Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View (From a Certain Point of View #1)

by Elizabeth Schaefer

Someday, I hope I’ll get to deploy wit in the direction of the strong, armed, and armored without fear of being blasted the second my back is turned.

Maybe it’s the sense memory and adrenaline of being in the line of fire, or maybe it’s the cool temperature and pure oxygen, but I’m no longer exhausted.

That explains some things

I don’t think Vader is a good manager of people.

All my training, all my experience, and a humble moisture farmer has achieved what neither battle droid nor Sith has achieved, knocking me flat on my back.

Luke Skywalker runs and doesn’t stop. And I am at his side. From this moment, he will never be alone. He will learn, and he will grow, and I will guide him every step of the way. We have all the time we need.

And the blanket on his bed, made from his old friend’s cloak.

😭

There was little he loved to dwell upon more than the thought of young Skywalker coming into herself, learning of the powers that lay deep within her, and perhaps bringing to the galaxy a new age that she could not even hope to imagine.

That old and familiar thrum the Force carried on its back, a steady vibration, calm—not the calm of a still night, but the calm of the sea that rose and fell with sureness and ease.

It was Anakin…or what had become of him. And he was in pain. And the remedy he used to soothe himself was pain—the pain of both others and himself.

Yoda looked up, though he hardly needed to. He suddenly felt the hut so full of…life. So full of Obi-Wan, who sat cross-legged inside the doorway, shimmering. “Never before so quietly have you come into a room, Master Kenobi.”

“And if I try to teach this rash, this impatient, this mindless boy the ways of the Force and fail, what then?” Obi-Wan smiled. “I seem to remember an old Master of mine who liked to say something about trying.” “Humph,” said Yoda, and drew the blanket up closer.

Go, Palpatine, release thine awful dread, Until each filthy rebel knave is dead. Exit.

Oh my god

You fly your run and hit what you can—that was Gold Squadron’s credo. Dex had internalized it long ago. He’d fly his damn run, come what may. And he had his own credo, too, one based on something his mother had often said. “Small sparks can start big fires.”

“Find me something else to blow up, Sparks,” he said, and the droid fed him the coordinates for a deflector tower.

The whole galaxy’s counting on us, you know. You’re not alone in this fight—and you never will be. Unless you insist on pushing everybody away.”

“You did everything anyone could have done and more.” When he finally let Wedge go, the other pilot gaped at him. “I just hope everyone sees it the way you do.” Col threw an arm around his shoulders. “If they don’t, tell them it was Fake Wedge up there,” he said.

Cianne served Mon in the capital before Mon began moonlighting in treason; since then—since Mon’s flight from the Empire and public endorsement of the Rebellion—she’s barely left Mon’s side. She probably added the evacuation to my daily calendar.

You had to figure them out, and misdirect them at the same time. Lando loved it. If gambling could ever be called art—and as far as Lando Calrissian was concerned, it absolutely could—then Klikklak was its highest expression.

In Klikklak, the cards were, in many ways, irrelevant. The game was about coming to a complete and thorough understanding of another being in the space of a single conversation, and if you couldn’t manage that, you were lost.

Heroes were Lando’s favorite opponents at the gambling table. The worse the odds got, the bigger they bet. Because heroes were suckers.

Lost my credits, kept my skin—the Lando Calrissian story, just like always.”

It wasn’t just pushing your luck, it was shoving it off a cliff and laughing while it hit every rock on the way down.

As Lando watched the Death Star explode, he considered the one rule of confidence men, tricksters, gamblers, and scam artists the galaxy over: If you can’t see the angle, it means you’re the one being played. You are, in fact, the sucker. Lando sat, and thought, and drank drinks he had no money to pay for, and wondered what he was missing.

At ten, Leia was tiny and filled with dignified fury, a seemingly perfect mix of the senator and queen, both.

If it made Skywalker or Solo nervous to walk the entire length of the cavern with the eyes of the Rebellion on them, they didn’t show it. Miara assumed the Wookiee was fine.

But in the morning, by whatever sun, she would get up and she would rebel.

Well…I guess I could always go back and tell their stories later. Out of order? That’s just going to confuse everybody! I think they’ll figure it out. Uh-huh, right.

Oh, I guess you think you can do better? Honestly? Yes, I do. Then why don’t you go write your own journal and leave me alone? Okay, fine, you know what? I will! I’ve got some great ideas for an episode about how Chewbacca’s family celebrates Life Day!

IAN DOESCHER, author of the William Shakespeare Star Wars series, has loved Shakespeare since eighth grade and was born forty-five days after Star Wars Episode IV was released. He has a BA in music from Yale University, a master of divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a PhD in ethics from Union Theological Seminary.

Holy cow

He is cursed by editors for his seeming inability to learn how to spell “Wookiee” and “Tatooine.” He will be disciplined.

E. K. JOHNSTON had several jobs and one vocation before she became a published writer. If she’s learned anything, it’s that things turn out weird sometimes, and there’s not a lot you can do about it. Well, that and how to muscle through awkward fanfic because it’s about a pairing she likes. When she’s not on Tumblr, she dreams of travel and Tolkien. Or writes books. It really depends on the weather.

Hello I love you

He and his wife, Rachel, host a Bachelor franchise recap podcast called Rose Buddies and also recently co-founded a human baby called Henry.

She lives in rural North Carolina with her boys: one husband, one son, and two dogs roughly the size of Ewoks.

Cavan lives near Bristol with his wife, two daughters, and an inflatable Dalek named Desmond.

This is all amusing to Wil, who doesn’t think of himself as a celebrity, but is instead “just this guy, you know?”

Wil. This bio is NINE TIMES the length of anyone else's. Stop.