#star wars tlj spoilers

[fandomlife-confessions]

[wishingupontheskyandstars]

Just finished watching the season finale of ‘The Acolyte’ and Woww that was a pretty damn good Star Wars 😌

[reyturnofbensolo]

"Can you imagine? Can you imagine if they were like, 'No problem, you can use Yoda. Not a big deal. Go for it."-Leslye Headland

🤣

[1nightinoctober]

I think the episode from The Acolyte 1x06 - Teach/Corrupt (even though this seems like a preproduction temporary title) drinks a lot from The Last Jedi.

The Jedi are often presented as always righteous and always good and always ethically correct. When Anakin gives in into the dark side the give away message was that darkness was always in him, like an inevitable fate. That he was impulsive, and proud and couldn't let go of his attachments.

A shortcut to Anakin getting corrupted was that he did not understood the darkness in him, because none of the Jedi recognizes that darkness exists in them. That is human (or multi species in the star wars universe), that contradiction lies in us, but what is important is that no matter what might cross your head, you can always chose to do the right thing. Choosing to be good implies that you can be redeemed, that even if you have done bad actions that does not define that you always have to be on the dark side. Ultimately is why Luke cannot handle the darkness in Ben, and does not understands or knows how to deal with the darkness that this risens in himself.

Something we also see in episode vi of Obi Wan Kenobi with the Third Sister. Reva chooses not to kill Luke, not to give in into the revenge she feels.

In The Last Jedi we see this push and pull from Rey and Ben Solo. Can one be persuated into the darkness or the other persuaded into the light. Their path is not closed for or settled. Or else it wouldn't be possible for them to reflect upon their counterparts arguments. There is hope for Ben to turn for light and there is fear that Rey might join the dark side.

This is also an interesting exercise in The Acolyte. They shows us in episode 3, the childhood of the sisters, their foundations, where Osha is presented as in light, and Mae as in darkness. That is inate in them and predestines their futures (hell, even the name of the episode is "destiny") but by episode 6 this is not such as straightforward, as both of them reflect on their paths and values.

Nothing that Qimir says is particularly wrong, the arguments he uses are coherent and coesive, the same way Palpatine makes complete sense to Anakin. Because these characters are not allowed to feel this less than pristine feelings they go "well shit, if he is evil and he sees this in me, I must be evil too". Moreover, because they are not prepared for the evil within, they do not know how to identify it and resist it. Corruption it's easy. It's easy to fall into and easy to justify it to ourselves, especially when we do not recognise ourselves as vulnerable to it.

Depending how they go about the next episodes of The Acolyte I think it might be an interesting battle between good and evil. After all both lie within us.

[tarisilmarwen]

Ahsoka "The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord" Liveblog

Woo boy, there were certainly some Choices in this.

Yeah yeah, I'm late and spoilered to hell I know, look, I have been Going Through It out in realspace and my priority has been finishing Whumptober fics, cut me some slack.

Anyway.

Lars Mikkelson continuing to crush it as Thrawn.

"Even I fell victim to the... heroics of a single Jedi." Looooooool another bit for my collection of Pissy!Thrawn moments.

We're not going to get an explanation for why the Nightsisters and Thrawn are so tight, are we?

Morgan looks a little bit trepidacious about all of this ha ha.

All right, a point in this show's favor, this look at Nightsister rituals and culture is interesting.

And the flaming sword is cool, I'll admit.

Ngl, the editing really needs to be tightened up in this scene, we really only needed the one or two establishing shots before cutting into the interior.

Eman continues to be the perfect Ezra. I love him. 10/10 no complaints.

Ngl, this is sweet on the surface that Ezra's new saber has pieces of Kanan's buuuuuuuut *waves Green Saber Ezra Supremacy flag*.

Sabine, let him borrow y'all's lightsaber and YOU build a new one.

Ah goody, an Exposition Reveal.

-_-

This... doesn't actually explain Baylan's "Your family is dead because your Master didn't trust you." line btw. JUST SAYING.

I don't even know what the narrative wants anymore re. Sabine's choice to gamble Thrawn's return for Ezra.

Aaaand please not to be reminding me of the Wrong Jedi arc kthnx.

