#they are better than the sith but they are not perfect

[kittenfangirl20]

I think the one of the dumbest pro Jedi arguments I have seen is that Jedi are not against romance or other types bonds based on love, they are against attachment. If that was the case then why are Jedi not allowed to marry? Why are Jedi not allowed know their biological families? Why do Jedi need to take babies? Also no, I don’t see Jedi taking babies from families as adoption, that is also stupid too. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jedi Knights put pressure on parents to give up their babies by claiming the baby will have a better life. Also I don’t think being critical of certain Jedi Practices means I wanted them to all die like they did or that they are worse than the Sith.

[fellthemarvelous]

I want to talk about Obi-Wan and Maul

This might end up being kind of long so bear with me, and my thoughts are kind of all over the place and possibly slightly incoherent.

Maul and Obi-Wan had a rivalry that was insanely brutal. (More under the cut.)

Maul survived being cut in half by Obi-Wan and ended up going insane, no longer connected to reality and living in the sewers for many years. Once Savage took him back to Dathomir and the Nightsisters "fixed" him, he found clarity again and became wholly fixated on Obi-Wan, the only person he had any connection to from his past. He hated all Jedi, but there was no one he hated more than Kenobi.

Obi-Wan, for his part, was horrified to learn that Maul had survived considering Obi-Wan had cut him in half.

Their rivalry is probably one of my favorites in all of Star Wars.

Maul was bloodthirsty, vengeful, and full of rage.

Obi-Wan was the opposite. He was kind, compassionate, took no pleasure from killing others, and loved unconditionally.

And one thing Obi-Wan eventually came to understand about Maul was that Maul had not had a good life. He recognized that Maul was raised to be the person he was because of the cruelty of Darth Sidious.

The Nightsisters handed baby Maul over to Darth Sidious to be trained in the ways of the Sith. Darth Sidious, who is famously cruel and diabolical. Darth Sidious, who raised Maul to be expendable because Maul was just a means to an end for Sidious.

Maul who never grew up experiencing love. He never experienced kindness or compassion. He was raised to be an assassin, a cold-blooded killer, doing anything and everything Sidious asked of him.

And he eventually understood that he had been nothing more than a tool for Sidious.

So he was angry. Alone. Full of hate. And wanted revenge.

And his anger at Obi-Wan was more than just him losing his legs. Obi-Wan caused him to lose the only life he knew. He had no guidance once Sidious was finished with him.

The only life he knew was one of cruelty. He'd never bonded with anyone until he met Savage.

And when Sidious killed Savage, Maul was alone again. (Ironically, Sidious killed Savage the same way Maul had killed Satine like five minutes prior.)

He had no one on his side again.

He tried to connect with Ahsoka, and then with Ezra years later.

But still, more than anything, he wanted to break Obi-Wan the same way that he himself was broken. He wanted to see Obi-Wan lose control and become like him. He was almost successful when he forced Obi-Wan to watch him kill Satine.

But Obi-Wan proved to be unbreakable even in that moment, and Maul's obsession only became stronger, along with his rage.

Maul was unable to comprehend love, and it drove him crazy that Obi-Wan had actually tried to connect with him in the moments leading up to Satine's death. Obi-Wan had tried to show Maul compassion and it infuriated Maul. He hated that Obi-Wan was trying to be kind to him.

Maul was a monster in every way, but he was also a victim raised under the cruelty of Darth Sidious and only knew how to be what Sidious had molded him into.

And on the other side we have Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite his sass and sharp wit, he is kind and loving. He loved being a Jedi and devoted his life to living by the Jedi code. And he may not have always gotten it right, but he never strayed from the core principles.

(And always be as dramatic as possible.)

I've seen some bizarre criticisms of Obi-Wan that have me scratching my head. His attachment to Anakin, for one, like there isn't a rich and complicated history behind their relationship in the first place.

He's criticized for not killing Anakin so clearly Vader's reign of terror is somehow Obi-Wan's fault.

Let's examine all of this a bit closer.

We often joke about the fact that Obi-Wan has a vast collection of dismembered body parts, but Obi-Wan does not like killing others. He kills when he has no other option.

He prefers to disarm his opponents, quite literally. He cut off Zam Wessell's hand instead of killing her even though she was about to kill him. He just wanted answers. She had no real way of fighting back because he had injured her.

He disarmed the man who was threatening Luke in the cantina in A New Hope. He didn't kill him though. It's not like he was a major threat.

And on Mustafar, he couldn't bring himself to kill Anakin. He cut off one of Anakin's arms and both of his legs, an action that tore him apart because he loved Anakin so much. Anakin was defenseless at that point, and he was also completely on fire thanks to the lava. No part of him imagined that Anakin could have survived being burned alive, and he spent the next ten years hating himself for leaving Anakin to die until he learned that Anakin not only survived but was incredibly angry with him and wanted to kill him.

Just like Maul.

Obi-Wan did not like the idea of killing. At all.

And perhaps it was his attachment to Anakin Skywalker that brought the galaxy to its knees, but that attachment was because he and Anakin had always had a confusing relationship.

Let's take into consideration the fact that Obi-Wan, at the end of The Phantom Menace and only 25-years-old, had just watched his Master die at the hands of Darth Maul, subsequently killed Darth Maul (but not as much as he thought he had), been given the title of Jedi Knight, and taken on nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (almost immediately after being knighted), a boy who had just been freed from slavery and had to leave his mother behind to pursue a life as a Jedi because being a Jedi had always been his dream.

Then maybe take into account the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi was grieving the loss of Qui-Gon while Anakin struggled with being away from Shmi for the first time in his life. Obi-Wan didn't just train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi, he raised Anakin. He treated Anakin like a brother while Anakin said Obi-Wan was the closest thing he ever had to a father. Obi-Wan has always been good with children, and it's only natural that he would take on a parental type of role despite the fact he was only 16 years older than Anakin. He loved Anakin the way a brother would, and it did blind him to some of Anakin's more concerning habits, but Anakin also kept his biggest sins a secret because he was ashamed of himself, and he never wanted to know what it felt like to have Obi-Wan be disappointed in him.

Their relationship was messy because they were attached to each other, but Obi-Wan still did his best to teach Anakin. It had been Qui-Gon's final wish for him to train the boy, and Obi-Wan trusted his master.

So it was his attachment to Anakin that prevented him from killing Anakin aka Darth Vader, but it was very in character for him to choose not to do so. He always believed there were other ways to fight back.

And in the end, not killing Anakin had been the right choice. Anakin is the one who defeated Sidious (at the cost of his own life too) in an act of love for his son Luke and returned balance to the Force.

Obi-Wan didn't want to kill Maul either, but Maul gave him no choice. Maul was now a threat to Luke.

Maul lived a tormented, lonely life because he was never able to come to terms with the pain and anguish he'd experienced as a child that turned him into the monster he was throughout the rest of his life.

Obi-Wan (Ben) was able to rise above the suffering he'd endured and made peace with what had happened during and after the Clone Wars. He was so very much connected to the Force by this point because he had finally been able to let go of the tragedies of his past.

When he defeated Maul, he didn't treat it as a victory. He cradled Maul in his arms the same way he had held Qui-Gon and Satine when they died by Maul's hand.

He offered compassion to Maul despite Maul's atrocities, and in doing so, allowed Maul to experience peace for the first time in his long life.

In his final moments, he was treated with the dignity he had never given any of his victims.

And I think, in the end, Maul finally understood what he had been deprived of his entire life.

Obi-Wan was a true Jedi. He might have made a few errors along his journey, like everyone else does. He proved he was a master not by his skills with a lightsaber but by his ability to show compassion to those who don't necessarily deserve it because they are the ones who usually need it the most.

Star Wars Rebels gave us such beautiful closure to a rivalry that spanned decades.

[thelaurenshippen]

may the fourth be with all my morally ambiguous/sometimes-serves-the-role-of-villain-but-is-actually-my-poor-little-meow-meow glup shittos

[satinestales]

He knew she was a different Jedi, she was better than him, he couldn't read her mind , or could even tell what she thinks, but she could feel everything he felt . She understood him. Lot sexual tension

❝self destructive tendencies�� | qimir x fem!reader

pairing: qimir x fem!reader

● this is a 2nd pov, if you want to read 3rd pov, here●

summary: A week has passed since the battle on Khofar and the startling reveal of your former friend. Qimir, the man behind the mask and the murderer of your comrades took you to a remote island, far away from the Republic's surveillance, after you sustained severe injuries. You've been keeping your distance from him, trying to ignore your hidden feelings. Yet, when his thoughts merge with yours, the vow you made to yourself becomes almost impossible to keep.

warnings: english is not my first language, sexual tension, corruption, sexual themes/dreams, E Y E C O N T A C T, qimir, mentions of blood and injuries

author's note: I could not be a jedi I'd turn into aquaman if he asked me to join him

now playing, love in the sky by the weeknd

*:..。♡*ﾟ¨ﾟﾟ·*:..。♡౨ৎ 🍓｡˚🍰♡ ˚..。♡*ﾟ¨ﾟﾟ·*:..。♡ ︎

The moon hung low over the horizon, casting an eerie glow on the waves that lapped against the shores of the ghostly island. Qimir’s silhouette stood out against the backdrop of the night sky, his presence a constant reminder of the blood and carnage he left on Khofar. As you laid on the rough sand, the pain from your injuries pulsed faintly, you could not shake the mixture of fear and thirst that his proximity stirred within you. The island was a planet unknown to you and as much as you tried to examine the surface, its location remained elusive to you. You supposed it might have been somewhere in the Outer Rim or beyond. Somewhere where the Republic would have a difficult way of finding you. World away from the Republic’s watchful eyes, and here, with only Qimir for company, you felt both vulnerable and strangely contented.

You decided to relax on the beach, further away from Qimir’s constant presence that melted your thoughts. However, luck wasn't on your side; minutes after settling in, he walked past you to his favorite bathing spot, smirk on his face as he acknowledged your presence. It was late at night, your legs and arms sore from the repetitive training, you put yourself through. The island offered few diversions. Waiting for Qimir’s next move or for Sol to find you wasn’t your idea of a perfect day. The injuries covering your body were difficult to ignore, and you refused to let Qimir get close enough to you to heal them. You told yourself you would rather bleed out than feel his touch on your skin. Deep down, though, you knew the real reason for keeping him at bay.

So, you lay there, absentmindedly playing with a rock you found, irritated by his presence but too weary to consider moving again. You had to admit your fault; you had set up camp right in front of his favorite spot. Over the past week, you had seen him bare many times. First unbothered but lately it has gotten under your skin. You had been friends with Qimir for some time before discovering his true identity behind the mask and his responsibility for your friends' murders. Their deaths pained you, but the betrayal and realization of his deception cut deeper. After many years you thought you found yourself a friend outside the temple. One that you could share your interests and secrets with, without the fear of being judged by the Jedi. You told him about your fears and likes. Your doubts in the order and your wish to help people as much as you could. About your hate and desire. The Sith emotions. Now he’s using them to lure you in and trap you on the other side.

You weren’t the most perceptive, but his intentions were clear. He knew your feelings, your likes, and dislikes; you had shared them with him when you believed he was your friend and a supplier. Even a blind person could see his thoughts, and your strength in the Force allowed you to delve into his mind, revealing more than you wished to know.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away as he slowly shed his clothes to enter the water, a routine he seemed to relish. Despite your experiences in battles and missions, witnessing the horrible conditions and lack of hygiene, even your comrades didn’t bathe as frequently as Qimir did before you. You considered yourself fortunate; at least he smelled good, even if the scent of sandalwood mixed with citrus fruit drove you mad. You smelled it when you woke up, during meals and training, and before sleep. You felt him everywhere. You weren’t sure for how much longer you could endure it.

You studied the muscles of his back as he swam slowly, admiring them from your vantage point. He was undeniably strong, scars marring his skin a testament to the pain he had endured. You observed how his dark hair moved with his motions, how he ran his long thick fingers through it while washing it gently. His biceps tensed as he splashed water around his neck, and you noticed the way he caressed his chest, attempting to cleanse away the day’s dirt.

It was only when you accidently crushed the rock in half, you realized the intensity of your stare. Clearing your throat, you sat up and leaned against the mossy bank behind you, feeling shame wash over you. You were convinced his own dreams started to corrupt you.

One of the curses of being a Jedi was the ability to read minds, and Qimir was no exception. You saw his thoughts vividly, filled with bright colors that sent adrenaline coursing through your veins. You wondered if he wanted you to delve into his mind, to make you believe he desired you, or if he simply didn’t care. You feared he could read your thoughts too, despite your lifelong ability to block out others with ease.

You lied to yourself, convincing yourself that you were immune to his ideas, desires, and magnetic charm. But every time he looked at you, towered over you, or you smelt him in the air, your knees buckled, your stomach tightened, and you fought against the need of pressing your legs together. You felt sick and his mind brushing against yours didn’t help.

You felt it every time he drew near. He visualized your hands in his mind, how they caressed his scars and shoulders. You saw his hair falling down as he towered over you, gently pushing you against the cold floor of his cave. You felt his breath against your neck, his fingers pulling your hair, his skin pressed against yours. In his dreams, you never resisted. He was corrupting you in his dreams, and you never once objected in them. You were embarrassed he got your mannerisms right

You were so lost in your shared thoughts, you didn’t notice Qimir making his way out of the water, his eyes fixated on you with dangerous intensity. He carefully leaned down to grab a towel, amusement playing on his lips. He didn’t want to wake you up from your thoughts, whatever they may have been.

As he gently dried himself with soft cloth, not taking his eyes of you, he tried to read your mind, even if he failed millions of times before. He never had difficulty reading someone, one look at them and he could see their whole past. But you, he had no idea what you were thinking or planning, or what images played in your head. You were strong, stronger that the ones he met before, and he admired that. He praised your strength in the force and your ability to protect yourself from your nemesis. Like him.

But he could read body language. He noticed how you tensed around him when he walked past you. How your chest started rising faster whenever he stared you down. Your goosebumps when you brushed against each other. How you pressed your legs together when he towered over you. And how you were now crushing the rock in your hand, gazing his direction.

“You can always join me, you know that.” He breathed out, letting the cloth fall on the ground, replacing it with his long blouse. You almost wanted to take the top from him just so you could continue your view but when you finally recollected your thoughts, you wanted to slap yourself. “It would help with your wounds when you don’t let me heal them.” He uttered, dressing himself, not breaking eye contact with you. He liked your stare. He liked how you fought with your emotions and how they reflected in your eyes. It pleased him.

“I’m okay,” you faked a smile, swallowing the ridiculous amount of saliva in your mouth. You forced yourself to look somewhere else then his strong forearms or how he dragged the pants up his muscular legs. You found a cute shell, admiring it from afar.

You didn’t catch the grin on his face as your face turned pink and you clenched your fists. He was amused with your reactions but your ripped bandage and the blood revealing itself underneath caught his full attention. His face froze, along with his movements while buttoning up his shirt. He would never touch you unless you wanted him to, but your leg was nowhere near in being healed and with the lack of medical supplies on this island, you’d lose it long before you’d be able to leave the island.

“Let me help you.” It wasn’t a question, more of a subtle order. You didn’t miss it. A week ago, on Khofar, Qimir stopped himself before fatally hurting you, but he still landed a strike on your leg, that had trouble healing. You were stubborn enough to push him away when he offered his help and now you started to slowly regret it.

“I don’t need anything from you.” You hissed at him, catching a glimpse of his unbuttoned blouse.

“You’re a powerful Jedi and I don’t doubt you’d be still as fierce as you are now without your leg.” He murmured, making his way towards you, leaving his bag and shoes near the water. “If you want to risk it.” You watched him tilt his head, as he slowly approached you. You could only see the images in his mind, his plans and ideas. But underneath it all, he didn’t mean it in a bad way. He wanted to help you. In his own way. He was your friend; he knew your weaknesses and strengths. He knew what you wanted, and he was willing to give it to you. But you couldn’t erase the lying and murder of your friends. You wanted your friend back. Maybe something else this time but your trust in him faded. Now it was just Qimir. Confusing your thoughts and making you rethink your morals. You felt as disgusted with him as you felt with yourself. But you understood him. Or at least tried to.

So, you didn’t oppose, letting him kneel in front of you, his hands carefully reaching out to your ripped bandage above your knee. He was so close you could smell him again. His hair fell into his face, covering his eyes that were focusing only on your wound. His fingers worked fast but tender as he lifted your thigh to unwrap the bandage. You swallowed hard, feeling his veiny hand below your leg. You were scared he could feel your burning skin, hoping he would mistake it as a result from the injury.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you on Khofar.” You heard him whisper, gripping the sand below you as he threw away the bandage, the cold air kissing your open wound. You almost heard pity in his voice. You were certain you imagined it.

You begged yourself to look away, but your eyes betrayed you as they glared down at his hand that was almost as big as your thigh. He covered the wound, not touching it fully, concentrating on restoring back your cells.

You were fascinated by how quickly the wound closed up, leaving only a small scar across your thigh. You wanted to learn how to force heal ever since you lost your friend to a fatal injury as a kid, but the Jedi never taught you. No matter how hard you pleaded. Whenever you asked, they answered with the same answer. Only dark side users possess this power. You always felt it was ridiculous.

“How do you do it?” you manage to ask, ignoring Qimir’s confused stare as he picked up his head and drew his hand away from you. But he didn’t move position and kept kneeling between your feet. “How do you, force heal?” you felt embarrassed asking but he was one of your only chances on how to learn.

A soft smile creeped to his lips as he moved his eyes from your face to your hands. You suddenly became aware of your vulnerable position.

“In order to heal someone,” he started, softness in his voice, no signs of mockery. “You need to focus on your own energy, imagine it and visualize it. Imagine its color, like you do with the Force.” He continued, his hands moving in motion with his words.

You could feel the warmth radiating of of him as he sat centimeters away from you, his wet hair framing his sharp features. His eyes were dark, only the light of the moon reflecting in them. His lips were full, stretched as he shared his knowledge with you. You didn’t move a muscle and returned his stare. It was only you two.

