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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga - PT [DDC 2016] Letters Never Sent (OCs | ROTS) - COMPLETE, PARTIAL E-BOOK

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction- Before, Saga, and Beyond' started by Ewok Poet, Jan 2, 2016.

  1. gaarastar58

    gaarastar58 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2010


    I loved this little piece of description and loved it even more because it was Wedge! Lil having little knowledge of the events going on in the galaxy is a great touch and entirely believable given the size of the galaxy. The level of detail in your entry's is brilliant, there are time when you feel as if you are actually there with Lil watching all of these crazy big folk doing such strange things! Your description of size comparison was refreshing since we don't read much of that in SW despite the number of shorter characters - the odd moment when Lil was placed in someone's lap felt properly awkward just as it should. I didn't know what a Drall was until I looked it up, until then I pictured Lil as a Lurmen, no idea why!

    Please tag me when you update your entries!
     
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  2. Kahara

    Kahara FFoF Hostess Extraordinaire star 4 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2001
    Lil sure knows how to find interesting people. For certain values of interesting, that is. :eek:

    Those Geelmen kids are about as icky as you'd expect from their future selves, and the situation with their parents apparently being involved in trafficking sentients is disturbing. I don't think I'd want to stay in that establishment of theirs... yipes. [face_worried] Though it's not like Lil has many options but depending on the questionable kindness of strangers. Or even really seems to understand the whole of what's happening around him, poor guy. He's really a fish out of water.

    So the Antilles family comes as a nice surprise after those creepers, and I love Lil's comments on Wedge and Syal.

    I think Lil has an advanced case of Force-sensitive sarcasm. (When you're not Force-sensitive, but your sarcasm is!)
     
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  3. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thank you so much for responding, everybody. For all of you well-versed in the period of time depicted here: please feel free to point me out to any error, if there is one. I try to align this to New Canon and borrow Legends elements as I see fit - none of the small details impact my characters' destinies, but if I get a big thing wrong, that's a red light!



    Once again, if it gets too confusing, you know where to find me. :)


    They were planned to have a cameo in this story all along, together with other kids who later became somebody important - either in the big or the small picture. I have a somewhat uncommon belief that our personalities do not change much in their core and that one's personality at an early age is a good hint of what they will be as adults, once outside influences are removed - or - if they're not succumbing to outside influences much. Hope that makes sense. :)

    And I guess I should/could work on Sacorrian "legends" which are not actual legends. :p

    The line about the tooka will be explained in the footnotes for Entry 05 - its origins are very odd. Same goes for proper attribution of the idea of Brave Banthas to you - I did not mean to ignore it or anything, but I should've probably sent you a couple of barely-coherent sentences about it. [face_blush]
    The child stole the recorder...an explanation is coming r-right up!
    Sorry that I took the second sentence away from the first and third...but I had to, because I wanted to respond to it with what's in the spoiler.




    Lil may be walking a strange, zig-zag line between being absolutely confused and very, very cynical; but he's got some sort of a talent for getting the future of people he meets correctly and then denying it. Think the exact opposites of those "und dann..." freeze-frames from Lola Rennt. :p

    And yes, "fighter plane", just like "landcar"...another archaic bit of Sacorrian slang. Glad you spotted it!


    He's in the state of mind where he questions pretty much everything - from his relationship with Ranni to things that may not be what they seemed to him. Whoever "They" are, they may be at least partly responsible for at least some of it.


    Yup, that's the one...and definitely not an Antilles.



    In response to the topato thing - there's a common belief here that eating raw potatoes causes fever and there was a period of time kids allegedly used that trick to skip classes. I like to think that topatoes have the same alleged effect and that Lil may have done that himself in the past.

    And yeah, Wedge Antilles...a complete future burnout nobody. LIL IS SO RIGHT. :p


    Yup, a common trope in stupid jokes happening for real.
    http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/49

    And the kid's identity will be revealed in the next entry. :)




    Kahara's comment on Lil's "condition" is spot-on. He gets most of people's futures to be the exact opposites of what they will be. :p

    And come to think of it, this does sound Wedge-y! :D


    In Lil's case, it's not caused by the size of the Galaxy, though I agree with your point being applicable to some different situations, absolutely. Lil is from the weird, weird planet of Sacorria. Check the first post for some links that should explain his nonsensical beliefs and confusion.


    Thanks. :) Since they're written in that stream-of-consciousness manner, I'm quite happy to know this!


    Dale Pavan is a huge guy (over 190 cm). To him, Lil is like a plush toy or something. :D


    Since my TCW-catch-up process is going slowly, I was not aware of Lurmen. They're adorable! I like tiny little fluffy menaces in general, and it seems that each such species has a different culture. I will totally have to watch/read all material featuring these - thanks for pointing them out to me.

    That said, Drall need to make an appearance in the New Canon, absolutely.

    Will do! :)



    I have the same problem and I don't think there's a cure for that. :eek:


    Klootil may not be approving what Tiodre is doing, but her reasons are probably not of the sanest kind.

    HA. I love this. He could also be an anti-Force-sensitive, given that his "ability" is the exact opposite of seeing the future. :p
     
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  4. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 05

    Once again, huge thanks to Katana_Sundancer for her helpful input on the Antilles family and to Admiral Volshe for helping me find the exact quote Anjie's nonsense question was inspired by.

    Tags: gaarastar58
    Please, tell me if you want to be tagged when I update this DDC. I don't do tags myself, but I know most folks on here do.




    <<<14 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE LAST LOGIN. REAUTHENTICATION REQUIRED. ENTER NAMECODE!!!>>>
    <<<NAMECODE: *****>>>
    <<<NAMECODE CORRECT. WELCOME, *****>>>
    <<<RECORDING STARTED >>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 16:32>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    Ranni, I am so, so, so sorry! I have not recorded one single message for you since that thing on Gus Treta Station…place. If you could actually hear the most recent one, you would've probably been worried about me. There was silence, followed by somebody singing what I now know is the Brave Banthas theme and then the recording stopped!

    So, as I said fourteen days ago…I was sitting three tables away from a child and a light-blonde Human woman every Human male at the fuel station’s dining area seemed to be staring at…they had arrived to the space station aboard Booster Terrik's freighter. That's right, Booster and not Bastard! Fixing this commcorder's input microphone made me realise how many things I’ve been getting wrong all along. Not progressive at all! Now I have a well-working commcorder, a new name, residency permit and a home in a decent area of the Coronet City…and I have these two strangers to thank for that! And they're with me. Or I am with them. The woman and her child, that is. Life writes some truly, truly strange stories sometimes, Ranni!

    All of that happened because the little korrak stole my commcorder, ran to the 'fresher, locked himself inside and had his own little show, until the owner of the fuel station, whose name is Jagged, dragged him out by ear. The youngling's mother came up to him and demanded that he let the boy go. He went on and on about how tough love is the staple of youngling upbringing and how Syal is behaving like a proper young girl. I was this close, thin-whisker-close to telling him that his daughter very likely hates him, but she was right there, across the dining area, cleaning some glasses and she...she gave me this worried look. I nodded and decided to keep our secret.

    Once the woman calmed down and I had my commcorder back, the boy tried to pick me up. He kept on singing that dreadful bantha songlet that I must admit is now growing on me and asking me downright strange questions. Unlike his mother, he has dark blonde, almost brown hair and greenish…brownish eyes. He is slightly freckled, too. He said his name was Angel, but his mother just shook her head. Apparently, it's a common joke for him to introduce himself as Angel...His actual name is strangely close to that word, nevertheless. Anjie. The mother is Gwynda.

    What happened next would have been hard to describe, but somehow, the commcorder was on in the passive mode when Jagged’s wife, Zena, handed it back to me...so, I have a portion of our first conversation! Ranni, if this ever gets to you, you will learn some facts about not one, but two worlds!

    CLIP:START snd.gwynda*anjie

    <<Voice identified as belonging to a Human woman, age 30-35>>
    <<Add a name tag for this speaker? Y/N>>
    <<No name tag given. Speaker added to memory as Human Woman 1970>>

    <Human woman 1970> “Gwynda, and you?”

    <Commcorder owner> “Lil. My name is Lil.”

    <Human child 503> “If I die and become a tooka, do I have to eat tooka food?”

    <Commcorder owner> “Didn't you ask us that already?"

    <Human woman 1970> “Erenedo! Let the man talk…you’re a man, right? I can never tell, I’m so sorry…”

    <Commcorder owner> “Yes, I’m a man. Drall women are slightly taller.”

    <Human child 503> "I’m a boy, too. I’m informative…informal…”

    <Commcorder owner> “Inferior? That’s not a case with Humans, as far as I know…”

    <Human child 503> “I’m scum, like daddy.”

    <Commcorder owner> “Gwynda, I must say I’m puzzled. You say you came from Naboo…”

    <Human woman 1970> “That’s right, Lil. But I’m not from Naboo. Some years ago I went there on a diplomatic mission, as an aide...and I met Aldo."

    <Commcorder owner> “Aldo?”

    <Human child> “Daddy scum!”

    <Human woman 1970> “Aldo was a law student, dark and handsome. As they later told me, a typical ‘Naboo charmeur’. He was in the group that did practice at the senator offices…he offered to show me Theed, Keren and the Lake Country, since senator Amidala, was away. He even took me to see those heroic Gungans! We hung out a lot. One evening, we walked around the ramparts of a sacred place somewhere, it got dark and, you see, I cannot see well in the dark, so he was helping me walk…and one thing led to another. The other aide told the whole group that I broke the rules and they went back home and I remained on Naboo. We had a very granno view on life, so to say. Aldo could play clavi-pian and I am a good singer, we planned to form a band and play in a place called Club Deeja in Keren, but then I got pregnant.”

    <Commcorder owner> “And had this little boy?”

    <Human woman 1970> “Yes. For some reason, Aldo’s family insisted that his name begins with an A. Anjie, after Aldo, Arvel, Agne…and then...anyway...Aldo’s mother was getting on my nerves from day one. She believed in all these legends about my people, and said something about how Anjie will be sought after across the Galaxy for being incredibly handsome. Aldo threw in a joke that scared me – that more Naboo charmeurs should be paired with Hapan maidens for a new race of beautiful people.”

    <Commcorder owner> “Breeding beautiful and charming people? Why would anybody breed people of any kind?”

    <Human woman 1970> “That, that exactly brought us to what is going on with the Galaxy right now, I agree.”

    <Commcorder owner> “Women are superior to men in my world, too. But not among Humans, that is why I was puzzled.”

    <Human woman 1970> "Now I am curious! Tell me more! The rest of my story is boring, anyway...typical young and stupid romdram."

    ▼Clip:end

    So, I did. I told her more. It's been two weeks since then and I am not sure what Gwynda meant by "what is going on with the Galaxy right now". But she sure liked hearing about how the Duchesses may or may not allow a common man like me to marry on Sacorria. She asked me if I was married and when I said that I was not, she proposed that we rent a home together and pretend to be in a relationship.

