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signedjehanne · 11 months

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dear white bandom tumblr, what the hell do you want us to say?

i’m tired. i’m really, really tired.

look, what do you want us to say at this point? this was supposed to be a safe space, for the freaks and the outcasts, but we’ve long established that it is very much not safe. it’s crystal fucking clear.

and honestly, pretty much every white user on here is actively contributing to the hostility here. whether you like it or not, it’s not good to only reblog empty reassurances of anti-racism that do more service to yourself than to others. it’s not good to see poc on the dash trying to educate the white majority and doing everything possible to educate you, and either A) ignore it, B) like it, but don’t reblog it, because god forbid you sit with your discomfort for more than five seconds, or C) send racist anon hate to the original poster, or try to deflect their points. it’s not good to see something racist and let it slide. let me get this straight: none of these fans of color owe you anything. fans of color don’t owe you the time of day, fans of color don’t owe you education, and fans of color don’t owe you the dignity of a levelheaded reply in response to your racist comments.

often times, we try to educate because we want this space to change. i mean, i didn’t have to write a five paragraph essay dissecting anti asian racism in mcr’s content. i did it because i was angry, and tired, and frustrated, and wanted the space to change. the same reason that every other ignored dissection and analysis that spent blood, sweat, tears, and emotional labor to make was created. a lot of the time you guys just don’t understand how much effort things like that take. and to be clear, this is not just the usual “oh my post didn’t go viral and i’m not a celebrity i’m so sad,” this is “i poured all of myself into trying to educate people that turned out to never care. i have been blatantly shown that the people around me aren’t interested in changing, no matter how much they claim to be.”

and like, do you want me and countless other users to go in depth again? do you want us to jump from racist incident to racist incident? to hold your hand through explaining why making art of ray being arrested is bad, why gerard’s fetishization of asian people is bad, why making rising sun art and designs is bad, why reducing all of pete wentz’s work to being about mikey way is bad, why shaming people with non-european features for “not looking emo enough” is bad, why insulting and degrading pete and ray for their natural features is bad, why cropping ray out of tour videos is bad, why calling people slurs in their askboxes is bad? (and so much more that i didn’t add.) do you want us to go over the history of racism in alternative spaces as a whole? do you expect us to do all of those things for you on a whim, to make it palatable to you, as if we weren’t real people with real feelings behind the screen and as if we had infinite time and emotional energy? really? when there are many resources already out there, both online and offline?

what all this tells me is you don’t see us as human. simple as that. you expect us to be able to take the abuse, to be able to silently let your racism pass, and if we ever speak up, you ignore the work we give to you and demand inhuman feats of patience and generosity, answering your every question and responding to your every debate and coddling you as you refuse to sit with the reality of the space you’ve helped to create. and that’s only if you claim to be on our side.

it’s insane hearing you try to placate yourselves. trying to mindlessly agree without looking inward. i know this sounds harsh, but i know that most of you need to hear it. i just want this space to actually change, like i was begging for back in january and february. of course, i was foolish to believe that it ever would. and i��m foolish now, writing this as if people are ever going to pay attention. even if it does break a few hundred notes, it’s not like the message is going to stick around. sure, you’re “doing the work”, “listening and learning”, but how am i supposed to know that when your responses never change, and this scene stays the same as it ever was?

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ybcpatrick · 2 years

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early decaydance meeting [2005, colourized]

A note:

When I first posted this artwork in May of 2022, I didn't know that the design on the hoodie I chose to draw Pete wearing was a depiction of the Rising Sun flag.

Even though I was aware of the Rising Sun's historical context, I was, unfortunately, not aware enough to recognize it in the hoodie's artwork.

And for that, I'm sorry.

The Rising Sun is a symbol of imperialism and hatred.

It was the flag flown by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, as they violently colonized Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and numerous other regions of Eastern Asia. The populations of these regions were stripped of their cultures, dehumanized, and massacred. This history is recent. The consequences and impact of these atrocities are still being felt today.

Yet, despite the militarism and genocide the Rising Sun represents to Korea, China, and more, it is still used in Japan. Its recent history is disregarded, due to it having existed for hundreds of years prior to WWII. (It's also used in other countries, like the United States, where the history isn't common knowledge, and it simply "looks cool".)

This article, written by Lauren Oh, offers perspective on the way the symbol's usage in the US continually affects her as a Korean American. To her, it is a constant, painful reminder of how her heritage was damaged, and how millions of people suffered, just because they were Korean. And yet, the flag continues to be printed on T-shirts.

(The Wikipedia for the Rising Sun also delves into the extended history of the symbol, for those looking to find out more.)

It is crucial that we understand that the Rising Sun is deeply offensive.

It is crucial that we recognize it when we see it, that we educate others, as to actively help prevent its usage.

The Rising Sun should be viewed in the same way as the Swastika, or the Confederate flag; it is a hate symbol.

Reblogs have been turned off on the drawing, in an effort to prevent the image from being spread any further. I figured that it would be better to leave it up with this note attached to it, as a lesson, as opposed to trying to erase it entirely.

To my fellow artists, and to bandom in general: please do not make the same mistake as me. Learn to recognize the Rising Sun, and do not represent it in your artwork.

Don't draw Pete in the hoodie. Don't draw Andy in the shirt he was styled in at the VSFS. Don't draw Frank with the elbow tattoo he used to have, because "being accurate" doesn't actually matter. Don't reblog works that has the symbol depicted, reach out and let others know about the history. Be proactive.

Listen to East Asians. If you actively choose not to, even after reading all of this, you are being racist. You are excusing imperialism. You are enabling hatred, even if you think you aren't.

#shut up kell #i am white. if i've said anything incorrectly here please do not hesitate to let me know. thanks.

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purgeturbia · 7 months

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i've been working on something for... quite a while. i'm not ready to share the whole thing yet (read: it's not even close to being finished), but this part of it, while mostly unedited, can stand pretty well on its own, so have a little bit of smitten obi-wan. as a treat.

*eta bc i forgot the first time: ~2k, canon-typical mentions of death but nothing graphic, mostly fluff

the rest of the work is not like this.

XXXVII. START WARS AND BURN CITIES

When he and Cody and the 212th had liberated planets from the Separatists — although he muses, now, that they had not done much liberating at all, if the end result was the desolate fear-space the galaxy has become — there had often been more time spent cleaning up the aftermath of their battles than there had been actually fighting. The machine of war was not a tidy one, and Obi-Wan hated to leave innocent people in a worse state than he had found them.

Often, during these pseudo-recovery times, he was excluded from the physical labor. Cody tended to push Obi-Wan off into the command tent to fill out the hundreds of forms that came with successful completion of a campaign, saying, “There are thousands of vod’e, sir, and only one of you,” but Obi-Wan saw it for what it really was — a chance (an order) to rest “for once in your kriffing life, General.”

Obi-Wan, after the first few campaigns, never argued. Crash would be on his ass for trying to help with cleanup anyway, and he did so despise being hauled to the medbay.

Though his stack of requisition forms and reports to write and casualty lists was always far larger than he cared to admit, Obi-Wan was, despite his field ban, never one to sit idle in command after a battle. He would, instead, crank out as much flimsiwork as he could before his body began to ache with the stillness of it all, and then he would mingle with the troops. The shinies, especially, were emboldened by his presence among them. They were so young, even the veteran troopers, and anything he could do to ease the pain of a life defined by war was an obligation, even if it was just a kind word here or there.

