#But also was left with nothing BUT bad choices through war and grief and other factors that were genuinely outside of his control | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

helliontherapscallion · 3 years

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pspspsp can I just request an immortal reader who's life is just dull/sad as hell since they've seen their loved ones leave or die in front of them so many times

but when they meet SBI or anyone, their life just suddenly brightens up? (Platonic and it can be any type of fic!)

(A/N): I got waaaayy too carried away with this. Star god reader my beloved (also, I’d imagine that your cloak looks like this guy’s but on the inside with the outsides being any color of your choice (credit goes to original artist))

If you want more god!reader content with the dream smp, @wooloo-inc has a really good series about a male!nature god!reader (aka, the god of dilf collection)

In the beginning when DreamXD created you (which if you think about it, that makes him your father, but I digress) from stardust and meteorite shards, you were a ball of fun loving sunshine (well, starshine?)

You loved watching over all of humankind, admiring their determination and bonds with other humans (both romantic and platonic)

Your older brother, the god of the moon, told you about how they viewed you and you were amazed

“Oberon?” You ran up to your older brother and tugged on his cloak making him hum in question, not looking up from his parchment scroll. “What- what do the humans think of me?”

He scoffed and glanced at you with his lily white irises, “why are you on about them again? They are lowly creatures compared to us, filled with greed and misfortune.”

“They worship us and that’s how you speak of them?”

“(Y/n) believe me, you have not seen the brutality they are capable of. War, famine, greed, plague, genocide, it’s all something you have not witnessed before. You have only seen the good in those things.”

“But Oberon, I wanna-” he lightly smacked the side of your head, “use proper English. We are gods and you will behave as such.”

You huffed, “I want to know about how they view us! I do not care about the bad things they have done! Plleeeaaassseeeeeee Beri?” You willed the stars that constantly gleamed in your eyes to shine brighter as you fluttered your eyelashes at him. He may seem like he hated everyone and everything (especially his siblings), but he had a soft spot for his youngest sibling. He just stared at you for a bit before he sighed and shifted in the massive throne so that you could hop up onto his lap. With a wave of a slender pale hand, he conjured up various images of humans with stardust gazing at the stars and the moon with carefree swipes of his hand.

“They view us as… poetic of sorts. They compare us to romance,” an image of two human males kissing then gazing into the stars laying down on a cliff came into view, “fortune tellers,” an image of the Aquarius and the Capricorn constellations popped up making you squeal in happiness. He chucked and changed the picture to a mother and son standing over a grave looking up in amazement at a shooting star, “and most importantly, as a sign of hope.

“They see us as complementary, the moon and the stars cannot be as beautiful without the other. We hold the power of the night and everything it touches, (y/n). This is our kingdom, do not forget that,” the image changed to the moon surrounded by stars and swirling blues and purples of nebulas.

You looked at the images with awe, absorbing every word that fell from his mouth. “Beri?” He once again hummed, his deep baritone voice sending vibrations along your back. “Will we be together forever?”

His lanky arms wrapped around your much smaller frame, “for all of eternity. The moon is nothing without the night sky and all of the stars it holds.”

Centuries passed and your fascination with humans only grew from there

When you eventually asked if you could meet a human Oberon reacted angrily and forbade you from speaking of humans again in your shared palace, worried for your safety

When he caught you attempting to sneak out, he locked you in your room for months on end

Humans wondered why the stars hardly appeared in the night sky anymore, forming the theory that they had somehow angered you

They prayed to you more and more, begging and groveling for forgiveness

They left more offerings at shrines

You heard their every word, feeling your heartbreak with sorrow and guilt for your lovely humans

You snuck out of the palace that night determined to make it up to the humans

You quietly snuck past the main room where you and Oberon used to sit on your thrones together and control the night. The large doors were cracked open showing your older brother watching the night with boredom. As you passed, his voice startled you, “I just cannot stop you can I?”

He appeared in the doorframe looking at you emotionlessly, his eyes glinting with hidden pain. “Do you realize how cruel of a place that world is? How cruel humans are?”

“I do not care, brother! They are in anguish because they think I am angry with them! Because you locked me in here!”

“I have told you time and time again, they are ruthless creatures. Humans are constantly clashing with their own kind for the slightest bit of power, they’re greedy creatures! Have you forgotten what happened to Arachnia?”

A shiver went down your spine at the mention of your fellow deity. She wanted to be with humans but they stripped her of her grace and virtuosity, torturing her when the moon would rise. That is the reason spiders attack humans in the night when the moon and stars show themselves and are dormant in the daytime. However, that did not deter you.

“I have not forgotten what happened to Arachnia, her tale fills me with grief. But not all humans are like that! They are compassionate, loving, and sweet creatures deep down, each and every single one of them!”

“They were not showing compassion or love when they tore Arachnia limb from limb! When they languish in riches while millions die around them! What part of that is compassionate?”

“Sure they do bad things sometimes, but have you forgotten the love they hold for each other? The determination and hope shining from within them when they pray to us? Have you forgotten that?”

“THEIR ACTIONS ARE NOT JUSTIFIED IN ANY WAY!”

“AND OURS ARE? YOU ARE BLIND, OBERON. HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE CRUELTY THE GODS HAVE SUBJECTED HUMANS TO? WHEN OUR FATHER TOOK YEARS AWAY FROM THEIR LIFESPANS SOLELY BECAUSE THEY STOPPED WORSHIPPING HIM AS OFTEN AS THEY USED TO? WHAT PART OF THAT IS JUSTIFIED?”

He just stared at you with angry irises and his chest heaving before he ran a hand through his long ivory hair and turned around, the flowing white cape flowing wildly behind him with unseen air. He walked back into the observation room and back to his throne. Without a second glance to you, he worked on the transition of power between the sun and moon. You could imagine your sister Aelia grinning brightly as she rose the sun for the day.

“You are to never return here if you step foot out that door. You will still have control of your duties of the night. However you will never return. Do not come back groveling for forgiveness when I have given you constant warnings of their cruelty. If I see your face show up here, I will make sure father smites you down. Now get out of my sight.”

You huffed and whipped around to the front entrance, the stars that constantly twinkled and the nebulas that constantly swirled in the inside of your cloak illuminating the white floors below you as you ran. You left the palace without a second thought, leaving your old life behind in favor of spending it with the humans.

When you came crashing to the Earth in a shooting star, you were amazed by the beauty of it up close and in person

It was everything you expected and then some

You heard the humans cheering and thanking you in their prayers when the stars returned brighter than usual

You being completely enamoured by all of the humans, even if they recognized you or not you loved them all unconditionally

You set up a little cottage in the tundra where you could see the night sky clearly with the occasional aurora borealis

From the roof, you controlled the stars

The tales of you defecting from the heavens was a popular one, and you became somewhat of a symbol of the hope that humanity should hold for themselves and compassion

Occasionally sending shooting stars over humans you knew were stargazing

You have met many lovers, friends, and even your own adopted kids over the next millenia, all of them accepting your immortality and everlasting duties

But it’s all the same in the end: they come, they leave, and they die

With each death of your loved ones, you could feel your will to keep going dissipate

The stars grew dimmer gradually in the night sky

The humans gradually stopped worshipping you as you disappeared from the night skies

You became a distant memory for elders to tell children

Disappearing from the face of the Earth for a few centuries when you could not take the constant deaths any longer

Nobody knew where your cabin laid so you were undisturbed for centuries on end, left to your grief

That was until a knock sounded at your door

The knock startled you out of the comfort of your bed. Reluctantly, you left the warmth of the multitude of blankets and donned your cloak to hide your unkempt appearance. When you passed the mirror hanging in the hallway, you could see that your face was shrouded by darkness with the exception of a single glint where your eyes were caused by the lone star that was a constant reminder of your position. Before you fell into a deep depression, the stars would illuminate your entire face if you put your hood up.

You opened the front door without a care in the world. If the beings on the other side were humans that would take you away and torture you, you didn’t care. You’re long past the point of caring for your own well being.

On the other side was a man of average height and long shaggy blond hair pulled into a slick ponytail. He was dressed entirely in green with a green and white striped bucket hat placed on his head. Past you would’ve been cooing at the object, but now you dully looked at the man in front of you. You glanced behind him and your eyes widened at the huge black wings sprouting from his back. You know who he was the second your eye caught the black feathers; he was the Angel of Death.

“Hello, Angel of Death.”

He tried to peer into your shrouded features, only seeing two pinpricks of light where your eyes should be. He gave you a friendly smile, brushing off the snow that gathered on his shoulders. “(Y/n), the God of the Stars and the Night Sky. Giver of compassion to the human race, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“Why are you here? Last time I checked, my last lover died centuries ago.”

“Yes, my condolences. They were lovely when I guided their soul to the afterlife.”

“You still have not answered my question, Angel of Death. Why are you here?” You grit out the last sentence through a clenched jaw. He has no right to talk about them when he assisted in taking them away from you. Him and your cousin, the Goddess of Death Kristin. They took everybody you loved away from you. You knew that their deaths were unavoidable since they were human and you were immortal, but you still couldn’t help but resent them.

“The Goddess of Death sent me. The God of the Moon and the Goddess of the Sun sent her a request to send me to check on you.”

You stared at him for a few moments before you saw him shivering slightly and sighed. You always had a soft spot for humans, even if the being in front of you was not a human in the slightest. He reminded you of an old friend. You stepped aside and gestured lazily inside the house, “come in.”

He started to visit more and more over the next century

He eventually befriended you about half a century into the visits

It was extremely difficult to do because of how guarded you were, but he managed to break you out of your shell

You realizing how kind he was and how much he cared for you

You quickly came to the realization that he was immortal as well after reading up on the Angel of Death

After another fifty years, he became your best friend

You both opened up and comforted each other about everybody you both lost over the years

When he adopted Technoblade and then Wilbur not long after Techno, you were extremely hesitant to get close to them

Even going as far as telling Philza that you thought that it was an extremely bad idea

Mortals always end up leaving in the end anyways, it’s best to avoid the endless cycle of hurt that came with having mortals around

You told him about your own adopted children that have died over the years

You refuse to meet them, cutting off all communication with Philza for a year or two

Eventually meeting his three adopted kids when you reluctantly accept a dinner invitation one day

You attempted to appear cold and uncaring, but your love for humans (especially baby humans) shone through when an infant Tommy started to play with your cape

It seemed that the stars and the moving nebulas within the fabric entranced him

From then on whenever you visited Philza, you always held Tommy until he was too old for you to do so

Becoming very attached to the blond with your strong innate parental instincts

You introduce Techno to mythology, sharing stories of your personal interactions with certain gods and entities throughout the years

You teach Techno how to cope with the voices as you constantly hear multiple prayers to you from humans at the same time

You arrange a meeting for Wilbur with the Goddess of Music when he asks you about her

Arranging for her to start giving him lessons in exchange of a favor that will be cashed at a later date

You help raise all three of them, often taking them off Philza’s hands for a night or two

Their favorite activity with you is watching you raise the stars and turn the sky dark

They always loved to watch you move the stars and summon shooting stars for them

The stars gradually returned to your eyes and a constant ecstatic smile slowly became synonymous with your face again

Humans started to worship you again when the stars in the sky became brighter

You became your old self again after centuries of feeling lost

To repay them for everything they’ve done for you, you decided to rearrange the stars for one night

One night of having a different star pattern couldn’t hurt

Sure, it’d make a few theories pop up among the humans, but those are fun to overhear sometimes

The young boys and Philza behind you watched in awe as your eyes started to glow brightly and you slowly moved your hands gracefully raising the stars with the moon, your cloak starting to flow with nonexistent winds. They’ve seen you raise the stars thousands of times, but it never ceases to amaze them. It was just so… entrancing.

You broke into a slight sweat and started to move the stars from their original positions in the sky. Shaking slightly, you pushed back against the strain and slight pain that it brought you. You’ve never done this before, so you really didn’t know what you were expecting. You felt someone put a hand on your shoulder.

“What’re you doin, mate?”

“Uh Dad?”

“Not now Techno. Mate, are you alright?”

“Dad, look up. They’re rearranging the stars,” Wilbur breathed out.

You could hear Philza gasp slightly as he watched star after star move until they locked into place. There in the twinkling night sky was each of their names gleaming brightly in small lettering. When you were done, you fell into a kneel onto the ground and rubbed at your aching head panting lightly.

You could hear the boys around you panic slightly as you regained your breath. As you heard them approach you you looked up at them and smiled, the stars gleaming brightly in your irises. “Do you like it?”

“Y-yes but gods, (y/n) are you alright?”

“I am fine, but stars, I have never done that before. Are you four ready for stargazing?”

“That was so pog, (y/n)! How’d you do that?”

“I hold the power of the stars and the night sky in my hands. My brother once told me that the night is our kingdom.” You laid down onto the grass and took off your cloak to cover up a shivering Tommy and Wilbur next to you. You sighed as you thought about your siblings; you wondered how they were doing.

“I will gladly move the stars themselves for you four. You are my family.” There was a stretched out moment of comfortable silence as you five watched shooting stars blaze by. Eventually, you saw an aurora borealis materialize above you. Furrowing your brow, you looked at it in question. They don’t appear this time of year, so why-

“Aelia,” you breathed out as you watched the greens flow above you. She must’ve sent a gust of solar wind your way.

“Isn’t Aelia the Goddess of the Sun?” Wilbur asked you.

“Yes, she is my oldest sister. She must have redirected the solar winds over here.”

“Damn, what’s with the gods changing everything tonight? You guys need to fuckin chill.”

“Tommy!” Philza scolded and was about to continue before he heard you start to laugh. They’ve only heard you genuinely laugh only a couple of times, so the sound that left your mouth immediately brightened the mood.

“Yes Tommy, I suppose we do need to ‘fucking chill’.”

“You swore! Fuckin pog,” Tommy cheered to himself as the others looked at you in slight shock at your words. If you’re being completely honest in all of the years you spent alive (which is since basically the beginning of time), you’ve never sworn once. You were raised differently than that. When you realized that the others were staring at you, you smirked at them. The stars twinkling and giving your eyes even more of a mischievous glint, “what? Have you never heard a god swear before?”

General taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@crybabyjabby @izzybobizzy13 @goldenstarofthunderclan @bunnyz-pxstel @averytiredfanfictionwriter @dcml04 @sparkling-gayyyy @bbigbbrainn @thaticecreambish @kiinokochii @satansphatass @bxkubitch @bxmentchildxx @roxy3457 @montygator17 @feverish-dove @the-fictionwriters-hairdo @jichuuchaeng @404rynnotfound @luluwinchester @laura--444 @the-cult-classic-bitch @youngstarfishdinosaur

#sbi x reader #sleepy bois x reader #sleepy bois inc x reader #philza x reader #technoblade x reader #wilbur soot x reader #tommyinnit x reader #god reader #requests #hellion's requests #1k special #hellion's 1k special #tw: death #tw: depression #tw: grief #tw: swearing

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

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Demon Brothers as Roommates

Intro:

So, the MC has left the Devildom and, of course, everybody is quite sad… But this time around, they have a little trick up their sleeve. With just a bit of magic (and training thanks to Solomon) the MC can now summon one of their favorite demon boys up to the human world with them! There's just, uh, one problem though… After being summoned to their side, their beloved demon now refuses to leave it.

Alright MC, enjoy your new demonic roommate!!

Lucifer

Apparently Lucifer is on sabbatical… And yes, he does appreciate that irony in that.

Lucifer actually has a surprising amount of human world money stashed away in alias accounts (because this man renting a cheap motel on business trips? Let's be real) so he uses that wealth to get them a place befitting his standards… which are high.

Spacious apartments in nice areas that would make even the upper middle-class shit their pants? Congrats, MC, that's where you're staying now!

Even with all that money, though, Lucifer CANNOT sit idle for a second. The guy is used to working all his life and just sitting around would drive him insane!

Expect him to still be running some Devildom affairs long-distance style while doing something else on the side, probably stock market stuff tbh.

Is going to want to pay for and provide everything himself but will respect the MC if they still want to work and split the bills (not to a ridiculous degree, though, like half-and-half because that would mean getting three jobs at least).

A lot of trips and vacations too, especially if the MC likes to travel. It’s a good excuse to relax while also technically doing something so he doesn’t lose his mind doing nothing in particular.

He is going to be that strict roommate who expects you not to be a slob and isn't afraid to say so. Regularly scheduled cleaning/organization days are mandatory because hygiene is important. Take some pride in yourself and wash up, MC. That kind of thing.

Also going to have short-fuse for… antics. If you want to prank him, do so at your own risk because he may prank back (and that’s not nearly as fun as it sounds, trust me.)

Mammon

Yeah so, living with Mammon is like the inverse of Lucifer. Prepare to be poooor.

Man has no human money, are you kidding me? Even if he did, he wouldn’t keep it for very long. Couples budgeting is a MUST if you’re looking to survive.

The apartment is going to be whatever the MC can more or less afford on their own with Mammon shoved in somewhere like a cheap lamp… Don’t expect a lot of room.

However, Mammon is great at the hustle. Man can work multiple jobs and actually be pretty dang good at them. For the most part, anyway. He may occasionally trip up and get himself fired, but he bounces back quick.

If the MC isn’t so moral he can also uh… “find” some extra money lying around too. Just be careful when playing with fire, right?

Even if they’re poor as shit, Mammon is still a blast to be around. The guy knows how to have fun on and off of a budget. Lots of “window shopping” (getting kicked out of stores for goofing off), nightclubs, amusement parks, and cheap fun. They’ll never be without a story to tell or a smile on their face!

He IS pretty slobbish though. He’s not going to remember to clean up after himself unless told, but he’s also not going to be bothered if they don’t do the same thing. A weekly cleaning day is going to be ideal unless they don’t mind living in a pigsty...

Prank waaaaars!! The kind of guy to get them both water guns and have a war in the middle of the apartment complex. Good luck getting any rest with Mammon around.

Leviathan

Whelp, your room is now his room, quite literally MC. You had to pick the shut-in…

The guy isn’t exactly poor but what human money he does have is all wrapped up in his many interests… Merch interests specifically.

Thankfully, he won’t take up too much space. Put him in a room with a desk, bed (or bathtub), TV, and computer and he’s good to go!

He’s not going to be a complete bum, thankfully. There’s no way that they can get him to leave the apartment, but he can run small online stores (usually anime themed) or become a streamer. Probably enough to help pay the bills, but not much more.

If they don’t mind having a literally permanent housemate, then being with Levi has its own kind fun. Lots of anime marathons, movie nights, and game nights. Really, it’s just like how he was in the House, but now transported to the human world.

Is probably going to want a pet goldfish, snake ,or lizard so prepare to house Henry 3.0.

When he does leave the apartment, it’s to take the MC to conventions, concerts, or anime stores. He always manages to get just enough money for these trips, but never says where the money comes from… Best not to ask. Could be black market for they know...

… He’s a shut-in. He’s a shut-in roommate. Hygiene isn’t exactly his main concern. If they ask him to, he’ll make sure to clean up after himself, but he may need a reminder.

Can have a fun side, but just don’t mess with his stuff too much. He doesn’t need a Mammon 2.0 around too...

Satan

He's either hatching a plan for world domination or adopting 10 cats… One or the other.

About as poor as Mammon at first, but threat not. He won’t be for very long. Satan is intelligent beyond his years (or equivalent his years maybe?) so he’ll probably net himself several degrees within a couple semesters like a certified prodigy.

At that point, there really isn’t much to worry about (aside from student loans, join our pain Satan) but he can sell himself just fine and probably get some high paying job like a lawyer or doctor or whatever… I’m not jealous…

They’ll start out in a pretty modest place, but there will be upgrades fairly quickly when he starts racking it in so Satan’s a fairly decent choice as a roommate.

He does still have that nasty habit of breaking things when he’s pissed off, but that can be subverted by getting a pet! Just hold up whatever cat you own when he’s about to rampage then declare that he’s scaring/upsetting them and he’ll stop in his tracks. Works every time!

Probably going to be the most domestic out of the brothers. He enjoys cooking (and ain’t half bad at it either), shopping is a practical necessity, he’ll take care your pets like they were his own flesh and blood, etc.

There will even to be points where he’s in bed reading in the middle of the night with tea and reading glasses like some kind of grandma so take that image for what you will.

