#like he was sent back in time to empathy era and im here for it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luminousbeansarewe · 4 years

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what are your takes/version of how the sequel trilogy went down? because i also have my own version in my head, not.... that, but im really interested in the ideas other people have had for it

hoo boy there’s a lot of ground to cover here lmao i will try to keep them as short as i can... i also enjoy multiple versions of events and outcomes for the sequels as long as they’re in-character so i’m not trying to say no other version of the sequels is good or cool bc only a sith deals in absolutes amirite? (i won’t apologize for that dumb joke.) first the jumping-off points:

first of all, i fully support Force-sensitive Finn. even if he didn’t become a full-blown Jedi, if the entire concept of the Jedi was reforged and we don’t see him become the kind of Jedi we saw in the prequels (more on that later), i see him as someone who was attuned to the Force in a way that is similar to how i conceive of Barriss; empathetic to the suffering and joy of others. this would drive him to defect from the Empire and fear it, too. i also saw him becoming a reluctant leader for the rebellion, and there’s a GREAT fic which i’ll link here that riffs on the idea that he creates a spark within the stormtrooper ranks and more and more of them begin to defect... which i love

Rey being a nobody is cool to me. the ONE character moment where she became super relatable for me was when she realized how frightened she was of her own Force abilities. but i don’t think she has to be the legacy of Palps to have that. she doesn’t need supercharged powers to be spooked by them in a post-Jedi Order world where the most recent memory anybody has of the Force is Vader. (also Rey being a Kenobi seems more out of character for Obi-Wan than anything else lol he was pretty committed to the ways of the Order even after they were destroyed, plus he already had one kid to furtively watch over... just imo). this also ties into my expansion on the Force.

Poe being not a carbon copy of Han. i think Leia looked after him, found him somehow after she sent Ben to the Jedi Academy and was a motherly figure in his life. i like the idea that he was a little shit, and she’s the one who taught him to turn his reactive defiance of authority into bravery when fighting for the rebels. i think he looked up to her, wanted to be a leader like her. i saw him in the position of generals like Akbar by the end, as he learns to balance risk-taking with steady leadership. I wanted to see that growth, how those leaders are formed, see Leia get to impart her wisdom to someone. (also i fully support Finn/Poe and Finn/Rey/Poe, i’m not a committed shipper so i’m down with no romance at all between them but those ships are choice af and Stormpilot is all Oscar Isaac wanted anyway, so...) plus can u imagine the dichotomy of Ben the fallen son with Poe, the “adopted” son who became what Ben couldn’t? the guilt of Leia for not knowing how to teach her son about the Force, doing better half-raising a nobody who had the same shitty attitude as Han when they met but no Force ability? THIS IS JUICY CHARACTER CONTENT

Rose was given cheesy lines to introduce an important topic: that fighting is all well and good but throwing away your principles defeats the purpose of the fight in the first place (an important theme in the Clone Wars era, too.) she was there to be the voice of the truly little people in the gffa, who we don’t hear much about in the other trilogies. Finn’s sensitivity puts him at risk of the sorrow-to-hate arc i described for Barriss; Rose is there to be the empathy that sustains hope rather than becomes a crushing weight. i love the idea that she might rally volunteers from blue-collar places (like... Lothal, for example?) and spearhead the notion that the New Republic should be very different from the old one, calling out the fact that working conditions didn’t change with the shift from republic to empire and the First Order simply took it to an extreme that left her and her sister with nothing else to lose.

Ben Solo, hoo boy. so here’s the thing, we don’t KNOW Ben Solo. we were expected to want him to be redeemed because he was the son of Han and Leia, and that’s it. that’s lazy as fuck. him killing Han in the first movie (if it happened it should have been in movie #2, that’s how fucking second acts work) was an excuse to shock people, subvert the ‘i can’t kill my own father’ thing, and make sure we knew he was “evil” even though we’re supposed to also want a redemption arc? you have to read the Rise of Kylo Ren comics to learn that he was a) hounded by the voice of Snoke in his head from childhood, manipulated by it, which is horrific bc it’s like grooming... or b) that he felt HUGE pressure as a legacy Force-user to save the galaxy, lead the New Jedi Order, etc. these are much more empathy-generating and we should have learned them in TFA. echoes of Anakin much? which is why i think him being redeemed in a way other than self-sacrifice (which made sense for Vader given his long history of being a terrible person, knowing it was too late for him in the end, and really just wanting to save his son rather than “become good again”) is more interesting than him just falling (which is too much the same as the prequels.)

it should have been Finn’s call, a moment of Truth that held the balance of Finn as either falling prey to darkness or learning forgiveness, whether or not Kylo got redeemed. Finn and Rey working together to get to that point while Rose and Poe took on the military aspect of the Big Finale would have been great. Finn with a lightsaber to Kylo’s throat, feeling the temptation to murder him instead of making him face what he’s become in a meaningful way? Rey trying to urge him away from darkness as she’s been tempted before, but this is the first time Finn’s really been tested, and he was the one who so often reminded her of her own humanity? Rey calling up Rose’s point of creating a new paradigm instead of recreating the old one, of Poe’s growth or Leia’s willingness to take Ben back showing it’s possible? shiiiiiiit

the rest is going under a cut!

