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starfanatic · 4 years ago

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Luke Skywalker vs Rey... Nobody

I hate the argument that a lot of sequel trilogy stans use whenever anyone criticized Rey or labels her a Mary Sue. It’s probably the weakest argument a sequel stan can ever possibly say to me. (Besides the people hate Rey because she’s a women argument).

Lets compare them shall we?

Luke Skywalker in A New Hope is whiny, inexperienced, and very naive. There is multiple moments in a new hope that proves this. When he was whining about not wanting to stay on the moisture farm and wanting to join the Academy like his friend, Biggs. He constantly was slightly annoying throughout the film, especially to Han. When Han named his price and Luke was like “We can buy our own ship with that!” or when Han was flying the Milennium Falcon and Luke was practically yelling in his ear to go into hyperspace. Han and Luke did not get along at first because of Luke’s behavior. Luke went against Obi-Wan’s orders and saved Princess Leia, not thinking of the consequences. How he could possibly be killed or put in a cell with the Princess. He doesn’t think of a plan to get out AFTERWARDS only the spur of the moment. He was constantly shown to be inexperienced and needed his friends help or HE WOULD HAVE DIED THE FIRST MOVIE. While on the millennium falcon, Obi-Wan taught him things about the force. Maybe not a lot but he knew how to use the simple basics of it. Like sensing the force and letting it guide your actions (as Obi-Wan was trying to teach him before). For once Luke listened and trusted Obi-Wan and destroyed the death star.

Lets do Rey now WHOOP. So far the only personality flaw she seems to have is that she’s also naive? She had the same wide-eyed innocence as Luke had but it’s different and here’s why. Rey never suffers for any of her so-called almost non-existent flaws. Rey is experienced enough to hold her own in a fight against men WAY stronger then her (that’s realistic though but that’s one tool in her belt). She’s bilingual. She can fly the millennium falcon better then Han Solo even though she never flew one before. She is constantly saving people by herself, never the one being saved. (Before y’all bust my balls, Rey escaped that damn starkiller base by her damn self. Luke didn’t and couldn’t). She uses powers that takes years to learn and the excuse is the force dyad. So she downloads Kylo’s skills and training. Great. Magnificent. Rey is on a amazing start. And this is the first movie! She can only get stronger from here.

Luke is more mature and responsible in ESB. He’s a respected hero of the rebellion. Luke still struggles using the force. Even with the training Luke goes through with Obi-Wan he had to truly focus to pull the lightsaber to him. Plus as a common occurrence, he still needed help from his friends. He’s not invincible. He actually gets severely hurt (makes sense). He goes to Dagobah to get trained (because unlike Rey he doesn’t have the “learn force jedi shit that takes years to learn” cheatcode). And then he’s impatient. He wants to learn how to use the force so he can help his friends. Luke is again reckless, impatient, and he’s also insecure in his own belief. Him not believing he can lift the X-wing was why he couldn’t. Against his master’s and Obi-Wan’s orders he decides to save his friends. It’s a noble reason to but it still got him fucked up. He got his hand cut off, he was beaten and humiliated, and then he was told a horrifying revalation that twisted around everything he knew and believed. He was scared of Vader, you can see it on his face, but he did not succumb to fear.

Rey goes to the island to convince Luke to go help them fight the war. Why doesn’t Leia go instead? Who knows. Why does Luke act the way he does? Who knows. Luke dismissed her and was quite rude to her. Rey was having cute little talks with Kylie Renner in their little force dyad BS. She called him a monster and a murderous snake. I like the insults. It fills me with joy! But then she finds out the truth. Rey did do something reckless and stupid but as usual she doesn’t suffer the consequences to her actions. Technically she’s morally superior to Luke because she saw the good in him and felt like she could turn him to the light (after slicing his face open. Ok). Rey decides to give herself up to the First Order thinking Kylo would save her. And he does. So she wasn’t even wrong... Rey fight the very elite guards of the (bootleg emperor palpatine) Supreme Leader Snoke. Reminder, TFA and TLJ are like 3-4 days apart. She had zero training within these days. Luke refused to train her so don’t start that bullshit. Luke trained her for like 5 minutes and none of that training had anything to do with lightsaber dueling. Rey is then told she was a nobody. Now why did Rey cry about this? I truly don’t know. How the hell would Kylo accurately know that Rey’s parents were nobody? Didnt Rey been know this from the force awakens? Eh whatever. She tries to force pull the lightsaber from Kylo Ren and do a dumbass tug a war instead of walking up and grabbing it. It reminds me of JJ and Rian fighting over where the star wars sequels). Anakin must be screaming and yelling from above... or below... idk. The lightsaber then breaks. Rey then saves her friends by showing her once again superior piloting skills that rival or is possibly better then Anakin Skywalker himself. Hitting 3 in one shot? You go girl! She then uses the force to effortlessly move the big ass boulders out of the entrance to save the resistance. Last I remember... Luke struggled to do that with a few way smaller rocks and was also focusing hard to do.

Luke is finally at jedi status! Woohoo! Now Luke first saves Han from Jabba. It shows his very dark side tendencies by choking the guards (like father like son). Luke thinks of a actual plan before going in (CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT). Luke “Chanel Boots” Skywalker goes to Yoda on his death bed. All he wants is answers but Yoda wants to be cryptic as fuck. Luke has been lied to for years by his mentors and his family. Luke’s father isn’t hero Anakin Skywalker but actually a big, asthmatic, merciless, murderous asshole who has a choking kink. Luke then says he cannot kill his own father and Obi-Wan, who believes Vader isn’t a human but a machine, has no faith in Luke. He believes that Luke will fail and the Empire would win. Luke feels the conflict and good in him that nobody else does. He knows that Vader is unloyal to the emperor and he actually cares about his own son. When he is with Han and Leia he realizes he made a mistake and has a bad feeling about it. (*gasp* Luke is not being super reckless). He’s not arrogant (not in anyway) but he’s completely confident that Vader would turn. (He isn’t flawless there is still obvious problem with this plan he has. He fails, the empire wins. He dies, the emperor wins. Vader doesn’t turn, Luke fails. Luke almost succumbs to the dark side and it’s actually plausible he might fully turn. He wants to desperately save his friends and his father has done horrible things to Luke. Luke had every reason to kill Vader. But he doesn’t. He throws the lightsaber away and foolishly puts his life in Vader’s hand. Luke doesn’t save the galaxy because he can make things levitate with the force. He wins because he had the strength to resist the dark side and has so much love and pure good in his heart he saw the good in his father.

Rey starts off with a training session (no idc it’s too fucking late now. 3 movies in? Is she doing reverse character development?) and basically Poe gets mad at Rey for not accompanying them on missions. I still don’t know why she needs training, when she is at a decent strength to fight elite guards, fight kylo ren, and a variety of other things that typically takes a long time to learn. After finding out Palpatine returned, Rey goes on a mission to find the way finder almost like a shitty videogame. I don’t even want to talk about the force dyad anymore because it’s fucking dumb. Rey gets chased by the force order and hear this out, FORCE HEALS (i forgot what the animal was but idrc). Which means Rey had the power to stop the painful truth of death themself. Why am I not surprised? Rey did something that no other jedi nor sith or jedi have ever done this. Anakin went to the dark side to save the ones he love. This movie was just a slap in the face to Anakin. Rey then fights Kylo Ren and lost??? again it seems a little too late and it also didn’t make sense. Rey defeated those guards all by herself with Kylo needed help from her. She’s obviously the better lightsaber duelist but hey, at least JJ was trying to mellow her out a bit. Rey stabs him while our beloved Princess died. She then regrets her decision and as always, doesn’t have any consequence to her actions. By the force I forgot, the whole scene where she is revealed as a Palpatine? Completely invalidates the first two movies but eh whatever. She uses a power that only the elite sith does... something Kylo Ren himself could not do (and he’s on the dark side). Rey “killed” Chewie but actually no she didn’t because Chewie is perfectly fine. Rey is supposed to be all dark and edgy now, “you don’t know me” BS. Yeah I’m sorry I won’t tolerate this because my only allergy is the fish smelling coochie bullshit called the sequel trilogy. Rey got scared of her dark self. Well at least JJ tried? Rey then almost gives up but Luke was like “nah fam you cant”. Rey dies trying to fight Palpatine but then as usual, she gets zero consequence cuz Benny Simp saved her using the force. Then she kissed him... no. No. No. This made my eyes burn like they just threw bleach in my eyes. It made no sense. “A Kiss of Gratitude”? What the shit was that? GIRLS DO NOT INSPIRE TO BE REY.

#anti sequel trilogy #anti rey palpatine #anti reylo #luke skywalker #star wars #leia organa #han solo #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #rebel scum #anti rian johnson #a new hope #empire strikes back #return of the jedi

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darcyfitz · 5 years ago

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Now That the Dust Has Settled...somewhat.

Reylo fam, the wounds are still fresh. Each time I try to write a descriptive meta about my feelings for TROS, I fall flat. I just can’t. The hurts is just too real. Yet there are some things I’d like to get off my chest.

* I realize JJ deemed it necessary to return to Tattooine in some way. I get that. But I seriously take umbridge to Rey burying Luke and Leia’s sabers on Tattooine. It was, in my opinion, a monstrous mistake. Why? Well...Luke HATED Tattooine. Could not wait for some ship to “Teleport him off that rock”. Leia, on the other hand, had never been there. Other than the ties of their father to his home planet, it was just a place holding NO sentimental value. How lovely would it HAVE been, for Rey to bury the sabers in the waters of Naboo. It was where their parent’s fell in love, married, and shared the happiest times of their forbidden love story. It would have tied in Anakin, Padme, Luke and Leia perfectly since, well...they ARE Skywalker’s. And Rey, well...is not. No, Rey ending up on that dust bowl only served one purpose in my eyes: her muttering to a random desert dweller “I’m Rey Skywalker.”

* The total lack of screen time back story for Ben Solo. Remember him? The actual last Skywalker. I realize JJ and Co. try very hard to forget he even exists, but still. Why bother to introduce him AT ALL? Oh, right...I remember. As a vehicle for REY SKYWALKER to have her powers awaken. Got it. Forget he is the son of the beloved couple of the OT. Forget that hardly anyone in the GA reads SW canon novels and comics and has ZERO clue as to who he was before Snoke *cough* Palpatine got his spindly fingers into his head. Forget the fact he was ALONE his entire life. Actually, I can’t forget. I will never forget. Because Adam Driver played this character to absolute perfection, imparting Kylo/Ben with a light that will never fade. I’m pleased as a viewer and lifelong fan of SW that I didn’t succumb to bigotry after TFA against Kylo; painting him as an abuser, a fascist, a Nazi like monster, etc. I LOVED Han Solo. LOVED HIM. So Kylo killing Han was like a knife to my gut. But I delved deeper into who Ben Solo was, and I’m glad I did. My only question is...WHY DIDN’T JJ ABRAMS AND CREW?????

* I shipped Finn/Rose. I did. I get that so many wanted Finn/Rey to happen. Or Finn/Poe. I understand. You like who you like to ship. Live and let ship. One of my biggest gripes is that because there was not enough time to get to know Ben Solo more, that whole world building exercise in having Finnrose form a relationship in TLJ was pointless. They barely spoke in this film, and it looked like Finn had other romantic interests going on. There could have been so much time extra for Ben’s backstory if Canto Bight never happened. I realize TLJ was Rian and not JJ, but as a whole, the continuity was handled BADLY.

* I know that after Crait, Rey was PISSED at Kylo. I get that. He did some bad stuff. But I (and my husband) got tired and weary in this film watching Rey and Kylo battle it out every five minutes. By the deathstar scene, hubby leaned over and asked me ‘Another lightsaber duel?’ I gently whispered that all the fighting was a metaphor for sex. But I digress. Then, suddenly, she kisses the skin off of his lips. While the end for me is beautiful and horrible in equal measure, the fact that Ben dies with little fanfare leaves me wanting. A lot.

* Which brings me to this: Where the hell was EVERYONE for Ben???? Not a soul was there to ‘Be With Him’. He spent a lifetime in isolation, and as the HEIR of Skywalker there was NO ONE. Not Anakin, which I am thoroughly pissed about. You bring ewoks back for this film, Lando back, but not Anakin? The entire production company came out for Rey, but not Ben.

* I knew from the first hour of TFA that Rey was not ‘nobody’. I said she was either a Kenobi or a Palpatine. After TLJ when people were debating and arguing her lineage, so many were indignant that she could still be a great Jedi and be nobody. True. Only, she WAS somebody. And even though I have no hate for Rey, she stole Ben’s birthright courtesy of JJ Abrams. She had a meaningful albeit brief relationship with Ben’s parents. She had Han’s ship. Luke’s saber. Leia’s time and training. What the hell did Ben have again? Oh, yeah. Neglect. Mistrust. Fear. Everything Rey received, should have been Ben’s. Some friends of mine pointed out that well...since Ben and Rey are one soul in two bodies, technically- Nah. Hell no. Ben DESERVED love. Not that Rey didn’t, but she wasn’t the focus here. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. She WAS the focus. The legacy character of the ‘good’ guys was sacrificed so that the legacy character of the ‘bad’ guys could RISE. Again, Ben Solo was merely a vehicle to promote Rey as the new Luke of this generation. Rey got top billing in this trilogy and Ben was relegated to second fiddle. That would have been fine, if this trilogy was about the Palpatine’s. But it wasn’t. It was about the Skywalkers. Or it was. I have no freaking idea WHAT it’s about, at this point.

Honestly, I know we got a somewhat happy ending. Good triumphed over evil. Ben was redeemed. He came home to his parents. He kissed the girl he loved, and died happy. Reylo, blessed Reylo, was REAL. And nobody can change that. No fanboy, no anti, not even JJ. But I still wanted. Not MORE for Ben, but for the GA to know who he was.

@michellestarswept @ravenclaworganasolo @ajedisgirl @glitzescape @bellaren18 @nite0wl29 @asalookslikelokin @tazwren @zhrmf @franymol @roguewn @monharki @millennium-eagle @half-ok @psy-kylo-gy @catalina-infanta @franpaw-reylo-creations @empressdarkren

#tros spoilers #reylo #ben solo #kylo ren #adam driver #rey #reylo fandom #reylo family

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lady-hammerlock · 5 years ago

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Of Masks and Concealer (Watch Dogs - Marcus x Wrench)

Summary: Marcus has a perfectly normal male name on his face, hidden beneath a liberal coat of concealer. Is it Wrench's name? He hopes it's Wrench's name. A Wrencus soulmate AU with a liberal dose of angst and fluff.

AN: What is this? Another Watch Dogs fic from me? In truth I discovered this in my writing folder a little while back. I had completely forgotten that I had written it, but it was mostly finished, so I figured it should go out into the world. I hope you all enjoy. :)

As usual, the full story is under the cut. The only real warnings for this one are for mild violence/injuries and Wrench having really big self-esteem issues.

A MASK AND CONCEALER

Marcus Holloway had a rather unique soulbrand. The name itself wasn’t all that strange; just a perfectly ordinary male name. Any confusion that might have caused in him disappeared when he started to hit puberty, and realised that he found plenty of men just as attractive as women.