Satan is the prankster of the household, but he does his pranks more as a way to give grief to his enemies rather than for funsies. Be warned, if you poke this bear he will retaliate for sweet, sweet revenge and he has centuries worth of pranks behind him. Good luck.

Asmodeus

It's a new party every night, sweetie, get used to it!

Asmo is the only other brother who has some amount of money to offer from his own trips to the human world, but it's just a modest amount.

Is totally willing to work to help pay for a nice place. He wants a building nice enough to host parties!

Would go back to modeling and maybe dip his toe into acting from time to time… He gets a lot of gigs (this IS the Avatar of Lust after all) so they won't be strapped for cash. Which is good, because Asmo is a very "business by day, but party every night" kind of person.

Do know that his shopping is NOT going to slow down either. Keep an eye on the budget.

He’s also going to make friends wherever he goes so he’s going to want for them all to hang out at least somewhat regularly.

That being said, he can tone it down some if the MC so desires, just know that they can’t keep him cooped up in the apartment for too long or he’ll start getting antsy. You can’t keep this stallion locked up, MC, he needs to run free!!

Being with Asmo is going to be like having a free pass to whatever gathering the MC wants to go to, at least. He could even get them into red carpet events with just his sheer charisma, charm, and er-… “charms.” Who doesn’t want to meet their favorite actress or singer, eh?

But oh, sweetie, please don’t prank him! Life is too short to waste on silly games (he also just genuinely just doesn’t enjoy being messed with so best not do it).

Beelzebub

Brave choice, MC, but quick question. How in the world are you going to pay your food bills???

Beel is a real sweetheart through and through but his stomach is NOT. That thing will eat them out of house and home! (Maybe even literally!!) Both of them are going to have to work and probably some pretty looong hours (cause he’s got no money either).

Honestly, Beel would be best as a personal trainer in the human world. He’s a pretty decent combination of tough but genuinely kind and motivating. (The fact that he’s pretty easy on the eyes would help out a lot too).

But the MC won’t have to worry about Beel sneaking off with someone just looking for some “quality time.” He’d take his job seriously, though he’s not particularly versed in what the human body can’t handle so only the really dedicated (or masochistic) would stick with him anyway.

“Good work last week, April! You did so well that we’re going to go from 500 pushups to a thousand! … I can see you’re worried, but I believe in you.”

But hey, he can deadlift well over 2,000 pounds without breaking a sweat so who has the balls to argue with him, anyway?

Trying out every restaurant in town would be a must. He’d even plan out vacations for them with the sole purpose of travelling the globe and tasting the different flavors. Food trips!!

He's neat enough since he used to tidy up a lot for Belphie so no need to worry about him picking up after himself (except for the occasional pile of wrappers. Toss those out unless you want ants)

I mean, you can prank Beel if you want. He'll be pretty good-natured about it as long as it stays harmless. Just don't ruin any of his food, got it?

Belphegor

So… Belphie makes for some excellent décor! Really he is great at laying around and looking fantastic just… he’s not that great at much else...

Realistically, choosing Belphie as a roommate is kind like having a high maintenance pet. He’s good for love and cuddles, but he’s not going to be helping with the bills or anything unless they whine incessantly about it.

If the MC can make enough for the both of them, then it should be fine. They won’t get upset and he won’t be crabby but if not… Oh boy.

Regular job Belphie is a needy Belphie. He’ll come back from whatever job he’s working, likely a night shift, and demand attention or cuddles right then and there. He needs to recharge those batteries, after all...

If he isn’t working then he's at his happiest. He can even pull off being a “househusband” of sorts. He’s not going to go above and beyond the call of duty, but he can keep the place clean, get a basic meal on the table (provided someone teaches him some human recipes), and get groceries if he needs to… You know, basic domestic shit.

They’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that, at some level, Belphie just doesn’t believe in “common curtesy” or “human decency.” If some neighbors are being too noisy for his liking, he will troll them to oblivion and beyond. He may even get sued for it if he takes it too far, so the MC will have to keep an eye on him…

He’s the House’s #2 prankster, but unlike Satan he doesn’t need any malice to be a little shit. The MC will be pranked and it will be at the most unexpected times. Be warned...

Check out my Masterlist for more!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios

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honeybunhalo · 3 years

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Kara/Lena adopt Superboy AU Notes (Part 1)

I’m finally delivering on the content for this Supercorp AU

This is a Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor and Superboy (Kon-El) centric story. Specifically focused on exploration of one's identity and how you define yourself with the many aspects of your life and choices you made as well as what you consider important and precious to you. The effects of being constrained by how you were born and finding those who love you for who you are and don't ask you to change the core of your being to fit in. — this is not an action packed story at all.

Here are some of the ideas I have for this or things I thought Kon had in common with Lena and Kara that I find compelling.

Lena concepts:

Lena gets to know another Luthor, her biological nephew, who isn’t a trash person and is someone to not just for her to protect but who’s existence assures her that it isn’t blood that makes someone bad and maybe she isn’t so different from other people and she’s not “irredeemable”. Sometimes he reminds her of her older brother when he was kind to her growing up. Likewise, everyone usually sees the Lex in Kon as an inherently bad thing and thus he learns to hide it and hate himself for it. Lena presents an alternate because she remembers bittersweetly a simpler time when she looked up to her brother. Not everyone sees the Luthor genes in him as a threat, Lena finds it comforting to be able to help someone like her in a way she was never helped as a young girl.

Lena thinks she can’t interact with kids well, much less the kid Lex had grown in a lab, but she totally warms up to him and can talk to him about familial rejection (via Clark) and if it’s because he’s a Luthor and if that makes him wrong. Is it because he’s artificial? Is it because he’s some strange illegitimate lab child? Smothering this kid with love and protection.

Plus Kon is like Kara in more than just being kryptonian but also in dorkiness. Lena’s life is just trying to wrangle an overpowered golden retriever and her lab puppy. She can’t stay mad at them for long.

Lena finding she is capable of loving and being loved and being with Kara makes it harder to ignore the crush she has on Kara. They talk together about love and acceptance now they have a shared kid they don’t want to hide personal things from that could later hurt him and many things become open secrets in their now shared house. Soon enough, it becomes obvious she needs to be truthful with Kara about her own feelings for her.

Lena could learn about the difficulties of hiding being an alien that Kara had to deal with and the onslaught and exhaustion of developing powers in young kryptonians. She gets to see first hand what it does to a child and wonders how that must have affected Kara’s emotional development and sense of self.

Lillian and Lex won’t get anywhere near this kid if Lena has something to say about it. Lena knows what it’s like to be the odd one out in a family and for people to reject you for simply existing from other people's sins

Kara concepts:

Kara recounts how she felt like a failure waking up on earth to find out Kal had grown up without her. Now she can maybe make peace with that by taking in Kon even if everything that motivates her choices with him is primarily for kons sake.

Kara can share with another person krypton's history and culture which is something she’s had to keep seperate from her primary identity for years now *cough* it’s almost like she’s an immigrant who has to hide her identity and culture to be accepted and you could use that in the story *cough*

Kon lived through being created as a lab rat and the only living experiment left. Kara could sympathize with his own grief from her experience with survivors’ guilt.

Being open with Kon so that he doesn’t feel that same overwhelming pressure when she was told to hide with a human family also gives room for Lena to learn more about the world Kara came from beyond what she knows from interviews from Superman. Having Kara speak openly about her life on Krypton is much more personal and feels much more real than any article could do.

Teaching Kon how best to control his powers and her and Lena being able to have the resources for him to do so safely

Alex is very alarmed by the new addition to the family, mostly because how shitty Clark was in relation to the kid. From her perspective, this is not the first time the guy has dumped an unwanted kryptonian child on someone else’s doorstep. Whatever, she gets to buy leather jackets for her new nephew and be scary overprotective of him. “I don’t care if you think you’re nearly invulnerable at your age, do you have ANY IDEA what type of trouble your mother got us into when we were growing up? Or even when she just started hero work?”

Conner Kon-Cepts:

His sort-of-aunts can be his adoptive moms and be much better to him than his biological dads ever were to him in the comic canon. Kon actually being allowed to be close to other Superman family members!!! I need it like the air I breathe. Kon could get to know a Luthor that isn’t trying to hurt him or use him. Someone who defies part of why (Kon thinks) Superman could never accept a thing like him.

(I have too many things to say to put in a brief bullet point just know that he’s my fav little boy and I think that he deserves parents who would love him unconditionally and Lena and Kara deserve to live a slower life where they can be cute and domestic)

(If he’s raised by these two then I can give a solid reason as to why we just ignore all the blatant misogynistic and horny writing from the 90s comics that made me really uncomfortable and didn’t completely fit with his given backstory especially with how over the top the specialization was. It helps make up for that)

Kon has to deal with being constantly compared to his two genetic fathers mirroring how Kara and Lena both are constantly being compared to Superman and Lex Luthor as they are the female counterparts of those two more infamous members in their respective families

Kara and Kon have very complementary stories and could become what the other needs to fill a hole in each of their hearts. Canon is way too personally tragic. I’d rather have a bittersweet world that’s also soft so I can spend more time with slow paced character analysis.

(In the beginning, Kon’s much more timid given he’s still so young and is coping with being rejected by superman. The tone at the beginning of the story is very serious. As the story unfolds, kon will loosen up to be goofier like his comic counterparts personality)

Both Clark and Lex don’t deserve this kid in any way. If all they are gonna do is mistreat or neglect him in their own ways, Kon is better off with his aunts.

Conclusion:

Kara and Lena can be happy together by fully trusting themselves with each other in domestic bliss for once AND Kon doesn’t have to cry his eyes out knowing he’s an unwanted experiment child who is “undeserving” of family and home who never got to experience childhood

Everyone who's always saying “you can’t trust a Luthor” better shut their trap when Kara walks in with Kon-El Luthor, her newly adopted son, and her fiancé, Lena Luthor. These new moms will tear you apart if you try to instill that internal hatred of being a Luthor in their son’s young mind.

Kara and Lena both defying what people say about them and instead raising a well adjusted boy from both their warring families.

Kon is gonna be raised by a true power couple.

DC refuses to deliver on giving this boy a home or parents so I’m gonna do it instead. Just look at the family they could be together:

(FYI: This has nothing to do with the version of Superboy in the Young Justice cartoon TV show, so if you’re only familiar with that you may be a bit confused about this Superboy who that one was loosely based on. This whole punk fitted kid is indeed a real character and I stay pretty close to his original design from 1993.)

#Supercorp #Supergirl #Kara Danvers #Lena Luthor #Conner Kent #Superboy #Kon-El #Kara Zor-El #my art #my au #Supercorp + Kon AU #Supercorp and Superboy AU #long post #Feel free to comment or tag because I love reading peoples reactions/ideas about this #i just have a lot of feelings about this

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aquafaith · 3 years

Text

My lengthy, angry ACOSF rant review.

Spoilers, TW for mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

I loved ACOTAR. I still love ACOTAR. I always will love ACOTAR. But every book afterwards made me give up more and more. ACOMAF romanticized an abusive relationship and assassinated characters for the author's convenience. ACOWAR was a bunch of boring and inconsequential death scares. ACOFAS was all-round dreadful. And each book kept shitting on and pushing away Lucien for no reason.

I'd like to preface this by saying I hated Nesta too. I hated the way she treated Feyre in ACOTAR especially, and I wasn't even too excited for this book because I wasn't that keen on Nesta as a character.

Nesta's POV and her backstory changed my perspective. It does not excuse her actions. All Nesta stans can hold these characters accountable for what they do - trauma is a reason, not an excuse. I, and many others, sided with Nesta because of the way she's treated by everyone else in this book. Also, if you're going to hate Nesta for not teaching Feyre how to read and letting her hunt at fourteen, (which I did, and are very valid things to hate), AT LEAST hold Elain accountable too.

This book. This fucking book.

Shall we start with the intervention? Feyre on her little power trip thinks that her boyfriend that hates Nesta and Nesta hates back, Nesta's ex-best friend, and her possible mate who she never talks to should be at this stupid fucking intervention??? Excuse me???

Remember in ACOMAF when Feyre wouldn't shut up about how rich Rhysand is? Feyre literally has four or five houses and is always talking about how much jewelry and lingerie she can afford because Rhysand is so rich??? Well, Nesta has a few shots. So you know what Feyre does? Humiliates Nesta at this "intervention", TEARS DOWN HER HOME, and forces her to go to the Illyrian training camp.

That was the god awful premise for this book.

Did you think Elain wasn't there because she was against the "intervention"? Nope! She was packing Nesta's belongings without permission.

Remember in ACOMAF when it's made a big fucking deal that locking up a traumatised woman is extremely damaging? Well, when Nesta decides she doesn't want to be in Illyria, Feyre locks her in the House of Wind. Nesta can't fly, so her only way of leaving is down the TEN THOUSAND STEPS, that Feyre KNOWS Nesta isn't capable of climbing.

Feyre's pregnant. In ACOFAS she randomly decided that she wanted a baby to remember Rhysand by if he dies. Which doesn't make any sense because they made that stupid fucking death pact in ACOWAR. It's just SJM superimposing her pregnancy onto her early 20's protagonist. Ignoring the fact that Feyre isn't ready for a baby and Rhysand CERTAINLY isn't, and with a war just ended and another looming and so much trauma and a DEATH PACT are all such horrible circumstances to bring a child into, Feyre is already pregnant. Remember when SJM made a big deal about Fae babies being so hard to conceive, and Feyre said in ACOFAS they wouldn't have to worry for a long time because it can take years to conceive your first Fae child? Well it's been no more than 3 or 4 months and Feyre's already pregnant. Yep.

Also the birth will kill her. Because of course it will. Rhysand KNEW this, and still agreed to try for a baby.

There's no solution. Abortions don't exist for some stupid reason, and a C section would apparently kill Feyre?

(Wasn't this book supposed to be about Nessian?)

In ACOWAR, Cassian was on the battlefield with his entrails around his knees. Someone had to literally hold his guts in for him, and he's fine, but you're telling me a C section would kill Feyre?

Don't worry, this is just setting up the AWFUL ending to this book.

ACOSF amounts to Nesta being gaslit into believing her abusers are right. Her friends and family slut shame her and shame her for her lifestyle constantly. Cassian says it took him decades to work through some of his trauma, and he tried to drink and fuck it away too, but suddenly when Nesta does so it's heinous? Nesta's barely twenty five and she's expected to cope better than these ancient immortals.

Hell, didn't SJM write ACOMAF? Nobody expected Feyre to pick herself up so quickly. The IC (excluding Rhysand) respected her boundaries for the most part and understood when it was grief, trauma, and turmoil that made her angry, sad, want to be left alone, etc. But that's all forgotten here.

Amren also compares Nesta to the people in, and says she belongs in, The Court of Nightmares. You know, the murderers, abusers and rapists? This innocent woman who had a few shots and a bit of sex is on par with them, apparently!

The sex scenes.

SJM is scared to say vagina so she says sex.

She says seed to mean semen.

Apparently the word cunt turns SJM on. I just found Cassian saying that kinda cringe because I'm Bri'ish so the word cunt really isn't a big deal.

Back to the baby killing Feyre, because this is definitely what we all wanted from this book as indicated by the change in covers and format and title... Rhysand decides not to tell Feyre. He tells her friends and family, and tells them not to tell her.

SJM loves sweeping Rhysand's abuse from the first book under the rug and claiming it's always about Feyre's choice... where is that here, MAAS? WHERE IS IT?

Anyway, when Nesta rightfully decides to tell Feyre (although it is kind of out of spite), Rhysand threatens to kill Nesta.

And I believed him. With the way he treats his """mAtE tHaT hE lOvEs sO mUcH""" and all the people he's mindlessly killed before, do you really think he wouldn't kill the person who gave Feyre an inch of autonomy?

So what does Cassian do? His lover who he cares deeply about and suspects is his mate has received a death threat from tHe mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lORd iN hIsToRy.

Cassian simply gets Nesta out of the court.

EXCUSE ME?

He doesn't breathe ONE word to Rhysand about this. This Illyrian WARRIOR who fought with his GUTS HANGING OUT didn't dare step up to the hIGh lOrD who he considers his brother and sparrs and fights with all the time?

Cassian literally does nothing.

Was it not Rhysand himself who said Mated males are dangerous? Can kill anyone who looks at their mate? Can be dangerous simply leaving the house? Rhys and Feyre both pull the Mate card to justify their bad actions on the other's behalf... and Cassian just tried to get Nesta out of the court?

Also, this High King bullshit.

I swear to fucking god, if SJM DARES to make this abusive, power-tripping, mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lOrD eVEr, husband-insert of hers hIgH kInG, I will fight her in the street.

My beloved Lucien is in this book. Only for him to be used and shat on.

I really liked it when he calmed Cassian down with just a look though. Yes please fox man.

Helion is also in this book. Nothing to do with Lucien.

Eris is also in this book. ERIS. Lucien's eldest brother. The same one who abused him for years, but according to SJM he's slightly better, because at least he didn't agree to kill Lucien's lover. He betrayed his daddy that one time, therefore Eris is good. Y'know, the same Eris who abused Mor? Left her laying on the Autumn Court border with a nail in her womb? Well SJM is going back on her own canon to redeem yet ANOTHER abusive male, while continuing to demonize Tamlin for things he only happened to do when SJM decided the villain from the first book was sexy.

Nesta and Cassian are Mates.

Remember when Mates were supposed to be a rare and sacred thing? Now SJM dishes them out like Oprah.

I don't want these characters to be mates. I want to see them slowly fall in love. But SJM is incapable of writing that so she forces them together with the mAtInG bOnD. That's literally the only basis for most of these relationships, Feysand especially.

The only relationship where the bond would make sense is between Helion and The Lady of Autumn. Who still isn't named. But I will die on the hill that they're mates, I can feel it between them.

I wanted someone to die in this book. I predicted that it would either be Helion or Tarquin, but Tarquin isn't even in this one.

And the ending.

SJM can't write a decent climax, so she kills both Feyre and Rhysand for the second time. Yep.

The baby is being born which stupidly kills Feyre, and thankfully takes Rhysand with them.

Nesta decides to save them. Bad choice. But she decides to save them! Because she's so powerful and she ATE THE CONTENTS OF THE CAULDRON and she's CONNECTED TO THE MOTHER.

Do you know what happens.

Nesta loses her powers.

NESTA.

LOSES.

HER.

POWERS.

The powers we've hardly seen, the powers that were briefly mentioned and used ONCE in ACOWAR, then we saw like two flashes of in this book? They're GONE now. GONE SO NESTA CAN SAVE HER ABUSIVE SISTER AND ABUSIVE HUSBAND WHO ABUSES THEM BOTH.

Nesta is just an Amren now. They both fought for their powers, and had to give them up to save people who didn't deserve it. Now they're anticlimactically trapped in powerless bodies.

Also, and I can't BELIEVE I didn't originally include this - do you know what else Nesta TRADED HER POWERS FOR?

Illyrian anatomy so she can carry Cassian's baby one day.

EXCUSE ME?

I am so fucking SICK TO DEATH of the narrative that every woman needs a man and children to be happy. SJM clearly loves this because she's literally only keeping Amren and Nesta alive now to be sex objects to their partners and nothing else seeing as their POWERS WERE RIPPED AWAY FROM THEM, and now NESTA TRADED THOSE POWERS TO HAVE A BABY SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WANTS? Nesta does NOT strike me as a motherly type. She's the wine aunt, she and Cassian are the couple that go on holiday a lot and and babysit their nieces and nephews, but nope. Nesta HAS to have children.

The Feysand baby is called Nyx. That's just so underwhelming, you go from these huge, multiple syllable names like Amarantha and Morrigan and Lucien to Nyx? I get it's supposed to be unique but it's not even meaningful. It's just more shit-flavoured icing on the hAHa nIgHt uWu cake. I prefer Renesmée.

Nesta is wrong somehow. She says she's sorry as she's saving them. FOR WHAT? For being a little rude to Feyre as all sisters are? And rightfully hating your sister's abuser?

Oh yeah, remember in ACOWAR when Nesta took care of a comatose, starving Elain for months? Elain is randomly okay now because she takes care of her mental health the stereotypical way of baking cakes, and not drinking and fucking, which she shames Netsa for.

