#autisticpadme

feel free to change pronouns etc!

“there’s no need to call me sir”

“just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have”

“he must’ve known that you’d want to come back”

“have a biscuit”

“it was like having friends”

“one mustn’t tell lies”

“to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure”

“it’s for some stupid noble reason isn’t it?”

“what do i care how he looks? i am good-looking for both of us, i think!”

“pity the living, and above all those who live without love”

“honestly, if you were any slower you’d be going backwards”

“i’ve heard you’ve been giving out signed photos”

“i assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in”

“you were just showing moral fibre!”

“of all the tree we could’ve hit, we had to get one that hits back”

“it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live”

“humans do have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are worst for them”

“anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve”

“always the tone of surprise”

“perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it”

“thoughts can leave deeper scarring than almost anything else”

“i am what i am and i’m not ashamed”

“of course it is happening inside your head, but why should that mean it isn’t real?”

“there are all kinds of courage”“is that why you dyed your eyebrow?”

“it is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more”

“don’t think i don’t know how this might end”

“take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals”

“killing is not so easy as the innocent believe”

“i don’t go looking for trouble. trouble usually finds me”

“one can never have enough socks”

“scars can come in useful”

“when in doubt, go to the library”

“i’m hoping to do some good in the world!”

“i will write to your mother”

“would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”

“throw it away and punch him on the nose”

“don’t worry, you’re jut as sane as i am”

“there are things worth dying for!”

“what’s life without a little risk?”

“there’s the silver lining i’ve been looking for”

“ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies”

“give her hell from us”

“i solemnly sear that I am up to no good”

“Well,” Breha began, and then stopped. She was sitting very straight and regal in her chair, the way she only did when her mind was a hundred parsecs away and moving at lightspeed.

Bail had always been amused by that, how his wife looked more attentive and composed when not paying attention to what was going on around her. But she’d told him all about her parade of different tutors, etiquette and comportment and a hundred things a merchant’s son had no need of knowing. He supposed a lifetime of preparing to be Queen of Alderaan gave one all hells of muscle memory.

“Yes,” Bail sighed. He crossed the room to the sideboard, where someone had very considerately refilled the decanter. “Drink?”

“Yes,” Breha said absently. “Something with a great deal of alcohol in it, I think.”

Bail snorted. She was clearly not as distracted as he assumed.

Evening had fallen over the Capital, painting everything in blue shadows. This early in the year, everything was snow and ice, even the broad main streets. A convenient enough excuse, when the Datu’s son—tripped and…slid accidentally into a wall, bloodying his nose, ears, mouth. And when the Princesa of Aldera, Leia Organa, bared her teeth at the Datu’s son’s and snarled, You are a cruel and heartless boy—

Well. The cold had been convenient for that too. You know these long winter months, Bail had said, forcing warmth into his voice, because the Datu was looking to him in confusion and thinly-veiled horror, clutching at his son even as blood streamed down the boy’s face. Everyone goes a little stir-crazy.

Bail sat down across from Breha, setting down her glass of cognac. She reached for it, but he couldn’t be sure whether she knew it—her eyes were faraway, and her spine was very straight. Bail was used to this, being the third or fourth thing on her mind; he didn’t mind being patient, waiting for her to circle back to them, their daughter.

“When you—” Breha fell silent, running her finger lightly along the rim of the glass. Bail sipped his liquor, composing a list of necessary munitions for the Rebellion in his head, waiting for her to continue. 

“When you told me that it was safer not to openly discuss our daughter’s origins, I assumed that was because Padmé had somehow made an enemy of the Emperor. A miscalculation that perhaps also led to her death. But that is not the only reason, is it?”

Bail sighed, setting his glass down. “No.”

“The Jedi, the handsome one I met at the—”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” Breha said. Her eyes were still far off, unfocused. “I see. And the edict that was issued, calling for the death of all affiliated with the Jedi Order?”

“Yes. It also remains in effect for any…future Jedi that might arise.”

Bail straightened up when Breha’s gaze flickered, and met his. He smiled bitterly, tipping his glass to her as thought calling a toast. “You see my conundrum,” he said, not bothering to keep the irony from his voice.

“You said Obi-Wan escaped the destruction of the temple,” Breha said slowly. “He could—instruct her, teach her to contain it. At least enough so we don’t have further incidents like today’s.”