“The Jedi teach only one way. Physical way. Taking your physical energy and give it to someone who needs it.” He whispered, leaning his head to the side, giving you a chance to admire his sharp jaw. His neck was thick, his collarbones defined. “But there is another way.” He stopped to look at you, examining your expression. You were listening sharply, breathing fast, and your eyes bore so deep in him that he was certain you could read everything he was thinking. He let you.

“Below the surface of consciousness are powerful emotions. Anger. Fear. Loss.” He started listing, his eyes twitching between your eyes and your lips. “Desire”

Your leg muscles twitched, your core burning up. You wanted to bury yourself.

“Only Sith feels those emotions.” You whispered back, denying yourself. You saw a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth before he lowered his stare.

“You can draw energy from them, direct them in any way you want.” He purred, looking back at you, letting you feel his emotions. “However, whenever you want.” He lowered his voice as he stretched the last words, reading your face.

He knew you read his mind. He knew you saw the images that kept him awake and his wishes. He had them since he met you months ago, and when he sensed your attraction toward him, they only intensified. He wanted you and was simply waiting for you to admit the same to yourself, no matter how long it would take.

[lilolilyr]

~ Lilo's 2024 Star Wars recs ~ (another Ao3 year in review)

This is specifically the star wars edition of my reader year in review, the rest & more info can be found here!

Descriptions/summaries by me, click the links for the ones from the authors.

The Good Sith by sonnyrain - Obi-Wan Kenobi and all of the Vod'e time travel and end up on a Sith planet. Obi-Wan, now 'Aranar', turns to the dark side, swearing to protect his men no matter the cost. Over a million words, lots of plot and character developments, fix-everything, still ongoing as of mid last year but you can read the first part(s) on their own.

I love this fic a ridiculous amount, I read several parts at least twice, and I'm thinking about it constantly. Like, when I think up my plotless little fluff piece fix everything bedtime stories I think up to fall asleep (and sometimes when something's good have to forego sleep to write down immediately because I know I won't remember fuckall come morning), I think of the versions of the characters from that 'verse just as often as I think of canon star wars characters or ones from any other fics. It fits into my headcanon 'verse really well because I always work with multiverse settings, and I love the kid characters especially little Sithling Aurek and his twin Soul.

Knives and Spices by argentee, mikaiyawa and others: A whole group of humans from earth is kidnapped into the Star Wars world, and separate fics follow separate characters. One becomes Mandalorian, one a pop star, yet another befriends some pirates and travels to lands we've never seen in canon. 280k, ratings and warnings vary, series still ongoing, parts can be read separately

I love and adore all kinds of self insert stories but this one is just extra levels of amazing - it's basically humans are space orcs meets Star Wars, and humans are all a bit force sensitive - the ending of the series summary describes it perfectly: "how much trouble can a few humans cause? All of it. All the trouble." and I love it all to bits!

Like a Tree by the River by @bairnsidhe - at Galidraan, Komari has a vision of the canon future and decides that she'd rather leave the Jedi behind than be a part of that massacre. Somehow, this ends with her and Dooku being adopted by mandalorians, and her in turn kind of adopting teenaged Obi-Wan at Melida/Daan? 20k T

Idk, this isn't even such a long one and I mean all of BairnSidhe's works I've read are great but somehow specifically this one with Dooku being the 'a bit old' ad and Komari therefore the bu'ad of a random coruscanti Mandalorian just stuck with me and I sometimes randomly think of Dooku being all confused and have to smile xD the plot&writing is also really good!

How a Romance Novel Saved the Galaxy by @arianaderalte: The mandos get their hands on a novel that describes a romance between mandalorians and jedi, and just how perfect jedi really are as partners for mandalorians... This changes things when both groups interact irl. 200k, rated T, Violence

This series has Everything. Jedi, Mandalorians, action, relationships, all kinds of queerness, and excerpts from a romance novel about the ancient Sith wars. Honestly, this fic just couldn't be better! I binge-read through it in one go even though I should have done a million other things at the time and I didn't regret it one bit xD

All the Amavikka stories: the slaves on Tatooine have a separate secret culture with language, myths and names, and Anakin, coming from this culture, reacts to Palpatine being his newest slave master

I think this idea of Tatooine slave culture and of Anakin's characterization is so interesting and I love reading it, from long Double Agent Vader by @fialleril, which I think is the original fic creating the Ekkreth lore, over the ongoing series Biting His Own Tale by @adragonsfriend, to the short story I can't find anymore about depur erecting a tower, a song-fic to Babylon by Dirt Poor Robin and the reason for my obsession with that band - please, if anyone has a link, send it my way! - and all other fics, I love this trope so much!

I think Ekkreth Skywalker was one of the first trope rabbit holes I stumbled into when I got really into Star Wars longfics in the middle of 2024, and I'm always excited to see references to it in fics mainly about other characters as well, like Breaking Chains by @jehanneargentee, and I went back to (re)reading fics about the trope on purpose several times as well :)

The last fic leads neatly into the next trope I really loved this year, Time Travel stories, more specifically Obi-Wan Kenobi time travelling and meeting mandalorians :D

I don't really have more specific stories for this one, I read so so so many of them that they just blur together in my mind. I marked a couple with the Ao3 rec function so I assume I liked those especially much, but going through them now I still don't really remember much, but I do recognize a couple fic author names as authors I read many good fics from, Ariel_Sojourner AppoApples @batshieroglyphics @roosjem LeeTheHobbit @triscribe cjwritesfanficnow @laurabwrites y'all's are awesome! Everyone, go check out all their fics!

I do also read and enjoy stories where people other than Obi-Wan travel through time, one that really stuck with me is In Good Time by morwen_of_gondor, about the Mandalorian trainers Kal Skirata and Walon Vau time travelling back to their time on Kamino.

All the fluffy h/c, fix-it, everyone lives, no order 66 Clone Wars fics! Pro-jedi, pro-clones, anti-sith (which sometimes includes Anakin, sometimes not), usually focusing on the 212th.

I never watched the series and it's been ages since I watched Attack of the Clones, but somehow, probably on the time travel -> Obi-Wan fics -> General Kenobi pipeline, I ended up reading a loooot of clone wars (fix it) fic, specifically lots and lots of Codywan!

You know that lovely feeling of getting into a new fandom without having any preconceived notions or otps or anything, so you can read All The Fic without any ships or bashing squicking you out? Yeah, that was me in Star Wars several months ago, cursed be the Codywan that got to me xD I can barely read time travel fics anymore without mourning the existence of the Vod'e because changing the past usually means they won't be created (unless they're the ones time travelling of course. Love those fics) and where I used to read just about anyone x Obi-Wan (and also anyone x anybody else lmao), I'm not pretty exclusively into Codywan... That being said, there's a reason for that, and that's the amount of amazing fics for that ship that I came across!

Again, I don't have specific fics that I remember because I just read so many one after the other... I guess I'll have to re-read them all. Which is great actually because me not remembering them much means I can reread them basically for the first time! I did mark some as rec but looking through them now I think they're not mainly recced for the codywan... My shippy bookmark tag might give a better overview.

Another ship I got into was clone troopers Waxer x Boil, I like the thought of the Vod'e being a society of to outsiders identical looking but to each other separate people who only see their immediate batchmates as siblings (which would also psychologically make a lot more sense), and these two are just super cute.

One of the first Waxer/Boil fics I read is also Codywan and it's one of these clones&Obi-Wan time travel fics I like so much :D The 212th Attack Battalion's Guide to Saving the Galaxy by Accident by @antigrav-vector and @quarra, it also has some Dooku/Sifo-Dyas which is another ship I really like.

Another one I still want to continue reading is RCAU: Open Skies mainly by @cacodaemonia, what I've seen of it so far is great and the story is So Long (almost 900k, a honestly daunting wordcount and probably what made me procrastinate continuing it, but also Awesome because So Much Fic), it's cute and shippy and no order 66 but also has plot and interesting characters and ocs and I just love it <3

Also similar but less ship centric, I absolutely love all the fics where Fox gets to kill Palpatine. Just, best trope ever. The Corrie Guard deserves a little Sith Murder. As a treat.

Jaster Mereel and his haat'ade (True Mandalorians), there are a bunch of really good ones where they rescue Obi-Wan and the Young from Melidaan, but also in general all the Jaster fics are great!

While I'm very anti guns irl I just love the fictional Mandalorian culture xD with their cool armor and their codex and the language (per my last count I know 90 words of Mando'a just from fic reading osmosis, send me an ask if you want a list lmao), the vibrant culture created by it being a creed, not one species... and Jaster is just my favorite Mando'ad ever, maybe because he doesn't have much canon attached so fanon just went wild? xD there are also a bunch of jedi shippy fics with him and Dooku sometimes in ot3 with Sifo-Dyas, or him and Jon Antilles like the wonderful 100k wip trade your heart for bones to know by @blackkatmagic, and I think there was one with time travelling adult Obi-Wan as well - edit: yes several, by @roosjem @cjwritesfanficnow @batshieroglyphics <3

Skywalker Family Values by Ariel_Sojourner: Sith-son Luke and senator daughter Leia end up in the same summer camp, it ends in a destruction of the speciist camp, a rebellious theatre performance and the reintroduction of their parents... Aka the parent trap/ Doppelte Lottchen AU that is still somehow perfectly in tune with the Star Wars world! 55k, T for violence.

Can't forget the fic that actually got me into Star Wars! At least I'm pretty sure this is the one? I think there was a tumblr post talking about crackfic ideas for a parent trap AU, and I went looking and found this one, which is actually 100% serious and such a good read. I actually made my mom read it as well xD Das Doppelte Lottchen (German original parent trap book from 1949) was one of our favs for her to read to me when I was a kid, and my mom is always looking for new reading material and as I'm mainly reading fanfic, I'm always happy to find fic she'll also like.

And, because I turn everything into a tag meme, maybe some of you also want to show your appreciation for the writers who got us through the last year - everyone who sees this, feel free to make your own post (if it's just Star wars fic I guess you can reblog-add to this one, but otherwise seriously make your own post)! and remember to leave your authors some comments especially if they can't be @-ed on tumblr :) tagging all the authors already tagged above and everyone else who sees this!

here's my 2024 rec list for other fandoms

more of my fic recs • my writing • my Star Wars • Star Wars fic recs

[dontbelasagnax]

To understand Obi-Wan, you have to understand that his reputation of being demure or a bitch are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I would say you can't have Obi-Wan without at least a little of both.

Obi-Wan is someone who always has a remark on the tip of his tongue. It's just his instinctual first reaction. Always some quip or bite of sarcasm. But the thing is, he knows when to rein it in. He knows when his choice words are appropriate and when they're not. And if he feels particularly compelled to be bitchy when he can't, he'll phrase things in a way that will be scathing without the target ever realizing what hit them.

He's known as the negotiator. He knows his way around words. Now, it's my understanding that we so rarely see him utilizing this particular skill set in canon because that's not what the story was ever about. It's demonstrated in other ways. How he's regal and more reserved amongst figures of respect to downright maliciously petty while facing foes like the Sith.

Take Anakin's perception of Obi-Wan. He sees Obi-Wan as a perfect, stuck-up, unflappable Jedi. This competes with the fact that Obi-Wan is particularly catty and playful with Anakin and routinely chides him for behaviors... yet does many of the same himself. He's far from perfect but obviously wants Anakin to know what's best and do better than him.

Anakin has this perception of Obi-Wan (not only because it seems he's never good enough for him) because it's how he perceives Obi-Wan's station in the world based on how Obi-Wan is treated by others.

To really get into Obi-Wan, one must talk about how his self worth issues constantly war his ego. Constantly building himself up only to tear himself down again. Going around saying Sith Lords are his specialty (having never actually defeated one lmao) yet finding himself shocked and deeply honored when Mace calls him the master of soresu.

His moments of grandeur are sharply transposed by his feelings of insignificancy and inadequacy.

He's a complex, multifaceted, hypocritical human being like any. He's elegant and bitchy and yes, at times a sopping wet cat.

He's all these things because he's Obi-Wan

[adragonsfriend]

Use this one trick to instantly fix all childhood trauma (Jedi Masters don’t want you to know this)!!!!!

That is what every “if Obi-Wan had just— *adds one extra scene to canon* —then Anakin would’ve had perfect mental health and never listened to Palpatine at all,” sounds like to me. Look I am not an expert on any kind of psychology at all let alone early childhood development but,

It is possible to do your very best to help or raise someone and still have bad or imperfect outcomes, especially when you have someone actively, secretly working against you (cough cough Sith Lord of the month cough), (for many reasons, but in this case particularly), because unravelling the mindset built in early childhood is hard, actually.

Coming at this from the “raised in a safe and loving environment” side of things, it took me years to figure out and internalize that my friends whose parents weren’t as great as mine were functioning in an entirely different landscape when it came to their interactions with adults.

Many years ago when I was in middle school a friend (acquaintance? idk I think most people thought I was annoying) told me that her ankle kept giving out and causing her pain. I asked if she'd told her parents so she could rest or go to the doctor. She told me she had, but her mother either hadn't listened or refused to help. My (approximate) responses?

"So it's not actually that bad then?"

"You should tell her again."

"Are you sure you explained it right?"

The only explanation I could comprehend at the time was that there must have been some unclear communication about the situation or its severity--if her mother had understood she was in pain, she couldn't possibly have just not done anything about it? Adults are responsible, caring, etcetera! They wouldn't do that?!

With more experience, I've come to understand better, and learned to respond in kinder, more helpful ways, but the shift in mindset was not and is not intuitive.

And I had the luxury of figuring all that out whilst being safe myself. Coming from the other direction, being in danger and trying to figure out why other people act like the world is safe? I can't say for sure, but I imagine it’s a lot more complicated.

Point with regard to Star Wars being, it really is harder for Anakin, coming in later, to acclimate to the Jedi ways and thought processes than it is for his peers who grew up in the safe environment of the Temple. And whatever arguments people want to have about how much psychology and therapy exist in the Star Wars universe, or how much “Jedi just do cognitive behavioral therapy” (not totally inaccurate, but reductive on several levels), no matter what the answers to those questions, it will still be harder for Anakin.

There is a reason the council changes its mind on training him only after he is suddenly famous and the Sith are proven to be back. When Anakin was not in significant danger of being snatched up by someone else, it was genuinely probably the easier and safer option—for him and everyone else—for him to live a different life.

The Jedi are not necessarily fully prepared for a child with Anakin's history, and, there is nothing bad about living an ordinary life. Anakin would not have been somehow unforgivably robbed by living life as a mechanic or an engineer or something, rather than being a Jedi.

Anakin is a victim of many things in his life—Sidious, Watto, Gardulla, Tatooine’s everything, his own conscious choices—but he is not a victim of malice, incompetence, or idiocy by the Jedi just because they couldn't—in only a decade or so—help him fully and perfectly unravel the mindset he developed in his early childhood. If there was any lack of qualification on their part, it was one they were aware of—but which was outweighed by the danger of little Anakin getting kidnapped out of normal-kid elementary school.

Being brought up in and around slavery absolutely made him more vulnerable to Sidous and became the basis of their dynamic as master and apprentice. Acting like the trauma that affects his mindset and actions for his entire life can be obliterated just by making minimal changes to the plot is wild to me.

And don’t get me wrong, fics and headcanons can do whatever they want, not everyone wants or is trying to write a deep psychological character study (also fanfic and even fiction in general cannot and should not be held to any standard of realism if it's not serving the story and the author)—simple fix-it’s (my love) are fun and an excellent short-cut to other things like happiness and fluff (my other loves)—but don’t act serious about the idea that adding one conversation about his feelings or one extra explanation about Jedi philosophy would automatically lead to Anakin having perfect mental health outcomes and always making good decisions.

Disclaimer (if the ones throughout weren't enough) : please go forth and do whatever you want. the moral of this post is actually just that (1) you won’t convince me, (2) I wanted to talk about this, (3) the clickbait title was too funny not to post, (4) i literally can't open my mouth without phrasing things like i'm in the middle of a heated debate, and (5) i continue to not be an expert in early childhood development—my evidence is very literally anecdotal

[thegingerwrites]

Suddenly a Sith

Warm up ficlet inspired by this art. Possessed by a sith artifact Obi-Wan you say? Sign me up

Anakin knows something is wrong from the moment he enters the cave. Beyond the strange glyphs lining the walls, circling the altar like a snake, beyond the darkness and the cold, beyond every instinct in Anakin’s body telling him turn around, run—the Force screams as he enters the room, setting his teeth on edge.

“Obi-Wan?” The man is in the center of the chamber, his back to Anakin. His head is bent low over something and if it weren’t for the fact that this is Obi-Wan, Anakin might not care to find out what is so important that he can ignore all of the agony around them in favor of it.

Obi-Wan doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t move at all, like he can’t hear him, though Anakin’s voice echoes off the walls.

A few of the men in the small scouting party reach the entrance behind Anakin—Commander Cody and two others—but Anakin holds up a hand to stop them from going any further. Something strange is going on here and Anakin would much rather be the only one who has to suffer the consequences of messing with something that he shouldn’t. Well, he thinks, considering the strange, still form of his former master, perhaps not the only one.

“Obi-Wan?” he tries again, as he takes careful steps forward. This time, Obi-Wan seems to hear him. He tilts his head to the side then stretches his neck fluidly like an animal, rolling his head from side to side as though he is limbering up before a sparring match.

When he turns to face Anakin, he smiles. But it is like no expression Anakin has ever seen on his master’s face. Even with closed lips, there is something sharp about the look of it. Dangerous and cold, for all that there is genuine amusement there too. Like Anakin could cut himself on it, like Obi-Wan wants him to.

And his eyes, when they meet Anakin’s, are gold.

His smile widens and Anakin almost misses it, too captivated by eyes that are not his master’s, staring out of Obi-Wan’s face. Anakin considers himself something of an expert on Obi-Wan’s facial features and yet somehow this smile is fierce, more earnest, shows more teeth than any that has ever crossed Obi-Wan’s face before. There is something manic about it, something painfully intense.