Oh good an action scene.

Ezra and Ahsoka being cool Jedi together, nice. Could be more emphasized and staged even more coolly tho.

Well poop, I guess that's the reason why we had to risk stowing away on Thrawn's ship.

Oh good! This holomap thing is exactly the kind of plot device I actually needed for one of my Sabezra Week fills.

Lol Thrawn be taking NO chances lololol.

Oh hello finally some of Thrawn's theme in the score here. Thrawn using the men's loyalty and fanaticism towards him personally to achieve his goals, fits the culty vibes, sure.

I am liiiiiviiiiiiiiiiiing for the subtle nervousness in Ezra's voice when talking about Thrawn finding the Dathomir castle and waking the witches. PLEASE CAN I HAVE A THOUSAND WHUMP AND ANGST FICS ABOUT THE IN-BETWEEN BEFORE EZRA'S ESCAPE FROM THE CHIMAERA?

His arms are so comfortably around Sabine awwwwww.

Thrawn be all srs bznss and I'm loving it.

Yeah no, Jedi!Sabine is REJECTED, she did not have any kind of necessary mental or emotional breakthrough, she wasn't shown calming her mind properly, sorry Dave THE LEGWORK AIN'T THERE, Imma fix this to be Ahsoka in the inevitable rewrite/fixfic that I've apparently decided I'm doing.

Oh Ahsoka is helping too, well I'm still not having Sabine be able to do it.

HAAAAAAAAAA THAT PISSED LOOK OF THRAWN'S OH MAN THE SNARLING LIP CURL, THE RAGE, YES PLEASE MORE.

The struggle to recompose himself OH MAN.

This is peak Mirrorverse!Thrawn and I'm here for it. I love seeing my headcanons playing out onscreen.

Aaaaaand this would have been the perfect scene to have Ezra and Sabine sharing the Our Lightsaber, meanwhile Sabine should be fully kitted out Mando style.

*simmers*

STAGE THIS DIFFERENTLY SO THAT SABINE'S BESKAR IS NOT CONSTANTLY LITERAL PLOT ARMOR PLEASE.

Aahhhhhhh Ezra my love! <3

Should have either let him use the Our Lightsaber or continued with the Force martial arts though, pick a lane. Or have a conversation about why they need to actually get him another saber.

Eman is... waaaaaaay better at this than Rosario, sad to say, lol.

Look at him GO THERE'S MY BOY.

I love him.

Oh what are we doing now?

Ohhhhh the zombie!troopers!

Lol Ezra must have left before the Nightsisters could show Thrawn their zombie techniques.

Eman makes this look flawless, I am in love.

Battle Couple Sabezra moment, awww.

"I missed you."

FAKSJHFAKJFHHKKHHHFHFH OKAY DEAD.

DEAD AND DECEASED.

LIKE THE ZOMBIES LOL.

Aaaaaaaaand I'm gonna adjust this in the fixfic, because right now it looks like they were waiting to actually dock.

And my typing is being slowed down hang on a second.

Still dumb.

Okay back.

Thrawn basically telling Morgan, "Right, so you're going to have to go fight the Rebels and stall die for me, mmkay?"

She's looking like she might regret all of this now lolol.

I do like how the finale is making it very very easy for me to fix later lol.

Like here. Morgan should have attempted to stop Ezra and Sabine. Just a small attempt, and then blocked by Ahsoka, and Ezra and Sabine run around and outmaneuver them.

BATTLE COUPLE SABEZRA. :D

Aaaaand final trailer shot accounted for.

Okay, can there be a little more effort on the choreography there please?

Oh no Sabine, EZRA SAVE HER.

Or we could retcon Sabine into actually legitimately being Force Sensitive and have her pull the Our Lightsaber.

SIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHH.

*grumbles, takes down notes about how to fix this in my rewrite*

Oh come on Ezra, you can jump that.

Catch me melting at the sheer and utter trust Ezra has in Sabine's abilities.

(But also, screw this, she's getting a jetpack in the rewrite.)

Aaaaaaaaaand I do hate that they got separated again, screwing alllllll of that.

Nice of the troopers to just politely stop shooting.