    Booster came up with the rest of the plan - we are asylum seekers from the Outer Rim and we became involved during a separatist raid. If Gwynda wasn't only a little bit taller than you, Ranni, this wouldn't have made much sense. I'm barely one metre tall, for progress' sake!

    She had to take on a last name, as not all Hapans have them. Despite her anger with Aldo, she decided to go with his, and have the same last name as her son - Mencuri. I was, thankfully, asked to supply a name only. I went with Lidgrain and they believed me that Lil could be a nickname for it. I am getting better with the world outside of our system, yes, I am!

    Once back on Corellia, we spent three days in Jari's Memorial Refugee Sanctuary, where we shared a double bed, in a room with ten other beings. Anjie was nervous. He was quiet during the day and then he talked a lot in his sleep and sang that Brave Banthas theme over and over again! Luckily, that is behind us now - we were allocated to a beautiful apartment in the Orange Sector. The high rise is forty-two levels tall, but we are not too far up, only on the second level.

    I am supposed to be looking for some sort of a job. Until then, I am babysitting Anjie while Gwynda works as a hostess at a sabacc joint. By the way, I am not really in a relationship with her...don't worry! I understand that she is exceptionally beautiful, but she's Human. And even if she were a Drall, I would not have been interested, Ranni. There is nobody like you!

    <<LOCAL TIME: 18:47>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

    "T...this is stranger than I thought. First Wedge Antilles and Wynssa Starflare and then...Anjie Mencuri? The great Mencuri himself? It cannot be, there has got to be another Naboo kid who came to Corellia called that!"




    Footnotes
    Jagged and Zena Antilles are indeed Wedge and Syal's parents.

    Commcorder is the device Lil is using. It looks like a commlink, but it really isn't one. It can be set to active and passive mode, it can be switched off and it uses datacards and internal memory to store voice clips. I may or may not end up writing a fanon entry about it.

    Thin-whisker-close is a common Drall expression (fanon).

    Anjie Mencuri is the central character of the short story Radiophonic Heart, where he's about 18 years old. He was also referenced multiple times in The Black Star, but he hasn't appeared in it. His name is pronounced the same way as Angie.

    Anjie's mother, Gwynda, is a new character. She's Hapan, hence her comment about not seeing well in the dark. That makes Anjie half-Hapan.

    The word "Erenedo" is how I derived the male form of "Ereneda" (she who has no equal) in Hapan language.

    Naboo charmeur is fanon slang. Something in the lines of a Latin lover of the GFFA.

    Granno - Slang term originally used for a person from Vagran, that evolved to decrive a person into spirituality, being in tune with nature, alternative lifestyles and tends to brag about that a lot. Something like a hippie or, even some groups of hipsters. (fanon)

    Anjie's nonsense question from both this and previous entry was inspired by the final sentence spoken by the farmer's daughter at the end of the 2009 French film Wild Herbs (Les Herbes Folles). "Maman, est-ce que quand je serai un chat, je pourrai manger des croquettes ?" which translates to "Mama, when I am a cat, could I eat kibble?"

    Brave Banthas would be something like Ninja Turtles of the GFFA. I got the idea from a funny detail in @divapilot's excellent story Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo.

    Korrak is a non-sentient reptile native to Sacorria. A comparison with a korrak would basically mean that one is sneaky (fanon).

    Club Deeja in Keren appears in the New Canon Princess Leia comic miniseries. I envision it as a place that changed many owners and had many uses over time, but always more or less centered on music.

    Jari's Memorial Refugee Sanctuary is Jari Orez's refuge camp evolved into over the next three and half millennia (fanon).

    Orange Sector of the Coronet City is fanon. if there's a Blue Sector, why not have other colours, too?

    The term "romdram" (something like a soap opera?) was borrowed from @leiamoody's fanon lingo and one of the stories I'm 100% sure it's in would be her current DDC, My Holodrama is Like Life.

    The term "clavi-pian" was borrowed from Findswoman and it was so far used in her excellent short story, Opus 66.

    Everything else you need to know about Sacorria in order to understand the references in this story better is in this fanon entry.
     
  5. WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

    WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Aug 31, 2004
    Interesting developments with Gwynda and Lil. I am struck by the fact that he insists to Ranni that he is not attracted to Gwynda, although as a Hapan, you know she is gorgeous. =D=
     
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  6. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    The "mystery of the temporarily hijacked commcorder" has been solved—and my guess about the identity of the effusive kidlet was right, too! [face_dancing] I totally nodded my head at the description of Anjie singing the theme over and over, because boy have I been there. :p (And now that I know what Earth TV theme it was based on, I almost have it in my head too—how about that!) At least one good thing that has come out of this is that Lil has fixed the microphone—and now we've also solved the "mystery of the unfortunately named freighter captain." :D

    The recorded conversation between Lil and Gwynda (and young Anjie) is of course the centerpiece of the chapter, and the format change at that point to fixed-width font and angle brackets is a very cool touch. (Actually, all the comm and recording tags throughout the diary so far have been fantastically done—I still squee inwardly every time I see the "Y/N," which brings back all sorts of happy memories of obsolete computer equipment.) It's got it all packed in—besides learning Gwynda's backstory, we get a hint of her own imperfect knowledge of the wider Galaxy (when she confesses to begin unsure of Lil's sex—an interesting complement to Lil's own imperfect knowledge), Anjie's view of his dad (three guesses whom he picked up "scum" from), the concept of the "Naboo charmeur" as an analogue to the "dark, handsome Mediterranean heartbreaker" stereotype, and the apparent existence of Naboo legends about Hapans—is that fanon or canon?. The rather sudden transition from "helping someone walk" to "one thing led to another" makes me go "hmmm"—makes me wonder what parts of the story Gwynda is leaving out. Actually, her whole "typical young and stupid romdram" excuse leads me to imagine she's leaving a lot out—though that's not to say more is not likely to come out later in the course of the story, am I right? ;)

    The moment right after the recording is very intriguing too, perhaps the most intriguing single moment here—because we learn from it that Lil has apparently told his whole story to Gwynda—as in, his whole story that we, the readers, don't know yet and which will be only revealed to us gradually along the way. So she knows all about him now, more about him than we do—and that, methinks, could lead to some very interesting things. [face_thinking] (I don't know what kind of interesting things, but I know that whatever it leads to will be interesting!) And then there's that tiny bit at the very end, after the "recording stopped" tag and in quotes but not preceded by an "add name tag" prompt. So this is clearly not a case of someone else getting hold of the comm—but it also seems likely that the speaker is not Lil—but if that's the case, then who is it? The mysteries are coming at us fast and furious, and I love it! :D
     
  7. divapilot

    divapilot Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2005
    Excellent update! I love the fact that you have to really pay attention in this fic. There are so many little clues and tiny little things that open doors to such new possibilities.
    So he is now living on Corellia, with Gwynda. All these lives intersecting in such significant ways.
    I am very intrigued by the last voice on the recorder. There seems to be a huge time jump there. Someone has found this, has played it, and has suddenly recognized the historical significance of it.

    And look - it's the Brave Banthas! Led by the bravest bantha of all, Kylo the Bantha, as they use their furry feet to stomp out shenanigans across the galaxy while spreading friendship wherever they go.:p
     
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  8. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Once again, thank you, everybody. :) I've been a bit slow with my correspondence and pretty much everything other than work and writing this month; so I apologise to everybody whom I - well - owe something.




    To him, gorgeous probably means very furry and 10-15 cm shorter than Gwynda, but yup, he is trying to observe Gwynda from others' viewpoints and it comes out...interesting.


    I apologise about that. Or I don't. Whatev'. [face_whistling]

    Ain't he glad that it happened? Otherwise, he would have concluded that Corellia and its arbit are exclusively inhabited with various flowers, slurs and vegetables.

    I am not sure if it was funny that, despite all of those misheard words, he didn't believe Anjie who first introduced himself as "Angel". :p

    We used MS DOS, I guess our age is showing. :D Not that there is anything wrong with being our age.

    I did borrow some syntax and the rest, I made up, based on what I see as common patterns in programming languages.

    Great observation! She went straight from Hapes to Naboo and was a fish out of water for a while...sometimes, it still shows.

    You probably guessed it right. :p

    And I had a thought of that, given that Naboo is a tiny bit like Italy...IN SPACE!

    Fanon, definitely. Will elaborate on it at some point.

    I can't imagine that it was not consensual, it most definitely was, just extremely "I can't believe she fell for THAT" kind of cheesy. But now, how many others was it consensual with for him?


    Now, what version did he tell her? One story can have multiple versions...


    As I always say, if something does not make sense, do ask. :)

    Lil is like the Forrest Gump of my microuniverse, the difference obviously being that he is not an "idiot savant" trope at work; rather a person who was made confused through indoctrination. And gets to meet so many people, long before they meet each other - IF they do, that is.

    We totally need to write this monstrosity together. OMG.

    And, addressing this separately, because REASONS:




    You're on a good way, both of you...but until then...*drumroll* IT'S YOU. We all have the viewpoint of this person, because we're too reading this. We are that person.
     
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  9. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 06

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 23:12>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    Ranni knows what Lil is like in terms of where he is going in his life. She knows that the structure of his path is more complex than the river crossings of his hometown in the winter time and that his visions are dark like the triple shadow looming over it. Even the brightest light shining from the top of the mountain he shall not mention is essentially dark. Dark like his soul. Dark like her eyes. Dark like the pitch black stripe on his heart. Black like the gem that tore them apart.

    Yes, that was me, writing about the two of us in third person! Writing was never my strong suit, I am...visual, or whatever. But since you used to help me with essays and I was supposed to learn something from my numerous mistakes, I thought how I never showed you that I am now capable of putting words together and...they actually make sense...so...err...I can write. I think. And I can read it out loud!

    As you may have guessed from such a picturesque introduction...I am jobless. After a month on Corellia, I still have not found a job. Quite honestly, it’s not that I was looking…yet. I am trying to blend into the cityscapes of Coronet and start making sense according to whatever doctrine they have on here…the thing is, I found none, so far! There is no codex according to which one should behave here. From what I understand, Gwynda could marry anybody if she wanted to, so could I. There is no such a thing as CESA on Corellia, either. In terms of art, you can do whatever you please. How am I going to learn to do what the kriff I want, Ranni? How?

    That was a k-blast, sorry! But sometimes, one has to blast it out, from sheer disbelief! Everything has been so strange to me on here and I am still not sure what is real.

    And…Selonians…by Sarcophagus, this has been the biggest shock of my new life so far…they don’t go for artificial insemination here...they don’t even walk around freely! They ALL LIVE UNDERGROUND IN SOME STRANGE TUNNELS. How do they contribute to the progress of this planet is beyond me! There’s a large fat, and by fat I mean gigantic female whom they call a Queen and she can give birth. There’s a very small number of males compared to females and they’re used as breeding stock…almost like how female banthas are always pregnant to give us milk…wait, this did not make much sense…anyway, they never even see the light of the day, they live underground. Other females are one-datacard-minds, they specialise in a task and they don’t make much sense with anything else. And none of them wear clothes underground, not even underpants and...their fur is not thick like ours! This is frightening! They are repressed and forced to be in the nude!

