Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
going thru phone pics and found this thing that was tacked up next to the toaster at my old job, if anyone needs some light toast eating reading material
Would anyone be kind enough to transcribe this or link to a text version?
Everything Is AWFUL and I’m Not Okay: Questions to Ask Before Giving Up on Yourself
Are you hydrated?
If not, have a glass of water. Dehydration can mimic
or increase feelings associated with anxiety and a
well hydrated brain functions optimally. Avoid
excess caffeine.
Have you eaten in the past three hours?
Don’t be a victim of hanger! Get some food–something
with protein, not just simple carbs or
high-fat. Nuts, hummus, and veggies are great
options to feed your studying brain. Keep healthy
snacks within reach to avoid mindlessly chowing
down on sweets.
Have you stretched your legs in the past day?
If not, do so right now. If you don’t have the energy
or time for a run or a trip to the gym, just walk
around the block or building. Even minimal exercise
preps the mind for learning so that you can focus
better and recall things easier, plus it’s good to get a
change of scenery.
Have you said something nice to someone in the
past day?
Do so, whether online or in person. Make it
genuine! We bet your study partner would
appreciate a compliment.
Have you moved your body to music in the past
day?
If not, jog for the length of a song at your favorite
tempo, or just dance around your bedroom for the
length of an upbeat song (singing along is a bonus)
Have you cuddled a living being in the past two
days?
If not, do so. Don’t be afraid to ask for hugs from
friends of friends’ pets. Most of them will enjoy the
cuddles too; you’re not imposing.
Have you started or changed any medications in the
past couple of weeks, including skipped doses or a
change in generic prescription brand?
That may be screwing with your head. Give things a
few days, then talk to your doctor if it doesn’t settle
down.
If daytime: are you dressed?
If no, put on clean clothes that aren’t PJs. Give
yourself permission to wear something special,
whether it’s a funny t-shirt or a pretty dress.
If nighttime: are you sleepy and fatigued but
resisting going to sleep?
Put on PJs, make yourself cozy in bed with a teddy
bear and the sound of falling rain, and close your
eyes for fifteen minutes while focusing on breathing
deeper with every breath- no electronic screens
allowed! Adequate sleep is a necessity for stress
management.
Do you feel ineffective?
Pause right now and get something small completed,
whether it’s responding to an email, loading the
dishwasher, or tidying up your room. Good job!
Do you feel unattractive?
Take a darn selfie. Your friends will remind you how
great you look. You are always insta-worthy.
Do you feel paralyzed by indecision?
Give yourself ten minutes to sit back and figure out a
game plan for the day. If a particular decision or
problem is still being a roadblock, simply set it aside
for now, and pick something else that seems doable.
Right now, the important part is to break through
that stasis, even if it means doing something trivial.
Have you over-exerted yourself lately–physically,
emotionally, socially, or intellectually?
That can take a toll that lingers for days. Give
yourself a break in that area, whether it’s physical
rest, taking some time alone, or relaxing with some
silly entertainment for a little. Time spent refreshing
yourself is never time “wasted!”
Have you waited a week?
Sometimes or perception of life is skewed, and we
can’t even tell that we’re not thinking clearly, and
there’s no obvious external cause. It happens. Keep
yourself going for a full week, whatever it takes, and
see if you still feel the same way then.
You’ve made it this far; and you will make it through. You are stronger than you think.
I was just informed by my brother (who thinks he’s a better writer than anyone else because he has some fancy degree in writing) that fanfiction “doesn’t count” as “real writing” because you aren’t using your own “ideas.”
He doesn’t know that I write fanfiction. He probably wouldn’t have admitted his opinion if her did. But it has pretty much solidified that I will never tell anyone I know in person what I write.
I’ve already been told by several family members that my obsession with a “stupid tv show” is ridiculous and that I’m “too old” to fangirl.
Sigh. /rant
In Defense of
Fanfiction
I am a professional writer and editor in real life. I have a
double degree in English and writing and am currently in school once more to
obtain a master’s degree. If your brother’s fancy writing degree was worth anything
at all, he should be able to admit that the vast majority of all literature is
in fact fanfiction of someone else’s story and its elements. In other words, no
one’s idea is, by definition, original.
Let’s take a look at just
a few examples to support my theory that some of the most important or
well-known pieces of literature ever created qualify as fanfiction:
Ancient/Old Literature
·
Around
2000 BCE:The Epic of Gilgamesh
was inspired as a fanfiction of a historical King of Uruk, mixed with
Mesopotamian mythology. The story includes the character Utnapishtim, who lives
through a world-wide flood by building a ship per the instructions of the god
Enki and ultimately landing on a mountain in the Middle East, similar to Noah’s
story from the Bible (dates for the book of Genesis vary anywhere from 1400 BCE
to 800 BCE). Many historians suggest that the story of Noah was directly
inspired by Gilgamesh’s story of
Utnapishtim. Other historians suggest the two were simply inspired by a similar
source. Either way, there’s too many startling overlaps to classify Utnapishtim
and Noah as only a coincidence.
·
20-ish
BCE: The Roman author Virgil wrote The
Aeneid, which is a direct sequel to the previously created epic The Iliad attributed to Greek bard Homer.
Virgil was also known for writing pastoral poems based off and inspired by the
work of the great poet Theocritus (280 BCE). As a fun addition, Theocritus
himself was known for rewriting the cyclops villain (Polyphemus) of Homer’s Odyssey into a love-sick idiot in his
work, Idyll XI.
Medieval Era (500-1500-ish CE)
·
700-1000:
The Alphabet of ben Sirach was an
anonymous Hebrew collection of satires that included a parody of the biblical
Genesis story of Adam and Eve. The story gave Adam a totally different wife by
the name of Lilith, the character of which was inspired by Babylonian
mythology. The whole of the collection is additionally wrapped in a fictional
account of telling the stories to the historical figure of the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar—another real person fanfiction of a celebrity from that time.
·
Around
1000: The world’s first novel, The
Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, inspired the massive outpouring of Japanese
Noh theater plays involving characters from the novel, such as Aoi no Ue (Lady Aoi), which has been
attributed to a few people (Zeami Motokiyo and Inuo). This play appropriates
the Lady Aoi from Shikibu’s psychological novel to explore her death and is
only one example of the available fanfictions of the novel.
·
1308-1320:
Dante’s Divine Comedy (known most
famously for the Inferno) is a
literal OC self-insertion of the Italian Dante Alighieri himself into the hell,
purgatory and heaven from Catholic / biblical texts. Its format is in an epic,
in an attempt to outdo the Aeneid and
Iliad before it. It also includes an insertion
of a ghostly Virgil, who copied the Iliad
to write the Aeneid. Furthermore,
Dante’s work includes insertions of real historical people that Dante didn’t
like. It’s possibly the most self-indulgent fanfiction ever created while also
being named one of the greatest poems in literature.
·
1392:
Geoffrey Chaucer (known as the father of English literature) wrote a famous
collection called The Canterbury Tales.
The collection takes its basic format and inspiration from Italian author
Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (written
in 1351). It’s suggested that some of the tales Chaucer uses actually
originated from Boccaccio’s work.
Renaissance Era (1550-1660-ish CE)
·
1590:
English poet Edmund Spenser borrowed the legend of Arthur of the Round Table in
his epic poem, The Faerie Queene. In
it, Arthur is pretty love-sick over the fairy queen.
·
1597:
English playwright Shakespeare borrowed various mythologies and historical
figures and mixed them together. Not even his most popular play, Romeo and Juliet, was original. He took
the idea from a poem written by Arthur Brooke in 1562, called, “The Tragicall
Hystorye of Romeus and Iuliet.” Even more interesting, Brooke had taken his
idea from the 1554 Giulietta e Romeo
by Italian author Matteo Bandello. (Shakespeare repeatedly sourced other
people’s ideas or historical existence for his plays.)
Enlightenment Era (1660-1789)
·
1667:
English poet John Milton wrote Paradise
Lost, a fanfiction epic of the biblical story in the book of Genesis about
the fall of creation and humankind into imperfection.
·
1712:
English poet Alexander Pope wrote a mock-heroic epic called the Rape of the Lock to make fun of all the
serious epic writers before him, borrowing such images as the way epic warriors
put on armor and connecting it to the way rich people put on rich clothing and
jewelry. He used other standard epic elements as repeated throughout The Iliad, Aeneid, and so forth.
·
1759:
French writer and inventor, Voltaire, wrote a satire Candide. It borrowed various elements from Tales from a Thousand and One Arabian Nights, a collection of
Middle Eastern folktales from the Islamic Golden Age.
Romantic Era (1789-1850)
·
1819:
In Don Juan, English poet Lord Byron
took the pre-dated legend of Don Juan, which was about a man who seduced a lot
of women, and reversed the original plot so that Don Juan ended up seduced by a
lot of women.
