Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: Imagine Palpatine giving Anakin a clone of Padme. On the surface Palpatine claims he is rewarding Vader for exemplary service, but really he's rubbing Vader's face in it over Padme's death.

suzukiblu:

Holy shit, that clone better be the goddamn FASTEST TALKER in the galaxy, man, because I cannot imagine her surviving five minutes alone with Vader otherwise, “reward” from Palpatine or NOT. Unless, like, sheer spite spared her, maybe, maybe just sheer spite. Of course she is not a reward, of COURSE not, Vader KNOWS she’s not, he–he–

Force, she looks just LIKE her. She doesn’t have the memories, obviously, but the Force signature and the lilt of her accent and the particular tilt to her head and the spark in the back of her eyes are all so, so similar, so very nearly PERFECT, so very nearly … so very nearly … 

“Angel”. That’s the name the Emperor gave her. 

It’s actually almost sad how here for the Vader/Padme pain I am.  

ifitgivesyoujoy:

i just realized something: think about padme amidala’s public image. nobody knew she was married. nobody knew who anakin skywalker was at all–he was just some random jedi trainee, and by the time anybody would have started paying attention to him in the public eye, they would have known him as darth vader. to the public, anakin became a faceless villain who always was who he was, no fall from grace needed.

so, padme. i’m sure she had supporters across the republic. i’m sure her time as queen of naboo was EXTREMELY well-documented, and honestly, based on her rotation of outfits, she was probably a full-on celebrity. she was young and brilliant and a passionate defender of her people, and even though the empire seized power in the end, i wouldn’t be surprised if the rebellion decades later directly descended from the ideals of her followers.

but think about the circumstances of her death from the outside. people probably knew she was pregnant by some unknown father, of course, but this is a universe with robot doctors–saying “she died in childbirth” would probably be like saying “she died of the common cold” today. not something that happens, especially for a celebrity politician with unlimited resources. and there must have been a child, but what happened to it? did it die too? as a media narrative, it’s flimsy at best, ESPECIALLY considering the timing of her death.

padme amidala, the woman who ruled a planet at 14 and sat stony-faced while every other senator cheered on palpatine’s rise to power, died under mysterious circumstances just as the government she’d defended crumbled. from the outside, it seems pretty obvious that she was assassinated.

if this was a universe that at all made sense, padme amidala would have been a household name among republic loyalists. her tragically short life, her noble self-sacrifice for the ideals she believed in, would have been LEGENDARY. when the rebellion rose, she would have been the name on everybody’s mind–do it in her honor, people would have said. finish the fight she started.

i know we can’t go back in time and change the original trilogy, but the sequel movies? come on. don’t tell me darth vader is the only looming icon in this franchise.

(via wildehacked)

Anonymous asked: Okay, so with this new Vision 'verse, how does Padme fit in later? Is Shmi all about this girl and when they first meet weirdly attached to this baby senator? Is Obi-Wan also weirdly attached, or is he conflicted because this woman caused his padawan to form Attachments? And lastly, we have Anakin. Fully-remembering-bad-timeline Anakin. How does he act around her, knowing that in another timeline he killed her and she had his children?

suzukiblu:

words-writ-in-starlight:

suzukiblu:

hamelin-born:

suzukiblu:

Shmi is definitely all about her and definitely weirdly attached. Obi-Wan is … weirdly CONCERNED, more than anything else, but also attached because yeah, it’s not Padmé’s fault Anakin went Dark Side, Sidious would’ve just found some other way to get into his head. She didn’t handle everything perfectly, but neither did HE, so it’s not like he’s got a damn leg to stand on. 

Anakin, now. Anakin is gonna be the concerning thing. Because I know you all think this is gonna be awkward hilarity but honestly? Honestly? LOOK, WE’VE COME THIS FAR WITHOUT ANGST, GUYS, AND GODDAMN IF I’M GONNA LET DOWN THE SIDE AND MAKE A FLUFF-ONLY AU WHEN I’VE GOT THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO RUIN LITERALLY EVERYONE’S LIVES. 

“Are you alright?” Padmé asks softly, ducking under the table just enough to clearly see the little boy hiding underneath it. Rabé and Captain Panaka and the others are in the throne room with the Jedi, still, but when she saw the unfamiliar boy peering in from the doorway and then fleeing in alarm the moment he was noticed, she couldn’t just leave him alone. “You’re not from the palace. Are you lost?” 

The boy lets out another cracked little sob, and huddles back against the wall. 

