#obi snapped at him off scene it's canon

[themculibrary]

Hurt No Comfort Masterlist

5 Times Steve Rogers Lost Someone and 1 Time He Pushed Them Away (ao3) - stark2ash implied steve/bucky G, 4k

Summary: Steve is no stranger to loss.

A Handshake and a Smile (ao3) - heartreactor T, 5k

Summary: And... you've won. Congratulations. Fair game. Good sport. Have fun?

Or...

Nebula misses the human she ended up stuck with when stranded in space.

all messed up with nowhere to go (ao3) - girlbookwrm steve/bucky M, 8k

Summary: “You make me promise to try, every time before we say goodbye. “Whatever happens, you always stand up, Steve.” And I will. I'll try, Buck. I'll try to pick up where you left off.”

After the Snap, Steve starts writing in Bucky’s journal.

and they will run you down 'til you fall (ao3) - an_insomaniac T, 4k

Summary: The first thing he felt was bright light, even through closed eyes, coloring the insides of his eyelids a reddish color.

The first thing he thought was, fuck, I overslept. Ma's gonna kill me.

Then he realized he wasn't at home in New York with his family. No, he was overseas in Europe, fighting a war. Except not anymore, because they all got captured. And now he was stuck here, strapped to a metal table, alone.

Or: Bucky has gotten hurt by Hydra countless times in his long, long life. But how, exactly, did it go the first time around? Bucky (and the Howling Commandos)'s time as prisoners of war in Azzano.

Backwards (ao3) - Strickmaler T, 1k

Summary: His nightmares, while not a recurring thing, always take their toll upon Peter.

Concession (ao3) - obsession_inc pepper/tony M, 26k

Summary: An AU diverging from canon after the first movie: Christine Everhart investigates the disappearance of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. No warnings, no guarantees.

Delusions of Happiness (ao3) - McKiwi_Writes T, 1k

Summary: What good is a Sorcerer Supreme to a world that's lost it's magic? What good is a heart to a man with no one to love? Sinister does this Stephen, like so many others out there, a favor.

ghost of you (ao3) - yelenatasha clint/natasha G, 1k

Summary: There's something very personal between them. It always has been.

Natasha and Clint through the years and how Endgame changed it all, somehow.

Great Power Greater Responsibility (ao3) - Dearestspaghetti, Vennat T, 5k

Summary: “I don’t know about the stuff that was going on behind the scenes but. I-I saw him bleed.” A pause, Peter held his breath. “I didn’t use to think he was truly a hero. Stopping a bus, sure, that’s impressive, but I didn’t think he was needed. Until today. Until I heard him screaming.”

Just One (Is Never Enough) (ao3) - Myrime T, 2k

Summary: Tony knows the criteria for diagnosing an addiction since Pepper has helpfully supplied him with a flyer once or five times. He is not an addict. He could stop. It is not withdrawal making him feel miserable. That is just his life. At least Obie understands that and helps - even if that means putting a bottle of whiskey in his hand at eleven in the morning.

Tony is fine.

Nothing Left (ao3) - 16woodsequ G, 3k

Summary: “What was I supposed to do?” Steve asks sharply. “Wait to hear the news second-hand from your Ma?” He runs a hand through his hair, his stomach twisting as he speaks. “We wouldn’t even have had anything to bury, Buck.”

Bucky dies.

That's three times now.

And there's never anything left to bury.

Red Glass (ao3) - Anonymous T, 12k

Summary: Thor hits Loki in a drunken rage and has to realize later how truly shattering his action was, and the negative effects it had on his little brother.

Ships Passing in the Night (ao3) - osprey_archer T, 2k

Summary: Hydra releases the Winter Soldier for the Battle of New York. Steve Rogers is 100% thrilled to meet a fellow frozen World War II soldier, even if he was a Soviet.

somebody take my hand (and carry me down this road) (ao3) - orphan_account steve/bucky G, 1k

Summary: Steve had always hated the aftermath of battles. This one was no different, except, of course, it was.

That Damaged Love (But I Don't Know What Else) (ao3) - FairyQueen (etoilecourageuse) T, 1k

Summary: It was way too high a cost to shed even a single tear, and all those who had once entered the Red Room were much too aware of this for their very own good.

The More Things Stay the Same (ao3) - issuedSideways M, 2k

Summary: Tony is invited to a party, and things go poorly in a way he's all too used to.

Written for the prompt "spiked drink."

There's no remedy for memory (ao3) - Gigglebox peter/mj G, 5k

Summary: There was something strangely familiar about the man who just entered MJs coffee shop. She was sitting at the counter nursing a headache from a wound that she still couldn’t quite remember getting and waiting not-so-patiently for her shift to finally end.

A brown haired boy walked in and MJ was struck for a second with a sense of recognition and a deep longing. But just as quickly as it came, it was gone. “Can I help you?” she asked, hoping the annoyance that she felt throughout the day wasn’t obvious in her voice.

“Hi, um, My name is Peter Parker. And I…” The boy looked at a paper as if he had some speech written down on it and MJ was intrigued wondering why he would be giving a speech to her. “...would like a coffee, please.” But as quickly as he gained the confidence to say whatever he was going to say, it disappeared.

or: Peter failing to tell MJ about their relationship after the events of No Way Home told from MJs perspective.

Void (ao3) - MnemonicMadness T, 1k

Summary: Everyone would have expected for Mantis to react, to scream or rage the moment she touched Tony Stark. To feel anger or sadness or some other twisted thing. Instead, she doesn't react. She touches him and feels nothing.

who loves for real loves for ever (ao3) - dante_baby T, 3k

Summary: Love sees Thor's tattoos and asks who Loki is. This makes Thor realize that he wasn't prepared for this conversation at all.

[rainintheevening]

How Qui-Gon saves Anakin (and the Galaxy): Part 3

(You can find the other parts by searching the tag #qui-gon is obi-wan's father au, at the bottom. With the hyphens.)

-Qui-Gon dies about two years into the war.

-Anakin takes it hard. He's really happy being married, and he and Obi-Wan are closer than ever, but the war sucks, and it's dragging on, and now he has to say goodbye to his grandfather, who he's loved and leaned on for over half his life.

-Totally gonna write a scene for this.

-Anakin gets kinda clingy with both Obi-Wan and Padmé after that, though he tries not to be obvious about it. Obi-Wan is kind but reasonable about it. Padmè is equally kind, but him wanting to know exactly where she's going on a given day, or who she's going to be with, does get irritating.

-But in the wake of Qui-Gon's death, Palpatine pounces. There's a big hole in Anakin’s life, and Palptine is no Qui-Gon, but he is kind, and he listens, and he shares Anakin’s concerns about the war and the state of the Republic.

-Anakin is definitely struggling emotionally as we get into the events of RotS. He's not nearly so close to the dark side as in canon, he's not hanging out in the middle between Palpatine and the Jedi, but Palpatine’s coaxing him toward the bridge, he's getting to the edge of solid ground. (Yes, he's not technically a Jedi, but he's been functioning the same as all the rest in the war. They're still all his friends and family, he cares about them plenty.)

-One thing Anakin does a lot is have conversations with Qui-Gon in his head. Rants, jokes, musings on the local flora and fauna. Lots of 'I miss you's.

-Palpatine arranging his kidnapping at Grievous's hands is his first big test of Anakin’s loyalty to him. Siccing Anakin on Dooku is really what will tell Palpatine if trying to turn him will be worth it.

-Anakin still kills Dooku. This would be the first time he's really accessed the dark side. Immediately feels sick to his stomach, but throttles that guilt. Makes himself focus on rescuing Palpatine and Obi-Wan. But after it's like he can feel Qui-Gon's eyes on him, those Dad Special 'I'm not angry, just incredibly disappointed' eyes. He mentally snaps at Qui-Gon, tries to justify killing the man who was his master. Grumbles about not talking to Obi-Wan. Finally sighs, and thinks, Later. I'll talk to him later, I want to see my WIFE.

-Being able to tell Obi-Wan about Padmé being pregnant will be a massive plus! Also word getting round to the rest of the Jedi and everyone going, "Oh no, another Skywalker?!"

-With Anakin not being a member of the Order the whole business of getting appointed to the council gets shot. I'm still unsure how to spin all the political stuff and still make Palps look clever. I'm not politically clever in the least.

-Also since Anakin and Padmé are openly married, there's no real reason not to talk to Obi-Wan about his nightmare visions of Padmé screaming in the throes of childbirth (my dude, just 'cause she's screaming doesn't mean she's dying). But maybe he struggles with his own pride, not wanting to admit his fear to Obi-Wan. He's probably been trying very hard in the past year, since Qui-Gon died, to prove how grown up he can be. (Kinda ridiculous alongside how clingy he is sometimes.) He really wishes Qui-Gon was there.

-Maybe Obi-Wan comes over for dinner, and Anakin dozes off on the couch 'cause he has not been sleeping. Teases Padmé by putting his head in Obi-Wan’s lap, and his feet in hers. Jerks awake from another vision, almost kicking Padmé, and scaring her. Obi-Wan pries the story out of him. Okay, here's another scene I need to write.

-So Anakin’s getting Obi-Wan’s advice, getting reminded of Qui-Gon's advice about the future and his visions. Padmé gets checked out by the Temple healers on Anakin’s request, and she's absolutely fine.

-Obi-Wan goes to Utapau the same. Anakin is torn between wanting to go with him and worrying about Padmé. Obi-Wan chuckles a bit at that, and tells Anakin, he's honoured, but Anakin’s duty is to his wife, and didn't they say something about twins having a tendency to come early? So he should probably stick around.

-And Palptine knows he's gotta make his move fast or he's going to lose Anakin. Anakin still isn't sleeping well, cause the visions don't just stop. Palpatine calls him in, does his big reveal. Appeals to Anakin with the promise of being able to save Padmé for sure for sure. (So stupid because of course you can't control the future, but the offer sounds pretty darn tempting to a frustrated and worried Anakin.)

-That all kinda goes the same. Anakin reacts to the Sith Lord reveal, gets talked down, doesn't say a whole lot, takes Palps advice to think on it.

-He goes back to the Temple, tells Mace. I think he would be particularly torn over the idea of Palpatine being the Sith lord, because he's always held onto a seed of hatred for the Sith, because it was a Sith who wounded Qui-Gon so severely, in a way that eventually led to his death, at a time when Anakin felt like he'd never needed both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in his life more. And now a man he thought was a friend is the Number One Sith, possibly even was behind Darth Maul?? But then he was promising Anakin certainty about Padmé's life, which he could really use these days. He's confused, really not sure who to trust, or who's telling the truth. Of course he begs to go with Mace to arrest Palpatine. Mace looks him dead in the eye, says, "I know he's your friend. If he is the Sith Lord, will you be willing to do whatever it takes to stop him?" Anakin hesitates longer than two seconds, and Mace shakes his head. "Than I don't want you being forced to make that decision in the heat of a moment. You're staying here."

-This is still the crucial moment, the tipping point. Anakin’s tempted, sorely tempted to believe Palpatine. But... more than anything he wishes he could talk to Qui-Gon. It's been over a year since he last heard his grandpa's voice, last felt that gentle hand on his shoulder. He waits in the Council chamber and he's alone, so he starts talking to Qui-Gon out loud. Begging for advice, for Qui-Gon to tell him what he should do.

-It takes him a minute or two to realize that his imagined responses from Qui-Gon are just a little... louder, quicker, and more direct than usual. It sounds like Qui-Gon is actually TALKING to him, and then he can hear that familiar chuckle, an incredibly familiar brush of warm, tempered strength and gentleness in the Force, and he pretty much falls over. Thumps down into a chair (pure coincidence that it's Obi-Wan’s usual seat).

-This changes everything.

-I will be writing this scene.

-They talk. Qui-Gon's reminders of the truth are like breathing clean air or drinking fresh water, after subsisting on smoke or engine oil for a while. Anakin gets his feet back on solid ground. He makes his choice.

-He goes to fight Palpatine. Helps Mace. Palpatine dies, but not directly by a blow from Anakin. Probably deflected Force lightning.

-Order 66 gets averted. Obi-Wan comes home safe. The babies are born. Padmé has a hard labour, but she's fine.

-And to make a long story short, they lived happily ever after. :)

[stardustallaround]

GOTTEM I GET TO RANT NOW! (thanks so much btw!!!)

apologies this is gonna be really long

format is [lyric]: description; explanation/comments

- [I've earned myself a reputation]: all of the commanders and Rex as cadets; I wanted to start from the beginning

- [That my bark | is much worse than | my bite]: zoom in on cadet wolffe, change to older wolffe; I mean. self explanatory bro chose his name to be a misspelled animal pfff

- [But I keep snapping at Goliath's hands]: the iconic scene when Plo Koon and two of the Wolfpack are stuck and Plo Koon says they’re not expendable; I liked the idea that Plo Koon rebelled in his own way, eg. appreciation of his sons

- [With all of my tiny might]: pan to the two troopers; clones have very little control, but they fight for each other as hard as they can

- [There are no stones at my disposal]: Rex’s helmet; Rex likely often feels powerless to stop Anakin’s antics

- [There's no God to award me a crown]: hands grab Rex’s helmet; Rex means “king,” this is sorta alluding to the idea that he gave himself his own crown (name/helmet/honor)

- [But I am always swinging at]: 501st on umbara

- [Somebody I can't knock down]: pong krell, blasters in peripheral; self explanatory, except they do shoot him down

- [All of the fire I've swallowed]: gree with luminara unduli; no concrete reasoning for this, but possible suspicions that luminara encourages the troopers to hide their feelings for others since she’s like that with barriss

- [All of the sparks that went dark in my gut]: gree watching ahsoka and barriss walk away (gree is slightly smiling); he worries for barriss, especially considering how young padawans are, and he feels like an older brother

- [I am always burning up]: gree watching hologram of the tank getting crushed; canon episode reference! he’s distressed abt potentially losing barriss and has no power to stop it :(

- [Dress me in red and throw your roses]: fox on patrol and a bottle gets thrown at him; red armor! bottle=roses!

- [And I'll wrangle the beast with words]: fox standing behind palpatine; palps is a yapper also fox lies to him to save his brothers (often at his own expense)

- [It's a graceless dance of epithets]: fox standing behind senator chuchi; uhhhh senators scheming but for good ‼️

- [We learn to make somewhat hurt]: fox standing alone without helmet, bleeding; note he has lighting scars (rude palps) and early gray hairs (due to his brothers, but I also like the head canon that he’s “defective” and has been getting these his whole life and that’s why he never takes off his helmet)

- [They will consume your sweet resistance]: bly looking at Ayla; bly is a sweetheart just try to argue with me

- [And they'll carry your heart in their teeth]: Aayla smilkng at bly; teeth literally with the smiling, also blyla <3

- [But I am always feeding them]: Felucia battlefield; very sad parallel with canon

- [The ugliest parts of me]: bly and aayla fighting droid; they for sure don’t want to fight, but they have to

- [All of the words I've swallowed]: ponds fighting with windu on ryloth; as cool as windu is, it must have been difficult to work with him

- [All of the sharp things I've kept in my mouth]: ponds and Zillo beast; teeth. sharp things in mouth are teeth

- [I am always bleeding out]: death by aurra sing; uhhh this was supposed to be aurra sing I drew the wrong person, but symbolically I think I had boba bc he was technically fighting against the other clones (ngl I drew this one a while ago and was very sleep deprived)

- [Take me to war]: cody, obi wan, and anakin at holotable; this was a common scene in the war, eternal planning

- [Honey, I dare you]: obi wan, from over Cody’s shoulder; obi wan had many antics that poor cody had to suffer through, and codywan <3

- [I'll be the sweetest thing]: ghost company with obiwan; they’re all besties ur honor

- [To ever scare you]: obi wan “dead” arc, ghost company watching hologram; BIG sad, wish we could have seen at least ghost company at the “funeral”

- [Give me a fight I can't resist]: numa; this was originally gonna have boil and waxer with her but I got lazy, anyway they want to protect her

- [Give me something to break with my fists]: cody punching droid; the commander class is just Built Different, cody even more so

- [Take me to war]: cody picking up lightsaber; I often think abt the fact cody canonically has a belt clip for a lightsaber

- [Honey, I dare you]: cody handing lightsaber to obi wan; really wanna know how often this happened for the aforementioned belt clip

- [I watched a weed usurp the garden]: a corrie in senate pod, palps at the center of the senate talking from over a guards left shoulder; crusty dusty palps swaying the senate, also over left shoulder indicates “bad people” and the opposite for right

- [And it poisoned the rest of the crops]: senate pods with corrupt sentars going forward

- [Would take days of fighting stubborn roots]: padme, bail, mothma over right shoulder of guard; let them cook ‼️

- [To tear the whole damn thing out]: senate building; the whole place is pretty much corrupt

- [So I will leave it where it's standing]: back to guard looking at senate floor, leaves out of frame

- [And instead I will find me a match]: fox w/blaster facing fives; fives could have been the key to avoiding the Horrors

- [I'll turn it all to kindling]: fox lowers blaster; what I wish could have happened, don’t ask me how this would have been feasible (I hc that palps was controlling fox here)

- [I'll burn it all down to ash]: hologram of The Chip; this could have been the key to fixing it all, so in my delusion fives gets to tell fox and spread the word

- [All of the ire I've swallowed]: fox w/gun; he’s mad when he finds out

- [All of the coals that still sit in my gut]: palps, menacing; he’s actually The Worst

- [I am always burning up]: fox raises gun, blaster pulled, silhouettes, palps shot; man I just wanted fox to shoot palps bc he deserves it the most

- [Take me to war]: plo’s bros on side of ship; this section is all “memories”/ happy times

- [Honey, I dare you]: Rex and ahsoka spying on padme and anakin; bestest siblings, legit one of my favorite ideas, in the original sketch I had anakin ranting abt sand

- [I'll be the sweetest thing]: Ayla leaning against bly, asleep; once again, bly is the sweetest

- [To ever scare you]: coruscant guards laughing around a table with cards and drinks; don’t tell me everyone else wasn’t afraid of the Corries, also I like to think they would have game nights every now and then

- [Give me a fight I can't resist]: ponds at 79’s with others

- [Give me something to break with my fists]: gree is gifted a mug from barriss; this is an extremely obscure call back to another piece of art that I did where obiwan had a mug from ahsoka that says “best grandmaster” and I like to think the padawans have an arts class

- [Take me to war]: ghost company with obi wan at dex’s; the usual suspects including boil, waxer, cody, wooly, AND fanmedic helix (he’s canon in my heart)

- [Honey, I dare you]: fives rescuing ech from skeco minor; echo was def sad when he realized his twin wasn’t there so I fixed that :)

Some general notes on artistic choices:

• While I usually draw in grayscale (rendering scares me), I specifically made any "identifying" features (like armor paint, hair color, etc.) for clones be present, partially for identification and partially with the idea that these are the things that show their individuality. The only exception to this was when there was a lightsaber (I like the cool glowing sticks).

