#qimir × mae friendship

[sheena-isa-punkrocker]

modern!college!acolyte au where mae needs help in one if her classes and qimir is her tutor. they become friends and then qimir meets osha

[bbsworld1]

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“Master?”

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tags: kissing, smut, making out, friends to lovers, dry humping, oral sex, vaginal fingering, riding

summary: After finishing a task your master had given you, you complain to Qimir. Considering you should be your masters acolyte, he’s refusing… with Mae around it seems like he's almost replacing you. Qimir reassures you that everything is alright… but how does he know how your master feels?

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After a long errand run you stop by Qimir, your best friend to boast about your tiring and annoying day. “I should just give up, it’s not like he needs me anymore.” you groan, walking into Qimirs shop. “I’m sick of Mae stealing the spotlight, I mean… I was the original for christ sake.” sounding like a child throwing a fuss. “I know I sound stupid but he should acknowledge my loyalty for once.”

“How are you so sure?” Qimir lifted his head from the machinery he was inspecting.

“All I do is basically finish his grocery list like i’m his mother or something while Mae is out doing my work.” You drop your gear and head over to the seat beside Qimir. “Seems like you’re just giving him a helping hand, I mean look at the bright side, atleast you don’t have to do the dirty work.” Qimir puts down what he was working on to give his attention to you. “Yeah yeah I get it but the whole point was that I wanted to be by his side and help him, I don’t mind doing the dirty work.” You say feeling hurt by how committed you’ve always been to your master. You flash Qimir a look of hopelessness.

Tears slowly begin to form, you close your eyes and take a deep breath to hide it but Qimir catches it. “Hey, hey listen… you are one of the most highly skilled assassin’s don’t talk yourself down like that.” He rested a hand on your thigh for a moment, you didn’t catch the faint blush on his cheeks. “You don’t need to end it now.” Qimir says. “What if he wants me to? It’s obvious enough he has better help. If he keeps training Mae and sending me off, sooner or later i’ll be done for good.” You say, hopeless.

“Trust me, he needs you now more than ever.” Qimir says breathlessly.

“How would you know?” I say leaning closer to him, remembering how Qimir had lightly brushed your thigh just a few moments ago. You had always had a thing for Qimir but you couldn’t ruin your friendship, not in the middle of training to become your masters acolyte.

“because…” Qimir trailed off nervously. “you’re an amazing woman… strongest one I know, gentle and kind and I know he sees your potential to become even better.”

Qimir always knew what to say to make you blush. “Yeah?” You say, out of breath from the close proximity as your bodies grew closer and closer. “Yeah, I always know what someone is thinking.”

“Then what am I thinking about right now?” Tilting your head and flicking between Qimirs lips and eyes. “I think… you want to kiss me.” was the last words whispered from Qimir as he closes the gap. You both slowly ease into the kiss, you slowly move to straddle Qimir in the chair, pressing your bodies against each other. You place one hand on the side of his neck and another dragging through his hair. Qimir lets out a slight whimper as you tug lightly on his hair. You feel Qimir swipe his tongue swipe across your lip, pleading for entrance. You open your mouth allowing him to explore deeper. Qimir breaks the kiss to lift you and carry you onto the random sofa in the back of the shop.

He sets you on top of him, straddling him with his hands on your hips. You bend to place your head in the crook of his neck giving light sucks and nibbling right below his ear. “shit sunshine…” he breathes, eyes filled with lust. Just as you were about to continue you sensed a familiarity with the nickname… until it hit you… “master?” You say.

He smiles with his forehead rested against yours.

“So you finally figured it out,” he grins.

I just kissed my master. The Qimir i’ve known forever was my master. I smack him on the arm. “Hey!” Qimir says, “It was going so well.” “Why are you giving me these tasks? I’m supposes to be your acolyte and you’ve listened to me complain about you this whole time?” I say, ashamed of how I had been acting earlier. “Y/n, I can’t have you as my acolyte because i’m afraid of loosing you and I don’t know what I would do with myself if you were ever hurt.” He admits.

I let a sly smile pass me hearing his words. “Come here.” He says, “why don’t we finish what we started hmm?” He says as his hand wraps around the back of my neck. “mhm, i’d like that.” You say. This kiss is more passionate, filled with deep feelings and meaning.

You slowly begin to rock your hips against Qimirs growing erection protruding beneath the thing pieces of clothing he had on. He threw his head back and let out a strained groan, giving you a clear shot to attack his neck.

You slowly slide your hands beneath his shirt feeling his soft skin as his breathing quickened and his chest rose up and down quickly. “Just hurry up, please, I can’t take much of it longer.” Qimir breathes out. You lift his shirt over his head to reveal his sculpted body, running your hands through his body, “What do you need baby?” You say, out of breath. “Please..” He says. “Please what?” You say. “Touch me.” He says.

You place your hand over his erection. He winces and bucks his hips to get some friction, you palm him through his pants. “Come on, don’t tease me like that..” he says, sucking in a breath. “Patience.” You say.

He reaches to lift your shirt and you pull it over and throw it to the side. Qimir slowly analyzes your body, “beautiful.” He says, at a loss of words. Your blush becomes more prominent. Qimir reaches up to unclip your bra from the back in one swift movement. One hand reaches up to your breast to fondle the skin, attaching his mouth to the other and sucking and nibbling on your nipple. You hiss, tightly grabbing at his hair. He hums leaving vibrations on your chest.

Qimir swiftly flips you onto your back with him looming over you. He leans in, trailing kisses down from your neck to the lining of your pants. He looks up with pleading eyes. “Please, I’ve been needing to taste you for so long sunshine.” He asks, practically begging. You couldn’t say no. “Of course.” You say.

He immediately pulls down your pants to reveal your panties, soaked from his previous actions. “So wet already, just for me.” he whispers, nudging his nose between your thighs.

He slowly kisses between each thigh, worshiping your body. He finally reaches your heat, slowly licking through the fabric. You moan in frustration. “Stop teasing.” You say. He ignores your moans as he slowly pulls down your panties agonizingly. Once they’re fully off he wastes no time wrapping his arms around your thighs to hold you down, he began licking and sucking like you were his last meal. Your hand gripped his hair sending vibrations from his moans directly to your pussy.

His head was pressed between your shaking thighs as his hands held you firm against the edge of the couch. One hand held his head against you, nearly nose deep in your cunt. The other gripped the couch cushion so tight your knuckles went white.

“Qi…” Your moaning kept him going. He wanted to taste every bit of you left.

He slowly placed one finger into you, and you reacted instantly. Arching your back off the couch as he was fingering you and sucking on your clit. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you came.

He let you ride out your high on his tongue as your juices spilled out. “Fuck, you’re really good” You say in shock. “Looks like we have a problem, mind if i take care of that?” You say, pointing to the obvious bulge leaking precum from the fabric of his underwear.

