Typist
Name: claire
Contact: deadpanmcsatan on yim

Character
Full Name: Ben Skywalker
Parents: Luke Skywalker & Callista
Fandom(s): Star Wars AU
Note: I am well aware that there IS already a character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon named Ben Skywalker who is Luke's son. THIS IS NOT THE SAME CHARACTER IN ANY WAY, from mom and timeline to personality to what they look like. They just share the name. I wrote fanfic of their son having the name Ben before canon did it, anyway, like about nine million other fic writers, and I don't feel like changing it. :[
Approximate Age: 16 going on 45
Approximate Time Period: It's the same as Nova's; so mid-to-late 30s ABY. As he lives primarily in the Star Wars universe (it has no official galaxy name, just 'the galaxy', it is known amongst fans as the GFFA or the 'galaxy far far away'), the timeline he's on ... makes no sense. The entire galaxy DID reset their calendar eventually to reflect year zero as the Battle of Yavin (when the Death Star blew up in the first movie). ABY is 'after the Battle of Yavin' and the alternative is BBY, 'before the Battle of Yavin'.

Personality: Ben is, for a sixteen year old, rather serious and mature. This not uncommon in the Skywalker line (see: Padmé Amidala, his paternal grandmother, whose political career began at age eight.), and Ben very much takes after the more serene members of his family. Like all Skywalkers since Anakin, he is Force sensitive, and very adept at utilizing it and communicating with it. His connection with the Force anchors Ben and affords him a sometimes eerie calm even in the most dire of situations. He is a Jedi apprentice in the final stages of training, and thus has constructed his own lightsaber (which has a violet blade - a rare crystal color, which he had to go through a rather perilous mission to acquire, impressing even his father, ultimately).

Despite his seriousness, Ben is upbeat and lighthearted. His sense of humor is playful and kind. He is often soft-spoken, only raising his voice when he has something important to say. When he speaks with intent he has obvious, natural authority. Ben is a pacifist, and pays close attention to politics, though he has no interest in participating in them outside the diplomatic aid Jedi offer to the New Republic. He takes his Jedi training very seriously, and truly embraces and enjoys his heritage and what he sees as the legacy offered to him.

Among his brother and sister, Ben often defaults to being in charge, despite being so young. People are often shocked to discover how young he is - but while he is so mature and so accomplished, he is still just sixteen. He still gets into trouble and is awkward and goofy and he messes up and he blushes when a cute girl or boy talks to him. He is very close to his parents, though his mother more than his father. Lately he's been getting to know Luke better, having been spending more and more time with him due to training. He is often at odds with his older Gabriel, despite loving him. Gabriel sometimes just gets frustrated with how easily Ben accepts everything that comes at him, and accuses Ben of being nothing but an echo of their parents (nothing could be less true). Ben and Nova, on the other hand, are very close. He is protective of his older half-sister, and fond of his stepmother.

History: Once upon a time, Star Wars happened. Luke Skywalker was a great hero and did all kinds of crazy shit. Then, instead of embarking on his usual post-canon Expanded Universe trail, he got sucked into a panfandom game. The he found the nexus. Then he found Nuala. Then THIS happened. Then a few years later he met a woman named Callista, and they had a series of misadventures which lead to them deciding they were happy to share their lives together. They had a son whom they named Gabriel, and then they had another son, whom they named Ben, and here is where we start talking about the actual character and not his dad, but you needed the backstory.

Ben is the youngest of the three Skywalker children, and he was born in a time of peace. Due to this, he spent a lot of time growing up traveling and becoming well-acquainted with the eternity of diversity in the galaxy, and training not on Ossus, but on the Jedi outpost on Tatooine. When the tensions in the Outer Rim over slavery finally snapped into an all-out war, Gabriel went to fight, but Ben stayed home, being too young. He spent some time in Airgetfál with his half-sister Nova and his step-mother Nuala (which was fun, hi Uncle Nuada), but it was short-lived. Ben proved to be a remarkable asset on the non-combat side of the war, working in his aunt Leia Organa's cabinet as an assistant. His father and aunt would later remark to themselves that he seemed to be channeling his paternal grandmother.

While Nova is developing on an entirely different evolutionary plane and Gabriel is war-forged and struggling in nineteen year old angst over being unhappy living in the shadow of his parents, Ben is just the baby. It would be very easy for him to become overlooked and bitter at not being The Princess or the First Born Son, but he likes his life. He was brought up fast but sensibly, and despite the 'action-packed' life, he was always protected and given time and space to be a child. He is remarkably well-adjusted, and now that the war has died down (with the Republic and the Jedi victorious, of course), he is an official Jedi Apprentice, studying full time at the temple on Ossus.

PB: TOMSTU ......... Tom Sturridge.
Journal: andstars

Sample Post:

Ben knows that, in generations past, Jedi wore uniforms. He knows that they called apprentices and students Padawan learners, and that they gave the human ones funny haircuts. There aren't records of this, not anymore, because the library here on Ossus was ravaged and abandoned long before the Jedi Order of recent history was constructed. And yet he knows, because his father has learned to walk through worlds.

Ben himself went to the nexus that morning to drop off a friend's birthday present. He wasn't supposed to; unauthorized skips out of the galaxy during training aren't permitted. Master Skywalker says they have to preserve the integrity of their world, that if they become too jaded about the multiverse, they will become apathetic. The Jedi have a duty and a responsibility to their galaxy, and must not abandon it. He knows this to be true. He sees the conflict and unhappiness in his older brother's eyes, and he prays and hopes to all the life in the Force that he will grow out of it.

This, he reflects, is probably why Kiital is being so particularly merciless at the moment.

She is a Twi'lek - Lethan, too - and she is as fierce and fiery as her skin would suggest, her saber's blade a burning sun-yellow. She is one of his father's first students, and she is wiping the floor with Ben. He stumbles and falls, barely rolling out of the way to miss her brutal overhead strike. He wonders if the Jedi of old trained this way - perilous and survival-oriented, learning out of necessity. All students know it's coming, these weeks of trial-by-fire, being left out in the wilds of Ossus and put through test after test, some physical, some mental, but never with any warning or help.

He could always stop. He could put his hands up and give in, overwhelmed, and wait until next year to go to the trials. He is breathing hard, his mouth is bleeding, and his body aches. He is younger than most who come this far. He is not a prodigy, but he is studious and dedicated.

Kiital strikes again and Ben whirls past her blade, his own lightsaber de-activated as he slices through the air on his own - behind her and up the side of a relief in the deep brown earth. On the top of this ledge, booted feet solidly in the grass, he looks down for a moment at the prowling Jedi warrior who is about to leap up and engage him once more, and then he looks at the sky.

It's clear and blue and beautiful; the Force is looking back down at him. Well?

Ben smiles.

When Kiital rises above him, his own blade meets hers, and the crash is an explosion of light and fire.