You know that joke about palpatine using dark therapy speak on anakin
But like
That is genuinely exactly how maul talks
"how does that make you feel" "your rage unbalances you"
Maul was raised by an evil therapist and it shows
Cosimo Galluzzi
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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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$LAYYYTER

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Keni
Sweet Seals For You, Always
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@darksidepride
You know that joke about palpatine using dark therapy speak on anakin
But like
That is genuinely exactly how maul talks
"how does that make you feel" "your rage unbalances you"
Maul was raised by an evil therapist and it shows
Okay, so. Star Wars has all these concepts that weirdo New Left boomer George Lucas tosses in there but because of storyteller limitations it would kill the plot to fully explain them all, so later writers have to come in for the spin-off materials and bat clean-up to fully explain all this crazy crap. And I would like to talk about something that made me actively angry at first, but which I now adore. And that is the Naboo.
So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.
Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.
There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by PadmƩ. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.
The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when PadmƩ is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but SabƩ her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.
The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.
Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.
The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.
Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.
Why does PadmƩ dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.
Queen Amidala has that weird accent while PadmƩ does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.
The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.
Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.
They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!
There you go, @charmwasjess
I wasnāt expecting much. Maybe Vaderās baritone with hints of melody. I was *not* expecting it to be a masterpiece, what the fuck, this is a million times better than I was expecting and itās unironically really good. Turn on that volume button.
I love it when pre Original Trilogy era shows how much effort went into making the Death Star. It took decades, literal decades, and it took so much money and so many people and it was such a secretive thing and itās staffed by millions because itās the size of a small moon.
I cannot express how much all of the added information makes it so much funnier that Luke blew it up.
Luke destroys literally everything Palpatine built. He blows up the Death Star, which was referenced in universe as early as the second movie. He blew up the weapon of mass destruction twenty years in the making. And he blew it up pretty much directly after itās first and only successful attack. It was operational for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes that Palpatine had the thing heād been building for longer than Luke has been alive, and Luke blows it up. First day retirement, but first hour retirement.
Luke convinces Darth Vader to turn back to the light side, a feat thought literally impossible by literally everybody. Sidious clearly doesnāt see Vaderās betrayal coming. Vaderās betrayal was not in his plans, nor was it something he was prepared for. Sidious is a powerful Force user with all four limbs while Vader is a man in the tin can Palpatine put him in. If Palpatine had seen Vader turning coming, he would not have allowed it to happen.
Luke literally should not even be alive. Palpatine almost definitely got Padme out of the way on purpose, and he almost certainly was trying for her unborn child as well (there was way too big of a risk that a cute liddol bebe would bring some humanity back to Anakin, and Palpatine did not want Anakin to have any humanity) Luke living is literally the first step in Palpatineās ultimate downfall, especially once Vader finds out that Luke is his son. His very alive son. His son that is not dead, despite Palpatine claiming Anakin killed Padme. Implying that Anakin killed Padme and she posthumously gave birth. But, she didnāt give birth on Mustafar, which was the last place Anakin interacted with her. And once the mother dies, you have to get those fuckers out fast or they die too.
I imagine Darth Vader piecing all of this together is that meme with all the math floating around his head, because how could Padme have died by his hand and then given birth like two hours later?
Luke killing Palpatine is what ultimately leads to the dissolution of the Empire as an omnipotent entity. Luke killed the Empire. Luke spends a good amount of his adult life killing Empire remnants. We see that in the Mandalorian, since heās so recognizable that Gideon immediately knows heās fucked just by seeing an X-wing. We read it in Legendsā continuity, where Luke terrifies Imperials because he can walk into their changing room and stand in their for a minute and they donāt even notice.
Luke destroyed Palpatineās lifeās work. Everything Palpatine spent his whole life working towards, and Luke kills all of it. He blows up not one, but two Death Stars (he may not have pulled the trigger on the second Death Star, but without him, it never would have been destroyed). He convinces not one, but multiple Sith and Dark Jedi to return from the Dark Side. He is the only reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the biggest pain in Palpatineās ass ever born, lives long enough to make it to the Death Star.
Palpatine went through so much effort. And just when he had finally won, when he finally had a weapon capable of destroying entire planets with a single blast, making it impossible for any planets or peoples to go against him, Luke shows up nineteen years late to the Jedi party with space Starbucks and a droid twice his age and almost singlehandedly destroys everything Palpatine ever had a hand in creating.
Luke manages to become even worse than Obi-Wan Kenobi, the ultimate thorn in the side of politicians, and Luke doesnāt even understand any politics. He wasnāt trained in diplomacy like Obi-Wan and Leia, no, heās a farmboy who left home for the first time in his entire life, just this morning. And he is the one to destroy the Empire.
If they rewrote Star Wars and had it entirely from Palpatineās perspective, Luke Skywalker would be his greatest foe. Luke Skywalker would be the final boss. Luke Skywalker is the antithesis of everything Palpatine believes in and he is the one character that Palpatine cannot predict. He isnāt as moldable as Anakin, he doesnāt respond to threats very well, heās apparently impossible to kill via Force lightning (still the funniest scene of all times, the progression of Palpatineās face falling and him looking like āwhat the fuck??? Is this kid rubber??? Iāve electrocuted him eight times???ā), his unwavering faith in his fatherās goodness makes Darth Vader want to be a better person, Luke Skywalker is the big bad of Palpatineās story andā
There is nothing in this world that is funnier than someoneās biggest antagonist being Luke fucking Skywalker. Luke Skywalker, who saved the galaxy with the power of love and who shouldnāt exist, by Jedi rules and by Palpatineās own attempts, and whose best friends are literally droids, which Palpatine canonically hates!
Everything about this is hilarious, this is the funniest thing in all of media, Palpatine loses absolutely everything to some backwater farmboy who fucking likes droids.