·
1820:
English poet John Keats wrote a poem as a retelling of the Greek mythological
creature called Lamia, which was a half-woman and half-monster (description
varies depending on the Greek source). A lot of his works borrowed heavily from
Greek mythology and literature, and he idolized the English Renaissance poet
Edmund Spenser, to a point where his first work was called, “Imitation of
Spenser” (1814). In it, he borrowed various images from Spenser’s epic, The Faerie Queene.
·
1843:
English writer Charles Dickens wrote A
Christmas Carol, based off the various stories compiled in the 1841 and
1842 TheLowell Offering, a publication magazine written by a group of
intellectual but mostly anonymous women. He borrowed the certain pieces of plot,
language, and descriptions for Scrooge’s ghostly encounters from the stories “A
Visit from Hope” (anonymous), “Happiness” (anonymous), and “Memory and Hope”
(by someone named Ellen). A Christmas
Carol is additionally littered with biblical allusions all over the place.
·
1844:
French writer Alexander Dumas borrowed The
Three Musketeers, as well as many of the story’s side-characters, from The Memoirs of Monsieur d'Artagnan by
French author Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. He didn’t even change the names or
who the villain, the Cardinal, was.
·
1845:
American author Edgar Allan Poe wrote The
Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade, in which he has the mythical Scheherazade
from the Tales from a Thousand and One
Arabian Nights telling another story about the legendary Sinbad the
Sailor.
·
1861:
Hungarian author Imre Madach wrote The
Tragedy of Man, which reverses the biblical moral principles of God and
Satan: In this story, God is the violent and evil ruler, and Satan is the jaded/trickster
victim just trying to open humanity’s eyes to the truth.
Modern Era (1900ish-1950s)
·
1922:
Irish novelist James Joyce wrote his stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses, which was based off of Homer’s Odyssey, to a point where he took the
characters and simply renamed them, as well as aligned the structure of his
book to the various episodes in Homer’s work.
·
1930:
The Nancy Drew series was created under
the penname Carolyn Keene, who did not exist. Instead, an American man named
Edward Stratemeyer would write three pages of a story, then send it to one of
several ghostwriters who wanted to write Nancy Drew. The ghostwriter would take
the story and expand it. The anonymous group of ghostwriters all writing about
the same character still exists today. Each individual ghostwriter has made
changes to Nancy’s personality, looks, and age, as well as the type of plots said
character engages in.
·
1937:
English writer JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit
and then Lord of the Rings in the
1950s. He borrowed the names of characters and places after those seen in the
Icelandic sagas Poetic Edda and Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. Tolkien admitted
he based the physical appearance of Gandalf off of the Norse god Odin. He
modeled the character of Aragorn directly after Beowulf, from the old English epic
(700-1000 BCE) Beowulf. Aragorn himself
even paraphrases the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Wanderer,” as an example of a verse
created by his people of Rohan. Another fun fact is that Tolkien specifically
borrowed the phrase “my precious,” from a Middle English poem called Pearl. Additionally,
Tolkien was a big fan of romantic prose/poetry writer William Morris and wanted
to write like him, so he borrowed a lot of phrases, aesthetics, and even names
from such works like the 1888 The House
of the Wolfings by Morris, including the place called “Mirkwood.” Of
curious note is that Morris’s work was massively influenced by Virgil’s Aeneid.
·
1938:
African-American author Richard Wright wrote a collection of stories called Uncle Tom’s Children, with an obvious
borrowing of the title from Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.
·
1930s-present:
DC and Marvel comics mostly just updated the mythological gods and goddesses
for a modern era, appropriating their names, special relics, and abilities for
their heroes, and then mixing them with some modern-day cover identifies. As an
example, Wonder Woman was originally a nod to the Greek goddess Diana, a nod to
the female Amazon warriors, and a redesigned image of Rosie the Riveter. As
another example, the Flash is a reproduction of the Greek god Hermes, his
winged helmet further clarifying the connection. Even the name Superman was not
entirely original. 1938 Illustrator of Superman, Joe Shuster, took the name
“Superman” from the German “Ubermensh,” a term coined by the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche. As a final example, sometimes the appropriation from
mythology is incredibly obvious, as in the case of Thor.
·
1949:
English author George Orwell reviewed a book called We by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. He wrote a rave review on it
and declared that he would try to write something similar, which ultimately
became 1984, sharing many similar
plot points and concepts while bringing the story of We into a more realistic environment. The novel We also inspired Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, for which Vonnegut
admitted he also borrowed concepts from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
·
1950s:The Chronicles of Narnia by British author
C.S. Lewis was based on biblical stories conveyed through various mythological
elements as well.
Postmodern Era (1950s-Present, debatably)
·
1977: African-American
author, Toni Morrison, wrote a critically acclaimed novel called Song of Solomon, which took its title
name, as well as the names of several characters and plot points, from the
Bible.
·
1988:
British-Indian author Salman Rushdie’s The
Satanic Verses was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammed.
Its title is a direct reference to controversial verses once placed in the
Quran but then removed. These highly controversial and sensitive connections to
Islamic and Old Testament personalities of Gabriel and Satan resulted in the
banning of Rushdie’s book from several regions.
·
1997-2007:
The Harry Potter series by British author
JK Rowling borrows heavily from historical alchemy, including the age-old
legend of the philosopher’s stone and the 1652 book Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, which was about the medicinal and
occult properties of plants, which helped her build how magic was used in her
stories. Rowling also admits the 1652 book inspired many of the character’s
names. She appropriates several historical figures as well for her own purposes
(as a sort
of real-person fanfiction), including references to alchemists Nicolas Flammel and
Paracelsus. She even admits to, while writing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,
dreaming about Flammel showing her how to make a philosopher’s stone.
·
2003:
American author Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci
Code and its twisting conspiracies are based almost entirely on the books
of Margaret Starbird, most of which were written between 1993 and 2003.
·
2009:Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by American
author Seth Grahame-Smith, is a rehashing of Jane Austen’s 1813 Pride and Prejudice. But with zombies.
·
2015: American
writer of critically acclaimed The Outsiders,
S.E. Hinton, claims that she has posted anonymous fanfictions of her own novel,
as well as at least four Supernatural fanfics, being a huge fan of the show and
of the paranormal.
As a professionally educated and trained writer and editor
myself, I had to study the intertextualities of several of the pieces I
mentioned above. But this is not an exhaustive world list by any means and is missing some other fantastic and influential writers—I’ve included only
what has come to my mind in a short time. Plots and characters and ideas have
been largely passed around throughout the history of literature. Without
fanfiction, a solid portion of well-known literature would not exist.
In fact, many authors and even inventors will say that there
is no such thing as an original idea. Certain pieces get touted as creative
because they combine previously suggested elements in a different or
thought-provoking way. (Don’t even get me started on how science fiction is a
driving force behind many scientific advancements today!)
If you’re writing fanfiction, then you’re participating in a
tradition that spans millennia. There is no piece of literature created in some
“original” vacuum. That is precisely why literary critics, and those who have professionally
studied fiction in an academic setting, use the word “intertextuality” to
describe how works of fiction are ultimately interrelated in some way or
another.
Therefore, fanfiction is the legacy of literature. If
Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Keats, Poe, Dickens, Tolkien, and Brown can
write fanfiction about and expand other people’s works, you can too. So the
next time someone tells you to stop writing fanfiction, or tells you that it’s
not a valid form of art, tell them that they obviously have never read the most
important historical works of fiction, or even many popular modern stories,
which are all rehashed fanfiction stories, borrowing characters and names and setting and even syntax.
Rant written for @greenappleeyes and everyone else unfairly shamed for writing fanfiction. Content was retrieved from my own class notes, as well as publically available online interviews and articles.
The modern notion of fanfiction as a Weird and Wrong Thing has a lot to do with out-of-control copyright laws. As I understand it, copyright in its original form was supposed to protect the author for a limited time so they can make a living, but as it exists now it’s strangling innovation.
Like, something in the ballpark of 90% of the Walt Disney Company’s work are fan films, and US copyright law mysteriously gets another few decades added to it every time Micky Mouse is about to fall into the public domain. It’s obscene.
Fanfiction is fighting back against that, in small ways and in large ways. Fanfiction is punk.
“I won the Hugo Award for a piece of Sherlock Holmes/H. P. Lovecraft fanfiction, so I’m in favour.”
Yeah, my writing professors called it “garbage” and said just reading it would lower the quality of our writing, but I can think of lots of published authors who openly admit to writing fanfic. Off the top of my head, both John Green and Jen Campbell used to write Harry Potter fanfiction. And I do appreciate you bringing up Marvel and DC, because frankly 95% of any comic book character’s canon is fanfic. The creator of that character has them for such a small amount of time, and everything after that is a bunch of fan continuations, AUs, and reboots.
