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crispyjenkins · 5 years ago

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Skysolo prompt: Han wont stop bragging about how brilliant, talent, gorgeous, etc. his boyfriend is. Luke wont stop blushing and Leia is absolutely fed up.

(thank you for the prompt!! i put this in the nebulous time between a new hope and empire strikes back, so sometime pre-hoth. i hope you like it! now with a part 2 here!)

It doesn't get any easier when one of them gets captured, no matter how many times the Empire manages to get their claws on them. Most of the Resistance agrees that it's always worst when it's Luke, because Darth Vader has a strange obsession with him and they never know if a rescue mission means trying to sneak around the Emperor's right hand.

With Leia, they mostly have to worry about the body count when they finally reach her, because Force knows she doesn't go, or stay, quietly.

Han, though, they worry because they don't know if Jabba is somehow behind the hit, if they'll even find him alive when they track him down. Luke worries enough for the whole Resistance, of course, because Han might think he can talk his way out of anything, but Luke knows better, and knows his man is one misplaced eye roll from a Spacer's Funeral.

So when Han misses a second check-in on what was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance on a planet they’re considering for a Resistance base, Luke groans and sets himself up to be unable to sleep for the next few days.

On the way to the unnamed moon Han’s signal had gone dark on, Leia tries to tell him that Han had probably just forgotten to check in, and that they’re probably worrying for nothing.

“Chewie wouldn’t forget,” he reminds her softly and flicks a few switches to get the Falcon ready for descent.

Leia purses her lips and says nothing else until they’re planetside.

It takes all of ten minutes to find the Imperial outpost, the black building standing out rather dramatically against the light blue sand covering the surface of the moon, and it takes even less to slip into the base. Through the Force, Luke senses five signatures and several droids, and —thank Keplar and Ghomrassen— Han, who doesn’t feel hurt so much as confused. Leia nods in agreement with his silent question, and they head quickly deeper into the tiny outpost.

They hear Han before they see him.

“And he flies the Falcon better’n even Chewie, y’know?” Han’s voice drawls from the only open doorway in the rather short hallway. “Well, not better, but prettier. Kark, have you even seen how pretty his hands are?”

There’s a long-suffering sigh from the room, and one from Leia as she aims her blaster at the ground. “Well, it’s certainly Han, alright,” she mutters, as if Luke hadn’t frozen against the wall in absolute embarrassment.

Because Han isn’t shy about his affection, he’ll tell just about anyone who’ll listen that he’d somehow managed to snag “The Saviour of the Known Universe”, but he usually keeps it under wraps around anyone not in the Resistance; what if someone used them against each other? Against Leia? This is the first time Luke has heard him slip-up around an Imperial.

“Just tell me where your base is so I can kill you,” a new voice pleads, one of two Force signatures in the room that aren’t Han, and even to Luke, it sounds like an empty threat.

“Base... Base...” Han slurs, and oh kark, had they drugged him?

Luke looks wildly back at Leia, who has come to the same conclusion and swears under her breath. “Can you take them?” She jerks her head towards the open door.

Nodding, Luke unhooks his ‘saber from his belt and leads the way down the hall, hoping against hope that Han hasn't said anything the Empire can use.

“‘Don’t know anything about a base,” Han says slowly, “but the last time me’n the kid went to ground– it was this desert planet out in Wild Space, and he grew up in a desert, y’know, so he knew how to keep us alive, and he made this soup-stuff out of this lizard and some sort of bush, I think it was scrag I don’t know, and kark, it tasted awful but it kept us alive, and how smart is that? And he built a fire like it was nothing, and knew how to read the dunes before a sandstorm, and have you seen how blue his eyes are? Probably not the best for bein’ in the sun all the time, but kark, are they pretty.”

If nothing else than to save himself from the mortification, Luke ignites his ‘saber and steps into the room quickly.

Han is strapped to a table with one end raised, and Corellia knows where his vest has gone. Two Imperial officers sit behind a desk on the other side of him, the younger one halfway to his feet at Luke’s sudden entrance, but the older officer looks up tiredly from where his chin leans into his fingers.

He looks Luke up and down before sighing. “You must be the boyfriend, then.”

Luke would honestly rather face Vader right now, especially when Han rolls his head towards the door and notices him. “Kid!”

“I’ll be taking him off your hands,” Luke tells the Imperials, the older one sighing again as the younger looks like he wants to argue, but thinks better of it.

“It was just a truth serum,” the younger grumbles, dropping stiffly back into his seat as Leia pushes in behind Luke and heads straight for the terminal against the wall. “But he won’t shut the kark up.”

“Sound like Han,” Leia says with mock cheer, slicing into the terminal to release the cuffs around Han’s wrists and ankles. Han gets himself upright just fine, grinning loopily, but the moment he tries to take a step, he tips forward and Luke has to move quickly to catch him. He turns off his ‘saber so he doesn’t accidentally stab either of them: he trusts Leia and her blaster.

“Hey, beautiful,” Han slurs as Luke slings one of his arms around his shoulder and gets a grip on his belt.

Despite the situation, Luke finds himself fond, and sighs even as he offers Han a small smile. “Leia’s still going to have your dick for getting captured again.”

“Damn straight,” she agrees, snapping binders around the Imperial officers’ wrists before shooting the terminal so they can’t send out any communications. “C’mon, ‘beautiful’, we need to get Chewie.”

They head back towards the stairs to the surface together, but Luke doesn’t follow her when she turns sharply down another hall purposefully; she’s more than capable of sensing and rescuing Chewie on her own, and with Luke supporting more than half of Han’s weight, it’s not like he’d be of any use anyway.

“You look good in black,” Han says apropos of nothing, head flopping against Luke’s shoulder before he seems to remember how to hold it upright.

“It’d be so much easier if you were gross about it,” Luke grumbles, hauling him up the stairs and thanking Old Ben’s ghost that he can supplement his strength with the Force.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Han scrunches his face cutely, an expression he would never have allowed had he been sober.

“I could hate you if you were gross about it,” he says, though he isn’t sure what he hopes to accomplish with Han drugged to Corellian Hells and back. “And that won’t work on Leia.”

“Mm,” Han grunts in agreement, going slightly cross-eyed in an attempt to focus on the steps underneath his feet. “S’fine, she’s not as pretty as you.”

Luke has to close his eyes and beg the Force for patience, because nobody calls Luke Skywalker, a farmboy from Tatooine pretty, or beautiful, or talented, or at least they hadn’t before Han Solo. He’s almost grateful Han had latched onto Leia first, because it means that by the time that ship had flown, Han already knew Luke almost as well as he knew himself.

“You’re the worst,” he sighs, shouldering open the last door out into the desert night, and drags Han towards the Falcon.

“He’s finally asleep,” Leia says as she drops into the copilot’s seat, settling in to help get them out of atmo. “Chewie’s fine, only needed a little bacta.”

Luke shoots her a smile, and hopes she knows how dead they’d all be without her. “Has Han begged for forgiveness yet?”

She snorts, inputting the coordinates for their first hyperspace jump. “The Imp was right: he wouldn’t shut the fuck up, at least not until I knocked him out. If I have to hear him wax poetic about your flying skills even one more time, I’m throwing him out the airlock.”

Wincing, Luke fiddles with a few settings to avoid looking at her. “He didn’t used to do this with you?”

“Kark no,” she grumbles. “We were too busy arguing to get soft for each other. Luckily he didn’t spill anything more important while with the Imps, and Admiral Ackbar is sending a nearby team to finish taking down the outpost.”

Luke nods slowly, just thankful they hadn’t had to kill anybody in their rescue attempt. Leia seems disappointed for just that reason, and that’s definitely something they’ll have to talk about someday, but for now, Luke lets himself slump into the pilot’s seat and tiredly guide them all back home.

#star wars #ask fill #crispy writes #skysolo #hanluke #han solo/luke skywalker #star wars a new hope #star wars original trilogy #fanfiction #anon #luke skywalker #leia organa #han solo #prompt fill #climb towards the sky

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doodlesandbooks · 4 years ago

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Ranking Star Wars movies

Its almost May the fourth, and this was inspired by Ben Shapiro’s terrible version so, I thought I might give it a go. Its ok if you disagree with me, since this is purely opinion based (mostly) almost all versions of this ranking can be correct. (you know subjective... in the eyes of the audience... etc)

plz no hate... I’m fragile lol.

Ok so 2 quick things

1, I’m sorry, it starts out pretty angry and critical but then steadily gets more happy and praise filled, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but I have been very passionate.

2. I will not insult the actors. The actors all did a good job. I do mention if something is particularly great. but they were doing what they were told and doing it well. It’s not my place to diss actors, I’m here to criticise the movies.

Starting from worst moving up to best:

1 The Force Awakens.

what. even. was. this. I actually get so angry thinking about it.

2 The Last Jedi.

why. Luke was so great. why did they substitute him for Jake Skywalker and then just. ugh. so bad.

3 The Rise of Skywalker

the only reason that this is higher than the others. and the only reason I am not dancing around its corpse’s bonfire screaming was the acting. The actors were really good. At moments I even liked Rey because of how hard Daisy Ridley worked to make her character compelling. that’s as far as the praise goes I’m afraid. It nullified Vader and Luke’s sacrifice and I cannot stand for that. At all. I’m getting angry even thinking about Palatine and the cloning thing and arrrrggghh. I’m going to stop before I cry.

Also, identity theft is not Ok, Rey.

4 The Phantom Menace.

I did not dislike this as a film... I actually liked Jar Jar Binks, buuutt... it wasn’t quite as good as the others. I also really didn’t love the neimiodians. But it did introduce Darth Maul and Duel of the Fates, so kudos. (also I love Liam Neeson as Qui Gon) and I didn’t really dislike little Ani’s introduction into the franchise.

I think some of it was catered towards children, and although many people have said children would like it better if it wasn’t or that it was a poor decision, my 7 year old sister said it was her favourite Star Wars out of the originals and the two prequels she could watch... so I guess that Lucas was right to include cute stuff kids would like... (she’s not old enough for the battle of heroes final bit yet, we’ll see if she changes her mind later!)

5 Attack of the Clones

SO I actually loved Hayden Christiansen’s acting. He did a really good job. All of them did, but I felt obliged to say that to rebuff the honest trailers’ cruelty about this particular film. I thought mildly creepy teenage dork Padawan Anakin (or Padawanakin as my family has dubbed him) worked pretty well. Ok, so a lot of the dialogue was not great, but mullet Kenobi was awesome, I found the romance compelling... (although, I’m not sure if that’s just cause I identified with Anakin’s social blundering) and I really loved the introduction of Kamino. Also. Clones! Count Dooku was great too, anything with Christopher Lee is a big win ... Also I loved Padme’s costume design so much. That lovely pastel gradient one by the lake was just -chef kiss- awesome... ok I’m done now sorry...

“I don’t like sand” is a good line and you can fight me.

6 A New Hope.

This is where the ranking gets complicated because I love all of them. (I loved TPM and AOTC too but yeah)

the gap between the caliber of the films gets less and less vast as we go but now it gets tricky. so if you disagree from here on in, fine.

I loved a new hope, but the reason its only 6 is because I didn’t get that invested in the characters first movie in. (that I think is where TPM gets it right) as a little girl I would frequently dress up as princess leia’s iconic look. I love this movie. great climax, great pay off, great characters. Great acting. Just a really solid movie with good world building and interesting characters.

Also, its nice to see a less macho dude as the hero, right? Rather than blundering about and aggressively quipping on his friends, Luke is kind and genuine and I liked seeing that in a male lead.

7 Empire Strikes Back.

See. I told you ranking was getting tricky.

This movie was phenomenal and break through when it came out. I think I had heard the ‘I am your father’ trope before I watched the movie, unlike people who watched it for the first time, so that may be why its not higher on my list. But Yoda and Luke and Vader were awesome. Princess Leia was both feminine and badass, which as a little girl watching it, inspired me. and Han Solo is just really really really awesome.

8. AAaahhh. I don’t know. I love both of these films like tonnes. but.

Revenge of the Sith.

Ok. beautiful Shakespearean style tragedy climax. Padme’s tragic wonderfulness. Obi Wan freaking Kenobi. Palpetine’s subtle awful cruelness. The tragic hero war veteran trying so hard but ultimately failing in the end, Anakin Skywalker. Hello there. General Grievous was really cool. Hayden’s acting was incredible. I believed that Anakin was deeply conflicted and wrapped around Palpetine’s finger the whole time, I genuinely could feel his every sadness and fear, his sorrow and his hate. It was beautifully acted. that Window scene with Padme and Anakin. the battle of Heroes. Such a wonderfully done film. I understand if there where some qualms about dialogue and pacing, but I genuinely loved it. this movie was a dark awful look at war and the people it scars and the tragic fall of an emotionally vulnerable and hurt young man. It is one of my favourite movies.

9 Return of the Jedi.

the only reason this is higher up on the list than ROTS is because it felt a little more...? nicely... something... polished maybe? I don’t know.

This was a childhood favourite. Leia, again, badass. Han, again, badass. Luke and Leia being twins? As a little twin myself this was so cool to me! Ewoks... even they worked! not sure about troopers vs ewoks bit, but when you don’t think about it too hard its still badass. and I genuinely almost cried when unnamed Ewok 1 crouched over dead unnamed Ewok 2. I don’t cry at films. it is impressive that the lest compelling bit of the film compelled me enough to drive me almost to tears.

Luke vs emperor vs Vader. I don't have enough room to fan girl here. I loved it. The more I learn of Vader and Luke, the better it gets. Luke almost turning to the dark side but not because he saw what it did to his father, Vader struggling with that inner conflict until finally, his pure love for his son overcame the twisted sad love for his abuser. That beautiful, beautiful moment where Vader is forgiven by Luke. Forgiven for everything that he did... he was redeemed with his last breath. thinking about this almost makes me cry even now. he was accepted into the force and joined Obi Wan and Yoda, even after everything he had done. Luke’s grace and love and hope are just beautiful. I love Luke Skywalker because of how hopeful and wonderful he is. and it’s not naive hope, it’s just hope. True. Genuine hope that he carries with him to the end.

And that moment between Leia and Han and the end when the Death Star blows up, it summed up their relationship beautifully and was a lovely thing to watch. They worked so well together and it was wonderfully brought together by that moment. The quiet joy of Vader’s funeral and the loud hearty joy across the galaxy.

This move was so beautiful.

There we go. I’m done now.

ooh, wait I forgot some, I liked the clone wars but it wasn’t perfect, like rebels, loved Rogue one, meh about the clone wars movie (what was that art style?), didn’t love but didn’t hate Solo. I think that's all of them. :)

#star wars #may the force be with you #may the fourth #empire strikes back #a new hope #return of the Jedi #the phantom menace #attack of the clones #revenge of the sith #ranking Star Wars movies #force awakens #rise of skywalker #the last jedi #insp. by Ben Shapiro's one #that was way too long I'm sorry.#oh well #its ok to fan girl sometimes

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glimmerglanger · 5 years ago

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Hi! I love your fics. would you be willing to do “Can I have one last kiss?” for the angst prompt list? Any Obi-Wan pairing you like, though I'm voting for Codywan :) thank you!

SO, UH. It’s possible no one wanted THIS MUCH ANGST, but this prompt reached into my chest and broke my heart and this was the result. Post-Order 66. Warnings for implications of child death and prisoner abuse (off-screen) and an unhappy ending. Like, unhappier than canon ending. An ocean of angst.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I have one last kiss?”

CC-2224 glanced over at the prisoner, the unexpected nature of the request drawing his attention. He’d dealt with all kinds of begging and pleading from rebel worms. None of them had ever requested a last kiss.

Then again, the traitor Kenobi was hardly like most prisoners. He had the highest bounty on his head CC-2224 had ever seen. Lord Vader himself wanted the bastard, and no wonder. He’d killed so many during the war and betrayed everyone.

Kenobi looked little like a warmongering mastermind, at that moment. They’d dragged him out of some hovel in the middle of nowhere on the intel provided by some family living out in the wastes. He’d put up a fight, but they knew all about Jedi tricks.

He’d have been dead, if CC-2224’s orders hadn’t specified that he be taken alive if at all possible. Lord Vader, it seemed, had plans for him.

