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looseleafteeaves · 20 days ago

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Hey- Everyone should read this!

The Story of Bakkru and Misu

or, The Boy Who Lived, and Died, and Lived Again

In the slave quarters beneath one of Nal Hutta's largest auction houses, a grandmother is coming to the end of her life; her family - those that can be there - come to her side. There, they hear the story of Bakkru and Misu, an Ekkreth tale about dancing and fire, and freedom and death, and the bond between a grandmother and the child she helped raise.

I tell you this story to save your life.

If you're interested in any commentary on the choices I make in this story with the Amavikka or Amatakka, as well as some general thoughts on the Amavikka of Nal Hutta, check under the readmore :)

First of all, thank you for coming down here to check out my inane ramblings about the Amavikka people in the wider galaxy (in this case, Nal Hutta) for more words than in the actual fic - I will almost definitely end up writing stuff for other planets/groups, just you wait.

Second of all, huge thanks to @adragonsfriend and @looseleafteeaves who've both made dictionaries and guides that I used extensively through writing this, I would probably have given up if they hadn't been available so…thanks for sharing those to the general public, and for creating them in the first place!

The whole language and culture was originally created by @/fialleril but if you have any interest in Amatakka and the Amavikka beyond that, their dictionaries and guides are a really good place to go to (and that is where I get most of the words that I use from).

And last of all, here's the fic commentary!

Names

There are several new names and characters in this - I'll start with the characters I made for the framing part, and then I'll do the names for the actual tale.

A general note on Amavikka names: first names tend (not always) to be just a word from Amatakka, although there is some variance - this isn't always the case, but I've decided it tends to be even more common within the Nal Hutta community and so all of the characters have first names in this pattern.

Similarly, last names tend to be two words put together. Again, there are exceptions (especially if the Amavikka in question was not born into the community and has a name they wish to hold onto from before they were enslaved) but I've opted against using any in this fic for reasons known as, I think it's way too fun to make up names in this style haha

OK, so onto the actual names:

Qelin Omerukka

the name Qelin is literally the verb 'to talk, to tell a story', and it's perhaps a little on the nose but then again, so are several names throughout the Star Wars lore

Omerukka means 'Lightspinner' and is the name her mother and father made for themselves when they were married

(I have a small headcanon that one thing that a couple can do when they get married is to mix their names together, so there is always something that connects them - this is most common on worlds where slaves get sold off planet a lot, like on Nal Hutta, and less common on world like Tatooine where the slave trade tends to be far more local. As always, there are exceptions to the rules)

Sudu, Orrin, Lutlu and Rethka, the children of Qelin

Sudu is a word that means 'whirling, spinning, swirling' - Nal Hutta Amavikka are likely to see this name and think of the swirling eddies that you sometimes get in water due to the unstable catacombs beneath much of the planets surface, that can be incredibly dangerous is you are in the water and too close to them

Orrin is a word that means 'bird of prey' - this is a loan word from Ryl but is often used on Nal Hutta to mean a very specific, slightly carnivorous and rather large bird of prey that targets Hutts

Lutlu is a word that means 'surprise' or literally 'chaos now!' - there is no particular connotations for this word on Nal Hutta

Rethka is a word that means 'strider, walker' - again, this is a name that would likely be quite common throughout Amavikka communities, as the idea of walking a long distance into the wilds to free yourself are very common (be it the desert or the swamp or the frozen tundra or up out of the mine tunnels), but not so common on water worlds

Shursu La-Nalikeh

Shursu, like the other names, is a word that means 'root, foundation, base', and on Nal Hutta, would probably make Amavikka think of the strong foundations of the huge swamp trees that survive

Lah-Nalikeh is a surname that means 'Wet-Life' - it's a very traditional Nal Hutta name, which has connotations of escaping and living a 'wet life' away from the homesteads within the wet swamps

Leshna Rapshmi

Leshna is a word that means 'lightning' and is an idea that is somewhat connected to the Lukka that Amavikka raised on Nal Hutta would know - where on Tatooine, Lukka is the seven winds come together, on Nal Hutta he is the storm (the thunder, the rain and the lightning) and the flood come together

