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nyaagolor · 2 years

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Can you tell me more about this heroes of yore AU

I SURE CAN

Under the cut bc it will get long, spoilers for Forgotten Land, yadda yadda

So this more or less spawned from the theory that Morpho is going after the heroes of yore (at this point, assumed to be Galacta and Elfilis). Someone then pointed out to me that therefore the two possible heroes of yore are polearm users, so I just looked around at characters who also used / could use polearms and said "hey you know what'd be funny" and ran with it

So the four heroes in this AU, from youngest to oldest, are Paru (Zan Partizanne), Orion (Galacta), Elfilis (Fecto), and Andromeda (Galaxia), with the names in parenthesis being their titles as heroes / new names and their old names being the ones not in parenthesis. Also Galacta and Galaxia are siblings because I think that's cool. Zan wields a partisan, Galacta wields a lance, Fecto wields a spear, and Galaxia wields a Halberd (harhar). Zan is from Jambandra, Fecto is from Halcandra, and Galacta + Galaxia are from Lambandra

For a bit of background on this, I made the central "hub" of the Ancients a trio of planets (Jambandra, Halcandra, and Lambandra)-- the first is where magic users congregate, the second is where scientists congregate, and the third is where the royalty + knights live as well as where most of the governmental stuff takes place. Galacta was in the royal order of knights which is why he's the only one with the "Knight" title

Anyway they're all buddy buddy and while objectively extremely strong, relatively pacifistic / not prone to violence because their society is extremely peaceful and they had no reason to fight except sparring. People didn't really know who they were, especially bc they were extremely young by Kirbyverse standards. However, when the galactic crisis thing happened with Void, they all stepped up and used ~the power of friendship~ to defeat it and were suddenly thrust into fame, which naturally means they got threatened and exploited and overall just completely fucked over

The problems started with Fecto, who was studied by the Ancients and helped them by creating portals with his natural magic. They couldn't figure out how to make artificial portals, so they were always asking him to make some for them / studying him to try and find a way to make them artificially. The only issue is that it seriously destabilized his soul and made him very sick, so eventually they had to take drastic measures to make sure he didn't die and melt into a goo puddle. They put him in a cryogenic pod so he would be safe in stasis and sent him away with the intention of bringing him back when they figured out a cure. Unfortunately, they lost track of the pod during orbit and it got flung through space-time via a wayward portal, landing on FL planet. The Ancients had no idea where he was while the people living on FL planet were mortified by this strange beast and immediately subdued him as soon as he woke up. Fecto lashed out in fear and confusion which was mistaken for aggression so the FL people stuck him in a tube and called it a day, forcing him once again into stasis while they experimented on him

Meanwhile back in the Ancient star system, Galacta was more than a little pissed that someone had effectively given his best friend a terminal illness then lost him to the annals of space-time. Not only that, but Zan was having her own issues (that comes up later) that the Ancients were making worse by constantly asking her to do more work, which made Galacta beyond upset with them. Combine that with Galacta's inherent issue with the bureaucracy of the royals and you have a case study on how to get the entire government both hating you and absolutely terrified of you. After watching him snap and threaten them one too many times and knowing that they couldn't stop him as long as the other heroes were on his side, the government framed him for the destruction of a small moon, exaggerated the story, and turned public opinion against him, sealing him in a crystal before anyone could change their minds if only to get him out of the picture for fear of what an angry Galacta could do. They then ALSO flung him out of the space-time continuum.

Quick tangent to say that the Ancients believed it was bad luck to commit murder because the souls of the damned would turn into butterflies or tell the butterflies of judgement what crimes have been committed, so you couldn't kill someone without the gods giving you your just desserts. Luckily yeeting people into the vacuum of space and out of linear time doesn't count as death so the butterflies can't haunt you. yeehaw!

