#tfa Wilder
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what are some occupations that you think could be interesting to give to orion? other than the ones we already have (data clerk/archivist, cop, dock worker, etc) of course.
For IDW OP's personality specifically, me and a friend once said that he would do really well in a position as a park/forest ranger: someone who gets to spend all their time in the wilderness and be self-righteous about following the rules, but he's really in the right to do so because conservation and wildlife protection is serious shit. And OP does love organics as a consistent part of his character, so he would enjoy traveling Cybertron or the galaxy learning different biomes and helping with ecological issues.
Related, OP would also make a good first responder like an EMS or fire fighter. We technically got fire fighter Optimus in TFA, but that was more of his job on Earth rather than his job on Cybertron that was his actual backstory. But emergency services/first responder would be a great option for an Orion to have an action hero job that also involves compassion and care for others.
I'm really 👀 about Earthspark showing a flashback of Orion being some kind of manual laborer. Him being a construction worker, trucker, or even miner (hehe, role reversal) would be great for that working class hero character.
And because I myself am a martial arts nerd, I think it would be neat if we got a jock Optimus that was a martial artist, maybe not a profession per se but maybe just raised in a specific order e.g. TFA Prowl, Lockdown, and Yoketron? Again, combining the aspects of a badass action hero with someone who's thoughtful, disciplined, and wise.
#squiggle answers#in other words. literally anything besides a librarian or archivist i'm so fucking BORED with that backstory
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Noble in ES anon: so my idea is that Transmutate and Noble are among a number of mutated Transformers created by the Quintessons after gaining the AllSpark. They were a part of a mass experiment to make new Transformers or at least replicate the same process that creates new Transformers, although this hasn't been at all successful. At least in the eyes of the Quintessons. To Transmutate and Noble, they could care less, they escape and become a part of a group of Transformers living out in the Quintesson wilderness like Wheelie did in that one storybook. If the Quintessons get a hold of Optimus, I could see them trying to make Nemesis Prime.
And yes, Mandroid actually calls the Terrans a mix of both organic and Cybertronian materials, which I guess does make them techno-organic, which if Earthspark goes the TFA route, then it might make for some interesting encounters if there are some Autobot or Decepticon colonies that have survived Cybertron's fall, especially if Sentinel Prime is a character in the series. Maybe be a whole case of "would the Terrans be accepted by other Autobots/Decepticons that have never been to Earth?"
It actually makes me curious if there would be more techno-organic Transformers in the series, especially if the Emberstone's properties are to use whatever materials avaliable to it means that the majority of any Transformer species created by the Emberstone would be techno-organic by nature.
Speaking of Transmutate, there might be reason that Rampage might be another experiment by the Quintessons, but is kept under lock and key and used to terrorize unruly colonies because leaving him in the same space as their other experiments would not be smart in their eyes. I could see them using Rampage against the Terrans and the Earth Transformers like he was Doomsday from Superman: Doomsday.
Ooo
That'd lead to interesting consequences, and they (shall I call them Maximals?) will definitely play an interesting part considering the other players in this game
OWO on the Quints trying to make Nemesis prime
So I'm right they're technoorganic (does this mean Tara, like his other appearances, is technoorganic too?)
I feel like Sentinel Prime, if he was in Earthspark, will have been a prime previous to Optimus and there'll be a whole ~thing~ because I feel like he'll be based on IDW Sentinel Prime, raising the stakes. You suggesting he'll be a current antagonist towards the terrans makes sense with that information, and I can see him being a MAJOR MAJOR antagonist unlike tfa Sentinel.
Again I'm gonna mention my HC that earthspark Shockwave changed his opinions on the terrans thanks to some of the shit that went down while he was under GHOST custody, as well as them rescuing him. Even if there isn't a reason like that then yes there is on this blog. If it's a plot hole then I'm getting the asphalt and shovel to fill it in myself.
Considering how we see the dweller too, yes I feel like we're gonna see more technoorganic mecha and creatures!
Oo on Rampage being an unwilling antagonist possibly turned ally!
#maccadam#transformers#rampage Transmutate#Quintessons#tfe tarantulas#transformers earthspark#bw noble
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Hello, may I request Evanstan + 47? 🙃
Hi lovely tejodore 💕💕 Thank you so much!!
#47 is Skate by Silk Sonic (which, fun fact, Chris mentioned during Lightyear press as a song that instantly puts him in a good mood) 🥰
And I especially liked these lyrics for our boys: I never fall, but tonight you got me fallin' for you // And only you, you // I'm reaching out in hopes that you reach for me too
Clearly I’m incapable of making these short. But here it is, a little TFA era fun, especially for you 😘😘
This wasn’t the first time they’d gone out with a bunch of the cast and crew. Not even the first time Sebastian had joined them, although he’d needed some prompting. But it was definitely a little wilder than most of the other times. Maybe it was because they were so close to wrapping, and they had a long weekend break, so people felt free to let loose a little, maybe have a couple of drinks too many.
They’d started out at a pub, had a few (more than a few) beers, and at some point, someone - Chris doesn’t even remember who - suggested they’d go to a club, for some more drinks and dance. Chris had immediately said yes, always in for a good time, but to his surprise - delight, actually - Sebastian had said he was in too.
Which brings them here, to a club Chris doesn’t even know the name of, a song playing he doesn’t recognize, and a drink in his hand he doesn’t remember ordering. Not because he’s so drunk. He can hold his liquor pretty well. He’s just…entranced. By the way Sebastian is moving around the club, dancing so freely, so smoothly, so…so…He exudes pure sex. Sebastian. His soft spoken, shy, friendly, adorably nerdy costar. That Sebastian. And it’s doing things to Chris.
It’s not like he hasn’t noticed how good Sebastian looks before. They’ve spent so much time - both on and off set - together these past few months. He’s gotten to know Seb pretty well, after he broke through the initial shyness. They’d had dinners and drinks together, watched movies in each other’s hotel rooms, roamed the streets of London together on their days off.
He’s gotten to know Sebastian, with all his little quirks, his smirks and self-deprecating humor. He figured out how much they have in common, interests wise - space, books, their appreciation for their craft - and he’d gotten to love listening to Seb talk about the ones they don’t, the way he’d light up talking about his passions.
Chris isn’t blind. He’s always known he’s attracted to men just as much as he is to women, and Seb is objectively an attractive guy, with his lean built, his blue grey eyes, ridiculous bone structure and shiny brown hair that will curl a little no matter how much Sebastian tells it not to. Chris just hasn’t felt…this kind of attraction, bordering on lust, until tonight. Okay, so maybe it crossed that border a couple of hours ago when Sebastian winked at him coyly before taking to the dance floor. He isn’t sure where that came from.
Chris isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting here, staring at Sebastian, who’s clearly having the time of his life. Sebastian is laughing, throwing his head back in reaction to something the guy he’s dancing with told him, and Chris is helpless but to follow the line of his neck with his eyes, feeling a sort of hunger and jealousy and want build up in him. That feeling gets a 100 times more intense when Sebastian’s gaze slips over to him, lingering there just for a moment, biting his lip. Chris doesn’t want go imagine how red it is. He wants to see for himself.
He throws back the last of his drink - vodka with something, he’s finally figured out - and gets up out of the booth. He makes his way over to Sebastian in a couple of quick strides. Sebastian looks up at him, as does the man that currently has his hands on Sebastian’s hips, but Chris pays him no mind, holding out his hand instead. “You wanna dance?” He asks, and Sebastian nods, eyes glittering under the club lights. They both ignore the protests of the other man saying that they were dancing already.
Chris places Sebastian’s hand on his back, shivering a little when Sebastian lets it slide down a little. “Is this okay,” Seb asks, as he leans in a little.
“Yeah, yeah- is this?” Chris asks in return, as he puts his own hands on Sebastian’s waist. Sebastian just smirks, and soon enough, they’re gliding around the dance floor together, pressing themselves closer and closer to each other. Sebastian’s a much better dancer than Chris is, and he has some difficulty keeping up at first, but at some point it devolves into something that can’t even be described as dancing anymore.
They’re grinding against each other, and Chris can feel his own heartbeat speed up as he hears Sebastian’s breath hitch. It makes him look up, first at Sebastian’s lips, then his eyes, then his lips again. He wants to ask, wants to ask if it’s okay if he kisses him. He feels like he’s gonna burn up from the inside if he doesn’t. But he doesn’t have to ask. Not a moment later, those red bitten lips press against his, and he can’t hold back the gasp of surprise he lets out, before kissing back just as fiercely.
As he closes his eyes and the rest of the club falls away around them, his entire focus on where they’re pressed against each other and the feeling of Sebastian’s tongue warring for dominance with his and losing, he thinks that maybe, maybe he’s an idiot. He’s probably been falling for Sebastian for a long time, maybe even since the day they met, and he didn’t even realize. But now? Now he knows. He sighs into Sebastian’s mouth, feeling more content than he has in months, which soon turns into excitement, about what’s possibly to come next. Both tonight, and maybe, maybe even far beyond that.
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🍩 and 🎯 for TFA Grey, TFP Grey, and Faux Pas!
🍩+🎯 for TFA Grey!
TFA Grey works in a game store! She has the perfect cheery disposition for customer service, and enjoys her job quite a bit. Hosts card tournaments and board game events as well for loyal patrons, and knows everything about every kind of game. A nerd at heart… god help the players when they ask her to join in the fun, she is a menace with certain games
TFA Grey doesn’t really have rivals or arch-nemesis’… and is actually quite oblivious that she’s even considered someone’s enemy… which means there are plenty of people willing to tear into her at any given chance…
🍩+🎯 for TFP Grey!
TFP Grey actually worked as a photographer out in Nevada’s wilderness, preferring to work in silence and stillness. Always focuses on getting her perfect shots…
The only rival TFP Grey has is a government agent obsessed with catching her and using her as a form of bait before taking her in for justice… “Treason against her country,” as he claims… safe to say, Grey is pretty insistent on not getting caught by Autobots or otherwise…
🍩+🎯 for Faux Pas!
Faux works as a mercenary hacker. She works best with lines and codes, stealing information and blackmail for her clients before slipping away to deliver. She is very good at her job and prides herself on her wits and cunning… unfortunately her pride and ego gets her into quite a few tight spots as well, though nothing she can’t charm her way out of…
Faux has one arch-nemesis. Asher Monsoon. A detective in the police force that is charged with tracking her and trapping her, though she’s never come close. Faux takes absolute delight in playing catch and mouse with Asher, tormenting her with nearly catching her before disappearing again… Asher despises her, Faux disregards her as a threat, the two are just a poodle and a rabid Pomeranian going at it-
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My last post was an excerpt of wholesome TFP vibes. Now have some TFA angst! >:D
I might post the second half and prequel of this except later… but I love cliffhangers.
Betrayal of the Spark
"Have fun in your new home, Decepticon scum."
Sentinel Prime smirked smugly at the imprisoned Starscream before walking off. The Decepticon glared after him but quickly returned to feeling confused and betrayed. After everything they did together, everything she said… why did she let him get captured? Why did she play an active role in it? Of course… just when he thought someone finally believed in him, she turned her back on him. Why?
It was so sudden. There was no warning or indication of Hope's change of behavior. First, she starts acting differently… as if trying to avoid something. Next, she tells him to stop calling him on her coms, and doesn't pick up when he does. Then, she stops meeting him at their usual spot. Finally… the current situation. He couldn't understand why this happened. Did he do something wrong? Did he say something he wasn't supposed to? Why did she give him up instead of talking it out, like always?
He knew that big-chinned fool of a prime had given her a hard time ever since that accident on the organic planet. He understood how toxic and influential his words had on her, despite the courage and toughness she challenged him with at every turn. He had a feeling Sentinel must have played a part in this. Did he say something to her? Do something? Had he… somehow discovered their secret? Either way, how dare he make his Autobot turn away from him? This was all he knew… he was breaking out of this Elite Guard ship, and he would get answers.
***********
“What’s going on with Hope, Boss-Bot?”
