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anakin-pilled · 2 months

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𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴 - anakin skywalker x fem! reader (part four)

pairing: anakin skywalker x fem! reader

wordcount: 7.1k

warnings: no use of y/n, alchohol consumption, reader gets drunk/tipsy, rushed ending

rating: 18+

author's note: i literally didn't mean for this to come out so late. life got in the way (again). i was super excited to write this chapter but the more i wrote it the more i was like UGH lowkey don't like the way this turned out but i hope you enjoy anyway! when will reader and anakin finally fuck? reblogs, comments, and likes are greatly appreciated xx

side note: i read on wookiepedia that in the sw universe, they refer to alcohol as "hooch" so i used that in the story...not sure if i like it but i wanted it to be immersive lol

creds to saradika for the divider!

The party was in full swing by the time you and Anakin arrived at the party. He knew Coruscant’s rich and famous lived lavish, but he would’ve never imagined attending a party of this splendor. A live jizz band was playing in one corner of the room, their shiny instruments reflecting off the chandelier lights. People of all species flocked to the living room, where protocol droids served an abundance of hooch and fanciful hor d’ourves. The people, dressed in the latest galactic fashion trends, laughed and danced with each other like they had no care in the world. Like there wasn’t a war happening throughout the galaxy–a war that threatened the very comfortability of their lives. Where there was much pain and turmoil in the galaxy, there was none in this room. Anakin was disgusted by this.

The host, an acquaintance named Jackson Wang, lived in an expensive high-rise located in Coruscant’s entertainment district. The three-story apartment was built with the most expensive materials in the galaxy. The windows were composed of reinforced clari-crystalline, and the floor was constructed out of white Wayland marble embedded with specks of Kallistan gems. Gold, shimmery streamers decorated the grandiose columns supporting the apartment, and there was bright, colorful plasto confetti strewn across the floor. The very presence of this room went against the Jedi code–it was an attachment to wealth and materialism. Even if Anakin never joined the Jedi, he still would have found this party revolting. How could people live like this when there was still so much wrong with the galaxy? Slavery, poverty, species discrimination, etc. were all happening under the Republic. Being born a slave radicalized Anakin. It was harder for him to ignore the galaxy’s rampant class differences. It proved to him even further that politicians could not be trusted–because how could they allow such a disparity to run rampant?

Anakin’s eyebrows furrowed as he took in the sight before him. You weren’t sure what he was thinking, but the creases between his eyebrows told you it was nothing positive. You noticed Anakin looked out of place in his humble, dark Jedi attire. You knew this wasn’t his scene, and he might feel out of place, but Anakin insisted on coming. What business did a Jedi have doing at a party like this? “For your protection,” he defended.

“You okay there? You look like you’re about to shoot lightsabers out of your eyes with that glare.” It was true. Anakin’s eyes were a dark, stormy blue right now.

You thought he would have laughed at your stupid joke, but Anakin’s glare only became directed towards you. You shivered in response. His glare was intense which was exacerbated by the scar on his face. His presence exuded authority, it was raw and powerful. You would gladly give into it every time.

“I’m fine. I think this party is ridiculous,” Anakin replied. “Look at all the food just sitting there, no one is eating it, and they’re ignoring the servers. The least they can do is acknowledge the servers. Do you know how many planets are starving out there? Entire systems wiped out by the Separatists? Just for the rich to parade here and let good food spoil.” He scoffed at the end of his sentence.

You had no idea Anakin would feel so strongly about this. However, what Anakin was saying made complete sense. You felt guilty–even if he wasn’t directly speaking about you, these were still your “people.” You always tried your best to not be wasteful and treat all workers respectfully. Even so, it couldn’t be denied that rich people, more often than not, were the opposite of you.

“I agree with you. I don’t know why they order so much food, especially when they know that most people will be too busy drinking, talking, or dancing. Why don’t we make sure that the food doesn’t go to waste by having some?” you offered as a solution. That wasn’t Anakin’s point, but he conceded anyway. The both of you walked towards a table where a pretty spread of food sat like decoration.

After fixing yourselves a small plate of food, you began speaking again. “Thank you, Anakin. You and the Jedi are doing your best to ensure the safety of the Republic and all of the galaxy’s inhabitants. We shouldn’t be allowed to parade here, not while others are struggling to survive.”

“I didn’t intend to insult you. It’s just an observation that I made. You can’t help but become cynical after witnessing war crimes being performed on innocent people.” Anakin was slightly embarrassed. He didn’t mean to group you in with everyone else, especially after you and your team have graciously treated him these last few rotations. But still, he meant what he said.

“How is it being on the battlefield? It must be so hard to be in constant chaos. Anakin, you are so brave, ” you innocently wondered.

Anakin didn’t know how to describe it to a civilian, mainly because Anakin rarely found himself around civilians nowadays. The only civilians he encountered were those who needed saving, those who understood the brutality of war. Anakin knew that not everyone in the Jedi organization agreed with their current roles under the Republic. Some Jedi believed that the Republic was interfering too much with Jedi affairs and that the Jedi should relinquish their roles as generals. Others, including Anakin, believed that the Jedi were too constrained by the Jedi principles and teachings to effectively fight in this war. Though there were many wins for the Republic, almost every loss encountered could’ve been a win, if only the Jedi could see past the teachings for a moment. On top of that, the Senate’s constant feuding and bickering rendered it useless. They could barely fund the war at the moment, hence a select group of Senators decided to host a concert charity benefit to raise credits for the war effort. There was so much uncertainty. If Anakin was certain about one thing, however, it’s that he belonged on the battlefield.

“I hate war…but I love being on the battlefield.” Anakin hesitated for a moment before continuing, “I was a slave, along with my mother, before the Jedi found me. I had only heard of the Jedi. They were mythical to me, they sounded too good to be true.” Anakin never thought he would be revealing this information to another soul, especially not in the middle of a party with one of the galaxy’s biggest singers.

Your breath slightly hitched at Anakin’s confession. A part of your heart shattered, and an overwhelming feeling of empathy and sadness washed over you. Anakin felt the shift in your energy.

“Being a Jedi is an honor, and being on the battlefield allows me to be the type of Jedi that I pictured as a young boy. As a slave, I was subjected to my former owner’s rule, never allowed to act on my own. On the battlefield, I act on my own and make my own decisions. I’m using my power for the greater good, ensuring that the galaxy doesn’t tumble further into chaos and destruction. I can be myself on the battlefield. There’s a sense of independence from everything when it’s just you, your padawan, and your legion. It’s a reminder of how far I have come in life,” Anakin finished with a hard edge to his voice.

“Anakin…I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that you used to be a slave,” You said gently as if the words you spoke were made of glass. Who would have thought that one of the galaxy’s most powerful Jedi used to be a slave? Hearing those words come from Anakin’s mouth shocked you.

“Don’t apologize. You couldn’t have known.” Anakin didn’t want you to feel bad. He looked off to the side, suddenly feeling like his flustered nineteen-year-old self again. This wasn’t information he easily divulged, nonetheless to someone he met only a few rotations ago. Anakin hoped it wouldn’t change your view of him.

You grabbed Anakin’s hand and reassuringly rubbed your thumb on the top of his hand. Your thumb felt the ridges and lines of his veins. “You didn’t deserve that. Neither did your mother–no one ever deserves to be a slave. I’m picturing the young version of you, and my heart is breaking. You were just a child, too innocent and pure to be in that situation. I don’t want you to think I’m pitying you, Anakin. If anything, I think you’re even braver now after learning about your past. Thank you for sharing that with me. It couldn’t have been easy.”

What you were saying was the truth. An image of a small Anakin flashed through your brain. You imagined he had golden hair that illuminated his face like a halo and brilliant blue eyes that contrasted against the rugged, red monochromatic terrain of Tatooine. If Anakin looked like a god now, he must’ve looked like a cherub when he was little. Your awe for Anakin grew tenfold.

He had been dealt life’s shittiest stack of cards and managed to overcome it all.

It was silent for a moment. It’s not that Anakin didn’t want to respond, but he didn’t know how to respond, so he simply nodded. Anakin couldn’t verbalize any words. He felt vulnerable right now. It was as if Anakin responded to your words, it would solidify the fact that he shared one of his deepest secrets with you. He wasn’t ready to confront what that meant, so he stayed silent.

You took note of Anakin’s silence and shifted the conversation to yourself. You understood how daunting it was to reveal a part of yourself that you often kept hidden away.

“Per my contract, I’m not allowed to voice my opinion on anything polarizing. I can’t speak on politics, the economy, war. It was half a shock to the public when the media announced that I would be headlining the benefit concert. On one hand, it made sense because I’m one of the more popular artists in the galaxy right now. On the other hand, people were shocked I was taking a political stance, even if indirectly,” you explained to Anakin. You grabbed a glass of the ambrosia-colored liquid that was stationed next to you and Anakin. It was bitter but had subtle notes of sweetness. You took a few sips before continuing.

“It’s unfortunate that it has to be that way. There are so many times when I wished I could’ve spoken up and used my influence for something that matters. Sometimes I feel like a coward because I see everything happening in the galaxy and I’m voiceless. The truth is I am a coward, just like every other person in this room. We have all this wealth and influence, just to do what? Let it sit in a bank account or spend it carelessly? It’s pathetic. We should be doing more.” Just because you weren’t allowed to publicly speak about certain topics didn’t mean you had no opinions on it altogether.

You took a few more sips of your drink before finishing it. You placed the glass back on the tabletop and gave Anakin a sheepish smile, “I’m rambling now, aren’t I? Sorry about that. I ramble when I get nervous. Anyway, my point is I’m glad that I took the opportunity to headline the benefit. I think my team was slightly against it at first, but after some convincing from the chancellor, they changed their minds and allowed me to do it. People like you, those who have actually witnessed the spoils of war, remind me of why it’s so important to take a stand. I don’t want to be voiceless anymore–not at such a crucial time in politics. If I can’t do the actual fighting, then I’m glad to support those who do by lending my talents. I’ll milk those suckers for all the credits they have.”

Anakin chuckled at your last sentence. He appreciated your sentiment. “Not many can say the same as you. Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me, Anakin. I’m just doing what any person in my position should do. I probably pissed off some people, but oh well.”

You heard your name being called from the side. Your conversation was interrupted by your friend, Cressida, a fashion designer from a small mid-rim planet who made a name for herself through her unique and stylish designs. Her skin was dyed pink (you knew her natural skin tone was a lifeless pale), and her hair was coiffed in an elaborate bun with pastel ringlets falling over and small curls sticking to the nape of her neck, appearing messy yet sensual. She came from a planet inhabited by humanoids known for their allure caused by specially produced pheromones.

“Cressida, it’s so lovely to see you! How’s your latest line going?” you faked a smile before greeting her with two kisses on either side of her cheek. Your mother always told you to play nice since playing dirty resulted in getting burned.

“Oh you know, the critics are having a heyday with it. They say I might even win my first fashion award. And who is this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before at one of these parties. Our little singer here rarely brings anyone around anymore,” Cressida stated. Her bright green eyes landed on Anakin as if he was something she wanted to lay claim to.

“Friend” was an overstatement. You had known Cressida for around two years, but you wouldn’t consider her a close friend. She was someone you partied with to have fun–a member of your social circle but not your inner circle. You had yet to determine her trustworthiness. While Cressida had never crossed you directly, her catty remarks now and then signaled a radar in your brain.

“This is Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi assigned to watch over me for the upcoming benefit concert,” you explained.

Cressida’s eyes widened slightly. “The Anakin Skywalker? My, you’re even more handsome in person than in the holograms they project on the billboards. I almost didn’t recognize you with that serious look on your face. You shouldn’t glare so much, it’ll only age you faster.”

The fake smile on your face was beginning to hurt. Why did it annoy you so much that she found Anakin handsome? It was an objective fact that most people would agree with. You ignored the nagging feeling in your stomach. You were here to relax your mind and push away the racing thoughts of Anakin from your mind. If Cressida wanted to flirt with Anakin, so be it. It’s not like he could do anything about it, even if he wanted to. Anakin was a temporary occurrence in your life, something that would only last a short time, just to be forgotten as life moves on.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am. And you are?” Anakin responded with a short nod to show his thanks for her compliment. Anakin was used to people fawning over his looks. This wasn’t the first time a stranger, female or male, complimented him mere seconds after meeting him. The compliments did fuel his ego, but he never took them to heart as he only cared about what Padme thought. Now that Padme was gone, he indulged in the occasional compliment. Still, this compliment did not sound right coming from the pink lady in front of him. Cressida looked at Anakin like an object, a feeling he very much detested. It reminded him of the way Watto used to look at him.

“I’m Cressida Calpurnia. I know some people who would love to meet you Anakin,” Cressia announced. “Do you mind if I steal him for a few minutes? I promise I won’t be long. I believe I saw Chione somewhere upstairs waiting for you.” A sickly sweet smile appeared on Cressida’s face as she batted her white eyelashes at you. You knew most people at this party did not give a damn about the war, for they were all vapid and too consumed by the drama in their own lives to think about anything else. It was hypocritical to think, considering you were also one of them, but it was also different because most of the people in this room were nepotism babies born with silver spoons in their mouths. You knew the value of hard work and had some sense of reality, though altered over the last few years as you came into superstardom.

You knew you couldn’t refuse Cressida’s offer. What grounds did you have to refuse? A twinge of childish jealousy? You were afraid if you denied Cressida’s offer, she would think something was happening between you two. The last thing you needed was Cressida’s gossipy mouth spreading a rumor like that to your social circle. You didn’t care if it affected your reputation, but you didn’t know what Anakin’s consequences could be if the HoloNet tabloids captured a rumor like that.

“Well, I can’t speak for Anakin.” You turned towards Anakin and reassured him, “You can go ahead if you want. I think everyone would be excited to meet someone so famous (ironic considering most people in this room were famous or at least famous adjacent). I’ll just go find Chione upstairs.”

Anakin didn’t want to go either. He rather stay by your side the entire night. You were the only reason he went to the party in the first place. Anakin only used the excuse of protection to spend more time with you. You didn’t have much time together left, and Anakin knew that once this mission was done, the Council would send him to the farthest corners of the galaxy. Anakin didn’t know if he would ever be able to see you again, so he wanted to soak up your presence as much as possible. He was about to protest and explain to Cressida that he would prefer to stay with you, but she drew her talons in him before he could speak.

“I promise we don’t bite,” Cressida flirtatiously said before grabbing Anakin by his gloved arm and pulling him toward a couch filled with mutual friends. You mentally swore that you would bite her instead. Cressida’s flirtatious nature normally did not bother you, but she was slowly getting on your nerves now.

Anakin looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with you, an apologetic look gracing his face before he turned his attention to Cressida and walked away with her.

“That nerfherder bitch!” Chione exclaimed to you as you recalled the recent interaction between you and Cressida. You both looked in the refresher’s mirror as you retouched your makeup. You already downed a flute of some fizzy hooch, a warm feeling settling over your stomach as you spoke. Drinking always made you loose-lipped, which is why your best friend was currently cursing Cressida.

“You should just avoid him,” Chione shrugged. You could trust Chione with all your secrets, including your crush on the Jedi. You recounted the dilemma–how attracted you were to Anakin, but you couldn’t do anything about it because the Jedi code forbade any attachments. Your forced proximity to him made the situation worse. You couldn’t escape him over the past few rotations. Each day somehow brought the two of you closer together. It was agonizing. The Maker was cruel and taunting. How dare they throw your life into even more of a whirlwind by introducing Anakin Skywalker? Maybe if Anakin was a regular man, you would have pursued him. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Your whole world has shifted off its hinges since Anakin came into your life. You didn’t know what could fix it, except for Anakin being yours.

“What a load of bantha shit…I don’t know if I can avoid him. That’s what I’ve been telling myself to do! But every time I try, the galaxy pulls us closer. When Gido first told me that they were assigning a Jedi to me, I was scared because I thought it would only bring more trouble. But Anakin…he’s so sweet. We don’t fully know each other yet, but each interaction has brought us closer. I guess I could even consider him a friend. A very handsome friend who I think about more than I should…” you trailed off.

You intentionally left out your earlier conversation with Anakin. Chione didn’t need to know that sensitive information. A deeper part of you disagreed with Chione’s advice; you didn’t want to avoid Anakin, not when you were slowly unraveling the puzzle that he is. You wanted to know him, even if meant you would eventually break your own heart. You hadn’t felt this way about anyone in a few years, and even then, no one had ever made you the same level of intensity that Anakin did. It was intoxicating, and you wanted more of it.

“I love you, but it’s for the best. There’s no way you two could possibly be together. Don’t let yourself fall for him, only for you to be disappointed when he won’t leave the space monks for you. You’re better off finding someone else at this party.” Chione gave you a sad half-smile. You returned her smile with a small eye roll. “I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it.”

Another part of you, a more conscious one, flashed blaring signs in your mind. “Stop! Turn around! Imminent danger ahead!” they said. Perhaps it was out of fear. As much as you wanted to fall head first into Anakin, you didn’t want to deal with his aftermath. When he inevitably leaves, there will be no one to pick up the pieces of your heart. You didn’t even think it was possible to fall for someone so fast. Yet here you were. The signs knew this, and so they warned you of the danger slowly encroaching on your heart–heed Chione’s words.

You knew your best friend was right, even if you didn’t want to admit it out loud. You bit your lip and nodded in agreeance.

Chione then grabbed your head and the two of you walked out of the refresher. You smiled at a few people on the way to the main room. Parties like these were the one of the only few places where you felt normal nowadays. Everyone here was someone, and if they weren’t someone then they were en route to becoming someone. There was a mutual understanding between everyone here–no fawning, no fangirling, and certainly no spilling gossip to the HoloNet. Of course, some people ignored that rule though.

“Wouldn’t that be rude of me to just leave him? I’m the only reason why he’s here. Plus, I don’t want to leave him with Cressida. She’ll dig her claws into him and never let go,” you questioned.

“I don’t know. Anakin appears to be having a great time with Cressida. He’s laughing and smiling,” Chione gestured toward the couch.

You whipped your head toward Anakin’s direction. Chione was right. Anakin was sitting there as he told the story of how he had to crashland on the planet of Mygeeto, only to be met with mastiff phalones. Every single person was focused on Anakin, their eyes never leaving his person. You saw a look of wonder on all of their faces. The feeling of jealousy washed over your body for the second time that night.

You turned away from the sight before it could enrage you anymore. With a nose turned up in the air and a dramatic hair flip, you grabbed Chione again and dragged her to another room in the apartment. If she wanted you to avoid Anakin, fine. You would do exactly that.

You dragged Chione until you reached the new room where lively, upbeat music was playing and a plethora of people danced together.

You quickly grabbed two extra flutes of hooch with your free hand and handed one to Chione. You chugged the flute down, slightly cringing at the taste, before placing it on the silver tray of a server passing by. Chione did the same before hollering, “Let’s dance!”

You shot her a flashy smile, and the two of you made your way into the crowd of energetic, sweaty bodies.