“There you are, darling. I’ve been looking for you.”

He steps forward and there is even something in the way he moves that screams bad-wrong-no. A fluidness, a relaxing of the shoulders, predatory and feline as he fixes his sights on Anakin and refuses to let him go.

“Are you alright, master?”

Anakin cannot make himself move. Not forward to take hold of his master, shake him until whatever trance he is under lifts, or away, stepping back from whatever corruption has overtaken him.

Obi-Wan—and it is so strange to see this man and think of Obi-Wan, not when just looking at him makes it clear that something is wrong, that this is not his master—closes his eyes and sighs with deep satisfaction. “Perfect, Anakin. Better than I’ve felt in years.”

“Right,” Anakin says. His brain short-circuited somewhere between the soft sound of breath Obi-Wan released and the sinuous stretch of his neck, like he is learning the feel of his own body for the first time.

“Sirs,” Cody interrupts from the doorway. “We have to keep moving. The rest are already waiting for us at the rendezvous point.”

“By all means,” Obi-Wan says. “Lead the way, Commander.”

Anakin stops him with a hand on his pauldron, catching and holding him. “Not so fast.”

Obi-Wan puts the barest effort into swallowing his grin and fashioning his face into something more serious. “Is something wrong, Anakin?”

His eyes seem to flash an even brighter gold, a trick of the light, teasing Anakin with just how wrong they are. “You—what did you do? Did you touch something? Read something?”

“We have to go, Anakin. You heard the Commander.”

He tries to slip free of his grip but Anakin holds tight. “This isn’t you.”

“What would make you think that?” A grin escapes his careless control. When Anakin merely gapes at him, Obi-Wan decides to answer for him.

“Do I seem more relaxed? Less uptight?” He steps closer to Anakin until their chests brush against each other. Obi-Wan plays with the edge of Anakin’s tabards before turning those gold eyes back up to him. “More agreeable? Is it that I’ve decided not to sink under the weight of infinite sadness and instead let go, as a good Jedi Master should? I feel so much lighter without that tiresome burden already.”

Instead of resisting further, Obi-Wan decides to go on the offensive. They are so close Anakin can feel Obi-Wan’s breath on his skin. He tilts his head to the side and for a moment, Anakin thinks Obi-Wan is about to kiss him. Then he turns further and speaks his next words directly into Anakin’s ear.

“What could it be, my very young padawan?” he asks. Anakin has never let those words send shivers down his spine but they do now and Obi-Wan knows it. “Tick tock. As the dear Commander said, we do have places to be.”

“Your eyes,” Anakin blurts out. He manages to find the wherewithal to tighten his grip on Obi-Wan and turn him around in his arms. His hold on Obi-Wan is tight and keeps him from squirming loose, but this will never hold him for long, not if he gets it into his head to run.

“I take it you’re not a fan of the new me, then?” Obi-Wan says over his shoulder “Too bad. There are so many things I would love to do to you now that all of that troublesome shame and guilt are gone.”

Anakin’s mind fills with static. He screws his eyes shut and strengthens his grip on Obi-Wan. The man makes a weak attempt at getting free, like he’s playing with him. Like this is a game he’s winning.

Anakin definitely doesn’t feel like the one in control here.

“Commander Cody, binders,” Anakin grunts. Obi-Wan rolls his hips back in something Anakin can’t bring himself to call an escape attempt. He tips his head back onto Anakin’s shoulder and grins, looking up at him.

“Those won’t be necessary, Cody. I might be different than I was but that hardly makes me dangerous.”

Anakin shoves him forward. “You’re a Sith.”

Obi-Wan laughs, turning around to face him again, pulled like a magnet. In the blink of an eye, he gets in close and drapes his arms over Anakin’s shoulders. “You’ll have to prove it, darling. For now, I want to take a look at this war you’ve been fighting. It sounds thrilling.”

Something in Anakin flares hot despite himself at the feeling of carrying Obi-Wan’s weight like this. He catches Obi-Wan at the waist to offer him some balance, to keep them both from tipping over. It’s an instinctive move but one that leaves Anakin knowing Obi-Wan’s slim waist better than he ever hoped he would and with his hands far too close to his Master’s ass. Obi-Wan’s hands insinuate themselves into the back of Anakin’s hair, offering a playful tug to one of the curls he finds there. In the flash of his yellow eyes and the gleam of his sharp teeth, Anakin can see the danger of letting this man loose on the galaxy.

“You’re not going anywhere. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we fix you.”

Obi-Wan presses up onto his toes to close the meager distance between them. He presses a kiss—a quick, chaste thing and hardly what Anakin would expect from a Sith—before pulling away. He doesn’t make any move to run, to squirm out of Anakin’s grasp now that he has totally and completely bewildered him, just leaves his arms around Anakin’s neck and smiles up at him.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” The words are simple and yet they stun Anakin like a blasterbolt. Because he sounds like his master, looks like his master. And yet. those gleaming yellow eyes pierce right through him.

[skywalkr-nberrie]

Friendly reminder that Padmé isn’t supposed to be considered ‘unreasonable’ for falling in love with Anakin nor choosing him because she’s “messy and traumatized” (I mean she is traumatized, but that’s a whole other in dept nuance in her character, worthy of analysis.) and that she only wanted to live out her “fairytale fantasy” and that’s why she chose to marry Anakin. No, she chose him because she saw the goodness and beauty of him. She loved him for his soul, his sincerity, for his passion, etc. It’s actually reasonable why she chose him and married him. It’s just a misconception that she had to be as insane as Anakin for her to ever choose him, because a good hearted and morally righteous woman could never want someone like him.

Padmé is traumatized, her story parallels Anakin in many ways, she has the sort of nuance that pars even Anakin’s character, she had to put up with running a whole planet at the age of 14, and she had her whole life stolen from her at a very young age. She feels like she’s made to live in servitude and her duty rather than dream of her own life. She had multiple handmaidens that upheld the system of pretending to be her for the sake of taking her spot in case someone puts her in grave danger, robbing Padmé of her self identity, and burdening her with the guilt of someone else dying for her. Her only real friends are all people from her work, aka her colleagues.

So yes, indeed Anakin is her safe spot, her breath of fresh air, her happiness, her everything. He’s her perfect ‘fairytale ending’ that she always deserved, but that’s not why she fell in love with him. Padmé’s love for Anakin and decision to be with him isn’t in anyway associated to her trauma (in the way most people think, I mean.) or that it means she’s insane. It’s a reflection of how passionate, sincere, romantic, hopeful, domestic, emotional, and spiritual she is as a person. She is like Anakin in that way too, and that’s why they connected so deeply. Padmé was aware of all of Anakin’s flaws, and darkness and she still loved him because she was capable of seeing that the greatness in him was more.

“But though she loves her husband without reservation, love does not blind her to his faults. She is older than he, and wise enough to understand him better than he does himself. He is not a perfect man: he is prideful, and moody, and quick to anger—but these faults only make her love him the more, for his every flaw is more than balanced by the greatness within him”

- Revenge of the Sith novelization written by Matthew Stover.

[fanfic-obsessed]

Time Given and Taken

This one is another time travel fix-it, also somewhat AU even beyond the time travel.  Our time travelers are Obi Wan Kenobi and Commander Cody, both from after their own deaths.  Let’s even put it after the Empire falls. 

They have reunited and through Force Shenanigans are sent back to five years before the Clone wars start (dealers choice if they chose to go back or just found themselves back in time), they land specifically on Ord Mantel, their bodies have been reformed at peak age and physical fitness (Late 20’s), there is not chip in Cody’s head and his aging has been slowed to match Obi Wan’s force assisted aging (Look if the Force has to build their bodies anyway it might as well get the best results possible); but we’ll get back to them in a moment. 

Now The Force did have to make some preparations for them, as it could not have two versions of the same soul existing in this universe at the same time.  Thus, in this universe,during the Naboo crisis Padawan Obi Wan Kenobi died in place of his Master Qui Gon Jinn. Jinn was still struck by Maul and Obi Wan did still bisect the Sith, but then the Padawan used a nearly unknown healing technique to heal Qui Gon at the expense of his own life.  Padawan Obi Wan’s last words to his master were ‘You said the boy needed to be trained, now you can’. He was mourned by everyone who knew him. 

That same year Unit CC-2224 was decanted stillborn, which happened at about the same rate of stillborns/miscarriages in natborn births. The Kaminoans did the typical cursory exam to make sure there was not a larger issue, and found that there had been a small difference in the nutrients in CC-2224’s growth pod that resulted in the stillbirth. No one knew to mourn the being he would have been at all. 

Having Qui Gon Jinn as a master did not actually make things better, or easier, for Anakin; though it also could be argued that it did not make things significantly worse either. It was different though. Though Qui Gon had more experience than Obi Wan would have in the original timeline, there were other issues now at play.  And Anakin was growing up in the blinding light of the memory of Obi Wan Kenobi, the perfect Jedi padawan who killed a Sith then died to save someone.  He was also growing up in the shadow of Xanatos, the talented, powerful former padawan that Fell and died a decade ago.  This is offset, just a bit, by Feemor coming back, telling Qui Gon that he could kriff off with his repudiation and installed himself as Anakin’s Padawan brother (“like I should have with little Obi Wan”). It is made worse by Anakin overhearing the wrong parts of a few conversations that heavily implied Obi Wan died because he felt he had little left to live for (Because Obi Wan was being replaced by Anakin)

It is likely that, left alone, growing up with the ghost (in tha he haunted the narrative, not that he was actually there) of Obi Wan would have made Anakin resentful of his dead padawan brother.  However Palpatine, who he still had frequent private meetings with (look no one was suspicious of this happening the first time around, Qui Gon would likely not have felt it was suspicious either), never met any potential resentment that he could not turn to his advantage.  Instead of letting resentment grow for Obi Wan, Palpatine instead leaned into this saintly memory of a young man Anakin only spent a little time with (a lot of, ‘I’m sure young Obi Wan would not have treated you like that’), something similar to what he supposedly did with Qui Gon in canon.  Basically polishing the image of Obi Wan Kenobi in Anakin’s head until the dead Padawan could do no wrong. Palpatine could have eventually used the memory of Obi Wan to further separate Anakin from the Jedi (“The Jedi let Obi Wan Die/Got Obi Wan Killed because he was the last good Jedi” kind of rhetoric).  

Had the dead man stayed dead. 

With that established we step back to 5 years before the Clone wars were due to break out, Ord Mantel, where Cody and Obi Wan find themselves appearing, young bodies, old minds, and a small amount of the local currency (not enough to destabilize the economy, but enough to start gambling with). They quickly, and quietly, win enough money to buy a small cruiser (taking care to keep their individual ins small enough not to catch the attention of anyone), just big enough for the two of them. 

Then they make their way to Kamino.

They very deliberately decide not to go to the Jedi just yet. There are a number of reasons.  Some are trauma based (the last time Obi Wan was Coruscant he was walking through the ruins of the temple and finding the bodies of children; the last time Cody was on Coruscant he was deserting the empire after Desix). Some are for practicality(Coruscant is Palapatines domain already; They do not realize that their alternate selves are dead here and do not want to run into Knight Obi Wan).  But the main reason comes from the fact that Order 66 caused two genocides, Jedi and Clone. They both reasoned that, while focusing on preventing the Jedi genocide (Going to the Jedi, killing Palpatine) would not necessarily prevent the Clones from being abused, used, and trapped by the chips, Freeing the Clones would, by the very nature of what happened, prevent the Jedi from being killed. 

So they go to Kamino. Talk their way into Tipoca City and to speak with Jango Fett.  First they help Jango remove his head from his ass and realize exactly what he did (effectively selling his genetic children into slavery to destroy a culture for revenge he was clinging to in order to keep from facing his culpability in what happened-Not only were the Jedi lied to at Galidraan, Jango shot first; he escalated things and it backfired on him). It took a few days (and included bringing Jango and Boba down to one of the creche rooms holding the clones the same physical age as Boba, putting Boba in clone uniform and asking Jango to try and pick him from the crowd. Jango promptly had a panic attack when he was face to face with 200ish Boba’s and unable to look away from the reality of what he was doing).

SIDE NOTE: Has anyone else noticed the parallel between Jango Fett and Maul. Both were obsessed with getting revenge for situations where they suffered from being in the instigator and losing. Essentially they fucked around, found out, and decided to get revenge, and it cost them everything they had left.  

Once Cody and Obi Wan actually got through to Jango, they told him everything. Being from the future, what Project Knightfall actually did, Cody talking about what it was like under the control of the chips, of never realizing why he betrayed his Jedi general or was willing to hunt down Force users, of waking up after the chip was removed and realizing exactly what he had done, Of the brothers he had lost to suicide, due to the horror of what had happened. They talked about the Empire and what it did to Mandalore. 

The three of them decided what to do next.  

Jango, looking at himself realistically for the first time in a decade, realizes quickly that he should not take the mantle of Mand’alor again. He was too young the first time, but had been growing into the role. Had Galidraan not happened, he likely would have been a good leader, but it did and the years of slavery (with its exposure to Spice) plus the trauma from Galidraan made their mark. Jango would, however, throw his support behind Cody as Mand’alor (Cody made sure it was clear that Jango would also be throwing in his support behind Obi Wan as Cody’s Jedi husband, alternately Cody and Obi Wan would share the Mand’alor title. Jango was fine with that).  

It is also decided, after much debate, that they would also inform the Kaminoans of the fate of their species in the original timeline (destroyed as soon as they could be) and get their cooperation.  There had been consideration for simply taking Kamino, or Tipoca city, but it was decided that it was simply more work than it was worth.  It took two months (during which Obi Wan and Cody functioned as additional trainers for the Cadets) before they were ready to present the truth to Lama Su. Thankfully they had enough working knowledge of things they should not, and were able to get enough proof of what they had to say, that they were able to convince Lama Su that aligning with the Sith would doom the Kaminoans; an if there was one thing the Kaminoan valued more than profit, it was their own survival. 

The Clone project, overall, was at a point where communication between the project and the Sith was infrequent at best (so that attention was not drawn to a seemingly empty patch of space too early), so Tyranus did not have cause to notice that Kamino started ghosting him (It should be noted that they also kept cashing his checks, ostensibly so that he would not notice anything wrong). 

With the Kaminoans on their side now, Cody, Obi Wan, and Jango got to work.  There were a few trainers that did need to be killed outright (Priest and Reau, whom Cody got to kill during one of the cage fights they were arranging-which forever endeared him to the Clone cadets, especially the batch he would have belong to in another life, who were around 10 years old developmentally,  who found themselves drawn to Cody, the trainer that looked so much like Jango Fett that he could have been a clone himself), and a few that asked to be paid so they could leave (and were paid extras so that Obi Wan could remove the details of what as going on from their mind, for safety reasons), but most were willing to follow Cody and Obi Wan as soon as it was clear that Jango has sworn himself to them (non sexually and non romantically, Jango is very AroAce, and very Sex/Romance repulsed). 

The next step is starting to remove the already embedded chips, which went quickly with the help of the Kaminoans, and partially demilitarizing the education of the cadets.  While they would be Mandalorians (as a warrior culture there is a certain level of military in their education) the cadets training would no longer be solely focused on being soldiers and nothing else.  The Kaminoans also keep cloning (Technically the original order was for 1 million clones for the Jedi, they may be taking Tyranus’s money and ghosting him, but they would fulfill their contract-It was decided by the Kaminoan Council that Obi Wan qualified as ‘Jedi’ for the purposes of the contract, so giving him the clones is really fulfilling their written contract)

Cody and Obi Wan, with the council from the remaining trainers and Jango, decided that they would spend the years between their arrival and one year before the Clone Wars was due to start on Kamino, still largely out of contact with the wider galaxy. In that time they develop their own culture (their own version of ‘how to be mandalorian’ built in part from the remaining True Mandalorians, the clone culture Cody brought from the previous timeline mixing with the ever evolving clone culture of the current timeline-which quickly became different from how Cody remembered it, Part of the Jedi traditions that Obi Wan brought with him from the previous timeline-some of which he may or may not remember correctly due to trauma and the length of time he spent repressing those memories). They also worked over talking points on how to unite their faction with the New Mandalorians, including going over what traditions/parts of their culture they would be willing to relinquish as a compromise and what parts they absolutely will not.  On Jango’s occasional trips out into the wider galaxy, to take jobs, he makes a point to get as close to Keldabe as he can to get a feel for the New Mandalorian as a faction (Obi Wan has inside knowledge, but it may be early or outdated is all kinda colored with ‘Satine died in my arms and it was my fault’). There was also a concerted effort to discreetly acquire enough ships for everyone. 

So we are one year before the Clone Wars were due to erupt. Palpatine is on Coruscant waiting for the perfect opportunity to enact his plan, believing that he had a handy clone army at the ready for the war he has been fanning. Tyranus, who has still not realized he has not spoken to Kamino in about 4 years, is quietly building his forces with the droid armies about 4 months from being completed. 

The Newer True Mandalorians (The name suggestion was from Rex’s-He still picked the same name and was adopted by Codywan along with Fox and Ponds, batch; the name is being workshopped) leave Kamino for Concord Dawn. They take with them a treaty between them and the Kaminoans that includes mutual protection, a live and let live clause, a few NDA’s about the Kamnoan’s gene manipulation process,  and a decent trade agreement where the Kaminoans provide genetic research and the clones provide free advertising for the success of the Kaminoans cloning process. 

Basically out of nowhere, as far as the galaxy is concerned, the True Mandalorians reemerge after being all but wiped out almost 20 years prior, and in far greater numbers than they had before. Numbers that sharply spike, as outcasts from the New Mandalorians and Death Watch, plus other remnants of the True Mandalorians flock to their banner. These are great enough numbers that when they reach out to discuss a treaty, and a possible merger for factions, with the New Mandalorians, the New Mandalorians actually take it seriously.   