Bumblebee asked his leader. Optimus sighed in defeat.
"I don't know. Her mood changed so unexpectedly. I've tried talking to her, but… she won't say anything. She can always talk to me, and she does, but not this time. I'm worried."
Optimus voiced his concern. He knew his Amica. They share everything, and it takes a lot to get her down. She wouldn't even talk to him now. He understood something was seriously wrong, and he couldn't do anything except provide as much comfort as he could. It greatly bothered him.
"I guess the best thing we can do is wait and see. Don't worry, Prime; Hope will come to you when ready."
Ratchet stepped up to them and reassured his leader. Optimus replied with a slight nod.
Meanwhile, deep in the Detroit wilderness, Hope sat on a grassy ledge with a marvelous view of the illuminated city. This was where they would primarily meet. Where they would talk and joke, grieve and comfort, or just silently lie together to watch the twinkling night sky. Despite what she did, she missed him terribly. She kept reassuring herself that her decision would lead to the best outcome for both of them. However, her mind returned to how he must think of her… the way he looked at her when he realized she was the one who put the stasis cuffs on him. His eyes screamed of hurt and betrayal. She could practically read his mind at the time, calling her a backstabber and a glitch while asking: how could she do this to him? Why did you do this? I loved you… she hugged herself tightly, her face contorted with heartbreak.
“He’ll never want me again….”
“Don’t be too sure of that, my dear.”
She gasped and turned around quickly. What? How? No, it couldn’t be… but it was. Standing right behind her was him, Starscream. How did he escape the Elite Guard ship? What was he doing back here?!
“S-Screamy?! You got out!“
Of course. Did you think those idiots you call the Elite Guard could hold me?”
She wanted that… he could have had a fair trial and not have a long sentence in prison.
“I-I see… but what are you-“
“I want answers. Now.”
She flinched at his harsh tone. The only other time he spoke to her like that was when they first met. She stood up to fully face him and explain.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I-“
“Then why?”
He took a step closer to her, which she took a step back for. She didn’t answer him.
“I asked you a question… why?”
He stepped towards her again and she stepped back. His energon was starting to boil.
“What…?”
“Why?!”
He took one more step… well, it was more of a stomp. He had it up to here with her, and his crimson optics bore into her. She squeaked softly from his outburst and stepped back again. She gasped as her back bumped against a tree. The outspoken and strong-willed Autobot was rendered meek and cornered.
“Why did you turn me in?! Why did you… leave me?”
“If you’re just here to kill me… do it. You have every right to.”
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TFA Gale Force
[Note that all of my tf content is a blend of different canons and fanfiction. TFA is the primary inspiration, but some of the history specifics are... smudged bc I was kicking around MTMTE content and fanfiction that went ham on world building at the time]
◦ Gale Force- former meteorologist
◦ Alt mode- ceilometer (a device for measuring and recording the height of clouds, cloud ceilings, and cloud bases; useful in air travel Because it affects visibility, it determines whether pilots can use Visual Flight Rules (VFR) or must follow Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) instead) there's no reason for that instrument to be sentient, but whatever
◦ Flies using paragliders, hang gliders, and kites (sometimes), and is working on some kind of approximation of turbine-less wings to fly with (flying ideas based off of Cybertronian fauna)
◦ Makes all his kites and gliders from scratch, knitting the mesh that catches the wind from recycled scrap if he has to (which he does when he has to make a new glider among the Decepticons)
◦ Cheery exterior belies his frustrations and the barely restrained urge to punch you in the face
◦ Currently lives with two Decepticon brothers as their pet tag along ( they found him in the wilderness, where they mistook him for a wild animal).
◦ Observes: watched the skies, winds, and people; not much of a talker, but when he does speak, it’s always politely with a sweet smile and a kind voice even if he’s calling you a mother fucking maggot with legs and beating you into the ground with a stick (behavioral glitch; he doesn't talk as much as he could specifically bc he can't change his vocal tone or facial expression when he speaks)
◦ Tries to be optimistic
◦ His constant smiling kind of creeps people out, especially among the Decepticons (part of the glitch)
◦ Used to be part of an anti-Autobot organization (as of yet unamed) due to being treated as subhuman for his size and altmode (he is v smol). While on a mission for this organization, the transport vessel he was riding in crashlanded, leaving him in a state more primed for survival than societal interaction.
◦ Durring his time with Autobots, he was under the dubious employ of a well repected mech who used his underworld contacts to get what he wanted. This caused Gale to have contacts in the underworld when he managed to escape his employer (whether he escapes through murdering the mech or taking the oportunity to run is up in the air)
◦ After that, Gale was always distrustful of other bots, especially those of high authority. There are other bots with similar experiences, which lead to the anti-Autobot group mentioned before
◦ Flier friends: Skyflare and Blackbolt
◦ Medic friend: Blowout
◦ Found the injured trine member of Skyflare and Blackbolt before he met any other Decepticons and defending him is got him marked as a Decepticon sympathizer because he saw Raindance (trine member) as a person, rather than an enemy (tried to help Raindance heal knowing that Autobot command (in the area) were giant dicks and didn’t treat a lot of bots like well. He had lots of experience with them shooting him out of the sky, knowing he wasn't a con, and laughing at his misery when he trudged back from his crash landing)
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Future TFA Designs Continued
Decided to continue with designs for TFA Future, cus why not? I have fun with it!
Featured here: Sari with battle skates, blade, and helmet out. Daniel Witwicky, Wilder, and Headmaster.
Some details about them in future tfa I thought of under the cut.
Daniel Witwicky
> New Captain of the Detroit Police Force
> Son of Spike and Carly, the two kind of traumatized by Ratchet when they asked to be taken to the hospital then realized he was alive
> He and Sari, while forced to be “friends” at first, became actual friends later on in their lives- a change somewhat prompted by Penelope, who is far more socially capable than Sari will ever be
> He thinks Optimus is the coolest ever and hopes the Autobots will come back one day (he was a bit disappointed when only Bumblebee came to visit)
> He has Fanzone’s giant brick phone as a good luck charm, as it was given to him by the former captain before retirement
Wilder
> Snagged straight from Masterforce, Wilder is the leader of a hovercycle gang known as the Jack Boys
> Wilder has a spine of solid steel, metaphorically. Guy isn’t scared of anything. He’s also kind of a dramatic emo punk who declares his love of Penelope… and doesn't seem to realize what the word “lesbian” means
> He terrorizes Detroit in their gang war with the Cool Guys- a rival hovercycle gang
>The Jack Boys are losing the gang war but not through error of their own aside from a numbers game, one jack boy is worth two Cool Guys but sadly the cool guys outnumber them three to one.
> Wilder would likely end up being some sort of fall guy or henchman in Decepticon plans to break Megatron out of prison in exchange for a leg up in the fight against the Cool Guys (if I’d go the route of Decepticons showing at all)
Headmaster
> The years didn’t treat Masterson well
> As Penelope puts it, “He somehow got grosser and is as annoying as ever.”
> After the events of tfa he was outright blacklisted from the world of robotics and science
> Bitter and unwilling to admit his own actions may have led to his own downfall, Masterson is one of the villains currently plaguing Detroit
I have so many potential ramblings about this idea/au/whatever but never know where to start or when to end, lol
#ems art#StressWrites#transformers animated#tfa#future tfa#sari sumdac#tfa villains#Daniel Witwicky#tfa Daniel Witwicky#transformers wilder#tfa Wilder#tfa headmaster
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Rating the Transformers human kids
Worst to best, GO! (Also: characters under 18 only!)*
18. Spike (G1)
Nothing really against him, he’s just kinda lame and doesn’t have much going for him
18. Jan (Victory)
Oh my gosh, this kid was annoying as hell. Not a cute boy, a rude boy through and through! He’d be last place if he didn’t contribute to my pain when Ginrai died and with Victory Leo’s character development.
Everything else about this boy was just an exercise in misery.
You’d think a bot like Star Saber would raise a child to be more humble and polite!
Such a downgrade from Shuta, that teen had a lot of respect in him at least.
17. Koji (RiD01)
Best quality of this young man is how most episodes only let him have like 3 minutes of screentime, that way he didn’t annoy :D
16. Jack Darby (TFP)
Important to the plot and had good moments, but he has no business making me watch teenage romance angst with my own two eyes!
15. Russell (RiD15)
Cute boy, nice father-son dynamic with Denny, I felt for him when Sideswipe killed his TV.
14. Buster (Masterforce)
Buster gets plus points for being really pretty and having a really nice hair colour ~ And for being german :D
13. Wilder (Masterforce)
A Sasuke, got that decepticon spirit and the nice outcast background, nice hair cut, kills a puppy but saves a child. Gives mixed messages man
12. Chip Chase (G1)
Spike exists, but Chip exists with a BRAIN!
And we all gotta appreciate a character with working braincells, especially in a show like G1 :D
Too bad he didn’t really have that much of a presence (apparently he was suppoused to show up in Headmasters, too bad that didn’t happen. Instead we got Spike again)
11. Cab (Masterforce)
Good boy, builds his own home, can talk to animals, will defend his country’s honour, is a fucking prince! He owns himself, I respect that ~
10. Shuta (Masterforce)
One of those shonen protagonist who starts immature and annoying but gets better as the show progresses. I guess. I actually just like him because he beat up Clouder. Also seeing Jan makes me appreciate him more
9. Carly (G1)
Fierce, unafraid, motivated, determined! Broke into decepticon headquarters and placed a bomb there! Where she even got the bomb from? Who knows, but she had one, and she will forever be cherished for being more interesting than Spike!
8. Cancer (Masterforce)
A cutie martial artist who really knows what’s important in life! Redemption I say!
7. Raf (TFP)
Adorable boi, cutie, sweetheart, will do anything to help out, just loveable. I wanna poke his cheek
6. Lightfoot (Masterforce)
What a good looking british rich boy! Humble and sweet, eager to sacrifise himself to save his commander as the loyal second in command! Love him <3
5. Una (Beast Wars)
This little lady deserves a spot high up for the incredible ability to frustrate Megatron and foil his plans, and she didn’t even try! Wonderful! :D
4. Miko (TFP)
Annoying as shit initially, but has the most promising arc out of the three Prime kids. Goes from “Aw so cool!” to “I wont hesitate, bitch!” Takes matters into her own hands, nothing but respect for this girl.
3. Daniel (G1, Headmasters)
LISTEN, I am biased on this boy. He’s just a cute little kid, okay? Adorable child. But unlike kids like Koji or Russell, he managed to be 1/2 reasons for my man Sixshot to redeem himself and save earth! Just by being a cute boy! He’s the kid who looks at this giant killing machine and thinks “He’s like my mother”, you gotta love him and Sixshot man! Best boi, period, just has some really nice interactions with robots.
2. Minerva (Masterforce)
What a sweetheart with the biggest heart and the most compassion of any human character! Will save anyone, treats everyone with respect and kindness without being a push-over. She doesn’t take shit from anyone and will stand up for herself. She made Ginrai take character development pills, by showing what an asshat he was to Cancer.
Doesn’t go against her compassion and what she stands for even when betrayed and used, what a wonderful and inspiring character! <3
1. Sari (TFA)
When it comes to being part of the plot, she has the most going for it by being a techno-organic. But what made me put her on no.1 is her relationship with the bots. We see how much other human kids find her weird and dont wanna associate with her and that makes the fact that the autobots become her friends more precious <3
Like she’s half cybertronian and has no friends on earth, than actual cybertronians show up and she finally has people who are like her and understand her, even if she initially doesn’t know why.
It’s just really cute, okay?
*About age - you will never convince me that Bullhorn and Ranger from Masterforce are fucking 17 year old! Fuck whoever wrote their bio cards! And Road King is said to be 19 in the show anyway and Ginrai must be an adult because he has a friggin job as a truck driver.
Only Lightfoot is underage and the show says he’s 17 by making us combine the numbers 2 and 15.