Palpatine really let himself get bullied by his employees 19 yo son
He wiped out the whole jedi order so no one would have the skills to go against them, and then Luke pops in with the job training equivalent of following a couple coworkers around for an hour to get used to the cash registers and takes down Palpatine's whole operation
one of those time travel AUs where Vader goes back into his body as Anakin before he fell to the dark side and fixes everything. Palpatine is dead, the Jedi are alive, and everyone's happy. He never found out who Luke's twin sister was, but that's fine because this time around he'll get to know both of them from birth. The twins are born and PadmƩ says she wants to name their daughter Leia! :) And Anakin thinks, Hmm. Looking back I can see that Princess Leia was a good person, and we were only enemies because I went and became a Sith. Okay we can name our daughter Leia :)
Years pass and Leia starts growing older. The Organas adopt a completely different girl. Anakin's looking at his daughter like no, it can't be. No way. Do NOT tell me that Princess Leia was Luke's twin all along, but time keeps passing and it becomes increasingly apparent that this is indeed the case, and now he's having a Crisis
apparently I'm physically incapable of posting an au and then not drawing something for it
listen. padme amidala is a freak, okay. ever since aotc iāve had to listen to bullshit arguments about how awful the prequel romance is, how anakinās a red flag, blah blah blah. thatās a smooth brain take. first of all, of course heās a red flag. thatās the point. you think padme doesnāt know anakin is ten pounds of mommy issues in a five pound bag?Ā you think she looked at soggy weeping anakin begging her to love him and didnāt immediately think āyes i definitely will peg himā ?? you think just because sheās a queen turned senator that she isnāt just as horny and feral as he is? anakin wasnāt even pushy about it. he was just āoh btw iāve been obsessed with you for a decade and live in a perpetual state of emotional agony but thats okay whatever you want is fine with me hahaā and padme goesĀ āyea okay iām into that.ā two minutes after heās assigned to be her bodyguard she gives an obligatory little āi have a bad feeling about thisā and then just fucking marries him. this is a woman who wore white to a blood bath. come on.
#I like the prequels more now that Iāve decided to stop trying to shoehorn any characterās behaviors into normal boxesĀ #and instead just asked myself āwhat kind of person would make these choicesā and see the characters as thatĀ #Padme seriously wore a black corset to tell him she was very into him but they would not be fuckingĀ #instead of saying oh my god who DOES thatĀ #I just instead ask myself āwho does thatā and realize that explains a lot moreĀ #here is this wealthy educated and perhaps a little vain woman who sees her childhood hick charitycase friend grew up as a hot goth jockĀ #and oh no heās still space racist and awkward and yet she goes harder for him after finding that outĀ #sheās absolutely a freakĀ #her being a freak is actually the most polite way to interpret her characterĀ #because it intersects so interestingly with this virgin child queen who crowned the emperor shit thatās her actual legacyĀ #to be honest I still have no clue what Lucas intended to say with these characters but tehyre a lot more fun once you turnoff preconceptionsĀ #the OT trilogy are adorable and iconic but the PT trio are great because theres something fucking wrong with all of themĀ #just comically tragically the dumbest combination of disordered behavior from a group of protagonistsĀ #the OT trio are unlikely but largely successful heroes! The PT trilogy are hyper-competent child geniuses who grew up to beĀ #heavily decorated and famous heroes who break the entire setting forever and I love that for them!
shout out to @superstardestroyer for having the most correct star wars opinion on this website
ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS IS WHEN ARTISTS DRAW DARTH VADER AS THIS SORT OF SEETHING, RIPPLING, WRITHING NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE (AND HE IS) BUT THEN HAVE HIM WALK LIKE A MODEL ON A RUNWAY AND HE HAS TO CLUTCH HIS OWN CAPE TO KEEP IT OFF THE GROUND SO HE ENDS UP LOOKING LIKE A REGENCY ERA LADY PICKING UP HER DRESS TO NOT DRAG IT ACROSS THE FLOOR MIXED WITHĀ āWALK WALK MURDER BABYā AND ITāS THE PERFECT ENCAPSULATION OF ANAKIN SKYWALKER AS DARTH VADER I LOVE HIM SO MUCH
attack of the clones leaves plausible room to theorize that there's a raging death stick addiction epidemic going on in the jedi temple, and by "plausible room" i mean that i personally can overthink star wars faster than a hummingbird can beat its wings
in attack of the clones, obi-wan is approached by a drug dealer in a bar, and is offered death sticks for purchase. this immediately after anakin (the least helpful individual in space) helpfully shouts JEDI BUSINESS, BACK TO YOUR DRINKS and obi-wan is wearing distinctive jedi robes and is carrying a lightsaber, which even a slave kid (anakin, when he was more helpful) from the rural portion of the galaxy could recognize.
factor to note: the jedi are here in an enforcement capacity, they are actively chasing a criminal. the jedi clearly have the legal capacity to operate as law enforcement, although i doubt they operate as local coruscant law enforcement. but they are still quite literally government contracted law enforcement wizard monks, and death sticks are implied to be an illegal substance, and given the context of the bar, we can assume they're a party drug.
drug dealers do not typically go "would you like to buy drugs" to random people, especially people very obviously in uniform, carrying a weapon, here (which everyone knows, thanks to anakin) on official business. official business that involves law enforcement, because that is obi-wan's job, he is literally stopping a hired assassin. so what we can assume is that this guy is either really dumb, really high, both, or that he has an active market of jedi who buy death sticks from him, and that market is so stable he is bold enough to walk up to random jedi #5 and offer him illegal drugs. hence, there might be a solid number of jedi doing death sticks.
factor to note: it's mentioned in the prequels that the force was growing darker, more clouded and more hostile for the jedi to use. in legends, it's said that death sticks could hamper a user's ability to touch the force, so you could connect the two and say that death stick usage spiked because the force had really, really awful vibes suddenly. and then you send THAT vulnerable population, where they become MORE vulnerable.i can wring all of this out of a one-off gag scene, you have no idea what kind of insane thoughts about star wars i can make up.
thought ingredients:
the real world fact that many armies are provided drugs and alcohol by command or sent to them by families back at home, whether it's soldiers in WWI getting cocaine mailed to them by loved ones, dictatorship-provided methamphetamine passed out to german soldiers in WWII, uppers given to US pilots, cigarettes and rum included in standard rations or a civil war general commanding his troops to chug morphine in a bid to stave off dysentery
star wars, because i have a pathological obsession with films of questionable quality
this post, which has overtaken my notes
the fact that a main feature of life in star wars has to be incurable, constant jet lag, and that organizing a war across a thousand timezones means more than a few all-nighters, and tired soldiers die first.
instructions, blend ingredients finely. product:
not only is there possibly a deathsticks addiction epidemic in the jedi temple, there possibly is a spocaine (space cocaine) addiction epidemic deeply entwined with it that exists because of complicating political and spiritual factors, and it's an epidemic possibly widespread among the GAR. i really wanted to somehow invent a reason for a general to tell his soldiers to chug space morphine to stave off space dysentery, but with medical outfits that can save people from baths in lava, i don't think i can justify that little medical knowledge, but the image is still really funny in a gallows humor way.