Remember the slut shaming, demeaning comments that the whole iNnEr cIrClE made about Nesta? They all expect apologies from her. For some reason.

Nesta has done nothing wrong. She coped with her trauma and minded her business in her own ways, and she's expected to apologise to the people who control and emotionally abuse her.

Nothing that any of these characters did to Nesta is right. Nesta wasn't okay at the end, this wasn't Nesta's healing story. This is Nesta being shamed and degraded until she submits.

Oh I can't believe I forgot to write this in my first draft of this review, do you know how Nesta "overcomes" her grief about her Father's death and her conflicting feelings about him and his life and her guilt? When she visits his grave for the first time, she takes Nyx.

NYX.

She holds NYX up to the grave and talks about how it's his grandson.

GO AWAY YOU STUPID DEMON BABY THIS IS NOT YOUR BOOK.

Speaking of, it's revealed that Nesta was abused by her mother and grandmother in this book? Something we were all looking forward to is seeing more of the Archeron's mother seeing as Feyre was so young when she died, but... nope. She gets a few vague mentions, and this newly revealed abuse is entirely glossed over. Nesta was also actively groomed by an older man at 14. But SJM glosses over this because of course she does.

Finally, the bonus chapters.

My edition came with a bonus chapter from Feyre's POV. It was pointless and I hated it.

There's another bonus chapter from Azriel's POV. Once I'd finished this book, he was one of the few characters I still harboured a shred of respect for.

Then I read his bonus chapter.

This exists to purely objectify Elain.

Whether you ship Elain with Azriel, or Lucien, or neither, this chapter is disgusting. He thinks about her coming on his tounge, and other things simply just to please him.

He then dares to suggest that "the Cauldron picked wrong" in choosing Lucien as Elain's mate?

No Azriel, SJM picked RIGHT in not giving each Archeron sister a bAt bOy.

Rhysand does the only right thing he's ever done by telling Azriel to stay away from Elain, but then he has to ruin it by clarifying that it's only so they can manipulate and use Lucien more.

Oh, and Azriel wants to kill Lucien.

Need I remind you that Lucien respects Azriel? Lucien is another victim of the Night Court's needless, baseless torment, and Azriel is no exception.

Lucien stays well out of Elain's way because she makes it clear that she's not interested in a mate, but Azriel wants to kill him simply for being her mate.

Lucien has done nothing. And I mean literally NOTHING to warrant any of this treatment. From the bAt bOyS, from Feyre, from his family, from SJM, from the deluded part of this fandom that think he's done wrong. NOTHING.

All I liked about this book was the Lucien scenes (which is a given), ((although I hated the way everyone talks about him behind his back)), Nesta's relationship with the house, Emerie and Gwyn, the evidence that Gwynriel is endgame and subsequently Elucien, and the book love. Everything else was horrible. Oh, and Nesta hates Rhysand. I love that for her, because everyone else bows at his feet.

Oh yeah, when Nesta DARES suggest that Rhysand is an "arrogant, preening asshole" which I think is a compliment, Cassian can't take Rhys' cock out of his mouth for one second, and has to get mad at her for having an opinion. Don't even get me started on Azriel in that scene.

If each book after ACOTAR made me slowly give up, this book made me give up altogether. I cannot go on to support this victim-blaming, abuse-forgiving, misogynistic series. I've given up on SJM, and the only characters I care about anyone are Lucien, Nesta, Helion, and Tarquin. I'll continue to read this series to see if SJM redeems herself, but I'll be downloading them for free. I'm not giving this piece of shit any more of my money.

I hope we don't get the Lucien book. I don't want her to slaughter my fox in the way she slaughtered LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE.

Thanks for listening.

Edit: I put the review on Goodreads!

#anti acotar #anti acomaf #anti acowar #anti acofas #anti acosf #anti sjm #anti feysand #anti rhysand

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solena2 · 3 years

Text

So.

Tommy isn’t Theseus. Every time I see Techno’s analogy about Tommy being Theseus brought up I’m filled with endless rage and I’ve DECIDED!

That it’s about time I explained just why it’s so objectively incorrect.

First: a bit of backstory on Theseus, because I doubt many of you actually know much about him beyond what Techno said in his “so you want to be a hero” speech, which left out a lot of relevant details.

Theseus was a demigod with two fathers and one mother. His fathers were king Aegeus of Athens and the sea god Poseidon, and his mother was Aethra, Aegeus’ wife. Aethra raised Theseus on her own, far from Athens to avoid him being assassinated.

Aegeus left him nothing but a sword with the Athenian crest and a pair of sandals, buried under a rock so no one else could get them.

When Theseus came of age, he took the sword and sandals and headed up to Athens, slaying various monsters along the way. (It pains me to abbreviate it that much, but Techno left out everything before the Minotaur so it won’t help me much in debunking his analogy.)

Once he got to Athens, he met up with his dad, chased out his stepmom Medea, (yes, that Medea) and killed some people. Then comes the relevant part.

Crete had won a war against Athens a while back, and because of this, every seven years Athens was forced to send 14 tributes to be killed by the Minotaur. (Yes, this inspired the Hunger Games)

Theseus decided he’d volunteer and kill the Minotaur, thus ending the tribute system for good and getting one over on Athens. He promised his dad that if he won, he’d come back in a ship with white sails, as opposed to the standard mourning black that signified the death of the tributes.

So he went to Crete, met king Minos and his daughters Ariadne and Phaedra, and got sent into the labyrinth. Ariadne gave him a magic ball of string that kept him from getting lost, allowing him to find the Minotaur and then safely get out afterwards, providing he could kill it.

He killed it, led his other 13 tributes out, and sailed back home. On the way, Athena told him to leave Ariadne stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, so he immediately did so, because Theseus was an asshole.

He got home, his dad committed suicide because Theseus forgot the white sails and his dad assumed he’d died, Theseus became king and married Phaedra, and then the fun began, because again, Theseus was an asshole.

First, he cheated on Phaedra with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, so she left and took the kids. Next, he and his other asshole friend Pirithous decided to kidnap themselves some new wives. Theseus decided on Helen of Troy, who was a child at the time, and Pirithous decided on Persephone, which resulted in both him and Theseus getting stuck in the Underworld for a while due to pissing off Hades.

Once he got back up, he killed his son for fucking his wife, which is messed up on many levels, and then left Athens because his people were rightfully not super okay with that.

Then he goes and meets Lycomedes, who throws him off a cliff.

Next, let’s talk about Techno’s speech a bit.

He starts off by accusing Tommy of being a power hungry dictator (paraphrased), before asking him if he wants to be a hero.

Then, he provides what is apparently the archetypal example of heroism, something often associated with selflessness, kindness, and generally giving at least one singular solitary fuck about other people.

Theseus! Heroic hero who does heroic things, like, uhhh *checks notes* cheating on his wife, kidnapping children with plans to forcefully marry them, leaving people alone on tiny islands with no supplies, killing his kid, etc. etc...

So we’re off to a great start.

Then, he gives a short summary of Theseus’ life and times! He skips the first part of his life completely, which is hilarious to me because it’s the only time Theseus ever did anything actually heroic or selfless, and gets straight to the meat!

“Let me tell you a story, Tommy. A story of a man called Theseus. His country was in danger, he sent himself forward! Into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur! And saved his city. You know what they did to him, Tommy? They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes, Tommy.”

-Technoblade

So first off, he doesn’t mention... really anything other than the Minotaur and the exile, which is leaving out a lot of relevant details, like why Theseus was exiled. (You know, killing his son in cold blood?)

Second, he doesn’t give details in general. Not that he should’ve given a full telling, or anything, but I’m always surprised by the shortness of this speech when I go back and listen to it. He pretty much just gives the barest bones of an argument and expects his audience to take it at face value. (Which they do, but it’s still bad practice)

From the more accurate (if still brief) summary if Theseus’ life I’ve just given, I’m sure you can see why this might be more than a bit dubious, as an analogy. Given cc!Technoblade is literally an English major, and doubtless knows significantly more about the myth than I do, I’d imagine this was never intended to be taken at face value.

Over and over again, c!Techno proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, and over and over again, the fandom at large takes his word as gospel.

Now, as far as a more in depth argument for Tommy as Theseus goes, I will attempt to debunk that as well, because there are some genuinely good points to be made.

First of all, most people make Dream out to be the Minotaur. Given the time this speech was made, I imagine Schlatt was the intended target of that, but with latter events in mind, Dream does make much more sense.

I’d say this is honestly pretty fair, but I don’t think Tommy takes the role of Theseus in that narrative. I’d argue he’s much more analogous to the role of Ariadne, giving the tools required to defeat Dream but ultimately not doing so through his own power, but because someone chose to take those tools and make use of them. This also provides the very interesting characterization of Punz as Theseus, which is an incredibly unique take that I hope some a Punz enthusiast does something with, because I don’t know enough about his lore to make a good analysis on that.

The idea of Schlatt as the Minotaur, as was probably intended by Techno at the time, makes much more sense, though I still think other characters fit the role better. Firstly, Schlatt wasn’t killed, he died of a heart attack, and if someone had killed him I think it’s more likely to have been Wilbur or Techno who did it than Tommy, as Tommy was still very hopeful and idealistic at the time, at least compared to his character now. You could posit Tommy as Ariadne again in this situation, given he was the one to mastermind the final charge, and though I think Tommy as Ariadne is an idea that’s worth further exploration, I’d say Fundy futs the Ariadne role here much better, with him giving the spy’s diary before being effectively shunned and left out in the cold by both Pogtopia and Manburg, much like Ariadne was abandoned in the original myth.

I’d posit the Theseus in this scenario as Techno, Wilbur, or possibly Philza, as they were the ones to actually kill things in the 16th, though Techno and Wilbur’s killings were more in the metaphorical sense, taking the second life of L’manburg.

As for the exile, Tommy exile was alike to that of Theseus only in concept. Both were sent from their kingdoms for a crime, resulting in a falling out with someone close to them, and had a precarious relationship with heights while they were gone, but that’s about where the similarities end and even then they’re superficial.

First of all, Tommy’s exile was far more because Dream was looking for an excuse to do it than because briefing actually means anything on the SMP, given how Dream had been griefing bases and blaming Tommy for it for a while before it went down. (Fun fact, Bad and Skeppy were going to burn one of his discs over this, but one of them got sick so they had to cancel the stream.)

Theseus’ exile, on the other hand, was entirely deserved, especially when you consider how serious a crime killing family was in Ancient Greek culture. It was pretty much the biggest no-no in existence, and I’m almost surprised he wasn’t just straight up executed for it.

Second, Tommy’s falling out with Tubbo was almost entirely due to outside forces, (Dream) rather than because anything Tommy had done. Though Tommy’s cavalierness towards the trial and attempts to threaten Dream with Spirit doubtless didn’t help things, Dream surrounding L’manburg in obsidian walls and threatening them to exile Tommy was entirely his own choice, and not something that can be pinned on Tommy, no matter what the apologists may say.

Meanwhile, Theseus’ falling out with Phaedra had begun long before his exile with him cheating on her. Him killing his son was merely the last in a long line of dominos to completely destroy their relationship.

Last, Tommy nearly killing himself is very different from Theseus being pushed off a cliff. Tommy’s near suicide was the direct result of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of c!Dream for what was canonically, I believe, several months? (Correct me if I’m wrong on that one.) Tommy almost jumping off a pillar because he was deliberately isolated from his support systems is nothing like Theseus being killed because he was a cocky asshole who thought he was god.

So that’s why I don’t think Tommy is anything like Theseus, and why I’m filled with endless rage by the completely uncritical acceptance of this parallel, but it’s not the whole reason it pisses me off.

It also pisses me off because, as stated earlier, cc!Techno is an English major. He knew what he was doing with this. The fandom’s insistence on refusing to acknowledge his character as an unreliable narrator is, in my opinion, acting as a massive kneecap to what could be a great analysis of how he thinks.

Specifically: why does c!Technoblade think Tommy is like Theseus?

Of all the Greek heroes to pick, why that one? Was it just the tantalizing opportunity to parallel Schlatt with a horned monster, or was it because c!Techno has some genuine in-character reason to think this myth specifically applies to Tommy.

Now, we all know people in the SMP have a habit of analogizing Wilbur and Tommy. The assumption Tommy wanted to be president, the belief that Tommy nominated Tubbo directly, the belief that he was intentionally deceiving Techno about Pogtopia’s intentions regarding Manburg... all of these stem from Wilbur. There are more cases of this, of course, but several analyses have been done in the subject already, and this is long enough without more padding.

So why does Techno think Tommy is Theseus? Well, it’s simple, isn’t it?

Wilbur is Theseus.

To be continued, because this is already too long and my brain hurts.

#original post #dream smp #dream smp analysis #technoblade #tommyinnit #technoblade critical #(i guess. honestly I didn’t say much about techno himself in this but just to be safe)#dsmp #dsmp analysis #dream smp meta #dsmp meta #my writing #can you tell i don’t like Theseus much #hated to leave out his early life stuff because it’s genuinely super interesting but it wasn’t really relevant so I had to cut it :(#if you want a more detailed description of Theseus I’d recommend the rick riordan book on Greek heroes #it’s not the most scholarly work but it gives the bare bones of the myths in an accessible way that doesn’t take an English degree to read #call me a fake nerd if you want but I like the humor and digestibility #there are typos in this post and I Do Not Care

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lochnessies · 3 years

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ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad).

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace.

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system.

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society.

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious.

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic.

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place.

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

#i finished this at 1am so sorry if i’m incoherent #mine

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layzeal · 2 years

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3, 5, 17!

mdzs/cql ask meme!

THIS TURNED OUT LONG. YOU ASKED FOR IT

3) how did you get into mdzs/cql and how long have you been in the fandom?

okay so lemme say first that i had NO intention of ever "getting into" cql/mdzs. what happened is that on June of last year i had exhausted all my dishwashing shows (shows i watch while doing dishes) and was looking for something new. i had heard about The Untamed and was curious. i had NO IDEA what mdzs was at the time and once i got through the first 2 eps......... well............ the rest is history

sometimes i am a bit sad though that i didnt get to read the novel first, but honestly? i know that a year ago i wouldn't have read it anyway, it just wasn't in my circle, so who cares! i'm just glad to be here now!!

5) what's the most compelling arc to you and why? whether a story arc and/or character development.

OH MAN, THERE ARE SO MANY........ though something i think is done quite well in mdzs are the corruption arcs! WWX is one, though it's quite subverted by there never being a "corruption" in the first place, just a "darkening" (except during sunshot but well... everyone had a darkening then). NHS was quite surprising, but it makes SENSE once you spot his anger and grief, JGY which is absolutely heartwrenching because his story is so sympathetic but the fallout and consequences of his choices were so bad and all because JGS just couldn't pay the child support. ughh. OH RIGHT, jc's is a biiig one too esp when it comes to the cycle of family trauma, watching him go from a troubled, but well-intentioned young master to literally a shadow of his own mother, a man so badly haunted by anger and grief who can't help but simmer in his own misery, to the final confrontation at guanyin temple where the cards are put on the table and he finally realizes there's a way to move on? *chef's kiss*, it was SO satisfying to witness

17) favorite canon facts about lan wangji and wei wuxian individually, and as a couple?

BRO THAT'S WHAT THIS WHOLE BLOG IS ABOUT uhhh hm... i guess if i HAD to choose one right now though, it would be:

- i guess this kinda fits into the character arcs thingy, but wow... the way lwj comes to terms with standing up for what he believes is right vs what his family has taught him for all those years. what's especially good about it is that while a conflict of ideas exists, he never has to forfeit one for the other! he never stops being the perfect Lan paragon even when he is breaking rules to stand up for his beliefs-- in fact, that only makes him even more of a good example! god, if teenji got to see adult lwj and how he just exists without worrying about fitting himself into a mold? he would pass out

- sometimes i think about my first reaction to wwx abandoning everything to save war refugees and how THAT was the beginning of his downfall and i just get. wow. that was such a good twist, i don't think we appreciate enough how good a twist it was to finally learn that between all the awful things we hear about the yllz, one of his most "irredeemable" actions was literally. saving war refugees. and he stood by it!! even after WQ and WN died and he had that moment where he thought "i could just leave. i could drop everything and run away" he slaps himself in the face and continues to stand by the people who have no one else to protect them!! AND IT'S SOOO GOOD, he's not a blindly positive person! he knows the situation he is in, he IS sad about the things he lost and left behind, he knows his future is not looking bright, but he also learned how to find a home and a place in this new community and has long accepted the responsability to these people. He still stood by then even after shijie died, even after he had nothing else to keep himself going!! he protected the burial mounds settlement to the very end and while that almost seemed useless because the Wens still died, it saved Sizhui, and that's enough!! he sees the Wens crawl out of the blood pool to protect them and thank him, he sees Sizhui alive wearing a lil Lan forehead ribbon and he knows was worth it!! every sacrifice, every moment of despair was worth it because at least it saved one person and GAHHH i love wwx so much. he did what he had to do, he paid his prices, suffered his consequences and now gets to be safe and happy. i wanna cry

- this was my first answer to the LWJ question but it turned into wangxian, so..... LWJ's complete refusal to pursue WWX romantically, for one reason or another, always coming out of respect for WWX himself. it's just so sweet to me, the loyalty with zero expectations, the wish to stay by WWX's side not because he wants something out of him, he just wants to be near him and protect him, it doesn't matter if his feelings are ever requited! how is a love story built when for 80% of the time neither of the leads are actively pursuing the other romantically? no idea, but it sure depended a lot of selling how much they care for each other OUTSIDE the romantic feelings and that's why wangxian works so well for me. they were friends before they were lovers, and we can see that they're STILL best friends even after marriage! they love each other in SOOO many different ways and it makes me so happy, it was so well deserved

#just wrote an essay on why i love wwx. oops #jdsfjksdfh tysm friend!!!#modao #ask #weirdgirlification

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phantomchick · 3 years

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Naruto Fic Rec Masterpost!

Adoption by Defenestration; or, A Family Can Be A Fox Demon, Its Jinchuuriki, and Three Dozen Highly-Trained Assassins by elumish Oneshot, Gen, Fluff, child neglect, Naruto gets unofficially adopted by his anbu guards and it’s incredibly cute Summary: He will not be the ANBU who let the jinchuuriki plummet to his death out a fourth story window. Let that be another ANBU’s legacy.

Being Over-Prepared is Impossible (and other mottos) by Pleasedial123 Longfic, Gen, Team Seven, team as family, Bamf Kakashi, Bamf team 7, au, kakashi pov, Complete but part of a three part series and the third part is still ongoing, still highly recommend, what team 7 should have been, Skilled Teacher! Kakashi Summary: In one world, Kakashi awoke, felt grieved at being assigned a team he sees his own in, and he let that grief make him a lazy teacher. He saw himself in Sasuke, Obito in Naruto, and Rin in Sakura. He woke, saw himself in them, and took a large step back, regretting accepting them as his new team. In that world he was quite hands off - merely a watcher because it was so very painful to watch. He saw himself and all his mistakes in this new team of his.

In this world, Kakashi awoke, saw the similarities, and instantly panicked.

He suddenly realised what he had done, passing a team. Kakashi was left scrambling not to repeat old mistakes and regrets. This team would not suffer the fate of his team.

In this world, simply put, Kakashi became a teacher. This is the beginning of a new team seven.

Something in the water by maldoror_gw Oneshot, Gen, Teen and Up for language, hilarious, Tsunade pov, fluff, mild crack, pre-shippuden post naruto,

Summary: "Sakura...what is that man reading?" Tsunade asked in a dangerous voice. Sakura's gaze twitched away from her ex-teacher to her new - and temperamental - mentor. "Erm...a book...written by a...well-respected member of the community...about...romance?" Tsunade noted with passing approval that Sakura was demonstrating both loyalty and quite a lot of imagination in defending her one-time team leader (who was now trying to edge around a pillar to get away from Tsunade's venomous glare).

backslide by blackkat Time travel, time travel fix it, mature, fluff, team seven, m/m, slow build romance, Naruto adopts himself, Uzumaki heritage, bamf Naruto, complete longfic, Summary: Naruto’s friends are gone, his lover is dying, Konoha is destroyed, and Madara’s second return has pushed the entire world to the brink. Hunted and harried, Naruto is sent back in time to upend Madara’s plan before it even starts, and sets about changing everything. Butterfly effect nothing: the world is at stake, and Naruto is hardly about to let it fall to ruin once more. Not while he’s still breathing.