This faction, the entire galaxy is surprised to learn, is being led by someone who looks an awful lot like Jango Fett, but is clearly not since Jango Fett is standing next to him (by this point Cody and Jango call ach brother, further confusing the issue) and a red haired man going by the name of Obi Wan Kenobi, who clearly is, or was, a Jedi. 

Tyranus and Sidious, realizing that Jango Fett showing up anywhere with a massive amount of being might be contrary to their plans, try to contact Kamino. Kamino doesn’t answer and their ‘we’re busy, don’t call us we’ll call you’ message included a virus that made it so they cannot find or contact Kamino again.

The heads of the New Mandalorian Government arrange to meet with the heads of the Newer True Mandalorians, including Cody and Obi Wan. Satine recognizes Obi Wan. It is at this point that they find out this timeline’s Obi Wan has been dead for almost a decade. They had known that this timeline’s Cody was never born, but had never thought to check on Obi Wan. 

The negotiations between the New Mandalorans and the Newer True Mandalorians lasts months, but eventually is hammered out between them, along with a new government structure. Cody and Obi Wan would jointly preside over a council made up equally of New Mandalorians and Newer True Mandalorian (and, should Death Watch want to actually come in from the cold, Death Watch representative, but the faction would have to swear to the agreed upon laws and to follow the joint Mand’alor’s- Satine insisted). While Obi Wan and Cody would have the final say in most cases, if at least 90% of the council agreed they were wrong there was a veto power that could be used. Membership on the council is decided by the faction in question, and if a new faction splits off and gets to a certain size (Generally enough people to populate a medium sized planet) that faction will also be able to put representatives on the council. 

Meanwhile in the Republic the reappearance of the True Mandalorians (it doesn’t matter that they have a new name as far the Republic is concerned) has derailed 90% of Palpatine's plans (he does not have time to grow another army, even if he could get in contact with Kamino again and he cannot start the war without an army).  The news that the Red Headed leader of the reemerged faction appeared to be Presumed Dead Obi Wan Kenobi, famed in song and story and all but sainted in Anakin Skywalker's head, derailed 90% of the rest. 

Padawan Anakin Skywalker, upon hearing that Obi Wan Kenobi might be alive, vanished from Coruscant. Just took off for Concord Dawn to potentially rescue his hero, or avenge him if it was someone else pretending to be him. Or something like that, Anakin was not thinking at all beyond that he needed to see Obi Wan, the man he knew for maybe a week when he was nine.  He also left prematurely, had he waited six more hours he and his master Qui Gon Jinn would have been assigned to investigate the identity of the presumed Obi Wan. 

Qui Gon did not know where Anakin was headed until he reached Concord Dawn (Anakin left a note that he was going radio silent to work on some course work he was behind in, so Qui Gon left him off the mission-This Qui Gon is just a little oblivious)  and was promptly led to a holding cell by some of the Mandos (I kind of want it to be Waxer and Boil, or one of the Alpha’s) who gestured at Anakin inside, glowering like a bristly wet cat, going ‘is this yours?’

I Imagine this ‘reunion’  is weird and awkward from every angle. Like this Obi Wan remembers holding Qui Gon as he died, raising Anakin, Anakin’s Fall, everything of the original timeline. But this Qui Gon held his Padawan as he died (which hold the residual guilt of surviving, plus the guilt of Obi Wan dying to save his life), has added the normal rosy shine to his memories of his padawan (gloss over the bad times to focus on the good times). This Anakin has few actual memories of Obi Wan, but a massive case of hero worship. possibly to the point of Obi Wan being akin to a deity to Anakin, so massively unhealthy(Which Qui Gon also realizes for the first time)  but in a way that is difficult to break. Palaptine inadvertently created the Cult of Obi Wan, with one cult member and brainwashed him so well that he fucked up his own plans.  Now that there is a living Obi Wan, it is everyone's problem. Cody is prickly with both of them, because he remembers the things Obi Wan, his husband, told him about his Padawanship AND remembers both Reckless General Skywalker and Darth Vader. 

I am not sure how much they actually tell the Jedi, but they definitely tell them that Obi Wan and Coy are from a different timeline, and no they can’t go back. Just so that they do not start thinking that Padawan Obi Wan somehow faked his death (they are just a little concerned how Anakin would react).

Eventually Cody gets to kill Palpatine, as a treat.

[bookatans]

After reading Dooku: Jedi Lost it's so hard not to get stuck on how his closest mentors happened to be on the opposite side of a very complex spectrum and how that has just as much to do with the way Dooku's opinions of both the Jedi and the Republic were formed as much as his years of messaging Jenza.

On one hand, you have Yoda, who we all know. "Wise and inscrutable," as Sifo-Dyas put it. Yoda is the picture of what a Jedi is supposed to aspire to be. He is the be all, end all of Jedi-hood. Under Yoda's teaching, Dooku was placed in a position where he forced himself to be the best — already an issue he faced before becoming a padawan.

On the other, you have Lene Kostana. From the first time meet her in the audiobook, they tell you that Lene Kostana is someone that the Jedi Council scrutinize and don't take seriously. Her interests in Sith history are seen as irrelevant more than they seem dangerous. Everyone is blind to the idea that the Sith could make a return, while she's preparing herself for a potential – and, to her, ineviteable – ressurection of the Sith.

In a perfect world, these two opposing forces would create a balance where Dooku might be able to learn from two teachers whose ideals might clash, but could ultimately be interwoven to form something coherent.

But this isn't a perfect world. From the very beginning, Dooku already has conflicts of interest, and they only add on over time. He's in contact with Jenza – a sister a Jedi is not supposed to have–, he struggles with an attachment to Sifo-Dyas, he has a tendency to let his emotions get the better of him.

Of course, all padawans have struggles that they have to face, but Dooku's are exacerbated by a couple of facts: Yoda is an absent Master when his responsibilities to the Council override his teaching, and Lene – who Dooku already knows is different, who Dooku originally wanted as his Master! – is the one who continues to mentor him when that happens.

Lene Kostana is not a perfect master. Of course, neither is Yoda, but Lene makes her deviation from the typical Jedi known and doesn't shy away from it. She's unapologetic in her search for Sith history, and while Dooku might find that fascinating, we as the readers can see where the faults lay, where that obsession begins to override everything and begin that rift in Dooku's faith and trust in the Jedi.

They suffer a traumatizing experience that unquestionably affects Dooku and makes Sifo-Dyas' visions worse, and what does Lene do? She asks Dooku to keep this a secret from the Council, because the Council already wants her to stop what she's doing. Then, when Sifo's visions do continue to get worse, she asks Dooku to hide it and places in him the fear that the Jedi will do something terrible to Sifo-Dyas, like institutionalize him. Lene tells him over and over again that the Jedi Council is not perfect either– tells him to be weary of them, that they''re afraid.

In contrast, when a situation comes up where the Council do find out about something else that's against the Code within the Jedi, Yoda tells Dooku that they would've helped had they been trusted and known, but Dooku doesn't believe him. He's even shocked and disillusioned by the Jedi taking legal matters into their own hands.

This isn't to say Lene's influence or Yoda's paragon status shaped Dooku into what he became. Everyone had a hand in that, Dooku himself most of all. Circumstances fell into place to create that path. Ultimately, it was Dooku's own hubris that became his downfall.

But, shit, having those two wildly different people to guide him sure as hell didn't make it any better.

[scruffynerfherder17]

Getting into more heavily detailed BLORBO posts, going to start off with Sidra, my albino pureblood. He's heavily force reliant as his albinism comes with poor eyesight so he's constantly walking with the Force. He was given up to the Jedi Order by his mother after his icky father wanted him dead for being "not perfect". Knowing he'd have a better chance with the Jedi rather than the sith, she dropped him off in secret unbeknownst to his father. He's the oldest brother out of three but his twin younger brothers are avid sith warriors and want nothing to do with him. He's been trying to become a master for the longest time but there always seems to be a hiccup in his trials (✨space racism✨ they don't trust him because he's a sith pureblood).

One of Sidra's younger brothers, Amadeus. Imagine taking Starscream and putting him in Star Wars.

[superbrieflightstudentlove]

Padmé Amidala’s Fantasy-Driven Love for Anakin Skywalker

“Her life before Anakin belonged to someone else, some lesser being to be pitied, some poor impoverished spirit who could never suspect how profoundly life should be lived.

Her real life began the first time she looked into Anakin Skywalker’s eyes and found in there not the uncritical worship of little Annie from Tatooine, but the direct, unashamed, smoldering passion of a powerful Jedi: a young man, to be sure, but every centimeter a man - a man whose legend was already growing within the Jedi Order and beyond. A man who knew exactly what he wanted and was honest enough to simply ask for it; a man strong enough to unroll his deepest feelings before her without fear and without shame. A man who had loved her for a decade, with faithful and patient heart, while he waited for the act of destiny he was sure would someday open her own heart to the fire in his.

But though she loves her husband without reservation, love does not blind her to his faults. She is older than he, and wise enough to understand him better than he does himself. He is not a perfect man: he is prideful, and moody, and quick to anger - but these faults only make her love him the more, for his every flaw is more than balanced by the greatness within him, his capacity for joy and cleansing laughter, his extraordinary generosity of spirit, his passionate devotion not only to her but also in the service of every living being.

He is a wild creature that has come gently to her hand, a vine tiger purring against her cheek. Every softness of his touch, every kind glance or loving word is a small miracle in itself. How can she not be grateful for such gifts?”

From the novelization of RotS.

Padmé Amidala’s inner monologue from the Revenge of the Sith novelization offers a fascinating but deeply flawed insight into her perspective, exposing glaring inconsistencies in her character and worldview. While Padmé is often portrayed as an empathetic and wise leader, her thoughts here betray a sense of immaturity, condescension, and a disturbing romanticization of Anakin’s deeply problematic behavior.

Condescension and Elitism

Padmé’s reflection on her life before Anakin is alarmingly dismissive of not only herself but also the people she claimed to serve. Describing her previous existence as belonging to "some lesser being to be pitied, some poor impoverished spirit," she inadvertently exposes a deep-seated elitism. This sentiment starkly contrasts with her public image as a compassionate leader devoted to uplifting the disenfranchised. Her words betray an inherent belief in her own superiority, rooted in her privilege as Naboo nobility, which feels jarringly disconnected from her political career as a champion of the underprivileged.

By referring to others as “poor impoverished spirits,” Padmé reduces the lived experiences of countless beings across the galaxy to pitiable, shallow existences, implicitly suggesting that they lack the capacity to truly understand life’s profundities. Such condescension undermines her credibility as an empathetic leader who is supposed to value all lives equally. For someone who ostensibly devoted herself to serving the needs of the downtrodden, these thoughts suggest a deep-seated disconnect from the very people she claims to represent. How can someone who views the galaxy’s poor as "lesser beings" genuinely champion their rights? Her compassion, as implied by these musings, is framed not as equality but as an almost victorian noblesse oblige, a patronizing obligation to protect those she implicitly considers beneath her.

Condescension Towards Anakin

Padmé’s description of Anakin as someone she understands better than he understands himself is patronizing at best and dismissive of his autonomy at worst. While it is true that she is older than Anakin and likely more experienced, her framing positions herself as his intellectual and emotional superior, diminishing him to a wild, untamed creature she has tamed through her grace and love.

Referring to him as a "vine tiger purring against her cheek" infantilizes and romanticizes him in equal measure, echoing an unhealthy dynamic where she both elevates and diminishes him simultaneously, reducing him to a being she controls rather than a partner she respects as an equal. This language strips Anakin of complexity and humanity, framing him as a prize she has won rather than a partner of the same standing as she.

She views him almost as a project—someone she must guide and “fix.” This attitude not only undermines the mutual respect required in a healthy relationship but also sets her up as an idealized, almost maternal figure in Anakin’s life, which is problematic given his apparent yearning for a nurturing presence to replace his mother and his well-documented struggles with emotional regulation, anger, and trauma.

Instead of addressing these issues with the seriousness they deserve, Padmé romanticizes his volatility, viewing his faults as charming quirks rather than dangerous red flags. Instead she positions herself as a benevolent overseer of Anakin's flaws as endearing traits she is uniquely equipped to handle. This naïve approach not only undermines her judgment but also places her in harm's way, as evidenced by his eventual violent actions toward her.

Immaturity and Naivety

For a 27-year-old woman who has spent years navigating the intricacies of politics and war, Padmé’s thoughts read more like the diary of a lovestruck teenager than the reflections of a seasoned leader. Her infatuation with Anakin’s “smoldering passion” and the “fire in his eyes” feels shallow and disproportionate, especially considering the stakes of their relationship at this point in the story. She is on the verge of giving birth during a galactic war, yet her focus remains on idealizing a man who has already demonstrated significant moral and ethical failings.

This immaturity is further highlighted by her dismissal of Anakin’s violent tendencies and inability to handle rejection or criticism. She acknowledges his pride, moodiness, and quick temper, yet brushes them aside as minor flaws overshadowed by his supposed “greatness.” This blind devotion prevents her from confronting the reality of Anakin’s descent into darkness, instead choosing to cling to a fantasy of who she wants him to be.

Romanticizing Unhealthy Behavior

Padmé’s belief that Anakin has loved her faithfully for a decade borders on absurdity when one considers the context. Anakin was a nine-year-old child when they first met, a child incapable of comprehending romantic love in a meaningful way. His “love” for her at that age was more akin to hero worship or a childhood crush. His fixation on her during the intervening years is less a testament to his devotion and more indicative of an unhealthy obsession. By the time they reunite, Anakin is an emotionally stunted teenager with significant anger issues and a propensity for violence, as demonstrated by his massacre of the Tusken village.

Padmé’s dismissal of this atrocity, coupled with her romanticization of his flaws, reveals her inability to see Anakin for who he truly is. Instead, she projects onto him qualities he does not possess, such as a supposed “devotion to every living being,” which is blatantly contradicted by his actions. Anakin’s loyalty is limited to a small circle of people he cares about, and he is willing to sacrifice entire planets and populations to protect them. Far from being selfless, his actions are often driven by selfishness and a refusal to let go of those he loves.

Padmé’s inner thoughts in this passage are deeply problematic, exposing a condescending attitude toward others, an immature understanding of love, and a dangerous tendency to romanticize unhealthy behavior. Far from being the wise and compassionate leader she is often portrayed as, this depiction reveals her as naïve, elitist, and out of touch with reality. Her unwavering idealization of Anakin blinds her to his faults and enables his destructive behavior, ultimately contributing to the tragedy that unfolds. In this light, Padmé’s story becomes not just one of personal loss but also of the devastating consequences of failing to confront uncomfortable truths.

Her thoughts reveal that her attachment to Anakin is not rooted in a deep understanding or acceptance of who he truly is but rather in an idealized, almost fictionalized version of him. This essay explores the possibility that Padmé’s love for Anakin is based more on his physical attractiveness, status, and the thrilling fantasy he represents, rather than on a genuine emotional connection.

Infatuation with Power, Fame, and Status

Padmé’s admiration for Anakin’s physical appearance and reputation is evident in her thoughts:

“...the direct, unashamed, smoldering passion of a powerful Jedi: a young man, to be sure, but every centimeter a man— a man whose legend was already growing within the Jedi Order and beyond.”

This description emphasizes Anakin’s physical allure and his rising fame within the galaxy. Padmé appears captivated by his role as a Jedi hero and “the Chosen One,” as if these external attributes define his worth. Her fixation on his power and status raises questions about whether she would have been as drawn to him if he were an ordinary person without his heroic image.

Anakin’s role in the Clone Wars as a celebrated warrior likely amplified this allure. To Padmé, his deeds on the battlefield and his “larger-than-life” persona may have symbolized strength, protection, and excitement—qualities that fed into her romantic fantasy. However, this focus on external attributes creates a shallow foundation for their relationship, where Padmé values what Anakin represents rather than who he truly is.

Resistance to the Ordinary

Padmé’s reluctance to acknowledge the realities of her relationship and her insistence on secrecy reflect her fear of losing the fantasy she has built. By keeping their marriage a secret, Padmé avoids the mundane responsibilities that come with open commitment, especially as parents. This secrecy also ensures that Anakin remains in the Jedi Order, maintaining the illusion of him as the heroic “Chosen One” rather than an ordinary man.

Her hesitation to accept Anakin leaving the Jedi Order—despite his willingness to do so for her and their child—further underscores her attachment to his status. Without the prestige of his Jedi identity, Anakin would lose much of the mystique that fuels Padmé’s romanticized view of him. A life outside the Order, where Anakin might take on a humble, civilian role, would lack the excitement and grandeur she associates with their relationship.

The Fantasy of the Hero and the Damsel

Padmé’s perception of her relationship with Anakin resembles a narrative straight out of a teenage romantic novel. In this fantasy, she casts herself as the heroine, a damsel in distress rescued and cherished by a dashing knight in shining armor:

“Her real life began the first time she looked into Anakin Skywalker’s eyes..."

This statement diminishes her achievements and reduces her identity to being the object of Anakin’s affection. It also reveals her belief that her relationship with Anakin has elevated her life to a level of profound significance that others can only dream of. This is the crux of her fantasy: she views herself as living out a romantic narrative, one in which she is the main character and Anakin is the larger-than-life hero who completes her.

The thrill of their forbidden love, heightened by the secrecy and danger of the Clone Wars, making it feel like a dramatic, star-crossed love story rather than a grounded partnership, fuels this fantasy. Their brief, adrenaline-filled encounters allow Padmé to avoid confronting the complexities and flaws in their relationship. She seems more captivated by the excitement and drama of their circumstances than by Anakin himself.

What´s more, this perspective also reduces her to a passive figure whose identity revolves around her romantic connection. Padmé’s reflections diminish her own sense of agency and independence. By framing her life before Anakin as belonging to a "lesser being," she effectively erases her accomplishments as queen and senator. This framing reduces her identity to her relationship with Anakin, portraying her as a woman who finds her "real life" only through her husband. She views her pre-Anakin self—and by extension, the very people she claims to serve—as pitiable, as though her life only gained meaning through her relationship with a powerful man. This is particularly problematic given that Padmé is supposed to be a role model of strength and leadership. Her thoughts here make her seem more like a character in Anakin’s story than the protagonist of her own.

