#I’m in the developmental stage of the next chapter where I have to Think Real Hard about it in order to get it in my head

[i-never-forgot]

Is there anything that y’all would like to see addressed or visited in That Poison, Reconciliation? Like specific character interactions or explanations or scenes? I’ve got a general outline of the direction in which things will progress but I’m just curious to see if anyone has any suggestions or questions they want answered that I could potentially incorporate. I don’t want to leave any glaring plot holes or anything behind since I’m trying to keep the fic fairly short. I can’t promise that they’ll fit in, but if they don’t I can simply make individual posts about them instead. 😊

[kindness-ricochets]

ur thoughts on wylan and kaz? as characters or ur general hc's for them together after soc or anything else. just ur general thoughts on these characters in tandem.

In writing my response, I rambled for a bit and may and may not have actually answered your question... so while I hope this interests you and is what you meant, feel free to drop a line if I completely missed the mark!

They’re perfect opposites—by which I mean entirely different in all the ways they’re the same.

Wylan and Kaz share an almost absolute emptiness of coherent thought regarding themselves, Wylan emotionally and Kaz physically. Kaz always pushes himself too hard, he never sleeps, he’s basically made of coffee and spite. Wylan can overlook any level of mistreatment because he is so thoroughly conditioned to it, except that he genuinely believes this can be a form of love.

As a result, both deal with grievous personal wrongs using a loved one as a proxy.

Kaz has every reason to hate Pekka Rollins as the architect of his trauma and sometimes he does acknowledge this. He’ll have lines about Pekka taking everything from him. That he “had a lot of things”. It’s about Jordie, always. Avenging Jordie’s death is a perfectly valid motivator, but Kaz takes it to an extreme degree. (This is an interesting contrast between him and Inej, too. Inej recognizes that what was done to her was wrong; though deeply traumatized by it, she is able to recognize that she was mistreated, that she can seek revenge for herself and others like her.)

Wylan has every reason to hate his father. But he doesn’t. Not only doesn’t he, he blames himself every time. Jan wanted a real son, a proper heir, it’s Wylan’s fault; who else would love him enough to be honest with him? It’s only when he learns about Marya that Wylan can begin to process what his father truly is. Eight years of abuse culminating in attempted murder and public humiliation is one thing… not at all intended to downplay the horror of Marya’s situation, not at all! Just that it’s the only way Wylan is able to begin to process his feelings toward his father.

Maybe as an aspect of this, maybe as a coincidence to it, both are very conscious of the people are them—it’s just that Kaz’s consciousness is ruthlessly pragmatic while Wylan’s is sweet. Kaz is always aware of every player, how to use them, and how to manipulate them. Wylan is concerned—about Jesper losing his guns, about Nina catching cold in her skimpy outfit, about Alys who was sweet and silly and meant no harm to anyone. A perfect example is their conversation about Jesper.

[“]Who knows? Jesper may even win his revolvers back.” “I hope so,” said Wylan as they hopped onto a browboat crowded with tourists and headed south down the Stave. “You would.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Someone like Jesper wins two hands and starts to call it a streak. Eventually he loses, and that just leaves him hungrier for the next run of good luck. The house relies on it.” Then why make him walk into a gambling den?

Both have a personal connection to Jesper; Kaz does his closest approximation to loving him as a brother, while Wylan’s little crush is starting to feel like maybe something more. And they have opposite approaches to his addiction. Kaz uses it. Ruthlessly. (Granted, this is Kaz at his lowest, but it’s not especially different from how he treated Jesper in the beginning of Six of Crows.) Wylan wants to acknowledge his problem and help him avoid his addiction. He doesn’t want Jesper to have to suffer the loss of something important to him. This also shows in how Wylan and Kaz think about each other. Near the end of Six of Crows, Kaz essentially thinks that he doesn’t care about Wylan’s dyslexia because Wylan has other talents, other uses. Wylan thinks near the middle of Crooked Kingdom that he knows Kaz had other motives, but he still helped Wylan a lot, and is a friend. Kaz’s evaluations are weighed by use, Wylan’s by emotional impact.

Now I’m going to get nerdy. Even more so. When I did developmental psychology, my favorite was always Erikson, who essentially broke human development into stages of crisis and resolution. The 4th is “industry vs. inferiority”—basically, competence. And they resolve to extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. Kaz is industrious, competent and capable, determined from the moment he was reborn in that canal. He doesn’t stop. He makes plans and acts on them. Wylan feels inferior, and often struggles—even with things he knows how to do, he needs to be told to do them, or can’t quite put two and two together about the situation around him. (The fact that Wylan’s crisis comes to a more positive resolution, that he begins to develop competence, throughout Crooked Kingdom is… frankly, wonderful. Wylan wasn’t inherently bad at things. He just didn’t have support to grow.)