Anakin Skywalker was bored and wanted to get as far away from these people as possible. He thought one or two stories would satisfy their curiosity, but an hour and a half passed since he first sat down and no one was satisfied yet. They wanted to know everything about Anakin. How was life at the Temple? What was it like fighting in the war? Anakin understood their curiosity. He was once a curious boy, and he used to love hearing the tales from the deep space pilots that were stationed on Tatooine. It wasn’t every day that civilians encountered the Jedi, especially now that the Jedi were more off-world than on-world sometimes. It slightly boosted his ego to have an audience so enthralled by him.

At the same time, they all looked at Anakin like a commodity. They didn’t truly care about what Anakin had to say, or about the war at all. He was simply bragging points to them. Everyone would run to their friends and brag about how they met the famous Hero with No Fear after the party ended. Nothing he said would impact them. Whenever you asked Anakin questions about himself, it was different. You were genuine like you wanted to know more about him and not the persona the Republic created. Anakin was captivated by you, which is why he revealed his origins to you earlier. Not even Ahsoka learned the truth about Anakin’s past directly from Anakin–she learned it from Obi-Wan before their mission on Zygerria. Each moment between you two was marked by a saccharine tenderness. It was a type of tenderness that Anakin missed and craved all the time. Despite being a Jedi, Anakin thought of himself as a loverboy. He loved wholly and completely. And although you two were not in love, Anakin could picture himself harboring deep feelings for you. He was at the edge of the cliff, ready to fall into the deep descent of love.

Anakin couldn't escape his current company. His jaw was starting to hurt from fake smiling. As a representative of the Republic and the Jedi organization, he couldn’t exactly be rude towards them just because he wanted to escape and spend time with you. Several times throughout his time on the couch, Anakin saw you interacting with other people as you made your way through the party’s various rooms. Each time he tried to make eye contact with you, you adverted his gaze and turned your attention elsewhere.

You couldn’t possibly be avoiding Anakin, could you? Except for Anakin, it felt like you were avoiding him. You were talking to everyone else but him. Every time he wanted to reach you, he was whisked away into another story. He could have sworn that you purposely turned in the opposite direction every time you made eye contact. But maybe he was overthinking it? Did you see him differently now that you knew he used to be a slave? He felt insecure. No, that couldn’t be it. The way you spoke to him with such empathy signified to Anakin that it wouldn’t affect the way you saw him. He felt it.

Anakin felt paranoid, and he didn’t know why. Why did he care so much anyway? Anakin rationalized with himself. He was supposed to be your protector which is why he was so eager to return to your side. Not because he wanted to talk to you and get to know you more. And definitely not because you were affecting him way more than he would like to admit.

“...so it true that Jedi aren’t allowed to have sex?” asked a Twi’lek woman to Anakin’s left. Anakin’s eyes widened at the question, and a pretty blush rose to his cheeks. Before he could answer, another woman around the couch protested.

“You can’t just ask people that, Almathea! It’s rude…but do you have sex?” she asked with a seductive raise of her eyebrow.

Anakin took this moment as a sign to end the conversation and get back to you. He stood up from the couch in all his 6’2 glory. He was so statuesque, his statue and demeanor demanded attention from everyone he encountered. It was no wonder he was being held hostage by Cressida and her crew.

“My deepest apologies everyone, but I must return to my original duty. I appreciate your curiosity in the Jedi and hope we can cross paths again one day. May the Force be with you all.” Anakin then flashed one last fake smile to the audience before stepping over a few tangled legs and towards the next room. He closed his eyes and narrowed his focus to locate your person. You were still at the party, just in a different room located somewhere in the apartment’s east wing.

The Jedi made his way through the different rooms trying to find you. He passed through people dancing, people playing roulette, some were crying, and some were laughing. It was like a scene from one of Canto Bight’s deluxe, elite casinos. Snippets of gossip and whispers of amazement filtered through Anakin’s ears as he walked closer to your location.

Anakin finally stopped in another room filled with people socializing. The deep baritone notes of a saxophone mixed with a catchy melody danced around the room, shrouding it in a sultry aura. The lighting in this room was low, and the chandelier hanging from the roof was set to the lowest setting possible. If it weren’t for Anakin’s keen eyesight, he almost didn’t make out your figure. Years of dealing with Tatooine’s sandstorms made Anakin’s eyes adept at finding people and objects in otherwise difficult situations. As a child, Anakin always looked toward the colorful fabrics flying at the top of the slave quarters when an incoming sandstorm was happening. If he could find those colorful fabrics flowing in the wind, then Anakin knew he would be safe for another day. Additionally, Anakin had to have a good eye for whenever he worked on his pod racer or tinkered with droid parts.

You were in the far corner of the room, dancing with another male. His hands were on your lower back, resting very closely to your tailbone. Your body was pressed against his and your arms hung tightly around his neck. Anakin couldn’t spot the male’s face because his face was buried in the side of your neck as he whispered something into your ear. Anakin desperately wished he knew what the male was saying to you. You giggled in response. Chione was nowhere to be seen. She separated from you as she conversed with one of her other friends.

Jealousy was the common theme of the night. Earlier in the night, you were jealous at the site of Cressida oogling Anakin. Now, it was Anakin who was jealous. He was jealous that someone else held your attention while Anakin had been craving it all night. Who was this guy? Anakin wondered to himself. Did you have a boyfriend that Anakin didn’t know about? Did he read any signs wrong? Well, there weren’t too many signs to begin with. Anakin did catch one of your stray thoughts from your initial meeting in which you said he was “kriffing gorgeous.” And Anakin may have felt changes in your emotional state around him, but who was he to assume that was because of him? Like that time he was teaching you how to drive your air speeder and he had placed his hands on top of yours as a guide. He felt a spike in your force signature. Everything else consisted of lingering stares, subtle blushes, or conversation Anakin didn’t want to end.

Anakin wouldn’t have been wrong to assume you felt something for him, because you did. He just didn’t know it yet.

The male in front of you was another mutual friend who you met before at a different party. He, Rigel, was a famous musical producer who worked with some of your other musician friends from time to time. Much like Anakin, Rigel had stunning blue eyes. You ran into Rigel with Chione—who decided to play matchmaker by leaving you two alone. You offhandedly mentioned before how you thought Rigel was cute, but that was before Anakin waltzed into your life.

If you were sober, you would’ve never been caught nearly grinding on someone like this in a public place. It may have been a private party, but just one picture could spread rumors like wildfire. You were more media-trained than that. Plus, it wasn’t in your character to randomly become so intimate with another person so quickly. It looks like you took Chione’s advice a little bit too seriously. Well, that was the goal of coming to this party anyway, right?

Truth be told, you could barely understand what Rigel was whispering in your ear. It didn’t matter either way. Your brain was somewhere else, thinking of Anakin. How badly you wanted to grab him by his face and smash your lips together in front of Cressida. You wanted to run your hands through his silky curls. How did he manage to have perfect hair? What type of shampoo and conditioner did Anakin have access to on the field? After you kissed him, you would lead Anakin away from the party and into an empty bedroom where you would lay him on the bed and straddle him then—Wait! What were you thinking? The hooch was having the opposite effect on you. You drank to forget, not to remember. You opened your eyes and furiously blinked as to forget the thoughts. When you closed your eyes again, your brain automatically went to your previous dreamland. It’s almost like you could hear Anakin’s voice from right next to you.

“Excuse me,” interrupted a harsh voice.

You once again opened your eyes only to be met with the site of an annoyed Anakin. You quickly separated yourself from Rigel, who removed his face from your neck and stared unimpressively at the Jedi. Your heart skipped a beat—you weren’t expecting Anakin to appear.

“A-anakin! This is Rigel…” you sheepishly introduced the two. Karking hell, this was so embarrassing! You hated that you were caught in such a compromising position, especially from the person you were trying to avoid. You then pointed to Anakin and took a deep breath before finishing, “Rigel, this is General Anakin Skywalker.” Your body turned into an inferno as the embarrassment rose. You were too drunk for this right now.

The two men sized each other up through their stares before nodding to acknowledge each other.

“We were…um…we were just-“ you stumbled over your words as you tried to find the right ones. Anakin noticed your eyes looked glazed over and a little droopy.

Rigel stepped in to save your sentence. “We were just getting to know each other. Perhaps you can go back to telling your little Jedi stories? I heard they were very entertaining.”

“Perhaps not. Pop star, I believe it’s time we retreat back to your apartment,” Anakin responded with as much sass as possible. Anakin rather freeze alive on Hoth than allow himself to leave you with some seedy character. Anakin asserted dominance by calling you by the nickname he gave to you. He was saying to Rigel that he knew you enough to have a nickname, which was more claim than Rigel had. Not that you were anything to claim, but Anakin’s possessiveness jumped at the sight of you two. Had you told Anakin that you wanted to stay with Rigel, he would’ve left you alone. You were a grown woman after all. However, Anakin’s statement left no room for argument.

You bid Rigel goodbye, before turning to Anakin and hiccupping. You were annoyed. Was this the Maker’s way of telling you that you were meant to be with Anakin? If it was meant to be with Rigel, then it wouldn’t have been interrupted, right? Or was that just your drunk mind trying to rationalize what just happened? It was definitely the latter, you just didn’t recognize it yet.

“Let’s go,” you stated flatly. You began walking. You regretted your choice of wearing such an elaborate floor-length gown, seeing as you had to lift the dress so it wouldn’t drag on the floor. It was no issue earlier, but now that you were drunk, it was becoming a hassle. You couldn’t balance yourself and hold your dress at the same time, especially in the heels you were wearing.

“How much have you had to drink?” Anakin asked as you stumbled to the entrance of the party. Your lipstick was smudged from all the drinks you had, and in your drunken stupor, you failed to reapply it. You couldn’t count how many drinks you downed. Was it seven or ten? It didn’t even matter anymore because five was your usual stopping point.

“I don’t even know. Probably too much for my own good.” You weren’t watching where you were walking as you said that. A piece of your dress slipped under your heel causing you to almost tumble toward the floor. Anakin caught you by your waist before you could fall. It seemed Anakin had a knack for catching you. You straightened yourself off and continued walking.

“Come here for a second,” Anakin said from behind. He stood with his weight on one side, hips beckoning you toward him.

“Why? I thought it was time for us to go,” you rebuttal.

“It’s in your best interest to come back, not mine.”

You turned around and faced Anakin with a sassy look on your face. He only bent down and grabbed a hold of your ankle, “If you must know, I’m doing you the pleasure of taking off your footwear so that you can walk in comfortably. You’ve had too much to drink to walk in these without injuring yourself.” He was talking about a few moments ago when you almost faceplanted into the floor.

Instead of being grateful for Anakin’s chivalry, you decided to tease him instead. It was the only way you knew how to react to his kindness without instantaneously combusting. You were embarrassed still, but you tried to push those feelings aside. You hated dwelling on embarrassment—sometimes it was best to move on without acknowledgment.

“Why do you speak like that?” you asked with a tilt of your head.

Anakin was confused by your question, “Speak like what?”

“You know. You speak so…melodramatic. Like everything you’re saying is a declaration. Your cadence is so fancy. Why If I didn’t know you were a Jedi, I would mistake you for a wealthy socialite,” you giggled. “It’s quite funny actually. You belong on the Opera stage, ready to declare to the entirety of Coruscant. You would be the Hero of the play.”

Anakin looked at you with a deadpan stare. “Do I really speak like that?” It’s something he had never noticed before. Obi-Wan’s mannerisms must’ve rubbed off on Anakin more than he noticed. As you were speaking, Anakin was undoing the straps of your heels. “Well, If I’m the hero, then you must be the damsel in distress.”

You cleared your throat and began mimicking Anakin again, “I do suppose that you speak like that. Why I go by Anakin Skywalker, and I’m a Jedi Knight. I’ve been on many perilous journeys, but the most perilous of them all has been to watch you. No battle droid or distant planet could compare to the chaos of handling an intergalactic singer.” You tried replicating the huskiness and cadence of Anakin’s voice. Instead, it came out sounding like you were recovering from a nasty cough. You poked fun at yourself too.

Anakin laughed at your brazen attempt to make fun of him. He dropped your ankle and grabbed your heels. They hung by their straps as his fingers gripped them with care.

“Very funny. Are you sure you weren’t written by a playwright? You should be more comfortable now that we’ve removed these atrocious heels. You should be able to walk without any hassle now.” You didn’t get a chance to say thank you to Anakin as he started walking toward the entrance.

You lingered behind for a second, taking in the moment. Anakin was too sweet. It was an action so simple yet it had your heart bursting all the same.

Anakin turned around when he felt you weren’t next to him. “Where are you going, pop star?”

You sent Anakin a small smile before responding, “Sorry, I’m coming.” You began walking to him. The two of you exited the party and walked toward the landing bay, where your airspeeder was patiently waiting for you.

When you and Anakin got home, it was dark. The apartment lights were off. The only light that filtered through were the lights from Coruscant’s skyline. A delicate moonlight washed over the apartment, creating a serene and safe atmosphere.

You felt exhausted. The effects of the alcohol wore down on the way home, and you were mostly silent. Chinone left you a message stating she got home safely, so you had nothing to worry about.

You recalled tonight’s events as you rested your eyes. From the intimate moment with Anakin at the start of the party, your scathing feelings toward Cressida, to Chione telling you to forget Anakin, and then being caught with another male by Anakin. Your head was all over the place, and the fast pace of the airspeeder did not help. You would have a lot to think about in the morning. You just wanted to get home for now and drift into Lalaland.

The speeder came to a slow halt as Anakin lowered the vehicle onto your landing platform. He helped you out of the speeder and the two of you went inside your apartment. This night completely drained you and you wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.

Before retreating to your room, you wanted to say one more thing to Anakin.

“Anakin? I just wanted to give you my thanks—not only for coming to the party with me but for opening up and not letting me go home with Rigel. And for the heels,” you confessed

“It was no issue. That’s what my job is for—ensuring your comfort and protection for the time being.”

“Still…thank you. When you first came here, I was scared that it would bring trouble, but you’ve been nothing but helpful and kind. Your mother raised you well.”

In one final act, you leaned and placed a gentle kiss on Anakin’s cheek. You let your lips linger for a moment before separating. You would tell yourself it was the last remaining bits of alcohol in your system tomorrow, but you knew better than that. It was an intentional act you hoped could convey your feelings when you could verbally not.

i saw someone on tiktok say they saw jackson wang host a party in a harry potter fanfic and somelse commented they made jackson wang a senator in their star wars fanfic so i thought i would do the same...iykyk

taglist: @angie2274 @bunnylovesani @0709fullofstars @js-favnanadoongi @payton-dixonreader @attheairportbar @doplit

lmk if you want to be added to the taglist!

#kendra's works !!!#anakin skywalker #anakin fanfiction #anakin x reader #anakin skywalkwer x reader #anakin skywalker x you #anakin x you #star wars fandom #star wars #star wars fanfiction #hayden christensen #tcw anakin #the clone wars #darth vader #darth vader x reader #darth vader x you

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possibilistfanfiction · 1 year

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conservationist au already!? you write so fast dang (what are your secrets) (also it's okay if you want to keep them secret) (mostly i am excite for frog)

here she is! frog au! lol [ao3]

to see us blossom (while the green spreads like wings)

only our feet have been here, that i'm aware of. it's wild and remote and beautiful as can be. i just want to be quiet and love it. let it sink in. i'll be leaving the planet, sometime. and i'll miss it.

— dr. bruce means

'dr. silva,' diego bursts into your office, his hair fluffed and messy, 'i found someone for the expedition!'

'did you... run here?'

'yeah, from the lab.' he gulps a breath. 'i got excited.'

it's fucking awesome that diego, your favorite grad student, is coming on this expedition, but it's becoming a huge pain in the ass to plan — you try your hardest not to feel guilty about why, but it is mostly because of you — and is starting to feel more and more impossible by the day. you don't want to get your hopes up: you don't have that much funding, and it's starting to seem a little bit impossible logistically, even with dr. superion's help. but you'll humor him: 'so who are we taking with us?'

he waits a breath, practically bursting at the seams. 'beatrice zhang.'

'the photographer?'

'she's an experienced climber! you follow her on instagram, right?'

you have gratuitously followed beatrice zhang on instagram for the last four years — for her photography, because it is some of the most beautiful and thoughtful you've ever seen, regardless of the subject matter, but also for the occasional photo of herself, surfing or climbing or behind the camera, particularly delightful if it features her arms in a tank — but diego doesn't need to know that part. 'yes, her work is wonderful for lots of conservationist efforts.' diplomatic, you think, mentally patting yourself on the back.

'and she's hot.'

'i didn't say that.'

diego rolls his eyes.

'anyway, how would we even get her to come with us?'

diego grins. 'i emailed her.'

'what?'

he takes out his phone and shows you her instagram, which, indeed, does have an ‘email’ button, which, obviously, you've never paid attention to before. 'she hasn't responded yet, or her team or whatever, i guess, but i only sent it ten minutes ago. and it went to a legit address and hasn't bounced back, so, i just figured, why not?'

even though, last year, you had had a successful time in guyana, finding and recording a few new species, there are a lot of why not's, really: your GA probably shouldn’t be making these choices without consulting you first, but you don’t really care about that so much as your mobility is more limited than ever lately. the weather probably won't hold so who the fuck knows if it'll even be possible to reach to spot at all. and, plus, it's for a frog. one tiny frog, that may or may not exist — (you're sure it does) — in the middle of a jungle on the top of a tepui that's never been climbed. it's... a little crazy, when you think through it now, way crazier than it had seemed when you wrote the grant for funding last year. most people, even world renowned war-turned-wildlife photographers with insane biceps — especially them, probably — aren't interested in a project like this.

'well, the least that will happen is she doesn't respond,' you figure; you don't believe in any religion and life had dealt you quite the shitty hand for a long time, so if there's any balancing it out, maybe this will be a strike in the good column for you. so, 'yeah, you're right. why not?'

it's two days later when your phone vibrates about seven times; you roll over in... some girl's bed? okay, solid night, then, and when you look over at her, she's beautiful and fast asleep. you remember your fifth shot of tequila and vaguely how great riding her dick had been; you find your phone graciously plugged into a charger on the nightstand on your side of the bed, and when you go to the bathroom you see condoms in the small trash can — so, all in all, a success. your back is sore but not terrible and you groan when you see it's only six am, but there's texts from diego and you have a policy not to ignore those, no matter how stupid they occasionally can be.

these are unequivocally not stupid, though, because they start with dr. silva! and then ava!!!!! ava! and devolve into some emojis and then omg oh my god and finally check your email, which is really the only helpful part of that — but they're not stupid because when you do check your email, you see a forwarded message from diego first. it's a cordial reply to the email he had sent to beatrice zhang, from her, it seems, asking politely to be put in touch with the lead biologist on the expedition if possible. which, you remember with the tiniest bit of a happy jolt, is you. you open the newest email, which is, in fact, connecting you and beatrice. she’s already responded, and it’s kind of wild because, from the three short sentences asking if you could set up a video chat to talk more about the expedition or, if she happened to be close to where you were in the world, even meet near your office or lab for coffee, she sounds, well, at least interested. you don't think someone like her — someone who has photographed war, and famine, and wildfires, and, miraculously last year, a snow leopard and her cub — would even respond to something she didn't care at all about.

holy shit, you text diego. you need a cup of coffee, or, like, maybe three cups of coffee, and a breakfast sandwich before you can respond to that email, so you decide to get a move on. plus, it feels unhinged to respond to it from your phone, so you need to go home anyway. you should also maybe definitely shower, you think, as you look at yourself in the mirror: your makeup is a little smudged and your hair is an unrepentant mess. still hot though, you think when you quietly find your clothes and put your bra on, a deep teal that makes your boobs look awesome. thankfully, you were just in high-waisted, loose jeans and a cropped sweater last night, so after you wash your face and get dressed, it's not really giving walk of shame — walk of pride, thank you very much.

you google maps where you are and, thankfully, it's a nice enough morning and a short enough distance that you can walk to your favorite cafe and then to your apartment without having to call an uber. you grab your cane from where you'd left it propped up by the wall near the bed, and then, because you're definitely not an asshole, gently shake your, well, one night stand's shoulder. her eyes are green, and you do remember that much.

