#re-commerce

[futuretonext]

The Global Re-Commerce Market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 19.22% during the forecast period, i.e., 2023-28. From 2018 to 2022, the Re-Commerce market has showcased substantial expansion, owing to the heightened awareness and prioritization of sustainability concerns among consumers, particularly those belonging to Generation Z and Millennials. A survey conducted by the Baker Retailing Center, in, 2021, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania found that 55% of Gen Z respondents indicated a preference for purchasing products from sustainable brands. This strong dedication to environmental causes has propelled Re-Commerce as a preferred choice for sustainable consumption.

[no-passaran]

Spain lied about not selling weapons to Israel.

Even after October 7th, Spain has sold more than 1 million € of weapons to Israel. Norway and Finland make it possible.

In January, Spain made headlines word-wide when the government's Minister of Exteriors, José Manuel Albares (PSOE), claimed in Congress and later again in a radio interview that Spain had stopped selling weapons to Israel ever since October 7th. Israel's intensification of violence in Gaza following October 7th meant that, on top of decades of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, between October 7th and January 23rd Israel had already killed 28,000 people and forced 2 million out of their home. In this context, many people were demanding their governments stop arming and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, and here on Tumblr and other social media sites like Twitter I think we all saw the many posts praising the Spanish government for this.

Well, it turns out it was a lie.

According to Albares, "Since October 7th there are no more weapons exportations [from Spain] to Israel". But in November alone, Spain exported weapons to Israel for 987,000€, as was published on the Spanish Government's official website dedicated to exterior commerce (Comex). A researcher from Centre Delàs (an independent centre for peace studies) found it and published it, and it has also been verified by newspapers such as elDiario.es.

This 987,000€ worth of weapons in November was not the only ammunition that Spain has sent to Israel in 2023. In 2023, Spain exported a total of 1.48 million € in war material to Israel.

All of the weapons sent in November come from the factory of Nammo Palencia (Castilla y León), a corporation that is 50% property of the Government of Norway and 50% owned by a public Finnish business. However, even if the owners are foreigners, the ammunition was sent from Spain and thus it had to be authorized by the an organism of the Spanish Government named Junta Interministerial de Defensa y Doble Uso, whose deliberations on whether a weapons exportation is accepted or denied are kept secret. The only cases where they have denied exporting weapons to Israel have been when they thought that Israel would re-sell these weapons to the Philippines.

Spain has had a close relation with Israel for years. As published by the Spanish Government, Spain has sold 20 million € of weapons to Israel between 2012 and 2022. Spain also buys weapons and military software from Israel (for example, the Spanish Intelligence Service has been using the Israeli software Pegasus to illegally spy on Catalan activists, journalists, politicians and civil society members and their relatives to attack the Catalan independence movement), and Spain has continued buying from Israel and allocating defense contracts to Israel even after the October 7th attacks. It is very difficult to track the concessions of public contracts such as buying weapons, but some contracts have been known. For example, on November 24th 2023, Spain bought 287.5 million € of missiles from Israel. This is not unusual: between 2011 and 2021, it is publicly known that Spain bought war material from Israel for at least 268 million €, but experts say that the real number could be two or three times as much.

Spain has also continued allocating concessions to Israel. For example, on December 15th 2023 Spain allocated a contract worth over 576 million € to Israel for a rocket launcher programme. On November 22nd, Spain allocated another another Israeli company to provide missiles for 237 million € at the same time as the Spanish army bought Israeli inhibitors for 1.4 million €. The very next day, November 23rd, Spain signed another military allocation to Israel for 82,600€. The following week, Spain signed yet another allocation with a different Israeli military corporation for 3.7 million €.

Spain also allows Israeli weapon manufacturing companies to produce weapons through their branches located in Spain. This way, Israeli weapons make their way to markets with which Israel doesn't have diplomatic ties but Spain does, like Saudi Arabia. And since Spain is a member of NATO, Israeli weapons produced in Spain are approved according to NATO standards and access it easily. In the same way, these Israeli weapons manufacturers also access European Union defense funds through their branches in Spain. (source).

As I said, I saw a lot of positive posts around when Albares said Spain was going to embargo, but I haven't seen any post about how they didn't do it. I also (personally) haven't seen anything on international media, and barely anything on Spanish media, which is already busy with the PSOE covid material corruption scandal. So I share this in the hope of helping put pressure on Spain to cut all ties with Israel immediately.

SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO GIVES ISRAEL THE MATERIAL AND MONEY THAT WILL BE USED TO MASSACRE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. SHAME ON SPAIN, NORWAY, AND FINLAND.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Keir Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his “first buddy”

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Turns out Donald Trump isn't the only world leader with a tech billionaire "first buddy" who gets to serve as an unaccountable, self-interested de facto business regulator. UK PM Keir Starmer has just handed the keys to the British economy over to Jeff Bezos.

Oh, not literally. But here's what's happened: the UK's Competitions and Markets Authority, an organisation charged with investigating and punishing tech monopolists (like Amazon) has just been turned over to Doug Gurr, the guy who used to run Amazon UK.

This is – incredibly – even worse than it sounds. Marcus Bokkerink, the outgoing head of the CMA, was amazing, and he had charge over the CMA's Digital Markets Unit, the largest, best-staffed technical body of any competition regulator, anywhere in the world. The DMU uses its investigatory powers to dig deep into complex monopolistic businesses like Amazon, and just last year, the DMU was given new enforcement powers that would let it custom-craft regulations to address tech monopolization (again, like Amazon's).

But it's even worse. The CMA and DMU are the headwaters of a global system of super-effective Big Tech regulation. The CMA's deeply investigated reports on tech monopolists are used as the basis for EU regulations and enforcement actions, and these actions are then re-run by other world governments, like South Korea and Japan:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

The CMA is the global convener and ringleader in tech antitrust, in other words. Smaller and/or poorer countries that lack the resources to investigate and build a case against US Big Tech companies have been able to copy-paste the work of the CMA and hold these companies to account. The CMA invites (or used to invite) all of these competition regulators to its HQ in Canary Wharf for conferences where they plan global strategy against these monopolists:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

Firing the guy who is making all this happening and replacing him with Amazon's UK boss is a breathtaking display of regulatory capture by Starmer, his business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, and his exchequer, Rachel Reeves.

But it gets even worse, because Amazon isn't just any tech monopolist. Amazon is a many-tentacled kraken built around an e-commerce empire. Antitrust regulators elsewhere have laid bare how Amazon uses that retail monopoly to take control over whole economies, while raising prices and crushing small businesses.

To understand Amazon's market power, first you have to understand "monopsonies" – markets dominated by buyers (monopolies are markets dominated by sellers – Amazon is both a monopolist and a monopsonist). Monopsonies are far more dangerous than monopolies, because they are easier to establish and easier to defend against competitors. Say a single retailer accounts for 30% of your sales: there isn't a business in the world that can survive an overnight 30% drop in sales, so that 30% market share might as well be 100%. Once your order is big enough that canceling it would bankrupt your supplier, you have near-total control over that supplier.

Amazon boasts about this. They call it "the flywheel": Amazon locks in shoppers (by getting them to prepay for a year's worth of shipping in advance, via Prime). The fact that a business can't sell to a large proportion of households if it's not on Amazon gives Amazon near-total power over that business. Amazon uses that power to demand discounts and charge junk fees to the businesses that rely on it. This allows it to lower prices, which brings in more customers, which means that even more businesses have to do business with Amazon to stay afloat:

https://vimeo.com/739486256/00a0a7379a

That's Amazon's version, anyway. In reality, it's a lot scuzzier. Amazon doesn't just demand deep discounts from its suppliers – it demand unsustainable discounts from them. For example, Amazon targeted small publishers with a program called the "Gazelle Project." Jeff Bezos told his negotiators to bring down these publishers "the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle":

https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/a-new-book-portrays-amazon-as-bully/

The idea was to get a bunch of cheap books for the Kindle to help it achieve critical mass, at the expense of driving these publishers out of business. They were a kind of disposable rocket stage for Amazon.

Deep discounts aren't the only way that Amazon feeds off its suppliers: it also lards junk-fee atop junk-fee. For every pound Amazon makes from its customers, it rakes in 45-51p in fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

Now, just like there's no business that can survive losing 30% of its sales overnight, there's also no business that can afford to hand 45-51% of its gross margin to a retailer. For businesses to survive at all on Amazon, they have to jack their prices up – way up. However, Amazon has an anticompetitive deal called "most favoured nation status" that forces suppliers to sell their goods on Amazon at the same price as they sell them elsewhere (even from their own stores). So when companies raise their prices in order to pay ransom to Amazon, they have to raise their prices everywhere. Far from being a force for low prices, Amazon makes prices go up everywhere, from the big Tesco's to the corner shop:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Amazon makes so much money off of this scam that it doesn't have to pay anything to ship its own goods – the profits from overcharging merchants for "fulfillment by Amazon" pay for all the shipping, on everything Amazon sells:

https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/AmazonMonopolyTollbooth-2023.pdf

Amazon competes with its own sellers, but unlike those sellers, it doesn't have to pay a 45-51% rake – and it can make its competitor-customers cover the full cost of its own shipping! On top of that, Amazon maintains the pretense that its headquarters are in Luxembourg, the tax- and crime-haven, and pays a fraction of the taxes that British businesses pay to HMRC (and that's not counting the 45-51% tax they pay to Jeff Bezos's monoposony).

That's not the only way that Amazon unfairly competes with British businesses, though: Amazon uses its position as a middleman between buyers and sellers to identify the most successful products sold by its own customers. Then it copies those products and sells them below the original inventor's costs (because it gets free shipping, pays no tax, and doesn't have to pay its own junk fees), and drives those businesses into the ground. Even Jeff "Project Gazelle" Bezos seems to understand that this is a bad look, which is why he perjured himself to the American Congress when he was questioned under oath about it:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836

Amazon then places its knockoff products above the original goods on its search results page. Amazon makes $38b selling off placement on these search pages, and the top results for an Amazon search aren't the best matches for your query – they're the ones that pay the most. On average, Amazon's top result for a search is 29% more expensive than the best match on the site. On average, the top row of results is 25% more expensive than the best match on the site. On average, Amazon buries the best result for your search 17 places down the results page:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/03/subprime-attention-rent-crisis/#euthanize-rentiers

Amazon, in other words, acts like the business regulator for the economies it dominates. It decides what can be sold, and at what prices. It decides whose products come up when you search, and thus which businesses deserve to live and which ones deserve to die. An economy dominated by Amazon isn't a market economy – it's a planned economy, run by Party Secretary Bezos for the benefit of Amazon's shareholders.

Now, there is a role for a business regulator, because some businesses really don't deserve to live (because they sell harmful products, engage in deceptive practices, etc). The UK has a regulator that's in charge of this stuff: the Competition and Markets Authority, which is now going to be run by Jeff Bezos's hand-picked UK Amazon boss. That means that Amazon is now both the official and the unofficial central planner of the UK economy, with a free hand to raise prices, lower quality, and destroy British businesses, while hiding its profits in Luxemourg and starving the exchequer of taxes.

The "first buddy" role that Keir Starmer just handed over to Jeff Bezos is, in every way, more generous than the first buddy deal Trump gave Elon Musk.

Starmer's government claims they're doing this for "growth" but Amazon isn't a force for growth, it's force for extraction. It is a notorious underpayer of its labour force, a notorious tax-cheat, and a world-beating destroyer of local economies, local jobs, and local tax bases. Contrary to Amazon's own self-mythologizing, it doesn't deliver lower prices – it raises prices throughout the economy. It doesn't improve quality – this is a company whose algorithmic recommendation system failed to recognize that an "energy drink" was actually its own drivers' bottled piss, which it then promoted until it was the best-selling energy drink on the platform:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

There's a reason that the UK, the EU, Japan and South Korea found it so easy to collaborate on antitrust cases against American companies: these are all countries whose competition law was rewritten by American technocrats during the Marshall Plan, modeled on the US's own laws. The bedrock of US competition law is 1890's Sherman Act, whose author, Senator John Sherman, declared that:

If we will not endure a King as a political power we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life. If we would not submit to an emperor we should not submit to an autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

Jeff Bezos is the autocrat of trade that John Sherman warned us about, 135 years ago. And Keir Starmer just abdicated in his favour.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter

Image: UK Parliament/Maria Unger (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keir_Starmer_2024.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeff_Bezos%27_iconic_laugh.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[tkingfisher]

Is this a pre-order I see before me?!

It is! Coming December 5th, the fourth of the Saint of Steel books!

You can pre-order now wherever fine ebooks are sold*, and paperback orders are available from Argyll Productions! And Patreon patrons get it free, probably a few hours before midnight my time on the 4th.

This is Shane and Marguerite’s book, and it’s a chonker at 130k. There may even be a few more tidbits about the death of the god, in amid the adventure, romance, demons, and semi-accidental destabilization of the world economy!

*UK readers, you may have some glitches—OrbitUK is taking over the distribution there and we’re still ironing out transferring territorial rights—if the pre-order gets canceled, just re-order, it’s not you, it’s not even me, it’s the vast machinery of international commerce. But you also will get a snazzy paperback printing of all four books next year, which will not require ruinous shipping to the UK!

[mosswiind]

the only person who gives a fuck about dock town is neve gallus

veilguard spoilers incoming!

the only person who gives a fuck about dock town is neve gallus.

you may be thinking, minrathous has an army and defenses in place that could absolutely take on a dragon. and you would be right. but dock town is not part of minrathous proper.

spend ten minutes in dock town. walk past literally dozens of unhoused civilians. talk to any shadow dragon for thirty seconds.

the templar order is more interested in accepting bribes from magisters (see knight commander lenos re: bataris) than stopping people from doing illegal magic (with the obvious exceptions of rana and tarquin, who can only help from the shadows, both literal and figurative).

there is a demon of desperation that easily gets its hooks into a number of people, because they're drawn to their patron emotion. which is desperation. people are desperate enough to draw attention from the fade.

minrathous doesn't give a fuck about dock town.

minrathous doesn't give a fuck about dock town.

minrathous doesn't give a fuck about dock town.

minrathous has an army. dock town doesn't.

minrathous has defenses. dock town doesn't.

minrathous is the largest, wealthiest city in the north, known far and wide for being extremely defensible. dock town is a shack city built in the ruins of the old imperium. many people don't have four walls, or even doors.

dock town, still recovering from the events of solas's first ritual attempt and demon attacks, is not equipped for a siege that should take an army being taken on by a handful of unhoused, unarmed, malnourished citizens.

treviso is a thriving commerce centre run by an affluent assassin's guild, with input from a (corrupt, but) influential government structure. the crows may rule antiva, but there is still support for most everyone outside of their - shocker - drowned district. where they put their homeless population.

the magisterium has no reason to defend dock town, because that's where the poors are. docks can be rebuilt. labour can be bought. people are replaceable.

rook helps people.

rook is the one who, to quote evka, "can find the twisting path through any problem."

rook is the one with the dagger that can get the dragon to land. the dagger is the deciding factor in whichever city you choose, not an extra couple of heroes shooting at a forty ton flying monstrosity that's out of range and raining blight and fire/ice on everything.

but the dagger goes where rook goes, and that is what makes rook the factor that tips the scale one way or the other.

if rook chooses treviso, it is abundantly clear that neve was right. the only person who gives a fuck about dock town is neve gallus.