Anakin crying is usually the signal for Shmi and Obi-Wan to descend on whatever the fuck made their (padawan son child brother Anakin) upset with the fury of a thousand impassioned demons. I can’t help but see them bursting into the room, screaming something along the lines of ‘ALL RIGHT JERKFACE PREPARE TO DIE - oh Miss Naberrie, we didn’t see you there, so sorry about the accidental threats is Anakin okay?!’

Padmé is SO CONFUSED and also kind of instinctively wants to stab the people who burst in and scared the boy even worse, except then the boy runs right to them and hides behind Master Skywalker’s robes while Knight Kenobi crouches down to wipe away his tears and fret over him, so–he came with them, then? She didn’t see him earlier, and she isn’t sure how else he could’ve gotten into the palace. But also, why on EARTH would the Jedi bring a boy this young on a MISSION? She thinks she’s insulted, if that’s how seriously the Order is taking the plight of her people.  

And his robes do look a little Jedi-ish, she supposes, now that she can see them better. He has an unusual little braid tucked behind his right ear that Knight Kenobi is tugging on as he whispers to him, and she SWEARS that’s a Jedi thing, isn’t it, doesn’t it mean … something? It’s some kind of identifier or another–she’s sure of THAT, at least. She wishes she’d had more time to read up on Jedi before they’d come, but obviously the situation was not ideal for that. 

She does wish it, though. Maybe she wouldn’t have frightened him so, if she’d been able to. 

OKAY I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TO COME UP.

Like, Anakin is still in love with Padme, I assume.  His nine-year-old/ancient/forty-something brain is all tangled up with itself and with the Force (slightly more benignly tangled up than last time, so, like…there’s that), but it’s still tangled up around the fact that Padme is the sun and stars.  No, say better, Padme is space and holds all other things within herself and Anakin is in love with her like he’s in love with lungs, okay.  

But.

Once upon a time, in another galaxy, far from now, he kills her.  

And he’s coped all right with that, he’s at least reasonably okay, not least because, um, Shmi and Obi-Wan are probably not here for the stoic Jedi act, certainly not in wee little Baby Space Jesus/Possible Space Antichrist (pretty sure this makes Palpatine the Devil, right, that seems accurate).

So they go to Naboo and Anakin is going to be fine, all right, even if it kills him, he’s going to be fine, and besides they need him to fly the mission on the droid ship, so it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be–

Padme walks into the room, handmaidens in tow.

Anakin is not going to be fine.

PAIN EVERYWHERE i love pain i’ve been waiting with bated breath for this ever since this au started BECAUSE THERE’S ALL THESE FUCKING TIME TRAVEL AU’S AND NONE WHERE ANAKIN COMES BACK AND FLIES INTO THE WORST PANIC ATTACK IN HISTORY THE SECOND PADME IS WITHIN HIS LINE OF SIGHT LOOK THIS KID IS GOING TO HAVE _ISSUES_ OF THE FIRST DEGREE AND I GODDAMN WELL EXPECT ONE OF THEM TO BE ‘I LOVE THIS WOMAN MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD AND I KILLED HER I DID THAT’ ‘I CAN’T LIVE WITH THIS’ basically torture i like to torture myself and everyone else and especially anakin

Anakin is always in love with Padmé. If I am writing an Anakin that is not in love with Padmé, it’s because he hasn’t met her yet, and EVEN THAT IS NOT A GUARANTEE, AS THIS AU SHOULD PROVE. He’s also very definitely nine, though. He’s seen visions of being older–MUCH older–but he is very DEFINITELY nine, and he doesn’t always remember all of the visions at once. Part of him is vaguely aware that Padmé dies and that it’s his fault, but most of him is caught up in how much he LOVES her, he LOVES her, she is so much, she is so many things, she is EVERYTHING and he LOVES her. 

He’ll be fine, though. He loves her but this time she’s not gonna love HIM, he’s already decided he’ll stay away from her so she can be safe. His mom told him okay, if he had to, and Obi-Wan looked relieved, but he doesn’t think either of them really believed him. But he IS gonna stay away. He’ll be small and uninteresting and he won’t say anything weird to her or do anything to make her remember him, and then she’ll have ten years to forget him and he just won’t go on the bodyguard mission, his mom and Obi-Wan can do that, they’ll be strong enough. And it’ll be safe. So he loiters back in the doorway and hides, and makes himself small and unimportant in the Force so no one pays him any mind. 

But it’s been so long, he forgot that Padmé was the kind of person who never missed anyone, no matter how small or unimportant. 

suzukiblu:

excerpt from current writing: 

He helped save their people and all he wants in return is a place to swear himself to–to belong. Padmé cannot imagine why the Jedi would think such a person wasn’t worth keeping, but at this point, it’s their loss and Naboo’s gain.