These opposite resolutions also relate to where they fall on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Kaz is left without the most basic things, physiological and safety needs, things like food, water, and shelter. He has to adapt and he has to adapt fast—because he’s alone. And if he’s going to survive, if he’s going to see Jordie given justice, he needs to get to work. Wylan has those needs met, placing him at the point of psychological needs—belongingness, love, esteem. Jan took care of Wylan’s basic needs, but dealt him blow after blow toward his psychological needs through isolation and emotional abuse. This highlights another difference: Kaz’s damage wasn’t dealt by someone who hated him. Pekka was just indifferent. The Barrel was full of lost children who would take a mouthful of bread from a weaker boy because they needed it to survive. It was indifference, for Kaz. But for Wylan, it was at best disdain, at worst hatred.

This sets them apart from the other Crows. Inej was 14 when she was taken by slavers. Jesper was around 16 when he was sent to Ketterdam for university. Nina was 16 or 17 when the Fjerdans took her captive. Matthias was I think 11 when he lost his family, which places him just on the cusp of two of Erikson’s stages, but the relevant resolution is to the fifth stage of identity vs. confusion—basically, “Who am I, and who can I become?” Those four developed competence in a more or less healthy way (purely in terms of competence since two were basically child soldiers, but still). Whereas Kaz overcompensates with relentlessness and Wylan freezes up. Both have this sort of jagged place inside them at exactly that point, that the others simply don’t have.

To me, this explains why Kaz and Wylan have the weakest balance between personal and professional lives. Kaz is always plotting, scheming. He has to learn to take a break from the monster and be the man. Wylan is locked up in his own mind. In his first narrated chapter, his first narrated page, he tells us that he feels out of place and doesn’t even know where to put his hands to look normal. Kaz is ready to take over the world while Wylan just wants to exist in his own little corner of it.

[capricornus-rex]

A Shadow of What You Used to Be (10)

Chapter 10: A Home Away | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Cal Kestis x Fem! OC

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

Requesting to be tagged: @heavenly1927​

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 | Previous: Part 9 | Next: Part 11 | Masterlist

11 of ?

The maintenance droids only needed an hour to prepare a dorm for Irele within the command ship. Not that she would need a personal room in every ship she boards, but it would help if she did in the near future. The human guards did not need to wait for Irele to come to, they barged into the cell, pulled the poor girl by the arm to stand her up and then drag her out of the prison block while she could barely use her own two feet.

Irele’s eyes have not adjusted to the changing tones and gradients of lights of each part of the ship she passes through. She thought she said the question “Where are we going?” when the guards only heard an incoherent groaning at the throat.

The way from the prison block to her new chambers was a ten-minute walk, if one marched faster it would have been lesser. Upon reaching their destination, only one escorted her into her room and sat her down on the bed—to which she immediately fell limp and ended up lying down instead. While she was out cold, a nanny droid entered her bedroom to tend to whatever it can in the quarters; it took its time, in fact, until the girl came to. The droid’s sensors picked up the spike from Irele’s heart rate from slow to normal, it briskly turned around.

“It is fortunate that you’ve come to, milady. The serum from the probe has completely worn off. Should you feel slight nausea, do not be alarmed for it is normal as well. I can administer some painkillers to you with your choice of pill or syrup.”

The droid is programmed to speak in Basic and had a rather lulling, female voice—perhaps the most appropriate if you are to manufacture and program a droid for nursing.

“Milady? What are you talking about? Who are you? What are you?”

“You are here as a ward under the strict order of Master Vader. I am HY-L33, Nanny Droid,” it brought its head into a bow, “At your service, Milady Irele.”

“Why call me Milady when I’m kept hostage here?” she sits up and examines the room.

“Oh, you are mistaken, Milady. You are Lord Vader’s ward,” HY-L33 corrects. “And I have been tasked to take care of your basic needs and whims, if need be.”

“What I need is to go home! I don’t like being holed up in anywhere!”

The nurse droid lowered its head slowly, it stayed like so for a moment; with a rather sympathetic voice, HY-L33 responds, “I’m sorry, but I am incapable of fulfilling that whim, milady. I would suggest that you make yourself comfortable in this new one.”

Irele sighed, knowing that she’s talking to a wall here. She gave herself time to calm down and breathe. She passed her hands across her face and sighed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be lashing out to you…” Irele inhaled. “What are you called again?”

“HY-L33, madam.”

Irele quietly parroted the name, “That’s a mouthful. How about I call you Haylee, is that alright?”

“If it proves to be more convenient for you, milady. Although personally, I do adore the name you’ve given me.”

Irele hummed as she managed a small smile, she hinted the chirp from the droid’s voice, relieved that she found some company out of the droid in this inorganic, cold room, she walked around to get a better feel of it now that the serum from the interrogation droid has worn off.

“Say, Haylee, do you know where we are?”

“We are aboard the command ship Anathema, the ship is within the Ulgoro system, and we are passing by the orbit of the planet Yelen.”

“How far are we from Tatooine?”

Haylee ran a quick scan from her processors, “We are approximately twenty-five parsecs away from the said Outer Rim planet.”

Irele breathed deeply, her heart sank, “That’s so far away…”

The droid’s photoreceptors picked up Irele’s increased heart rate and temperature. The girl was manifesting signs of anxiety: shivering hands, failing voice, and cold sweat.

“You are suffering from homesickness. Unfortunately, I do not have the appropriate medication for that, milady. Neither can I administer any medication for you. This is absolutely natural as you have been extracted from your real home to your current location.”