I’m currently doing a MA in Creative Writing in the UK and the only reason I was accepted was fanfiction.
Fact: English isn’t my first language. By order of acquisition it’s my fourth, by order of fluency it’s my second.
Fact: When we started learning English in school, I was failing the class. Part of it was due to an incompetent teacher that hated teaching, but fact was, I was failing English.
Fact: I started reading fanfiction when I was around 14, over a decade ago. At first I stuck to French and German ones.
Fact: my favourite fanfic at the time was a translation from an English fic. At some point, I realized that the translation was about twenty chapters behind the original, complete fic. And I really, really needed to know how it was going to end. So I grabbed a dictionary, braced myself, tried to tell myself that English wasn’t that different from German anyway, and started reading.
Fact: I realized how much more fanfiction there were in English and that I had gone through all the decent ones in French and German in my fandoms. So I buckled up and plunged into the English side of fanfiction.net and never stopped.
Fact: The Deathly Hallows came out shortly after that and fuck if I was going to wait two months for the French translation. My cousin, who had already read it, was staying with us for two weeks and ended up being my live-in dictionary.
Fact: I started writing fic in English when I was 15, figuring that there was a bigger readership on that side and that any practice I could get in during the summer holidays would help me once class started again. At that point, I had been the first in my class for six months.
Fact: these fics were badly written and I cringe when I reread them. I don’t regret a single word of them.
Fact: I got a mention in an international competition for students from french schools in France and abroad in English. I was up against students from french highschools in the UK and the US and I still placed.
Fact: I quoted fanfiction as a way for first time writers intending on going pro to get a feel for their audience and test their writing style in my master’s thesis on digital publishing and if it could be an opportunity for first time writers writing for teenage and YA in Belgium and in France.
Fact: there’s actual University classes about fanfiction in some universities in the US. One of the books I read for my thesis was called ‘Fic: why fanfiction is taking over the world’ by Prof. Ann Jamieson if I remember correctly.
Fact: I got the C2 Cambridge certification, the highest they give, when I was applying for the C1 because my work was obviously a level higher that expected.
Fact: I have not stopped writing fanfiction in English since I was fifteen. It has helped me a lot with my writing. Playing in someone else’s sandbox has helped me work on structure and pacing and plot because I didn’t have.to worry about creating the world or.the characters so I could focus on the actual craft of writing.
Fact: I got accepted in my first choice university for a MA in Creative Writing. The short story I submitted for my application was basically a 2nd person narrator fanfiction of the Arthurian myths focusing on Morgana’s life and struggles.
Fact: two of the assignments I handed in for my first semester exams could be classified as Modern AU/Reincarnation of a.Arthuriana mythology again and b. Greek mythology
Fact: the story I’m currently working on for my dissertation is based on a legend from my hometown and could technically be classified as fanfiction too and my supervisor loves it.
Fact: I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for reading and writing fanfiction. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.
And if someone has the galls to say that it’s somehow lesser writing, point them at writers like @blackkatmagic or @deadcatwithaflamethrower or so many others who produce a truly awe inspiring number of stories and words of much higher quality than most of what you can find in a bookshop. And they’re doing it for free. We all are. Because we want to, because we like the original content or want to fix it, because we just want to indulge or because we have a story we need to tell but don’t feel like we can write it as our own, and use the characters as stand-in, because we want to practice a new language or because we want to write, no matter what, and we don’t yet have the confidence to try writing and sharing our own stories, because… Every single one of us has their reasons and all of these reasons are valid, no matter what, and all of the stories we put out there are valid no matter what anyone else says.
Many published writers have written and still write fanfiction. The amazing @neil-gaiman has already been mentioned, but the fantastic @seananmcguire does too and has spoken out quite a lot in defense of fanfiction, especially for women writers (because when men do it it’s an ‘hommage’ but when we do it it’s just silly copycating of course). @deadcatwithaflamethrower /@jer-keene doesn’t only write fic, she also has a great book out called Ashlesha that was inspired by a star wars fanfiction she was writing at the time.
Every single fairy tale or mythology retelling you’ve read is a fanfiction, and they were fanfiction to start with.
And even if a fic writer never plans on becoming a published writer, that doesn’t mean their writing is lesser for it. It just means that we’re really fucking lucky they decided to share it with us for free.
*happy/flattered because holy crap*
Also, please see This Post, which amongst other things contains a list of award-winning works / award-winning authors who wrote works that are fanfiction. Only they don’t get called that, because fanfiction is (still) viewed as a derogatory term, and who would be so rude as to apply it to a work that won an award or was written by a celebrated professional in their field? o.O
@greenappleeyes I wonder what your brother’s response would be to asking him why he thinks A Thousand Acres, March, Rent, Hamilton, and Ghosts of Versailles don’t deserve their Pulitzers. Or My Fair Lady its Tony Award. Why Time magazine was wrong to list Wide Sargasso Sea as one of the top 100 English language novels written since 1923. Or that high school and college classes should drop Shakespeare’s works from their curriculum because it isn’t “real writing.”
While he’s busy trying to make excuses for why it’s okay that all of THOSE people based their works off of other people’s ideas, and how it doesn’t invalidate the quality of the products THEY produced, drop a copy of Brom’s The Child Thief on his head.
Oh, look how timely!
It’s all writing, and worthy, and none of it is less.
The fae smiled, sharply: “Give me your name, child.”
“Uhhhhh. Stick.”
“What.”
“Does Leaf work better? I’m just kinda looking around this clearing. Look, I’m trans, I haven’t decided on one yet, I’m throwing some spaghetti at the wall, you know how it is.”
Fae are born with features sharp and narrow, yet this one seems to soften as Moss looks at it. Its grin— sharp, teeth gleaming, its eyes— cutting, searching, the jut and pull of its jaw enough to scratch glass. It does not blink. Branch does not blink. It softens.
“I said, give me your name, child.”
“I still haven’t picked one,” Grass defends, even now still hoping for a way out of a faeries deal.
“No. But your parents did. Give me your name, child, and it shall no longer be yours. The entity of your name shall no longer exist, and you will be free for whichever name you choose— Leaf, or Stick, or Lichen.”
“…oh.” says Petal, and in the next moment a name falls from their lips. It is not their name. It never has been. The fae is sharp and cutting and witty, that moment of softness an imagined slight.
“Very well, child. Be warned of mushroom circles, should you lose your name again.”
“Okay,” Mushroom smiles, and the Fae pulls itself away from their reality in a swirl of feathers and silk.
When they go home for the first time in two months, their mother frets over them in a way she had not since they were a child, and she calls them by no name at all.
Goddamn. This is my favorite version of ‘faeries take your name’, that’s it, we can all go home now.
You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?
I know what the Han Dynasty is, I swear, but I’m so used to seeing Star Wars content on my dash that until I hit “Qin Dynasty” I literally thought this was a Star Wars novel about the one time Han Solo took a job for the Empire and I was thinking 1) this is definitely something Han Solo would do and 2) I need to find the title of that novel so I can read it.
Oh. OH. (I am on mobile, apologies for the formatting and lack of readmore. But this story DEMANDED TELLING)
A brief account of the Glorious Ascension of Emperor Solo:
It was a job, and the Empire was paying.
Did he like using the Falcon for prisoner transport? No.
Did he like his continued existance, which he was NOT AT ALL sure would continue if he turned down the offer. Quite a bit, actually.
Still, how hard could it be, bunch of drugged and restrained people from one place to another?
One day, Han Solo would learn not to ask that question.
What do you mean my motivator stopped working?
At least we’re near a spaceport.
What do you mean the skinny little one woke up?
At least he’s still restrained. I’ll just drug him again.
WHY AM I UNDOING HIS RESTRAINTS?
Aaaand, he’s gone.
Kriffing *magic powers* kriffing *old religions* I am going to DIE.
Oh, inspection time…yes…of course…we still have all the prisoners? Why wouldn’t we?
Aaaand, now the inspection officer is dead.
I don’t need you laughing at me. Wait, why are you awake enough to laugh at me?
Oh, because you’re a Wookie. Damn it didn’t they drug anyone properly?
Yes I do see you are not restrained anym-
STOP CRUSHING MY WINDPIPE
Look, I enjoy being alive. I will die if I show up without the skinny little mindflayer. Maybe we can work something out.
Set everyone free? Sure. Already on it. And then me and my ship will just go…hide in the outer rim for all etern-
You want my ship. My life or my ship….
I AM THINKING ABOUT IT.
Alright, fine, I’ll go with you. Oh no, I am definitely invited along, none of you lot know how to treat my girl right.
Stop laughing. What’s your name, anyway?