secondary conclusion: when it says in legends that emperor palpatine gave darth vader "sith chemicals" to enhance "vitality" that was probably spamphetamines (space amphetamines) and our guy is speedballing antibiotics, anti-seizure medication, IV nutrients and uppers.
with this information, jabba the hutt should hire me as a drug dealer. in space i could make a very cushy lifestyle selling dope to the empire.
the rabbit hole of drugs in space is officially going deeper. in the jedi quest books, anakin mentions that as a kid, all the slaves were terrified of being sold to the spice mines of kessel because of how poor the conditions were there - which connects loosely to han's mention of the kessel run, which, from context, we can surmise is an infamous smuggling route, one that han can somehow fly faster than all those other rubes.
assuming "mining" means exactly what we think it means, spice as a drug is technically a mineral. (i can't believe they crave that mineral.) i checked out the wookiepedia page for the mines of kessel, which has given me some really fucked up information; the mines of kessel, despite a hutt-world slave being terrified of being sold to them, were a galactic republic prison. so spice, or at least some forms of it, were both legal, and mined en masse by slave labor, and if anakin's baby fear of getting sold to the spice mines of kessel is accurate, that means the republic even bought slaves from the hutts to supplement the labor of the detainees they turned into slaves. so slavery in the outer rim is more or less sponsored by the republic's prison system, despite the illegality of slavery in the republic - if you've already got an operation where you can deny freely the rights of people, it's really easy to say the people you bought to supplement your labor force are also just criminals. no one will care enough to ask.
further, that galactic republic prison doubles as a place to shove inconvenient political adversaries, troublemakers and an overtly slave-powered outfit under the galactic empire. but han's a smuggler, implying that he's carrying illegal goods, and it's also implied that he's gotten these goods through the kessel run - which we can assume involves the actual planet, kessel. at least some forms of spice have to be legal for a prison corporation to be mass producing it. there's the chance that han's smuggling the version of spice that isn't legal, but the funnier option? the hutts hire han to steal spice from the empire to re-sell at their own profit, not just to smuggle spice they themselves mined and are now trying to get to a market. han losing product prior to episode 4 lands jabba in hot water not just thanks to a financial loss, but because the empire is going to come down on his head, which explains why some rando smuggler who drives a space VW bus has business with a slug that rules the entire planet. the real reason jabba didn't just send a guy to handle this problem is because han getting caught stealing imperial goods to sell in hutt space is definitely a good way to piss off the ornery bathrobe that runs the empire you have to share a galaxy with.
not sure how this may or may not affect this, but 'spice' is something of a borrow concept from the grandfather of space-political dramas (recently remade into a HBO film), Dune.
Dune (the novel, 1965) is about a nobleman's son that goes to a desert waste planet because his dad was supposed to be the ruler but the corrupt (and grotesquely fat) prior ruler has the dad assassinated and there's themes here I'm not sure I understand and what I do understand I'm not sure I like- BUT SPICE
in Dune, spice is a drug that enables space travel. It either causes low-grade prescience or supernatural math ability, but was critical to interstellar trade. Additionally, where it was mined was not only a desert waste planet, but inhabited by giant carnivorous worms capable of sensing and coming to eat things from literally miles distant.
Now- none of this is technically SW cannon, but given the common setting elements, I'm inclined to entertain it. It certainly would be reasonable for Anakin to fear being sent to work in such a dangerous mining site. but when you frame the parts of the continuity next to each other-
doesn't that sound like a drug that simulates force sensitivity?
āStar Wars: Visionsā Masterpost
Star Wars Visions is dropping Sept 22 and has a new, shiny trailer. To make things easier, I thought Iād make a big info post about Star Wars: Visions (that i started over a month ago and only finishing now lol) since I am SO excited for the long-overdue advent of Star Wars anime. Iām a big fan of anime and was really excited to see the variety of studios and styles being tapped for this project. I also included some links when possible to some of the studiosā past works!
1. āThe Duelā (Kamikaze Douga)
In an alternate Jedi vs Sith universe based on Japanese lore, a former Sith wanders the galaxy and confronts an inner struggle of selflessness vs selfishness. The animation will be stylized as black and white with the exception of the lightsabers. The tie-in novel Ronin by Emma Mieko Candon will be based on this short. As I guessed, āThe Duelā looks to be 3D animation since Kamikaze Douga is a CG animation studio. Their animated short Batman Ninja is a fun example of how they work with 3D animation.
2. āLop and Ochoā (Geno)
A padawan/master story focusing on Lop, a young bunny Jedi padawan. This short will emphasize its natural scenery in contrast to imperial industrialization. Geno is a pretty new studio, but itās mostly formed out of the former staff of the now-defunct Studio Manglobe, which made Samurai Champloo back in the early 2000s (although Iām unsure if any of the staff that worked back then are still with the studio).
3. āTatooine Rhapsodyā (Studio Colorido)
A Star Wars rock opera about a Tatooine garage band trying to make it big. It will be chibi style and feature cameos from existing characters like (chibi!) Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt. Studio Colorido has recently done action anime like Burn the Witch, as well as more sllce-of-life styles like Penguin Highway.
4. āThe Twinsā (Studio Trigger)
Follows a set of twins born to the Dark Side where the brother must save his Sith sister from the darkness, inspired by Luke and Leia. Hiroyuki Imaishi from Studio Trigger is directing this shortāa brief highlight reel of his animation and directing work can be found here, Iām very excited that he seems to have a super dynamic style and Iām looking forward to seeing such vibrant and colorful concept artworks come to life.
5. āThe Elderā (Studio Trigger)
A story that follows a classic master/apprentice relationship, and of the old generation giving way to the new. Studio Trigger is also animating this short in addition to āThe Twinsāāsome examples of their past work are Little Witch Academia and Promare.
6. āThe Village Brideā (Kinema Citrus)
Described as āromantic and bittersweet,ā a fallen Jedi observes the traditions of a small mountain village through the titular village bride, inspired by traditional Japanese mountain culture.Ā This short apparently āapproaches the Force in a really unique way.ā Kinema Citrusā recent works include Revue Starlight and Made in Abyss. Their staff members are former animators from Production IG and Bones, both of which are big and influential animation studios.
7. āAkakiriā (Science Saru)
A ābeautiful yet painfulā story about a Jedi and a princess. The concept art looks particularly gorgeous to me. Science Saru combines traditional and 3D animation techniques, and produced Food Chain from Adventure Time as their debut project.
