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

qunaributts:

wander2theedge:

twelfthprince:

poe canonically gets super excited about cool-looking spacecrafts (he describes a TIE fighter as having a “deadly beauty” in the tfa novelization, god) so i’m just imagining poe gushing on and on to finn about his favorite types of space ships, and finn’s just like “you’re SUCH a nerd but i love you anyway” and is happy to listen to every word because poe’s so cute when he’s excited

And Rey casually bringing up her scavenging inside dozens of Stardestroyer’s and her new ownership of the Falcon, and Poe’s face just falls in shock before lighting up as he starts reciting about the Battle of Jakku with the air battles and the many exploits of the Millennium Falcon she never heard about. Finn just points a look at her saying “now he’s at it for hours, good job,” but he’s trying and failing to look exasperated while he’s fighting this huge goofy grin and stars in his eyes because he’s like “wow I love you two too much, I can’t ever be mad at you two for long.”

“No you’re not serious!”

“I am! The breach was on the right side, made by an X-Wing?”

“Yes!”

“I pulled salvage from that ship! Nobody managed to make the climb before I came along! There were compressor coils and functioning actuators that I took from the X-Wing wreckage and–”

“Woahwoahwoah,” Poe said, waving his hands to stop Rey. “That was the Blue Leader X-Wing: The ship that turned the tide of the Battle of Jakku by taking out the flagship Star Destroyer and you pulled salvage from it?” 

Rey blinked and then wet her lips, not sure if the pilot was upset or impressed.

“Yeah…?” she said, voice breaking, ending on a questioning high note of uncertainty. Poe let out a noise somewhere between a shout and a laugh. He laced his fingers behind his neck as he leaned back, expression incredulous. Rey still wasn’t sure if he approved or not. 

“Holy shit,” Poe said after a second. He laughed. “Holy shit!” he repeated, “That’s incredible!” Rey released a quiet breath of relief and mirrored the grin on Poe’s face. He leaned forward, reclasping his hands in front of him. “You know that Star Destroyer was responsible for fourteen Imperial victories after the destruction of the second Death Star? When Blue Leader–the pilot’s name was Remi Jouin–was critically damaged, the fleet was meant to retreat. His ship was on the way down, and would have been deflected off of the Stardestroyer’s shields. But Remi made a last-second lightspeed jump that phased him through the shields and crashed him straight in to the command bridge. Oh his way down he went over the comms and said–”

“–hold your ground and give them hell for me,” Rey finished for him, practically bouncing in her seat. Poe blinked at her.

“I’m sorry, you’ve heard this story before?” He asked, brows knitting together.

“No,” Rey said, grinning so widely her cheeks hurt. She leaned forward, as if to share a secret. “I didn’t just pull compressor coils and actuators from the wreckage. I took the black box. I had it in my shelter on Jakku.” Poe visibly started in his seat.

“Y-…” he stuttered, laying his palms against the table. “You’re serious?” he whispered. Rey nodded. 

“I had a screen I could hook it up to so I could–” Poe stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over his chair as he did. Finn, who had been dozing with his head propped up on one hand, jumped and blinked sleepily at the sudden commotion. Poe swept around the table, seizing Rey’s wrist as he did and dragging her out of her chair after him.

“What’s going on?” Finn asked, half standing.

“We’re going to Jakku!” Poe called over his shoulder. Finn ran a tired hand over his face, a deep frown set in to his expression.

“Jakku…? Wha… why do you always want go go back to Jakku?”

(via bronzedragon)

l0chn3ss:

poseidhn:

unicornempire:

astrariums:

crazyintheeast:

Quick reminder that Luke had about five minutes of training with a lightsaber and NONE of it included actually fighting against an other opponent. Remember Ben sparring with Luke? Nope. It was just him playing around with a robot that tased him

Do you remember Yoda sparring with Luke? Nope. He was teaching him about the Force but we never saw him ONCE teaching him how to actually fight with a lightsaber. Luke had precisely ZERO experience when it came to fighting with a lightsaber.  And yet none of you said anything when Luke actually kept up with Vader and later on actually defeated Vader

Rey on the other hand spend her ENTIRE LIFE defending herself with her staff. She is very well versed in fighting with a melee weapon. But when she fought against a HEAVILY INJURED Kylo Ren you immediately cry Mary Sue and unrealistic.