Rapshmi is a surname that means 'Wiseword' which is not a surname that's particularly linked to any dialect of Amavikka

I imagine that Leshna's family was probably slaves of some sort of spacer faction and so never had a firm community to fall back on, but only what they learned from the few people they came in contact with (and I have...an idea for a tale about this, which I might just use Leshna and the Rapshmi's to tell)

She and Orrin have only been married a short while, and have yet to decide whether to merge their names or not; if they did, it would likely be Omeshmi, or 'Light of Wisdom'

Peha Rillochelii

Peha is a word that means 'to rise, to get up' which I think has connotation of freedom in it

Rillochelii on the other hand is a desert name from Tatooine, which means something like 'Dunerunner' which definitely has connotations of freedom as chelii literally means 'runaway, or escapee'

Peha was unlucky to be sold off planet and away from her family as quite a young age, but she had been old enough to remember her name which is deeply important to the Amavikka, so while she is being fostered by the grandmothers of this new quarter, she keeps that name

And that is all the names in the framing section! I know most of them barely speak, but I did want to use them to highlight some of the differences between various Amavikka dialects.

So, onto the actual myth names:

Bakkru:

Bakkru is a type of dance that fialleril commented as being a dance that was often used to convey hidden messages; on Nal Hutta, it is told to be the name of the boy who created it, but in most other Amavikka cultures this tale has been lost, or is simply not told that much

This might be because Nal Hutta is one of the worlds where slave dancers are very, very prominent and in large enough numbers that having a dance to convey secrets makes sense due to the fact that Nal Hutta is considered the luxurious homeworld of the HUtts (another world I can think of might be Zygerria, if any Amavikka ever ended up there)

Bakkru is also known as just Ru, and that is how he is referred to in any myth that he appears in (usually as a silent agent of Ekkreth, and usually to help dancers to escape their masters) beyond his origin myth

On a small tangent about the name Ru - I quite like the idea that any dancer who has learned how to dance the Bakkru and uses it, may add the prefix Ru- to their name to signal this to other people in introductions

(For example, if Peha ever were to become a dancer and she also learned Bakkru, she might introduce herself as Ru-Peha; it is less an honorific, and more a way to tell someone that they should be watching her dance very closely)

Misu

Misu literally means 'the act of sharing of memories after a loved one's death' and she is named for how she speaks often of Bakkru's memory after his death so that she might teach the rest of the people the dance that had saved their lives

Misu as a character within Amavikka mythology definitely turns up in some form in most dialects as her name is synonymous with one very important aspect of Amavikka mourning (sharing memories, one of the only things that they will have of their lost love one)

On Nal Hutta, she is used in Bakkru's story and is rather minor to the story, but on Corellia, she is the one who holds all the records of the debtors and so knows all who are enslaved that way, and speaks of their memory to anyone who comes to her, and is a major part of a lot of tales

Also her name being similar to Mittu, as in the Ebra and Mittu story on Tatooine is not a complete accident; there are a lot of parallels in the relationship between grandmother of the community and a young child, and on Nal Hutta, the story of where Tzai comes from is very different (as they do not have the Tzai plant - I still have to work out how Tzai works on Amavikka planets that aren't Tatooine, and specifically how the lore around them works)

Jula

Jula, as sort of implied/explained in the fic, means 'flame, ember' and is an epithet for Ekkreth which is particularly popular on Nal Hutta

It's not common for Ekkreth to be portrayed as anything but a living thing, but on Nal Hutta, fire is considered to be somewhat sentient and thus, Ekkreth can take it's shape

Fire in general is closely linked with the idea of freedom on Nal Hutta - just as daylight/the sun is freedom for the Amavikka confined to mines, and rain is freedom for the Amavikka of the desert, so is fire linked to freedom on Nal Hutta

Fire is quite uncommon on the planet and where it does burn, it is often put out quickly by rain or just not enough dry kindling for it to burn as everything is wet but the expensive sort of houses that Depur own that are dry - another reason why fire is considered freeing is that it will tear through those houses greedily while leaving the much damper, wetter slave quarters alone