Currently, he sat slumped against the outside of the ship, his hands bound tightly behind his back, his ankles hobbled together. One of his eyes had stained black and blue. Blood flowed along his hairline and the corner of his mouth. His eyes were tired.

It was the longest CC-2224 could recall ever looking at rebel trash, and he caught himself, jerking his gaze to the side. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said, ignoring the question, ignoring the way Kenobi watched him.

“Oh,” Kenobi said, blue eyes on CC-2224 still. “Come now. We both know what’s going to happen to me after you take me to Anakin. Surely one last kiss, for old time’s sake, isn’t too much--”

He cut off, choking, when CC-2224 drove the butt of his blaster down. It hit the side of Kenobi’s head, sent him sprawling onto his side in the dirt. “Prisoners don’t speak,” CC-2224 snapped, standing over Kenobi’s crumbled form, glad no one else was close enough to overhear the traitor’s mad lies.

CC-2224 had never kissed him. He’d never kissed anyone. Those kinds of lies, though, could be dangerous, if they got to the wrong ears.

He wanted to be sure no one thought he was a rebel sympathizer. As though anyone could sympathize with those kriffing bastards. “A simple ‘no’ would have--”

Kenobi coughed blood across the sand, when CC-2224 kicked him, hard, in the gut. He curled, panting, afterwards, as CC-2224 sank to his haunches, grabbing Kenobi’s dirty hair and jerking his head up, making the traitor look up at him. “Shut your kriffing mouth,” he snapped, “or I’ll break your jaw. Are we clear?”

The other troopers returned, then, their work with the family that had reported Kenobi finished. CC-2224 could smell smoke on the air. “Problems with the prisoner?” one of the troopers asked, looking between CC-2224 and Kenobi’s crumpled form.

“No problems.” CC-2224 grabbed one of Kenobi’s arms, hauling him into the ship. “Is it done?”

“All sterilized,” the trooper said. “There was an extra target, not just the man and the woman. We neutralized it as well, per the Chancellor’s orders.”

CC-2224 nodded, said nothing more as he dragged Kenobi through the ship and into the holding cell they’d designed specifically for him. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. He made no effort to speak or scramble away, just lay where CC-2224 dropped him, face against the floor, and he could have been dead, if not for the sound of his weeping.

CC-2224 avoided the prisoner during their trip across the stars to Mustafar, to Lord Vader, but he could not, quite, avoid thinking about Kenobi. The man had poisoned him, somehow, because he dreamed. CC-2224 had never dreamed, before.

He dreamt each night of the trip, strange, twisting images filling his mind. In the images, Kenobi was always there, sometimes looking serious, sometimes battered, often smiling, soft and warm.

In many of the dreams, CC-2224 was kissing him, pressed close to his body, so close they shared breath. In many of the dreams, he could see Kenobi’s skin, he was touching Kenobi, their bodies tangled together in some horrific way and--

And it was just dreams. CC-2224 knew what dreams were. Just lies. Fabrications.

It made no sense that the lies led him down to the cell. Kenobi sat in a corner, head bowed down towards his chest. There was blood on his robes, some of it fresh. He stayed still when CC-2224 opened the forcefield and stepped into the room, gave no sign of caring when CC-2224 walked over to stop in front of him.

He’d been that way since they left the planet. Catatonic, according to the medic aboard. He didn’t stir to eat or drink. He ignored beatings. He ignored everything, his eyes empty and his expression blank.

CC-2224 bent enough to grab his hair, pulling his head up and snapping, “What did you do to me?”

Kenobi said nothing. His eyes were unfocused. There were tear tracks, dried across his cheeks. CC-2224 ground his teeth together, but he needed to know. He needed proof the dreams were a lie, some kind of Jedi trick, he--

He’d seen Kenobi’s body, in the dreams. So many times. Seen his hands all over it, but that was--a lie. And he could prove it. He shoved Kenobi over - there was no fight in him, none at all - and pulled at his filthy robes. The guard at the door made no protest. No one cared what they did with rebel trash. Why would they?

CC-2224 pulled the robes open across Kenobi’s chest and froze.

There were scars, where he’d known there would be. There was a cluster of freckles over his collarbone, as CC-2224 had known there would be. There was--

CC-2224 shifted back, his breath loud inside his helmet, a terrible pain in the back of his head. He stood, jerking to his feet, leaving Kenobi sprawled on his side, robes in disarray and he’d hate that, he’d hate not being in order and CC-2224 couldn’t know that.

He took a step back and then another and made it to the head before he tore off his helmet, bent at the waist, and vomited.

The images wouldn’t stop. They sleeted through CC-2224’s head. In some of them, Kenobi called him Cody. In some they were laying in a bed not unlike CC-2224’s bunk on the star destroyer he called home most of the time. In some Kenobi was grinning at him, wildly.

They all made CC-2224 hurt, inside his chest, the pain ever-present and deepening. He had no idea what kind of trick it was, but he knew the Jedi couldn’t be trusted. He dared not even inform the medics.

If he’d been corrupted, they would have to deal with him. Terminate him. So he kept the flashes of images to himself, bit down on his tongue, and avoided Kenobi until they finally arrived at Mustafar.

And then some mad itch down his spine made him go down for the prisoner. Kenobi’s robes were thrown haphazardly over him. It had been a long trip, and he hadn’t been able to poison everyone’s minds. Just CC-2224’s.

He looked… nothing like he did in the images in CC-2224’s mind. He looked like a broken toy, curled on his side on the floor, blank-eyed. There were bloody handprints on his skin. Bruises. And in CC-2224’s head, he could hear laughter, a warm voice calling him Cody and saying, “Come here, come here.”

CC-2224 knelt by Kenobi’s head, reached out and touched his jaw, and something about the images forced him to be gentle. There was horror in his head, an emotion he’d never felt beating at his chest in an attempt to get out. This was… wrong. All wrong. Everything was wrong.

“We’ve reached our destination,” he said, and his voice sounded strange. Soft. Kenobi made no sign of hearing him. CC-2224 was going to have to drag him out, deposit him like a broken doll at Vader’s feet.

He had to. Those were his orders. And some Jedi trick that left him feeling like he was being cored out didn’t change his orders.

But.

But his hands shook, strangely, as he reached for his helmet. He lifted it slowly, set it to the side. He had images, so many images, of kissing Kenobi. His mouth. His forehead. His neck, his chest, every inch of his skin. They couldn’t be real. None of this was real. It was all just lies.

But.

But it felt familiar, brushing Kenobi’s hair away from his face. But it felt familiar, fitting a hand to his cheek. But it felt familiar, leaning over, brushing a soft kiss across his battered mouth. He’d asked, before he went away into his head, for one last kiss.

CC-2224 gave it to him. Gentle. Sweet. He hadn’t known he knew how to be those things, until that moment.

And then he pulled his helmet back on, ignoring the tears streaming down his cheeks, ignoring the pain in his chest, ignoring the ache in his head. And he slid an arm under Kenobi’s shoulders, another under his legs, and lifted him, instead of dragging him by the arms from the ship.

Lord Vader was, after all, waiting.

And CC-2224 had his orders.

#codywan #my fic #standalone fic #ANGST #unhappy ending #post order 66 #sad sad sad sad sad #glimmer replies #ask me anything

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padme-amitabha · 4 years ago

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Hello since you mentioned you are anti Disney are you anti Reylo too? What are your thoughts on other ships

Hmm I wouldn’t exactly call myself an anti Reylo. To be an anti you need to have strong feelings against something and I feel nothing about these two characters and the entire sequel trilogy. Kylo and Rey are so poorly written and underdeveloped characters to the point they feel like blank slates in my mind. So I don’t really care about them getting together. But I’ll acknowledge some parts of their relationship seemed abusive (especially their interaction in TFA) and them getting together after TFA is by no means healthy. Still I’m just not passionate enough to argue against this ship. The only ST ship I like is Finn/Poe because they are cute together have been through a lot together and their relationship could develop over the course of the films.

I’m okay with Jyn/Cassian though they lack solid character traits as well but it’s fine because I think Rogue One was a plot driven movie anyway so fanon works on them are cool. Not sure if it’s an actual ship but I do like C3PO and R2D2 together. With Luke and Obi-Wan, I don’t necessarily think romance is necessary but I’m open to most ships involving them. I do occasionally enjoy Obitine, Codywan and Siriwan. I have a soft spot for Siriwan because of the legends novel ‘Secrets of the Jedi’. If anyone hasn’t read or heard of it, I highly recommend y’all to check it out. I’m fine with Han/Leia though I’m not a big fan of their dynamic (especially in ESB) but I still think it’s great.

Now about the ships I actually don’t like: You can say I’m anti all master/student relationships because I personally just find it really icky. All of the masters and students have big age differences and the masters knew the latter as children/preteens and in some cases raised/groomed them so no. All master/student bonds are meant to be platonic and anything else just feels wrong.

I’m not a big fan of crackships in general neither do I like Anakin/Vader and Padmé being paired with other people. They seem like the only couple who actually matter to the story because without them there would be no Luke and Leia. I love that George based them on Romeo and Juliet while adding bits of Othello/Desdemona to complete the tragedy. I think they only loved each other and just like Anakin’s fate it was destined to happen. I just can’t imagine them loving anyone else. I’m only basing this on the movies; I am not a big fan of TCW nor do I like they created Rush Clovis, a stereotypical clingy ex, just for unnecessary drama and made Anidala unhealthy just because the writers fail to grasp what George intended. I don’t think Anidala is by any means unhealthy or Vaderdala for that matter. I honestly don’t like the distinction because Anakin is Vader at a different point in his life. He made a mistake of choking Padmé on Mustafar because he was unhinged. For the record, he has never been fully mentally stable unlike Kylo Ren as shown in AOTC so you have to keep that in mind. Plus he still regrets doing that to her very much and she’s the first thing he asks about after his surgery. But his actions still break her heart and she loses the will to live. So Vader remains alone with his regrets and in a way this is very fitting because abuse (even if it’s unintentional or accidental) should not be tolerated. Or murder for that matter so even though Anakin’s fall is understandable, karma gets him and he loses everything. I have seen a lot of Anidala fans say Vader and Padmé is toxic but I think it’s only toxic if you make it out to be. I have seen some suitless Vader fics where Padmé is forced to marry him or be with him against her will which is very much abusive. But if Vader still has Anakin’s personality he wouldn’t be abusive at all. Ambitious and power hungry? Definitely but Anakin’s past as a child slave and his mother impacted him deeply. I think he would have respected women even more because of it and definitely wouldn’t force someone to be with him against their will. I dislike how people view Anakin as a saint or like “the good side” of him because it’s the same Anakin who slaughtered the sand people. Viewing him as different from Vader is glossing over his flaws and crimes while undermining his redemption. Vader isn’t a demon possessing Anakin; Vader is Anakin who has no one left and he’s alone and depressed. AOTC Anakin even after his dark moment acted normally with people he cared about (he didn’t exactly lash at Padmé when he returned, did he?) so I don’t think he would have been abusive to Padmé had she lived and I think Padmé would rather die than be abused. If anything Vader would have killed Palpatine much sooner if Padmé was alive.

Anyways there’s only one ship I absolutely despise and it’s a popular dark ship. I don’t think I hate any other ship with such a burning passion and it involves Anakin/Vader and a certain shitty OC from the marvel comics - an unoriginal and trashy character who exists because Disney has given certain writers far too much freedom to write their fanboyish fantasies. So they write a sort of dark Padmé who’s into women but that doesn’t stop them from shamelessly dropping sexual innuendos in every interaction with Vader. The worst thing is the writer pretends it was unintentional while pretending to “discover this ship” and I find it direspectful to the lgbt community that they wrote a character who even though she’s gay is shipped with every male character she interacts with (including Luke), because clearly her preference is not that important. She’s conveniently morally gray too because that way she can team up with both sides. I don’t like any ships where characters have a big age difference and this “dark ship” has about twenty years of it and this OC Smelly Lunatic A*hra is closer to Luke and Leia’s age. She is a mixture of Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Padmé and even Anakin himself and fangirls over him with plenty of forced and obvious parallels. She even has plot armor and I can’t believe Vader - who kills his own officers for failure - tolerates her when she double crosses him multiple times because Disney is too afraid to kill women especially ones they created to push their own propaganda. Hell she even survives after being thrown into outer space and when she’s alive Vader is a petty villain obsessed with hunting her down and killing her and all these supposedly take place before ESB when I’m sure he had other things on his mind than this one insufferable brat. Even while she’s working for him, he doesn’t hesitate to choke her or use the force to hurt her. He only keeps her around for her skills and it’s not like he cares about hurting her so it’s absolutely toxic but people who ship them seem to think otherwise. She is also allowed to pry on his past and joke around with him which sounds so unrealistic and terrible. To top it off their last interaction involves her, a non force sensitive, trapping him and leaving him to die and giving him some much-needed life advice because she’s clearly very wise and knows better and Vader is an incompetent fool who walked into a trap. Not only does it butcher his character, it makes him a typical and petty villain. I truly can’t express how much I hate this ship and this character. It’s just laughable and insulting to Padmé to think Vader will be with someone else after he believes he killed Padmé or was at least responsible for her death in some way.

(If you happen to like her character or support this ship, feel free to unfollow because all you will ever find in this blog is rants on how terrible the character and the ship is.)

Anyways, there you go that’s my opinion on the SW ships. I’m neutral about the ships I didn’t mention above.

#my thoughts #sw ships #anidala #hanleia #reylo #obitine #codywan #siriwan #vaderdala #finnpoe #jyn x cassian #anti doctor aphra #anti aphra #anti disney #anti disney sw #anti crackshipping

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swinfinities · 5 years ago

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Long Live the Queen: Part Sixteen

Padmé took a long, deep breath. It had been years. Long, heart-wrenching, war-torn years. A long time ago, she had been a senator and a diplomat. Negotiation and diplomacy had been her weapons of choice. Now, somehow, she was a general, coordinating attacks and deploying troops, waging war against the most hated man in the galaxy—a man that she had once considered a mentor and a dear friend.

Padmé had only begun to realize that she shouldn’t be so surprised by where she had ended up. Her entire life had been war. Even as a newly-elected queen, war had found its way to the peaceful world of Naboo. She had hardly been a teenager then. She often wondered then if she was really ready for such responsibility. She still wondered.

But it didn’t matter now. The past was the past. The only thing she had the power to change now was the present. And now it was time for action. It was time for her son to come home.

Home. She wasn’t sure where that was, anymore. It had been Naboo. But now that was only a world tainted with sad memories. She hadn’t been back since the Clone War ended. After a while, Padmé just sort of accepted that she was now someone without a home. Like a Purrgil, drifting amid the stars.

But Luke had a home. At least, Padmé hoped Luke would still treat it like his home. For all its faults, Tatooine had kept her son safe for years. Hopefully it would again.

Until they all jumped right back into the danger.

The battered old Corellian YT-model freighter thundered down from the sky, kicking up a miniature sandstorm as it came to rest on the sand.

“It’s a wonder that thing still flies!” coughed Owen Lars.

Padmé’s reunion with the Lars family had been a much sweeter one than she had anticipated. In spite of the way that she had left things, running off in the middle of the night with their nephew and that “crazy old wizard.” They hadn’t spoken in years. For all they knew, Padmé and Luke were both dead, or left rotting in some Imperial prison.

But, as always, Owen and Beru brought Padmé back into their home with open hearts and tearful eyes. And Padmé forgot why she could have ever expected anything different.

When the dust had cleared and the roar of the freighter’s engines died off, Padmé’s heart leaped when the first pair of feet came strolling down the boarding ramp.

She hardly recognized him. She remembered leaving behind a little boy, blonde-haired and starry-eyed. Scared, but ready for adventure. He had returned now a young man, with a strong body and an even stronger resolve shining in his blue eyes.

He was dressed in Jedi robes, the long brown cloak flowing in the wind, his blonde hair shining in the light of the suns—his father’s lightsaber hanging at his waist.

Padmé broke down into tears. Because he looked just like Anakin.

Luke held his mother, and she let herself melt into his arms. The two wept together for a while, happy to just be together again.

“Oh, Luke,” Padmé sobbed. “I can’t believe I ever let you go.”

“It’s alright,” Luke said. “It’s okay. It was supposed to happen. It… well, this was my destiny.”

