FREEZE FRAMES - Vignettes of life in the Jedi Temple - UPDATED 11/19/03 Obi-centric, cradle to purge

Wow, Cyn! How do you do it!? How do you combine humor and warmth with gut-wrenching tragedy all in one post? Oh, well, I guess we'll all have to be content to sit back on the sidelines and simply wish for a fraction of the talent you have.

Brava!!

 

Cyn,

Naw, it would be boring. Stick with what works.

Hey Astro - what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be writing a new post, young lady?

 

ROFLMAO!!!!! Oh, my you had me in stitches with that last post, Cyn. What a wonderful piece! Great mixture of humor and grief. You are such a talented writer. Love this story. Obi is sooooo cute! I love all the different relationships that are forming in this fic. hee hee especially Dyprio's and Jinn's. Such wonderful friction between the two! [face_evil] hee hee I also liked how Obi and Ciara first reacted to seeing Dyprio. One question though, how come they didn't react the same way to Jinn if Jinn and Dyprio are the same hight? Can't wait for more Obi and more of Qui's past! Keep it coming.

 

Wow, that was incredible! The imagination you possess, it makes me positively green with envy! Again, you have this almost magical way of pulling me into the GFFA that is so wonderful, especially considering how much I want to escape the mundane and almost chaotic aspects of real life. A true mark of a gifted writer. Your portrail of the crechlings was quite endearing and hilarious and the relationship between Qui-Gon and Ramal was great. I could just see these two very tall Jedi, respecting but not quite liking the other. Excellent! And your description of the leffelogi...fantastic! I'm going to ask you the proverbial question asked of all writers who have ability to grip the imagination: Where do you get your ideas?

 

You know - maybe, just for kicks, one day - I'll write a short little piece in which our hero gets to ride off into the sunset - get the girl - and live happily ever after.

If I can figure out how to do it without making it deadly dull.

"Idyls of Obi"?

CYN >>

LOL!! I always like your Obi/Sabe tidbits, so that would be an interesting change of pace, eh?

Heheh.

-Tim

 

ObiLegolas - they were already familiar with Qui-Gon, since he is the one who originally brought Obi-Wan to the creche.
So he was old hat, so to speak. Glad you like the Dyprio-Jinn conflict; I expect it to be an ongoing feature in many of my works.

Arwyn - I could ask the same question of you, given your lovely storytelling gifts - and I daresay you couldn't answer it either. I don't KNOW where it comes from. I frequently sit down at the keyboard to write - without a single clue of where I'm going. It just . . .comes - out of the ether, maybe, or out of the mouths of invisible leprechauns whispering in my ear - or out of the dark places in my soul.

I've never known where it comes from - I just hope it never stops coming, because then I'm going to be completely lost.

Might have a post up tonight - but maybe not. I'm going shopping for a piece of art today - and I'm in that unenviable position of knowing exactly what I want - which means I'll almost certainly never find it, which means I'll have to either settle for something else - or paint it myself, neither of which is going to make me particularly happy.

Guess I should just fess up and admit that, at heart, I'm a grumpy soul.

Later.

CYN

 

*hands Cyn a life-size painting of Obi-Wan in leather pants*

There, that do it? LOL.

-Tim

 

Tim - hands Cyn a life-size painting of Obi-Wan in leather pants - AHEM - lifesize, huh?

I appreciate the intention - and the excellent taste - but if I had one of those - I'd probably never work up the gumption to leave my bedroom again.

Just imagine - it would be like something out of Stephen King. After a few years, the house would collapse around me and, decades later, some brave soul would come exploring and find me - probably still sitting at my keyboard - my face still locked in a ridiculous, fatuous, completely enchanted smile. The portrait, of course, would be like Dorian Gray (the man - not the painting) and not have aged a single day. Which is totally unfair since I'm already way too old for DDG Ewan.

But what a way to go, hmmmm?

CYN

 

LOve the visual! Oh by the way Cyn Ewan likes the older women!

 

TeeHee, OE - you just made my day.

HEY!!!!! - is it just me, or are there an awful lot of missing persons around here lately.

Listen! Is that an echo?

He-e-e-e-l-l-l-o-o-o-o! Is anybody out there?

