#Inner Jedi Notebook | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jedibongrip · 6 months

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title: be the dreadful need (in the devotee) Relationship: anakin/obiwan Rating: M tags: AU, Gods & Old Gods, set in the GFFA, no jedi Summary: Obi-Wan travels to Tatooine to fulfill his late father's life's work. He finds something else to dedicate his life to, in the ruins of a forgotten wasteland.

for the @deaddoveobikin blasphemy week day 3 prompt: gods, prophets, false prophets! a (wip) chaptered fic. read under the cut or on ao3 for all the tags/notes

If Mace Windu were a less kind friend and employer, he would deny Obi-Wan’s request for a sabbatical, coming so soon as his bereavement leave. Instead, he raises an eyebrow as Obi-Wan silently slides his forms across his desk, unwilling to make eye contact.

“You know you don’t have to continue his work,” Mace reminds him, though he signs the forms anyway.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “I know.” A moment passes. “But I do.”

(Perhaps it’s a show of how much Mace respects him, giving him the space and money to go on this search that he clearly thinks is foolish. Perhaps Obi-Wan would be better off if Mace respected him a little less.)

Permission granted, substitutes found, and some measly funding acquired, the only thing Obi-Wan has to do is gather supplies and pack his things before he heads off. His apartment is stuffed to the bring with boxes, datapads and notebooks, maps and totems, scrawlings of all different kinds, all overflowing and toppling over each other. The more delicate items - glass compasses that never pointed north, beautiful daggers and knives too old and dubious to be used as anything but decoration, but too unsettling to even be used as that, carefully wrapped bone and pottery remnants - were littered over every table and counter space that he has. Obi-Wan does his best to move through the turbulent sea of debris, making his way to his bedroom, the only room which he has managed to keep free of all this junk.

He shakes his head. It isn’t junk, he shouldn’t call it that. All these dusty artifacts, these unorganized folders and notes, this is all Qui-Gon’s work. It’s all that’s left of him. And all of it has been left to Obi-Wan.

He collapses onto his bed, fatigue overtaking him and weighing him down. His eyes burn from the dust and the ashes of incense that have overtaken his apartment, ever since he hauled in what was left in Qui-Gon’s office and house. Like a true academic, Qui-Gon had very little in the way of savings or property left behind, and what he did have was quickly snatched up by his remaining, distant blood relations. There was nothing of comfort or monetary value left to Obi-Wan, the quasi-son that Qui-Gon half-raised but could never stomach the thought of adopting. Between his moments of grief, Obi-Wan can feel himself grow bitter about it. It’s an old hurt, one he healed from and accepted, but Qui-Gon’s passing seems to have bruised the scar tissue of it. But hurt and bitter as he could grow to be, Obi-Wan loved Qui-Gon. Loved and cared about him, cared for him as he grew old and his body and mind began to fail. Loved him enough to promise to finish his research. And despite what everyone tells him, about how he doesn’t need to keep a promise he made to calm an old and dying man, Obi-Wan knows himself to be too loyal to break such a vow.

Even if he knows he’s being sent on a fool’s search. Because even before Qui-Gon’s health declined, everyone knew that his theories and research were odd. Everyone thought he was mad for what he was proposing. Everyone insisted that Qui-Gon Jinn, Doctor of Intergalactic Archeology of Sentient Species, study and research something that was actually in his field. But no. Qui-Gon, ever the rebel, even as he lectured in one of the most prestigious and expensive universities in the Inner Core, insisted that he was right, that he could prove his theory, that he just needed a bit more time.

Well, Obi-Wan thought, time’s up. He sits up and sighs, keeping his eyes closed for a moment longer. When he opens them, he sees his own degrees hanging on his walls. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bachelor of Intergalactic History. Master of Socio-Political Sentient Organization. Doctor of Intergalactic Anthropology. Oh, how he felt like a rebel when he didn’t follow exactly in Qui-Gon’s footsteps when he turned away from the mysteries of the dead to focus on the mysteries of the living. He ended up playing right into his hand.

Obi-Wan sighs again and pushes himself off his bed. He has a lot of packing to do if he wants to leave by noon tomorrow. He can’t bring himself to be thankful that Qui-Gon did leave him his ship, as helpful as it will be to cut down costs on his journey. It’s a rustbucket, one that Obi-Wan has always hated flying in. Very well, he thinks, reaching under his bed for his suitcase.

Qui-Gon used to love dragging him on cross-quadrant trips. This will be like a trip down memory lane, a homecoming, of sorts, and a final goodbye all wrapped in one. If he’s lucky (and he rarely is) the ship might hold together long enough for him to get there and back, before he can sell it for scrap.

—

It’s late afternoon when Obi-Wan finally leaves orbit, parking garage fees paid, his bags and crates safely stored on board, and coordinates for the source of Qui-Gon’s obsession plugged in and waiting until Obi-Wan weaves his way through traffic to get to a hyperspace route.

The jolt into hyperspace is momentarily unpleasant, a rush of unease and queasiness rushing through Obi-Wan’s body, as if all his cells know that they are not meant to be moving so far, so fast, and so they protest. Then the jerking and creaking of the ship ceases, and planets and stars are nothing but smudges in the pitch of space, and his body and mind calm enough for him to set the ship on autopilot and step out of the cockpit.

The ship used to feel so much bigger when he was a boy. Even after all his growth spurts and moments of teenage rebellion - like the time he stole this very ship to go on his own adventure - it felt spacious and freeing, even as he had to stoop to walk through doorways or squeeze into his childhood bunk. Without the sheen of adventure and the comfort of Qui-Gon's constant presence - physical or not - Obi-Wan saw the ship with the eyes of an adult; old and aging, cramped, the amalgamation of cheaply pawned and traded parts that once felt magical and eclectic, and now felt vaguely unsafe and slapdash. Every corner had a memory so Obi-Wan keeps his head down as he walks through the corridors. When he was loading the ship, he automatically began storing his things in the tiny cabin that he used to stay in, until he realized what a waste it was. Qui-Gon’s berth was larger and, of course, wasn’t being used. Obi-Wan moved his things there, but now that he walks through the doorway, he feels awkward and out of place.

