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wanderinginksplot · 1 year

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Gar Cyare Chapter Ten

Surprise! It's another chapter of the Alpha-17 x fem!reader fic!

Word Count: 5,400

Warnings: minor angst, distrust, Alpha being impatient, minor suspense, cosmic horror (but only kinda)

If it helps, I definitely did listen to this* creepy space ambiance while I wrote this chapter. Just so you know what kind of vibes we're working with!

(* - leads to a YouTube video: "Dark Space Ambient" by JediMaster)

Previous | Next | Masterlist

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Be'chaaj (Away)

“Do you remember what I told you?” Alpha asked, voice intense as he resecured the comlink around your wrist.

You paused, frowning. Alpha had told you a lot of things over the past week and you were fairly sure you remembered most of them, but your nod was hesitant.

“You’re osik at lying,” Alpha said, the sound of his displeasure rumbling around your bedroom like the thunder of an approaching storm.

“I’m not lying, just…” You trailed off, sighing. “I hate that you have to do this.”

Alpha’s face softened slightly, the fierce expression he was wearing easing into something resembling fondness. “I don’t like it either, neverd’ika. But this is part of my contract with the kaminii. If I don’t accept a mission every six months, they’ll take my instructor status. That would mean I’d be out in the field full-time, and then what would you do?”

“Sneak aboard your transport,” you teased.

Alpha rolled his eyes, but there was a smile playing around his mouth. “If you could avoid getting caught by a whole transport full of troopers, the Republic would be better off with you in their place. But I would rather have you safe here where I don’t have to worry.”

“But I’ll be worried,” you told him, trying not to pout. “Just… be careful, please.”

“I will,” he promised, tapping the face of your comlink. “Remember, we can use these to keep in touch.”

“And you’re sure no one will be able to pick up the communications?” you asked. “The Kaminoans are being extra careful and the Republic is monitoring everything. The chance that someone will be able to access our conversation is higher than ever.”

“You worry too much,” Alpha told you and you couldn’t fight your answering laugh. Alpha worried more than anyone you had ever met. He wasn’t offended, though. In fact, he gave you a mischievous look. “Unless you’re planning on sending me something you don’t want anyone else seeing?”

You shook your head, grinning. Alpha was the ultimate soldier and you privately believed him to be the best trooper in the entire GAR, but sometimes, he was such an ordinary man that it made your heart hurt.

The two of you had a good sex life - a great one, if you were being fully honest. Certainly better than you had experienced with previous lovers. But sending dirty messages and images was a little further than you typically went. Not that you especially objected to the idea, but there wasn’t much need for it when you and Alpha lived on the same planet.

“Nothing like that!” you replied, sounding overly defensive even to yourself. Your smile faded as you thought about your real reasons. “If there really is an information leak, we still haven’t been able to find it. It’s unlikely, but possible that the Separatists have found a way to intercept and decode private transmissions. If that’s the case, anything we say could be accessed and used to hurt you.”

“Or you,” Alpha added, looking just as solemn.

“Or me,” you agreed, “though I’m not the one who’s on his way to a mission out in the galaxy.”

“It’s not ‘out in the galaxy’, neverd’ika,” Alpha disagreed, sounding amused and exasperated. “I’m investigating an unusual object. I’ll be a few hours from Kamino, less than a day’s travel. That’s the reason they assigned me: I’m the closest one.”

“And you’ll still have that team with you, right?” you asked, knowing he had answered the question before, but unable to keep from requesting reassurance.

“Of course,” Alpha confirmed, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly a moment later. “Karkin’ commandos. Just my luck. Good thing this is a short mission. Much more than a week with any of ‘em and I’d be court-martialed for friendly fire.”

You nodded, giving a perfunctory smile at his joke as you toyed with the comlink. Alpha stilled your fingers, sliding down until he was cradling your hands in his own. “I want to hear from you every day.”

“But- what if it’s not safe..?” Your voice was quiet, and you hated the uncertainty in it. Alpha didn’t need you to doubt everything he told you. He needed you to be strong. You lifted your chin, forcing a smile as you met his eyes. “Never mind. If you say it’s safe, it’s safe. I trust you, Alpha.”

Alpha frowned at that - the opposite of what you had wanted. “Good, but I don’t want blind faith. You’re clever and you think for yourself. You always have. If you want an explanation, all you have to do is ask for one. Hell, I’ll give you one anyway.”

With a gentle tug, Alpha directed you over to the bed. When you had sat down on the edge of it, he knelt in front of you. The height difference meant you were almost eye-level with him as he said, “I know a trooper named Ordo. He’s good with comms. Probably the best I’ve ever known, but I’d never tell him that. I asked him to modify our comlinks, give them a private connection that can’t be accessed by anyone else.”

“That’s impossible,” you told him, the rote response springing from you before you could bite it back. But you had worked for the Senate for a long time. There was no such thing as a truly private comm channel.

“Exactly what he told me,” Alpha confirmed with a nod. “But he did make it very difficult to access. By his estimate, it would take a dedicated slicer almost a week of continuous work to have access to the conversations. I want to hear from you, but we won’t be in contact that often. All the encryption does is buy time until I can get back here. Does that make you feel any better?”

You nodded, a smile spreading across your face when he started pressing kisses to each of your knuckles. “I’ll miss you, little one.”

“I’ll miss you more,” you assured him, trying to pull him closer.

“Impossible,” he decreed, letting you move him until you could give him a deep kiss. You tried to pour your feelings for him into it. You may have done too good a job - when you pulled away, you were both breathing heavy and Alpha’s eyes were dark. If you had more time, there was a good chance it would have continued into something more.

“I’ll be back before you know it, neverd’ika,” he promised, standing.

You stood, too, wrapping him the tightest hug you could manage. He squeezed you for a second, pushing the breath from your lungs with even that casual show of strength.

And then he was gone.

After Alpha left Kamino - boarding a ship with a group of commandos who worked under the name Omega Squad - you threw yourself into work. You were still on temporary assignment with General Ti and Commander Colt, working to track down the source of the information leak. There had been no real breakthroughs, though, and you were losing any hope of finding the leak.

But that didn’t mean you were working any less hard. You had gone through all of the bounty hunters during the first week and caught no signs of suspicious behavior on the holocams. General Ti hadn’t sensed anything from the Force about anyone in particular, though she warned that it was an inexact method. If the person wasn’t planning to betray the Republic or didn’t see their actions as a betrayal, she had explained, there wouldn’t be any sign of guilt in their Force signature.

Commander Colt had been skeptical of her findings, but had reluctantly admitted that he hadn’t caught any suspicious responses from the bounty hunters, either.

Since then, you had moved on to other potential sources of information. In particular, you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Alpha’s half-asleep suggestion that information wasn’t passing through Kamino’s communications system at all. You had brought that potential up to General Ti and Commander Colt, knowing that they would give Alpha’s opinion the weight it deserved. They had suggested that you move on to studying arrivals and departures from Kamino.

At first, you had been ecstatic, certain that the new direction would give the answers you hadn’t found from the bounty hunters. But you were several days into studying the logs and there were no obvious sources.

You heaved a deep sigh, staring down at the list of ships that had docked at Kamino’s ports. It was an incredibly short list, made shorter by removing the vessels you had already researched.

“Cheer up, kid,” Commander Colt urged you. “We’ll find it eventually.”

You eyed him, tempted to remind him that you were certainly older than him, but refrained. Things like that only seemed to cause arguments with the troopers.

“Do we really have that kind of time?” you asked instead. “If information is being leaked from Kamino, we need to find the source as soon as possible.”

“I did not ask for your help so you could attempt to carry the burden yourself,” General Ti said serenely. “You must remember that our attempts can only be considered failures if we lose hope of finding what we seek.”

You squinted at her, but respect kept you from replying. It did amuse you to see that Commander Colt looked just as unconvinced by her reasoning as you did. It was probably a sign of the differences in philosophy between the Jedi and the rest of the galaxy. The Jedi were trained to consider their own response to their surroundings. That was a healthy way to live, but neither you nor Commander Colt hadn’t been given that opportunity. In the majority of the galaxy, you were expected to produce results.

“What do we do, then?” you asked.

“We continue our list,” General Ti told you, as though it had been the most obvious answer. Perhaps it had been. “If we have found nothing when we are finished, we will consider a new angle. There is little point in giving in halfway through an investigation.”

“That’s true,” you admitted, rubbing your eyes.

“I’m gonna get some caf,” Commander Colt announced, ignoring the fact that you had started only an hour before and it was extremely early for a break. He stood from the small table and gave you a firm look. “I’ll bring one back for you.”

“Excellent idea, Commander,” General Ti praised. “Meanwhile, I am going to meditate on this matter. We shall resume our investigation in half an hour.”

You nodded silently, but they were already moving - Commander Colt in the direction of the nearest caf station and General Ti for… somewhere she could meditate. No matter how much time you spent around Jedi, you had a feeling that you would never fully understand them.

Left alone in the empty room, you sighed again and studied the list. You had analyzed and notated it days ago. The names that had been crossed out were cleared of suspicion. The ones with check marks were military vessels. That didn’t mean they were automatically innocent, but it meant that tracking down their crew members would be much easier.

The few non-military ships mostly belonged to food and clothing vendors, a company that helped maintain the wave attenuators that generated Kamino’s power, and a handful of powerful people who had been invited to visit Kamino as part of a publicity campaign. Apparently, Dranulo’s actions in bribing Brid into having you removed from the report had echoed much further than Kamino was comfortable with. They were trying to correct their image. Unfortunately, that may have opened them up to an information breach.

You were so absorbed in calculating all the permutations of potential leaks that you didn’t pay much attention to the door opening. It was rather soon for Commander Colt to have returned with caf. The nearest station was still a considerable walk from the makeshift conference room. He would have needed to sprint to be back this soon.

And you didn’t smell caf at all.

That was enough to make you glance up, suspicion growing in your chest. Your wariness was immediately justified when your gaze locked with that of Doni Pender.

You were standing before you could remember having moved. Dimly, you recognized that your training was starting to improve your reflexes, but most of your brain was caught in a surge of adrenaline.

Pender’s eyes widened and he took a half-step back. He held his hands up, palms up to show you that he didn’t intend any harm, but you didn’t relax in the slightest.

“If you do anything suspicious, I’ll show you everything I’ve learned in the last few weeks,” you warned, somewhat nonsensically. He didn’t know you had been taking lessons in self-defense with Zackra Trem. He also didn’t know that, unlike the last interaction you had with him, you could now both take and throw a punch. But if he pushed you, you promised yourself, he would find out.

“Wait, I’m just here to talk,” Pender said quickly, voice pleading. “I need your help.”

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Fi asked.

Alpha heaved a sigh. He could answer the man, but chances were that it wouldn’t be anything close to professional. Fi was flippant to the point of irresponsibility, something that could end up being a danger to the entire squad and Alpha himself if the mission turned into a combat situation

Fortunately, the leader of Omega Squad responded before Alpha could be too tempted to reply. “An unusual object, Fi.”

Niner was a good man. Alpha heartily approved of him… though he wouldn’t tell him so. That wasn’t the kind of thing you told a trooper, at least not until you had given him a chance to prove you wrong. But Niner was the kind of man Alpha would describe as ‘steady’, someone he could trust to have his back if things went south.

“Don’t you ever pay attention to the briefings?” Atin asked. “It’s been in every one we’ve gotten so far.”

Atin was serious and sharp. Alpha didn’t know for sure what had given him the scar that ran down his face - even if he could guess, having read that the man had been trained by Sergeant Walon Vau - but it was the kind of thing that gave a man some serious edges.

Fi snorted. “You call those briefings? I learn more from listening to civvie news networks.”

Darman, the final member of Omega Squad, shrugged. “Republic intel, Fi. What do you expect?”

Darman was one of the quietest troopers Alpha had ever come across. Normally, troopers in groups were exuberant, verging on obnoxious. Darman, on the other hand, was calm to the point of introspective. He hadn’t said more than a few words since Alpha had stepped onto the ship. Some may have been tempted to call him easy-going, but Alpha had a suspicion that the trooper’s mind was always churning. What was that old civvie phrase about still waters?

Alpha cracked his knuckles, leaning forward to peer out of the ship’s viewport. “According to the intel, we should be approaching the object now.”

“Intel says here?” Fi checked, already grinning in appreciation of his own wit. “Then where are we gonna start looking?”

Alpha fixed him with an unamused stare. “Find somewhere else to be or we’ll check the pressure regulation on that fancy armor of yours.”

Seriously, what kind of squad special-ordered black Katarn armor?

“Fi, take a walk,” Niner ordered, jerking a thumb to the back of the ship. There wasn’t enough space to get him fully out of earshot, but it was a start.

Alpha flicked the switch that activated the ship’s high-powered radar. Maybe Omega Squad had the time to joke around and perform a leisurely search to complete the mission, but Alpha had places to be and someone to get back to.

And that wasn’t to mention that he had been fighting off a gnawing sense that something was coming. That something was wrong.

He pulled his mind back to the task at hand, studying the radar screen with a ferocity spurred on by thoughts of how much he despised leaving you alone on Kamino. Unfortunately, the radar didn’t prove as easy to influence as a sentient being. Alpha was met with a stubborn blankness that was even less helpful than the blankness of the star-studded galaxy stretching out in front of the ship’s nose.

With an unintelligible growl, he glanced sideways at Niner. “Is Fi your tech specialist?”

“No, that would be Atin,” came the welcome answer, followed by a summoning, “Atin.”

Atin appeared just beside Alpha’s chair. “Captain?”

“Can you boost the power of this radar system?” Alpha asked.

After a moment’s hesitation, Atin said, “Do you mean the range?”

“No, I mean the power,” Alpha told him impatiently. Kriff sake, if he had meant the range, he would have said the range. “I want to see if anything nearby is suspicious.”

“That’s not… not really something a radar is capable of doing,” Atin denied. “But I can program the computer to give more detailed information about the intercepted pulses.”

“Good enough,” Alpha confirmed with a nod, watching Atin make the correct adjustments. In another life, he would have made a good ARC trooper. Alpha decided against telling Atin that. More likely than not, it would only offend the man.

ARCs and commandos had an interesting relationship. Commandos - the early ones, at least - were trained by the Cuy’val Dar, many of whom had personal or business connections with Jango Fett. Many were Mandalorians, most were bounty hunters, and all were fierce. There were some who emphasized survival and brotherhood, like Kal Skirata, while others favored training styles that were more vicious.

But all commandos, regardless of who had trained them, were uneasy around ARCs.

Alpha’s personal theory was that their discomfort came from a lack of understanding. Commandos were born into their role. They had been designated for special training and assignments from the first stages of their planning. The kaminii altered genes, everyone knew that, but commandos had a different type of genes than normal troopers.

ARCs were exactly the opposite of commandos. They were special because of what they did, not the specifics of their design. Ordinary men placed in extraordinary circumstances who thought or performed so far above their specifications that the Republic designated them as being capable of more.

Of course, commandos were the most uneasy around the Alpha ARCs. Alpha and his brothers had been trained by Jango himself, and Fett had been harsher on them than the worst member of the Cuy’val Dar. The Alpha ARCs had been trained to place the mission before anything else. It was more important than civilian casualties - hell, more than any casualties, even the men themselves. The mission came first, always. Anything less was a failure, and Fett didn’t tolerate failure. More than once, Alpha’s black and white decision-making had alienated the commandos, the Jedi, and Cuy’val Dar alike.

So, no, Alpha didn’t plan on telling Atin that he would have made a good ARC.

The radar was adjusted in short order and Alpha applied his focus to interpreting the tangled mass of results that flooded his screen. After only a moment, he glanced over at Atin, stabbing a finger at the screen. “What is this?”

Atin apparently had zero faith in Alpha’s ability to understand basic tech codes and specs, since he began an explanation of the general information. “Every section is broken down into the same pattern: distance, hardness, materials, and-”

“I know that, trooper,” Alpha bit out impatiently. He tapped his finger on the same spot in the wall of text. “But this in particular. It’s saying the radar intercepted a close, non-organic structure. It’s solid and metallic, but the only thing I see out here are asteroids.”

Abruptly, the cockpit was much more crowded. Darman stood between Niner’s chair and Atin, with Fi craning his neck in an attempt to see over both of them.

“Where does the scan say that information was picked up, captain?” Niner asked.

When Alpha had rattled off the coordinates, Niner oriented the ship so that they were looking directly at the place in question. Clones weren’t psychic, but Alpha was willing to bet that they were all thinking the same thing: the only thing at those coordinates was a single asteroid, slowly rotating as they watched.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lone asteroid,” Fi said. To his own shock, Alpha agreed with the statement.

“It’s not,” Darman said suddenly, pointing past it. There was an asteroid field to the right ship’s viewport. The field was nearby, not close enough for the suspicious asteroid to belong to it. “It looks like it may have started as part of that.”

“Looks like there’s a ship on it,” Niner warned. Alpha eyed the asteroid even closer and found that the sergeant was correct. A ship was just rotating into view, a noticeable spot even on the medium-sized asteroid. “I’m not finding any signs of life onboard.”

“Should we try to hail it?” Fi asked.

“Don’t bother,” Atin told him. “Look at it. It’s an older ship and not in good repair. If there was anyone onboard when it landed, they’re dead now. We should just tell the GAR that it was a false alarm.”

Alpha agreed with Atin’s factual statement, but not his conclusion. “We’re getting a closer look.”

There was a groan from behind him that Alpha was willing to bet had come from Fi, but he ignored it. Something strange was going on, and he wasn’t stupid enough to assume everything was safe. Not when there was so much at stake.

When the ship was close enough to study the abandoned vessel, Alpha admitted to himself that Atin had been right about the lack of need to hail it. At least one of the transparisteel windows was broken, and there was a large hole in the side of the ship besides. Nothing in there was alive. By any GAR or Republic standard, they could consider their mission complete and Alpha could return to Kamino.

“Suit up, men,” he ordered tersely, using the co-pilot’s controls to land their ship beside the mysterious one. “We’re going in.”

There was a moment’s pause after the order. One of Omega Squad - Darman, Alpha was fairly sure - asked, “We’re… going to explore the abandoned ship, sir?”

“Yes.”

After delivering his single-word answer, Alpha pushed through them all to get to his own pressure- and atmospheric-regulating gear. He had no interest in waiting for them to figure out that he was serious; he was on a schedule.

The inside of the craft was just as abandoned as it had seemed from the outside. There was little dust in the vacuum of space, but Alpha could imagine the way grime would have built up on every surface if it had been somewhere planet-side. The cracked windows made even the interior feel raw, fully exposed to the uncaring void of the universe yawning just beyond the transparisteel.

They weren’t close enough to the nearest sun to get much light - and the asteroid was rotating too quickly for to estimate when that light would hit - so the troopers relied on their helmet lamps to see the ship’s interior. The beams cut through the gloom as best they could, but even five pairs could only do so much. Every man was limited to the space where his helmet was pointed.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Niner asked.

“Anything suspicious,” Alpha told him, plucking a length of cord from where it was drifting through the space in front of him. With neat, efficient motions, he wrapped it into a tight roll and stowed it on his belt. There was no use leaving perfectly good materials behind.

“This whole place is suspicious,” Atin muttered, though Alpha could still hear him clearly through the HUD’s communications channel.

“Then find something that proves it’s an abandoned vessel and we can leave,” he replied.

Darman paused halfway through the process of inspecting the fogged-over control panel in the cockpit. “What exactly would that look like?”

“A body,” Alpha said. The silence that stretched through the comm channel was tense.

A scrap of flimsi was tucked haphazardly into a crevice between two of the jump seats and Alpha worked it free with careful fingers. When he spread it out, he frowned. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, men. I just found a bill of sale for this ship.”

“Is there a date on it?” Niner asked.

Alpha studied the flimsi more closely, scanning through the standard details to find what he was looking for. “About six months ago.”

When he looked up, all four members of Omega Squad were staring back at him, the blue tint of their visors showing him exactly where they were despite the black armor. He folded the paper and tucked it securely into a pouch on his belt. “Anyone up for a trip to the next level down?”