I will say that the Ekkreth parts of this fic feel like the weakest section - I feel like Ekkreth should be more tricky than they are in this, and I'm not entirely happy with them turning into fire itself - perhaps a creature who could sit in the flames for the first conversation with Bakkru, where Bakkru thinks that he is speaking with the flames themselves, and then perhaps a creature who breathed fire for the later meeting, but I wasn't sure what creatures would fit

(All of these names come from

Some General Nal Hutta-Amavikka Worldbuilding

So there are a few things that I mention throughout the fic that I feel are worth talking about

Evokka

So Evokka - the Amavikka name for the planet - comes from the original name for Nal Hutta (in Legends), that being Evocar, which was the home of the native Evocii who got enslaved by the Hutts when they decided that Evocar would be a good new homeworld for them

I thought it would be neat if Nal Hutta was thus referred to as Evokka, a name that is a slight shift in pronunciation from the original to fit Amatakka better but which still holds the spirit of the original name in tact

Abbu-Dabbu (and Ru)

Abbu-Dabbu and Ru are both characters of myth that are mentioned in the third installation of Blue_Sunshine's Desert Sun Series, Fallout and I don't believe they are mentioned again

I used both as part inspiration for this fic, using Ru as the main character (although changing his name slightly) but using his name of the Boy Who Lived, and Died, and Lived Again as the title for this fic

Ru is probably more akin to a prophet (like Maru and Tena) than to the more godlike figures of Ar-Amu and Ekkreth, and Lukka and Leia, (and Vokkri, who I will come to later) but I did list Abbu-Dabbu with the divine figures, so I'm thinking that she probably is divine

Abbu-Dabbu is also mentioned in this fic - I'm not quite sure what to do with her within a tale centred on her yet, but I am comfortable using her as a character who is prone to turning up in stories if there is need of the character being Safe For A While

I don't think that she actually needed to be in this fic beyond her first, brief mention but she ended up there anyway, so

Anyway, she is apparently quite linked to salt which I find interesting; in my mind, this has something to do with the swamps of Nal Hutta mostly being salt water and when it is dried (such as with fire) it creates salt

So this makes me think that as a witch, Abbu-Dabbu has some level of control over fire which allows her to dry the surrounding area enough that she can create a house of salt that doesn't get dissolved in the water

(This idea of salt being left behind is slightly mentioned in the fic when Bakkru is crying and Ekkreth-as-Jula dries his tears until all that is left is salt on his skin)

A Translation of Abbu-Dabbu's name, and the Nal Hutta dialect

With this in mind, I am going to attempt to come up with a translation of her name:

So, the important things in her story are salt, fire, being a witch/magic, home, being a beacon for the lost

But if her name is made of two of these ideas smooshed together, they would probably be related due to how similar Abbu and Dabbu are, and so I would be tempted to say Salt and Fire

With the current breadth of the Amatakka language, we have some words for these ideas already

Salt: tabtu (for preserving meat and fish), tavetabtu (red salt), amnabtu (black salt)

Fire: jula (flame, ember), itza (cooking fire, hearth), and anu (which means rain on Tatooine, and daylight in the mines, and fire on Nal Hutta)

So, here is where some dialect things come into play - I am honestly quite scared to consider dialects as I am not at all a professional conlanger but someone who is just fascinated with cultures and languages and all the moving parts of them, but here goes

So I propose that Tabtu -> Dabbu

The first T changes to a D, probably through a general phonological drift in the dialect, and the second is dropped altogether - I might play around with the idea of T's getting dropped or changed in the Nal Hutta dialect, although I'm not sure yet why this might be the case

Either way, this makes the part of the name Dabbu mean salt which then means we have to think about the Abbu part

Words for Heat on Tatooine and Nal Hutta

Now, both words for fire or flame don't fit at all, so I shifted my thoughts more towards heat

Using what we have, I would probably use jula if I was going to have a heat that was aggressive or angry, and so words for heat on Tatooine probably derive from this or maybe the word for white which is linked to the hotter of the two suns

So I'm thinking something like Terajula which means flame of the desert, and might mean heat - this would probably be tempered with a time of day to let the other person know how intense the heat was, as evening heat is different to midday heat, etc.

