#rotj is the custody battle of luke and leia

[phoenixkaptain]

Everytime I think about Obi-Wan and Anakin it’s like- I don’t ship them so much as I think they should be together at all times. I think tcw had a point, actually, and the two of them should just. Always be together. I think Anakin is Obi-Wan’s hope in an increasingly difficult life and I think Obi-Wan is Anakin’s tie to humanity when he most feels like a monster. They are intrinsically combined, from the very first movie where Obi-Wan dies at Vader’s hands with a peaceful expression.

It’s Obi-Wan begging Luke not to see Anakin in Vader while Vader searches Luke to see some sign of Obi-Wan. It’s Obi-Wan calling Anakin another pathetic lifeform to Obi-Wan being unable to process the idea of Anakin being anything but good. It’s Anakin awkwardly (adorably) shaking Obi-Wan’s hand to Anakin awkwardly (adorably) bringing up Obi-Wan during conversations with the woman he wants to seduce.

It’s Obi-Wan knowing how to fix Artoo and Obi-Wan teasing Anakin about Artoo. It’s Anakin’s first thought on losing his lightsaber being “Obi-Wan’s going to be mad at me again” and Anakin laughing when Obi-Wan tells him to drive better.

The prequel trilogy is so fascinating because my favourite parts are always Anakin and Obi-Wan. The parts I think about the most often are those parts with Anakin and Obi-Wan. The relationship between these two drives the entirety of the plot of the prequels, to the point that the literal birth mother of the main characters of the original trilogy is all but forgotten in the third movie.

It’s. Obi-Wan spending years watching over Luke because Luke reminds him of Anakin, never approaching because what if Luke really does turn out to be like Anakin…?

It’s Vader assuming that Obi-Wan taught Luke to fight, because who else could teach a Skywalker?

It’s Obi-Wan accepting all the blame for the people he knew best, the people who were basically his family, all dying.

It’s Vader keeping Obi-Wan’s lightsaber in a parallel to Obi-Wan keeping Anakin’s.

They are just. Mutually Obsessed. Obi-Wan held up Anakin and said “this is my whole personality now” and Anakin responded with “neato, same.” They bicker like an old married couple. Anakin can’t imagine even thinking about leaving Obi-Wan behind. Obi-Wan tells Anakin point-blank that he’s a good Jedi who deserves to be a Master.

I ship them because like. The universe? Does?? They are destined to be by each other, in life and in death. They support and sustain each other. There was probably eepy Force magic stuff that made Anakin into a Force ghost because Obi-Wan wanted him to be one.

How else can I explain it? They were made for each other. Like. Literally. They should never be separated. Look what happened when they did separate in universe. They are a nuclear bomb. They have to stay together or the galaxy gets the worst of it, and that’s just canon, somehow.

[rosheendubh]

On Dathomir...

ArtManip:

Dathomir, after Yana has taken Luke as a hostage, her negotiating chip with the Witches, ensuring he doesn’t pursue her as she tries obtaining access to a wormhole capable vessel. Alas, b/c Leia is so honored by the Ladies, and Luke’s her brother, the hostage tactic sort misfires on Yana. The Witches adore him, and he charms the Ladies. At the time, they’re cohabbing under-cover with the Witches in their seasonal Rancor migrations—and it‘s birthing season for the Mama-Rancors (I sort of envision them like matriarchal elephant herds). Thus, it’s spring, passions and hormones are flowing, all sorts of Witchy celebrations ignite between the Ladies, including the return of Yana’s past/current lover, K’hlinda (who works as an info-scrubber and private contract cyber-security intel, multi-system....). Various mishaps occur to distract Yana from her prime objective. K’hlinda and her uninhibited sensuality between myriad species and genders, including a flirtation with Luke. Luke, intent on convincing Yana he’s her ally, also manages to aggravate her unceasingly by trumping any situation where imminent danger or catastrophe threatens—and seems to be basking in the adventure like a joy-ride (other than the rather strained rendezvous with his father, residing on Dagobah with Ashoka—angst, past regrets—some real SmashingPumpkins, ‘Killer In Me Is the Killer In You‘-kinda agst), while Making no secret as to his growing attraction to her across their multi-planet escapade. Basically, she wants to find the source of biohacked gene-sequences, and he wants tail. Basically, this becomes a ‘PrincessBride’/“As you wish”-scenario-with Yana ordering him (since he is a hostage after all) to perform onerous, time-consuming tasks in the course of tending Rancor. And Luke, not overly flustered, caters to her with a playful, teasing gentility which irks her more. As they labor with the Witches moving between the Rancor birthing sites, K’hlinda becomes the fulcrum around which Yana and Luke teeter. One night, as she starts making love to Yana, K’hlinda invites Luke to partake by ‘shared visualization’, opening a mental/emotional link, a bridge of intimacy through their particular Force capabilties (for Yana-what she knows as hypercognitive awareness)—like a psychic peepshow—since he’s not in their immediate presence. A tantalizing experience of arousal, sharing their pleasure as his own, and leaves him wanting Yana even more. And allowing her a tender courtesy, the patience to let her sort her own feelings toward him, conflicted in her attraction, her simultaneous distrust of his loyalty to her cause vs Republic Alliance lateral motives. Also, she has a trust issue with Jedi, going on her past in Palpatine’s inner-sanctum of service, and with Vader—her only standards by which to judge their Order. Thus, the art-manipulation is a reference to that moment where Luke shares the intimacy between Yana and K’hlinda...

