Saga I Ship It!|Mod Challenge| The Force meta, humor

Title: I Ship It!
Author: Raissa Baiard
Genre: Humor, crack!fic, meta
Characters: The Force, Ezra Bridger, Mara Jade Blayne (AU Mara), Sabine Wren
Timeframe: OT
Synopsis: The Force is bored, so for fun it multi-ships across the multiverse.
Notes: Written for the “Something Borrowed, Something New” Mod Challenge. The prompts I received were:

• Trope: The Matchmaker
• Words: Dust, Presumptuous, Simmer
• Dialogue: "You're way too tough and stringy."

Thanks to @Findswoman for beta reading
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The Force was bored.

It happened more than one might have thought, because it had an infinite attention span and an infinite amount of time to fill. And while it had an infinite number of ways to entertain itself, sometimes the sheer volume of possibilities made choosing just one quite a task. There was, fortunately, one option that never failed.

“I’m going to write a story.”

“Oh, really? What kind?” The Force talked to itself frequently. That had been one of the first things it had tried to combat boredom. While it sometimes talked to its creations, there was no one else it could really converse with on the same level. Talking to itself did get a bit tedious at times, though, because half the time it already knew what it was going to say.

“I think I’m in the mood for a romance.”

“Always a good choice! Who will our lead be?”

“Hmmm…let’s see…” The Force pulled out its index of OCs. It was quite the file, encompassing, as it did, every being that had ever and would ever live across the totality of all the universes— more characters than there were grains of sand on Tatooine ,which was essentially one large ball of sand. (The Force hadn’t been terribly inspired the day it created that one). There were more characters than there were motes of dust on the shelves of the Jedi Archives on Coruscant. More characters than the number of Iegan angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

It skimmed through the entries—beings that were young and old, short and tall, furry, scaly, leathery. Beings with pink, blue, purple, green and red skin. Terrestrial beings and aquatic ones. Sentient plants and crystalline creatures, Being of every size, shape and description, but it couldn’t find exactly what it was looking for. “No…no…no…you?” It paused briefly at the image of a sneering Dug, a species that the Force had created just to see what it would look like if there was a creature that walked on its hands and used its feet as arms. (They were prone to arthritis in their wrists and strained shoulders, but that wasn’t the Force’s problem.) “Mmm…no. You’re way too tough and stringy.”

“Stringy?! What difference does that make? You’re not planning on eating him, are you?”

“Well, it’s an aesthetic choice, isn’t it? Do you really see this fellow as a romantic lead?”

“How about this one, then? He's definitely not stringy.” The selected file belonged to an enormous greenish-brownish gastropod with a malevolent gleam in his eyes and a self-satisfied smile on his gaping mouth. “Stringy” was indeed not a word that could be applied to his massive, blubbery form.

“Er…” The Force considered this. It would certainly be a challenge to cast this particular Hutt as a romantic lead, but not one it felt up to pursuing at the moment. “Maybe some other time.”

It noticed a small “see also” note appended to the bottom of Jabba Desilijic Tiure’s file, which led to another character file, this one of a young Human man with blue-black hair and striking deep blue eyes, who apparently was in the habit of giving “Jabba the Hutt” as his alias.

“Now this is more like it! Ezra Bridger…” the Force murmured, scanning the young man’s biography. “Some real potential here. Now for the other half of our OTP?”

“What about her?” The Force indicated a girl with brightly colored hair and dressed in armor who was pictured next to Ezra in several images. “They seem to get on well, and he definitely seems to like her…”

“Too obvious. Anyway, not all friends have to wind up together. No…I think…yes, here we go!” It pulled up the file of a young woman with fiery red hair. She seemed to be scowling in many of the images; in some she was wielding a purple bladed lightsaber and a green bladed saber in others. “Mara Jade. I’ve always liked her.”

“What? She never even meets Ezra! And anyway, doesn’t she marry that Skywalker fellow?”

“In this particular universe and its offshoots, yes. But we’ve got plenty of other universes to play with. All it would take for them to meet one another is a few little tweaks.”

“But…you can’t change the continuity! We’ve put a lot of work into it! All those stories…all those characters!”

“Oh, relax. That isn’t even the prime continuity anymore. I’ve decided to call it ‘Legends’. Catchy, huh?”

