#literally this isn’t aimed at anyone in particular

[softlyspector]

Hard Landings

Summary: Everybody in the kriffin galaxy seems to know you...Except for Poe.

He's not really dealing with that well.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: ~12.5k

Warnings: lots and lots and lots of pining, idiots in love, bit of grumpy x sunshine, angst, fluff, the reader is described as having scars, Poe being a literal absolute sweetheart about everything

A/N: My first star wars fic! Please be kind to me I tried my very best! If anything is inaccurate, no it isn’t and you don’t see it. And please, please, please (as always) let me know what you think! And a big thank you to miss @velvetofyourheart I’m glad you got to meet Poe through this fic, hopefully I did his character justice.

Poe would never admit it to a soul, but he’s a little bit obsessed with you.

The obsession comes on slowly, it creeps in and roots down in his veins before he really has a say in it, before he even meets you.

Maybe obsession isn’t quite the right word.

He has an interest.

A vested interest.

As a commander in the resistance.

Yes, that’s it.

That’s definitely how it starts, at least.

An interest.

Your name is mentioned casually to him one morning in the mess, a name he doesn’t recognize and one that is suddenly everywhere.

Repeated and repeated and repeated.

Until he wants to burst, because who are you and shouldn’t he know and why did everyone else know you and not him?

He hears about you for kriffin weeks.

Black Squadron adores you. You make an impression on Rey and Finn and Rose.

Yet, Poe never sees you.

You’re never around when he is – off doing some other thing, always just out of the room, just moved, just – not around.

It goes on for so long, that he starts to suspect you’re avoiding him. Or, that it’s an elaborate prank that’s went on for far too long and no one knows how to tell him the truth.

That you simply do not exist.

He starts to suspect you aren’t real.

He knows everyone on the base, can pick out most people by name and face and has talked to all of them at least once, in passing, in the mess, in debriefings. 

Not you.

You are a faceless mechanic that came from nowhere, that has charmed people quietly and quickly, that has a supposedly famed and wicked aim (if he has to hear about how you only hit the bullseye on the holodarts board at the cantina again he’ll lose his mind – really). 

The holodarts thing only bothers him a little – mostly because Poe has never seen you at the kriffin cantina. 

People whisper that you’re kind, that you’re quiet, that you’re stubborn, and that you’re hiding something. 

Even BB-8 knows you. The droid that almost never leaves his side, somehow knows exactly who you are.

Poe has no idea what world you come from, what led you to the resistance. He supposes it doesn’t really matter, and the fact you hadn’t offered that particular bit of information to anyone not unsurprising, considering that the things that led people to the resistance were usually traumatizing.

Poe is intrigued by you.

He has no good reason to be, really.

And at the end of the day, you are just one of the many mechanics. You’re just one of the many people that live and work on D’Qar, that’s a part of something bigger than yourself. 

But Poe? He’s never really been good at letting things go, letting it lie. He’s stubborn, he knows that, and usually he can work that to his advantage.

Not this time though. This time he feels like he can’t do anything but dig his heels in.

Poe isn’t used to being…left out. He isn’t used to feeling left out, like someone just doesn’t want him around.

He’s…well, the poster boy, the golden child, Leia’s favorite – the leader everyone looked too when things got tough.

Poe hits his breaking point when Rose mentions that you were at the cantina the night before. 

Again. 

And that he didn’t see you. 

Again. 

“What? What do you mean? I was there the whole night! And I never – ,”

“Left right before you got there,” Rose shrugs, looking to Finn for backup. “You got there later than the rest of us – the debriefing with Leia?”

Finn nods, glancing from Rose to him and back again, lifting a brow at Poe’s slightly distressed tone. “Yep. It went late, remember?”

Poe sits with that for a moment, scratching a hand over his jaw, nodding slowly. “Why doesn’t this person want to meet me?”

Finn and Rose share another concerned look. “I don’t think it’s on purpose, Poe – ,”

But Poe decides that’s enough. “Right,” he says, standing, making an effort to clear the irritation from his voice. “I’ll go introduce myself now.”

Before anyone can stop him, before he can think it through and stop himself, he’s striding away, through well-known halls and familiar corridors, BB-8 trailing along at his heels whirring and beeping as he goes.  

“I know, buddy,” he says, glancing down at the little droid. “I know it’s not on purpose.”

But it kind of feels like it’s on purpose – like you know something about him or heard something about him that makes you stay away, that makes you avoid him. Something that either isn’t right, or he needs to correct.

You aren’t avoiding him, right?

You don’t even know him.

Why are you avoiding him?

His stomach twists, because there’s always the possibility you know him from his spice runner days. “Can you lead me, Beebee?”

Really, he should have done this weeks ago. It was his responsibility to be familiar with the other pilots and mechanics.

BB-8 rolls ahead of him with a whirr, leading him toward the one of the hangars.

Another series of beeps.

Uneasy. Cautious.

Poe frowns, stepping quickly behind the droid, to the entrance to the hangar. The smell of fuel and oil and something slightly charred greets him like an old friend. It’s a smell that’s as close to home as Poe feels he’ll ever get these days.

It’s a smell that’s like flying and falling, like stars and sky, and hope.

Most people are in the mess for dinner at this time and so the usually chaotic hangar is quiet, only a couple of people lingering, quickly finishing up whatever they were working on to get to dinner too.

BB-8 races around a banked ship, Poe following closely when he pulls up short.

He watches BB-8 cross the duracrete to you and knock into your ankle.

Poe has definitely never seen you before.

He would remember someone like you.

You smile, immediately stooping down to run a hand over BB-8’s side. You have a wrench in your hand, a smear of grease on your forehead. You’re working on his x-wing. Poe does a lot of the maintenance himself, but not all of it, not these days, not with the responsibilities that weigh on him.

He can’t figure out how to put one foot in front of the other suddenly, struck a little bit dumb from where he watches you attempt to communicate with his droid. It’s obvious that you don’t understand binary, but that you’re trying to interpret his beeps to the best of your ability anyway.

You frown, furrowing your brow, mouthing something under your breath. The movement of your mouth pulls at a scar that spiderwebs over your jaw and a portion of your cheek.

Kriffin hell.

He hadn’t expected you to be so pretty. He hadn’t expected you somehow. Even from where he stands, he can see the long flutter of your lashes against your cheek, the curve of your bottom lip, the delicate knob of bone in your wrist.

You touch the droid’s domed head softly, your voice finally carrying over to him, “– sorry, honey, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

With a series of exasperated beeps, BB-8 rolls away from you, back toward Poe.

You glance up, your gaze like mourning flowers, like the sharp points of rocks at the bottom of a whirlpool, like raw burning grief. Something about you is overwhelming, something about your gaze is like tumbling through open space, like free falling in a star shower.

For a moment, he thinks you won’t spot him, but then your eyes snap to his and those fathomless, unknowable depths soften just a bit.

You lift a hand in greeting, still crouched on the floor, the corners of your lips lifting in a smile.

Beep. 

He looks down at his meddling droid.

Another sassy beep.

Go. Over.

But he can’t get his feet to carry him over to you.

So, Poe just waves, smiles back at you. He feels dopey and stupid. Black Leader, Commander Dameron, afraid to approach one of the kriffin mechanics. 

You lift a brow, dusting off the knees of your trousers as you stand.  

“Sorry for bothering you! Don’t know what’s gotten into him!” He settles on calling over to you, pointing down at BB-8 like it was his fault, like Poe didn’t ask him to lead him to you (the droid gives an indignant little whirr at the implication), before he turns on his heel and marches away, like he has somewhere important to be.

Poe Dameron is not a coward, but what he sees in the depths of your eyes scares some part of him he didn’t know existed.

Well, at least he knows you’re real.

And he now, now, he can say he’s obsessed.

Because Poe’s never backed away from something that scared him. 

~

A crash sounds to your left, makes you jump, your bad ear ringing. 

You glance up and around just in time to see your toolbox slipping to the floor in a cascade of metal. The only thing you can do is watch as your carefully organized madness spins across the floor, the noise catching the attention of a few passersby. Despite the usual chaos and noisiness of the hangar – it still attracts attention.  

A final wrench pings to the floor and you trace the orange flight-suited legs behind the new mess up, until you meet the eyes of Poe Dameron.

He’s cringing, his face contorted into a pained expression before it eases into the relaxed smile he usually sports.

Maker, he’s beautiful.

He’s unfairly attractive actually – soft dark brown curls with eyes to match, a kind of warmth behind his gaze that couldn’t be faked.

You lift a brow when he stoops down to sweep your tools back into the box, haphazardly piling anything that would fit back into the box.

The carefully organized compartments are all but ruined, it’ll take days to sort them right again. “Sorry about that,” he says, righting the box on a stool as his ever-present droid beeps at him, a little orange and white BB unit that most people adore.

Including you. 

You’re more familiar with the droid than you are with his owner.

BB-8 had a strange habit of periodically checking in with you. 

Still, you’re surprised to find Dameron in front of you at all. That day he stared at you from across the hangar is burned into the back of your mind, the way he’d looked at you like he was seeing a ghost. 

Or something worse. 

He couldn’t wait to be out of the same room as you.

Everyone who mentioned him had nothing but kind things to say, even when they were criticizing him - a little hardheaded, a little reckless. But a good leader, a good man. 

You resist the urge to reach a hand up and cover the scars that stretch across your jaw and cheek, anxiety beating through your chest. 

“It’s okay,” you answer, only a little bit of carefully controlled despair dripping through your veins, despair at your things being knocked about, despair at having been so swiftly judged by someone so supposedly kind. 

His presence is a reminder of that day, that odd little lie he told, the rejection you’d done nothing to earn but lift a hand in greeting. 

You had precious little, your things were your touchstone when everything else disappeared, when you no longer felt safe, or like yourself. Some of those tools had been with you since –

You force yourself to take a breath. 

They’re just things, you remind yourself, things that could be rearranged and replaced. 

The droid whirs and beeps again, sounding a bit irritated.

“Right,” Poe stands and sends you another overly charming smile, like he’s trying to make up for something other than your upset tools. “Beebee is right. That was a bad apology. I’m sorry for startling you and I’m really sorry about knocking over your things. I can help you reorganize them, if you want,” he offers, sheepishly rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. 

You blink at Poe, a little bewildered at his offer, more than a little baffled by his sudden presence.

Maybe you’d caught him at a bad time that day, maybe he’d really been rushing somewhere.

The droid swivels to look up at you, chirping excitedly, apparently now satisfied you’d been properly apologized to. You can’t help but smile and crouch down, reaching out to pat BB-8 who happily rolls forward into your hand like he always does. “Does your droid always scold you?”

“Only sometimes,” Poe says, smiling again, the crinkles by his eyes pulling at his cheeks. You’ve never seen anyone smile like that before, with their whole face, like they were putting effort into it.

If it were anyone else, you might still be a little bit irritated, but Poe’s inflection is one of total earnestness.

That, and you can already tell he’s the kind of person that it’s impossible to stay angry with.

It only helps him a little that he’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever laid eyes on. His energy is infectious, too, and you suspect that even if he wasn’t a pretty boy, he’d still be able to charm whoever he talked to, that he’d still sound like sunshine radiated right out of his veins.

You both glance at the messily assorted tools. “Don’t worry about it,” you say, some tension rolling out of your shoulders. “They needed to be sorted out again anyways. No harm done,” you say, partially to reassure yourself. “Is there a reason you’re here knocking over my things?”

Why are you suddenly talking to me now? Your real question goes unspoken.

Poe scrubs a hand through his hair, curls artfully threading around his fingers, messy but like it was supposed to be that way. “Well, word around base is that you can fix pretty much anything.”

You frown at him, cocking an eyebrow up.  

Were people saying that? It’s verifiably untrue. There are plenty better mechanics than you. You preferred tinkering with more delicate things anyway, smaller machinery than the ships that surround you. 

“I can certainly try,” you answer cautiously, still patting BB-8. “But I gotta ask – who told you that? I think I’m a pretty average mechanic.”

You don’t know much about Poe Dameron, besides the popular, regular gossip about him.

He’s hotheaded, he’s reckless, he’s a great leader, he’s the best pilot in the whole kriffin galaxy, he’s the poster boy of the resistance, he’s kind, he’s a flirt, he’s –

He’s staring at you guiltily, like he’s been caught doing something bad, and you have a feeling that his sudden interest has something to do with the day he avoided you.

It’s a miracle you hadn’t seen him before that day, especially considering how much you interacted with Jessika and Snap and Finn and so many others. Because Poe knows everyone, is friends with damn near everyone.

But you haven’t really had cause to speak with him yourself before he so boldly strode over and knocked your tools to the floor, before he stared at you from across the room and sent little bolts of panic racing around your veins.

It had been hard not to notice Poe, to wonder about him, even if you didn’t interact with him yourself.

“Finn and Rose. Rey too. Which, if Rey is saying that you can fix anything…well, I thought she was the one that could fix anything.”

You tilt your head and straighten, BB-8 rolling back to Poe’s side as you do. “What is it that you need help with exactly?”

Poe stares at you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes before he recovers himself and reaches out a hand. “Poe Dameron, by the way, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

You don’t take his hand, nodding back at him, locking your fingers tightly together behind your back. “No. You were in such a hurry the other day,” you say, watching as Poe winces, testing your theory of guilt. “But everyone seems to know you around here,” you let him off the hook a bit and tell him your own name, though he clearly already knows it.

He lowers his hand, doesn’t make a big deal about you not taking it.

Which you appreciate.

“Everyone knows you, too,” he says. “Except for me.”

“I really doubt that.”

“No, really!” He exclaims. “All of Black Squadron – all they talk about is you. Kriffin hell, if I have to hear one more time how you’ve never miss the bullseye in holodarts...” he trails off, shaking his head. 

You blink, just a bit surprised. Though you see all of the pilots quite a lot, you didn’t think they talked about you, thought about you outside of your brief conversations with them, your very occasional outings to the cantina. 

“Maybe that’s just because I keep them from falling out of the sky,” you say to Poe before you can really think your words through.  

Poe laughs, and it’s a nice sound, even if it startles you just a little.

Maker, how did anyone bare being around him for more than a few minutes? When he looks the way he does and smiles like that and laughs like that?

Poe is the kind of person who burns, scorches the world around him. His energy is like an exploding star and you can already feel yourself getting sucked into his orbit. 

He nods you in the direction of his x-wing which you’re more than familiar with. You frown as you approach. “Something happen in flight? It was fine before.”

There had only been drill flights earlier so you can’t imagine something drastic could have happened to it. 

Poe maneuvers behind you, brushing a friendly hand across your shoulders as he passes you. You stiffen and the hand is retracted, but he doesn’t call attention to it, just works at removing an external panel of the ship while you stand by, arms crossed over your chest as you watch.

He lifts the panel, chattering on at you about some of the wiring.

You frown and watch him, the flutter of his lashes, the movement of his throat, the bit of warm brown skin that peeps through the open collar of his flight suit.

The problem he claims to be having with the wiring is so simple a child could have fixed it. You narrow your eyes and watch Poe Dameron lie straight to your face about not knowing how to fix it, about not even knowing what was wrong in the first place.

Stars, he’s a bad liar.

But when he turns to you with those wide, brown eyes, you don’t have the heart to call him on it.

Though you have to wonder why.

Why pretend?

Why pretend not to know what the problem is? How to fix it?

Just to speak with you? Surely not. 

You glance down at BB-8 who stares up at you, like he knows what’s going on too and is begging you not to mention how stupid it all is.

A laugh bubbles to the back of your throat, one that you have to bite your lip to avoid leaving you.

Poe feels guilty about the other day, you would guess, and this is his in to talking to you, making it up.

Like he couldn’t have just approached you under the guise of introducing himself.

Its profoundly circuitous and you find yourself warming to him because of it.

So, you just reach out, point out to problem with the wiring. “There’s your issue. Here – ,” you step forward and make quick work of righting the issue, holding back a grin as you do.

This is certainly not something you expected from Poe, he seemed like a more direct person to you.

Like the day he’d marched into the hangar, clearly with the intention to talk to you, only to back away and lie.

Maker, he does feel guilty.

He’s smiling at you again, watching you with rapt attention.

BB-8 rolls slow circles around the pair of you, engulfing you in your own personal bubble with Dameron.

“So, are you heading to the mess now? For dinner?”

You tilt your head, “Sure, Poe.”

“Wanna eat together?” He’s not looking at you, there’s a tracery of pink on his neck, creeping up his throat. He knows he’s been caught.

“I promise I won’t tell Rey,” You say, just to watch him blink over at you in surprise, just to watch the pink spread and turn red. “That you would think she can’t fix something like this.”

He laughs, the sound loud and unrestrained. “Thanks. Guess I should have made up a real problem.”

“Should have,” you chirp. “Something really complicated. Next time, rip out this,” you suggest, pointing to a panel. “That’s a real problem. No steering.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he’s grinning like a fool at you.

Famous charm, famous flirt.

You shake yourself, wonder at how quickly you were sucked in by him.

You clamp that feeling in place, ice it off, seal it away. You won’t, can’t, get attached to anyone. And you don’t like the feelings bubbling up in you. “Glad we finally got to talk, Commander Dameron. I don’t think I’ll be able to join you at dinner.”

Before he can ask, you walk away.

But you feel that burning gaze, the weight of his eyes on you, until you turn a corner out of his sight.

~

Poe tries to right his wrong.

Of course, it backfires. Of course, he decides to do it in the stupidest way possible.

Beebee doesn’t let him forget it. 

He’s still a little bit afraid of you and the things that lie in your eyes, but that only fuels his interest, his obsession. 

But approaching you after that first encounter – casually – seemed like a bad idea. He didn’t want to mention how he’d basically fled the room – Maker, he can only imagine what you think of him because of that.