Oh and Clouder has no given age anywhere, and I’ll go with adult
#transformers#g1#tfa#tfp#sari sumdac#masterforce#headmasters#daniel witwicky#rid15#rid01#beast wars#una#minerva#shuta#cab#wilder#cancer#lightfoot#miko#raf#jack#russell#spike witwicky#carly witwicky#koji onishi
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Like Phantoms, Forever
Chapter Six | Post Tenebras, Lux
Pairing: Ben Solo x Reader
Summary: Your destiny had never been clear to you, only becoming so when it led you to leaving behind the life you knew to train with the galaxy's sole Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker. His Jedi Academy became your new home, bringing with it the promise of someday becoming a Jedi Knight.
While navigating the ways of the Force, an inexplicable connection forms between you and a fellow student—the heir to the legendary Skywalker bloodline, Ben Solo. Together, the two of you must face your destinies and forge the path to your true selves.
What to expect: fluff, violence, sexual content, general angst, mentions/descriptions of injury and death
Additional info: this story is set in 28 ABY, six years prior to the events of TFA
*concurrently being published on AO3 and Wattpad as well!
Masterlist
Word count: 5.8k
───────── ⋆ ☆ ⋆ ─────────
Dry blades of grass scrape against your ankles as you walk the amber plains of Khoonda, searching for a shady spot to begin your new book. The ladies at the market were raving about it, praising it as a so-called “epic romance.” With a few extra credits in your pocket, you had decided to splurge and add it to your basket. Besides, you could use a bit of romantic escapism.
After a bit of wandering, you spot a billowing tree overlooking the rolling hills of Dantooine, wasting no time in claiming it. You shake out a thick blanket, laying it underneath the trunk and drop your belongings onto the quilted pattern.
As you lower yourself to the ground, you hear a low, disembodied growl approaching you. Every muscle in your body freezes in place. That growl could only belong to one creature on this planet: a Kath hound. The species was nearly extinct, making its presence in populated communities, such as Khoonda, incredibly rare. But you weren’t in a populated community anymore—you had ventured beyond the limits of the settlement and out into the wilderness.
Panic seizes your chest as you whip your head around, frantically looking for the source of the noise. Its beady eyes meet yours, less than a meter away from you. Fuck.
The hound slowly stalks toward you, inching closer with each delicate step. You stagger back on your heels, grasping for the tree trunk behind you. Your heart felt as if it were lodged in your throat, your pulse pounding throughout your body. The creature lets out a snarl, sending a jolt of fear through you. A soft whimper escapes your lips as your back makes contact with the tree, effectively locking you between it and the hound.
The hound bares its teeth, strings of thick drool dripping from its fangs. Given the options of fight, flight, or freeze, your body chooses the third, stuck between wanting to run or defend yourself.
It snaps its jaw shut and stalks forward, inspecting you agonizingly slow. The distance separating you from it was quickly dwindling, your heart racing in your throat. Your arms fly up to cover your face and chest, bracing for the impact of an attack.
In a moment of pure instinct, your fingers curl into fists, clenching tight until your knuckles blanched. All you could hope for was a quick death, not one that left you suffering for hours, slowly succumbing to your injuries.
As you prepare for the impact of sharp teeth tearing into your skin, your body goes numb—whether it was a mechanism of fear or self-preservation, you weren’t sure. An unfamiliar sensation encompasses you, completely controlling your senses for a fraction of a second. The only input you can register is the sound of dull humming, a thrum of energy that deafens you to your surroundings, your vision contorted by a dark blur.
A shriek, in what you could only imagine was agony, pulls you from your trance, restoring your senses in full. Hesitantly, you lower your arms, finding the beast writhing beneath you, gasping for air. It's…choking? There was nothing to your knowledge that could have caused it to choke suddenly.
It was only when your hands relaxed at your side, you realized what had happened. As your fingers uncurled, the Kath hound simultaneously ceased its squirming. Did I choke it? You stare down at your trembling hands in disbelief.
There were tales known throughout the galaxy, ones of the mystical power of the Force and the abilities a chosen few could possess. The most notable tale of them all being that of the former Galactic ruler, Darth Vader, who infamously used the Force to choke and squander his opposition. But that couldn’t be the case here. No. You had never been sensitive to the Force.
The flood of adrenaline finally catches up to you, surging through your veins with an overwhelming intensity. Your stomach twists and churns, threatening to expel its acidic contents all over your hand-woven blanket. Pushing past the urge, you snatch the blanket from the ground and begin running back in the direction you had come from.
The ground beneath you was a blur as your feeble legs carried you home. Your entire body is numb, almost weightless, as you run home, barely registering the sting of thorns and branches slicing at the flesh of your ankles.
Tasked with gathering yourself for just long enough to enter the code to your front door, you punch the numbers in, your fingers sliding over the wrong buttons at first. After a few attempts, the lock mechanism groans, welcoming you into your home. You fling the door open and stumble through the entrance, catching your breath.
The sudden clamor grabs your mother’s attention, her head snapping in your direction, a look of concern painted on her face.
“Love, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” she says, moving toward you and placing her bony hands on your shoulders. “What's wrong? Are you okay?”
You open your mouth to speak, but the words die on your tongue. A lump is forming in your throat, your eyes welling up with tears as you collect your thoughts. Unable to control yourself, you bury your face in your hands and let out a sob.
“Shh…shh…” she soothes, guiding you into a nearby seat. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Inhaling a shaky breath, you drop your hands, wiping your hot tears on the silk material of your pants. “I…I didn’t…” A sharp hiccup interrupts you. “I d-didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t mean to do what, honey?” Her rough thumb rubs the back of your hand, swiping gently at your flushed skin. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”
Apprehension fills you as you consider the implications of telling the truth. There was no easy way to tell someone that you accidentally killed another creature, especially when that death came at the hands of an invisible force.
You teeter between lying and sincerity for a moment, before ultimately deciding on the latter.
“I killed a Kath hound.” It felt as if a thousand ton weight had been lifted from your shoulders as the words left your lips. “But I didn’t mean to. In fact, I didn’t even touch it. It just…started to choke when I panicked and froze up, a-and the next thing I remember is it lying there, dead. Mom, I swear I didn’t mean to!”
“No,” she mutters, “that can’t be true.” Her voice is hushed and her eyes wide in horror. She sits up and straightens her back, raking her hands through her hair and shaking her head in disbelief.
“It is true!” Tears stream down your face, a salty concoction of both your guilt and anger. “I killed it! I didn’t mean to, but somehow I did! And now I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I’ve never felt this way before and I’m so sca–”
“Shhh, calm down. It’s okay…” Her voice is alarmingly tranquil, a complete inversion of her unfettered terror just moments ago. “There’s a possibility that you are sensitive to the Force. Your father has never spoken much about it, but there’s a possibility that his ancestors possessed this ability.”
What she was saying made logical sense, of course, but you struggled to believe that this could be reality. Your father barely spoke about his family with you—frankly, hardly spoke about anything to you. He is a busy man who always insists that his family is nothing of significance. It's clear to you now that your mother had been privy to this knowledge for quite some time—so why withhold it from you?
“We always assumed that such abilities wouldn’t manifest in you, considering that your father didn’t inherit it.” Her tone seemed genuine, but your question still remained.
“What does this mean for us? For me?”
Your chest seizes at the idea of harm coming to your family from this revelation. The stories of the ruthless Imperial Inquisitors were well known—Darth Vader’s faithful disciples, tasked with hunting any and all remaining Force-users in every corner of the galaxy. While it was true that the Empire had fallen decades ago, it was no secret that loyalists remained. Even cockroaches could withstand fire.
“We’ll figure something out. I might know someone who can help. There’s talk of a secret Jedi temple somewhere in the Outer Rim, maybe you can go there.”
Your thoughts turn to the presence not currently in the room. Your father would be returning from a business trip in the coming days, you wondered what he would make of all of this.
“Mom, I-I’m scared,” you say weakly. “I don’t want this.”
She frowns knowingly, pulling you into her arms in a comforting embrace. For decades, the discovery of one’s Force-sensitivity meant a lifetime of running and hiding to survive. But things were changing in the galaxy. So much so that a new Jedi Order was possibly being created. Perhaps this classified temple could be a haven for you.
“You drew your power from the dark.”
The Jedi Master’s words sent your eyes flying open, the illustration of that day’s memory quickly giving way to the present. You withdrew your hands from his grasp and instinctively staggered backwards.
“N-no, I didn’t,” you stammered, jumping ahead to defend yourself. “I didn’t even mean to kill it! I-I’ve never been so upset about something in my entire life!”
You were appalled at what he was insinuating. For as long as you could remember, you had made an effort to be peaceful your entire life—to the point that you would catch and release bugs that were in your house instead of squashing them. It was inconceivable that you could have drawn from the dark side.
“Easy there,” Master Skywalker said, suppressing a chuckle. “I know you didn’t mean to kill it. What I’m trying to say is that you innately drew from the darkness within you.” He folded his hands in front of him. “In that moment, you were scared—rightfully so. And it just so happens to be that fear is an emotion fueled by the dark side.”
“What does this mean then? How do I reject the dark side? I want to be a Jedi.” Your voice threatened to break on the last word, terrified of your Master’s answer.
To your surprise, he only placed a hand on your shoulder, beaming at you with his signature glimmer in his eyes. “If being a Jedi meant only using the light side of the Force, then there would’ve never been a Jedi Order to begin with. Every Force-user in the galaxy has both the light and the dark within them, a balance of the two. One cannot exist without the other, remember?”
You nodded in understanding, the grip on your heart slowly relaxing as he spoke.
“Some choose to focus on the light, while others choose the dark. I will teach you to focus on the light. You’ll be alright.”
“Thank you, Master Skywalker.”
You released the breath you had evidently been holding, relaxing the tension in your muscles. He grinned at you, amused by your momentary panic.
“Now, as for the next phase of your training,” he said, pulling your attention back to the conclusion of your training session. “I want us to start in a day’s time, and I need you to be ready. Get a good night’s sleep tonight, it’s going to be a long day.”
“Understood, Master. I’ll be ready.”
With that, he turned on his heels to go work with a cohort of other students.
Rays of sunlight peeked through the sparse cloud cover, drenching you in their sweet warmth. soaking into your skin. Before leaving the training area, your eyes scanned the broad field, hoping to find a certain tall, large-nosed student in the group. It was a disappointing discovery to find that he was not there, your heart sinking a bit in your chest. Yes, you were scheduled to see him in a matter of hours, but waiting that long felt like an impossible task.
The events of last night had been replaying in your mind incessantly, your neurons working diligently to commit to memory precisely where his fingers had touched. Wrapped in his arms, pressed against his lips, he had awoken something within you, something entirely foreign and dizzying. A desire so reckless and intoxicating, it made you question if it had really happened. It was torturous to keep to yourself, wanting nothing more than to climb to the highest point on the planet and shout for the whole galaxy to hear. The entire universe deserved to know about Ben Solo.
So as to not stand around looking like an idiot after your training session had finished, you weighed the options of how to spend your afternoon before Ben was supposed to come by your hut. Flipping through Jedi texts didn’t sound like the most exciting way to spend your time, nor did meditating—the mere concept of which seemed impossible at the moment. A hike didn’t sound too bad, and it could possibly serve as the distraction you were looking for.
Not that you didn’t want to keep reliving how it felt to be with him. To have his nose pressing into your cheek as he kissed you, his hair tickling your face as it fell out of place. Fuck, how did you wander from the shallow end and fall right into the deep? The independent woman in you still wanted to seem aloof, not wanting to relinquish your heart so easily. But it was hard to fight it when Ben was so sweet to you, sickeningly so. Like rich, melted chocolate on your tongue.
A hike it was.
Before you knew it, your legs were carrying you toward the treeline backdropping the Academy’s training grounds. Soon, the chatter from the students was dampened by the thick foliage surrounding you, engulfing you in shades of green. The memory of your fateful encounter with the Kath hound was still lingering in your mind, becoming more prominent when you realized you were putting yourself in an almost identical situation. You were a lot of things, but wise was evidently not one of them.