They weren’t enthused by it, but Omega dutifully tromped down the steep stairs behind him, struggling much less with the narrow stairwell than Alpha did. When they reached the bottom, Alpha found a sealed door blocking their way.

He reported the finding through the inter-HUD channel and was met by unexpected excitement from Darman. “I can blast the door! I have some detonator tape in my kit-”

“No,” Alpha refused crankily. Switching places with a commando on an already cramped stairwell didn’t rank high on his list of enjoyable activities.

“What are you gonna do, then-” Fi started to ask, voice full of scarcely hidden mocking.

Alpha balanced his weight on his back foot, leaned into it, and kicked the door with the other. The thin layer of durasteel bent noticeably under the blow and a single strike from his shoulder took it off completely. He was too old, too mature, and too highly ranked to throw a mocking reply back at Fi, but Alpha did allow himself to toss a single look over his shoulder.

Fi didn’t say anything else.

When he stepped through the doorway, Alpha paused. It took some time to process what he was seeing, but he managed after only a moment. He was in a decompression chamber, something no ship would ever have in the middle of two floors.

“Atin,” he barked, feeling the jolt that ran through Omega Squad. “Get up here.”

Atin appeared beside Alpha in the small chamber. Only a slight intake of breath told him that Atin was as surprised by the decomp chamber as Alpha had been.

“We need to get through that door,” Alpha said, tipping his head to indicate the pressure-locked door in front of him. “But we don’t want to risk depressurizing whatever is down here. Ideas?”

“Sometimes, certain facilities have multiple decompression chambers,” Atin said, but he sounded doubtful. “It’d be a lot easier to guess if this one does if I knew what it was.”

“We don’t have the benefit of intel here,” Alpha reminded him sharply. “That door’s not meant to hold up to this kind of pressure long-term, so we have to move quickly. What can we do?”

“In a ship this size?” Atin paused, glancing overhead like he could see through the durasteel to gauge the ship’s dimensions. “I can slice the panel and open the door, we all rush in, and then close the door and hope it holds. But there’s no guarantee-”

“We have suits,” Alpha interrupted. “I want to avoid tipping anyone off with a pressure change, but it’s more important that we find out what’s going on here than to keep a low profile. Slice the panel if you can. If you get stuck or it takes more than a minute, we’ll get Darman in here to blast it open.”

“A minute is more than enough time,” Atin said, already moving to the panel as he pulled a slicing kit from his belt.

Alpha watched the process in silence. He and Atin had been speaking on the group’s comm channel. The rest of Omega knew what was going on and they hadn’t asked any questions.

When Atin was in control of the panel, Alpha signaled for them to get ready to move. “I’m first through. Atin’s last so he can close the panel. Niner?”

“Me, then Fi, then Darman,” Niner instructed. “Dar and I will take the left half of the room.”

“I’ll take ahead and Fi can cover the right with backup from Atin after the panel closes,” Alpha finished. “Open it.”

The door slid open reluctantly, clearly struggling under the pressure of being the only barrier between atmosphere and the lack of it.

The moment the gap was wide enough for Alpha to fit through, he did. It was one of the times that his stature worked against him, but with some careful maneuvering, he was through. Omega Squad came through behind him, taking up their positions covering the room while Alpha studied the area straight ahead. Even as the door slid closed behind them, he reported, “Clear.”

“Clear,” every commando reported.

Alpha stayed on guard, but his shoulders eased slightly. From those reports, there was no one in the room. No combat. No immediate threat. More importantly, the room was small, extremely basic. The only thing of note it held was a ladder, leaning against the wall.

“A storage room?” Fi guessed.

“Why would they need a ladder?” Darman asked. “They have a staircase inside of the ship and stairs built-in everywhere they might need to go.”

“And a storage room wouldn’t need a decompression chamber before you entered it,” Niner pointed out.

“This is a secondary decompression chamber,” Atin said, pointing around the room to various components. “Maybe the first one was a fail-safe, maybe it was just another set of doors to decrease the strain, but this is definitely a decomp chamber.”

Alpha watched the squad’s heart rates increase as he began stomping around the room, the boots of his armor striking the floor as hard as he could manage.

“What are you doing, Captain?” Niner asked.

“If this is a decompression chamber, that means it leads somewhere,” Alpha told him. “And since there’s a ladder, chances are that it leads up or down. We’ve already seen upstairs.”

The breath one of the men took was full of realization, but Alpha had already found what he had been looking for: a small panel in the floor. The hollow sound it had made when he stomped on it was slight, but definitely audible. When he studied it more intensely, he could see the near-invisible hinges and handle on the panel. It was the work of a moment to open it.

Omega Squad slowly and silently approached to stand beside Alpha as they all stared down at what had been revealed. There was a darkness under the panel, a hollow of empty space that still seemed to be enclosed. There had been a hiss, Alpha recollected, when he had first lifted the small piece of durasteel. A bit of pressure, too.

“We didn’t depressurize this room,” Fi mused, the hush of his voice turning the simple statement into something menacing. “The only reason that should have hissed was if the lack of atmosphere was leaking into somewhere… pressurized.”

Alpha begrudgingly made a new estimate of Fi’s intelligence.

“Judging from the current pressure of this room,” Darman said, “whatever’s down there was either a remarkably large space or highly pressurized. The pressure and oxygen content are capable of supporting human life.”

A check of his own gauges confirmed Darman’s calculations. There had been a slight dip in pressure, but nothing bad enough to make the space uninhabitable.

“We’re on the bottom floor of the ship, though,” Atin reminded them, sounding rattled. “There shouldn’t be anything below this point.”

“The ship wasn’t lifted up on extended landing gear when we saw it, remember?” Niner prompted. “It was sitting flat against the surface of the asteroid. That’s why we thought it was a crash landing gone wrong. It seems like…”

He trailed off, visor pointed at the newly exposed gap in the floor. The rest of the group finished his hypothesis in silence:

It seemed like this panel led directly into the asteroid itself.

---

Author's Note - I am a firm believer that sci-fi doesn't have to actually be based in real-life science, especially when said science takes place in another galaxy. However, I do want to state that there is, in fact, dust in space. It doesn't collect on satellites or the International Space Station because the equipment is moving too quickly for it to cling (or so I gathered from the articles I read), but it exists. Unfortunately, I had already written about how the abandoned ship wasn't dusty and I didn't want to fix it. Sorry if that ruins anyone's immersion!

Thank you for reading! I would love to know what you think about this new twist or what you thought of seeing Omega Squad! (For anyone who doesn't know, they are canon characters, found in the Republic Commando novels.) Have a wonderful new year!

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martianbugsbunny · 1 year

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The Tender Daily Ritual (A PloKit Fic)

May the Fourth be with you! *chuckle* I really enjoyed writing my first PloKit fic, so I’ve done another short domestic thing. I got the idea for this fic when it got warmer where I live recently and as a result, my skin started itching like mad. Kel Dor living in non-oxygen atmospheres, I figured it wasn’t too far-fetched for Plo to have similar issues when on Coruscant, and the idea of Kit helping him lotion the itchy spots just made me all melty inside. Basically no plot, just soft fluff—enjoy!

Plo sighed, for once with contentment, rather than the stresses of war. The Separatists had been oddly quiet lately, and although the Jedi Council had been discussing how to prepare for the inevitable renewed onslaught, both Plo and Kit had been back at the Jedi Temple for the past week, rather than out in the field. True, they couldn’t walk about with hands clasped together as they could on joint missions, and if they wanted to sleep one curled around the other they had to check carefully that nobody saw them slip into each other’s rooms, but they were willing to make those small sacrifices for their small, stolen moments of peace together.

It was early in the morning, only about five o’clock, and the dawn coming up over Coruscant was beautiful. Plo stood and watched it from his window; being a member of the Council, he got one of the few rooms in the Temple with a view. He liked watching the rising sun reflect off the many skyscrapers and the ever-present lanes of traffic. It was an artificial kind of beauty, but it was stunning all the same.

Kit quietly entered the room, closing the door behind himself without a sound. Every morning he went down for a swim in the Temple pool, put there for species like Nautolans who lived naturally in water.

“Morning, love,” he said. Plo tore himself away from the view at the window to return Kit’s smile.

“Good morning,” he replied. He went to sit on the bed as Kit retrieved one of the jars of lotion from Plo’s dresser.

It was a daily ritual for Kit to rub lotion into Plo’s thick skin, which dried out when he was in an oxygen environment to a maddening degree. In the field, he itched constantly and often developed raw, irritated patches all across his back and chest, despite the thick robes he wore. When he had time, the clone medic medicated and sometimes bandaged the dry skin, but mostly he went without.

Not now. Kit slipped the robe off of Plo’s shoulders, dipped his fingers into the salve, and began to massage the curve of Plo’s neck. The tension wasn’t entirely dissipated from his muscles (in the thick of the Clone War, total relaxation was nearly impossible) but beneath Kit’s gentle hands, Plo began to loosen up.

The extra care Kit gave to a spot of skin on Plo’s left side, where the itching was worst, made Plo tear up beneath his goggles. He didn’t need any elaborate gestures to know how Kit felt for him—that delicate, small touch was what let Plo know he was loved.

“Someday, when the war is over, we’ll do this every day, come hell or high water,” Kit whispered in Plo’s ear, as he usually did. They had long since promised their lives after the war to each other; they couldn’t leave the Order before securing the galaxy’s safety.

“You would love high water, dear,” Plo laughed. He leaned back against Kit’s chest, and Kit wrapped his strong green arms around him, pressing an adoring kiss to Plo’s shoulder. “But it does sound nice.”

“Maybe we can even split our time between your homeworld and mine,” Kit suggested. “I’ll have my oceans sometimes, and you won’t have to deal with this in your own atmosphere.” He splayed his fingers across Plo’s ribcage, gently working a leftover residue of lotion from his fingertips into Plo’s skin.

“Even better,” Plo agreed.

For the moment, it didn’t matter a bit that they were still Jedi, and were technically disobeying their code. It didn’t matter that the war was still raging, and neither could be a hundred percent certain they would make it to that promised happy life.

For the moment, as with each day’s similar time, they were just Plo Koon and Kit Fisto, deeply in love, utterly committed to caring heart and body for each other, and that was what mattered.

#plokit #Plo Koon #kit fisto #Star Wars #clone wars #Star Wars the clone wars #swtcw #fic #domestic fluff #may the fourth #may the fourth be with you #martianbugsbunny writes fic

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the-elf-barbarian · 9 months

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*sits down at your table uninvited* and so like yeah the queer reading - yes they're both queer, this is demon/angel “hereditary enemies” second layer queer.

Aziraphale represents the Respectable Gay(TM) and Crowley, the Scary Queer(TM) no I will not elaborahahaha who am I kidding I haven't been able to stop elaborating for the past week

I'm gonna focus on how it ties into the final scene, where Aziraphale and Crowley argue about Aziraphale’s decision to return to heaven.

Aziraphale sees Crowley’s goodness and is convinced Crowley’s goodness is evidence that he should be an angel. Aziraphale is so focussed on their chance to be safe from/in Heaven (to even, potentially if he plays his cards right, make reforms) that he seems blind to the rest of each of their natures - to the parts of Crowley (and to a lesser degree, himself) that would have to be carved off to fit him into the constraints of an only slightly less restrictive model of angel.

Conversely, in suggesting Alpha Centauri, Crowley proposes cutting themselves off from the world they loved so much - from bookshops, boozy brunches, the Bentley - to be free from Heaven and Hell's interefence. But he doesn’t really propose a solution to the issue at hand - at this point, we’re aware of The Book of Life and remote memory wipes - we are aware Hell doesn’t have the resources, but are we really to believe that the closest star to earth is beyond Heaven’s reach? Fleeing guarantees isolation, nothing else.

To take this up to allegory now:

Authors note: Please understand I say this next bit from a perspective of queerness myself

Aziraphale is a nice respectable gay. The Respectable Gay is not some scary creature - he's an angel, and love is an angelic tendency… surely he shouldn’t be in trouble just because he loves the "wrong" gender? This ties into the common refrain during the push for marriage reform “We are just like you! We just want to marry our loved ones, just like you get to!”. And, from the perspective of the recent wave of marriage reform, he is finally being invited back to the in-crowd. And he wants that so much!

Not just because it feels nice and comfortable but because he wants to work within the system (that until so recently had treated him so poorly) because he desperately wants to do good and sees this as the way to affect change.

Crowley is the scary queer™. He's non-binary, he cross dresses, he knows he does not fit in polite society ("unforgivable, that's what I am"). Sure, the Scary Queer protested for marriage reform, but what they need is - trans medical rights, protections for multiple primary partners, preferably the abolishment of gendered language etc etc. They don’t want to be tacked onto an updated version of the same toxic system. The whole thing is broken, from the second She created Adam and Eve (the original sin cishet monogamous couple).

They see no way forward, the task is just too large. The best option the Scary Queer sees is separation - a classic lesbian commune in the woods Alpha Centauri.

They are both doomed to fail.

Assimilation demands conformance - and we can never work from within the majority to shuffle the goalposts enough to avoid failing those with the most radical identity/expression.

Separation demands giving up everything else you love in pursuit of freedom that will never truly exist. This is a longer discussion but simply by existing on Earth, we are affected by the others on earth (by, say, the effects of global warming or in seeking medical treatment for a heart attack).

And, more to the point, it only protects those with the means to remove themselves from the society (the people who by their very definition, have the means to support others in the community) - ensuring a worse outcome for all but themselves (e.g. the next Gabriel/Beelzebub, whoever they currently are).

At a society level, their argument is that same as the one between the assimilationist "we're just the same as you!" gays vs the separatist “lesbian commune” queers. At a more personal level, it's the line we all have to draw and redraw somewhere between Safety and Freedom of Expression.

So, to sum up why episode six made me absolutely feral: I am Aziraphale and I am Crowley, and I cannot stop fighting.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers

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helsingvania · 1 year

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I want bitches to know that whenever i think about star wars rebels it brings me to the verge of tears. Like this series isn't a tie in like clone wars was, it was an aftermath. This series was picking up the pieces of the clone wars and what both sides stood for in the face of the empire by a completely new generation of people.

We come to know and adore all of the members of the ghost and understand their personal traveisties. Hera and chopper with the loss of her childhood, Kanan and Zeb and the lost of their home and everything they knew, Sabine and Ezra with the sins of their parents they have to live with. All of these characters have their own problems and only ever find comfort and safetey with eachother because no one else knows what they feel.

And since they’re so sprated from the movies, we don't know rheir fate, we don't know what they'll leave behind. We watch these characters grow and we cannot predict their deaths and legacies, we're forced to sit and watch them with the feeling of uncertainty. We sit and greve with these characters because we have become one with this space family fighting facism.

Everywhere you look in this series is monuments to a fallen republic. We're forced to sit here and stare at it as these old bases and facilities are from a bygon era that at one point in time we come to find as home and comforting with the clone wars series taking place in places like these. Its all remains forgotten, unappreciated, abandoned, and utterly in ruins much like the troops who ran them.

The last battle makes me want to cry seeing the remains of the droid army making up eith the clones when they realized that neither of them won the war. Both of them are equally sentient and used for nothing but a war that neither of them would've ever won. Both of them trying to fight for something that seems right (separatists wanting better representation, and the republic not wanting the galaxy to dissolve into conflciting governments) but both sides equally become corrupted by the interests of a single man.

For something so small, vader and a ahsoka is a gut punch for me. We see this build up for the entire season and ends with one of the most gut wrenching lines (I WON'T LEAVE YOU, NOT THIS TIME!). Its extremely departed from the plot and achives so kany feels in soo little time i love it and hate it at the same time.

Bro i can't even get into farewell and homecoming without shedding tears im not touching that.

BUUUT i can talk about maul and his end. Twin suns is easily a favorite episode especially with the kenobi series and the journals from the 2015 star wars series. I definitely think maul is used too much in this post clone wars era of star wars media, but none of them can really beat out how rebels worked with him and gave him a meaningful narrative death. Like his journey of hatred and revenge beginning where it ends on tatooine is just poetic writing. How hes alway attach to his past and then subsequently gets beaten after trying the same move he tried doing to qui-gon, but outwitten by obi-wan. By this time Obi-Wan has moved on from his guilt and past regarding anakin and the purge, maul hasn't and thats how he failed.

Also the line about luke being the avenger for those used by Palpatine, both jedi and sith alike also makes me want to cry. Like so many people who learned about this dumbass kid had so much faith and hope in him that he'll do the right thing in the end makes the movies and comics hurt more

This show brings up so much shit from the events of mortis, the horror of the empire, the foundings of a rebellion and how to truly make a stance and what it takes, the importance of trust and faith in others, and just so much more i just don't wanna shed tears on my keyboard rn

If you made it this far...thanks i guess

#star wars #star wars rebels #helsing speaks

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redkyubii · 1 year

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Star Wars planned Fics

Hi everyone!! I know this is late (much later than promised I'm sorry😭) I have finally finished compiling my list of some of the fics that I have parts planned for or am starting to plan. I’ll possibly have a google Docs up later on in the week so people can vote for what they want me to start posting working on more first, but until then post your top two/three preferences below or message me them!

Connection Made - obikin - Rating T - Modern Au, some fantasy elements - Summary: When window shopping in the middle of the backwater town of Tatooine, 13 year old Anakin Skywalker finds an old leather-bound notebook that he takes home with him. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in the city of Stewjon, a 14 year old Obi-wan Kenobi, is gifted an old family heirloom, a leather bound journal. Everything seems normal, until their writing on the pages start to disappear, instead replaced by someone else.

Our found family - no main pairings (Background Obikin in some) - Rating G - Canon divergence, found family, family bonding, post Order 66 Au - Summary: This will be a collection of one shots that link onto my story A Ripple Changes Everything. It will include moments like what happened straight after Anakin left the order, how he met all his children and other important moments that are spoken about/eluded to (or will be spoken about/eluded to) in the main story.

One Nights Mistake makes a Family - main pairing: Obikin (background: one-sided Satine/Obi-wan) - Rating M - Canon Divergence, Set in the Clone Wars, Anakin leaves the order, Mpreg, unplanned pregnancy, One-night stand, slow-burn. Summary: One month after a drunken one-night stand with his former master, Anakin Skywalker ends up pregnant with twins. Scared of his fate and believing his former master still loves Dutches Satine, Anakin flees the Order with several of his troops, disappearing without a trace. Six years later, Obi-wan Kenobi still hasn’t given up the search for his missing former Palawan. However, after landing on the Planet Devon with a few of his troops on a recon mission, he runs into a very special set of twins, along with their very familiar mother.

Catch me Before I Fall - no main pair (might become Obikin?) - Rating T (may change depending on how it goes) - Canon Divergence, mentions of slavery/past slavery, mentions/implications of child abuse, PTSD, panic attacks, Anakin gets therapy, Jedi Council bashing (at first, they do get better). Summary: Two years have passed since the start of the galactic war against and things weren’t looking good for anyone, but the Jedi were coping, handing their emotions off to the force with ease. All except for one, who keeps it all hidden, dealing with all the criticism and losses by bottling it all up inside. It isn't until Healer Che throws a holo-diary, one of many, in the Councils faces that they see just how close to breaking their Chosen One is, and how ignorant they have been to his suffering. Will they be able to save Anakin from himself? Or will he fall?

Bonded to me (lets make this work) - Main pairing: Obikin (Background pairings: Quinlan/Ventress, other to be determined) - Rating T - Alternate Universe Au, Sith Anakin, Enemies to friends to lovers, Sith and Jedi work together/same order. Summary: Being Bonded is a great privilege for a force sensitive, at least in Obi-wan Kenobi’s opinion it is, and he couldn’t wait until the day he met his. That is until he actually meets him. Arrogant, reckless and hot-headed, Anakin Skywalker is the worst person he could be partnered with, and he doesn't think it would work... until certain things come to light to change his mind. Will these two be able to get past their differences to save the galaxy? Or will they bring about its downfall?