“What?! When did you do that? Why did you do that?!”

“Because…reasons.” The Force waved away this ridiculous objection. (Metaphorically speaking; being incorporeal it couldn’t wave, as such.) It didn’t have to justify its decisions to anyone, not even itself. Especially not itself.

“Bit presumptuous of you to do that without consulting me.”

The Force ignored the indignant comment and continued to flip through the multitude of universes until it found what it was looking for: one of the universes in which Mara had never been discovered by Palpatine or his minions. (There were regular villains and then there was Palpatine. It had tried several times to write him out of the story, but somehow he kept popping up again) It pulled up the relevant file for the universe’s Mara, whose full name was Mara Jade Blayne. She had the same fiery hair and fiery spirit as her counterpart in the Legends continuity, but, having grown up with a home and loving family, she was considerably less bitter than that version. Her sense of humor ran to snark, and she was equally adept with the green-bladed lightsaber that her father, a survivor of the Jedi Purge, had taught her to use, and the blaster that her mother, an Imperial prefect-turned Jedi adept, had trained her with. The Force felt that this version of her would be an excellent match for young Ezra Bridger—and that her father would also get on well with Bridger’s father figure, Kanan Jarrus, since they had similar histories. It made a note to itself; there was potential for further stories there.

Now that it had chosen its romantic leads, the Force set about making the necessary changes in the timeline so that they could meet—and meet cute. As it had predicted, it really didn’t take much, just delaying a few key events a bit. Thus, the Spectre crew, of which Ezra was part, was available to take a mission to the obscure Outer Rim planet Merkesh, where Mara’s family lived. And when Ezra saw Mara in her family’s cantina, there were immediate sparks between the two. Before long, they were racing over the rooftops of Merkesh City together, escaping bounty hunters and Hutt thugs, and sharing an impetuous, adrenaline-fueled kiss.

“SQUEEEEEE!” the Force exclaimed. Now this was exactly the kind of story it had been hoping for! It hummed to itself in satisfaction.

Having stirred the pot, so to speak, the Force sat back and let things simmer. Mara and Ezra (or Marzra, as the Force liked to think of them) had more dates with more kisses, and declared their love for each other. Things were going swimmingly when Galactic events caught up with them. Mara joined the Rebellion proper…and then this universe’s Skywalker showed up and, perhaps due to some spillover from the Legends-verse, decided that Mara was his True Love™. The Force was compelled to intervene and nudge things back in the direction it wanted them to go. Fortunately, drastic action wasn’t required; it rather liked that Skywalker fellow and in some ways it felt guilty that Skywalker had gone through that whole embittered hermit phase in what was now the Prime Continuity.

Mara and Ezra’s relationship continued to unfold: engagement, marriage, children—first a son with blue-black hair and his mother’s mad lightsaber skills, then a red-haired daughter with her father’s ability to converse with animals. And a strange thing happened—the tiny tweaks that the Force had made to the timeline so that Mara and Ezra could meet sent the entire Galaxy in wildly different directions. Kanan Jarrus never stood atop a certain fuel tank, so he was alive and well for the Battle of Scarif and afterwards. He married Hera and was not only present for the birth of their son, Jacen, but they had a daughter and another son as well. The entire trajectory of the Jedi Order was changed by his presence and that of Mara’s parents (who, as the Force had predicted, quickly became friends with Kanan and Hera).

And Mara and Ezra’s story begat other stories as well: their children’s stories, and those of Kanan and Hera’s children, too. Stories about Sabine and a handsome young Mandalorian with a dry sense of humor and the family that they had together. Stories of a young, happy-go-lucky and slightly clumsy pilot from Hosnian Prime and his unlikely romance with Sabine’s younger daughter.

The Force smiled down on its work and knew that it was good. All was well with this universe, and there was undoubtedly a multitude of stories left to tell in it.

And yet…

A stray thought niggled at the back of the Force’s mind. “So…I wonder what would happen if Ezra had gotten together with Sabine after all?”

“What?!?!? But you said… Didn’t we just…?!?”

“I know, I know. But we’ve got all these other universes to play with! Surely in one of them Sabine and Ezra could be a couple. Ooh, we could call them Sabezra! Or EzBine! I ship it!”