Having a reason to approach you, like needing help with something, seemed so much better.

“So, you’re going to lie to her?” Rose had asked him. “Why? Just introduce yourself, Poe. I thought you did that when you marched off the other day.” She’d seemed disgruntled. “It’s not even a good lie!”

And Poe was notoriously bad at lying.

Still, he hadn’t been able to regret it as he watched you replace the couple of tangled wires he’d hastily tugged out of their respective panels. Not when you were so close to him, not when you smelled like engine fuel and something distinctly earthy, not when he could see the swoop of your lashes against your cheek and the webbed scar that extended down your neck into the collar of your shirt.

The way you hold yourself, upright and proud, but guarded, makes him want to peel back the layers of who you are.

So even if the excuse is stupid, even if he pulled those wires out himself, he’s glad he did it.

Even if you turned down his offer to eat together, it gives him an opening into your life.

Whenever he has time, which isn’t much, he makes a point to seek you out.

Anytime he sees you in the mess, he makes a point of sitting beside you and talking to you, even if it’s just to watch you grumble about how close he is.

He notices that you don’t like to be touched, that you seize up like you’ve been electrocuted. You try not to tell him things, but some things slip out, some things are just hard not to notice about you.

You’re afraid of flying, your home world was warm year-round and you don’t like feeling even a little bit chilly. You like those blasted holodramas that Poe thought no one in the galaxy actually watched, you read maintenance manuals in your spare time. The tools you use have undue importance to you, he catches you cataloguing a couple of them more than once, just to check they were still there. He notices that your hearing isn’t as good on your left side, that you’re more easy to startle if he approaches from that way, and so he always goes to your right.

Poe brings you cups of caf until he realizes you don’t really like how bitter it is, your face screwing up with the bold flavor of it. So, he starts bringing you something sweet instead, something warm. It makes him happy because he likes sweet things too, he always found the caf too bitter too.

He hunts down a jacket for you, one of the ones with fur on the inside and leaves it on your workbench.

He has a feeling that if he gave it to you in person, you’d never wear it.

Poe isn’t sure why you’re so closed off, especially with him, but eventually you stop frowning when he appears, you smile and greet him and ask him how his day has been.

Poe doesn’t think you realize it, but one day, one of the days when he’s lost people and things feel hopeless and he still smells like kriffin fuel after washing for so long his skin feels raw, you pass your cup back to him – filled with that something sweet.

It’s still warm, and he likes to think maybe he can taste the shape of you on the rim of the cup.

“I heard what happened,” you say. “I was waiting for you.” You don’t offer any platitudes, and he’s glad for it. It just makes it sting worse, when people say things like – I’m sorry and It’s not your fault.

It’ll always be kind of his fault.

That’s just who he is, what he does.

But you don’t seem to realize what you’ve admitted. That you wait for him, think about him while he’s gone.

And before Poe can think about that too much, you’re passing something else to him. “They had them in the mess while you were away. Saved some for you.”

You press a koyo fruit into his hand, your skin carefully not touching his.

You smile and take the cup from him, sipping from the same place his lips had just touched.

Instead of saying thank you, like he should, like he wants to, he asks for something else from you. Some deeper part of who you are. He slides his thumb across the skin of the fruit, reminded of home. His throat is tight with gratitude when he asks, “Why don’t you like to fly?”

You blink long at him, fingers tightening on the cup until he worries you’ll hurt your hand.

He waits, is about to tell you that you don’t have to say it, not ever, but you nod, and loosen your grip on the cup. Instead of speaking, you gesture to the scars that disappear into the collar of your shirt.

Poe just nods.

“What about before?” He asks, probably against his better judgement. “Before that?”

“Nothing better than being in the stars,” you answer easily, gaze distant. “Maker, I loved flying.”

He can’t help the grin that pulls over his face.

~

Poe Dameron easily becomes a menace in your life.

A nuisance some could say.

He starts appearing in your life, in your carefully created little bubble, anytime he can.

Really, he’s got no good reason to.

Still.

He starts finding reasons to be in your presence.

Poe becomes your problem, and your solution.

True to his word, even when you tell him he doesn’t have to, he helps you reorganize your tools.

He sits with you at your workbench any free moment he has, brings you cups of caf and then replaces it with a sweet drink you can’t name, makes probing small talk, tells you about his home world.

You learn a lot about Poe, about his life. He talks about flying a lot – a romantic edge in his voice that doesn’t fit with being a pilot in a war. You let yourself imagine Poe as a different kind of pilot, the kind that could just go, be, explore.

But you can’t figure out why he tells you these things, you offer hardly anything in return. He shouldn’t be interested in you, he should have given up on you a long time ago, he should have gotten bored of you a long time ago.

You don’t tell him how your home world was destroyed, you don’t explain your fear of flying even if you do let that information slip out.

Poe’s eyes go round when you tell him that, like he can’t imagine it, being afraid of something he lived for, loved more than anything.

He doesn’t ask why in that moment, though he does eventually.

And when he does, you tell him.

You tell him, and he accepts it for what it is.

A sneaky little, “You should let me show you how to love it again,” slipped in before he left you that night, koyo fruit in hand.

You do not want to know Poe Dameron. You don’t want to care about him. You don’t want to care about any of these people. Caring about people just complicated things, just made everything worse, when something inevitably took them from you.

And you’re starting to rely on Dameron, you’re starting to care about him. Really care about him and weather he made it back in that banged up ship of his.

You never meant to make an impression on them, never meant to make them think about you more than they should. Never, you never should have gone to the cantina with Black Squadron when Jessika Pava invited you. And you certainly shouldn’t have gotten sucked into a game of holodarts – something which apparently lived in everyone’s memory just because you happened to be a good shot.

Dameron is the worst of all – always around, always smiling, always cracking jokes. He’s also the one who leaves the most, who comes back to D’Qar singed and beaten and who takes far too many risks.

He makes you nervous, not just because of the way he flies – like nothing can touch him, like he’ll always make it out alive – but also because of his penchant for digging himself into your skin, burrowing himself inside you and becoming a part of your life, your routine.

You want to hate him so badly.

You want to stop caring about him, but Dameron is determined to be in your life, he’s determined to assault you with daily kindnesses.

And so, you start to care about him, to like him, to wonder about him and find your thoughts occupied with the ways you could make him smile on the days where he can’t.

The world always feels like its ending. The war feels never ending. Something life altering is always happening, always just around the corner.

You hate it.

Poe is talking to you now, rattling on about something or the other, and you can’t focus because it’s hard to breathe – it’s hard to breathe when you have to stand by and watch him climb into the x-wing you take meticulous care of, and stick that stupid helmet over his head.

“I’ll be okay, you know,” he says, grinning down at you. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

Maker, let that be true, you think.

Instead, with acid on your tongue, you say, “I’m not worried about you, Poe.”

“I’ll come find you when I’m back.”

Like you wouldn’t be waiting anxiously the entire time, like you wouldn’t go sit out on one of the bluffs hidden by the trees and stare up at the stars, imagining you might be able to see his ship if you looked hard enough. 

“You don’t have to do that. I probably won’t even notice you’re gone. It’s not like I send all my time thinking about you.”

Poe laughs at your tartness, “Okay. I’ll be thinking about you though, so I’ll still come find you.”

You roll your eyes, annoyed that it makes you happy. “Bye, Beebee, stay safe,” you say to his droid instead of him, walking away before Poe can say anything else, the noise and commotion of the hangar too loud for you to hear anything else anyways.

Despite your best intentions, you think about Poe while he’s gone. You save some of those blasted koyo fruits from the mess because he always acts like he’ll die when he misses out on them. They’re native to his Yavin IV and remind him of home even if he doesn’t say it. His mother had planted a koyo tree when he was a child, and they grew in their yard.

You’re always one of the first to know when he’s back. People make sure to tell you, even when you don’t ask.

You never touch Poe, but you sit close to him when he gets back, and give him those stupid fruits, and share a cup. He still smells like fuel, but you don’t mind, because its Poe, because he’s alive.

And you admit to him that night that you were waiting, that you always wait for him, if only to see him smile.

He makes you feel like an idiot, he makes you feel uncertain, because he is so very certain.

Despite it all, Dameron is there, and if he can’t be, his droid is.

He invites you to dinner whenever he can, and once you go, just to watch him beam like sunshine, just to watch him hold court, make everyone in the mess his best friends for an hour.

Hope, Poe had a way of inspiring hope, of making people laugh when things got tough, of making them believe in something better.

You grow a little bit attached to him, find yourself waiting for him from time to time, even when he’s not away, before you catch yourself and feel that ice around your heart shiver and spiderweb and crack.

Maybe you should stay away from him, but you can’t – not when the sun of him feels so nice, is melting the ice.

Not when he looks at you with eyes softened by something unknown, something you don’t want to see or recognize. 

Because you can’t have the inside of you exposed to the light again.

But you can’t quite bring yourself to make him stop either.

~

“Here.”

You glance up, squinting into the low light. “Poe,” you say, not at all surprised. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

He rolls his eyes, smiling. “Just take it will you?”

You grin back, flip your magnifying glasses above your forehead and peel off your gloves before taking the cup Poe is offering you.

“Do you ever stop?”

“Do you?” You counter easily, sipping at the sweet drink as Poe sits on the spare chair across from you at the workbench.

He shakes his head, “Guess not. Hard for me to sit still. There’s always something else to do.”

You nod, yanking the glasses off your head and tossing them onto the bench. You haven’t seen him in a while, you want his attention. “It’s late,” you comment, trying to hide a yawn.

“I know.”

There are purple circles beneath his eyes, creases at the edge of his cheek, like he’d accidentally fallen asleep on something.

“Why don’t you go get some sleep then, Poe?” You ask gently.

He shakes his head, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes. “When I haven’t seen you in weeks? Never.” 

You snort. “What, you need me to put you to bed or something?” 

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” he hedges. 

“Of course you wouldn’t.” 

He peeks one eye open at you, “Is it so surprising that I like being around you?” 

You look away, fidget with your fingers, the edge of your jacket. A jacket you know is a gift from Poe. “A little bit. It’s hard to imagine why.”

For a moment, you don’t consider continuing, you don’t even think of it, because there’s nothing more to say. It really is hard to believe. Why should he? When you give so little of yourself in return? When Poe burns brighter than the sun and you are but a faded star?

But before you can think of something to say, of the words to describe how you feel, before you can get your next words out, Poe leans forward, right into your space, the smell of him, the scent of clean soap, the fresh smell of the shampoo he used, the cologne he put on, invading every part of you, diving down into your veins, like sunshine on ice. “I like you,” he says softly. “That’s why.”

His gaze is warm and open. Big brown eyes staring at you from beneath thick lashes.

You blink at him, “I like you too, Poe.”

And you do, you like him too much, maybe to your own detriment. 

But you don’t say it the way he does, with teeth and grit and meaning. You say it like you don’t understand what he means, what his constant presence means, what his patience with you and you only means, what the jacket left on your workbench means, what the cups of something sweet, and always approaching you from the right side means.

Poe likes you. And he wants you to know it.

Poe doesn’t smile at you, just watches you for a moment. “You don’t get it do you? What do I have to do to make you get it?”

“Poe…” You trail off, not sure what to say to him. “I don’t understand why.”

“Does it matter why?” He sounds a little bit offended. “Why is it such a surprise anyway? I’m not…I don’t really know how to be subtle,” he offers. “I’m telling you. I like you.”

You bite your lip, worry at the hem of your shirt. 

But there are things he doesn’t know, and there are things you aren’t sure you can give. 

And because he could have pretty much anyone he wanted and yet he wasted his time here with you. Because the world is always ending, and you can’t lose everything again.

And Poe, he’s sort of becoming everything to you.

Instead of answering, you drain the rest of the drink, flick out your light, and switch off your datapad. “You need sleep, Dameron,” you say. “It’s making you delusional.”

Poe stands, following along after you without complaint, rounding a corner into an empty corridor.

“So, it doesn’t matter why?” he chirps, smilingly upbeat again, like you didn’t just reject him without explanation.

You roll your eyes, following a well-known path to his quarters. “Of course, it matters.”

“It shouldn’t. You could just accept it.”

You reach his door, automatically punching in the code, stepping back to wave him in ahead of you. “Poe,” you stop him, standing very close to him in the low light of his room. You can see every lash against his cheek, the bruise darkening along his brow. “It’s better this way.”

“I don’t think it is,” he says, obstinate about it.  

You sigh, exasperated, opening your mouth to respond when he cuts you off. “No. You’re wrong about this. It’s not better this way.”

“Poe,” you say again, growing frustrated. “You don’t know anything about me. I give you nothing in return for all you do. You should hate me. I can’t even touch you. I can’t even look at you when you leave. I can’t even say goodbye.”

You stop, press your hands across your chest, ribs aching with the pressure you exert. You wait for him to get it, but Poe just says your name, so quietly and sweetly it makes you want to crumble. “Baby,” he coos, and you know he’s thinking about reaching out to you, about how much easier it would be if you were an easier person. Your throat goes tight with the sound of that pet name on Poe’s lips, directed at you. “Baby,” he repeats, palms open, eyes like little galaxies of their own. His lips twitch up into a gentle grin, “I know you. You’re easy to know.”

And Poe repeats the things he knows about you. That you like it warm and come from a warm world. That you don’t like bitter things. That you’re meticulous with your tools and work, that you preferred to be alone when you worked but you like to have company when you eat. That you’re easily annoyed by loud noises and that your left ear is sensitive. That you pretended to think the koyo fruits were too sweet but that you now look forward to them just as much as Poe does.

“You tell me things. You just don’t realize it. I like who you are.” Poe steps away from you, toward his bed, slumping down to yank off his boots.

The circles under his eyes are in sharp contrast with his skin in the low lighting of his quarters. You stand there, not sure what to say, not sure if you want to say anything. Not really sure how to say anything.

“Poe,” you say softly, his name on your lips making him pause, glancing up at you with eyes that are such a rich warm brown, you’d gladly lie there forever, gladly lie in that shade and sleep. “Thank you.”

His brow softens, that little pinch smoothing out, and he holds out a hand to you.

You hesitate, not sure the contact won’t kill you, won’t end everything you know.

“C’mon, you’re tired too. Stay with me,” he lays back, scoots as far away as he can. He doesn’t say it, but you hear it anyways. I won’t touch you.

You pull your feet out of your shoes and kick them away, and you lie down beside Poe as he flicks out the light. He turns to you in the dark, the shine of his eyes the only thing visible to you before your eyes adjust and his features come slowly into focus.

He’s beautiful, unreal in his beauty.

Poe smiles. “Are you going to stay?”

“Sure, Poe.”

“Good.” His eyes flutter shut and you have to tangle your fingers together to resist the urge to reach out and touch his cheek, to trace the arch of bone.

You shut your eyes instead, and listen to Poe’s quick breathing, the shift of him on the bed, still fully clothed and above the blanket.

You tilt closer, wriggle closer.

You want to press your nose into his shoulder, into his bicep, you want to dig your teeth into him, to consume him.

Because he’s just so…Poe.

He’s everything you don’t really deserve.

The scent of him overwhelms you – forest pine and rainwater, the lingering smell of fuel that you’re starting to become addicted to.

Just before you fall asleep, you press your nose into his shoulder, you feel the briefly light touch of his hand against your cheek. The feather light touch is immediately retracted, jerked away, a reprimand unto itself.

But you wish it would linger.

~

You don’t make things easy on him after that night, like you regret falling asleep so close to him.

He should have known better than to fall asleep too, he was a clingy sleeper, and he hated the panic in your eyes at finding his skin against yours when you woke.

There had been a moment, between waking and realizing, where Poe had been blissfully happy. It had been a long time since he woke up touching someone else and he was loathe to let that feeling slip away, it was only a bonus that this person smelled just like you.  

But then he’d opened his eyes and found you really there, a look in your eyes like you were deciding whether to push him away or pull him closer.

Instead, you mumbled an apology and stumbled out of bed, out of the room.

There are some days after that when Poe just can’t find you, no matter where he checks, no matter what he does.

He thinks about the way your hands sometimes shake, about the times where you look like you haven’t slept in days and days and days, the scar that trails over your jaw, the circles under your eyes, the haggard, drowning look in your gaze. Like something is tormenting you. 

He wonders sometimes if he should just let you be, he wonders if he is the thing that’s tormenting you.

Your eyes haunt him, the look in them still scares him. 

But he doesn’t want to look away, he doesn’t want to give up on you, not for anything. Poe doesn’t give up, doesn’t look away from things that are difficult. And you always come around eventually, looking for him but pretending that you aren’t, quietly sitting down beside him or waving to him from across a crowded room.

There are times that things keep him away – he’s off planet, he’s on a mission, he’s participating in kriffin diplomacy. He misses you like a part of himself has been lost. 

And ever since you came around, he can’t focus on anything else, can’t think about anyone else. 

No one else can warm his bed, not even for a night.

He doesn’t consider anything more with anyone else because –

Well, because they don’t bring him koyo fruits and sit out and stare at the stars when he’s away and tells BB-8 goodbye and not him because it’s too painful, it’s too close to losing too much.

He wishes you would just let him in. 

~

“You’re going,” Poe says, standing with his arms crossed at the threshold of the mess. He’s vaguely sweaty, a black mark across his forehead and down his cheek, a frayed kind of burned smell emanating from him.

Half the buttons on his shirt are undone and you want to hate him for it. You hate that expanse of skin, the ever present chain around his neck poking out. Another piece of himself he’d given you, why he wore the necklace. That his mother’s ring is looped on the end. Poe had let you see it, let you fist your hand around it, trace the edge of the ring.

