#First Hate - Meditation Interlude | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imaybelactoseintolerant · 8 months

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Commander Luthal

Interlude One: Obi-Wan

Word Count: 4588

A lil Obi-Wan interlude, just to make his thoughts clear on Arwen because later on in the Clone Wars she'll be seeing a lot of Anakin and Obi-Wan, and I want the foundation of their relationship, no matter how undeveloped it is, to already be built.

Enjoy :)

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The knowledge that the Sith had returned, even if it was for as brief a time as the Council believed, weighed heavily on Obi-Wan’s mind. He was the first Jedi to kill a Sith in centuries—no small achievement, he was often reminded by the Council—but he’d lost his master in the process.

Through his studies and the teachings of Master Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan knew about as much about the Sith as any Jedi, but he still hadn’t been ready for those yellow eyes, rimmed with a violent red and bloodshot, so filled with hate, with anger—it made something deep within him tremor in fear, a fear he worked hard to dissuade.

His mourning for Qui-Gon was carefully balanced with teaching Anakin, his padawan—his powerful, emotional, horrible at following directions padawan, who, despite all of that, had earned Obi-Wan’s respect and care without much effort whatsoever only days after becoming Anakin’s master.

Without the early start that Jedi Younglings traditionally had, Anakin was somewhat of a special case, and often required some more unorthodox teaching methods to get through to him. This was where Master Qui-Gon would have excelled—he had no doubt Anakin and Qui-Gon would have been a perfect match for master and padawan, and would have created a strong and close bond through the Force. But Obi-Wan was all Anakin had.

Nevertheless, his padawan was adjusting well, soaking up information about the Jedi like a sponge, and showing great progress in learning how to use a saber and Force techniques. Already he was surpassing some of the younglings his age who had been in the temple since they were only a year old, and he showed no signs of stopping. With seemingly endless energy and spirit, Anakin continued to impress, even under the scrutiny of other younglings, who seemed to want little to do with him.

Obi-Wan had guided Anakin into many meditation sessions to assuage his negative feelings to do with that rather discouraging situation—loneliness, embarrassment, sadness, anger, fear, all very natural feelings that everyone felt, but that needed to be tempered for those able to wield the Force. Giving into one's emotions with such a power at their fingertips could be dangerous, disastrous. Case and point; the Sith.

The only youngling who seemed not to have some kind of aversion to Anakin was perhaps the only one Obi-Wan didn’t want talking to his padawan; Arwen Luthal.

Oh, what a revelation that had been.

Once the Sith had been killed, Nute Gunray was taken into custody and questioned by the Jedi. The rigorous questioning had yielded some interesting, if rather disturbing, information. What he had fought had indeed been a Sith Lord, called Darth Maul. He had been behind the invasion of Naboo, forcing the Trade Federation to do his bidding—though Obi-Wan and the Council still had their doubts about the truth behind that statement—and that he had no master.

Though a relief at the time—thank the Force there wasn’t another, more powerful, Sith Lord to defeat—there had been an unpleasant revelation at the temple only days later, when Master Yoda had connected the dots between the description Obi-Wan and Nute Gunray had given of Darth Maul. The Council had admitted a youngling the year before, found by Master Plo Koon. She’d had previous training, though not extensive, and the Council had assumed they’d been a Jedi, or similar. Rather, they’d learned that the little girl they’d allowed into the Jedi Temple had been trained by a Sith.

The youngling hadn’t known, of course, but it had put the Council on edge. Already Arwen Luthal’s admittance into the order was shaky; she was Echani, and they were a war-loving people, who’d integrated combat so much into their society that it had become another form of communication, something they could read and understand like letters on a page, or words being spoken. It had been the younglings ability to use the Force to reach out to the Council, and her ability to meditate, that had been her saving grace.

And now he and the Council knew that she had been groomed to become apprentice to a Sith Lord. It set him on edge, no matter how much he meditated on it. It was not the younglings fault, she was too young to know, he could not sense any darkness within her and nor could the Council… but then he saw her in the temple; studying Kaleesh war tactics in the archives, asking Master Dooku about Makashi before he’d left, using traditional Echani combat moves in spars, taking on bigger, older, younglings and winning… his mind took him back to Naboo, standing before the Sith, his own saber connecting with the double-bladed red one. The styles were different, vastly so. The form that the Sith practised wasn’t taught to Jedi—it was dangerous, requiring the practitioner to use their anger, use the Dark side. It didn’t stop his mind from wandering to places it should not go.

What if Darth Maul had taught Arwen Luthal more than they thought? What if she already knew how to use the Dark side? What if she was poisoning the minds of other younglings?

It was stupid, foolish, paranoid. He knew that, logically, it was impossible. She was too young to know how to use the Dark side, much less master it to a point where she could hide it from the Council and an entire temple full of Jedi. But paranoia often wasn’t logical, and so Obi-Wan had watched her after failing to calm himself completely.

Yes, she was somewhat of a prodigy when it came to saber combat. Yes, she studied the Kaleesh and the Echani, cultures known for their war-like tendencies. Yes, she had been groomed by a Sith.

But she also meditated in the Room of a Thousand Fountains under a small flowering tree, by a short waterfall, and on a bed of green grass and clovers. She rushed to find Master Plo when he was in the temple and ask him questions about planets he’d been to. She let the younger initiates in her clan practise Shii-Cho basics on her and didn’t disarm them. She taught the Devaronion boy she practised with moves that the Jedi didn’t teach, because she wanted it to be a fair fight.

No, she was certainly not a Sith, nor did she exhibit any tendencies towards the Dark side. He had no reason to be wary of her. It did not stop the suspicion from one day rising in him when he found her watching his padawan spar against him.

The other initiates she had sparred againsts were evidently tired out, and opted to pair up together, leaving her alone. After Master Rancisis scolded her twice she practised with a training dummy and droid, and when he and Anakin finally left, she was practising with three firing droids, but he felt her eyes on them.

He thought little of her when he and Anakin were given a simple diplomatic escort mission, which quickly turned into a series of small investigations at an attempt to assassinate a minister by way of poison, but upon return he felt his paranoia slowly creeping back up on him. The only lightsaber combat class they could fit into based on their complicated schedule was with Master Rancisis and Thranta Clan, with Arwen Luthal.

Such a strange thing, to be wary of a little girl. He raised his concerns with Master Yoda and Master Windu after their mission debrief, but only after he’d sent Anakin off to get some much deserved rest. They’d been practising with their lightsabers at every spare moment, and Anakin’s muscles were certainly feeling it.

“Aware, should you always be, Obi-Wan. Wary, you should not be,” Master Yoda counselled. He gently prodded him with his walking stick, eyes amused, “Afraid, are you, of a little girl, hmm?”

Obi-Wan felt his lips twitch without permission, “My paranoia is unfounded, I know, Master.”

Master Yoda hummed once more, and Master Windu spoke, “The rest of the Council is aware of her… unique situation. Master Rancisis volunteered to take Thranta Clan’s saber lessons after Master Dooku left, so he could keep a closer eye on her.”

“If the Dark side, she begins to fall to, in her spars, we will see it.”

Obi-Wan nodded in understanding, “Did Master Dooku ever notice anything amiss?”

“No. In fact, when she first started he said she was exceptional for her age,” Master Windu said, “He said she wasn’t hesitant to spar, given her upbringing, and eager to learn. Calm during her spars, focussed, respectful and doesn’t gloat when she wins—which I’m told is more often than not.”

Obi-Wan nodded, trying to let their words calm him.

“Worry, you should not. Her former master, she is not. Determined to follow the path of the Jedi, Arwen is.”

Their words meant little when he left Anakin alone after sparring in Master Rancisis’ class. He’d turned his back for only a minute, left to give Anakin a moment to take a drink and have a break, but he’d come back to Arwen Luthal, small and lithe, standing at his padawan's side. Her white hair was tied at the base of her neck, a little dishevelled, but it was the only sign that she’d been doing any physical activity. She didn’t look nearly as tired as the other younglings.

He couldn’t help but feel bad when she looked over to see his approach, and darted off. Had she looked nervous?

“Making friends, Anakin?” His padawan frowned, looking after her unsurely, “What did she want?” He tried to keep himself from sounding too curious.

Anakin sighed, “She asked if I was going to be allowed to partake in the tournament,” he turned his eyes on Obi-Wan, wide and sad, but Obi-Wan was no stranger to that look.

“The rules—”

“Please, Master Obi-Wan? I’ve been practising—”

“We have been practising, but I’m afraid padawans aren’t allowed to participate. You’ll have to make do with me.”

“Forever?” Anakin whined? Quirking a brow, Obi-Wan smiled.

“Perhaps you should try and make some friends, if you don’t want to spar with just me.”

Anakin looked forlornly out over the members of Thranta Clan. He’d had no such luck with Bear Clan, who he shared history lessons with, nor Heliost Clan, who he shared his piloting class with, and Hawk-Bat Clan had ignored him after he’d been moved into the advanced mechanics class. It seemed like no one wanted much to do with him, though not for Anakin’s lack of trying in the beginning. Now, Anakin seemed unwilling to even try, like he expected the same answer every time. Obi-Wan would never stop encouraging him to try to make friends, though. It would do him some good, make him feel less alone in the temple, less reliant on Obi-Wan.

Being so suddenly separated from his mother made Anakin clingy, but add on the death of Qui-Gon, who’d promised to train him, and Anakin was near co-dependant for the first few months of being a padawan. Time away from Obi-Wan and friends his own age would help Anakin, if only the other younglings would give him a chance.

Master Rancisis approved group spars at the end of the lesson—nothing unusual, they were a fun group activity, one he partook in when he was an initiate as well—and they’d been asked to watch. Anakin, though trying not to appear too eager, had all but dragged him closer to the two groups.

There were seven in each group, and he watched the group on the right begin without much fanfare, running around and striking each other, sneaking up on someone while they were occupied with another person, and laughing and having fun. That was how he remembered his group spars going as a youngling—all against all, a playful competition where nobody really won.

On the left, Obi-Wan noticed six younglings circled around Arwen Luthal. There was very little giggling and smiling, the group exchanging glances and determined looks before they all rushed in towards her.

Obi-Wan flinched and he took a step forward without meaning to, but Anakin grabbed his arm, “Master? What are you doing?”

To stop them, they were all attacking one person, she could get hurt—

Arwen was already spinning and swinging her saber, leaning back from a strike, parrying another, and delivering wide, sweeping blows, then more concise, tight strikes that seemed too refined for—

How had she moved on to Makashi already?

That little niggling in the back of his mind reminded him that she was groomed to be an apprentice to a Sith, and he watched with barely concealed trepidation as managed to fend all six opponents off, switching from Shii-Cho to Makashi, using a reverse grip that threw off a lot of the other younglings, though one other mimicked her.

She wasn’t using Form VII, she wasn’t, but he could see it, picture it so clearly in his mind he was sure he would convince himself of it if he thought about it for too long. Without thinking, he put a hand on Anakin’s shoulder, but Anakin was barely paying attention to him, too focussed on the fight. With a reverse grip, she’d managed to consecutively disarm two younglings after several minutes, and they fell like dominoes after that, until she was left with just a large Devaronian boy, who fared much better than the rest, but was eventually disarmed as well.

He sensed nothing untoward from her, and she even bowed to her defeated crèche mates before they did. She peeked over at Anakin and smiled, and his stomach roiled, no matter how much he told himself she was just a child.

Obi-Wan led Anakin out of the training room, eager to instruct him on anything but lightsabers at the moment, “Perhaps we could brush up on your politics, Anakin. I know it’s not your favourite—”

“I was thinking the same thing, Master!” Anakin said quickly, “I wanted to head to the archives to study, if that’s okay.”

Obi-Wan blinked, stunned to silence. It was unlike Anakin to willingly study something that wasn’t about the Force or the Jedi. Usually, Obi-Wan had to coerce him to do extra study, and it was always difficult getting him to pay attention. In this case, he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, “Of course, I’ll accompany you—”

“No, no, that’s okay, Master! You go and… I don’t know, meditate or something. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, stunned, “Well, I suppose I’ll head to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. I’ll see you later this evening, Anakin,” he smiled down at his padawan proudly—Anakin was hardly an easy boy to teach, but perhaps things would get easier from here.

It was in the following weeks that Obi-Wan realised no, it will not be getting easier, because despite all these extra hours Anakin seemed to be putting into studying, he never seemed to learn anything more than what Obi-Wan or his teachers taught him. In fact, he seemed to be getting worse. Assignments were seldom completed on time now, he seemed tired and sore more often than not, and was getting behind in his reading. Anakin’s mind felt at ease, focussed and eager, but certainly focussed elsewhere.

Any and all attempts to figure out why was met with backlash, despite Obi-Wan trying to be as understanding as possible. Eventually, his trust in his padawan fell to Obi-Wan’s obligation as his master to make sure he was progressing in his studies at a reasonable rate. He wanted to believe Anakin was telling the truth, that he was trying as hard as he could to learn everything, but when he went to the archives not once, but three separate times, and found Anakin absent, he realised he’d been taken for a fool. Master Nu said she rarely saw Anakin inside the archives anymore.

The fourth time, Obi-Wan began his search for Anakin once more, determined to catch him doing… whatever it was he was up to, and oddly enough found him only a few corners away from the archives. Red faced, fists clenched and marching towards the archives like it had personally offended him, Obi-Wan sighed.

Just what had his padawan done?

“Anakin.”

His padawan froze, meeting his master's eyes. He stayed silent, face slowly going back to its normal colour, and Obi-Wan approached with a tired sigh.

“Just what have you been up to these past few weeks? I doubt studying has made you this angry.”

Anakin huffed, “Nothing.”

Obi-Wan raised a brow in disbelief, “Anakin, I’ve been more than lenient these past few weeks. But you’ve already fallen too far behind in your studies. Whatever it is, you will need to put it aside for the time being so we can catch you up,” he said gently. Anakin, for all his raw power and talent, was still only just a boy. An emotional boy, who needed a stern hand as much as he needed a gentle one. The trouble often came with trying to figure out which was best to use for which situation. Obi-Wan, too, was new to this. He’d had no time to grow as a Jedi away from his own master before he’d been knighted and taken on a padawan of his own.

“But it’s important!”

“Then perhaps you can tell me what it is? I might be able to help.”

“You’ll be upset with me.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You will.”

“Anakin,” he sighed.

“Fine,” he grumbled, “I’ve been sparring.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan smiled, “Anakin, you didn’t need to keep that from me. I’m happy you’ve found someone to practise with. It’ll help you improve.”

“It’s with Arwen Luthal,” Obi-Wan stiffened immediately, “See! I knew you’d be mad!”

“Why would you think I’m mad?”

“Because I know you don’t like her.”

