Boba isn't quite sure how his life became this.

One moment he was a remnant of his father's legacy, and the next a daimyo of Tatooine with a pet Jedi who likes to haunt his halls. His Jedi would object to being described as a pet, but Boba likens him to a massiff, friendly one moment and deadly the next. Both sides of him excite Boba in unique ways as much as they frustrate him— whether that be when Luke's annoyingly optimistic outlook overshadows Boba's attempt at being annoyed, or like right now, when the teeth and razor sharp claws come out.

Boba isn't quite sure what set Luke off, but he's not about to step in and try to break up the bare knuckle brawl in front of him. 

He only slumps on his throne, cheek resting on his fist as he watches the scene play out before him. Fennec joins him, perching on the wide arm next to him and tossing back a hearty swig of neon blue spotchka. "He's at it again?"

"Mhm," Boba agrees, wincing sympathetically as Luke's synthetic hand collides with the jaw of the trandoshan that's drawn his ire. "He's awfully combative for a pacifist, isn't he?"

Fennec snorts in agreement, offering the bottle with a quiet slosh and shrugging when Boba waves it off. "Did you manage to catch what the fight is about?"

"Not a clue," Boba deadpans. "I think I made a mistake bringing him here."

Huffing a laugh, Fennec kicks a leg up and leans back to watch the show. "You're just catching that?"

"Watch it Shand, I sign your paychecks," Boba replies, shooting his second-in-command a look that she summarily ignores. "Think he'll win?"

Fennec hums, ignoring the question as she watches Luke tackle the trandoshan to the ground. Boba watches for a while longer until he grows bored of them beating on each other, and then he launches his whip cord, catching Luke neatly around the ankles and pulling him over. Luke glares at Boba as he catches himself with the Force, laying flat on his back as Boba hauls him in. There's blood beginning to crust under Luke's nose, and a dark bruise blooming on his cheekbone, but he's otherwise fit enough to scowl at the interruption.

"You just love to ruin court, don't you?" Boba murmurs, holding tight to the cord even as Luke wiggles. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke replies, relaxing where Boba leaves him at the base of the dais. "He started it."

"Are you four?"

"I'm easily a ten," Luke sniffs, somehow managing to look down his nose while tangled in Boba's whip cord. 

"You're a pain in my ass," Boba replies, Fennec snickering next to him.

Luke's affronted look is almost worth the trouble he brings as he manages to worm his way out of the restraints and to his feet. "I am a delight and you know it, you bantha's ass."

"You'd have to prove it first," Boba snips back, bracing himself a second before Luke nearly smashes their heads together in a brutal Keldabe kiss. This close, Boba pitched his voice low enough that their words are hidden. "You're going to tear apart my throne room."

"I'll fix it," Luke replies breezily.

Boba isn't convinced, not one bit. "Menace."

"Your menace," Luke murmurs, flashing a pink-toned grin. 

Heaving a sigh, Boba chucks Luke under the chin and sits back, resigning himself to the inevitable. "I want everything back exactly the way it was."

"As my daimyo commands," Luke teases, sweeping into a low, mocking bow before going to hunt down his forgotten foe. 

Silence settles for a moment before Fennec breaks it with a snort. "Bet you fifty credits he'll come back with a new best friend."

"Can it, Shand."

What drew you back to writing fanfic for this go-around? I've never really left fandom. I've always liked hanging around the edges—writing when I want to, not writing when I don't. I like writing—not just having written, or reading what I've written, but the act of writing itself (or at least I like it most of the time). I just find putting words down on a page very tangibly fulfilling. I don't really want anything more out of it than that.

So you en... enjooooy writing.  Am I pronouncing that right? Aahfsjhkdjghj

Talk me through how that works because that’s not how my brain operates. Have you ever played an instrument?

Badly. Okay, uh. Imagine you can play an instrument well. There's a point when you're playing when you slip into almost a meditative state, where you can feel the vibrations of the instrument underneath your fingers, and you can feel the rhythm, and you know you're the one doing it, but at the same time you hear music in the air, and you've done that—you've made something beautiful, and through the act of creating it, you've become more a part of it than you could listening.

Anyway, my point being: there's a joy and a satisfaction inherent to creativity and to the act of creating something, and that applies with anything you make. That's all there is to it, I guess. I do find joy in connecting with a community, and I wouldn't give up that part of fandom for the life of me, but when I'm after that, I go on Tumblr or message a friend. When I write, it's because I want to write—specifically to write, to create in that way.

What is your relationship to your fic after you've written? How much fulfillment is the "after" in writing for you? I think for me there's a difference between writing, sharing, and posting. When I want to write, I write, and in return I've created something and fulfilled what I think is a very basic human need to make things. When I want to talk about my writing—when I want to know if it's good, if it's affected someone, if it's working well and if it, at the end of the day, might matter to someone else, I share it with someone I know will be able to give me the thoughtful feedback I crave. When I post something, I definitely do want comments from it—I'm not a perfect human, free from all desire for attention—but I'm not posting it expecting thoughtful, meaningful, and fulfilling engagement. I'm posting it because I read fic, and I like reading fic, and I want to sort of... contribute. And also get praise, because again: not perfect.

In terms of my relationship to fic after I've posted, I will say I do check for comments pretty obsessively (the potential promise of a comment notification from AO3 in my email is the only thing that gets me to actually check my email these days), but the biggest fulfillment comes from (a) the process of creating and (b) the meaningful, thoughtful engagement I seek out on my own terms.

So you write a lot of headcanon, cracky, what-if takes on Tumblr that never turn into fic. What does Tumblr give you that fanfic can’t? Functionally? Community. Tumblr is a lot quicker at responding, especially now that I've got a bit of an audience on there, and it's also way quicker for me to write a Tumblr post because I'm not putting much actual thought into it. When I'm writing, I'm focused on creating a piece of art—dubious though the quality may be. When I'm posting to Tumblr, I'm focused on making a funny joke.

Tumblr is where I get a lot of my laughs, and a lot of the feeling of community that I think is so integral to fandom—for whatever reason, a lot of us care about something (and when that something is Star Wars, you definitely are searching for a reason, because why) and humans are social creatures. We want to care together.

Fic—specifically writing fic—is where I go to fill a deeper, harder to satiate need for creation and for intellectual stimulation. Community and intellectual engagement aren't mutually exclusive, but I find that for the most part, Tumblr is better for the former, and writing fic is better for the latter.