The seemingly endless expanse of branches and shrubs came to an abrupt stop before you, giving way to a patch of a grassy meadow. There were a handful of outlying saplings scattered throughout the clearing, coinciding with the streams of sunlight that pierced the canopy above.
Bending at your knees, you reached down and ran a hand across the blades of grass and fragile petals. The energy of the area lured you in, enticing you to spend a moment longer in its presence.
Challenging your mind to cooperate, you resigned yourself to meditating. If the fates were to have you stumble upon this dream of a spot, you were going to at least try to take advantage of it. Untying your outer robe from your waist, you sloughed it off your shoulders and folded it into an impromptu seat to act as a barrier between your tan pants and the damp ground.
Settling into the crossed-legged position your Master had taught you, you straightened your spine, focusing on the air rushing in and out of your nostrils. The soft grass surrounding you enveloped your fingers, welcoming you into its touch. As had become routine over the past few weeks, you allowed yourself to become engulfed by the Force, your senses sharpening to experience the might of its energy.
Each time you meditated, your connection with the Force felt different, an evolution from the previous session. It was as if your senses were a flower blossom; the petals stretching apart to invite the sunlight in. Similar to how Ben had once described absorbing the Force’s energy. Master Skywalker had his own way of describing this phenomenon, referring to it as “opening the door”, the door being you and the width of the door’s opening being the ease of which the Force flows through you. From what you could tell, your door was pulling back further each time you embraced the Force—a promising sign for a new recruit.
Images of the planet’s inhabitants flashed through your mind, vivid and clear, even if just for the briefest moment. The energy was overwhelming at first, as you suspected it always would be. But despite the influx, you remained grounded, channeling the Force through you.
As you surrendered your senses to the vitality of the Academy, there was a tonal shift in the fleeting images, something inky and cold drawing you in. Gooseflesh broke out along your spine, followed by a shudder wracking your body. It was as if an invisible chill was spreading from your center, moving outward from your ribcage to your extremities. The grass beneath you began to fade away as your focus slipped from your grasp.
You veered toward this dark aura, incapable of resisting its pull. The echoes of pain and suffering every life form on the planet had endured consumed your senses, blanketing your body something icy and foreign. Your mind fought hard to resist, clawing at the surface of your consciousness to pull you out. But it was futile.
The Force had its talons in you, the gravity of its tortuous grip drowning you, dragging you further into the abyss. The familiar thrum of energy became warped, a deafening wail, tightening around your skull until it reached a screeching crescendo, propelling you backwards.
All of the air stored in your lungs was ejected as you crashed into the ground, silently gasping and wheezing as you opened your eyes, blinking through the dizziness. As the world spun around you, you laid there, motionless, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Of course, you knew the truth of what had occurred. But you refused to embrace it. The dark side had called to you, and you had all but answered.
The remainder of the afternoon passed uneventfully from the confines of your hut, your mind hazy as you tried to push past the incident in the meadow. It wasn’t until a knock rattled your door that you remembered the plans you had been eagerly awaiting this morning.
It was as if you snapped out of a trance, your eyes darting from the twine-bound Jedi text in your hands to the metal door ahead of you. After hours of keeping yourself occupied by skimming its pages, your mind was a bit more clear—or distracted—than before.
You shut the book, tossing it unceremoniously onto your nightstand. It would be wise to treat the ancient texts with more respect, but you knew who was waiting on the other side of the door.
“Coming!” you called out as you stood from the edge of the bed, reaching for the brown cloak that laid beside you.
As you pulled the door open, Ben squeezed through the widening space, hurrying to get inside.
“I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait out here,” he said, stooping down to give you a gentle kiss.
His lips were sweet, but not in the way that they always were. They were sugary, as if they were made of candy. You ran your tongue across your bottom lip, bewildered by the taste.
“You missed it. Every so often, Master Skywalker gets his hands on some candied fruits. We had candied oranges from Naboo tonight!”
Ah, makes sense. Nearly on cue, your stomach tensed, releasing a low growl. A reminder that you, in your foolishness, had once again missed dinner.
“I saved some for you.” He glanced down at the tray balanced in his hand. As chipper as he was—and how adorable it was to see him get excited about fruit—you couldn’t bring yourself to match his energy.
“Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it.”
He smiled at you for a moment, his dimples lining his cheeks, before his face fell. “Is everything alright?”
“No, no, everything’s okay.” You forced a smile as you reached for the tray. “Just hungry.”
You weren’t a terrible liar, especially considering your talent for lying to Voe on a near daily basis. But it was nearly impossible to lie to Ben.
He pulled the tray back, just beyond your reach, the action equal parts playful and concerned. “No seriously, what’s going on?”
There was no use in lying to him any further, but you still hesitated to tell him the truth of what was troubling you.
“It’s just…been a rough day.”
By the look on his face, it was clear that this answer would not suffice. “Oh, really,” he said, raising an eyebrow at you. “What was so rough about it?” Despite his amused tone, you could tell his concern was genuine.
You shifted your weight and crossed your arms over your chest, releasing a deep exhale escaping as you did. Something in you was hesitant to open up, with no apparent reason why. After all, if Master Skywalker wasn’t concerned about your connection to the dark side, why would Ben be?
“I’m just anxious to start my next training. I went for a hike to try clearing my mind, but got kind of spooked and ran back.” A half-truth was better than a blatant lie.
Ben’s eyes narrowed, studying you intently as you told your story. “Spooked by what exactly?”
You swallowed thickly, your brain working quickly to build onto your lie. “I thought I heard something move behind me, something in the bushes. I’m just a little shaken up, okay?”
He nodded, evidently not wanting to press the subject any further. “I understand. I’m sorry that you had a rough day, princess.” As consolation, he offered you the tray of, among other things, the promised orange slices.
Princess. In any other context, you would detest being called such a thing. But coming from Ben, it was nothing short of divine, sending your head into a flurry.
“It’s okay. Besides, it’s about to get a lot better.” It was incredible, really, how being around him for just a few minutes had already improved your mood. “I’ll scarf this down really quick and then we’ll head out to train.” You moved to start eating your food, choosing to reclaim your spot on your bed. “How long are we going to be out there? It’s going to get dark soon.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. Besides, if it’s dark, the likelihood of someone seeing us is smaller.”
“Yeah, but we’re just training. We could probably do that in the daylight, don’t you think?” you said, taking a bite of an orange slice, savoring its sweet, citrus flavor.
“I know. But we don’t want to give people reason to believe it’s more than that.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” This was going to be a recurring thing if you wanted to see each other, probably best you started getting used to it.
Ben peered around your quarters while you finished your meal, inspecting the trinkets scattered across your dresser. His eyes stopped on one item in particular, plucking it up to inspect closer. It was your lip balm. Twirling it in the dwindling light, he examined the silver tube. The balm looked so much smaller in his hand than it did in yours, it was almost comical.
“Lipstick?” he asked, pulling the cap off and twisting the pigment upward.
“Technically, it’s lip balm. My mom used to make them for the farmer’s market.” You wiped your mouth with a napkin and set the now empty tray aside. “It was her way of earning a few extra credits.”
Coming to stand before you, he crouched down, elbows resting on his knees, lip balm still in hand. “Oh, yeah? What does your family do for a living?”
As you opened your mouth to answer, he lifted the angled edge to your lower lip, dragging it back and forth until the pigment had coated your delicate skin. You were frozen, in a near total state of shock at what had just occurred. The wiring of your brain was crackling, trying to compute Ben’s actions.
“Hmm?” Ben hummed, breaking his gaze with you to twist the balm back into its sleeve. “You were saying?”
Closing your lips, you rubbed them together to distribute the color evenly, staring in disbelief at the man before you. “They, um, they’re farmers most of the year.” You squeezed your eyes shut, focusing all of your energy on forming a coherent sentence. “My dad would ship the products off-world, leaving my mom and I behind for weeks at a time.”
Ben returned the balm to where he found it, the skinny tube falling on its side and almost rolling off the dresser. Admiring his good work, his eyes darted between yours and your lips, before he leaned forward and stole a kiss from you.
“I know the feeling.” He offered you a small—almost sad—smile, the rosy tint faintly visible on his plush lips. He took your hands in his and stood up, pulling you with him. “Come on, let’s head out while everyone’s still eating.”
By the time the two of you left, dusk had fallen over the Academy, the sky a muted shade of violet, speckled with dim stars. You followed far behind Ben, his lead at least one hundred meters ahead of you, but still within your visual field.
Mindlessly pressing icons on your watch, you tried to look occupied, in the instance that someone should see you two and think that you weren’t together. Ben would glance back at you every so often to make sure you were still there. Or maybe he was just trying to catch a glimpse of you, you weren’t sure.
He stopped at the treeline ahead of you, waiting for you to catch up to him. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see solid shapes, his tall figure blurred at the edges until you reached him. He offered you his hand, to which you, of course, accepted, slipping your fingers between his. Though the chances of being seen were low, there was a rush in holding hands outside of the privacy of your quarters.
“This way, princess.”
He flicked on a glowrod in his opposite hand, starting toward what you assumed was the training spot he had picked. You walked beside him, your focus shifting between the feeling of his touch and the uneven path beneath you.
For a while, the two of you walked in a comfortable silence, taking in the forest around you, listening to the hum of insects and the chitter of birds. For a first date, it felt incredibly familiar to be next to Ben, hand in hand. You pictured the elderly couples in Khoonda, strolling through the markets, their bony hands interlocked as they had been for decades. You longed for something similar, the reality of this night weighing heavily on your heart. Ultimately, you were here to become a Jedi. A warrior, as well as a devout servant of the Light. It was foolish to believe that, even if you two could hide your feelings from the world, this could ever be sustainable.
Pushing aside such thoughts, you redirected your attention to the man towering beside you, breaking the silence surrounding you.
“Ben, do you ever get homesick?”
The question elicited a short inhale from him, almost as if you had caught him off-guard. “More often than I’d like to admit.” His eyes told an unspoken story, one that said he was lonelier than he appeared to be.
“Where’s home for you?”
“Chandrila. Though I’m not sure how at-home I would feel now that I’ve been away for thirteen years.” His thumb swiped the back of your hand, as if to soothe himself. “What about you? Are you starting to miss Dantooine?”
“I never said I was from–”
Ben’s deep laugh interrupted you. “As soon as we learned that a new student was coming to join us, you became the talk of the Academy. We squeezed everything that we could about you out of Master Skywalker.”
“And what exactly did he say about me?”
“Only that this incoming Force-user was the most beautiful girl in the galaxy. Oh, and that you were coming from Dantooine.”
You shoved him dramatically, your efforts hardly affecting his balance as he continued walking. “Smartass.”
He chuckled as he reached into a pocket of his robes, retrieving what appeared to be a small remote control. With the turn of a couple of dials and a few faint beeps, the clearing ahead of you became illuminated. Suspended in the air were several remote droids, soft light pouring from every angle of their spherical frames. They swayed gently in the breeze, the light following their motions. In the middle of the clearing lay two dummy lightsabers atop a folded blanket, the same blanket that was issued to every student at the Academy.
“What’s with the blanket?” you asked, gesturing toward it with a raised brow.
“It’s going to be a cold walk back tonight. I figured I’d bring one in case you wanted it.”
“And the training sabers? Did you steal these from Master Skywalker?”
“I can’t give away all of my secrets.”
Knowing that Ben had planned out and prepared for this training session made butterflies swarm in your stomach. It also made you feel a bit guilty, considering that you had barely remembered the plans at all.
“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”
He smiled. “I had to make your first time special.”
Heat licked at your cheeks as his words rolled around your head. Though he didn’t mean them in that way, your mind wandered to what it would be like with him.
Snapping yourself out of your daydream, you leaned down and picked up one of the dummy sabers. It was lighter than you had expected it to be, the counterweight of the mock blade pulling on your grip as you examined the saber.
Ben watched as you familiarized yourself with the saber, finding himself eager to see this training through. It was surprising that he would be interested in something as mundane as teaching a Padawan how to use a lightsaber. Yet, here he was.
You held the saber parallel to your face. “Alright, Master Solo. Let’s get started.”