'i gotta go do some work, sorry.'

she nods. 'right. doctor.'

well, maybe you're a little bit of an asshole, but it's not your fault that people think you're a very important neurosurgeon or something. you are very important in cataloguing biodiversity, so you just roll with it. 'thanks for a great time.'

she nods with a soft smile, and it's nice to kiss her, gently, goodbye.

'wait, you're meeting with her? here?'

'yes,' you say, mostly annoyed at camila's vaguely unhinged energy. 'she's close by train, so it's better to meet in person.'

'oh my god,' camila says. she's one of your best friends and probably the smartest, most tech-savvy person you know. when you figured out how helpful it would be to have someone operate drones for you on this expedition, you hadn't even bothered to ask anyone else.

'don't you know her?'

'well, sure,' camila confirms. 'i did some drone work for her a few months ago in the bahamas when she was photographing sharks. but, like, she's amazing, ava.'

'well, hopefully she'll say yes.'

'you'll have to charm her.'

'i'm very good at charming hot women.'

camila rolls her eyes.

'i'm also very good at charming people to go find frogs with me.'

she waits for a beat and then relents. 'well, i suppose that's true.'

'come on,' you say, 'help me make a slide deck. i feel like she'd think that's sexy or something.'

'you're ridiculous.'

'it'll work, i'm telling you.'

beatrice zhang in soft wool pants and closed-toed birkenstocks and a crewneck sweater sitting ramrod straight at the decent cafe just off campus near your office is, quite honestly, not a sight you'd ever expected to see, but it is kind of a miracle. or, at least that's what it had felt like, when she had emailed that she was, actually, a few hours away by train and wouldn't mind a day trip to meet in person. you're glad that you wore your best professor outfit today, flared navy slacks that make your ass look divine, and a crisp white button up that you tucked in tight and rolled up at the sleeves, a camel peacoat and expensive loafers that dr. salvius had gotten you when you passed your dissertation two years ago. you usually wear... well, not this — you reserve this for conferences and presentations — but, if looking professional helps beatrice sign onto this project, so be it.

and, well, maybe it's not strictly professional to undo another button as you had walked to the cafe, and, like, you don't actually know if beatrice is gay or not, but you spot her and smile and wave and her eyes get big for a moment, and you’re afraid you’ve got it all wrong: you’re small and young and pretty and, sometimes, people think that disqualifies you from being smart. but then her eyes rake over you and linger, for just a moment, on your chest, so you're probably right. if this helps too, so be it.

you wave and she stands very formally; she clearly recognizes you, which makes you feel a small thrill of satisfaction. 'hey, glad you found it okay.'

'i've had much more difficult locations to navigate before, although the freshman can be a bit scary.'

it's deadpan, so it takes you a split second, but then you laugh and offer your hand. 'i'm dr. silva.' you want to roll your eyes at your title, which you normally feel quite proud of, all of a sudden. 'ava, any pronouns.'

'dr. silva,' she says anyway, and shakes your hand firmly. 'it's a pleasure. i'm beatrice, she/her.'

only after do you sit, a little sprawled, and prop your cane up on the table, does she sit too, and then looks down at the menu. 'do you recommend anything? i haven't had lunch yet.'

'well, if you're like, uh... —' falling prey to diet culture, you think, but you don't know beatrice at all, so — 'wanting a vegetable forward option, their salads and quinoa bowls are okay.'

she wrinkles her nose. you hide a smile in the collar of your coat.

'but their kimchi fried chicken sandwich is my favorite.'

'and the slaw?'

'well, i'm a fries girl.'

she smiles over the top of her menu, just slightly.

'but my friend likes the slaw, and i trust her.'

she nods and sets her menu down, her wrists resting on the edge of the table, her hands clasped. a practical smart watch, no wedding band. her full attention is on you and it makes you feel a little breathless.

you're saved from saying something incredibly dumb — you're very, very smart, and you're actually very good at flirting, but beatrice zhang is hot as hell and a certified badass and you also really want her to be, like, your colleague — when your server comes to your table. you both order, and you get the fried chicken sandwich too, even though you already ate lunch an hour ago — diego's always happy to eat your leftovers out of the fridge in the lab anyway.

you're not saved from saying something marginally dumb, though, because beatrice kindly thanks your server and hands over her menu and then looks at you again, fully focused.

'i like your hair,’ you say, instead of, well, anything else. you want to groan and slam your head down into the table, or something, because beatrice's brows knit together and she brings one hand to run through her floppy middle part, short in the back and on the sides, pushing it out of her eyes.

'oh,' she says, softly and definitely confused. 'thank you.'

you're sure you're blushing. 'sorry, i just, like, the last time you posted — you had long hair.'

it's mortifying, the moment you say it, because you can mentally calculate the last time beatrice posted a picture of herself on her instagram, and it was definitely over a year ago.

she also seems to realize this, because her confusion turns to a smug little smile that could probably eat you alive. you'd definitely let it.

'i read about the last species of frog you discovered, when the article came out.'

that was also over a year ago, and you laugh, tension releasing from your shoulders. 'so that’s how you knew what i looked like.’

‘sure.’

to be fair, the article did include a picture of you, muddy and sweaty and overjoyed, holding a tiny frog in the palm of your hand, but, ‘did you google me?’

‘i only take on projects, at this point, that i find interesting.’

‘so you think i’m interesting.’

she raises a brow, a scar that also wasn’t there over a year ago running an inch above it and then straight through, cleanly healed but not faded yet, stopping right on the top of her cheek — thankfully your brain didn't comment on that, even though it's kind of hot too. ‘i think that fact that you've already identified six new species of frog two years into an assistant professorship is interesting.’

'so that's a yes.' you grin. ‘want me to tell you about the project, then?'

she thanks your server when he brings her water and your lemonade of the day, and a coffee, and then leans forward in her seat. ‘yes,' she says. 'i do.’

you tell her about it as coherently as you can: you're sure there's a brand new species of frog — maybe more than one, if you're lucky — on the top of a land mass deep in the forest in guyana. you've secured enough funding to make it happen; bare bones, but still. you have diego and yasmine, your grad students, and michael, another assistant professor in your apartment who's helped you on expeditions before, mostly by carrying a bunch of shit. you've gotten camila — who beatrice is also very excited to work with again — to sign on to do tech work for you. dr. superion and dr. salvius are helping from here.

'so, anyway, i need you to climb the tepui.'

beatrice sits back when you're done, flicks through a few slides on your laptop that you'd handed to her with pictures of the jungle, the cliff face, the budget outlines and logistics and equipment you anticipate you'll need.

'do you know a lot about climbing?'

it's kind — to not assume that you don't; to not expect you to either. you shake your head no.

'i'm an alpinist, for the most part,' she says, 'which means that i climb, well —' she pauses.

'no need to be modest for me.'

she offers a small smile. 'i've climbed eight of the ten tallest mountains in the world.'

hot, you think, but you take a deep breath instead and say, 'that's impressive.' nailed it.

'yes, well.' she blushes. 'thank you. but this kind of climbing is traditional climbing — big wall climbing.'

'oh.' you frown. 'so, you can't do it?'

'i can,' she says, 'and i'd like to. i think i know enough of biology to be marginally helpful, and i can certainly photograph the expedition.'

your heart soars, warming your whole body, and you take a bite of your lukewarm sandwich to hide your smile.

'but i'll need a team. i'm confident that i'll be able to get up the wall, but i'm not experienced enough at this kind of climbing to lead on all of these passes.'

'we might not have the funds to pay much, if you bring on more people.'

she shakes her head. 'i have access to plenty of discretionary funds, so that shouldn't be a problem.'

'that's hot.' well, you tried.

she laughs, thank god. 'i just wanted to make sure that you and your team are okay with me bringing other people on.'

'as long as they aren't, like, shitty, you know. racist, homophobic, ableist. all that stuff.'

she nods, very seriously. 'i can assure you that, while one of my climbing partners is inclined to be an asshole, it's always done with respect toward important identities. she's more annoying than anything. and my other partner is the best person i know.'

'well, other than me, now.'

you can tell beatrice is torn between smiling and rolling her eyes; she does a bit of both. 'and, as far as logistics go, i could easily provide a helicopter to get us in as far as possible. less of a hike.'

it's impossible that beatrice didn't see your cane. 'i have adaptive equipment for myself. i can do the hike.'

but her brows knit together. 'yes, i assumed so: you're leading the expedition. i just meant, for my team at least, the fewer miles we have to bring photography and climbing gear in a jungle, the better. it's heavy, and then we have to do a major climb.'

'oh.' you bite your bottom lip. 'that makes sense. sorry, people suck sometimes.'

'i imagine so.' she looks at you very sincerely. 'i'm sorry.'

you wave her off. 'thanks. it is what it is, though.'

beatrice doesn't try to argue, although you can tell that maybe she wants to. 'anyway, whatever you think will help your team, and whatever will help mine, that falls outside of your grant funds, i can cover.'

'that's — are you sure?'

she nods. 'quite.'

'where did you get these discretionary funds?' you can't help asking.

'a bad man,' she says, leaning forward and whispering dramatically. it makes you laugh.

'ooh, did you kill him? warlord?'

'alas, no. my father, and he's already dead.'

'ah.' you snap your fingers. 'well, if another opportunity comes up, you just let me know. i have tons of lethal neurotoxins in my lab. i'm always down to... you know — murder —' you whisper — 'a billionaire. long haul ethics, you know?'

she nods very solemnly, fighting a smile. 'i'll keep that under advisement.'

you fight the urge to ask her for a drink, and you definitely stare at her mouth a little too long, but then you get it together and offer your hand. 'well, partners?'

she shakes it, hers strong and rough with callouses. the thought sends a little shiver up your spine, but you valiantly ignore it. 'partners.'

beatrice invites you, after a few days of emailing back and forth to create an updated budget and logistics plan, to meet at a climbing gym. it's to meet her other two team members first. before you all get together with your main crew for dinner afterward. she'd given you their names, headshots, and very formal bios, which you had kind of loved: lilith, who, according to beatrice's bio, will be the lead climber. when you google her, you find out that she's, like, a world champion big wall climber, so that bodes well. and then mary, another photographer and world class marksman — I know this isn't particularly relevant, beatrice had included as a footnote, but it is quite impressive — and avid climber too.

you're hopeful about it all, and you're hopeful that tonight maybe she just wants to see you alone, and to have you watch her climb. there's, like, a two percent chance you'll physically be able to climb, really, but that's fine. she'd texted you about it, far less formal than her perfectly punctuated emails, so that's a good sign. and she'd posted a recent picture someone took of her — a candid, petting the trunk of an elephant peacefully — on her instagram too. maybe that was scheduled — beatrice seems like the kind of person who would schedule instagram posts — but a girl can hope, you know? you liked it one hour and fourteen minutes after she posted, from the lab's social media account and not your personal one, so you figure you've handled this all perfectly. you're great, beatrice is a colleague, and you've got this.

you're stressed about what to wear to a climbing gym and then to get dinner afterward, although there's probably a locker room or something, but it's fine. you're hot in anything. (or nothing. not that the night is going to go there.) you settle on tight leggings you wear to the gym and a sports bra, a cropped jacket on over. it's, like, cute and femme, but also practical. you brush on some mascara and put part of your hair into a little bun so it won't fall into your eyes, and you pack a spare change of clothes in a canvas tote — slacks and a nice bra and a t-shirt that hugs your body perfectly along with a pair of platform converse and an army-green overshirt — in case everyone else changes before going to dinner.

you grab your cane and head out the door.

if you fall to your death, it's definitely not going to be because of your back or legs. it's going to be because beatrice is in loose pants that seem comfortable for climbing and a tight racerback tank, and when you walk in, she's hanging by one arm on a short wall, just chilling out there, before she seems to decide what she wants to do. she brings her legs up to find footholds and then she's almost upside down, holding onto the wall with both hands calmly and moving so fluidly — a leg stretching out, her chalked fingers grasping onto a tiny hold. there's a delicate tattoo along her right forearm, all linework, and there are scars all over her left shoulder, running down to her elbow from what you can see: some are jagged and some are clean, neat, like surgical incisions. they don't seem to be limiting her progress at all, because she moves over the outhanging ledge easily and then to the top before just letting go and calmly rolling to her feet after she lands without a sound.

the — very hot — woman, lilith, you know from the headshot, sitting on the floor next to the wall, legs outstretched, leaning back on her palms set flat on the ground behind, and looking impossibly graceful while doing it, groans.

'getting stuck that long on a soft V8? come on, beatrice.'

beatrice, to her credit, just shrugs.

'shoulder?' the other woman asks.

'it's fine,' beatrice says. 'just getting back into the groove of your tiny walls.'

'oh, ha ha.'

'8091 meters will really change your perspective. you should try it sometime.'

'no thanks, i'll stick to my world records, thank you very much.'

they seem like they might physically fight, but then they both start laughing. weird, but you fuck with it.

beatrice turns, her hands on her hips, and, like, whew, god fucking bless, and then waves with a smile when she sees you. she walks over. 'hello ava.'

'hey,' you say, suddenly feeling a little awkward: you have not a single idea what you're doing. 'that was pretty impressive.'

'it was not,' the lilith says.

beatrice heads toward her anyway, and you follow. 'you can ignore her most of the time,' she says. 'dr. silva, this is lilith. lilith, dr. silva.'

'just ava.' you look at beatrice with a raised brow. 'please.'

lilith lazily salutes. 'ava, then. our illustrious leader, i hear. beatrice is making me lead a 1000 foot first ascent for a frog?'

'i'm not making you do anything,' beatrice says, and lilith grumbles like a teenager. it's funny, and you decide that you like her then and there, even if she scares you a little. she scares you a little more when she gracefully gets to her feet. she's tall and imposing, with a sharp face and long hair braided back, more wiry than beatrice's bigger muscles, but — you're sure — just as strong.

she offers her hand, which you shake. 'in my defense,' you say, 'it is a very cool frog. we can even name it after you, if you want.'

this seems to amuse her, because there's a hint of a smile on her face. 'i do like first ascents anyway.'

'see,' you say, 'that's the spirit.'

'ava,' beatrice says, 'no pressure, but i thought you might find it fun to try climbing. only if you'd like.'

'i'm, uh —' you gesture a little clumsily with your cane, the tips of your ears turning red. 'not sure that i can?'

'mary is an adaptive climbing instructor,' beatrice says, gesturing over to the taller wall with ropes connected through pulleys at the top, where a strong Black woman with perfectly neat braids and a dark outfit on is sorting through a few harnesses on the ground. 'but if you'd rather not climb, lilith and i are just finishing up. we can show you a few things we've been practicing in anticipation for the route, and then change and go to dinner.'

beatrice doesn't say either choice with any more or less merit, or worth, or importance: they're choices, and they're yours, and they won't affect how much she trusts you or believes in the expedition. lilith is checking her phone, uninterested at this point, and you decide, as you always have, to try.

'yeah, sure. i have no idea what adaptive climbing is, though.'

beatrice smiles and lilith stays on her phone, texting. 'that's fine. i have no idea about ninety percent of what you study.'

'i find that hard to believe. you're a wildlife photographer.'

she hums, softly touching your elbow and then walking toward mary. 'conservationist photography, sure. but i'm not a biologist.'

you make a note that beatrice doesn't really like wildlife photographer as a job title, although she was polite enough to not outright tell you so. 'well, i'm not a climber, so, quid pro quo?'

'ah, but you will be after tonight,' mary says, standing with a smile and offering her hand. 'dr. silva, right?'

'just ava,' you tell her, endeared by the fact that beatrice had probably been very formally saying dr. silva to her team this entire time. you shake mary's hand as firmly as you can and feel immediately a little more relaxed with the confident, easy way she holds her shoulders, her kind smile, her bright eyes.

'beatrice and i go way back,' she says. 'this project of yours sounds amazing. i was excited when she asked if i wanted in.'

'of course i'd ask,' beatrice says, bumping mary in the shoulder, who rolls her eyes fondly.

'well, beatrice said you were promised an adaptive climbing lesson.'

'if you're still in,' beatrice says, 'mary can show you the ropes.' she laughs at herself. 'literally.'

mary groans, but you're delighted. 'well, don't leave me hanging.'

'no. not another bad pun aficionado. please.'

beatrice grins and you sling an arm over her slightly sweaty and delightfully strong shoulders. she stiffens a little, and mary looks to her for a moment, and you're worried you've overstepped, and fast. but then beatrice relaxes.

you step back and gesture between the two of you happily. 'is this our thing now?'

'if trading terrible puns is wrong, then i don't want to be right.'

mary groans. 'not sure why i agreed to this trip after all.'

'we can name a frog after you, if you want,' you offer.

mary perks up. 'really?'

'yeah,' you say, 'sure. i've already named one after myself and given five others the dumbest, gayest names i could think of.'

'i'm back in, then.'

you laugh. 'well, let's rock and try not to roll.'

mary sighs, but beatrice's muffled laugh into your shoulder is way worth it.

Hi Ava, I'll be in town today to get some equipment squared away. I was wondering if maybe you'd like to have dinner if you're free. No shop talk, unless you want

you read and reread the text. you'd gone over shitty — expected, but still shitty — test results from an mri at your neurologist's earlier today, and, even though your team seemed to gel the other night, and all of your logistics are much less daunting now that beatrice has covered some of them financially, you had planned to stay home in your favorite boxers and most comfortable hoodie and wallow with a mediocre bottle of wine and good pizza and great reality tv.

but — hey, that sounds sweet. any places in mind?

beatrice texts back almost immediately. I don't know the area too well. You can pick, if you'd like

like, you're colleagues. you're about to be in one of the most remote parts of the world together in five days, with just a handful of other people, for weeks, maybe longer. you're the leader of the expedition but beatrice is, in important ways, a leader too. she's smart and beautiful and handsome and focused. if it's a date, incredible; if it's not, you still want to know her, you still want to spend time in her gentle warmth.

any food allergies/hatred?

she responds, No, I'm pretty adventurous

still, no clarity, but you set a place and time — one of your favorite tapas restaurants with a great little bar and, if it gets late enough, a good dance floor — and then set about getting ready. you eat a banana and take ibuprofen, which hopefully will help you be able to dance without much pain, and then get as pretty as you deem not desperate for a normal dinner with a colleague to be. which, it's you, so you're still very, very pretty, including one of your very best cleavage tanks. you finish your eyeliner perfectly and blow yourself a little kiss in the mirror. for good luck, or whatever. it's science.