The Cost of Living in a Fantasy

Padmé’s refusal to wake from this romantic fantasy has far-reaching consequences. Her inability to confront the reality of Anakin’s flaws—his possessiveness, violent tendencies, moral compromises and growing obsession with power—allows his darker impulses to grow unchecked. When Anakin confesses to murdering the Tuskens, including women and children, Padmé rationalizes his actions rather than addressing the gravity of what he has done because acknowledging these realities would shatter her romantic illusion.

This denial extends to her pregnancy. Padmé’s insistence on keeping their relationship secret under the guise of duty to the common people of the galaxy and protecting Anakin’s position within the Jedi Order, even as she approaches the birth of their child, reveals a troubling prioritization of the romantic fantasy over practical concerns. A child would inevitably expose their relationship, yet Padmé continues to cling to the illusion that they can maintain their double lives. This decision suggests that Padmé values the drama and excitement of their forbidden love more than the stability and safety of their unborn child. The fantasy of being a romantic heroine takes precedence over her role as a mother.

This failure to confront reality not only endangers her but also their unborn children. Padmé’s prioritization of the fantasy over practical concerns means that her children are born into chaos, with no stable foundation or clear future. Her eventual death from heartbreak underscores the destructive power of her refusal to let go of the fantasy, as she chooses to die rather than face life without Anakin. This choice illustrates the ultimate consequence of clinging to an illusion: the loss of self, family, and the opportunity to create a meaningful legacy.

Conclusion

Padmé Amidala’s love for Anakin Skywalker, as depicted in the Revenge of the Sith novelization, is deeply rooted in an idealized fantasy. Her admiration for his physical attractiveness, fame, and status as a Jedi hero overshadows a genuine understanding of who he is. This fantasy-driven love blinds her to the flaws in their relationship and prevents her from confronting the responsibilities of motherhood and partnership.

Ultimately, Padmé’s refusal to let go of the romanticized narrative she has created not only undermines her character’s maturity but also contributes to the tragic downfall of both herself and Anakin. By clinging to an illusion, she sacrifices the opportunity to build a grounded, meaningful life for herself and her child. In doing so, her story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of idealizing relationships and clinging to illusions at the expense of truth and responsibility.

[intermundia]

i can't even articulate how satisfying it was to watch anakin's eyes go from sith yellow to innocent baby blue with a blink. there's something so sexy about communicating the status of someone's humanity through their eyes, windows to the soul such as they are. we find so much information in the gaze of another, there's nothing better than giving unnatural eyes to someone who is out of control and acting like a predator. like the transition from vader melting into anakin was beautifully performed by hayden, seeing the vicious intensity of his expression wiped clean with only gentleness left behind. so much of his performance has always been in his general physicality, his acting with his whole body, but george also casts for people who can yell with just their face, communicate volumes with just their expression, just their eyes. if you look, his movies are full of shots where the eyes are highlighted, and filoni picked up that tradition well here. vader's yellow, bloodshot, ugly, angry eyes are so perfect for a sith, so dangerous (and sexy) with his furrowed brow and menacing stance, echoing the flickering red of his saber, but anakin is also an angel, so beautiful with the cool tone his natural eyes, graceful and gentle, in the radiating blue light of his jedi blade. it is his duality with his heated, vicious demonic self is what really makes him a character of all time lol and it's all in the eyes man, it's all in the eyes.

[separatist-apologist]

The Acolyte

Summary: When a mission on the planet Umbara goes wrong, Jedi Padawan Feyre Archeron will come face to face with the one creature the High Republic has believed long extinct: a Sith Lord.

Read on AO3

Note: This is a collaboration between the beautiful, smart, perfect, all-around talented @velidewrites who, upon watching the previous episode of The Acolyte, said, "Qimir is so Rhys coded." This has been our brain rot ever since.

DO NOT REPOST SITH RHYS

-

Drumming her fingers along the arm of the chair, Feyre waited with little patience. She ought to have it—it was unbecoming for a Jedi Padawan to be so antsy, so fidgety, but she couldn’t help it. It felt like years since she’d gone anywhere outside the temple besides hunting down street food. Master Tamlin wasn’t over their last mission.

Reckless, he’d called her.

Efficient, was how Feyre would have described herself. What was the point of tradition if it resulted in the deaths of so many innocents? Rules, protocol—it was all meaningless to Feyre in the moment. What mattered was the lives of innocents, not making sure Master Tamlin was satisfied she did everything by the book.

Tamlin loved the code, loved rules, loved everything except doing things the way Ferye wanted to. It was tempting to wonder why, of all the possible Padawans he could have had, he’d chosen her. They were a strange match even by the Jedi’s standards. Tamlin said the force had called out to him, urging him to take her under his wing.

Feyre sometimes thought he merely saw chaos where order ought to reign supreme, and made it his personal mission to bring her to heel. He was holding her back—Feyre wanted to be a Knight and free herself from Tamlin’s hold and he refused, telling the council she wasn’t ready.

She was, though. Feyre was stronger, faster, better than her pupils, a good number of whom had already graduated and were working under the watchful gaze of all Masters rather than just one. 

Let him take me on this mission, Feyre thought, sending it out into the world. One last mission—I can prove I’m ready.

Tamlin appeared from behind arched, hissing doors, his white robes swishing around beige boots. He’d tied his shoulder length blonde hair half off his face which made him look more severe, somehow. Green eyes pinned her in place, keeping her from standing even when she wanted to. Something about the hard set of his mouth made her think twice.

“The council wants you to join me,” Tamlin said, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Who are we to argue with the will of the Council?” Feyre asked breathlessly, finally standing. It was good luck, the first of many, she decided. “I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“This is too dangerous and you’re too reckless,” Tamlin said, turning for the long stretch of hall between them. Feyre’s long braid swung from her shoulder, tracing a path along her spine as she worked to keep up with his fast strides. 

“I’ll do as you say, Master,” she swore, truly believing she would. Tamlin only shook his head because he knew better. Feyre could be impulsive—it was one of her worst qualities.  

“You never do,” Tamlin replied with a heavy sigh. “It’s a mistake to bring you to Umbara.”

Umbara? Feyre practically vibrated with excitement, swallowing to keep her feelings in check. She’d heard of the Shadow World, seen it in the archives when she studied. She’d never been there, though. It felt like a waking dream, too good to be true.

“What’s happening on Umbara, Master?”

“Deaths,” Tamlin said, eyes cutting toward her as he carved a path through a gathered crowd of awed younglings. “Jedi deaths. That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Perhaps they were caught by surprise,” she said, though Feyre, too, found it troubling. What was the point of training if a regular blaster bolt could end them, same as anyone else? She’d always imagined her death would be more spectacular. A fiery inferno, likely as she jumped in and out of hyperspace while Tamlin shouted at her. 

Oh, but what a way to go.

“We’re only investigating,” Tamlin said, turning so abruptly that Feyre tripped over her own white and gold robes in her haste. “Remove all ideas of grandeur from your mind.”

“I will,” she promised, but it was too late. This would be her test, she decided—one last mission to prove not just to Tamlin, who would likely never believe her ready, but to the Council themselves that she should be elevated to Knight. Tamlin had held her back for the last time.

They parted ways, Tamlin mumbling under his breath as Feyre practically skipped her way out of the temple. She wanted to tell her sisters what she was doing and knew if Tamlin realized she still had this connection, he’d march them right back into the Temple and demand she be put back in the Archives.

Feyre swore she’d tell them she couldn’t read if he did.

She, like all children, had been taken to the temple before she had a chance to truly know her family. And either by luck or the force or some other cosmic entity, she’d stumbled into Elain first—and then Nesta. How many women in the galaxy had the last name Archeron, after all? Elain was a rising politician, unhindered by an overbearing Master and Nesta the head of a Bounty Hunters Guild.  There was no denying the relation—they all had the same heart shaped faces, the same cheekbones, and the same whip-fast wit. 

Nesta ought to be back by then, though if not, Elain would be in her little office working hard to make a name for herself. Nesta had explained their family had once been wealthy before a few bad investments ruined it all. Sending Feyre away had been a mercy, and when their mother died, well…that was one less mouth to feed. 

Nesta learned to fight with vibro weapons, Elain with words. If their father was still alive, they’d never said and Feyre hadn’t dared to ask. Deep in her heart, she felt a small amount of resentment for the man who’d sent her away, depriving her of the connection with her family. Even if it had been selfless—even if he’d wanted to give her a better life. 

On climate controlled Coruscant, Feyre found herself standing amid a sunny, breezy day. Tilting her face skyward, she swore she felt a phantom breeze caress her skin. Turning, she decided she’d get something to eat, first, and to see him. It was wrong, the strange attachment she had to the man who ran the turbo dog cart closest to the Jedi temple and yet he remembered her name. Remembered the things she told him.

He was her friend. 

Feyre’s feet began moving of their own accord, body slipping into the throngs of people that lived on the planet. The cacophony of smells and noise—the chaos of it all—made her blood thrum with excitement. Feyre never felt more alive than she did just outside the Temple. Here, Feyre could pretend she was just like anyone else…ignoring the slice of hair woven into the traditional padawan braid, separate from her own thick, long hair she’d refused to cut, and the purple saber clipped to her belt. Still, she was practically bouncing as she made her way down the steps toward rows upon rows of shops advertising anything a person could ever want. Somewhere among the madness was Nesta’s little cantina, run by her friend Emerie most of the time. Feyre might stop in for a drink if she was feeling bold, though Tamlin wouldn’t approve.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, she reasoned. She’d just have to be careful to drink slow as alcohol went straight to her head.

Most things did, in truth. After a lifetime of denial, anything heady was practically a drug. 

Feyre fell into line, catching sight of the man handing out turbo dogs. Rhysand.

He’d appeared one day—or perhaps she’d merely never noticed him, though it seemed impossible that she could have walked by and not noticed him. His hair was so dark it gobbled up all the light around him, gilded blue in the late afternoon sun. Piercing blue eyes seemed practically violet when the shadows fell over his face just right, with brown skin that looked warm to the touch and just the shadow of a beard gracing the cut of his jaw. 

Not that she’d dare. She was definitely forbidden from that, though all the teaching in the world couldn’t truly stop her wanting. He looked up right on cue, smiling when he saw her just like he always did. There were people in front of her, so Feyre waited, schooling her face into careful neutrality when all she really wanted was to bound up to him and tell him everything.

What did it matter? Who was he going to tell? Feyre imagined, when she needed to temper some of her interest in this stranger, that he told stories of the Jedi Padawan to his friends in whatever local watering hole he frequented. Perhaps they all laughed.

But maybe he didn’t. 

“There you are,” Rhys said when it was finally her turn, large hands deftly putting her dog together. He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. And Feyre considered herself rather well-traveled. She’d seen a lot of faces. Rhys’ was all sharp angles and graceful lines, drawn together just so—on anyone else it might have made them seem too severe or perhaps lopsided. Not Rhys, who seemed blessed by some otherworldly entity despite his rather humble profession. 

There, in a black tunic, she caught sight of the familiar black tattoo crawling up his neck, half hidden beneath the white shirt just beneath. What did they mean, she wondered? She’d never dared to ask.

“I was looking for you,” Rhys added when Ferye didn’t speak. Heat stole over her cheeks, causing her to duck her head. 

“I’m where I always am,” she replied, grateful there was no one behind her to hurry things along. 

“Still trapped in the Archives?” Rhys asked sympathetically. 

“Not for long,” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “I’ve been assigned to Umbara.”

His dark brows rose. “What business do the Jedi have on Umbara?”

Feyre shrugged, wishing she could tell him the truth. It was a betrayal, even if he was harmless enough. She’d tell him everything when she returned, besides. Likely with some embellishments to make herself seem more heroic and more skilled than she was. As if he knew the difference. 

“I thought Umbara was supposed to be dangerous,” he continued, quickly turning the sign on his stand to read closed. Another elicit thrill raced up her spine. He wanted to walk with her while she ate, dragging out their conversation just a little longer.

Feyre wiped sauce from the corner of her mouth quickly, hoping he didn’t notice how the red stained her sleeve. “It is,” she said through a mouthful, hoping Rhys found her charming and brave rather than young and a little pathetic. “But nothing I can’t handle.”

“Oh, I’m certain of that. Is your Master still angry with you?”

She nodded, swallowing her bite quickly. “He thinks I’m reckless, but…” Biting her inner cheek, Feyre thought of the children who would have been swallowed by flames had she not intervened. Tamlin, and many other Jedi, would remind her it wasn’t possible to save everyone. She couldn’t let herself become so attached to simple strangers.

Feyre could feel them all in the force, just like every other Jedi. Their fear overwhelmed her, and try as she might, she simply could not block it out. Feyre let it all in, let their emotions rush over her like water until they clouded her judgment. And then she acted, honed by instinct and twenty one years of training. 

“But?” Rhys prompted, slowing his steps so Feyre didn’t have to work so hard to eat and breathe. They walked further from the temple, descending into one of the lower levels where the Jedi were unlikely to venture. He lived down there, somewhere. Did he see sunlight from his windows, she wondered? Or was he, like so many others, trapped in darkness? 

“It was wrong not to help,” she said fiercely, flooded with righteous emotion. Rhys smiled.

“I agree,” he said, running a hand casually through his hair. Feyre tried not to notice how a lock flopped into his eyes just as she tried not to imagine what it would be like to brush it away with her own fingers. 

“If I do this by the book, though, I think I can go around Tamlin to the Council and ask to take my trials,” she said, confessing to Rhys something she hadn’t even told her sisters. Again—it was harmless to tell him. He was just a man on Coruscant, her friend, truly. He had a passing interest in the Jedi and a passion for turbo dog meat. 

“What will you do then, once your Jedi Knight Feyre Archeron?” he questioned, eyes sliding to the padawan braid draped over her shoulder. 

“I don’t dare to think about it, just in case,” she said, finishing the rest of her meal and tossing the trash into a nearby bin. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

“Smart,” Rhys praised. “Who knows what’s waiting on a planet like Umbara.”

“Something dangerous, I hope,” she said with more bravado than she felt. If he guessed, he didn’t say.

“You should be careful,” he warned, just like he always did. It didn’t annoy her as much as when Tamlin said it, perhaps because Rhys wasn’t asking her to remain behind on Coruscant for safety reasons. Sometimes Feyre thought Tamlin wanted her to remain a Padawan until she died despite the early conversation they’d had all those years ago about her hopes and dreams. He’d been so supportive when she was younger.

Now he felt like a tyrant. 

Feyre left Rhys not long after when he said he needed to pick up a crate of meat, disappointed they never managed more than about ten minutes of time together. What she would say if she ever got more eluded her, though sometimes she conducted long conversations with him in her mind. At least there she was always witty, always charming, and he was always impressed with her. 

Feyre went to see Nesta and Elain, told them of her mission hastily, and promised she wouldn’t be gone too terribly long. How much time could it reasonably take to investigate the murders of a couple Jedi? They weren’t Masters, after all—it had been a trio of Knights she knew in passing, their bodies still missing. All that had been found were parts.

A hand here.

A torso there. 

Weapons missing. 

Feyre had a nightmare that evening, her mind grappling with what could have gone wrong to take out three Jedi in such a manner. Perhaps a bomb? A sniper hidden on a roof, cloaked somehow? 

Or, more thrilling and terrifying all at once, a long-extinct Sith somehow rose from the grave. Feyre had only ever heard stories of the legends—unlike Jedi, who were numerous, their Sith counterparts moved only in groups of two. A Master and Apprentice. Having spent so much time in the archives, Feyre read that once an apprentice finished their training, they’d kill their own Master and take an Apprentice of their own, thus repeating the vicious, cannibalistic cycle in perpetuity. 

The Sith were extinct, hunted to nothing centuries before Feyre had been born. If one managed to pop up, they’d be cut to pieces before they could manage to find and corrupt an apprentice, nevermind how they’d manage to truly immerse themselves in whatever perverse culture the Sith claimed. Still, it was an interesting fantasy and even after Feyre woke in a cold sweat, mind still racing from the shadows that seemed to press against her temple, she let herself imagine what it would be like to encounter one.

To cut one down.

Feyre bet they’d let her skip her trials if she did. Not that she wanted a Sith running around, of course. It was merely the wistful imaginings of all padawans hoping for glory. Feyre wanted to make a name for herself.

Old resentment bloomed in the morning as she packed her things into a sack, careful not to fill it to the brim. It would irk Tamlin, resulting in a lecture about how materialistic she was. Was it materialistic to not want to wash her robes every single night? In the sink, no less, while they were conserving water for drinking and washing? Tamlin would tell her to wear her tunic and robes more often between washings but Feyre got sweaty sitting in the cramped quarters of the ship. They started to smell like onions and while Tamlin might not mind, she certainly did.

Rolling them tight, Feyre packed three sets, closed up her knapsack, and made her way toward the shipyard just as dusk broke over the horizon. The light bounced off the metal buildings, half blinding her as she walked. 

What she wouldn’t have given for some shadows right then. 

Tamlin was waiting, handing over credits to the dock worker along with his clearance papers while they worked out which lane they’d take and what time they’d leave. It was all terribly boring, though she supposed it was important that they didn’t make the leap to hyperspace while another ship came out, obliterating them both in a fiery inferno.

Why did the thought amuse her? Feyre suppressed the smile forming as she clenched her fingers into fists, nails biting against her palm. Tamlin turned, eyes drifting toward her back at the pack slung over one shoulder. He didn’t say a word—he didn’t have to. Feyre could feel his disapproval coming off him in waves.

Silence was its own blessing, she supposed. Better than having to defend herself and submitting to the eventual lecture that would go on for what felt like ever. Still, she could feel his disappointment as they took their seat in the small, sleek craft they’d be in for only the force knew how long. Tamlin did the preliminary checks while Feyre settled everything in, finally sitting in the co-pilot's chair. 