##Backstory...one day, I might compose these broad outlines of the cosmic space (some smut) rock opera into a coherent tale..

Tracking the source of corrupted plasmid sequences utilized in black-market and biohack modification consumes Rhyanon/Yana. From Coruscant, to Tatooine, Engadi, Dagobah, and Geis. The last, the site of a Reaver massacre where Yana and her sister had been visiting in the time before the Battle of Yavin-she and her sister brutalized-her sister murdered before her eyes-Yana taken prisoner by a slaver. Eventually, An Imperial cruiser Commanded by Vader boards the slave vessel-and Vader-deciphering Yana’s unique talents for psionic biomolecular manipulation of organic structures-recruits her to the direct service of Palpatine. In exchange for restoring his wasting body, ravaged by decades of Dark Side corruption, Palpatine offers to alleviate the trauma of Geis, submerging the memories of a traumatized adolescent from conscious recall, and allowing her training to develop her talents, meaning to utilize them eventually for a newly rehabbed cloning program of super-soldiers. With Palpatine’s death (which occurs in a slightly different fashion than in RotJ), Yana discovers the deceptive influence of Palpatine’s involvement with the Massacre of Geis. And begins to form a suspicion that Geis wasn’t a random attack, but a strategic strike masterminded to target her and her sister as part of a larger conspiracy involving quadrants on both sides the Wormhole (read: Serenity and Miranda and RiverTam).

Freed from the weight Palpatine imposed upon her mind, blurring memories of that tragedy, she tracks down her sister‘s killer—the slaver from Geis-finding a humanoid vastly reformed from his previous life of villainy and pillage. Indeed, a hero of the Rebellion, who’d retrieved the plans of the 2nd DeathStar with the Bothans, enabling the Alliance’s victory at Endor. Undeterred by remorse, Yana follows through on her vendetta killing her old captor, and with her sister’s death punished, flees to the most remote Imperial outpost she can find, near the Wormhole.

Taking on an assumed ID, she works as a medic in the prison on Dathomir, befriending an aged inmate-scientist with whom she designs a mock-up, Wormhole capable ship in order to return to her home quadrant. An independent fringe sector called New Celtica (based roughly on the Keltiad), which has grown in prosperity and influence, their human inhabitants, like many dispersed through the stellar ways, exhibiting hypercognitive/precognitive abilities for centuries, and establishing economic and cultural ties with various other Fringe star-systems choosing to reside beyond the direct rule of the Terran Federacy/Inner elite systems of the Core. It’s at the point of the Conduit prototype ship nearing completion for a test-run that the RepublicAlliance enters Dathomiri space, and in a highly revised restructuring of ‘TheCourtshipofPrincessLeia’, Yana falls into Republic custody. B/c Luke blows her out of the sky as she’s trying to escape in the battle with the Zinj dude who’s the ImperialWarLord referenced in ’Courtship’. The discovery of her existence, the Wormhole itself, a WildCard that shifts the dynamics of destiny for the Republic, Empire, and the Terran Federacy...