'i got tired of it,' beatrice says. 'war photography is...' she pauses, and shakes her head, like she doesn't quite know what to tell you. you're totally sure she's not telling the truth, not really, but you know not to push, to spook her away. 'i could leave,' she settles on. 'as much as i hate the west, as much as i hate american and european, especially british, foreign policy, and its destruction of the world — i got to take pictures, and leave. at first, i thought it was something important i could do, to record the truth. political inherently, anti-imperialist, without being in politics. but, i was in occupied palestine, and, then, after —' she clears her throat, brings her fingers up to ghost over the scar through her brow — 'after. i couldn't do it. they're wars because of my history — our collective history — but they weren't my wars. they aren’t my wars. i can’t photograph them, at least right now. because i got to leave.'

you're horrified that she might start to cry — which isn't horrifying, not at all, you cry all the time, but you're supposed to be having a nice meal with your colleague and you had asked what you thought was an innocuous question about how she got into her more recent conservationist work, but clearly, not innocuous. you're starting to think, with a kind of clarity you very rarely have about anyone, that nothing about beatrice herself is innocuous. even her collarless button down and loose pants cuffed at the ankles — and the way all of her clothes, ever practical, drape with a tailored casualness on her small, strong frame — her easy hair that’s always actually perfectly trimmed and styled, the pattern of callouses on her hands: everything about her is intentioned. she means what she says. she means what she does. she means who she is.

'i started studying frogs with my mom,' you offer. it's true, and you mean who you are too.

she takes a sip of her water and nods in what you can tell is a quiet relief.

'my family is from manaus. my mom wasn't a scientist or anything, she was a bank teller, but when i was little, we'd go out often. she loved the rainforest, so, you know, i loved the rainforest.'

beatrice smiles gently. 'that sounds beautiful.'

you stare down at a croqueta and tear a small piece of it off, let the old ache fill your chest. 'she died, when i was seven.'

'oh,' beatrice says, 'i —'

'— it was a long time ago,' you say.

'sometimes that doesn't make it hurt any less.'

it's permission, to feel how you need to. most people accept when you tell them that and move on in relief, unwilling or unable to give you the space. but beatrice sits steadily. 'i broke my back, during the car accident we were in; we were visiting spain and, well. i had to relearn to walk. it took a really long time, and the orphanage i grew up in wasn't big on good physical therapy or really any care, so i taught myself what i could outside of school, got into university, got good medical care for the first time, like, ever. and i started studying biology. i went back to the rainforest as soon as i could, as a research assistant, and guyana was ... it's mind-blowing, bea.'

she weighs it all in contemplative silence for a moment, trying to decide what you need; what relief she can give. ‘i can't wait to see. i've always wanted to go.'

it is relief, what you feel, to be so immediately seen and understood. 'well, it's not just anyone i'd want to bring to the rainforest. my mom's favorites were always frogs, so —' you shrug, suddenly a little at a loss.

'so here we are, about to go find another.'

you pop the croqueta into your mouth, feel the dull pain in your chest dissipate when you realize you're close enough to beatrice's face to see her freckles. 'i have spinal stenosis, from the accident. it's progressing pretty fast, even with the best medical team, tech, surgeries, all that.'

she nods, like she understands what you mean without making you have to say it. it's a gift, bigger than she probably knows.

'i really want to find that fucking frog.'

'well,' she says, and lifts her glass, 'to finding our frog.'

'you know, it's bad luck to toast with water.'

she frowns. 'i don't usually drink.'

'you're very... controlled.'

she waits a beat and then grins. 'okay, one beer.'

'fuck yeah!'

'one, ava.'

'mhm. whatever you say, bea.'

'i have to take the train back,' beatrice argues — or, at least, tries to argue, because her eyes drift down to your boobs when you take your sweater off. success.

'you can just stay at my place. i have a mediocre ikea couch.'

'i can't let you sleep on your own couch.'

you laugh. 'oh, you definitely get the couch. i need all the good mattress support i can get before i sleep in a tent for a month.'

she smiles, gently and a little sad, but then the moment passes, a kind of grace. 'fine.'

'really?'

the set of her shoulders is looser but still sure, still so, so certain. 'yes.'

'hell yeah!' she laughs. 'shots?'

beatrice pulls a face but you order lemon drops anyway, mostly because vodka seems neutral and they're a good shot for people who don't drink often, sweet and tangy and fun. beatrice sniffs hers first — bold move, big mistake most of the time — but then nods in approval.

'to our frog,' you say, and she clinks her glass with yours. you touch it to the bartop and she follows suit, and then take it as smoothly as you can. it's an easy drink, so you don't have any problems, and she swallows without too much of a grimace. 'okay?'

'it's not bad,' she says, and your whole body hums, probably because of the two margaritas you had with dinner and this shot now, but also because there are freckles stretching across her cheeks and gold flecks in her brown eyes and if you let yourself look closely a tiny split on her lip, probably from the dry, cool air recently.

you shake yourself out of... whatever that was, and you order two more shots; she takes hers without hesitation this time, laughing when you spill a little down your cheek. she reaches a hand and wipes with her strong hand, tender, over the corner of your mouth, down to your jaw, and then clears her throat, takes her hand back quickly, although you want to ask for her to stay. but instead, 'come on, bea,' you say, 'let's dance!'

she only groans in a show of protest for posterity, you're sure, because she's very strong and you're very small and when you tug on her wrists she follows you easily.

you love to dance; you have always loved to dance: what little you remember of your mom is full of green, the rainforest and the wall of your living room. she would push back all the furniture to the edges, just the two of you in a small apartment, where you slept in the same bed and ate fruit from the trees outside. she would put on britney spears and jump around with you; she would put on stevie nicks and hold you in her arms, swaying around. she was full of light, from what you remember, always ready to read to you, in portugese and in english; to help you with your math and your handwriting. she cut your food for you and bought you new shoes when yours wore through the soles. she had been a good mom in the way good moms are: happy to hold your hand, to rub her nose against yours, to let you eat the batter off the spoon. you don't remember much, not before the accident, but it had been easy, and beautiful — the mist and orchids and green, all around.

beatrice is a little stiff until you start jumping around, fully out of time with the music, just to make her laugh. and she does, a smile lighting up her whole face. her body is graceful like this too, like it's always somehow known exactly how to move. you wonder, fleetingly between songs, what she was like as a child, if she was as sure and smart and kind as she is now. someone crowds into her space from behind and then you're not thinking of anything other than the tickle of her hair against your cheek as she presses into you, the lilt of her laugh into your ear, the hard muscles of her shoulders and the soft, small swell of her hips when you bring your palms to rest there. you're drunk and she's beautiful, and you've kissed lots of beautiful people when you've been drunk. but she closes her eyes and sways to the beat and it's like the rest of the world falls away. it's like there's only you and beatrice and the cloud forest, above anything else that has harmed and will harm again. there's her gold skin and scars and tattoos hidden under her shirt, the healed slices down your spine, the air between your bodies: sweaty, sticky with spilled drinks, thumping bass, everyone else in this bar. there's only the two of you, and it's a little like you've been punched in the gut: you're falling in love with her. it's easy, right now, to put a name to it all, when you can look at her jaw without reproach.

she opens her eyes and looks at you, a smile on her face, and leans in your direction. it's easy, to bring your hand to touch where you had been staring, to say, 'bea,' as she laughs into your neck, says, 'this is so fun, thank you.' it's hard to not kiss her, but she's ... extraordinary, and you don't want your first kiss to be in the middle of a mid-at-best dance floor after a few shots. you want it to be somewhere beautiful. somewhere you already know; somewhere you're certain she'll love.

'let's go home,' you say, because you had done another round somewhere between songs and she's slightly unsteady on her feet. she nods into your neck and you take her hand.

you walk back to your apartment with her, one arm looped through hers — 'very gallant,' you'd said when she'd offered, and even in the dim light from the moon and streetlamps you had seen her blush — and your other hand using your cane. she had found it for you, tucked behind where you had been sitting at the bar; she hadn't asked anything about why you didn't use it when you were dancing, or why you need it now. you know so many good people and you organize a lot with some of your other friends who work with the disability center at the university, but there is some kind of a revelation about being seen so wholly.

but maybe you're also just a little drunk, because she sways a bit as you walk and her accent is lilting, tender, her hair messy in her eyes. it's probably as soft as it looks; you had lost your hair tie somewhere between shots two and three and you tuck yours behind your ear. you have so many questions you want to ask her but you hold them in because she looks up at the moon and the stars and it's enough, to be here with her. to know her laugh, now, and the way she has hurt too.

it's enough to just walk.

it hadn't actually taken too much convincing — after you unlocked the door and gave her some choices in pajamas, soft sleep shorts and a big cotton crew her eventual choices, and gotten her a glass of water and a few cheddar crackers — to get her to agree to sleep in your bed with you. perhaps it had been because your couch is ... an unknown number of years old — 'listen, bea, phd students make, like, no money, and it was twenty bucks on craigslist three years go' — or maybe, maybe, it's because she just wants to.

you settle in first, listen to her brush her teeth with a spare toothbrush you'd given her, and wash her face with your facewash — that she had frowned at, accidentally rude but pretty funny and, like, fair, you got it from the drug store on the corner and you're sure she has a whole understated fancy little routine when she's not out in the field — and then wash her hands after going to the bathroom. you love sex, so you sleep with people often. you've had a boyfriend before, that you cared about deeply, so there's some parts of intimacy that are familiar to you, of course. but this, beatrice carefully climbing into bed next to you, with her freckles and her eyelashes and the pink of her lips, is different: you're not going to kiss her, not right now. you're not going to reach out and put your palm on her jaw like you want to, or feel the warm skin of her ribs, the goosebumps that would inevitably rise there if you raked your nails across the ridges. you're not going to because, you know, somewhere elemental in you, that you want to know her, and love her, for a long time. you want to take her to the rainforest.

'where's your favorite place in the world?' you ask instead, whisper it into the dark, the soft outline of her face.

she's turned toward you, her hands tucked carefully under her chin; it makes her look younger. 'tibet. the himalayas.'

'makes sense. you and your big mountains.'

'what's the last mountain you... summited?'

'annapurna. it's the tenth tallest in the world.' she pauses, considering. 'are we playing twenty questions?'

her eyelids are drooping. 'i don't think you're going to be awake for twenty questions.'

she laughs softly. 'i want to ask you one, though.'

'hmm. sure. two to four questions, then.'

'do you... uh, well, okay. do you like women?'

it's so awkward, so out of place for someone so sure, that you have to fight the urge to burst out in laughter. but it's also soft, and nervous, her eyes wide. it makes you feel sixteen again, full of possibility. 'yeah, bea. i'm bi. i love women.'

she nods, tucks her hands even tighter under her chin, lets a big relieved breath out. 'cool.'

'yeah?'

'mhm. i'm a lesbian, if you didn't know.'

you want to say you're the gayest looking person i've ever met but you refrain. for the romance of it all. 'good to know.'

she tries hard to wink and fails miserably. you let yourself, just once, just for a moment, reach out and run your hand through her hair. she leans into your touch, relaxes under it, before you fold yourself back onto your side of the bed. 'you have one more question.'

'so do you.'

'okay. hmm. favorite ice cream flavor?'

she laughs. 'that's what you want to know.'

you nod. 'it's very important information.'

'okay.' she thinks hard about it, genuinely. 'mint chocolate chip?'

'that's so boring, jeez.'

'oh, i'm sorry. simple combinations of dynamic tastes is probably too sophisticated for you to understand.'

'okay, ratatouille.'

she tries, a valiant effort, to not crack a smile, but she eventually does. 'okay, my turn. favorite color?'

you let your eyes fall closed and imagine it all, the sharp thorns and the torrential rain and the chirp of the neon blue frog you'd found last time. you think about taking her there. 'green, of course,' you tell her, a promise, a future in the clouds. 'green.'

#conservationist au #conservationist au 🐸#ft butch bea but we gotta have different tags lol but she's here #just ch1 but ch2 is the expedition!#avatrice #avatrice fic #wn #wn fic #frog au #i guess bc y’all love that lol

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cilil · 6 days

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Day 7 ~ Remembrance & New Beginnings

AN: My contribution for day 7 of @silmarillionepistolary and quick side note: I am aware that the Hobbits are said to stay on Tol Eressëa, but I prefer to hc that they went to the gardens of Lórien to hang out with Irmo and be healed by Estë and possibly visited other locations in Valinor as well.

𓂃🖋 Characters/pairings: Bilbo & Manwë 𓂃🖋 Synopsis: Bilbo receives an invitation from the Elder King himself. 𓂃🖋 Warnings: / 𓂃🖋 Oneshot (~600 words) | AO3

Dear Mr. Baggins,

I hope you are well and enjoy your stay in the gardens of Lórien.

It has come to my attention that, during your time in Middle-earth, you wrote a book about your adventures. Now, I hear that you didn't take said book with you on your journey — which, as sad as it may be for those among us who love and cherish such stories, myself included, was a wise choice. It appears that written records are currently the safest and most convenient way to preserve tales and knowledge for future generations of Ilúvatar's mortal children.

Even so, your memories remain, and I have been wondering if you would like to tell us about your adventures. My wife and I, as well as our friends, would love to listen. Your stories could, if you wish, also be recorded for the libraries of Valinor — though do not worry, you will of course not have to write everything down again, our dear friend Vairë and her Maiar would be happy to do so for you.

I am certain you have wonderful tales for us, Mr. Baggins, and my birds tell me that you are a very entertaining storyteller as well. What they have told me over the years was lovely already, though their record of events would naturally pale in comparison to yours.

Please let me know if you would be willing to entertain such a request. Either way, we would be honoured to have you as a guest, should you choose to visit us on Taniquetil — or, alternatively, we can also visit you in Lórien. The other Ring-bearers are, of course, welcome as well; after all they have their own stories to tell.

I look forward to hearing from you.

King regards, Manwë Súlimo

Pleased with himself, Bilbo folded the letter and caressed the fine paper. He reached out with his free hand to pet the bird that had delivered it to him — some species of falcon, if he wasn't mistaken — and smiled when it leaned into his touch without question.

Even the animals are different here in the Undying Lands.

"Well, wouldn't you know that," Bilbo mumbled, addressing no one in particular, "who would have thought that an old Hobbit like me could get a letter from the Elder King himself?"

He omitted the fact that he hadn't been entirely sure of his existence at times and instead thought of the birds Manwë had mentioned. So he had heard bits and pieces of his grand tales before, brought to him by them? Bilbo thought about the birds he had seen in the Shire, mostly tiny songbirds, and how they may have listened to idle Hobbit gossip and brought it home to their esteemed lord.

To think that the Elder King may have heard us argue about silverware... The thought made him chuckle, and he carefully pocketed the letter.

As for Manwë's request, Bilbo already knew what his answer would be. Of course he was going to seize the opportunity to tell the King and Queen of Arda about his adventures — especially when at least one of them seemed curious, which was quite flattering to say the least. And he would be able to leave another book behind, one that would be written and kept by immortal hands in an immortal land.

He would leave this world one day, but his tales would remain.

The bird stayed where it was even as he headed for his desk, watching him attentively. Perhaps it was going to wait until he had composed his answer, Bilbo thought, and sat down to do just that.

"A long and wonderful tale indeed," he mused aloud, "and at the beginning, I would have never thought that an old wizard knocking on my door would one day lead me to the Elder King's palace."

Thanks for reading! ♡

taglist: @elanna-elrondiel @i-did-not-mean-to @saintstars

#bilbo #bilbo baggins #manwe #manwë #manwe sulimo #silmarillion fanfiction #silm fanfic #silmarillion #cílil writes #my writing #silmarillionepistolary

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cheemscakecat · 1 month

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Invincible Spoilers

It actually makes a lot of sense that the Viltrumites latched on to family and changed their worldview because of it.

So for thousands of years, the dominant violent faction that killed the peace-loving Viltrumites sat unchallenged because the old peaceful ways were lost. They believed they were superior to the weaker species around them, and saw them as mere animals. Very few weapons could even hurt them, much less kill.

Under those circumstances, the killing of weak Viltrumites children made a twisted kind of sense. After all, there would always be more Viltrumites having children and the strong would live. They didn’t die often, so in their perspective, children were not such a precious resource as they are to humans.

Someone engineered a virus that could kill them. And it very nearly destroyed the entire species. There were only 50 full-blooded Viltrumites left in the wake of the pandemic.

Like Nolan said, they’re on the brink of extinction.

Nolan wrote books based on his missions to destroy threats to the dying Viltrumites species. He was the guy they sent to deal with threats and see how dangerous they really were.

So he was probably also the first Viltrumite to be tasked with having a hybrid child.

Before the virus, they wouldn’t have had offspring with “lesser beings”, but they couldn’t afford to be so picky with so few in their ranks. So why not send your danger guy to make sure it won’t give you another life threatening disease or result in a deformed child? To see if the rest can follow suit and repopulate with other species.

That’s why they sent him to live with humans, they’re the most compatible species that they could find.

Death shouldn’t be a concern under Viltrumite doctrine. And it wasn’t until the virus. But now that the remaining soldiers have watched their Viltrumite friends and family die, death holds new weight.

Nolan wouldn’t use death as a point to convince Mark if he didn’t somewhat understand the weight of it. And it’s also a point against himself, because he’s arguing out loud with himself at the same time. Why would you fight for Earth and let your people go extinct?

Viltrumite doctrine commands you to kill weak offspring. That’s how things have been done for thousands of years.

But how can a tactical minded-person see the value in doing that?! When the species is nearly extinct and you’ve gone through all the effort of getting attached and trying to raise that child? Old Viltrumite doctrine and the current situation are not compatible.

Nolan is torn between the two ideologies that are telling him how to show loyalty and care. One is telling him that he needs to kill Mark to uphold the holy doctrines of his people. The other is telling him that killing your child is stupid, wasteful, and a disservice to what he’s trying to achieve.

Mark telling him that even if the humans die, they’ll still be together has put more weight on the second, correct ideology. The whole reason you’re even here is to build your species back up and keep it from fading into myth. You care about other Viltrumites. It’s self-sabotaging to destroy the very offspring that you are having to repopulate. And if being half-Viltrumite is enough to make them valuable, shouldn’t the offspring’s life be preserved?

Let’s just get Anissa out of the way first. I’m not defending what she did. She didn’t even want to have kids in the first place, which I think is something the show should expand on. We don’t get to know why, but given the fact they’re meant to have hybrid children, I’m assuming part of it is feeling that the child may be a waste.

It would suck to be pregnant for 9 months only to have something wrong with the baby, especially if in their culture that offspring would be killed at some point. I think she decided to target Mark because he’s already part Viltrumite, and her child would get their powers faster so she could start testing the strength of the child. Wastes less time putting effort into the kid if he or she is not going to grow up Viltrumite material.