No, it was the position of the soulbrand that was weird. Plenty of people had them on their arms or legs, and he had heard of soulbrands being on people’s backs a few times. He even had a cousin whose soulbrand was on the sole of her foot. Marcus’s soulbrand however was right below his eye on his right cheek.

As a kid it hadn’t really mattered. For the first couple of years of school he had gone around with it uncovered. The writing was small enough that half the kids couldn’t even read the name of Marcus’s soulmate without getting real close to him.

Marcus soon realised that most other people kept their soulbrands covered up however; both the kids at school and the adults he knew, or at least the adults that hadn’t already met their soulmates and settled down with them. The kids at school hadn’t started to pick on Marcus for his weird soulbrand, but he definitely didn’t want them to start.

Covering up most soulbrands was easy enough. If clothing didn’t naturally cover it up then surely a pair of gloves or a scarf or whatever would do the job.

Marcus’s required a little more creativity. For a while there he went to school with a brightly coloured Band-Aid under his eye, which drew more attention that the soulbrand itself had done. When he grew a little older his Mom started to cover it with concealer. As Marcus grew older he learned how to apply the concealer himself. He’d still wear some sort of Band-Aid when going swimming or whenever the concealer was likely to rub off, but on most days he carried a little container of concealer around in his bag.

By the time he joined Dedsec he was a fucking pro at applying the stuff, which was good, because if there was ever a reason to conceal your soulmate’s identity from everyone and everything then going up against groups like the ones Dedsec regularly picked fights with was it. There was little doubt in Marcus’s mind that groups like !nvite or Blume could find some devious way to use the name of a person’s soulmate against them.

As for the soulmate himself, Marcus didn’t really give the guy much thought. Growing up there had been plenty of guys and girls in his class that had obsessed over finding their other halves. Marcus had met a couple of people who he had even thought for a moment might be the one, either based on name or the sight of a similar patch of concealer or adhesive medical strip on their face, and sure, he had been disappointed when it turned out that they weren’t the one (or in one case, really fucking relieved that they weren’t) but mostly Marcus figured that whoever his soulmate was, he would meet him when the time was right.

Wrench was, without a doubt, one of the coolest, most interesting people Marcus had ever met. They flirted and bonded and got excited over the same dumb shit, and bit by tiny bit, Marcus realised that he was falling in love.

He knew that it was stupid, but he couldn’t stop himself from hoping. After all, Wrench’s face was covered, so there was a tiny chance that somewhere beneath all of those spikes and leather the name ‘Marcus’ was branded on Wrench’s cheek, the twin to Marcus’s own soulbrand.

Marcus always ended up scoffing at himself whenever he caught himself daydreaming about such things though. Sure, Wrench might be awesome and perfect and the exact sort of person that Marcus would want to have as his soulmate, but that didn’t mean shit.

For the first time in his life he actually gave a shit about the identity of his soulmate, and it was mostly because he desperately, hopelessly wished that it was Wrench.

Everything seemed to be going pretty well at the moment, both for Dedsec and for Marcus. Swelter Skelter had brought them all back together and they were beating Prime_Eight into the ground. Marcus was on his way back to headquarters after taking down their most recent Prime_Eight target, on a motorbike that he had ‘liberated’ from its former Prime_Eight owner.

Everything seemed to be looking up. The sun was fucking shining, the radio was playing a rock song he really liked and Wrench, as Wrench was inclined to do while Marcus was on longer trips, had rung him up to talk.

“So Marcus,” Wrench said, and Marcus could just hear the cheeky grin in his voice. “FMK with Jabba the Hut, Emperor Palpatine when he’s old and pale and wrinkly, or Chewbacca.”

Marcus tried to stifle the laughter that bubbled up in his throat, which resulted in it coming out as a gross sort of giggle snort. The two of them had been playing ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ for a few minutes, and while the people and characters they were playing with had started out attractive enough, they had slowly devolved until they were at this stage.

“You just wanna hear me say I’d fuck or marry Chewbacca,” Marcus replied, taking over a slow moving family van in front of him as he did.

“Aw, come on M,” Wrench whined. “He’d be a really considerate lover. Just think about it; those big strong arms holding you tight, and all that soft fur…”

Marcus chuckled. Stupid conversation like this did absolutely nothing to lessen his crush on Wrench. If anything, it was stupid geeky shit like this that had made him fall in love with Wrench so quickly.

“I thought you didn’t like animals,” Marcus shot back.

Wrench let out an exaggerated gasp of shock.

“Are you calling Chewbacca an animal?” Wrench asked. “Marcus, that’s dangerous talk man. Calling a perfectly civilised and, you absolutely have to concede, attractive gentleman like Chewbacca an animal… What are we going to do with you?”

Marcus chuckled again.

“Just please don’t rip my arms off,” he laughed, before actually giving the question some thought. “Well, straight up let’s kill Jabba.”

“Diego Luna would be heartbroken Marcus,” Wrench interrupted.

Marcus chuckled, and was just about to continue when suddenly a valve in the road in front of him exploded in a burst of scalding hot steam and a shower of asphalt. The car in front of Marcus was thrown to the side of the road. Marcus turned the motorbike as quickly as he could, and just managed to steer around the explosion in time.

He steadied himself, and then looked behind him. It was only then that he spotted the pair of Prime_Eight jerks that were following just behind him in a beat up old sports car.

“Oh shit,” Marcus cursed, kicking the stolen motorbike back into gear and hoping that he could outrun the Prime_Eight members.

“Marcus!” came Wrench’s voice from the other end of the line, immediately worried. “Hey Marcus. Buddy! You okay?”

“Shit!” Marcus said, turning a corner and just making it. “I’ve got a couple of Prime_Eight bastards on my tail. Probably ain’t too happy that I blew up their place.”

“You need help?” Wrench asked.

“Nah, I got this,” Marcus said. He had dealt with plenty of worse situations before. All that he needed was to mess up the idiots behind him and then…

He motored through the next set of traffic lights, hacking into them as he did, hoping to cause a little bit of trouble for the Prime_Eight members. He heard the tell-tale screech of tires and honking of horns behind him, and glanced back to find that his trick had worked just as well as he had hoped. The Prime_Eight van had slammed into another car. There was no way that they were going to be able to chase after him now.

He hadn’t been watching where he was going though, and when he turned his attention back to the road in front of him it was too late to avoid slamming into the side of the car that had pulled out in front of him.

He hit the side of the car and went flying, skidding several metres along the road.

“Marcus?” Wrench screamed over their phone call. “Marcus!”

The breath had been completely knocked out of him. He just lay there for a while, gasping and trying to get air back into his lungs. His arms and legs hurt. He didn’t think that he had broken anything, but his knees and arms stung where the road had torn through his clothing and some of the skin beneath.

“Shit,” he cursed when he had recovered enough to push himself up on his hands and knees.

The owner of the car he had run into had taken off, and everyone else seemed too concerned about the three car pile-up at the intersection to worry about one lone and mostly uninjured motorbike rider. Marcus could faintly hear the muffled and garbled sound of Wrench on the other side of their phone call and reached out to find his phone lying on the floor nearby.

As he picked it up he could hear the other man’s voice, frantically muttering, more to himself now than to Marcus.

“Don’t worry M,” Wrench said. “You’re not too far from headquarters. I’m going to get you. Everything’s going to okay. I’m coming to get you and you’re going to be okay and I’m going to make those stupid fucking Prime_Eight assholes pay for daring to lay a finger on you. You’re going to be all right Marcus. You have to be.”

“Wrench,” Marcus called out, his voice a little quieter and scratchier than he had anticipated.

“Marcus!” Wrench cried out.

“I’m okay man,” Marcus said. “Well, I am a little torn up, but I’ll be fine.”

“No way man,” Wrench replied. “I’ve got your location and I’m almost there now. I’ll see you in a bit, okay M?”

“All right,” Marcus replied.

He glanced back at the chaos he had caused at the intersection and began, despite the protesting of his legs, to walk away from the scene. The last thing he wanted was to still be around when people started asking questions about the crash.

Within minutes Wrench had arrived at the scene and the two of them had found a back alley in which they could tend to Marcus’s injuries in peace.

The scrapes on Marcus’s arms and legs weren’t nearly as bad as they felt; nothing worse than a few scratches really, but Wrench worried as though there might still be a chance of Marcus bleeding out, immediately fetching water and insisting on cleaning off the dirt and gravel himself.

“It’s really nothing,” Marcus insisted, tearing off part of his own long-sleeved shirt so that Wrench could use the fabric to help clean off the wounds and soak up the excess blood. “I mean, it stings a bit, but I’ll be fine Wrench.”

Rather than rolling his eyes Wrench pretty much rolled his whole head.

“Just let me fucking take care of you all right?” he snapped.

“Yes Mom,” Marcus replied. He joked, but inside his heart felt as though it was glowing. Seeing how much Wrench cared about him made him think just for a moment that perhaps his crush on Wrench wasn’t completely hopeless after all.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t soulmates. Perhaps, if they loved one another then that would be enough. God, he wished that they were soulmates. He wished it with all of his heart. He had never loved anyone like he loved Wrench. The other man’s touch was so gentle as he dabbed the wet cloth on Marcus’s arm; far gentler than a man who covered himself in spikes and took great delight in burning things to the ground had any right to be.

“Hey Marcus,” Wrench said, breaking Marcus’s reverie by reaching out to touch the hacker’s face with his thumb. “You got a little er…”

The other man’s mask changed from question marks to wide, round flashing eyes as his thumb brushed against the spot right beneath Marcus’s right eye; the spot where the name of Marcus’s soulmate sat, usually hidden away from the world.

“Oh shit,” Marcus cursed as Wrench withdrew his thumb. “I guess the make-up rubbed off during the crash.”

Marcus rubbed at his own cheek to discover that the makeup had smeared all down his face.

“Damn it,” Marcus cursed, already reaching into his bag to fetch the container of concealer that was tucked away in there along with everything else.

Marcus was a little annoyed, not entirely because Wrench had seen the name of Marcus’s soulmate. He trusted Wrench, knew that the other guy wouldn’t blab to anyone else and definitely wouldn’t have a problem with the fact that Marcus’s soulmate was a guy.

No, he was annoyed because this would, one way or another, put an end to his dream of Wrench actually being his soulmate. While neither of them said anything Marcus could always pretend that there was some chance of his dream coming true, but now that the name of Marcus’s soulmate was right there, out in the open, Wrench would undoubtedly, in one way or another, confirm that the name on Marcus’s cheek wasn’t his, and then Marcus would be forced to face the horrible, empty realisation that no matter who his soulmate was, there was no way that they could possibly measure up to Wrench.

Damn it. Everything about this sucked. Suddenly the scratches on his arms and legs felt worse, and all he wanted to do was get back to headquarters and have a stiff drink or two.

Marcus was therefore understandably surprised when Wrench let out a garbled sound that could only be described as a squeal and stepped back from Marcus and the newly revealed name on his cheek as though stung.

“That’s… er…” the masked man muttered before finally seeming to recover from his initial shock. “Am I looking at your soulbrand Marcus?”

“What else would it be?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah,” Wrench said. “Of course M. Cool.”

His mask and words were trying to convince Marcus that everything was cool, but his voice and body language was giving him away. Something was up. Perhaps Wrench just wasn’t comfortable with knowing the name of Marcus’s soulmate. It was a pretty private thing.

Or maybe Wrench is jealous, that part of Marcus that was growing increasingly difficult to ignore began to suggest. Or maybe, just maybe, he recognised his own name?

Marcus ignored those thoughts, knowing that it was infinitely more likely that the sight of Marcus’s soulbrand had just made Wrench uncomfortable, and turned his back to Wrench as he started to apply a liberal coat of concealer onto his cheek.

He waited for Wrench to say something; anything. Maybe, if he was extremely lucky then Wrench would make his dreams come true and claim Marcus as his soulmate. If not, and this seemed infinitely more likely, he could at least allow Marcus to stop hoping. Either way, he wished that Wrench would say something.

Instead the other man was still and silent, giving away absolutely nothing except a vague impression of discomfort.

Marcus sighed, twisted the lid back on the concealer and shoved it into his bag, before turning back to Wrench.

“Hey man,” he said, causing Wrench’s eyes to light up in a pair of exclamation marks, probably more of a reaction than those two simple words warranted. “Did I cover the whole thing? I mean, I’m pretty good at covering it up by now, but I don’t exactly have a mirror on me.”

“Huh?” Wrench said, as though Marcus had pulled him out of a daydream. “Yeah, er… Yeah, that’s it. You’ve covered the whole thing. Looks fine to me.”

Wrench’s eyes smiled, but it didn’t reach his voice.

Wrench was strangely quiet for a few days following that. He seemed awkward when he interacted with Marcus as well. Marcus wondered whether he should just confront the other man and ask Wrench what was bothering him.

Meanwhile, Marcus’s own mind seemed intent on annoying him. When his thoughts weren’t depressing ones about how this probably meant it was impossible for Wrench to be his soulmate they were annoying in their hopefulness. He had thought that he had put such stupidity aside after the crash, but apparently not.

What if Wrench was upset because he had seen another man’s name on Marcus’s face and was jealous? What if he had seen his own name on Marcus’s face and just didn’t know how to tell Marcus that they were soulmates?

Yeah right. If he had recognised his own name then it was more likely that he didn’t want Marcus as a soulmate at all and was still trying to work out how to tell Marcus that.

Whatever was going on it was annoying. Marcus just wanted his friend back.

So he was grateful when, after a week or so of weirdness, they got back to normal. They continued to laugh and touch and flirt as though nothing had happened.

Marcus continued to pine and to wonder, but at least he had Wrench at his side once more.

The FBI had Wrench. The fucking FBI had Wrench and Marcus had no idea what they were planning to do to him. No matter how much he cursed and screamed the panic wouldn’t subside.

Even when he was sitting there, watching the FBI interview Wrench through his phone camera he couldn’t think of anything except how to get Wrench out of there, and what he was going to do to the assholes that had taken him.

It was the first time that Marcus had seen the other man’s face, and he couldn’t help but notice how sad his eyes looked. It didn’t matter what he looked like though. He was Wrench, the man Marcus was in love with, and right at that moment the FBI were interrogating him and trying to turn him against Marcus and Dedsec and Marcus wanted to reach through the camera and fucking strangle them.

“Hey, what’s that beneath his eye?”

Sitara was the one to ask it. Marcus had noticed the dark smudge of course, just like he had noticed the red patch above his left eye.

“Have they been hurting him?” Josh asked.

But that wasn’t a bruise. Now that Marcus was looking at it he had a feeling he knew exactly what it was.

His stomach had been turning itself in knots already. There was almost no room in him for the shock of Wrench potentially being his soulmate after all.

“I think it’s a soulbrand,” he told the other two. “Don’t try to make it out, all right? We’ve invaded his privacy enough as it is by getting a look at his face.”

And then fucking Dusan had walked into the room, all sunshine and smiles and promises.

“What’s this?” he asked Wrench, kneeling in front of him and actually putting his hand on Wrench’s shoulder.

Wrench shrugged the other man’s touch off immediately.

“I should have known,” Dusan said as he straightened himself to his full height once more. “That explains a lot, right?”

Wrench was silent, his face turned away from Dusan. He refused to look at the other man no matter how much Dusan got in his face, or at the cameras stationed around the room.