Dathomir, lying near the Wormhole, and Yana, having resided with the Witches after escaping Coruscant upon Palpatine’s death (thus, already having cordial relations with the Ladies, along with a lover-K’hlinda-who works as an information scrubber/cyber-security private contractor), Yana devises a ploy, with Luke as her hostage-leaving him in the custody of the Witches in order to gain access to the only spatial-anomaly ship capable of withstanding the wormhole conduit...

[thewonderladie]

For Day 3 of PadMay2021

How might I change Padmé’s story

The first thing is, Padmé would live, but I guess that goes without saying. It's a long one so please keep reading if you're so inclined. Also, I was just spitballing so I didn't give it as much thought. My challenge to myself was to basically keep a lot of the film elements but just have Padmé be there and I really wanted to do this prompt for today! Twitter thread posted as well.

I think what I would have done is kept those deleted scenes from Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith in, especially the ones showing the growing dissatisfaction with Chancellor Palpatine. Padmé would have been one of the leaders/founders of what would later become the Rebellion. We would see her more in the Senate, trying to limit Palpatine’s powers but ultimately failing. It is here that her faith in the Republic begins wavering. She goes to Mustafar to confront Anakin and confirm her suspicions about his Fall. Everything still plays out the same way, except she lives.

Now that Anakin has become Darth Vadar, Padmé knows that she and her babies are no longer safe near him. With the help of Bail and Brea Organa, she goes into hiding on Alderaan, faking her death and that of her unborn child(ren). Together, they along with Brea Organa, Mon Mothma and other Senators start sowing the seeds of rebellion. When the twins are old enough, Padmé comes out of hiding. She meets back up with Obi-Wan (whom she had kept in sporadic contact over the years for everyone’s safety) and everything from A New Hope pretty much plays out the same, except now in addition to Obi-Wan, Vadar now feels Padmé’s presence once more and begins questioning everything even before he realizes that Luke is his son.

Padmé encourages Leia to be part of the Rebellion and she herself becomes Mon Mothma’s second in command once she officially comes out of hiding. She is helping to organize relief efforts and encourage other planets and sectors to join the Rebellion. While Vadar still longs for Padmé, she in turn has moved on. It was heartbreaking but the only way she could survive. Everything in Empire Strikes Back happens the same. Padmé confirms to both Leia and Luke who their father really is. Vadar must choose between his family and the Empire.

Padmé truly believes in their cause and begins formulating what life looks like after the fighting is over, even though a big part of her is tired and wants to return to Naboo. She, along with Mon Mothma, begin the hard work of creating the New Republic. Everything in Return of the Jedi plays out the same, although Padmé is reluctant for Luke (or Leia) to be a Jedi. That fear of what happened with Anakin is always on the forefront of her mind. But she has raised her children to be kind, goodhearted people and doesn’t need to worry as much as she does. She was a popular, beloved senator and queen and inadvertently becomes the face of the Rebellion once she comes out of hiding. It was because of her and her story that other planets and sectors left the Empire and she is rewarded by becoming the New Republic Vice-Chancellor once the Battle of Jakku is finished and the New Republic is beginning.

Luke goes on his Jedi journey, as he did post-ROTJ and Leia continues her political career as she did post-ROTJ. She becomes the Senator from Naboo and finds herself constantly in her mother’s shadow, even after her own accolades. While she loves Padmé dearly, she has always wondered if she only got to be where she was because of Padmé. By the time of the sequel trilogy, Padmé is in her 80s has stepped away from politics entirely, living out her days on Naboo. She counsels Leia whenever her daughter needs it but is otherwise content to let her children live their lives as they see fit.

When Kylo Ren, her grandson, is revealed to have fallen under the influence of Snoke, her fears are brought back front and center. She tries to confront her grandson several times, to get him to see the light and to remind him that his grandfather eventually found his way back. But it is all in vain and he kills his father in a last-ditch effort to fall completely to the dark side. Padmé sees Anakin in her grandson, and it breaks her heart. But, she feels as though she hadn’t worked hard enough with Anakin and refuses to give up on her grandson.

Padmé uses all of her political connections to help Leia and the Resistance fight off the First Order. She works in the background to try and help her grandson but he is determined to go down that same path. IN MY VERSION, PALPATINE STAYS DEAD AND SNOKE IS A NEW CHARACTER ENTIRELY DOING HIS OWN THING.