The show could also expand on the fact that she has an actual relationship with the father of her second child, and had her of her own volition, not because she was commanded to. It’s implied in the comic, but she needs more development this time around. Anyways, at some point she found actual value in her children, beyond their strength.

Kregg was so down for the cause that he had multiple families at once. And he makes a very good point to Thragg; why shouldn’t we protect our families if we’re repopulating?

He’s got like 10 families, that’s at least 10 Viltrumite kids if everything goes to plan. You really wanna forfeit going from 50 to 60 Viltrumites? Mans just has the natural and sane instinct to protect his loved ones and give his kids the chance to grow up. Thragg doesn’t.

Lucan is one of 50 remaining Viltrumites, and we don’t know the ratio of men to women. But even if there were 25 of each, both genders are a precious resource for repopulating. Should we really be surprised that a man who has had 25 women to choose from at most is unwilling to soil a relationship?

Yes, there’s billions of Earth women, but you don’t go from starving to finding yourself in a supermarket and magically stop being affected by the time you were starving. Kregg stocked up on as many families as possible: Lucan was so used to rationing that he decided to be the best he could to one family, which is still precious even in a sea of options.

Thragg doesn’t understand that. He’s the embodiment of their flawed purging ideology.

Everyone else’s natural nurturing instincts were dormant under the surface, and started sprouting up when they had Earth kids. Thragg’s nurturing instincts are in the Nether for the whole series. He seems dumb because the whole Violent Fascist Viltrumite ideology he lives by is dumb.

It goes against nature and it’s a bad survival strategy. We just get to see it spelled out because the virus has already happened and he isn’t adapting like everyone else. And what’s crazy is that his surviving kids adapted even after all his brainwashing. He could have changed, but he refused and stayed embedded in his ideology his entire life.

I didn’t know where to put Thula, but she’s cool now too. [Cool as in not evil, I mean. She was never lame.]

#invincible #viltrumite #character analysis #Thragg’s wild for real. Shout out to Ursaal though.

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opheliashur · 11 months

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its before 10am and i got maybe five hours of sleep so im porting my unhinged worm take here to keep it from being lost in the discord sauce [i dont actually think this is a sensible interpretation it just forced itself out of my brain one day]

The entities in Worm can function as a counterpoint to Posadist views on alien life. In Les Soucoupes Volantes, le processus de la matiere et de l'energie, la science et le socialisme, Posadas argues interstellar travel requires a society which, if not explicitly human-defined communist, surpassed self-centered capitalist systems. Posadas implores us to view their passivity in our plight not as apathy, but an enlightened belief in self-determination; With the people's assent, these strangers among us would surely be willing to help us crawl out of the muck of poverty and despair.

In Worm, the entities take this logic and turn it on its head. Zion's ancestor remembers their homeworld as peak survival-of-the-fittest excess, a hellish loop of boom and bust cycles which leaves less left to consume every time.

"The ancestor knows this, and it isn’t satisfied. It knows its kin aren’t satisfied either. They are quiet, because there is nothing to say. They are trapped by their nature, by the need to subsist. They are rendered feral, made to be sly and petty and cruel by circumstance. They are made base, lowly."

Through a leftist lens, this becomes a mirror for the circumstances of modern society. People are forced to scrounge and suffer and harm each other for survival's sake, ligating their emotional capacity and cauterising their descendants' livelihoods. The ancestor responds in a capitalist fashion; Rather than call on cooperation and efficiency, it proposes to its fellows that the advancement of a species depends on the necessity of constant growth and constant conflict. The conclusion they reach is to, quite literally, eat each other alive; Not simply to live, but to find new frontiers, obliterating their homeworld in the process. I find this neatly matches up with how capitalism naturally leads itself to colonialism (not to imply imperialism is solely the domain of capitalism) as the rich and powerful grow ever hungrier for new toys to hoard, new people to enslave, leaving nothing in their wake.

If the entities simply went around acting like generic alien invaders (which is 99% of the time just white people persecution fantasies and you cant prove me wrong) afterward, this interpretation wouldn't exist. Posadas wasn't concerned about the possibility of alien invasion for the same reason nobody worries about car bombs, unless they're Margaret Thatcher or a sex symbol in a Wildbow sequel. It just isn't relevant.

However, the entities aren't just machines of consumption. Their modus operandi, at least with Eden and Zion, is far more subversive. They upend the status quo with powers, or innovations, often placed in a way to cause the most possible disruption and thus the most possible conflict, or profit, with an end goal seemingly to ensure they can eat and reproduce forever no matter the cost. The destruction they wreak seems to be almost tangential to their main goals, borne not of cruelty but of apathy.

This is in direct counter to Posadas' perception of extraterrestrial life as benevolent. Despite granting great power to the oppressed, they're not a clarion call of ascendance, but instead harbingers of the end. In essence, the entities represent a form of bad-faith leftism— They take advantage of existing injustice with cloying language (their avatars) and grand yet poisoned gestures (powers), with a move-fast-and-break-things mindset utilising their generational wealth (also powers) from eons of exploitation to avoid consequence.

Unfortunately, this interpretation doesn't end with Posadas.

I found myself realising as I wrote this that the entities aren't just representative of bad-faith actors in leftism. In another sense, they are the revolution as perceived in many online circles. A nebulous rapture-like event, upending the status quo by giving power to the marginalised and downtrodden, creating people who are not only possessed of the agency to change things, but a resolve to do so as well. Agency is suddenly given to those who'd otherwise be trapped in their own cycles, subject to hunger and rent and all the little things that the complacent at the top have long since forgotten happens to other people.

And it only results in more suffering. (at this point im talking more conceptually than what happens in worm but bear with me im almost done lmfao)

Parahumans finally have the ability to speak the right things and be heard, to hurt the right people, and it doesn't help solve anything. It's all just senseless violence directed outward.

The ending, then, takes a different note from Posadas, and from the paradigm of finding the right people to kill or the right things to say. Taylor kills Zion not through sheer power, but through communication and cooperation— By forcing him to look inward, at the one void that no amount of conflict and data and profit could fill ever again. There was no magic bullet, no force from outside to save the day. Only the emotions that everyone carries within them.

A revolution from the inside. (okay that was abrupt but my brain is fried now lmao hope you enjoyed it bye)

#worm #wormblr #this was originally a shitpost but it got away from me while i was writing it and started making a disturbing amount of sense #mostly the revolution as rapture part #not the alien part #parahumans

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focsle · 1 year

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so we all know sailors were a superstitious lot, but did they believe in actual ghosts? if so, did they have anything specific they'd do other than typical christian things like praying?

Just like today I’m sure some believed in actual ghosts and some didn’t. No one’s a monolith now or historically! Ghost stories and ill omens were often the subject of many a’ yarn with specters ranging from murdered shipmates to dead brides and babies. With that said, with the exception of the tale I’ll share below, I haven’t come across any journals thus far where a man was convinced he saw a ghost in real time (outside of yarn spinning) and did something to defend himself against it (which I believe is what the second half of your question is asking?).

But here’s one of my fav whaling instances about a ghost that I’ve paraphrased before but I’ll share in full here. It comes from wet-blanket Charles Nordhoff, who shipped on a whaler out of New Bedford in 1850 and wrote about his experience in his travel journal ‘Whaling and Fishing’. All his shipmates were convinced his berth was haunted, he was deeply skeptical, and as a result everyone but the cook fuckin hated him for it. Under the readmore:

“It was but a few days before we left the bay, that a singular incident occurred, which, had the succeeding circumstances been only more favorable, would have given rise to a veritable and most undeniable ghost-story. Many such, I dare say, rest on a less plausible foundation.

The humpback is in many regards a fish of very singular habits, differing in great measure from those of any other species of the whale. Among his oddities is one which those of us who daily labored in the boats had soon gotten used to, but of which the ship-keepers knew nothing. A whale would sometimes get under the boat, at such a depth below the surface that the crew were entirely unaware of his presence, and there utter the most doleful groans, interspersed with a gurgling sound such as a drowning man may be supposed to make. The first time I heard these sounds it was almost incomprehensible to me that they could proceed from a whale. But close watching of their motions convinced us all that they were the true authors. So little noteworthy had the matter been thought after its cause was explained, that it was not a topic of conversation on board, and so it came about that our ship-keepers were left in entire ignorance of the imitative powers of the humpback.

One morning about eleven o'clock, when the boats were all on the daily cruise, and but half a dozen men on board each ship, our steward happened into the forecastle, and was there startled by a most unearthly groan. Thinking that his ears were deceived, he listened intently for its repetition, and was soon gratified. A moan as of one in terrible agony, he said, issued from the berth of the present writer. Two jumps carried him safely to the deck, where he at once informed the cook of what he had heard, declaring his firm belief that the ship was haunted. The cook laughed at the, to him, funny idea, and thought a ghost must have but poor taste, to come into this outlandish part of the world. The steward, however, related his story to the ship-keepers, and asked them, to make assurance doubly sure to step into the forecastle in person, and regale their ears with the mysterious noise. Accordingly, all hands (only three, the other three being at work ashore), descended to the haunted region. They had scarcely entered, when the groans were repeated with even more horrible emphasis than before. With hair erect, and elongated faces, they listened sufficiently long to vouch that the real sounds proceeded from no where else but my berth; and then, overcome with terror, rushed to the deck, seized the jolly boat, and took refuge on board our partner ship. The black cook alone remained on board. He scorned to run from anything that could only groan, and having satisfied himself that there was no tangible cause for the noises, in or about my berth, quietly busied himself about his galley thinking, as he remarked to me afterward, that “if it was really a ghost, and it did the poor thing any good to groan, he had not the slightest objection.”

In a short time the sounds could be heard upon deck, and then they gradually died away, until presently quiet was restored, and the affrighted fugitives returned to the vessel.

“It is a ghost or spirit, that's certain,” asserted the steward, who had told the captain of it, already before the latter got out of his boat.

“If you talk to me of ghosts again, stupid, I'll put your head in a bucket of water,” was the reply.

This threat put an effectual stop to the dissemination of spiritualism in the after part of the ship; but meantime, our ship-keepers had laid their experience before the forecastle, the story of course gaining fresh horrors with every recital. The case was so plain - even the cook, who laughed at the whole matter, having to own that he heard the sounds, and that they were marvelously like human groans - that most of our greenhorns soon became devout believers in the immediate presence of a spirit in our midst, and the poor Portuguese, whose nature it was to be superstitious, turned a sickly yellow, and began to shake in their boots.

Having heard the matter duly discussed, I ventured to suggest that it was clearly a humpback that made the mysterious noise. This was treated, however, with that degree of scorn which is usually bestowed upon any reasonable explanation of a ghost story. My scornful laugh was severely frowned down, and I was informed by one of the wiseacres that the groans having evidently come from my berth, and no where else, portended some unheard of accident to myself. So eagerly does ignorant humanity swallow the most egregious humbug, if there is only something supernatural about it, that of the sixteen men who had probably heard the same groans dozens of times in the boat, not one could now be convinced, by reason or ridicule, that those in question owed their existence to a natural cause.

I found myself regarded as a doomed man; and certain of the more friendly disposed privately advised me to prepare my mind for the approaching calamity, and even offered to share their berths with me, not considering it prudent that I should sleep in the haunted bed. If my excellent ship mates before cordially hated me for my unsociable spirit, they were now doubly bitter against me on account of my present doubts; and one poor fellow went so far as to impugn my faith in the existence of a Deity, on the ground of my skepticism on the subject of ghosts.

I joined with the cook in laughing at their foolish fears (which by the way procured me the present of a huge piece of pie from that worthy, who declared me to be a “good fellow”) and slept soundly as ever before in my haunted bedplace.

The ghost was the staple of conversation next morning at breakfast and prophecies were freely made that before sundown that day, our boat would be stove, and I would be severely injured, if not killed. Fortunately for my credit, not an accident occurred during the remainder of our stay in the bay. Had I been in the slightest degree injured, or even had our boat been stove, as was prophesied, this would have formed a well authenticated ghost story, and I should no doubt have been held up to future generations of whalemen as a melancholy example of stubborn unbelief.”

#asks #anonymous #awhalin

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local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti · 8 months

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Update to academic smackdown of "Do Dolphins Live in Impoverished Environments"

So the people who wrote the paper claiming that dolphins and elephant brains in zoos are exactly like mouse brains in impoverished environments (Jacobs et. al 2021) (A maaajor reach considering 1) dolphin and elephant brains are nothing like mouse brains and 2) dolphins and elephants in zoos do not demonstrate an inability to learn new things)

Well they have beef with the paper that came out criticising their "work."

Of course, instead of writing a rebuttal they wrote a bitchy Facebook post about it.

Let's break it down shall we?

No no no, you see. That was what your paper did. You used the comparison of lab rats to zoo animals and said that the two were exactly the same. "She never seems to understand that a natural environment is more enriching than an artificial one" just SCREAMS "I have never worked with these animals before." Because guess who decides what is and isn't enriching? THE ANIMAL.

A natural environment for dolphins may have live fish, currents, tides, waves ect. But that can quickly become a stressor. As we've just seen Little Grey from the beluga sanctuary developing stress related stomach ulcers within days of being put into in the sea pen.

This is the naturism fallacy at it's most obvious.

"Enrichment is, to me, a public admission of defeat." I'd be insulted on behalf of every single team developing amazing enrichment plans for their animals if this wasn't so obviously ignorant.

You know what wild animals spend most of their time doing? Trying not to die! That's why they don't need enrichment! And even then, you still get animals that like to engage in object play with anything they find (eg. dolphins throwing around sponges or Kea birds ripping apart car bumpers and windshield wipers).

So, in lieu of the whole trying not to die thing, animals in zoos get more opportunities for play. Animals in zoos can absolutely "fly, run, climb and soar" too - but without a reason (like trying not to die) they won't pointlessly expend energy. So enrichment gives them opportunities for that! Hooray!

This study never actually examined orca, elephant, dolphin or porpoise brains from animals living in human care. Not one. Yet it claimed that these species were suffering from brain damage and neurological damage.

It also blatantly ignored the recent examination of cetacean brains by the late Dr. Sam Ridgeway, that found no such brain damage or comparable differences between wild and captive dolphin brains.

I know for a fact some of the authors of these papers were invited to examine captive dolphin brains by scientists who work with them and were refused.

It's so obvious these people are not interested in having a discussion based on actual data but are more interested in already having an answer and working their "data" to make it look like they have it right. And, of course, to make sure the media outlets pick it up too.

#cetacean welfare #dolphin welfare #anti cap #pro cap #blackfish #seaworld

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ghostinthegallery · 8 months

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Time to overthink another necron guy!

Anrakyr the Traveler! Overlord of Pyrrhia (Pyrhhia? I never get it right, hang on...okay it's Pyrrhia). Blue guy who's good with machines and drew the short stick when it came to necron nicknames (Silent King! Stormlord! Diviner! Infinite! Traveler...sorry it just doesn't have a same vibes)

To get a little meta right off the bat, when I'm analyzing a character (a thing I just do for fun in my spare time because I'm a normal person), I generally start with the question most authors are going to frame that character's story around: what does this person want and why? Sometimes that's easy. An author (or multiple authors) has already written that character in a way that clearly outlines their goal+motivation so I just start there and let my thoughts run wild. Trazyn wants to collect things for his museum because he is a kleptomaniac gremlin believes in the inherent value of culture and history. Szarekh wants to reverse biotransference because it sucks and its his fault. That is the seed from whence all rambling blooms for me.

Anrakyr...does not have that clarity.

We do know what he wants! To awaken and unite all the sleeping necron dynasties. That's where his name comes from: traveling the galaxy, seeking out tombworlds to bring them up to speed on the state of this messed up galaxy we call home. Okay cool. Why does he want to do this? Uh...

Even in-universe, this question doesn't have a clear answer. To some, he's incredibly noble. He left behind his homeworld, sacrificing his throne, to help his people adjust to a tumultuous new era. A lot of these tombworlds are waking up damaged, or occupied by hostile alien species that didn't exist when they went to sleep. Maybe their planet is in a different part of space. It sure would be nice to have someone explain everything before an ork eats your face.

The opening paragraphs of Devourer refer to Anrakyr as "would-be overlord of the necrons." Does that just refer to the dynastic rank of overlord (if so, why add on the "would-be" since he literally is an overlord?) or does that line hint at higher ambitions? Is he trying to unite the dynasties under him? That's certainly possible! Ambition is not exactly unusual for necron nobility. It explains his suspicion towards the triarch prateorians who follow him around (put a pin in them). He thinks of them as spies, servants of a rival...and that rival is The Silent King. That's one hell of an enemy to choose.

Cool, right? Except there's another side to Anrakyr. Because he doesn't just go around helping other tombworlds, he demands a price: weapons, legions, other tributes. To some, who have just woken up and had lifesaving information dangled in front of them only to have it ripped away if they don't pay up? That doesn't seem strictly altruistic.

Anrakyr is fine killing his own subordinates for failure (see the Carnac campaign where he sets up his own general to die for the crime of not killing space elves with suitable efficiency). Of course, given that most of Anrakyr's armies are tributes, most of his forces aren't loyal to him per se. Aside from the immortals that left Pyrrhia with him. But overall he's in an awkward spot within his own army.

Except if Anrakyr wants to rule...why leave behind Pyhrria, the planet he literally ruled?

You see my problem here?

Okay then, where does that leave us? A goal with a bunch of conflicting motivation, actions, and no clear answers. And I admit, I was stuck here with Anrakyr for a while! I kind of wrote him off as "The Stormlord we have at home" and moved on.

Until I started writing for him myself. At which point "this dude is an inconsistent mess" doesn't really cut it.

The thing about people (and by extension characters) is that people change. Especially when a bunch of different unconnected writers major, violent events happen across millennia. So what if both versions of Anrakyr are true? What if the well-intentioned savior and the would-be conqueror are each aspects of the same person.

Going back to those three triarch praetorians.

For those unaware, Anrakyr has the joy of hosting three emissaries from the triarchy. Three praetorians whose names he does not know, so he literally just named them the necron equivalent of A, B, and C. He assumes they are spies for Szarekh, to whom he has no interest in pledging service, but he still keeps them around. They are mysterious, they literally hang random trinkets from their head pieces like Christmas ornaments, and they give cryptic advice.

What the heck are these three doing here?

I guess they could be spies, but why the heck would Szarekh send three praetorians to keep an eye on Anrakyr who really is not that important in the grand scheme of necron politics? Don't get me wrong, he's not a nobody, but...he's got a ragtag army, a planet he doesn't visit, and some Blood Angels he teamed up with one time. This is not someone the Silent King desperately needs to watch out for.

But hey, speaking of Blood Angels, remember The Word of the Silent King? The one short story where Szarekh has an active presence. Guess who else is in that story?

Anrakyr the Traveler.

He's in the first line! The necron half of the story is being told to him by one of the praetorians. Why draw such an intentional parallel between these two characters? Sure, sets up Anrakyr's involvement in the Devastation of Baal lead up (ngl I don't know the order these stories were published it could be the other way around, either way GW is tying up their lore in a bright little bow) but narrative continuity is a BORING answer for CHUMPS so LET'S GO DEEPER!

