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ciggylungz · 4 years

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Boys are weird

BUTTERFLIES AND BANDAIDS- chapter 4

Boys are weird

••

The boy stared down at his best friend. Eyes locked on hers, trying to figure out what to say. His train of thought was halted when he heard a little giggle from Y/N

"I was just joking Haz, you look like you're gonna pass out...am I that ugly?" She stuck her tongue out at the boy and he just shook his head letting out a little chuckle himself.

"Not at all love, just caught me off guard is all" his fingers went up to pinch her cheek before dropping back on her bed. He tried to push the thought out of his head, but he does wonder about how Y/N's lips would feel on his, not just his cheek or forehead like he's used to.

He imagines they'd feel soft, they're rather full and plump. He thinks they'd feel like a little pillows against his. Her cherry chapstick leaving a little layer of grease on his, but he wouldn't mind.

He was brought out of his little day dream by the girl herself, "Harry are you listening to me?" He looked up at her and blinked a few times "sorry love, mind drifted. What were you saying?"

The young girl gave him a little playful eye roll. "I asked how I look, these jeans are new I got them because Emma said they make my butt looks good, thoughts?" She did a little spin and he huffed

"Not gonna comment on your body little love. You know you're beautiful, looks great" he gave her a smile and she returned it.

"Thanks stinky" her little hand held his cheek as she kissed his other one, smiling at him.

"No problem dummy" he blew her a kiss before sitting up and cracking his back.

"You really gonna go to Eli's house? I really don't think it's a good idea, got a bad feeling sweetheart."

He crossed his arms over his broad chest and his eye brows pinched together. The younger girl looked up at him with a tilted head

"What do you mean?"

Harry let out a low sigh and ran his fingers through his chocolate locks trying to find a way to warn her without being a dick.

"Well, sometimes guys can be jerks. Some guys don't have good intentions, they want selfish things and some guys don't take no for an answer and that's what I'm afraid of. Not ever gonna let someone hurt you if I can help it. You're my best friend, still see you like the little girl I met. Just as protective over you as I am over my mum and sister. Care about you sweetheart."

He gave her a warm smile after speaking and she took a second to let it sink in. Looking back at him a nervous look on her pretty eyes

"What do you think he wants from me?"

Her fingers toyed with the hem of her sweater when she asked, nervous energy evident with the slight shake of her fingers.

"I don't know bunny, that's what I'm scared of." He brought his fingers up to push a few curls from her face, rubbing his thumb on her blushing cheeks.

"Okay...I'll tell him I'll reschedule with him...do you wanna do something together instead?"

He gave her a smile, nodding and twirling her hair around his pointer finger.

"Course, always wanna hangout with my girl. Can go to that diner we like tonight? Steal a couple beers from your brothers stash and have a little movie night?"

Y/N smiled at the offer, nodding and holding her hand up, palms smacking and pinkies locking as they did their handshake, purely muscle memory at this point.

"Sounds good. Think Luke is at his friends anyway, he won't care. But for now let's go get some snacks and I gotta get tampons so let's go to the pharmacy."

Harry let out a groan, he may be her best friend but he's never super into hearing about periods or her needs for period products.

"Relax, you're so dramatic. I don't start till next week but I wanna just get them now cus Lily used the last of them, I'm paying for the snacks this time so be nice or I'll eat all of them myself"

She poked his chest and he just nodded chuckling a bit.

"And I'm the dramatic one?"

••

The two teens jogged down the steps of her family home, hopping over the baby gate at the bottom of the steps, greeted by her 3 year old brother Jackson, 8 month old sister Miley and then year old Violet. All of the toddlers looking up at them, instantly getting excited.

The little ones have always loved Harry, and he loved them just as much. He's always wanted to have kids, so they are kinda like his little practice family till he settles down and has his own. Plus making a baby smile is one of his top ten favorite feelings.

Jackson was the first to rush towards the older boy, hugging his leg and smiling

"Hi! I missed you! We play football together?" The little boy looked up at Harry and he smiled down at him, rubbing his head

"Course we can, later yea? Going out with your sissy for a little while. I'll bring you back a surprise though, don't tell your mommy ok?"

He talked lowly like it's a big secret, getting the toddler even more excited as he pinky promised not to tell.

The next one up was Violet, she was a sweetheart just like her older sister but she definitely has a sass that Y/N was too shy to have when she was little.

She lifted her little arms up prompting him to lean down and pick her up, kissing her cheek while settling her on his hip.

"Hey Vi, how are you today?"

The little girl grabbed onto his necklace and smiled at him

"Good Berry, tooked nap!"

The fact she still couldn't say his name, and settled for 'berry' instead still made Y/N giggle sometimes, the boy found it endearing though.

"You took a nap?! That's great! Good job!"

He highfived her tiny hand and kissed her little knuckles before letting her down, watching her run off to the little play area they had in their living room.

Finally Miley managed to scoot her way up to Y/N getting promptly scooped up, she was definitely a lovey little baby. She loved being held, kisses, cuddles any affection anyone wanted to give her, she welcomed. She was a lot like Y/N, they are both the softest most cuddly girls he's ever met. And he still finds it adorable.

The baby babbled a bit, smacking her lips and sticking her tongue out. A new trick she had learned from her older brother. Harry gave her a smile and a kiss on her rosy chubby little cheeks, giving her a quick cuddle and baby talk session before the two teens left the army of infants with their mother and started making their way towards the small pharmacy at the end of the block.

The pair made conversation as they went, mostly Y/N telling him gossip she'd heard, and because he is guilty of being quite the gossip himself, he ate up every bit of it.

"There's no way! You're lying!" He exclaimed as she told him a juicy little bit about a girl she is on the volleyball team with.

"I swear! She really is! She's pregnant, by Austin Lewis!"

She waved her hands around as she talked, both of them shocked at the piece of drama they now were clued in on.

"God, that's gonna be one ugly baby...Austin's an ugly little prick, personality and looks wise. She must be legally blind." The boy chuckled at his own comment, holding the door open for her as they entered the store.

They continued to chat among themselves as they browsed the isles, grabbing snacks and the tampons she came for. Harry made sure to snag a little bouncy ball from a crank machine for Jackson on their way out. Knowing the little boy would lose his mind over the brand new toy.

••

They made it back safe and well, both distributing the snacks and bouncy ball to their intended recipients before marching back up the steps, Y/N snagging 4 beers from her brothers closet on the way and stashing them under her bed for the evening.

The pair sat together talking and simply enjoying each other's company. Both always feeling content even if they are both on their phones not talking, as long as they were in each other's vicinity they were content.

Harry only looked up when he heard an audible gasp from the girl beside him, seeing an immediate blush rush to her face and eyes wide as ever, cocking his eyebrow at the girl.

"What? It looks like you just saw a ghost"

He sat himself up and peeked at her phone screen, eyes widening before squinting when he saw what she was looking at.

A text message from Eli, normal enough until he saw the very graphic dick pic he sent attached to it.

The boy instantly went into protective mode and snatched the phone

"Yea you don't need to look at stuff like that, why did he send you that? You're like 6, no don't look Y/N!" He held the phone away from her grabbing hands and scrolled up the thread of messages.

" 'You sure you're not able to come over tonight?' 'I had something special planned, even got some drinks for us' 'really wish you were coming...' 'know it's a bit unexpected but maybe this might change your mind about coming...got me rock hard just thinking about you baby' what the hell-"

Harry read the texts aloud and cringed at most of them, Y/N blushing like crazy hiding her face in her hands.

