update?
I will probably doing more audio things in the near future, because, honestly, it's about all I have time for at the moment. Back in ye olde days of 300-level classes, and only three of them, I had plenty of time for my sort of involved, rambly essays, which I just don't at the moment. But I do want to stay involved in my fandoms! So audio stuff that doesn't take as long, with transcripts when I can manage, so sort of like rambles, but more...spontaneous!
In related whatsits, I would like to do a reading of something I didn't write, in accordance with the whole hey-I-have-time-for-talking-if-not-much-else. So if anybody is willing to have me podfic a fic of theirs, drop me a line or a comment or something.
Aaaand the next Lucy commentary, 'cause I like just rambling about fic and canon and how they intersected in my head. The transcript is here.
This one may be...somewhat less painstaking than the first one, just because this chapter is much longer, and copying every "um" and "uh" and "you know" took forever.
Chapter One
Lucy dropped her binoculars.
This sentence took a ridiculously long amount of time to write. After I did the prologue, which came quite easily - in fact it was longer and I ended up cutting quite a lot out of it - then I had no idea where to start or what to do. I thought of starting right when she arrives at Owen and Beru's and actually showing her upbringing and how it affects her, in what ways it's different, but honestly I thought that sounded pretty boring. And I figured I could allude to it in the main story and start somewhere in ANH and then I had to figure out where to start and blah blah blah and eventually I just started out at the beginning, which is...really prosaic.
"I saw a battle up there," she said, scowling. "I did."
"It was probably a freighter tanker refueling," said Biggs, and smiled down at her. "Don't mind Camie. I can see nothing much has changed here."
What that's referring to is actually a fairly complicated set up that I was thinking of and ... I think most people know about the thing that was cut from ANH where Luke goes to Tosche station and you see his friends, there's Biggs, there's a bunch of others, and there's Camie, the only girl. None of them seem to like Luke at all. Which is odd because Luke, for all that people go on about the whining - which he does - is actually very likable and personable. He's just not a hard person to get along with. So it's interesting that everyone dislikes him so much and the one that dislikes him the most is Camie, who is sort of tough and comes off as rather hard, but not really negative - she doesn't seem - it's not framed as "she's bad," per se, but she is certainly the exact opposite kind of person that Luke is. I think if Luke were a girl ... first of all, because his interests are so much machines and flying and things, I imagined that a girl would be a tomboy, but then I thought Luke being - despite having as a father figure a very stern, masculine person who is trying to make him so, and completely failing, that Luke ends up - is in some ways is in some ways is a lot more stereotypically feminine or at least androgynous type of person but if he were a girl, and the social pressures that Luke experiences are obviously going the other way, that it would take better.
So Lucy is - I envisioned her as - at once very very very tomboyish in terms of her interests and hobbies and preoccupations and, on the other side, extremely feminine in terms of how she presents. Hair and clothes and mannerisms and things like that. And the things that these people tend to dislike in Luke, in that Luke is this - he's like an in-universe Sue for these people. In that he's kind of the best of everything. He's younger and better-looking and smarter and kind of everything-er. But personally he's this kind of meek, whiny, dreamy person and with Lucy you're going to have it. She's this tiny little blonde girly girl who's going to make it. So there's even more resentment than there was with Luke.
Wow, that was long.
"It never does. But why are you back so soon? Didn't you get your commission?"
He pretended to look horrified. "Of course I got it! First mate Biggs Darklighter, at your service. I just came to say goodbye to all you unfortunate landlocked simpletons. And what about you? Still fighting with your uncle?"
"Always," she said, laughing. "I was flying the skyhopper the other day and busted it up pretty bad going through the Needle. Uncle Owen grounded me for the rest of the season. It was fantastic."
So yeah, that's getting across Lucy as ... she's fairly gung-ho, happy-go-lucky, doesn't get on with Owen at all - probably even less than Luke does, if that's possible.
A line appeared between Biggs' brows. "You ought to take it easy, Lucy."
"What?"
"You're good, better than good, but those little skyhoppers are dangerous. Keep it up and one day - wham! - you're going to be nothing more than a dark spot on the down side of a canyon wall."
Retrospectively, that's...a bit of dramatic irony.
Lucy grinned. "You're starting to sound like my uncle. You've gotten soft in the city!"
"I . . ." For the first time, his air of sophistication seemed slightly artificial. Biggs stared at his polished boots, shifting his weight back and forth.
She stared at him until he managed to meet her eyes.
"I've missed you, Lucy."
Lucy flushed.
Okay, this is one of the other things that...in the scene, it's... Luke and Biggs' relationship, the're obviously the closest to each other in this group, a lot of people see a sort of subtext there. But regardless of whether it was intended that way - and considering I doubt it was - but one of the biggest changes with a genderswap, it's... well...sex! That tends to be a really big thing. In that a friendship between a boy and a girl of the same age, it not only has a different dynamic a lot of the time. I'm not saying it inherently does, but that a lot of the time it does because of the environment in which it has to happen. But also they tend to be written very differently. I have almost never seen a male-female friendship that is written without a ton of subtext and often actual text. And if Luke had been written as a girl, this relationship w/ Biggs probably woul dhave been explicitly romantic or at the very least there would have been a ton of implications, uh, that way. That's one of the things that even without changing the lines, a lot of them, it just read differently. Lucy flushed...wait, I already read that.
"Well - things haven't been the same since you left," she said hastily. "It's been so . . . quiet."
Um. I tend to see Luke as asexual. I've posted about it in the past. It's generally how I write him and I intended to write Lucy that way. But as I was writing it, I ... I wasn't honestly sure, but I basically - when I'm editing - I wanted, you can read it as Biggs is attracted to Lucy and she's attracted to him, but they're young and confused and that's why she's uncomfortable here. Or, whatever orientation, that she doesn't return his feelings, and that's why she's uncomfortable. Or she doesn't really get what's going on and she's perpetually clueless which would honestly fit her character but she's pcking up on enough that it makes her vaguely self-conscious.
Biggs' manner became outright surreptitious. He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously, as if expecting to find a blaster pointed at his back, then took a step closer to the girl. "Lucy," he whispered, "I didn't just come to say goodbye."
She looked uncomfortable, but held her ground. "You didn't?"
So yeah, this is ... doesn't leave much doubt.
"No. I shouldn't tell you this, but - you're the only one I can trust, and - and if I don't come back, I want somebody to know why."
"What are you talking about?"
"I made some friends at the Academy." He dropped his voice still further. "When our frigate goes to one of the central systems, we're going to jump ship and join the Alliance."
Lucy's jaw dropped.
"I have a friend who . . . has a friend, on Bestine, who might help us make contact."
"You're crazy," Lucy hissed. "You could wander around forever trying to find them!"
"I know it's a long shot," Biggs said, "but if I don't find them, I'll do what I can on my own. It's what we always talked about, Lucy."
"When we were kids!"
He grinned, draping his arm around her shoulder. "I'm not going to wait for the Empire to draft me into service," he said firmly. "The Rebellion is spreading and I want to be on the right side. The side I believe in."
Yeah, Biggs is like this - I see him as this wide-eyed idealist. Basically anybody that is more idealistic in a scene that has Luke Skywalker in it is way out there. So that's how I tend to read it, that Luke or in this case Lucy is the one being but there's this and this and you have to think about this. This is, he's not someone destined for a long life.
Lucy couldn't help but return his smile, though her voice was sharp. "So would I."