What might three weird little triarch praetorians see in Anrakyr that they also see in Szarekh?

Tragedy.

Szarekh's entire character is defined by tragedy (see my ramble about him for details). What if Anrakyr is in a similar position? What if he started his journey with all those good intentions? The desire to save his people, free them from alien invaders? And overtime those intentions got corrupted, turning him into the harsh, suspicious, bitter person we see in Devourer? The Anrakyr in that story doesn't care about the tombworld he's supposedly saving. He hates organic life, he needs the reinforcements from that world...but never does he truly express concern about it. Or sorrow when he finds it consumed by the flayer virus. But consider how many tombworlds he's seen fall to the flayer virus? Or infighting, or madness, or aeldar, or orks, or humans, or a random supernova or a million other things? Imagine how many worlds he found but could not save? This is a person who has lost the plot.

But the person who inspired those stories of nobility still exists. He still organized a massive campaign of different dynasties to save the tombworld of Carnac. He still defended necron tombworlds against the Silver Skulls (who are a real space marine chapter and not just a Trazyn goof!). He still fought Tyranids alongside the Blood Angels and the Mephrit.

Anrakyr's praetorian buddies have told him the Silent King won't speak to him. Yet. But Szarekh will if Anrakyr proves worthy. Anrakyr probably doesn't care either way, but for a praetorian to say this about their king is huge. To me it shows that they believe Anrakyr could be worthy, one day. They think he's worth watching. Not as a ruthless crusader, but as another person who suffered for their good intentions and came through it with a renewed purpose.

#warhammer 40k #necrons #Anrakyr the Traveler #the silent king #ghost does character rambles #wow this one was long #in all fairness half is wild speculation #so feel free to disagree #but consider tragedy is sexy #okay but why can he mind control machines tho?#i mean i have my pet theories based in nothing but my own fancies #i just wish GW would give me something #just dont make it dumb #who shall i ramble about next?#we all know who's left

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wisteria-lodge · 7 months

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badger-flavored bird primary + bird secondary

Hi there. I’m fairly sure I’m a Bird Snake, but I’ve never submitted an “official” typing request, and I was wondering if you could SortMe? I structured this off the ask the other day that asked what a SortMe submission should look like.

When I was a kid I was quiet, kept to myself whilst wanting to join in groups of other kids playing. I liked solitary activities, and I could spend hours by myself doing something I liked, to the exclusion of the world around me. I read constantly, fiction and non-fiction. I was reading and writing from 3. Initially I wrote stories about concepts I thought were cool - one was a short story about a girl who sleepwalks out of her room at night and is lured into a machine by a Shadow Man that steals her shadow. I think I was about five when I wrote that lol. Then, because I wanted my parent’s approval, a performance aspect snaked in and I started quite early writing things designed to make the adults around me ooh and aah about how precocious it was. I pushed past my anxiety to perform (there was an aspect of the attention I got from adults there.)

To preserve my own creative outlet, I secretly wrote fic for the different media I was entranced by at the time. I knew it wasn’t the kind of thing the adults would approve of. I learned to hide things quite young.

Okay. I’m definitely seeing signs of an external focus that makes me think Badger or Bird primary (“wanting to join in groups of other kids playing” and “wanted my parent’s approval”) Like yes, those are universal human feelings, but you’re choosing to highlight them.

I’m also definitely thinking either Bird or Snake secondary. There’s the “you” and then there’s the “you” you perform to solve a problem or get something. And you’re… fine with it. A Lion or a Badger would be chafing more.

One of my absolute favourite pastimes was to go on to these old breed standard websites and read every profile A-Z of each breed within a domestic species, cat, dog, horse, etc, and pick out the ones I would have one day. I had a similar list-like enjoyment of dinosaurs, sharks, planets, rivers.

Well, it looks like you - as well as every other neurodivergent apparently - either has or models a Bird secondary. And I’m leaning towards you’re just a Bird secondary. The collector instinct, the love of lists… Bird secondary.

There was something very pleasing about designing your own life. I thought if I got to Heaven, I would ask God to design my own world, so I might as well start planning before I died, lol.

This, this right here might be the most Bird primary thing I have ever read.

I was not athletic at all, but I had a daring streak. Not out of wanting to act out but for the pure adventure of it, I used to arrange small rebellions or capers (I tended to have a Best Friend or else usually just preferred one buddy to do things with). Once I innocuously invited myself over to my friend’s house out of nursery, smoothly eliding the facts so that her parents didn’t doubt I had my parent’s permission. They double-checked with my parents when I got there and my disgruntled parents arrived at dinner time, haha.

You’re explaining to me all the planning that went into your first mini-heist, and also the things you overlooked that made it fail. And there definitely seems to be quite a bit of planning, or “arranging” going on. Bird.

I remember the motivation was wanting to eat a certain type of green pasta that I knew my friend’s mother made that I didn’t eat at home.

Honestly, the way that it was so pre-meditated makes me think Bird secondary more than snake secondary.

I loved dressing up and costume.

Not conclusive on its own, but Actor Bird secondaries almost always have a real thing for costumes.

I have an ear for accents, huge tracts of dialogue from movies. I could do this thing where I’d watch a movie I liked intently, then when I was bored I’d access that movie in my mind and watch that inside my head. I had to learn to stop doing things like that, because watching the mental movies meant I would kind of zone out totally for hours (cos the movie was on! everyone shut up I’m watching my movies) and other kids found it weird. Learning What Other Kids Found Weird was a rough ride. I tried hard to learn the rules, although I was constantly frustrated by how one rule would contradict another and how shallow or hypocritical they were.

Tell me about it. I did the movie thing too, although in my case it tended to be more radio plays from the 40s. Still use it to get myself to sleep sometimes. But all that really tells me is that you’re neurodivergent, which we knew.

Discovering Pirates of the Caribbean at ten-ish changed my absolute entire existence completely and totally. That - THAT - is what I wanted to be. I loved POTC so much I wrote pages and pages of self-indulgent fanfic, before I discovered the existence of fic on deviantart (in search of yet more of POTC beyond my well-worn DVD set).

Seriously, are you me? What WAS it about that movie. It can’t have been all the Lion primary stuff, because I really don’t think you’re a Lion primary.

I love to cook. Say, I ordered the shopping and the chicken arrives, but it’s skin-on bone-in thighs, not the fillets I ordered. Immediately I pull up a database of skin-on bone-in thighs in my head, and I see if the ingredients I have can be made into a dish. No? OK, what’s the expiry on the ingredients I have. What can I make today that will satisfy the household, whilst using up the stuff I bought that will spoil soon? Curry? Soup? Ah, tacos! I can freeze the chicken (which goes into the mental database as something I have stocked for when I do want skin-on bone-in chicken), and use the other ingredients to make taco filling, and finally use up those tacos in the cupboard that have been sat there for an age. Ahh. A win-win, no losses. My favourite type of win.

Bird, bird, bird, bird. Rapid-fire Bird secondary.

This may sound irrelevant, but this is why I hate stuff like maths. In maths problems, you can’t use the numbers you have to hand. You have to find new numbers. OK, where? Well, you have to use the pre-existing methods to find the numbers you need. OK, but what if I don’t know the pre-existing methods? Or, what if I know one, but it’s not complete? Can’t I use what I know from working out half the problem to put together the pieces for the rest? NOPE, and you also fail the WHOLE question, because if you don’t use pre-existing method 9.0 AB345 then you show you haven’t understood the question and you FAIL. At this point I tear up my paper into shreds and eat them like a hamster. Then I go into English and study stuff that makes sense, like the equal weight of context and content, because only a sociopath believes in rigid, unequivocal methods.

I’m a humanities teacher, not a math teacher, so I’m going to do my best to understand and re-phrase your problem. I think you’re bothered by the fact that you’re being forced to use a specific method, instead of coming at it sideways in the way it makes sense for you (because of course you’re right, there are so many ways to solve any math problem) you have to follow a very rigid series of steps. (Half of which seems unnecessary because your brain just does that.) All that tells me is that you weren’t taught math in the right way.

This love of English and interest in the “equal weight of context and content” does speak to kind of a love of social engineering, that absolutely seems to come out in the way you deal with people.

When I’m making a difficult decision, first I consult my ethics. What is the most correct principle that my belief system tells me fits this case? Like a lawyer choosing the exact precedent for their case, this isn’t always a straightforward decision. I have to sift through competing belief systems in order to align with the right one - perhaps in order, it would go; religion> basic moral compass> rules I have written for myself.

You wrote a flow chart. You’re a Bird primary.

Usually, the correct principle is one that melds with my sense of self-preservation, my morality, the objective truth (or…subjective in my case, as I’ve decided my religion is the baseline of morality, but as that is as deep as my lifeblood I don’t tamper with that.) I would also consult internal systems to make sure I am landing on a decision that takes myself into account, so I can carry out the principle without breaking my back.

That’s good to hear, especially because your built System seems pretty Badger-flavored (focus on community and community beliefs) and as we know, leaving yourself out of your assessment of the situation is absolutely a Badger primary tendency.

Once I’ve done this, my mind is pretty set, and execution is the stuff I have to chew through next. I sometimes have red flags for certain decisions I make depending on the topic - this can be a person, for example I trust X with nearly everything, but I know not to trust them when making a decision on Y. These notes that I’ve made are very sound and I nearly always lose if I go against them - usually when I’m in a weaker mental or emotional state and my systems are blurry and grey-er.

Bird primaries are still very much people, and this ^ is a good example of the way they DON’T follow their own System all the time. But they still want to, and following the system makes them feel strong and safe, and that’s what makes them Bird primaries.

This is probably why I’m bad at giving specific examples for things - or job interviews! My reasoning is so subjective to myself I feel dishonourable to use my decision-making process as a standard for a situation. My reasoning and ethics are tailored to a set of situations, and those situations in the set may not resemble each other at all. I am the constant. So….maybe don’t rely on what I did off one data point?

It’s unethical to give an example, because that’s only one (inherently flawed) data point, and the only correct thing would be to give me ALL the data points.

I kinda think that *only* a Double Bird could have written that? Am I wrong?

In my favorite fantasy, I am a survivor in a commune/closed community/fiefdom situation in a post-apocalyptic/high-stakes scenario that survives on my intellect, charm and ability to adapt to my situation. Within the commune is a peaceful community well protected by the walls, and I am a soldier/town librarian that keeps the people safe whilst cultivating a beautiful space to live inside the commune and protecting the innocent who come to our door, often making tough decisions where other people fail. The horrors of the world wax and wane outside the walls - we are making our own place out of beauty and love for humanity, and we stay strong. The travels and missions and relationships I have outside of the commune keep me grounded in reality and add a spark of adventure to my life.

The fantasy is to have a closed system that you take care of (VERY Badger-flavored Bird) and you take care of it by making the tough, correct calls - which you so by using your skills, your social engineering, and your ability to pivot. (Very Rapid-fire bird.)

Seriously, if you don’t watch Star Trek TNG, watch TNG. You’d really vibe with Picard.

When I saw about what character do you really identify with… Man, this is gonna sound like such an ego trip, but - Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is a merry wizard, who travels Middle Earth making friendships with people he’s not supposed to be friends with and making trouble. He can be awkward, cryptic, naive, belligerent, put his foot in it, storm off and have a temper. He can also be wise, generous, deeply human, see everybody on the same level and lead his fellow creatures out of very dark places. He isn’t forgiven easily for his mistakes - the stakes are high, and when he slips up (like in the mines, like when he trusts Saruman, when he is unable to prevent Faramir from riding to battle…) there are consequences that hurt him. He also isn’t afraid to lie or garnish the truth to get what he needs - but his desires are rarely purely for his own benefit.

Okay. Gandalf is *very* powerful, and he’s very capable, and knowledgable. He’s a Bird secondary fantasy. Communities value and love him, but he’s not part of a community himself (this was also the case with the apocalyptic fiefdom scenario.) So the fantasy is not the community, the fantasy is protecting the community. Which would make me double down on Badger-flavored-Bird rather than actual Badger. If the Bird primary hadn’t already been like, really really obvious.

What makes me feel powerful? Being able to, out of pure cunning, publicly present the unarguable facts with the sheer power of moral force, and win - that’s the stuff. And I don’t just mean public speaking, or sitting at the table and making the final, right decision. I mean wearing a pretty dress and knowing you are having exactly the effect you desired to have. It’s being seen, and then being celebrated, whilst you are in control.

You’re low-key using Snake secondary language (”cunning”) but the fantasy here is so Bird. ‘I want to have SO much information, and judge the space I’m going into so well, that I can go in and have *exactly* the effect I want… and KNOW I’m having the effect I want, in the moment.

#double bird #bird primary #bird secondary #rapid fire bird #actor bird #sortme #shc #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts

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kanerallels · 1 month

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Good news: I'm FINALLY contributing to Magical March! Today's prompt from @monthly-challenge is Ocean, and I wrote a story about some of my OCs from my Fantasy Adventures With Waffles story!

(@taleweaver-ramblings you showed interest in this universe once and I retain that kind of thing way too easily SO get tagged, feel free to ignore it!)

(for context this is about the fantasy UPS driver and her perpetual stressed out apprentice, original post about them here!)

When Trey woke up on the cot tucked in the back of the shelter on Adelis’s raft, he could tell something was different. What, he wasn’t exactly sure. He’d been traveling as her apprentice for two weeks now, and he was still getting used to the day to day changes.

But there was something off. Trey hopped out of bed. He slept fully clothed, in case they had to make a late night delivery, or a posse of Colin’s exes showed up to kill him and they had to run for it. Luckily, only one of those had actually occurred. Yet.

The wood of the deck was rough underfoot, but Trey was used to going barefoot. It didn’t bother him at all. Stepping out of the shelter, he squinted in the morning light.

Adelis was already up, as she always was. In her steering position she stood tall, her multi-colored cloak fluttering in the breeze. “Good morning,” she greeted Trey, sending him a smile.

“Morning,” he said, holding back a yawn. “Morning, Colin.”

The golden-haired selkie gave a lazy salute from his position lounging against one of the stacks of packages strapped to the deck. Colin liked to give the impression of uselessness, but it hadn’t taken long for Trey to realize that he was always up to something.

Generally, that something was trying to see how many females of any species he could flirt with in each town. But sometimes it was something genuinely useful and productive.

“Are you hungry?” Adelis asked him. “Colin was just thinking of rustling up some breakfast.”

“You have two choices,” Colin told him. “Leftover soup from last night, or… that’s it. Okay, there’s also dipping into our dried food reserves if you want to ruin your own life. We really need more supplies, Del.”

Nodding as she expertly maneuvered them around a corner, Adelis said, “I know. We should make it to Bethany today. Care to take a guess at how soon?”

Colin frowned thoughtfully. Tilting his head to the side, he sniffed, taking in a long draught of the fresh air. “Hmm… I do smell the ocean. Early afternoon, maybe?”

“The ocean?” Trey said, his eyes widening. Maybe that was what was different— now that he thought about it, there was a slight tang on the breeze. “Are— are we going to see it today?”

“Absolutely,” Colin said, an unusual smile crossing his face. Most of the time it was sardonic or charming. This was genuine, joyful. “It’s been too long.”

“You’ll get your share of it once we get to Bethany,” Adelis told him. “We’ll be taking a coast run, dropping off packages to quite a few of the coastal cities.”

Rubbing his hands together gleefully, Colin said, “Excellent. I can’t wait. Trey, are you excited?”

“I… think so?” Trey said tentatively. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Colin sat bolt upright, his gaze locking onto Trey with utter horror. “You— what? You’ve never seen the ocean?”

“That’s not uncommon,” Adelis assured him. “But I think you’ll like it— you handled the river travel well enough, so you’ll probably be able to deal with any potential sea sickness.”

“Adelis! He’s never seen the OCEAN? But— we live on an island!”

Rolling her eyes, Adelis said, “It’s a big island, Colin.”

“And I’ve never left my home village before now,” Trey reminded him.

“Right,” Colin said, still looking shaken. “Skies, I can’t imagine.” A smile crossing his face, he said, “You’re going to love it.”

As he got up and headed into the shelter, Trey looked at Adelis questioningly. “Am I?” he asked in an undertone. “Or is this a Colin thing?”

Adelis laughed. “A little of both. He’s a selkie, so he grew up in the ocean. The idea of being permanently landlocked is terrible for him— and having never seen the ocean is unthinkable. But I think you’ll enjoy the ocean. It’s a beautiful and powerful sight.”

“What’s it like?” Trey asked.

Adelis thought for a moment. “You know those massive banyan trees that grow near your village? The ones that are so big that three of your tallest men can’t wrap their arms around it, with leaves the size of your face?”

“Yeah,” Trey said.

“It’s like standing underneath one and looking up.”

This told Trey approximately nothing, but that wasn’t really new for Adelis. She could be a little vaguely cryptic sometimes, and said some pretty strange stuff. Colin had theorized that it had something to do with her being half Fae, but Trey thought it was probably just how she was. In this situation, he didn’t really mind, and contented himself with waiting.

The morning slipped by peacefully— the three of them had an unorthodox breakfast and then Trey worked on sorting packages for their next stop in the town of Bethany, while Adelis checked them against her manifest. Colin was put in charge of steering, with dire warnings about what would happen if he started messing around.

They were halfway through their work when Colin, who’d been singing one of his sea songs to himself, stopped short. “Ocean, ho!” he said, his voice delighted.

Trey looked up from his work and followed Colin’s pointing hand. His eyes went wide at the sight before him.

They’d crested the top of a hill. From there, the river wound its way down, cutting a silvery scar across the green treetops. And at one point, it widened out, and the land just… stopped.

Past it was water, more than Trey had ever seen in his life. The sunlight sparkling off of it in dazzling bright diamonds that didn’t diminish the vivid blue in the slightest. Somewhere, out in the distance, the sky and the sea met in a firm, dark line, and it was just so much. Suddenly Trey thought he knew what Adelis had meant earlier.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Colin said happily. “And look— you can see Bethany off to the right!”

Trey took a moment to look towards where a large, walled city followed the curve of the coast. Clusters of white specks moved around it in the water, and it took Trey a moment to realize they were sailing ships, cutting through the waves like a bird through the sky.

“Wow,” he breathed.

“Wait until you see it up close,” Adelis said, her voice knowing. “We’ll spend the night on the shore before we head into Bethany tomorrow— our last night of peace.”

Colin let out a delighted whoop, and Trey almost felt like following suit. The idea of being so close to the vast expanse before them was incredible, if a little terrifying.

Adelis took over steering, and they slipped down the sloping hill with ease, following the curves gently. The mouth of the river was a few miles away from the walled city of Bethany, and Adelis pulled them in on the other side.

At this point, Trey could barely tear his gaze away from the ocean. The deep rush of the waves and the salty taste of the air enthralled him— he’d really never seen anything like it before.

Colin seemed just as excited, bouncing up and down on his heels as he stared out across the sandy beach. He had a familiar jacket slung over one shoulder— his selkie skin, Trey realized, glamored to appear like whatever outerwear would blend in best. At the moment, it was a soft tawny colored undercoat.

“Hey,” Adelis said, pulling both of their attention from the ocean. Looking amused, she said, “Help me secure the raft, and you’re both relieved of duty.”