Shit gets heavy here so tw for everything from Zan's pause screen and also major character death

This is a good time to mention that the other mages, whose original names I have not come up with yet, are also here! Zan took them under her wing when she was still living on Jambandra bc all three of them had no parents and were in a pretty shitty living situation (they're unrelated here, but still informally adopted sibs). When the two saw how upset Zan was at the loss of Fecto, they decided to go to some local moons to train in order to show Zan how strong they were, to protect the other heroes so she wouldn't be sad anymore, and to take Fecto' place as a hero so that Zan and the Ancients would still be safe. Then they succumbed to the elements and died. Kind of an L overall. Hyness, who had been keeping a close eye on the heroes because he was kinda bitter about being blamed and exiled for letting Void Termina free in the first place, found the girls and revived them in an attempt to effectively bribe Zan, but was a little too slow in getting back and telling the news, so Zan only heard that her little sisters had just died in a futile attempt to become stronger for her sake. After losing two of her best friends and both sisters within an extremely short time, Zan's already existing depression became completely crippling, so she climbed a tower and. yknow.

Hyness found her and said "hey, I was just going to use this as a bargaining chip to get revenge but actually having a hero of yore helping me is way better" so he resurrects her, fuels her anger at the Ancients, tells her he revived her sisters, and she JUMPS at the opportunity to join him and repay her debt to him because she physically and mentally saved her life. Questionable actions tango. Hyness neglects to tell anyone that his new mage priest is actually a hero of yore, even giving her a new name and haircut and outfit to keep anyone from finding out, because he thinks that the Ancients will take her away if they find out who she really is (and he's right, but still). However, even tho the Ancients don't know who these girls are, they know that they and Hyness are even more dangerous than before so they just kinda yeet them into a time loop as a Banishment Deluxe. This drives Hyness to literal madness, which is why he tries blowing up the universe as soon as he's freed before Star Allies

But to get back to the Ancients, only Galaxia is left and she's pretty miserable, literally all her best friends are trapped in eternal time prisons / fates worse than death and she's become disillusioned with the society she lives in and the royals she answers to, so she goes to a famous blacksmith mage and asks to be made into a soulcraft-- an object or machine that houses a person's soul. Galaxia still wants to help people, but she's tired and wants nothing more to do with the Ancients. The blacksmith agrees, fashioning a golden sword for her to inhabit. They go through with the ritual, she lives in the sword assisting heroes throughout history, and eventually we get to the present, where she helps the astral hero Meta Knight, but is a little peeved that he keeps summoning her little brother and then fighting him, because that means SHE has to fight him and she would rather just free him and give him a hug

Happy ending though, Galaxia is already in the hands of MK while Zan / the mages join the star allies after KSA and Elfilin (who has all of fecto's soul bc true arena) joins after FL. They eventually recruit Galacta-- idk how but that doesn't matter, and the heroes of yore are reunited and get to live out the rest of their lives in peace and quiet. They got screwed over by the Ancients, but they still get the last laugh

#an opportunity to ramble??? you are too kind #mod vex #heroes of yore au #kirby spoilers #kirby forgotten land #long post #VERY long post lol #zan partizanne #francisca #flamberge #three mage sisters #fecto elfilis #galacta knight #galaxia #heroes of yore #headcanon

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gaiuswrites · 3 years

Text

King of Cups || Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Moon

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | four

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: All relationships are about give and take.

Word count: 7k~

Rating: Explicit (Mature until the last few paragraphs)

Warnings/tags: nightmares, trauma, drinking, fluff and pining, drugs/being drugged (medicinal), wound care, blood, shots/needles, mature themes/language, emo shit, masturbation (f)

Notes: Hi friends. This is broken up in two portions: the first, being in Nevarro, and the second taking place some time later (hopefully that becomes clear when you read it heh). I'm hoping I captured the varying, distinct tones in each of the sections. Please feel free to reach out to me. :) Enjoy x (gif credit: @skyshipper)

They come at night.

The visions.

Your legs are rock, crumbling - eroding - with each weighted step, trudging through the city you once knew, laid bare to waste all around you. The air is grey brown, chalked with dust—with ash. There are bodies lining the road like trimmed hedges, floating by their ankles—ugly, corporal zeppelins. They’re pale. Their eyes are burned to coal and their tongues hang dead and waxy from their mouths.

