, not TLJ yet), and that somehow these things just sprung up out of nowhere. BUT YEAH, RESISTANCE, WOO!

As for Rey, she’s like... a worse version of Luke. Her only motivation through the entire series is her trauma at being abandoned by her parents. That’s it, there’s nothing else to her, nothing else she ever wants or feels conflicted by. She struggles with the dark side because... the dark side? Genetics? Unclear? She’s absurdly, ridiculously, powerful in a way that’s acknowledged but never that acknowledged (we’ll get into this) and the movies just fail to sell me on her in any way.

Honestly, an easy fix for me would have just been making Rey a much younger character. I could believe a fourteen-year-old having stayed in the desert, scrounging for scraps, believing her parents are coming back every day now. As a twenty-something year old... It starts getting hard to believe she never left. (Also, this gets the benefit of getting rid of Reylo, which is always a plus for me).

As for Kylo Ren, I legitimately walked out of TFA thinking he was supposed to be comic relief. He’s what happens when someone desperately wants a likable, redeemable, villain and we get... Well, as a reminder his opening scene is one of genocide: he pillages and destroys a town with no regret and brutally tortures a man for information. We’re told he’s like this “because evil evil Snoke” and that may well be but throughout the film (and the series) it becomes clear that Kylo Ren’s main motivation is he deseprately wants to be cool. He wants to be a badass like Vader, he dresses in Vader cosplay (either ignoring or not knowing that Vader only dressed like that because his body was completely destroyed), he has these huge temper tantrums and nobody respects him because he’s a toddler in a Vader suit. 

He murders his own father, his parents who (at least in the films themselves) show every willingness to take him back and forgive him what he’s done, so that he can fully embrace his own “evilness”. In other words, he commits patricide to feel cool about himself, then it doesn’t work. 

And the movie series really banks on me feeling conflicted about Kylo Ren or at least wanting him to be redeemed. Granted, the wider internet seems to love him, I just can’t.

Oh, before I forget, the other thing I love about Kylo Ren is that the movies insist he’s a) strong in the Force b) is equal to Rey. Rey consistently beats the shit out of him with 0 training. Kylo Ren has been training in the Force for years. Guys, they are not a Dyad, Rey is far far far stronger than he is and for whatever reason the films never want to admit it. Because I guess we like things coming in pairs now.

But yes, “The Force Awakens”, at a distance not great nor terrible, but a rip off of a movie we’ve already seen that left me going “Welp, the next one’s probably The Empire Strikes Back then I guess we’re getting Ewoks”. I was sort of right on that and sort of wrong.

The Last Jedi

So, JJ Abrams clearly had a vision of where he wanted this sequel trilogy to go. He set up these big questions such as what’s up with Finn, who are Rey’s parents and why was she left on this nowhere planet, will Kylo Ren be redeemed and how, who is Snoke, etc.

Now, I’m not saying these aren’t stupid questions. To be frank, they kind of are. Finn being Force Sensitive was the most inconsequential thing I’ve ever heard of, Rey’s parents should not have been used to drive the plot the way it was, as spoken above I’m clearly team gut Kylo Ren, and that Snoke was actually just Palpatine being the world’s largest cockroach is a beautiful but hilarious answer.

That said, what Johnson did was he decided, “You know what, I’m going to take every trope of Star Wars and completely flip it on its head and absolutely doom the sequel to this movie.”

And by god, he did.

We get a weirdly pointless movie in which Poe, SINGLEHANDEDLY, completely obliterates the Resistance. He first obliterates their bombers by failing to follow command, then goes and bitches about how he’s not put in command when he clearly shows no ability to understand how a military works, actively subverts orders which in turn obliterates the entire Resistance fleet until the only survivors can fit on the Millenium Falcon. They have no ships, no weapons, barely any people, and are ultimately doomed doomed doomed.

We have Finn’s weird subplot with a suddenly introduced character Rose in which the pair aid in Poe’s blowing up the resistance (they send sensitive information using the communication equipment of a guy they do not know, who fully admits to being shady and out for his own skin, and are flabergasted when he betrays them). 

Rose herself is this weirdly sweet person who seems forced into the plot to a) provide a love triangle for Finn and Rey b) provide this forced sunny outlook that I didn’t really need in the film.

We get Rey never really being trained, going into the Cave of Wonders for a few seconds, falling in love with Kylo Ren over weird Force Skype calls (where I did not need to see him shirtless, thank you film) and being horrifically betrayed when Kylo Ren turns out not to be a great guy. Never saw that coming, Rey. 

