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#how did we go from 'damn lando will probably get told off for doing this' to 'YES HE HAS SEX GET OVER IT'
landoscar · 4 years
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sigh
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danielxricciardo · 3 years
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Can you do one with Dani? Maybe with 56&58 from angst prompts, like they have a kid from a fling but aren’t dating/together
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Summary: You have a daughter with Daniel from a one-night stand.
Warnings: angst, fluff, swearing
Word count: 1.7k
56. “I was alone with my baby. My own thoughts terrified me. And you never bothered to call.”
58. “I keep trying to be a better mother, even when everything I do seems to backfire.”
You can boast that up until the age of 22 you were a model person.
You were the perfect daughter: you were home every holiday or birthday, you never argued with your parents and you made sure to call them every day since you moved out of their home.
You were the perfect older sister: you gave your younger siblings money without your parents' knowledge, you helped them when they asked for your help, and you tried to give them advice when they needed it.
You were the perfect friend: when your friends called you that they needed a shoulder to cry on, you were right next to them with a box of ice cream.
You were the perfect employee: you always got to work earlier, you stayed after-hours to finish all your work and to help others and you did your job perfectly.
But now you're 24 and everything is fucked up.
You moved in with your parents again and you no longer have that perfect relationship with them. You resigned from your job and from all the gang of friends you had, you were left with only one friend: Emilia.
Why?
Because now you had a daughter, resulting from a one-night stand.
You were a single mother who relied on the help and support of those around her.
Given that there was nothing more than a one-night stand between you and Kiera's father on your birthday night, you didn't know if it would be appropriate to post him on Instagram and say, 'Hey, 'sup, I don't know if you remember me, you drank a lot of whiskey that night, but we fucked and now you have a baby. Congratulations!' What kind of psychopath does that?
Not to mention that he is a public figure, of course, he wouldn't believe you and say you're just a money-obsessed girl; that if he saw the message on Instagram, obviously.
But it was going to be your daughter's second birthday and you were starting to get remorseful. Sure, you accepted your life as a single mother and you knew you wouldn't have a happy ending like in the princess books you read to Kiara, but it wasn't right for your daughter. She needs a father in her life. And it wasn't fair for Daniel not to know he had a daughter. Of course, you can only tell him and it is up to him to choose what to do with this information: whether he wants to be part of Kiara's life or not. At least you would have tried.
That weekend was going to be the Grand Prix of Great Britain and you didn't do much flying there, and, anyway, you could stay with your cousin you haven't seen in about 5 years.
Although your daughter's father was a well-known Formula 1 driver, you have never been to a race, and you were amazed by the very high prices for a ticket with access to the paddock.
You had a choice of which day to go and tell Daniel, probably, the news of his life.
You were sure you didn't want to tell him on Sunday. Before the race? Maybe he had an accident and he would have hurt himself. So no.
Saturday? Before qualifying? If you had told him then he would have gone to qualifications, he would not have focused and he would have come out on a low position. So no.
So you decided on Friday.
You left your cousin's house in the morning for the circuit where the race took place. You passed security without a problem with Kiara. You could walk through the paddock without any problems looking for your baby's father.
You knew that the best chance of finding Daniel was to go to McLaren Hospitality. On the way there, everyone you met stopped to look at Kaira, wondering how beautiful she was. You thanked them and prayed that they would not realize that she was Daniel's daughter, considering that she was almost identical to him; you could take her curly hair and smile as a positive result of the paternity test.
"What a beautiful baby!" you hear a girl standing in front of Red Bull Racing with Max Verstappen, and you immediately realize it's Kelly Piquet; good thing you documented yourself before you came.
You see her come and lean over the stroller.
"Oh my God, what beautiful eyes she has! What's her name?"
"Kiara," you answer and you look panicked as Max comes towards you.
"Look, Max! Isn't she a beautiful girl?"
Max smiles. "Yes, she is."
"What is such a small child doing here? She's going to hear very loud noises."
Damn it. What would you answer now?
"We came to walk around and meet some drivers," you answer as convincingly as you can. "It's never too early to start, right?" you giggle.
The two laughed, apparently they believed you.
But you immediately felt your legs soften and you saw Daniel walking with his teammate. You bit your lip and held on to the stroller better. All the courage left you and you wanted to leave.
"A baby!" Lando gasps and comes towards you.
Wonderful! Everyone behaved as if they had never seen a baby in their life, pathetic.
Daniel came after him, looking at you strangely. Did he recognize you? He also looks at Kiera and smiles.
You could've died there. You wanted to cry and you couldn't take your eyes off Daniel.
The next thing you saw was black.
You woke up lying on a bed, someone was holding a cold water pad on your forehead. And your head hurt a hell of a lot.
"Hey, are you okay?" Lando, who was next to you asks.
"Mhm, my head hurts."
"Oh, yes, you hit yourself a little when you fainted but a doctor came and consulted you while you were still unconscious and said you were fine. Can I get you something?"
"Just water."
"Coming right now," he says and gets up from next to you, leaving the room.
Kiera! Where was she? You get out of bed immediately, even though it made your head spin and you felt like throwing up.
"Hey, hey, hey, calm down!" Daniel says and gets up from his chair with Kiera in his arms.
You look at Kiera and breathe a sigh of relief.
"You seem so familiar to me," says Daniel and you want to faint again. "What's your name?"
"Y/N."
He seemed to be thinking. He didn't know how he knew you and you were afraid to tell him anything now.
"Wait! Spain, 2 years ago! It was like your birthday and we did shots together, right?"
Fuck. He remembered.
"Yes."
Daniel was smiling. Did he only remember the shots in the club?
"About that night..." you say and catch Daniel's attention. You signal to Kiera who is playing with some keys in Daniel's arms.
Daniel looked at the little girl and it was as if you could see the wheels spinning in his head.
"Wait a minute..."
"I brought you water, do you feel bet-"
"Go away!" Daniel shouts at Lando. Lando gets scared and gives you your water bottle then leaves. "What were you saying?"
You bite your lip.
"Kiera is your daughter."
"Dada!"
Daniel was speechless. His eyes were wide and they seemed to be coming out of their sockets and he was looking at Kiera. You didn't know how to interpret his reaction.
"Are you serious?"
"I don't know why you think I'm kidding."
"Are you sure I'm the father?"
You snort and get out of bed, you go to him and take Kiera out of his arms.
"What do you think? That I go to different wealthy men and tell them that they have a baby with me to give me money? I came to tell you because I thought Kiera would do well to have a father in her life. But I see that her father is not interested at all. You haven't even called me in all these years."
Daniel frowns and looks at you.
"What are you talking about?"
"The next morning I woke up before you and left my phone number on a note. I left it on your nightstand."
All the color was drained from his face.
"I didn't see the note."
You snort again.
“I realize it was a bad idea. I was alone with my baby. My own thoughts terrified me. And you never bothered to call.” you say and a few tears run down your face.
"Hey, hey, hey! You don't get to cry! I found out I lost the first few years of her life! You should have come earlier to tell me! You could come here, I don't know, you could contact me on Facebook, Instagram!"
"Yeah, sure! You doubted me now, if you'd have woken up with a message from me on Instagram you would have believed me immediately!"
"I believe you now," he says and puts a hand on your shoulder. "Please, I want to know more about her life. Can you stay?"
You looked at him with tears in your eyes. Is this really happening?
You both sat on the bed and Daniel took his daughter in his arms.
"Her full name is Kiera Hazel. In two weeks she'll be 2 years old." you start saying it with a big smile on your face. "Her first word was 'dada'."
Daniel laughs and looks at her.
"Was it hard to raise her alone so far?"
“I keep trying to be a better mother, even when everything I do seems to backfire. I had to resign from work because I couldn't divide my time between work and her, I moved back with my parents... All my friends left me, so yes, it's been pretty hard. But it's worth it when I see her smile.”
"I'm sorry you had to go through this alone. If you allow me, I want to be in her life. I want to help you."
"That will be great, actually," you smile.
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imagine-a-f1girl · 3 years
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Just watched eifel gp
And I had a lot off thoughts :)
- I thought first thought Grosjean wasn’t in his happy place when he complained about his hand 😣 but P9 he was in his happy place 🤩
- “Stop talking! I’m racing!” Ladies and gentleman we got a Lando with attitude today. 🤣
-The dutch commentator called Vettel Sebbie when he spun and I laughed way harder then I should have
From lap 12 on it got interesting
- Lewis proved once again how good of a racedriver he is when he immediately punished Bottas for his mistake
- Kimi..kimi..kimi.. I know he locked up but damn it, anyone but George 😭😭
- I really hoped George would make it through that lap with his puncture...
- “They race me so hard” Alex honey, this is F1, it’s what they do 🤨
- Major mistake from Alex by cutting off Kvyat, probably would have gotten a penalty if he hadn’t have to retire.
- Horner said holes in Albon’s radiator were the reason they had to retire him.
- Charles going for plan C... I think that’s the first time the Ferrari strategists had a plan this year
- Lando giving more attitude... He did everything he could but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.
Like father, like son Lando found a chair
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- Olav described the Race director as the first guy on the screen with hair 😂
- Ricciardo was awake during the restart, great to see how he battled Max
- Vettel and Magnussen good fight in the 55th lap. But Seb really was like F you, I’m a four time world champion remember
- Max killed that last lap!!
-Nico killed it this race!
- Told my friend I wanted a maxiel podium before the race and I’m very pleased with what we got :)
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- No wet race but great anyway!
- Can we get the Nürburgring next year again??
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galaxy-of-stories · 4 years
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Fueled By Fire Modern AU (Firefighter! Poe Dameron x Reader) Part 15
A/N: ALMOST THE END GUYS. I AIN’T READY... 
Warnings: Swearing, Mention of PTSD (anxiety side of it), Wildfire, Angst? 
Word Count: 4,441 (MY BAD) 
GIF is not mine!! (Not the one I wanted, but it will have to do)
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Thursday morning, the two of you are up by four. You nervously help him finish packing, grabbing the few things from the bathroom that he was prone to forget, handing them to him and letting him put them in his bag. 
BB positions herself on top of the zipped bag when Poe moves to change, flicking her tail and looking between the two of you. Poe scoops her up, running the hand that isn’t supporting her through her fur, leaning his head down to let her bump her head against his chin.  
You pick up your phone, checking the time and realizing that you only have forty-five minutes left with your husband until you have to take him to the station. There’s a silence in the house as you have a quick breakfast together, sitting side by side on the couch as close as possible and avoiding reality until there’s no putting it off anymore. You wait until his bag (well, two. Fire and duffle) is in the car before getting in yourself, turning the radio down to a low hum to provide background noise for the drive. 
His hand is clutched in yours the entire way to the Fire Department, daylight just beginning to make its appearance across the eastern sky. There’s no cars on the road, which he’s more than grateful for because you are able to keep glancing over at him, your soft gaze just what he needs in the moment. 
No matter how many times he had memorized the details of you, he always did it over before he had to leave. Every single time. Just in case it was the last. Because if something happened to him on a call, he wanted you to be the last thing he saw in his mind. Of course, Poe would never tell you this. It would only worry you more, and it had taken every fiber of his being to convince you that he was going to be okay on this particular trip. 
But in truth, he didn’t know what this was going to entail. His “wildfire” experience wasn’t a full-fledged wildfire. Not one like they were heading for. 
As soon as the car is in park at the station, your arms are around him, which proves uncomfortable now thanks to your bump, but you don’t let go, holding Poe in a tight embrace until you can no longer stand the strain on your back. 
“Sweetheart we still have to get my bags out. I’m not gone yet.” 
“Damn right. I better get an actual goodbye.” You sigh, wiping a tear that managed to slip down your cheek before reaching for the door handle. 
Poe is already out of his side of the car, opening the back and grabbing the black bag, now covered in BB’s orange and white fur. You follow him up to the garage, watching as he sets the bag down with the others before going back to get his Fire bag. A few chattering voices permeate the silence, growing closer at the sound of a door closing, and suddenly Jessika, Snap, and Captain Calrissian are standing next to the shiny engine right in front of you.
“Morning, Y/N! It’s nice to see you again!” Calrissian calls, moving to stand next to you, followed by Snap, who’s chugging a cup of coffee. 
“Snap that is incredibly rude.” 
“Huh?” 
“The coffee?” You scoff, feeling Poe’s arm snake around your waist. 
“Run, buddy. She can’t have caffeine.” Poe explains, and Snap nods, stepping away to finish the cup. 
“Listen, I just need all of you to keep my husband safe and return him to me in one piece. Please.” 
“Of course, Y/N. That’s the plan.” Lando reassures you, laying a hand on your shoulder as the sound of someone huffing fills your right ear. You turn to find Karé approaching Snap, waving a phone charger at him as he tosses the styrofoam cup he’s holding in the trash can. 
“You were about to leave without this. And if you still want to have a wife when you get back, I would suggest keeping that phone charged.” She states, pressing the cord into his outstretched hand. 
You watch alongside her as the firefighters put their gear away, watching the way your husbands interact with their coworkers, bantering back and forth over the smallest things. But it’s when Captain Calrissian announces that they’ll be leaving in 5 minutes that you nearly go into panic mode, practically rushing Poe and engulfing him in an almost bone-crushing hug. 
“I need you back. Soon. Safe and sound.” You warn, his hand rubbing soothingly over your back. 
“I know. I’m going to be okay.” He promises, pressing his lips to your neck and letting you have your moment. 
“I love you. I’ll talk to you tonight?” 
“Hopefully, sweetheart. And you know I love you too.” 
You reluctantly release him from your arms, and he takes a step back from you, joining the others by the rig. Karé stands next to you, watching as they all climb into the engines, leaving the station with small waves out the windows. 
And you’re hoping that it isn’t the last time that you watch him leave. 
-
The fire camp is rather crowded, a makeshift cluster of closed-in tents full of exhausted-looking firefighters. There’s a few with oxygen masks on, some shuffling around a table, accepting plates of food from a line of volunteers. And all of them turn to look at the newcomers when they enter, watching through weary eyes as the group of them are introduced. 
Poe can’t help but sweep the room, gauging the reaction of the crews that would be their team for the coming days. A radio cast on the way in had given the news of a firefighter’s death, which he prayed to any and every being in the universe that you didn’t hear, and the fallen seems to have come from one of the departments sitting at one of the tables. A spool of black ribbon was being unwound already, scissors being passed along as each of them cut a length to wrap around the department badges on their uniforms. 
Poe’s first shift is to work the triage area for incoming victims, switching out with a woman who looked as if she was going to fall asleep on her feet. And in truth, she probably was. The people working the front line of the fire had been waiting for help to come in for longer than they should have, and the first few backup crews had arrived only mere days before. 
His first patient is a man who fell down a hill trying to clear debris from around his house, which is what Snap and Jessika and the rest of the crew were out doing at the moment. Creating a defensible space in hopes of preventing the wildfire from igniting the area around those homes. It was what all of them would be doing the following day, helping to evacuate and prepare the area for the upcoming terror.  
The residents coming in for treatment, some having to be escorted by medics, all have the same look of fear in their eyes. Outside, the air was filled with smoke and the blue of the sky had been replaced with an apocalyptic orange, but inside the sealed camp, Poe hoped that they could feel safe for at least a few minutes.   By the time night falls and the crew returns, Poe is anxious to hear what it’s been like, which they offer a little too readily. 
“It’s going to take all day to get that stuff out of there, and I’m worried we aren’t going to have the time.” Snap bluntly states, his voice dipping a little as a group of firefighters pass, their uniforms emblazoned with the town’s name. 
“The fire is still heading away from here, right? I mean it would take more than a day to pack up this camp, I think.” A firefighter from the next table over chips in. 
“Right now, yes. The winds haven’t changed.” 
“That’s a relief.” She sighs, twisting the cap off of a water bottle and chugging the entire thing in a few gulps. 
Poe blinks at this, remembering for the first time in a few hours that he hasn’t drank anything other than the small can of soda with his meal. He shifts his chair back, going to get a bottle of water, only to find one plunked down on the table in front of him, courtesy of Jessika. 
“I know that look. I promised your wives I’d look after you.” Jess shrugs, gesturing to the bottle she’s dropped in front of Snap as well, who shakes his head in disbelief. 
“I knew Karé had to be behind this.” 
-
Snap had been entirely correct the night before. There were three different departments covering the connecting neighborhoods, and only half of each had been cleared by the time the winds shifted around ten o’clock. 
They had been up well before dawn, again, working through the dawn to evacuate any remaining families and clear debris in an effort to save the homes. There had been several challenges, including an elderly couple who lived in one of the oldest homes in the area, which was made entirely of wood framing and logs. It took much convincing, but they were finally talked out of leaving their home with many emotions shared between everyone. Poe could only imagine their heartbreak, having called the house home for so long only to have to abandon it at a moment’s notice. 
Nature could be so cruel.
A few kids were crying, which definitely wasn’t helping with Poe’s sense of guilt over leaving you by yourself at eight months pregnant. 
Which, in truth, you weren’t alone. You had so many friends around if you needed them, a fact that made Poe slightly less nervous. In fact, you told him the night before that you had thought about having Karé come over tonight, which was something he was all for. Not just because she was a doctor, but also because you needed a distraction from him not being home to keep yourself from stressing out. 
“Hey Snap, did Karé mention anything about staying at my house tonight?” Poe jokes, tossing a shovelful of dry leaves into a bag, catching the slight eye roll his friend gives at the question. 
“She may have mentioned it.” 
“I wonder what they talk about when we’re gone.” 
“You two do NOT want to know. Seriously, now get your asses in gear we’ve still got three more blocks to cover before lunch.” Jessika shouts across the street, pointing to where the rest of the firefighters were beginning to move down into the neighborhood. 
But there’s a sudden ember drifting down in front of Poe, dropping onto the rather dry grass and igniting a small flame. 
Without even thinking, he moves to extinguish it, only to find there’s another to replace the one he just put out. Snap is having the same issue, and the shouts coming from down the street tell the story that none of them wanted to come true. 
Jess reappears, a slight look of panic in her eyes as she steps in front of Poe, who is putting out another small fire. 
“Fire’s at the end of the neighborhood. We’ve got to-” 
“PLEASE, HELP.” 
There’s no hesitation when the three of them run toward the shout, coming from the house next to where the elderly couple had been evacuated only an hour earlier. It’s the woman, clutching a bag to her chest, watching as the house across the street slowly is consumed in flames. 
“Ma’am why did you come back? You have to get out of here. It’s not safe.” 
“My husband’s medicine. We forgot it this morning, and he needs it. I’m sorry, I just-” She stammers, but Poe holds his hands up to quiet her. 
“It’s alright. Let’s just get you out of here.” 
The woman nods, tightening her grip around the bag as Poe hooks an arm over her shoulder, pulling her towards where Snap and Jess are waiting. It’s another half-block to the trucks, an eternity when it feels like walking through hell, lugging heavy gear and leading a civilian through the carnage. 
But there’s an order to keep fighting the fire as best they can, hold their ground. So, Poe lets the volunteers lead the woman to a vehicle to be taken to safety, re-joining the firefighters and knocking down fires where they ignite, wondering when the actual fire would spread into the rest of the houses. 
One in particular, a two-story beauty that some of the local firefighters were talking about, was burning rather fast. The entire top floor was already engulfed, spreading rapidly into the ground floor and sweeping through. Busting out windows, scorching the white paint. There was something so completely tragic and haunting about the ghostly looking marks preceding the actual flames, an image that Poe couldn’t pull his eyes from as he assisted in the effort to put it out. 
Even the starkly painted gazebo, which stood directly next to the house, was being tainted by the smoke. 
And it is under this gazebo that Poe spots something. He isn’t sure if it’s a cat, or even if it is an animal, but it’s worth a quick investigation to make sure it could escape if it was alive. 