He intended to look over his data in the comfort of the bed, but he cowardly grabs the bags he thinks have the maps and pads that he needs and brings them to the common area. He carefully unrolls the star maps onto the table. Some of them are copies, some are original from years ago - Qui-Gon always dodged any questions about exactly how old they were, or how they came into his possession. But despite years separating some of the data, all of them focus on the same system, the same accursed planet staying in focus in the centre.

Tatooine.

An abandoned desert planet, a wasteland, a graveyard, a planet that hasn’t held any sentient life for thousands of years, since before the republic was even an utterance on anyone’s lips.

The place that had captured Qui-Gon’s interest, his soul, his mind, since Obi-Wan was a boy.

Many intergalactic archeologists had a passing interest in Tatooine, Obi-Wan knew. Despite its dry and desolate state, Tatooine once held oceans, possibly had fresh water too. Some academics and conspiracy theorists believe that Tatooine may have once held sentient life - though what happened to it, if it ever existed, was where many debates emerged. Some thought that, if intelligence was once found on Tatooine, it would have died out when four of the planet’s moons escaped orbit, leaving it with only three remaining to protect it from the blaze of the twin suns. Others thought that the original population could have been some of the first to discover interplanetary flight, and left their dying planet in the hopes of finding a new home.

The nature of the shifting tides of sand means that any remains, any evidence, had long since been buried or eroded by time. What few attempts have been made to mine what few valuable materials exist on Tatooine have been too small to make a dent on the surface, and have never been profitable enough to inspire greater efforts to explore or excavate the planet. Tatooine, it seemed, was fated to remain a forgotten mystery, one that most people didn't care enough about to try to solve.

And despite all of this, Qui-Gon became insistent that Tatooine is where ‘it all’ began. A lifetime of digging up burial grounds, worship grounds, ancient temples, of learning about how different systems thought of life and death and the divine, and yet he thought that all of that flowed from Tatooine. Every myth, every god, every ceremony he ever uncovered, it all pointed him to a planet that, by all accounts, seemed to be as dead as the bones he used to study.

And Obi-Wan is heading straight for it. He fights off another sigh as he scans Qui-Gon’s notes, full of half-baked theories of settlements and rituals, rambles in a code that Obi-Wan is only half fluent in. He isn’t sure why this is something he needs to do. Will it make him feel better, when he arrives in a wasteland and finds nothing? Will it honour the man who cared for him for so many years? Will it make up for all the arguments and fights and months of silence that weighed them down as time went on? Hardly anyone entertained Qui-Gon’s hypotheses, Obi-Wan certainly didn’t when he was alive. What does he prove by going there, except that his father wasted his time, his life when he could have been finding fulfillment somewhere else?

And still, the ship races on, through star systems and empty space, heading to the middle of nowhere and the centre of a universe that Obi-Wan never really understood.

Obi-Wan tries to translate Qui-Gon’s thoughts into ones that he can understand. It's unforgiving work. There will be plenty of time to give himself a headache trying to do that later. Instead, he goes and checks the batteries on some of the supplies he’ll be using, goes to make sure he has all the solar panels he’ll need while he is grounded. After all, it’s not like Tatooine has a shortage of sun. All he'll have on that planet is sun, time, and the unwanted fragments of Qui-Gon's career.

—

The relief Obi-Wan feels when he finally lands on Tatooine is short-lived. After days of travelling through the endless night of space, he’s developed a perpetual nausea, a dull headache behind his eyes, and an unpleasantly greasiness to his skin. It’s almost instinctual, opening up the ramp to stumble out to the solid ground beneath his ship, to relish in the marvellous feeling of being still.

He feels the heat on his skin before he registers it. The ship shades him from the glare of the twin suns yet he swears he already feels his skin searing. The air is dry, sucking the moisture from his lips, leaving his mouth feeling gummy. He only wanted to stand on solid earth for a few minutes, but dizziness from the heat forces him to the ground, sprawled on the unforgiving rock shelf that he landed on, already feeling grains of sand working their way into his shoes.

This is the forgotten hell that Qui-Gon dreamed of for years. Obi-Wan already has half a mind to leave and venture to one of the many seedy resort planets that are scattered around the middle and outer rims.

He takes a few deep, scorching breaths and hauls himself upright, using the ramp of the ship as support. The metal is already almost too hot to touch. Shaking off lightheadedness, he staggers back into the ship, hastily closing the door behind him, trying to keep the blasted heat out for as long as possible. His ship is still pleasantly cool and feels all the colder now that he’s drenched in sweat. He takes a moment to centre himself, a task that has become all the more arduous since Qui-Gon’s death.

He must gather and check his supplies once more, preferably before his ship gets too hot. He should double-check his maps and scan his surroundings, make sure that he’s stopped in a safe location, somewhat close to one of the possible sites that Qui-Gon wrote about. Obi-Wan had no false illusions about the heat of the planet, but knowing it and feeling it are two different things. He needs to check his radiation block and ensure that he has enough bacta and ointment to soothe any burns that he is sure to get. Make sure that none of his water tanks broke or tipped over during his difficult descent and landing.

There’s so much to do and Obi-Wan is already so tired of it all. He sighs and goes to the ship's computer. He ought to coordinate his clocks with the planet, now that he’s arrived. He checks when the suns set.

Tatoo I sets in eighteen hours. Tatoo II, twenty.

Obi-Wan sighs again. Well, he thinks, I better get moving.

He stays seated for many more minutes.

—

Loaded up with gear, it feels even hotter outside. The suns are at Obi-Wan’s back, their light narrowing as they descend under the horizon, feeling like a glare from an old, angry god. He can feel his skin burning through the protective layers of clothing and UV block that he’s put on. He almost isn’t sure if it's real or just the phantom pain of burns that he’s gotten and healed over the five days that he’s been on Tatooine.

Five days on Tatooine. The thought makes his body ache. Five long, miserable days and nothing to show for it. He has less than nothing. He expected his search to come up empty, but he didn’t expect it to take so long. He only managed to find and search two of the sites that Qui-Gon wrote about, half-crazed scribbles talking about star alignment, dates and coordinates that seemed to repeat themselves everywhere he looked. On each page he searched through, he half expected Qui-Gon to start rambling about fractal and Fibonacci sequences. To make matters worse as he was flicking through one of Qui-Gon’s notebooks the night before, eyes burning, movements lethargic and clumsy, he found that a few of the pages had gotten stuck together by time and who knows what. Peeling them apart revealed more locations, more sites of interest. More work for Obi-Wan to do.

