#the force

For all you Bendu fans, did you miss the part where the Bendu literally just sat around and did nothing, then threw a tantrum when someone called it out on it? The whole point of the Bendu as a character is that for all the things it says, it’s a giant hypocrite? You know, like what people like to accuse Jedi of being, when the Jedi very much are not?

The thing people in this fandom don’t seem to get is, Yin and Yang aren’t Order and Chaos; Yin and Yang reaching equilibrium is what creates Order, and harmony, and stability, and all that good stuff. The two complementary opposing forces being thrown out of that equilibrium, too much or not enough of either, is what causes Chaos, in the form of things like famines and wars, and that chaos continues to get worse as the forces try desperately to get back into harmony with each other.

For an analogy, let’s look at the elk and wolves of Yellowstone National Park. When the wolves were taken out of the park, what happened was that the elk now didn’t have to worry about predation, so they stopped moving around as much and that led to them overgrazing a lot of areas of the park, which had knock-on effects like reducing the beaver population since they were eating the beavers’ preferred food, and a lot of other animals were reliant on the beavers’ dams and didn’t thrive as much. When the wolves were reintroduced, things started getting better, as the elk went back to moving more often and spreading out their eating. Wolves aren’t good or bad; they’re necessary for the health of the environment.

The Sith and the Dark Side aren’tthat. They’re not the wolves. Wolves are just doing what they need to in order to survive, just like the elk are; Sith do awful shit for kicks or for their own selfish ends. You’ll note the Jedi (at least in the movies) don’t bang on about the “Light Side” the way Sith do about the “Dark Side,” and that’s because the Jedi don’t believe that the Force is split into a Manichean Light/Dark divide of opposed equals, and they’re probably right not to.

Because there is no “equilibrium” to be reached with people whose philosophy is that their own desires are more important than anything else in the galaxy and that any limitation or check on their behavior is something to be destroyed. Daoism is about how nature exists in a harmonious but precarious balance of seemingly opposed but actually complementary forces, but the Sith are only “natural” in the sense that it’s inevitable that some people would choose to abuse the incredible power of being able to see and sense the energy that connects everything in the universe for their own gain and then that some of them would come up with a bullshit pseudo-philosophy to justify it to themselves. The Sith might use the terminology of the “Dark Side” to try to posit themselves as, if not “superior” to the Jedi by seeing a part of it they apparently ignore, then at least their equal-and-opposite, a natural and perhaps even necessary part of the whole, but that’s self-aggrandizing bullshit.

In conclusion, the very concept of “Gray Jedi” is based utterly on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the Force and the Dark Side.

The Force is Strong with me

This is based of “The Rise of Skywalker”, but does not exactly follow the plot, so if that is going to offend you, stay away. In other news, this may be the best thing I have written… so here we go.

This was it, the final battle. You would either defeat general Palpatine once and for all or die trying. You had given the directions so that the resistance could follow you and start taking out the Star-Destroyers. They had called in every ally that they had and were prepared to fight.

But the real fight, the one that would ultimately determine the fate of the entire universe, that was on you. 

-no pressure-

You weaved in and out of the deserted hallways, put off by the eerie stillness. It was dark and had the force not been guiding you, you never would have found it. You came into a clearing, it appeared to be an empty stadium. And then you saw it, the throne that had plagued your nightmares.

Chanting filled the room as the once empty stadium was now filled with Siths. 

“Long have I awaited your arrival. I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here. Empress. You will take the throne as destiny demands.” Palpatine spoke ominously.

“I have not come to lead the Sith, I have come to destroy them,” you informed standing your ground.

“As a Jedi?” he all but laughed.

“Yes,” 

“No, your hatred, your anger, you want to kill me. That is what I want. If you kill me my spirit will pass into you, as all the sith live in me. You will become the empress and we will rule together. The time has come,” he announced and all the Sith bowed down. 

You stood momentarily at a loss for what to do.

“With your hatred you will strike me down and ascend,” Palpatine instructed.

“All you want me to do is to hate, but I won’t, not even you,” 

“You are weak, like your master, look where that got him,”

“He sacrificed himself to save the resistance, to save hope, and as long as hope remains you can never truly win,” you replied with strength.

Palpatine opened the ceiling to reveal the war that was going on in the sky.

“Here is your great resistance. They don’t have long, no one is coming to help them, and you are the one who led them here. So much for your so-called hope,” he sneered.

“Strike me down. Take the throne. Reign over the new empire and the fleet will be yours. Only then will you have the power to save them. Refuse and they will die,”

You felt conflicted, knowing that no matter the cost, you couldn’t give in to the darkness. You were questioning your next move, but then you felt his presence. Ben was here.

