...is it crazy I kinda want to see post-Vader Anakin being set up for a blind date?

The whole thing is Han’s idea.

When he first suggests it to Leia, he says he wants to do something nice for the old man, which as cover stories go is frankly terrible. Leia only raises an unimpressed eyebrow.  It’s such a bad excuse it doesn’t even deserve a response.

Finally Han gives it up and admits that, okay, fine, he just can’t stand watching Rustbucket get flirted at every time they’re all dragged to some gala or top brass event. Anakin’s clueless act is just embarrassing, and worse, Chewie thinks it’s funny, that traitor.

Leia just goes on looking at him. Luke, though, says, “Uh, Han, I don’t think it’s an act.”

Han stares at him. “Oh come on, kid. No one is that clueless.” Then he stops to consider this, and who he’s talking to. Luke is a very friendly person, and very bad at recognizing the line between friendly and flirting. Half the Rebellion wants to date him and as near as Han can tell, he genuinely has no idea. But still... “Okay, fine, maybe some people are. But your old man was married. He managed to produce the two of you somehow. So he can’t be completely unaware of how these things go.”

Leia snickers at him. Han has the sinking feeling she knows something he doesn’t, but he knows better than to ask when she gets that look in her eye.

So he decides he’s gonna set Anakin up on a date, and Leia can laugh all she wants. He’ll be the one laughing when it works.

His first attempt is a guy named Rav who used to work maintenance in one of the hangars on Home One. These days he’s planetside on Coruscant. Nice guy, a few years older than Anakin, green eyes, a great ass. Han arranges the date at a bar so chill he frankly hates the place himself, but it seems like the kind of scene an older couple might enjoy. (Anakin’s only thirteen years older than you, a little voice in the back of his head says, but he ignores that. It’s too weird to let himself think about.) He tells Anakin that Rav wants to meet up and talk shuttle maintenance, which is such a damn obvious innuendo that he barely manages to restrain a cringe as he says it.

But hey, it works, and Anakin’s off to meet with Rav and Han congratulates himself on a job well done. Leia’s still smirking, but that’s just because she hasn’t yet learned what a great matchmaker he is.

Anakin swings back by Leia’s apartment about three hours later, early enough that Luke’s still there and Han is just a little worried. But it was only a first date, so...that doesn’t have to be bad, does it?

“How’d it go, Rustbucket?” he says.

Anakin shrugs easily and heads for the kitchen to start a pot of tzai. “Not bad. Rav’s got some great ideas for B- and Y-wing class fighters, but his views on TIEs are woefully misinformed.” He grumbles something under his breath. “I understand that there’s a need to bad mouth the enemy fighters in front of the troops, but you don’t need to buy into your own propaganda.”

Han blinks a little. Luke and Leia are snickering behind their hands, and for once, it’s real damn easy to see that they’re twins. He glares at them both.

“Well, all right, but...what about the, uh, social aspect?”

“Huh?” Anakin comes into the living room and sits in the chair across from Han and Leia’s couch. Han can never get over how the guy just...sprawls when he sits. It’s about the least Vader-like mannerism he can think of.

“Did you hit it off?” Han asks.

A brief frown crosses Anakin’s face. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind another chance to correct his opinions on TIEs.” Suddenly he brightens, “I did manage to get him the bartender’s number, though, and I’m pretty sure they’re going out this weekend, so I suppose that’s my good deed for the day.” He says this last very dryly. It’s something his therapist suggested, taking notice of his good deeds and letting himself be proud of them or something like that, and Anakin always snarks about it but Han is pretty sure he’s also following his therapist’s advice, so that’s something.

Anyway, that’s clearly not the important thing here. “Wait,” he sputters. “You...set Rav up on a date...with the bartender?”

Leia looks positively gleeful now and Han is pretty sure she didn’t plan this, but if it turned out she did he wouldn’t even be surprised.

Anakin, though, doesn’t seem to understand what’s got Han in such a fuss. “Sure,” he says with another shrug. “They made a cute couple.”

“I don’t believe this,” Han mutters. What kind of guy plays wingman for his own date? He scrapes a hand over his face and resolves to hold on to whatever dignity he can. “Okay, so Rav’s not your type, huh?”

Anakin only looks at him with an expression of such genuine confusion that Han can’t even convince himself the guy’s pretending. “My type of what?” he says.

A loud snort of laughter escapes Leia, and she tries to play it off as a sneeze. Han isn’t impressed.

“Never mind,” he mutters, and eventually the conversation moves on, but he knows Leia isn’t going to forget about this anytime soon.

*

So okay. Maybe he made a bad call with that first try. Maybe Anakin’s only interested in women? It’s a possibility. Fine. So this time Han will have to find the right woman.