He was never content with the mental state of his men. Even after a decisive victory, or a battle with minimal casualties, or a skirmish with none at all, there was a sharp edge to their presences in the Force. Their hands shook ever so slightly and their smiles were never quite genuine and their eyes were constantly moving, observing, calculating.

The war lived inside all of them, himself included. The thing was, though, that Obi-Wan had had those few glorious years, before Qui-Gon and Bandomeer and Melida/Daan and the rest of his life that had come crashing down around him and never stopped, where there was no war in his bones.

His troops had been born with the war in them, and that was a pain he could not take away.

Even so, he would move through the camp like a fish through water, dropping hands to pauldrons and calling greetings across the expanse of tents. He would bring rations and fill canteens, and linger around medical looking for tasks until Crash told him to stop lurking and go bother somebody who would appreciate it. He’d always wiggled his eyebrows afterward, though, and told Obi-Wan very dramatically where Cody had gotten off to, so it was easy to see that he was never truly upset. Obi-Wan, in return, would blush about sixteen shades of red and very pointedly stalk off in the opposite direction of wherever Cody happened to be.

It was on one such occasion, on a forested planet Obi-Wan can no longer remember the name of, that he had turned away from Crash (and, he’d thought, Cody), only to stumble upon his commander preparing to direct half of Phantom Company through the process of removing a fallen tree that had crushed a house and blocked most of the packed-dirt road stretching through one of the little settlements they’d come planetside to defend. Obi-Wan could have moved the tree himself in a matter of seconds, but. Cody had told him to stay out of the cleanup, and one of his least favorite things in a time with many unpleasantries was upsetting Cody.

So he’d lingered on the outskirts, observing. Phantom acted, of course, as a well-oiled machine, and though fierce pride for his men bubbled up in his chest, Obi-Wan allowed himself a moment of indulgence. He leaned against a still-standing tree just behind the houses across the way from the crushed one, and watched Cody work. He was a study in professionalism, in genius, even when faced with a task so simple as moving debris. Cody burned with a focused intensity that matched the sunburst on his armor as he paced around the tree, and they had spent long enough nights hunched together over sims and holotables that Obi-Wan could easily guess the questions being mentally asked and answered in quick succession: how heavy is the trunk? How many troops do I need to lift it? If we apply more leverage here, will the house be more damaged or less?

It struck Obi-Wan then that he had not had time for fanciful things like poetry since the war’s beginning — but then again, maybe he didn’t need it. Maybe it had been right in front of him all along.

It was in the midst of this realization that he was pulled out of his thoughts by a presence at his elbow. When he turned, it wasn’t a clone, as he’d been expecting, but one of the locals; a wizened old woman leaning on a painstakingly carved wooden cane. She was not looking at Obi-Wan, but at the troopers as they worked. She was looking at Cody.

She had spoken before Obi-Wan could. “Strange, isn’t it.”

He waited a beat, and then another. She was silent beside him. “That would depend on what it is, I suppose,” he said eventually.

She laughed, though it was more of a huff than anything. The indulgent sort of laugh that comes from a person who knows a joke has been made but who doesn’t really feel like laughing. “All of this. The war, the clones. The Jedi, leading them. You’re not meant for this, are you.”

It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t answer it. “You know,” he murmured, “you’re the first person … outside of all this, to notice that.”

She laughed again. It was no more sincere than the first time. “Am I really on the outside, Master Jedi?” she asked. “Are any of us?”

Obi-Wan knew she was right, so he merely inclined his head. Cody was positioning Phantom around the tree. It looked like his plan was to heave it up and over the houses and the road using applied leverage from the base, and dismantle it for lumber once its position was no longer an immediate problem. It was a good plan, very practical, very Cody, and Obi-Wan couldn’t quite keep a small smile from creeping across his face.

He startled when the woman spoke again. “Is it worth it, then?”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed and he hummed, confused. To protect the innocent, of course the war was worth it. He wasn’t meant for it, none of the Jedi were, but he would fight it a thousand times over to save those who could not save themselves. Why would she ask him that? Why else would he be here?

He felt eyes on him, then, and turned to see the woman finally looking at him and not at his troops. Something in her face reminded him of Yoda, like she had lived a dozen of his lifetimes and known more than he could ever hope to learn. “Is it worth it,” she repeated, and continued, “for him.”

All of the breath left Obi-Wan’s body in a rush. He suddenly felt exposed, uncovered, though he was sure of his safety in the saber hung at his belt and his trusted men not forty meters away. Little gods. Two words was all it took to undo the great Negotiator. But he supposed nobody had ever come so close to his soul with two words before. He was, for the first time in a very, very long time, unsure of what to say.

“I —” he started, and stopped just as quickly, because he’d been about to defend himself, but there was no need to defend in a battle that was already over. He settled on, finally, “He is … very dear to me.”

“You would not have met him without this war.” Something in her voice was sharp, and he knew the words he spoke next would determine whether he passed a test she didn’t even know she was setting. “He would not even exist.”

He chose his response carefully. “No. But sometimes I think — perhaps it would have been a gift, for them, to never have lived at all.” He took a deep breath, steadying. “They have never known anything but war. They were bred for it, raised on it, and now they breathe it and eat it and it haunts their dreams. As much as the idea of it pains me, a galaxy without him in it, he would not exist without his brothers, and they would not exist without the war in their bones.” He turned back, toward Cody, who was helping lift the base of the tree, readying to swing it out away from the road. “How can that be worth it? The misery of millions for the happiness of one?”

The tree was suddenly standing again, propelled into the sky by Cody’s careful placement of force and the sheer brute strength of battle-hardened troopers. It wheeled above them for a moment, rotating, before crashing into the ground and sending up a cheer from the men. Obi-Wan was caught momentarily in the sunbeams of Cody’s victory smile, radiant, glorious, beautiful even from a distance.

“You love him,” said the woman.

To hear the words out loud tore at something in him. He would never be able to say them himself, but he’d stopped denying the truth of them long ago. “Yes,” he said simply. “He deserves more than this, better than this. I would never wish this existence upon him, and in another life I would never claim this war to be worth it just so I might have the honor of —” the word loving stuck viscerally in his throat and he swallowed around it, “of knowing him again.”

Obi-Wan folded his arms tightly, wishing he had thought to bring his robes with him then, if only for something to do with his hands. Cody, having finished delegating the deconstruction of the tree, had spotted the odd pair and was heading over, bright with his success.

The woman, looking at Cody and then back at Obi-Wan, huffed that strange not-laugh again. “If you win this war, Master Jedi, will it have been worth it?”

With Cody striding toward him, Obi-Wan was stuck between the sensations of a heart full to bursting with the pain of a love he could never truly have and the gut-punch realization that maybe, someday, he could. He barely managed to gasp out an “Oh, I —” before Cody was upon them, saying, “General, sir, I thought I told you to stay at camp,” but his smile betrayed him, and Obi-Wan found himself grinning back, breathless, and for a brief moment there was no war and no winning and no losing; there was only them, together, and the galaxy was theirs for the taking.

Now, the surface of Tatooine is dark and chilled. Wind whistles around the hut on the edge of the Dune Sea — a sandstorm will hit in the next few days, and in the morning they’ll need to start preparing. The memory of that woman comes back to him, unbidden, and he clings tighter to Cody, wrapped in his arms on Obi-Wan’s lumpy old bed. He thinks of Anakin, as much as it hurts to, and of the thousands of fallen Jedi, and of every clone forced to take the life of innocents, their bodies their own but not their minds. The war lost him everything, everyone, and everywhere he’s ever loved. But little gods. Cody is alive. He’s here, and safe, and they’re together again, his sunshine returned to him. Obi-Wan hates himself for it (hate leads to the dark — please, stop, please), but the worst parts of his soul are screaming it: maybe for this, this small salvation in the ruins, everything had been worth it after all.