“We would be putting ourselves and all of Alderaan at risk. The Emperor’s enforcer, Darth Vader, is said to have a special hatred for him—I think they fought on another in the wars.”

Breha nodded, and Bail watched as she lifted the glass to her mouth, swallowed. She was a lovely creature, his wife, with a fearsome sort of mind; he liked to  watch her as it ticked over unerringly as any other piece of machinery. 

“Do you have a way to contact him more discreetly?” she finally asked. 

“Not—at the moment, but I know where he is. I’m sure I can come up with something. Why do you ask?”

Breha smiled triumphantly. There was a glint in her eye. “If you and I are going to raise a Jedi, husband, we’re going to need some guidance on the subject.”

.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Obi-Wan said, gazing in thinly-veiled horror at Bail. Bail had no idea why Obi-Wan had chosen Tatooine—other than the fact that it was possibly the furthest from the center of the galaxy you could get without going off the edge of a regulation star map. Bail supposed it was beautiful, in a sere, barren sort of way, though he personally didn’t enjoy the implicit promise of death that seemed to linger like a miasma over the sand. Bail had slept badly the night before, listening to some unknown thing screaming in the dark. 

Then again, if Kenobi truly was trying to stay off the Empire’s radar and away from Darth Vader’s wrath, no one would ever think to look here.

Bail squinted into late-afternoon sunlight. Officially, he was travelling through the Outer Rim as part of an outreach initiative by the Senate. Unofficially, he knew that most of his fellow senators believed he was visiting a mistress—more than one of them had congratulated him on slipping the grip of his formidable royal wife. (When Bail told Breha this, she’d mostly been flattered by the implication that if Bail wanted a mistress, he’d have to stash them all the way in the Outer Rim to avoid her.)

Actually, Bail was sitting beside Obi-Wan Kenobi outside a wattled hut, watching the sun set over the mesas and graciously pretending to drink the awful tea Obi-Wan had made for him. 

“Why not?”

Obi-Wan blinked. “The art of being a Jedi is complex and ancient—there are arcane secrets—it’s just not advisable,” he spluttered.

Bail huffed. “That is hardly a convincing argument.”

“Neither you nor Breha are Force-sensitive; you won’t even be able to tell if she’s doing it correctly. This is like a fish blithely announcing he plans to teach a starbird how to fly!”

“Well, give me the introductory level. Or whichever level involves teaching young Jedi not to assault people with the Force.”

Obi-Wan froze, his hand spasming around his own mug of tea. “Leia hurt someone?” he breathed, his face going shadowed and haunted. Bail frowned.

“Another boy; she was angry, and she choked him, bloodied his nose. The incident was embarrassing and—suspicious, if we’re trying to keep her existence a secret, but minor. We’re just worried, you needn’t look like someone has died.”

Obi-Wan shut his eyes as though pained, and a shudder ran through his whole body until he was almost doubled-over. “Obi-Wan?” Bail asked. “Are you—”

“You have a datapad?” Obi-Wan mumbled. Bail blinked.

“Yes.”

“Take notes.” Obi-Wan didn’t wait, and Bail scrambled to dig through his pack and grab the datapad and stylus before he got too far. “The first lesson any Jedi must learn—”

.

The first five lessons were a nightmare. 

“That was my great-grandmother’s favorite dining table,” Breha said mournfully as she and Bail watched the charred hunks of wood carried from the room. “It was a gift from one of the Queens of Naboo, in honor of the jubilee celebration of her reign.”

“We can ask Queen Raina for another one,” Bail offered. The guards bowed, and shut the doors behind them, such that it was just Bail and Breha alone in the study.

He could hear Leia’s sobbing from the next room. They hadn’t meant to scare her, or yell as much as they had, but it had been terrifying, a little girl with fire all around her and a look of unnatural peace on her face. Bail sighed. “This isn’t working.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Our daughter managed to somehow summon lightning from her hands, that seems like some sort of progress.”

Bail snorted. “In the wrong direction, I think. She’s supposed to learn restraint, not….I’m afraid she’s sliding further away, she’s losing control. Obi-Wan told me that many of the Sith were Jedi, once.”