    And when I mentioned all that to the nice old next door neighbor – one of our kind, by the way – she said that she once heard about a "dishonoured" Selonian den that was sent to “the prison planet” and “was completely re-sliced”. I gave her a blank stare and asked her about this prison planet. She said that she would tell me about it some other time…well, okay, I can wait. But I’m curious! Her name is Borgiska and she’s close to turning eighty, by the way. A Duchess on the inside without the frightening sense of having a Duchess near you…sorry, Ranni, I know your second cousin is one of those and I have this feeling you’re…let’s not go there.

    Another thing I found out is why we have to pose as political refugees: we cannot get out of the Sector, Ranni! The borders are closed, unless it's for transport to medcentres and rare cases of political refugees seeking asylum. Not that one would ever want to leave Sacorria in the first place, but apparently, the person representing the Sector in the Galactic Senate, a Human, as expected, Garm Bel Iblis invoked something called “Meditative Silence” and our borders are closed. I cannot remember what it’s called in Olys Corellisi, for the life of me. As you know, I was never good with languages…

    ...but neither is Anjie! Now that I basically serve as the youngling minder in this flat due to Gwynda working overtime, I get to spend most of the day with him. It turns out that there is such a thing as Hapan language and he does not speak any of it. I tried to teach him a couple of words of Drallish and all he could remember was Ta’sharr. He’s hopeless! Absolutely hopeless! Somebody will need to attach him to a protocol droid or give him, I don’t know, a cybernetic extension that will teach him languages.

    So, now we have our Ta’sharr sessions, every evening, before I put him to bed. He’s missing his “daddy scum”, but he warmed up to me, I think. And yes, I am totally inventing a new Triad Mountain here, Ranni…as you know, I never liked younglings much - apart from your sister's little ones - but I really like this boy. He is hungry for knowledge and each new day is a miracle to him. Are all younglings like that?

    I am telling him stories about Sacorria. Funny enough, he does not understand that it's real, the same way I did not grasp that his home planet, Naboo, was real at first! Of course, it's for different reasons - CESA spared us from knowledge on that frightening Separatist Crisis and Anjie, I think he just cannot believe that a perfect place like our world can exist! He thinks young Sacorrian comradettes are better than princesses and he told me that he wants a Sacorrian girlfriend when he grows up...No, I did not tell him that it's illegal for us to be with offworlders! I don't want to break his young heart, not to mention that he does not get the idea of roommates pretending to be lovers that his mother and I have going on, anyway.

    He asked if we have a queen or a president. He mentioned that Naboo is ruled by a fifteen-year-old named Apailana, who 'puts things on her head'. I tried to explain how things work with us and Them, Ranni, I really did...but all I did was made him cry. You see, when I explained that nobody has ever seen Them, he was really, I mean really, convinced that they are not real, which made him concerned that Sacorria does not exist and that he will never have his Sacorrian girlfriend...who is very beautiful, he says.

    I asked him how she looks like...because I am always fascinated with how Humans see beauty, you know? He grinned mischievously and said that he doesn't know. Why? Ha! She wasn't born yet! That's what he said, the little korrak!

    So, how did I calm him down? It was actually simple - I reminded him that I am Sacorrian and since I do exist, then we must all be real! He fell asleep thinking of his future comradette-princess. You would probably tell me that it's cruel of me to let him fantasize like that, since his parents' marriage failed and so did whatever you and I had. But I disagree - he needs to dream. Our dreams are a second life and unlike the second life I was forced to grab onto, one is free to opt out of them by a single blink of an eye.

    I think I will be going to bed early myself. Most of the time, I wait for Gwynda to return and then we talk about her work over a mug of tea. She is surprised that I sleep so little, she cannot believe that us Drall evolved from burrowing animals known to hibernate. Neither can I, come to think of it!

    But what do I believe in, Ranni?

    <<LOCAL TIME: 24:05>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>



    Footnotes
    CESA stands for Censorship, Education and Scholarship Agency. They have headquarters in the Square Building in Dorthus Tal City, on Sacorria. They were previously mentioned in The Black Star and the short Nolevorution, Of Course!

    Lil is confused so as to everybody can marry anybody on Corellia, because on Sacorria, it’s illegal to marry an offworlder, a Human woman cannot marry without her father’s permission, a Drall man cannot marry without his Duchess’ permission, a Selonian man cannot marry without his Queen’s permission (all of this is Legends-established), and there is no interspecies marriage (fanon).

    He is confused by how Selonians live, not understanding it’s what they are like everywhere other than Sacorria. Sacorrian Selonians were more or less reprogrammed over the course of the twenty-five millennia of the planet’s existence, they only formally have queens, they multiply through artificial insemination and they live just like everybody else. (fanon)

    Borgiska never appeared in any of my stories before, she is new. I’ll let you figure out where I got her name.

    The bit on Garm Bel Iblis and “Meditative Silence”, aka Corellian Sector’s neutral stance in the Clone Wars is borrowed from Legends and, to my knowledge, has not been contradicted in Canon.

    Ta’sharr are story sessions a typical Drall family holds every evening.

    Inventing a new Triad Mountain is a common Sacorrian proverb, similar to our “inventing the wheel”. For more information on the Triad Mountain, check out my fanon entry on Sacorria.

    Everything else you need to know about Sacorria in order to understand the references in this story better is in this fanon entry.

     
  10. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    I love how you've been so gradually revealing more and more about Lil (and Ranni, and their romance) with each densely packed entry, and the way you reveal it not by just having Lil tell the reader directly about himself (as happens so often in DDC entries) but by recounting the things he says about himself and his homeworld to others—in this case, the young Anjie. And that's an all the more interesting approach, because here again we can speculate about what Lil may or may not be leaving out of his story. [face_thinking]

    Plus, we get to see how he reacts to what his interlocutors (in this case, the young Anjie) tell him about themselves: the fifteen-year-old queen who "puts things on her head" is fantastic! I love the "queen or president" question, too, which is very believable from a child that age just beginning to understand how those things work.

    Between what he says about Them to Anjie, and the way he drops in that mention of "the mountain I shall not mention" (which somehow seems rather familiar from "Nolevorution, Of Course", I have a feeling I know who They are now; given our hero's Sacorrian origins, it's not too much of a jump, though he apparently has a more troubled relationship with Them even than most, which of course remains to be revealed. And given what he says about Ranni's Duchess cousin, he apparently has a troubled relationship with the leadership of his own species.

    The "meditative silence" thing sounds familiar—no doubt it's this. EDIT: Yes, it sure is! And you did stick it in the notes, I just didn't see it the first time. :p

    As the beta of The Black Star, knowing a bit about where that story will eventually go, Anjie's rhapsodic musings about his future comradette-princess made me smile. I love how Lil's optimism comes through there: he's right about dreams, and he knows that Anjie isn't necessarily doomed to repeat his parents' mistakes, or his own.

    It is very believable, too, that Lil would be confused as to how to begin living and functioning in a place where he can "do what he wants," after all those years in the very regimented society of Sacorria. I imagine the newfound freedom might eventually lead him to make some less than optimal decisions. In a way his semi-shocked impressions of the Selonians on Corellia (and elsewhere), doing normal Selonian things that he doesn't realize are normal Selonian things, is a corollary of that, as well as of course an indicator of his own sheltered background. At least he's got some friends and a roof over his head with Gwynda and her li'l guy, with whom he's really struck up quite a rapport—one that I hope will serve him well throughout his journey. (Yes, all younglings are like that! :) )
     
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  11. gaarastar58

    gaarastar58 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2010
    Great entry. I especially liked the part about Anjie (See, I can spell your character's names right sometimes haha!) not grasping the reality of Lil's world. Kind of reminded me of evacuee children in WW2 not knowing that the countryside really existed. For them, as for Anjie, they base their perception of life on their experience. There is so much in the SW galaxy, it must be difficult for a young mind to grasp the enormity of it all.
     
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  12. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thanks for comments, both of you. :) The new entry will be a bit more romantic, but in the way one should expect it to be. ;)




    That is the idea! I'm glad it's making sense. There is how Lil sees himself, how we see him (and we are all actually a character - it will be clear who at some point!)

    There is a very, very good reason for this. It will make sense by the time New Year's fireworks A-SPLODE. ;)

    Anjie will be struggling with where he actually belongs, being a half-Naboo and half-Hapan on Corellia, and not knowing a word of Hapan and being confused about Naboo traditions or having his own take on them are a part of it. But yes, at this point, he's just a child and he probably finds Apailana's style hilarious. :)

    I thiiink we have a winner. :D They indeed are the Sacorrian Triad, through Lil's interpretation of them.

    Remember...on Sacorria, the Duchess can forbid you to marry whom you want to, which may be one of the reasons. But there is more to it. Much more.

    :)

    I totally have no idea about this, soz. [face_whistling]

    You're on a good way. Freedoms of this kind are overwhelming to Lil, the reality he lived forty years of his life in have nothing to do with the actual reality. And with Gwynda having a limited experience herself and Anjie being a child, one can expect this to be a wilder ride than most!



    I did think of one such book when I was writing Anjie - Margaret Klare's Heute nacht ist viel passiert. Sadly, it was not translated to English, but it deals with a girl being sent to the countryside during WWII at one point or another.

    And yup, the GFFA's size certainly doesn't help here. While, in my headcanon, everybody is expected to be more or less familiar with the Core Worlds as an adult; I can't see child grasping it at Anjie's age (4/5).
     
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  13. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 07

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 13:13>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    My brain is worthy of that laserbrain insult. My ears are going pew pew pew pew, and I am definitely not under influence. As a matter of a fact, I have not had any spice or alcohol for a long, long time now.

    Then, what’s the problem? You see...this little boy…Anjie...he sings. And he sings a lot.

    Sometimes it's the Brave Banthas song I told you about. Sometimes it's the DOBY adlet from breaks between segments of HoloNet News. Sometimes it's a bunch of unintelligible words in some squeaky language he most likely made up. I am baffled at how he can do that, yet he cannot wrap his little head around the concept of actual means of communication other than Basic.

    As if all of this wasn’t making Anjie rather strange already…he does not seem to be interested in what most boys his age like. You know, violent sports and pushing little girls in the fountains on our long walks to the Axial Park and back. I saw boys do that, but he doesn’t. His current fascination is extreme weather. He asked me if I have ever been to Corfai and seen the taiga. Then he set the conservator to the very top of the scale and made a little castle out of frost. He said that it was the world he saw in his dreams and that it's got to be the taiga of Corfai, as he never heard of “any other place that icey”. A huge battle will happen there, he then claimed and walked over his own creation on all fours, to demonstrate how the castle is no more.

    Then he said he was feeling unusually cold. I looked at his hands, they were full of these reddish-blue blisters. Stupid me! I forgot that Human children cannot stand such amounts of cold! Proooog there, they have no fur! Luckily, I know where Gwynda holds bacta patches. Now I keep a micro-dispenser of those handy in my waistbag. The way it goes, I will be needing them, too! If he ever finds out about planets such as our glorious system’s own Arcadia, he may as well attempt to make one at home!