The entire house mere steps to his right is groaning so loudly that Poe can barely hear the sound of the others communicating behind him as he cautiously steps forward, blinded a little by the smoke pouring steadily out of the shattered window a story above. He doesn’t hear when the others begin to call out warnings of compromised structural integrity, the entire left side of the house slanting towards where Poe is inching his way under the gazebo towards the gray thing. Which he discovers to only be an old rag. 
There’s a sickening crack, followed by the blur of movement as Snap sprints forward to try to reach Poe before the piece of the house falls on top of the gazebo. His efforts aren’t totally in vain, as he reaches Poe just as the wad of smoldering material crashes down onto the roof of the shelter, but instead of pulling him to safety, the two of them are knocked to the ground as the gazebo collapses around them. 
Poe blinks in the darkness surrounding him, trying to make sense of what just happened and trying not to panic. 
“Snap? SNAP!” He yells, trying to move even the slightest bit but finding that he can’t move. 
“I’m here, Poe.” Snap answers, though by the sound of his voice Poe can tell he’s fighting unconsciousness. 
Poe, meanwhile, was fighting a panic attack. Trying to keep his breathing level, trying not to move too much even though he couldn’t. Something was hurting like hell around his ribs, and he knew one was probably broken. Or several. With the way they had fallen, it was highly likely, not to mention any kind of crush injury and damnit he should have just stayed home. 
There’s a sudden light as the debris on top of him and Snap is shifted away, a sudden beam of hope in the darkness that had begun to cloud his mind. And a voice crackles through the radio that is miraculously still attached to Poe’s shoulder, too loud in his ear. 
“Two firefighters down. I repeat, we have two firefighters down.”
-
There’s two missed calls on your cell when you pull it out for your lunch break, one from Jessika and one from Karé, the latter of which you had just missed by a minute. But then before you can get up from your desk, the phone sitting on it begins to ring. 
“Hello?” 
“Y/N? This is Lando Calrissian, your husband’s Captain?” 
And there’s no hiding the look of shock that sweeps across your face, one so evident that Rose stops in your doorway in concern, watching as your expression shifts to panic as he speaks. 
“W-when everyone gets back from lunch, please tell them that I had to go.” 
“What’s wrong?” 
“Poe’s hurt. And Snap. They’re flying them to that big hospital an hour north of here. So I’ve got to- I’ve got to be there when-” 
“Not in this condition you’re not. Give me your keys.” Rose demands, holding out her hand, which you blink at, clutching your keys with shaking fingers. 
“Rose, you don’t have to.” 
“Well, you’re in no condition to drive. I’m sure Karé isn’t either. Call her on the way out and ask.” 
And without another word, there’s a hurriedly scribbled note left on your boss’s desk, explaining where the two of you have gone. Karé answers her phone long enough to tell you that she’s okay to drive, explaining that she was soon to head out. With promises to see each other soon, you try Jessika, only to receive a busy signal on the other end. 
Rose is rather excellent at distractions, telling jokes and asking you questions about the baby’s room to keep you from breaking down as time passes, the hospital sign coming into view a lot sooner than you would have liked. 
The hospital seems much colder than any you can remember, your leg bouncing anxiously as you wait for any information on the estimated arrival time of the Medevac. 
Karé had already arrived, sinking down in the chair beside you, her hand gripping yours tightly. You had only seen her the morning before, yet it seemed like an eternity. 
Both of you were in the same boat, after all. Poe and Snap were both coming in on separate flights, in unknown conditions. Captain Calrissian couldn’t give you much, not because he didn’t want to say, but because he truly didn’t know. The two of them had been running some kind of evacuation effort and putting out fires when something collapsed on them. All you knew, from what you were given, was that your husband, and Karé’s, were both hurt. 
“Incoming trauma, rooftop.” One of the nurses warns a passing doctor, which makes you sit up a little straighter. 
You knew it had been a bad idea for Poe to go along with them. Granted, you hadn’t gone into labor like you initially feared, but it still proved your point. 
“I don’t know how they work the ER.” Karé states, but by the squeeze of her hand you know she’s just trying to distract both of you from whatever is coming. 
Jessika comes running through the door, eyes sweeping the busy entrance until she finds the three of you, running over when she makes eye contact with you. 
“Oh my god this needs to stop.” She mutters, pulling you and Karé both in for a hug, though she winds up hugging the latter more thanks to your belly. She then turns to Rose and gives a hug, having grown closer with her at your baby shower a few weeks before. 
“What happened, Jess?” 
“Poe and Snap both wound up with a gazebo collapsing on them, thanks to a roof breaking.” 
“Is- are they-“ You stammer, almost afraid of her answer, running a hand along where your daughter has just moved. 
You needed Poe. To have him beside you as you delivered your daughter, and also for him to raise her with you. To sing her to sleep, dance around the house. You needed for him to be in your life for the rest of your days, no matter how long it might be. Four years together total, one year married. It wasn’t enough.
“I don’t know. They were both stable when they were put in the ambulances.” 
“Aren’t they on Medevac?” 
“Yes, but the helicopter couldn’t land that close to the hot zone. The ambulance had to drive out to meet them.” Jess explains, just as a doctor begins stepping over to the three of you. 
“Is there anyone here for a Wexley?” 
“Me.” Karé shakily responds, pushing herself out of the chair and reluctantly releasing your hand when the doctor motions for her to follow. 
It feels like hours before a nurse emerges, glancing around the waiting room before her eyes land on Jessika’s uniform. 
“Anyone here for a Dameron?” She asks, already walking towards the three of you before you can even give a nod. 
“Are either of you-“ 
“This is his wife.” Pava interrupts, her hand landing on your back and giving you a gentle push forward. She had been through enough of these to know what questions were coming, and for that you were thankful. 
“If you will follow me, please.” 
“Jess, Rose, what about you?” 
“I’ll wait here. Let me know something when you find out.” 
“Same here.” 
And with that, you hurry to catch up with the nurse, ducking through the ER door just as she starts to let it close, entering into a whole new environment than the waiting area. 
There isn’t an empty bed in sight, most of them with curtains drawn or the doors closed if a patient is lucky enough to have a room. You keep expecting to be led to one of them, for the nurse ahead of you to duck behind a curtain or open a door, but she doesn’t until she reaches one emblazoned with silver letters. 
MEETING ROOM
You press a hand against your stomach, a habit and a means for comfort as you stare at the nurse. 
“Please, Mrs. Dameron.” 
She pulls a chair out at the table within, some form of polished wood that shines too brightly in a place that’s bound to give only bad news. The chair is too springy, a clear attempt to bring some form of comfort, but failing as you try to situate yourself on the cushion. 
The nurse steps out, leaving you alone in the room, and leaving you to your thoughts. You had no idea what you were going to do if they told you something that you didn’t want to hear. Poe was absolutely your everything. You needed him. The baby in your belly needed her father. 
When the door opens a moment later, and in comes a doctor wearing scrubs stained with blood, you exhale deeply and watch as another nurse steps in beside him. 
“I am Dr. Andor, this is my assistant Jyn.” 
“Y/N.” You respond, reaching out to shake the hand he extends. 
“You are Poe Dameron’s wife?” 
“I am. Please, just-“ 
“Your husband is one of the luckiest people I’ve ever seen.” Jyn blurts, earning an exasperated sigh from Dr. Andor. 
“Your husband is very lucky. He only has a few broken ribs, and we are treating him for a pneumothorax as we speak.” He explains, but you only blink at him. 
“I’m sorry but how is a collapsed lung lucky?” 
“He’s lucky that the medics on the helicopter recognized the symptoms. Your husband could have died out there.” Jyn answers, stepping back and letting Dr. Andor pass you a clipboard. 
“We are waiting for a bed to open up, and then we will move Poe upstairs. For now-“ 
“Can I see him?” 
“Sure. Jyn will escort you to the ER room he’s in.” He answers, motioning to Jyn to help you up, though as soon as she’s out of the room she’s practically leaving you behind. 
She stops at a door three rooms down from the one you were just in, stopping to knock on the door before pushing the handle in and opening it, watching as you stop in front of it. 
“Thank you.” You sigh, stepping over to pull her into a hug, which she accepts but quickly pulls away from. 
“It’s no problem. Part of the job.” 
As soon as you step into the room, the door clicking shut behind you, tears are beginning to run down your face. 
There’s a tube sticking out of the right side of your husband’s chest, right between a few of his ribs, but this doesn’t stop him from trying to sit up when you come in. He gives up, holding his left hand out to you instead and letting you tightly cling to it as you sink down in the chair beside him, leaning up to press a gentle kiss against his cheek. Then his forehead. Then his lips. 
He takes a shaky breath in as your hand cups his cheek, a slight wince of pain accompanying the breath. 
“I don’t know what they did with my ring. I don’t know where-“ Poe suddenly realizes, seeing the band on your left finger and finding his own missing. 
You glance around, hoping that it’s on the table or the counter next to the bed, but the table only holds an empty packet that one of the staff forgot to throw away. 
“It’s okay. We’ll get a new one if we have to. I’m just happy that you’re okay, and that I still have you, and-“ You cut off, feeling his hand snake between your bodies, pressing against your belly. 
“I’m here.” 
“I know.” 
“I love you. So much.” 
“I know.” 
And then before you can think, your fingers are reaching to unclasp the chain holding Poe’s family ring. It was something he insisted you wear while he was away, a potential good luck charm for him, which seemed to have worked in its own crooked way. 
You clasp it around his neck, letting the gold ring and ruby stone fall against his partially bare chest. 
“Sweetheart, what’s-“ 
“Just until we can find your ring.” You assure him, making sure he understands that you aren’t giving it back. 
“I told you I would come home okay.. I’m sorry-” He rasps, shifting a little closer to you in the bed, though another wince accompanies his movement. 
“Don’t, Poe. We’re not doing this. You need to rest, okay?”
His nod is the only answer you get from him, his fingers still entwined with yours as the room grows quiet. Your eyes are on him, and his on you, but for two entirely separate reasons. You’re watching to see if his face contorts in pain, looking for that tell-tale twitch of the muscle in his jaw before he grimaces. 
Poe, however, is looking at every detail of your face for the second time in two days. Trying to remember if, in the moment before his world went black in the helicopter, his memory got everything right. 
And thankfully, that wasn’t the last time he ever got to see your face.
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fireinmoonshot · 4 years
Text
REBEL | ARMITAGE HUX x READER | PART THREE
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CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.
PART ONE | PART TWO Summary: Armitage Hux finds himself strangely fascinated by you, a Resistance fighter and pilot, even though he knows he shouldn’t. You know that there’s much more to him than you see on the surface. Pairing: female!Reader x Armitage Hux Fandom: Star Wars Word Count: 2421 Warnings: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS. A/N: Again, thank you so much for the lovely response on this fic so far. I’m genuinely having the best time writing it so it’s so lovely to hear that you guys are enjoying it too. I feel like this chapter really gets into the storyline and is the biggest sort of sneak at what’s coming up in the next few chapters! This was an absolute blast to write. I hope you have just as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Read it on Ao3 here.
Pasaana is unlike any place you’ve ever seen. As you wander around, you feel like there’s too much to even see. Too much to even take in, but you try to take it all in anyway. The music, the dancing, you’re smiling and you can’t help but think about how this place is exactly like the stories you heard as a child.
For a festival that’s only held every 42 years, you can’t believe your luck.
You know it’s not why you’re here. That you’re here for a more important mission. You don’t even notice your receiver buzzing away at your side because you’re too enthralled in all of the music and the pure joy in the air – and too busy trying to get information out of the locals.
There’s a necklace safely placed around your neck from one of the locals when things start to go wrong. Rey runs up to you just as you rejoin Finn, Poe, Threepio and Chewie. She looks panicked, and you instantly feel on edge.
“We have to go back to the Falcon. Now.”
“Why?”
“It’s Ren.”
There isn’t even a moment of hesitation when it comes to her words. You know that she’s right. You trust her. She’s told you before about the Force connection she has with him, and the group of you take off running instantly, back towards where you left the Falcon.
You run straight into the back of Finn when you’re spotted by the Stormtrooper.
“Hold it right there! I’ve located the Resistance fugitives. All units report to–“
You flinch as a dart comes out of nowhere and takes him down.
Whoever it is, you don’t recognise them, but as they tell you to follow them, you all realise you don’t have a choice. The Stormtroopers – Ren himself – know where you are. And someone is here, willing to help, and you take the offer. The fun of the festival is long gone, the only happy memory of it the necklace still around your neck, as you step onto a transport in an attempt to leave and hide.
But the smile that had gone from your face doesn’t take long to return when your savior removes their mask and reveals himself to be General Lando Calrissian. And you know, that even for a short amount of time, you’re in good hands – safe hands.
When you finally make your way to Ochi’s ship, your shoes are filled with sand and you’ve never wished for a long drink of water more than you have now. Pasaana is hot, especially after flying over it on speeders and being stuck underneath the sand itself.
Finn helps you up the rocks, along with Poe, until you’re finally at the ship. But with Rey gone again, there’s worry in you as you board the ship and take it all in for the first time. It’s dusty, and you want to sneeze as soon as the door opens. But you slowly and reluctantly start searching while Finn and Poe attempt to get the ship running – you highly doubt it will. It looks like nothing but an old rust bucket.
You’re lifting a sheet off of something to check what’s underneath when your elbow knocks into your receiver, attached to your waist. You’d forgotten it was even there, but you pull it off your belt and check the screen anyway, cringing as you see three missed calls on the screen.
And there’s only one person who knows the frequency they’re on.
“Damn it,” you mutter under your breath. Hux had tried to reach you – probably to warn you about the impending arrival of the First Order on Pasaana, and you hadn’t even noticed.
You know there probably isn’t a chance of an answer, but you try and reach him  once, and then twice for luck, just in case. Both times, there’s no reply. You can’t blame him. How he even knows you’re with Rey and the others, you don’t know. Probably some sort of gut feeling, but you can’t help but smile at least a little at the fact that he’d likely tried to warn you.
Even if it hadn’t worked.
“Chewie, tell Rey we gotta go!” Finn’s voice comes from the cockpit.
Wanting to be of use, you holster the receiver again beside your blaster and join Chewie. Wherever Rey is, whatever she’s doing, you have no idea. But you can hear the urgency in Finn’s voice and you know leaving now is important.
When the both of you leave the ship and start to run after her, neither of you notice the Knights of Ren hiding and watching you from the other side of the rock.
You can’t fight the Stormtroopers or the Knights of Ren when you and Chewie are captured. You try, for a brief moment, but there are too many of them and too little of you. Even if you yelled for help, you know it wouldn’t make much of a difference. And so you allow yourself to be captured, with no other choice.
They take your belt and confiscate your blaster and your receiver before pushing you onto the transport with Chewie. One Stormtrooper pushes you a little too forcefully and you fall to the ground, knees slamming into the hard metal of the floor. You wince and crawl to the side of the ship where you sit, arms bound and staring at your captors.
This is not how you envisioned today would go.
Armitage is sitting, staring out at space and entirely lost in thought about the recent news that you are with the scavenger on Pasaana when an officer comes up to him.
“General Hux, a transport has arrived back from Pasaana.”
He turns and looks at them, eyebrows raised. “And?”
“It’s brought back valuable prisoners.”
On the outside, he smiles as he stands and follows the officer to where the prisoners are being held. But on the inside, he’s crossing his fingers and hoping it’s not you that’s been caught. He’d missed you when you tried to contact him, too busy talking with Allegiant General Pryde, but now he wishes he’d been able to answer. To warn you, to talk to you even just a little. He doesn’t know what he would have said, but anything would have been better than the silence.
If you’re being held prisoner, he doesn’t know if he can ever forgive himself for not trying at least one more time to try and contact you. An attempted warning is nothing if it doesn’t work.
He’s holding his breath as the doors open. His eyes first fall on the wookiee – the one he recognises, famous for flying with Han Solo for years before, but then it’s like his heart stops in his chest as he sees you, standing behind him, pushed forward by the Stormtroopers. You look tired, and there’s flecks of sand in your hair from the Pasaana desert and he instantly becomes defensive as he notices the grip the Stormtroopers have on you.
He wants to say something.
He can’t say anything.
Briefly, Armitage meets your eyes. He tries to convey something but he knows he’s probably not doing a very good job at it. In your eyes, he can see hatred mixed with fear, and he doesn’t like it at all. He hopes the hatred isn’t directed towards him.
“A wookiee and a Resistance soldier?” He puts his best General voice on, and hopes you’ll know the difference. “Keep them here. Don’t do anything with them until I fetch Allegiant General Pryde. He will decide what to do with the prisoners.”
He returns not long after with Allegiant General Pryde in tow.
“Take the beast to interrogation six,” he says, as he looks at the wookiee. And then, he turns to you. His lips twitch up ever so slightly and Armitage can tell what he’s thinking. If he were braver, he would say something, do something. But he’s not that brave.
Armitage’s hand balls into a fist at his side. You notice.
“As for the girl… interrogation seven. I feel we’ll get more out of her than we will out of the wookiee. When Ren returns, I’m sure he’ll be interested to talk to her.”
With that, Pryde walks away and leaves Armitage standing with the Stormtroopers, the wookiee and you. Immediately, they start escorting the wookiee one way, but before they can start to pull you away, he steps forward.
“I’ll take her and interrogate her myself before Kylo Ren returns,” he says simply. “She might be willing to speak more openly to someone not hiding behind a mask like yours.” He fixes them with a look, and they all disperse, leaving him alone with you. Gently, he grabs your arm and leads you down a different corridor.
He hadn’t been expecting to see you again so soon. It hadn’t even been that long. But clearly, you had other plans rather than waiting till your next meeting. Most of all, though, he was glad that you were safe – or as safe as you could be trapped on a First Order ship. At least you weren’t in the transport that the scavenger had destroyed.
“What are you doing?” You speak through gritted teeth. “Are you actually planning on interrogating me? You know I’m not going to say a damn thing.”
“Of course not,” he replies. “I’m getting you out.”
You force him to a stop, not caring that you’re in the middle of a corridor where anybody could see you, and shake your head. “No, I’m not leaving without Chewie.”
“Chewie?”
“The wookiee. I’m not leaving without him. Take me back to him, lock me up, I don’t care. I’m not leaving this ship unless he’s with me.”
Armitage takes a deep breath and then pulls you out of the corridor and into a small side alcove, out of the view of the cameras that cover almost every angle in the ship. “If you don’t escape, they will torture you for answers. Kylo Ren will return and he can use the force. He can get answers out of you easier than he can with a wookiee. They don’t need to translate your words. I’m trying to help you here. Would you just let me? I’m not good at this.”
“I don’t fear death or torture.”
“Oh? Well, I do. Now let’s go.”
He takes your arm again and starts to try and push you out of the alcove, but you stay firmly stood in the same spot. You don’t intend on leaving without Chewie, not even if you end up dead in the process. You fix Hux with a glare.
“I am not leaving without him. If you want to help me, take me to him.”
Now, he was getting annoyed. “Why are you so stubborn? I don’t just help anybody.”
“I don’t care.” You keep your stance. “Take me to Chewie or let me be tortured and interrogated by Kylo when he comes back. I don’t care. There is no way I’m leaving Chewie up here on his own just because you want to help me escape. I’m not going. Unless you can help the both of us escape, stop trying.”
He stares at you then, for a moment. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes are dark. But then you look at him with something different in your eyes, and you mutter a small “Please” and he can’t let you down.
He’s never had a friendship like the one you seem to have with the wookie
e. He envies it, just a little. And so he sighs deeply and shakes his head at you.
“You are impossible. You are aware of this?”
“I have been told that before. By you, I think.”
He shrugs. “That would make sense.”
Armitage sighs and shakes his head. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks around. He doesn’t want to actually take you to interrogation. He knows that won’t end well. But what options does he have? You won’t allow him to help you because of your… Chewie and he realises now that you won’t budge, no matter how much he pushes.
