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pronkerPart One Here
Dear Diary, another day, another --- oh here she comes. Forgive me if I play a little game with an old friend, will you?
swish swish crackle
She's making vague healer noises. Her starched uniform makes sounds as she peers into my face to see if I'm awake. I play dead. Then she moves about the room, adjusting the shades, straightening invisible objects on the nightstand, taking the flowers out of the vase and snip, there go their waterlogged stems. She drops the scissors with a clang! and I bolt upright.
"Bant!"
"Well, how do we feel this morning?" Dear, dear Bant. "Did we have a nice night's sleep? Are we all ready for our bath?"
"If we must."
This daily ritual is always performed with a great show of modesty, as though I have any secrets from Halls of Healing personnel by now. I clutch the proffered duracotton blanket's hem and she removes my sleep shift and then, miraculously, the rest of the bedclothes. The water tub sits on the mattress beside me. Just to keep up pretenses, each limb is withdrawn from the protective cover one by one. Washing takes not even a minute --- I've timed it, Diary --- and then each section of my anatomy is dried and discreetly replaced underneath, so that I don't all show at the same time.
"Gah! Bant!"
"Cold hands, warm hearts! Never mind about kicking over the tub, your linens needed changing anyway."
A deep mystery of the Force is how someone makes a bed while you are still in it, Diary. After she threads a fresh sleep shift onto my quivering naked form, I roll to one side, a great deal of pulling and hauling going on behind me. Then I roll onto the other side, crossing a ridge of bedding as high as Senate Hill. The same yanking and tugging begins all over again. By the time I roll into my back, the bed is all made, and here it is only seventh hour.
"Let me just look at your chart, Obi ... hmmmm. The fruit doesn't seem to be doing the trick."
Oh. Oh, no. My life is an open chart at the foot of my bed, the most intimate functions performed for all to see, every move I make eagerly recorded.
I negotiate. "Bant, you forget about this and as Councilmember I'll make sure you never draw creche duty again."
"I like creche duty."
I plead. "I'm already treated like an infant in these Halls, slats on either side of this bed like a crib to keep me from rolling out, pureed oatmeal in the morning, dinner at the ghastly hour of three in the afternoon. The only thing lacking is an abacus and set of plastoid blocks."
The lady isn't budging. "I took an oath, Obi-Wan. Your health is my priority, all parts of it."
Diary, there is no arguing with a determined Mon Cal. "Look! Behind you! There's a big bug!"
"Where? Where? Obi-Wan, it's just a gnat --- oh no you don't, Master Jedi! You get those legs back in there, where do you think you're going? Act your age!"
"I'm acting like an infant if you're going to treat me like one --- gah! Cold hands again!"
I am loaded into a hoverchair and propelled down the corridor at a dizzy rate of speed, weaving in and out between hobbling ambulatory sufferers and ducking around an occasional service wagon filled with tasteless, bland entrees. No one could find the food palatable, is it any wonder that I developed cons--- whoosh! Doors slide open suddenly as I pass, or some other hoverchair comes hurtling around a corner, missing me by centimeters. It's just like being back on Nicandra Boulevard again. I crowd into a lift with three more hoverchairs, and Bant discusses me with her fellow healers in a detached professional way. I glare at the other patients with frank loathing. Misery does not love company.
Tell the Force, Dear Diary, that I am allowed some leeway for hatred as I undergo this.
Bant smiles down at me. "Here we are, Obi-Wan. End of the line."
I expel a sigh.
IOIOIOIOIO
TBC
Part Three here
Dear Diary, another day, another --- oh here she comes. Forgive me if I play a little game with an old friend, will you?
swish swish crackle
She's making vague healer noises. Her starched uniform makes sounds as she peers into my face to see if I'm awake. I play dead. Then she moves about the room, adjusting the shades, straightening invisible objects on the nightstand, taking the flowers out of the vase and snip, there go their waterlogged stems. She drops the scissors with a clang! and I bolt upright.
"Bant!"
"Well, how do we feel this morning?" Dear, dear Bant. "Did we have a nice night's sleep? Are we all ready for our bath?"
"If we must."
This daily ritual is always performed with a great show of modesty, as though I have any secrets from Halls of Healing personnel by now. I clutch the proffered duracotton blanket's hem and she removes my sleep shift and then, miraculously, the rest of the bedclothes. The water tub sits on the mattress beside me. Just to keep up pretenses, each limb is withdrawn from the protective cover one by one. Washing takes not even a minute --- I've timed it, Diary --- and then each section of my anatomy is dried and discreetly replaced underneath, so that I don't all show at the same time.
"Gah! Bant!"
"Cold hands, warm hearts! Never mind about kicking over the tub, your linens needed changing anyway."
A deep mystery of the Force is how someone makes a bed while you are still in it, Diary. After she threads a fresh sleep shift onto my quivering naked form, I roll to one side, a great deal of pulling and hauling going on behind me. Then I roll onto the other side, crossing a ridge of bedding as high as Senate Hill. The same yanking and tugging begins all over again. By the time I roll into my back, the bed is all made, and here it is only seventh hour.
"Let me just look at your chart, Obi ... hmmmm. The fruit doesn't seem to be doing the trick."
