Questions and Answers about Riches and Wonders

[doorsclosingslowly]

Preamble: Runaways 'verse is a series about the big "what if" of Maul and Savage's relationship: what if Savage had started from a slightly more equal position and been able to redefine their relationship? The middle installment Riches and Wonders was the first time I genuinely focused on Savage's interiority, and when sl_walker asked me ask meme questions about it on tumblr, I spent a week drafting a long ramble-slash-meta about Savage and his relationship with Maul, preserved here for posterity.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Riches and Wonders is really a Savage character study in the end. When I started writing Runaways, back when it was a one-shot, the point was more that I wanted to figure out a way in which Maul was going to survive, and didn’t he have that brother with the edgelord name? TCW still isn’t my favourite interpretation of Maul even if it’s funny, but I love Savage so much I can’t really diss it anymore

Writing it from Savage’s POV was because I liked that framing better, and then the story became about his journey because I decided writing about near-misses and calling it “Thank You but Your Princess is in Another Castle” was funny. So while it was empathetic to Savage’s perspective and I was starting to figure out his narrative voice, it wasn’t really as deeply in his head as it could have been. (Which does work. “There were no words for a long time. It’s good that there weren’t.” Savage in Princess is incredibly depressed and Talzin’s mind-controlled tool, and he becomes more lively after he gets to interact with someone who thinks of him as a person again.)
 

(Side note: The way I figure the mind control works btw is that it’s basically a strong compulsion to obey, not a reshaping of his mind or anything, and he acts the way he does because he’s terrified, depressive, hurt, and thrown into a completely new world so he’s also pretty confused, and when he’s not completely numb, he’s keeping himself together by the skin of his teeth and the ways he’s learned how to cope as a nightbrother. Which ends up reinforcing the obedience. And makes him hide his emotions apart from the ones people want from him (rage) because he must be Strong. The goals aren’t his own, but it’s his mind trying to fulfil them: he’s trying to do what Talzin orders without really knowing why but that’s mostly what he’d have done anyway so he doesn’t even think it’s weird. The compulsion can be triggered by the Sisters or broken like in canon or when he thinks, I just CAN’T let Maul die like Feral in Princess. I am soft and the idea that Talzin’s ritual destroyed the person he was is way too sad for me to write tbh. And also makes characterization really really hard)

That more shallow understanding I used to have in Princess obviously doesn’t cut it, if I’m writing an eight-part series about them. So from Curses onwards I thought a lot about what each of the brothers is getting out of this relationship, the way they affect each other, and the way it’s both a train wreck and mutually supportive. (Your Love Alone is pretty much the condensed version of that thought process.)

I did a lot of research, especially about maladaptive coping responses to abuse (focusing on compliance and avoidance w/r/t Savage, because he’s so… quiet before the rage explodes) and it fit with the characterization I had in Princess and with TCW. (They’re incredibly maladaptive now that he’s run away, but self-soothing and advance compliance and psychological withdrawal are what might have kept him alive as a nightbrother.)

Also I watched his episodes a lot and got upset a lot. Apart from Monster the show’s POV isn’t that sympathetic but trying to understand what he’s thinking in every scene… oh boy.

A big part of the characterization ended up just growing from lines I put into Princess because I thought they were fun or sounded right. So, “He imagines surprising Her, conjures up Her proud face when he reports that he has found Maul, and then discards the thought. It’s never been him She was interested in. Once She sees Maul, She will never look at him again. He thinks he should feel wistful. He is relieved.” becomes this idea that Savage is usually very aware of how he’s supposed to be reacting, of who he is supposed to be, but he often doesn’t measure up. Every situation contains the emotions he should feel, and the ones he does feel. At the same time, his reactions are pretty reasonable and the expectations he’s internalized are just… not.

Also, the daydreaming which Savage does in Princess (“He entertains himself with guessing the business his brother does” etc) has increased exponentially. Partly it’s because Savage actually knows Maul now, so he can be reminded of his brother by random stuff. Partly it’s because I’m really into “This made me think of you” as a bit of show-don’t-tell affection. Partly it’s because Maul is his whole world now. Partly it’s that Savage would totally stick Maul’s report cards to the fridge if he had the chance, or pass around his album of Feral baby photos to everyone who doesn’t run away fast enough. He would talk to a random woman in a bar about how cool he thinks Maul is.

