#Skuun does memes

[egregiousderp]

Skuun! I absolutely must know the following:

what animal do you look forward to seeing when you visit an aquarium?

28. last meal on earth?

Judge Judy watch tapping gif, etc.

Okay so the local aquarium for us usually gets hit for the Manatees—not something most aquariums have to be sure. Kind of one of the stereotypical Florida Things.

But see, if you do enough Everglades trips (which I have. My sister has a degree in one of the environmental sciences, and our ecosystem here is pretty wild.) you kind of get plenty of chances to see things like the Local Diving Birds and Herons, lizards by the handful (Iguanas like sweet cereal), plenty of Gar, Plenty of Alligators, and (in winter), Manatees. There are airboat tours all over the place. Not to mention there’s plenty of chances to do like. Actual skindiving off the reefs and see random wild fish for yourself. (Which I’ve also done. They like to stare. It’s pretty funny.)

I’m also within biking distance of a really nice little nature preserve with some mangroves, and no-permit-needed blue crab catching in season.

But the one thing you can’t do there that you can do in an Aquarium?

Pet some motherfucking stingrays.

Stingrays are the thing for me at an aquarium.

As for last meal?

…One with good company.

I don’t think there’s more to ask for.

[ghoste-catte]

5, 19, 28

5. Share one of your strengths.

Ugh. I find it really hard to compliment myself, because it feels like bragging? But, if I had to pick something, I guess I would say I like writing description a lot. I like setting up the ambience of a scene - the lighting, the weather, the temperature - and it’s something a few people have mentioned enjoying in my stories ... so, I guess that would be my pick!

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

... Hmm. Not really? I draw inspiration from real life a lot of the time, but I wouldn’t say there’s one specific person or thing who inspires me specifically. There are a lot of little details I drop into stories, scraps of dialogue, etc., that I yanked from real life, but nothing that I can really point to and say “this is my consistent inspiration.” But hey, if a sexy lady from the ether wants to pop up and whisper fic ideas in my ear, I’m here for it!

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

YES!! I haven’t had the chance to promo writers in a while, so here are three of my current obsessions: 

Whazzername - Whazz writes some of the punchiest humor ever. Her stories will have me rolling laughing in uncomfortably public places, they are just that funny. I’m fully committed to the surrogate!Metal headcanon; I think it fits Lee perfectly and makes incredible sense for his character, to the point that I’m mad that I didn’t think of it myself XD 

gidget_goes (@gidget-goes) - I love the way gidget writes description. The scenery they weave into their stories is just incredible. The dialogue between characters feels natural, and their vocabulary impresses me constantly. I love when a story teaches me new words!! The way gidget writes emotions is stunning; they’re one of the few writers that makes my heartstrings really twang. 

egregiousderp (@egregiousderp) - Skuun doesn’t publish often, but what she does is absolutely tremendous. I’m lucky enough to get a lot of behind-the-scenes peeks at her work, and ... oh my god. The feels are overwhelming. I’ve never read someone with quite such an impressive and unique grasp on the characters, and who thinks through the implications of tiny actions so thoroughly. The undercurrents of Skuun’s works are powerful, real riptides of writing, and I can’t recommend her enough. 

40 Questions - Meme for Fic Writers! 

[acroamatica]

1,3,19,25 for the writing meme if you please?

i certainly do please, my dear skuun!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

there’s a lot. i need to figure out a lot of things about blackbird before i go back to it; i’m still not quite the writer i need to be in order to tackle the secret life of trees; i need at least six weeks in dublin to write big guns. you know, little stumbling blocks like that. the stories are there, but they’re not ALL there.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

i tried to write a non-chronological story once. halfway through the plotting i gave up and wrote it front to back. i just can’t think in any order but chronological, and if i bounce around in the book while i’m writing it it makes editing later very much more difficult. i also find i never end up writing the boring bits if i let myself jump straight to the good stuff, but the good stuff also isn’t as good as it is if i have the entire story behind it, so it does me no favours to write out of order.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

any way i have to, and usually written down. i had a two-month calendar for encore to make sure i scheduled everything at the right times and knew when all their rehearsals were. i had an 8k outline for shadowplay. i bought a copy of scrivener when i decided i was going to for-real sit down and write a novel, because i now have it plotted out in excruciating detail to make writing it faster when i manage to sit down and do it. i have files of pictures and stacks of notes. i have floorplans for apartments and houses and studios. and i save all my chat convos because that’s where i do my best work in terms of figuring out who these people are. but i am thinking about them pretty much all of the time so it keeps the information fresh.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

here’s a chunk out of ch8, where my protagonist jason is having a quiet night in with his guitar:

He kicked his feet up on the couch and twisted to lay down with his head on the arm behind him. Eve lay heavy on his belly, and he cradled her loosely, fingering a ten-note riff, over and over - a little musical question without an answer - a dangling hook, unbaited. He’d catch nothing with it. But he liked it anyway. It was doing its best, he thought, and sat up enough to finish his drink and pour himself more. Just like him, it was, this little bit of song: no good on its own, and yet, maybe, part of something worthwhile, even if it hadn’t quite found where it fit.

[writer asks]

[egregiousderp]

23 do you wear jewelry and 27 what’s your favorite or go-to outfit? for the asks!

I wear a lot of jewelry, but usually the same jewelry.

Like. Eight rings constantly when I’m not cooking or working on something that takes fine motor. And I have a bunch of bracelets from @marquiseoniongirl along with a bone mala that I wear daily for work, with flat elastics in discreet pride flag arrangements. (Discreet because I’m not standard rainbow, and because of where I live. Multiple people have looked at my pan one and asked if it’s a Colombian Flag.)