Not a word was spoken until they jumped to hyperspace. Feeling his eyes burning holes against her skin, Ferye finally sighed with exasperation. “Just say it.”

“I think it was a mistake to involve you in this,” he said in that measured way of his, unaware of how deep his words cut. “You’re not ready for this kind of mission.”

“You don’t trust me.”

It wasn’t a question but merely a statement of fact. What other conclusion was she supposed to draw? Tamlin balked at every outing, especially as of late. Feyre had heard it a million times before and though she considered herself relatively tough, she thought she might cry if she had to listen to him list her faults again.

“When did I say that?”

“You didn’t have to say it,” Feyre snapped, swiveling in her chair to face him. Multicolored lights lit up the otherwise dark cockpit, while the console separated them. Feyre could see the saber resting lightly against Tamlin’s thigh and knew if he ignited it, she’d find the familiar green blade humming before her. It had once been a comforting sight.

She didn’t know what it was now. 

“I think I do need to say it in order for it to be true,” Tamlin replied, infuriating as ever. She wanted to wring his neck, an inappropriate thought she couldn’t shake.

“No, you don’t, because you say it a million different ways. I’m too reckless, I don’t think, I’m impulsive and every other little thing. And when you’re not constantly saying that, you’re arguing passionately to the Council that I don’t belong on missions and you refuse to help me prepare for the trials—”

“Have you considered that I am not ready to let you go?” Tamlin asked in a low voice.

Feyre paused. Oh, that was a dangerous thing to admit and they both knew it. Feyre’s eyes slid to the windshield before them, suddenly nervous. “You have to.”

“I know. I know,” he said, unaware that the low, urgent way he spoke those words angered her. He’d hold her back because he liked her? Even if it wasn’t forbidden—and Feyre had to believe that any kind of relationship between a Master and a Padawan was—it was downright cruel. She could be his peer, at least, and in a position to have this conversation with him without worrying he’d drop her in the archive again while avoiding her so she had no one to practice with. 

“I want to be a Knight, Tamlin,” she told him, fingers twisting in her lap. 

“There’s time—”

“You’re wasting it!” she burst out, rising from her chair so quickly she slammed her head against the low ceiling. “For the sake of feelings you know we can’t act on!”

“It’s only attachment that’s forbidden,” he argued, as if he hadn’t just admitted he was holding her back to satisfy his own desires. Feyre wanted to scream—wanted to wrap her hands around his large neck and squeeze until his eyes bulged and a raspy apology split from his lips. 

She’d take it too far if she didn’t get away from him. There was practically nowhere to go—down a ladder and into the hold, Tamlin right behind her. 

“Feyre–”

“No.”

Her heart thudded rapidly, lodging itself in her throat as she spun around. Tamlin’s tan skin paled at whatever he saw looking back at him, palms raised in defense. 

Take a breath. You are one with the force. Take a breath. 

“Feyre, can we talk about this?” he pleaded. There would be no avoiding it, and Feyre, never known for her tact, would have to figure out a way to navigate the conversation without throwing a wrench in her entire future. 

“Not now,” she said, exhaling through her nose. “I need—I need to think.”

Hope sprung like weeds in his eyes as Feyre tamped down her fury. Feyre knew, looking up at the man she’d once loved like a brother—respected like a father—and knew he would hold her hostage until she agreed to his terms. Lying felt wrong, deceiving him worse. If she went to the council, would they listen? Would they believe her over a Master? 

Tamlin nodded, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tried to find the words he wanted. “I just…I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

Feyre could think of a dozen Masters and Padawans who continued to work alongside each other. Was he not ready to say goodbye to her, or to the power he had over her? The thought chilled her, filling her with fear. 

“You don’t have to,” she replied in a careful, measured tone though every inch of her vibrated with panic. “Very little has to change.”

Tamlin offered a humorless laugh. “Even you don’t believe that, Feyre. You’ll race off on a dangerous mission by yourself the first moment you get.”

“I won’t,” Feyre protested. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she hated being alone. A mission by herself seemed like a particular brand of hell. Every moment Feyre got she was looking for company—seeking out the other padawans, her sisters, hell, even the turbo dog guy when she could catch him.

But rarely Tamlin. Not since he’d begun to sideline her and her resentment had grown like one of Elain’s gardens. When had that begun, anyway? Racking her brain, she realized it had been around the start of her nineteenth birthday. Two years—how foolish not to realize the underlying problem. There was so much wasted time and too much ground lost. 

Tamlin only shook his head. “Let's table this for now. You rest—I’ll keep watch.” She nodded, swallowing all the words she wanted to say as a plan began forming in her mind. She’d petition the council, she decided as she watched Tamlin climb back up the stairs. Either they’d believe her or they didn’t, but she was entitled to another Master if she wanted one.

The thought didn’t give her peace, though. As Feyre slid into the small bed hidden within the wall, her anger burned hot in her chest. This was not the Jedi way—she needed to find a way to forgive him for what he’d done to her.

But she couldn’t. Even in sleep, Feyre did not find peace. Her dreams were tinged red and shadowed, as though her anger had been made manifest. She woke to the sound of light beeping and Tamlin pulling open the small door so light flooded in.

“Can we trade?”

She only nodded, rubbing at her eyes as she scooted out of the narrow space. His fingers grazed her collarbone as she hopped to the ground, narrowly avoiding his hands reaching for her waist. Feyre had to resist the urge to slap him away, to not bark out, don't touch me. Tamlin merely watched, his disappointment obvious. What he thought was going to happen, she wondered? That he’d admit she’d been purposefully holding her back and hobbling her self-esteem simply to meet his own needs and she’d swoon? Fall into his arms? Abandon all the tenants of her teachings for him?

Feyre let him sleep longer than he had—Tamlin had only given her four hours, but Feyre gave him the remaining eight. She flung the door open just before they were about to burst out of hyperspace, and only because she was required to. He was still the Master, she his student and her whole future was in his hands.

“You’re angry.”

Feyre flipped the switches that would pull them just outside the atmosphere of Umbara, the neon blue of the stars fading as they slowed their descent.

“I’m frustrated,” she admitted, not wanting to give him any honesty at all. He was manipulating her, using the teachings of the Jedi against her and Feyre didn’t know how to fight back. She wasn’t equipped for these sorts of games, didn’t know the rules to even play. 

“I’m sorry,” Tamlin murmured, as if that was enough to erase two years of wasting her time. “Do you want to discuss it?”

“Is there any discussion we could have? Am I allowed to say no?”

“Stars, Feyre, I’m not—of course—” Tamlin set his jaw, grinding his teeth together loudly. “Of course you can.”

But everything in his body told her that he’d be angry if she did. It was written all over his face.

“Can we just wait until we’re back on Coruscant?” she asked, forcing herself to speak softer, lighter, to avoid whatever was brewing in his gut. “You don’t feel it?” Tamlin demanded.

“Tam,” Feyre breathed, invoking an old, familiar nickname. It was enough to settle him, the tension between them evaporating. “We’re in the atmosphere. Let's do our mission, go home, rest, and then we can discuss…us.”

She didn’t dare look at him. Could he taste the lie? Did he suspect she intended to speak with the council the minute her feet were back on Coruscant? Could he stop her? Feyre had too many questions as they were plunged into shadowy darkness. Umbara demanded her attention, pushing everything else to the side as Feyre stared. The local star was simply too far for its ray to penetrate, its reach beyond even the Republic. 

“What were they doing out here?” Feyre wondered aloud, breath curling around her face like shadow. 

“I don’t know,” Tamlin replied, deftly landing on the landing pad in the local ship port. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

“Where do we start?”

Tamlin knew, of course. They’d been too busy arguing over the state of their tattered relationship to discuss the mission, and now Tamlin had all the clues and all the control, just like he always did. Feyre would be given information piece-meal, rewarded when she pleased him and iced out when she irritated him. It had been that way between them for a while. At least she understood that part of the dynamic, bothered as she was by it. 

“This way,” he said, disembarking with barely a glance back. Fingers balled to fists, Feyre followed after him, eyes searching the dark hungrily. Umbara was hardly some backwater planet that barely had running water, let alone civilization. Umbara was advanced in a way that would have made the cosmopolitan Coruscanti residents weep. Towering buildings tried to banish the shadows, bathing the surface in artificial lights. If she strained her eyes beyond the urban sprawl, Feyre thought she could see rolling hills rising like mist in the distance. 

Maybe that was her imagination filling in the gaps. 

What was beyond the gloom, where not even technology and light could touch? What secrets did the shadows hold? Perhaps it hadn’t been anything sinister at all, but merely the wildlife that had gotten the Jedi. Feyre shivered in spite of herself, wishing she could step closer to Tamlin without it being uncomfortable. In one fell swoop, he’d wrecked the delicate bond between master and padawan.

Her resentment reignited, hot as any flame. Her emotions were all over the place, though carefully guarded to keep Tamlin from sensing them. She’d learned to do this as a youngling, annoyed that she broadcast her every feeling to anyone who happened to be near, but perfected it when she found her sisters. Feyre didn’t trust the Jedi not to make them leave, even if it was a little unfair. Maybe they wouldn’t have.

But maybe they would have. And Feyre simply couldn’t take the risk. 

On the busy streets, Feyre kept her eyes straight ahead even as she examined the people from the corners. Umbarians were near human—their skin pale and bluish from the lack of sunlight, their hair white or silver, though sometimes so impossibly black that Feyre wasn’t sure if it was hair at all. Pale blue eyes peered through the gloom and she’d heard they could see colors regular humans couldn’t, though who knew how true that really was. Feyre wished they could linger and she could spend some time immersed in the local culture, but Tamlin walked quickly, determined to get them both in and out. Whether that was merely to conclude his investigation or bring their conversation to the fore, Feyre couldn’t tell. He was inscrutable that way. 

Along one of the neatly laid streets stood a rather shady looking cantina, even by Coruscant's standards. Feyre felt a thrill of excitement as Tamlin walked through the hissing steam of the door into the smell of liquor and sweat. 

Feyre’s eyes snagged on the chrome bar and the two impossibly large men seated on too-small stools. They likely would have fit a regular man perfectly fine—Tamlin could have sat with no issues at all. These men were built like warriors, with warm brown skin so at odds with the milky paleness of the locals and strange, scrawling tattoos inked in black. They both turned, their hazel eyes nearly gold as they landed first on Tamlin, and then Feyre. 

The larger of the two had his wavy, dark hair pulled half off a face marked with scars, confirming her theory he was a warrior. The other, more classically handsome, with shorter hair and sharper features, seemed entirely unblemished. That didn’t mean he looked less lethal. Feyre reached out with the force, trying to get a sense of these men but nothing but oily cold greeted her. Likely mercenaries, she decided as they turned back to their cups and the beautiful blonde woman wiping down the counter with a stained rag.

She had familiar eyes, though Feyre couldn’t quite place them. Was it the dark brown, or the shape? Blonde hair cascaded over fair skin, neatly curled either by her own hand or good genetics. Tamlin’s eyes lingered for a moment, too, before his lips pressed in a severe line. He didn’t speak as he approached—he merely swept his robe to the side to reveal his saber hanging from his belt.

The two warriors sitting at the bar grinned. Feyre didn’t think Tamlin noticed. Around them, people of varying species sat at tables, the hum of chatter enough to drown out their own conversation. 

“I wondered when your lot was going to turn up,” the blonde said, offering Feyre a smile that felt less menacing and warmer than what she’d given Tamlin. “Might as well sit down.”

Feyre did before Tamlin could stop her, hand on her shoulder as she slid next to the massive, long haired man. 

“We’re not here to drink. Three Jedi were slaughtered nearby, and the last place they were seen was here. In your cantina.”

“I’m Morrigan, though my friends call me Mor. You, I think, can call me Morrigan—you don’t seem like you have a lot of friends and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” the woman told him, filling up a tankard of ale as if Tamlin hadn’t said anything. She slid it right past him to Feyre and somehow it felt like a test.

Antagonizing the locals wasn’t going to help them, Feyre reasoned. They needed information and they sounded like police. Relax, she wished she could say to Tamlin. But he was too rigid, too set in his ways and too proud to ever admit there might be a better way to get things done. His disapproval frustrated her even as she raised the spicy brew to her lips.

It earned Mor’s approval. 

“Look,” she said, cutting Tamlin off just as he was about to speak. Her eyes were still trained on Feyre as she pulled out a holo disc. “Your friends were here—I never disputed that fact and I’m not now. They came in for a few drinks, as you can see here…and then they left. Alive.”

Feyre did see that. The holo, sped up, showed all three knights order a drink, sit at a nearby table, and eventually leave with all their limbs in tact.

“It’s a rough planet,” the man next to her said, obviously eavesdropping. “Plant probably got them.”

Feyre rolled her eyes. It was possible, of course, though it seemed unlikely.

“Did they say what they were doing out here?” Tamlin demanded, his irritation plain. 

“Bet they were following the rumors,” the other man said, his voice icy and dark. Feyre nearly choked on her ale at the sound, eyes sliding of their own accord back to his beautiful face. He wore fingerless gloves, revealing horrific scars over the little skin he had revealed. What had happened to him? 

“What rumors?” Tamlin’s temper was rising, his force signature warming Feyre’s cool skin. 

“Is this a local ghost story?” Feyre asked them, offering up her most charming smile. 

“Something like that,” the man beside her chuckled. “They say he’s some kind of force user. Powerful.”

“Impossible,” Tamlin dismissed. 

“Cassian. Azriel,” Mor murmured, though there was no displeasure on her face. It was merely an order to mind their own business. Despite her more diminutive stature, both men returned to their drinks looking a little shamed. 

“Do you think they’re true?” Feyre asked, ignoring the waves of frustration rolling off Tamlin.

“I know three Jedi walked out of this bar alive, and met something in the dark,” Mor said, leaning forward so her hair spilled across the bar. “The wildlife and fauna here are dangerous if you’re stupid or careless. I didn’t think Jedi were either.”

“They’re not,” Tamlin all but hissed.

“Then maybe you ought to start there,” Mor said, eyes still only on Feyre. 

“They say he’s just outside the city,” Cassian added, nosing his way back into the conversation. “Lives on the edge of a mountain.”

“Or was it in the mountain?” Azriel asked with a sharp grin. Feyre knew they were trying to scare her and Tamlin, but she was genuinely intrigued. A dark force user seemed unlikely, but perhaps some kind of equivalent ability, like the Nightsisters were said to have. She wanted to know more than she wanted to unravel the mystery of the dead Jedi. 

“This was helpful,” Tamlin said in a tone that suggested the exact opposite as he tossed a couple credits onto the bar. Thanks for nothing, she swore she heard him say, though his lips never moved. Feyre gulped down the rest of her drink while Cassian and Azriel went back to studiously looking anywhere but at the rest of them. 

“Take care,” Mor said only to Feyre, offering a pretty smile. “I’ll see you around.”

Cassian and Azriel both turned to look at her with those unnerving eyes, their smiles suggesting the same thing. No one looked at Tamlin at all, who half jerked her off the stool and toward the door. Feyre stumbled, looking over her shoulder to find their smiles gone, replaced by some other emotion that almost looked like fury. 

“There was something strange about them,” Feyre said the moment they were back in the dark. “Didn’t you think—”

“Why didn’t you let me handle it?” Tamlin demanded, rounding on her so quickly that she did fall back then, her ass hitting the ground hard enough to rumble up her spine. She scrambled to her feet, eyes smarting with embarrassment. “They were making fun of you!”

“They—they weren’t,” she insisted, swallowing the urge to cry. She thought of how Mor had looked at her with respect, pulling out that puck so Feyre could see the Jedi had left unharmed.

If she’d been crueler, she would have told Tamlin the truth. They spoke with derision because they didn’t like him. 

“Let's go,” he said, his eyes like ice. “We can circle back in the morning.”

“Fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. Feyre stewed as they walked toward the inn they’d be sleeping in, grateful for the two beds that were provided rather than one. If she had to sleep next to Tamlin, she thought she might have flung herself out a window. They still shared the small space, dodging the other as best they could, tempers still high. He kept sighing, waiting for her to ask him what he was thinking like she often did in the past. She didn’t, though. 

Feyre fell asleep thinking not about Tamlin, but what Mor had told her. Of the man who supposedly lived in or around the mountain and the power he commanded. It seemed more like a children’s story meant to keep them from wandering and yet…had those Jedi gone looking? It would be tempting, certainly, especially if that man had been framed as a force user. She wanted to go looking, too, even if Tamlin didn’t, though she didn’t know how to convince him of it. 

Feyre woke to darkness and Tamlin already dressed. He was standing by the door, hair left around his face.

“You’re awake. Good. I’ve been thinking about last evening,” he began, hand reaching for the control panel on the wall. Feyre sat up, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm.

“What about it?” she asked.

“I think it’s best if I conclude this investigation on my own. You’re…you’re safer here, I think.”

Feyre’s mouth fell open of its own accord, snapped shut as she processed his words. “Safer?”

“I want you to remain in this room until I return—”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, Feyre. But things will move much faster, and go smoother, if you just let me handle this.”

“Tamlin!”

She scrambled out of bed, but he was quicker, reflexes sharper. He offered one last glance back, eyes hardly apologetic at all.

“Tamlin!” she yelled, but the door hissed shut just in time for her palm to smack against the cool metal. She screamed his name twice to no avail. He’d locked her in the room. Feyre turned toward the window, too small for her to crawl out of even if she shattered it. 

Think, she ordered herself, but the walls of the tiny room seemed to close in on her, the darkness heavy and oppressive. Tamlin was a lot of things, but at their foundation, he was her mentor. Her teacher.

Her friend.

Did she mean anything to him at all? Or was she merely an object for him to protect with no consideration of her own wants, needs, or desires? Feyre’s hurt shifted into anger, her mind replaying the argument in the ship. The realization he had been holding her back because he wanted to keep her around longer, that he would derail her entire life to satisfy himself. He was supposed to put his padawan above himself and yet…

Feyre went back to the door, reaching back into the force. It was wrong—so, so wrong—to use it the way she was. The once warm air chilled as she embraced, just for a moment, the hatred she felt. Metal crunched and snapped, the bolts whining before they broke entirely. When Tamlin returned, he’d know what she’d done and how she’d done it.