“Anakin, no, that’s not it…” His padawan was more perceptive than he gave him credit for. Obi-Wan had never even mentioned Arwen’s name around him, “Arwen has done nothing wrong,” no, the poor girl was simply subject to Obi-Wan’s paranoid mind.

“Oh, so I’ve been hiding it for nothing then?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then listen—you won’t believe what she said to me today!” Anakin’s face was quickly reddening again and Obi-Wan had to remind him to calm down, “She said she could beat me! And that she’s going to win the tournament for her age bracket,” Obi-Wan opened his mouth, but Anakin didn’t stop, “She said she could beat me with her hand tied behind her back! I’ll show her!”

“Anakin, no. You need to calm down,” he immediately began leading them to the Room of a Thousand Fountains, “You will not show her anything. Come, we will meditate and sort through your emotions. Remember, anger is not the Jedi way.”

His padawan said nothing, but didn’t object to meditating.

Of all the people for Anakin to spar with…

Obi-Wan and Anakin attended the three day long tournament, and Obi-Wan explained some techniques that Anakin was curious about as they popped up, and if they were Shii-Cho or not—most were, but there was the occasional Form II or III.

When Arwen stepped onto the mat, Anakin watched her closely each time, studying her form. Obi-Wan wasn’t entirely sure how much he gleaned from watching her spar, but humoured him nonetheless.

“What was that move she just did?”

Obi-Wan sighed, “It’s too advanced for you to learn just yet. It’s a Makashi technique.”

“I’m ready to learn more, Master. I’ve gotten better—”

“Yes, you have,” he said gently, “But it’s still far too soon to move onto a new form. We have plenty more of Shii-Cho to explore and learn. Even so, I think I’d like you to learn Soresu before any other forms.”

Anakin whined and pouted, “It can’t be that hard,” he muttered, before going back to watching. They’d had this conversation once before. Anakin was set on learning just about every lightsaber form except Soresu. He said it was too defence focussed, and didn’t teach enough attacks, but that was exactly why Obi-Wan wanted him to learn it. After the battle on Naboo, Obi-Wan often thought of how different things might have turned out had he and Master Qui-Gon been more proficient in Soresu. He didn’t want his padawan to fall prey to the same mistakes.

The Jedi, while they learned Shii-Cho and other lightsaber forms if they wished, primarily used Form VI, Niman, once they had been knighted. It was an amalgamation of techniques from across all forms, not dedicated to any particular style, not geared towards defence or offence. It was an all-rounder type of style, able to be applied in a wide range of different situations. Unfortunately, its greatest strength was also its greatest weakness, a case of jack of all trades, master of none if there ever was one. Niman wouldn’t do much good against a Sith Lord.

Anakin seemed open to learning Niman, if only because it borrowed from all other previous forms.

On the last day of the tournament, where Bear Clan was the victor, but Arwen Luthal did indeed beat out all the other initiates in her age bracket, Anakin pouted and complained. Obi-Wan guided him through a lengthy meditation session before bed, in the hopes it would ease his mind.

The next morning Obi-Wan woke to an empty room and living space. Where had Anakin gone? It was unlike him to be up before Obi-Wan, even more so to already be out of their shared living quarters.

It was with no small amount of annoyance that Obi-Wan realised he’d likely run off to find Arwen. Anakin hadn’t said much else on the matter besides wanting to prove her wrong, unwilling to accept Obi-Wan’s counsel on the matter; let it go, Anakin.

He found himself traversing the halls in a brisk walk, taking the shortest route to the training halls the younglings were often found in. He found Arwen first, only as she was entering the hall, and soon heard Anakin’s voice from inside as he approached.

He lingered in the open doorway, keeping off to the side. He wanted to go in, to immediately stop whatever was going to happen, but he pushed away the urge. They were just children. Children argued. Let them sort it out.

It still set him on edge, but he was a Jedi Knight, and more than capable of stopping them if they went too far or things got out of hand.

Obi-Wan drew in a deep breath, catching the rules of their spar—thankfully spotting Anankin’s real lightsaber on a bench and not in his hand—and watched them ready themselves.

Anakin attacked first, and he resisted the urge to rush in the second their practice sabers met. They sparred for a long time, and Obi-Wan noted with no small amount of pride how well Anakin was doing, though also noted that Arwen had not used any Makashi techniques. Anakin and Arwen would duel, Anakin favouring a defensive strategy much to his surprise, and Arwen taking on an offensive strategy. Any time Arwen came close to winning, Anakin would dart off to the other side of the room. Obi-Wan commended his strategy—he was less skilled than Arwen, and must have been able to admit it to himself, so the rule that they would not be using the mats was a smart one. It gave Anakin a much better chance at winning.

It must have been nearing the forty minute mark of their spar when Anakin caught both him and Arwen off guard, using the Force to jump high in the air and come down with an attack that Obi-Wan would say looked like an unrefined Falling Avalanche, which he was certain was a Form V technique. He wondered where Anakin had seen it, and how many times he had secretly practised it. Though unrefined, it was a move difficult to achieve on the first few tries.

Obi-Wan thought that was it—Anakin would knock her down and disarm her, and that would be the end of it—but it seemed Arwen had been saving her Makashi strikes for when she thought she needed them. She struck again and again, and several times Obi-Wan had to stop himself from stepping inside, from calling out and making them both stop.

He could see it now—a red saber instead of a yellow one, yellow eyes rimmed with an angry red. She was groomed to be Darth Maul’s apprentice, she was to become a Sith. Darth Maul had killed his master, would have killed him too if given the chance, and here was Maul’s apprentice, duelling his padawan. She was pushing him back, towards a corner, where he had no escape—

He reached out with the Force, unable to stop himself, carefully feeling out the emotions in the room. Pride, frustration, anger, impatience—but it was all innocent, the feelings of younglings still trying to gain control over their emotions, untainted by the Dark side.

Arwen disarmed Anakin after a flurry of quick strikes, almost perfectly executing a Makashi disarming technique. Anakin’s practice saber flew off to the side, and Arwen stepped back, lowering her saber. He didn’t even have time to breathe a sigh of relief before Anakin was raising his hand, Force pulling the saber to him, and halted between him and Arwen when she did the same.

Obi-Wan watched the saber shudder and jerk, before eventually going towards Anakin, no matter the desperate pull he could sense Arwen was attempting. But then she was darting forward, striking at Anakin while he was vulnerable, though he managed to dodge at the cost of his concentration. His saber clattered to the floor and flew into Arwen’s hand.

With dual sabers in her hands, Arwen Luthal stood over Anakin, the tips of her weapons aimed at his throat. The hairs on the back of Obi-Wan’s neck stood up and he reached his hand out, ready, just in case.

He heard Anakin grumble his apology, certainly not sincere.

He felt Arwen’s shame. Her regret.

Then he heard Arwen’s apology. And another came from Anakin, a real one this time.

Lowering his hand, Obi-Wan felt the paranoia recede rather quickly. His own shame coursed through him. How could he have let it control him like that? Over a youngling no less, whose only crime was that a Sith had wanted to teach her when she was too young to understand what that meant.

It had been foolish to think this would be anything but younglings simply arguing, as they were wont to do. He’d allowed fear to cloud his mind and judgement. He was a Jedi Knight now, he ought to know better.

Anakin had returned to him later in the day in high spirits, recounting his spar with Arwen in great detail, freely admitting his loss without issue, and Obi-Wan felt pride swell once more for his padawan. He grew brighter every day.

It was days later that he saw Arwen Luthal. He caught her and Anakin at the end of an after-lesson spar, and he watched her straighten up, shoulders square and hands behind her back, like she expected to be scolded.

Obi-Wan offered a small smile and inclination of his head. She beamed back and bowed lowly.

Yes, it had been foolish to believe this bright young girl was any danger to his padawan. She was simply a youngling who’d been dealt a poor hand, and was desperately trying to prove everyone wrong.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #clone wars #fanfiction #oc #arwen luthal #echani #female oc #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi

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halzore · 3 years

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Cody + 16??

Snippets of Time

Characters: Cody x Reader

Note: Thankyou nonny for this request, I was having a little bit of trouble of how to encapsulate the kinda vibe i wanted to go for, not sure if it landed. But i decided to do a few snippets of a little friendship with our lovely commander and a reader throughout the Clone Wars. Let me know what you think! I love when people do that! Also, fair warning, kinda gets a bit sad, but thats chill.

Prompt 16: “That you will be by my side to see me through” ~ You and I, Jacob Collier

A little bit about this song: This is some classic Jacob Collier arranging, very spooky, also uplifting and got them good jazz chords. Listen to it here

Tags: @a-lil-perspective @thegoodbatch @leias-left-hair-bun

Introductions

Cody had met Obi-wan proceeding the battle of Geonosis, easily getting along, Obi-wan’s cool quick wit complimenting Cody’s serious but loyal nature. Obi-wan and Cody got along well, but the Marshall Commander had a softer spot for his own Jedi Commander.

He remembered the time that Obi-wan had brought you with him for the first time, a strong senior Padawan, who had already lost one master, but still seemed jovial and effervescent. He watched with skepticism as you gazed at the vastness of the the hangar bay of the Negotiator, looking around as if you had never been outside the temple. Obi-wan was quick and cool, but you seemed different, somewhat of a mystery to the Clone.

In the beginning, Cody stayed out of your way. After all what would a Jedi want with the likes of him. Plus he had a quarter of an army to run, but your paths crossed every now and then, each time more of the mystery of your character unfogging.

The light of the holo-table cast a blue hue over your stern features. Cody could see the stern lines deepen as the council outlined the battle strategy. Cody did not much like it, the plan was too risky, but he let it go. This was not his time to speak. Master Mundi finished speaking, opening the up the floor for questions. There was a slight pause as the heads, both real and holographic panned around the room. You took the slightest step forward.

“This plan, while it would achieve our goal is irresponsible” You voice was matter-of-fact, leaving no room for doubt.

“Is that so?” Master Windu turned to you, dissatisfaction clear. “And why would that be?”

“Too many lives lost, lives we have a duty to protect.” You put it simply

“But the civilians would be saf—“

“Clone lives” you clarified.

The silence spreading throughout the briefing room was deafening. Obi-Wan took a deep breath and pinched his nose, the council members looked at each other in irritation, their nonchalance being called out. Cody smiled inwardly. A Jedi commander who would go to bat for his boys. Maybe you were something he could get behind.

Medical Mischief

He was beaten, he was bruised. Yet he limped with resolve to the one place he could hurt in comfort: His quarters. One foot in front of the other, the commander’s attempt to look uninjured was laughable. He heard giggling from behind him and the Marshall Commander turned back to see you, hand over mouth, trying to cover you snickering. Cody groaned.

“What’re you laughing at?”

You tried to regain your composure. “You.”

“No shit.” Cody was not impressed, bothered at the interuption to his escape plans.

“You see the boys had mentioned something,” You began to stroll over casually, mischief in your eye. “You know, I didn’t believe them when they told me, I always thought you were such a good example for your men.” You had Cody’s undivided attention now, “They said you hated the medbay, never go when you’re supposed to. And I thought to myself, ‘Hmmm not on my watch.’”

Cody hadn’t noticed that you had slipped an arm around his and had began to shepherd him in the direction of his favourite place on the ship.

“Hey, stop! Let go!” He tried to wriggle out of your grip, but you ploughed on, resolute in your gait, easily overcoming the poor limping man.

“No can do Commander, you have an image to uphold.”

Interlude

Time went on, the war continued to wage in the furthest corners of the galaxy and you and Cody found your rhythm. You became an inseparable team on and off the battlefield. Both leading from the front, you managed to get the 501st through some of the most risky of assaults.

You balanced each other out.

You learnt a lot from Cody over the years. How to punch a droid sucessfully, how to patch up a bruise after you had punched a droid. He showed you how to be a good leader and helped you grow in your confidence as a Commander. But you, in turn, showed him things.

He always made sure that you were okay after a campaign, and so you developed a little ritual. You taught Cody how to meditate. You would bring him into your quarters and practice your deep breathing together, centring yourself in the moment. It became a staple in both of your routines and it was the way you both aired out your grievances and let them go to the universe.

You grew close, everyone could see it.

You were like family to Cody, and maker help the galaxy if anything ever happened to you.

Knighting

He wasn’t allowed to go to the ceremony. It was for Jedi only. You had been so nervous leading up to your trials. He knew you could do it, and he was not surprised in the slightest when you came bounding into his quarters, barreling him over in a bear hug, screaming that you’d passed.

But he couldn’t go to the ceremony.

He sat staring at his boring grey walls, wondering what was going on. Was Obi-Wan there? What were you thinking about right now? What things happened in a Jedi Knighting ceremony? His contemplation on these questions was half-baked at best, his mind wandering to the future.

The war was at a critical point, the senate’s order for new clones was ready, Cody knew they needed more Jedi Generals, and none came with better credentials than you. You would be a credit to any battalion, they would be lucky troopers. But they were not Cody’s troopers.

He didn’t hear his door open.

“Cody?” Your face cast in shadow as you were outlined by the glow of the ship light. You voiced pulled Cody from his questionings.

“Hmm?” He looked up. “Ah, how did it go?”

“Good,” You walked into his room and sat down next to him on his bed. “I have something to say to you.”

“I know.”

“I’m gonna miss you.” The emotion cracking the edges of your voice. Cody wrapped an arm around you. “You’ll never be too far away.” Cody managed to give you a bit of a half-smile. You sat there together taking in each other’s presence for what you knew would be for the last time for a long time.

“I have something for you.” You broke the silence by reaching back around to grab at something. It was a small wooden box. You shoved it at the Marshall Commander and he opened it.

“Your padawan braid?” Cody looked at you, a mixture of confusion and awe.

“Something to remember me by, you’ll always have a little piece of me with you no matter how many light years apart we are.”

Cody smiled, and pulled you into a hug.

Aftermath.

You couldn’t remember the name of the planet you were on when you felt it. It was like all the energy in your body being forcibly pushed out of you. Your ears rang with the screams and it was almost as if the ground began to lilt under you feet.

Something was wrong, but you didn’t know what.

You hadn’t clued to the first signs, comms going unanswered, whispers around the native colonies. It was when you saw the Holonet report of the Jedi betraying the Republic when you knew you were in trouble.

At first it wasn’t so bad, you kept a low profile and no one really bothered you, you looked like any other traveller passing through. But then the troopers started to show up, but not in the armour you were used to. Similar enough to go unnoticed by most people, but strange enough to send your survival instincts into overdrive.

But it wasn’t safe.

Especially on the day you saw your picture, a smiling Jedi Knight, plastered on the wall of an unassuming business, labelling you as a traitor and offering a reward.

That’s when you began your new life, with a new appearance, a new name, never staying in one place for more than a few weeks. It was tiring, but it was what needed to be done.

….