Colin immediately scrambled to help, and Trey followed suit hurriedly. Before long they had the raft safely secured to the shore and checked to make sure the packages were safe. But even then, Colin shot Adelis a questioning look, edging closer to the nearby beach.

Grinning, she said, “Go already.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than he let out a whoop and took off towards the water, sand spraying up from under his feet. Trey watched as he plunged into the waves without removing his clothing, and disappeared into the water a few seconds later.

Glancing at Adelis, he said, “Is he—”

“He’ll be back in a little while, probably with dinner,” she said. “If you want to go, too, go ahead— I have a few things to finish up here, but I’ll join you soon.”

Trey hesitated for a minute, almost tempted to wait for her. But the rhythmic voice of the ocean was calling, and finally he headed away from the raft and towards the sea shore.

The banks of the river had been grassy, but that gave way to soft, loose sand as Trey approached the water. It slipped and slid underfoot, impeding his progress. But it wasn’t long before he made it to firmer ground, the sand wet from the pounding waves and easier to walk on.

Cautiously, he approached the water. He could smell the salt, as well as a distinctly fishy smell that was just shy of unpleasant. But with the late afternoon sun beating down on him and the breeze ruffling his hair, Trey really couldn’t complain. As he grew closer to the water, he noticed bumps in the sand— shells, he realized, but not like the river oysters or snails he was used to.

Bending down, he picked one up— a creamy white, concave shell— and was so busy studying it he almost didn’t notice when the first wave washed over his feet. Almost— the cold shocked him, and he actually jumped into the air, landing with a subdued splash as the water washed away again. Trey gazed, wide eyed, as another wave came roaring towards him, only to slowly lose momentum as it thundered across the beach. By the time it reached him it was only energetic enough to wash over his toes, lapping at his ankles.

Gazing out at the blue-green expanse before him in wonder, Trey breathed the sea air in deeply, listening to the roar of the ocean. It’s incredible. It’s beautiful, he thought. But it was more than that. It was more than just words could describe. It was simply too big for that.

He caught sight of a flash of movement out in the waves— tawny gold fur and the flick of a tail. Colin, he realized. The selkie was in his seal shape, and was also heading straight towards him.

When the water got too shallow, the seal ducked under one last time, and Colin came up, shaking water from his hair and sputtering. “Tell Del I’m working on dinner,” he said with a sharp grin. “Any chance you can bring her the fish as I catch ‘em?”

“Sure,” Trey said, finding he didn’t mind an excuse to stay by the water as long as possible.

Before long, Adelis joined him, and they spent the rest of the afternoon splashing around the shallows, collecting the fish Colin brought them and overall enjoying themselves immensely.

By the time they’d gotten enough for dinner, the sun had sunk to just above the water and was burning a glorious shade of red-orange. Adelis led the way back to their campsite, Colin still dripping but looking far happier than Trey had ever seen him. He cleaned the fish while Adelis and Trey built a fire, then rummaged around in their stores to see what they had to best cook fish.

Eventually they decided to wrap it in leaves filled with salt and spices and some slices of a rather shriveled lemon Adelis found, then buried it in the coals and waited for it to cook.

As they waited, they watched the sun sink into the ocean, bleeding gorgeous shades of scarlet and gold across the waves. Letting out a long sigh, Colin said, “There’s no sunset like an ocean sunset. It’s even better when you’re out there in the middle of it.”

Adelis nodded in agreement. “The best ones are on the coast of Wrinhart, though. That’s the island where I grew up,” she explained to Trey. “We’ll go there someday soon. It’s beautiful, and these stunning white flowers grow along the shoreline. Sometimes it looks like it’s snowed, there’s so many of them.”

“That sounds amazing,” Trey said.

“It is.”

It wasn’t long before the fish was ready, and they all enjoyed themselves carefully eating the white, flaky meat, trying not to burn their fingers or their mouths. It was one of the best things Trey had ever eaten, with the evening breeze whispering around them and the waves singing to them from a distance.

There were days when he was still scared of the crazy adventure he’d ended up on. Of everything that could possibly go wrong— and there was a lot.

But the days like this made everything else fiercely worth it. There was no question about it.

#monthly challenge #magicalmarch2024 #fantasy adventures with waffles #writing stories is a kind of magic too

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hyperfixat · 2 years

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hi i wrote this in thirty minutes and im probably going to make it a full fic and put it on ao3.. jus wanted to share.

Edit She is freed from my Docs. Link at bottom

gabriel x reader 💕💗💖💞💓

gender neutral reader

…

Gabriel never had much of a taste for humanity, cancer of the realms. They’re blight and he simply seeks to extinguish their reign on Earth.

It seems as though he was the only one that truly saw what the terrible humans do, evil acts full of malice upon innocents happen too often for there to be hope for the species. He has to take matters into his own hands it seems. Gabriel’s time spent in the Human Realm is short and quick. He allows enough time for his minions to spawn from his essence, rarely he stops to terrorize humanity himself.

No, he has much greater things to take care of. His halo flickers in and out of multiple dimensions whenever he summons it. His wings are turning grey, and it’s getting harder to keep up appearances with other angels.

Luckily these adverse effects from taking the Earth into his own hands seem to diminish when he takes his true form, one with many eyes, many hoops, and few feathers. The only thing that could draw suspicion when he’s like this is his eyes, clouding over in a milky white. It isn’t often he takes on his purest form, though. He’s safe, for the time being, that is.

When all of time and space has multiple all knowing Gods, secrets rarely remain such, and after a few human years (a mere speck in relation to Gabriel’s lifespan) he gets cast from the ranks of the Gods.

It wasn’t fair, the others don’t believe him, they don’t help him, they think he’s wrong.

Anger is fuel.

The Light Bringer offered condolences, he too was cast away, an unjust act.

Gabriel stewed in his anger, and much like gasoline and fire he was doomed to explode sooner or later.

The time came when Gabriel couldn’t hold his rage and spite anymore. He stepped into the realm of humanity. They haven't changed a bit, he wasn’t surprised. He’s never wrong, still as much a plague as they were before. They’d progressed in their primitive ways, sure, but they were as horrible as he remembered them to be.

Shadows roll off of Gabriel in billowing gusts of smoke, joining the walls, floors, streets, of cities, helping humanity to its hideous end. There are churches and stores and homes around him, but no sight of the wretched race themselves.

A relief, his minions wouldn’t be caught forming. Few of them were left on the planet, which was to be expected, almost two millennia passed from his last visit.

A new batch of horror to fight the blight. They’re stronger this time, formed from hate, and filled with malacie.

Humanity is dumb, Gabriel watches them from his pocket dimision that has the most delightful view into the realm where they reside.

Perhaps twenty years have passed and his lovely minions did their jobs well. The Earth lived in fear, as it should, but their numbers dwindle.

It forms a pattern, every two decades he releases another batch of his righteous soldiers onto humanity. He never stops to stare, he could do that in private, and that he does.

Gabriel follows the lives of the populus, he’s obsessed with his purpose to destroy them. He takes glee and joy during their self inflicted massacres, sometimes his minions didn’t even have to lure them into fighting. Such violent creatures they are.

With such a close eye on the Earth, he’s bound to notice outliers, but he doesn’t do much to stop their destruction along with the rest of their species, not until he saw them.

Perhaps it was an infatuation, but the moment he saw them he knew that this one, this one human was the exception.

All of humanity is an illness and this one is the cure. He wouldn’t use them to safe humanity, no, but he could save them from humanity.

Gabriel sent out a no hit order almost instantly, and his focus was drawn away from world events to the little human.

#tmc x reader #alt gabriel x reader #alt gabriel #monster lover not monster fucker #usless backgrpund info 😍#verified hyperfixat post

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awkwardgtace · 1 month

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For the ask game, 🔪, ❄️ and 🦴 :3

ask game

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

ohh ok this is hard. A dream theme would probably be a good mystery I can't start piecing together or a horror novel that scares me. For mystery I oddly enough think Brandon Sanderson would be good. I've been unable to predict things moving forward in the Stormlight Archives. But honestly I think it would be written best by someone who hasn't even tried before. There's a way of placing clues in a mystery I feel a lot of people follow. Most of the time those clues placed by someone new wouldn't have the same easy to tell hints and tips.

For horror I kind of am expecting Lydia Prime to do it. She's a newer author on the horror scene (actually have a book she just managed to publish I plan to pick up). I also some comedians would be good at it. Comedy is kind of the other side, takes a lot to do it. I don't know who would be best for this outside of like a pro author. I'm pretty hard to scare, make a habit of marathoning horror games and horror movies just because. That does mean I get psyched to read any horror sent my way that might be good!

For a dream plot it's kinda hard to say. I know how my brain works, but honestly even if i'm not super into it I just like seeing people posting/sharing the stuff they put their time into. It's so scary to take that first step so it's really amazing when someone does and they keep going.

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

Ok so this one is kind of a lot. For some of my stories it's probably some myth, post, or my own daydream mixed from anime/games/books throughout the years.

Specific media would be MTG Streets of New Capenna set (Mafia AU), Fenyx Rising (Delphia rising), FF14 (some fanfics and an au i am working on), Oddly enough a story I have on and off struggled with was inspired by a yugioh series, Godzilla vs Kong (the fight for Rhys and Felix in mafia au). My gods might have been inspired by the old hercules disney movie.

Oh Delphia is a bit inspired by an Kagome in Inuyasha (got me looking into reincarnation). oh and a book series I read forever and ever ago. The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller. (I went to my bookshelf to find this title.)

I also do love mythology and folklore so I'm sure that's a big inspiration even if it's not obvious. (obsessed with fairies since I was like born. My sister can't even remember a time i wasn't).

Basically it's everything? I have a few characters I've realized over time fit a meme a little or i put together match someone i loved from a game.

Oh last one I can think of. Alice in Wonderland. I loved that from the disney movie, to the books, to the manga based in it, to the new tim burton movies. Pretty much the only time I haven't liked it was in RWBY 😅

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? I feel weird leaving this one out in the open, but like also it's not exactly nsfw. just a little insight into my weird thought process at times

ok so originally it was gonna be the general size of a dick/vagina of the average person to then do the ratio for how big it should be for a giant/how small for a tiny. In searching for this math (cause ofc i only shared it on discord) I realized i had an entire discussion that involved at least a little research where i determined it's incredibly viable that if giants and tinies are under the same homo species it would possible to successfully get pregnant in a multisize couple with the question being the survival rate of the child/birth parent dependent on a number of factors....

I used the dick knowledge in one (1) specific story i wrote on ao3. The pregnancy knowledge was lost until now.

Most likely to get me arrested was how much a person could move after a stab wound

for those curious this was the percentages i came up with are under the cut

balls: 2.7% of total height per ball dick: 6.9% of total height pussy opening: 4.8% of total height pussy depth: 6.3% of total height

#awkwardanswers #lore about mee!#my brain is all over the place sometimes lol

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findmeabowlofundertale · 3 months

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AAAAAALLLLLLLRIGHTY IT’S PART 6 which is almost exclusively dialogue because idk what I’m doing. Is this 3rd person limited? 3rd person omniscient?? WHO KNOWS

I ended up actually cutting out two long parts (including the one that was the reason I made that post about having your head on backwards), but both of those parts will be in either the next part, or the next next part.

Here’s the previous part, and the next part

ENJOY

- - - -

They met in Hotland, in front of the lab. Undecided on what to do or where to go, it mostly turned into simply taking a walk together. Asteri shared her thoughts on text and speech-based magic, and Gaster gave her feedback, which she wrote in her notebook.

“So, skeletons have always been able to see the words of others?” she asked.

“Yes, since the earliest days of writing.”

Asteri thought about that. “What about before there was written language?”

That gave Gaster pause. “I am not sure. But people have always expressed ideas with pictures, with symbols, with art. In some way or another, I’m sure there was something to see. Or, who knows? Perhaps speech- and text-based magic simply were not conceived of back then.”

What an interesting notion. She jotted that down in her notebook with a green, drippy-looking magic hand and mulled it over. Gaster didn’t seem to mind the silence. They rode a conveyor belt to the end and stepped off.

“Alright. I have another thought,” Asteri prefaced. “But I just need to say it out loud to work through it, so bear with me.” Gaster nodded, and she narrowed her eyes slightly in concentration. “So, bullets’ shape and patterns are an expression of a monster’s personality, culture, and even species or family. Right. And we use magic, like bullets, to express ourselves in everyday life. But, of course, not every monster is able to use every kind of magic. Generally. Boss Monsters, for example, tend to have magic unique to them.”

Gaster paused for a second, then nodded slowly.

“There’s colored magic, which we don’t know much about, but there’s also other types,” Asteri continued.

He didn’t want to interrupt her train of thought, but noted, “I know a fair amount about colored magic, if you are interested.”

Asteri turned to him in mild surprise. “Oh, really? That would be great, actually. But, let me finish this thought?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. Alright so. Magic that isn’t colored. Like fire or ice magic. Most monsters can use some form of fire magic, but ice magic is more difficult.”

“Ah! That is because magic is an energy, like heat. Converting one to the other is far less difficult than removing and transferring the heat energy from something to cool it, as with ice magic.”

“Oh, that’s… really interesting actually. But hang on a second!”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I will stop interrupting.”

“It’s fine. But! Magic! Some uses of magic are subconscious, like keeping our bodies together, or types of movement for some monsters. In my case, I have to actually make a point to stay in one solid, attached form. It’s just easier to be a bunch of free-floating pieces, you know?”

Gaster grinned crookedly at her, a little smug with his eyes half-lidded. His blue magic hands appeared to sign for him, while he popped one of his real hands right off its arm with the other. “I certainly do.”

The detached hand flexed its fingers. Asteri gaped. Her silence made Gaster laugh, and he reattached his hand.

“With all due respect, Asteri, you are the last person I expected to be surprised about having detachable body parts.”

“W-Well! I didn’t expect you to be able to move it while it was detached!”

“Only if it is still in close proximity to the rest of me, or rather, to my SOUL. If I set my arm down, for example, and walked away, it would be inert.”

“Please… don’t do that.”

“The exception is my head!” Gaster went on with a grin, bizarrely excited about this for some reason. “I can move my body a decent distance away before control defaults to one or the other.”

“Oh my god??”

“It is highly disconcerting to suddenly lose all senses aside from touch, though. And I am certain I thoroughly frightened the assistant I walked into while trying to find my way back to my head. Being accustomed to signing was extremely useful in that situation, since I could not see, speak, or hear. I could not have even pointed him in the right direction; I was completely disoriented. I am immensely grateful I ran into someone fairly quickly. Who knows where I might have wandered otherwise. I gave the poor man some extra time off as thanks for bringing my head close enough to my body for me to be able to use it again, as well as as an apology for scaring him so badly.”

“Gaster.” Asteri gave a breathy, incredulous laugh. “Good grief! You didn’t TELL anyone you were going to do that‽”

His eyes lit up at seeing her use another interrobang, the pleasant surprise enough to slide past the sheepishness at being scolded. “I should have, I know. It could have turned out much worse. But you did it again. I didn’t imagine it after all. You really do use interrobangs.”

The sudden change in topic threw her off for a moment, but she recovered quickly enough. “Interrobangs? Like—“ She flipped a page in her notebook and drew one— “Like this?”

“Yes.”

“I use them in my speech?”

“Yes. Most monsters use a question mark beside an exclamation point, or an exclamation point beside a question mark. I have not seen anyone use an interrobang in a long time.” His smile crinkled his eyes. “How delightful.”

Despite it being an entirely unconscious matter on her part, she blushed a little at the praise. “I wish I could say it were intentional. But thank you anyway.” Her antennae perked up, and she stood straighter again. “Actually, this leads back to what I was saying.” Before Gaster had completely derailed her by detaching his hand, and the ensuing anecdote. “Speech as a whole is a subconscious form of magic. It’s essentially forming personalized text, it’s just that most people can’t see it. But we can sense it, to some extent. Right?”

Gaster nodded, hand on his chin. “Mostly correct. It is not that speech is magic, more like our speech is layered with text magic, or perhaps “embedded” is a better word. Not…” He frowned, and turned his head away. “Not all beings capable of speech can use magic, after all.”

The implications of that hit Asteri like bullet rain. She stopped walking. “Are… Are you saying… No, wait, I’m not going to assume. What exactly are you saying?”

He turned to her, expression somber. “Once upon a time, the surface was saturated with magic, as monsters and humans lived together. Most humans cannot use magic, but magic itself is ambient. It latches onto whatever is near, if that thing can hold it. Before the war, I— skeletons could see human speech. The magic in the world affected everyone, human or monster, regardless of whether they knew how to use it. The words of human mages held especially great power, since they could utilize magic. But magic, for the most part, comes from monsters, just as… certain other things come from humans. Magic was a part of the world just like light, or heat, or gravity. There are consequences for eliminating a part of the natural order of things.”

He shook his head slowly, frown only deepening. “I have no doubt the short-sightedness of humanity has had much larger, graver consequences than preventing their words from being embedded with enough magic to be readable. But yes. If you were wondering whether I could see the speech of the humans that have fallen since… since the royal children died, the answer is no.”

Asteri swallowed, but her mouth felt dry. The sudden shift in tone and subject had thrown her off, but now the was only one thing on her mind: “You met them…?”

The world felt small, like it was only the two of them and this conversation. Gaster hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes. I did. I met both of them.”

She bit her tongue. This was not the time to break out her personal backstory, this was profe— No, she reminded herself, no, it isn’t professional. You’re friends. Right. She took a steadying breath. “I know there was a good human, once,” she began, voice quiet but hard. “But Chara must have been an exception to humanity. The only human I’ve ever seen was the one that killed my parents. I’m… I’m glad you survived meeting them.”

There was a respectful silence before Gaster signed again. “I’m sorry for your loss.” There were never enough words for something so awful. “No one should have to go through that. But please do not worry about me. I have survived much worse than meeting a human with the safety of guards nearby. I am only sorry that your family was not so fortunate.”

He sighed softly. There was no excuse for the killing, but he also knew that a frightened or misguided human was capable of inflicting far more damage than even they realized was possible until it was too late. He didn’t hate humans. There had been good ones. Kind ones. Friends. But there were very few people who had lived as long as he had to have that kind of perspective. He knew that the first human to fall after Chara, after Asgore declared war, had made their way through the underground quietly, patiently. He remembered meeting them, and how taken aback he was to see a human so far into the underground after so many years. 20? 30? How long had it been, at that time, since Asriel and Chara? He remembered being so startled at hearing the human but not being able to see their words that he had hardly said anything before they were gone, off to see the king. He remembered that killing them, someone without a weapon and no intent to harm, had almost shaken Asgore’s resolve… and had disgusted the queen beyond reconciliation. He understood both sides. Asgore had confided in him how much he regretted everything.

And then the second human fell soon afterward, within only a year or two. They wanted justice for whoever the previous human had been to them. They were angry. Scared. Misguided. Three of the most dangerous things a human could be. They had torn through the underground in their growing grief as they learned what happened to the previous human, and, whether had they intended it or not, left piles of dust in their wake. Gaster remembered that they had almost made it to the Hotland apartment building before they were captured. He remembered speaking to them as they struggled in the arms of the guards, right before they were brought to Asgore, and asking why. They answered. They wanted justice. He had told them that justice was not revenge. If it were, how many humans would have to die to make up for his entire family? His entire people, who once numbered in the tens of thousands? He asked them how many skeletons they had seen on their way here.