.

Ultimately, I think it’s pretty fortunate that I got so derailed into focusing on Savage. The inciting What If of Runaways is “What if Talzin wanted Maul back 15 years earlier” obviously but the actual counterfactual I’m writing is more like, “What if Savage was much more successful in the tug-of-war of defining their relationship?” Which is connected to the fact that they’re in a very different place to canon when they meet, and that they have the luxury of spending (mostly) unobserved years as small-time criminals and not as parties in the Clone Wars.

From Princess on but also in the parts I haven’t written yet, Savage’s decisions drive a massive part of their story. He decides to run away with Maul, after all.

Which is funny, because he doesn’t think of himself as a person with agency, and obviously most people he interacts with think of him as a tool (Talzin) or a monster or an apprentice who should do what Maul says because they are Sith and that’s how life works. They really don’t think of him as making choices either. There’s a lot of ‘minor’ decisions where he goes along with little or no protest until suddenly there’s something he can’t bear anymore, and then he just acts. There is no leadup because it’s been simmering under the surface, just as feelings and never vocalized. Like in the show, haha. Mostly silent obedience obedience obedience CHOKE DOOKU & VENTRESS!!! It makes him look like an irrational person from the outside (or a “mindless beast” blah blah blah, hate that), but I don’t think that’s it. To deliberate his decision would have required him to be a more verbal thinker, but mostly: to actually believe he has a choice.

And Savage can’t believe that he has any agency anymore. If he is capable of disobeying orders – well, why didn’t he disobey the order to kill Feral? Being a tool sucks, but his destiny has always been controlled by the Nightsisters anyway. Not being a tool – having the power to stop Feral’s death, and killing him regardless…

(This is an absolute tangent but anyway. So I read this Savage/Asajj fic that was enthusiastic dubcon aka ‘they both know he isn’t allowed to disobey her and therefore he can’t actually consent to sex but he’s really into it and after he’s brought to the Sisters and before the ritual, he initiates the encounter and it’s his POV which is the only way dubcon can work’, and it was pretty interesting especially with the woman-centered framing of sex (engulfing etc) but anyway, I had the most horrifying thought right now: Asajj is still going to use Savage’s body to kill his brother. This is probably the most psychologically wrecking version of what happens in Monster ever. In the Runaways ‘verse version of what happens, the story Savage tells himself is this: He has no capability of disobeying at all anymore, so ultimately he is just the tool that killed Feral. Still traumatizing, but… What do you tell yourself when you ‘willingly’ sleep with the person who ordered you to kill your brother? Can you still make yourself believe you didn’t make the choice to kill him? Like it obviously doesn’t make him any more culpable at all but it would feel So Bad.)

Wow sorry, this is really rambly and way too long. To summarize… What inspired me to write this fic this way was that I’m writing a pretty long story about how Maul and Savage very slowly help each other, often in ways that seem strange or even slightly unhealthy on the surface or involve murder. My mental picture of Maul was much clearer, and that would have been doing Savage a massive disservice. So I watched Clone Wars a lot. And cried.

2: What scene did you first put down?

The rape scene, or, well, the ‘Thinking about Maul’s eating habits to mentally cope with being raped because Savage thinks this is something he has to endure and not something he should and could escape’ scene. I still think it fits with what I’m going for really well tbh, and both the ‘externally controlled body’ part (less of a magical metaphor here) and the ‘ignoring his agency’ part and the nightbrothers as essentially breeding slaves part are such major aspects of Savage’s backstory, or I wouldn’t have written this scene. When I said that the fic was way out of my comfort zone, I definitely meant it. But Savage’s issues with agency are a major part of him, and I thought the take worked and it’s probably why I was so stubborn in trying to finish Riches even though six months is a fucking long time.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

There is a tongue in Savage’s mouth again, lightly tracing the back seams of his teeth and then squirming against Savage’s tongue, like the bitten-off tail end of a massive earthworm, only much less delightful—and Maul doesn’t like rancor flavored with kur-seeds and peppers. He made the most entertaining face on tasting that dish for the first time, and when he stumbled on his unsteady new leg to the fresher to spit it out, Savage only started to feel bad for laughing when he didn’t come out for half an hour. He was too entertained to even think about his failure then, even though he cooked it, the meal he’s come to think of as the most comforting comfort food, in the doomed hope that it would help Maul feel better and stronger after his injury.