Let him, she thought as she gripped tight to that anger. It was a lifeline right then, antithetical to her teachings as it was. Hatred, anger, fear—all led to the dark side of the force. She needed to let it go.

All Jedi touch the dark side. 

She’d read that in one of the books in the archive. Well, here she was, touching it too. Feyre stepped from the ruined wreckage feeling more powerful than she ever had in her life. She’d atone when she returned to Coruscant, would tell the Council everything and hoped they understood her reasons, her feelings.

But right then, Feyre didn’t care about any lesson Tamlin had ever taught her. He’d betrayed her many times over, so thoroughly that it couldn’t be repaired with centuries worth of time. It was tempting to hunt him down and confront him, but Tamlin was a Master who’d been trained by someone who valued his education. He’d beat her easily—smugly.

No.

Once outside, Feyre’s gaze turned toward the darkness and the mountains she assumed lingered just beyond. For only a moment, Feyre took stock of herself. Was she afraid of what she’d find? 

Was she afraid to die?

No.

Feyre stepped with confidence, unafraid of the darkness around her. Maybe it was unchecked hubris that guided her, or some sense that the force would protect her. Feyre didn’t bother thinking too much about it, vanishing out of the city toward the mountains that loomed overhead like great, craggy fingers. All at once, Feyre understood why people would imagine a monster lived here—who else might survive it? It occurred to her, as she got further and further from the city, that this was foolish—she ought to go back to the ship and send a message to the Council before Tamlin knew what she had done. 

Feyre nearly turned back—she should have. If it hadn’t been for an overwhelming tug in her gut, she might have abandoned her plan entirely. Feyre kept moving, her body knowing the way even as her mind raced. She could feel the presence of something—someone—watching, waiting. The wind picked up, ruffling her hair around her face and too late, Ferye realized she hadn’t bothered to braid her long hair, nor had she changed from her training pants and tank-top. She’d merely run out, caring only that her feet were laced up in her white boots and her saber was clipped to her belt. It should have felt cold but Feyre was warm as her speed picked up, eyes trying desperately to cut through the dark. 

It never occurred to Feyre she might be running straight into a trap until a strong, bare arm wrapped itself like a noose around her neck. Clotheslined back, Feyre gagged as her fingers attempted to pry the grip off to no avail. She twisted, catching sight of a strange, angular mask in the gloom and familiar black tattoo’s scrawled up her assailant's strong bicep and Feyre swore smoke trailed off him, creating massive wings just behind him.

The man was strong, but Feyre was quick, kicking behind her to catch him in the knee. He grunted through the mask as she spun, heart racing, and ignited her purple blade. Whatever he was, Feyre was certain he was no match for an armed Jedi. Feyre didn’t wait for him to regain the upper hand, swinging furiously with all the skill she’d earned over the years.

Her breath caught as his own blade ignited, a brilliant, bleeding red, to block her strike. For a moment they were deadlocked, her staring up into that eyeless mask while their sabers hummed with anticipation. 

“You’re—”

He pushed back though he didn’t come forward to strike her again. Instead, he cocked his helmeted head as though curious to see what she’d do next. Feyre couldn’t breathe fully, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

“That’s a Jedi’s weapon.”

The dark, mechanical laugh that sounded in response made her heart stumble. 

“Where did you get it?”

She didn’t expect an answer, though Feyre could force one from him. He wasn’t a Jedi—she’d never seen a blade that color before. Lunging, Feyre struck again, expecting to reveal his inability to truly wield it. A lightsaber belonged to a Jedi the way a person’s arm did—it was instinctual, innate. Not just anyone could pick it up and wield it. You needed a connection to the force and this person…

This person had it. He blocked her with skill, moving quicker than he should have been able to. Feyre was all offensive strikes, hair whipping around her face until she could smell the singed edges on the wind mingled with the sweat dripping from his skin. 

“Who are you?” she panted when he forced her back, just hard enough to put six feet of space between them. 

He didn’t answer, head snapping up to look behind her as something rough gripped Feyre around the navel and wrenched her back so forcefully it stole the remaining breath from her lungs. Tamlin has used the force to remove her from the fight, stepping around her with his green blade ignited. Feyre wanted to scream, though if it was to warn the assailant or Tamlin, she didn’t know. She couldn’t move, dazed and pinned by Tamlin’s superior use of the force. All she could do was lay there, desperately gasping for air, as Tamlin spoke words she barely heard. 

The warrior with the red blade made the first strike, moving in a blur of color that made her stomach roil. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have been toying with her and yet watching him match Tamlin blow for blow, Feyre knew with sickening clarity what was coming. 

“Let me go,” she whispered. His pride would be his downfall, would get them both killed. “Let me help you.”

If he heard her whispered plea, Tamlin didn’t respond. He moved just as quickly, dodging rocks half hidden beneath the soft grass. The pair vanished over a hillside for a moment before they were back, dodging and striking like two masters determined to see the other one fall. For a moment, Feyre thought Tamlin had the upper hand when he kicked the warrior in the chest, his blade slipping from his grip. Tamlin attacked three in a row, bashing the assailant over his mask until it was cracked-useless.

Tamlin raised his own saber to make the killing blow but she knew, somehow, what was coming. The assailant reached out, his own blade flying back into his hand. He pulled, turning one red blade into two. 

Tamlin couldn’t react fast enough. With one hand, his green saber was blocked while the other humming red blade drove neatly through Tamlin’s throat. His grip on her relinquished and Feyre scrambled to her feet, noting that Tamlin had managed to cut open the warrior's helmet. 

Tamlin fell to his knees, turning his head to look at her before he died. If he truly saw her or not, she didn’t know.

He was dead before his shoulders touched the ground.

Feyre made her way over, holding her own blade with something akin to fear. Blinking, it didn’t register who was standing in front of her until she heard a familiar voice.

“Surprise.”

Exhaling a shaking breath, she drank in the sweat soaked onyx hair now falling into violet-blue eyes. Rhys cocked his head again to look at her, a half smile playing on his lips.

“You killed Tamlin,” she whispered.

“Was that its name?” he replied without remorse. “You brought him here.”

“I—” Feyre didn’t know what to say. Rhys continued to look at her with that cold amusement. “You didn’t kill me.”

“I didn’t come to kill you, Feyre.”

Her grip on her blade tightened. “Then why are you here? You…you pulled me here.”

His smile widened as he stepped over Tamlin’s still warm body like it was little more than trash. Perhaps to him it was. 

“Just as you pulled me to Coruscant,” he said, peering down at her with curiosity. 

Feyre yielded a step, keeping distance between them. Her mind was screaming static, unable to string together anything coherent. Feyre couldn’t figure out what was happening. She wasn’t adrift, but she didn’t feel awake anymore. This was a dream, somehow, and Feyre would wake up still angry with Tamlin, who would be alive.

She hadn’t wanted him to die. She’d just…she’d just wanted to be free.

“What do you mean?” she heard herself ask, her own voice taking on a dream-like quality. 

Something soft pulled against her—not the force, or, not exactly. It wasn’t like when Tamlin had pinned her to the soft grass, the force a boulder against her chest. This was more muscle memory, something that lived within her. 

“You’ve been calling me for a long time. When I was a boy, I used to dream about skies the color of your eyes,” he murmured, tilting his head again to study her. 

“You’ve been watching me.”

His grin widened. “Yes.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

He shook his head, hair sliding along his forehead. “You know that’s not true. I feel it, you know. Your pain, your anger…your hatred. I feel it all, Feyre. I could take it all away from you.”

She stumbled back another step. “No,” she whispered, unsure if she was telling him, or herself. He only smiled, his face still illuminated beneath the hum of his vibrant blade. 

“The Jedi are holding you back, Feyre,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Feyre swore she could feel the words caress her cheek like a phantom kiss, cool against her overheated skin. “They refuse to see how magnificent you are and are afraid of the power you hold. They will never give you what you want.”

A strange, half-sob, half breath escaped Feyre. All she could do was shake her head back and forth, still stumbling back. She shouldn’t have come, she should have stayed in the room. Tamlin—Tamlin had been right. “This is my fault,” she managed, panting as she continued to move away from Rhys.

“Feyre,” he warned, stalking forward for her. Feyre broke into a sprint he interrupted with the force, lifting her off her feet and dragging her back to him. Feyre’s toes skimmed against the grass and though she could not move, Rhys wasn’t hurting her, either. He merely held her gaze, searching for something she prayed wasn’t there. 

“What do you want from me?” she whispered. “What are you?”

He stretched his neck left, and then right, his tattoos catching in the light. Too late, Feyre realized she’d seen them in the cantina the day before—Cassian and Azriel had sported the same ones. They’d told her about the force user, they’d lured her here. But worse, even, was the knowledge that they’d only been able to do that because Feyre had told Rhys before she’d left. She’d told him she was going to Umbara. She’d laid her own trap for him.

“There is no name for what I am, though I think the Jedi call me Sith,” Rhys said, his voice low and cold. “I want you, Feyre. Join me. Let me train you, teach you—not as an apprentice or acolyte. An equal.”

Sith. 

Fear won, in the end. Feyre pushed against his hold, shoving him so far back that he spun several times through the air before landing far from her in the distance, his saber finally sheathed. Feyre didn’t wait—she took off running as quickly as she could. There was no escaping him on Umbara, but if she could warn the Council, she could—stars, she didn’t know. 

Feyre made it to her ship, closing it up and turning it on before she managed to catch her breath. It was a betrayal to leave Tamlin’s body on Umbara, to not give him a proper burial befitting a Jedi Master and Feyre was afraid. 

She should have been. The moment Feyre made the jump to hyperspace, she heard him.

“Feyre, darling,” Rhys murmured, appearing seemingly from nowhere. He had her cornered in the cockpit, his larger body blocking the only way out of the ship. Anger replaced fear as she screamed, launching herself from the chair with such force she didn’t feel pain when her thigh clipped the edge of the dash. She and Rhys went plummeting into the hold, tumbling to the hard, cold steel in a tangle of elbows and limbs. He groaned when her knee connected between his legs, causing her to slam it against him again, just because she hated him.

Straddling his waist, Feyre hit him so hard a small amount of his blood splattered against her cheek. Raising her fist to hit him again, Feyre realized he was grinning with red stained teeth, eyes watching her not with anger or horror, but delight.

“Do it,” he said, pushing his hips into her as his hands held her firm against him. “Hit me. Hurt me.”

“I thought you were my friend,” she accused, trying to writhe free of his grasp. There were a pair of stun cuffs hanging just beyond the door to the sleeping chamber and if she could grab them, she could restrain him. Could at least force him to face justice for what he’d done.

“I am your friend, Feyre. You just haven’t realized it because you’re so indoctrinated,” Rhys replied, still holding her tight.

“Let me go,” she ordered and to her surprise, he did. Feyre scrambled to her feet, careful not to look at the stun cuffs even as she inched close enough she could have snatched them. Rhys, too, stood, wincing slightly. Good. She hoped he hurt, that he had bruises in places he couldn’t even mention. That they reminded him of her when he was alone in a cell buried on Coruscant. 

“I’m not going to join you,” she threatened. 

Rhys only shook his head. “You will.”

Feyre backed away slowly as he approached, letting him play predator for just a moment. She wasn’t sure she liked the look in his eye—the same she’d seen on Tamlin’s face when he admitted why he wouldn’t let her take the trials. Rhys reached for her face, fingers curled to brush her cheek and Feyre struck. Quicker than he expected, she slid the cuff around his wrist, chaining the other to a nearby beam.

Rhys only laughed. Even when she pulled his sabers off his belt he still laughed, watching her like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. “Feyre,” he all but crooned, still looking exactly like a predator. His eyes seemed to shift right then, the violet shifting to red and back just long enough for her to see what the darkside had done to him. “Feyre, darling. You’re acting as if I am not exactly where I want to be.”

“In a prison cell on Coruscant?” she hissed in response.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll make it that far, do you?”

“Yes. I think I’ll testify at your trial and watch them behead you.”

Rhys only grinned. “We��ll see.”

Feyre left him there to gather her thoughts, strangely calm in the wake of the restrained Sith Lord in her hold. No one had prepared her for this—she’d never been trained for this situation. She shouldn’t be angry with Tamlin, who couldn’t defend himself, but if he’d just taught her like a Master should have, she might know. Everything Feyre knew, she’d taught herself and it showed. 

Her fingers hovered over the console, hesitating when she went to dial the code to reach the Council. She didn’t need Tamlin’s advice to teach her that, at least. They could advise her. 

Tell them. 

Feyre’s indecision cost her. She was exhausted, her adrenaline ebbing as she sat in the cockpit, warring with herself on what to do, how best to act. What even to say. How to explain that this was her fault, that she’d kept secrets even when having friends outside the temple wasn’t forbidden. She should have known, though. Should have sensed him.

Why hadn’t she?

Feyre’s fingers pulled back against her chest, her decision made when she felt him behind her. She barely had time to turn before Rhys raised his hands.

“Forgive me for this,” he murmured before he ripped the force over her head like a blanket. The world went dark, and Feyre was lost to slumber.

To peace.

Feyre woke with a start. The air was warm and she was in a rather large bed, still clothed in her tank top and trousers, though her boots were missing and her feet were bare. Reaching beneath the heavy silver blanket, she found her saber, too, was gone. Feyre kicked off the blankets and made her way across cool marble for a door that was, predictably, locked.

A note on a table just beside, in elegant cursive, read, 

Feyre,

You are not my prisoner, though the door may suggest otherwise. Please relax until I return.

I will explain,

Rhys

Would he explain why he’d disarmed her, too? Feyre crumpled it in her fist before stalking for a set of large windows overlooking an amethyst river winding down the mountain peaks. Certain he was about to give her some lecture about how she was his guest who simply wasn’t allowed to leave, Feyre took herself first to the ‘fresher to wash the blood, sweat, and anxiety from her skin before putting on the only clothing available to her.

He was a bastard, offering up those satin cuffed pants in a pale blue color, alongside a matching top that tapered to a point just above her navel. No shoes, no socks—nothing but bare feet and an exposed collarbone that offered far too much real estate for him to damage should they come to blows again. 

There was nothing to do once she was dressed but pace and ruminate. Feyre tried to hold her anger over what had happened on Umbara, and in her own way, she supposed she did. Only, instead of seeing Rhys cutting down Tamlin with ruthless efficiency, she saw Tamlin’s face as he admitted he didn’t want her to take the trials because she’d leave him. She saw his dismissal when he told her she couldn’t complete the mission with him.

Saw how he’d died because he refused to let her fight alongside him. 

And in her heart, Feyre knew that if she’d been allowed to join the fight, Rhys would have backed down. Wouldn’t have fought them both as hard because she was important to him for some twisted reason. They could have destroyed Rhys. They could have walked back to the Jedi as heroes who’d seen the faces of other Sith and could better hunt them back into extinction.

He didn’t trust her. Hadn’t viewed her as someone who could help. 

Now he was dead and she was somewhere she shouldn’t be. Feyre turned as the door hissed open, her thoughts settling as Rhys strolled in.

He, too, had showered, his dark hair pushed off his face and his beard a mere shadow clinging to his jaw. The faint red of his eyes shifted in the light, slipping into violet as he came fully into view. 

“Is there some sort of dress code here?” she asked, noting his sleeveless black attire once again. 

“Blue looks wonderful on you,” was his reply. “You look well rested.” “No thanks to you,” she snapped.

Rhys shrugged his broad shoulders. “Someone ought to attempt to take care of you.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me! I need you to let me go.”

“Where will you go?” he asked casually, glancing at the door still open behind him. “Back to Coruscant.”

Feyre opened her mouth to tell him yes, but the word didn’t come out. She’d hesitated on the ship and she was hesitating now. 

A smile spread over sensual lips. “Ah. See? You don’t want to return.”

“That’s not true.”

Rhys reached for his belt where her saber was clipped and tossed her to her with ease, eyes tracking the movement. “No, you don’t. You could have cut me down—”

“I can’t,” she said with an air of breathless desperation. “I’m only a padawan.”

His brows crinkled. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means I’m just a student. I…” Feyre didn’t know how to explain it to him. “You didn’t have a Master?”

His grin widened. “Once. For a time, I suppose.”

“Did you kill him?”

Rhys only continued to smile, his silence answer enough. 

“I couldn’t have killed you,” she repeated, trying to get her point across. “You spared me.”

“I had no intention of taking your life, but I wouldn’t have stopped you from taking mine. To die at your hands…that would have been an honor. To see you take up my helm, lead my warriors…” His smile was almost dreamy.

“I thought Sith only moved in pairs.”

“I am no Sith, Feyre,” he said, cocking his head so a lock of dark hair fell against his eyes. “Those are Jedi terms, not mine. I never said I was Sith, nor do we put labels on what we are.”

“But you are evil,” she shot back.

Rhys arched one dark brow. “Am I? From where I’m standing, it seems I did you a favor. I freed you from the shackles of a man who warped his teachings and traditions to keep you under his thumb for his own selfish desires—”

“And what do you call all this?!” she demanded with a shriek.

“Liberation,” he replied easily, as though he’d practiced this very speech and it was going exactly as he hoped. “You can be free of Jedi doctrine and dogma, can do whatever you like. Feyre, your power, I—”

He ran a hand through his dark hair as he stepped toward her, more cautious than he’d been on Umbara. “I could show you.”

“Sith don’t do equals,” she said, well aware she was really asking with curiosity rather than slinging accusations. “Only Masters and Apprentices.”

“I am Sith only by your standards,” Rhys replied with more earnestness than he had any right to express. “Dark, light…it’s all just the force.”

This was dangerous and she knew it. Rhys’s eyes flashed red for just a moment, reminding her that the Sith were liars by nature. Master manipulators. It was working, though and he must have known it. When had he gotten so close? Rhys reached for a lock of her hair, curling it around his fingers.