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He takes a swig from one of his canteens, drains the last of the water it in, and reattaches it to his pack. It clinks against all the other empty bottles that he’s finished during his trek today, a cacophonous symphony to score his movements. He’s hiked up rock formations, crawled across cracking limestone bridges, and crossed a seemingly endless sea of sand. He should turn around and head back to the ship. He wants to turn around and head back to the ship.

But the thought of that terrible sun shining in his face, blinding him as he stumbles back to his bed almost sickens him. He huffs and puffs as he hauls himself up the jagged side of another rocky peak. It seems much taller than all the others he’s scaled but it could be exhaustion and irritation fooling him. He’s long stopped heading towards the spot that Qui-Gon marked on a map. Instead, he’s in search of something much more valuable: shade.

Yes, Obi-Wan thinks, as he continues to hike up the flattening incline. If he can find some shade, he can rest, maybe even take a short nap. He’ll wait until a sun has set and start making his way back to his ship. While he’s been scaling this large formation for a few hours, the mountain range rising out of and dipping below the sand like a wave, everything before was flat. He’ll be able to see the ship once he’s down, he can even send one of the small droids he stuck in his pocket to it in advance to light his way. He hasn’t seen any sign of life since he landed. The isolation, the feeling like he’s the only thing to exist in the whole galaxy, is as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

Obi-Wan keeps walking up the mountain, the curve gentle and the stone beneath his feet flat. It curves upwards and around. With each step, Obi-Wan is hopeful that shade will appear. It seems almost endless, a Tantalus torture just for him. His eyes droop as he walks and his neck becomes limp under the weight of his head.

Almost imperceptibly Obi-Wan feels a coolness against his legs. He pries his eyes open and sees a large stone jutting out of the ground to his right. It stands to his shoulders but is angled in such a way that its shadow is cast long and low against the ground. He almost collapses with his haste to crawl to it, pressing his back against it and twisting his body to fit within the comforting embrace of its darkness. Relative to everything else on the planet, its surface and the ground beneath him feel damp. He sheds his pack and lets it wobble and tremble, seeking an equilibrium on the gentle slope.

Exhaustion pulls his eyes shut again as he pants. He claws at the scarves and layers he piled on to protect against the suns, shedding them until he’s left with only his loose, long-sleeved shirt and the breathable trousers he bought just for this trip. His heartbeat pounds in his ears and his chest heaves. The heat is still intense, the rock still hard and unforgiving, but the relief of being out of the sun and no longer moving feels heavenly compared to just moments before. Obi-Wan sags under his own weight, allowing himself these brief moments of rest before he forces himself onwards. Though, now that he’s still, now that his eyes are closed, it’s questionable if he’ll ever convince his muscles to pull him up.

He doesn’t know how long he rests, his body boycotting each movement that he dictates. He’s soothed by the tempo of his breathing, the thrum of his own heart, the sound of-

Obi-Wan peels his eyes open and squints. He turns his head, looking further up the mountain. Straining, he shuts his eyes again and tries to zero in on the sound. He couldn’t possibly have heard it right, it must be some kind of auditory mirage, or perhaps-

His ears prick up as he hears it again. Faintly, further away, but clear once he hears it. Water. Running water. Water splashing against stone, pooling, echoing against itself. Now that he’s heard it, it sounds clear as day, impossible to miss or ignore.

Tatooine has been devoid of water for at least twelve thousand years, long before the birth of the Republic, long before sentients tried to explore the outer edges of the galaxy, looking for freedom and wealth and friendship.

And, yet, Obi-Wan can hear it. It calls to him, beckoning him closer, to explore and discover. Obi-Wan has never thought too highly of himself, never believed that he innately knew better or knew more than anyone else. And as much as he may doubt himself, he’s never doubted his capabilities. He trusts what he experiences, what he knows, and what he hears.

It feels like the planet’s gravity has doubled but Obi-Wan pushes and pulls until he’s standing, legs wobbly like a newborn’s. He throws the protective poncho he was wearing over himself, leaving the rest of his layers in a dusty pile. He just barely remembers to grab his pack but is too exhausted and confused to bother putting it on properly. He drags it behind him, like a petulant schoolchild, listening as the frantic scrapes along the sandy stone as he ascends.

The sound of trickling water is faint, but slowly grows in volume as Obi-Wan makes each labourous step up the mountain. He puts a hand on the rock face to stabilize himself, gasping when it feels cool to the touch, even as it sits in the sun. The path he treads starts to grow twisted, angling up and down, the rock under his hand growing more jagged and cracked.

The sky is a vibrant purple when Obi-Wan remembers to look at more than just the rocks around him. A sign that one sun has long been set and the other is following its lead. The wind picks up, blowing grit into Obi-Wan’s eyes, and he feels the first semblance of coolness in hours. In a few hours, the desert will be frigid. He should turn back, and hurry down the mountain to the safety of the ship. Continue this fool's journey tomorrow or not at all.

But the musicality of dripping water sounds so sweet. How could Obi-Wan abandon the discovery of the millennium? How could he abandon the chance of vindicating Qui-Gon? How could he reject this sweet, mysterious oasis gift in the middle of the desert?

Obi-Wan pants as he climbs. Was this mountain always so tall? At the base of it, it looked so much smaller, a quick hike up and over. He cranes his neck to look back, searching for the way he came, and finds that he doesn’t recognize the path. The sound of water is so close, almost thunderous in his ears. Trepidation weakens his legs and stomach. He edges closer to the cliff face and looks steadfastly at his dusty boots as he continues.

It sounds like he’s right next to a waterfall, white rapids crashing right next to him, and then silence. Obi-Wan looks up, confusion and fear mixing like alcohol in his stomach, leaving him just as disoriented.