Okay, Chewie, we need a plan. You have a plan?
Oh you were a General. I just…set a General free…no big. Nooooo big everything is fine.
Take over port control and contact the Rebellion. Yes, of course, all for it.
goingtodiegoingtodie
Hey, this is actually going pretty smoothly. Oops.
Yes this is…give me his I.D.! Commander Ravisk, we are undergoing an emergency drill and I just need…everyone to evacuate, please. Thank you. Have a nice day. Long live the Emperor.
That worked pretty well if I do say so myself…is that a Star Destroyer?
Kriff.
Yes, of course, Admiral Pohlash, I’d be happy to board and discuss the nature of the emergency.
I hate this collar, it’s too tight. You sure we can’t just leave? I can outrun a Star Destroyer.
Okay, fine, I can’t get everyone on board, warm the ship up, launch, and then outrun a Star Destroyer with all its cannons pointed at me.
Yes I am Commander Ravisk, this is my manservant Jimminy.
I really don’t care if you don’t like the name, sell the bit
Hello Admiral. Oh. We’ve met before…um…facial surgery is the new big fad?
Yeah, that was always a longshot.
A dead Admiral, not like this day can get any worse.
One day, Han would learn.
Quick, lets get out of here…what do you mean we are no longer over the same planet?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN SUMMONED BY A MOFF?
Ah, yes, of course, good job…anticipating orders…Ensign. Admiral out.
This collar is even worse.
Yes, good point, it’s a nice cape.
Hello Moff…
Yeah, I really shouldn’t be surprised by this point.
Sure, whatever, this is Moff Ispsiallion, I’m pleased to announce the celebration of the Emperor’s Half-Birthday! Everyone gets a day off.
Maybe we can get out of here.
What do you mean we can access the Imperial palace?
Why would we want to access the Imperial palace??
I’m am *not* going to depose the Emp…
Yes, yes, big fan of breathing.
Even with Moff clearence codes we couldn’t just walk in there.
What if we…no, bad plan.
Really, it’s a bad plan, General. I’m sure you can think of a better one.
Well…we don’t need to walk in there, do we? We’ve got a Star Destroyer. We just need an excuse to get it close enough…
What do you mean GOOD PLAN?
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN.
They did what to your planet?
Okay, I’m seeing the benefits of this plan.
We’re going to die. You know that, right buddy?
Yeah, sure, worthy cause. Never thought I’d get one of those.
A Little Later:
Wow, bright eyes, no, I’m not Moff Ispsiallion. Was my youthful good looks or my regicide that tipped you off? I’m Han Solo, and I just killed the Emp-
Why are you kneeling?
EMPEROR SOLO!?
What do you mean forty percent of the fleet has sworn allegiance to me?
Orders?
Um…I’m going to defer to Grand Moff Chewbacca over here. He’s in charge of your ships, got that?
Good…good. I’m just going to go into this little room and lock the door.
*muffled screaming*
*STANDING OVATION*
(You can always count on Star Wars fandom to really take something and run with it.)
Oh good god(s), what would the Rebellion’s response to this be? What would Vader’s response be?!
This is beautiful and wonderful, and long life to Emperor Solo! Long may he reign! (You know for a fact that Chewie has to sit on him to keep him from scampering. This - might occur multiple times.
…I also have the mental image of Han Solo trying to get an urgent message over to Lando ASAP - partly because Lando is one of the slickest, most slippery people he knows. If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s Lando.
Lando does not figure a way out.
Lando shows up at Coruscant (formerly Imperial Center, because Han can’t look at anything with the terms ‘Imperial’ ‘Empire’, or ‘Emperor’ these days without feeling a vein throb) SPECIFICALLY to point and laugh.
Han get revenge by making Lando Grand Vizer. So there.
Nah, but see, the thing is, Lando has a streak of respectability. Not the “I want people to think I’m Nice and the Right Sort of Person” sort of respectability, but the “I want to do a good job, protect my people, and figure out how to use my skills to make things better for us” sort of genuine moral courage. He may be a con artist at heart, but consider how much he loved Cloud City and its people, how much he used those skills (or tried to) for their protection. (Vader, alas, not being susceptible to conning, or to keeping his deals.)
Put Lando in charge? And Lando would become the greatest politician ever. And unlike most politicians, he’s been in the underbelly of society–he knows the difference between the way things look on paper and the way they play out in reality for the people on the bottom rung. I bet you that Lando has a list of things that SUCK about society that he would totally change if he could, but will exploit the fuck out of and con because one con artist can’t change the world.
But if you make him the Emperor’s Grand Vizier? Then he can. And he can schmooze the higher-ups into LIKING some of it, and point stormtroopers at them if they balk at the stuff even he can’t charm them into liking. Things will change, and change QUICKLY, and all of a sudden the ordinary person on the street is going to find the laws are a LOT more in their favor. And the planets that aren’t Core Worlds are going to find the same thing. And the people who benefited, both under the Republic and the Empire, from exploiting others or just being born into the right class on the right planet? They’re going to find life a lot harder.
Anakin was right about one thing. A dictator can make change happen more quickly than a democracy, and a dictator who is wise and smart and good can really swing things in a positive direction. The problem is, how do you ensure that the person who comes after your dictator isn’t going to use that same power to push things in a negative direction?
And the answer is, in this case, that the former Rebel Alliance pushes for a restoration of the Republic, Han says “fuck yeah, anything to get me out of here,” and Lando says “sure, we can talk democracy, but we’re going to set it up differently so it actually listens to the needs of the guy on the street in the Outer Rim, not just the whims of the major Coreworld corporations.” And then, once the transition to democracy is complete (it probably takes a decade or so to get everything together, because Lando, like any good conman, would be out for all he could get, which in this case would be protections for his people, which by this point would be, like, everybody except the old elite) Lando would get himself elected a Senator. Maybe from his home planet, wherever that is. Or maybe he just picks a planet he likes that’s benefited from his reforms. And then he shows up and gets back to being respectable.
(And the remnants of the old elite, and the people who hoped to retain under the New Republic the same privileges they had under both the Empire and the Old Republic, they say to themselves, “oh shit.” They were counting on him being gone. They were counting on being able to undo some of his changes! And here he is!
Han has entertained fantasies of being able to go back to being a pilot when this is all over. But the former Emperor trying to haul cargo doesn’t really … work, for a variety of reasons. He periodically comes back to Coruscant to complain to Lando about this. Lando just points and laughs and has him (the former Emperor who toppled the Empire and Restored Freedom And Justice To the Galaxy!) record a message or do an interview in support of Lando’s latest piece of legislation. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories on the HoloNet about how democracy is a sham and Emperor Solo is still in command, albeit by proxy from the shadows by controlling Senator Calrissian. They are, of course, absolutely bass ackwards; in the reign of Emperor Solo, Lord Calrissian was the puppet-master working in the shadows controlling the Emperor, and now he is openly working through the democratic process.
Leia showed up on Coruscant as the Senator from Alderaan somewhere in the middle of all this. (Remember, this all would have had to have happened some years before A New Hope. Therefore, the Imperial Senate was never disbanded, however vestigial it may have been by the time Han burst on the scene.) She thinks the Emperor is an idiot (albeit a handsome one) and she finds him incredibly infuriating when he tries to flirt with her instead of talking politics. She thinks, at first, that this is because he has that Imperial gender chauvinism, even if he CERTAINLY doesn’t have the Imperial species chauvinism. (Actually, he points out HER chauvinism a couple of times, which both infuriates her and shames her, because she thought she was BETTER than that.) Eventually she figures out that the Emperor doesn’t want to talk politics with her because he doesn’t want to talk politics, period, full stop, with anyone, ever, for any reason. (It takes her longer than it should to figure this out because how, hoW, HOW does someone who genuinely hates both politics and being in charge end up as EMPEROR?)
With Lando, she gets along SO WELL, YOU GUYS, THEIR ENEMIES ARE TERRIFIED. Where they agree, they are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE. Leia comes out with passion and fire, and then Lando comes out to schmooze, and if the one didn’t convince you, the other will. Where the disagree, they can usually find an acceptable compromise that works for both of them, and somehow everyone else goes along with it. Where they disagree but can’t find a compromise … everyone else is just Very Thankful that such things don’t happen often.
I don’t know how the relationships end up in this world. Maybe Leia marries neither of them. Maybe she marries both of them. Maybe Han and Lando are married, and Leia is the occasional invited third. Maybe Leia and Lando marry, and dominate Republic politics for decades while Han warms their bed when he’s in the area, and they are his safe harbor to come home to while giving him the freedom he needs to roam. (And he needs a LOT of room to roam after having been tied down as Emperor for so long.) Maybe Han and Leia marry, which fuels AT LEAST two dozen different conspiracy theories, and after Han abdicates he stays home playing with the children (and taking them out flying while Mommy is working), and Lando is their boyfriend and partner in every sense, but he maintains his own home and his own life because he finds he likes his life a little less … fiery, than life in the Organa-Solo household tends to be.