Can we come together to make a better life? - Obikin - Rating M - Alternate Universe Au, Sith Anakin, Separatist Anakin, lovers on opposite sides of the war, Shmi lives, secret relationship. Summary: Two soldier on opposite sides of the war, fighting to keep their love hidden from their own allies and their enemies. Keeping their love hidden while trying to win the war is difficult enough without adding in all the secrecy and betrayal from their own sides while also trying to find a way to end the war. Will they be able to do it, or will they be consumed by the destruction the war brings? (I might create a prequel story for this one about how they met depending on how popular this is.)

Let’s be the best - Obikin - Rating T - Pokemon Au, slow burn, Pokemon Trainer Anakin, Pokemon Trainer Obi-wan, misunderstanding, stranger to friends to lovers, Same age Au, slow burn romance. Summary: 16 year old Anakin Skywalker has finally saved up enough with the help of his mum to start his Pokemon journey with his Charmander Vader to catch as many different types of Pokemon as he can, all to fulfil a life long dream of having a home filled with every Pokemon known. However all of this gets thrown into chaos when he starts running into legendary Pokemon from all over the world, all of which want him to capture them?! Watch as Anakin, along with his trusty partner Vader, make new friends and enemies while trying to make his dream a reality.

Beyond these Castle walls - Obikin - Rating T - Medieval Au, Fantasy Au, Prince Obi-wan, Sorcerer Anakin, Necromancer Anakin, Misunderstandings, Betrayal, War. Summary: Prince Obi-wan has lived within his castle walls for a long as he could remember despite peace reigning between Stewjon and its neighbouring kingdoms. However, before long a new enemy approaches to shatter this peace. An alliance is called, with the meeting being held in Obi-wan’s palace, allowing him to meet many new people, one being the mysterious Anakin Skywalker, a sorcerer with no land to claim he hails from. As dark times grow closer and misunderstandings come to light, will Obi-wan decide to remain safely hidden away? or go beyond his castle walls.

Familiar Faces - Obikin - Rating T - Canon divergence, Order 66 happened differently, Anakin doesn’t kill younglings, Emperor Anakin Skywalker, Anakin raises Luke and Leia. Summary: “The Empire had been in control of the Galaxy for 13 years by the time they were introduced to the public eye, though everybody knew of them. He looked at the Holonet for a moment and froze when he saw them. It was definitely his eyes looking back at him and his features on the girl. But how?” An Au of a different ending to ROTS, where Anakin didn’t really turn to the darkside or storm the temple, had a messy breakup with his secret boyfriend, overthrows Palpatine and now rules an empire while trying to keep his children (twins and adopted children) from blowing stuff up because they are bored. Meanwhile, Obi-wan and the remaining Jedi join the rebellion. Until, of course, Obi-wan sees the royal twins... reunion anyone?

Double Trouble - Obikin - Age swaps, Same age Anakin and Obi-wan, Palawan Qui-gon Jinn, Palawan Yan Dooku, Jedi Knight Obi-wan Kenobi, Jedi King Anakin Skywalker, matchmaking. Summary: It’s bee three years since Obi-wan Kenobi last saw Anakin Skywalker, three years since they were both knighted and Skywalker decided to become a wandering Jedi, but that never stopped him from invading his every thought. Obi-wan had hoped that during this time, his silly crush on his fellow knight would have disappeared, but it hadn't. Now, Anakin was back by order of the council and had taken not one, but two Palawan's... that both seem to know about his crush. Obi-wan has to face his biggest challenge yet, finding a way to confess his feelings to Anakin without hiss attempts getting ruined by two padawans that seem to think they need to protect their master’s innocence.

Vader’s Twin - Obikin - Rating T - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker and Vader are twins, Slowburn, Anakin totally kidnaps his niece and nephew when he finds out about them, Vader is obsessed with his twin (to in a bad way though... sort of), order 66 happens differently, no younglings were killed, slow burn. Summary: After leaving the twins with their new guardians, Obi-wan Kenobi prepares to live his life in a cave to watch over Luke. But as he does, he sees a familiar face, one that shouldn't be possible. Meeting his former padawan’s twin, someone he never knew about, changes the future of Obi-wan Kenobi, the Skywalker family and the Galaxy in a way that nobody expected.

The More the Merrier - Obikin - Rating M - Anakin doesn't fall to the dark side, Harem of Obi-wan's, female Obi-wan, Knight Obi-wan, Master Obi-wan, Palawan Obi-wan, Sith Obi-Wan, OBK Obi-wan, Anakin gets a lot of love. Summary: On what was supposed to be a simple mission, Obi-wan accidentally touches an ancient artefact, knocking both himself and Anakin unconscious. When they wake up, they realise that this artefact summoned five other Obi-wan’s into their galaxy, each who had lost their own Anakin Skywalker and they themselves had died, (So in Anakin’s words “What's the worst that could happen master? it won't mess things up here or there if they had already died where they were from”). None of the Obi-wan’s could get along, but there was one thing they could all agree on: Protect Anakin at all costs. Now Anakin has to deal with a group of over protective Obi-wan’s that keep trying to get into his pants, and emotionally constipated Master Obi-wan who doesn't know how to deal with different versions of himself lusting over his former Padawan, and the fact that Anakin doesn't really want to choose just one and makes himself a harem (Stop laughing Padme, this is serious.)

#obikin #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #Just some ideas I have #Please let me know what you think!#I'm so sorry this took so long

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jetiisyandereclones · 2 years

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Dead But Not Buried, Chapter 2

Crosshair comes across a ghost from His past on the mission he takes to avenge her.

@professional-yearner

@jazzthemusician

9 YEARS AGO

“We have orders to liaison with Master Windu and his padawan on Kashyyk. Apparently there’s a hostage situation and they need backup...”

Hunter relayed their orders to his team, their ship coming into orbit above where their coordinates sent them.

This whole situation bored Crosshair, to be honest. He wasn’t overly fond of the Jedi. He didn’t believe they belonged in a combat situation, and this proved his theory. If a Jedi like Mace Windu and his Padawan couldn’t handle a hostage situation and a few B12’s then they shouldn’t have been wearing GAR armour.

The sniper lamented the fact that had they been a little quicker on their last mission, had they not hung around to resupply on the planet instead of waiting until they got back to Kamino, they wouldn’t have been the closest troops to Kashyyk not on mission, therefore wouldn't have been called on to help.

He could be in his bunk, sleeping or cleaning his Firepuncher. Enjoying a rare and much needed moment of rest after a gruelling string of missions, but no.....

“…Incoming reinforcements. Crosshair, did you get that?”

Hunter demanded, with exasperation. He knew his brother’s tendency to ignore briefings and was all too aware of the man’s current foul mood. The Sergeant allowed it most of the time because he understood that as their sniper, Crosshair's role was going to be pretty much the same routine in any given situation. However, for this particular mission Hunter wanted nothing to go wrong, not Infront of General Windu, who was notorious for his no-nonsense approach to battle.

Hunter would not allow his brothers to be sent back to Kamino for reconditioning on account of a few jokes or moody comments.

“Find a hide, set up and take out a few B12’s? Child’s play” Crosshair scoffed.

“Hah! A few? More like a few hundred. Whoever the separatists took, they wanted them bad! They have clankers flooding in from every direction. There’s bombers and everything.” Wrecker supplied, his loud, rough voice excited.

Crosshair straightened up. Maybe this time he should have listened to the mission plan.

“Wrecker is correct. The droids will be arriving at the extraction point in a matter of hours. The General and his Padawan are boxed in and doing what they can against the forces that were already with the transport when Padawan L/N brought it down. We are to try and move things along quicker, so that a retreat before the main army arrives will be possible.” Tech helpfully supplied.

“One more thing Crosshair. We’ve been informed Padawan Y/N has been working as their makeshift sniper this mission. You’ll be set up and working with her when we arrive, so for the love of the force, play nice.” Hunter beseeched, knowing his brothers proud streak and habitual insult of anyone he deemed inferior, ESPECIALLY other sharpshooters.

The sniper rolled the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, sneering through his words.

“Perfect. A rookie Jedi AND sniper to get in the way.”

“Actually, according to her file, she’s quite accomplished.” Tech breezed, his eyes focused on the landing zone beneath them.

Crosshair’s scowl deepened, his nose scrunching up and lip curling in distaste. He’ll be the one to determine how good this Padawan was, though his hopes weren't exactly high.

Hunter didn't envy this woman's position.

Tech landed the ship without issue for once, and they made their way down the ramp quickly, hearing the sound of blaster fire in the air.

Meeting up with General Windu, he gave them a quick briefing.

“The target's holed up in that ship over there on the far side of the field. We can’t get to it because of the shield generators and droids surrounding it, along with planted mines. We try to rush it; we’ll all be blown sky high.

The droids need to be cleared completely so we can buy time to make our way through the field. The mines can be detected, but only close range. So, when Padawan L/N goes in for retrieval, it’s imperative she has full cover as fighting off enemies going to or from the ship while navigating the mines will be impossible.

The target MUST be retrieved alive, there can be no mistakes with this. I assume you boys have been told the plan of attack?” The General asked, his face serious, tone leaving no room for misunderstanding.

“Yes sir. You, Tech and I will cage them, flank them and pick them off from the sides while Wrecker and your men make a frontal assault to keep their eyes off the transport.

Crosshair will set up with your Padawan and keep an eye on things from a distance and when it’s clear, Padawan Y/N will retrieve the hostage while Crosshair provides her cover.” Hunter responded.

General Windu nodded in approval.

“Good man. Crosshair, my Padawan is already up on the ridge and ready to go when you join her. We do this right, we’ll be out in 30 minutes, max.”

The General ignited his purple sabre and the batch took that as their signal to disperse.

"When it’s done, we rendezvous by the dropships for immediate retreat."

Crosshair scoped out the ridge where this, Padawan L/N was supposed to be. It was a rocky, tree covered outcropping overlooking the entire field, and the only place high enough to allow for optimal range.

It was...adequate, he supposed.

Crosshair gracefully scaled the trees before leaping onto the ledge, but something was wrong.

“General, if your Padawan is set up, she’s set up in the wrong place. There is no one else here.” Crosshair growled into his com.

Fucking amateurs.

This was the ONLY good hide in the entire karking battleground. Where else could she have been?

The General took a small moment of pride, smirking to himself as he responded to the clearly irate clone.

“Calm yourself, Crosshair. I can feel your annoyance from here.” General Windu said, humour lacing his voice despite the circumstances.

Crosshairs eye twitched.

“Y/N! Sound off, it’s time to check in.”

The clone didn’t know what he expected. A shout from the tree line, a yell from behind a rock perhaps. Whatever he was thinking, it was not what happened.

“Present and accounted for, Master!”

“GAHH!” Crosshair exclaimed, unable to contain his surprise. Nothing ever snuck up on him!

If anyone asked, he would deny that he had shot at her on reflex.

He watched in astonishment as a young woman popped her head out from the bushes to his right, her earth toned robes blending perfectly into her surrounds, allowing full camouflage.

How had she managed to remain undetected by him at such close range?

"Uh, yeah… Sorry about that..” She apologized, at least having the decency to look a little bit remorseful.

Crosshair gripped his rifle, pointing it towards the ground.

“Are you insane? I could have shot you!” He snarled at the Woman.

Crosshair glared down at Padawan L/N. Already she had almost managed to get herself killed. Who sneaks up on a sniper?

They both heard General Windu's voice over the com, a slight delay causing his words to echo.

“Padawan L/N, meet Crosshair. Crosshair, meet Padawan L/N. Now that introductions are out of the way, I suggest you two get into position, they're coming.”

With one last sneer at Y/N, Crosshair removed his weapon of choice from his shoulder and set up on the ground, double and triple checking his scope before ensuring the Padawan had followed his lead.

He didn’t really want to teach anyone, especially not her now. But he’d be damned if he allowed her incompetence to injure one of his brothers, while under his watch.

The Padawan had fished her rifle out of the bushes and was getting into a snipers rest beside him, but when he got a good look at her weapon, he actually growled.

Her gun was…ancient. Wooden frame, no charge ports and, oh gods. Was that a bolt?

Did this woman bring a bolt action slug rifle from 1000 years ago to a droid battle?

“You…Cannot be serious” the clone whispered, his tone dripping with barely restrained condemnation.

Was this woman stupid? Slugs don’t work on droids.

The Padawan once again looked away from Crosshair, her face flushing under his judgement.

“I, uh…I can see how this may look to you. But I promise, Mishka always gets the job done.” Y/N assured.

Crosshair however, was far from confident.

“I hope so…for your sake” he spat at her.

The woman paid no mind to his venom. Merely arching an eyebrow at the tall clones veiled threats when her Masters voice came over the com again.

“This will hopefully be our last transmission so I’ll make this quick. I’ll not tolerate any childish behaviour, nor accept mistakes made because of petty grievances. You two WILL be working together, so I suggest you figure out a way to get along.” He spoke firmly, cutting off the transmission before either of them could respond.

Crosshair imagines this is how it felt to be berated by a parent.

“Yessir, Master.” Y/N mumbled, after he had hung up. Crosshair huffed, mildly amused at her put out expression.

Crosshair eyed the woman as she set up her rifle and hunkered down.

"Slugs won't work here. I hope you know that"

"I know, I know! " the Padawan shot back.

Crosshair hummed at her feeble showing of claws. He was about to make another jab at her, at how the Jedi couldn’t afford better gear, when suddenly he saw a flash of metal far off in the distance.

The first wave of droids had arrived.

Crosshair took the shot without even thinking, muscle memory and experience taking over and guiding him to hit dead centre, as usual.

He allowed himself a self-congratulatory smirk as he saw the Padawan try to locate what it was he had shot at.

"What the hell was that, you shooting at air now? Is that what they train you to do on Kamino?" She was squinting towards the horizon, trying to spot his supposed target.

Crosshair rolled his eyes, sighing audibly.

"Don't bother. With your sight, you won’t be able to see them yet."

She looked at him confused, even more so when he took a second shot. Crosshair once again glanced at her gun, and lack of head gear.

"You know, we have technology for this. You should be wearing a targeting system; have a newer model gun. The way you are now is practically one step above useless." A third shot, a third droid down.

Padawan Y/N was going to snap back at him, tell him that she HAD technology, but the weight of her inexperience and lack of preparation was starting to weigh on her now that she was lying next to the seasoned soldier.

“You may have a point…” She admitted, somewhat hesitantly.

Content with her admission to her lack of preparation and skill, Crosshair decided to have a little mercy on her.

He detached his targeting system from his rifle and gave it to her to look through, then held Y/N under her chin, turning her head in the direction the army was coming from, up over a hill.

"You'll see them any second now."

She just glared at him, not very appreciative of his hands on approach. But it was hard to take her seriously when Crosshair's large hand cupped her face and lifted her cheeks into a ridiculous fish-like expression.

Sure, enough though, with the help of the independent targeting system she held to her face, Y/N spotted several droids on the march in the far distance.

Crosshair took his hand and rifle piece back at her sound of recognition.

"What do you plan on doing when they come into your range?" He stated, his voice dripping with superiority.

Truth be told, the sniper didn't care a whole lot what this woman did. He knew he'd be enough to pick up the slack for both of them and was prepared to do so.

A nuisance, but necessary.

"Just wait and see" she muttered.

Crosshair eyed her, wondering what she had on her mind, doubting her abilities.

Seeing her play with her rifle was like watching a cadet pick up a DC-17 for the first time and swear they knew all the secret tricks to using it.

Y/N finally caught sight of the droids through her own scope. Lining up her rifle, she fired a single round and an energy bolt blazed through the air and hit her target. Not dead centre like his, but lethal enough.

Crosshair hummed. Of course, she had modded her rifle. Maybe she was a little more prepared than he thought.

"Good girl," he muttered,slightly impressed she managed to hit something, “But, not quite good enough”

As if to prove his point, Crosshair took 5 shots in rapid succession, all close enough that Y/N could see them hit dead centre. He smirked, enjoying her stunned expression.

She didn't even think she saw him move his rifle.

“You keep shooting like you were before, we’re going to be here for a long time.” He explained, his tone only slightly mocking. She just looked at him confused.

“Your slow to aim. Too questioning. Relax a bit.” he explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh, yeah. You telling ME to relax. You haven’t untensed since getting up here. And I thought snipers were supposed to take their time to line up a shot?”

“Watch it Padawan. Despite what they may have told you, you’re not the one in control here. This is my show, sweetheart.” He drawled, enjoying her flush at his use of the nickname.

“As for what you thought? That logic doesn’t apply. Speed is more valuable than accuracy at this point. Not that I can’t do both. But you? You’ll need to prioritize unfortunately.” He stated, grinning behind his helmet at her look of insult.

Perhaps working with her won’t be so bad. At the very least, she’s fun to mess with.

Crosshair took two more shots, letting a third droid come closer so the Padawan could have something to do besides watch him. She hit it dead center, a brief, sweet smile coming over her face at her small victory.

“Not bad, Padawan.” He gave her.

She rolled her eyes, her smile dropping.

“Your too kind, CT-9904.” Crosshair snapped his visor towards her, angered by her use of his identification number.

“I have a name Pada-“

“I do too. Use mine and I’ll use yours” she cut him off, losing her patience.

He just rolled his eyes and went back to his scope.

“Suit yourself” she huffed at his petulant silence, looking down her own rifle again

The droids were starting to approach in larger numbers now, and at a faster pace. The two saw the troops on the ground move to circle the B-12's, with Tech dropping what looked like energy barriers. It was all going according to plan.

Crosshair and Y/N were shooting in complete silence. Their tempers cooled and argument temporarily forgotten at the distraction of having swarms of droids come over the hill.

The sniper would admit to himself, she was a decent shot. He wasn't expecting much, but she had potential. Even if her sight was half of what his was. It also didn’t escape his notice, her constant glances at him, her slight adjustments to match the way he was shooting. And if he angled her slightly or pushed an arm down to a more comfortable position, well, that was none of anyone’s business.

Eventually the first wave was all shot down or beaten to an oily, charred pulp courtesy of his brothers and the General.

Y/N stood up and was about to jump down for extraction when suddenly she took a dive, throwing herself down on top of Crosshair.

"What are you doing!?" The clone demanded.

"Shut up! It'll hear you" she whispered.

'It' turned out to be a probe droid sent to scope out the snipers’ positions.

With Y/N on top of Crosshair, the two were hidden well enough to escape its sights, concealed by her camouflaged robes. However, they couldn't move.

It soon became obvious to the sniper that he had another problem as well. It wasn't the time for this, but Crosshair was human, and a surprisingly hot blooded one at that.

He felt the press of the woman's body against his own, felt her chest against his back, heard her breath in his ear and froze for a moment, a tightening between his legs making itself apparent.

Even if she was slightly irritating, her weight and the softness of her form, the way she slid against him trying to cover his long body with her own was more than enough to turn him on, touch starved as he was.

He wanted to beat his own head at his weakness. Or maybe just hers for causing this increasingly uncomfortable issue.

The Padawan was plastered to his back, moving with him as he slowly reached for his DC-17. When he suddenly rolled them so he could get a decent shot in, she didn't fight.

The sniper holstered his weapon and pulled himself up. Before he moved, however, Crosshair allowed himself one, very quick moment to appreciate the view of the Padawan from the top.

She was, and he hated to admit it, beautiful. Her skin looked soft; her hair shined. Her eyes were large and glistening in the late afternoon sun.

If this were any other situation, he would've already been suggesting that they find somewhere private to retreat to together. He would’ve turned on the charm and talked his way into her head and her bed. But she was a Padawan. A Jedi.

For the sake of his pride and what little feelings she may have had clawing to the surface, he could tell himself his attraction was purely a physical response to her close contact. Nothing else.

Not a begrudging acknowledgement of her beauty, or her surprise competency and her willingness to learn from him, or her amusing temper. It also was not the fact her eyes branded into his mind the same way he had imagined the woman of his dreams eyes would do.

It was none of that…

Besides. The last thing Crosshair needed was to get tangled up in a whole investigation just because of a fleeting attraction to a pretty Jedi.

He could take care of himself later. Pay for a girl for the night or talk a random from a bar into his bed. No big deal.

Still, the feeling of her pressing into him would linger for a long time.