He stands before a cave. The entrance is narrow, a gap between large boulders, precariously wedged against each other. It’s dark, inside. A cool breeze blows from within, smelling sweet and gentle. That’s what surprises Obi-Wan most, after spending the last few days surrounded by the musty scent of sand and the sharp tang of his own sweat. But no, it smells like a forest, like a garden after a light rainfall. It smells of a peaceful life. It smells heavenly.

Obi-Wan barely casts a glance behind him before he dips his head and squeezes into the gap in the rocks. He has to shed his backpack when the fabric of it starts to catch and snag against the walls. It’s fine, he reasons. He won’t go too far. He’ll turn around in just a moment, collect his bag, and be off again.

When he presses his hands against the rock, the surface is hard but not harsh, not jagged or sharp. Like a river stone that needs a few hundred years more before it’s ready for skipping. It feels gentle, like a salve, on his sunburnt hands. He blocks on the measly rays of sun that managed to sneak into the cave, casting a shadow where he means to walk. In a brief moment of clarity, he berates himself for not fishing the torch out of his bag before entering. Stupid!

He pauses. The shadow on the ground in front of him, long and monstrous, has grown fainter. A glance behind shows that a second shadow has emerged, trailing behind him. There’s a glow in front of him, faint, hidden behind the gentle curve of the cave wall, but there. Obi-Wan swallows and feels the hair on his neck stand on end. There seemed to be meters upon meters of solid rock above the cave when he was outside. Inside, everything feels just as solid, just as isolating. There’s no way that there could be a gap in the rocks, large enough to let so much light in that it can illuminate this cave without weakening it to the point of collapse.

It’s with a jolt of surprise that Obi-Wan realizes he’s still walking deeper, that even with the sudden mystery of the light, the sound, the smell, even as his mind grapples with it all, his body still moves against his conscious wishes. His breath stills in his lungs as he rounds a gentle curve and the soft light that only tickled him before grows into a bright beam.

Finally, Obi-Wan stills.

A vast room unfolds before him. Impossibly large and spacious compared to the cramped entryway leading to it. A small pool of water, fed by a waterfall emerging from cracks in a wall, sits next to the entrance, but its sounds are light and playful, nothing like the deafening stream Obi-Wan heard from outside. Plush moss and beautiful plants and flowers stretch across the rock floor and climb up the walls and ceiling. The brightness seems to just exist, not originating from any specific source. Glinting in the light, Obi-Wan spies golden trinkets, jewels thrown carelessly across the room, and piles of silks left in heaps.

A young man lounges on a round, gilded bed, woven sheets artfully draped around his naked body. A gilded head resting on a gilded hand. Golden eyes stare at Obi-Wan’s shocked and frozen form, pink lips twitching up into a sly, mirthful smile.

“What pretty little thing wandered into my grasp now?” The man laughs. He pushes himself up, revealing a swarth of golden skin. Obi-Wan swallows.

“Sorry,” he stutters out. “I was just- I heard- I think I’m a little lost.”

He tries to step back. The man on the bed scowls, his expression going from playful to dark faster than Obi-Wan could blink. His back hits a wall, cold stone pressing against him. He turns his head and finds that the entrance, the cave he was walking through, has disappeared. When he looks forward, the young man is inches from him. The warmth from his body feels almost scalding and his gaze is piercing, almost painful when Obi-Wan makes eye contact with him.

The man tilts his head. His hair, beautiful bronze curls, fall across his snarling face. He reaches out with his hand of shining gold and cups Obi-Wan’s chin. The metal is hard and warm, bruising against his skin. He sees the man’s lips twitch as he tilts and moves Obi-Wan’s face, eyeing him like a predator eyes cornered prey.

Obi-Wan has been in bar fights and drunken brawls. He’s no ignoramus when it comes to martial arts, having taken many classes over his life. He may not be an expert, but he’s won more fights than he’s lost. He knows the moves he should throw to get away from this strange creature and knows he should look for some way out of this strange room. But this man… he’s captivating, enthralling. Obi-Wan can’t find the strength to escape his grasp or his gaze. He stands still and pliant as he’s maneuvered, as gold and flesh hands trail across his clavicle and neck. He feels like he’s being appraised or studied, and he can’t help but blush from the attention.

“Who are you?” The man asks. His voice is raspy like he hasn’t used it for a while, but it washes over Obi-Wan like a wave. He swallows.

“My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he answers. The man in front of him raises his eyebrows. “I’m a professor from Coruscant.”

“A professor?”

“A teacher,” Obi-Wan clarifies. He clears his throat. His jaw aches from the strong grip on it. “I teach anthropology. Cultures from around the galaxy.”

The man hums. “Why did you come here?”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth but can’t find the words to say for a few seconds. “I don’t know. My, well, I guess, he was my father died and he… he was obsessed with Tatooine.”

The man breaks out into a grin. It’s sharp and beautiful, a broken glass sculpture. He releases Obi-Wan, and he feels quick pulses of pain jolting from where fingers once gripped him. The man takes a step back. Obi-Wan has to fight himself to not let his eyes drift beyond his chest.

“Obsessed?” The man asked. “Devoted?”

“What? I… I guess.”

“To what? To whom?”

“He was-” Obi-Wan pauses. What was Qui-Gon obsessed with? “I could never figure it out, exactly. He… he had these ideas about Tatooine having the first people. The first… Gods.”

The smile on the man’s face seems almost splitting, manic in its excitement. It makes him look like he’s glowing. “To whom was he devoted to?”

The question seems ridiculous, insane even. Qui-Gon had only ever been devoted to himself, really, though he showed that devotion in many ways. Like taking on an adopted son. Like paying for his son’s schooling, even if he didn't fully support what he wanted to study. Ensuring a legacy that Obi-Wan could never really understand. But this stranger doesn’t need to know that and wouldn't understand even if Obi-Wan told him. Yet, Obi-Wan’s mind races, he sees flashes of Qui-Gon hunched over a desk, of maps and printouts pinned to walls, chalkboards and projectors covered in his scribbles. He sees all the scrolls and tablets and books that clutter the ship that is sitting, hot and dusty and empty, probably miles away. He sees one thing, one name, repeated throughout it all, sometimes half translated, sometimes underlined, sometimes just penned in the margins.

“An… Anakin?” Obi-Wan stutters out. The name is strange and unfamiliar on his tongue as it crawls out of his throat.