• Characters besides the clones are specifically in a single shade of gray to put more focus on the clones (as this is meant to be an animatic about THEIR tragedy). However, there are a few cases when I made the other characters be "rendered" but in grayscale if what they are doing/their character arc has an impact on the clones in the panel.

• Most of this portrays canon or canon-adjacent to a certain point, I made the second half in mind of "What if Fox was able to chose differently."

• During the final "Take Me to War" section, the panels are specifically grayscale because they are supposed to depict happy "memories" of the war. In my "headcanon what-if" clones no longer need their identifying colors after the war because they have found their autonomy with the end of the war, though many may still keep them. (this is totally not because I didn't want to fully color more panels shhhhhhh)

• I learned how to edit videos in Blender for this

animatic depicting the tragedy of the clone wars and answers the question: what if Commander Fox was able to put down the gun and raise it at at someone else?

Song: Take Me to War (Live) by the Crane Wives

if one (1) person asks I will post an in depth analysis of every panel

[beyonettta]

i know for a fact that if obi was there with hinawa and maki's misogynistic ass brother, he would of SNAPPED and put that misogynist in his place !!

[syn0vial]

Top 5 Boba moments 🥺

ohh fun! :D i’m gonna go in chronological order for these, just for organization’s sake. i’m also going to try and only include moments i haven’t talked much about before, just to keep things fun and fresh!

1. freeing the sea mice: starting from the very first boba fett junior novel the fight to survive, bc, well, chronological order! i like this moment bc it really emphasizes how innocent boba used to be. basically, there’s an aquarium with an eel in the fett’s kamino apartment and while jango and zam are off making bad decisions on coruscant, boba is tasked with it feeding aquatic rodents called “sea-mice” to the eel, something he’s never had to do before. but he doesn’t like doing it. the sea-mice always seem to trust him when he picks them up and he feels guilty for betraying them by feeding them to the eel. so, one day, he decides it’s going to be different. that morning, he feeds the eel his own breakfast (which is like, both sweet and hilarious, like honey did you really just throw your lunchables into an eel’s tank bc you wanted to make sure it was fed even while you’re out here freeing feeder mice? A+ for good intentions, F- for knowledge of how animals work) and tries to free a few of the sea-mice into kamino’s oceans. unfortunately, they don’t survive. the next day, boba reluctantly goes back to feeding the mice to the eel, telling one before he drops it in, “sorry; life is hard on the small and the weak,” echoing a saying of his father’s. this then becomes horrible foreshadowing for the rest of the series, in which boba is orphaned and suddenly finds himself being preyed upon by all sorts of antagonists. i know it’s a kids’ series and it’s Not That Deep, but i do really like that there’s a parallel created between boba and the mouse and the implication of the series as a whole that boba fett didn’t become a notorious hunter because he was always that way, but specifically because he started out as prey. also, it’s kind of hilarious in retrospect that boba felt compassion for rodents, but literally days later attempted to take obi-wan’s life without hesitation. kid’s really got his priorities in order.

2. standing up to jabba the hutt: this is from the junior novel boba fett: hunted, which is my favorite of the junior novels for him. in the story, boba pretends a short-statured adult by concealing his face with his father’s helmet and attempts to find work from jabba the hutt. however, when he finally gets an audience with jabba, jabba indeed offers to bring him back to his palace—as an indentured servant. and this freaking, like, eleven-year-old, staring down the criminal kingpin of tatooine with no weapons and no armor besides a too-big helmet, snaps at jabba the hutt, “my debt to you? what do i owe you for?” naturally, he is immediately set upon by one of jabba’s guards, and, well, i’ll let you read the rest :D

Boba had no time to think. He acted.

Without a sound, he leaped to one side. The Drovian’s knife whistled harmlessly through the air where, a nanosecond before, Boba had been.

“Huh?” gaped the hulking alien.

A small table stood near the viewscreen. Boba grabbed the table and swung it in front of himself, fending off the Drovian’s blade. Jabba himself watched, laughing coarsely.

“You will pay for this!” croaked the Drovian.

As the guard bore down on him, Boba thrust the table upward. The knife stuck in the wood surface. While the Drovian struggled to free his weapon, Boba pushed the table up farther. Then, he darted sideways, kicking at the lumbering guard’s knees. With a groaning thud, the Drovian stumbled and fell. Jabba’s guests laughed as Boba turned to breathlessly face Jabba.

“I am no one’s slave or servant!” Boba said. “I will work for you, for a price—but I will name that price!”

like, this kid really just brought down an armed adult with nothing but an end table AND finishes it off with a badass line defending his autonomy and defying jabba the hutt! definitely one of my favorite moments from the junior novels.

3. the Look he exchanges with lando while han is being tortured in the background

look, idk why this is so funny to me, but it is. lando’s just so full of loathing for this man who is complicit in forcing him to betray han and boba’s just like “you got shit to say to me. or nah?” he’s such a fucking asshole, i love it.

4. staying conscious just long enough to express his displeasure with the situation in iiiiii think the mandalorian armor, idk it’s been awhile: this story takes place post-RoTJ, after boba has escaped the sarlacc pit, killing it in the process, and is being gradually regaining his strength with the help of fellow bounty hunter dengar and amnesiac former slave neelah. at this point in the story, he’s still quite weak and spends most of his time slipping in and out of consciousness. unfortunately, some of boba’s enemies find out he’s still alive and just start fucking carpet-bombing their general location, so dengar and neelah go “shit, we need a bomb shelter, stat!”...and then slowly turn to look at the subterranean corpse of the sarlacc pit. they thus drag boba’s unconscious body back into the pit so they can all hunker down and wait out the bombs. except, surprise, surprise! the sarlacc ain’t completely dead. one of its giant tentacles starts attacking the group and is succeeding in getting the upper hand over dengar and neelah, when suddenly, boba wakes up. takes a look around and realizes where he is. and then grabs the nearest blaster and just goes apeshit firing on the tentacle, finally managing to kill it. too exhausted to talk, he then turns and fixes dengar with the angriest, most hate-filled glare the man has ever seen... and then promptly passes out. i remember just dissolving into giggles the first time i read that scene. just the mental image of boba fett giving dengar the scariest fucking “why the fuck did you fucking bring me back here” deathglare in the galaxy and then immediately losing consciousness. energy well-spent, boba.

5. that time boba did a mission completely in his underwear for no discernible reason, because daniel keys moran: this one’s just like. so delightfully bizarre that i’m not even going to try justifying it logically bc literally the only reason it exists was bc renowned EU author and certified mad man daniel keys moran really wanted to give boba his strong female character moment, because he deserves it. so, in this subplot, boba is tracking this devaronian war criminal who is holed up in a safehouse equipped with security systems that are triggered by the presence of, like, metal. which means boba can’t wear his armor plates and can’t use any blasters or other gadgetry. so boba loads up a compound bow and knife and makes to hunt this guy down. now, what about his armor? obviously, the most logical thing to do would be to just remove the metal plates and hunt in his flight suit. or, if that isn’t satisfactory, go out and buy like, leather armor or something? or just clothes? BUT NOPE. boba apparently goes, “well, if i can’t wear my armor, i’m not gonna wear ANYTHING” and just. does the entire mission in his underwear. he tracks and stalks this man, shoots him with an arrow, and then chases him down with a knife, ALL IN HIS UNDERWEAR. daniel keys moran even goes so far as to explicitly specify that these ain’t no long-johns, either. he’s like, “and the underwear...... MAINLY COVERED HIS DICK.” LIKE, DANIEL? DANIEL? HOW IS IT THAT OUT OF THE TWO BOBA FETT STORIES YOU’VE WRITTEN, BOTH OF THEM MENTION HIS DICK IN SOME CAPACITY? DANIEL? WHO KEEPS LETTING YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS??? and, like, can you imagine being this poor devaronian? you’re just living your fugitive war criminal life when an arrow hits you in the shoulder and boba fucking fett comes sprinting out of the woods at you in his underwear with a knife? what the fuck. this was canon at one point. what the fuck.

[littleoddwriter]

Torn Apart (2/2) | Roman Sionis & Obi-Wan Kenobi | Roman Sionis x Victor Zsasz | ZsaszMask | AU

Here is Part 2 of this Fic, which you should definitely read before this one! I hope y’all enjoy it. :) [I’ll work on requests over the weekend, then! Sorry for the delay, I really needed to get this idea out of my system first.]

summary; After six years of no contact to each other, Obi-Wan shows up on Roman’s doorstep asking for his help.

notes; Gun Violence; Stalking; Death Threats; Murder; Canon-Typical Violence; Dissociation; Crying; Trauma; Roman Sionis has BPD; BPD Episodes; Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms; Mentions of Sex; Kissing; Domestic; Established Relationship; Pre-Canon; Angst with a Happy Ending; Hurt/Comfort; Brotherly Love; Bathing; Washing Someone Else; Taking Care of Someone Else; Alternate Universe - Roman and Obi-Wan are Brothers. [please don’t think that Roman seeing his brother naked and bathing him when they’re adults is weird; because istg, if I was in this situation and my sister did that, I would be nothing but grateful, so-]

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It has been six years since Roman had been kicked out and ousted.

Objectively speaking, he was doing a whole lot better now. Finally, he’s had the freedom and control he always desired, and he used it to its full potential.

Only a year after he’s started to find his footing all on his own, he’s opened a club to have an official business that brought in a good amount of money, whilst he would do his actual business behind the scenes, namely gaining power and rising to the top in Gotham’s underbelly. None of it would have happened so quickly if he hadn’t met Victor Zsasz only a month after he’s initially been disinherited, though.

Crossing paths with Zsasz truly has been the best thing that could have possibly happened to him. They worked so well together; they had similar world views and the same sadistic, cruel streak. It was too perfect to be true, which held Roman back for a long time. He didn’t trust Victor for a good while and always thought he was just trying to crumble his walls down only to strike then; but even when Roman has started letting his guard down after all, Zsasz turned out to be nothing but loyal and supportive.

He was exactly what Roman needed.

It was in the afternoon. The club was empty, save for Roman, Zsasz and some of their staff. Roman has just watched Victor peel someone’s mask off and he was in high spirits, while the others were busy cleaning up.

“Beautiful work as always, Mr. Zsasz,” Roman complimented his partner, grinning from ear to ear.

Victor beamed at him, “Thanks, boss.”

Roman was just going to continue talking when one of his men came up to him.

“Mr. Sionis?”

“What?” Roman snapped.

“Uh, well, there’s someone at the front door. He says he’s your brother? I didn’t let him in, of course, but-“

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Roman interrupted the other man, “Make sure the others hurry up with cleaning while I’m at the door. I want everything to be spotless when I’m back, ‘kay?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Boss?” Zsasz inquired, tilting his head slightly, a confused look on his face.

“Just stay put. I’ll be back in no time,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

Victor – ever the good boy – nodded and observed the clean-up, just like he was supposed to.

Heaving a heavy sigh, Roman walked towards his club’s entrance. His mind was reeling. He hasn’t exchanged a single word with Obi-Wan in those six years and frankly, he couldn’t fathom just what exactly his brother could suddenly want from him.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Roman then opened the door.

Even though he tried to mentally prepare himself, nothing could have readied him for looking his baby brother in the eyes after so many years. Obi-Wan was twenty-one now, almost the same age as Roman was when he’d been kicked out; although his birthday was nearing rapidly.

Facing his brother was like looking in a mirror, only that Obi was better – he was in better shape, undamaged, beautiful ginger hair, brilliant eyes and perfectly fitting suits in muted colours. He was everything that Roman wasn’t and never could have been. Roman’s eyes were dull, unless he was caught up in his burning rage, he was damaged, which may not have been visible to the naked eye, but it showed often enough; his hair was dark and his suits were colourful and bright. They were complete opposites and Roman often caught himself wondering about how they could have been coming from the same parents; the same womb.

“What the fuck are you doing here, baby brother? It’s been what-,” Roman feigned to over think it, “six years?”

“Hello, Roman,” Obi-Wan greeted him with a gentle, anxious smile on his lips, “I know it’s been a while and you probably don’t want to see me, but-“

“Fucking right, I don’t want to see you!” Roman interrupted him harshly; even though he didn’t truly mean it – he was just so angry all over again, “Again, what the fuck are you even doing here?”

“I was just going to say that if you hadn’t interrupted me,” Obi-Wan responded sternly – and oh, there was suddenly a fire to him that Roman didn’t see before; but it was gone just as quickly, after Obi took a deep breath. “I’m here because I need to talk to you. In private, please. Could we go inside?”

Roman scoffed, “Whatever you need to talk about, you can do it here.”

“No, I can’t. Please, Roman. I-,” he sighed softly, “I need your help.”

That was what caught Roman’s attention, then. His eyebrows shot up as he looked at his brother and really saw the underlying anxiety of his expression and his fidgety behaviour. He was nervous and Roman guessed that it didn’t necessarily have to do with the premise of even talking to him.

“Fine,” Roman relented, stepping aside to let Obi-Wan inside his club, “Come in, then.”

“Thank you.”

Walking in front of him, Roman was relieved to see that his men have just gotten done with cleaning up the mess Zsasz had created before – thank fuck for that. He waved over Victor and one other staff member, who both came over quickly, as Roman took a seat in one of the booths and signalised Obi-Wan to do the same.

“You. Bring me a Martini, will you?” Roman instructed, looking at the young man and then at his brother, “Would you like anything to drink as well?”

“Water should be fine, please,” Obi-Wan smiled politely.

“Yes, sir, of course!”

In silent understanding, Victor then took his place behind Roman’s back, leaning against the pillar as he usually did. It really helped to put him at ease, Roman had to admit.

Once their drinks were placed on the table, Roman immediately took a big sip of his Martini, in desperate need for the liquor to help him stomach whatever has caused Obi-Wan to show up on his doorstep after such a long time.

“So? What’s so important that you need my help, Obi-Wan?” Roman inquired with a raised eyebrow and quirk to his lips.

“Does he have to be here while I tell you?” he started, eyeing Zsasz with suspicion.

Roman sneered, “Yes. Either you accept that or you can fuck off right away. It’s up to you.”

To his surprise, Obi-Wan nodded and then picked up the bag that’s been hanging around his shoulder this whole time and pulled out a big, brown envelope, gently putting it down on the table between them. Then, he opened it and laid out the content on the table’s surface. It was a bunch of photos, some of which had something written on them in huge, red letters. Roman could already guess where this was going.

“It started with phone calls. You know, someone breathing down the line and then hanging up, a distorted voice saying some nasty things. I didn’t take it very seriously at first, but then a month ago, I started receiving these photos of myself and then the messages on them also began. And, well-,” Obi-Wan explained, twirling the longer strands of his hair around his fingers, twisting it tight as he pointed out a particular photograph.

The photo was a very candid one of Obi-Wan sitting at his desk in his room. Across it was a written message, which said, ‘I’M COMING FOR YOU. I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU.’

“This one was the last. I got it two days ago. I went to mother and father with it, but they don’t think it’s serious. I also went to the police, but-“

“They just sent you away saying they can’t do anything until something actually happens to confirm the threat being made to your life,” Roman ended Obi’s sentence for him, knowing exactly how cops operated with such things.

“Yes, exactly,” Obi-Wan confirmed softly.

“And so you came to me with this because…?” Roman wondered aloud, shortly looking at his brother before taking a closer look at all the photos again.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Obi-Wan admitted, “I’m scared. I don’t know who’s doing this, but I really want it to stop; even if everyone else is right and it’s not actually serious. It still feels that way.”

He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and then continued, “Look, I know you hate me, Roman. But I have no idea what else to do or where to go. Can you help me, please?”

His words stabbed Roman in the heart, making it hurt as his chest started to feel far too tight. Setting the photos in his hands down, Roman downed the rest of his Martini. He desperately needed something stronger.

Despite that, he nodded and said, “’Kay. I’ll help you.”

After all, he didn’t want his little brother to get hurt, no matter what. It was strange for him to feel protective over anybody else, but all his life this was what has kept him going after all.