They begin the same, choreographed like this; you follow the paths your mind has carved out for you, time and time again.

You spot him, plated in silver at the end of the row. Your feet stop. You see him, and he sees you. You feel his eyes - hawkish, piercing - under the murk of his visor. A predator’s gaze. He’s got a man in his fist—you think you recognize him, you might not—held by the scruff of his neck.

Sometimes it’s X’elo, bending to break in his gloved grasp. Other times, a stranger—a half remembered photograph—a memory of a memory of another dream entirely.

And sometimes, it’s you.

You hear the howl of wind scream through your bones—through the bones of the ruins there—but you don’t feel it. There’s only heat—the kind that’s unavoidable and omnipresent, as heavy as guilt. The hunter brings his hands to frame the man’s temples—yours too, sometimes— pebbles and slate trembling off you as you move towards them. You’re running, you realize, immobile but running and you’re not sure how or why—you never get there in time to find out.

He snaps his neck. You hear the crunch in your own ear—inside your own head.

It becomes night—blood moons drip wet from the sky. They splash onto the dirt. It turns to mud, caking the underside of your boots, squelching as you walk. You round a corner and—

You don’t recognize this. This is new. This— no, this is wrong.

A door. Rutted, freestanding—a dark monolith.

You stutter in your sleep, a crease in your brow.

It’s just a door.

No, not here—

A door. Black wood, a brass handle. Just a door, and you’re sweating. Just a door, and you’re suffocating—you’re being smothered—like your outsides are clawing to get back in through your throat and it’s sucking you in—this door, it’s just a door, it’s just a—closer, nearer, looming taller overhead—

You gasp awake, clutching at the scratchy blanket drenched cold with your sweat. Your rasps echo against the hull, sharp pants scraping the hollow metal, and you bring a hand to your chest—steadying, steadying, the fear of your racing heart.

You sit up, throwing your legs over the edge of the cot, and rake a shaky hand through your hair—the damp of the strands sticking to the nape of your neck. Your breathing evens out, tampering, with your forearms braced on the plats of your thighs; the rise and fall of your breasts against your sleep shirt quiet until you’ve stilled.

You roll off the bed, the aluminum frame whining with the shift, and you knock a knee into one of the carbonite pods as you stumble out of the storage room—your bedroom, now.

You couldn’t handle much more of it. You bought a bedroll the first planet you stopped to refuel at after Bajic, hermitting yourself away into the bowels of his ship. It was the only smidgen of untapped real estate left in the Crest, and it was far be it from you to complain about location. You were just thankful to be out of that copilot’s chair—no amount of bacta could unwind the knots in your neck after sleeping there night after restless night.

So you bunked with the bounties Mando had brought in, like one big macabre slumber party—the chrome slabs slotted up - watchful - in their chambers.

You try not to spare it much thought.

Padding through the Crest, soft bare feet leaving crescents on the steel deck, you step into the fresher to splash water on your face, jolting you back into the present and out of the nightmare, out of—

Just a door.

No—

You towel off, patting yourself dry. Inhaling, your lungs expand with the massive rush of air, and you hold it there until it hurts, until it prickles the corners of your eyes, and finally - deliberately - you release.

You look into the mirror.

You blink. She blinks back.

///

You make breakfast now.

It’s not something you both agreed to, it’s just something you do. Funny, how quickly you adapt to new normals, to new routines. You have rituals now—you two. You make breakfast, and you leave a bowl for him out on the counter before you slip into the shower. When you get out, the bowl is empty and the dishes are washed clean, drying face down on a rag. You smile. You never speak of it. Like ivy crawling up cobbled walls towards the sun, it happens— without prompt or feed, it simply is.

///

Nevarro reminds you of Dallenor—the craggy blandness of it, the endless black sands—and you fight the urge to hate it solely based on this principal alone.

You stay on the ship with the little one while Mando goes into town, meeting with some Greef Karga character to sew up Guild business. You have no idea how he ever managed to get any hunting done with the kid always acting up, pulling hijinks and inciting anarchy. He’s nearly torn the whole place to shreds. How such a tiny body can produce such a massive wake of damage is a mystery you will never solve.

