When there’s too much shit you need to get done at once
the best part about these gifs is that there’s only two things going on in the background and it’s still overwhelming him and honestly? it makes it even more relatable ngl
I’m just imaging an AU where Padme’s pregnancy didn’t have to be a secret and Anakin is trying to pick out names for the baby so he asks his men for ideas, and the clones, of course, throw out names like
“Zapper!”
“Sling!”
“Bomber!”
“Kickback!”
Anakin is internally screaming, but he doesn’t want to insult them by saying those are terrible names so he’s just like, “…thanks, guys.”
even better is if after the kids are born, there are still clones around for security and such and when they’re old enough to talk they know they were given names by their parents, but clones see those names as like. your technical/official ID. not as your actual personal name. so they talk to these little kids who of course love preposterous names and that’s how leia is also named POWERFIST
I’ve reblogged this before but imagine Luke being dubbed “Cinnamon Roll” by the clones
Powerfist and Cinnamon Roll Skywalker. Deal.
OH MY GOD so i was just gonna tagspiral about this but I have Too Many Thoughts so i’m gonna actually write real text for once
So: here we have Powerfist Leia Skywalker and Cinnamon Roll Luke Skywalker. They probably spend a lot of time with the clones, right? Because if Padme and Anakin aren’t in a Secret Relationship then Anakin probably doesn’t fall, so the war doesn’t end the way it does in canon - actually, shit, I forgot about 66. So let’s say Palps tries to recruit Anakin anyway because he’s super-powerful and Palps wants that on his side, but Anakin betrays him to the Council and Order 66 doesn’t happen.
But just because Palpatine tripped and fell into about a dozen lightsabers on his way to his jail cell doesn’t mean the war’s over. The Separatists are fucked, they can’t exactly claim that Sidious made them do it, so they’re going to try their hardest not to lose. So Anakin’s still spending a lot of time out in the field, and Padme’s still got Senate stuff to do. And they probably both already had serious business security details, since somebody needs to be around whenever Anakin decides to do something really fucking stupid without backup (he usually manages without backup, but Obi-Wan, Padme and every clone friend of Anakin’s agree that they’d rather have someone on him anyway), and Padme’s a significant target for the Separatists because a) she’s pretty well-connected in the Senate and b) Palps was hoping he could kill her off to get Anakin to fall. Which would’ve ended pretty badly for him but Palpatine clearly doesn’t understand love so he wouldn’t have realised that.
SO. Anakin gets called off to spearhead some campaign somewhere, Padme has to go to the Senate, and who’s left to look after Powerfist and Cinnamon Roll? (Padme finds these names hilarious.) It’s the clones.
“Okay,” Rex says, no longer quite so angry about being grounded while his blaster wound heals. “Watch carefully. This is how you hold a blaster, okay?”
Luke and Leia are fascinated.
Padme, who entered politics at a frankly ridiculous age and was embroiled in her first war at the age of fourteen, isn’t all that upset when she finds out. Okay, she’d prefer it if the weaponry lessons waited until the kids were older, but considering who their parents are, they’re pretty tempting kidnap targets so she’d rather they knew how to look after themselves. And they’re so cute doing their unarmed combat lessons!
Anakin - Anakin is very protective of his tiny children. HE’S SEEN SOME SHITTY STUFF IN THE GALAXY, OKAY, HE JUST WANTS TO WRAP THEM IN COTTON WOOL AND HIDE THEM SOMEWHERE UNTIL THEY’RE EIGHTEEN. He is not impressed when he finds out. Every stupid, dangerous thing he ever did as a child is running through his head on a loop. He did so many stupid things.
“Not that many,” Padme says, patting his shoulder.
“Pod races,” Anakin says hoarsely. “Blowing up Trade Federation droid ships. Racing speeders. Sticking my hands into droid innards.”
“That isn’t that dangerous,” Padme says, frowning.
“What if I’d electrocuted myself?” Anakin demands. “I could have died so many ways, Padme, why did I pass this on to my children, oh god.”
Padme looks over at Rex for support.
“He’s never told you any of the really wild war stories, has he,” Rex says, deadpan. “They’re too short to fly fighters, but we can start them on acrobatics soon, they’ll have an easier time if they’ve already had practice not throwing up the first time one of them decides to spin the ship they’re flying.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Padme says, wondering what Anakin’s stories are if they aren’t the wild ones.