“Does Marcus know?” Dusan asked Wrench.

“Do you know what?” Sitara asked. Marcus didn’t answer. He was too absorbed in what was happening in the interrogation room.

“He doesn’t, does he?” Dusan asked, leaning in so that Wrench was forced to look at him again. “You haven’t told him because you know it won’t matter to him. He doesn’t give a shit about you.”

Marcus wanted to reach through the cameras, tear Dusan away from Wrench and promise his fellow hacker that the other man wouldn’t go anywhere near him ever again. He was powerless to do anything though except sit there and watch.

“You know I’m right,” Dusan said to Wrench.

And then the man told Wrench that he was free to go; that he should run off and tell the rest of Dedsec, minus Marcus of course, that any of them could accept Dusan’s deal and turn on the rest of them at any time that they wished.

Surprisingly he seemed to actually let Wrench go as well, but not without first taking his mask.

Marcus wasn’t worried about any of his friends turning on them, not even for a moment. All he was worried about was Wrench, and getting the other man’s mask back and making sure that he was okay. There was barely any room left for him to worry about the soulbrand they had all seen on Wrench’s cheek.

It had taken a little bit of tech, a few explosions and a lot of luck, but Marcus had gotten Wrench’s mask back. It was only when he was on his way to return the mask that he started to think of the soulbrand they had all spotted on Wrench’s cheek.

It was probably Marcus’s name. Marcus realised that now. As he walked up the stairs to the meeting place he had organised with Wrench, mask clasped between his hands, he felt his heart pounding harder and faster in his chest.

Marcus knew that he was, once and for all, about to find out whether Wrench was his soulmate. There would be no maybe this time, no stupid hopes or stupider excuses.

By the time he spotted Wrench and moved to sit beside him Marcus was a nervous wreck. He thought he was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together though, all things considered.

“Hey,” Marcus gently greeted his friend, holding the mask out for Wrench to take back.

Wrench turned his head just a little, so that Marcus could see at least some of his face. Marcus took in the scruffy blonde hair, long nose and blue eyes as pale as ice, but what caught his eye more than anything else was the black letters that sat on Wrench’s right cheek, now right there where he could read them.

‘Marcus’

Wrench was staring at him, looking as though he was only two seconds away from bursting into tears. Marcus was so used to the mask, to Wrench’s usual energy and ridiculous humour. Seeing him so withdrawn and broken was breaking Marcus’s heart. He needed to say something to the other man, but Marcus had absolutely no idea what it was that he should say.

“We’re soulmates,” he ended up saying without ever planning for the words to leave his lips. “Huh.”

Wrench’s eyes were darting around the roof nervously, first looking at Marcus and then the plants around them or the pool a few metres away. He was clearly restless.

“I mean we are, right?” Marcus asked. “That name on my cheek; that’s your real… well, the name you were born with, right?”

Wrench nodded slowly a couple of times, not meeting Marcus’s eyes as he did, his eyes instead fixed on the mask that he clutched tightly in his own hands.

“Holy shit,” Marcus said, and then, as his own thoughts caught up with him. “Holy shit. I know your real name. Not that I’m gonna tell anybody. Holy shit no. I would never tell anybody if you don’t want me to. Holy shit Wrench. You’re… We’re…”

Wrench just sighed loudly, put his mask back on and then got to his feet.

“Maybe we should go somewhere a little more private?” Wrench suggested. “This conversation… I dunno. It could get messy.”

Marcus didn’t like the sound of that. Messy was not good. Messy made it sound as though at least one of them wasn’t going to be happy with how things turned out.

“Okay,” he said though, getting to his feet and then offering Wrench his hand. “That’s probably a good idea, yeah.”

–

They ended up back at Wrench’s garage. The drive back had been far tenser than Marcus had imagined it was going to be. Wrench was not just uncharacteristically quiet; he had failed to say anything at all since they had both gotten into Marcus’s car, and had remained silent until they were both safely back in the garage.

“So…” Marcus began, feeling more than a little awkward. Should he start with the FBI thing or the soulmates thing? In the end he settled on the most important thing; Wrench himself. “How you doing in there Wrench?”

“Better, now that I’ve got my mask back,” Wrench replied. “Thanks for that M.”

“No problem man,” Marcus replied, glancing over and sending a smile towards the other man. “What are friends for, right?”

Except they weren’t just friends now. They were soulmates, and that came with a whole new host of complications, right? Wrench’s eyes were sending a smiley emoji at him now though, so that was a good start.

“So er…” Marcus began, feeling rather awkward again. “We’re soulmates huh?”

Wrench had wondered if Marcus Holloway was his Marcus for about two whole seconds. The name was right, but as soon as he met the man he discovered there was no soulbrand under Marcus’s right eye to match his own. There was no point in wondering. He knew that. Marcus wasn’t his.

He couldn’t completely stop himself from hoping though. He liked Marcus. He really did. And even if Marcus didn’t have Wrench’s real name on his cheek that didn’t completely rule out the possibility, right? After all, Marcus could have had the soulbrand removed because of the whole hacking thing, or perhaps he was hiding it somehow. It was possible, right?

But no. Of course it wasn’t possible. The more Wrench came to know about Marcus Holloway, the more he understood that there was no way in hell that Marcus could be Wrench’s Marcus.

It all came down to one simple, undeniable truth; Marcus Holloway was far too fucking good for Wrench. He was not only completely fucking gorgeous, he was a really cool guy; intelligent and a brilliant hacker with a sense of humour and taste in everything that worked so well with Wrench’s own. He was just so fucking amazing that he made Wrench wish that he was better person. Perhaps then, if it wasn’t for the fucking mask and his real fucking face and his everything, he might actually be worthy of Marcus’s friendship, but he would never be worthy of Marcus’s heart. He knew that, and after a few too many vodka and Red Bulls and an hour or so of sending a few smaller electrical appliances to an early grave with the help of a sledgehammer, he even came to peace with the knowledge.

He still wanted to make Marcus proud, and he vowed to do everything he could to earn the other man’s trust and friendship, but he gave up all hope of it ever leading to anything romantic.

And then there had been that stupid fucking mission with the stupid fucking motorbike crash and Wrench had been worried that Marcus was seriously hurt and he wasn’t but then he had seen the name he had been born with on Marcus’s cheek and it felt as though the entire fucking world stopped.

Marcus was amazing. Marcus was the best person that Wrench knew. He did not deserve to be saddled with a train wreck like Wrench; Wrench, who wouldn’t even tell Marcus his real name or remove his mask so that Marcus could see his own name resting on Wrench’s cheek. He hadn’t been inclined to reveal his face to Marcus before learning the truth. He had even more of a reason to cover it up now.

He knew that Marcus was both kind and polite enough that he wouldn’t deliberately be a jerk about the whole soulmate thing. No, when he discovered that fate had been shitty enough to give him a fuck-up like Wrench for a soulmate he would smile and act like he wasn’t horribly fucking disappointed, but how could he be anything but horribly fucking disappointed. Wrench didn’t want to see that; didn’t want to see Marcus’s disappointment disguised as joy; didn’t want to be the one to let Marcus know that the universe had fucked up so badly.

And then there was the stupid fucking mission with the stupid fucking FBI. Wrench had practically been forced to reveal the truth to Marcus. Wrench didn’t know what he had been expecting from Marcus; disappointment probably. He wasn’t so far in denial that he wouldn’t admit that he had been hoping for more. In those beautiful moments during which he and Marcus just clicked and Marcus made Wrench so happy that he managed to forget how much he hated himself, he began to imagine what it might be like if Marcus did accept him. He fantasized about Marcus immediately grabbing Wrench and kissing him senseless, even though Wrench knew that the odds of that actually happening were small enough as to be non-existent. Marcus just standing there and staring at Wrench and the name on his cheek in shock? That seemed par for the course; much more understandable than any fantasies of kissing or confessions of love that Wrench had allowed himself to get lost in.

Which lead them to now; Marcus standing in front of him and saying that they were soulmates, as though it was just that simple.

“You knew that we were soulmates, right?” Marcus asked. “I mean, after that accident you had to know.”

Wrench nodded slowly. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Marcus’s face. The other man was upset, and had every right to be.

“I suspected that we were,” Wrench replied. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me man?” Marcus asked.

Wrench took a deep breath, grabbed a couple of beers and tossed one to Marcus.

Then, very slowly and with nowhere near the amount of coherency he would have preferred, he began to tell Marcus about everything, about how he hadn’t known for sure, about how, despite knowing how stupid it was, he couldn’t stop himself from hoping, about how he hid the truth away because he didn’t want to disappoint Marcus, and Marcus stood there and listened to it all without saying a single word.

–

Marcus stared at Wrench as the other man came to the end of his tale. It had felt as though his heart had broken just that little bit more with every word that Wrench said.

Honestly, he had been expecting Wrench to tell him that he didn’t like dudes, or that he loved Marcus, but not like that, or any one of another dozen or so reasons that ultimately lead back to the fact that Wrench had stayed quiet about being Marcus’s soulmate because he didn’t want to be with Marcus romantically.

He had not expected Wrench to be so shy, so utterly convinced about his own lack of worth. Marcus didn’t know what had happened to Wrench to make him so sure that he was unworthy of love, but Marcus swore then that he would find some way to change Wrench’s mind; to convince him that he was not only worthy, but that Marcus loved him with his whole heart, and would have even if they weren’t soulmates.

“I’m not disappointed man,” he said when it was clear that Wrench was finished.

“What?” Wrench asked, his mask quickly changing to question marks.

“I’m not disappointed with having you as a soulmate,” Marcus explained, slowly and as clearly as he could, so there was absolutely no chance that Wrench might misunderstand him. “Hell, I’m really happy Wrench.”

The two of them were leaning against one of Wrench’s work benches, their now empty cans of beer resting just behind them. Wrench had been looking right at Marcus, but at that he turned his head and scoffed loudly.

“Not you’re not,” he said. “You wouldn’t have just stood there and stared at me as though the universe had just told you the worst possible joke in existence if you were actually happy Marcus.”

“Fuck you,” Marcus replied playfully. “Yes I am. Damn it Wrench, I was caught off guard the other night. You never said anything about maybe being my soulmate, not even after the crash, so, you know, I was surprised. It was a good surprise though; a damn good one.”

“Come on man,” Wrench muttered, a hint of what might have been self-deprecating laughter or might have been actual tears choking up his voice. “You don’t have to pretend that you’re happy for my sake. God fucking knows I wouldn’t be happy with me as a soulmate.”

“Yeah, well good thing I’m not you then,” Marcus immediately replied.

Wrench froze, even the eye-displays in his mask displaying nothing but their default crosses.

Marcus sighed, rubbed at the back of his head and wondered what it would take to actually convince Wrench that he was one of the most awesome people Marcus had ever met.

“Look Wrench,” Marcus began, hoping that he wouldn’t fuck this whole thing up before it had even really begun. “I like you man. I mean, really, really fucking like you. Hell, I think I might be in love with you.”

Wrench scoffed again in response to that.

“Hey, it’s true,” Marcus continued. “Before I found out that you were my soulmate I kind of well… I hoped that you were. After all, I couldn’t see your face, so I didn’t know for sure that you weren’t so… yeah…”

“Don’t fuck with me Marcus,” Wrench said, sighing and sounding just so fucking tired. “That’s just low, you know?”

“I ain’t fucking with you Wrench,” Marcus insisted. “I think I… No, I know that I am in love with you. I love you Wrench.”

Wrench scoffed again. This time the sound came out so broken and distorted that Marcus got the distinct impression that Wrench actually was crying behind the mask.

“Wrench?” Marcus asked, immediately moving to stand right in front of the other man. He reached out, placing one hand on either side of Wrench’s face and tilting the other man’s head up, forcing Wrench to look at his face.

“I’m not lying,” Marcus insisted. “I swear Wrench, I’ve never wanted anyone to be my soulmate more than I wanted you to be that guy, so finding out that you are? That’s like a fucking dream come true man. You hear me? I’m so damned glad you’re my soulmate.”

Another choked sound emerged from behind the mask and Marcus knew for sure that the other man was crying.

“Hey,” Marcus murmured, his fingers stroking what skin they could reach around the leather and metal of Wrench’s mask. “You okay in there?”

Wrench threw himself at Marcus then, his hands clinging to the front of Marcus’s shirt, his masked face burying into the crook of Marcus’s neck. The spikes on Wrench’s mask made it more than a little uncomfortable, but if it was what Wrench needed then Marcus would be damned before he shoved his soulmate off.

“How?” Wrench sobbed into Marcus’s neck. “How could you possibly be happy with a fuck-up like me?”

Marcus couldn’t help but chuckle at that. He wrapped his arms around Wrench’s back and held him tightly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said, meaning it. “You’ve got the same shitty taste in movies as me, you’re one of the coolest, most unique people I’ve ever met, you’re smart, funny, just the right level of crazy and drop-dead gorgeous.”

That last comment earned him a burst of laughter from Wrench.

“How can you think that?” he asked Marcus. “You only saw me for a couple of seconds in shitty lighting Marcus.”

“Well, a couple of seconds was all I needed,” Marcus immediately fired back. “I know a good-looking guy when I see one Wrench.”

That earned him another burst of laughter.

“I think you need new glasses M,” Wrench said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Marcus said with a shrug, to which Wrench immediately went still. “Ain’t no way that a man as hot as the one I saw would feel the need to cover his face, right?”

That was enough to have Wrench pulling back from the hug and playfully punching Marcus right in the shoulder.

“Hey, will you fucking stop already?” he pleaded. He was still for a moment, but when he turned to face Marcus again his LED eyes were smiling, which was definite progress.

“Look Marcus,” Wrench said, his voice still quiet and broken even if the crying had stopped. “I know I’m never going to be good enough for you. It’s… it’s okay really. I’ve come to terms with that already. I just… I want you to be honest with me, and… shit, this is so fucking cliché, isn’t it? We’re a regular fucking after-school special here, huh? I hope that… that you’ll still let me hang out with you and stuff.”

Marcus rolled his eyes at the other man.

“Did you not just hear me say I love you two minutes ago?” Marcus asked.

Wrench stared at him, frozen and silent once more.

“I love you,” Marcus repeated. “I’m not just saying it to make you happy or whatever you think is going on here. I love you Wrench. If you don’t want to be a couple then that’s cool. I’ll stop saying I love you and the two of us can just go back to being the best damn friends ever, no problem at all, but I ain’t backing down just because you think you don’t deserve me or whatever this bullshit is.”

Wrench still didn’t move. Marcus wished that he knew what was going on behind the other man’s mask. Was he freaking out? Was he happy or feeling shy or what? Without the LED emojis on the other man’s face and with Wrench as still as he was it was impossible to tell.

“Hey,” Marcus said, his voice soft. The last thing he wanted to do was scare Wrench away again, but with what he was about to ask it was possible that he might. “Can I see your face again?”

The eyes of Wrench’s mask displayed two bright exclamation marks that flashed on and off. The other man’s hands formed into tightly clenched fists at his sides.

Marcus wondered whether he had pushed too far.

Then Wrench reached up to push back his own hood and start to pull off his mask. Marcus could tell that his soulmate’s hands were shaking.