The Force smacked its head (metaphorically speaking, of course, since it had neither a head to smack nor hands to smack with). There was nothing it could do when it got this way; it was truly incorrigible.

+++++++

Author’s Notes: A long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away… Ok, actually in the late 1990s here on this very fanfic board, I wrote a story called “Everyone Comes to Doran’s Place” (a.k.a. Casablanca in SPAAAACE) as a “how they met'' for the OCs I created to be Mara Jade’s parents, with fugitive ex-Jedi Domnic Jade/ Doran Blayne in the role of Rick Blaine and Force-sensitive Imperial Prefect Raissa Baiard as Prefect Renault, more or less. I meant to do a sequel that was all very tragic and (then) canon-compliant, but life happened and my writing fell by the wayside for a long time. I picked it back up when Lucasfilm announced that they were going to be making the sequel…except now Canon was Legends. And I said to myself “well, if it’s all just Legends anyway, then Mara gets to stay with her family and have a normal life. ”

And then I read “A New Dawn'', and the bitter, boozy pre-Rebels Kanan who was redeemed by a good woman had a lot in common with my bitter, boozy Doran who was redeemed by a good woman. I thought it would be fun to have the two of them meet. It struck me that Ezra was only a few years older than Mara, and they would probably hit it off as well—and then I thought “What if she met Ezra before she met Luke?” From that wild hare was born “Star Crossed” and with it the Marzra-verse, my generation spanning, canon-denying, happy endings for everyone universe that has taken on a life of its own.

So, yes, in this story I am the Force, and the Force is me Hey, if you can’t be shamelessly immodest and cast yourself as the supreme power of the universe in your fanfic, then why bother, right?

In case anyone is interested, the stories in the Marzra-verse (thus far) are:
Mara & Ezra
Ever After
Love and Other Stupid Poodoo
Not Your Mother's Life Day
Teenage Rebellion
When the Time Is Right
Nothing’s More Important
I Don’t Know How She Does It

Sabine Wren & Maximus Ordo
Strategic Alliances

Kanan & Hera
And They Lived Happily Ever After
Do Not Disturb

Ronen Syndulla-Jarrus & Noemi Bridger
Lost and Found
Freaking Out: From The Journal Of Ronen Syndulla-Jarrus
A Freak Like Me
(Not) The Ballad of Ronen Syndulla-Jarrus
The Journal of Ronen Syndulla-Jarrus, Jedi Action Hero (or Something)
Happiness Is a Warm Loth-Wolf

Wren Ordo & Kazuda Xiono
Your Best Shot
Meet the Aliit
The Word for Kiss Is “Mureyca”
Anything but Boring
“Come Get Me, Ugly!”
I’m a Believer
Conversational Mando'a for Beginners
A Different Side of You
Comfort Food

 

The Force is all powerfull
we writers can change canon and have fun with all the characters old and new

 

Great job on a very fun story! I love how the Force argues and banters with itself. And now I'm really curious what a Dug romance story would look like... Do they hold feet by the candlelight? What do Dugs consider romantic?

Anyway, I really enjoyed all the jokes and meta comments sprinkled through this story, like how Palpatine kept popping up in so many universes and how there was a lack of inspiration when Tatooine was created.

I also liked how changing some details to create the Ezra/Mara story allowed other characters' stories to change and ripple goodness through the lives of themselves and other people around them.

Great work!

 

I love crackfic so much

 

I love a good crack!fic almost as much as I love crack!ships-- this was a fun read!

 

"I knew it him, Horatio ..."

The Force confronting/debating/snarking with itself in this tale is just hilarious! Well done

 

A few weeks ago I was browsing the fanfic boards and I saw your title, and I thought hmmmm, there's something here... and now I read it and Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness!

I don't think I ever read a self-insert where the author was the Force, for starters, and I loved the "personality" you gave it, as well as the various theological considerations ("more characters than the number of Iegan angels that could dance on the head of a pin" ?!?!? ) and of course the Canon/Legends snark, including but not limited to Palpatine's return. I actually think that this is a pretty good introduction to your AU, and never has the word "universe" been more appropriate than to describe what you've been writing for the past several years.

Holy moly, imagine if the Book of Genesis didn't stop right there, in how much trouble we'd be!

This was fantastic fun, Raissa. I have this goofy smile plastered on my face now and I know that it will stay around for a few hours. Thank you!