It feels wrong to mock him, now that he’s had a while to think it over. Maul’s soft palate is the fault of the human who raised him. Besides, Savage should be grateful: There is something soft left in his brother. Every time Maul hates the meals that Savage lovingly prepares for him, he should be glowing with pride and relief, because there is something Maul doesn’t like, and he’s learned to tell Savage about it.

Savage doesn’t know what it was that he did, but that doesn’t make it any less his greatest triumph: The first day that Maul looked at him, still tied up and after a month of stoically forcing down whatever Savage held up to his mouth, and spat the spiced chew-fish back in his face.

“This tastes like shit,” Maul said, then.

It’s one of Savage’s happiest memories, and it’s not like Maul is really wrong about the taste of rancor, anyway.
 

Savage thinks about the importance of Maul being able to say “No.” in a moment where he himself (believes that he) has no choice. The fact that Maul feels comfortable enough to refuse things is something he sees as a major breakthrough in their relationship, because it means that Maul is beginning to trust that Savage isn’t going to react like Sidious. Savage doesn’t consciously connect it to his own situation. He doesn’t really think about the difference between the things he wants for Maul (and Feral) and what he has accepted for himself.

Also, he’s redefining something that looks like a dick move (Maul insulting Savage’s cooking skills) into a show of trust and a sign of affection, which I always like.
 

(Maul won’t try roe today, after all. They’ll slit a few fish bellies, but Savage’s picked the wrong season, and none of them carry young. He will try a piece of raw fish in the end—after much cajoling, which Savage will figure he’s entitled to, after Maul left the shallow waters with his heavy prosthetic and pretended to drown, and then pulled his frantic brother under. Twice. Predictably, Maul will declare that raw fish is disgusting.

He’ll still be complaining about the aftertaste when farmer M’lee makes the incredibly unwise and terminal decision to check on his fish in the evening.)

+

(M’lee’s daughter will inherit the roe farm. It will lie empty, and succumb to rot. She’ll never set another foot on Talasea, not after that horrifying morning when she comes back from a friend’s wedding to find her father missing and then dismembered and burned in the peaceful grass.

She’ll die on Coruscant ten years later, destitute and still trying to bring justice.)

Also this one, because I just think it really works the way I wanted it to? It punctures the cocoon of Savage’s POV where only Maul really matters. I don’t get to be compassionate to anybody else usually because of Runaways’ tight perspective but I think it’s important to remember the victims

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

This is really hard. It’s probably this part
 

Instead of meditating, though, Maul stands up again. He looks at Savage for a long second, paces, picks up the blanket from Savage’s bed, and then he sits down in the corner of his floor-nest. He pushes the mismatched pillow-wall on the other side further away with a few kicks. Then he orders, “Come here.”
 

Savage does.

“Sit down,” Maul says.

Savage does, carefully, stepping over the pillow-wall. When he sits, the floor is cool through Maul’s blankets, and hard as well. He scowls. He’s been telling Maul that it can’t be comfortable for a while now, but he’s always been informed that it’s adequate. For lack of actual knowledge—maybe the thick fabric he’d forced on Maul was enough, even if it didn’t seem like it—he believed him. Now, though…
 

“This isn’t good for your back. You need a proper bed.”

“A mattress is superfluous,” Maul says.

“You refused to have a blanket for two months,” Savage reminds him. “And now look at your nest…” He runs his hand over the wall of pillows to his left, still standing sturdy despite Maul’s show of carelessness in pushing it aside. “See? You can change.”

You can grow to like beds, Savage almost says, but the words bite into his throat and refuse to come out.

He pats the floor blanket again, instead.

“You’re deflecting,” Maul says, mercilessly. “I felt your terror. What happened?”
 

The start of their Big Conversation, where they’re basically talking about nothing at all, even though both Maul and Savage obviously know what just happened. I like things that are very lowkey.

