The Official Fanfiction University: Star Wars.
By Miss Sketch.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Inspired by Camilla Sandman's OFU of Middle-earth. Star Wars writers are whisked away to a fanfic university in space for lessons taught by the characters themselves. TK-000, Team Hotass, the Wonder Twins, and tons of unauthorized Force usage. Now casting authors for the summer term!
Author's Note: If you haven't read any of the Official Fanfiction University stories, well, what have you been doing on FF all this time? There are dozens of them, for a wide variety of fandoms. A couple of my personal favourites are Camilla Sandman's original "The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth" and SirenoftheStorm's "Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean". If you're interested in contributing an author to attend the university, please be sure to read my note at the end of this chapter. Read on!
Chapter I.
Rose could practically hear the first notes of the film's opening score as she excitedly turned on her laptop. In fact, she did hear them, from the CD player on her bedside table. She clicked open her word processing program and an empty document appeared on the screen, glowing like the blue ion engines of an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer. Rose knew exactly what the first line of her fanfiction had to be.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…"
She had it all planned out: a young female Jedi miraculously survives Order 66 and swears vengeance on Anakin Skywalker and the Empire! Will she be able to bring herself to kill him when she finds him injured and helpless on Mustafar? Or does she take pity on the fallen Jedi and nurse him back to health, only to fall desperately in love with him afterwards? Rose figured that it would be the second option, as it promised some primo angst from both main characters, of course, but she hadn't quite decided how the Empire was going to get along without a Darth Vader yet. Sure, she could always give Kendalini Marie Nighthawke – she spent almost an hour coming up with the name alone – an incredibly tragic death scene and then send Anakin back to the Emperor… but if that didn't work out, she could always fall back on those two all-important letters: AU.
The soft clicking of her laptop keys continued far into the night. Kendalini Marie had just discovered the massacre in the Jedi Temple when Rose had to pause for a giant yawn.
"… and glistening tears filled Kendalini's deep amethyst eyes as she sensed the pain of her slain fellow Padawans. Their spirits floated as close to her as the thick wafts of smoke from the fires within the Temple. The tragic deaths vibrated through the Force with a power that made the furious Jedi ignite her pair of violet-bladed lightsabers with a heartbroken howl."
"That's a good place to stop for tonight," Rose thought, saving the fic – There is No Peace, Only Passion – and closing her laptop. As she pulled on her pajamas, dreamy images of Kendalini finding the security recordings and sobbing in Obi-Wan's arms were already drifting into her imagination. She climbed into bed and reached over to switch off her reading lamp and CD player, abruptly cutting short the Imperial March. Only the standby light from her laptop glowed in the darkness, a tiny reminder of Kendalini's upcoming adventures.
Rose had barely begun to drift off when she heard the music. It was the Imperial March again, faint but growing louder. She sat up and fumbled with the dials of the CD player. She flicked the power switch.
"Stupid thing," she thought. "It's not even on."
… It's not even on?
The March swelled in volume and seemed to shake everything in Rose's small bedroom. She clutched at her blanket, both too frightened and too amazed to make a run for the door. A framed photograph clattered off the top of her bookshelf. Couldn't her parents hear all this noise?
After a few moments of chaos, the March came to an end. The room settled down, and for a second, Rose thought that she had just imagined the whole thing. That is, until she heard the voices. Two of them, muffled and impatient, one female and sharp, the other male and… mechanical? The voices were coming from the closet.
"Ah! What is this?" Rose heard the female voice say. "I know her room was supposed to be small, but this is ridiculous!"
There was a scuffling and a dull clank, followed by the male voice's cry of pain.
"Oww! What'd you go and do that for?"
"Point that blaster at me again and we'll find out whether your codpiece is as sturdy as your helmet."
"Sorry Captain, it was an accident! It's cramped in here…"
"Just get us out of here. You're the one with the gadget belt."
"Yes, ma'am…"
Rose clutched at her blanket even tighter as a flurry of sparks erupted at the corner of her closet door. The sparks traced around the door's outline and, with its hinges cut, it fell to the floor, edges smoking. Two tall figures stepped out.
Rose squinted in the dark. The first figure was, to her surprise, easily recognizable. He was an Imperial Stormtrooper, dressed head to toe in familiar black and white armor. He tripped awkwardly over the corner of the door and pushed it aside with his foot to strike a guarding pose, holding up what looked like a disconcertingly realistic blaster.
The second figure stepped out from behind him, coughing and waving a hand at the smoke from the sparks. It turned in Rose's direction and addressed her in the female voice.
"Well, are you going to turn a light on? Or must we do this in the dark?"
Rose came to her senses and reached for her reading lamp. The stormtrooper raised a gloved hand to his eyes in the sudden light, and the woman – Rose could see that she was a human woman, dressed in layered purple robes – strode confidently up to the bedside. She pulled out a metal clipboard from within her tunic and cleared her throat.
"Rose Greyson – you are Rose Greyson, are you not?"
Rose nodded dumbly.
"That's fortunate. Rose Greyson, in accordance with Policy 18 of the Regulatory Conference for Inter-Universe Literary Invention and Exchange, you are being served notice to henceforth cease creation of any and all unauthorized actions and entities that would otherwise be governed by the laws of the galaxy far, far away. This policy requires me to confiscate any and all such actions and entities, as well as other enabling materials." The woman stuck the clipboard back into her robe and turned to the stormtrooper. "You may proceed."
He tucked the blaster back into its holster and went to Rose's desk. He had a look over of her laptop and opened it.
"Hey!" Rose shouted, throwing off her blanket and standing up. "You can't mess with that!"
The tall woman put a hand on Rose's shoulder.
"Ah-ah-ah, I just told you… we can."
"Wh-what? I didn't understand a word of that! What's Policy 8 of the whatever conference?"