Padmé had never really understood the Force, at least not in the way that a Jedi did. But she had often heard them speak of destiny and the will of the Force. Now she prayed—to the Force, if it would listen—that destiny wasn’t going to lead them into disaster.

After a few minutes, Obi-Wan Kenobi exited the freighter, followed closely by the diminutive figure of Master Yoda.

Padmé finally pulled herself away and dried her tears, freeing Luke to greet his aunt and uncle.

“Obi-Wan,” said Padmé. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And you as well,” he said, bowing slightly. “I was hoping that at least a few tears would be shed on my behalf, but—”

Padmé laughed. “I’m glad the swamp didn’t do much to weaken your sense of humor.”

“That remains to be seen,” Obi-Wan replied. “But I am glad, at the very least, for a dry pair of boots.”

Padmé smiled down at Yoda, leaning on his gnarled wooden cane.

“Master Yoda,” she said.

“Your Highness,” he replied.

I am a queen no longer, she thought to reply. But she knew better than to argue with one as wise as Yoda. After all, she hadn’t lived for nine hundred years. So, she was just glad to let the warmth of his smile soften her war-hardened heart for a short, happy moment.

“Not too poorly, the war has treated you, I hope?” Yoda asked.

“As good as any war can treat someone, I suppose,” Padmé sighed. “There are worse days, and there are less worse days.”

Padmé laughed softly, but it was a sad laugh.

“But I don’t need to tell you that,” she said.

“Mmm,” Yoda grunted in reply, shaking his head. “A terrible thing, this war is. Much death have I sensed. Yes, and pain. Much pain still to come, I fear.”

“Well, if your plan really does work, Padmé, hopefully we stop this war before it really gets started,” said Obi-Wan.

“We’re going to need all the help we can get,” Padmé said. “Even three Jedi may not be enough. Which reminds me… Luke?”

He spun around, turning away from his embrace with his Aunt Beru.

“There’s … someone you need to meet,” Padmé said.

She walked up to her son, placing her hands on his shoulders, which were already almost too tall for her to reach.

“This may be hard for you to hear, and… I know you’re probably tired of so many secrets. But it was so important that this was kept a secret, even from you. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I promise you. But it was the only way to keep the two of you safe.”

“I don’t understand—” Luke started to say.

“There is…” Padmé said. “There is another Skywalker.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed in confusion. Or was it surprise?

“What?” he gasped.

Padmé looked toward the entrance of the old Lars homestead—the one that had been their home for more than a decade. She motioned for someone to come.

A young woman stepped out from the shade. She was dressed in a simple white robe, her hair done up in two elaborate buns on either side of her head. A white hood was draped gently over her head to shield her porcelain skin from the garish sunlight.

“Luke,” Padmé said. “This is your twin sister: Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan.”

*****

“You know,” Luke said. “It’s funny.”

“How’s that?” Leia replied.

“How you got picked to be Princess of… what is it? Alderaan. And I got shipped off to Tatooine of all places, living on a moisture farm. You know, there’s not a kid in Mos Eisley that wouldn’t kill for a chance to set foot in a palace, let alone live in one.”

“Living in a palace isn’t really as glamorous as you think it is,” Leia said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure it’s really hard waking up to the butler bringing you breakfast in bed every day. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to step out of bed and wonder ‘which balcony shall I sit on to sip my tea today?’.”

Luke tried (rather poorly) to mimic the snooty sort of accent that he had heard many of the core-worlders and Imperial-types use.

Leia socked Luke in the arm. They both laughed.

The long-lost siblings sat alone together in one of the small cabins of the ship that was speedily carrying them back towards the fourth moon of Yavin. It was quiet, except for the dull vibration of the hyperdrive echoing through the cold, metal walls.

Leia sighed and shook her head.

“All this time,” she muttered. “I never knew I had a real family. I mean… my parents—”

“You mean Her Royal Highness, Queen of Alderaan?” Luke tried the accent again.

Leia shot him a look.

“My mom and dad,” she corrected. “Are my real family, of course. But I always thought my birth parents were dead. Then, a few years ago, I met Padm—er… my real mom. Our mom. But I had no idea who she was. Still, I always had this weird… feeling when I was around her. I don’t know... I don’t know how to describe it.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Luke.

“And then… I started getting involved with the Rebellion,” Leia continued. “My dad didn’t like it, but… it was where I belonged. I’ve been lucky enough to see behind the Imperial curtain, so to speak. I know what really goes on in the Empire. And I decided a long time ago that I can’t sit around and wait for someone else to stop it. Anyway… I saw mom around the Rebel base on Yavin a lot, at least whenever I was allowed to be there, which wasn’t often. I knew she was someone important. She hardly ever showed her face to anyone outside of High Command. Only a few people knew her name. It was only a couple weeks ago that I found out why. My dad just sat me down with her one day and explained the whole thing. That Padmé was my birth mother. That she was Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo. That I have a brother. That my father is—”

Leia choked on the words.

“Anakin Skwalker,” Luke finished for her. “Jedi Knight. That’s who our father was. Darth Vader is… something else.”

Leia sighed. “I cried and cried for days after that. I don’t know if it was happy or sad, or sometimes both. I was so excited to have this new family, but just so sad that I missed out on it all before. Eventually, I ran out of tears to cry. And now… now I just don’t know how to feel.”

Luke placed his hand on hers.

“Afraid,” he said. “That’s how I feel, anyway.”

“I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to be afraid,” Leia said.

Luke looked down at his feet, sheepishly. “Fear begets anger, anger begets hate, and hate begets suffering. It is natural to feel fear. It’s what you do with it that matters. Do you turn inward or do you turn outward? At least… that’s what Obi-Wan always says.”

“I’ve heard lots of stories from my dad about Master Kenobi. It’s kind of crazy that the hero from my old bedtime stories is sitting in the next cabin over.”

“And I never even knew he was a Jedi. All my life, he was just the old hermit that lived on the edge of the Dune Sea. Then, all of a sudden, he is a Jedi Master, and I am supposed to just leave everything behind and become a Jedi, too.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leia. “I really can’t imagine what that must have been like. Being so alone for so long…”

“Don’t be sorry. I guess I was scared for a while. And then I was angry for a while after that. But I wasn’t alone, not really. Obi-Wan and Yoda helped me. They made me into who I’m supposed to be.”

“You think it’ll be enough?” Leia asked.

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to win.”

“I… don’t know.”

The Skywalker siblings were quiet for a while. The silence made it easy for the weight of everything that was about to happen start to sink in.

“Do you… do you think we’re going to make it through this?” Leia asked, clearly forcing back tears.

Luke didn’t say anything for a long time.

“I’ve been taught that I shouldn’t fear death,” he said at last. “That I should… how does Yoda put it? ‘Rejoice for those that transform into the Force.’ But… somehow… I know that we’re going to see dad again. And that’s all that matters.”

“How can you know?”

“A feeling.”

#Star Wars Infinities #Star Wars #alternate universe #alternate timeline #what-if #what if #Padme Amidala #Obi-wan Kenobi #Luke Skywalker #Darth Vader #Ahsoka Tano #Leia Organa #fanfiction #fanfic

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dexi-green · 5 years ago

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Rise of Skywalker was good. Rant/Appreciation, spoilers ahead. Super long and rambling. This is all personal opinion, if you disliked it, thats fine. If you disagree, great.

First some quick points, then the longer stuff.

I loved Babu Frik and D-O

We finally got to see the Knights of Ren in action!

Also all those Star Destroyers?? Like those things are gotdamn huge... and that many of them? Actually scary honestly.

LANDO LANDO LANDO! LANDO AND CHEWIE IN THE FALCON!!

WEDGE!!!

CHEWIE GETS HIS MEDAL!!!

Also not gonna lie.. I wanted to see a gungan. Put some respect on Jar Jar. Or confirm the Darth Jar Jar theory you cowards.

We got to see a proper version of Rey’s version of Luke’s Dark Side cave vision (The TLJ one just wasn’t it for me. The mirrors..okay...)

Storm Troopers fly now... Did they steal stuff from some Mandalorians. Mandalorians are like..the only ones ever to have jet packs like that (that I’m aware of). Maybe the Mandalorian show will see some leftover imperials stealing Mandalorian armor, which they will replicate (obviously badly, because there stuff is no beskar).

I was so happy to see the interactions between Leia and Connix, because I just loved to see Billie with her mom <3 I’m so glad they gave her a role and just kept expanding it.

Hux... I love the back and forth between him and General Pryde, (I was hoping Richard E Grant would’ve played Thrawn but alas...) wondering who the mole is, and OF COURSE ITS HUX! Because he just wants to see Kylo lose. We love it.. I’m kinda sad he was taken out so quick, but it was good while it lasted.

How they tried to push Poe into some kind of.. not relationship, but not too subtlety trying to tell the audience, no he’s not gay, in like...just a bad writing way, like okay gosh, he’s straight (Also Poe was a drug runner...). That LGBTQ “representation” was trash, but definitely better than Endgame’s so-called representation.

I also wished we woulda got more (legacy) cameos, especially in the final battle when all the ships arrive. Maybe the Ghost Crew (I think you can see the ship though), or a character from the Mandalorian show (I was hoping for more tie-in’s in general (baby yoda), but The Mandalorian did sorta set up the force healing ability). My foolish soul was hoping for a super old old clone or a super old and scarred up Mace Windu, or just super old Ahsoka, but this film 100% confirmed no going back that they are totally dead with their voices amongst the other dead jedi :/ I can’t have everything and thats alright. I’m just glad they were in there in some capacity.

JJ has said that the thing Finn was going to tell Rey was that he was force sensitive (none of the good ships flew sadly imo) but that is still...amazing to me. I love it so much. Especially with that exchange between him and Han in TFA “We’ll use the force.” “That’s not how the force works.”. Hopefully he got or gets the chance to tell Rey because then she could train him and <3 Also I think that now makes it go back to no non-force sensitive people have used a lightsaber in the films (aside from Grievous). I loved the inclusion of Jannah and the other storm trooper deserters. Not only because of the kinship with Finn, but also... They are on a moon of Endor... So moon of the Endor system inhabitants, with slightly primitive techniques and tools and things come to help in the final battle? I love it. Putting some respeck on the Ewoks (also we see Ewoks?!?! Specifically Wickett <3) (Also I noticed a Fire, Water, Earth theme. The final battle in the prequels was in fire/lava. The final battle in the original trilogy was on the forest moon of endor, and while not the final battle, Kef Bir is the ocean moon of endor)

Palpatine doing what we all knew he was, using bodies to live through. I mean thats why he always had apprentices, just so he could skip over to them when his body got gross and weak, or at the very least work through them. I definitely wanna know more about the whole Snoke operation. We knew it was insane for some rando to be that powerful to be whispering and seducing Ben to the dark side from birth. And the cloning? like please, tell me more. I loved Palpatine’s exclamation of “Return of the Sith!” as an obvious nod to the films Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, but also the fact Return was going to be Revenge of the Jedi.

I LOVE LOVEDDDD the small scene of Luke training Leia. Yeah the CGI on their faces wasn’t the best but just being able to see it and knowing that he did go forward and train her as well as other students was everything to me. I’ve always wanted Leia’s force abilities to be more acknowledged outside of the comics, so you know I went crazy in the scene from TLJ (for multiple reasons). Leia training Rey?! Rey referring to her (and Luke) as her jedi masters?! we love to see it <3 Rey going back to Tatooine, back to the moisture farm (I could just hear Aunt Beru calling out for Luke (but also him calling for her and uncle owen when they got disintegrated..oop)). Calling herself a Skywalker, AND SEEING LUKE AND LEIA’S FORCE GHOST!! WE LOVE TO SEE IT (but hate it because it’s the end). THE TWIN SUNS AS THE SAGA ENDS WHERE IT BEGAN!!

The voices of the Jedi at the end?!? I cried. I mean there was Anakin, Obi-Wan (both old and young), Qui Gon, Mace Windu, Yoda, and Luke of course, but also Aaayla Secura, Luminara, Adi Gallia, KANAN JARRUS (who is voice by Freddie Prinze Jr. aka the best Fred Scooby Doo could ask for) , AHSOKA TANO!!! Nothing I want more than more Ahsoka <3 I would’ve loved to see them all show up as Force Ghosts at the end ala the ghosts of Harry’s family in Harry Potter Goblet of Fire/Deathly Hallows but I understand why they opted for voices only. Also no Ki-Adi-Mundi because while everyone was saying, “Rey, You can do it! We are with you!” he just woulda been like, “But...what about the droid attack on the wookiees?”

Han!! Han!! When he appeared to Kylo, after Leia pulled him back as much as she could, and Rey healed him and inched him further, and then of course, Han finished the job. Leia asked him to bring him back and he did in the end. The person he seemingly hated the most (maybe thats tied with Luke. I honestly would’ve liked to see some kinda of thing between Luke and Ben, some reconciliation). The famous Solo “I know” which we all know means I love you. like come onnnnn <3 AND Ben and Leia’s bodies becoming one with the force... but Leia only after Ben... like she was holding on, waiting for him <3 This really made me like Ben/Kylo a bit more, obviously the light side Ben more, because Kylo is actual trash imo.

I cried when Chewie cried for Leia. Her death was sad on it’s own, but Chewie just broke me. He had a happy family, then Ben went bad, Han and Leia split, and Luke left, then when he thinks everything is coming back together, He lost Han, then he lost Luke, now Leia? If you actually watch him he just collapses to the ground, throwing his arms, sobbing... AND HAVING TO SEE HIM IN SHACKLES!?!? And not like “oh we gotta trick these guards” but actually captured and shackled, After all the wookiees being captured and enslaved and he how he had to deal with that...come on man....

I cried when Luke pulled his X-wing out of the water. We all saw it submerged in TLJ, waiting for that moment when someone would do it. The fact that he does it, when he couldn’t back when it happened on Dagobah. It shows how much he’s grown, showed him stepping into Yoda’s role even more fully. He never got to leave that island in it, but Rey did. Plus Rey wearing his Rebel helmet like she wore the helmet in TFA?! Honestly... Two “nobodies” from nowhere sand planets who become the hope and saviors of the galaxy (you could include Anakin in that as well, but he just...kinda sparked the hope in Luke and was his savior so...indirectly the hope and savior).

The only thing I didn't like was the Ben and Rey kiss at the end but luckily it wasn't drawn out and he died right after. Cause you really expect me to believe that within the same movie of him pushing her to her limits and making her believe she killed a friend that she gone be like...oh but you still cute tho? Also while re-watching everything and watching the prequels last month I remembered how Palpatine influenced the midichlorians/force to make Anakin in Shmi (it might not be canonized though, I’m not sure...). Obviously he’s not a biological father but...he is responsible...so that in a way makes him Kylo's grandfather in a sense. Rey is Sheev’s biological granddaughter so...big yikes. To me Kylo/Ben and Rey have a much better dynamic as brother and sister anyway.. I think a brother and sister bond suit them so much better. A rhyme of Luke and Leia, and the forged sibling bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin. It has pieces of both and would have been beautiful for it to play out that way. About Rey pulling her family in Ben Solo back to the light. I mean she even thought of Han, Leia, and Luke as parental figures... but luke and leia kissed so :/ guess just a family thing.

Running themes in all of star wars is hope, family, and who you are. In this, the prequels were the darkest. They end in a family divided, hope seemingly lost, and giving into the worst parts of yourself. The original trilogy was about finding the hope in the darkest times, becoming more than you think of yourself, and that family can overcome anything together. This trilogy was about clinging onto hope that you can find and making it a beacon for others, becoming more than what you and others think of you, "subverting destiny", and the fact that family isn't blood, not always. Just because someone tells you you're a monster, just because you started to believe it, doesn't mean you are. Once you have hope you hold onto it with everything you have, no matter how many times you fail or slip.

Rey being a Palpatine isn't "the bad guys bloodline living while the good guys die out". It isn't about bloodlines. Sure Kylo and Vader's terrible deeds will live on in infamy, but so will the entire rebellion's. Instead of being like, "oh well by blood I'm a Palpatine so I gotta use that last name" she made a conscious choice to go by Skywalker, because of what the Skywalker family meant to her and the galaxy, so that their deeds live on and not Palpatine. He will become a bad memory, a scar on history, while Skywalker’s, the positive idea of them, will continue to live and spark hope year and years into the future. Her blood isn't tainted and her grandfathers nature isn't hers, if it was she really would be the empress on the sith throne after Palpatine's death. She would've took Kylo's hand and offers before. Its the same with Kylo. He succumbed to what Rey was actively fighting against. Its the idea its harder to be good than bad.