"Again," the man breathes out. "Say it again. Say my name."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan whispers, like the name is a secret like it's precious and special. Like it's a prayer he's trying to remember.

Anakin smiles and it feels like the burn of the twin suns.

#bongrip writes #obikin #obikin fic #this is mostly the set up but things will get a moving soon #m

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thelibrarina · 3 years

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Fic meme!

I was tagged by @shitpostingfromthebarricade. Thanks, this was fun!

how many works do you have on AO3?

61. Now I have to add more words to this line or it becomes a giant number. Oh, tumblr, never change.

what’s your total AO3 word count?

527,746. Half a million words. Damn.

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3? 14, though some are fusions. The primary ones are Les Mis, The Professionals, MCU, Vikings, and Star Wars.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Grounds for Dismissal (exr coffee-shop AU)

2. Friday I’m In Love (exr fake dating AU)

3. But I’m Hopeful Yet (exr wrong suitcase AU)

4. Pining for You (exr hallmark holiday movie AU)

5. Still the Same (exr White Collar AU)

Gee, do you see a pattern here?

More below the cut, as we said in the olden days...

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I want to, I swear!! But the process goes like this: I see the comment and I have to sit and bask in the warm happy glow, and then I get distracted while thinking of something to say and suddenly it’s been two years and then it feels a little awkward, right? So this is just to say: If you have ever commented on my fic, I see you and I love you and I cherish every word. Thank you.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I am bad at angst. Probably the fics with the saddest endings are In Fire (exr Pacific Rim fusion) and We Will Become Silhouettes (Professionals episode-tag drabble--it’s not clear without context, but they sort of explode at the end).

Honorable mention to Even After All These Years, which has the angstiest beginning.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

I once got scolded in an AO3 comment for using the fandom tag correctly. Also someone yelled at me on ff.n for mentioning America in a positive context in a Les Mis songfic. (There were so many better reasons to yell at me for that fic, tbh.)

do you write smut? if so what kind?

The highly fraught and overly emotional kind. Also sometimes the iambic pentameter kind, or the alliterative verse kind.

For years I could only get myself to write smut for the semi-annual p*rn battle that was held on dreamwidth. It was super-handy for shutting up my inner editor and locking my inhibitions in a cupboard somewhere.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Scraped to a random website, yeah, but not stolen.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Grounds for Dismissal was translated in to Chinese, and a few other fics have podfic versions, too!

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not to completion, but writing with friends is a joy even if we never finish things.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

Don’t make me choose, it’s mean. But Enjolras and Grantaire have had my whole heart for quite some time now.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

All of my as-yet-incomplete Les Mis fics are in a shared word doc. It is longer than my total AO3 word count. There’s a college professor AU (exr, of course) that has gotten hugely bloated and might or might not be fixable.

But I will finish the indulgent Batman AU someday. Mark my words.

what are your writing strengths?

Banter! And replicating a voice or a style.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Action and smut. What are bodies? What do they do? How many limbs to they usually have, again? I don’t even know.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Storytime! I was the only non-Classics major in my Latin class, and my professor would regularly start writing shit on the board in Greek. I would have to raise my hand and remind him that I couldn’t understand it.

And that’s all I want: to understand what I’m reading. Whether the author uses translations or context clues, or just indicates in the header or the notes that you need to know multiple languages to understand the fic, I’m cool with it.

(Also consider not italicizing words from other languages when you put them in a sentence. Daniel Jose Older has a great 2-minute video on it here.)

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Somewhere in my parents’ house is a blue spiral-bound notebook with a printed label that says Star Wars Novel on it. I think I was 11 or 12 and it was a Young Jedi Knights continuation. So...that one.

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Usually, whatever fic I’ve finished most recently. But I’m really proud of The Glorious People’s Republic of the Cafe Musain. I can’t claim a hundredth of Terry Pratchett’s skill, but trying on his style was an absolute blast, and there are some lines in those fics that I’m still genuinely delighted by.

#my fic #writing #writing memes

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banter-bury · 3 years

Text

Mindful May Day 23: Gratitude

Disclaimer: The following is from Amy Ratcliffe's The Jedi Mind.

"When I was out there, alone, all I had was your training and the lessons you taught me, and because of you, I did survive. And not only that, I was able to lead others to survive as well."

-Ahsoka Tano

Jedi Masters train their Padawans in what they know about the Force- lightsaber technique and the ways of the Jedi and the galaxy- but also embody personal lessons in judgement, inner strength, responsibility, and much more. Ahsoka expresses gratitude to Anakin many times for his teachings.

Expressing gratitude is a form of recognizing gifts that we may have been granted but may not have recognized as such if we had not paused to give thanks. Capturing the things and people we are thankful for in a list can contribute to a more positive, more mindful mindset. To appreciate something is to notice it happened, and that can assist us in recognizing more opportunities to say 'thank you.'

Practice: Gratitude Journal

Select any blank notebook as your gratitude journal.

Either just after you wake or right before bed, write down the date and at least three things or people you are grateful to have in your life, and write a sentence (or two) about why they make you feel this way. Your gratitude can be for something big or small.

Occasionally look back through the journal and notice how much you have to be grateful for. Have you thanked the people you recorded in its pages?

#Mindful May #Day 23

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stephdisturbstheuniverse · 3 years

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One of my Jedi Master friends sent me a blank notebook "to be treated like scratch paper, to be scrawled on without thinking." And because I have let fear take control of my creativity, my inner life, and my soul for some time now, I'm going kick it out by wrecking this notebook with my chicken scratches and fill it with my unedited inner monologue. Thank you. #roadtorecovery #healingjourney #writing #journalwriting #sketchbook #visualjournal #gratitude https://www.instagram.com/p/CQVsMgcnhNH/?utm_medium=tumblr

#roadtorecovery #healingjourney #writing #journalwriting #sketchbook #visualjournal #gratitude

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piratekenway · 7 years

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For the Softer World prompts, either 31 for Anakin or 34 for Anakin/Padme?

for this AU. also, the long-awaited appearance of Padmé Amidala!