“I need you.” Qimir says in a faint whisper, crawling up towards you. “You have me.” You say, flipping Qimir over and propping your hips right over his clothed cock. You move over to pull his underwear revealing his erect penis. You begin playing with the tip, tracing your finger around the slit. Your hand then makes its way along the shaft, stroking it. He lets out a breath. You continue like that for a bit. All you can see is the back of his head but you can tell his mouth is slightly opened, whining and whimpering.

“Please I need it.” He says, begging. “Want me to ride you?” You say. He leans in to kiss you, taking that as a yes. You grab his erect cock teasing it along your entrance. He lets out a low moan. “Stop teasing please…” He says, breathing heavy. You finally slide the tip in, adjusting to his size.

Qimir closes his eyes with his mouth hanging open.You begin swaying up and down, small gasps leaving your mouth each time you go down. Qimirs hands move to your thighs squeezing them, they then make their way up. He watches your breast bounce as you move up and down. You kiss him every now and again.

Knowing you can't last long on top you begin to speed up your pace before your legs give out due to exhaustion. The slaps of sounds your body makes when it comes in contact with his, combined with your moans and his gasps sound like a bizarre orchestra. Your legs ache and beads of sweat fall from your head onto his abdomen.

You keep that pace until you slowly start to feel your body and Qimirs tighten. You feel a sudden wave about to crash over you. As you begin to loose your pace, Qimir grabs your hips and bucks his hips into you, reaching the deepest parts of you. You gasp, tugging his hair one last time before you feel his throbbing cock before finally finishing in you. You continue the ride, finally finishing a few seconds after him. You clench as you milk his cock. Clutching each others sweaty bodies.

Your legs finally give out as you rest beside Qimir.

After catching your breaths, Qimir turns to face you, kissing your forehead and engulfing you in a hug. A way of saying 'I love you' without having to say it. It is moments like these where you wish you could freeze time.

“You know… I don’t really mind those little errands you put me up to after all.” You say with a smirk.

Qimir laughs, wrapping his arms around you, kissing you on your forehead. You slowly fall into a deep sleep.

“Sweet dreams, sunshine.”

[kallista-diune]

Surprise...

Imagine: You are serving your Master along with Mae, but your connection to the Force is weaker. You are helping in achieving her goals, similar to Qimirs help. Nonetheless you're a skilled fighter, and Master is making sure you are still developing, trying to achieve your full potential.

You are friends with Qimir, together complaining about Mae's behavior and the way she is treating you both like trash, especially Qimir. (I really despise how she is treating him.) Over the time you develops feelings for Qimir, hidden of course, afraid you will ruin your friendship.

You are training with your Master. Just a raw fight, no Force. Somehow, unintentionally you manage to knock off his mask and it's too late for either of you to even try to avoid revealing his identity.

Here you stand, frozen in clasch, face to face with your best friend. Your eyes wide, lips parted in shock. All this time you were unknowingly falling for your Master.

"Qimir...?"

"Surprise." And the next thing you know are his lips finally on yours.

Of course he knew. From the very beginning he knew.

(English is not my first language 😅 Would you like me to make an attempt to write this as a full story? I have a specific kind of connection to the Force in mind for reader. Yet I don't know if I will be able to keep this form of writing, I always stick to the 3rd person pov.)

[dg-outlaw]

Acolyte Season 2 AU (or What Could Have Been)

*Season 1 spoilers* and My Thoughts.

So with Season 1 over, instead of reflecting on what was, I want to talk about what could've been. I imagine there's a plan for season 2 and part of my guess is that we'll get more into the Dark Side and the Sith with Osha's training with the Stranger/Qimir and their secret roommate, Darth Plagueis the Creeper. On the Jedi side we'll probably get into political conflict between the Jedi and the Senate, and have a 'What Do We Do With Mae?' subplot. But here's what I think could've been interesting...

From what I've seen online, a lot of fans enjoyed these two characters (Jecki Lon and Yord Fandar, pictured above), especially them together, which I think is a real loss for the show unless they are leaning more towards a Dark Side/Sith focused storyline for Season 2. If anything, that's one of my critiques of the show, even though I enjoyed it. Was the show about Osha and Mae, the Jedi, Sol and what happened on Brendok, or a mix with an ensemble cast? I think had the show been 12-15 episodes it could've successfully been all of the above, but with only 8 episodes I feel like none of those plotlines got enough attention or time to breathe and really hit. Again, I enjoyed the show and look forward to what comes in Season 2, but...

...what if Jecki and Yord had lived?

Season 1 could've still played out as it did and maybe Jecki and Yord were injured rather than killed or presumed dead in Episode 5 to further add to Sol's anguish. Though, with how badass she was, even just keeping Jecki alive could've been interesting for this AU idea. Here's why:

This first season ends with Vernestra basically throwing Sol under the bus. Yes, he made some major mistakes and he and the other 3 Jedi from Brendok covered up their secret for years because Indara thought it was the best course of action, but how would Jecki (and Yord) have taken that news? Their kind, gentle, and wise master a rogue Jedi who orchestrated some elaborate murder plot to cover up his past crimes? It wouldn't make sense to them (based on the Sol they knew) and I think you could have a whole noir-style investigation subplot with them not knowing who to trust in the Jedi Order, arguing about who to trust and whether they should doubt their masters, and wrestling with the realities and truth of Sol's past. Would they go to Senator Rayencourt or work with him to uncover the truth or would they wrestle with the idea that to uncover the truth it could unravel the whole Jedi Order?

Seriously, the buddy cop dry humor mixed with the drama could be so fun.

Then you add in Mae, who Jecki and Yord would be antagonistic toward at first, but then she'd become part of their little investigative team. Either way, Mae will likely want answers to who she is in Season 2, but the Jedi are likely to keep those answers from her and that would add another layer. Jecki and Yord would be forbidden from interacting with her or just not told about her until they saw her randomly in the streets of Coruscant with her Jedi security detail.

This would also setup a very interesting conflicts as you'd have Team Sith (Qimir, Osha, and Cave Roomie Plag), Team Sol (Jecki, Yord, and Mae), and Team Jedi (Vernestra, her Executive Assistant Mog, and other "red shirt" Jedi). I have no idea where Yoda would fit into all this, but maybe he'd secretly guide Jecki and Yord with vague Jedi wisdom because he's seeing some problems in his house that need to be fixed.

Also, Jecki would get a rematch with Qimir, a battle with Osha (similar to hers with Mae), and Yord... well, Yord would do battle and maybe die. Though, he and Mae could develop something as a mirror to Osha and Qimir, even if just a friendship (esp. if a Jecki/Mae thing happens), and that would give Mae conflict if it was Osha who killed him.