8. āT0-B1ā³ (Science Saru)
A ācute and fun storyā about a droid boy who wants to be a Jedi, also by Science Saru. Very much inspired by the classic and old-school anime Astroboy, and they even tapped one of the original sound designers who worked on Astroboy.
9. āThe Ninth Jediā (Production IG)
āThe Ninth Jediā follows the story of a daughter of a Jedi bladesmith who must deliver lightsabers to a group of warriors, all of whom must find a way to work with each other. Just going by name recognition, Production IG is the studio that stands out to me the most! They made the legendary/groundbreaking Ghost in the Shell film in the 90s (and the various sequels), the famous O-Ren Ishii animated sequences from Tarantinoās Kill Bill, and the popular sports anime Haikyuu!!
Headcanon that Luke and Obi Wan got the money to pay Han Solo by selling the moisture farm at bargain-basement prices in Anchorhead without telling anyone that it was totally torched, and by the time anyone find out they were well off planet. Luke now has a reputation as one of Tattooineās most famous con men despite the fact that it was Obi Wan who ran the con.
#I donāt know if you meant it this way but I totally interpreted this as them selling the farm multiple times to different people#luke: *wrestling over selling the wreck of the farm to someone he knows is a complete scumbag*#obi-wan: hello are you interested in buying a farm#complete scumbucket: *interested noises*#luke: Ā wait didnāt we already-? *gets zapped by R2* ow!#luke: oh#luke: ohhhh#luke: >:)
i havenāt cared about star wars ācanonā since i was 3 years old- I LOVE the idea that the reason Luke had to dramatically speeder in and out of Jabbaās without hitting up any of his local connections is he is like, wanted by a bunch of scum inĀ Mos Eisley. Can you- can you imagineĀ Vader or whoever doing a recon in town onĀ āthe last son of the Jedi who blew up the death star.ā His closeĀ friends and family have all a) died b) moved off planet or c) both.Ā
So the only reputation he has is āthat bastard con artist who banked 19 years of aw-shucks-wormie-ness and used it to outrageously fleece everyoneĀ whoās almost anybody.ā Vader reading the report likeā¦damn you Kenobi did you get HONDO to raise my son??
Jabbaās reaction to Lukeās message is INFINITELY funnier if we consider the idea thatĀ āSkywalkerā amongst the wretched local villainy (who mostly ignore imperial and rebel propaganda) is actually synonymous with TWO things - that brat who totally messed up the podrace bookies 25 years ago, and the infamous Anchorhead Con. Jabba gets this message aboutĀ āJediā and is like LOL i think the other Skywalker tried to pull some hotshit with that too before wimping out.
Everyone openly laughs like sureĀ youāre a Jedi and Iāve got a bargain vaporator farm I want to sell you.Ā
AND THEN HE WRECKS THE JOINT WITH A DEBT-RIDDEN HALF-BLIND SMUGGLER A RANDOM SLAVE GIRL ONE GUARD AND TWO BEAT UP DROIDS WHAAAT
Iām imagining some random palace guard telling Vader this, afterwards.
āSo this fuckingāSKYWALKER, dude, have you ever heard the name Skywalker? You know what it means? A FUCKING ASSHOLE, thatās what it means. Like. The first one was bad enough, this little shit named Anakin who was fuckinā NINE YEARS OLD and he just WON THE FUCKING BOONTA EVE PODRACE and set SIXTEEN bookies out of business and if I ever meet him Iām gonna set him on fire for itā
āAnd then this new one, Luke? Fuckinā nobody, raised by his aunt and uncle out in the Wastes, little aw-shucks hick farm kid, the kind you could give him a five-credit piece and a ten-credit piece and he keeps taking the fiver because itās BIGGER, that kind of simple, and then he comes into Mos Eisley one afternoon and sells his aunt and uncleās moisture farm, right, Iāve been out there a few times, several of us have, and itās a nice place as far as moisture farms go, mildly profitable, and the kid is fucking happy to get like two-thirds its value, so he sells the farm, right? TO NINETEEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE! Do you have any idea how much Jabbaās finance people had to do to get that sorted out? Nineteen fucking mortgages on ONE fucking property, puts every real estate con Jabba the Huttās entire CLAN ever pulled and we were on the WRONG SIDE OF IT! We had every pirate and smuggler from here to Corellia laughing at us! And THEN! And THENā!
āSo he pops up via hologram message acting like a DIPLOMAT from the REPUBLIC, claiming a title and rank from an extinct, defunct, ILLEGAL order and wanting to bargain with Jabbaāare you fucking kidding me, BARGAIN WITH JABBA for a smuggler whoās up to his ass in debt when heās responsible for that farm scheme, acting like he doesnāt even fucking REMEMBER it and expects that Jabbaās forgotten it too. Like. Absolute fucking idiot, and anticipating that Jabbaās just as stupid. And he offers a pair of droids as a gift. Like, built-in-the-Republic-era, random-ass droids that he probably picked up from the Jawas that morning for a few hundred credits and a junkedĀ āvaporator.
āI mean, Jabbaās seething here, but hey, free droids is free droids. Whatever. He takes the droids, throws things, orders a fight to the death between two gamblers who owed him money, killed one of his dancers at some point ⦠and then Boushh shows up with fucking Chewbacca in chainsāheās Soloās first mate, so Jabba was all happy about that, but not happy enough to pay the full bountyāand whatās Boushh do? Pull some gonads out from somewhere after all these years, and also pull out a fucking THERMAL DETONATOR! Going to blow us all to fuck if he doesnāt get his measley fifty thousand, and, well, thereās no arguing with crazy like that.Ā
āSo now, if youāre keeping score, Jabbaās lost an absolute SHITLOAD of money and had his bookmaking industry fucked all to hell for like three years after the stunt from Skywalker the First, got screwed out of ANOTHER shitload of money in the farm scam by Skywalker the Sequel, got all but called an idiot to his face and insulted six times over by the same dude whoās apparently scammed so many people heās forgotten who he has and hasnāt scammed, and got threatened out of fifty thousand credits by a second-tier bounty hunter IN FRONT OF HIS ENTIRE COURT.
āAnd then the next morning, what the fuck? Jabbaās favorite sculpture is gone, the one with Solo as its main ingredient that Boba Fett brought him. And Boushh is gone. And Jabbaās got a brand-new dancer chained up next to him. Night duty guy tells me Boushh unfroze Solo, and the new dancer girl IS Boushh, which, okay, youāre dealing with people like that and you look like that? You definitely need a helmet, but I feel like pretending she didnāt breathe oxygen was overkill. Anyway, then Skywalker shows up. All alone, no weapons, nothing, like he really believes in this Jedi shit. Arrogant little bastard, and weāre all laying bets on how Jabbaās going to kill him.