Palpatine's bloodline living on means nothing unless Rey decided to make it mean something. But she didn't. As far as I'm concerned the only thing the bloodline might've impacted is her connection to the force and how strong it was naturally (like Kylo because of Leia (maybe Han..debatable, i like to believe he’s a little force sensitive) and her and Luke's connection to it because of Anakin). Her parents also actively fought against Palpatine as far as we know, Luke and Leia fought against Vader like... To say oh your parent was like this so you are gonna turn out the same? Yikes. Also Finn and the other stormtrooper deserters? Literally brainwashed from such a young age to be killers but they said no? It seems like the theme was you can fight against your destiny or like Yoda said about the future being hard to see because its constantly moving so "destiny" is kinda just a trash idea, be who you are or the person you want to be, not what others tell you.

Also I see some people saying it destroyed Anakin's legacy, and I have to disagree. To the fan's Anakin's legacy was never killing Palpatine. Sure that was the action, but the act was saving Luke. It was coming back from the dark to the light to save his son and in a way, the rest of the galaxy, at least for a time, it was betraying his master. It was the why he did it, not the how. Not only did he save Luke's life, but he fueled Luke to go forward and continue down the path of hope and light as long as he could. Anakin's true legacy lives on in Luke and Leia and the Rebellion. Palpatine's return doesn't diminish Anakin's sacrifice. Because it wasn’t about just destroying Palpatine. Anakin/Vader's thoughts went to Padme and Luke, and the prophecy of bringing balance, he knew he had to do something. When Luke takes off his helmet when Anakin is dying he thinks, “The boy was good, and the boy had come from him–so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.” (coming from the novelization of Return). As long as Luke lived, and Luke's legacy lives on, so does Anakin's and so does Anakin’s return to the light. Anakin's legacy and impact, the good and the bad, will continue. Maybe the people of that galaxy won't know of the person named Anakin compared to sith lord Darth Vader, but his impact will always be there.

Yeah they aren’t always the most perfectly written stories with the best effects and yadda yadda, I know there are some missteps and less then stellar things in this films, but they are here to entertain, and I’m entertained. There is probably so much I’m missing, and I really want to go see it again, and can’t wait till it’s out on DVD or streaming services...

It was a beautiful film that did the best it could to end a saga thats bigger than anything ever, thats been going on for years, something that is unheard of and never been done. I just want to honor the history, the memory, and the work it all took. I just love these films so much. <3 Also, always remembering Carrie, Peter M. and Peter C., Christoper, and Kenny, and all other actors and crew who have passed who lent their time and effort to all of these films and this entire franchise <3

#rise of skywalker #star wars #spoilers #rise of skywalker spoilers #ros spoilers #star wars spoilers #rey #kylo ren #skywalker #finn #poe dameron #luke skywalker #leia organa #chewbacca #sw #rant #long post #read more #personal opinion

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hyperesthesias · 5 years ago

Text

Boba Fett x Valera

Permafrost

Rating: G

Word Count: 6.4k

Notes: i have a character in one of my novels who is married to a man like boba. so i came up with this. au. 25+aby.

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Boba Fett never noticed silence until it was broken. Most of his adult life had been lived in silence. A quietude in his vicinity that transpired even in his mind. His thoughts transparent on the surface, he considered himself an honest man: plain and forthright, without hidden intent. He was known for his directness with his clients, he was no different with himself. Not in any sense of which he was aware. For while Boba Fett was known for his astuteness of a battlefield, insight into the survivalist instincts of a thousand different creatures, there was little of which he was aware within himself. For a long portion of his life, he hadn’t wanted to be; he’d been content with surface thoughts: skimmed water atop cracked ice. It was easier that way, he knew. Much colder, too. But chill was prone to giving clarity – a certain insight not afforded by the comfort of warmth and clouded, melted waters. And now, with the ache in his bones he’d told to no one, with the wrenching in his guts he’d taken without a mire of his features, he was sure he’d drown in those waters should the ice begin to melt.

“Dinner’s almost ready, my dear,” a sweet voice climbed up the hatch to the cockpit. “Shall I serve you here?” Valera asked and sat beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, hands neatly settled in her lap. She looked on him attentively with that pink smile embedded like a quartz on her lips. That quartz had never faded, never withered in the time of their marriage – it may have cracked, chipped, maybe, but it never vanished.

He didn’t know how she did it. He didn’t know how it stayed fastened there, despite everything. And though she may have told him why she still smiled, why there was still a softness in her, and though he understood it as if he were reading words on a sheet of flimsi, he couldn’t comprehend it on some deeper level he felt was inaccessible to him. Surely, it must have been locked beneath that sheet of ice. That, too, was logical. “Yes, I’ll have it here,” he finally answered her, but he did not look at her. He couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to for nearly a week. Because when he looked at her he could feel a warmth of dawn in him – she emanated starlight, bright and blinding, and a shiver would whip through his soul: stern and biting. Her warmth, her gaze, her touch – all reminders of his failures, all reminders of the inevitable, reminders of what he could have done, what he should have done.

No, he hadn’t looked at her in a long while – in an effort to cling to what frost he could in the midst of her daylight, and because Valera always had the disconcerting ability to see him through the visor. His eyes were fixated on the star charts, the controls and lights, the tunnel of stars blurred through hyperspace, but still he knew she could see him despite the black, despite his efforts of obfuscation. She knew him. Better than anyone. Besides his father – since his father.

“Very well,” she nodded once and relinquished her gentle gaze. He could see her from the display in his visor the way she settled into the seat. She curled up and away from him, her knees cradled to her chest as her head languished in her palm, elbow perched on the armrest. She pulled from the pocket in her apron a book and turned instinctively to the page she’d left off on, thumbing through it with deft, calloused fingers.

His hands gripped the yoke a little tighter as he felt his own callouses rub against the inside of his gloves. His joints ached as his fingers curled around the controls, his clenched jaw sent a sharp pang through the back of his skull and straight through to his eye. The pain was getting worse. Pain he hadn’t admitted to her yet. Pain he didn’t want to admit to anyone. But especially her. He made her a promise the day he married her: to always protect her. And despite what he might’ve told himself, what surface truths he wanted to whisper to himself in the midst of silence, Boba Fett was afraid. He was afraid of breaking his word, of disgracing his honour – he was afraid of failing her.

Calloused hands spoke where words remained quiet or inept. Scars have voices of their own. Pelted flesh contain more stories than flimsi or datapads could ever hold. He knew her scars, intimately. Just as she knew his. He knew how she’d received each of them – the stripes on her back, the chafing on her ankles, on her wrists, the smaller inflections of her skin along her jaw nearly to her ear from shards of glass her slaver had thrown at her. He had no regrets breaking the contract that scum had put out to retrieve her – he had no regrets killing him, either. Fett didn’t take kindly to slavers. Neither had his father.

He’d never let a quarry go. He’d never returned to them and told them they were free – free from him, free from their servitude. Valera had been the first and only one. But when she threw her arms around him and wept into his shoulder praising gratitude to him in Basic and in a language he’d never heard, even the twin stars of Tatooine above them had sparked warmth in him, around him. ‘I’m indebted to you,’ she’d said. ‘You owe nothing to anyone. Ever again.’ He’d meant it. But when she persisted in wanting to repay him with at least a meal, he agreed – only in favour of a home cooked meal over rations or cantina food.

It was the last time he’d see her, he was sure. For that, he’d been glad. He couldn’t afford attachments. They weren’t made for men like him. The only bonds that couldn’t be severed were the grit understanding between he and his clients. Or so he’d told himself, but even then he’d broken that bond for her. ‘It wasn’t for her’, he remembered he’d rationalised, ‘It was based on principle. It was because the client lied to me. He didn’t fess up. If he’d told me she was a slave, I would’ve walked away.’ It was the truth: he wouldn’t have given her a second thought, it wouldn’t have been his business. But the client had made it his business when he tried to pull one over on him. ‘No one lies to me and gets away with it.’ That’s all it had been: principle, the ice whispered in cracks and groaning audible only to him, even then.

He’d never given much thought to the concept of fate, either. A foolish superstition, it was just another escapist reality for those unwilling or unable to make their own path. Predetermined luck. Worse than the concept of the Force and Jedi fanaticism. He’d at least seen the work of the Force with his own eyes when he’d been at Vader’s side. But the idea of ‘fate’ was something far more ludicrous – a crutch for the weak.

Until he thought he might’ve caught a glimpse of that, too. Underneath those damned twin stars of Tatooine, again. He’d grown to hate the desert, the heat, after lying in the sand for hours – broken in body, in mind. Delirious with the stench of death and the inescapable pain of acid corroding at him as carrion. His armour, destroyed. Patches of his flesh, gone. He could barely see in the washed out light of day, but what he did see he couldn’t believe. Not at the time. A woman hovering over him, comforting him in words distorted by what might’ve been death throes.

He doesn’t remember anything that happened in the week after he escaped the Sarlacc. His first memory after escaping the stomach of the beast is Valera sitting at his bedside. She was dabbing what parts of his face that were not bandaged with a cold cloth. It stung even his undamaged skin – and everything hurt. His leg was on fire, he couldn’t feel the other, his hips burned and seared, his arms and torso twisted with gnawing, his face in so much pain it’d passed the point of numbness. She soothed him with quiet, kind whispers – with gentle breaths as she lay him back down. She kept him calm as she told him of the loss of his leg, the work she and her droid had done to heal him in the absence of a medical facility for hundreds of miles. It’d taken him some while to remember who she was, to remember where he was. Yet she greeted him with nothing but patience. A patience that persisted even in his unrighteous anger – his contempt of himself that he’d been at the mercy of someone else, with the realisation that he was not as strong as he’d once been. Fury that, despite the strength that gradually returned to him, there would always be a part of him that was left in the Pit of Carkoon. It was mourning disguised as anger that he was different now. And he was powerless to change it completely.

He was never powerless.

‘We’re even,’ he’d said at last, coldness biting at his breath. He could remember exactly where he was when he’d said it: sitting at the edge of the bed, winded from lifting the shirt over his head. ‘A life for a life,’ he wanted to bite at her for no other reason than that she’d seen him – both naked of body and soul. But she’d simply smiled at him with that unequalled warmth inside the darkness of her eyes and shook her head. ‘You owe me nothing. And you never will.’

He felt like a boy again when she looked at him like that – as though she were with him on some other plane; when she spoke to him like that – so softly, as though she would envelope him in a feather. And for a long time as he stayed with her whilst he recuperated, he couldn’t place why. He didn’t feel small, for she was certainly no threat to him – despite the power and distance she could throw a harpoon; he didn’t feel shuffled and avoided as he had been as a boy around the Kaminoans, around Dooku – she invited him to her table, included him as a guest, not a burden. Whatever it was, it’d been a rarity in his life. A garment that was fitted for his boyhood self, rather than the armoured man he’d become. Yet still, much like the way he clung to the Slave I for the sake of his father, he did not want to let her go. It was sentimentality at its weakest, but he had nowhere else to go. It took him the months he stayed with her to realise what it was he felt when she looked at him, spoke to him:

He felt loved.

He hadn’t been loved since he was a boy, when his father embraced him.

And she’d loved him since. She never stopped. Her love did not cease when she was stolen from him by vengeful slavers. Her love did not dwindle amidst the lasting pain of the death of their daughter caught in the crossfire of her mother’s theft, of her father’s failure -- a pain left pressed upon them, between them, around them as a crushing vacuum. Her love did not falter or fade against the starkness of the frozen pool that’d made its home in him long before he’d met her. Instead, she’d made camp there, finding a home for herself in the frost, finding balance in the chill. Where others had met his guard with hostility and impatience – fragmenting the ice into thousands of pieces, only to have it expand and seal shut the cracks, that the malleability, the fluidity beneath, may never be revealed – Valera had found an answer to her love by fishing patiently in the frozen lake beneath. A world with depth and life, though persistently cold as it may have been. She cared enough to look. She cared enough to see. Regardless of how disconcerting it was for him, it was a rare ability he did not take lightly.

It was why he couldn’t look at her now. Sometimes the warmth of her burned him like the stars of Tatooine. He was not afraid of pain – he’d learnt how to deal with the immolating grief in his leg that longed for the one with which he’d been born. He was motionless, expressionless as he’d stitched himself, as she’d stitched him. Much pain had he endured without a complaint, and much more was ahead of him – and still he did not flinch. So why, then, was he afraid?

In the silence, in the quiet – in the stillness of his mind as he sat there remembering her, remembering how much she’d loved him, a whisper emerged from the melting drink beneath the armour within him:

Because I don’t know how to love her back.

It was the ugly truth he’d never wanted to face, since the day he married her. He didn’t know how to love. He knew how his father loved him, and he loved their daughter with what love Jango had shown him. But his father never showed him how to love a mate, a companion. For all the information Jango had left him of surviving in a wayward galaxy, there was still much his father never taught him.

He tried. Fierfek, he tried. Every day he tried. And when his thoughts began to settle, and soft, light slumber crept up behind him, he knew he could have done better job. Being married was the hardest job he ever took. And sometimes he wondered if it would’ve been better, easier to have never married her at all. Easier, yes. Better…

He couldn’t find an answer. Lonelier. Harsher. Something told him he would’ve been a lot more weathered of soul, a lot more calloused, colder than he already was. It might’ve made him better at his job. Not much else. But what else was there for him?

It nearly took him aback as pieces began to fall in their rightful places of selfishness and gaping distances: ‘for him’. But what about for her? Was she really any better off with him? Or had she been better placed on her farm on Tatooine? Would it have been better for her to stay there, unsullied by the blood on his hands?

He took a glance at her from his visor’s display again, watching her read. She turned a page tenderly and nestled her face into the crook of her shoulder. How could he have touched something so soft and not have shattered it to pieces? How could she not have recoiled from him?

He resisted the urge to sigh audibly and instead gripped the controls a bit more taut as a dull ache grew into his back from his jaw.

“Are you alright?” she called to him. She set aside her book and turned her head to see him. His shoulders gazed the edge of his helmet, his arms stiff, his chest stilled. He was in pain. Though what pained him she could only guess.

Valera had a preternatural ability to know if something bothered him. She rarely asked him about it. He was grateful. “Fine,” he said behind gritted teeth. The spasm was growing across his kidneys. “Just uncomfortable.”

“Can I get you water?” she asked.

Sometimes he wondered if she still believed herself a servant. And another great, dark fear -- finned and toothed -- swam beneath the surface of his mind: had he treated her as such? There’d been times he’d have to remind her she was his wife, not his slave. But had she believed him? More to the point, he thought, have I proven it to her? “Water would be good.” As she made for the galley he added: “Thank you.” The uncomfortable thought lingered – had he freed her only to capture her unwittingly? Did she see him as a slaver and not a husband?

Did he even qualify as a husband?

Inevitability of a narrowing ending -- an inescapable tunnel that squeezed tighter and tighter as days pressed onward into limiting days -- had a way of procuring clarity in a way not even a coldness of the soul could conjure. Regrets started to form at his mouth, sudden cavities that sprung overnight and all of them hurt at once. Or maybe it was the kriffing spasm in his jaw.

“Here you are.” Valera returned with a flask of cold water in one hand, the hip of her skirt bustled in the other. She sat down again beside him in the co-pilot’s seat and pulled the book from her apron; and though she turned to the correct page, she couldn’t read a word upon it. Her mind fixated on other things entirely. Cavernous things that echoed in her heart growing louder and louder as gusts of thought whipped through her.

She let a quiet breath and snuggled into the worn leather seat: a gift he’d given her. To sit beside him in his ship was equivalent to sitting beside his soul. It was a form of intimacy for him, and she knew it. She was grateful for it. But lately, they’d only sat in weighted silence. The only time he beckoned her was when he told her strap in, or that they’d landed somewhere. Even when they’d had their spats, the silence had never been so heavy and spined. A great fear had begun to well in her: that perhaps he had no more use for her. That soon, he would consider her a stranger. That the intimacy of sitting beside him, and the intimacy of merely being with him, would be lost.