#star wars #codywan #cody x obi wan #my writing #i made a whole ass spreadsheet for the gar including ocs for this fic #crash is my 212th medic. i love him #and phantom company is real TO ME. my baby children <3 #this fic is gonna be so fucking long when its done #please let me know what you think! don't be a dick but otherwise tell me things :)

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tennessoui · 1 year

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“You always this quiet?” for the playmaker au (or whatever au you feel like fits this) 💖

hi hello !! this is a ficlet for the playmaker au; specifically the part of the au where: obi-wan, already under mob boss anakin's thumb and in love with him, kills a man who sneaks into their house, goes to prison for it, and is released only for his father, qui-gon jinn to whisk him away to try and talk some sense into him. this ficlet is their reunion when obi-wan escapes his father's "vacation"

(sorta)

(2.5k) (warnings: dark anakin, mob boss fic, morally questionable obi-wan)

Obi-Wan’s hands make knots with his fingers in his lap as he stares out the window at the Coruscant skyline flying by. It feels so strange.

To be home.

Or—to be close to home. But not there yet.

“Alright, you gotta tell me,” the cab driver says, turning down the radio and looking back at him over his shoulder. “You always this quiet?”

Obi-Wan frowns, first out the window, then back at the cab driver. “No,” he says finally. And–alright. Quietly.

“I wouldn’t normally even ask,” the cab driver says. Obi-Wan isn’t quite sure he believes him on that front, but he doesn’t interrupt. “But we’ve been driving four hours, fare’s at two hundred and sixty dollars, and you haven’t said much since the address. To a restaurant. Boy, were you not able to find a flight to Coruscant? Why’d you get into Bandomeer and ask me to take you to Coruscant?”

Obi-Wan shrugs. “I’ll double the fare if you don’t ask anymore questions.”

This is sort of risky.

After all, it’s not his money he’s giving out to random taxi drivers.

It’s Anakin’s.

And he hasn’t seen Anakin Skywalker in two and a half months.

“Just—nervous,” he says apropos of nothing, except every minute they’re getting closer and closer to Anakin’s restaurant, which means every minute they’re getting closer and closer to Anakin.

And as much as Obi-Wan has missed him like a limb or something even more integral, he can’t—he doesn’t know if Anakin feels the same way.

After all, it’s been—five whole months since they last touched one another. And then two whole months since they even saw each other.

Who knows what Anakin feels towards him now after eight weeks of radio silence? Even if it hadn’t been Obi-Wan’s choice—

“Hot dinner date?” The cab driver asks like it’s a joke

“Something like that,” Obi-Wan murmurs, relaxing back into his seat. They’re on Temple Street, which means they’re almost home.

Obi-Wan is almost home.

—-----------

When Obi-Wan got out of prison for obstruction of justice but really self-defense but really murder, the thing he’d wanted more than anything else in the world was a plate of coq au vin from Anakin’s restaurant, which really just goes to show how much Anakin Skywalker has ruined him. Especially because he doesn’t even like coq au vin.

It’s just that he’d only ever had it at Anakin’s restaurant, sitting on Anakin’s lap, the mob boss feeding it to him like he was something to be treasured, and after three months being locked away, guarded, threatened, leered at, and spat on, that’s what he wanted. Anakin. Anakin was all he wanted, and the man had visited him weekly while he was away, each iteration of him looking more and more like he was close to snapping, so Obi-Wan thought he’d be the first to greet him once he was released, had tried to get into less fights in the days leading up to his freedom—he didn’t want Anakin to see him all bruised, but mostly he didn’t want Vader to have an excuse to be too gentle with him.

What he should have known to expect but what still blindsided him completely was his father. Or more specifically: the presence of his father in the warden’s office.

Qui-Gon Jinn hadn’t even looked at him, hadn’t even talked to him as he chatted with the warden about Obi-Wan’s performance, as if he had enrolled him in an especially challenging maths class instead of ensured that he went to prison for murder.

And then—worse—he’d swept him out of the prison all together, drove him out of its gates and straight to the airport. Qui-Gon had decided it was time to use the months’ worth of leave he’d been accruing since Obi-Wan was a child.

He took them to a beach house owned by someone who owed Qui-Gon Jinn a favor.

Obi-Wan’s first meal after getting out of prison was a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, watery and burnt respectively.

The worst thing was, if Qui-Gon had made such an effort even just two years ago, Obi-Wan would have—he’d have done anything his father wanted. He’d have eaten all the waterey scrambled eggs in the world if it was Qui-Gon Jinn trying to cook for him.

But now he knew what coq au vin tasted like with the secure weight of Anakin Skywalker’s arm wrapped around his waist. Now he knew what having Anakin Skywalker’s attention on him feeltt like, the totality of it, the destruction.

He lasted two months at the beach house with Qui-Gon before he could orchestrate his escape. Two whole months where he couldn’t contact Anakin or anyone from the mob. Two whole months where his father tried to talk to him about it—about the undercover mission, his health, his psych tests results—and Obi-Wan would reply with stony silence.

Two whole months in another prison, when all he wanted was Anakin and coq au vin and the twins and, hell, he even started missing Ahsoka, which is when he knew it was really time to go.

His father had gotten him a new phone, but without any of the contacts he needed, and he didn’t know any of their numbers to call them and tell them he was coming back. He’d tried the restaurant’s public line all of five times, and had gotten a string of bored and uninformed servers who probably had never seen the owner in their lives, let alone would actually pass along a message to him.

So he’d left the phone at the beach house. He’d left everything at the beach house actually, everything except his wallet and a change of clothes. He’d bought a flight with what little money he had in his bank account—having forfeited most over to Anakin early on in their relationship—and landed in a city four miles south of Coruscant, to make it that more difficult for Qui-Gon to track him.

Then he’d gotten a taxi.

A taxi which is now pulling into the restaurant’s valet area at Obi-Wan’s direction. A taxi which is now putting on its brakes as the driver turns to look back at him expectantly.

“Nice restaurant,” the driver says. “That’ll be five hundred and twenty credits.”

On his person, Obi-Wan has about twenty credits. In his bank account, he has about three hundred.

He winces, and then winces again when the cab driver’s face shifts from expectant to thunderous. “Boy,” he says like it’s a warning. “That’ll be five hundred and twenty credits.”

The moment Obi-Wan thinks about fumbling for the door handle, the driver locks them in.

“You’re paying me what you owe,” the guy says, and Obi-Wan’s mouth is dry because he really didn’t plan this far ahead even though he’s starting to think that maybe he should have.

“Look, the man I’m meeting—he’ll pay you, I promise. He’s good for it—no, really, look—he—”

The cab driver shakes his head, anger written all over his expression. “Calling the fucking cops,’ he decides, reaching into the foothold of the passenger seat.

“No!” Obi-Wan cries because involving the police is the last fucking thing he needs, not when Anakin Skywalker is right there.

So fucking close and even if he’s angry at him for leaving him for two fucking months on top of his prison time, even if he’s found some other kid to call his, Obi-Wan needs to see him.

He feels wild with it, the need bubbling up in his chest and making his hands feel like—like loose weapons because if this man, if Sebulba F. Vane is what is standing in between him and Anakin, he won’t be for long, not if Obi-Wan has anything to say about it. Not when he’s gotten so far, not when he wants him so much.