“We cannot keep running to him,” Breha said with a sigh, leaning against the doorframe in a rare show of weariness. Bail realized with a start that there were lines, bracketing around her mouth, that had not been there only a few years before. “The Security Council has begun discussing a military installation on Alderaan, I will need to use every weapon in my arsenal to keep those—stormtroopers,” she ground out icily, “from our world. If there is even a hint—”

“What about Jedha?” Bail said, and Breha blinked. Then her expression transformed into something thoughtful, considering.

“I thought the temple there was destroyed.”

“It was. But the worshipers still come. And the Jedi Order was only one of the sects that revered the Force, at this point we may be safer to look outside the Core for aid.”

“Someone discreet,” Breha said, finally.

“Of course.”

“Someone—patient. And not afraid. I will not allow our daughter to grow up with her teacher fearing what she can do.”

“Of course not.”

Bail crossed the room to her, and with an indulgent smile, Breha allowed herself to be crowded against the wall, fitted herself into his arms; her hands finding the small of his back with familiar ease. Bail had been away too long; her hair smelled different, something floral that made his nose itch. “Do you ever wish I had brought you a simpler daughter?” he murmured, and he could feel her laugh.

“There are no easy children,” Breha murmured. “I would rather simply love ours. Now bring her someone who will teach her how not to burn the galaxy down around her.”

Privately, Bail doubted there existed anyone who would make Leia Organa less incendiary—but at least they could make it less literal.

.

(“Everyone says of all the Guardians of the Whills, you are the most learned, and faithful. You remember the old ways,” Bail said.

“I sympathize with your plight,” Chirrut Îmwe said, setting his own teacup down. Malbus, standing in the doorway and casting a long shadow, grunted; a smile flickered across Chirrut’s mouth in response. “But as long as there are pilgrims to the Holy City, we must stay, and defend her.”

Bail exhaled, and thought of shining Aldera, in the mountains, where the air was thin and cold and bright. Where his daughter could make the air burn, and his wife ruled the world. “I understand,” he said. “Thank you for your time.”)

.

Later—much later, when neither Jedha or Alderaan could be defended any more, and Obi-Wan was nothing more than another nexus of brightness in the Force—Leia was watching her brother.

“I remember this,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Luke asked, cracking open an eye. “Do you mean remember, or—remember, like our mother?”

“We have to come up with a better term for that,” Leia sighed. “And no, I actually remember this,” she added. “One of my tutors, Mistress Draight. We used to do breathing exercises and control exercises, and…I always just thought it was mindfulness. I had a lot of tutors,” she said with a shrug.

“You had Jedi lessons?” Luke asked, opening his eyes fully and uncurling from his cross-legged meditation pose.

“I didn’t think they were Jedi lessons. No one ever said the word ‘Jedi’ and we never moved anything with the Force, or discussed lightsabers. It was just supposed to be calming. A way of establishing control.”

“Huh,” Luke said. “Did it help?”

“I—think so? My mother used to joke about the time I set my great great-grandmother’s table on fire, but I always assumed it was because my sleeve caught on the candle,“ she mused.

Luke laughed, hooking his hand in the loose fabric of her dress and pulling her forward until his legs were tangled hers. “Okay,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “Show me what you got.”

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Oh, SURE, KRENNIC. Whatever you need to tell yourself, buddy. We all know he was angling for an overnight invite to Dramatic Bullshit Manor. 😉

may i genuinely, respectfully ask what the issue with her is?

it’s kind of small but also kind of not?

in the Girls Like Girls video, which is how I and many other lesbians discovered her, she tells the story of the singer/narrator and that girl’s best friend who becomes her girlfriend.

the problem I have with that is the fact that said best friend is dating somebody else (a man) while they start their love affair. and no matter how you spin it, that kind of makes things turn ugly. the intended implication was probably “but Best Friend was a lesbian too and this is the Real Pure Love that her boyfriend could never provide!” but that’s super biphobic, even if it’s unintentionally biphobic, because it’s never stated explicitly that Best Friend is a lesbian and not a bi woman. and bi women get a lot of shit from their partners over the fear of this exact cheating scenario happening, so I didn’t appreciate seeing it in a popular music video that might have been aimed at us lesbians but is also inclusive of bi women by virtue of being about girls liking girls.

if the one possibly bisexual character is portrayed as unfaithful to her partner, that’s. that’s not okay.