Roman was trying to ignore what Obi has said before that. “Zsasz, separate our men in four teams. Make sure that each group fills one car, so that two of them can follow Obi-Wan around when he needs to go outside. Four groups, so they can rotate shifts.”

“Sure thing, boss. Anything else?” Victor responded, pulling out his phone.

“Obi-Wan, do you still live at the mansion?”

“Yes, but I also have an apartment I use.”

“Where have the photos been sent to?”

“Both. The last one was at my apartment, though.”

“Make sure that you spare some men, who stand guard at the apartment and around the mansion, in case this fuck decides to send another message. Maybe we can catch him red-handed,” Roman further instructed his partner.

Zsasz nodded and walked away to follow Roman’s orders.

“Will our dear ol’ parents be concerned if you don’t show up back at home for a while?” Roman asked, turning back to his brother, who started packing up the photos again.

“No, I can just tell them I’m staying over at my apartment. They wouldn’t question that. Why?”

“Well, you’re definitely not staying at either of your homes. I was thinking that you could stay here. I’ve got a guest room you can use. Of course, I also have a safe house, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea, considering that I’m stretching my staff really thin, already. So, I think it’s better if you just stay here. That way, Zsasz and I will be near you, in case something does happen. ‘Kay?”

“Are you sure you are okay with that, Roman?” Obi-Wan inquired, looking at him so incredulously that Roman was reminded again that his brother believed that he hated his guts (and really, Roman couldn’t blame him for thinking that).

“I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise, so yes,” Roman said and Obi-Wan nodded. “Great, that’s settled then! Come on, let’s get you upstairs and familiarised with your temporary new home.”

Roman clasped his hands together as he said it and got up and out of the booth, his brother following him suit.

Upstairs, Roman showed Obi-Wan through the penthouse. Each room came with explanations and rules, while he also showed off his artefacts in the hallways and living area in-between.

They ended the little tour in the guest room, which would be Obi-Wan’s own for the time being.

“Thank you, Roman. For everything. Again, I know you don’t exactly like me, and I’m sorry for making this the reason we’re talking again after so long, but I’m glad we are,” Obi-Wan said, turning around to face his brother.

Once more, Roman’s heart just hurt upon hearing Obi-Wan’s words and he tensed up. He took a moment to collect himself and push down the suffocating feeling that was starting to spread through his body, before quietly admitting what’s been burning on his tongue for a long time, “I don’t hate you, Obi. I never did. For a while, I tried to, though, only to find that you’re a very difficult person to hate, even if it would have made things easier on me. I just couldn’t.”

“But- You always pushed me away. Every time I tried talking to you when we still lived together, you’d yell at me and ignored me until I stopped trying. And what you said-“

“I didn’t mean it!” Roman snapped, stopping short and continuing more softly, “I was enraged, angrier than I’d ever been when I said what I said. And while I can’t undo it, I want you to know that I didn’t mean it. Not only wouldn’t it have changed anything if you’d been born or not, but you are the best thing that our parents have ever created, let me tell you.”

Obi-Wan looked stunned, and frankly, Roman felt it, too. Never in his dreams had he ever imagined himself saying these words to his brother. Not that he’s ever thought he’d talk to him ever again in the first place, either.

“Then why didn’t you ever speak to me?” his baby brother asked quietly, his voice breaking a little.

“I simply wasn’t allowed to,” Roman confessed, “Our parents never wanted me to be near you. I was punished for every time I so much as touched you or was caught alone with you. I was trying to protect myself, Obi-Wan.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Why did they do that?”

Roman shrugged, “I suppose they were scared I would either do something bad to you or corrupt you to be just as troublesome as I had always been.”

“That’s abhorrent!” Obi-Wan exclaimed, looking scandalised. He took a deep breath to calm down once again and continued, “I’m really sorry, Roman. I wish I’d known that was the reason. Maybe I could have done something about it.”

“I highly doubt that. Listen, father would have done what he did to me either way. You know that as well as I do, or else he wouldn’t have bothered punishing me for every other mistake I’ve ever done.”

“I suppose you’re right. You didn’t deserve any of it, though. I hope you know that.”

A strained smile stretched Roman’s lips. It was painful, but not as badly as the way his chest hurt.

“Sure,” he just said, “I have a business meeting in ten minutes, so feel free to get more familiar with your surroundings. I don’t care what you do, as long as you follow the rules I’ve set and stay up here until I’m back. I’ll have someone drive to your apartment and bring your clothes here. I’ll also have two of my men positioned around here to look out for you, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, alright. Thank you, Roman,” Obi-Wan smiled gently.

Roman only nodded, after looking at his brother for a long moment. Then, he turned around and walked over to his dressing room to get changed into a different suit for his pending meeting. First, he sent out a message to two of his men to come upstairs and look after Obi-Wan while he was busy, though.

As he was busy changing his outfits, Roman really felt just how close to exploding he was. He was tense, his chest felt tight, he could hardly breathe, his mind was reeling and he felt this big lump in his throat. It was agony and he wished he didn’t have this business meeting to attend, now. All he wanted to do was drown himself in hard liquor as Zsasz would fuck him stupid – maybe after he watched him kill another person – so he could get out of his head and stop feeling like this.

“Boss?” Victor asked, standing in the doorway and looking at Roman, who was just fixing his hair in his vanity mirror.

“Did you do everything I told you to?” Roman turned around to face his partner, who walked up to him and nodded. “Good boy.”

When they were face to face, Roman kissed him on the lips. Even if he had to suppress all his emotions just now, at least he could find comfort in the intimate familiarity he’s never had with anyone else before Zsasz.

“You okay?” Victor murmured against his lips.

Roman scoffed, “What do you think?”

“Tushi.”

“Touché,” Roman corrected instantly, chuckling softly – sometimes, Victor’s butchering of words was rather amusing after all. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. I’d hate to be late!”

During the meeting, Roman was distracted enough that he almost forgot what he’s felt like before; but of course it didn’t stay that way. Despite how well it went, after his business partner left, Roman felt everything come back to him in such a rush that he ended up smashing his glass against the table, screaming and shouting as he kept pounding his fists into the table’s surface, until Victor caught his wrists in his hands and made him look him in his deep brown eyes.

Roman still tried to wrench from Zsasz’s tight grip, but it was to no avail; once Victor got his hands around him there was no way out. So, eventually he calmed down and came back to the there and then.

“I’d say we could blow off some steam, but I feel like that wouldn’t really help right now, hm?” Victor murmured, keeping such intense eye contact with Roman.

“No, not really,” Roman sighed deeply, “I wish I wasn’t even here, Victor.”

“Don’t say that. You’ve got a purpose after all, remember, Roman? It’ll all be worth it. I promise.”

“Fuck that purpose. I’m tired. I just want to stop feeling like this all the fucking time, unless I’m out of my mind entirely and even then, it’s never enough. I want it to end. I can’t do this anymore, baby, I can’t!” He was getting agitated again, telling Victor things he’d never thought to speak aloud in his life.

“I know. Do it for me, for Obi-Wan. Stay here for us.”

“Fuck you.”

“Roman,” Victor nearly warned him.

“Fucking fine! Ugh, I hate when you get deep with me. It’s disgusting.”

Zsasz cackled, a crooked grin on his lips, “Someone’s gotta be.”

“If only I didn’t like you so much,” Roman muttered and leaned down to capture Victor’s lips in a gentle kiss, thankful not for the first time that they were alone just then and that he had him by his side at all.

For the remainder of the day, Zsasz made sure to help Roman ground himself with different and safer methods than usual. It was something they’ve been working on for a few years already, ever since Roman almost died because he had overdone it with his usual coping mechanisms. Victor didn’t put a hard stop to it all, but he kept an eye on Roman and even had the privilege of telling him ‘no’ if he treaded this threshold between still okay and too far. Often times, Roman absolutely resented him for it; even though he rationally knew that Zsasz was right and that he should be grateful, but it wasn’t easy for him to see that.

After a mostly sleepless night, Roman wanted to get Obi-Wan for breakfast and was greeted with a surprising sight when he quietly opened his brother’s door. There, in his room, he kneeled on the floor, his eyes closed and breathing deeply. He looked so at ease and relaxed – a hard contrast to when he showed up on Roman’s doorstep the day before.

“What the fuck are doing?”

Roman had thought that he would have startled Obi-Wan by suddenly speaking up, but his brother only smiled, his eyes slowly opening up as he replied, “Meditating.”

“What, really? You know that shit doesn’t actually work, right? It’s just some fucking bullshit people made up, just like everything else they say helps you relax.”

“That’s what you say, but it actually helps me a lot. I do it every morning after I got up and every night before I go to sleep. If I can find the time or need it, I’ll do it during the day as well,” Obi-Wan explained, standing up from his kneeling position on the hard stone floor, “I find that it really does put me at ease, no matter what.”

“I don’t believe you,” Roman said and he meant it – he couldn’t believe it because he tried meditating and it only lead to a panic attack on one occasion and a state of complete disconnection from the world on a different one.

His little brother only shrugged, “You don’t have to. It’s not like it worked one day to the other for me either, though. I’ve had a great teacher for years, Qui-Gon is his name, and only because of his patience did I ever reach the point where I am now. Things like that take time, Roman.”

“Oh, please save me your talk of that. Ugh! Every fucking thing in the world takes time that nobody even has to begin with,” Roman sighed dramatically and then turned around, ending this conversation with it. “Breakfast is ready, by the way.”

Living with his brother after all those years of not even really knowing each other and then more years of not talking or even seeing one another, was much easier – and dare he say nicer – than Roman could have possibly expected.

They were polar opposites, but strangely worked well with each other. Roman was a natural born leader and took the role of an actual older brother much better than he’d thought. Obi-Wan didn’t make any difficulties whatsoever and followed what Roman told him without any talk-back. So, after the initial shock and outbursts, it all calmed down significantly for Roman and he’s come to enjoy his free minutes he spent with his brother and Zsasz.

Several days passed without an incident from Obi’s mysterious stalker. No phone calls, no photographs, no attacks – nothing; as though he’d suddenly gone and disappeared off the face of the earth.

Nonetheless, Obi-Wan didn’t allow himself to wallow in this false sense of security and Roman inwardly applauded him for it. He’s told him from the very beginning that the second he would let his guard down, could be the one his stalker decided to strike; and so he should never even think about blowing it all off as though it has only been a false alarm. Roman has made his fair share of experiences with all kinds of messed up things over the twenty-eight years he’s been in this world. He’d be damned if he allowed his baby brother to learn what any of it was actually like when it became real.

Then, one night – eight days into this whole mess – Roman and Victor lay in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, legs tangled and kissing each other breathless. As much as he often hated tenderness and everything that came with it, because it was nothing but fake fucking bullshit, he couldn’t deny just how much comfort it usually brought him to lazily make out with Zsasz in the safety of their home.

Roman startled when he heard a loud crash coming from down the hall where Obi-Wan’s room was. Breaking the kiss, he looked at Victor, who already rolled over and rummaged through the bedside drawer for his gun and a knife. Roman also turned around and got out his revolver from his own drawer.

“Make sure no one else is here. Get the staff here as back-up,” Roman instructed quietly, getting out of bed and unlocking his handgun’s safety.

“Boss,” Zsasz warned, “You shouldn’t go there by yourself!”

“I can take care of myself,” Roman hissed back, “Now do as I say! Hurry!”

Another crash sounded, louder than before. This time, something definitely shattered on the ground and it also sounded as though a table fell over. Roman’s heart sank. This fuck has gotten to him after all, despite all the precautions, and he might have even hurt Obi-Wan.

As he quietly walked down the hall on his bare feet and slowly, but surely reached the guest room with the gun extended and his finger on the trigger, he took deep, steadying breaths. He couldn’t allow himself to think of the worst and let that take over him. He needed to be calm and have a steady hand, or else he wouldn’t be able to protect his baby brother.

The door was closed and on an impulse, Roman kicked it down, hoping to take the intruder by surprise, so he could have free reign of shooting him before he could even think about doing anything else.

When the door was thrown open by his kick, he quickly took in the scene. Obi-Wan was on the floor, struggling as the stalker was on top of him. Luckily, Roman’s decision paid off when the stupid fucker turned around in surprise. He was still holding him down with one hand and by sitting on top of him, but he lifted himself off Obi-Wan enough to give Roman the opportunity to shoot him right between his eyes.

As soon as the bullet hit him, the intruder slumped in on himself and on Obi-Wan, who immediately threw him off of himself as he scrambled up and back against the wall, pressing himself against it. To say that his little brother looked as though he’d seen a ghost would have been a complete understatement.

Roman locked his gun’s safety after double-tapping the stalker for good measure and then rushed over to Obi-Wan, kneeling in front of him as he looked him in the eyes; only that when he did, his little brother’s eyes were so vacant that Roman’s heart clenched painfully. There was blood all over Obi-Wan; especially his face, of which the majority was most definitely the fuck’s he just shot.

Even though Roman couldn’t stand the feeling of blood on himself, he cupped Obi-Wan’s head in his hands and softly spoke to him, “Obi? Come on, baby brother. Look at me. You’re safe now, ‘kay?”

He stroked his thumbs over his brother’s cheeks, but Obi-Wan still wouldn’t come back to himself. Despite the way his entire body was quivering, he was lost in a state of disconnection from it all. And really, Roman couldn’t blame him.

“Boss, should we just clean up here, then?” Zsasz asked as he came in with five of their man at his back, looking at the mess in the room.

“Yes. Make sure there are no traces of blood when you’re done. Get rid of the body like always. I’ll take care of Obi-Wan,” Roman ordered, looking at Victor while he was talking.

“You heard him,” Victor told the five other men and then turned back to Roman, “Are you alright?”

“I am, but I’m not so sure about Obi. Help me get him up and into my bathroom, will you?”

“Of course, boss.” Roman couldn’t help but give his partner a small smile, then.

Together they helped Obi-Wan stand up and walked him over into their own bedroom and the en-suite bathroom. There, Victor left Roman alone with his brother after making sure that he could really deal with this by himself.

“Take off your clothes, Obi-Wan,” he commanded softly, nudging Obi-Wan gently.

Then, he washed the blood off of his own hands thoroughly before he went about drawing a cold bath and laying out fresh towels.

Turning around to Obi-Wan, he was still rooted to the spot, fully clothed, bloodied, shaking and a vacant expression.

“Obi-Wan!” Roman snapped, concern getting the better of him.

That got his brother to twitch at least, but that was about it.

Sighing deeply, Roman walked up to him and put his hands on his shoulders. “We need to clean that blood off of you. So, take your clothes off, ‘kay?”

To his pleasant surprise, Obi-Wan nodded jerkily and started undressing himself slowly and as though he was entirely on autopilot – and Roman guessed that he truly was.

Once he was naked and the bathtub was filled with water, Roman guided Obi-Wan over to the tub and helped him into it. As soon as his left foot dipped into the water, his brother twitched again, but still didn’t say anything. Eventually, he was laying in the bathtub, cold water and dense bubbles surrounding him as he shivered from the coldness.

“Why… Why is it cold?” Obi-Wan asked quietly, just barely above a whisper.

“For two reasons; one is to get you back to the here and now, which obviously is starting to work and the second being that cold water works better to clean blood off of someone and something. Don’t worry, once you’re free of blood, you can shower with warm water, ‘kay?” Roman explained, while he grabbed a washcloth and dipped it in the water to wet it before he put some soap on it.

Obi-Wan nodded in understanding and let Roman start lathering him gently, but thoroughly. He closed his eyes when told to as Roman cleaned the blood off his face, scrubbing at it in spots where it’s already started drying into a crusty, sticky layer.

“You- Is he- Is he dead?” Obi-Wan asked suddenly.

“Yes, he is. Don’t worry about any of that, alright? It’s all under control, I assure you.”

“Okay.”

The entire time after that, neither of them spoke and only the sloshing of the bathwater, the scrubbing of the washcloth against skin, and the distant sounds of the clean-up were audible. Under any other circumstances, it might have been calming; but this kind of quiet was deafeningly loud to both of them.

“I’ll let you clean yourself and warm up properly now, while I overlook how far the others are with cleaning your room,” Roman stated, getting up from where he’s been sitting beside the tub and sighed, “If you need anything, just call for me.”

“Yeah, alright,” Obi-Wan whispered, looking down on his still trembling hands.

Then, Roman left him alone.

As he walked over to Zsasz, he felt relief wash over him in waves. The rest of the staff was already gone, too. Perhaps they’d taken longer in the bath than he’d thought. He couldn’t make himself care about any of it, though, when he wrapped his arms around his partner’s shoulders tightly and buried his face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his comforting, familiar scent deeply and exhaling shakily.

“He’s alive and safe, Roman. It’s alright,” Victor assured him, putting his arms around Roman’s waist and rubbing his hands over his back in soothing circles.

“He could have- If I hadn’t come faster, he could have died. Fuck!” Roman choked out these words past the thick lump in his throat and the tears that welled up in his eyes, all those emotions he’s tried to keep at bay running him over entirely. “I hate caring about others. I can’t fucking do this, Victor.”

“And you don’t have to. Obi-Wan’s safe now. This was it, he’ll be fine and you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Roman scoffed, tightening his grip around his partner, “It’s not that easy, Zsasz. I can’t just turn it off and not care about him.”

“Okay, maybe not. But I’m here, right? You’re not alone with this. I’ll always be here to be taking care of you, too.”

“Fuck, you can be so fucking sweet sometimes, you know that?” Roman chuckled softly, slowly relaxing a little bit.

“Only with you, though.”

“I know.” And it was true – he did know that; it was a privilege he’d never expected to have.