Okay, this is where it starts getting into the dealing w/ the position of women in the GFFA. And I think it's a lot more immediate for Lucy than it is for, say, Leia or Mon Mothma or whomever. Because it's not just being in this galaxy but on Tatooine. No matter how bad anything might be in the galaxy at large, it's worse on Tatooine! She has - because all her interests are things we don't ever see women doing, even in the prequels, which at least have more women in them, that she can't do, so she has this towering resentment about it. But she's not the go out and proclaim it in the streets. But she's really...it's this sort of festering thing, I think.
Biggs flinched.
"I'm lucky just to get this far from home," she added. "There's been a lot of unrest among the Sand People. Uncle Owen hardly lets me or Aunt Beru out of the house these days.
Yeah, I didn't mean Owen to come off as this horrible misogynistic monster person here. But later on, I was like 'that sounds really bad!' I just meant that he's really overprotective and his stepmother, who was a farmer's wife like Beru, and she was of course captured by Sand People and tortured to death and it took a Jedi to go and get her back and even he couldn't save her. So that's very much relevant to how I was thinking about this. That he's terrified of the same thing happening to Beru and Lucy.
They've even raided the outskirts of Anchorhead."
"Your uncle could hold off a whole colony of Sand People with one blaster," he said. "Look, if there's anything I can do to help - "
Lucy tilted her head back to look at him. "I have to get out of here, Biggs. I want to apply to the Academy."
"The Academy! But they don't let women in."
Um. This was sort of my interpretation. I think in the EU they do, but pretty much everybody probably knows my perspective on the EU anyway. Besides, in the movies there aren't any women in the Empire. Like at all. I think we can assume that there are somewhere. But not in the armed forces. And the same with the Rebllion, in fact. There's osme that do something at a computer and I actually thought it would be interesting if ... I sort of borrowed from the EU, if occasionally if very rarely a well-connected, brilliant woman might be able to get in and sort of claw her way up the ladder, but it would take an extraordinary, very lucky person but that they do make exceptions and the Rebellion actually doesn't, in general. Simply in terms of the Empire are bad guys, and for all the attempts at moral ambiguity they're - the bad guys. And the Rebels are the good guys, they're like She-Ra - "welcome to the right side, dearie!" And I thought it would be interesting if in this respect while they're both pretty sad about the whole egalitarianism thing, if the Empire was a little more open-minded in that they reward talent and ...
It's sort of, it's a weird tangent, I'm one of those people who really likes the ATLA cartoon, and one of thh things I was loved was not - I mean, humanizing the Fire Nation was great, but one of the things I thought was really interesting was right at the beginning. The Water Tribe was, has, is, in many ways the sort of last standing hope of civilization, against the Fire Nation and such, but they're... they're sexist assholes and that meanwhile you have Zhao talking about sons and daughters of Fire. The Fire Nation, while certainly not egalitarian, is certainly a lot more so. I thought it was really interesting. I sort of have that going on here.
"They do sometimes, if you're good enough. There's an admiral - "
Yeah, reference to the EU.
"Only if you know people."
She fell silent, scuffing the dirt with her boot.
Um, this is something I don't think is clear. I asked my betas/friends if it was and it wasn't. But that the sort of subtext - i keep using that word! - that I intended there to be here is that Lucy thought Biggs was going to make it. She was sure he would make it and would eventually get to high command and then she would know somebody. So she was pinning her hopes on him and his career. So him telling her 'oh no I'm leaving' is a big deal but she's really.... considerate enough that she's not going 'oh, that doesn't work for me, my life is ruined.' One of the things with Luke and therefore Lucy is that, I think, people underestimate just how nice a person he is. In that he cares about everyone. He has a very short temper, but he is inherently a very very kind and compassionate person. Even with robots and who knows what. So I did want to have that with Lucy, where she has that anger she is, but she's a sweet girl.
"But you've got to do something, or you'll go mad. Does your uncle think he'll be able to keep you in that house forever?"
"Yes," said Lucy simply. "At least until I get married."
This is - I think Owen comes off really badly! And I didn't mean him to. I think it's just generally expected that that's what these girls do, they get married. Camie is breaking that quite directly, she's sort of rebelling against it. Lucy is much more quietly not fitting. But yeah I didn't mean Owen to seem like a bad guy here. Just in some ways a typical guy here.
"Married!" Biggs gaped at her. "You, married? But - but you're not even eighteen!"
And the ages, that's just . I know that officially they're nineteen - I know - but that's not in the movies and in fact it's not even in the scripts. I've read the scripts and it says that Luke is eighteen, it says explicitly that he's eighteen years old, and it's clear that there is no way Luke and Leia were originally intended as twins. It says Leia is sixteen, around sixteen. Now Leia neither looks nor sounds nor acts like any sixteen year old I've ever met, but - that's what the scripts say, and the scripts are second level of canon, after the movies, as far as I'm conerned. So what I did here was...Lucy and Leia, of course, are twins, and with the ages I just averaged them out. They had Luke as eighteen, Leia as sixteen, they have to be the same age, so... they're seventeen! Okay.
He didn't say what they both knew: that one of the local men might choose a young wife, but it certainly wouldn't be that strange, angry Skywalker girl with her nose in her datapad and her head in the clouds.
Lucy shrugged.
"He really hopes you'll marry someone here?"
"I think he was hoping I'd marry you," she said, cheering up.
Yeah, this is where it becomes clear that she is not - [laughs] that if Biggs does have feelings for her she's largely oblivious. She feels completely comfortable saying this, it's really a joke to her.
Biggs gulped. "Uh - "
"Until you went off to the Academy, of course. He hasn't mentioned it since, so you don't have anything to worry about.
So yeah, she has no clue. But I did end up thinking that Biggs definitely had a sort of crush.
Except getting killed by Imperials." She felt a flicker of envy and laughed.
I think this is the first time we get a narrative voice. Because I was telling sort of this omniscient perspective because most of the scene was taken straight off the script, rearranged a little bit, so most of the scene was just - because when you take it off a screenplay, what you have are action and dialogue but not a lot of interiority. I think later on it goes more into her feelings.
"I'd give my right arm to worry about that!"
I haven't decided yet if she does lose it for... just the amusement factor.
He ruffled her blonde hair. "I'm not worried about them. My father might kill me, though. Or your uncle!"
"Uncle Owen just wants what's best for me," she said, with a distinct lack of conviction, and slapped his hand away.
I did feel the need to have some defense of Owen here. I kind of think he's - personally, not as an author but a watcher, his approach to Luke...I don't...[sighs] I think he's a good person but I do find him a little disconcerting. I think concealing someone's heritage from them and lying about it, especially when it can have the ramifications on their lives that being massively Force-sensitive can, I...I don't care for that, but at the same time, I don't think he's the evil evil abusive Owen of a lot of fanfic and stuff. I wanted to show that he's not a wholly positive force in her life but he's a good person, he's trying, he's doing the best he knows how. Weirdly, Lucy, who is at odds with him the whole time, ended up being the person, the voice that defended him in the story.
Biggs sobered. "Probably. But you'll never get off this rock if he has his way."
Lucy knew that. She'd overheard enough to have a very good idea of what her uncle wanted for her. A nice, quiet, soul-crushing life on his farm, and then someone else's. After that, there'd be a family, and she could never get out.
I assume that's the idea!
We have to keep her safe, he said. From what?
He always brought up her grandmother, but Shmi had been a farmer's wife just like he wanted Lucy to be, and that hadn't saved her. Aunt Beru had told her the whole story. There wouldn't even have been a body to bury, if not for her father's nerve and daring. Far better to live and die as he had - not safe, but free - than to disappear into the sand like her grandmother.