Valera stifled the scratching pain that’d begun to gather at the back of her throat at the mere thought. She set her book in her lap and rested her head against the back of the seat with a quiet sigh. It was drowned out by the hissing sound of Boba’s helmet as he removed it and its environment controls equalised. She could see his reflection in the permaglass: scarred and steeled. She knew him no other way. He was a pillar – unmoving and built of tempered strength, unbreakable. But sometimes he forgot he was just that: a constructed thing. He was not invincible, he was ‘human’ – as she came to learn, non-human that she was, the term was synonymous with ‘fallible’. But fallible was never synonymous with feeble, in any language. And she never thought him weak.

She noted he did not return her gaze in the reflection. She also knew it was on purpose. She did not begrudge him, but it made her sad. A sinking of her heart deeper into the centre of her stomach than it had been already suddenly made her wish she had never prepared dinner. She was no longer hungry. Her stomach full with wishes instead of nutrients.

Her eyes fell from his image as he drank the water – a small wince at the corner of his eye as he lifted the flask and tilted his head back. He’d been doing that more frequently, believing her mostly ignorant -- though not entirely; he gave her the credit of her observational nature, hyper-aware as it may have been at times. She knew something had happened, especially after their last visit to Kamino, but she didn’t know what exactly. He wouldn’t tell her. She didn’t ask. She knew he would tell her eventually, he just needed time. But it wasn’t the time he needed that bothered her. It was the empty space between them that swelled with uncertainty -- with her own insecurity. Did he not trust her? Did he think her weak? She may not have been a Mandalorian, she may not have been a warrior, but she knew what it was to defend. She knew others thought plainly of her because she did not wear beskar, that she did not like to handle blasters -- though a harpoon was equally dangerous in her hand. She had hoped he never thought as others did, and he said he did not. But in her difference to him, had he grown indifferent to her?

One question, above all others, bothered her the most. And she felt if she did not ask it, she would resonate out of existence and fissure into stardust.

“Bo’aba?” she called.

He turned his head towards her somewhat, but still did not look at her. Even after all the years they’d been bonded, the way she said his name – with that graceful accent of a land he’d never known – thralled the centre of his chest. He swallowed the last of the water. “Yes?”

Valera suddenly lost all her courage when he turned towards her. She could feel it vaporise from her bones and she pushed herself into the corner of the seat. It would be better to wait, she thought. It’s just me.

“Are you alright?” he asked and took the chance to glimpse her. But this time when his eyes fell on her, he felt no warmth from her. The air around her was sullen and dark – a cold and quiet night. A faint furrow built in his brow and he set the flask aside. “What is it?”

She thought about lying. But she loved him too much to deceive him, even if the truth would hurt the both of them. She took a deep breath, feeling the weight of her heart in her gut even heavier than before, and sat up to face him. But this time it was her eyes that would not search for his. “Bo’aba, will you be honest with me?”

Normally, he might’ve taken offence – the implication that he was dishonest a mar to his reputation. But his mouth went dry at the notion of all he had not told her, and he knew he would be a hypocrite if he felt any umbrage. “Yes,” he agreed, in a careful, singular answer.

His voice was quiet, softened. It reassured her somewhat, even if it would be the last time she heard the softness in his voice. With another breath, her eyes wandered upwards and found his. Despite the glitter that gathered at the edges of hers, there was something eeling in his own – a worry she had not seen in a long while. It made her feel foolish as the words gathered at her mouth in a gentle breath: “Do you still love me?”

Boba straightened, his eyes turned stern. Valera immediately regretted asking, and her gaze fell to the floor. He’d never lashed out at her in anger. He’d never mistreated her. But memories of past anger died hard. They rattled in her like pieces of loose gravel, harsh and bruising. Her wrists hurt as passive ghosts grabbed them.

But his austerity spoke only to his own fears. That they’d all been confirmed with one, honest query from his wife. “Why do you ask this?”

She started to shake her head, hoping they’d both dismiss it and move onto an awkward dinner – nothing more, nothing less.

But he didn’t let it go. “Why?”

She sighed and closed her eyes, biting down on her lips. “I just wonder…if perhaps you tire of me. If you feel…stuck with me.”

His furrow deepened and he read her carefully, as his wife, not a client – with an intimacy, with a knowing, with a held breath.

She glanced at him with a sheepish shrug and a resigned simper. “’A contract’s a contract’.”

The breath was expelled and he leaned back, a pained awareness of his mistakes twinging into his sides. He’d pushed her too far away. “You’re not a contract, Valera.” He moved closer to her and rested his arms on his knees as one hand passed through his hair.

She remembered when it was solid black, a colour that purely matched his eyes. Now there was salt peppering his hair and lines beginning to form at the edges of his hardened features. It made her smile, and a pang shot through her cradled heart. They were growing older together, she just hoped they wouldn’t grow apart. She ran a hand through his short, curled locks and her smile grew. “Are you sure? Because, if I recall correctly, the way you asked me to marry you was – how did you put it? ‘Would you like to enter a mutually beneficial, lifelong contract?…Of marriage?’”

A muted grin appeared on his face and he eased his eye up to her. “I said ‘Marry me’, you said ‘What?’, and I…clarified.” He didn’t admit to the nervousness that he remembered had overtaken him in the moment he’d fumbled out such a ridiculous sounding sentence.

Her smiled widened, brightened the entire ship – daylight dawned in the hull and he felt a patch of ice within him dissolve with it. She was the brightest thing on board, despite the stars that passed them by in a brilliant blur. “It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard,” she laughed. He watched her smile dissolve and the dusk was upon her once again, a waft of cold night air passing his face as she breathed. “But it was still a contract. You’re not known for breaking your word, despite anything.” Her hand caressed the smooth side of his face, her thumb tracing his brow. “You’d stay with me no matter what, unless you were forced to part from me. You’re a man of honour, I know you.”

She did know him. Unsettling as it may have been at times, it was irrefutable. “I stay with you because I love you.” He pried it out of his mouth quickly in a jolting motion – a ragged tooth at the back of his mouth that bruised and scraped his throat for all the times he would not let it free. “I love you,” he repeated in a breath. It was a breath that’d been locked in the depth of his lungs, it ached when it pushed out of him. “I don’t –” He stopped and swallowed, the feeling of vulnerability crawled beneath his skin. He was as naked as he had been when she treated his wounds. “I don’t want to let you down,” he finally said.

“You won’t, you’ve never –”

He stopped her. “I’m sick, Valera.”

Her sight stayed on him and she gave him a tilt of her head. “I know, my dear. I’ve known for a while.”

“But you don’t know how bad.” He fought the urge to turn away from her completely. But her hand was still lingering on his face and there was a part of him – a dying part of him – that didn’t want to feel her fall from him. The loved little boy he thought he’d forgotten until she’d woken him all those years ago. “I haven’t got long.” It’s all he said and his head bowed, his gaze averted.

She didn’t move her hand, but it stilled against his skin. He felt a flush raft through her – the heat of adrenaline, of fear. The ache settled itself in the back of her throat again and she batted her eyes to keep herself from crying – he hated it when she cried. Because there was nothing he could do to help, he said. Because it hurt him to see her hurting, he said. She’d always cried anyway, and he’d always been reduced to a mess of confusion. But this time she didn’t cry, and this time he wasn’t confused.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

He shook his head once. “I kept telling myself I would.” Something else lingered on his tongue – bloody residue from the pulled tooth at the back of his throat. It was heavy and salted and filled with rusted iron: “It hurt too much.”

Her gaze softened and a single tear fell onto her flushed cheeks. “You hide yourself in armour, yet your heart hurts most of all,” she whispered. Her hand fell from his face and rested on his chest. “But you needn’t hide from me.”

He knew she was right. That hurt, too.

“How long?”

“A few years. Doctor wasn’t certain.”

She swallowed and looked away briefly. A deep breath thinned her neck and pursed her lips. “The Sarlacc?” She knew without asking.

He nodded. “Don’t have enough spare parts for how much damage there is.”

“You’ll find a way. We will...find a way.” Her hand ran through his hair again. All she wanted to do was touch him – to keep him close in tangibility. To know he was there, he was real, he was solid. She didn’t want him to leave.

“I don’t plan to go down without a fight.” He forced a simper.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Her smile began to return – a ray of light that broke through heavy clouds as a pillar of embers. Heavenly.

There were times he thought she had too much faith in him. While he recovered, she encouraged him that he would reclaim his strength, that he would persevere with the tenacity he’d always had. He recovered – not without blood and sweat and swearing – and settled with her for a while. The knowing that his strength was there, regardless of whether he farmed with her or hunted quarry had been enough for him then. When she asked him for a child, she allayed his hesitations with the faith that he would carry on the love of his father impeccably. They tried for so long to have their daughter, the cellular damage a hindrance for his own progeny; he resented himself despite her faith. But when she was born, he tried. With everything in him, he tried to live up to Valera’s faith, to his father’s legacy, to prune his own fears. He loved his daughter, as strange and as broken as it may have been at times. And now he could only hope she knew that. It was too late for anything else.

And now Valera invested her faith in him again. Though this time, he was unsure he could provide her with a return – with evidence of her well placed fealty and confidence. There was a part of him that believed she would be left empty handed, both figuratively and not.

But he couldn’t afford to fail her. Not again. Not this time.

His mouth twitched, and the discomfort of vulnerability returned beneath his skin with quick and tiny padded feet.

Valera was about to stand and return to the galley, but stayed in her seat as she watched thoughts unfold within him. “What is it?”

He peered upward at her and was baited by the steel within him to shrug off the resonating truth. The truth that hummed inside his head in tandem with his growing migraine.

She didn’t have to ask him again, the way her sights settled on him -- unmoving and assured, she asked him wordlessly to trust her. To speak to her. To not make the same mistakes, not when he didn’t -- when they didn’t...have as much time as she had hoped, as they had wanted.

He sighed and looked away, mindlessly observing the controls that told him nothing he didn’t already know. He flicked a switch and then another and shook his head once. “You’ve always deserved better.” He didn’t say anything else.

Neither did she.

Between them there was a lingering burden of truth. A gravity that had always existed outside of realised words. Until he’d said them. They were tangible now, truth with a corporeal form that sat between them. It was as heavy as slate, and compressed with the ashes and sediment of years’ time.

Fett had the primal instinct to run. He never minded silence. But the one settled between them -- the one that he, himself, had mined and appraised -- was oppressive. He stood from his seat, flicked another switch and turned for the ladder. “We’ll be out of hyperspace in a standard hour.” Ba’slan shev’la suddenly came to mind: the Mandalorian art of strategic disappearance. And for the first time in his life, he wondered how much of his life he’d spent running. Even if he hadn’t meant to.

Valera heard his footsteps recede down the ladder and vanish into the galley. The sounds of utensils were the only thing that pierced the air, and for a moment she believed things would return to the spined silence that’d persisted before truths had been lanced between them. That belief was short lived. Boba was stubborn, the most stubborn man she’d ever met -- he was hard-headed and ferocious about besting every expectation put upon him, including those he put upon himself; and there was a longsuffering patience in his obstinacy that would fuel it through the night with oil. But she had her own meek immovability. One that could not, and would not be ignored. One that sat adjacent to the wick, calm and bated in steadfastness when the time called for it. Time was something they did not have much of, now. She didn’t want to waste the time they did have in a frothing cauldron of reticence.

She climbed down the ladder and found him serving himself dinner from a pot and into a bowl. He didn’t speak, he didn’t look at her, even as she came beside him. She waited for him to finish so she could serve herself, but smiled when he handed her the bowl with a piece of flatbread atop it. She could hear him, even without a word. She was loved, she was cared for, provided for -- he was trying.

“I’m happy here,” she finally answered him. “I always have been.”

He served himself and sat across from her, knelt on the floor next to the warmth of the cooker. He always let her sit closer to it, he never needed much warmth. But blue starlight couldn’t be without heat for long. He didn’t want her to drown in the chill, but she still did not leave it behind. She did not leave him behind. “You’re more adaptable than most,” he said and tore a piece of bread.

“Is that why you love me?” she grinned.

“Part of why, yes.”

She hadn’t expected him to answer her jest with honesty. There was a quiet in her, hesitant about what he left unsaid. But she could not leave it unanswered within her. “And the other part?”

He stopped, and wondered if he shouldn’t have said anything open-ended. But this was honesty. There was little he valued above honesty and honour. He set his piece down onto the bowl. This time, Boba looked up and directly into Valera’s eyes. In them, he saw what he had many years ago: a depth, a vast endlessness even the edges of the galaxy could not provide. Something he didn’t understand, something he knew he was missing, something he wanted to learn and keep close. He saw everything he’d wanted since he was a child -- that his father longed for before him. He saw a home. He saw safety. He saw family. “You’ve never hurt me. And I know you never would.”

He trusted her. With his life. With parts of himself that even he had little acquaintance. She knew this, intimately, and never had she used it against him. She was the first and only since his father who had never betrayed him, who never even thought of it. She wanted nothing from him, and yet he’d found everything in her.

Valera reached across the small space between them and rested her hand atop his. It was warm, though gloved, and she cherished it as a sign that he was alive. His fingers lay languid, still, and they were pliable as she massaged her thumb against them. She felt them curl around her own, but the rarity of their yielding malleability continued as he held her hand in silence.

After a moment, she nudged forward and leaned her head towards him. There was a pleased inflection in his mind as he watched her. It was a Mandalorian custom of a masked kiss, but one she had adopted with great enthusiasm. ‘Any excuse to kiss you, my dear,’ she’d said the first time he’d done it.

So many memories. So many years to which he wondered if he’d done the best he could. So many things he would’ve done differently. But he couldn’t change any of them now. What was done was done. There was no going back.

But he wasn’t dead yet. He still had a chance to change the future.

Boba leaned forward and nudged his head against hers. He could feel the warmth that’d gathered on one side of her skin as he rested there. A breath escaped him as he swept his scarred face across her softness. His damaged nerves couldn’t feel it, but he didn’t need to. He knew her softness would prevail -- as would her mercy for him, and her honesty. This was the faith he put in her. And never had he been left wanting.

His nose caressed the top of her brow as he dragged his unmarred skin along the surface of her face, his hand clasped around hers with a gentle tenacity. He absorbed her warmth, pocketed it with deft secrecy in a portion of himself that was emerging beneath a glacier. He felt her purr beneath him, he felt her nose and cheek nestle against his jaw -- and suddenly he found there was no longer a throbbing in his neck. It’d vanished, just as she’d appeared. A medicinal remedy that required no other payment than a kiss. He lingered there, a little longer than he might’ve before, relishing the relief. Until at last, he rested his lips on her skin. As he breathed in, he smelt the embers of a daylight he’d never seen, of a hearth he’d never had.

Home.

For a moment everything stilled, and time stopped. For a moment all that existed in the galaxy was the warmth and the melt shared between them. For a moment, he was safe.

#boba fett #star wars #star wars fanfic #mandalorian #fanfic #*#this is the longest fic i've posted to this hellsite #but i really really enjoyed writing it. i wrote the first 5k in one sitting last night #touched it up tonight.#IF you want listening material while you read #gone gone gone by phillip phillips is from valeras pov #and when im gone by 3 doors down is from b's pov #this is a great fic if you want a look into his psyche #any way. enjoy!

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the-loststone · 5 years ago

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GoT & SW

Really I’m just reiterating stuff a lot of people already know about the problems with season 8 of Game of Thrones. But anyway...

I’ve compared Daenerys and Anakin before, quite a few times actually, because of their ultimate downfall from sympathetic sweetheart to dark character.

There are many differences between the characters however, and a lot of it comes down to how they were framed. I am free to love Anakin as the dramatic trash character that he is. He is the bad guy; the moment of redemption doesn’t negate the years he spent pushing the galaxy into darkness. His good deeds before his turn don’t outweigh the bad deeds as Darth Vader. But Daenerys is more complicated...

One of the main failings that the show came across is how they framed them.