"I knew that kid just wanted to sleep with you. He literally sent a picture of his dick mid conversation, he has horrible game bloody hell"

Harry took it upon himself to delete the picture from their texts and send the boy a text himself.

' keep your dick pics to yourself mate, She's 14- Harry'

Sending it off before handing her phone back and blowing out a breath.

"Oh my god...this is the most embarrassing moment of my life...I can't believe you just sent him that text...I can't believe I just saw his penis...I'm- what is even going on?"

The young girl groaned as she finished talking flopping back on her bed, the boy chuckling a bit as he watched her.

"That's high school boys for you. They think with their pricks, not their heads sweetheart. They see you and have one thing on their mind, and I will die before I let you sleep with some guy who has a small dick. Not gonna happen love."

She simply shrugged and gave him the side eye, getting a cheeky smile from the boy who was covering up his sliver of jealousy with his protective tendencies. He knew it was up to her what she did with her body, but he hated the thought of her sleeping with some boy who only wants one thing from her. As much as she is a smart girl, she's still a bit naïve at times. So of course he does what he can to keep her safe.

If he has to endure looking at his classmates penises to keep her protected, then he will.

He secretly felt a bit of an ego boost seeing that kids dick compared to his, Harry knew he had at least 5 inches more than Eli and was a hell of a lot thicker. He knew he was above average in that department but who doesn't love a good confirmation once in a while?

Y/N finally let out a little laugh, starting to lose the embarrassment and find humor in the situation turning to Harry and letting out another laugh

"His dick was...ugly. I've seen others but why did his looks so odd? It was like 4 different colors! Is that normal?"

The boy snorted and laughed with her shaking his head

"Mine isn't, not sure on if it's normal or not. But out of the dicks I've seen in my life his was probably the ugliest."

She smiled at him and poked his side

"You go around looking at penises in your free time Styles?" She raised an eyebrow and he let out another bark of a laugh.

"Not intentionally usually, locker room and porn is usually where I'm exposed to guys bits. Some guys don't care much about just letting it all hang out in the showers"

The girl giggled and sat up a bit. Smiling and laughing quietly to herself while she gets comfortable against her headboard.

"Boys are weird, girls don't get like fully naked usually but I've seen lots of boobs in the locker room. Katie Wilson has really nice boobs, I'm honestly jealous. I have seen Sarah Peters fully naked in the showers, that's really it. I've seen guys in the locker room like twice when I had to go in their locker room to drop off towels and stuff, saw Seth Newman fully naked and Grant like that too, they were definitely not shy about it. A bit uncomfortable."

She let out another laugh and he did the same.

"Boys are weird." He nodded

"You're not that weird though, you're the best boy I've ever met. You haven't sent me Dick pics mid conversation either so you get bonus points for that." She poked his stomach and smiled.

"I don't typically send unsolicited cock pictures"

He laughed when she gasped at his choice of words, cheeks growing pink yet again.

"I've only ever heard people call it that in porn, do people really use that word?"

Harry gawked at her for a second before nodding.

"Yea, lots of people say it. But you watch porn?! Since when? You're a baby! You shouldn't be exposed to that!"

Y/N rolled her eyes and waved him off.

"I'm 14, I can watch porn if I want to sir. You watch porn, I've seen your search history you Weirdo. Eli isn't the first guy to send me pictures, I've sent a few before too. Not to him but to someone else."

Harry was shocked to say the least. The shyest sweetest girl he ever met just admitted to sending nudes to other people. He couldn't believe it.

"YOU sent nudes?! To who?!"

The girl smiled shyly,

"Don't worry about it, not your business mister."

He stared at her for a second before shaking his head.

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that, you're still such a innocent little girl to me. I refuse to accept you've done that ma'am. I still can't believe you've made out with people before, the only reason I accepted it was because I literally caught you doing it once. Still not happy about that one Y/N, boys are stinky! You're not allowed to do that, I decided it's illegal now."

Y/N laughed at him and pushed him back a bit

"Shut up, you're such a drama queen Haz. I'm not 4 anymore, I'm old enough to kiss whoever I want."

He grunted in response and frowned.

"Nope, it's illegal I made the law. Now I need a beer after that."

She just snickered to herself while handing him one grabbing her keys and popping the cap off with her house key before grabbing her own doing the same.

Locking her bedroom door and turning off her overhead lights, opting for her fairy lights instead. Switching her tv on, both of them sipping their beers while skimming movies before picking one. Both just drinking and enjoying their evening together, but still Harry couldn't help his mind wandering off a few times thinking about the pictures his best friend has sent other people.

And he couldn't help but be jealous.

#harry styles series #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #harry styles tpwk #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles angst #older!harry #younger!yn #bestfriend!harry

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shenanigans-and-imagines · 4 years

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FanFic Junk Drawer #1: The Last Jedi Deleted Scene

Summary: This isn’t so much an abandoned fic as a deleted scene from a previous draft. Initially I was going to have Lana go with Rose and Finn to Canto Bight. But, after some reworking I felt it was better to have to go with Rey to meet Luke.

I’m still like the writing in this scene and thought I’d share it.

A/N: Please let me know if you guys would be interested in seeing more stuff like this. Consider it a look into a writer’s equivalent of a sketchbook. I really think if more writers started doing this, it would bring more light into how much work we actually put into our craft.

Word Count: 1.3K

“D-don’t tell me, they’ll k-k-kill me,” the slicer said, placing the death stick in his mouth.

“I was actually wondering if you could spare me one.”

He paused just as he was placing the light to the tip, giving her a mildly surprised look. She felt a small bit of pride at the reaction. She got the impression it took a lot to catch a man like him off guard.

He finished lighting the stick. Taking a deep breath, he savored the smoke in his lungs before slowly blowing it out.

“What would you g-g-give me in exchange?”

She gave him a cautious look. She highly doubted he’d be so crude as to ask her for something physical. He didn’t strike her as the type and he hadn’t shown any prior interested. No, he wanted information, what kind though was up in the air.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to know about you Jedi lady.”

It was her turn to be taken by surprise and he didn’t have the common decency to keep his smile to himself.

He pulled out one of the death sticks, holding it out like a prize.

“One stick. One question. F-fair trade?”

She glanced at the stick, then at him, and gave a wry smile.

“Does that include the light?”

“Two questions,” he corrected, grinning in approval at how well she knew the game.

She gave a small nod in agreement and he handed her the stick.

She put it in her mouth as she waited patiently for him to pull out the lighter. To her surprise, he didn’t hand it to her. He struck the light, leaned down and lit it himself. She kept her eyes on him as he did so, not really paying attention to the end of the stick until smoke began to rise from it. He made eye contact with her as he pulled away, as if double checking to make sure she wasn’t going back on the deal.

He stood straight leaning against the cabinet watching her closely.

Lana took a deep breath of smoke, enjoying the familiar smoothness as it filled her lungs.

It had been a long time since she smoked. It was a bad habit had she picked up while doing undercover work for the Resistance. She had been trying to get information out of a group of smugglers under the alias Terra Reed. It was surprisingly easy to do so. Nobody really knew what she looked like since she was taken to train with Luke at such a young age, and with all the stories her father and Uncle Lando had told her over the years she fit right in.