Yeah so, this is basically gonna be a 1 v 100 for Ahsoka when I rewrite it, let my girl have a hard fought climactic battle, she can take it.

"Your friends are dead." Uhhhh nah they ain't what does this bit of dialogue even connect to?

Lol Ezra gets to put on the big boy stormtrooper armor.

The vaaaaaaaaaguely panicky twitches that Thrawn has here. A+, excellent, no notes.

No kill like overkill LOLOLOL.

Thrawn, internally: Shitshitshitshitshitshitshiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Ah Thrawn is going to try Break Them By Talking. Ezra tanked this let's see if Ahsoka can do the same.

Nope, she's Affected.

Aaaaaand he out.

Bye Thrawn!

Hmmmmgh, yeah no, because in my rewrite I'm axing the entirety of Sabine actually becoming a Jedi it's going to be better that she goes with Ezra on the Eye of Sion instead of stays with Ahsoka, if she stayed a Jedi then yes that's what the conclusion should have been that makes narrative sense now that I see it.

But also again, I Do Not Like That Plot Point so--*grumblegrumble mumble*

Hi Morai!

Bandit queen Shin? I could dig it.

Baylan chilling with Mortis god statues.

I STILL DO NOT SEE ANY SOLID EVIDENCE THEY'RE GONNA DO ABELOTH GUYS, SORRY.

And Thrawn is setting up base on Dathomir. Lol wait til he finds out that there's basically nothing there anymore lololol.

Those uh... those be a lotta dead troopers. Probably most of the Chimaera crew.

...Cripes did they die naturally, did Ezra kill them, or did Thrawn pull some kind of Jonestown thing in order to enact his eventual revenge?

Oh maaaaan what if it's that last one, that would fit with the cult-like chanting in his intro omgghghhhggkajsfkjh.

Frick man, Thrawn fixing to unleash an undead army on the GFFA that can really only be taken out by lightsabers.

Oh come on, you're telling me Ezra was on the Eye and didn't pull some last minute shenanigans before he left?

Didn't screw Thrawn over one last time for nostalgia's sake?

(He and Sabine are blowing up some engines before they skedaddle, in the fixfic.)

HERA AND EZRA SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED A HUG, FILONI.

The attempt at bookends here is cute but no. LET HERA HUG HER SON.

THIS DOESN'T EVEN REALLY WORK AS A BOOKEND.

YES THE PART WHERE CHOPPER RECOGNIZES HIM IS CUTE BUT THIS IS WASTED DRAMA. THERE'S NO REASON FOR THIS.

LET HERA HUG HER SOOOOOOONNNN.

This whole scene just doesn't work because we're trying to shoehorn it into being a bookend for the opening, it doesn't wooooooooooorrrrrk.

THEY SHOULD HAVE HUGGED.

*furiously taking down notes on how to rewrite this scene*

*grumbling*

Blah blah Sabine can feel Anakin there but Ahsoka can't? blah blah blah.

Aaaaaaand closing us out with "As The Sun Sails And The Moon Walks"

Well.

Where do I begin?

Okay so... final verdict... I DO actually like this show.

THAT BEING SAID.

There was soooooooo much about the execution and so many of the narrative choices that I just NEEDED to be better and it frustrates me. Because this show by all rights should have been a spectacular emotional thrill ride like Kenobi and it just wasn't.

A lot of the problems and nitpicks I had with Kenobi are exacerbated here, especially under Filoni's brand of, "I didn't care for what Lucas did with the Prequels, here let me fix it." NO FILONI IT DIDN'T NEED FIXING IT WAS FINE! HOW THE FORCE WORKED WAS FINE! THE JEDI WERE FINE!

But there's such GOOD STUFF in here that I can't discount it all fully like I can with the Sequel Trilogy. (Which, believe me, I have attempted to workshop and fixfic but ultimately gave up on.) The purrgil lore! The Ancient Dathomiri! Another galaxy! Whatever Baylan was up to! Sabezra being adorable! Thrawn!

Soooooo yeah, basically join me sometime in the future for when I inevitably create a fixfic AU for this show like I did for Aldnoah.Zero because unfortunately I can't give up on this show I need to fix it, just hand me the characters and story and I can fix it.