    We also do normal things, those that most definitely won't result in loss of any available limbs. Anjie likes to draw and paint, which is so refreshingly harmless. The other day, we sat down and painted a piece together. The sincere, clumsy strokes of the brush I assembled for him, against my thin lines. His pastels against my shades of grey. His current fascination with really tall buildings opposing my love for all things natural. We ended up with the strangest painting imaginable - four-legged house-beasts stomping an ice castle and a tree stomping a similar-looking two-legged beast in return! I...I don't even understand! I drew a huge conifer tree and he added the house-beast on its knees. His brain works better sober than mine ever did on you-know-what!

    Before I even managed to wash up from the mess we made painting, Gwynda got home from running errands and asked us why we used a piece of her sonic curtain as canvas! Anjie was grinning and I was trying to explain her that it was a misunderstanding, because we wanted to improve the look of our ‘fresher – to use a painting canvas as a sonic curtain. Gwyn shook her head and asked me to make her a cup of caf – her first of the day, my fifth. Anjie asked if he could have some, but we managed to convince him that drinking caf will make him grow a roba tail. He protested, but once we bribed him with a full year’s worth of Brave Banthas, he forgot that he even wanted anything else.

    One cup of caf turned into three cups of caf. Gwyn talked about how horrible her job is and I felt bad about it. I did not realise the extent of it until now. Turns out, the sabacc joint is run by the same being whom Tiodre Geelmen took the Twi’lek – not “twilight” – women, too. Blobbo the Hutt. And whatever a Hutt is, it sounds quite bizarre. I would not want to touch it. Their entire bodies have a cold, they’re covered in some kind of phlegm. Yuck! They leave that phlegm everywhere they go. I asked Gwyn to change the topic.

    Maybe I shouldn’t have, ‘cause this is where she finally asked me why I’m often talking to myself. I told her that I have a girlfriend at home on Sacorria…then corrected myself and said that I had one. She got it, she understands that these messages are for you…she had something written about Aldo, but her lawyer told her to dissolve that flimsi. Didn’t quite understand if she actually did it, but it’s hers to decide, either way.

    She wanted to see a holo of you. Now, that was awkward. Showing her any actual holo of you would’ve clearly identified you and, the only other thing I had…Ranni, please forgive me…was the sketch I did of you when you were sleeping in that noisy attic above the Freedom Speederway and below the city’s Sarcophagus shuttle route. I did not want to share the backstory, that it was our first time together and that we fell through the bed frame and landed in the pile of my comrade’s dirty clothes, which I had tucked underneath, to show you how tidy we were.

    Okay, okay, I know, there was mouldy fruit, too and my used brightigum…which got stuck on your rear-end…and…yeah, you did have to wear a skirt and claim it was your fashion statement…for…quite a while. Still, I cherish that night. Nothing can ever wipe my memory of getting off the mattress, taking my coal-stylus and drawing you. Back then, I was too proud…to the point where it was clearly unprogressive. I couldn’t believe that any girl at the university would want me and I was so desperate. Too small, too poor, a local as opposed to you, and the one whose ideas they never cared about. And then, I had a girl! And she was pretty! And I could draw her! And she was actually still there in the morning! And she wanted to see me again! And she was wonderful…don’t deny that you weren’t, Ranni. The warmth of your body next to mine, the whole feeling that there is somebody I belong to and with, and the realisation that I’m not desperate, because the one who just took my ta’devsh actually loves me and did not pity me. My first and only true love.

    <<PRE-DEFINED STOPTRIGGER DETECTED: CRYING :: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<THE UNIT WILL NOT BE TURNED OFF>>

    Sorry, Ranni. I miss our secret encounters, over the course of those twenty years and…I wish they were not secret. I wish there had been a way for me to marry you. Now, I feel like a Jedi Knight. They never marry, right? There’s just no way a married Jedi would not be exposed for breaking the code in our age and time! Never thought they would have something in common with me, a deadbeat spice abuser from Sacorria in exile, and a Drall on top of it. Makes me wonder if we ever had a Jedi. Would They have to approve a child’s departure from our planet?

    Wait, Ranni! I can totally see that you would be concerned that I behaved like a complete unprogressive nerf...so, I have to assure you that, no, I didn’t share this much with Gwynda. Our lovemaking was and will always be strictly between you and me. I would never tell her that you were my first and, technically, my only woman. And a big deal. As far as she’s concerned, you’re an artist, too; and we hit it off when we modelled for each other.

    I could use a nice dream tonight, really. It’s been a couple of months without you. Perhaps Anjie could pass on dreaming of his Sacorrian comradette-princess tonight and allow me to dream of mine.

    He’s probably dreaming of Brave Banthas, anyway…

    <<LOCAL TIME: 13:45>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

    I…didn’t expect to hear this. If there’s one thing I never really cared about, it’s what Drall are like in the bunk. What’s next, some primitive Outer Rim species bringing us the next sex symbol, a diva of sorts!? I may need to stop for now…



    Footnotes
    Axial Park is a park in Coronet City.

    Corfai is a planet in the Corellian sector that, according to Edge of the Empire: The Suns of Fortune indeed has a taiga.

    Arcadia is the volcanic planet in the Sacorrian system.

    In the context of this chapter, sonic stands for shower.

    Ta’devsh is precisely what you think it is – the nonsensical concept known to humans as “virginity”. In Drall culture, women don’t make a big deal of it, but men do, since it’s a matriarchal society. Sorry for that mental image. (fanon)

    Roba is the GFFA pig and, of course, Dale Pavan's actual middle name.

    Freedom Speederway is the main speederway on Sacorria. (fanon)

    Sarcophagus is Sacorria's graveyard moon.

    Brightigum is a narcotic take on chewing gum. Yikes.

    Everything else you need to know about Sacorria in order to understand the references in this story better is in this fanon entry.
     
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  14. glitteryboots

    glitteryboots Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2015
    Entry 05:

    Interesting that the namecode has five letters but Lil only has three... if that's what a namecode is. :p

    Baby Anjie! Although it's nice to see him like this and get a glimpse into his past, I can't help feeling sad because of how he speaks about his father. :( I'm very intrigued to know what Gwynda heard about Lil (well, to know everything, I guess!) and how that led to her deciding they should pretend to be in a relationship. So, this makes Lil Anjie's stepfather? He and his story have just become a whole lot more interesting.

    And then this text at the end... who's speaking here, I wonder, and how did they end up hearing Lil's recording?

    Entry 06:

    "I have this feeling you’re…let’s not go there." What's this about? Hmmm.

    So Lil plays a big part in Anjie's upbringing! This is getting more and more interesting. I didn't expect these two to even know each other at first. It's nice that he actually likes Anjie despite seemingly not being too fond of other kids - and good for Anjie, too, I hope? Though whatever it is that Lil has run away from could end up not being good for him. And now Anjie knows who "They" are too, and we still don't. :p They seem even more ominous now Lil telling him about them made him cry.

    I also had to smile at Anjie's talk of a Saccorian girlfriend. Maybe it's a prediction? ;)

    Entry 07:

    Lil and Anjie painting together is a great bonding moment. :) I wonder if he won't show Gwynda the holo of Ranni because he doesn't trust her enough yet or because he has something to hide in that respect.

    Aww, Lil's emotion and honest recollection of his imperfect but still special times with Ranni. :( This makes me wonder if she reciprocates any of these feelings to this extent and even more what it is that separated them.

    Hmm, and now we see this other person speaking at the end again. Definitely want to know who this is and how/why they're listening in.
     
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  15. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    Well! You've done it again, another entry so rich and densely packed it's hard to know where to start. :D

    I know I've said numerous times now how much I enjoy getting to know more and more about Lil with each entry (and I have definitely more to say on that below), but we're also learning about Anjie with each entry, and I imagine the same will be true of every other character of yours that we encounter along this very colorful journey. I love how Anjie delights in curious and artistic things rather than in violent things, even if it does result in some nasty blisters (and a crash course for Lil in human cold tolerance—proooog there, indeed!). Their painting sessions together sound like lots of fun; both seem to be especially in their element there. And there is something very prophetic in their collaborative painting of the various four- and two-legged beasts stomping things or being stomped... Is Anjie, Lil, or both of them gifted with some kind of second sight? [face_thinking]

    Now, this very interesting and informative conversation between Gwynda and Lil about their past loves. I somehow have an inkling that that flimsi about Aldo didn't ultimately get dissolved, and that, indeed, it may be material for another EP story sometime in the future. [face_thinking] And the inevitable question comes: about the mysterious lady that Lil records those messages to almost every night, what she looks like, etc. It is VERY INTERESTING to know that Ranni is someone that Lil thinks Gwynda is likely to recognize by sight in any visual representation sharper than a coal-stylus sketch—it seems to confirm my suspicion that she's of high enough rank to be recognizable to people outside her species and outside her system... and oh, I just had a thought about the implications of that... :eek:

    Of course, the centerpiece of this is your sparkling description of Lil and Ranni's first night together. It's somehow touching that the very first thing he does afterward is sketch her, and there's so much packed into that gesture: his artistic instincts (which are as strong as his relational ones and which govern his interactions with other beings just as much), his desire to have a memento of that tender moment, but also a sincere appreciation of Ranni herself, her person, her beauty, her true love for him (or so he perceives—because, as glitteryboots notes, we don't really know how much reciprocation there actually is here). But Lil's tender recollections of those quirky little details that made the event so memorable to begin with—falling through the mattress onto the pile of dirty clothes, the moldy fruit, the brightigum, the memory of her warmth next to him—definitely show that his love is 100% sincere. It's strongly implied in this story that Ranni may never learn of that sincerity—but I say more power to Lil all the same.

    (And ta'devsh is very cool—makes me almost wonder whether Drall males have some bit of skin that they're supposed to lose when they have intercourse for the first time, or some other physical alteration that's said to happen.)

    And there at the end is that mysterious extra other voice that cuts in, just as we saw at the end of entry 5. Very, very, very mysterious. I of course wonder who that is (though I understand that it probably can't be revealed for a while, and I suppose there's the off chance that it's different people at different times), but I also wonder what, if any, rhyme or reason there might be to when and how often that mysterious extra voice cuts in. E.g., why didn't we hear it in chapter 6? [face_thinking]

    =D= !
     
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  16. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thanks for the replies, my dear friends. [face_good_luck] I kind of hope that I have not discouraged the others from reading, due to the complexity. [face_blush]




    You're a genius. Nobody else spotted that and - yes - it was there to be spotted! [face_whistling]

    Kids repeat what they hear from the adults and, once his mother is not as angry with his father, he probably won't be calling him "Daddy Scum" anymore.

    Currently, sort of. Yes. But on long run...I don't think so.

    [face_whistling]


    This paranoid thought re-appears throughout.


    Lil is more of a babysitter than a father figure here, but definitely playing a big part. And yes, Anjie is dear to him, while he is generally annoyed with kids.