SO... given those things as a basis...

there being no scene where Force-ghost Anakin bops Kylo on the head (but you know, more subtly and with gorgeous metaphor ofc) was a travesty. we needed some version of that, also imo that reaffirms that Anakin was the chosen one... as him redirecting his grandson away from that path would be restoring hella balance

Snoke should have had his own fucked up backstory, if he was even there at all. a dark sider fucking with Ben Solo is reasonable to me, but Snoke could have been someone who looked up to Palps as much as Kylo supposedly looked up to Vader. that would have been interesting... maybe there are multiple “nobodies” who are being touched by the Force, just like there always were in the prequels era, but some are going dark with no Jedi to try to convince them otherwise? or, maybe Snoke’s life was ruined by the Empire and he chose to become the beast that harmed him, whereas Kylo becomes the version where you think you want to do that but then realize that it’s just as bad and you still have empathy and regret what you’ve done?

Thrawn being the main military antagonist, since they couldn’t be arsed to make Hux into anything but a sniveling baby fascist (despite his really upsetting backstory of an abusive father, also found in the comics... noticing a trend here?). Thrawn was already established and beloved in the legends. why would you not use him. whY?? he’s like a foil for Tarkin. contention between him and the Force-users in charge (Snoke and Kylo) would have been VERY interesting, esp with the character of Thrawn in the new canon seeing the Empire as a ‘necessary evil’ and now maybe having the potential to make it into something else? how’s JOINING WITH THE NEW REPUBLIC for a subversion of the classic tropes, Rian?????? you fucker????

if Thrawn’s history is “too storied” for a bunch of cowards to "fit” into a new movie trilogy, invent another antivillain to take Thrawn’s place whose history is a little more concurrent with the sequel era... you cowards

Luke fucking off after his failure isn’t out of character IMO. he was THE STRONGEST JEDI EVER and his star pupil still fell? maybe he broke under the same pressure Ben did. maybe that’s what allows him to reach back out towards Kylo and reconnect, admitting his failure. i want to hear more about him cutting himself off from the Force bc i LOVE KOTOR 2 and Kreia, but maybe that’s too much for one trilogy to delve into meaningfully, i dunno

Han fucking off after Ben wrecked the temple isn’t OOC either. i think Han was always a little frightened of the Force, the way many non-sensitives are. I think he was critical as a father, because he was critical of himself and Han is the king of projection. i wanted more of the dysfunctional relationship between him and Ben.

if Kylo kills Han, the scene needs to show more of the fact that Kylo actually regretted it, which Snoke only alludes to in TLJ, foreshadowing his future. i rewrote Han’s death scene for a friend and got a lot of good feedback about it so maybe i’ll post it here sometime. i can get behind a version where he doesn’t die, too, i just haven’t fleshed it out in my own head.

i like the idea that the Jedi Order needed to be remade, and that Luke saw the failure of the old order when he saw Ben turn like so many of the Jedi in the Order did. i like that Rey and Finn might spearhead this, and maybe Kylo’s role is to know the dark side intimately enough now that he can actually teach how it works, how to deal with it... how inevitable its temptation is. because...

in this canon, i don’t think the Force has light or darkness. i think it’s Force-users who do. it is their internal landscapes which cause them to “fall” or be redeemed or not, after all. Finn can attest to the same, so can Rey and Luke... so like, all the Jedi need DBT therapy or something i guess. lmao hold the dialectic, you nerds

the Force has shown time and time again that it cannot be “balanced” so maybe it is ourselves who need to become balanced instead

the Force is chaos, a never-ending series of colliding butterfly effects that to us will always and inevitably be seen as turmoil, cause and effect on a cosmic scale. if you drink too greedily of its power, or try to exert total control over it, by its nature it will consume you because it is beyond your mortal ken. whatever you hunger for, the force will give you more and more of it until you are overwhelmed, drowning in it

this is why peace was a central teaching of the Jedi... peace, the antithesis of chaos, which can only ever be created from within, the eye of the storm which must be sought time and time again

anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk? i’m always down to hear other people’s ideas for these characters tbh. and always down to get more into these topics if you want to know more... esp as it relates to the failure of the Jedi Order, or KOTOR 2 and Revan and Kreia, or OF COURSE my OCs because Sol has a very interesting relationship with the Force.