You had been watching the holo waves weeks now. Imperial propaganda rife. Disgust had made its home in the back of your throat as you looked upon the force fed narratives on the web. But everyday you checked it religiously, looking for information about what happened at the end of the clone wars, why you were being hunted down.

Talk of a legendary clone wars commander coming to your planet to recruit piqued you interest.

It was dangerous, if it was the man you thought it would be, if the empire found out you were there. But you had to go.

You kept your distance from him. But you knew, without a doubt it was him, his scar, his gait. But the warmth was gone from his eyes. You tailed him, following him away from the carnival and back to his room before you confronted him.

“Cody.”

His shoulders stiffened. He slowly turned around to see who was in the door.

“CC-2224 now” His voice was proper, like when he gave an order. You brow furrowed in confusion, you didn’t quite know what has happening.

“Cody, what’s happening?” You were desperate and confused, in front of the one person who could help you make send of the mess. You moved to hug him around the middle as you dissolved into tears.

You didn’t register it in time.

The hard barrel of Cody’s pistol pressing into you side. You felt the heat of the blaster bolt and looked up at your Best friend, your brother, with pathetically wide eyes.

“I’m sorry Y/N, but good soldiers follow orders.” There was no remorse in his voice, almost the slightest hint of pleasure.

It was the last thing you heard, before your vision frayed, the pounding in your ears became too much and your world faded to black.

#commander cody #cody x reader #tcw #the clone wars #clone wars imagines #halzore writes #and also answers #Crazy wolrd #commander cody x reader #commander cody x you #this is my first time writing for codes #i love him to bits #but I d K if I nailed this one #My brain is a choppy mess #going at 150000 miles an hour

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allofthecaffeine · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @blanchedxbois (hi! 💙) for this hella long, hella awesome tag game so here goes

FIRST 20 SONGS ON SHUFFLE

Natural - Imagine Dragons

Like Real People Do - Hozier

The Fall - Imagine Dragons

Friction - Imagine Dragons

Castle - Halsey

Alanis’ Interlude - Halsey

In A Week - Hozier

What Are We Waiting For - Ruelle

Smoke and Mirrors - Imagine Dragons

Heaven’s Gate - Fall Out Boy

I HATE EVERYBODY - Halsey

It Comes Back To You - Imagine Dragons

Legend - The Score

Coffins - MisterWives

The Heat - The Score

Where Do We Go From Here - Ruelle

Revolution - The Score

To Be Alone - Hozier

On and On - The Score

Hopeless - Halsey ft. Cashmere Cat

(I promise I do actually have more artists on my phone, I just have a lot of artists’ entire discographies so things get a little crowded sometimes lol)

APPEARANCE

I’m an I-need-to-pull-the-driver-seat-all-the-way-in kind of a person // i wear glasses or contacts // i have blonde hair //i prefer loose clothing to tight clothing // i have one or more piercings // i have at least one tattoo // i have blue eyes // i have dyed or highlighted my hair // i have gotten plastic surgery // i have or had braces// i sunburn easily // i have freckles // i paint my nails //i wear makeup // i don’t often smile // i am pleased with how I look // I prefer nike to adidas // i wear baseball hats backward

HOBBIES & TALENTS

i play a sport // i can play an instrument // i am artistic // i know more than one language // i have won a trophy in some sort of competition // i can cook or bake without a recipe //i know how to swim // i enjoy writing // i can do origami // i prefer movies to tv shows // i can execute a perfect somersault //i enjoy singing// i could survive in the wild on my own // i have read a new book series this year //i enjoy spending time with friends // i travel during school or work breaks // i can do a handstand

RELATIONSHIPS

i am in a relationship // i have a crush // i have a best friend i have known for ten years //my parents are together // i have dated my best friend // i am adopted // my crush has confessed to me // i have a long-distance relationship // i am an only child // i give advice to my friends // i have made an online friend // i met up with someone i have met online

AESTHETIC

i have heard the ocean in a conch shell //i have watched the sunrise // i enjoy rainy days //i have slept under the stars // i meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me //i enjoy the smell of the beach // i know what snow tastes like // i listen to music to fall asleep // i enjoy thunderstorms // i enjoy cloud watching // i have attended a bonfire // i pay close attention to colors // i find mystery in the ocean // i enjoy hiking on nature paths // autumn is my favourite season

MISC

i can fall asleep in a moving vehicle // i am the mom friend // i live by a certain quote // i like the smell of sharpies // i am involved in extracurricular activities // i enjoy mexican food // i can drive a stick-shift // i believe in true love// i make up scenarios to fall asleep // i sing in the shower // i wish i lived in a video game // i have a canopy above my bed // i am multiracial // i am a redhead // i own at least one dog // i have a cat

Tagging @hippyninjasimmy @fiona-glenanne-westen (if you wanna do one 💙💙) and whoever else wants to do it!!! It might seem long and intimidating but it is actually rather fun, I promise

#tag game #I'd like to put myself down as the mum friend #but as someone who has set themselves on fire nine times #broken six bones #and once went an entire school year without bringing lunch #its safe to say I probably can't lol

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gleekto · 4 years

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Roommate Wanted (10/11)

Summary/Prompt (stolen from @hazelandglasz - thank you!): Straight guy (Blaine) worries he’s being homophobic to gay roommate (Kurt), then realizes he’s fallen for him. NYADA AU. Blaine POV.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six (Interlude (Kurt POV), Seven, Eight, Nine

Ten

Blaine knew the time would come sooner or later. It’s 8pm on Friday night, and Kurt has a date. With Adam. It’s been a week since their last date, and from what Blaine knows, Kurt’s barely seen Adam at all, other than a few chats in the NYADA hallways. But it was inevitable that they would, of course, go on another date at some point.

“So I’m going out with Adam tonight?” Kurt says as if it’s a question.

“Oh! Oh yeah, okay. Of course. I mean that makes sense. It’s the weekend and-” Blaine can feel himself rambling.“Well, of course you are.”

Kurt is wearing a bright yellow button down shirt, ridiculously tight grey jeans (Is he trying to tease Blaine?), and a blue scarf to complement the yellow. Or maybe to cover up any remnant of the purple now fading on his neck from last Saturday. Wouldn’t want to have that awkward conversation. “I’m not sure when I”ll be home but-”

“Yeah,” Blaine dismisses. “I won’t wait up.” Blaine is sitting curled up on the corner of the couch. He folds his arms on his chest and closes his eyes as the door clicks shut. Blaine remembers interrupting Kurt and Adam kissing on this couch. How flustered he got. It’s obviously uncomfortable to walk in on anyone making out, PG as it may have been, so there’s that. But also, he knows it now, it was Kurt. Kissing. And a week after that gentle stirring, it was somehow Kurt kissing him, not quite as PG. Where he wanted to be. Whatever was unclear about identity in that moment on the dance floor, that he wanted Kurt was obvious. A week later? Still obvious. The thing about falling for someone is that it makes it pretty easy to define the label. He knows he’s gay. And now he’s also painfully jealous.

...

Blaine can’t concentrate - forget homework, forget practicing piano, even forget those websites. Kurt is on a date with Adam and he’s sitting on his couch reimagining great romance scenes where he runs to Adam’s apartment, sweeps in and convinces Kurt that he’s his handsome prince, and not Adam, and they ride off on his horse and make love on fields of lilac into the night. But this is not a movie and they are in gritty New York City and Kurt may or may not have sex with Adam. And he will simply have to live with it and his feelings until this all passes. He can at least start by telling Kurt he’s gay. Tomorrow.

Tonight, Kurt is on a date with Adam and he’ll just cope by baking cookies, the cure for all things. There’s something meditative about the pouring and mixing and dropping little dough balls on to the greased pan that calms his mind, especially when accompanied with the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack, and a glass of red wine. This dough is delicious, Blaine thinks as he steals a small scoop from the first batch. It’s 9pm when the first tray goes in, and he figures he’ll have time for at least four dozen by the time the wine makes him drowsy enough to fall asleep.

The timer dings at 9:13 pm, he grabs his oven mittens, and opens the oven door. Perfect golden brown. He picks up the tray and turns to put them on the counter island behind him.

“Hi Blaine.”

“Oh my god, Kurt.” Blaine almost drops the tray but slides them on to the trivet just in time. “You scared me. I didn’t expect you-”

“Good catch,” Kurt gestures to the cookies. “I wasn’t trying to scare you - the music is kind of loud. Would hate to be responsible for mass cookie suicide.”

“Why are you-”

“I broke it off with Adam.” Kurt bites his lower lip, and looks at Blaine almost guiltily.

“You did?” Blaine’s heart starts racing but he wills himself to stay calm. This isn’t about him. “I’m-”

“Happy?” Kurt tries.

“No,” Blaine defends himself quickly. Too quickly. “I wouldn’t be happy about something like that. I’m surprised, actually.”

“Surprised?” Does Kurt look disappointed? “I thought maybe you knew-”

“Is this a trick question?” Blaine searches Kurt’s face for a clue. “How would I know? I don’t think you said anything -”

“Because all week, you’ve been -” Kurt pauses and looks at Blaine knowingly.

Oh. “Working to earn my gay membership card?” Blaine suggests and Kurt huffs out a laugh.

“I was going to say flirty. And I’ve been flirty. And last Saturday night was-”

“I think we established that it was hot.” Blaine leans forward on the counter island between them.

“Yeah,” Kurt exhales. They’re on either side of the counter, bowl of cookie dough and a hot tray of cookies between them, staring each other down. “Exactly.”

Blaine scoops up a drop of cookie dough on his index finger. “Try this. It’s so good. Seriously.” He holds up his finger but Kurt doesn’t take it. Instead, he looks at Blaine, leans forward, and sucks the cookie dough covered finger into his mouth.

Blaine feels the blood rush all over his body. “Wow. Okay. Okay,” He says under his breath, closing his eyes trying to take in the moment. When his finger is licked clean, Kurt lets go, smiling and sheepish, and his eyelashes flutter down, suddenly shy. Really.

“It’s good,” Kurt’s still looking down, smiling and blushing. He composes himself and looks back up. “So I thought when I went out tonight, you realized that-”

“That I was impossibly jealous?” Blaine finishes. “I did realize that. I wanted to be on that date - dinner, a movie, whatever we wanted.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You were jealous?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “No. That I wanted to be on a date with you. And so,” Kurt pauses. “I guess that’s not really fair to Adam.”

“I guess not.” Blaine hopes that Kurt can’t hear his heart thumping. He can feel it on every beat. “I hope you did get to tell him though that I’ve gotten over my homophobia?” Blaine smirks.

“Don’t be mean,” Kurt reprimands. Sort of.

“So.” Blaine says.

“So,” Kurt repeats. “You want to go on a date with me. And I want to go on a date with you. So,” Kurt is smiling, happy. “Would you like to go on a date?”

“Now?”

“The night is young,” Kurt holds out his hand.

“No.” Blaine shakes his head but steps closer to Kurt.

“No? As in you’re too tired?”

“No. As in I don’t want to go out. I’m not too tired. I want to stay here.” Blaine is in Kurt’s space now. Kurt nods, but doesn’t move. The silence is charged.

Kurt closes his eyes. “We’re roommates, Blaine. We have a good thing. Don’t you think-”

“I don’t want to take things slowly,” Blaine says plainly. “I want you.”

“I haven’t had sex before.” Kurt looks down, inches from Blaine’s face.

“I haven’t been gay before. I think we’re even.” Blaine picks up Kurt’s pinky with his own, swings their hands gently. “Show me.”

#gleekto writes #roommate wanted #thanks for the story love

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keelywolfe · 4 years

Text

FIC: Severed Bonds (Chapter 15)

Summary: Edge, Jedi Knight, is lost in a Galaxy without the Jedi Order and the only one left to him is one who already betrayed them all.

Tags/Warnings: Spicyhoney, Star Wars AU, Darkfic, Angst, Minor Character Deaths, Friends to Enemies to ?, Hatesex…?, Trauma, Implied Possible Insanity, Rough Sex, Lemons, Mentions of Prostitution, Violence, Possessiveness, Attempted Rape

Notes: PLEASE READ: Just a reminder that this story is very dark and that you should read the tags. This chapter in particular contains attempted rape and dubious consent, along with a lot of violence and some dirty sexing.

Severed Bonds: a Spicyhoney SW AU

CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4: Interlude | CH5 | CH6: Interlude 2 | CH7 | CH8 | CH9 | CH10 | CH11 | CH12 | CH13 | CH14 |

~~*~~

Read Chapter 15 on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Once, Edge would have been able to easily fight them off. A group of bounty hunters, even a fair-sized one, wasn’t a match for a Jedi Knight in his prime.

That was before Edge spent weeks on a ship and then more weeks exhausting himself working in a mine. Before he traded katas and training regiments for swinging a pick and long before he’d given up meditating, only truly dropping his mental shields in those moments when he and Rus were lying together, in body if not in soul, desperately offering his love out to a void that never took it.

He was no longer as open to the Force as he once was. Gone were the easy times where its touch cradled him, as comforting and safe as the arms of the parents he never knew. These days Edge hesitated to reach for it. He no longer knew what might reach back.

If he’d been open to the Force instead of keeping his shields close around him, he would have felt the hunters before they attacked. As it was, he’d been taken down with embarrassing ease, the same way so many Jedi fell beneath the blasters of the Clone troopers who were supposed to be following their orders.

They’d shot his speeder out from under him, sending him careening into one of the rock formations that scattered the dusty landscape. BD-7 screeched as it was thrown from the bike and he’d heard the clang of its small body shattering against the boulder, metal smashing against stone.

He’d barely had a chance to keep himself from doing the same, landing on his feet but wrenching his ankle in the process. Even his heavy work boots were no match against velocity combined with gravity, not that it would have mattered. The hail of stunners finished the job, and by the time he’d woken in a strange ship’s hold, he’d been bound hand and foot with heavy binders, and then further chained to the wall by a heavy collar around his cervical vertebra. When he dared to use the Force, gingerly checking the cuff mechanisms, he was grimly impressed with the safeguards he found. Stunners and if those failed, they would take his hands off at the wrist, his feet at the ankles. Damaging but ultimately not fatal. Their inventor must have gone against Force sensitives before.

They’d left him with a guard, a Gamorrean, and he sat with a blaster in his lap, watching Edge with piggish eyes.

The cuffs were beyond his ability to escape, but he could sense all the living creatures around him. Shutting his sockets, he reached out, extended his awareness and found close to a dozen other life forms within the confines of the ship.

Their bounty must have gone up considerably for this kind of response.

Well. This might be the end of his journeys, then.

Strange how easy it was to fall into calm. After weeks with Rus, all the unaccustomed emotion churning and frothing within him, forcing him to teeter between the Jedi and whatever it was he and Rus had between them, facing his own mortality came with odd ease. Even if he was facing torture, in the end he would join the Force, join the rest of his fallen brethren.