    And sorry about that thing with Them. ;) Entry 08 makes it crystal-clear, I promise!


    Many things Anjie says are...pretty interesting on the long run. ;)



    Thanks, I enjoyed writing that moment. :)

    As for your rhetoric question...a bit of both. Yeah.

    This means a lot. I don't think anybody's first time is ideal, especially not when one partner is as inexperienced as Lil's implied to be, not to mention that Ranni appears to be of a higher social status. So, yes, he ended up having to shave narco-chewing-gum off her bum, but he remembers it fondly. Let's hope she does, too.


    You appear to like that character a lot, methinks...[face_whistling]


    From the title - where it says Entry 07. [face_cow]

    And yeah, I need therapy. He was as quiet as a sheep. And he also made false teeth.





    This is where gaarastar58 may run for his life and make a dart(h)board with my face on it...

    ...but I think most Force-sensitives have some sort of clarvoyance to them, yup. Now, given who they are, where they are et cetera - it may not come handy at all! What Anjie sees here is not useful to anybody right now. So, this is not a prophecy, given Anjie's current whereabouts.


    Why not? I'm up for it, if I'm ever inspired to write it. :)

    Yes, yes and yes. Well, maybe not a "yes" to what I think you think the last thing is...


    I am glad it was not *too* Titanic-ky, though there is another little thing that makes it...even more Titanicky. :)

    Lil is very, very visual, so while his extreme insecurity at that young age may have come into play, he definitely wanted to remember that moment, and he thinks his then-girlfriend was exceptionally attractive.

    As for reciprocation both of you mentioned - we have not heard Ranni's side, but I think the love went both ways. I think it was a passionate relationship. :)


    As a fellow alien afficionada, I am now curious about such a concept, too. Will have to think about it.



    The mysterious extra(s) may not be equally impressed/confused/baffled about every single thing they read. That's all I can say here.
     
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  17. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 08

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 15:47>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    Life is full of incredible little coincidences. Not that they’re incredible in a good way, but they are incredible, nevertheless. Ugh, I said incredible twice, this is most definitely not progressive. Sorry. Similarly enough, life is full of…incredible, incredible lies.

    This morning, while taking a long walk with Anjie, I ran into somebody I never expected to see here – my old friend Zizi Pao! The whatever-the-species protégée of Yvar Trindello’s, resident foreign artist on the Cobble Stone Square!

    Initially, I had no idea what he was doing here, but once he told me more, I started losing my faith in the Universe, as it is.

    For…Zizi was deported from our homeworld! I’m not exaggerating, Ranni. The shuttle that left to Corellia at the same time I caught a ride on that freighter...he was on it. He was arrested during the time I spent at Mariklare Trindello's apartment, when she helped me hide some valuable things. And he implied that she was to be taken care of as well, because...I can't believe that I didn't know this...she was involved with him. My friend and the daughter of my patron! Hidden in plain sight!

    Why didn't he tell me about this before? I told him about you and me!

    Anyway…this is where his species, whatever it is again, is different from ours. And Selonians. And Humans. He’s so stoical, that Zizi! For somebody who claims he is heartbroken, he is handling things better than I do. No spice binge on his first day on Corellia. Or before. Or after. He said that he weeps when nobody else can see him. What would he think about my crying around Pavans, Geelmens, Antilleses and Mencuris?

    As our conversation progressed, I realised that he’s taking everything, ever, with a grain of salt. To my surprise, he refuses to believe that Yvar Trindello is one of Them. He just shook it off, making that dismissive gesture with his upper right hand. Apparently, Yvar told him the same thing some weeks before our departure. Invited him to a dinner, got a bit tipsy himself and blurted that out, while no droids, Mariklare or Karlina were around.

    Had I not been Mariklare’s preoccupation on that day both Zizi and I fled Sacorria, she would have had a chance to say goodbye to her lover. If he was her lover-lover. Not that he would even tell me that, pfft. Had he told me, however…I wouldn’t have reached out to Mariklare to save my life and leave Sacorria for good. I would have gone to somebody else. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her and it was because of me and me only.

    After a couple of hours spent at the nearest tapcafe, Zizi gave me his commcode. And a pack of pink lipstick. I am not sure why, but he says that he no longer wants it in his possession. Being me, with colours and all, I realise that it's Mariklare's. Why wouldn’t he want to own it, if he loved her? Do I even want to ask? Moreover, do I even want to ask him why he thinks I should own it?

    On a less confusing note, Zizi says that he found a teaching job at the art school in the Blue Sector. He can arrange me an interview there, since they are looking for another lecturer. This was a very awkward time to confess my lack of a degree to him, but he said that he is sure they will accept me, regardless.

    Once home, Anjie, who kept quiet during my conversation with Zizi, kept on asking me about the lipstick. I told him that a Sacorrian girl used to own it and that she was Zizi's girlfriend. Luckily, he did not ask why she no longer is. Anjie then determined that he doesn't like this shade and that he doesn't think his Sacorrian comradette princess should be wearing lipstick at all. Or be blonde. Or dressed in expensive clothes. I hope he lowers his criteria by the time he grows up, because “a Sacorrian brunette or redhead in simple clothes who doesn’t wear lipstick” sounds a little too specific to me. I don't remember having a list of requirements like that when I met you, Ranni. I only wanted a girl. Any girl.

    By Sarcophagus…I was so, so desperate back then!

    In the end, Anjie ate some of the lipstick and used the rest to draw a huge heart with a question mark inside of it. Well, okay. He’s in love with a mystery, I get that. If that’s what makes him happy. Me, on the other hand, I wish other beings were more direct with me.

    I need to contemplate on this. It’s Zizi we’re talking about, you know how much I love him and how happy I am to see him again…but the memories…the truth…it’s too much for me at the moment.

    Mariklare and Zizi.

    You and me.

    Star-crossed lovers.

    Let’s hope the rest of the day will make me feel better. The way Anjie is always making me smile…I have no reason to doubt it, right?

    Right?


    <<LOCAL TIME: 16:45>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:10>>


    I said I wanted to contemplate on my unexpected encounter with Zizi Pao. And I really did. But Borgiska invited me to come over at least. I tucked Anjie in and ended up in the apartment next door.

    I shouldn’t have gone, Ranni. Not today.

    Borgiska’s home reminds me of yours…you know, the one your clan never allowed me in, because I’m supposedly related to the other. Ugh...that one time I travelled from one city to the other solely to be denied even stepping my foot in your front yard. So, yes, Borgiska…she has a large library, an antique chrono and a miniature meditation cave.

    She was intrigued by the fact that I once studied arts. This is where I told her that I had dropped out of university after eight unsuccessful, unprogressive years of trying to finish my end project. But, in an attempt not to make myself look bad, I told her about everyone I knew there, about all Sacorrian artist that I thought were known off-world. She dismissed half of them as regime's puppets and untalented hacks. The moment I mentioned the three Lylek siblings, she slammed her fist against the table and called them traitors of art. She went on to say that Davoreen Lylek was talented, but that his family only lives on his legacy and political power nowadays. She was even shaking her fists, Ranni, can you imagine that?

    After she calmed down, Borgiska asked me if I knew "the controversial one"...the one "she always wanted to know more about". That one is her favourite Sacorrian artist, she said.

    Know whom she meant? Me!

    I then shared a pretty bizarre fake account of myself. I mean, the person you were with, not the walking-talking chaos of now. It's funny to speak of yourself in third person, make up the kind of a life you should have led, and claim all your pieces were abstract. I am...I am not sure how I managed to make so much up, in such a short amount of time. Borgiska was initially just staring at me. She was surprised.

    After good five minutes of silence, she slowly climbed on top of her hoverstep and rised to the topmost shelf of her library. She brought back a lavish book titled 'Sacorrian Art Now', published by some art enthusiasts from Aurea and financed by the Mardri Soulworks Collective. The author, a man named Coovo Ferry, thanks our Censorship, Education and Scholarship Agency for holos of artists and their most famous pieces.

    So, the book was financed by Aureans, but published on Vagran, hence being printed on recycled permaflimsi and labelled "good for the environment". It also bore a classic "decontaminated prior to departure" sticker. Those Grannos, ugh. It’s just a kriffin’ book!

    I flicked through the pages and found my name. The shock could not have been any bigger. Instead of a picture of me, there was a badly-flattened holo of your sister's husband! How...how do these things even happen? He is younger than you and me, Ranni, and he is most certainly not an artist! Not to mention that I never wore glasses. Among my alleged pieces were some that have nothing to do with me. Things I never even heard of, let alone created. The style has nothing to do with me. It reminds me of Saride. It’s a Selonian kind of a thing. The colours are not vibrant, there is no depth, all of which implies typical Selonian art. I tried to hint it to Borgiska, but she says that Selonians have a better eye than everybody else, due to living underground.

    I guess it was her turn to be shocked, so I told her how Selonian nudity I heard of on here scared me. I went on to describe what I thought was normal until a couple of weeks ago - the whole artificial insemination and ovary-growing business. She was baffled. The idea of Selonians not living underground and, as she said, specialising in more than one skill, made no sense to her. She told me about their hive mind and her biological interpretation of it had nothing to do with my spiritual. The Selonians she described sounded like the Doloria. That would mean all Selonians are terrorists. Impossible!

    I turned a page in the book again. There it was. The replacement for my most cherished piece of work. And it looked nothing like the real thing. Flat. Brightly coloured. No texture, whatsoever. If I really made this, then I must have been on a major binge and I don't even remember it. But there is no way I did.

    So, the one who wasn't me created something that wasn't mine. I am determined to find this Coovo Ferry. Maybe I should get that job and save up for a trip to Aurea, to confront him personally. Just...who does he think he is?

    The couple of steps from Borgiska’s door to ours took me ages, or so I thought. I could not fit in the keycard properly. I woke up Anjie when I tripped over his toy quetarra in the bedroom and I had to sing him the Brave Banthas theme to put him to sleep again.

    I could use a conversation with Gwyn now. But she won’t be back home until six in the morning. I am scared, Ranni. The world is not what I used to think it is.

    You would hate me for this, but I really, really need some.

    I’m not talking about the cuddles, Ranni.

    <<LOCAL TIME: 01:55>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>



    Footnotes
    Zizi Pao - Original character. Pho'Pheahian artist, later a tapcafe owner and a musician. This character was created by leiamoody for her excellent fic, The Song Hour. He also appeared in my fic, Emerald Wine. His backstory contains a relationship of an unspecified kind with Mariklare Trindello and uncommon-for-an-alien artist residency on Dorthus Tal City's Cobble Stone Square, under the patronage of Yvar Trindello. Zizi was deported from Sacorria once Yvar found out about his affair with Mariklare. Mariklare's lipstick makes appearance in the said story as well. Zizi's tendency not to believe in drunk ramblings in general dates back to Emerald Wine.

    Mariklare Trindello was too created by leiamoody, as the daughter of Yvar Trindello. The above mentioned story contains spoilers about her eventual fate.