thank you for this ask lordimperius!! ^_^

#star wars sequels #this got way deeper into my meta than i meant for it to but i can't help it #my headcanons #asks #if you read all of this or even most of it you're an actual angel

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nerdsies · 5 years

Text

Goodbye From the Refuge

ok so there was a problem with a couple of my fics so I’m reposting them Ship: none Era: canon Warnings: past violence, mention of blood, mild language, death Word Count: 1742

~~~

No one wanted to believe it at first.

It didn’t seem real. Just three days ago, Crutchie had sent Jack a letter. Just two days ago, Jack had snuck his way to the refuge to pay him a visit. Just yesterday, Davey had asked his parents if here was anything that could be done for kids in the refuge. The newsies were sure of two things: the strike was working, and they were going to get Crutchie free.

“D’you think Brooklyn will help?” Les asked timidly.

“‘Course not,” said Albert, “they got their own stuff goin’ on.”

“I thought newsies were there for each other,” said Les.

“C’mon, kid.” Davey steered his little brother in the direction of their house. “Let’s get some sleep, okay? We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“Your brother ‘n’ I’ll come up with a plan tomorrow,” Jack promised, shooting the boy a smile.

“What kinda plan?” Finch asked.

Jack shrugged, already heading to his rooftop that Crutchie had admiringly called a ‘penthouse’ so many times. “Somethin’ good.”

~~~

The next morning, the newsies gathered bright and early in the square. They were determined to get Crutchie out of the refuge, though most of them had no idea how.

“Jack, you been in the refuge,” Mush recalled, “how d’you think we could get Crutchie out?”

“Yeah, Roosevelt probably ain’t gonna be there with an escape-carriage,” said JoJo.

“If his bunk ain’t far from the window, we could help him crawl out,” Race suggested.

Jack shook his head. “He’s busted up real bad. He couldn’t even make it to the window when I went.”

“I could sneak in,” Smalls offered, “and maybe Buttons, too, and we could carry ‘im to the window.”

“That’s a good idea,” Buttons agreed.

“When would we go?” Finch asked.

“Tonight,” said Albert.

“It’s gotta be tonight,” said Jack. “The guards don’t check on youse as much at night.”

The newsies mumbled their agreements to each other before disbanding to their selling spots.

~~~

As the sky turned the colour of ink, the newsies who lived elsewhere gathered at the lodgehouse with the others. There was a tense excitement in the air: this was dangerous, and they knew it, but it was also an adventure...the first adventure they’d had in awhile.

“Are we ready?” Davey asked. He was even more nervous than the others, constantly checking over his shoulder to make sure that Les hadn’t followed him to the lodgehouse. It had taken a lot of convincing in order for his parents to agree, but none of them were willing to put Les in danger, too.

“Hell yeah,” said Smalls, balling his fists. “Let’s get Crutchie out.”

“Snyder won’t know what hit ‘im!” Buttons exclaimed.

Jack started delegating jobs: he and Davey would go first. Smalls and Buttons would follow a little behind, far enough so they wouldn’t be spotted if the other two were, but close enough that they could communicate. The other newsies insisted on going, too, but Davey insisted that they didn’t want too many to go, and Jack pointed out that many of them were still healing from the fight.

It wasn’t until Jack was staring at the exterior walls of the refuge that the gravity of the situation dawned on him. What if they got caught? That’s four easy newsies in the jail, one of them the long-chased poster boy for bad behaviour.

“You okay?” Davey asked.

Jack nodded, taking the first step up the fire escape. “I’m gonna tell Crutchie the plan. Wait a minute before sendin’ up Smalls and Buttons.” Davey nodded and turned to repeat the information as Jack headed up the steps.

The window was easy enough to open, he’d done it plenty of times before. He slid it open silently and peeked inside.

“Crutchie,” he whispered. “Crutchie!”

No answer. Why wasn’t he answering? Jack doubted Crutchie was asleep.

“Crutchie!” he tried again.

Jack heard rustling, and a small body moved a few bunks away.

“Crutchie, it’s me. It’s Jack.” Jack couldn’t help but smile. “We’s here to take ya home.”

“Jack Kelly?” Jack didn’t recognize the voice. It was lighter than Crutchie’s, and younger. “The newsboy?”

“Who’s askin’?”

The boy came into view. He was a few years younger than Jack, maybe 14, with dark brown hair and pale skin. Dark bags hung below sunken green eyes, and dried blood clotted a gash across his hollow cheeks.

Jack was pretty sure he’d seen the boy before, but had no idea who he was.

“Crutchie’s gone,” said the boy, pushing his ratted hair from his face.

“Gone where?”

“He’s gone,” the boy repeated, not making eye-contact.

Jack adjusted his cap. “Look, kid, I don’t have all night. I gotta take Crutchie before—”

“The men came and got rid of him yesterday.”

“What the hell are ya talkin’ about?”

“Crutchie’s gone!” the boy said as loud as he could, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I mean—”

“I know what you means,” Jack snapped. Didn’t he? Crutchie wasn’t…he couldn’t be…

“Crutchie’s dead. He died two days ago. They beat ‘im up real bad. A doctor came but it was too late. There was so much blood.” The boy wiped at his tears. “I thought you knew.”

“How could I?” Jack adjusted his cap again. The boy was lying, that was the only explanation. Crutchie wasn’t dead. This was a joke. A sick joke, sure, but definitely not the truth.

“I’m sorry,” said the boy.

“It ain’t your fault,” said Jack.

“It’s not yours either.” The boy offered Jack a small smile, one Jack didn’t return. He wasn’t so sure.