A moment of silence passed between them before Victor gave Roman a gentle nudge, tilting his head to the hallway. Turning around, Obi-Wan stood a couple of feet away from them. He was still trembling slightly, but not as heavily as before, and he was twisting and twirling his hair between and around his fingers nervously. It was a habit Roman saw him doing ever since he’d been a child.

Now that Roman could actually look at his brother while he was cleaned up, he could see the bruises around his neck and on his face. It made his blood boil and he wished he could murder this fucker all over again, more cruelly and drawing it out, then; but unfortunately that wasn’t possible. Still, from what he could see, those were the only physical damages that Obi-Wan has endured from this incident, which was definitely a relief.

Letting go of Zsasz, Roman stepped towards his little brother and gently combed his fingers through his hair that wasn’t being fidgeted with.

“I knew him,” Obi-Wan said suddenly, so quietly that Roman almost didn’t catch it at all.

“Your stalker? Who the fuck was he?” Roman kept brushing Obi-Wan’s hair back, while they spoke.

“I- I went on a couple of dates with him. People called him Maul and that was what he always went by, too. Uh- I turned him down before it got really serious, because he just- I don’t know. I just had a bad feeling about him. I should have never-,” Obi-Wan then started sobbing violently, doubling over as he convulsed with the force of his cries as tears ran down his reddened face.

Instantly, Roman embraced Obi-Wan, hugging him tightly as he shushed him quietly, assuring him that he’s safe and couldn’t have known that this would happen; that he’s done the right things and that he was okay now; that it was all over. Roman usually didn’t find himself in the position of comforting someone else, but he did and said what Zsasz did with him at times like this. Victor also came up to them, then and put a gentle hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. It had warmth spread through Roman’s chest – a feeling that he was rather unused to, but he has only ever felt it with Zsasz.

Eventually, Obi-Wan started to calm down and his sobs turned into quiet hiccups. With the backs of his hands he wiped away the tears from his cheeks, pulling a bit of a face as he did.

“Thank you for everything, Roman. And you too, Victor. Thank you,” Obi-Wan said brokenly, clearing his throat in-between each sentence to no avail. His voice was so raw and abused.

“Anything for you, baby brother,” Roman responded and he meant it, he truly did, he would walk through fire for Obi-Wan.

Wrapping his arms around Roman’s waist tightly, Obi-Wan nuzzled his face in his brother’s chest and quietly, but with a small smile on his wobbling lips said, “I love you, Romy.”

And just like so many years ago, Roman’s heart hurt at those words; even though a genuine smile fought its way onto his face when he kissed the top of his little brother’s head and looked Victor in the eyes with wonder and all sorts of overwhelming feelings coursing through his system, making him feel dizzy.

“I love you, too.”

[bedlamsbard]

I got a couple of different asks about Luke and Ahsoka in other side AU 10, so I guess I will just make it a regular post after all so I can answer all of them at once.

@slecnaztemnot: 

Okay i just read your latest other side chapter and I wanted to ask about Ahsoka and Luke dynamics. I wonder what exactly where their heretics disagreemts about the jedi doctrine? while i can guess some of the stuff like attachements i guess i mostly see ahsoka as nonjedi and therefore someone who should not be attached to doctrine about attachements (haha) so i am wondering how you see her. i would actually love your take on how their first meetings went. continued in next ask, 1/2

1/2 continuation since most people write them as Ashoka immediately spilling the beans about the whole Vader situation to Luke and yours Ahsoka didn't. So I am curious what do you think Ahsoka feels about it. I got of course lot of it from the fic itself so i am mostly asking about how did you base your interpretation, if that makes sense and what led you to the narrative choices to portray their relationship in such way.

@comentter:

I'm most interested in what Luke and Ahsoka know about each other. Luke doesn't know much about Ahsoka obviously, but does he have any idea why she seems to hate him? He must be desperate lol. And how much does Ahsoka know about what happened on the DS2? And how much does Kanan know about these events? What was Hera able to tell him and what else did Luke and Ahsoka tell him? I always figure that everyone but Luke and a few people he told (like Leia) think the Emperor and Vader from the DS2 explosion.

I now have this image in my head of Ahsoka spending time with Rex and her laughing as Rex does something like tell a joke or a specific gesture. Then Luke walks by, does the exact same thing and Ahsoka is like "Of course, you'd do this stupid thing, you idiot!" :D

I think shortly before I started writing this sequence I had seen some cute art of Luke and Ahsoka hugging, which is a pretty common art trope and which has never sat quite right with me.  I also have the tendency to want to do the opposite of common fanon, which I can’t leave out either.  I also wanted to logic out what the hell was going on with Ahsoka’s charaterization in her Mando episode on a Watsonian level rather than a Doylist one (which I did a few weeks ago), even if other side takes place well before Mando and doesn’t intersect with it in any meaningful way.

When it came to the Luke and Ahsoka relationship (or lack thereof), it came down to three questions for me:

Who knows what?

What do they know?

When do they know it?

I made the decision early on in the chapter to leave Leia out of this relationship entirely, since the new canon seems to at this point in time (within a year of RotJ) be keeping it relatively quiet that she and Luke are siblings, and it’s not something that Hera would have a reason to know.  (Note also that this entire sequence is told from Hera’s POV, which plays into the “who knows what when” angle.)

As per Rebels S4 (not the epilogue, because Mando’s thrown that out the window), Ahsoka knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader, Sith Lord

Darth Vader was directly or indirectly responsible for the genocide of the Jedi Order and the deaths of any Jedi who survived the Purge (”you and your Inquisitors saw to that”)

Padme Amidala is dead

Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead (Obi-Wan was not dead, but she has no way to know this)

no Darksider can return to the Light side

At the end of RotJ (not taking into account anything that happened in the comics or ancillary novels, which I’m not up to date on), Luke knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker

everyone Anakin ever knew is dead, mostly because of him

Vader returned to being Anakin Skywalker at the end of his life

(Leia presumably also knows all of this, perhaps with a few more details based on things her parents might have told her, but her feelings about Darth Vader are: Bad, Do Not Want, to be glib about it.)

Now, there’s one other factor here, which is Rex.  Rex knew Anakin and knew Ahsoka and was in the Rebel Alliance -- we know that he was on Yavin IV prior to Luke’s arrival and we know that he fought in the Battle of Endor. (And turns up in a couple of scattered art panels from the comics.)  If we want to take his brief appearance in Galaxy of Adventures with Han Solo’s strike force as canon, then he may have also known Han and probably Luke -- certainly his ears would have pricked up at the name “Skywalker.”  (Okay, there’s one other factor, which is R2-D2, but Artoo never tells anyone anything despite knowing...everything. Or most things, anyway.)  Rex doesn’t seem to know that Anakin became Darth Vader (I believe there’s an interview somewhere where Dave or Pablo or someone says that a meeting between Rex and Vader would be “awkward,” but there’s no canonical reason to believe that he knew about the Anakin/Vader connection), but he probably found out at some point that the 501st was the battalion involved in the assault on the Jedi Temple.  He also, as of Rebels S3-4, assumes that Vader killed Ahsoka -- presumably Ezra would have told him as much as he could.  (And Ezra does know that Vader is Anakin, so he may have told Rex that as well.)  Rex also knows that Anakin Skywalker was having an affair with Padme Amidala, but presumably didn’t know about (a) the marriage or (b) the pregnancy, because how would he know?

Then we come to Ahsoka’s return and unfortunately the current canon gives us no time point for when it actually happened: presumably Ahsoka did not or could not return to the greater galaxy at the point she “left”, during the fight on Malachor (3 BBY), because as of Rebels S3-4 everyone still believes she’s dead.  Maybe she’s still stuck on Malachor without a way to get off, who knows; maybe after S4 Ezra grabbed her into the World Between Worlds she decided to stay on Malachor until she ~caught up with the main timeline, which...you then have to believe that Ahsoka is going to deliberately remove herself from the war, which I can get to, but is not something I’m totally comfortable with.  Or she pops out in the timeline at the same time that Ezra returns to the main timeline and is able to more or less immediately return to the main timeline narrative, plus or minus a few weeks.  (There are, after all, still a couple of Advanced TIE fighters parked in the Sith temple, even if they were potentially damaged in the temple collapse.  Ahsoka could have repaired them or used the comms systems to call for a pick-up -- this is, btw, what happens in Crown.)  We don’t know when the S2 finale scene/S4 WBW scene of Ahsoka walking back into the temple actually takes place in the timeline; it doesn’t have to be at the exact same time as the rest of the S2 finale sequence (since obvs Vader dragging himself out, Maul flying off, and the Rebels crew looking sad doesn’t all take place at the exact same time).

Other side AU is deliberately vague about when Ahsoka returns from the World Between Worlds/Malachor/to the Rebel Alliance; it’s not stated in the story, but I made the assumption that she came back shortly after the (non-epilogue) end of the Rebels finale, but was still deeply messed up from her Malachor revelations.  (Also, like, Sidious, I guess, but she was probably so messed up about Anakin/Vader that Sidious being around barely registered.)  Since she never seems to have held a formal position in the Rebel Alliance, I assumed that after she returned and let everyone know she was still alive, she then immediately took off to try and figure out what the hell happened with Anakin at the end of the Clone Wars, since she saw him like a week before he snapped and at the time he seemed fine.

The problem is that almost everyone involved is dead.

Now, at this point (shortly before Scarif and ANH), a few people are still alive who then die shortly, but whom Ahsoka may have no reason to believe were involved.  Bail Organa, for example, is still around, but aside from him being Padme’s friend Ahsoka doesn’t have a reason to know that Bail was there when Padme died -- and since they were in contact for the nineteen years preceding there’s no reason for her to assume now that he was keeping something for her.  Back in the comics (before I stopped reading them), Vader did some digging to figure out what was going on with Padme and his child; Ahsoka probably would have done the same digging (without having to torture anyone), but without necessarily knowing that Padme was pregnant.  Knowing the date of Padme’s death (same as the Republic, essentially), she may have had a previous assumption that Padme was assassinated on Palpatine’s orders, but knowing that Vader is Anakin probably moves that assumption closer to the truth, that Anakin was somehow involved in Padme’s death one way or another.  Sooner or later Ahsoka will turn up the fact that Padme was pregnant, come to the obvious conclusion that Anakin was the father, and possibly find out the same thing that Vader does in the comics -- that the child was born before Padme died.  (But also probably not that Padme was carrying twins, but even if she found that out, it wouldn’t make a difference.)

While Ahsoka is doing her digging (and there really isn’t much information out there to find), the events of Rogue One and ANH happen, and Ahsoka comes back to the Rebel Alliance to find out which of her friends are still alive.  (Maybe Rex is with her at this point, who knows.)

Everyone in the Rebel Alliance is talking about some young hotshot named Luke Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker who has a very familiar lightsaber, who claims his father was Anakin Skywalker, and who had some kind of relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who turned up on the Death Star, fought Darth Vader, and died.

Ahsoka has just spent the past few months trying to figure out what happened with Anakin, and as best she can reassemble the facts it mostly comes down to “Anakin did something dumb for Padme, that something dumb was ‘turn to the Dark Side and kill literally everyone,’ and then Padme died, the Republic was overturned, and the Jedi Order was wiped out.”  Ahsoka presumably walks into a room, hears the name Luke Skywalker -- maybe sees him -- and is all at once face to face with the living evidence of just how badly Anakin fucked up.

This is just too much for Ahsoka to deal with at the moment, so she takes off again, and spends the next five years brushing in and out of the Rebel Alliance doing odd missions that can really only be done by a trained Force-user.  Rex, who seems to have a more stable position in the Alliance, is always going to side with Ahsoka over anyone else; if she tells him not to tell Luke that she knew Anakin, he won’t.  (And for that matter, he may have somewhat fraught feelings about Luke himself.)  She may have the odd interaction with Luke -- who has heard that there’s another Jedi in the Alliance and wants to be friends/get real training -- but Ahsoka just does not want any part of this. It’s irrational! She knows it’s irrational! But this is the living evidence of Anakin’s failure, Anakin who last she saw him TRIED TO KILL HER, who was at least partially responsible for the deaths of everyone she ever knew.  (And honestly, finding out that Vader topped it all off by killing Obi-Wan is not going to help.)

Ahsoka may also be feeling a certain amount of survivor’s guilt: if Ezra had not pulled her out of the Malachor temple at that exact moment, she came pretty close to bringing the temple down on both herself and Vader, and may have succeeded in killing him.  She did not do so, and who knows how many people died because of that in the years between Malachor and Yavin?  (Just because Tarkin was the one who gave the order doesn’t mean that Ahsoka may at least partially blame Alderaan’s destruction on Vader, if she knew he was on the Death Star then.) She knows he killed Obi-Wan.

The Yoda lineage is very good at going “yikes, I am going off to live alone and beat myself up over my failure for years” and Ahsoka is very much an example of that lineage.

She and Luke have a relationship of “Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, do you want to talk?” and “I have to leave immediately,” maybe with the odd “please stop using that lightsaber grip it is physically painful for me to watch, do it like this instead, okay, bye.”  Luke probably told all of two other people about what happened with Vader on the Death Star, Leia and Han; he has no reason to tell anyone else about it because it won’t matter to them.  Why would he tell Ahsoka, whom he has no relationship with?  He doesn’t know that Ahsoka knew Anakin Skywalker and would only know if one of four people told him: Ahsoka herself (no), Rex (no), R2-D2 (maybe), or Admiral Ackbar (would never have occurred to Luke to ask, might have occurred to Ackbar to say).  (We also don’t know that Mon Mothma knew Ahsoka very well, or at all, for that matter; they never interacted in TCW.)

As for her swinging harder into overt Jedi-ness by Mando after her blatant “I am no Jedi” of Rebels, it reads to me as a response to the Anakin/Vader revelation (especially the attachment thing).  She had made certain assumptions in the TCW period (see her saving Rex in the TCW finale) and prior to Rebels; Kanan’s method of Jediness was something she could accept in the time period and in those circumstances; the Anakin/Vader revelation shattered all of that, followed immediately as it was by Kanan apparently going full Jedi self-sacrifice despite his attachments.  (Her reaction to Ezra being a trauma response about two very different circumstances.)  All of a sudden what she thought might have been mutable based on the circumstances became something that had to be adhered to in case of dangerous results, which she had just had brought home to her in extremely bad circumstances.

I made a crack somewhere about Mando’s central tension being between “being Mandalorian” and “being doing Mandalorianness”; I think in the post-OT period with Ahsoka and Luke we’re seeing something similar with “being Jedi” and “being doing Jediness.”  Even if Ahsoka isn’t actively claiming the title Jedi anymore (because what does that accomplish in most contexts?), she’s leaning far more into the tenets of the Jedi Order -- which Luke doesn’t know and doesn’t know he doesn’t know.

Thus the doctrinal dispute.

Ahsoka grew up in the Jedi Order.  That’s what she knows, that’s how she knows how to be a Jedi; for her being a Jedi is being part of the Jedi Order, whether or not the actions associated with performing Jediness are being actively practiced.  Luke doesn’t have that context.  For Luke, being a Jedi is...being doing Jediness.  (This is super awkward phrasing.)  Performing the actions of a Jedi.  Luke has a few holocrons, but I’m guessing that a lot of what is on those holocrons makes the assumption that whoever is opening with them has the context of being a part of the Jedi Order and doesn’t explain really basic stuff about the Order or what that means.  Luke’s Jedi Order is not going to be the Republic Jedi Order made anew; it’s going to be something that has a resemblance to it and is based on a similar view of the Force, even arguably its heir, but is just not going to be the same thing.  It can’t be.  Luke doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Kanan, of course, is coming into all of this from a similar context as Ahsoka: he grew up in the Jedi Order, it’s what he knows, it’s who he is.  Except Kanan never walked away from the Order, so while Ahsoka had been disconnected from her Jediness at the time of the Purge, he never lost his -- part of Ahsoka’s tension from TCW S7-Rebels was “I can’t be a Jedi because the Order is gone” and Kanan’s was “can I be a Jedi without the Jedi Order?”  (Ezra is a whole ‘nother thing but is somewhat outside the scope of this.)  The Jedi Order never factors in Luke’s Jediness at all.  (There’s some lineage doctrinal dispute here as well -- the Yoda lineage seems to be very closely connected to the Order as the font of Jediness, the Windu-Billaba lineage somewhat less so.  The Yoda lineage is like...the hardcore conservatives of the Jedi Order, though, and are probably not typical.)

Poor Kanan came back from the dead, after a week in another universe (which had its own problems; he’s been trying to very gently convince his counterpart that even after being an Inquisitor for months he can still be a Jedi), into Luke trying to build a new Jedi Order from scratch, Ahsoka firmly believing it couldn’t and shouldn’t be done and not wanting to be in the same room as Luke at all (not to mention that she really did not believe that they should have gone for “hey, let’s send Hera Syndulla to another universe” as even being an option), and both of them having essentially incompatible notions of being a Jedi at each other -- this is probably the most time Luke and Ahsoka ever spent in each other’s presence.  They’ve probably never articulated their problems at each other, just assumed that the other knew them.  And Kanan has his own “how to be a Jedi” approach, which is from a very different than either Ahsoka or Luke because despite originating from the same context as Ahsoka, he had a very different path to get to his present position.

