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thedistantstorm · 4 years

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Tribute: A Kalluzeb Story

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Pairings: Kallus/Zeb (kalluzeb)

Chapter: 1 of 3?? (TBD, but I’m thinking 3)

AO3 Link Here

Summary: Zeb works on a gift for Kallus, to replace something he’s lost. It’s a gateway to a conversation Zeb wants to have in the future, but there’s something a bit more urgent they need to talk about first.

Notes: This is a little something I’m working on since this Thursday is #rebelsremembered day. I’m so so so new to the fandom, but Rebels has quickly ascended to be my favorite of all the SW series out there, so here’s a 2-3 part story featuring Kalluzeb + Hera, not too long after Lothal’s liberation. It's a little angsty, marinated in hurt/comfort, baked with love, and garnished with humor, but I hope you enjoy my first (official) Rebels fanfic.

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Garazeb Orrelios leans over his makeshift workbench in the Ghost's cargohold with a focus that borders on the extreme. He very carefully marks out each and every motion he plans to take with a tiny graphite writing utensil that threatens to snap in his grip without any effort at all. Hunched over the smaller weapon, he spares a glance toward the far larger one off to his left. Suspended between empty crates over a small tarp pilfered from Sabine’s room to prevent any lacquer from dripping onto the floor, his AB-75 gleams under the fluorescents. The metallic bayonet is polished, the weapon’s frame drying with the guards taped up to prevent any errant drips, though he’s done this enough times to know just how thick the lacquer needs to be to prevent it from running. It hardly takes an hour for the finish to cure, but he always gives it two to prevent any tacky, sticky residue from taking residence in his fur due to his impatience.

Though he doesn't have the five fingers his human friends have, his craftsmanship does not suffer for it. Besides, he knows his way around a bo-rifle. These weren’t weapons made by human hands. This one had been meant to be a happy surprise. These were made by his people.

And this weapon’s purpose was to be a gift that opened a doorway to a conversation, later on.

When Zeb learned that these weapons were still the preferred weapons of Lira San’s overwhelmingly peaceful regime, he had been overjoyed. Chava had seen to it that he be provided with repair parts for his own. Though they were designed to stand up to the test of time and be passed between generations, maintenance would always be necessary, and upkeep of one’s weapon mandatory.

Kallus had lost his, in the course of his defection. Zeb, having heard about Thrawn's "collection," was certain that Kallus's weapon, the bo-rifle he'd earned through skill and honor despite the circumstances that lead to it, was aboard the Chimaera. And Thrawn and Ez- the Chimaera was gone.

He leans back and shakes his head briefly, trying to reorient his brain. Focus on the design, he reminds himself. Don’t let your mind wander. He had done his own weapon first, sampled the design on purpose. This rifle is brand new, unlike his own. He wants it to be perfect. He looks over the stock and the first design he’d etched with painstaking care to the one Sabine had drawn, taped to the wall in front of him. It was more complicated, but he’d seen more ornate designs back on Lasan. Sabine might not think it as good as if she’d done it, but he had to be the one.

“Hard at work, I see,” Hera calls from behind him.

Zeb grumbles good naturedly, rubs the back of his head as he turns. “You should be sleepin’,” He reminds her.

She rubs her belly in response, eyebrows arching in a sarcastic reply. “I know my limits,” She reminds him. He hears what she doesn’t say: I’m pregnant, not an invalid.

He spends a lot of time with her, so to him, she shows. She’s been holding off on letting rebel leadership know, afraid they’ll ground her, but any day now someone’s going to figure it out. He understands that she needs to keep moving, understands the kind of loss she’s working through. The kind they all are, really, but she has reason to take it harder than most, if you ask him. He’s appointed himself as her watchman, and while he tries not to be overbearing, he’s not afraid to go toe to toe with her for her own health.

“I thought Kallus would be back by now,” She says, after a moment. That she doesn’t know where her people are is more of a tell to her frayed mental state than any emotional indicator.

“Some mission with a new agent,” Zeb reminds her. “Hush-hush Fulcrum business. You probably know more than me.” He pulls down a crate from a stack piled up in the corner to face him and she takes the hint to sit.

“Sounds familiar,” Hera supposes. She’s got the top half of her coveralls undone, and the baby belly is obvious without the extra layers. There’s nothing to her, Zeb thinks. “It’s all kind of a blur lately.”

“I know what’cha mean,” He growls, not unkind. “Chop’s constantly zappin’ me, askin’ if I’ve eaten. Apparently he and Alex have some kinda agreement. Sabine says he sends her messages, too.”

“He’s a good droid,” She says, leaning against the stack of mostly empty boxes behind her impromptu seat. He’s been following her around like a shadow, only leaving her alone for small instances at a time unless a mission dictates otherwise. “Just don’t tell him I said that.”

He rumbles something that might be an agreement but isn’t and watches her quietly. “Nightmare?”

“Can’t get comfortable,” She returns, and he winces at his suggestion. “But,” She relents, “The nightmare didn’t help.” Unwilling to talk about it, she nods with a lift of her chin towards his makeshift bench. “What’re you working on?”

“Gift for Alex. Since his weapon’s gone-” He exhales sharply, but Hera doesn’t react to that. She’s far more in control of her emotions than anyone gives her credit for. “I had Chava send me a replacement. He’ll probably have to mod it a little, but I thought he’d like it.”

“You two are cute,” She comments. He pretends not to hear her drowsiness bleed into her voice, and doesn’t mention that it’s taken her longer to answer than normal. Another moment passes. “You should-” Her eyes soften, and she’s very much awake again.

“Yeah,” He agrees, knowing exactly what Hera’s trying to say, even if she can’t get out the words. Then he sighs. “Yeah.”

“Don’t wait too long,” She tells him, softly. “Not because of me and-” She shakes her head. “I get so caught up on this war, and our cause.” Her fists clench. “It’s worth it, Zeb, we all know that. I just… you can be happy and be with someone and fight this war, too.”

Zeb reaches a hand out, covering one of her fists with his massive hand, uncurling her fingers and lacing them with his own. One of her major fears since with… everything has been the fear that those around her would do what she did. Not say the words, make the time until it was nearly too late. “I know, Hera. We’re gonna talk.”

She nods. “And you’re going to give him a gun.” She waggles her eyebrows, trying to lighten the mood. “So, is this some kind of Lasat mating thing or-?”

He laughs and the sound is so unexpected his ears perk, as if unsure that he’s capable of the sound. They exchange half-guilty smiles, one survivor to another, and he lifts the weapon from the crate that functions as a workbench to show her.

“No. Lasat aren’t nearly so formal with gifts and what-not unless you’re a royal.”

“And I don’t think Kallus abides by Coruscanti courting rules or whatever those snobby people call it,” She rolls her eyes. “Sounds like you lucked out.”

His ears flatten a bit, the only way besides his expression to betray embarrassment, but it’s just Hera, and he’s never been able to keep a secret from her very well anyway. She’s too smart for her own good, sometimes. “Yeah, doesn’t make me less nervous about it.”

Delicate green hands take the rifle from his hands, her eyes lighting up at the Fulcrum symbol etched into the stock. “Zeb, this looks ama-” She turns it over, slowly, seeing the etching on the barrel that curls around it entirely. “Oh,” Tears well up in her eyes, but she doesn’t stop inspecting it. “I’m sorry,” She says, when they fall treacherously. “Damn hormones.”

“Don’t be,” He says, ducking his head. “I, uh,” He looks up through soft, half-lidded eyes. “I might have gotten a little choked up working on mine earlier, so…” He rubs the back of his head and takes it back from her, clamping it in the stand he’s rigged so that it won’t move while he works over it. “Damn kid,” He says, sniffing as delicately as he can. Then, softer, “You don’t think it’s presumptu-”

“Garazeb Orrelios,” She barks at him, though it lacks the whip-crack it normally does with Hera in tears. “Kallus will absolutely love it. He- Ezra,” She exhales his name like it takes physical effort. “Ezra means the world to all of us, Kallus included.”

“Okay,” He agrees, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand while he has his back to her. He hasn’t cried or anything, but he doesn’t want to take the chance of Hera seeing if he did. “Want me to grab you a blanket and we can hang out together while I finish this?”

The sound of a concerned droid echoes down the hall. “Well, right on time for his 0300 check,” She quips to Zeb. “Chop, could you bring me a-”

The droid barges into the hold, babbling in binary. Something about being where she’s supposed to be, doesn’t she know she needs sleep, and lacquer fumes can’t possibly be good for the baby. Even so, he’s got two pillows compressed by one manipulator and the blanket from her bunk in the other, and he makes a big deal about her putting one between her knees like some nursedroid before barking an order at Zeb to use the exhaust if he’s going to be doing weapon maintenance in the ship.

“I’ve been going outside to spray the lacquer,” Zeb tells Chopper, who ignores his argument entirely, turning on the exhaust anyway. It’s more like white noise, the rumbling hum of the fans reminiscent of spacefaring, almost.

“Bah-bah bahbahbah bah ba-buah,” He grouses.

“Yes, mom,” Hera says for them both, tolerating his overbearing protectiveness. “Thank you for checking in on us. I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay up all night.” Then, placatingly, “We’ll go to bed soon, I swear.”

The droid clicks together the clamps at the end of his appendages in an ‘I don’t know why I put up with you people and your lies’ kind of gesture and then threatens to tell Kallus on them both, since he’s the only one of them that ever seems to be rational.

“C’mon, Chop,” Zeb pleads, using his most angelic tone. “I’m tryin’ to finish this present for him. He’ll be back in the mornin’ and then we’ll all rest easy. Besides-” He trails off, eyes sliding pointedly to an already dozing Hera, curled up on the weapons crate like it’s the most comfortable bed on base.

The droid wheels over to his master quietly and tucks her in, careful not to touch her and jolt her awake. He pats Zeb’s leg as he passes by, not shocking for once. “Bah bua bah-bah wah-bahbah bah wua.”

“Yeah. I know. I’ll come get you from your dock before I carry her to bed.”

“I can still hear you, you know,” She murmurs, but it’s slurred by sleep.

“We know,” Zeb answers, in sync with Chopper’s confirmation in binary. Then, softer, he murmurs, “G’night, Hera.”

She waves a hand in an indelicate flop before it finds her belly over the blanket. The astromech waves his manipulators around for show, but he’s hardly mad. He sees himself out, and then Zeb’s alone with his thoughts again.

The sound of the engraving tool he’d nicked from the hangar for his project isn’t loud at all. Zeb takes his time. Hera seems to sleep better these days with the sounds of work around her, and he’s committed to doing this right even if he’s working on it until dawn. He wants Kallus to like it. Wants him to know that even with everything that’s going on, he’s a part of their family. However he wants that to be.

Though, Zeb smiles to himself, just a little. He’s pretty sure they’ve been dancing around mutual feelings for a while now. With everything bad that's happened, it'd do them some good to make things clear. Get it all out in the open.

#kalluzeb #alexsandr kalus #garazeb orrelios #hera syndulla #sw rebels fanfiction #star wars rebels #my writing #rebelsremembered 2020 #rebelsremembered

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bearpillowmonster · 3 years

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Mandalorian S2 Ep. 5 SPOILER Talk

I think the only Mando spoiler review I did was the last episode of the first season. I went back and read my nonspoiler review and it’s kind of hard to get so since I was really looking forward to this episode, I thought I’d elaborate a bit more because I’ve been thinking about it all day.

FULL SPOILER WARNING FOR THIS WEEK’S EPISODE OF THE MANDALORIAN

So I have to admit, they brought Ahsoka into the episode quick! Right off the bat. They focused on her lightsabers igniting and deactivating quite a lot, it seemed like they wanted to put emphasis on it to show “This is the first jedi of the show, therefore the first lightsaber.” to make it more dramatic and for the most part, it was pretty cool. I like the idea of Ahsoka hiding in the fog or mist with her little cloak on.

Now I don’t know a whole lot about Rosario Dawson but I can say this much, I can see why fans wanted her, she pulls off a pretty good voice for Ahsoka, I was impressed, of course she’s going to look a bit different than the show (though Bo Katan’s design shocked me at how accurate it was!) but it is what it is. I more or less knew that Sabine wasn’t going to make an appearance, I mean that’s biting off a bit more than you can chew and I know how everybody likes to hype everything up, but none the less, I still held out hope, maybe next season boys.

They have that scene where Ahsoka and Baby Yoda sit there, literally just sit there and it goes on...like I know you’re communicating by force but this is a little long, don’t you think?

Ahsoka revealing that she’s looking for Thrawn just about tugged me out of my seat and made me do a Pinocchio dance.

Almost but I also thought “Is that what they’re doing? Bringing the Zahn trilogy to the big screen?” And while I’m all for that and have only read the first book so far (I’m reading it a specific way, ok? And yes, I watched those episodes of Rebels with him in it) I feel like they’d be saying “We messed up making the sequel trilogy and trying to do something different, so here’s something that already exists and fans like.” I really doubt we’ll see the FULL thing, I imagine it’ll be their own version especially since they had the prototype Snoke clones in the last episode, ensuring the legacy of the sequels. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet but I don’t expect it any time soon, if at all for the Mandalorian specifically, this Filoni-verse seems to have more up its sleeve than it lets on. Speaking of, they must have had Ahsoka planned from the beginning because they talked about how they don’t want to call The Child “Baby Yoda”, this must have been the moment they had in mind to reveal that he is in fact named Grogu. I like that he finally has a name.

Now back to the main girl, Ahsoka, I thought this would be the end zone for a touchdown in a football game, that once Ahsoka arrived, she’d snuggle us and everything would be okay, there would once again be peace. But she doesn’t join the party, who knows what’ll happen to her next...big sad. It better not be like “Here’s a sneak preview of our new Ahsoka series!” because that’s just grinding for attention. It just doesn’t make sense that she’d say “I don’t want to train him” obviously because of Anakin but then tell them that he could be trained by a different Jedi...like what the heck? I guess she just really wants to test Grogu and see what he chooses for his own path but still...

I thought about Din (Mando) actually being force-sensitive and that’s why Ahsoka put them off and while that hasn’t happened, it’s still possible, I’ll be super salty if it does though because that spot should be for Boba! (if anybody. I’d be ok if he’s just the same old Boba too) One more thing, my dad actually pointed this one out, so they had Michael Biehn as the Magistrate’s head lackey and he played Johnny Ringo in Tombstone, the whole scene with Mando felt like one big reference to that.

#spoiler #sw #star wars #mandalorian #the jedi #episode 5 #season 2 #here we go again

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littlebitwriter · 4 years

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12 DAYS OF STAR WARS: AN ORIGINAL FANBOY-DRIVEN BLOG SERIES “EPISODE 7: SOME OF MY FAVORITE STAR WARS EU CHARACTERS”

Here is a list not ranked of some of my favorite characters in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Both canon and non-canon. *Specifically not gigantically main characters in the mainline saga films and ones who often have extensive material in tie-in media.*

GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN

In terms of comparing Star Wars characters to archetypes, Grand Admiral Thrawn is the evil Sherlock Holmes of the Star Wars galaxy. The smartest, most tactical, perhaps the most shocking Star Wars villain is Grand Admiral Thrawn. A character with a unique philosophy and battle strategy. He looks at the art of a civilization or planet in the beginning of Heir To The Empire where he can tell/figure out something about that civilization/species through their art which is fascinating. He is a unique, evenly tempered character and listens to what people have to say if they have good ideas. Thrawn is a character who is evil who also has control of his emotions. He isn’t like Kylo Ren who flips out on his macbook pro or is like “Fire Everything!” Thrawn is ultimately the antithesis of that. He is the antithesis to Darth Vader and The Emperor in terms of their philosophy which is perhaps scarier and his philosophy is ‘don’t let your emotions consume you’ and is as level-headed as Darth Vader and is very much all about power. He is an incredibly unique character and villain unlike any other in Star Wars lore. There is so much rich Thrawn material out there, from the various novels by Timothy Zahn such as the original Thrawn Trilogy: Heir To The Empire, Dark Force Rising & The Last Command. As well as the Modern Thrawn Trilogy (set before the events of his appearance in Star Wars Rebels) Thrawn, Alliances and Treason. As well as many, many others I have not mentioned.

MARA JADE

She is a great character who starts from a very interesting place in Heir To The Empire who started out as a Force-sensitive Imperial assassin who is easily next to Thrawn, both are the best characters Timothy Zahn created in the Star Wars EU lore. She much like a lot of characters I will be talking about, are all truly authentic Star Wars characters. They all have the makings of a great iconic Star Wars character who went on an exciting redemptive journey across the EU from being an Imperial assassin who Palpatine wanted to kill Luke Skywalker to eventually become the wife of Luke Skywalker and mother of Ben Skywalker as a Jedi master. There was a lot that happened to her with the Yuuzhan Vong but everything about that outside of Mara Jade gives me a gigantic headache. Anyway she is a great character who should be integrated into the new canon and should be established to have been married to Luke. (In my personal headcanon Luke was married to Mara Jade in the gap between ROTJ and TFA) She just has one of the best character arcs in all of Star Wars and is a phenomenal character.

QUINLAN VOS

One of my favorite characters in the Expanded Universe is Quinlan Vos who has stories in the comics that came out during the time of The Clone Wars comics of the early aughts written by John Ostrander. The story of him really goes across The Clone Wars. He is an incredible character who is ultimately an exploration of the ideas of the Dark Side and the Light Side and the temptation of the Dark Side and he kind of rides that line between the two. He is very much a rogue Jedi and kind of goes with the dark and dabbles towards it but ultimately is a good guy. His story in the Clone Wars from Ostrander is very pivotal to his character. Also Dark Disciple is another Quinlan Vos story that is in canon that is based on unused scripts of the modern Clone Wars episodes and that is as well a good Quinlan Vos story with his unique relationship with Asajj Ventress.

CADE SKYWALKER

The main character of perhaps the best Star Wars things next to The Original Trilogy which is John Ostrander and Jaan Dursuma’s Legacy. He ultimately much like Quinlan Vos is an extremely fascinating character. He is a bounty hunter who has all but rejected his Jedi teachings and he does Death Sticks. He really dances on the line between Dark Side and Light Side in such an interesting way where there are things he does for good but he’s using Dark Side powers and bringing people back from the dead which is quote Palpatine in Revenge of The Sith “Unnatural…” He is a unique conflicted character and he is very much one of my favorite characters in Star Wars lore. He is very much like Quinlan Vos the archetypal John Ostrander dark Jedi character in a good way.

BOBA FETT

I love Boba Fett. He’s got a bad reputation now especially with a show about a super competent Mandalorian who is ‘The Mandalorian’ who is clearly not Boba Fett because of a thing that he does at the end of the pilot episode that Boba Fett would never do. Boba Fett ultimately unknown to the general mainstream public truly is not just a bum/incompetant clone/bounty hunter that ended up in Sarlacc Pit. He was once a and almost had a solo-novel written by Karen Traviss (A great Star Wars writer who wrote many great books such as The Republic Commando series, also has an obsession with Mandalorians) However in-canon as of now, Boba Fett died in Sarlacc Pit and ultimately the badass Boba Fett pre-1999 EU is now alive and well in The Mandalorian.

DARTH MAUL

One of the boldest creative decisions in all of Star Wars was in the fourth season of the modern Clone Wars TV Show which was a moment I remember seeing on television for the first time which is… The Return of Darth Maul. This led to what I call the “Maul Resurgence” where after I watched that story arc in television I was obsessed with Maul and had a connection to Maul outside of the double-bladed lightsaber and the spiky horns I was fascinated by his rivalry, connection and hatred of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I read the novel by Michael Reaves that was a prequel to Phantom Menace which was Shadow Hunter. Which established his backstory as being raised by Palpatine and was inflicted with Sith tattoos and was originally a Zabrak (which changed due to The Clone Wars he is now a…Dathomir. He is ultimately an assassin told he’s a Sith, not really a proper Dark Force user, he was a mad dog on Palpatine’s leash that became used everywhere. He is very much the prequel’s Boba Fett where he looks super cool and most of the public doesn't know he survived after his initial cheap death where they got a comeback and more development. In The Clone Wars He spent years in shame and squalor and when he gets power back and gains composure you see he learned the lessons Sidious/Palpatine taught him and that’s what makes his duel with him, Oppress and Sidious/Palpatine so impressive is that you can make the argument that Maul was legitimately a threat to Sidious. He is capable of being a thrilling and terrifying threat. As a Maul fan My favorite scene in Solo: A Star Wars Story is when you learn he is the head of the criminal organization of Crimson Dawn and the idea of him being a crime lord is genius. His story is ultimately perfectly wrapped up in Rebels in perhaps my favorite and in my opinion the most epic lightsaber fight in all of Star Wars which is his last battle with Kenobi. It’s an old-school epic samurai fight with such ambience and power and perfectly ends Maul story and captures the evolution of Obi-Wan and Maul’s relationship.