This is obviously - the "whole story" is obviously a partial version that Lucy got. But even the full version wouldn't much change her mind about this. She's really a lot more like Anakin than either Owen or Beru and I think she's... I think she knows at least what kind of person he was. And is inspired by that, and a lot of ways he's very central to her life despite not ever being there.
She looked back at Biggs. "Are you going to be around long?"
"No. I'm leaving in the morning."
"That early?" She blinked several times. "Then I guess I won't see you."
[pause] Uh - where was I?
"Maybe - someday -" His hand tightened on her shoulder. "Who knows what could happen? I've been keeping up with the races, and there isn't a pilot in the Outer Rim that can touch you."
That line's from, I think it might have got cut, Biggs assures Luke's commander or whatever that Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim and I might be incorrect, I thought the Outer Rim was the outer rim of the ENTIRE GALAXY. The edge that all these outlying planets are on. That would be a vast amount of not just space but people. That's - he must be really really really good, even if Biggs was exaggerating a little. That's kind of what is there.
Lucy blushed and looked away. "I'm all right. I haven't tried anything really hard, though."
"Depends who's talking! You never taught me that trick you used to shoot down those womp rats."
I always find the whole thing about the womprats and the T-16 vaguely amusing. Of course as a lot of people have pointed out, being good at shooting down womprats while I'm sure admirable does not necessarily translate to being good at being a fighter pilot in space with no gravity. And my feeling about that is, if you're not Luke Skywalker it doesn't translate. But he is. He's just automatically good at flying...anything, and it's probably best not to tell him that it should be harder. And for Lucy, she...she also shoots down the womprats.
With a sigh, Biggs stepped back. "If you ever get out of here, I don't think you'll be hard to find. I'll keep an eye out."
"Take care of yourself, Biggs." Lucy forced herself to smile, lifting her eyes to his. "You'll always be the best friend I've got."
He was silent for a moment, lips pressed tightly together.
Yeah, poor Biggs.
"So long, Lucy," he said finally, the words almost inaudible, and turned on his heel, hurrying back to the power station.
Lucy watched him go, the material of her skirt crumpling under her fingers. In that moment, she hated it - hated the thick homespun fabric brushing her ankles, hated the weight of the hair piled on her head, hated even her small breasts and hips, hated everything keeping her here while Biggs ran off to the Rebellion.
I'm a little worried about this that it might be a sort of internalized misogyny thing, but I think it's pretty clear that these are Lucy's issues, not mine. Though I have my own.
Not that it changed anything. Lucy sighed, trudging back to the landspeeder, and returned to her uncle's homestead.
doop da doop...
Several days later, Lucy sat at the kitchen table, trying to fix their reconstitutor
That is not actually a real SW thing. It's like...Star Warsian for blender. Yeah, I just made it up for a story and whenever I need a random machine it's a reconstitutor.
, while Beru kneaded dough for the next week's bread.
"This isn't fair!"
"It's not a droid, Lucy," said Beru, her mouth twitching. "You can't argue with it."
Lucy slammed her hydrospanner on the table. "I'm not talking about this! It's - it's everything! Fixer and Biggs can do whatever they want. They all can! Nobody even cares where Camie goes. Biggs himself always said I was a better pilot than any of them, but he's the first lieutenant on a starship and I'm still here and I can't get out and - "
Yeah, Lucy - she was bottling a lot up in that conversation with Biggs. She was trying to be considerate!
"Ah. Biggs." Beru gave her a shrewd look.
I think Beru ships them.
"His mother mentioned that he stopped by to visit his family. Did you see him at the station?"
"For a few minutes. He just wanted to say goodbye, before he - went away." To join the Alliance! If Biggs wanted to risk his life for what he thought was right, nobody could stop him. And there were rumours the Rebels had won a battle. They might even have a chance.
Yeah, I'm not honestly sure how much they know about the Rebellion on Tatooine. Obviously they know something about it because...Luke talks about it, but yeah... I figure it was pretty vague.
But it wouldn't change anything for Lucy.
"I'm sorry," Beru said gently. "I know how much he means to you, Lucy; it's natural to be upset."
"I'm not - !"
Lucy forced herself to take a deep breath. It wasn't Beru's fault. Every freedom she had could probably be chalked up to her aunt's influence.
Yeah wow, more Owen bashing.
But that didn't mean -
"He's my best friend and I'll miss him." Lucy picked the spanner up again and went back to work, just managing to keep her hands steady. "But that's not why I'm upset."
With one quick, discerning glance, Beru seemed to understand. "He said more than goodbye, didn't he?"
[laughs] Beru doesn't understand.
"Yes." Lucy twisted the spanner and a bolt fell into her other hand, staining her fingers. "Eurgh, what's all this gunk? No wonder you've been having problems with it. Where's the rag?"
"By the sink. I'd get it for you, but - "
"No, it's fine." She fetched the rag and returned to her chair, scrubbing at the machine.
"You were talking about the Darklighter boy, Lucy."
Yeah, diversion didn't work.
Lucy's gaze rose to meet her aunt's, then skittered away. "Biggs told me he's been keeping on eye on the records. For the races, I mean. He says that none of them come close to flying as well as I do. All those people spending their lives doing it, making money at it, and I'm stuck here even though I'm better than all of them. I can't even apply to the Academy. It's not fair!" She squeezed her eyes shut, willing them to stop burning, and opened them again. "It's not fair, Aunt Beru. It just isn't, and nothing you say can convince me it is."
This was - I wanted this to be that she's very petulant, she's whiny, but at the same time that she has valid reasons. Which is how I see most of the things Luke complains about, they're things any reasonable person would complain about, like oh my god why isn't the planet here - that we're looking for...craaaaaap. So where she does complain a lot but you kind of sympathize with her. At least I hope.
"I wasn't going to try," said Beru.
Lucy blinked. "You weren't?"
"Sweetheart, I know it's not fair. You should be able to compete in the races, or start a career in the Academy, or join a freighter crew, if that's what makes you happy."
"Like Father," Lucy said, her face lighting up.
Yeah. She has... there's a whole slew of things dealing with her father.
Beru looked half-affectionate, half-alarmed, as she always did when anyone mentioned Lucy's father.
I, um, I'm not sure where I was going with that. That's how I read her in ANH but, I mean, she honestly does sound very affectionate when she talks about him and how Luke's like him, but in the ... current backstory, it's a little odd. I have to assume something went on behind the scenes that would make her have any feeling about him. And so that's, I'm assuming something happened that gave her that attitude where Anakin is someone she liked a lot and she thinks it's a good thing that Lucy is so much like him, but there's an element of alarming-ness too.
"Yes," she said thickly, "like your father. You're - very like him, Lucy. I know you can't be happy here, any more than he could. But we want more for you than what he had, and you're still so young."
"I'm seventeen!"
Beru laughed. "I know. It's a difficult enough age without being cooped up with an ancient creature like me."
"You're not old, Aunt Beru," Lucy said impatiently. "It's just that my friends have all left now,
Maybe that's a reason why all the people at the station seemed to dislike him - the ones who did like him are all gone.
and since Uncle Owen doesn't want me working in the fields, it's not like I'm much help around the farm anyway.