34: When you’re around I don’t know how to hide my feelings. I count in binary, in my head. zero one one zero one one and you count clouds (while you count clouds)

title: and you count clouds

–

Say there are over seven billion people in the world, at this moment. Say that there are three hundred twenty five million people in the United States of America alone, and that there are eight million people in New York City alone, all minding their own business, not counting the ones only passing by.

Now say there’s a woman out there, with warm brown eyes and a smile like the sun. Her hair’s pinned back, her touch is light, and her breath comes easy and tickles against tanned skin.

Now say she still loves him.

Anakin knows he can’t. Not for sure. It’s an untested hypothesis, or so he’ll claim, and it doesn’t bear testing because he knows, for a fact, that Padmé died because of him. And she knows that, he’s sure. And–

And most days he can’t even look himself in the mirror. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to look her in the eye, doesn’t want to think about what he might find there–anger, hatred, fear.

He hadn’t. He hadn’t meant to.

But he’d done it anyway.

Love won’t save you, he thinks, viciously, looking up from the sink and at his reflection in the mirror.

Except it had. Except he can listen to Darcy pontificate about some movie he happens to be in all day and even she’ll return to the point that Luke had saved him, because he’d loved him. He’d seen something worth loving, in the ruined creature Anakin Skywalker had become, and pulled it out into the light.

He looks down again.

He doesn’t know if Padmé will see the same thing. He doesn’t think so, but a treacherous little part of him thinks, she might, she might, she might.

But it’s a pipe dream.

“Stop thinking about it,” he tells himself. His voice reverberates in the bathroom. “Get to work. There’s eight million people in this city, you’re not going to run into her on the street.”

He’ll run into a number of other things on the street, first. Not her. Never her.

He’s not sure if he should be grateful for that.

–

He doesn’t run into her on the street.

–

One of the fun things about being a Respected Scientist, with many frequently-cited (and frequently-plagiarized, you’re welcome desperate college students) papers to his name and a number of schools clamoring for his attention, is that sometimes, he’s asked to come judge entries at a science fair. For example: Columbia University, his alma mater, is holding a science fair.

Okay, they’re calling it a science and engineering expo, not a fair, but it’s definitely a fair. He knows it from the second he steps onto the grounds and smells food, the scent of it beckoning him closer.

“Wait up,” Darcy complains behind him. Anakin chuckles, slows his stride down to let her catch up. “Why do you have to be freakishly tall? Jerk.”

“You don’t complain when it’s Ahsoka,” he says.

“Because she’s my girlfriend,” says Darcy. Duh, she doesn’t add, but Anakin sees it when she rolls her eyes skyward. “Ooh, what’re they cooking? Do you know?”

“Flavored fries,” says Anakin.

“Jedi stuff?” says Darcy.

“No,” says Anakin, pointing at a slightly pitiful banner that’s hanging on to the stand by a thread, flapping sadly in the wind. “They’ve got a banner.”

Darcy glares up at him, but follows anyway. “So Ahsoka and Selvig are busy setting up the table and arguing with the other judges,” she starts, and Anakin lets her chatter at him while he orders their food, breaking into her rant only to ask her what she’ll be having.

She keeps it up even once they find a table, and just in time too, because there’s just the one left. Fries are popular, apparently.

“You hoping to see anything this year?” says Darcy, sitting down as Anakin pulls his notebook out from his bag.

“A working hyperdrive,” he shoots back, sitting down as well and opening the notebook. “Barring that, an EM drive. I know NASA’s working on one right now, I keep hearing people talking about that.”

“Good luck with that,” Darcy snorts. “What else?”

“Maybe a chocolate volcano,” says Anakin, dryly, scribbling equations in his notebook. “Like a high schooler’s volcano project, except with more chocolate.”

“That’d be the day,” says Darcy, dreamily.

Anakin hums in answer. “Anyway, a few years back Dr. Connors came up with splicing animal genes onto humans as a cure for whatever disease you might think of, and got Oscorp to pick him up for it.” He looks up from his notebook, twirls his pen in between his fingers. “I know there’s a few other entries going that route, now that he’s kind of gone off the deep end, I figure maybe one of them will get picked.”

“Why’d they ask you to judge, then?” says Darcy, propping her chin up on her hand. “Genetics isn’t your thing.”

“Because technically this is a general science fair,” says Anakin, “and they at least need to give off the appearance of being fair.” He shrugs. “Anyway, I get a free lunch, a plaque with my name on it, and a chance to show Richards up, so really, I’m not complaining.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Darcy says, with a snort of laughter.

Anakin looks back down at his notebook with a smile, and starts absently writing another equation, P = 2πr / v, solve for the value of v if r is 10 and P is–

“Excuse me, is anyone else sitting here?”

Anakin looks up.

His pen clatters to the table.

Padmé. Padmé is standing in front of him, holding a Coke can, asking if he’s willing to let her sit at his table, and her eyes grow wide when their gazes lock, and his throat goes dry. She’s changed, he thinks, there’s a streak of grey in her hair, almost permanent dark circles under her eyes, but she’s as radiant as she ever was, and all he can think of is her warm brown eyes and her soft skin and her laugh like bells and the diameter of the sun, 139100 kilometers 1.3914 billion meters–

“Sure, you can definitely sit here!” Darcy chirps, unmindful of Anakin’s inner crisis. “And–holy shit! Kirsten fucking McDuffie, is that you?”

“Hey, Darcy,” chirps another girl, with light brown skin, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. “I got out of the publishing business, thanks to Ms. Avery here.”

“Congrats,” says Darcy. “Hi, Miss–”

“Patricia Avery,” says Padmé, still staring at him.

Darcy pauses, looks between the two of them. “Um,” she says, realization dawning on her face.

“Um,” McDuffie echoes. “Uh. I guess we’ll leave the both of you to it?”

“Please do,” says Anakin.

–

The girls leave, chattering all the while about each other’s lives–Thor and Greenwich, the rumors of a black-clad vigilante emerging from Hell’s Kitchen.

Padmé sits down at the table and says, to her long-lost husband, “You look well, Anakin.”

He doesn’t quite flinch, but she sees him tugging self-consciously on his bracelet anyway. “You too,” he says, at last. “Um. You’ve. You look good. Distinguished, even. Like an angel.” He pauses, winces. “God, no, that was bad.”