On days off I usually have cuffs with studs or spikes and may or may not wear my rings.

All this is…actually pretty calculated because I tend to bash my hands into the cans and things while working or grip around my wrists and…sometimes it’s tight enough to leave bruising without me noticing. It uh. Doesn’t look real great if I’ve got finger-mark bruising around my wrists when I’m working, you know? So I’ve found having something there kind of helps keep potentially awkward assumptions to a minimum.

Go-to outfits for me are pretty boring. I’ve had a mostly-black wardrobe since I was about fifteen. (Upsides: never sort your laundry and never worry much about weird stains.)

It’s usually sweatpants or joggers, with some kind of set of cutoffs so I don’t super overheat. And I wear boots year round. (Plastic ones during rainy season, and leather ones during drier days.)

…the upshot is my fashion taste is pretty much “comfortable eighties metal bandmate” and also “how many skulls can I fit on my person at any given moment.”

[egregiousderp]

31 fic ask?

Oh shit I forgot I did asks.

31 was whether or not I take liberties with canon or keep things canon compliant.

And that’s...tricky with me.

I don’t do a lot of like. Coffee shop AU type definite canon divergence but I’ve inhabited a bunch of my friends’ works in continuations or ideas because they stick with me enough I can’t really say I don’t write AUs. And my headcanons usually tend to be so extensive they kind of work at filling in or stitching onto anything that doesn’t have enough for me to feel like it’s complete.

I am still fundamentally kind of lazy and prioritize not changing large swathes of canon just for the convenience of not having to invent my own things to fill their places.

And since this is being asked by a friend from Naruto Fandom, alterations to things in Naruto Fandom tend to have impacts on the current sequel series Boruto.

And my series before that had all the main cast die. And I never felt the need to change that and write Rogue One fix-it where everyone’s alive and well.

The story arcs for each character being so satisfying about dying on one’s own terms or dying fighting and it making a difference are exactly why Rogue One is still my favorite Star Wars movie. And my favorite pairing for that had one character die in the other’s arms and the second follow him, presumably out of a complex mixture of love and grief and long history.

My most-liked story is still the story of them meeting up again in the Force Afterlife, content just to be together again. (The fact that there’s a Force Ghost tradition in Star Wars also gives you other options.)

A well executed story arc should feel satisfying enough to end where it ends. Some authors succeed at this and others don’t, but I don’t usually feel burdened to “fix their mistakes” or whatever or write stuff about how everyone is fine now, which tends to make up about ninety percent of canon divergence.

I mean. I write angst mostly.

Good angst isn’t about the whims, it’s about the processing of pain and the experience of recovery, or the learning to live with it.

Since it’s you, Alu, if this is about Neji in particular, it depends on the thrust I want in the fic.

I have one fic where Neji’s too slow at stopping Hinata and she’s comatose as a result and he’s wracked with guilt and grief over it.

I have another where he passes so close to death his cursed seal activates and he lives but can no longer use his Byakugan.

I have others where Neji’s death is explored because it’s Lee POV and the grief he feels is mirrored or amplified by his own relation to his hopes and journeys and his own sensei’s forced retirement.

It depends on what I want to explore, and doesn’t always reflect my level of satisfaction with canon.

Overall I just do what I want, but what I want tends not to go too far because I’m mostly lazy and some stories have bigger spaces to fit things in the holes than others.

Rogue One has the space for Rebel Cells to be kept isolated from one another for safety and people coming and going through the rebellion for personal reasons. So it’s possible. But I’m unlikely to write “Space Family” fics for Rogue One because I’ve already written Rebels Fic and Rebels is basically that entire dynamic anyway.

Naruto has a lot less space for that fit in unless you’re working with the Blank Period (which I put a majority of my fics in anyway for that reason) but everyone marries super young and a bunch of them have kids and writing that kind of thing often makes me bitter if I go too far to the edge of the next series.

“Laziness unless there’s inspiration.”

[egregiousderp]

I’m gonna make a new post, but thanks for the tag, @ghoste-catte ? I’m trying to catch up on things I should be answering because my day off is a day later this week. ^^

Fave Color: on paper? Moss green. That like. Deep saturated version of it that like. Feathers deep blue and yellow at the edges of you drop water over it. The Pthalo Pigments are like. Perfect. I’d eat a tube of either probably, they look that weirdly amazing to me. But to wear? Black.

Last Song: I was hit with a wave of nostalgia when I came home so I put on a CD and started chopping some shallots for a pasta in my kitchen so uh. “Fear” by Disturbed.

Last Movie: Ah. Thanks for reminding me I still need to watch Pretty Woman so I can absolutely talk to the cute dude at my work.

Good call good call.

I’m gonna go check if my Prime Rental’s expired yet. This sweet man suffered through the “What the hell is even going on” that is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The least I can do is watch his romcom for the first time ever.

Honestly I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie, though. I think I might have tried to watch Lost Tower because Cams is still writing Yellow Shadows and it’s so good but like. I got distracted taking puppetry notes that were mostly WHY IS CHIYO THE ONLY PERSON WHO USES PEOPLE?!?!?!?!? I’d puppet people and make them fight one another. And that thought led to a rabbit trail that might turn into something and might get repurposed instead.

It’s a toss up really.

I have trouble watching anything for like. A clump of time anymore. It’s weird.

Last TV Show: this one I can answer! I’m watching a series about Regional Chinese Cooking called Flavorful Origins. It’s dubbed, but on American Netflix and I just...find it really soothing. (the narrator’s voice is so nice. I just...can’t explain how soothing on the ears some of the Chinese Dialects sound to me.) The dishes are simple, regional, and yet have such history behind them? It feels really good somehow, and each episode is only about twenty minutes long.