Tobirama Kicks Some Sense Into Konoha by allseer15 Hurt/comfort, whump, emotional whump, time travel, fix it, time travel fix it, The ‘what if Tobirama came to the future saw an orphaned Naruto and adopted the shit out of him’ Fic, Iconique, child neglect, child abandonment, fluff, so much fluff, completed longfic, look I have a weakness for the time travel fix it trope at the best of times but this fic is good even looking at it without focusing on that! Prolonged Tobirama content, Senju lore, senju feels, Summary: The Hidden Leaf Village in Naruto's time seems to have forgotten just why the village was founded and have lost their way. Through a mishap with a hiraishin seal, Tobirama finds himself during Naruto's time and he is having none of this nonsense. His brother may be gone, but he won't stand to have Hashirama's dream trampled so. And if he has to cause a civil war or burn the village down to the ground? Well that depends on how much resistance he meets. All Tobirama does know for certain is that no child will suffer underneath the protection of Konoha and if he has to take them in and care for them himself, then he will.

Hardest of hearts by blackkat Oneshot, Gen, look I really like blackkat’s naruto fic okay, part one of a completed three part series, all three parts are great, Fix its are the best, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix It, Orochimaru redemption story, the sheer shadenfreude of one baddie fucking over another baddie, in this case Danzo, Obito has a ‘bad guy but not that bad of a guy’ solidarity moment with Orochimaru at the start and I loved it so there’s that, featuring a low key constantly horrified at this turn of events Minato,

Summary: Orochimaru gets one more chance. Just maybe, it will be enough to save him—and the entire world as well.

A Snake In the Grass, a Wolf At the Door by blackkat Mature, Completed ten chapter fic, Orochimaru redemption story, Orochimaru/Kakashi’s dad, you read that right, quality Sakumo content, Families of Choice, Humour, Fluff and Angst, somewhat crackish, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, baby Kakashi being a cutie Summary: Orochimaru is on the edge of breaking when someone unexpected pulls him back to solid ground. When the time comes, he returns the favour.

Nukenin by WhisperingDarkness Gen, dimension travel, team seven, team as family, Kakashi actually being a good sensei even when he’s not a sensei at all, possessive kakashi, Team Seven is his team, Kinda Fluffy, Protective Kakashi, the ‘this might as well happen’ adaptability is real, Kakashi adopts team seven and team seven adopts kakashi, even though he’s illegal, 4 chapter fic, marked as complete as author doesn’t plan to continue it, but even taking these chapters as stand alone this fic is great,

Summary: In the sealed scroll he finds a Bingo Book – his own page marking him as an S-class nukenin with flee-on-sight orders. “Ok. That is definitely different.” In his head he blames Naruto – even if his number one unpredictable student had been nowhere near him on this mission. When things go this stupidly impossibly wrong it must somehow be the future Hokage’s fault.

Ear to the Wall by Vodkassassin Ongoing, it’s really really good though! great Kakashi content, Minato is very stressed and I love him, Sickfic, Hurt/Comfort, whump, PTSD’d Kakashi gets to relive his childhood but gets a little bit of a real childhood along the way, ADHD Rin, time travel fix it, look I like what I like and what I like is fix its and time travel apparently, Kakashi adopts Orochimaru before he descends into douchbaggery, Orochimaru Redemption story, everyone is alive, Summary: The Minato-sensei beams at him, and replies, “Kakashi! I’m glad you’re awake,” and, yup, that’s Minato-sensei’s voice. Kakashi falls back down against the bed, closing his eyes. It’s too short of a way down, and he clenches hands that are too tiny and feeble and not his in dog-print sheets he hasn’t owned for decades.

How To Save The World With No One Even Realising by IncompleteSentanc (Erava) Gen, Teen and Up, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, time travel fix it, Canonically Accurate OP Team 7, SuperBadass!Sakura, SuperBadass!Sasuke, SuperBadass!Naruto, RegularBadass!Shikamaru, Canonically Violent Sasuke, Equally Violent Sakura, Saving The World One Murder At A Time, Various Jinchuuriki, Team 7 As Super Villains, Doing Super Villainy Stuff, Like Murder, And Professional Eyeball Removal, Poor Obito, Poor Minato, AKA The Worst Four Months of Minato's Life, And Everyone Else's Too, Dark Humor, Bittersweet Ending, Dark Comedy, Crack treated seriously, completed 3 chapter fic, Well worth the read, Team 7 To The End! Summary: Minato knows at the beginning of the week that it's going to be a hellish one. Mostly because it starts with the kidnapping of one of his two remaining students, only a year after they'd lost the first one. He just doesn't realise at the time that it's not going to be a hellish week - it's going to be hell for quite a bit longer than that. It all starts with Rin's kidnapping, and her subsequent rescue at the hands of a mysteriously appearing, monstrously strong, murderously violent woman. A woman with cotton candy pink hair. It only devolves from there.

Just Killing Time by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling) Gen, Oneshot, Short and Sweet, Classic of The Fandom, Ficlet, Team 7, Kids being Kids, Fluff, Fluff and Humour, Slice of Life, Cute Kids

Summary: After Wave Country and before the chuunin exam, Team 7 kills time while waiting for Kakashi to show up.

there lies a trail of fire behind us by BowAndDagger Gen, Madara is extremely confused but mostly on board, Time Travel au, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bamf Naruto Uzumaki, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Except Zetsu, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Founders Era, clan wars era, Pre-Slash, POV Uchiha Madara, the Completed part one of an Ongoing/Incomplete series, completed 4 chapter fic, Summary: As he returns from a mission, Madara makes a strange encounter with an even stranger shinobi. Then, he’s summarily kidnapped to go on a quest to save the world by said weird shinobi. (He absolutely did not choose to follow the stranger on his own free will. He was kidnapped. He did not give chase. He did not.)

A Political Perspective by VJ Riddle / MueraRashaye Ongoing, Possibly (Probably) Discontinued, Teen and Up, Gen, Team 7, training montage deluxe, Konoha is a murder village, Good Teacher! Kakashi, AU, slowly developing into Bamf team 7, Bamf Kakashi, slowly developing into Team as Family, lots of fun ideas, not crack, Minor Spoiler: Zabuza and Haku get x’d before their character development gets its chance to shine in this fic, Sometimes people don’t warn for that in the tags and it can be a dealbreaker in fic for me as I love those two, not a dealbreaker in the case of this fic though! Really good fic so far, kind of verging on dry in places but it always stays fun in the end with lots of interesting elements, I enjoy the character insight from the pov switching, and also how much of a headcase Kakashi is, graphic depictions of violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence,

Summary: Hatake Kakashi was a shinobi, and as a shinobi, the only people who could give him orders were his military superiors. The idea that a Council made up of civilians and peers was under the impression they could give him orders...displeased him. Or: He was ordered to pass Team 7. He was fine with that, until they actually passed.

Integrity by Liz_Starling Oneshot, Gen, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Compliant, Integrity, Child Neglect, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Reflections on Naruto’s inner workings as a person, promises,

Summary: Naruto keeps his word. Some people are loyal to their families. Some, their orders. Naruto is loyal to the only thing he’s been able to count on; the promises he makes.

Foundation (Build It Higher, Bury It Deeper) by RayShippouUchiha Ongoing, BUT EXCELLENT, it made me cry, Naruto feels, 6 chapter fic thus far, Bamf Naruto, Bamf Tsunade, Naruto deserved better, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mature, Team 7, Uzumaki Feels, Abandonment, Tsunade gives Naruto the personal talk he deserved instead of finding out from a chakra imprint when he was dying, so we stan, I love this fic

Summary: It’s just… he’d thought, given his fight against Neji and then his confrontation with Gaara, that someone would finally really acknowledge what he’d done. That beyond Iruka-sensei’s crushing hug and Kakashi-sensei’s absent pat, someone would actually notice that he’d won against both of them.

That he’d beaten a genius on his own and then had battled another jinchūriki to a stand still.

So while he hadn’t really expected to be promoted too he’d still ...

¦ part 1 ¦ part 2 ¦ part 3 ¦

#Naruto #fic rec list #fic recs #naruto fic rec list #fic rec masterpost #naruto fic recs #fanfic recs #team 7 #fic rec list masterpost #naruto fics #Uzumaki Naruto #subject to possible edits in the future #like if i wanna make a part 4 this baby's getting edited #believe it #lol #gen naruto fics

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malghra · 3 years

Text

tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks (1/3)

Darklina Week, Day 7: Soulmates

AO3 link

Soulmates aren’t the ones who make you happiest, no. They’re instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation, and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope. ― Victoria Erickson

"I thought I had raised you to be smarter than this," she told him. "It does not do to fill your head with dreams and fairytales, boy. Love is a weakness the likes of us cannot afford."

Ana Kuya's knitting needles stopped clicking and she laughed softly, shaking her head. "It was just a story, Alinochka. Now, go to sleep."

Aleksander believes his name was Anton, when he first heard about soulmates, or perhaps it had been Leonid, or Vasya. The names and cover stories have all blurred together into an endless succession of lies, he barely recalls them. He does remember the names from the story. Galina and her Igor.

His mother had been serving at some fat nobleman's estate at the time, and Aleksander had snuck out of his room to find a mirror in one of the many chambers in the main house and search his body for a mark. Because of what they were, he had never belonged anywhere, had never known a place he could call home, and probably never would, but belonging to another person sounded almost as good as having a home.

His mother had been the one to find him. He feared she would be cross with him for sneaking into the house, but she only sighed and shook her head.

"I thought I had raised you to be smarter than this," she told him. "It does not do to fill your head with dreams and fairytales, boy. Love is a weakness the likes of us cannot afford."

Ana Kuya didn't use to tell many stories, and when she did, there was usually some lesson or warning in her tale. But when Alina was seven, Ana Kuya told the orphans at Keramzin a story that had her listening with bated breath.

Alina had always been prone to daydreaming, and over the next few weeks, she often caught herself thinking about Igor and his Galina, while she was doing her chores or picking flowers in the meadows beyond the walls of the estate. Alina had always been alone. She could barely remember anything from before. Someone to belong with, just one person to call her own in this world, it was everything she had ever wanted.

Alina couldn't wait until she would meet her soulmate and leave the orphanage.

"When will I get my soulmark?" A fever-plagued Alina asked Ana Kuya one night, when the older woman had decided to stay by her bedside to watch her.

Ana Kuya's knitting needles stopped clicking and she laughed softly, shaking her head. "It was just a story, Alinochka. Now, go to sleep."

"I wish we could stay here forever" Luda sighed as she put her head on Aleksander's chest. She looked softer like this, and this fierce woman's tenderness almost surprised him.

"Perhaps we should." Perhaps they should forget about everyone and everything out there, stay in this hut, where it was just them, and kings and allegiances and wars didn't matter. He didn't know if he loved Luda, but he thought he could, and perhaps this would be the only way they could defy the rest of the world.

He'd searched his body earlier, in the light of the candles. No mark had appeared on his skin since he'd met Luda. He wasn't sure he had been expecting to find one, whether he even wanted to find one, but he had still felt disappointed.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" he asked her.

She twisted her neck, bracing herself on her elbow to look at his face. "Why, would you like to see your name on my ass, Aleksander?" she drawled at him with a smirk. The sound of his name on her lips stirred things in him. His mother would call him a fool who never learned if she heard it.

"What? No," he muttered. "I meant..."

She giggled, nuzzling at his chest before meeting his gaze again, arching an eyebrow.

"You don't have a soulmark," he observed.

"You had yourself a good look then, did you?"

"I had more than just a look," he reminded her, grabbing her by the waist to pull her on top of him.

"No," she told him as she inclined her head to kiss him. "I don't have a soulmark."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"No, Aleksander" she moaned as she rubbed herself on his hardening length. "It doesn't. I won’t let the saints decide my fate. I make my own choices."

He groaned even as her words brought a smile to his face. She was right. He decided in that moment that he did love her, even if he shouldn’t, and apparently that was all his own doing, not some mysterious plan made up by the saints.

Alina was used to having nightmares about the raid on her village, which often left her sweaty and panting, but although the images in her dreams had been much the same, today was different. Her hair and nightgown were sticking to her damp skin as usual, and the dull headache was not unfamiliar either, but the pain in her lower back was, and so was the stickiness on the insides of her thighs.

When she sat up, she felt a gush of warm liquid. She threw back the covers and rucked up her nightgown, discovering bright red splotches on her skin and a darker stain on the bedclothes. She squirmed away, kicking at the covers, almost falling headfirst to the ground as she struggled to get out of the bed. She ended up on her hands and knees, half slouched against the side of the bed, heart hammering in her chest.

"Saints!" she hissed. Ana Kuya was going to kill her for staining the sheets.

To Alina's surprise, the older woman was surprisingly gentle with her as she gave her a bundle of rags and instructed her on her entrance into womanhood. She even allowed her to indulge in a cake and released her of her chores that morning.

Hours later, she noticed the itch on the skin of her left breast. She rubbed at it lightly through the fabric of her tunic, mentally hearing Ana Kuya's voice chiding her, for it was unseemly for a girl to scratch herself, but the itch wouldn't stop.

When she unlaced her tunic to look at the itchy red blotch, it started burning. She he ran to her water basin, hoping cool water might ease the sting. She dabbed at the wound with a rag, and when it stopped burning, she uncovered it to see two words written an inch above her nipple.

A story long forgotten returned to her, and she clasped a hand over her mouth as the realization hit her. She snuck out of her room and tiptoed through the hallway down the stairs to slip into Ana Kuya's bedroom, where she kept a mirror on her dressing table.

Shifting between twisting her neck and squinting at the letters curling on her breast in the looking glass, Alina deciphered the name written on her skin. Aleksander Morozova. She had no idea who that was. Her heart sank into her stomach, and she realized she'd been hoping for a different name.

Luda died. Aleksander had always known she would. His mother had warned him often enough. It still happened too soon, it was too brutal, too callous, and it hurt so much he could barely breathe.

Afterwards, he had finally come to accept his mother's lesson that love was a weakness he couldn't afford, but he had still defied her by using merzost in his grief and his rage. Creating the Fold had changed him. He had become a dark god of death and destruction. Even if the small, lonely boy inside of him still craved it, he knew he couldn't risk getting attached to mortals again.

Hundreds of years later, he decided it was for the best he had never received a mark. Watching every single person he ever met die was bad enough as it was, and he'd learned to shield himself from the grief. But he had also witnessed the heartbreak, the devastating and soul-crushing pain, the sharp-edged, gaping hole tearing a person apart after they had lost their soulmate. He was not arrogant enough to think he might survive that.

He took lovers over the years. He was still a man after all, and he'd learned that nothing could replace the feeling of skin on skin and human warmth exchanged in the meeting of two, or more bodies. He tried to avoid other Grisha though, at least until after he'd built the Little Palace and he could be sure he had enough power to protect himself from their greed. He had not forgotten Annika.

There was a Shu princess once, who would become a saint later. She believed in destiny, and though she knew what he was from the moment she first touched him, she wanted more from him than killing him and wearing his bones. Aleksander was sure that she loved him, but he had become incapable of returning those feelings.

He still remembers her eyes searching his body in the soft glow of the firelight after he had bedded her for the first time. He knew her name would not appear on his body, and that suited him just fine.

Her own mark had been burned off on orders of the King, a king she would bring to his knees years later. She would take his throne and his country, and rule it wisely. He could have stayed by her side for that, but soon enough, he would sneak off in the dead of night, leaving her with a broken heart to protect his own.

He took lovers, and he enjoyed his time with them, but he made sure to armour his heart, and he never looked for a soulmark again.

Alina was only days away from her sixteenth birthday when Mal became the first person to see her soulmark. She'd come to accept that he was not her soulmate, but she still hadn't figured out who Aleksander Morozova was, so she told herself there was no harm in letting Mal kiss her in the meadow or behind the stables.

And that was how she had ended up in the pantry with him. He had removed his shirt and kicked off his boots, unfastening and shoving his trousers down.

Alina was down to her tunic, her own leggings lost somewhere in a corner. She moved to close the distance between them. She pushed herself up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him.

He splayed his hands on her back and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. She rubbed her thighs together as she could feel his hardening length against her belly.

He fisted his hands into the fabric of her tunic and started bunching it up. She froze in his embrace.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

Alina hesitated, but she had known for a while that she couldn't hide this from him forever. "Promise you won't hate me?"

He frowned, but nodded.

She reached for the hem of her tunic and pulled it over her head, resisting the urge to cover her breasts with her arms.

Alina spotted the moment the desire in his eyes shifted to revulsion, or fear perhaps, she couldn't be sure. There was definitely pain, she decided, as she tried to grab his arm.

He flinched and danced away from her touch, not meeting her eyes in the faint light.

Hesitantly, she reached for him again. "I’m sorry," she whispered, but he was already collecting his clothes and heading for the door.

When Alina wakes up after her first night at the Little Palace, she tries to insist that she is perfectly capable of washing herself, but the army of maids that has suddenly infiltrated her rooms just won't listen to her. They have her out of her clothes and in the bathtub in a matter of moments, and Alina can only sit back and stare at them with her mouth hanging open.

She doesn't want any of them to see her naked. Mal had been the first, and for now, she wants him to be the last. She even kept her tunic on when she bedded Yuri in the cartographers tent, pretending to be too shy to take it off.

She can see it happening, and she tries to stop it, but before she can do so, the girl closest to her brushes her hair back and bares her chest. She gasps and whispers, "Madam Safin!", clasping a hand over her mouth.

The tailor who has introduced herself as Genya approaches them and takes one look at Alina's mark, before clapping her hands once and ordering all of the maids out of the room.

"I'm so sorry," she tells Alina with a sad smile on her face. "I can't fix that."

"I've had it for five years," she says dumbly, not understanding why Genya is apologizing to her. She crosses her arms over her chest and keeps her head down.

"Ah," the beautiful redhead remembers. "You wouldn't know, of course."

"Know what?" Alina wonders, head snapping back up to look at Genya.

She kneels next to the bathtub. "Do you know the story of Sankt Ilya?"

Alina nods. Ana Kuya had told all of the saints' stories countless times to the orphans of Keramzin.

"Grisha know him as Ilya Morozova, the Bone Smith," she continues, resting her arms on the edge of the tub. "You've heard the tale of his martyrdom?"

"Yes," she answers, though she remembers there were several versions. There was always a child, though.

"Ilya had two children. We don't know their names, but perhaps one of them was your Aleksander," she mumbles. "Ilya Morozova's children died with him, and their deaths ended the Morozova line."

She shakes her head. "What does that mean?"

Genya sighs, her big blue eyes filled with pity when she looks at Alina. "I think it means you are both blessed and cursed."

When General Kirigan leads Alina into his council room on the night of the winter fete, she hasn't thought about Aleksander Morozova in weeks. And when his lips meet hers she almost forgets her own name.

Alina has been kissed before, drunken endeavours, awkward fumblings, most of them mistakes, often either too tentative or too bold, but this, this is different. Kirigan's mouth and hands are sure, moving and touching with purpose. His body is hard and insistent against hers, but never crossing that line of suffocating aggression, even if part of her wouldn't mind it.

He kisses her like a starved man, desperate and craving whatever it is he may think she can offer him, and Alina feels like she is drowning. Her head is spinning, she feels weightless and too heavy all at once. It's too much, so overwhelming part of her wants to push him away so she doesn't lose herself in the feeling of kissing him and being kissed by him, but she's too hungry for it.

Instead, she grabs the lapels of his kefta, bunching the fabric in her rabid fist and cards the fingers of her other hand through the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling on the strands to ground herself. She's losing herself, but she's never been less afraid in her life. It's not truly loss, it's transcendence, a promise of something far greater, a concord of beauty and terror that has her straining to reach it.

He groans into her mouth, and she swallows that groan greedily. His lips leave hers to nip at her jaw and suck on her pulse point, drawing a mewl from her throat. His hands are still everywhere, roaming, exploring, holding, caressing, as are hers.

She doesn't register the first knock on the door, but the second one makes her gasp, makes her reach for him with greedy fingers as soon as she feels him starting to pull back.