As for Kylo Ren, well... God, we get Emperor Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, the Emperor. I’m not even that upset about the anticlimactic murder of Snoke (that was kind of funny, especially in the context of Palpatine going, “Bitch, please, you’re in my chair” immediately in the next film) but just Kylo Ren being emperor. And also that the Resistance only escapes at all because he’s so dumb he made their dumb plans seem smart (i.e. concentrates all his firepower on an illusion for ten minutes while Hux goes, “Emperor, sir, we could actually destroy the Resistance right now.”

Now, you’ll notice I didn’t complain about Luke. A lot of people are upset he became a grumpy, miserable, old hermit who sits around waiting for death. Frankly though, in this universe, that’s exactly where he is. He left “Return of the Jedi” thinking he’d saved the world, he’s resurrected the Jedi Order, and all is well. Only a decade later, his students are all murdered by his nephew, the Empire’s back, and he accomplished nothing. He’s an utter failure as a Jedi (though Luke never realizes he knew jack shit about the Jedi Order and was in way over his head but I guess that’s beyond him). Why shouldn’t he go sit on a rock and wait to die? 

Now, did he have to drink that blue dinosaur milk? Well, I guess it was funny, gross but funny so... Sure, I guess he did. But I do like that he gave Rey 0 training, they had one meditation session and then he whined about how Obi-Wan was such a stupid asshole. And then Rey ran off to be with her boyfriend, who then told her that her parents were gutter trash (which again, was funny, but I don’t think that was supposed to be funny).

Of the characters introduced in the movie, the only one I really liked was the hacker, and it was for the actor/the beautiful way in which he gracefully exited stage left with zero shame going, “You all knew I was going to betray you!” You beautiful man, you.

Rise of the Skywalker

First, when something is called “Rise of the Skywalker” you know you’re in for a rough time.

But anyways, TLJ was filled with a controversy Disney didn’t want (half their audience hated it, half loved it, but at least they sold those penguin dolls) so they desperately get Abrams back. Only, what he clearly wanted from his series has been shot to hell, and now he’s left with Emperor Kylo Ren, a completely obliterated Resistance, a dead Luke, a love interest he never planned to introduce for Finn, Rey’s parental crisis being solved with trash people, Snoke just suddenly dead, Hux planning revenge, and then some.

And so, Abrams goes the brave and hilarious route of shouting “PRETEND THAT LAST MOVIE NEVER HAPPENED”

We open to a fully functioning Resistance (their bomber fleet is back, their fleet period is back, they have all their fully trained personnel). We have Rey getting the Jedi training she needed this time from Leia, who is now a Jedi, because yay feminism rammed down my throat to make the audience feel better. Rose says “It’s cool guys, I don’t want to join the adventure this film, I’m going to stay here and work on robots” so that she can gracefully exit the entire plot. Kylo Ren is demoted from Emperor in two seconds when we discover that a) Snoke was apparently Palpatine b) for unexplained reasons Palpatine’s alive (and I am now convinced that man will never die). Kylo Ren tells Rey at the first opportunity that he lied about her trash parents AND REALLY SHE’S A PALPATINE! THIS WHOLE TIME, REY! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. I’M SUPER SERIAL THIS TIME, REY.

Basically, in the course of an overly long movie, Abrams desperately shoves in everything he was trying to get out of the series, while sobbing, and sobbing even harder when things like Finn being Force Sensitive or Lando having a secret daughter get caught. I actually agree with the Producers on this, by the way, the Finn trying to tell Rey something scenes were weird and indicative of a love triangle but him being Force Sensitive instead... It says a lot that the movies did not change when it was removed, at all. And Lando was just this strange cameo who was in the film to make us feel nostalgic.

And this isn’t even getting to the ridiculous 24 hour time limit (which made me think there should have been some video game style clock in the corner letting us know when Dawn of the Third Day is coming), Palpatine’s other secret army on a secret Sith planet that can be easily taken down by taking out one navigation tower, Rey’s hilarious struggle with the dark side in which she has a vision of herself in a cape hissing, Kylo Ren’s hilarious redemption in which the movie in the form of Leia and Han Solo says, “Alright, Ben, it’s time to stop being evil” and he says “okay”, the fight with Palpatine in which I’m supposed to believe he dies for reals because... I have no idea why I’m supposed to believe he’s dead. The Reylo, god the Reylo, and Kylo Ren’s tragic, hilarious, death.

And then, of course, the ending where Rey decides she’s a Skywalker now.

I actually did laugh all the way through “Rise of the Skywalker”, you can’t not, I mean it’s a hilariously awful movie. The only thing that might have made it more hilarious was if we actually did get those Ewoks.

TL;DR

They’re all bad movies, if you want more specifics than this, you’re just going to have to ask me questions.