#implied Kalluzeb at least | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

floralegia · 5 years

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I’m probably never going to write this out properly because it would be l o n g, but I rediscovered it in the depths of my google drive the other night and felt it deserved to be put out into the world, so in not-quite-fic form: let’s talk about Kalluzeb and soulmarks/soulwords/first-thing-your-soulmate-says-to-you AU.

Zeb is one of very very few Lasat with soulwords, as it’s just not something that happens to their species, so only Lasat whose soulmates are from different species end up with words; he first notices when he’s a teen, since they’re under fur and hidden on his shoulder blade (and don’t typically appear until puberty anyway). He doesn’t know much Basic yet, but his dad translates them for him: “You! Lasat! Face me!” implies that he’ll leave Lasan for sure, but he doesn’t worry about it; the Honor Guard is what’s in his immediate future, what he’s striving toward, and that is more important. Besides, challenging people to fights is a regular part of Lasat courtship, so the idea that he’ll meet his soulmate that way doesn’t bother him either.

“Only the Honor Guard of Lasan may carry a bo-rifle” doesn’t make a lot of sense at first, but Alexsandr isn’t exactly the kind of child who’s afraid of research. The thing is, once he (quickly) discovers that Lasan is — well — populated by Lasats, not humans, and Lasats are pretty drastically different in a lot of ways, he sort of panics and resolves to hide his soulwords. Luckily that’s not that uncommon on Coruscant, or really most quote-unquote ‘civilized’ (read: Core) worlds, where it’s considered impolite to see the soulwords of anyone but your soulmate. He tries to rationalize that maybe his soulmate isn’t Lasat at all — maybe they’re just a perfectly nice human (a woman, ideally, to please his parents) who’s teaching him about the Lasat. But that just doesn’t feel right; something in his gut tells him that’s wrong. When Onderon happens on top of that, and both the low-grade fear he’s had his entire life about someone discovering his soulwords and the intense, visceral trauma of watching his squad be murdered in cold blood in front of him are laid, at least in his mind, at the feet of the Lasat as a race, something in him breaks.

Therefore, when Alexsandr meets his soulmate in combat, he tells himself it doesn’t make a difference, not least because the man is a terrorist and a brute. But that doesn’t stop him from becoming quietly obsessed, keeping a private and intensely detailed file on Garazeb Orrelios, trying to discover as much as he can.

After that first fight with Kallus, Zeb is just… off. For weeks. And no one on the Ghost can figure out why. Kanan can tell that he’s in pain; Ezra is convinced he has some sort of misplaced guilt about almost dying, and teases him about it too hard as a result. Eventually, someone (Hera?) notices that he seems especially uncomfortable around Hera & Kanan, who aren’t exactly secretive (at least amongst the crew) about the fact that they’re soulmates, even though their relationship is actually kind of complicated. It’s deduced that whatever Zeb’s upset about, it must be soulmate-related, so it’s probably best not to pry, and even Ezra agrees not to ask, and to let up on him a bit.

The name of the game seems to be ignoring it; if you ask Zeb, Kallus only seems more pissed off whenever he’s around, and he can’t say the same isn’t true for him. The idea that his soulmate is responsible for the genocide of his entire planet is absolutely horrifying, and he only wishes that ignoring it would make it go away.

And then Bahryn happens.

They don’t talk about it until just as the Ghost is arriving, and Zeb is about to leave. “Wait — you —” Kallus can’t seem to get a full sentence out, but Zeb understands. “Yes.” That’s it. And then he leaves, with just one last unreadable look over his shoulder.

Well kriff, Kallus isn’t going to just take that lying down. So he goes back to the Empire, and in addition to his little off-the-record file on Zeb, he starts to pull things and make his own private file on Geonosis. On other Imperial ‘victories,’ too — Batonn, the Dhen-Moh genocides, the escalating conflict on Ghorman. Onderon: he learns what created the Partisans, where Saw Guerrera came from, and he doesn’t forgive them, but he grows to understand. Lasan: he comes to grips as best he can with exactly what he did, and what role he played, whether or not he’d understood at the time.