[squiddy-god]

Xiao and his "friend"

If you see this and you think, "hey, I've seen this work before" you probably have, as I previously went by squid-God-Supreme, however, my blog got nukes, so I am re uploading almost all of my old fics. Once I'm finished uploading all the ones I intend to, I will announce that I am finished, however, after that, if you see I haven't uploaded a specific fic, you remember me writing, you can always request that I upload it.

CW : friends to lovers trope, tooth rotting fluff, Xiao being Really really awkward, gn! Reader, short fic

Being close enough to the yaksha to be considered a friend was a feat on its own 

Another was getting him to fall for you 

And fall he did, xiao had it bad but no one knew as he was rarely seen 

You had gained the yakshas affections, the only problem was how subtle he was 

Xiao has little experience with romance and while one might assume he'd be direct with such feelings, they would be wrong

Eons of pain and melania of suffering only served to teach him that gentle thing where simply no meant for him, that he would only drive them away

Too fearful of once again returning to that aching loneliness, he sought the help of zhongli

Much of xiao's romantic subtleties stem from the former god, his years of knowledge on seemingly anything has taught him various traditions and intracys of love and commerce alike. 

 The glances he steals when you sleep, the longing gaze that fills his amber eyes- and the gentle hand that wishes for nothing more than to touch your cheek, all too quick to retreat when you stir in your slumber, not knowing that you would have grasped his hand in yours. 

You were a sweet dream, a love he longed for yet one he said he could not obtain. 

But unbeknownst to the adepti you felt the same 

You loved xiao, more than he would ever know 

You didn't think yourself good enough of his affections, solemnly convincing yourself that he couldn't harbor affection for you 

You called yourself a fool for believing that there was even a chance that he would return your feelings 

And while you knew you had no right to be jealous of the traveler it didn't stop the ache you felt 

He looked so at peace with them, and you wondered if you had ever seen the same when you were with him 

Xiao was tired, he was growing impatient with this pining, and the distance that you seemed to create made his hands twitch anxiously 

Had he made a mistake? Had he reached to close and caused you to fly away? 

You no longer stood as close to him, your hands did not brush against his gloved ones and your visits to the inn began to lessen 

He felt it again, the gnawing at his mind as it screamed that he had hurt you in some way and the painful beats of his heart as they rang in his ears 

It felt awful to stand so far away from him, inches feeling like miles as you hoped he didn't notice the sadness in your eyes 

But it was for the better you told yourself

You took a deep breath as you walked up the stairs of the inn, a silent prayer that the yaksha was not there tonight. “Is xiao here?” you asked, feigning hopefulness as you looked at verr. “Ah no, im sorry dear, he went with the traveler to help with a commission” that hurt, despite the hope that he wouldn't be there it didn't stop the pang of jealousy. You shoot these thoughts quickly reminding yourself that this is what you wanted. “But why don't you leave him some almond tofu, i'm sure he'd appreciate it” you nodded and smiled, it would be suspicious if you declined, so of course you picked up the plate and made your way to the top floor of the inn. What verr had told you was no lie, xiao had gone with the traveler to complete a commission, however he had returned a while ago, neglecting to inform verr of his return, knowing that if you heard he was here you wouldn't come. So he waited with narrowed eyes for your figure to come up. He was done with this, he would figure out exactly why you had created this distance. He was thankful that the inn was slow tonight, no one was on the top floor, it was the perfect opportunity to confront you. 

Your lips were tugged down in a frown, the glossy look in your eyes made something in xiao break, once the plate of almond tofu was set on the floor and you had turned back to quickly retreat from the inn he appeared. Strong arms caged you against the railing as a piercing amber gaze lingered on yours. His hand held one of your wrists so you couldn't run away, but his grip was feather light, gentle and not bruising. “Why?�� his voice was loud enough for only you to hear, but it held no aggression or malice. You could only stare back confused, why what? You didn't understand. “I have told you before, the bond between us is too strong to sever now. So why? What has made you want to sever it?” he was too close, your eyes couldn't dart anywhere but his burning gaze. “I don't know what you-” he pressed closer to you, “you do.” he stated as if it was a fact set in stone. “You just seem happy with them, I don't want to ruin that with my feelings” it was his turn for confusion to take hold. “The traveler” you clarified. 

It all seemed to click in his head and he sighed, resting his head against yours. His eyes were still wide open, gold irises swimming with relife. “Are you really such a dense mortal? Have you truly not noticed my affections? or my courtship?” Xiao asked, his hand leaving your wrist to cup your cheek. You stared in shock, you wanted to pinch yourself to know you weren’t dreaming. “Mortal memories are inadequate, perhaps you need a reminder that the bond between us is too strong to be severed, especially now.” 

It really was like a sweet dream, the feeling of his lips pressed gently to yours, any worry harbored washing away as you wondered if he was really there. But he was, and he had no intention of leaving, of course it wasn't as if you'd let him, your hands finding purchase on his arms as such a light kiss left your breathless.

[keehomania]

dark side — rcm (18+)

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ angst, smut, the story of anakin and padmé re-told, murder, genocide, swearing, reader is older than rafe here, death, the phantom menace, attack of the clones, revenge of the sith, emotional manipulation, fuck the jedis all my homies hate the jedis, unprotected sex, pregnancy

⋆. 𐙚 ˚

a galaxy far, far away was an arras of countless worlds, woven together by the invisible threads of trade routes, alliances, and ancient rivalries. at its heart stood the core worlds, dazzling centers of power and wealth, where spires of glittering cities pierced the heavens. beyond them stretched the mid rim, a crossroads of commerce, where prosperous planets bustled with life. and further still lay the outer rim—a lawless expanse of stars and shadows, where danger thrived in the absence of order.

in this vast universe, power was a currency, exchanged between those bold enough to seize it and those desperate enough to relinquish it. the galactic federation had long served as the fragile scaffolding of peace, uniting distant systems under a single banner. but peace, like the stars themselves, was fleeting. greed gnawed at its edges, and whispers of rebellion echoed through the void.

the skies above ilthara, a desert moon on the outer rim, burned with twin suns. beneath their relentless gaze sprawled a bustling spaceport, its air thick with the acrid scent of fuel and spice. traders bartered with shrill voices, hawking wares that glittered like starlight or reeked of danger. starships of every make and model hovered in dock, their hulls scarred from journeys across the galaxy’s treacherous veins.

rafe cameron was a child of this chaos. born into the cameron syndicate, whose name was spoken with a mixture of awe and disdain, his life had been one of no privilege painted in shades of grit. the syndicate thrived on control—of cargo lanes, planetary exports, and the illicit trade that oiled the galaxy's endless machinery. rafe, though only nine years old, bore the weight of this legacy like a mantle too large for his narrow shoulders, as a slave.

his mother had vanished years ago, swept away by the same treacheries that had made his father rich. his father, ward cameron, ruled their holdings with an iron fist, and though rafe was young, he had already learned that strength was not a choice—it was survival. he walked the crowded streets of ilthara’s markets with a practiced air of confidence, sharp blue eyes scanning every face, every deal, every hidden blade.

he was clever, too clever for his own good, many would say. where other children played, he schemed. where others begged for scraps, he found ways to barter, to manipulate. he was small for his age, wiry, with piercing blue eyes that seemed to see too much and a mouth prone to smirking as if he already knew the punchline of a joke you hadn’t yet told.

that day, he sat atop a rusting cargo container, legs swinging idly, watching the chaos unfold below him. he liked to think of himself as a king surveying his kingdom, though in truth, his “kingdom” was little more than the market district where his father’s reach was strongest. still, he had learned that appearances mattered, and sitting up high gave him the advantage of looking down on everyone else.

“rafe!” a gruff voice cut through the clamor, and rafe turned to see garro, one of his father’s enforcers, lumbering toward him. “what do you think you’re doing up there? your old man’ll skin me alive if i lose track of you.”

rafe rolled his eyes but slid down from his perch, landing in a puff of dust. “relax, garro. you worry too much.”

“it’s my job to worry,” the man grunted, his scarred face contorting into something that might have been a frown. “your father doesn’t want you wandering off.”

“i’m not wandering,” he retorted, brushing the sand off his trousers. “i’m observing. there’s a difference.”

garro muttered something under his breath but didn’t argue. he knew better than to try reasoning with the boy. rafe had his father’s stubborn streak, though he wielded it with a charm that could be disarming—when he chose to use it.

the market was alive with noise and color, from the sizzling of food stalls to the sharp calls of traders hawking everything from exotic spices to battered starship parts. rafe wove through the crowd with ease, his small frame slipping between larger bodies like a shadow. he listened, always listened. every whispered deal, every raised voice, every nervous glance—it all painted a picture of the galaxy’s ceaseless dance of power and survival.

he stopped in front of a stall where a twi’lek merchant was haggling with a rodian over the price of a damaged hyperdrive coil. rafe didn’t need to hear the details to know the coil was stolen—it was written in the way the twi’lek’s fingers tapped nervously on the counter.

“three hundred credits,” the rodian barked, waving his blaster for emphasis.

“five hundred,” the twi’lek shot back, though his voice wavered.

“four,” rafe interjected boldly, stepping between them. both aliens turned to him, startled, but rafe only smiled. “and you’ll throw in that fuel regulator,” he added, nodding toward a piece of equipment half-hidden under the counter.

“who do you think you are, kid?” the rodian growled, his green skin darkening with irritation.

“someone who knows a good deal when he sees one,” rafe replied, unfazed. he turned to the twi’lek. “four hundred credits and the regulator. take it or leave it.”

the twi’lek hesitated, then nodded quickly. “fine. take it.”

the rodian grumbled but handed over the credits, snatching up the hyperdrive coil and the regulator before stomping off. rafe grinned, satisfied. he hadn’t earned anything from the deal, but he didn’t need to. influence was its own reward. but as the day wore on, the usual rhythm of the market began to shift. whispers spread like wildfire, voices hushed yet urgent. a ship had landed at the spaceport—not just any ship, but a royal cruiser, its polished hull gleaming even under ilthara’s harsh suns.

rafe felt the change before he saw it, the way the crowd grew uneasy, their movements jittery. he followed the murmurs, weaving through the throng until he reached the edge of the landing platform. and there it was—a sleek vessel, unlike anything he’d ever seen. Its ramp lowered with a hiss of hydraulics, and figures began to descend. first came the guards, their blasters held with military precision. then came two men in brown robes, their hoods pulled low but their presence undeniable. jedi.

rafe’s heart skipped. he’d heard the stories, of course—who hadn’t? but seeing them in the flesh was something else entirely. they moved with a calm purpose, their hands resting lightly on the hilts of their lightsabers. and then you appeared. your dress was simple yet elegant, your posture regal. even from a distance, rafe could see the weight you carried, the responsibility etched into your features. you were older than him—fourteen, maybe fifteen—but there was something about you that made you seem untouchable.

“who is she?” he asked aloud, though no one answered. it didn’t matter. rafe didn’t need to know your name to feel the pull of destiny.

rafe couldn’t take his eyes off you. you were unlike anyone he’d ever seen, your very presence radiating authority and elegance, yet there was something in your eyes—something fragile, as if the weight of the galaxy rested on your shoulders. the crowd parted instinctively as you moved, flanked by the two jedi. whispers rippled through the market like a gust of wind.

“that’s the queen of naboo,” someone murmured.

“the jedi are protecting her.”

“why is she here? what does naboo want with ilthara?”

rafe absorbed the words without reacting, his sharp mind piecing together the puzzle. naboo was a distant world, far removed from the outer rim. its queen’s presence here was no coincidence. whatever your reasons, they were tied to the unrest gripping the galaxy.

you had stopped at a stall, her delicate fingers brushing over a display of woven fabrics. the merchant stammered nervously under your gaze, bowing repeatedly. rafe edged closer, his curiosity getting the better of him.

he was so focused on you that he didn’t notice the jedi until he nearly walked into one. the taller of the two—broad-shouldered, with piercing blue eyes—glanced down at him. rafe froze, suddenly aware of how small he was in the presence of someone so commanding.

“careful, young one,” the jedi said, his voice calm but firm.

rafe blinked, recovering quickly. “i wasn’t doing anything,” he replied, feigning innocence.

the jedi didn’t respond, his gaze lingering for a moment before he turned back to you.

rafe’s attention shifted back to the you. you were closer now, inspecting a piece of jewelry the merchant had presented. your guards stood rigid, their eyes scanning the crowd for threats. it was then that your gaze lifted and met his. for a heartbeat, time seemed to still. you eyes were a rich color, deep and full of questions. rafe felt as if you could see straight through him, past his confident smile and into the boy beneath.

“who are you?” you asked, your voice soft but commanding.

rafe hesitated, caught off guard. “rafe,” he said finally. “rafe cameron.”

you tilted your head, studying him. “you’re not from naboo.”

he laughed, a sound that came out sharper than he intended. “no, i’m not. and you’re not from around here.”

you didn’t smile, but there was a flicker of amusement in your eyes. “no. i’m not.”

the older jedi stepped forward, a subtle but clear gesture of protection. “your majesty,” he said gently, “we should move on.” your gaze lingered on the young boy for a moment longer before she nodded. “of course, master qui-gon.”

rafe watched as you turned and walked away, the jedi and your guards forming a protective circle around you. he felt a strange pang in his chest, a sense of loss he couldn’t explain. but he wasn’t ready to let you go.

as you and your entourage made your way through the market, rafe followed at a distance, keeping to the shadows. he wasn’t sure why—something about you drew him in, a magnetic pull he couldn’t resist. you were out of place here, just like him, and he wanted to understand why. he wasn’t the only one watching you, though. across the market, a group of rough-looking men had begun to move, their eyes fixed on you with a predatory gleam. rafe recognized them immediately—slavers, the kind who preyed on the weak and desperate.

his jaw tightened. slavers were common on Ilthara, and while the cameron syndicate didn’t deal in flesh, his father often turned a blind eye to their operations. But this was different. you didn’t belong here, and you didn’t deserve to fall into their hands. without thinking, rafe quickened his pace, slipping through the crowd until he was just behind the slavers. they were murmuring to each other, their intentions clear.