Think about that. Think about what this attitude says about you.

Also an important thing about fight choreography:

A great deal of thought was put into that scene, particularly Rey’s fighting style. She may seem pretty well adapted to lightsaber combat, but in reality she struggles a lot during the fight. 

This is a character who has trained exclusively - as far as we know - with a quarterstaff, which is completely different from fighting with a two-handed weapon. Form, stance, strategy - you name it. And this is actually quite apparent in Rey’s choreography for the first half of the scene.

She starts attacking Kylo Ren with these jabs that would probably crack his ribs if she were wielding her quarterstaff. But since she has a brand new weapon in her hands, the strikes are completely ineffective. 

But that’s what’s so amazing about this scene. Rey adapts. She’s analyzing Kylo Ren’s form the entire time and she’s learning how to apply it to her own fighting. When she uses the Force to help her focus, she overcomes the translation between one style of weapon to another and secures her victory.

Rey is the first character we’ve actually seen learning how to use a lightsaber against another opponent. And we see it happening in the middle of a fight. 

I really enjoyed this scene because I knew they’d spent all this time building up how smart and quick and adaptable Rey is as a character, and we get to see her really shine when she’s pushed into a corner and has to think on her toes.

Remember how she lost that second Tai Fighter when they lost their guns? How she remembered that giant ship she’d been excavating for years and used it to her advantage and knew how to position the gun to get Finn a shot?

Or how she used the doors on that freighter to cut off the (Whatever’s) tentacles when it had ahold of Finn, because she couldn’t run to keep up with it?

There were so many instances of great improvisation for Rey, but I don’t think a lot of people who watched the movie really caught on that she was very quick thinking or smart because the other characters didn’t spend a ton of time congratulating her or patting her on the back for being smart, and these are traits that are often only given to male characters, so people are confused as to why she’s so successful and simply think it’s poor writing, when the reality is that she’s just as smart/quick as Han was in the original Trilogy.

I’m so tired of the argument that just because Rey can do shit, she’s a “Mary Sue” character because guess what, women are capable of doing things men can too you know. Han was a smuggler who learnt how to get himself out of tight spots. Rey is a scavenger who learnt how to get herself out of tight spots. What is the difference? Some people can’t comprehend the idea that Rey doesn’t really need saving because she is so capable of taking care of herself, which is something soooo revolutionary or whatever idek. I mean, even Chewie who was Han’s partner for more than 30 years accepted Rey as his copilot, accepted Rey to be in Han’s position. And Rey is a freaking Jedi goddamnyou!

The girl was trained to fight, to survive, and I’m just sick of the double standard where people just accepted Farm Boy Luke being a fantastic Jedi and pilot but suddenly a girl can do shit and there’s outrage like how dare a girl be intelligent and strong right???

@fullmetalgrigori

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

ok how about this

vrabia:

instead of only meeting when they’re about to lose eachother, rey, finn and poe all meet at the start of the movie when rey goes rummaging through the wreckage of the tie fighter they crash-landed in, and finds two mildly concussed strangers and a bunch of parts that require serious scrubbing but will probably keep her fed for a week. 

points to consider:

• rey already found bb-8 before she finds finn and poe, so: emotional reunion between poe and his droid while rey and finn look on and think, independently of eachother, what a swell guy
  