You nodded towards Palpatine, trying to buy time.

“Very good. The ritual begins!” he declared to his followers who cheered. “Now, you will strike me down and pledge yourself to the Sith. You will draw your saber,”

You did as he commanded.

“You will strike me, taking your revenge. The Jedi are dead, the Sith with be reborn,” he exclaimed, “Do it! Make the Sacrifice!”

You were scared, afraid that Ben was going to be too late. That is when he spoke to you through your connection. 

“It’s okay your not alone, just hand me the saber,”

You were filled with relief as you acting as if you were preparing to strike down Palpatine, then revealing your hand and the missing saber.

Seeing this Palpatine backed away and his guards rushed at you. You took out your second saber and began to fight them. Relief filled you as Ben joined by your side taking out the last guard. You both stared at each other for a moment so many things you both wanted to say, but this was neither the time nor place.

“Stand together, die together,” Palpatine snarled as he used his power to force you to kneel, pushing the lightsabers far away, as he tried to drain the two of you, immediately receiving a shock.

“The life source of your bond, a dyad in the force, a power like life itself, unseen for generations. And now the power of two will restore the power of the one true emperor,”

And with that, Palpatine started stealing your and Ben’s force with the two of you completely helpless to do anything about it. When he was done, both of you fell backward unconscious.

“Look what you have made,” he bellowed.

Ben woke up first, he struggled through the weakness to open his eyes. He glanced over to your unmoving form and knew what he had to do. He stood to face Palpatine, but the Emperor quickly lifted him off of the ground. 

“As I once fell, so falls the last Skywalker,” he yelled as he launched Ben off of the cliff, presumably to his death.

Palpatine then took his throne and sent electricity through the air to disable all of the resistance ships. 

In hearing the commotion you started to wake up. Your entire body ached, and while you could feel Ben’s presence, it wasn’t as strong as it should have been. You laid on your back seeing the resistance ships beginning to fail. Now, more than ever you needed hope. 

“Be with me,” you called out to the force, “be with me,” you pleaded.

And then you heard them, the voices of the Jedi who had come before you, giving you the encouragement and strength that you needed to rise. You summoned your lightsaber and stood your ground.

“Let your death be the last word in the story of the resistance,” snarled Palpatine. 

He refocused his power on you, which unbeknownst to you at the time had saved the resistance fighters.

“You are nothing. You are no match for the power in me,” he insisted.

You pushed forward with all of your strength, closing the gap between the two of you.

“I am all of the Sith,” he roared.

“And I am all of the Jedi,” you declared taking another step forward, summoning the other lightsaber. You then continued to push forward until the Emporer’s own power was too much and began destroying him. With one final push from you, his power imploded disintegrating him and taking out all of the Sith with as well as the majority of the structure. 

You managed to take another step, dropping the lightsabers before collapsing on the ground, welcoming death.

Ben, who was climbing back to the throneroom, ignoring his pain, had felt it. It was the same wave of emptiness that had hit him when each of his parents died, only now it was much stronger.

‘No, no, you can’t be dead,’ he thought as he struggled to pull himself over the side of the cliff. He looked around, the room had been completely demolished. There were no signs of life anywhere. Between the dust and the smoke it was hard for him to see anything. Despite that, his eyes found you, lying completely still eyes open. He limped over to you, tears streaming down his face. 

“You did it, Y/n you did it,” he cried as he pulled your limp form into his arms. He stared at you regretting everything he had done and all of the things he hadn’t done. He was too worried about turning you, trying to get you to join him. In all of the time you were together, he never told you that he loved you. He loved you. He hugged your lifeless, willing with everything that he had for you to be okay. And then he remembered.

When he had been struck down, right after his mom died, you had healed him. It was something that he had never seen done before, only having heard of it in legends. But if you could do it, maybe he could too.

He put his hand on your chest, closed his eyes, and focused. He was pushing out with the force, with his love, and transferring his life force to you. With everything he had and everything he was, he willed for you to come back.

That is when he felt it, your hand on top of his. He opened his eyes to meet your own.

“Y/n?” he asked softly as if you might fade away again. He was on the verge of crying again. 

You looked at him momentarily confused before smiling, “Ben,”

Before he could say anything else, you kissed him. The kiss was everything that you never knew you needed, it spoke every word that you hadn’t said. When it was over Ben smiled genuinely, before his face began to fall. 

He fell backward as you tried to reach out for him. You stared in disbelief as he was gone. Before you could even think about reviving him, he disappeared before your eyes. Leaving you alone once again.