“What am I supposed to do with you if you won’t let me help then?”
You shrug a shoulder. “Lock me up. Wherever Chewie is, lock me up. If anyone says anything, tell them that I refused to say anything so you’re waiting until Ren is back.”
He hates to admit it, but it’s not actually a bad idea.
Well, he doesn’t like the idea of locking you up and imprisoning you on the ship, but really, he’s been left with no other options.
He just hopes he can manage to get you and Chewie both out before Ren returns.
“Fine, let’s go.” He starts to make a move but you reach out and grab his sleeve with your hand – it’s a little awkward considering you’re still cuffed, but it works in pulling him to another stop. Armitage turns around and raises his eyebrows at you. “What is it this time?”
“When I was on Pasaana – you tried to contact me. I didn’t hear the receiver, I didn’t even check it until it was too late. But… why were you trying to reach me?” It’s one thing that’s been bugging you all day, even though you think you already know the answer.
Armitage pauses. He glances at you, and then down at the ground. He can practically feel his cheeks turning pink and he huffs as he finally meets your eyes again.
“I was trying to warn you that Ren was looking for you and your friends. I was hoping that it’d ensure your safety. If I could warn you, you could get out of there before he knew even where you were. But then he found you, and it was too late.”
You smile despite the fact that it’s just confirmation to you – it was what you suspected, him trying to warn you. “So there is a heart in there after all, Hux. I never would have picked you to be someone to warn others of impending danger.”
He narrows his eyes. “Yes, well… me neither.”
“Desperate times, desperate measures,” you offer.
“Something like that, I’m sure.”
With that, you allow him to move you from the alcove again and finally take you to be locked up. You’re not excited about the fact, and you’re not particularly confident that you’ll be rescued either, but you’re hoping. Hope is all you have.
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happybeeps-nat · 4 years
Text
Finnpoe week day 6: hurt/comfort and/or historical AU
an event by the wonderful @finnpoeevents
Waiting for the End
words: 1706
characters: Leia Organa, Poe Dameron, Finn (Star Wars)
(trigger) warnings: lots of hurt, suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts, Poe Dameron is not okay, hurt/comfort, depression - freeform
a/n: I write too many sad stories, sorry, i’m doing this all wrong
Read Here (probably won’t post this to ao3)
---please heed the warnings, this is not a fluffy h/c story
After their debrief, the General did not look too happy, but these days she rarely did, so Poe tried to not read too much into it. He got up as soon as she dismissed them, still feeling icky, energised and tired, vibrating out of his own skin, breathing too fast and feeling he was drowning. He was tired and his hands were shaking where he was clamping them between his thighs, and he just really wanted Finn to tell him he was okay.
Poe could still feel his X-Wing hurtling toward the ground, the gravitational pull just as strong as his mental pull to let it happen. The cries of his squad members, asking what was wrong, if he could hear them, if he needed help, if he saw something, if he was- 
He needed to get out of here, away from everyone else. But he couldn't, because as soon as he got up, the General raised her voice again.
"Commander Dameron. A word."
He sighed and tried not to react, just straighten his back, stand at attention. His squad was filing out of the room until it was only him and the General left. He hid his shaking hands behind his back.
She looked at him in that way that always made him feel she could see right through him. There was a sad look in her eyes that Poe did not want to think about, because if he did, he would know exactly why she wanted to talk with him.
"You can sit down." Poe didn't react, his limbs were still kind of numb and he really preferred to- "Please sit, Commander."
He sat, wringing his hands in his lap again, hoping she wouldn't notice.
She did. Looked at his hands, then back at his face and shook her head with that sad expression again.
"I am telling you for the last time, Commander, to not scare us like that. Do not make your squad think your starfighter has a severe malfunction and you're dropping to the ground!"
Poe winced. "I'm sorry, General, I don't-"
"Banthashit," she exclaimed, interrupting him in a way that surprised Poe, made him flinch just slightly. Or maybe that was still his whole body shaking.
Neither of them said a word for a while, because what would he say? He couldn't say the truth, it was stupid, and she obviously wouldn't listen to his lies and apologies. What would he say? Sorry, General, I just kinda wanna die sometimes, it's nothing serious.
She saw right through him anyway, he knew that. So he sat in silence, waiting for her to be over with this talk so he could go back to Finn and cry and then pretend like he was okay. Like everything was okay. Like they weren't fighting a war.
With a sigh, she sat down right in front of him and seemed like she was lightyears away. "You know," she started. "Han would never let me fly the damn ship. He wouldn't leave me alone, ever, always sending Chewie or Lando with me when he couldn't be there. I never asked him about it until years later. And he looked me in the eye and said that he knew, deep down, that there was a chance I wouldn't… that I would wanna die. That I would take down the Falcon and myself along with it if I had been given the chance."
Poe tried to take a breath but he couldn't, not really, not through the tears that were forming and not through his thoat that was rapidly closing up. He was looking at his hands because he couldn't stand looking at her.
Across from him, Leia laughed a completely joyless laughter. "I was a kid. My planet had been destroyed, my family eradicated, wiped out just like that, everyone I ever knew. My lover was a criminal, my brother fighting his own war, my father another criminal, the worst of them all, and I… I was a kid. I used to be a Princess. And when he told me, I knew he was right. There was a fair chance back then. And I still can't get into a starfighter and be up in the cockpit. I can't. Because things are largely the same, and I-" she sighed. "Commander. Poe. I get it. That's all I'm saying."
Poe shook his head, because she didn't get it. She had lost way more than he ever could to begin with, she was far braver and more heroic than he could ever be, and she was old. Older than he would ever be. And she was still here, leading the Resistance like she didn't want to die some days, and… she didn't get it. Poe was just being stupid.
"Yes, I do," she said softly, reaching out to take his hand but he flinched away.
Always with the flinching, like he had to move, could not be still, had to be in action, had to take his X-Wing and crash it into the next surface because it was the only thought that was there, the loudest thought, the most intrusive one.
"Breathe," she told him. Begged him. Because he wasn't breathing. Maybe he could just stop breathing, maybe he could try, then his X-Wing would be fine.
"Have you been talking to Dr. Kalonia," she asked him.
He nodded, and technically it wasn't a lie. He had talked to her about it, she had given it a name and prescribed some meds and before he could take them he'd had to leave for Jakku. His hands haven't stopped shaking since then.
"I want you to do that again," she told him. "And take the meds. And talk, Poe. Please, talk. I don't want to be right about this."
He shrugged, frowning at his hands. He wanted to take off his own skin, be gone, be someone else, be someone who could fight a war without wanting to die sometimes. He wanted to be okay. He wanted Finn.
"It's good you're alive, Poe," she said after a while, sounding defeated and he felt like shit for that, but he couldn't talk. He couldn't say the words, not to her, not like that. Not knowing she felt the same sometimes. That made everything too real, too pressing, too dangerous.
“If I could,” she continued, “I would send you home. Give you a little peace, just for a day. But I can’t and I’m sorry, I’m sorry I have to send you up there all time and I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Poe shook his head again, because no, he loved flying, he loved doing this for her and for the whole Galaxy, it’s what he was meant to do. She should not be sorry for that, that’s not right.
Before he could even think about saying something, there was a knock on the metal door and Leia activated the mechanism for it to open. Poe's back was to the wall but he had a feeling he knew who was going to be there.And he was right, because Finn's voice came from the doorway just a second later. 
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, General. I was just looking… but I can leave, sorry, I was just-” 
“No, Finn, please, you can stay. In fact, I think we are done here.” She got up and walked to Finn where Poe could hear her murmur a “take care of him” kind of sentence, followed by the sound of her leaving the room. 
Poe had yet to turn around, and his hands had yet to stop shaking. He had yet to get a fucking grip. 
“Hey,” Finn whispered, coming toward him and crouching down so they were almost eye-level. 
Poe was still looking at his hands, didn’t want to see the worry in Finn’s eyes, just wanted to… he wanted for Finn to know without having to tell him first. 
“Come on, let’s go, you must be tired,” Finn said, reaching out to pull Poe up with him. Tired. Yeah, he was tired all right. 
They left, and Poe still hasn’t said a word, didn’t speak until they were lying on their uncomfortable bunks, him on top of Finn, Finn’s arms around him but not in a way that felt trapping. 
“Have you been having those thoughts again? You’re still shaking.”
Poe nodded but in the same moment hid his face in Finn’s chest. He wanted to get away, go be on the other side of the room, away from human contact, away from Finn’s warmth and only be left with the coldness of the floor and his thoughts, but he also knew that wasn’t what he really wanted. Just like he knew crashing his X-Wing wasn’t what he really wanted. It was like something, someone, was inside his mind again, and he couldn’t- 
“You’re alive. You’re good and you’re wonderful and you’re amazing and you’re all those words I was never taught by the First Order, and I keep forgetting about the words, but I never forget about you. You’re always with me in my mind and heart, and I know that I’m always with you. But I also know that sometimes that’s not enough for either of us. I know you have these thoughts, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But it’s a good thing you’re alive. On, like, the whole scale from personal to universal. And I love you.” 
Finn always did that. Always said all those words but Poe couldn’t do words today, he didn’t want words, he didn’t want to be told that he was alive, because he knew that. You can’t wanna die if you’re dead already, so yes, he was alive and aware of that. He just didn’t know what to do with that information. 
“Can we,” he started around the lump in his throat. “Can we not do this? I can’t do words, not the same words all the time, I just. I’m sorry. Can we not do this?” 
Finn nodded, because of course he did. He tightened his arms around Poe and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Want me to tell you a story?” 
Poe smiled despite himself and nodded, pressing a kiss to the other man’s chest. Finn loved telling stories, and that was just such an universally weird thing, completely out of place to how things should work, and Poe enjoyed that. Enjoyed how this shouldn’t be possible, and still it happened. Because if Finn, a kidnapped child, a brainwashed stormtrooper, a Force-sensitive soldier of the Resistance could lie in bed with Poe and tell the wildest, most fantastically beautiful stories and it could be okay to the universe, then maybe Poe being alive could be okay, too. 
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legobiwan · 4 years
Text
Just got home from The Rise of Skywalker. No pithy intro, I’m just going to jump right in and it’s going to be a LONG rant here so buckle up, my friends, and be sure to read below the cut. SPOILERS AHOY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Okay, so yes, the first third of the movie went at a blistering, nearly nonsensical pace. JJ  really had to cram a whole watermelon’s worth of exposition into a...well, you know, there was a lot to take in. This movie had to do so much telling instead of showing because it was such a departure (and middle finger to TLJ) from what came before. 
The thing was, the first third was also the most interesting part of the movie. I actually wish the whole trilogy had started with all of the Sith nonsense. (Actually, I wish they had started with Kylo absolutely wrecking shit like he did and then the Palpatine scene. People would have made all the wrong assumptions and it would have been glorious to unravel it over three films.) There is a strong history of Sith artifacts in both Nu-Canon and Legends, and it wouldn’t have been out of place, considering what we know now, to have made Rey, Poe, and Finn’s quest for these artifacts the start of the new trilogy, and then told the rest of the story in a non-linear timeline. Probably too experimental for a Star Wars reboot, but it would have grabbed attention and everyone like creepy Sith shit. 
Frankly, I would have dropped zombie-robot Palpatine at the very start of the trilogy, as well. It’s bonkers but I don’t hate the Rey Palpatine thing and they could have spent the rest fo the movies explaining this weird-ass lineage and how it relates to Kylo, Snoke, etc. and then have built back to the final confrontaion on Exegol. 
Leia. Trained. Rey. I so so so so so wished we had been able to get more of this. This, in my mind, is what it should have been all along. I liked TLJ (okay, so shoot me) but Master Leia is a whole other level of awesome. If I had to rewrite Luke and Leia’s roles, it would have went something like this:
Luke was searching for Sith artifacts. Luke was becoming disillusioned by what he was learning of the Jedi through “The Sacred Texts.” WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE? Hmmmm, I wonder....
Could you imagine Luke started to go a little Dooku in this respect, and so instead of fucking off the Ach-To because he had a feeling that was more “gravy than of grave” about Ben Solo’s dark sidedness, he fucked off to Ach-To - or even better - gave up training in order to keep himself from going down a darker path. 
And so instead, Leia is getting involved with training (and probably also governing at the same time because she would be an overachiever like that.)
Enter Ben Solo, who is Force sensitive, strong, being trained by his mother and occasionally his uncle, who is not totally plugged into the light side at the moment, which can rub off on Ben. Meanwhile, Han is maybe not the best father (he wants to be, he tries, but it all comes out wrong. I’ve been watching a lot of Psych lately, so I’m thinking of a dynamic similar to Henry and Shawn, but a little more dramatic.)
Of course, Palpatine is seeing all of this behind the scenes, he’s fostering ill will and discontent through the scattered remains of the Empire, sending Snoke clones out to be almost pseudo-religious/cult figures in the wake of the economic and social devastation left by the Empire’s fall and the floundering new government. Extremism, in pockets, rises. Extremism which preys on discontent, which preys of the desire for family, for belonging. 
Enter again Ben Solo, who has been pitted against the other strongest trainee, Rey (insert whatever last name you want. She knows it’s not her real name, she knows she was an orphan on Jakku, but she was brought by Luke to be trained). Ben is pissed how she and Leia bond, has been talking to his uncle, and perhaps encountered a Snoke clone on the way. 
Rey, on the other hand, is no one but wants to be someone, and that manifests in weird ways during her training. Perhaps she leaves at some point, perhaps not. But the seeds of her being Palpatine’s bloodline are laid within her. She wants to seek that belonging Ben has.
Okay, but getting away from my personal rewrites of the sequels, Star Wars is about family and lineage, both blood and found. There was so much potential to play on this throughout the trilogy with the Skywalkers, with Rey’s relation to Palps that if they had just planned the damn thing, it could have been brilliant. 
Moving ...(for now)
I felt so bad for Oscar Isaac. I felt like I watched his soul slowly depart his body over almost 3 hours. That man was not a happy camper and it came out in his performance. 
Power levels. Here’s the thing, guys. Magic needs to have consequences. Sure, you can cast a spell, but what does that take from you? You can use the Force, but to what degree? How much? Even Anakin exhausted himself at some points, and he was (allegedly, according to one Qui-gon Jinn), the Chosen One. It’s the first law of thermodynamics - energy can neither be created nor destroyed - and the Force is literally the energy of every life thing in the galaxy. You take the energy, use it towards something else, it has to drain from somewhere. This is what bugged the hell out of me with Rey’s Force Healing abilities (an ability that doesn’t thrill me to begin with as it’s so easy to overuse). Kylo keels from resurrecting the dead (and yeah, he was pretty beat up already), but Rey barely seems to breathe a beat harder. Once you start ignoring the consequences for magic, you end up like a shitty video game, and one of the criticisms I’ve leveled at the movie is that it feels like a montage of Battlefront and I can’t say that’s totally off point.
JEDI HUNTERS. Ochi. I will bet my right liver we’re going to hear something about this on The Mandalorian. 
So I know a lot of people wanted to see Rey Kenobi, but there was one piece of glaring evidence in the film why that would never be. (Aside from Kylo just announcing it to Rey.) She has a lightsaber, but she still ends up using a blaster. So uncivilized.
Speaking of The Mandalorian - Stormtroopers with Mando jetpacks. Hmmm.....
I loved techno-Sheev hooked up to all the equipment just floating. That was creepy as hell and played with the whole cloning and extension of life that was such a large part of the Darth Plagueis novel (which I still consider to be canon, higher powers be damned). Also, Palpy’s glowup with the wardrobe was hilarious. 
Dark!Rey was hot. There, I said it.
Let’s talk about romance. Or the lack thereof. Or the shoehorned thereof.
Poor Rose got shafted in this film with no explanation. I didn’t buy that whole thing in TLJ, but god damn anyway. (Finn also got shafted, for different reasons, which I will talk about later.)
If they were going to romance, just let it have been Finn and Poe, Finn and Rey, or fuck it, even a trio. 
I mean, I could have bought Reylo if it had been presented better. (With context. Adam Driver is an amazing actor, another thing I’ll talk about later.)
The Reylo kiss though - my theater laughed. No joke.
Of course, this was the same theater that thought Lando was trying to mack on Jannah at the end, so who knows what we were all thinking in there. (On that note, Lando was hilarious because no matter what, he was just having a grand ‘ol time in the movie. I like to think he got a medical spice card in his retirement years and was just enjoying anything that came his way, be it Wookiees, Jedi, starships, wars, whatever.)
While the Reylo kiss didn’t hit the mark the space lesbian background kiss got cheers, so there was some hope for my fellow theater-goers.
Did anyone pick up on Threepio saying the Senate made the bill that would render him incapable of translating the Sith language? No doubt that was a Palpatine move from TCW era. 
What is up with these movies and desert/jungle planets? Ugh. Thank everyone for Kijimi, at least that was interesting. 
New characters I loved: Babu Frik and DO. 
Finn’s Force sensitivity. Yes, I totally buy it. I wanted more. I wanted more fucking context of a Stormtrooper who would have known nothing of the Jedi getting these feelings and then bailing from the First Order (or, if I were writing the movies, bailing from the remnants of the Empire/Snokes weird military cults.) Totally underutilized character development. 
We. Were. Robbed. of Good!Ben. Adam Driver is so phenomenal. Form the little we saw of redeemed Ben, he is the perfect mix of his parents, from the “Ow” to the eyebrow wagging, the swagger, the smirks...I LOVED good!Ben. I wanted so much more good!Ben. What a transformation.
Speaking of which - the scene between Kylo/Ben and Han was terrific. I wish we had had more context for why everything went south, but it was so good and the type of family dynamic we really needed more of. 
The Knights of Ren looked awesome in this film? They needed to be like the Black Order of Star Wars, and they were getting to it, but not quite there. Gods, they could have been the enforcers of Snoke’s cults (Palpy’s puppet cults) that could terrorize far more than a normal, brainwashed Stormtrooper, who was only useful as cannon fodder (I mean, if we look at the history of the clone army to the Stormtroopers, it would be terribly fitting.)
That ship tug-of-war was DUMB. (See my rant about magic and consequences). But, if Rey was going to shoot lightening Palpy-style and blow up a ship, Chewie should have died. I’m sorry, that’s terrible, I love him, but there needed to be consequences for actions and throughout the film, there were either no consequences or random consequences that were a narrative convenience rather than developed into the plot/characterization/worldbuilding. 
Here’s the thing with the ST - there is so much potential. There are some awesome ideas. But they wanted to play if safe with JJ by rebooting the OT, Rian was too far out for them, there was no cohesive storytelling, and so we get these little glimpses into what could have been amidst a shitstorm of trailers for Battlefront 17. 
we could have had it allll....
Final rating: 4/10
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ladyvader23 · 4 years
Text
The Honeymoon
This work is gifted to @jainadurron for the Secret Santa Han and Leia exchange hosted by @hanleiasecretsanta! Thanks for the opportunity to write something a bit different and hope you enjoy! Merry ficmas! ^_^ 
~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“We’re about to revert outta hyperspace.” 
Leia looked up from her datapad, blinking at her husband. She sat curled up on their bed in the cabin of the Falcon, passing the time of hyperspace by going over reports for her upcoming meetings. As usual, once she started working, time seemed to slip away from her, so focused was she. The eight hour hyperspace journey to Cato Neimoidia seemed like nothing but an hour to her. Han always teased her that he could walk an angry nexu in front of her, and she wouldn’t notice if she was engrossed in her work. She had to admit he had a point. So, she didn’t mention how quickly time had passed for her and simply nodded, standing to stretch before joining him in piloting the Falcon.