Padmé ducks her head, hides her smile by taking a quick sip of Coke, and says, “No, no, it’s fine,” she says. “Distinguished is–fine.” She absently swirls the soda around in its can, and says, “So, uh–Ahsoka mentioned you’d come back.”

Anakin blinks at her. “She’s been in touch with you?” he asks, and there’s a flash of hurt in his tone. Hurt that she put there, she thinks, and something twinges painfully in her chest at the thought.

“I asked her not to mention me,” she says. “You were amnesiac, and then–” She shrugs. “I had to get my head together.”

“Been doing that since Greenwich,” Anakin mutters, looking down at his notebook and writing something. Padmé looks up, watches the clouds pass overhead before she looks back down at him. “I, um. I didn’t think. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Otherwise I might’ve avoided you, he doesn’t say.

Honestly, she’s pretty sure she would’ve done the same.

“I’m a lawyer,” she says. “Usually this isn’t my scene.”

“So why make an exception this year?” says Anakin.

“Kirsten,” says Padmé, with a long-suffering sigh. There’s a giant bantha in the room, and it smells like the pits of Mustafar, sounds like Anakin snarling liar, liar. “I’m technically here as a legal consultant on patent laws. I have a booth and everything. You?”

“I’m a judge,” says Anakin. “They wanted a space guy to round out their panel, I guess.”

“Neat,” says Padmé, and she mentally slaps herself. Neat! For fuck’s sake–one of the first things she says to him in decades, and it’s just neat. God, how long has it been since she dated anyone? “Oh, god, that was just–”

“I know,” says Anakin. “Can we start over? I mean. No, I–”

“God, yes, I mean–only if you’re offering–”

They stop, and stare at each other.

Then Padmé bursts into a fit of laughter, and says, “Goddammit, and here I had a speech planned.”

“At least you had a speech planned,” says Anakin, with a shaky laugh, “I was sort of thinking I’d just never see you again. I mean,” he waves a hand at the stall, at the college, at the grounds, “eight million people in New York, give or take. I figured I had good odds.”

He smiles at her, brittle and scared, so much like the boy she had once known and not at the same time.

She lets out a breath, reaches across the table to brush her fingers over his.

He breathes out and says, quiet, “I’m--sorry. I know it’s not. I know it’s not enough to just say sorry for everything I’ve done, especially to you and to--to our children. I know I’ve been a terrible husband, a worse father, and if you never forgive me or never want to see me again--” He swallows, continues, “I’d be okay with that. It’d be what I deserve. I just--I want you to know that I’m sorry. And I loved you, I love you, truly, deeply.”

Enough to let her go, she realizes, when he pulls his hand away, reaches up to wipe at his eyes.

She reaches out again, and takes his hand, slender and slightly-calloused fingers settling over his gloved hand. “I love you,” she says, “truly and deeply. I can’t forget what you did to me, or to our children, or to the galaxy, no, but I always knew there was a little bit of light still inside you.” She rubs her fingers absently along his knuckles, and says, “I want to see you again, Anakin. And--well, last time we didn’t exactly work out all that well.”

“Yeah,” says Anakin, ducking his head, almost shy. “Yeah, I mean, Darcy has opinions about that, she won’t stop talking my ear off about how the beginning of a war was a stupid time to get married.”

“Neither will Kirsten,” says Padmé. “So, I guess--this time we’ll try and. Take it a little slower. What do you think?”

Anakin sets his pen down and rests his other hand over hers. “A little slower,” he says, softly. “Yeah. That’s a good plan.” He smiles again, and this time she thinks of bright blue eyes, a sunset on Naboo. “I have a Starbucks gift card and some free time for lunch tomorrow before I have to start going around the expo. You?”

“Well,” says Padmé, with a snort of laughter, “fine, then.” She grins at him, and says, “I have to say, I’ve never been wooed with Starbucks before.”

She expects the jealousy that flashes across his face in that moment, but she doesn’t expect him to let out a sigh and say, “Well, my favorite diner got torn up in the Chitauri attack, so my options are pretty limited.”

“I could take you out,” she says. “I know a place or two.”

“You really don’t have to,” says Anakin, his expression softening. “It’s the first date, and besides, I actually do like Starbucks. They make amazing frappuccinos.”

“There is no way your favorite chain café is better than a five-star restaurant, Ani,” huffs Padmé.

“I am so glad you proposed this taking it slow plan,” says Anakin, with a growing smirk, “because it absolutely could.”

Darcy stops in her tracks, squints at the two.

Kirsten says, dryly, “I think we’d better leave them to it.”

“Yeah, probably,” Darcy decides, taking a fry from the bag that she’s designated as Anakin’s. “So when did you find out?” she asks.

“She walked in on me watching Attack of the Clones and said, ‘oh, that’s the one with me in it,’ and I’ve never been the same since,” says Kirsten. “You?”

“It’s a very long story,” says Darcy. “Hey, come on, I wanna see your booth and crow about how much more awesome ours is.”

end.

#words-writ-in-starlight #asks #you ask and i write #WELP.#otp: you've been on my mind #everyone is dorks.#but also: this is not in fact going to be sunshine and rainbows for the two of them bc like anakin has a lot of things to make up for #and padme might care deeply for him and love him and forgive him but she is also p watchful and careful after the last time #so like. they're both trying to at least get to know each other first #also kirsten mcduffie is my fave dd character i'm still salty