āSo he talks a little, and fwoop! goes the trapdoor, and okay, everybody who bet onĀ āRancorā is doing a little happy dance, but then! BUT THEN! He fucking KILLS THE RANCOR! Drops its own cage door on its head and punches right through its skull! Andāfucking NOBODY bet on that, which is a damn shame because everybody else wouldāve just torn the winner apart out of sheer rage at that point and we coulda used some good bloodshed then, yāknow? I mean, I dunno if youāve ever met Jabba the Hutt, but heās the kind of boss thatāll just go off and kill you for failing him or just because heās angry at something. Just complete fucking asshole. I mean, he was pissed enough that everybody was worried for their safety, and so somebody dying messily right then wouldāve calmed him down a bit.
āSo Jabbaās big mad, and he gathers Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca all together and says heās gonna feed them to the Sarlacc, which is a nasty tentacled carnivorous plant out in the desert, so we all board the sail barge and have a nice little pleasure cruiseāhave you ever been to Tattoine? Iām fuckinā kidding, itās brutal. But hey, we get to see Skywalker executed, right? Wrong.
āJabba offers them the chance to beg for their lives, and Solo calls him a slimy piece of worm-ridden filth, which, I mean, I could do better, yāknow? If Iām about to die? Anyway, Skywalker goes up first, gets prodded to the edge, flips a salute off to who-knows-where, and does this little twist in midair, catches the fucking plank, and fucking SPRINGBOARDS himself back onboard, CATCHES HIS LIGHTSABER FROM MIDAIR where the one DROID shot it to him, and starts sending guards over the side, usually in pieces.
āSo more guards rush forward to help, and thereās this huge fight, and fuckinā BOBA FETT falls in, and while thatās going on? The fucking dancing girl has grabbed her chain and is FUCKING STRANGLING JABBA WITH IT! Like, I look over and heās bucking and struggling and sheās pulling on that chain like anything, and then somebody hits me over the head with a bottle of Corellian brandy, and by the time I look again heās pitched over dead! And nobody freaking bet on that!
āAnd then? Off they fucking go, Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca and the dancing girl and the droids and one of the guards who I played sabacc with the other night and he owes me twenty credits! And that fucking Skywalker just cost me my job, and if I see him again Iām going to burn him to cinders myself!ā
The man subsides, eyeing the gigantic ebony figure in front of him who, except for a couple of momentary starts as though he might say something, has been silently listening to him all this time.
Size-wise, Darth Vader has nothing on Jabba the Hutt, but somehow, he is scarier.
Finally, the dark form speaks.Ā āYou said you could do better.ā A momentās silence, and he clarifies.Ā āIf you were about to die.ā He gets the impression that whatever monster lurks behind the helmet is smiling.Ā āYou are about to die now. Because you are a criminal, and because of what you have said about my son, Luke Skywalker. You have an opportunity to do better. Use it.ā
The so-condemned criminal, late of Jabbaās palace guard, lets his jaw hang open unflatteringly for a moment while his brain catches up with events. HIS SON, which means ā¦Ā Ā
āYOUāRE Anakin Skywalkerās HUSBAND?ā
The steady, hissing rhythm of Darth Vaderās rebreather actually stops dead as the Dark Lord straightens up as if stabbed with an electroprod.
In the instant before the manās brains, blood, and spinal fluid coat the far wall, he has the momentary satisfaction of having, indeed, done much better than Solo.
i feel like i boarded a ride thinking it was one of those āboat slowly past the animatronic charactersā deals but it was actually space mountain
@deadcatwithaflamethrower
The end of this post is the person who Whoopsād and stood UP on Space Mountain while it was rolling.
someone: luke skywalker beat darth vader and ended the empire
everyone else in the galaxy:
everyone on tatooine:
Imagine being the local jock from Toshe Station and turning on the news to learn that the guy you calledĀ āWormieā in desert high school just killed the two most powerful people in the galaxy.Ā
Tags via jaquez45: #I think a lot about this #like the guy was a weird excitable nerd #but you had to tolerate him because #INEXPLICABLY #he was STUPID good as a pilot #like the t-16 orbital drop whomp rat champion since he was 13 #so you couldnāt just IGNORE him and his fucking nerdery #and his being super awkward CONSTANTLY #and one day his farm is burned and his family is dead #you assume heās dead too and you feel kind of bad for mocking him now #but then #space radio is like LUKE SKYWALKER BLEW UP A SPACE STATION #LUKE SKYWALKER KILLED THE EMPEROR #and you just #kind hope he never decides to get revenge for the wormie thing
oh also turns out he came back to town and killed the mob boss who controlled everything and then left again without buzzing any of his former acquaintance so probably youāre Beneath his Notice; mixed feelings about that
yes, youāre correct, this takes place at tatooine high school
Weird to think both Greedo and Darth Vader went to Tatooine High School.Ā
Vader did not go to Tatooine High School he went to Magic Lasersword Catholic School when he was nine and then trashed the place
Headcanon that Luke and Obi Wan got the money to pay Han Solo by selling the moisture farm at bargain-basement prices in Anchorhead without telling anyone that it was totally torched, and by the time anyone find out they were well off planet. Luke now has a reputation as one of Tattooineās most famous con men despite the fact that it was Obi Wan who ran the con.
#I donāt know if you meant it this way but I totally interpreted this as them selling the farm multiple times to different people#luke: *wrestling over selling the wreck of the farm to someone he knows is a complete scumbag*#obi-wan: hello are you interested in buying a farm#complete scumbucket: *interested noises*#luke: Ā wait didnāt we already-? *gets zapped by R2* ow!#luke: oh#luke: ohhhh#luke: >:)
i havenāt cared about star wars ācanonā since i was 3 years old- I LOVE the idea that the reason Luke had to dramatically speeder in and out of Jabbaās without hitting up any of his local connections is he is like, wanted by a bunch of scum inĀ Mos Eisley. Can you- can you imagineĀ Vader or whoever doing a recon in town onĀ āthe last son of the Jedi who blew up the death star.ā His closeĀ friends and family have all a) died b) moved off planet or c) both.Ā
So the only reputation he has is āthat bastard con artist who banked 19 years of aw-shucks-wormie-ness and used it to outrageously fleece everyoneĀ whoās almost anybody.ā Vader reading the report likeā¦damn you Kenobi did you get HONDO to raise my son??