Before Obi-Wan can figure out how to reach through the protective glass barrier and hurt the man and before Sebulba can actually finish calling the cops, there’s a tap on the driver’s window.

The valet.

“Excuse me, sir,” the valet says, “we’re going to have to ask you to move, as you’re—Ben?”

Obi-Wan has never felt happier to see Waxer’s face. “Waxer,” he breathes, trying once more—futilely—at the door. “Is Ani in tonight?”

Please, please let Anakin be inside.

“Yeah,” Waxer says, looking between the cab driver and Obi-Wan. His brows wrinkle. “Ben, is there a—”

“Look,” Obi-Wan tells Sebulba. “Look, let me go get him, alright, he’ll pay you double the five hundred. I swear it.”

In the rearview mirror, Sebulba’s lips curl up into a sneer. “Heard that one before, haven’t I?” “It’s true,” Obi-Wan says, not above begging. “He—for me, he would.”

“Ben, what’s—”

“Come with me,” Obi-Wan bargains. “They’ll park your cab, but you can come with me to Ani’s table, to make sure I don’t run, yeah? One thousand and forty credits. Just let me go!”

Sebulba thinks about it so long that Waxer starts reaching for what might be a walkie-talkie on his belt but could just as easily be a shadowed gun.

“Please,” he says, not above begging, and Sebulba relents, unbuckling his seatbelt and unlocking the car doors to get out himself. Obi-Wan scrambles with his own door, but before he can get it open—and make a run for it—Sebulba is there, hand gripping like a brand around his shoulders as he drags him out of the vehicle.

“Little bitch,” the man says, but Obi-Wan’s just spent three months in prison. He’s been called worse things. “Fucker makes me drive four fucking hours and now I’m doing legwork to get paid?”

Waxer, for his part, doesn’t immediately get into the cab, and instead watches them with narrowed eyes.

“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan tells him, even though Sebulba is holding him quite tightly.

It’s alright because Anakin is inside that building, and that’s quite literally all he can think about.

Sebulba has one hand clamped tightly around his neck and the other on his hip. The hostess gasps when she sees them enter the building. She’s new.

“Second floor,” he tells her.

“The second floor is reserved tonight, sir,” she replies without even flicking her eyes down to the table map in front of her. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Second floor,” he says again, even as the arms around him tighten. “I’m a bit late, but he’s expecting me.”

“And—your guest?” she asks, eyebrows high up on her head.

“He’s a bit of a surprise,” Obi-Wan says. “Have to keep the romance alive somehow.”

The hostess obviously has not been trained on what to do in this situation, because she lets him pass. The stairs to the second floor are long, a double staircase that leads into a more private setting where Anakin conducts his business.

As they begin their trek up, Obi-Wan can feel the eyes of the dining guests on them.

“You—look, you shouldn’t—” he says, halfway up the stairs. “Let me go.”

“So you can run?” Sebulba asks on a scoff. “Fat chance. I’m holding your ass tight until I get that one thousand you think it’s worth.”

“No, I—look, you really shouldn’t,” Obi-Wan tries to twist away, a byproduct of his good upbringing, his moral code. “For your sake,” he adds, thinking about the way Maul had died in the very room they’re about to enter. “Don’t touch me.”

“Fat chance,” Sebulba repeats, and pushes open the closed mahogany door roughly. “Ani,” the man calls into the new room as if he’s not tempting the devil by calling its name. “Brought you a gift, Ani.”

Anakin Skywalker’s head is tilted down. There are stacks of paper in front of him. On his left, Rex is gesturing to some sentence on one of them. To the right, Ahsoka is trying to wrangle Leia into eating her food instead of trying to throw it at Luke.

At the sound of his forbidden name in a stranger’s voice, Anakin Skywalker’s head lifts from the paper to stare straight at Sebulba, face expressionless until his eyes catch on Obi-Wan.

He stands so immediately that his chair clatters to the ground.

“Obi-Wan,” he says, voice loud and soft and a scream and a whisper and the only thing Obi-Wan ever wants to hear again.

The cab driver slides his arm around his neck in a loose chokehold. “What the fuck is your name,” he mutters, but it doesn’t matter because Anakin is striding forward, and Luke and Leia are screaming because he’s back—he’s back and he’s been missed and in a few moments, he’ll be touching Anakin again, which is what he’s wanted since he was forced away from him.

Only the arm tightens and shifts him away, back slightly. Sebulba thinks he’s found leverage. He just wants his money, credits he deserves.

But Anakin’s eyes catch on their points of contact, the arm around his throat and the hand on his waist, and Vader’s eyes begin to burn when Sebulba has the sheer gall to move Obi-Wan’s body further from his hands.

It’s Luke that finds him first, rushing past his father to jump and cling onto Obi-Wan’s leg, tiny face rubbing against the fabric of his pants like a cat would. “Obi, we thought you’d never come back,” he says, little hands twisting and worrying at his pants. “We thought we’d never see you, we thought you hated us, Daddy said he couldn’t find you, Daddy said you left—”

Obi-Wan tries to drop to his knees, intent on hugging the child, both children, and never letting go.

Sebulba stops him, hand on his hip coming up to wrap around his wrists instead, forcing them behind his back. “This bitch,” the cab driver tells Anakin, “says you’d pay a thousand credits for his ass.”

Vader stands very, very still, eyes the only thing moving as he traces them over and over Obi-Wan’s face, his body, like a starving man looks at a feast. He’s very, very silent.

“But now I’m thinking Ben here mght be worth even more than a thousand credits,” the cab driver says, and Obi-Wan closes his eyes because he recognizes that tone of voice.

Greed.

Sebulba is getting greedy.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin’s voice is deceptively soft as he closes the remaining gap between them and lifts his chin with two fingers. “What do you think, little mouse?”

His eyes are dark, almost black, and his hands feel—his hand feels so nice on his skin.

The thought comes that if Sebulba weren’t here, they’d be kissing already. Touching. Obi-Wan would be seated in Anakin’s lap, the twins on either side.

“I don’t care,” he says, because what Anakin is really asking is whether or not he should allow the cab driver to live, for the crime of touching Obi-Wan, for the crime of keeping them apart.

Should he pay him the money he’s owed? Should he pay the money he has requested? Or Should the cab driver pay for the slight of touching Obi-Wan with his life?

And Obi-Wan doesn’t care. He’s home.

Finally, he’s free.

And in his freedom means he doesn’t have to care because Anakin will make this decision for him.

“He brought me home,” he says to be fair and impartial.

Anakin smiles, thumb brushing the hidden dimple of Obi-Wan’s cheek. “Yes,” the mobster says. “But now let's make sure he cannot take you away again.”

The mahogany doors creak shut behind them.

Obi-Wan hopes the murder will not take place in front of the children.

"Perhaps you should have waited in the car," he tells the cab driver with a sigh. "I apologize for that, but it's not as if you didn't miscalculate yourself."