“Hey Wrench, if you don’t want to…” Marcus began, reaching out to Wrench, although he had no idea what it was he actually intended to do.

“No,” Wrench said as he started to pull his mask off. “I should… I need to do this… You… you deserve to see…”

His voice had changed part way through removing the mask, immediately becoming quieter and less sure of itself as soon as it had lost the mask’s distortion.

Wrench clenched his mask in both of his hands and looked at Marcus, his pale blue eyes meeting with Marcus’s own. Marcus felt himself choking up at the sight of the other man’s face. He looked so scared, as though he was just waiting for Marcus to come to his senses and reject him.

He didn’t know why Wrench was so convinced that he was ugly. The angry red birthmark over one of his eyes might have had something to do with it. Clearly there was some sort of complex there, one that Marcus silently promised he would do everything he could to help Wrench overcome.

“Hey there gorgeous,” Marcus said, smiling over at the other man.

He reached out and cupped the side of Wrench’s face with one hand. That actually earned him a smile from Wrench, and before long the blonde man was pressing his face into Marcus’s touch and letting out a pleased sigh.

Marcus reached out with his other hand as well, his fingertips delicately tracing over Wrench’s nose and eyelids and mouth, and then finally his name, where it rested on Wrench’s right cheek, right below his eye.

“Marcus,” Wrench whispered. His voice sounded so different without the mask; so deep and smooth and shy. It was probably going to take some getting used to, but Marcus already knew that he loved it.

“Hey,” Marcus murmured, already hovering so close to Wrench that he could feel the other man’s breath on his lips. “Can I kiss you?”

Wrench’s eyes went wide, and then he was blushing and looking away from Marcus as though just that suggestion had been enough to embarrass him.

“Yeah,” Wrench said, so quietly that Marcus almost missed it. “Okay.”

Marcus continued to cup Wrench’s face in his hands, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against Wrench’s own in a soft, gentle kiss that nevertheless had Wrench moaning and pressing against Marcus, his hands tangling in the fabric of Marcus’s shirt and pulling him closer.

They parted before the kiss could grow any deeper, both of them panting and Marcus more turned on by a simple kiss than he could ever remember being before. Wrench’s lips had been so soft and warm and perfect.

He leaned in again for another kiss which Wrench returned even more eagerly than the first, his arms moving to wrap around Marcus’s shoulder and waist and hold him close.

Before long Marcus had Wrench pinned against the workbench, the other man’s arms and eventually legs pulling him closer and refusing to let go. Their kisses grew a little deeper, a little longer, until they were full on making out like a pair of desperate and horny teens.

When they next pulled back it was only by a couple of inches. Marcus stared at the blue, heavily-lidded eyes of his soulmate and was almost blown away by the bliss and love and trust he saw in them.

“I love you,” he whispered to Wrench, because he needed to say it again otherwise he felt as though all the love bubbling up inside him would cause him to explode.

“I love you too,” Wrench whispered back. “God Marcus, I love you so much.”

Marcus couldn’t think of any way to respond to that except to kiss Wrench senseless.

A few days later saw Wrench feeling the happiest that he could ever remember being. Being Marcus’s soulmate turned out to be a dream come true.

They had planned to take things slow, but they had both grown so horny during their second make-out session that grinding against one another had turned into Marcus pressing their cocks together and getting them both off. They stole kisses whenever they could, and beneath Wrench’s hoodie there was a rather large red mark that Marcus had left on his neck. They had yet to spend a whole night together, but Wrench knew that it would only be a matter of time.

Their relationship as lovers had proven to be just as easy as the formation of their friendship had been. They fit together so seamlessly, like two pieces coming together to form some sort of glorious whole.

It was so beautiful and perfect and far more than Wrench had ever expected he would have. He was head over heels in love with his soulmate, and found himself wanting to be around Marcus even more than he had when they had just been friends.

So when Marcus told Wrench that something had been bothering him, Wrench was more than a little confused, especially when Marcus refused to fully explain what he was talking about and instead dragged a still very confused Wrench to a nearby tattoo parlour.

“Marcus,” Wrench began, looking at the front of the tattoo parlour with more than a little suspicion. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“I’m getting my soulbrand tattooed over,” Marcus said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

For a moment Wrench felt like his heart had stopped; like his entire world had been turned upside-down by Marcus uttering just those few words.

Why? It didn’t make any sense. Marcus kept saying that he loved Wrench, and Wrench had thought that everything was going so well. Why the hell would Marcus want to do something like that?

Luckily the absolute terror that arose at the thought that he might lose Marcus’s love was banished when Marcus continued to speak.

“I’m gonna get ‘Wrench’ tattooed in its place,” Marcus said. “I mean, that’s your name now, right? And the original brand was way small anyway. The new one is gonna be much bigger.”

Suddenly Wrench was incredibly fucking glad that he was wearing his mask. Mostly because it only took a moment for Marcus’s words to really sink in before Wrench started crying.

“Damn it Marcus,” Wrench said, his voice breaking despite everything he was doing to try and hide it. “That’s so fucking stupid.”

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said. “Thought I was being pretty smart actually. This way I don’t have to keep putting fucking concealer over the thing. I can be open about being head over heels in love with you without worrying about giving away your identity. I’m yours Wrench.”

Wrench couldn’t take it. The other man was being too damned perfect. The idea was so stupid and so wonderful and so Marcus that Wrench didn’t know what to say or do. He just knew that he loved Marcus and that even if he spent the rest of his life trying he would never deserve someone as wonderful as Marcus Holloway.

Wrench threw himself at his soulmate and clung to the other man, nuzzling into his shoulder and trying to bury himself in the feeling and smell of the other man. It was a stupid thing to do considering he still had his mask on, and it was only when he pulled back that he realised he had torn a couple of holes in the woolen vest that his soulmate was wearing.

Marcus didn’t seem to mind though. He just smiled at Wrench. Wrench smiled back, both with his mouth and the mask.

“Unless…” Marcus began, his smile faltering, and Wrench almost panicked when he realised that his soulmate was perhaps not quite as happy as Wrench had originally thought. “If you don’t want to let everyone know we’re together then that’s cool too. Ah hell. I probably should have cleared this with you before dragging you over. I just got so excited thinking about it man…”

“No, no, no,” Wrench said, squeezing Marcus in a tight hug. “This is brilliant Marcus. This is amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Already he was thinking whether or not he should get Marcus’s name tattooed somewhere on his body that was more visible than his face. Now that he was starting to get used to the idea that Marcus did actually love him back he wanted to shout their love from the rooftops, he wanted to tell all of Dedsec… No, fuck that; he wanted to tell all of San Francisco that he had the best fucking soulmate in the entire world.

“Stay here and hold my hand while I get it done?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah,” Wrench said, immediately grabbing Marcus’s hand and holding it tightly.

He fluttered his eyelashes, knowing that would make his mask display two less than three style love hearts at Marcus. He had a feeling he would be doing that a lot over the next few weeks… or months… hell, hopefully years. They were soulmates after all. Assuming Marcus didn’t realise what a horrible mistake he had made in accepting Wrench and ran for the hills then they would be together for the rest of their lives. That was how it worked, right?

It should have scared Wrench. It didn’t.

In fact, spending the rest of his life with Marcus sounded like absolute bliss to him.

“Totally gonna hold your hand,” Wrench continued. “This is your first tattoo, right? Don’t know if you know this M, but getting one on your face? Ooh, buddy. That’s gonna sting like a bitch. I’m here for you though babe.”

And I always will be, he added silently.

#wrencus #Watch Dogs #watch dogs 2 #marcus holloway #wd wrench #wrench

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wyrorn · 5 years ago

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Yeah, The Rise of Skywalker thing..

I’ve just watched TROS and I’ve never been so pissed after watching a SW movie. Even the Phantom Menace looks more acceptable than…THIS. I am a huge fan of Star Wars, alright? I love the new trilogy as I love the OT and PT, I love almost everything related to SW, but what I just saw in the cinema isn’t okay AT ALL. I understand that JJ wanted to give the audience what it wanted, but at what cost? And what the hell was that plot? Like really, did I just watch the adaptation of some sort of bad fanfiction or what? Recreation of Reddit theories?

I can’t believe what they’ve done to character development, it’s so messed up. Rey in TROS is a freakin’ terminator while Kylo Ren is just Rey’s punching bag. Their dialogs were so weird and almost the same in each scene when they are together. A lot of characters felt like decorations. Movie feels so rushed and 2 hours is definitely not enough for JJ to create a good movie and put a lot of plot elements at the same time.

So. Many. Unnecessary. Characters.

-SPOILERS ALERT- . . . . First of all, what the hell is wrong to Knights of Ren?! They are doing literally nothing but just walking around and “trying to look badass”. Come on, they didn’t even do anything in this film. Just a bunch of walking decorations. I really was hoping to see how they are gonna beat Rey or at least be a real threat to her and her friends. But nah, they didn’t even injure anyone in this film except Kylo

Secondly, so much is going on on the screen, I can’t even catch up. Can’t count how many awkward moments happened in this movie, but a lot of them made me laugh. Also, that Hux death was so out of place. Plot twists were so predictable..

Thirdly, I don’t know what they’ve done to Kylo Ren’s character but he looks like a helpless little boy, who can’t fight back without Rey’s help. He’s just running around, looking for scavenger and very gently asking her to join him in EVERY SCENE like bruh. He could at least try for once to do that by force, by defeating her (I know something similar was in film but..ehhhh, did he even defeat her there?). He came back to the Light Side WAY too quickly. Leia just had to say “Ben” for once and that’s it, Kylo Ren is dead. Like wtf, why she didn’t do that earlier? And why she did that in the most crucial moment for the Resistance? There is no conflict going on inside Kylo Ren’s head, he came back to the Light Side almost immediately. It looked like “Hey I just wanted to become an emperor of the whole galaxy 2 mins ago but now I’m a good guy, let’s destroy everything I’ve just achieved :))” He didn’t even doubt his actions. In the final battle he was SO useless. I was expecting him and Rey to team up but it just ended up with…Rey defeating Palpatine on her own, while Kylo was chilling in the pit for the whole battle and doing absolutely nothing, huh. I wanted to see THE BALANCE, when the Dark and the Light join up to defeat the greatest evil, to show that the Force is stronger when the Light and the Dark are together, that you can use both sides to get the advantage. I also was expecting a very big battle between Kylo x Rey vs Paplatine. They’ve lost such a good opportunity to show us the most epic lightsaber fight in the whole saga. When Palpatine took their energy to become stronger he could also ignite his lightsaber against them and give a pretty good fight with all these lightings and Force abilities. JJ also should have brought at least a couple of Force ghosts to help Kylo and Rey to defeat the greatest sith of all time, I highly doubt Rey could do that on her own even tho she has a blood of Palpatine. But nah, what the hell is the balance? What are you talking about? Let’s make them all Jedi again. I’d be okay with Ben’s death if he actually gave a decent fight to Palpatine, but we all know where he was during the fight. I’m pretty much okay with Reylo but I saw no romantic chemistry between them (in this episode) until the scene where Rey dies, the only thing they had just some sort of really weird connection, where both trying to kill each other but hesitate. I saw almost no progress in their relationship (in 9 ep). I think the ending would be MUCH MORE tragic and satisfying if both Kylo and Rey sacrifice their lives in order to defeat Palpatine and save the whole galaxy, like the dark side and the light side users. Like the Grey Jedi.

Fourth, Mary Sue moments. Tons of them. Won’t even explain this part.

Okay, you’ve killed Ben Solo. Rey happily came back to her friends and decided to live on Tatooine like nothing happened . But what the hell JJ? Why we don’t see Ben’s Force Ghost? Where the f is he? The ending itself looks pretty open and like..Rey just came back to life of scavenger. Is she happy now? Did she get what she wanted? Is she going to spend the rest of her days like outsider? Also, not bringing Anakin Skywalker at least as Force Ghost was unacceptable. His sacrifice was for nothing..

The only things I liked about new episode is character development of Finn and Poe and some visual effects. That’s all. Also Adam Drivers acting was incredible as always

The rest of the episode I just want to wipe out from my memory and consider this non-canon. Kylo Ren was my fav sequel character and I just can’t believe what they’ve done to him and his character

I’m extremely interested in fan-remake of the movie. Looking forward to make a TROS comic series or even a 2D movie, these things need to be fixed, at least I will have my own canon.

I’m still a huge fan of Star Wars, but I’m very afraid of what Disney might do to another trilogy.

I have spoken.

#sw #star wars #star wars the rise of skywalker #sw tros #review #kylo ren #Rey #reylo #palpatine #ben solo

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cubeblr · 5 years ago

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TROS SPOILERS

The movie is not bad because Ben died. The movie is bad because everything is poorly executed and some parts of the plot literally make zero sense

- Can we talk about Palpatine’s plan ? Seriously, at the beginning, he asked Kylo to kill Rey, in exchange of his fleet. And then, he said to Rey that he wanted HER to kill HIM so he could take possession of her body, like how does it make any sense ???

- “You are a Palpatine, Rey and your parents were nobody because they wanted to” omfg, who wrote that dialogue ??? So basically, we learnt that Palpatine had a son who was REBELLIOUS against his powerful father. And we learnt that at the end of a sequel trilogy. I’m sorry but why didn’t we have Rey’s parents as the main protagonist of this three films ? AT LEAST, this would have given true hope and a true meaning to the idea “your genealogy doesn’t define you”.

- Rey’s parents wanted to protect her : so why did they sell her in the first place to a supporter of slavery (yes Unkar Pluntt, that what he is) on such an unfriendly planet ? Selling your child IS NOT an act of love and care, how could they screw up such a commonplace ?? If they wanted this to make sense, Rey should have start her journey pretty much like Luke in ANH and not being presented as a lonely girl who has endured a traumatic, unpleasant, horrendous childhood and teenarger-life since the beginning of her existence.

- WHY DO YOU ONLY TELL US FINN IS A FORCE SENSITIVE ON THE THIRD MOVIE ???????? THIS could have changed so much things in the whole trilogy if Finn was identified at the end of TFA or the beginning of TLJ. But nah, he is the black guy of the story you know, the one who is always there to support the white girl even when she is super agressive against him and his friend (Poe) in a massive part of the movie. WAAA SUCH A GOOD PLOT, IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT ONE OF THE WORST CLICHE THAT EXISTS (Yeah, I hated both characterization of Rey and Finn in TROS, I think I’ll stick up to what TFA and TLJ tried to deliver and make their development in my head).

- What did Ben Solo accomplish in this movie that Rey couldn’t alone ? Look at the final battle, Ben does nothing. Ok, he fights the KOR but they never were a threat in this movie. And Ben doesn’t do anything against Palpatine. Hell, he didn’t say a word. And even before that in the film, Kylo Ren has no PURPOSE in the story-telling. The resistance knows Palpatine’s back without him telling them, or telling Rey. They find where he is on their own. So... the only purpose of Ben Solo, the son of Princess Leia and beloved Han Solo, the nephew of Luke Skywalker, the grandson of the man WHO STARTED the whole story, is to die by resurrecting a girl who, I’m sorry, barely shows in this movie that she cares for him (don’t give me that “i wanted Ben’s hand” line, she attacks him everytime he shows up, she is pretty much angry AS HELL whenever he talks and she literally kills him at one point even though he has already lowered his weapon). So yeah, basically, the blood of Palpatine lives and the Skywalker are all dead. Great.