His dimples creased as he let out a laugh, coming to a stop a few inches in front of you. “If you say so, princess.” He smoothed his hands over your arms until they reached your own, a big hand wrapping around yours on the hilt. “Before you can wield a lightsaber, you need to understand it. A Jedi’s lightsaber is an extension of themselves—a tool to concentrate their energy into during combat.”
You looked up from the silver hilt in your hands to Ben’s eyes, nodding your understanding. Not that you had been able to focus much on what he said, too occupied with the feeling of his other hand discreetly snaking down your waist.
“Focus on how it feels in your hands. Try to imagine it as an extension of yourself.”
You heeded his instruction and closed your eyes, shifting your focus to the hilt. Within a moment, its weight changed in your grasp, becoming lighter and less foreign in your hold. The Force was ablaze around you, its presence all-encompassing and mighty. And at the center of this energy, the focal point of its strength, was Ben’s hand.
You blinked your eyes open, finding the same scene as when you had closed them. If he hadn’t been holding your hands, the saber would have fallen from your grip.
“Is that–”
"Yes, it's okay. I feel it too." He squeezed your hands and nodded, easing your building anxiety. "You're doing great." He released your hands, circling around to stand behind you. The Force shifted as he moved, as if it were the needle of a compass, guiding you toward him.
“Try spinning it a few times,” he said, his warm, sweet breath cascading over your ear. “Just a simple spin.”
Releasing a shaky exhale, you nodded, twirling the saber in your hand. It was as if you were slicing through the Force that surrounded you, displacing it around your blade.
“Good. Now try crossing it in front of you on your downstroke.”
You did as he said and switched the direction of the spin, struggling with the mechanics of the change. Your body fell out of tune with the saber in your hand. In an instant, a pair of hands grabbed your waist and locked it in place, causing you to drop the saber mid-spin.
“Keep your core tight. It’ll make the more complicated moves easier to manage.” Ben spun you around to face him, the air between the two of you thick and heavy. He glanced at the saber. “I want you to summon it.”
The saber had rolled to a stop a few meters away from you, well out of your reach. “I don’t know how to.” You moved to pick it up, but Ben’s hands on your waist prevented you from going anywhere.
His grip tightened. “Sure you do. Just focus.”
This fucker. Hesitantly, you stretched a hand out in-line with the saber, concentrating on the Force between you and the hilt. Your hand began to shake from the effort before dropping back to your side. “I told you. Just let me pick it up, Ben.”
“No, you were doing fine until you gave up. You just needed to concentrate more. Try again.” He kissed your forehead, sliding his hands down to your hips.
A smile threatened to form on your lips, his kiss an effective antidote to your frustration. You sighed through your nose and closed your eyes, once again reaching out for the saber. The energy between you and the object still felt disordered, but this time, you pictured a clear path for it to come to you.
A beat passed, an eerie stillness falling over you, before the saber collided with your hand, sending a jolt of energy up your arm.
You stared in awe at the silver hilt in your grasp, a look of utter disbelief on your face. “I can’t believe I did that!” You looked up at Ben to see his reaction, only to find him watching you intently, seeming equally as surprised as you were.
“I wasn’t expecting you to actually get it,” he said earnestly, giving your hips a squeeze of approval. “Most people need weeks, or months, of practice before they can do that. But it came so easily to you. As it did to me, too.”
You smiled, pride filling your chest at the compliment. “What’s next?”
Ben tipped your chin up, his eyes drinking you in for a moment before leaning down to kiss you, smirking against your lips. “Well, there’s no use in starting off slow.” Another kiss, followed by the sound of the other saber hitting his palm. “Let’s fight.”
A/N: (I promise that there won't be this many notes all the time, I just want to update about my upcoming absence!)
This chapter was a beast to edit for absolutely NO reason, but I love how it turned out. And now, as promised, I'll be taking a few weeks off to study for my exam (and go to Disney, but that doesn't count). Chapter 7 is honestly my magnum opus ((kidding ofc)), so I can't wait to get back and upload it for you guys! Hopefully, the next time you see me, I'll be a licensed nurse!!! Ily guys, take care! -C
#this is where the fun begins#ALSO THIS GIF??? utterly adorable.#ben solo#ben solo x reader#kylo ren#kylo ren x reader#kylo ren x y/n#kylo ren x you#ben solo x fem!reader#ben solo x you#star wars#star wars fanfiction#star wars self insert#kylo ren smut#ben solo smut#my writing
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Congrats on 1.5k! For a blurb, I wanted to request something with 40's Bucky, and if you could absolutely break my heart I would love it - thank you!
thank you! careful what you wish for bestie, i've had this idea cooking for a while and i hope it's heart-breaking enough for you! it takes place during the war, and it kind of fits the timeline for tfa, but it also doesn’t?
words: 584 (a little longer than i planned but it’s the only request i had so whatever)
warnings: major character death, there is no happy ending
bucky barnes masterlist
Words You'll Never Read
With slightly shaky hands, he tore open the long-awaited envelope and began to read the words on the page.
Bucky,
It sounds like you have your hands full with the 107th, on top of Steve’s usual antics. I couldn’t imagine breaking into a German military base drunk off my ass on stolen whiskey, but I am glad you made it out okay. I miss you too, and every night I listen anxiously to the radio, hoping to hear that the war has taken a turn and that you can come home again. I’m sure you want to return just as much as I want you to, because it can’t be comfortable camping out in the middle of the wilderness.
It’s sweet that your friends don’t believe I exist, but I’m sure you’re lying about how great I am to them. And as much as I love you Bucky, I will have to decline the offer for a plane trip to visit. I have been helping my sister out taking care of Jimmy while she is at work, and since we work opposite shifts we have been able to swing it without too much trouble. I don’t think I can just drop everything to visit a war zone, and besides, I think my mother would have a conniption if I did. She has never been too fond of you, you know that, and if I told her I was going to visit you she might kill me, or you, or both of us. You have generally won over my family, but I wouldn’t want your favor to run out before we are really able to begin our lives together. As a consolation (and to prove to your friends that I am real, even though Steve should be able to vouch for me, seeing as we grew up together), I have attached a photo of us at the Jersey Shore, when we went three summers ago.
I miss you dearly, and I hope I can see you soon.
All My Love,
Y/N
“Is that her letter?” Dum Dum asked, and the sound of his voice pulled Steve back into the real world.
Not trusting himself to speak, Steve nodded. He looked down at the slightly wrinkled paper, only to see that it has already been dotted with his tear stains. “It is,” he said hoarsely, finally finding his voice.
“You know, we’re going to have to tell everyone eventually,” Dum Dum said gently, sitting down next to him.
“I know,” Steve responded, holding out the letter to his companion. “But I don’t know if I can do it, not after reading this. She loved him so much, and it’s going to break her to know he’s gone.”
Dum Dum Dugan gently took the piece of paper from Steve, and he read over the words on the page. He laughed when he read the part about you sending your picture, because him and the rest of the guys had been busting Bucky’s chops about getting a girl as perfect as you, and they thought he was making it up. He knew that they had to report Bucky’s death eventually, that someone would show up at your door and break the news to you that the person you loved more than anything in the entire world was gone, but he didn’t want to even think about that. “We can give it a couple more days,” he said quietly. “She deserves to know, but she also deserves peace.”
- the end -
#🎉 1.5k blurbs#40s bucky#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes x female reader#marvel#marvel x reader
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Idk if you’ve done this one before but could you write about how the TFA Decepticons end up capturing Sari’s sitter to get information on Autobot secrets? During her stay, she and Blitzwing end up making friends and later on as lovers.
Answering the whole request sounds like it would be a slow burn enemies to lovers 100k words fic so I’m just gonna write a snippet because I’m lazy af
~*~
If you survive this ordeal, you think you might consider changing careers. Maybe a nice quiet office job. Something mundane and boring where you spend your hours sitting safe and sound in front of a computer. Definitely not a job that would have you watching over any children who happen to be in possession of powerful alien artifacts that might lure giant evil alien robots who would come blasting through the walls and mistakenly scoop you up and spirit you away to a cave somewhere in the middle of the Michigan wilderness.
If nothing else, you’re raising your hourly fee. And you are definitely including your time in captivity to Professor Sumdac’s bill.
The worst part—well, other than the fear for your life—is the boredom. Normally you’d be spending these hours watching bad television and helping yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. Instead you’re siting in a dark cave under the intense scruntity of the freaky robot guarding you. The hope that you’re getting paid for your time makes your situation a little more bearable, even if this dude’s weird jack-o-lantern smile creeps the hell out of you, but you still wish they hadn’t confiscated your phone so you could play games or something.
With nothing else to look at, your focus remains on the robot, gaze sweeping over jet wings and tank treads and turret until eventually your eyes land back on his unsettling face, eyes meeting with his.
He stares at you, jagged grin widening when he notices you staring back. He leans closer, kneeling a bit even though his eyes aren’t anywhere close to level with yours. His eyes narrow, expression suddenly so intense it sends a spark of fear straight up your spine. Is this it? Is he going to squish you? Shoot you? Grind your bones to make his bread? You don’t even notice you haven’t been blinking until your eyes begin to water.
When you finally blink, the robot throws his arms up and lets out a victorious cackle that sends you jolting backwards in surprise, nearly slamming the back of your skull against the cave wall.
“Hahahahahahaha! You blinked, I win!” He continues to cackle and you clutch your chest as your thundering heartbeat begins to steadily slow to a normal rate. “That was fun! Best two out of three?”
Oh god you’re still babysitting a child.
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ohh i saw your answer about the sequels of star wars. id love to read you tear through the whole trilogy
Well, I’ve avoided this ask long enough. Part of the reason is this is really a huge topic, far too much for one ask, so I’m going to have to do this at a very high level.
In short, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy is what one gets when you slap together the goal of selling merchandise and making tons of money, being as risk averse as humanly possible, adding a handful of warring directors with incredibly different visions, and having virtually no imagination when it comes to the imagining and writing of characters.
And we get this beautiful, awful, franchise that for reasons beyond me people seem to actually like (though interestingly, no one seems to like all of it, they may actually like one or two of the films, but no one says all three are actually in any realm of good).
With that, let’s begin.
The Force Awakens
For me this is easily the most tolerable of the sequel trilogy: it’s not great, it’s not terrible. It’s thoroughly watchable, you can be taken along for the movie’s journey and not raise your eyebrows too much at the action and leave the theater feeling this maybe wasn’t a complete waste of your time.
There’s a good reason for that. That reason is called the most blatant form of plagiarism I have ever seen in cinema in my life.
“The Force Awakens” is just “A New Hope” wearing a mustache. Only, it’s one of those cheap mustaches you get from a party store that, if you stare at it too long, just looks like the most false and awful thing you’ve ever seen. The mustache actively makes it worse. “The Force Awakens” is “A New Hope”, but worse.
Seriously, every major character, every major plot point, every major scene I can go directly back to “A New Hope”.
Our story begins when the Resistance, at great cost to our valiant heroes including torture at the hands of the Emperor’s second in command, sends a file out into the wilderness to be received by his people. This file contains plans for the Death Star.
The film then focuses on Luke, er Rey, getting involved in the Resistance, boarding the Death Star, and successfully destroying at the same time even at the lost of a beloved mentor that she just met (trading in Obi-Wan for Han Solo).
Our evil empire is run by an evil emperor who is so evil he sits in a chair, is served by very Moth Tarkin-esque human storm troopers, and has a second in command who revels in the Darth Vader get up (for no other reason that it makes him feel cool but we’ll get into this).
It’s “A New Hope”. Rey is Luke, Han Solo is Obi-Wan, Poe is a kind of Han Solo, Kylo Ren is Vader, Snoke is Palpatine, Hux is Tarkin, BB-8 is R2-D2, etc.
“But that’s not terrible,” you say, “I liked A New Hope?”
First, it is terrible, it gives a very bad sign of where the sequel trilogy is headed and is just lazy writing. It means that those who produced this franchise were so terrified of taking risks, of possibly ending up mocked as the prequels were, that they will deliver exactly what the original trilogy was. And what’s that? Uh, evil empires, scrappy desert kids, AND MORE DEATH STARS!