She had liked being Terra. Terra was smart, cool headed, practical, and more often than not called an uptight bitch. Terra also took smoking breaks with some of the other officers and crew members of various ships. All of which got surprisingly talkative whenever Terra asked if their captains were treating them well.

She had kicked the habit as soon as Terra became no longer necessary. It wasn’t good for her, not to mention the fact that her mother got on her case whenever she pulled them out. Still, every now and then she craved one, even years later. Sometimes it was brought on by stress, or the smell of a certain cantina, neither of which was the case at the moment. Mostly, it was just something to do.

She looked back up at the slicer, realizing he was waiting on her.

“So,” she said, blowing out some of the smoke. “What do you want to know about me?”

“What exactly is y-y-your plan?”

“You know what the plan is.”

He gave a shake of the head, and a patronizing smile.

“No, that’s t-t-their plan. What’s yours?”

She stared at him a moment, her face unreadable. She took a breath of the death stick, as if the smoke were the question and she was testing how it tasted before letting it out.

“I’m going to kill my brother,” she said.

She hadn’t meant to say it like that. She had wanted to say she was going to kill Kylo Ren. She was going to avenge her father’s death. She was off to kill a monster or any other variation of that same sentiment, but it wasn’t the truth. She knew what she had been telling herself from the moment that lightsaber tore through her father’s chest was a lie. Kylo Ren wasn’t a separate person. Kylo Ren was Ben Solo. The same Ben Solo who had been her closest friend, who at times knew her better than she knew herself, who she had played with, grown up with and loved. That was the Ben Solo who killed their father.

She looked up at the slicer gauging his reaction. His face was professionally neutral, but there was something else behind the eyes, a small flicker of what might have been fear. She could only guess and she was satisfied. She needed him to be afraid of her. She needed him to think she was dangerous, and more than a little unhinged. If anything, just to have somebody else think it besides herself.

“He killed my father you see,” she continued. “Stabbed him right through the chest. Didn’t even blink.”

She trailed off a moment, taking another drag and blinking back the pressure behind her eyes. She looked down at the bed as her mind projected that moment onto the sheets in front of her.

“So, I’m going to kill him, his master, and anyone else on that ship I can get my hands on and if we’re all very, very lucky some Stormtrooper will put a blaster bolt through my skull before I can get to a ship.”

She looked up giving the slicer a half smile which almost managed to meet her eyes.

“How’s that for a plan?” she asked.

She couldn’t say why she had told him the truth. She was an exceptional liar when it was called upon her to do so, but now that all the things she had been thinking in her mind were out there for someone else to hear, it felt more real. She wasn’t just thinking about doing it, she was going to do it.

She had needed to tell somebody. She couldn’t tell Poe, or Finn, or Rose, or Rey, and especially not her mother. Her mother would had told her to forgive him, that killing Ben wouldn’t bring her peace. She imagined Poe and Finn, hell, even Rose, being just fine with the idea of killing him, but not her way. They would had wanted to plan, to make it a military operation, something less personal. She didn’t just want to kill Ben Solo. She wanted to tear his heart out with her lightsaber. She wanted to see the light leave his eyes and know finally that it was done. As for Rey, Rey would had stopped her, not for Ben’s sake, but for Lana’s. She saw her as most people did, the daughter of Leia Organa and Han Solo, niece of Luke Skywalker and continuer of the Skywalker legacy. She was supposed to be somebody, a hero, an idol, a symbol, not a person who felt and loved and hated.

So, what option did she have left but to tell a slicer with no name who didn’t know a thing about her and who couldn’t care less.

She breathed in another drag waiting for him to ask his second question.

“S-s-so what happens, if a S-s-stormtrooper doesn’t get you?” he asked.

“Guess I’ll find myself a little corner of the galaxy and, wait to die.”

“Why?”

“You’re out of questions.”

“Y-you give y-your family t-t-too much credit. The g-g-galaxy was tearing itself apart b-b-before any Skywalkers came along.”

“Doesn’t me we haven’t done our share.”

#don't join #dj star wars #dj #the last jedi #poe dameron x oc #star wars #lana solo #star wars oc #sw oc #my oc stuff #junk drawer

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the-night-puncher · 4 years

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So my original plan for tonight was to rewatch Knives Out, but since the movie theather near my house hates me its only showing two movies, a sequel to a comedy ive never seen and the stars wars. And since my friend refused to watch the comedy i actually watched ros and wow is it something.

Seriously ive seen so many posts complaining about this movie, from so many people, i thought i knew what to expect but i was not ready.

I was expecting to be annoyed and bored, wich i was at times, but i was not expecting it to be this funny

So since i’m trying to post more in my little space in the sinking ship that is tumblr i wanted to share the things that made me actually laugh out loud in rise of skywalker:

- not only they bring palpatine back in the opening crawl but the way it happens is just... amazing. Palpatine apparently just sends everyone a voice mail being like “i lived bitch” and promising revenge... like thats it, no more explanation needed.

- Snoke clones, they actually had snoke clones. we were so close to having the snoke clone army in the throne-like seat... we could’ve had it all.

- c3po going along in the adventure, i mean after the snoke clones cameo i was ready for the true otp c3prey to finally became canon.

- the little alien girl that just needs to know rey’s last name.was she filling a form or something?

- that part where the movie expects me to care in any way about c3p0 losing his memory, seriously i don’t care... please stop with the dramatic speech i don’t.... no really it could actually kill him and i stil.... oh my god why is the music acting like this is something.

- Did the makers of c3p0 made it so he would use his evil eyes and voice when translating sith, or did the little rat man decide it would look cool?

- the scene 3 hours later(why is this movie so long) where r2d2 brings the golden-waste-of-time’s memory back making everything in that previous scene even more pointless (why was c3p0 in this but rose had to stary behind again?)

- Poe is straight. Did you guys know that Poe is straight? Here is a female human he had sexual intercourse with. Because he likes woman. BECAUSE HE IS STRAIGHT!!!!!.... Anyway here is Poe hugging Finn like his life depends on it.

- “They sold you to keep you safe.”

-”THEY SOLD YOU TO KEEP YOU SAFE!!”(I don’t know if that is the actual line, i watched it dubbed but seriously WTF)

- “She is not on Jakku so don’t even bother looking there. No really bro, i know we were there with her, and then we left without her... but she’s not there. Would i lie to you? Jakku is the last place i would hide my daughter on, so don’t ever look for her there.”(I’m 100% certain this is the actual line)

- PALPATINE FUCKS. HE HAS FUCKED BEFORE AND SHALL FUCK AGAIN.(who was the mother by the way?, who was the unsung hero that climbed this everest)

- Palpatine doesn’t know about the jedi love connection. His puppet knew, his puppet who he controled even claimed to have created the connection, but Palpatine didnt know. Is this because he is an old, old man? Is his mind just not what it used to be? did he just kinda forgot about the iron fleet?

- Rey blowing up Chewie...sorry

- Hux being the spy. the pettiness...mood.

- Hux just dying like a background character, so we can focus on the real secondary villain... general old guy.(Is he from the old movies?was jj expectin me to recognize that guy?i can’t even remember his name and i’m pretty sure they say it a lot, but my brain just stopped listening after general)

-The random former stormtroopers that just... show up and then we all pretend to have a connection with this lady for the last five hours of movie.(Why is it so long?)

But really the idea of other stormtroopers being inspired by Finn to break out of the first order would have been a cool story to actually explore, instead of just “we all just magically good cause force, rip to all brainwashed stormtroopers but we are different.”