#asks #prompt fill #playmaker au #obikin #vaderwan #it's a mob boss fic sorta weekend with vowbreaker in the works as well #but it was nice to write a happy reunion :>

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pmvstump · 1 year

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i’ve been seeing all these discussions of racism in bandom and it just reminds me that i have always felt very alone in bandom because i am very visibly like the only punjabi sikh a lot of ppl on here know (if they even “know” me). despite this, i have also felt solidarity with other south asian fans and other poc. i think i have only seen one other sikh fan of the same bands (specifically in the fob/mcr/pmore/etc realm, not like venturing off to bands that lean more into metal).

what i wanted to say though is that where i felt this support from a lot of other fans of colour, i felt the opposite from white fans. this doesn’t necessarily mean that all white fans are the same but it does mean that all white fans need to actually think about what they’re saying, what they’re agreeing with, and what other white fans they seem to be befriending.

there was a time on here where ppl (white and poc alike) were being genuinely racist about my appearance simply because they did not like me or because i had previously pointed out that they said/did something homophobic. yet, instead of ppl pointing out that what they were saying was racist, i saw ppl turn around and mock me for blocking these ppl (saying i was creating a “bubble” for myself). or they decided to dissect every part of who i am and continue to mock me after i had pointed out that these ppl were being racist. i blocked at least a hundred ppl for spreading/liking posts where they completely derailed what had actually happened. i had to spend time away from here so they’d just forget about it, but i did not receive a single apology for this.

my point is, solidarity does not mean SHIT if you don’t look into things carefully. i do not want to see any more poc on here get ostracized for defending themselves, especially when the ppl who are bullying them are white and/or don’t understand the context besides a “funny” post they saw on their dash. please do better, not just in the treatment of the poc you’re fans of, but in the treatment of fans of colour too.

#this is kind of just like a string of thoughts but. i am a bit wary of so-called solidarity from white ppl #reblogging posts abt racism does not mean that you are automatically unable to do racist things #and you know. i have tried my best to at least educate ppl abt sikhi and punjabi culture. though it feels like it’s not enough #mine #20 #50 #75 #100

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junhwe0309 · 2 years

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What Ekkreth Knew of Fear

Shmi once told Anahkeen the story of how Ekkreth became free, because Depur has a thousand cruelties, but Ekkreth has a hundred thousand tricks. No one can hold the Sky-walker forever, because the Sky-walker wears a thousand faces and countless forms.

In the desert, a red and black bird flew, and when it came time, a god became chained to mortal flesh, borne of no father and shed of his feathers. When Anahkeen was born, rolling thunder and chilling rain blanketed Tatooine.

When Ekkreth walked amongst mortals once more, he hungered. He hungered because Qui-Gon Jinn told him the Jedi were not here to free slaves. He hungered because he wanted more than anything, for Obi-Wan to listen to him, because he is Anahkeen’s father, despite how he will never acknowledge it. He hungered because he walked free but the nameless and numbered did not. He is hungry, but never starving.

He burned and seethed, the anger rolling around him like shifting sands, because Ar-Amu teaches her children anger. May anger nurture sparse roots and water harrowed leaves and remind those who carry fear to hold it close to their hearts so that they may till rebellion. The Amavikkan have no water to waste on tears.

Anahkeen rages and disobeys with gnashing teeth in ways that the Masters chafe at. He defies his superiors and breaks bends rules, both small and big. He plots a hundred thousand little acts of resistance and prays countless times to the desert gods. It is easier to let others come to their own conclusions than to tell them of your own suffering. Obi-Wan does not know and tries to impart the importance of serenity and discipline onto Anakin. Bandomeer is a place long lost to Obi-Wan.

But Anahkeen cannot forget what Shmi Sky-walker has taught him. He knows as he prays, all gods who receive homage are cruel. Ar-Amu cries no longer, but instead raises frenzied sand and howling dust to tear off the skin of the Krayts and bury both Depur and Amavikkan alike. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshiped. Shmi whispered to him under a dark sky and shifting lands that it is through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion.

Fear is the path to the oasis. Fear leads to the soil, and the soil leads to the seeds. The seeds lead to rebellion. Half gods are worshiped in food and flowers. Real gods are paid in blood.

All these things Anahkeen remembers and holds close to his heart change very little. Shmi still paints the desert red as her final moments worship the gods. Obi-Wan becomes more lost to him. Ahsoka always leaves him. All these things Anahkeen buries have yet to make a difference. But now years of blood have tilled the seeds.

He Who Brings Rain knew in his blood that the storm would rage on, and he that one day, he would father from the storms, Lukka and Lei-yah. Two children born amongst blood and suffering and destined for lives their father could not understand. For the mighty one and the desert storm, two ways and infinite manners to communicate love in a language borne from secrets and lovelessness, it is the greatest gift a father who had nothing could give.

It is with this realization of what will be that Anahkeen changes what could be. It is treason.

“Fives... I believe you.”

Dukkra ba dukkra.

#amavikka #fialleril #anakin skywalker #star wars #tatooine #tatooine slave culture #ekkreth #star wars fanon #ficlet #amatakka #ar-amu #depur #shmi skywalker #obi wan kenobi #luke and leia #arc trooper fives

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dsudis · 10 months

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So I have not the first idea what critical thingy-bob is but I've just reread all your Witcher fics and it's not enough so clearly I'm going to have to follow you into a new fandom. Is there a primer? How much do I need to know? Is it like OG Bandom where a hundred fics in I'm still not sure how many bands there are? Or Teen wolf where I couldn't quite face the source material at all but feel like I have a handle on the whole set up?

:deep breath:

Okay, so! Critical Role is a long-running Actual Play show on Twitch/YouTube--each episode is three to five hours of watching a group of voice actors sit around a table and play Dungeons & Dragons. All of their main D&D campaigns take place in the world of Exandria which they have created for these games, and as the campaigns go on they connect to each other in various ways, so it does all become one vast interconnected story. Critical Role has a good wiki that gives overviews of all of this stuff and links to videos, but just so you know where to start looking and how it all relates...

Their first campaign began as the home game this group of friends played in their spare time for a couple of years before they turned it into a Web Series (largely, they've all said, so that they'd have a reason to definitely get together and play every week). That first campaign, Vox Machina, is currently in the process of being adapted into an animated series, with two seasons available on Amazon Prime: The Legend of Vox Machina.

Currently, Critical Role is running its third main campaign, Bells Hells, which started in the fall of 2021 and shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

The second campaign, which began in 2018 and ended in the summer of 2021, although there continue to be shorter bonus episodes, is the one my currently-posting sex pollen fic is about, and it's called The Mighty Nein. My fic is set fairly early on in the run, and this is the official artwork of the main characters at that time:

Left to Right: Mollymauk Tealeaf, Beauregard Lionett, Fjord Stone, Frumpkin the Fey Cat Familiar, Caleb Widogast, Nott the Brave, Jester Lavorre, and Yasha Nydoorin.

The entire run of The Mighty Nein's campaign comprises 600+ hours of videos (also available in podcast form) but if you want a quicker route to getting an idea of the story of it all, you can read the recaps or for the even shorter short version, watch the animated recaps which compress the whole story into about an hour of cute animatics voiced by Critical Role's official Lorekeeper, Dani Carr.

I hope this helps!

#critical role #the mighty nein #asked and answered

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leechbyeve6 · 23 days

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hey sillies i’m lee(ch) i’m looking for bandom rp partners! i was on omegle literally every day b4 she died soooo feeling the loss <////3

- pairings: p2, trohley, fobcule, wentzley, triple r, wentzross, petekey, frikey, gerbert, probably more!! i’m so serious i can be down for A LOT

- fav tropes: soulmates (!!!), situationships, fwb, undercommunication, one of them is rich/famous/royalty, hyperspecific self-indulgent aus, werewolf angst, sex workers, OMEGAVERSE, fake/arranged relationship, fem au/genderbend, age diff, identity porn

- format: i like paras but i LOOOOVE text based rps even when you have to have a lot of suspension of disbelief to pretend then have phones ;.; despite this i swear i’m literate and capable of longform

- vibe: i literally have a hundred of text prompts in a goog doc so give me a vibe and i’ll find one ! and the best part is… we can quit! at any time! when we get bored or the story runs it’s course we can quit with no awkwardness and say bye or start another one! plz i miss omeggy SO MUCH!!! i like 18+ and kink rps as much as character and concepts studies. wow! they are so versatile!