 But she got quite the surprise when she helped him with the reversion sequence. Huh. It wasn’t Cato Neimoidia that appeared in the viewport after all. Instead, a planet covered in mostly water appeared. What? Leia’s brows knit together, and she immediately began checking the coordinates. “I told you we should have brought one of the droids or Chewie.” Leia said somewhat irritably, shaking her head in exasperation. “Your calculations were totally off, Han. We’re at Spira, not…” 
“I know.” Han replied smuggly, shooting her his familiar over-confident grin. “We’re exactly where we need to be Sweetheart.” 
Her eyes narrowed, turning slowly in her seat to face her husband while he transmitted their landing codes. “We are? What do you mean by that? What did you do?!” 
“What did I do?!” Han asked, mock offended, a wounded look on his handsome face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He waved his hand dismissively and actually tsked at his wife, causing her to arch her eyebrows in surprise.
Leia rolled her eyes and huffed, gesturing impatiently at the viewport where Spira could clearly be seen. “Oh really?” 
“Really.” Han nodded with feral grin. “I’d certainly never imply that the meeting on Cato Neimoidia was a week earlier than it actually was so that I could surprise you with a romantic vacation alone...just for two...to Spira.” 
His words registered in her brain, slowly. 
“Vacation?” She echoed. 
“You got it, Sweetheart.” He smiled to himself like he’d won the Millenium Falcon from Lando all over again. “It wasn’t easy, y’know. I had to convince so many people on the Council to go along with it…” 
She didn’t even want to know what he’d done to manage that…
“Then, I had to make sure Winter was able to watch the kids for two weeks instead of just one, and of course, I also had to make sure the Noghri were fully aware of my plans while also trying to get them to not let it slip to you...Then I let Luke know so that…” 
“Luke knew about this, too?” Leia interrupted, stunned at the lengths Han had gone to on this little endeavor. “Did everyone know except me about this vacation?” 
Han shrugged nonchalantly. “Anyone who might be affected in some way, yeah.” 
She stared at him, then turned to look at the planet, then once again back at him. “Why?” She was more than a little confused here. What in the galaxy could have motivated him to pull such a stunt?
Now he looked a little sheepish. “Well...it’s not often you get a break Leia. It’s not often we get a break. And we didn’t get to have much of a honeymoon really, since everything was so busy…” 
“It’s still busy.” She was the Chief of State. Her entire life was the definition of busy. To go on vacation, especially leading up to the conference on Cato Neimoidia… “I don’t know if we have time for this Han. If we’ve got an extra week before the conference…” 
“No.” Han gave her a stern look and held up a hand to forestall her next argument. “Like I said. When have we ever gone on a vacation where something hasn’t gone wrong? Especially alone?” 
She tried to think of even one such instance...just one...and came up empty. He was right. Something had always gone wrong. Every. Single.Time. That seemed to be the case most of their entire relationship, actually. 
“Don’t you think it would be nice, just this once, Babe, to have a vacation where nothing goes wrong?” Han asked. “You deserve it. We deserve it. The kids are being looked after, and they have plenty of security. The Council knows you’re on vacation and, by the way, you do actually have earned time off, y'know. Even Mothma took a vacation every once in a while when she was in charge. So, why can’t we, huh?” 
She hated to admit it, but he was right. And, she’d actually never been to Spira, but she’d heard of it’s white sand beaches, temperate climate, and abundance of water sports. If she was honest with herself, it sounded absolutely divine. And when would she ever have this chance again? Probably not for quite a long time. She certainly wouldn’t spare the time to set up something like this for herself, and Han had gone to so much trouble...just the fact that he’d done so was admittedly sweet of him… 
And when he looked at her the way he currently was, with pleading hazel eyes and a pout, how could she say no? He was just too damn sexy, and just one look in his eyes and all her objections fled.
“Alright. Just this once. And nothing will go wrong, right? You're positive?” 
He grinned in triumph, reveling in his victory as he turned back to focusing on the landing sequence. “Don’t you worry, Sweetheart. I’ve made sure nothing can go wrong.” 
Smirking, she just shook her head, "I've got a feeling something will go wrong."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Naturally, something went wrong. 
“What do you mean, you don’t have a room ready for us?” Han hissed at the front desk clerk, as light green female Rodian rechecked the hotel system. “I have a confirmation number and everything!” 
“Yes, Mr. Solo, I see that you booked the honeymoon suite, but for some reason, your reservation didn’t process correctly, and the room isn’t ready…” She replied, nervously. 
He let out an annoyed huff, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. Leia, thankfully, hadn’t come with him to check in. She was still outside, grabbing them some sweet treats from a stand along the beach. 
“Just...tell me it’s still available.” 
The Rodian winced. “Well. A honeymoon suite is available, yes...just not the one you picked...and it won’t be available until later this afternoon…” 
He’d picked the premier suite. The one that was supposedly themed, with its own jacuzzi that used purple passion flower scented water and had the best view of the ocean in the entire hotel. He figured girls liked that sort of thing. 
Granted, Leia wasn’t usually one to expect gestures like that from him, but he’d wanted to make this special for her, for them. Especially now that they actually had the credits to pay for something like this. He’d meant it when he said they deserved a nice vacation. They’d given up so much for the galaxy...surely the galaxy could give them a week without causing too much chaos. 
Apparently not. 
“What’s the difference between the room I picked and the one that’s available?” 
“Well, the one that’s available still has a beach view, it just also has a port side view. Still beautiful, but if there’s a lot of pleasure barges docked it can look a little cluttered.” Okay, they could probably deal with that. “And there is a jacuzzi, yes, but it’s not as large and the water isn’t automatically scented. You’d have to do it yourself.” 
He had no idea how to do that. What, did he just throw a bunch of flower petals in the water and mix it around? Maybe Leia knew how to do it, but he really didn’t want to make her work at all. By the end of this trip, he wanted her to be completely relaxed, and to him, mixing petal water sounded like more stress than it was worth. 
“I’ll figure it out.” He finally relented. He would need to make sure Chewie and Luke never heard about this, but he’d figure it out. “But I expect something for all the trouble. My wife is the Chief of State. She’s Leia Organa Solo. This should never have happened.” 
The Rodian made a gagging noise of horror and started stuttering. “P-Perhaps w-we could m-move the current residents of the premier suite…” 
“No, it wouldn’t make her happy to know I kicked someone else out of their room.” If it was just him on the other hand… “But...I don’t know, can you maybe throw in something special? I mean, this is the hotel's error, after all...Not mine."
The Rodian hesitated, then checked her datapad. “We could send up some champagne and comp a dinner at our nicest restaurant?” 
He mulled it over. “Can you also comp a large bouquet of flowers?” 
The Rodian checked her system again. “Yes, I believe we can swing that.” 
“Then it’s a deal.”
 He explained to the clerk exactly what he wanted. When he finished, the Rodian nodded. “Yes, Sir. The room and your order should be ready this afternoon. Again, I'm so sorry for the trouble, Mr. Solo.” 
He waved her off and headed back into the lobby just as Leia entered the building. Her long dark hair was uncharacteristically loose and flowing around her shoulders. Already it looked like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “I found shrimpi cups.” She announced, holding one out to him. “We can eat it in our room. Then maybe, if you don’t have things planned, we could go for a walk on the beach?” 
He accepted it from her. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we eat it on the beach?” 
She glanced at their bags at their feet. “But…” 
He waved down the attention of a service droid nearby. “The droid will take care of it.” He assured her, then as the droid came closer he turned around and whispered, “As soon as the room for Leia and Han Solo is ready, put these bags in there.” The droid made a displeased bleep, but he raised his brows expectantly. “We are not going to carry our bags around all day because your hotel messed up on our accommodations.” 
“What was that, Han?” Leia called. 
“Nothing!” He threw her a reassuring smile even as he handed the bags off to the droid. Thankfully, the droid took it with little more than an annoyed bleep. 
He approached his wife again, huge grin in place, holding out his arm towards her. “Shall we?” 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Eating on the beach ended up being the perfect activity. She’d been a little suspicious at Han’s strange behavior in the hotel lobby, but the lovely white sand beaches and cool, salty breeze put her mind at ease. The island they were on wasn’t as populated as some of the others on Spira, apparently, so there weren’t as many people wandering the beach. The water was calm, so much so that it looked more like they were on the shore of a giant glass lake than an ocean. Sand crabs darted about their feet, and they both kicked their shoes off and walked hand-in-hand, barefoot in the soft, velvety shoreline, water tickling their toes.
And it felt as if each step lifted away another worry or stress from her shoulders. It got even better when Han led her to a secluded section of the beach with a spa. “Really?” She asked skeptically. 
“What?” Han shrugged. “I thought it would be nice.” 
“It will be, but I didn’t exactly think of you as being someone who liked strangers touching your body.” 
“Well...do you like massages?” 
She didn’t mention that she used to love getting them on Alderaan as a teenager. She hadn’t had one since before the war, though. “Yes.” 
“Then it’ll be fine. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it.” 
“Wait, you’ve never gotten a massage?” 
“Like you said, the idea of strangers touching my body like that didn’t appeal to me. I’m not against it,” he added, “So...Maybe I’ll try it and never be able to live without it again.” 
They approached the counter and Leia picked up a pamphlet listing options and packages. 
“I like the sound of that.” She grinned. “So, I’ll be the one to choose what we get.”
“Choose away, Princess.” He motioned with his hand, dipping his head slightly in deference.
And that was how they each ended up with a hot stone massage on a soft table, side by side, under a gazebo overlooking the ocean, the lovely scent of tropical flowers wafting in the air...and contented smiles on both their faces. 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Oh Han, they’re beautiful!” Leia smiled as she took in the large bouquet of flowers that had been artfully arranged in a crystal vase on the nightstand. Inwardly, Han breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good. “Purple passion flowers, everlilies, rojos and blue blossoms…Do you have any idea how expensive this arrangement was?” 
Kriff. No. He didn’t. The flowers were free from the hotel, but he wasn’t going to tell Leia that. Doing so would mean he’d have to admit something went wrong on their perfect vacation, and he wasn’t willing to do that. “Of course. I had to pay for them, didn’t I?” He approached her and took her hands in his own, rubbing his calloused fingers gently over her own.
 She smiled softly. “I guess that’s true. I’m just surprised, is all. This size arrangement costs the equivalent of several days pay of a navy officer’s salary.”
 Seriously? Who knew fresh flowers were so damn expensive? He didn’t understand it. They would just die before the end of the week. But his wife seemed pleased with it, and if she was happy, he was happy. 'Nuff said.
She pulled away and approached the open air balcony, white curtains softly blowing in the breeze. She leaned against the stone ledge, taking in a deep breath as he approached from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her flush against him. From this close, she still smelled of the lavender oils the masseuse used during their massage. “You really outdid yourself this time, Honey.” She said softly, leaning back against him. 
Thankfully, the hotel front desk clerk hadn’t been wrong. The room did have a beautiful view, with the harbor full of boats of all sizes and shapes, with a sunset of reds, oranges, pinks, and golds backdropping a never ending ocean. If he hadn’t originally purchased the room that was advertised as the best view in the hotel, he wouldn’t have known the difference. 
“I’m glad you’re happy.” He said, planting a sweet kiss on top of her head. “Are you happy?” 
“Of course.” She turned around, to see his eyebrows raised in doubt.
“Really? It’s a little more work to make sure it all fit together…”
She sighed and shook her head. “If you’d just told me you wanted to go on a vacation, I could have helped you plan it.” 
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” He grinned, then snapped his fingers.“Oh! I also have stuff to make one of those fancy baths for you.” 
Leia raised her brows. “Fancy baths?” 
“Yeah. Y’know. With the flower water or whatever. You, uh, wouldn’t happen to know how to make it all nice and smelly, would you?” 
Her lips twitched. A sign she was attempting to hold back laughter. “You run hot water in the tub and place the petals in the water, if it’s petals. If it’s just a salt, then you also just dump that in the hot water and let it dissolve.” 
“You can do that with salt?” He asked, and this time she did laugh. “Well, I didn’t know! I’m a smuggler, for kriff's sake! You’ve seen the inside of the Falcon…” 
“Hmm...I’ve seen the outside, too.” She grinned at him.
“...and she may not be pretty, but she’s got it where it counts!” He huffed. “Alright. I...ah, just thought it would be nice to have a hot bath. That's all.” He flushed and shrugged, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck nervously.
The smile that spread over her face turned sultry. “Oh?” 
“Yeah. And I’m going to go draw it up.” 
“You know, I could do it since I’ve done it before…” 
“No, no.” He shook his head, already backing away towards the master bath. “You’re on vacation, Sweetheart. I got this.” 
Amused, she crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back against the balcony railing. “I almost want to watch you do this.” 
“There’ll be nothing to see since I’ve got this. No worries. This is me we're talking about.” He assured her, ignoring her incredulous look, before turning around to set about his objective. He entered the master bath and firmly shut the door behind him. He'd show her. He was a man of many talents. How hard could it be?
Technically, it wasn’t. He approached the massive marble jacuzzi tub, turned on the water, and set it to the perfect warm temperature. Then, as it ran, he found the bowl of flower petals waiting on the bathroom counter and dumped them in, then watched as the water ran over the plants. Sure enough, purple color began to bleach from the petals into the water. So far, so good. 
Satisfied, he nodded and grabbed a bottle of scented bubble bath and dumped the entire container full of soap in the water. After all, the more bubbles the better, he figured, and the bottle wasn’t very big at all anyway. 
Big mistake. 
At first, it looked to be shaping up to be a perfect flowery bubble bath for two. Mentally, he went about imagining him and Leia in the tub...getting rather creative, and he couldn't help the wolfish grin that spread on his face at such imagery. Then, as more water poured into the purple soapy mixture, the bubbles grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger with no signs of stopping. 
Oh no. 
Satisfaction turned to uncertainty which quickly turned into horror, and he cursed as he grabbed a towel and began trying to scoop bubbles out, trying to dump them in the double sinks in the vanity. It didn’t work. The bubbles just kept foaming, reaching higher and higher, climbing the marble walls. 
Oh shit.
“Is everything alright…? Oh. Force.” Han turned around in horror at Leia’s voice...and the movement caused him to lose his balance on the edge of the tub and slip and fall backward into the mess of water, petals and bubbles, disappearing completely from view in the huge mounds of bubbles. 
When he emerged, spluttering, his vision, his nose, his mouth were full of bubbles, and as he sucked in air, he managed to inhale a mouth full of soap and a stray petal or two. He spat it out and worked to clear his vision just in time to see Leia sit delicately on the edge of the tub, laughing uproariously his predicament. “Oh yes, I definitely should have been watching you. What, did you pour the entire bottle in the tub?” 
He pointed at her vehemently, even as he hoped the mess he made hid the flush on his cheeks. “We will never speak of this again.” 
Leia snorted, still chuckling and shaking her head, reaching over to turn off the water. “I’m sure Chewie would love to hear how you attempted to draw a bath and instead filled the bathroom with a mountain of bubbles in an attempt to wash all the walls, I guess.” 
“Leia!”
“But you know,” she smiled that sultry smile again, her eyes twinkling, and a second later she swung her legs into the bath, clothes and all, and joined him. The water and bubbles slushed over the sides once more, as she approached him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders...and turned on a switch behind him. The water began to bubble around them as the jets turned on, causing the bubbles to foam even worse. "There are advantages to being so scrupulously clean."
“Uh...I don’t think we’re getting our security deposit back.” He said, eyes locked with his wife’s. This wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined their time in the bath, but…
She leaned closer until their lips were just centimeters apart, their breath mingling. “I think, whatever happens on this honeymoon, stays on this honeymoon.” 
He breathed out in relief, grinning, and kissed her deeply in answer. He was glad his wife was in total agreement with him on that.
By the next morning, he figured that, despite his apparent inability to put together a fancy bath, their bath time turned out much better than he imagined. 
But they were definitely not getting that deposit back. 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~
She had to admit, Han could still surprise her, and he still proved daily that he wasn’t just a 'no good smuggler.' By the Force, he was so much more than that. General. Lover. Husband. Father. Pilot. Best Friend. And, apparently, pretty kriffing decent when it came to planning honeymoons. 
She was definitely impressed.
The rest of their week alone had been full of fun activities. Plenty of motosurfing; he’d had to teach her how to do that, and once she managed to get up on the board, she didn’t ever want to stop, much to her husband's amusement. They’d gone paddling in secluded lagoons, diving with schools of colorful fish in coral reefs, swimming in crystal clear lakes they found hiding in deserted caves, and island hopping where they had plenty of alone time on a small, white sand beach, undisturbed by any others, where they'd enjoyed a lovely picnic full of a veritable smorgasbord of delectable goodies, all packed for them by a helpful hotel concierge - complements of the Master Chef in the hotel's classiest restaurant.
Those alone times had especially made the whole trip worth it. 
They lounged on the cushioned bench of the balcony on their last night there, watching the full moon reflected off the relatively calm water of the ocean, listening to the peaceful sound of the ebbing tide. She swirled a glass of red, dry wine (at thirty nine degrees, Han teased when he’d handed it to her) in her hand absently, every once in a while taking a small sip from it. Around her waist, Han snaked an arm and held her close, and she leaned her back against the warmth of his chest. A light weight blanket was draped over both of them, as a gentle breeze wafted the salty scent of the sea around them.
Now this was pure bliss.
“Well.” She said softly, almost as though she were afraid to break the still silence of the night, “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt this relaxed since...since before I even joined the Senate.” 
Han softly whistled. “No wonder you’re so uptight, Sweetheart.” She tensed, the mood partially broken as she turned to chew him out, and he quickly added, “I’m only teasing, of course. Really, I’m glad. We deserved this.” He kissed her tenderly, and the tension left her shoulders, as she savored the taste and feel of him. 
“You were right.” She admitted when he pulled away, far too soon for her liking. “Maybe we should do this vacation thing more often.” 
“Wait, what was that? Do my ears deceive me?” 
“What?” 
“You said I was right.” 
She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Don’t get used to it.” 
“Oh no, I’m going to savor this moment, Princess.” He took a deep breath. “Oh yeah. That feels great. I’m going to tell Chewie you finally admitted it. And Luke, as well.” Honestly, his look was so smug right now.
“Ah, ah!” She grinned, shaking her head, “What happens on this honeymoon stays on this honeymoon! Remember?” 
Han pouted. “Well...I’m sure not everything…” 
“Nope. Everything.” She reiterated before turning back to the view with a pleasured sigh. “Maybe next time we should bring the kids.” 
“To...a honeymoon?” 
“No, nerf herder, on vacation.” 
“Erm. As much as I love them, that doesn’t sound very relaxing to me.” 
“But it would be good to bond with them, I’m sure.” At his grimace, she snorted. “Alright. Maybe when they’re a little older and not so prone to disobeying their parents.” 
“Now, I like the sound of that.” 
They sat in silence for a while, simply enjoying one another’s company. Then, Han asked, more timid than she’d ever heard him, “Leia. Can I ask you something?” 
She raised a brow. She’d never heard him sound so hesitant. “Anything.” 
He didn’t say anything right away, not meeting her eyes. “Do you...think your...I mean, what do you think...you know…”
“Spit it out.” 
He huffed. “Do you think your parents would have approved of...us?” 
She blinked in surprise. Again. He never failed to surprise her. She didn’t have to have the Force to know he didn’t mean her biological parents. “You’ve waited three kids and how many years of marriage to ask me that? I didn’t even think you cared about that.” 
“Well...I mean, I would've married you anyway regardless, but...sure. They’re you’re family. Our family. That’s important.” 
She stared at him. “Even now? Even though they...even though you’ll never get to meet them?” 
“Even now.” 
Leia blew out a breath, then looked back at the calm water as she seriously considered. “Well. They definitely would have objected to us marrying.” 
“Yeah?” He didn’t sound offended, or even all that surprised. 
“Yeah, but I don’t think that means they wouldn’t have liked you personally. There’s just certain expectations of royals.” 
“Outdated expectations, if you ask me.” 