“she’ll fetch a high price,” one of them muttered.

“keep your voice down,” another snapped. “wait for the right moment.”

rafe’s hands clenched into fists. he didn’t know what he could do against men twice his size, but he couldn’t just stand by. before he could act, though, the jedi moved. qui-gon and the younger man—obi-wan, rafe overheard someone say—turned as one, their movements fluid and precise. In the blink of an eye, their lightsabers ignited, blue and green blades humming with an otherworldly energy.

the crowd scattered, gasps and screams filling the air as the jedi advanced on the slavers. the men hesitated for a moment, clearly realizing they were outmatched, before fleeing into the shadows. rafe stood frozen, his heart pounding. he’d never seen a lightsaber in action before, and the sight of it left him awestruck.

you turned, your expression calm but your eyes wary. “is everything all right, master qui-gon?”

he deactivated his saber, nodding. “for now. but we should hurry. this place is dangerous.”

as the group began to move again, rafe found himself stepping forward. “wait!” he called, surprising even himself. you had turned around, your brow furrowing slightly.

“you’re not safe here,” rafe said, his voice steadier than he felt. “i can help you.”

qui-gon regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and caution. “and why would you help us?”

rafe hesitated, his gaze shifting to you. “because i can,” he said finally. “and because i want to.” for a moment, no one spoke. then, you nodded. “very well. lead the way, rafe cameron.”

the air in the dimly lit chamber buzzed with tension as the group huddled around the holographic map of the galaxy. you, with your regal poise unwavering even under dire circumstances—listened intently to qui-gon and obi-wan discuss their next move.

“our best course of action is to reach coruscant,” qui-gon said, his deep voice steady. “the galactic senate must be informed of the trade federation’s blockade and the invasion of naboo. they may not act swiftly, but they need to know.”

you nodded, your expression unreadable. “and how do we get there with a damaged hyperdrive? we’re stranded unless we make repairs.”

obi-wan leaned over the console, his brow furrowed. “there’s a remote desert planet nearby—tatooine. its location on the outer rim keeps it out of the trade federation’s reach. we might find the parts we need there.”

“you’re suggesting we gamble on the resources of a planet run by gangsters and criminals?” captain panaka interjected, his voice tight with concern.

qui-gon’s expression softened but remained resolute. “it’s a risk, but one we must take. staying here is not an option.”

in the corner of the room, rafe stood quietly, listening but not fully understanding the weight of their decision. his sharp blue eyes darted between the speakers, lingering on you—now disguised as a handmaiden. you had shed the heavy robes and ornate headdress of naboo royalty, blending into the background with the other attendants.

rafe’s gaze lingered as you adjusted the folds of your cloak, your every movement drawing his attention like a magnet. he had never seen anyone so poised, so out of reach yet entirely captivating. the sleek silver starship descended onto the golden sands of tatooine, its engines whining as the ship struggled to land smoothly. the harsh desert sun blazed overhead, reflecting off the endless dunes and casting long shadows.

the group disembarked cautiously, the arid heat hitting them like a physical force. rafe shielded his eyes from the glare, taking in the sprawling spaceport of mos espa—a chaotic mix of ramshackle buildings, alien vendors, and dust-choked streets.

“i don’t like this place,” rafe muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.

qui-gon, accompanied by jar jar binks and r2-d2, turned to face you and your disguised attendants. “stay with the ship. i’ll find the parts we need.”

you stepped forward, determined despite the jedi’s warning look. “master jinn, perhaps i can assist. i’ve learned to barter and negotiate during my time in service.”

qui-gon hesitated, then nodded. “stay close.”

rafe immediately perked up. “can i come too?”

obi-wan stepped in, his voice firm. “you’ll remain here, rafe. it’s safer.” the boy frowned but didn’t argue. instead, he watched as you and the others disappeared into the labyrinth of the marketplace.

rafe spent the better part of the day wandering near the ship, restless and bored. when you finally returned, dusty and weary from the search, he rushed to meet you. there wasn’t a chance in the world of him taking his eyes off you, not when you looked so beautiful, so etherreal—unlike anything he had ever seen.

“are you an angel?” he blurted out, his cheeks flushing the moment the words left his mouth.

you paused, taken aback by the question. “excuse me?”

“an angel,” he repeated, his voice more confident this time. “i heard some pilots talking about them. they’re the most beautiful creatures in the galaxy, and they live on the moons of Iego. are you from there?”

a smile tugged at your lips, despite yourself. “no, i’m afraid not.”

“well, you look like one,” rafe said earnestly.

the sincerity in his eyes caught you off guard. for all his young swagger and bravado, there was still a boyish innocence to him—a flicker of hope in an otherwise hardened exterior. you crouched to his level, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “you’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?” rafe grinned, the kind of grin that hinted at the man he would someday become.

that evening, as you sat with obi-wan outside the ship, he explained the harsh realities of tatooine. “slavery is rampant here,” obi-wan said, his voice low. “the hutts control most of the planet, and anyone who crosses them doesn’t last long.”

“and rafe?” you asked, your heart sinking. “he’s a slave too, isn’t he?”

obi-wan nodded. “he belongs to the cameron family—a notorious group of slavers who’ve operated here for decades. his father is ruthless, but the boy—he’s different. there’s something about him.” your chest tightened. you had sensed it too—a spark in rafe that defied his circumstances, a potential for something greater.

when qui-gon proposed entering rafe in the boonta eve classic podrace to win the parts they needed, the boy’s face lit up with excitement. “i can do it,” he insisted. “i’ve built my own podracer. it’s fast—really fast.” you weren’t too thrilled with the idea of sending someone so young off, knowing the damage that it could do, but he persisted, nonetheless.

your worries failed to falter, even as the race started. it all seemed like a blur of adrenaline and danger, the roar of engines echoing across the desert. you watched from the stands, your heart in your throat as rafe maneuvered his podracer with skill and precision far beyond his years. your worries were cut short when he crossed the finish line, the sound of the crowd erupting in cheers drowning out your fear.

while preparing to leave tatooine, a conspicuous shadow fell over the dunes. to the others, he needed no introduction, but the look of fear in rafe’s eyes made it evident that he bad no idea what he was really getting into. when darth maul appeared, his crimson double-bladed lightsaber ignited with a menacing hum.

qui-gon faced him head-on, his green blade contradicting the sith’s fiery red. “go!” he had shouted over his shoulder. “get to the ship!” rafe clutched your hand as you ran, his small fingers trembling. the clash of sabers rang in your ears, the stakes suddenly feeling far too real for him to handle.

the hangar bay of the naboo palace was silent save for the hum of the force field gates and the ominous footsteps of darth maul. his black robes swept the floor as he stepped forward, his tattooed face a mask of focus and malevolence. qui-gon jinn and obi-wan kenobi ignited their lightsabers, the green and blue blades illuminating their determined faces. maul, in response, revealed his double-bladed crimson weapon, both ends sparking to life with a snap-hiss. the sith’s grin widened. he prowled like a predator sizing up its prey.

the first clash of sabers echoed across the chamber, a flurry of sparks flying as the jedi and the sith locked into combat. qui-gon moved with deliberate precision, his strikes steady and purposeful. obi-wan, younger and more agile, darted around maul with quick, fluid movements, searching for an opening. maul, however, held the advantage. his acrobatics were dazzling, his twin blades a blur of lethal light.

from the shadows, you watched with bated breath. the duel was unlike anything you had ever seen—elegant yet brutal, a deadly dance of light and shadow. rafe stood beside you, his small hands gripping the railing tightly. his wide eyes reflected the glow of the sabers, a mix of awe and fear etched into his face.

“they can win, right?” he asked quietly.

you glanced at him, unsure of how to respond. “they have to.”

the duel moved out of the hangar and into a long, narrow corridor lined with energy barriers that activated and deactivated in rhythmic intervals. the combatants were forced to adapt to the environment, their battle pausing and resuming as the barriers shifted. obi-wan, momentarily separated from qui-gon, stood helplessly behind one of the fields, his face tense with worry. qui-gon faced maul alone, his strikes still strong but beginning to slow. the sith pressed the advantage, his movements relentless and precise. with a sudden, ferocious lunge, he struck qui-gon in the chest.

“no!” obi-wan’s shout echoed down the corridor as qui-gon staggered backward, his lightsaber slipping from his grasp. he collapsed to the floor, clutching his wound, his breath ragged.

in the hangar, rafe turned to you, his expression panicked. “we have to help them!”

“stay here,” you said firmly, grabbing his arm before he could dart off. “you’ll only put yourself in danger.”

“i can’t just stand here!” he insisted, his voice cracking.

“listen to me,” you said, crouching to meet his eye level. “sometimes, the best thing we can do is trust them to do what they’ve trained for.” rafe hesitated, tears pooling in his eyes, but he nodded reluctantly.

when the energy barrier deactivated, obi-wan surged forward, his lightsaber a blur of blue light as he unleashed a flurry of attacks on maul. his strikes were fueled by rage and grief, each swing more aggressive than the last. maul, however, was ready. he deflected obi-wan’s blows with ease, his smug grin only stoking the jedi’s fury. the fight moved to a deep reactor shaft, its narrow walkways suspended over a seemingly endless drop.

maul’s taunts were silent but evident, his predatory gaze daring obi-wan to make a mistake. and he did. with a precise kick, maul sent the jedi tumbling over the edge. obi-wan managed to grab hold of a protruding ledge, his lightsaber falling into the abyss below. hanging precariously, he looked up to see maul looming above him, his red blade poised for the killing blow.

in the hangar, rafe’s restless energy reached a boiling point. “i have to do something,” he muttered, his voice trembling. before you could stop him, he darted toward the starship he had piloted earlier. Yyu called after him, but he was already climbing into the cockpit.

“what are you doing?” you shouted.

“helping!” he called back, his voice muffled by the canopy.

rafe powered up the starfighter, its engines roaring to life. he maneuvered it with surprising skill, guiding it toward the palace’s main control tower. in the reactor shaft, obi-wan closed his eyes, drawing on the force to calm his racing heart. he reached out with his mind, summoning qui-gon’s fallen lightsaber.

the green blade flew into his outstretched hand, igniting just as maul prepared to strike. with a powerful leap, obi-wan launched himself back onto the walkway, catching the sith off guard. in a final, decisive move, he sliced through maul’s midsection. the sith’s body fell into the abyss, his expression of shock frozen in time. obi-wan deactivated the lightsaber, quick to rush to qui-gon’s side.

the jedi master’s face was pale, his breaths shallow. “obi-wan, promise me something,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

“anything, master,” he said, tears streaming down his face.

“train the boy,” qui-gon said, his gaze shifting to rafe, who had just entered the room. “he—he is the chosen one.” and just like that, his eyes closed, his head tilting to the side as he breathed his last.

in the skies above naboo, rafe found himself in the middle of the battle. his small hands gripped the controls tightly as he weaved through enemy fire, his instincts guiding him. he accidentally entered the droid control ship’s hangar, where his starfighter’s torpedoes misfired, hitting the reactor core. a chain reaction of explosions began to tear the ship apart.

“oops,” he muttered, his face pale as he scrambled to escape. he barely made it out as the control ship exploded in a brilliant flash of light. the droid army on the surface shut down, collapsing mid-attack.

the people of naboo and the gungans united in celebration. the streets of theed were filled with music and cheers as you and your allies marched in triumph.

rafe stood beside you, his face a mix of pride and uncertainty. “i didn’t mean to blow it up,” he said sheepishly.

you laughed, ruffling his hair. “you saved the day, rafe. don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

the galaxy had grown restless in the years since the boy named rafe won his freedom and began training under obi-wan kenobi. the republic, once a beacon of peace and stability, was now a fractured entity, its senate riddled with corruption and inefficiency. systems began seceding, joining the separatists under the enigmatic count dooku, a former jedi turned political leader. whispers of war rippled through the galaxy, and the jedi order found itself stretched thin, forced to serve as both peacekeepers and soldiers in a galaxy teetering on the edge of chaos.

rafe had changed in the years since he was freed. the child who once wore a lopsided grin and looked at the stars with wonder had grown into a man. his presence was commanding, his voice steady, his features refined and sharp. the dark curls of his hair framed his face, and his eyes, once bright with innocence, now carried the weight of someone who had seen far too much in far too little time. he stood taller now, his shoulders broad, his movements deliberate. his strength in the force had blossomed, but his emotions—intense and untamed—remained a challenge for him, often clashing with the rigid codes of the jedi order.

it was during this period of uncertainty that your paths crossed again. you had grown too, rising to prominence as a senator, your voice a steady force of reason in the republic’s senate. it had been years since you’d seen rafe, but his memory lingered in the back of your mind like a distant star, faint but unwavering. your days were consumed by the demands of politics, and your nights offered little solace as the threats against your life increased. the stakes of the galaxy's future weighed heavily on you, and danger had become a constant companion.

the jedi council assigned obi-wan kenobi and his padawan, rafe, to your protection after the first assassination attempt nearly claimed your life. the moment you saw him again, your breath caught in your throat. he was no longer the boy you remembered but a man who carried himself with a quiet confidence that was almost disarming. his robes flowed elegantly around him, and his gaze, once warm and open, now held an intensity that both unnerved and captivated you.

“senator,” he greeted with a formal bow, his voice deep and steady.

you met his gaze, your own faltering for a moment. “rafe. it’s been a long time.”

his lips twitched as though he wanted to smile, but the weight of his role kept his expression neutral. “too long,” he replied, his tone betraying the slightest hint of warmth. for a time, it seemed his mentor, obi-wan, was the only one who noticed the flicker of something unspoken between you.

the night of the second assassination attempt was chaotic. you awoke to the faint hum of servos as a sleek droid slipped into your quarters, its metallic limbs moving with eerie precision. before you could cry out, the door burst open, and rafe was there, his lightsaber blazing. the blue glow of his weapon illuminated the room as he moved with the grace and precision of a trained warrior, slicing the droid in two before it could harm you.

he turned to you immediately, his breathing slightly labored. “are you hurt?”

you shook your head, still shaken but unharmed. “no. i’m fine, thanks to you.”

obi-wan arrived shortly after, assessing the scene with his sharp eyes. “this attack was no coincidence. they’ll try again. we need to get the senator off-world.”

rafe nodded, his jaw tightening. “i’ll go with her.”

obi-wan hesitated, his gaze flickering between you and rafe. “are you sure that’s wise?”