Can't do much for the camerawork, choreography, and occasional stiff acting (Not you Eman, Natasha, Ray, Evan, and Lars, you're all great.) but I can at least salvage that part lol.

Ultimately... mid. Excellent premise and cool concepts brought down by subpar execution and some frankly baffling narrative decisions. But gimme like a week and I will workshop a Fanon AU that I can be completely happy with.

Hopefully we get a Season Two? Maybe? Or resolve everything in the Mandoverse movie?

Peace out, y'all.

[thund3randrain]

Listen, I hate The Last Jedi as much as the next avid movie-goer. But I loved the whole idea of Rey coming from nothing. Her parents being scavengers who sold her for drinking money.

So much of star wars is built around the idea of family making you important. Who you're related to making you special. You backstory defining you. That was the whole point of the prequel trilogy. They do it to so many characters. Kylo Ren is important because he's a Skywalker. Leia is important because she's a Skywalker. For a while we thought Rey was gonna be important because she was gonna be a Skywalker, or even a Kenobi.

Rey starting out a nobody, but still being able to affect the galaxy and have her own story is so powerful, and throws the finger right in the face of everything that came before. You don't need to have some mythic ancestry or powerful backstory to be important. Anyone can be a hero, and anyone can make a difference. Rey was so convinced that her parents were important, that knowing them would explain everything, but in the end they didn't matter. She mattered. And that's really moving

And then JJ said fuck it she's a Palpatine Skywalker now UwU

[knight-hunter]

To be honest, this latest episode of The Mandalorian kind of worried me about the direction the show might take...

That VERY long segment on Coruscant bothered me for two reasons:

1) this is The Mandalorian, I wanna see the mandalorian and follow closely his adventures, I don't wanna NOT see him for 3/4 of the episode (and, yes, that applies for what happened on tbobf too: while I was happy to see Din, Grogu etc, that was Boba's show, it didn't felt right)

2) I have the nasty feeling that, sooner or later, they're gonna start and show connections, through the shows, to the last sequels trilogy. And this episode might have started that. And here I have a HUGE problem: personally, for my healthy state of mind, I don't consider the sequels trilogy canon. I just can't. It was an insult to everything that I love about star wars. Hell, to everything that I love about storytelling. I tried, but I couldn't.

So, I'd REALLY hate it if they'd start to use The Mandalorian as a tool of connection to those "movies". Just make a separate series, and don't use The Mandalorian.

And, yes, I know I maybe wrong seeing how the story on Coruscant ended, but this episode kind of put me on guard.

I wanna follow Din Djarin and Grogu. I want THEIR stories. Please, do not ruin this too.

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

My parents and I watched the season 3 finale of Star Wars: Rebels tonight and I can't believe my mom was the one who was like "WHY ARE THEY* ALL DYING?!" and I was the one being all, "don't worry I'm sure it will be fine." this is the most role reversal we have ever done.

(*to clarify I mean the rebels in general, the main cast was fine)

[crookshankscrew]

when they bring back the Praetorian Guards and every anti has to comment with “I hate the sequel trilogy but I love them” or “I hate the last Jedi but the guard was so much better in this show”

shut the fuck up

[antianakin]

Hey, I have a question to ask, and I'm gonna ask this to a few others cause I'm not a huge Star Wars expert on this.

Ever since The Acolyte aired, the jedi have been portrayed more as space cops. But, since when were they space cops? I thought they weren't like that. Am I wrong?

They AREN'T space cops, you're entirely correct, it's Leslye Headland who is wrong.

Here's the thing you have to understand about Leslye Headland and fans like her: they will claim to their dying day that they love the Jedi while sitting there talking about how the PREQUELS Jedi specifically were awful failures who doomed themselves by being heartless assholes who failed and/or abused Anakin and helped bring about the destruction of the Republic because they were simultaneously too political and not political enough.