THE CHILD

The social media phenomenon himself gets what he / she deserves and is perhaps my favorite youngling in Star Wars lore (sorry, no disrespect to characters like Ashoka). It may seem like I’m hopping on the bandwagon but I really am not, outside of Yoda and Yaddle I believe, there is one other character who is of the same species who fans often mention and even casual or non fans mention a lot who is The Child. There is ultimately I think going to be a solid reason as to why he is such a phenomenon. Much like these other characters this is something about The Child that is distinctive and unique in that all of these characters are wholly their own and go on their own journeys and I’m sure The Child will be one of them. He is young for his species only fifty years old and has a long, long life ahead of him in a galaxy far, far away…

-LilBitWriter (12/19/19)

#star wars #fictional characters #expanded universe #favorite #comic books #movies #television #novels

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gffa · 5 years

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I had a brief conversation with @bpdanakins about Star Wars Canon vs Legends the other day and how it can seem really confusing and contradictory at times and it made me want to showcase what I think is the easiest way to tell if something is Canon or Legends: Check the date it was released! If it was after April 25th, 2014, then it’s CANON. Anything before that (aside from the movies + TV show) is Legends. Even easier, for me, is: Does this have anything to do with the sequels or with the Rebels cast? Do they appear anywhere in there? If so, it’s Canon! All the comics and novels and reference guides coming out right now are definitely included in this and, while it’s definitely growing and there are a lot of mini-series comics that make this more difficult, there really aren’t that many comic series. Honestly, I would guess there’s maybe a little over 350 issues total (about 362 by my count, as of the writing of this post), which might seem like a lot, but they fly by really fast when you actually read them! There are some exceptions to this, which are the tricky things--are mobile games summaries considered Canon? How about Topps card info? Roleplaying games guidebooks? LEGO Series? Galaxy’s Edge? In general, I think the answer is “no”, that something has to appear in a story or reference book to be considered Canon. Though, word of god stuff you can usually count on as being intended to be Canon. (Also, with some reference books, you need to check the back to see if they have the disclaimer about how they were written based on Legends info, even if they were published past 2014.04.25.) Some stuff is also going to be canon-compliant, but this is not the same thing as Canon--LEGO Freemaker Adventures was said to be Canon compliant, but it’s obviously not Canon itself, for example. This is a good approach to post-2014 RPG guidebooks as well, where Fantasy Flight Games does their best to make them Canon compliant, but they are not Canon. (And IIRC still use/refer to older Legends continuity that doesn’t fit anymore.) Also of note is that, just because a character or place is recanonized, that doesn’t mean their backstory is as well--Thrawn in Canon is vastly different from Thrawn in Legends, for example. Now that Bant has been brought up in a Canon book, that does not mean anything other than what appeared specifically in that book (which is mostly just that she was an old friend of Obi-Wan’s) is Canon. LEGENDS -- is a far more complicated matter, because it had different tiers of canon--there was G-Canon (George Lucas Canon), there was T-Canon (TV Show Canon), there was C-Canon (Continuity Canon, like comics, books, etc., the stories of games were C-Canon, but stats weren’t necessarily, according to Leland Chee), there was S-Canon (Secondary Canon, mostly really old comics that just couldn’t fit in anymore), and George Lucas repeatedly said that he’s not in charge of the books and comics and stuff, he doesn’t get involved, he doesn’t really read it. Dave Filoni said that, when they started working on The Clone Wars, George Lucas made it very clear that Legends material was not part of his story/it wasn’t canon. (He doesn’t do so as a value judgement, in fact, he tended to speak really positively about that area, about the stories that could be told, that the fans had all this creativity, he really seemed to like the idea of it. It’s just not part of his Star Wars.) A lot of stuff was released before all the prequels movies were out, especially between The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002), which was often difficult to reconcile very well with the movies that would then later come out. (I think that point in time tends to be the most difficult because it was the whole OMG STAR WARS IS BACK! and the merchandise/supplementary material machine went into hyperspeed mode. XD) Basically, what it means is--consider the date and the source of the piece of information you’re given. Is it something that’s reflected in a lot of various sources? Or is it something you had to go digging way down deep into the bowels of supplementary-supplementary-supplementary material to find and it’s only referenced that one time? Is it contradicted by other stories? What are the level of prominence of those stories? Is it contradicted by a piece of Word of God info? But ULTIMATELY IT ONLY MATTERS AS MUCH AS YOU WANT IT TO MATTER. Canon was never meant to be 100% perfect, there’s a minor mishap with Oddy Muva and the wedding he was supposedly at, when he couldn’t have been, stuff like that is just going to happen. The Story Group is very firmly not the Canon Cops, but instead there to help facilitate things. But even more important is: IF YOU LIKED THE STORY, THEN THAT’S WHAT’S REALLY AT STAKE HERE. Pablo once said about the JA series of books, no, they’re not Canon, but they’re an awesome story! He still enjoys reading them and that’s what we should, too. Read what makes you happy! Either you like a story or you don’t, whether or not it’s Canon shouldn’t make that distinction for you! As someone who very much loves Canon (I’m definitely the kind of fan who digs big tapestries with a shitload of moving parts, who loves the feeling of a living and breathing world that way), I’m firmly of the opinion that it’s not going to matter (if something is Canon or Legends) on whether or not some fan out there enjoys a story or not. My favorite SW book is a Legends one, that doesn’t stop it from being the best read pretty much ever for me! Canon’s purpose is only to be “what other authors have to take into consideration when they contribute to Canon”, that’s pretty much it. I love looking into the relevance of various pieces of SW supplementary material, I love putting context to things, I love Canon and it’s the story that has resonated with me most strongly and given me more of the diversity that I’ve been craving (STILL NEEDS MORE THO!!!), but it’s still ultimately only as important as we fans give it meaning, when it comes to how we interact with it as fans.

#canon #legends #meta

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kingdomheartsloversstuff · 5 years

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Okay so apparently I am not done with ranting about Jedi Knight and a World Between Worlds so here is another probably stupid long post talking about my thoughts on it all, how I would personally have gotten Kanan out of the picture while still keeping him alive, and my thoughts on how if all of star wars would have fallen apart if he did not die (spoiler alert, it really would not have) how I would have tackled it to make the episode less terrible and forced feeling, so without further ado here we go.

So it’s no secret that Kanan’s death pissed me off and broke my soul and I still haven’t forgiven Filoni and Freddie (he basically demanded Kanan die) for it. In some ways I understand why they wanted Kanan to die, they needed him to be written off in a way that no one could question why he wasn’t in the OT. I might have personally told the complainers to go pound sand because it was written before Rebels so of course they wouldn’t be in it but whatever. Regardless, I’ve always felt that laziness was a huge reason Filoni just went along with killing Kanan, laziness and a desire to just finish Rebels so he could focus on Clone Wars instead which is frustrating but that’s a whole other rant and this is already getting long and I haven’t even started it yet.

Killing Kanan was quick and convenient, and honestly Kanan’s character deserved so much better. Time after time we have seen characters who have suffered and been hurt who finally start to claw their way out and find happiness, only to be cruelly and often brutally killed just as they find that happiness and people praise it for ‘perfectly ending their character arc’ which pisses me off, when people achieve their lifelong dream they don’t suddenly kneel over and die, so why do we have characters who we often painfully relate to die like this? It doesn’t make sense in a time when we demand ‘realism’ in our media about space wizards with glowing swords because that is definitely super realistic and we need to keep it super real (sarcasm). There are so many ways to have written Kanan off without having to kill him, and here are just a few ways.

The easiest and even more convenient way to have gotten rid of him without killing him would have simply been to have had Kanan follow after Ezra in Family Reunion and Farewell and have him help Ezra hold back Thrawn as the Purgill took them away. But that is also pretty lazy and feels a tiny bit forced (less then how they did it as is but I digress). If you want something that feels more organic, Kanan could have very easily been horribly injured in the explosion on the fuel depot and put in a 5 year coma.

Now before you brush it off as stupid or whatever, hear me out. Kanan did not die because it made sense for his character, don’t let what Freddie said fool you, Kanan still had so much growth and potential to give. His death served no other purpose then to get rid of him easily and to make Freddie happy. There was no reason narratively to kill him, not for ‘realism’ because so many had died already and for fucks sake this is at the end of the day a family show it doesn’t need to be ‘realistic’ (it’s also a bit ridiculous to want realism for aforementioned reasons). Not for growth for Ezra, he already lost his biological parents, he didn’t need to watch his adoptive father die (twice!), and definitely not to get him out of the way.

But pretending for a moment Ezra ‘needed to learn a lesson’ why? Why does so much media center learning to grow up around traumatic deaths of parental figures? Do writers think people don’t grow up until their parents die? Are we all children who need to learn until something awful happens to our parents? If this is the case then Freddie I have some really bad news for you. Children learn and grow because of their parents. Good parents teach their children how to grow and be better people. They nurture them and love them and the idea that they only can grow after seeing their parent die horrible needs to well die.

In a time of misery we need hope, we need stories that show us that it is not all pointless, that working hard and staying strong actually means something. That hope isn’t for nothing. We deserve stories of hope and joy not death and pain. But if someone even higher up really needed Kanan to die, it could have been done so much better.

My biggest issue with how the show handled his death was and is the fact that Ahsoka was in essence brought back to life immediately after Kanan was brutally murdered and worse, the way the entire event was framed it was very much implied Kanan was killed for the sole purpose of bringing Ahsoka back, Kanan was basically turned into a human sacrifice for Ahsoka. Her life was deemed more important then Kanan’s because…? She’s a woman, I guess? Her life was in no way shape or form more valuable or important than Kanan’s, no one had any right to decide she was and force Kanan to die for her. That’s wrong, so horrible wrong and I cannot fathom why the fandom is so in love with all of this and how it went down.

All of this could have been so easily avoided though by simply changing the order of the episodes. Had a World Between worlds happened before Jedi Knight, Kanan’s death is no longer a human sacrifice and a painfully tragic death. When looking into the portals in A World Between Worlds and Family Reunion and Farewell, Ezra see’s Kanan’s death and the last moments before his parents are arrested. The entire flow of the episodes would still work if these scenes where flipped and Palpatine showed Ezra his parents the first and then showed him Kanan’s death. In some ways it may have worked even better. If Ahsoka and Ezra where still alone in the World Between Worlds, Ezra could have tried to grab his parents and save them but Ahsoka could have stopped him. Ezra then would not have had a chance to learn to let go because in his head he could still have saved them, he would have worked had Ahsoka not interfered. So when Palpatine presents Ezra with a chance to save his master Ezra would be tempted, he would likely once again reach out to save his master but stop himself and remember the lesson Kanan tried to teach him about sacrifice. Though it would hurt he would let go and foil Palpatines plans.

The line Ezra said about missing his parents in the World between worlds had always felt awkward and forced, and Filoni himself said that’s how Palpatine learned about Ezra missing his parents and tempted him with that. But if he knew enough about Ezra to show Kanan’s death, he should know about his parents and could have showed them to him in the world and then after Kanan’s death he could have shown Ezra his death.

Though I hate Kanan dying, changing the order of the episodes would have massively improved it all and made it much less enraging to have Ahsoka live then to have Kanan coming back mockingly dangled in front of us only for it to be torn away. Kanan, the show, and the fans of the show deserved so much better then we got. The show deserved a well thought out and full final season, not the short rushed one we where given the forced Kanan’s death to happen solely for the sake of so called ‘realism’ and to just tie up lose ends quickly.

What are your thoughts on all of this?

#SWR #Star Wars Rebels #Kanan Jarrus #Kanan Lives #Bring Kanan back #Save Kanan #I don't think I will ever be okay with just killing for the sake of killing #Their is an entire post for well done character deaths and really shitty one's

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starwarshyperdrive · 5 years

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I’m concerned about the Star Wars canon

I’ve always been a huge Star Wars fan but didn't follow the old EU (extended universe) because it was too convoluted and well.. a bunch of gobbledygook (granted there were some good bits in it, who doesn’t love the Thrawn trilogy even though he is pretty much a different character now), so I actually welcomed the new canon. Start over with a clean slate and make sure everything is connected, makes sense and feels Star Warsy. So far the story group has done a decent job, even though there were some questionable bits and pieces. As hardcore Star Wars fan and apologist I can force myself to get behind a lot of things and I was cool with the Bendu somehow, but the Clone Wars Mortis arc, as well as space whales and the world between worlds really rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of people are celebrating Dave Filoni as savior of the true Star Wars spirit and he is certainly an inspired artist and nice guy but I once again have to wonder whether or not some of the comic bookish stuff REALLY fits the Star Wars universe. Yeah I know ‘it’s a huge universe bla bla’ but do we really have to accept everything?

Someone recently described hardcore fans (such as myself) as a ‘cult’ and Star Wars Celebration to a religious ceremony and if I’m being honest and self-reflective I can’t really argue against it, but that’s also why you always need to check yourself and not just ‘swallow’ everything without questioning it. Keep a critical eye. Things like time travel and other super hero stuff ( I haven’t seen any of the recent Marvel or DC movies) have no place in Star Wars. Of course Star Wars is for everyone, but does that then also mean we need a Star Wars romcom, a Star Wars coming of age movie ..or ..? I don’t know..porn? Leave that to fan fiction.

Star Wars was always more about mythology, some sort of buddhist Excalibur and I am seriously concerned that at some point the ‘people in charge’ will forget that and it will become a shallow bubble gum entertainment focus on ‘what is selling at the moment’. A good example are - again - all the super hero movies picking up on trends. I don’t want a Thor Ragnarok Star Wars movie with a Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. Don’t make everything the same. Keep Star Wars unique. Keep ‘that Star Wars tone’.

‘XY doesn’t UNDERSTAND Star Wars’ is an overused and abused phrase and in so many ways pointless as there are many facets to Star Wars especially now that we have generations of fans who grew up with the prequels, the Clone Wars, Rebels or even Resistance - I should point out that I actually liked Resistance because it’s not tempering with the mythology - but the lore has been laid out in the original trilogy and everything needs to acknowledge that. We cannot have some Terminator-franchise kind of disaster a la ‘Ezra traveled back in time and actually was there with Yoda on Dagobah’ or what not.

By now it’s common knowledge that - despite what they say - there has been no overall plan for the sequel trilogy, which is quite concerning and feeding into my concerns that it’s all downhill from here (after The Rise of Skywalker and the Mandalorian or course). I know a lot of people who vehemently defended The Last Jedi when it came out, mostly as a reaction to all the stupid hate it got for the wrong reasons and I am one of them myself, but most of them are admitting now that there is something off about the movie. It is written into a corner and not picking up on the clues given in The Force Awakens. It has some amazing scenes and I will keep defending it, but there are some scenes that just don’t feel right and leave a bad aftertaste. I frequently rewatch all the movies and besides Attack of the Clones it’s the only one where I think ‘Now I have to endure THAT bit again’. I go to a lot of Q&A and it’s interesting to see how people who have worked on the movie feel the same. Even if you 100% loved it and it’s your favorite movie ever, let’s be honest - the humor is completely out of place. Fart jokes in The Phantom Menace > Your Mom jokes. And it’s just too long. Of course we all want MORE Star Wars, but where does it end. Would you go and see a 6h movie? If you are a good filmmaker you should be able to say what you want to say in the same about of time as the other movies. But that’s just my personal 2 cents. It just felt like someone who was hellbent on doing his own thing for the sake of doing his own thing and not for the sake of the story. Don’t get me wrong. It was a great idea to (spoiler alert) kill off Snoke that casually, so the movie has redeeming qualities that save it for me. Then again, as a Star Wars fan I WANT to like it. I still watched it 13 times or so. I was in the room for the trailer reveal at SWCO. I want to take ownership and be part of the hardcore fan community, but they shouldn't bank too much on it. I still want a good movie. I’m not gonna be meek and mild about something contradicting the core mythology. Ryan Johnson is allegedly still doing his trilogy and then there is the Benioff and Weiss trilogy. They didn’t exactly do a great job wrapping up Game of Thrones and left fans in awe about how the show ended and have not really proven that they can handle a franchise well either. Will all off them have free rein and just go to town on a Star Wars story as they please? Am I the only one who finds this a bit odd?!

I trust JJ Abrams to do the right thing and I hope my trust is not misplaced. I think the allegations of The Force Awakens being a A New Hope reboot are misplaced as there are also a lot of similarities to The Phantom Menace, so.. if you’re a fan you know what comes next.. ‘it rhymes, it’s like poetry’. So it makes sense. So I think ‘he gets it’..

My main concern in the new canon overall. I made an effort to get all the publications of the new canon, but the books and comics already started to get weird again. Star Wars always had a slight alien but yet familiar vibe and some stories feature people smoking cigars, drinking coffee in the morning and doing other stuff never depicted in Star Wars before. How long until someone gets a Star Wars burger at Star Wars McDonalds or orders Star Wars pizza while watching Star Wars HoloNetflix. I’m sorry. That’s ridiculous. It’s not automatically Star Wars just because you use Star Wars terminology like death sticks or Nerf steaks. Watch the movies and make an effort.

And now the novelizations of the movies are apparently not considered ‘hard canon’ anymore because the authors didn’t know the direction the next movies are going, so the clues and hints may be completely useless. So why do I force myself through some really not very good books then (others are great, no generalization here)? That’s quite alarming. Wasn’t the entire reason they got a story group to avoid that? What’s with all the loose ends? That's also why I think they will shy away from using canon characters in the movies (for the most part). Its easier to have a self contained canon universe where you can introduce Purge Troopers in a comic and then have them in a video game. I once read an interview with one of the Star Wars authors who invented a character and then got told ‘give him that name / make him this person’ instead of having this particular character in mind from the start. This is how you lose consistency. I’m well aware that over hundreds and thousands of years that’s EXACTLY how ancient history was written, which is why there are flood legends all over the world and why Jesus and Mithras are pretty much the same person, but they DID NOT HAVE A STORY GROUP and ancient mythology hasn’t been written over a course of a few years.

At the same time it’s interesting how there seem to be purists who are very determined to bring that original Star Wars vibe back. Like Jon Favreau with The Mandalorian. And like I said earlier about Resistance. Its so much easier to do that if you stay away from the mythology. It’s really tricky and so much could go wrong. The stuff introduced in Rogue One like Guardians of the Whills and the temple of Kyber is a perfect example how it’s done. Some of the stuff in the Clone Wars and Rebels is the complete opposite, so I’m really curious to see how Dave Filonis involvement in The Mandalorian pans out. He is really great with stuff like Mandalorians, Clones and I even came to accept Ashoka after reading the book and seeing her all grown up as Fulcrum, but I’m very skeptical when it comes to his ‘mystical side of the force’ interpretations.

In conclusion I know that I sound like a preacher and George Lucas repeatedly stated it’s ‘just for 10 year old kids’ but tell that to all the dead Bothans.

Please just don’t ruin Star Wars.

#star wars #star wars movies #star wars theories #Star Wars The Force Awakens #star wars the clone wars #star wars the rise of skywalker #dave filoni #jon favreau #gareth edwards #the mandalorian #star wars rebels #star wars resistance #star wars fan #lucasfilm #story group #pablo hidalgo

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shastlelow · 4 years

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Darth Vader (2020) #2

HELLO! YEEAAAHHHHH!

Welcome back to This Week in Comics – Star Wars Style! The second installment this week.

With the three releases this week, I will end up doing three posts. I had thought about waiting, but after reading all three, I’m more excited than I thought I would be about Bounty Hunters #1, a new ongoing series telling stories of a band of bounty hunters in the time between Empire and Jedi. I will review that one on Friday or over the weekend. One of the primary characters I know of from the 2015-2019 run of Star Wars Comics, but I bounced around those titles, so need to do a little more digging on him after reading the issue last night.