Itza has more of an implication of being a homely sort of fire, and I don't think that on Tatooine there would be much use for a word to describe the physical warmth of a home (perhaps the metaphorical kind though)

Meanwhile, on Nal Hutta, you have several types of heat - dry heat, wet heat, flame heat and artificial heat

Wet heat usually goes hand-in-hand with humidity, often the sort of heat you get in the swamps, and would translate as something like Lahjula

Flame heat is the heat that comes from flames and is quite similar to dry heat in how it feel but is far more important due to it's relation to fire - Dagrilela is the word used to refer to this, from the word 'Tagr' with a softened 't' meaning 'white' (white flames = the hottest, and so white has similar connotations on Nal Hutta as it does on Tatooine) and 'lela', the word for 'shine', which is from the shimmering affect that happens with heat, (all with an added 'i' in between so the consonants don't get mushed)

As fire is linked so closely to freedom, I think flame heat might also have some connection to the word anu

Artificial heat is the heat that is usually found in places where Depur lives, where they can control the temperature as they please, and so is described as something like 'Fake heat'

All these words for heat are somewhat irrelevant (and definitely need some workshopping haha) to the one I actually want to focus on - dry heat

There might also be a fifth type of heat, a 'home heat' so to say, which is some sort of mix between Fire Heat and the idea of home...but this whole heat discussion is really getting out of hand for someone who knows next to nothing about conlanging

Back to Abbu-Dabbu

Dry heat is what Abbu-Dabbu would need to keep a house of salt alive within the swamps; it would need to be absolute and blanket quite a distance all the time lest her house melt around her

(And perhaps the building of her house might be one of her stories, of trying again and again, and it is only when the lost and unsure wander into her home and she lets them give advice (ultimately showing that she is stronger when she is part of a community) does it hold)

Abbu is this dry heat, and it's actual meaning derives from the idea of salt - this is the type of heat which can be used to get salt from the water, and heat is such an integral part of the salt itself, it's most of the salt's name

So the D in Dabbu sort of signifies that it's the result of the dry heat (if that makes any sense, it is getting very late and I know I am becoming nonsensical)

Vokkri

Vottra is a god that does not come from Amavikka tradition but got folded in from the Evocii tradition and that is why he is mostly only on Nal Hutta

The name Vottri comes from the original name of the Sky God Evotiirin, a name that slowly shifted over time to Vottri, and he is often represented as a bright star that shines bright enough to guide runaways through the thick swamp mists

The star in actuality no longer exists - it went supernova at one point and vanished - but there are a lot of myths about Vottri vanishing to hide from Depur, and how he will return when all the Amavikka are free to guide them to safety

I think this would be an example of a word where the 't' does not get softened into a 'd', probably because it's in the middle of the word and if it were dropped, it would rather ruin the structure of the word

Also because the name is holy so is cared for more diligently - some words, like greetings and goodbyes and certain figures in myth are told in the same way throughout the Amavikka as they are so precious to them that they make sure to pronounce the words exactly right rather than let linguistic flow take them

I'm not entirely sure what his name might meant as 'kest' is the word for star in the Tatooine dialect but I think this might be an example of where there is an entirely separate word for star on Nal Hutta - 'vottrak', which would translate to 'of Vottri'

On Lukka, Leia, Ekkreth and Ar-Amu

So I talked a bit about Ekkreth in his name section but I also wanted to touch on the other gods who end up everywhere (there are those that end up throughout pretty much all Amavikka tradition, those that end up through all of the tradition on a specific planet, and then those (often prophets) which are region specific)

Lukka was not created by fialleril but by @/blue-sunshine-mauve-morning in the same Desert Storm series I linked above (I love that fanfic so much), and she states in her fic that Lukka is a Tatooine only kinda god

I like Lukka too much so...I disregarded that and made him, along with Leia, Ekkreth and Ar-Amu, one of the gods who ends up pretty much everywhere in the galaxy

The themes that they represent throughout the galaxy are fairly consistent to; Ar-Amu is the mother, the one that all the Amavikka return to one day; Ekkreth is the trickster, which no chain can hold, whatever shape it is; Leia is the dragon, the anger of slaves that comes to crush slavers; and Lukka is the storm, that is safe for Amavikka to pass through but that will destroy any who follow.