Her gain, she admits to herself as she enters the training room to see Yané and Cordé working with Anaké, who is wearing plain, simple linens that don’t match today’s handmaiden robes. He’s already seen the palace tailors, but even a Naboo tailor can’t turn out a full wardrobe in half a ten-day, so for now he only has what he brought with him and a few basic outfits quickly altered to fit. They notice her immediately–it would be hard not to, since she came flanked by Sabé, Rabé, Eirtaé, and Dormé–and Anaké perks up noticeably. Padmé smiles at him in greeting, and he beams back.

“Padmé!” he says delightedly as he runs up to her, then balks and corrects himself with an embarrassed expression–“I mean, Your Majesty. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s only us here,” Padmé reassures him with another smile. She would let Anaké call her “Padmé” all the time, honestly, but it does put a bit of a kink in the decoy arrangement when she’s wearing Amidala, and he’s already been very eager to fall in line with the others’ manners anyway. “We can’t stay long, we’re afraid. We’ve just come to see how your first day is proceeding.”

*reverent*

I love this AU.

words-writ-in-starlight asked: *appears to harass you again* Okay but for real, talk to me about the disaster that unfolds as Anakin has to deal with Padme's insistence that no one OWNS him, because he's a PERSON, not a thing, and also how that turns into handmaiden!Anakin, and also whether this eventually turns into Padme/Anakin, and also whether this still ends with Vader or if Anakin loses it completely and they have an untrained Dark Side nine-year-old. I swear I'll get out of your inbox someday, but clearly not today.

suzukiblu:

(I’ll be honest there’s a lot here so I just wrote The Next Thing That Happens, lolll. hopefully it satisfies?) 

Anakin cries for a very long time, surprising Padmé exactly not at all. She guides him a little further away from the funeral stragglers and does her best to disappear him behind her robes in the shadows, suspecting that later he might be ashamed to know the Jedi had seen him do it, even if he’ll never see them again. Perhaps some part of her just wants the excuse to disappear him, but that doesn’t make her wrong either.

It doesn’t hurt to get him to sit down somewhere, either. He looks so exhausted.

So Padmé takes a seat, and she lets Anakin lean in against her side and weep silent tears into her chest. She does not reflect on why a nine year-old might cry hard enough to shake without making a sound. Her fists curl inside her sleeves, though, and she makes no effort to disturb his grief.

Anakin cries and cries and cries, and Padmé lays a hand on his back and watches the embers of Qui-Gon Jinn gutter out into nothing. Even with as long as the pyre has burned already, it takes a very long time.

She is so very tired, and there is so very much to do.

“Your majesty,” Sabé murmurs sometime later; Padmé blinks, slowly, and looks up at her. The gesture feels thicker than it should, padded by exhaustion and borrowed pain and a tinge of grief.

“Sabé,” she says, the name coming out slow too. Sabé and Rabé stand side-by-side in front of her, as close to mirrors as any two humans could be. Padmé wants to say more, but the right words won’t come. Words don’t seem to want to come at all, in all honesty.

“Anakin Skywalker is asleep, your majesty,” Sabé says; Padmé glances down automatically and finds that she speaks the truth, although she had not doubted it anyway. “Shall we take him to the Jedi’s rooms?”

“No. He is not a Jedi,” Padmé says, her fingers flattening against Anakin’s back. “He is one of the Naboo. He will stay with us, until such a time as he chooses not to.”

Sabé looks at Rabé, who looks back at Sabé. Padmé looks at neither of them, because Anakin is small and soft and sleeping against her side, body half-hidden by the heavy length of her sleeve but tear-stains still visible on his face.

“We will prepare a room for him, your majesty,” Sabé says, she and Rabé both inclining their heads in perfect unison.

“If you would, please,” Padmé murmurs, and lifts her arm a little higher to better hide Anakin. He shifts in his sleep and lays heavier against her side. She wishes, again, to disappear him–make him unremarkable, unnoticeable, uninteresting. As if she could take his Force strength and his grief and uncertainty off him as easily as she herself takes off Amidala and vanishes into a handmaiden’s cloak.

Of course, even when she takes Amidala off, she is always still Amidala, and Anakin would be no less Anakin if she could do the same for him.

Still. It’s nice, sometimes, to not always be looked at as though she is.