Both Anakin and Daenerys were shown through the point of view of people they loved and that loved them. For Anakin, he was shown through the perspective of Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Padme, Shmi, and the people that he saved, along with his own point of view. Along with her own view point, Daenerys was shown through the perspective of the slaves she saved, Missandei, Grey Worm, Jorah, and such. The main difference is this: the perspectives of those who stood against Anakin and Daenerys.

For Anakin, the obvious tension is with the Jedi council. Now, as the audience, we always knew that Anakin was going to fall. So any tension that the Jedi had with Anakin, any disapproval or distrust was warranted according to the audience (but not according to Anakin). If someone had a reason to dislike Anakin, the audience knew to listen to their concerns because they knew Anakin would fall. Special attention was paid to those moments. The opposition was framed correctly and the audience accepted it. We knew from the start Anakin was trash, and we loved him despite it.

Daenerys is different because the audience didn’t expect it. The show intentionally wanted to subvert expectations so they buried the perspectives against Dany. Of course, most of Daenerys opponents were slavers or pricks, so painting them as sympathetic is difficult. But anytime there was a confrontation with someone who had legitimate concerns with Daenerys, it was framed in such a way to only see her side and her argument. Her victories were shown as through she was triumphing evil. Anakin on the other hand doesn’t have these moments (at least not quite as often). Even though he was also fighting bad guys, such as the Sith, it was still iffy whenever he won. The audience is wary anytime he is victorious because it is framed in such a way that he has a little too much bloodlust, or his view point is arguably wrong and pushing him further to the dark side. For Daenerys, every victory the audience sees her being pushed further into the light, as righteous. It doesn’t frame the bloodlust or the problematic aspects of her victory as something the audience should be overly concerned about. The show deliberately pushed it down and didn’t focus on it.

Which is why S8 was so hated. Because suddenly they were bringing it up (although in an unorganized and rushed way) and the audience was supposed to understand.

One of the reasons Sansa is so reviled is because she doesn’t like Daenerys. It isn’t something she hides, she’s completely transparent about it. But Daenerys has only ever been disliked by characters that had been evil, or wrong, or in some way framed to seem terrible to her. So as an audience, people react to Daenerys as being the opposite of them and thus, good. And therefore, Sansa not liking Daenerys means she is wrong and evil and manipulative...

And using Sansa was deliberate too. Sansa was always a controversial character for the audience. She was hated by a lot of people... mostly for sexist and misogynistic reasons but that’s a whole other rant... and so by making her the voice to oppose Daenerys was to make her even more hated and to continue to subvert expectation regarding Daenerys’ downfall. According to the audience, Sansa is not the Jedi council. The Jedi had real reasons to be wary of Anakin; how overemotional he is, his dramatics, his power, his anger, and most importantly, the fact that the audience knew he was going to the dark side. Sansa on the other hand was not framed in such a way that sympathized her to the audience; they didn’t see her desire for Northern independence (despite the fact that it was something she had wanted and rooted for since season 2) as legitimate or a reason for her to be wary of Daenerys.

Now why use Sansa at all? Why not use another character? Well, because Sansa, Cersei and Daenerys are each foils of each other. And using Cersei is ridiculous. Cersei had been cast as the villain from day 1. It would be like using the Sith against Anakin. The audience knows the Sith is evil, just like the audience knows Cersei is a villain. Anakin would become a Sith that launched the galaxy into a darkness never before seen; he did terrible things that no other Sith was able to achieve. Likewise, in Daenerys’ fall, she did things that Cersei wasn’t capable of. Sansa was flawed but she wasn’t pushing kids out of towers and burning people trapped in a building or having women raped by the Mountain. In Star Wars, it is also canon that the Jedi council is flawed. Not Sith evil, but flawed.

And most importantly, the audience was prepared for Anakin, they were not prepared for Daenerys. And it’s nothing to do with content. There was enough content that could have shown Dany’s fall (not as much as the books but...). It has everything to do with framing. The point of view we are looking at makes all the difference. If we had been in the perspective of the citizens during Daenerys’ return to Meereen in season 6, it would have been a very similar view to season 8′s sack of Kingslanding. But again, the show deliberately didn’t show it to us.

And so it is the characters that really drive the narrative for how to view Anakin and Daenerys.

One of the reasons Anakin is so lovable, even knowing his fall, is because we see him from the point of view of the people that love him. Obi-Wan means so much to the audience, and we know he is a great character. If he loves Anakin that means something, even if we don’t get to see Anakin’s shining qualities often. Padme is brilliant and intelligent and a badass. She falls in love with the socially awkward “I don’t like sand” dumbass and we say okay, we love him too. The perspectives did most of the work for people to love Anakin.

Daenerys is loved and admired and respected and obsessed over by so many characters. To see it suddenly stop was jarring. Even for Anakin it didn’t stop. Even when Anakin fell, Obi-Wan and Padme still loved him. But for Daenerys, the moment she fell it was framed so that loving her seemed condemnable. The fact that Jon is capable of killing her is celebrated. Obi Wan was incapable of killing Anakin; it was a heart breaking moment where the audience saw just how much he loved him. For Jon to be able to do kill Dany speaks to the fact that perhaps he didn’t really love her. It’s a confusing moment for so many people. (Also because Jon was terribly used the entire season and no one really had any sympathy for him until he finally got his shit together and killed Daenerys.) So again, framing of the characters perspectives was so important.

I could go on to talk about all the flaws of framing. I think one thing that kills me the most is that even though the Star Wars prequels had terrible dialogue for the most part, the plot was brilliant and everything was executed to perfection, especially that ending. Meanwhile in season 8 of Game of Thrones was like punch me in the face, what the fuck was that. I mean, the cast did the best they could with whatever the fuck that was, and hats off, of course, to the crew. But come on with that writing. I mean plot wise, it could have moved so much better. They had an adequate, acceptable, dare I say, even good (at times) plot. What the ever loving fuck was the writing though.

I got to get over this.

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mswyrr · 5 years ago

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One more Rey/Reylo meta post

Part of my resentment over the anti thing was feeling for so long (though not as long as people who got the worst of the anti campaign) like I had to actually *hide my thoughts* on a story, like... wtf. But the trailer fits pretty well with how I see Rey’s 3 film arc, so here’s one more meta post from 2018 I was keeping off my main screen name until now:

I really connected with Rey a lot more in TLJ because of the way Rian played Rey Nobody as a strength *and* a sign of deep brokenness. Heroic people are, by their nature, people of extremes, and I like the "balance" involved in someone's great capacity for good also being a great capacity for failure. It's great to have a heroine who has so much difficult stuff going on beneath the surface.

And, yes, TLJ really knocks the stuffing out of the Mary Sue argument! Rey's life is so dark she wishes she were a Mary Sue--the daughter of some long lost, mythical father like Luke who will love her as her own didn't--which is very different than actually being one!

And yet parallels Luke's journey nicely: he finds out he comes from a powerful lineage, but his father is a monster and he has to wrestle with that the rest of his life, the way that legacy infects things (including his terrible moment of fear with Ben); Rey finds out she comes from "nobody" and has to try to create her own meaning for herself. There's always a downside, never a perfect version of finding out you’re the child of the wonderful good king or something. Since Ben's tragedy is linked to that larger Skywalker tragedy, it makes them perfect opposites of each other too.

They're both living two different visions of hell: unbearable heaviness and unbearable lightness, respectively. Ben has been buried under the weight of the past/legacy. It weighs him down so much that it's nearly crushed the light out of him entirely until Rey comes along; it was the reason Snoke targeted him. He's never been free to be himself, only a pale shadow of the past, feared by his family for being too much like Vader and only allowed pride by Snoke in being like Lord Vader. All he wants to do, now that he's discovered he can be free of Snoke because of Rey, is chase after a life like hers and burn it all down. To have the "freedom" that Rey possesses.

But that has been a hell for her: she's so free she floats away from the earth, unable to touch or connect, absolutely free and absolutely abandoned.

She's been sustaining herself with a starvation diet of dreams and quarter portions of food.

She's been lost in the vacuum of space emotionally since she was a small child. The terrible abnegation of the most basic love.

She's had to manufacture some tethers to the ground or she'd have gone stark raving mad a long time ago. At these far ends of the poles of experience, I think that TFA comes at a moment where they both could, if they continue on the path they're walking, be totally blotted out by their situation. Ben's "education" by Snoke is nearing completion as Snoke pushes him harder and harder. Without an intervention he would have broken entirely, the last bit of light extinguished. And Rey looks at the older scavenger woman that might be her future self and sees no way out. The emptiness that awaits her is quieter and less dramatic but no less absolute, wind blowing the sands up over her body until there's nothing left of her.

Not even anyone who cares to remember that she lived.

Rey thought she was seeking her own legacy, but she's actually been "lifting"/sharing burdens from Ben's excess of them: the Skywalker lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon, his parents and Chewie, the journey of having "raw power" and being feared for it, and becoming the Jedi his family wanted him to be. She explicitly says she will succeed where Kylo failed; there's a totally understandable greed in her heart for what he has. She's not just doing all of this out of the kindness of her heart, though she is a heroine and kind. She acquires some of the heaviness she desperately needs and simultaneously lifts some of the weight crushing Ben, sharing some of her light/lightness. And she takes on some of his darkness: digs deeper and finally gets angry at these failed parental figures (she attacked Luke!! lol) instead of being on such a starvation diet of connection that she has to idealize the jerk-offs who sold her for drink money.

It's really not a story of a girl having to go out of her way to do all this work to save a boy; it's far more equal than that.

The stereotype of Rey as a "precious cheerful cinnamon bun," where people are only taking the surface and not seeing it as a sign of her deep damage and saying the only thing she sees in Ben is someone to pity because she's just so kind-hearted, really annoys me!! She wants her prince who's sweet to her, she wants *his family*, she wants to be special and matter and do something important rather than disappear into the sand, she wants connection, she has unexpressed depths of resentment and anger that connecting with him helps her get in touch with and integrate. When people hate on him and dismiss their connection as some kind of anti-feminist insult to her they rip out the darker, more complicated guts of her characterization because Rey and Ben mutually define and interrelate with each other and that's intentional on the part of the writers, whether people like it or not.

All of this is why the force bond presents a unique temptation to her. If she gives into it and joins him she'll never, ever have to feel alone again. It explains how quickly the connection has a powerful effect on her. It's a shot of pure connection after a lifetime without.

It also highlights the courage of her refusal to join him.

It’s only a truly heroic moment if Rey is truly *tempted* in that moment. The pure saintly icon people want to pretend she is... how can she ever be truly heroic, if nothing temps her, if there’s no darkness inside for her to struggle with??

#rey #star wars meta #my meta #reylo #the fact that fandom has become this place #where people will attack you #for having thoughts on media #they don't fit their very narrow definition of Purity #has been needling at me since 2017

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benisasoftboi · 5 years ago

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In Which I Explain The Entirety of Star Wars, Despite Being Very Much Unqualified To Do So

I have only seen one Star Wars movie - it was The Last Jedi. I saw it, with no context, two years ago in theatres when it first came out. I was very surprised to find out that it made a lot of people very angry, because I quite liked it, as did the friends I saw it with. I can’t say I remember much though.

All the rest of my Star Wars knowledge comes from its generally inescapable nature in the pop cultural zeitgeist. I might have seen a bit of Episode 6, which I don’t know the name of, when I was round a friend’s house once, but I was very tired, and it was about a decade ago anyway.

That’s just some context for my lack of qualifications to do this. My friend said I should still do it anyway. I will not be looking anything up as I write this, so all spelling mistakes and other general errors are mine.

So anyway - The Entirety of Star Wars:

Original Trilogy

There is a guy called Luke. He is played by Mark Hamill and he is George Lucas’s self insert. He lives on a planet where there is only sand, because in this universe all planets have only one terrain, I think. He drinks milk. The milk might be blue.

A guy played by Liam Neeson finds Luke. I think this guy’s name is probably Obi Wan Kenobi, but I might have that wrong. At some point he will die tragically and it will be formative for Luke, but then he will also come back as a ghost. Ghosts exist in this universe.

Possibly Luke has known this guy for a long time or possibly he is a stranger, I am not sure. Somehow they end up on a spaceship.

Luke needs to learn how to use magic powers called the Force, which seems to be mostly telekinesis, and also lets him use a really fancy but probably impractical sword called a lightsaber that shoots blue or sometimes green or sometimes red light. This is called Jedi training. Jedi Knight is a religion. You can claim to be one on the census in the real world. They seem to be really serious people despite having a silly name.

Everyone also has guns that go ‘pew pew pew’ and nerds get really mad when you make fun of that.

Luke will meet many colourful and interesting people on his journey. These include:

A woman played by Carrie Fisher who is also his twin sister but he doesn’t know that until after they kiss. Her name is Leia or maybe Laia. She has silly hair. At one point she wears a slave bikini because she’s enslaved to a gelatinous blob because that’s just how it goes when you’re the woman in a 70s sci-fi movie

A guy called Han Solo because he is Edgy and Does Things Solo. He and Leia have a romance and it’s Drama. He also has a spaceship that people will build very impressive lego replicas of. He dresses like a cowboy. I’m 90% that he is played by Harrison Ford

A bunch of walking teddy bears called Ewoks who can kill you and live in a jungle

A guy called Lando Calrissian who I think wears fancy clothes and that’s all I know about him, he might actually be a villain I’m not sure. He might die?

A little blue robot who hid behind some rocks one time and then in the re-release he hid behind more rocks than before and the fans got Mad

A big gold robot who is nervous and gay and might be gay for the little blue robot, like they might be married but that also might be a meme I’m not certain

A weird green goblin thing called Yoda who makes Luke carry him around and speaks in broken English that annoying people have spent the last thirty years imitating. He dies, but then is a ghost so it doesn’t matter really

A guy called Boba Fett who is a bounty hunter. I genuinely have no clue how he fits in to all of this. He might not actually be from Star Wars, maybe I’m mixing him up with something else.

Luke is also trying to fight the Evil Darth Vader who works for an Evil CGI Emperor of the Evil Empire. They live on a big spaceship called the Death Star and it looks like a moon but isn’t and people think it’s funny when you point that out for some reason. They are the Dark Side, which makes them easy to root against because they’re just cartoonishly evil I guess. I think they are also bureaucrats. They have Stormtroopers, who might be brainwashed people or might just be robots, or might even be clones. They all wear identical white armour with helmets so people don’t care when they get shot. Kinda like fencers.

Darth Vader is actually Luke’s father and this is a twist except not anymore. This means he is also Leia’s father, I’m not sure if she knew. Also Luke loses his arm. Darth Vader gets redeemed and then dies but also takes down the Evil CGI Emperor with him.

I don’t know what happens in any of the movies, but I know that the first one ends with them getting plans for or from Leia, not sure, the second one has the dad twist, and the third one has ghosts. Also they blow up the Death Star by shooting a garbage chute really hard.

Prequels

These movies are widely disliked. The first one has too much bureaucracy. They are about Darth Vader’s backstory. He used to be a guy called Anakin. He will Become Evil. He will also meet many colourful characters. They include:

His love interest, who is called Padme. She wears a silly hat and dies of a combination of Childbirth and Sadness. I saw this bit happen one time when I was a kid and I was stuck round my mum’s friend’s house and her son was playing through this part in the LEGO game. It was sad

A guy with a red face whose name might be Maul and has robot legs?

A guy called Jar Jar Binks who everyone seems to simultaneously hate and feel a desperate need to make sex jokes about

Angry Jedi People

Probably some robots

Anakin hates sand and is pretty but grumpy. His hatred of sand is what will prevent him from finding Luke in the original movies. He falls in a volcano and gets turned into a robot man and it’s very dramatic. He has an angry red lightsaber. He murders a bunch of children by executing Order 66. Or maybe that was in the first set of movies I don’t know. I’m not sure how they made three of these movies, there doesn’t seem to be much to them.

Also there is something called ‘mitoclorians’ and I don’t know what they are but they make nerds Very Mad.

Expanded Universe

There was an expanded universe, but Disney said it wasn’t canon when they bought the rights, so now it isn’t. If I were a Star Wars fan, I would not take this lying down, because what right does Disney have to say what’s canon? Why is it up to the copyright holders? They are a corporation, not a writer. Expanded universes are always really fun and full of wacky nonsense that would never get put in the mainline stuff. I don’t like it when people try to dismiss them.