He considers his options carefully. Luke and Leia’s mom was a politician and a founder of the Rebel alliance, smart as hell and also pretty damn stunning. (Leia definitely takes after her mother, he thinks, without the slightest hint of a goofy grin, no matter what Chewie says.) She must have had a terrible sense of humor though. Either that or she put up with Anakin’s awful jokes out of some never before heard of reservoir of patience and goodness. Actually, the way Anakin talks about her, that might be true.

So he’s looking for someone smart, driven, principled, but also somehow willing to endure endless terrible puns. That’s a tall order.

The first person he tries is Mon Mothma. It takes him a couple weeks to work up to asking her, because yeah, there’s nothing about this idea that isn’t awkward. But he’s got to admit, she does fit the profile.

So eventually he gets up the guts to suggest the idea of a date, and Mon Mothma laughs in his face.

Well, Han thinks, muttering to himself and wishing he could erase the last fifteen minutes of his life from existence. In hind sight, that was a pretty stupid idea. He’s never even heard of Mon Mothma going on a date.

“You’ve never heard of Dad going on a date either,” Luke says, smirking. Not for the first time, Han wonders what the hell he was thinking, making Luke his confidant in this. But he needed someone with more insight into Anakin, and he’d be damned if he’d ask Leia.

“That’s different, obviously,” Han says. “He spent twenty years inside a tin can.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “I just don’t understand why you won’t let this go,” he says.

“Because people are always flirting with him!” Han says. “And he’s always pretending not to notice. It’s infuriating.”

“It doesn’t happen that often,” Luke says, and okay, Han thinks, that’s actually true, but still. It happens often enough.

Luke sighs. “If you’re so stuck on that, why don’t you just ask one of the people who’s actually flirted with him?”

Huh. That’s not a bad idea, actually. Why didn’t he think of that.

*

It still takes him a while to plan his strategy, but eventually he manages to set Anakin up on a date with a woman named Meera Yasko. She’s Corellian, he’s pretty sure, but she’s also whip smart and pretty attractive. She’s some kind of attorney at a non-profit or something, and Han’s never been especially keen on people of the legal persuasion, but he figures Anakin might like that.

The old man takes a bit of convincing, but Han is a master of smooth talking (don’t laugh, Leia!) and eventually he gets them set up at a nice swank restaurant and even orders a bottle of wine for the table as a surprise.

*

Anakin comes back from this date a lot more excited, and Han experiences a fleeting moment of smug hope, only to have it crushed beneath Anakin’s heel when it turns out the man is excited for all the wrong reasons.

Apparently, Meera is the chief counsel at a non-profit involved in education for underprivileged youth, whatever the hell that means. They’re an interplanetary organization, too, but it’s not the organization itself that really interests Anakin. Meera has the legal background to cover all of the complicated bits about starting a foundation that Anakin doesn’t really understand (and Han understands even less, if he’s honest), and he thinks they might really be able to get this off the ground.

“Wait,” says Han. “This? What’s this?”

He expects a glare or an eyeroll from Leia and maybe Luke, but instead, they look as curious as he feels.

“Oh,” says Anakin, looking oddly shy. “Right. I haven’t told you yet. I’ve been thinking, well, they’re paying me all this money that I don’t need -” (here he raises a hand to forestall Leia’s usual protest) “- so I want to do something with it. And I thought... Tatooine’s free now, but there’s not exactly a uniform system of education, and many of the communities don’t have necessary supplies or access to training for teachers or -”

“Dad,” says Leia, “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

As it turns out, setting up an entire school system takes a lot of work. Who knew, right? It also takes a pretty shocking amount of money, much more than Anakin’s supposedly extravagant yearly salary. That’s not a problem, though, because Meera helps him set up a fundraising program that’s frankly terrifying in its efficiency.

They spend an awful lot of time together, but it’s mostly in her office or over working lunches. Still, Han holds onto hope for a while. After all, she at least was definitely interested. He knows that. But after several months, he finally has to admit defeat. Meera and Anakin have a pretty great working relationship, and Han would even venture to say they’ve become friends, but he still hasn’t seen any evidence that Anakin ever realized she was interested, and it’s pretty clear now that she’s not thinking about him that way any more.

Still. The Padme Naberrie Educational Foundation basically exists because of Han, so he’s counting this one a win.

*

He keeps trying.

There’s a woman named Jasta who likes to dance and, apparently, has terrible taste in art. Not his best choice, but hey, Anakin managed to set her up with a guy they ran into at the art museum, and he seems happy about that, at least.

There’s Varin, who’s an active duty lieutenant in the Republic navy and likes to spend her leave time volunteering with animals. Anakin introduces her to the recently defected Admiral Piett, and damn if the two of them aren’t getting married about five months later. So that worked out, Han thinks, rolling his eyes. But hey, Anakin got a cat out of the deal, which apparently his therapist thinks is great for him, so...there’s that.