He’s back from a mission, something, you don’t know.

Your brain goes all fuzzy, blanks out the specifics of what goes on with the actual flying in the sky part of things. You don’t like to think about it, don’t like to know the details of what he does, what any of the kriffin pilots do. 

Maker, to be afraid of flying in a place like this was like being a bird with its wings clipped, defenseless and easy to be left behind.

You wrinkle your nose and turn away from him. “Not sure what you’re talking about, Dameron.”

Poe strides forward and takes the seat across from you. “Cantina. Tonight. You’re going. We had a very successful mission,” he beams at you, clearly proud, satisfied. He doesn’t offer details, knows it makes you anxious. “And you’re coming to the cantina.”

You don’t care about the mission, you’re just glad he’s back. 

But all you say is - 

“Nice try. I don’t respond to pressure,” you refocus on your datapad.

“I command – ,”

You groan, “No – ,”

“Yes! As Commander Dameron, I…” he hesitates, clearly trying to think of a synonym for command. You lift a brow, and he continues with much less zeal and gravitas, “ –command you to come with me to the cantina tonight. I can finally watch you beat everyone at holodarts in person.”

“That really hurts your feelings, doesn’t it?” You snort. “It’s just darts.”

He pouts at you, an exaggerated expression that makes you laugh. “Yeah, it does actually.”

You shake your head, reaching out to adjust the collar of his shirt a little bit. Poe stops breathing, his shoulders tense, as you smooth the fabric back. “What happened to your flight suit?” You ask, silently begging anyone listening for him not to mention your fingers against his shirt.

“Had to look my best before I came to see you,” he recovers quickly, his eyes on your hand as you withdraw your touch, brows ticking up. “Didn’t I?”

You wrinkle your nose, “Stars, this is your best?”

“Hey!”

You bite down the smile that threatens to overcome you. “You definitely didn’t hit the fresher before you came here.”

Poe rolls his eyes, “Are you going to come or not?”

“Sure,” You agree. “Just this once.”

He blinks, surprised, because you’ve never gone with him. “Really?”

You pause, watching him, “Kriff, Poe, do you want me to go or don’t you? I can change my mind – ,”

“No! No, no, no, you���re coming. You already said yes.” he’s beaming at you, just sitting there looking at you, eyes flicking over your face, smiling like you’ve agreed to something much more important than going to the cantina. “I missed you,” he says suddenly, the words bursting forth like they no longer fit inside his mouth.  

“Right,” you agree, sliding your gaze to your datapad again, not acknowledging his words, “Just come find me after you’ve found some soap.”

You should tell him, you think. You should tell him what happened to you.

There’s something like hardened trust between you and Poe now, something deeper than that too, something you’re afraid to name.

He deserves to know.

And selfishly, you want him, you want him to touch you again, you want to touch him again without surprise pulling over his features, you want him to keep bringing you cups something sweet and you want to keep hoarding koyo fruit for him. 

You owe him the truth, the core of you, in exchange for everything he’s given you, so he can make a decision about you. 

~

Poe finds you exactly where he left you earlier, hunched over a datapad in the now nearly empty mess, brow furrowed as you review schematics, make notes on them, absently twirling a stylus.

He plucks up the datapad and switches it off.

You glance up, your fathomless mourning eyes brightening when they fasten on him. “You look nice,” you say in a rare moment of openness, like you can’t help but let the words tumble out.

A heat he doesn’t expect crawls up his neck, traces over his cheeks. “Let’s go. We’re holodarts partners.”

You wrinkle your nose as you stand, carefully wrapping your hand around his elbow, your fingers avoiding direct contact with his skin. But he can feel the warmth of you through his shirt and that’s enough. “Who decided that?”

“Me.”

“So I’ll be carrying our team then.”

“Ouch,” he lies his other hand against his heart, trying not to disturb your touch on his arm.  

The pressure of your fingers at his elbow feels so good, warm and heavy, and Poe thinks he’s actually starting to become a bit touch starved. Never has indirect touch felt so good.

He’s normally a touchy person, and it’s been a bit of a challenge to remind himself that touch scared you. He hugs his friends, sure, and the pilots are a strangely tactile bunch, but there was something deeper he craved, something only a partner could really give, something that he hasn’t had since he’s gotten hung up on you.

Poe isn’t really even thinking about sex, just touching, just holding you, any part of you, of being allowed to hug you when he sees you, kissing you, holding your hand.

He fantasizes, sometimes, about getting to hold your kriffin hand.

You’re gradually coming around to careful touches though.

Even a couple weeks ago he could have never imagined you willingly tucking your hand against his arm.

Once at the cantina, you refuse to play holodarts with him, claiming it isn’t fair. “Black Leader should have to fend for himself, shouldn’t he?” You say quietly over the rim of your drink, not looking at him but grinning when everyone starts to heckle him.

So it ends up that everyone is partnered but Poe.

You sit out the games, instead chatting with Rey, the two of you bent over your glasses, talking lowly about something. What you might be talking about, Poe can only guess. But it’s distracting enough that he loses every single game.

Finally, after all this time, you’re here at the cantina together, and you don’t want anything to do with him.

You laugh at something Rey says, your eyes crinkling at the corners, fingers laced together over the tabletop as you lean closer to listen.

It’s only much later, when you’ve had a few drinks that someone fits a dart into your hand and nudges you up that he gets to watch your famed aim. You refuse at first, and so adamantly that people start to complain, and Poe has to warn them off it. You’re a little bit tipsy but you’re still game, still willing to indulge them a little.

They make you stand much further back than normal, make you spin in a circle a few times, until you’re laughing and dizzy and Snap has to catch you gently when you almost trip. The others are trying to test you, to see if you really have skill or if you’re just particularly good at holodarts.

You barely take a breath between shots.

Every single dart meets its mark, dead centered on the glowing board across the room. Drunken cheers erupt and coalesce around you. You look vaguely embarrassed, like you don’t want the attention. Your smile is tense, your fingers tight on the next dart, eyes flashing to his gaze where he hoots along with everyone else.

“Someone needs to get a blaster in your hand!” One of the recruits says, jostling an arm around your shoulders.

Your smile goes, tight, hard, panicked – and you gently extract yourself, laughing, brushing your fingers over your arms before you cross them tightly across your chest.

He starts to move toward you, but someone else is already there. Rose and Finn pulling you toward the bar, away from him again.

Poe misses the searching glance you direct back at him.

~

“Hey,” you press your hand against Poe’s back hours later, squeezing in next to him at the bar. Poe immediately turns to you, beaming like sunshine incarnate. He tilts his head down and your breath stalls for a moment, your mind curiously blank.

Touching Poe, you’ve found, is nice. Your skin doesn’t crawl with the sensation, pain doesn’t echo inside you with the warmth of him against you. It’s so nice, and you want more.

That first time had scared you so badly, you were conditioned to find pain in touch, and it was only after you abandoned him in his quarters that you realized you felt none of those things. It had felt good, warm and safe, like being bundled up against a cold wind.

“Hey!” he answers, a curl of his dark hair feathering along your forehead, his nose nearly touching yours. “You havin’ a good time?”

“Yes,” you answer, your fingers still against the back of his shirt, curling into the fabric. “But I miss you. You left me,” you echo his words from earlier in the evening, the ones you couldn’t make yourself parrot back to him in that moment.

“I’m right here,” he smiles at you still, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks tired, exhausted, older than you’ve ever seen him.

His skin is warm through his shirt, and you have to resist the temptation to lean into him, to press your nose to his throat and inhale. The smell of his skin is coppery with sweat and his cologne, the breath of something very Poe just beneath. “Sorry I wouldn’t partner with you earlier.”

“S’okay,” he says, eyes dark and framed with lashes that make you jealous. You want to touch them, count each little hair.

He’s pretty, so very beautiful, and you’re angry with yourself for wasting your evening anywhere but right here. His shirt is unbuttoned, the chain he wears around his neck peeking out, the length of his throat, the twist of tendon in his neck, mesmerizing.

Poe tilts his head closer to you, carefully not touching you, eyes fluttering shut, lashes long and dark against flushed golden skin.

You laugh.

He’s a little bit drunk and it shows.

You tighten your fingers into the back of his shirt again, tugging gently, “Poe,” you say, breathing his name out softly. “Poe, will you come with me?”

He doesn’t even ask where, just nods and follows you when you step away from him.

You let go of his shirt and watch him frown at you, like he just realized that your hand had been on him at all and now he’s missing the feeling. “C’mon,” you nudge, “It’s a secret.”

“Secret,” Poe echoes, an excited smile tugging back into place on his face. “Okay.” You start to trail away, through the thick forest greens that make up D’Qar, and Poe follows closely behind you. You glance over your shoulder to make sure he’s still there but Poe does you the service of talking your ear off, so you don’t have to constantly check he’s still there, rambling on about whether or not droids have souls, stomping loudly through the dark forest, your path lit only by the light of D’Qar’s moons.

The dry swell of his voice is comforting, the rumble of it pitching upward when he gets particularly excited about something.

You drop back to walk next to him, pushing aside verdant undergrowth as the ground begins to slope upwards. Poe doesn’t question you, just follows, climbing up the hillock until the trees thin and a cool breeze slips through the hanging vines.

The edge of a cliff looms ahead.

The bluff isn’t that high, and there’s a small waterfall that feeds into a pond. You think it’s beautiful, lush emerald below and the flight of stars overhead, the glow of two moons. But Poe turns to you with a frown, a worried line appearing between his brows. The spray of mist from the fall rises around you both, cocoons you in itself.

A light breeze shifts the collar of his shirt, all those undone buttons, the breath of exposed skin and the chain that hangs around his neck.

And before Poe can say anything, to you or about you or about this strange little world you’ve brought him to, you lose the courage you thought you had – the courage to tell him, finally, why. And what happened. And what you feel.

Before you can change your mind, you step around him and leap into the void.

~

When he looks over the edge of the cliffside, he imagines the spikes of rocks in the water below.

The swirl of the water reminds him of that thought he had about your eyes the first time he saw you. Grief like the sharp tips of rocks at the bottom of a pool.

Poe gets that feeling again, the same one that had bubbled up in him when he first met your eyes. Fear rakes through him, but he’s never backed away from something that scares him, not even you. With his heartbeat loud in his ears, and an unknown feeling tugging at the back of his throat, Poe watches you jump.

He lets out a strangled gasp.

You hang there for a moment, suspended in space, light from the moons crystalizing around you, threading through your hair. And Poe thinks, Maker, save me, because you look like a falling star, you look like all the stars in the galaxy raining down.

And then you drop and fall into the pond, sinking so deeply he loses sight of you.

You disappear from sight and Poe curses, not hesitating to follow you, jumping over the side too, without hesitation because all he can think about are the blades of rocks.

The water is dark and something darts by his ankle, but when he surfaces, you’re already there, smiling at him, your teeth shining in the light of the moons. Any warmth he felt from the glow of the drinks settled in his veins has evaporated. “Kriffin hell, what were you thinking – ,”

You bob closer to him, the falls a distant roar, your lips dipping below the surface of the water. His breath stutters to a halt, through the cool cut of the water, your warm hand tangles with his.

For the second, third, fourth time tonight, you’re willingly touching him, and this time it’s your bare skin against his.

You stroke your thumb over the back of his hand, “I do it all the time. It’s fine.” You point up at the cliff, water trailing down your arm, “That’s where I watch for you.” Your arm ticks out, pointing at the stars now.

Poe catalogues that information for later, his brain short circuiting at the thought of you at the top of that cliff alone, waiting and watching the stars.  

“A little warning would have been nice,” he huffs. “You know there are predators in this forest.”

“And yet, I’ve always been fine.” You ghost your other hand up his arm, fisting in the collar of his shirt. “Jumping…It’s the closest feeling I get to flying these days.”

Poe doesn’t know how to respond for a moment, watching beads of water pearl and drip down your face, over the line of your nose and curve of your jaw. “What happened?” He asks the question he never dares to.

You hesitate for only a moment, sliding your hand down his arm. The moment is surreal, the warmth of you like walking on the surface of a sun, like flying through fire. It’s only made more intense by the cold water around you, binding you together. “What happens to everyone, I think. I’m not special.” You shrug, the whites of your eyes blinding in the dark quiet world you’ve brought him to. “The First Order came. I was the only one left. After.”

The way you say it is breathless, like you’re breathing through pain, an old injury.

“It’s more than that,” he says, stubborn about it. “There’s more.”

You blink, water webbing in your lashes. “And I want to tell you, Poe. Will you listen?”

~

You tell him about the destruction of your home world.

“I raced,” you say hollowly, sitting next to him in the sand that rings the pond. “I used to race. I always won. I was really good at flying, Poe. I can’t remember ever losing.”

Poe squeezes your fingers, the sensation of finally getting to touch you muddling his brain just a bit. “What did you race?”

“Anything,” you say breathlessly. “Anything that I could. Anything that would fly.” You pause and clear the tightness from your voice, “Anyways, we didn’t have much of a resistance presence and no connections. So, when the First Order came…” you trail off and don’t continue for a long time, turning your forehead into Poe’s shoulder, the crown of your head heavy against his arm.

“It was over before it started. But we had to try. I thought I could fly anything. And I could. But it was just me and a few others and it was…there was no way…” you swallow. “I was the only one left, and I crashed.”  

There are a lot of details you’re leaving out, that’s clear. But the pain in your voice makes him keep his questions to himself. Instead, Poe strokes his hand along your temple, the curve of your cheek, swipes away the tears before they can really escape.

You only continue when he wraps an arm around your waist. Those eyes, your mourning flower eyes, like the deadliness of unseen depths, like something sharp and angry and deep, flash open.

You still scare him, but he never wants to look away, he never wants you to look away. Those pierced, shattered bits of you stare back at him. “I crashed. And there was nothing and no one and – everyone was gone.” Dead, you don’t say. Everyone was dead. “And I didn’t even have a medpack. No food. Everything hurt. It still hurts sometimes, like I can feel how raw my body was for so long. That’s why…the scars. The wounds weren’t treated and so I scarred really badly. And the pain never really goes away. It’s worse when people touch me because it wasn’t over. That wasn’t the end of it.”

You close your eyes, “They found me. But I didn’t know anything because I was just some kid with a ship and guts. They thought I knew some kriffin resistance secret.”

Poe goes still.

You were tortured.

“What happened?” he asks, instead of lingering on that thought, on those dreadful memories that swarm up the back of his throat.  

“I wasn’t worth killing. Or maybe they thought I was as good as dead, or already dead. They left me. Somewhere. I don’t remember. Until I was found and healed. I don’t really remember by who. I don’t remember where I was. And then I didn’t know what to do for a long time. My memories are…they come and go. Eventually, I joined the resistance because what else was I supposed to do? Everything I knew, it was all gone. All I had were a couple of spare tools from my ship.” Your eyes flash open, “But now I can’t even look at a ship without – ,” you stop, jaw clenching.

“It’s why I worry about you and why I don’t want to say goodbye and why I tried so hard not to let you see me. Why I didn’t want you to touch me, for anyone to touch me.” The words spill out of you in a torrent, like you can’t get them out quickly enough. “Anyways. Now you know.”  

Poe doesn’t have any words to offer you, nothing that can take away what happened to you. He pulls you close, tucks your head under his chin, and you lean into his shoulder, nose pressed to the fabric of his shirt.

It’s quiet for a long time, so long the sky starts to lighten, and he knows you both need to head back to base. He’s already been gone too long. The only thing keeping him from going is that fact he hasn’t been commed.

If something drastic happened, someone could always contact him.

Your fingers tighten on his before you release his hand and pull away and lumber to your feet. You open your mouth, blink at him, an amused expression pulling over your face.

You reach down and brush a hand through his hair. “You’re covered in sand.” You show him your hand, a lot thin layer of sand coating your palm.

Maybe sitting on the sand in your entirely soaked clothes hadn’t been the best idea.

He wouldn’t change it for anything.

Poe grins, “You are too. We’re about to have a reputation.”

“Okay,” you shrug. “I’m okay with that.” You don’t look at him when you say it, eyes turned toward the horizon instead.

His heart shutters, his lungs seize, at the meaning behind your words. “Oh, yeah? Y’know gossip goes around quick.”

“It’s not really gossip, is it? More like an announcement.”

He grins, takes your hand when you offer it to him and pulls himself up, smearing more of the sand down your cheek and over your neck as he does, leaning into you, pressing his nose to your cheek, because you let him. You squirm, trying to pull away. “C’mon,” he laughs, stooping for another handful of sand, “I thought you were okay with this!”

“Poe…” you warn, a smile finally jerking into place on your face as you back out of his arms and away from him. “Don’t.”

“Too late!” he starts forward, and you dash backward, crashing into the copse of trees and out of sight.

When you finally make it back to the base, both of you covered head to toe in sand, Poe finally catches you.

He doesn’t hesitate in kissing you for the first time, doesn’t mind that it’s gritty and kind of gross. You taste like D’Qar, like stars and evergreen. You tilt your head up, smooth your fingers up his arms.

Poe tilts you back into the nearest wall, not caring who sees or what they think. It’s an open secret that he’s in love with you anyways, so if any reaction was warranted, he feels it’s cheering.

Besides, what better what better way to announce yourselves?

Your fingers cup around his wrists, mouth soft and giving beneath his. A sigh slips past your lips, the breath of you against his chin.

Poe can’t help smiling, grinning, into you, knocking his forehead against yours. “This is okay, isn’t it?”

“You would have known by now if it wasn’t, Dameron,” you say. 