After Kylo Ren kills Snoke, he becomes the new Supreme Leader, much to the dismay of his mother and grandmother. They realize that there is little they can do to save him from himself. For Leia, she feels like a failure of a mother. For Padmé, it is history repeating. Eventually the First Order is overwhelmed by the Resistance and they are forced to surrender/retreat. Kylo Ren is taken into custody where he has to answer for his crimes. Padmé gets one last chance to speak to her grandson and talks to him about Anakin, why she never stopped fighting or believing in diplomacy, her love for him but also her disappointment that he willingly chose the easy path. Leia also has a difficult conversation with him.

Her story ends where it began: in Naboo. While her fighting days are long behind her, her spirit lives on in her daughter and the others who were inspired by the both of them.

[emeraldspiral]

Real talk, the only reason Anakin had to go to Jedi school to git gud is because he needed to be a kid when he left his mom and an adult when he began his romance with Padme. If the plot had called for it, he would’ve been a Master Jedi in a week because the needs of the story outweigh the need for “realism”.

Just look at Luke. His training lasted maybe a couple of days or weeks at most because it just wouldn’t make sense for Luke to stay out of the fight for years and years. He could only train for as long as it took Han and Leia to get captured by Vader, but he also needed to not instantly lose to Vader when they fought. Therefore, the amount of time it took for Han and Leia’s storyline to play out was the exact amount of time Luke needed to get good enough to face Vader.

Afterward, in RotJ, supposedly there’s a timeskip of a year, but you’d be forgiven if you thought, as I did, that only a few days or weeks passed, since there’s 0 mention of a timeskip in the film and no reason to think it would take that long to get to Tatooine or plan Han’s rescue. In fact, it seems out of character for a dedicated Rebel like Leia to take that much time off for one person, no matter how she felt about him. But I digress. Regardless of whether it was really a year or only a few days, the fact remains that Luke didn’t have any additional training during that timeskip. He only returned to Dagobah after rescuing Han, and upon arrival Yoda was on his deathbed telling Luke he was already ready, no additional Force training or lightsaber combat instruction required.

In any event, however much training he received, it was definitely significantly under ten years and, from what we saw, didn’t even cover lightsaber fencing, at least not nearly as much as lifting rocks and reading minds and other Force skills. Yet, he still managed to overpower Vader, the strongest Jedi/Sith to ever live. Because the story required him to be that powerful at that point so that he could complete his arc by rejecting the opportunity to slay Vader.

Now, let’s consider Rey’s skills, abilities, and accomplishments, starting with the dumbest of the dumbshit things people complain about when trying to use the “she’s too good at too many things/gets too good too fast” argument for why she’s a Mary-Sue.

First of all:

Why does Rey speak droid and Wookie (as if that’s a particularly uncommon skill)? Because she needs to befriend BB-8, so BB-8 can bring her together with Finn and because someone’s got to be able to understand Chewie once Han’s gone and that someone should probably be the one who’s going to be spending a lot of time alone with him co-piloting the Falcon when they go to find Luke. The better question to ask is why anyone cares about shit like that? Like, is that on some Mary-Sue litmus test somewhere? “Is bilingual in a world where most people are?” If you’re going to complain about something that stupid I have to assume you think character writing should work like Pokemon where you have to drop traits in order to stay under a certain limit, even if half the stuff filling up the quota is stuff like “can ride a bicycle” or “doesn’t burn the house down when they cook”.

Second:

Why is she an ace pilot (as if half the characters in Star Wars, both Force sensitive and non-Force sensitive aren’t also Ace Pilots, and also as if Rey has more than ONE SINGLE flying scene or had any trouble handing over the spotlight to any of the other THREE ACE PILOTS JUST IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY)? Because she has to be a pilot because Finn can’t be, because he had to need Poe so that he could get his jacket, in order to catch BB-8′s attention, so that BB-8 could bring him and Rey together. Also, because it emphasizes Rey’s major character flaw; that she is the architect of her own misery. She has the means to leave Jakku but doesn’t, something directly acknowledged immediately after her one and only flying scene.