You make yourself watch.

You force your jaw, set and held, as Karga’s men haul the quarries out of the ship, hovering eerily down the ramp.

X’elo, the smuggler from Vohai, some two-bit thief, and a woman Mando caught before you met, all parading single file out of the Crest like a funeral procession. They’re criminals, each and every one—they’re violent and they’ve done terrible, irredeemable things—but they’re people, too.

And isn’t that what makes it all so cruel. So sad.

The least you can do is give them an ounce of dignity before they’re subjected to their fate— however harsh, however fair.

So, you watch.

Maybe they don’t deserve it—they’re here by their own hand, after all, a bed of their own making— and maybe they haven’t earned it back any. But perhaps it’s less about what you can offer them and more about what you refuse to let the galaxy take. Because don’t you deserve to stay unfragmented? Complete? Would you rather be robbed of this humanity, your sense of decency—have it stolen from you?

Doesn’t it cost you nothing to be kind?

You pray neither sound nor fury will strip you of this—this open-eyed tenderness. You beg that you remain, undistilled, despite despite despite.

///

You’re so much more relaxed now then when you first came on board. You were as quiet as a church mouse then, tip toeing around the ship like you were afraid you’d ruin her.

Din will never admit it, but you even managed to get the jump on him once or twice—appearing exactly when and where he least expected. And he didn’t - couldn’t have - he didn’t expect you.

This.

And he looks at you now: lit by lamplight—the kerosene filament flickering warm in the dark hull— slotted back and humming to yourself as you swipe a finger over a holopad, feet propped up on a crate by the table, and it all looks organic. Right.

The drink in your hand, sloshing against the amber jug, no doubt eases your mood. You’re drinking it right from the bottle. He thinks it’s fucking charming.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Maker above,” you hiss, startling a foot out of your seat. You shoot him an accusatory glare, but there’s no malice in it—there’s laughter ringing around your eyes.

Honestly, that man needs a bell on him.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he comments dryly, stepping past.

You move your legs from their perch and sit a little straighter. “You- you could join me,” you chime, “if you want.”

His feet slow until he’s stopped completely and he pans over his shoulder to you. You can’t read his expression—it’s steel all the way through— but you think you feel the air around you both quiver - shudder - with something unspoken, something kinetic.

The scrape of the chair as he pulls it out from the table is deafening, the thunk of his metal body sinking into it even louder.

“What are you reading?” Mando asks.

You cast him a sheepish smile. “CoreWorld News.”

“Anything good?”

Your mouth twists, biting the inside of your cheek. “Never.”

He huffs a breathy chuckle.

There didn’t seem to be any good news anymore. You forage for it—scouring the net for just a whiff of it, of something pure. There is plenty of greatness left in the world, but you find that what it lacks most is goodness— humble and precious. More often than not, you come up empty and disappointed—but never so dissuaded that you do not search again the next day, and the day after that, and after that and after that again.

“How’d it go with Karga?” you ask, setting the holopad down and switching off the display.

“Fine. Good.”

“Good,” you smile. He’s terse—sparse. You think it’s endearing now—vexing too, without a doubt, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive anymore.

“Nothing close to Coruscant yet. More outer rim chaavla,” he grits out, swallowing. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a tickle of bemusement in your voice and a quirk to your chin. “What are you apologizing for?”

“I know you want to get back.”

You hope the glow from the lantern in the galley is dim enough to camouflage the tinge sprung on your cheeks. The truth is becoming more and more clear to you, whether you like it or not: with each passing day, you want to go back to Coruscant less and less. You have to—you know you have to. You have your career, your whole life, waiting for you. But—

But.

“You told me it would take a while—longer than I’d like.”

“I know.”

“I’m happy to be here— I-I’m grateful,” you catch yourself.

He clenches his fist under the table, beyond your line of sight, gnarled tight into a ball. It tethers him down, anchoring him in place—because if he weren’t, fuck, he’d fly out of his seat so fast—

“Alright,” he chokes out.

“Alright,” you smile, glassy.