Perhaps that was as it should be. Surely it would be better to die as a Jedi than fall to the Dark Side, and for all their time together, could he truly say he’d helped Rus at all? All he’d done was give him something else to pull at his tenuous hold on his sanity. If Rus was alone, Edge had no doubt he would have easily faded into obscurity, hiding himself away from the Empire and his Master, and when he was out of the Sith Lord’s reach, perhaps on his own he could have gained back some of himself.

Instead, he was forced to consider Edge in every equation, even adding to the foolishness by including a small droid to his plans. For Edge.

(He did not think of BD-7, did not want to think of its last warbling, fearful cry, the sound of its small body smashing against stone.)

Small wonder Rus was panicking as he tried to find yet another place for them to hide, another backwater planet where the long arm of the Empire had yet to reach. One Force sensitive might hide, but a second, especially one whose grip on the Force was…was…

A rill of drool fell from the Gamorrean’s mouth and Edge curled his mouth in disgust, struggling not to cringe from the way its gaze trailed over him. He knew that look, was becoming far too accustomed to seeing it in their travels, all too often aimed at Rus and himself.

Now he could only wonder idly what bragging prestige came from violating a Jedi, even one as lost as himself. He pulled his shields in tighter still, cutting off the lustiness he could feel rising from the foul creature.

The threat of violation was one that came too often as of late and he could only summon weary sort of dread for whatever the Gamorrean came up with to attempt.

Edge’s species was not one that was easily assaulted. His teeth would be enough to give even the boldest rapist pause and while their bodies could be encouraged to provide an outlet, it could only be done by one with sure knowledge of their anatomy.

This pig didn't look like it'd made a study of much of anything, but from the way it set aside its blaster, shuffling over to where Edge was bound and helpless against the wall, it seemed eager to try.

It was all too easy to fall inward, settling himself into the calm serenity of the Force when a clawed, thick-fingered hand settled on his knee. Edge’s sockets were open, but they did not see, ignored the grunt of frustration from the Gamorrean as it struggled with Edge’s heavy belt, wrenching open the buckle and yanking his opened trousers down to his ankles.

He did not feel those same hands scrabbling over him, searching fruitlessly for something to fuck in the cage of Edge’s bones, roughly fingering his pelvic outlet in an attempt to make something form.

Serenity flowed through him as the Gamorrean gave up its search and instead reached for its own belt, and it was something close to amusement that Edge wondered what the fool was going to even do with the cock it, he, pulled out.

That brief humor faded, the Force slamming a warning against his shields. Edge flinched from that as he didn’t bother flinching from the pig, felt it again, what was that, what—

Death, dying, the Force was shrieking as all around him; in the ship the bounty hunters were being slaughtered, dying before more than a groan could make it through the blood bubbling from their slack mouths. Darkness, so much darkness, Edge could feel it, overshadowing the fact of the Gamorrean climbing on top of him, pushing his legs as far apart as the chain and his trousers allowed. The Dark side beckoning, crooning to him, ever greedy and Rus was not enough to satisfy it.

Rus. It was Rus butchering the bounty hunters with joyous savagery and the Gamorrean that was hunched between his spread femurs did not yet know it. He grunted and slavered at his bones, that tusked mouth grinding against Edge’s ribs, moving steadily lower. As he felt the first curl of a thick, slimy tongue against his pubic symphysis, the hold door opened, sending his would-be rapist scrambling away from him.

The rich smell of ozone filled the air, lightning sparking from Rus’s hands, branching out from his sockets as he stepped into the room. He lifted a hand and the Gamorrean squealed in terror, and then in agony.

Edge closed his sockets. He didn’t see what Rus did to the pig, could only hear those shrieks rising higher, turning garbled and choked before silencing completely. A fine spray of warm blood fell on Edge’s skull and face, and he flinched, sockets slitting open to see Rus fling what remained of the Gamorrean almost casually against the wall, the limp body colliding with a crack of breaking bones and leaving behind a vivid green smear as it slumped to the floor.

The lightning pulsed, raw purple threads reaching out, skittering over the walls, down Rus’s legs to waver across the floor. He hated the way his soul lurched at the sight, yearning towards him, the mangled, lost remnants of what was once his closest friend.

That electrical discharge faded slowly, the bright, maniacal gleam in Rus’s eye lights fading down to their normal soft orange. He stepped over to Edge on silent feet, his cloak ghosting out around him as he crouched.

“look at you,” Rus murmured. His voice was raw, throaty, as if the lightning generated there and burned its way out. He set a gloved finger beneath Edge’s chin, tipping his head up. “did they touch you?”

The correct answer was no. Denial would be the wise chose, even with the slime of saliva still drying on his bones. He couldn’t say what drove him to say, “Perhaps.”

Maybe it was only to see that answer flare hotly in Rus’s eye lights.

He stood abruptly, reaching back, and it was only then that Edge saw the small droid clinging to his shoulder.

“time for you to wait outside,” Rus said, pulling BD-7 free. It had survived the crash but from the look of it, only barely, and it made a loud, furious protest as Rus detached it from his shirt, carrying it towards the door. They ended on a squawk as Rus took hold with the Force, holding the droid suspended in the air directly in front of his skull.

"i have been very patient with you," Rus said, his voice chillingly cold, "but my patience is running thin, droid. you're going wait outside this room. i'll take care of him." Despite the words, Rus was oddly gentle as he set BD-7 on the floor on the other side of the door. "you were helpful getting him back, i won't forget that."

Then he pushed the lock button and the door swished closed, leaving them alone.

Rus turned back to him, walking over in slow, measured steps. Edge felt his gaze move over him, vividly aware of the picture he presented. His hands bound and wrenched up over his head, fastened to the wall along with the collar, both keeping him rigidly upright. His femurs were bare, spread, his trousers still binding his ankles, obscuring the length of chain from the binder.

He could draw his knees up and did it, automatically trying to hide his naked pelvis from Rus’s avid stare. Only for a tug of pressure to halt him, the Force still thick around them and it held his legs for Rus, allowed him to see the beginnings of his desire stirring.

Rus only stood there. He reached for his lightsaber almost dreamily, hefting it in his hand before flicking it on to the lowest setting, the crimson plasma barely the length of a finger.

“don’t move,” Rus said softly.

Edge did as he was told, holding as still as he could as Rus methodically cut the rough miner’s gear away from him. The stink of burning cloth rose, smoldering and foul, and as careful as Rus was, he grazed too close against Edge’s tibia, leaving a tiny scorch mark. Edge locked his teeth around a cry and that small pain did nothing to diminish his growing want, the insanity of his persistent arousal.

When he was bare except for the binding, Rus stood again, stripping off his outer robe and tossing it carelessly aside, his lightsaber falling into its pillowing depths. He knelt between Edge’s forcibly spread legs, still in his shirt and trousers, the fabric rough against bone.

“should i ask you again?” Slender, scarred fingers skimmed over his ribs, following the same path as that foul tongue earlier, dropping down to fondle his pubis, dipping into the swirling desire there. At his touch it coalesced into a cunt, already slippery with need and Rus’s fingers lingered, tracing the soft, damp lips. “well? anything to say?”

“Don’t!” Edge blurted and he couldn’t say if it was a plea to end this or for Rus to simply stop speaking. He was lost in his desperation, his hips jerking into Rus’s teasing, unsatisfying touch.

Rus only hummed thoughtfully. “you wouldn’t lie to me, would you. you’d tell me if someone else touched you like this. because you’re mine.”

Yours. He couldn't say it, his tongue was gluey, useless. He could only offer it through the Force in a grim offering, wincing as Rus latched onto it, thick with petulance and greed.

“mine,” Rus repeated. The low burn of his eye lights ignited, flaring with the violent energy of a supernova. "always, you promised me, you swore.” All his ease faded, his laughter wrong and mangled and Edge was trapped, bound. But then he always had been, from the moment he’d woken on Rus’s ship with an aching, cracked skull.

Rus fumbled at the fly of his trousers, lowering them, and Edge only arched up as Rus shuffled closer, the hot, heavy length briefly gliding up his slit before pressing inside in one hard shove.

The sound that tore from Edge was close to a wail, but it wasn’t from pain, or not all from pain. He couldn’t sort through the sensation, it simply felt and Rus was panting hard, driving into him with relentless rhythm, muttering beneath his breath, a tangle of words of mine and claim and tight, fuck, so tight.

The embrace was a poor one, Edge only able to writhe against his bonds, Rus struggling with the angle, trying to find one that would let him in deeper, to let him claim more, take more, pushing in as far as their position allowed. Sliding in and back out, stretching him open with each thrust and sending crackles of pleasure to spark up his spine. Edge couldn’t have denied him, trapped and bound, and it was his greedy, tearing shame that he didn’t want to.

Don't stop, yours, always yours, have me, take me, yours

The sound Rus made was guttural, a thick, glottal snarl and Edge matched it when Rus abruptly pulled out, leaving him clenching on nothingness, empty and open as Rus scrambled to his feet. The first splash of wetness startled him and Edge closed his sockets against the second, lifting his chin, allowing Rus to mark him.

The heavy splatter ran down his sharp cheekbones and Edge tasted it against his teeth as he automatically licked them, cloyingly sweet.

“there,” Rus said, hoarsely, sinking back down to his knees. His voice was blurred with satisfaction, slender fingers smearing his seed across Edge’s face, pressing them to his mouth and urging him to lick them clean.

It was only when that sweetness was gone, leaving behind only the taste of Edge’s spit that he pulled them free, ignoring the way Edge’s tongue curled persistently around them. His disappointment at losing them faded as those slick fingers dropped back between his legs, pressing and twisting with knowing skill until Edge was struggling to writhe against them, the sound of them moving in his wet cunt viscerally obscene.

He came with barely a sound, hissed through his teeth, a single word that lit in Rus’s eye lights like a candle flame.

Yours.

Then there was only them panting and drained, all the little aches coming in to fill the voids left by desire. Edge felt like he hurt everywhere, bruises left by the attack, by his capture, by Rus himself making themselves known with throbbing intensity. His bound hands were numb, displaced, and Edge shifted uncomfortable, a low groan escaping.

“here.” Rus pulled a small device from his belt, a remote of some sort, and pressed the button. Immediately, the binders opened and Edge nearly screamed as sensation brutally ran back into his freed limbs. He rolled to his side, moaning, cramming his hands under his arms and squeezing hard, pulling his knees up into his chest as the pain looped relentlessly through him.

“fuck, sorry, sorry!” Rus was kneeling by him in an instantly, frantically rubbing his arms and legs, the pain dwindled into a static of pins and needles before it finally eased. His breathing settled until it was no longer a sob on each exhale and when Edge finally opened his sockets again, Rus was looking down at him, his expression tainted with both sheepishness and remorse.

“Asshole,” Edge managed, and Rus gaped, then laughed, sharp and shrill. He stripped off his robe and swung it around Edge’s shoulders, helping him ease his arms into it with marked gentleness.

“well! i’ve had about enough of this scug-hole of a planet,” Rus said cheerily. “let’s have a look around this ship and see what our friends left for us, shall we?” He paused, his hand reaching down to hover over the obvious swelling of Edge’s wrenched ankle. “or maybe i should. you stay here a minute, i’ll see if i can find a clean place for you to sit while i scrounge.”

“Keep a lookout for a pair of pants,” Edge rasped out and if his own laughter was a touch too shrill, teetering towards some unnamed emotion, Edge ignored it.

But Rus paused, a shadow falling across his face. He said nothing, but strode over to the door, opening it. Instantly, a small droid limped in, spitting and hissing its fury as it skirted the corpse of the Gamorrean and made a beeline to Edge. From Rus’s amused glance, Edge decided it was better if he didn’t know what sort of swearing BD-7 was coloring the air with. He only held out his hands silently, picking up the little droid and holding it close.

“keep an eye on him,” Rus ordered. It took Edge a moment to realize Rus was speaking to the droid. It let out a blatting whistle, offering its agreement and Rus swept through the door that whisked closed behind him.

“Hello, little one,” Edge murmured. The droid was in rough shape, no question, although he could see some hastily repairs had been done. “Don’t worry. I know Rus isn’t your favorite person, but he’ll get you back into good working order.”

BD-7 let out a mournful whistle and at first Edge thought it was from the idea of letting Rus repair him. But BD-7 reached out with a clawed arm and touched Edge’s face, the metal tips coming back smeared with orange that was tinted with greenish blood.

He’d never been embarrassed by a droid before, Edge thought vaguely, gathering up a corner of Rus’s cloak and wiping at his skull. When it was as clean as he could get it without a sonic shower, Edge leaned heavily against the wall, closing his sockets as exhaustion overtook him. Rus would be back soon, hopefully to take him to someplace in this ship that didn’t stink of death.

Rus.

A small, deeply concealed part of Edge’s soul mourned for his rescue, a last chance at escape from all of this into the sweet embrace of death while he could still call himself Jedi. But Edge left it where it was, so deep as to be forgotten as he waited for Rus, his friend, his lover, his damnation. That brilliant, lost soul, who could repair a droid, but Edge was afraid that he couldn’t say the same about himself.

-finis-

#Spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #star wars AU

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forehead-enthusiast · 4 years

Text

A Buncha Tag Games (and yet not all of them)

tagged by: @eggyukhei mwah

tagging: this is a LOT of games so i’ll only tag @atinyphobe @nsheetee and @veonjun for the SECOND (2nd) game. if they or anybody wants to do any of the other games, absolutely go for it and say i tagged you <3 i’d love to see what you guys say!! (also, tk if you felt like you wanted to answer my questions from the second game i’d be interested to see!)

One:

tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

ok SO the song that probably got me into rv 100% (also yes ik this blog is 99% nct but rv is my forever fave no question) was probably ice cream cake!! i had been a casual listener of many groups up until that point and had never really stanned anyone, but icc was so infectious i found myself watching it over and over. i had heard happiness and be natural before but hadn’t really listened too closely, so icc was the song that captured me. after that, dumb dumb only cemented my love for them more, and the red is still one of my favorite kpop albums to date. rv attracted me primarily because of their incredible vocals and their versatility in genres and concepts. i still get so excited wondering what they’ll tackle next!! they’re just soooo unique and have one of, if not the best discographies of any group. i cannot stress enough, I. Love. RV!! also they’re funny and gay so. anyway stream monster once it drops uwu

Two:

rule: answer the ten questions and write your own!