“i’ll keep her safe,” rafe said with a conviction that left no room for argument.

the journey to naboo was quiet. the lush, rolling hills and tranquil lakes of your home planet offered a stark contrast to the chaos you had left behind on coruscant. for the first time in what felt like years, you could breathe. yet, even amidst the serenity of naboo, there was an unspoken tension between you and rafe, a tension that grew with each passing day.

one evening, the two of you sat by the water’s edge, the setting sun casting golden hues over the lake. rafe broke the silence, his voice softer than usual. “i used to dream about this place. when i was a boy, on tatooine, i used to imagine what it would be like to see naboo with my own eyes.”

you glanced at him, your heart aching at the memory of the boy he had been. “and now that you’re here?”

“it’s more beautiful than i could have imagined,” he said, his gaze lingering on you as he spoke.

his words hung in the air between you, heavy with meaning. you turned away, your mind racing. “rafe, we can’t. you know what the jedi code says.”

“i don’t care about the code,” he said, his voice suddenly fierce. “not when it comes to you.”

before you could respond, he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours in a kiss that was tentative but full of emotion. for a moment, you let yourself get lost in it, in him, before pulling away, your heart pounding.

“rafe, this isn’t right,” you whispered, though your voice lacked conviction. you couldn’t focus on what your heart asked for, you needed to focus on what mattered—your people.

“i know,” he admitted, his voice barely audible. “but it doesn’t change how i feel.”

the days that followed were as tense as ever, both of you teetering on the edge of something forbidden yet irresistible. but rafe’s peace was short-lived. his dreams began to haunt him, vivid and terrifying visions of his mother in pain, crying out for help. he woke one night drenched in sweat, his breathing ragged.

“i need to go to tatooine,” he told you the next morning, his expression grim.

you didn’t hesitate. “i’ll go with you.”

the journey to tatooine was somber, and the planet greeted you with its unforgiving heat and endless dunes. at the lars homestead, rafe learned the devastating truth: his mother had been taken by tusken raiders weeks ago. without hesitation, he mounted a speeder and sped off into the desert, his jaw set with determination.

you followed, arriving at the camp just in time to witness the aftermath. the ground was littered with the bodies of tusken raiders, and rafe stood amidst the carnage, his lightsaber still ignited. his chest heaved with exertion, his face a mask of anguish and fury. later, back at the ship, he confessed everything to you, his voice trembling with shame and anger.

“i killed them,” he said, his gaze fixed on the floor. “every last one of them. and not just the men, but the women, and the children. they were animals, and i slaughtered them like animals.”

you reached for him, but he pulled away, his shoulders shaking. “i couldn’t save her. i couldn’t do anything.”

you sat beside him in silence, your heart breaking for the man who was clearly at war with himself.

the galaxy had shifted once again, and as the republic scrambled to understand the scope of the growing separatist threat, rafe’s anguish over his mother’s death weighed heavily on him. the dark seed planted in his heart during that moment of rage on tatooine had begun to take root. you could see it in the way his jaw clenched, in the faraway look that occasionally clouded his otherwise piercing eyes. his internal struggle was palpable, and it pained you to see the boy you once knew so tormented by emotions he couldn’t control.

you left tatooine quickly, both of you seeking distance from the horrors that had transpired. rafe was quieter now, his usual confidence replaced by a brooding intensity. even as you tried to comfort him, offering words of solace and gentle touches on his arm, you could feel the wall he had built around himself growing thicker.

your brief respite was interrupted when rafe received word from obi-wan. his mentor had tracked the bounty hunter responsible for the attempts on your life to the planet kamino. there, obi-wan had discovered a massive army of clones commissioned in secret years ago, supposedly at the request of a long-dead jedi named sifo-dyas. the clones were based on the genetic template of the very bounty hunter who had tried to kill you.

rafe listened to the transmission in silence, his expression unreadable. when obi-wan informed him that he was pursuing the bounty hunter to geonosis, rafe turned to you. “i have to help him,” he said simply, his voice steady but heavy with determination.

“and what about me?” you asked, your heart sinking at the thought of him leaving.

his gaze softened, the conflict in his eyes breaking through his stoic demeanor. “i need you to stay safe. but if you insist on coming with me, i won’t stop you. i can’t bear to leave you behind.”

you chose to go with him. the two of you traveled to geonosis, where the tension between you only deepened. the unspoken feelings, the stolen moments, the lingering glances—they all weighed heavily on both of you. upon arriving on the barren, rocky world, it didn’t take long to locate obi-wan. unfortunately, you were quickly captured by separatist forces and thrown into a holding cell alongside him. rafe’s frustration was evident as he paced the confines of your prison, his fists clenched and his mind racing for a way to escape.

“rafe, calm down,” obi-wan urged, his voice steady. “losing control won’t help us here.”

rafe shot him a look, his jaw tightening. “i won’t let them hurt her,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

before either of you could respond, you were dragged from your cell and taken to the geonosian arena. the heat of the midday sun was oppressive as you were chained to one of three stone pillars. across the sand, monstrous creatures were released, their snarls and roars filling the air.

the fight that ensued was desperate. rafe moved like a whirlwind, using his lightsaber and the force to keep the creatures at bay. obi-wan fought alongside him, their movements fluid and precise despite the dire circumstances. you did your best to fend off the beast that lunged toward you, using the resources around you to stay alive until rafe reached your side.

“i’ve got you,” he said, his voice steady despite the chaos. his words were both a promise and a comfort, and for a moment, you allowed yourself to believe that everything would be okay.

relief came in the form of mace windu and a battalion of jedi, their lightsabers igniting in unison as they stormed the arena. the sight was awe-inspiring, and for a moment, it seemed as though victory was within reach. but the separatists refused to surrender, and the battle quickly escalated into an all-out war as droids poured into the arena.

in the midst of it, you were separated from rafe. he fought valiantly alongside obi-wan, his determination unwavering despite the odds. when the bounty hunter jango fett was killed in the melee, rafe barely spared him a glance, his focus fixed on the larger threat looming over the galaxy.

the battle raged on, culminating in a chase as count dooku attempted to flee the planet. rafe and obi-wan pursued him, their dropship racing across the barren landscape. you had managed to rejoin them, but the pursuit took a devastating turn when you were thrown from the ship during a violent maneuver.

“turn back!” rafe shouted, his voice filled with panic.

obi-wan grabbed his arm, his tone firm. “we can’t. if we lose dooku now, everything we’ve fought for will be in vain.” rafe hesitated, his eyes darting between you and the fading trail of dooku’s ship. finally, he made the painful decision to continue the chase, his jaw tightening as he turned away from the sight of you lying unconscious on the ground below.

the confrontation with dooku was brutal. the sith lord was a formidable opponent, his skill with a lightsaber far surpassing what either rafe or obi-wan had anticipated. rafe fought with everything he had, his emotions driving him as much as his training. but it wasn’t enough. dooku struck him down, severing his arm and leaving him writhing in pain on the ground.

obi-wan fared no better, and it wasn’t until yoda arrived that dooku’s escape was delayed. the diminutive jedi master fought valiantly, but dooku ultimately escaped, taking with him plans for a devastating weapon—the death star.

when you finally reunited with rafe, his injuries were severe, but his spirit remained unbroken. you stayed by his side as he recovered, your feelings for him growing stronger with each passing day. the war had only just begun, and the galaxy was in chaos, but for a brief moment, there was peace in the small, secret world you shared with him.

it was on naboo, under the soft light of the moon, that you and rafe made a choice that would forever alter the course of your lives. despite the jedi code, despite the war, despite everything, you pledged yourselves to each other in a quiet ceremony. it was a forbidden union, but in that moment, it felt like the only thing that truly mattered.

the soft hum of naboo's evening air filled the quiet, secluded garden where your forbidden ceremony was to take place. the lush greenery was dappled with the golden light of fireflies, their glow dancing along the delicate petals of exotic flowers that framed the scene. a serene lake stretched into the horizon, its waters mirroring the full moon and the endless stars above. everything felt alive and magical, as though the galaxy itself was holding its breath for this moment.

rafe stood beneath a canopy of wisteria, his tall figure framed by the delicate purple blooms. he was clad in simple jedi robes, but the way they draped over his broad shoulders made him look regal, commanding. his golden hair caught the moonlight, and his face held a mixture of determination and vulnerability. his eyes, deep and filled with unspoken emotion, never left yours as you approached him.

you wore a gown of soft ivory, simple yet elegant. it flowed like water, trailing behind you as you walked barefoot through the grass. your hair was adorned with small blossoms that rafe had picked himself earlier that day, each one a symbol of the beauty he saw in you.

the only witness to your union was the droid, r2-d2, who had faithfully followed rafe throughout his journey. his small, chirping beeps provided an oddly comforting backdrop, a reminder of the innocence and wonder that still existed despite the turmoil of the galaxy.

rafe reached for your hands the moment you were close enough, his touch warm and grounding. his thumb brushed over your knuckles as he took a steadying breath, his voice soft but firm when he spoke.

“i know this is forbidden,” he began, his words heavy with the weight of his choice. “but i also know that my love for you is stronger than anything I’ve ever been taught to fear. the code, it’s meant to protect us, but it can’t define what’s in my heart. and my heart belongs to you.”

you felt a lump form in your throat, your emotions threatening to overwhelm you. you squeezed his hands, your voice trembling as you replied.

“rafe, i’ve spent so long trying to suppress how i feel, trying to convince myself that this—this isn’t real. but it is. and i can’t imagine a future without you in it. if loving you is wrong, then i’ll break every rule a thousand times over, just to be by your side.”

he smiled, a rare, genuine smile that lit up his entire face. “you’ve always been braver than me,” he murmured, his voice tinged with admiration.

you both turned toward the small hologram projector that r2-d2 had activated, its flickering light casting an ethereal glow over the scene. the image of a naboo holy figure appeared, his serene expression a contrast to the quiet defiance in your hearts.

“do you, rafe cameron, take this woman to be your partner, to love her and stand by her, no matter what trials the galaxy may bring?”

rafe’s gaze never wavered from yours. “i do,” he said, his voice steady, filled with unwavering conviction.

“and do you, senator (y/n) (l/n),” the figure turned to you, “take this man to be your partner, to love him and remain by his side, through light and shadow?”

your lips trembled as you whispered, “i do.”

rafe reached into his pocket, pulling out a simple ring he had crafted himself. it wasn’t made of expensive materials, but the smooth, polished band reflected the care and effort he had put into it. he slid it onto your finger, his hands trembling slightly.

“i give you this ring,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion, “as a symbol of my promise to you. no matter where the galaxy takes us, no matter what challenges we face, i will always find my way back to you.”

you blinked back tears, pulling a similar band from your pocket. it was simple, but etched along its surface were faint patterns you had carved—a representation of the stars and the bond you shared. you placed it on his finger, your hands steady despite the flood of emotion. “and i give you this ring,” you said, your voice strong, “to remind you that you are my home. wherever you are, rafe, that’s where i’ll always belong.”

he stepped closer, his hands cradling your face as he leaned in. “i love you,” he whispered, his breath warm against your lips. as his lips met yours, the world around you seemed to fade away. the fireflies paused their dance, the gentle rustle of the trees grew still, and for a moment, it was as though time itself held its breath.

rafe hadn’t returned to the jedi temple that night. the weight of his choices, the life he was trying to lead, and the love he could no longer deny had driven him straight to you. like a moth drawn to a flame, he was helpless against the pull you had over him, as though you had tethered him with an invisible string that always brought him back. every thought of you consumed him, every beat of his heart ached for the solace only you could provide.

the quiet hum of the naboo night greeted him as he slipped into your quarters, his presence nearly undetectable. his robes swished softly against the floor as he moved through the darkened space, the moonlight streaming through the curtains casting silver trails across the bed where you waited for him. his breath caught in his throat as he took in the sight of you.

you were lying there, your body delicate on top of the thin sheets, wearing only a white lace tank top and the soft fabric of your panties. your hair cascaded over the pillow, catching the moonlight like strands of spun gold. the soft rise and fall of your chest matched the calm serenity of the room, but the look in your eyes—half-lidded, smoldering, filled with unspoken yearning—held an intensity that set his heart ablaze.

rafe’s steps slowed as he approached the foot of your bed. his jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides as though he were trying to anchor himself, to restrain the wild tide of emotions surging within him. but the moment you reached out for him, all of his resolve crumbled.

“you’re here,” you whispered softly, your voice like a melody that seemed to soothe every wound he carried.

“i couldn’t stay away,” he whispered back, his voice thick with emotion as he sank onto the edge of the bed. he reached out hesitantly, his fingers brushing against your cheek with a tenderness that made your heart ache. “you’re the most beautiful flower i’ve ever picked,” he murmured, his words carrying the weight of his reverence for you.

a soft blush bloomed across your cheeks, but you didn’t shy away from his touch. Instead, you reached for his hands, guiding them with deliberate slowness to the thin straps of your tank top. your eyes held his, unwavering and filled with trust, as you slid the straps down past your shoulders. the fabric fell just enough to reveal the delicate curve of your collarbone, and his breath hitched at the sight.

“i love you, rafe,” you whispered, the words barely audible but carrying the depth of your feelings. it was enough to unravel him completely.

his lips descended on yours with a softness that surprised you. there was no rush, no desperation—just the slow, deliberate melding of his mouth with yours. his hands cradled your face, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks as though he couldn’t bear to let you go. the kiss deepened, his lips moving against yours with a passion that left you breathless, and yet it was tender, reverent, as though he were afraid of breaking you.

when he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the quiet of the room. his hands slipped down to your shoulders, tracing the bare skin there as though memorizing every curve and line.