In the end, Jecki and maybe Yord (if he lives) would leave the Order, similar to how Ahsoka did in The Clone Wars. No matter what the outcome ended up being, it would shake their faith in the Order. Yoda would be the only one left who knew the truth, but with everyone believed dead or gone, it would be okay in his mind and Ki-Adi-Mundi could just be left in the dark for the sake of his Episode 1 quote about the Sith.

Obviously, Plagueis would somehow survive (unbeknownst to Yoda) and would later use what he learned about Osha and Mae to create Anakin as one of his experiments to achieve immortality, hoping to have a new body to transfer himself into. Sidious would be unaware of this as Plagueis would be aware of Sidious' intention to kill him and would've kept Anakin a secret b/c Sith be shady backstabbers like that. It wouldn't be until meeting young Anakin that Palpy realizes Anakin was that secret project Plagueis was working on but never told him about. Thus, his fascination with Anakin, Luke, and his later (sequel) attempts to use Rey in the same way.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 10

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger"

A/N: dividers by @cafekitsune also YAY happy ten chapters everybody~

series masterlist

chapter 10: a.f.l.d.

“Where’s Jecki?” Osha asked Yord fifteen minutes into her shift.

Yord didn’t look up from reorganizing one of the fridges. “She was pulled off shifts with the others going to Theed for the Regional Open.”

“What? But the Open isn’t—”

She was interrupted by the beginning of the lunch rush, which incited a minor stock emergency that left Osha by herself for fifteen minutes while Yord went to buy milk.

“Where did you go? Downtown?” she asked around the screech of the milk frother.

“I have a cousin with a grocery store. It’s important to support small businesses, Osha.”

She could have thrown all 85 pounds of Huyang at him.

The implications of Yord’s answer bled into a tight knot of anxiety that wouldn��t settle. When things calmed down after the rush, Osha grabbed her stool and asked Yord to tell her more about the Open.

“We’ve been trying to coordinate this since last night—wait, you’re not in any of those group chats.”

Yord Fandar was a complicated creature. While his words were sharp and candid, Osha knew he didn’t mean it maliciously. At least, she hoped he didn’t. The decade and a half she had known him made her more than used to his priorities: fact and truth over tact and friendship. It sucked whenever he turned his brutally honest eye on Osha.

She was fine not being in the group chats, really. She didn’t want people hesitating to make plans because she couldn’t handle a hike or something. It was fine; she valued individual connection anyway. Totally fine.

“What happened?” she asked. For whatever reason, glazing past the dig at her took a little more effort today.

“Apparently, after… whatever happened with you,” Yord gestured to the stairs leading to Vernestra’s office, “Jecki was told she needed to focus on the Regional Open, which then led to the other competitors needing to focus on the Open, and then everything after that.”

“But the Open’s like two months away,” Osha said, busying her hands by cleaning a portafilter. She may have banged the puck out into the trash a little violently. 

“You should check your email.”

“I’ll check it right now, good suggestion, Yord.” she said, knowing Yord hated workplace misconduct more than anything. That he didn’t scowl or tell her to do it on her break spoke to the importance of whatever message awaited her.

The email was distressingly professional and spelled her doom at once: to accommodate the coming competition season, operating hours in the cafe would be shortened, competition members’ shifts would be adjusted with priority, elite classes would be invite-only, and the typical pre-season timeline would be accelerated, meaning the Temple would go dark much earlier than it did in past years.

The terms and timing were more than just coincidental—they were outright suspicious. However, for someone like Yord (who, the email announced, had been promoted to shift supervisor), the changes were inconsequential to his gains. Osha was confident his promotion was to distract him from everything else.

Yet Osha, Tasi, and many other employees’ hours had been slashed, all to accommodate the coming competition season.

Osha felt a well of righteous anger rising inside of her. It took some serious effort to snuff her emotions out to the point where she could ignore them entirely, but she was used to hiding how she felt. It felt doubly necessary to do so now, considering her new supervisor watched her reaction to the news like a hawk.

“Did you see Vernestra set a date for employee evaluations?” Yord said, practically vibrating with the need to prove himself.

“Sure did,” Osha mumbled, tucking her phone away. Yord would leap at every opportunity to write her up now that he had a taste of authority. Great.

“So, Mae is shadowing Sol as junior trainer for the foreseeable future. Jecki’s working with Sol to prepare for the season, but the cafe crew will return. Hopefully, with some title trophies for the Temple!” He seemed to consider giving a friendly pat on her shoulder, but he stopped before he could touch her.

She gave him a watery smile and went back to work.

It got harder and harder to keep her anger and emotions at bay as she turned the news over in her mind. Yord was the one who cost the Temple countless dollars just by fucking up Huyang as often as he did. She was the one who constantly cleaned up after his messes. Promoting him over her and cutting hours across the board and going dark three weeks early and employee evaluations? These were all clear strategic moves that spelled an unavoidable future: she was going to get super fucking fired.

Maybe… hm. That could be an option. It couldn’t be too dissimilar from being a barista. Luckily, she knew just who to ask. She texted her stranger when Yord stepped into the walk-in.

O: Is Unknown Planet hiring

?: You’ll have to be more specific. There are two Unknown Planets.

O: Whatever’s available

O: Bartender preferably

O: I don’t think cage fighting will pay my rent lol

?: Fight money isn’t THAT good.

?: Did something happen at the cafe?

O: A lot of something

O: lol

?: When’s your next break? Call me.

O: I’ll take it in ten minutes

Osha’s temper had risen to a fever pitch by the time she headed for the Starbucks. The moment she walked out the door, she called him. I hope he won’t hear my teeth grinding across the—

“Hey,” he answered after the first ring. Just hearing a single syllable from him replaced the tension in her chest with relief. She sighed, feeling the anxiety go slack around her chest.

“Hi.”

“What’s going on?” In the background, she could hear the chatter of men’s voices. “You sound upset.”

“I’m not upset, I’m just…” She quickly relayed what the email had said. “So I guess I’m job hunting.”

“I’m sorry, Osha—hold on.” Something jostled on the other end, and his voice went sharp. “If you’re talking this much, you’re not focusing on your form! Start from zero!” The chatter ceased, and she heard him close a door.

Her face went almost radioactive from the sudden heat in her cheeks. His voice had an undeniable authority that she hadn’t heard before. She’d seen hints of his personality here and there, cutting sarcasm and dry sass. It gave her whiplash to hear the change in tone when he spoke to her next.

“Sorry about that,” he sighed. 

Mae had felt the need to warn her about him, calling him a butthead—about as scathing a remark as she could make. He’d been so patient and open with her at the gym the other night… Sheesh, how many sides to him were there?

“Osha? Still there?”

Shit. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m still here. Just trying not to slip like forty feet from the door.”