~~~

Jack hated breaking the news to the others. Davey got out of it; they snuck the boy — Jack couldn’t remember his name, and he didn’t really care — out the window and Davey took him back to his house so the Jacobs could fix him up before he joined the other orphaned newsies at the lodgehouse. Smalls and Buttons stayed silent the journey back, swapping looks of empathy and sorrow behind Jack’s back.

The others thought it was a joke, too. Race threatened to “beat Jack up real good if he don’t start tellin’ the truth.”

But he was, and it was obvious once he started crying. The others retreated to their bunks in shock, nobody saying a word until they finally fell asleep.

Jack retreated to the roof. He couldn’t sleep, although he wasn’t really trying. He sat on one end, leaning against the metal beams as he stared at Crutchie’s stolen blanket, his spare clothes, his abandoned cap.

I bet a few months of clean air, you could toss that crutch for good!

Jack drew his knees to his chest. He had promised Crutchie a better life. He had promised an escape to a safer place, a promising home. He gave him the hope that one day, he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by his bum leg. He promised him Santa Fe.

And now they’d never make it there. Jack despised the concept of living and dying on the less-than-romantic streets of New York, but that’s exactly what Crutchie did. And not only did he never leave New York, he died in the refuge, the worst place Jack could ever imagine.

Drying the tears he hadn’t noticed he’d let fall, Jack grabbed some old papers and his stolen charcoal pencil. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well make use of the full moon.

~~~

“I ain’t sellin’ this,” said Jack, furiously tossing the paper to the ground.

“We don’t have a choice,” said Davey, quickly picking it up and smoothing the crinkles. “And don’t waste papes, Jack. Every cent counts.”

“I don’t give a damn about papes!” Jack yelled.

“None of us do!” Davey placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Not right now.”

“We’s not gonna care about anythin’ right now,” Elmer added, “but we’ve gotta sell papes t’stay alive.”

“‘Newsboy passes peacefully at local rehabilitation centre’?” Finch read the headline from his own stack. “They’s kiddin’, right?”

“Peacefully my ass!” Albert cried. “Crutchie went down fightin’.”

“Exactly,” said Davey, “and we have to keep fighting for him. And the only way to do that is to stay alive.”

“Spot Conlon’s here!” Race announced, running over. He took a look at the headline in Finch’s hand. “Well, at least people gotta face it now.”

“Not everyone.” Spot respectfully removed his cap as he joined the others. “It didn’t even make Brooklyn papes.”

“What?” The question echoed throughout the Manhattan newsies.

“What’re ya sellin’?” Mush asked.

Spot frowned. “‘Trolley strike enters fourth week’.”

The newsies all talked over each other, angrily stating their disbelief.

“Can’t we tell ‘em? The Brooklyn reporters?” Smalls asked.

Spot shook his head. “I tried. Took Hotshot with me an’ went to the office. We didn’t even get a word in before they kicked us out an’ threatened to raise the price of papes even more.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Davey, running a hand through his hair.

“I do,” said Jack, gripping his papers. “Men like them don’t care about kids like us. So one of us dies by Snyder’s hands. They’s gonna ignore it every time, come up with some lie to slap in the papes. But Race is right, at least they gotta face it.”

As the others murmured their agreements and separated, Jack headed for his usual spot. But instead of selling, he turned into an alley and stepped inside Ms Medda’s theatre. Selling papers reminded him too much of Crutchie. He needed to paint something. Specifically, he wanted to paint a bigger version of the sketch he’d done the night before. It was a sketch of Crutchie, grinning from ear to ear and raising his fist into the air, handmade STRIKE banner hanging down his crutch. Crutchie was the most ecstatic about going on strike, and he lifted the other newsies’ spirits when they failed to recruit the other burroughs.

Jack dipped his paintbrush into a can of cinnamon-brown paint and got to work. He left the sketched version in the chest pocket of his apron, close to his heart. When he finished, he left the painting to dry in an unfrequented corner of the theatre. He took off his apron and slipped the sketch into the pocket of his trousers.

When I leave for Santa Fe, he thought, heading back to his selling spot, I’m taking you with me.

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