- What is the Skywalker’s legacy ? I see a lot of people saying that the whole message of the sequels is good because it shows us that no matter what happened before, with your ancestors, you are your own persona and you can be good. Yes, sure, this is, in itself, a great message. But let’s look at the execution of this message. Rey was by blood linked to the darkside (i’m sorry but this plot doesn’t make any sense, since her FATHER THE SON OF PALPATINE was, in fact, a good guy) but she still chooses light by taking the name of Skywalker. Except that with this whole new trilogy, Skywalker’s ideology is pretty fucked up : what is the positive message of a family composed by a guy choking his pregnant wife due to his anger and his children being basically blinded adults (and shitty parents for Han and Leia, which is definitely NOT the fate we wanted for our heroes) who cast outside their only descendant because “hE hAS ToO mUcH VaDEr iN hIM”. Waaa thanks for this story, really enjoyed that part when you make the precedent heroes looking like complete fools and idiots.

The whole story of the sequel is definitely not a positive and a good one : if you need to bring down the other characters only to make the new ones looking like pure angels who never do wrong, YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE A SEQUEL. Honestly, this is such a disappointment. There was so much potential.

But you know what, I don’t blame JJ. I blame LucasFilm, because in the end, they prove us that they REALLY didn’t know where the story was going. RJ and JJ had to deal with what LucasFilm accepted, they weren’t “super free to do anything they wanted”. They proposed things to LucasFilm and we will probably never know how the whole processus of creating the sequel went. But in the end, the producers are responsible for the choices made in a movie. Here, the real “”culprit”” is LucasFilm, which is hiding under JJ and RJ and tries (unconsciously, I hope) to relay the blame of the mistakes and errors of the last five years on them.

(PSA : English is not my language, sorry for all the mistakes !!! but honestly, I really needed to write that down)

#tros spoilers #sw spoilers #ben solo #rey #reylo

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twilightofthe · 5 years ago

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For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE: Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka. I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa. You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book. The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell. And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++. E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé. Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization. Without a question. Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot? He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD). Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully. I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity. The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE: Okey doke, here we go.... So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character. She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know? Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me! So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books. I’m sorry, I don’t. To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space. The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart. And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character. Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS. He is SMART. IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART. So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT. Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that. Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it. I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like. The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else??? “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy. “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass. “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE: Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies. No I will not narrow it down. I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it.

I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!) It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs. It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks! Swooshy and colorful and good! I love cloaks!

LEAST FAVE: Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes). Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress. All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!). No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show. Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it. Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable. Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too. There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing! How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business? That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up? Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother? That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show. Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily. Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”. Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini. Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

#thanks so much!#now i'm all worked up over Padmé's TCW costuming jeez #like there was one other outfit of hers the purple midriff exposing dress that was pretty i liked it #but like.... it was NOT something she would wear to meet the fucking Queen of Naboo like seriously #@ liz i got your ask too don't worry but it is a wee bit longer and i'm still working on it lol #asks #nerdgatehobbit #star wars #star wars stuff #queen of my heart #snip snap #ahsoka tano #padme amidala #ship: space parents #space cowboy #mvp (most valuable pilot)

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jenniferladybug · 5 years ago

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Essay Wars - it’s a doozy

Last night my friend got in a texting debate about the story structure and character developments of Star Wars (a majority of it Kylo Ren). Well, what started off as my vigorous texting writing turned into full-blown essay responses.

Alright, let’s get into how this actually happened.

First, I was so excited about The Rise of Skywalker Final Trailer and I began to sing praises for Kylo Ren/Bendemption. My friend did not like that...so I whipped out the big guns.

I began to send scattered texts about certain things, mostly pertaining to:

Kylo Ren was turned to the dark side before he was even born via Bloodline, where Leia describes a dark presence over her womb.

Someone must be impersonating Darth Vader when Kylo goes to the Vader mask for advice.

Leia and Han were emotionally neglectful/did not know how to raise their son in the right way, mixed with brainwashing lead to Kylo Ren.

The Jedi are not good for the galaxy (yes, yes I know, but see my explanation down below...if you last that long)

Kylo wants to let the past die and start fresh with a new ‘order’, leave behind the Sith, Jedi, First order etc.

I also rambled on about a few other things in separate texts, but that is the gist of it.

So, in response to my scattered texts I received this from my friend Sammy, and oh boy was I ready:

So, let’s start with the story of Ben. The dark side since before he was even born thing is interesting and the fact that he’s been influenced his entire life by it is something they should have made much more clear in the films. That’s actually one of the problems I have with this new expanded universe- it just seems like damage control for the movies. The Previous EU EXPANDED everything, giving backstory to the characters we know and understand, in addition to secondary characters. Hell, they even gave us new characters as well but they never negated or changed the meaning of the films which is the bread and butter of the franchise, so if this super important info is coming from the book I think that’s just silly. You really shouldn’t have to read the novel iteration to understand what the movie did a bad job of interpreting. But I digress, that is some crucial info…

The Vader mask scene and the theory that it’s someone else like Snoke who has been pretending to be Vader is interesting, and I buy that, but like…Kylo didn’t know Vader was redeemed? Did Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, Lando, Akbar, Wedge, or like literally anybody else form the Rebellion forget to tell him that? Big yikes.

IMO, feeling “misunderstood and neglected by his parents” isn’t a valid excuse for him to kill his own dad and being ok with his mom getting bombed to hell. Idk, you can ask why it’s ok for us to forgive Vader through his redemption arc but I think comparing his experiences to Kylo’s is like comparing apples to oranges. Vader was a BAD guy, but he ended up doing the ultimate GOOD thing in the end, and then the prequels fleshed out how he became bad intangible way, which to be fair, Kylo doesn’t have. But still, this is why most fans don’t take him seriously.

About the Jedi not being good- I challenge your credentials. “For a thousand generations the Jedi knights have been the guardians of peace and justice for the Old Republic”, then they were hunted down and everything turned to shit. And both in this canon and the previous one, it’s wildly considered that the few thousand years preceded the events of the movies things were super peaceful all things considered when the Jedi were in charge…and the Sith traditionally only operates in agents of 2. So how come everything was so peaceful for a thousand generations when there were a million Jedi and 2 Sith…ying yang in this case is bollocks.

And if Kylo really wants to “Start fresh”, why’d he start by becoming Supreme Leader of like the Star Wars version of ISIS? This is something we’ll need to find out in this next movie. I agree, his motive is to dismantle the Jedi and Sith way and create something else entirely, but the second Rey says “nah” he goes back to how he was. It’s not looking good.

The George Lucas rhyme thing lets not forget he’s talking about Episode 1 which was arguably one of the worst Star Wars movies made and he ended it with “hopefully it’ll work” and then grimaces…IDK bud lmao. And I doubt back in 1977 he knew there was going to be an episode 9 because he didn’t even know what he just made was Episode 4! It definitely was never a 9 episode arc from the get-go. Now, I know for certain after the prequels he had another trilogy in mind, and when he sold the rights to Disney he did hand them his drafts and notes, but even Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, admitted in his new book, they didn’t follow those drafts AT ALL. LIKE NOTHING. And he said that George felt betrayed. This idea of a new trilogy is something that was created in 2012, but I suspect they have been making this up as they went. After this last movie, Disney scrambled to get JJ Abrams back and figure out how they were going to get everything back on track. Daisy Ridley herself said JJ wrote a story for each of the 3 new movies, but Rian ended up created his own completely. I think that alone shows that production for these movies has been inconsistent, I don’t buy this was all part of some 9 series plan with a definitive beginning, middle, and end from the get-go.

Not sure what Rey’s lineage is, we’ll find out for sure in this next movie. I read one theory that Palpatine created her sorta through the force like many people think he did with Anakin.

So that was what I was up against.

Let’s take a brief moment to appreciate this:

Okay now that that is done...great.

My turn!

Now, I wrote my response (copied below) at top speed in about an hour, so maybe some of the things I say start sounding rushed or not as fleshed out as they should be. But I cracked my knuckles and gave it a go:

I am the first one to advocate for a film to have the ability to ‘stand-alone’ in any particular universe, whether it be Marvel, DC, Hunger Games, and Star Wars. By introducing a backstory for Leia’s pregnancy and hers and Han’s marriage in ‘Bloodline’, LucasFilm is doing just that: giving a backstory. In both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, there is proof that Snoke is the one pulling the strings when it comes to young solo. In the first film, Leia is quoted saying to Han, “There’s still light in him I know it! No. It was Snoke. He seduced our son to the dark side”, and in the second film Luke is quoted as saying, “Snoke had already turned his heart”. It is made apparent that ‘Kylo Ren’ is the production of Snoke, and Ren suffers abuse both mental and physical from his master. Though this changes when Kylo finally becomes free of the shackles Snoke once had on him when Ren slices him in half. The look of shock and release on Ren’s face when he realizes what he’s done says it all. Who are we to judge someone who is freshly out of the control of their captor? By just watching the films it is clear that Kylo Ren is not fully in control of his actions and he is being manipulated consistently as shown by the quotes above. When having that manipulation in conjunction with the neglect of a parental figure, then you get the full-blown reality that is Kylo Ren.

Feeling “misunderstood and neglected by his parents” is a valid excuse for turning to the Darkside in the world of a fictional fairy tale. Keep in mind we are not in a reality where this is okay, yet the world in which Star Wars exists allows such things to be redeemable and explainable. Take for example when Padme knew about Anakin killing younglings; she wanted him to still come home because she ‘loved’ him. If he had turned back to the light at that moment she would have most likely accepted him back. It is a danger of the force. They are not dealing with everyday normal emotions; the force, as well as the genre of the franchise, creates a heightened sense of urgency which is apparent throughout the forty-plus years Star Wars has been around (hell, as long as any fairy tale has been around). When you point out that Vader did the ultimate good thing in the end, do you mean to save his son and push Palpatine down a duct? If so, then this would be his redemption which occurred in the last of the original trilogies. If you are to treat Kylo with the same rules as Vader, then we must give him a chance to ‘do the right thing’, something which the filmmakers have been steadily building his character-arc for. Vader did numbers ‘wrong’ things, some of them much worse than Kylo has done. But yet the audience still chose to respect him, even before the prequels which fleshed out the story of Anakin Skywalker.

Now, you may be correct in that Ben Solo knew of Vader’s redemption, and I misspoke, to which I am sorry. He, in fact, learned of his heritage when he was training with Luke at his academy when he received a letter from his mother. The contents of the letter are unknown, though it is assumed she told him of his heritage when he was in his late teens. This was only because one of her rivals she was campaigning against in the senate threatened to leak the knowledge to the public that Leia was the daughter of the infamous Darth Vader. Ben had no idea before-hand though, so once again we assume that this had some type of impact. Imagine finding out your grandfather was Hitler. Would that be fun? But, since we addressed the fact that external material should not need to be consumed in order for a film to make sense, then we should disregard any idea as to how Ben Solo came to learn of his heritage. It is not mentioned in the films, but it is a widely held belief by many in the fandom that if Kylo Ren knew of his grandfathers’ redemption then he merely took this as a lapse in judgment in his late years (especially since it is hinted to in the films that Ren is speaking to someone via the Vader mask). Perhaps said mask has been telling Ren lies in lieu of the true story of the redemption. But that is speculation. What is not speculation is the line Ren utters in The Force Awakens, “Forgive me. I feel it again... The pull to the light... Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again... The power of the darkness... And I'll let nothing stand in our way... Show me... Grandfather... and I will finish... what you started.” What we can tell from the film is that Ren is in a constant struggle to stay within the dark, and through his words, it is expressed how this warrants forgiveness. The second half of the statement is even more worrying in the fact that Ren says ‘show me again’, referencing a previous time this ‘Vader’ has shown him what the darkness entails. Will we find out in episode nine if there was an imposter (Palpatine?) feeding more lies and brainwashing to Kylo Ren? That means not only was he getting terrible treatment from Snoke, but from his ‘grandfather’ as well. Perhaps this is why in the final trailer for episode nine we see Rey and Ren destroying said helmet. Until the film comes out, this will still be a mystery.

In coming to why I believe the Jedi are bad, I side with Luke Skywalker on this one. As he says in The Last Jedi, “ At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.” To that, Rey points out that it was also a Jedi who saved him. Which is true! Yet, the rules surrounding the Jedi order are such that allowed for Anakin to search elsewhere for support. True, he was very conflicted, but the Jedi are so extreme that they do not welcome outside opinions or thinking. You are either all light or you’re bad. There is no intermediary. That is why the answer is grey Jedi. I know those exist, and what needs to happen is a yin and yang between the light and the dark. Working together fosters acceptance and love within the galaxy. Even the symbol in the pool of the Jedi Temple in which Luke tucked himself away had a figure in a yin and yang pattern. “Powerful light and powerful dark...a balance”. Yet, any dark whatsoever that the Jedi see they stamp out.

When Anakin says, “If you’re not with me, then you’re against me”, Obi-wan responds with, “Only sith think in absolutes!”. Well, can you see the issue there? Obi-wan is also thinking in absolute. Using the word only further segmented and cast aside Anakin, by labeling him a lost cause. Such a similar thing happened with Kylo Ren and the incident with Luke at the Jedi Academy. The momentary lapse which Luke expressed to Rey was the tipping point. In Ren’s eyes, even his Master saw him beyond saving. And since everyone around him insists on thinking in absolute, then he must be bad according to them, right?

Slowly, Ren is beginning to realize there is another way, something not presently defined within the Star Wars universe. It is not Sith, it is not Jedi, it is not the First Order: it is the ‘new order’ which he proposes to Rey. Yet, he is not ready for redemption yet. The entire point of the scene was for Rey to realize that Kylo Ren cannot be saved by anyone but himself. This is a very powerful message and I am quite looking forward to seeing how his self-realization occurs in Episode Nine. Now, keep in mind that he had banked everything on Rey saying yes, and in his mind, she is “Still. Holding. ON!”, which she is, and he is right that it is holding her back. How can you expect someone from a family of yelling, angry people to get it right the first time? In fact, Adam Driver had to ask Rian Johnson if Kylo Ren had ever kissed a girl before. Kylo is not experienced in this ‘love’ world. He did not receive much love language from his absentee parents, so the only relationship he’s known for most of his teen and adult life is that of Snoke and General Hux. At that moment in which he wakes up to realize she is gone is one of abandonment and rejection. He thought he had found his match, the answer to his loneliness, and she snapped his lightsaber in two. He is basically throwing a grownup temper-tantrum, which is blatantly apparent in the standoff with Luke. When Kylo threatens everything, even ‘destroying’ Rey, Luke claims that everything Kylo says is “a lie”. It is clear in the last few moments of the film when Kylo is defeated and on his knees holding his father’s die that the audience begins to realize his anger was all a facade. In that shot, he is merely a lost and lonely boy realising the path he has chosen is wrong. The final force-bond between Kylo and Rey exhibits every one of those notions. There is no anger in his face, not very ‘destroy-ee’ of him, and he looks up with her with an almost longing. But when she sternly shuts the door on him, once again he is left alone, the die slowly fading from his gloved hand.