And that's - it's just in passing here, but it's important that a girl - that Beru - that she doesn't leave the house, hardly. She clearly deals with the household things but doesn't do the heavy labour, like, in the fields. And I don't think Owen would want Lucy to either. I don't think Shmi did, it's not what's done. So in that case Lucy is a lot less... he can't argue so much that she's crucial to the workings of the farm like he did with Luke, so she has even more frustration than Luke did because she's not even helping with the farm much, there's not much she can do in terms of what she's actually good at.
I know you're just trying to protect me, but I can't stay like this. I -"
A door slammed open and heavy booted footsteps approached. Lucy's mouth snapped shut.
"There's some Jawas outside selling droids," Owen said. "I could use one to help with the vaporators. Can we afford it?"
Beru considered.
"We got a good price on last week's barrels," said Lucy.
"Then we could get more than one?"
"It shouldn't be a problem," Beru told him. "Buy two, if you can bargain them down."
"All right." Owen's eyes fell on the appliance on his niece's lap. "Can you get that working again, Lucy?"
"There's just some junk in the machinery. I should have it fixed in a few minutes."
He nodded and returned outside. Beru finished kneading the dough and Lucy, cleaning the reconstitutor.
This is a really trivial scene, but I think I was trying to reheabilitate Owen a little bit, in that I show that... while there is this very clear division of labour and it's a very very very very patriarchal household, that ... he consults with Beru about things, he doesn't spend anything without her, he talks - he's not super authoritarian.
She turned it on to make sure it was working again.
Beru jumped.
"Sorry, Aunt Beru." Lucy fumbled for the switch.
"No, it's not that. I've just remembered that if we get a translator, it needs to speak Bocce. Make sure your uncle knows, will you?"
"Sure."
Lucy sprang up and ran outside, easily catching up with Owen and passing on the message. He stopped by a bright gold protocol droid.
"What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators."
"Vaporators!" cried the droid. "Sir, my first job was programming binary load lifters - very similar to your vaporators. You could say - "
"Do you speak Bocce?"
"Of course I can, sir," the droid said eagerly. "It's like a second language for me! I'm as fluent in Bocce as - "
"All right, shut up," Owen snapped, and turned to the Jawa leader. "I'll take this one and - that one." He gestured at a red astrodroid.
The Jawa chattered something in reply, and Owen sighed.
"Lucy, take these over to the garage, will you? I want you to have both of them cleaned before dinner."
She scowled, then nodded and led them away, pausing only when the red droid began to spark wildly.
I cut the whole 'I was going to go to Tosche station!' thing. I didn't cut it out just bcause I didn't like it or something, but because of the whole situation that - Lucy and Beru hardly leave because of the danger from the Sand People at the moment. I think Lucy doesn't push her luck as much as Luke and she's already been there recently, and just figured she didn't have much chance in an argument. So she's annoyed but she probably wasn't going to be able to go anyway.
"Uncle Owen!" Lucy called out. "This unit has a bad motivator, look."
The protocol droid tapped her shoulder. "Excuse me, ma'am, but that R2 unit - " he pointed at another astrodroid, this one white with blue markings - "is in prime condition. A real bargain!"
With little further ado, the astrodroids were exchanged.
This scene is obviously, nearly all of it is taken from the movie. Honestly, one of the problems I had with this story and often with AUs generally, is keeping things too much the same. There are situations where things wouldn't change add I try to summarize it while making it clear... I mean, most people haven't just seen the movie yesterday. It's not really my strong point but I was trying to summarize a little bit there.
"I'm quite sure you'll be very pleased with that one," the protocol droid said, its intonation distinctly fussy. "He really is in first-class condition. I've worked with him before. Here he comes."
"Okay, let's go," Lucy said briskly, and led them off to the garage. It only took her a moment to prepare an oil bath for the protocol droid and a battery for the little astrodroid.
"Thank the Maker!" cried the former, his delight very nearly human.
I always find it amusing that the Maker is of course Anakin, and Anakin is like Space Jesus, so it just mixes up very weirdly.
Lucy managed a weak smile as she slumped into her chair.
She'd always liked the garage. If any room could be considered Lucy's, it would be this one. It had felt peaceful and friendly, and nobody else ever spent much time there. But now, the quiet punctuated only by the chatter of droids, the low-hung ceilings, the monotonous grey of the paint, it all felt daunting, somehow, and bleak. The walls seemed to close in on her.
This is a weird passage to write. I think I called it an oppressive shade of grey and then went 'no, that's too anvil-y' but it's still pretty obvious.
"It just isn't fair!" Lucy said again, and felt almost overcome by desperation. She had to escape, had to do something , but - "Biggs is right. I'm never going to get out of here."
"Is there anything I might do to help?"
She glanced up at the protocol droid and a reluctant smile crept onto her face. "Not unless you can teleport me off this rock!"
"I don't think so, ma'am.
I remember I wasn't sure how to - he usually refers to Luke as sir, and whether it should be miss or ma'am or what. I think I use them pretty interchangeably.
I'm only a droid and not very knowledgeable about such things," he said apologetically. "Not on this planet, anyway. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure which planet I'm on."
"If there's a bright center of the universe," Lucy muttered, "you're on the planet that it's furthest from."
Wouldn't the bright center of the universe be full ofstars that are...and...I'm thinking about this too hard.
"I see, miss."
"You can call me Lucy," she told him.
"I see, Miss Lucy."
Originally he addresses her as 'my lady' and this is Lady Lucy, but this is more... I thought he referred to Padmé as Mistress Padmé, but I figured he doesn't use human titles so much.
Lucy burst out laughing. "No, just Lucy," she said, and made her way over to the other droid, spanner in hand.
"I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, R2-D2."
She bit back another laugh and waved the spanner at the little astrodroid she was repairing. "Hello," she told it dryly, and received a cheerful beep in response.
Lucy took out a pick, scraping at the black marks on Artoo's casing.
"You've got a lot of carbon scoring here," she said aloud. "It looks like you two have seen a lot of action!"
Everyone had, apparently, except her.
Yeah, a lot of this story is rehashing ANH because hardly anything changes. But enough changes, especially at the end, of course, that I did need to write it to prepare for where things are totally different. But there was so much that was the same that it was difficult to write. I dealt with it by writing it as sort of novelization-y and it has lot of mateiral from the movies and I try to comment on it in ways that might be remotely interesting? But yeah, this is pretty much a constant fight.
"With all we've been through, sometimes I'm amazed we're in as good condition as we are!" replied Threepio, sounding as petulant as any robot could. Whoever had constructed him deserved credit for verisimilitude, at least.
So yeah, basically jokes about how she knows nothing will never stop being funny to me.
"What with the Rebellion and all."
Lucy whirled around. "You know of the Rebellion against the Empire?
I'm always like, dude, Luke, if you know about it, you can assume that everybody knows about it.
Have you been in many battles?" she cried.
Visions of starships and lasers and explosions danced before her eyes. Revolutions, fighter pilots, battles, it all seemed impossibly fantastic. But it had touched her life already. She could still hear Biggs whispering in her ear,
OTP?
explaining how he was going to give up everything to find the elusive Rebels and join them.
"Several, I think," Threepio said, his voice even more tragic than usual, then inexplicably added, "there's not much to tell. I'm not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories."
Yeah, he's lying through his...sensors.
Lucy sighed and went back to Artoo, poking at a small metal fragment embedded in his casing.
"Well," she said, "you've got something jammed in here real good. Were you on a cruiser, or - "
The fragment snapped loose, sending Lucy tumbling backwards. She sat up, and a twelve-inch hologram appeared before her eyes.
Lucy's mouth dropped open.