Irele took the deepest sigh and made a mantra.

Don’t lash out on the droid, you just screamed at it ten minutes ago.

She told this to herself mentally until she’s calmed herself down.

“Yeah, I am homesick. I left my family behind and…” she trailed off, realizing that the last people she was with were her friends. “My friends. They must be all worried sick about me.”

“You will be well taken care of here, Lady Irele.”

“Heh,” the girl huffed. “No need to be so formal. Just call me Irele.”

“As you wish… Mistress Irele.”

“Droids, gotta love ‘em…” she mumbled very quietly, knowing how acute droids’ hearing could be—depending on the model, that is.

–

Fortunately enough, Irele is indeed being taken care of.

Ever since she was moved to her own chambers in the Star Destroyer Anathema, she was thoroughly pampered—more or less—than anyone else in the ship, aside from Darth Vader. Never has she ever been well-fed in sixteen years! The serving portions were generous and they were quite tasty, but she had her moments where the food somewhat reminded her of home.

A uniformed officer enters Vader’s quarters to report of Irele’s adjustment to the new environment. Most of the officers feared that they’re speaking like a broken record, reporting the same thing to Vader every week—they had probably imagined it vexed him to be hearing the same thing over and over; it did them little comfort when adding their own personal observations of her such as asking for seconds with her food and interacting with the nanny droid, since she’s still shy and cautious from everyone else on board.Additionally, she was not yet allowed to wander off alone beyond her room. So, by all means, she is pretty much a hostage still—a rather pampered one, at the very least.

“Has she stopped her erratic behavior?”

“Fortunately so, Lord Vader, she has. Perhaps about a week and a half since her extraction, she had become somewhat… docile.”

Vader paused. He had presumed it was the effects of the interrogator droid’s syringe, but surely during the time the nanny droid was tending to the girl, the substance has flushed out since. Realizing that he truly knows nothing of what kind of person Irele is—compared from his earliest reference of her—he sighs with a quiet frustration under his mask.

“Very well. We are right on schedule. Carry on, captain.”

“Yes sir,” the captain bowed and dismissed himself militarily. His true posture showed when he rejoined his companion who had been waiting for him by the door. He hissed, “I didn’t conscript myself to the Imperial Fleet to be a babysitter!”

“Be more frustrated when Lord Vader does appoint you the official babysitter of the girl.”

“She’s quite a handful, don’t you think so?”

“Temperamental, to say the least,”

Only Vader and the droid, HY-L33, know what’s in store for Irele. Very soon, the plans for her life under the Empire’s wing—unknowingly under her brother’s care, or the walking shell of him perhaps—will be put into play.

For many weeks, HY-L33 patiently watched over Irele—especially in the medical aspect—and a mandate was programmed into her that once a diagnosis of the teenager would show optimum by the end of three weeks since her extraction from Tatooine, Irele would be considered physically eligible and be subjected to training. Eventually, HY-L33 was the only companion she has ever had in this ship since day one; so in exchange for medical knowledge and advice from HY-L33, Irele repays it with stories from her homeworld of Tatooine, but knowing that the droid is under Imperial property, she was cautious of what she ought to say, and rather told her adventures she had done on her own or with a friend instead of her family life.

“It seems as though your rigorous lifestyle has contributed to your increased stamina throughout your developmental stage.” HYL-33 commented once while listening to Irele recall one job she did where she would deliver goods door-to-door across the town of Mos Espa.

“Yeah well, I had to work. Because if I didn’t work, that just meant, I’ll be sleeping hungry—or if I’m lucky, with a half-full stomach.”

HY-L33, being the medical nanny droid that she is, went on to lecture Irele that it was ill-advised to sleep on an empty stomach for it will cause ulcers. The girl politely listened and heeded the advice, until she calmed down the droid that she had been fine for the rest of the time she was growing up.

She had only been staying for a week and a half. HY-L33’s sensors indicate a lesser trace of homesickness and anxiety within Irele, her body mass index has not changed drastically at all since her food intake was increased rather than imposing an eating strike—a few of HY-L33’s references cite that most human teenagers are more rebellious, especially when it comes to being fed after being thrown into a stressful situation. However, this was not the case with Irele, which made the nurse droid’s circuits cooler.

Eventually, the three weeks were over. Irele noticed HY-L33 seeming to be in full preparation. She did not mind this, but kept a close eye, until she could find the right timing to ask. After lunch, Irele went to the bath by rote, and quickly dressed herself in a dark gray shirt, black pants, and low boots.

Irele could truly sense something different in their routine.

“Haylee?”

“Yes, Miss Irele?”

“Is there something new added into the routine?”

“Yes, Miss Irele, we are about to perform a full health assessment on you. Please follow me and I will escort you to the medical ward.”

This was the first time Irele had been outside of her bedroom. For three weeks, she had been holed up in that metal room with no one and nothing else but HY-L33—to which she had grown fond of anyway—and then she finally comes out for a medical check-up.

Along the way, she could not look into the eyes of the crew, although she perfectly blended in with her gray and black clothes. She was nervous and afraid of what they’re thinking of her—because she felt like she knows what they’re saying about her, it’s a feeling that she can’t explain but it still manifests in her. Eager to avoid the stares and attention, Irele walked directly behind HY-L33 until they got to the said medical ward.

