Hi, do you have any recommendations to heal my broken heart after this ending? Please...
More series 3 #fix-it fics for the pile...
Their Choice by thelamespaceace (NR)
“What is a person if not their memories?”
A story may not need to exceed more than its ending, but just this once God allows an open ended epilogue.
or alternatively, a Good Omens Finale alternate/fix-it ending
Adjacent Moments in Time and Space by polymona (T)
Asa Fell and Professor Anthony Crowley may not yet consciously remember the Angel of the Eastern Gate or the Serpent of Eden, but the echos shine through.
déjà vu [noun] : the distinct sensation that one is currently living through a situation or conversation already experienced, though one knows, logically, it must be the very first time.
“You can stay at my place if you like.”
It was all there, just underneath the surface.
Flying Ostriches by petrichor (T)
At the end of everything there was a bookshop
and in it two complex entities who still had a lot to talk about.
With Golden String by Mischel (T)
“Did she . . . I mean, did the Almighty just declare us gods?”
“Ngk.” Crowley shook his head, showing his teeth in mild disgust. “I don’t—I mean, I don’t want to be a god, but—“
“I think she just declared us gods, Crowley."
A version of the ending where God does indeed create a new, godless universe, only our universe still remains standing, and God is officially done with it. Now it's up to Aziraphale and Crowley to pick up the pieces, and fill the books in the bookshop with the right words to restore their world to how it used to be. (With a few love confessions, proper apologies and dances along the way, as well as improvements to, finally, make the world a better place.)
sometime is now, someplace is here by Path_Finder (T)
Crowley arches a brow.
“Do you have a better idea?”
Aziraphale dares a small smile.
“Surely, you of all people already know this one,” Aziraphale says. “We offer the first choice.”
-/-
Aziraphale didn’t really mean to try and outsmart God but, well, perhaps She had a point when she’d called him prideful.
if it's meant to be, then it will be by cryptidgenderman (M)
It started off as the strongest sensation of deja vu Asa had ever felt in his life, which was ridiculous, considering he didn't even know who he was, yet Asa felt something quite indescribable.
Ineffable, even.
OR: Asa starts having dreams and visions about his past life as an angel. The problems with humans is that they aren't mean to remember anything about past lives
OR: The post Season 3 finale, where Aziraphale and Crowley get their memories back
my dearest love (ao3) has befallen a great tragedy (is down for maintenance) so i must pine alone in my lonely tower (i could do something productive but i think not)
“Mon is not fully committed to the Cause yet, she hasn't given up her life and enjoys her status quo—” Mon Mothma is doing money laundry to fund terrorist activity/organization. Do people understand that? I think it's important people understand that.
from the perspectives of Imperial auditors and financial regulators that’s literally what she’ll be charged with if she’s caught. Slush fund accounts and blaming Perrin's gambling and strategic child marriages only cover her tracks until the right financial regulator goes looking; until one civil servant with the same amount of Freak as Syril Karn decides to go after discrepancies and she no longer can paper over the cracks. She's being observed by her own driver. She's got enemies everywhere, yearly financial audits, and multiple obligations to powerful people. She's borrowing time with a highest interest rate known to man and she will have to pay that debt with everything she holds dear.
Mon has long been radicalised; she's put everything on the line as down payment for it. She just puts up a front so well it’s apparently tricked the audience.
Moreover, the political thesis of the show is that resistance is everywhere; it’s an old lady clearing the underground rain tunnels for potential rebels as well as it is manifestos and prison breaks and overt attacks on Imperial buildings.
It’s also one person in the heart of the imperial core committing stunning amounts of financial crime.
Finally deleted Twitter because it’s an addictive black hole of everything’s-on-fire-all-the-time 24-hour-news-cycle negativity, and it only took me like a week to find my way back to fandom spaces.
Which, don’t get me wrong, I also find this place addictive in some ways, but it’s much better personally for my mental health.
Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!
Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.
Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!
Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks
Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!
Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row
modern literature: your character should have realistic flaws he struggles to overcome
folk heroes: the only problem my man gilgamesh ever had was his dick was so big he had to strap it down lest he club his enemies to death before they even reached the battlefield
“he has too much of his father in him” says beru, thinking of all the stories shmi told about her amazing jedi son
“that’s what i’m afraid of” says owen, thinking of that grumpy dude who showed up out of nowhere then disappeared for a while and came back with his step-mom’s dead body, then smashed up a bunch of their stuff, stole their droid and fucked off without saying goodbye
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
“Do you want to be alone?” He asks, voice gruff in her ear — understanding — as he slips his hand off of hers and takes a small step back, separating them. She hates herself for missing the comforting warmth of his chest pressed to her back, but appreciates his thoughtfulness all the same.