Savage’s instinct is to be Maul’s big brother and his caretaker, even when he’s really out of it. Focusing on Maul (what they are going to do when they meet, making sure they meet, whatever Maul looks like he needs now) is also one of his more effective coping mechanisms, and he’s been doing it the whole time really. He has chased Maul through all of Princess, he’s been doing whatever Maul wants during Curses. Unmasked doesn’t really count because it was originally part of Riches It’s also what he’s doing in the flashback at the beginning of Riches, feeding Feral so he doesn’t have to be so afraid of the Sisters coming. He has never really thought about what is being done to him. Well, Maul isn’t letting him run away anymore.

It also kinda punctures some of Savage’s ‘I am the big brother and know what your life should have been like’ airs. Savage’s been trying to coax Maul into accepting his own vision of what life should be like, including making him eat what Savage thinks he should eat and sleeping the way Savage thinks he should sleep, instead of the way Maul’s used to live. Fair play, the way Maul was raised was terrible. But Savage’s life wasn’t great either, and now, Maul being raised a nightbrother doesn’t look that attractive anymore.
 

(Also it says something about Savage’s decision-making process I think. There’s a kind of reversal of the model thought process, the ‘rational’ ideal… The most consequential decision based on his feeling that Maul deserves better than a nightbrother slave’s life, Savage takes right in the beginning. Not bringing him back to Talzin. Two years later, Savage is still struggling with that idea though, see also: “Savage cannot think back far enough to reach a world empty of this truth, but he remembers too that Maul wasn’t raised a nightbrother (for the blink of a second and for the first time, it feels like a mercy), and so the words will have to stumble out.” because he’s never verbalized his reasons for not bringing Maul to Dathomir or integrated them into his worldview. They aren’t thoughts he knows how to think, but that doesn’t mean they don’t influence his actions.)

I also like the space pigeon dialogue a lot haha If I didn’t I’d have cut it, because it’s probably definitely Too Obvious

5: What part was hardest to write?

Going by what I left off until the end, it’s the bar scene from the point when Keeu shows up. Because a) I don’t recognise flirting in real life, so how am I going to write it and b) I knew that if it didn’t make sense, the whole ending of the fic wouldn’t make sense.

That’s not the bit I re-wrote about a million times, though. That’s Maul and Savage’s conversation about Dathomiri society and the Sith code

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

I spent six whole months on it, haha. Apparently, that’s ¼ of the entire time I’ve been writing fanfic.

Also, Maul and Savage actually talk to each other occasionally instead of just making small gestures. It took so long for them to have an actual conversation. I very much appreciate how nonverbal their relationship is, but. It’s just. Please talk, dudes. The future prospect of writing Maul interacting with Talzin in a fic where he doesn’t know what she’s done to Savage would kill me

7: Where did the title come from? / 13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

The title’s from one of my favourite songs by the Mountain Goats. Usually it takes a while until i’ve figured out which title I want, but Riches and Wonders was called that before I put down a single word, because I knew that this was the mood I wanted to match. The diffuse unease. This dynamic, which is genuinely affectionate but doesn’t, can’t, stop the discomfort because the discomfort is with yourself, was what I was writing about.

I don’t actually listen to music when I write, because I’m easily distractible and I want to be writing and not singing along. But there are a few songs I associate with the fic anyway. It probably means something that they are literally all my favourites probably that the thoughts I ended up putting into this story are thoughts I’ve been thinking about for a very long time

There is the actual song, Riches and Wonders, and I tried So Hard to match the mood of the fic with this song so:

You find shelter somewhere in me
I find great comfort in you
And I keep you safe from harm
You hold me in your arms
And I want to go home
But I am home

Also You’re Tender and You’re Tired by Manic Street Preachers is a song that fits I think although I can never use any line from it as a title because it’s as good as writing “I love Savage SO MUCH someone please give him a hug” lol

But it’s too late to be real
No time to be strong enough
Memory has become pain

Rebuild the void with flowers
Sad-eyed destruction built around sand and sea
Yes, you can build yourself around
Build yourself around me

Also some more Manics songs from This is My Truth onwards, Nicky Wire’s songs about loss and being lost are great. Not gonna make this too long, so Bobby Untitled (Bits of me don’t exist anymore / I can’t replace what’s been and gone) and You Will Always Be My Home (We will walk together / We will never part / We tattoo ourselves and each others’ hearts lol)