“I mean,” he thinks back to your words, “You’re not in pain? I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You can’t, you wouldn’t,” you murmur, tilting your head to the side, eyes wide and open, those unknowable depths just a bit less grief stricken. His gaze trails down your neck, over the soft skin, the bump of scar tissue. You have sand there too. “How did you get sand inside your shirt?” Your fingers slide against his chest, inside the open buttons, fitting right in above his heart.

He closes his eyes, jaw clenching.

You trace the vein in his neck, cup his cheek, press a kiss to his nose. “Sorry,” you say. “Sorry it took so long. Sorry I ran out of your room that day.”

“It didn’t take too long,” he blinks at you. “But I will be making up for lost time.”

Poe mirrors the grin that spreads over your face.

~

“ – well, but, baby, if I’m the one that’s flying,” Poe whines. “Would that be as bad?”

You glare at him from your workbench, huge eyes staring at him from behind those magnifying glasses you use to work on delicate equipment. “Yes. It’s still in the air, isn’t it?”

“What if we have to suddenly evacuate?”

“Guess I’ll be standing out front with a blaster,” you snark. “Waving goodbye to your ship.”

Poe rolls his eyes, “You're gonna have to fly again someday. Why not with me? For a start?”

“I absolutely do not have to fly again.” You ignore the rest of his offer.

“So, you’re planning to stay on D’Qar…forever?” He pauses, “How did you get here?”

You frown at him, taking off the glasses and tossing them on the table. “By ship, and it was horrible. And so what if I am? I like it here.”

“Well,” he approaches your place at the bench, circling an arm around your shoulders, “hopefully one day this war ends.”

You don’t look at him, but you do tilt your body into his, warm and pliant against him, scrolling idly on your datapad. Poe catches the way your fingers shake a little bit. “Hopefully,” you intone, scooting over on the bench so he can sit next to you. “That doesn’t mean I have to go off planet.”

Poe decides to drop it, instead leaning in to press a kiss to your temple. “I’ve never crashed you know,” he says against your skin. 

You grin and glance over, “That is a lie, Poe Dameron.”

“Only a little one.” He presses a hand to either side of your head, tilts your face up. “You look pretty today.” He swipes at the line of black grease down your cheek. “Really pretty.”

“Just today?”

“Everyday. But especially today,” he presses a long, lingering kiss to your mouth, likes the way you follow his lips when he pulls away.

“Poe?” You say against his lips, and he hums back at you, nuzzling his nose against yours.

“Yes?”

“I’m not going in that kriffin x-wing with you.”

He sighs, standing to pick up his helmet, “Worth a try. Are you going to come say goodbye?”

“Of course. I’ve never let BB-8 leave without telling him goodbye,” you hold out your hand to him, folding your fingers between his.

You smile and brush your thumb across the back of his knuckles.

~

Poe wears you down one night.

About the flying thing.

He doesn’t let it go, like he can’t let anything go, though he tries to be gentle with you about it.

“Baby,” he says into your skin, and you melt, and sigh, and you’re mad, because he knows what he’s doing. You’re vulnerable because he’d come back this time in a limping ship, had been regulated to the medcenter. “For me.”

His skin is warm and still bruised under your touch.

Kriff, you hate him.

You open your mouth to refuse him again, when he says, “Don’t you miss the stars?” And your throat goes tight, “I mean, you used to race. Do you remember what it was like the first time you left orbit?” His voice goes dreamy, and soft, “I do. I never wanted to land.”

You tangle your fingers into his hair, prop yourself up on one elbow. “If you could live in the stars, would you?” You tug on a curl and then settle your chin on his chest, feel the tips of his fingers draw over your bare shoulder blades, he’s tracing your scars, but you don’t mind. You close your eyes, the feeling so nice after so long without even casual touch.

“Yeah.” And you think he’ll leave it at that but of course, Poe is sickly romantic. “But only if you’d come with me.”

“Poe,” you wrinkle your nose and squeeze your eyes shut tighter. “You’re horrible. Maker, you’re just – just kriffin awful. How does anyone say no to you about anything?”

“They try,” he chuckles. “Doesn’t really work.”

“Ugh.”

“So, c’mon, do the easy thing and say yes.” You don’t answer, only look at him, at the bruise on his cheekbone, the home you’ve found in his eyes. “I’m taking this as a yes.”

You frown at him, “You’re very cruel. Asking me this after you crashed back onto this planet.”

“I’ve never crashed. It was just a hard landing.”

You scoff, poke the bruise, turn your cheek into his chest. “Uh huh, hard landing. Worst landing I’ve ever seen.”

His chest rises and falls with a few long breaths, and you think he’s finally fallen asleep when – “So…is that a yes?”

You roll your eyes and groan, “Yes, Poe, it’s a yes.”

Poe tucks his arms around you, breathes against your temple for a moment, before you find yourself on your back, his mouth trailing down your neck, along the ridge of your shoulder. “I’m so proud of you,” he says excitedly, like he really is, like it means something to him that you’d let him take you up in that stupid ship. “We don’t even have to go anywhere. Maybe you can just sit there? Get used to the cockpit again. Beebee can keep you company – ,”

“Won’t you be keeping me company?” Your throat is a bit tight, your voice strained.

He frowns down at you, ignoring your hand on his bicep, the light way you trail your fingers over his chest. “Are you okay?”

You cup his face between your hands, not really sure how to answer him. “You are unbelievable.”

He frowns, opens his mouth –

But you kiss him again, you don’t know how to tell him what it means, that he’s proud of you even though you haven’t done anything, that he stuck with you even when you tried hard not to fall for him, that he always comes back even if he sticks some hard landings.

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron #poe dameron fic #poe dameron fanfiction #star wars

[icedax]

I think people arent understanding min’s chapter, like at all. While also widely relatable, this game is specifically about the 2nd gen asian american experience. Min’s chapter isn’t simply about the ability of racial minorities to be racist to other minorities. It’s about how the experience of being an asian american born to an immigrant leads to a specific pain, which often manifests in the kind of racism/ignorance we see in min. “I suffered in silence so they should too.”

It’s the myth of the model minority in action, one that she is shown internalizing from her dad: the model minority myth offers to asian immigrants the idea that if they don’t make trouble and aim for success within the parameters of (white-dominated, patriarchal, culturally Christian) American capitalism, they’ll be rewarded by the system - and part of that means rejecting solidarity with other minority groups, which results in the kind of antiBlackness and other forms of divisive racism found in asian communities. This issue is culturally specific to asian american immigrants - this particular attitude of “putting your head down and suffering in silence” is many older asian immigrants’ response to the adversity & racism that they faced in America. Min’s dad embodies this very clearly - he states explicitly in the game that when people discriminated against him for his accent and culture, he simply worked harder instead of causing a problem, and he tries to force Min to adopt the same mentality. 

Min’s chapter is both a wider commentary on the asian community and character growth. BS outlines incredibly clearly that Min’s own aggression was in survival to her immigrant dad’s own aggression, which was in response to a hostile racist world he had to learn to survive in. Her aggression is often shown in a generally positive (or humorous) light, protecting herself and her friends, but in this ch, it’s shown how misdirected it can become. And when she decides to break that cycle by the end of the end of the ch, it’s a great show of growth for her.

As an asian american to an immigrant dad and being within these communities, min’s ch resonated deeply. Older asian people can be incredibly racist and conservative, but it’s not in the same way a white person can be racist and conservative. It’s its own brand, which developed in response to the particular forms of anti-asian racism they’ve faced, and I really applaud brianna’s willingness to tackle such an uncomfortable and often ignored subject within her game, especially with a main lead character. 

I’m frustrated because i have yet to see anyone provide any specific criticism of how brianna handled the ch that isnt some flavor of “it made me uncomfortable because I like min,” and how unnecessary they felt it was. I think it’s complicated because a lot of online activism stresses the importance of centering the feelings of the victim, and min’s chapter is centered on her feelings, not ester’s. But it’s from a certain pain min experienced herself as a victim of racism that leads to her hyper-aggression in response to being called out. I think its an experience worth talking about, and it’s absolutely not excused within the text.

to paint this as brianna making her beloved character a racist for no reason is a gross misrepresentation and simplification of what literally happens within the text of the game, and potentially shutting down an important subject just on the basis of it being uncomfortable. it’s irresponsible and unproductive. she doesnt owe you a digestible and agreeable character in her game talking about her own experience as a 2nd gen asian american.

#butterfly soup 2 #butterfly soup #min seo #OKAY brianna posted her response to this criticism go read that

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

Talking to Ghosts

A postgame Omori epilogue exploring the way each member of the gang would cope after learning the truth. This time, Kel takes the wheel.

After Sunny gets into his mom’s car and leaves Faraway for good, Kel sits on his porch and Doesn’t Think About Anything. 

It isn’t easy. Kel just had one of the craziest nights of his life. Everything Sunny said in that hospital room is bouncing around in his brain like one of those DVD screensavers. Except instead of a tacky color-changing logo, it's the worst thing he ever heard. 

Luckily, Kel is very good at this game. He kicks off his shoes and digs his toes into the dirt. He plucks blades of grass and shreds them into spindly little threads. The bloody wreckage of Sunny's eye keeps surfacing in his mind, but it's way more fun to think about what he could IM Sunny about, now that Sunny has AIM. It’s even nicer to remember how tight Sunny hugged him before he left. 

…Man. It's dumb, ‘cause it’s not like he didn’t already, but. Kel is really gonna miss that guy. 

The sun climbs higher in the sky. The clouds scud by in no particular hurry. By the time the cool of morning heats to day, Kel is feeling sort of normal, actually. 

So, of course, that’s when Aubrey shows up. 

“Sunny,” she spits. 

Kel does a double-take. “Wh— Huh?? Where???”

“No, you fucking moron, I’m asking. Where the fuck is Sunny.”

Right. Classic Aubrey. Skipping straight to ‘physical violence’ is an insane first resort, but it’s par for the course, for Aubrey. When Aubrey feels bad, she can’t just hide it, like Hero, or swallow it, like Basil, or—freaking—think about literally anything else, like Kel. Aubrey would rather forge her hurt into a warhammer and swing it at anyone dumb enough to get close. 

They’ve had this fight a million times already. At this point, Kel could do it in his sleep. 

Even after all this time, he can’t help letting Aubrey piss him off. But he does manage to bail out before she can break all his bones with her nail bat, so. That’s probably personal growth. 

Kel gets all pissed off and stomps off and then stops being pissed off, because he hates being pissed off. He’s always hated feeling angry. It feels like poison in his blood. He doesn’t get how so many people can do it so much of the time. Why would you choose to feel bad when instead you could just… look at something else?

###

On his way inside, Kel blunders right into Hero.

“O-Oh! Sorry, bro!” 

“All good,” Hero says automatically. Reflexive. His eyes are rimmed with red, but he obviously doesn’t plan on talking about it. “You okay?”

Kel has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Clearly, Hero is taking the news way, way, way worse than anyone. (Including Aubrey, who is currently, actively committing property damage about it). But of course he’d rather die than say so. 

“Totally,” Kel reassures him. “All good.”

###

It was the same when they were kids. 

Oh, Hero acts like he never gets mad. He acts like he’s too grown-up for that kind of thing. He’s even pretty good at it. He’s got Aubrey fooled, and Sunny. And obviously their parents (not that that one was much of a challenge. Mamá and Dad would believe anything if Hero was the one who said it). 

But Hero could never fool Mari. Mari was sharp, like Sunny. Perceptive enough to smell the lies on your breath. If you were hiding something, she could always draw it out of you. She’d soften Hero up with teasing and flattery and then hit him in his weak spot at the exact right moment, the perfect jab at the perfect angle to split him open like a fish. The good cop and the bad cop, all in one. 

Kel used to hear them sometimes. Once in a blue moon, when Hero and Mari were sure that no one was listening, they would even let their hair down a little. Take off their disguises and let themselves be less-than-perfect for a change. Sometimes it was Hero who was crying, and sometimes it was Mari. Sometimes both of them at once! 

But most of the time, they weren’t crying. They were pissed. 

Like in fourth grade, after Kel’s practice got rained out. Kel was soaking wet and past exhausted. All he wanted was to lie down and close his eyes and not even think about the stupid math test that he definitely flunked this morning. 

He was already reaching for the door when he heard the voices: pitched low and stretched taut, like a rubber band about to break. 

“—even matter!!” Hero was whispering. “If I’m too busy, it’s my fault for not helping; but if I do tutor him—instead of studying for my own finals!! By the way!! Which I really need to be doing!!!”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” Mari said drily.

“—then it’s still my fault for—what? Not helping well enough? I mean, what??? What do they expect me to do? Freaking… crawl inside his head and make him smarter?” 

Mari snickered. “You could hide a walkie-talkie in his hat. Like that Spongebob episode where he goes to driver’s ed.”

Hero huffed a tired laugh. “I just don’t get what they expect me to do. I’m not the one who still can’t do long division in fourth grade.” 

Kel froze with his hand on the doorknob. Okay. Yeah. He wasn’t sure for a second, but—yeah. They were definitely talking about him. 

Some people would probably pick a fight about it. Some people (cough, cough, Aubrey) would storm in guns a-blazing. And where would that get her? All the mean stuff she heard would still be in her head. Nothing would change, except that everyone would know that everyone knew that everything was worse than it looked. Kel didn’t want any part in it.

He backed away from the door. He backed all the way down the hall, and halfway down the stairs. Then—louder this time—he stomped up the steps and burst through the door to their room.

“Oh!” Hero looked very briefly panicked. “H-Hey, little bro! Short practice today?” 

“Uh huh! We got rained out! But look!!!” Kel bared his teeth, showing off the ragged hole where his canine used to be. 

Hero turned faintly green. 

“Grooossss!” Mari giggled. “Did you twist it out yourself?”

“Uh huh!”

She ruffled his hair. “You’re so cool, Kel. Don’t ever change, okay?”

Kel grinned up at her, gap-toothed and beaming. “You got it!!”

###

But everyone changes.

###

Kel opens his eyes in Basil’s room. 

It’s not how he remembers. Basil’s room used to be wall-to-wall leaves and vines and memories. Now it’s vacant. No photos. No sticky note reminders. None of Sunny's sketches on the walls. Just white paint and beige carpet and a pool of inky dark, slowly swallowing the floor. 

In real life, Kel wasn’t here for this part. He had to hear about it from Aubrey while they huddled outside the ICU, clutching each other’s hands hard enough to cut off the circulation and taking turns telling each other that it was going to be okay. But Kel’s brain must not know that. Because this time, he can see everything.

Basil kneels over Sunny’s chest. Sunny’s face is eyeless mush. A mangle of ground meat. 

There’s a blur of motion as Hero tackles Basil against the wall.

“Kel!” he bellows. He kicks the shears across the floor. “Kelsey! Now!!”

Oh. This is where he comes in. 

Kel jerks around to stare at Hero, who’s got Basil pinned by the throat. “Wh–What?”

“Hold him!!”

“Huh???” Basil isn’t even struggling. He's just dangling there. Bleeding.

“NOW!!”

On his way across the room, Kel almost trips over something on the floor. A body. Sunny’s. But Sunny was sleeping in the living room. Why would Sunny be on Basil’s floor? 

Kel looks closer. 

Sunny’s face is red. Sunny’s hair is slicked flat and his face is all red, only red without any eyes at all. His face is torn red and he’s—moving. He’s moving. He’s awake. He’s bleeding out and he can feel it happen because he’s still awake. 

Sunny looks at Kel without any eyes. Red sputters through his teeth. “Khrrrh—”

###

Kel wakes up gasping. Scrambles for his phone before he remembers that he doesn’t have Sunny's number. Does Sunny even have a phone? Would Kel even know if he did?

He stumbles downstairs to the family desktop. Sunny’s online. Big surprise. Sunny is always online, and never answers. 

Kel is so freaked out, he almost types, ‘Hey, are you okay?’

‘Hey, Sunny! Sorry, I don’t want to stress you out, but I’m really scared. I’m really scared for you Sunny. I can’t stop feeling like something bad is going to happen. I can’t stop dreaming that something bad is going to happen. But they don’t feel like nightmares. They feel like visions. Premonitions.’

‘Hi Sunny. Long time no see, haha. Hey, weird question: are you okay? Are you hurt? Please tell me if you’re hurting but please please PLEASE don’t lie. Sometimes I get so scared you’re going to die. Are you going to die? You have to tell me if you’re—’

Kel doesn’t type any of that stuff. 

He types, snnyyyy! u up? lol

He types, cant sleep haha

He types, wanna sneak out 2 hobbeez? ;) ;) ;)

Sunny doesn’t answer. Because he lives three hours away, and because he never answers. Whatever it is that Sunny wants, it’s obviously not to go to fucking Hobbeez.

Kel types, misss u bro. gna try 2 sleep. wishme luck :/

###

When he pads downstairs, he’s met with the hissing crackle of frying eggs.

“Mo~rning!” his mom sings out. “Thought I’d make breakfast, since it’s your brother’s last day!”

Right. Hero heads back to college tomorrow. Kel knew that. “Heck yeah! Can I help?”

“Vaya, vaya! I don’t need any more mess! Oh, and your friend got home from the hospital. You should go say hi! I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

“My—” Kel sputters, before he remembers that she couldn’t possibly be talking about Sunny. Sunny lives three hours away. “Who??”

“The little blanquito. Que siempre parece como conejito mojado.”

Well, that’s definitely not Sunny. Which means that, by ‘hospital,’ Mamá meant ‘psych ward.’ Specifically, the wing for kids who tried to murder their best friend.

Kel’s eyes unfocus a little. The last time he saw Basil, it was—

(—pinned to the wall with Hero's elbow pressed into his throat. Beads of red dripping from his fingers. Even later, blanched and bloodless on the gurney, Kel could still see the blood crusted under his—

Basil wasn’t even very badly hurt, after. It looked a lot worse than it was, but that’s just ‘cause all his wounds were on his face. It’s not like Sunny’d had any way to defend himself. Just his own two hands. At worst, the marks might have got infected from all the grime under Sunny’s unwashed nails.)