When the Prequels first came out, they were received... poorly... by a large chunk of the adult audience. And it became a THING to hate the Prequel trilogy for a long time. After a while, people started deciding they didn't want to hate the Prequel trilogy, but they didn't actually LIKE some of the things in the films that were different from the legends canon that had already existed for years (primarily the way the Jedi had been interpreted), and so they chose to come up with interpretations that allowed them to "like" the Prequels better. The primary one that's become so popular as to basically end up considered the actual real intended message of the films is that the Jedi had become corrupt by the time of the Prequels, they were too old-fashioned and strict and stuck in their ways (specifically in that they forbid their members to love and were beholden to the Senate) and that this allowed Palpatine to win and Anakin to be seduced to the dark side, so they're the REAL villains of the entire story and the audience is SUPPOSED to dislike them.

In fairness to these fans, there IS a theme in the Prequels of an institute that's supposed to stand for peace and goodness being corrupted into an organization that is run by fear and greed. It's just that the institution in question is the SENATE, not the Jedi. And we spend a LOT more time with main characters who are Jedi, going out and doing cool fun Jedi adventures, than we do in the Senate with any of the known Senate characters doing political things. The only Senate character who could be considered a main character in the Prequels is Padme and a LOT of her more political scenes got cut from the films in order to focus on Anakin's story instead. Even in TCW, most of Padme's "political" episodes and storylines just devolve into action adventure plots instead. So it isn't hard to understand why people focused in on the Jedi and assumed that the story was ABOUT the Jedi rather than the politicians and picked up on a theme about corruption that was very much THERE and just misapplied it. But it's still wrong.

Leslye Headland appears to be one of those fans. A LOT of Star Wars fans of a certain age tend to follow this particular headcanon. Dave Filoni is another one of them, despite his reputation as George Lucas's "padawan" and the person who understands Star Wars the best after Lucas (spoiler alert: he's not).

So what we're getting in the Acolyte is a VERY intentional critique of the Jedi becoming more political I guess, more beholden to the Senate, and therefore becoming more like "space cops" instead of... I don't know... space Knights of the Round Table maybe? I think there's this concept that the Jedi should be more free spirited like... fairy god parents wandering the galaxy just handing out random miracles to worthy people and smiting the unworthy or some shit instead of being intergalactic ambassadors for the Republic, helping to resolve conflicts with legal backing and power.

This is something that's been around for DECADES now. It's in plenty of other books and comics that have come out during and since the Prequels, it's in TLJ, it's in TOTJ and TOTE, it's in the Ahsoka show, and now it's in The Acolyte. And it's obviously floated its way around fanfiction plenty, too. It's almost impossible to avoid if you talk to any other Star Wars fans from that age group (and even honestly fans YOUNGER than that age group because a lot of the older fans basically taught their children and younger siblings to hate the Prequels or that the Prequels were about the corruption of the Jedi, or younger fans just picked it up via osmosis if they spent almost any time within fandom the way I did). But it's becoming a thing that newer shows are really hammering in as if it's real canon. Headland genuinely believes that it is and we know that to be true because she's flat out SAID THIS in an interview she gave before the show aired. She 100% believes that the point of the Prequels, George Lucas's intended message in those films, was that the Jedi were corrupt and had fallen from grace. Her show is written with this misinterpretation of the films as a foundation for how she portrays the Jedi.

And that's how you get the Jedi suddenly feeling like "space cops" when that's so very clearly not what they are in anything Lucas ever created.

[jedimasterbailey]

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE THIRD EPISODE OF AHSOKA

PRO JEDI RANT DOWN BELOW

This Loth Cat is a good representation of me not losing my mind on how badly the Jedi Order is being completely defiled by Feloni. Okay…so apparently according to Feloni anybody can just be a Jedi if they try really, really hard and believe in them because the Force resides in everyone when we all know that that’s not fucking true according to Lucas. Yes, the Force resides in all things HOWEVER it is the Force sensitive (I.e. the Jedi and Sith) that are able to wield the Force because they’ve got the blood to do so (midocholorians… I’m sure I’ve butchered the spelling forgive me). So with that being said, does anything in Star Wars even matter anymore? Like honestly.

By this logic…anybody in the OT could have just destroyed the Sith if they tRiEd HaRd EnOuGh. So I guess fuck the importance of Luke Skywalker and all the other survivors of Order 66? And I suppose by this logic none of the prequel Jedi or hell even Anakin doesn’t matter because anybody can just wield a lightsaber and tap into the Force if tHeY jUsT bElIeVeD iN tHeMsElVeS? Why does Rey matter when apparently anyone could have taken down the First Order and destroyed Palpatine when some fucking Mando could have just done the job of being Force sensitive doesn’t matter?