The person in the hologram was a girl of about her own age,
...yeah.
clad in a light, cowled robe, her hair coiled over her ears. With a pleading look, the girl reached out her hand.
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said. "You're my only hope."
In related whatsits, I would like to do a reading of something I didn't write, in accordance with the whole hey-I-have-time-for-talking-if-not-much-else. So if anybody is willing to have me podfic a fic of theirs, drop me a line or a comment or something.
Aaaand the next Lucy commentary, 'cause I like just rambling about fic and canon and how they intersected in my head. The transcript is here.
Click to viewThis one may be...somewhat less painstaking than the first one, just because this chapter is much longer, and copying every "um" and "uh" and "you know" took forever.
Chapter One
Lucy dropped her binoculars.
This sentence took a ridiculously long amount of time to write. After I did the prologue, which came quite easily - in fact it was longer and I ended up cutting quite a lot out of it - then I had no idea where to start or what to do. I thought of starting right when she arrives at Owen and Beru's and actually showing her upbringing and how it affects her, in what ways it's different, but honestly I thought that sounded pretty boring. And I figured I could allude to it in the main story and start somewhere in ANH and then I had to figure out where to start and blah blah blah and eventually I just started out at the beginning, which is...really prosaic.
"I saw a battle up there," she said, scowling. "I did."
"It was probably a freighter tanker refueling," said Biggs, and smiled down at her. "Don't mind Camie. I can see nothing much has changed here."
What that's referring to is actually a fairly complicated set up that I was thinking of and ... I think most people know about the thing that was cut from ANH where Luke goes to Tosche station and you see his friends, there's Biggs, there's a bunch of others, and there's Camie, the only girl. None of them seem to like Luke at all. Which is odd because Luke, for all that people go on about the whining - which he does - is actually very likable and personable. He's just not a hard person to get along with. So it's interesting that everyone dislikes him so much and the one that dislikes him the most is Camie, who is sort of tough and comes off as rather hard, but not really negative - she doesn't seem - it's not framed as "she's bad," per se, but she is certainly the exact opposite kind of person that Luke is. I think if Luke were a girl ... first of all, because his interests are so much machines and flying and things, I imagined that a girl would be a tomboy, but then I thought Luke being - despite having as a father figure a very stern, masculine person who is trying to make him so, and completely failing, that Luke ends up - is in some ways is in some ways is a lot more stereotypically feminine or at least androgynous type of person but if he were a girl, and the social pressures that Luke experiences are obviously going the other way, that it would take better.
So Lucy is - I envisioned her as - at once very very very tomboyish in terms of her interests and hobbies and preoccupations and, on the other side, extremely feminine in terms of how she presents. Hair and clothes and mannerisms and things like that. And the things that these people tend to dislike in Luke, in that Luke is this - he's like an in-universe Sue for these people. In that he's kind of the best of everything. He's younger and better-looking and smarter and kind of everything-er. But personally he's this kind of meek, whiny, dreamy person and with Lucy you're going to have it. She's this tiny little blonde girly girl who's going to make it. So there's even more resentment than there was with Luke.
Wow, that was long.
"It never does. But why are you back so soon? Didn't you get your commission?"
He pretended to look horrified. "Of course I got it! First mate Biggs Darklighter, at your service. I just came to say goodbye to all you unfortunate landlocked simpletons. And what about you? Still fighting with your uncle?"
"Always," she said, laughing. "I was flying the skyhopper the other day and busted it up pretty bad going through the Needle. Uncle Owen grounded me for the rest of the season. It was fantastic."
So yeah, that's getting across Lucy as ... she's fairly gung-ho, happy-go-lucky, doesn't get on with Owen at all - probably even less than Luke does, if that's possible.
A line appeared between Biggs' brows. "You ought to take it easy, Lucy."
"What?"
"You're good, better than good, but those little skyhoppers are dangerous. Keep it up and one day - wham! - you're going to be nothing more than a dark spot on the down side of a canyon wall."
Retrospectively, that's...a bit of dramatic irony.
Lucy grinned. "You're starting to sound like my uncle. You've gotten soft in the city!"
"I . . ." For the first time, his air of sophistication seemed slightly artificial. Biggs stared at his polished boots, shifting his weight back and forth.
She stared at him until he managed to meet her eyes.
"I've missed you, Lucy."
Lucy flushed.
Okay, this is one of the other things that...in the scene, it's... Luke and Biggs' relationship, the're obviously the closest to each other in this group, a lot of people see a sort of subtext there. But regardless of whether it was intended that way - and considering I doubt it was - but one of the biggest changes with a genderswap, it's... well...sex! That tends to be a really big thing. In that a friendship between a boy and a girl of the same age, it not only has a different dynamic a lot of the time. I'm not saying it inherently does, but that a lot of the time it does because of the environment in which it has to happen. But also they tend to be written very differently. I have almost never seen a male-female friendship that is written without a ton of subtext and often actual text. And if Luke had been written as a girl, this relationship w/ Biggs probably woul dhave been explicitly romantic or at the very least there would have been a ton of implications, uh, that way. That's one of the things that even without changing the lines, a lot of them, it just read differently. Lucy flushed...wait, I already read that.
"Well - things haven't been the same since you left," she said hastily. "It's been so . . . quiet."
Um. I tend to see Luke as asexual. I've posted about it in the past. It's generally how I write him and I intended to write Lucy that way. But as I was writing it, I ... I wasn't honestly sure, but I basically - when I'm editing - I wanted, you can read it as Biggs is attracted to Lucy and she's attracted to him, but they're young and confused and that's why she's uncomfortable here. Or, whatever orientation, that she doesn't return his feelings, and that's why she's uncomfortable. Or she doesn't really get what's going on and she's perpetually clueless which would honestly fit her character but she's pcking up on enough that it makes her vaguely self-conscious.
Biggs' manner became outright surreptitious. He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously, as if expecting to find a blaster pointed at his back, then took a step closer to the girl. "Lucy," he whispered, "I didn't just come to say goodbye."
She looked uncomfortable, but held her ground. "You didn't?"
So yeah, this is ... doesn't leave much doubt.
"No. I shouldn't tell you this, but - you're the only one I can trust, and - and if I don't come back, I want somebody to know why."
"What are you talking about?"
"I made some friends at the Academy." He dropped his voice still further. "When our frigate goes to one of the central systems, we're going to jump ship and join the Alliance."
Lucy's jaw dropped.
"I have a friend who . . . has a friend, on Bestine, who might help us make contact."
"You're crazy," Lucy hissed. "You could wander around forever trying to find them!"
"I know it's a long shot," Biggs said, "but if I don't find them, I'll do what I can on my own. It's what we always talked about, Lucy."
"When we were kids!"
He grinned, draping his arm around her shoulder. "I'm not going to wait for the Empire to draft me into service," he said firmly. "The Rebellion is spreading and I want to be on the right side. The side I believe in."
Yeah, Biggs is like this - I see him as this wide-eyed idealist. Basically anybody that is more idealistic in a scene that has Luke Skywalker in it is way out there. So that's how I tend to read it, that Luke or in this case Lucy is the one being but there's this and this and you have to think about this. This is, he's not someone destined for a long life.
Lucy couldn't help but return his smile, though her voice was sharp. "So would I."