As for what Kanan knows -- uh, pretty much only what Hera knew, and Hera knew very little?  She was friendly with Luke and Leia, but didn’t have much interaction with them -- she states that she had a tendency to avoid Luke because even if she would never say it to Luke’s face, she silently believes that if any Jedi should have been in the Rebel Alliance, it should have been Kanan and Ezra and not this relative newcomer.  If the Death Star 2 news about Vader and Palps was never common knowledge, then Hera wouldn’t have known it.  Kanan’s in a position of having to play catch-up, but also having a completely different priority (finding Ezra).  He sat through this meeting where after they’d finished grilling him on “you were in ANOTHER UNIVERSE and also you CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD?” they politely sniped at each other with a bunch of context he didn’t have and flat out decided that wow, he did not want to deal with this at all, whatsoever.

(This is also not stated in the story, but Luke and Ahsoka also disagreed about whether Jacen should be trained or not: Luke said, yeah, of course, when he’s a little older! and Ahsoka said nope, he’ll be fine, it will go away. Hera was just very “...I will deal with this later” about it since it wasn’t an urgent issue.)

[miss-lumiere]

Redemption | Part I

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x reader

Summary: A young sith apprentice on their first mission. Although a chance to prove yourself to your dark masters presents itself, you do the exact opposite of what is expected of you. Putting yourself at the jedi master Kenobi’s merci, you plead him to lead you from the dark side and show you the way of the light. But will your attempt to redeem yourself be futile and the pull to the dark side be too strong?

Wordcount: ~2400

Warnings: angst, canon-violence

A/N: Hey guys, I hope you and your families are healthy. This is somewhat the prequel to a longer series I have planned, it will be a slow burn but Obi-Wan will appear in the next chapter. Sorry I haven’t posted in some time, uni was very stressful and I was lacking the motivation, but now in times of quarantine I found some time again to write. I hope you enjoy this, I am always happy to receive messages and feedback :) Masterlist  Part II

Alongside your sister in training, Asajj Ventriss you had been send to a planet on the outer rim that was currently under the protection of the Republic. The goal of the attack was to weaken the hold of the Republic on the planet, since it was rich in resources, which the seperatists wished to aquire. Yet Ventriss was the only one allowed to get her hands dirty. For now you would have to be satisfied with observing the fighting, since you were not cleared for missions yet. Although your master had assured you would join the fighting soon.

It would be your first mission and to say you were nervous was an understatement. No, you were terrified. Terrified you would fail and disappoint your master, for failure would often result in punishment. On the other hand, you were curious to get the chance to fight a jedi yourself, or even better, defeat one. The prospect of impressing Count Dooku, as unlikely as that might have been, nevertheless overshadowed your fear. You had been trained by the Count for a few years now and your fingers were itching to finally aide in destroying the jedi.

You were currently hidden atop a higher building amidst the lush vegetation of the planet, your dark cloak flowing in the wind. The droid squadron marched further into the city engaging the first clones breaking out of the treeline. The clones managed to hold their ground neither fronts having the upper hand. Thats what you were here for.

Ventriss was beside you, a sadistic smirk forming on her face as the first jedi revealed himself. It was Skywalker, as calculated by your Master, followed by his togrutan padawan. Not having noticed you yet, the two jedi reinforced the clones, sprinting to the front, slashing droids in their way. As the two were seperated, Ventriss let out a malicous laugh, jumping of the building to engange the younger one.  As the jedi master noticed the two fight, you understood why Ventriss had enganged her first. It seemed her master was fiercely protective of her. Skywalker slashed his way through the oncoming droids trying to reach the girl yet was held back as they seemed to swarm him. No doubt your master’s plan. Storming towards the young female with a battle cry, the red and green of the two lightsabers clashed together.

Asajj Ventriss was relentless, hitting her opponent with fast and strong strikes, but the apprentice seemed to be able to stand her ground, parrying her attacks elegantly. The jedi apprentice was strong with the force and skilled, you had to give her that, but you knew that Ventress’ had a few tricks up her sleeves herself. She wouldn’t hesitate to fight dirty, while trickery wasn’t the jedi way.

Skywalker’s padawan had just gotten the upper hand through a mistake Ventriss had made, as the latter shifted her weight to one of her legs while the other kicked dirt up in the togrutans direction, hitting her in the face. The girl was stunned, lowering her guard just for a second, but that was enough to make her trip, landing on her back. The mistress pushed forward ready to deal the final blow, as an invisible force pushed her backwards flying through the air. Skywalker had finally managed to reach the fight between the jedi and the sith, reaching for his Padawan, helping her up, making sure she was fine. Hastily looking around herself, Ventriss noticed the absence of her lightsaber, instictively grabbing a blaster off the ground before pulling the trigger. Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion: The jedi master leaps infront of the shocked girl taking the hit for her before going to the ground.

In that moment your smirk vanishes, and your mouth opens in surprise. Nevertheless, the jedi being hit, as impossible as that feat itself seemed, wasn’t what surprised you. You knew that the Mistress was a force to be reckoned with. No, what surprised you was the master taking a hit for his apprentice. You had never expected him to protect her, while threatening his own life.

Meanwhile the scene before you unfolded further, Clones forming a protective circle around the pair as the apprentice helped her master up, who was apparently not fatally wounded, before retreating hastily into the woods. Yet you were frozen. You couldn‘t fathom what you had seen before you. You had known that the jedi were sentimental but you had never expected the extend of the bond Skywalker seemed to share with the young jedi. What irked you more, was that you were aware that your „sister“, let alone master, would not once hesitate to sacrifice you for the „greater good“.

Following the jedis’ retreat, the sound of a landing craft approaching your position filled your ears, informing you to leave. You turned towards the commotion, pushing your black shawl over one shoulder before approaching the edge of the roof you had been observing from. Landing elegantly on the dark grass afoot the building, you rushed towards your fellow apprentice, who was already waiting for you at the boarding ramp, meeting your eyes with a triumphant smirk.

“About time we showed those jedi where they belong.”, she announced as she turned away, you following her up the ramp. “I bet you can’t wait to report back to our Master.”, you retorted with a scoff, although a humorous undertone hinting at your amusement. You wouldn’t exactly call her a friend, since there was already a growing rivalry for Count Dooku’s favour even if you hadn’t been allowed on any missions yet. Nevertheless, she was the closest thing to a companion that you had. It wasn’t that you spent a lot of time together outside of training sessions, but at least she had never chosen you to be become the target of her anger. Yet, you thought. Your relationship was about to drastically change as you would gain more power, a thing you already sectretly dreaded.

“Get out of my way.”, she snapped at a droid before pushing it angrily away. You followed her further into the inside of the ship before daring to speak again. “Sorry, Mistress.”, the droid responded shakily, before backing up slowly.

“How did you know attacking the young one would have the effect it did?”, you asked hesitantly. “The Jedi are predictable. Their compassion is their biggest weakness.”, she spoke with her back still facing you before turning around completely. “You can use it to your advantage.”

“How foolish of them to form attachments to their apprentices.”, you added absentmindedly. “Oh, it will cost them greatly, especially after I am finished with them.”, she laughed coldly. “Oh and you will surely get a chance at that yourself.”

Somehow the prospect of killing jedi didn’t bring you as much joy as you would have liked. Yes, you were angry when you had to be, but that passion that fueled your power didn’t come from your hatred for jedi, no matter how hard your master had tried to indoctrinate you. This anger was often accompanied by fear, the fear to not rise up to expectations, since your failure would not be without consequences.

“I will let the Master know of my success.”, she announced in her usually cold tone before retreating further into the ship, leaving you alone.

 Smoke filled your lungs as you crawled your way out of the burning shack, screams filling the air as tears fell freely from your eyes. You turned around to search for someone. Someone important to you, more important than anything else. You started rushing forward, pushing past anyone stumbling in your way, panicked voices reaching your ears. A deep fear reached your mind almost paralyzing you as you reached the burning hut, about to collapse. A shrill scream reached your ears as you fell to your knees, attempting to reach the remains of the building. Suddenly, a cold, strong grip held you back by your arm, pulling you away. You turned around to see a man with a sadistic grin on his face, making you respond by kicking and screaming. The man tightened his grip, the last thing you saw a glowing red light near your face before you were engulfed in darkness.

 You jolted awake, sweat soaking your sheets. The cry that left your mouth shook you out of your paralysis, making you draw in a deep shaky breath. As you clutched your thin blanket to your chest, your knuckles turning white, you closed your eyes. It had only been a dream, you told yourself over and over to calm yourself. But it wasn’t just a dream.

You remember it as clearly as if it had been yesterday, it just felt as real. You had laughed and played together before it had happened. Before the beginning of the end. Before you were made into this shell, a ghost of the person you were, you could have been.

You had tripped and your mother craddled you in her arms to comfort you as the first blasters went off. She had immediately clutched you to her chest tightly, whispering how everything would be alright, as tears escaping her eyes. Now you knew that she had just tried to protect you, but back then you believed her. You didn’t know that from then on nothing would be the same anymore, your life in shatters. Your mother had picked you up before making you hide underneath the bed, assuring you she would return for you. That was about 17 years ago, but you couldn’t be sure.

A tear made its way down your face, before you angrily rubbed it away with the back of your hand. You couldn’t be weak right now, you had to be strong to get through this, to become powerful, powerful enough so no one could hurt you any longer. And still you couldn’t help but feel trapped. A different life was after all just that: a dream.

Worse yet, you were sure you would never have such a meaningful relationship with anyone as you had with your mother, someone that really cared. You yearned to feel the warmth of someone’s embrace again, remembering your mothers touch only vaguely. Someone to remind you of why you were still fighting.

You thought back to the fight against the jedi earlier, how the master and padawan seemed to care for each other so deeply. They would’ve died for each other, something that none of your acquaintances would even consider, not your master nor Ventress.

With a sigh you turned back around, making yourself comfortable again. You would have to get at least a few hours of good nights sleep to not get your ass handed to you in tomorrow’s training session.

To be continued...

  If you would like to be tagged, please let me know!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

“Rise of Skywalker” Questions

How did Palpatine survive the events of Return of the Jedi?

Where has be been for the last 30 years?

How did he build an entire fleet of Death Star Destroyers?

Where did he get the technology to build a thousand super lasers?

If he’s been pulling the strings this whole time, why did he bother making Star Killer Base after the first two Death Stars failed the exact same way?  A fleet of super laser star destroyers is objectively better and more useful.

Why did he build all the Death Star Destroyers on a planet they can’t leave by themselves?

Why can’t they navigate away from the planet without a radio tower?

When they turn off the radio tower, the head ship of the fleet is able to navigate for them anyway, so why can’t they all just do that and navigate for themselves?

What happened to the one Death Star Destroyer that blew up that random planet?  Did it return to get stuck with the rest of fleet on the planet, or is it still out on the galaxy?

Why did none of the fleet escape the planet during the battle?  Surely one or two or ten could have managed to navigate away (Poe says they couldn’t tell which was was up due to the magnetic field of the Sith planet, but, like, up is up, the sky is up, it’s really easy to fly up and away from a planet, just point your engines towards it and turn them on; ALSO a billion rebel ships made it all the way to said planet, so why couldn’t a single Sith ship leave it?)

When did Palpatine have a son?  With who?

Why was his son a “nobody” instead of the heir apparent to the Empire?

Was his son part of the Rebellion?  The Resistance?  Neither?  Rey was born in 15 BBY and her parents disappeared like 10-ish years later, but her dad is clearly older than 25, so he must have been born between Episodes 3 and 4.

Was he force sensitive too?  Why did Palpatine have his son killed and keep searching for his granddaughter instead?  Wouldn’t his son still be a valuable asset?  Rey’s mom told the random Sith assassin that Rey is definitely not on Jakku, so why didn’t Palpatine look on Jakku?

Who was Lor San Tekka in the Force Awakens?  Did he know who Rey was and guard over her like Obi Wan did to Luke?  Kylo has apparently known him for a long time (”look how old you’ve become”), so did he know Luke and Leia during the original trilogy?  Did he know Palpatine’s son?

In the books and video games, it is revealed that Palpatine sabotaged the Emprie after his death (search “the Contingency” and “Operation: Cinder” on Wookieepedia)  Why?  Why did he do this?  Why did he cripple his empire if he survived and continued pulling strings behind the scenes?  Is it because Disney is making this up as they go along and forgot to reconcile their new idea with their old idea from a few years ago?

Luke says that Leia knew Rey was a Palpatine the whole time, so did Luke know about her dad?  Did he ever try to recruit the son of the Emperor to the light side of the force, or did he just reject his dad because he was a million year old evil scrotum?

Palpatine says he impersonated Vader to try and lure Ben Solo to the dark side.  If Palpatine pretended to be Darth Vader, why didn’t the real ghost of Anakin come to his grandson and intervene?  Why did Anakin let Ben think he was evil?  Anakin appeared before Luke at the end of ‘Return of the Jedi,’ he appeared to Rey in this film as a disembodied voice, why didn’t he appear to his own grandson?

Palpatine created Snoke; was Snoke the product of his “Darth-Plagueis-midichlorian-create-life-using-the-force” technique he hinted about in that meme everyone has stopped caring about Episode 3?  If Anakin is Space Jesus (virgin-born chosen one), does that make Snoke the Space Anti-Christ?  If so, why did Snoke die like a bitch?

Darth Maul got cut in half but came back in the cartoon with robot legs and this was carried over into canon when Disney took over, so he showed up in another cartoon and then Solo; could Snoke have come back with robot legs?

Rey impales Kylo but then force-heals him; why didn’t Obi Wan force-heal Qui Gon Jinn after Darth Maul impaled him?  Disney just keeps making things up with no regard for continuity because they know the average consumer doesn’t care and that the opinions of butt hurt fanboys like me don’t matter because we keep shelling out money to see the franchise no matter how much we nitpick and complain...

Poe’s parents were part of the rebellion and Leia is a surrogate mom to him; at what point did he become a drug dealer spice smuggler for the criminal underground?  Did he leave the resistance to become a scoundrel then come back, or was he raised a scoundrel and then joined the good side because he was compelled to do so?  If the latter, doesn’t that just give him the exact same story arc as Han Solo in both Solo and A New Hope?

Where did the berries go after Kylo Ren spilled them in his room?  They show the audience that Rey’s and Kylo’s surroundings are linked when they have their dates visions, but the berries are gone in the next shot.  Also, did he leave Darth Vader’s helmet down in the village after Rey accidentally teleported it to him, or did he bring it back with him?  He was able to snatch the necklace AND the lightsaber from Rey through these visions, so the berries and the helmet were real and not just force projections.  (this one is a joke, I don’t really care)

Is Finn secretly force sensitive too?  I’d be totally down for that; I’ve wanted that ever since 2015 when we saw the first teaser of him holding a lightsaber!  He sensed Rey was hurt AND knew exactly what ship to attack because he “had a feeling.”  Is this going to go anywhere, or was it just a plot device so he could find the one ship he needed out of the entire fleet?

Where was Lando for the last 10-15 years (however long it was since Kylo’s fall and Luke’s exile)?  Where was Wedge Antilles who appeared in exactly one shot and then never again?  Where was Nien Nunb and why hasn’t his name ever been said on screen?  Speaking of names, I think Poe was the first person to ever actually say Snap Wexley’s name on screen, but even then only his nickname and not until he was shot out of the air and exploded.

Why did Zorri Bliss change her mind to much?  First she wants to kill Poe and sell out his friends, then she wants to run away with him and gives him her MacGuffin so he can slip onto the enemy ship, then she saves his ass during the final battle, then when he gives her the bedroom eyes she shakes her head to turn him down.  Why is she here?

How did Maz Kanata get Luke’s lightsaber?  How does Rey have the lightsaber after it was destroyed in The Last Jedi?  Canon nerd tech manuals say that kyber crystals are super important and that broken ones don’t work right (Kylo’s blade is all fizzly because his crystal is cracked), so how did Rey repair it?  Where did Rey get the crystal for her yellow saber?  I heard someone say that it’s actually white and it’s supposed to be a combination of the classic blue, green and red saber colors, but she didn’t have Luke’s green saber, she had two blue sabers and Kylo threw his red one away.

And most importantly

Where is Baby Yoda?  Surely he has to be Little Kid Yoda by now; it’s been like 20 years since the events of The Mandalorian.

I don’t even enjoy this franchise anymore.  I know my opinion doesn’t matter, so I’m just gonna stop giving it.  I’m done with Star Wars media.  I’m not gonna watch it anymore; no anthology films, no more saga episodes (because we all KNOW x, xi and xii are in the works no matter what Disney says), no streaming service shows, no cartoons, no books, no video games (I never played the video games anyway), no theme park rides, no more moichendising

[sweetmugofcocoa]

Last Breath of Peace

This was a requested fic for @grimthejedisith‘s character, Grim.

This was a ton of fun to write, and I hope you like it! I don’t do requests like this often, but I appreciated the challenge it was.

Keep in mind, I do not have a beta. This has not been nitpicked for mistakes like spelling.

Enjoy! And cry. Because....

Summary: Grim goes with her master, Obi-wan Kenobi, to Utapau to finally stop Grievous. Warning: angst, Order 66, canon typical violence Words: 2,622

“Fortunately, most of the cities are concentrated on this small continent here,” Cody says, continuing his report of the planet Grievous has hidden on. Grim tries to pay attention, but she keeps glancing at the troopers milling around, prepping for the coming fight.

“Right, Padawan?” Kenobi asks.

Grim turns to look at him, “Hm?”

Kenobi smiles gently. “We’ll keep the enemy distracted until the troops can land,” he reminds her.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she states, smiling in return.

Kenobi turns to the clone commander, “Just don’t take too long.” He motions for Grim to follow him to a spot void of any troopers. “Something is bothering you, Grim.”