I spy lots of lovely newbies (who are incredibly welcome) - but sometimes a person just longs for old familiar faces. Ya know?

CYN

 

I have an old face that may be familiar...LOL. Does that count?

As for more suggestions, how about
1) Obi-Wan's first encounter with Bruck Chun
2) Obi-Wan turns 12 and realizes that his time is running out to become a Knight (does he change anything to get more attention?)
3) Obi's first encounter with Qui-Gon's pathetic lifeforms
4) how Obi met Dex
5) Qui-Gon's first padawan tells Obi funny stories about Qui
6) Dooku resigns

Is that enough for now?

 

Not so old from my perspective - and that's all I'm going to say on that subject. Age, after all, is only a number - and I'm going to stop now before I start blathering all kinds of ridiculous platitudes.

Really, really interesting suggestions, dianethx - some of which had occurred to me - and some not. I might have to step on a few toes (Jude Watson's, for example - but would anybody really care if I not only stepped on hers - but stomped them into a bloody pulp with my pro soccer cleats?) - but I think I could manage to address several of those questions.

All I need - Alas - is that most elusive of treasures - TIME!

Soon, though, I hope - although posts will be fewer and further between for a while, as my #%*^&@*# job is about to get 'interesting' again - 'interesting' as in the old Chinese curse.

But thanks for the cues. Will do my best.

CYN

 

Can I make a suggestion?

Story ideas that I'd like to see Cyn tackle:

1) Obi meeting his parents sometime after he'd joined the Jedi.

2) The actual mission on which Qui found Obi and brought him to the creche.

3) Ciara's, Ramal's, Rain's, and Solatair's reactions/thoughts to the destruction of the Jedi or in other words if Qui died and Obi trained Ani and that whole chain of events.

But I'll be happy to read anything that has your version of Obi in it!

 

Hey, I just found this and wish that I had found it much sooner, I love everyone so far.

A few suggestions if you don't mind:

1. Ciara and Obi-wan's first encounter
2. Obi's first trip to the med center
3. Yoda baby-sitting the Nuclear Nine
4. sick obi

That's about the extent of what my mind can come up with tonight.

Thanks.

 

You guys have some really intriguing ideas, you know? Some of them are touched on, somewhat the next post - which MIGHT be up this PM. And some I had already visualized - to some degree. The problem is - too MANY lovely ideas - and not enough time. I mean - I could be writing until the NEXT film comes out - and still not cover everything.

But I HAD thought of a scenario featuring a confrontation with Obi's parents - more fun with Chun - visits to the healers - and sick Obi. Sort of touched on the original mission that brought him to the Temple in the original post, but might drop in there again, if the occasion arises.

Yoda and the Nuclear Nine, huh? Bears thinking about.

I don't want to abandon this series - but I'm also working on my next opus - and I don't do real well working on two different projects at once. One-track mind, I guess.

Anyway, I may have to alternate a bit - but it still looks as if this is going to be one really long thread - and, of course, when I write a novel, per se, I really write a novel; maybe trilogy would be a better word.

I need to find a new job - where I get paid to sit at my keyboard and write fics. Maybe I can volunteer for some kind of research project on the dangers of sitting at a computer all day long. Ya think?

More later.

CYN

 

(Hands Cyn a pair of steel toed boots with steel cleats for sake of stomping on EU authors' toes and/or kicking them in the shins, or in the case of male authors, other areas...)

-Tim

 

Tim - Merci, mon amis. I'll put Watson at the top of the list - but I can think of a few others that are entirely deserving of the same kind of loving attention.

Hey - you didn't review my poem. I'm trying to decide if my feelings are hurt - or if I'm just relieved, because I know how honest you are.

I know; I know. My insecurities are showing.

I can write prose til the cows come home - and ignore any flames I might get. But my timid little poetic heart is just one big bruise.

OK - not really. But sort of. I want to grown up to be Emily Dickinson. Is it my fault I'm stuck at Ogden Nash?

CYN

 

Hey - you didn't review my poem. I'm trying to decide if my feelings are hurt - or if I'm just relieved, because I know how honest you are. >>

Poem? Sorry, I've been mentally all over the place lately.