Oh. Oh, no. My life is an open chart at the foot of my bed, the most intimate functions performed for all to see, every move I make eagerly recorded.
I negotiate. "Bant, you forget about this and as Councilmember I'll make sure you never draw creche duty again."
"I like creche duty."
I plead. "I'm already treated like an infant in these Halls, slats on either side of this bed like a crib to keep me from rolling out, pureed oatmeal in the morning, dinner at the ghastly hour of three in the afternoon. The only thing lacking is an abacus and set of plastoid blocks."
The lady isn't budging. "I took an oath, Obi-Wan. Your health is my priority, all parts of it."
Diary, there is no arguing with a determined Mon Cal. "Look! Behind you! There's a big bug!"
"Where? Where? Obi-Wan, it's just a gnat --- oh no you don't, Master Jedi! You get those legs back in there, where do you think you're going? Act your age!"
"I'm acting like an infant if you're going to treat me like one --- gah! Cold hands again!"
I am loaded into a hoverchair and propelled down the corridor at a dizzy rate of speed, weaving in and out between hobbling ambulatory sufferers and ducking around an occasional service wagon filled with tasteless, bland entrees. No one could find the food palatable, is it any wonder that I developed cons--- whoosh! Doors slide open suddenly as I pass, or some other hoverchair comes hurtling around a corner, missing me by centimeters. It's just like being back on Nicandra Boulevard again. I crowd into a lift with three more hoverchairs, and Bant discusses me with her fellow healers in a detached professional way. I glare at the other patients with frank loathing. Misery does not love company.
Tell the Force, Dear Diary, that I am allowed some leeway for hatred as I undergo this.
Bant smiles down at me. "Here we are, Obi-Wan. End of the line."
I expel a sigh.
IOIOIOIOIO
TBC
Part Three here
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no subject
Date: 2014-11-07 04:46 am (UTC)I remember the name Bant from I don't know where, but don't remember anything about her.
And continuing from your other comment, yes it's funny how the passage of time can cure old squicks... and dull the good stuff as well, unfortunately. I'm still a Palpakin girl but with no comrades and no sustenance the passion dies away :(
no subject
Date: 2014-11-07 05:56 am (UTC)Oooh, Bant is a Mon Calamari friend of Obi-Wan's since their childhood in the creche, about 2 years younger and from the Jude Watson-verse Jedi Apprentice books. She's gotten a much better characterization and more dramatic ficcage output in
Yeah, I get the same feels. Palpakin and Obikin and even Qui/Obi stories are facing attrition. :((( There was one whopper of a good Q/O epic last year by Cara Chapel called 'Balance The Force.' Let's hope that the comms devoted to these pairings don't get offed by LJ because they haven't been updated or commented on in two years! I think that is the time limit for LJs to survive.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 12:46 am (UTC)I think the 2 years thing isn't quite as bad as people think. I have journals I haven't updated or even logged into in waaaay longer than that and they're still around. I think they were purging journals that were created over 2 years ago and NEVER updated or something? I'm okay with that. I like to think my old RP journals will sit around in the archives forever... but I understand if they don't want to do that. Hopefully they'd give us ample notice if they're going to start deleting more journals and comms so we could pull what we wanted from them first.
I wish people would do the same, and not delete their journals. Esp. the ones with good fic in them! I understand wanting to disappear or start over but why delete the old one? Just... don't go back there, but leave it for others to enjoy :)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 01:37 am (UTC)Oh I'm glad to hear that your RP journals will stay where you can revisit them. There used to be a thing called LJ Archive, but I think that it's no longer with us and anyway, only the owners of the site could use it, as I recall.
Good fic ... hard to find. Yes, the whole 'ownership of My Fic' is something I've tried to understand: a/someone turns pro and does not want the google search to turn up those delicious slash stories that one has written; b/someone gets mad at either an individual, a comm, or internet in general; or c/leaves fandom altogether, doesn't want to leave footprints, so to speak.
I can understand that stories one has written at age 14 is Old Shame, though. But the good stuff, like ... well, we all have our favorites.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 05:20 am (UTC)I used something called LJ Book, not sure if that's still around... yeah you had to be the owner to do it. Unless they do get more hardcore with their purging I think LJ itself is more secure than any computer of mine!
Totally agree with all that. If you're posting fic under your real name, like on Facebook or something, okay... but you don't have to tie your LJ to anything RL, you know? I guess there are ways that "crossover" friends from other sites could give you away. Eh, I still think someone would have to be looking awfully hard to connect the real you to your fic. Unless you live in a town of 500 people and you list your town and first name on your profile. Ha! But what do I know.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 05:30 am (UTC)Oh, at least that's a new name to look up - always ready to learn more about how to archive.
You know plenty - and I wonder if FB has fics, jand also how to find them, like tumblr is said to have. I've gotten a few gift fics from a tumblr, always drabble sized. FB scares me, though ... I'm happy to be a Nonny over here on LJ! Some folks, mainly younger but a few oldsters like myself, put their own photos as avatars. I mean, it looks awfully real and I just need to accept that others are braver than myself.
re: Gnats pt 2
Date: 2014-12-23 09:33 am (UTC)