“I agree, obviously.” she managed a small smile. “And I don’t think they would have stopped us if that’s what I really wanted.” 
“That’s good, right?” 
“Naturally.” She thought some more, matching her parents' personalities up with what they’d told her during her teenage years. “You probably would have charmed my mother.” 
“I always charm the ladies. That’s not a big surprise.” 
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, laser brain.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re not that charming. You just have an insane amount of luck and persistence.” 
“And it doesn’t hurt that I’m devilishly handsome, right?” He teased, wolfish grin in place. 
No. It definitely didn’t hurt. Not at all. But she made no comment on that. No sense in swelling his ego any more than it already was.  “My father definitely would have objected to you. Actually, he and I might have butted heads over my dating you. He might've said, What does a twenty-nine-year old smuggler from Corellia want with a nineteen-year-old princess from Alderaan? And he wouldn’t have been wrong.” 
“My intentions were always pure…” 
“Uh huh.” She grinned. “Sure they were. But, after we got married and had the twins, he would've softened up. Especially over the twins. They would have worked their charismatic magic on him, and he would have been putty in their little hands. Then I think he’d probably have become your best friend.” 
“It’s always the grandkids that get the in-laws to relax. Especially the father-in-laws.” Han laughed. 
“That they do.” She agreed and then turned to him. “Did that answer your question?” 
“Depends. You didn’t say any of that just to make me feel better, did ya?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. 
“Never.” She shook her head, leaned in and kissed him again, longer this time. Deeper. 
When they pulled away, Han asked, “Would you do it again? If you woke up tomorrow and had the option of going back and doing it all over again, would you change anything or would you keep things the same?” 
“Wow. You’ve got a lot of hard hitting questions tonight, don't you. I feel like I’m being interviewed for a holovid.” But she knew he was serious, so again she treated the question with the seriousness it deserved, taking a few minutes to mull over all they'd seen and been through. “I wish there were things during the war I could change, yes...just so that not so many good, innocent people died.” 
“Including your parents?”
 She nodded. “Especially them. Especially my home planet.” As it usually did, speaking about Alderaan caused her heart to constrict in her chest, but like she normally did with those feelings, she pushed it aside and moved on. “But if changing things meant losing you?” 
She paused. 
She was always one to put duty first. She'd been raised as a royal princess. Duty before self-interests came with the title and was second nature to her way of being. She’d made judgement calls during the Rebellion that put the good of the group above the good of the individual repeatedly. Hell, her decision to do just that on the Death Star had led to her home and family being destroyed in front of her own eyes. 
But would she give up Han? 
He was her life partner. Her soulmate. Her equal. He supported her just as much as she supported him. Even when he didn’t agree, he was there for her. He accepted her as she was, flaws and all, just as she accepted him. There were so many things she couldn’t have done alone that she was able to accomplish because they had each other’s backs. Han had become her other half, without her consciously realizing it. Without him, her life was bleaker...and of course, far less interesting. 
“No.” Han’s brows shot up in surprise, but she didn’t find herself particularly shocked by her answer. “I’ve given up so much in my life for Alderaan, for the Rebellion, for the galaxy. But you...I don’t want to give you up. Not ever by choice.” 
He blinked at her. “Really?” 
It was too dark to tell, but she thought his voice hitched as though he were getting choked up, something her husband almost never did.
“Really.” She promised, smiling up at him softly, tenderly, but no less affirmatively.
He stared at her, as though memorizing her, or the moment they were in. “I love you, Leia.” 
She grinned. “I know.” 
Then his lips were on hers, but this time they were hot and fierce, as though her words had opened a floodgate of emotion he could no longer contain. She wrapped her arms around his neck, climbing into his lap as she kissed him back with as much fervor as she could muster. 
“What do you say we take this to the bedroom?” Han asked between kisses, his voice a deep husky whisper.
 “That’s my favorite question you've asked, by far.” She replied back just as breathlessly. Han made a pleased sounding growl deep in his throat, and moments later she was whisked up into his strong arms, being carried back into their private bedchamber, her soft laughter sweet music to his ears.
No. She couldn't - and wouldn’t - give this man up. Not ever. And she thanked the Force, the stars, and anything else that would listen to her, that they’d found one another in the vastness of the galaxy. 
Because their love was fated. It was destiny. 
It was the will of the Force. 
And for Leia, that was the best reason of all to indulge in this very special second honeymoon.
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kyloring95 · 5 years
Text
The Rise of Skywalker aka Ben Solo-Skywalker aka WE TOLD YA SO
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Holy crap guys. We have a TITLE and a teaser trailer I did not expect! I tried to put my thoughts into words yesterday after the live stream of the panel but all I could successfully do was fangirl aggressively. So here is my completely unasked for opinions/reactions on THAT trailer. 
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We have an interesting set up here with Rey on this desert planet (Jakku, Tatooine, or maybe a new unknown planet?) she doesn’t seem worried/upset/panicked. It looks like she has done this before? Like she is preparing herself for something. 
We hear Ben’s Silencer flying in the distance and not only does she ignite the legacy saber but she turns her back on Ben then she pauses listening then takes off like she is trying to time something just right and then does the most badass of all badass flips onto Ben’s Silencer. Side note: Ben never fires on her and he is ALONE. They aren’t fighting in this sequence. Nor do I think Ben is training per se...I think they are trying to coordinate a move just right before having to apply it to a fight. (TFA concept art anyone?)
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The next frame is odd to me as I can’t place it nor do I have any idea as to which planet this is? Have we seen this one before? Or is this a new world we get to visit potentially in the unknown regions.
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Oh my god LOOK at the cinnaren roll kicking ass here. Boi straight up clotheslines this dude (who suspiciously looks like the guy from Rey’s vision in TFA that he impales) this poor poor stunt man... This scene does remind me now of that section of vision in the TFA novelization. FYI if Ben tells Rey “I’ll come back for you sweetheart.” I will legit pass away my soul will leave my body and I will melt in the theater.
I want to know who they are fighting in this scene. CONTEXT damn it I need it! 
Words can not describe how HAPPY I was to see Ben maskless. I came into this season of marketing fully expecting them to desperately try and make Kylo look like the big bad for IX and have his precious face covered by his mask but no they gave us MASKLESS BEN SOLO. 
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These. Are. Not. Ben’s. Hands.
These are not Chewie’s hands.
I want to know who.
I want to know why.
This does look similar to one of the leaks of one of the new alien characters that’s nameless right now. I am hoping that as time goes by we will get more to work with on this front.
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Finn and Poe are looking fiiiiiine. Mmmm MMM mmm. I am LOVING everyone’s new looks.
Could they be on the same desert planet as Rey and Ben when she flips onto his Silencer?
Have they stumbled upon Rey and Ben’s meeting place and are watching her do that BADASS flip? 
I need to know. I want to see an extra salty Poe talking to Rey in front of Ben all like “He tortured us Rey. You of all people should be against this!” and Rey can be all awkward and Ben can chime in “Torture? I didn’t torture her Dameron.” *dies laughing*
Lando and Chewie piloting the falcon just brought a wave of bittersweet emotions...
Are those stormtroopers using jetpacks like in the video games?!?!?!?! I am sooooooo excited to see if they are as thats the only time we have seen them! 
Poe, Finn, and 3PO on a vehicle that reminds me of the ones used at Jabba’s palace. 
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Leia...oof... Carrie you are missed by so many.
This clip of her hugging Rey and Rey’s tears...my heart hurts.
The clip of Leia holding Han’s? Luke’s? medal...
Just hit me in the feels LF.
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Look at Chewie.
Look at BB-8 and D-0.
Look at C3-PO.
And Poe.
And Finn.
And Rey.
They FINALLY get to go on an adventure together! 
I am so ready to see the character dynamics in this film!
Also they found the remnants of the Death Star...
Sith relics?
What is on the Death Star that they need? Hmmmm
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THIS COCKROACH
THIS SLIMY OLD MAN
THIS BASTARD THAT F*CKED WITH ANAKIN’S HEAD
THIS EVIL EVIL MAN THAT KILLED PADME THEN TOLD ANAKIN HE DID IT
THIS PIECE OF WRINKLED DEFORMED GARBAGE NEEDS TO STAY AWAY FROM MY SPACE FAMILY DAMN IT
I heard his cackle and wanted to vomit. 
He literally makes me sick to my stomach.
Ben should finish what Anakin started and finally kill this walking talking piece of space Sith garbage.
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Yes this is in here again because...how could I not put this here again? Look at that precious boi out to destroy people. 
Last random thoughts.
Luke’s voiceover. 
“We’ve passed down all we know. A thousand generations live in you now. But this is your fight. We’ll always be with you. No one’s ever really gone.” 
So many possible meanings... 
I am crossing my fingers and praying that he is talking to Ben or even Ben and Rey when he says this. JJ already said on the panel that the light and the dark would have to face the greatest evil (probably misquoting this rn but you know what I’m talking about) so this could be Luke giving them a talk about what they need to do. It also makes me think that multiple force ghosts? have given them knowledge of some kind that they need to use to defeat Palpatine once and for all.
ASLO Ben’s theme as the title is revealed only to sound hopeful and HOLY SMOKED THEY AREN’T EVEN TRYING TO BE SUBTLE WITH THAT MUSIC OR THAT TITLE. 
Alright everyone that’s all I have for now. Hope you enjoyed my cluster f*ck mess that is my blog post.
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garbanzel · 4 years
Text
hhhhhhhh some RoS thoughts I guess
I started writing this at 1:30 last night then I fell asleep and finished it 5 minutes ago so this is barely gonna be coherent but that won't stop me
So off the bat, I didnt hate it as much as I expected I was going to. It's still not good lmao but TLJ was definitely worse. Overall it was just...horribly put together. I guess I'll just make a list of the cons first and then end with the pros because there were some nice things I g u e s s. So uhh
CONS:
-out of the gates, the editing itself was awful, there were literally scenes that lasted for MAYBE 20 seconds then they'd cut to the next one and repeat in that fashion and it was just BAD. idk who allowed that or who didn't supervise their intern. there was barely any rhythm to this and you could feel how off it was. You could barely process things at times and it was just a big eyesore
-it was S O jam packed. Like you could tell they were trying to reverse a lot of the stuff from the last movie or spin it all in a different light to work in their favor. They also tried adding a bunch of additional things for the same reason and it would probably have belonged in bridge movie for the trilogy they initially intended to make. Basically just too much stuff for one movie, nothing felt that effective because of it.
-my FAVORITE line in the movie: "Palpatine returned somehow!" That's. Literally. How they explained palpatine returning. I laughed.
-but yeah the palpatine stuff. This goes back to the second point of "probably stuff they would have included in the last movie but we're just gonna throw it all in now" so damn rushed, so little explanation, so little making sense. I feel like it could have been interesting, palpatine as a villain wasn't necessarily a bad idea, but it took me midway through the movie to realize he's ACTUALLY alive and not just some force ghost because LOGICALLY - WHY WOULD HE BE ALIVE
-oh yeah, and this literally made no sense? Palpatine kept asking Kylo Ren to kill Rey and then just. At the end told her her wanted her to rule as the sith? And there was literally no explanation for why he changes what he says, he just talks like this. It's like midway through they made a different movie with different motives for Palpatine lmfao
-FUCKING KYLO REN MAN. I literally have no idea what his motive is for anything at any point. Explain him to me all you want, I'm sure it's easy to create a reason for him on your own, I've seen people give their takes on him, but the movie itself does not bother to provide enough of a backstory or motive to give you actual reasoning behind anything that he does. Fans are creating more of a story for him than the movies ever do and I feel like people have been confusing what they actually saw with what they read online. it felt like they had some ideas at some point but they all got lost in the paperwork and then they made up some new ones and those got lost too. He does a thing, we dont know why, then he does a different thing instead, we still dont know why.
-Rey kind of suffers from this too where they tried going somewhere with her arc then it either went nowhere or had absolutely no logic to it. The chewbacca fake-out death had no purpose because originally Rey was shown feeling guilty over being responsible for seemingly killing chewy and losing control over her power, but the second she senses he's alive she no longer carries that caution or fear of losing control because "he's not actually dead and I didnt actually kill him! So it's fine!" There was just too much of this type of thing going on with Rey so I might get into it more another time because it was a lot
-FORCE HEALING. Cool idea, but uuuuhhh, unless you're a sith, you probably cant, and wont do it. This is if we're going by anything the prequels established at this point. That's literally why anakin turns to the dark side, because the jedi refused to help him with this. And if rey wants to use it, fine, but they made her so worried about being lured to the dark side and being scared of that power so???? Idk I really dont care too much on the technicalities of the star wars lore, it's just something I noticed. This is more of a nit pick 
-the trio are...eeeeeehhh. again, trying to make stuff up for a movie that neglected to touch on it. It felt very disingenuous at tines. Finn is really what's holding everyone together, but both Rey and Poe's characters are really short with him this movie and tbh, they all REALLY don't have that much established with each other already that it would just comes off as stress, it reads more like they don't care so much for each other and that they have way more important things going on in their lives, you don't sense a lot of trust. I'm not saying there weren't any fun interactions, but they fall a little flat and don't feel as connected as they did in TFA or the way the OT cast was to each other. They needed more foundation and they didn't get that in TLJ, but they still acted like they had that development (if that makes sense?again, disingenuous)
-I didn't like the big reinforcements scene at the end very much. Poe was never given a real arc on becoming general or growing as a leader. And then when the time comes for him to take control of the situation he still remains pretty pessimistic and not very reliant, and idk, all I remember feeling was just stressed that THIS was the guy who was gonna be leading them lol. I love Poe but they did not give his character the development it needed for the role he was being built up to have by the end. Like when they go into battle and they're getting overwhelmed, HE BASICALLY JUST SAYS "GOODBYE WE'RE DOOMED" TO HIS TROOPS, which, I get things are bleak? But he doesn't talk to them in the way that it's even "well we tried" it's more like "we've wasted our lives for this and now it's over" and that's just. Not reassuring in the slightest. But the thing that really bugged me is that Lando comes in with the reinforcements and saves them and idk. Something about the old cast coming in to save the new one who lost all hope doesn't sit right with me because then they dont seem like they learned how to handle themselves without them. It's literally reliant on the old trilogy lol
-i'll bridge off this some more speaking of the OT, because there were so many deus ex machinas in this movie and a lot of them ended up being tied with the old cast. Similar to the "palpatine's back!" Things just happen out of nowhere, for no reason, or are easily resolved for with something created on the spot. There's barely any foreshadowing in the way that you see an element from a previous point in this movie or trilogy come back to help them. If a resolution needs to be made, the movie invents a new one. Anyways back to the old cast: they're just always there at convient times and ONLY convient times. When the First Order shows up at the desert planet and the trio need to escape, a truck shows up and it's literally Lando inside there to rescue them. And look! He has the vital information they need to find their way to the sith planet. Rey fights Kylo Ren on the death star ruins, and when she loses the upper hand, Leia intervenes to stop Kylo. When Kylo Ren decides to renounce the dark side (for reasons barely explained) Han Solo is there to make sure he does. And when the final battle happens and Poe fails to rally people to help them fight, Lando just shows up 10 minutes later with a fucking arsenal like no biggie. And this type of thing just happens way too often to just sum it up to accepting help when needed, it's almost like a complete dependency, and that's not something you want for the main cast in your final installment
-the knights of ren were in this, almost forgot, because they did nothing except look laughably pathetic. This seemed like one of those last minute additions because they literally did nothing, they just disappeared at some point in the movie and were never brought up again, and I dont think they really had a fight scene either. Basically there was no purpose for them to be there (like 70 other elements of this movie)
-Rose really didn't have a purpose. She was literally just "girl who repeats computer" and tbh that role is already kind of taken by billie lourd's character lol. but yeah, I was kind of upset last movie when they introduced her and her role really wasnt much of anything, I was hoping they would actually do something with her this time (with actual purpose) and all they did was push her more into the background. Her only saving grace is they got rid of that atrocious hair from the last movie
-you know I wasn't gonna talk about the kiss, so I could just live in denial, but I just have to say, there was a point torwards THE END OF THE FILM, where I genuinely questioned whether or not all the spoilers I read about rey and kylo ren kissing at the end were in fact real, because there was absolutely NO indication it would eventually happen. I was expecting them to establish some type of last minute romance between them, and when it didn't happen I was wondering how they could have possibly added it at that point. It was SO out of left field and the fact that it could have just as easily not been there to begin with makes me even more fucking pissed l o l
-and FINALLY: you expect me to believe palpatine FUCKED. And his son was BORN around the events of the last trilogy?....palpatine FUCKED??????
I'll move on
PROS:
-i know I had complaints about the main cast but i still enjoyed seeing them again. Like i said, Finn was really the one with the better interactions. He had some nice solo interactions with Poe and Rey, and I just like the little moments where it's just fun
i like the idea of Leia continuing Rey's training
-BB8s new friend is kinda cute
-we BARELY got any of this but I like that they introduced or at least confirmed the stormtrooper deserters, wish we got more of that (probably would have if Ree-On didn't make TLJ but WE'RE FOCUSING ON PROS)
-when Rey connects to her past lives at the climax of the movie with Rey's theme playing in the background 😭 
-leia's lightsaber confirmed
-this just goes to the general atmosphere of the film but there were a lot of matrix vibes just in the tone and design in some of the scenes that I thought were kind of cool. I just liked that aesthetically I guess, like the sith planet I thought was creepy but the good kind of creepy lol
-Rey chooses her last name. They did it in a kinda corny way, but i love the chosen names/family trope, always something I like to see.
-FORCE SENSITIVE FINN CONFIRMED (EVEN IF WE WERE ROBBED!) But he had a few nice "force moments" the same way leia did in ESB and RotJ. Could have been more but I'll take it
-Kyle Ron dies 😍
-just the fact that kylo ren is so much of an incel that the first time he kisses a girl he straight up dies LMAO
-Rey FINALLY gets her yellow lightsaber
-I liked the little bit during the "bring in the cavalry" scene where they're just like "they're not military, I think they're just people" like there was a good idea in that and i wish they would have done more with it
-i know this list is short and there are other things I would add but they fall more under the category of "cool ideas I would like to have seen more of or executed differently" because really, there's a lot of stuff I thought was really cool but just. Would have probably enjoyed in a different movie. The palpatine stuff was kind of cool, (not necessarily rey palpatine, just him as a villain or the sith in general), kylo ren with an actual developed motive and backstory, more on the rogue stormtroopers and just normal civilians living in the sw universe in general, giving the main cast more time to interact with each other - but I feel this is all stuff for a different post on how these things could have been effective if executed differently.
Overall, my thoughts are there were some interesting things in RoS, but they ultimately amount to being disappointing because they weren't given proper care and could easily have been. The editing was way off, and not just for pacing but also for not knowing what to keep in and what to cut out. There was a lot of potential with this series and it just feels kind of dissatisfying to see it end this way. The good thing is it didn't ruin the future potential for any of the characters (well, except for Kyle lmao). But yeah, it's pretty open ended for them, nobody's in a relationship so you're free to ship whoever, Rey's a Jedi, Finn is confirmed force sensitive, no one's dead except the original trio (and kyle) but they're all force ghosts anyway, so if you wanna imagine a good ending for them you can. Overall, meh, but I wouldn't tell anybody not to see it because it's not a complete waste of time. Try to go on a discount day though lol
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onion-souls · 6 years
Note
Outside of the bit about scale (you got a point), how come you didn’t like TLJ?
Spoilers
I pretty much mentioned everything I liked: it was nice to see Mark Hammil playing the role of Bitter Old Failure to the best it could be done, the recursive asshole plane was a nice visual, uh…the red layer on Salt Hoth was kind of cool, and the red throne room of Snoke was ok looking, albeit entirely derivative of the Imperial Guard from Return of the Jedi.