- where? probs tumby dms unless you convince me to use discord but discord scares me and i got a B in coding

HIT ME THE FUCK UP!!!!!

#hopefully the desperation comes off as sexy #or pathetic .. wink #dcd2 rp #roleplay #rp #omegle rp #omegle roleplay #peterick rp #p2 rp #bandom rp #bandom roleplay #decaydance rp #tags suck I HATE THEM #wentzross #wentzross rp #miss them

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aristi-achaion · 6 months

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[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

tagged by @johaerys-writes hehe ❤️

How many works do you have on AO3? 35!

What is your AO3 word count? 321,184 (that's nearly a book)

What fandoms do you write for? Right now, primarily for Patrochilles (TSOA/Hades game/classic lit), but I've also written for a bandom I'm in :)

What are your top five fics by kudos? Chronos, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, I Can't Believe I've Met You, I'm So Blessed You're Mine, and A Welcome Threatening Stir!

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yesss absolutely! I try to respond to every comment, even if it's from an older fic. I love hearing what people have to say, and seeing that they enjoyed the story is what makes me keep writing haha

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? This is easy because I don't think I've ever written something angstier than I Know I Always Said That I Could Never Hurt You, it's the only fic I've ever tagged "hurt no comfort"

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Another easy one, Chronos!! I was only too happy to give them everything they deserved and more by the end of this fic, they'd been through too much haha

Do you get hate on fics? I don't think I've ever gotten *true* hate, mostly just people yelling at me because I've made Achilles suffer haha but I like strong emotions, it means i'm going my job correctly!

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes, always. It's mostly pretty vanilla stuff, but I experimented with writing some kinkier stuff with Cuffed.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I've never written one!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? No, but there was one time where someone posted my fics on a different website without permission. They gave me credit, but I believe the site was taken down or at least the fics were deleted (some kind of bootleg ao3??)

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! I've had a fic translated into Spanish, and I've been asked if someone could translate different fics into Russian and another language :)

Have you ever cowritten a fic before? Yes, I haven't in a long time but I had a really fun time cowriting! I wrote the Rocket Man series with an incredible author :) It's fun to bounce ideas off another person and see how your writing styles merge and evolve together!

What's your all-time favourite ship? Favorite ship to write about is definitely Patrochilles, but I've been reading a ton of Firstprince lately, they're like a comfort ship for me haha

What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will? I started writing a cowboy au back when I finished school, wrote a couple thousand words for it and then just dropped it. I want to finish it though!!! I just don't know when I'll get to it, and I don't live in the country anymore so I don't have a lot of inspiration lol

What are your writing strengths? Probably writing intense emotions, and having my characters go through some truly distressing moments. I'm a cancer so I like to pride myself on being in touch with my emotions lol

What are your writing weaknesses? Description, and the fact that I struggle with getting a story started. Part of me always wants to pull an Ernest hemingway and just describe the scenery for a couple hundred words before I do anything, and I don't know what to do to fix that lol

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I like adding it if I'm comfortable with the other language or have a person who speaks the language to consult with. I think it's great when you want to emphasize the place/culture the characters come from, but when the translations aren't right there it can become a little tedious lol

First fandom you wrote for? Bandom fics, I don't want to say it but it literally might be McLennon 🥲

Favourite fic you've ever written? Honestly... This is tough. Because Chronos is definitely my most popular fic and I'm very proud of it. But there's also a few that I had so much fun writing, like This Side of Paradise, that almost felt inspired when I was writing it. That one is definitely the most sickeningly romantic fic I've ever written, another I'm very proud of. I also actually really love I Know I Always Said That I Could Never Hurt You, because I was able to incorporate a lot of actual text from the Iliad into it, and I think I did a really good job!!

This was so fun!!!!! Thank you Jo ❤️

#fic writing #fanfic #my fic

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wyllsravengard · 3 months

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i feel like i should also say like before all of this was happening - i was considering just moving blogs and taking a break in general.

i rlly like tumblr (most of the time) and its fun for me and ive been in x reader since like . idk 2014 thru different fandoms but i think this is my first blog where i like really fr spent time there but even before all of this Insane Tomfoolery i was just considering stepping back cause it was making me feel really cluttered in an adhd way. i like move perpetually

before tumblr i had not one but two spam accs w hundreds of (now archived) posts and diaries on insta. and before this tumblr i had like 3 anime blogs , bandom and criminal minds blog etc.

but my beloved main acc is where i made rlly cherished friends so its not as easy for me to pack up shop lol. and my main is mostly peaceful, most of the hate messages are sparse unlike before

it does for me personally feel like a sign of the universe sort of thing that this nightmarish discourse (that more honestly upsets me personally because of my trauma) happened when i was already sort of not with the vibes and contemplating these choices

my interest in bkg or bhna hasn't** really died down but it has hibernated. i feel like im so up its ass i just live there and ive exhausted posts for the time being.

anyway sdjsndkjs. this feels like a weirdly personal post to make the point is it just felt like things lined up where a break was inevitable. i would like my online time spent writing and reading more and plastering beautiful art along the walls .

and not to be gay or tender or anything but i do love all of u and ur presence on my dash and i'd be ur mutual in every lifetime. so on and so forth

#z.gen #i just want to write fic i think like in complete peace

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earlgreytea68 · 1 year

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I posted 905 times in 2022

342 posts created (38%)

563 posts reblogged (62%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@earlgreytea68

@fleecy-fawkes91

@carbonbased000

@clandestine-rabbit

@poeticallydead

I tagged 587 of my posts in 2022

Only 35% of my posts had no tags

#fall out boy - 252 posts

#bandom - 249 posts

#fob - 248 posts

#peterick - 181 posts

#pete wentz - 35 posts

#writing - 26 posts

#our flag means death - 20 posts

#long post - 17 posts

#sherlock - 16 posts

#personal - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#we were having a conversation about how the creature in frankenstein is described as so revolting that nobody can bear to look at him

My Top Posts in 2022:

I have never really understood what this saying means? What kind of woman is this? Like, if the devil is upset you're awake, is it because you're the kind of woman who's incredibly pious?? If they mean that you're a rebellious woman, wouldn't the devil be happy you're awake? Are we just meant to think that you're a woman who everyone says, "oh, she's such a deeply, profoundly good woman" about? In which case why have this thing about the devil to get that point across? I just feel like if someone said this was the kind of woman I was, I would have no idea how to take it. Is it a compliment or an insult lol

151 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

I Read Bruen So You Wouldn’t Have To

You might not know this about me, but in my spare time, I’m kind-of-sort-of a U.S. lawyer. I have a law degree, at least. So sometimes maybe you want to know how a lawyer would read some of these Supreme Court cases. So I read the recent Second Amendment gun control case called Bruen, so you wouldn’t have to. And trust me, you should be grateful for that, because the majority opinion is a 60-page slog through the esoterica of some random British law from, like, the British Civil War era???? And then some stuff that “the Western Territories” did??? Because this is apparently how we make “law” in this country now.

In theory, the case is about a law -- more than a hundred years old -- under which New York requires people to show a reason why they should be given a license to carry a weapon concealed in public. The question is whether New York is able to make such a law (even though, again, the law has been the books since 1911).