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thewebofslime · 5 years

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The CIA created quite a stir in the federal IT community as word spread over the last week that it’s ready to upgrade its commercial cloud offering called Commercial Cloud Services (C2S). As the industry day documents spread like wildfire across industry and the media, the question we have to ask is the CIA, the intelligence community more generally, trying to give the Defense Department some top cover for its controversial and protest entangled Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative (JEDI) cloud procurement? When you review the CIA’s market research survey as well as its industry day presentation, everything about it seems to be saying “Hey DoD, we have seen the light and multi-cloud, multi-vendor is the only way to go.” The intel agency said in its market research survey that it “will acquire foundational cloud services, as defined in the scope section below, from multiple vendors.” Insight by Cornerstone OnDemand: Examine a case study on implementing a modern LMS for the new skills economy at DAU in this free webinar. In industry day documents, the CIA said that the Commercial Cloud Enterprise’s (C2E) program objective is to “acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers…” The CIA said it plans to award one or more indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity type contracts. Industry experts said the message couldn’t be any clearer to DoD and it’s plans for JEDI. Trey Hodgkins, president and CEO of Hodgkins Consulting, said the CIA’s C2E puts the conversation around DoD’s JEDI on a different trajectory. “C2E puts the conversation on a different trajectory. It puts out there that the IC has identified new needs so the prudent person would go back and ask the question, ‘if they need hybrid, on premise and commercial cloud, does that change the thinking at DoD?’” said Trey Hodgkins, president and CEO of Hodgkins Consulting. “I don’t think there is any visibility into DoD’s thought process, but you’d have to think they are asking the same question at the department.” DoD currently is conducting an internal review of JEDI after a bid protest from Oracle highlighted a potential conflict of interest. Additionally, DoD and JEDI are facing a potential FBI investigation. Sam Gordy, the general manager of IBM federal, said the CIA strategy with C2E should not only inform DoD, but influence the Pentagon’s plans going forward. “These [C2E and JEDI] are diametrically opposed approaches. Clearly the CIA has five-to-six years of experience in a single cloud environment and they are making a strategic decision to wholeheartedly move into multi cloud world. It’s a critical next step for the evolution of IT support for the IC,” Gordy said in an interview with Federal News Network. “DoD should take advantage of those five-to-six years of experience in the IC and the national security community to inform what they are doing going forward.” Gordy said the CIA is taking the approach that the private sector has moved to over the last few years. He added that unlike JEDI, the CIA is making it clear why the multi-cloud approach is necessary because they are saying in the industry day documents and the market survey what they want to use the cloud for today and in the future. Under phase 1, the CIA said it wants vendors to provide infrastructure-, platform- and software-as-a-service capabilities as well as support services. Source: CIA industry day presentation from March 22, 2019. “Knowing they have an enterprisewide cloud contract already and that they are using that capability, this tells me they need hybrid, on-premise and commercial solution and this creates a mechanism to do that,” Hodgkin said. “I didn’t see anything shocking or that caught me off guard. The CIA has clearly spelled out to the industrial base what they need, and one of them is to deliver some or all of the three types of cloud, and when they put their data into those clouds, it must be portable so they can move it to another cloud or somewhere else. Those are the two elements that are different than what they have now, and ones that you haven’t seen it called out in previous acquisitions, at least not at this level.” CIA needs cloud diversity, data portability John Weiler, the executive director of the IT Acquisition Advisory Council and an outspoken critic of JEDI, said the CIA’s approach for C2E is a recognition that the current C2S contract isn’t working like they expected. “If it had worked they would’ve just resigned up with Amazon Web Services,” Weiler said. “One cloud can’t solve all your problems. When you look at workloads on Oracle or legacy Microsoft platforms, it makes no sense to move them to Amazon or Google or IBM. Those cloud are not designed for those environments. These strategies to be effective have to acknowledge that there are certain platforms that are legacy can move to a specific cloud and not just to any cloud.” Related Stories DoD’s new JEDI investigation is focused on one Amazon employee, court filings say Defense FBI, DoD IG conducting preliminary investigation into JEDI, procurements Exclusive 10 BILLION DOLLARS and other reasons why contractors feel so much angst around DoD’s JEDI program Reporter's Notebook Thirst for new technologies, new capabilities driving IC’s cloud expansion Exclusive Industry experts said there is a growing desire inside the intelligence community for something more than C2S. One industry source, who requested anonymity in order to talk about inner working of the IC, said there have been varying degrees of unhappiness with the Amazon contract, including at least two IC agencies rejecting the C2S cloud and building their own. Another industry source said in many ways C2S was a long-term pilot and now the CIA and others in the IC recognize they weren’t happy with the price they were getting for cloud services, interoperability was more difficult than first imagined especially between C2S and existing data centers, and they were limited in the ability to add new features in a timely manner. “They’ve had time to see what works and what doesn’t, and they’ve realized cloud providers are becoming specialized. It’s easier to move workloads from on-premise to the cloud with the same vendor. They realized migrations can be expensive,” the source said. “The CIA realized that cloud diversity and price competition help bring down costs. The industry and the CIA weren’t in a position to do that six years ago, but now they are, which is good.” The first industry source added the IC had real concerns about vendor lock-in and how hard it was to move data between cloud infrastructures. “I’ve heard that a lot that people didn’t expect going into Amazon to have the level of lock-in that they have. Once they migrated data to Amazon, it became much more difficult to lift and shift to say a Microsoft cloud because the systems was configured in way that was only good for the Amazon cloud,” the source said. Implementation of cloud services is key A third industry source was even more blunt about the C2S contract: “AWS has relentlessly leveraged C2S since its inception, proclaiming to federal agencies that there was only one cloud service provider good enough for the CIA, so they needn’t look further. But like a handsy, insecure boyfriend, it seems like AWS held the CIA a little too close, proudly boasting about their exclusive relationship while competing suitors flexed their innovation muscles,” source said. “Not surprisingly, since the relationship first began, the CIA has noticed it has options and doesn’t need to commit. So while it’s understandable AWS wants to put a ring on it, the agency would clearly rather stay friends and play the field.” An AWS spokesman said they are excited about C2E and the CIA’s intent to build on the existing C2S efforts. “As a customer obsessed organization, we’re focused on driving innovation that supports the mission and spurs solutions that allow for missions to be performed better, faster, and in a more secure manner,” the spokesman said. Weiler said no matter the strategy that the CIA or DoD chooses, the key is the implementation. He said nearly every agency needs to address legacy systems and the consistent challenge of cloud migration. IBM’s Gordy said C2S shouldn’t be considered a failure by any means as it greatly helped inform the CIA’s current strategy. “This does sync up with a recompete on C2S, but I don’t think C2E is in anyway a replacement for C2S,” he said. “The CIA will probably continue to have the need for a broad business application cloud which is what C2S is being used for today. And then they will need to have a mission oriented cloud, which is the reason they are going to C2E, which seems to be for the optimization of those mission workloads.”

#TheWebOfSlime

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