When they got there, the interior of the medical ward was a little bit brighter than most of the rooms in the ship. The walls were still metal, of course, but it was a cooler shade of gray which somewhat eased the people who are admitted and confined here—instead of the intimidating dark grays and blacks on other parts of the ship. At the center of operations was a 2-1B surgical droid stationed by a medical bed; it was approached by HY-L33 and Irele, when the droid’s photoreceptors saw the girl’s face, a deep male tone started speaking in a monotonous, continuous fashion.

“Irele Skywalker, human female, age is sixteen standard years, height stands at five feet and three inches…”

“Okay, okay, I think we got enough of my vitals already!” Irele interrupted.

“Were you briefed of your purpose here?”

Irele made a side-eyed glance at HY-L33, who didn’t move at all, “I was only told I was getting a check-up.”

“Correct.”

The surgical droid cleared out what HY-L33 failed to when they were still in the bedroom. It started with the physical examination—taking down her age, height, and weight, until it pored into analyzing the fluid levels and vitals of her organs to see if they were normal. It was all strange for little Irele, but she held up and did as she was told. She wasn’t getting hurt by the droids anyway, save the one pinprick that they had to do in order to conduct a blood test.

From Vader’s chamber, he was receiving real-time transmissions of the medical ward’s database. Whatever diagnosis the droids encode into the database under Irele’s profile, Vader saw it all firsthand—every revision, every new entry, every number.

Midichlorian count: 20,598.

Seeing this number and then recalling his impression on Irele baffled Darth Vader.

This child has lived sixteen years in a backwater planet, with a high midichlorian count… and yet her sensitivity is dormant.

[return-of-a-space-cowboy]

For the soulmate au thing how about 2: name tattooed on wrist, for Rohan. Considering how popular he is there is no where near enough content for him honestly. Anyways, I love your blog and hope you have a lovely day!

I'm suprised too, he needs some love.

I hope you have a nice day too!

Chaotically in order

(yandere Rohan X Gender Neutral Reader)

Marioh Cho was a small town but it was also a bizarre one. Not that you could remember any other to compare it to. You just woke up one day in a tree with no recollections of who you were or how you got there, the only identification you had was a bag with the name (Y/n) on it. That's when you met the group of teens that would become your closest friends. Josuke, Okuyasu and Koichi and much like them the town was also just as friendly, besides the occasional rouge stand user of course.

You had managed to get a job in a cafe and a small rental apartment within a couple of weeks and life seemed to go quite smoothly for you. Of course you wanted to figure out who you were and how you ended up in such a predicament but for now you just wanted to plant your roots and keep it steady.

Today was a beautiful Saturday, so you had decided to catch up with Josuke and Koichi at the cafe you usually were working at. You had also invited Okuyasu too but he couldn't make it. You assumed it may have something to do with his father, however despite the lack of Okuyasu you all had a good talk until you looked in you bag in search of a pen to use for a drawing you were working on when your stand Learning to fly had activated and you had ended up with several different ones.

"Hey that's my pen I've been looking for it for weeks!" Koichi exclaimed as he grabbed one of them.

"Welp at least you have it back now, my stand really has a mind of it's own I guess..." You said as you rubbed the back of your neck with your free hand before searching through the handful of pens you had for the right colour until Koichi interrupted again.

"That looks like one of Rohan's pens, don't you think so Josuke?" Koichi said as pointed to a black and gold one amongst the rest.

"Yeah" Josuke agreed as he tried to snatch it out of your hand but you stopped him.

"Wait, Rohan?" You exclaimed.

"Do you know him (Y/n)?" Koichi asked.

"Not really but I've have a tattoo with that name on my arm for as long as I can remember" you said as you pulled it out of your hand and put the rest away.

"Maybe he knows something about how you ended up here" Koichi explained before writing down something on a napkin.

"This is his address, hopefully something good comes out of it" he said as he handed it to you with a wry smile on his face.

"Be careful thou, he's a real creep" Josuke warned with an annoyed expression on his face as he fixed up his hair.

"Josuke you don't have to say something so harsh about Rohan, I'm sure you only feel the way you do about him because he said something bad about your hair" Koichi said as he looked up at the other teen. The looked like they were both years apart but surprisingly they were in the same grade.

"Hey I'm not just gonna let anyone get away with dissing my fucking hair like that, it takes me ages to get it looking like this" he argued with a huff.

🖋️🖋️🖋️

You looked down at the napkin once more before nervously knocking on the door. You were anxious but also hopeful that this Rohan Kishibe knew something about how you ended here. You silently waited for a few minutes until you saw the door creak open slightly.

"I'm not expecting any visitors today, if you want an autograph then you'll just have to wait til the next issue comes out" the male said arrogantly as he peered through the door.

"I'm sorry but Koichi told me to come here" you muttered as you tried to avoid eye contact with his harsh gaze.

"Are you a friend of Koichi?" He asked.