The majority opinion answers this question, as I said, by literally spending 60 pages telling me what Oliver Cromwell thought about gun control. You think maybe I’m exaggerating? I am not. I am very much not. You might not care very much about what Oliver Cromwell thought about gun control as a reason for guiding 21st-century U.S. legislation, and I wouldn’t blame you, so I’m not going to walk you through the 800 years of history that the majority opinion provides in great detail. (Seriously, it starts with the Magna Carta, and frankly I’m surprised we didn’t try to figure out how the very first humans handled “very big stick” and “very heavy stone” control.)

I say that in theory this case is about a New York law, because in actuality what this case is about is part of this term’s concerted effort to establish originalism as the only permissible way to interpret laws in this country. And what’s astonishing is...how absolutely terrible it is. How blatantly it shows that originalism is nothing more than a fancy word for “words mean whatever I say they mean.” Like, it doesn’t even try to hide that. The assertions that the case makes, flat-out, are pretty astonishing.

The holding of the case (meaning: the ultimate conclusion) is that courts must “assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.” Uh-huh. We cannot regulate guns unless people in the eighteenth century would have been okay with the regulation. And how do we know what people in the eighteenth century were okay with? In theory, this question is supposed to be answered by looking at ~~history. I put that in sarcasm font, because...yeah. Even the majority opinion acknowledges that “historical analysis can sometimes be difficult and nuanced,” but, it insists, it’s “more legitimate” than any other way of deciding what laws the country can establish. Yes, relying on made-up stuff about the Founding Fathers is, the court has concluded, the most legitimate way to pass a law.

This is all an elaborate piece of theater that means absolutely nothing, as the opinion itself literally acknowledges:

To paraphrase: The respondents must prove that the law in question would have been passed by other people in history. To do so, the respondents provide 700 years’ worth of examples. But, the court says, “not all history is created equal.” What a turn of phrase, huh? Indeed, it is not.

Again, the opinion isn’t even shy about how originalism is just a series of moving targets that you will never be able to hit because there’s a foregone conclusion. The respondents give the Court a bunch of stuff on English history. And maybe, you might say, that’s not super-relevant to American law. Except that, in a previous Second Amendment originalism case, the originalists then were all about the English law and the English ancestors blah blah blah. So the respondents come in with all this English law stuff and here the majority opinion wrinkles its nose and says, “We find that ambiguous.”

See the full post

173 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

I have a question that I hope won’t cause offence, because it is genuine and not meant to be leading or shaming or anything like that.

I love, love, love your series “Swan Song”, and partly that’s because I love music and band culture and well-written fic. So I should read your Peterick stuff right? Because it’s different characters, but still music and band culture and well-written fic, and I already know I love your fic and writing style.

My concern is this: although I am of the generation who feels that everyone should write what they like, if you don’t like something, you shouldn’t read it, and there is no justification for forcing one person’s personal moral boundaries on the wider population *in fiction writing* (obvs in terms of real life actions, real people have to be forced to toe a certain moral line. Obviously. Just not in fic.). I am not sure how I feel about RPF. I mean, I feel people should write what they want, that’s not in question. However, I want to read your fic, but I’m not sure how I feel about reading RPF.

I think what I’m asking is, how do you look at the ethics of RPF - of writing real people with real names, lives, connections, internet access - as fictional characters? How do you reassure yourself that you’re definitely writing fiction and not being weird or presumptuous about the real celebs? Again, I want to be clear, I’m asking this because I love your writing and I really want to be convinced by your ethical argument, so that I can read your band fic without feeling ethically itchy and uncomfortable. I know there’s a ton of holier-than-thou shaming, but I genuinely am not trying to do that.

No pressure to answer if you are over this discussion, I would just like to know, if you feel like answering.

Hello! This is not offensive to me and I'm totally happy to answer this. I am old enough to remember endless RPF discourse on LJ, let me tell you.

First let me say -- I'm with you: People should write what they want to write and other people should read what they want to read.

How did I come around to RPF? Tbh, it started when I realized that, well, it's EVERYWHERE. My favorite movie, for instance, is "The Social Network." That is RPF: a fictional construct around the lives of real people. "The Social Network" lost the Oscar to "The King's Speech," which is more RPF: fictional construct around the lives of real people. And it's not like that year was an outlier: Every year, many of the movies nominated for Best Picture Oscars are fictional stories shaped around real people. So, for instance, last year we had "Judas and the Black Messiah," "Mank," "The Trial of the Chicago 7." This year in the running we have "Tick, Tick...Boom!," "King Richard," "Being the Ricardos." If you define RPF as "fiction about real people," then all of these fit. None of these are exactly true, nor are they even trying to be. And they're not only perfectly legal, they are lauded and held up and admired as virtuoso storytelling.

Once I realized exactly *how pervasive* RPF is, the less I felt guilty about the fic edition of it, because I think fic writers are constantly made to feel lesser in all of their art, and this seemed like another version of it to me.

Now there are lots of lines people draw about RPF: Some are more okay with it if the people are dead, so, for instance, "The Gilded Age" is okay. But as the above examples make clear, non-fic RPF doesn't limit itself to dead people. Nor does it de-sexify these people, such that non-fic RPF is chaste. There's certainly sex lurking in "The Crown."

So, I personally decided that if I was going to be okay with non-fic RPF, if I was going to think "The Social Network" was genius, if I was going to watch "The Crown," then I wasn't going to treat fic RPF differently. Again, everyone can make a different choice for themselves! That might not be persuasive at all! But you asked how I came to my decision, and that was how.

I draw a line myself in what I write and in what I'm comfortable reading. I don't write about their RL kids or partners and I don't tend to read about them, either. But I think that's because of the second part of your question: I am not actually writing about either one of them, and I know that. I am writing about them as archetypes of a certain type of character. So the real details of their lives aren't important to me. They're just inspiration. (I assume this is how the people who write non-fic RPF view it as well, incidentally. Like, I assume they don't think they've written the *actual* conversation Prince Charles and Princess Diana had about Camilla. They're just using what they know to write character archetypes. "The Trial of the Chicago 7" ends with this powerful moment and I looked it up and it was completely made-up lol.)

Now, can there be people who blur the line between fiction and reality, and think that what they are writing is real? Yes, but I think that in that case the fic is a symptom and not a cause. I think the majority of people who write and read RPF don't get confused. In fact, much of the time fic RPF is much more deliberately, outrageously fictional than non-fic RPF, which often pretends to be telling some version of the truth. And to me that makes it, in its way, somewhat less potentially offensive than non-fic RPF, in that it is not often touted as being about exposing these people's inner lives.

Writing fiction about real people is actually one of our pervasive ways of telling stories. We've done it forever, and we've praised it forever. "Here are real people who lived, let me tell you about all their drama," said Dante and Shakespeare and Chaucer. (Sorry, my degree was heavily Western-literature-based.) This New Yorker article described Virginia Woolf as "describ[ing] the impulse to imagine the private lives of others as the art of the young—a matter of survival—and of the novelist, who never tires of this work, who sees an old woman crying in a railway car and begins to imagine her inner life."

So anyway. You may never be comfortable with fic RPF, and that is totally okay, not everyone is or has to be. But this was my journey to it.

230 notes - Posted January 28, 2022

There are a whole plethora of reasons why Elon Musk is Not A Nice Person and why I don’t want his takeover of Twitter to be a success (which is sad, because I otherwise like Twitter and miss it terribly), but among them is this phenomenon whereby he fired his employees for not wanting to accept his deranged, abusive, demanding terms of employment...and now people are being encouraged to go work for him FOR FREE because it’s such a “great opportunity” and he’s such a great person to learn from and blah bah blah

No. NO. We cannot have Elon Musk make a success of Twitter by firing paid employees to hire unpaid interns, argh argh argh!!