If that doesn’t sound like poetry then I don’t know what is! George Lucas was quoted saying in the behind the scenes of the prequels, “You see the echo of where it all is gonna go. It’s like poetry, sort of. They rhyme.” Similar themes and sequences occur within the franchise, and they have kept that alive at Disney Lucas Films, especially in regards to the parallels drawn between Anakin/Padme and Kylo/Rey. They even designed their respective costumes in a similar fashion. Kylo has his mother and father’s anger and stubbornness. They had a rough idea of where it was all going to go. And in regards to JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, JJ Abrams was an executive producer on Episode 8 and had a say in the general outline of the plot. JJ had set up the relationship between Kylo and Rey in The Force Awakens, and Rian continued along that path. He followed the skeleton needed to get the plot from 7-9. But think about it, Disney would not allow Rian to just veer off the path completely. Yes he had some creative license but within parameters. Sometimes I don’t think people understand the workings of a large corporation with creative decisions. On a project like Star Wars there is always input from the higher-ups. In addition, JJ Abrams auditioned potential Kylo Ren actors with the script from Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Darcy of course). This is made clear in the writing decisions and parallels which have been made for that particular character.

Lastly, would you really want George Lucas at the helm of this new trilogy? People thought the prequels were terrible and Lucas went back and digitally altered the originals against the will of fans. He is not technically the best when it comes to scriptwriting (Exhibit A: “I hate sand, it gets everywhere!”) Also, Mark Hamill was interviewed in the early ’00s and said, "You know, when I first did this, it was four trilogies. 12 movies! And out on the desert, any time between setups...lots of free time. And George was talking about this whole thing. I said, 'Why are you starting with IV, V and VI? It's crazy.' [Imitating Lucas grumble,] 'It's the most commercial section of the movie.'” Yes, the first film was a stand-alone, since they had no idea they would receive any further funding. But then the immense success allowed for Lucas to develop the franchise further.

What I think people tend to forget is that Star Wars is a fairy tale, and it is not supposed to be about ‘a mass murder’ who is going to jail. It is supposed to be about redemption at its very heart. George Lucus had expressed that he intended Star Wars as a series for “twelve-year-olds”. This explains things like Jar Jar Binks and other bizarre choices he has made as a creator. Though this explains a lot of why most of the people who hate the franchise now are angry adults online who live in an overly politically correct world judging a fictional character who is in the middle of a character arc. As JJ Abrams had said in the director's commentary of The Force Awakens, “We looked at it like […] a fairy tale. What are the elements that you’re going to see that makes it this genre, this specific genre? […] You’re probably going to have a castle, and a prince and a princess, if you’re looking at a fairy tale. We wanted to give these fundamental, not cosmetic, but prerequisite elements.”

Okay, I’ve talked too much. I am going to end it there for now. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Haha hope that was entertaining and that sparked some thinking and inspiration. I know I let my keyboard run away from me and please excuse the odd typo from time to time. Let me know your thoughts.

I mean just look at that beautiful man.

Love you all!

#reylo #star wars #kylo ren #rey #long reads #in defense of kylo #ben solo #george lucas #bendemption

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sinqueen69 · 3 years ago

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Star Wars pls

Prequel Series

favourite character: Obi-Wan Kenobi <3

least favourite character: Palpatine

brOTP: Obi-Wan & Anakin

OTP: Obi-Wan/Commander Cody

OT3: Obi-Wan/Cody/Rex

NOTP: Obi-Wan/Maul

favourite storyline: I don't care what anyone says, but I enjoyed Phantom Menace. We got Qui-Gon, we got Pod-racing & we got [in my opinion] the best lightsaber duel which was Obi-Wan/Maul

least favourite storyline: Attack of the Clones

what I wish had happened but didn’t: It would have been nice for you know, the clones NOT to have the control chips and kill the Jedi and you know Anakin didn't go Dark-side

what happened that I wish hadn’t: See above, fuck Order 66 and Palpatine Original Series

favourite character: Han Solo

least favourite character: Jabba

brOTP: R2 & CP30

OTP: Luke/Han

OT3: I don't have one

NOTP: Luke/Leia

favourite storyline: I adore Empire Strikes Back

least favourite storyline: I guess my least favourite of the OG 3 would be New Hope?

what I wish had happened but didn’t: I wish we had Obi-Wan/Ben more involved with Luke, like raising baby Luke, surviving long enough to train him, etc

what happened that I wish hadn’t: ...Nah I'm good, these original 3 were perfection lol Sequel Series - I have too many bad feelings about this series now.

favourite character: This is hard because I started off liking the new trio but by the end, I was like meh.

least favourite character: Kylo & Fucking Palpatine again!

brOTP: Poe & Rey

OTP: Finn/Poe

OT3: Finn/Poe/Rey

NOTP: Rey/Kylo

favourite storyline: Force Awakens - so much potential!

least favourite storyline: Last Jedi

what I wish had happened but didn’t: That Luke would have adopted Rey once he heard her backstory and how she is basically him from the past, no Kylo Redemption - that was the only good thing about Last Jedi is that they made him actually evil and not a whiny Vader Fanboy

what happened that I wish hadn’t: Everything in Last Jedi, Palpatine coming back [worst writing ever, I've written better things than that], a legit Original Series Reunion and all the pointless deaths.

#fandom ask game #Star Wars #SinQueen69 Answers

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all-hallows-evie · 4 years ago

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Episode II: Attack of the Clones

I'll go back and fix typos later!! Here we GOOOOOOOOOO!!

*Blows up the space latinx during the opening scene*

Me: Lucasfilm....you've grown.

Husband: No they haven't, they keep trying to blow Mando up

Me: But they HAVENT SUCEEDED YET!!

***

*is immature and laughs because the explosion blew off Cordès shoes. *

***

Obi wan: you're sweating

Husband: It's hot in here!

Me: and he's wearing like 17 layers!

***

Anakin: grown more beautiful

Obi wan: *rolls eyes*

Husband: Gag me with your lightsaber Anakin...wait, phrasing!

***

Obi wan: there's many ways to kill a senator.

Me: WAIT WHAT?!?!?

***

Husband: that droid pooped in Padmè's room and you can't convince me otherwise.

***

Obi Wan: *jumps out of window to grab droid*

Anakin: Stay here!

Me: Nah, I'm gonna jump out the window too, that looked fun.

***

Anakin: if this chase continues that creep is going to get deep fried.

Also Anakin: *brings down Zam's ship in flames, trying to in fact...deep fry them.*

***

Heeeeere comes Daddy Fett!! *dance dance*

***

Padmè: Anakin...you've grown up.

Anakin: *proceeds to throw a hissy*

***

Anakin: Don't worry, we have R2 with us.

Me: y'all laugh but he's killed people.

***

* Screams through all of the diner scene cuz I hate it so much* F**K YOU JAWA JUICE!!!

***

Also I dont like how Dex mentions Obi wants pocketbook, makes me feel like I need an adult.

***

Jocasta Nu will and has cut a bitch, fight me.

***

*pours one out for the younglings*

***

Wait wait, so the temple doesn't have some kind of IT department that lets them see who accessed the archives?!?!? That seems sus.

***

Padmè: when the queen asked me to serve as senator, I couldn't refuse.

Me: Her coke habit was too out of control.

Husband: Space coke.....s'coke...Supreme Chancellor S'coke...

***

Tawn we: we were beginning to think you weren't coming.

Me: Obi wan is ALWAYS...no wait, you know what. Thats too easy.

***

Anakin: I dont like sand.

Me & husband: *erupt into fits of laughter*

***

Ok but that record scratch when she pulls away is just...*chefs kiss*

***

*clone looks around suspiciously*

Me: YOU! YOU MUST BE F**CKING DOGMA!

***

Anakin: *falls off creature*

Husband: I love watching him just eat it. Would be funnier if he tried to scare Padmè then she knocks his ass out cold.

***

Boba: Yup.

Me: BEST BOY CAN DO NO WRONG

***

Taun we: if you need more soldiers it will take time.

Me: they can only j*ack Jango off so much in one day.

Husband: what the F**K did YOU just SAY?!?!?!?!

Me: *cackles*

Husband: Go home Evie, you are drunk.

***

*Jango and Obi wan fight on Kamino, jetpack explodes*

Husband: Damn, those jetpacks really are death traps!

***

Jango: *holding obi wan over the edge*

Husband: its fine he can just jetpack...oh.

***

*seismic charge goes off*

Me: F**K! THATS THE BEST SOUND EEEEVEEEER!!

***

Obi wan: Blast! This is why I hate flying!

Me: why, mandos always wrecking your shit?! Get good Kenobi!!!

Husband: He should try spinning!

***

Padmè: Stay with the ship R2.

Me: Fine! He didn't want to go with you anyway!

***

Anakin: These are good people Padmè, they will take care of you.

Husband: You dont wanna see what he's about to go do!

Me: Truth!!!!

***

Husband: *Drunkenly sings duel of the fates*

***

Husband: Can I just take this moment to say HOW MUCH I HATE GEONOSIS!

***

Four words: SIR CHRISTOPHER F**KING LEE

***

If Shmi was a Mexican mom, her last words would have been: "Why you so skinny mijo?"

***

It would have been funnier if Anakin returned covered in blood...like Evil Dead 2 levels of blood.

Anakin; the gear shift broke...

Husband: Does that mean he rode back only in first gear?!?!?

***

Anakin: I could fix her, I know I could!

Husband: unlike your hair...

***

Padmè: Anakin whats wrong?

Husband: Nothing, he didnt just go on a genocidal rampage. Let me present to you...the BIGGEST red flag.

***

Oh. The retransmit message button is just one button again?!?! Thats handy!

***

Anakin: master windu told me to stay here!

Husband: oh now he listens!

Me: Master Windu makes him do push ups when he talks back.

Husband: I said 'what' to Master Windu once and he slapped me.

***

Dooku: He was once my padawan as you were once his.

Husband: Grandpa Dooku

***

*LOTR jokes start to fly*

Husband: it doesnt help these came out right about the same time! This one has wizards...but in space!

***

Palpatine: as my first act,I will create a grand army of the republic.

Me: Okay cool but how do you feel about charter schools?

***

Husband: Just give R2 a shank and he can fix everything!

***

Anakin: oh no, Obi wan is going to kill me.

Me: But I'm ready for the trials!

Husband: He'll be fine as long as it doesn't involve taking care of your lightsaber.

***

Anakin: *to padme*: jump!

Me: Do a barrel roll!

***

Jango Fett: *twirls blasters*

Me: F**king showoff! I live!!!

***

Jango: *gets trampled*

Husband: Mandos seem to have a hard time around big creatures that look like mud horns.

***

*clones swoop in to help*

LOOKIT ALL THE SHINIES!

***

Obi wan: What would Padmè do in your position?

Me: BOOOOOY, she'd yeet you out that carrier SO FAST.

***

Obi wan: *gets tapped by Dookus saber*

Me: OOOOOOOW SUNNUVA BI*CH why didnt anyone tell me that HURTS?!?!?

***

OLD SPACE WIZARD FIIIIIGHT!!!

***

Bruh, that Imperial March at the end just...*tear rolls down cheek* Beautiful.

***

Husband: some smart ass decides to throw sand instead of rice at the wedding. Anakin loses his everloving s*it.

***

Not as many funny moments this time around. Halfway through we stopped to have turkey. We sober AF now lol!

#star wars #attack of the clones #drinky drink bitch we drunk #watch the jokes get progressively worse

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astarsdarkheart · 7 years ago

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Right. Saw TLJ last night. I have thoughts.

Superficially entertaining thanks to moments of clever cinematography and the presence of a plot with a modicum of tension; does not stand up to scrutiny beyond that.

Busy, busy, busy. You ain’t writing the whole damn trilogy here, Rian.

Overdone ticking clock; trying to pack the general eventfulness of the film into the... what... six hours of fuel that cruiser had? just strung the dramatic tension too thin.

Further on that: the scale of time across the trilogy is now going to become, ah... interesting, assuming that poor Abrams is a competent enough writer to realise that the Resistance cannot rebuild from that little in all that short a time period.

I can only assume Mister Johnson was attempting to compensate for the awkward prequel dialogue and went way overboard? It felt more like a constant barrage of attempted one-liners than actual dialogue.

Luke’s decisions and story arc are honestly one of the things that bothers me least about this whole affair, but it feels like Mister Johnson kind of killed off a major underlying theme of TFA, and I can’t think of a good reason for him to do so.

(Yes, I am willing to buy Luke falling that deep into despair. He’s not all sunshine and fluff. What I am less willing to buy is his rejecting his Jedi philosophies rather than just declaring them outdated in the process. Declaring himself a Jedi was his OT apotheosis, come on. And admittedly his eventually coming round does kind of clean that up, but given the implied span of time he’s been gone for, I’m kind of meh about that.)

Either you write Palpatine 2.0 or you don’t, Rian. Either Snoke’s a scheming mastermind, or just a vaguely charismatic guy who managed to manoeuvre himself into military power. I don’t get the feeling gaining command of the First Order took as much effort as subverting the Old Republic. And if he’s going to be the scheming mastermind (which is sure as hell what his little mind link trick implies), then his death probably ought to be a little more substantial plot wise.

It felt more like a Marvel war film than a Star Wars film. Now, a Marvel war film would not necessarily be a bad thing by itself, but this was meant to be a Star Wars film.

Is Rian on record as calling Kylo’s power grab a redemption? To me it looks like Sith promotion procedures as usual.

(Yes, I am aware that he isn’t a Sith. Still looks like Sith promotion procedures.)

Half the plot of the film would have been solved from the get-go if Vice-Admiral Holdo hadn’t decided to be so damn secretive about everything. No sending a reluctant hero (Finn’s characterisation has also apparently taken a nosedive relative to TFA, but quite frankly Mister Johnson has not even given me much of substance to comment on there) and someone who works behind pipes to retrieve a mystery code, no mutiny from dissatisfied officers, no undermining Poe’s character at length for no goddamn reason.

The slap from Leia comes off as done for shock value. I do not recall any previous cause to believe that this is a standard part of Resistance discussions. And Poe’s input was clearly valued enough in TFA to put him around the big holo-table.

Vice-Admiral Holdo’s course of action is just. Bad practice on so many levels. And to have Leia then agree with that is... erk. Go away.

Quite frankly, no wonder Poe mutinied.

(And hey, weren’t you yelling at him for getting people killed earlier in the film? Clearly he has taken it to heart and is trying to save people now! And yet.)

If you’re going to have Anakin’s lightsabre specifically keep popping up in the narrative, then you kinda need to acknowledge that the lightsabre has as much to do with the Skywalker legacy as it does with the Jedi one.

(Am I willing to deal with Rey not being the child of anyone in particular? I would have been, had Mister Johnson brought in some kind of found family line or her learning from the Skywalker line or actually redeemed Kylo, or done something with it. But nah, apparently we don’t get that.)

The vast majority of the plot of the film was ultimately unsatisfying. The entire thing could have been reduced to ‘First Order blows up all but a small core of resistance’ and probably have been more emotionally satisfying had the film dealt with that, rather than burying it under flashy cinematography and and a sudden Force tactic that’s previously unestablished and now suddenly so crucial.

