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

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. 

Anonymous asked: Dark Suzukiblu show me the handmaiden au

suzukiblu:

“Obi-Wan told me about the Council,” Padmé says gently as she stops beside Anakin, and he looks away from the smoldering remains of the pyre to give her a confused, worried look she can just barely see by the light of the dying fire. He looks exhausted, unsurprisingly. He’s just a little boy, and the pyre has been burning for hours and hours. It’s a miracle he’s even awake, much less standing. 

“What about the Council?” he asks. Padmé’s lips thin. Obi-Wan at least could’ve–no, no. She won’t blame a man who’s lost someone so dear to him for being unwilling to immediately break bad news to a child who’s grieving and frightened himself at a damn funeral. 

Well. She might, a little, but she won’t dwell on it, and she won’t hold it against him. 

But Anakin saved her people. No matter her own grief, Padmé could never treat him so poorly just to spare herself. She would’ve thought the same of a Jedi. 

“They’ve told him that they will not see you trained as a Jedi,” she says. It’s not the entire truth–it leaves out Obi-Wan’s own silence, and the way he’d denied her eyes as he held it–but it is true, all the same. 

Kinder, she thinks, where there cannot truly be a “kind”. 

“Oh,” Anakin says. There’s a listless numbness to the response, and his already dull eyes unfocus, drifting to a point just past her shoulder. Something stabs into Padmé’s chest at the sight. 

“You will be coming with me,” she says abruptly, drawing herself up as her hands tighten inside her sleeves. She’d meant to ask it, not declare it–that had been her intention on the way over, leaving Obi-Wan behind–but all she can think when she sees that look on Anakin’s face is how abandoned and unwanted he must feel. He could not possibly think a worse thing than that.

“Yes, Master,” Anakin says quietly, looking at the ground. 

Anonymous asked: nooo he called her master omg

suzukiblu:

“Ani,” Padmé says, her expression stricken, and Anakin flinches. She wants to throw her damn title on the fire. “Ani, no, I didn’t mean–I would never take your freedom from you. And even if I would, no one can do that here. This is the Republic.” 

“I don’t get it,” Anakin says uncertainly, his shoulders hunching. Padmé grits her teeth against the sight. She is wearing Queen Amidala’s face and should not let so much show on it, but she can’t help it when his face looks like that. 

“I swear to you, Anakin Skywalker, no one is going to own you while I breathe,” she tells him fiercely, dropping quickly to her knees in front of him to put them on a level with each other and only resisting the urge to grab his hands because she doubts he’d find any reassurance in the grip. Especially not how tight she’s sure she’d make it, whether she meant to or not. 

“But–you won’t own me either?” Anakin says, looking even more uncertain. “And Master Qui-Gon’s dead and his heir isn’t allowed to inherit me, so–so then I–”

“You’re free, Ani,” Padmé reminds him. She thought he knew what that meant. He does, doesn’t he? 

“But who owns me?” Anakin asks helplessly. 

Anonymous asked: Empress Amidala for the meme, please?

suzukiblu:

• Luke and Leia have exactly zero percent fear response to sensing the Dark Side. This will definitely never backfire on anyone ever. 
• The handmaidens regularly take turns going on missions with Vader. Usually there’s two of them; there’s almost always at least one. Padmé slightly hates herself for sending them, but has no intention of stopping sending them. She hates herself a lot more for a lot of other things she’s still doing. The handmaidens don’t answer to Vader and Vader doesn’t answer to the handmaidens, but they DO occasionally remind him what Padmé said in the briefing. 
• Padmé has nightmares every time that Vader is too far away to sense her having nightmares. She has no idea if this is because that’s when she has the room to or if it’s just because he’s out of her reach, and she doesn’t want to know either way. 
  
• I may have mentioned this before but OH MAN, does Vader feel SO CONTENT in the Dark. Like, it is warm and soft and cozy as FUCK to him. He loves it. It’s GREAT. Which, well, he’s probably accessing it through mostly positive emotions, barring some murder-rages and the like, so that should probably make sense, buuuut that also means he’s fueled more than a few horrible slaughters on the power of love, lol. Not even in the VENGEFUL AND PROTECTIVE sense, either, just literally the soft happy feeling of Padmé’s lips pressing to the corner of his mouth or the twin’s little hands in his. 
• Eventually, Padmé is accidentally going to genuinely injure Vader in bed. It is not going to go well. The WAY in which it is not going to go well remains up for debate. 

