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half agony and hope

@halfagonyandhope / halfagonyandhope.tumblr.com

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[Excerpt:]

“Who could have known? Who was involved in the planning process?”

Satine reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose as she grumbled, “Every element of rebuilding Sundari went through the Ruling Council, not to mention the architects, the engineers, the ecologists, the geologists, the supply chain and logistics experts, and…” she ran out of breath as she recalled them. “That’s not even the half of it. Every decision was reviewed again with me, then with Almec, and then put into motion.”

All of their eyes widened at the same time as Satine, Korkie, and Caepo stared at one another, and on the other end of the transmission, Bo-Katan growled.

“Fucking Almec. I knew it.”

“Bo, have you had contact with him since reaching Sundari?” Satine asked.

“Not in the slightest. He’s avoiding me. Not sure why, either. I’m a fucking guest here,” she replied sarcastically.

Her crass choice of words made Satine’s cheeks redden and she scowled as she replied, “Language, Bo. Language.”

On the other end of the transmission, Bo-Katan’s reaction was unexpected as she laughed in a raucous roar and then said, “Ease up already, sister, or the Kryze family holidays are gonna be really tense.”

Korkie snorted and caught a glare from his mother, but he turned away and laughed into his hands to muffle the sound. Caepo reached over and slapped him playfully, his hand making contact with his ribcage, causing the young man to hiss and recoil; and then the guard pointed his index finger at him as a warning.

“Listen, I’m not trying to complicate things for you in the core worlds region, with all their affluence and their parties and their bullshit, but-”

Satine’s face fell as Bo-Katan paused, and she knew what was coming next was going to be much more serious than the jokes her sister made and the sarcastic remarks she used as a deflection from her guilt and insecurity. She swallowed hard, feeling certain that she already knew what it was her sister was going to ask.

“-I can use all the help I can get out here.”

--

one of my favorite star wars headcanons is that anakin and obi-wan's sparring matches always draw huge crowds at the temple. they stop there for a while when they're on leave from the war and anakin inevitably is like obi-wan we HAVE to practice or else we'll get rusty, especially you because you're so OLD. and obi-wan takes the bait so easily he's like oh we'll see about THAT. smash cut to them fighting in one of the practice rooms, and the younglings are losing their minds because it's The Hero With No Fear vs. The Negotiator which is basically their version of the UFC since they're not allowed to go anywhere and have never seen actual live sports. it gets to the point where the other masters get all huffy and have to shoo everyone back to their classes.

i'm helping out at a creative writing workshop for uhhh i think 10-12s? 10-14s? idk. but that age range. and anyways

a) i forgot how fun this is

b) it's really hard not to like, re-write for them and stick to just "hey add descriptions here, change this grammar, really cool ideas!" bc i'm an adult and not trying to talk over/railroad these kids, but i'm just so excited for their ideas!!!

c) little boys write cool stuff like "what if we went to mars but it sucked so we left, but left behind all our technology and the technology rose up and created its own society and then went to war with us for abandoning them? what if transformers had 100x the war crimes? what if the earth blew up. what if we were the robots all along?"

d) little girls out here writing like "aunt melanie's skin was sloughing off the bones as her beloved dogs tore her apart, turning on her in blind animal instinct. the second she stopped providing food, she became food." and a lot of body horror and dark themes about group pacts and betrayals and ritualistic murder/sacrifices. like a lot

me, turning to the teacher who is also doing this: hey so, i'm personally really cool with the tone and direction these girls take, but is any of this? how you say... a red flag?

teacher: little girls have really rich inner lives to combat the way they're puppeted by society in real life. they'll learn to censor it out in a couple years, but it doesn't go away.

me, who was also a weird little girl who phased in and out of weirdness depending on social settings: nice.

Newly-crowned World Champion Alysa Liu interviewed by Ashley Wagner at the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships
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