And even without everything he’s done for her people and planet, Anakin is someone who looks at her the same way no matter what she’s wearing. Padmé meant it when she told him he was valuable, and not just in the inherent way that any sentient is, not just for what he’s done–Anakin is valuable to her, for how he treats her. It’s one of the few truly selfish things Padmé has allowed herself to feel since being elected, and she has no intention of changing it.

Honestly, Anakin might need more people to be selfish about himself. Especially now, with Qui-Gon Jinn dead. Who else does he have, now that he’s left his home?

Her.

He will have her.

The rest of it … the rest of it they’ll just have to see, she supposes.

*opens mouth*

*screams forever*

clones-away-deactivated20161015 asked: Padme is gonna fix it right? I mean, we haven't even gotten to the handmaiden-ing thing. Those girls will raise Anakin well, I think. ;)

suzukiblu:

“No one owns you, Ani,” Padmé repeats, not understanding how he can ask that like he’s worried. Except–she does. Of course she does. 

He’s nine. And she’d even thought it herself, too. 

Of course he’s worried about not being owned. 

“You are a friend to Naboo, and you have done a great thing for our people,” she tells him quietly, again barely resisting the urge to grab his hands. She knows she would still grip them much too hard, especially now. “You will never be a slave again, but I promise, you will not be abandoned. Naboo will take care of you as one of our own, if you will have us. We would be honored to take care of you.” 

“I can fix things,” Anakin says, ducking his head in a very young way, his hair hiding his eyes. "And I can fly–you saw, I’m a really good pilot. And I know how to–” 

“Ani,” Padmé interrupts carefully, and allows herself to settle her hands very gently on his shoulders. “I know that you are valuable. You are very valuable to me. You are kind and you are brave, and–”

“I’m not brave!” Anakin blurts, shaking his head. “The Council would train me if I was brave. But they looked, and I’ve got too much fear in me.” 

“That makes you no less valuable. We all have fear in us,” Padmé says, mystified as to how fear could possibly be a hinderance to a peacekeeper. Fear is like pain–a needed warning, and a lesson. “Fear is a thing that you feel, but brave is a thing that you do. And I have already seen you choose to do it time and again.” 

Anakin ducks his head again, looking very small, and Padmé wants so badly to wrap him up in her arms and all her regalia and disappear him someplace where the Jedi and the Gungans and the Supreme Chancellor and just–none of them are, not a one, just herself and Sabé and Rabé and Eirtaé and– 

Someone like Anakin should never look so small. Really, no one should, but Anakin of all people even less so. 

“I can read Huttese and Bocce and I understand Binary, and I can fix anything I can take apart, and I can take apart anything if I’ve got tools. And I know how to build a portable vaporator and I built C-3PO all by myself, and I know how to find food and water in the desert and cook porridge and stew, and, and I–” he stutters, and Padmé just listens helplessly as he keeps obsessively rattling off his skills like he thinks needs to prove something about himself to her. She lets him, because he seems just as helpless to stop himself. She doesn’t know what to say anyway. 

Maybe she has a little more sympathy for Obi-Wan holding back from telling him about the Council just yet, though. Listening to this hurts. 

“That’s very good, Ani,” she manages once he finally runs out of words, or maybe just runs out of breath, and swallows hard at the sight of him. He’s flushed and half-panting and looks like he might cry. She feels like she might cry, and she wants to disappear him more than ever. She wishes Master Qui-Gon had lived. She wishes Obi-Wan could do–something. “I’m sure you’ll do very well on Naboo, if you stay.” 

“Stay where?” Anakin asks, giving her an unnerved look, and Padmé thinks of his fear and uncertainty and poorly-defined concept of “freedom” and has a strange, irrational urge to never trust another sentient near him again. 

“Wherever you want to,” she says anyway, because Anakin is free, even if he still doesn’t fully understand what it means, and she can’t answer that question for him. “We’ll help you find a place you like. Naboo will take care of you no matter where you are.” 

“I’m scared,” Anakin says, shoulders hunching again and expression ashamed. 

“That’s okay,” Padmé says, tightening her grip on his shoulders hopefully not too much. “You can fix things and fly, and you are a very good pilot. And you are so, so brave and kind.” 

“I’m not,” Anakin says, shaking his head. 

“Would an angel lie to you?” Padmé asks with a weak attempt at a smile. Anakin tries to return it, she thinks, but his attempt is even weaker. She does not blame him. “You can feel as afraid as you like. That’s fine. We’ll be here to help you be brave, too. We are Naboo. That is what we do for each other.” 