Before that I was watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.

I don’t like watching the competition shows but like. The cooking shows where people are skillful and enjoying their work are just...kind of nice. So I’ve been trying to find more of those

I got some new spices in the mail recently so I’m probably going to meander back into another cooking kick soon is my guess. (I have a tone of recipes that use Epazote as it turns out and the acquiring of such was the only thing keeping me from trying them~ and I bought curry leaves and kaffir lime leaves online so CURRY is going to be a thing probably too. There’s a block of tempeh in here I’m just dying to make curry out of.)

Sweet, Spicy, or Savory: Usually my tastes tend towards Spicy and Savory. I don’t like sweets much but sometimes a little sweetness heightens the flavor? I get told off by my sister almost constantly for liking things that are both sour and bitter too.

The last thing I made was Balsamic Black and Bleu Mac and Cheese. That kind of encompasses my tastes pretty much perfectly. I’m already thinking of ways to make it better and thinking of like. Dashes of wine for the sauce etc. or like. Chopped up or pulverized figs, or tomato flakes. Or more slivered Raw Shallot or less.

I’m probably going to play with it but that’s like. My current taste profile. “Anything but just straight-up sweet.”

I’m the kind of person who just stops at one cookie just because they don’t want more.

It’s nice, but then I’m done.

I have to buy individually wrapped chocolates because I won’t finish the whole bar. It’s like. That level.

Bubbly Water, Coffee, or Tea: Any of these is fine by me. I probably go through a pot of unsweetened tea per day though. There’s a lot of fizzy flavored water at my place probably for the same kinds of reasons but like. The idea of a temperature difference. (Tea is hot, bubbly water is ice cold.)

And the Café Cubano run and the subsequent sharing of tiny shot glasses of jet fuel is kind of a thing here. It’s usually too sweet for me, but it’s nice, and there’s not that much of it. I like the taste of black, unsweetened coffee, it’s just harder on my stomach than like, a nice Bass-Heavy Pu-Ehr for the same caffeine dosage. I have a cabinet full of tea at this point.

I also have the kind of palate that thinks Kombucha tastes nice I mean, and Kombucha is like the sour, sometimes flavored lovechild of bubbly water and tea. It’s one of those things you usually either love or hate or find weirdly refreshing and I’m definitely not on the hate side.

(Please do this and tag me if you’re a new follower or mutual! Fics gave me some new peeps and I’d love to get to know you but like. Don’t want you to feel obligated.)

[egregiousderp]

rules: describe yourself with 10 pictures you already have. no downloading or searching for new ones. then tag 10 people.

(I was tagged by @swooswoorocklee and uhhhhhh. They like a lot of plants in their art and I keep a billion photos on my phone, so I chose pictures of different plants that are all photos I took. I’m hoping maybe that cheers some people up during COVID quarantine but also if worst comes to worst that it gives out some free references to people because. You know. These are all mine. ^^)

Tagging @oraftel , @shyalpacasweets , @ghoste-catte , @sarkastically , @xdaisyphobiax , @marquiseoniongirl , @naniiebim , @veancie , @himbohatake , and I dunno? Whoever wants to do it? But tag me if you take this bait because I really love seeing what people pick for these. (Some of you run such spartan phones fkfnfnfnfnfnf.)

[egregiousderp]

🌻

Sunflower asks were for random thoughts. I’ve been trying to put together some coherent ones.

White vinegar with basically anything steeping in it fully covered and left alone for a week or more makes flavored vinegar.

Filter out the bits and rebottled for best effect. If the bits touch the air for too long they can get moldy or weird.

[egregiousderp]

When you see this post three lines from a WIP

“Is that your gun or are you-?” Chirrut pauses, grin frozen on his face, standing in the way of their doorway. The smile drops. “That’s your gun.”

[egregiousderp]

WIP ask game: 7 - What are you most proud of?

I dunno if it’s a particular work. I mean. I have so many WIPs and so little stuff that actually gets out there. There are a lot of bits I like that don’t get out there.

But quite honestly?

The progress of being able to write people…you know. Doing…stuff.

That felt like a huge milestone to crawl over. Getting to a place where I can write banter in the middle of it to calm myself down and…

Learning allo people were enjoying what I was writing for that was another huge step. It felt like a monstrous accomplishment as a sex-repulsed person, being able to step into that zone for minutes, and surface occasionally and take a breath but…ultimately holding on for a lot longer than I used to be able to, and moreover even being able to write it at all?

There was a time not too long ago that I couldn’t even write initiations of things like that—even understanding my intent was to fade to black—without having to step away from my laptop and calm down. It’s a very visceral thing, sex-repulsion. And to be honest, I only started getting over it by writing situations where it was seen as disgusting, or manipulative, or nothing more than a tool.

It’s hateships and politics fics that got me through that, I think. Which sounds really weird. Especially since a lot of the attempts I made at those things never made it up, or maybe got shared with a single person.

But I’m where I am, writing people who really love one another and can express it in that way because if things like this, and it’s taken years to get that far, so…

Honestly it feels pretty good?

I know it’s not making me as a person outside of writing necessarily more…functional in that way, but it still feels like a big step.

That’s probably only something that’s happened this past year and I’ve probably been trying for at least twelve. Pretty much all the current WIPs have that.

[egregiousderp]

3 and 18 yo :)

Since I mumbled at you in chat we’re picking the three I’m currently working on TODAY.

3) titles.

You would never know flowery titles come later looking at my project files because they have colorful evocative titles like:

-“Young Monks Anime RomCom Bullshit” (Young Spiritassassin currently over 50k and WIP since like…June, because I would rather post a finished work than a partial, or at least find a stopping point that feels satisfying and this really isn’t complying with that. Especially after Chirrut decided there would be real sex and that went on for freaking 8k of it.)