The probe was gone, and his contemplation was over. Crosshair rolled off Y/N, noting how cold the ground was compared to her. He pretended not to see the flush that had overtaken her face as she got up and would not be acknowledging the heat in his own cheeks.

Crosshair watched Y/N send a quick message to General Windu reporting what had happened.

"Acknowledged. You're still clear to move in, but be quick, there are more on the way"

Y/N nodded at her Generals voice.

The Padawan took out her lightsaber, flicking it into activation with a practiced flourish.

She jumped down from the cliff, not bothering to go for the trees. Instead, she fell straight down, using the force to slow her decent before making a break for the downed ship.

'She moves quickly', he noted in approval as he watched her run and gracefully dodge the mines as he took out any droids that got too close.

She made it to the ship unharmed.

Using the Force, she nearly ripped the entire side of the ship off, exposing the holding cells and the prisoner that was inside.

The new woman was in rough shape. It looked like her leg had been broken during the crash and she was completely unable to move on her own.

This didn't seem to bother Y/N, as she threw the other woman over her shoulder, stumbling a bit at her weight, before once again heading out into the field, dancing around the mines.

The mission was a success so far, but things were going a little too smoothly to be true.

Y/N had made it back safely to the extraction point and Crosshair had joined them as well, her rifle slung over his shoulder.

Y/N was checking in on the woman, lowering her gently to the ground and helping her balance on one foot. She spoke quietly to her in a language he didn’t understand, glancing around nervously. Y/N nodded.

"Master, I, well we, have reason to believe those mines might be spread out further than we originally thought. Apparently, they were dropped from the air before activation, so it’s possible that there may be outliers somewhere around."

The Padawan's gaze shifted over the ground, as if looking for disturbances in the dirt.

Wrecker was goofing around, as per usual, messing with some old droid parts.

"Aw, don't worry. we've been all over this part of the field all day. It's completely sa-"

Wrecker stepped back, having tripped over a B-12 body and the unmistakable, heart dropping click was thunderously loud.

Everyone froze

"Wrecker, don't move a muscle" Hunter stressed, eyeing the mine that his brother had his foot on.

"Tech, can you disable it?" The General asked, his gaze on the horizon, seeing a new wave of droids approaching them.

"Not without him taking his foot off, not in time to retreat" Tech answered matter-of-factly.”

The General looked grim. He raised his wrist com and sent out a message.

"All troops load up. Prepare to retreat on my order.”

Crosshair watched as the regs loaded onto the drop ships and started to take off.

"If any of you have any suggestions, now would be a good time" the General looked at the Batch and Y/N.

Y/N looked at the mine, the woman, the sweating clone and the approaching droid army over the field of buried and undetonated bombs.

She could make this work.

"I have an idea, but I wouldn't recommend sticking around to see it up close."

"Wha-what are you gonna do?" Wrecker stuttered, fighting the urge to sway and shake.

The padawan just smiled at him.

"I'm gonna set the mine off."

Wreckers eyes doubled, his mouth dropping open.

Crosshair grabbed Y/N by the shoulder, shoving her around to face him.

"Are you mad?" He hissed. "You'll kill him!"

"I wont. Please, you have to trust me on this." she pleaded.

Crosshair leant down, getting into her face.

"Why should we?"

To her credit, if Y/N was nervous, she wasn’t showing it.

"Because you have no other option. Board the ship and take off. Wrecker and I will join you in the air." She ordered calmly.

"Ahh, we will?" Wrecker asked, confused at how that was going to work.

"Mmhmm" Y/N hummed in response not bothering to explain.

"Now get going, I can't do this while you’re on the ground." The Padawan handed off her passanger to her Master, who nodded.

After settling the newcomer in his arms, the General gave the final, indisputable command.

"Board the ships and take off. Y/N, you have three minutes, after that, we leave."

The woman just smirked.

"I only need two"

She watched as everyone loaded up, sending a comforting smile up at the ship. Crosshair wasn’t sure who it was aimed at but that pesky, nagging feeling he had before had returned, making him imagine he was the targeted recipient of Y/N’s comfort.

When they were safely up in the air, the Marauder out of blast range, Y/N turned to wrecker.

“Ok, tough guy. This is gonna go quick. I need you to trust me on this and do exactly what I say, ok?”

Wrecker was breaking out into a sweat by now, his leg shaking with the stress from trying not to move while keeping balance.

“yeah, yeah okay”

“Good. There’s only one thing I need from you. On the count of three, I want you to lift your foot up. QUICKLY.”

The large clone swallowed nervously; his eyes wide.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Y/N huffed a laugh.

“Sure! Just a simple weight transfer. I’ve done them hundreds of times”

The clone nodded.

“Okay. Alright, I can do this.”

Y/N smiled reassuringly as Wrecker took a moment to steel himself.

“Alright. Just to make sure. It’s one, two, lift your foo-“

Wrecker hadn’t been listening properly, his mind racing too fast. Instead of waiting for the actual countdown, he lifted his foot on her explanation.

“WAIT, WRECKER NO!”

But it was too late. When wreckers foot lifted she heard another click.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The mine combusting and Wreckers leg still lifting.

Acting fast, Y/N called on the force, tossing the clone away from the explosion, pulling him towards her while directing the fire out towards the field.

The entire battleground started to go off While Y/N shielded both herself and Wrecker from any damage.

Wrecker landed next to Y/N and with no time to spare, she picked him up with the force, ignoring his surprised shouts of protest, and jumped, using the power of the blast from the other mines as a springboard for both of them.

Wrecker went flying up through the air, screaming the whole way, with Y/N just below him, making sure he makes it on board. He landed with a thud next to Tech, who immediately scanned him for injuries while the others watched Y/N.

Unlike wrecker, she had not quite made it onto the ship. Shards of Shrapnel had torn through her leg and made her lose concentration. She plummeted back down towards the fiery field below her, too distracted and in pain to slow herself down, let alone lift herself back up towards the ship.

'This is it' Y/N thought. 'This is how I die' she couldn’t help but think back to how just last week she had joked about how she would go out in a blaze of glory.

Oh, the irony.

The Padawan was just beginning to feel the fiery heat on her skin when suddenly she jolted.

Looking up, Y/N saw her master with his arm outreached towards her, holding her in a hover above the ground, before starting to pull her up.

Helping him out, Y/N finally got herselft together enough to use the force to push back from the ground, taking some of the strain off of her master as she sprung back up to the Marauder, just grabbing the boarding ramp in time.

Y/N was pulling herself up when she felt a pair of strong arms under her shoulders, hauling her into the ship.

she looked up to see Crosshair, his arms still holding her and a slightly less severe scowl on his face. She was just about to thank him when the ship shook, jolting her and making her whimper.

Tech took one look at her mangled, bloody leg and brought out bacta spray and bandages, handing them to Crosshair when the sniper reached out for them.

“Wow… that worked out nicely, actually.” She said as she watched the remaining mines destroy the droids, hissing through her pain as crosshair tended to her leg.

The door to the Marauder sealed with a hiss and they started off towards General Windu's flagship.

“Good job, Y/N. That was some quick thinking out there” Her Master complimented. A rare sentiment from him. He didn't say anything, but she could see him looking her over, checking wordlessly for any further sign of injuries besides her leg.

Y/N have a non-committal grunt, vaguely waving her hand at the General in reassurance.

“This is what you’d call a job well done?” The sniper asked quietly, as he finished wrapping Y/N’s leg in bandages.

Y/N hissed when he squeezed her leg, testing the dressings.

“Well, I’m not dead. Neither is your brother so… Yeah.”

Crosshair arched an eyebrow.

“Thank you, by the way. For Wrecker.” Crosshair told her quietly, hesitantly but genuinely.

Out of the corner of her eye Y/N saw hunters head turn slightly in disbelief at Crosshairs explicit gratitude.

“You’re welcome” Y/N replied, just as quietly.

The sniper nodded.

Suddenly he picked her up.

Y/N wasn’t proud of the squawk she made when lifted her bridal style, but dammit, she wasn’t expecting the sudden altitude!

Crosshair took her over to the jumpseats and strapped her in, next to the other woman who was having her own leg tended to by Tech before stalking to the cockpit when General Windu asked for a word.

“How are you feeling?” Y/N inquired, gesturing at the roughed-up woman’s leg.

“I’ve sure as shit been better, AHH” Tech had found the break.

“If I may, Miss- uhhh” he gestured towards her injury with that patch.

“Be my guest. And the names Miska Nomair” she tried to reply lightly but it fell short due to her pained grimace at techs medical attention.

“Alright Miss Nomair, your leg should be fully healed by the time you get back home, provided the bacta is changed regularly.” Y/N and Miska did not miss the flush on the genius’s face as he stood up.

The injured woman nodded, Exhaustion from everything that had happened finally crashing down on her.

Y/N Understood. They had been down on that field for days. She was ready to sleep for a week herself, despite the fiery pain from the shrapnel that had carved up her leg.

Hunter walked towards them, seeing Tech had finished with the Miska’s injury.

“Hey, Why did the seperatists want you so badly anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” he asked, curious about the sheer amount of fire power used for one seemingly harmless captive.

Miska smiled ruefully.

"It’s fine. They wanted me as a political hostage. To force my parents into compliance with them. If they got that, this war would be VERY easy for them to win"

Tech perked up,a familiar gleam or recognition in his eyes.

“You are Lady Miska Nomair? THE Lady Miska Nomair, Heiress to the Ald’aan family, aren't you?”

“Got it in one Tech. Count Dooku thought that by taking me he could force my parents to switch allegiances from the Republic to the Separatists” Miska explained grimly.

It had not been a good week for her.

“I still don’t understand. What’s the Ald’aan family? Why are the Seppies so invested in you?” Hunter pressed.

Tech was about to respond, but General Windu beat him to it, walking out of the cockpit with crosshair not far behind.

“The Ald’aan family is the oldest surviving Noble family on Ald'Aana, and they own the company that designs, manufactures and sells all the GAR’s weapons to them. Armor and shields as well. The DC-17, Firepunchers and even vibro-blades, everything we have for the battlefield. It all comes from them. If they were to start selling to the droid army, the war would be over for us.” General Windu explained.

Crosshair took a seat next to Y/N, ignoring her confused stare as he settled in.

"I see. But how do you two know each other. You seem a little too familiar to have just met” He enquired, looking between Padawan Y/N and Miska

Y/N barked a short laugh.

“Oh, we go way back, my family used to be grounds keepers for their main estate. We were actually born on the same day. We kept in touch over the years, and sometimes I get access to the some of the new weapons before they hit the shelves. You should have seen one of the newer ones. It was designed for the Jedi and so beautifully simple. Just a cable that we manipulate with the force, that was attached to you via a discreet harness, but the things you could do with that thing.

I nearly pulled a starfighter out of the air on accident. Almost felt bad about it to, until I saw General Skywalker piloting.” Y/N joked.

Tech had gone back to the cockpit to dock with General Windu’s starship, but wrecker, hunter and Crosshair were still with the two women.

"You don’t like general Skywalker? I though all the Jedi got along!" Wrecker exclaimed.

"HAHA! That's a good one. I wouldn't say he and I don't like each other, but if I see him, it IS on sight."

Their conversation was cut off by a shout from the front.

“Everyone, we are on approach to the landing bay.” Tech called out as the Marauder shook.

Crosshair watched as Y/N leant back in her seat, closing her eyes and breathing a sigh of relief as their mission finally came to an end.

Gently, Crosshair put a warm hand on her back, causing her to open her eyes and look wearily in his direction.

“You did good out there, despite everything.” He simply said, but for him, that was high praise.

She just smiled in thanks, too tired to tease and joke.

Crosshair pulled her rifle onto his lap, looking it over as Y/N watched.

It was a beautiful weapon, now that he could look at it without the stress of battle.

The wood was rich and in good condition with carvings and inlays on the stock. Upon further inspection he could also see where it had been modified.

A subtle join where the wood had been taken apart and the extra trigger guard for the bolt function.

“Why keep the slug capabilities? Wouldn’t it be easier to just have it use bolts?” He asked, looking down the scope.

Y/N leaned over to him, pulling the bolt back and removing a large bullet from the chamber.

“For the Sith. They can’t deflect these bad boys.” She stated, handing the bullet to Crosshair.

“Ever been hit by a slug?” she asked

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a slug blaster outside of historical holos so, no.”

“Hmm. Well, they do a shit ton of damage. Bolts cut and cauterize. Nice and clean. But these? They’ll tear right through you, taking chunks and splinters of bone. Its… very messy”

“Speaking from experience?” cross asked somewhat playfully, not expecting her to confirm.

Y/N, however, simply pulled her shirt back revealing a nasty, light pink scar on her shoulder, on top of her collarbone.

“The guy I took the gun from, a separatist weapons dealer. The bullet went straight through. Felt like someone had tried to hack my arm off and only got halfway through.

His intention was shoot me thinking I’d go to deflect and blind myself, then he could take my lightsaber.”

Crosshair’s brow pinched in confusion as he waited for her to elaborate.

“You can’t deflect slugs like you can bolts. Our lightsabers just melt them, causing the jedi to get a face full of molten metal and blinding, if not killing them. Its why the Mandalorians used to use these kinds of blasters against the Jedi, way back when.” She explained, leaning her head back against the head rest of her seat.

“I see” he drawled, seemingly 1000 miles away.

“You okay? you seem to have something on your mind.” she questioned, staring up at the clones thin face.

He looked at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Your masters asked me to tutor you. When you graduate from being a Padawan, which I'm informed will be soon, youll be joining the team, Y/N L/N”

Y/N did not appreciate the ‘ohh, shit’ and shit eating grin from her friend.

#Yandere Crosshair X Jedi Reader #Dead But Not Buried

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spirituallesbianblog · 1 year

Text

Relationship Nirvana - The Future Of Same-Sex Love

'I want to be loved'

To be honored cherished and known for the ancient soul who came from the stars to find their heart's desire. She will be beautifully spirited and unique trying to understand her innate humanness. The sparks will fly when the energies connect sending an aura of love throughout the world and universe. This feminine is galactic yet part of this earthly home. An explorer seeking the higher ground with loving intent for others like her. Together we will lift this world from the ashes of sufferance and create a magical garden of grandeur where souls know their worth and bring the glory of gratitude to a globe of intolerance. My other self will be a woman of heart and exude this motif of love to those needing assurance. She instinctively knows life is a travesty of conflict and contrast. A colosseum of infinite tears where God has no entry and the light is filtered by confused thinking. My soul calls in this eternal flame a crystalline star of importance as heaven embellishes the earth. The challenge is set for counterparts to unite and spread their wings of love for others to follow and transcend the 3-D traditional concepts of romantic relationships.

'We are on the path of tomorrow a place of change and much joy in the universe as soulmates align for the chance to showcase a new and intimate way to love'

This is embedded in a connection to the divine and runs like a stream of hope from one counterpart to the other. In this space of transition, we see a drawbridge being raised on the earthly interactions as the sun rises on a distorted Eden. A garden where masculines have defined love as control and view the feminine in a submissive light. And in doing so repeat the patterns guided by past voices who were guided by those who came before. The revolution begins as spiritual and human combine to bring the light of God upon our unions in a blessed fusion of love sourced from a universe of infinite wisdom and awareness. A blueprint of love so unconditional our hearts are immune to the bliss. This is the mainframe of our soul party on earth where the lessons require the harsher aspects of life to shuttle us back to our origins. Coming here is like a puzzle without pieces we eloquently find through the most trying of times or the euphoric feelings of love. The name of this game is enlightenment and the way there can be a quest of hardship. This comes in various forms as a test of our soul conviction and allegiance to the depths of who we are. It is a twisted rhetoric designed to confuse and take us off our path of divinity. So far it's working well except for the legion of light-bringers holding court in a unity of love.

'The revolution has begun as we share the message we are all of a Picasso-themed universe - Colorful and abstract'

The call center of the divine with helpers always at hand ready to motivate a soul struggling to find their way in human form. And that would be for many lesbians or bisexual souls who feel the wrath of a collective tuned into the religious vibe of separatist neglect. A state of being for many of my LGBT friends who have honored themself but walked the fire of parents and bigots who cannot feel into the hearts of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Their limited vision is a product of learned ideals supplemented by a God that defames same-sex love. I stand in the light of a divine god loving and co-creative with their often unorthodox flock. Each one makes up the whole of all souls illuminating their path with a unique perspective and allowing the universe to enrich its awareness. I am a spiritual lesbian blessed to know her worth on a planet of repressed; people. Under the dome of passive thinking, I share my unique stance of loving another woman instead of a man. This is my soul's insistence to shake things up with my self-loving attitude in an ambiance of mixed views.

'I love the challenge and embrace my divine feminine path as a woman who loves women romantically, sexually, and from the soul'

'Have you ever walked past a stranger and felt a magnetic pull that causes you to look back as they are walking away?'

This can be a sure sign of connection. Not just in this life but perhaps from many before. The allure of recognition breathes a romantic light into the hearts of those who pick up the signal of a lover that has crossed the great divide to reunite in this incarnation. The vehicle is the efficient transport of reincarnation an innovative idea invented by a creator whose magnificent universe is a testament to their genius manifesto. And the prophetic way we return to this earthly space-time and time again for the sheer joy of being human while setting tasks that create expansion within us and the universe. We in fact construct an intricate chart with astrological influence and the purpose of spending a lifetime on a picturesque planet. It is here we find love an indescribable feeling that defies all logic and sense of why we fall so loving into the arms of a person we may know little about but intuit their heart as a destined connection. This person is a soul with a potential history that dates back eons as your wife, husband, or star-crossed lover. Back for a re-run and desire to recreate a soulmate love so memorable, it shifted timelines to find you again. A premise ignited by the divine a creator of intense magnitude. An inventor of all we know with whatever level of awareness we possess.

'Love is the award for taking part in the theater of life and played out as a mother nurturing her newborn to a lover down on one knee calling in their true counterpart'

Love strikes like a sword to the heart inflaming the soul with memories of other lives in an ecstatic interplay of god's gift to their soulful offspring. We love to love and climb mountains to feel the heights of making love to a desired partner who reciprocates being madly in love. A driving force that throws caution to the wind when the energy of another collides with yours causing an eruption of emotions. The love virus is incurable and takes the most sensible of souls to a place of crazed excitement with one lingering look or sensual rapport. All, signs of being in tune with each other's values or compatible stance can leave the planet as love takes hold with its certifiably insane allure. For me, this ancient traveler is a goddess or woman of lesbian or bisexual sexuality. Her look may have changed as in a past life she may indeed have been a man or woman from any part of this diverse world. Meeting this human will be a remembrance of the soul that transmits the familiar even though the human is in a unique cloaking designated for the current life path.

'This is where the fun begins as eyes meet in a magnetic dance of recall'

A signature of souls born to motivate a new wave of love to Planet Earth. A platform of separate ideals shared and unshared by a maturing species that adheres to the difference in others rather than the likeness. As souls trekking the earthly turf we understand and entertain the belief in a creator's curious, inquisitive mind. A masterful imagination that forged a universe with a manifestation of love as the divine so desired connection. The fundamental wanting of all living things and ironically what we so often lack. Our world is crumbling from within as we honor isolation as a shield to not getting hurt in love. And why so many are opting for the independence that vanquishes a need for closeness. The kind that shies away from relationships as a cautionary way to avoid intimacy. A deeply felt glow of love that surpasses the ordinary as lovers call in their capacity to unite in ways not always known when your schooling in partnerships is limited. Many of us grew up with parents struggling to open their hearts as their teachers were stoically educated to approach connection in a closed-off style of caring.