OK, so first of all, the structure is entirely derivative of The Empire Strikes Back, in the same way the Force Awakens was a New Hope II. We told ourselves that this reuse was OK back then because it was the start of a new cycle, but really it wasn’t, we were wrong, and this plot structure was inexcusable. They also botched its pacing because the Space Monte-Carlo (Canto Bite?) section just sucked. Its “just Earth” design took me out of the film in the same way that the weird 50s diner scene in Clones did.
Benecio del Toro’s little arc was nothing compared to Billy D. Williams. Lando Calrissian just oozes charisma, so his betrayal actually hurts and he has sympathetic reasoning behind it (even though it sucked to turn on Han, he was almost morally obligated to keep Cloud City from facing the wrath of an empire that has no qualms about blowing up planets). Del Toro…I forgot his character name…is a slicer who comes out of nowhere (they go to the planet looking for a decoder, and just run into this guy who happens to be a skilled decoder but apparently wasn’t the first guy? I don’t know, it was muddled) and comes across as kind of an obvious scumbag so his betrayal is obvious and we only new him for like 10 space minutes. Betrayal is hack screenwriting twist #3.
There are sphinx-cat-lama things that run faster than motorized hover vehicles. They are constantly prodded in space horse races because their riders are EVIL despite the sphinxcatlamas obviously having very strong racing instincts and strong, intuitive rider bonds anyway. But the space rich people are BAD, unlike the real life rich people who make these movies.
So yeah, Space Monte-Carlo felt like a huge waste of time.
Laura Dern shows up with purple hair as basically another Leia but even less competent as a military commander. Non-Mothma nearly gets the entire Resistance destroyed but that’s OK because she kills herself after fucking over everyone. Also if going to hyperspace can absolutely devastate a capital ship like that, hyperspace warheads should completely dominate Star Wars military doctrine, though to be fair, military operations never made any sense in Star Wars (like AT-AT walkers).
Poe gets to carry out a mutiny and doesn’t get executed when Leia undoes it with a single shot. It would have been cool as hell to see Poe killed for treason, showing that the Resistance is an actual military force that we should take seriously and that there are shades of real grey in this. But nope, can’t have Leia in a bad light now even though everyone else from the original trilogy is shit.
Also Akbar died but he wasn’t really a character anyway in this so I’m going to pretend it’s like Calamarian “Smith” and my boy Admiral “It’s a Trap” Akbar is chillin’ on pleasure planet Risa with mermaids.
Hux is the only competent character and I wanted him to open fire on Kylo and Luke. Just frag him. Kylo is a liability to the First Order.
BB8 is also competent and kind of a mass murderer, which is cool.
Bitter Old Failure is called Luke Skywalker but that’s probably a coincidence because Luke Skywalker was this endless font of optimism, valor, and goodness who wanted off his backwater world feared being stranded for the rest of his life farthest from the bright center of the universe. Bitter Old Failure kind of trains Rey for a few days but not really. And he’s mostly mopey and spends his days pole-vaulting down to a little rock where he drinks the milk-jizz of a humanoid being. Turns out he got sad because the greasy haired pale kid turned out to be evil so he wanted to kill him but only for like a second but then evil kid wakes up, turns on his lightsabre, and somehow both defeats Luke and kills every other student from a prone position. So BOF was really bad at training those losers too. He’s pretty much wrong about everything. Rey tells him he’s shit and that Kylo is still awesome because Snoke set up a Force discord server and they totally held hands. She then kicks BOF’s ass and leaves because she can still change the father-murdering lunatic. There is a magical fire that burns down his tree where he keeps ancient artifact texts of the Jedi order but a terrible puppet Yoda shows up to let them burn because Rey already knows the lessons in those books because she’s awesome and better than everyone so might as well let an ancient culture die out, a white girl has the power in her heart.
Both Kylo and Rey are huge, immature children. And I kind of like that in Kylo because it’s funny. It’s totally tonally off and ruins the atmosphere of every scene he’s in, but he’s super-funny as a character. He is basically Dark Helmet from Space Balls but the actual big bad of an actual, big-budget Star Wars fan film. Rey is impulsive and runs off to save Kylo on a whim, but unlike Luke running off to save Han and Leia, you know, good characters that he loves, Rey is not punished at all for this idiotic move. No lost hand, no terrible revelation (other than that her parents were just nobodies, but whatever, my parents are nobodies, that’s not trauma), just a bit of painful telekinesis and a fight scene in which guards actually run away from her when they could have easily swarmed and killed her. The fight is that badly choreographed. At one point she is arm-locked and escapes it by dropping her lightsabre, even though the lightsabre was not the point of contact on the grapple. Whaaaat
Snoke was a nobody who just died a dumb death because he’s dumb. Whatever. I assume he was one of those weird grey guys who hung with Sheev in Return of the Jedi. An evil guy who loves evil. There was a bit of change in characterization - he seemed a bit more, I don’t know, rational and less arch in Awakens. But I don’t care. Not worth wasting time on this guy. Sorry Andy Sirkus.
There are like half a dozen sequences where someone is totally fucked but then some kind of explosion happens and they cut away to the imperiled characters safely teleported out of harms way. And there are an other four incidents where someone is blow away by something but totally fine, no injuries. It felt cartoonist.
Aliens don’t matter anymore. They are just set dressing. At one point Rey nearly kills two aliens and doesn’t apologize to them because they are not people to her. Even Chewbacca is just there because he was in the OT. I’m still miffed that he wasn’t the one to comfort Leia after Han died. No, it had to be Rey, because Chewbacca isn’t actually a person. The Prequels actually deserve praise for making the aliens in this universe matter. They had agency and political needs.
I don’t know the scale of this universe anymore. The destruction of Not-Corruscant (Holstein Prime?) in Awakens seemed like kind of a big deal, but not anymore. I don’t have a feeling of how many planets are in this conflict. If the entire Resistance is essentially 400 people in a ship, how can anyone in this Galaxy give a shit?
100 Billion Stars.
Quadrillions of people.
Does anyone care about this war between a thousand Tarkin-LARPers and this incompetent monarchist PTA?
It kind of feels more like Battlestar Galactica.
The end sequence on Salt Hoth is the dumbest shit. A turbo-laser is deployed that they say is miniature Death Star technology even though it looks nothing like it and high power siege lasers should have been a common thing in the setting for over 10,000 years. BUT YOU HAVE TO REFERENCE THE DEATH STAR (Seriously, Death Star idolotry is one of the worst parts of this universe. It should be considered a total ultra-Hindenberg of a failure but people just love the damn things. It’s a saga about a family of failures and their relationship with the Death Star plans). So the last few pilots of the Resistance make the slowest charge ever directly at the Turbolaser in rustbuckets that drag through the salt for…traction maybe? And they get picked off one by one by Hux The Token Not-Dumb. Despite this being a suicide mission from the start, a last ditch effort to save the last 400 people in the Resistance, they call off the suicide mission because it’s suicidal and just kind of go back to Echo-of-Echo base to get killed there. Finn at least tries to save everyone by zooming right into the laser and mutual-killing it, but Rose has some emotions so we have to shut everything down until she works through it; she rams his craft with her craft, because forcing your lover into a supersonic car accident in front of a hundred AT-AT-KINDA walkers and the enemy command carrier and a laser battery is how you save people when you’re you’re very very stupid. She says you win by saving people you love, kind of ignoring that Finn was trying to save everyone in the Resistance for the good of whatever they’re fighting for. She then passes out because the 1000 kmph crash knocked her to 0 HP and she forces Finn to magically drag her dumb ass back to base over a salt flat filled with wizard sword fights and a turbo laser and walker guns. Luckily everyone in the First Order is nice enough to let the filthy TRAITOR go back to base.
Oh shit, totally forgot, Phasma showed up about 20 minutes before this to have a boss fight and die. Sorry Gwyndolin Christie, you keep being too good for things
Finally BOF shows up using MAGIC TRANSGALACTIC BILOCATION POWERS that would have been incredibly useful during the rest of the series to buy the Resistance 5 minutes of time to get out of a hole covered by rocks that these people with laser guns and skimmers can’t remove. Thank God that Alolan Ninetails showed up to do the location scouting for this advanced Resistance movement. BOF collapses, gets to look at the sun and has a peaceful moment, because Luke looked at the suns of Tatooine too and that was a good shot. And then BOF dies, becoming one with the Force because he used too much bandwidth projecting himself. But at least he got to humiliate that little shit Kylo, the most easily humiliated man in the galaxy. And he got a cool brush-off dust scene and line deliveries.
And so Luke had no children, didn’t marry a hot redhead secret agent, didn’t bring a lasting peace to the galaxy, and left no actual pupils worth mentioning. LOL, fuck you, fans
Also Rey apparently saved the old Jedi texts somehow even though she wasn’t there, because she’s just that good. And so she can take a huge shit on Luke’s legacy by being the actual person who rebuilds the Jedi Order.
Oh and the First Order just kinda let's the Resistance leave despite still having arial/spatial superiority.
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shadowsong26fic · 7 years
Text
Yet Another AU because I love these things
This idea actually came up in discussion with my Roommates last month, but I decided to do a Distaff variant instead b/c I’m so so sorry it was late. (Is still late...)
[The other AU outlines I’ve done can be found in the tag]
Anyway. We all love time travel fics, right? Here’s one with Luke. Tiny, precious, twelve-year-old* Luke.
Who jumps back to the last year/year and a half of the Clone Wars.
And lands on Ventress.
*Luke is possibly ten instead? Somewhere in that range, anyway. We’ll say twelve for now.
ANYWAY, Luke is off exploring/goofing off, as bored kids do, and he comes across a narrow, winding little canyon he’s never seen before.
“Huh,” he thinks. “Could’ve sworn I knew this part of the desert better than this.”
Naturally, he decides to see where it leads. He finished his chores early today, and there’s still a few hours before dark, so he has time. Adventure!
Except then things get...weird.
He could swear he’s only been walking an hour, but it’s suddenly dark. And, when he turns around to retrace his steps, all he sees is solid rock.
“I’ve got a Bad Feeling(tm) about this...”
There’s no way to go but forward, so he does. Especially when he catches a glimpse of a campfire flickering up ahead.
He knows there’s a good chance whoever built it is Not Friendly--he’s not an idiot--but he is beyond lost, he’s got no supplies...he figures it’s worth taking a chance. At least peeking a little closer. So he heads for the fire to ask for help.
And there, he finds Ventress! Ventress has just finished a job.
This is a few weeks after her and Obi-Wan vs. Maul and Savage.
Why is she camping in the desert? ...reasons.
So, this random kid comes up to her. This--bright, shiny, supernova-in-the-Force kid.
....okay, then.
Ventress really does not have time for this shit.
When he asks for her help, she considers telling him to get lost. See above, re: no time for this shit. Also, she’s really, really uninterested in babysitting a brat who was stupid enough to wander off in the desert like this.
Except the alternatives to keeping him are killing him (which would be...pointless, really; also she’s not super-interested with killing a random kid who’s no threat to her at this point in her timeline, unless she’s being paid for it), or sending him off to a slow death via desert or Sand People (which is just lazy; if you’re gonna kill someone, freaking do it.)
Besides, maybe his parents will pay her if she brings him home. Not a lot--he’s dressed like a small-time farmer--but, hey, every penny counts.
“You can stay here tonight,” she finally says. Might as well keep her options open.
He brightens. “My name’s Luke,” he offers.
“I don’t care,” she grumbles. “Go to sleep.”
Things get...messy...the next morning.
See, that bounty Ventress just collected? Someone else thinks it was his, and resents her poaching.
He and a bunch of his heavily-armed friends track her down, catching up with her and Luke just as they’re breaking camp.
Naturally, a fight ensues.
Ventress is exceptional, but vastly outnumbered.
Luke is tiny and inexperienced, but a) he knows the desert, b) he’s a decent shot, and c) he can hotwire a speeder in under thirty seconds.
Suffice to say, with Luke being a major contributor, they kick some ass and escape unharmed on a bike Luke stole from one of the other bounty hunters.
Ventress grudgingly admits that the brat was kind of useful back there, and he possibly just saved her ass a little bit--or at least spared her some inconvenient and painful injury--so maybe she shouldn’t demand a ransom after all.
She sighs, and instructs him to pull over so she can drive--kid’s good, but she has her dignity to think of--and tells him she’ll take him home, make sure he gets there safe, then take the bike and leave.
Things get weird again when they get to the Lars homestead.
Luke has her stop at the edge of the property. “This isn’t right,” he says, biting his lip. There’s supposed to be another building right there; he and Uncle Owen just finished putting it up last season. And the closest vaporator is an older model; one he vaguely remembers trying to climb as a toddler, before it was replaced.
Also, he’s pretty sure that old man is his step-grandfather, who died before he was even born.
“What about it?” Ventress asks. She can feel the Force swirling around them, around Luke, like ripples spreading out from a stone dropped in a pond.
“This is my uncle’s farm, but it’s wrong.”
And he sort of--sort of--has a clue, because there’s Stories, about people wandering into the desert and coming back to find that years have passed in a night. But things are a different kind of wrong. He’s never heard about anyone going backwards. Besides, that’s all they were--stories. Right?
He takes a deep breath. “What year is it?” he asks, after a long minute.
She quirks an eyebrow and tells him.
“That doesn’t make sense!” He blurts out what year it’s supposed to be.
Which...actually does make a weird amount of sense to her. Because of the way he casts ripples in the Force, if nothing else.
And, honestly, she’s seen weirder crap than time-travelling twelve-year-olds. She led a zombie army, for crying out loud.
Luke is freaking out a little bit, so she punches him to get him to shut up.
She points out that, while ideally he gets back to his own time, he still needs to survive until he figures out what the hell happened, let alone how to reverse it. “Lucky, you have a home where you can wait all that out.”
(A part of her knows that’s a stupid idea--whatever brought him back here, either it’ll work in its own damn time or he’ll need information he sure as hell won’t get on tiny farm in the middle of nowhere on freaking Tatooine.)
“They don’t know me yet,” he says sadly, scuffing the ground a little.
....no, she insists to herself. She does not need a kid tagging along, especially one this bright with power who has no idea how the world works. At least in the here and now.
But he’s quick on his feet, and keeps a level head in a crisis.
And he is a decent shot.
And one hell of a getaway driver.
Besides, she can always ditch him later if he gets too annoying. Changing her mind in the other direction would be a lot harder.
“Fine,” she grumbles. “You can come with me. For now.”
“Okay,” Luke says. Where else would he go, anyway?
And thus begins the highly entertaining saga of Asajj Ventress luring twelve-year-old time-travelling Luke Skywalker into a Life of Crime.
Except, as the weeks and months pass, it becomes less her leading him into a life of crime (...well, it kind of is; he’s really, really good at stealing cars and Being a Distraction), and more her evaluating jobs based on how Sad Luke looks when she does something really unethical.
What, she thinks, what the hell is this. Why do I give a damn what the brat thinks? I did not sign up for a portable conscience! I am leaving him behind at the next port, I swear.
Except somehow she never does. She picks jobs that won’t disappoint Luke, and he uses his share of the profits to get shiny things that would make their ship so cool, Asajj.
Eventually, she gives up and accepts the inevitable. For as long as Luke is stuck in the past, he’s hers.
(She wishes, sometimes, that she could take him back to Dathomir, and introduce him to her sisters.)
(...important detail I forgot to mention before: she doesn’t know his full name. He didn’t give it when introducing himself, and she never bothered to ask.)
They probably have an Encounter with Boba Fett at some point.
Possibly Cad Bane or Hondo.
Maybe even BB!Han and/or Lando because why not.
So many possibilities...
Fast forward a bit. Luke and Ventress are hanging out on Coruscant, when she sees a familiar face with a  bounty attached.
(Anakin’s had some...weird...dreams the past few days. Not bad, not threatening, just...weird. Ever since he got recalled to investigate the Temple bombing. They’ve taken second place to said investigation, since they don’t seem to be urgent or anything, but--he’s maybe a little bit distracted.)
(Luke’s been dreaming, too. He told Asajj about them. She tells him to keep track of them, and tries to guide him through looking for what actual useful information might be in them, but dreams have never really been her strong suit...)
Anyway, Ventress tells Luke to stay in the apartment, and goes to Investigate.
The first bit, with Ahsoka, goes mostly as in canon.
With an added incentive for her pardon--if she’s free and clear, she can get Luke the help he needs, to figure out his dreams and find his way home.
(Honestly, she’s sort of surprised he hasn’t caught any eyes yet, shiny and powerful as he is. Jedi really are blind idiots.)
(And didn’t Dooku’s Master live on Coruscant? ...maybe she should take Luke somewhere safer...)
(After she helps Skywalker’s brat and earns her pardon.)
The part where she gets jumped by Barriss and loses her lightsabers does, too.
Except she called Luke to let him know she was on her way home. And when she doesn’t turn up, he goes looking for her.
And then Anakin tracks her down.
They fight; Ventress does her whole “Ahsoka and I have a lot in common. My master abandoned me, and that’s exactly what you did to her.”
That’s when she senses Luke getting close.
And, suddenly, it clicks.
Talk fast, she tells herself, because there’s no way this conversation ends well if Skywalker sees Luke now, with Tano still in play. (Because if he gets distracted and delays and fails to save his apprentice because of them...)
She gets out what she knows as quickly as possible.
Except Anakin senses him, too. And Ventress suddenly got tense and very to-the-point, with none of her usual banter.
But Ahsoka needs him right now; he has to fix that first.
But whatever’s going on here is Important; he knows that with every fiber of his being.
Besides, if Ventress is brushing him off, if she’s lying to him--
Anakin is thisclose to strangling her again when Luke comes charging in.
“Asajj!”
“I told you to wait for me in the apartment,” she snaps, trying to get between him and Skywalker before things get even more out of hand.
Anakin is VERY CONFUSED right now because what the hell is going on okay that’s definitely the presence I felt approaching but none of that explains why the hell Ventress has a kid with her.
Let alone why this kid feels so familiar.
Luke peers up at Anakin with big, puzzled blue eyes, trying to answer some of the same questions in his own mind.
“Don’t you have an apprentice to save?” Ventress cuts in, putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder and pulling him behind her.
(Luke tries to wriggle past her; settles for peering out from behind her back.)
“Ventress--” Anakin starts.
“Well?” she prompts. “And isn’t that rescue time sensitive?”
He continues to hesitate a breath longer. But she’s right. He knows she’s right. 
"Maybe we can help,” Luke pipes up.
That, at least, seems to get through Skywalker’s thick skull. “No, I’ve got this,” he says. Then he glowers at Ventress. “But after I talk to Barriss--”
“I’ll be here, Skywalker,” she says, then, realizing her mistake, claps a hand over Luke’s mouth before he can blurt something out and hold the Jedi here any longer. “Run along now.”
He almost rises to the bait, then glances at Luke and turns and leaves again.
Ventress relaxes once Skywalker’s gone, and lets go of Luke’s mouth.
“He is not a navigator,” Luke says, sounding thoroughly awed.
“.......no,” she says. “Who told you he was?”
“My uncle,” Luke says. “He doesn’t talk about him much. He died before I was born.”
Ventress has a Very Bad Feeling(tm) about the future.
And she does some quick mental math.
Oh karking hell.
She takes Luke back to the apartment, and starts grilling him for details. Which she now realizes she probably should have done a long damn time ago.
Anakin, meanwhile, goes back to the Temple to confront Barriss. He’s still at least partway focused on that kid in the alley, which might affect the outcome of their duel.
She does still get captured, and Ahsoka’s innocence is still proved, though.
And Ahsoka still leaves.
So he’s still reeling, on several levels, when he goes back to look for Ventress and the kid.
He doesn’t have to look too hard; she lets him find them in an alley not too far from where they separated.
“Are you okay?” Luke asks.
“Sure,” he lies.
Luke looks up at Ventress, uncertain.
“Not here,” she says, and leads the way back to her apartment.