“You should go see him!” Mamá says encouragingly. “I’m sure he’d be glad to see a friend.”

…Right. That’s what Kel is. A friend.

###

Basil really is back. He’s coming to school and everything. It’s—weird.

Not bad. It’s not bad. It’s just that talking to Basil is— Um. It’s sort of like playing a videogame about talking to Basil. Like Kel is watching himself from outside-in.

It was the same after Mari. Kel couldn’t wrap his head around why she did it. He couldn’t even stand to think about why she did it. So, he didn’t. He spent months on autopilot. Controlling his body remotely, like a mech pilot or something. ‘Press A to get out of bed.’ ‘Press B to put on your clothes.’ ‘Press X to bring your brother another meal that you both know he isn’t going to eat.’

“K-Kel?” Basil says again.

“Haha, sorry! Guess I spaced out for a second. I just wanted to say that it’s, uh. You know. It’s good to have you back! And if you ever need anything—someone to talk to, or to back you up if someone’s messing with you, or whatever—just, like, let me know.”

Basil doesn’t look up. He just keeps fidgeting with his fingernails, chewing a scab on his lip that’s already started to bleed. He obviously isn’t convinced.

“Hey, c’mon!” Kel whacks him on the arm, making Basil flinch. “You know we’ve got your back. If anyone gives you a hard time, you tell them to talk to me.”

If anything, Basil looks even less convinced. “...R-Right. Um. Thank you. I’ll… do that.”

Kel has to stop himself from scowling. He’s aware that he’s fucking this up. He just doesn’t understand why.

For a few years there, Kel was pretty sure that he was a good friend, at least. If nothing else. Now it turns out he couldn’t even get that right. In the end, it’s like everything else. No matter how hard he tries, it never seems to be enough.

What is it about friendship that he isn’t getting? Isn’t being friends just, like… hanging out, and going on adventures, and having a good time and stuff? Why is everyone so determined to make it into this big exhausting thing?

###

Kel is hanging out on Sunny’s porch again. Though technically it isn’t Sunny’s porch anymore. The For Sale sign is gone, so the sale must have gone through. But no one’s actually moved in yet, so. Not like there’s anyone to kick him out.

Kel isn’t moping, if that’s what you think. Being here is just a habit. Somewhere he goes to be alone. If anyone saw him here, they’d feel too awkward to approach.

…With one obvious exception.

Aubrey stalks across the lawn with her bat slung over one shoulder. The storm brewing in the air frizzes her hair to angry spikes. As usual, she doesn’t mince words.

“Are you seriously still doing this?”

Kel buries his face in his hands. “Why are you still so mad at me?”

“Why do you think?”

Thunder rolls. Lightning rends the sky, a violent gash in the dark.

“I don’t know!!” Kel shouts, too-loud in the ensuing quiet. “That’s why I’m asking!!”

Just for a second, Aubrey’s bat lowers. “...Are you actually fucking stupid? You totally iced me out. For years. In the worst time of my life.”

“I already apologized for that!!”

“I don’t care,” Aubrey snarls. Her goodwill has officially run out. “That doesn’t do anything! I’m not gonna get any less mad until you make it make sense!!”

Kel grimaces. “It’s— It was just…”

…It’s just that she was being so awful. At home, Kel was swallowed up by the black hole of Hero’s grief. And the second he clawed his way out into the light, there was Aubrey, choking, totally coming apart. Kel just wanted to feel okay for two seconds. Was that really so much to ask?

Wasn’t it bad enough that Mari was gone? Wasn’t it enough that Sunny left with her? There were plenty of times when Kel couldn’t get away from it. When he had to lock himself in the shower to keep from breaking down. But did it really have to be all the time? Always? For every second of every day?

Kel couldn’t even laugh at a joke without feeling like a jerk. Like feeling okay for a second was an insult. (Not to Mari, obviously. Mari was like Kel: she found the fun in every moment. Mari would be thrilled to see him whoop after landing a free throw, or laugh because a butterfly landed on his juice-stained shirt. And she’d hate how Hero and Aubrey were acting. So why was Kel the only one who was wrong?)

“I gotta go,” he mutters, jerking to his feet.

Aubrey barks a cold laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

You can read Kel's chapter here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43929270/chapters/123048562

Or start from the beginning: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43929270/chapters/110454879

#omori fanfic #omori suntan #omori photobomb #omori kelbrey #omori epilogue #true end #this shit is effectively therapy (but only for me) #omori spoilers

[agent-calivide]

This post isn’t aimed at anyone in specific, rather, just a general overall post to the IEYTD fandom

If you don’t like my interpretation of Phoenix as she/her that’s fine, everyone has their preferences. But it really sucks to be told to your face that your interpretation is gross or wrong or straight up incorrect.

Of course when theory crafting or talking about the character I go with they/them, as that’s the pronouns used in game, but Phoenix is not a nonbinary character, they are a self insert character that you can project yourself on to because the point is the player is the Phoenix. The pronouns are neutral so anyone can fill their shoes.

And to be blunt, if I saw the same energy for he/him interpretations of Phoenix I probably wouldn’t care because it would be a fandom-wide thing where Phoenix just is they/them, but I don’t. In fact, I see a lot of love for he/him interpretations of them, I personally really love Jackson Winters in particular. But where those creators post and share and get generally positive response, I usually get some mixture of “I don’t like it, but good for you” or “why are you calling them/him she?”

And the more and more I get that response the less and less I want to share my works, because I can only handle being told my interpretation is lesser so much. I know that my personal interpretation should just be my business, but it’s hard to not take it personal when I don’t really see anyone else with that interpretation very often and these points are always made when I’m in the conversation.

Just earlier I saw someone voice relief that someone else’s fanfic didn’t give Phoenix she/her pronouns while we were complimenting their fic, literally saying “Thank god” before saying it rubbed them the wrong way. It’s hard to not take that personal, it feels like a deliberate dig, whether intentional or not.

And yeah, this was one specific instance, but I have dozens of similar stories, and it’s just… frustrating. I made Phoenix she/her because I personally have had issues with accepting my femininity in the past, and I take comfort in the fact that my Phoenix can absolutely kick ass, take names, get shit done, and not have some “she’s cool AND a woman!!!” narrative. She’s just cool.

Honestly, Unconventional is probably the one most guilty of “she’s cool and a girl” because I went into it apprehensive of what people would think of my interpretation, but over time I let go of that, and Seraphina “Phoenix” Ardeat is now one of my favorite characters.

So to be told point blank on a roughly bi-monthly basis that she’s weird, why are you calling Phoenix she, and generally being told I’m wrong for making this character into my own when that’s what everyone is doing, it’s tiring. And it just sucks.

I love creating for this fandom, but it’s hard to want to when there’s like a 20% chance someone’s gonna get in my face and make me feel shitty for the rest of the day because of a silly, nameless, faceless character.

Again, this isn’t a call out or an attack, I just ask that maybe in the future people think before saying “I don’t like this, but good for you” because that “good for you” is like putting a bandaid over a bullet hole.

#i expect you to die #ieytd #ieytd2 #i expect you to die 2 #ieytd fandom #agent phoenix

[satsuma-saturn]

hii i hope you feel better <3 maybe a cute fluffy fic/scenario of simeon and mc baking together and like mc gets frosting on their face AHDHDH i would love to see your take on it !!

A/N: I intended for this one to be the same length as the Lucifer one, but once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. Also, I’ve never written for Simeon before, so I hope he isn’t terribly ooc. In case anyone is curious, I never proofread my fics b/c idc, I literally just do this for fun. Anyways, enjoy!

Taste of You - Simeon x Reader

It was a not-really-a-date that was most definitely a date. Simeon invited you over to Purgatory Hall to bake some treats. No reason in particular, he’d said. Luke, the resident baker of Purgatory Hall begged and pleaded to bake with the two of you, but Simeon held his ground and gently let him down. The young angel went over to the Demon Lord’s castle instead, to bake with Barbatos. You would have to give some treats to the demon butler as a thank you for taking Luke for the afternoon, allowing you to have some alone time with Simeon.

At the moment, you were knocking on the front door of Purgatory Hall. After a few seconds of no response, you reached up to knock again, but right as you raised your fist, the door swung open. Your raised fist was now aimed at Solomon’s face. Tempting, but no.

“MC! What brings you to our humble abode?” The sorcerer inquired, tilting his head.

“Ahh, I’m here to see Simeon. He invited me over for some baking,” you replied, a little sheepish. You’d expected Simeon to answer the door, so you were caught off-guard when Solomon appeared.

Nodding, Solomon took a step back, gesturing for you to enter the dorm. “He mentioned that. I think he’s waiting for you in the kitchen. I’ll be in my room if either of you happen to need anything,” he said. With a small smile, you entered at his behest, hearing the door shut behind you. “Oh, I did some baking myself recently. Only Raphael has eaten anything, but the cookies are quite good. I highly recommend.”

Gulp. “Well, since Simeon and I will be baking, we will probably be eating our own treats. Too many sweets would make me sick, but thank you so much for the offer, Solomon! If you happen to stop by the House of Lamentation, I’m sure Beel would enjoy whatever you’ve cooked up!” You were practically sweating, trying not to be rude, but also trying not to die.

Again, the sorcerer nodded. “Ahh, right! Too many sweets would be detrimental to your health. I will take you up on that other offer, though. I’ll have some cookies packed up for you to bring to Beel. Not all of them, though, since I still want to eat some and so does Raphael.” He clasped his hands together. “Anyway, Simeon is waiting in the kitchen.”

You smiled, genuinely that time. “Thank you. Feel free to have some treats when we’re done.” With that, you left Solomon in the foyer.

Peeking your head into the kitchen, you spied Simeon hunched over a cooking book. “Simeon!” The angel raised his head at the sound of your voice, a pleasant smile spreading across his face at the sight of you.

“Ahh, MC! I was wondering when you would arrive! Come in, I was just looking for a recipe for us to try out!” He patted the space next to him and you eagerly joined him.

Once you were seated, Simeon spoke again. “I was looking at this strawberry cake recipe. Here.” He pointed at the opened page, an elegant cake pictured alongside the recipe.

“Let’s do it!” You grabbed an apron off a nearby hook and tied it on top of your clothing. Simeon was already wearing one.

Soon, the ingredients were out on the counter and Simeon read out the instructions to you while you mixed. Dry ingredients were first, then wet. Soon, you had a smooth batter, ready for the oven, which was preheated. Simeon already grabbed a pan for the cake batter and greased it, so you picked up the bowl, prepared to pour the mix in, but paused for a moment. The cake pan was heart shaped! A soft warmth spread across your face as you grinned at the revelation.

“Is something wrong, MC?” The angel inquired, his face written with slight concern.

“No, I just got distracted by the cake tin,” you replied, turning your head to look at him. Simeon smiled but didn’t say anything else. You turned back to the pan and poured in the batter, tapping the pan against the counter to flatten the mix. With that done, you picked up the cake pan and placed it in the oven, setting a timer to help keep track of how long it needed to bake.

Once the cake was completed, it was placed in the fridge to cool off. It was time to work on the frosting. Again, it was left to you to mix the ingredients while Simeon read them off. While you were mixing, you lost control of the handmixer, sending frosting flying everywhere, including all over yourself! A hand settled on top of yours, clicking the mixer off.

“Are you okay, MC?” Simeon asked, handing you a hand towel. You nodded, taking the towel gratefully, starting to wipe off your hair and face. Before you could finish, though, the angel swiped this thumb across your cheek, coating the digit in frosting. He brought it to his mouth, taking a taste of the frosting. Smiling, he said, “It’s sweet. Want a taste?”

Eagerly, you nodded. “Yes, I do,” you replied. With the remaining frosting on his thumb, he wiped it across his lips. He then took your hand in his, cupping your chin with his free hand. Softly, he pressed his lips against yours. It was euphoric, the feeling of Simeon’s lips on yours, paired with the unmistakeable sweet taste of frosting.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The shriek startled you as you yanked yourself from Simeon. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen was Luke, who was beet red from the scene he just laid his eyes on.

“Taste testing frosting,” Simeon replied. There was a light blush across his cheeks as he spoke, but he kept his cool. His hand still held yours, though you were turned away, blushing and hiding your face from the embarrassment of being caught. “How was baking with Barbatos, Luke?”

“You said you were baking, not eating each other’s faces,” Luke accused, ignoring his guardian’s question. The angel beside you sighed softly.

“Luke, sometimes two people like each other a lot and they express that by kissing,” he replied, squeezing your hand in a reassuring manner. “Since you’re here now, would you like to help us decorate the cake? It’s cooling off in the fridge now.”

By then, you calmed down and turned to the young angel, who was gleefully nodding. His anger apparently suddenly forgotten. “Yes, I do want to help!” You smiled and waved him over.

“We have to make a new batch of frosting, this one got all messed up. In the meantime, I am going to start cleaning the kitchen, since it’s a mess,” you said.

Luke rapidly shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, MC! I’ll clean the kitchen!” He exclaimed, helpfully. The boy just seemed excited to be spending time with two of his favorite people. Though he’d interrupted you two, you were also happy, having been able to spend quality time with Simeon.

All in all, it was a good day.

Bonus:

After returning to the House of Lamentation, you brought along half of the cake, along with a large bag of cookies. Offering up the cake and cookies, the brothers dug in. After eating the cookies, all of them immediately died. The end.

Okay, they didn’t actually die. However, it was immediately obvious who made the cookies and they did get food poisoning.

#obey me #swd #shall we date #shall we date obey me #swd obey me #swd simeon #simeon x mc #simeon x reader #obey me simeon #purgatory hall #obey me simeon x mc #obey me simeon x reader #swd obey me! #obey me!

[plaguery]

SYBILE VEINNE'S GLOWING UNDEAD LIFE

[EXT. ALTERNIAN DAYLIGHT]

The Alternian sun is a caustic, blistering thing, a mirage of hope to the uninitiated, offering possible peace to those who can bear it. A stark white leech folds its massive body forward towards salvation.

> Be you.

[INT. SYBILE’S HIVE]

Or be me. That delineation matters little in the end. What you give to me, I will give to you. And we will find ourselves always in some way one in the same.

You are SYBILE VEINNE. You are dead. Rather, UNDEAD as the title would have it and GLOWING for that matter. A stiff body on the ground with stagnant Jade blood pooled along your back, all in the glorious, erratic bioluminescent phase of starvation.  This isn’t the first time you’ve starved. Really, you’ve been at it for half a sweep and made quite the unassuming living statue until your lusus saw to change this. Since then, you’ve been cycling between her feedings, going from awake and vital back into your undeathly, unending slumber.  You figure she was hungry and agitated with having to feed herself for so long.  We can’t all be so lucky to croak without strings attached.

> “What’s your secret?”

What an engaging question, SYBILE. Thank you for the interest, SYBILE. Aren’t these internal interviews always fun? Jokes, you promise to yourself. The kind the audience is in on are the best. You figure you have none. There are two reasons for this, you see.   One, to have a secret, there must be an audience to hide it from. You don’t remember the last time you had an audience with anyone on Alternia. Your aim is to keep it that way. If your existence itself is shut away from the world, what makes a secret?  Two, you’ve just opened up your existence to the world with the first command. The in-joke of being SYBILE VEINNE. Anyone can now be you or be me at this very moment with the right circumstances leading to it. If your existence itself is open completely to the world, what makes a secret? Part of you wishes you could have secrets. But the thing is, you are literally GLOWING, snapping back and forth between an on and off switch. An open secret is even the fool’s knowledge.  You’re a rainbow drinker.

> “What’s a rainbow drinker?”

I’ve been stuck on that one too, SYBILE.  So far, most of your rainbow drinking LIFE has comprised of lying on your back and not-so-decomposing into fleshy stone. Most of the blood provided to you has come from your leech mom, rather than your own biological impulse thrusting you upon an unsuspecting victim.  It’s not a morality or disgust thing keeping you from personally attaining the blood you crave but rather a general stagnation of LIFE. You figure a rainbow drinker LIFE is really just like any other LIFE. And LIFE is not something you were ever good at. You tried to reject it for a reason. But as an unlucky Jade, you had the gene for a particular kind of bloodthirstiness running through your slowing pulse and it rejected your rejection for you. After some more agonies, you awoke to the world again, GLOWING.  The world still did not awake to you.

> Hear crashing.

Mom is a clumsy, wet thing when she’s full. You’d think after all these sweeps she’d learn how to handle her blood bloated body. Mom bunches up beside you, sucker hovering over your slightly open mouth. You’ve always had trouble breathing out of your nose. You never really knew she had the ability to throw blood back up until she started feeding you in desperation after you gave up on your rainbow drinking LIFE.  Rust blood trickles down from her sucker, hitting right above your top lip. Her aim isn’t great. As more cascades down, blood flows out from the landing point, traveling to the mouth one way and up the nostril the other.  It begins to flood down your throat, opening it wide like a gasp of air. You feel the need to cough, but your muscles haven’t given in yet. For a few minutes, you stay as stone.  The blood up your nostril makes you want to squirm but that’s an even more taxing movement. And here it is, the wave of nausea crawling up from your stomach, embracing the back of your throat.  Movement awakens in your veins and the weight begins to lift from your back. Your blood is redistributing, cracking open the stone of your body little by little. Small electrical pulses ring through as it adjusts to sensation again. The nausea heightens. It hurts to wake up.

> Be SYBILE VEINNE.