'This guarding of the heart was for public appearances in many cultures where shows of affection were not considered cool or appropriate'

'It is our stilted intent that has caused a fractured vision of how we are supposed to navigate love and relationships'

With religion and cultural beliefs in the mix it's no wonder our world has dishonored love and called it names like control, abuse, and manipulation. Even so, we all still want to be loved and feel the freedom that comes with a wild abandonment of high-frequency emotions. It is here we link up with the original concept of love in its purest form. Our lives are combative and love gets lost in the translation as we carry the seed of past generations and their tangled web of relationship torment. How we got here goes back a long way but it is not impossible to turn the tide with changes to negative patterns and programming. We need to unravel what we know. and that's a massive ask when it could be ingrained in our ancestry DNA. If we want to step into a future of 'relationship nirvana' our attitudes need to change. As a spiritual lesbian, I have been learning how to pioneer a same-sex partnership that is not only compatible but highly sensual, with differences that complement not detract. I love to communicate on a soul and human level that amplifies connection and resolution when past triggers are sparked.

'We all have past unions that may have ended due to a breakdown in our own personal view of how a relationship should work'

The problem is we have centuries of fixed thinking and as a lesbian aware it's a tough road when one or both partners have come from troubled childhoods, dragging their pain with them. We may all want to be loved but love is enhanced when we understand why we have unhealed wounds. In fact, this planet is a sphere of unattended hurts and this is the bag carried when a person enters a new relationship under the weight of a shattered heart. I am an aware outed lesbian who sees pain hidden by so many and how it is sanctioned on the surface as projected hurt. The truth is our world is a swimming pool of people trying to make sense of others and how to interact on a level that is mutually appreciated. For me, that is on a human and soul level making an exchange a highly emotive encounter and why I am invested in the idea we can step up our game in the arena of partnerships. But only if we are willing to learn from those who are of great service with their expertise.

'At the core of our attraction to others is often a mirroring of their similarities and past trauma'

This brings the fires of hell to our relationships garnished with childhood abuse or guardians who were inhibited with emotionality. My instinctive nature wanted to know why so many marriages were ending in divorce and followed a trail of curiosity to the doors of those who had answers I could relate to. I swiftly learned we are victims of our own misunderstandings and that love can't fix everything that opposes togetherness. This can play out as a bisexual woman who was abandoned by a parent and is co-dependent for fear of losing a partner the way their father left their mother and them. In fact, my eyes were truly opened to the carnage that can ensue from wounds that run so deep the holder of them cannot open their heart fully to another. The cuts of gay women are scattered like soul fragments throughout this world and universe. We feel the pain of each other through a shimmering chord of sisterhood that not only holds the unity of a collective past and present. But the historic wounding of our relationships battered by dysfunction. As we choose to showcase our unique lesbian lights we bring our special code of difference to the world. This is my heartfelt quest for the future of same-sex love. An enlightened relationship that surpasses the perspective honored by those who repeat their partnerships in a similar style to their parents. We owe it to ourselves to raise the bar as diplomats of divinity and the future of same-sex love

'Relationship Nirvana can transcend old thinking and take all partnerships to the next level of spiritual, human, and soul union - It takes a lacing of earthly psychology and innovative ideas lovingly infused with divinity'

Author ~ Linda E Cole (The Divine Feminine)

#same sex love #lesbian relationships #spirituality #nirvana

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brianbrianbrain · 3 months

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when folks say you must vote blue in the presidential election, that "at least biden is better than trump" – i think it's safe to say that since the beginning of the "united states," every single president and their administration has been a proponent of the expansion of the US empire, of our perpetration of constant warfare and violent extraction. the slightest differences are found in domestic policy. so when you say that "at least biden is better than trump" – you say that your temporary comfort, given as the barest measures of appeasement, is more important than the lives and dreams of the global majority.

and perhaps someone will whip out the analogy about "put on your own oxygen mask before you help others" – and i say that this is also the time to break the mythology of the presidency (and also the mythology of the supreme court). presidents can do executive orders willy nilly and all that. but their actions have no power if people locally do not enforce them. the same goes for supreme court decisions. don't you all remember brown v. board of education, where many locales just kept on segregating, and how many schools today are still effectively segregated? so yes, put on your own oxygen mask, but not at the cost of other people's oxygen... it is our responsibility to build networks of local resilience to break away from violent extraction, the police state, the military industrial complex, industrial agriculture, and so on...

i won't pretend to know exactly what these networks might look like. i've been thinking a lot recently about how people will do things like quote Marx but not really discuss class, especially in university organizing spaces. i feel like a number of folks who have a decent measure of family privilege take a separatist mentality – i don't care about convincing you, i just want to be able to make our own space – but they don't really think about the technicals of what it really takes to make that space, and in doing so just create a space with the aesthetics of breaking away but that still depends on colonial and imperial structures. i feel like there's the implication that they feel that they're above technicals and that technicals are to be taken care of by a "lower class," as they currently are. like i'm sorry but you cannot "vibe" your way out of imperialism. you will starve or die of drinking sick water before anyone ever needs to pick up a gun and shoot you. i don't know how much this is colored by my own measure of family privilege and impression of urgency in the face of a lack of technicals, but there's my two cents. and it makes for a really strange blend: if you don't care about convincing people, then are you going to do the technical work, or are you just going to wait until people who have to work 9 to 5 are suddenly struck by lightning and flocking to you, or what? and at the same time these same people are focused on "well what's going to be my career"... so please, can you tell me what it is you really want? do you want liberation, or do you want to keep playing the game forever, or have you thought about how to play the game on the way to liberation?

university organizing, and i think plenty of politics at large, is rife with talk with no action, with people screaming past each other. sure, your voice has power, but so long as politicians and businesspersons own you, own your home, own your job, own how you get your food, own how you get your water, they couldn't give less of a shit. the people you're screaming at are not going to suddenly change their minds. the people who are watching just see a giant shitshow. those feel good stories about "at least we didn't forget, we didn't lose hope, we didn't let up" – that's great. but you didn't remember that you could do more, you failed to hope beyond nebulous dreams and make them reality, and you let up on pushing for more. it's an argument for moral purity to tout these stories. the dead and the wounded and the starving have no use for your moral purity. and while there's value in upholding your convictions and expressing your frustration, if you're being stonewalled by politicians, why don't you also move toward stonewalling them? it's an abusive / neglectful relationship on the macro level. you don't cry and beg and scream for the abuser / neglecter to take you back. you build your support network to get away, and maybe in the future you can consider if there's a possibility of healing that relationship and if so, how you might do so.

and more on the talk with no action, or perhaps more on hypocrisy and/or thoughtlessness, and on the lack of understanding of class: one of the people i know was going on about community based participatory research for one of their projects. they're super interested in doing research on a specific area and a specific group, but they've already built a timeline for their whole project before successfully making contact, and doesn't seem to have a plan for if the group doesn't even want this research to be done. "we'll just look at literature reviews first, and hopefully they'll respond sometime..." that's... very much not participatory. and i think on a broader level this comes from a misunderstanding that different groups and different individuals within those groups still have different thoughts and drives. it's disingenuous to say you're not trying to be a savior when you go in with preconceived notions of what someone needs or wants instead of asking them first. and maybe you do ask them first and you think that their plan isn't the best way, and that's fine! but if you offer suggestions, you need to understand that they are very much suggestions, the same as they would be for any other person you might give your two cents on their life to. and circling back to the bit about class and how Marx is discussed, i think this mentality is something that comes up a lot. like, so if a poor person isn't instantly radicalized in the way that you want, their views are totally invalid or some shit? that's an absolutely miserable, unconstructive, and narrow-minded way to go about life.

#brants #idk i mean i think about how to play the game on the way to liberation all the time #still like trying to talk to ppl and learn the technicals and feel shit out ig #communicate!#don't be a savior!#or if you're seriously going for i don't give a shit #let's just do our thing #then actually do it

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repriseofthereprise · 4 months

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The Spread of Consumerism: Good Buy Community

by Lee Evans, from Sinister Wisdom 37 (Spring 1989)

Many years ago I lived in a Feminist Collective based upon, among other things, a shared value of resistance to Consumerism. Roughly, our analysis was that we live in a culture that promotes conspicuous consumption of goods, services, environment, and so forth. The attitude that everything can be bought or used is an example of a value (which I will call consumerism) which defines our relationship to the world. Consumer values do not allow for stable or long-lived relationships with either people or the environment. In our early analysis we hoped to replace those values with more humanistic ones. Since that time I have come to realize that “humanism” holds no promise for Lesbians, and have subsequently put it aside as I have other dead-ended ideologies.

In the past several years my focus has changed to building lesbian connections, hence strong Lesbian Community. Even though I have devoted myself to creating connections with other Dykes, I find that the ability to describe those connections still escapes me. I sense that they are based upon a core of desire to connect on a Lesbian plane. I believe that our passion for each other is what fuels our connections. I know that our connections are not yet institutionalized. I believe that in making Lesbian connections we have the ability to create and transform ourselves and our world.

I also know that we struggle with the boys’ values insinuating I themselves into our interactions. There has been much education done by Lesbians about the effects of oppressions on our communities. Besides being cruel, arrogant and harmful, racism, antisemitism and other oppressions directly affect our Lesbian communities by narrowing the scope of what is or who is acceptable. These oppressions are men’s tools for enforcing sameness and anti-diversity.

Coming from a small, rural, white town in Pennsylvania, I thought that diversity was how many breeds of cows you owned. Coming out as a Lesbian, and now as a Separatist, I have had to work hard to sensitize myself to and rout out the boys’ tools of division. This has helped me to perceive the world differently and form deeper, more substantial bonds with other Dykes. Struggling to be aware of how oppressions work, and what part I play in them, has made me stretch in a way that I hadn’t felt since I first came out as a Lesbian.

Yet, through this process I have become increasingly aware of how I approach events and community. I know that my interactions often take on the tourist-y flavor of a consumer. Consumerism is a way of “be-ing” in the world, and it undermines our connections and sense of community. Consumer values are intertwined throughout industrial culture, and therefore probably have a pretty firm hold in many of our belief systems.

In writing this paper I am not so much concerned with what we buy, but with what male values are used to form our perception of ourselves as consumers of our communities rather than co-creators of our communities. It is my intent to blend my old analysis of consumer values with my current Dyke Separatist perspective in order to sensitize myself and other Dykes to the effects of consumer values on our Lesbian communities and Women-only space.

We live in a culture that is built, among other things, upon a system based upon consuming. In order to convince us that we have to buy, own, use, (consume), it is necessary to create a context in which conspicuous consumption looks normal. One way to develop that context is to create “needs” and then to objectify living things, processes and interactions into “products” to fill these “man-made needs.” These are the gears that run a consumer society.

The society’s members function in relationships of producers-consumers or buyer-seller to one another. The world, previously seen as an organic interconnected system, is now able to be “seen” as parts.(1) Those parts are able to be objectified in order to be bought and sold, used and discarded, acquired and hoarded or used as a means of trade to obtain other objects. As in other systems of reality, if one views the world in this way, it then spills over to include how we view people, animals, the environment and our relationship to them.

What does it mean when we adopt a value that allows such mass-scale objectification? First of all, objects have no inherent meaning. We imbue objects with meaning. For instance, an automobile has different meanings related to which culture, class and economic group you belong. The owning of an automobile, besides providing transportation and the opportunity for repair bills, often serves to foster identity. We buy a particular car because it is symbolic of how we see ourselves, or how we want to be. For example, I once found a Dyke party when I wasn’t quite sure of the location by driving up and down streets until I found the street with the “usual” Dyke vehicles common in my community: small foreign-made cars with a smattering of pick-up trucks.

Buying an object in order to foster identity becomes a never-ending cycle. The new pick-up truck itself does not the adventuresome Dyke make, so we are once again encouraged to enter the market place to start the cycle over. In other words, we buy an object to establish status and identity. Because objects have no intrinsic value, the status and identity do not become firmly established, so we have to continue to “consume” other objects to shore up our identity, and so the consumer cycle goes on ad infinitum.

This process works to help create a consumer atmosphere because it is an escalation-based model. It sets up the value that having new, improved, bigger, better and more is not only acceptable, it is expected of us. (For many sales jobs, employers require that you not only have good transportation, but that your car must “look” new, thus fostering the notion that employees must become believers and participants in the american dream.) This model creates the habit of escalation.

Pornography is an example of an escalation-based model that has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. This escalation occurs in terms of what is openly available in book stores. Pornography begins with showing naked females, moves to the objectification of body parts, then to the abusing and mutilating of women, and finally to the torture and murder of women and children for men’s satisfaction. The escalation-based model increases the violence and cruelty inflicted.

What does it mean for Dykes when we carry this “habit of escalation” into our communities? The “habit of escalation” creates a context in which we willingly participate in or at least accept increasingly destructive behaviors without questioning them. I once asked a sadomasochistic Dyke if she kept reworking her fantasies in order to become aroused. She replied that, in fact, it was necessary for her to keep increasing the violence in her fantasies and practices in order to increase sensations (pain) for her and her partner. This objectifying of people and experiences soon leads to being jaded. Being jaded creates a sense of numbness and the more we objectify the more numbness spreads throughout our interactions. We soon need more and more stimulation in order to respond at all.

Numbness leads to a focus on newness so that we might find that extra stimulation. To focus on newness is to focus on packaging, not on content. Newness suggests that which exists for the first time. Since newness becomes more and more difficult to create, then things must be packaged to provide the illusion of newness. Marketers and advertisers do not want us comparing products in terms of how they are similar, but rather in terms of how their product is newer and different than the others. Newness is fetishized in this country. New cars, new detergents, new pop-psychologies and new religions are often far more similar to the old ones than we want to believe. Again, the value lies in the newness of the products.

The ramifications for Dyke culture are that in order to regain our attention, the boys will slap a “new, improved” label on or repackage their therapy, religion, politics and so forth. As Anna Lee points out in her paper “New Age Spirituality Is the Invention of the Heteropatriarchy,”(2) what many Lesbians are now espousing as their means to a new improved personal sense of empowerment is the same religion the boys were marketing to us before. We looked at the differences that they assured us were there, and ignored the now more obvious similarities between new age spirituality and heteropatriarchal religions.

Because the search for newness is based upon how things differ rather than how things are similar or connected to one another, the search for newness stems from and fosters alienation and disconnectedness. The search for newness is the search for those things that allegedly stand out from, are apart from that which is. The ability to perceive how things, events, people and power are connected and relate to each other is at the very core of our political skills. When we participate in the focus on newness, we lose the ability to develop and use political skills because we are focused on the differences that are used as proof of newness. We are no longer able to focus on our connections with each other. Without recognizing our connections to each other, Lesbians are not able to disconnect from heteropatriarchy.

For Dyke communities the search for newness and the resulting alienation has meant that the commitment to analyze our lives, our behaviors and problems in political terms is no longer promoted or supported. In the seventies we had a commitment to analyzing our lives from a political perspective, and we joined Consciousness Raising groups to that end. By the eighties, many Dykes had retreated to therapies and various twelve-step groups, none of which are noted for any political analyses, but are heavily invested in viewing the world from a psychological base. Psychology complements consumerism nicely, in that it views humans as units that can be adjusted to the norm. All we have to do to get healthy is to work our program better, try a different therapy, or subject ourselves to an endless list of cures because we are never quite healthy enough. This also is an example of an escalation-based model.

The undermining of our political skills further endangers us in that the boys are able to divert our focus to their concerns and tasks, at the same time convincing us that they are our concerns and interests. Much theory and discussion has centered around motherhood. Many Lesbians understood motherhood to be fundamentally oppressive to women and Lesbians, and understood that the boys benefited from us producing children to turn over to the heteropatriarchy. While there have been Lesbians who have been honest in wanting children so that they more closely resemble heterosexuals, it is only recently that Lesbians have advocated motherhood as a strategy for changing the world. In “The Tired Old Question of Male Children,” Anna Lee suggests our mothers didn’t set out to raise their sons to be rapists, woman-haters, and prone to violence.(3) But Lesbians who choose motherhood focus once again on how this form of parenting is going to be different and not on how it is similar. Perhaps some communities are just now beginning to realize that the children raised by Lesbians are not significantly different than the children raised by heterosexual parents. The fact remains that children of Lesbians are claimed at the same level by the heteropatriarchy as the children of heterosexual parents.

Another example of focus on the new is the encroachment by men on Women-only space. A purported Lesbian musician at a major women’s music event in California, while introducing the boys in her band, was reported to have said “how nice it was to be able to have boys back on stage with us again.” Men have “been on the stage” with us for 5,000 years. Nothing much about their behavior has changed in the last 15 years, but now they market themselves to us as “new, improved feminist” men. Because they are “new” boys, some are willing to perceive them as different from the “old” boys. Many of us have not noticed boys doing anything differently, while at the same time noticing that they are intent on invading Women-only space. Ten years ago boys would not have been permitted on stage without a lot of discussion of the political implications of male invasion of Women-only space. Ten years ago the personal was political. In 1988 we have reduced the political to the personal.(4) It is very difficult to explore political choices with Lesbians who champion certain behaviors as personal preferences which therefore cannot be questioned.

Personal preference, which is an underpinning of psychological perspective, discourages us from examining the connections with each other and the organic world. If we attend to ways in which events, people and things connect, it would be very difficult for the boys to package our lives and sell them back to us. It is the breaking of the world into parts and even the objectifying of the world itself which feeds the vicious cycle of buy and sell. The boys cannot sell that which they cannot objectify. It is the forging and recognizing of our connections which shield and protect us from the boys’ objectification of us.

When we perceive everything as an object, even people become consumable. It is no surprise that people have indeed been bought and sold, used and discarded, acquired and hoarded, and used as objects of barter. This is evidenced in the slave trade and prostitution, among other things. While we would all like to believe that only strange people could objectify humans to that extent, it is not difficult to notice the “normalcy” of the male belief that children, wives and employees can be owned. Once people are objectified into objects, we move easily to the consuming of interactions and experiences.

The consuming of experiences is best described as being present at an event or experience and yet being a voyeur to that interaction. We disconnect from the experience – we allow it to flow over us and not affect us much, if at all. Heteropatriarchy promotes voyeurism as the path of least resistance. When we are bombarded from all sides by the boys’ often meaningless stimuli, it becomes very difficult to maintain our focus. What makes it even harder to remain focused is that the intensity of the stimuli often does not coincide with the importance of the content. For example, on a given day in Cleveland all of the rapes, woman-bashings, battering and killing of women are relegated to the inside pages of the newspaper, yet the headlines scream out that the Cleveland Browns may make it to the Superbowl. It becomes almost impossible to correlate intensity of stimuli with importance of the content, and even more difficult to trust one’s perceptions and judgments. So most of the time I am a voyeur to boys’ culture, I step back and let it roll off my back. I am curiously removed.

Unfortunately, it is one thing to be a “tourist” in Boysland, and another thing to be a tourist to our own culture. As communities struggle with trying to keep ourselves alive and accessible to all Dykes, we have developed the “more if you can, less if you can’t” policy for many events. This is predicated upon the assumption that the community and its events are important to all of us, and that we are all responsible in “making things happen.” Yet I have observed well-to-do Dykes come in and pay the low end of the scale because they left their money in the car, or Dykes who pay less because they want to save money for a boy’s event the next night. This is treating our community events as consumable objects.

In fact, the institutionalizing of our culture, primarily our musical culture, has turned our celebrations into mass consumer events. At the recent Olivia Anniversary Gala, everything was for sale: the reception (but only if you had $25); articles of clothing from the “stars” as a fundraiser; and package deals in certain cities, with the best seats going to the Dykes who could dish out the most money. (Ironically, there were Dykes in Cleveland who wouldn’t have been able to afford the concert, except for the fact that they produced it.) Besides being a blatant example of abysmal lack of and commitment to class consciousness, this is an example of buying and selling of Dyke community. Happily, Dyke love and energy survive under even adverse circumstances, but the fact remains that the consumerism existing in some events dictates a producer-consumer relationship.