Okay, this is where it starts getting into the dealing w/ the position of women in the GFFA. And I think it's a lot more immediate for Lucy than it is for, say, Leia or Mon Mothma or whomever. Because it's not just being in this galaxy but on Tatooine. No matter how bad anything might be in the galaxy at large, it's worse on Tatooine! She has - because all her interests are things we don't ever see women doing, even in the prequels, which at least have more women in them, that she can't do, so she has this towering resentment about it. But she's not the go out and proclaim it in the streets. But she's really...it's this sort of festering thing, I think.
Biggs flinched.
"I'm lucky just to get this far from home," she added. "There's been a lot of unrest among the Sand People. Uncle Owen hardly lets me or Aunt Beru out of the house these days.
Yeah, I didn't mean Owen to come off as this horrible misogynistic monster person here. But later on, I was like 'that sounds really bad!' I just meant that he's really overprotective and his stepmother, who was a farmer's wife like Beru, and she was of course captured by Sand People and tortured to death and it took a Jedi to go and get her back and even he couldn't save her. So that's very much relevant to how I was thinking about this. That he's terrified of the same thing happening to Beru and Lucy.
They've even raided the outskirts of Anchorhead."
"Your uncle could hold off a whole colony of Sand People with one blaster," he said. "Look, if there's anything I can do to help - "
Lucy tilted her head back to look at him. "I have to get out of here, Biggs. I want to apply to the Academy."
"The Academy! But they don't let women in."
Um. This was sort of my interpretation. I think in the EU they do, but pretty much everybody probably knows my perspective on the EU anyway. Besides, in the movies there aren't any women in the Empire. Like at all. I think we can assume that there are somewhere. But not in the armed forces. And the same with the Rebllion, in fact. There's osme that do something at a computer and I actually thought it would be interesting if ... I sort of borrowed from the EU, if occasionally if very rarely a well-connected, brilliant woman might be able to get in and sort of claw her way up the ladder, but it would take an extraordinary, very lucky person but that they do make exceptions and the Rebellion actually doesn't, in general. Simply in terms of the Empire are bad guys, and for all the attempts at moral ambiguity they're - the bad guys. And the Rebels are the good guys, they're like She-Ra - "welcome to the right side, dearie!" And I thought it would be interesting if in this respect while they're both pretty sad about the whole egalitarianism thing, if the Empire was a little more open-minded in that they reward talent and ...
It's sort of, it's a weird tangent, I'm one of those people who really likes the ATLA cartoon, and one of thh things I was loved was not - I mean, humanizing the Fire Nation was great, but one of the things I thought was really interesting was right at the beginning. The Water Tribe was, has, is, in many ways the sort of last standing hope of civilization, against the Fire Nation and such, but they're... they're sexist assholes and that meanwhile you have Zhao talking about sons and daughters of Fire. The Fire Nation, while certainly not egalitarian, is certainly a lot more so. I thought it was really interesting. I sort of have that going on here.
"They do sometimes, if you're good enough. There's an admiral - "
Yeah, reference to the EU.
"Only if you know people."
She fell silent, scuffing the dirt with her boot.
Um, this is something I don't think is clear. I asked my betas/friends if it was and it wasn't. But that the sort of subtext - i keep using that word! - that I intended there to be here is that Lucy thought Biggs was going to make it. She was sure he would make it and would eventually get to high command and then she would know somebody. So she was pinning her hopes on him and his career. So him telling her 'oh no I'm leaving' is a big deal but she's really.... considerate enough that she's not going 'oh, that doesn't work for me, my life is ruined.' One of the things with Luke and therefore Lucy is that, I think, people underestimate just how nice a person he is. In that he cares about everyone. He has a very short temper, but he is inherently a very very kind and compassionate person. Even with robots and who knows what. So I did want to have that with Lucy, where she has that anger she is, but she's a sweet girl.
"But you've got to do something, or you'll go mad. Does your uncle think he'll be able to keep you in that house forever?"
"Yes," said Lucy simply. "At least until I get married."
This is - I think Owen comes off really badly! And I didn't mean him to. I think it's just generally expected that that's what these girls do, they get married. Camie is breaking that quite directly, she's sort of rebelling against it. Lucy is much more quietly not fitting. But yeah I didn't mean Owen to seem like a bad guy here. Just in some ways a typical guy here.
"Married!" Biggs gaped at her. "You, married? But - but you're not even eighteen!"
And the ages, that's just . I know that officially they're nineteen - I know - but that's not in the movies and in fact it's not even in the scripts. I've read the scripts and it says that Luke is eighteen, it says explicitly that he's eighteen years old, and it's clear that there is no way Luke and Leia were originally intended as twins. It says Leia is sixteen, around sixteen. Now Leia neither looks nor sounds nor acts like any sixteen year old I've ever met, but - that's what the scripts say, and the scripts are second level of canon, after the movies, as far as I'm conerned. So what I did here was...Lucy and Leia, of course, are twins, and with the ages I just averaged them out. They had Luke as eighteen, Leia as sixteen, they have to be the same age, so... they're seventeen! Okay.
He didn't say what they both knew: that one of the local men might choose a young wife, but it certainly wouldn't be that strange, angry Skywalker girl with her nose in her datapad and her head in the clouds.
Lucy shrugged.
"He really hopes you'll marry someone here?"
"I think he was hoping I'd marry you," she said, cheering up.
Yeah, this is where it becomes clear that she is not - [laughs] that if Biggs does have feelings for her she's largely oblivious. She feels completely comfortable saying this, it's really a joke to her.
Biggs gulped. "Uh - "
"Until you went off to the Academy, of course. He hasn't mentioned it since, so you don't have anything to worry about.
So yeah, she has no clue. But I did end up thinking that Biggs definitely had a sort of crush.
Except getting killed by Imperials." She felt a flicker of envy and laughed.
I think this is the first time we get a narrative voice. Because I was telling sort of this omniscient perspective because most of the scene was taken straight off the script, rearranged a little bit, so most of the scene was just - because when you take it off a screenplay, what you have are action and dialogue but not a lot of interiority. I think later on it goes more into her feelings.
"I'd give my right arm to worry about that!"
I haven't decided yet if she does lose it for... just the amusement factor.
He ruffled her blonde hair. "I'm not worried about them. My father might kill me, though. Or your uncle!"
"Uncle Owen just wants what's best for me," she said, with a distinct lack of conviction, and slapped his hand away.
I did feel the need to have some defense of Owen here. I kind of think he's - personally, not as an author but a watcher, his approach to Luke...I don't...[sighs] I think he's a good person but I do find him a little disconcerting. I think concealing someone's heritage from them and lying about it, especially when it can have the ramifications on their lives that being massively Force-sensitive can, I...I don't care for that, but at the same time, I don't think he's the evil evil abusive Owen of a lot of fanfic and stuff. I wanted to show that he's not a wholly positive force in her life but he's a good person, he's trying, he's doing the best he knows how. Weirdly, Lucy, who is at odds with him the whole time, ended up being the person, the voice that defended him in the story.
Biggs sobered. "Probably. But you'll never get off this rock if he has his way."
Lucy knew that. She'd overheard enough to have a very good idea of what her uncle wanted for her. A nice, quiet, soul-crushing life on his farm, and then someone else's. After that, there'd be a family, and she could never get out.
I assume that's the idea!
We have to keep her safe, he said. From what?
He always brought up her grandmother, but Shmi had been a farmer's wife just like he wanted Lucy to be, and that hadn't saved her. Aunt Beru had told her the whole story. There wouldn't even have been a body to bury, if not for her father's nerve and daring. Far better to live and die as he had - not safe, but free - than to disappear into the sand like her grandmother.