1. what is your favorite song that’s been released during quarantine? ooooo honestly??? probably something off of Sawayama. literally every song bangs so hard i highly recommend that album to anyone!! i can’t pick a favorite off it but who’s gonna save you now is awesome and xs is just,,, chef’s kiss

2. what is your greatest mishap when you tried cooking? (or something you’ve witnessed) one time, while making soup at my late grandmother’s house on her like gas stove, i put a lid on a pot and somehow that led the pot to be engulfed in flames. IN MY DEFENSE i was like 7, and i’m great at cooking/baking now

3. what’s your go-to outfit or article of clothing? oh i love a nice dress. they can be casual or formal, and you look like you put effort into your outfit except i didn’t because i didn’t have to match anything yo!!!! also shorts have trouble fitting me cause i’m a weird body type so dresses tend to be very comfy for me

4. what is your comfort food? am i allowed to say like all food??? eating in itself is comforting,,, that sounds depressing but also i just like eating yummy food. i guess i’d say like my dad’s fried rice?? its my fave and no one makes it like him soooo

5. what singular moment in your life would you like to relive? i couldn’t tell if this meant like, a good moment you want to re-experience or go back in time and redo a moment and fix it. it’s kind of a hard question so i might cop out and go with a bit of a silly answer: i want to relive the hi touch with astro...... i wanna look at rocky’s beautiful eyes and touch moonbin’s hand ok,,,,

6. what is your favorite line and/or character from a movie, show, or book? i got a bunch but a few off the top of my head are genie lo (the epic crush of genie lo), ty lee, suki (atla), klaus, and ben (umbrella academy)

7. if you could only choose one ice cream flavor and pizza topping/style for the rest of your life, what would it be? ice cream flavor: this very specific one from a local store that is banana ice cream with strawberries and oreo mixed in. it is heaaaavenly. as for pizza topping, i love a breakfast type pizza with an egg on top and like sausage and stuff!!!

8. what is the worst injury you’ve ever had or witnessed? funny enough, i’ve actually gotten badly injured quite a few times, and always on the face!! god hates me. the worst was probably when i hit a metal bench with my face and it took a chunk out of my cheek. i still have the scar! as for “witnessed” i accidentally broke a grown man’s rib once as a child, so i guess that would count.

9. would you rather explore the unknown of space or the bottom of the ocean? oceaaaan!! i answered this in some other game, but i like how mysterious and yet close the ocean is. like proximity wise it’s so near, yet there’s an insane amount we know nothing about. that’s so frightening but so intriguing

10. if you could be any cartoon character, who would you be? my first thought was literally “kirby. eat fast” GOD my followers are gonna think i’m just a glutton and they’re not even gonna be wrong im dying. but uhh idk mulan or smth?

my questions:

what is your go-to feel good movie?

are you the type of person who’s indecisive about buying, or the type to impulse buy once you see something you like?

do you prefer chocolate-y or fruity candy?

what idol do you think is most similar to you? (not your bias necessarily)

do you have any silly dealbreakers? if so, what are they?

what do you do to unwind?

what is a small thing you like to do for people you love? (be it sending memes, remembering their favorite shows, etc)

what’s/who’s your favorite myth/mythological being?

what is a non-typical pet you would want to have?

do you say pronounce data as day-ta or dah-ta?

THREE

rule: bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people.

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆͙̈

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

FOUR

the ultimate tag: answer whichever ones you want to because there are a lot and then tag a few blogs you’d like to get to know better!

PERSONAL

name: sarah

nickname: bells

birthday: april 17th

zodiac: aries

nationality: chinese american

languages: english, some spanish, some korean

gender: female

sexuality: baby bi bi bi~

height: 5′10

BLOG STUFF

inspiration for muse: i suppose nct since i write for them the most?? but i feel like sometimes i come up with the idea before i think of a member so sometimes the muse is just my own fantasies oops

meaning behind my url: i made it at a time where loads of idols were getting bangs and honestly i believe most of them look infinitely better without them, thus i was and still am enthusiastic about foreheads.

blog established: like winter of 2018...?? i think

followers: over 2.5k but most deactivated/left during my hiatus lol

FAVORITES

favourite animals: sharks, chickens, snakes, cats, penguins

favourite books: the epic crush of genie lo and then iron will of genie lo, PERIOD

favourite colour: pink and purple!!

favourite fictional characters: lol, again, genie lo, ty lee, suki, klaus, ben, and just a few more: richard and evelyn o’connell (the mummy), dave (dave), michael (the good place)

favourite flower: sunflower

favourite scent: baking chocolate, heating butter, blackberry, wisteria

favourite season: probably spring! i like warmth but not HEAT

RANDOM

average hours of sleep: ugh idek i sleep horribly

cats or dogs: both, but unfortunately i’ve never had either

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea but then hot chocolate

current time: 5:29pm

dream trip: go to paris and eat loads of pastries and enjoy the fashions and beauty of the city, and also learn to bake better maybe?

dream job: actress

hobbies: making jewelry, drawing, singing, reading comics

hogwarts house: according to the quizzes, all of them. people who have just met me think slytherin or gryffindor, people who i’m friends with think ravenclaw or hufflepuff, people who know me really well know you can’t box a person into oversimplified archetypes :’) in my assessment of myself, it varies by the day, but i think perhaps gryffindor today?

last movie watched: hot fuzz (a classic)

last song listened to: summer breeze by sf9

no. of blankets you sleep with: like 2

random fact(s): i won lego building competitions as a child, one of my dream roles is anastasia from the musical named after her, i played violin for a very short time, i bake the cakes for all my family and friends’ birthdays, i have strangely strong grip strength

SIX

10 songs i can’t stop listening to:

love me 4 me- rina sawayama

cherry- rina sawayama

in & out- red velvet

crush culture- conan gray

manic- conan gray

the king- conan gray

summer- pentagon

told you now- jeremy jordan (originally sung by sam smith)

fuck this world (interlude)- rina sawayama

someone who loves me- sara bareilles

#these were sooooooooooo fun!!#thank you for tagging me eggy #i feel like i maybe exposed myself for being a gluttonous fool tho #lmaoooo #fr tho try these games out!! so fun #sarah.tmi #tag games

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quiobi-lover · 5 years

Text

Recommendations for Party Like It's 1999 by MerryAmelie

MerryAmelie asked me to post this for her. Thank you, Merry, for taking the time to do this! xx

**My thanks to Helen (@knights of twilight) for her fantastic celebration and to all of you for your wonderful work.

Stories:

May the Fourth Be With You

Lady_Saddlebred

Part 45 of her marvelous

Lessons They Never Taught Me

series - starring Biology Professor Quinn and IT Tech Ben - it takes place at the Saber-Con convention in Boston, celebrating everything Star Wars. Quinn's Mon-Cal-out-of-water reactions are hilarious!

We Will Go Together

InfiniteJediLove

This is a lyrical, evocative tale. A recovering Qui-Gon finds his Obi-Wan, and their lovemaking results in true healing for both of them. One of the most intimate love scenes I've ever read.

In Love with Every Stranger

Capurnia

Caps knows her New Orleans! Two professors meet at a laundromat in the French Quarter, share a classic meal of crawfish etouffee, and dream of a shared future at Tulane. I'm dreaming along with them. Looking forward to their teaching together.

A Thousand Light-Years

Chibiobiwan

All alone because of a cryogenics malfunction aboard a starship, Obi-Wan must save himself and the other passengers. He decides to wake the best person he could have chosen to help him - the competent, empathetic First Officer, Qui-Gon Jinn. Impossible for Obi (and all of us) not to fall in love with Qui.

I'm No Sweet Dream But I'm a Hell of a Night

jynx

A bitter break-up leads to scorching sex between our two heroes. Obi-Wan has held onto his anger for years, and Qui-Gon must "soothe the savage breast." He does so in his unique way, and Obi is charmed despite himself, as are we. Qui is the epitome of steadfast and loving.

Twenty

KateKintail

Twenty drabbles chronicle the various stages of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's relationship through the years, little time capsules of their bond. My favorites are the beautiful lovemaking scenes, sensual and full of love.

Born This Way

Elayna

Master Elayna's wonderful ARs are legendary in our fandom, and this one shows why. A fusion of TPM and Highlander, it follows the adventures of two rock stars, as Ben mentors Quill in his new life. Reminiscent of

Love Me Do

(my favorite of hers) for its lovely musical backdrop.

Reasons Both Wretched And Divine

jessebee

Our heroes clear the air after the Council scene, which leads to a wonderful revelation and resolution. So realistic that they'd have a war of words in the aftermath, necessary for healing. Obi-Wan's bravery and love shine through to Qui-Gon and to us.

Dreams Awaken In Sunlight

jessebee

A lakeside idyll inspires Qui-Gon to finally tell Obi-Wan he's been in love with him for years. Their deep love is even more beautiful than their surroundings. Jesse describes their intimacy in prose poetry.

Deserts and Trees

LuvEwan

A beautiful story of our heroes' reconciliation before Naboo. Just in time! Their love scene is intense and passionate, years in the making. So relieved they have this magical interlude to see them through.

Follow the Code

DeuxSabres

Obi-Wan teaches his Master a lesson in love, while still following the tenets of the Jedi Code. Tender lovemaking is the inevitable result. Gives a delightful new meaning to 'joint meditation'.

Sorry to My Unknown Lover

AtThisPoint

Qui-Gon's steadfast love helps Obi-Wan to heal after an alternate Naboo. Such joy in feeling their connection and knowing it will develop into a romantic one. Sweet sigh for their happy future.

The Ill of the Force

ardavenport (adavenport)

Obi-Wan is under the weather when returning to Coruscant after his mission with Qui-Gon. He gets help from both his Master and a medical droid. Just what he needs.

After

antheiasilva

A heart-wrenching story about Obi-Wan's grief after Qui-Gon's passing. Every detail is well-chosen to take us into the private world of Obi's emotions. So moving.

Artwork:

I Won't Leave You

quietoceanlove | Tumblr

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan share a heartfelt embrace. She captures their warmth and closeness beautifully. Very loving.

Kitty Love by Punkass-jedi

https://66.media.tumblr.com/41087c596a700c933fd766a9f76cfa71/tumblr_prrri8NH0j1xylwh2o1_1280.jpg Adorable drawing of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon with cat tails and ears. Total catnip for each other!

I Can't Remember, I Can't Forget (AU, Liam/Ewan)

Helen

https://quiobi-lover.tumblr.com/image/185076173098

A modern AU in which our handsome heroes are deep in thought about each other. You just know that they'll find their way back to the inevitability of their love. Gorgeous photos that complement one another perfectly.

AU Q/O by

wrennette

https://wrennette.tumblr.com/post/185118808844/wrennette-an-old-photomanip-2005-saved-from

Dramatic sepia-tone photos of our heroes. Classic pics of the guys that go so well together.

Video:

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

quigonjinnposts

https://youtu.be/8DJyBsqDtlA

Beautifully chosen scenes from the prequels and Clone Wars. Most of my favorites are here. Very well done.

#party like it's 1999 #quiobi #star wars #phantom menace

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crucialandinert · 6 years

Text

wip

Dunn –

This is stupid. You’re a faggot. Eat shit.

He looked up at his psychiatrist with tears of joy in his eyes. “He wrote to me. He actually wrote to me!” At long last, after weeks of Jared’s importunate missives looped smoothly in crisp black ink across the buttery pages of the lovely leather logbook he’d bought for the purpose—Ed Chambers had finally replied.

It had been a difficult diagnosis to take in stride. Anxiety, panic attacks, the odd interlude of dullness or depression—those were par for the course, ups and downs, background music. Jared knew how to handle them, and was (secretly) quite proud of himself that he’d missed nary a day of work on their account. He’d hidden them well. He’d never let anyone else down.

Until—he did. Monumentally. Somehow, he still couldn’t believe it himself—he missed a meeting, a vitally important meeting with a potential investor for their C round; a meeting where Richard needed him, had been relying on Jared, his rock; and Jared had abandoned him, left him to the wolves, exposed and without help—just like that time in the Adirondacks, only actual wolves had fortunately proved to be much more nurturing than VCs.

And Jared hadn’t just forgotten to go to the meeting, and then noticed later with panic that he’d blanked; something he’d never been prone to himself, but assumed would have been normal. He’d forgotten it existed. That it had been planned at all; even though it had been on his calendar for six weeks—his calendar he looked at daily, more than daily, first on arising and last before sleep. He’d spent the weekend, in fact, crunching numbers, preparing the powerpoint, meditating upon which precise inflection points to pepper with drumrolls. It was inconceivable that he could just… forget. Yet, he’d truly been as innocent of the knowledge of his failure as a babe; he’d been going about his business as though it were a normal day, until a lightly-snippy (infinitely less than he deserved) text from Richard shocked him out of—what?—and he discovered to his horror, his absolute horror, what had occurred.

It was terrifying, to be honest. The idea that he couldn’t trust his memory, his brain—there could literally be countless things he had forgotten, that had disappeared, and how would he ever know? Even whether this exact same thing had happened before! Maybe nothing he thought he knew about himself was true; what are you, really, other than the image that arises from your memory of how you’ve behaved in the past, what you’ve felt, what you’ve experienced.

Richard, tight-lipped, had wordlessly gone into his room to code as soon as he got in, but Jared couldn’t even bring himself to ask for forgiveness; which, of course, compounded the initial guilt, running his mind into loops of—you don’t deserve forgiveness—but—how dare you not apologize—but—how dare you disturb him, how could you bring yourself in front of his eyes to even offer an apology, when you’ve done something so devastatingly terrible—but—every moment that ticks by without one, he hates you more.

So, hunched over on his cot, face buried in his hands and soggy with hot, confused tears is how Dinesh found him. He leapt up in dismay, began to apologize; he had been loud, he had been disturbing, how awful for Dinesh to see him like this, he usually never cried that loudly, what a terrible failure, his emotional incontinence disrupting Dinesh’s concentration, ruining his day.

“Calm down, dude.” Dinesh lifted a hand. “I’m not pissed off at you. I just want you to sit down and blow your nose and you can go back to being insane when I leave.”

One hand over his mouth, the other on his chest, Jared nodded.

“I wanted to tell you–my dad’s a doctor—”

“Cardiologist.” Jared nodded.

“Yes, a cardiologist. Thank you for remembering, also, I meant to tell you, please don’t send him any more birthday cards, it’s really creeping him out.” He paused, but Jared merely bowed his head, and didn't freak out any further, so Dinesh continued. “My dad always said, if you have memory problems, you should go and see your general practitioner because it can be a symptom of a lot of things, including cardiac disease. So maybe switch up your next appointment at the butthole doctor or something. But you shouldn’t ignore it. There. I’m done.”

Before Jared could thank him other than with those giant, shiny, dumb doll eyes, Dinesh had scrammed. Jared heard a muffled “Done making out with Long Tall Sally?” and a “Fuck you, Gilfoyle” from the other side of the door; and with great difficulty kept the tears silent this time. The incredible kindness Dinesh had shown him, to notice, to care for his well-being, to want to help him—ached echoingly inside, as though the tender contents of his chest had been scooped out and a stinging cavern exposed to the air.

Deep breaths, Donald. And pick up the phone.