You don’t really want to be SYBILE VEINNE right now. It sounds like SYBILE is having a possibly excruciating moment in their body and a poor outlook on LIFE. If you could consider it a LIFE at all. It’s hard to be SYBILE VEINNE. SYBILE VEINNE doesn’t even want to be SYBILE VEINNE. Why would I want to be SYBILE VEINNE? I don’t know, SYBILE. But you’re still GLOWING.

> Sit up and turn the GLOWING off.

You are going to ache for a while. You don’t know how you learned to turn the GLOWING off. You don’t even remember doing it for the first time. It just came with the package, you think. From all the stories you read about rainbow drinkers in your old life, they all had to learn the hard way.  Maybe all you’ve known is the hard way.

> Be SYBILE VEINNE.

You could starve again. And Mom could go off on her own again, either die out there or come home bloated for two. And you’ll wake up again.  You don’t really want to be SYBILE VEINNE but you don’t have much of a choice if you want this story. And you can tell a story is coming. You’re a bit of a prognosticator, in that way. To be SYBILE means you’re going to have to start living a LIFE. 

> “Welcome to the hard way.”

[FADE TO BLACK]

#homestuck #homestuck fantroll #homestuck oc #fantroll #sybile veinne's glowing undead life #sybile

[magravenwrites]

Dating Mal Oretsev would include:

Gif not mine

Requested: yes

---------------------------------------------------

You were best friends with Mal, way before either of you admitted your feelings for each other.

He likes to let other people know that you’re his, even if he isn’t that big on pda.  He likes to always be touching you somehow, if only to know you are there safe with him.  Whether that be holding your hand or having his arm slung around your shoulders to keep you close.

Saints help anyone who tries to hurt you.  He is very protective.  The type of man that will turn absolutely feral if anything happens to you.  

He freaks out if he hears you've been hurt. “Saints, you’re bleeding, what happened, who did this?!” // “Relax, Mal, it’s just a paper cut.”

Proceeds to take care of everything for you.  Gently placing a plaster over the cut and pressing a kiss over it.  Lots of cuddles and kissing to make you feel better (but only after throwing the offending piece of paper on the fire).

Literally, there is nothing he wouldn’t do for you.

He's a big softie and a complete romantic.

But he loves to annoy you, always teasing and pulling pranks.  He thinks you look cute when you're angry.

One of his favourite things to do is pull at your hair to wind you up.  You respond by tugging at his earlobe in retribution.

He pays very close attention to your likes and dislikes.  And adores gifting you things he finds on his travels.

Your favourite flowers?  You can expect a fresh bunch on your table every week just so he can see your smile.

He enjoys teaching you tracking skills.

And you enjoy pretending you're a worse shot with a rifle than you are, just to get him closer as he stands behind you, his chest to your back, and his arms holding yours as he helps to line up your aim.

When you get into trouble and you manage to shoot a man from a fair distance away, he is so surprised.

“Have you been able to shoot straight this entire time?!”

Quiet times with Mal are the best.

You don't have to have to say anything or be doing anything in particular.  Just enjoying the peace with each other.

He likes it when you use his shoulder as a pillow.

He likes it even more when you let him lie with his head in your lap, one of your hands in his, and a book in the other, as you read to him.

He likes to absently trace shapes onto the back of your hand.

He loves looking up at you as if you are his entire world.  There is nothing but the beauty of you filling his vision and the sound of your tranquil voice filling his ears.

He is completely enamoured by you.  He can't help but stare at you from across the room.

He hates when he has to leave you to join the First Army.

Makes you promise to write to him and spray the pages with your sweet perfume.

He also makes you promise to be careful.

“Don’t do anything stupid without me.” // “How can I?  You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Lots of forehead touches and kisses.

“I’ll always find my way back to you, I promise.  You’re my True North.”

---------------------------------------------------

A/N: This is my first time writing headcanons so I hope they're not too bad.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it 💛

Tags:

@agqrtz @for-bebbanburg @axe-does-writing @make-me-imagine @solinarimoon

#malyen orestev #mal oretsev #mal x reader #shadow and bone #mal oretsev headcanons #headcanons #mal x reader headcanons #dating Mal Oretsev would include

[deathon1leg]

i can sympathize with mike hate and i honestly used to be a bit of a mike hater myself but pls remember that:

this is an actual 14 year old. like... this is a freshman in high school. i’m not sure anyone would consider their 14 year old self to be a good person tbh

this kid is probably going through HEAVY comphet and internalized homophobia all the while juggling having a girlfriend he doesn’t love the way he’s supposed to, AND a male lifelong best friend he’s in love with who he’a afraid he’s losing

both of these are combined with being retraumatized year after year and having the literal weight of the world on his shoulders

and i know most of us are hating on him affectionately but this is aimed toward those who are like... actually villianing him. yes i know mike’s not real but i’ll defend him anyway because he deserves to have someone stick up for him

in my opinion (if they do right by him in s5) this isn’t character assassination—these are the effects of a person having gone through hell and back, then back into hell again, then rinse and repeat. he’s trying to act as normal as possible through this and in the middle of experiencing life-changing realizations about himself. he is so young and he is GOING THROUGH IT!!

it’s not okay for mike to treat el the way he’s been treating her, or blame others for his problems, or lie and gaslight people—that’s obviously not okay and i’m not defending those things. i’m pointing out that he’s not just doing these things for the hell of it. he hasn’t just suddenly and mysteriously turned into an asshole, this is the build up of so many things happening to him over the span of a few years during a crucial time period of growing up.

you could argue that all the other main characters have been through almost the same things and haven’t had anything like the personality changes mike had between s2-s3, but everyone’s different! no single person in group of people is gonna handle one situation the same way. also, and i know this is a bit of a reach, you’d kinda be indirectly implying that mike’s particular reaction to his trauma is wrong and he should act more like the other traumatized ones. that they’re doing the whole “having trauma” thing “correctly” and he’s not. /nm

i know that sounds dramatic but that’s the main takeaway i get when people compare his behavior to the others to show that they’re better than him. i think we should cut him some slack. he’s not an entirely different person than he was before, he’s the same person (teenager!) who just so happens to have gone through, and is currently going through, a lot of shit.

i would be defending any of the other characters the same way if they suddenly seemed to have a negative shift in personality because they’re all going through a lot of shit, but even then (as far as we’re aware) none of the others are coming to terms with being queer and in love with their best friend while having a girlfriend. of course, will is queer and in love with mike, but he doesn’t have the added stress and conflict of also having a long term gf and he seems a lot further down the path of accepting himself than mike is/seems to have been aware of it for a lot longer.

if the suffer bros end up not making mike queer then a lot of his behavior could very well be simple assholery. it could very well be that they fumbled the ball on his character, but that still doesn’t take away from everything else that’s happened to him. if they DO make him queer and do him justice in s5 he could be a really good example of a multifaceted (a.k.a realistic) character whose morality isn’t black and white. he’s complicated and he makes bad decisions but that doesn’t mean he’s a villain or the product of bad writing, it means he’s a regular human being.

i hope for everyone’s sake that he can figure out and accept himself, go see a therapist regularly, and get the guy of his dreams once he’s emotionally/mentally ready for it!!

tl;dr: mike hasn’t just randomly turned into a piece of shit—he’s just pubescent, queer, in love, and really going through it.

maybe it’s because i, too, was once pubescent, queer, and going through it, but i feel for him.

it might seem weird to some that i’m defending a fake guy so hard, and i get it, but i love my fake guy and have a special interest in analyzing my various fake guys. and a lot of this is about the principles of what people are criticizing, not just the character.

i apologize if this sounds rude or preachy, i struggle with using the right tone both irl and in text. i just want to stick up for my relatable queer fictional teenager. hope u had a good read <3

#stranger things #mike wheeler #byler #stranger things spoilers #byler meta #stranger things meta #mike wheeler i know what you are #you are going through it #and also you’re queer #this has been sitting in my drafts for a few days. didn’t know if i should post it #stranger things analysis

[northlight14]

Ok so I have a lot of different theories for roleslaying and I realised today and some of them kinda link together so they’re going in the same post. Enjoy!

-

Why does Ryker have a bias against bards (pt 1)/why does Roman not know about music?

I’ve talked about this theory before but recent episodes have given me more evidence in favour of it so imma talk about it again. Basically, I think there was a war years ago between the bards and the people of Reston (although I don’t think Reston existed at this point but we’ll get into that.)

The strongest bit of evidence I have for this is what was said to Roman and Youngblood when they entered Fantabulous Neon:

“The score of life was wrestled away from the fiery hands of evil by our glorious bard king. He single handedly defeated ??? With his legendary musical abilities going beyond what any bard could hope for. He has discovered thought this grand trial that he had ascended to godhood. He immediately set off to fix the problems of the world with this newfound power, taking the old ??? Palace and raising it far into the sky to create his enlightened bard’s collage. From on high he saw our worlds ills and went about curing them and created the utopia that we now live in. It has been many years since our king last descended from the collage but he saved our world and would never let it fall into darkness again.”

It’s clear from this monologue that the bard king at some point in time was able to hone and develop his abilities as a bard and soon became corrupt, wanting to gain more power and started the bard collage as a way to essentially groom kids like Youngblood and Noise into following him and brainwashing as many people as possible into worshipping him.

In addition to this, we also have the name of Reston itself. I’m not a music expert. Quite the opposite, I don’t know shit about music other than it sounds pretty so I’m going off of google and what was said in live streams here so if anyone wants to correct me on anything plz do. However, I believe a “rest” in music is a period of time where no music is playing. And considering this was mentioned in a livestream, I’m assuming it will be relevant as I can’t see why they’re bring it up if it wasn’t. So going by this information, Reston is literally a town without music. It’s basically in the name.

Based on this information my theory is that when the bard king was spreading his tyranny and aiming for more and more power, there were people who fought back and this resulted in a war of some kind or at the very least hid away from the bards. These people at some point I think came together and formed what we now know as Reston, the town without music. This is why Roman has never heard of music and why Ryker is so mistrusting of Youngblood when he finds out he’s from the Bard collage. From Rykers point of view, Youngblood could be a spy or something for the bard king. And yes I do believe it’s possible Ryker potentially fought in this war or was one of the founders of Reston, along with Aunt Patty but we’ll cover that in a bit.

-

Why is the name “Roman” illegal in fantabulous neon?

This one is one of my shorter theories and I’ll admit there isn’t loads of evidence to back it up but I still think it’s an interesting thought. Basically I think that the name of the Bard King is Roman. The reason for this is because I think it’s odd that Roman of all names is illegal. I did some Googling and as far as I could tell there isn’t any particular meaning to the name that would make it criminal worthy to the bards. Even Noise admits that he doesn’t know why the name is illegal. The only explanation in my mind is that the Bard King made the name Roman illegal so that he was the only one with that name or something. Or it was the name he was once known as before becoming the bard king. I honestly think this is possible as we don’t hear any characters who would presumably know the bard kings name refer to him by name. Not Noise, Youngblood, Flow or even the talking book. It’s always just “the bard king.”

But then why would Ryker name Roman “Roman” if he was supposedly involved in the war and potentially knows the bard kings name? Well that leads me onto my final theory…

-

Who was that bard in Ryker’s memory/why does Ryker have a bias against bards (pt 2)?

Rykers bias against bards is especially strange when you see that in his memory he was clearly friends with a bard. It’s obvious that this person was a bard as well given their instruments and literally just everything about them. Even if there was a war or a corrupt bard, it doesn’t make sense for Ryker to change his mind about bards that drastically if he was once close with one. So what happened? I think a betrayal.

I think that the bard we are seeing in this memory is the bard that later became what we know now as the bard king. I think them and Ryker were close for a very long time and Ryker potentially even helped this bard develop their magic and skills. But soon they started developing a god complex, wanting more and more power and becoming corrupt. Ryker trying to help but it not working and it eventually coming down to Ryker having to fight against the person who was once his best friend and forming a village that bans those who are bards for the sake of their safety.

While there isn’t a great deal of evidence to support this, I’ll admit, I do think it’s interesting Youngblood and Noise’s backstory mirrors this situation fairly well. One person developing their power and in the process hurting the other and running away before things could get sorted out. Then seeing each other again and there being a battle. While this may seem pretty irrelevant and to be fair, it potentially is, I do know how much Thomas and his friends love a good bit of foreshadowing and it wouldn’t surprise me if this was an example of that.

Linking back to my previous theory, as for why Ryker would possibly name Roman after the person who betrayed him, I honestly think the answer is pretty simple. He genuinely cared about that person. Platonic, romantic, whatever, this person was likely one of Rykers best friends and one of the people he trusted the most. Those feelings don’t just disappear no matter how much he likely wanted them to. As a result, Roman was named after the person who Ryker once cared about, even if it ended in fighting and heartbreak.

-

So yeah, those are my thoughts and I can’t wait for the new episode tonight!!

#roleslaying with roman #thomas sanders #roman of reston #youngblood #rswr #rswr theory #noise rswr #rswr noise #aunt patty #ryker of reston #north rambles #north speaks

[semper-legens]

87. The Sirens of Surrentum, by Caroline Lawrence

Owned?: Yes Page count: 240 My summary: Flavia and her friends have been invited to the villa of the Patron at the request of his daughter, their friend Pulchra. She suspects that someone is trying to poison her mother...but there’s more at play in the Villa Limona. Love is in the air, but the children are yet to find out how dangerous love can be. My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

When I think of the way that the Roman Mysteries series evolves over the books, I think of this one. This is a book about sex. Like, it’s not subtle about that fact. Which is a really bold choice for a story aimed at the 8-12 market, whose characters are somewhere between the ages of nine and twelve. Flavia, in particular, is almost eleven, which is significant because this is a Flavia book. It’s hard to walk the line between talking about sex and sexual desire, specifically in this Ancient Roman setting where children were considered to be of marriageable age at twelve and sexually mature around the same time, in a way that is suitable for younger audiences. I think that this book walks that line wonderfully, and I think it’s a really mature, if sometimes messed up, look at the subject from the positions of these characters.

First, Flavia. Poor Flavia. At the age of almost-eleven, she’s just awakening into the concept of attraction. In particular, she’s strongly crushing on the Patron, Felix, who for reference is in his mid-thirties and has a daughter her age. Everyone’s in love with Felix, but Felix is a bad person, no bones about it. He’s cheating on his wife with literally everyone, sexually assaulting enslaved teenagers (it’s portrayed as something said girls want, but like, yikes), is concerned about his own wealth and pleasure over literally everything else, has a woman killed, and totally would have tried to seduce Flavia at the end. This book serves as Flavia’s arc towards getting over him, realising how terrible he is, but it still hurts for her. She’s idealistic in her views of love and attraction, because she is ten years old. While she is mature for her age, she’s still a child and still not experienced in the ways of the world. She grows to be a bit more experienced by the end of this book, but jeez.

The poisoning subplot is tragic - Polla, Pulchra’s mother, isn’t being poisoned by anyone but herself, and more metaphorically by Felix with just how terrible he is. She is depressed and wants to die because she’s trapped in this terrible marriage, so she’s been poisoning herself slowly, but hasn’t had the heart to go the full way. Though Flavia is scornful of her, I...sympathise with her opinion. She’s had a hard time.

Not to say that there isn’t anything else messed up that’s going on. We’ve got more setup to Flavia’s later relationship with Flaccus, who is slightly more age appropriate, but only slightly because he is nineteen. Flavia’s father is arranging a betrothal for her to a boy her age, Tranquillus, but Flaccus gets jealous after seeing them slip off to kiss and spreads rumours that she slept with Tranquillus, ruining her reputation and causing Tranquillus’ father to break off the betrothal. Not to labour the point, but Flavia is ten. This is a nineteen year old getting jealous because two ten year olds, one of whom he is interested in, kissed. Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross.

Next, into another series I really love, as we look at the dark side of time and space.

#Roman Mysteries #Caroline Lawrence #bookblr #book blog #book blogging #5

[beomcoups]

wip tag game

✎ RULES: post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous they are. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips. (you can make your own post or reblog this one!)

✎ tagged by: the loveliest people ever @yoonia​ and @flurrys-creativity

✎ tagging: @sugakookitty @milfgyuu @xlovelyyoongix @flowerboykun @kthpurplesyou @horanghoe  @playmetheclassics @hobeemin @defwoodz @baekhyyun @moonctzeny @raibebe @sanjoongie​. Anyone else I didnt tag can also play too and just tag me so I can see ❤

(wips below the cut)

Not in any particular order: Lover Boy (EXO oneshot)

pairing: Chanyeol x reader

Genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers au,

Summary: Meeting him was unexpected. Falling in love was meant to happen (summary might change).

Love Song (NCT series)

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: fiance!Jaehyun x reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fluff, smut, established relationship au

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Jaehyun whisks you away for a weekend getaway before you get married. Weekend Getaway

pairing: husband!Jimin x ceo!reader

genre/au: marriage au, ceo au, fluff, smut, a bit of angst?

summary: You are a boss during the day: closing deals on mergers and making the most important decisions in your company. But at home, you are a wife and a mom who has very little time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Jimin aims to change that, with one weekend in Vegas.

Anime No Genjitsu (NCT Dream series)

Pairing: OT7 x reader

Genre: will specify in each oneshot

Summary: The lives of the members through some of my favorite slice of life animes.

Isn’t It Ironic? (BTS oneshot)

pairing: collegeboy!Seokjin x reader

genres/aus: angst, fluff, smut, college au, enemies to lovers au

synopsis: You don’t care for Jin that much; He is from a rich prominent family and you come from poor backgrounds who is attending university with a scholarship. You are supposed to despise him with every fiber of your being. So why do you find yourself falling for him instead?

All Your Fault (BTS oneshot)

Pairing: mafia boss!Jimin x reader

genre: fluff, angst, smut, mafia au, strangers to lovers au

Summary: He came crashing into your life literally, and you haven’t been able to get rid of him ever since. But maybe you like it this way?