- Leia just dies because.... she knew they had run out of deleted scenes with her i guess.

- Alien Lupita explaining Leia has to die cause... she needs all her power to... do stuff. important stuff.

- JJ’s friends that get more screentime than Rose.(not really funny but...)

- Glados Palpatine. Eveytime he appeared on screen i would start laughing, to the point my friend got mad at me. Am i the only one who can see this? Why is he Glados? Whatever the reason this made me laugh the most, i literally got out of the theather singing still alive.

- Kinda heartwarming that palpatine’s plan was to build a evil empire for his grandaughter. He really loved her T.T

- it took a while for me to realize, because it was so dark. but rey and palpatine were surrounded by evil bleaches filled with evil minions rooting for palpatine, and i thought that was really wholesome, to show they were all there cheering him on.

- every sith is inside palpatine... hehe

- “If you give in to your anger and kill me you’re evil. if i force you to kill me you are also evil.”

- Palpatine can possess people who kill him i guess?

- every jedi is inside Rey... hehe

- Also since he voldemorted himself to death, did palpatine possess himself?

- Leia’s body just disappears because.... reasons. I guess alien Lupita knows why but she’s not even gonna bother explaining this one, cause it’s so obvious.

- The gay scene... i’m gonna be honest, i teared up when the slug and jj’s friend hugged, this is the representation we need.(but really i almost missed the kiss, and i’m certain i never saw those women before, and im also sure they got thanosed the moment the camera left them)

-POE IS A STRAIGHT MAN WHO LOVES KISSING WOM... oh my god is that finn?

- The last scene, I actually liked that she ended up in Tatooine. Bringin everything full circle by showing Rey in the same planet baby Yoda and his cool mercenary dad once visited was a great way to end the trilogy.

- Rey, her two ghost parents, and a robot that i guess she stole from Poe. truly the happiest ending.

- Why is everyone so obsessed with last names? I bet that old woman was a tax collector.”Oh you’re a Skywalker? your relatives left the planet withou paying their light bill, it’s you debt now loser.” and luke just awkwardly fades away while rey stares at him.

Honestly there were parts of the movie i genuinely enjoyed: the han solo scene, pretty much every Ben solo scene, pretty much every trio scene(the whole thing with poe wanting to know what finn was going to say makes it seem like he is jealous of rey and i hate that it goes nowhere) and i actually love the part where rey puts her lightsaber behind her, and ben taking it from behind his.

But overall the Snoke clone army would have been a better plot. I mean no one in this movie even told Rey she looks pretty with her head cut open.

Also fuck JJ for what he did to Rose, seriously if you didn’t watch the last jedi you wouldn’t even know her name.Fuck him and this cowardly movie for doing this to Kelly Marie Tran.

#star wars #star wars ros #ros spoilers #i would like to thank JJ for revealing the rey palpatine thing before the movie came out #effectively killing any interest i had in it #cause i think this movie would have really hurt me otherwise #by the way two people on my right kept looking at their phones during the movie #one checking his messages and another couple taking multiple selfies #and like i wanted to be annoyed but at the same time #i kinda get it #at least it wasn't transphobic i guess #im not sure i can say the same about the other movie playing

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lecrit · 5 years

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Okay, I have some shit to say and it's gonna be really long, I'm warning you. I think it's about time for me to be real about some stuff, and the consequences anon hate can have because I'm fucking done, and even more tired.

Last year around October, I stumbled upon a conversation on Twitter of writers from the fandom who were basically slaughtering my writing, and BLST in particular. It was a bit hard for me to take in, because even though I have most definitely read fics I didn't enjoy, I would never think about publicly trashing them as if I'm the one who makes the rules about what's good or not. Anyway, it was the first blow, especially because BLST is the most personal thing I've ever written and it was hard af, but I moved on.

In December, I posted a fic that has since then been deleted. Luke's character had a really minor role in it (and that mistake was entirely on me), and this is where things started to truly go downhill. I received two tumblr asks telling me that 'blablahblah is talking shit about you'. I have some pretty serious anxiety problems, and there is absolutely no way for me not to go check it out when someone tells me I'm being publicly trashed. So I did, and it was a mistake.

There was a lot of hate going on, although I think what hurt the most was seeing some of my readers, who had sent me supportive messages before, going "oh, you opened my eyes on what a terrible person she is, I won't read her stuff anymore." That, in itself, is fine. I can't please everyone and there are people who don't like my writing, and people who think I don't include Luke enough, and people who think Magnus was treated horribly in BLST. Okay, that I can hear. This particular tumblr was fairly popular, though, and I received a lot of anon hate on Tumblr and on Curious Cat, which is why I ended up switching off the anon option on the former and deleting completely the latter. I don't allow anonymous comments on my fanfictions since then either, and some of them are now private. For info, it came to a point where people were sending hate about me to Jackie, who is as many of you know one of my best friends, to change her opinion of me (joke's on you, she actually knows me better than anonymous people from curious cat, mind-blowing I know).

Those are technical consequences, and although I would love to be able to forgo them, it still annoys me sometimes that I have shut down the people who are supportive but too shy to message me because of this.

The personal consequences are something else entirely. First and foremost, my anxiety skyrocketted. For a while, I was completely paranoid and kept finding more inventive ways to find if people were talking shit about me publicly. When you dig far enough, you end up finding something. So I did, and then I digged deeper. I was also convinced most of the writers in the fandom hated me. Secondly, I experienced the worst kind of writer's block, not the one where you sit down and stare at a blank page without anything coming, but the one where you don't write because you second guess everything to the point where you convince yourself you can't write anymore. Third, my writing suffered from this in various ways. When I write, there's a voice in the back of my head, warning me of the potential consequences, and the hate I could get for it. I have only lately started to trust myself again when it comes to my own writing, and that is still a work in progress. And when I do feel good about my writing, or when I hit a milestone in my ao3 statistics, I don't share it either. I can't post anything without thinking of the potential hate that could follow. Finally, I'll let you imagine the consequences it had on my mental health, I don't want to go into details.

I'm not telling you this as a sob story. I haven't talked about it before because I didn't want to play the victim, because the reproaches addressed to me where valid in their concern but not in the form they took. When I see the proportions it has taken, for me and many other writers in this fandom, I don't want to keep quiet. Anonymous hate has consequences beyond the comfort of your own screen. Your words have consequences equally proportionate to their violence. You don't know who is on the other side, what struggles they are going through and what intention they had when you labelled them 'cancelled' and 'unredeemable'. You can be critical without being rude or offensive. If you wouldn't say what you're sending anonymously to someone's face, that probably means you shouldn't send it at all. Just like our writing can have consequences, your actions can too. Stop treating writers like a scape goat to your overall frustrations with fandom. Stop trying to pitch us against each other over kudos and stats. Stop expecting us to be role models: we're not. We're not a beacon of moral righteousness for the fandom to follow. We can write what we want, and if you don't like it, that's fine. If you want to trash us privately, that's fine too. But don't use your opinion as an excuse to publicly "expose" us and then pretend you didn't know it could have consequences.

I'm tired of it, and I'm sure this won't change anything, but I'm even more tired of keeping my mouth shut because of fear. My dad is a very wise man and he always says: Fear doesn't suppress danger.