Like believe me guys, I am TRYING so hard not to be a hater but it truly makes me sad to see the one element of Star Wars I love so much (I.e. the Jedi Order and everything they do and stand for) just get picked apart and trashed over and over and over again. I just don’t understand it and I know I can’t be the only one feeling like this.

Also Ahsoka’s character right now is reminding me of Luke’s in TLJ where I feel like I’m seeing and hearing a completely different character and it’s heartbreaking when you’ve looked up and loved these heroes so much. Like for Gods sake can we settle the score in where Ahsoka stands with the Jedi? Is she or is she not? Because right now she’s doing a poor representation of all her mentors who have lost their lives staying true to themselves, Jedi who gave everything to protect and save lives. Now she seems to just go out of her way to scoff at the Order that raised her, similar to Luke dismissing the very thing that gave him hope in the OT.

As these new shows go on, it just makes the fall of the Jedi Order all the more tragic just seeing how their sacrifice and good will meant absolutely nothing. That’s why characters like Cal Kestis and Cere Junda are incredible. They stayed true to their Jedi values no matter what because that’s what the galaxy needs, heroes who care. Not heroes who have personal agendas.

[bluntblade]

I wondered how The Acolyte would do the Rashomon thing (having heard Headland talk about it being an influence) given that The Last Jedi already got there first and played it straight. Spoilers for a movie that's over seventy years old (I genuinely really recommend it):

Well, they subverted it wholesale here, in a way that's interesting and really appropriate to this story. In Rashomon and TLJ, the second flashback to the past serves to tar the honourable warrior, but then there's a third one which supplies context. Furthermore, in the end we have a scene of confession and atonement. In Rashomon, the cycle of recrimination ends with a man taking responsibility for a small child (OK, so that's not the most exact Rey analogue but you can see how Rian Johnson homed in on it).

Here, on the other hand? Well, we've understood the Jedi's reasonable intentions all along, but there's no third look, and Osha's not willing to listen. And we're reminded that the Dark Side decidedly does not bend toward forgiveness or redemption, just as Qimir's been pushing Osha to abandon "Jedi concepts" like mercy.

She was wronged, and through the dark prism Qimir offers, it doesn't matter why she was wronged. It doesn't matter that Sol was frightened for her, or how much both the deed and the lie have torn him up inside for a decade or more. Doesn't matter how much he wants to make up for it. He took something away from her. Therefore, he has to die.

Also whoohoo, welcome back Star Wars doing samurai movie references where it actually has something to say about that media!

[risingshards]

Blegh okay I thought about it and after rewatching some eps and reading this again, I kinda like my rambling thoughts on acolyte ep 6 so here goes

Preface: I'm a very very VERY easy to please sw fan and I don't like ragging on shows or movies or whatever this way much these days if I can avoid it with how internet fandom is, like especially with this show with all the hatred and vitriol it's gotten from the incels.

And I've been enjoying the show a ton so far, and ep 6 wasn't bad...just. blech. I have critiques.

TLDR: I was excited for a big thriller mystery in the High Republic era told with a queer lens, and instead I feel like I'm getting a Goodreads review of a scrubbed Reylo fic listing the tropes.

spoilers and me bitching after cut lol

I'm just like why is it reylo now????????

I figured with the mentor swap we'd be heading to Osha turning to the dark side and maybe Mae to the light, but the way it's being put out there feels lacking. Osha is turning so quickly that it felt like i was reading some enemies to lovers romantasy for my book club (at least it hasn't been as awful as the colonizer romance they had me read but that is a LOW bar to clear....). Like a lot of the romantasy books I've read, it feels like setup and taking time to build meaningful connections between characters is ignored for like "oh wow he took his shirt off...he's so jacked....what was i talking about again..." I saw a video with the audio descriptions for the ep and it literally sounded like a romantasy audiobook.