There’s Piett himself, which Han still thinks made sense in theory, because Anakin is clearly fond of the guy. But, looking back, he can admit that it’s pretty likely even Piett didn’t know this one was meant to be a date, and Han suspects Anakin may have agreed to the whole thing as an excuse to set Piett up with Varin.

His last attempt is a Twi’lek woman named Dinsa Atray who’s frankly just a little bit terrifying, but then so is Anakin, so Han figures it’s a good match. They actually start meeting up pretty regularly, and Han is starting to feel pretty smug about it, even though Leia still isn’t convinced of his matchmaking skills. But his illusions are cruelly shattered a few weeks later, when dramatic and disturbingly well-documented accusations of sentient trafficking and money laundering bring about the abrupt end of Senator Orn Free Taa’s political career and, eventually, the beginning of his exciting new prison career.

(“Well this was fun,” Han overhears Dinsa tell Anakin. “Let me know if you ever want to destroy a man’s life and reputation again. I’m always game.” Yeah. Maybe more than a little terrifying.)

*

Three years into his self-appointed quest, and Han’s sitting at the dinner table staring at an invitation to the wedding of Mon Mothma and Meera Yasko. He has to admit, he didn’t see that coming. He wonders a bit sourly if Anakin introduced them, too. Honestly at this point he wouldn’t be surprised. The universe is trolling him, clearly.

“Hey, Rustbucket,” he says, because no one’s ever accused him of quitting while he’s ahead. “Who are you bringing as your plus one?”

Leia eyes him with fond derision, and Han gamely ignores her.

“Kadee, probably,” Anakin says. “She likes weddings. Why?”

“No reason,” Han mutters.

*

It’s three more months before he finally gives up. But he’s not going to admit that.

“You know,” he tells Leia, “I think I can declare this operation a resounding success.”

“Really,” says Leia with a smirk. “Because from where I’m standing it looks like you set my dad up on a dozen blind dates, and he still doesn’t even realize he’s been on one.”

Han waves a careless hand. “Well, from where I’m standing it looks like Operation Get Anakin Skywalker Some Friends was an unqualified success.”

(this one is going to be more than 3 sentences bc I thought of the idea and it’s cute so fuck it)

Blake tore her eyes from the worn pages of her book to look on the table as the barista with curled blonde hair set down a plate with a danish - strawberry with drizzled icing - in front of her. Her brow furrowed in confusion and she tentatively lowered her book before looking up at the barista with a frown.

“I’m sorry there’s probably been a mistake. I didn’t - “

“Compliments of a cute girl.”

Blake’s eyes widened a fraction and she cast a parsing glance around the room, spotting a couple girls her age, but both were buried in their laptops with textbooks around them, hardly paying her any attention. She bit her lip and returned her gaze to the barista in time to catch one of those lilac eyes wink at her.

“I get off in about ten minutes if you don’t mind sharing.”

Blake’s fingers tapped the cover of her book, her mind strenuously stitching the pieces together, dulled from a long day of lectures and muddled with hour-old coffee. She reached over and grabbed her cup, lifting it in offering.

“Get me a half-off refill and you’ve got yourself a deal.” She dropped her gaze to the girl’s chest for a second before smiling. “Yang.”

Yang almost looked surprised, even more-so caught off-guard when Blake spoke her name, but she recovered quickly with a bright grin and plucked the cup from her hands. “Consider it done.” She turned to walk back to her station behind the counter where Blake noticed a couple of the other workers were watching, blinking in awe and disbelief at what had just transpired.

She called out to her again and waited for Yang to turn around, eyebrows raised in question.

“Give me a double shot of espresso. Extra whipped cream.”

Yang mock rolled her eyes and Blake suppressed an amused smile in the way she seemed to do so with her whole body in a show of dramatics before raising her hand to her mouth and blowing her a kiss.

Kegregard is beautiful. Looks like beau finally got her kegstand ;D they better make this shit a thing every time ashly is back

If you think @redcap3 and I have posted a lot of Of Gods and Monsters... well, you're right, we have. But we passed 500 pages of story notes a couple of days ago, too, and I'm looking at that and kind of going what just because it's solidly over 100,000 words of notes.

I feel like goddamn JRR Tolkein over here. (And don't let Christopher muck with this stuff, thanks. Todd McCaffreey also, please lay off. (¬ᴗ¬) )

A lot of these notes are things readers have already seen, in refined form. It includes some very raw partial first-drafts of scenes, written out in chat. It includes a lot of ideas we pursued, first goes at them, some rather different than what came out in the end. And there's an absolute boatload of spoilers still yet to come, along with a bunch of stuff we decided not to do.

I'd kind of love to post some excerpts but there's stuff in the first six pages that we still haven't got to yet, and will.

Full-Body Colored Sketch commission for @redcap3 of Beran Daelussa, aka Sad Dad from our D&D 5e campaign, The Thirsty Dragon.