“Take your time.”

“Are you… working?”

He chuckled. “I’m filling in for the swimming and diving team trainer today. They can survive fifteen minutes without me.”

“What do you have them doing?”

“Innumerable V-ups.” He returned to their original topic. “So you want to work at the bar instead?”

“There are some transferable skills,” she said while opening the door to Starbucks. Talking to him like this felt so domestic, she realized. She blamed her rosy cheeks on the weather as she got in line.

“How long have you worked at the cafe?”

“Something like eight years? Nine, if you don’t count the time I took off after the injury. Was that what you were asking?”

“Close enough. Have you had any other job?”

She frowned, toying with her sleeve. “Not really. There was some prize money from the junior championship, but it was mostly scholarship money so I haven’t seen any of it.”

“Did you never want to go to college?”

“Sol practically had a meltdown when Mae enrolled at the community college a few years ago. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to go to college, it was a matter of not wanting to disappoint Sol.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a parent being disappointed in their child getting an education.”

“Yeah, well. Sol’s got strange priorities.”

“He sure does.”

“You said you worked in food service before, right?”

She caught the barest beat of hesitation before he spoke. “I worked at the Temple cafe when they were open 24 hours a day. A few years of graveyard shift put me off of coffeehouses pretty much forever.” No wonder he knew where to find the cleaning supplies and the first aid kit—not to mention his comfort dealing with Huyang. “Throughout college, I worked in a few restaurants and retail stores, typical stuff. I bartended at Unplan through my Master’s before I was hired to the rehab staff at the college. The manager still asks me to take a shift here and there, typically on the slow nights or when he misses me.”

She caught herself smiling at his story and realized she was being incredibly stupid. He’d literally read his resume to her over the phone, and she was giggling like a schoolgirl. “Well, now that I’ve seen you fight, I want to see you make drinks. You’ll have to tell me when you’re doing that next.” Yeah. Cool girl response. Great job.

He gave a light chuckle. “You can’t get enough of me, is that it?”

“Can you blame me?”

She was pretty sure she could hear a quiet, sharp inhale from his end. She didn’t know what it meant.

“I’ll, uh, definitely have an easier time seeing you at work if you—”

“Hold on a second, sorry.”

She held her phone to her shoulder to order, but another barista spoke up at the other end of the counter. “I have an order for Osha at the bar!”

Osha looked blankly at the worker behind the register for a second before tentatively approaching the pickup counter without ordering. To her surprise, her usual waited—in a festive cardboard cup with a festive cardboard sleeve. She did a double-take at the name on the order tag.

:) OSHA :)

Just like she’d put in his stupid fucking flip phone.

She brought her phone back to her ear. “Did you buy me coffee?”

“Hmm, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, a grin in his voice that she wished she could see. He must have ordered it the moment she took her break. “You deserved something nice. You seemed stressed when you texted me.”

A sudden swell of emotion bloomed in her chest, warm as summertime. “Thank you, uh. Well. Thank you.” She grabbed a seat, hoping she didn’t sound too awkward.

“What’s up?”

“You know, I don’t really know what to call you. Mae told me your name is Qimir, and I saw it in the article I gave you last night, but…”

“…but what?”

“It doesn’t—I mean, you didn’t introduce yourself as—” She groaned at her fumbled explanations. “Do you want me to call you… that?”

He was quiet for a few moments. “I try not to go by that name anymore. Casually, at least. But I also never gave that name to Mae while I trained her.”

She tucked away that piece of information for later. “Okay. What name do you go by? Casually, that is.”

“So things are casual between us?” he teased.

She felt her eyes bugging slightly. This guy must have been made in a lab with the express purpose of tormenting her. “Casual in the way someone talks about casualties.”

“What have you been calling me in your head?”

“Bold of you to assume you’re on my mind that much.”

“Sure, but are those assumptions correct?”

Damn him.

“I’ve just been calling you the stranger—whenever I have to bear the thought of you at all.”

“You wound me, Osha.” She was hooked on the laughter in his voice. For whatever reason, this coffee warmed her up much faster than she remembered it doing the other day. “You were going to say that the name doesn’t suit me, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, actually. Sorry.”

“No, no. I agree. The FDO named me Qimir Loharne, anyway.” No wonder he had such a complicated relationship to it. “What name do you think suits me better, then?”

She hummed in thought, looking out at the rest of the Starbucks and resting her left foot onto the seat across from her. “I dunno. Not Smiley.”

A laugh, half-sarcastic and half-amused. “That’s another name that was given to me.”

“All names are given to us. It’s the one thing that belongs to you but is used freely by everybody else. They’re paradoxically important.”

“You have me there.”

Osha traced her finger along the edge of the cup. “I think it was something my mother once said to me.”

A pause. “Do you remember much of her?”

She sighed. “Yes and no. Some memories stand out—” Fire, twisted steel, broken glass, screams— “But other times, my memories seem more like wishes and guesses.”

“Is Mae the same?”

“If she talks about them, it’s not with me. I’m not sure.”

“Forgetting, remembering… they’re different pains that make you wish you’d done the other.”

“Are you normally this eloquent, or am I just special?”

He gave an indecipherable hum that flustered her enough to make her switch topics.

“I don’t know, then. Qimir, Smiley, stranger, doctor, do your athletes call you coach?”

“Anybody in authority is ‘coach’ on a sports team. To them, I’m Coach Lo, or Dr. Lo when they’re trying to annoy me.”

“More aliases!” She took another sip of her coffee. “I think the more important question than my opinion is: what name would you choose for yourself?”

He went quiet abruptly. She’d been only chatting, saying whatever nonsense came to mind as she enjoyed her break. Had she struck a nerve?

“I like… yours.”

“Then I shall continue to call you stranger.”

He cleared his throat. “I hope not forever.”

“I… hope so, too.” She traced her thumb over the sticker on her cup, right over her name. He was elsewhere in the city—the college—but it felt like he was there with her just the same, like he could hold some part of him in her hands.  

“I think you know more of me than anybody else, Osha,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect it, but I’m glad you do.”

Her heart raced, and she pressed her hand against it, urging her sudden emotions to dissipate so she didn’t make a complete fool of herself. “I’m glad I know you, too.”

A soft, shared silence connected both ends of the call. She occasionally heard him speaking to the swim team, and he probably heard the din of the Starbucks on her end. He broke the silence after nearly five minutes of neither speaking at all. “When do you get off?”

“Six tonight.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, bashful.

“It’s way icier today than it was yesterday. Please let me pick you up.”

It was the please let me that did it. “Okay. I’ll see you at six, then.”

“Enjoy your coffee, Osha.” 

“I will, stranger.”

When she got in his car after clocking out, her mind was transported back to the night before—that witching hour moment they shared where he whispered her name so softly and he almost—they almost—

She was getting ahead of herself.