“I keep dreaming about you,” Luke blurts, as they walk. “I mean, I think I’m dreaming about you? It’s all sort of vague.”
Anakin thinks back on his own weird dreams the last few days, and nods. He has some kind of connection with this kid, and he can almost--
He stops, in the middle of the street. No...that’s not possible.
“Not here,” Ventress hisses. Luke takes his hand and tugs it.
They get to the apartment, and Luke confirms what Anakin has started to guess.
“I’m Luke Skywalker,” he says. “I’m from the future. And I’m your son.”
For a minute, Anakin just stares at him, because this can’t be real; he and Padme are so careful, and time travel is not a thing.
But he can feel the truth of what Luke is telling him.
Ventress waits until he settles, then follows up with a bombshell of her own.
“You know I’m not your friend. Or your Order’s. But I am Luke’s friend. And based on what he’s told me, about how and where he grew up--raised by people I had never heard of, and believe me, I know who most of your friends are. So we think something awful is about to happen. We don’t know what, exactly, but a lot of people are going to die.” She sighs. “And I suppose we want to help you stop it.”
...and that’s about as far out as I have planned in detail. But Padme, of course, will be brought in on this pretty much right away. Ventress will probably drag Obi-Wan in even if Anakin refuses; he owes her a favor and they parted on reasonably good terms, and he’s good at this sort of thing (“He looks a lot like Ben,” Luke muses, after meeting him; which just raises more questions), and once Luke shares the Emperor’s name...
Shit is going to Go Down.
Bonus:
MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE FUTURE
After Ben realizes Luke is missing, he sends a message to Bail, and then goes to try and find him...
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afangirlsplaylist · 7 years
Text
Say Yes
Giveaway fic for @mythicalseries
Author: afangirlsplaylist
Rating: Teens and Up
Warnings: Mention of injury (blood)
Word Count: 2,014
Summary: Rhink thinks film school is his and Link’s future - until he is given a vision of just how wrong he is. 
Notes: based on the prompt: ‘a "ghosts of past, present and future" kind of situation after R and L get into a big fight’ I took this to a slightly different place than you were thinking of I’m sorry.
Read it on archiveofourown
No matter how much he wished he could Rhett wasn’t able to remember his dreams very often. Most of the time they got left behind on his pillow when he got up, and the ones he did remember were mind numbingly normal. He spent most nights desperately trying to conjure up an image of blondor, dragons, or the beach, only to get stuck dreaming about something mundane like filming. 
So he wasn’t sure what was different about this one. Maybe it was because he'd had Link on his mind all day - since he’d been arguing with his dad about film school till he’d exhausted himself. Or it might’ve been because he’d collapsed onto his bed with his throat hoarse from yelling and his emotions running high. Whatever it was, something about the night made his dream feel more real than anything he felt when he was awake. 
Where-ever he was in this dream made no sense. The dim light felt like an empty hall or unlit stage, but the humming of distant voices and a soft tinkling sound reminded him of a forest or a creek. Yet he couldn’t place any of the voices or see any running water - only the broad back of his friend standing a couple of feet in front of him. 
It was Link but it wasn't Link. He was wearing a pair of turtle shell glasses and even though Rhett knew his Link was several months younger than him this man looked like he'd been out of college for at least a decade. He figured this version of his friend must be doing well for himself - judging from the stylish sweeping up-do, the red and grey mix pattern suit, and the shiny Rolex draped on his wrist. He looked the picture of happiness, wealth and success, making Rhett’s mouth fall open a little in impressed shock.
This Link didn’t even glance his way when he went to stand beside him, so Rhett almost jumped when he spoke. 
"You talk to your dad about film school today?” The older Link asked.
Rhett couldn’t even acknowledge the question, too busy staring at Link as if he had been asked to play spot the difference. “Link?”
“Not your Link. Not yet.” The older Link said with a smile.
Rhett found the answer rather ominous but unfortunately Link didn’t care to elaborate any further. "Film school - you talked to him?" Link asked again. 
I don't know, why the heck do you want to talk to me about that when you’re from the freaking future or something? Rhett desperately wanted to say, but instead he said. "Yeah, I'm talking him into letting me go with you. Or... other you."
“Don’t.” Link said harshly.
Rhett had never heard his Link talk to him with a tone of authority like that in his life. He wanted to ask what was so wrong with film school, but for a second time the words wouldn't come out. “Why?”
Instead of answering Link stared off into the distance - where one of the humming voices was growing louder. “That’s why.”  
The approaching voice was quickly joined by a small body - no older than nine, storming up to them and clutching a piece of paper in his hand. If Rhett had any doubts about what it was they were erased when he noticed the blood dripping from the palm of the younger Link. It was a deep slice, but Rhett was more alarmed by the tears falling from his face.
“Why would you forget about this?” The younger Link accused, holding up the paper as his voice rang with anger and disappointment. "We made a pact old man."
"I..." Rhett couldn't finish his words, too stunned by the raging young Link in his face. All he could do was gawk at the boy’s split palm and the living, breathing blast from the past standing before him.
"You nothing." Young Link spat, throwing the paper into the dirt and mashing it in with the toe of his soccer shoes. "Go to the damn film school for all I care."
Rhett looked to the adult Link for help but the young Link ran off into the darkness before he could say anything more - leaving him to gingerly pick up what was left of the paper.
"Give it up." Adult Link suggested. "It's gone even in my time."
Seeing as the words were barely legible and the thing was caked in dirt Rhett reluctantly cast it aside, where it quickly sunk into the dirt again. Even without the paper in his hand he could still feel it shaking, stunned by the level of hatred he’d seen in the little Link’s eyes when he looked at him. 
He turned to the adult Link beside him for some kind of comfort, feeling the need to defend himself.
"It was what you wanted." Rhett said, shaking his head in confusion. "I mean it's what my Link wants." He corrected.
"It was.” Adult Link spoke up. “But you don’t realize you're hurting him a lot more by going to film school. It ain't supposed to happen."
"Then what is supposed to happen?" Rhett asked, starting to feel peeved.
As if a spotlight had fallen on a piece of stage Rhett hadn't noticed before, his attention was caught by a preteen girl playing in the corner. She had a pretty face, long blonde hair, and a laugh that rang out just like Link’s.
“She’s beautiful.” Rhett commented, a strange sensation in his gut telling him who she was. “Yours?”
A wide smile stretched across Link’s face as his gaze followed her. “She is.” He said proudly. “Just like her mom.”
“Her mom, huh?” Rhett teased, the weirdness of the dream temporarily forgotten. “When do I get to meet her? She treat you right?"
The smile dropped from Link’s face and he went suddenly serious again. "You don’t. Not if you don’t say yes to your dad and let me follow you. You know if you don't I’ll just end up whenever you’re going, and her mom won’t exist in my life."
He turned back to his daughter as if to prove a point. "Neither will she.” He added, before nodding his head in the direction of two boys Rhett hadn’t noticed. “Or them.”
Rhett’s eyes followed Link’s gesture and he spotted the tell-tale shaggy Neal hair on the heads of the two boys, although they had softer facial features that had to come from their mother. He'd just opened his mouth to speak before Link beat him to it.
“Lincoln and Lando.” Link answered his question for him.
“Gave him the family name, huh?” Rhett said in amusement. "What's with Lando?"
"Star Wars character. Don't ask." Link ordered.
Rhett snorted with laughter. "You ain't gunna change a bit man."
Link’s face couldn’t help betraying a smile. "I'm beginning to think you haven't either." 
Rhett resisted the urge to swat him with his hand before he was distracted by the sound of more children running over to join the others.
"They're yours." Link told him, and Rhett's head spun around so fast he rubbed at his neck to make sure he hadn't got whiplash.
"They're what?"
"They're yours." Link repeated patiently.
He should’ve been able to see the other two children as easily as he’d seen Link’s, but no matter how hard Rhett squinted he couldn't quite make out their faces. It was like someone had taken a sharpie and blacked out their faces in his mind, before muting the audio of their voices while they were at it. 
“I don’t even get to know what they look like?” Rhett complained.
"You don't get them at all unless you say yes to your dad.” Link told him.
Rhett swallowed hard, already scrapping the idea of film school as his heart beat for the two nameless, faceless, boys that were meant to be his. Nothing that meant losing any of this could be worth trying, but part of him still wanted to know that something would’ve stayed the same - that there was one small unwavering part of him that could survive the upheaval. 
"I’d have you at least right?" Rhett asked, nudging his older friend as if he already knew the answer. Link didn't nudge back.
“You’d lose me in two years.” Link said bluntly, watching as Rhett’s smile fell.
“Says who?” Rhett pressed. “What about the oath?
Link mouth went tight as he stared down at the remnants of the oath on the ground with tired, sympathetic eyes. “Even blood oaths have their limits man. I’d only be happy for so long in film school before I wanted something else. We'd just.... lose touch.”
"That's bullshit." Rhett growled, angrier more at the idea of letting that happen than anything else.
"Hey I agree." Link told him, holding up his hand's defensively. "But it happens."
Rhett thought back to the present Link, sleeping soundly on the floor by his bed with no worry of them ever going separate ways. It was then he realised he hadn't given any thought to who would be in HIS bed.
"And my wife? I'm assuming if your married I'm married too." Rhett asked.
"Yeah you are." Link told him, rolling his eyes a little. "Don't flatter yourself I got married first."
"Is she good looking?" Rhett pried harder, once again trying to get a look at the faces of his boys in the distance. Link took a moment to answer, giving Jessie some thought.
"Your wife's hot I guess." He shrugged.
"Hey!" Rhett yelled, indignant.
"Well she is!" Link countered, losing a touch of his cool mystique. "She ain't yours yet dude."
Rhett looked like he wanted to chew him out further but he bit his tongue in favour of getting more questions answered while he still could. "Is she older or younger?"
Link thought carefully about his answer. "She's a little younger but don't give up on her." He advised. "And you should probably think about growing a beard when you're a little older. She likes it."
"Yeah that's right." Rhett said smugly, stroking his currently smooth jaw and imagining a thick beard coating it.
Link just groaned. “You’re even worse at this age. I forgot."
Before Rhett could ask him what he meant by that Link started walking off in the direction of the children. It wasn’t until then that he noticed those bright, childish voices were getting quieter by the second, and panic took over as he remembered one thing he hadn’t asked about.
"What's it like?" Rhett called after him, practically screaming as he felt the dream starting to fade around him. "What we do?"
By the time Link had an answer for him it was almost too late, but he stopped and turned around quick enough for Rhett to catch it.
"Mythical."
Link was gone once the word had left his lips, leaving Rhett to succumb to the pull of the waking world.
He woke up with a shuddering gasp in his own bed a second later, his head ringing with memories that were already starting to slip away from him. It was almost a shock when he heard his Link stirring on the floor below him - very present and now awake.
"Wha' you dreaming about?" Link asked groggily, his eyes still half closed as he lifted his head.
Rhett held his forehead in an attempt to remember exactly what had happened - but all he had was a select few bits and pieces. It felt as though someone was erasing everything he tried to recall, until it was so foggy he stopped trying. "I can't remember."
"Then shu'up." Link mumbled, throwing a small pillow in Rhett's general direction before rolling over and immediately falling asleep again.
Rhett looked affectionately at what he could see of his friend in the darkness - his mind made up. He didn't remember much of the dream but he did know one thing.
He was going to study engineering and Link was coming with him.
Hope you liked this @mythicalseries :) thanks for the cool prompt!
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stillsolo · 7 years
Note
letter writing, number 9 :))))
9 - an apology that’s way too late | @ofcloudcities | 1.7k words holy fuck why.  I love this ship help me.  Not doing letters.  Just voice recordings, sorry! Han wouldn’t write a letter.  He has no patience for that.  
❝Shit—where do I, uh—begin?  I dunno.❞      A momentary lapse of silence follows a bout of breathless laughter.❝’S a long story, Lando.  It really is.  Sit back, ‘cause it’ll be a while before I’m done.❞
A sigh.  ❝Really all goes back to when we were kids.  When we were runnin’ the streets like they were our own.  Back when we shared bread ‘n soup together ‘cause we didn’t have enough money to buy anything else to eat.  I think—I think around the time we turned twenty—and you said you were leaving to make it big—I think that’s when I knew I wanted you.            Yeah.  I’m cuttin’ the dramatics, Lando; you’ve probably known this whole time, huh?  ‘Cause you’re smart.  You’ve always been too fuckin’ smart for your own good …  Anyway, it wasn’t boyish curiosity or nothin’ either.  I figured that out later ‘cause I’d thought that’s what it was, too.  You’ve always been an open guy, never cared about what others had to say, and you chased after your own version of happiness.  … Guess that’s kinda what I wanted to do, too.  When you said you were leaving, I wanted to show you I wasn’t gonna be the same bum you’d known for years.❞
❝Growing up with you was the best ‘n the worst time of my life.  So, when we promised that, one day, we’d meet up again; I wanted to show you how much better things had gotten for me.  I mean, I wasn’t all that much different when we did, though.  Still drove around, aimless, worked odd jobs to make ends meet.  I’d met Leia at the time, ‘n fell for her.  But y’know that.  I remember how shocked you were when I told you I was engaged.             Didn’t last long, though.  From what I’ve seen, nothing ever fazes ya for long.❞
❝Can’t say I was any better, though.  You—a business man.  Your own office ‘n everything.  It still amazes me, ya know.  Not ‘cause I thought you wouldn’t make it or nothin’.  It was just … I guess I was thinking it was like those times we’d lay on the roof of the old recreation center.  Remember?  The old place we’d sleep at.  Back then, we’d go star gazin’, ‘n talk about how things were gonna be different for us one day.  Doing that for two years, as a kid, felt like a lifetime.  Guess I saw those moments as things that weren’t ever gonna actually happen.  But you made it happen, Lando.  Truth be told, I was jealous of all that ya had.  I was—twenty somethin’? — ‘n still struggling—engaged on top of it.  Me ‘n my ego wouldn’t let Leia pay for everything so, I worked even harder, but I kept seeing how much easier you had it.  … I avoided you—up until Leia called it off and dumped my ass.❞ 
A weak snort.  ❝But she was good for doin’ it.  Left me a whole lot to think about.  Had to reevaluate my whole life again.  I s’pose I’m someone who’s easily surprised, ‘cause I never would’ve guessed you showin’ up when you did.  Fuckin’—two bottles of whiskey in one hand, the whole collection of Star Trek in the other.  I’d ignored your ass for almost a year ‘n you showed up as soon as you found out?  Goddamn it, Lando, you blow my mind…!❞
❝          But I wish … I kinda wish you hadn’t done that.  Sometimes—there’re days when I think about how if you’d just let me wallow for that whole week I was down about Leia, things would be different right now.  I wouldn’t be talkin’ into this voice recorder, leaving you a message that I can’t say myself, can’t say in front of you ‘cause I’m a godsdamned coward.❞
He coughs, and shaky breaths rattle the speakers.  ❝I never meant to hurt you this way.  … You probably already know what I’m talking about, huh?❞
❝I didn’t … I didn’t plan for it to happen this way.  I swear, Lando, I swear.  Fuck—it came outta nowhere, okay?  It really did.  Me ‘n Luke didn’t plan this out to fuckin’ … hurt you.  It wasn’t like that.❞
❝When you took care of me, stayed over for a week in my shitty apartment and didn’t let up … that feeling came back.  That same shit I felt when we were young ‘n stupid ‘n happy but not fucking happy at all.  But, by that time, you were with Tendra.  Things looked serious.  You ‘n me have always been the same about this.  Relationships always come ‘n go.  Things would get serious, then things would end before we knew it.  Tendra?  She was different.  It looked like you loved her.  … A lot.  So, I didn’t say anything.❞
❝A year passed us by an’ as things go, you split with her … then me ‘n you happened.  Best day of my life, I swear.  Felt like my whole world was in color again!  Sure, we didn’t start … dating, but a kiss was everything to me, y’know?  After years of thinking about it, finally getting it was pretty damn sweet.  Admit it, the occasional sex was great too.             But after a coupla months, when you told me you were fuckin’ leaving again … I didn’t know how long it’d be before you’d be back ‘cause it was for work.  Said there was a gas mining company or somethin’, and that you were administrator now.  A big shot.  It was like some kinda sick repeat.  ‘Cause, just like when we were twenty an’ grinnin’ stupidly at each other in the subway station, not sure when we’d see each other again—it’d hit me a second time.  Slammed right home.  I could’ve said somethin’, but I didn’t.  I don’t know why I didn’t.  I just didn’t.  I thought if I told you that I’ve been in love with you, you’d finally drop me for good.  So … I let you go.  Thought you’d be better off without me, anyway.❞
❝While you were away, I met Leia’s twin brother: Luke … I’ll admit it, ‘m really attracted to him.  Who would’ve thought she had a long, lost twin?   Ahh, whatever.  It was a rush.  You weren’t around an’ I was still pissed.  We never solidified shit.  You made it sound like you were never comin’ back even though we kept in touch.  The few phone calls weren’t enough.  It hurt more to hear your voice than anything else … I was furious that you left it like that—us, still dancin’ around each other, avoiding landmines that don’t look so bad now that I’m at where I am.  So, I met up with Luke, fooled around with him, and found out with him, too.❞ 
❝Stage three.❞    ❝They said it just spread to stage three by the time I got tested.❞❝Thymomas cancer, type C.❞
❝For a long time, I couldn’t believe it.  They said it was really rare.  Even said I had the worst prognosis on top of that.❞  The rasp of fabric blasts through the speakers.  ❝Sorry, uh, just thinking of what to say.❞
❝Even though I remember the feeling as clear as the day I’d talked to Luke—after finding out you were comin’ home after just nine months—I knew it was wrong.  I don’t even know about the intentions anymore—if they were even in anyone’s best interest.  I never should’ve done it.  I regret it, more than anything.  When you showed up at my front door again, at my same shitty apartment—I liked it there ‘cause you’d said you hated it—two bottles of champagne in one hand, the new Star Trek in the other, and I told you it was over ‘n that I was engaged—fuckin’, again.              You’d looked shot to pieces that night.  I remember when you walked right past me, probably wanting to talk, you’d stopped midway when you saw Luke standing up from the couch.  Your back was towards me that night, but Luke said he’d never seen something so sad              told me you’d looked like a man who’d just lost everything in a gamble.❞ 
❝… I think about that night a lot.  ‘Specially, on nights ‘m not allowed to have visitors.  Hurts me to move these days.  Don’t bother turning on the TV anymore so, it’s quiet a lotta the time.  Keeps on playin’ at the back of my head, over ‘n over.  If I could change one thing, it’d be that night.          Wait, nawh, that’s a lie.  I’d rewind further than that—the fuck am I sayin’?  I’d have told you I’ve been in love with you from the get-go.  Whether you’d have loved me back or not, I would’ve.  ‘Cause, if I’d done that, at least you would’ve known I’ve been in love with you my whole godsdamned life.❞
❝You hear that, Lando?  My whole life—I’ve been in love with you!❞      ❝Lando … what I’d give … to live the rest of my life with …❞ 
❝I know it’s too late for apologies.  I know.  This tape—it’s gonna be sent from the hospital, to you, when I’m gone.  I asked them and they said they’d do it.  I would’ve asked Luke to help me out this one last time, but I’ve already put that kid through so godsdamned much.  I bet I’ve fucking scarred him by now … Take care of him for me, would ya?          Yeah, see, here I am askin’ favors ‘cause that’s all I ever fucking do.  M’sorry for that, too.  I … I won’t be around to do it myself is all, Lando.  He’s a bright kid—kinda like how we were when we were kids.  I see a lot of me in him—see a lot of you, too.❞  A few low chuckles, then a sharp sniffle.  