(Sure, development of Force lore is one thing, but a) I am suspicious of certain things post-Lucas SW has done with that anyway and b) given the consistency of Force abilities across the OT and PT, it’s a little, ah... tricky to convincingly bring in something presented as so distinct.)

(On a theory level one could probably argue that the mind link thing is related to telepathy, which there is a modicum of precedent for in previous SW media, but it’s always been presented as rather vague and often weak, to the best of my ability to recall. In-film, it looks like Mister Johnson made something up to give Snoke a modicum of credibility as a villain. Further cheapening his eventual uselessness.)

The underlying ‘the galaxy needs to move on’ thing is good, but quite frankly everything interesting about this film has gotten buried under Rian’s desperation to pack the plot of both TESB and ROTJ into the same thing.

Luke’s and Yoda’s roles in that conversation about the burning temple probably ought to have been reversed, considering what we know from the PT. But quite frankly I am not surprised that they were ignored for the purposes of this film.

‘It was all done to test you’ is a cheap as hell line and I will not blame Abrams in the slightest if he uses it in Ep IX because salvaging that plotline may be a pretty futile endeavour.

I have... heard things about what Abrams has brought to previous franchises and not all of it is good, but I will give him this: at least watching TFA, I felt like I was watching Star Wars.

Krayt was kind of pretty and I liked the crystal critters.

#holocron data #tlj #sequel trilogy #tlj spoilers #quite frankly i am not sure i want to unblacklist the thing

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forceprojecdin · 7 years ago

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I’m Being Torn Apart By The Last Jedi (But That’s Why It’s Good Art)

Well, Star Wars fans are being torn in half. Half of us a torn by what we feel on the inside, and we’re divided in half on whether we approve of director Rian Johnson’s (now obvious) attempt to tear us apar (in the best way art can). 56% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes as of opening day, but 96% critical approval. Interesting. Very interesting. I’m not going to ramble on. This will be short. This is really about one thing and one thing only. Would Luke have done what he did? This is really the one essential divider that we need to talk about. SPOILERS AHEAD The Luke Division The most profound thing I can say is half way through the film I wanted to let go of Star Wars because of what Luke did to Ben. 2ND SPOILER WARNING He thought about Killing his nephew Ben, because in reading Ben’s mind, and perhaps seeing the future, he saw that young Ben would essentially grow up to be a Hitler. I don’t use that word lightly. I believe it’s needed to make the point on why Luke contemplated murdering his nephew to spare the future horrors wrought upon billions. Ben Solo wasn’t the “heir apparent to Vader,” as Snoke claimed. He was to be more of maybe the heir to he or Palpatine. So what would Luke do if he saw that future? I’ll keep my entire argument to my own personal viewpoint. I can only makes sense of this in a personal way. I wanted to let go of Star Wars because of what Luke (even just contemplated) doing to Ben. That is unheard of for me! I was a true believer, who never faltered, even with Jar Jar and sandy love dialogue! That wasn’t the Luke I grew up idolizing for throwing down his violent laser sword and saving his Father, Vader, out of love and a non-violent strategic move. To sacrifice himself to the Emperor, to force his Father to have to make a choice to save him. It worked. That’s great metaphor for the strategic power of non-violence. Luke was like my pop fictional MLK or something. Then we get to that moment in the film where Luke ignites his green Lightsaber, contemplating killing his nephew in his sleep. No! I shouted internally. That is not Luke! No, no, no, no, no, no, nooooooo! That’s not Luke. My Luke is perfect. Damn you! But then I realized, Luke has always been perfect to me in the most profound way - I wanted to grow up to be perfect like him. That is an utterly profound effect to have on a child. Utterly. Alas, I grew up to have my own real failures. I didn't want to see this version Luke, but I needed to - I needed to have a myth that could help me to face my own failures and learn from them. That’s the power of myth, isn’t it? From sitting around campfires thousands of years ago to teach the tribe useful lessons, to sitting in movie theatres today. Pleas read Joseph Campbell, but I digress. Essentially, the power of myth is more important than than the power of Star Wars is. Simple logic. Star Wars needs to be myth, myth doesn’t need to be Star wars. Again, half way through the film I wanted to let go of Star Wars because of what Luke did to Ben. Then, by the end, as a middle aged man, I realized it wasn't what I wanted in this myth, but what I truly needed. And I had to accept that about Luke. About myself. Like what Yoda said to Luke in the film, that it’s our “failures that are our greatest teachers”. So continue I will, the process of reflecting upon my middle-aged failures - in the hope that I will be able to work towards them changing me into a better person. Just don’t take it all too seriously. Stay light and playful about it, laugh it off, like Yoda! Now, that’s all I really need to say. I could write a whole book on every detail of this film, but I am too lazy! Nah, thats just not my job. Someone else will do that. My job (as a painter and singer) is to get personal about my own expressions. But here are a few random musings that I thought were significant and important enough, to temporarily overcome my laziness: The Child From The Stable The child from a stable who uses The Force on the broom represents the new hope of the new world Rey will help build. Interesting to note the archetypal power here, Jesus was born in a manger. Very apt for a Christmas movie release! Anyhow, The child now has the chance to help build a better world. But be warned, this child too might fail. But that will never be the end of the story for any generation, because like the Christ figure, there will be no final victory for evil as long as people are willing to sacrifice themselves out of love and compassion for the suffering - for the greater good. That’s what Luke did (again), in the end. Oh btw, I’m not being religious here, I’m talking about the poetic symbolism of the Jesus figure, which is essentially compassion for all who are suffering. Again, refer to Campbell on that. A Side Note On Its Spirituality This is important. Star Wars is at its best when it also makes relevant spiritual statements for a globalised world - which George Lucas proved was hungry for some sort of spiritual meaning. Yoda says "There is nothing in the books that Rey does not already possess." This is a very New Spiritualiy idea (intentional or not), that in the real world, challenges the idea that one needs a Church/Institution to find God (Note: this does not intend to mean that one can not find God there, only the notion that it is not the only pace to find God). God/The Force/Creator/Whatever is in everything. So the ultimate conclusion is thus that everyone has it all in them already. All the time. One just needs to listen. All is One. This movie is reflecting movement in the real world to evolve from elitist religion to democratic spirituality. One does not have to give a donation from a pew to support an institution to be connected to the Creator. The Creator is already inside you. Just sit. Cross your legs. Breathe. Listen. One does not have to say a creed, to support a system and power structure (and jobs for those in power), to be with God. God is inside you. Like Luke says to Rey, for anyone to think that only the elite have the light, is vanity. Utter vanity at worst, a selfish way to maintain a power structure to stay employed, at best. I Will Thusly Conclude.... .... with this quote, from this article: “The Last Jedi feels like a movie young George Lucas, passionate and bold, would have made. It feels like a proper Star Wars movie by refusing to feel like a Star Wars movie.” But you have to understand, a young George Lucas wouldn’t have cared about what an older George Lucas would have thought in terms of “The Rules.”. George Lucas said this film was “beautifully made”, btw. I do hope you enjoyed. These are just the ramblings of someone who is infinitely fascinated by the ever elusive and mysterious power of art. 20th century American conceptual and abstract artist Marcel Duchamp famously said, “I consider taste – bad or good – the greatest enemy of art.” Rian Johnson has taken our tastes and ripped them to shreds, to give his work life. So bravo Mr. Johnson, I believe you have made a real work of art. You have torn us apart in ever way that a Star Wars film probably could, but you have shown us how to put ourselves back together again. I may never forgive you for what you did to my precious Luke, but I will certainly try to be a better old man because you did. - Din P.S. If I truly have any real let down, it’s that the theme of non-violence has been abandoned. The theme that Lucas was setting up when he had Luke throw down his saber at the end of Return Of The Jedi, proclaiming. Lucas pushed this point further in a season 2 episode of The Clone Wars, when the Lurmen Chief, Tee Watt Kaa told Anakin, “Only when the Jedi lay down their arms, will they be true peacekeepers.” In the end, this still may be the most tasteless and powerfully challenging statement of all. People would lose their poodoo if Jedi no longer used Lightsabers. ADDENDUM: Woah WAIT, Luke totally used non-violence at the end! He didn't fight Kylo! He didn't actually use his saber! Meditate on this, I will. P.P.S. I may have rambled on a little.

#the last jedi #star wars #rian johnson #george lucas #disney #lucasfilm #luke skywalker #yoda #kylo ren #ben solo #rey #the force

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sleuthingspooks · 7 years ago

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im gonna revive my luke skywalker blog out of spite. anyway. rant under the cut dont read if you liked the movie cause :))))) im. pissed.

...so first of all I’ll say this: the movie was not all bad. It wasn’t all bad at all, I enjoyed the scenes with Finn and Rose (she’s so cute!) and Poe is still my fly boy husband, and I thought the scenes with Rey and Luke were really nice and interesting.

But honestly?

It was such a mess. They were still trying to mash together the original trilogy, and literally basically pushed together Empire Strikes Back with Return of the Jedi unnecessarily. Snoke, after being shown as this really powerful force, dies in like 5 seconds and doesn’t do much of anything.

And hah, they tease the audience with a force connection between Rey and Kylo that turns out to have been a manipulation by Snoke, constantly making you believe that there’s something between them, only for us to get to the ‘reveal’ and have Kylo say ‘you knew all along, your parents are nobody’ ‘you have no part in this story’ ->no shit i almost got up and walked out of the theater.

why did rey have all these force visions of luke fighting vader, and all this shit. Just because she picked up the lightsaber? Really? It was CALLING to her and you’re going to just? throw that entire thing out and play that game?? the millenium falcon just so happens to be on Jakku because Han lost it. Rey just so happens to find Luke’s lightsaber. you put all these teasers and then literally tell me ‘lol! we’re just fucking with you haha’.

Luke’s on that planet away from literally everyone because kylo killed his students and took a bunch of them. ...that’s it. he uh, failed kylo (we literally have an ‘I have failed you Anakin’ line from Luke at the end) and exiled himself, even though the reason the Jedi exiled themselves from the galaxy was because they were literally obliterated and the Empire had taken over. But the First Order had not taken over yet, he just abandoned Leia to take care of it and said ‘nah i can’t help you bye’. ...like really? legit i would have believed tht he LEFT REY ON JAKKU after KYLO/SNOKE KILLED HIS WIFE and they were after them or something and it was just better for his family aka daugter if he stayed away. but no. :)))

Then the uh. Rey and Kylo elevator scene was pulled straight from RotJ, same with the Snoke/Rey/Kylo scene in the Supreme Leader’s throne room. complete with a look at the destruction of the ships. Did we need a repeat? No, why didn’t you spend more time making Snoke an actual character instead of just some kind of weak, blank Palpatine clone. Palpatine is interesting, he’s an amazing character. Snoke was paltry, a blank slate, a nobody. Why waste all of that build up for that. Luke said Leia believed Snoke was behind everything--which he obviously was, but we get nothing out of it. Literally nothing happens with him.

I will say: I am so glad Kylo decided to become Supreme Leader. That’s literally the best thing that came out of this movie, I was so worried for two seconds that we were going to somehow have a weird redemption thing, and then they thankfully killed the thread (you know with...more Empire call backs because yeah what’s originality?? don’t know her).

And the Resistance is am ess lmfao. Poe had every RIGHT to try and take over because ??? who does that. How did Admiral Haldo (?) not tell them what she was planning .That’s literally the opposite of what you do?? Like, how do you just....cause all that mess for no reason. Just tell him what you were planning from the beginning. It was such a stupid plotline, and all to...? what show that Poe is too reckless? Because honestly, every decision he makes in the movie turns out to be the wrong one and I dunno what that proves aside from to say that he probably shouldn’t even have a rank at this point. “he has spunk i like this one” yeah he has spunk because you didn’t just tell him the plan, did you have one??

I have nothing wrong really with rose and finn’s whole thing, their plan was pretty solid imo. i thought the thread about her sister was great, and they did a nice job showing why that first part with the sister was so important. like i loved it. I loved rose... that said she didn’t need to have a romantic attraction to finn, that was dumb.

listen, i love all the characters. they’ve done nothing wrong and i love them all.

Luke’s death was utter bullshit and you can fight me. I liked all his scenes up until that point. Like really?? You should have just had him lift up his x-wing, actually fly off to where they were at and actually die by Kylo’s real blade instead of have that moment where he’s PERFECTLY FINE AND ALIVE AND THERE AND THEN SUDDENLY--he’s gone. ..pretty scene, beautiful scene, but really. What was the point of that? to...what show that Rey is utterly alone?? to show that the jedi are truly dead even tho...he literally said they’re not?? i don’t understand what his death gave to the movie aside from to just continue the thread of killing off the OT trio.

which hey look at that, poor Carrie Fisher didn’t get her part, so i guess you don’t have to worry about giving her a rewarding story either since she didn’t get one at all.

i died laughing when she force pulled herself to safety, like im out bye.

Last thing. This movie had very little depth. In the OT, in the PT (which aren’t even. gOOD GUYS COME ON) i felt the breadth of the galaxy. I felt like the Republic and the Empire actually had a hold of something tangible and that the planets they had existed. Meanwhile, I don’t know what control the Republic had (and why exactly did they only have such a small amount of control after 30 years is still boggling my mind when the Empire controlled everything--yeah sure it was a transition from the Galactic Republic but S T I L L). I don’t know what Snoke controls, nor how they control it. Like--I see Hux and he’s the face of the First Order’s military and i don’t believe anyone else even exists. where’s the chain of command? why did he even question that kylo would be taking the Supreme Leader’s position? aside from being al ittle shit (that had me dying and im so glad Kylo choked him i needed that).

...I need to watch the movie again in order to...analyze it because this is an emotional reaction, but i literally almost cried from frustration when the movie was over.

it was overrated and you can disagree all you want but i feel like every single set up in the previous movie was pointless and they just toyed with the audience.

#tlj spoilers #the last jedi spoilers #...yeah you can ignore this.#it's long.#and ranting.#and im gonna go play around with making my luke skywalker blog and my promo is going to be a giant middle finger.

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charity-angel · 7 years ago

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On Buns and Ovens (11/?)

[Part 1] [Part 10]

[Read on AO3] - although if I haven't persuaded you by now, it's unlikely. But, fair warning, there's a shit-ton of Mando'a, and a cut

They had to rotate back onto active duty sooner than they would like: Skywalker would get suspicious if they just disappeared for too long, and having Skywalker suspicious could turn out very badly if Kenobi turned out to be right. Even if he was a sleeper agent, like the clone army was, his having any knowledge whatsoever about what was going on could be disastrous.

Also, the 501st cycling on duty meant that they were relieving the 212th. That meant that Kenobi could get on with having at least some of his men freed from the threat of becoming meat-drones. If Kenobi was sensible (and he was, often, when it involved his men), he would take Cody, Boil, Odd Ball, and Pipedream first. They had debated on how the orders might be disseminated among the men, since it would probably have to be the Chancellor’s voice as the trigger, but usual protocol suggested that such orders would go to the officers first. By removing them from the chain, hopefully the others would be protected.

All of them agreed that was probably short-sighted, but it was also better than just taking in men at random and hoping for the best.

Kix was glad that Skywalker didn’t ask them to remove their buckets for the quick briefing, because his and Rex’s completely shorn heads might well have been a giveaway, along with the matching surgical scars they sported. The bacta patches had done their job and soon there would be next to nothing to see, but right now they were quite obvious.