"Yes" you replied. His expression lightened and he opened the door fully. You were able to see the male properly. He had short green hair that was held up by a zigzaged shaped headband and wore a baggy green and purple outfit.

"Well any friend of Koichi is a friend of mine, come in" he chimed as he moved aside to let you in. You quickly took of your shoes and put them aside before entering his home. It was fairly clean except for the occasional bundle of pens, pencils and erasers that littered his home. It was no suprise that he would have lost one at one stage.

"So what brings you here today?" Rohan asked as he brought you into the living room and sat down on his lounge and you followed.

"I think this belongs to you" you said as you pulled out the black and gold pen and handed it to him.

"So you just came here to give me a pen?" he asked in a sceptical tone.

"No... I also wanted to ask you something" you nervously replied.

"Oh you want to get a sneak peek at the latest chapter of Pink dark boy before it's published?" He asked.

"No, I'm afraid I don't know what that is..." You mumbled.

"Wait you haven't heard of my work before?!" He asked in absolute shock.

"No, not as I'm aware of... I can't recall much, I was here to ask you if you knew who I was?" You explained.

"You see I woke up a maybe just over a month ago in a tree with no memory of who I was or how I got there" you continued before lifting your sleeve up to show the tattoo on your wrist.

"I thought that you might be able to explain how I got this" you said.

A smile grew on the males lips as he  pulled up his sleeve to reveal (Y/n) written on it.

"So I assume you are (Y/n)?" He asked.

"Wait assume? how could you have my name tattoed on your wrist and not know who I am?" You exclaimed.

"It's a birth mark" he responded.

"And yours is quite possibly as well" he explained.

"But how could we have corresponding birthmarks?" You asked, you just couldn't wrap your head around it.

"I believe it maybe a soulmates sign, a symbol that we were meant to cross paths" he said slyly as a mischievous smirk drew on his face as he leaned closer to you, causing you to press yourself against the lounge as you felt his dark gaze violating you. This was what Josuke must of meant by calling him a creep.

"You know, I always wondered what you would be like..." He hummed as he  harshly grabbed your arm.

"Wait what are you doing?!" You screamed as you tried to get his grip off of you before he pinned you down and a creature that almost looked like a little boy appeared, he must of been a stand user. He noticed that your your attention diverted from him.

"Oh... Your a stand user too? Don't worry I just want to have a look at your memories... It won't hurt, I promise" he cooed before grabbing a pen with his free hand drawing across your face causing your face to peel back and. You hated this you felt so violated know that he was going to look through your memories, there may not be many but you still didn't want him seeing into your private life.

He hummed in delight and muttered under his breath as he read your life story like a book.

"Truely remarkable, you'd make a great character in Pink dark boy... A young person with amnisia trying to maintain an ordinary everyday life while also getting caught up in situations that could only be referred to as bizarre, a character with developmental potential... A character that couldn't be hated by the readers!" he exclaimed as he sat up and pulled you up before waving his pen in your face. You wanted to run away so badly, you would already be out the door but you just couldn't, your body was as stiff as a rock, unaware that he had already written his orders on you.

"I know you want to run but I need you to be still for a bit while I sketch you up" he said as he grabbed out his sketch book before pressing the pages on you face til it was closed.

'Oh Koichi, what the fuck did you get me into?' you mentally asked as he pushed you head lightly to the side. Fear just continued to build up in you

"Oh your such a perfect muse already... I could just draw you from every angle" he cooed.

🖋️🖋️🖋️

After all the fuss he made of drawing you he removed the writing he had wrote in earlier. You instantly ran to the door but you found yourself unable to turn the doorknob.

"Please, just please let me go!" You yelled at the male.

"No I have so much more to learn -" he said until his home phone began to ring and he picked it up.

"Oh Koichi hello... yes they're with me" he said. You quickly tried to grab the phone out of his hand but he managed push you to the floor and use his stand on you again.

"Oh (Y/n) are you alright? I'll put them on now" He said as he helped you up.

You grabbed the phone out of his hands and this time he didn't stop you.

"Hey (Y/n) how are you doing? I hope he isn't acting weird?" Koichi asked you.

"No everything's fine... I'm actually getting along with him very well" were the words that came out of your mouth which were contradictory to what you had tried to say.

"Oh that's good, I just wanted to check in on you that's all" he said

"Well good bye" he said.

"Bye..." You sheepishly replied before the phone hung up. You were mentally screaming as you realised how hopeless you were.

"You have such an interesting personality... I just want you to show it to me first hand" he said as he wrapped his arms around you from behind.

[thesummerstorms]

Rev Recaps Hard Contact (Chapter 12)

CW: combat violence, medical needles, planned bombing

TL:DR Recap: Niner steals a speeder. Etain and Dar have what’s probably their most awkward conversation, although the river scene is close. Hokan continues to trash Ankkit’s villa in the name of a double bluff.

Beginning Kal Count: 21  Ending Kal Count: 24

We open back on Niner, who’s finally able to use comms to openly call his squad now that the Nemodians/Separatists can’t listen in. He also needs to steal a ride so that he doesn’t have to keep running on foot away from the large explosion he just created.