“i’ve never felt anything like this before,” he admitted, his voice a soft murmur against your lips. “you’ve changed everything for me, you’re my light.”

you reached up to cup his face, your fingers threading through his golden hair. his lips found yours again, with more urgency, more need. his hands trailed down your arms, brushing over the straps of your tank top until they slipped further down, baring more of your skin to the cool night air. you shivered beneath his touch, but it wasn’t from the cold—it was the warmth of his hands, the way they ignited a fire within you that only he could soothe.

his kiss grew deeper, more possessive, as his hands found the straps of your tank top once more. with a gentle tug, he pulled it down, watching the way the silk slipped down your body, revealing your breasts to the moonlit room. rafe’s eyes darkened, and he took a moment to drink in the sight of you, his breath coming in shallow gasps. “my beautiful wife,” was all he could manage to utter.

you watched him, your eyes filled with a mix of anticipation and love. you could feel your heart pounding in your chest, echoing the rhythm of the night outside. rafe’s hand slid up, cupping one of your breasts, his thumb flicking over the sensitive nipple. a soft moan escaped your lips, and he took that as his cue to lean down, capturing the peak in his mouth, his tongue swirling around the tightened bud.

your hands found his robes, pulling at the material. the fabric was thick, but yielded easily to your insistent touch. rafe helped you, his own hands trembling with desire. you watch the robes slide off, revealing his bare chest, his muscles taut and warm. you ran your hands over his skin, feeling his heart pound in sync with yours, the heat of his body against your palms.

his kisses grew more frantic as he moved down your body, his teeth grazing over the sensitive skin of your neck and collarbone. his hands found the waistband of your panties, and with a gentle tug, he pulled them down. you lifted your hips to assist, eager to feel the fullness of his touch. his kisses traveled lower, along your torso, until his mouth reached the juncture of your thighs. your breath caught as he kissed along the inner length of your thighs, teasing you, driving you wild with anticipation. finally, his mouth found the center of your desire, his tongue flicking against your clit in a way that made your toes curl.

“rafe,” you whispered, threading your fingers through his hair. “feels so good, ’s too much.”

when you thought you had reached the final state of nirvana too high to manage, rafe pressed a finger into you, curling it upwards and gently pumping in and out. “have to get you ready for me, yeah?” he murmured between pumping and licking. after a few pumps, he added another finger, keeping a steady rhythm with his tongue against your clit, his long fingers hitting the exact right spot again, and again, and again. your breath began hitching and the edges of an orgasm neared. rafe continued pumping into you, pushing her closer toward the edge, his tongue a warm, wet pressure guiding you through your first time.

finally, you felt yourself crest over the edge, your body spasming and shaking with pleasure. “oh, rafe,” you whispered, your eyes squeezed shut. when you opened them, you swore you could finally see your husband in his glory. he looked at you as if you were all that mattered, as if he would do anything—cross anyone—just for your sake. he looked at you, and only you, because you were all he could see.

his mouth pulled away from your center, and he looked up at you with a proud, smug smile. “good?”

you nodded, unable to form coherent words. “so good.”

his smile grew wider, and he sat back, pulling his fingers from you. he stood up and pulled his robes the rest of the way off, revealing just how much he really needed you, standing proud and ready. you couldn’t help but look away, despite it was being everything you dreamed of, in a terrifyingly intimidating way. just a few days ago, you were the senator, your priority was your people. now, you were about to make love in secret, with the man you had married in secret.

rafe frowned at the look on your face. “it’ll be okay,” he assured, his voice soothing. “i promise, it’ll be okay.” you nodded, still trying to catch your breath. he took your hand, rubbing reassuring circles into your skin with a warm smile. it was his way of telling you that everything was going to be okay, reminding you of the reason you’d married him in the first place. he leaned over and kissed you, deep and passionate. once again, his hands found yours and he interlocked your fingers, squeezing them tight as he positioned himself between your legs.

his cock hovered above your entrance, the tip glistening with precum. you could feel the warmth of him, the heat of his desire. “are you ready?” he whispered, his voice thick with need.

you nodded, your heart racing. “yes,” you breathed. “i’m ready.”

his eyes searched yours, looking for any sign of doubt or hesitation. finding none, he began to press himself into you, inch by agonizing inch. you bit your bottom lip to stifle a gasp as you felt yourself stretch around him. the pain was intense, but it was mixed with something else—a feeling of completeness, of finally being where you belonged. rafe’s eyes never left yours, his expression a mix of pleasure and pain, his teeth gritted as he pushed through the resistance of your virginity.

once he was fully sheathed, he stilled for a moment, allowing you to adjust to the new sensation. “are you okay?” he couldn’t help but ask again, his voice strained with effort.

you nodded, feeling the tears prickle at the corners of your eyes. “yes,” you whispered. “don’t stop.”

he began to move, his hips rolling into you in a slow, steady rhythm that seemed to echo the heartbeat of the entire galaxy. you felt your body responding to him, tightening around him, drawing him in deeper with every stroke. the pain began to recede, replaced by something much more powerful—desire. being this close to you, this intimate—it was intoxicating.

you wrapped your arms around his neck, your legs locking around his waist, pulling him closer. rafe’s eyes closed, his head dropping to your shoulder as he began to thrust into you with more force. your moans grew louder, your body moving in perfect sync with his. it was as though you had been made for this, as though every cell in your body had been waiting for this moment. the room grew warmer, the air thick with passion and need. the smell of your arousal filled the air, mingling with the scent of his sweat, creating a heady aroma that only served to drive him wilder. he could feel himself getting closer to the edge, but he didn’t want it to end. not yet.

rafe’s hand slid between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit again. he began to rub in slow circles, matching the rhythm of his hips. your muscles tightened around him, your nails digging into his skin as you climbed closer to your peak. “rafe, rafe, rafe,” you chanted, your voice breathy and desperate, as if his name was the only thing on your mind. that was exactly how he wanted it to be.

his strokes grew quicker, more urgent, as he felt his own climax approaching. “i’m so close,” he murmured into your ear, his voice ragged with desire. he contemplated his choices, his eyes hazy with an unspoken wish that needed no words, you could see it in the way he looked at you. “can i—”

you nodded, your eyes squeezed shut, your body taut with anticipation. “yes, rafe. please.”

he buried his face in your neck, his teeth grazing your skin as he felt his release building, the tension coiling in his belly as he held you close, almost as if he was afraid of losing you. he held you, his hips snapping against your flesh as he pumped in and out of you. finally, with a guttural groan, he came, his warmth filling you. he held still for a moment, his breaths hot against your neck as he enjoyed the feeling of your body clenching around him. you felt a strange sense of pride, knowing that you had brought this powerful man to such a vulnerable state.

you both laid there, panting, your bodies entwined as the aftershocks of pleasure rippled through you. his weight was comforting, grounding. you felt a sense of peace that you hadn’t felt in a long time. the room was silent except for the sound of your hearts beating in unison. slowly, rafe pulled out of you, the stickiness of your combined releases a stark reminder of the intimate act you had just shared. he leaned over, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead before rolling off the bed to grab a towel. he cleaned you up gently, wiping away any trace of himself from your body, treating you with a tenderness that was almost unbearable.

the galaxy stood on the precipice of change, the once-stalwart republic teetering under the weight of war. the clone wars raged on, leaving scars on planets and people alike. rafe, now a celebrated jedi knight, had become a war hero, hailed for his bravery and skill in battle. yet, beneath his stoic exterior, a storm brewed. the weight of his love for you, his clandestine wife, and the growing disillusionment with the jedi order were forces he could no longer ignore.

the council chambers of the jedi temple felt colder each day. rafe’s faith in the order had wavered. where once he had found guidance and purpose, he now encountered doubt and dismissal. his master, obi-wan, once a source of wisdom, now seemed more like an obstacle, a reminder of the life rafe could never fully embrace. in contrast, supreme chancellor palpatine had become a source of reassurance. his subtle praise and unyielding support had planted seeds of trust—and something darker—in rafe’s heart.

on a fateful mission, rafe infiltrated general rievous’s flagship to rescue chancellor palpatine, who had been “kidnapped” by the separatists. the mission was perilous, but rafe’s unparalleled determination saw them through. in the throne room of the ship, the two jedi confronted count dooku, the sith lord who had orchestrated much of the war.

lightsabers clashed in a symphony of sparks and fury, leaving rafe to face dooku alone. the duel was a blur of motion, rafe’s anger fueling his every strike. with a deft maneuver, he disarmed dooku, leaving the sith lord kneeling before him, defenseless.

“good, rafe,” palpatine said, his voice smooth and serpentine. “kill him. do it.”

he had hesitated, his lightsaber trembling in his grip. “he should stand trial,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.

“trial?” palpatine scoffed. “he’s too dangerous to be kept alive. he’s the reason for this war, rafe. end it.”

dooku’s eyes widened, and for the first time, fear crossed his face. rafe looked into those eyes and saw not just an enemy, but a representation of every failure, every loss, every injustice he had endured. with a surge of anger, he ignited his blade, slashing it through dooku’s neck. the sith lord’s head fell to the floor, and with it, a piece of rafe’s soul.

the ship landed safely, and the republic hailed rafe as a hero. but his heart felt heavier than ever. he returned to you, seeking solace in the one person who could still bring him peace. you were waiting on the balcony of your apartment, the coruscant skyline glittering in the distance. the soft breeze carried the scent of the city, but it was the sight of you that arrested him. standing there, illuminated by the warm glow of the city lights, you were his sanctuary.

“you’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he approached, his voice heavy with emotion.

you turned, smiling softly. “it’s only because i’m so in love.”

he chuckled, his hands cupping your face. “no, it’s because i’m so in love with you.”

you kissed him, slow and tender, the world falling away. as you pulled back, you placed his hand gently on your abdomen. “rafe,” you began, your voice trembling with both excitement and fear, “i’m pregnant.”

his eyes widened, and for a moment, he was silent, his breath stolen by the enormity of your words. then, a brilliant smile spread across his face. “we’re going to have a child?” you nodded, tears welling in your eyes. he pulled you into his arms, holding you as though he could shield you from the galaxy itself. but as joy filled his heart, so too did a seed of fear.

the dreams began soon after. dark, haunting visions of you in pain, of your life slipping away as you brought their child into the world. each night, he woke in a cold sweat, the image of your lifeless body seared into his mind. the fear of losing you consumed him, driving him to the brink of obsession.

palpatine had noticed his turmoil and offered him a glimmer of hope. he spoke of darth plagueis, a sith lord who had unlocked the secrets of life and death. “there are ways to save those you love,” palpatine hinted, his words weaving a web around rafe’s fragile resolve. but the jedi council grew wary of palpatine’s influence. they tasked rafe with spying on the chancellor, a mission that stoked the fires of his anger. how could they ask him to betray the one man who had shown him unwavering support?

when rafe discovered that palpatine was darth sidious, the sith lord orchestrating the war, his world crumbled. he reported the revelation to the jedi council but found himself at a crossroads. could he truly turn his back on the man who held the key to saving you?

master mace windu confronted palpatine, seeking to end the sith threat once and for all. but as the battle unfolded, rafe’s desperation overtook him. he intervened, aiding palpatine in the fatal blow that ended windu’s life. it was anything but a rash decision—it was crucial. as a jedi, there was nothing he could do to fight fate, nothing he could say to stop you from falling into danger. it was going to be different, now. it was going to be different, because he had found a way to keep you safe.

“you have done well, my apprentice,” palpatine said, his voice a mixture of triumph and menace. “now, take your place at my side.”

broken and consumed by his fears, rafe knelt. “what is thy bidding, my master?”

sidious’s smile was cruel. “rise, darth vader.”

the galaxy descended into darkness as order 66 was executed. the jedi were hunted and slaughtered, their light extinguished in an instant. rafe, now darth vader, led the assault on the jedi temple, his heart hardened by the promises of power and salvation sidious had whispered to him. and yet, through it all, the memory of you lingered, a fragile thread of humanity he couldn’t sever. it was that thread that brought you to mustafar, tired, weak, and helplessly in love.

it had fallen into chaos. the republic, under a beacon of hope, was now crumbling under the weight of the newly declared galactic empire. you stood in the quiet of the imperial palace, trying to come to terms with the atrocities of the past days. the news had spread quickly, but still, your mind refused to accept what it meant. the jedi were dead—or so it seemed. yet, one name haunted you more than any other.

it was then that obi-wan arrived at your side. his expression was grave, eyes filled with the weight of countless losses.

“he’s gone,” obi-wan said, his voice low and steady, tinged with sorrow. “he’s strayed from the path of righteousness. he’s fallen.”

the words struck you like a blow to the chest. you had heard rumors, whispers among the few remaining jedi, but you refused to believe them. the man you loved, who had once vowed to fight for justice, could not have fallen to the darkness. he couldn’t have turned his back on everything he believed in, on you.

“you’re wrong, obi-wan,” you said, shaking your head, refusing to accept his words. “he would never do that.”

his face hardened, a shadow of regret crossing his features. “i wish i were wrong more than anything, but the truth is undeniable. the jedi are gone. you’ve seen the clones. the children. it’s all over.”

your heart pounded in your chest as his words settled in. the republic had fallen. the jedi had been exterminated. rafe—your rafe—was lost to the darkness, and the galaxy had been consumed by the rise of the sith. yet, even as the tears welled in your eyes, there was only one thought that consumed you.

“i have to find him,” you said urgently, as if somehow your voice alone could reverse everything that had happened. “he’s not lost. i know him, i can bring him back.”

obi-wan stepped forward, his gaze softening, but there was an air of helplessness in his eyes. “it’s too late. he has already pledged himself to sidious. there’s nothing you can do.”

“no,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “i refuse to believe that.”

a long silence followed before obi-wan spoke again, his voice laced with pain. "he’s on mustafar. that’s where he’s been sent. i can’t—"

"you’ll come with me?" you asked, the words more of a plea than a request.

he hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “i will go, but not as a friend. i will go to stop him. to kill him, if necessary.”

you were already making your way to the transport shuttle before obi-wan could speak again. there was no time for hesitation now. you didn’t look back as the shuttle’s doors closed. you didn’t need to. your mind was set. you would find rafe, even if you had to tear the galaxy apart to do it.

meanwhile, obi-wan, understanding your determination, had no choice but to agree to travel with you. his reasons were not for your safety or your peace of mind, but for his own sense of duty. he knew the dangers that awaited them on mustafar, and that if rafe had truly turned, he would be forced to make an impossible decision. but that was a burden he had come to terms with long ago.

the stars flew by in a blur of lights as you descended into mustafar's fiery atmosphere. the molten rivers below flickered with a sinister glow, reflecting the burning hatred you felt rising in your chest. you had already promised yourself that no matter what, you would save him.

on coruscant, deep within the confines of the senate chambers, sidious had finally achieved his ultimate goal. the galactic republic, in an instant, had been transformed into an empire. the senate, once a symbol of the people's will, now bent the knee to its new emperor. the once-liberating democracy had been replaced by an authoritarian regime. the galaxy, torn by war, now had only one ruler—the sith lord, darth sidious.

the jedi’s greatest enemy, the embodiment of their worst fears, had taken full control of the galaxy. and yet, the fight was far from over. the jedi had not given up. yoda remained, standing alone in his defiance. his presence in the senate was a signal of the final struggle. sidious’s dark eyes met yoda’s as the two old foes stood across from one another, poised for their ultimate confrontation.