He remembered that the expression on their face after that made him feel like they would have taken his words to heart if they had lived beyond that day.

But the people were terrified after the carnage, and Asgore was cut to the heart at the amount of death. Almost a dozen monsters had been killed. While it was far from the absolute slaughter of the war nearly two centuries prior, such death hadn’t been seen since that time. Every death weighed heavily on the king, and his remorse over then previous human was overshadowed by his grief and pain that such a tragedy had happened yet again.

Gaster didn’t blame him. But he didn’t think this was the best solution either. No single human, or group of humans, could be held accountable for the entirety of humanity.

“Thank you...” Asteri said quietly, pulling him from his memories. “I’m sorry for bringing something so depressing up, especially when…” She shifted uncomfortably, unsure how exactly to say it delicately. “When you’ve lost much more.”

“Think nothing of it.” He offered a small, reassuring smile. “It is not a comparison.”

They slowly started walking again.

“You’re… very kind. Sincerely.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a bit self-conscious at the praise. “I just try to be understanding. Living for a few centuries teaches a person a great deal about patience.”

“Really, though,” Asteri pressed. “I… I may be overstepping, here, but… I don’t think I would have been able to keep that sort of kindness if I had lived through the war.”

He smiled again, a little sadly, and shook his head. “Kindness comes naturally to some. But for others, it is a choice. To choose kindness, or patience, or understanding, even in the face of tragedy, requires a level of integrity.”

Asteri listened intently. “That makes sense.” Her expression brightened. “You must have some amazing integrity, then.”

That brought a warmer smile to his face. “Thank you. I think you underestimate your own kindness, though.”

“You really think so? I feel like I can be pretty… bitter, sometimes.”

“Bitterness is a means of coping with hurt. The need to cope, and in turn the ability to persevere through trials, does not diminish a person’s kindness.” He looked over at where she was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Did you know that colored magic tends to be associated with certain personality traits?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Presumably because they directly affect the SOUL. It is not a perfect means of classification, but there are several very sound theories on it. Green is associated with kindness. Orange with bravery. Cyan is associated with patience, blue with integrity.” He paused. “Yellow is theorized to be associated with justice, or at least the desire for justice.” He omitted the fact that that was his own theory, after having seen the SOUL of the last human.

“Yellow? I’ve never seen yellow magic…”

“It is more of a theoretical magic, for the time being,” he admitted.

Asteri swung her wings as they walked. They were practically to the CORE. They should probably turn around soon. “I thought green was healing magic?”

Gaster nodded. “That is what it is often used for, now. However, it is also shield magic. But it cannot be used as a shield while moving; it requires the one using the shield to remain still.”

“Huh! That’s amazing.” She wrote it down in her notebook as something more to research, just out of curiosity. “You said the one using the shield? So not necessarily the caster?”

“That is correct.”

More writing.

“I’m really curious how kindness, holding still, shields, and healing are all tied together… Alright, what about blue magic? You said it’s associated with integrity. I’ve seen some monsters use blue magic, I think.”

Despite not having a tongue, Gaster managed to sound like he clicked it. “A common misconception is that cyan magic is blue magic. Cyan magic requires one to hold still in order to avoid being hurt, hence its association with patience. But blue magic deals with directional pull. It is also unique in that it is one of only two known colored magics that can be used on inanimate objects. For example—”

He extended a hand toward a small, nearby rock. Both his hand and the rock were surrounded in a slight blue glow. His fingers twitched upward, and the rock lifted. Asteri’s eyebrows also shot up, despite not being affected by blue magic. His fingers moved back downward, the rock returned to its place, and Gaster turned back to face her, looking a bit pleased with himself.

“That was SO cool!” She marveled. “Why have I never seen anybody use that? That’s so useful!”

“It has long been believed that only skeletons can use blue magic, since no one else has used it for as long as anyone alive can remember. But personally I don’t think that is true.”

She tilted her head. “No?”

“No. You see, it simply would not make sense for only one type of monster to be able to use a kind of SOUL-affecting magic. As you said, you have seen many monsters use cyan magic. I have as well. Green can be used by anyone to heal, so it would only seem reasonable that the other abilities associated with green magic, like shielding, would follow. Yet, I only know of one other monster these days who can turn one’s SOUL green.”

Asteri’s eyebrows knit together. She had never spent a lot of time refining her bullet patterns for an actual battle, only the friendly ones between acquaintances, friends, and family, but even so she had never had a particular interest in learning to fight. She was somewhat out of the loop, apparently.

“I might need a refresher on uh. SOUL magic.”

Gaster nodded. “I apologize. I forgot that most others are not accustomed to actual battle. It is easy to take my experiences for granted.”

That was an odd way to say it, Asteri thought, but shook her head. “It’s no big deal. So, what, exactly, do you mean by “turn someone’s SOUL green”?”

“It might be easier to show you. The fact that I can show you is actually a reason for my theory on this. However, it can be a disconcerting feeling. Besides that, most monsters do not have visible SOULS. So, given those facts and that we do not know each well yet, for the sake of education, it will have to be me.”

Asteri couldn’t even get a question out before Gaster was removing his lab coat and hiking his sweater as far up as it would go. Her whole face flushed as she tried not to stare. His whole spine and ribcage were just out there. And, she noted (because how could she have not noticed?) that within his ribcage was his very visible SOUL. After a second, she managed to tear her eyes away and look him in the eye again. Somehow. His face was dusted pink, and he looked rather embarrassed himself.

“Forgive me,” he signed quickly, two blue hands manifesting to hold his sweater up, and a third to hold his coat. “But watch.”

“A-Alright…”

It felt wrong to look to look at another monster’s SOUL, especially since she and Gaster didn’t know each other especially well, and unless you were being healed or seen by a physician, (or using SOUL magic, apparently) the circumstances in which you would show someone else your SOUL were generally rather intimate. But that required intentionally bringing your SOUL forward. Technically, his was still in his body. His body just happened to be partly see-through. It wasn’t like it was lewd, just… a bit flustering. Besides, he asked her to look. So, she did. It’s not like she was touching it.

He flicked one of his hands (his real ones) toward his chest, and suddenly, his SOUL, his entire SOUL, was green instead of white. Just like that. Asteri’s jaw dropped. He had meant it literally, apparently

“Now, I cannot move from this spot. It is not that it would end the magic, I mean that I am literally unable to walk elsewhere while my SOUL is green. However, I am now able to do this.”

One hand was placed on his ribcage, then pulled forward to meet his other hand several inches away. They then moved in opposition directions, left and right, outward from the center of his chest. Between them stretched a shimmering blue-green screen of magic. Asteri watched, fixated. His hands dropped, but the screen remained.

“Try hitting it.”

She did a double take. “Sorry, could you sign that again? I think I misunderstood.”

“Try hitting it,” he repeated.

So she had understood. Well, if that was what he wanted. She summoned a couple star-shaped bullets and sent them at the screen. She had no intention to hurt him, so even if they did land, he would hardly take any damage. But rather than hit him, they hit the screen with a ping sound and disappeared. She blinked. He grinned.

“Now come at me from the side.”

There was some hesitation, but she obeyed and sent bullets at him from his right. Rather than be hit, however, he twisted his upper body toward them and swung his arm, and the shield followed. As he turned, Asteri could see that the shield itself extended directly from his SOUL on a thin beam of magic before spreading into the much wider screen. Just like before, the bullets pinged against it and disappeared. Satisfied, he turned back to her.

He waved a hand, and just like that, his SOUL returned to white and the shield disappeared. He pulled his sweater back down, too, thank goodness, because if she’d had to stare at his ribs any longer, she wasn’t sure she could have kept her eyes from following his spine downward in sheer curiosity. It was much, much less that she wanted to look, and more that there was absolutely nothing preventing her from seeing straight down into his pants from the top. The fact that his hipbones stuck out the top certainly didn’t help. She really had no interest, she really didn’t, but it was difficult to avoid looking at something directly in front of you when you didn’t knowing what to expect, any desire to know aside.

Fortunately, he started signing again almost immediately, so she didn’t have to dwell on it longer than a second or two.

“It was extremely useful in battle, particularly if one was already pinned or backed into a corner. Though, more often it was used on others.”

Asteri immediately switched back into the mindset for the topic at hand. “On others? As in allies, or… enemies?”

“Sometimes both. It depended. On one hand, you could prevent someone from being able to move… or flee. On the other hand, it gave that person a shield. However, as you observed, using the shield effectively requires turning to face whatever is coming at you. This is the opposite of what most beings do reflexively: turn away. Thus, the fact that it gave an enemy a shield was largely irrelevant due to their lack of knowledge of how to utilize it with any effectiveness. Humans do not, generally, naturally have magic, so using it does not come naturally either. When their SOULs were enveloped with unfamiliar magic, it was almost always too foreign to take advantage of.”

His expression slipped.

“At least, in the beginning.”

Asteri tentatively laid the tip of her wing on his arm. He looked down at her sympathetic expression, and offered a little smile.

“No use dwelling on the past, I suppose.”

She smiled back, and let her wing drop. Her antennae twitched upward slightly. “Can I ask more about color magic?”

“Yes, yes of course.”

They began walking again. “I’ve never seen anyone turn a SOUL cyan, or orange. But those are SOUL magic too?”

“That is up for debate, actually,” Gaster answered, tilting his head up in thought. “Whether all color magic is SOUL magic is unclear. The only colors I have personally seen a SOUL be turned are green, blue, and violet.”

Asteri’s steps faltered. “Violet?”

“Yes, I believe it is more common among spiders. But, as I said, I do not believe any color magic is restricted to certain types of monsters.”

“What trait is violet associated with?”

“Perseverance.”

The way he signed it, somehow, made her feel like it echoed in her mind. Like it was important. “What… what does it do? Violet magic?”

“It is one of the less common types, and was so even during the war. I do not personally know of anyone who uses it, so I am not very familiar with it. However, when used by spiders, I know it creates a sort of “trap.” One can move, but only within a given field of lines determined by the magic of the caster. Spiders, naturally, tend toward web shapes, or parallels lines. I have never seen less than two or three lines used at a time, so perhaps there is a minimum to how many lines must exist at a given time. Trying to step out of the field, or “off the line,” simply yanks the affected person to the next closest “line.” It makes it very difficult to dodge bullets. However, I believe that the caster can, in turn, only send bullets along the lines of magic. If there is another person attacking, though, their bullets and other attacks are not affected by the caster’s magic. It is a type of magic that works best when in a group, or when trying to corral enemies to a particular point. It is not ideal for small spaces, however, unless one is either very small, or has fine enough control over their magic to create lines that are close together but still limiting.”

“Like a spider.”

Asteri wrote that down.

“I do not think that is the full extent of its abilities, however,” Gaster continued once she finished. “That is only what I know.”

She nodded. “You showed me blue magic. Does it… affect the SOUL the same way it affected that rock?”

“Actually,” he began, brightening, “It usually does the opposite.”

She inclined her head. “The opposite?”

“It creates the sense of heaviness,” he explained. “It slows movement, or restricts it. It makes bullets that extend from the ground much more difficult to avoid. Rather than let the affected move freely, it forces them to stay on one plane or surface. Typically, that surface is the ground. Most beings are already on the ground, though, so instead it feels like heaviness. Extra gravity. However—�� He smiled proudly, and Asteri swore he puffed out his chest just a little— “One adept at blue magic can change the surface that the affected is drawn to, as if gravity pulled that direction rather than downward. If the affected attempts to jump, they will have to contend with the disorientation of standing on, for example, a cliff face. Jumping or moving would feel counterintuitive.” His grin got considerably more smug. “Especially if it is the ceiling rather than the wall.”

“Gravity magic…” Asteri breathed. “That’s incredible.” What a thing to contend with in a battle!

Gaster beamed. “Skill and practice can also enable one to levitate things by lessening the gravity on them, or rather, by creating an upward pull to lift something, then eliminating the effect of gravity altogether. This enables something to float in place. Doing this to an enemy, however, is both difficult and dangerous, as a free-floating object can still be affected by other forces. If an enemy was close enough to another object to push off of it, for example, or threw something in order to propel themself in the opposite direction. Unlike being under the effects of true zero gravity, however, friction and air resistance are still factors, so they would not float off in a direction indefinitely.”

“That’s amazing, Gaster,” Asteri said with a shake of her head, smiling incredulously. “Genuinely. I can’t even imagine having magic that powerful.” Or useful, for that matter.

“Thank you.” He looked happy. He seemed very proud of his magic. She didn’t blame him, she would be too if she could do things like that. He would be deadly in a fight, she realized, if he could just send someone flying into a wall at the same speed they would fall from a great height. Any distance away from any solid object was dangerous.

“That’s practically Boss Monster type stuff,” she mused aloud.

He tensed, almost imperceptibly, then relaxed. “It is mainly having… a lot of practice. But I must say, the study of physics in conjunction with the ability to affect gravity has led to some fascinating results,” he admitted.

“Oh?” Asteri’s antennae twitched with interest. “Wait, I thought you were an engineer?”

He readjusted his coat and fiddled with the buttons before answering, if a bit self-consciously, “Living so long has given me the opportunity to study many fields. Engineering was necessary, but physics…” He sighed wistfully. “Physics is my oldest love.”

The way he referred to the subject split her face in a grin. It was a familiar feeling. She could certainly understand having such a love for a field of study. “What led you to it?” she asked softly, curious.

“The stars,” he answered with a dreamy smile and a look in his eyes that told her he was seeing something deep in his memory rather than the red-orange cavern around them. “I have always loved the stars. I wanted to know them, to understand them. To do that, I first had to understand the laws that govern the universe. I started studying them, at first as a means to that end. But everything I read drew me in more. Everything out there fits together so precisely. It is like a poem. The more I learned, the more I fell in love with the language of the universe.”

The smile he wore was more genuine than any she had ever seen on anyone. His eyes, full of ardor and fixed on some point in past, were flared green. Did he know?

“The universe is woven together with what I can only call love. Everything that is, everything that was, everything that ever will be, it is all ordered and balanced like the most complex mobile. A perfect scale. The universe sings with love for everything it holds. From the ways stars are born to the way we experience time, it is all tied together, interlaced. And gravity is such… an integral part of it all. To be able to use a magic so closely tied to the laws of the that govern the universe feels intimate, like a conversation with the powers that be.”

Asteri listened with growing admiration. He spoke of it with such genuine affection, familiarity, such zeal, that she couldn’t help but admire him all the more for it. To have such passion for something that it felt a part of you was something she had only encountered in another person a rare few times, and even then it was never quite like this. To love something so much that you would let it shape you, that you would wish to be able to imitate it if only to honor it… To look at something enormous and cold and relentless and unknowable, and see nothing but love, and feel only love in return…

What a wonderful person.

All at once, he came back to himself, eyelights going as pink as his cheekbones as his gaze flicked down to her, and Asteri was torn from her thoughts enough to realize that she was staring at him. She looked away the same time he did.

“Forgive me! I went off on a tangent. You only wanted to know what drew me to physics, not a—” he struggled to find the right words for a moment— “philosophical rant.”

“No, no!” she reassured him immediately. “I could tell that you cared about the subject, that’s why I asked.” His eyes, still faintly pink, flicked down to her, and she smiled at him before it the eye contact suddenly felt far too intimate, too earnest, and she looked away. “It was… really nice. That’s an understatement, actually. It was…” What was a better word? They all seemed to fail her, until she remembered what he had said about her use of interrobangs. The thought made her smile, and she looked up at him once more. “It was delightful, Gaster.”

Pink, again, and red in his cheeks. Then green, vivid green in his eyes.

“You are too kind,” he signed at last, seemingly at too much of a loss for words to say much else. That smile said it all, Asteri thought.

They rounded a corner in companionable silence, something warmer between them than before.

“I suppose I should get home, soon,” Asteri said after several minutes, with a sigh. She didn’t want to, in truth. She wanted to spend more time talking. Maybe she should say as much. “If I’m honest… I don’t want to, through.”

Gaster hummed in what sounded like restrained disappointment, but nodded. “Yes, I suppose it is getting late.”

“And you need to get decent sleep,” Asteri accused, summoning a hand just to jab a finger at him, “so far be it from me to keep you out late.”

He laughed softly at that. “Fair enough.” He slowed and turned to look down at her, hesitant. “Would it be… acceptable? To meet again soon?”

She blew a laugh through her nose and shook her head. This man, honestly. “It would be far more than acceptable, Gaster. I’d like that. When are you free?”

They worked out their schedules and picked a day about a week and a half out.

“It’s too bad we live in opposition directions,” Asteri lamented as they came to a stop in front of the lab. They had just walked in one big circle. “This was such a great time.”

“It was. I am glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.” He nudged a pebble on the ground with the toe of his shoe. “I look forward to next time.”

They smiled at each other.

“Me too. Thank you for such a nice evening. Get something good to eat on the way home, yeah? Alphys told me you ate nothing but donuts the other day.” The mixture of embarrassment and betrayal on his face was worth it. She laughed. “I’ll start bringing you sandwiches otherwise.”

“Please, do not waste your food on me. I will eat something healthy,” he promised, straightening his coat in an attempt at overcoming the indignity of his assistant tattling on him to his new friend.

“Good. Get home safe.”

“Goodnight, Asteri. Safe travels.”

The walk home was quiet. Pleasant. It gave her a lot of time to reflect on everything they had talked about. Colored magic, SOUL magic, the war, humans, interrobangs, the stars… She had written down as much as she could in her notebook, but the sheer volume of it all was just massive. When she got home, she ate something quick from the refrigerator, then got cleaned up and changed. All the while, she tried to organize her thoughts about what she had learned about magic, even though precious little of it was about the magic that affects speech. The thoughts just wouldn’t stay, though. It was like trying to tap a handful of papers against a desk to get them all even, but instead of the edges all lining up, they slip against the desk and the papers all bow. Nothing useful stayed coherent. All she could think about until she crawled into bed and fell asleep was how beautiful of a thing it was to love the language of the universe, and how fortunate she was to have met a linguist of the stars.

- - - -

NOTES:

Yaaaaay! Relationship development, finally! And a little bit of backstory! But mostly Gaster explaining my headcanons. Next one will be more character-focused.

Also look ik it’s my story but I think it’s pretty freaking cute that Gaster calls physics the language of the universe and then Asteri mentally refers to him as a linguist. *shakes violently* THEY’RE IN EACH OTHER’S WORLDS NOW

I’m sorry look it’s 2:23am

Also, I do wanna say…

The way Gaster sees the universe as being woven from love is not limited to the universe in the general sense :)

And Asteri’s thoughts on how he responds to “something… cold and relentless and unknowable” will become, shall we say, relevant later

:))

#Asteri backstory #seeker writes #seeker oc #asteri #gaster #⁂ gaster #THERE’S A LOOOOTT OF STUFF IN HERE #⁂ fic #⁂

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