This is obviously - the "whole story" is obviously a partial version that Lucy got. But even the full version wouldn't much change her mind about this. She's really a lot more like Anakin than either Owen or Beru and I think she's... I think she knows at least what kind of person he was. And is inspired by that, and a lot of ways he's very central to her life despite not ever being there.
She looked back at Biggs. "Are you going to be around long?"
"No. I'm leaving in the morning."
"That early?" She blinked several times. "Then I guess I won't see you."
[pause] Uh - where was I?
"Maybe - someday -" His hand tightened on her shoulder. "Who knows what could happen? I've been keeping up with the races, and there isn't a pilot in the Outer Rim that can touch you."
That line's from, I think it might have got cut, Biggs assures Luke's commander or whatever that Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim and I might be incorrect, I thought the Outer Rim was the outer rim of the ENTIRE GALAXY. The edge that all these outlying planets are on. That would be a vast amount of not just space but people. That's - he must be really really really good, even if Biggs was exaggerating a little. That's kind of what is there.
Lucy blushed and looked away. "I'm all right. I haven't tried anything really hard, though."
"Depends who's talking! You never taught me that trick you used to shoot down those womp rats."
I always find the whole thing about the womprats and the T-16 vaguely amusing. Of course as a lot of people have pointed out, being good at shooting down womprats while I'm sure admirable does not necessarily translate to being good at being a fighter pilot in space with no gravity. And my feeling about that is, if you're not Luke Skywalker it doesn't translate. But he is. He's just automatically good at flying...anything, and it's probably best not to tell him that it should be harder. And for Lucy, she...she also shoots down the womprats.
With a sigh, Biggs stepped back. "If you ever get out of here, I don't think you'll be hard to find. I'll keep an eye out."
"Take care of yourself, Biggs." Lucy forced herself to smile, lifting her eyes to his. "You'll always be the best friend I've got."
He was silent for a moment, lips pressed tightly together.
Yeah, poor Biggs.
"So long, Lucy," he said finally, the words almost inaudible, and turned on his heel, hurrying back to the power station.
Lucy watched him go, the material of her skirt crumpling under her fingers. In that moment, she hated it - hated the thick homespun fabric brushing her ankles, hated the weight of the hair piled on her head, hated even her small breasts and hips, hated everything keeping her here while Biggs ran off to the Rebellion.
I'm a little worried about this that it might be a sort of internalized misogyny thing, but I think it's pretty clear that these are Lucy's issues, not mine. Though I have my own.
Not that it changed anything. Lucy sighed, trudging back to the landspeeder, and returned to her uncle's homestead.
doop da doop...
Several days later, Lucy sat at the kitchen table, trying to fix their reconstitutor
That is not actually a real SW thing. It's like...Star Warsian for blender. Yeah, I just made it up for a story and whenever I need a random machine it's a reconstitutor.
, while Beru kneaded dough for the next week's bread.
"This isn't fair!"
"It's not a droid, Lucy," said Beru, her mouth twitching. "You can't argue with it."
Lucy slammed her hydrospanner on the table. "I'm not talking about this! It's - it's everything! Fixer and Biggs can do whatever they want. They all can! Nobody even cares where Camie goes. Biggs himself always said I was a better pilot than any of them, but he's the first lieutenant on a starship and I'm still here and I can't get out and - "
Yeah, Lucy - she was bottling a lot up in that conversation with Biggs. She was trying to be considerate!
"Ah. Biggs." Beru gave her a shrewd look.
I think Beru ships them.
"His mother mentioned that he stopped by to visit his family. Did you see him at the station?"
"For a few minutes. He just wanted to say goodbye, before he - went away." To join the Alliance! If Biggs wanted to risk his life for what he thought was right, nobody could stop him. And there were rumours the Rebels had won a battle. They might even have a chance.
Yeah, I'm not honestly sure how much they know about the Rebellion on Tatooine. Obviously they know something about it because...Luke talks about it, but yeah... I figure it was pretty vague.
But it wouldn't change anything for Lucy.
"I'm sorry," Beru said gently. "I know how much he means to you, Lucy; it's natural to be upset."
"I'm not - !"
Lucy forced herself to take a deep breath. It wasn't Beru's fault. Every freedom she had could probably be chalked up to her aunt's influence.
Yeah wow, more Owen bashing.
But that didn't mean -
"He's my best friend and I'll miss him." Lucy picked the spanner up again and went back to work, just managing to keep her hands steady. "But that's not why I'm upset."
With one quick, discerning glance, Beru seemed to understand. "He said more than goodbye, didn't he?"
[laughs] Beru doesn't understand.
"Yes." Lucy twisted the spanner and a bolt fell into her other hand, staining her fingers. "Eurgh, what's all this gunk? No wonder you've been having problems with it. Where's the rag?"
"By the sink. I'd get it for you, but - "
"No, it's fine." She fetched the rag and returned to her chair, scrubbing at the machine.
"You were talking about the Darklighter boy, Lucy."
Yeah, diversion didn't work.
Lucy's gaze rose to meet her aunt's, then skittered away. "Biggs told me he's been keeping on eye on the records. For the races, I mean. He says that none of them come close to flying as well as I do. All those people spending their lives doing it, making money at it, and I'm stuck here even though I'm better than all of them. I can't even apply to the Academy. It's not fair!" She squeezed her eyes shut, willing them to stop burning, and opened them again. "It's not fair, Aunt Beru. It just isn't, and nothing you say can convince me it is."
This was - I wanted this to be that she's very petulant, she's whiny, but at the same time that she has valid reasons. Which is how I see most of the things Luke complains about, they're things any reasonable person would complain about, like oh my god why isn't the planet here - that we're looking for...craaaaaap. So where she does complain a lot but you kind of sympathize with her. At least I hope.
"I wasn't going to try," said Beru.
Lucy blinked. "You weren't?"
"Sweetheart, I know it's not fair. You should be able to compete in the races, or start a career in the Academy, or join a freighter crew, if that's what makes you happy."
"Like Father," Lucy said, her face lighting up.
Yeah. She has... there's a whole slew of things dealing with her father.
Beru looked half-affectionate, half-alarmed, as she always did when anyone mentioned Lucy's father.
I, um, I'm not sure where I was going with that. That's how I read her in ANH but, I mean, she honestly does sound very affectionate when she talks about him and how Luke's like him, but in the ... current backstory, it's a little odd. I have to assume something went on behind the scenes that would make her have any feeling about him. And so that's, I'm assuming something happened that gave her that attitude where Anakin is someone she liked a lot and she thinks it's a good thing that Lucy is so much like him, but there's an element of alarming-ness too.
"Yes," she said thickly, "like your father. You're - very like him, Lucy. I know you can't be happy here, any more than he could. But we want more for you than what he had, and you're still so young."
"I'm seventeen!"
Beru laughed. "I know. It's a difficult enough age without being cooped up with an ancient creature like me."
"You're not old, Aunt Beru," Lucy said impatiently. "It's just that my friends have all left now,
Maybe that's a reason why all the people at the station seemed to dislike him - the ones who did like him are all gone.
and since Uncle Owen doesn't want me working in the fields, it's not like I'm much help around the farm anyway.
And that's - it's just in passing here, but it's important that a girl - that Beru - that she doesn't leave the house, hardly. She clearly deals with the household things but doesn't do the heavy labour, like, in the fields. And I don't think Owen would want Lucy to either. I don't think Shmi did, it's not what's done. So in that case Lucy is a lot less... he can't argue so much that she's crucial to the workings of the farm like he did with Luke, so she has even more frustration than Luke did because she's not even helping with the farm much, there's not much she can do in terms of what she's actually good at.