Also, if you haven’t already, check you my summary/review of the limited series The Rise of Kylo Ren, which I posted Wednesday night. Great conclusion to a good limited series.

This post, however, will focus on Darth Vader (2020) #2 by Greg Pak, illustrated by Raffaele Ienco.

SPOILER WARNING: This review/summary may contain spoilers for this issue, as well as any previously released Star Wars media (Films, TV Shows, Novels, Comics, Video Games) released to date, including #NotCanon. Also, this post may CONTAIN ADULT CONTENT!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

Dark Heart of the Sith – Part II

Darth Vader revealed the truth: He is Luke Skywalker’s father. But Luke refused to join him and escaped.

Enraged, Vader has taken a squad of death troopers and the Imperial forensics droid, ZED-6-7, on a quest of revenge against everyone who hid Luke from him. Vader’s bloody journey led him from Tatooine to Padmé Amidala’s abandoned apartment on Coruscant.

And now he stands face to face with a ghost from his past. Does Padmé somehow live?

We start the issue in the great red POV aspect. Slight tangent here, and minor spoiler for the novel Thrawn: Alliances. I listened to that book, I didn’t read it. In that book, when Anakin would be using the Force in a fight, we’d get “double vision” and descriptions of what was about to happen. Something about it bugged me every time. I think it was the vocal direction. I wasn’t a fan. I get why it was needed, but it bugged me throughout the novel. Talking to others, mostly readers of the book, they didn’t have the same issue. Yet something here that is very much in the same spirit, I love. Guess it’s the difference between a visual medium and an audio one. (bleh, just thought of John Lithgow as Roger Ailes in Bombshell (a movie I enjoyed, actually). Bleh).

Back to the summary. We start in the red POV. It is the final act of Attack of the Clones. Padmé and Anakin about to be take out to the arena on Geonosis for execution. Padmé speaking, Vader responding. It seems our Dark Lord is still haunted by that kiss she never should have given him.

Vendaxa. Padmé asks, “What did you call me?” Zed scans and her and is amazed at the similarities. When she asks who he is, Zed responds, “Why, this is Darth Vader, the Emperor’s—” BLASTER FIRE!

Vader stops the bolt. He questions who she is. She says “Padmé Amidala, you said it yourself”

She continues on a four-panel page – all in red POV.

“…Queen…” – Padmé at the end of The Phantom Menace during the celebration, with R2, little Jedi Ani, Obi-wan and a handmaiden (Sabé) behind her.

“…Senator…” – Padmé in her apartment on Coruscant with Anakin and Obi-wan behind her.

“…daughter of Naboo…” – Padmé on the terrace by the lake.

“…back from the dead to haunt you to your grave.” – Padmé on Mustafar.

Back and forth over the next few panels of Anakin Force choking Padmé and Vader doing the same to “Padmé.”

They are then attacked by Vendaxan land squid and “Padmé” appears to escape.

Vader follows her. “Who are you? Tell me. Don’t be afraid.” Another parallel scene from the tunnel on Geonosis – “I’m not afraid.”

“Padmé” continues. “I’m angry”

Vader puts down his saber. “I see it now. Padmé is dead. But you wear her face. Speak with her voice. You’re the queen’s shadow. A handmaiden from Naboo.”

Zed kicks into gear, begins to point out the differences only a droid looking would notice.

It is revealed to be Sabé. She and Vader go back and forth over the events since Padmé’s death. They come to an agreement to make those that hid her pay.

Suddenly, they are surrounded by more creatures. Sabé admits that they opened the gate to let them in when she wanted Vader and Zed dead. “But now, maybe we’ve all got a reason to go on” and the fight off the brood together.

We get more red vision of events from Attack of the Clones side by side with the current events.

“You…fought well. Now come, we leave at once.”

Zed notices Sabé lingering. “When Lord Vader says we leave, we…”

“Droid, help me bury them” Zed protest, but Vader makes it clear he is to help.

When they are done, she comments that they were good soldiers who walked with her at Padmé’s funeral. “and they will be mourned. Not like you, Lord Vader. And not like me. No come, so you can serve your Emperor and I can have my vengeance.”

She informs them that after the funeral, they knew they didn’t have the whole story, so the went to Coruscant, and broke into Padmé’s quarters, and stole the security recordings. They were never able to decrypt them, so they hid them….

…on Naboo.

To Be Continued.

Master Shast LeLow’s Thoughts

Just want to state the obvious one last time. In my review of Issue #1, I said, “That final page, though! Obviously, this will turn out to be Sabé.” Not going to get too big of a head here, it was the only logical conclusion. But it feels good to be right.

This series is my early favorite of the three mail titles launched so far. I love the “behind the mask” feel of it. Zed is an all-star caliber droid. Seeing Padmé/Sabé team up with Vader was great, too. Just like old times, so to speak.

With that, it’s time the deactivate the lightsaber and clip it to my belt.

Remember, the Force will be with you, Always.

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narkinafive · 5 years

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this one’s a doozy

(i feel like i should have done sth like this for the prequels/the clone wars but oh well. i'll get around to it eventually! maybe! gotta do something while waiting for ix right lol)

oh, rebels. rebels rebels rebels. i know it's probably unbelievable, but i was so gutted by the clone wars cancellation that i really Did Not Like rebels at. it took... idk about two years for me to give it a real chance (and i was still deep in a previous fandom hole, so i didn't really get into it until like. the start of s4) (if you can guess what fandom it was you get a cookie) i am so glad i tried it again.

of course, ezra bridger is, was, will always be my favorite boy. i really did not expect him to waltz away with my heart! anakin has always been my favorite (and he still is, tbh), bc that kind of character and that kind of arc is so on brand for me, like. i LOVE my dark tragic messiah demigods, i really really do!!! but then this doofy dumbass kid with big blue eyes and a big blue heart and his many cat friends just punched me in the gut!

it's been a year and i've had time to digest the whole package. let me preface by saying that rebels is absolutely 100% perfect and my favorite piece of expanded sw media by a LONG mile. NOW. that doesn't mean that there weren't things i didn't like (going under a cut!)

many times, it tried too hard to tie into the greater saga - bringing in palpatine, the wbw, all the saga cameo characters, like... some of them worked better than others. the r2d2 and c3po cameos were the worst, w obi wan coming in at a close second. the best saga character cameo was definitely mon mothma (and bail). i really liked leia's episode, but. idk. it still felt a little shoehorn-y

i wish ezra's descent into the dark side had been more ... present? he gets some great, great moments. but it's kind of sudden (i've touched on this before so i won't keep going)

someone else has brought this up (and i ................. do not remember who sdfkjlsdfjlk) but pushing aside the Great Rivalry of thrawn and hera for the force stuff is... idk. that's a whole other thing

now i love the force shit. like i LOVE it. but i think rebels might have been stronger if it focused less on force shit and more on the early war effort, in the same vein as rogue one. i know it'd be more difficult to fill out four seasons rather than one movie, but as it got into s4 and closer and closer to episode iv... idk, put the force shit at the beginning of the season? idk. i really love how they did it, but... idk! it's complicated

oh, and speaking of complicated - maul. i love what they did with him, i love this sad garbage pile and watching him recreate his trauma onto others as a way of dealing with it... but i think it was a weird choice. maul is so... idk, grimdark? for such a lovely sweet show

kallus going to lira san better be bc he's being tried for war crimes lmao

sabine staying on lothal is... a choice. not one i hate. but i still don't quite understand it

and my biggest gripe, ironically one of my favorite parts of the show: ahsoka lives.

dont' get me wrong; i was so happy that ahsoka lived, i nearly threw my computer across the room when ezra yoinked her into the spacetime continuum. i am a diehard ahsoka fan and i will fight somebody to defend her honor. THAT SAID. the narrative of ahsoka going down at the hands of her former master? as he desperately tries to erase every part of his former identity? the great commander tano, clone wars veteran, an early casualty of the rebel alliance? it's so good. it's SO good. having her story end there would have been just some phenomenal shit. just superbly poetic. i'm glad she's alive! and the emotional impact is still the same, even with her coming back, but my god.

now. the things i love.

the character arcs. all of them. ezra bridger, war orphan, street thief, cast out by his people, finding he is stronger than he ever thought could be possible, giving his life for his people because he forgives them, and because it's the right thing to do. kanan jarrus, jedi knight, reclaiming his heritage and his jedi legacy (and yes, watching him die still hurt just as much as the first time aroundd) (and also, thanks to @aspiringwarriorlibrarian and @greatlakesrebel for pointing out many many many things, but first and foremost tonight, that dume the wolf was of course voiced by fpj) (i’m slow ok shut up). hera syndulla, who unfortunately had to learn the hard way how to balance love and war so she didn't become her father, pushing away everyone she loved for the greater cause. zeb orrelios, finding his people, learning he's not the last of his kind, leading the refugees to their ancestral home. sabine wren, forgiving herself and freeing her planet from oppression. and not just the hero arcs - the villain arcs, too!!!! darth maul's single minded obsession that kept him alive for 30 years ending in a 3-hit fight on a backwater planet because he just couldn't sustain that hate for so long. all of thrawn's cleverness couldn't predict the force. i don't have an issue with a single one of these!

THE FORCE (TM)!!!! there is so much delicious crunchy force nonsense, i could DROWN in it

among my many, many issues w the old EU, one of them was demystifying the force, quantifying and trying to label it too much. some things were quantified bc they needed to be (the holocrons, the sith code, etc) but most of it was kept as vague and nebulous as possible, which is GOOD. when it comes to mystical magic, less explanation is mostly always more

i love that we don't have clear cut answers for the loth wolves and the lothal temple, i could ponder that shit for WEEKS and never get bored

it does feel like a mostly self contained story. "been there made history" can get overused very easily (see: hbo rome) but rebels used it just enough to fit it into the larger saga

having rex survive both the clone wars AND the galactic civil war??? fuck yeah

kanan and ezra. kanan and ezra. there is so much i could say about kanan and ezra. it's everything to me. war vet finds plucky young orphan and adopts him? sign me tf up!! their relationship as it grows from mentor/mentee to peers is really really well done

and speaking of growth, ezra and sabine going from obvious romantic interest to battle forged siblings is not something that i was expecting but is definitely one of the best parts of the show

kevin has some really incredible tracks in this show: top of the list is 100% kanan's end credits, followed closely by it's over now. wow

and speaking of, the entirety of the last ten minutes of twilight of the apprentice deserves its own bullet. that shit is right up there with vader v luke round 2

the planet designs, mostly malachor and lothal, but when hera and sabine launch the dome, and the lothal sky suddenly turns to blue as the pollution is leeched out and destroyed... that shit is breathtaking

and so much more. like so much

this show holds such a special place in my heart :") now if only dave could bring back my son... like. PLEASE

see you all in rogue one!

#the pre ix rewatch

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shadowsong26fic · 6 years

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The Handler AU

As requested by @tigerkat24.

(I do also have fulltext for one scene in here, which will be posted and linked here in the near future, probably tomorrow, after I clean it up some.)

Right. So. A couple of notes before I get started:

1) This AU prominently features Lavinia, and also super self-indulgent. Gonna say that straight-out. This is me and my OC and a bunch of tropes I adore. It is not the most self-indulgent piece I’ve ever put together, but it’s probably up there. I say this because, while I am pretty much past the point as a fan/content creator/whatever where I’m ashamed of my self-indulgent BS, I understand that it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially when it’s as obvious as this piece is. And I like people to know at least in general terms what they’re getting into when they open a piece of mine. So, you know, bear that in mind as you move forward.

2) Because of the way I work/develop AUs/OCs/etc., there are certain personality traits/satellite characters/plot points that are common to all/most of Lavinia’s storylines (...yeah, it’s a Thing I do, with OCs yeah but also with OC-free AUs and AUs of AUs and ‘hey what if I changed this plot point here, or put OC B in this situation instead of that one, or stuck Canon D in...look, y’all have seen my Distaff variants, you know the kind of thing I’m talking about; I don’t always stop at a single layer of canon-divergence, but then there has to be a thread connecting everything, or it becomes a totally different story/character, right? ...I’m not sure I’m explaining this very well. ...anyway, back on topic). As a result, despite being an AU of a completely different AU, this outline is therefore somewhat spoilery for a future Precipice arc. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve hinted at where I’m going with her in the fic proper and/or bonus content, or at least I’ve tried to, (plus, I know I’ve mentioned some things here on tumblr about particular narrative/character tropes I like), so it’s probably not too surprising? Or, at least, I hope it’s not. If it is, I need to get better at foreshadowing… Anyway, it is still technically a spoiler. To the point where I considered sitting on this (and a couple related AUs) at least until a particular event from Arc Seven that makes said future storyline about as clear as it can be until it actually happens. But…I decided ehhhhhh, why not (plus this was requested). But, you know, if that is something you want to avoid, might be best not to read this outline until after Arc…nine, I think? Just as a head’s up.

3) This is essentially a Kallus-centric Rebels fic (though, as mentioned above, also prominently featuring one of my OCs). And, other than that one bit in the Valdemar AU I wrote a month or so ago, this is the first time I’ve actually written Rebels content. (…granted, I’ve plotted more things--the closely-related Pellaeon AU features Rebels stuff pretty heavily, as does the middle arc of the Valdemar AU, which started as ‘Anakin would do really well as a Herald actually’ and has now turned into a massive three-part kudzu plot of a niche crossover and I should really redo that outline properly at some point, plus a few other things…) Anyway, the point is, I’m not necessarily super familiar with the conventions/etc. of this part of the fandom, and I apologize for any off-voice bits.

Okay! Now that I have warned for spoilers, inexperience, and self-indulgent BS…welcome to the Handler AU.

Oh, one more thing I want to mention—because this is, as stated above, super self-indulgent, Kanan is still alive because I said so. He got pretty crisped in that explosion and therefore missed the final battle, but didn’t actually die.

(Imperial records may have listed him as dead for a while, because No One Could Have Survived That, but he did survive.)

(How? IDK, maybe Ezra actually was able to do something from the between-place in this version.)

(Point is, we still have Kanan.)

(Ezra and Thrawn are still on a road trip with a bunch of space whales, though.)

ANYWAY. On to the good stuff.

It all kicks off like two months after Yavin.

Some timeline notes:

Because timelining anything in Star Wars is A Project, I am making some executive decisions here.

We’re approximately a year after the Rebels series finale.

(Meaning Jacen is like 3-4 months old, depending on exactly how pregnant Hera was at the time.)

This is also about how long Zeb and Kallus have been explicitly dating.

(There was SO MUCH PINING going on for a while there.)

(But it took that long for either of them to actually do anything about it.)

(Kallus figured out pretty early on that he was interested, but didn’t really think he deserved this/had earned it yet/that Zeb could possibly be interested in him, and therefore decided to bury his feelings Like A Goddamn Professional Okay.)

(Zeb took a while longer to clue in, and then couldn’t figure out if this was just him or what--see above re: burying things; worked a little bit too well--plus he has his own issues to work through.)

(And then there were some frantic Confessions and so-glad-we’re-alive sex and…)

(Yeah, this is a thing now.)

(Exactly zero people who have spent any time with these two dorks at all are surprised.)

(As is so often the case, the last people to clue in that this was A Mutual Thing are the two idiots involved.)

(There may or may not have been a pool or three going.)

(Hera won at least one of them.)

So. Kallus has made himself useful wherever he can since openly defecting, really, but generally works analyzing intelligence reports and training field agents for potential undercover missions. Even if his specific information is getting more and more out of date (few, if any, of the codes, etc. that he knows are still valid at this point), some things aren’t going to change that quickly, and his background is useful here.

Anyway. He gets called in--

“We’ve been approached by a would-be double agent deep in Imperial territory; received three transmissions in the past few weeks. So far, everything we’ve been sent checks out/has been useful, but.”

“But you’re wondering if this agent is an ISB plant.”

“Exactly. She calls herself Vector.”

“She?”

“Yeah. The scrambler she’s using is doing its job, which means we can’t actually use a voice print to ID her, but vocal pattern analysis got us that much. And that she’s likely Coruscanti, Human, and under thirty. That’s about all we know.”

He goes over the data and the recordings from the first three contacts and nothing jumps out as a red flag/any of the tricks he’s familiar with.

On the first call, there’s some dancing around; as if Vector’s trying to make sure of who she’s talking to. What he’d expect from either a plant or a genuine defector, really. Not particularly helpful.

The other two are fairly brief/straightforward, and start the same way each time--This is Vector. I have a data file for you. Do as you like with it. Also not particularly enlightening, given the question he’s been asked to answer.

The data itself, though, is--interesting. Not easy to access, for the most part, and not necessarily all from the same source. Parts of it are the kind of thing ISB would use as bait, but just as much of it is not. Some of it provides useful context for intel the Alliance has received from other sources (some covert, some not), which is not the kind of thing an ISB plant would send.

So, he goes back to his superiors and tentatively reports Vector as probably genuine. He wants to be on hand for her next transmission, though, to be sure.

(He wonders, idly, who they had evaluate his initial transmissions like this, or if using an established codename and protocol was enough…)

(He’s Concerned it might be the second.)

(There are some worrying gaps in Rebel Intelligence’s security that he can only do so much to patch.)

Of course, there’s a slight problem with that. Vector’s transmissions haven’t exactly been regular--the second one came four days after the first, and then it was nearly two weeks to the third.

And when they do come, they’re very brief, so if Kallus is, say, busy with a training exercise on the opposite side of the base…

(Or otherwise occupied in a supply closet.)

(He does have, y’know, a life when off-duty.)

(...which is something that still sends him into weird brainspirals of “how did this happen” and “i don’t deserve this” and “when is it going to blow up in my face” on occasion, but that is a separate problem. One that he buries. Like A Goddamn Professional.)

(no that’s not a habit of his why do you ask.)

IN ANY CASE, this means that it ends up being her sixth message, close to three weeks after Kallus is initially brought in, before he’s able to listen in live.

(Transmissions four and five, after he reviews them, don’t really change his analysis, but still.)

Transmission six comes in while Kallus happens to be in the tiny corner of the current base that Intelligence has claimed.

It starts like the others did--This is Vector. I have a data file for you. Do as you like with it.

Once the file transfer initiates, he responds.

“Vector, this is Fulcrum.”

(Okay, technically, he probably should be using a different handle now, since it’s really supposed to be for field agents only and he isn’t one anymore. And there are similar shared code names for Intelligence agents primarily on base duty, or he assumes there are, but even after over a year of not using it, it’s still the first one that comes to mind. Reflexive, almost. And now it’s going to stick.)

There’s a beat of silence from the other end, and Kallus is briefly concerned that he misjudged the situation, that she’d going to panic and cut the transmission.

But, “I can’t leave the link open long,” she says.

(Part of him thinks she sounds...almost relieved? Like she’s been waiting to be challenged like this, and the longer things went on without a test, the more nervous she got.)

(He can understand that worry. That sense of just waiting for the other shoe to drop.)

(And, yes, other Rebel Intelligence agents probably could have tested her like this, and if he hadn’t been around as a resource they almost certainly would have, but given that he knows exactly what to look for, the Powers That Be had decided to leave it in his hands.)

“Of course,” he says, and asks her a few questions, rapid-fire.

(He’s less interested in the specific details of her answers--and he’s not really asking her questions about her identity--then how she approaches answering him. Not necessarily something he can explain, which is part of why he didn’t coach any of the other officers and get this taken care of on transmission four or five, but just trying to get a sense of her.)

(One thing he does is privately revise the estimate of her age--he thinks she’s younger than the previous guess, probably twenty or so. Sabine’s age, maybe, at the oldest. Which makes her even less likely to be a plant in his opinion; ISB wouldn’t put this much effort into setting up an agent that inexperienced, not on a mission this sensitive, even if she was inconceivably talented and precocious. As an in-person infiltrator, yes, absolutely; but for this many layers of intrigue...no, they’d want someone Experienced.)

She ends the transmission somewhat abruptly, after about five minutes, but he was more or less expecting that and anyway he has what he needs.

“Well?”

“She’s genuine,” he says. “I’m as sure as I can be of that.”

“Good to hear.” A pause. “...you’ve run undercover agents before, correct?”

Kallus shuts down the knee-jerk paranoid response as fast and hard as he can.

(There are almost certainly people in the Alliance who still don’t trust me but none of them are in this room. I know that. Calm down.)