-“Post-GOTW Second Honeymoon with guns and banter.” AKA “Beezer Fortuna has a Very Bad Day.”(the Established old Husbands just performed Major Spoilers and now Saw is Mad fic. About 6k and About two thirds done or maybe more depending on if I write a final scene with Kaya. Probably needs an Anish Kapoor style disclaimer because teabagging in the face of terrorists is not how you want to meet the author of your current favorite Star Wars book and apparently he has a tumblr.Featuring: the pinkest pink.A few lines of this went up for that three line meme.)

-“Jedi Field trip to Jedha with Anakin and Obi-Wan.” (Still in that planning stage where I yell bits of dialogue and text at singular people I know and then rewrite scenes later.Plans include Baze Pining, Chirrut trying to put the moves on a very stressed Jedi Master, and Anakin and Baze bonding over mechanics and the existence of angels while Baze and Obi-Wan both privately despair their own shortcomingsFeaturing: twelve-year-old wingman in imminent danger of getting a talk about attachments, fast speeders and faster Chirrut, and Obi-Wan Kenobi getting his doctrine a little shaken.)

18) what do you write first or what’s easier? Dialogue or text?

I worked on dialogue for years. And snaps of good text also come pretty easily when I’m in the zone. But because I write out of order into whatever zone I’m in, the difficult bit is neither dialogue nor text, but rather the stitchwork to make scenes feel together and the readthroughs to make the tones mesh from day to day.

In short works that’s less trouble.In larger ones that can be incredibly time consuming.

I have placeholders for scenes I have to write a lot of times in larger works but it can be weeks before I’m in the proper zone for it. And even when I do get there he tone can be horribly wrong because you’re emotionally whiplashing from angst to humor (which works better for some characters than for others) or because there’s a dreamy block of reflective text in there about the past that disrupts the banter or…Things like that.

RP, like the kind people used to do on Livejournal and maybe still do on Dreamwidth, etc. is actually really good practice for fast scenework and dialogue. At least it helped me a lot some years ago. But you have to find the right people to play with and that can be…tricky. And most aren’t so good for anything more than dialogue. It becomes really complicated having an interesting conversation with more than three players if you’re all actual separate people playing those characters, but in fic it just takes tweaking because you are all the characters. Then it’s more a matter of pacing and getting the voice right. Sometimes I still don’t.

But it’s good for certain kinds of practice.

[egregiousderp]

@seaofolives

This is the first part of the answer to the ask meme you sent me a few days ago. I think I mentioned in the tags for the thing that it would be kind of difficult to do the word search things.

Basically? Because I’m on a phone and type my works using my right thumb and my left forefinger most of the time, and to my technology-inept knowledge there isn’t a way to ctrl-f in Apple notes.

So I spent a while trying to reread through works looking for these words myself before finding them in the more recent one. (The post GOTW fic.)

I’m kind of wondering what kind of person I am to not mention knives or dreams that frequently, but it’s possible because I was skimming that I missed it in the young monks fic.

(And come to think of it, I bet there’s both in the Jedha Threesome fic but I didn’t think to check there and I hope you forgive me for not reading through 30k of fic on a whim just on the off chance Chirrut smiles like a knife because Threesome!Chirrut is a little bit mean and Baze tones him down, and Bodhi’s probably still questioning if he’s having his brain chewed on and turned to mush by Bor Gullet. That’s my guess anyway even without a passage to context.)

So.

For the first one.

I think even in my first works more than a year ago I was fond of the headcanon that Baze and Chirrut share personal grooming in the mornings for the delight of it. Not because Chirrut is unable to care for himself, mind you, but because it grounds and comforts them both and gives an outlet to banter about and pretend about.

Baze usually shaves Chirrut and trims his hair if he needs it. (With all the lovely intimate trust implied by the mental image of him holding a nice cutthroat razor to Chirrut’s neck and Chirrut not minding at all because he knows for a fact his hands will be absolutely steady.)

And Baze’s hair is usually wrapped by Chirrut in the morning and he picks through any tangles with his fingers instead of with a comb, and oils the ends so they don’t dry out.

Taken from personal experience because I haven’t used a brush in years. (The short version on that is it makes me tangle worse and I’m lucky not to have my brother’s hair, which is actually textured.)

Baze isn’t exactly curly like me and probably doesn’t wash as frequently if the implications of the book are there/this is not a space American city and it’s very old/skuun’s working headcanon doesn’t have a tub in the ‘fresher and assumes communal bathing, and not on a daily basis because water shortages and culture among other things. But. he definitely has some volume going on.

And this particular one I think I stared at Nan’s Mer!Bazes for too long on because this particular Baze has very long sexy hair just for fun. It’s wrapped up like a skein of yarn in the warrior horn, technically.

This personal grooming headcanon habit has been broken because of Saw Gerrera and book events. Saw often seems to have the two of them separated and makes far less use of Chirrut, and my working read of the entire novel is that it takes place in an awkward, tense dry spot of tension in their relationship.

Baze has been wrapping his own hair. And Chirrut’s been shaving himself because Baze is often gone and with the rebel fighters.

A return to their old habits is a physical comfort. Simultaneously, Chirrut undoing Baze’s hair is something intimate, and only for them.

…Essentially it’s a mix of nostalgia and relief and foreplay if I can pull it off right. I’m hoping, anyway.

-

The dreams bit kind of showed up and was one of those moments where I realized in the middle of writing “Ah. Okay. So this Chirrut is going to be a bit force sensitive.”