Because boys’ culture has existed for so long, it is firmly entrenched in the objectification of living things resulting in stagnation which is also a death focus. Boys’ culture is in no way diminished by our consumption of that culture; in fact, our consumption of their culture contributes to its continuation. The point of Lesbian community is to separate from the status quo and base our connections on a different set of values. When we participate in a Lesbian event, we are not just purchasing entertainment, we are fostering our connections with each other. Our Lesbian cultural heritage has been that music, art and theory have been used as the means by which we created, expressed and explored our connections with each other. It is because this heritage of celebrating our connections has meant so much to me as a Dyke that I have become angry and disappointed that our events have taken on a consumer flair and return us to the malestream. Because our connections are continually being created, we cannot assume the role of consumers of our culture unless our intent is to diminish and consume our connections as a product. If our commitment is to building Lesbian community, then we must participate in the ongoing creation of that community, not the objectification and consumption of Lesbian community. The turning of our connections and communities into marketable products is going to have a devastating effect on us. As consumers our relationship to products is on two levels: on one hand we identify with the product, and on the other hand we distance ourselves from it. The identification with the product I have already discussed. The distancing from the product allows us not to be affected by it, not to be responsible for it and often as a voyeur of it. As consumers, our only responsibility is to our own satisfaction.

In the seventies I lived in a community that valued Women-only space, Radical Dyke Activity, manual laborers, development of theory, other working class jobs and anti-patriarchal work. I question the inverse correlation between the rise of cultural Lesbianism and the return to the malestream and resulting decline in respect for the Radical Lesbian activities. Once we institutionalize our culture, the rules of the marketplace take over. We have many examples, from making our Lesbian-created rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters more palatable to funders by firing the Dykes, to the selling of Lesbian Nuns to Forum by Naiad Press, to the Dyke musicians who play at Michigan for Women-only audiences until they make it big and will no longer play before Women-only audiences. Hence our relationships to each other have shifted from co-creating to the producing and consuming of our Lesbian community. When we create Lesbian community, we are enacting values that enhance and prioritize our Dyke connections. When we enact consumer values, our Lesbian connections are not the priority. Our consumer-producer connections are the priority.

When we established a producer-consumer relationship to each other, boys stepped in as the producers of our culture and marketed it back to us. The boys will be involved as long as they can turn a tidy profit and even if some boy producer in a large Eastern city decided to “return” some of the money to Lesbian community, it is as an insurance that he be allowed to continue to market our community. When boys quit making money from us, they will stop being concert producers and purveyors of women’s books and records. They are not co-creators of our culture. They are the people who come in to make profit from our having institutionalized to the point that money was able to be made. They are the people who sell our experiences and connections. Once we give them the right to market our lives to us, they also have the right to determine what our lives will be. Boys twist who we are and market it back to us in their own image.

Consumerism has been an effective tool for undermining our communities. We have consumed our own communities, thereby diminishing them. Boys have appropriated our communities, thereby distorting them. Boys begin to sell it back to us, thereby molding it in their own image. And sadly, many Dykes are no longer participating as co-creators of our culture, thereby conceding it to the forces of consumerism.

Consumerism is a system that fails to acknowledge what is important to us. I have interacted with my community as a consumer at times and admit that I thought I felt alive in the process. Or maybe I just felt motion and mistook it for life. But motion is not proof of life. After all, the boys are good at making machines move. That back and forth motion of consumerism is not motion on a profound level. Rather it is predictable, has a certain weariness, and holds no promise for change or creation. It is motion between two points of the patriarchy and fails to propel us away from the gravitational pull of boys’ values.

Earlier in this paper, I spoke of my inability to describe our connections. I still wonder why that is when those connections are so often intense. Amidst the glare of the market place it appears those connections are also very subtle.

Yet it is at the level of our connections that we begin to build our communities. A fundamental difference between Lesbian culture and heteropatriarchal culture is that unlike the boys, what moves and sustains us are our desires and passion. Our passion for our friends, our lovers, our politics, our lives and our creations defines our connections. Passion and desire cannot live in the market place any more than we can joyously thrive in the heteropatriarchal world. Consumerism is about the objectifying of all living things and passion has its own life. Passion cannot be packaged and marketed to us; instead it is created by and among us. I believe our passion has integrity and rather than allow itself to be distorted by consumerist interactions, it will quietly leave.

When consumerism forces passion to leave our interactions, we no longer have a basis for Lesbian connections. It is this interweaving of passion and desire throughout our values, our lives and our connections that will be the foundation of our Dyke communities.

—–

This is a revised version of the paper presented at the Lesbian Theory panel, June 1988, at the National Women’s Studies Association conference. I want to thank Sarah Hoagland for asking me to participate in the Lesbian Theory panel of NWSA. The panel was the impetus for me finally setting my thoughts down on paper. I want to thank Julia Penelope for the creation of the word heteropatriarchy and Anna Lee for the word malestream. I want to thank Anna Lee, Bette Tallen, Ellen Catlin and Laura Sanders for their help in clarifying my ideas and rewriting the paper. I am also indebted to long hours of conversations with many of the Separatists who attended the Midwest Lesbian Separatist Conference, June 1988.

1. Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics. Beacon Press, 1982. Starhawk discusses how the norms of the world shifted in the sixteenth century from an organic system to that of isolated nonliving parts.

2. Lee, Anna. “New Age Spirituality Is the Invention of the Heteropatriarchy;’ Sinister Wisdom #37, Spring 1989. Paper read at the panel on Lesbian Theory at the 1988 National Women’s Studies Association Conference.

3. Lee, Anna. “The Tired Old Question of Male Children,” Lesbian Ethics, Vol. 1, #2, pgs. 106-108. While Anna Lee is specifically referring to black women in her paper, I believe that the point still stands that the fact that whether black nor white women raise their sons to grow up to be abusers isn’t enough to stop the boys from enacting those behaviors.

4. A point made by Bette Tallen in a conversation concerning the lack of political analysis in our communities.

#resistance strategy and struggle

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aphroditeslesbian · 3 years

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Hi! I saw your comment about “new radfems” not reading radfem theory and I was wondering if you could list some resources or tell me where to find some? I’ve only recently started to read radfem blogs and I really want to get into it more, and not just read posts about it. Thank you so much, I appreciate your blog!

Hey! I'm really glad you want to do your research, it is heartwarming to know the newbies out there actually want to study the theory.

I think The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir is probably one of the most important and complete books in the path to understanding Radical Feminism. It is also super long and daunting, so while I do think it should be a read-in-progress for all of us, I think it's important to have more "beginner friendly" books, in order to avoid burn out. [link to pdf]

I've been into radical feminism since 2017 now, and I'm not a great reader, so for those of us who find it hard to focus for too long, I think Andrea Dworkin is also a good place to start. Her books are filled with rage – and important analysis. I find her language easier to keep up with, more approachable if you will. Woman Hating was my first [pdf]. You can find all of her other works [here] as well.

The book that made me want to really read more and get educated is honestly A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women, by Phyllis Chesler. It's an autobiography, and gives some great insight on what it was like to be involved directly in the Second Wave, and also why sisterhood is powerful and needed, but also not easy to achieve. It gave me hope, and helped me to see radical feminism in a new refreshed light. You can get the audiobook for free as an [Audible trial].

[Radfem.org] has some other books handy as well

And [here] is a post with some other feminist books.

My current to-read list, as offered by a dear friend who's been involved with radical feminism for the past 10+ years, is as follows:

> The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir (a current read-in-progress for me)

> Lesbian Nation - Jill Johnston [borrow]

> For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology - Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Julia Penelope [borrow]

> Sappho was a Right-on Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism [borrow]

> The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK 1970-1990 - Sheila Jeffreys

> The Wanderground - Sally Miller Gearhart [borrow]

> Woman Hating - Andrea Dworkin

> Intercourse - Andrea Dworkin [pdf]

> SCUM Manifesto - Valerie Solanas [pdf]

> Lesbian origins - Susan Cavin [borrow]

> Sisterhood is Powerful - Robin Morgan [pdf]

> Like There's No Tomorrow - Carolyn Cage [pdf]

> The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist Perspective on the Lesbian Sexual Revolution - Sheila Jeffrey [pdf]

> Gyn/Ecology - Mary Daly [pdf]

Okay so now I flooded you with reading material... What next? How do you even get started, how do you tackle this?

I think first of all it's really important to find community. There are discord servers out there for radical feminists and gender critical women, communities which are open to you, and were made for women just like you. Surround yourself with women, build yourself up with them. Don't just say your politics are woman centric, but actually make your life woman centric. And read up. Study. Trade notes, ask questions, question... Everything. Be critical. Not just of your past beliefs, but of this new information. Where is it coming from? Who wrote it? What do they gain from it? Who loses if they win?

Be aware that radical feminism is a political movement. It can be heavy. Unfortunately, we deal with the knowledge that the world is ugly, especially ugly towards women. Part of radical feminism is addressing issues such as human trafficking, pedophilia, incest, and the likes. Have positive things to balance this out, take breaks, take your time. Work against overwhelming yourself. You can do this.

Apply the same kindness you'd offer other women to yourself, and treat yourself with respect. Reach out! To me, to others. We're here for you. We have space for you. We'll make time, we'll try our best. I just spent an hour finding these links for you. Not because you owe me anything, or vice versa. But because I care that you have a good experience of it. We are stronger together.

Anyway, take care. Good luck!

#august rants #radfem #radical feminism #reading #to read

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comeandreadawhile · 3 years

Text

Clone Social Media : Hobbies

The phenomenon starts with the intention to show the civilians of the Republic the men behind the armor, as well as an encouragement for the men to do the things they enjoy when they have the time to in lieu of sitting around cleaning weapons for a third time that day.

Scratch that—the phenomenon starts with High General Kenobi, on a rare day of leave, teaching his Marshal Commander how to bake. Said Commander’s men were happy to taste test the flurry of experimental confections that pervaded their leave days in the following months. News spread fast of Marshal Commander Cody having a knack for baking, and so followed the spread of troopers attempting to make their own treats and/or branching off into other things the civilians called “hobbies” whenever what they could get their hands on afforded them.

The phenomenon kicked off when Padawan Commander Tano began a social media account with the intention of using it as a public diary, her first post was a picture taken of some of the 501st—with permission, her caption says—as they went about retouching paint scuffed in their most recent battle. The men are relaxed, some with paint smeared on their hands and cheeks and seemingly reacting to some joke or story told outside the threshold of the camera, and it’s an almost startling difference from the image of rigid lines of men, faceless in their full kits of white plastoid, that the civilians are used to. Tano’s second post is a video clip of one Captain Rex, with one General Skywalker sitting on his back counting reps, doing push-ups; the video was captioned “Another day in the G.A.R., restless in hyperspace.”

The digital diary continues from there, videos and pictures of specific locations posted only after reaching a safe distance to do so, never sharing anything mission critical—past, current, or hypothetical future. Eventually she shows the men under her how to make their own accounts, and other Jedi and their own troops follow suit. The 212th then takes it upon themselves to post pictures of the little cakes their Marshal Commander has gotten so proficient at making, and, when General Kenobi creates a joint account titled “command_212”, convince Cody to post pictures of things he bakes before they are distributed—even in the process of baking, if the fancy strikes him.

So Marshal Commander Cody shares pictures of his experiments, of recipes he finds that turned out well, of recipes that didn’t because of some error or other that he’s determined to give another go, with the occasional cryptid picture of General Kenobi taking his tea in the barrack’s kitchen. As time goes on those pictures shift to Obi-Wan covered in flour, or a shot taken from several feet away of Cody sneaking batter captioned “caught red-handed in the red velvet”.

As Marshal Commander of the 212th has taken to baking to relieve stress, the Commander of the 104th has turned to needlecraft and yarnwork.

The 104th retaliate the populatrity of the 212th’s command account with the domesticity of their own, despite the vaguely threatening possibilities of knitting and sewing needles. Boost and Sinker run the majority of the account, although all OG members of the 104th have access to it; they post pictures of the things Wolffe makes them, of General Plo covered in the lengths of scarves he’s received, of Comet in the ever-growing swath the gifted blankets with the current tally in the caption (his toes were off the floor by blanket burrito 6). The holonet at large loves Plo almost as much as his men, and once a week they post him saying some piece of sage wisdom—or utter nonsense, as the mood strikes—as the war goes on. After months of asking for a face reveal and requests for the patterns people are sure Wolffe uses, they make the most Force-forsaken tutorial videos as an all-in-one series.

“HOLY **** HE’S CASTING ON 12 TO START—“ “WHAT A MAD MAN!”

“So when you get to this row here you’re going to knit 3, purl 3–“ “TRANSCENDENT!” “—yes, thank you, and then keep doing that until you reach the end of the row...”

“Oh, OH MAN HE’S GONNA DO IT!” “HE’S GONNA CHANGE COLORS!” “Holy **** man he’s gonNA YOOOOOOOOOO!”

Cody is then issued a challenge by the holonet to learn to knit. He learns to crochet. Because Obi-Wan knows how to crochet. The holonet loves video snippets of them progressing on projects together. They also love the videos Ahsoka posts of Cody attempting to teach Rex, and praise the absolutely completely unrelated hat she later posts a picture of; it covers her Montrals with enough room for a few years’ growth. Anakin gets yarn stuck in his mechanical hand because he forgot to put his glove on before attempting to craft.

The real throwdown happens when the account for the Coruscant Guard posts videos of Fox aggressively tatting while venting about the lack of funding for proper security and surveillance tech.

Each posts sees a comical increase in the surfaces covered in lace doilies and runners, as well as a new topic for Fox’s venting.

A picture of an pillow embroidered with “Kriff the Seppies” is briefly posted to the 104th’s account before being taken down and replaced with a censor bar. Rumors begin to circulate when Senator Chuchi posts a picture wearing a gifted lace shawl; Senator Amidala comments on her confusion being resolved as to why Riyo kept bringing little baskets of crochet thread with her before a senate meetings.

A competition for ship nose art starts up, many votes going to the 501st, and the holonet’s heart once again melting at “Plo’s Bros”. Personal art begins popping up soon after. Fives starts posting spray paint tutorials, Rex and Hardcase become popular for clean graphic art. Bly gets his hands on metallic paint and the crowds go wild. Kix has taken his clean haircut game to the next level.

And then Colt and Shaak Ti make an account to post art the Littles make, most of them representations of their older brothers with wishes of safety and good luck, and of the only Jedi they’ve ever known, sometimes creatures they studied in their preparation for worlds outside of Kamino. Of batches passing their final tests with a congratulatory post.

Suggestions and instructions are sent out for clones who want to take and sell commissions, allowing them to finally make some money; most Jedi are more than happy to help make sure the finished work mails out properly to the buyers.

Ships of the non-nose art kind surface on the holonet. It’s generally agreed upon that command_212 is run by husbands, and Aayla is the protector of the 327th and Bly’s heart, even if she’s a clumsy menace around his artwork (caf spilled over a drying watercolor can be interesting or terrible depending on the circumstance). No one can agree whether Skywalker is married to his captain or Senator Amidala, but everyone agrees that Ahsoka is their baby. The holonet declares Plo to have Big Dad Energy. Shaak Ti’s Big Mom Energy is a friendly rival. The Jedi council has made no official statement denying or denouncing these attachments.

Public interest begins to shift from producing more soldiers to making sure the ones the Republic has stay alive, when the realization hits that within a couple of years the children posting art and losing teeth would probably be losing blood and brothers on some far away planet. Of making sure the men are eating well instead of just surviving. Well certain account-holders don’t post for a while, grieving a loss, posting again to reassure their followers they’re alright, the public questions what’s being done to keep the men emotionally and mentally well outside of the hobbies the public knows them for. “Born to handle any stress” is very much the wrong answer.

Pressure is put on the Chancellor to let the Separatists sucede, no one quite sure anymore why allowing them to would be harmful when at worst new trade agreements would need to be brokered; if they want to leave so badly, let them. And let the men have their hobbies.

(Sad thoughts ahead)

Sometimes commissioners never receive their orders, simply a refund with a letter from that clone’s Jedi after the latest battle ends. Any money they’d made would be split however their closest brothers decide.

The channel that always posts pranks and spray paint tutorials makes a post saying they’d be away to look after their sick little brother. It’s the last post they make.

The Coruscant Guard’s account stops posting a few nights later.

After Order 66 goes out, a new account goes up posting any pictures and cute videos of Aayla. Reposting old ones that the public is sure they’d seen somewhere before, posting new ones of funny faces and ridiculous videos of silly dances. The last one is the only one captioned, “she wasn’t a traitor.”

The account is deleted the same night, and the one of the 327th’s adventures never posts again.

Wolfpack_104 does not post, but is still there.

Command_212 is deleted almost immediately the night of the order.

Years go by, almost sixteen, and only after Vader already knows she’s alive does Ahsoka post again. It’s a picture of her, and Rex and Wolffe onboard the Ghost in hyperspace captioned “Was never a traitor. Always the little sister even if I’m four years older. In case you’re wondering, Rex still draws and Wolffe still knits when we can nab the string and flimsi.”

#star wars #the clone wars #codywan #blyla #implied #foxiyo #rexwalker #commander cody #captain rex #commander wolffe #commander bly #commander colt #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #plo koon #shaak ti

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coexiising · 3 years

Text

art deco - anakin skywalker

SUMMARY ◆ You’ve been Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan for almost five years now, recieving training from one of the most brilliant Jedi Knights you have ever met. In an attempt to further your training, you and your Master take a trip to Naboo, however, it is soon revealed that your feelings will get in the way.

WARNING(S) ◆ Smut, lowkey slow burn, anakin being hot but what’s new, dirty talk, authority kink, virginity kink, bye

WORDS ◆ 7.8k and i regret nothing

NOTE ◆ I wrote this during heartbreak so this is me totally projecting

»»————-　✼　————-««

THERE WAS SOMETHING INCREASINGLY PLEASANT ABOUT BEING ON NABOO. You were quick to realize that the planet’s beauty that was always spoken about was not just a thing of rumors, and that, in fact, the place was even more beautiful than you could possibly imagine. The way that every tree hung perfectly, with it’s branches begging to be touched by a passerby, and how every single animal that grazed along it’s pastures had a sense of calm that you had never felt in all your years of living in the galaxy.

The villa along the large lake a few miles away from the main city was a thing of dreamlike structures. It’s columns held intricate pieces of wood and stone and the balconies that overlooked both water and flower fields were more welcoming than you could ever imagine. A own little touch of paradise, and you would be staying here for only a week.

The war, which you had been flung into only a few years into your training, was going on longer than anyone anticipated. The separatists were not letting up on their preposition to become a sovereign state, and the deaths of thousands mass produced clones has become a daily thing. It took a great toll on everyone involved, and more specifically the Padawan’s like yourself that were not at all prepared for this type of environment for your training. When you were just a youngling, all you expected was to go on lots of missions with your Master that would be Jedi affairs, not Republic ones. In a way, you felt as if you were being robbed of something that you weren’t quite sure how to pinpoint, an innocence in a way.

This was the Council’s way of trying to make it up to you. You knew that it wasn’t supposed to actually be a vacation, no, you were meant to keep up with your training, just in a different environment that would make you more akin with the Force. And that place was Naboo, tranquility in the form of a planet.

“I can feel your apprehension,” Your Master told you, walking in front of you up the stone stairs that came up to the front door of the place you would be staying in with him. Behind you was a ship, no one inside to accompany the two of you. To do this right, as the Council said, you were not to be distracted by anyone else, no clones, no droids, no nothing.

If only they knew that it didn’t matter if there was no one other than your Master to engage with, because Anakin Skywalker, alone, was able to distract you for hours on end if you really put your mind to it. Anakin and you were very similar in age, early adult years, and yet he had the role of Master and you were still just a Padawan. You knew that it was because of his efforts during the Battle of Geonosis at the very beginning of the war, and that alone was enough to grant him the title of Jedi Knight, but it still was awkward at points when he talked down on you, because really, he had only two years more experience in life than you did.

You did what you were told. You always did. As a youngling you had a temper, a rebellious streak that for a time was almost concerning for the Council and the Master’s that taught you. And yet, here you were, a respectful young Jedi. Over the years you have grown, probably more than any other youngling that the Order has ever seen. It was like overnight somehow you turned from a child to a young woman, and you were adamant about completing your studies so that you could become a Jedi Knight. Those plans, however, got incredibly tainted with the war, and then with the introduction of you and your Master. It was a rather uncalled for pairing. You were hoping for someone like Master Yoda to take you as his Padawan or even for master Plo Koon, yet it was wildly noted that you were picked by Anakin Skywalker yourself. A rather odd thing and he still hasn’t told you completely why.