Anakin stares at her for a long moment, nods helplessly, and then starts to cry. Padmé is certain she grips him too hard when she pulls him into a hug, but he only pushes in harder. 

words-writ-in-starlight asked: Okay this probably won't shock you, but I have a request for the five headcanons thing (I thought of this on my walk back to my dorm from my internship and in my defense it's been a long day): Force-sensitive Padme AU.

suzukiblu:

• Padmé gets found on Search by Tahl at like four, which is a little late but Tahl’s just like “lol whatever I was SIX” and THEN is like “would you like to be a Jedi, child? ❤” and Padmé is all “NO, I AM GOING TO BE A POLITICAL-TICIAN.” Tahl is like “omg ❤❤❤” and slightly heartbroken, but okay, fair enough. 
• As a result, Padmé becomes aware that she is Force-sensitive, and is vaguely aware that being Force-sensitive means people can do stuff WITH the Force. She does some light reading during playtime. Her parents are like “sweetie don’t you want to go, you know … actually PLAY?” and she is like “BUT THIS IS SO INTERESTING” and they are just all okay, alright, if you’re sure kiddo. Her sister thinks the Force is boring af but Padmé is faaaascinated. Tahl thinks she is adorable and gives her a few of her own books before she leaves. Padmé is also FIVE, and doesn’t realize that not getting proper training should preclude her from doing Force-ly things. She teaches herself to meditate because she’s vaguely aware that’s a thing that Force-sensitive people do, and then she teaches herself to lift feathers and bend spoons and throw full-sized punching bags across the gym, because she’s vaguely that THOSE things are things that Force-sensitive people do. She is not at ALL aware that Tahl never expected her to be quite so good at reading between the lines in those books she left and figuring out how to do all this shit. 
• Later on, Baby Padmé sends the Jedi Temple a very serious little hand-written letter addressed to “Miss Lady Jedi Tahl” about how she would like to borrow some other books, please, Miss Lady Jedi. The books she has now are VERY good books and she likes them very MUCH, but she has read them all now and she would like to learn more new things but because she has read them all she can’t learn new things. Also please accept this courtesy gift of a copy of her two favorite picture books, “The Junior Legislator’s Guide To Drafting A Peace Treaty” and “The Junior Legislator’s Guide To Firearm Use And Maintenance”, thank you very much. Tahl is SO ENAMORED and sends her PROBABLY WAY TOO MANY BOOKS, TO BE FRANK. Padmé reads them all. Repeatedly. And TAKES NOTES. 
  
• Everyone on Naboo who knows her well is politely baffled by but supportive of her interests, although they don’t let it get around that the new Queen is basically a mail-order Jedi because that would sort of defeat the purpose of having decoys. Anyway, Padmé never did get around to testing out that lightsaber design; blasters are just SO convenient. Ranged weapons are a gift and they are not a gift Padmé Amidala is going to waste, thank you very much. 
• Anakin was already going to be doomed, of course, but when he finds out the amazing angel he’s just met can DEFLECT BLASTER BOLTS BARE-HANDED … yeah, yeah, Anakin Skywalker is in love. He is in tiny nine year-old hero-worship love and he will NEVER EVER NOT BE, EVER, PADME PLEASE TEACH ME HOW YOU DID THAT I WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO HOTWIRE A SPEEDER?? Padmé’s all “oh no Annie it’s nothing ❤” and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are like “NO, NO, IT IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING o_O”. 

This went EXACTLY where I hoped it would.

The Pen Pal AU

fialleril:

Okay, curse you all, now I have all sorts of headcanons for That One Where Padmé and Anakin Are Pen Pals.

• So Padmé gives Anakin her com frequency before he leaves Naboo at the end of TPM, because she cares about this kid and she wants to make sure he’s all right, and she doesn’t know that the Jedi non-attachment rule is going to mean he’s not supposed to keep in touch with her at all.
• When she doesn’t hear from him at first she figures he’s probably really busy, settling in and starting his Jedi training and all that, so she gives him time.
• But when she still doesn’t hear from him eventually she gets worried and shoots him a quick message, basically just “Hey how are you?”
• It takes him a while to reply and when he does it’s not anything Padmé was expecting. “The Council says I’m not supposed to talk to you because you’re an attachment, like my mom, and I have to let you go if I’m going to be a Jedi. But I want to keep talking to you. You’re my friend.”
• So now Padmé’s all righteously angry so she says, “Well to hell with that. You’re my friend too. So how are you with encryptions?”
• And Anakin sends back some super goofy winking space emoji and he’s like, “I grew up in the Quarters we have a secret language and also me and Kitster had a code I’ve got this.”

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