“you have lost, yoda,” sidious taunted, his voice cold, laced with a sadistic satisfaction. “the republic is mine, and you are but a relic of the past. it is time for you to join your fallen brethren.”

yoda, frail but resolute, held his lightsaber in a firm grip. “too late, it is. a new order, this galaxy shall know. dark your vision, sidious. the light, it will endure.”

the two charged, clashing with an intensity that seemed to shake the very foundations of the senate. sidious’s power was unparalleled, his dark side knowledge vast. yoda, despite his age, matched him strike for strike, his wisdom and mastery of the force making him a formidable opponent. but as the battle raged on, it became clear that sidious’s hold on the galaxy had become too strong.

the clash continued, the power of the dark side and the light intertwined in a desperate struggle. sidious fought with every ounce of energy he had, but yoda’s ancient strength was waning. his spirit, though unwavering, could not match the overwhelming force that sidious had unleashed.

in the end, yoda was defeated. but not before he had forced sidious to acknowledge the true strength of the jedi—resilience, hope, and belief in the light. as sidious declared his victory, yoda, with the last of his strength, slipped away into exile. his failure was painful, but not absolute. the fire of the Jedi had been dimmed, but it had not been extinguished. the last remaining hope had fled. the galaxy was now fully under sidious’s control. and the road to mustafar, to rafe, was one you would have to walk alone.

you found him standing at the edge of a molten river, his figure silhouetted against the hellish glow of mustafar’s fiery landscape. the harsh winds blew his dark hair back, and for a moment, he looked like a vision from a nightmare, the red light casting an almost otherworldly aura around him. rafe. your rafe. but so different now.

a surge of emotions flooded your chest as you ran toward him, your heart racing, hands trembling. you couldn’t help it. you needed him. you had to make him see the light, to make him remember the man he once was. you reached him, throwing your arms around him, the warmth of his body so much like the comfort you remembered. “what are you doing out here?” he whispered, his voice shaking with fear and longing. “i was so worried about you,” you admitted.

he didn’t return the embrace, standing stiff in your arms. his cold gaze met yours as he stepped back slightly, his expression unreadable. “obi-wan told me terrible things,” you continued, your voice trembling as you held onto the last thread of hope.

“what things?” his voice was flat, emotionless, but the flicker in his eyes told you that he already knew what was coming.

you swallowed hard, unable to contain the hurt. “he said you’ve turned to the dark side. that you—killed younglings.”

for a moment, there was silence. rafe's eyes darkened, the flicker of something dangerous stirring within him. he slowly shook his head, his lips curling into a sneer. “obi-wan is trying to turn you against me,” he said, the words thick with venom. the coldness in his voice cut deeper than anything you had ever felt from him.

you shook your head, stepping closer, desperate to bridge the gap between you. “he cares about us,” you said softly, your voice cracking with emotion. “he wants to help, rafe.”

he looked at you with something unreadable in his eyes. then, his gaze hardened. “us?” he echoed, his voice laced with disbelief, as if the very idea of it was foreign to him now. “you don’t understand. you don’t know what i’ve become.”

the cold, calculating stare he gave you made your heart twist with pain. this wasn’t the man you married. you could still see glimpses of him in the shadows of his expression, but it was slowly being drowned out by the dark power he had embraced. “rafe, please,” you begged. “all i want is your love.”

“love won’t save you,” he continued, his tone unwavering, “only my new powers can do that.”

you shook your head violently, a sob catching in your throat. “at what cost?” you asked, the words thick with desperation. “you’re a good person, rafe. don’t do this. please.” you took a step forward, reaching for him, but he stepped back, avoiding your touch.

“i won’t lose you the way i lost my mother,” he said, his voice hardening with a rawness that almost sounded like grief. “i’m becoming more powerful than any jedi has ever dreamed of, and i’m doing it for you. to protect you.”

tears welled in your eyes, your heart aching as you tried to make him understand. “rafe, please,” you begged, your voice barely a whisper. “come away with me. help me raise our child. leave everything behind while we still can.” you could feel the weight of the galaxy pressing down on you, the unbearable knowledge that if you didn’t make him listen now, you might lose him forever.

his eyes hardened, the flicker of humanity in his gaze extinguished by the cold darkness that had taken root. “we don’t have to run anymore,” he said, his voice low and full of conviction. “i have brought peace to the republic. i am more powerful than the chancellor, i can overthrow him. and together, you and i can rule the galaxy.”

you stared at him, disbelief coursing through your veins. “i can’t believe this,” you whispered. “obi-wan was right.”

your words hung in the air between you, a brutal truth neither of you could escape. his anger was evident, running down the river of change that flooded his body. “i don’t want to hear any more about obi-wan,” he practically hissed. “the jedi turned against me—don’t you turn against me.”

“you’re breaking my heart, rafe,” you whispered, choking on the pain. “you’re going down a path i can’t follow.”

“because of obi-wan?”

“because of what you’ve done, what you plan to do.”

he stood there, the cruel shadows of his new self tainting the once warm look he had given you. “i love you,” you whispered through your tears, but it was hollow. the words no longer held the weight they once did, no matter how much you meant it.

rafe shook his head, his empty gaze holding onto tears that threatened to spill over. “liar!” he shouted, the anguish in his voice more than you could bear.

his face twisted into something darker, more feral. before you could even react, his hand shot out, his powers grabbing you by the throat, the force of them tightening with unnatural strength. your breath caught in your chest as the world seemed to spin around you. his eyes burned with an intensity that terrified you.

“you’re with him!” he continued, his voice colder than the darkest of nights. “you brought him here to kill me.”

your vision blurred, stars flickering at the edges of your sight as you struggled to breathe, struggling to break free from his grip. his power, his rage—it overwhelmed you. your limbs went limp, and the last thing you remembered before darkness swallowed you was the cruel look in his eyes, the man you loved no longer in control of the body he had once inhabited.

obi-wan’s voice was steady, but it trembled with the weight of years of love and friendship—of a bond that was being shattered before his very eyes. he stepped forward, his lightsaber igniting with a soft hum as it bathed the surrounding darkness in its blue glow. “let her go, rafe,” he said, his voice soft but firm, like a plea and a command all at once. “let her go.”

rafe froze for a moment, his powers tightening around your throat. his eyes flickered from you to obi-wan, the anger swirling in his gaze turning into something colder, something more dangerous. “you turned her against me!” his voice cracked, desperation slipping through his words like poison.

obi-wan’s expression hardened, but there was an undeniable sorrow in his eyes. “you have done that yourself,” he said, his words cutting deeper than any blade. he took a step closer, his lightsaber held steady, but his demeanor was not one of attack—it was one of heartbreaking disappointment.

rafe staggered back, his chest heaving as if struggling to comprehend the enormity of obi-wan’s words. “you will not take her from me,” he spat, the words thick with rage, his grip on your throat tightening further.

“you’ve already lost her,” obi-wan replied, his voice heavy with sorrow. “your anger and your lust for power have already done that.”

the words hung between them, thick and suffocating. rafe’s hands twitched, and his eyes narrowed in disbelief, as if he couldn’t fathom what he was hearing. obi-wan’s expression softened, but the sadness in his eyes deepened. “you’ve allowed this dark lord to twist your mind,” he said, his voice quiet, almost mournful. “until now. until now, you’ve become the very thing you swore to destroy.”

rafe’s face twisted in fury. his grip on your neck tightened, and you gasped for air, vision flickering. he looked at obi-wan as though seeing his former master for the first time—disillusionment and rage warring in his eyes. “i am becoming more powerful than you could ever understand,” he snarled. “this is the future. this is the only way.”

obi-wan took a deep breath, but the heartbreak was evident in the lines of his face. his lightsaber remained steady in his grip, though he hesitated. the moment stretched between them like a chasm that neither could bridge, the final threads of their bond fraying. his voice came again, quieter now, almost a whisper. “you were the chosen one,” he murmured, his eyes clouded with unspeakable grief. “you were supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.”

rafe’s expression flickered, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed as though something—some shred of the man he used to be—flickered behind his eyes. but then, the darkness overtook it, and with a growl of fury, he ignited his own lightsaber. the clash of their weapons was deafening, a blinding flash of light that reflected the violence inside them both.

rafe moved with a speed and power his master had never seen in him before—his strikes were wild, full of rage and desperate need to prove something. obi-wan’s movements, however, were measured, controlled—though each strike, each parry was laced with the sorrow of knowing what was slipping away.

“rafe,” obi-wan whispered, narrowly dodging a strike aimed at his head. “please, listen to me.”

but rafe only grew more erratic, more dangerous. each attack was fueled by his anger, his pain—the feeling of losing you, of losing himself. obi-wan's heart broke with each swing of his saber, each dodge, each moment that he tried to reason with the man who had once been his apprentice.

the lava pit raged behind them, bubbling and churning as if in anticipation of what was to come. obi-wan fought desperately to keep his former apprentice from falling into that abyss—not just physically, but spiritually.

but the anger in rafe’s eyes was beyond reason, beyond compassion. it was a wild thing, uncontrollable and destructive, and it fed into everything he did. with a final, powerful swing, rafe sent him tumbling backwards, his lightsaber flashing, and obi-wan, with a grace borne of years of painful experience, parried the strike.

“rafe,” obi-wan whispered, his voice filled with grief, a lump in his throat. “i loved you.”

the battle was a blur of light and movement, the two combatants circling each other, their sabers flashing in the intense heat of mustafar’s volcanoes. but it was clear that obi-wan was tiring, and rafe was only becoming more vicious, more relentless.

then, with one final strike, obi-wan moved with precision. he ducked under rafe’s wild blow and, with one swift motion, sent him tumbling toward the edge of the molten pit. time seemed to slow as rafe fell, his body twisting in midair, his scream echoing in the cavernous silence before he was consumed by the flames. obi-wan’s heart shattered in that moment. he had lost his brother. he had lost the one he had once hoped would bring balance to the force. he had failed.

“you were the chosen one,” he whispered again, the tears slipping down his face despite himself.

the hum of the ship was the only sound that filled the air as obi-wan piloted through the blackness of space, the stars too distant to offer any comfort. the journey back to the medical center felt endless. his mind raced with the weight of what had just transpired—rafe, gone. the bond he’d once shared with him severed, leaving nothing but pain and an unforgiving silence in its wake. he glanced over at you, still unconscious, your face pale and drawn, your breath shallow as if it were an effort to even draw air into your lungs.

his heart ached, a new, deeper kind of grief taking root within him. he had failed you, failed rafe, and failed himself. there was nothing left but this mission—this final task—to get you to safety. the fate of the galaxy weighed heavily on his shoulders, but in this moment, all that mattered was you.

as they neared the medical center, obi-wan’s grip tightened on the ship’s controls. he landed with a jolt, immediately springing into action as he rushed to carry you inside. the doors slid open, revealing the medical droids awaiting your arrival. they took you from his arms, quickly transferring you to a bed where they began monitoring your vitals. the air was thick with the metallic hum of their mechanical voices.

“medically, she’s completely healthy,” one of the droids reported, its mechanical voice eerily detached. “but we are losing her for reasons we can’t explain.”

obi-wan froze, his chest tightening. “losing her?” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper, strained with disbelief.

“she has lost the will to live,” the droid replied, its tone clinical. “it is remarkable. her body functions, but mentally, emotionally, she has abandoned everything.”

obi-wan’s heart stuttered, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. “she’s dying?” he asked, the words escaping him in a rush.

“she has given up, master jedi. she seeks peace, and her soul has begun to depart.”

obi-wan stared at you, his eyes wide and filled with unspeakable grief. he had seen death in all its forms before, but this—this was something different. you were alive, but you were gone. you had chosen to retreat from the world, to leave everything behind. his throat tightened, and he had to look away, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

somewhere, deep within you, in the fragile place between life and death, your mind reached for something, a warmth that beckoned you. you could still think, your blood could still flow, your lungs still moved—yet there was nothing left. your heart had stopped long before your body did. it had broken.

what was the point of continuing when the very core of you had shattered? there was no peace in this world anymore, no reason to go on when everything you had fought for felt so fleeting. so, you reached for the light—the peace that called to you, beckoning you like a familiar voice. your body might have stayed behind, but your soul had made its decision.

the sharp, sudden pain broke through your thoughts, making you gasp. you could feel it, sharp and intense—the pull of life, the unbearable weight of it. and then the scream tore from your throat, raw and desperate, as the first of your children entered the world.

obi-wan’s hands shook as he held your son. the small, fragile form, covered in fluid, squirmed in his arms, its cries piercing the sterile air. he looked down at the child with a look of overwhelming sadness and tenderness, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. he thought of rafe, of everything that had been lost, of the galaxy that had slipped into darkness—and now, this child, a new life, a new hope in a world drowning in despair.

he stood there, trembling, as the second child was born—a girl. he took her in his arms as well, gazing down at her with the same awe and sorrow, knowing the weight they would one day bear. you lay there, exhausted, broken, your breath coming in shallow gasps.

through the haze of pain, through the darkness that seemed to be pulling you under, you whispered. “there’s good in him,” it was barely audible. “i know there is—still—”

obi-wan’s heart clenched at the words, his chest tightening with the love you had for the man who had fallen. he looked down at the twins, the hope in your voice echoing in his heart, though it was bittersweet. he believed it, too. somewhere within rafe, there had still been light, still been love. and maybe, just maybe, it would survive within these children.

the monitors beside you beeped erratically, the sound cutting through the quiet. obi-wan turned his gaze to the screen, his heart sinking as he saw the monitor flicker and die. he didn’t need to look again to know. you had passed. but before the life left your body entirely, you bore the gift of new life. the crying of the twins filled the room, and obi-wan stood motionless, cradling them, his eyes full of tears as he watched you—his heart torn between mourning your loss and marveling at the life you had given.

the quiet finality of it settled over him like a heavy weight. the galaxy was no longer the same. the battle for it was far from over, but in that moment, in the silence that followed, he felt the heavy burden of a different kind of loss—the loss of you, the woman he had come to see as a light in a dying world. and as your soul reached for peace, the children you had given birth to would carry on the hope you had always believed in. the cycle would continue, even if the galaxy seemed lost.