#about me #and anon hate

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odanurr87 · 7 years

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The problem with Star Wars Rebels

At the behest of several friends and acquaintances I decided to start watching the animated series Star Wars Rebels. I had previously watched The Clone Wars, but eventually gave up on it for a variety of reasons that I may explain in a separate post. I am currently on episode 14 of the second season of Star Wars Rebels, yet I feel I am able at this time to try and pinpoint some of the issues I’ve been having with this series.

Let me preface this by saying Rebels is not a bad show, at least I don’t think so. I think all fans, both old and new, can agree it’s entertaining, there’s a lot of humour, and voice acting is very good. Some might even delight in meeting familiar characters from the Star Wars Universe, like Leia, Lando, or the droids, or learning new bits of lore, such as the origin of the Rebel B-Wing starfighter. I do believe that someone (relatively) new to the Star Wars Universe will find more to enjoy in Star Wars Rebels than an old fan like me, but I am trying and I will keep on trying.

Speaking for myself, I come with a lot of Expanded Universe (EU) baggage, and retcons are not something that I take to lightly, especially when they’re gratuitous or badly done. My head is filled with details that fleshed the Star Wars Universe, details provided by the EU, so when I see something in Star Wars Rebels (and in The Clone Wars too) that overwrites that data an alarm goes off at the back of my head and I’m taken out of the experience even if for a tiny bit. The Clone Wars is perhaps the most egregious culprit as Dave Filoni messed with continuity (LucasArts wasn’t owned by Disney then) resurrecting already-dead characters (e.g.: Darth Maul) and completely altering Mandalorian culture, among others.

However, retconning is only (a small) part of the problem with Star Wars Rebels. I believe there are more basic issues with the series that I’ll do my best to outline in this post. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what happened a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

The origins of the Rebel Alliance... kinda

Star Wars Rebels follows the adventures of a young group of mercenaries turned freedom-fighters 5 years before the Battle of Yavin (BBY). The show starts as a young thief by the name of Ezra bumps into a group, led by Kanan, a former Jedi-turned-mercenary, in the process of stealing supplies from the Empire. These will be our heroes for the remainder of the series. Besides Kanan and Ezra, we have: Zeb, a Lasat male honor guardsman who acts as the muscle; Chopper, an astromech droid that’s in charge of opening every door and repairing everything that doesn’t work properly; Sabine, a Mandalorian who has a penchant for art and blowing stuff up; and Hera, daughter of Cham Syndulla (from TCW), top-notch pilot and sharing the lead together with Kanan.

From left to right: Sabine, Zeb, Hera, Kanan, Ezra, and Chopper.

Comparisons with the gang from the Original Trilogy (OT) are self-evident and are not the focus of this post, nor of this particular point. As the show progresses, we come to learn that his group, while operating independently, does strike against the Empire every now and then. Circumstances eventually force them to make a stand, and thus we learn that they were actually operating as a cell, and that there are other Rebel cells operating throughout the galaxy. In short, what we have is a small window into the origins of the Rebel Alliance.

Putting aside the (non-canon and Force-powered) story of The Force Unleashed, which also depicts the origins of the Rebel Alliance (and is incidentally very good at it), one obvious question comes to mind, do we really need this story? Do we need to know exactly how the Rebel Alliance came together to stand against the might of the Empire forged by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader? To my mind, the answer is no. History has shown us that rebellion is commonplace in empires that abuse their power and oppress their people. Therefore, that a rebellion would surface in the span between Episodes III and IV doesn’t come as a surprise. Would I want this story to be told though? If executed properly, the answer is yes.

Planting the seeds of rebellion.

George Lucas tried to show us some of this in Episode III with a series of meetings between Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Padmé Amidala, and a few other senators, where they discussed the future of the Republic and what they might need to do to save it. Unfortunately, those scenes got cut for the theatrical release. Maybe they were a tad too on the nose, maybe Lucas thought it would remind people of The Phantom Menace’s politics. I am perhaps one of the few who finds that politics are an integral part of the tale of the Republic’s downfall and who believes they don’t have to be detrimental to a story. Just look at the excellent The Legend of the Galactic Heroes for reference. Whether you’re a fan of the light novel series by Yoshiki Tanaka, or the (superior) anime version, it’s a story fraught with history, politics, economics, religion, and warfare, that finds the right balance between all these elements. If Star Wars Rebels were to combine these elements half as well to tell us how the Rebel Alliance was formed, it would make for one hell of a story.

Unfortunately, so far Rebels has made no attempt to do so. There are many basic questions that remain unanswered. For instance, if Hera’s (she’s their commanding officer now, right?) band of freedom fighters is just one cell out of many, does that mean that there’s some sort of centralized power structure? The story seems to suggest the rebels were disorganized before Hera’s group rallied them into action but it’s never really clear. At the same time, it also suggests Hera was already taking orders from some form of command authority back in their early ‘independent’ days. Which one is it?

If there is a commanding body to the rebel movement, is there a larger plan beyond ‘sticking it to the Empire’? How exactly are the rebels planning to overthrow the Empire, if indeed that is their goal? Are we even at the point of calling it the Rebel Alliance? It would appear that at least the rebel group working with Hera is mobile and doesn’t have a base of operations. Is this the same for other cells?

My head is filled with dozens of questions that scream (a bit of hyperbole, okay) to be answered, but the show remains oblivious and chooses to plunge through regardless. To be perfectly honest, I doubt the creators themselves know the answers. It is this internal confusion that throws me for a loop. Perhaps they believe these are trifle questions not worth pondering. I beg to differ. If you choose to tell a story about the origins of the Rebel Alliance, thoroughly exploring said origins is a must; at the very least I would expect it to be internally coherent and not sow confusion every two episodes.

This ties neatly into my second point, which is...

The Force is too strong with this one

When old Ben Kenobi tells Luke how the Jedi were once the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, one has the sense that he’s talking about a distant memory, something that happened a long time ago. Indeed, watching the OT, you get the feeling that most of the galaxy believes that the Jedi were nothing but a myth. General Motti went so far as to question Vader’s sad devotion to that ‘ancient religion.’ Tarkin is adamant that Vader’s the only Jedi left. Even though he’d be proven wrong minutes (and an episode) later, the universe of the Classic Trilogy has all but forgotten the Jedi.

When Luke picks up the Jedi mantle it’s an incredibly boon for the Rebel Alliance. Not only have they now a powerful symbol to rally behind, for the Jedi were considered bastions of the Republic, they also have someone to stand against the powerful Darth Vader. This was further reinforced by the EU. Sometimes a story would feature people who would dabble in the Force, or people who pretended to be Jedi, but in the end, the notion that Luke was the last of them was ever present.

Luke Skywalker, last (hope?) of the Jedi.

The Prequel Trilogy (PT) was the first to create problems for this narrative. After all, the events of Revenge of the Sith take place 19 years before the events of A New Hope. I would hardly think that 20 years is enough time for the galaxy to forget about the Jedi. Even less so when you consider that the Clone Wars would have spread the Jedi throughout the galaxy, making them known even in the most distant Outer Rim worlds.

20 years ago there were thousands of Jedi. Now there are none. Revenge of the Sith tried to explain this through Order 66, just one in a long series of orders drilled into the clone army that instructed them to eliminate their Jedi commanders and every other Jedi they could get their hands on. The film shows us they were mercilessly efficient at that and very few Jedi managed to survive the betrayal, the most notable examples being Obi-Wan on Utapau and Yoda on Kashyyyk. But as the film also shows us, not all Jedi were killed by the clones, either on the battlefield or back at the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan managed to get a message out warning any surviving Jedi of the fall of Coruscant and the clones’ betrayal, and instructing them to stay hidden until... whenever. There’s a very funny deleted scene from Episode III where the clones dress up as Jedi to trick Yoda and Obi-Wan with predictably bad results.