    If you read the first entry of this diary closer, you will see that Lil spotted the shuttle Zizi was put on.

    Karlina Trindello - Original character. A bombshell blonde 1950s style actress, the wife of Yvar Trindello and Mariklare's mother.

    Yvar Trindello - Original character.Indeed the Human member of the Sacorrian Triad, otherwise a general in the Sacorrian Defense Fleet. Bald, with facial features that make him look like a lovechild of Adolf Hitler and an older Joseph Stalin. If you want to see him in action, the only example so far is in my fic, Nolevorution, Of Course!

    Aurea - Planet in the Corellian Sector, located "a mere half-hour jump from Corellia", one of the last planets in the sector to be inhabited.

    Mardri Soulworks Collective - An artist colony on Aurea, founded by Corellian dilettante artist Coovo Mardri, the first settlement on the planet he accidentally discovered. Essentially, a hippie commune.

    You can read more about Aurea in the 2014 sourcebook, Edge of the Empire: Suns of Fortune. All the above mentioned details are from that book, and for some reason, not all of them exist on Wook. I am yet to write any fanon on that particular planet.

    Granno - A derogatory term for a Vagranite. Essentially, a GFFA take on the Earth term "hipster". Used by people who are clearly clueless about those damn ne'er-do-well Aurean hippies and think Vagranites are extreme. :p

    All Vagran-related puns will make sense once it's time for me to post my fanon entry on Vagran. They are the equivalent of common hipster jokes, morr or less. Vagran has already been explored in my fic The Black Star and there will be more or it, throughout my work.

    Permaflimsi - Recyclable modification of flimsi that does not dissolve in water. Used for books on the environmentally-aware world of Vagran. (Fanon)

    Hoverstep - A repulsorlift-powered library ladder type of a thing. (Fanon)

    Everything else you need to know about Sacorria in order to understand the references in this story better is in this fanon entry.
     
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  18. leiamoody

    leiamoody Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2005
    I REALLY owe you a review on all of these entries, and I'm so behind it's ridiculous. But I do love the direction you're going with this diary, and I have all the entries saved on my computer and will make more detailed reviews sooner instead of later. Plus, I just wanted to thank you for giving Zizi so much life. Even though I created the guy, you're making him so much more three-dimensional than I could have. It's freaking awesome! :D
     
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  19. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    Hooray, it's Zizi—and Mariklare, too (at least mentions of her)! A leiamoody double whammy right smack inside an Ewok Poet tour-de-force—and all those wonderful little Easter-egg references to two gorgeous stories, one by each of you (Zizi's stoicism, his tendency to take things with a grain of salt, the lipstick that used to belong to MK...). Always, always fun to see that wonderful fellow and learn more about him, and it's cool how you've expanded on his story. I'm glad to see he's doing well for himself with this new art school position, and fingers are crossed that he'll be able to put in a good word for Lil.

    The way Lil draws parallels between his love for Ranni and Zizi's love for Mariklare is touching in a somewhat tragic sort of way, especially knowing what's revealed about the latter relationship in "The Song Hour." And indeed glimmers of that come through here, in the gift of the lipstick and in Lil's self-blame for at least one aspect of Zizi and Mariklare's separation. The poor fellow, I just want to give him a hug and earnestly coax him not to blame himself so much! But I can totally see where this meeting and conversation with Zizi sparked many, many bittersweet memories and is leaving our hero with much to contemplate on. And if my guesses about Ranni are right, Lil's relationship with Ranni may have even more parallels with ZIzi and Mariklare's than is being let on here—as well as similar dangers and pitfalls. [face_thinking]

    And then dear little Anjie interposes his own third parallel, about his mysterious future Sacorrian comradette who doesn't wear lipstick and isn't blond! Parallel? Or complete opposite? Time shall tell, I'm sure. In any case, it is definitely rather awesome how Anjie's scribble of the heart with a question mark inside serves as an emblem of all three relationships, in a way. :cool:

    This Borgiska sounds... well, interesting. It seems significant that her home reminds him of Ranni's, since it hints that she too might have some high status. It's somehow both encouraging and worrying that she's an art lover on top of things, especially with the apparenty totally erroeous impression she has of who Lil is—and the revelation of the art book with its wrong photo, wrong artworks, and wrong information is of course the centerpiece. It seems like no accident that "his" picture shows someone with connections to Ranni, and now I'm curious about her sister (and bespectacled brother-in-law... OK, now I'm going to look out for bespectacled male Drall in your stories). Neat too how he drops hints about his own artistic priorities: the view of Selonian art as somehow being decadent and lacking depth is an interesting one (and if Lil thought about that for a moment he might be able to connect it to some of what he's heard about the Selonian hive mind).

    I have a guess or two about Coovo Ferry based on your other Sacorrian longfic, and it would be certainly awesome if Lil got to confront him and show him exactly what's what. Though in a way I would be worried for Lil, too; Coovo apparently has the official Sacorrian authorities on his side (CESA, anyone?), and many things in this story have made it clear that Lil does not. Again, I don't blame him for his feelings of fear of what the world has become... but for now, at least, he has dear Anjie to bring some sunshine to his days. (Toy quetarra... definitely significant! :p )
     
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  20. CheckSix

    CheckSix Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 15, 2015
    Unfortunately, I haven't had time yet to read the backstory, so I am still kind of "reading by the seat of my pants", so to speak.

    There is definitely a certain element of sarcastic flippancy in Lil's tone. I keep getting this funny vibe of a cross between Flynn from Disney's Rapunzel story and Madmartigan from Willow. I'm not sure if that's the attitude you're going for, but that's what I'm getting!

    The humor is also quite well done. "That's how I went from being stuck with an adolescent and a baby to being stuck with . . . an adolescent and a baby."

    And although I've commented on it before, let me reiterate how well you've used stream of consciousness. Sometimes, a "diary" entry can sound more like a third person narrative, but this one definitely avoids that trap. Even a simple line like the one about the lousy bread and what happens to the dust corn "once it leaves our planet" adds a lot to the intimacy of the recollections. It's a commentary within the mere reporting of events, and it brings flavor to the development of the character.

    Yes, Blobbo the Hutt made me laugh. I could not be sure whether that was the real name or more of Lil's sardonic wit.

    Now, perhaps I've been reading too fast or not quite comprehending . . . but have you revealed yet why he left Ranni?
     
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  21. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thanks, everybody. :)




    Don't worry. I know that whatever comes will be marvelous. :)

    If an e-book would help you at any given point, tell me. I intend to make one at some point, either way.

    To me, he was three-dimensional in his first appearance already! The only thing I didn't manage to get right yet is how polite he is. :( I guess it's because Lil rarely ever repeats things word-for-word.

    There is no backstory, everything else is further in the timeline. If it's confusing, I can explain.

    I did not see Disney's Rapunzel, but a Madmartigan comparison is definitely a compliment. I laughed at him so, so, so much the first time I saw Willow.

    ;)

    That is the trap I've been trying my best to avoid, so thank you! I may be making this too colloquial, but that's yet another thing that adds to the stream-of-consciousness narrative. I just sit and type, type, type...until it stops making sense. I allow myself only minor edits.

    Sadly, it's his real first name. It gets worse. His full name is Blobbo Fasolia Toupé (he's from the same Kajidic as the protagonist of Detective Eliskandro Stories and eccentric in a whole different way) and he's a minor villain in The Black Star. In this story, he's not a complete hipster yet, but come two decades later...MAY THE LORD HELP US ALL. [face_laugh]


    No siree! ;)

    To be fair, The Song Hour is MUCH better than Emerald Wine, given that it's more mature, deeper and does not feature an angry kid ranting in her diary. :D

    But yup, the world needs more Zizi Pao! If nothing else, there should be as many stories featuring him as there are fingers on his hands. Twenty!

    Having that lipstick at his disposal pretty much freaked poor Lil out. While Zizi obviously has some demons of his own and, consciously or unconsciously, wants the source away from him, his stoicism prevents him from being stupid in general. Lil, however...goes from one trigger to another.

    Comparison are inevitable - two relationships ended on the same day and neither Lil nor Zizi had a chance to say goodbye to Ranni and Mariklare.


    There are multiple fates in multiple universes. Maybe she would be open to wearing lipstick every now and then in some other universe? :p

    And yes. Anjie may not be able to see things the way adults would for years to come, but his strange answer to two relationships that ended with a question mark is being in love with a question mark, with something he made up.


    Borgiska is most likely just a very, very posh Drall widow on Corellia and she loves art. It's a Drall kind of a thing to love all things pretty.

    The rest is correct.

    If Eeris from the Sacorrian Triad (whom we know from Nolevorution, Of Course!) is anything to judge by, Sacorrian Selonians are highly evolved in terms of their social interaction compared to what they would have been on their homeworld; but that does not mean they're like Drall or Humans of planets such as Naboo or Alderaan. They're these "sex, drugs and cocoa puffs" types...minus the drugs, most of the time.


    Coovo Ferry may or may not be aware that what CESA supplied is forged and, well, CESA'd!

    Significant, indeed. ;)
     
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  22. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 09

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 03:2O>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    SO, I WENT AND HAD SOME, MISTRESS KEEPER-OF-THE-PERKY-TWINS! I TOTALLY DON’T MEAN YOUR SIS’ KIDLETS RIGHT NOW. EHEHEEHEHEHEHE!

    It was good, good, good! It was not much, but I had some and I’m sitting here in the 'fresher, trying to remember what I would normally do in order to get it out of my system. I WANT TO GO HOME. I want to be with you, Ranni, even though it would almost certainly result in death. Sure, I would get to see you once again before they disposed of me? Right? Right? RIGHT? CAN YOU MAKE LOVE TO MY CORPSE, TOO? Please, pretty please, with a candied zherry on top? HAHAHAHA!

    Do you remember that one time we got drunk on aged Seven Rivers whiskey? OKAY OKAY OKAY, you only had half of a glass and I had the rest of the bottle, but since I don't remember anything, then YOU MUST HAVE BEEN DEAD DRUNK, TOO!

    I feel like I am here, but I am there...I have got to be everywhere! Invincibility has been revealed to me…by powers of whatever moon people on this UNPROGRESSIVE world worship most. ONE MOON OUT OF THREE THAT THEY CAN LOOK AT FOR AS KRIFFIN LONG AS THEY WOULD LIKE TO. I am looking at one of them RIGHT NOW. Wasting my time! Being UNPROGRESSIVE on PURPOSE! That's right, go UNPROGRESSIVENESS! I LOVE CORELLIA. I can do whatever the kriff I want! I can take the turbolift down, just like I take the turbolift up! Had I been studying here, I wouldn’t have had to spend all my life with an ugly bow-tie. Nobody would have cared if I was meant to contribute something to the so-called SOVEREIGNTY AND TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY. Nobody would have given a Force-damned-kriff about that, my pretty!