Grim sighs, “I just have… a bad feeling, that’s all.”

“Is it about what you told me? About your home planet?” Her master asks.

“Yes,” Grim answers, “the things that I know will come to pass, the things I want to change—”

“Padawan,” Kenobi says, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, “the Force is strong with you, but do not dwell too much on what may, or may not happen. You have already changed some things, true?”

Grim nods, “Yes Master.”

“Then perhaps you have done enough,” Kenobi suggests, “keep an open mind, but that mind must be clear, or anything will squeeze past your common sense and muddy your actions.” He finishes with a signature smile of his, which always eased his padawan.

“Of course, Master.”

Kenobi stands up, “Shall we review the plan?”

“No, sir, I heard,” Grim says. She manages a smile, “Land, find Grievous, beat him, and save the galaxy.” She huffs, “Just like usual.”

Kenobi laughs, “I believe this is the last time we’ll be seeing the good general.”

They head to their fighters, Kenobi walking calmly, while Grim is antsy to get going, despite the chill that sits in her stomach.

“You’re fighters fully prepped,” one of the troopers tells her.

“Thank you, Sergeant,“ she says, getting seated.

“Remember Cody, don’t delay,” Kenobi says.

“When have I ever let you down?” Cody asks. Grim flinches, but since she’s in her fighter already, her reaction is hidden by the thick glass.

“Very well, the burden is on us not to destroy all the droids until you arrive.”

Cody turns to Grim, “Stay safe out there, kid.”

Grim gives him a lazy salute and starts the launch sequence. Cody’s face morphs into concern when she doesn’t smile in return. Grim follows Master Kenobi out into space.

“May the Force be with you, Master,” Grim says as they connect to their hyperspace rings.

“And you, my young padawan,” Kenobi replies through the comms, “and as my master once said, be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment.”

“I understand, master,” Grim says, “let’s stop this mega-droid once and for all.”

Kenobi’s warm laugh echoes in the cockpit, “With that, I whole heartedly agree.”

***

Grim lands her ship next to Master Kenobi’s on one of the empty spots in the Utapau hanger. Master Kenobi gets out first, signaling for Grim to stay in her ship. She waits as he talks to the ambassadors, but scans their surroundings. There are droids watching higher up, in the shadows. She leaves her hand on the eject button, should more droids come from the rafters. A group of shorter life forms scamper over to the Jedi ships, resupplying fuel.

Master Kenobi bows and returns to his fighter. He talks to R4, about contacting Cody. Grim’s controls turn on without prompting, which means that R4 relayed the message to her own astromech. Kenobi watches the droids above. When they leave, he signals Grim to follow him. They watch as the astromechs pilot out into space.

“The people here are scared,” Grim states, feeling it in the Force. She hopes it hides her growing unease from her master.

“Yes,” Kenobi agrees, “they are being watched by battle droids. We are going to the tenth level, that’s where most of the droids are.”

“Think they’ll buy our deception?” Grim asks, following him further into the shadows.

“They’re droids, my young padawan,” Kenobi smiles at her, “when have they done anything smart?”

Grim rolls her eyes at the comment. Her master doesn’t have the biggest opinion of droids.

“I’m surprised you asked,” Kenobi continues, “you’ve never asked how something may or may not go.”

Grim realizes this, “Just trying to lighten the mood, Master.”

“Try that with Grievous and he’ll have a different reaction.” They reach an elevator shaft and Kenobi starts heading up.

“Master, isn’t the tenth level higher up?” Grim asks as Kenobi steps out of the elevator shaft.

“Yes. But we will need something here first,” Kenobi responds. Grim follows, coming out at a pen for varactyls. Kenobi selects one, and Grim mounts her own. “Let’s go,” Kenobi says, leading the way out of the pen. The varactyls warble the whole way to level ten, that Grim is surprised they managed to not be found.

***

Master Kenobi crouches as he watches the scene below them. Grim stays next to the reptilian creatures. General Grievous is talking to the separatist politicians below.

“Your ship, is waiting,” Grievous says. The group stands to leave. Kenobi stands as well, nodding to his padawan. Grim comes to stand beside him. They take off their cloaks together and jump down into the center of the room, droids lining the walls.

“Hello there,” they say in unison.

“General Kenobi,” Grievous says. “You are a bold one.” Grievous looks at Grim, coughing once, “Pest.” He then cackles, “Kill them.”

The droids with electric staffs walk forward. The Jedi duo dispatch them easily, Kenobi bringing a giant metal vent down on top of them and Grim slicing the heads off of any that try to reach for their staffs while pinned.

They walk towards Grievous. The B1 droids raise their guns, but Grievous yells, “Back away! I will deal with these Jedi slimes, myself.”

“Your move,” Kenobi says.

“You fool,” Grievous says, standing taller. “I’ve been trained in your Jedi arts,” he unclips his cloak from his shoulders, “by Count Dooku.”

“And Kenobi trained the Jedi that killed him,” Grim mutters to herself, just loud enough for Grievous to hear.

Grievous drops his cloak and his four arms separate. He turns on his lightsabers one at a time; two green, two blue. “Attack. Kenobi.”

Kenobi smirks. He moves to his beginning stance, while Grim puts her lightsaber in front, the hue turning her face purple.

Grievous then spins his blades around, stalking closer to them. Grim moves back out of the way, keeping her stance facing Grievous while feeling for her master’s first move. He lunches to block one of the sabers, so she goes for a different one.

Grievous pulls away, attacking at Kenobi. Grim leaps over him, slashing towards his shoulder, before landing behind him. Both the attack and the following one at his back are blocked by wildly swinging sabers. She goes on the defensive for a moment, drawing his attacks in and centering herself.

Kenobi chops off one of Grievous’ hands. While he’s protesting, Grim finds another, the limb and lightsaber it was holding falling to the platform below them. Grievous turns to face her, anger in his eyes.

Blaster fire rains down on the room. Clones pour over the railing above, landing on the floor and continuing to take out all the battle droids present. Grim deflects a few more swipes of a saber from Grievous, then he runs for a transport, sitting inside the giant wheel and mowing down anyone in his path. The two Jedi jump out of the way.

Kenobi calls for his varactyl, and it arrives along with Grim’s mount. The two jump down and race after Grievous, who has gone out on top of a Separatist sphere wedged into the rock face. Grievous takes a blaster out from a compartment and shoots back at the Jedi. Kenobi has trouble keeping balance while his varactyl runs over the smooth decline. The lightsaber in his hand flies off, landing somewhere below him.

Grim, on the other hand, has to let go of her varactyl, as it was hit by a blaster bolt and begins tumbling off the side of the sphere. At the last moment, she jumps onto the back of her master’s varactyl. “Cody’s going to have a fit when the battles over,” Grim states, out of reflex.

The varactyl jumps and they continue chasing Grievous through a cave system. The path widens and Kenobi presses the creature to pick up the pace. When they are right next to Grievous, he takes out an electrostaff and jabs at them with it. Kenobi grabs the staff, but is hauled off the varactyl in the process.

The creature yelps and digs its feet into the ground. “No no no,” Grim says, “Boga, keep going!”

The varactyl protests. Grim snaps the reigns and it continues, but the pair of fighters are already out of sight. At the end of the tunnel, Grim leaps off the varactyl, heading straight for Grievous as her master slides over the edge of the platform. She ignites her lightsaber, which she had clipped to her belt.

Grim harnesses her emotions, finding the parts of her that are rooted in her drive to change the outcome of the galaxy, the fear of what is out of her hands, and the anger in her of not being at her master’s side for part of this battle. She uses it, minding her teaching, to press Grievous into defense. He keeps up with the electrostaff still in hand, but then a blaster bolt hits him in the back. He turns, getting struck again, this time in the chest. After a few more bolts, Grievous goes up in flames and collapses.

Kenobi pulls himself onto the platform, walking over as he tosses a blaster away, “So uncivilized.” He turns to Grim as she deactivates her lightsaber. “You have a cloud around you, padawan.”

Grim nods, closing her eyes. She tries to find the calm in the storm, a way to ground herself in order to come down from the flurry of passion needed to fight with the nearly-forbidden form. But the adrenaline from the fight, along with what she knows is to come, makes it an impossible task.

She feels her master probe the edges of her mind, trying to help alleviate the torrent of emotion. But instead of letting him in, letting him search for the source, she shuts him out. It’s so abrupt that he physically flinches.

“Grim,” Kenobi says cautiously. Grim gives him a shake of her head, trying to build walls so he can’t see. She can’t imagine the reaction he’ll have if he knows.

“Maybe I did change enough,” Grim says, almost more for herself than for him. “The future is always changing,” she adds with a more calm demeanor. Her shields snap into place, and he sees as such.

“Of course,” Kenobi says, “we should check on the men.”

A small chink of her mental armor cracks, just enough to give away a clue as to what’s behind it.

***

They ride Boga down to Commander Cody on a lower platform. “Commander, tell your men to head to the higher levels,” Kenobi says. Grim watches the clones around them, some falling to the ground from a blaster bolt. She hopes they aren’t the luckiest on this battlefield.

“Very good, sir,“ Cody says. He then reaches for his belt, “I believe you’ll be needing this.“ He holds out Kenobi’s lightsaber.

“Thank you, Cody,” he says with a wry smile.

“Commander,” Cody nods too Grim. She stares back. Apprehension builds in her stomach at being so close. She reminds herself of what she said before, that it may not happen. Small things can change a large portion of the future.

“Grim, I’ll head farther up, you help the clones and follow me,” Kenobi says.

Grim slides off the varactyl, then stops and looks at her master, “We’re splitting up?”

“This is the best place for you,” Kenobi says. They make eye contact. He sends impressions to her, his concern, her reluctance to talk to him.

She resolves that the future is too unpredictable. “Master, I need to speak with you,” she says.

“We have a battle to win, my young padawan,” Kenobi says. He pulls at the reigns and turns Boga around, “we’ll talk after.“

He then urges the varactyl on before Grim can protest. She looks at Cody, who is putting his helmet back on. Grim then turns and runs out of the open space. She turns at the shadows of a column, begging to be wrong.

Cody’s posture changes the moment the hologram appears. It’s minute, even harder to see with his helmet on. But he stands there, suddenly a shell. He nods, and the hologram cuts out. He motions to the cliff face, where Master Kenobi is currently climbing with Boga.

“Master look out!” Grim yells. She doesn’t see the outcome of her plea, as she deflects blaster bolts as she gets away from the scene. A group of clones follow her, and she believes she heard Cody’s voice order them on their new mission.

She runs, her mind in full panic mode. She stops after coming around a corner. She turns, waving her hand. The clones following her turn a different corner, giving her a moment of reprieve. Grim closes her eyes, half her focus on the surrounding area, the other projecting as far as she can. “Master Kenobi, where are you?”

She doesn’t get an answer. Tears start to well up in her eyes.

“Check the LAAT/i’s,” a trooper says, “the Jedi might be hiding in there.”

Grim turns to see the transports to her left. She debates running, or staying put. But then someone shouts and she bolts out of pure fear. Blaster bolts rain out around her, the wrong color to be the enemy, but suddenly her enemy none the less.

Clones chase after her, unable to hit her as she deflects as many of the bolts as possible without hitting anyone. She turns her head to check how many are following her, running straight into a long wall along the back of the level she’s on.

She turns, finally counting her pursuers. There are four troopers flanking Boil. “Commander Grim, you are charged with treason against the Grand Army of the Republic,” Boil says, his voice monotone, “and are subject to execution.“

“Boil, don’t do this,” Grim says.

“Men, ready.”

The guns come up.

“Aim.”

Grim’s lightsaber comes up between her and the blasters, her hands shaking.

Before Boil could give the order to fire, a blue saber ignites through his chest. The rest is a fraction of a second as Kenobi dispatches the rest of the firing squad.

Grim stares up at him, still wet from his fall, but otherwise alright. He offers a hand down to her, “Any chance this is what you wanted to talk about?” The usual humor is gone, only regret and barely contained grief. Grim takes his hand, nodding.

“We need to alert the others,” Kenobi says.

“It’s already too late,” Grim murmurs to herself. Kenobi wraps an arm around her shoulders, supporting her as they go to find a ship to take them off the planet. “I couldn’t…”

“Padawan,” Kenobi stops at a spot of relative darkness. Not far away, Cody is asking about Kenobi’s location. He crouches down and looks up at her, “There was nothing more you could do. It will be alright. We just need to stick together.”

Grim can’t muster up the courage to agree with him. He still has no clue what’s to come, not in it’s fullest.

[fireflyfish]

Fave/Least Fave: 17 Hero!

Hmmm.... this is tough because there are so many fighting it out for the top...

Fave: In news that surprises no one, Obi-Wan Kenobi come on down!! 

Dashing, flirtatious, ruthlessly capable and almost illegally attractive Obi-Wan won my heart the Phantom Menace in that heartbreaking scene with The Glacier Who Behaves Badly and Tiny Precious Golden Bean Ani and he then proceeded to keep winning it with each new appearance, from Attack of the Clones, to the Clone Wars, to... That Movie We’re Not Going To Talk About Because REASONS. It didn’t happen okay? My jedi babies and their clones are fine OKAY?? 

Okay so after trying to write the second paragraph like six times without bawling about a TELEKINETIC SPACE MONK WHO WEARS KNOCK OFF EILEEN FISHER (You can’t unsee that now.) I’m going to end with Obi-Wan Kenobi is awesome and we need more people in the world like him. 

And he has cute dimples and a sexy lupine grin.

Least: SNAP WEXLEY

First of all, WHO NAMES THEIR KID SNAP? No, I don’t care if there’s a canon reason for this and you will see as you journey with me on this detour into irrational haterade. 

Second of all, not unlike Guillermo del Toro (totally had to google that) and Doug Jones, JJ Abrams put Greg Grunberg in EVERY. SINGLE. GODDAMNED. THING. HE. DOES.

EVERY*. SINGLE. THING. EVERY*. SINGLE. TIME. 

And whenever I see Snap Wexley I don’t think, “Oh hey! It’s a Rebel pilot! I wonder how he’s going to blow up?” Much in the same way I think about Arfour units around Obi-Wan. 

I think...

“Well there’s the Obligatory Greg Grunberg cameo. Why does JJ do this? At least Guillermo del Toro covers Doug Jones in fifty pounds of latex and silicone so you never know it’s him. I really didn’t like it when JJ did this in that third Star Trek movie and hey! Doug Jones was in Star Trek too! I wonder if we could get him in Star Wars? OOOO! Can Doug Jones be in the Mandalorian? COULD GUILLERMO DEL TORO DIRECT AN EPISODE OF THE MANDALORIAN???

I am an easily distract Fishy. 

“Wait. Hold up. Did JJ just blow up his buddy Greg Grunberg? Holy Crap! He did!”

And then I was happy he was gone and I could go back to wondering who was piloting all of those star destroyers.

WAS IT CLONES PALPATINE? WHERE IS CODY? DID YOU FREEZE CODY AND USE HIM AS A NEW BASE FOR THE CLONES THAT WERE PILOTING YOUR FROZEN FLEET OF DEATH STAR TOTING STAR DESTROYERS? WHY ARE YOU HIDING CODY FROM MEEEEE?

WHERE IS CODY DAMN IT??? WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM??? YOU CAN’T STICK HIM IN CLONE WARS AND MAKE ME CARE ABOUT HIM AND THEN JUST VANISH HIM INTO THE CHAOS OF THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE. 

THE PEOPLE me DEMAND CLOSURE or a cameo in the Kenobi series NOW!

Thanks for the ask!

*-I have not seen every piece of work JJ Abrams has done so I cannot confirm the truth of my statement but I feel it deep in my bones that the essence of the statement is true. 

Also, stop letting Greg Grunberg pilot fictional aviation vehicles. They always end up crashing or exploding. 

[mysterious-prophetess]

I ranted about this on another post, but I really have nothing nice to say about 7,8, and 9 now that I know what I know about behind the scenes bullshit. 

The thing that pissed me off the most was finding out why my favorite of the new characters-Finn-was turned into a useless character, but I digress. 

So, how could I have fixed this inconsistent trilogy to be more my liking (and a little more consistent) without getting rid of any of the new primary characters?

Edit added later by more awake me: This is going to get long AND There are bound to be sleep-addled mistakes.

Starting with 7  Set it farther into the future. 

If Disney wanted to avoid Lucas’s legacy characters at all costs (as it would appear) then setting it in a time where all should be dead would be the easiest side step.

Like instead of 30-some-odd years into the future, make is 130 or 200 years. That way, Luke fading into being some sort of mythic being would make a lot more sense. Han Solo too. 

BB-8′s map now leads to Luke Skywalker’s tomb. The reasons to find it could be a)proof jedi existed, b) rumors of a hidden weapon of great power, c) rumors of it hiding a terrible secret that could shake the galaxy to its core, or d) some kind of combination of all of the above. 

 Kylo Ren can still be a Skywalker descendant. He can even still be Leia’s direct descendant. He just doesn’t have to be her son (who should have been named for Bail Organa and not Obi-wan “Ben” Kenobi).

Rey and Finn’s backstories don’t have to change all that much. Rey was abandoned on Jakku. Finn was stolen to be a storm trooper. Finn defects. Rey find him and BB-8 etc. 

Poe can even still be the dashing pilot just no former drug smuggler backstory because that was a yikes. Instead, he could have had a past as a street racer or a regular circuit racer.