Jabbaās reaction to Lukeās message is INFINITELY funnier if we consider the idea thatĀ āSkywalkerā amongst the wretched local villainy (who mostly ignore imperial and rebel propaganda) is actually synonymous with TWO things - that brat who totally messed up the podrace bookies 25 years ago, and the infamous Anchorhead Con. Jabba gets this message aboutĀ āJediā and is like LOL i think the other Skywalker tried to pull some hotshit with that too before wimping out.
Everyone openly laughs like sureĀ youāre a Jedi and Iāve got a bargain vaporator farm I want to sell you.Ā
AND THEN HE WRECKS THE JOINT WITH A DEBT-RIDDEN HALF-BLIND SMUGGLER A RANDOM SLAVE GIRL ONE GUARD AND TWO BEAT UP DROIDS WHAAAT
Iām imagining some random palace guard telling Vader this, afterwards.
āSo this fuckingāSKYWALKER, dude, have you ever heard the name Skywalker? You know what it means? A FUCKING ASSHOLE, thatās what it means. Like. The first one was bad enough, this little shit named Anakin who was fuckinā NINE YEARS OLD and he just WON THE FUCKING BOONTA EVE PODRACE and set SIXTEEN bookies out of business and if I ever meet him Iām gonna set him on fire for itā
āAnd then this new one, Luke? Fuckinā nobody, raised by his aunt and uncle out in the Wastes, little aw-shucks hick farm kid, the kind you could give him a five-credit piece and a ten-credit piece and he keeps taking the fiver because itās BIGGER, that kind of simple, and then he comes into Mos Eisley one afternoon and sells his aunt and uncleās moisture farm, right, Iāve been out there a few times, several of us have, and itās a nice place as far as moisture farms go, mildly profitable, and the kid is fucking happy to get like two-thirds its value, so he sells the farm, right? TO NINETEEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE! Do you have any idea how much Jabbaās finance people had to do to get that sorted out? Nineteen fucking mortgages on ONE fucking property, puts every real estate con Jabba the Huttās entire CLAN ever pulled and we were on the WRONG SIDE OF IT! We had every pirate and smuggler from here to Corellia laughing at us! And THEN! And THENā!
āSo he pops up via hologram message acting like a DIPLOMAT from the REPUBLIC, claiming a title and rank from an extinct, defunct, ILLEGAL order and wanting to bargain with Jabbaāare you fucking kidding me, BARGAIN WITH JABBA for a smuggler whoās up to his ass in debt when heās responsible for that farm scheme, acting like he doesnāt even fucking REMEMBER it and expects that Jabbaās forgotten it too. Like. Absolute fucking idiot, and anticipating that Jabbaās just as stupid. And he offers a pair of droids as a gift. Like, built-in-the-Republic-era, random-ass droids that he probably picked up from the Jawas that morning for a few hundred credits and a junkedĀ āvaporator.
āI mean, Jabbaās seething here, but hey, free droids is free droids. Whatever. He takes the droids, throws things, orders a fight to the death between two gamblers who owed him money, killed one of his dancers at some point ⦠and then Boushh shows up with fucking Chewbacca in chainsāheās Soloās first mate, so Jabba was all happy about that, but not happy enough to pay the full bountyāand whatās Boushh do? Pull some gonads out from somewhere after all these years, and also pull out a fucking THERMAL DETONATOR! Going to blow us all to fuck if he doesnāt get his measley fifty thousand, and, well, thereās no arguing with crazy like that.Ā
āSo now, if youāre keeping score, Jabbaās lost an absolute SHITLOAD of money and had his bookmaking industry fucked all to hell for like three years after the stunt from Skywalker the First, got screwed out of ANOTHER shitload of money in the farm scam by Skywalker the Sequel, got all but called an idiot to his face and insulted six times over by the same dude whoās apparently scammed so many people heās forgotten who he has and hasnāt scammed, and got threatened out of fifty thousand credits by a second-tier bounty hunter IN FRONT OF HIS ENTIRE COURT.
āAnd then the next morning, what the fuck? Jabbaās favorite sculpture is gone, the one with Solo as its main ingredient that Boba Fett brought him. And Boushh is gone. And Jabbaās got a brand-new dancer chained up next to him. Night duty guy tells me Boushh unfroze Solo, and the new dancer girl IS Boushh, which, okay, youāre dealing with people like that and you look like that? You definitely need a helmet, but I feel like pretending she didnāt breathe oxygen was overkill. Anyway, then Skywalker shows up. All alone, no weapons, nothing, like he really believes in this Jedi shit. Arrogant little bastard, and weāre all laying bets on how Jabbaās going to kill him.
āSo he talks a little, and fwoop! goes the trapdoor, and okay, everybody who bet onĀ āRancorā is doing a little happy dance, but then! BUT THEN! He fucking KILLS THE RANCOR! Drops its own cage door on its head and punches right through its skull! Andāfucking NOBODY bet on that, which is a damn shame because everybody else wouldāve just torn the winner apart out of sheer rage at that point and we coulda used some good bloodshed then, yāknow? I mean, I dunno if youāve ever met Jabba the Hutt, but heās the kind of boss thatāll just go off and kill you for failing him or just because heās angry at something. Just complete fucking asshole. I mean, he was pissed enough that everybody was worried for their safety, and so somebody dying messily right then wouldāve calmed him down a bit.
āSo Jabbaās big mad, and he gathers Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca all together and says heās gonna feed them to the Sarlacc, which is a nasty tentacled carnivorous plant out in the desert, so we all board the sail barge and have a nice little pleasure cruiseāhave you ever been to Tattoine? Iām fuckinā kidding, itās brutal. But hey, we get to see Skywalker executed, right? Wrong.
āJabba offers them the chance to beg for their lives, and Solo calls him a slimy piece of worm-ridden filth, which, I mean, I could do better, yāknow? If Iām about to die? Anyway, Skywalker goes up first, gets prodded to the edge, flips a salute off to who-knows-where, and does this little twist in midair, catches the fucking plank, and fucking SPRINGBOARDS himself back onboard, CATCHES HIS LIGHTSABER FROM MIDAIR where the one DROID shot it to him, and starts sending guards over the side, usually in pieces.