TBA (WayV oneshot)

pairing: Kun x reader

genre: fluff, smut, honeymoon au

Summary: TBA

The Athlete (SVT oneshot)

Pairing: athlete!Hoshi x reader

Genre/AUs: smut, fluff, sports au, friends to lovers au

Summary: You are assigned to write an article about Kwon Soonyoung, the trailblazing athlete that everyone calls Hoshi. But as you spend more time with him, you realize there’s more layers to him than football.

Seven Deadly Sins (BTS series)

Pairing: reader x ot7

genre: fluff, angst, smut, supernatural au, fantasy au

Summary: You’ve been single for a long time and you miss the feeling of having something warm underneath your body. You go into a “candy shop”, full of things to satisfy your needs until the right person comes along. You come across a grimoire, full of spells to bring your fantasies to life. Will this be best thing that ever happened to you or your worst mistake.  Untitled Seventeen oneshot Pairing: Jeonghan x stylist!reader

genre: fluff, angst, smut, slow burn 

summary: TBA Studio 54 (NCT oneshot)

pairing: dancer!Yuta x reader

genre: fluff, smut, 70′s au. lovers to exes au summary: It’s supposed to be a fun night at Studio 54, the hottest club in New York. Running into your ex wasn't apart of the plan, but you will make the most of it anyway. 

70s Rockstar (NCT oneshot)

pairing: rockstar!Yuta x groupie!reader

genre: fluff, smut, rockstar au, 70s au

summary: The hottest band is in town and you plan to bag the hot guitarist with the blonde hair and rockin vocals. Now how to get backstage... Desperado 

pairing: Christian Yu x reader

genre: smut, fwb, criminals au

summary: TBA

#tagged #wip game #wip chain gang #fic wip #pretty sure I got more ready lol

[txxfiles]

i’m just a girl who loves video games

hello!!!!

i feel like Magnolia summed up what we are doing pretty well, god bless, but fitting in with the genre of Magnolia’s post i might just ramble about video games. i love video games. i’m watching a video game play through as i type this actually (jacksepticeye i love u) and two games in particular have taken over my attention at the moment, well 3 but we’ll get there.

i was going to talk about my week, but i don’t wanna have my first post be negative u know? not that it’s been the worst week of all time but it’s definitely not the best. too many uncertainties in my life atm. also it’s too cold.

anyway, video games!! i recently moved our old tv and my games consoles into my bedroom, never had a tv in my room before which is hilarious considering my age. but, i wanted to be able to play more this year and not be in anyone’s way so i’ve been very comfortably screaming at my tv from my bed as i try not to die.

the first game i played this year which i have been waiting for for months is

God of War: Ragnarok

i played the first one on recommendation from a boy (ew) and fucking LOVED it. i blasted through it so fast and wanted to get ragnarok immediately but unfortunately, i am poor. i got it for christmas however and couldn’t start it as soon as i wanted bc i had to work but once i did boy let me TELL YOU IT’S SOOOOOO GOOOOOD. i am not good at video games really, i struggle to remember combos and to use my shield and to dodge and basically just button smash until the enemy or i die. works better than u would expect tbh even if literally everyone judges me for it. i am good with a bow and arrow though and my aim has gotten so much better since i’ve been playing fortnite (shut up.) so obviously i’m playing give me story. of course i’m playing give me story have i ever played a video game on anything other than easy mode. i did find out that i was wearing a bad armour set just last night tho, so hopefully i find it a little easier to fight shit now, guess we’ll see. but fuck me is it good. obviously no spoilers but shits heating up atm and i’m really genuinely scared about where the story is going to go. i’m worried kratos is going to die but he’s immortal! he’ll be fine! but i don’t trustn anyone or the game or anything anyone says to me ever bc WHY would they make such a point of fate and prophecy if it’s not going to happen???? mega stress but 10/10 what a beautiful game! my screenshots on my playstation is mostly just the scenery at this point bc wowowowowow.

so you would think the other game i’m playing is chill and nice and something i can relax whilst playing right?

WRONG!

Disco Elysium

stress.

so much stress.

i’m laughing but the stress that is coarsing through my veins is as thick as lava and i’m struggling to breathe as i try desperately to pick between 3 options with awful dialogue that will most definitely end up with me in the shit or a slave to capitalism in game as well as in real life which really isn’t ideal.

i got a achievement for being the ‘most apologetic cop’ the other day, i think that perfectly sums up how i’m playing. i just want to help but that seems to be LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO. i really love choice based games but this one is on a level of intense and confusing that i’ve never seen. it’s a masterpiece. every line of dialogue is beautiful and hilarious and insane and the world building is incredible and lieutenant kim kitsuragi is the love of my life. i have no idea what’s truly going on with harry, like i literally cannot work it out and i also don’t know who committed the murder, i thought i did and then i fucked up so SO badly that i had to quit the game and go calm down bc i was so mad at myself. like, literally fuming. i could never be a police officer.

i finished the game in between me first writing this and finally posting and again, i won’t say much bc spoilers but i cried and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. i’ve added about 40 video essays to watch and will definitely be playing it again and going down a different path (basically trying to be less of a wet blanket.)

everyone should play this game, it’s genuinely one of the most incredible games i’ve ever played. the hyperfixation is brewing and if u see me deep in the harry/kim tag on ao3 in about a week no u didn’t!

i’ve also been playing

Star Wars Battlefront 2

for some reason.

we know the reason. same reason i started playing fortnite. no more explanation needed.

i’m very bad at it. mostly bc idk what’s going on and the man i am playing it with is not very good at explaining things in a way that makes sense to me so i just kinda run around and try not to die. but then you need to die to be able to get better characters? such a weird mechanic. it’s very pretty though and i’m on a star wars hype atm so i am enjoying myself but i like fortnite more. i actually kinda love fortnite, don’t tell anyone.

my biggest complaint is that i don’t just get to use a cool character straight away like i don’t want to be a stormtrooper i want to be kylo ren what do u mean i don’t have enough points??? wild.

also an honorary shout out to undertake/deltarune, i’ve been rewatching dan and phil and jacksepticeye play them bc i’m hoping for new deltarune this year but no pressure toby pls take ur time i’ll wait forever if i have to.

i’m not sure what new games are out this year otherwise, i’ve got to finish assasins creed odyssey after god of war and i keep being bugged to play red dead redemption 2 which i probably will after AC. i think the new concernedape game comes out this year, which i will definitely be playing bc stardew valley is one of my fave games ever. it’ll be nice to play something gentle for once, i’m glad i got into more ‘serious’ games over the last year or so but i do miss my cosy games, i feel like i’ve abandoned them.

anyway, i think i’ve talked enough. one honorary shout out to kieran culkin for all his award wins! that’s my boy!

big love to my girlies, this has been so fun i’m excited for next weeks!

mwah mwah,

eucalyptus

#eucalyptus

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

No-one is fond of civilians being killed, which is fair, but everyone is pretty keen to come up with reasons for why the civilians that are being killed aren’t actually civilians, or why it isn’t as bad as you might think it is. Twas ever thus, I’d argue, but some recent gems do include:

“It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”

Which would be from Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, who followed it up by claiming that, no, he didn’t say that made them legitimate targets. One wonders why you felt the need to say it in which case, Isaac.

I’m not saying they’re complicit! I’m just saying they’re complicit.

And also this:

"We are not killing civilians. This is a military society. They are the ones who elect their governments.”

A line that apparently comes from a spokesman for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Guess that would explain why firing rockets just in the general area of where people live is something that keeps happening. Sure makes it easier where to aim if anyone you hit happens to be a vital component of the occupying infrastructure by definition.

As an aside, I saw someone say that referring to anyone as Islamic Jihad should be avoided as that is playing to a particular narrative, and while I can see the logic of this argument Palestinian Islamic Jihad is, unfortunately or not, just straight-up the name of this particular group. Like, that is literally what they call themselves. There’s not a lot you can do about that.

Anyway, like I said, no-one likes killing civilians – or being accused of killing civilians – but since the only alternative is not flinging rockets or missiles around the only option is, it seems, to adjust what you mean by civilian, typically to the point it stops meaning anything at all. Oh, they’re a military society – boom. Oh, they’re human shields – boom. Oh, they’re colonisers – boom. Oh, their brother’s friend’s girlfriend’s cousin once looked at a Hamas member – boom.

Alternatively just say you warned people to get out the way. That’s also doing a lot of heavy lifting these days.

Sigh.

[tesseractingrey]

Foster AU Writing Tips

Now, I am generally a big fan of foster AUs — they are an interesting way to take a found family dynamic and have it come about in a new way, and a way that can let you still explore the trauma and trust issues that your characters canonically have (or you can give them some new issues lol). However, it is extremely clear that most of y’all don’t actually know much about foster care, so I’m here to dispel some common myths today!

Myth #1: Orphanages still exist!

Truth #1: NO THEY DON’T

PLEASE, I am BEGGING all of you, STOP HAVING YOUR CHARACTERS COME FROM ORPHANAGES. I don’t care if you’re writing from the US or the UK or Canada or even anywhere in the EU: orphanages haven’t existed in any of those places for many years now! (Note: some countries like China and Japan still have orphanages. If your fic is set there, you may continue to use orphanages.)

Myth #2: Most kids will have gone through 15 foster homes by the time they’re 10!

Truth #2: …it’s complicated. That’s definitely not true, but the reality is more complex than the statistics.

The average number of foster care placements for kids over the course of their entire time in the system (counting up until they age out of the system/get adopted/return home) is 8, and for kids who enter the system young (i.e. aged 4 and younger) is 10. HOWEVER. Not all of these placements end because of bad foster parents! Oftentimes, some of these placements are from the times they were put back with their parents! But please stop saying that your preteen child has been to some number of homes in the double digits because no they just haven’t.

Myth #3: Kids in foster care end up there because their parents just don’t want them.

Truth #3: The majority of the kids in foster care were taken from their homes because someone called CPS on their parents, and the majority of them will return to their parents.

When a pregnant woman does not want her baby, she can put it up for adoption and have a family ready to take it practically from the delivery room. If a woman has her baby and for some reason didn’t find adoptive parents for it beforehand, she’ll probably leave it with her family or a friend, because there simply are no doorsteps to orphanages for you to abandon babies on anymore. Since there’s 9 months for the mother to think about this, though, it is very rare that she wouldn’t already have someone to take the baby. The foster care system takes in children who are in homes that are unfit to care for children; there’s no like library return book for you to return unwanted kids in.

So How Can I Make My Foster AU More Realistic?

1. Understand the different types of foster care

Most kids are placed with relatives first. So ask yourself: does your character have relatives? If not, why not? If they do, and they are not the family you want your character to end up with, what’s a reason that they could get taken away from these family members for? This option works best if your character has canonical family members, of course.

Then, of course, there’s the typical foster care that we’re all used to, where a child is place in a home with a family. There are also group home (having 6+ foster kids), but these are NOT modern day orphanages. They are centers run by professionals to provide short-term care to children whose needs have proven unable to be met by the community. These are for kids with severe mental illness, severe disabilities, and/or severe behavioral issues, and they are designed to provide the kind of therapy that a regular parent cannot in order to get the kid in a better place mentally so that they can be moved into a regular home, while still continuing to receive services at a less intense level. They are not a long-term solution, and they are not a place for children to go in between placements.

Where children go when they are in between placements and don’t have a new home lined up yet is called “emergency care.” Some licensed foster parents will take kids for a couple hours up to a couple days at a time for these emergency situations, but the goal is to get them placed in a real house ASAP. Licensed foster parents can also provide what’s called “respite care” for one another — technically, foster children are only allowed to be taken care of by licensed foster parents, so if the parent needs a day off, they need to get respite care. However, there is also something known as the “reasonable and prudent parenting standard,” and the part of it that we’re interested in basically boils down the fact that foster parents can leave their foster child with a non certified caregiver for a short period of time as part of giving them a normal childhood — like letting them stay over at a friend’s house for the afternoon or carpooling with the other kids on the soccer team. They also call it the “date night exception” more colloquially, in that you can get a regular babysitter for the night so you can have a spontaneous date night without a long process of arrangement and approval, but I wanted to include the legal terminology as well.

I have literally never seen a foster AU include respite or emergency care, and both are extremely normal parts of the system. You certainly don’t have to, but consider it! At the very least, please understand what a group home actually is, and consider how your character’s birth family fits into the story.

2. Understand why kids are removed from foster homes, and that it’s not always for abuse

Foster kids have higher needs than typical children, and not every home is equipped to meet their needs. This doesn’t make them bad parents — recognizing that you can’t help a child and someone else could do better is so much better than trying and failing! For instance, a foster parent who is very experienced with caring for kids who lash out violently might have a lot of difficulty with a child with cerebral palsy — we all have limitations, and sometimes this isn’t just a limitation of inexperience. There are outside factors that can get in the way too — like a parent’s job forcing them to move out of state (and you can’t move states with a foster kid that you haven’t adopted), or a loss of a loved one making them emotionally unable to give the foster child the attention they deserve at the moment.

Additionally, a lot of kids are taken from foster homes to return them to their parents, as that is the goal of the system. However, if their parents proves themself unfit to care for the child again, they will return to foster care, and their number of placements will increase, through absolutely no fault of the child or any foster parent. The number of homes is NOT the only factor in the kind of foster experience they’ve had. Sure, a kid with 10 placements is probably worse off than a kid with 2, but if you want to show that your character was mistreated, you need stories of how the system and former parents failed them and NOT just a big number to toss around. And if your character doesn’t have parents, the number of placements they will have will be MUCH lower. So even if your character has been in foster care since a very young age, if they have no family in the picture, 10 placements by 18 is not realistic.

And the majority of foster homes aren’t abusive. Sure, WAY too many of them are, and it’s totally valid if you want your character to have a history of abuse, but you simply cannot write them as having 5 foster families that were all abusive in different ways. If you do that, I’m just going to roll my eyes at you, because it’s ridiculously unrealistic.

What you CAN do, though, is have your character misinterpret the intentions of their foster parents. They can feel angry and abandoned because they don’t understand that their foster parent gave them up to try and get them to a parent who was more equipped to help them. They can resist the genuine attempts of foster parents to help them out of a belief that they don’t know how to help, even if they are actually doing everything right and the child is just resisting because they don’t know how to accept love and trust yet. They can mistrust parents to the point of imagining manipulation and gaslighting and neglect and abuse in perfectly normal actions. You can write your character as a flawed person, and not just a victim. Not someone who has just had terrible things done to them, but someone who has done things they regret as well. Foster children are all a victim of the system, and none of them deserve any of the terrible things that they go through, but that doesn’t make them the moral authority in every situation. They can misjudge people and make mistakes due to their history of trauma, and it’s understandable, but it’s still a mistake that they are making. Traumatized children tend to be a VERY unreliable narrator, and not enough authors take advantage of that!

In summery: please pick a more realistic number of past placements for your character, and please think up more creative reasons of why those placements didn’t work out than just “they were bad parents.”

3. Figure out why the character was taken from their home

As discussed above, it’s extremely unrealistic for a kid to be handed to the foster system by their parent. So figure how what got CPS called on their caregivers — were they given to relatives by their mother, and the relatives neglected them because they also didn’t really want a child? Did their mother and/or father neglect and/or abuse them? Did their mother and/or father commit some crime that made them unfit to be parents? Does their mother and/or father have mental health and/or addiction issues that make them unfit to be a parent? And if their birth parent is still in the picture, do they still have parental rights?

You can make it a storyline that your character’s birth parent wants them back, and your character loves their new family but is conflicted and has a difficult relationship with their birth parent. But you could also make it that the child was taken from their parent because of something like a major crime that gets them put in jail for many years, because major issues like that do result in parental rights being immediately severed. Or, and this is what I think is the most interesting option that more authors really should consider, have them story set after their parent tried to get their act together several times but kept failing and so now the character has a bunch of trust issues and abandonment issues and only recently has their birth parent lost rights to the child.

Technically, yes, children can still get just straight up abandoned. But it’s so much less likely, and the other options can make your story much more complex and interesting!

———

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for reading! I genuine love reading foster AUs, but as someone who knows a lot about the foster care system, I just wish they were a bit more realistic! I think that there’s a lot of interesting things to do narratively with the actual realities of foster care too, and I’d love to see some more people go into all that. My apologies if my time comes off as overly critical or aggressive in any of this; I just genuinely want to help people write better foster AUs. Additionally, if anyone with firsthand experience with the foster system (which I do not have) has anything they’d like to add or anything they disagree with, feel free to let me know — I’m always looking to learn more too!

#oof this was a long one #i got a bit carried away #i’ve been thinking about this one for a while and i decided it was time to just go for it #this isn’t aimed at anyone in particular tho and i really hope i don’t sound overally mean!! #i just want more high quality fanfics of one of my favorite tropes #if anyone from literally any fandom has written a realistic foster au tho dm me!!! #i’m down to read about any characters seriously i just love foster aus lol #oh god what do i tag this as #writing #writing advice #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #my post

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Qilin

(DISCLAIMER: I'm a white guy who has never had the misfortune of running into any corrupt cops, so please take my views on the police brutality debate with a heavy grain of salt. Like with my post on LGBT representation, I highly encourage anyone reading this, whether you be people of color, victims of police brutality, or even other police officers to speak up and give their thoughts on this post or the episode in general)

This is going to be a pretty tough episode to discuss, for numerous reasons, as while it isn't directly stated, Astruc himself has confirmed this episode is meant to focus on racism.