Anonymous asked: usually in redeemed!vader fanfic obi-wan crops up at some point, but i'm honestly glad he doesn't in your double agent vader series, mostly because it allows more room for vader/leia interaction, but secondarily because i don't think even obi-wan can come up with a reply to vader's (inevitable) scathing, "i'd risk life and limb for you, but i don't have any," and i'm not ready for obi-wan to be that thoroughly roasted

fialleril:

ialreadyreadthatfanfic:

fialleril:

Oh my God.

I started reading this thinking I was gonna give you a long and thoughtful reply, but then I got to the end and I just.

That’s the sickest burn I’ve ever seen. Like damn. I am in awe of you, anon. I never would have thought of that one myself.

tbh i saw this post 12 hours ago and it took me that long to recover from being caught on the fringes of this scathing nuclear blast of a sentence

the only way you can respond to it is to immediately self-vaporise and don’t even show your force ghost ass around for next ten millenia

#by the way this anon was me if anybody was looking (via @jerseydevious)

I am so glad you came forward because you deserve to be recognized for this majesty.

beckyh2112 asked: For the AU meme, if you're still taking requests: Han Solo, accidental Jedi knight

suzukiblu:

oops accidental bonus headcanons because JEDI KNIGHT HAN SOLO, oooooops oh well too late now! 

• “It’s LUCK, kid,” Han scoffs dismissively, then proceeds to grab up the lightsaber himself and turn on the training droid, then close his eyes and nail every single bolt before knocking the thing right out of the air. “Also, see that, you don’t even NEED the Force to do that.” “… perhaps, but that was the Force you just did that with,” Obi-Wan replies slowly. “What,” Han says. 
  
• It was definitely the Force. “I AM NOT A JEDI,” Han Solo yells as he is dragged kicking and screaming into Jedi training by the power of Luke’s excitement at not being the only one suffering the indignity of getting hit in the ass by randomized droid blaster-shots, literally just that. Also Obi-Wan tells him he might be able to shave half a parsec off the Kessel Run, if he hones his Force-sense finely enough, which, well, FINE then. BUT ONLY FOR THE KESSEL RUN. 
  
• “I have a bad feeling about this.” 
• “I HAVE A VERY BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS.”
  
• “DID I MENTION THE BAD FEELING THAT I HAVE ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT IS AN INCREASINGLY BAD FEELING.” 
  
• Leia is so appalled by the state of the Jedi in this galaxy. “Sorry, sweetheart, we can’t all be bright-eyed little beacons of galactic hope,” Han says, smashing a Stormtrooper over the head with his lightsaber hilt. The blade is blue but NO ONE WOULD FUCKING KNOW, CONSIDERING HOW RARELY HE USES THE DAMN THING. Generally speaking Jedi Knight Han Solo uses his lightsaber as A) a laser cutter and B) a blunt instrument. Obi-Wan is dead and he is STILL going to die of shame on behalf of the Order. 
• “WHY ARE WE ON THIS HELLISH SWAMP PLANET AND HOW DO WE GET OFF IT YESTERDAY.” 
• The amount of gimer-stick whaps that Han Solo suffers has not been seen in the galaxy since Yan Dooku was a snotty little baby padawan who couldn’t be assed to pay attention to anything not saberplay for more than fifteen seconds at a time. 
• Lando takes one look at Han Solo holding a lightsaber and laughs for TEN THOUSAND YEARS. Chewbacca is like THANK YOU, AT LAST SOMEONE ELSE SEES THE FUCKING HILARITY OF THIS SITUATION, THANK YOU, CALRISSIAN. 
• “Dark Side my fine Corellian ASS, I’ll show you the fucking DARK SIDE, YOU PIECE OF BANTHA SHIT, LET ME AT HIM–” 
  

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:

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.

viperofsand asked: BUT HOW DOES HAMILTON REACT AT THE 'I AM YOUR FATHER' REVEAL? (Because I am sure he got into Star Wars knowing nothing like Jon Snow)

buckygreyjoy:

peradii:

I’m going to combine this with @calltomuster‘s request for hamifeels 

–

The first time he watches television they stare at him, rapt, as though the expect him to reel back and cry witchcraft! or else swoon like a maiden in the high heat of June. He is astonished, yes, but he does not permit himself to gawp like a savage; he says, instead, “How does it work?” It is something to do with tubes and light and satellites, apparently. Quite, quite remarkable. 

The films come next. Popular culture, they call it, and once again Hamilton is struck that although man has progressed in technology the stories he tells are always the same: of love and women and blood and glory. Of course, there are some small alterations: he is first scandalised, then gratified, at the quantity of nudity onscreen – likewise with the depiction of same-sex intercourse. Tony Stark seems shocked when he watches Queer as Folk and does not immediately go to the confessional. Didn’t you study history at all, he hears Sam  gloat, didn’t you read his letters.