G.P., to neurologist, to (side trip) butthole doctor: physically and gastrointestinally, he was fit as a fiddle. No brain lesions on the MRI, no abnormal electrical activity or evidence of seizures. Just a referral to a psychiatrist.

And then, at the psychiatrist's: a long, long diagnostic interview and a careful, thorough taking of his life history, which Jared observed as if from outside himself. He heard himself describe the whole sordid tale with his customary cheerful tone, careful, as ever, not to make too big a deal out of things; but as he went along, he began to realize…oh. It actually sounded—horrible. Somehow it had never seemed that way before. How had it never seemed that way before? Sure, everyone faces challenges in life, as he’d always told himself, and he had no right to complain, his burden was leagues lesser than billions of others with whom he shared his voyage on Spaceship Earth, but—when he reflected, from beginning to end, on the proportion of his 29 years that had been really quite painful…it did seem… well, if it had been someone else who were talking, he’d baldly say it was awful. He’d be shocked, for that person. In fact, he would expect them to be very unwell. Get that person some help, and quickly, is what he would think.

A buzzing feeling filled his head. He didn’t realize he’d paused in his recitation until the soft voice of the psychiatrist reached his ears. “Jared? Can you tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

Jared shook his head no, mutely. A tissue made its way across space. He grasped, and twisted it in his hand.

“OK, let’s stop here for today. That was about everything we needed for your intake, and if you’d like to come back next week at the same time, I can share my thoughts with you then.”

Jared forced his eyelids wider, and nodded yes. Everything looked very far away, as though he’d receded backward, down a tunnel, while the front of his face remained where it was; he could still feel it, mask-like, in the distance. It was decidedly strange.

#wip #cw: homophobic language #cw: f-slur

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lagroupie · 5 years

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Interview : Ron Gallo

Ron backstage at Le Romandie, captured through my Olympus Trip.

A few weeks ago, Ron Gallo was back in Switzerland to play Le Romandie in Lausanne. I am sure he liked visiting us again considering how he proclaimed his love for our chocolate on stage, and how wild the crowd was.

A couple hours before the show I had a little chat with Ron. Join us as we talk about his life at home, tomato juice, and his album Stardust Birthday Party: how the record reflects what goes on in his mind, and maybe yours as well.

Many thanks to Ron Gallo and his band, Bas, and the whole team at Le Romandie as usual!

Are you still living in Nashville?

Ron Gallo: Yes, my house is there. I’m not going to be there for quite a bit- I’m going to be spending a lot of time over here in Europe for the summer. But that’s where my stuff is!

What’s a regular day like in your life when you are not on tour?

So the few months before this tour, I moved into a new place and my girlfriend, who is from Italy, was over for a three months visit. We would usually wake up, make breakfast, and just lead a very, very quiet simple life. A lot of time at home… Sometimes we work on music, play around, sit around, go…

So do you now manage to live off your music?

Yes!

Wow that’s awesome!

Yes! (laughs)

Could we also talk a bit about Stardust Birthday Party? Firstly, I wanted to know more about the cover. When I looked at it more closely, I noticed that your eyes actually looked pretty funny!

Sure! The picture that’s on there was a photo that was taken by CJ Harvey in a town called Marfa, Texas. We went out in the middle of the night – it’s kind of an eerie weird town in the middle of the desert. So we just went out in the middle of the street and were taking photos. It was completely quiet, like a ghost town. And one of the photos that she got – it was crazy how it turned out, it was a double exposure. It looked like a second “ghost” me lifting out of myself! And it was just the natural photograph, it wasn’t edited or anything. So we used that photo, and then I really liked the two colours and the stripes pattern… and that’s pretty much it!

Nice!! But why did you do this thing with your eyes? I can’t do it personally.

That was just the face that I was making then (laughs). Which also helps, because it’s one of those small details- if people see it, they’re like “oh yeah, that’s terrifying”!

Ron Gallo at Le Romandie, through my old Canon.

I did a little bit of research, and in some older interviews you mention reading books about philosophy and meditation. Are you still interested in the subject, and do you think it influences your music?

Yes, I did for quite some time. I was pretty heavy into a lot of those things for a few years. Now I’m just off the books for a bit and not trying to overthink or whatever. But yeah, I was quite interested in that kind of stuff and I still am, just in a more casual way.

I think with this record it was more of a direct influence. Hmm… I don’t know if it will influence my music in the future, but I guess it always does in some way.

Hmm. Personally I still perceived that kind of vibe- it seems that you are telling the listener “just live your life and let go”.

Yeah, exactly. Which really is a much harder thing to do than it is to say. But you know, the point of the record is just me talking to myself about all those things as well. It’s the kind of things I need to constantly remind myself, and maybe other people if they listen to it.

There’s also this track called OM, like an interlude- how was it born?

We started doing OM chants at shows a couple years ago. We recorded OM – Joe and I did the OM voices, and then we put together a sound collage of weird, random sound from daily life, and had them weave in and out of the OM to create this soundscape.

Yeah, when I listen to it I can imagine you trying to meditate in the middle of this-

This chaos! Yeah, that was the idea – to create a simulation of that.

Could we also talk about my favorite song, It’s All Gonna Be OK? I love it, I feel like if I had to make someone listen to one song only from the album, I would choose this one.

Nice! That’s actually the first song that we put out from the record that people could hear. And it made a lot of sense, because I also feel like it sums up the whole thing. That song came together really quickly. Plus we had been playing it for a bit before we recorded it. The verses are just this really fast, chaotic list of things going on in your head, and in the chorus it’s this return to sanity. “It’s all good”.

If you had to drink one thing for the rest of your life, what would you choose between tomato juice and red wine?

I would go red wine, because I absolutely cannot drink tomato juice. I can’t do it! Wait, it’s the only thing I can drink? No water? Oh geez, I have to go tomato then, because I would be drunk all the time, dehydrated… I guess I’m going to have to learn to love something I hate! Tomato juice is the answer.

What can we expect from Ron Gallo in the future?

I don’t know. After this tour, I’m just going to go on an intensive life/creating/writing songs again. And just taking some time off touring, which we have been doing for a while. That’s all there is to do, get creative and start writing again!

https://www.facebook.com/rongallomusic/

#rongallo #ron gallo #le romandie

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yukinotrinko · 7 years

Photo

僕のTumblrのページを、どのくらいの日本の人たちが見てるか分からないけど、もしこれを見てる日本の人がいたら是非チェックして欲しい。

僕はいまP-VineでA&Rっていう、要は自分が出したいタイトルをリリース出来る立ち位置にいる。去年フランキー・コスモスの日本盤を出したんだけど、結果はあんまり良くなかった。彼女たちの来日公演を実現させてもCDは500枚程度しか売れなくて、アメリカでは既に1000人キャパをソールドさせる売れっ子のバンドが、日本だとどうしてこうも人気が出ないのか深く考えさせられた。

ある時営業の人に言われた、「日本で売れるタイトルを出して欲しい」。いまなんで洋楽が日本で売れないか、その答えはこの営業の人の考えにあると思う。ピラミッドの上の人間が、本当にかっこいいものを提示しないから。選択の幅が狭いから、リスナーはどんどん盲目になっていて、自分で判断が出来なくなってる、いま何が本当にかっこいいのか。

僕は去年デンマークで最高のバンドに出会った。コミュニオンズやラスト・フォー・ユースに比べるとお客さんは少なかったけど、その二つのバンドのライヴよりも確実にエネルギーに満ちていて、そこに集まるお客さんの目も輝いていた。デンマークでいま一番カッコいいバンドだと思った。

ファースト・ヘイトというバンドの日本盤、しかも独自企画盤をリリースします。

CDが売れない時代だからこそ、何をすべきか考えて形にしました。

発売は6月21日です。是非チェック宜しくお願いします。

菊地

First Hate

世界が注目するコペンハーゲン・シーンから、最後の大物というべきシンセ・ポップ・デュオ、ファースト・ヘイトが日本デビューすることが決定した！

日本限定独自盤『LOVE・FANTASY・TEARS・REALITY』には、ピッチフォークで7.8と高評価を得た最新アルバムの『A Prayer For The Unemployd』をはじめ、“Holiday”や“White Heron”など、これまでのEPでリリースされた彼らの人気ナンバー8曲がボーナス・トラックして収録されている。その他にも、フロントマンのアントン・ファルックによるセルフ・ライナー・ノーツと歌詞対訳が付いた豪華仕様盤はP-VINEから6月21日にリリースされる。

収録曲

1 Bullets Of Dust

2 Meditation (interlude)

3 The One

4 A Prayer For The Unemployed

5 Copenhagen

6 Lonely Orbit

7 Leo (interlude)

8 2 Of Us

9 Time To Start Giving

10 Supernumerary

11 Urochrome

12 A Girl Called Friday

13 1 Dollar Smart Mouth (postludium)

—————————————

14 lnfnite Horizon

15 ln My Dreams

16 Warsawa

17 Girls ln The Club

18 White Heron

19 Holiday

20 Trojan Horse

21 Before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbztAZbw1R8

推奨コメント

ファースト・ヘイトは激しくチャーミングなデュオだ。二人とも不器用だけど、素晴らしい才能がある。ユーモアがあって、ときに傷心的だけど、気分を高まらせてくれる僕の大切な友達でもある。マルテ / ラスト・フォー・ユース

彼らの曲は誰もが口ずさむことが出来るんだ。それくらいキャッチーでポップ。僕のお気に入りは“Time To Start Givingなんだけど、この曲は凄まじくエモーショナルでセクシーでとにかくワンダフルなんだ。ファースト・ヘイトは僕がいまエキサイトしている唯一のバンド。　ジョー・スキルトン / フォトグラファー

「現実を手放して、今夜孤独と踊れ」

#first hate

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jaredthegreek · 7 years

Text

Review: June Star Wars Comics

Delays from conventions made this a cramped reading schedule for me, but thankfully most of the comics are good despite reading three books by a writer who lacks in talent. However, the conclusion of The Screaming Citadel really brought up the quality this month. Overall, it was a good month and hopefully July and August will trim down the numbers a bit before the ‘journey to’ comics that will be coming in September.

JUNE COMICS:

Darth Vader #1: The second volume of Darth Vader comes in with a generic cover and very little to separate it from the first volume. This time we have Charles Soule (Poe Dameron) as the writer, but unlike his previous two Star Wars outings this is a pretty good first issue. It has some writing flaws, for example, the speech by Mas Amedda that intercuts an emotional battle between Vader and the Emperor really hurts the tone. The art is very good except for faces, they can look a little off for some reason. However, the more cartoony style is my preference for Star Wars comics. In addition to that, the fights can be followed and have lots of energy behind them. Then there is the backup gag comic in that Sunday Funny comic style that just doesn’t feel right in Star Wars. The story is Vader killing various generals while a mouse droid tries to ready his meditation chamber. I don’t find unnecessary death funny and overall the book would have been better without the backup. This was a fine issue one I can only hope that Charles Soule doesn’t screw it all up.

Darth Vader #2: The story continues as Vader makes his way to a Jedi outpost to gather information on his target. This puts Vader against stormtroopers like in a alt skin version of The Force Unleashed, but while Starkiller was undercover Vader has no excuse for not explaining why he is there. This issue is an excuse for a couple mediocre fight scenes and padding before Vader tracks down his target. The repartee between the stormtroopers is fun, but it is a small part of this story. The art is better than the previous issue since just about everyone is wearing a helmet, but the action is rather bland. This wasn’t a bad issue, but it doesn’t feel me with confidence that this will be a good series.

Rogue One #3: The story picks up as Jedha City is bombarded by the Death Star. The story continues until the assault on Eadu with very few changes in the story. There is a nice moment with Saw before his death, but not much else that seems changed or added. The big advantage in this version is the emotion on people’s faces which still beat the wooden performances from the movie. There is still very little reason to jump into this comic if you have seen the movie, but it is a well done retelling with some great artwork and a few minor changes to the dialogue.

Star Wars #32: The Screaming Citadel continues as Leia, Sana, and the droids try to stay alive as the violent madness in the citadel reachs a climax. Meanwhile, Aphra makes her escape while Luke and Han are tortured by the Queen. This issue ends with an intense cliffhanger as everything seems to be getting more and more crazy in this crossover. The writing is fantastic with some great dialogue from Triple-Zero as well as an emotional moment for Aphra. The art is top teir and makes the grotesque citadel really stand out, but outside the castle the backgrounds are a little bland. There is no reason to not read this story as it looks to be ending with a bang.

Doctor Aphra #8: The ending of the crossover begins exactly where the last issue ended with the heroes pushed to their limits while facing the Queen’s army. The resolution comes a bit faster than I would have liked, but it did give enough room to resolve a few remaining plot threads. This was a great event with an ending that makes me remember why I love these comics so much. The art is also pretty good, but not spectacular. Overall, this was a great ending to The Screaming Citadel and this event is a must read for those looking for a different type of Star Wars adventure. the only downside is that unlike Vader Down this crossover doesn’t do much to change the status quo.

Darth Maul #4: The story begins with a recap and the various criminals coming after Darth Maul and his bounty hunter team. This issue is mostly made up of fight scenes, which gets old, but the interludes featuring Darth Maul and the Padawan are well written. The art is still the biggest highlight of this series with faces being expressive and the world feeling like a Star Wars world. The conclusion will likely be action packed as well and I can’t wait to read the next issue. This is one of the best series currently running amongst the Star Wars comics.

Droids: Unplugged #1: This is a compilation issue featuring three previously published side stories featuring droid characters. I have covered all three of these stories before in previous reviews and I am not going to review them again here. I only really liked SaBBatage as it was a cute BB-8 side story, but the others just feel like filler material for shorter issues of comics. If you have a younger child in your life this might be a fun way to introduce them to Star Wars comics, but beyond that this could be skipped as it adds nothing to the overall story of any aspect of Star Wars. Frankly, the only reason to own this is if you are a massive completionist or if you never read these stories due to picking up the trades (and you’re a completionist).

Poe Dameron Annual #1: If you get a talented writer than even an Annual that I wasn’t looking forward to reading can be enjoyable. Robbie Thompson blows the terrible writing of the main series away with a story about Poe Dameron trying to survive after being stranded in space. This leads Poe to eventually learning key intel about the First Order and having a few good fights. The art is a bit better than most issues of the series with the faces looking very realistic, but the expressions can be a little wonky. The action is a little stiff, but it does have enough life to make it more visually interesting than the main series action scenes. It’s too bad this is tied into the Poe Dameron series because this is a great creative team that wont be coming back to Poe Dameron any time soon making me hate the main series that much more. Ideally, this team will be back for more Star Wars because they have talent and making a boring character’s adventures far more interesting than the current Dameron creative team.