Like I've mentioned in some earlier posts, I'm not exactly confident in this episode. And before anyone accuses me of being a guy who can't stand TV shows delving into politics, that's not what I'm trying to say. TV shows, especially cartoons aimed at children, have always had episodes that teach kids messages about important issues related to current events, like Teen Titans and Static Shock. Hell, there have been entire cartoons where racism have been central themes, like X-Men and Gargoyles.

My problem isn't the fact that Miraculous Ladybug is suddenly getting political by doing an episode centered around racism and police brutality. My problem is that Miraculous Ladybug is doing a episode about racism and police brutality when considering their track record when it comes to handling subjects like this. Let's go over some of them, shall we?

There was “Kung Food”, an episode supposedly meant to teach kids about not assuming all Asian people are the same that shot itself in the foot when Astruc claimed it was okay to base a Chinese Akuma off Dragon Ball Z just because it had influences from Chinese folklore.

The issue of the tie-in comic that tried to teach kids not to judge a book by its cover, but had Marinette do so by assuming a group of people of color with names like “Public Enemy” and “Ghetto Blaster” were looting a hospital.

“Bakerix”, an episode about an old man with traditionalist views who disowned his son for “putting rice in his family's bread recipe” and ended up turning a new leaf without actually discussing the concept of racism driving families apart.

Or when Thomas Astruc himself intentionally chose to ignore concerns Korean fans had when the Rising Sun Flag made a brief appearance in an episode.

So yeah, call me a skeptic, but I don't exactly have high hopes for this episode. So let's see how this show tries to comment on the police brutality debate, shall we?

Let's get into the twenty-third (chronologically the twentieth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Qilin

We start off with Marinette's mother Sabine getting ready to start her day as she reminds the audience that she is indeed Chinese. She reads a little Chinese horoscope, puts a plant in sunlight to prevent negative energy from flowing in, practices some Tai chi while doing some housework, makes a reservation at a Chinese restaurant, and even pours herself a cup of tea. You might as well have replaced all of her lines with “HELLO! I AM EXTREMELY ASIAN!”

Marinette literally falls into the room via some Unfunny Marinette Slapstick, where it turns out even Sabine realizes how predictable it's gotten as she set up several failsafes for when Marinette is getting ready for school. She leaves a magazine for Marinette to see some shoes are on sale as she's growing out of her old pair, she got a sponge ready for when Marinette spills some milk, and even booked the reservation at the Chinese restaurant before Marinette suggested going there.

I get the idea of this scene is to establish that Sabine is in touch with her culture, but once again, I don't get how Sabine can do all this stuff, yet doesn't bother to teach Marinette any of it, not even basic Mandarin. She seriously neglected to teach Marinette anything about her culture in favor of hoping she would ask about it one day. It's not really a problem with this episode in particular, but something that bugs me about how Marinette's relationship with her Chinese heritage is portrayed.

Apparently, Marinette missed Mother's Day, and since a Sentimonster just appeared, she can't make Sabine a gift, so she decides to buy her one right before meeting up with her instead. While Ladybug and Cat Noir deal with that lollipop Sentimonster whose name I don't care enough to remember, we see Sabine has a part-time job teaching a painting class where Lila is used for a background model for some reason. We don't even get a joke about her lying about her secretly the reincarnation of Confucius.

After yet another “Haha, Marinette's wearing her pajamas because we want to get out money's worth on this model” gag, Marinette changes off-screen and meets up with Sabine on a public bus, but because she was in a rush, she didn't get a ticket, and doesn't even have any money. It turns out Sabine prepared for that too, and purchased two tickets just to be safe. While on the bus, Sabine encounters an asshole businessman. You can tell he's an asshole businessman because he's wearing a suit and talking about business on his phone. He's so busy talking about business, he can't move out of the handicapped area so a man in a wheelchair can park over there because this businessman loves talking about business. Sabine does the sensible thing and places a paintbrush down to trip up the businessman so he can talk more about business while on the floor after he slips when the bus stops for a red light, as the wheelchair guy safely moves over to the handicapped area.

While passing by a flower shop, Marinette realizes she forgot to get a gift for Sabine, so she asks to borrow her purse. While getting the gift, the bus leaves without Marinette, but while Sabine decides to wait for her daughter, she encounters a ticker taker at the next bus stop.

(Once again, this episode premiered in English, so I can't use screenshots to depict what's going on)

Ticket Inspector: Ticket inspection, please.

Sabine: Hello, sir, my daughter got off earlier with mine, but we're supposed to meet up at this stop. She shouldn't be too long. Why don't we get off and wait for her together?

Ticket Inspector: *scoffs and gets on the bus with Sahine as the door closes* No one's ever tried that one on me before. Non-payment affair. That's a fifty euro fine. How will you be paying this? *hands her a ticket while the bus leaves the stop*

Sabine: Unfortunately, sir, I have no money with me. My daughter has my wallet.

Ticket Inspector: *chuckles* And I suppose you don't have any ID with you either.

Sabine: Well, obviously. I just explained to you that my daughter has my walle—

Ticket Inspector: Right. Well, I guess we'll just see at the next stop. Not with your imaginary daughter, but with a real police officer who's going to take you in.

Sabine: What?! But that's so unfair!

Ticket Inspector: What's “unfair” is committing fraud and stealing from Parisians who do pay for their tickets, ma'am!

You know, it's people like this guy that are part of the reason why Ron Swanson hates France.

At the next bus stop, the ticket taker explains the situation to the only recurring police officer, Roger, and even though Sabine points out that their daughters are in the same class, Roger doesn't vouch for her because “The law is the law”. Because it's not like Roger was originally akumatized over wanting to give the accused a fair chance, right? Even though she tries to speak out as Roger goes through her purse, Sabine is eventually arrested.

So yeah, this is where the crux of the episode revolves around. In concept, seeing this show's take on the police brutality debate could work, and in some respects, I think some parts are accurate in showing off how some people will abuse their power to bully innocent civilians. When Sabine protests the accusations against her, the ticket taker assumes that she's “getting aggressive”, and when she gets a phone call, orders Roger to search through her purse to make sure there isn't anything dangerous in there, mirroring cases of police brutality where cops assume that the people they shoot had weapons (some examples being Tamir Rice and Ernest Duenez Jr.).

The problem lies in the fact that even though the episode starts off establishing Sabine being in touch with her culture, the actual motive behind Sabine getting arrested didn't really touch more on her race. I'm not saying that all cases of police brutality have been racially motivated, as there have been white victims as well (Martin Gugino being a somewhat recent example), but even though there has been a lot of discrimination against Asians recently thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the episode doesn't really make the conflict about racism. It's especially jarring as there have been a lot of anti-Asian crimes in France recently, so you’d think the episode would touch more upon these issues.

There's also the issue of nobody on the bus even trying to defend Sabine (not even the wheelchair guy she helped out) when in a lot of cases of police brutality, there's a huge public outcry. When George Floyd was being assaulted by Derek Chauvin, several witnesses noticed what was going on, and despite their protesting, they were ordered to stand down, with the officer keeping said witnesses (one of them being an off-duty firefighter) from interfering, Tou That, making his situation into a reason why people shouldn't do drugs. The actual outcry was what caused Floyd's death to make headlines and spark new discussions on police brutality in the first place. I understand that this case is different than the circumstances that several French victims police brutality went through (people like Amine Bentounsi, Rémi Fraisse, and Adama Traoré), but if the people on the bus remaining silent was meant to be an example of civilians being too afraid to stand up to the police, I'd get it. Here, it just feels like it was thrown in a way to justify the conflict.

So because some heavily armed SWAT Team officers were just walking around, for some reason, they're needed to escort this middle aged woman to prison. Again, if more was done to point out how unfair this was, it could have been some good commentary on the police using too much force for a “threat” that doesn't warrant it, but the episode will shoot itself in the foot with that later on. Obviously, Shadowmoth sees this as an opportunity, and sends an Akuma towards Sabine. Even though she resists at first, she eventually gives in and becomes Qilin.

Qilin's design is just... so boring. Apart from the slightly Qilin-shaped helmet and the handcuffs (which I'll get to in a minute), nothing sticks out at all. If you showed this design to a Chinese mythology nut and told them that's supposed to be themed after a Qilin, I doubt they'd agree. I literally Googled “generic Chinese armor”, and the second image I found looked almost exactly like the armor Qilin has, with the round shoulderpads, the skirt, and the decorated helmet. I mean, just look at this.

The one thing that's actually an interesting twist to the usual Akuma formula is that because Sabine was akumatized through the handcuffs, they become a core part of her design, similar to Technolizer, though she lacks the additional arms, giving her more of a handicap against her enemies. It's basically meant to represent her being unfairly accused of being a criminal, but this does lead to one of the biggest problems of the episode that I'll get to in a minute. Qilin pretty much has wind powers that she can use to move objects and enemies, sort of like an Airbender, in addition to doing them all with tai chi movements peppering her attacks with phrases like “move the mountains” or “climb the lightning bolt”, because the writers really need to remind the audience that she's Chinese.

As Marinette sees the commotion and transforms into Ladybug, she sees an army of cops attacking Sabine. Sure, we've only seen the cops actually try and fight Akumas in a handful of episodes (Origins, Rogercop, Captain Hardrock), but now, you'd swear they were deployed to fight off the zombie apocalypse. Because Qilin is literally blowing her way through several officers as she demands they remove her handcuffs (because I guess Shadowmoth has a sense of humor), Roger and the ticket taker keep demanding more backup, but in her anger, she almost destroys an entire building while trying to crush them. Thankfully, Ladybug saves them and calls out Qilin for endangering innocent lives.

Ladybug: Stop! You're putting innocent lives in danger!

Shadowmoth, to Qilin telepathically: Ladybug. Where was she when your innocence wasn't questioned, Qilin? Don't listen to this hypocrite! Take her Miraculous!

Qilin, to Ladybug: If they are not serving justice, then they are not innocent! And if you defend them, then you're not on the side of justice, either!

Because to hell with the actual innocent civilians inside that building, am I right?

Unfortunately, this is where the police brutality metaphor just falls apart. If the writers wanted to tell a story about injustice, Sabine shouldn't have been the Akuma this episode. While she is right to oppose Roger and the ticket taker, the other police officers assigned to deal with her have no idea what's going on, and are just doing their jobs. All they see an Akuma, and as she just demonstrated, a threat to public safety. In my opinion, it's hard to really feel bad for Sabine because despite being a victim of injustice, she's just as guilty of playing judge, jury, and executioner. I'm not saying violent protests have never been successful at achieving their goals (two obvious examples being the Stonewall Riots and the MLK Assassination Riots), but the issue is that Sabine is also abusing the concept of justice by punishing people she views as against her while acting like she's done nothing wrong. Just because Sabine was framed for a crime, it doesn't give her the excuse to commit more crimes.

I know this season has already reused Akumas several times, but I think it would have made more sense if Rogercop returned instead of making Qilin the primary threat. He could have had a Sentimonster ally like a bloodhound to sniff out “lawbreakers” like Sabine, serving as a commentary for law enforcement going too far in responding to simple crimes.

But if you absolutely had to make Sabine the Akuma this episode, don't make her a one woman army. Instead, have her start her own movement against the cops. She doesn't need any powers to do so, all she has to do is address the marginalized people in the city and convince them to stand up and fight back against the cops maybe by giving them their own weapons and armor to counter the cops, and possibly marching to City Hall to have the mayor address all the injustices the government has ignored. That way, Qilin would still fight the cops, but now, instead of making her seem more antagonistic than intended, the conflict would mirror real life anti-police protests and confrontations you see on the news.

Cat Noir saves Ladybug from being pummeled by random objects scattered by Qilin, using the umbrella function on his staff as a shield. Right after that single moment of actually being useful, Ladybug orders him to buy some more time while she questions some of the police officers involved in the attack. Coincidentally, they're the four who helped arrest Sabine, and believe she was “terrifying”.

Again, it's a decent jab at cops who overblow minor offenses, but then we get Ladybug trying to reason with both Roger and Qilin about the ticket fine, but say that “it's a matter of principle”. This just doesn't work, because now, they're trying to portray both Qilin and Roger as incredibly stubborn as if neither side is better, when the episode just made it clear Qilin was in the right here. If it was done to show that both sides needed to find common ground, I'd get it, but it doesn't play into the climax, only the aftermath.

Ladybug offers to find Sabine's daughter (AKA herself) in order to prove Sabine isn't at fault here, but now Roger is ordering the military to close in on Qilin. Isn't it funny how of all the episodes to show off the manpower the local government has, it's the one demonizing them?

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, an actual ray gun, and realizes that all they need to do to stop Qilin is to unlock her handcuffs. She tries asking Roger for the keys to the handcuffs, but in typical superhero fashion, because Ladybug turned against the law once without actually getting to explain herself, now the cops charge after her too. Ladybug uses the literal ray gun to cut a hole in a riot shield to cover a nearby sewer grate with while Cat Noir hides out. He uses his Cataclysm to break the cover that could have just been the regular manhole cover to trap Roger and steal his keys. Cat Noir comes back with the keys, so Ladybug approaches Qilin while offering to unlock her handcuffs, so, for the third time this season, Qilin effortlessly breaks free of her akumatization.

So Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage from the battle, gives Sabine a soon to be useless Magical Charm, but there's still the issue of Sabine being in trouble with the law. Even though he's only really interacted with her twice with and without the mask (Gamer, Weredad), Cat Noir defends Sabine, because why should Ladybug get to stand up for her own mother?

Instead, Ladybug asks Roger to wait for Sabine's daughter to get back, and even though his refusal to do so caused this entire mess, now, he complies for some reason. Then why the hell couldn't he give Sabine a chance earlier? This episode's plot already had a flimsy excuse to happen, but now this happened.

After detransforming, Marinette runs over to Sabine with her late Mother's Day gift and the tickets, leading to the ticket taker deciding to cancel the fine, until...

Marinette: The truth is, I was out of line too. I am so, so sorry, Mom. This is all my fault, which is why I'd like to pay the fine with my pocket money.

Ticket Taker: That's quite a responsible act, young lady.

And this is where the episode loses any form of common sense, as once again, Marinette has to take the blame for something she barely had any part in causing. The asshole abusing his authority on the bus? Sabine's akumatization? God knows how many euros wasted in that attack if not for Miraculous Ladybug? All Marinette's fault, while the actual corrupt people get off scot-free. Putting aside how much this screws up the simple moral of “don't abuse power or blindly follow the law” even more than the writers have for the past twenty-two minutes, do I even need to go into detail about how wrong it is for the bi-racial girl to take responsibility for a series of events that were all but said to be racial profiling instead of the actual aggressors? And remember, the writing and Astruc himself framed it as the “responsible” thing to do.

Even though it would be seen as a far more responsible thing for the person in power to realize he was abusing his authority and admit he was wrong, instead of the girl who wasn't even present when Sabine was being harassed. Because, remember, Astruc says that every episode of the show has to have Marinette make a mistake and learn a lesson even when she wasn't at fault.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

So yeah, unsurprisingly, this episode was a total trainwreck. The intent was clearly to teach kids about discrimination and abuse of power, and it's a very noble one, but the execution was just awful. By not making the conflict about discrimination in any way when other shows like Teen Titans and Chaotic have used different species to educate kids, it makes it hard to get the overall message across, even though it's supposed to parallel real world events like Astruc said. The writers didn't even need to throw any slurs or have the ticket taker say he hates the Chinese. The bare minimum they had to do was throw in some lines that at least implied he had some prejudice, like saying “some people need more supervision than others”. Whether it was a result of executives shooting down certain scenes or if the writers themselves were against it, none of the showrunners wanted to fully commit to making a story about racism and police brutality.

The most they did was use all the bad cop cliches you can think of. They're all obsessed with the law, they believe any petty criminal needs to be stopped, and they're generally portrayed as absolutely useless. I'm surprised they didn't throw in a “cops eat donuts” gag with how much they made it clear the cops were the true antagonists here.

And I'm not saying the cops were innocent. Putting aside Roger's out of character actions, there isn't really a lot of discussion on the problems with the police system today outside of just saying “the cops aren't nice people”. They don't discuss the issues that lead to police brutality, why cops feel the need to use excessive force, or why people like to abuse what little power they have. It's just surface level stuff that doesn't even teach kids anything except not to trust the cops. Yes, there are good cops and bad cops, but the issue lies in focusing on reforming the police system as a whole where corrupt cops can truly be held accountable for their actions, not just saying all cops are bastards and nothing else.

I'm not saying kids can't handle this kind of stuff, but if you're going to discuss a topic this sensitive, you really need to make sure you know what you're doing and tell your story in a way that accurately reflects what's going on, while explaining it in a way to children that isn't too harsh, but not too soft either. If you want to see a show aimed at children that discusses the themes of discrimination against minorities and people who commit petty crimes far better than this show, check out the Power Rangers Time Force episode, “Trip Takes A Stand”.

And even without the poor racism allegory to rival Kamen Rider Zero-One, this episode still had problems. It was nice to focus on an Akuma victim's daily life for once, but some scenes just dragged on, like Sabine's painting class and being crazy prepared for everything Marinette does, when just showing her predicting the stuff Marinette does and needs could have been funny in its own right. And I really thought those scenes where she was nice to the bus driver and guy in the wheelchair would come back later on, but they never appear in the episode again, making those scenes even more pointless. Even by this season's standards, Cat Noir basically added nothing to the fight, and him standing up for someone he barely knows doesn't make any sense. Then again, this is the same guy who considers Marinette one of his best friends. The Akuma design was generic, the action was forgettable, even for an episode where the conflict with the cops could have led to some cool visuals, and the episode was just a mess overall.

Once again, if anyone has a problem with my review or wants to give their thoughts on what I said, don't be afraid to speak your mind. I know I'm not the authority on this subject, and I just wanted to discuss it the best I could.

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