“Yes, once or twice,” he says, cautiously. “For short-term assignments.”

“Congratulations. You just volunteered to be Vector’s handler.”

(Hence the name of the AU. AKA the one where Kallus adopts a baby spy who JUST HAPPENS to be Palpatine’s daughter.)

(...yeah, he didn’t really see that one coming.)

(...at some point, I should probably go through and outline Lavinia’s politics and her reasons for defecting in detail, but in the interests of focusing on Kallus’s end of things, which is much more interesting, a (hopefully) brief digression on the subject:)

(Lavinia was created and trained to be a spy/manipulator, to perform the kind of tasks and access the kind of information that Palpatine could as the avuncular Chancellor but cannot as Emperor, now that he’s thrown that mask away.)

(...apart from very specific, carefully staged moments, like with Ezra.)

(So, part of manipulating people means understanding them, which means Lavinia does a lot of research to put her targets into context, and in so doing comes across a wide variety of cultures/forms of government, at least in an academic context.)

(And that means that, once she starts thinking beyond “how can I survive until tomorrow” and starts thinking about broader impact/more long-range plans, it doesn’t take her very long to realize that her father’s government is...well, let’s call it deeply flawed.)

(What she does when she comes to that conclusion varies, depending on other circumstances--but she doesn’t necessarily defect right away. Mostly for practical reasons; in Masks!Verse, which this AU is a variant of, she has no Rebel contacts that she’s absolutely sure of.)

(Meaning, in this case, both “absolutely sure is an actual Rebel and not just sympathetic to their aims/politics” and “absolutely sure would be willing to work with me despite my parentage.”)

(And if she approaches anyone she isn’t sure of, it’ll get her or her contact or both of them killed. Defecting from a distance, while she can better protect her identity, has a much bigger risk of interception, which, again, would get her and/or her contacts and possibly a lot of other people killed. Or worse.)

(Basically, she doesn’t think defection is a viable option for her--there are some other reasons for this, but those play a distant second to these concerns.)

(But then Alderaan happens.)

(And these concerns carry a lot less weight.)

(It takes her a couple months to figure out how to make contact with Rebel Intelligence, let alone how to do it safely, but she starts working on it at that point.)

(...I think that’s the salient points here. Like I said, I have a fair bit more about Lavinia’s politics/etc. and the ways/extent to which she’s willing to defy her father in various AUs, but that’s enough for this one, I think.)

So, Kallus can’t really argue with the assignment (even if part of him kind of wants to? Not because he thinks he can’t do it, but because he’s concerned that being another deep-cover informant’s handler is going to dig up a lot of stuff he’d really, really rather keep buried.)

(Look, he feels like he’s finally found his equilibrium. He’s even, somehow, approaching happy with his life for the first time in what feels like forever which, guilt-induced brainspirals aside, he doesn’t want to give up.)

(Besides, handling Vector wouldn’t be his only responsibility, and if he does start losing that equilibrium, he’s not sure how much his other work will be affected.)

(On the other hand...)

(On the other hand, there are very few people who have done what he did and survived long enough to make it back to Rebel lines.)

(Oh, there are other deep-cover informants, sure; but the majority of them are plants inserted by Rebel Intelligence.)

(And while, even leaving aside the technicalities involved with Senator Mothma and others among the leadership who had previously served in the Imperial Senate, there are plenty of defectors--up to and including General Madine and some other persons of very high rank--for the most part, once they make that decision, defectors grab what they can and run.)

(The ones that don’t usually don’t survive as long as he did.)

(Or, alternatively, they don’t identify themselves to the Alliance or even necessarily work directly with them; they perform internal sabotage rather than espionage.)

(Those embedded defectors tend to last longer, but not by much.)

(Which means that he’s probably the only person--certainly the only available person--who has been where Vector is. Who better to help her?)

(As for his own issues...well, he is a Professional, dammit. He can damn well compartmentalize. He’s very good at that.)

(...yeah, this is kind of a running theme for him. Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s...very much not.)

(It remains to be seen how much it’ll help or hurt when dealing with Vector.)

So, he accepts the assignment, and goes back to his quarters to tell Zeb and collect a few things--given the irregularity of Vector’s transmissions, until he can talk to her again and set up a better protocol, he’s going to basically have to camp out in Intelligence.

(Which he’s not looking forward to, but it is what it is.)

Zeb is already there when he gets back--their current shifts don’t entirely line up, which is fine; they have at least a few hours overlap most days which is better than some pairs can say.

After several minutes saying hello...

“Did I miss anything interesting?” Kallus asks.

“That Skywalker kid came by a bit ago,” Zeb tells him. “Looking for Kanan.”

Kallus blinks, halfway through fixing caf for the two of them. “...aren’t he and Hera off investigating a potential supply line?”

(Which is, of course, far below Hera’s current paygrade, but she volunteers for that kind of mission on occasion. An excuse to spend private time with her family, while still technically being useful and not taking actual time off.)

“Yep,” Zeb says. “Apparently, this is the third or fourth time something like that has happened. They keep missing each other.”

"Well, I’m sure they’ll link up sooner or later,” he says. “Especially if Skywalker’s actively looking for Kanan.”

(He hasn’t actually met Luke yet at this point, but he’s heard the rumors. He has no real doubt of this fact.)

“Yeah, probably,” Zeb says. “I think Kanan’s been trying to track him down, too. He’ll be sorry he missed him.”

(...yeah, we’re going with Anakin-and-Grievous levels of contrived coincidence to keep those two from actually meeting for a while.)

(Partly because it’s easier than figuring out all the timeline/plot implications that might have (and I’m lazy, and that is the focus of another story), but mostly because I think it’s funny.)

Kallus nods. “...did he and Hera take Jacen with them, or...?”

(He hadn’t seen any evidence the baby had been left with them, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.)

But Zeb shakes his head. “Nah, Sabine has him this time. Why? Something going on?”

“I have an assignment,” Kallus tells him.

“Huh. Extraction?”

(Logical assumption--the bulk of the fieldwork he does now, all-hands-on-deck situations like Lothal aside, is extractions. Occasionally helping sell an insertion, but generally the reverse.)

“No, not this time,” he says. “The agent who reached out, the one I told you about--I’ve been assigned as her handler.”

(He has long since gotten permission to discuss at least surface generalities of his work with Zeb, and they both know where the line is.)

Zeb’s ears flick a little, and Kallus can practically see him weighing the same pros and cons that he himself did earlier--and probably several others he hadn’t thought of.

“So, I guess that means you’re camping out in intelligence for a while?”

“Unfortunately,” he says. “Of course, there is a difference between being on-call and being on duty. And my schedule technically won’t change.”

Zeb perks up at that and grins before kissing him. “Well, I’m sure I an find an excuse to be in the area. Sometimes. Just in case. You know.”

“Mm.”

Fortunately, call number seven comes less than a week later.

This is Vector. I have a data file for you. Do as you like with it.

“Vector, this is Fulcrum.”

A brief pause. “Yes.”

“I’ve been assigned as your handler.”

(He figures the best way to deal with someone who’s probably twitchy and paranoid and otherwise on high alert is to be as scrupulously honest as he can. That doesn’t mean telling her everything, of course, but it does mean being straightforward, difficult as it is, and not outright lying.)

(If he can. So far, he can.)

Another pause. “I understand.”

(She’s hard to read on this one, whether or not she finds it suspicious. She might even be relieved again, that she’ll have a set contact point, rather than a whoever’s-available sort of situation.)

“There are some protocols I’d like to establish, for further contacts.”

“I can’t call at a set time,” she says immediately. “Or at set intervals.”

"I understand,” he said. “But I’m going to give you a more specific frequency to call.”

“Yes,” she says, and that definitely has a faint note of relief.

“Can you, if nothing else, send an all-clear transmission every two weeks?” he asks. “It doesn’t need to be at a set time, but so we can gauge--” whether or not you’re alive and uncompromised “--how concerned we need to be after a long silence.”

She pauses. “...I think so. Yes. I can do that.”

(Definitely young, he thinks, maybe even younger than Ezra--would be.)

“That’s all for now,” he says. There are others he wants to establish, of course, but those are the most important and her file transfer is nearly complete.

“I’ll be in touch,” she says; hesitates a second; “Vector out.”

(...well, she’s signing off officially now, rather than just abruptly terminating the connection. Progress. I think.)

He goes back to his quarters, and life settles into a new routine.

He keeps up his old duties--analyzing reports, training potential undercover agents, etc.--and also keeps track of Vector and her reports.

That last one proves...well, his early optimism wasn’t entirely misplaced?

Vector is very, very good at what she does. Her files are varied in their content, and sometimes not as useful as she might’ve hoped, due to timing or other resource concerns, but the quality of the work she does never comes into question.

But part of being a double agent’s handler is assessing how they’re holding up under the incredible stress of the position. And she is frustratingly vague when it comes to anything approaching anything personal about herself.

In addition, there are two additional protocols he wants to set up early on--first is a way for him to reach her.

“Just because I have access doesn’t mean I have influence,” she says. “I can’t seed disinformation for you. Not without getting caught.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

(Though, of course, he had considered the possibility--as well-positioned as Vector seems to be, how could he not?--but while he doesn’t completely rule out the idea, he files it away under “only as a last resort.” Better to leave her in place as long as possible.)

“But if there’s something specific we want you to keep an eye out for--or if we need to warn you about something...”

“Right,” she says. “That’s fine, then.”

The second, though...the second is where they run into real problems.

“I also want to establish an emergency signal. If you need extraction, or if you end up captured by Rebel agents.”

(He still wonders, sometimes, if staying behind when Ezra came to extract him was the right decision. It had seemed so at the time, but...)

(He’ll probably never know. And fretting about it doesn’t do any good.)

(knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to stop.)

“No,” she says.

“Vector--”

And she hangs up on him.

Exactly why she’s so reticent to establish something like that, he isn’t sure--he has some theories, but...

It’s frustrating, to be sure. Makes it harder for him to do his job.

(And it makes him worried about her--if she’s working without any kind of exit strategy, that likely means she doesn’t think such a thing will be possible. Which, on the one hand, shows her dedication to the cause, but on the other hand...on the other hand, if she thinks getting caught is inevitable, she might get sloppy with her own security and that might well turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

(The other alternative, that she doesn’t trust him, or the Alliance, with her safety if things do go wrong, is...well, probably more distressing, in all honesty.)

(Though not, perhaps, altogether surprising.)

He decides to seek Kanan’s advice on the problem.

(Kanan, after all, knows best what to do with unruly teenagers.)

(...well, so does Hera, but Hera’s advice would probably be less applicable/harder to apply to his specific situation. Also, she has better things to do than help him do his job.)

(Which is the other frustrating thing, that he can’t handle this by himself.)

Kanan’s advice is pretty straightforward--be patient, and don’t push her too hard. You can’t help her if she won’t let you.

(This is part of why I wanted him still around, incidentally.)

(Because there is something utterly hilarious about Kallus going to Kanan for parenting advice.)

(And that’s exactly what he’s doing.)

(Even if he hasn’t quite figured that out yet.)

So, taking this in mind, he backs off. A little bit. Decides to start from square one, and build a rapport, and go from there to get some of the other basics that he wants established.

Standard interrogation technique, technically. Not one favored by ISB, obviously, or really encouraged, but even they knew it had its uses.

Vector is still cagey about personal details, but she does start to soften a little as several weeks go by.

He brings up the idea of an emergency code phrase again, after about two months of this kind of sporadic contact.

This time, she says she’ll think about it.

Things hold in this pattern for about a year, and then Vector makes a call, as usual.

Or, it starts like a normal call, anyway.

“You probably won’t hear from me for a while,” she says, as the file transfer is wrapping up and they’re about to sign off.

“Are you in trouble?”

“No,” she says. “Nothing like that. And nothing related to the work we’ve been doing. But things are going to be...difficult. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get an all-clear message out for a while.”

He doesn’t like this at all. “How long?”

“A month,” she says. “Probably. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I’ll contact you as soon as I can safely.”

It is one of the longer months of his life.

But, as promised, the dedicated comm he has for her lights up eventually.

This is Vector. I have a data file for you.

“Vector, this is Fulcrum,” he says. “Good to hear from you again. Everything all right?”

“Yes,” she says. And she seems fine, and he breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

When he tells Zeb about it later, though, is where it gets...interesting.

“Glad to hear your kid’s okay,” he says.

“My--she’s not my child, Zeb,” Kallus says.

“Really.”

“....”

“Look, you talk about her the same way Kanan talks about Sabine, when she’s off blowing things up on Mandalore.”

“I...wait, really?”

“Yep,” Zeb says, and grins at him. “I mean, it’s not a problem. S’kind of what we do in this family, isn’t it? Take in strays. ‘Bout time you got in on it, really.”

Kallus just stares at him. “I...what.”

Zeb waves a hand in front of his face. “Alex. Babe. You all right in there?”

He shakes himself. “Yes, of course. Sorry."

“Ehh, don’t worry about it. I mean, it’d probably have been nice for the two of us to talk about kids in general before we started adopting our own strays, but--”

Really, sometimes Kallus thinks that Zeb likes the expression he makes when utterly poleaxed like that.

(He does. He thinks it’s adorable.)

(Also, Zeb figures this is a conversation they maybe should have, because they’re clearly both in this for the long haul and he saw this opening and...look, no one ever said Zeb was good at broaching delicate topics gently.)

“...do you?” Kallus asks, when he recovers. “Want children, someday?”

“I mean...yeah,” Zeb says. “If you do. I mean.”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” he confesses.

(Because long-range planning is hard; because they’re at war, because he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, because he doesn’t deserve any of this and planning for a future he doesn’t deserve is just--a little much for him sometimes.)

“But...yes,” Kallus says. “I think so, yes. I would like to raise children with you. Someday.”

Zeb’s response to that is positive and enthusiastic and leads to things they will definitely not be discussing with their hypothetical children ever.

It’s a month or two after that that Kallus finds out who Vector is.

(…well, for a given value of ‘finds out,’ anyway.)

He and Zeb are babysitting--Sabine is back on Mandalore; Hera is on duty; Kanan was supposed to be finally meeting Luke but there was an issue at the spaceport and he’s stranded for the next few hours.

(Like I said. Anakin-and-Grievous levels of contrived coincidence.)

Zeb has just put the kid to bed, and Kallus is watching the news.

“You’re still watching that?” he asks, nudging Kallus to make room for him on the couch and drawing him to lean on his shoulder.

“I’ve told you before, dear, knowing what the Empire is saying, no matter how different that is from what they’re doing, has its uses.”

“Especially if you know how their propaganda is constructed, I know,” Zeb says, and nuzzles his ear. “Just thought you were almost done.”

Kallus smiles faintly and leans into the caress. “I am, I promise. I’ll shut it off in a minute. I just want to--”

He pauses. Rewinds the feed. Pauses it--pre-recorded coverage of some public event the Emperor’s kid had been at, with the newscaster commenting on the progress of whatever “public works” project it was supposed to kick off.

“…what is it? Something she said?”

(...something to do with whatever this “project” is covering up?)

“Hush,” he says, fiddling with a few buttons and calling up a printed transcript and skims through it before sinking back against Zeb, letting out a breath.

“Babe?”

“I think I know who Vector is,” he says.

Zeb stares at him for a minute, then stares at the paused footage--frozen on the Princess’s face, icy and composed.

“…her?”

“Her,” he confirms.

“Why…?”

“Little things,” he says. “The way she talks, some unique turns of phrase. And she fits the profile--young, Human, Coruscanti, close to someone powerful but essentially a civilian herself…and…when Vector disappeared on me last month, that coincided with a period where the Princess was more visible than usual.”

“Karabast,” he mutters. “When you put it like that…”

“It’s all conjecture,” Kallus points out. “I can’t prove any it. Not without digging deeper--which, if I’m right, risks compromising her cover--or asking her straight-out.”

(Which, of course, would also be a bad idea. It would probably seriously damage the trust he’s spent the past year and more building, and it might not even get him an honest answer anyway.)

“Right,” Zeb says. “…any chance someone else could put this together?”

Kallus makes a face. “Unlikely,” he says, though he doesn’t sound totally sure. “The recordings of our conversations are kept as hard copies only, for security. Not uploaded onto any networked drives. And a very small set of people have access to those copies. I doubt anyone could put it together without that access. Still…”

(Someone dedicated enough, who managed to access one of those recordings, or intercept a transmission along the way, or compromise the lines of communication from the other side…)

“Kriff,” he says. “Anything you can do about it?”

“Not really,” he says. “Other than brief Draven and keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

“Yeah,” he says, and studies the picture again; glances over at the morose look on Kallus’s face; feels his ears twitching. “Huh. Never would’ve figured the Emperor’s kriffing daughter to defect.”

Kallus jumps a little, drawn out of his thoughts, then rolls his eyes and gives Zeb a fond, exasperated smile (which was really the point, honestly; to needle him into a better mood), and rather dryly points out, “There was a time you would’ve said the same about me.”

“True,” Zeb says, and grins at him. “Guess it just goes to show, people surprise you all the time.”

“Indeed,” Kallus says, then reaches over to shut off the feed and changes the subject.

Six weeks after that, Vector goes quiet again. This time without warning.

When her two-week check-in goes by with nothing, he’s immediately concerned. She’s never missed a check-in before, not without warning. He decides to give her a day, and then ping her himself.

(He generally avoids doing that--only when he absolutely needs to speak with her about something time-sensitive that can’t wait for her to reach out.)

There’s no response to his message, either.

He reports the missed check-in, of course. Tries again the next day. And a third.

Still nothing.

(He knows a rescue won’t be authorized--technically, they don’t actually know for sure who or even where Vector is, and if his theory is correct, they cannot make a run on Coruscant for one agent, especially not one as visible as Princess Lavinia.)

(He keeps telling himself that. Over and over again. As he tries a fourth and fifth time to reach her.)

“Zeb,” he says, after a third full week has gone by since the last time he heard from her. “I need you to talk me out of doing something stupid.”

“Uh, sure, babe. What’s going on?”

He explains the situation as briefly as he can. “And I am this close to staging a half-assed unauthorized raid on Coruscant to extract her.”

“...nah, if we’re doing an unauthorized raid on Coruscant, it should be a full-assed thing.”

That...that wasn’t really the answer Kallus was looking for.

(In hindsight, he thinks, as he tries to redraw building plans from memory and plan this stupid, stupid venture, he probably should have gone to Hera if he really wanted someone to talk him down. Or possibly Kanan. ...no, Hera.)

(...it could be worse, though.)

(he could’ve tried asking Sabine.)

Fortunately, before they can actually run off and get themselves killed--

(or court-martialed)

(or in trouble with Hera)

--Kallus’ dedicated comm chimes.

“All clear,” he breathes. “That’s the all-clear. She’s...she’s alive.”

It’s nearly another week before he hears anything else, but finally a real call comes.

This is Vector. I have a data file for you. Do as you like with it.

“Vector, this is Fulcrum. Are you all right?”

(she doesn’t sound all right; it’s hard to tell through her scrambler, but she seems strained.)

“Everything’s fine,” she says. “I apologize for the delay, but things are settled now. My cover is intact.”

Which is good to know, but not what he asked.

“And what about you?” he says.

She doesn’t answer right away.

“Vector?”

“I’m here,” she says. “And everything is under control. You don’t need to worry about me. Nothing that--it wasn’t anything to do with this, I was caught on the fringes of something unrelated. It won’t interfere with my work going forward.”

Which still isn’t an answer.

(He’s pretty sure the non-answer is his answer, though. Damn it.)

(He knows the risks. Better than most. And he knows she knows them, too. It doesn’t make it any easier to hear, especially knowing that there is kriff-all he can do to help her.)

Into the silence, she says, “I’m your asset, Fulcrum. Not your friend.”

“......”

“I’m just--” She sighs. “I’m your asset. Not your friend. It’s...we should both remember that. It’s probably better, in the long run.”

And part of him is hurt; part of him is annoyed that he is being lectured on professionalism by a damned child; part of him is worried again--he did finally talk her into an emergency code phrase, in case of capture or other disaster, but here she goes again, hinting that she doesn’t have an exit strategy.

(Not like I did, either, he reminds himself. Can’t plan that far ahead. Not when you’re doing this kind of work. And even when Ezra came for me--)

(He buries it. Because he is a goddamn professional, Vector’s reproof aside.)