But while life is never quiet, they all live happily ever after.
This is an absolutely wonderful, exquisitely detailed analysis of the reign of Emperor Han Solo, First of His Name, Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy, Protector of the Stars, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, etc, etc.
It is said that the best leaders are those who do not want to lead. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ - Han is most definitely in the latter category. He was dragged into greatness kicking and screaming - and, much to everyone’s surprise, he actually ends up being moderately good at it.
Mainly because he has a very good grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. He’s an amazing pilot. He’s not a politician - as such, he delegates like hell. Chewie gets to be in charge of the military as Great Grand Moff, and Han is extremely enthusiastic about being Lando’s puppet Emperor. He probably outright offers to abdicate and put Lando on the throne (Lando just laughs at him again. At length. In retaliation, Han makes him Chief Ambassador. So there.)
Han has a habit of giving Lando more Government Positions when the latter is annoying him. Lando really doesn’t mind; Han certainly doesn’t mind. Han is also a bit curious about where Lando dug up some of the people he’s putting into various government roles, as well as a little impressed - how the hell did Lando talk Talon Karrde into being Minister of Intelligence?!
Han, as such, is basically stuck with all the publicity stunts and formal appearances and Being Emperor. Which basically means wearing a bunch of very uncomfortable clothing and shaking hands and kissing babies and ugh. …he does kinda like opening up all the new charities and organizations. Especially when it comes to helping orphans, the homeless, etc - the people who really do need help. (And now he can).
Han also is particularly gleeful when it comes to repealing the Empire’s various human-centric policies. Chewie is as well.
How many spit-takes do you think occurred across the known galaxy when a number of people took in the fact that Han Solo had somehow ended up becoming Emperor? I think several individuals who had had business dealing with him in the past started wondering if just when they’d gotten so drunk they were now hallucinating…
Han and Darth Vader unexpectedly bond over an utter hatred of slavers and slavery. Han (and Chewie) provide him with a rather significant number of the Armed Forces and turn him loose in the Rim, with orders to stamp out slavery - Vader takes on this task with relish. (Lando quietly - or not-so-quietly - institutes the various social systems needed to help the suddenly vast numbers of former slaves; he and Han take a certain glee in watching holos of various Hutt-occupied planets being ‘liberated’.)
Just think about all the various long-term plans - of ‘former’ Jedi, of the Rebellion, of the Empire - that Han ruins by accidentally becoming Emperor. It’s positively gleeful; I also get a laugh out of Lando cutting finances to the Death Star because it’s a black hole in terms of all the money sunk into it.
So does Vader find Luke on one of his expeditions to take down the slavers? Do Luke and Leia then find each other?
@copperbadge I had the same thought, so glad you ran with it!
Emperor Solo….fantastic!
Part of Vader wanted to go to Tatooine first. Another part of him wanted to never set foot on the planet again, as he had vowed in the wake of his mother’s death. But now he finally had the chance go back and free all the slaves, the goal he had held in his heart since he was nine and had followed the Jedi away from his mother. And it would be good to topple Jabba and send a message to the rest of the Hutt clan. And Emperor Solo hadn’t liked Jabba either, and their unexpected bonding over their mutual hatred of slavery meant that this Emperor’s opinion meant something more to Vader than it would have otherwise.
So Vader found himself back on Tatooine, the smoking ruins of Jabba’s palace behind him, the Hutt strangled and cut into pieces where he sat on his throne. His troopers were finishing up the operation, clearing out the last of the slavers and bounty hunters and sycophants, and they were all equipped with a scanner (a more sophisticated version of the one Vader had built as a child) and tracker deactivator. The trackers would be surgically removed once they got the former slaves to medical care. Vader knew how having a slave tracker in you weighed on your mind even when it wasn’t active.
He left the clean up to his men and found himself gazing out at the setting binary suns, feeling a tug on his awareness. It didn’t take him long to procure a speeder bike (snagged from the palace’s hangar), and he soon found himself outside a painfully familiar homestead. Now why would the Force bring him here… His eyes strayed to the patch of ground he knew should be marked as his mother’s grave. But it was empty, not only her headstone removed, but all the ones that had been there before. A curious and somewhat infuriating thing, that.
Still. He remembered where she was buried, and though he never intended to, he found himself on his knees in front of her, head bowed in grief that had never healed and under the weight of what he knew would be her disappointment in his actions these last 15 years. He had allowed himself to be enslaved again, almost willingly, and he had then helped to enslave the Galaxy to his Master. But he would right those wrongs now. His annoyance and skepticism when the smuggler (he had dug into Solo’s past when he took the throne) had become Emperor had turned to cautious hope when he continued to help the Galaxy instead of hurt it further. Now he could actually do what he had wanted to do in the first place. End slavery, bring peace. Make the Galaxy a better place for his chil– No, he wouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t go back down the road of “what if” again, as he had so many times when he was alone and despairing of what he had done to his life.
“He started asking too many questions,” a soft, vaguely familiar voice from behind Vader startled him out of his thoughts. He was on his feet and facing the source of the voice, hand on his lightsaber, before a startled expression could even form on Beru’s face.
Tatooine had aged her, as it aged everyone, but he still recognized the kind, quiet girl he had met a lifetime ago.
“Hello Anakin.”
Vader blinked. That was… unexpected. He tried to come up with a response and failed.
“Who asked too many questions?” he asked instead.
Beru tilted her head as looked at him, eyes searching his mask. She bit her lip and nodded slightly, coming to some decision or another. She made it quickly enough that Vader’s patience did not wear thin, or perhaps his patience with her, this girl who had loved his mother, was longer than with most people. Or perhaps standing on the sacred ground of his mother’s grave was no place to lose his temper.
“Your son.”
It took a minute for those words to process, and then despite his earlier thoughts, his temper did flare.
“What?” he snarled. He took a step forward, and Beru held her ground. “My child is dead. Do not - ”
Beru shook her head. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “I can introduce you. Come with me.”
She held out her hand, and he stared at it. No one had offered their hand to him in over a decade, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to take it. But he shook the desire off and stepped forward, ignoring the hand. She dropped her arm but led him back to the entrance to the dome.
He had to duck to fit through the doorway and low staircase, but the discomfort no longer mattered when they entered the kitchen and Vader’s eyes fell on the boy sitting at the table. His eyes were wide, staring at him, scared recognition in them, and Vader realized he didn’t know what stories about him had made their way to this backwater planet.
The boy stood slowly. Only once he was on his feet did his eyes jump back to Beru.
“Aunt Beru?” he asked quietly.
“It’s okay, Luke.” Vader filed the name away carefully, savoring the sound of it. “This is…” Beru hesitated, taking a deep breath. The wait grated on Vader’s nerves and he wanted to say it himself, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Even though those were his eyes in a face that was equally hers and his, and his hair and her stature. He reached out in the Force, lightly touching the boy’s mind, and found it shielded. But he wasn’t shielding himself. Someone else was, and Vader recognized the feel of it. He gritted his teeth. Obi-Wan’s final treachery.
“This is your father,” Beru finally said, and Vader hadn’t thought Luke’s eyes could get any bigger but he was wrong. They turned back to him, scared, hopeful, pleading, and something in the Force burst to life between them, a bond that Obi-Wan’s shields had never been built to contain. Luke wouldn’t be able to feel it beyond maybe a slight gravitation towards Vader, untrained as he was, but to Vader the bond was confirmation beyond any DNA test.
“Father?” Luke said, taking a step towards him.
Vader, who realized he had been doing his best impression of a statue since he had laid eyes on the boy, finally moved and crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Luke. Luke had to crane his neck to keep Vader’s mask in sight when he stood this close, but he didn’t flinch.
Vader reached out and touched Luke’s cheek gently. “Hello son.”
~*~
The Galaxy went into something of an uproar when Darth Vader returned from his first slavery-destroying trip to the Outer Rim with a small blond boy in tow, claiming that he was his son. Both Emperor Solo and Calrissian took a quick liking to Luke, and it wasn’t long before Chewbacca was almost as fiercely protective of the boy as he was of Solo, though he had nothing on Vader’s protectiveness. And Vader found himself surprisingly glad that he hadn’t found his son when Palpatine was still Emperor. At least Solo wouldn’t kill him intentionally. He would have to put a stop to the racing though, before he got him killed accidentally.
You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?
I know what the Han Dynasty is, I swear, but I’m so used to seeing Star Wars content on my dash that until I hit “Qin Dynasty” I literally thought this was a Star Wars novel about the one time Han Solo took a job for the Empire and I was thinking 1) this is definitely something Han Solo would do and 2) I need to find the title of that novel so I can read it.