They can even still find the Falcon. it’d make even more sense for Rey to call it garbage and think it couldn’t fly. Poe isn’t a damsel this time. He gets separated from Finn but meets up with him and Rey in town and they have to book it. He’s still too dazed to fly, so Rey has to do it. He could then be the one to suggest getting to Mazz’s place. Rey can even still find Anakin’s lightsaber. 

Kylo can still catch her. All the other stuff can still happen, except no Starkiller Baser. No Death Star planets. No death stars period. Instead Finn knows which is the main base but is too frightened to go, but Poe could inspire him to face his fears for Rey or something. 

Maybe there’s a heist/rescue mission planned with Resistance HQ. They need Finn’s intel and he can still be janitor but people don’t realize how much janitors see or what they know, which makes him vital for planning this heist. Because aside form Rey they’re after a McGuffin. IDK maybe R2D2′s CPU/memory components because R2 will still have most of the map, and a fragment that was found will be stored in BB-8 like before. 

We can have a tet-a-tet between Finn and Phasma, Finn nearly losing but new friends helping him. Rey can still free herself after she witnesses Kylo using the mind trick on a fellow prisoner (who he killed afterwards once he’d gotten what he wanted). Rey is cautious as she steals a blaster and nearly blasts a fleeing group of Resistance fighters who managed to purloin R2′s parts and falls in with them. They end up cornered a la the end of Attack of the Clones, but this time their reinforcements is Finn using the base’s own security against it with shields like from the Phantom Meance snapping up and trapping the majority of the First Order troops. Rey gets a moment to shine too as she summons the lightsaber to her hand after Kylo cuts down on of their allies as they’re fleeing because the security didn’t kick in with enough time to block him. 

So, she’s on defense the whole time as they flee. Kylo does something to hurt Finn or Poe or both and Rey gives into the dark side for a bit before Finn, Poe, or both snap her out of it and they manage to work together to injure Kylo enough to flee to the waiting ships to scram. 

Cut to the Resistance attempting to retrieve the data, but Rey as a junker/scrapper realizes that it’d be easier to put him in a new astromech shell. So she does so, and R2 is back and after several back-and-forths in binary between BB-8 and R2 the map is projected and BB-8 completes it. 

But, in a twist, they have no starting coordinates, which means they’ve only half gotten what they need. Poe looking at it points out there are only three or four possible places in the galaxy they could start from which means there are only three or four possible destinations: Jakku, Tattooine, Utapu, and Ahch-Toh. 

They can rule out Jakku. The First Order had been there. If Luke Skywalker’s tomb was on that planet, it would have been found. Plus the last map fragment was there, making it all the more unlikely it was there. Tatooine is also out because Luke was from Tattooine, or so the legends said, and it was the first place people looked. Leaving Ahch-toh and Utapu. End 7 there.

8 picks up with a year or so having passed. Utapu, it turned out, was a dead end. Ahch-toh, on the other hand, while not containing Luke’s tomb did have a bunch of evidence he’d been there. In fact, there was evidence of some of what happened to his New Jedi Order and why they vanished.The problem is, as Rey struggles with learning the force from the sacred texts and avoiding the temptation of the Dark Side after tasting it in the previous story, has to also avoid Kylo Ren hunting her as well as the First Order’s dogged pursuit of the Resistance Fleet. Plus, she also has to deal with the other Knights of Ren--fellow force sensitives recruited and trained by Kylo Ren’s master. Only, they all want her dead. Their ambitions are why. No new Knight=less competition for advancement in the Knights of Ren. They also sabotage one-another often. They’re Sith. Backstabbing is what they do. 8 is essentially a race against time since the First Order managed to have a spy steal intel they’d gotten from Ahch-Toh that essentially led them on another hunt for the Tomb of Skywalker and this time they would not be denied. 

Also, Rey is trying to find out what happened to her parents as well and why she was left on Jakku. Finn is also looking for his family. Poe is doing what he can to help. Finn was much easier to track intel down on, and finds his missing person’s report in the holonet equivalent of the “have you see me” database. It’s still hard to find his parents but they have a home world: Corellia. Which actually was harder because Corellia is a very populated planet. They do eventually find out his parents were spacers and he was stolen right off their ship while they were stopped for repairs. They were still looking for him. Finn’s plotline could come down to him choosing between finding out who he was in the past, or staying with building the person he wanted to be in the present. Finn chooses to stay Finn, for now. 

They think the Tomb’s on Endor’s Forest Moon. The wreckage of Death Star 2 looms in the distance (what little of it didn’t blow out into space or get burnt up in the atmosphere or pulled into Endor’s own atmosphere and destroyed because gas giants are no joke) when they land and they’re led into the forests where they find a simple cairn marked with the name “Anakin Skywalker.” After confusion over “Who the Sith is Anakin Skywalker? I thought his name was Luke?” occurs, the First Order shows up to ruin their day. They had the right idea, but the tomb of the wrong Skywalker after all. They had misread the coordinates and were off by approx two kilometers. They need Rey, however to help open the tomb because it was locked in such a way you need light side and darkside to open it and the Knights of Ren are fresh out of Light Side techniques. 

This could also play into Rey’s struggles with the dark side being a problem at first too. She could grow as she sees what the dark side has done to the Knights of Ren. Playing off her psychometric vision from the canon trilogy, that could be her special talent and she can see visions of who they were before being twisted by their master and the dark side clouding their minds. This could be something that gives her the strength to reject it later. They go into the tomb of Luke Skywalker and Rey is plunged into the mother-of-all visions from the past. It shows fragment of what happened to the new order, and how it all went so wrong. It could even show Luke withdrawing from the galaxy out of some misguided idea of “no one can misuse my teachings if they can’t find me or them” Luke dying alone and Leia finding him later and burying him on Endor. but seeing he wasn’t wrong so, with a sense of the dramatic she inherited from her biological parents set up the trails and maps to try to weed out those who would seek the knowledge for power and domination. It’s then that Leia’s force ghost makes her presence known to Rey but not Kylo. Leia leads Rey to a hidden cache. 

Kylo tries to tempt her after she finds that within the cache are merely two kyber crystals and a holoprojector that had an image of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie together with a golden thumb at the bottom edge of the image. To Rey with her powers, there are memories encoded within that she can access, but to anyone else, these appeared useless.

Kylo has noticed her skills and tries to say the dark side could help her find out what happened to her parents. that it could amplify her powers enough for her to see the past of herself. Throughout, the film she’s seen Finn struggle with his choices and realized along the way through the trials and such with Finn and Poe that she doesn’t need to know who her parents were to know who she is. She’s Rey of the Resistance and that’s enough for her.

There’s a showdown, the tomb gets destroyed and Poe ends up injured enough to need a bacta coma and Finn shows force potential for the first time. Poe had thrown himself in front of an underhanded attack meant for Rey who’d taken her eyes off the Knight thinking they were down. The hero part of the film ends with Finn and Rey outside Poe’s tank worriedly watching him.

Unbeknownst to the heroes, Kylo did manage to find something in the tomb: it was a piece of tech Rey overlooked and a way for the First Order to find more force sensitives than ever before: a fabled Midichlorian Tester. A device thought lost to the ages now within his and the First Order’s grasp. Soon, they would crush all who’d oppose them and end the Light Side’s teachings forever.

 End 8

9 will start with Rey and Finn force training with their limited texts and a few holocrons they’d managed to find thanks to the texts mentioning that they were a thing and what they looked like. It’s been a year and Poe’s slowly recovering. He was kept in the bacta coma for most of it and is in physical therapy now. He’s dealing with the possibility that he’ll never fly again. 

Rey and Finn are dealing with the fact that more knights of Ren are appearing than ever and every time they try to find a new recruit for their light side order, the knights scoop them time and again and with their superior numbers and better training, it’s a near scrape for Rey and Finn to get away. On the bright side, they’d managed to make new lightsabers and Rey had modified her old staff into a light staff, making her fighting style a lot more smooth after she stopped trying to emulate what she’d seen Kylo and his knights do. Their arc is about building forwards and standing up to evil in spite of their overwhelming odds. It’s hard for both Rey and Finn. Finn, who still has some buried fears of the First Order and Rey who is still somewhat traumatized from what happened to Poe because of her inattention. She has to realize that it’s not her fault, that Poe has his own choices to make in life, and that the result was because Poe cared and her guilt was because she cared too. Rey’s over all arc would be about realizing why the old jedi were against attachments and finding that she can still love Finn and Poe, but she has to be able to handle letting them go. 

Finn’s got to learn to let go of his fears and learn to trust in the Force as well. After escaping the First Order, he has trouble with trusting authority and doesn’t join the Resistance per-say, but is there because Poe and Rey are there.

She has to trust in the force, and trust in them too. She could show this by being over protective of Finn and Poe. 

His Master will finally show his face and it’ll turn out he’s possessed by an ancient pre-Banite Sith Lord but it’s voluntary. The self-taught darksider had wanted power and this Sith spirit offered it. The dark sider like the feeling of power he felt when possessed and agreed to be this Sith’s new vessel. It was through this body that the Sith ghost used his superior knowledge to ruin Luke’s New Jedi Order. Some seduction here. Some manipulation there and the order tears itself apart without Luke realizing what actually caused it since the Sith managed to block Luke’s foresight.

The Sith Ghost’s so attached to life, he’s holding onto his vessel like a black hole’s hold on matter past its event horizon. The Knights of Ren are so attached to their feelings of power they can’t consider another life and Kylo Ren is so attached to the myth of Darth Vader, he can’t see who he was anymore.  

It’d come down to a final fight and the few new jedi Rey and Finn managed to find would be pushed back at first but letting go and embracing the Force would help them start to push back the Knights and destabilize them enough for disables/knock outs until it was just Kylo Ren and his Master Darth Eterantus vs Finn and Rey. Rey goes head to head with Eternatus (yeah I know that’s a pokemon. I’m writing this off the cuff). Finn with Kylo Ren, one of his greatest fears.  Eternatus taunts Rey with knowledge of her past. How in another time and place she’d have been from a fine pedigreed force user family line but thanks to him, she’s a desert guttersnipe playing at being a jedi. 

Rey is a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. This would be shown by visually cueing it with his force ghost flickering into existence at the Sith’s taunts. 

Kylo would reveal that Finn and he are kin. 

Finn’s a descendant of Leia and Han too. One of their kids married Lando’s kid. Han was not pleased to be in-laws with Lando at first. Finn’s father is a chip off the old Han Solo block with some Calrissian Swagger. Kylo had seen Finn’s face but had no idea why, but this prompted the Master to have the First Order take kid Finn--whose real name will be Jax Solo. Kylo’s name will have been Ben Solo like in the canon films. Kylo is ten years older than Finn. Kylo would try to use this family connection to manipulate Finn, but it won’t work. Finn could even quip about “not seeing any resemblance” between him and Kylo. 

Poe, he would fly again at a crucial moment to turn the tides for the B-plot of Resistance vs First Order. A last stand. 

Rey manages to break the hold the Sith ghost has on life.This kills his vessel too since without the ghost using the darkside the body turns to dust. Finn manages to defeat Kylo Ren and Poe helps the Resistance win. Kylo Ren is all but shattered by his defeat. He the proper inheritor of Darth Vader’s legacy! He’s forced to realize that maybe that’s not who he is. That maybe he’s always been simply Ben. Those who were still alive are taken prisoner with force null cuffs taken from their own belts and their conscripts freed to choose whether or not to learn about the force. It ends on a positive note with the new trio celebrating together with the Resistance. Finn’s parents arrive and he gets to reunite with them. Rey’s are nowhere to be found but she’s ok with that. Obi-Wan’s ghost reappears with a smile with other force ghosts and we end with Rey and the others happy.

Is this a good alternative? I don’t know. It’s just an alternative that doesn’t discard characters like they’re trash. It also tries to keep things more consistent. 

[theshijlegacy]

Rise of Skywalker ramblings

Saw RoS last night and loved it. 

I’d seen the mixed reviews and was a bit apprehensive going in, but was pleasantly surprised in a lot of ways.  It kept some of the spirit of TLJ that I liked while still delivering a lot of the “safer” Star Wars story that I expected.  Being part of a super enthusiastic opening night crowd is always fun too.  And it’s nice to see that I’m not the only person who liked the whole 7-8-9 trilogy!

Spoileriffic thoughts below.

--Rey Palpatine was one of the theories I’d kicked around, but it would have been nice if she really was nobody, like the Force doesn’t care who you’re related to. Timeline-wise she would have been better off as his great-granddaughter but I completely buy Sheev having lots of kids and/or having some later in life.

--I’d been running with the “Skywalker is the new name for Force user” theory for a while, but I’m OK with Rey adopting it as her last name.  She doesn’t have to be a Palpatine and the name of the family that saved the galaxy is continuing.

--HOLY CRAP FINN IS FORCE SENSITIVE.  I would love it if that was what he wanted to tell Rey.  (Best answer from Reddit: “I’m in love with Poe and don’t know how to tell him!”)

--Ben Solo didn’t make it to the end!  I was convinced he’d get a redemption arc and live happily ever after. Props to JJ/whoever for going in that direction, especially with the Jedi fadeout.

--The opening crawl getting right to "oh hey the emperor isn't really dead.” So happy they didn't drag out the “when-do-we-see/hear-the-emperor???” mystery

--Sheev Palpatine and his motherfucking contingencies for contingencies, plans-within-plans shit.  This guy was a thousand steps ahead of everyone else, all the time.  Got a glimpse of that in Empire’s End too.

--LOL the tank of Snoke clones.  Sheev loves his clones, in both canon and legends!

--Poe’s lightspeed skipping.  Poe being an ex-spice runner.  Poe and Zorii!  Poe in general.  Poe is great.

--Luke/Leia training flashback!!  Leia's lightsaber!!!!  Which she presumably built herself!!!!!

--3-way Finn/Poe/Rey hug.  And the sound of a thousand fanfics being composed…

--More First Order defectors who had been kidnapped as children.  (Also a plot point in Empire’s End, complete with a 6-year-old-ish Armitage Hux ordering around a group of kidnapped-and-brainwashed child recruits)

--Hux being the mole, not because he agrees with the resistance, but because he hates Kylo Ren.  I bet he was hatching a plan as soon as Snoke was killed.

--Force-healing onscreen!  And it wasn’t just “Force magic” (which I also would have been OK with), it was actual taking life from one to give to another.

--Rey was noticeably better at lightsaber fighting.  She was… not great in TFA.  Only slightly better in TLJ.  Her year of training really shows and I like that we’ve seen a pretty clear progression.

--Rey stopping that transport with some Kyle Katarn shit and Kylo trying to get it back and OH SHIT REY SHOT OUT FORCE LIGHTNING  

--Palpatine: GLADoS edition has been added to my recent “horrifying scene that works but really gives me the creeps” list (also includes flashback to Coulson resuscitation/brain surgery with him repeating “just let me die” on Agents of SHIELD, Brainy getting rebooted on Supergirl)

--Aside from his GLADoS-esque support arm complete with wires, I liked undead-Palpatine's look - missing fingers, whited-out eyes, and his transformation after he stole life from Rey & Kylo.  Especially the red-lined robes.

--Got serious Endgame vibes at the end with all the ships showing up. Husband unit also pointed out the parallel of “I am inevitable”/”I am Iron Man” and “I am all Sith”/”I am all Jedi”

--OMG ALL THE JEDI SPEAKING TO REY.  I didn’t recognize everything at first but I heard Obi-Wan (young & old), Yoda, Mace Windu, Ahsoka(!!!!!), and Anakin.  Per the credits, voices also included Qui-Gon(!), Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, Adi Gallia, and Kanan Jarrus(!!!!!).  Two notable absences: Cal Kestis and Ezra Bridger.  I can accept Cal’s fate as TBD since Fallen Order just came out, but this is really good news for Ezra.  I am now super super interested to see where these two have been.

--Kept the Rey/Kylo force-connection deal.  It weirded me out in TLJ but I’m really glad it was kept here.

--Wedge coming back for one last ride!  (and aging pretty well, wow)

--RIP Snap.  :-( I’d grown a bit attached to him after the Aftermath trilogy, but I think Norra and Brentin would have been proud.

-- ForceGhost!Luke has a new attitude; I guess being dead for a while tends to mellow you out.  I am still 100% OK with his character in this trilogy.

--Kylo not being as good at fighting after he dropped the dark-side allegiance – specifically the 6v1 fight against the Knights of Ren before he got the lightsaber.  Like he'd been into it so deep for so long he forgot how to fight without it.

--Han coming back one last time for some Ghost Dad Advice

--THANKS FOR NOT KILLING CHEWIE!!  I was seriously worried

--Rey fights herself!

--Where can I buy a replica of that Sith wayfinder?  I do like shiny force-user crystals/holocrons/etc

--Rey finally builds her own lightsaber!  And it’s yellow.

--TAKE THAT REYLOS: Oh you want a kiss huh?  There’s your kiss!  AND NOW HE’S DEAD.

--That whole scene.  Kylo staring at dead Rey.  Kylo force-healing Rey and bringing her back to life.  And now they’re staring at each other, and I’m thinking don’t kiss you idiots, don’t fucking do it.  FUCK they did.  I actually booed out loud.  (I will not deny being a little bit happy that Kylo died immediately after)

--All of the “are you happy Ep 7 & 8 haters???” stuff: Rey is super powerful because she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter, someone bringing up a “why don’t we Holdo this” argument and getting shot down with good reason, showing Leia’s Force powers with a flashback to being trained by Luke AND having her own lightsaber

--The urgent timeline got kind of.. muddled?  Forgotten?  They had 18 hours or 12 and still had time for all those spacejumps and Lando gathering friends from all over?