Listen, I will give KT shit about her timelines and narrative consistency and sexism, etc, etc all day every day, but she does have some great lines. I love the description here. Also, I guess it’s hoping too much to hope that the gdan would eventually learn not to eat people in armor.

There’s a little bit of banter here, but it’s an incredibly short scene. Fi teases him on the phone and Niner tells Fi to call Darman before hanging up to find a ride. Long story short, Niner sees a Trandoshan approaching on a speeder bike, probably to check on his slaving business Niner thinks, Niner headshots him, and then Niner leaves the area with “newly uplifted spirits”.

We cut to Etain, who’s annoyed because there’s still run off from the rain dripping down Dar’s makeshift tent, she can only hear out of one ear still, and her effort to scare the gdan with the Force the way she thought Jinart did “only succeed[ed] in making them more curious, although they had stopped trying to take bites out of her.”

The real problem at the root of her restlessness, though, is that she’s finally having a down moment to process having killed someone and also her sense of personal failure.

I mean, it’s kind of early in their relationship to be using Darman’s presence as a meditation focus, but you know, given her lack of coping skills in evidence thus far, I’m gonna say that’s a teasing, non-serious minor objection. She is already getting pretty good at sensing him distinctly in the Force. 

And of course he’s exhilarated because he, finally, finally got a phone call from his brothers. He gives Etain a status update about the comm station and their gear and the squad having a prisoner while Etain muses on how strange it is to see his excited body-language and Force presence without seeing it in his face.

That’s a really unkind thought on Etain’s part not gonna lie. And it’s weird as hell to be that KT has her sensing Darman’s exhilaration a moment before, but not his grief in this conversation, which we have plenty of evidence for. I don’t even have a good explanation for that. Also, this is the first time since the actual moment of death that we see Etain acknowledging grief for Kast, but it feels a little flat compared to how we’ve seen Omega’s grief written.

I’m choosing to take the two mentions of “our training sergeant” plus the one in the next paragraph as basically adding up to one for the Kal Count (22) since they’re in the same conversation and really off-hand.

Etain has a knack for asking the most awkward of questions, but sometimes they’re also motivated ones. I still disagree with the general thesis here, in light of  the farmer’s situation, but honestly I’m gonna take that up with Traviss, not Darman or Etain.

I could do a little less with everyone always pitying everyone else in these books, but otherwise this is kind of... nice? Dar, again, is generous/thoughtful. At Etain is pretty good at making small observations,like about the dried fruit.

And then we get to this infamous part..

I’m gonna be real with y’all, that isn’t where my brain would have went, but I’m very, very ace. It is kind of frank for a Star Wars book, but I still didn’t get it as an eighth grader. I have since seen someone make a joke about the symbolism of the tent and the pole, but my brain really just doesn’t work that way, so I think it’s best if I shrug and move on.

“she was exhausted, she just wanted to sit numbly and do nothing. She jumped to her feet, snatched the pole, and ran at him.” I don’t think “numbness” is an unreasonable response, but Dar does a pretty good job of drawing her out of it.

Fun fact, I tried once to use this as evidence to decide which of the classic lightsaber forms Etain was best at, since every other time she uses her lightsaber in combat it’s against blasters, which doesn’t tell much. The closest match I could find to her movements here was form V, which is emphatically NOT meant for someone her size.

The ebook version of “Jedi Path” is TERRIBLE but:

Anyway, moving on.

:( They go on to talk about Darman’s training, the fact that commandos died in training (I’m not even gonna go into my ??? at this point), and the fact that Darman started training with live rounds at four or five. That would make him 8-10 developmentally. I have a lot of questions as someone who teaches 11 year olds, but I’ll save them for later. Etain confesses she’s perplexed by the clones’ enhanced aging as well.

Kal Count 23. Also, ouch. Like. A lot of ouch.

I like that highlighted quote a lot, because as much time as Traviss spends poopooing the Jedi in this series, Etain is Jedi, and while the institution is corrupt, the impulse for the Jedi teachings comes from their literal connection to all the life around them. So seeing this perspective of death/war from her is important to me. Of course the rest of the next several paragraphs is calling her out/refuting that point of view but.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m tired. We’re just gonna say “culture clash”/”narrative authority”/ “positional pov” and move on.

I’m also counting that as a separate Kal Count, because it’s referencing a different quote/topic/ideal. So  now we’re at 24.

Anyway, they go outside and Darman asks Etain about the daywings, which are basically space!dragon flies that are beautiful colors but only live for a day. The narration/Etain makes an obvious connection to Darman without him being aware, but honestly it just makes me uncomfortable. It does really make his line in Order 66 about being a man who was tired of finding things in common with insects sink home, though.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Finally we finish off with more Hokan, who is trashing Ankkit’s villa some more just to rub things in while also trying to stage a double bluff- Uthan has already been moved from the villa back to her lab/bunker.

He also has a Napoleon complex, apparently.

Okay, I’ll admit, I chuckled at this part. Hokan finishes off by talking about the droid comlink and promoting one of his officers who just discretely murdered the other, higher-ranking officer Hokan didn’t like, at Hokan’s bequest.

Again. The guy has issues.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

11/11/11 tag!