    Gwynda will be back home from the night shift at any given moment! What am I going to tell her? Why does her refresher smell nasty and IT’S NOT LIKE THE LITTLE KORRAK HAD A POODOO? What? Just WHAT? Korraks are scary in Human form, so maybe he is not one, after all. But the Korrak guild has discovered me and they want to rainbow my highness all over....they are coming! They are coming! They are coming! And they’re coming for me, so I would better hide under this huge towel and crawl to the only free corner of this small space. THEY ARE COMING COMING COMING.

    <<PRE-DEFINED STOPTRIGGER DETECTED: ALTERED STATE OF MIND :: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<NO RESPONSE. THE UNIT WILL BE TURNED OFF>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 03:43>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>

    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 16:40>>

    For somebody who had a deathstick and bought two more, I had more luck than I deserved today. And it’s thanks to the being I ranted about in yesterday’s log. I feel awful. Why do I always assume the worst and push people away?

    Zizi got here at the break of dawn, thirty minutes before Gwynda was supposed to arrive. He brought me something pretty nasty to drink. He said that my comm woke him up in the middle of the night and I don't remember comming him at all. How come that he knew the right antidote? I don’t get it. I really don’t. He then cleaned up the refresher and disposed of the two remaining deathsticks. He said that he could not stand to see me like this. Before he left, he threw me under the sonic and ran cold water for good thirty seconds. I screamed like crazy.

    Now, that was a wake-up call. Thank you, Zizi. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for putting up with me. It’s not your fault that Sacorrians are destroying your life and ruling it, but if I were you, I would be screaming and running for my life the next time somebody used the words such as “progress” around me. I would run away even if they said “prog” and it turned out they meant progesterone, prognosis or program. You’re one great, great man.

    Ugh, Ranni, sorry for talking to Zizi, who is obviously not here right now and doesn’t know about my diary yet. The perspectives kind of shifted and I blame it on my coming down from the deathstick. Whatever was the thing I had this morning, it no longer works and I feel like I’m hungry and full at the same time. Something is burning at the very bottom of my oesophagus, at the very top of my stomach. Pretty sure there is a lot of sugar in those deathsticks. Next time I want to get away from my misery, I will make sure I ask the slythmongers about something more Drall-pancreas-friendly. The whole world was made for Humans and their ability to consume sickening amounts of simple sugars. Either that or Zelosians invented deathsticks and combined whatever the active ingredient in them may be with their own poison of choice.

    I’m rambling, Ranni. I’m sorry. I still need to tell you what happened today. So, anyway…Zizi…he said that he was going to come back at ten hundred and that I would better be ready for my interview. Seeing four index fingers in that “don’t do anything stupid, be good” gesture, at the same time…looked incredibly threatening to me, even though I knew that Zizi was never, is not and will never be “out to get me”. Not to mention that it never slipped my mind that the interview would be today. He must have told me that before and…I don't know!

    Still on the edge of spewing my insides, I heard Gwynda arrive home. I remained alert, just pretending to sleep, until I was sure that she had tucked herself next to her little boy. Neither of them figured out what was going on, thankfully.

    At ten thirty, Zizi and I were at the Basic School #33, where he was hired as the lower grades’ art teacher. I tried to turn around and leave before the door slid, but he grabbed me with both pairs of arms. He knew I was a quitter. He remembered that from the exhibition at the ProSper factory. He also knew I would employ some pretty bizarre tactic in order to look smarter. Therefore, he didn’t laugh at the spectacles I put on. I was inspired by the not-me in Borgiska’s book, so if spectacles make somebody look smarter, so be it. I also got an unusually large waistbag, which eventually ends up on my back and jumps up and down when I walk. I think I look like a teacher now.

    We took a turbolift to the school’s third floor. I was concerned that it’s not progressive to have a turbolift in school, as the younglings need all the exercise they can get; but Zizi assured me that it was for staff only and that the younglings use the stairs. He cut my repulsortrain of thought before I even managed to ponder the idea of using the stairs to go up; and said that I am to meet the school’s ruling committee. I swallowed a lump and sat on my chair. Two Humans, a fellow Drall and a droid were examining me, or so it felt like. I have never had a job interview of this kind before, Ranni, and you know it. I felt like a Zeltron in a Jedi Temple!

    They asked me what my previous position was. I swallowed a lump again, grinned and looked to Zizi, who made a barely recognizable gesture with his bottom right hand. Trying my best not to stutter, I said that I was a lecturer’s aide on post-graduate studies.

    Three or the four council members thought I was a good fit for the position. The fourth, the droid, disagreed and went on to provide a full list on why a Sacorrian refugee would not make a good lecturer. However, the other three just shrugged it off. They want me to teach these children, they are all about employing non-Humans this year and Zizi later told me that it’s because of the “unexplainable growing tendencies against all non-Humans in the Core Worlds”. I am not sure if I understand where such tendencies would come from. If I understand this well, the Separatist leader is a cross of a frog and a Duros and he sure isn’t pretty! I don’t see teenage girls swooning over him or something.

    The other one, the one people say is a Sith Lord – whatever that means – Gwynda said he was handsome. Ugh, no way, he looks like Yvar Trindello’s father in law! Then again, Human women had a thing for that man too, before his dementia.

    Wait, what? How does this relate to anything?

    I am making no sense today. I am not even sure what I’m talking about, Ranni. Perhaps it’s the time I stopped reaching for the bottle or whatever-spice-container when I can’t take the world around me. I just want to sleep. Sometimes I feel like I haven't had a single night of sleep after I left home. It was only with you that I could feel safe. Two of my favourite things at night were my big girl and my tiny bed. You would squish me and I barely had space to move in the corner, but that faded in comparison with the sole fact that you were present.

    And not even that could end my spice binges for good. Even if your love was unconditional, which you so often claimed it was, it was not enough to save me.

    I'm a wermo, Ranni. I don’t deserve friends like Gwynda and Zizi. I don’t deserve keen listeners like Anjie. And I don’t deserve this luck, just like I did not deserve you. I guess my luck will start running out, as the time goes by.

    I don’t even dare rewind to what I logged last night. The only reason I am not disposing of is this dying light of hope that I might change. Maybe my experiences will change me. Maybe I am not the “romdram guy” as your sister used to say whenever she would attempt to convince you to give up on me…Sarcophagus knows she annoys me!

    <<***** HAS BEEN IDLE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES:: TURN THE UNIT OFF? Y/N>>
    <<THE UNIT WILL NOT BE TURNED OFF>>

    I’m sorry that I’m speaking badly of your sister, Ranni. Please, don’t be angry with me. I am so lonely here and after my recent realisations, the reality so different from ours having slapped me on my face and teaching me that my entire life was a lie, I would rather go back and live in that illusion than get even more disappointed…

    …but you know, and I know that it’s too late.

    Oh, and I forgot to tell you – I did get the job. But I am not starting until the next school year. I will have to spend some more months doing nothing.

    Kriff that.

    <<LOCAL TIME: 17:20>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>




    Footnotes
    Seven Rivers whiskey is a brand of Sacorrian whiskey supposedly from Saccorata, which is located on the confluence of six rivers into the seventh river. However, it’s actually made in the industrial city of Curheg. This liquor is the invention of leiamoody – all credits go to her.

    I am implying that Drall species may have a slight insulin resistance, at least in comparison with Humans. I have insulin resistance and George Lucas probably had it in his early years and it eventually progressed to diabetes. While neither he nor I were drug addicts, yeah, this is a tribute to creative people whose pancreas just won’t behave and the struggles we faced before we figured out what the heck is wrong with us.

    Zherry is the GFFA cherry.

    Slythmongers are GFFA’s drug dealers.

    Zelosians can get drunk on sugar.

    Basic school is an ad-hoc creation, equivalent to most Earth countries’ elementary school.

    The paragraph about unconditional love contains a vague reference to the song “Unconditional Love” by Against Me! from their 2014 critically acclaimed album Transgender Dysphoria Blues. The rest of the lyrics are pretty disturbing and if you want to read them, keep in mind that they’re referencing suicide. While I believe that Laura Jane Grace wrote the song about her former self, it was interesting to reference it for its chorus only.
     
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  23. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    Whoo gosh. I won't lie—Lil is downright scary when he's all drugged up. Not just because of all the caps and yelling and maniacal laughter and such—because of all the out-of-character it makes him, with his "kriffs" and "damns" and talk of making love to corpses and perky twins that aren't the niece and nephew and the cringe-inducing way he refers to young Anjie ("little korrak"? Him, of all kids?). That's a very different Lil than the sensitive, perceptive runaway that we otehrwise know—though I guess we saw a bit of that side coming through in the first entry.

    And yet, at the same time, we see some truly genuine feelings are coming through in a very unfiltered way: his very justified animus toward his homeworld and the culture it tried to drum into him. We see, too, hints of that "drunk with freedom" feeling that signals that, once again, he's not quite sure what to do with his newfound freedom. And there's an ominous aura around that, somehow... what if it leads him to do something he'll regret? [face_nail_biting] (Incidentally, there's a very funny and interesting P. G. Wodehouse story about a similar issue: a formerly very repressed person from the countryside who suddenly gets into contact with all the temptations of a big city, and... well, tibanna tank.)

    And then the recording unit offers its own commentary, so to speak, with the "altered state of mind" stop trigger... I know I've said it before, but you are just doing such cool things with the role of the recording unit in this story. Your techie side is getting a chance to shine here just as much as your writer side! :D

    Zizi... what a pal. What. A. Pal. That's a true friend right there, the way he helps poor Lil out of his, um, state and helps get the place presentable again. (The tonic Zizi gives him also reminds me of something in P. G. Wodehouse: Jeeves has a special hangover remedy he is often known to mix up for Bertie Wooster.) His sugar reaction is very interesting—well, unpleasant and disconcerting to him in-universe, but I mean interesting from a world-building point of view. I love cool details like that make it clear we're dealing with aliens who have actual alien biology. (The same goes for "seeing four index fingers in that 'don’t do anything stupid, be good' gesture, at the same time..." Love it—and as someone whose late grandmother made that same gesture all the time with just one human hand, I can imagine how disconcerting it would be from four bluish, furryish hands!)

    It's so encouraging to see Lil's job prospects looking up—but we can see even at this stage that that won't mean the end of troubles and uncertainty for him. The question about his previous position was a close call, and it's good he had Zizi on hand to prompt him (I'm guessing he helped him prepare beforehand). I wonder why the droid is being such a wet blanket about hiring Lil, and I hope that won't cause trouble for him later. [face_nail_biting]

    It's of course natural that even the favorable job interview experience isn't quite enough banish Lil's feelings of sorrow and hopelessness about his loss of "his big girl" ( :D ), his distance from her, and his disappointment that love did not save him from his troubles and his addiction as he thought it would. Especially heart-wrenching is his memory of her promises that her love was unconditional. :( Learning the very hard way, he is, poor fellow. :( I like how you've written his disillusionment here as (at least in a way) not totally hopeless: he's certainly disappointed as all get-out, but one can still see that he believes his love for Ranni was a good thing while he had it, and did him good even if it couldn't exactly save him in the way he hoped. (Perhaps he just had the wrong expectations for what it could do.)