He tells Sabine, “Tell Garazeb Orrelios… we’re even,” and trusts Zeb to understand that that’s the exact opposite of what he means.

He stretches out his intelligence network, shady contacts and informants acquired through years and years of ISB service, and slowly, carefully, without giving any of them enough information to connect the dots, he becomes Fulcrum. He knows it’s not enough; soulmate or not, he knows he doesn’t deserve Zeb’s forgiveness. Nothing can change that. But he also knows that that’s no excuse to keep on ‘just following orders'. Not now that he knows better.

And Zeb — not only does he understand the subtext in what Sabine passes along to him, but when Ezra and Kanan return wide-eyed with stories of Kallus in an elevator and the light of Lothal’s moons, for the first time in years, he feels hope for his own, personal future.

Kallus’ warning to the Rebels gets there only in part. Zeb’s no idiot: he knows that’s not a good sign. So he goes into the Battle of Atollon already thinking his soulmate is probably dead, or at the very least at Thrawn’s mercy somewhere — and death might actually be preferable to that. So then, when he sees the escape pod, and Kallus bloody and bruised but alive: his blood is singing, and even with everything that they’ve lost, he wants to cry for joy.

When Kallus enters the cockpit of the Ghost, Zeb doesn’t even think before going to him, checking him quickly and fiercely for injuries and then drawing him in close, keeping a protective grip on him as they make the jump to hyperspace.

He has responsibilities; he goes and talks to the Mandos with Hera, because he has to, and leaves Kallus alone, because he has to. Kallus, now uncomfortably aware that everyone on the damn ship probably knows he’s Zeb’s soulmate (assuming they didn’t already), hides awkwardly in the hallway and only speaks to Kanan when he sees him because he knows he won’t ever be able to express his gratitude fully for the fact that the ridiculous, righteous, bleeding hearts of the Rebellion are giving him a second chance.

They’re constantly dragged apart by their duties — Zeb to the crew and the ship, and Kallus trapped debriefing Dodonna and Hera for most of the remaining trip, once he’s had some first aid — until they reach Yavin, and really until everyone else is gone and the Ghost is empty and it’s just the two of them.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Kallus blurts out, and then immediately wants to kick himself directly in the face, because what the kriff, that came out awful, that’s not what he meant at all. But Zeb understands.

“If you had, I wouldn’t — I wouldn’t feel the way I feel about you.” If you had, you wouldn’t be my soulmate.

And Then They Kiss, Obviously.

#mine #notfic #kalluzeb #sw #rebels

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frxstguardian · 6 years

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My review of the Rebels S4 finale

Overall, I’m very pleased with the finale. It was a proper sendoff to all the characters we love while leaving room for future adventures/stories. It was a fitting conclusion to Ezra’s story, ending where we began on Lothal. For me, Rebels was honestly the most enjoyable part of current Star Wars canon, not the movies, so I eagerly await Dave Filoni’s next animated TV show.

Spoilers below the cut.

Ezra: This boy has grown up so much since S1, from a street rat to a leader, Jedi, and hero. Opening the last episode with Ezra talking to his parents was a sucker punch to the gut. I’m so proud of how confident/competent he is compared to the scared lost boy from S1. Ezra singlehandedly planned and led a mission to liberate his planet and even put backup plans in place! Also he legit threatened to let the wolves eat Governor Pryce omfg what a badass. Idk why but when he said “one last time” before crawling into the vents like the old days is the exact moment I realized how far he’s come. Back in S1, I used to think Ezra was annoying and generic, but now he’s one of my favorite Star Wars characters and it’s gonna be agony waiting years to see him onscreen again.

Sabine: I thought Sabine would return to Mandalore and retake the Darksaber or at least be Bo-Katan’s second-in-command/heir apparent? Maybe they’ll revisit Mandalore in the next animated TV show idk. But her ending was still fitting. I think she felt she owed it to Ezra to stay and protect Lothal especially since Zeb’s people needed him and Hera wanted to fight with the Rebellion. Also I love that Dave Filoni kept their relationship platonic in the finale. I think it was implied that she’s keeping Ezra’s lightsaber for him?