I was tagged by @liesversusjournals and @softwishesx​ so I’ll answer both sets of questions in this post! :)

1. Are you a pantser or plotter?

A pantser! Tho I do a lot of planning lol! My notes doc for REWIRED is 60k words long what why she a whole novel.

2. Do you write using a computer or pen and paper?

A computer!

3. How much writing do you get done on an average day?

Honestly because of school the average lately has been 0/day lol, but if we subtract school, on a good day I used to average about 1-1.5k! On days where I’m struggling I usually get in from 500-700. I haven’t had a consistent enough writing schedule in the last 2 years to calculate this though!

4. Which present work(s) are you the most proud of?

I’m really proud of a few chapters of REWIRED like chapter 9 (Girl), chapter 17 (Julian-Julius), chapter 22 (Younger), and chapter 23 (Bad Habits). I’m also pretty proud of my newest short story Water Burials For the Living. 

5. Which past work(s) are you the most proud of?

I’m honestly really proud of FOSTERED. Even though technically it isn’t very strong, I don’t think I’ve ever been as passionate writing as I was when I first drafted that book. I also am really proud of I’M DISAPPOINTED! I wrote 10 drafts of that baby and think it was pivotal in improving my writing! Book three of FOSTERED also has TEA so I must also include her. 

6. Which present work(s) are you the least proud of?

lols overall I definitely think FOSTERED 5 suuuuuuucks. I think the writing is so... strange? I was definitely making a transition from point a to b and it shows in that book. Tho it isn’t super recent (2016/17 I believe!). 

7. Which past work(s) are you the least proud of?

oml anything that follows the ‘i’m not like other girls’ plot ohhhhh godddddd.

8. Which books/authors have influenced you the most?

When I first started writing, Marie Lu’s Legend trilogy, Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds trilogy, Teri Terry’s Slated trilogy, and The Host by Stephenie Meyer were so important in shaping my work! Recently tho writers like Eliza Robertson, Emma Cline, and Emily Fridlund have been super influential. Also my mom @shaelinwrites​!! Would be v bad at writing if it weren’t for her!!

9. Describe your writing process from when you get the idea to when it’s polished.

Oh boy I don’t think I’ve ever polished something but:

The idea! Usually don’t get many of those so I cling to ‘em like ain’t nobody’s watching

She write (this usually takes 1000x longer than it should ha)

I usually edit as I go, so I loop back to previous chapters to clean stuff up before progressing too far. This is super helpful as a pantser to help me keep my facts straight 

The draft is done!

Developmental edits ensue (I’ve only done developmental edits once but in the past I made a list of things I needed to fix based on character, plot, foreshadowing etc etc)

Line edits + more line edits

10. How many drafts do you write until you feel you’re satisfied with a project?

Honestly I haven’t written multiple drafts of a book since I’M DISAPPOINTED, haha, but if I finish a project, I usually feel pretty okay with it? I don’t have to make tons of tweaks to feel satisfied especially if I’ve been writing it for a few months!

11. If you could re-visit and write in any shelved project, which one would it be and why?

I’M DISAPPOINTED! I actually want to re-write this book so badly but I lowkey forgot how to write YA, so I’d def have to read more of that before even attempting to dive back into that book. I’ve recently gotten some ideas of how to revamp the story (IMO in the way it should have been written) though I doubt this will actually happen!

The next set of questions come from @softwishesx!​

1. What’s your favourite stage of the writing process?

Drafting!

2. What’s your least favourite stage of the writing process?

Developmental edits and sometimes line edits when I don’t know where to start. 

3. What would say is your greatest strength as a writer?

I think I’m pretty good at description/picking out interesting details, maybe just imagery in general?

4. What would say is your greatest weakness as a writer?

Ha clarity lol nothing makes sense in this house!

5. What have you learned about your writing in the last year?

It’s very changeable (no need to stick to just one thing at one time). 

6. Is writing full time something you would like to do or is it more of just a side-hobby?

At this point in my life I don’t think I could write full-time (my organizational skills are v/ poor) but this idea is something I’ve toyed with for sure!

7. Would you ever write a semi-autobiographical book? If so, would you reveal that it is semi-autobiographical?

Probably not! I think there are many lives much more interesting than mine to write about. 

8. What’s your ‘I have to write in this otherwise everything is trash’ font?

I used to draft in Times New Roman but I think high school English essays have scarred me, so I really stan Garamond lol. 

9. Do you read books similar to your WIP for inspiration while drafting?

I don’t read as much as I’d like to, but if I did, I feel like this is something I would do? At least for tone!

10. How many people in your real life know that you’re a writer?

Everyone!

11. What’s one of the best lines you’ve ever written?

Oooh, I don’t think I have a best line, but here are some that I do like:

From chapter 23 (Bad Habits) of REWIRED:

I wanted to bewitch him, and make him admit I wasn’t the performer of black magic, but the magic itself. 

This is the only line that makes me want to keep writing this story (from Music for Poltergeists):

The jitter of taxis bleeds through the shutters and makes patterns on the ceiling. Lois would say, Baby, it’s the Northern Lights.