Oh. OH. (I am on mobile, apologies for the formatting and lack of readmore. But this story DEMANDED TELLING)
A brief account of the Glorious Ascension of Emperor Solo:
It was a job, and the Empire was paying.
Did he like using the Falcon for prisoner transport? No.
Did he like his continued existance, which he was NOT AT ALL sure would continue if he turned down the offer. Quite a bit, actually.
Still, how hard could it be, bunch of drugged and restrained people from one place to another?
One day, Han Solo would learn not to ask that question.
What do you mean my motivator stopped working?
At least we’re near a spaceport.
What do you mean the skinny little one woke up?
At least he’s still restrained. I’ll just drug him again.
WHY AM I UNDOING HIS RESTRAINTS?
Aaaand, he’s gone.
Kriffing *magic powers* kriffing *old religions* I am going to DIE.
Oh, inspection time…yes…of course…we still have all the prisoners? Why wouldn’t we?
Aaaand, now the inspection officer is dead.
I don’t need you laughing at me. Wait, why are you awake enough to laugh at me?
Oh, because you’re a Wookie. Damn it didn’t they drug anyone properly?
Yes I do see you are not restrained anym-
STOP CRUSHING MY WINDPIPE
Look, I enjoy being alive. I will die if I show up without the skinny little mindflayer. Maybe we can work something out.
Set everyone free? Sure. Already on it. And then me and my ship will just go…hide in the outer rim for all etern-
You want my ship. My life or my ship….
I AM THINKING ABOUT IT.
Alright, fine, I’ll go with you. Oh no, I am definitely invited along, none of you lot know how to treat my girl right.
Stop laughing. What’s your name, anyway?
Okay, Chewie, we need a plan. You have a plan?
Oh you were a General. I just…set a General free…no big. Nooooo big everything is fine.
Take over port control and contact the Rebellion. Yes, of course, all for it.
goingtodiegoingtodie
Hey, this is actually going pretty smoothly. Oops.
Yes this is…give me his I.D.! Commander Ravisk, we are undergoing an emergency drill and I just need…everyone to evacuate, please. Thank you. Have a nice day. Long live the Emperor.
That worked pretty well if I do say so myself…is that a Star Destroyer?
Kriff.
Yes, of course, Admiral Pohlash, I’d be happy to board and discuss the nature of the emergency.
I hate this collar, it’s too tight. You sure we can’t just leave? I can outrun a Star Destroyer.
Okay, fine, I can’t get everyone on board, warm the ship up, launch, and then outrun a Star Destroyer with all its cannons pointed at me.
Yes I am Commander Ravisk, this is my manservant Jimminy.
I really don’t care if you don’t like the name, sell the bit
Hello Admiral. Oh. We’ve met before…um…facial surgery is the new big fad?
Yeah, that was always a longshot.
A dead Admiral, not like this day can get any worse.
One day, Han would learn.
Quick, lets get out of here…what do you mean we are no longer over the same planet?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN SUMMONED BY A MOFF?
Ah, yes, of course, good job…anticipating orders…Ensign. Admiral out.
This collar is even worse.
Yes, good point, it’s a nice cape.
Hello Moff…
Yeah, I really shouldn’t be surprised by this point.
Sure, whatever, this is Moff Ispsiallion, I’m pleased to announce the celebration of the Emperor’s Half-Birthday! Everyone gets a day off.
Maybe we can get out of here.
What do you mean we can access the Imperial palace?
Why would we want to access the Imperial palace??
I’m am *not* going to depose the Emp…
Yes, yes, big fan of breathing.
Even with Moff clearence codes we couldn’t just walk in there.
What if we…no, bad plan.
Really, it’s a bad plan, General. I’m sure you can think of a better one.
Well…we don’t need to walk in there, do we? We’ve got a Star Destroyer. We just need an excuse to get it close enough…
What do you mean GOOD PLAN?
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN.
They did what to your planet?
Okay, I’m seeing the benefits of this plan.
We’re going to die. You know that, right buddy?
Yeah, sure, worthy cause. Never thought I’d get one of those.
A Little Later:
Wow, bright eyes, no, I’m not Moff Ispsiallion. Was my youthful good looks or my regicide that tipped you off? I’m Han Solo, and I just killed the Emp-
Why are you kneeling?
EMPEROR SOLO!?
What do you mean forty percent of the fleet has sworn allegiance to me?
Orders?
Um…I’m going to defer to Grand Moff Chewbacca over here. He’s in charge of your ships, got that?
Good…good. I’m just going to go into this little room and lock the door.
*muffled screaming*
*STANDING OVATION*
(You can always count on Star Wars fandom to really take something and run with it.)
Oh good god(s), what would the Rebellion’s response to this be? What would Vader’s response be?!
This is beautiful and wonderful, and long life to Emperor Solo! Long may he reign! (You know for a fact that Chewie has to sit on him to keep him from scampering. This - might occur multiple times.
…I also have the mental image of Han Solo trying to get an urgent message over to Lando ASAP - partly because Lando is one of the slickest, most slippery people he knows. If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s Lando.
Lando does not figure a way out.
Lando shows up at Coruscant (formerly Imperial Center, because Han can’t look at anything with the terms ‘Imperial’ ‘Empire’, or ‘Emperor’ these days without feeling a vein throb) SPECIFICALLY to point and laugh.
Han get revenge by making Lando Grand Vizer. So there.
Nah, but see, the thing is, Lando has a streak of respectability. Not the “I want people to think I’m Nice and the Right Sort of Person” sort of respectability, but the “I want to do a good job, protect my people, and figure out how to use my skills to make things better for us” sort of genuine moral courage. He may be a con artist at heart, but consider how much he loved Cloud City and its people, how much he used those skills (or tried to) for their protection. (Vader, alas, not being susceptible to conning, or to keeping his deals.)
Put Lando in charge? And Lando would become the greatest politician ever. And unlike most politicians, he’s been in the underbelly of society–he knows the difference between the way things look on paper and the way they play out in reality for the people on the bottom rung. I bet you that Lando has a list of things that SUCK about society that he would totally change if he could, but will exploit the fuck out of and con because one con artist can’t change the world.
But if you make him the Emperor’s Grand Vizier? Then he can. And he can schmooze the higher-ups into LIKING some of it, and point stormtroopers at them if they balk at the stuff even he can’t charm them into liking. Things will change, and change QUICKLY, and all of a sudden the ordinary person on the street is going to find the laws are a LOT more in their favor. And the planets that aren’t Core Worlds are going to find the same thing. And the people who benefited, both under the Republic and the Empire, from exploiting others or just being born into the right class on the right planet? They’re going to find life a lot harder.
Anakin was right about one thing. A dictator can make change happen more quickly than a democracy, and a dictator who is wise and smart and good can really swing things in a positive direction. The problem is, how do you ensure that the person who comes after your dictator isn’t going to use that same power to push things in a negative direction?
And the answer is, in this case, that the former Rebel Alliance pushes for a restoration of the Republic, Han says “fuck yeah, anything to get me out of here,” and Lando says “sure, we can talk democracy, but we’re going to set it up differently so it actually listens to the needs of the guy on the street in the Outer Rim, not just the whims of the major Coreworld corporations.” And then, once the transition to democracy is complete (it probably takes a decade or so to get everything together, because Lando, like any good conman, would be out for all he could get, which in this case would be protections for his people, which by this point would be, like, everybody except the old elite) Lando would get himself elected a Senator. Maybe from his home planet, wherever that is. Or maybe he just picks a planet he likes that’s benefited from his reforms. And then he shows up and gets back to being respectable.
(And the remnants of the old elite, and the people who hoped to retain under the New Republic the same privileges they had under both the Empire and the Old Republic, they say to themselves, “oh shit.” They were counting on him being gone. They were counting on being able to undo some of his changes! And here he is!
Han has entertained fantasies of being able to go back to being a pilot when this is all over. But the former Emperor trying to haul cargo doesn’t really … work, for a variety of reasons. He periodically comes back to Coruscant to complain to Lando about this. Lando just points and laughs and has him (the former Emperor who toppled the Empire and Restored Freedom And Justice To the Galaxy!) record a message or do an interview in support of Lando’s latest piece of legislation. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories on the HoloNet about how democracy is a sham and Emperor Solo is still in command, albeit by proxy from the shadows by controlling Senator Calrissian. They are, of course, absolutely bass ackwards; in the reign of Emperor Solo, Lord Calrissian was the puppet-master working in the shadows controlling the Emperor, and now he is openly working through the democratic process.