āSo more guards rush forward to help, and thereās this huge fight, and fuckinā BOBA FETT falls in, and while thatās going on? The fucking dancing girl has grabbed her chain and is FUCKING STRANGLING JABBA WITH IT! Like, I look over and heās bucking and struggling and sheās pulling on that chain like anything, and then somebody hits me over the head with a bottle of Corellian brandy, and by the time I look again heās pitched over dead! And nobody freaking bet on that!
āAnd then? Off they fucking go, Skywalker and Solo and Chewbacca and the dancing girl and the droids and one of the guards who I played sabacc with the other night and he owes me twenty credits! And that fucking Skywalker just cost me my job, and if I see him again Iām going to burn him to cinders myself!ā
The man subsides, eyeing the gigantic ebony figure in front of him who, except for a couple of momentary starts as though he might say something, has been silently listening to him all this time.
Size-wise, Darth Vader has nothing on Jabba the Hutt, but somehow, he is scarier.
Finally, the dark form speaks.Ā āYou said you could do better.ā A momentās silence, and he clarifies.Ā āIf you were about to die.ā He gets the impression that whatever monster lurks behind the helmet is smiling.Ā āYou are about to die now. Because you are a criminal, and because of what you have said about my son, Luke Skywalker. You have an opportunity to do better. Use it.ā
The so-condemned criminal, late of Jabbaās palace guard, lets his jaw hang open unflatteringly for a moment while his brain catches up with events. HIS SON, which means ā¦Ā Ā
āYOUāRE Anakin Skywalkerās HUSBAND?ā
The steady, hissing rhythm of Darth Vaderās rebreather actually stops dead as the Dark Lord straightens up as if stabbed with an electroprod.
In the instant before the manās brains, blood, and spinal fluid coat the far wall, he has the momentary satisfaction of having, indeed, done much better than Solo.
So THATāS why this post is blowing up my notifications :D (Iām not mad, this is GREAT.)
I just read all your stuff and now you've spoiled me because you're the only person allowed to write anakin because I tried to read more fics and I couldnt find any where anakin was Unhinged Enough
the goal must always be to remember that anakin must feel like:
he could be a seven foot tall omnicidal cyborg that annihilates most things in his path in the very distant future
he could be a seven foot tall omnicidal cyborg that annihilates most things in his path in the next thirty-five minutes
he is a seven foot tall omnicidal cyborg that annihilates most things in his path
he was a seven foot tall omnicidal cyborg that annihilates most things in his path
he could have been a seven foot tall omnicidal cyborg that annihilates most things in his path
and one thing that i think often falls to the wayside or is forgotten, especially when coming from perspectives that favor TCW, is that anakin has already committed egregious crimes by TCW. he has already graduated from heavy-handed threats and extreme physical violence and the deep desire to kill people who are genuinely evil, to using violence against people who were only adjacent to people who deserved his anger. not without guilt, for sure, but like, doesnāt really make a difference to the people you murdered if you cry about murdering them afterwards, does it? heās already hit the point at where his collective damage has rendered him irrational and genuinely very fucking dangerous. all of TCW is a slugfest between the last singular modicum of sanity anakin has left and the hatchet palpatine is judiciously swinging at it.
youāre not even watching anakin slip into irrationality, youāre watching anakin - who has already most definitely lost the plot - proceed to get in so deep the slaughter of the jedi order is something heāll trade for the prospect of less personal suffering. not even the guarantee of less personal suffering and loss, but the prospect of. heās only ever a really shitty thirty-five minutes away from Genuinely Horrific Action, palpatineās just waiting to hit the exciting Anakin Instability Quota that means he could convince a guy who had once dreamed of the jedi with starry eyes to kill them all. anakin being unhinged is a demand of the plot.
Qui-gon āfeel, donāt thinkā Jinn training Anakin āI feel like jumping out of this speederā Skywalker is honestly like, The funniest concept. There is no impulse control. Anakin: āIām gonna jump off this cliff.ā Qui-gon, lighting up a joint: āitās the will of the force.ā
iām allowed to have absolutely fucking braindead takes. that said i call bullshit that vader wouldāve pushed the ājoin the dark sideā thing that hard with luke if he actually got luke to join him
maul i get. maulās spent his whole goddamn life in the dark, itās all he knows, it makes sense that he would equate it with strength and that he would push that point with ezra. especially since he kind of succeeds for a beat there, as we see ezra struggle with the dark after initially meeting maul
but anakin? the chosen one? who made a daily list titled ācomplete batshit force things i can do in front of the 501stā and finished it front to back every day as a jedi general? who believes he is the exception to every rule and not even without just cause most of the time? who was told heād bring balance to the force? who just found out he spent the last twenty years getting his metaphorical aquarium poked by every sith protocol in existence while Baby Boy Baby was pranging rats in space australia. that guy? no. heād want to reinvent the system completely around himself. itās uprooted anyway, why not uproot it even more to suit his bananas fantasy of he and luke ruling the galaxy, sans unhealthy power dynamics or jedi teachings coming back to bite him? new genre of force-user just dropped and its name is skywalker
@misskirbyā
some alliance general: so whattya call that, commander
vader/anakin/whatever: jumping on TIEs during an atmospheric dogfight, sticking his lightsaber into the cockpits and then leaping off onto the next one before it explodes/crashes, only visible from the ground because he refused to take off the cape to reduce drag during this incredibly un-asked-for task so he looks like a huge black bat out of hell
luke: my dad :)
iām gonna be totally real images like that are the very thing that make me want to chuck internal world logistics out of the fucking window specifically so people have to deal with this. like, youāre the rebel alliance, and now you have a darth vader, which is terrifying and also very useful considering you just poached the supreme commander of the imperial military, meaning you haveā¦. the all of it. the most information you could theoretically have, short of someone gutting the emperor himself, you have it, but also more than that you have what essentially equates to a walking thermonuclear bomb you can just throw at entire armies and be fine. in vader down thereās this bit where he takes out a whole squadron of rebels, and part of what he does is levitate their grenades with the force and then pull the pins, and then just like. stalks through. unbothered. iām willing to be like ehhhhh no one decides to send vader to the firing squad for his [list of endless war crimes] becauseā¦.. uhā¦ā¦. donāt think about it just dont :) solely for the sake of having to watch people not used to this who are all relatively normal just go WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.
and lukeās just like <3 father <3 and what fucks about these AUs is the image of luke essentially being the same way, because luke himself is still is a fuck off powerful force user. so youāve got Oh God Oh Shit Oh Fuck king size, and Oh God Oh Shit Oh Fuck fun size.