This is dialogue from the new book (book 7 of fostered which I have yet to title drop on this blog)! Context: Reeve’s brother calls her after she goes MIA for a few months in a new city under a new identity to fill a roommate posting and she be like:  

“It’s an ad for a couch. You can’t both stay on the couch.”

Thank you for tagging me! :)

--Rachel

[mtcarras]

Chapter 1: Developmental Theories and Cohort Effects

Which of the lifespan theories best describes your own development? Why? (make sure to identify a THEORY, describe its major aspects, and apply it to your own development)

When looking at the different theories for determining which best describes my own development, it was difficult to choose just one. The many theories that are presented to us in Chapter 1 are all, mostly, quite appealing and make very valid points, but the theory that I feel best describes my development thus far is Erikson’s psychosocial theory. In this theory, Erikson states that development happens through psychosocial stages that are social in nature and represent personal experiences as well as presenting an individual with a crisis that needs to be resolved in order to move on to the next developmental stage (Santrock, 2018). In this theory, different stages show up for a loosely marked developmental period (Santrock, 2018). 

Why I believe that Erikson’s theory best suits my development is because I can relate each stage to what I’ve experienced at different stages of my life growing up. While I might not remember the earlier stages of my life, I can start piecing together my own development through Erikson’s stages at around the age of 6 years and above, or the industry versus inferiority stage (Santrock, 2019). During this stage was when school started to take the primary focus in my life, or when I first started to feel like I needed to master the subjects at hand or else I would be letting my family down. While the negative outcome of this stage is inferiority (Santrock, 2018), I remember working hard at a young age to excel in subjects, especially in more difficult ones such as English and Math. During my adolescent years, or the stage of identity versus identity confusion (Santrock, 2018), I recall facing the issue of finding ways to figure out who I was in terms of identity and making it work. For example, how was I supposed to just have one identity when so many parts of my life were different? I had different intersections such as being Peruvian, American, female, low income and first generation, and I had to learn to balance these different identities in order to achieve a positive identity (Santrock, 2018). Currently, as a 23 year old,  I am in the stage of intimacy versus isolation (Santrock, 2018), a stage that has been challenging as an adult who has moved back home after college. In this stage, I am learning all over again how to form relationships as an adult with other adults and how to maintain those friendships because they are so different from the relationships I’ve made before. Previously, I was in a different environment, such as high school or college where a community was already established. Now, forming intimate relationships with new people at a different stage in my life is both exciting and scary because I’m meeting people with a blank slate and deciding the relationships I want to have in my life. 

You and your parents grew up at different points in time.  Consider some ways you are different from your parents.  Do you think some of these differences may be due to cohort-effects?  Explain (be sure to define what cohort effects are and provide examples). 

Growing up in a time with so much technological advancement and so much knowledge available at our fingertips is something that I think about often. I recognize the fact that no other generation before me has really experienced life with so much technology and free knowledge. Cohort effects are something that is very real, since they are “due to a person’s time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age” (Santrock, 2018, pg. 34).

I’ve noticed differences between my parents and I’s ideas simply because of the time that I am growing up in, but also many different reasons since they grew up in a different culture (them growing up in a collectivist culture and me in an individualistic culture) so it can be difficult to distinguish between cohort effects and culture based ideals. However, my parents are baby boomers despite their age difference and I’m straddling the line between being either a millennial or gen z so there’s are already cohort effects there. For example, with my parents being baby boomers, they both came from a time where their parents had many children. My dad has eleven brothers and sisters and my mom has five, while I am an only child. While this might have been because their parents decided it safe to have children after WWII, or they were simply from a time where ideas of contraception simply weren’t as liberal as they are today, they still show a cohort effect difference. Another difference I have with my parents is the level of education that we have had. For my parents, higher education was something that only the really wealthy were able to achieve and their parents always put stress on family life and work first for them so they weren’t really able to pursue higher education so easily. For me, I find that for higher education while it was really expensive, there was also a lot of resources like FAFSA and a bunch of different scholarships that were available for me to make higher education more achievable and I definitely think that has to do with the time that I am in now because of how easily accessible it all is through the internet now. Because of this i find that I am able to be sensitive or knowledgeable about certain topics that my parents weren’t aware of before. Another difference due to cohort effects that I notice between my parents and I is that my parents grew up seeing the terrorist attacks of a communist group in Peru, known as the Shining Path here, so they were always wary when I went anywhere as a teen and even now they assume the worst could happen at any minute. While I grew up thinking that this was a silly way to live, I understand now because I realize they lived in a time where terrorist attacks were common and that was the way they were conditioned to think. For me, while I thought it was silly as a child or teen, I see the rise in domestic terrorism in the US and realize that this is now how I am starting to think as well but only because I now live in a time that it’s sort of necessary for me to be cautious and alert of my surroundings. These are all ways that show cohort effects because they help explain the differences between generations with the ways people think, their intelligence and habits because of it (Santrock, 2019). 

                                                         References:

Parents Kissing Daughter [Stock Image] Retrieved from: https://images.app.goo.gl/FnKyEQynpDFUV6vJA

Psychosocial Stages of Development [Drawing] Retrieved from: https://images.app.goo.gl/CrGyfs3WfrLUE26S8

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Lifespan development (17th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.