Somewhere, Obi-Wan Kenobi just broke a rib laughing.
It’s canon (or was) that as a child Leia had a fluorescent pink alien kitten-type animal named All-Terrain Attack Vehicle, so I can see her being totally on board with the awesome names.
Now consider: regular OT universe, lots of the clones went AWOL after Order 66 and many of them found their way into the Rebellion. The Rebellion was thus influenced by their culture, including this habit of giving out names like this.
Clones around Leia Organa when she’s growing up.
Clones teaching her to shoot, to fight, to fall, to fly. One of them finds her crying over some momentary childhood upsetness at age five and cheers her up by teaching her to hold a blaster. And then to shoot it. And then to hit what she’s aiming at.
At six, she gets into her first fistfight with another child, a spoiled brat of Alderaan’s nobility, and comes out of it with a bloody nose and a couple broken knickles because she doesn’t know how to punch correctly. Bail gives her a scathing lecture on deportment and courtesy and keeping her temper and how a princess must behave, given edge with his own terror that she’s taking after her other father. The clone who finds her, sulking in the mechanics bay, stung and furious, teaches her how to fight.
At eight, she wants to learn to fly, and Bail, visions of Anakin dancing in his head, dissuades her. It’s the most natural thing in the world to go to the clones and ask to be taught.
At ten she announces that she doesn’t want to go into politics, she wants to be a clone. When her mother points out, gently, that she is the Crown Princess and has responsibilities, she suggests they find girls who look like her to be the Princess for her when she’s busy. She has no idea why both her parents go white at the suggestion.
At eleven, fresh out of another fight–she wants to go help the Rebellion directly, she wants to fight, she wants to go places, be out in the thick of things, and her parents want her to study and do princess things, they want to keep her safe–she goes to the clones with several years of pent-up questions.
The clones are ones who spent years fighting beside Anakin Skywalker, and almost as much time spent running interference for, and pretending not to know about, Anakin’s secret relationship with Padmé Amidala. They didn’t know she was pregnant, but between the piloting skills and the temper and the recklessness and the elder Organas’ reaction to her decoy idea, they can guess.
One of them brings out a medkit and they run a genetic test on a drop of Leia’s blood. They’ve seen the readout of Anakin’s displayed so many times they’ve practically committed it to memory, and the relationship is obvious even to those not medic-trained. Now Leia has a second set of parents, and a host of stories about them, and the personal loyalty of every clone trooper in the Rebellion–General Skywalker’s daughter.
When she’s twelve, a thought occurs to her, and it’s the clones, not her parents, that she asks, “if my father was a Jedi, am I Force-sensitive too?”
Some clone out working support for the Rebellion’s secret operatives gets in touch with Fulcrum for her.
A couple days after Leia’s thirteenth birthday, Ahsoka Tano makes planetfall on Alderaan and is snuck by the clones (”Good to see you, Commander,”) into the mechanics bay to meet Leia. By the time Bail and Breha figure out what Leia’s disappearing for this time, Leia’s already made her first lightsaber and is working on her second.
When Darth Vader tracks down Ahsoka Tano, Ahsoka Tano is not alone.
“Who are you?” he asks, confused by the presence of this fierce child–his grand-apprentice, as it were, glaring at him from behind two lightsabers (blue, for her father, and green, for her teacher) like he’d offended her grievously in the past. (He’s never really met Princess Leia Organa, beyond an occasional presence at the same Imperial event, but she knows quite a lot about him. She isn’t going to run for Senate, but she is going to rebel. She does her research.)
“Killshot,” is what she says.
Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker, and Anakin Skywalker knows clone naming customs when he hears them. “A Force-sensitive clone?” is what he asks. (The name was gifted to her at nine, when she beat the combat flight simulator on its highest mode eleven times in a row.)
Leia beams. It’s the best compliment anyone could give her. “Yes,” she says, and brings up her blades.