Anakin was not entirely a man of secrets. You could ask him things about almost anything and he would tell you. The only thing that he kept guarded in the deepest parts of his mind was things of his past, and his reasoning behind making such vast decisions like taking on a Padawan during a large civil war. But you and Anakin still managed to be very close, the Force growing strong between both of you as if it too agreed in your compatibility.

You shook your head, immediately refuting his accusations. “No, it’s not apprehension,” you told him, eyes coming up to meet the back of his head since he wasn’t looking at you. “Just concern, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Your Master questioned. The second that his foot came up to the top of the stairs, his figure turned around and faced you, those bold, blue eyes of his racing to meet your own. “If you have any doubts about anything, tell me, I am your Master after all.”

That’s exactly that problem, you thought to yourself, making sure that your mental shields were up to guard it. That was the last thing that you needed, for him to know the things that you wished to push down into the darkest depths of your mind. That was the Jedi way, after all, keep all those emotions that were considered dangerous and a path to the dark side in a little cage in your mind and throw away the key. The thought of simply just being with him here alone made your brain almost electrify yourself, thinking about all the possibilities of slipping up and revealing all your emotions towards your Master directly to him. It was something to fear, and yet you were not allowed to fear.

You offered him the fakest smile that you could muster, saying, “Yes, Master, I’m alright. Let’s just get inside, it’s almost dark.” The setting sun was directly to your back, illuminating him in front of you like he was something to be marvelled at. And to your defense, Anakin Skywalker was definitely something to be marvelled at. His chiseled cheeks only looked more distinguished in the golden light, along with his dark brown hair that seemed to catch it just right. It made you feel weak in the knees, these thoughts of him, and you knew it was wrong to think of him in such ways - but you just couldn’t stop. Every time you tried to vilify him in your mind, another reason why you should love popped right back up in its place. It was a deadly cycle that you have shamelessly fallen victim to, and there was nothing that you could do to stop it or further this attraction. It was forbidden.

The moment that you stepped into the building, a sigh left your lips, eyes taking in all your surroundings. It was marvellous. There were marbled stone floors that were covered in rugs in some places, plush couches in the middle of the room, and off to the side were the counters of the kitchen, all looking as if no one had ever stepped foot in here. Suddenly you felt out of place here, like you weren’t good enough to live in such a lavish way. After all, your temple rooms were nothing compared to this. They were bland, sandy and brown colors everywhere. Only a dresser with a small mirror and a bed were in it. Yet here, there were different hues of reds, greens, and blues, tables and chairs and fancy lamps, and plants that added almost another dimension to the already breathtaking house.

“It’s - It’s,” You started, not able to find the correct words for what you were trying to say.

Luckily, Anakin finished your sentence, “Breathtaking. It’s breathtaking.”

You turned to look back at him, taking in his features for just a moment more.

Breathtaking, you thought to yourself. Yes, everything here is just breathtaking.

The soft silks of your bed sheets rolled between your fingers, tempting you to lay into bed and never get back up. How on Earth were you supposed to keep training when you were living like this? You could imagine yourself, not as a Jedi but as a normal person, eating wild berries as you sat on your bed near the balcony, looking towards the horizon and not having one single worry in that head of yours. It was tantalizing, the perfect picture in your mind of what you wished to be.

“You think too loud.”

You spun around to only be met with your Master, who was leaning against your doorframe effortlessly. A heat rose up to your cheeks, realizing that you hadn’t been taking the proper precautions of keeping those thoughts only to yourself. They were just little flings of ideas, nothing too brash that could get you into any trouble. “Sorry, Master, I shouldn’t have been thinking of slacking off when we have work to do in the coming days.”

A chuckle escaped his lips from deep within his chest. “It’s okay, Y/N, really, if I am being honest, I was thinking the same not too long ago.”

That was shocking news to you. You always thought that Anakin always wanted to be on the run, as if this trip that he had to take with you was annoying to him because he had to take time away from the front lines of the war. But it also made sense, even victorious war generals get tired sooner or later. Perhaps you didn’t know him as much as you thought that you did. This trip wasn’t just for you, it was for the both of you. It was good to go back to basics, remember the first feelings of the force and go from there.

“And here I was thinking that you didn’t want to be here,” You mused.

Your Master laughed at your jest. “No, quite the opposite. It’ll be nice to take a step back from life for a little bit and get some much needed rest.”

“I didn’t know that General Skywalker knew what rest meant,” You continued on your playful banter.

“I don’t,” He chuckled. “Maybe you can teach me?”

Now that sends you through a loop. You knew that he was probably just playing around with you, since you were teasing him a little bit. But that sentence was enough for that place in your mind to unlock all the fantasies you had in your head about him, the ones that you only dared touch when you knew you were alone and it was the dead of night so no was there to read them. You held yourself back from becoming flustered, knowing the moment you showed any signs of it that he would know that something was up. Instead you simply nodded your head, taking your eyes off of him to the balcony that was open to your room, seeing the way that the moonlight illuminated the waves of the water. “Perhaps after training tomorrow, we could go by the water?” You asked him.

“Sure thing,” Anakin said, turning on his heel and making his way out of your room. You took a sigh of relief at his absence, not because you wanted him gone, but because seeing him in such a leisurely setting was starting to get to your head. That dizzy feeling that got to your head every time you looked at him for too long started to subside, and you were left with only your thoughts as you put away some robes you packed for the stay.

The moment that your head hit the soft, plush pillow of your large bed, you were completely enveloped by sleep. In your dreams you only saw you and Anakin, happy and smiling in the gracious flower fields of Naboo, preparing meals together half dressed in the kitchen, and falling asleep in each other's arms. It was so real and lifelike that when you woke up in the morning, you felt as if you had awoken from an alternate universe.

Anakin didn’t know what he was doing.

Of course he was excited to be able to take a break from the long, withheld war between the Republic and the Separatists, but at the same time he knew that being alone with you was going to be a struggle for him. Anakin loved to train you, he really did. You were a loyal Padawan to the Order and was eager to learn the ways of the Force by his instruction. He knew the moment that he saw you that he wanted to train you. But he hadn’t prepared for him to become so emotionally attached to you, and it was tearing the young Jedi apart.

It was incredibly taboo of him to gain these feelings for two reasons. One: the Jedi were forbidden from attachment. And although Anakin hadn’t been known for following all the rules of the Jedi, he knew that attachment could possibly lead to dark places if he wasn’t careful. Two: you were his Padawan. It may have been different if you were within the same ranks as him, but you were not. He was supposed to be your teacher, and there was no way that he would take advantage of his position of power over you if you were not willing.

He, too, was having doubts about this vacation. Anakin almost asked his First in Command, Rex, if he would accompany the two Jedi for the week, but there was too much going on for the clone to take time off. So it was just you and him, alone in this house on this beautiful planet. Anakin was uneasy up until the moment he walked in your room last night when for a half a second he could sense your aura from the Force, and it was also uneasy about being with him alone. It was strange, since you were clearly hiding these thoughts from him with your mental shields whenever you were around him. But the moment he left you alone, those shields came down.

“Don’t think about keeping yourself up, the Force will do that on it’s own as long as you keep the connection with it. Focus on the rocks,” Anakin told you, walking around you in circles as you were in a handstand, mentally bringing up some rocks off the ground and stacking them off to your side. This was generally a lesson that a youngling would be given, though it was a good mental exercise. And in Anakin’s opinion: it was way better than meditating. “Feel it flow through you, allow it to take you over and become one with it.” These were the same things that Master Obi-Wan had taught him.

It was a bright, sunny day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as the time reached a little bit past noon. Training outside in the fields of Naboo were easier than doing so at the Jedi Temple, considering there was more nature that was akin to all aspects of the force. And the sun felt good on both of your skin, smelling the natural air that had a fluorescent scent to it rather than the smog and industrial life of Coruscant.

Your muscles were beginning to strain from underneath you as your head tilted to the side, watching all the rocks fall into place to your left. Even though the Force provided much needed relief on your arms, they were beginning to let out. There was one more rock for you to move and it was the smallest one, a tiny little pebble that needed to go on the top. It was such a small mass, yet with all of this mental and physical strain, it felt like a boulder to move across the air slowly with your mind. All you wanted was for Master Skywalker to feel proud of you. You wanted to see that smile on his face as you lifted that last pebble up and was allowed to finish your studies for the day.

The more you concentrated, the more you could feel the Force flow right through you. It could be felt in the tingling of your palms, sending vibrations towards the center of your chest while your blood flowed. Almost more importantly, you could feel Anakin’s eyes on you, waiting patiently for you to make your next move. Slowly, but surely, the little pebble made its way towards the top of the stacked rocks. Your eyes widened with joy, but immediately squinted back up when it shook a tiny bit. The moment that the bottom of it hit the top, you released your much concentrated attachment with the Force, and allowed yourself to fall seamlessly to the ground. The blood rushed back to your head, making your eyes darken to adjust. Once you could see again, you saw Anakin standing over you, that grin you had looked forward to seeing on his face.

“Not bad, Padawan,” He said in an appealing tone, extending a hand to help you up to your feet. You were quick to take it, ignoring the way that your heart soared as your skin touched against his skin. “We should go back to the house.” He almost turned and began walking away, but you scrunch your nose up and kept his hand in a tight grip, prompting him to look right back at you with a confused look. “What’s up?”

“You promised we could go to the water afterwards,” You told him, hoping that you were jogging his memory from last night.

But you didn’t need to jog Anakin’s memory, because he had been thinking about it ever since you asked. Thinking about having to watch you submerge under the water and come back up, drops of clear blue dripping down your exposed shoulders, and keeping himself from doing something that he would most likely regret when you would reject him, scolding him for his thinking. He thought about the way he wanted to put his hands on your hips and pull you as close as you possibly could get to him, taking the opportunity to pepper kisses along your smooth skin. It killed him to think that you probably didn’t think the same way about him, it was going to goddamn tear him apart.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to go back on his promise to you. It was the least he could do after thinking such sinful things about you. Anakin’s gave you a nod and walked beside you on the short trail to the large lake. You could hear the water ripple towards the small shoreline, coming up and then receding back again in a timely fashion. You kicked off your shoes, deciding that your tank top and pants were okay to get wet, especially since you wouldn’t take the risk of undressing in front of Anakin. As much as the thought was tempting, you knew better than to test your luck. Anakin watched with intensity as you got into the water, going deep enough to where only the tops of your shoulders and up were exposed. Maker, he cursed himself, did you have to look so good barely doing anything?

You cocked your head to the side. “Well . . . are you going to get in or just stare at me?” You asked, immediately submerging yourself under the water to ignore what he had to say about your teasing. Your heart thumped profusely as you sat there under the water holding your breath. Anakin had been looking at you.

He mentally cursed himself once again, taking his shoes off and following you into the water. It did feel good, the water having an almost calming effect over him as he walked deeper in the lake. He looked around him, taking in the appearance of all the beautiful trees that lined up, beautiful fruit hanging off of the branches. Little flowers were along the bay, facing right towards him as if they were welcoming him to their home.

The sun spilled harsh rays along his skin, causing Anakin to dip his head down fully into the water. Once he came back up for air, his eyes shifted over to you, both of you holding a type of eye contact that you swore almost knocked your breath out. It was unlike anything you had ever experienced before, like he was looking right into your soul and you to his, a sense of desire burning a pit in your stomach. Feeling exposed, you shifted your gaze to the fish swimming in the water near you. You could still feel his eyes on you, in them holding truths that he wished to tell you, but being unable to put the words together to explain.

“There’s something that you’re not telling me.”

Your eyes opened at your Master’s voice and looked directly at him. You had been meditating on your bed before sleeping, knowing that you hadn’t gotten the necessary amount of meditating that you needed for the day. At the temple they usually kept you on some kind of schedule, though here with Anakin rules were a little - no, more loose than normal.

Anakin once again stood in your doorframe, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed in, like he didn’t feel like he had a place stepping into your bedroom. You searched his face to gauge a feeling for what he was talking about, looking for hints of mischief or anger. There was nothing, his face was completely blank, almost too blank like he was hiding something from you.

You knew you had nothing to hide - or at least nothing that he should know about. “I don’t know what you mean, Master,” You replied, uncrossing your legs from their criss cross position and hugging them close to your chest. “Have I done something wrong?”

That answer seemed to not satisfy him, because for a moment something flickered in his eyes. “No, nothing like that,” He told you, furrowing his brows together and taking a tentative step closer into your room. “It’s just, I get this feeling when I’m around you. Your force signature . . . like something is just gnawing at you and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Oh, you were screwed. Alarms blared in your mind, thinking about how you had let your thoughts run too much during this trip. All the worst outcomes of this came to your mind, like how he would laugh at your growing feelings towards him, how much you wanted him almost shamelessly. It made your stomach twist into several knots, wanting to bury yourself into a hole and never ever come out of it again.

Your face and the Force must’ve told it all, because he spoke again, saying, “There. Right there. I can feel it, Y/N. Just talk to me. What is going on?” Your bottom lip quivered, knowing that there was no way you were getting out of this. This was it. The day you had been dreading and hoping didn’t come. Everything was about to come crash down onto your life.

“I can’t,” You said in a low voice, shifting your weight to sit at the edge of the bed, putting your head into your hands and staring down at the plush carpet in an attempt to get away from his stare. Almost as if you thought if you looked away long enough, he would suddenly disappear.

“What do you mean ‘you can’t’? You’re my Padawan, you can tell me anything.”

Padawan. The title felt foreign in your mind now. It was something that you knew you couldn’t hold onto for much longer once the truth was out. You would be stripped of it and be a Jedi no more. The council would hear of your feelings and immediately expel you. Padawan. Padawan. Padawan. The more the word bounced around in your mind the more you felt tears welling up into your eyes.

And you didn’t mean to sound so harsh when you said it, but your hands were balling up into fists as you said, “That’s what’s wrong!” Your head tilted up, seeing that Anakin had walked closer to you, towering over your frame. His face showed confusion, not understanding what you were alluding to. He didn’t even have to say it, but his expression was saying explain.

How could you even begin?

You were wordless.

“Please . . . I just want to help you,” Anakin told you, his hand coming to grab onto your forearm. The touch felt like hot coals on your body, scorching your soul. “I don’t like seeing you like this.” Which you knew translated to I don’t like not knowing how to fix it.

“It’s you,” You confessed. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

For a moment, Anakin thought that he had stepped into some parallel universe. Or that this was some sort of prank let on by someone else. There was no way that this was happening, you were confessing. You had been thinking about him, probably as much as he was thinking about you. It felt as if the world had turned on its axis and was spinning the opposite direction.

You, on the other hand, was waiting for the words that never came. You expected him to immediately tell you that he was going to report you to the Council. And yet, he stood there, almost looking as dumbfounded as you did, maybe even more. This prompted you to stand up, his hand falling down and getting dangerously close to your own.

“I know . . .” You started again, seeing as he wasn’t going to say anything. “I know that it’s wrong, that I shouldn’t be thinking of you in the ways that I am. But I can’t stop, Anakin, you consume me.”

The usage of his name snapped him back to reality and out of his own spinning thoughts, and hearing it come from specifically your lips was not helping his frame of mind. It sounded . . . different coming from your mouth. Like you were saying it like a praise rather than just a passing phrase like most people did. He wanted you to say it over and over again, repeating it like a mantra you were to speak or you would die if you didn’t. His eyes flickered into your own and saw how scared you were of how he would react and how he was definitely not helping to settle your nerves.

In truth, he didn’t know how to handle this situation. After all, this was not a lesson that had been given to him and he was definitely not in the best place to tell you anything, since his emotions were starting to cloud his judgement and all he could think was how he wished to tell you he felt the same way.

You waited for his response, getting impatient and wanting to just get this over with. You were waiting for the words he was supposed to say.

But Anakin didn’t always do the things he was supposed to do.

“You and I both know that forming attachments isn’t allowed,” Anakin said. “And yet I can’t stop thinking about kissing you.”

A visible look of shock washed over your face, mouth opening slightly and eyes widening, heart pounding against your ribcage. His hand reached down and grabbed your own, fingertips softly touching the palm of your hand. This felt like a dream. Were you sure that you weren’t dreaming? No, this was definitely real. Anakin was in front of you for sure, confessing that he was feeling the exact same way.

Anakin tipped his head down to meet your own, his breath fanning along your face, making you shiver. Your breath hitched in your throat, his lips brushing against your own, almost like he was testing you. You could feel the tips of his hair tickling against your forehead, nose against nose. You were so close. The hand on your own was grasping now, pulling your body close to his. And the two of you sat there, lips millimeters close while each of your minds buzzed with the feeling of doing something so daring.

You felt yourself going mad, you couldn’t do it anymore. You couldn’t wait. All of your feelings erupted inside of your throat and suddenly you were kissing him, lips smashing against his own with no care in the world. You didn’t care about the Council, the Code . . . anything. All you cared about was Anakin, wanting as much of him that he was willing to give you.

You had never really kissed anyone before. There was a moment back when you were only ten and you were with another youngling, seeing one of the citizens of Coruscant kissing each other on the street. Interested in what they were doing, you and your friend kissed, thinking that it was weird and dismissing it. That had been your first kiss, a rather embarrassing one, but it was nothing compared to the way Anakin kissed you. He kissed you like there was a purpose to every single move of his muscles. He kissed you like you were forbidden fruit and he was starving.

His other hand came up to the back of your neck, tangling in your hair and keeping your face close to his. For just a moment his tongue slipped into your mouth and you made a small sound, butterflies swarming in your stomach. You tried to mimic what he was doing, going with your instincts and grasping onto his bicep, feeling the taut muscles under your touch.

Everything about yours and his actions were needy and hungry, wanting each other with such need that you had pushed down for so long. All of it seemed to come out of you like crashing waves. The kissing was nice, though after a while you needed more, you were dying for more of him. Please, Anakin, you thought.

What do you want, Padawan? He asked through his thoughts to you, hand coming to caress your face to look down at you. You looked into those big, blue eyes of his that never ceased to awaken something within you.

“You, Anakin, I want you,” You whispered to him, as if someone was going to hear if you talked too loud. “Please.” You thought that you probably sounded like someone desperate, and in a way you were, you had waited for this forever and had convinced yourself that it would never happen. But he thought the exact opposite, he marvelled in the way that you looked at him, wanting to show you how much you truly meant to him. The attraction and lust was there, intermingled with something more that neither of you dared to acknowledge.

He didn’t hesitate to give you what you wanted, slowly inching you towards the bed and helping you rest on your back, the silk sheets against the back of your arms and neck. Anakin was quick to follow, climbing on top of you and connecting his lips onto the skin right below your jaw. His lips were soft like snowflakes falling onto your skin, creating a masterpiece on your skin like you were his canvas. It all felt too good, the Force heightening the sensations to an almost unbearable amount. It sent shockwaves to your core, igniting a feeling you often only felt during the late hours of the night.

Seeing how well your body responded to him, well, almost drove Anakin crazy. You were so willing, so ready for him that his mind became cloudy, the only thing he could make out was his thoughts of you. Nothing about the war, the Council, the fact that he was your Master . . . It all blew away with the wind. His lips trailed down from your jaw to your neck, paying extra attention to the places that made you breath out more than the others. Your hands found their respective place in his hair, feeling the softness of the dirty blonde curls between your fingers.

Your clothes suddenly felt foreign on your body, you wanted them off, you wanted his off so that you could see all of him. He seemed to hear your thoughts, humming against your skin and pulling away, pressing a soft, firm kiss to your lips and helping you get out of them, and in turn you helped him get out of his.

Anakin’s body was like nothing you imagined. He was breathtaking. You knew that he had a nice body because of all the training and countless amounts of physical strain he has been through, but looking at those abs that he had, along with the sun kissed skin he had, you felt your throat close up, feeling inferior to what he looked like. “You’re beautiful, Y/N,” He spoke to your thoughts. “Don’t ever think that you’re not.” And you believed him.