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she says. “And I’ve had worse.”

“........”

All right, that he likes even less.

“Vector--”

“I have to go,” she says. “I’ll be in touch when I have something else. And I’ll do my best to warn you if I have to disappear again. Vector out.”

And, in the interests of “good Lord this thing is close to 6k already,” we’re going to skip ahead quite a bit, about a year and a half, to just after the evacuation of Echo Base.

For the first time in a while, the whole family (minus Ezra) is back on the Ghost together.

(Kanan, Hera, Chopper, Sabine, Zeb, Kallus, Rex, and Jacen.)

(They’ve all been in touch and met up fairly frequently, but they’re no longer a discrete cell and they all have their own, often separate, duties with the wider Rebellion. So, while the circumstances leading to it are awful, it’s nice to have an opportunity like this.)

Orders are to lay low, and make their way by a prearranged roundabout route to the fleet rendezvous five days later.

The first night, they mostly spend catching up and letting Sabine fleece them all at cards.

(Except Rex. Do Not Play Sabaac With Rex.)

(They had all forgotten that rule.)

Hera is sending occasional messages back and forth to Command, to confirm/make adjustments/etc., but otherwise things are fairly quiet after the frantic rush of the evacuation itself.

(Fortunately, none of them were injured in the escape. It’s happened before, when they’ve had to leave a base in a hurry. That was a week no one wanted to repeat.)

It’s their second night of drifting, and Kallus is just starting to fall asleep (Zeb is snoring beside him; the noise honestly probably should have been annoying but is genuinely comforting at this point, to the point where he has trouble sleeping without it) when his comm beeps.

It’s Vector.

More accurately, it’s her emergency signal.

He extracts himself from the bed and slips out into the hall to talk the call.

“Fulcrum.”

“It’s Vector,” she says, unnecessarily. She’s not using her usual scrambler this time, but a more standard vocoder, probably cannibalized from a stolen helmet. She sounds drained, and slightly breathless. “I’ve been burned. I got...I got away. I had more..." She stops, clears her throat. “I got away. I was able to remove my tracker and I’m as--I’m as sure as I reasonably can be that I’ve lost anyone following me by other means. I-I pulled as much raw data as I could onto a couple of portable drives on my way out, but I’m on a...I’m on a sliced public terminal right now, I don’t want to keep the line open long enough to send them in the usual way and I...I don’t know what the protocol is now. Please advise.”

“Where are you now?” he asks. There are so many other questions he wants to ask, needs to ask, both from a personal and a professional standpoint--is she all right; how did she get caught; how did she escape; how long has she been compromised--but they can wait until she’s been located and brought in safely. He sets them all aside, and focuses.

(Like A Goddamn Professional.)

“Ixaly,” she says. “I’m on...I’m on Ixaly.”

He closes his eyes, mentally traces their route through hyperspace. Ixaly is in this sector, it shouldn’t be far...yes. If he’s counted right--they’ll be doing a navigation stop shortly, and dropping out of hyperspace. From there--a few hours to Ixaly, unless he’s completely turned around.

“There’s a cantina,” he says, “in the Diira district in Central City. The White Shale. Can you be there in six hours?”

A brief pause; he can hear her breathing. “Yes,” she says, at last. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

“That’s the fastest I can arrange a pickup,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

(If he’s right about how close they are, it might not actually take him that long, but there’s a balance between getting to her as quickly as possible and budgeting in time for something to go wrong. He doesn’t want to risk being late and having her move on because she thinks he’s not coming. He may not be able to contact her if something goes wrong; not if she’s relying on sliced public terminals to reach out to him. And he has no idea when she’ll be able to make contact again, or how long whatever data’s on her drives will stay viable...so, six hours. He’ll have to trust her to stay alive that long.)

“I’ll be there,” she promises. “White Shale cantina, Diira district, Central City, six hours.”

“Exactly. You know how to reach me if there are any problems.”

“Yes,” she says.

“It’s almost over,” he says. “You’ve done well, getting yourself this far. Just hold on for a little while longer, all right?”

“I will,” she says; takes a breath. “I’ll see you in six hours. Vector out.”

The line goes dead.

Half a heartbeat later, he feels the familiar rumble of the hyperdrive cutting out, switching over to sublight engines.

He’s in his window now, he doesn’t have time--

As he heads for the Phantom, he runs into Kanan.

“...what’s wrong?”

“Vector,” he says, clipped. “She’s had to run. She’s not far--”

“Go,” he says. “I’ll let Hera know. ...take Zeb with you. In case you need backup.”

(Which he doesn’t really need, and it might well spook his contact if he brings a team--he has run extractions like this before, after all, and Vector is particularly cagey--but he nods.)

“I will. Thank you.”

“How long do we wait before sending our own rescue party?” Kanan asks.

Kallus does some quick mental math--six hours to the meet; going by Vector’s history, she may need some convincing to come along (like I did, until it was too late; but it’s already too late for her, isn’t it?); she might be wrong about having a tail; they might run into unrelated trouble...

“I’ll send word once we leave the system. If you haven’t heard from me in twelve hours, that’s when you worry.”

“Got it,” he says, and starts off towards the cockpit to update Hera, when Kallus realizes--

“Wait,” he says.

Kanan pauses, half-turns back to him.

“I don’t know who Vector is, not for certain,” he says, “but I have considerable circumstantial evidence that she’s Princess Lavinia.”

Kanan takes that in, then nods slowly. “Right. Thanks for the head’s up. I’ll pass that along.”

“Thank you,” Kallus says again, and the two of them separate--Kallus goes to wake Zeb and then get the Phantom prepped and underway; Kanan goes to tell Hera what’s going on.

(...and corral his son.)

(Jacen has developed this habit lately of hiding on the Phantom when he thinks it’s going somewhere Interesting.)

(Which is usually whenever someone other than Mamma is driving.)

(He likes going on Adventures with his various uncles and Auntie ‘Bine, okay.)

(They go on the best Adventures.)

(But retrieving one of Kallus’s deep-cover agents whose cover was blown like a week ago at most is maaaaaaybe not the best Adventure for a three-year-old.)

Fortunately, Zeb isn’t hard to wake and grasps the situation quickly. The two of them head for the Phantom--

And find Sabine sitting there waiting for them, spinning idly in the pilot’s chair.

“...Sabine--” Zeb starts.

“Whatever it is that’s got you two running around frantically when we’re supposed to be lying low,” she says, “I wanna help. You might need backup.”

On the one hand, Kallus is pretty sure they won’t. And his prior concerns about spooking Vector if he comes in with a team still apply.

On the other hand, Sabine is one of the best people to have beside them in a crisis, if things do go all to hell. She’s creative and generally carrying an array of weapons that defies the very laws of physics.

Besides, he doesn’t have time to argue with her.

“Fine,” he says. “But you follow my lead--both of you. Neither of you has been on an extraction like this before, and this is what I do. All right?”

“All right,” Sabine says. “Who is it we’re extracting, exactly?”

“A spy, working under the code name Vector,” he says. “She’s been feeding us intel for close to three years now. Her cover was compromised, and she had to run.”

Sabine nods. “Got it,” she says.

“And, if I’m right,” he says--because if he is, Sabine will have to know before they get there, “she’s the Emperor’s daughter.”

“...all right, then,” Sabine manages, after a moment of stunned silence. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

They detach, and the Ghost disappears behind them back into hyperspace as Kallus sets a course for Ixaly.

And now, since I’m sure y’all are wondering the same thing Kallus is--i.e., how did she get caught/how did she escape--let’s backtrack and leave Kallus’s POV for another brief digression--

It all comes down to a man named Vedric Greer.

Vedric Greer is a Royal Guard. He’s been in that elite unit for over fifteen years at this point, selected more or less straight out of the Academy.

He’s been the head of Lavinia’s detail since she was twelve.

(Before that, he had a variety of assignments; he never got stuck with Vader, for which he is profoundly grateful, but he guarded a few valuable objects/locations, and he was on Tarkin’s detail for a couple of years.)

See, here’s the thing about Royal Guards. They’re put through a lot of conditioning, both physically and mentally, to become living weapons who are absolutely loyal.

And he is. Vedric Greer is an absolutely loyal man.

The thing is, to be a Royal Guard assigned to any living being other than Palpatine himself--Vader, Tarkin, Mas Amedda, Lavinia, a few others--means to be equal parts bodyguard and prison guard. Such a Guard is at least partly there to protect his principal from external threats, of course, but if said principal steps out of line or he’s given certain orders, he becomes their jailer. Or executioner. Or worse.

When he’s assigned to someone like Tarkin, of course, that isn’t much of a problem.

But a lonely, precocious twelve-year-old kid like Lavinia? Who, whatever traits she may have inherited from her father, has them tempered by an actual conscience?

...yeah, it doesn’t take a whole lot for him to bond with her, just a little.

(Throw in the fact that he has a lover, an Imperial Archivist who survived Scarif by being transferred to Coruscant days before Tarkin blew it up...well. Maybe the cracks in his armor aren’t only to do with the little girl he’s been made responsible for.)

So. Vedric Greer is a Royal Guard, and that means he is a living weapon, and absolutely loyal.

But over the past seven years--and especially the last three--maybe, just maybe, that loyalty has started to shift.

(He doesn’t even realize it, at first; and when he does notice the traces of affection, of tangential loyalty in himself...well, he reasons that Lavinia is all but an extension of her father’s will, anyway. Right? And if he conveniently fails to see certain signs...)

(Reynard, his lover, knows way before Vedric does where this is going, of course.)

And then, one morning, his orders change, and all those little things come crashing down.

(It was such a simple thing that screwed her over; Palpatine seeds bait among his minions constantly, little nuggets of information so that, if there is a high-placed leak, he can track it back to its source right away. Standard counter-intelligence, really; and everyone, everyone, is under suspicion. Everyone is tested.)

(Lavinia is normally very good at spotting this sort of thing--she has a natural aptitude for espionage, she was trained by the best, and she puts just as much effort into surviving her father and completing her mission as he did into taking over the galaxy. How else would she have lasted nineteen years as her father’s daughter--let alone three as a deep-cover Rebel spy?)

(But this time--this time she missed it. And now he knows.)

And Vedric Greer has a choice to make.

It’s surprising, in the end, how simple it is.

“My lady,” he informs her, “you are undone.”

He helps her cut out the tracking device implanted inside her ribcage (which is also fitted with a killswitch, of course, in case she ever tried to slip her leash); she asks him to come with her; he refuses.

(He is not a Rebel. He is not disloyal.)

(What he is, is her protector. What he is, is--hers.)

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“So am I,” he says, and, “Go. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“Goodbye,” she says, and disappears.

He sends a brief message to Reynard--hoping he’ll know what it means (he will; he always knew this might happen), and prepares himself to meet his death.

(Or, at least, that’s what he believes is going to happen.)

(...look, as I said before, this is Self-Indulgent BS(tm). Like I’m really gonna let Greer die. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have no earthly idea how he survives but he does. Because this is my self-indulgent BS, dammit.)

Okay. Back to Ixaly, and the actual rescue/extraction mission.

(…by which I also mean forward, since it’s like a week later.)

Our Heroes reach Central City about an hour ahead of schedule. After a brief discussion, Sabine disappears into the district to be on-hand for immediate help, if needed; Zeb, who doesn’t blend in as well, will stay with the Phantom; Kallus of course goes to the cantina to find his contact.

He heads there more or less directly, taking in as much detail of the city and the specific neighborhood as he can.

He’s been here before, but it’s been several years; there is a garrison in place, but the occupation seems comparatively light.

Which means there’s a not-unreasonable chance that this will go smoothly.

(Of course, as soon as he thinks that, he starts coming up with all the potential problems that could still happen. For one thing, he or Vector or Sabine might be recognized…)

Security on the cantina itself; mostly local talent, just as it was on his last visit. This is a fairly middle-of-the-road place; just dishonest enough that he and Vector should blend, not so dishonest that they’re likely to get caught in the middle of any…unpleasantness. Part of why he picked this place. That, the fact that it isn’t particularly difficult to find, and is fairly close to his ideal landing site.

(Not the official port, naturally; while Kallus doesn’t doubt that they could bluff their way through, he’d rather not try it on such short notice. They’d landed the Phantom on the city outskirts, about fifteen minutes away by foot.)

In other words, things are about as well-situated as they could be, under the circumstances. He has three separate exit routes at least tentatively mapped out, of varying efficiency and difficulty.

(And, if it came down to it, Sabine or Zeb could create one for him, of course, but he’d prefer to avoid that if at all possible.)

(In any case, best to have backup plans; he’ll pick the best route of the three once he has a better idea of what Vector’s capable of at the moment.)

(He’s almost certain she’s hurt, and he doesn’t know how badly, and she’ll never actually tell him, so that’s the best he can do.)

Inside, the cantina is fairly crowded--which is a mixed blessing; on the one hand, more cover for their activities/conversation, but on the other, more people to see them.

It’s a varied crowd; mostly local shift workers, a few semi-legitimate traders and mid-level bounty hunters. Most importantly, though, there are no troopers that he can identify, even off-duty. Excellent.

He gets a drink (to blend in, primarily) and finds a table in the corner where he can keep an eye on the other patrons and watch the door without being obvious about it.

He’s not kept waiting long.

She blends in pretty well--she’s managed to dress herself in a slightly-outdated local fashion, one that helpfully comes with a cowl that doesn’t quite hide her face, but does enough to keep her mostly anonymous from a distance and make dodging any security cameras easier.

(A few other women in the cantina are dressed similarly; not many, but enough that she doesn’t really stand out.)

She doesn’t head straight for him. She weaves through the crowd for a minute, hesitates by the bar as if she’s considering something, orders a drink. Her attention drifts over the crowd; she doesn’t linger on him, but her hand twitches a little.

(Ah. She spotted him, then. Good.)

(He isn’t really surprised that she figured out which Fulcrum she was working with. And it does make things simpler--there are a few signals he could have tried, but there wasn’t time, when she called, to pick one of them and be sure.)

(An advantage, if a counter-intuitive one, to using the legacy code name with her, he supposes.)

She starts moving again; doing everything right--wandering as if she’s looking for a seat, gradually making her way to a small empty table next to his.

(The whole thing takes probably less than two minutes. It feels longer. Then again, it always does--this isn’t the first time he’s met a contact like this, and that never changes. Doesn’t matter whether he’s the first or second to arrive.)

He taps out a quick signal on his commlink--contact made, everything’s on track so far--and waits.

“I have a data file for you,” she says softly. “Several, in fact.”

He smiles faintly into his drink. “Well done.”

The way the tables are laid out, they’re sitting next to one another, both with their backs against the wall. It’s a simple matter for her to slide the two drives over to him, and just as easy for him to make them disappear.

(Leaving together discreetly will be a little harder, but he’s been doing this for quite a while. They’ll manage.)

“I have transport off-planet,” he tells her. “We should wait a few minutes, not get up right away, but it’s best if we leave sooner rather than later.”

She shakes her head. “I'm not coming with you.”

(He wishes he could say he was surprised.)

He doesn’t turn to look at her, as much as he wants to. “If you’re concerned about reprisals…”

“I’m not,” she says. “Not really. It’s just…not a good idea.”

...and in the interests of “good Lord this thing is probably pushing 10k and it’s not even the full fic it’s an outline,” I’m going to skip the rest of this conversation. Suffice to say, he’s right and she’s wrong, though she takes some convincing, but they leave the cantina together like fifteen minutes later. Also, he confirms that his theory as to her identity was correct somewhere in here.

Anyway, like I said, he talks her down, and she agrees to leave with him.

Once out of the cantina, he can get a better look at her, assess how badly she’s hurt.

(He knows she is for certain now; she’s breathing carefully, shallowly, and a little too fast--but he could only see her hands and the vague shadow of her cowl before.)

“Are you all right?” he asks; even though the answer is obvious; she’s favoring her left side and very pale.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she says.

A characteristic non-answer, but a step above denial. He supposes.

“All right,” he says. “Let me know if you need help.”

(There’s not much else he can do here and now, anyway; they have some supplies back on the Ghost, and she can get proper medical attention once they rendezvous with the fleet.)

“I will,” she says, which is something at least.

They make it two blocks before they run into a squad of stormtroopers.

It’s a routine patrol; and, even with a wounded asset to escort, it wouldn’t have been a problem under most circumstances. He could avoid the confrontation, or talk his way past.

But the squad sergeant stiffens in a particular way, staring at him.

“Karabast,” he mutters.

(You’d think, after all these years, this would stop happening so often. But, no, it’s still even odds that, out in the field, someone will recognize him.)

Lavinia takes half a step back. “I can--”

“They’re not here for you,” he tells her, then drags her behind cover a split second before the troopers start firing.

Then takes a minute to take stock.

This is...not an ideal position for a standoff. And while they might be able to fight their way through...

Best plan is to stay put, hold them off as long as they can, and call in Zeb and Sabine for backup.

Good thing I listened to Kanan, he thinks.

He takes out his sidearm, then pulls his holdout pistol from his boot and offers it to Lavinia.

But she shakes her head. “Father kept my focus narrow. I’d do more harm than good.”

“...right.”

Even less ideal. But it’s all right. He can handle this.

He takes his comm, switches it to the voice setting.

“Specter Four, this is Fulcrum. We’re going to need a slightly more dramatic exit than I planned for.”

“Copy that, Fulcrum,” Zeb says. “Could use an opening, Specter Five.”

“And to think you boys wanted to leave me behind,” Sabine says.

“Yes, yes, can we save the ‘I-told-you-sos’ until after we’re clear?” Kallus says, firing off a handful of shots to keep the squad at bay.

“She does have a point, babe.”

“Not on open comms, dear, how many times...”

(Honestly, the little bit of flirting is at this point half an inside joke, after the one time they legitimately forgot to switch channels, and half a way to quickly gauge how serious the situation actually is.)

(Plus, it’s fun. They like flirting.)

“Thirty seconds,” Sabine cuts in.

“Right,” Zeb says. “I’m headed to your position. ETA two minutes.”

“Copy. Fulcrum out.”

Two minutes, under these conditions, is a long, long time.

But, right on cue, thirty seconds later, there is a magnificent explosion, which gives them some breathing room, and then Sabine slides down the wall to land next to him.

“Not my best work,” she says critically, watching the cloud on the horizon, “but it’ll clear a path. Hi,” she adds, for Lavinia’s benefit.

“Hi,” she says, softly.

“...she doesn’t have a blaster,” Sabine says, turning almost accusingly to Kallus.

“Because I’ve never had one before,” Lavinia answers for him. “And this really doesn’t seem the time or place to learn.”

“Well, we’ll fix that later,” Sabine says.

“All right,” Lavinia says, then ducks down as Sabine positions herself better to start shooting back.

The next ninety seconds go much quicker, and then comes the welcome sound of the Phantom’s engines on approach.

It’ll have to be a quick exit, and for a split second, Kallus wonders about getting Lavinia up the ramp fast enough without Zeb actually landing--

But then he sees that Sabine has her jetpack.

(He has never been so pleased to see it in his life.)

“Take her,” he says, once the shuttle is in sight. “I’ll cover you.”

Sabine catches his drift right away, and nods. “Hold on,” she tells Lavinia, who blinks, but does.

And then they’re off.

Kallus just keeps firing at the troopers until, based on the noise it’s making, he judges that the Phantom is close enough that he can make the jump.

He’s--almost right.

He comes within half an inch of missing, then Lavinia’s hands shoot out and grab one of his wrists; Sabine grabs the other and the girls haul him on board.

“We’re good, Zeb, go!” Sabine shouts, while Lavinia drags Kallus the rest of the way in and slams the hatch shut.

We did it.

He takes a minute to catch his breath--he knows it isn’t really over; there’s still a great deal of work to do once they get back to the Ghost and then to the fleet proper.

But for now--they’re all alive, they’re all safe, they’re all at least as intact as they were when they got to Ixaly; the extraction was successful.

Kallus decides to let the rest of the problems wait, and take the win.

He picks himself up and heads to the cockpit, to give Zeb a quick hug and send word to Kanan and the others.

For all the drama and the worry when it started, today turned out to be a very good day.

And I think that’s a good stopping point, don’t you? There is definitely more, featuring (in no particular order) the worlds most #Awkward Road Trip; Kanan and Lavinia meeting; Kanan and Luke finally meeting; Zeb and Kallus adopting a kid or three; Lando; Jacen being precious; and so much more.