Leia showed up on Coruscant as the Senator from Alderaan somewhere in the middle of all this. (Remember, this all would have had to have happened some years before A New Hope. Therefore, the Imperial Senate was never disbanded, however vestigial it may have been by the time Han burst on the scene.) She thinks the Emperor is an idiot (albeit a handsome one) and she finds him incredibly infuriating when he tries to flirt with her instead of talking politics. She thinks, at first, that this is because he has that Imperial gender chauvinism, even if he CERTAINLY doesn’t have the Imperial species chauvinism. (Actually, he points out HER chauvinism a couple of times, which both infuriates her and shames her, because she thought she was BETTER than that.) Eventually she figures out that the Emperor doesn’t want to talk politics with her because he doesn’t want to talk politics, period, full stop, with anyone, ever, for any reason. (It takes her longer than it should to figure this out because how, hoW, HOW does someone who genuinely hates both politics and being in charge end up as EMPEROR?)
With Lando, she gets along SO WELL, YOU GUYS, THEIR ENEMIES ARE TERRIFIED. Where they agree, they are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE. Leia comes out with passion and fire, and then Lando comes out to schmooze, and if the one didn’t convince you, the other will. Where the disagree, they can usually find an acceptable compromise that works for both of them, and somehow everyone else goes along with it. Where they disagree but can’t find a compromise … everyone else is just Very Thankful that such things don’t happen often.
I don’t know how the relationships end up in this world. Maybe Leia marries neither of them. Maybe she marries both of them. Maybe Han and Lando are married, and Leia is the occasional invited third. Maybe Leia and Lando marry, and dominate Republic politics for decades while Han warms their bed when he’s in the area, and they are his safe harbor to come home to while giving him the freedom he needs to roam. (And he needs a LOT of room to roam after having been tied down as Emperor for so long.) Maybe Han and Leia marry, which fuels AT LEAST two dozen different conspiracy theories, and after Han abdicates he stays home playing with the children (and taking them out flying while Mommy is working), and Lando is their boyfriend and partner in every sense, but he maintains his own home and his own life because he finds he likes his life a little less … fiery, than life in the Organa-Solo household tends to be.
But while life is never quiet, they all live happily ever after.
This is an absolutely wonderful, exquisitely detailed analysis of the reign of Emperor Han Solo, First of His Name, Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy, Protector of the Stars, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, etc, etc.
It is said that the best leaders are those who do not want to lead. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ - Han is most definitely in the latter category. He was dragged into greatness kicking and screaming - and, much to everyone’s surprise, he actually ends up being moderately good at it.
Mainly because he has a very good grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. He’s an amazing pilot. He’s not a politician - as such, he delegates like hell. Chewie gets to be in charge of the military as Great Grand Moff, and Han is extremely enthusiastic about being Lando’s puppet Emperor. He probably outright offers to abdicate and put Lando on the throne (Lando just laughs at him again. At length. In retaliation, Han makes him Chief Ambassador. So there.)
Han has a habit of giving Lando more Government Positions when the latter is annoying him. Lando really doesn’t mind; Han certainly doesn’t mind. Han is also a bit curious about where Lando dug up some of the people he’s putting into various government roles, as well as a little impressed - how the hell did Lando talk Talon Karrde into being Minister of Intelligence?!
Han, as such, is basically stuck with all the publicity stunts and formal appearances and Being Emperor. Which basically means wearing a bunch of very uncomfortable clothing and shaking hands and kissing babies and ugh. …he does kinda like opening up all the new charities and organizations. Especially when it comes to helping orphans, the homeless, etc - the people who really do need help. (And now he can).
Han also is particularly gleeful when it comes to repealing the Empire’s various human-centric policies. Chewie is as well.
How many spit-takes do you think occurred across the known galaxy when a number of people took in the fact that Han Solo had somehow ended up becoming Emperor? I think several individuals who had had business dealing with him in the past started wondering if just when they’d gotten so drunk they were now hallucinating…
Han and Darth Vader unexpectedly bond over an utter hatred of slavers and slavery. Han (and Chewie) provide him with a rather significant number of the Armed Forces and turn him loose in the Rim, with orders to stamp out slavery - Vader takes on this task with relish. (Lando quietly - or not-so-quietly - institutes the various social systems needed to help the suddenly vast numbers of former slaves; he and Han take a certain glee in watching holos of various Hutt-occupied planets being ‘liberated’.)
Just think about all the various long-term plans - of ‘former’ Jedi, of the Rebellion, of the Empire - that Han ruins by accidentally becoming Emperor. It’s positively gleeful; I also get a laugh out of Lando cutting finances to the Death Star because it’s a black hole in terms of all the money sunk into it.
So does Vader find Luke on one of his expeditions to take down the slavers? Do Luke and Leia then find each other?
@copperbadge I had the same thought, so glad you ran with it!
Emperor Solo….fantastic!
Part of Vader wanted to go to Tatooine first. Another part of him wanted to never set foot on the planet again, as he had vowed in the wake of his mother’s death. But now he finally had the chance go back and free all the slaves, the goal he had held in his heart since he was nine and had followed the Jedi away from his mother. And it would be good to topple Jabba and send a message to the rest of the Hutt clan. And Emperor Solo hadn’t liked Jabba either, and their unexpected bonding over their mutual hatred of slavery meant that this Emperor’s opinion meant something more to Vader than it would have otherwise.
So Vader found himself back on Tatooine, the smoking ruins of Jabba’s palace behind him, the Hutt strangled and cut into pieces where he sat on his throne. His troopers were finishing up the operation, clearing out the last of the slavers and bounty hunters and sycophants, and they were all equipped with a scanner (a more sophisticated version of the one Vader had built as a child) and tracker deactivator. The trackers would be surgically removed once they got the former slaves to medical care. Vader knew how having a slave tracker in you weighed on your mind even when it wasn’t active.
He left the clean up to his men and found himself gazing out at the setting binary suns, feeling a tug on his awareness. It didn’t take him long to procure a speeder bike (snagged from the palace’s hangar), and he soon found himself outside a painfully familiar homestead. Now why would the Force bring him here… His eyes strayed to the patch of ground he knew should be marked as his mother’s grave. But it was empty, not only her headstone removed, but all the ones that had been there before. A curious and somewhat infuriating thing, that.
Still. He remembered where she was buried, and though he never intended to, he found himself on his knees in front of her, head bowed in grief that had never healed and under the weight of what he knew would be her disappointment in his actions these last 15 years. He had allowed himself to be enslaved again, almost willingly, and he had then helped to enslave the Galaxy to his Master. But he would right those wrongs now. His annoyance and skepticism when the smuggler (he had dug into Solo’s past when he took the throne) had become Emperor had turned to cautious hope when he continued to help the Galaxy instead of hurt it further. Now he could actually do what he had wanted to do in the first place. End slavery, bring peace. Make the Galaxy a better place for his chil– No, he wouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t go back down the road of “what if” again, as he had so many times when he was alone and despairing of what he had done to his life.
“He started asking too many questions,” a soft, vaguely familiar voice from behind Vader startled him out of his thoughts. He was on his feet and facing the source of the voice, hand on his lightsaber, before a startled expression could even form on Beru’s face.
Tatooine had aged her, as it aged everyone, but he still recognized the kind, quiet girl he had met a lifetime ago.
“Hello Anakin.”
Vader blinked. That was… unexpected. He tried to come up with a response and failed.
“Who asked too many questions?” he asked instead.
Beru tilted her head as looked at him, eyes searching his mask. She bit her lip and nodded slightly, coming to some decision or another. She made it quickly enough that Vader’s patience did not wear thin, or perhaps his patience with her, this girl who had loved his mother, was longer than with most people. Or perhaps standing on the sacred ground of his mother’s grave was no place to lose his temper.
“Your son.”
It took a minute for those words to process, and then despite his earlier thoughts, his temper did flare.
“What?” he snarled. He took a step forward, and Beru held her ground. “My child is dead. Do not - ”
Beru shook her head. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “I can introduce you. Come with me.”
She held out her hand, and he stared at it. No one had offered their hand to him in over a decade, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to take it. But he shook the desire off and stepped forward, ignoring the hand. She dropped her arm but led him back to the entrance to the dome.
He had to duck to fit through the doorway and low staircase, but the discomfort no longer mattered when they entered the kitchen and Vader’s eyes fell on the boy sitting at the table. His eyes were wide, staring at him, scared recognition in them, and Vader realized he didn’t know what stories about him had made their way to this backwater planet.
The boy stood slowly. Only once he was on his feet did his eyes jump back to Beru.
“Aunt Beru?” he asked quietly.
“It’s okay, Luke.” Vader filed the name away carefully, savoring the sound of it. “This is…” Beru hesitated, taking a deep breath. The wait grated on Vader’s nerves and he wanted to say it himself, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Even though those were his eyes in a face that was equally hers and his, and his hair and her stature. He reached out in the Force, lightly touching the boy’s mind, and found it shielded. But he wasn’t shielding himself. Someone else was, and Vader recognized the feel of it. He gritted his teeth. Obi-Wan’s final treachery.