Hera: Every time any character referred to Hera as “General Syndulla” I ascended to higher dimension. Tbh she didn’t really have much to do in the finale, since her major storylines were earlier in S4. Also Hera randomly wearing makeup in the epilogue scene felt weird/OOC but oh well.

Zeb: I legit thought Zeb was gonna die for a minute during that fight with Rukh. Also is kalluzeb canon now omfg??? I watched an interview where the voice actors for Zeb and Pryce were both like “we ship it” haha.

Thrawn: Thrawn’s monologue to Ezra where he completely outmaneuvered the rebels really showed why he’s a scary opponent. I can’t believe the Bendu was being literal when he prophesized Thrawn’s defeat in S3... Filoni knew all along and played us just like with Ahsoka and those Topps cards. Also Thrawn’s henchman Rukh was so annoying and not interesting as a villain, I’m glad he’s finally dead lmao. Since both Ezra and Thrawn survived I’m interested how his character will be relevant moving forward.

Pryce: I liked Governor Pryce in the finale after she was pretty bland in S3. The voice actress did a really good job. The interaction between Pryce and Kallus acknowledging their shared history as Imperial officers was a nice touch. Also Thrawn didn’t have to obliterate her entire life with “I expected Governor Pryce to fail, but not so completely” but he DID and it was SAVAGE.

Palpatine: Okay Palpatine was so good in this episode! His grandfatherly Chancellor persona dressed in white was so unnerving since we know what he really looks like. The hologram flickering into his hooded Emperor persona was freaky in a good way. Ian McDiarmid’s voice acting was impeccable. I was expecting him to say “DO IT” but he never did haha.

Ahsoka: I’m glad Ahsoka only showed up at the end. It would’ve distracted from the main cast otherwise. Bless Dave Filoni for confirming she lives post-ROTJ though. Her Gandalf the White cosplay was stunning a;lsdkfjal;dj.

Miscellaneous: Honestly wasn’t expecting the purrgil and yeah it’s a deus ex machina but it was a nice callback and a clever solution to the “where is Ezra during the OT?” problem. Ezra couldn’t defeat Thrawn but he could remove both himself and Thrawn from the equation and finally give the rebels an advantage. I guess Filoni got around “Scarif was the first major victory for the Rebellion” bc technically the liberation of Lothal was Ezra’s personal mission that Rebel Command never authorized? Kevin Kiner’s music was brilliant as always and elevated every scene to new emotional heights. Dave Filoni himself revealed as the voice of Chopper oh my god...

Epilogue: The parallels between the openings of the pilot and the epilogue!!! ALSO BLUE SKY BLUE SKY BLUE SKY. That was the first time we ever saw a clear blue sky over Lothal and it’s so beautiful and symbolic. Jacen Syndulla’s design honestly isn’t that bad, like the green hair is kinda atrocious but he’s not that ugly haha. What an ominous name choice though... How many years was the time skip? Even right after the Battle of Endor is 5 years later which is longer than how much time Ezra spent with his family on the Ghost :( Sabine’s short hair is a lesbian haircut a;lksdjfl;asjdf;j. My Ahsoka and Sabine dream team riding off into the sunset together to find Ezra <3

Top 3 emotional moments:

The entire “Sabine sees Ezra” scene

Ezra crying while letting go of his parents

Ezra’s goodbye before jumping to hyperspace

Top 3 dramatic shots:

Ezra igniting his lightsaber with 3 giant wolves behind him

Ahsoka arriving with a wizard cloak and staff

Ezra facing the Emperor in the ruins of the temple

Top 3 dialogue lines:

“For that boy, there is nothing I would not do.” BIG MOOD

“It was an honor to fight with you for something we chose to believe in.” BRB CRYING FOREVER

“You think you can take whatever you want. Things you didn’t make, didn’t earn! Things you don’t even understand.” Me while Ezra (and Hera when Thrawn taunted her with the stolen kalikori) lecture Thrawn on cultural appropriation: “Go off!!!”

#fox talks #star wars rebels #swr spoilers #swr

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