"Don't." She's not begging him, it's a feral growl rising from her chest.

He rests his forehead against hers and chuckles, stealing another kiss that has her craning her neck when he steps out of her embrace. Her heavy eyes flutter open, finding the black pools that are his and she feels liquid warmth swirling in her core.

"Don't," she repeats, and this time it does sound like a plea, but she knows it's no use. Just a moment ago, he was in as deep as she was, but now he's striding for the door.

He comes back for her, if only for a moment, but he returns to kiss her, only to leave again. It's a continuation of their game, this push and pull, but somehow there is no doubt in Alina's mind that he will be back. And she'll be here waiting for him.

She still feels dazed, and giddy, caught up in a warm, golden haze, when a creak behind her snaps her slow mind out of it and forces her to whirl around and call the light.

A panel in the wall closest to her had swung open and Baghra was standing in the doorway it had been hiding.

"Come, child, come quickly!" she whispers, and despite herself, Alina obeys the urgency in her voice.

"What's wrong?" she manages to ask before Baghra coaxes her into the tunnel behind her and starts walking, Alina following along.

Baghra tells her about the Fold and the Black Heretic, and she warns Alina that she's in danger. She claims that Kirigan is the danger.

Alina objects. She keeps mouthing, "No!" her voice growing stronger until Baghra's stern look forces her to say, "I don't understand."

"Child," Baghra intones, grabbing her by the wrist. "Aleksander is the Black Heretic."

"What?" she blurts out. She should tell Baghra that she's not making any sense, that what she is telling her is impossible, completely ridiculous even, but she can't focus on any of that. Her hand flies up to cover the top of her left breast.

"What did you call him?"

Baghra huffs. "Did you think Kirigan was his real name? It's Aleksander Morozova."

Baghra tells her more, so much more. She summons shadows and shows her a painting, but Alina barely registers any of it. She keeps seeing his face. She hears his name inside her head, over and over again. Aleksander Morozova. Baghra leaves her, orders her to keep walking and to turn right at the fork. Her accomplices will be waiting for Alina there.

Alina doesn't turn right at the fork. She's not ready to trust whatever Baghra has planned for her. She could wait and return to the Little Palace, follow the tunnel all the way back to Kirigan's—no, Aleksander's chambers, talk to him, tell him everything and demand an explanation.

Alina doesn't go back. She turns left at the fork and keeps walking, speeding up to a jog. Too much has happened tonight, and it's overwhelming her. She needs to get away from all of it. So she runs.

#darklina #alina x the darkling #alina starkov x aleksander morozova #darklinadaily #darklinaweek2021 #soulmates

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vagrantblvrd · 3 years

Text

AU where Luke and Leia are the children of the queen of Naboo and powerful and well-respected Jedi Knight, just about the age to marry and it’s this Responsibility hanging over their heads.

Their parents would never marry them off to someone horrible, but that’s not the point, and anyway, anyway, they know their duty.

(It breaks their parent’s hearts, but barring the same sort of Very Specific and Unique events that conspired to allow Padme to marry Anakin the best they can hope for is to like their future spouses, so.)

But then!

Conspiracies and the whatnot, and whispers of war spreading across the galaxy thanks to some faceless warlord pulling strings from the shadows and so on.

Worlds that co-existed, thrived, suddenly at one another’s throats and out of fear for their children’s safety they arrange for them to visit dear friend Bail and Breha on Alderaan.

(There’s meant to be a celebration, eligible suitors for Luke and Leia while keeping them far from skirmishes that have taken place too close to Naboo.)

Unfortunately Leia gets sick just as they’re about to leave, nothing too worry over, lose sleep over, but travel would only make it worse so she’s to stay behind while Luke and leaves for Alderaan on schedule.

(He visits her, the night before he leaves. Sneaks into her rooms the way he used to when they were younger and supposed to be asleep hours ago but young and foolish and the kind of reckless rebellion of the young and so on.

Leia’s tired, still recovering but she still manages a smile, a laugh, when Luke tumbles in through the window a though their parents haven’t been training them since they were young.

Politics, of course, but their father is a Jedi Knight and their mother is the queen, and anyway, anyway, any clumsiness they show these days are deliberate, so.

They talk, aware this may be one of the rare chances they’ll get like this again, what with their duties and responsibilities and privileged as they are the universe is far from fair.

Luke smiles, jokes, but there’s a flat tone to it that Leia hears all too clearly and Luke -

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he says, wry twist to his mouth.

It’s a childhood joke borne of the stories their father and his former mentor would tell them at bedtime, well-worn phrase that heralded the kind of adventure that made them into legends, and now -

Leia grips Luke’s hands tight in hers because she does as well, dread a heavy weight in her chest.

“Don’t go,” she tells him, knowing he has no choice in the matter. “Luke, please.”

It’s on her face, in her voice, her yes, and there’s nothing they can do.

So.

Luke smiles, jokes, reminisces with Leia about the adventures they had running around the palace and its grounds and causing no end of trouble to their minders when their parents were busy until Leia falls asleep and Luke slips out the window and back to his own rooms without waking her.)

Leia knows long before word reaches Naboo that Luke’s ship was attacked in transit, all hands lost.

(Knows when their father senses it too, his rage and grief enough to send her to knees, draw the tears she refused to shed until then. She’s Force-sensitive, yes, but her father and brother are stronger, and if he’s so certain Luke is gone, then there’s no hope left for her.)

BUT THEN.

Luke’s not dead, of course he’s not, what kind of story do you think this is?

As it turns out, Luke’s ship was attacked, but one of his guards, escorts, manages to get him to an escape pod and away from the ships painted to look like one of Naboo’s allies turned jealous and bitter and angry over years and some insult or other.

(Conspiracies on conspiracies and so on.)

Lands on a planet, rocky and desolate and very much alone, injured.

Stumbles out of the escape pod, emergency supplies held tight in hand and absolutely certain he can’t stay there. Can’t wait for rescue to come, not knowing if whoever attacked his ship might find him first and finish the job that claimed his ship and the lives of people he’s known since he was young.

Manages to get a decent ways away from the escape pod before exhaustion and his injuries lay him low.

Cave in the distance he might be able to seek shelter in, assuming there are no native predators or otherwise living there, and he almost, almost makes it before he passes out.

Comes to however many hours later to a voice he doesn’t know pitched low and annoyed, but the hands checking him for injuries - he hopes, would be the worst luck to be robbed, looted, after recent events - are surprisingly gentle.

“What?”

Luke said that out loud, didn’t he.

“...Yes.”

Luke would laugh if it didn’t feel as though his head might burst, result of his skull meeting with a bulkhead at inadvisable speeds, and that had happened before the escape pod landed, so.

“Sorry,” Luke mumbles, because he does have manners. “But if you are robbing me I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer.”

There’s a long pause then, whoever is there with him so still Luke has a moment to wonder if they’ve left, offended by Luke’s words or disappointed he’s not worth robbing and then -

“Hmm.”

Luke frowns, risks opening his eyes and sees a kneeling beside him, oddly shiny.

“’Shiny’.”

Luke squints, tries to make out the figure, but it’s difficult as there seem to be two of them, and -

“I think I might have a concussion,” Luke informs the oddly shiny figure, and passes out again.

Later, however many hour later, he comes to with that same annoyed voice in his ears, but now there’s a fire merrily burning.

Nice, because it’s nighttime now, and cold and -

“You’re awake.”

As far as observations like that go, it’s incredibly unimpressed.

“Hmm,” Luke hmms, fuzzy memory of his oddly shiny companion doing the same, and also Luke being a natural-born smartass,

(Hereditary, he’s been told, along with stubbornness and fondness for eschewing things like common sense and a flair for the dramatic.)

There’s a sigh, long and heavy, and then the sound of the oddly shiny person moving closer, shadow falling over Luke that he can’t see with his yes closed the way they are, but, well.

His father is a Jedi Knight and he and Leia take after him in noticeable ways.

Luke opens his eyes and thinks oh, and hmm, and Leia is going to kill me, because his companion is indeed oddly shiny.

Or, well.

Perhaps not so odd, what with the armor and all.

Din - because of course it’s Din - is super unimpressed with Luke and his everything and Luke is just ??? because Mandalorian???

Not known to be BFFs with Jedi or Jedi-in-training, like Luke???

But Din can be excused for not partaking in this old feud/rivalry/animosity between them because Luke isn’t dressed as it befitting someone of his position, no.

He’s wearing the clothes he prefers on long trips when the are no other dignitaries along because to start with, they’re comfortable? But also Luke likes to tinker??? Little projects and such and maybe his father sent along a speeder or some other tinker-able vehicle to keep Luke occupied on the trip, use when he gets to Alderaan or...whatever.

Doesn’t look like the royalty, especially after recent events, and nothing to mark him as the prince of Naboo, or a Jedi-in-training and sworn enemy of the Mandalorians, and really, it’s incredibly, amazingly convenient, but it is what it is.

Din grumbles and complains, but he stays with Luke until he’s able to stand on his feet and even walk a fair distance without falling on his ass, and sighs when Luke invites himself along later that day when he says he has business elsewhere,

And then the two of them traveling to...somewhere, Din didn’t volunteer that information and Luke was too grateful to be headed away from where his escape pod crashed and potential search parties (doesn’t feel like trusting to the fact they’d be friendly towards him) and so on.

Doesn’t chatter incessantly as the annoyed set of Din’s shoulders heavily imply, because Luke is still injured and while his head isn’t an agony at the moment, it’s hardly a joy to deal with.

But, he does talk.

A lot.

About everything and nothing, off on a tangent here, there, wander far and wide the better to annoy Din into forgetting what questions he asked Luke. (The ones asking who he is, how he got there, and where the hell he’s going next, because Din’s patience lasts only so long.)

To Dins quiet horror, however, he actually starts to like Luke???

Like.

Annoying, yes, with the talking? But he doesn’t complain about all the walking they’re doing, or sleeping conditions when they make camp for the night and so on.

And, alright, sometimes it does get a bit lonely out here - conveniently far enough away from settlements or cities where someone would definitely recognize Luke - but he doesn’t tell Luke that, goodness no.

They run into trouble, after a while.

People who took part in the attack on Luke’s ship and other baddies on Mandalore connected to them and it’s a matter of bad luck meeting worse luck, and anyway, anyway.

There’s a fight, and some guns with the pew-pew shootout and Luke being the one to save Din’s life, escaping with him to some abandoned mine or underground tunnels, something and -

“Ah,” Luke says, breathless from the running and hiding and saving Din’s life and then hauling him somewhere that was supposed to be safe, even with the help of the Force.

(His head is killing him again, nowhere near healed enough to expend as much effort as he has just now, but it that or die, and he’d rather not get Din killed as well since the man’s only shown him kindness - and his special brand of charm - and anyway. Yes.)

He’s expecting it to be the people who ambushed them, but to his surprise, wariness, dread, it’s a Mandalorian. (Armor’s a dead giveaway and all.)

One who cocks their head when they see Luke’s face, blaster dipping slightly at the sight of him.

Luke tries for a smile, but Din groans, low, pained, and the best Luke was able to do was check the wound wasn’t life-threatening and slap a patch-job bandage over it before they made a break for it, and -

“I don’t suppose it would be asking too much if you had medical supplies, would it?” Luke asks, expecting to get shot for his trouble - sass, snark - but the Mandalorian holding them at blaster-point huffs out a laugh and holsters said blaster.

Jerks their chin towards a side tunnel and strides off, clearly expecting Luke to follow, and after a moment’s hesitation - no way to know if the Mandalorian is taking them to their deaths - but no better option available to them, so Luke follows.

(Murmurs an apology to Din when he groans again, guilt heavier than Din’s arm slung over his shoulder, the weight of Din and his armor, knowing he wouldn’t be in this situation if he’d left well enough alone after stumbling on Luke. So.)

Mystery!Mandalorian leads Luke to a room with medical supplies stored neatly. Clean and well-lit and after getting permission - nod of Mystery-Mandalorian’s head and wave of their hand that seems more amused than mocking - Luke sets about properly treating Din’s injuries.

Fumbles a bit, because Luke’s still injured himself, over-extended himself in the earlier fight, and it’s catching up to him now they’re somewhere arguably safe.

(No one actively trying to kill them, anyway.)

Mystery!Mandalorian watches as Luke tries to et his hands to stop shaking - stress, injury, exhaustion, any of a dozen reasons and he swears, low under his breath because now isn’t the time -

He startles when Mystery!Mandalorian takes the medical supplies out of his hands, didn’t notice him moving close enough to do so, and allows the hand on his shoulder that guides him into sitting on a stool as they do for him what he can’t in that moment and looks after Din.

Watches quietly, closely, but Mystery!Mandalorian knows what they’re doing, and truthfully Luke knows if they intended them harm there would easier ways, more efficient ones than this.

So.

He watches Mystgery!Mandalorian tend to Din’s injuries, and blinks up at them stupidly when they turn back to him, head tilted just so.

“What?” Luke asks, and Mystery!Mandalorian huffs out a laugh, quiet breath of laughter and then it’s Luke’s turn to be treated.

Careful, gentle hands and Luke’s mind drifts while Mystery!Mandalorian cleans and dresses a blaster burn on his shoulder, graze courtesy of a shot he hadn’t seen coming, attention on Din instead and he knows if it were a normal (...somewhat) normal situation he’d get a lecture on that lapse.

(A lecture, his father’s face stern, and under it worry, concern for him Luke’s never doubted, and after that his mother and quiet, soft words interwined with the same firece love his father has for his children. .)

As it is...

“Thank you,” Luke says, hopes Mystery!Mandalorian hears the things he can’t find the words for, the gratitude he feels.

Mystery!Mandalorian studies him for a long moment, Luke returning their regard best as he can even as he feels his mind going slow, stupid, as exhaustion rolls over him.

He can feel Mystery!Mandalorian watching him, them, unexected guests, visitors, complications, and there’s another sigh.

A gesture towards an unoccupied medical bed, slight tilt of his head that feels of that same brand of amusement from earlier.

Luke eyes it longingly because he’s tired, isn’t he, too much happening in too short a period of time and this feeling in the back of his mind that something is happening.

Whispers and rumors building towards something catastrophic if left unchecked and murmurs though the Force he’s known all his life.

“Rest,” Mystery!Mandalorian says, gentle, kind. “I’ll keep watch.”

It shouldn’t be a reassuring as it is, shouldn’t feel like Luke is breathing his first full breath since the alarms on his ship started wailing, intangible dread he’d felt once they left Naboo’s made real.

And yet...

There’s something about Mystery!Mandalorian he can’t help but trust, and Luke’s mind is tired, muddled, clear thought a struggle but the way the Force coils around them is enough to set his mind at ease.

“Thank you,” Luke says, and the words aren’t enough to articulate what he means, but it seems to be understood anyway.

He makes his way to the medical bed, and it isn’t long until he falls asleep, swears he hears Mystery!Mandalorian say, before he does, strangely soft, fond.

“You really are just like your father, aren’t you?”, and with no little amusement, “Skwalkers.”

And then shenanigans???

Luke waking up to Din staring at him from his own medical bed, at a loss regarding their situation, everything, and annoye (at himself???) about it, because Luke saved his life, didn’t he?

Saved it, and saved it again by getting them to safety and out of the hands of whoever attacked them, and that’s about the time Mystery!Mandalorian shows up, and Din is -

Not thrilled???

Doesn’t recognize the armor, person, regarding the two of them with this underlying amusement. (It rankles, that amusement, leaves him wrong-footed.)

Still, he follows Luke’s lead when he insists Mystery!Mandalorian is a friend - “Well,” Luke allows, at the look Din gives him when he says that. “He hasn’t tried to kill us. Yet.”

Which.

Fair, if not a ringing endorsement, but it’s not like they have much choice in the matter when Mystery!Mandalorian tells them to follow them, and off they go.

Underground tunnels and such until they get to some sort of base.

Other Mandalorians and Din is like oh, no, because these ones he does recognize.

“Resistance,” he says to Luke who’s picked up on his unease, gaze flicking to Din’s behind Mystery!Mandalorian’s back as they’re led down corridors to meet with what must be leadership.

Because Mandalore and unrest and that same something Luke’s known about his whole life and the way it affects the universe around him and just, yes.

Mystery!Mandalorian cocks his head as the lift they’re on descends, listening in, and still that amusement.

“Indeed,” he says, and something about it snaps Luke’s attention to him, makes Din...wary.

Just as well the lift stops, doors sliding open and then more corridors that seem to go on forever until they reach a set of doors.

Mystery!Mandalorian glances back at them for a moment, and huffs a quiet laugh at whatever he sees, and then they’re pressing forward.

It’s...not what he was expecting.

An office of some kind, with a holomap table off to one side and monitors and consoles beside it. A stripped down version of the control room they passed by floors down, and a slight figure in armor, head bowed over the holomap table.

Mystery!Mandalorian clears their throat, a courtesy, and the armore figure lifts their head, looks over at Luke and Din.

At Mystery!Mandalorian, and there’s a look exchanged between the two, silent conversation before Mystery!Mandalorian glances at Luke and Din again.

Sighs, and reaches up to remove their helmet, crooked smile on their - his face - at the way Luke goes so, so still beside Din.

Silence stretches long enough for Din to feel it, the weight of the revelation even if he doesn’t understand it.

“Hello, Luke,” he says, tired, aching.

Sharp inhale, and Luke tears his eyes away from Mystery!Mandalorian to look at Din, something so very wrong with the smile on his face.

“It’s Ben,” he says, and his voice cracks as he looks back at Mystery!Mandalorian, laughs at something Din doesn’t understand, something that makes Mystery!Mandalorian wince, even as he holds Luke’s gaze when he looks back at him. “Old Ben.”

Din frowns, because the man is older than them, Luke, that much is certain, but surely not old enough to have earned a title like that.

Because, look, alright.

Look.

Obi-Wan and sekrit missions because everyone knows trouble’s brewing, and a duchess of Mandalore contacted Padme, and things kind of just. Grew from there, to the point Obi-Wan went to Mandalore as an emmisary, ostensibly for political reasons, but really to help root out what information he could with Satine’s help and things went wrong.

Had him, and Satine, presumably killed in an uprising, no longer a threat to an unknown enemy.

Until the resistance took root, grew, and other such things.

Satine and Obi-Wan at the head of it, getting what information back to Padme, Anakin they could and everyone agreeing it was best for the time being if they stayed dead.

And then Luke’s ship being attacked and everything that followed, and anyway, anyway welcome to the resistance Luke Skywalker and friend, glad to have you.

Luke is understandably confused, angry at having been left in the dark, and angrier still that he has to admit to the necessity of it.

(He understands, but he’d still mourned for Obi-Wan, his father’s former mentor, teacher, and beloved uncle to Luke and Leia. He understands.)

And then there are briefings, because it’s very much a war the resistance is waging, against a common enemy and while Luke pay close attention to everything he and Din are told, he watches Obi-Wan, Satine.

Thinks oh, of course, when it hits him why the way the two of them interacts seems strangely familiar, known, because it’s the way his parents are, isn’t it?

Familiarity and trust, a knowing, and that little knot of anger buried deep in his chest at the deception involving Obi-Wan’s supposed death all those years ago unravels until he’s no longer breathing around it.

And then!

Shenanigans in which Din very much tries to NOT be part of this madness, because no, okay, no.

Simple bounty hunter and so on, and Luke don’t look at him like that, it won’t work -

So of course that’s when things go to hell and the base is attacked and Luke is taken and Din finds himself staring “Old Ben” down in the aftermath because this may not be his war to fight, but Luke is an idiot.

“Well,” Obi-Wan says, corner of his mouth quirking. “He does take after his father that way.”

Dramatic Rescues and Dine being So Done with everything, but also, like. Being heroically injured by shielding Luke and Luke’s pale face and fear in the back of his eyes as he leans over Din to keep him from bleeding out.

Striving for calm, soothing Din in between yelling for help, Obi-Wan and the others on their way, and Din laughing at him because he was told Jedi didn’t panic.

“Shut up,” Luke says, laugh all wrong. “I thought nothing could get through Mandalorian armor?”

Well.

Things go fuzzy for a bit, Din remembers pain and blood and yelling - a lot of that - and then he wakes up in a medical center somewhere.

Not the resistance base, but he doesn’t recognize it.