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Terrible confession time: Yeah, me. Savage’s the least pre-defined POV character I’ve ever written (apart from Jess Pava, but that fic was outsider POV about Finn), everyone else has been a main character or Maul with his books and comics and decade of fanfic, and that’s how I prefer it, usually – I take as much characterization from canon as I can. I think trying to figure out someone else’s reasoning adds… edges? Like, decisions I wouldn’t have made about the character, and so they have parts that don’t quite fit or don’t fit in an obvious way that make them interesting, if that makes sense. (Runaways is also the first fic where I’ve made up OCs like Pranxoh and Socvumo that get a fair bit of page time, but I just don’t know enough about the EU to figure out which canon character would fit.)

So even though I’ve looked at Savage’s body language especially A Lot More than is entirely reasonable, there were many things I extrapolated or made up. Especially since I ended up focusing so much on how he thinks and not just how he acts. Some of his experiences and traits are adjacent enough to mine that I used myself as reference. So, between the relationship with his transformed body, the difficulties with expressing himself sometimes and the lack of assertiveness, Savage ended up with a lot of traits I don’t like about myself… (I am So Bad at words in real life, hence why I like text communication because the conversations move slower and I have time to think about the words I’m saying and the conversation doesn’t always move on without me, and probably also why I’m such a slow writer. And why going nonverbal is a recurrent theme in my fanfic lol) I don’t hate Savage for being like that but I never pretended not to be a hypocrite

The “We’re just having a friendly conversation OH SHIT” has happened to me, not a lot because I’m not that attractive or good at conversations with strangers but occasionally, and I do freeze up. The main result is usually that I just never reply. The thing after was a common nightmare, although I’m doing much better than Savage because I was a shut-in as a teenager who read a lot about feminism and consent and asexuality hahaha

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

I spent a few days agonizing over whether I should divide it into three chapters (injury, picnic, Keeu/Sith conversation), three different fics or leave it as one, but in terms of what’s in it? I always knew the ‘mood’ I wanted, I knew that it was going to be about the coping mechanisms Savage and Maul have learned not fitting with their new life & about them awkwardly trying to be nice to each other… It was just a matter of figuring out how to get there.

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Depends on which “pairing”. The main relationship is obviously Maul and Savage slowly growing more comfortable with each other. As I’ve said, originally I chose the relationship because I wanted someone to get Maul away from Sidious and Savage was one of the people who’d do that, and I enjoyed their interactions in TCW. I have a weird soft spot for the murderous short sibling/long-suffering big sibling going along with the ridiculous vengeance plans because he just wants his brother to be happy dynamic haha. The more I’ve been thinking about the way they relate to each other, the more I adore their relationship tbh. The way they think about their relationship is completely different – Savage thinks Maul is the little brother who must be protected, Maul thinks Savage is the Sith apprentice – because they genuinely believe that that’s what relationships are. They’ve never had any other model, and they’re trying to mold each other into what they think they should be, but what they actually have is something else. Maul’s understanding especially hasn’t caught up with the way he treats Savage & what he wants to get out of their relationship. Yet.

As for Keeu/Savage… I’m really, really creeped out by the way the Nightsisters touch Savage on the show. You don’t touch a person that way, you touch someone you see as an object. Also, I feel that every ship with Savage (especially with a woman) is inherently dodgy unless there’s like, a massive, painful section with discussions about agency and consent beforehand? There’s no way he’s internalized anything healthy, with how his society’s set up in canon. Plus, the way he always follows someone’s orders in canon, and the post-Talzin’s ritual/Feral’s murder agency issues I waffled on about in Part one. So, the scene way a way for me to figure out just why I’m so incredibly uncomfortable with him getting shipped and also to treat him as someone who was genuinely hurt by what happened to him in canon? With Maul’s horrific abuse backstory and Savage’s tendency to care for his family instead of/as a way to distract from his own pain, it’s pretty easy to lose sight of the fact that he is also a victim of abuse.