The woman looked down at Rose with a mix of frustration and amusement.
"Policy 18 of the- "
But Rose cut her off.
"No. You know what? No. I'm dreaming. You're not real. It's not possible." She said, pinching her arms. "Any second now I'll wake up and you'll disappear." She sat back down on the bed and squeezed her eyes shut, still pinching. The robed woman sighed again.
"On the contrary, I can assure you that we are real. But as soon as we get what we came for, we will…"
"A-HA!"
Rose hadn't noticed that the stormtrooper had been reading from her laptop. He motioned for the tall woman to come see what he had found.
"I think this is it, Captain. You were right, too, this looks like a Class 4 offense…"
The woman, the Captain, joined the trooper to scan the laptop screen. She frowned.
"Sweet mother of Mandalore…"
They shot a quick glance at Rose, then turned back to the screen.
"I don't think the Sith Lords would sanction such a use of their code, Captain…"
"Kendalini? Is she a girl or a pasta?"
Rose felt rather ignored, and by her own dream to boot. She stood up and took a cautious step toward her desk.
"Alright," she said. "If I have to play along until I wake up, will you at least tell me who the hell you are?"
The woman sighed, but complied.
"Very well. I am Captain Miss, Headmistress of the Galactic O.F.U. This is TK-582, my escort for this particular mission. And, like I said before, you are not dreaming. We are here because of – " She gestured at the laptop. " – this."
"My fanfiction? What's that got to do with anything?"
Captain Miss cut no corners.
"To put it simply, your fanfiction is so terrible, it has been declared a crime."
"A Class 4." Added TK-582. "Which means that this device, and all the fanfiction on it, is now property of the G.O.F.U., and will be destroyed as soon as we return it to headquarters."
"In addition," Captain Miss continued. "You will be barred from writing any fanfiction in the future, under threat of either a term served in the mines of Kessel or a fine of at least three million Republic credits, or the equivalent amount in your native currency."
It took Rose a few moments to process this information.
"So…" she started slowly. "I'm really not dreaming?"
In response, Captain Miss quickly took her metal clipboard out again and tossed it at Rose. She wasn't fast enough to catch it, and it glanced off her forearm, leaving a bright red welt. The stinging pain was real.
"And you're seriously going to take my computer?"
TK-582 closed the screen and tucked the laptop under his arm.
"And I can never write fanfiction again?"
"Never." Captain Miss said solemnly.
"But…" Rose's voice was suddenly emotional. "I love my fanfics! They're not as bad as you say, really! I… I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't write any more…" Her shoulders slumped. Captain Miss and TK-582 exchanged a glance.
"Well," Captain Miss said, taking the laptop from the stormtrooper and weighing it in her hands. "There is one thing you can do."
Rose brightened.
"What is it? Anything! I mean it!"
"G.O.F.U."
Rose made a disgusted face.
"You don't have to be a total bitch about it. I already feel bad enough…"
"No, no… argh… it's the G.O.F.U. The Galactic Official Fanfiction University. Spend a full year at our school and we'll take care of your abominable fanfiction skills with a full curriculum designed to change the very way you write in this fandom forever. We'll even grant you a Regulation Conference-approved author's license. But this is not a choice to make lightly. Your courses will be difficult, very hands-on, and sometimes dangerous. I daresay – "
"I'll do it." Rose interrupted.
"Impulsive." TK-582 observed. "I can think of an instructor or two who would highly approve of that."
"Nevertheless, you have until morning to make your decision. You have all the necessary paperwork." She motioned to the clipboard lying on the floor. "Just fill it all out, and we'll do the rest."
Rose picked up the clipboard. There were a dozen different forms in the clip.
Captain Miss and TK-582 shuffled around the closet door, still lying forgotten on the carpet. The TK looked as sheepish as was possible with the fixed expression of his helmet.
"Right, then," he said, picking the door up and trying to wedge it back into place. "You, err, you can just bill the University for this…" He held it aside so Captain Miss could step back into the closet.
"Hey, wait!" Rose called out. "What about my laptop? Don't destroy it, please!"
Captain Miss considered the computer in her hands.
"I'll be holding on to this for now. Oh, you'll get it back – if you can successfully earn that author's license."
TK-582 followed Captain Miss, awkwardly arranging the door in its proper place.
"Seriously, though, Captain." Rose heard him say. "Maybe it's time to change the name…"
"Unless you want to be TK-36 double-Ds, I suggest you…"
But after that, Rose heard no more. Captain Miss and the TK had vanished.
She grabbed a pen from her desk and got back into bed to have a look at her paperwork. The first few sections were harmless enough; name, age, dietary restrictions, and the like. Then the questions started to get weird.
"Fear of tentacles: yes/no? Force-oriented affiliation: Jedi/Sith? What kind of place is this?" She thought as she filled out the questionnaires. She checked and double-checked the forms as she finished them.
It was the wee hours of the morning when Rose finally completed the last of the paperwork. She clipped everything neatly back onto the clipboard and set it on her bedtable. Her eyelids were heavy, and she turned off the reading lamp one last time.
The last thing Rose remembered before falling asleep was her resolute determination to get that fanfic license and rescue her precious laptop – well, that and a persistent doubt about what on Earth – or off it – she had really gotten herself into.
The note at the end of the chapter:
To really continue this story, I need (point) YOU! If you would like to submit yourself to be a student, please read the application in the next chapter. I will accept 5 or 6 of the submissions to attend the G.O.F.U with Rose. Please note: this whole fic is based on the premise that these characters are crappy writers, but there will be no overly cruel mockery, just good-natured fun and critique. Read a few of the other OFU fics out there to get an idea of how it works. I'll be able to write another chapter, maybe two, without the other students, but after that I will need your applications to continue. So go ahead - submit away!