Anyway, as I was saying, no matter how efficient the clones might have been, it stands to reason that some Jedi other than Obi-Wan and Yoda would have survived the purge. Again, going with EU material, the Dark Times comic series show us as much as Darth Vader begins his quest to eliminate any and all surviving Jedi, and he’s very good at it. Any Jedi that might have survived that second purge where probably in hiding during the events of the OT, right?

Wrong. In Star Wars Rebels, Kanan notices that young Ezra is strong in the Force and undertakes the daunting task of training him. So now we have a Jedi Master and Padawan, fighting together with the Rebel Alliance, five years before the events of A New Hope. In fact, the events of season three of Star Wars Rebels take place as close as 2 BBY.

What?

It gets better. Joining them in their struggle in season two is none other than Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan, Ahsoka Tano, who’s also working with the Rebel Alliance! As if that weren’t enough, we also have the Inquisitors, an organization of Force-sensitive agents working for the Empire to hunt down Jedi. By episode 14 of season 2 I counted at least 3 Inquisitors and there are probably more if the “fifth brother” and “seventh sister” quotes are any indication.

Um, well...

There’s more. Darth Maul makes an appearance at some point in season two and definitely returns in season three. Kanan and Ezra travel to a Jedi Temple where they both receive guidance from Yoda himself. Holocrons pop up, and the Bendu monks get transformed into Bendu, a Force-sensitive individual who represents the center of the Force.

...

Where should I begin?

If it was hard for me (or anyone, really) to believe the galaxy had forgotten about the Jedi over the span of 20 years, you can imagine it’s even harder for me to believe they’d forgotten about them over the span of 2 years (and that’s if Rebels ends at 2 BBY, it could end at 0 BBY!). I suppose one could argue that the galaxy is a big place, and that even dozens of Force-powered individuals running around waving their lightsabers like mad might get unnoticed by the galaxy at large. I can see myself conceding this point. There could’ve been Jedi rebels spread throughout the galaxy waging their own personal little wars against the Empire, careful not to attract undue attention to themselves.

Unfortunately, Kanan and Ezra seem to do everything in their power to stay in the Empire’s spotlight. Furthermore, they’re irrevocably linked to the Rebel Alliance, to the point that Princess Leia Organa herself saw the pair wielding their lightsabers and using the Force! Such a tale would’ve certainly spread like wildfire throughout the rebel cells, reaching both the Core and the Outer Rim. The Rebel Alliance had found not one, not two, but three Jedi (so far) to rally around and bring the fight to the Empire... 5 years before they found Luke Skywalker and 9 years before the Jedi, um, returned? Revenge of the Jedi’s starting to sound awfully better now, isn’t it? Pity the Sith got there first.

To further compound the problem is the matter of Ezra’s training. At the rate this is going, he’ll end up having more training than Luke ever did in the OT. He’s had access to a Jedi Temple, two Jedi who’re around almost full-time (Ben died fairly soon and Luke cut short his training with Yoda on Dagobah), two holocrons, and there may be other things I’m not aware of yet. Perhaps Marvel intends to fill the gap of Luke’s training with novels and/or comics? My point is that Ezra seems to be turning too powerful too easily and Disney will have to pull off another Order 66-like stunt if they’re going to get rid of him, Kanan, and Ahsoka by the time Luke arrives.

Will this be Kanan and Ezra’s fate?

We already had an episode in season one where Vader fought more eager, less experienced, versions of Kanan and Ezra and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) defeat them. I believe there’s a similar episode in season two with pretty much the same results. Do the creators intend to go The Force Unleashed route with a final showdown between the Emperor, Vader, Kanan, and Ezra, where Palpatine wipes the floor with the Jedi? The Inquisitors are useless after all. Will they instead go into hiding like their fellows? That would be quite the reversal given everything that’s happened on the show but it wouldn’t surprise me. Not anymore.

A galaxy without stakes

The struggle between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is more than well documented, at least under EU material. Even if we’re talking canon sources, only recently we had Rogue One, a new Star Wars movie set around 0 BBY that tells the story of how the Rebels got their hands on the Death Star plans that Darth Vader is so keen on getting back in A New Hope.

Rogue One is, in essence, a war drama in the vein of the old World War II films I used to watch, like The Guns of Navarone or The Dirty Dozen, sharing more similarities with the former than the latter. It’s a film that attempts to show us the Alliance’s darker side and the lines they’re willing to cross to defeat the Empire, all the while driving the point that war is not a clean and clear-cut affair, with multiple rebel groups having different goals and methods to go about it, and civilians often getting caught in the crossfire. This movie does not shy away from death, having the largest body count since the Death Star blew up Alderaan in A New Hope. Okay, maybe not that high.

In Rogue One, war is hell.

Perhaps more so than A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, Rogue One succeeds at making the Empire feel powerful and menacing, to the point the Rebels actually consider giving up on the entire endeavour. Indeed, the Rebellion in Rogue One, while an organized force, is no match for the Empire, less so when the Death Star is put into play.

Far superior at showing this was The Empire Strikes Back during the Battle of Hoth, when the full force of the Empire was brought to bear on the Rebel base. A blockade around the planet was enforced by Star Destroyers while AT-ATs under the command of experienced General Veers led the ground assault against the Rebel forces. The Rebels put up a valiant effort but the outcome had been clear from the start: this battle was already lost; all they could do was delay the Imperial forces long enough for the evacuation to be completed. Even then, the evacuation was no simple affair. The Rebel transports could not evade nor outgun the Star Destroyers around the planet so they had to use Echo Base’s powerful ion cannons to disable them long enough to make the jump to lightspeed.

This is what it took to (temporarily) disable a Star Destroyer in Episode V.

Even our heroes are not safe from the Empire in Episode V. Luke learns a painful lesson when he hastens to rescue Han and Leia at Bespin, losing a hand in a duel with Vader that nearly cost him his life. Han is tortured, frozen in carbonite, and handed over to a bounty hunter. Later, in Return of the Jedi, a more seasoned Luke Skywalker pays the price of underestimating the dark side of the Force, something both Ben and Yoda warned him against. Had Vader not turned against the Emperor right there and then, Luke would’ve been toast. Of course, the Rebellion would’ve won the day nonetheless, right?

It is true that the depiction of the Imperial forces is uneven even among the movies of the OT. For the excellent Battle of Hoth we also have the (underwhelming) Battle of Endor, where the Empire’s forces are defeated by a small Rebel strike team working together with the primitive Ewoks. To be fair though, the size of the garrison on Endor is a lot smaller than the forces deployed during the Hoth battle and the terrain is a lot trickier and particularly well-suited for guerrilla tactics, where the advantage of numbers can be severely hampered. As a side note, there’s also a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi where we see Commander Jerjerrod’s conflict at being ordered by the Emperor to destroy the Endor moon, thereby killing friend and foe alike. No doubt Palpatine intended to use this to leverage Luke into submitting... or forcing him to use the dark side to strike at him. Quite the deviously cunning fellow Palpatine.

Well, that looks impressive.