You felt an overwhelming pain in your chest as you stared at his clothes. You forced yourself up, knowing that the entire empire was collapsing around you. Taking one more look at where he once laid, you turned away and headed towards your ship. You flew out and met the rest of the resistance as the flew back to the base. You hung back for a moment trying to compose yourself before landing.

You put on a fake smile as you passed through the cheering crowd. You watch as people reunite with their loved ones. Everyone was so happy. You saw Finn and Rose kissing, Maz giving Chewie a medal, R2 and C-3PO being reunited. Everyone had someone, except you. Your entire family was dead, and now even your chosen family was dead, Ben was dead. You continued through the crowd numbly, just trying your best to get back inside the base. That was at least til BB-8 rammed into you affectionately. You looked up and met eyes with Poe. He was the first one who seemed to really see you. He wasn’t fooled by the fake smile, he had no idea what you had to do to defeat Palpatine, but he could tell that it had shattered you. He pulled you into his arms and told you that everything would be alright. And that was the last thing you remembered.

Because it was seconds after he hugged you, that you collapsed into his arms. He hoisted you up bridal style and rushed you into the med-bay where the droids quickly started working to figure out what had happened. He waited outside your room, waiting to find out whether or not you were okay. He assumed that it was maybe over-exertion or pure exhaustion. It was also possible that you were more injured from your fight than it had originally appeared, he racked his brain to remember if there was anything off about your appearance when he’d seen you earlier. But nothing stood out.

He was pulled from his thoughts as one of the droids emerged from your room.

“There is nothing physically wrong with her. But for reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her,” the droid informed.

“She’s dying?” Poe asked in disbelief.

“We don’t know why, but her life force is failing,” the droid answered.

Poe didn’t know what to say as he entered the room. You had saved everyone, defeated the Emperor, destroyed the dark side. You deserved to be honored and thanked, but no one really knew what you did, how much you sacrificed. He decided two things as he sat beside you. One, you would not die alone. And two, he would make sure that your sacrifice was not forgotten. 

And true to his word, he was there when you took your last breath and faded from existence to become part of the force. To this day, people still theorize about what had caused your death. Some believe that it was because of your dyad connection with Ben, when he died, you died. Others believe that since all of the Sith and dark side leaders were destroyed, that the Jedi were no longer able to exist, and thus the force claimed you. Others claim that you suffered a fate similar to Ben’s grandmother Padame who died of a broken heart. No one will ever know for sure. 

Regardless of how you died, you will always be remembered as a hero. The Last Jedi. The one who killed the Emperor. 

But none of that mattered to you, you were happy now. For as you were welcomed into the force, you were reunited with old friends. First with Luke, then Leia and Han, each of whom congratulated you on your victory. Han was the first to notice that you were looking around expectantly for something, rather someone with a hint of sadness in your expression. 

“You can come out now,” he yelled smiling.

And then you saw him, joy washing over you completely. You ran to him jumping in his arms, all but tackling him. He smiled wrapping his arms tightly around you. “I love you,” you marveled.

“I love you too,” he beamed before taking your face in his hand and continuing what you had started earlier crashing his lips on your own. 

“You know, they used to tell Jedi’s that they weren’t allowed to be in love,” Anakin joked as he watched the scene unfold, “I will say this though, my grandson definitely takes after me”.

And with that, the Skywalker Saga that had started a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, had finally, once and for all, came to an end.

*Insert theme music*

This is just a cute Kylo x Reader  idea that I came up with. Enjoy!

“I know you’re there,” you whispered.

“I am,” Kylo confirmed.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” you sighed resting your head against your knees.

“Y/n, I-”

“Please, don’t” you cut him off. You didn’t have the mental capacity to do this, not now. You didn’t want to do any of this anyone. No more light side, no more dark side, no more force. You were tired of fighting this unbeatable battle. You were tired of fighting him. 

“You’re not alone,” he replied, sitting across from you. He had never seen you look so hopeless or defeated before and it made his chest ache. 

But weren’t you though? You have been for as long as you could remember. And now the resistance only cared about you because of what you could offer them. They didn’t know you, no one did.

“I do,” Kylo said.

You didn’t realize that he could read your mind through the force connection. You looked up at him, he was staring at you with such sincerity and softness. Something you liked to believe he reserved only for you. 

“Why are you here Kylo?” you asked tiredly.

“You needed me,” he replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

After a moment of not receiving a response, he asked, “Where are you? I can’t see your surroundings, just you,” 

“We can’t do this,” you whispered softly.

And it was true, whatever ‘this’ thing was that connected you, you could never act on it. You couldn’t go to the dark side and he wouldn’t come back to the light. That is one reason that your feelings for him scared you so much. You had watched him do horrible things, but when you looked at him there was no room for hatred or fear. You simply wanted to be with him and to save him from the cruel world that you were both forced to be a part of. 