Stand Alone Movies

When the new trilogy started, they also made some stand alone films. They were called Rogue One and Solo. Rogue One is about a woman named Gin or Jinn or Jin or Ginne or - I wish I hadn’t restricted myself to not looking anything up - Urso. The spelling doesn’t matter because she dies. So does everyone else. Then Darth Vader shows up.

Solo is about Han Solo and his friends and they have an adventure and there’s a robot who wants robot rights but she dies so no one has to address the slavery thing. Also apparently it was going to be a comedy but got reshot as a drama. I hope I never watch it because that sounds terrible, even as much as I like Donald Glover who I think is in it probably. I think his character might have been in love with the dead robot.

Sequel Trilogy

These movies are about a girl called Rey. She makes nerds mad by existing and being the protagonist. She is Space British. She is a scavenger and is friends with a really cute little orange robot. Somehow she ends up in space. She starts hanging out with Older Leia’s crew, which include a pilot named Poe Dameron and a guy called Finn, but I don’t know why he’s there. People ship them with each other, and also with Rey.

The other person people ship Rey with is Kylo Ren, who I call Space Zuko because when I saw The Last Jedi, he showed up and I was like ‘oh, it’s Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender but in space’, because he has bad hair and is angry about his Daddy Issues. I hope in the next movie he gets better hair and fewer Daddy Issues like Real Zuko did. A lot of people get really angry about Rey and Space Zuko being shipped together, but they’re still the most popular ship on AO3. So no matter what happens in the next one, nerds are going to be mad about it, and I am not looking forward to it.

Kylo Ren killed his dad, Han Solo, because he was radicalised to be evil for reasons I don’t know. The guy who runs the New Evil Group, which is called the First Order, is an ugly CGI guy called Snoke. It was apparently a Big Twist that Kylo kills him Last Jedi, and it made nerds really mad. I don’t understand why people were surprised, because when I saw the movie, I saw that guy and was like ‘oh he’s gonna get killed by Space Zuko because that would be Drama and also from a production standpoint having a guy who needs lots of special effects is much more difficult than just having Adam Driver wear a scary mask’ and then I was right so maybe I’m smarter than all the nerds.

There is also a guy called Hux and he is a ginger. I think he is evil.

The other thing people got really mad about was that Rey’s parents were not established characters. People wanted her dad to be Luke, I think, who is in Last Jedi. I was happy about this because I like Mark Hamill. He spent the movie teaching her about the force while they hang out on an island with a race of merchandising opportunities called Porgs. He dies at the end but he might be in the next one as a ghost anyway.

Also there was a girl called Rose and people decided that not liking the character meant they could be mean to the actress, which is not true and everyone who was mean to her should be ashamed. There was another woman as well, but I don’t remember her name, she had purple hair and was serious and I have no idea if she was good or evil.

Kylo Ren’s real name is Ben which is not very sci-fi. Maybe that’s why he changed it.

Though come to think, Luke isn’t a very sci-fi name either.

Anyway, that’s everything I know about Star Wars.

Feel free to ask me questions about Star Wars and have me try to answer.

Do not, under any circumstances, try to actually explain Star Wars to me. I’m much happier as is, thank you very much

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nicolemagolan · 5 years ago

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Two Cities, One Galaxy: How Star Wars Connects And Divides Us

Early in 2019, I wrote a personal essay about Star Wars. It centered around SWCC (Star Wars Celebration Chicago) and my experience of watching the live stream in my living room at 4am, when the episode IX teaser and title was unveiled.

It’s about fandom, the internet, and isolation. It’s about how Star Wars impacted my life, and about my relationship with my brother.

It also, eerily, foreshadows the disappointment I would eventually feel about The Rise of Skywalker. So here it is, under the cut. Please give it a read, and let me know your thoughts!

***

My phone blinks 3:30am, April 13th, 2019. In Chicago it’s 10:30am, yesterday. I should be asleep. I should stay present in Auckland, where no one else is awake except the moths gathering on the kitchen window.

My brother is slumped beside me, eyes closed, lost somewhere between sleep and boredom. We sit in the darkness of our living room, outlined by the grey glaze of the television. I’m wearing pyjama pants and yesterday’s T-shirt. An empty bag of chips is screwed up on the carpet, a half-drunk can of Lift Plus sits on the mantelpiece.

I stare at the TV. Waiting. My knee bobs up and down. I glance at my phone, and refresh Twitter. The tweets are coming in a blur: people yelling in caps lock, streaming without punctuation, some of it indecipherable, some of it from me. It’s happening kids / MERRY IXMAS, EVERYONE / I'm trying to remember it's called Star Wars Celebration not Star Wars oh my god I'm so stressed-ebration / I AM READY TO BE EPISODE IXed. The world around me is asleep, but the world under my thumb has never been more alive.

I take another sip of Lift Plus and feel its energy tingle through my bloodstream. Or maybe that sensation is the force.

When I was in class earlier in the day, wearing a Star Wars tee, writing in a Star Wars notebook and drinking from a Star Wars bottle, I was already stewing in anticipation. My mind was in another galaxy; speculation ran through me like shooting stars. My dedication to the Star Wars universe is fuelled not by the incessant marketing or the cheap merchandise, but by the passion I have for stories, space wizards, and the cute-yet-creepy alien bird race known as the Porgs.

Star Wars Celebration Chicago is set to begin livestreaming on YouTube in just a few minutes. A countdown slowly ticks on screen. This will be the first big panel of Celebration, and the one I am most eager to see. The panel is for Star Wars: Episode IX, consisting of a Q&A session with cast members. Our first real, palpable look at the film, at beloved returning characters, and the new additions, to hear from returning Director J.J. Abrams what his vision for IX is.

But the real reason anyone is staying up all night to watch the livestream isn’t to see Abrams dodge spoilery questions. It’s to be amongst the first to witness the Episode IX trailer. The very first teaser trailer. Imagine a choir singing angelic sounds behind that one word and maybe you’ll begin to understand. What I really want is to catch a glimpse of the upcoming film, to learn the title—oh my goodness, the title—along with thousands of far, far away fans; some watching live in the dead of night or crack of dawn. The lucky few are crowded into the panel room itself. I swipe through pixelated and blurry selfies posted with #SWCC. It’s a big auditorium, packed with media, families, and cosplayers, and many are swinging lightsabers above the crowd’s heads. Purple, blue, green, and red beams of light. The stage itself is lit up with a bright blue backdrop.

When I told my parents I was going to camp out in the living room to watch the livestream of Star Wars Celebration, they rolled their eyes. When I asked my brother if he wanted to join me, he cried, ‘Whyyy,’ before revealing his true colours when he showed up on the couch at 2am.

He was all too keen to eat my snacks, but now as time crawls forward, he seems to have come to the conclusion that it is ridiculous to stay up for something you can watch on your phone, from your bed, when you wake up. I have come to the conclusion that he is lying to himself. On the path to the dark side, perhaps.

He’s always joined me on my silly adventures, making fun of me along the way. But the fact that he’s willing to be there is enough, as he is now. Star Wars has been a part of his life as much as mine; we grew up roaring Chewbacca impressions and fighting with cardboard lightsabers; He’d be Darth Maul and I’d be Obi-Wan (so I got to chop him in half every time). Kids would tell me I was a weirdo for liking Star Wars, for playing with Barbies and Darth Vader figurines, blurring the lines between allocated girls’ or boys’ toys. But my brother and I knew: Star Wars is a fun space adventure for whoever wants to enjoy it.

We got older and the movies lost a touch of their magic: the internet revealed the intense hatred shovelled at the prequel trilogy. Little-me had loved the ridiculous Jar Jar Binks, but the middle-aged fans who grew up with the original trilogy saw him as an offence to their childhood obsession. (JUSTICE FOR JAR JAR is the hill I will die on.)

Then Disney bought Lucasfilm and ushered in a new era. I have a series of selfies from midnight premieres—me grinning from ear to ear, my brother with eyes closed and discontented frown (his go-to photo pose)—in the blurry light of the Imax screen on Queen Street. But one glance at his smiling face during the film and you know he loves this galaxy as much as the next fan.

Sometimes that’s the problem: our love for this story is so great and so ingrained, that it can bubble over into endless online debates. Debates become heated, become personal, become hateful. In this era of social media, everyone has a voice, but the ones who spit poison are the loudest. We struggle to find common ground sometimes. But it’s always there, beneath out feet and on our TV screens. We love Star Wars. We love to watch it, re-enact it, dissect it, wear it, read it, and write about it. Whether the common ground we stand on looks like the sands of Tatooine or the lake country of Naboo, it’s all the same galaxy. Even though the galaxy-shattering film The Last Jedi threatened to destroy us, we can find a way to stand together. Because when the fans unite, at movie premieres, or conventions, the fandom can become something worth celebrating.

Like today, right now, 3:59am in my living room.

I look up from my phone. The countdown reaches zero. I hold my breath. A soft echo of music trickles through the speakers, and John Williams’ familiar score wraps around me like a blanket. Goose bumps pop up on my skin.

The Star Wars logo vanishes and the screen cuts to black. I snap up and nudge my sleeping brother’s arm with my toe. He jolts awake, looks at the black screen and scowls.

‘Nothing’s hap—’

He’s cut off by a roaring applause as the blue-lit panel stage lights up the screen. The room around me fades. I’m in Auckland with my brain fuzzy, and I’m transported to Chicago with heart thumping.

My brother jumps up and stands in front of the screen. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.’

I babble, ‘butthepanelisabouttostart,’ craning my neck around his legs.

‘Oh well,’ he says. He walks off.

Stephen Colbert is pacing around the stage, babbling on about Dagobah and S-foils, trying to work the crowd up—unnecessary, since we are all waiting for the cast and crew.

I’m leaning forward, straining my eyes, and wondering if anyone actually finds his ‘jokes’ funny. Twitter tells me, yes, they do. The excitement level is high, making everything fresh and exciting, even if it’s a Star Wars pun heard years ago. I almost feel like I could twist my neck and hear people whispering behind me, instead of tweeting alongside me.

The closest thing to this feeling in my own city is Armageddon Expo, the annual convention at the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane. Nerds I’ve never met become my best friends. We jam the halls like squashed-up skittles. I don’t know their names but I know who they are. When I’m dressed in Rey’s dusty scavenger outfit, with staff in hand and hair bunched in three bobbles, young girls point and giggle. I wave at them, their eyes wide with wonder, and my heart is full.

The internet fandom space is a mix of tweet-before-thinking garbage and fun bite-sized meta. The real-world fandom spaces, such as Armageddon, are a big geeky party; no one hiding behind an anonymous wall, and no one left out.

This livestream is somewhere in between. I am connected online from where I sit in Auckland. Reading tweets and writing tweets and liking gifs. Yet I am in Chicago, oblivious to the sleeping city around me.

Stephen Colbert brings out Director J.J. Abrams and head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, and the content we’re all waiting for finally begins. I take in every detail, every non-answer. I enjoy it. I loathe it. Stephen Colbert asks unanswerable questions, like the fate of Daisy Ridley’s character, or how the relationships develop. No word is uttered more than ‘spoilers’.

The cast members are introduced onto the stage; first is Anthony Daniels who plays C-3PO—one of the remaining few original cast members from 1977. He waves hello to the crowd before looking for the cameras. In his charming British accent, he says, ‘On tweets today people were, all over the world, saying “wish I could be here”. And I know we’re on camera, so I don’t know where the camera is, but whoever is in Australia or…’ He pauses for a flicker of a second, ‘…all the other countries around the planet; I wanna give you a big wave, and you are here in spirit. Okay?’

I grin a little wider. Of course he would mention our neighbour, Australia. So close, and yet so far.

In New Zealand, despite the growing connections through social media, I feel isolated. Even in the vast Auckland city, where I easily get lost in the busy roads and busy people. New Zealand is separate. And that’s part of what makes it special.

But the isolation is also part of what makes being part the Star Wars fandom special.

It’s a larger world. Out there in space; out there in the world wide web. Legendary or anonymous, you can be a part of something. You can tell your story; you can make one up. After movie premieres, there is a sense of privilege and power in that none of my fellow fans in America have yet seen the movie. The Last Jedi came here a few days early, and I knew all the things before anyone else. We were isolated again. And it felt so good.

Did I go and post spoilers? No, because I’m not an asshole (you know who you are). But I told people they’re gonna love it. I told them the film is exciting and unexpected and dabbles deliciously in subtext in a way that’s fresh for Star Wars. I sign off with eagerness for the upcoming dissection and discussion of the film.

The next day I’m shocked to learn that many many many people felt it was a ‘betrayal’ of Star Wars. A disaster of a movie. A cluttered mess of a story, an anti-climactic sequel that instead of building on what came before, tore the past to shreds. My brother is one of them.

And the fandom split in two.

But not today. Not tonight. I refuse, and so does everyone on my Twitter feed, because we’re tired of defending Rey, who is not a Mary Sue; and Vice Admiral Holdo, whose purple hair does not make her a lesser fighter; and Rose Tico, who fell victim to dude-bros saying she’s the worst character ever, she ruined their childhood, and Asians don’t belong in Star Wars; until eventually the actress, Kelly Marie Tran, deleted all her social media.

When Kelly walks onto the panel stage, she gets a standing ovation. There are tears in her eyes, and there are tears in mine.

They introduce the new cast members, and display behind the scenes photos, and babble on about the brilliant practical effects. There’s a touching tribute to Carrie Fisher, an awkward bit about Adam Driver’s chest, and the introduction of new droid D-O. When the duck-inspired droid rolls onto the stage, you can hear cash registers ring.

My brother comes back in the room as the panel is winding up. He flops into the chair and sighs. ‘So, did I miss anything?’

‘You missed everything.’

‘So I didn’t miss anything then,’ he smirks.

Stephen Colbert asks J.J. Abrams if there’s anything he wants to leave with the fans. I lean forward. ‘This is it,’ I screech.

This is it. It boils down to this simple, repeated moment in time: the day, or night, or very-early-morning that a Star Wars trailer is about to debut. I am alone, and yet so very not alone, united in a nerdy passion that doesn’t call for such depth of devotion. But here we all are. Here I am. And here’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (omg).

I switch off the TV. The darkness eats my eyeballs.

‘How am I supposed to sleep after that!?’ I yell. ‘Palpatine. Freaking Pal-pa-tine! NO! YES! Why?!’

Silence.

My brother is asleep.

I throw a pillow at him. ‘DUDE! Palpatine is back!’

He mumbles, ‘Haha, lame.’ His eyes don’t open.

I slide down the couch until I hit the hard floor. The Rise of Skywalker. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I sit there in the lonely living room, and let my thoughts trail off into the dark.