That brings us to point number two, the world of Star Wars after the events of the original trilogy shouldn’t support such things. And, if it does, my god what a bleak existence this place has turned into.
The First Order being able to rise easily from the Empire’s remains means that Luke accomplished nothing. Anakin sacrificed himself and had his moment of redemption for nothing. There was no happy ending to the Original Trilogy, our heroes failed miserably, and there is no indication that our new band of heroes can possibly succeed in their place. (More on this as the movies progress).
We now are in a galaxy where this new Republic is so pathetic that Leia doesn’t even give it the time of day and builds her own private army to battle the Empire. The First Order is able to not only rebuild a massive army by raiding villages on many different worlds and stealing children and do so successfully for at least ten years but is able to build a Death Star bigger than any we’ve ever seen before.
And the movie tries to convince us these are completely new problems, that Luke Skywalker is a hero (remember this is TFA, not TLJ yet), and that somehow these things just sprung up out of nowhere. BUT YEAH, RESISTANCE, WOO!
As for Rey, she’s like... a worse version of Luke. Her only motivation through the entire series is her trauma at being abandoned by her parents. That’s it, there’s nothing else to her, nothing else she ever wants or feels conflicted by. She struggles with the dark side because... the dark side? Genetics? Unclear? She’s absurdly, ridiculously, powerful in a way that’s acknowledged but never that acknowledged (we’ll get into this) and the movies just fail to sell me on her in any way.
Honestly, an easy fix for me would have just been making Rey a much younger character. I could believe a fourteen-year-old having stayed in the desert, scrounging for scraps, believing her parents are coming back every day now. As a twenty-something year old... It starts getting hard to believe she never left. (Also, this gets the benefit of getting rid of Reylo, which is always a plus for me).
As for Kylo Ren, I legitimately walked out of TFA thinking he was supposed to be comic relief. He’s what happens when someone desperately wants a likable, redeemable, villain and we get... Well, as a reminder his opening scene is one of genocide: he pillages and destroys a town with no regret and brutally tortures a man for information. We’re told he’s like this “because evil evil Snoke” and that may well be but throughout the film (and the series) it becomes clear that Kylo Ren’s main motivation is he deseprately wants to be cool. He wants to be a badass like Vader, he dresses in Vader cosplay (either ignoring or not knowing that Vader only dressed like that because his body was completely destroyed), he has these huge temper tantrums and nobody respects him because he’s a toddler in a Vader suit.
He murders his own father, his parents who (at least in the films themselves) show every willingness to take him back and forgive him what he’s done, so that he can fully embrace his own “evilness”. In other words, he commits patricide to feel cool about himself, then it doesn’t work.
And the movie series really banks on me feeling conflicted about Kylo Ren or at least wanting him to be redeemed. Granted, the wider internet seems to love him, I just can’t.
Oh, before I forget, the other thing I love about Kylo Ren is that the movies insist he’s a) strong in the Force b) is equal to Rey. Rey consistently beats the shit out of him with 0 training. Kylo Ren has been training in the Force for years. Guys, they are not a Dyad, Rey is far far far stronger than he is and for whatever reason the films never want to admit it. Because I guess we like things coming in pairs now.
But yes, “The Force Awakens”, at a distance not great nor terrible, but a rip off of a movie we’ve already seen that left me going “Welp, the next one’s probably The Empire Strikes Back then I guess we’re getting Ewoks”. I was sort of right on that and sort of wrong.
The Last Jedi
So, JJ Abrams clearly had a vision of where he wanted this sequel trilogy to go. He set up these big questions such as what’s up with Finn, who are Rey’s parents and why was she left on this nowhere planet, will Kylo Ren be redeemed and how, who is Snoke, etc.
Now, I’m not saying these aren’t stupid questions. To be frank, they kind of are. Finn being Force Sensitive was the most inconsequential thing I’ve ever heard of, Rey’s parents should not have been used to drive the plot the way it was, as spoken above I’m clearly team gut Kylo Ren, and that Snoke was actually just Palpatine being the world’s largest cockroach is a beautiful but hilarious answer.
That said, what Johnson did was he decided, “You know what, I’m going to take every trope of Star Wars and completely flip it on its head and absolutely doom the sequel to this movie.”
And by god, he did.
We get a weirdly pointless movie in which Poe, SINGLEHANDEDLY, completely obliterates the Resistance. He first obliterates their bombers by failing to follow command, then goes and bitches about how he’s not put in command when he clearly shows no ability to understand how a military works, actively subverts orders which in turn obliterates the entire Resistance fleet until the only survivors can fit on the Millenium Falcon. They have no ships, no weapons, barely any people, and are ultimately doomed doomed doomed.
We have Finn’s weird subplot with a suddenly introduced character Rose in which the pair aid in Poe’s blowing up the resistance (they send sensitive information using the communication equipment of a guy they do not know, who fully admits to being shady and out for his own skin, and are flabergasted when he betrays them).
Rose herself is this weirdly sweet person who seems forced into the plot to a) provide a love triangle for Finn and Rey b) provide this forced sunny outlook that I didn’t really need in the film.
We get Rey never really being trained, going into the Cave of Wonders for a few seconds, falling in love with Kylo Ren over weird Force Skype calls (where I did not need to see him shirtless, thank you film) and being horrifically betrayed when Kylo Ren turns out not to be a great guy. Never saw that coming, Rey.
As for Kylo Ren, well... God, we get Emperor Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, the Emperor. I’m not even that upset about the anticlimactic murder of Snoke (that was kind of funny, especially in the context of Palpatine going, “Bitch, please, you’re in my chair” immediately in the next film) but just Kylo Ren being emperor. And also that the Resistance only escapes at all because he’s so dumb he made their dumb plans seem smart (i.e. concentrates all his firepower on an illusion for ten minutes while Hux goes, “Emperor, sir, we could actually destroy the Resistance right now.”
Now, you’ll notice I didn’t complain about Luke. A lot of people are upset he became a grumpy, miserable, old hermit who sits around waiting for death. Frankly though, in this universe, that’s exactly where he is. He left “Return of the Jedi” thinking he’d saved the world, he’s resurrected the Jedi Order, and all is well. Only a decade later, his students are all murdered by his nephew, the Empire’s back, and he accomplished nothing. He’s an utter failure as a Jedi (though Luke never realizes he knew jack shit about the Jedi Order and was in way over his head but I guess that’s beyond him). Why shouldn’t he go sit on a rock and wait to die?
Now, did he have to drink that blue dinosaur milk? Well, I guess it was funny, gross but funny so... Sure, I guess he did. But I do like that he gave Rey 0 training, they had one meditation session and then he whined about how Obi-Wan was such a stupid asshole. And then Rey ran off to be with her boyfriend, who then told her that her parents were gutter trash (which again, was funny, but I don’t think that was supposed to be funny).
Of the characters introduced in the movie, the only one I really liked was the hacker, and it was for the actor/the beautiful way in which he gracefully exited stage left with zero shame going, “You all knew I was going to betray you!” You beautiful man, you.
Rise of the Skywalker
First, when something is called “Rise of the Skywalker” you know you’re in for a rough time.
But anyways, TLJ was filled with a controversy Disney didn’t want (half their audience hated it, half loved it, but at least they sold those penguin dolls) so they desperately get Abrams back. Only, what he clearly wanted from his series has been shot to hell, and now he’s left with Emperor Kylo Ren, a completely obliterated Resistance, a dead Luke, a love interest he never planned to introduce for Finn, Rey’s parental crisis being solved with trash people, Snoke just suddenly dead, Hux planning revenge, and then some.
And so, Abrams goes the brave and hilarious route of shouting “PRETEND THAT LAST MOVIE NEVER HAPPENED”
We open to a fully functioning Resistance (their bomber fleet is back, their fleet period is back, they have all their fully trained personnel). We have Rey getting the Jedi training she needed this time from Leia, who is now a Jedi, because yay feminism rammed down my throat to make the audience feel better. Rose says “It’s cool guys, I don’t want to join the adventure this film, I’m going to stay here and work on robots” so that she can gracefully exit the entire plot. Kylo Ren is demoted from Emperor in two seconds when we discover that a) Snoke was apparently Palpatine b) for unexplained reasons Palpatine’s alive (and I am now convinced that man will never die). Kylo Ren tells Rey at the first opportunity that he lied about her trash parents AND REALLY SHE’S A PALPATINE! THIS WHOLE TIME, REY! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. I’M SUPER SERIAL THIS TIME, REY.
Basically, in the course of an overly long movie, Abrams desperately shoves in everything he was trying to get out of the series, while sobbing, and sobbing even harder when things like Finn being Force Sensitive or Lando having a secret daughter get caught. I actually agree with the Producers on this, by the way, the Finn trying to tell Rey something scenes were weird and indicative of a love triangle but him being Force Sensitive instead... It says a lot that the movies did not change when it was removed, at all. And Lando was just this strange cameo who was in the film to make us feel nostalgic.
And this isn’t even getting to the ridiculous 24 hour time limit (which made me think there should have been some video game style clock in the corner letting us know when Dawn of the Third Day is coming), Palpatine’s other secret army on a secret Sith planet that can be easily taken down by taking out one navigation tower, Rey’s hilarious struggle with the dark side in which she has a vision of herself in a cape hissing, Kylo Ren’s hilarious redemption in which the movie in the form of Leia and Han Solo says, “Alright, Ben, it’s time to stop being evil” and he says “okay”, the fight with Palpatine in which I’m supposed to believe he dies for reals because... I have no idea why I’m supposed to believe he’s dead. The Reylo, god the Reylo, and Kylo Ren’s tragic, hilarious, death.
And then, of course, the ending where Rey decides she’s a Skywalker now.
I actually did laugh all the way through “Rise of the Skywalker”, you can’t not, I mean it’s a hilariously awful movie. The only thing that might have made it more hilarious was if we actually did get those Ewoks.
TL;DR
They’re all bad movies, if you want more specifics than this, you’re just going to have to ask me questions.
#ask#anon#anti star wars sequels#anti rey#anti kylo ren#anti reylo#ah what beautiful awful movies#i look foward to the characters being shocked and appalled when yet another evil empire arises in five years#i look forward to them being even more shocked when palpatine's still not dead#that man will never die
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The Bridge Trope in Star Wars and what it may mean for IX
Besides being iconic markers in our daily lives, bridges are an awesome symbol:
transition and a boundary between sky and earth, life and death, real and imaginary, mortal and immortal, good and evil, civilization and the wilderness,rich and poor, old and new
marking both a connection and a separation through time and space, between people, between places
Which is why, they are so easily used in stories as a decisive step in a hero’s journey, the Rubicon moment, the ultimate test, when through wit, trick, or strength, a bridgekeeper must be defeated. Let’s say it is a hero’s journey and fairy tale classic.
Add to that the fact that bridges are quite the war movie cliché, they are obvious landmarks to destroy, and vital targets to control. Destroying a bridge often means isolating and weakening the enemy, depriving it from communication and food, water, or medical supplies.
So, of course, we get to meet the bridge trope again and again in Star Wars. And, more often than not, the bridges we get are bridges of Death. From the Phantom Menace’s Duel of the Fates
To Han’s death in The Force Awakens.
It is actually fitting to say that both scenes constitute an interesting framing for the Skywalker saga. Duel of the Fates is a very apt name for the beginning of the saga. Remember that Anakin’s name is etymologically “Ananke”, that is to say Fate, Destiny. Anakin’s fate is in the balance there, and the end result of who gets to become his Master and teaching him about the Force is key. Had Qui Gon lived, possibly, there would not have been any Vader. As for, Han’s death in TFA, the constant play of words between sun and son, and the not so subtle imagery of light and darkness, is supposedly all about Kylo’s fate. If Qui Gon’s death is possibly the first step towards the fate that will turn sweet lovable Anakin munchkin into big bad Vader, Han’s death is the counterpart of this scene, thus the first step towards big bad Kylo turning eventually into lovable Ben Solo. And just as it took three movies to realize the Fate of Anakin, it will take three movies to realize the Fate of Ben Solo. But I digress. Or not.