There’s a kind of mist encircling you two, an incense of a sort, intoxicating and sinewy and lulling you into a hushed calm. It’s thick around you - lush - and you can feel it settle like lead behind your eyes.

“Can I pour you a drink—for later?”

It’s late into the evening, well beyond the hour where the lines of decorum blur. You’ve crossed into the Other—that tarred, limber undertow. Dangerously weightless and free. The liminality between here and there— that twilight place.

Shadows bounce along the walls. Your outline—his too.

“I’d like that.”

///

You’re not as tipsy as you could be, but you’re less sober than you’d like.

Subconsciously, buried somewhere deep, you’re aware that Mando is humoring you and that you should let him get on with his night—but you don’t.

You’ll be annoyed at yourself later for this.

“Okay okay, what are your hobbies?”

A deadpan tilt of his helmet. “I—I don’t understand the question.”

You gape at him, your bottom lip glossed as it parts, plush and wet, and you laugh. “Hobbies,” you reiterate. “You know, stuff you like to do? For fun?”

You see the gears under that helm wheel and spin. It shouldn’t take anyone this long. The question is basic and the answer should be relatively immediate—but Mando has to mull it over. In all of his cycles, as hardened as they’ve been, he hasn’t been gifted the luxury of leisure - fun - and he hasn’t been afforded the time to dwell on the lack of it.

Selfless, without a moment of ownership to himself. This is the way.

“I-,” he pauses, mouth clamping shut. “Skip.”

“Fine, fine,” you tut. “What is... your favorite planet?”

Din stretches back, his beskar groaning against the chair.

All the planets he’d visited were out of necessity—out of demand and credit, never because he wanted to be there and certainly never out of favor. They were tainted—made insipid and unremarkable by the quarries he chased to them.

But there is one in particular that stands out; he remembers a planet the kid seemed to like—how he babbled the whole time, slung in the satchel at his hip, entranced and enthralled. He was on his best behavior, too—the little womp rat didn’t even try to stuff his tiny, wrinkled face with anything. Not once.

“Adega.”

“Adega,” you repeat, testing the name. “I don’t think I’ve heard of it. What’s it like?”

He draws in a long breath, his ribs yawning against the corset of his armor.

He should’ve gotten up by now—fuck, he shouldn’t have ever sat down in the first place. It’s not like he didn’t have anything to do; he needs to downshift the Crest’s power converters, switch off the shield projectors, chart a course to his next job, get some damn sleep if he’s lucky…

But you’re here before him. You’re here and he can’t deny you—not when you’re looking at him like that, like the sun shines out from his fucking face—far softer, far kinder than he deserves. Not when you’re here now, and you won’t be for much longer.

He’s racing against the clock—the swinging inevitability of it. Each moment he shares with you, is a moment that brings him closer to taking you back.

Din is a fool. He knows he’ll lose. He races anyways.

“It’s a water planet—mostly ocean,” he begins.

You allow your eyes to dip close, savoring the description, and you tuck your legs up to fold over themselves.

“But there are islands. Some are small, private—with red trees that go all the way to the sand. Others have whole cities on them.”

You remain quiet - patient - like marble, chiseled and sanded as thin as chiffon, veiling over your face in fine, cascading sheets. Transparent - ethereal - you listen to him blind, letting his words guide your sight.

“The kid-"

Your tongue darts out over your lip and he stutters. Din has to shift his hips, relieving the growing heat that’s tightening below his waist.

“T-The uh, the kid loved it. I’d never seen him like that. The bogwing didn’t want to leave,” he chuckles. He conjures the details he thinks you want—the details he thinks you might like most. “The people are honest—generous. The days are long, and the nights are warm.”

He’s no poet, but it doesn’t bother you.

“I can see it,” you say, before blinking your eyes open. "I'll have to go some time." There’s pink on your cheeks, seeping past your jaw and below the neckline of your shirt to the swallow of your breasts.

You look at him— he looks at you.

A noise hums from somewhere inside the ship.

“Are you scared of anything?” you murmur.

Mando lets a beat pass.