His hands came to your hips, fingers toying with the fabric of your underwear that was the only thing blocking him from seeing you fully. His eyes scanned you, taking in the sheer and utter beauty before him. He wanted to kiss, lick, and nip on every single inch of skin on you. He wanted to learn each and every single curve, hear every story behind your scars, and know just what touches would have you squirming from underneath him.

No one has seen you this exposed before. You didn’t know whether or not to feel embarrassed, because he seemed to know what he was doing. It was not that you had taken the Jedi code to heart, but you simply hadn’t known anyone that you found enough to take that last piece of innocence from you - no one except Master Skywalker. And only now did you actually realize what was going to happen.

Your whole body felt hot, needing to feel the release that was beginning to build up from all of his kisses and your imagination running its course. “Anakin,” You breathed out, not knowing how to form into words what you wanted from him. Of course he knew, he could feel your force signature morph into something almost sinful, something he was sure he was emitting himself. After all, neither of you were hiding anything anymore. He knew exactly what he was going to do to you so that he could hear the plethora of moans that he knew you had just for him, wanting to hear his name come off of your lips in pleasure.

His head ducked down and kissed your hipbone, fingers hooking under your underwear and slowly sliding them off. Your eyes stayed on his actions, mouth forming into an ‘O’ when you realized what he was going to do. He was going to use his mouth on you. These were only things that you thought in your deepest, darkest fantasies, like he had reached into those parts of your mind and did exactly what you wanted.

As if Anakin was just tempting you, he pressed another slow kiss to the inside of your thigh and then did the same thing to the other side. Your hips lifted up only slightly, showing him that you couldn’t wait much longer. A chuckle left him, eyes reaching your own and saying, “Eager?” You weren’t even ashamed when you shook your head, keeping eye contact with him as he licked a bold stripe right up your slit. It felt as if an earthquake hit your body, your back arching and hands gripping onto his hair.

He hummed against you, liking the way that you responded to his actions. If he had it his way, he would sit here with you like this for hours on end, bringing you up to that high place again and again until you were a wrecked mess before him. It made him simply go crazy to think that he was the first person to ever do this to you, that he would be the first of anyone to hear those moans and profanities that slipped from your cherry kissed lips. Anakin’s own thoughts made him groan out, a noise that you played on repeat in your mind as your eyes screwed closed.

Your thighs quivered beside his face, attempting to squeeze shut so that you could keep him there forever. But his hands came and held them in place, fingers digging into your muscles that gave in to his touch like it was nothing. You were putty in his hands, the only movement you had was your hands pulling on his hair and the arch of your back while he lapped his tongue against you with no mercy.

“Stay still,” He told you, pulling away for a moment to lick what was left of you on his lips. You nodded, chest heaving and heart sinking at the loss of contact. But Anakin didn’t leave for long, his mouth on your clit accompanied with one of his fingers circling your entrance. You nearly lost it when he dipped his middle finger in experimentally, gauging your reaction. You could feel the coil in your stomach start to tighten, which only amplified once his finger pushed into you all the way.

You didn’t even attempt to try and censor the obscenities that came out of your mouth, mixed in rhyme with his name. Anakin. Anakin. Anakin. It was the only word that felt real in your mind.

You waited for that final jump towards a euphoric end, but it never came. Instead Anakin pulled away from you and his fingers left, making you feel uneasily empty. Opening your eyes, you saw that he was pulling down his boxers, taking his cock into his hands and watching as you almost became slack jawed - realizing what was about to happen. A moment of worry nestled its way into your mind, making your heart thump. If anyone was to find out, you would surely not be accepted back into the Order. You would never be able to have Anakin again. Jedi were not to fear, and yet here you were, fearing that you would lose the one person that you cared about - the only one you knew cared about you.

It was your moment to choose. You knew that if you backed out, at least you would be able to work under him still and not have his affections. It would be better than never seeing him again. And yet, you couldn’t see your life without him, all of him. Not just the side that was your Master.

Anakin sensed your worry, taking your chin in his hands so that you looked up at him. “Are you sure?” He asked you, not wanting to move forward before you were ready. And God, were you ready.

And with all the courage that you mustered up, you gave him a small smile and said, “Yes.” You felt like you were flinging yourself off of some sort of cliff, or even more sinfully feeling like you were Persephone, cutting up her own slice of pomegranate and looking right into Hades eyes as she tasted the fruit, securing your fate that you would stay with him. You would stay with Anakin, even if it was only for this night.

He nestled between your legs and you could feel his tip press against your entrance. Air was caught in your lungs, sitting up on your elbows so that you could see as he eased himself into you. A sting of pain and a subtle feeling of pleasure was seated inside of you, watching as his cock be enveloped by you inch by inch. Anakin hissed at the feeling, you were so goddamn tight and he never wanted to stop from being inside of you. Once all of him was inside, he leaned over so his head was in the crook of your neck, pressing a kiss to your searing skin as you adjusted to him bottoming out.

You urged him to continue, thinking that the discomfort would soon go away with time. And you were eager to get all of him that you could, temptation coming forward instead of reason. He pulled out all the way then eased himself back in, continuing the slower pace and watching your reaction before him, your hands reaching to his back and finding their place there. One of his hands kept your legs open, taking you by your thigh and hoisting it up.

It took all that he could muster to not just ram into you, the want starting to cloud his judgment. The Force felt as if it was pushing both you and him towards each other, the connection almost driving each of you crazy. “You feel . . .” He started. “You feel so good.” That alone, along with the raspiness in his voice, made a fire erupt in your stomach. You sighed in response, eyes fluttering closed once again.

And then, much to his surprise, you whispered, “Go faster, Anakin.” You needed him so bad you felt like you were going to explode, lust enveloping the both of you and intertwining with your Force energies.

He didn’t need to be told twice, and he gripped onto the leg he lifted up, beginning a slightly faster rhythm that had you arching your neck and eyes rolling to the back of your head. Anakin was so big, stretching you out in just the right way that had you almost keeling over if he hadn’t had such a tight grip on you. Your one leg wrapped along his waist, heel digging into his back while his pace increased.

This angle he had you in made you yelp and moan shamelessly, not caring if people all the way in the capital could hear you as you yelled his name like a prayer. His pace finally became a fast rhythm and you found comfort in being to finally feel nothing but pleasure with every deep stroke he made.

In this place, it was only you and him. Like you were in your own little place of paradise where you could explore each other in every way. There was nothing that could take this moment from you or him, this moment would forever be engraved in your mind for many years to come, remembering the way that he moaned out your name and the way he looked when you opened your eyes to peek at his face. His brows were furrowed, sweat beading on his forehead and mouth spilled open saying nothing but your name.

He made you feel so good, so euphoric that the fire grew and grew, becoming a wildfire raging inside of you. And you looked so heavenly to him, the way that your eyes only looked at him, breasts bouncing with every harsh thrust he gave you. You took him so well, like you were made for only him. His hips brushed against your own, hand coming up to caress your cheek, forcing you to look at him in the eyes.

You weren’t going to last much longer. Not with the way that he was pounding into you with sheer force you didn’t know was possible until now. But you didn’t want this to end, you never wanted this to end in fear that things would go back to the way they were before. You would have to try and forget that this ever happened. It wasn’t something you wanted to do and didn’t even know if you had the strength to do it. After this moment both of you would be connected.

You made a guttural noise, teetering over the edge of what felt like a wave of bliss. This was it, there was no way that you could keep yourself from it now. It only took a singular deep stroke of his cock to send you right over the edge, your back arching and body spasming, his name rolling off of your tongue in the most sinful way you have ever said it before. Your hands gripped for any part of him that you could reach, groping his muscles to keep him close to you. He didn’t stop moving inside of you, making you ride it out even harder as he chased his own high.

You were so sensitive as he fucked into you, giving you no mercy. He groaned as you came, watching the way that your eyes screwed shut and mouth opening in as you sucked in harsh breaths. You could feel his cock twitch inside of you and you knew that he was close, wondering if he was going to cum inside of you or pull out before he did. He did the latter, taking one more deep stroke before pulling out. Anakin was about to start stroking himself with his hand but you rushed with your own to meet him there, using your own and pumping a few times.

A string of profanities came from his lips as he came, white hot liquid spurting onto your stomach, dripping like beads coating your skin. He had no shame as he shuddered, muscles flexing with every passing second. He drank in your body, seeing how wet you were for him, how soft your hand was on his cock, how much he longed to see you like this more times before you and him left back for the war. And soon enough he was finished, the only thing between both of you was both of your panting breaths.

Anakin moved to grab something on the floor, realizing that it was the shirt he had on before and moving to wipe your stomach off, dropping it to the floor and coming to lay down next to you. You winced for a moment as you moved to look at him, his own eyes staring at the ceiling. You were scared of what was to come next, if there was anything that was supposed to come next. You knew that the two of you couldn’t be together, at least openly, though it was even risky to continue doing something like this in private.

“Anakin,” You called out to him, forcing him to look at you. “What will happen next?”

“I don’t know, Y/N, I don’t know,” He responded. All he knew was that he wanted you, again and again. In the domestic moments and in the explicit ones like before. You were so tantalizing, and he realized now that because he had tasted the forbidden fruit that was you, he would never be able to stop. There was simply no way that he would be able to conceal his want for you from you anymore.

You waited for his answer, knowing that it would probably be one you didn’t want to hear. But for the second time this evening, Anakin surprised you again.

He leaned over and kissed you.

And you knew his answer from that.

#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker smut #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin smut #star wars #star wars prequels #star wars fanfiction #star wars x reader #star wars smut

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transmalewife · 3 years

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Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

#star wars meta #attachment #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #yoda #jedi order #mine

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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on ‘villainy’ and varian’s and cassandra’s moral codes

for all that varian’s and cassandra’s villain arcs get compared to death they’re really more different than they are similar, and i think one of the more interesting distinctions is the characters’ moral perspectives on their own actions--namely that varian recognizes his own choices as villainous and consciously self-identifies as a ‘bad guy’ and cassandra not only…doesn’t do that but appears legitimately taken aback when varian says she’s ‘become the villain.’ from this we can infer that varian is transgressing his own personal sense of right and wrong while cassandra isn’t.

and… well with varian i think it’s pretty straightforward: he’s a kid who desperately wants to make the world a better place and make his father proud, but his impulsivity and recklessness and general disregard for lab safety foil his plans and get him into trouble. then one of his accidents puts his dad into what is essentially a magical coma and varian becomes singularly focused on reviving him--and, when he realizes that the king is more invested in covering up the problem than fixing it and his only hope lies with a zealously guarded relic belonging to the kingdom, he decides that the only way to achieve this goal is to start breaking the rules.

so he asks rapunzel--his friend who promised to help him--to retrieve some information the king is trying to steal from him, and then persuades her to help him access the sundrop vault; then when she balks at stealing it he makes it clear that he no longer trusts her and escapes with the flower. at this point he’s in the morally dubious zone; being strategic about what he tells rapunzel to make sure she helps him, spiking cookies with truth serum to sow chaos and get information he needs, and doing things that are crimes on paper but also largely victimless. i think these were things varian could probably rationalize as okay--not exactly good, but no one got hurt and he got what he needed.

except the flower’s magic is gone. he drugged the palace, manipulated rapunzel and broke her trust in him, and committed treason all for something useless because the actual magic of the sundrop is in rapunzel herself. now he’s in trouble, because he needs rapunzel’s help but his desperate measures guaranteed she won’t be willing to help him again. and this is when varian realizes that his only options are 1. give up on saving his dad and turn himself in and hope rapunzel takes pity on him, or 2. accept that no one is going to help him now and do whatever it takes to free quirin himself.

so--mutating ruddiger, attacking the city, kidnapping arianna and threatening her with encasement in amber, building an automaton army to defend him while he works--these are all things that varian feels are wrong, but chooses to do anyway because he doesn’t trust that anyone else will even try to save his father. despite his anger and his rationalizations, at the end of the day varian sees himself as doing bad things for good reasons. (“Believe me, I know/I’ve sunk pretty low” & “I’m the bad guy, that’s fine”)

and when his reasons fall through--when he fails to free his dad--he falls quickly into guilt and despair over having hurt people for nothing. he stews for a year in how unforgivable and ashamed he feels, and even when he teams up with the separatists, he’s doing it in, basically, pursuit of a reset button: he wants to take back what he did. and when rapunzel shows him that he can be forgiven, he can have a second chance, he does have people who are willing to help him and trust him again, he drops the memory-wiping idea and his alliance with the separatists without a second thought--because what rapunzel actually does is give him a way to pursue his goals without sacrificing his conscience, which is what he really needed the whole time.

now, cassandra, on the other hand…

cass is an interesting character in this regard because, while she does want to be a hero, she’s not at all altruistic. she’s consumed by her lack of autonomy and she craves not only control over her own life but also respect from the people around her--her desire to be a hero is very self-interested, at its core. and moreover she has a somewhat fatalistic view of the world wherein some people (not her) matter and some… just don’t.

moreover cassandra, despite her ambitions of becoming a guard, doesn’t so much as blink at eugene’s or the pub thugs’ criminal pasts--she is suspicious of lance at first, but on the grounds that he’s an unrepentant thief who showed up out of the blue under suspicious circumstances to ‘reconnect’ with his old partner in crime; eugene is also distrustful of lance, for the exact same reasons--and of course she doesn’t think twice about breaking the law herself. literally one of the very first things we see cassandra do is commit treason to make her friend happy. cass doesn’t care about the law, and she only wants to be a guard because she associates getting the job with having her dad’s approval and it’s also her ticket out of lifelong servitude.

on the other hand, cass does seem have a strong sense of right and wrong where people she cares about are concerned. she is constantly putting the desires and well-being of her friends ahead of not just her ambitions (e.g. in beginnings for rapunzel, or great expotations for varian) but also her own safety (e.g. risking her livelihood and home to sneak rapunzel out for the night in bea, or setting aside her misgivings about the sketchy bird people in freebird).

which is all to say--cass isn’t exactly amoral but the moral framework through which she sees the world is… more complicated than varian’s. she doesn’t seem particularly motivated to help strangers but she’ll move mountains to help people she cares about; she doesn’t care much about rules or laws except insofar as she doesn’t want to get caught breaking them, and she has this hierarchical mindset that some people matter--meaning, they get to make decisions for themselves and have people care about what they need and want--and some don’t, and that she herself is stuck in the latter category despite her best efforts to climb out of it.

which brings us to the subject of the moonstone, and cassandra’s villain arc, and why cass, unlike varian, doesn’t consider herself a bad person.

i think what it comes down to most is this: taking the moonstone is an act of defiance against not only rapunzel but also fate itself. waiting in the wings sets up cassandra’s resigned acceptance of this hierarchical order and her own cosmic insignificance, and then in crossing the line she REJECTS that same order. she’s raging against rapunzel but also against the cultural and legal and destined systems that put rapunzel on top and forced cass into subservience. she is very literally fighting for her freedom against the universe itself.

and when cass was not an altruistic or heavily morally motivated or even particularly law-abiding person before, and when her conscience has always been predominantly oriented around taking care of her friends first and herself second, and when the thing that drove her to this breaking point was her friends spitting that back in her face… well.

it’s easy to say “cass literally tried to murder rapunzel a bunch of times, how can she possibly believe she’s the good guy?”--but rapunzel maimed cass, blamed her for it, and consistently prioritized her destiny over cassandra’s wellbeing; and rapunzel represents the cosmic order that cass is fighting to liberate herself from. and while i know that the -popular- take on be very afraid is “cass is terrified of hurting rapunzel,” i submit it’s actually “cass is terrified of having to fight rapunzel, because she still believes that fate is literally tilted in rapunzel’s favor and she can’t win a direct fight with rapunzel.” that’s why she’s so scared; that’s why rapunzel seemingly deleting the red rocks hardens her resolve; that’s why she marches into corona with maximum drama and bluster and builds a fortress and tries so hard to mess with rapunzel’s head before the battle begins. she’s trying to even the odds. and that’s why, when rapunzel stomps her into the curb, cassandra’s immediate response is “i need an army.”

cassandra isn’t scared for rapunzel. she is scared OF rapunzel.

we do also see cass trying not to harm people she considers to be innocent bystanders; she uses the truth serum on varian bc she needs the incantation, but afterwards she doesn’t even bother to restrain him until after he starts pestering her, she says flat out that she doesn’t want him to get hurt when she fights rapunzel; similarly she is willing to hurt calliope to force rapunzel to comply, but--despite her deep personal dislike of calliope--uses a minimum amount of force and again verbally expresses that she doesn’t particularly want to hurt her, that it’s a means to an end and nothing more. attacking rapunzel? that’s fine, rapunzel is her enemy. attacking eugene? of course, he’s rapunzel’s closest ally. mind controlling the brotherhood? that kills two birds with one stone--eliminating powerful enemies with a vested interest in taking the moonstone away from her and turning them into allies who can level the playing field between her and rapunzel. and when she does finally snap and raze corona to the ground? the people of corona attacked her first. i think cass ABSOLUTELY sees herself as fighting a purely defensive war against people who have or will hurt her.

and this is, of course, ultimately why varian failed to get through to her during ‘nothing left to lose’--he appealed to her sense of morality and her sense of morality shrugged.

as for the thing that snaps her out of it? the moment that forces her to question whether she’s really as right as she thinks she is? it’s learning who her new friend really is. it’s the shock of finding out that she’s been allied with, confiding in, taking advice from a legendary villain, from a monster she likely grew up hearing stories about. cass takes it as a given that zhan tiri is evil--and if she’s friends with zhan tiri, what does that make her? and even then, cass is resistant to the idea that she might be a villain--“No, no, I’m nothing like you. Just because I’m pursuing my destiny doesn’t make me a bad person!”--which is, ultimately, very telling of her whole mindset. she’s not a bad guy, she’s fighting for her freedom. she’s not a bad guy, she’s protecting herself against people who want to exploit her. she’s not a bad guy, she’s just putting herself first for once.

and OAH generally, i’d argue, is not actually about cassandra trying to reconcile with rapunzel or redeem herself or be a better person, it’s… literally cass trying frantically to prove she’s NOT the bad guy. it’s “oh yeah? you think i’m a bad person? well could a bad guy do THIS? *lies and impersonates a former coworker and gets up on a stage to justify her own actions in front of a crowd*” it’s “a bad guy wouldn’t apologize, rapunzel never apologized for anything, and to prove i’m a better person I’M going to apologize! see? SEE!?”--and then everyone in corona attacks her and she goes “FINE, i’m the bad guy, fuck you all” and wrecks the place.

only then--only in plus est en vous--does cassandra get into a mindset similar to varian’s, of “i am the bad guy but if i can pull this off it will be worth it.” she’s not sorry. she still sees rapunzel as an enemy trying to get her under control again, and the only thing that’s really changed is cassandra acknowledging that she has in fact done bad things too.

and… i would argue that by the end of plus est cassandra… feels some guilt but isn’t sorry. “i’ve failed” and “i’ve done terrible things” and “i tried to prove i was more than everyone thought but they were right”--her anguish is not like varian’s anguish in RR, where he was consumed with despair because no one could possibly forgive him for the things he did. cassandra is upset because she did awful things and failed and she perceives that failure as proof of her own worthlessness. she’s right back to feeling how she felt in waiting in the wings but with a hefty new helping of self-disgust and shame for having been stupid enough to believe she could change anything for herself.

she’s not sorry. she’s not pleading for forgiveness. she just wants rapunzel to give up and leave her alone--& then, after rapunzel convinces her that she’s wrong, and she does have worth as a person, and she does have a destiny of her own, cass does what’s necessary to clean up the crisis she created and then… just bounces. she gets the freedom she wanted and leaves without a backward glance.

(which. good for her.)

tl;dr: varian’s villain arc explores his moral scruples and what it takes for him to be willing to ignore them, whereas cassandra’s villain arc explores her incendiary reaction to a lifetime of injustices; she isn’t amoral but her sense of right and wrong is, unlike varian’s, very contextual and personal. varian is a pragmatic idealist who wants to be lawful good but is capable of setting his own morals aside in pursuit of a goal he considers to be important enough, and cassandra is one radicalizing incident away from realizing that her grievances are not a unique personal failing but a systemic problem and then leading a class uprising.

#tts

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