That’s just
beautiful and awesome. But you know what would be even more beautiful and
awesome? That while Leia grows up surrounded by fiercely loyal, badass clones
who have sworn to protect their General’s Daughter and more-or-less secretly
teach her to kick asses, Luke grows up on Tatooine surrounded by another fiercely
loyal group who have sworn to protect their Queen/Senator’s Son.
Because
Padmé Amidala’s Handmaidens were badass in their own right and at least two of
them, Moteé and Ellé, were aware that Amidala was both secretly married and
pregnant. Someone had to prepare Padmé’s body for the funeral and made it
appears as if she was still pregnant when she died, and who better to the task than
her faithful Handmaidens, who always protected her and guarded her secrets? They
did so with tears in their eyes and broken hearts, wondering about the child.
It’s hard
to participate in the funeral, to walk along Theed’s streets bearing her
casket. They’re all here, past and present Handmaidens. Even the dead stand by
their sides, in the discreet holos Dormé and Sabé keep in the large sleeves of
their robes; nobody should miss the last goodbye to their beloved Queen, and
perhaps deep down they hope the ones who left already (Cordé, Versé, do you
see?) are waiting to greet her on the other side.
Padmé
Amidala is dead, but she’s still as beautiful as ever, and it takes all their
combined strength not to wail at the unfairness that is her death. Her very mysterious
death, for no one seems to know HOW she died.
She’s dead,
and her child disappeared and nobody will tell them what the fuck happened.
They want to rage and scream and ask for answers from anyone, everyone.
But the
Handmaidens of Padmé Amidala Naberrie have spent years in the shadow of the
Queen, flanking her on the Senate’s floor. Moteé was by her side and Senator
Bail Organa when liberty died under thunderous applauses. They know not
everything is at it seems in the new Galactic Empire. They were there when the
Jedi were declared traitors by the Emperor.
They don’t
need to hear more to know that the child of a Jedi would be in terrible danger
should he come to the eye of the Emperor and his growing legion of Inquisitors.
Amidala’s death is suspicious in itself, even if Imperial officials refuse all
attempts to probe at the cause of Naboo’s beloved former Queen. The Handmaidens
need no further reason to hold their tongue and never breathe a word of Amidala’s
secret marriage, even to her parents. They don’t know the child survived. Ryoo
Thule does, for she saw the body and oversaw their work as per Naboo’s custom,
but her daughter and son-in-law don’t have that comfort.
It breaks
Sabé and Dormé’s heart to lie to them. It crushes Miré and Umé’s souls to witness
how devastated the Naberries are over the death of their child. But their grief
would be even bigger should anything happen to their unknown, unsuspected
grandchild.
They need
to think of the child first and foremost, for they are the Queen’s Handmaiden,
and if they failed to save the mother, they won’t allow any harm to ever come
to her legacy.
They regroup;
they confer together in secret outside of Theed and progressively, off of Naboo.
Nobody pay them much attention as they depart one by one or by pair. They were
only Handmaidens, after all, and nobody pay much attention to a Queen or a
Senator’s ladies-in-waiting, too focused on their Mistress’ charisma. Queen
Apailana doesn’t need their services, having her own faithful attendants to
protect her.
Bit by bit,
they all leave for the vastness of space in search of Padmé’s legacy: Sabé, Eirtaé,
Miré, Umé, Ellé, Moteé, Sabé, Dormé, Rabé, Hollé, Fé, Saché, Yané and even
Dané, who only underwent a year of training with them and never officially
became an Handmaiden to Amidala. They don’t fully trust her, but she knew
Amidala, and Dané has connection the other Handmaidens can only dream about.
They need her to find Padmé’s son.
Because
they’re certain her child is a boy.
More than
once, Amidala referred to the baby as a boy in Ellé and Moteé’s earshot, and
they don’t need more to know their Mistress was going to have a son.
True, it
had never been more than a feeling since Padmé never had it confirmed, but in
grief a feeling easily turn to a certitude.
They seek a
boy and discard the possibility Padmé had a daughter, or that she might have
more than one child.
When they
learn Senator Bail Organa adopted a girl with brown eyes and brown hair, they
don’t pay much attention. They’re too busy seeking a boy who could look like
one or both of his parents. They whispered between them, wondering if he will
have Padmé’s eyes or her smile.