“Don’t be afraid, I feel it too,” he said reaching out his hand towards you.

You felt so safe in his presence and part of you wished that you could stay like that. You wished that the two of you could stay there in that room together and forget about the First Order and the Resistance.

You stared at him for a moment before returning the gesture. Your fingers touched and that is when you saw it. The outline of the future, the two of you fighting together, and you felt a consuming loss. You wondered if he felt it too, but when your eyes met his he merely smiled at you for the briefest of seconds.

Then Luke barged in and yelled for you to stop throwing you backwards with the force, not realizing how much his fear had magnified his power. Your head hit the stone and everything around you faded.

Kylo watched in horror as he heard his old master and saw the fear in your eyes. He watched you being thrown backward and then the connection was broken. 

“Y/n?” he reached out with his mind, but it was no use.

He needed to know that you were alright. He wanted to yell, not out of anger but out of fear. He felt so helpless. What was the point of the force connecting the two of you if he couldn’t protect you?

Then the conflict within him started again. Why did he care? He wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to be a part of the dark side. No emotions, no mercy. Only power. And he did want to be powerful like his grandfather, at least he thought he did.

But then there was you. He couldn’t explain or understand the way he felt around you. It was like he was more. More than Ben Solo or Kylo Ren, more than the dark side or the light side. Just more. His feelings for you were the source of the growing conflict in him and it was tearing him apart. The only time that he didn’t feel it was when he was with you.

He waited, still sitting criss-cross on the floor of his room. He was struggling against everything, his humanity getting the best of him. That is when he felt it. You were back, he immediately took in your appearance. Aside from some blood on the side of your head and your eyes being red, you seemed to be fine. 

“Neither are you,” you said sitting across from him again.

“What?” 

“Earlier you said that I was not alone, neither are you,” you explained.

“Are you okay?” you both said in unison.

“Me? I’m not the one who was just attacked by Luke Skywalker,” he said confused.

“I’m fine, he didn’t mean it, he was just scared,”

“Why do you do that?” Kylo asked staring at you again.

“Do what?”

“Why do you refuse to see the bad in people?”

“The world isn’t just light or dark. People aren’t all bad or all good. They are a chaotic mix of the two. As long as they are alive there is always hope,” you explained.

There was a pause as he looked at you again as if really seeing you for the first time. You really were unlike any other person he’d ever met.

“Are you okay?” you asked breaking the silence.

“There is something that I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” he revealed looking down at his hands.

“Whatever it is, you don’t have to do it alone,” you promised.

“I know,”

“Y/n I lo-” he started

“I know,” you smiled.

“I have to go, I’ll see you soon,” he said before the connection ended.

You didn’t have to ask, somehow you knew that he was going to Snoke, prepared to end him. You wouldn’t let him go alone and quickly prepared to leave. You thanked Luke for everything and boarded your ship directed towards the Supremacy.  

Do you realize that when Kylo Ren was searching Rey’s mind for the map to Luke Skywalker, he said that he could see the “ocean” and “island” that she would dream of… what if these dreams were of the ocean and island that she found Luke on at the end of TFA.. then that would mean TECHNICALLY he DID find where was.

Here are some of my thoughts/musings on why some people (like myself) might be feeling that the ending of TROS leaves us with an imbalance:

So a big thing about the force, a big theme about how the force has worked in this universe in this saga, is LOVE.

Anakin was this over-midichlorianed chosen one who could have brought balance to the force in response to Darth Sidious’ huge overpowered evil. BUT in order for there to be balance, he needed to be able to adjust to always falling somewhere on a scale from powerful dark to powerful light since him being an overpowered purely light force user getting rid of the overpowered evil would then leave the force unbalanced in a way that would just bring forth a new form of powerful evil to balance out the overly pure good/light left behind after Sidious’ destruction.

SO, Anakin WAS the chosen one who could have brought balance to the force BUT the timeline he came to power in had that rule against Jedi falling in love. This is ultimately what corrupted his power since it allowed for Sidious to be able to manipulate him into thinking that going toward the dark ways of the force (which his purpose of bringing balance gave him full ability to do) was the only way to save his loved one in such a structured and strict force world. So LOVE, a power that makes sense as part of what can bring balance to the force - love being a healing power toward true light but also something that can be manipulated toward true darkness - is what led to Anakin’s downfall because of the latter, and because of the Jedi rule that set Anakin up to fail like that.