I actually have this logistical excuse for defected Vader getting off easy:
He benefits from an internal gridlock between an Alliance faction that doesnāt want the New Republic to launch itself under a banner of mass executions no matter how richly deserved, feeling that is a Bad Start, and a faction that really wants a judicial bloodbath, feeling that is The Only Way To Be Sure.
This hasnāt been a big issue as long as they had no realistic chance of victory but the Restoration Of Civil Governance versus Rebel Fury factions of the Alliance totally clash a lot, come on.
Vaderās super useful for information like you said, so no one wants to kill him really quickly even if they could figure out how to get Luke to not flip out and abandon them over it. And also he surrendered so killing him would be gross and probably a war crime. So exceptions are made.
And he is King War Crimes, so the faction that wants to abandon the way of violence as quickly as possible once they gain power sees an opportunity in the precedent being set around Vader, and start somewhat ironically pushing for him to have more privileges, and possibly to be offered the option of mobilizing against the Empire.
Specifically so theyāll have an excuse to go easy on Darth Vader for helping them out, which will give them an advantage when forming the new government in terms of the Appropriate Use Of Force By A Governing Body argument.
Gffa political theory seems to put a lot of weight on recognition of rightful sovereignty and non-interventionism, with a dizzying array of often incompatible opinions about what that ought to mean.
And then thereās the Imperialists who are like, no actually that system is bad and the central government should have all the rights. Statistically there are probably a lot of people who hate the Empire as it stands but think this, because the Republic was so ineffectual.
The fight over how the New Republic should actually function, and then the realities of attempting to rededicate Imperial structural assets to Republic ideals, was inevitably going to be a shitshow and a half.
Anyway the Rebellionās internal politics will save Darth Vader.
have i ever told you that you DELIGHT ME. god bless. you have the answer, you crafted the perfect logistical nightmare, thank you. this is how i achieve my Oh God Oh Shit Oh Fuck king and fun size duo. King War Crimes is also his new official title, i voted for it personally.
#the fact that leia is team Civil Governance but that means she has to end up defending her awful awful awful biological fatherā¦ā¦ā¦.#man. nothing is ever easy for leia is it
I love everything about this but also how could you leave this dazzling brilliance in the tags?
as much as i love vader getting to fuck palpatine over, as much as i think itās the best thing, and as much as i love AUs where everyone gets together to curbstomp the emperor, i always wanted to see an AU where palpatine dies unexpectedly from the complications of being a bitch just because:
palpatine never intended to die, in my mind, he just aimed to prolong his life through sith bullshit ad infinitum, so i donāt think he ever officially established a successor or even a method of transitioning power. i think everyone collectively assumes vader is his heir, on account of vader being the only person with the horrendous job of actually having to talk to the emperor directly all the time. but thereās not anything binding except for the fact that if darth vader wants the imperial throne, he can crush the litany of people who would like to stop him like bugs, and i think everyone would assume in turn that vader - a guy who is famous for his frothing at the mouth about the empireās Divine Vision For The Galaxy - would want the throne.
this is, categorically, false, because every single time heās thought about killing palpatine, he had someone else he wanted to hand the throne. this is an awkward situation in which everyone is waiting for vader to stake his claim on the throne in the immediate aftermath of palpatineās death, and vaderās like [automated breath] iā¦.. haveā¦ā¦ rebelsā¦. to killā¦ā¦ā¦ but i think, as horrific at diplomacy as vader is, heās at least savvy enough to know that the second he corrects everyone and tries to cede the throne, the infighting as everyone makes a play for the throne would cause a ridiculous amount of unrest. so he canāt just cede the throne, but heās next to incapable of being functional without serving His Imperial Majestyās Divine Vision, and he needs to choose a successor as fast as possible and then he can possibly consider finding a ditch to lay down in because his one last attachment to the mortal plane died.
i know itād be more reasonable for vader to kick punt someone like tarkin at the throne, but consider that vader is, fundamentally, unreasonable. and at this point in time, heās also famous for being kind of a religious zealot, and he would absolutely choose this particular time of all the times to trust in the force. so he meditates, considers the sane options, but the force keeps lingering on senator leia organa from alderaan - and itās doing that because sheās secretly his daughter, but he doesnāt know that, and theoretically this is enough ahead of ANH that he doesnāt even have an inclination that sheās a rebel spy. but if the force wills it.
so leia, all of eighteen years old, is named empress by darth vader and he doesnāt have the grace to tell her heās going to name her empress first, he just kind of goes in front of the imperial senate and does it. i think it would be utterly hilarious if vader handed the empire over to the rebels without knowing it, handed the empire over to his daughter without knowing it, and now leia has to figure out how to safely un-empire an empire while being empress without causing too much chaos.
which is not a job made easier by the wheezing war criminal who keeps kneeling in front of her and asking, āwhat is thy bidding, my master,ā because leia has unknowingly inherited the weirdest position in relation to vader anyone could have, and heās kind of relying on tradition to cope. i really just want you to imagine an ongoing bit where one of vaderās cybernetic arms gets wrecked while heās suppressing a coup organized against the new empress, and he leaves it like that for weeks because palpatine always had to clear off significant changes like replacement prosthetics, and he keeps waiting for leia to do it. she finally snaps at him to just go and get it fixed, and vaderās thrown into an array of distress because that is NOT how this works!!! his MASTER clears off his medical procedures, it ALWAYS works like that, and leiaās confusion is bone-deep, because obviously that only makes sense to vader.
wouldnāt vader notice the empire getting un-empired by the new secretly-a-rebel empress, you wonder. i would say that he probably wouldnāt, because as horrific as palpatine was, he was also all of vaderās will to live, up until the moment leia shows him a singular basic courtesy - like not being weirdly involved in the process of vader getting a new arm - and vader decides that he is going to froth at the mouth about Her Imperial Majestyās Divine Vision, instead, until she sees fit to grant him death.
i just think it would be really funny if leia had to deal with learning that vader, on top of being omnicidal and a war criminal, is also just really ridiculous as a person, and very annoying but in a sad way.
#in which vader projects his rock bottom expectations in bosses on leia like an IMAX theater#bail organa loses his fucking mind in every scene heās in#and obi-wan kenobi has a subplot where he trains luke to kill the guy who he thinks killed his dad#chauffeurs them both to imperial center#and then thereās a four way show down where only absolute idiocy reigns#luke: my name is luke skywalker and you killed my father. prepare to die!#obi-wan: oh shit wait a second i didnāt think you would INTRODUCE yourself -#and this all happens in like. the equivalent of leiaās new dining room
somebody link me this fic when itās written