--A bit too on-the-nose with some of the ROTJ parallels.  Lando in disguise saving the day on a desert planet! Speeder bike chase!  Emperor taunting Our Hero while their friends are losing a huge battle outside!  A Skywalker dies so Our Hero can live!

--Also wondered if one of the writers played SWTOR: Emperor who really isn’t dead uses Super Mega Force Lightning and tries to jump into Our Hero’s body to take over their mind.

After chewing on this for a day, here’s my ranking of Skywalker/Palpatine saga films from best to worst:

5 > 8 > 9 > 4 > 7 > 6 > 3 > 2 > 1

And including Solo and Rogue One:

5 > Rogue One > 8 > 9 > 4 > 7 > 6 > 3 > Solo > 2 > 1

tbh I’m so far into the “inject all Star Wars content directly into my veins pls” territory that I can’t say I hate any of it, and even the cringiest prequel moments are leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of other junk I’ve watched/read/played.  So much about Star Wars is just FUN, and I will gladly handwave away most of my nitpicks (SpeedForce, I ain’t gotta explain shit) for the sake of enjoying the story.  Even the ridiculous stuff that I poke fun at is still a part of the whole mess; it can’t all be great or even good or OK and that is fine with me.  [NOTE: I have not watched the Holiday Special but the husband unit is weirdly enthusiastic about me doing so; it may happen yet this year.] 

I really like this comment from the A.V. Club.  More cynical than my overall take on the whole shebang but I totally know with where they’re coming from.  I don’t agree with all the responses but it’s a pretty good discussion.

[butchgwenwhyvar]

“And all the stars that scream” “there are no happy endings” “what endings find us happiness”

OW FLAIM WHYYYY 

ok here we go

“And all the stars that scream” would be a codex fic where Rex finds out what happened to Cody on Utapau and the aftermath, and ends in Rex going to Kamino in a royal snit to try and de-brainwash his husband. Unbeknownst to him, Cody’s no longer under the influence of the chip and is training the latest batch of stormtroopers. He’s bitter and lonely and depressed and hates what he’s doing. Sure, there was no glory in war, but he was fighting for a cause, fighting for honour and safety. There’s none of that in the Empire, and now he’s just training a bunch of kids who are freshly kidnapped and scared and he has to show them how to fight and he just can’t take it anymore. The Empire gets hold of Rex and tortures him in front of Cody, and Cody can’t do anything but watch and scream as his husband is slowly killed in front of him. 

Eventually, the rebellion (and Ahsoka) comes to rescue them because Rex got a distress beacon out before he was captured and they get to a safe planet, but it’s too late to save Rex. He gets his happy reunion with Cody, but he dies in his husband’s arms. His last words are probably something sappy like ‘the stars were never as beautiful as you’ (because I like tying fic titles into dialogue for some reason), and Cody joins the rebellion and fights for all that Rex tried to save him from

(and now I’m sad and I want to write this. It’d probably be a multi-chapter epic with a giant playlist and fanart or something)

I thought about turning “There are no happy endings” into my usual obianidala with Obi-Wan moping post RotS but I’ve written three and posted two of those and it’s utterly fucking typical for me, so I’d say this would either be Vader reminiscing about the war and how happy he was and how he fucked it up, or it could be force ghost! Padme looking at Vader and Obi-Wan moping and murdering. 

If we went Vader, it would start with Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme waking up together and having a peaceful morning with the twins and Ahsoka dropping in and it’s all happy. And then Vader wakes up feeling slightly unsettled, like something from his past’s just come out of his head and whacked him on the helmet, but he ignores it and goes about his day. He keeps seeing things in the corner of his eye though, like there’s a kid following him around the ship. He just shrugs it off because there’s stormtroopers to intimidate and a death star to build, but it keeps him wondering about what really happened to Padme and Obi-Wan and their kids (he can’t be certain, but in those last dreadful moments before Padme’s force blinked out entirely he felt two children). Eventually he confronts Palpatine about it and Palpatine goes all torture-dark-lord-etc on him.

If we went Padme, the fic would open with her death, and seeing Qui-Gon in the force. He’d probably tell her what’s going down and she sits and watches over Luke and Leia and Obi-Wan (she can’t make herself even think about Vader in the early days, can’t think of the man he used to be and the monster he’s become), and eventually figures out what Ahsoka’s doing and helps her set up fulcrum. She’d appear to Luke and Leia a few times, she’d try to talk to Obi-Wan but he’s probably crawled into a bottle or something at this point and is therefore passing off her messages as hallucinations and ignoring it. Vader, on the other hand, is so desperate to hear from anyone from his family, so he imagines Padmé everywhere even though she’s not. Padmé sees what’s going on and tries to snap Vader out of the dark but it doesn’t work, and she tries to help Obi-Wan but it doesn’t work either and the fic ends with her bemoaning her husband’s fates and being sad I guess (thus the title, ‘there are no happy endings’. If I was actually gonna write this fic, it would be called ‘(there are no) happy endings’ just to drive the angst home).

(Oh no I kinda wanna write this one as well)

“What endings find us happiness” would be an au where Anakin didn’t fall, Padme didn’t die, Obi-Wan didn’t go off moping in the desert, and (most of) the clones listened to Rex and Fives and took out their chips. Fives survived because Fox had his guns on stun (like they were supposed to be) and so he was only knocked out; he was around for Anaxes and getting Echo back. 

Mustafar plays out differently, with Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting a fallen Barriss, and as they’re barely escaping with their lives, Padme goes into labour. They end up at Polis Massa with Bail and Yoda etc, when the truth comes out about obianidala’s relationship. Yoda tells Anakin that Ahsoka is most likely dead, but Anakin insists that he can still feel her in the force. There’s an epic screaming match between Obi-Wan and Anakin, who are all for going off and looking for survivors, and Yoda, who wants everyone to go into a nice quiet exile. 

Anakin ends up pinching a ship with his spouses and tiny children (Bail offers to look after them for a while and they very nearly take him up on it) and heading to the Mandalore system to try and find Ahsoka and the clones. Padme suggests that they check Utapau to see if Cody’s alive (and not under the 66 trance as well) but Obi-Wan can’t face it and Anakin’s freaking tf out about Ahsoka so they ignore Utapau for now. 

Once they get to Mandalore, they find that Rex and Ahsoka have gone missing (and possibly the fake grave that they set up in the Ahsoka novel), as well as a dying Kix and a freaking out Jesse, with Fives and Echo nowhere to be found. Everyone freaks out and grabs the two survivors (despite the two clones involved in the chip debacle being 501, not many listened to Fives. A few removed their chips, and tried to protect Ahsoka when 66 went off but were gunned down. Rex and Jesse barely escaped with their lives, and Kix was shot several times while trying to save a brother) and they go off on a massive road trip, looking for everyone else. Kix recovers slowly in this time, but Anakin has to build him a prosthetic leg and he’s still in a lot of pain. Jesse usually refuses to leave his side. 

They’re about six months into the ‘road trip’ (complemented with newborns, injury recovery, and the usual PTSD and nightmares combo that they all have) when they find Rex, who’s laying low somewhere in the outer rim. Rex has no idea where Ahsoka went after they parted ways, so they start methodically checking all the planets near Mandalore first, and then they get to Thabeska and find her there, about to head back to Raada to save Kaeden and Miara (they also find out about Bail’s rebellion at this point). Raada plays out pretty much the same. Ahsoka still gets her sabers, and Bail ends up hiding them on Alderaan until the proper rebel base is set up. 

Once the base is set up and they’re monitoring Imperial chatter, they hear reports about two renegade clones causing trouble in the outer rim territories. They start to monitor those frequencies more carefully, and eventually hear of an attack on Kamino by these two. Obi-Wan and Padme, who become the commanders of that particular base, send Anakin and a squad of X-Wings to Kamino to extract the clones and help them out. 

The clones turn out to be Fives and Echo, trying to rescue Cody and Wolffe, and any other clones, dechipped or not (Wolffe’s chip was damaged when Ventress took his eye, he managed to pull himself out of the 66 trance just after Plo was shot down). Anakin and his squad get them out with a couple casualties (Bly is still on Kamino when Fives takes out his chip, he sacrifices himself so that the others can escape because he can’t live with the fact that he killed his General, his riduur) and head back to the base. 

There’s lots of tearful reunions when they get off the ship. Ahsoka immediately launches herself at Fives and Echo. Rex and Cody refuse to leave each other’s sides for ages, and there’s a very emotional conversation had along the lines of ‘I should have listened to you’. Cody and Obi-Wan have their reunion as well and that’s sad as hell.

Life goes on in the Rebellion, Kaeden and Ahsoka get married when they turn 20, and the twins grow up with X-wings for playgrounds and the sounds of air-raid sirens as a lullaby (some nights, when Padme’s waiting up for Anakin, who’s in an X-wing far above, engaged in desperate dogfights with the TIE’s that Palpatine sends, and Obi-Wan’s in the control room, she wishes she’d left her children with Bail or Mon. No child should grow up in a war zone. And then 3 year old Luke starts snoring in the bed beside her and Leia’s hair is in her mouth as her daughter does the octopus on her shoulder, and she thinks that she can never leave them no matter what). Other surviving Clones and Jedi make their way to the rebellion as well, until there’s a thriving community on an outer rim planet full of retired Clones and Jedi and their families. 

A New Hope plays out differently: the twins have been trained (by Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Anakin) and they know what they’re doing, and Luke and Ahsoka waste no time in grabbing some random smuggler off of tatooine and dragging him out to the death star, where Ahsoka and Barriss fight as Han and Luke rescue Leia. The twins help their older sister and get her (injured, but alive) onto the ship, and Luke joins the death star run while his parents and sisters are chewing their nails to the quick down in the war room. 

Empire Strikes Back is much the same, including Luke heading to Dagobah because Obi-Wan,  Anakin, and Ahsoka decided they needed Yoda’s help to deal with Barriss. The Han and Leia arc plays out the same, and Luke still goes to rescue them and fights Barriss again. 

Return of the Jedi is also pretty much the same as in canon, but it’s Ahsoka and Luke who go up to the Death Star and fight the Emperor and Barriss. There’s an emotional scene between Barriss and Ahsoka at the very end, where Barriss comes back to the light and apologises for what she did. There’s a party on Endor which turns into Wedge and Luke’s impromptu wedding; Han and Leia get married a few days later. 

Everything is happy and nice and calm, no one dies, and nothing bad ever happens to them ever again the end.

(I also want to write this one as a full-blown au like what I planned modern au to be)

[phoenixyfriend]

The conversation isn't very long, and when they surface there's Much Cuddle and Anakin sending his kids off to nap away the headaches that caused, and I just. I need this scene to end with Mace telling Anakin that he's obviously a really good dad. And Anakin has no idea how to handle that because yeah, he tries, and he's proud of how he's managed to raise these two, but Mace Windu is complimenting his parenting skills.

His PARENTING SKILLS. Anakin's full of confused, flustered pride.

From here on it's no longer a coherent narrative, it's just Thoughts.

There is definitely a moment where Depa and Mace are like. Genuinely shocked by the fact that this Random Stranger in the flaring black tunic is this good of a saber specialist and that they've never sparred with him before. It's one of the things that pings the 'oh, so this is Skywalker' buttons for Mace. There's just something really funny about "Listen, if you were anyone in the temple in the past twenty years with those skills, I'd have fought you, so you must be the weirdo from Mandalore, especially given that your daughter's been yelling at the armored assholes in Mando'a and Huttese." - They're going to ask him to spar, of course, but it's gotta wait until that femur's fixed. - At one point they have to evade enemy fire in their spaceship and either Anakin or Soka pilots, and it, uh... it is An Experience for Depa and Mace.

Depa doesn't join the "oh no, he's hot" team but only because she's an ace lesbian. - She does take a few holos and sends them to Komari like "So... this is the guy you couldn't shut up about?"

Depa gets hit with "oh no, his kids are adorable menaces. She's weak for kids. Which. Hm. To the best of my knowledge, Depa didn't have any canon padawans before Caleb, and her Master rank came from somewhere else. - I was thinking Mace could be Ben's master, but... Ben as Depa's first padawan has a certain appeal. Whether Ben's her Padawan or Padawan-brother, she loves him all the same. I'll have to think on it. Either way, welcome to the lineage, tiny ginger diplomat. - Ben is a much more Serious Child than Obi-Wan, for obvious reasons.

Please understand that the kids have the weirdest mishmash of accents because they grew up in Mandalorian culture, with Tatooine guardians, and Coruscanti memories. Ben in particular can probably slip between Concord Dawn Mando'a and Kalevalan Mando'a, and it's confusing for everyone involved.

Sokanth, as previously mentioned, is snapped up by Plo Koon pretty much on first sight. Anakin approves because if he can't train his kids officially (and he's been aware that he can't for years, there's rules for a reason), then obviously Soka should go to Plo. - Sokanth stays in Anakin's rooms after they move to the Temple just because it's... well, it's more convenient for everyone due to Plo's environmental needs. If Anakin grabs a suite next to Plo's then Soka will be just as close, but with less worry about someone getting poisoned by breathing the wrong air.

Anakin and the Jedi Babies: Winds of Change

Yes, that’s a pun. Context: Anakin and the Jedi Babies, chrono

The family is on an interstellar errand about eight years after arriving in the past, maybe an Illum trip, IDK, but the kids accidentally get pulled into a Jedi Nonsense.

We open our scene on a locked cell. We have Master Windu and Knight Billaba. His femur’s broken, and she’s worrying about torture interrogation by the Ambiguous Villains (we can use Death Watch, they’re convenient).

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[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “A World Between Worlds”

Hey guys, I’m still alive!  Just came back from vacation and took some time to finally finish this rewatch series!  The last three posts are coming slowly because July is going to be a very busy month for me.

Anyway, here’s one of them!

AAHHH

OK, but can we talk about this Rainbow Road place because this is absolutely the most perfect way to connect EVERYTHING we’ve seen in canon.  Like holy crap.

"I [Kanan] won’t let him [Ezra] lose his way, not like I did.”  UGHHHHH!!!

Oh my God, I love the 2D wolves running around the portal

Whoa, this pixel quality though….

Oh my God this freaking dude [Minister Hydan]

“Now tell me, how did you open the portal?”  “I’m [Sabine] smarter than you.”  *z snaps*

How did Palpatine first hear about Ezra?  Vader?  Ezra’s transmissions in S1?  Probably

Kah-LEB?!?  KAH-LEB?!?!?

What’s that map?

Can we talk about the fact that Dave Filoni had the balls to introduce time travel?  I mean, I can accept the Force ghosts but when this episode dropped, I was completely mind blown.

“The time to fight is now!”  Jyn!

“We’ll see each other again.  I believe that.”  Rey!

What’s with the snake?

Those were the fathiers from “The Last Jedi”

Oh that shot’s awesome

*gasps when the last bit of Ahsoka’s theme starts playing*

*Ezra reaches in and rescues Ahsoka*  Freaking time travel!

When I first watched this with @dynamicdiplomacy, when Ezra pulls Ahsoka out, we absolutely flipped our shits

*imitates the minister’s way of saying “Coruscant”*

“I [Minister Hydan] am no fool, Lady Wren, so do not mistake my pleasant demeanor for weakness.”  ‘Lady Wren,’ oohhh….

As an art history minor, when they started talking about the meaning behind the hand gestures and the postures of the Family, that part of my brain just got immediately invested.

What would happen if they [Ezra or Ahsoka] fell off the Rainbow Road? 

My friend:  They would just float back up like in Mario Kart!

*gasps when Vader mentions Obi-Wan in the background*

“Where’s Kanan?”  *groans in pain*

“Perhaps Kanan’s will is still at work through the wolf [Dume].”  “How can that be?”  He IS DUME!

“I [Ezra] can save Kanan!”  IT’S A TRAP!

“Kid, I’m about to let everyone in on the secret!”  AAAGGHHH!!!

There’s an eagle!

What are those symbols above that gate?  Isn’t that one of the Sith symbols?

”[Ezra] You can’t save your master, and I [Ahsoka] can’t save mine.”  Oh ow.

God, we have to watch this again…

I freed Ahsoka Tano and all I’m probably gonna get is a T-shirt

“Perhaps… I can.”  *gasps extremely loudly*

THE VOICE CHANGED FROM KANAN’S TO PALPATINE’S!  Because the gate was the trap!

Oh my God those eyes….

Oh hi Steve Blum [as a random stormtrooper]!

That is very Kanan-esque and almost Avatar the Last Airbender-esque

*laughs then imitates Palpatine’s yelling in the background*

*Ezra and Ahsoka run to their portals*  Runnin’, runnin’, runnin’...

Aaaand she’s [Ahsoka] back on Malachor!  Where the S2 Finale ended!

Oh my gosh, Zeb has his arm around Ezra’s back to help him!

Oh my gosh this music!

Yo @starwars, where’s my entire Rebels soundtrack?

I love how silent this scene [where Ezra closes the portal and the crew evacuates] is and how the music conveys the mood instead of just constant back and forth.  Plus the transitions from each action to the next are really smooth.

“The Force will be with you.  Always.”  *clutches chest in pain*

*quietly*  Oh my gosh….

“He’s gone now, isn’t he [Kanan]?  I [Hera] mean, really gone.”  Oh God, do not make me cry.  Do not make me cry.

Again.

“I [Ezra] know what to do now.”  Cry. 

No, I’m kidding.

“Goodbye, Kanan.”  *sighs*

*quietly*  Oh my gosh, this music...