Sometimes it works like that, I mean. I write and find out which take is going on as I’m doing it. (It’s pretty much how I found out the Jedha Threesome version of Cassian is a sex-repulsed biromantic Ace.)

It’s something where you kind of pause for a second, think about it, and realize it works with the fic so you roll with it and build on it? (“Well he hangs with a robot and makes eyes at both Jyn and Bodhi…? Yeah. Okay.” And then it snowballs into sex-as-connection and character foiling between him and Bodhi and whatever…)

Usually I favor non-sensitive Chirruts because it underlines the element of faith in what he believes. Same reason I prefer force sensitive or slightly sensitive Bazes—because it underscores his atheism and his persistence in his belief of disbelief.

Something fundamentally unfair has to happen in order to shake Baze’s faith, and there can be a few different ways you can take it. Fandom seems to agree on that much.

This particular one seems to be heading for “the Empire hurt Chirrut badly, therefore the Force is dead to me, because how could it allow such evil to happen to someone so devoted to it?” Classic Problem Of Pain. But even in disbelief, there’s the interview line from Rucka about how nothing they do surprises one another anymore.

So…given this…

Baze has to have had experiences with the Force.

It would be extremely difficult for him not to have, in his past profession. Especially if you’re working with a sensitive Chirrut.

So he has seen and felt the presence of things that are inexplicable. Even in refusal of the Force, he has the awareness that things are possible which are beyond his expectations. Things even Chirrut would find difficult to explain. If he tried to explain at all. (He probably wouldn’t. Said experiences would just be things that are, as the Force is. The Force To Chirrut is just a state of Being. A fact. A verb.)

It’s a fact in many faiths that for the existence of every miracle, you will have a person who is unmoved by it, or who refuses to be moved by it. At the very least, a person who resists the wonder.

Baze’s disbelief has to have the same kind of active “being” to it, solidified by his active will as the Force’s passive state of verb-existence. Like Resistance. Or inertia.

And yet…Chirrut has had Dreams.

Chirrut sees things that can’t be seen, can’t be combatted, and so there has to be that dim sense that his dreams might overwhelm Baze’s resolved will. A fear almost, since Baze’s identity is in part wrapped up in his very refusal to believe. Because in this case, to believe is to accept that these terrible things that happened to things and people he loved, these things that are still happening and the worse which may (read: does) happen are all fine. And they are NOT fine. Because this is a man who wants to actively punish anything that hurts the things he loves.

He’s very aware of the possibility of being overwhelmed. And he’s also afraid of what it costs if he’s overwhelmed and brought back to trusting in the Force.

All miracles are inherently dangerous.

[egregiousderp]

For the WIP question game: 1, for whichever one you want!

“Local dads disrupt Jedha Guerilla Scene, go home for makeouts.”

More news at eleven

[egregiousderp]

When you see this post an excerpt from a WIP!

Fuck. Okay. I saw this through @unicornsandbutane . Uh. So. Remember that Spiritassassin past life dreaming AU I was talking about? It. Uh. Goes something like this.

(Sorry this is huge. This was going to be a chapter. They didn’t say how long the excerpt had to be and I don’t know when I’ll next get to this because I’m…well…me.)

Context: force sensitive people in one life dream about their past lives. Baze and Chirrut dream about one another. Baze denies this. Heavily. That some new age shit.

He meets Chirrut for the first time after dreaming about him dying in his arms.

Chirrut has retinitis pigmentosa. He can still see but is in the process of becoming fully blind. Baze doesn’t know.

Okay. I- Uhm…

/VAGUE PRESENTING GESTURES ——– ——–

The client can smile as much as he wants as long as he pays is a personal rule.

Baze is starting to question that rule.

He is hours in and halfway through being swallowed by the innards of a sink that probably hasn’t been replaced or altered in more than fifty years, and still can’t make head or tail out of what the client actually wants him to do.

“If,” the man says, still smiling like the sun, “if I wanted to make the house safe for a blind person, how would it be modified?”

Baze grunts something about the stairs and keeping a clear floor. None of which particularly requires an interior contractor. He sees no reason to lie about the difficulty of his work when the man is probably just looking to sell a house.

“If I wished to install disabled ramping what would I do?“

Baze grunts again.

Not enough space for ramping. Install a chair lift like everyone else.

“If I-”

“Pipes and wiring,” Baze interrupts, his patience narrowing.

“Come again?”

The tilt of the other man’s head is birdlike, cheerful. The nightmare from the night before has unsettled Baze too much to be easily shaken. He rubs his forehead to clear it, feeling the start of a headache.

“Old house, old wiring,” Baze grunts.

“And…what does that mean?”

Baze sighs through his nose, and pulls his glasses back on. He dislikes doing so. Dislikes the looks of amusement he gets while holding documents at arms-length and studying layouts even more.

He hates old manses. The owners are either stingy or gullible, and rarely know what needs to be done.

If this guy wants a pretty interior job he should have called Jyn first, gutted all the beautiful wood paneling, the antique tiling of the floors and remade with a modern interior, calling him up when they were done. Baze chews on the end of his pen in distaste.

“Means the house came first. Electricity came later.” He thinks of the trio of children he saw giggling together on the trolley, barely six years old, watching a video on their parent’s phone. “And usage has gone up. You want that done first."

The owner just gazes at him, eyebrows lifted.

He has no idea what he is talking about, obviously.

Baze taps the sink in the kitchen on the print.

“Is this an original?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” the other man laughs.

He comes uncomfortably close to see the print, then turns his head to look at Baze. He is grinning at the beaded chain for his glasses. Librarian comments incoming, no doubt.