“Idiot,” is the first thing he hears, and then, “Stupid,” and so on, and when he turns his head Luke is glaring at him.

He must make for a terrible Jedi, Din thinks, because Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachment, are they?

Dangerous, terrible, and yet.

“You are, yes,” Din says, voice haorse, more of a croak, and when he laughs at the affornted look Luke gives him for that it hurts - still healing and all - but so very worth it.

And then, okay, and then.

It comes out that Palpatine has been building a base of power for himself for years, slow patient, and setting his enemies at one another’s throats to weaken them.

Conspiracies on conspiracies and Din watches Luke as his father - his father, mother, and sister who hasn’t left Luke’s side since they arrived - tell them.

(Because, you know, because. Luke’s family and secrets weighing heavy and of course, of course Leia would not be held back, would not just let Luke’s death go so easily.

Would investigate, relentless, until she stumbled over everything and her parents and a shared look and she gets it from you, you know, and me? you have to be kidding, and I get it from both of you, now tell me what’s going on right now.

Adventures, because Skywalkers. A chance meeting with a scruffy smuggler and his long-suffering Wookie friend, and a rickety, rusty freighter

.Hey, that’s no way to talk about a lady, and as if you’d know, and don’t encourage them, Padme, and Of course not, Anakin, and heavy, resigned sighs because Leia has always been terrifying like her mother and somehow more stubborn.

A resistance - “Rebellion,” Obi-Wan says, glint in his eye when Anakin looks at him, “seems more fitting don’t you think?” - growing as well in secret.

Both brought into the light with recent events and untold battles ahead, and just.

It’s a lot.

“Thought I’d find you here,” Luke says, and Din doesn’t tense at his voice, quiet, something sad to it under his amusement.

Din hmms, glances towards Luke.

So much has happened since they meet, learned of things far bigger than them, and still -

“We’re meant to be enemies,” he says, a Mandalorian to a Jedi, albeit one still in training if what Luke told him is true.

Luke cocks his head, and still crosses the clearing to sit beside him.

Hmms, right back at Din and Din bites back a sigh, watching Luke from the corner of his eye.

With everything that’s happened, they’ve learned, the old grudge seems petty in comparison.

Also, Obi-Wan and Satine, and it hardly seems important anymore, long before his time as it was, and while Luke’s certainly many things, he’s never felt like an enemy.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, calm, cool of the night and so much between them they don’t have words for yet, and none of it unwelcome.

When Luke gets to his feet, holds his hand out to Din, he doesn’t have to think about it when he takes it. Lets Luke pull him to his feet with that surprising strength of his, and falls into step with him just as easily.

And then they have Adventures and death-defying shenanigans and such. Steal kisses here and there and never put a name to this thing of theirs, but it’s strong enough to last through a war and to the other side of it.

Would-be Empire scattered and broken and a good bounty hunter’s experience is invaluable in stamping out the remnants.

Almost as much as a Jedi Knight who earned their title through countless battles and conflicts, steady familiar presence at his side.And really, really, it shouldn’t surprise him so much when Luke gives him this soft little smile when Din comes home after a solo mission, small green gremlin of a kid he’d found (rescued) in his arms and knows their little family has gained another member.

(And again and again, because Luke’s just as bad as him and Finn and Rey are fine on their own, but Grogu? An absolute nightmare and evil mastermind and Din doesn’t care what Luke says, the small green gremlin child gets it from Luke’s side of the family.)

Also, though.

The day Finn and Rey met Poe (Ben a little confused, bemused, blissfully unaware of what he was witnessing) signaled the beginning of the end and Luke is absolutely laughing at Din, don’t think he doesn’t know what that looks like by now. >:(((((((((((((((((((((((((

#star wars nonsense #dinluke #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #i absolutely wandered away from the main plot with this?#but yes #/o\#long post

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masterjedilenawrites · 3 years

Text

The Sniper and The Medic: Chapter 10

Starring: Crosshair, OC Joan Vo

Chapter Warnings: Discussions of bullying, death, injuries, and other tragic things, offset by a lil fluff at the end

Taglist: @proadhog @skippyhopperwisdom

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

A/N: Just want to quickly apologize for the 2 week delay in updating this story, but also this will be my 99th post on this blog which is kinda fitting once you read it, so I guess some things are just meant to be...

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Chapter 10: Good Grief

He met her at the designated place that evening, barely able to contain the mixture of excitement and dread that welled within him. On the one hand, Crosshair welcomed any opportunity to spend time with Joan, especially after she had shown interest in wanting to grow closer to him. She looked as beautiful as ever when she joined him, wearing her cute little shorts and signature smile.

But on the other hand, they were running out of time. He deployed tomorrow afternoon. How could they possibly grow closer in such a short window?

And how could he possibly say good-bye if they did?

He led her through the set of double doors and down a long hallway, keeping his strides as relaxed as he could, despite his every nerve being on edge. She walked fairly close alongside him, but nothing too scandalous. Not that it was likely they'd be caught. This part of the facility was more-or-less abandoned, only used to house the more rarely-used supplies for the maintenance crew. Half the walls were stripped of their usual white sheen, revealing cracked plaster and dirty insulation instead. Only a few like himself knew it was a good place to go when in need of some privacy.

But there was also something here he wanted to show Joan. A way to help her understand his life as a defective clone. He wasn't sure why the idea had popped into his head earlier; he should have just suggested the simulation room again, programmed it to a nice, romantic beach or something. But it was too late to go back now.

They neared the door in question and Crosshair punched in the code. He gestured for Joan to walk in ahead of him, wanting to keep an eye on her reactions.

It was barely considered a room, more of a corridor that was meant to connect this hallway with another. A motion-sensor light flickered on as they entered. Miscellaneous boxes and crates had been pushed up against the wall on the left, dusty and unimportant. It was the righthand wall that gave this space significance. It had long been reduced to its concrete foundation, and chiseled crudely over most of its surface were names and numbers. The largest script was in the top left corner, only two symbols.

"Ninety-nine," Joan read out loud as she stood in the center of the room and looked over the wall in reverence. "This is a memorial."

Crosshair nodded. "All the clones who've died here, never stepping foot into battle. Most of them defects, like 99. Their names won't be found anywhere else. This... is their only legacy."

She nodded at him solemnly in understanding. He watched as she brushed her hands over some of the etchings, fingers tracing the lines as she read them over. There were mostly numbers, many of them not having lived long enough to find a nickname. One of his own batch-mates had been like that, only living a few short years before his defective heart had given out.

Crosshair tore his gaze away from Joan to find his brother's number on the wall. Beneath it was the second lost brother, who had made it just a little longer. Scraps, they'd called him. He brought his hand up to rest alongside their names, frowning deeply at the memories they gave him.

He felt Joan come to stand next to him and he swallowed hard.

"He was sick all the time, but he kept trying," he explained. "He was worse off than me, and yet I was the kid who cried every night, and he'd talk me down. He'd tell me we had to keep fighting, we had to prove them all wrong. And then one day... he was gone. He'd failed some test and they just... they took him and...."

He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. Thankfully Joan didn't need him to. She laced her fingers through his and squeezed reassuringly.

"They told me I'd be next," he said, his voice getting lower. "The Kaminoans. The training Sergeants. The other cadets. With Wrecker, Hunter, it was obvious they'd be useful, their mutations were fine. But me? What was I good for? Who could look at me and know what I was capable of?"

His words hung between them for a short while before Joan gave another squeeze of his hand.

"I'm so sorry, Crosshair," she said and he knew she meant it. "You deserved better. They all did. But... I know this might not sound quite right, but without that pain, you might not have become as determined and passionate and committed and loyal as you are now."

He finally looked away from the wall and down at her, surprised that she remembered the words he'd once written for her, all those months ago. The words he believed embodied who he really was.

"You didn't let your past break you. You used it to make you stronger. You should be proud of that."

He had never been told such a thing before. He'd never been given permission to feel proud, to take ownership of his life. It made him feel... relieved. To know that all of his struggles could mean something made the burden of grief that much lighter to bear.

And to hear it coming from Joan made him feel things, too. He realized he wanted to kiss her. She was standing somewhat close, her fingers were still grasping his own. She seemed to be enough at ease, comfortable here with him, even in such a sad moment. But he panicked and looked away before he could act on such impulses. He still didn't know what she wanted, or any of the things she'd alluded to having gone through herself. It didn't feel right to make to such an intimate move yet.

"Um, we can talk about you now," he stuttered awkwardly, overly aware of how clammy his hand felt under hers. "If you want...."

She laughed a little, but it wasn't a joyful sound. "I'm afraid my story's not any happier."

"Oh."

She cocked her head a little and reached up with her free hand to lightly touch the tattoo around his eye. "Didn't get a chance to tell you before, but I really like this. It's perfect."

He smirked but kept his eyes carefully fixed on hers, waiting. She seemed to be deciding what she wanted to say.

"Not sure if you've seen my own." She tried to sound playful, letting go of his hand in order to turn slightly and show off the splattering of tattooed birds around the thick scar on her thigh. "It's... kind of a memorial, too."

Joan looked toward the wall and took in a measured breath. "When the war started, my family did what we could to help. But then comes the Republic with its grand, shiny new army, and they tell us they've got it from here. Go home. My parents listened... I didn't. I couldn't. No, I marched up to the first battalion I could find and I told them I'd be helping them whether they liked it or not. They were the 116th, led by Commander Crowe."

She held a small smile on her face, fondness peeking through the sorrow like rays of sunlight into a curtained room.

"Your brothers," said Crosshair knowingly.

"Mmhmm.... They were so good to me. They taught me everything I know. We went through so much together. And then one day..." she looked over at Crosshair apologetically as she borrowed his previous words to tell her own story, "my speeder exploded, messed up my leg really bad. I did everything I could to try and fix it myself, but we were short on supplies and it just wasn't getting any better. Crowe insisted I go to Coruscant for treatment. I didn't want to, I hadn't been apart from them in years, but there was no choice."

And then the curtains were snapped shut and all that was left on Joan's face was sorrow. Sorrow and darkness.

"They died while I was recovering. All of them. A single missile to their ship somewhere in deep space. And that was it. No more 116th battalion. No more family."

Instinctually, Crosshair reached for Joan's hand as she had done for him. She seemed surprised, breaking out of her haze and looking at his hand like it was the only thing grounding her.

"I should have died with them," she said in a hoarse voice. "At least, that's what I told myself for seven months. Until Cody came. He'd been good friends with Crowe, knew all about me. He told me to get over myself. That I was still alive for a reason and that I did nothing to honor their memories by letting myself waste away. And then he offered me a job, said I could help some of his other brothers, the way I'd done for the 116th."

Slowly her sadness was fading and Crosshair was grateful. It was easier to hold on to his own pain and learn to live with it, but seeing the same feelings in Joan had scared him. He didn't know what to do to help her. As she wrapped up her story, though, he began to realize that he already had.

"He said it was an experimental unit and that none of you would look like, well, the regular clones, so maybe it'd be easier for me to get back into it. And it was. I knew I loved all of you boys from the first day. You were all confident and eager. None of the battle-worn spirits I was used to dealing with. You gave me life again. Helped me rediscover my purpose. My passion."

She took a step closer to him, holding his hand back firmly.

"You were the tough one," she smirked. "You're so calm and relaxed, so sure of yourself. Any time I felt anxious or like I wasn't making a difference, I knew I could count on you to put me at ease. Even when you were a little sassy."

She giggled, but Crosshair's mind was reeling. She thought he was the assured one? This whole time she'd been seeing him the same way he saw her?

"And then, you know, you stood me up that one day," she sighed dramatically and then it was his stomach that started doing flips as the regret from his actions returned. "Which happened to be the, uh, anniversary of their passing.... And I didn't think I'd be able to do anything that day, except that I knew you'd be coming by, and so I actually got out of bed and did some chores and saw other patients.... And I was trying to think of ways I could keep you for longer than just a consult on your injury. I was going to have you teach me darts and maybe help me sneak some good snacks from somewhere or ask to get a tour of your new ship...."

She was looking up at him with bright eyes and the thought of kissing her returned. She was definitely close enough now, and as he made eye contact, she couldn't seem to remember what she was going to say next, her voice trailing off into short little breaths.

"I really am sorry," he said, stalling for time. He wasn't sure why he kept hesitating when it was something he wanted so desperately. So much for her thinking he was confident.

"I know," she said softly. Was she leaning closer or was he?

"I... I'm leaving tomorrow," he said.

"I know." Both of their hands were clasped in each other's now, pulses beating rapidly beneath hopeful grips.

"And," he kept going, even though the space between them was continuing to grow smaller, "I've never done this before."

"I know." She grinned, and that undid him.

Whatever self-conscious walls he'd put up for whatever irrational reasons came crumbling down as he finally closed the gap and pressed his lips against hers.

#star wars #the clone wars #the bad batch #clone force 99 #crosshair #crosshair x oc #original clone characters #clone trooper 99 #commander cody #angst #sorrow #tw: death #fluff #kissy kissy

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nanagoswife · 3 years

Text

Please, Don't Go. - Chapter 6

Summary: Flashbacks come back, but with a twist for Obi-Wan. An encounter happens...

W/C: 3.6k

Warnings: Where do I begin? Descriptions of a man burned alive, angst, murder, mention of blood and burned skin, injuries, suffocation, dark thoughts, I think that's it? (There's a reason I posted a heads up)

A/N: This does have a reference to Karen Miller’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space. I don’t mention the character’s name in this because it may be considered a spoiler? I don’t know. But, it’s a legends book anyways😅 anyways, the reaction Obi-Wan has is actually the same as it is with a little spice added. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy.

- - -

As he held you, you eventually fell asleep in his arms. You more than deserved it. So, he took the time to admire your sleeping form.

Obi-Wan was determined to commit every detail to his memory. The slow rise and fall of your chest, the way your hair fell around you, how warm you were against him. Most of all, he wanted to memorize how peaceful you looked despite recent events. A small smile was on your lips as you were in the comfort of his arms. It was a smile that he didn’t think he would see for a while before he came to talk with you.

That’s when he began to think about what you had shown him. There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for that. Your worries ran way deeper than just your personal situation. You were worried more about your planet, your people, rather than your family. It was truly selfless, yet he still dreaded the fact that you were carrying that burden this whole time.

At first, he started to think of situations that he may have seen that were similar. In truth, there was not much. He’d seen slavery and torture, even been a victim of torture, and there was only one scene that he had seen from you that he had once witnessed. A truly horrid image, let alone witnessed experience. It made him glad that it was only an image for you.

Pained screams filled the air. A pang of guilt pulled on Obi-Wan as he looked to his master. Their eyes met with a mutual feeling. They had both failed to keep the man safe. The two of them still advanced as they could possibly still save him.

That thought was wiped away quicker than a varactyl finishing a hundred meter race. His eyes first settled on the flames licking at the grassy ground. There must’ve been fuel around the small area before catching onto the stake where the man was. He was suspended on this stake and Obi-Wan had no time to try and see how. Instead, the man’s restarted screams broke this thought. The young man watched in horror as the flames quickly consumed the man attached. The agony filled screams, the sight of fire burning a blistering skin, and Maker, the smell.

He wanted to find the people had done this, but he wasn’t able to. The feelings he was having were against the Jedi Code. That wasn’t the only thing stopping him, though. What he was witnessing had frozen him to place and he thought about how that could be him if they captured him. No, it’d be worse. This man was only speaking against working people to death, whereas Obi-Wan would not only be defending this stance, but he’d be trying to send them to jail at the very least.

After that day, he had been plagued by the sight. Everytime he tried to sleep, he was constantly visited by the scene over and over. It had gotten so bad that he refused to sleep at a point. He was nineteen when he had seen this and nothing he had seen before this had shaken him so badly.

If he were being honest, he still was visited by these dreams every now and then. The only difference was that now he had come to terms with it and it wasn’t as horrifying anymore. Not when it was something he constantly re-lived for many years. Thank the Force that Qui-Gon helped him then, and still occasionally does.

Momentarily, he was broken from his thoughts as you shifted the slightest bit, making yourself more comfortable and burying even further into his chest. A smile crept across his lips as he watched your still peaceful expression. He pulled the blanket higher and draped them around your shoulders so that it would provide further comfort in the chilly room.

Then, he started to think about that moment again. Only, this time, it wasn’t the man. In fact, the person wasn’t a man at all. The person now on the stake was you. Accompanying the rest of the vivid details, he was now imagining your agonizing screams as the flames consumed you. He imagined how he watched you die and had no other choice but to stay in place as he was also constrained; held by two guards who forced his eyes to meet yours.

As he watched, something in him snapped as your screams had ceased. The connections, the bond the two of you shared was broken. You were gone. An unbearable pain filled him as he realized that he couldn’t even hold you one last time. You didn’t deserve the excruciating death that you had been subject to.

An anger bubbled in his chest as he thought about how those men had done that to you. They didn’t even let him say goodbye. Instead of being afraid, his anger took over him. He was determined to find the two culprits and make them suffer. Nothing but revenge filled his mind as he knew they were not far away.

In an act of blind rage, he broke the restraints that bound his hands with the force and easily fought off the two that had held him in place. Neither of them had his lightsaber, but that wasn’t a problem.

He made his way to where the two fiends were surely enjoying their recent endeavors. When he opened the doors to the building they were in, the inside was suddenly an entirely different place. The surroundings looked like some sort of hallway with multiple red shields on the way to the end. There was a glance of someone in front of him behind one of the red barriers but it quickly dissipated and the entire inside of the building changed once again.

Though he was confused as the building was once again the actual one, his eyes landed on the two men. They were quivering in terror as he advanced. There was something about it that actually pleased him.

Then, everything was a blur. All he could catch glimpses of were moments where his knuckles were bloodied, some point he had his lightsaber, and then one where he was force choking one of them.

When it was over, the two were in an unrecognizable heap in front of him. His breathing was heavy as he stared at it, lightsaber still ignited.

An overwhelming sense of grief and dread for his own actions overcame him. He crumpled to his knees and started to cry. What had he done that led you to your fate? What took over him that played out this moment? He held his face in his hands as so much conflict flooded through him.

“Obi,” he heard your soft voice accompanied with a gentle shaking motion. Opening his eyes, he looked into your eyes that were filled with concern.

“Are you alright?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Your words confused him until he noticed his rapid breathing. Not only that, but you brought a hand up and wiped tears away from his face. When had he even fallen asleep?

“Was it what I showed you? Because, if it was, I’m so sorry that-”

“Shh, no it wasn’t that,” he reassured you as he brought a hand to your cheek and rubbed comforting circles into your cheek. “I… I just had an old nightmare.”

You met his eyes and you immediately knew he wasn’t telling you the full truth. The two of you had spent so much time together that you could each read the other well. So, he knew he wasn’t going to get by this.

“Obi-Wan, you were making sounds. It sounded like you were in pain.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. There was no way he could keep this secret. “There was something that you showed me that I once witnessed,” he said as you gently traced patterns on his chest to comfort him. Then, he told you everything. That mission on Antar 4, then how it all shifted to how it was you instead of the man he had witnessed. The only thing he left out was what he saw when he first opened the door to the building. He would bring that to Qui-Gon.

You listened intently and continued your subtle actions that soothed Obi-Wan’s painful retelling. After he finished the dream, you pulled him to you and caressed the back of his head as his face went into the crook of your neck.

“Oh, Obi. It was only a nightmare.”

“What if this is a way the force is showing me that I’d give in? I don’t know what I would do. Y/N, I’m scared,” he blurted out, still pressed against you.

The admission almost shocked you. At the same time, you understood because it also scared you. “Obi-Wan, it’s alright. It wasn’t real and I won’t leave you in life, or in death. I’ll still be with you.”

This seemed to calm him down. His breathing became more even and he began to relax.

“I do want to ask you one thing.”

He brought his head from its spot against your neck and moved so that he met yours, “Of course.”

“Please, don’t go to the Dark Side because of me. Promise me that you won’t seek revenge or act on it if anything like that happens. I want to be your strength to continue on, not your weakness.”

Obi-Wan’s beautiful blue eyes looked into yours with immense adoration and care. Slowly, he nodded.

“I promise.”

Months had gone by and nothing happened. The most dangerous situations they had gone through was occasionally tripping over something. It made the two Jedi more suspicious rather than relieved.