Still, the sense that the movies and the EU convey is that the Empire, at the time of the OT, has a vast and fairly competent military, but suffers from corruption and internal power struggles, as does any large organization given enough power. Why would anyone expect anything less? The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was perhaps the most effective and efficient military at the time of the Clone Wars, comprised mostly, but not excusively, of highly-trained clones. I’m uncertain whether the clones’ rapid-aging is something that’s still canon (I somehow doubt it), but in any case Star Wars Rebels tells us that the Empire started phasing them out after the events of Episode III, replacing them with regular people, probably drafted from the many worlds of the Republic/Empire.

I’ve seen many people use this argument to explain away things like why the stormtroopers have such bad aim but that’s ridiculous. With the right training and the right tools/weapons, the Empire could still have the most powerful army in the galaxy, and guess what? They do have the right training and the right tools and weapons. Rex himself admits that the Empire did use the clones to train new recruits and pass down their knowledge. The Empire also obviously kept all the vehicles, weapons, and technology they used to fight the Separatists, acquired some new ones, and upgraded others.

There’s a popular, misquoted I believe, phrase that says, “There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.” Possibly a re-interpretation of a quote attributed to Alexander the Great, “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” Regardless of the exact wording and of who said what, the point is clear: soldiers can only be (shown to be) as good as the person commanding them.

Yang vs Reinhard: Two sides of the same coin.

This is a point that the excellent Legend of the Galactic Heroes illustrates time and again. For all his clever strategies, Yang Wenli cannot help but follow the orders of the corrupt and self-serving, but duly elected, government of the Free Planets Alliance, with disastrous results. All Yang can do is stave off defeat and live to fight another day. On the other hand, the Empire’s own master strategist, Reinhard von Lohengramm, has carte blanche to deal with the Alliance as he sees fit, and surrounds himself with officers that have the talent and skills to defeat his enemy, regardless of their background.

Which is the case in Star Wars Rebels? Well, I guess it’s neither. The Imperial forces in Rebels are depicted as grossly incompetent, there’s no other way around this, hardly better than the battle droids from The Clone Wars. The stromtrooper effect is brought to bear in full force in this show, so much so that even the main characters are forced to comment on how bad the stormtroopers’ aim is. Officers fare no better, being made a mockery of, like missing a shot at point-blank range, and falling into the usual tropes of caricaturesque villainy, like having a fat Imperial officer steal a fruit from a vendor and daring him to stop him.

If I had a penny for every time I’ve seen this scene...

Rebels tries to revert this by introducing mildly competent characters like Agent Kallus, Tarkin, the Inquisitors, Vader, and even Thrawn in season three. Unfortunately, the more these characters are foiled (and they’re foiled a lot), the less effective they are at trying to reinforce the notion that the Empire is a force to be reckoned with. Halfway through season two, Kallus and the Inquisitors are more of a bad punchline than anything else. Tarkin and Vader are better off since their appearances have been few and far between. The only fear that the Empire seems to have sowed so far is among its own, as Imperial officers are made to account for their failure with their lives. It’s difficult to take the Empire seriously if it takes so little to foil them.

Only recently I watched an episode where Princess Leia tries to indirectly deliver ships to the Rebels. The plan is for Kanan and company to steal the freighters while Leia’s delivering supplies. The Imperial officer on the planet, in what shall hence be known as “that time that the Empire did something smart,” aware that Alderaanian ships have fallen into Rebel hands under similar circumstances, secures them with gravity locks and adds a pair of (old?) AT-ATs for further security. The Rebels are initially stumped and grimly reach the conclusion that, at best, they’ll be able to steal one of the freighters but not all three. However, as is the case with the show, they manage to steal all three. The gravity locks are easily disabled by Chopper working together with an escaped Imperial prisoner who just happened to build gravity locks while in captivity; the AT-ATs are easily destroyed by the Ghost (that’s the name of Hera’s ship by the way), while Kanan chops off their legs with his lightsaber; and the stormtroopers are their usual useless selves.

Guess Luke forgot that trick in Empire Strikes Back, and Dark Empire, and pretty much every other story ever.

The Empire’s ineptitude on its own is enough of a problem but there’s another that adds to it, and that’s the familiar trope of plot armor. Yes, our main characters have it, a lot of it. Our small band of freedom fighters can do no wrong or get seriously injured. They can easily defeat the toughest of enemies and they always get away with anything no matter what.

As an example, in that very same episode I mentioned above, at a certain moment a Hammerhead-class cruiser fires at the spot where the Princess, Kanan, and Ezra are standing still. My initial thought was, “How are they going to make it out of that? ‘cause that cruiser is bound to pack a punch.” The end result was nothing but a bit of smoke, a punch no more powerful than if a couple of stormtroopers had fired their blasters. The Hammerhead-class cruiser is not equipped with blasters but turbolaser cannons, and their discharge on ground troops should feel like artillery was raining down on you. However, this is far from the only example where the rules bend around our protagonists.

Perhaps the most egregious example though is the one I saw recently. I was watching episode 13 of season 2, “The Protector of Concord Dawn.” The Rebels are searching for new hyperspace routes not monitored by the Empire and they come upon the idea of using the hyperspace corridor through the Concord Dawn system. While the system has no apparent Imperial presence there is a Mandalorian colony on the planet Concord Dawn and so the Rebels try to negotiate safe passage with them. To make a long story short, the Mandalorians aren’t keen on the idea and shoot down a bunch of Rebel A-Wing fighters. Sabine’s the only one who makes it back to the fleet in one piece whereas Hera also makes the jump to lightspeed... with a half-destroyed A-Wing.

I mean, take a look at that. Are you seriously telling me an A-Wing managed the jump to lightspeed in that state and wasn’t torn apart in the process? Give me a break! And you know what the worst thing is, worse than that even? It was completely unnecessary! Indeed, having Hera captured by the Mandalorians would’ve been the perfect excuse for Kanan to mount a rescue op and return. Hera didn’t need to be safely tucked inside the belly of a Rebel frigate recuperating. But then Sabine wouldn’t have had a reason to seek revenge, would she? More on that later.

At the end of the day we have an Empire that’s less of a threat and more of a joke with every passing episode, and protagonists who can get away with anything with no consequences. A perfect example of this happens early on in the series when Sabine infiltrates an Imperial airfield to blow up its TIE fighter contingent. The reason behind this is unclear, or maybe that’s what I’d like to think, because otherwise the show would suggest she did it for the lolz and because she’s an artist. Right, an artist of death, there’s nothing disturbing about that.

Anyway, the stormtroopers are soon alerted to her presence and, in typical Rebels fashion, she toys with and taunts them until one stomtrooper notices something odd on the wing of a TIE that looks a lot like a bomb. Sabine promptly makes her escape while the bomb blows up on the stormtrooper’s face. I’m not kidding, look, here’s how close the stormtrooper’s face was to the bomb:

And he lived. Yup, he and his buddies lived to tell the tale in their next encounter with Sabine in the airfield where she again blows up the TIEs, thereby reassuring us viewers that Sabine’s actions are completely harmless and that the stormtroopers will live to get blown up again. Isn’t that funny? I’m guessing that showing the shockwave from the explosion chopping the stormtrooper’s head off in a kids’ show would’ve been too funny, right?