-Tim

 

Tim - don't worry about it. Probably down on page 5 or 6 by now.

Just one of those jot-it-down-while-it'sin-your-head things.

I'm really a frustrated poet, ya know?

Next post for this is coming along nicely. Probably in an hour or so.

CYN

 

Waiting patiently.

 

* * * * * *



You will undoubtedly have noted by this time that there is a point in most of these stories which forms a central motif ? namely, that where there is light, there must also, of necessity, be shadow. One cannot, after all, recognize the one without knowing the other.

However, is the reverse not also true? Wherever there is darkness, must it not also be in contrast to light?

Maybe it?s time to take a peek at the other side of the coin.

And work in a few multi-layered, oft-requested characters at the same time.

For the record ? same disclaimer, same groveling to beg forgiveness for trespass into someone else?s intellectual territory ? yada, yada.

This one's rather long - sorry about that!


* * * * * * * * * *


Sub-Title: Comes the Dark


They never met face to face. Everything was arranged between the two factions, by holo-com. All agreed, without the necessity for putting the accord into words, that it was better this way, even though they all knew that their precautions would have been completely futile had any one of them decided to access the unique powers that made them what they were ? and motivated what they wished to do.

At least, that was true of the two who stood together in a specially shielded chamber, deep beneath the more populous levels of Coruscant, confident that their features would be almost totally obscured by a disorienting swirl of shadows generated by the randomized protocols programmed into the security system. Beneath voluminous dark capes, topped with deep hoods, their faces were no more than pale blurs pierced by hard, glittering eyes.

Their motivation for involving themselves in this negotiation was the same one which drove them in every aspect of their lives ? the hunger for power, a hunger so intense that it had long ago destroyed any vestige of other emotions that might once have existed within them.

Even hatred ? which had been necessary for them in the beginning, necessary to feed the hunger and magnify the power ? was now no more than a memory. They had transcended all such petty human weaknesses. They no longer felt the hunger; they had become the hunger ? and within them there was only the bitter frigid emptiness of those who had left their humanity somewhere behind them; that ? and the one emotion they DID still retain, an all-consuming desire to destroy, to obliterate the only obstacle to assuaging their hunger.

The Jedi.

The figure that formed on the projection plate above the holocom station was also wrapped in shadow, his body draped in black and his face partially obscured by a wealth of ebony hair that fell half-way down his chest in heavy waves. Though there was insufficient definition of the image ? undoubtedly due to security protocols within HIS com-system ? for positive identification, there WAS something in his posture and in the ease of his movements that suggested that this was a much younger man than the two he regarded through thick, inky lashes.

There was a beat of silence, before the solitary figure spoke ? and there was nothing in the way of introduction. It seemed he was simply continuing a conversation that had been cut-off prematurely.

?You haven?t yet told me why,? he observed, in a voice rich with culture and hinting of station and wealth.

?Why does that concern you?? came the reply ? and the young man smiled slightly to note that it was impossible to determine which of the two had spoken. His interest ? already moderately engaged ? piqued sharply. One did not target Jedi lightly, he thought, and neither of the two shadowy figures seemed to suffer from timidity ? so why an obsession with anonymity so extreme that it necessitated the use of voders to replicate speech. If an audio-mask ? a device that was remarkable for both its reliability and its effectiveness ? was not enough to satisfy their need for certainty, then there was more here than he had previously assumed. He could, of course, just reach out through the Force ? but he knew, on so

 

Up - once only. And then I'm out.

Boy, it gets faster and faster around here.

 

Wow! You never fail to deliver, Cyn! I love how you take characters that are generally just considered "evil", and let us see that there's complexity, and doubt, and even compassion within them. Xanatos has to be a difficult character to write, and you've really made him out quite nicely. We see that he really has chosen the dark path, but in the end he does have a concience.

Brava, Cyn, brava!!

 

I don't get it, Cyn. ?

What's with Xan? Why did he rescue Obi-Wan?

 

Jo - because he was overwhelmed by a memory - and because he is still in the process of becoming. What he will become is open to question - if you reject Jude Watson and her scurrilous prose.

We'll see - maybe.

CYN