You were also suspicious of it all. Just before this being sent into hiding, you had been attacked by bounty hunters. So why weren’t they trying to find you. It couldn’t be because you all had actually found a planet that good to hide on.

At the moment, Qui-Gon was out trying to contact your brother to find out what was going on. On top of the suspicious quiet, there had been a message saying that conflict was quelled enough that it was safe again.

“Shouldn’t this be good news,” you asked more warily as you watched Qui-Gon disappear into the bushes.

“We need to make sure it isn’t a trick. This could be someone else that would put your life more in danger for their own gain,” Obi-Wan replied. He was waiting very patiently for Qui-Gon to fade far enough to know it was safe.

You were thinking the same thing when you turned around to face Obi-Wan. For a few moments, the two of you stood and waited until he finally nodded the all clear.

Quickly, you made your way into his arms. It was simply a hug, but the two of you felt like it would give something away to Qui-Gon. The two of you were sure that he was catching on to a few changes, like sitting next to each other closely or going out to watch the stars often, but that was all.

Mainly, the two of you would wait until Qui-Gon was gone, or Obi-Wan would sneak into your room after his master was asleep.

The most unforgettable night was only a week ago. It was one of the nights that Obi-Wan didn’t have to go out to get supplies and Qui-Gon went due to contacting your planet as well.

That night, the moon was high and full and positioned perfectly in the clearing of trees that it shed just the right amount of light. That night was already special, as it was the day that your father had been coronated and married your mother.

You were celebrating on your own as you looked up at the stars. Obi-Wan was currently repairing something so he couldn’t come out. So, you sat in the usual spot against the rock, singing songs written in honour of your parents and of the events. They were played every year and were joined in a planet wide celebration. People from around the planet were allowed into the castle’s entrance yard and in the surrounding city for the whole thing.

It was a beautiful demonstration of unity. What went wrong?

“Y/N?”

You jumped as you didn’t notice that Obi-Wan was standing right beside you. You were so swept up in your memories along with humming the songs that you were unaware that he had joined you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s alright.”

For a moment, the two of you were silent. Obi-Wan stayed standing and looked up at the same patch of stars that you were currently studying.

“What song was that?” His question took you slightly by surprise. Embarrassment filled you as well as you had never sung in front of, well, anyone. Maybe in front of your family and Kenth, but no one else.

“It’s one of the many songs played to celebrate this day. To celebrate my parents. This particular one was for them to dance to. A waltz of sorts.”

You went silent as you remembered watching your parents dance to this. It was a tradition that they would dance to this alone. No one else joined in. It was just the two of them and sometimes you and Davin would join. Only really when you were very young though. That’s when you had an idea.

“Do you dance Obi-Wan?”

“Not often.”

“Would you like to?”

The two of you met the other’s gaze. His face softened as you looked at you and he couldn’t help but nod his head. “Only if you tell me about this celebration.”

At that, you smiled largely. Obi-Wan offered you his hand and helped you stand. He easily brought you to his chest and placed a hand on your waist. You rested your hand on his shoulder and couldn’t help but trace little patterns.

“I didn’t know Jedi could dance,” you said jokingly.

Obi-Wan chuckled, “Well, we do have to mingle during social events often enough.”

“Fair point,” you chuckled.

Then, the two of you started to dance, Obi-Wan leading you to a rhythm only he knew. Like promised, you told him about the celebrations that were always held. You told him how the whole week was a holiday and how it was a festival of sorts. The whole time, you described everything from the food to the decorations. You even told some stories about how you forced Captain Baize to dance with you.

Forcing Kenth to dance wasn’t the only thing you would drag him into, though. There were games, puppet shows, and so many people who came with beautifully decorated pots, clothing, tapestries, and so, so many sweets and deserts. Since you always needed a guard, you dragged Captain Baize everywhere. Sure, he did enjoy coming with you, but he was always hesitant to start. In the end, he knew that you wouldn’t take no as an answer and that he also really wanted to see what was brought in.

As you regaled Obi-Wan with every detail, his smile never dropped and he never broke eye contact with you. He was enjoying how bright you were while recalling these memories. Seeing you like this, he committed the moment to memory. Your smile made you even more beautiful than you already were.

A snap in the distance took his attention from you. You also looked in the direction it came from. Obi-Wan separated from you and guided you behind him. His hand moved to hover over his lightsaber.

“Obi?” you whispered.

“It’s not Qui-Gon. If something goes wrong, be prepared to run.”

For many offputting, silent moments, Obi-Wan was on high alert. Occasionally he would shift you around to a position to better protect you as he sensed the movement of a being. He tried to search for more. Dread filled him as there were two more that he sensed.

Before anything could happen, Obi-Wan sent a message to Qui-Gon through the force. It wasn’t of words, but it conveyed the danger that was rapidly approaching.

“Well, well, well,” said one of the bounty hunters as he emerged from the brush. “Come on out boys. It’s only the padawan.”

You heard the others laugh maniacally as they all followed into the clearing. Immediately, you recognized them all. They were the men who had been after you all those months ago when you first met the Jedi. Their leader was Zacrick Moorlin.

Obi-Wan instinctually guided you further behind you so that his full body blocked you. If it were the last thing he did, he was going to make sure that they wouldn’t get to you. He consciously used the ship’s ramp as protection as well as he could. He wasn’t taking the chance of someone sneaking up from behind.

“Look at how protective he is. Is she really that important?”

“She’s more important than you think,” Obi-Wan snapped. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Oh you won’t? Oh we’re so sorry. We’ll just pack up and leave then,” Zacrick replied scornfully. “No. We’re leaving with her dead or alive.”

You saw as Obi-Wan’s shoulders tense at the remark. Carefully, you placed a hand on his back to try and calm him. If anything were to happen, being that tense would not allow him to properly fend them off.

Your gesture worked. You could feel as he loosened and even became more attentive.

“Now, padawan, I would suggest stepping aside before we force you to.”

“That’s not happening as long as I’m alive.”

“Then we’ll change that.”

Zacrick made a gesture and the other bounty hunters pulled out their blasters, Obi-Wan igniting his saber, and they started firing shots that were easily deflected. The shots didn’t last long, but it was long enough for Obi-Wan to not notice that Zacrick had disappeared.

Before Obi-Wan could search for his energy, the other two began firing again.

“Y/N, ru-” he was cut off as he turned to see that Zacrick had you, an arm around your neck.

There was a knife in the bounty hunter’s other hand and fear pulsed through Obi-Wan. That knife was too close to your stomach.

“Let her go,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Obi, it’s okay,” you said, your breath being squeezed out of you as the arm around your neck tightened.

Obi-Wan couldn’t help but let his face soften when he looked at you. He wanted to comfort you as much as you were trying to comfort him. Zacrick looked between the two of you and was hit with a realization.

“Oh, so the two of you care for each other, do you? Isn’t this perfect.”

Panic rose in Obi-Wan’s heart as the knife was brought up to your arm and was placed just under the sleeve of your short sleeved shirt.

“In that case, you get to watch.”

The whimper you made as the knife dug into your arm sent a pang of pain through him. He was about to do something until he felt an electric pulse shoot through his body.

“Like he said,” one of the other bounty hunters said, “you’re going to watch.”

His head was forced up by his hair and he had no choice but to watch as your blood began to spill around the knife. He saw as Zacrick tightened his arm around your neck, cutting off all air.

Moments later, your eyelids fluttered closed. Once you lost consciousness, the bounty hunter carelessly let you fall to the ground in a heap.

Obi-Wan didn’t care, he was going to get to you. Surprisingly, they let him go to your unconscious form. He took you in his arms and immediately examined the cut on your arm after checking your pulse. Relief flooded him as the cut wasn’t too deep and your pulse was still even. The relief only lasted a second as anger overtook him. They could’ve killed you. They could have cost you your arm.

After placing a brief kiss to your forehead, he carefully laid you to the ground before standing. His breaths became quickened as only anger filled him. How dare they do this? How could they be so careless? Why did they force him to watch?

As he turned towards the three bounty hunters, fear filled their eyes. Suddenly, he used the force and lifted Zacrick in the air as he crushed his windpipes. It felt amazing. The force seemed to have a new electric flow through him. It rippled in him and made him feel stronger.

“Obi-Wan!”

The voice startled him. Qui-Gon was running out of the forest but stopped a few feet away from his padawan.

“Control your feelings, padawan. Let him go,” Qui-Gon said sternly.

That’s when Obi-Wan snapped back to reality. What was he doing? Revenge was never something he should’ve acted on. No matter what this man had done, this was not the course of action. The worst part was that he liked it until Qui-Gon snapped him from it.

As the bounty hunter was let down to the ground, all three of them quickly ran. If that was how only one would act, they didn’t want to see what both of them could do together.

Obi-Wan was breathing heavily, almost as if he were choking himself and not the bounty hunter.

“I- I don’t know…”

“We’ll discuss it later. For now let’s make sure the princess is alright.”

Obi-Wan nodded, he was almost distraught. The thought of making sure you were still alright brought him out of it.

This was not going to be an easy conversation.

@stardancerluv @where-fantasy-meets-reality @jaydenwoo @madmax2003

#obi wan x reader #obi wan x you #obi wan kenobi #obi wan #obi wan fanfiction #obi wan fic #obi wan fluff #obi wan imagine #obi wan kenobi imagine #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi x you #obi wan x y/n #obi wan star wars #padawan kenobi #ewan mcgregor #qui gon/obi wan #qui gon jinn #Please Don't Go #obi wan angst

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m4gp13 · 3 years

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For those of you who made it through my laughably incoherent ethabaster think piece, here’s some hc’s, you’ve earned them:

- Ethan has sole possession of their one shared brain cell. Alabaster is not allowed to even look at it. This is because they used to have two but Al broke the good one trying to blow up something (probably Percy).

- If Al finds out Ethan left without some form of magical protection i.e. a sigil, a crystal, ground eggshells, he will be pretty much vibrating with nerves until Ethan gets back so he can give him a once-over.

- Alabaster’s from a very witchy family who all worship Hecate for many reasons that differ depending on which estranged relative you ask and they all kinda saw Al as the first coming of witch Christ so he had a lot of expectations at a very young age.

- Ethan knows this and tries to lift as much Titan army business off his shoulders as possible.

- He accidentally lifts too much off to the point where he is drowning in work and is now the one in need of saving. But does he tell anyone that if he looks at one more stack of demands from his mile long list of bosses he’s going to cry for five hours? Of course not don’t be ridiculous.

- Alabaster immediately hated Percy as soon as he heard the guys name but due to the arena stuff and telling Thalia not to k*ll him Ethan actually held a bit of respect for Percy which annoyed Al to no end.

-This was until the not-so-peaceful peace talk in tlo when Percy starts shit talking Nemesis and Ethan just internally goes “actually the witch bitch was right this guy sucks ass”

-However, under no circumstances will Ethan ever tell this to Alabaster; not because he values his pride (he has none) but because he knows the life of a demigod is short and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his very short one hearing Al rub that one thing in his face for every single second of it.

- And I mean Every. Single. Second.

- So yeah he takes that to the grave and doesn’t even tell anyone in the underworld in case they tell Al when he dies and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his afterlife with Al being a dumbass. (also yes Ethan got into Elysium, fuck you)

- (Actually I have another idea about where Ethan went post-life but that’s so far from canon it’s more of an AU than a headcanon so we’re gonna leave that out for now)

- Al thought he was the one in charge of the Hecate kids because he was the most powerful and the highest ranking in the army but he was Not. That was Ethan. The Hecate kids thought Ethan was their unofficial adopted baby brother but little did they know he was the mum the whole time.

- Ethan is the only thing standing between them and starving to death. He also does the younger kids hair and gives everyone with long hair super intricate braids that stay out of their faces during “field work”. Al thinks this is more of him trying to take the weight off his shoulders but Ethan knows that if he doesn’t do this shit no one will so he kinda has to. Not that he doesn’t like doing it. being helpful is his love language.

- Because of their powers over the mist the Hecate kids of the army were notorious pranksters who were usually at war with the Hermes kids (wars usually declared by Al because he rolled a zero on self restraint) but none of them prank Ethan because “nooooo you can’t do him he babey 🥺”

- Ethan has simply decided that what the magic prank wizards don’t know can’t hurt them and just turns to his blind side whenever he sees them sneaking off the ship to get Micky D’s in the middle of the night to stay on their good sides.

- Speaking of the ship, Ethan thinks it’s the dumbest thing in the world that one of their most powerful demigod enemies is the son of a sea god and he actually has a pretty decent relationship with said sea god and their main base of operations aside from mt Othrys is a fucking BOAT. He tells Al all about his worries for the ship and while Al assures him that nothing that bad could happen he always makes sure that the ship always has the least amount of demigods on board at all times just in case.

- It takes all the strength Ethan has not to yell “TOLD YOU SO” at him when the ship blows up.

- Al probably either wears basic white boy clothes or typical witchy stuff (like moons and shit) depending his mood meanwhile Ethan found out about leather and just goes for it.

- Every grunge/punk/emo/eboy/teachwear bitch aspires to be him and because he aint about all that “gender roles” bs he definitely goes about wearing cool egirl stuff too. Not just slightly feminine shaped jumpers but all the plaid skirts, fishnets and lace trimmed dresses he can steal afford and Al, despite his more basic fashion taste is here for it. You’ve never seen someone more supportive of their pals fits, get you a hypeman like Al. You deserve it. (Ethan is also not afraid to walk around in a full pastel gamer girl fit)

- (Also Al hyping up one Ethans fits in front of a Titan is the reason they were allowed to start wearing army fatigues instead of the whole ancient Greek armour on occasion)

- Ethan appreciates Al’s enthusiasm but he also kinda doesn’t get it. And he definitely doesn't do that “yeah you’re right I DO look good” thing because he just doesn’t know how. He’d always been a little self-conscious about getting a big head but then he found out about Nemesis and hubris and all that fun stuff, looked at his meager pile of self worth and said “ yep, this has to go”

- Al almost starts crying when he finds out and pretty much makes it mission to be such a good hype man that Ethan has no choice but to think of himself as a Pretty Cool Dude via absorbing the hype through diffusion. It kinda starts working but then Ethan [REDACTED] in tlo so we’ll never know what could’ve been.

- To nick a hc from someone ( hi @chromarozee-spam) contrary to his taste in clothes Ethan does ballet (he was a punk AND did ballet, what more can I say?) and while Al tries to support his hobbies he is genuinely afraid both for and of him. “For” because “holy fuck that looks painful are you okay?”. And “of” because “are you sure those are bones inside you because I don’t think bones are supposed do that?!”.

- Ethan tries to assure him that no his spine is not made of rubber, broken bones or otherworldly materials so can he stop bothering him during practice please?

- This does not stop Al from making a million protection wards and constantly asking his deck if Ethan is indeed a Being of this Good Green Earth.

- Eventually his cards pretty much just tell him that he is friends with one bendy heck of a boi and he needs to fucking get over it so he kinda just,, ,,,,, , does.

- Again with the hc thieving (this time from @altorringtons) Al learning to use a two-handed broadsword so he can guard Ethan’s blind side and back in a fight *soft noises* just them trying so hard to keep each other alive because they love each other and they care about each other!

- They also sleep in the same bed whenever they get the chance (fully clothed ya nasties, they’re kids) and they just hug each other soooo tight because they just need to know they’re alright cos they always get pretty banged up in fights against campers or just monsters that are too much like wild animals to recruit. (What? Me? Projecting my desire to be intimately held by the closest person I have to family with their arms wrapped not tight enough to make me uncomfortable but tight enough to make me feel loved? Never! What on earth are you talking about?)

- Because Al is super stubborn and prideful whenever they have an argument Al can’t really bring himself to say he’s sorry so when he’s ready to apologise he just climbs into bed on Ethan’s blind side and cuddles him because he knows Ethan is super worried about getting attacked on his blind side so it’s like he has a guard or a shield.

- Ethan on the other hand just calls him a Rock Boy in a derogatory way until he gets over himself and apologizes but he really does love the fact that Al knows that about him and accommodates that.

- The thing they fight about most is how “heroic” the titan army is. Kronos’ brainwashing worked on Al like a charm and he fully believes that they are the rebellion and camp is the empire. Ethan on the other hand wasn’t at camp long enough for Kronos or Luke to really do anything but it doesn’t matter because Ethan really doesn’t give a shit if he’s on the “evil side” cos he just wants respect and he’s willing to do what it takes without a second thought of how people see him. If he thinks he’s doing the right thing but on the wrong side he can live with that but Al needs to feel like all of his side is on the moral high ground because that’s what Kronos drilled into his brain.

- Ethan knows that Al delusional when it comes to the non-existent heroics of the army but eventually he just decides to let Al believe the titans lies because that’s easier for him even if it hurts Ethan to see him being manipulated like that.

- Due to Ethan not giving a shit on the humanity of his bosses he gets punished a lot more often and a lot more violently than Al because they know that Ethan already knows they don’t care about him so they don’t have to sugar coat him but Al still believes that they’re heroes and his mindset needs to stay like that to keep him obedient.

- Also because I am a Cruel Person By Nature I hc Ethan’s mortal family (which usually just consists of his dad) as meeting a not very pg13 end at the hands of a monster who wanted to nible on Ethan a tad which pretty much scarred him for life.

- SO, at the end of the battle of Man Hats Are In when Al looks around and sees that his whole family (that joined the titans) are dead! oh no! How sad! At least he knows someone whose been through the same thing so they understand each other and can help each other through this tough time together right? SIKE!

- so yeah Al learns Ethan d-worded in the worst possible way at the worst possible time and just looses it from grief. Loosing his family was bad enough but finding out he lost the one person he thought he would be able to confide in and heal with immediately after just really rubs salt in the wound.

- When the survivors start re-grouping to find someplace to hide until the gods forget about them Al just wanders off because it’s all he can do to not break down on the spot.

- He’s just wandering in a daze for a while and most people just assume he’s high but he snaps out of it and gets into anger mode when Lamia starts attacking him because he finally has something to do and occupy himself with even though it’s hard not to think about his sibling especially when Lamia keeps talking like they never would have died if she’d been in charge which is why she should totally just kill him and lead their siblings instead.

- His desire to have something to keep his mind off his family and Ethan is the first thing he thinks about when Claymore re-alives and immediately starts talking about doing research (yeah because that’s what you need after a long stressful day of fighting monsters and literally dying).

- Ethan keeps trying to cross the veil and help, even if he just sends Al a pleasant dream to help him sleep but contrary to what you might think from the name, the veil is really hard to cross so Ethan just has to bite his nails and watch his friend suffer.

- It gets easier to watch after Al and Claymore pretty much adopt each other because at least he has someone but they do still get into pretty scary situations.

- When they were both premortem they got paired up for a lot of missions for the titan army and they usually just tried to pretend they were on a fun road trip around America when they could and make fun of mortal shit together.

- At one point they were in a motel and the last people accidentally left behind one of Claymore’s books about death and they found it the funniest thing ever. Between a pair of in which one of their mum’s regularly goes to the underworld and one has been there himself they find mortal ideas of the afterlife to be very amusing.

- Alabaster has decided he would not like to share this with the class (Claymore) thank you very much.

- Also when they’re doing their road tripping Ethan knows all the best places to crash, the cheapest food places and the local gangs don’t bother them because between running away from camp and joining the army he just wandered around a lot.

- Like he’d just hop on a random train, take a nap and figure it out when he wakes up; he made a lot of friends this way too as well as his taste in clothes cos he didn’t have a lot of money so he’d just DIY some second hand punk shit. Al thinks he’s the Gandalf of the demigod world because he just knows everyone who might help them and everywhere they could spend the night. He definitely tells his siblings about Ethan being the closest thing they have to a wandering wizard and they fucking love it.

- Also because Nemesis tends to not have a lot of kids Ethan was the only one of hers in the army and Al felt really bad for him because his sibling were his favourite part about the army so he tried to include Ethan in as much as possible with his siblings.

- As an unexpected result Ethan ended up with a small army of super powered children to sick on the people who keep making jabs about him loosing in the arena battle.

- Al sometimes thinks he’s given him too much power but also he will fuck a bitch up if they make fun of his pals so he sees where his siblings are coming from and yeah those bitches had it coming. He also has a copy of bitchcraft.