“My children burned the good ones,” says Hamilton, smirking (and saddened, of course he is saddened; Laurens is long-gone; how he wishes he could read his sweet words again –)

Anyway. The films. “This is a classic,” says Steve Rogers. Hamilton was offered a floor in Stark Tower; he refused for several reasons, most prominent among them the fact that he despises Tony Stark and cannot bear to be anywhere near the yammering arrogant man who believes that his way is the only correct way of conducting business (what do you mean? This is not ironic, not in the slightest. Hamilton is nothing like Stark: he is certain of his own rightness, perhaps, but that is because he actually is right.)

Instead, he has rented a room in Brooklyn, sharing an apartment with Steve Rogers and his paramour Bucky Barnes. Not that they use the word paramour. Not that they even acknowledge that they live together. A strange pair, so devoted to each other that they never need speak devotion aloud: it is communicated entirely in their longing glances and lingering touches. That, and the obnoxiously loud coupling every night. On the third night of interrupted work, Hamilton recorded the racket and threatened to release it to the press if they did not keep it down. 

They obliged, though Steve had the temerity to say, “Shouldn’t you be asleep at three am?” and Hamilton said nothing, only fixed him with the shadowed angry glower of a man who has just discovered the wonders of modern-day coffee. 

“What is it?”

“Star Wars,” says Bucky, grinning. He smiles a lot now – and every time Steve looks at him like the expression is a rare and treasured thing. Perhaps it is. Hamilton thinks of Eliza, Laurens, Philip and aches. All he loves is dead and gone – but he has his work, his legacy, time. He can endures. If there’s a reason I’m still alive, when all who love me have died – then I’ll get the job done. Something like that. He struggles to remember the lyrics. 

(This is a lie. He’s seen it eleven times. He knows every word off by heart. He has written Miranda lengthy essays on the points he got wrong.)

‘Star Wars’ may be set in the far reaches of space but it is, at its heart, a fairy story. Lost princes and princesses, tales of liberty and tyranny. Hamilton loves it.

“I am your father,” says the mechanised Vader to young Luke Skywalker (nineteen and dreaming of glory) and Hamilton’s eyes grow wide. Afterwards, he says:

“He didn’t deserve redemption.”

“What – Vader? Well –” and Steve looks like he’s about to launch into a spiel about love and doing terrible things for it, but Bucky taps his elbow. By an unspoken accord, he  lapses into silence. 

“He failed his son – he let him make the same mistakes he did, fall into a life of violence and blood and war. He abandoned him,” and Steve thinks how Hamilton’s father left him and his mother on some scrap of land in the Caribbean and maybe it is that –

– but then he thinks: there was once a boy who died in a duel to defend his father’s honour. And there was once a father who outlived all his children. A man who died, leaving a widow to raise eight babes alone. A man who returned when the battles had been fought and won. 

He places a hand on Hamilton’s shoulder. He does not speak. What could he possibly say?

why would you do that to my heart it did NOTHING to you

WILDLY uncalled for.

Anonymous asked: But what if like exchanging different foods is how you get married on ALL desert planets in the Star Wars universe? Who does Anakin accidentally marry? Who does Shmi accidentally marry? Who does Luke accidentally marry?

suzukiblu:

Anakin and Padmé have literally been married since they were nine and fourteen; he’s VERY confused when she insists they have to get married AGAIN, but maybe that’s a Naboo thing?  

-

“I’m sorry, I thought–you’re not already married, are you?” Cliegg asks worriedly, and Shmi gets a brief, wistful look on her face, thinking of a long-ago dinner table and the long, long-gone man who’d eaten her food and taken her Ani to a better life, who’d left her an empty house and half a box of rations from some far-off planet she will never see. 

“No, he … he’s passed on, now,” she replies quietly. “And anyway, it wasn’t his people’s way.” 

-

“Um,” Luke says, turning bright red. Lando gives him a puzzled look in return, wagging the mug of space hot chocolate he’s holding out to him. 

“Yes or no, kid?” he asks, raising a pointed eyebrow. 

“Yes!” Luke blurts, then looks horrified at himself, grabs the hot chocolate, and leaves. He comes back twenty minutes later with a triumphant, glowing expression and a bottle of Lando’s favorite space wine, which–odd, kind of, but Lando is NOT complaining. 

I am so enamored of the sand orphans thing.