❝Lando … I didn’t mean to lie to you.  I know Luke was the one who caved ‘n told you what’s really going on with me.  You’re probably on a plane right now.  But, by the time you get here, I’ll           I’ll be gone.❞
❝…Hell.❞    ❝I know it’s too late.  I’ve put you through hell ‘n back.  But this’ll be the last time.  With how things’ve played out, it’s probably better this way.❞ 
❝I’m sorry.❞      ❝I love you.❞
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lostinpagesblog · 4 years
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Hello, everyone! I have a special post today – I convinced one of my good friends, Mariah, to guest post! She’s a giant Star Wars fan and recently finished reading The Rise of Skywalker, so I asked her if she’d like to review it for the blog. If you have any questions/comments, she’ll be in the comments to talk!
Hi, everyone! My name is Mariah, and Katie asked me to collaborate with her on my own book review. I currently work with Katie at Books-A-Million, and I’m an avid reader – my choice of genre being sci-fi. That being said, this is my first ever book review or blog post for that matter, so I am a little nervous. I think Katie is absolutely crazy for asking me to do this, so please bear with me. I hope you enjoy! 
Not only am I a lover of books, but I’m also an avid Star Wars Fangirl! What is a fangirl?! Well, it is just what is sound like: girls that are fans! Growing up I was always told Star Wars, comic books, or even video games were meant for boys. I was called a nerd or geek for even liking such things – words that were meant to make us feel bad for liking things that made us happy. Which is simply NOT true. Fandom is not reserved for just one gender, being a geek/nerd is okay. Being different is okay, as long as you have confidence in yourself! That’s what being a fan/fangirl is all about! And in stressful times like we are in now, we need things to help us destress. During my COVID-19 quarantine, I have been using Star Wars as my escape from reality – something I have avidly been doing since 1997. So, Katie thought since the DVD of Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker is now available to everyone, it would be fun do a review on the book in comparison to the movie. Since Katie doesn’t know a damn thing about Star Wars, that’s where I come in! If I haven’t completely lost you yet, hold on tight and get ready to light speed ahead to a Galaxy far, far away!
Your enjoyment of the book is going to be reflected by the your enjoyment of the movie. Therefore, because I really enjoyed the film, I really enjoyed the book. With TROS being the final establishment in the Skywalker Saga, nine movies in total, it was a bittersweet moment for me. Twenty-five years of my life had finally come to a close, and it was a beautiful experience. After the movie had ended, I knew I had to get the movie novelization. I have read Star Wars novels that were side stories and adventures of fan favorite characters, but this was my first time reading a movie novelization. Rae Carson was not given easy task, but she executed it very well! It doesn’t fix the problems some “fans” had with the movie – which is OKAY because it wasn’t Carson’s job to do so. She does however add MORE: more context, more internal monologue, more dialogue between characters to scenes that could’ve really used them in the film. But her biggest strength is the ability to SLOW things down! If you are someone that hasn’t seen the movie since it was out in theaters, I would suggest watching the movie again, and then dive into the book. Let the book guide you, surround you.
The Rise of Skywalker is an end to a forty year saga, and you can feel those final lines by the end of the story. But like I said, it takes care of pacing issues that the film had. You really get a sense of Rey’s struggle with the Darkside more when you get a glimpse of what is really going on inside her head. Like with Rey, the book gives us more of Kylo Ren’s struggle with his past, too. We get an insight of his life as Ben Solo, something a lot of fans wanted to see more of on film. We also get more Babu Frik, who happened to be one of the breakout characters from TROS.
(Harry Potter fans may enjoy this: Babu Frik is voiced by Shirley Henderson, who played Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films, RANDOM RIGHT?!!) 
The home DVD release doesn’t include any deleted scenes, which is upsetting because I was hoping some of them were scenes that were in the book that I really enjoyed. Every time a new scene would happened, I would be focused. The book included extra moments with Zorii Bliss and Lando, as well as adding a new character, Chesille Sabrond captain of the Star Destroyer Derriphan on Exegol. We also got a better understanding of how Emperor Palpatine survived and why he was still alive. (I won’t spoil why right now, I’ll add those to a spoilers section.) But my over all favorite moment, is a scene shared by Chewbacca and Kylo Ren. Without spoiling too much we get a sweet “Uncle Chewie” moment with a flashback from Kylo as young Ben Solo. It’s a scene I wish we could’ve gotten in the movie. If you were someone that wanted more Ben Solo out of the film, you will get it from the book. Not as much as you might like, but enough! When he sacrifices himself to save Rey, it will make any Reylo fans’ (Rey & Kylo fan-shippers) hearts break even more. Princess Leia’s (Sorry General Leia) role works a lot better in the novelization. That’s no fault to be creators of the TROS film, for the late Carrie Fisher died in late 2016 – a year before Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (TLJ). When originally planning the new trilogy, Lucas Films originally stated that the first movie, The Force Awakens (TFA), would be Han Solo’s film. The second (TLJ) would be Luke’s, and the third would be Leia’s. Carson wasn’t limited to only unused footage from the first two films. She gives Leia more scenes, and they were an overall highlight! We were given more details about her training with Luke and her experiences with the Force. 
I will say I understand why a lot of fans did not like The Rise Of Skywalker or the sequel trilogy entirely. Even though Star Wars has released novelizations of each feature film since 1977, fans didn’t have to read extra content to understand the movies of the same title. The novels didn’t add anything, and they also never took anything away either. We understand what was happening in the films, and George Lucas (original creator of Star Wars) answered those questions we were asking onscreen. The sequel trilogy lacked those elements on film, and that’s probably why fans didn’t love them as much. Star Wars was different! Unlike how most films are book adaptations, SW is a complete screenplay, and the novels and comics were extra. We shouldn’t have to go to extra source material to understand the film better, but that is the marketing world we live in. That being said, Rae Carson doesn’t get enough praise as she should for her work on the novelization of TROS. Overall she brought more in depth understanding of the characters and made them more personal than what is played out on film. I feel like you will find the novel to be a good companion, or should I say Dyad, despite how you feel about the movie itself. 
Now, after all that, this is when I start getting into the SPOILERS. So, if you don’t want the book elements to be spoiled, this is your stop. Now you Rebel scums that stuck around this long with me, thank you! Assuming you have watched The Rise of Skywalker, read the novel yourself, or you don’t mind spoilers (SHAME!!!), this next part I’m going to talk about has some spoilers from the book and scenes the movie left out. Hopefully I can give you a better explanation of why things happened in The Rise of Skywalker. I’m not going to give them all away, just some of the ones I feel are important and were my favorite. So last warning… God Speed Rebels! 
The novel starts off with Rey versus the film starting off at the scene of Kylo Ren. About a year has passed between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, and not much is different between the first time we see Rey in the film versus the first time we see her in the book. We do you get more of an exchange with Leia as a Jedi master. We get a longer version of Leia’s flashback scene of her Jedi training, and we get to see her Skywalker side. We get to see how powerful Leia really is with the Force – something sadly we did not get to experience in the film. Leia knows she’s at the end of her life, and she hears Luke calling to her telling her “It’s time.” Leia being classic Leia doesn’t take orders from anyone when she knows she can do more to help others, so she lets Luke know she had “one more thing to do”. We also get a Rey and Rose exchange, which is a missed opportunity in the movie. It is very rare you see female-female interactions/friendships in a Star Wars film. It’s a scene like that I would have really liked to see play out in the movie. 
Now on to Adam… I mean Kylo Ren! Kylo’s introduction is much like in the movie, VERY INTENSE! Carson was able to add more intensity than what played out on film. We learn Kylo is on the planet Mustafar, which already brings more depth into the scene because this was the same planet the final battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker occurred in Episode III. Anakin had turned to the Darkside, becoming Darth Vader. We didn’t know where he was until after the movie had already come out, and Lucas Films  informed us that Kylo was in fact on Mustafar. Knowing would’ve made the scene even more intense because he was battling on the ruins of Vader’s Castle, where his grandfather called home. Kylo is met by an oracle named the Eye of Webbish Bog, a creepy spider-like creature, and Force Whill, a creature that really makes you feel uncomfortable. The oracle reveals to Kylo something called the Wayfinder, an ancient pieces of technology created by both the Jedi and Sith. Kylo does state how easy it was for him to obtain the Wayfinder, he then concludes it’s because he was Vader’s heir and it belonged to him. Knowing this gives you a better understanding on the point made in the movie on why “only two were made” – one for the Master and for the Apprentice. Vader kept his Wayfinder on Mustafar, revealing itself to his grandson. And The Emperor kept his on the Death Star, later revealing itself to his granddaughter… Rey! 
Okay, now the major question… HOW DID PALPATINE SURVIVE? Well SPOILER… Palpatine is a CLONE! Palpatine is living in a clone body, and his son, Rey’s father, was also a clone. More specifically an imperfectclone, not an identical copy of Palpatine. Rey’s father had no force-willing capabilities, therefore he was deemed useless.We learn that Palpatine’s clone body was unnatural and not powerful enough to hold Palpatine’s full spirit/power. He was able to cheat death by sending his spirit to a clone body on Exegol, as he was falling to his death in Episode VI. We also learn when the Clone Son conceived Rey the natural way, it created a perfect vessel to hold Palpatine’s spirit. If you are new to the Star Wars universe and your only experience to the movies is just the sequels trilogies, the whole Emperor coming back is a bit confusing.  
The last thing I want to talk about is Kylo/Ben Solo and Rey’s connection, and that the book shows the importance of the Dyad in the Force. A dyad in the Force is a phenomenon that occurs when two Force-sensitive individuals share a unique Force-bond, connecting their minds across space and time… soulmates!! This power is very rare. Palpatine thinks he is able to use this against Rey, but he misses the key components: love and empathy. You are bonded with someone. The book explains the dyad to be a soulmate connection without actually using the word “soulmate”. If you are a Reylo shipper, that will make you happy.  It doesn’t necessarily mean a romantic soulmate, but maybe it could. In theory, maybe there used to be a way that Jedi used to teach the force with a dyad, but we don’t know for sure. With all of that, let’s talk about THE KISS. I will start by saying that I am a sucker for happy endings and love wins all, therefore I am a Reylo supporter. I believe in the Ben Solo redemption. I was disappointed in the fact that the author didn’t come out and say the kiss between Ben and Rey was a romantic one. I believe it was something that needed to be clarified in the book, but, once again, you are left to interpret whether it was or wasn’t. On film that was a romantic kiss to me. In the books, Carson writes it for Rey as being a “kiss of gratitude”, but for Ben it was more “endearment”. So, what? He was friend zoned?! While reading the scene I still interpreted it as an act of love. I feel like why we never got a clear explanation is because of Hollywood. For some reason, Hollywood movies and shows don’t like to show powerful women in a happy relationship or in one at all. Either she is isolated and doesn’t have a love interest at all, or she is at odds with the other person who typically is played out as her equal. My favorite thing (sarcasm, definitely) is when they kill off a loved one/s, and in her pain/loss, she gains her strength – which is bullshit! I’m not wanting a damsel in distress, but I also don’t want a total “I don’t need anybody.” I’d like a happy medium. Powerful woman can have a love interest. A partner doesn’t take that power away from them. 
No more spoilers! In conclusion, my overall thoughts of the book were positive. In many ways, the Skywalker saga is about love and family, the inner conflict between the Lightside and the Darkside, and the Force that connects one another into a balance. At the end of the film, we see a parallel moment between Rey and Luke watching the twin sunsets, which is a nice way to connect the stories.
Thank you for reading, I do hope you enjoyed my first ever book review! Thank you, Katie, for asking me to do this collaboration with you. I look forward to hearing your comments and questions! May The Force Be With You! 
Mariah D Carley
Like she said, comments/questions are welcomed below! Make sure to follow Mariah on her socials listed below, and go leave her some love!
Mariah’s Instagram | Mariah’s Twitter | Mariah’s Goodreads
Until next time,
Guest Post Book Review – The Rise of Skywalker #starwars #riseofskywalker Hello, everyone! I have a special post today – I convinced one of my good friends, Mariah, to guest post!
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zombiehighx23 · 5 years
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Uncanny X-Cast Script for Ep. 183
Brian: Welcome to Uncanny X-Cast, I’m your host Brian Perillo and with me as always is Rob Briscoe. The Uncanny X-Cast is brought you to by DCBS, where you can get all your books up to 75% and…
Rob: Do we still get codes?
Brian: Yeah. Haven’t you checked your inbox?
Rob: You’re telling me we haven’t recorded in almost two years, and they’re still giving us free books?
Brian: Yes.
Rob: Man I wish somebody told me there’s a lot I want to read.
Brian: *laughs* Okay…
Rob: What should I read?
Brian:*ticked off* How about you let me read the damn sponsorship or you won’t have any codes.
Rob: Doesn’t matter if you read it because we get them anyway.
Brian: *laughs* And you get 40% of trades. That’s dcbservice.com Briscoe it’s been a while how has it been?
Rob: Rough Brian. I got a son becoming a man, I’m still hung over from the derby party…
Brian: How was the Derby party?
*Rob goes on about the part for like 7 min*
Rob: I also seen some stuff but we’ll wait to on shelves now.
Brian: Okay do you have any voice mails for us?
*A voice mail from Rob from Katy plays. He’s talks about his life then ends the voice mail with the outgoing message still isn’t playing*
Brian: It’s always great to hear from Rob from Katy. Briscoe it’s been like what 4 years and you still haven’t fixed the voicemail.
Rob: Look nobody calls it, does it really matter anymore.
Brain:  *laughs* Okay just play the next one
*message from Maskedhero plays*
Rob: Man we’re old. Can you believe he has kids (or some other life changing event) now?
Brian: Yeah we come a far way. The other day…
*Brian goes on with a story about taking one of his kids to sports practice and in the car they ask some question like “what’s a dildo” or “what does it mean you call someone a douche bag.” Rob goes on about the first time he learned something crude.*
Brian: Okay you have anymore?
Rob: Yeah one more.
*a voicemail plays from someone in their baseball fantasy league. He talks smack on one of the guys. This leads to a 20 min. talk about baseball and the fantasy league, and probably something involving one of Brian’s kids being in little league*
Brain: Let’s get into on shelves now.
*no bumper plays*
Brian: Where’s bumper girl?
Rob: I have no idea where the file is.
Brian: You know Brisoce you have one job.
Rob: Yeah and I’m doing it by getting it wrong.
Brain: *laughs* Okay what do you got for me?
Rob: So I watched End Game.
*the guys talk about End Game. Rob has usual questions like can this character do this thing, is this character supposed to be anybody. Overall Rob likes the film but has some complaints. Brian is the opposite. Brian talks about lack of faith to the source, complains about Carol Danvers, and whatever the major gripe the internet will have. Rob will use film logic to explain why whatever was necessary, but then backs track and lets Brian win like always. The guys then do a quick Destiny Diary on how the X-Men will come in play. Brian says something like a certain percentage of people who were snapped get mutant powers because of radiation or something. Rob says because of the time travel in the film, it caused a butterfly effect which in turn made somebody in Hydra unleash something that activates the X gene.*
Brian: So Game of Thrones.
*They talk about Game of Thrones. Rob is an episode behind…or so he thinks. Brain talks about episode 3, and Rob goes wait what the fuck. Rob then says what he watch. Brian says you watched the wrong season. Rob says no..wait did I. Price is Right music plays. Rob comes back and says “So I just checked my HBO account, and you are right.” KAPOW!! They talk about Game of Thrones some more and how the next book will never come out. They make a bet. By the time the next child of theirs goes to High School the next book will be out. Brian says yes. Rob says no. Rob says this bet won’t matter because nobody will remember it. Brian says I’m sure somebody will. Rob says like who. Bechtel? He doesn’t listen anymore. Brian proceeds to say I’m sure Scott Bechtel probably has a spread sheet of all our bets, and how much you owe me. Rob drives the topic away from Brian so he doesn’t have to buy a Winter Solider Bust, or a Shazam collection for Brian by talking about my current relationship and how I’m dating another cosplayer. Rob and Brian then go on a tangent about cosplay, and how Brian never understood anime. Rob goes on to say he might want to try it, but nothing to crazy or long.*
Brain: Okay then. So Uncanny X-Men
*Brian says how he’s not loving it and how the X-books have fallen from grace, and are nothing like how when Claremont was on. Rob says this a breath of fresh air after the other books over the past few years.*
Brian: Age of X-Man
*both hate it. Brian goes on about how he hates all these characters, and the new young characters and how when Weezy and Claremount were on New Mutants that was what made those type of characters. Rob goes on how this whole concept in boring and we’ve seen it 8 times already in the course of the show. Things will go back to normal and a few characters will change with the new design they got in this*
Rob: I caught up on Saga.
Brain: Oh god here we go. Wasn’t that canceled?
Rob: What no.
Brian: I read it stopped.
Rob: No they took a year off.
Brian: Why, because they have no good ideas? It’s so uncreative. It reminds me of Peter David. All shock no story. Like Rob, if want good stories just look back to what Clairmount was doing. Look at Power Pack. And New Mutants. These writers today, they know nothing. Draw a boob and people will gather around it.
Rob: You sound like an old man.
Brain: Maybe I am, but the stuff today just isn’t good man. These aren’t stories, it’s trash. Not like what we got.
Rob: I guess.
*guys talk about Episode 9. Rob is excited for it, Brain is lukewarm. Has concern over how they’ll handle Carrie Fischer. He’ll complain about Rey, and then say was it necessary for Lando and the Emperor to come back. Brian and Rob then list a few other things they’ve read or watched*
Brain: Okay this is going on long. You have any news for me?
Rob: Did you hear Brian, Tim Taylor got death threats over an issue?
Brain: You mean Tom King?
Rob: Who did I say?
Brain: First off you said Tim Taylor you meant Tom Taylor. Second Tom Taylor wrote X-Men Red.
Rob: Oh
Brain: Kapow!!
Rob: Then what has Tom King done.
Brian: He writes Batman.
Rob: Ohhh. I like his stuff.
Brian: His Batman is alright. I mean it’s nothing like Denny O’Neil.
Rob: You liked Snyder.
Brian: Snyder was just ok. But even then did he really get the character. I mean, the Owls, and Joker will no face. It was all too edgy and not enough story.
Rob: I disagree but okay. Suicide Squad is getting a reboot.
Brian: Thank god. I love Margo Robbie but what the hell. Harley Quinn had no right being in that film. I wanted classic villains, not what we got. What a disaster.
Rob: I agree. New Mutants, is getting delayed again. Do you have any faith in this film?
Brian: I mean if they can make Deadpool good, then yes.
Rob: Did we talk about Deadpool 2 since we last recorded?
Brian: Yeah. I mean I think so,
Rob: Okay. But you’re crazy this film isn’t going to be anywhere as good as you think it will be.
Brain: I’m sure you’re right but it’s The New Mutants and you know how they have a special place in my heart. So I’m sure I’ll be walking out of there going that was decent.
Rob: Yeah I’m going to skip it. I’ll wait till it’s out on Prime or what not.
Brian: Got anything else.
Rob: Yeah I got this thing called comicsgate.
Brian: Oh boy.
Rob: Did you know, Mark Waid is getting sued.
Brain: Uh huh.
Rob: Crazy right…what did he do?
Brian: Laughs.
*Brian tries to dance around best explaining this topic*
Rob: Oh.
Brian: Let’s get into retros.
*Retros is the same. Rob didn’t read whatever book and him and Brian have to switch. They review the books, both liking it. At one point Rob talks about how he felt some girl up when he was reading this way back then*
Brian: Do you worry about that?
Rob: About what?
Brain: Our kids growing up and doing stupid things.
Rob: Indy’s not allowed to date till she’s 28 so we’re good.
*Brian goes on how Chris is like him and has different girls always calling him for “homework”*
Brian: Briscoe you got anything else.
Rob: Um not that I can think of. We’ll be back soon. We’ll try to make this quarterly or something.
*they won’t*
Brian: Until next time.
*Uncanny X-Cast Rap plays*
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