But, uh, see all my notes above about “how long is this thing now?!”

(And, again this isn’t even fulltext.)

(This is just the outline.)

...so, uh, yeah, if you made it this far, thank you and I hope you enjoyed my Self-Indulgent BS(tm). <333333333

#shadowsong26fic #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes self-indulgent bs #au outlines for the win #tigerkat24

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tigerlover16-uk · 6 years

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Do you think that Dragon Ball Super is going to hold up better than Dragon Ball GT did long term? Or do you think it'll eventually fade into the background for most of the fandom as well and become a niche thing?

Part of that I think is going to depend on how the movie and the inevitable follow up series(s) are received… but most likely, yes.

Here’s where Super has the advantage over GT in that regard… it’s canon.

Or at least, it’s being treated as canon and is being used as the foundation from which modern Dragon Ball stories and products are going to be built off of for the foreseeable future. We can get into debates about semantics and this fandom’s rather annoying “There is no canon except maybe the manga!” mantra that I’ve never been in favour of, but Toei is treating it as the current canon for the moment and so does Toriyama, it seems.

The upcoming movie is going to be a follow up on Super. FighterZ, the recent fighting game that blew up and became a huge success recently to the point of bringing in a lot of new fans, has it’s story take place sometime during the events of Super, has beerus and Whis show up in the story, and includes characters like Hit and Goku Black on the base roster while Merged Zamasu and Vegito Blue are DLC, while no GT character has been added yet.

Even the Xenoverse games treated the events of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F as canon events, while GT was an afterthought in both, having DLC packs for the first game and it’s characters only appearing in side quests in the sequel, and it’s timeline treated as an alternate future on par with the old movies.

Even the upcoming PR anime for Dragon Ball Heroes is adapting an arc that’s more or less a follow up to the Future Trunks saga in Super. And when a ongoing “Canon” Dragon Ball show does get made (And it will. Toei aren’t going to keep it off the air for too long, Dragon Ball’s gotten too big and profitable again since Super started for them to want to let the franchise go dormant again for too long), it will inevitably be a sequel to Super.

Unless Toriyama changes his mind and decides to scrap everything from the last few years and start over with another new continuation of the manga (Which is unlikely considering how involved he’s been in Super’s production as well as the upcoming movie, and he’s shown no signs of wanting to stop putting out new stories), then it’s likely that for the foreseeable future, all future Dragon Ball series, movies and spin-offs are going to be made with the idea that Super and it’s follow ups are “Canon” events.

And that’s going to inevitably influence how hardcore fans, casuals, and the portion of general audiences who consume Dragon Ball content view things.

Whatever people’s perception of the Prequel Trilogy was initially, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that more people have watched those, and new fans getting into Star Wars for the first time are ENCOURAGED to watch them, than have watched, say, the Star Wars Holiday Special or the Ewoks cartoons and specials.

Why?

Because love or hate them, the Prequel Trilogy is, now and forever, a crucial part of the Star Wars saga and the foundation for a large, important era of the franchise that has spawned a large number of spin off works, from comics to at least two cartoons, one of which is basically the predecessor to the most current Star Wars animated series, Rebels, and a number of it’s events and characters are followed up on in that show.

The Prequel Trilogy is an essential cornerstone of the Star Wars franchise, and even casual fans who aren’t interested in all the expanded universe stuff are going to watch them, because they’re episodes of the main film series that are the backbone of the entire franchise and whom millions and millions of people watched in theatres when they came out. For all the controversy and handwringing about “MY CHILDHOOD IS DEEEEEAAAAAAD!”, there’s no getting around the fact that the Prequel Trilogy will continue to have an overarching presence over the rest of the Star Wars franchise going forward. And over time, the movies have also been increasingly vindicated with more and more supporters feeling safe to express their support of it publicly.

As for the Holiday Special and Ewoks cartoon and movies? They’re not canon, never had as big a presence and impact in the first place, and the former is especially reviled among the fandom and is treated as a laughingstock that people only watch ironically, and considering it’s reputation for being terrible, not a HUGE amount of people are going to be inclined to watch it these days or in the next few decades because of that. I’ve never watched it, for example, and I never intend to.

No one is going to tell you that you have to, or even should, watch those products if you’re getting into the franchise. The general public who only care about the most mainstream installments of the Star Wars franchise, I.E the films, doesn’t even realize the Ewoks HAD their own cartoon and made for TV films. I’ll bet there are going to be people reading this post shocked about it.

This goes for the rest of the Star Wars expanded universe too, the old one and the new. If you ask people on the street or people who are generally casual Star Wars fans for the most part, they’ll probably be able to tell you who Darth Maul and Captain Phasma are… but significantly less people will know what you’re talking about if you bring up Thrawn, Asajj Ventress or Savage Opress.

Not because they aren’t good characters who are memorable and interesting in their own right, heck they’re more developed and interesting than Phasma ever was. But because they’re not mainstream, and in Thrawn’s case he wasn’t even canon to the current EU anymore until Rebels introduced their own take on him (I haven’t seen the 4th season, so I can’t discuss how that worked out).

I think GT has, and is going to have a similar issue to a lot of those expanded universe and non-canon Star Wars works going forward.

Let’s not kid ourselves, while it might have had some support when it was first airing, GT came out at a bad time both in Japan and in the West, and here in the West especially didn’t leave a good lasting impression.

In Japan, franchise fatigue for Dragon Ball as a whole was starting to set in around the time of the Buu Saga. While the saga was well received there and is looked back on fondly, Z’s ratings were continuously declining after the Cell Saga, and they declined more sharply during GT’s early run because the majority of people found the Black Star Dragon Balls saga boring.

While GT did pick up momentum again with the Baby saga which restored some interest, it didn’t actually do a thing to help the gradually increasing sense of fatigue. Ratings still steadily declined later on in the shows run (Admittedly not much more than they were during the Buu Saga, to be fair), but merchandise and revenue for Dragon Ball was going down really fast, which caused Toei to hastily pull the plug on the series, recognizing the fatigue and that Dragon Ball needed a bit of a break. (This is likely why the ending felt so rushed and sudden, BTW).

So while it wasn’t viewed as a disaster or anything and a lot of elements from the series are still well regarded and promoted in merchandise and video games like Heroes (Super Saiyan 4, some of the villains, etc), it’s never been as well regarded as the rest of the series and certainly wasn’t as successful in terms of profit and renewed interest in the franchise as Super has brought forth.

In the West, it’s case is even worse. The Buu Saga was much more controversial when it aired in America to the point that for years a significant segment of the franchise ragged on it as being the worst thing to come out of Z. Buu was supposedly the worst villain, Babidi stinks, “THEY RUINED GOHAN!”, etc. (I personally always thought that was nonsense and I love the Buu Saga, and in recent years the general consensus has improved, but these reactions were common and a lot of people still resent the saga to this day or at least hold it in less regard than the previous ones).

Dragon Ball Z’s popularity and the initial hype the show had gained after finally catching on in America (And here in the UK) had started to wane by this point, and a large portion of viewers who had been watching jumped ship by that point. While GT enjoyed some acceptance by the fanbase at first, by the time it finished and in the years that followed, it became regarded as the black sheep of the entire franchise (Until Evolution came along, anyway), with loud and vocal hate thrown at it for years.

People were quick and eager to declare it non-canon and shoot down the possibility of it being so, to the point that even before the franchise itself started gradually downplaying it’s significance in favour of the newer works, pretty much the majority of people were in agreement over it’s non-canon status.

And the fact that it came out at a time where Dragon Ball Z was starting to slowly lose it’s hype among casual fans and the general public (And then became an internet laughing stock until roughly the start of the current decade when Kai’s dub came out and starting a gradual renaissance where the series regained a lot of respect in the West), means that GT, while a lot of people do know about it, has never had as much of a mainstream presence in the West (Kind of like the Original Dragon Ball, sadly), being mostly something the hardcore fandom was invested in enough to watch and discuss… and again, for years the consensus was that most people hated it.

It’s true that GT hate has calmed down in more recent times among the fandom, and while it’s still not well regarded it’s defenders are more vocal and comfortable about supporting the show than before. And there is a common consensus that the show had a lot of good ideas, even if most of them weren’t executed as well as they could have been.

There are definitely people who have revisited the series and appreciated it more nowadays… and people like me who used to defend it but immediately started hating it after re-watching it :P.

But here’s the thing a lot of those defenders might be surprised or try to smugly lecture me about how wrong I am over… GT these days is, like you suggested anon… a NICHE.

GT’s fans may be vocal in a lot of places online, but in the grand scheme of things… people generally don’t care much about it either way. And the fact that it’s non-canon and has officially been replaced as the “Official” Dragon Ball follow up means that in the years to come, it’s only going to become less and less relevant.

Regardless of how much of a broken base there might be over the series in the fandom, you can’t argue that Super isn’t a big success for Toei and the Dragon Ball brand in terms of promotion and profits.

Here’s one of several graphs I can find online demonstrating the revenue the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole has been bringing in for Toei over the last decade.

Notice how when Kai first aired, it barely made a blip in merchandise sales and overall income for the franchise, and by the time it ended it’s initial run in Japan revenue kept falling until the year after Battle of Gods came out, and then in 2015 after Super was announced suddenly everything started to explode and it’s become super profitable, peaking this year even with Super’s conclusion?

Heck, it’s Toei’s most profitable franchise again nowadays, bringing in slightly more than twice as much as One piece even in Japan, which is a longtime juggernaut franchise. And general enthusiasm from both the public and fandom is at a high not seen in years.

It’s certainly not to the level of when it first aired. Super is also significantly less of a mainstream hit in Western Countries that aren’t Latin America than Z was aswell, certainly (Probably doesn’t help that the Toonami Block it now airs in is a late night slot that only fanboys stay up to watch).

But it’s still popular and watched by a lot of people, and the fandom is especially deep into it.

Heck, bringing up Latin American countries again where Dragon Ball has historically been extremely popular and a staple of pop culture, Super and the movies it spawned from are huge hits, to the point that across various countries including Mexico, huge public events were held in many cities and community centres where large crowds of people, many numbering in the THOUSANDS, gathered to watch the streams for the last two episodes of DBS. Which were huge hits, of course.

All things considered, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F and Super left more of a positive impact for the franchise starting out since, regardless of Super’s… very bumpy start and production, these works have been big hits that caused a franchise renaissance that generally brought Dragon ball back to a level of prominence and success it hasn’t seen in a long time.

A far cry from GT which pretty much signalled Dragon Ball’s leave of absence from the mainstream, during which time interest in the series waned for years even with Kai helping to restore it’s rep a fair bit (At least in America, said series was met with more of a meh reaction in Japan).

The results of this can’t be understated. Worldwide, Super has brought in a number of new fans. For many children and teenage fans, it’s going to be their introduction to Dragon Ball, or at least a cornerstone of their formative experiences with the franchise.

Many casual fans who had long drifted off from Dragon Ball were drawn back into the fold when Super came out, many people becoming bigger fans of Dragon Ball than ever as a result of that. I’ve talked with a number of people on this site who have admitted that Super actually helped them to appreciate Dragon ball in general a lot more whereas they only had a casual interest in the franchise before.

And a lot of those people are probably going to stick around rather than drift off again in favour of other series, considering we have the movie coming up, potential new shows in the near future, and other high profile Dragon Ball products like FighterZ to keep them occupied.

For every fan who complains about Super or is put off by it, I’ve seen as many, actually more, express a lot of thanks to it. Right before my recent break I remember reading a post from someone who admitted to never liking the Dragon ball franchise, being a Naruto fan before that started to disappoint them later on to the point they felt nothing when it ended (A feeling I find tragically relatable).

Said person said they started watching Super at some point as a joke… and by the time of watching the last episode, they had become a big converted fanboy, loved the majority of characters, had watched the previous series (I think, I might be remembering that part wrong), and even cried at the last episode due to being so emotionally invested.

For as many fans as there are who like to pick apart Super (And to be fair it is a flawed series and I do think it’s fair to criticise it’s missteps, I have issues like anyone else despite overall loving it), it IS generally a well liked series.

It’s true that a lot of that could fade with time. Heck, I’m sure a lot of people will like it somewhat less with hindsight and the hype wearing down.

On that note, I think some people might also like it more after a while.

Did you know that earlier on in Super’s run, people actually complained A LOT about the Slice of Life episodes, finding them a waste of time and no different to DBZ filler? Even by the end of the Champa saga that opinion started to soften and everyone started realizing how fun the slice of life episodes were, to the point that everything between the Future Trunks and Universe Survival Sagas is some of the most beloved content from the show now.

Even the potaufeu arc, widely despised when it first aired, has a bit of a better reception now. it’s not considered particularly GOOD, mind you, but people generally regard it as okay and at worst harmless now, compared to the hate it got earlier on. Helps that Brian Drummond was cast as Copy Vegeta for the dub, I guess.

A lot of other elements of the show have been viewed more fondly over time too, in addition to the stuff that gets more flak.

So it’s highly possible that, if the upcoming movie and any Dragon Ball series that follow up on Super in the near future are generally well received, opinions on Super from people who are critical of it now might gradually soften over time, at least to the point that a lot of people complaining about how the franchise is supposedly being “Ruined” might stop and realize they might have overreacted a little.

The opposite could also be true, we could have another series that’s a complete trainwreck and that could sour the fandoms opinions over modern Dragon ball as a whole, lead to a great decline in public interest and probably put us back on a franchise hiatus.

Which would stink a lot, let me tell you, and Super probably wouldn’t be remembered THAT fondly in that case… but to be honest, I have faith things will turn out at least reasonably well. Everything I’ve heard about the recent movie and it’s production suggests that Toei have put a ton of care and effort into making it right, and giving us the best product possible for a milestone movie like this.

And that suggests to me that they’ve learned from their missteps.

The big issue with Super, both in terms of it’s production values and writing, was ALWAYS down to it’s rushed production. The show was rushed to be aired, and that had a catastrophic effect that the show never completely recovered from, even when it did mostly stabilise later on.

But between the big increase in it’s production quality later on, the care that seems to be going into the movie, and the fact that behind the scenes Toei and Shueisha seem to be restructuring a lot of stuff to better focus on producing Dragon ball content and planning out new directions for the franchise… it feels like Toei are making all the right moves to keep Dragon ball relevant, and more importantly, GOOD into the foreseeable future.

They seem to have learned from their mistakes. And considering Super DID have a number of talented animators and writers working on it who did do a lot of good even though they were in far from suitable conditions… I for one feel confident that Toei could produce a much better follow up to Super down the line.

And if that’s the case, and Super does continue to be the launching pad for future stories in the Dragon Ball franchise for years to come… that’ll help it’s image to an extent.

Because even if the series itself is continuously acknowledged as having problems, if Dragon Ball is still relevant two or three decades from now and still producing moderately well received series… fans are going to encourage newcomers and casuals to watch Super to “Get the full story”. Just like Star Wars fans these days unanimously agree that, whatever the quality, you should watch the Prequels and yes, they do count (Even if begrudgingly to a lot of people).

GT… will never have that.

See, as much as it’s fanboy’s like to pretend the support for GT these days is bigger than it is… most people who watch Dragon Ball either haven’t watched it, haven’t watched it in years, and probably aren’t going to watch it anytime soon.

Heck, half the people watching Super these last few years haven’t watched Dragon Ball Z since it was initially airing. I have a mutual who’s a BIG Dragon Ball fangirl, who writes fanfiction (Usually Vegebul related) and is one of the most passionate and positive people you’ll see on this site when it comes to Dragon Ball… she also regularly admits that while she needs to get around to it, she hasn’t actually watched Dragon Ball of Z since she was a kid, just clips of it and I think Kai. (On that note she didn’t watch GT because she couldn’t get into it, she did watch the first two episodes recently but seemingly hasn’t found the time to get further into it).

This is actually surprisingly common among the fandom. I remember when the first episodes of the Super dub were airing someone who had clearly only watched the dub of Kai before was confused while watching Super and Kai: The Final Chapters back to back, wondering if Elder Kai as seen in Super was the same character as Shin The Supreme Kai. There’s a ton of people out there who’s only experience with Dragon Ball was watching Kai’s dub years ago and getting back into it now because the franchise is putting out new major installments.

FYI, this is also one of the big reason that memes, particularly TFS related, have taken over the fandom and warped the perception of the series and the characters so much over the years. A majority of people who call themselves Dragon ball fans are actually casuals who don’t re-watch the series often and look to the fandom side of things to refresh their memories and base their opinions off of since they probably never thought too hard about the series other than “This show is fun, and these characters are my favourite!” before.

And no, that doesn’t make those people less of a fan than people who re-watch/read the series yearly and are obsessive about it, because screw that elitist noise. I’m just pointing out that… well… many people’s interest in Dragon Ball, as with many mainstream franchises, is very much in the “Here and now” variety. Especially in the age of Crunchyroll, Netflix and online streaming, where anime fans are constantly binging and hopping around from one series to the next.

Hardcore fanboys and people who have nostalgia for it are the only people who actually care about GT more than enough to casually acknowledge it’s existence from time to time. And while you might get the impression by browsing the internet, fansites, forums, comments sections, etc that the hardcore fandom is most of the people that watch and talk about Dragon Ball… they’re really not, in the grand scheme of things.

Going by Star Wars comparisons again, this video by Moviebob should explain what I’m talking about better than I can.

youtube

To sum everything up nicely though… GT is non-canon and hasn’t actually been relevant for two decades. It has long had a reputation as one of the worst things in the franchise, and while there are certainly things the fandom likes about it and plenty of people willing to go back and watch and then defend it (And people like me who re-watch it and end up hating it where we used to defend it, too), it’s status as non-canon and the fact that it has officially been replaced by a new ongoing continuity means that it’s only going to become more and more niche over time as the fandom grows and changes.

And about two or three decades from now, new fans aren’t likely to be encouraged to watch it when there are various other sequels to Z starting with Super to get through, even before you take supplementary material like the movies and video games into consideration than only people looking to go hardcore will want to look up.

However Super is viewed in the future, it seems highly likely to me that it’s going to be held in at least higher regard by a significant portion of the people who are really into Dragon Ball over the next few decades if only because it was the necessary flint that sparked the era of new content more ambitious than the occasional OVA we’d been getting every few years before Battle of Gods came out.

Heck, even in terms of content, I think people in the fandom are going to look back on Super more fondly than GT because it gives people more stuff that appeals to them.

Think about it, Super has given us a plethora of popular characters. Beerus and Whis and Jaco are holdovers from the movies sure, but the former two are easily more popular than literally any character to come out of GT.

And in Super itself? We have huge fan favourites like Hit, Caulifla, Vados, and various characters from the universe Survival Saga. Super arguably has introduced a lot more popular characters than GT did, which included… uh… Baby, Nuova Shenron and maybe Omega Shenron to those who don’t find him unremarkable.

And be honest… unless you intentionally go looking for it, when was the last time you really saw fanart or anything about Baby or Nuova Shenron floating around here? Now when was the last time you saw stuff for Frieza, Cell, Beerus or Broly?

There’s probably a big gap there. Sure is for me.

And Super did a lot more for the supporting cast too. Krillin and Gohan got their own character arcs, Android 18 was a highlight in the Tournament of Power and saw the most action she’s seen in any series (Plus a ton of extra insight into her and Krillin’s relationship and great shipping moments, plus new interactions with her brother and other characters). Frieza may have hit a rough spot with the RF saga, but the Universe Survival Saga showed him at his very best and made the fandom fall in love with his character all over again.

And Android 17? He went from being the least appreciated of the trio of him, 18 and Android 16 to being a huge fandom darling and is regularly agreed to be the MVP of the universe survival saga, if not Super PERIOD.

I could go on too, because for all it’s missteps, Super actually did go out of it’s way to do things with the characters and expand the universe in various ways, leaving tons of potential for new stories for years to come in it’s wake…

GT though? Let’s be honest, the most popular thing to come out of that was super Saiyan 4. And while I love that form… in the grand scheme of things, transformations are actually one of the least important things about the Dragon ball series, so that right there is a sign that somethings off there.

GT really is designed to be a series that appeals to certain subgroups of fans, and feels alienating to many others. It starts off with an arc that jettisons the majority of the cast in favour of a trio featuring Goku reduced to a kid again, a grown up Trunks, and Pan… who’s portrayed as an annoying brat who’s more of a detriment to the group than anything. Plus a cute robot sidekick to boot, and they all go on boring space adventures for a while.