It takes
them time and many false leads before they arrive on Tatooine and head for the
Lars homestead. Sabé is the first, she always is, but the others are only a few
steps behind. Little Luke watch them come in one by one with wide eyes, and the
Handmaidens watch him with wider eyes in turn. Their Queen’s child is
beautiful. He has his father’s blue eyes and blond hair bleached by the twin
suns of Tatooine, but his smile is his mother’s, and his gentleness is hers as
well.
Umé and
Miré are the last to arrive, and when they do only then Luke grows enough
courage to ask the whole group if they are angels.
They’re
not, they reply. They’re his Aunts.
Luke is
surprisingly okay with the explanation.
Owen and
Beru Lars are less so, but it’s not like they can push the young ladies out.
And neither can Ben Kenobi when Owen grudgingly decides to contact him so he
can deal with the situation. Sabé and Dormé like him too much to aim a blaster
at his face when he kindly suggests they should leave, and Eirtaé, Fé, Saché,
Rabé and Yané respect him too much for his role in liberating Naboo from the
Trade Federation’s invasion all those years ago to just spit and curse at him,
but it’s close. Ellé and Moteé snarl at him, Umé, Miré and Hollée use swear
words respectful Handmaidens should never had used and Dané’s smile is
betraying her intention to just say ‘to hell with that’ and shoot him right there.
The
Handmaiden stay, and Luke gains an army of Aunts and teachers rolled in one.
He’s four
when Yané start sitting with him in the evenings and start teaching him how to play
various instruments. He’s playing scales on wooden flutes and three-stringed
guitars between two lessons of solfège and learns traditional Naboo melodies
along with Tatooine songs. Dané teachs him a few rowdy ones behind everyone’s
back with his pinky promise he won’t sing them wherever one of the other
Handmaidens can hear them.
At six,
Luke speaks and writes fluent Basic, Gunganese and High Galactic. Rabé promises
to teach him Sullustese when he’s older, which he’s looking forward to. He’s
learning Ithorese at a fast rate and knows a few basic sentences in Rodese, and
his teachers’ eyes shine with pride whenever he repeats them dutifully with
barely the trace of an accent in his speech. They’re a little less shiny whenever
he swears in Huttese or when they discover Dané, always the less reputable one,
went behind their collective back to teach him how to play Sabacc. Luke pouts
when they veto any trip to Mos Espa or Mos Eisley to test his skills.
At seven,
they start giving him lessons on politics, which makes Obi-Wan sighs like a
long-suffering man, but Luke takes to it with easiness. The Handmaidens taught
him to listen since he was a toddler, and listen Luke does, paying attention to
conversations even when he doesn’t look like it. He’s quick to analyze
arguments and to formulate appropriates and thoughtful, appeasing answers. He
doesn’t have Padmé’s talent for speeches, but he has her caring personality and
a genuine want to help people no matter what it takes.
At eight, Luke
starts learning self-defense, how to break a hold and duck under an arm, how to
throw someone over his shoulder while using his assailant’s strength against
them and how to sweep his foot just right to make them fall to the floor. Eirtaé
and Umé show Luke to hide a weapon or a transmitter in his clothes without
being noticed while Fé and Yané teach him what clothes to choose to be unnoticed
in a crowd. Sabé and Rabé, who are the best shots among the Handmaidens, take
him asides to give him shooting lessons. To learn Luke is a natural shot with a
blaster – perhaps too natural, so of course it doesn’t take long before a
delegation consisting of Dormé, Ellé, Moteé and Miré is off to drag the
reluctant Obi-Wan Kenobi to the homestead so he can start teaching Luke about
the Force and the sooner the better, thank you.
At nine,
Luke sneaks off to fly on old speeder bikes. The Handmaidens aren’t
amused, and
neither is Obi-Wan. On the plus side, Luke starts learning Mon
Calamarian on
top of Sullustese and Gran and he’s getting a good hang on Twi’leki;
Huttesse doesn’t really count because everyone speaks it on Tatooine.
His blond hairs have become quite long for a male,
and Rabé teachs him how to pull them into elaborate hairstyles fitting
for a
boy. She tries not to cry as she remembers doing the same thing for the
boy’s
mother and Luke, always the caring, quick-to-notice child, hugs her
silly
before she can even let a sob out. Then, for good measure, he goes
around and
hugs every single one of his Aunts.