And to note: if you love the enemies to lovers romantasy booktok books, like more power to ya! For me it's like when you stare at one of those magic pictures and you can't get your eyes to cross to see the picture, like "I do NOT understand what I'm supposed to see here."

Str8 enemies to lovers just kind of blech me out, where the evil one commits various atrocities that make me want to see them get what's coming to them, and then minutes later the good one is like "whoa he's hot maybe he's not so bad..."

Osha being so Jedi-like in personality only to immediately falter at a hot naked dude just feels gross. Like can't we have any other reasons for women in Star Wars to get tempted to the dark side than a shirtless man gaslighting them? Probably unsurprisingly but I REALLY did not like Reylo (I was in a very bad relationship and I kinda put the headcanon onto TLJ about it being an escape from an abuser because it came out right after I got away from that, so that going any other way did not vibe right with me) so maybe it's just residual feelings from that.

Again more power to you if this is your thing I'm not coming at anyone for enjoying it!

I think another thing that's making me uncomfortable is seeing interviews with Hedlund about Qimir about his desire for freedom against those who want him gone being relatable in a queer sense, and like I get that, I feel that. But if that's the character with the metaphorical queer experience why are we doing mega straight reylo 2 with him? And that guy brutally kills one of the queer girls and calls her it immediately after??? It doesn't help that the show started off feeling really queer, and now like 80% of the queer characters are dead and we're doing reylo 2. The "oh fuck yeah REYLOOOO" interviews I've read this week are NOT reassuring in this regard.

There's just something my pea brain doesn't get when it comes to stories with more shades of gray in series that are typically pretty black and white with morality. When a character crosses that threshold so far into villainy, I want to see them face some blow back for it, not immediately start going all "uwu they're torn and hurt aren't they?" about it. In Star Wars generally speaking I want the antagonist to BE the antagonist, not get thrown into this space between protagonist and antagonist that just has me all crossed up. I know there are plenty of redemptions in Star Wars for the villains, but I like it better when it's more mythical about the hardships of trying to save a villain's soul like Luke and Vader than "the lightsaber represents kylo's dick" reylo stuff.

I get that like the morality is probably supposed to be muddled in this show, and we're not supposed to feel good about Osha and Qimir getting closer smash cutting to Jecki's fresh corpse, but again, the execution feels messy when you have the gleeful "OH YEAH WE'RE DOING ENEMIES TO LOVERS BABY REYLO SLAYYYYYYY" interviews. Again I'm a VERY easy to please sw fan, and I've been really enjoying seeing the High Republic era in live action, seeing cortosis and wild lightsaber duels, all the expanded universe pulls, it feels really fresh in that regard. And all the performances are stellar, and having such a diverse cast is incredible.

If we had more than thirty minutes and more than 8 episodes to build to all this it'd feel a lot better. The character development feels like it's on roller coaster speed, but with Knife to Throat and other tropey scenes also seen in a bajillion enemies to lovers romance books nowadays thrown our way to fill the gaps. These scripts feel like they needed an editor to really go over the scene to scene motivations and logic and character work and dialogue, instead of mashing booktok trope buttons, which is also how I feel about most romantasy books I read...

Counterpoint to myself is that Star Wars is built on tropes and archetypes so this is like taking some tropes and archetypes of the current day's fiction and playing with them.

But idk.

Like am I really supposed to care about any of what I'm seeing or is it just gonna be booktok and fanfic tropes thrown my way now to a bunch of characters with muddled personalities and motivations clashing? We don't necessarily need someone to root for, and I'm probably being unfair to a lot of this, but after how thrilling Ep 5 felt, 6 has me wondering what the bigger picture of this show is, because it went from feeling like a fascinating if a bit messy story to one that might just be "Look here's enemies to lovers, knife to throat, corruption, oh and here's one bed!" without as much under the surface of that character and plot wise as I would have hoped.

[anakinskywalkerog]

AHSOKA EP. 3 RECAP

these are my absolutely unabridged thoughts. less of a recap more of a please let’s talk about this shit!! SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

1. THE PURRGIL. I love them so much. I cried to see them in live action. they’re HUGE!! they’re wonderful. someone gif the Ahsoka purrgil pleeeeeease!!