Baze’s mother would have knocked his knees out from under him with a volume of the Britannica, and she was barely five feet tall, with a limited grasp of English–-a textbook example on why quiet wasn’t the same as peaceful and neither were librarians.

Baze foregoes the commentary by folding the print back under his arm.

Might as well take a look.

Judging by the sink fixtures, the kitchen had a rehaul during the sixties. He wrinkles his nose as he opens the cabinet, pulling out bottles.

He half-expects to find a bag of weed somewhere under the sink. Keeps his nose out for the stink of it.

The client’s perpetual smile makes him seem the type.

He half-expects protests, the defensiveness of a dealer.

The stillness and the slight creeping sensation down his spine makes him crane his head back to find said client instead matter-of-fairly checking out his ass.

Baze snorts.

Well. That’s this city for you.

Nobody has much to look at in steel-toed work boots and tan coveralls. And Baze has even less to look at these days. He’d once been a trim man. Now he’s just a sad forty-year-old nearsighted divorcee checking the nuts of an S-pipe as a favor to a brilliant young architect who’d found him at random by looking up welders in the phone book.

Jyn Erso is twenty-two, driven, and all business. Something more than a client. A grudging friend. He’d done all-night work with her in near-silence together for her grad display. You don’t pull rush jobs like that for just anyone.

They meet once a week for drinks. They aren’t what he’d think of as particularly close friends because Jyn has a guardedness to her that tells you it isn’t a date, and if you try anything she’d crack your nose and leave you in the hospital. Not that Baze would try anything. But there is something particularly depressing about meeting up with an attractive and intelligent young woman who talks shop, having a nice evening, and then going home alone to your own unfinished house.

When Jyn had said her best friend needed to have his house looked at for renovations, Baze had had the sinking feeling that that was it, that he was being couched into approving of some future boyfriend, herded headlong into some sort of fatherly role.

He did not expect Chirrut Îmwe, answering the door before he could knock.

“You’re the inside man?“

Baze had blinked.

“Something like that.”

“Chirrut. Chirrut Îmwe.”

His handshake had been firm, vigorous, his hands as calloused as Baze’s.

“You’re…Blaze Malbus?”

“Baze,” Baze corrected with the long patience of a lifetime with an unusual name.

He’d kept clean-shaven and his hair close-cropped for years to try to cut down on the drug dealer jokes. He’d been a child during the Haight-Ashbury days, and still had never taken a hit. Straight A student. Good future.

Then his father had died when he was seventeen, and someone needed to bring in money for the house.

He knows all about how being good at something doesn’t cancel out bad luck, how the unexpected normally goes hand-in-hand with ‘unpleasant’.

In fact, Chirrut is unexpected in a lot of ways.

Trim black turtleneck. Woven bag. Loose pants and sandals. A red wrap around his waist that’s got an interesting and subtle woven texture to it. Clean-shaven. Close-haired. Chinese, like him, which had been another surprise. And definitely older than fresh-faced Jyn, though he has the peculiar agelessness to him that comes with a heavy fitness lifestyle. Probably another fucking righteous vegan, Baze thinks.

He thinks again of his dream, the details all blurred together, just a lingering sense of unease, of loss. Something that makes him want to wipe his fingernails on his coverall and expect to be talked down to by another idiot who doesn’t know which way a screw turns but makes more money than him and believes that’s because he’s lazy. Unintelligent.

The bad dream seems to be leaking into his sense of the man. He’s seen plenty of people like Chirrut. Has been checked out by far more intimidating-looking ones.

Baze wonders with a snort if he’s being set up, if Jyn has made some assumptions. Unlikely. Jyn usually keeps her head down when it comes to the affairs of others.

“I’m not that kind of plumber,” Baze says, too tired to keep any real heat in his voice.

Chirrut gives a bark of laughter that’s completely unselfconscious, a smile that’s much too even not to have been set that way as a child, with plenty of complicated orthodonture. Money, Baze thinks a little bitterly. Something he doesn’t have much of even before the ex-wife remarried, stopped demanding alimony in advance, and filed a totally unnecessary restraining order.

“Aah, well, you never know,” Chirrut breezes.

He is so blithe even Baze has to snort.

“Try turning the water on,” Baze mutters.

Chirrut steps over to the sink and Baze listens to the pipes, squints with his little penlight tucked behind his ear, the red beads of the chain clinking on pipe.

“Pour a glass for me. I want to check the clarity. Something transparent.”

Chirrut shuffles slightly above him.

“Don’t worry. There’s beer in the refrigerator if you get thirsty.”

“Beer,” Baze repeats.

Chirrut gives a noncommittal noise.

The only thing that’s thirsty here is you, Baze thinks a little uncharitably, making his way gingerly out from under the sink and unbending slowly, and with a wince.

“You don’t seem the type.”

Chirrut’s face shifts into comic dismay.

“My feelings are grievously injured and I rescind the offer of my specialty homebrew. You can drink out of the sink.”

Baze laughs, despite himself.

“That your business?”

“A hobby.”

Something odd has passed into the man’s face, the smile sagging at the corners.

Baze doesn’t ask.

Somehow it doesn’t surprise him that Jyn befriended a microbrewer.

“It was once women’s work, you know, the making of beer,” Chirrut calls.

His voice is a little too loud and bright in the low space.

Baze considers this tidbit, and how he’s probably supposed to react to it. What might be hinted and what might not be.

“Don’t tell that to Jyn,” he decides on.

Chirrut rips out another laugh, this one with a wicked edge.

He has a great laugh, Baze thinks absently. He must have caused plenty of trouble in his time. This too doesn’t surprise him in terms of Jyn’s choice of friends.