“Hey, stranger.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’m never getting rid of that, am I?”

“You said it’s your favorite name. Deal with it!”

“I said no such thing.”

He pulled into traffic, and they trudged along the short commute as it was bogged down by rush hour and shitty weather. She didn’t mind the inconvenience—she was warm and in good company.

She told him, “I packed my swim gear if you wanted to go straight to the pool.”

“I thought you might have—that’s what we’ll do. How was it not having class before your shift?”

“It was really good. The tape is still on, doing its job and shit. I put my leg up whenever I could, too.”

“Attagirl,” he said, smiling but not looking away from the road. She was grateful he didn’t witness the embarrassing face she made upon hearing his praise.

“How did the swimming and diving team fare?”

He stopped at a red light and only then did he look over, raising an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“You certainly don’t train me with death by V-ups.”

“Yet.”

She groaned, but recognized his playful tone.

He rubbed his thumb over the steering wheel, pulling her focus there while he answered her. “Everybody learns differently. Good teachers listen and adapt to what their students need. The same goes for training. I prefer personal training because I can focus on my student’s needs. If I trained the swimmers like I trained you, they wouldn’t get anything done. And if I trained you like I trained them, I don’t think you’d enjoy spending time with me anymore.”

“I doubt that,” she protested.

“You never know,” he shrugged, keeping his eyes resolutely off of her.

Osha was a little worried about her swimsuit—it had been years since she last wore it, and it felt precariously small. Still, the seams held, and it did its best to squish her chest down into as unflattering a figure as possible, but she was proud of her body—squished or otherwise.

Her stranger was already out near the end of the pool, stretching his arms over his head. He was angled away from her, which put her face to face with the scars on his back. Now that she knew they were there, she could make out two pale, pink, and perfectly healed surgery scars along his spine. She would never have seen them if he hadn’t told her about his procedures as a child. Even so, they were hard to see beneath the gray and purple tragedy carving from one shoulder blade to the opposite hip.

T6, T7, T12, L1. A couple broken ribs. Likely much more.

She set her things on the chair beside hers and said: “How’d you know my coffee order anyways?”

He sat on the edge of his chair, pulling an arm across his chest as he stretched his shoulders. He had a half-formed word on his tongue, but it went unsaid when he looked at her.

He started at her feet and dragged his way, molasses-slow, up her body until he met her gaze. Behind his glasses, his eyes were as dark and desirous—he liked what he saw, plain as day. Perhaps she shouldn’t have worried about her swimsuit being too small.

“It was a highly educated guess.” Only the barest burr of emotion came through in his tone. Knowing she’d affected him just by standing before him lit up her blood in neon lights.

“Oh? Did you get a doctorate in coffee predictions, too?” She began running through her warmup stretch routine from last night. “Or is that a certification?”

He rolled his eyes, but his gaze returned to drag hotly over her body as she demonstrated her flexibility, preening just a little.

“Long story short, I couldn’t imagine pumpkin-spiced Osha.”

“And the espresso shots?”

“Power of two,” he shrugged. “I’ll get you to join my caffeine habits eventually.”

“You think I’d succumb because you bought me one coffee?”

“How many coffees would it take?” he grinned.

“Don’t push it. You’re lucky you were right about my order,” she said, shooting him a look. His teasing smile made her insides flip around.

“I often am when it comes to you.”

She scoffed. What a man. “What, right?”

“Lucky.”

Motherfucking stupid emotions—

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re stalling. Finish up and get in.”

Finally. Something she could do.

He didn’t join her in the pool, standing at the edge to watch her instead. She nearly panicked when securing a cap over her hair—the swimsuit was definitely protesting her range of motion. She silently begged her assets not to make an escape attempt. It was her second day training with him, and nothing good could come from flashing him by accident.

Or perhaps—

Fuck. Not the time to think about that.

“Each length is twenty-five meters. Give me one hundred.”

He watched her swim, walking apace with her on the deck. He hadn’t been wrong about swimming being a full-body workout. She was out of practice, breathing hard when she came to a stop at the end of her lane.

“How did that feel?” he asked, squatting down by the edge.

“I’m a bit rusty, but—feels good.”

“Good,” he said. “Give me your hand.”

She stood up and offered her hand, curious. He slipped a small device around her wrist. His thumb traced idly over her knuckles as he turned her hand over, showing off a small screen. A few seconds passed, then it beeped once and showed 143 bpm. “I want you to focus your breathing to get your heart rate below 100. Get used to it. These first few weeks, we’ll do this every time there’s a pause or circuit shift.”

“Why?”

“Do it, and I’ll tell you.”

She wasn’t sure how successful she’d be, seeing as he didn’t let go of her hand and didn’t let her look away from him. But she tried anyway. While she breathed as slowly as her galloping heart would allow, he quietly explained. 

“We were taught to leave emotion out of the fight. To cut off any strings of passion or chaos tied to us.”

“Fights shouldn’t be personal,” she said. It felt strange to parrot Temple doctrine at him—especially an aspect that Osha struggled with all her life.

Everything was personal to Osha. Every defeat proved her to be a failure; each victory proved her worthy or deserving of happiness. She could not let go of her grief following the accident that left her an orphan, nor could she shake the repeated losses and despair following her injury. She could only seek to hide her feelings from the Temple and from Sol, who always reprimanded her for her outbursts. If she ever got close to revealing the passion that fueled her every moment, he would stop her entirely until she calmed herself.

“We are never without emotion, Osha. As much as we’d like to forget it, or as much as others want to convince us otherwise.” The stranger was talking about Vernestra. “Perhaps for the time-honored art of boxing,” he snarked, “where there are rules and limitations and even a person standing between you and your opponent, it’s possible to convince yourself that when you fight, there is no danger. If you do that, eventually, your body will suppress its natural response to a real threat.

“But when you are in the cage, two things must be true if you want to walk out of there alive. The first: your body must believe you’re in danger. And don’t get it wrong; when that door closes, you are in danger, Osha. The second imperative: you must accept what happens when you’re in danger. Do you know what the natural, biological response to danger is?”

She knew—twisted steel, broken glass, fire, screaming. Osha knew the answer well. “To feel scared.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s right. Fear is the natural response to danger, and that’s not our fault. That’s how it should be. Any emotion can grow beyond our control. A lot of times, an elevated heart rate is at fault for inciting fight-flight-freeze responses. Fear can become panic, and if you allow panic into the cage, you’ll get dragged out by your feet no matter how hard you trained. So, instead of lying to ourselves about some inner harmony of martial combat, we must accept that there is no peace in danger and no danger without even a small measure of fear.”

“Wouldn’t fighting instead of fleeing or freezing be useful?”