• rey offers to share her rations for the day, but makes them do the scrubbing while she sits in the shade and relaxes for once
• they end up at rey’s place and by this point rey already knows they’re with the resistance and she’s a little bit flustered because she lives in a literal wreck that she decorated with flowers and dolls and scavenged rebel alliance paraphernalia. she’s kind of glaring and i-dare-you-to-say-something at first, but the boys love it. finn is looking around trying not to be too obviously wide-eyed at all the home-y touches b/c he grew up in such a sterile, uniform environment where they probably didn’t have a lot of personal effects. poe comments that it’s cozy and actually reminds him of the squad dorms on d’qar because pilots always have a mess of parts lying around and little model ships and things, and rey would fit right in; rey is trying to be Very Dignified about everything but inside she’s all !!!!
• because of reasons, poe and finn are stuck on jakku for a couple of days before the resistance can pick them up, so rey takes them scavenging. poe is very bad at climbing things, but finn manages to keep up and he knows a lot about star destroyer junk and he and rey get a little geeky about it and finn starts thinking that if the resistance won’t have him after all, maybe rey will and he can stay on jakku and be a scavenger with rey and live in rey’s lovely home. tl;dr by the end of the day he’s mentally scribbling ‘mr. rey’s husband <3 <3 <3′ in his journal. 
• rey still ends up beating plott’s thugs to defend bb-8 and the boys are like …oh. 
• when they board the falcon during their emergency getaway, both poe and finn assume it’s going to be poe flying it, but he ends up in the co-pilot seat hanging on for dear life and by the time they’re in orbit he’s pretty sure he’s about to do something incredibly inappropriate, like ask rey to marry him
• finn still gets the jacket. idk does he still have that cynical ‘we can’t win’ moment at maz’s place and after he and rey say goodbye poe follows him all hey buddy i’m sad that you’re going but i totally respect your choice so here’s something to remember me by?
• poe introducing finn and rey to leia. they’re all in various states of exhausted dishevelment but poe’s got his arms tight around them and his sweet, crinkly-eyed smile and leia decides on the spot that yes, she will officiate this wedding. 

(via bonehandledknife)

cheekbonered:

my fave thing about rey is that a tiny droid she just met tells her ‘hey that dude stole my master dude’s jacket’ and she just fuckin wrecks him as if she’s not going to hijack an enormous ship like 5mins later

(Source: devilrie, via n-haught)

broadlybrazen:

white-throated-packrat:

otherromanticverbs:

broadlybrazen:

trying to find that one post where y’all speculate about Finn realizing he needs to provide a surname, and he just goes with “Dameron” because that’s the first one which comes to mind (none of his old friends had surnames or even names beyond their official designations, and he can’t remember that much of his family)

and Rey is like “yeah solid choice, makes sense, I like the sound of it” because Rey is a feral desert child and doesn’t know any better

and of course Poe is charmed, and is like “sure I am happy to provide jackets, surnames, my elite piloting skills, my hand in marriage: anything for my friends”

and idk at some point, someone is like “okay Rey do you have any other name, what’s with the mononym shit” and she’s like “uhhhhh DAMERON” because really if it works for Finn, it can work for her

and the long and short of it is: they see nothing unusual in this and completely miss any implications, and eventually this nonsense gets back to the Resistance fighters and Poe’s entire squadron smirks at him for days

#bonus points if when rey figures out she’s a skywalker (SURELY SHE IS) #she tells finn and they’re both really into this whole FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP AND SURNAMES thing #so she’s like ‘you are my people; do you want to be a skywalker too’ #and of course finn says yes!!! #so they are now rey & finn dameron skywalker #extra bonus points if they unilaterally decide to extend this to poe #who only finds out three months later because of some stupid admin thing #that he is now officially Poe Dameron Skywalker #and he can’t look the general in the face #‘welcome to the family’ she tells him; absolutely deadpan. #people are sending PRESENTS.

Are Poe’s parents still alive? Because he’d be getting messages asking for an explanation why they had to find out third hand that he got bonded, at the very least?

I have been thinking about this and I have decided that I was completely wrong: this entire mess is Poe’s fault, he totally started it.

accidentally! and with the best of intentions! he woke up in the desert with the ship and Finn both missing, and while he feared the worst, he still had hope. when he made contact with the Resistance, he tells them about Finn and has him listed as MIA; he felt responsible for the kid, he felt awful that this boy took a courageous leap with a total stranger & got smashed to bits in the desert for his trouble.