Against his better instincts he finds himself oddly okay with being watched by this hovering fellow. Always asking questions about what he’s doing, why he’s doing it. It should be annoying. Somehow it isn’t, comforting to talk about tangible things with that lingering dream hanging over top of him. The sense of incoming, inevitable failure and loss.

Baze often dreams of failure.

“How did you meet?“ Chirrut asks out of the blue, after hip-checking a table by accident.

Clumsy, Baze notes. Like anything that isn’t directly in front of him isn’t there.

"Hm?”

“You and Jyn.”

Baze is surprised at the heavy, intent look on the other man’s face. Blinks as he realizes.

Oh.

“Phone book.” Baze grunts, “Under ‘Welders’.”

Nothing weird, he wants to add. Doesn’t, since he’s sure somehow that would make it worse.

…Is he actually going to be given the shovel talk by a Five-foot-Eight beatnik?

Baze doesn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned. Jyn is a very pretty girl, with a good head on her shoulders. Nice tits, too, if he’s completely honest. She could do a lot better than him for sure. He hopes, in a blaze of worry, that she knows it. Good God does he hope it.

He blinks.

The rising, tight tilt of the other man’s chin is very much like Jyn’s.

“You?” Baze asks, trying to keep the uneasy frown off his face.

“Destiny,” the other says.

Baze laughs before considering whether he’s supposed to. A dry noise.

“Really.”

The corners of Chirrut’s mouth go mercifully up. He leans back against the counter.

“I wandered into the grad installations by accident and she almost murdered me with a power sander.”

He makes it sound like the most casual and reasonable thing in the world. Baze swallows down another laugh.

“Get out.”

“That’s what she said,” Chirrut deadpans back, dislodging Baze’s laugh from his throat despite himself. Despite how utterly cheesy it is. Chirrut, he notices, turns his whole face like a cat when he peers at him. A flicker of surprise.

“…Have we met before?” Chirrut asks faintly, something uncertain in his features.

Baze snorts, shaking his head.

“Definitely not.“

Chirrut frowns but goes on with a shrug.

"Anyway, my Tai Chi was completely ruined, I offered her free self-defense lessons to compensate her for the fright, and we’ve gotten along famously ever since.”

Baze makes a listening noise.

The thought of anyone weaponizing Jyn Erso’s anger is completely terrifying. He’s half-convinced Jyn’s lambent rage is its own renewable energy source.

“You give her your beers?”

Chirrut gives him a look of practiced disdain his mother would have been impressed by.

“Forget I asked.” Baze mutters, shrugging.

“Have you met Galen Erso?”

Chirrut’s dark eyes are narrow, intent. Without the easy smile his whole face is narrow and long, proud-looking somehow. Something in the combination of lips and chin and brow.

Baze searches his memory for the name. Finds nothing with a slow shake of his head.

“Who?”

“The father,” Chirrut’s chin tilts up again, a slow fury in his dark eyes.

Baze frowns, guessing.

“…Alcoholic?”

“Mm,” Chirrut agrees, his chin set and stubborn like a little fist, “The quiet kind.”

Baze considers this more carefully, a slow frown settling. Next Thursday he’ll relocate them to a cafe, he thinks. Cut down on the girl’s intake. Someone has to take care of her.

“You try talking to her?”

Chirrut gives a sharp laugh again.

“Have you tried stopping Jyn from doing something before?”

Baze thinks. Chirrut’s already grinning, shaking his head, utterly fond.

“When Jyn Erso rebels, the whole world follows,” the man says.

Baze frowns. He’s starting to realize why a thirty-something-looking bohemian fitness freak of a man in a Bill Gates turtleneck is Jyn’s best friend.

“I have Thursdays,” Baze says stubbornly.

“Are you serious?” Chirrut laughs.

“Your day must be either Tuesday or Wednesday–”

“It’s Friday, actually,” Chirrut cuts him off, the laughter still in his eyes. He looks utterly unintimidated. Amused, even, arms folded across his stomach.

“Then if she matters to you–”

“Good God, you’re like an old woman,” Chirrut interrupts, laughing.

Baze’s fingers tighten. He’s a big man, and he knows it.

Chirrut is not, and still meets his look without an ounce of fear, a blasé arrogance. Baze notes suddenly the outline of his shoulders. The trimness of his waist, remembers he’d said self defense classes.

“Jyn’s an adult. She does her work and does it well. Life doesn’t end because of a bit of Black Porter on a Friday Night,” Chirrut says, shaking his head slightly.

Baze’s disapproval sits heavy in his belly, welling up in frustration. A great weight of words he can’t say to a stranger, a friend of a friend.

“I can see why you and Jyn are friends,” he settles for, leadening it with the full force of his disapproval.

Chirrut shrugs, a manic glitter in his eye.

“I like a straightman with me when I cause my trouble,” he pauses, inclines his head with a smile, “Or woman.”

Baze lets out a breath in disgust.

He bets it’s the same bar on Friday. He has half a mind to make the time to fish them both out. A growing protectiveness.

“Don’t drag Jyn down with you in whatever trouble you get into.”

Chirrut makes a rude noise, his dark brows knitting irritably, ”Yes, mother hen. Will that be all?”

It comes so sharply, so abruptly Baze just stands there for a moment, realizing how far he’s overstepped.

He almost wants to apologize. Feels the sting instead of the comparison. Dismissal.

Baze bits down his words.

“…I’ll send you an estimate.”

“Well, good. You stay right there and estimate,” Chirrut drawls, bumping the same table, catching the same vase, “while I get you a crate.”

Baze blinks.

“A…what?”

“You need a drink!” Chirrut hollers down the hall, “You need about five drinks!”

“I don’t need anything!” Baze yells back.

He winces at the sound of his own voice.