“You’d think,” he said, chuckling. “The only issue is that you don’t get to choose. That’s all back here.” He tapped the back of his head, indicating the medulla oblongata—the lizard brain. “Your body wants one thing when you’re threatened. It wants to survive. Tipping past the threshold of a powerful emotion puts that specific emotion at the helm, and as much as the Temple tried teaching us, emotions cannot be controlled or erased. Luckily, you can acclimate to your feelings enough to control your reactions. Denying your fear exists doesn’t erase the danger. It only makes the danger harder to survive and dulls the edge of instinct.”

“Are you afraid when you’re in the cage?” she asked. He seemed so controlled when he fought—except… he’d frozen upon hearing her voice. He’d dropped his focus on the fight to seek her out through the chain-link fence. Had he been afraid of her seeing him?

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I’ve been in true danger enough times in my life that it’s hard to scare me anymore. But that doesn’t exempt me from those stress responses, either. Any emotion can wrest control from you anytime if you consistently ignore your body’s natural responses to them. We reclaim power over our emotions by accepting and moving alongside them, not against or away from them. The more often you feel your emotions, the less likely you will become lost to them.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. As usual, his point of view countered everything she’d been told—perhaps that was the point. The Temple demanded her strength, demanded she endure—but it did not want strength borne from her anger nor endurance borne from her grief. The Temple wanted her blood but not the heart that moved it. Perhaps she spoke too soon; she did understand.

A muscle feathered in his jaw, as if he had to prepare himself for what he was about to say. “Below the surface of consciousness are powerful emotions. Anger. Fear. Loss… Desire.”

Heat coiled in her gut, contrasting with the relatively cool swimming pool. “What does—what do those… other ones have to do with fighting?”

He held her gaze for another moment before looking away. It felt like stepping into the shade on a hot day, but the relief felt hollow. “The short answer is that if you keep your cool, you’ll make better decisions when it matters. I’m not telling you to suppress your emotions in a fight—you should never do that. What I said about a high heart rate is what’s important right now. If you can get your breathing under control and avoid hyperventilating, your emotions will help you fight.”

“And what if the stress response kicks in anyway?” she asked.

He chewed on the answer before giving it to her. “That’s where mental strength comes in—finding focus in chaos, precision in anger. But we’re far off from getting you into that territory. For now, you’re in a controlled environment where you will most likely not have a strong emotional response. Today, practice lowering your heart rate. Can you do that?”

Over the next half hour, he ran her through drills that supported his point. Getting her heart rate below the threshold felt more exhausting than the physical effort that raised her above that same threshold. It was the strangest cardio session she’d ever done.

In the last section before cooldown, he joined her in the pool. It excited her to have him so close, but she could feel her body reaching the limits of her once-indomitable stamina. Finding the place where exhaustion took over was a novel feeling. She had never left classes at the Temple feeling this way.

“Last push. Fifteen minutes, and whatever you do, don’t stop,” he instructed.

“And then breath control?”

He set his glasses at the end of his lane. “You know it.”

He started the same time she did. She was crawling by the end, almost laughably slow. When her time was up, she rested her back on the pool’s edge to focus her breathing—but he didn’t stop with her. He must have been holding back while swimming beside her. When she started her controlled breathing, something shifted in the water—a primal feeling, like a live shark had just been tossed into the pool. He opened up the throttle, carving through the water at nearly twice the speed he’d done before.

Watching him do swim sprints completely fucked up whatever methodology she was using to calm down.

Eventually, the tiny machine beeped to indicate she’d gotten below the threshold, and he cruised to a stop beside her. When he stood up, they were close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

“Good job,” the stranger said, chest heaving with exertion. He turned, leaning his hand on the edge of the pool and pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“That was—you’re a good swimmer.”

He smiled, eyebrows lifting. “It takes practice to make progress.”

“I don’t think I’ve gotten any better at controlling my heart,” she said, biting her tongue when she realized how mushy that sounded.

“While the heart is a muscle, just like the ones in your leg and my back, it’s never something that can be controlled,” he panted. “The heart’s one of the few places in your body running on emotions, too.” He took her hand and slipped the pulse reader from her wrist to his. The reader beeped to display his heart rate, still fast, strong, and firmly in the cardio zone. “What we’re doing with our hearts isn’t controlling. It’s… persuading. Hearts need a gentler treatment than knees and ankles and backs.”

He brought her hand to rest flat over his heart.

“They need different treatments than we’re used to.”

Osha’s mind went a little fuzzy. He looked a little wild in the dark depths of his eyes, hidden behind tendrils of dripping wet hair. This wasn’t a reaction that a controlled environment would give.

The device gave a long, annoyed beep. It showed his heart rate had gone up.

“I don’t think you’re—”

“This is what the stress response feels like,” he rasped, hand lightly squeezing hers. “This is when a mind is run on instinct—nothing but impulse and emotion.” He gave a breathy laugh, sounding a little manic. But she didn’t pull away. “It’s taking a lot of self-control not to—” he cut himself off, biting his lower lip, shutting his eyes, and tilting his head back. It exposed the long column of his throat, and Osha suddenly wanted nothing more than to lean in and—

He squeezed her hand again, disrupting her thoughts. “You asked,” he panted. “What if you hit this point anyway? What if your emotions drive you?”

Her mouth went dry at the look he was given her, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. This was his stress response? He didn’t look scared… which emotion was driving him now?

He tilted his head back down for a clearer view of her. He hardly blinked as he started his own procedure for calming himself down. She could feel the moment things changed in him. He lost the tension limning his features, his breathing slowed into a circular pattern of in-hold-out-hold-again, and his shoulders slumped somewhat. She worried initially that he’d pass out from the quick drop in his heart rate, but he didn’t look unsteady, and his eyes remained focused on her.

In about thirty seconds, he’d persuaded his heart to a sedate 100 beats per minute. He tugged the pulsometer off his wrist using his teeth, then tossed it onto the pool deck without looking. Now Osha was the one at risk of passing out. He had so much control over his body, and that body was strong and lethal by his design.

“How did you do that?” she asked, just louder than the lapping water against the sides of the pool. She hadn’t moved her hand from his chest, and he hadn’t let her go. 

“Lots and lots of discipline.”

Now that she knew what it looked like, she remembered him doing something similar when he told her about his childhood at the Temple. He’d needed a minute to calm himself before continuing—that had been a stress response as well, something she was sure was the fear he said he was used to.

“I can show you.”

“Yes, please.”

His eyes flashed with something hot, and she felt his heart rate pick up again beneath her palm.

“Then I will. Next time.”

He waited for her in the lobby after they’d finished showering off. It reminded her of their third meeting, when the automatic lights had shut off because they were talking too long. But this time, they were quiet as they stood at the door. She didn’t want to let this moment go.