    Just have to single out this priceless touch:

    Hah! Bet lost, Lil! :p

    It of course is a huge bummer that Lil has to wait so long before starting his new teaching job, having gainful employment may prove to be a therapeutic thing for him, and he probably knows it. I'll still say that I can't wait to learn how that goes for him, and it seems like a prime opportunity for him to come across yet more colorful characters from the Poetverse! :cool:
     
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  24. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    I was sort of scared of myself when I wrote it, so this is a compliment...even though it means I now managed to scare both of us. The corpses thing was supposed to be the highlight of the spiced-up-state, for all the wrong reasons. Lil's pent-up frustrations are not popping up - they bubble up and then spill over, at the moments such as this. And it makes him completely different from the nice being we otherwise know.

    He did refer to Anjie as a little korrak on at least two occasions in earlier entries, but it was an endearment. In this chapter, the way he says it, it's debatable and indeed cringe-inducing.

    The perky twins, in this context, yup...they're what they were not in the opening entry. :oops:



    I would definitely like to read that story. :) I have never read anything by P.G. Wodehouse.

    The rest, well...can't reveal more, just wait and see. [face_whistling]


    Tee-hee! [face_blush]


    Now I really, really, really have to read that.

    And Zizi probably dealt with it before - whether with Lil himself, his own ex, or...both. :(


    Was hoping you'd notice that thing with insulin. I am going by with the idea that Humans and other primates can take the amount of sugar that would be disturbingly high for most others and I'll see if I can come up with something more, on top of that.

    One of my grandmothers was doing that all the time, too. But with Lil, one has to do what they have to do - even when they're nice like Zizi! It means that, err, Lil screwed up four times as much as normal.


    No hidden reasons, there. I'm pretty sure that this droid is just...super-pedantic. ;) And you know and I know that sometimes, this can be a bit overwhelming!


    The last sentence, the one in parentheses, is the closest view of it, the rest will be clear once the time comes. Love can be a miracle, but it does not magically cure all the problems, especially when one has a lot of them.


    YES. That was a homage to me. :eek: I loved me so much that I had to give a nod to me. :p

    That's right around the corner, in fact. :D
     
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  25. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Entry 10

    <<<129 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE LAST LOGIN. REAUTHENTICATION REQUIRED. ENTER NAMECODE!!!>>>
    <<<NAMECODE: *****>>>
    <<<NAMECODE CORRECT. WELCOME, *****>>>
    <<<RECORDING STARTED>>
    <<LOCAL TIME: 23:25>>
    <<GALACTIC LOCATION: ORANGE SECTOR, CORONET CITY, CORELLIA>>

    Been a long time, Ranni. The winter was at its very end the last time I recorded something for you. And now, the summer is over and come tomorrow, I’ll be taking Anjie to school. Of course, it’s just Youngling Hall, they won’t be getting actual grades yet, only stickers of flowers and cute animals, but it’s going to change his life, forever. And Gwynda’s. And mine! Just when I got used to spending the time with him all day, every day, he’ll be gone for good six hours out of twenty-five.

    And I’m afraid of being alone. I spent the whole summer hanging around with Zizi, as well as my adopted family. We made a couple of trips to the countryside, too. Gwynda wanted to take Anjie to the Hapes Cluster to meet her side of the family, but she was not granted the privilege. Apparently, once left, one cannot go back there. That’s some clusterkriff, alright! Almost like my situation. Oh, wait – they probably wouldn’t kill her.

    I sort of adopted her approach to things, or at least I thought that’s what her approach was: I tried to live like my previous life never existed, but I knew I would eventually pick up this holorecorder again and start spewing out these letters never intended to be sent. Somebody told me that Jedi are the ones to look up to and that they never say things such as never, but I was not trained to accept exile, possible death and being away for my loved ones forever, nor am I dedicated to peace in the Galaxy.

    Therefore, since I cannot follow the self-sacrificing path of those holy monks, I attempted to convince myself that I really am the person I created, as opposed to the person I left behind, the person I grew up as. And initially, it went so well that I managed to spend the entire summer not thinking about anything other than what was going on at the moment.

    One thing that may have helped me get into such an uncommon frame of mind was that I was hired as lecturer, as a part of Coronet University’s summer programme. I didn’t quite expect this after I was told that I would have to wait until the next school year starts to more or less teach 4-7 year olds how to use basic painting and drawing tools without swallowing them; but two days after I got the job, the droid who was against me at my interview, came to our home and said that he thinks I am just what they needed. Luckily, that gave me plenty of time to seek Jax Pavan again and have a degree forged.

    And three months later, I was there, in an enclosure right in the middle of the Axial Park, with Anjie dipping his hands in paint buckets and finger-painting behind my back, and a bunch of young people who seemed to be fascinated by me. I told them that my name is Lidgrain and that they can call me Lil, but this Duros girl, with the amount of excitement I never expected from somebody wearing a permanent frown, raised her hand and asked me if the “grain” in Lidgrain has anything to do with dust corn. A Twi’lek man – by the way, those look nasty compared to their graceful women – interrupted her and asked if we all get named over agriculture-related terms. Another creature…being, whose species I cannot quite recall, but he was green, somewhat feline and tribal, asked me about common names in my world. I enthusiastically told her about all Progressias and Unitoos that I knew, about everybody naming their children after Roofus, Dorthus Tal and Taranya and this custom transcending our planet’s three species and I even remembered that story about the couple from Curheg who were allowed to name their son Saygo, because they conceived him during the lunch break at the ProSper factory.

    What I got for this was a couple of students nudging one another and a question about how in the universe were people allowed to make love on the factory grounds. A Human woman who said she was from Aurea thought that no explanation was needed because “everybody can do it, wherever they please”, but the Twi’lek from earlier told her to shut up. I didn’t like that!

    As expected, they all dismissed my story as a spacer tale and laughed. A lot. Then they laughed even more after a local girl - who looked a lot like one of those people at my job interview and was probably related to one of them - pointed out what Anjie was doing. The Twi’lek led the choir of mockery, once again. I didn’t know what to do! My authority was crumbling like the steady rocks of the Triad Mountain under the hard-working hands of Dorthus Tal prisoners, as directed by one Davoreen Lylek! And then, the green-whatever male and the Aurean woman joined Anjie and started dipping their hands in paint buckets. The latter winked at me behind everybody’s backs.

    “That’s right, you guessed it!” I said, clapping my hands. “Our first exercise is about unconventional approaches to art. Free your mind! Free your mind and the rest will follow.”

    The other students were taking turns at finger-painting on the available canvases, four of them working on each one. Anjie, the Aurean girl and the green being stuck to the first and what they came up with was my favourite painting – it looked like a house built on top of a tree, with a suspended bridge-like structure leading to nowhere. Anjie painted two yellow celestial bodies and one large pinkish-white one in the sky above this strange construction. I really liked it! Needless to say that the Twi’lek male drew a crude nude of one of his female colleagues.

    After the class, the green tribal student approached me and told me that she wanted to talk to me. And here was I, thinking she was a he. I tried to preserve the very last droplet of my authority and I asked her what she wanted to know, in the manner that would’ve definitely resulted in a hearing back at home. She just shrugged and started talking. Her first sentences surprised me – she said: “I feel almost as lost as you. Maybe even more!”

    I didn’t know what to say, but I was pretty sure that she was not mocking me, unlike the other students. They were probably making jokes about progress and unity on their way to their homes or dormitories. And she, she asked if she could have a lunch with me. So, I picked up my equipment and followed her and Anjie to the nearest slider joint. She said her name was Korgah and she ordered a slider with more meat than bread. While we waited for our meal, she was playing with her strange bracelet that seemed to be made of tiny animal skulls.

    And Anjie was playing with her tail.

    That’s one thing I did not mention – that she had a tail. She didn’t seem to be annoyed with what he was doing, she wasn’t even mentioning it, it’s like her tail had a mind of its own. The story she told me made me wonder if I was truly as unlucky as I thought I was. I knew my parents. I know where I was born. I know that I’m a Drall. And she, she doesn’t know any of this. Her background and even her species remain sketchy at best. She can’t remember her earliest years, her most distant memory is a bunch of lines in a black sky, which would imply that she could have, I don’t know, been born on a spaceship. Then there was a planet that sounds like Coruscant, from the little I know…or maybe Empress Teta. She was a street youngling and was eventually picked up by an orphanage and placed in a foster family. They named her after the only word she could say at the time of her arrival to the orphanage.

    Ever since then, her adoptive parents have been trying to find out just what she is and where she came from. There was a theory that she was intended to be a slave, but she does not remember being forced to do anything and there were no instances of stunning, being kept on a leash or any kind of abuse. The closest thing she has to her past, the theory that makes most sense to her is that she got into a spaceship that somehow found its way to…well, wherever. She’s seen many xenosociologists and xenobiologists, but they had no idea about her species. One of the reasons she chose to study on Corellia was the fact that there are so many spacers here and somebody, somehow, might recognise her. This is why she’s waiting tables at the Fel Swoop and living across the lane, in an apartment building where every other person is a scoundrel, slythmonger or a gang member. And no, her parents have no idea of this – they’ve relocated to Nubia some years ago, to work for Nubian Design Collective, and they’re sending her credits that would afford her a lush life. But she chooses to give most of those credits to find out more about her past.

    As expected, I told Korgah the same story I told Borgiska months ago. She patted me on the shoulder and told me never to forget where I came from – because I have the privilege of knowing it. She left me her comm code, too. Said that it would be great to hang out sometime. I’m not sure if she’s into older men. Then again, is she older? Most of these students are in their early twenties, but they have set birth dates. I don’t know. Now that the summer is over, I am not obliged to see her again, right?

    I will tell you about the other classes some other time. We had two per week and my time is limited. Not that it makes a difference…

    …so, yes, I may have pretended that you and I never existed for a period of time, but I’m still longing for you and recalling my initial feelings for you, the ones I didn’t know were a cocktail of confusion and lust, and thought were a steady pattern of fear and uttermost respect. Do all passionate secret relationships start that way, with the man referring to himself as “your progressive servant” and the woman thinking what the Corell is wrong with him?

    I can’t believe I said Corell and not Sacor! Am I starting to blend in? Immerse? Disappear? Call it what you want, but this concept is new to me!


    <<LOCAL TIME: 24:58>>
    <<RECORDING STOPPED>>>




    Footnotes

    Youngling Hall appears in the non-canon oldschool mobile game tinydeathstar. I went ahead and used this as the word for kindergarten.

    Axial park is a rather beautiful place, slightly reminiscent of Hyde Park and Central Park.

    Horrible names such as Progressia and Unitoo are essentially a parody of some Cold War era names in the Eastern Bloc as well some of the Tito era’s names in Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.

    Fel Swoop is a cantina in the Treasure Ship Row, an otherwise fancy shopping mall located in Coronet’s notoriously dangerous Blue Sector.

    Nubian Design Collective are the folks who colonised Nubia and who are in charge of all those beautiful ships, duh.

    Everything else you need to know about Sacorria in order to understand the references in this story better is in this fanon entry.
     
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