Third:

Why does she show Han up on knowledge of his own ship? Well, for one thing, she fucking doesn’t. She only knows about one thing installed in the ship after it left his custody. But even if you wanted to make the claim that this was supposed to demonstrate that she was some kind of Superstar Mechanic (as if mechanics are something rare and special in Star Wars) and that the reason for her being a Superstar Mechanic is just to get Han to like her, even that has a story-related justification that isn’t just about wish-fulfillment or using a cool character to shill for her. Having Han take a liking to her creates another opportunity for her to demonstrate her character flaw when she rejects his job offer in favor of returning to Jakku to wait forever for parents that don’t love her when there’s a man she already thinks of as the father she never had right in front of her. Also, having her bond with him makes his death at Kylo’s hands more personal for her, thereby creating a greater hurdle for her to overcome in order to come to have compassion for Kylo, making it more satisfying when she does.

Fourth:

Why does she have the Force when she’s already a pilot, mechanic, and proficient stick-fighter (as if any of those things are unique or special. Or more importantly, ever used at the expense of letting other characters shine)? Couldn’t she have been a Badass Normal? If this were just about beating bad guys and winning the war maybe. But it’s clearly not. This is about the old heroes passing the torch to the next generation. The main character was always going to be Force sensitive, always going to become a Jedi, and always going to replace Luke no matter what gender they were, who they were related to, whether they were a scavenger or a stormtrooper or secret royalty or Born of the Force or who, if anyone, they were going to be romantically partnered with. Rey needs to be Force sensitive because, as the main character, her ultimate purpose is to define what it means to be a Jedi for a new generation.

Fifth:

Why can she do things with the Force without training? Well, the only reason Luke needed a training montage was because the Force was a brand new concept for him and he was limited by his own ideas about his capabilities, and because the audience was going in blind as well and needed to hear the Force 101 lectures just as much as he did. Rey meanwhile, has no reason to think lifting rocks or picking up a lightsaber hilt is hard when she’s grown up hearing stories about Luke doing much crazier things. Between that, having Kylo demonstrate all those abilities to her beforehand, and also being able to access his training through the Force Bond there is 0 reason for her to need a training montage in-universe. But more importantly, because the audience has already gotten a crash course on standard Force abilities from the previous movies, a training montage would be redundant. We don’t need the same exposition given to us again anymore than we need to see Rey repeat the same character journey as Luke. The Force Bond and Rey’s preexisting fighting capabilities may be a convenient workaround to explain why Rey doesn’t need a training montage, but they exist because a training montage would be dead weight that adds nothing to the story. And that’s just the Force Bond’s ancillary purpose. Its much more important function is getting Rey and Kylo to stop fighting and start talking.

Sixth:

Why couldn’t Rey and Kylo at least fight to a draw or better yet, have her forced to retreat in their first battle? Why did she have to beat him at the very beginning of her journey? Doesn’t that make her too powerful with no room for advancement and him too weak, leaving no tension for future confrontations?

Because Kylo’s defeat isn’t about Rey at all. It’s not about making her look good. Kylo’s supposed to be at his lowest point going into TLJ. He’s supposed to look weak, not because the screenwriters think it’ll make Rey look stronger in comparison. They know damn well that the way to write a villain is to present them as an impossible obstacle to overcome. To hide any semblance of vulnerability in order to keep you in suspense as to how the hero could ever prevail against them. But that’s not Rey and Kylo’s dynamic. That’s Kylo and Snoke’s dynamic. Kylo isn’t the villain, he’s the “other half of the protagonist”. He doesn’t exist for Rey to be afraid of him. She’s meant to sympathize with him, which means he needs to appear vulnerable and human in front of her. They couldn’t build the romantic (or even platonic) connection the film clearly intended for them if Kylo actually did come across as threatening as people wanted him to be. The appearance of physical or emotional invincibility would be antithetical to the entire story they’re trying to tell.

Also, Rey isn’t even that good with a lightsaber. Kylo had been shot with a bowcaster, injured further and tired out by Finn, and handicapped himself by not aiming to kill or maim since he wanted to recruit Rey to his side and Rey still spent 98% of that fight running and only won because Kylo chose not to kill her when he had the chance.