“Can I k—”

“How often ar—”

They both stopped when they realized the other was speaking, too. “You first,” he said before she could.

“Oh, I was just going to ask how many times a week we’re swimming.” It sounded so lame.

“It might be three times a week until you’re ready for interval training and more. Are you opposed to every other day?”

“No, I just need to go shopping. My tits almost fell out of my swimsuit today.”

Even the silence seemed to suck in a gasp.

FUCK. Osha. RUN.

“Okay, see you tomorrow, stranger!” she said quickly, dashing out the door and leaving him gobsmacked in the lobby.

She wondered what he was going to ask her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

[galactic-rhea]

A, C, D, I, Q for your ask game!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Well, quite obviously anidala is my OTP here in SW and it covers the romantic, the platonic and even the friendship somehow, but that one aside, let's see:

For romantic:

Barris x Ahsoka , Luke x Han, Obi-Wan x Quinlan, Obi-Wan x Satine, Rose x Rey, Finn x Poe.

For strong platonic relationships that go a bit beyond "friendship" but also can't be classified as romantic or family (I'm aromantic deal with me):

Anakin and Rex, Ahsoka and Hera (althouuuugh I have been considering them as romantic too). Anakin and Artoo, and Obi-Wan and Anakin can be here too, but they're more family to me.

And finally, for "whatever the hell is happening here" ships:

Obi-Wan x Maul, Morgan x Ahsoka, Obi-Wan x Jango (to be honest, Obi-Wan is so shippeable lol) and of course, the jewel in the crown of this one: Palpatine x Dooku. And I think one-sided Boba and Vader to be extremely funny.

Also I had this super crack and random ship that ocurred to me once: Ventress and Sabé. Do you see the vision.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Ahh, that's a hard one, mostly because I'm still fairly recent to this fandom and I haven't had that much time to like, develop strong distaste or something or let alone know about common ships (all the ones i mentioned above, mostly come from my own experiences while watching the series/movies).

But eh...I really don't like Keylo. I also don't like Obi-Wan / Anakin or Cody/Obi-wan. Not because I think the shippers are bad or evil or problematic or anything, I just don't like them and i have realized that they're sometimes hard to avoid because people don't tag them. But hey, I really don't have anything against people that like those.

Oh, and the brand new Mae x Qimir

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Probably Cody/ Obi wan because one of my friends really likes it and I'm just "eh" . Also I wish I could see the vision of Sabe and Padme, but I can't 😔

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

-Lets out an airy huff- Oh boyyyyy.

Yes. Although that much Tumblr but more like the whole fandom across several platforms. I'm also theoretically new to Tumblr because I just started using it more when I made this SW blog.

To summarize: There are some fandoms that are awful and the previous one was fairly bad, I liked an extremely unpopular character, and I got on the bad side of a big important famous person in the fandom whom was in several sites not only tumblr and twitter, which, hhuh, well. That previous fandom was terribly bad for my mental health, so I won't name it because I suspect the wolves of that fandom are still running and hungry.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Basically I answered it on the previous question. But talking about another completely different fandom: I dipped my fingers briefly into our flag means death fandom and not only came from it heavily disliking Taika, but found the fandom extremely only focused on just three characters which were the ones I wasn't interested, so I just lost interest and didn't even watch the second season

[buckee]

yuletide 2024 letter

Dear Yuletide writer,

Happy Yuletide! Thanks for being my writer this year! <3 More under the cut:

Hi Yuletide writer, thank you so much for your patience! I haven't had access to my personal computer for a bit, and I've tried uploading this from my phone, but I don't think it's been visible (?) until now. Anyways, apologies for the technical issues!

General likes: Dead dove content, darkfic content (any & all, I have no qualms with anything re: non-con, incest, underage, violence), NSFW stories, romantic comedies, character studies, sympathetic villains, unlikeable female characters, fraught relationships (platonic, romantic, or sexual), stories where two characters are isolated from others (e.g. quarantined, stranded on an island, etc), lovers to enemies, bittersweet endings, queer homoerotic toxic best friendships, one-sided love, fleshed-out backstories, villain/corruption arcs, power imbalances, age gaps, canon divergence AUs.

General dislikes: Stories about weddings (if the plot revolves around this topic), kidfic, single parent AUs, soulmate AUs, heavy-handedness, SFW stories, slice-of-life, coffee shop AUs, maternal abuse (if the plot revolves around this).

FANDOMS + potential prompts

Challengers (Art, Patrick, Tashi):

A post-canon fic exploring Tashi coaching Patrick while Art retires to be with Lily would be interesting–how does Patrick integrate himself into that family? How awkward and painful is it to discuss the years that went by, and what happened in-between? Do they have rules for intimacy?

Patrick and Art exploring a romantic & sexual relationship while Tashi mostly removes herself from that part of their dynamic would be really appealing–she’s part of their throuple, but in a remote way. I’ve always seen her as kind of their…coach? And also, that she’s aromantic, but not asexual. I think Art mourning a part of his relationship with his wife but gaining a new partner is really interesting. Art/Patrick have the most interesting dynamic to me, ESPECIALLY in the context of the throuple (no Tashi erasure), because Tashi has never seemed intensely invested in romance or commitment, even if she is involved with the both of them. And since she’s a parent and someone who could have a career comeback, this would be cool to see!

AU where Patrick & Art are Gen Z/zoomers who come of age in a time when gay marriage became legalized in the USA/queerness has a different connotation than it did even in the early 2000s. What would their relationship look like if it had started a lot earlier? If they had been involved in the queer community as a couple/in their young adulthood? And what would their relationship look like once they met Tashi?

The Acolyte (Qimir, Mae):

I really want to see a tense, psychosexual exploration of their dynamic while Mae was training under him. It’s fascinating that he becomes fixated on her twin afterwards–they’re identical, which means he had to find her face superficially attractive at the very least. Wouldn’t mind it getting darker on this end, especially with crossing boundaries in a mentor/mentee dynamic. How did they meet? Why is she so interested in his good opinion? Why does she stick around if she is afraid of him?

Push (Nick, Cassie)

Nick and Cassie blurring the lines between brother/sister as she grows older is always fascinating. Would love to see them be codependent and inappropriate and odd with one another, without realizing why until it’s too late. How do they handle being lovers? How does Nick deal with the conflict of self-hatred and desire? Does Cassie ever realize that no matter how much she loves him, he still groomed her? Do they ever try to make it work, white-picket-fence style? Do they live perpetually on the run? Do they grow tired of each other? Do they try to separate at all?

Alternatively, their romantic/sexual relationship starts at the age they both are in canon. Feel free to get dark here, so long as Nick remains horrified and conflicted and resistant to what he wants to do. Cassie can be coerced into increasingly inappropriate behavior, or she can instigate out of a childish crush. So long as it isn’t a vaudevillian, mustache-twirling event on Nick’s end, I’m interested in all ways this could go down!

