Here’s the birthday girl @mal-is-tall with the kriffin’…Mando Creami™ or whatever she wanted me to get her. She made us meiloorun-basil frozen yogurt with it. It was okay.
If we’re tossing out songs we associate with the ABS blogiverse…I do think this one speaks for itself.
Gosh dang it I wish I still had that snippet I cut out of the Big Post. I cut it because it didn’t have to do with the story it was just a rabbit trail. Uhhhh let me try to recreate it real quick
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The thing you have to understand about Fannie is that she believes so strongly in the immaterial. Nothing is ever just itself to her; everything has something under it and beneath it and through it. Everything holds meaning to her, and many things hold sort of a mystical power. It didn’t surprise me at all that she believed there was something supernatural about sex, some bonding of the souls beyond mere physical contact.
Fannie didn’t learn that from the Jedi. The Jedi don’t have any teachings on sex (that I know of—not that I’m known for paying attention). I think it was a remnant of her Rylothian heritage, that tendency to see everything through a spiritual lens, and although she identified as a Jedi now, I could see how the framework she had been raised in had built a foundation that made her that much more willing to see the things beneath. The things that I didn’t see. Or couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
To put it simply, Fannie believes in everything I wish I could believe in—everything I’ve tried to believe in—and haven’t been able to. And that’s honestly part of why I like her…as if by holding her hand, she could bring me a little closer to the things that have always been outside of my reach. Even if I didn’t believe in everything she did, I could usually see the beauty and the significance in them—I’m a poet, after all. The things I disagree with her on, a lot of it isn’t because I think she’s stupid. Often times, I really wish the things she believed in were true. I’ve just…never been able to be convinced that they were.
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Here’s another snippet for the next story post that I am going to slash to ribbons probably
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“But…yes,” she said, when she turned back around. “I had sort of an…epiphany, I think.”
“Sex dungeons are great places for epiphanies,” I said reflexively.
“What?” Fannie stared at me like I was insane.
“Sorry, uh…that was one of the chapter titles from my book…when I wrote about going to Ryloth for the first time…you know, when we were in the…”
Fannie blinked.
“Anyway, psych wards are also great places for epiphanies—go on.”
“I just couldn’t believe what had happened to me, when I was lying there,” she said. “I couldn’t believe where I was, what I had done, the things I had said. I never felt so low in all my life, so horrible, and so far from who I wished to be. And I…I finally…after a long time of having given up, I reached out to the Force again.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“And did you…feel anything?”
“Well…no,” Fannie admitted. “But…what I realized…is that…that’s okay.”
I raised a brow. I had made my own peace with rarely being able to feel the Force long ago, but I had a feeling Fan didn’t mean it that way.
“How so?”
“Because what I realized is…I have been so focused on myself lately. I have turned inward on myself and viewed everything in terms of how it relates to me. Even the Force itself, I thought of in terms of my being able to sense it; my being able to derive comfort from it—but it’s not about me, Ben; nothing is. Yes, horrible things have happened, but…I am hardly the first person in history to face horrible things. And I suppose I felt that, since I have tried harder to do good in the galaxy, I deserved to receive more good as a result. But that is not how it works. A Jedi does not do good in order to receive it back. A Jedi does good for good’s own sake. She pursues light for light’s own sake. And I failed, Ben…I allowed darkness to eat away at me, and I clung to attachments…I accused the Force of hiding itself from me, but it was my own selfishness that inhibited my ability to perceive it. The more that I let go of myself, the more in tune I will be with it. I must become less, and it must become more.”
The way she said it made me nervous. “I don’t know if it’s fair to take all the blame upon yourself,” I said. “Can’t the Force ever be wrong for once?”
Fannie shook her head. “The Force cannot be wrong. Only a person can be wrong, and the Force is not a person; it is a law, it is a substance. It cannot hide itself any more than a mountain can shrink into the earth. When I could not see it, it was because I had turned my eyes away. Any failure in alignment with it is my own.”
I nodded without saying anything. It got me nervous sometimes when she talked about the Force. I didn’t like the way she talked about denying herself; considering the Force as more important than herself; dedicating herself to its service. It all seemed way too Snoke-y to me, and it made me uncomfortable. It set off my alarms.
At the same time…her beliefs made her a better person. I could see that. As much as they made her seem a little narrow-minded at times, she was kinder and more peaceful when she was in tune with them. And she really did seem far more like herself than she had in the last five months, so, I dunno, maybe there was something to the Force thing—but not something I was ready to look into at the moment. It was when she was—like she said—focused on herself and all the people and things she worried about that she became controlling or hypocritical or rigid or judgmental.
Pennie had believed that Fannie was that way all the time. Amalia believed Fannie was that way a little more often than she truly was. I thought I saw Fannie the most clearly: as someone who had found something she believed in more than anything, something that made everything make sense to her, something that, like I said, really did make her a better person. I’d never found anything I could really believe in—at least not consistently—and nothing really ever seemed to make sense to me. So I was willing to look past the things that made me uncomfortable in order to appreciate how…how founded she was, like a tree with its roots deep in the earth.
I wasn’t like her. But I liked sitting under her shade.
SHE’S GREAT I am out for dinner with her as we speak and the serving droid asked if she was my girlfriend which I think was a programmed attempt to flatter her since my mom is almost fifty and she was like “oh, haha, no, this is my son” and I was feelin’ cheeky so I said “not that that would stop her, she almost dated her brother once” AND LET ME TELL YOU…that is not a great thing to say on Mother’s Day…even if it’s true…almost got the sandal for that one…BUT I bought her a couple of drinks so now we’re all good!!!