Chirrut Îmwe has apparently gone selectively deaf.

“I don’t accept drinks from strange men,” Baze mutters, a little hot around the ears when he realizes the other man is indeed bringing up a loose crate filled with dark bottles.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m a painfully ordinary man cursed with spectacular beauty,” Chirrut replies back, making a face, “and not at all strange.”

Baze doesn’t laugh. Can’t. Caught by a strange sense of panic.

Chirrut taps a finger against the little barrel, something challenging in his dark eyes.

“Stardust Ale. Last year’s vintage. It’ll give you something to talk about with my friend.”

“I…can’t accept this,” Baze says quietly.

Chirrut is waving him off with a noise of irritation, shoving the thing into his hands.

“Go on. Get lost. Make your estimates. Come back when this,” he taps the crate, “is gone. Get drunk with some friends. This is my number,” he’s scrawling something large and loose on the side of the wood.

Baze gives him one last, exasperated look as he does so, as he’s manhandled to the door by prodding and pushing hands.

“And wear something different next time,” Chirrut adds, calling after him down the steps to the tilted street, “You look like a Ghostbuster!“

[egregiousderp]

Have about five memes I'm supposed to do but apparently only screenshot two of them

@mcalhen is responsible for sudden honestly this evening, presenting TEN WEIRD FACTS ABOUT SKUUN.

– Does not swear aloud at all. Here is one thing. But the Skuun is astonishingly child-friendly and when dropping a hammer on her toe, merely performs the verbal equivalent of keysmashing and agitatedly flapping.

– Hella introverted and hard to hear, adding to the overall child-friendly soft metalhead aesthetic.

– Is that person who will walk into the store for one thing, get a dozen other things, and forget the one thing. Usually something vital. Like toilet paper. Tends to discover this sometime after midnight. Also works in a supermarket and tends to encourage customers repeatedly with this tidbit to the key of: “but you got what you came in for! Yes! Awesome!”

–Writes reminders almost constantly on the back of the left hand. Such as that one thing which needs to be purchased at the supermarket.

– Usually writes said reminders in some variant code using simplified elvish script characters because she went to a school full of cheaters and no one needs to squint and realize Skuun is the kind of person who forgets maxi-pads, cheese, and what time her break starts and ends on a regular basis.

– Also carries rocks and small figurines and things in her pocket at work, for something to fiddle with, but also as a reminder of major writing projects to work on when she gets home. (At the moment there’s a Quartz crystal in the pocket of my work vest that’s the stand-in tactile reminder that spiritassassin needs HTML. As well as half a stone that looks kind of like a potato for the Imperial Valentine’s Day project.)

– Is profoundly non-visual, which manifests in odd ways. Provided I set something down with my own two hands I know where it is. If I’m supposed to visually locate something I tend to honestly look right past it. After two years of working the return stock, I know where every item in my store is and if we carry it or have carried it usually within a week. I can tell you where it is on the aisle and usually about how high on the shelf and on which side. I cannot, however, remember what colors I’ve put on my eyes for the makeup of the day or if they’re different from yesterday’s. I put my pots of makeup down in order for how and where they go on my eyes. If I put something down in the wrong order sometimes I don’t notice until it’s on my face and I need to correct it.

– Reads multiple books at the same time. I think I counted once that it gets to about thirteen at once before I start forgetting where I’m at or leave off finishing some of them. I also rarely forget what I’ve read. I used to have better retention than I do now. I’m a little out of practice.

– Actually likes re-reading books multiple times. I have a small list of books I reread on average once per year in certain circumstances. Many of them during the summer months. (Dune, for instance, gets read outside during a hot day. Ditto for The Gunslinger. The Left Hand of Darkness usually gets read on a cold day in winter, though we haven’t had a good one yet for that, honestly. And 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea tends to get read on a wet day or during a tropical storm.)

– Forgets things far more badly after extended contact with people. I like people, but they terrify me. It doesn’t come off badly, usually because I’m amiable enough in an absent-minded, slightly nervous, cheerful way when I’m around people, but my mind actively fails to remember things in extended stressful situations and people…are not easy for me. I have completely failed to remember whole evenings before because something was eating me up during a conversation. I’ve been told I give entertaining speeches when asked to speak in public, but remember absolutely nothing of any of them. If there is a previous engagement or an appointment I have with any of you, or even just a fic I’m working on, it could all completely vanish because I’ve had a particularly anxious work shift. I will NOT snap at you for asking after fics I’m supposed to be working on because chances are I’ve just forgotten. Occasionally I’ll be working on something else because I’m in a moment of white heat for that other thing. But usually I’m just nervous and the record skipped. This can happen with a fic itself if the fic involves sex. It’s…complicated.

[egregiousderp]

hugging for warmth

lol. Fluff trope.

Unless someone’s being deliberately “look at me all smooth” then probably not.

I’d love to see Rey suggest it to Finn though and Finn just kind of stare like, “….uh. Jacket. Here.��

And run off into the night like shfbdnfbdjdbbcjdbdndndhdjsb

.

Probably also works for Spiritassassin because it’s just the kind of thing Chirrut would probably try to pull.

“OH NO, WE MIGHT FREEZE TO DEATH.”

Long-suffering Baze sigh.

“We should huddle together. For warmth,” and he grins like an idiot.

“Chirrut.”

“Naked first, and clothed later, for maximum effectiveness of course-”

“CHIRRUT.”

“Fine, fine. Clothed if it really bothers you that much-”

“Chirrut, it’s the middle of summer.”

“So it is.”

Grunt.

Chirrut thumps his staff.

“I’m still cold.”

“You’re not cold.”

“I’m a little cold.”

“CHIRRUT.”