There is no
shortage of blond human boys among Tatooine’s population. By the time Luke is ten, there are at least
five other boys running around the Lars homestead, all more or less closely
resembling Luke. Luke isn’t his mother,
and he’s no politician, but Dormé, Miré, Ellé, Moteé and Umé will be caught
dead before they allow him to come to harm because he doesn’t have a good decoy
on whom to rely.
Some are
mechanics or moisture farmers’ sons, some are slaves the Handmaidens rescued
one by one and who decided to devote themselves to the brown haired ladies and
their young charge, who’s a friendly boy with a easy smile they all soon grown
to care about more than about their own lives. They can’t be called
Handmaidens, but Sabé and Dormé and Ellé and Moteé and Umé and Miré and Hollé
and Yané and Rabé and Eirtaé watch them with pride and no small amount of
nostalgia because they remind them of another time, another life. They’re Luke’s
Guardians.
Dage is
taller than Luke and will always be so, Zakee’s hairs are curly, Agim’s skin is
much darker while his hair are a shade paler, Konall is thin and wiry, Tihjian is
stockier and his eyes are as green as Luke’s are blue. And all are learning
fencing and how to properly use a lightsaber because honestly, Obi-Wan, they
can’t act like proper decoy if they don’t know how to use those damn things!
Obi-Wan
doesn’t bother to point out that anyone reaching with the Force will find who
is the real Luke and who isn’t; that argument never worked before and he doubts
it ever will. So he teaches the group of young boys the best he can, and if his
heart feels lighter, he doesn’t tell anyone.
At eleven,
one of Owen Lars’ neighbors pays him a visit to ‘kindly’ ask him why his nephew
and his little gang of delinquents saw fit to organize the moisture farmers’
children into a union. Owen just looks at him bleakly while in the house, the
Handmaidens are cheering loudly for a job well-done.
Luke isn’t
his mother, but he has her heart, her compassion and her determination.
I’ll never be able to reconcile Shel Silverstein’s art and stories with his appearance. He looked like he would gladly murder you with a shard of broken glass and then throw your body directly into a shark.
you have odd notions about masculine faces.
real gentle-lookin’ sneer
really gentle looking when not say, in the grainiest over inked newspaper photo you could find.
buddy it’s literally the photo he put on the back of The Giving Tree
There are n*zis on campus rn and a student brought out like a 1997 boombox and started blasting Taking The Hobbits to Isengard every time they tried to say something.
“Those who do not share our genes -THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS - THE MASTER RACE - TO ISENGARD TO ISENGARD - AND I BELIEVE -
THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE-”
Chaotic good
In Jewish tradition, one of our holidays is called Purim. It celebrates the defeat of an antisemitic political advisor to a king who liked to prowl the streets ranting his hatred. Part of the story of Purim involves the people being ranted at inventing a special kind of noisemaker to drown him out.
Basically what I’m saying is this student is following a grand tradition whether they realize it or not and they should be proud.
petition to add Taking the Hobbits to Isengard to Purim. like groggers are cool and all, but autotuned Orlando Bloom. come on.
I was on the bus thinking about Harry Potter tonight and I remembered the part where the Dementors all show up at the Quidditch game, and I remembered how they were all looking up at Harry, and I wondered why they would all be staring at him, and then I realized that it’s because he has two souls in him.
On this note, wouldn’t that also be a reason why Harry would have had a more negative reaction than his friends (even Ginny)? He was hearing his mother’s voice as she was protecting him, which in itself was his worst memory. but the Dementors were also forcing the piece of Voldemort to relive its worst memory as well… The memory of being ripped apart by the curse that backfired. No wonder Harry passed out so often.
I literally never thought about that.
HOLY
Oh FUCKING HELL, you just made me realize that it wasn’t Harry’s memory that was his father telling Lily to take Harry and run, and it wasn’t Harry’s memory of Lily screaming.
Here I was, just eating a cup of applesauce under the 14-year-long assumption that the reason a small infant was able to remember something was because this was a fictional world of magic, but no, now this entirely reasonable and somewhat less terrifying bubble has burst and I’m never going to recapture that innocence.