Believe it or not, some dumbasses have actually heard all this and still tried to argue that Rey shouldn’t be in any fighting shape after hitting a tree hard enough to lose consciousness and that should nullify all the advantages she was given. If you make this argument, you’re being an anal contrarian fuck and you know it. Getting hit in the head is NEVER portrayed realistically in fiction. It is completely standard and in no way exceptional for a fictional character to awake from unconsciousness with no impairments. It has fuck all to do with trying to make characters look cool. It never has been and never will be a Mary-Sue trope.

In conclusion:

None of Rey’s abilities or feats are just there to make her look good. They’re either there to move the story along, or to add to her characterization and character journey, or to add to Kylo’s. Furthermore, they’re nothing special in the context of Star Wars, the stuff she learns quickly has in-universe justifications and it’s not even unprecedented for characters to git gud enough to match someone more experienced in a very short amount of time with no in-universe justification.

[lurkingcrow]

Ok so this is hard because Luke/Obi-Wan is honestly a bit squicky for me most of the time and I've never actually written Luke/Han because Leia. But I think I can do it...

It's the middle of the Clone Wars and after some unexpected enemy movements Obi-Wan ends up separated and undercover on a CIS occupied planet . He manages to stay undetected for at least a week or so when his luck runs out and he's faced down by battle droids without his lightsaber when there's blaster fire and a strange young man telling him to run.

His new friend doesn't seem to recognise General Kenobi, and Obi-Wan isn't about to enlighten him. He thinks about calling himself Ben, but something stops him, and he decides on dubbing himself "Jinn" instead. Luke (as he introduces himself) doesn't want to be taken into CIS custody either, and they get along well enough, so they decide to team up a bit to find a way offplanet.

Luke is so confused. He doesn't quite know where he is but those droids look new despite the OLD and he does NOT want to end up in a cell because Force damn it he needs to get back to his own time: they need to rescue Han from Jabba! At least Jinn seems to know what he's doing - Luke has the strong suspicion that his new friend is actually a Jedi which makes him his best bet at finding a solution. Also he's kind of cute, and if Luke didn't have such confusing feelings about Han (who he's pretty sure he's at least got a crush on but suspects it's more) and Leia (who he KNOWS he loves but doesn't really think it's romantic any more)...

He admits as much one night as they're hiding in maintenance tunnels and Jinn nods sympathetically and offers his own opinion that Luke is quite attractive but he too has his own romantic entanglements. And they bond over being in love with one half of a couple they would collectively do anything for and don't want to hurt (of course Obi-Wan knows about Padmé, how could he not, and while it breaks his heart he will give them every chance they have to be happy).

More adventures ensue, and after several near misses they each try to convince the other to confess to their romantic entanglements (Luke more so because "At least you're romantically attracted to both of them, Jinn.").

Of course eventually they make it out and just as Anakin lands with the rescue force Luke feels a strange sensation and knows his time here is short. He turns to "Jinn" who is looking at him like he already knows.

Obi-Wan smiles at the handsome young man who shares so much with him but looks so very similar to Anakin, and leans in close.

"Be safe."

"I'll try. If you promise me you'll TELL them."

And Obi-Wan laughs brightly, and lands a chaste kiss on his lips.

"The Force be with you Luke."

And Luke fades into nothingness.

Of course a very worried Anakin saw that farewell and it sparks all sorts of feelings in him. Obi-Wan KISSED someone! He complains about this to Padmé, who takes the opportunity to tease out Anakin's attraction to Obi-Wan and actually have a talk about what to do about it. Which means much later, when Obi-Wan finally gets the courage to fill his promise and confess, Anakin and Padmé leap on the opportunity to tie him into their relationship! Threesomes mean no Vader and that is how accidental time travelling saved the day! :)

Meanwhile Luke arrives back in his time, and ROTJ proceeds much as canon except a bit afterwards he sits Leia (his Sister!!! How amazing!!!) down and admits his crush on her would be husband. Leia just looks at him, considering, and says "We can share." As a result Luke ends up a lot more involved in the family life and Ben Solo never gets the opportunity to be lured to the Dark Side because his family stays whole and far too invested in his life, and DOUBLE SAVE!

I hope that fills your request! ;)

97 and 100!!!

Time Travel and Accidentally Saving the Day… Isn’t that like half my AUs? XD

Did you have a pairing in mind?