All of this, the fact that the Imperials are useless, that the Rebels are invulnerable, that actions have no consequences, it all adds up to one simple, inevitable, truth: there are no stakes in this galaxy. Sure, a rebel fighter will be blown up from time to time, but who cares, you never knew him anyway. But wait, a protagonist gets captured! So what? Getting him out is as straightforward and repetitive as going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters. It’s no big deal, just send in the A-Team, they’ll extract him and blow up half the Empire while they’re at it. There’s a blockade around the planet where the Rebels are at. So what? The A-Team will blow stuff up and escape with no casualties. Who needs a planetary Ion Cannon?

But there are AT-ATs!

Made out of paper apparently.

Inquisitors!

They sure don’t live up to the name.

Darth Vader himself!

One appearance so far and he fails to capture or seriously cripple the Rebels in any way.

Um, Thrawn?

Look, I’m sure the creators thought that they were upping the stakes every time they introduced a new villain but I would question whether there were any to begin with. Like I said before, are we going to go all the way up to the Emperor to finally get things done? For all its faults, the Empire wasn’t that useles in the OT.

In a galaxy without stakes there’s little reason to care about its characters or their struggle and eventually you have to wonder, why is there even a struggle at all? When the show makes me ponder why the Rebellion hasn’t beaten the Empire already you know there’s something wrong somewhere.

What the Rebellion stands for

There’s a traditional narrative that the Rebel Alliance are noble idealists who rise up against the tyranny of the Galactic Empire to deliver peace and freedom to all peoples throughout the galaxy. That’s no secret, the opening crawls of the movies reinforce this by describing the Empire as ‘evil’ and having ‘sinister’ agents, and that ‘dreaded’ Imperial Starfleet, whereas the Rebels are ‘freedom fighters,’ and they have a Princess. Nobody doubts that the Empire are the bad guys here and the Rebel Alliance are the good guys.

Recently, Rogue One attempted to tint that narrative with shades of grey, at least on the part of the Rebels. Yes, the Rebels had spies, and assassins, and bombers, and they did terrible things in the name of the greater good. Our own history tells us that sometimes even the good guys can take extreme measures to end a conflict. Just consider the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The U.S. used a superweapon to raze two cities to force the Japanese Empire to surrender. There was a reason behind the madness though. Oblivious to the development of the atomic bombs, the Allies had been working on a plan, codenamed Operation Downfall, for the invasion of Japan. Projected casualties for this plan were high and some estimates even reached the millions of fatalities on each side.

Depending on how you look at it, where you stand, war can be seen as an abstract, white vs black, a fight between the forces of good and evil. But from the battlefield, things aren’t always so clear cut, it’s not always easy to tell what’s the right thing to do and what’s the wrong thing to do.

Welcome to the harsh reality of war: she’ll be fine.

As I was watching “The Protector of Concord Dawn,” I was struck by Sabine’s anger at how the Mandalorians cut the Rebels to pieces. Hera almost dying now convinces Sabine that the Protectors are bad, what hardens her resolve to seeing them killed. Maybe it’s not said in so many words but the subtext (to be honest, there isn’t much sub) is there. After all, how dare they shoot at Hera when all the Rebels wanted was to negotiate for safe passage... and bully the Mandalorians into submission if that didn’t work. In fact, if memory serves, that was the original plan proposed by Commander Sato, a show of force meant to say, “you mess with the bull, you get the horns.”

Even Kanan, who initially suggests to try the diplomatic approach, soon changes his tune once the Protectors make it clear they won’t help the Rebels. But let’s explain exactly what the Protectors’ role is, shall we? The Protectors of Concord Dawn are a small group of Mandalorian warriors, led by Fenn Rau, who helped train clone troopers during the Clone Wars and even fought with the Republic in a few battles. Disillusioned by the result of the war, Fenn Rau has opted to bend his knee to the Empire, what I guess amounts to making sure no Rebel ship passes through Concord Dawn unscathed. The Protectors don’t have many resources, maybe as much as two dozen fighters, so it’s doubtful the Empire expects a lot of results from them. This means the Protectors are no direct threat to the Rebels unless the latter insist on using the Concord Dawn hyperspace corridor, which they do. As a result, the Rebels blow up most of the Mandalorian starfighters and kidnap Fenn Rau who, out of the blue, decides not to pursue the Rebels nor report their presence to the Empire. That doesn’t get him out of cuffs though.

Using blackmail to get things done. The Empire would be proud.

How was the Rebellion any better than the Empire here? Aren’t they abusing their power as they accuse the Empire of doing? The fact that Sabine was so eager for the Mandalorians’ blood is equally disturbing. What does she think happens to the stormtroopers they shoot or the fighters they destroy? The stormtroopers aren’t droids, the TIEs aren’t unmanned. These are people, good and bad, who are serving the Empire for a variety of reasons. But Rebels isn’t keen on exploring this, is it? Worse, it seems the writers are oblivious to it. Perhaps they expect us to go along with everything the Rebels do just because they’re the good guys?

When Anakin Force choked Poggle the Lesser in The Clone Wars it didn’t make his action any less bad because he was fighting for the good guys and we knew it. Everything in that scene suggested he was doing something bad, that he was drawing closer to the dark side. When Cassian shoots that man at the beginning of Rogue One you know he’s doing something bad, everything in that scene plays to that effect. Cassian’s momentarily disturbed by it and later brings up the subject of all the terrible things he’s done in the name of the Rebellion. At least he acknowledges it, Rebels doesn’t even try to ponder the matter. Kanan and company don’t even stop to consider that perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to do. That perhaps they could’ve left the Protectors alone, that perhaps they could have tried to recruit them at some other time and continue to look for another hyperspace route. What happens the next time the Rebels ask for something and they’re told no, do they take it by force regardless?

These are questions that should naturally occur to any of the protagonists but, sadly, don’t. If they did, it would certainly elevate the show’s value in my eyes. To clarify, It’s not the fact that the Rebels do questionable things that I find disturbing, what I find disturbing is the fact that they don’t find anything questionable about them and that we, the viewers, are not meant to regard them in such a light. They’re the Rebels and their cause is just or, in other words, the ends justify the means.

To be fair, this was just one episode and it may very well be the only one. Turning out script after script for each new episode is probably no mean feat, and some episodes are bound to be tighter than others, but it had me asking all the wrong questions about Star Wars Rebels.

Conclusion

Having written all of this one might be led to believe that Star Wars Rebels is a terrible show, a stain on the popular franchise built by George Lucas and now owned by Disney. But like I said at the beginning of this post, it’s not. Rebels is far from the only show where its protagonists have plot-armour, or the villains are incompetent. It’s not the first show that suffers from narrative issues and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s certainly not the first one to mess with Star Wars continuity, oh no, Lucas was doing a fine job at that before Disney, with as recent an example as The Clone Wars.

What Star Wars Rebels is, is lazy. Its depiction of the fight between good and evil is one we’ve seen countless times before, and one we’ll see countless times hence. It’s easy to show the Imperials as incompetent bullies and the Rebels as invincible do-gooders, and it gets tiresome to watch the same tropes repeat themselves over and over again. One can go as far as saying it insults the viewer’s intelligence when the good guys’ actions are never challenged, even when they may be morally (or otherwise) reprehensible, or when the laws of the universe are knowingly ignored, damaging the narrative for the sake of drama.

There are no consequences to speak of that invite discussion, no stakes to make us care about the protagonists’ struggle. And it’s important that we care, if not for them, at least for the fledgling Rebel Alliance in their struggle against the mighty Empire. But if our protagonists don’t take the Empire seriously, why should we? Why should I? Might as well be just another day at Tosche Station picking up power converters.

#star wars #star wars rebels

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