It has all of one arc that’s all around good (…mostly…), followed up by what’s almost unanimously considered a trainwreck of a mini-arc that, as I’ve said before, looks worse than ever in light of Super due to it’s mishandling of Android 17′s character and the past villains, in comparison to how 17 and Frieza were handled in Super’s last arc. And then we get a final arc that had an awesome premise that devolved into a huge mess due to poor writing and most of the villains being annoying, underwhelming monsters of the week and the final boss being very unsatisfying, capped off by an ending that’s always been wildly divisive.

I’m not going to say that GT, as a what-if spin-off like it currently is, was a complete flop. But it’s definitely a series that I think takes a certain kind of fan to appreciate, whereas I think that Super, for all it’s own faults, in general is a show that captures a lot more of what gave the previous series their wider appeal and generally gives more people what they want.

Not everyone of course… but unlike GT, which really isn’t going to have any continuations anytime soon to do any course corrections or make up for any lost potential, a lot of Super’s missed opportunities can easily be made up by whatever series and movies come after it.

In general I just think that Super has more stuff that a wider group of people are going to be inclined to want to come back to.

Heck, on that note, a lot of people only like GT because it’s pretty much their only resource for Next Gen, post EoZ official Dragon Ball content. People starved for content about Uub, Pan, Bulla, Marron etc especially still use their GT designs as a basis for aged up fan art, and a lot of people who are fans of said character look to GT because outside of a few video games, they don’t have a lot of content for them.

I guarantee you though the minute a new series is made someday set past EoZ again which does more with those characters or otherwise portrays them better than GT did, those holdovers will gladly jump ship, because who in their right mind is going to buy bread crumbs from a shady street vendor when that new bakery across the street is giving away whole loafs?

I could really go on and on talking about this subject, because I actually find this interesting to discuss and speculate on, but it’s getting late and this is getting ridiculously long, so I’m just going to leave it here for now and give you my conclusion.

Yes. I think for most people, Super will be remembered more fondly than GT in the long run. Whether Super will be viewed particularly well in of itself years from now is another matter entirely, it’s probably always going to be a big base breaker at the very least. But on the whole… regardless of how you feel about the two series, I think it’s safe to say it has the advantage.

#dragon ball super #dbs #dragon ball gt #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #dbgt

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alizrak · 6 years

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Finished watching Season 4 with my niece! (or how I had an existential crisis and came out the other side... kinda)

I finished watching Rebels Season 4 with my niece. Just like with season 1, 2 and 3, I made a compilation of her comments. I refreshed her mind a little about where we last we saw of the crew, at the battle in Atollon, and how Sabine's family helped the Rebels escape. "Oh, yeah! They escaped and then you told me Kallus became popular because of his hair, right?" YES. Yes, my child, you are right.

As it has been quite obvious, she's a big Kanera fan since the pilot itself. She was hooked from the start with the Space Family concept. Also, she's likes Sabezra but has told me is ok if they don't. Ahsoka is still her big fave in all Star Wars.

We finished the first half on December so I actually didn't know what to expect of the later half. My comments to her are inside parenthesis. Obviously, you will find SPOILERS AHEAD.

Hero's of Mandalore Part 1:

"Sabine looks like that part in Wonder Woman when she climbs out and is all like 'YEAH!'"

"I love the Darksaber. It looks so cool. Sabine has almost become an expert using it"

"Oh, Ezra is so funny! :D"

"Who's that?", [Bo-Katan explanation], "Oh, Sabine should give the Darksaber to her... [she refuses]... aw! Just take it! Sabine doesn't want it. Why won't anyone take it!?"

"[sighs] How is Kanan supposed to know where Hera's hologram is? He can't see. She's not really there so he can't sense her either"

"Kanan is getting flirty! Hehehe!"

[They attack the convoy] "WOOOOO! AWESOME! Sabine is going to kick your butts!"

"Hahahaha 'I'm with her', hahahah Oh, Ezra, you better give a good impression if you want him as your father-in-law"

"Kanan is so cool"

"They need to jump now! How is Ezra going to-... WOAH. WOW! Look at him! He has really really improved with the Force!"

"Oooh, Sabine's dad is an Artist too. That's why she is like that"

[Sabine warns her mother to run] "Oh no. Run. Do as she says! Don't stare! OH NO... OH NO."

"Oh no... Sabine's mother... and her brother... No. This is horrible...! D':" [covers her face and starts sobbing] ((Shitshitshit))

Heroes of Mandalore Part 2:

[Still sniffing covering her face] "Poor Sabine! :'("

"Wait...! [*gasp*] THEY ARE ALIVE!? THEY MADE ME SHED TEARS ON PURPOSE!!! HOW DARE THEY!?"

"Protect the parents!"

"Everyone is really angry with Sabine. I get it but it's not her fault"

"Wait... wait. What? They won't leave their armor? Can't they just, like, put it away during certain battles? Then put it back on? Or just not use it for this war? Is not like they are going to destroy their old armors forever! Just to win this one.... They won't? Really?? That's dumb"

"Oh my god, we have been over this! It's not her fault! You know, I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually just shoots her in the head thinking they will prevent another weapon from been made"

"HOW IS KANAN WATCHING SABINE'S PLAN ON THE SCREEN? HE HAS NO EYES! ARGHH!"

[when approaching the Star Destroyer] "Just make sure to come back to your wife!" ((You know Kanan and Hera aren't married)) "Eh, they might as well be, they have been together all these years and have almost adopted Ezra, that's enough for me"

"If Kanan and Hera had children, What would they look like? Like humans? Like Twi'lek? A combination of the two? Would it be "mestizaje*" (race-mixing in Spanish)?" ((Well, I told you before there was a female Twi'lek in Clone Wars who had children with a human, and the kids looked mostly like her. I guess it could be something like that... maybe they would take after Hera)).

[Sabine and Bo-Katan get struck by The Dutchess] "NO! NO! DONT KILL HER!"

[Sabine is ordered to improve the weapon] "No Sabine! Don't do it! *GASP* SHE BETRAYED THEM?.... AH! OH! HAHAHAHAH TAKE THAT! NOW IS YOUR TURN TO SUFFER!"

"Poor Ezra, his head almost got zapped. The Force told him to get the helmet off in time, but it seems like it still hurt"

"Sabine should kill him. But... ok, it's better if she doesn't fall into the Darkside"

"FINALLY! Bo-Katan is going to keep the Darksaber! GOOD! Sabine is free!"

In the Name of the Rebellion Part 1

"Are Zeb and the others over there in the new base?"

"This is sooo coooool! Just like the movies! [GASP] I think I saw like an R2D2!!"

"Where is Hera?? Kanan needs to say hello to his wifey!"

"Yep, she's got this!"

"ooh Kallus! You look nice! And he is GOOD now! I'm so happy for him!"

"Wait... Ezra is right, What about Lothal??"

[After Mon Mothma's talk with Ezra] "This is too complicated..."

[Kanan goes to speak with Hera "I don't have to see you to know you are not right"] "I still can't believe the voice of Kanan send me a message" ((NOTE: FPJ replied to a tweet I made about my niece still not being entirely over the fact that Kanan lost his eyes, he told me to let her know he could see better now than he ever could before. She was obviously sto learn he replied. ))

"NICE! Sabine and Ezra have excellent teamwork. That's good if they end up together"

"Hera needs to go back for the kids fast"

"Saw is taking them, heh, mom doesn't like that one bit"

In the Name of the Rebellion Part 2

* "They are looking for some clues... Clues about what again?"

"Oh... they found prisoners... wait! ARE THEY GOING TO RELEASE THEM JUST LIKE THAT? How can they know if they are good? What if they are actually got arrested doing something bad!? Criminals? Assassins? They shouldn't just go around releasing everyone."

"Woah, Ezra has improved a lot! He's learned well from Kanan! [*SQUEE*]"

"What's that singing?"

"Aw... Chopper feels so good to be praised. How cute!"

"[SCREAM] THE BLACK TROOPERS! KILL THEM!! FAST!"

"YEAH! Sneak around in the shadows! WOAH! EZRA IS AMAZING!"

"What's that?..." (( A kyber crystal, like the one Ezra uses on his lightsaber, but gigantic)) "Oh, this is not good. This could be a terrible weapon" (( Like... the deathstar?)) "Ah! You are right!! OOPS!"

"I just can't believe how great has Ezra become. Look at him using the Force like that"

"SAW! HE BETRAYED THEM!" [RAGE]

"Wait, he's... he is leaving them!! HE ACTUALLY LEFT THEM TRAPPED!"

"Yes Chopper! Call for mom to pick you all up!"

"Ezra should have killed the Death Trooper, it could be trouble later on"

"Oh come on, come on, you can make it!... *phew*... they might be stranded but alive... oh, here comes Hera! YAY! They are safe and sound"

The Occupation

"I feel sorry for Ezra, he only wants to help"

"He's there to stay. YES! I like how secure and confident he's now. He's more mature. I'm proud of him."

"Everything is so bad now..."

"uuuuh, they are going to a dark alley, hehehe, HEY YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE!? HAHAHAHA"

[I wish I could see you] "Oh yeah, what does it matter if he can see everything so well with the Force and stuff... EXCEPT HIS BEAUTIFUL LOVING WIFE. Ugh, I don't know if they-... OH GOD THEY ARE GOING TO KISS YES YESSSS-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB! NOOOOOOOOOOO!" [writhes] "FRUIT!!!", ((Fruit?)), "You know, like Fruit"... (( -_- that language...)) Note: Mission accomplished, Filoni. You even made my niece 'fake swear' in frustration. xD****

"Going to a bar is not a good idea..."

"Oh, look he's helping them! Is that... wait... I KNOW HIM, what was his name?" (( Jai Kell)) "YES!" ((From the Academy)) "YEAH! AMAZING! Oh they are all grown up"

"Hahahahaha, did Ezra grow up in the sewers?? Hahahaha, oh Zeb that's a good one... but I can't forgive you that you interrupted them!"

"WOAH Kanan gets more impressive as time goes, same as Ezra. I love it!"

"Ezra and Kanan can defend them... mostly. Just stay together or... NO, GO ABOVE, GO GO GO GO"

FLIGHT OF THE DEFENDER

"I love those cats, so cute!"

"Gotta make a distraction with kitties! Wait-... they are not going to shoot at them, right?"

"THRAWN. NO. NO. GET OUT OF THERE NOW!"

"A bigger distraction with a wolf! That's a good idea! Wait-... is there something wrong with that wolf?

"What was that wolf? He's gone now. Was it an illusion? An hallucination? Is Ezra going crazy? Like that time with Maul in the desert? Is Ezra falling to the darkside again??"

"Hahahaha, Ezra is always so clumsy and funny"

"Shoot at Thrawn! You can end this!.... aww they missed..."

"they weren't using seat belts! Are they ok??"

"Can't Ezra use the Force to float the machine where they need to go?"

"Uh, another lothcat! Cats really love Ezra!"

"What a smart loth cat"

"He can control the wolf so he doesn't bite-.... What the- What? What did he do to Sabine? Oh god he killed her with his bad breath???"

"He's a friend? I don't-...I don't get it. Ok, he can help I guess"

"Dume? Is that a person?" (Don't you remember? Caleb Dume? That's was Kanan's original name) "Wait... so why would it go for Ezra if he wants Kanan? Why is he hiding himself from Kanan? From Sabine and the others? Is he planning something bad? Does he want the others to think Ezra is crazy? Is he an illusion? A Ghost? I don't understand"

KINDRED

"They came to Lothal to find Ezra. That's their destiny. They should already start a family and adopt him too so he can be a big brother. They need a normal life"

"An assassin... he looks dangerous"

"Don't shoot me! Shoot him! Hahahaha, yeah, they should blast him"

"He's too good! Ezra use the Force to squish him with those rocks!!"

"Yeah, Hera should take a break. She's been fighting non-stop and... oh-. Uh! UH! THEY ARE KISSING-! NOOOOOO!! WHY DO THEY KEEP DOING THIS TO US!??"

"YES! YEEESS YEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!! MOM AND DAD FINALLY KISSED"

"The wolves are back... oh no, they are going to think Ezra is losing his mind in the worst possible time...wait, they can see them? Why...? Are they real? But... like... what? Ok, ok! Just follow them!"

"They are good right? They are not going to attack them"

"There is no way out... They ARE going to eat them"

"They want Kanan. Yeah, he knows they are looking at him. But why him?? Can't the wolf talk more and explain?"

"This makes no sense. WHAT IS HAPPENING? How can they do that? Is that magic? The Force? Explain it to me, please!" ((They just can)) "I don't care about spoilers, just explain" ((I'm sorry, but we just don't know)) "But you know all this stuff! You already watch it!" ((Yeah, but how the wolves do what they do is still kind of a mystery... they just do it with the Force))

"This is all too confusing. Cool but confusing"

"They ended up all the way on the other side of the planet!?? Whaaaaaaaaa!?"

"Those paintings! Yes! Those are Jedi! What does the rest mean? Is it about Kanan too? Please tell me!" ((I can only assume it is. I can tell you they won't say anything else about them...)) "What?? Why not??"

"I don't understand!"

CRAWLER COMMANDEERS

"They are burning everything... they are contaminating. How horrible"

"Mon Mothma and the others are going to say no. How dare they. Hera has done all that stuff for them. How ungrateful"

"Is that what I sound like?, hahahahaha"

"This is creepy. Like a horror movie. Are there zombies in Star Wars?"

"Oh! It's that guy! Yeaaah, they totaaaally came to rescue you, suuuure"

"Kanan will show him! He can't beat a Jedi!... NOOO! DONT HURT HIM! NOT KANAN!!"

"Fight Zeb! You are the muscle!"

"Ventilation shaft. This is a job for Ezra~!"

"Hahaha, he thinks he's so grown up and he doesn't have to do it anymore"

"That... that was dark. Disturbing. Oh no. Ezra... is coming back to the darkside! If Kanan realizes he's going to be on big trouble!" ((Eh... no...)) "but he let him die in that horrible way" ((He was a slaver, remember)) "Yeah, but it would have been better if he just cut off his head... quicker, less pain"

REBEL ASSAULT

"Well, Thrawn warned him. It's his fault"

"Wait... they actually shot them down. Is she ok? She can't die, right?"

"Kanan! YOU NEED TO GO SAVE YOUR WIFE... WHY IS EVERYONE LEAVING?"

"She's wounded! She needs to get out of there"

"This is bad. This is all wrong."

[Kanan stops and turns around] "YES! It was about time you stopped and went for her! Ezra you need to go with him! DONT LET HIM GO ALONE!"

"No. Oh no. No. No. Poor Chopper. He had to leave her behind..."

"What's wrong with these wolves!! THEY DONT MAKE ANY SENSE! UGH!"

"He is not going to abandon her right?"

Ok, so that was the first half. I wrote it as soon as we finished that half of the season. During the weeks leading up to the second half I think I had made clear here on reddit about what I thought what would happen in the show. My main prediction was that Ezra and Kanan would somehow end up stranded in the UR (with or without Thrawn) and would be regarded as MIA/KIA by the Rebellion which would explain their absence in the OT. Even though the family was going to get separated, I thought it would be ok because Ezra and Kanan would have each other. The Ghost crew wouldn't be able to go look for them until the end of the war, some time after Endor, until they were free to seek them out. I even assumed Hera would have Kanan's child and they would happily reunite at the end. ...You can tell I got it right in the most painful way imaginable, at least for me.

After finishing the show by myself, I wasn't sure I would be even be able to show her Jedi Night... the very first episode coming back. Like... what the hell. It destroyed me. How was she going to handle Kanan's death? She didn't know or care about the Hero's Journey. In fact, back in Season 3 she had made it clear she didn't care what Yoda said about Luke being the last Jedi because she just wanted Kanan and Ezra to be ok and alive because they had suffered enough. Hell, the whole reason I decided I would show her Rebels was because it was so wholesome and she was going through a rough patch because the man she pretty much regarded as her father, abandoned her and her mom. She immediately latched onto the whole space adoptive family aspect in Rebels, specially to the father figure in Kanan.

When the finale was over I went over the first half of the s4 comments again and realized the focus she had on Kanan and his relationship with Ezra and Hera... and I just felt like I was spiraling down into a pit of regret. I kept telling myself "what have you done".

I waited a week or two after the finale to let myself grieve and try to be emotionally ready for her, but then... every time I tried to start showing her Jedi Night, something horrible happened: the father of a friend of hers died after a hospital complication and she was the only one who was able to go to the funeral to comfort her friend, and then the following week the Grandfather of her cousin also died from a heart-attack. Jedi Night was completely out of the question for a month. Then she went on vacation, then her mother was very sick so she had to stay at home for weeks, etc. I kept emotionally bracing myself for the day we had picked and having to cancel in the last minute for the worst painful reasons. I grew depressed. I almost gave up. But she kept reminding me we hadn't watch it and I just tried to smile and assure her we would.

So, we finally did. I recorded the audio so I could do the most exact translation/transcription I could.

JEDI NIGHT

[Kanan gives Ezra the lead] "Uhm... I'm not sure this is right. You are the adult, he's the kid" (Is because he would be in emotionally compromised) "Uh... yeah, he could lose control. Like Anakin did"

[Pryce tortures Hera] "THAT WITCH"

"THE KALIKORI!... so much for it... you will need to learn to let it go, Hera. Let go."

[Pryce continues to torture Hera] "THIS IS REALLY DISTURBING!"

"What is Kanan doing?" (Preparing) "Preparing for what?" (Because what he is going to do is pretty important) "Oh, yeah, he cuts his hair... we saw it on the trailer. Why is it important that he *cuts his hair*??" (It's a... symbol of change) "...aaand what kind of change? Is he not going to love Hera anymore?" (Wha-, No)

"PFFFT, [sarcastic] *I toootaaally like your change! Definitely cool! YEP!* xP", (Hey, he looks younger. He's actually younger than me), "How old is he?", (He should be... 32) "WHAT!!?"

"TIME TO FLY! There they go!"

"...but that change of hairstyle is not going to mean he is going to lose his cool to save Hera, right?"

[Thrawn and Tarkin talk] (Stardust is the Death Star project, from Krennic the bad guy in Rogue One, you remember?) "Oh! That's right!"

"... Kanan can still fall like what happened with Anakin with Padme..." (No, Anakin was very different to Kanan... Kanan knows how to let go) "Yeah... maybe"

"Wait... I know. He doesn't want Hera to like him anymore, that's why he did it, because Jedi can't marry" (keep watching)

"I still wonder how did he cut his hair with just the knife"

[Ezra, Sabine, May the Force be with you] "[big smile] He's so nice and cool. He trusts they will get the job done. He's like a proud dad"

"[GASP] THE KALIKORI IS THERE!"

"WHAT IS SHE DOING TO HERA!?" [drugging her to make her to tell truth] "HORRIBLE! GO TO HELL"

"HERA! NO! SHUT UP! She's going to see him! oh... ok.... Hehehehe"

"She's going to tell him she hates his hair... YEAH!!"

[Rukh starts chasing them] "I hate that guy"

"C'mon Kanan! SHOW HIM WHAT A JEDI CAN DO! [chants] *Kanan! Kanan! Kanan! Kanan!*.... NOO!!!! THROW HIM! THROW HIM! YESSSS!"

"Are they leaving without Sabine and Ezra?" (They are moving to meet in another place) "Oh that's right, they got the other ship"

[they start climbing the fuel depot] "That's dangerous..."

[Sabine shakes off the storm troopers] "This is very disturbing. Do you know how horrible must it be to fall from that height?" Note: Niece actually fell from the third floor of an apartment building and survived because she fell on a shrub a couple of years ago.

[They kiss] "YES! BUT HE IS A JEDI SO HE CANT! I MEAN YES! BUT NO! Ok, yes yes! BUT THEY SHOULDN'T! Ok, YES!" (What makes a Jedi is protecting others first... and to love and be able to let go)

"Oops they found them"

sigh.... here we go...

[fuel depot is shot] "[GASP] Get on, KANAN! GET ON! RETREAT! RETREAT!"

"KANAN, GET ON!! DON'T BE FOOLISH!"