#star wars #writing #my writing #the rise of skywalker #swcc #star wars celebration #star wars essay #personal essay #creative nonfiction #tros #writeblr #sw

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jazon-todd · 5 years ago

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some (mostly negative sorry lol) thoughts

it’s obvious that these movies were made separately with no real plan on where the story should go once they cooked up the idea to start the trilogy back up again.

and I don’t think it’s strictly rian johnson’s fault, this falls squarely on disney for not making this completely avoidable. rian had to try and work with what JJ left him, and JJ had to turn around and try to work with what rian left him. like if you’re going to have different directors, at least use the same writers. they clearly didn’t

It’s like…. way too much happened for one movie, while at the same time nothing actually happened at all. We’re back to the same exact point we were at at the end of return of the jedi, just this time all the skywalkers are dead

the first ten minutes I’m pretty sure actually gave me whiplash. going from a planet to another planet to another planet under 2.5 seconds with maybe 3 sentences of dialogue was migraine-inducing

palpatine looked like a fucking demon out of hell. my dad kept whispering DEW IT under his breath and I was losing it

he’s literally not explained at all, kylo knows he’s there, Rey knows he’s there, the FO and resistance know he’s there… and we’re just supposed to accept it lmao. apparently, he’s been there this whole time but now is when everyone starts to care

palpatine also fucks, apparently

and like I get that this whole movie is about ~hope~ or whatever but it’s honestly just like this man railing a family for 3 generations and they all die before they’re free of him lmao

I really hate how luke and leia both knew rey was a palpatine all this time and still treated her like family anyway when they sent their on child and nephew away because he was “too much like vader” like what

the asian was shit all over once again, I literally do not trust white men with us but whatever

fight scenes were cool but way too quick, better than any we’ve had before in this trilogy. nothing has yet to touch duel of the fates or battle of the heroes though, rip r*ylo but obi wan, anakin, darth maul and qui gon are different

pacing was v weird

I’m really annoyed with how rey snapped at finn when all he wanted was to help her and didn’t tell him who she really was or what she was going through. they made her isolate herself from her friends and it was really ugly

they tried shoving what should have been three full-length movies into one

I guess JJ saying “we explain finn’s background and his family!!!” is just him meeting jannah and being like “oh we’re both ex stormtroopers? cool!” like ok, I was expecting actual backstory but okay

Not sure how rey and ben BOTH somehow got the power to heal someone

oh hey han

PACING WAS SO FUCKING WEIRD

this movie was clearly trying to do a lot of over-corrections from the last jedi instead of… letting it be. which just goes to show that disney shot itself in its trillion dollar foot because they for some reason tried going into a trilogy with different directors and writers for every movie

great to see the knights of ren doing jack shit except get killed after 5 minutes total of screen time, literally what was the point of any of that. they sucked at their job

again, palpatine was great. didn’t know if we needed him for another trilogy, though. felt like we were beating a dead horse at this point. like, rey or kylo could have walked over and pulled the life support and he’d die in like a second

you could tell the last act was supposed to be emotional, but it moved so fast nothing resonated

palpatine is just fucking stupid, like just stop shooting the lightning and he would have won, but whatever

no offense to kylo but idk how the weakest skywalker (she says subjectively) got the power to literally resurrect someone when anakin couldn’t even do it but I digress. it’s clearly that ~our true love can save us~ trope

also speaking of anakin wasn’t ANYWHERE in this movie other than a quiet sentence even though he’s still the fucking chosen one, 0/10 automatically

like they had him say “bring back the balance as I have” LIKE OK IF THE BALANCE WAS TRULY BACK WHY IS THIS EVIL MAN STILL ALIVE HELLO I truly think the worst part of the trilogy is making anakin fail at what he was supposed to do

nice to know finn is force-sensitive FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE THE MOVIE ENDS AND WE NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN

actually cried like a little BITCH when ben saw that rey was dead and was holding her body I gtg

the reylo kiss was cute I guess, rey looked really happy

like I always knew and said he would die……… but I felt like he deserved to live after what he did. idk tho. his death didn’t sit well with me the way vader’s, or luke’s, or leia’s did.

PACING WAS SO FUCKINGGGGGG WEIRDDDDDDD like when ben died and rey was looking down at him my theater was all upset and then it just switched right to everyone celebrating rather than rey mourning for like more than a second and everyone was literally like wait what

didn’t really like the ending all that much but rey also never really did much for me, so sorry rey stans

I still can’t believe she buried anakin’s lightsaber, the man who hates sand more than anything else in the entire world, on the planet he was enslaved on. like, I’m so lost on why these little details were just forgotten about.

not sure how I feel about rey taking on the skywalker name, like on the surface it’s pretty cool because it’s becoming more of a group name (like the new “jedi” title), but I also don’t like how much they were talking about how anyone can be powerful no matter where you come from, just to turn around and make her both a palpatine and a skywalker anyway. idk, more on that later

also not sure how I feel about her starting and ending the trilogy alone lmao but she clearly found her place (even though she’s literally fucking alone) so I guess it works out

liked her saber but idk the mechanisms behind it bc I thought they needed a certain metal to contain the kyber crystal, but that would actually require jj to refer to source material and we know he doesn’t look past the movies so

idk I’m feeling pretty cynical bc endgame sucked ass and GOT sucked ass and so I guess star wars had to suck ass to complete the shitty conclusion trifecta

all in all, it’s a decent movie, I guess, the more I sit on it. there’s not that many issues I have even though above may seem like a lot, but….

as much as I love finn and rose and poe and what they have given me over the years……. disney should have left star wars be in regards to the trilogy. literally nothing is different from the return of the jedi to now, just that all the skywalkers are now dead and anakin/darth vader died for literally no reason but whatever

#tros spoilers #star wars spoilers #star wars

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vintageseawitch · 5 years ago

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I'd like to thank JJ Abrams

For destroying the happiness Star Wars used to give me. A part of me died when TROS ended and the one truly spectacular character never got a chance to heal from his history of abuse, neglect, loneliness, and despair. He got chance to feel true happiness for a mere handful of seconds... and then you FUCKING KILLED HIM.

Rey calling herself a Skywalker? That makes no fucking sense. Her going back to Tatooine to bury "I don't like sand" Anakin's and Leia "she actually never fucking lived there let alone knew of its existence" Organa's lightsabers in the sand and then looking out towards the double suns a la Luke? That is complete and utter nonsense, pandering to fanboys who will never believe Luke is anything less than perfect.

Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter? God-fucking-damnit, JJ, I was ALL about the narrative that you don't NEED to have someone's blood in your veins in order to have potential! ANYONE can be powerful. ANYONE can be the hero, no matter your background. That was the vibe I got from the first two movies in this fucking trilogy that I like the clown I am have been defending for fucking years, and you fucking destroyed this!!!! Not to mention, it completely annihilates Anakin's story - what's the fucking point of it now when the "actual Chosen One" wasn't actually the fucking Chosen One??? How the FUCK did Palpatine come back??? Fuck, I'm all about enjoying the campy silliness and occasional continuity error in any Star Wars film, but this is fucking too far. Any sacrifices made on Anakin's behalf and eventually Luke's as he was trying to save Darth Vader was for FUCKING. NOTHING.

STILL NO MENTION OF THE PREQUEL TRILOGY, almost like... further pandering to fanboys who glorify and worship the Original Trilogy and regard it in a way like it's a Mary Sue (but they would NEVER say that about those films. It's not a Mary Sue while it totally is but don't SAY IT). NOTHING is wrong whatsoever in those films. They're above reproach, they do EVERYTHING right, the beginning, middle, and end are perfect, there's no errors at all - I mean, or else their perfect eyes would have caught this. As far as they're concerned, the Original Trilogy is the only one that exists that is allowed to exist. Any future installments are just pale carbon copies and only deserve hatred and scorn. Any future installments have no possibility of being perfect, because the Original Trilogy is the only one that will ever BE perfect. THAT'S how fucking ridiculous these "true fans" sound, and these are the ones whose vitriol is the loudest, AND YOU FUCKING GAVE IN TO THEM. They don't like the new characters, so now you managed to fit them nicely into cliché boxes - like Poe and Finn creating a new Han - made them into glorified cameos despite the importance they played in at least one previous film - like Rose Tico - and completely disregarded how their characters behaved because HOW DARE THEY BE LESS THAN PERFECT - like Luke Skywalker. They don't like the sequel trilogy at all, SO YOU FUCKING DESTROYED YOUR OWN FUCKING NARRATIVE FOR NOSTALGIC "REASONS".

Why do people dislike Kylo Ren/Ben Solo so much? The only "reasons" I can come up with are: he killed Han Solo, and he's far too emotional for a man, let alone one who's "supposed to be" the new villain. Han and Leia STILL did nothing wrong I guess. His turnout is only his fault. They don't dare believe their precious parts of the original trio of BFF's have taken part in yet another tragedy in the Skywalker family: that Han and Leia didn't understand and in the end outright feared him, and so they didn't try to help. Ben has only ever felt alone. He was soft and quiet and intelligent and he had a storm brewing within him that wasn't his fault... bUT HE KILLED HAN ANYWAYS SO HIS TRAGIC PAST IS IRRELEVANT. These fanboys didn't care about his struggles, and they don't bother to see that yes, he is not a Darth Vader 2.0 no matter how much Ben wanted to be and how Disney has tried to sell him, because he NEVER will be a new Vader. Ben was only trying to gain approval from someone he thought cares for him, or at the least the one who made a show that he did, which was his abuser Snoke. But fanboys don't want to see this, or don't view it as a serious enough reason why Kylo is the way he is. AND YOU FUCKING PANDERED TO THEM AGAIN.

As far as I'm concerned, the poisonous opinions these "true fans" have expressed are just even more hatred added to a real world that is already full of it. Hate wins too often. Hate is the powerful force here. Hate and evil get away with shit, and those who are good and kind and fighting for those who are good and kind are only getting shit on. I reach out to fiction to escape this real world hate, and you only let hate win there, as well. Star Wars is forever tainted by your hate-winning film. I will never forgive you, or Disney Lucas Films, ever again. Odds are, I dare not approach future film installments, because I will only grow attached to probably main characters that fanboys will once again hate because it's not the Original Trilogy, and in which you will probably kill off because fuck hope, redemption, and happily ever after. I can't even begin to try going to fanfiction to fix this hole. Star Wars has taken over a huge chunk of my heart and soul and has helped me escape from the horrors and sadness of real life, and you RUINED THIS FOR ME. My heart is irreparably broken and will never be the same. I'll heal eventually, but the scar will be ugly and ridged.

Fuck you, JJ Abrams. Fuck you, Disney/LucasFilms. Fuck you, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. As far as I'm concerned, Star Wars has been corrupted by this ending.

Disclaimer: the cast and crew of TROS are NOT included in this rant. They worked hard with the materials and time that were given to them. Adam Driver is incredible and I'm so happy we had him for these films, especially at the end before his tragic and completely unnecessary death. Fuck, they were SUPPOSED to be a dyad!! They're Force-Soulmates!! Damnit, fuck you, JJ.

I knew I wasn't going to be the same person after this film. I just didn't realize it was a more heartbroken, cynical version of me. I don't feel any hope after the shitty ending. My heart will be screaming for a loooooong time.

#anti the rise of skywalker #i hate the rise of skywalker #sw spoilers #adam driver #kylo x rey #kylo ren x rey #i will never forgive them #i will never forgive jj #fuck you disney lucasfilms #fuck you jj #incoherent story telling at its finest #heaetbroken and pissed off #ben solo was saved but at what fucking cost #devastated screaming

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mysterious-prophetess · 5 years ago

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Anakin vs Danaerys: Why one Fall isn’t as hated as the other.

Though it has been weeks since that finale aired, I think we can all agree that this is a topic people are not going to just stop talking about anytime soon. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon and then it fizzled out like a firework that plunged into water too soon. In watching others’ reactions, I saw that some people compared Danaerys Targaryen’s rapid fall to Anakin Skywalker’s Fall in Star Wars and even I’d thought “even Anakin had more time to go nuts than her.” That got me to thinking whenever it was brought up that Anakin had a nonsensical Fall too but it made more sense in context as to why that was.

The prequel trilogy was not as bad as some might say it is. At least, I don’t think it’s bad 100%. I was a kid/teen whenever they came out and I enjoyed them. Looking back I like them in this ranking: 3, 1, and 2. It’s funny that I like the third film, the one with the aforementioned Fall more than the others but to me it was the one that finally had its stuff together as far as the prequels were concerned. Yet, the reason Anakin’s fall is more believable in three versus Danerys’s 3-4 episode “fall” is we already knew he was going to become Darth Vader. To those who say “you should show it 1,2,3,4,5,6” this is why you shouldn’t. Otherwise the Fall is more abrupt, but still there. Because it starts with the former black sheep of the franchise Episode 2. So, with all that considered, Danerys and Anakin have the same amount of screen time to fall, but why is his more acceptable even without know he was always doomed? Let’s look at what Anakin did in these two movies.

Anakin Skywalker is both not a complex character and yet very much a complex of a character. We start Episode 2 with Anakin as a padawn and he was your typical whiny teen who thinks he’s more grown up than he is (nineteen is still a teenager). He also has an almost obsessive love for Padme whom he hasn’t seen in ten years. He then explores this love despite the fact the religion/group he is a member of strictly prohibits forming major attachments like this. He is granted visions of his mother dying and when he finds her dead after being tortured by the local aliens who hate/torment the human settlers, he slaughters their whole village and not just their able bodied warriors who would be mostly responsible for this act of cruelty. He admits this to Padme. They go rescue Obi-Wan, they end up captured. He nearly derails a pursuit to save Padme when she doesn’t need saving. He acts like a teenager and gets dismembered for it. He then ends the movie getting secretly married. Basically, Anakin is a walking talking cluster of red-flags. It’s an instance where foreshadowing and character development are walking side-by-side for the most part. When Anakin Falls in Episode 3, he’s been through a war for the past three years. War changes people and not for the better. He’s also buddy-buddy with a Sith Lord who may or may not be screwing with his head using the Dark Side as well as encouraging Anakin’s worst aspects of himself: pride, impulsiveness, obsession. Palpatine also used other tactics to make himself seem like a safe stable support when he was a trap. In short, Palpatine master manipulator was setting Anakin’s Fall up. When Anakin goes full Vader and marches on the Jedi Temple, it’s shocking but not because we’ve already seen him go and massacre a Tuscan Raider village a movie prior. We know he’s capable of it already, therefore now that he’s murdering those who look to him for security, is horrifying but it’s actually well within his character. Even his force-choke of the woman he’s ostensibly done all this for isn’t too far beyond what we know he’s capable of now that Anakin is Vader. It doesn’t feel too rushed, and it doesn’t feel like it’s out of nowhere for shock value because everyone knew it was coming. Even without having seen the Original Trilogy first, Anakin murdering those Sand People is still enough of a moment to know he’s not going to stay good.

Now, let’s take a look at Danaerys Targaryen. Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, yadda-yadda. Since this is the show we’re looking at the books will not be included in this discussion. So, why does her heel turn make no sense but Anakin’s does, you might ask. Let’s go back to the fact Anakin was a pile of red flags whereas Danaerys, until this season, was not. She might have had a flag here or there but she wasn’t on the whole a pile of them. She still pursued an idealists vision of things, but could be selfish. Her descent into madness because “no one wuved her as much as Jon and then Jon wouldn’t act on their love because incest and she felt isolated” is both sexist and stupid. Her lack of foresight to scout ahead because she somehow “forgot” about enemies is illogical and plot convenient that her dragon gets killed to drive her mad. Cersei beheading Missandei is within Cersei’s character but beyond that it was a waste of a character’s death and let’s not even go into the other issues surrounding the only major WoC character being treated as fuel to a “madness” fire. Finally, her decision to burn down the whole city was so poorly defended and so much of a heel turn that no amount of “foreshadowing” can excuse her sudden desire for wanton murder. She burnt enemies last season—in battle. She executed people via dragon—when they wouldn’t submit and she’d given them a chance and it was war. She was distressed when the dragons killed people and locked them up in Mereen. She risked everything to fight the Night King and his undead horde. Yet, all that was so easily undone because a lack of love? No. Doesn’t work. If Danaerys was so unstable then she’d have immediately attacked Kingslanding the moment she got everyone ready to go after resting on Dragonstone. She’d have told Jon to bend the knee or else go away and not helped him if she was Mad Queen material the whole time. Basically, you can’t have an idealist character go in that time from slightly problematic to full blown Mad Queen. Danaerys had the elements to become like that but her actions on the show never fully went far enough to make her out of nowhere decision to burn it all. Which is why it’s not as accepted a heel turn as Anakin’s. Because the work wasn’t done properly for her to turn like that in a show like Game of Thrones where the characters used to be fully fleshed out creations. I actually don’t care if that’s what Martin intends to do with Danaerys in the books, because he takes time to get characters to where they will eventually go and it makes sense every step of the way. This was a rushed chop job of a character angle versus the nice curve of an arc and no amount of “well, actually, it was foreshadowed” will excuse the sloppy execution.

Say what you will about the Prequel trilogy but their whole purpose was to set up the Empire and Darth Vader and they accomplished that. Game of Thrones on the other hand lost sight of anything and everything it was possibly moving towards and became War Bad. Power Mad People Bad. Oligarchy Good Enough. Stories Good. It all ends up being empty when it’s rushed. Here’s hoping Benioff and Weiss don’t fuck up any character arcs with their new cash cow Star Wars like they did with Game of Thrones but since the most recent Star Wars film-to me- was a meh, the bar for not screwing things up is low.

#game of thrones #game of salt #essay #star wars #anakin skywalker #danaerys targaryen #that's right to me Last Jedi is a ''meh'' and will remain so unless you start to harass me for it and then I'll hate it out of spite

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