“I feel your pain, Feyre. I’ve felt it for a long time. You’ve spent a lifetime trying to meditate it away but what if you embraced it?”

“I’d be a traitor to everything I believed. Just like you are,” she repeated, stepping away from him before she could get too lost in his words. They tempted her, pulling her down as though he were some great, all-encompassing current. 

Back turned, Feyre only heard the hiss of his ignited saber. “Fight me, Jedi,” Rhys snarled, his voice laced with condemnation. “Fight me so I can show you what you really are.”

Feyre whirled around too fast, forgetting to think about what was happening. With a pushing leap in the air, Feyre’s blade was lit and crashing against Rhys’s before her feet touched the ground again. He grinned savagely, blocking the blow like it was nothing to him. Who cared how she killed him, Feyre reasoned as she lifted her blade again. So long as he was dead.

Rhys dodged her in a flurry of swings, but didn’t move to attack her back until Feyre got a little too close to his throat. Her blade singed over his cheekbone, sparing his facial hair, drawing a neat line of blood over his otherwise immaculate skin.

He was brutal, then, eyes a burning red as he spun on her, forcing Ferye to take on the defensive position rather than the offensive. Her wrist ached from the effort to keep that saber in her hand, though Feyre did not back down, either. Feyre, perhaps, should have realized what he was trying to do when the backs of her knees hit the side of the bed, but Feyre hadn’t put Rhys’s plan together until he’d wrenched her blade from her hand, tossed it across the room, and pinned her beneath his body and the mattress.

“You hate me,” he panted, sweat sliding down his forehead. His dark hair was soaked again, falling into those unnatural eyes like branches of a willow. He was beautiful right then, unfairly so, with his cheeks flushed and his wild eyes. “Say it.”

“I hate you,” she replied, gaze drifting toward his mouth. She shouldn’t want someone like him. 

“I almost believe you,” Rhys replied, chest heaving from the exertion of their fight. She hadn’t realized she was panting, too, until he leaned close enough she could practically taste his breath. Feyre hitched her leg up over his hip in an attempt to roll away, but Rhys grabbed her thigh, holding her so she could feel how uninterested in fighting her he was. 

“I’ve waited,” he murmured, lips caressing the side of her jaw as his other hand came to her throat. Rhys pinned her by her neck, fingers squeezing just enough to make her dizzy. “You’re the only woman in the galaxy I’d pretend to serve turbodogs for.”

“You think turbodogs are beneath you?” she asked. Feyre would have laughed at the realization that this brutal Sith Lord spent years on Coruscant pretending to be little more than a vendor if she hadn’t been so turned on right then. 

“I think pretending to be something I’m not was beneath me,” Rhys said, mouth touching hers. It was brief, a whispered breath before he pulled away to look, but Feyre felt it. His touch was electric, waking up a slumbering piece of her soul she hadn’t known existed at all. Rhys saw it, his smile triumphant.

“You’re mine, Jedi,” he murmured, cocking his head to the side as he arched a brow. Tell me I’m wrong, that arrogant look seemed to say. 

She couldn’t and he knew it. Rhys had known it the moment he turned up on Umbara because Feyre had been telling him so since they’d become friends. She’d told him her frustrations, her hopes, her irritations…Rhys knew it all. Could sense her even when she’d been too clouded to sense him. Maybe this dormant part of her had always recognized him.

Or maybe she merely liked the man hovering over top her, his eyes giving away his plan. Feyre met his gaze. Rhys stopped playing his games, mouth slanting over hers with a heady, desperate groan. Feyre kissed him back, tasting the sweat and heat on his tongue mingled with the left over copper from their fight. Feyre learned quite quickly that kissing him was a lot like fighting him.

He wanted to break her down until she gave in, and this was a far more effective battle in which Feyre yielded too much too soon.

After all, it was her leg he had hitched around his waist. She could have pretended he was driving the whole thing but Feyre was rubbing against him like a cat. It felt good, his hand around her throat, his cock between her legs, his tongue in her mouth. Worse, even, were her hands slipping from where he’d pinned them over her head, stuck thanks to the heaviness of his body laid across her own. Distracted by the kissing, Rhys didn’t notice until Feyre had them against his chest, not to shove, but to run them down the smooth material of his tunic. Rhys sighed, his thumb pressing against the hollow of her throat for only a moment.

Feyre gasped, arching her neck for a deeper breath. Rhys pounced, kissing her deeper, more fervently. She’d done exactly what he’d wanted, opening entirely so he could 

“You really didn’t know it was me?” he breathed, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. “Not even deep down?”

Feyre fisted her fingers at the nape of his neck, wanting him to just shut up, even for one second. No, she thought to herself as their teeth collided in a frenzy of need, the darkside clouds everything. 

But she’d been clouded by her own anger, her frustrations with Tamlin and the lack of movement in her career. Feyre wouldn’t have noticed Rhys was sith if he’d worn a badge printed to the front of his chest declaring him such. Surely he knew it.

“I need you. Right now,” Rhys breathed, his mouth sliding from her lips to kiss a path down her jaw. His teeth caught on her earlobe, tugging just a little rougher than she thought he meant to, though Feyre enjoyed it. The hand on her thigh moved toward her bare stomach, teasing the thin material as he pushed it higher and higher.

“I don’t—I’ve never—”

“I’ll talk you through it,” he promised, taking his other hand off her throat as he slid himself down the length of her body to settle on the floor between her legs. “I’m going to lick your pussy now.”

Feyre blinked, her mind frustratingly blank. Rhys took advantage, removing the pants he’d provided for her with ease to toss them over his broad shoulders like they were nothing.

“Peace is a lie, Feyre,” he murmured, once she was bared before him. Callused fingers slid up her thighs, parting them wider and wider until she was spread obscenely. 

“No peace,” Rhys repeated, his gaze burning as it raked over her half naked form. “Only passion.”

Rhys did exactly as he promised, licking up the center of her body while holding her gaze. It felt like there was some kind of magic there, something hypnotic that kept Feyre from looking away. Maybe it was simply her need for control that kept her eyes pinned on him. Whatever it was, Feyre panted as she watched, her arousal burning through the last remaining defenses she had.

No peace—only passion. 

Peace had always been hard, even with hours of mediation. Feyre understood passion well, though—she’d been battling it her entire life. Swallow her anger, swallow her frustration—swallow everything in an effort to find some higher purpose. She’d failed over and over.

Maybe a better teacher could have shown her a clearer path.

Maybe she’d always been destined to fall. 

Feyre arched her hips as Rhys drew her closer, eyes fluttering shut as he continued to tease his tongue over her clit. Over and over, in rhythmic circles, until she felt like she might die. Feyre was too hot, the desire burning through her from the inside out.

Rhys moaned against her skin, fingers spreading her wider before teasing her sensitive opening. Inch by agonizing inch he went, pushing that finger further and further until Feyre was whimpering, hips rolling against his hand and mouth looking for relief. Rhys only chuckled. 

“Needy,” he taunted, his voice strained. “What will you look like impaled on my cock?”

“Please,” Feyre replied, though she wasn’t sure if she was asking him to return to licking or shutting up. “Rhys, please.”

He lowered his face again, eyes rolling back into his skull before he resumed his attention on her swollen clit. Feyre barely noticed the way he worked that second finger into her body until he pulled away again, swearing softly about the tightness of her body. She was so close to finishing and desperate for it. 

He knew it. Rhys began pumping his fingers in and out of her body rougher, his mouth sped up until Feyre’s head hit the mattress, staring upward at the dark ceiling. “Rhys,” she pleaded. Her body was on fire, electric and aching. Her arousal wound its way up her spine, settling at the back of her throat and in her lower belly. He sucked, fingers curling so they found some secret spot only she’d ever known about and Feyre was undone. She screamed without meaning to, half plea, half prayer—the only word that escaped his name. Rhys didn’t stop until Feyre whimpered, boneless and exhausted on the bed.

“You’re not done yet,” Rhys said, rising up to his full height. Feyre could only watch as he peeled off his clothes, head cocked like a predator once more. “I won’t rest until I’ve had all of you.”

“And then what?”

“Then you’re mine,” he breathed, fingers unclasping the button on his pants. He’d already removed his top, revealing a toned body worthy of the arms she’d seen during their fight and more muscles than she’d known one person could reasonably have. The tattoos were on full display, unbroken by clothing though still just as indecipherable. She started to ask him what they meant, but Rhys’s pants fell to the floor, revealing the thick, hard length of him and Feyre forgot about everything else.

“You can’t put that in my body,” she whispered as he crawled toward her, the muscles of his back shifting with each graceful movement.

“I can,” he murmured, lowering himself over her flushed body for a kiss, “and I will.”

Feyre let him, forgetting for a moment what was going to happen. He tasted sweet after having his tongue in her body and his hands managed to take her top off before Feyre registered how he did it.

“You’re remarkably unobservant,” Rhys breathed, shifting his hips so the tip of his cock brushed against her wetness. “We’ll work on that.” Rhys slid himself inside her just an inch, though it was enough to draw a gasp from Feyre, fingers digging into his biceps.

“Breathe,” he ordered, eyes searching her face. “You’re doing so well, Feyre, darling.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” he interrupted, pushing deeper. “You will.”

Even if she’d wanted to escape him, it was too late. Rhys made good on his threat from earlier, slipping deeper and deeper into her body until Feyre was certain she couldn’t take it. But he’d been right—by the time he bottomed out, she’d begun to adjust to the stretch it required to accommodate him, her discomfort turning to pleasure. 

“Look at you,” Rhys breathed, the tendons in his neck strained from keeping himself still inside her. “You take my cock so well.”

Rhys pulled out and thrust back in with the same brutality she’d come to associate with him. Feyre gasped, not out of pain, but desire. It felt good to be treated like she could handle something rough. Like she wasn’t fragile—like she was strong. 

Rhys kissed her again and she realized she was practically screaming her thoughts at him through the force. “You’re mine, and I’m yours,” Rhys breathed, nose nuzzling her own. “Those are our own tenants, the only code we live by now.”

Feyre met him thrust for thrust, kissing him rather than answering. She could feel the cold of the dark sliding through her, washing out the light that had once existed. With each new slide of Rhys’s cock, Feyre fell further and further into shadow. 

Where she belonged. 

“Take it,” Rhys moaned into her neck, teeth scraping sensitive skin. “Take all of it.”

As if she had a choice. Rhys gripped her hips, pulling her into him harder and faster, until all Feyre knew was the taste of the salt on his skin and the sound of his breathing in her ear. His hand found her throat again, pinning her beneath him as Rhys thrust over and over. His fingers squeezed just enough to leave her breathless without hurting her.

Feyre came again, surprised by the intensity of her orgasm. Her teeth sank into his shoulder to suppress the urge to scream again as Rhys moaned her name, whining ever so softly before slamming himself entirely into her body so he, too, could release himself.

He collapsed a moment later, face nuzzled into her neck. Sweat slicked down his back and over his forehead, making his golden skin glistening beneath the lights.

Rhys rolled over a few moments later, one powerful arm thrown over his eyes.

Feyre sat up, ignoring that she could feel the proof of his desire sliding out of her body. “What do these mean?”

Rhys glanced down at his tattoos inked over the top of his chest, arms, and shoulders. “Luck in battle,” he murmured, tracing one of the swirling lines with his finger. “According to the customs of my people.”

There was no point in asking if they worked. So instead, Feyre held his gaze as she said, “He locked me inside.”

Rhys leaned up on his elbows, hair half falling in his eyes. “I know. I know. Never again, Feyre. Never. Again.”

There was rage in his words—a promise that they would make themselves strong no matter the cost. Feyre wanted that. She wanted to be untouchable. Not a pet, not the delicate woman some man loved, but fierce. Strong.

Feared.

“Never again,” she whispered, lacing her fingers through his as he brushed a kiss over her knuckles.

“Sleep, first,” Rhys murmured, opening his arm in invitation. “Then we train.”

“And then?”

Rhys offered her a sleepy smile as Feyre pressed her head to his chest. “Revenge.”

[david-talks-sw]

What's 'Star Wars' about?

A while ago I got an 'Ask' that concluded with "what is Star Wars about, if not the Jedi, right?" And weirdly enough... I have to disagree.

I mean... to me? Yes. Star Wars is about the Jedi. A Jedi-less, Sith-less, lightsaber-less Star Wars movie or series will struggle to get me on board (which is why I was surprised that I loved Andor so much).

But if you read everything George Lucas said, if you think about the Jedi's place in his two trilogies... they're not front and center, right?

Sure, there's Luke Skywalker... but he's a learner, in the Original Trilogy. Same goes for Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the Prequels. They're going through character arcs.

Otherwise, the Jedi are either used as mentors to the protagonist...

... or to deliver exposition...

... but they're mostly vectors Lucas uses to present his thesis.

Functionally-speaking, the Jedi are important in that they embody the Buddhist philosophies the movie's themes are based on.

But when it comes to the plot, they're secondary. That's because the the themes of these films are bigger than the Jedi themselves.

So the question becomes... what's are the themes?

The primary goal of the Star Wars films is to inspire kids to start thinking outside the box and teach them a set of values and psychological motifs that have been passed down through mythology and fairy tales.

These values can be summed up in the dichotomy between greed and compassion / selfishness and selflessness / pleasure and joy.

We all have both aspects and need to strike a balance between the two. After all, being greedy ultimately comes from fear and being afraid can happen to all of us. Problem is, unchecked fear can lead to anger, hate and a whole lot of suffering.

The more selfish you are, the more you want things and the more you're afraid that you'll lose everything you have, you'll get angry when someone tries to take it and that will hurt everyone around you.

In other words, fear is the path to the tempting/addictive Dark Side.

Thus, seeing as we'll be inevitably tempted by the Dark Side and give in at some point (because nobody's perfect), we should aim to be as selfless and compassionate as possible for our own good... but also for the greater good, because we're all connected to a life energy. You can call it Qi or God; in Star Wars it's known as the Force.

As such, we all form a symbiotic circle and working with that in mind is better than putting ourselves first and draining from everything and everyone around us.

But we also need to be careful because there will be people who give in to that selfish side and will try to control everything. When the time comes, we must stand up for what's right.

So that's Lucas' thesis.

If I had to sum them up, the six movies illustrate it as follows:

The Prequel Trilogy is about the consequences of greed, explored through Anakin on a smaller scale and the Senate on a larger one.

The Original Trilogy shows the triumph of compassion, through Luke, Leia & Han and the Rebellion's fight against the Empire.

Lucas talked about it multiple times, the Prequels are about how Anakin becomes Darth Vader and how the Republic becomes the Empire, and in both those cases, it happens because they're greedy.

The Senate is greedy in the more classical sense. They could give a shit about "symbiosis", no they're taking bribes, letting corporations dictate policy, using loopholes to keep themselves in power and halting any meaningful progress out of fear that the new status quo will conflict with their own self-serving goals.

Anakin's greed manifests in a different way. He turns to the Dark Side because of his attachment. He wants to stop Padmé from dying... but not because he wants to save her, rather he wants to save himself from feeling the pain of loss again and will do anything to not have to live without her, her own wishes and the natural cycle of life and death be damned.

In both cases, they cave under pressure orchestrated by Palpatine, but nobody puts a gun to their head. They make a deliberate choice that comes from a selfish place, and neither one takes personal responsibility for it, they blame others, the Separatists in the case of the Senate and the Jedi in Anakin's case.

The Republic becomes an Empire with thunderous applause, betraying the people it was meant to protect.

And when faced between doing something he knows is right and giving in to his selfish desires...

... Anakin elects to do the latter, thus betraying his family and leaving the Force in darkness.

These selfish choices impact the galaxy as a whole, including the only characters in the trilogy who were doing their best to be compassionate and live in symbiosis: the Jedi, Padmé and Bail.

These champions of the Light Side are stuck playing catch-up or helplessly witnessing the events unfold, throughout the trilogy. They're playing by the rules and Palpatine uses this to his advantage.

Thus, as the galaxy tears itself apart because of Palpatine's manipulations, the Jedi and Bail are ignored and gradually weakened until they're either rendered irrelevant or killed.

A new order is born, one built on blood, lies and greed: the Empire.

But a new hope remains.

While before, the Jedi and people like Bail stood alone as everything around them became willfully corrupt... now, a Rebellion inspired by their legacy has banded together to overthrow the current order. But they don't fight for power or personal glory, they fight for altruistic, compassionate reasons. There's a sense of general responsibility that moves them, they're all doing their part.

On a larger scale, we focus on the Rebels, who are tired of seeing people suffer and decided this needs to stop. They have gone from being passive, to proactive.

On a more personal scale, we see the evolution of Luke, from naive farmer to a hero, and guess what? More and more selfish people - like Han or Lando - are inspired to join the Rebellion, after seeing the exploits of Luke, Leia, or even Ben.

It all culminates in the final film, wherein:

The Rebels band together with the Ewoks - literal teddy bears whom the Empire, in their arrogance, never even considered to be a threat - to destroy the Second Death Star and free the galaxy from imperial tyranny.

At the same time, Emperor Palpatine pressures Luke, who is tempted by the Dark Side like his father was.

But instead of giving in to his selfish desire to kill Darth Vader for all the horrors he's done...

... he finds the strength to rise above it, instead showing compassion for his father, which, in turn, inspires Anakin to do the same.

He faces a choice, like he did in Palpatine's office, two decades prior...

... and this time he chooses right.

Children teach you compassion. Anakin lets go of his fear and anger, and saves his son at the cost of his own life, finally bringing balance back to the Force.

Good triumphed over evil. Its champions achieved victory by being selfless, hopeful and fighting together / helping each other.

And that's it, that's how the movies thematically tie together.

As you can see, the Jedi aren't that directly impactful on the overall plot, because it revolves around Anakin, Luke and the respective factions/institutions around them.

But what the Jedi do bring to the table is their ability to teach and inspire others, both in-universe and out. They're spiritually impactful.

The Jedi are the epitome of compassion, and it's partially through them that George Lucas teaches his values to the audience.