(Side note – I mean, I tend to write Savage as aroace anyway because this is my story and I’d have to concentrate and consciously put attraction in the narrative. He doesn’t think of himself that way obviously because having a sexual/romantic orientation in the first place needs a certain feeling of agency, of it mattering whether you want someone.)

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I mostly just really really wanted this fic to exist, and now it does! Magic! I really want to read more about Maul & Savage, even if I have to super-slowly write it myself

Also, Savage’s narrative voice? It’s very fun to write in, and after six months of thinking in it it’s kinda hard to go back. I had to write Lithops in an intentionally super different way (short sentences instead of overusing ‘and’, using the adjectives I’m thinking of instead of thinking again and choosing two that fit more weirdly, etc) to get used to not writing in it anymore for when I’m doing Maul’s POV in the next part of Runaways. I’m growing comfortable enough with writing in English to write in ways that read slightly odd (hopefully) instead of going, must! Be! Grammatically! And! Lexically! Faultless!! so i can look like a native speaker. Also, it’s made me much more careful about word choice, specifically avoiding long obscure ones, which I like (there’s a reason why I subscribe to the Word of the Day newsletter lol) but I want to get to a point where I can be specific with very ordinary words

Also, I really enjoy how incredibly contemptuous Savage is of Darth Sidious. He truly Does Not Care about the Sith planning for millennia to take over the galaxy. He doesn’t care how devilish and intelligent and powerful he is. As far as he’s concerned, Sidious had one job – raise Maul – and he Totally Screwed It Up. He’s not a mastermind, he’s a pathetic old man who abused Savage’s little brother. To Sidious, Savage isn’t even important enough to be a nuisance, but the contempt’s mutual. Writing about Old Sid from Savage’s POV is much easier that from Maul’s, but Talzin from Maul’s perspective is going to be so hard I think.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

I totally suck at fight scenes. I mean,
 

“[Savage spends some time menacing the target, gets distracted by orphans]

“Leave this place, young ones. We mean you no harm,” Savage says, crouching slightly to get closer to their eye-level, and when he looks up again, the human has opened his dingy coat and pulled out a lean, primitive, solid projectile slugthrower.

He cocks it, faster than Savage can react.

He fires the gun.

Something hits Savage, but it isn’t pain. It’s not a bullet, it’s much bigger, and it barrels him over to the floor and sprays his belly with warm sticky fluid and fleshy shrapnel. It lies on top of him. It has arms.”
 

What?! That’s it? I spent more words describing the orphans that Savage gets distracted by. I mean, yeah, I’m following along Savage’s attention and he truly Doesn’t Care about being a hit man, he just wants to spend quality time with his brother. And it’s supposed to be unexpected. There are reasons why I wrote this scene like “Maul, talk to me about space pigeons!!! Okay Maul’s spotted the target, let me intimidate him. Wow am I really that scary?? Oh no, orphan children – I am a person who has compassion for children, cue some development in the future. Gun. Gunshot. I’m not dead. NO, Maul! Maul!!! MAUL!!!!!!” but at the same time, that was a pathetic fight and I really need to Learn Things before I write some of the scenes that are going to happen. I can’t coast by on ‘drive-by murder barely described because neither POV character truly cares’ and ‘this series is called Runaways so they run away’ forever

There are probably many other problems with the fic, but I don’t have the distance yet to be more objective – and I was trying my absolute best and rewriting everything a thousand times – so it’s not like I’ve become so much better in that short time. I don’t have the skills to recognize many flaws yet

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

I think wanting people to learn from my writing is probably really condescending. If there are lessons in it, I’m sure everyone who reads it already knew them. Savage Opress is a person with feelings? Consent is absolutely necessary and it’s better to check with your partner way too often than not enough, and look for non-verbal signs and make it as easy as possible to refuse you? Because sometimes, it’s not as easy as ‘if they don’t want to they’ll say no’? Recovery is a sometimes a slow process especially if you don’t actually know you are recovering? The random people that get killed in the background also had a family?

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Don’t write 10k+ one-shots. Or do, because you’ll be kinda proud of the result, but it’s going to be So Hard

Also, it was probably really good, for my expectation management skills anyway, to pour everything I had into a fic that I knew from the start not very many people were going to read. Someday I’m going to stop caring about hit counts