Lukka

On Tatooine, Lukka is closely linked to the seven winds - some say the winds are Lukka's children, and some say that the winds are even older than Lukka and are what came together to form him - the winds are quite a common thing throughout Amavikka communities, although sometimes it is four winds rather than seven

On Nal Hutta and other more watery worlds though, Lukka is often referred to as The Storm and the Flood, although again, which came first is debated as the biggest threat on Nal Hutta is the terrible rainstorms that cause the swamp to flood into inhabited places

It's quite difficult to defend against these floods too as the water is everywhere, so it affects Depur as much as it affects the Amavikka in terms of destruction of property

Leia

Also from Blue_Sunshine's story, Leia is referred to as the Nal Hutta dragonsnake which is a creature canon to Nal Hutta, and I love this idea

She serves much the same purpose on Tatooine as she does on Nal Hutta but instead of the desert, she haunts the swamps

Dancing on Nal Hutta

So I mentioned this earlier but I really wanted to go into the implications of dance on Nal Hutta

Like I said before, Nal Hutta is a pleasure world for the Hutts and their cronies so there are a lot of places where slaves are used for entertainment like dance, which is why Ru's story is so important here

Of course, Ru always danced for himself in the way this story was told - some areas of Nal Hutta will have Bakkru being a dancer for Depur initially, or will have stories of Ru (who has already lived and died and lived again) returning to Depur to dance for him and to help free dancers as he returned to free his grandmother

But although dance is quite intrinsically linked to Depur on Nal Hutta, it is also very holy, in a way it's not really in most other places - due to Ru's story, it's linked a lot to fire and freedom, and the dancers who know the Bakkru are often fundamental pieces of the Freedom Trail

Ru's Symbol would be something that is carved onto the equivalent of Japor snippets on Nal Hutta, and is often given to dancers or those who have been picked to be pleasure slaves (who are often synonymous with dancers) as a charm of protection and good luck

Te bakkruker a anu or, 'You will dance in fire' is quite a common phrase to use when saying goodbye to a loved one who is either sold off or dying - it is wishing them freedom, as Bakkru was freed

However, it should be noted, that they are not wishing their loved one to die - although Bakkru died, Ru leads a lot of figures later to dance in fire to be freed who do not die, and so it is the more general idea of freedom

Final Words

This post grew absolutely massive so I feel like a final words section is appropriate haha (this is why I didn't try to put it in the AO3 author's notes section)

Thank you for getting this far! If you're interested in any of my thoughts about Amatakka and the Amavikka on planets outside of Tatooine (and on Tatooine too - there's a reason I love all this lore so much and it's because it worked so beautifully with Tatooine) please do hit me up, I'd love to talk about it more!

(And I'm neither an expert on the language nor a conglanger, so I would love some help with the words I was trying to make, and on how to distinguish dialects lol)

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looseleafteeaves · 20 days ago

Photo

I am going to say that as lovely as this bird is, I am fond of quetzal birds representing Ekkreth. Try looking up the symbolism of quetzal birds- it’s absolutely perfect!

Photo of the Day – The Crimson-breasted Shrike (Laniarius atrococcineus) is a somewhat common species of southern Africa. However, it is surprisingly difficult to obtain satisfactory views of this bird – they are frustratingly nimble and restless. But, any challenge is worth it when the prize is seeing such a striking bird!

This photo was taken by Adam Riley in South Africa

#teeves two cents #ekkreth the trickster #fialleril's tatooine slave culture #amavikka

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looseleafteeaves · 24 days ago

Link

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Omi Khepareth (Original Character) Additional Tags: Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Jedi as Found Family (Star Wars), I Blame Tumblr, Tatooine Slave Culture & Customs (Star Wars), Amatakka, Omai Khepareth knows themself, Omi Sunwalker is learning and teaching, Obi-Wan Kenobi Takes Care of People, Past hints of Codywan, Angst, Hope, Jedi Appreciation (Star Wars), Jedi Culture & Customs (Star Wars), What even is the Jedi Code?, All we have is a meditation chant, my world now Series: Part 2 of teeaves does star wars Summary:

Involves between the prequels and the OG trilogy, a slave on Tatooine flees, and stumbles across Old Ben. Omi(the slave) is force sensitive. This brings to light alot of things that Old Ben didn't know about Anakin. This also involves more of the jedi surviving, and maybe a jedi temple on Tatooine.