⋆. 𐙚 ˚

a/n: writing this like the ending was gonna change or sum 😭😭😭 gtfo

[ahllohehn]

Hey, just found your blog, let’s just say I absolutely LOVE your AU. Like I recently started watching Hermitcraft(recently as in when Season 10 started) and in the past year my PJO hyperfixation has re-emerged, so it’s really cool to see such a great artist drawing them together.

Also, what do you think Impulse and Skizz would be like in this AU? (I can kinda see Impulse as a Haphaestus kid but I’m not 100% sure in that)

At first, I also really wanted to put Impulse in Hephaestus cabin, but if I put every redstoner in the Hephaestus cabin, that wouldn't be creative, would it?

So we have this:

I thought putting Impulse in Hermes cabin would be perfect, for me at least. I don't watch him often, but I do mainly know him as the hermit that often dabbled in villagers and trades.

And you know which god is the god of merchants and commerce? Hermes. I wanted a Hermes kid that actually focused on those parts of Hermes.

And uh, I guess I just really like how hc10 impulse built a lot of 'markets' and 'shops' for his city lol

I also wanted to put Impulse in Hermes because (selfishly) I really liked Impulse and Grian's duo, how Grian would basically call him... 'dad' (during Phasmophobia games, at least lol).

I wanted their familial bond to make sense somehow, so I made them half-sibilngs under Hermes.

As for Skizz, I put him in Apollo because I did hear that he used to do drumming before. He apparently also did gymnastics?? (slay it, king)

And, as far as I know at least, Apollo kids were known for being good at physical contests. I thought gymnastics would count there.

I also thought Skizz's personality would also fit with the Apollo kids :)

Otherwise, I would've put Skizz under Dionysus cabin as well, but I liked the thought of Skizz being under Apollo more.

Extra headcanons:

Impulse was meant to be the cabin counsellor for Hermes, but as he neared the age where he'd have to focus on his personal business outside of camp, he willingly stepped down to let Grian be the counsellor.

These two would jam it out together on the drums >:( Don't prove me wrong!! They are the drummer dudes of camp!!!

about au au tag discord

[venussaidso]

Me watching a Chinese drama with a Sun-Saturn lead pair and they're yoni consorts (Pushya-Krittika) and I hate the dynamic but I'm staying because Zhao Lusi is a Cancer Moon and because I sense Pushya themes, I'm gonna have to stick it out to better understand the nakshatra because the story is so, so very Saturnian.

The drama is called The Story of Pearl Girl. Also through the male lead, I'm understanding Krittika better. I'm seeing Sun nakshatra natives in roles in which they're involved in trade, commerce (sometimes illegal), having the ability to find authentic minerals, strategically gathering wealth (how they're also in heist films such as Ocean's Eleven starring Sun dominant actors). And, interestingly, Saturn nakshatra natives quite literally embody the diamond in the rough, which makes me better understand their intertwining stories.

Jafar from Aladdin being voiced by Uttara Phalguni Moon Jonathan Freeman.

The metaphorical (and literal) jewel to riches in the story is the genie voiced by Pushya Sun Robin Williams.

(A film starring two Solar nakshatra natives, called Blood Diamonds.)

Will re-make a Sun Dominant Themes post soon based on Solar characters discovering/wanting to possess gems or being a part of some kind of big trade, it's just so interesting to me. These nakshatras are quite adventurous like that. I'll be exploring this some day soon.

In The Story of Pearl Girl, the Pushya Moon native escapes slavery in a pearl farm after enduring hardships. A powerful intelligent merchant, who is played by a Krittika Moon native, crosses paths with her as he gains possession of a particularly special pearl she tried to sell. In the story, we see how she was scrubbing floors of his ship to building her own identity (and business). The whole rising from ashes Saturnian theme.

It is interesting how, because she was a pearl diver, her taught ability to search for pearls in the ocean had her compared to a mermaid.

Uttarabhadrapada is commonly known as the mermaid nakshatra but as it trines other Saturn nakshatras, such scenes had me considering the actress being a Pushya Moon. Which she honestly is. There is also a theme, though brief, with her mother who was initially cruel until her last moments. I find this particularly outstanding in Pushya nakshatra. Plus the actress is leading the story with a Solar native. Sun-Solar people stay away from each challenge: IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, seeing this theme of seeing the value in goods and minerals and treasures in Pushya nakshatra. Trining Pushya, Uttarabhadrapada's deity Ahirbudhnya lies in the deepest pits of the ocean guarding the greatest treasures in the world, too. And Pushya is the Star of Nourishment. Treasures and wealth lead to proper nourishment and comfort.

In Pirates of the Caribbean, the character Jack Sparrow is portrayed by a Pushya ASC native. Jack Sparrow is a savvy trickster pirate who has a keen sense of valuable goods and treasures. A character mirroring him is Hector Barbossa, who is portrayed by a Pushya Moon native.

Being Jack Sparrow's rival, Hector Barbossa has a great understanding of treasures and how to exploit them for his own gain.

As expected, we see Anuradha expressing itself this way as well. Such as the character Nathan Drake in the film Uncharted (2022), who is a treasure hunter and finder of legendary artifacts. Portrayed by Anuradha Moon Tom Holland.

In the video game series, Nathan Drake is voiced by a likely Anuradha Moon native Nolan North.

as i said, sun nakshatras are also seen in such themes. especially krittika!!! will be exploring more medias of this sometime soon.

[whencyclopedia]

Assyria

Assyria was the region located in the ancient Near East which, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, reached from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) through Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and down through Egypt. The empire began modestly at the city of Ashur (known as Subartu to the Sumerians), located in Mesopotamia north-east of Babylon, where merchants who traded in Anatolia became increasingly wealthy and that affluence allowed for the growth and prosperity of the city.

According to one interpretation of passages in the biblical Book of Genesis, Ashur was founded by a man named Ashur son of Shem, son of Noah, after the Great Flood, who then went on to found the other important Assyrian cities. A more likely account is that the city was named Ashur after the deity of that name sometime in the 3rd millennium BCE; the same god's name is the origin for 'Assyria'. The biblical version of the origin of Ashur appears later in the historical record (Genesis is dated to c. 1450 BCE at the earliest, 5th century BCE latest) and seems to have been adopted by the Assyrians after they had accepted Christianity. This version, therefore, is thought to be a re-interpretation of their early history more in keeping with their newly-adopted belief system of Assyrian Christians.

The Assyrians were a Semitic people who originally spoke and wrote Akkadian before the easier to use Aramaic language became more popular. Historians have divided the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire into three periods: The Old Kingdom, The Middle Empire, and The Late Empire (also known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire), although it should be noted that Assyrian history continued on past that point; there are still Assyrians living in the regions of Iran and northern Iraq, and elsewhere, in the present day. The Assyrian Empire is considered the greatest of the Mesopotamian empires due to its expanse and the development of the bureaucracy and military strategies which allowed it to grow and flourish.

The Old Kingdom

Although the city of Ashur existed from the 3rd millennium BCE, the extant ruins of that city date to 1900 BCE which is now considered the date the city was founded. According to early inscriptions, the first king was Tudiya, and those who followed him were known as “kings who lived in tents” suggesting a pastoral, rather than urban, community.

Ashur was certainly an important center of commerce even at this time, however, even though its precise form and structure is unclear. The king Erishum I built the temple of Ashur on the site in c. 1900/1905 BCE, and this has come to be the accepted date for the founding of an actual city on the site although, obviously, some form of city must have existed there prior to that date. The historian Wolfram von Soden writes,

Because of a dearth of sources, very little is known of Assyria in the third millennium…Assyria did belong to the Empire of Akkad at times, as well as to the Third Dynasty of Ur. Our main sources for this period are the many thousand Assyrian letters and documents from the trade colonies in Cappadocia, foremost of which was Kanesh (modern Kultepe). (49-50)

The trade colony of Karum Kanesh (the Port of Kanesh) was among the most lucrative centers for trade in the ancient Middle East and definitely the most important for the city of Ashur. Merchants from Ashur traveled to Kanesh, set up businesses, and then, after placing trusted employees (usually family members) in charge, returned to Ashur and supervised their business dealings from there. The historian Paul Kriwaczek notes:

For several generations the trading houses of Karum Kanesh flourished, and some became extremely wealthy – ancient millionaires. However not all business was kept within the family. Ashur had a sophisticated banking system and some of the capital that financed the Anatolian trade came from long-term investments made by independent speculators in return for a contractually specified proportion of the profits. There is not much about today's commodity markets that an old Assyrian would not quickly recognize. (214-215)

Continue reading...

[familyabolisher]

At the outset of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898), Wells asks his English readers to compare the Martian invasion of Earth with the Europeans' genocidal invasion of the Tasmanians, thus demanding that the colonizers imagine themselves as the colonized, or the about-to-be-colonized. But in Wells this reversal of perspective entails something more, because the analogy rests on the logic prevalent in contemporary anthropology that the indigenous, primitive other's present is the colonizer's own past. Wells's Martians invading England are like Europeans in Tasmania not just because they are arrogant colonialists invading a technologically inferior civilization, but also because, with their hypertrophied brains and prosthetic machines, they are a version of the human race's own future.

The confrontation of humans and Martians is thus a kind of anachronism, an incongruous co-habitation of the same moment by people and artifacts from different times. But this anachronism is the mark of anthropological difference, that is, the way late-nineteenth-century anthropology conceptualized the play of identity and difference between the scientific observer and the anthropological subject-both human, but inhabiting different moments in the history of civilization. As George Stocking puts it in his intellectual history of Victorian anthropology, Victorian anthropologists, while expressing shock at the devastating effects of European contact on the Tasmanians, were able to adopt an apologetic tone about it because they understood the Tasmanians as "living representatives of the early Stone Age," and thus their "extinction was simply a matter of … placing the Tasmanians back into the dead prehistoric world where they belonged" (282-83). The trope of the savage as a remnant of the past unites such authoritative and influential works as Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society (1877), where the kinship structures of contemporaneous American Indians and Polynesian islanders are read as evidence of "our" past, with Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo (1913), where the sexual practices of "primitive" societies are interpreted as developmental stages leading to the mature sexuality of the West. Johannes Fabian has argued that the repression or denial of the real contemporaneity of so-called savage cultures with that of Western explorers, colonizers, and settlers is one of the pervasive, foundational assumptions of modern anthropology in general. The way colonialism made space into time gave the globe a geography not just of climates and cultures but of stages of human development that could confront and evaluate one another.

The anachronistic structure of anthropological difference is one of the key features that links emergent science fiction to colonialism. The crucial point is the way it sets into motion a vacillation between fantastic desires and critical estrangement that corresponds to the double-edged effects of the exotic. Robert Stafford, in an excellent essay on "Scientific Exploration and Empire" in the Oxford History of the British Empire, writes that, by the last decades of the century, "absorption in overseas wilderness represented a form of time travel" for the British explorer and, more to the point, for the reading public who seized upon the primitive, abundant, unzoned spaces described in the narratives of exploration as a veritable "fiefdom, calling new worlds into being to redress the balance of the old" (313, 315). Thus when Verne, Wells, and others wrote of voyages underground, under the sea, and into the heavens for the readers of the age of imperialism, the otherworldliness of the colonies provided a new kind of legibility and significance to an ancient plot. Colonial commerce and imperial politics often turned the marvelous voyage into a fantasy of appropriation alluding to real objects and real effects that pervaded and transformed life in the homelands. At the same time, the strange destinations of such voyages now also referred to a centuries-old project of cognitive appropriation, a reading of the exotic other that made possible, and perhaps even necessary, a rereading of oneself.

John Rieder, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction

[kemetic-dreams]

Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), is an American human rights activist, Muslim cleric, African separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. Best known as H. Rap Brown, he served as the Black Panther Party's minister of justice during a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party.

He is perhaps known for his proclamations during that period, such as that "violence is as American as cherry pie", and that "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down." He is also known for his autobiography, Die Nigger Die! He is currently serving a life sentence for murder following the shooting of two Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff's deputies in 2000.

Brown's activism in the civil rights movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Brown was introduced into SNCC by his older brother Ed. He first visited Cambridge, Maryland with Cleveland Sellers in the summer of 1963, during the period of Gloria Richardson's leadership in the local movement. He witnessed the first riot between whites and blacks in the city over civil rights issues, and was impressed by the local civil rights movement's willingness to use armed self-defense against racial attacks.

Brown later organized for SNCC during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, while transferring to Howard University for his studies. Representing Howard's SNCC chapter, Brown attended a contentious civil rights meeting at the White House with President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Selma crisis of 1965 as Alabama activists attempted to march for voting rights.

Major federal civil rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965, including the Voting Rights Act, to establish federal oversight and enforcement of rights. In 1966, Brown organized in Greene County, Alabama to achieve African voter registration and implementation of the recently passed Voting Rights Act.

Elected SNCC chairman in 1967, Brown continued Stokely Carmichael's fiery support for "Black Power" and urban rebellions in the Northern ghettos.

During the summer of 1967, Brown toured the nation, calling for violent resistance to the government, which he called "The Fourth Reich". "Negroes should organize themselves", he told a rally in Washington, D.C., and "carry on guerilla warfare in all the cities." They should, "make the Viet Cong look like Sunday school teachers." He declared, "I say to America, Fuck it! Freedom or death!"

In this period, Cambridge, Maryland had an active civil rights movement, led by Gloria Richardson. In July 1967 Brown spoke in the city, saying "It's time for Cambridge to explode, baby. Black folks built America, and if America don't come around, we're going to burn America down." Gunfire reportedly broke out later, and both Brown and a police officer were wounded. A fire started that night and by the next day, 17 buildings were destroyed by an expanding fire "in a two-block area of Pine Street, the center of African-American commerce, culture and community." Brown was charged with inciting a riot, due to his speech.

Brown was also charged with carrying a gun across state lines. A secret 1967 FBI memo had called for "neutralizing" Brown. He became a target of the agency's COINTELPRO program, which was intended to disrupt and disqualify civil rights leaders. The federal charges against him were never proven.

He was defended in the gun violation case by civil rights advocates Murphy Bell of Baton Rouge, the self-described "radical lawyer" William Kunstler, and Howard Moore Jr., general counsel for SNCC. Feminist attorney Flo Kennedy also assisted Brown and led his defense committee, winning support for him from some chapters of the National Organization for Women.