- Ethan’s dad was the type to play “Stay With Me” by Miki Matsubara on repeat for hours and Ethan would probably enjoy the song but he’s heard it so often that now it makes his ears bleed and Al sometimes tortures him with for fun until Ethan starts throwing shit.

- To steal another hc from @chromarozee-spam Ethan has a thing for cats and one time Al accidentally gave himself mistform cat-ears and Ethan could not stop touching them. Ethan was just craning his head back uncontrollably grinning so much his face hurt. Al can’t bring himself to be upset because Ethan rarely ever smiles since he joined the army.

- Al saw Ethan crying over one of those video’s where people put their hoodies on backwards and put their cat in the hood so he made a mist cat and bought him a hoodie. Ethan of course started crying again but it was happy tears instead.

- Ethan is fucking tiny while Al is almost a foot taller than him. He wouldn’t mind so much if Al didn’t exhaust every opportunity to rub it in his face so he just starts climbing all over shit (especially tall buildings) half to give Al heart attacks and half so he can be like “Sorry? What was that? I’m so high up I can’t hear you. Can you speak up a little? Maybe get a ladder? Or taller?”

- Also I don’t know why but I hc Al as Texan. Ethan gets told about this “Alabaster C. Torrington” guy who knows latin, incantations and other magical knowledge and expects some fancy British guy so when they meet and Al speaks Ethan gets whiplash so hard he fuckin chokes.

- Al is also very casual and Ethan is pretty professional so when he meets this magic general with a straight back and the first thing that comes out of this assholes mouth is some “Howdy y’all!!” bullshit he just dies on the spot.

- Also because Al is texan he is very sensitive to the cold (I’m about 80% sure that Texas is one of the Warm states) so when he has to do stuff in cold places like the labyrinth or new york (idk about that one to but in every film I’ve seen that’s set in NY it’s raining for about 90% of the time) he complains about being freezing all the time until Ethan helpfully reminds him that he can literally make fire out of nothing, surely he can find a way to warm himself up.

- Ethan is also sensitive to the cold because he’s basically malnourished but he’s been like that for a while and thinks it’s normal so he sucks it up until Al notices he’s always cold. Ethan tells him it’s fine but Al is basically a walking electric blanket so whenever Al cuddles him to keep him warm Ethan can’t help but melt because he’s so fucking warm and soft and have you noticed I crave intimacy?

- Ethan started studying Greek myths vigorously since he found out he was a demigod and when he died he kept an eye and an ear out for Al because even though he wouldn’t be able to do anything it still reassures him to know what’s going on, HOWEVER, he was almost filled with enough malice to rip through the barrier between the living and the dead purely to beat an ass when he hears Al’s little “I don’t bother reading about worthless monsters like you!” jab.

- Ethan is very jumpy and fidgety to the point where Al is genuinely concerned and while Ethan assures Al that nothing’s wrong Al is still suspicious. Ethan probably would have told Al about it if it was because of anything but Kronos but seeing that it mostly is, he doesn’t because Ethan feels like Al will just take Kronos’ word over his and he’ll loose the only person he trusts in the army.

- Al doesn’t find out about it until way after the war when Kronos’ brainwashing starts to come undone because by then his mindset is a lot less biased in the titans favour so he can see things that he just unconsciously ignored before and is able to put two and two together. When he does boy is it a trip.

- Ethan is really bad at talking about feelings and stuff so whenever Al gets upset over something and Ethan has no idea how to talk to him he’ll just get him some rocks. One time Ethan found out about those heart shaped valentine boxes that are normally filled with chocolates but people put crystals in them and that just became his go-to for when Al was especially upset.

- Al is only slightly better at talking about stuff but he can still get Ethan to open up to him which is good because Ethan isn’t very materialistic so it’s hard to make him feel better by buying him things and because someone needs to get Ethan to express himself in an emotionally healthy way.

- Also because of this they just can’t tell each other they love each other. Like they’ll barely whisper it when the other is asleep because they’re just so bad at talking about feelings. It wasn’t that much of an issue until after the war and Ethan gets k-worded and Al is left alone and sobbing over all the times he never told his loved ones how much they meant to him.

- But because this is a headcanon list; fuck that, Al saved Ethan with some sort of magic bullshit and they talk about how much they love each other all the time now because they can’t stand the thought of one of them dying having never been told how much they are loved.

#me going around nicking hcs: thank you for your sacrifices #this will help tremendously in the war effort #also max i am extremely pleased to tell you that auto correct thinks Harrington is a lovely name for you #and you stan the magic messiah #autocorrect didn't say that one #but it's true #pjo #percy jackson #ethan nakamura #alabaster torrington #alabaster c torrington #ethan x alabaster #ethabaster

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kingandfireheart · 3 years

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What stories are left in ACOTAR: Elain edition

It is likely that the next installment of the ACOTAR series will cover Elain Archeron. Elain is probably the least developed character of the Inner Circle, and the only character (other than Amren and Lucien) whose perspective we haven’t seen yet. This post details her trauma, the issue of choice, Elain’s personality, the sweet innocent Elain image, and her various roles.

Elain will definitely have to face her past trauma, which include:

Graysen: grief, feeling of betrayal

The Cauldron and being kidnapped: trauma, feeling violated, becoming high fae

Her father: grief

Sisters: having a role in the Night Court, belonging there, being protected

Choices:

Before I get into Elain’s role, I want to talk about a huge thing for Elain, which is choice. Rhysand spends ACOMAF and ACOWAR showing Feyre that she always has choices. Nesta struggles with this in ACOSF, and while Nesta does make choices to be more active - she kills the Kelpie, saves Feyre, saves her friends, she choses Cassian, and kills Briallyn.

“I am not a thing to be controlled by you”, Nesta said icily. Everything in her life, from the moment she was born, had been controlled by other people. Things happened to her; anytime she tried to exert control, she’d been thwarted at every turn -- and she hated that even more than the King of Hybern.

Elain, who has suffered much of the same trauma as Nesta, will make her own choices in her book. Those choices will involve who she ends up with (I refuse to get into the Elucien/Elriel debacle here - I like both!), how she wields her power (as a seer, as high fae, as a Made person, as the Cauldron’s favorite, as a political pawn), and what she makes of the situations that happened to her.

Elain has already shown that she can make good on a bad situation in ACOWAR, I’m excited to see how she keeps that up in her book:

“This could end very badly, Elain.” // She brushed her thumb over the iron-and-diamond engagement ring. “It’s already ended badly. Now it’s just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.” (ACOWAR)

“I know your circumstances for coming here were awful, Nesta, but it doesn’t mean you need to be so miserable about it.” (ACOSF)

Sweet Innocent Elain:

Elain’s persona in the Inner Circle is a sweet and innocent girl. She loves gardening and cooking. She is kind and cares about things like manners and propriety. Here are a few quotes that show that:

Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light. (ACOWAR)

“You’re still lovely,” Mor said a bit gently. Elain offered a half smile. “I suppose that war makes wanting things like that unimportant.”Mor was quiet for a heartbeat. “Perhaps. But you should not let war steal it from you regardless.” (ACOWAR)

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.” (ACOWAR)

“I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d disappoint you all.” “With time and safety, perhaps we’ll see a different side of her emerge.”(ACOSF Bonus Chapter)

We know that there is a lot more to Elain than anyone gives her credit for - Cassian, Amren, Rhys, and even Nesta point this out on different occasions in ACOSF:

Cassian: “Nesta was wrong to think Elain as loyal and loving as a dog. Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.”

Amren: “Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness of the Trove, if she chooses to. Don’t underestimate her.”

Rhys: “I also think we haven’t seen all she has to offer. “Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way” “And torn up by thorns”

Nesta: “Elain stiffened, but refused to balk from whatever she beheld in Nesta’s gaze. “You think I’m to blame for his death? Challenge laced each word. Challenge - from Elain of all people.

We also see Elain starting to take back her power in ACOSF when she steps up to look for the Dread Trove

“You do not decide what I can and cannot do, Nesta.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“I am not a child to be fought over”

“I went into the Cauldron too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of it what my trauma did to you.”

Elain’s Roles:

Sister: Elain has long been a mediator between Nesta and Feyre. She is the calmness that complements each of their fire, she is the one they each seek to protect. (I’m thinking of SJM’s fire/ice/stone metaphor for Manon, Asterin, and Sorrel). However, she is able to fight for what she wants with each of them, and use her skills to her advantage. Elain shows Feyre her remorse for the years when they are poor, which is why Elain and Nesta step up to help with the Mortal Queens.

“Feyre gave and gave—for years. Let us now help her. Help … others.” (ACOMAF)

“And as for Feyre’s hunting during those years, it was not Nesta’s neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed her. Both of us.” (ACOMAF)

Sweet, innocent Elain who vomited from the violence on the battlefields, who recoiled from Cassian’s weapons, does show that she is willing to fight for her sisters.

Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king’s neck as she snarled in his ear, “Don’t you touch my sister.”

Seer: Elain seemed to gain clarity once she realized what she was seeing. She says she can control her Seer talk, and actually uses this power to help Feyre find the Suriel in ACOWAR, and offers to do the same with the Dread Trove. It isn’t clear if Elain’s refusal to acknowledge her powers stems from fear, lack of acceptance, or just the fact that she needed to be normal before she can embrace her new life.

“Are you asking me that as her sister, or as a seer?” (ACOFAS)

“Then I will find it. I might require some time to ... reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” (ACOSF)

Made and Cauldron’s Favorite: Just like Nesta and Feyre, Elain is Made. All of the Like Calls to Like logic that applies to Feyre in ACOMAF with the Cauldron and the Book of Breathings and Nesta in ACOSF with the Dread Trove applies to Elain. Now that Nesta’s power is limited, Elain may have to step up and use her power to help find the fourth Dread Trove item or with a new Cauldron-related task. The big distinguishing factor here is that the Cauldron likes Elain.

The Cauldron purred in Elain’s presence as the King of Hybern slumped to his knees, clawing at the knife jutting through his throat. Elain backed away a step.

The Cauldron seemed to realize what she’d done, too, as his head thumped onto the mossy ground. That Elain … Elain had defended this thief. Elain, who it had gifted with such powers, found her so lovely it had wanted to give her something … It would not harm Elain, even in its hunt to reclaim what had been taken.

“You were Made by the Cauldron. You may track other objects Made by it as well... and because you are Made by it, you are immune to the influence and power of the Trove. You might use them, yes, but they cannot be used upon you.”

Lucien’s Mate: Elain hasn’t been raised with the mating bond, she doesn’t care for it in ACOWAR when she tries to win Graysen back, but it is possible that after almost two years in the Night Court, and watching both of her sisters accept their bonds, that she may want to acknowledge it, or at least understand it. Being Lucien’s Mate also makes Elain a political pawn. Her presence in the Night Court ensures Lucien’s loyalty, and given that Lucient has ties to 3 of the seven courts and the human lands. Elain could potentially wield the power of those alliances (or destroy them based on her relationship with Lucien).

“You are his mate. Do you even know what that means?”// “It means nothing,” Elain said, her voice breaking. “It means nothing. I don’t care who decided it or why they did—”// “You belong to him.”//“I belong to no one. But my heart belongs to you.”(ACOWAR)

“You couldn’t say a single word to him? A pleasant greeting?//“He brought you a present”// “And that entitles him to my time, my affections?”// “No. He is a good male. He cares for you.”// “He doesn’t know me.” //“You don’t give him the chance to even try to do so.”//“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want a male” (ACOFAS)

Elain, the wretch, had taken the seat between Feyre and Varian, about as far from Lucien as she could get.

Cassian’s heart strained at the pain etching deep into Lucien’s face as he tried to hide his disappointment and longing. Elain only shrank further into herself, no trace of that newfound boldness to be seen.

Member of the Inner Circle: Elain insists that she is a member of the Night Court in ACOSF, and offers her help in tracking down the Dread Trove. . She is already an active member at Inner Circle dinners (seen in ACOFAS and ACOSF), and those bonds could continue to grow.

“And he knew the cruelty of the Hewn City troubled her. But she hadn’t hesitated to come. When Feyre had offered to let her remain home, Elain had squared her shoulders and declared she was a part of this court -- and would do whatever was needed. ... He’d never once in the two years he’d known her found Elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court... It sucked the life from her.”

Nuala and Cerrdiwen’s Friend: Elain has befriended the two half-wraiths who spy for both Azriel and Rhys. Give Elain’s powers for persuasion (”my sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles”) and observation (”Nesta never spoke if afterward, I just observed”// “Elain’s brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that.” ), she could make an interesting spy or courtier.

“They’d spent more time with Elain than even I had. They understood her moods, what she sometimes needed.” (ACOFAS)

Nesta started, not having heard her sister approach She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she’d been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends. (ACOSF)

#elain archeron #acotar #elain #elain archeron week #kp analysis #acotar series #mtp

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hunterscoffee · 3 years

Text

Masked Crush

Oneshot Masterlist Din Djarin/The Mandolorian x Reader Warnings: angst, violence, the usual sw stuff Word Count: 1.6k A/N: Tell me if you want a sequel/part two.

He was laughing on the inside, he really was. He had never seen your face, your body and he knew nothing about you. What colour were your eyes? Your lips? Your skin? What did your voice sound like without the modulator in its way. Even though he had never seen you, he was in love with you. The way your beskar curved over your chest, the rasp of your laugh through the helmet, your impulsiveness and most of all, no matter how closed off you seemed to others you were so open and caring to him and the child. Whenever he realised he didn’t know who you were beneath the armour he got the unhappily reminder that you didn’t know who he was either or what he looked like, to be frank he sometimes forgot who he was too.

Din’s latest reminder of his crush on you was when you had breathed a heavy sigh, one that the modulator picked up. He just cocked his helmet at you like your breath of relief was a massive insult to his flying. And as if you were reading his mind.

“That was an insult to your flying, we nearly died!” you clarified to him. He breathed his own sigh, but his of frustration and slight anger.

“I saved our asses,” he bit out, “not my fault the New Republic dropped out of nowhere.”

“It was New Republic space,” you reminded him, he could only guess what your expression looked like right now, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly quirked in the corner, eyes shining with amusement at how defensive he was acting.

What he did know of you was very little to go off, he knew that you had joined the clan when you were 13 by your own choice and you were born on Mandalore during the Clone Wars. And of course he knew of your reputation as a bounty hunter and he had witnessed your skill.

“You also did a shit job of trying to fix it,” you unhelpfully commented.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

“Do you know the name of this super special Mandalorian?” you asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“No.” he said, you groaned at his unhelpful answer.

“Great,” you muttered to yourself. "I'm going to get some rest."

You must have fallen asleep because you woke to the Razor Crest beeping out an orchestra of warning sounds and the ship herself rattling as you essentially fell to the planet's surface. Din was grabbing her controls with what must be a white knuckled grip. If all that wasn't enough a woman's voice was echoing through the coms warning your partner that you were coming in too fast.

"Holy shit," you breathed as you took it all in, powerless to do anything except watch and hold the child. Out of some miracle he managed to land the ship, on the platform, perfectly. But of course that didn't last long. Razor Crest tipped over the edge and plummeted into the water surrounding the platform.

"Fuck." that's all Din said, that was it.

"I'm flying next time," you growled.

"No, your kiffin' not," he snapped at your blatant rudeness.

"Mando look at the fucking transparasteel, you can't see see shit out of it, no to mention the state the metal alloy." you bit back, he huffed, chucking a few credits at the Mon Calamari by the spaceport and asking him to fix her the best he could, which to be honest couldn’t be that good by the looks of her.. You were too busy staring at the ship to realise he, the child and the frog lady had walked off, happily enough you got there in time to watch the reunion of the frog lady and the frog gentleman, it warmed your heart, just the joy you needed after such a shit day. In return for her passage the frog couple took you and Din to an Inn not far from the port and mostly filled with amphibious species. Just as you sat down a Mon Calamari approached you, asking what you wanted to eat and as quick as ever Din had just very coolly slid some credits across the table.

“Chowder and… information.” you would have killed to see his face when he said that, just his tone of voice sent shivers of arousal down your back.

As Din and the Calamari spoke you watched the kid and his chowder with jealous and hungry eyes, your stomach rumbled as if to acknowledge your hunger.

“Maker, I’m starving,” you murmured, not loud enough for the voice modulator to pick it up. Suddenly part of the child’s dinner launched itself at him, the baby let out a startled gurgle that turned to scared baby language. You pulled the dagger you had strapped to your thigh and slid it into the edible creature, then greedily watched as it fell into the bowl of probably disgusting chowder. What drew your attention from the child’s meal was a Quarren walking with loose shoulders towards you.

“You seek others of your kind?” he asked, his tone rough like someone who’d been hardened over the years.

“Have you seen them?” Din asked, overly curious.

“Aye, I can bring you to them,” he added, then he started chuckling and your blood ran cold with fear and adrenaline.

“Where.”

“Only a few hours sail, it’ll cost you though,” he added, getting up from the table. Without even consulting you Din slid even more credit across the table as if you weren’t broke enough.

“When do we leave?”

“What the fuck were you thinking?” you scolded under your breath to him, “You’ve put the child, me and yourself in danger.”

“You didn’t have to come,” he scoffed, though he had badly wanted you to come.

“And let you get killed, I think not,” you huffed, glancing over to the child’s cot. Your little conversation was interrupted when a shipmate came to stand beside you.

“Ever seen a mamacore eat?” he asked, you blinked, “Quite a sight, child might take an interest.” as if on cue you glanced over to the baby, he had his chin tilted up so he could watch his father. “You should come over, take a look.” the Quarren invited, Din hesitantly pushed himself away from the banner and followed the alien to the hatch in the middle of the ship.

You had seen Jedi, heard stories of how they could predict the future, get feelings about what was about to happen. You weren’t force sensitive but you had a devastatingly bad feeling about what was about to happen. You were right. It happened in seconds, the hatch door slid open and the crew fed the beast, the Quarren that had led you there began blabbering on about feeding the thing and then with the end of his staff the bastard knocked the child’s crate into the hatch and Din, without a thought dived in after him.

“Close the gate!” the alien shouted, the sudden shocked expression you wore turned quickly into a scowl.

“Demagolka,” you growled, planting your feet on the ground as you drew both guns. The hatch finished closing, and you shot your first victim, you had barely three dead when three beskar armoured individuals landed on the ship, the painting they wore was familiar but you couldn’t quite place it, no room for it, you were too worried about Din and the child. You had no choice but to put your faith in the strangers, taking off in the sprint to the control panels, trying to get there as fast as humanly possible, without hesitating shooting the Quarren that stood there.

“Maker, which one? Which one?” you tried to picture how the shipmen had opened and shut it, then without time to think you grabbed the leaver and pulled back. To your utter relief the gate slid open, you moved quickly to the edge of the hatch, reaching your hand down as Din came back up. With all of your strength you pulled him out of the water quickly. “Shit, Mando, are you okay?” you didn’t let go of his hand, he couldn’t see it but your eyes were wide with worry.

“The child,” he gasped out. One of the other Mandalorians dove into the water only to emerge seconds later with the child. Both you and Din breathed a sigh of relief as the child as child was placed back into Din’s hands. But, your partner's somewhat relaxed demeanor was cut off when the ‘leader’ removed her helmet and you were met with a face you never thought you’d see again.

"You're not Mandalor-" Din started before you cut him off curtly.

“Clan Kryze,” you spat out, so much uncontrollable venom in your voice. Her head snapped to you. You placed two hands on either side of your helmet then smoothly pulled it off.

“Y/N?” she whispered.

“Bo-Katan,” you had no room in your heart for pleasantries.

“Ad’ika please,” she started.

"Please what, mother?" you growled. Mother? Din nearly coughed in shock, then he saw your face, gone was the sarcastic, but kind Mandalorian Din knew and in its place was the living image of anger, grief and sadness. He wanted so badly to reach out and pull you into his arms, try to comfort you. Then he suddenly remembered the code, you had broken the code.

"Give me the child, I'm going to see if I can help with the ship," your voice softened when you spoke to Din, then hardened again when you turned to your… Mother? "If you so much as follow me I'll kill you." that wasn't a threat, it was a promise. Without another word you picked the child up and cradled him in your arms then ignited the jetpack on your back, and left Bo-Katan with tears in her eyes.

#the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorion spoilers #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin

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