#teeaves posts an update #desert speaker au #teeves does star wars

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looseleafteeaves · 27 days ago

Text

Kehran Rapitakka Guide

Here is the link- Chapter 1 is finished (for now)

#teeaves does star wars #amavikka #amatakka #tatooine slave culture #teeaves translates into a fictional language #now YOU can start learning!#Kehran Rapitakka #Please go look at adragonsfriend's Berim Takkarie #It is Lovely #Also we steal chapter bits from each other alot so some things may be identical.

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looseleafteeaves · 1 month ago

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people think they shouldn't vote as a protest or whatever because they've been raised on boycotts. which do sometimes work.

boycotts deprive the target of money.

not voting does not deprive the government of money.

it does, however, deprive you of power.

it's not like a boycott.

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looseleafteeaves · 1 month ago

Note

The feral cat gator of a 13 year old freshly scarred Zuko being forcibly adopted by the foggy swamp tribe! Bonus points if they willfully ignore the fact he's a firebender and treat him as a very strange waterbender bending-wise

It was Earth Kingdom ships that drove the metal one onto the reefs, so when the little thing came crawling up through the marsh spitting and hissing and dressed in red, they knew it weren’t no earthbender. No matter how much mud it had tripped in, trying to find where the ground stopped sucking at its feet.

“Wow-ee,” said Old Earl, “that sure is one way of keepin’ off the ‘squito-chiggers.”

And they all watched from Big Earl’s porch, sitting or rocking, as them bugs came for the all-you-can-eat and ended up on the bar-b-que.

“Sure is some weird bending,” said Little Earl, who was taller than Big Earl, but when they'd been twelve and they’d wrestled for the title it hadn't been Little Earl who’d won.

The little thing looked maybe twelve, too. And he was little little. But he had that same look like he was going to shove someone’s face in the mud until they said otherwise, as he stood there all panting and dripping and just realizing they’d been watching him this whole time.

“It’s firebending,” the one-kid mud-wrestler said, as bugs kept pop-snapping into flames around him.

Old Earl cupped a hand over his ear, like he couldn’t hear. And he kept doing it, while the kid got louder and louder about that bending of his, but quieter and quieter about looking at them like they were his next bugs.

“Oh, firebending,” Old Earl said, nodding like he’d only just got it, when the kid had stomped straight up to his chair. “Right, right, Old Jane’s got fire-water-bending, too. Why don’t you take him to her, boys.”

“It’s not-- ugh,” shouted the kid, but maybe he only had the one volume. Certainly only had the one volume for stomping, even though stomping was what got a fellow’s shoes shoved down so deep in the mud they’d be seeing them again as mole-shrimp hats. Not that the kid had shoes. Neither did Earl, Earl, or Earl. ‘Cept for Fancy Earl, but he’d gone off to Ba-Singing-Se, to be fancy.

Anyway, Old Jane was the best at turning anything and everything into fire water, which was the kind of thing a fellow called his or her liquor when they wanted fancy folk to keep right on walking. Was really good for making shouty little firebrands take their naps, too, which let Old Jane get her glowing mitts all over that fresh burn of his. And the love-bites from the shark-wrasses that had probably been half the reason the kid had come a-shore all a-shouting in the first place.

“Nope,” diagnosed Old Jane, when the kid woke back up. “That’s just how he talks. Mother was a screamer-bird, I’d say.”

“You take that back about my mother,” screamed their screamer-bird, who had pretty good hearing for someone who’s ear had lost the same fight as his eye. Anyway, Old Jane had done the best she could about both, and nothing was on fire that shouldn’t be, and she had that extra quilt she’d been working on that needed a body under it

And the waves and the shark-wrasses had all the rest of the kid’s crew

So sure enough they set their little screamer-bird up with a nest and let him cry loud as he wanted.