Poe has some vague notion that if Finn was ever found, he’d ask him to join the Resistance, or help him get settled in a new quiet life somewhere safe. He knows Finn doesn’t have anyone else, so he writes “Finn Dameron” and lists himself as next of kin.

when they reconnect, he’s so happy that Finn is okay (a bit distracted by how gorgeous the kid is, he hadn’t had time to notice before), and genuinely touched that Finn kept his jacket, that Finn was equally worried and upset over him. it occurs to him that the name thing could be awkward, so he explains his concerns, he explains next-of-kin notifications, and “you didn’t have anyone else that I knew of, so I wanted to make sure you’d at least have me.”

after that, Poe doesn’t think anything of it.

…but Finn! Finn is like, COMPLETELY VERKLEMPT, that this cool dashing hero person was looking out for him!  Finn has people now - he has Rey and Poe, and the entire rest of the Resistance have embraced him wholeheartedly. also!!! next-of-kin, that’s SO NICE, he has kin now, he’s not just cannon fodder whose passing won’t matter to anyone but his squadmates. he’s a person, he has kin, he has people, he belongs. it’s so great.

he tells Rey all about it and she gets why he’s excited; it IS awesome. he signs everything “Finn Dameron” and she addresses her messages to “Finn Dameron,” it’s all very exciting. and she thinks about it, too, she thinks about next-of-kin, about Finn coming back for her, Finn choosing her.

when she rejoins the Resistance, she asks Finn if she can be “Rey Dameron” so that they can have next-of-kin too. (it simply doesn’t occur to either of them that they can get next-of-kin notifications without exchanging surnames; Poe did it that way, and it made sense to them, and they never thought about it beyond that.) and of course Finn agrees!

he forgets to tell Poe for another five weeks, and then mentions it in passing. Poe is like, professionally unfazed, so he just finds the whole thing charming. they are so cute and he can’t stop smiling over them; they are the best. and again, Poe moves on & doesn’t think anything of it.

…..and then. AND THEN, eventually, Rey finds out that she’s a Skywalker. [This was foreshadowed so heavily in the movie, I’m 99.999% certain they’re gonna go there.] and obviously there’s a lot of feelings and drama, but when it dies down a bit, she’s hanging out with Finn and they’re drowsily curled up together on his bunk because they want to talk FOREVER but they’re so tired but the have SO MUCH TO SAY.

Rey doesn’t totally understand what all of this means for her, what it means to have that family and their legacy. but she does know what it means to have THIS family, the one she has with Finn. so it makes perfect sense to make him part of her new family, to mesh the identity she’s inherited with the identity she’s made, so she asks him, “you are my people, you are my next-of-kin. do you want to be a Skywalker too?” and of course he’s like “YEAH!”

and like. throughout all of this, Poe is their buddy and means a lot to them, and they think of him as their people. (the entire Resistance has noticed how much the kids adore him & hero worship him, it’s hard to miss; they would tease Poe more about it, but he clings grimly to his virtue and hisses “CRADLE ROBBING” every time it comes up, so they mostly let it go.)

so when there’s some Big Dramatic Space Mission, and his squadron goes missing briefly, Finn & Rey are both really messed up about it. and then one of them is like, “…you know what we forgot to do?” and the other one is like “OH OF COURSE.” as his next-of-kin, they have the right to get his records updated, so that’s what happens while Poe spends several miserable weeks fleeing across the muddiest, swampiest continent in the galaxy. when he finally makes contact with the Resistance, he has acquired (1) space cholera, (2) space ticks, and (3) a new surname, though he doesn’t learn about that last one for a while.

His mothers find out around the same time he does, and they are Not Amused. “Why wouldn’t you TELL US,” they ask, and “it’s hardly classified, apparently your whole base knows,” and “we had to hear about it from your commanding officer, young man,” and “were you ever planning to introduce us, what do you have to say for yourself”

and like, there’s a totally reasonable and rational explanation for all of this - “it’s not what you think,” he says feebly, and his moms huff, unimpressed - but he’s still shaken up from the influx of engagement/wedding presents and General Princess Leia herself visiting his bedside to fix him with a gimlet stare and a completely deadpan, “Welcome to the family.” He’s had a long day, he might be married, and he’s not sure how but it’s at least 30% his own fault.

OKAY I LIKE THIS ONE

(via bronzedragon)