So what does the force do? It tries a new tactic to bring about balance: With pretty much every light side force user wiped out and two overpowered dark force users left behind, and at the same time that Anakin gets sealed into his dark fate, the Force burps out two powerful, mostly light-leaning force-sensitive beings, Luke and Leia (who also have the potential for darkness, but not as much as Anakin), and they are born of Anakin thus still going with the prophecy. They do bring balance to the force, even if it’s mostly just through Luke being able to return their father to the light and for long enough to kill, or at least weaken for a good deal of time, the overpowered dark force user that Anakin was originally meant to be the one to kill anyway.

Okay so if we’re going with Sidious being mostly defeated but not completely, then sure, it can make sense that there was, for a moment, balance brought to the force after ROTJ - with Vader no longer there on the darkness side of the scale, but with Sidious still out there on that side in a weaker form, while Luke and Leia were on the light side of the scale and maybe in line to then be the ones to take down Sidious once and for all and TOGETHER when Sidious would eventually make his return (especially since by the end of ROTJ both Luke and Leia seem like they’ve matured to the point of being able to be balanced in the force themselves, and therefore wouldn’t potentially tip the scales too far to the light, leaving that unwanted vacuum). BUT then LOVE steps in again - the love between Leia and Han which then brings about Ben, which leads to Leia choosing to stop her training (and here again this happens in time for a child soon to be born). When she stops her training, it means she is no longer going to be part of what balances out the force with Luke when Sidious comes back to power. SO the force needs to prepare for yet another variation of balance, and again, still starts with the Skywalker bloodline - with Ben.

Ben is basically set up to be another Anakin with potential for both powerful light and powerful dark - again, so that when Sidious is defeated, there isn’t this vacuum of darkness that needs to be filled. HOWEVER, this time, the force is like, “alright so you Skywalkers are really into love, that’s cool, I don’t punish it like the old Jedi used to, that was never my intention. I can totally adjust for that, and to prove it to you, I’ll make the adjustment for Leia falling in love AND this time I’ll have love be an integral part of the power I bring about to create a more lasting balance.”

And this is how we get both Ben and Rey as powerful Jedi, both with matching/mirroring potential for both great darkness and great light, bonded in the force. They’re meant to be able to defeat Sidious TOGETHER and then both survive TOGETHER in a way that FINALLY brings balance to the force - in their relationship with each other they are able to balance each other out and, in doing so, balance out the force. Once Sidious is finally truly gone, they can then live their lives in relative peace, always landing somewhere in the middle of their potentials for powerful light and powerful dark, but always balancing each other out - them having each other would be a huge part of what keeps them balanced and the force balanced.

Breaking that bond, by having one die while the other survives, seems like it would throw off the balance yet again when that’s not what we should get at the end of the story. Now it feels like the story still isn’t over - there isn’t a lasting healing that we get to close out on. Them surviving TOGETHER could have left the audience with the feeling that, with the two of them as a team and the two of them with love as part of their power and not a weakness for them, it’d be safe to think that yes, they really are capable of keeping the balance with each other and in the force - we can now leave this story/this saga feeling that balance. We’d also be left with a lasting feeling that the force is adept at correcting its own imbalances, adding to the sense of peace in concluding the story.

*** Disclaimer: I agree with the notion that the Ben/Kylo presented to us in these movies isn’t exactly livably redeemable. I do feel like the deeper information about him and his past that can be found in the comics, books, etc that have been released in the past few years *does* help to put him more in that redeemable place, but that stuff isn’t clearly spelled out in the movies so it’s kind of a moot point. All that being said though, I still feel like in order for there to be a balanced feeling at the end (which we definitely should have gotten for the end of the *entire main saga*), Ben should have survived, and maybe the reveal of Rey being a Palpatine could have been even more reason for the two of them to stick together with their checkered pasts/lineages/potential for great darkness/etc since no one would ever be able to fully accept/understand either of them except for the two of them - they would need each other as balancing forces.

(I’m not sure where the top two gifs are stolen from (the first one seemed to link to a now defunct Tumblr). The Rey and Ben one is from hot-chocolate-escapades but cropped to match the size of the others. As always, thanks for the gifs, gifmakers!)

you don’t understand the force is an energy the force is an organism the force is dead and the force is living the force has no mind or body or spirit the force is nature the force is a parasite the force is life the force is a god the force is inevitable the force is a part of the universe the force is a web the force is a future the force is destiny the force is not fate the force is there until it isn’t

Star Wars: Visions episode 5

TheNinthJedi

Mending - cac0daemonia - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

Instead of massacring the Jedi and clones at the Temple of Eedit on Devaron, Savage Opress is captured, frozen in carbonite, and brought to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. But what can the Jedi do to counteract the Nightsisters’ magical hold on him?

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And now for something completely different