Poe Dameron #16: The series continues as Poe and his team try to escape the trapped freighter and solve the fuel issues the Resistance is facing. The writing is still bad with everyone being panicked one moment then solving everything with no problem the next. Everything comes together too easily, but the arc isn’t over which means these events will have consequences, maybe. The art seems different than previous issues, but that makes some of the character designs look off from the norm of this saga. Overall, this was an average issue of this series so there is no real surprises here. I am hoping this series will come to an end soon, but with the big Last Jedi push that will be coming in September I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

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imforrestgumping-blog · 7 years

Text

IN my Feelings.

Part I

(Attaches No Church in the Wild Instrumental)

The abrasive principle preaches that humans end up fucking one another in a literal, fleshly or metaphorical form either way, And preaching about karma is a form of karma itself. Dear Pretty People, human beings are not a commodity.

Trap music was never disgusting; it was ingenuity in a misguided sorority. The generational collection you are part of – is one to not be too ashamed of nor too proud of. The notion of flexing eventually grows into a skill, And learning how to write is learning how to adapt. The sort of philosophy you have on human telos can be criticized to a climax of ‘infinitely more fucked up’ than anyone else’s. You fornicate on one another’s characters in the name of society, hoping you’d reach some greater purpose by harming yourself and them. Whilst Forrest Gump did say “Stupid is as stupid does.” Stunting should be defined as educating yourself on ideas beyond where you come from, And the splitting of the atom in 1917 was the greatest flex

Money is the new God – don’t blame clashing attitudes of religions Is it religions or religion? The pursuit, the journey, the effect – Love is as contradictory as religion. If religion, orgies and money could not satisfy utilitarianism, maybe she was never meant to be found. God was emotional when God created emotion Here’s a thought; you have religion and an idea. Aren’t those the most powerful tools for a fool? People are greedily stashing, economies are crashing and God is not in your hustle

It’s debatable; yet ass preferring men are always guaranteed a seat at the table. And how dare you fuck up someone else’s love dynamic when you barely know 9 percent of mother universe’s plans for you. 8 billion people and counting; you’ll never be ready for falling in love more than twice, take the chance even if it’s always floating in daring circumstance and an unpredictable time variable – looking back 40 years from now you’ll feel more alive. Be the perfect fan for her life. When you think you’re done with the person you fell in love with – watch your heart and mind go to war. It’s always changing, who we’re supposed to love and who we’re not, the only thing that stays the same is who we want

Dramatic irony exists in everyday life, An interlude’s idea can take a lifetime to grasp, Self-fabricate yourself by bifurcating your life into pure and influenced, Monogamous intimacy isn’t something spectacular spectacular, Is any system designed for the black man to succeed without a debt? What sort of voice syncs in your mind when you read this? Are emotions a threat? If you’re getting what God is giving you, it’s close enough to what you crave…

Part II

(Attaches Kendrick’s u Instrumental)

This is the closing slice to my love story If you don’t fuck with credits, get through this as a thank you note to you for reading through this entire craft IN my feelings was made to strictly converse with you, about you and how I relate to you You liked Drake when he was in his feelings too, Then preferred Kendrick cause he had the soul tools. A big shootout to the human mind, yours especially, I tried the connection man My mind meditated in purgatory and hellish state of emotions to write us this heaven The love of my life left – she thought it was better to cheat on me with several guys than win me back hours past honesty We live in a world in dire need of more youthful movements and limited selfish agendas. This ocean of youth needs an introspection with sentimental potions The next time we meet I’m going to be different – probably carrying an actual piece – it’s dangerous out there when people think they have an idea of who you are. I tried to self-centre my words in hoping we’d mantle them with feelings, I went back to live with my gran to relearn the basics of life to plug me into your lore. I’m bruised, I went through suicidal lessons being treated like a fool – this is my best look. We recorded the greatest love legend of all time on Tumblr – I transitioned bits of it onto this anthology, My stream of conscious is a stream of wealth. If you disliked I’m Forrest Gumping, I’m not sorry for infuriating your feels My therapist would façade as a proud maternal if she read TO DAD Do you know how time consuming it is recollecting two years’ worth of memory? RAW was written as a confidant for this line – don’t Fake Love me I have an ego, it’s somehow out there with your lost hearts, And I had to try write a celestial for your hearts to gravitate. I never said stop dapping – I asked you to fulfil your human condition with something hearty, Like how your playlist prompts Lose You, Migos, a balance of 808’s and New Slaves, and Marvin Gaye...

Can you feel it? We’re sitting in a black room eye connecting and I touch my soul It needs intervention and a catch up with the world And yours is the reason why we’re here – you needed I’m Forrest Gumping This is my first, I lost my poetic virginity in a harsh milieu, And I hope you fixate to me spewing my scared soft maverick.

God Bless our soul.

- Anima

THE END, THANK YOU.

- this is a God dream. Caylim, thank you for editing this entire baby. my marketing team, i appreciate the background support. to mom, thank you. to God, thank you, to the love of my life that i lost... to those that kept the writing inside of me alive, thank you. to the misjudged people like you and me, this is for you. Kanistha, thank you. to the new fans, the old ones too, thank you. to the first girl i ever wrote my poem to. to dad, i lost you and i thank you for still being here. thank you. so many hours have been put into this so be free to love, hate, respond back. much love man. there’s more to come from here.

#poetry

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songlordsbug · 7 years

Text

Bearing a Lesson Part 13

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

That evening, as Qui-Gon settled into his assigned quarters on the transport, he reluctantly admitted to himself that standard meditation was not helping him with the turmoil he was experiencing, and he might benefit from a deeper style of meditation that let him communicate more directly with his subconscious and the Force. With a resigned sigh, he sank into the first of many meditations he would do that trip.

"We've always had our disagreements, Qui-Gon, but I never took you for an imbecile."

Qui-Gon startled at the sudden sound of his Master's voice, looking around to catch his mental image of Dooku emerging from the shadows.

"And in what way have I proved myself unsatisfactory, Master?" he asked.

"I certainly didn't teach you to ignore the Will of the Force," Master Dooku said, frowning at him.

"I'm not," Qui-Gon objected.

"Ah yes, because when one is one with the Force and at peace with its Will, one always finds oneself in such turmoil," Dooku said, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

"I... perhaps you have a point," Qui-Gon admitted tiredly. "But as I am meditating in order to discover that which I am ignorant of, perhaps you might provide assistance instead of chastisement."

Dooku snorted.

"Plain speaking then, my padawan?" he asked.

Qui-Gon nodded.

"I was no more ready for a Padawan when you came into my life than you are now," Dooku said.

Qui-Gon frowned in confusion, opening his mouth to ask what significance that had.

"But," Dooku said, silencing him with a look, "when the Force slapped me across the face with our training bond, I took you on."

Before Qui-Gon could reply, the other man vanished as he found himself coming out of his meditation.

The next time, Qui-Gon was more prepared for the representation of his Master.

"Obi-Wan and I do not have a training bond," Qui-Gon said levelly as Dooku appeared in front of him.

"You sound quite certain of that, Padawan," Dooku said neutrally, allowing no expression to show what he thought.

"If we did, I would be able to prevent his spirit wanderings," Qui-Gon said.

"A fair point," his Master agreed. "But how do you explain your unique ability to call him back from such wanderings?"

"I- the work I've done with him," Qui-Gon answered.

"Work my own Master has also done. In fact, Yoda has known this boy for years longer than you," Dooku noted.

"Aah- Master Yoda's teachings did not suit-" Qui-Gon stutttered.

"But yours did," Dooku interrupted. "Perhaps you do not share a fully-fledged training bond, but only a fool would deny that the beginnings of one exists between the two of you."

And with that, Dooku disappeared, ending the meditation session and leaving Qui-Gon speechless.

The third time the form of his Master appeared, Qui-Gon's head was bowed and he did not speak.

"I fail to see the point of a meditation like this if you will not speak," Dooku said waspishly after several minutes of silence.

"...whether there could be a training bond between us matters not. I am not fit to be any child's Master, let alone his," Qui-Gon murmured.

"You think any Master truly feels prepared?" Dooku asked.

"Past evidence proves it in my case," Qui-Gon answered.

"Your first Padawan would be offended by that," Dooku noted.

"I barely had any influence on Feemor. I merely polished what another had completed," Qui-Gon argued.

"I doubt he agrees, and perhaps you should ask him how he feels when you return to the Temple," Dooku suggested.

"Whether I can claim any of his success, I still failed-" Qui-Gon choked.

"Xanatos," Dooku said flatly.

Qui-Gon flinched.

"Qui-Gon, it is not your fault," the other man said firmly but gently.

"The Master is responsible for the Padawan," Qui-Gon choked out.

"For the care and teaching of the Padawan. The Padawan is responsible for his own choices," Dooku corrected.

"But I should have seen- should have known- should have done something-" Qui-Gon said, finally looking at his Master with an anguished face.

"Perhaps, or perhaps you did all anyone could, and the only one with the power to change things was your Xan," Dooku said gently, compassion in his dark eyes.

Qui-Gon shook his head in uncertain denial.

"Qui-Gon. Every Master is baffled and confused and shocked by his Padawan. It is the way of things," Dooku smiled slightly. "A lucky few may even count themselves pleased and proud, as I do."

When Qui-Gon went to shake his head again, Dooku glared at him.

"No. You know it to be true. I have told you before," Dooku said, firm but gentle. "Please, padawan mine, do not ruin yourself with this. You must forgive yourself your Padawan's choices."

He faded away after that, leaving Qui-Gon rung out and exhausted.

Interlude

Qui-Gon did not have time to meditate during the three days he was on Levian II. Instead he was swept from event to event as the planet celebrated its entry into the Republic. And expressed its gratitude to him for his help. It was a relief to return to his quarters on the transport and resume his meditations.

He was expecting the figure that stepped out of his shadows to again be his Master. He was not expecting the pale skin, dark hair, and ice blue eyes of his Fallen Padawan.

"Xanatos," Qui-Gon breathed.

"Hello Master," Xanatos said with a small smile.

"Why are you here?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Maybe because you are finally ready to face what happened, Master," Xanatos answered, eyes laughing.

"You Fell," Qui-Gon said brokenly.

"I am," Xanatos agreed solemnly.

"You turned your back on the Order," Qui-Gon said.

"I have," Xanatos agreed.

"I- I loved you," Qui-Gon choked out.

"You do," Xanatos agreed, smiling sweetly. "All facts, my Master."

"I failed you!" Qui-Gon cried out.

"Perhaps. Maybe there was something I needed that you didn't provide," Xanatos said thoughtfully, looking into the distance. "Or perhaps I failed you. Maybe you gave me everything I needed and I was too foolish and blind to see it."

“I... hadn't thought of it like that," Qui-Gons said, blinking.

"I know," Xanatos said, a painfully familiar impish smile on his face. "Does it matter?"

"What? Yes of course! It-" Qui-Gon exclaimed.

"Qui-Gon. I am Fallen. I have turned away from the Order. You love me," Xanatos said, looking him in the eye. "None of these things are changed by where the blame is placed. And we both know that realistically it's more complicated than that."

"Is it?" Qui-Gon asked tiredly, looking at his Fallen Padawan.

"The Jedi Order is a flawed institution," Xanatos said, giving Qui-Gon an exasperated look. "Perhaps the changes your boy is bringing will prevent others from having my difficulties."

"He is not my boy," Qui-Gon protested.

"You do neither of us nor the boy justice when you deny it," Xanatos said, rolling his eyes and vanishing.

"What did you mean that I did none of us justice," Qui-Gon asked as soon as Xanatos reappeared.

"Well, either you were wrong about me," Xanatos said, face twisting into an ugly sneer, eyes growing cold and hard, "and I was never meant to be a jedi, too proud, too hateful, too dark."

Qui-Gon swallowed with a dry throat, eyes locked on the beautiful face made hideous with hate.

"In which case my Fall was inevitable and not your fault," Xanatos said with a roll of his eyes, "and why the kriff would you let me win, let my darkness blot out the light you can still provide the galaxy?"

Qui-Gon gaped at him.

"Or you were right about me," and here Xanatos' face gentled into something soft and sweet and sad, "and I loved you as much as you loved me and my Fall is a tragedy."

Qui-Gon blinked burning eyes and licked his lips as he drew in a shaky breath.

"But somewhere inside me is still that boy and he would want you happy and not alone," Xanatos said.

"Xani-" Qui-Gon whispered.

Xanatos smiled sadly at him.

"I miss you," Qui-Gon said.

"I know," Xanatos answered.

The silence between them was heavy and sorrow filled.

"And really Master, it's just rude to make the decision without giving the boy his own chance to choose," Xanatos said, eyes dancing as he lightened the mood.

"Ah- You may have a point," Qui-Gon conceded.

"I usually do," said Xanatos impishly.

Qui-Gon chuckled rustily and nodded to his former Padawan. Xanatos nodded back and vanished.

Sinking into meditation, Qui-Gon found himself alone with the Force. Calm and at peace for the first time in months, Qui-Gon turned towards his collection of Force bonds. Briefly checking on his various older training and pair bonds, he turned his mind to the newest bond. It was just starting to grow, but already it was bright and warm.

#15 a day #star wars #qui gon jinn #count dooku #xanatos #force meddling #brothers in soul #so i kinda broke my own heart writing this #oh qui #you need all the hugs #and i didn't actually provide any this time

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kinetic-elaboration · 5 years

Text

September 29: Sunday Meditation

I’m in a very... Sunday night mood. Nervous for reasons I cannot fully explain. I wish I had that ambitious feeling like, yes, there is lots to do and deal with and worry about but I’m totally prepared for it and ready....! But I’m not really. Ready. Just nervous and tense and unfocused.

I worked some on the continuation to A Watch with No Hands today. I.... really don’t like this fic. I’m not sure if I’m still working on it because of the sunk costs fallacy or because of the few people who I think might maybe read a “sequel” (but probably won’t because the Passage of Time) or just like pure old stubbornness. But at any rate I poke at it every now and then and always feel weird about it after.

I worked on it today mostly because I didn’t know what else to work on. I guess that’s the nature of having a lot of ideas but those ideas all being so incredibly vague they’re not yet ready to be transformed into words on a page, so when you want to get some sort of words down, you don’t have many options to choose from.

It’s been a long time since I felt really good about something I was writing. I don’t know why that is. I feel like this means that I should totally throw away any sort of sense of what I should be working on and just write or work on literally whatever inspires me most at any given moment but... somehow this is so much easier said than done. I guess it’s because of the planning gap. An idea that is not yet planned has so much possibility. Then once you plan, it starts to seem so hard. And then when you actually have to create sentences... wow so not fun. So it doesn’t matter what it is, I still feel... lost. It probably doesn’t much help that I’ve been in this fandom so long and am so far removed from the source material. I’m never sure I’m writing the characters correctly anymore. I don’t really feel them or feel excitement for them in the same way, I guess.

I don’t know, I don’t know.