I know you're just trying to protect me, but I can't stay like this. I -"
A door slammed open and heavy booted footsteps approached. Lucy's mouth snapped shut.
"There's some Jawas outside selling droids," Owen said. "I could use one to help with the vaporators. Can we afford it?"
Beru considered.
"We got a good price on last week's barrels," said Lucy.
"Then we could get more than one?"
"It shouldn't be a problem," Beru told him. "Buy two, if you can bargain them down."
"All right." Owen's eyes fell on the appliance on his niece's lap. "Can you get that working again, Lucy?"
"There's just some junk in the machinery. I should have it fixed in a few minutes."
He nodded and returned outside. Beru finished kneading the dough and Lucy, cleaning the reconstitutor.
This is a really trivial scene, but I think I was trying to reheabilitate Owen a little bit, in that I show that... while there is this very clear division of labour and it's a very very very very patriarchal household, that ... he consults with Beru about things, he doesn't spend anything without her, he talks - he's not super authoritarian.
She turned it on to make sure it was working again.
Beru jumped.
"Sorry, Aunt Beru." Lucy fumbled for the switch.
"No, it's not that. I've just remembered that if we get a translator, it needs to speak Bocce. Make sure your uncle knows, will you?"
"Sure."
Lucy sprang up and ran outside, easily catching up with Owen and passing on the message. He stopped by a bright gold protocol droid.
"What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators."
"Vaporators!" cried the droid. "Sir, my first job was programming binary load lifters - very similar to your vaporators. You could say - "
"Do you speak Bocce?"
"Of course I can, sir," the droid said eagerly. "It's like a second language for me! I'm as fluent in Bocce as - "
"All right, shut up," Owen snapped, and turned to the Jawa leader. "I'll take this one and - that one." He gestured at a red astrodroid.
The Jawa chattered something in reply, and Owen sighed.
"Lucy, take these over to the garage, will you? I want you to have both of them cleaned before dinner."
She scowled, then nodded and led them away, pausing only when the red droid began to spark wildly.
I cut the whole 'I was going to go to Tosche station!' thing. I didn't cut it out just bcause I didn't like it or something, but because of the whole situation that - Lucy and Beru hardly leave because of the danger from the Sand People at the moment. I think Lucy doesn't push her luck as much as Luke and she's already been there recently, and just figured she didn't have much chance in an argument. So she's annoyed but she probably wasn't going to be able to go anyway.
"Uncle Owen!" Lucy called out. "This unit has a bad motivator, look."
The protocol droid tapped her shoulder. "Excuse me, ma'am, but that R2 unit - " he pointed at another astrodroid, this one white with blue markings - "is in prime condition. A real bargain!"
With little further ado, the astrodroids were exchanged.
This scene is obviously, nearly all of it is taken from the movie. Honestly, one of the problems I had with this story and often with AUs generally, is keeping things too much the same. There are situations where things wouldn't change add I try to summarize it while making it clear... I mean, most people haven't just seen the movie yesterday. It's not really my strong point but I was trying to summarize a little bit there.
"I'm quite sure you'll be very pleased with that one," the protocol droid said, its intonation distinctly fussy. "He really is in first-class condition. I've worked with him before. Here he comes."
"Okay, let's go," Lucy said briskly, and led them off to the garage. It only took her a moment to prepare an oil bath for the protocol droid and a battery for the little astrodroid.
"Thank the Maker!" cried the former, his delight very nearly human.
I always find it amusing that the Maker is of course Anakin, and Anakin is like Space Jesus, so it just mixes up very weirdly.
Lucy managed a weak smile as she slumped into her chair.
She'd always liked the garage. If any room could be considered Lucy's, it would be this one. It had felt peaceful and friendly, and nobody else ever spent much time there. But now, the quiet punctuated only by the chatter of droids, the low-hung ceilings, the monotonous grey of the paint, it all felt daunting, somehow, and bleak. The walls seemed to close in on her.
This is a weird passage to write. I think I called it an oppressive shade of grey and then went 'no, that's too anvil-y' but it's still pretty obvious.
"It just isn't fair!" Lucy said again, and felt almost overcome by desperation. She had to escape, had to do something , but - "Biggs is right. I'm never going to get out of here."
"Is there anything I might do to help?"
She glanced up at the protocol droid and a reluctant smile crept onto her face. "Not unless you can teleport me off this rock!"
"I don't think so, ma'am.
I remember I wasn't sure how to - he usually refers to Luke as sir, and whether it should be miss or ma'am or what. I think I use them pretty interchangeably.
I'm only a droid and not very knowledgeable about such things," he said apologetically. "Not on this planet, anyway. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure which planet I'm on."
"If there's a bright center of the universe," Lucy muttered, "you're on the planet that it's furthest from."
Wouldn't the bright center of the universe be full ofstars that are...and...I'm thinking about this too hard.
"I see, miss."
"You can call me Lucy," she told him.
"I see, Miss Lucy."
Originally he addresses her as 'my lady' and this is Lady Lucy, but this is more... I thought he referred to Padmé as Mistress Padmé, but I figured he doesn't use human titles so much.
Lucy burst out laughing. "No, just Lucy," she said, and made her way over to the other droid, spanner in hand.
"I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, R2-D2."
She bit back another laugh and waved the spanner at the little astrodroid she was repairing. "Hello," she told it dryly, and received a cheerful beep in response.
Lucy took out a pick, scraping at the black marks on Artoo's casing.
"You've got a lot of carbon scoring here," she said aloud. "It looks like you two have seen a lot of action!"
Everyone had, apparently, except her.
Yeah, a lot of this story is rehashing ANH because hardly anything changes. But enough changes, especially at the end, of course, that I did need to write it to prepare for where things are totally different. But there was so much that was the same that it was difficult to write. I dealt with it by writing it as sort of novelization-y and it has lot of mateiral from the movies and I try to comment on it in ways that might be remotely interesting? But yeah, this is pretty much a constant fight.
"With all we've been through, sometimes I'm amazed we're in as good condition as we are!" replied Threepio, sounding as petulant as any robot could. Whoever had constructed him deserved credit for verisimilitude, at least.
So yeah, basically jokes about how she knows nothing will never stop being funny to me.
"What with the Rebellion and all."
Lucy whirled around. "You know of the Rebellion against the Empire?
I'm always like, dude, Luke, if you know about it, you can assume that everybody knows about it.
Have you been in many battles?" she cried.
Visions of starships and lasers and explosions danced before her eyes. Revolutions, fighter pilots, battles, it all seemed impossibly fantastic. But it had touched her life already. She could still hear Biggs whispering in her ear,
OTP?
explaining how he was going to give up everything to find the elusive Rebels and join them.
"Several, I think," Threepio said, his voice even more tragic than usual, then inexplicably added, "there's not much to tell. I'm not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories."
Yeah, he's lying through his...sensors.
Lucy sighed and went back to Artoo, poking at a small metal fragment embedded in his casing.
"Well," she said, "you've got something jammed in here real good. Were you on a cruiser, or - "
The fragment snapped loose, sending Lucy tumbling backwards. She sat up, and a twelve-inch hologram appeared before her eyes.
Lucy's mouth dropped open.
The person in the hologram was a girl of about her own age,
...yeah.
clad in a light, cowled robe, her hair coiled over her ears. With a pleading look, the girl reached out her hand.
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said. "You're my only hope."