2. “I suppose you do come from a long line of unusual jedi” NICE REFERENCE TO THE DISASTER LINEAGE I love this

ALSO love that this show is addressing the ongoing debate between the “anyone can tap into the force” camp and the “some people are born with force abilities camp”—it’s both! and it can be both.

3. love that Jacen is in this and also the subtle Kanan reference I died (“I lost friends people that were like family to Thrawn etc etc)

4. This is the most female characters I’ve seen in any Star Wars project, EVER. this is the first time I’ve ever seen a space battle (a gun”man” and a pilot and a pursuer in a gunship) all take place between female characters. this is so significant to me I can’t even explain it. watching the scene with the star fight felt to me like that moment when I first watched Rey wield the force (the first force sensitive female character we’d had on the big screen). I wanted to cry. I’m so happy.

5. surprisingly I don’t have a problem with spacesuit Ahsoka. it’s one of those weird things that sort of works 😂 even though it’s so weird. like that part of TLJ when Leia freezes in space

I’m finally caught up!!! please tell me your takes.

[ao3feed--reylo]

Visions of Us

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3cnagmB

by Arintothewoods

I always wondered how exactly Rey and Kylo came to talk in THAT Force Bond scene, also, what their respective visions were to make them so sure about the other turning… so enjoy this extended version of the hut scene of TLJ!

Words: 2848, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 4 of Characters' studies

Fandoms: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker

Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren

Additional Tags: Spoilers, Missing moment/Extended scene, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo and Rey desperately need hugs but a hand touch will do, all the feelings, Secretly soft Ben Solo, Kylo’s Empress fantasy kink too, Oblivious Rey (or is she?), Touch-starved Rey & Kylo, Luke did you really HAD to ruin the moment?, All the endings we could have had, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3cnagmB

[wedgemccloud]

I kept a lot of high spirits even through Rise of the Skywalker. It was bad, but I just rode with it, even with the people around me obviously annoyed. I’ve been through worse Star Wars stories. Bad writing decisions in the prequels, in the games, in the books...

I heard the spoilers and had already braced for the kiss. The moments of repeating the same fakeout of “oh no, character you care about died! ...Not!” three times weren’t known to me, but they had already told me they were checked out with this one and I found my own fun.

You wanna know the single moment where I knew they wasted the potential of the series?

This moment. This was the same moment I had as when I saw Tron: Legacy in theaters and (spoiler alert!!1) Tron turns back to his old self and turns on Clu, saying “I fight for the users!” and I was hype despite seemingly no one else in the theater getting it. I was the only person in my group of like six people who saw the original Tron. That line was for, basically, me.

*points at my username*

This moment in RotS was for me as well. I read the Rogue Squadron novels as a kid and played the Rogue Squadron games. I put both my hands up in the theater the exact same way I did watching Tron: Legacy.

And I just wish it meant more.

He was a cameo that basically didn’t do anything, part of a massive “all the cavalry has shown up” battle against a bullshit ass-pull enemy fleet, after a cavalcade of bad writing decisions had taken the wind out of everyone else.

This was like... the only thing that I wanted that I ended up getting from RotS.

And that’s utterly damning.

Which drives me nuts because it was all so simple. I know some of the plot twists in TLJ were controversial (and I don’t mean by the anti-SJW crowd; Phasma was done dirty) but at least you could see what the idea was. RotS felt like it gave up. It over-corrected, ignored, and just wanted everything done in ways that especially frustrate someone like me who sees things in terms of how they could be fixed, how even a bad decision could still be done better.

I knew all in the post above wasn’t going to happen. Even still, I thought they would nail ONE of them. But, at the end of it all, I literally only got one thing.

I got Wedge. For half a minute.

(And Rey with a yellow lightsaber because that was what I always used in games and even that was a fucking MESS of a moment.)

Me leaving the theatre December 17 2015: Wow! I can’t wait for Finn to become a Jedi and lead a storm trooper revolution, and Rey to be a skywalker/Kenobi, and Poe to be a main character with development and lead with Leia, and Luke helping his sister lead the new rebellion and train Finn and Rey. And Hux and Kylo and Phasma are gonna be an evil trio! So much cool stuff is gonna happen!