[She gets up and attempts to leave the room] (SIT, you need to sit.) "I DONT WANT TO WATCH THIS"

[Kanan's eyes heal] "WHAT THE-!??" (The Force returned his sight.) "WHAT??"

[Kanan pushes the the ship away, gets engulfed in flames] "...."

[Rebels logo appears, credits roll] [she stares silence] "Is he really dead?" ([I nod])

"...I'm like... I can't... I can't think." (He saw Hera. Remember? 'We will see each other again, I promise.') "YEAH SHUT-" [storms off]

[falls to the ground]

[gives a long wail full of pain and rage]

[stays in the floor bawling]

[I lie down with her and hold her]

"HE DIED!" [sobs] "HE DIED! ...KANAN!" (He had to do what he had to do. Come... let's keep watching.) "No. I don't want to. I don't want to keep watching." (You need to see what's next.) "No. I don't." (Come on.) "No. I don't want anything else..." (My BF: Give her a moment)

[weeps in the floor for a couple of minutes more and then stays there lying face down in silence]

(Come, sweetie, get up) "...Is he truly dead??" (Yeah. He died... but remember, the Force... you become part of it... and technically his story is not truly over) "It's over! He's dead!" (Remember, everyone is connected to the Force... you need to see what happens) "[she slowly comes to sit and keep watching] I'm regretting watching this" (ok... just let me-) "I mean- DID YOU SEE EZRA'S FACE? HE-... [tears up again] He didn't-... he couldn't do anything about it! He was so confused and shocked... Sabine too! They were crying! Ezra was desperate! [sobs] KANAN COULD HAVE JUST GOTTEN INTO THE SHIP AND BLOCK IT FROM THERE! Why didn't he?? Just get on the ship and that's it... push themselves away to safety*... *why?"

(Ok, let's keep watching) "...ok..."

DUME

(See... all the fuel they had for the TIE defender factory was destroyed) "Can't they, like, bring more? Like a gas station?" (I don't know)

"Zeb is so happy. He doesn't know. He's going to see them crying..."

"He's gone..." [tears up]

"TURN IT OFF YES"

["You didn't prepared me for this"] [covers her face and sobs]

"Why are they so mean!? Leave him alone! It's not his fault! He just lost his DAD! I thought the wolves were his friends! They make no sense!"

"...and we were just talking about this at school..." (what?) "...about the character deaths in shows and movies that made us cry..." (Oh) "...did you cry? Did you cry when Kanan died?" (I teared up... I was sad too)

[Thrawn chews Pryce] "KARMA! YOU GONNA GET WHATS COMING TO YOU!"

[at the cave, while Hera grieves] "... oh, Kanan left his things there..."

[Ezra: "AAAH! WHAT HAPPENED!"] "Hehehehehe, oh Ezra..." [dries her tears]

["AH! That thing looked right at me!"] "Hehehehe...uh-oh it seems he's tracking them again"

["We take something from them"] "Nonononono, that's the darkside, don't go there. Kanan wouldn't have wanted that. That's wrong!"

[Dume wakes Ezra] "...could it be that Kanan became the wolf?" [I pause and quickly grab the Kanan Disney Infinity figurine where it shows his shoulder pad] (Check this out... look at the wolf's forehead) "[GASP!] It's him!"

* ["DUME"] "...ahm... that's... not exactly Kanan"

[Rukh becomes invisible] "How can't they see him?? He's still pretty obvious"

["He was wise, brave and he cared"] "Kanan loved him"

"What's that? Are they going to fight with... Rock-Paper-Scissors?? What???"

"Heh! He's all painted! Get him! Yeah! In the face!... ok, that's enough, enough, ENOUGH! Just don't let him go! Capture him!"

["Knowledge, Destruction"] "Yeah that's right... Ahsoka and that temple... that was bad"

"Why are the wolves so angry with Ezra? Can't they give him a break? Was that really Kanan? He didn't act like him at all! He wouldn't have done that to Ezra. He would have been kinder" (Well, is just a small part of Kanan. He needed to send that message... so a lil bit of Kanan was reaching through the force with his will...) "...UH?... what?...I don't understand"

(She made Kanan part of her family) "Like her husband?" (yep, you could say that. He's the triangle in the Kalikori) "How nice. That's good. They were like that already. I'm sure they even had to go undercover like that. Say they were married for some mission..."

"Chopper is her emotional support"

"Is like they forgot about Ezra until that last moment... how irresponsible"

[pouts] "I regret watching this episode because they didn't bring Kanan back. The people that make the shows can bring back characters. They can. That's what they do." (Sometimes...)

WOLVES AND A DOOR

* "hahaha, Chopper... what about me? CHOMP"

[dances with the sound of drums while the wolves run]

[wolves disappear] "Woah"

"That's the past. Voices of the past. All of that already happened, right?... is... is Kanan's voice ever going to show up again with new lines?" (He was the giant wolf's voice) "whaaa...? Really?"

"Now Ezra is the new leader" (Yep. That's why Kanan gave him the responsibility of the other mission too. He knew what would happen) "What?? How did he know? How do YOU know??" (All those voices in the beginning when he was meditating, remember? Those were visions of what would happen. He did that to save them) "... but the future is NOT written! He could have changed it! It is not set in stone!"

"Who's that guy?"

"You don't need our codes... hehehe... How does Ezra know it worked? That he's not lying and that he actually got affected by the trick?" (I don't know)

"The Emperor... this is bad. Really bad. I don't think Ezra is strong enough to defeat him"

[Hera feels Kanan's presence] "... oh Kanan... why..."

(That bird was always near Ahsoka) "Oh yeah... I kinda remember it. When she was walking down the tunnel I think I saw it too"

"How can they know all this? How are they getting to those conclusions? They are geniuses! I could have never guessed that..."

[Ezra lits up the mural] "Woah... that's going to attract attention"

"Get in! GET IN!"

WORLD BETWEEN WORLDS

"Is Ezra in *space*?" ((Not exactly))

[a pathway between all time and space, he controls the temple, controls the universe] "...uh... WHO? Ezra? He's not that powerful" ((Whoever opens that portal)) "Oh... so Ezra can do whatever he wants?? He should bring Kanan back" (( [pokerface] ))

"What are those voices??" ((They come from the different movies, different times, even from Rogue One... Kylo, Rey... Leia))

"Those are other portals! OOH!"

"THE BIRD! AHSOKA'S BIRD!"

"Is Ahsoka in that portal? Has Ahsoka come through these portals?"

[the portal shows Vader and Ahsoka] "AHSOKA!! WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE!?"

"oh my god, that's right... THIS IS-! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD, PLEASE DONT LET HER GET KILLED BY VADER, TELL ME THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN BECAUSE ILL KILL ANAKIN"

"HWAAAAAAAAAARH! [unintelligebly screams] SAVE HER!!"

[Ezra pulls hers] "WAH!!?? WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED THERE? DID HE JUST-"

[niece jumps off her seat] [SCREAMS] "HE JUST BROKE THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!"

[the minister gets Sabine beaten] "UUURGHH! I'LL KILL HIM!"

"She's fine! SHE'S AWAKE! OH MY GOD AHSOKA [hollering]"

"*'Ezra, what happened to your hair!?'* HAHAHAHAHA, oh this is going to be a shock for her"

"Ok, I'm very good about time travel... but has this been repeating over and over again in that portal until Ezra came by?" ((Is hard to tell exactly...)) "because if she was gone for all that time, it should be because of this, right?" ((Well, the only thing we actually knew about her is that... she was walking down a tunnel at the end of the Season 2, remember?)) "Yeah, that's where the Ahsoka Lives comes from"

"Coincidence?... I DONT THINK SO!"

"Kanan IS the wolf"

"Oh my god! LOOK! THAT'S HIM! Kanan is in the constellations here!"

[Ezra: "I can save Kanan just like I saved you!"] "NOOO! THIS IS NOT RIGHT! YOU CAN'T MESS WITH SPACE TIME!"

"[sobs]"

((That portal... the symbols are Sith)) "Oh, no, this is wrong..."

["I'm asking you to let go"] "Again... [sobs]"

"[sniffles] Ezra has suffered so much... why can't he be happy just once? At least he still has Hera and the others..." (( [sweating intensifies]))

"Why can't she come back with him-? What-?" ((It wasn't really Kanan in that portal... just an illusion so Ezra would reach out and bring in the Emperor, it had been a trap)) "[GLARES] I hate him"

"The Son closes the Portal... ok"

"EZRA HELP HER WITH THE FORCE DONT STAND THERE!"

"Where did she go!? Where is she?" ((Back from where she was taken from)) "That's why we saw her going down there!"

"RUN EZRA!"

"I love Zeb"

"CHOOOPPPPEEEEER! *CHOPPER! CHOPPER!*"

"He knows exactly what to do now... woah, MOTHER OF-... why are the paintings leaving??"

"What's happening? Ezra ended up all messed up. He used all his Ki." (([SNORTS]))

"Wait... was that.. WAS THAT KANAN? REPEAT IT! I NEED TO HEAR HIM! HIS SWEET VOICE!" [The Force will be with you, always] "Oh Kanan... [covers face and sobs]"

"W-why... what happened? HOW?"

"So nobody will be able to be a Jedi now... the temple is gone" ((Eh... I'm not sure. There's still Luke)) "Is not the same. The Temple was the test. The school"

"Goodbye Kanan"

FOOLS HOPE

"ohohoho, Kallus, you look good!"

"It's like a family reunion! Everyone's here! How nice!"

"Aaaww...Hondo is actually Ezra's only friend" ((Are you sure?)) "Yeah, the others are his family. Hera is his mom, Sabine his sister, Zeb and the others are uncles... But Hondo is his FRIEND. A real friend"

"Ezra is listening... just like Kanan taught him to"

"He's having visions!!"

"Oh wow, he didn't kill her??" ((You mean Thrawn and Pryce)) "YEAH" ((No, he said he would handle her when he came back)) "Good... she deserves what's coming to her"

"[GASP] AZADI, THAT TRAITOR, HOW DARE HE!"

"Uh-oh, what's happening... THEY ARE COMING! RUN! LEAVE! HIDE! NO DONT KILL THEM TOO, NO!" ((SIT DOWN))

"Hopefully they'll execute her!!"

"AND THAT UGLY GUY!"

"EZRA, SLICE THAT GUY LIKE SUSHI! GO GO GO, OH YEAH!"

[I've done this many times] "Hahahha he kept counting!"

"WOOOHOO! THAT'S MY SABINE! MY GIRL! YEAH! VICTORY!"

"... ok ALMOST VICTORY"

"Who lives? Who dies!? *YOU DECIDE!*"

"Sabine, what happened with your 'miracles'?"

"Traitor... go to hell. They were going to win!"

[It was part of our plan] "Wait... really? OH!"

"Can't Ezra make a Force field to shield himself?" ((No, he's not that strong with the Force))

"The Clones! They actually have good aim!"

[Where is your army now, Jedi?] [Ezra activates the lightsaber] "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DROP MIC, WALK OUT AND KILL EVERYONE"

[manical laugh] "YEAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Is it Kanan and his friends? Or just his friends?" ((Oh, the wolves? Just the normal ones)) "The friends... ok"

"What are they going to do with her?"

FAMILY REUNION AND FAREWELL

"Oh... his parents... well, at least he still has his new family"

"What are they doing then with Pryce?"

"What's Zeb doing? Is that part of the plan?"

"What is the pig going to do?"

"A distraction? Are they that stupid? I can't believe they fell for that! They make them too dumb"

[This is highly irregular] "Oh finally, someone smarter..."

"Well, he was not that dumb... Azadi did well"

"A special mission? Uh..."

"GO WOLF! EAT HIM!"

[Leave Lothal and we might let your troops out] "[\snort**] What are you saying, Ezra? He's got you... of course, you'll need to surrender"

"Oh no...Just surrender! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING!!"

"He needs to go directly to Thrawn. Straight to him."

"Hera, don't-... I know you are worried but he needs to do this"

[Ezra signals Chopper] "wait... what's... what is he-..."

[Sabine notices and distracts the others] "... he knew exactly what was going to happen! HE LISTENED JUST LIKE HIS MASTER! HE LISTENED! I LOVE YOU EZRA! I LOVE YOU! YOU LISTENED FOR ONCE!"

"Think of what would Kanan want, Hera"

[Ezra gets taken to Thrawn] "Don't give him the pleasure to get angry. Just stay calm"

[Who deserves what is irrelevant. What matters is who has power] "...well, he's not wrong. That's how real life works" (( I... ಠ_ಠ ... *sigh* ))

"What are they going to do to Ezra? The Emperor is not really there?... wait- is he using labial????" ((...whaat??))

"How nice, the wolves are following them!"

"The pig reminds me of Oolong from Dragon Ball"

"What's wrong with you Hera? You usually take the lead when Kanan wasn't around... Sabine is doing everything now... why?"

[Palpatine offers what could be] "What... No don't go, this is a trap! Think like Kanan! THINK!"

"NO YOU ARE FALLING"

"THINK LIKE KANAN!"

[Kallus and Gregor arrive at the generators] "The Empire should really *really* recruit people with better aim. I mean... look at that. They can't hit anything" (([LAUGH])) "Having all that power and resources, can't they get better people? Train them better?" (([LAUGHS HARDER]))

[Open the door] "No! Think it through Ezra! ...This moment... this place is where you really want to live in!"

[Melch gets hit] "Oh no they are starting to kill everyone"

"Zeb flew! He's crazy! WOAH!"

[Gregor gets hit] "Wh-what? NO! NO WAY! NO WAY! That trooper was down already! That's not fair! It shouldn't count!"

"Since when bad guys are good? No, Ezra, he's tricking you, you know this"

[Go on, you deserve this] "Oooh, I feel weird about that...but... n-no! No Ezra! Think like Kanan! Think like Kanan!"

[Ezra destroys the temple] "[claps] TAKE THAT! And your good looks are gone too! UH HUH! You are not some saint in white!"

"[laughs] Samurai? Samurai!"

[Ezra gets... tassed?] "Ok, that doesn't make me laugh anymore"

"You can do it EZRA! SQUISH THEM"

"I love Zeb's legs. They can make him jump so far and can grab on to almost anything" ((...ok))

"I hate how they are killing everyone" ((But is just Gregor, Melch survived)) "That doesn't mean they aren't trying!!"

[Purrgils appear] "WOOOOOOAAAH! [starts dancing]"

"Seems like they are enjoying this a lot... destroying all the ships"

[Whatever happens now] "Yep! Both of you!"

[tentacles break into the Chimaera's bridge]"I love him! You can do it Ezra! You are the best! Kanan would be proud!"

"Oh no... he's not going to leave"

[I have to see this through to the end] "THEY ARE KILLING EVERYONE!!!"******

[Ezra jumps to hyperspace] "... [stares in shock]..."

"... my vocabulary doesn't allow me the kinds of words I want to say..."

"Uhm, was that the plan? HAHAHA, oh yeah..."

"Oh so Pryce will stay... ok, goodbyeeeee"

"Be careful with Ezra's lightsaber! That's all we got left of him!" (( Yeah, in fact, is the only one they have left. We don't know where Kanan's ended up. Last time we saw it, Pryce had it and showed it to Thrawn)) "Maybe she still had it. Or is in her office. Or in Thrawn's museum... gallery" ((That's on Thrawn's ship... I don't think it got there))

"Cheers and so long! Everything went well! Well, most of it anyway because they kept killing everyone... the end shouldn't mean *'QUICK, KILL EVERYBODY!'\*, no no no no..."

[If you are watching this recording-] "*-Then I'm already dead*"

So there you have it. SHE GOT INTENSE. As always she was really vocal when she did or didn't like something. Kanan's death was very difficult to get through and I can't imagine doing it if we had watched the show live. Had DUME kept playing in TV we would have missed more than half the episode because she would simply don't stand up from the ground and she would have understood less. I had to explain her most of the stuff with the wolves, DUME/Kanan, the portals... and I knew it because I followed Rebels Recon and every interview I could find from Filoni but how many children did actually get it on their own? In any case, the second bggest shock was Jacen. That was a bomb and I'm actually surprised she took such issue with the "

[I can't wait to come home] "He's alive, but what does that matter if THIS IS THE LAST EPISODE! THERE'S NOTHING LEFT! SO WHAT. There's nothing more! They are going to leave us hanging!!"

[Epilogue starts] ((Time passed)) "[frowns]... how much? How long?" ((years)) "[glares, eye twitches]" ((... like 5 to 6 years. The movies already happened. The ones with Luke, Leia and Han...)) "...WHERE IS EZRA!?"

"OOOH SABINE LOOKS AMAZING"

[Zeb took Kallus to Lira San] "That's nice"

"WHO IS HE???" [Jacen Syndulla] "....WHO DID YOU HAVE THAT BABY WITH, HERA!?" ((with Kanan! That's Kanan's son!!)) "[stares in disbelief]" ((Don't you believe me?)) "Ok, hold on... [stands up, goes to a corner and screams/laughs in confusion clawing at the wall]" ((what the-)) "IT JUST** *CAN'T* BE! HOW?? WHEN? They had just said I LOVE YOU and then he got killed! If Hera and Kanan hadn't said 'I love you' until just before he got killed, then how could they have done *it*!!?? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE" ((Well, they were together before that!)) "[slightly disturbed] But without saying 'I love you'? how-....UGH, that would be weird... but... WHEN? AT WHAT TIME? We were watching them all the time! They never seemed to spent the night together!" ((They are not going to show that in a kids show! We assume she had gotten pregnant just before she left)) "THEN WHY DID KANAN DECIDE TO DIE IF HE WAS GOING TO BE A DAD! Why choose that path!? HIS SON NEEDS HIM! Hera needed him!" ((I'm not sure sure he knew)) "He knew! He could see the future! If he saw all that was going to happen then he knew!" ((She was likely going to get killed there. It was either her or him. He choose her to live. We- we haven't finished yet, we need to keep watching)) "I REFUSE! WHERE IS EZRA!? Where is he? WHE*RE IS* HE!?"**********

"Sabine! Where is he?"

[Ahsoka is waiting] "HELLO THERE" (( *SNORTS*))

[is time to bring him home] "So I guess they are going to make a movie of that, right?" ((A movie, a comic or a book.. maybe. Hopefully.)) "What... no. A movie! Not all kids read books or comics. We want to watch it!"

[credits rolls] "[smiles] Alright then... [stars laughing manically, rocking back and forth] IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! They couldn't have had a kid!"

((Remember that hashtag they used? #AhsokaLives? Well, now it is #WheresEzra)) "[desperate screaming]"

Bonus: I offhandedly mentioned her the Steve Blum's comment about Zeb going to Lira San to start a family with Kallus and she stared at me in disbelief and whispered "... oh my god...I never thought about it... they are perfect". xD

So there you have it. SHE GOT INTENSE. As always she was really vocal when she did or didn't like something. Kanan's death was very difficult to get through and I can't imagine doing it if we had watched the show live. Had DUME kept playing in TV we would have missed more than half the episode because she would simply don't stand up from the ground and she would have understood less. I had to explain her most of the stuff with the wolves, DUME/Kanan, the portals... and I knew it because I followed Rebels Recon and every interview I could find from Filoni but how many children did actually get it on their own? In any case, the second biggest shock was Jacen. That was a bomb and I'm actually surprised she took such issue with the "I Love You" problem. The implications actually unsettled her quite a lot. In any case, she is really angry about not knowing what happened to Ezra and when I told her about Resistance she didn't care because she wanted at least the story with Ahsoka and Sabine.

Well, it's over now. I'm still not completely over what happened and just trying to stay afloat waiting for any sign of the blueberries lost in space. I want to thank everyone for their kind comments. I hope this relatively small peek at what the target audience was thinking about the series has been a great experience for you guys too. Rewatching each season with my niece really put a lot of things in perspective. Right now she's coping by playing with me the Sims 3 with the whole cast I had done the other day. She wants me to stay put for any news on Sabine and Ahsoka sooo... night gathers and my watch begins. \SALUTES**

Submitted May 05, 2018 at 09:17PM via reddit https://ift.tt/2FQa0VG

#star wars rebels #ezra bridger #kanan jarrus #caleb dume #hera syndulla #garazeb orrelios #zeb orrelios #sabine wren #sabine #ezra #thrawn #kalluzeb #kane roberts #jacen syndulla #star wars

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