“This is your father,” Beru finally said, and Vader hadn’t thought Luke’s eyes could get any bigger but he was wrong. They turned back to him, scared, hopeful, pleading, and something in the Force burst to life between them, a bond that Obi-Wan’s shields had never been built to contain. Luke wouldn’t be able to feel it beyond maybe a slight gravitation towards Vader, untrained as he was, but to Vader the bond was confirmation beyond any DNA test.
“Father?” Luke said, taking a step towards him.
Vader, who realized he had been doing his best impression of a statue since he had laid eyes on the boy, finally moved and crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Luke. Luke had to crane his neck to keep Vader’s mask in sight when he stood this close, but he didn’t flinch.
Vader reached out and touched Luke’s cheek gently. “Hello son.”
~*~
The Galaxy went into something of an uproar when Darth Vader returned from his first slavery-destroying trip to the Outer Rim with a small blond boy in tow, claiming that he was his son. Both Emperor Solo and Calrissian took a quick liking to Luke, and it wasn’t long before Chewbacca was almost as fiercely protective of the boy as he was of Solo, though he had nothing on Vader’s protectiveness. And Vader found himself surprisingly glad that he hadn’t found his son when Palpatine was still Emperor. At least Solo wouldn’t kill him intentionally. He would have to put a stop to the racing though, before he got him killed accidentally.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.
“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”
The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.
“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”
“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”
The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”
Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”
“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”
Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.
“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?”
The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.
A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer.
“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”
“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”
“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.
And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.
Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.
“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”
“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”
“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the
earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost
before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath
your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.
“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to
rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”
“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”
And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.
Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.
“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.
“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”
Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.
“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”
“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.
“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”
Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.
“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.
“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.
“What?” the god asked.
Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”
Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes
rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the
hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the
temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided
there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache
in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped
from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential
visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny
clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding
meadow.
The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant
road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled
around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without
him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned,
if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he
thought.
He had come to understand that humans are senseless
creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them
good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in
return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity.
Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile
kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless
creatures, humans were.
So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the
worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field
with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter
came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth,
and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s
work on his dying breath.
“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a
familiar voice.
The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto
curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year
mutism.
“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of
unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting
friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.
“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m
so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will
you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”
“No,” Arepo smiled.
“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for
visiting here before your departure.”
“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and
chuckled.
“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There
is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.
“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if
you’ll have me.”
The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want
to live here?”
“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting
friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”
I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.
This is one of my favourite stories
Three different people told the three acts of this story purely because they wanted to and as of now it’s touched the hearts of a quarter of a million people, and I think that would make the god smile.
Y'all I’m almost crying
Times passed and the world spun on, and the two gods say contentedly in their small corner of the world, watching as the days changed. Their small temple of stone and twig was forgotten as the leaves passed from green to orange then back again. Children no longer left flowers on their stones and travelers no longer took the winding path.
They were at peace.
But the world forgot its reverence for the sacred in its progress forward, and the worship of gods took to high halls and mighty structures and the small divinities of the wayside were lost. And one day, progress came to the forgotten field that hand long since lost its boundey with the forest.
The stone and twig temple, created on a whim and filled by chance, was destroyed. The two within no longer knew where to go. For it seemed that this world no longer had a place for gods of first frosts and fallen leaves or everlasting bonds. There was nothing they could do- the world too loud, too fast, too big.
The great temple that had taken their place was vast and beautiful. The gods of these people must surely be great, to merit such grandure. There was no need for them anymore.
But one quiet sunset, they heard the cries. The sounds of a weary soul shattering beyond repair. From within the great temple walls.
The two gods looked to each other, and the single look was all that was needed for them to agree. They entered the mighty temple to find the source of the cries.
A young woman knelt there, at the base of the steps to the grand alter, clutching at her chest as if the try and keep her broken heart together.
The god of the temple had not yet answered her.
“Young girl, why do you greave?”
Startled the woman turned to them, eyes stained with tears. “Who are you?”
The gods shared a sorrowful smile, “Who we were no longer matters. But why do yo cry so?”
The woman wiped her face, though she couldn’t dry her tears, “I have had my heart broken. The ones dearest to me have hurt me beyond repair. I came here to seek comfort. But I know it is in vain, for the god of this place has far greater worries than one like me.”
This grieved the forgotten gods, but there was nothing they could do. They had never had the power to forstall the great calamities of the world.
“We are sorry that the world has broken you so. But we can do nothing, except offer you pot comfort.”
The woman sniffles for a little longer before she rises. Her eyes seem calmer, her being maybe a little less shattered. Or perhaps it was just that she’d managed to collect all the broken pieces together. She gives them a small nod and makes her way outside.
Despairing, the gods follow her, back out to the open air. The woman takes several steps down the paved road before she turns back.
“I know you think it wasn’t much, but thank you for your comfort.”
And then the woman departed. Bereaved the gods returned to their listless existence, mourning more closely each day as it died.
Many years passed.
Then one day, they heard the laughter of children and the easy happiness of some parents shouts. Curious as to who could have possibly wandered to their forgotten stones, the gods came out.
An aging woman, laugh lines deep in her face and peace in her eyes stood hand in hand with another woman, equally as radiant in her happiness and joy.
As the gods approached, the two children returned to their mothers and hid at their sides, wide innocent eyes peering up at them.
It was only once they had closed the distance that the gods realized the identity of the woman before them. Gone are the shattered pieces that she’d spilled on the great temple floor, in their place, a breathtaking sculpture of a life well loved and well lived.
“I always hoped you would still be here,” she said with a watery smile. “I wanted to show you my wife and children.”
The gods smiled down upon her, feeling some lightness returning to them as they took in the beautiful scene.
“We are glad that you have found those who deserve to love you.”
She gave them a shy smile, before her face grew serious. She reached into the bad that rested over one shoulder and pulled out a small wooden box, offering it to them.
Surprised, for it had been many long long years since any such offering had been give to them, they took it and learned inside.
Within were a variety of items- a perfectly smooth and round stone, a wishbone shaped twig, a small piece of twine, a braided ribbon, small game pieces, and other tiny relics to the memories within them.
Then she spoke. “These are for you. You said to me that there was nothing you could do but offer me your comfort. And that is what you did. For when I despaired your were there. In Every Humble Beauty that made me smile, in every Unbreable Bond I have made. These items are the answers the my prayers you left for me to find, on a wooded path the day I needed to be lost to find myself, on a beach at sunset with my love holding my hand for the first time, in my child’s hand the first time they laughed, the game pieces that helped heal the divide with my family.
Thank you for your gifts. Because comfort is sometimes the most powerful gift of all.”
Then she smiled and turned as they base her and her family farewell.
Many more years passed. Children began to return to their stones, hiding toys and crafts within the weeds. Lovers came to pledge themselves by moonlight as they rested in the grass. Travelers returned, not to pay head to the grand alter, but to sta d in quiet hontenpmatikn of the boundless field and forest.
Until one day she returned, hair shining like starlight, the lines of a well lived life etched into every pore if her skin, her back strong and proud.
“We meet again.”
The gods knew that the woman before them had left the mortal world, surrounded by love and family, and were proud to see it.
“You are the god of the Humble Beaties of the Earth and the god of Unbreakable Bonds. Will you join me?”
Curious they turned to her, “Joinyou where?”
She smiled at them. “This world cannot use temples any more. But there are many who would lay offerings at your alter, for you give greater gifts than any other gods.”
“But where would we go?”
“To where you are needed. Those who despair cannot always set foot on the land that bears your temple of stone and twig.”
They looked to the earth that surrounded them and then to the vast horizon that seemed to call for them now.
“Alright, we will go with you.” And then began to head for the horizon, the woman by their side. But then they paused. “But who are you to know this? Who are you to ask gods to leave their temple and make their home upon the winds?”
The woman gazed out at the horizon as she answered, “Because I too am a god. I am the god of mending hearts. Of sleepless nights and hard decisions. The god of leaving to some place new. The god of returning having been made better. The god of chasing horizons, conquering mountains, of finding the winding path while lost in the wood.
I am the god that is there when sorrow becomes to much, but there is a shoulder to lean on, another beautiful sight to make a memory.
I am what happens when someone finds you.”
And together they departed from that place, to go to where they are needed,to all the souls who seek the small beauties and lasting ties and mended futures.
The god who had to be broken to be made. The god who had to die to keep bonds and friendships undying. And the god of beauties that called to a man who asked for nothing but the memory of the passing gifts, and who became the god of Arepo.