“No,” she whispered, “stay. Please.”
“Alright, Princess.”
They stood, silent and unmoving, faces turned up towards the stars, until Han reached out and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, giving her a brief, comforting squeeze and then not letting go.
She appreciated it — that simple human connection, tethering her to the earth, grounding her. Suddenly feeling that without it, she might easily just float away, joining the souls that dwelled among the stars, now permanently gone from her reach.
Nothing is every really gone, Leia, her mother used to say to her. Not as long as you remember it.
And so she knew, they would live there — her family, her home, her people — in her memory. Forever. And in that way, they could never truly die.
She wrapped her mother’s words around herself like armor, preparing herself for the long, difficult road ahead — the battle, the fight — now more determined than ever that they win; as she stared up at the far away light from Alderaan, shining down on her, the way it would for the rest of forever — infinite, eternal, endless light.
“You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death.” -“Saturn” by Sleeping at Last
Uh, so there’s a post floating around that I’m not reblogging mainly because it’s just this person’s headcanon and, whatever, people can have headcanons, but the main points they make in the midst of talking about their headcanon that I’ll be addressing are:
Leia and Han getting married and having kids is the most boring thing you can do with Leia
Leia should be a Jedi like every other dang Skywalker because somehow continuing an assumed dynasty isn’t the most boring choice you can make for her
Leia is more cut out to handle lack of attachment than Luke which we know because of her lack of response to Alderaan being destroyed
Leia and Han shouldn’t get married or even be around each other much because Han is a wandering soul and needs to travel and go places
Leia never expresses a desire for marriage or children in the OT, so removing these things won’t contradict George Lucas’ canon
And, look, these are just…missing the point of the character growth that occurs in these two during the OT.
(there's just a whole-ass essay below the cut if anyone cares to read about the many thoughts I have on Leia Organa and Han Solo.)
So, I'm not saying existing or past canon/EU has done it right, but I disagree with the statement that having them marry and live kind of basic lives is the most boring choice. If that's all there was to it, sure, but those two choices by themselves show a monumental amount of character growth for both Leia and Han. (I mean, frankly, I think "Skywalker = Jedi every time no matter what" is a pretty boring choice storytelling wise, but I also think the Jedi on the whole are incredibly boring characters, so, uh...I'm biased.)
Leia was never going to live a quiet life even if Alderaan hadn't been destroyed. Like, she did not have that option, period. She would have either remained in politics or taken over as queen, may or may not have had to marry for political reasons, and may or may not have been involved with the Rebellion. Her life was chaos starting as a teen and she had no reason to believe she wouldn't die living a hectic and chaotic life.
And then she loses everything. This isn't emphasized in the movies obviously because they are fun family romps and not gritty dramas, but, good night, in a single second, she loses every family member, nearly every person she knows, every place she finds most familiar and comfortable, everything and to top it all off, the guilt that it's happened because of her unwillingness to give up the Alliance will probably always be there. She was tortured, they lost lives in battle, and, yeah, they destroy the Death Star, but at the end of that day, literally all she has left is the Alliance and those three pilots who managed to unlock her cell door without too much trouble.
I don't know about you, but I'd be straight-up shut down emotionally at that point. Like, I don't think PTSD even covers what Leia probably has going on in her head. And I think that's kind of what we see in ESB (I know the filmmakers weren’t thinking in terms of PTSD, but there are still hints of it there regardless). She's angry, she's afraid of losing people (she's obviously pissed Han is leaving after he said he'd stay, but also, there's a scene that was cut -- a good move in my opinion because the dialogue is beyond dramatic and Carrie seems out of it, but it stands that this was the intended source of Leia’s frustration -- where Luke is telling Leia he's leaving the Alliance for Dagobah and she is extremely upset that both he and Han are leaving, goes on a whole rant about how she should know better than to trust anyone but herself, etc.), and when she finally lets Han in, she promptly loses him and nearly loses Luke.