Anyway, if there was one thing Earl Earl Earl and Jane knew, it was how to make a joke so good the other person didn’t even know it were a joke.

“Firebending,” their little fledgling shouted, and waved his arms around, like all that fire pointed at no one was going to get them startled off.

“A-yep,” nodded Old Earl. “That there is some fire-water-bending. Just like Old Jane.”

Old Jane wasn’t the kind of gal who showed off, but she wasn’t the kind who missed no cue, either. She swirled a lick o’ liquor out of her latest barrel and twirled it ‘round and straight into her mouth, and when she spit it out, it looked so much like the little bird’s breath-o’-fire that he didn’t even notice the spark rocks she kept on her fingers as jewelry. No one did, ‘til they’d seen the trick a few times.

The kid’s mouth hung open so low and so long, a moth-tick flew in. That was some kind of life lesson, that was. The swamp was good at sending those.

The Earth Kingdom sent troops a-stompin’ through, losing boots and scaring catigators out of their sunning spots left and right, askin’ all rumbly about those fires they’d spotted, and if anyone from that shipwreck had made it on shore, and talkin’ about how there’d be money in it for them if they made that last answer a “yes,” sounding like Fancy Earl and all his talk about commerce and living standards.

“Got a few parts of them ship people in the lagoon,” Big Earl said. “Probably still floatin’ if you want ‘em. But we better bring the shrimp-minnow nets, ‘cuase they’ll just slosh on through the turtle-sturgeon ones.”

“...No thank you,” the head stomper said, like sayin’ polite words made a fellow a polite man. He’d tracked those boots of his right up onto their porch without so much as a scuff on their mud rug. Even the kid had used the mud rug. “And the fire?”

“Oh,” said Little Earl, with a grin, “that was Old Jane.”

And she did her trick again, only less tricky, so they could see the spark rocks real good. “You boys want some fire water?” she offered. “It ain’t blinded no one who wasn’t already headed that way.”

They didn’t want any, which was grand, ‘cause she hadn’t really been offering.

When the last of them had gone stomping off back to the kind of land that let people stomp it, it took them two whole hours to lure out the catigators from under the porch. And their little screamer bird, too.

“...Why didn’t you turn me in?”

“What?” asked Old Earl, cupping his ear.

“Why—”

“What?”

“—didn’t—”

“WHAT?”

“—you—”

“Speak up, boy,” Old Earl said. “I never heard such a quiet child.”

And boy, did that set their bird back to singing.

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looseleafteeaves · 1 month ago

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A children's book about a baby dragon and its adventures. The baby dragon is Druk and his dad is Fire Lord Zuko. Fire Lord Zuko is the most important person in the whole wide world because he is Druk's dad, and for no other reason that Druk is aware of. Fire Nation politics are ever-present in the background (boring stuff humans talk about, bla bla bla) but not nearly as important as Druk being given Lots of Treats and Cuddles

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looseleafteeaves · 1 month ago

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the pevensies discovering the treasure room in the ruins of cair paravel must have been like stepping into their own tomb. here is the ruin of what you were. here is the remnant. here is where they took what you left them with and laid it to rest. here is your funeral shroud, daughter of eve. the skirt is too long for you now. here is the cordial, half-full. they dared not use it to save anyone without your hand to do the saving. here is your bow, still strung, and your arrows, unshot. here is the sword your hand still remembers, and here is the face you have forgotten. you did not die here, and yet still you were buried. what is a legend but another kind of ghost?

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looseleafteeaves · 1 month ago

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Imagine Luke and Leia ending up in the clone wars era but all of their force abilities are “what the actual fuck?” levels of bullshit, and neither of them ever realized that the things they could do with the force were considered extremely high level techniques.

that is one of my FAVORITE things to imagine yes. To me this is less about ‘Skywalker bullshit’ (though there is some of that) and more about the training they (didn’t) receive.