He ended up leading his own unit of men – the ones that Fives himself would normally take – in the search. Understandably, they were extremely reluctant, and incredibly confused when Kix briefly glanced around the first alley of their assigned sector before calling to move on.

Starfall, Fives’ nominal second, fell into step with him.

“Uh, sir?”

“Did you see any sign of Fives, vod?”

“Um, no, sir, but…”

“Do you want to see any sign of him?”

There was the briefest of hesitations in Starfall’s stride as he figured it out. “Well, no, sir, but I’d rather we found him than some of the Reds.”

Kix snorted. “Do you really think Fives is stupid enough to get caught by them?”

A couple of the other men laughed.

“Nah,” one of them – Uur – said dismissively. “Our Fives is too crazy to get caught by those mirsh'kyramude.”

“Sir… Tion gar kar'tayli valii Rayshe'ase?”

The use of the Mando’a was nice, especially since their generals had encouraged them to claim their cultural identity and it therefore wasn’t suspicious (and only Kenobi spoke it among the Jedi, as far as Kix knew). He wasn’t sure whether or not he approved of the translation of Fives’ name though – a name was a name, after all: his own was Iridonian; Rex’s was Aurebesh (and he would cheerfully murder anyone who translated it); Jesse’s of Jedi origin and didn’t have a specific, translatable meaning – but he would let it pass because it meant the sentence wouldn’t automatically make anyone listening in suspicious. Not that anyone should be listening in…

“Meh ni nari, tion ni sirbu?”

He left a pause, then said “Ni nukar’tayli.” It was true, in the strictest terms: he wasn’t completely sure whether Fives was still at the Temple, or whether he was back at Senator Amidala’s place. Or, indeed, some other hiding place they had come up with.

They knocked on a couple of doors, asked passers-by. No-one asked again. Not out loud, anyway: as they moved on from one street to the next, Starfall gestured just inside Kix’s eyeline, using field signals:

Not here. It was accompanied by a tilt of his head that made it into a question rather than a simple statement (which was the signal’s original intention).

Kix considered carefully before shaking his head sharply once. That was admission enough that he at least had a vague awareness of Fives’ whereabouts. Starfall relaxed visibly, which was something he was going to have to fix before they got back to base, because it wouldn’t do to have anyone looking too upbeat under the circumstances.

They broke for a snack and some water halfway through the shift cycle. The men handed out at least half of their nutrient bars to street kids bold enough to approach them.

“I don’t get Coruscant,” Tion said, frowning at his bar. “There’s thousands of people up there who have too much, and thousands down here who can’t get enough. Shouldn’t it… I don’t know, even out?”

Kix sighed. The Force bless idealistic kids. “It should. Our senator argues a lot about that. But there’s too many people up there who just don’t care.”

“That’s just… That’s insane,” Uur said, eloquent as ever. “I know natural-borns don’t exactly see things the same way we do, but what’s the point of the senate if they can’t even organise enough food for everyone?”

Kix lost track of any conversation at that point, because he got up to have a piss and a think. He knew there were politicians who fought for people like the ones they were seeing – senators like Amidala, Organa, and Chuchi – but most of them weren’t. How long had that been the case for? Was it just something that had happened since Palpatine had come along? Was he the cause of the poverty that was rife in the underworld?

He had no way to judge – the whole place was shabby, but the level of dilapidation was just something he couldn’t judge. Palpatine had been a senator way before Kix was even created, which gave him absolutely no basis to judge the timescale.

It was a question he could ask the jetiise later.

.oOo.

Cody and the 212th were still at the barracks they generally shared with the 501st when Kix and his men returned after their patrol. Kix discovered this because instead of being able to face-plant on his bunk, given that the only sleep he had gotten in the last three(?) days had been either under anaesthetic or when he had pushed his chip too far (and neither of those really counted), Cody accosted him at his bunk and marched him into the cupboard he and Rex laughingly called their office. Their shipboard offices were more generous.

In there was squeezed Rex, Boil, Odd Ball, Ryll (twitching like mad – dammit), and… oh, by everything holy…

“Take that kriffing bucket off, vod,” he said with a sigh. “It’s off-putting.”

“He’s got a point,” Rex said, dry as ever.

Fives pulled his latest helmet off and perched it on the desk. “Hey, it’s getting me around.”

“It’s bad enough you’re wearing the wrong colours,” Kix said. “Staring at Echo’s bucket in the wrong colours is just plain weird.”

“Any news?”

Cody shook his head and pulled his own bucket off, revealing a newly-shorn scalp and a healing wound. He ducked his head for inspection at Kix’s unspoken command, and stood straight again when the medic made a noise of satisfaction (closed up nicely, no sign of infection).

“Except we’re going to need name badges for a while, nothing.”

“You’ll be fine, vod,” Rex told him, rolling his eyes. “At least you’ve got an easily identifiable feature. I can’t wait for my hair to grow back in. Maybe I’ll stop shaving instead – at least my beard grows faster than my hair.”

Kix considered that for far too long, because his gaze jumped from Rex to Odd Ball to Ryll – all similarly clean-shaven and unmarked. At least Ryll was a good deal younger than the rest of them – he still had that too-thin look of someone at the end of their growth cycle.

“Just realised how much I stopped looking at the tiny differences,” he said into the quiet room. “from when we were all completely uniform. Before we started making ourselves individual.”

Fives rubbed at his beard. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

The door opened, making Fives flinch and duck down behind Odd Ball. It turned out to be Jesse and Wooley.

“Space for two more?”

Kix tried not to look too relieved: Jesse sounded more like his old self again.

The pair of them slipped into the small space remaining in the centre of the room.

“Jeez, Cody, you’re the highest ranking clone in the whole army,” Jesse remarked. “Can’t you get a bigger office than this?”

“It’s not really built for nine,” Cody admitted. “I think the most we’ve ever had in here before is four.”

“Maybe we could find a better spot next time?”

“Can we get to the matter at hand?” Rex snapped. “We’ve got some big problems here, and only a few in on the secret.”

“Most important being that sooner or later, our resident Sith Lord is probably going to panic about not being able to find Fives,” Odd Ball suggested.

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Because the longer he’s free, the more chance there is that someone will believe him.”

“Exactly,” Rex said. “So we need to work out what his endgame is. Is it as simple as just having us kill our jetiise? Because I can’t see how he’s going to sell that to the public right now.”

“I don’t know,” Wooley said. “Public opinion is pretty low, after the bombing. There was some sympathy when it looked like an outsider was responsible, but after Commander Tano’s trial, and Commander Offee’s confession…? It’s bad.”

“But the Jedi are still heroes for a lot of people,” Ryll argued. “The people on worlds we’ve liberated, where they’ve seen our jetiise save them from occupation.”

“There has to be something… Seriously, I know we’re plotting sedition, but can we go somewhere I can breathe?” Jesse whined.

“He’s worried about space?” Fives grumbled. “The guy who gets to keep his climate-controlled bucket? Bit rich.”

Cody sighed. “Let me see if I can get a meeting room in the Temple. At least we can make it look like we’re co-ordinating the search for Fives.”

Beside Kix, he raised his arm and tapped a message out on his comm.

“With Ryll?” Wooley asked. “I mean, no offence, vod’ika, but you’re not exactly a natural fit for a group of squad leaders.”

Ryll waved it off with a trembling hand. The kid had been on the go as long as the rest of them, probably. He was doing really well to just have the shakes. “You guys go ahead. I can’t say I don’t want to be involved, but I could probably use some rest too.”

“We’ll fill you in later, kid,” Rex promised.

Ryll nodded gratefully, just as there was a bleep from Cody’s comm unit.

“We’ve got a go from General Kenobi,” he announced. “Head out; keep Fives in the middle.”

Cody turned to Kix as everyone shuffled out and whispered: “You know I’m going to want him back one day, right?”

Kix considered it carefully before snorting and shaking his head. “Prove you can look after a medic first.”

Cody looked wounded. “Or, let me have one who can look after himself.”

Kix shrugged. “He’s never going to be allowed to be a CMO until he can take his exams. And he’ll never be allowed to do that because he’s not gone through the medic programme.”

“And I care about that as much as you do,” Cody said as he put his bucket on. “I know he’s competent. In fact, I know he’s damn good.”

Kix sighed and helmeted up, flicking his comm over to Cody’s band. “He is, but he’s still got a lot to learn and, if we’re right, we haven’t got that long before everything goes completely to osik.”

Cody said nothing, which was more than a little worrying.

.oOo.

Once they reached their meeting room in the Temple, and found General Kenobi waiting for them, looking as exhausted as Kix felt, Kix managed to get his first good look at Fives’ new paint job. Taking a leaf from Jesse’s book, he was hiding among the 212th instead of being in 501st blue (which was probably sensible), and he had borrowed from Waxer once more. The coloured flash was that smaller ‘V’ at the throat that Boil shared, but bordered by a thinner gold stripe that echoed Fives’ own markings, the ones he had had since becoming an ARC trooper. His helmet was pure Echo - those twin stripes that made Kix’s heart ache, even in the wrong colour.

What had they been reduced to, having a brother hide in the art of dead vod’e? And how long would it take some of the older vod’e to realise what they were seeing? Or some of the generals, for that matter?

Kenobi looked stricken when he realised, but recovered himself nicely as he activated the privacy screens around the room.

“Do I take it there is a consensus?”

“If you mean about the chips being bantha crap? I think the evidence speaks for itself,” Boil said uneasily. “But do we all agree with the crazy things Ryll said… Well, I’m listening.”

Fortunately, Kenobi was well-used to Boil’s acerbic nature, and didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’ve got to admit to feeling a bit uneasy about it,” Odd Ball said. “But it does make sense. I wish it didn’t.”

“Don’t we all?” Kenobi asked. “I presume you have asked to meet to discuss where we go from here?”

“Yes sir,” eight weary voices echoed.

Kenobi shook his head. “I cannot be your superior in this. We have to all be equals; you have to all feel your opinions can be heard, and you can walk away without reprisal. Unless things go horribly wrong, of course, in which case I am absolutely your superior officer, and you were only acting according to my orders.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Obi-Wan,” Rex said, his expression soft and unguarded. “We’re either equals, or we’re not. And I don’t think even saying we were following your orders would protect us from reprisals for this. We all know what we’re getting into.”

The doors opened, admitting a familiar adolescent.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ahsoka panted as she pushed her hood from her montrals. “Breaking in is harder than I remember.”

Kenobi afforded her a carefully bland look. “Which of course is something that you have never done before, and certainly would never have been encouraged by and/or taught to you by your master.”

She snorted. “Please. Skyguy is as subtle at breaking into the Temple as he is about Padmé.”

The clones of the 212th all chuckled.

“Just as well you closed the book on that one, vod,” Odd Ball said. “You'd have bankrupted the pot.”

The barracks were going to explode the day the vod’e found out about the twins.

“I have a much better way in,” Ahsoka continued, grinning. “Or, I had – I’m just taller than I used to be. And I'm not supposed to be here - I can't stroll through the corridors like I belong.

“So, what's been going on while I checked in with Padmé? Are we planning on overthrowing the Chancellor?”

“We’ve not had a chance to discuss anything yet,” Kenobi said. “The 501st have been on duty for the last sixteen hours, and I have been bringing the 212th up to date on the situation so far.”

Ahsoka’s eyes took in the newcomers in gold. Her gaze settled on Fives.

“I leave for a couple of weeks and the 501st are all running to the 212th.”

He afforded her a weak smile. “Not sure how much longer we can keep this up anyway,” he said. “We’ve identified a problem.”

Kenobi and Ahsoka looked around. Kix felt it spoke volumes about how much they both regarded the opinions of the vod’e that neither of them ventured a guess of their own, nor did they push any.

Even though it had been Odd Ball who had made the observation back at the barracks, he deferred to Cody, and Cody deferred to Rex, who had clearly been thinking along the same lines as Odd Ball for some time. And found it easier to speak to Kenobi on an equal footing.

“We’re working on the fairly safe assumption that Order Sixty-Six is the Sith’s endgame,” he began. “But realistically, they’ve got to set the groundwork to make it look like a genuine, legal order. Otherwise, Sith or not, the rest of the galaxy is going to revolt against them.”

“Reasonable,” Kenobi said, nodding and stroking his beard thoughtfully.

“The fault in Tup’s chip, and Fives’ discovery, can’t be part of that plan; and every minute Fives is free risks him being able to find someone willing to listen to him. Especially since he’s no longer dosed up on spice.”

“Speaking of which,” Fives put in, “I know I was fairly off my face, but I’ve been thinking, and I’m pretty sure he mind-tricked General Ti. She had that weird, dazed look that people get.”

Ahsoka’s lekku spiralled in surprise. Kenobi merely looked resigned. “Her testimony is suspect then. I assumed as much, but to know that he can do something so drastic to someone as experienced as Master Ti is unsettling. Thank you, Fives.”

Fives nodded sharply in acknowledgement, and turned his attention back to Rex, who picked the narrative back up.

“None of us think that letting Palpatine worry for too long can lead to anything good: he’s as likely to just have us kill off our jetiise anyway and deal with the consequences afterwards. I’m sure he’s clever enough to be able to plant something on you that would make it look like you were doing something ‘harmful to the interests of the Republic’.”

“I fear you are correct,” Kenobi said, but I also cannot condone you turning yourself in, Fives. He will simply have you killed, and I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself like that.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea either,” Cody said quickly, making Fives’ mouth snap closed, cutting off the protest Kix could almost already hear. “If Palpatine can mind-trick a Jedi, or even the whole of the council – sorry, sir – then he’ll not even break a sweat with you, vod’ika, no matter what training we’ve got.”

“Cody’s right, Fives,” Ahsoka said, her voice soft as she took a seat next to him. “He’d find out exactly who you’ve been in contact with, then come after all of us. We’ll have to act fast, but you being here is safer than you getting yourself caught.”

Fives met her eyes levelly. “Okay, so I can’t be caught. Alive.”

She grabbed at him, strong fingers curling around the white plates of his armour.

“No.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Kenobi, which made Fives give a weak smile.

“Sounds like you two are outvoted.”

“Not sure I’d say it like that, exactly, vod,” Jesse said. “I mean, just because we’ve all been raised to believe we’re just replaceable gears in the machine of the Grand Army, doesn’t mean that I actually believe you should suicide by Red Guard on the off-chance it might buy us a little time.”

“I don’t think any of us believe that,” Cody chimed in, and six alike heads shook in agreement, Kix’s included. “As Jesse says, we’re trained to consider the tactical advantage, that’s all.”

“And it’s enormous,” Fives said stubbornly. “You have a better chance if I die in that shiny armour than if I live on the lam.”

“What if you manage to ‘escape off-world’?” Wooley suggested. “Seems to me it would be much easier for us to fake something happening to you in space than here on Coruscant.”

There were lots of murmurs of agreement and, with Fives most definitely outnumbered, they put their heads together to plot what would come next.

[Part 12]

#star wars #clone wars #swtcw #kix #cody #fives #rex #jesse #ryll #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #boil #odd ball #wooley #tw: plans for suicide #because fives is a noble bastard #padmé's pregnant #on buns and ovens

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