And then the events of ROTJ happen and she finds out that the man who tortured her, who stood idly by while her entire planet was destroyed, who tortured the man she loves and handed him off to the space mob to be murdered, who cut off her brother's hand and nearly allowed him to die, who has terrorized the Galaxy in general, that guy is her bio dad. And that guy is the entire reason she's Force-sensitive.
Leia stopping her Jedi training in the new canon was for a dumb reason, I agree there. Leia not wanting anything to do with the thing that, from her point of view, nearly ruined her life and the lives of those she loves about a thousand times over...I dunno, I think that's way more interesting than her just going, "Ope, I'm a Skywalker! You know what that means! Gotta be a Jedi!" And as far as her being more of a natural at it...do we know that Leia is better at healthy non-attachment than Luke? Like, any response to a planet being destroyed could easily just be a trauma response. Is shutting down like that good, actually? Or is it just going to cause problems down the road, Anakin-style?
I don't know, I just think that after living through all of that as well as a freaking war, girly might want a quiet life -- that she gets to choose -- with a husband -- who she gets to choose -- and kids -- who she gets to raise without the threat of the Empire or her nightmare of a biological father looming over their lives. And the very fact that she's able to open herself up to that sort of love and affection when the fear that it might all be ripped away from her is likely ever-present is a big deal. Her having kids knowing they'll likely be Force-sensitive even though that aspect of her biology terrifies her is a big deal. And as far as her not expressing a desire for marriage and kids in the OT...I mean, Leia isn't given the opportunity to express her desire for much in the OT, let's be real (she also never expresses a desire to become a Jedi in the OT either. We can't use what Leia didn't express in the OT to dictate whether she wants or doesn't want something is what I'm saying). They're at war. She's a military leader. She probably can't even hazard wishing for anything beyond waking up the next day. But that's not to say she didn't want such things or grow to want such things once she felt it was safe to do so. We literally don't know, but I don't think the absence of that expressed desire is indicative of anything.
As far as Han goes, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure in every iteration of his story, his itchy feet weren't like...a part of his personality. He had a highly traumatic childhood that left him with few options and ended up living a transient lifestyle out of necessity. He actually seems remarkably easy to keep around if you don't treat him like garbage. I mean, he's given exactly one day of friendship, and he sticks around with the Rebellion for three years before some run-in with a bounty hunter makes him realize he needs to take care of his debt with Jabba. He's not leaving just for funsies or because he's bored or just really needs to be a smuggler again...and he seems legitimately sad have to leave when he's not busy getting pissed at Leia for not having the emotional response he wants her to have (first half of ESB Han is being a big ol' baby and I'm perfectly fine admitting that). And what character growth to see Han "I'm in it for the money" Solo learn to care for his friends, learn to support a cause, learn to love Leia when he's spent so much of his life unattached. Han making boring life choices is indicative of character growth and learning to care about others more than himself. What a lovely thing for this man to learn.
The call for Leia and Han to remain living separate lives but still committed to one another kind of demands that they move backward in character growth in my opinion. We have two people who are in rough places due, by and large, to trauma, who eventually open up to one another and seem better for it and then they...just go back to what they were doing before except they occasionally see each other? Why would they want that? They've grown as people, they've won a dang war, and they're finally able to live somewhat securely. Why wouldn't they want to live basic lives when they were denied the privilege of such choices for so long? And how is them making choices based on their love for another person — love that they had a heck of a time coming to terms with — boring?
She was a princess, the face of the Rebellion, the new government’s greatest hope, a symbol more than a person. But she was also just Leia. And she was his. Han needed her the same way he needed the Falcon — sure, he could fly without her, but what was the point? - The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis
I’m going absolutely feral at the imagery here, that Obi-Wan buried his lightsaber together with Anakin’s, these two people buried in the sand, they were both supposed to be dead and buried.
“This lightsaber is your life.”
And when they died, their lives were buried in the same box in the same sand.
Obi-Wan buries them together because they died together, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker died at the same time and they were laid to rest together in the sand.
He buries them together because they loved each other and these were pieces that belonged to another age, because Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were a love story and they were brothers, they should be buried together.
But also that neither of them will stay buried.
Obi-Wan is digging himself back up, he can’t just be Ben anymore, he has to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he has no idea that he’s not the only one who’s going to be dug up out of the sand, that Anakin’s presence in his life will also be dug up out of that sand.
These lightsabers were their lives and I am absolutely FERAL at the imagery of them being dug up again and what that means for where Obi-Wan has to go next and who exactly is waiting for him.