Because both stories, which interact like mirror images of each other, are perfectly hinged around two other crucial bridge scenes. One in ESB. And one in ROTJ. You know what I’m talking about, right?
And these two are also counterparts. ESB’s bridge scene is Luke’s symbolic death scene: learning the truth about his father, and losing his hand, he would rather choose death and commit suicide. ROTJ’s bridge scene is Vader’s death and Anakin’s redemption, with Luke accepting the truth, Vader losing a hand, and choosing to save his son’s life. Even the placement of the actors emphasize this idea of mirror image. So Luke gets his Troll Bridge twice: he fails the test the first one, falling to the chasm and falling apart, and succeeds the second time around. Doing what? Throwing away his saber. Choosing love. Refusing to kill.
But I would also like to stress out that, from a certain point of view, Luke is not the only one who gets tested there on the Troll Bridge. Anakin, just like his son, also fails the first test and passes the second. In ESB, he has little to no love to offer and tempt Luke to his side: he offers the vague promises of the power of the dark side and ruling the galaxy together (which didn’t work with Padmé either). In effect, he is selfish, abusive, scarring his son physically and psychologically, and does not seem too distressed when Luke lets go and falls “presumably” to his death. In ROTJ, he chooses the losing side, standing against the Emperor to save his son’s life, which he knows, will eventually cost him his life. Thus, he is showing empathy and remorse, and saves Luke through a selfless act of love.
Yep, that is what the OT is about.
And, arguably, these two scenes constitute the very axis around which the other two trilogies are built. Hence my first “digression”.
It is also very interesting to note that in the four cases exemplified so far, the “bridges” in question are seemingly “reactor cores”, excuse my tech ignorance. These scenes are never about bridges out in the open, over a river, connecting two shores. They are always played out over a chasm, surrounded with energy fields, in dark environments with a possible fall into a bottomless abyss... Two possible interpretations:
because they are battle of the brains, moral battle of good versus evil within oneself. Inner battles. Think grey cells, cerebellum connections, as a map for these duels.
because they are battle of the heart. Issues of love. “core”
Honestly, I think they both go together!
Symbolically, they are your typical “choose the right path” bridges, the life and death, good vs evil bridges.
The many bridges of Luke
If you actually consider the OT, Luke’s journey is very much rhythmed by a series of bridges. Which might seem ironic for a boy coming from a desert planet with no water, and thus, no use or concept for bridges (besides rocky arch formation such as we see during the pod race in PM). But consider the last name GL decided to give him: SKYWALKER. That was not the orginial name he had chosen, right, since in first drafts Luke was called “Starkiller”. Consider then what a huge difference it makes when you move from a very martial moniker “Star/killer”, which is all about destroying life and light (and Luke actually comes from “light” etymologically speaking) to choose something that means: the one that walks the skies. Not flies. WALKS. And if you walk the skies, chances are you are walking on a bridge of some kind (like mythological rainbow bridges). Crossing a bridge is very much akin to walking the sky: you are suspended between heaven and earth. So even the name GL chose for his star family is all about “walking” on bridges.
The “bridge” moment in ANH is rather brief, but quite interesting. It is actually the “NO BRIDGE” moment, the one when Luke and the Princess find themselves locked out with no crossing, and stormtroopers shooting at them. This moment:
What does it reveal about Luke? His ingenuity, since he uses his farmboy utility belt to cross the bridge, but then also his instincts, the fact that he can rely on his roots (what he learned as a farmboy), his audacity, his ability to take a leap of faith (something that will play out later in his relationship with his father). But it also sets him apart as a different kind of hero. The NOT MY LUKE people should really pay attention to these details. Sure, he plays the hero, saves the damsel and everything, but in this scene they work together, she also gets to protect them, he trusts her with defending them, she is the one giving him a kiss for luck. This is very positive masculinity. Heroic, but not pushy. Manly, but respectful of women. Physical but also using his brain. Luke is such a dear.
In ESB, the big bridge moment is the one I already referred to. The moment of truth. Having these two characters on a bridge is very clever of course. It’s all about meeting in the middle. A bridge is by essence a balancing act. Can they meet halfway or will they cut all connections? Can opposites reconcile? Will they connect/reconnect? What better way to talk about human emotion and love than put them on a bridge, the very metaphor for communication, leap of faith, and the possible danger of reaching out to the other with your feelings?
But ROTJ goes even further with the bridge metaphor. Going with this when Luke reveals the truth to Leia...
To carry on with Leia and Han, where Han shows more of his emotions ans proves how supportive and selfless he can be when he is just there to comfort her in the end, putting away his jealousy and self-doubts:
Followed with this, for Luke and Vader’s first meeting since ESB when Luke calls him “father” for the first time and tries to bring him back:
To conclude with the bridge sequence already mentioned when Vader chooses to be Anakin all over again.
WOW.
And where does it all take Luke? To a water planet with NO bridges. Seriously. When VII opens, Luke has chosen to sever, metaphorically speaking, all the links to others. As if he had chosen to destroy every bridge that could connect him to Leia and the rest of the world. And when we see him going about the island, there are no bridges. He jumps from one cliff to the other. Interesting thing is on The Art of The Last Jedi you get to see some of the art concepts that they had for Ahch-To that included a lot of variation on bridges:
But eventually they went for the very design that removed any bridge from the place that Luke has chosen to spend the remaining days of his life until his death. Which is, I must say, a very good choice. He disconnected himself from the Force, he disconnected from people he loved not telling them where he hid, it made absolutely no sense to put him on a place that was covered with bridges. The bridges were meant to be burned.
That is... until one very last moment. Which is the perfect segway into my next chapter... Until the end. When he projects himself for one final face-off with his nephew. And that is a big bridge metaphor about reaching out across the stars. And we know that when Luke is on a bridge with someone he loves, this doesn’t mean harm or spite or revenge. Or even fighting. Bridges in SW are not so much about fancy duels as they are about love. Yep, even in PM. There is the love that Obi-Wan (yes, even a Jedi) feels for his master, and the need to extend and take care of a little boy that is all alone in this galaxy. A leap of faith. Love. Which means...
The ST is about crossing that bridge
Yes, there are bridges in the ST. And how Kylo and Rey are going to be able to cross over and meet each other. Let me explain. This happens at the end of VII:
Visually, it tells us that there seems to be no possible bridge between the two characters. Yet, the whole point is that they keep on looking towards each other. The bridge,aka the connection, is their eyes (mirrors of the soul yadiyada). And sure enough, comes VIII, and the bridge is there. WTF, will you say? What bridge are you raving about. Well... that one...
The Force bond.
And how do I presume calling this a bridge? Because...
It was I who bridged your minds
Interesting choice of words. But there it is. Put it as plainly and simply as you possibly can. The Force bond is a bridge, a spiritual bridge between Kylo and Rey. That’s quite something, right?
Which means that, there may be some physical crossing of some kind in IX. Now, I don’t want to be presumptuous and declare for sure, but it would seem like a logical concept. And on Vic Mahoney’s moodboard...on the left, some of the pictures seem very bridgelike...
And that’s also where I want to bring in that clever little TV kid show called Star Wars Rebels.
Take it to the Bridge
So Star Wars Rebels came before the release of TFA, in 2014, merely two years after Disney bought LF and therefore all the rights to Star Wars. Let’s look at what they did there and let’s wonder why. I don’t think that it was a random move on their part. They could, after all, have imagined something that took place right before TFA, or come up with the many adventures of Luke and the gang, or even spend more time on the Clone Wars, or go way back in the Old Republic. But no 14 years after ROTS, 5 years before ANH, is the time they chose. And came up with a totally new gang we had never heard of. Except that... well... the new gang got to meet A LOT of familiar faces. From all over the place: Hondo, Rex, Ahsoka, Vader, Leia, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Obi-Wan, Darth Maul, Yoda, Lando, C3P0 and R2, Palpatine, just to name a few... The point is that they get to meet people from the PT AND people from the OT. Thus (you know where this is going) bridging story lines. And, surprise surprise, what special name did they choose for their hero? Ezra Bridger. Gosh, that’s not even subtle, there. And by the way, what does Ezra mean? Helper. So Ezra helps bridging... aka, Star Wars Rebels helps bridging, connecting, if you will storylines. Towards a logical conclusion. And what is this conclusion, pray? The ST of course. And who stands on the bridge? Kylo and Rey.
Even better, what particular storyline did they preciously choose to keep to conclude this new Star Wars story:
the return of the Mortis Arc, balance
the World between worlds, and its very specific bridges that cross through time and space, and the possibility to alter the past/future, plus bringing back loved ones
looking for knowledge (last time I checked it was not so much about knowledge in the PT and OT). But Ezra’s story is all about knowledge.
love and sacrifice, saving the people you love (Ahsoka, Kanan, Ezra), and, come on, Hera and Kanan’s baby (by the way, Kanan is very reminiscent of Canaan, the Promised Land, so keep the prophetic aspect in mind)
Again, how will it play out in IX? I have some ideas but I really can’t tell whether it will show up or not. There have been rumors about an artifact (very SW Rebels) that would require both Kylo and Rey’s powers. So knowledge. So possibly with notions of Mortis implied in there (balance). Love, sacrifice, we have discussed a lot. Remain the bridges. I can totally envision an important scene taking place on a bridge, with Kylo and Rey embracing, or running to each other, or holding hands while everything else around them crumbles. I can also imagine a bridge playing out with an intimate scene as we got in ROTJ in the Ewok village, something akin to the terrace where Anakin and Padmé first kiss on Naboo and finally get married. Again, the film has already been shot. So too late for that already and there’s a fat chance that it won’t even happen. But since we got a bridge of death in VII with Han’s death, we need a bridge of light.
Which might just turn out to be the symbolic bridge of Rey and Kylo coming together and finally uniting the light and the dark sides...
Leaving Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water behind as a great Reylo vibe. Seriously. Reylo vibe, guys!!!!
When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them all
I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
#reylo fandom#reylo fam#reylo meta#star wars meta#star wars fandom#star wars parallels#star wars symbolism#star wars episode ix#bridges in star wars#reylo playlist
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:')))) Can I please get a TFA Wasp/Waspinator helplessly pinning for a human reader who leaves him little sweets or finds him and takes him in? Thank you!! 💞💘💓💕💓💘
Waspinator doesn’t get nice things. The last time someone showed him any kindness it had been a lie and nearly ended with him dead. So when the human leaves sweets out for the third day in a row he’s suspicious to say the least. But he’s also starving and has little hope of finding some other way of refueling so he snatches them up and retreats back into the safety and isolation of the wilderness.
The next day there are sweets laid out for him again. Then the day after that. And that day after that. A week goes by and he’s still receptive to your offerings so you start staying to watch as he emerges from the surrounding woods to retrieve the goodies you’ve brought him. You know he’s aware of your presence but beyond eyeing you warily he makes no move to indicate that you’re not wanted. You start moving closer and closer each time, until it comes to the point where you’re close enough to reach out and touch him. You don’t though. Instead you begin to talk, idly describing your day to him until he silently leaves once more.
This new pattern goes on for another week or so, you holding a one sided conversation and him gathering up his meal and disappearing back into the woods. It escalates further from there, with Waspinator staying to actually listen to you as he nibbles at the food you’ve brought him. After a month of this Waspinator began to crave your companionship, thoughts drifting to you whenever he was alone. You were so kind to him, so sweet and considerate. The first time you had touched him, just a brush of your fingertips against his mandible, he had nearly offlined, touch starved and desperate for your affection. You had pulled back immediately and apologized for overstepping but he had hesitantly pressed closer, shuddering as you carefully placed your hand across his mandible.
Waspinator knows that he’s not allowed to hold onto any good thing in his life, that any happiness he finds is temporary. This arrangement can’t last, not with his luck, and he fears the day when he is separated from you. But for now he soaks in all the positive attention and revels in your touch. He wants more, so much more, but he’s content to accept what you give him now and will hold onto the memories when his life inevitably falls to pieces again.