Two events are starting this week (again, one of them is mine lol) and that should help me focus somewhat on something. I’ll also work this week on planning some more things, getting them ready to possibly write. I have a fic posting for BFF next weekend, which will satisfy my need to put something new out there. And I may or may not plan something for Halloween, like I did last year, since I had a lot of fun with that.

As for AWWNH... I have four more plot points on my outline for this chapter--two major scenes and one short ending one, I’d say. I wanted to write the next chapter after this one before I posted anything partly because that would complete the whole interlude and partly because, not being sure how long that second chapter will be, I might want/need to cut them up in different ways. Now I think perhaps... I might post the first chapter as I now conceive it and see if anyone reads it and if not I might not bother with the rest. Maybe. I don’t know. I fucking hate saying anything is abandoned! But damn I look at that outline and it’s just.....so...... long. Exhausting to look at. I wish this wasn’t so hard to write.

#the year 2019 #2019: writing thoughts

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tanya-ali · 7 years

Text

Interview: Gang of Youths

It seems just yesterday that we were celebrating Gang of Youths as a recently discovered band destined for success – yet here we are at the release of their sophomore record, Go Farther in Lightness. I caught up with frontman Dave Le’aupepe and lead guitarist Joji Malani about how Go Farther in Lightness came together, racism in the Australian music industry and their shift from Sydney to big-city New York and London.

When I heard “What Can I Do When The Fire Goes Out?” for the first time earlier this year, I was stopped in my tracks. The introduction is one of the most powerful openings to a rock song that I’ve ever heard. The song is a driving force, simultaneously strong and unashamedly vulnerable – and this seems a great way to describe Gang of Youths’ entire sophomore record, Go Farther in Lightness. The album is luminous, inspired and bold. It is long, yet measured; loud in parts, tender in moments. Dave Le’aupepe and Joji Malani are the embodiment of two musicians who have just finished an album: they are exhausted, but proud smiles rarely leave the corners of their mouths.

Le’aupepe and Malani’s comfort with each other speaks volumes about the band as a whole. Le’aupepe has previously referred to them as “family,” and looking at these two this sentiment could not feel more genuine. It also speaks to the stage in their career Gang of Youths are at now – a little less fresh-faced, a little more world-weary, but with more to say every day.

It has been two years since Gang of Youths’ debut album The Positions was released, and just over a year since their follow up EP, Let Me Be Clear. Yet Go Farther in Lightness is about healing, and fittingly, this release process sees the band refreshed, with a shifted philosophy this time around. “It feels different because I found things that I care about more than work. One of them is sitting right next to me,” Le’aupepe says, whacking Malani’s knee. “I realise more and more that I need to care less about what strangers think of my work and what strangers think about me and that’s a pretty significant thing. I love what The Positions was but also it turned me into a really anxious, shitty person, and so I’m trying to reduce the amount of time I spend unhappy because of work, and this sort of process is good.”

This shift in mentality can perhaps be seen in the way the songs for this record came together. The last time The AU Review caught up with Le’aupepe, in 2016, it was revealed that the band already had the title for this sophomore LP. But at the time, they had only written two songs that made it onto Go Farther in Lightness: ‘Deepest Sighs’ and ‘Fear and Trembling’. The rest of the album was written in the second half of last year, a far cry from the way The Positions came together. “The Positions was sort of written over a really long period of time and it was pretty disjointed, I think. There wasn’t a whole lot of reflection I was doing on the songs – I’d write them, we’d play them, and that would be it. I think this whole process has been significantly different because we wanted to have a whole block of time – the reflection process took a lot longer in this regard, and the chronology was more meticulously planned. Honestly, to even talk about The Positions requires so much energy, thinking about like, what was I doing in 2012, 2011 and 2012 when I started writing the songs, like five fucking years ago,” Le’aupepe shakes his head. “I was a kid.”

“The Positions really reflected Dave’s life and our lives at the time,” Malani elaborates. “Over the course of that recording, from when we started to when it came out, Dave’s life changed dramatically. Because everything Dave writes is a reflection of his life and our life… obviously, the story changes. So, different songs come out, and then different songs got scrapped because they just don’t fit with the storyline anymore.” This created difficulty when it came to the extensive touring the band did for The Positions – “we had…not grown tired of those songs before it came out, but just – the meaning wasn’t the same,” Malani explains. In contrast, Go Farther in Lightness feels a lot newer, and Le’aupepe suggests the record is “going to have a slightly longer shelf life to us, because the song are still relatively fresh; they’re not packed with trauma and meaning.”

This by no means suggests the songs are any less emotive than the music we’ve come to love from Gang of Youths. A particular thing that jumps out on first listen to the new LP is a number of beautifully scored string interludes. “Since The Positions I always wanted string interludes cause I love classical music,” Le’aupepe explains. “It’s my father, his spirit, his influence…he loved classical music, still does.” These interludes also have a deliberate, musical function: “There’s so much context and information that is very unsubtly projected into listeners’ ears, and I wanted to be able to break up all the information with something peaceful, enjoyable, that also had a vast litany of the musical motifs and harmonic motifs scattered throughout the record. So the interludes themselves serve a few purposes: to give the listener a breather, but also to reinforce some melodic information.”

The way Le’aupepe speaks about these instrumental tracks, eyes alight, it’s clear that he’s very proud of them – and rightly so. They add a beautiful dimension to a gorgeous, lush record. But they didn’t come easy. “I had been scoring the thing over the course of about three or four months, and then I spent three days downstairs in the writing studio at Sony, scoring the motherfucker. It’s 450 pages or some shit. The scores were vaguely printed out, and then I’d just handwritten all the incidentals for a quartet of two cellos and two violins. I believe in the idea of trying to encase the power of a raw string quartet… I think that it’s more emotional and more human than using a whole bunch of fucking software. I think we’re finding that out a lot more now, we want to become a lot more reliant on our performance and playing than production tricks.”

Erhu, a Chinese string instrument with a distinctive tone, also makes a few appearances on Go Farther in Lightness. “We’ve always loved erhu,” Le’aupepe says. “I grew up in Strathfield, walking through the tunnel through Strathfield to Raw Square there’d always be a man playing erhu, it’s the sound of my childhood. I think it’s the most beautiful instrument – there’s something beautiful about Asian instrumentation that always feels peaceful, feels rich.”

Go Farther in Lightness is full to the brim with influences, both musical and otherwise. Art music inextricably peeks through the album’s melodic basslines, thrashing guitars and Le’aupepe’s brooding voice, with Le’aupepe “mainly listening to Philip Glass… Lemonte Young, John Adams, Max Richter, Nils Frahm as well.”

Malani recalls Primavera Sound, a festival in Barcelona where the band played last year, as a pivotal moment. “Radiohead was there, it was their second performance since they’d stopped touring for a while, and the album hadn’t come out yet. So they played a lot of the stuff from that–“ Malani says, as Le’aupepe interjects, excited: “I predicted every song on the set list!”

Malani continues, “I think that definitely sparked something in Dave. I know when we were in LA, listening to Broken Social Scene ‘cause they had just started touring; I remember I felt like there was something about that energy, watching them play live. Felt inspiring, and then Dave like ran back into his room and started writing.”

As the album came together, it was often music first, as opposed to lyrics – something that Le’aupepe had never really done before. “The Positions was all lyrics first. But I think all this stuff built up, and there was something stopping me from getting it out. And I think being forced to do so with a time constraint helped me to remove any kind of inhibitions and just kind of regurgitating. So we would record an actual fucking song and I had melodic ideas and I would like babble gibberish and a few lyrical ideas. But I would often take home recordings, and I would walk back to where I was living in Surry Hills through a park, and I’d write [lyrics] on my phone,” he remembers.

“Oh, the roughs, they were funny,” Malani laughs. “Just like, gibberish. Sounded like Sims!” Le’aupepe laughs too, but in seriousness changes tack: “I think people often underestimate, though, how much Joji just being literally around me has an effect on what happens with the record. So I write the songs, but Joji’s there when I’m writing the songs. I think that’s the reality there.” While Le’aupepe is the primary songwriter, it is clear that the band is extremely tight-knit, and it is the Gang of Youths voice that comes through on Go Farther in Lightness – not simply the Le’aupepe voice and story.

In an accompanying statement to the record, Le’aupepe writes that Go Farther in Lightness is his “attempt to make the lessons I learned from my heroes, my favourite texts, my friends and from my short time on earth readily accessible and available to you”. It’s a regenerative record, and the lyrics are meditative, simple yet often profound. It comes as no real surprise, then, that Le’aupepe was surrounded by almost exclusively philosophical reading material as he wrote for the album. “There’s so many books that I was reading and had around me that influenced me. Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard, The Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Anxiety by Jacques Lacan, it’s a bunch of seminars he gave on the topic in the 60s. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, most of Nietzsche’s catalogue… I’m not going to say Atlas Shrugged because I wrote a song about how much I hate that book and the philosophy surrounding it. But yeah, lots of shit.”

The aforementioned track that doubles down on Atlas Shrugged, aptly titled “Atlas Drowned”, is the third song on Go Farther in Lightness, and arguably Gang of Youths’ most explicitly political single to date. Accompanied by crunchy guitar, Le’aupepe croons a wake-up call: “The whole institution is rigged and the ship’s going down”. The final lines of the song are nothing short of blistering: “And these chosen whites are anaemic and small / And are truly the lowliest sheep of them all / And their eminence is fixed upon things we could burn in one go / I’mma let Atlas fall, I’mma watch Atlas fall”.

“Atlas Drowned” may be one of the only Gang of Youths songs in which these topics come up, but throughout Gang of Youths’ career, Le’aupepe has been consistently outspoken about issues surrounding race, in music and more broadly. Over the past few years, there has been a very gradually increasing conversation about the pervasive whiteness of Australian music. Have things in the industry changed since The Positions came out in 2015?

“No. No! You serious?” Le’aupepe looks incredulous. “I don’t think the problem is necessarily in our scene, that there’s not enough people of colour, I think it’s [in] fucking music writing. The fact is that intelligent women of colour, for example, in music writing are still… how many are there? Very few. Can you think of many?”

It’s true – I can’t. As surprised as I am that this question has caused us to turn our gaze back to the industry I’m representing, I really can’t think of more than a handful, myself included.

“Whiteness isn’t foreign to Australia,” Le’aupepe continues. “So, it’s not unusual that there’d be statistically more white middle-class people making music. But I think the real issue is how much we like to pretend that we’re making progress and changing. The ideology remains the same. There are so many self-hating guys trying to repurpose our colour, repurpose our culture, repurpose our position and experience in society to make themselves appear to be more sympathetic. There’s such a patronising external layer of “Oh yeah, we get it, we get you people”. That’s the real problem. I don’t need to be lectured by white middle-class private-school educated people about oppression, thank you very much.”

It’s a topic that evokes a visceral reaction in both Le’aupepe and Malani. Being Samoan-Jewish and Fijian respectively, in a scene as white as Australia’s rock scene, they’ve both had their share of ignorance and then some. “I think the more that people try to engineer narratives around our race and our socio-economic background, the less progress we’re really making. It’s frustrating in rock music, because it’s interesting how much of the tastemaker intelligentsia is predominantly made up of white, upper middle-class, private school educated people, making constant taste judgements based on their preconceived values. You know? There’s a reason why we don’t fit in, it’s ‘cause we were never feigning to make stare-at-your-shoes garage rock for lo-fi kids with backwards caps. Low fidelity music to us was always a necessity.”

Malani chuckles at this: “It’s hilarious to me how that can be, like a sound that’s pursued. You know that’s funny, Dave, you use the same stuff to make music now that you did when we were 15. Literally the exact same computer, the same audio interface that was like $30.”

This riles Le’aupepe up further. “When we’re talking about fucking posturing, posturing artistic credibility: mostly kids who criticised us were from the inner-city and aren’t fucking from where we’re from, where I’m from? It’s like, how much bullshit vinyl-fetishism and music snobbery do you have to maintain to be part of that crew? And a lot of that is centred around whiteness. There’s nothing wrong with being white, but there is something wrong with trying to repurpose the plight of the working-class Pacific Islander kids to reinforce your fucking privilege. “Oh, I understand oppression because I’m–” you know, fuck off mate! You don’t! You don’t know what my mum and my sister and my dad and I’ve been through, you don’t. Being Pacific Islanders, we were brought here on fucking slave ships. Fucking – Joji’s a political refugee, you don’t know what the fuck he’s been through. It’s patronising, and so I get really angry about it.”

“You know, the greatest hypocrisies I see are people marching saying “Let Them Stay,” but they don’t give a flying fuck about the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Pacific Islander people in our prison system. They don’t give a fuck about the fact that most people of Middle Eastern origin in Australia can’t get fucking jobs because of their last name. Do you know how hard it is to get a fucking phone interview when your name’s um, Mohammed? White leftism has a fucking identity problem. They’re trying to repress conversations that seem offensive when they really need to be talked about and they’re trying to make big deals about stuff that they shouldn’t be, and then they ignore stuff that they shouldn’t.”

The band is currently based between London and New York, and when I ask them if it’s different in this respect, living there, Le’aupepe blows a raspberry. They both nod. “London is a place where it’s like, right near Europe, there’s a lot of immigration, it’s a place where it’s just way more culturally diverse,” Malani offers. “When we talk to even our white English friends… this whole other colour, it’s just not a thing. It’s weird to them that these issues exist, like what happens here and what happens in America, because it’s just – literally every third person is not white. Every second person is a female. So it’s very different.”

“The wars that people fight in Sydney are deeply entrenched in the fact that we’re an incredibly wealthy, well off, not-as-diverse-as-we-wish-that-we-were city. That’s it,” Le’aupepe says. “You can tell – we’re a young city, we’re a young country, and I think that the relative oldness of places like New York City and London… it feels a little bit easier to cohabit with people and exist. That’s all it really is, I think. Culturally, the disconnect we experience in Australia, growing up, we can sort of start fresh. And that’s okay. I’m still fucking hella proud of living in Australia. I love my country, I fucking love my country. In my opinion this is the greatest country in the history of mankind. But being away from it gives us perspective on it.”

Through our conversation, Le’aupepe and Malani voice many of what feel like the universal concerns of young people of colour living in Australia. And this is what is so exciting – not only does Gang of Youths’ musicality feel so one-of-a-kind, with their catalogue of songs firmly cemented in the modern Australian rock hall of fame – but they are also so inherently honest and articulate. It feels so important to have voices like these – young, bright, brown voices – circulating in today’s whitewashed Australian music industry. Despite their frustration at the stagnant state of our industry, it is precisely people like Le’aupepe and Malani and bands like Gang of Youths that are making it certain that things will change for the better, sooner than later.

Originally published on The AU Review: http://music.theaureview.com/interviews/interview-david-leaupepe-joji-malani-on-gang-of-youths-continued-strides-forward-into-the-light/

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