Fic: Blue Screen (Callista/Luke, 1/1)

[deaka]

Title: Blue Screen
Characters: Callista, Luke
Warnings: HOLY CRAP, this came out dark. Angst, depression, vague allusions to suicide. (The whole Callista arc is pretty dark on its own, really, even if it's mostly unintended.)

Summary: This is not happily ever after.

A/N: Not sure whether this will be posted anywhere else. *shifty eyes* It's a

Comments

[deaka]

It's so true - you only have to scratch the surface in the Callista arc to find a whole lot of darkness. I seriously question how Callista would even have been able to function after being being stuck in an evil ship AI for decades only to emerge in someone else's body thirty years after everything she'd known was gone. That's some deeply traumatic stuff. And it only gets worse for her from here...

(I must admit I sort of handwaved Cray's body changing to fit Callista's former appearance, because always struck me as ridiculous. But then we're talking about a disembodied Force ghost inhabiting a dead woman's body, so what do I know...)

Thanks! It took a sharp turn to what I was expecting it to be and I was a bit unsure about posting, so that's great to hear. XD

[treenahasthaal]

That was beautiful and pretty gut wrenching. I must be one of the few who doesn't really know much about Callista and why the fans seem to dislike her, but I do know the basics of what happened to her.

She seems lost and alone, even though she has Luke. Through this story she's very human, and I can understand why she left him.

[deaka]

I've never disliked her, but she was very badly handled at times. Personally I think the problem with her arc is that it's so jarringly off-tone with the rest of the EU - Hambly writes well (in my opinion, I know others probably wouldn't agree) but Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight are much more further over on the fantasy scale than anything else in the EU to date.

Through this story she's very human, and I can understand why she left him.

Thank you, that's a lovely comment. I feel somewhat justified for the epic angst now. :p

[4thofeleven]

I really like this.

[deaka]

Thank you! I'm relieved people aren't backing away slowly...

[duncatra]

I've never seen this take on the character before (and it makes SO MUCH SENSE) so that earns a thumbs-up. Yeah, it's dark, but I don't think it's too dark for the JC -- or at least FFN.

I've found two schools of thought on Callista over the years among L/Mers: The folks that hated her guts and those that were just happy she was gone. I don't think either lent itself to giving her character this much thought, though.

[deaka]

Yeah, it's hard to see how Callista would be anything but a bit screwed up, when you think about it.

Thanks - I might look at posting elsewhere. The JC can't be all mush and fluff even these days. *sigh*

[lotusflower85]

I loved this - such beautiful imagery and wonderful character introspection. I've never really read anything that delved so deeply into Callista's character and this, I think, just hits the mark perfectly.

She left the computer, but the computer did not leave her. The machine is within her now, part of her soul. She is not human anymore. She never will be again. Something is changed.

Cray loved a man so much she put him in a machine. Luke’s done the opposite.

Brilliant - the fact that she was a woman who essentially became a machine and then stuck in the body of another woman was never really addressed in the profic, nor in fanfic.

I just really love this - I always saw Callista as necessary to Luke's "journey" so to speak, and it's wonderful to read something that fleshes their relationship out a bit more.

[deaka]

Thank you! :D Poor Callista is rather neglected on the whole. And there are so many interesting elements there to play with. Not really happy ones, but anyway.

I always saw Callista as necessary to Luke's "journey" so to speak

True! Demonising Callista is short-changing Luke and her both, I think.