The high-Midi-chlorians-actual-descendents-of-the-force thing makes it easier to tap into the force, makes it more possible to do so without accidentally exhausting yourself. But, in universe, under the right circumstances and with the properly channeled belief anyone can do anything. That’s why Palpatine had to make the galaxy want an empire, why his first strategy was misdirection and his top priority was crushing hope. Chirrut was supposedly force-null and he walked through an army. Han navigated that astroid field because he had to. The force is everywhere.

In an amusing but possibly unintended turn of events, 6-12 weeks of training in a swamp with an elderly frog who only talks in riddles without ever being exposed to Jedi culture except as a myth is actually IDEAL if you’re looking to maximize a Jedi’s raw strength. Most Jedi training that we see in the prequels is explicitly designed to put the breaks on a force-users raw power (for honestly very valid reasons). Channeling all violence through a single weapon that will start screaming if you get too violent, training to use it defensively, is definitely the soft-ball alternative to just squashing people like meatballs.

Meditating, wearing beige, the code, shunning attachments, all that stuff is built around making sure force users never run above first or second gear even in stressful situations (again valid, when you run your jedi in the red sometimes they become murder monsters). The downside of this is that when they’re forced to maintain that placid pace for years at a time (i.e: prolonged war), they’re much more likely to burn out.

When Yoda told Luke do or do not, told him a luminous being was he, told him size matters not, the amazing thing isn’t that Luke believed him. That was karking objectively provable. Yoda lifted a spaceship, so now Luke knows he can too if he just thinks he can. So he does. Vader and Palpatine conquered a galaxy. Luke believes he can stop worlds, crush armies, conquer planets and so he can.

The incredible thing about Luke is what he doesn’t do despite being tapped into the Force utterly free of mental restraint. Luke’s op character trait is his compassion, not his strength.

I assume at some point Luke puts Leia through a similar 2 month meditation class where he convinces her that her only limitations are the ones she imposes on herself. She has a complete meltdown when she realizes that she actually could have boiled Tarkin alive with her mind and saved Alderann. This causes a volcano to go off, devastating the ecology of a small moon. On the flight home, both of them slightly charred, she tells Luke that she wanted to focus on politics and didn’t really want to be a Jedi anyway. Luke nods quickly, supporting her decision, and resolves to seek out some Jedi texts about how to teach people they can do anything but also…maybe…not…anything.

And thus the Jedi order is reborn.

- - -

In the time travel version of this, it means that Luke is assuming that all of the Jedi are restraining themselves like he is. And they are, but they also aren’t, because their breaks are subconscious, built in since childhood, and have a lot of failsafes so even if they turn darkside they still restrain themselves pretty good (a la Dooku).

Leia is, again, less interested with the Jedi-specific aspects of the war (especially now that she doesn’t have to feel guilty about being one of the only people who can pick up that mantle) and more interested in the diplomatic side. Again, Palpatine can only succeed if the galaxy at large accepts this, and from where she’s standing they’re fucking moving in that direction. If being a Jedi is tapping into the mystical energy field that binds all living things together to channel it through one specific person in one specific place, then politics is manipulating that same power for a diffuse impact on as many people as possible.

This status-quo lasts until a major clone wars battle where Luke’s like ‘wait- the entire other side is sub-sentient droids? No living beings, and no droids with complex personality matrices? And they’re currently, actively killing living, sentient humans? Well kriff, come on! This is a no-brainer!’

Luke takes a deep breath. The air- it doesn’t disappear or anything- but it- it stops moving. It’s hard to explain…but breathing has an odd…resistance. The hair on the back of every clone’s neck stands up. Several get vaguely sea sick. One pukes a little. Plo Koon stumbles back, head ringing and afraid.

Luke Skywalker stands up and clenches his fists. 10,000 droids crumple like flimsi in the hands of a child. The battlefield is eerily quiet for a moment, then that imperceptible hum (which no one noticed until it stopped) fades and the air returns to its normal density. A few of the shinies start whooping, then the whole battalion is cheering.

Luke massages his temples, smiling wryly at Master Koon. “I guess I can see how that would get exhausting if you were doing it everyday.”

Plo Koon just stares.

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