321 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

So, a thing I was thinking about FOB8, is I’m pretty sure they don’t have any contractual obligations at this point, right? Like, they finished their contract with Island when Mania came out and the last we heard from them, they were happy not to have a label and they were just going to go it on their own. And I haven’t heard anything different, and the length of time it took them to come out with this album leads me to believe that yeah, they don’t have any kind of label breathing down their neck.

So, for one thing, I’m so deeply curious and excited for this album that presumably is exactly what they want it to be because they didn’t have any other cooks in the kitchen but them and who they specifically invited.

But, for another thing, that means that their crack publicity team of, like, Pete Wentz, his teenage son, and a squirrel are running this album’s promotion and I can’t stop laughing over what a wild ride I expect this to be. like.

Pete Wentz circa 2018 in many, many, MANY interviews: We are very excited not to have any record label contracts anymore! We’re going to be free and clear to do every crazy thing we want to do!!!!! The sky is the limit!!1!!!1!!!! UNLEASHED FALL OUT BOY TIME!!!!!11!!!!!!

Pete Wentz in 2022: Let’s take out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune.

542 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #long post

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sri-fanfic · 11 months

Text

SW: Revenge of the Flimsi

Obi-Wan frowned at the pad with his reassignment orders; he split the screen and loaded the regulations for reassignment in the second half and scrolled through until he found the part the strange Jedi Knight had shown him the week prior. Bandomeer was not an eligible destination for a new initiate to the Agricorps. Not only that but his own preference for assignment had been completely ignored; the Agricorps was at the bottom of the list he'd filed with the council of reassignment at the beginning of the week.

Someone was playing games with his future, games he didn't like, games that he was going to make someone regret when he buried them under a metaphorical pile of flimsiwork. The thirteen-year-old scrolled through the list of forms he'd found on the same server as the regulations and started with the one for reporting an adverse assignment destination.

He followed that up with a delaying action, scheduling an appointment in several weeks, the farthest out he was allowed to, with the council of reassignment to discuss his placement and future with the Jedi Order. His tablet chirped, and the reassignment flimsiwork updated to pending status with the date to be determined.

A brittle smile briefly graced his face before subsiding beneath the mask of serenity he'd been working on.

~-~

Yoda tapped away with his gimmer stick across the temple to the room of a thousand fountains and frowned. His plan should have worked; the fool boy Qui Gon Jinn wouldn't last half a day, let alone the five days to Bandomeer in close proximity with the younger initiate. He just knew that Obi-Wan would be good for Qui Gon, so why had he just seen young Kenobi being hassled by that Kiffar Vos in the refectory. The flimsiwork should've been perfectly settled, and the boy should be on a ship to Bandomeer in the room next to Qui Gon, at least a day away from the temple by now.

He harrumphed to himself and hopped into the branches of one of the many trees in the middle of the garden, settling in to meditate on the force.

~-~

"What," Obi-wan leaned away from Quinlan's outstretched finger, poised to poke him in the side.

"You did something," Quinlan Vos moved to kick him under the table.

"I did nothing," Obi-wan denied and dodged as the force warned his shins.

"Very convincing," Quinlan used the distraction of the dodge to steal fried tuber from Obi-wan's plate.

"Hey," Obi-wan complained, holding up an arm to shield his plate from further raiding.

Quinlan used the distraction to poke Obi-wan's side and frowned. "You did something; I can sense it."

"Okay, I may have countered an attempt to push me together with that dikut Qui Gon," Obi-wan showed him the Bandomeer assignment on his tablet.

"What?" Quinlan asked.

So Obi-wan explained the regulations he'd been pointed to and the forms he'd used to postpone the assignment.

~-~

"What's this?" Quinlan asked a few days later, holding out a pad.

"I don't know," Obi-wan replied. "How about you let me read it first." Quinlan paced as Obi-wan scrolled through the information on the pad.

"So, the flimsiwork hasn't been used correctly for a while, but it does get filed by the flimsiwork droids," Obi-wan observed.

"Not just that," Quinlan said, taking the pad and tapping through the screens before returning it to Obi-wan.

Obi-wan scrolled through the list he'd been presented with, "What is all this?"

"Requests for Jedi aid, I think," Quinlan replied. "There're about a hundred requests in there from someone named Jaster for access to the Jedi library. Not even the private council only part but the main Jedi library, which is supposed to be open to the public."

"So he's asking for access that doesn't need to be requested, and the droid doesn't know how to respond? Who's supposed to be reviewing this folder?"

Quinlan shrugged and tapped a few buttons to filter everything from Jaster into its own folder and send a reply about the library being public access.

"Should you be doing that?" Obi-wan asked.

"Who's going to stop me," Quinlan said and started scrolling through the messages and the form replies sent by the flimsiwork droid for Jaster.

Obi-wan grabbed his own pad, saving his work and clearing the screen, "Alright, show me how to get to that." The two initiates scrolled through the messages wondering why it looked like the last time this inbox had been checked was over 500 years ago.

"Where do you think I should send this one," Obi-wan asked, pointing out a request from somewhere called Rattatak that had been pending for two hundred years about a piracy problem.

Quinlan shrugged, "I think that's close to Serrano; send it to Dooku." Obi-wan listened for a moment and decided the force liked that suggestion, so he did.

~-~

Mace Windu adjusted his tunic and strolled into the temple, happy to be home from a long mission yet fighting a headache from the changing shatterpoints around him. Something had changed while he'd been gone; it was yet to be determined if this was a good or bad change.

"Master Tholme," Mace paused.

"Welcome back, Mace," Tholme replied.

"I trust all is going well with Padawan Vos," Mace resumed his path to the halls of healing.

"That boy is up to something, him and the Kenobi boy," Tholme offered conspiratorially as he followed the Haruun Jedi.

"Kenobi hasn't been chosen yet?" Mace questioned.

"Not yet, no; Qui Gon was adamant in his refusal."

"Why… of course, that meddling green troll," Mace muttered. "Please tell me he didn't…"

"Oh, he did, but either the boy got lucky, or someone showed him the proper form to submit; he countered most of it, delaying it by at least a month with a mandatory hearing with the council of reassignment. The only way around it would be for the boy to withdraw the request in person or be claimed as someone's padawan."

"How did you figure all this out," Mace asked.

"Padawan Vos informed me," Tholme grinned.

"Of course," Mace replied, "I have a feeling something's up, keep an eye on them until Vokara is finished fussing over me, will you."

"As you request," Tholme smirked.

~-~

"Friend Obi-wan!" Initiate Bant Eerin hugged Obi-wan tightly before leaning back and pinching at Obi-wan Kenobi's cheeks. "You look pale, Friend Obi-wan. Friend Quinlan, does Friend Obi look pale to you?"

"Perhaps he's pale because he can't breathe with you crushing him," Quinlan Vos deadpanned.

"Friend Obi-wan should take better care of himself," Bant nods serenely. "Friend Quinlan will make sure of this, or friend Quinlan will feel my wrath."

"Guys, why do I suddenly have a chill down my spine," Quinlan said to the room in general.

Obi-wan breathed deeply when Bant released her hold on him and gently patted her on the shoulder. "I'm perfectly fine, my darling Bant."

"I thought you had been assigned to the Agricorps," Bant said. "Not just yet," Obi-wan smirked.

#stephenopolos' random ideas #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic ideas #star wars #obi wan fic #obi wan kenobi #qui gon jinn #Qui Gon isn't Obi's master

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