#waspinator#tfa#transformers#transformers x reader#transformers imagines#transformers reader insert#my writing
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I’ve been thinking about a TFA Dragonformers AU - with heats and all the other tropey dressings - so be warned for valveplug being mentioned below.
In this AU, Dragonformers have two modes: “flight mode” - their winged form - and “ground mode” - their humanoid shape. They shift between the two pretty frequently, depending on which one is more convenient in their immediate environment. Much like the show, the dragons were once split into factions, the Autobots and Decepticons, but the Autobots won the war between them centuries ago, and it’s widely believed that the Decepticons have either been eradicated or fled the continent.
The Autobot Clan is a loose confederation of dragons that covers about half of the continent , with the dragon city/warren of Cybertron as its center. This is where the dragons’ leaders and their most sacred treasures reside. Flocks of dragons can make their home anywhere in this territory, but they get more and more scarce the farther away from Cybertron they get, so the Autobot High Command has a practice of establishing certain posts on the edges of their territories where they assign guards to watch the borders - or send the screwups that they don’t want hanging around Cybertron anymore.
That’s the situation that Optimus and co. are stuck in. Ratchet has been assigned to this lair for centuries, but the other four bots have all been sent there for their various failures. Even though Ratchet technically holds rank as the oldest, Optimus finds himself the de facto leader of this misfits.
All five of them are different breeds of dragon. Prowl’s type is known for their natural camouflage and semi-nocturnal nature, and Bumblebee is one of the “mini” type, though he’ll bite you if you say it. His kind are small, lightweight, and amazingly fast, often employed as messengers or scouts. Bulkhead is a proper mountain dragon, who was raised among energon-miners - he finds their rough and unrefined lair perfectly homey. Optimus belongs to one of the few Autobot breeds most known for their fighting; he’s the largest and strongest of them, save Bulkhead. Ratchet is actually so old he’s considered a “proto-breed” since he was born before the Autobots began breeding for types and strength, and so has patchwork coloring and no breed strengths beyond his medical training.
Heats are the only times when dragons are fertile, though many can and do mate outside of that. However, for a match to be fruitful, two dragons have to synchronize their heats, which can only be done if a courtship is performed beforehand. Under the Autobots, commanding officers are the ones who decide who earn the right to hatch a clutch, but outside of that it’s common for a dragon who isn’t in heat to help out a friend of theirs who is, though some dragons prefer to go unassisted. Dragons in heat tend to distance themselves from their flock if they go into heat - another product of Autobot rule, since other dragons can become distracted from their duties by having them around.
Ancient dragons used to fight each other for the right to court particularly desirable mates, or sometimes even their intended mate in order to earn their respect, but of course that’s a barbaric tradition that isn’t allowed anymore.
Ratchet is so old that his heats come rarely, and when they do he just slumps off to the farthest parts of the lair to read old medical scripts. Heats make him rather moody. Prowl of course isolates himself in nature, where he meditates and tries to overcome his body’s urges. Optimus also tends to isolate himself, though he does it by giving himself lots of tasks and assignments to distract himself with.
On the other hand, Bumblebee and Bulkhead have been taking turns helping each other through their heats almost since the day they met, even though their relationship isn’t romantic. However, Bumblebee is currently trying to work up the nerve to ask Prowl to spend his next heat with him.
There’s a human town on the other side of the mountains that the group ends up spending a lot of time around, fighting off monsters and bandits and stuff for the people’s sake. Everyone is scared stiff of them at first, but once they realize these dragons aren’t bloodthirsty at all they warm up pretty quickly to their saviors. The townspeople mostly repay the Autobots for their help by cleaning them up afterwards, which is massively nicer when the person helping them has hands small enough to get the spaces between their scales.
Isaac Sumdac is the local engineer/alchemist, and Sari loves hanging out with the dragons when she isn’t playing his assistant. She’s actually a young magical prodigy, especially with healing magic.
Life is going well until one day, the ancient Deception dragon Megatron comes roaring in out of nowhere and attacks the town. It takes all of the Autobots’ efforts, Dr. Sumdac’s science, and Sari’s magic to repulse him, and even then Megatron safely retreats into the wilderness. It turns out he was locked in a stasis spell in a cavern under the town, and Dr. Sumdac’s experiments have woken him up and freed him from his prison.
As Megatron establishes himself in the area, seemingly intent on retrieving something buried in the Autobots’ lair, more and more Decepticons start coming out of hiding to join him. Since the Autobot High Command doesn’t believe that the Decepticons could be regrouping, the group finds themselves and their human allies as the only ones standing between Megatron and the safety of the continent.
Shippy highlights of this AU include:
The Constructicons hitting on Bulkhead super hard as soon as they turn up, because he’s the biggest and curviest and strongest dragon around and they want to start a clutch with him. Bulkhead is less than charmed that they’re only after his body. Alternately, this happens with Strika and Lugnut.
Bumblebee’s ideas on flirting and his panicky crush running up against Prowl’s own conceptions of proper behavior.
Blitzwing turning up out of nowhere one day and demanding Prowl fight him for the right to mate with Bumblebee.
Lockdown is a Bad Touch dragon and also possibly an egg thief who can’t stop trying to seduce Prowl.
Jazz coming around and trying to subtly court Prowl because the Council gave him permission to start his own clutch and pick his own mate, and he’s getting kind of infatuated with Prowl even though he doesn’t want to admit it.
When Arcee turns up again she and Ratchet start up a little courtship of their own, which is surprisingly tender. She tops.
Optimus and Megatron’s No Good, Very Messy, and Increasingly Complicated Courtship.
#maccadams#transformers#transformers animated#valveplug#megop#beeprowl#lockprowl#blitzbee#ratchcee#jazzprowl#constructicons#dragonformers
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It’s time again for the internet equivalent of picking at scabs, rewriting The Last Jedi. I recently rewatched the Plinkett review of this--perfectly normal way to get ready for Rise of Skywalker--and I had a few thoughts about how to better do the plot.
The gist of it stays the same. The First Order and Resistance are both feeling for the losses incurred, whether victorious or defeated, in the Battle of Starkiller Base. Deciding to go for a knock-out blow, the First Order sends their fleet to the Resistance base. This wouldn’t be like a million billion ships, but basically a carrier group. They still heavily outnumber the Resistance, they just don’t rule the galaxy.
Rey’s gone to find Luke, so she’s out. Finn is still in a coma, can’t be moved because of the medical treatment he’s receiving, so while they evacuate the base, the Resistance has to simply hide him and hope the Empire doesn’t look around too closely.
A short time later, he wakes up. Stormtroopers are searching the base. He GTFOs out of there. In a fit of irony, the Stormtroopers are guys from his old unit, maybe led by Captain Phasma, and they start hunting him down as he hides in the hostile wilderness. Since this is Star Wars and not Rambo, I’d probably make it so that C-3PO volunteered to stay behind and watch over them, and maybe he could run into a primitive alien whose tribe is in danger from the Stormtroopers. But you get the idea, he has to run and hide, practice guerrilla warfare, befriend the natives, deal with his legacy of being a Stormtrooper, that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, Poe and the Resistance fleet are on the run. Hyperdrive tracking, that’s fine, but the white bronco chase isn’t. I also don’t want to rip off BSG’s “33″ by having them constantly jumping to lightspeed, being attacked by the Empire, and then jumping away again. Instead, let’s say they’re going through some outer space phenomenon like the Maw. They can’t jump to lightspeed inside it, which on the plus side means the Empire can’t cut them off. But this nebula thing is basically a storm in space, wrecking havoc with their shields and instruments, so that only a capital ship can survive. And when they emerge into a calm spot--like the eye of the storm, y’know--that means the Empire can send out starfighters to try and disable their engines. And once the engines are disabled, a cap ship will fall behind and be overtaken by the Star Destroyers. So: weather the storm, take damage from the environment--seek shelter, get attacked by TIE fighters.
Meanwhile meanwhile, Rey is training with Luke. Now, this is a thirty-second spitballing, but I imagine the theme of this story to be introspection. We’ve met the characters, so now we’re digging deep into who they are and what makes them tick. So it’d be handy here to go back and rewrite TFA so Rey, uh, is a character--not to mention the other two--but let’s not take all day. So let’s say that Luke is trying to get her to meditate, to realize her place in the vast universe, but Rey keeps getting sidetracked by obsessing over her parents. She thinks she can use this Force Cerebro mode to hear them and find out where they are, while Luke tries to encourage her to let go of the past and focus on the present.
Similarly, Finn would be dealing with his past as a Stormtrooper, the old comrades who seem him as a traitor. And Poe would be dealing with, I don’t know, the burden of command. Realizing that he has to order people to their deaths and make the hard choices instead of flying out on a million-to-one odds.
This doesn’t give Kylo Ren much to do--maybe he’s leading the pursuit of the Resistance, shooting up the cap ships, then boarding them once they’re disabled. Just rampaging through, killing everyone, interrogating them, still trying to find the coordinates Rey ran off to. Maybe he manages to catch BB-8, or maybe he’s on the planet, going after Finn--it takes time to encrypt all the files, so the Resistance had to ditch with the process still going, now Finn has a data chip and he has to keep it away from the Empire. But eventually Kylo finds out where Luke is and goes to capture him and bring him to Snoke, with Luke going along quietly.
I sort of see the climax as being, yeah, a twist. It turns out that Leia’s master plan--oh, by the way, we’re getting rid of Holdo and making it so that Poe knows the plan from the beginning, he just has a hard time sticking to it--is a rope-a-dope. They’ll lead the Imperial fleet through this storm, crippling the ships on both sides, only to lead them right back to their headquarters, where not only can they land and seek shelter with the help of some shield generators that were cleverly hidden, but the remnants of the New Republic fleet show up to kick the weakened Imps’ ass.
So I imagine the final fight as being a big climactic battle. We have Finn and the surviving Rebel forces and the aliens he’d befriended on the ground, fighting off a siege, while Poe and the remaining Rebel starfighters link up with the New Republic’s fleet to take the fight to the Star Destroyers. Also, Poe and Luke and Kylo Ren and Snoke are there.
I suppose instead of replaying the Death Star throne room confrontation WITH A TWEEST, we could stage some kind of showdown that takes advantage of our Palpatine analog and Obi-Wan/Yoda analog both being alive and active. Not necessarily them picking up mountains with the Force, but something like Luke and Snoke sitting down across from each other and trading words while Rey and Kylo glower at each other like attack dogs being kept on the leash. Almost a philosophical discussion--maybe Snoke could point out that hey, the universe keeps falling to the Dark Side, the Jedi keep being wiped out, and the Empire keeps taking over, so why keep fighting? And Luke countering his arguments. Technically, we don’t need a lightsaber duel at all. There’s plenty of action with the land battle and space combat. I kinda imagine Luke winning the ‘debate’ when Kylo betrays and murders Snoke, while Rey stays loyal to him.
Or hey, this debate about galactic politics could have the personalized counterpart of Kylo Ren. Luke is arguing that hey, no matter how bad things have gotten, no matter how many mistakes were made, it’s never too late to turn it around. And Snoke’s arguing no, universe is fucked, Kylo’s evil, there is no coming back for either of them so let’s wallow in the darkness, grab as much shit as we can, enjoy ourselves as much as possible while everyone else burns.
Although, hypocrite time, I do imagine one massive show of Force on Luke’s part where he summons that interstellar storm from earlier to break up the fleet battle. Both sides are in shambles and have to flee to lick their wounds, but the Rebels are able to definitively flee and the Empire has suffered a devastating setback without accomplishing its objective. Maybe in the starfighter battle, Poe was able to take out the specialized hyperspace tracking ship. Maybe that’s what his storyline was about: he wanted to make a kamikaze attack on the tracker ship, while Leia was saying no, no, stick to the plan. Could be a metaphor for trusting the Force, like Luke’s position in his and Snoke’s philosophical debate.
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