Thank you so much! I'm so excited, and appreciate your time. :)

[chevelleneech]

One, I realized after the fact the tags I read were reblogged onto your post, not yours, but I’m glad we’re on the same page regardless!

Two, I meant to say, “hopefully people pick up on reading context between the lines.” Don’t know how I typo’d so badly, lol.

Three, Yes! Qimir isn’t a good guy at all. He didn’t have to kill a child, he could have knocked her out. She saw him for all of three seconds. He also didn’t have to go after Mae. She didn’t know his face, and he could have made a new mask. He chose to because that’s what he chooses to do. Death over negotiation, which is funny and completely insane, but I gotta respect his commitment.

That said, him being remorseless in his killings, doesn’t mean he is unjustified, technically. Not even the Jedi stand by and let themselves get killed. They attack when provoked, so why wouldn’t Qimir do the same? Which leads me to another thing that has me questioning why people see him as one dimensional, and that’s his honesty.

His words in ep6 completely matched his actions in ep5, so why are people having trouble understating he is manipulation Osha, yet he’s using the truth to do so? He only evaded one question, which was who gave him his scar, but other than that… what was a lie? The Jedi did rush him first. Yord did forego their ten year friendship and attempt to arrest her, then proceeded to try and tell Sol she was guilty when Sol second guessed. She was going to have a one sided bond with Jecki in the future, which was proven by how her friendship with Yord went, because Jecki was on the path to being a great Jedi and to be that she would have eventually let go of her personal/emotional attachments. Per the Jedi philosophy.

Now, does any of that being true means he himself needs to be on the Dark Side? Not at all. He’s still choosing to be on the opposing side. He’s still choosing to kill when he could maim and walk away, but… where’s the fun in that, when the Jedi are technically an oppressive order? Much like what we saw on Brendok. Perhaps they didn’t intend to kill everyone, but that doesn’t mean them showing up and demanding the witches children was right. (Unless of course, the witches did some crazy shit and the Jedi thought they were saving the girls.)

Anyway, yeah! Qimir is a baddie in both senses of the word, but I really don’t think he’s the big big bad. He’s a problem and a headache and will turn Osha and likely eventually become a notorious name who fucks shit up before dying, but right now he seems to be in defense mode at all times, and won’t bend for anybody.

(Except Osha. He’s gonna bend for her one day, and that’s what’s gonna get him killed. Or severely injured, and we’ll get to see the Jedi realize she’s his weakness.)

Hi! I just read your tags again, after my loooong reblog, lol, and wanted to say I also have been pointing out how not much of a bloodthirsty killer Qimir is.

It might come across as trying to excuse his actions, but he really did only kill the people who tried to kill him first. With the exception of Mae, who he said he’d kill because she betrayed him. But he walked away from Yord, Sol, and Jecki when he could have killed them. He even only tried to kill Osha after she shot him with the blaster, and he swung on her when she surprised him from behind during battle. But before that, he literally tossed her out of the way of the fight.

Qimir has yet to kill or attack someone for no reason, and when presented with leaving people alive or killing them… he left them alive. So ep7 and 8 will be very interesting, because hopefully we get his backstory and hopefully people pick up on life of the context between the lines.

YES. Yes, yes. Finally someone who points this out. I felt like I was going insane. It doesn't justify it, but he only killed Jecki and Yord once his mask was broken, and his hand was forced. He was alright with letting them go beforehand. I don't think it's bold to say his intentions were not to massacre those Jedi that night, it was merely a bonus. Lol. And even then, his closing statement of "What extraordinary beings we are. Even in the revelation of our triumph, you see the depth of our despair." showed that he didn't find the pleasure he likely assumed that would give him.

So while he clearly has no qualms with the act of killing; writing him off as a bloodthirsty killer to me is crazy. He is more of a Count Dooku, than a Maul to me in that case. ( although he does definitely have similarities to the latter, in other cases, but I digress. ).

[unhinged-summer-fun]

idle thoughts/writer wregrets (ignore me)

in the eventual book that common grounds will become i definitely need to incorporate "Sol" more deeply into the story - like it's not enough that i say he's their dad i gotta show him Being Their Dad some more especially considering all the [redacted] and [redacted] and of course the [redacted] with [redacted]. and like do i regret not fleshing out that part of the story as i posted it/am posting it now? not really. i look back on it as a missed opportunity really. however i started writing this with the romance as the main thing and i wanted to get it right, so my focus has been on that for the last 125,000 words. if i knew then what i know now about what this fic would become, i don't think i would have changed what i wrote. i have had the most fun writing about the romance and the dynamic between Osha and Qimir, Osha and Mae, and Osha and her new friends at Unplan.

(and on a completely separate yet integral-to-the-story note, Osha leaving behind the kinda paltry, watery friendships she couldn't maintain bc she 1) had no car 2) was injured 3) was/is depressed and 4) had someone else kinda controlling her own story (Vernestra) is like. what i'm really going thru rn. no car, injured, very depressed, and p much all my friends thought i was okay in my isolation because my cheating ex told them i was - but i had no way of correcting that. so like of course i'm not going to focus on the weird dad aspect of the story because it's not Me. and i said this in a post on main but pretty much everything i posted this year but the olympics thing have been me working through my personal everyday issues regarding loneliness, connection, self-worth, and reclamation of my own power and capability as a person. i'm so into writing Osha taking her fucking life back because i'm so into ME taking my life back. but anyway-)

i should never have told my grandma about 1) the concept of serial scrubbed fanfics-to-novel pipeline OR 2) the 1.1 million words i've written on ao3 in the last few years because you can guess what a boomer would have to say about those two facts. hOWEVER. i think that common grounds is possibly the most straightforward novel idea i've had, and idk i don't wanna be defeatist but the chance that someone would recognize acolyte fic is a lot lower than recognizing the last of us fic or star wars fic writ large.

but yeah like how the story is rn i know it doesn't SEEM like the plot is far removed/as involved as it could be (mainly bc i think my audience too is here for the liberation of Osha and the kissykisses from Qimir which we are all valid for LOL) but i think slowing the pace down at the start and establishing wtf is going on w Sol a little earlier (perhaps also burying Many Several Ledes) would allow the story another 50k+ of buffer room & allow the slow burn to burn even slower before the temple goes to theed

i also need to find more like characters that are like antagonistic toward Osha in general - like we have Yord and Vernestra (and to an extent Mae and Sol) but they represent concepts of like 'peer perception' and 'societal perception' respectively - Osha is also her own antagonist in many ways which makes 'personal perception' another angle to attack oneself from.

anyway ramblerambleramble i'll throw this in a document somewhere and come back to it when i need to remind myself what i am writing this for