The Cambridge fire was among incidents investigated by the 1967 Kerner Commission. But their investigative documents were not published with their 1968 report. Historian Dr. Peter Levy studied these papers in researching his book Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland (2003). He argues there was no riot in Cambridge. Brown was documented as completing his speech in Cambridge at 10 pm July 24, then walking a woman home. He was shot by a deputy sheriff allegedly without provocation. Brown was hastily treated for his injuries and secretly taken by supporters out of Cambridge.

Later that night a small fire broke out, but the police chief and fire company did not respond for two hours. In discussing his book, Levy has said that the fire's spread and ultimate destructive cost appeared to be due not to a riot, but to the deliberate inaction of the Cambridge police and fire departments, which had hostile relations with the African community. In a later book, Levy notes that Brice Kinnamon, head of the Cambridge police department, said that the city had no racial problems, and that Brown was the "sole" cause of the disorder, and it was "a well-planned Communist attempt to overthrow the government."

While being held for trial, Brown continued his high-profile activism. He accepted a request from the Student Afro-American Society of Columbia University to help represent and co-organize the April 1968 Columbia protests against university expansion into Harlem park land in order to build a gymnasium.

He also contributed writing from jail to the radical magazine Black Mask, which was edited and published by the New York activist group Up Against the Wall Motherfucker. In his 1968 article titled "H. Rap Brown From Prison: Lasima Tushinde Mbilashika", Brown writes of going on a hunger strike and his willingness to give up his life in order to achieve change.

Brown's trial was originally to take place in Cambridge, but there was a change of venue and the trial was moved to Bel Air, Maryland, to start in March 1970. On March 9, 1970, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William ("Che") Payne, died on U.S. Route 1 south of Bel Air, when a bomb on the front floorboard of their car exploded, killing both occupants. The bomb's origin is disputed: some say the bomb was planted in an assassination attempt, and others say Payne was carrying it to the courthouse where Brown was to be tried. The next night, the Cambridge courthouse was bombed

Brown disappeared for 18 months. He was posted on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List. He was arrested after a reported shootout with officers in New York City following an alleged attempted robbery of a bar there. He was convicted of robbery and served five years (1971–76) in Attica Prison in western New York state. While in prison, Brown converted to Islam. He formally changed his name from Hubert Gerold Brown to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin.

After his release, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a grocery store. He became an imam, a Muslim spiritual leader, in the National Ummah, one of the nation's largest African Muslim groups. He also was a community activist in Atlanta's West End neighborhood. He preached against drugs and gambling. It has since been suggested that al-Amin changed his life again when he became affiliated with the "Dar ul-Islam Movement"

On May 31, 1999, al-Amin was pulled over while driving in Marietta, Georgia by police officer Johnny Mack for a suspected stolen vehicle. During a search, al-Amin was found to have in his pocket a police badge. He also had a bill of sale in his pocket, explaining his possession of the stolen car, and he claimed that he had been issued an honorary police badge by Mayor John Jackson, a statement which Jackson verified. Despite this, al-Amin was charged with speeding, auto theft and impersonating a police officer.

On March 16, 2000, in Fulton County, Georgia, Sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to al-Amin's home to execute an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court over the charges. After determining that the home was unoccupied, the deputies drove away and were shortly passed by a black Mercedes headed for the house. Kinchen (the more senior deputy) noted the suspect vehicle, turned the patrol car around, and drove up to the Mercedes, stopping nose to nose. English approached the Mercedes and told the single occupant to show his hands. The occupant opened fire with a .223 rifle. English ran between the two cars while returning fire from his handgun, and was hit four times. Kinchen was shot with the rifle and a 9 mm handgun.

The next day, Kinchen died of his wounds at Grady Memorial Hospital. English survived his wounds. He identified al-Amin as the shooter from six photos he was shown while recovering in the hospital[citation needed] Another source said English identified him shortly before going into surgery for his wounds.

After the shootout, al-Amin fled Atlanta, going to White Hall, Alabama. He was tracked down by U.S. Marshals who started with a blood trail at the shooting site, and arrested by law enforcement officers after a four-day manhunt. Al-Amin was wearing body armor at the time of his arrest. He showed no wounds. Officers found a 9 mm handgun near his arrest site. Firearms identification testing showed that this was used to shoot Kinchen and English, but al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the weapon. Later, al-Amin's black Mercedes was found with bullet holes in it.

His lawyers argued he was innocent of the shooting. Defense attorneys noted that al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon, and he was not wounded in the shooting, as one of the deputies said the shooter was. A trail of blood found at the scene was tested and did not belong to al-Amin or either of the deputies. A test by the state concluded that it was animal blood, but these results have been disputed because there was no clear chain of custody to verify the sample and testing process. Deputy English had said that the killer's eyes were gray, but al-Amin's are brown.

At al-Amin's trial, prosecutors noted that he had never provided an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the shootout, nor any explanation for fleeing the state afterward. He also did not explain why the weapons used in the shootout were found near him during his arrest.

On March 9, 2002, nearly two years after the shootings, al-Amin was convicted of 13 criminal charges, including Kinchen's murder and aggravated assault in shooting English. Four days later, he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole (LWOP).He was sent to Georgia State Prison, the state's maximum-security facility near Reidsville, Georgia.

Otis Jackson, a man incarcerated for unrelated charges, claimed that he committed the Fulton County shootings, and confessed this two years before al-Amin was convicted of the same crime. The court did not consider Jackson's statement as evidence. Jackson's statements corroborated details from 911 calls following the shooting, including a bleeding man seen limping from the scene: Jackson said he knocked on doors to solicit a ride while suffering from wounds sustained in the firefight with deputies Kinchen and English. Jackson recanted his statement two days after making it, but later confessed again in a sworn affidavit, stating that he had only recanted after prison guards threatened him for being a "cop killer". Prosecutors refuted Jackson's testimony, claiming he couldn't have shot the deputies as he was wearing an ankle tag for house confinement that would have showed his location. Al-Amin's lawyers allege that the tag was faulty.

Al-Amin appealed his conviction on the basis of a racial conspiracy against him, despite both Fulton County deputies being black. In May 2004, the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously ruled to uphold al-Amin's conviction.

In August 2007, al-Amin was transferred to federal custody, as Georgia officials decided he was too high-profile for the Georgia prison system to handle. He was first held in a holdover facility in the USP Atlanta; two weeks later he was moved to a federal transfer facility in Oklahoma, pending assignment to a federal penitentiary.

On October 21, 2007, al-Amin was transferred to ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. He has been under an unofficial gag order, prevented from having any interviews with writers, journalists or biographers.

On July 18, 2014, having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, al-Amin was transferred to Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina. As of March 2018, he is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Tucson.

Al-Amin sought retrial through the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Investigative journalist, Hamzah Raza, has written more about Otis Jackson's confession to the deputy shootings in 2000, and said that this evidence should have been considered by the court. It had the potential of exonerating al-Amin. However, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal on July 31, 2019.

In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from al-Amin. His family and supporters continue to petition for a new trial.

[2d-reality]

Little Things (The Envious Thirdborn)

characters: Leviathan, GN!MC navigation: Lucifer | Mammon | Levi | Satan | Asmo | Beel | Belphie content/warnings: little things you do for the brothers, out of love. fluff. established relationship (implied you are dating all seven brothers equally with the exception of mammon whom i love more) word count: 1334, this one got away from me a little notes: Each brother has their own part, linked above. I am still my own editor and I loathe editing, so please forgive any mistakes!

Adrenaline pulses through Levi’s veins. His hands shake with it, even as he sits back in his gaming chair, and cold shock ices over the hot rush of blood in his veins. 

A Sucre Frenzy collectible has slipped from his grasp. It was a limited-time run, only live for a few minutes, given how quickly stock had sold out. He’d been watching the drop for days, even though the band had only posted vaguely to something happening, with a link to a blank webpage with a countdown. No one had known what it was they were hinting at, and even though Levi had what he thought was every e-commerce website preloaded to ensure a fulfilled order no matter what website hosted a flash sale, the limited edition merch he’d coveted since the launch went live was now nothing more than a distant dream. Maybe he didn’t click fast enough. Maybe the slight error in the shipping address that had forced him to re-enter his details had pushed him out of the running. Maybe Sucre Frenzy knew that he was just a worthless shut in, and didn’t deserve the special treatment. Maybe he just wasn’t good enough after all. He should have known.

A frantic knock at his bedroom door registered dimly in the midst of his self-deprecating spiral. It isn’t until his tail, flicking anxiously behind him, knocks over the stack of manga next to his desk and he hears the sound of your voice on the other side of the door, that his thoughts grind to a halt long enough to push his body into action. 

It’s muscle memory that gets him up, still half-lost in his head, and leads him to the door. He’s speaking the other half of this week’s special passphrase before he even realizes he’s doing it. He reaches for the door handle, then pauses. For a moment, he watches his hand tremble, and hears you again. 

“Levi?”

Sucking in a breath, he opens the door, and the smile you wear nearly blinds him. You’re clutching your DDD to your chest and look fit to bursting. 

“So?” you chirp. “Did you see it?  I bet you’re excited to get it all! We don’t even know exactly what they’re giving us!” 

Us. You had managed to get your hands on the drop. Jealousy sparks in his chest, sharp and biting, and for a moment, he resents you. He was the one who introduced you to Sucre Frenzy, and now you were the competition. In the next moment, a bucket of cold shame is dumped over his head. He couldn’t be angry with you, not really, not when your eyes sparkle in the ambient light of Henry’s fish tank. The green monster still coats his tongue as he speaks. His tail swishes over the tile behind him as he grips the side of his bedroom door, attempting to shield himself from your exuberance. 

“I didn’t get it.” It sounds pathetic in his head, but comes out of his mouth as a snarl. Your expression falls. 

“Oh.” You take a step forward, maybe without even thinking about it, and he begins to shut the door without thinking either. “Oh, Levi.”

Your foot stops him from shutting himself out completely, and you slip inside. “What happened? You’re usually lightning fast.” Your gaze slides to his monitor setup, and you take a step before stopping yourself, turning back to him to await a response and permission to continue. He can’t find anything to say, but forces something out anyway as jealousy clouds his mind. 

“It’s stupid.” 

Your hand settles on his arm, soft and unobtrusive. Your brow is furrowed, and while your eyes are sad, your voice is firm. “You’re not stupid.”

Levi realizes he’d said I’m stupid. Shame shocks down his spine twofold. You hated it when he talked down to himself. Hot tears well in his eyes as he shuts his bedroom door and crowds his body against it, forehead pressed to the wood and shoulders hunched forward. Your hand slips from him in the process, and his tail curls around both of his legs. Now he had not only lost out on this once-in-a-lifetime drop, but he’d disappointed you, too. He really was a useless idiot. 

“I hope you like your merch,” he says. He means it, at least partially, but you can hear the jealousy in his voice. “Just leave me alone.”

You’re silent for a second. Levi waits for the word of encouragement you’re sure to leave before you go, holding back angry tears until he can hear the door shut behind you.

“Levi. I didn’t get this drop for me. You can have it.” 

He doesn’t believe you. He was too slow, not well prepared enough, he didn’t deserve the merch. He wasn’t quick and bright, like you. He wishes you would leave him to his misery, but it seems you’re not done.

“Not to mention, I can’t leave.”

He glares at you from over his shoulder. “Why not?”

The corner of your mouth twitches as you gesture to him. “You’re standing in front of the door.”

He is, you’re right again, and the third hit to his fragile ego is enough to shatter it. All mirth vanishes from your face as his chin quivers and tears finally spill over his lashes. 

“Leviathan,” you say, gently, and he allows you to take him into your arms. His tail wraps around you before the rest of him, and you hold him with one hand bracing the back of his neck, and the other secured around his waist, pressed as close as you can be. He buries his face into your neck, and your cheek rests over his ear. “I mean it,” you continue as he shakes. “I know you like to have one thing to use and one to preserve, so I figured I would try to snag a second set. It won’t be exactly how you want, but I really only wanted to get it at all for you.” 

A whine pulls from his throat. He knows you well enough by now to know you’re telling the truth. You’re too good to him. 

Your hand strokes his hair, nails catching on the base of one of his antlers. “Shit happens. It isn’t your fault you didn’t make it this time, but you also have your Henry as backup. I’d never let my Lord of Shadows miss out on something I know is important, if I can help it.”

You pull away, and he reluctantly lets you, but can’t bear to look at your face. Your gentle fingers brush his long bangs out of his eyes, and the hem of your sleeve brushes over his ruddy cheeks, catching a few more tears. “I love you more than any piece of merch. And who knows, maybe Mammon caught on to the hype and managed to get in to turn it at a million grimm markup. I bet I can convince him to -ahem- permanently loan it to you. Through me.” 

This makes him chuckle, and he risks a glance at you to see you smiling. Your expression, coupled with your touch still tingling on his face, soothes over the hurt like a balm. 

“Thank you, MC.” 

You set his heart pounding again by pressing a trail of kisses across his cheek, to the corner of his mouth. “Of course. Now, they leaked a new music video link in my receipt email, so we have to watch it before anyone else does.” 

This brightens him significantly. “Really? Yeah!” He breaks away to bound over to his computer. You forward him the link, and pull your matching gaming chair next to his, settling in to help him liveblog his reaction. 

You’re true to your word, and when the conspicuously large package arrives a few weeks later, you’re breathless at his door in seconds. You hold the camera while he livestreams the unboxing, and neither of you is sure who is smiling brighter.

[allthegeopolitics]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/teamsters-amazon-strike

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

In the 22nd Dec 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

With two children in the IDF, mum joins the reserves.

Israeli research into a genetic mutation may lead to cure for brain diseases.

A Bedouin is the first female Muslin EMT deputy branch head at United Hatzalah.

Look who’s interested in Israeli wave energy.

Israel is building a green facility to process organic waste.

Venture funds are investing heavily in Israeli defense startups.

Israel’s national parks are re-opening.

The President of Paraguay opened his country’s embassy in Jerusalem.

Read More: Good News From Israel

Since the last Positive Israel newsletter the Middle East has seen some monumental changes. Israel's borders have been strengthened and many hostile threats to Israel's citizens have been eliminated or vastly reduced. In other areas Israel's recent achievements also have been awesome. Israel's phenomenal medical researchers can now detect and potentially eliminate many severe genetic diseases. More groundbreaking Israeli technological innovations are bringing immense benefits to the environment, agriculture, energy efficiency, security, commerce, and transportation. Meanwhile, we thank the leaders of Paraguay and Uruguay for their powerful support to the Jewish State. 

The photo of Mount Hermon is from the poster display at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. The entire monumental strategic site is under Israeli control for the first time in 50 years.