“I don’t think so. Not yet.” You smile at that—small, wistful. You’re not even sure why. “You?” he asks.

Your chest rises with a deep inhale. “I used to be scared of dying. I thought I was gonna die young. I was convinced—I had dreams about it all the time as a kid.”

But maybe that’s not it entirely. Maybe it’s not the fear of dying itself, but the dread of living and dying alone. And isn’t that at the heart of it—at all of this?

I just don’t want to do this all on my own.

He’s never been privy to this version of you—this sloping tone, the liquor buzzing through your speech, churning your words to treacle. You sound nonchalant in way that’s jarring, as if you aren’t talking about death— the fear of your own tenuous mortality.

“But I bet everyone does,” you continue dismissively, “just one of those things.”

He’s almost cautious when he replies. “I’m not sure they do.”

Your expression contorts, knotting for an agonizing moment—until the tension all but disappears. “Huh,” you shrug flippantly, and take a swig. That heaviness, that fog, dissipates nearly as soon as it arrived. “Anyways, favorite color?”

He rolls his eyes; you can see it in the way he tilts his head to you. Really, he seems to say, how old are we?

“You’re right, you’re right— that’s low brow. I can do better…” You melodramatically tap your chin, eyeing him pensively.

“Okay. What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That,” you nod to his pauldron, “that symbol on your shoulder.”

Tawny fingertips trace absentmindedly over the emblem. “It’s a Mudhorn. It’s-” Mando hesitates, before his hand returns to his lap. “It’s the sigil of my clan.”

You arch your brow. “I didn’t realize you had a clan— is it- is it like, big?” Stars, you sound dumb—and there’s no excuse. You’re not even that drunk. “How- what is a clan, exactly?”

“In Mandalorian culture, your clan is your family. Aliit. Mine, it’s—it’s a clan of two.”

Something in the pit of you stirs, a sickly warmth, pulling at your gut like a rope. You glance over to where the child sleeps, snuggled away in his pram and your lips curl into a smile, hidden behind the bottle you bring to them.

“You’re lucky to have each other,” you say gently, taking another sip.

“We almost didn’t—shouldn’t have.”

His hands tense into his legs—the creak of leather against his thigh plates is audible even from where you sit.

You narrow your eyes curiously. He heaves.

“He was a bounty and I did my job. I turned him in. I went back for him, but—the kid, he saved my life, and I could’ve left him there—I would’ve, before.”

It all comes out like tires grinding through gravel, bruised and roughened. It’s regret, you realize—this is the sound of guilt, frigid and rued, pushing through his modulator. It makes you want to reach out to him, put your hand on his, comfort him, reassure him—something. But you can’t. He’s too far away. He’s on his own sea—untouchable.

You decide it right then and there: you can’t bare that sound, the wracked timbre of it. You hate it. You think you’d do anything to rid the way in constricts his throat—makes him hoarse and clipped, even through the guise of his helmet. It pains you, a visceral stabbing, right to your core. You could go a lifetime without hearing it, and it still wouldn’t be long enough.

“But you didn’t,” you offer.

“No,” he utters. “No, I didn’t.”

Mando gives you these tortuous, beautiful previews of himself. Like light passing through stained glass, you sneak brief glimpses of the paintings there, the stories and fables and the lessons they teach, until some great cloud drifts past, blotting out the sun, and all goes dark again.

You know this is rare. You know you’ll be home soon. You know to cherish it—to relish what he gives, when he gives it, if he gives it at all.

But—you want more. You’re a simple woman, at the end of all things: all you want is to hold him.

“I think you’re a better man than you let on, Mando.” There’s a knowing twinkle in your eye, a coy lilt to your loosened tongue. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were flirting.

“You don’t know that,” he huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I have my suspicions." You're smirking something awful - deadly - as it sears into him.

He grunts, flames licking up his chest. Din has to bite back his grin, making careful it doesn’t shape the sound of his vowels; grateful for the helmet that buffers him, the mask that seals him away into anonymity, into apathy.

If he can convince you, maybe he can convince himself too. Maybe.

“Next question, dala.”

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think you were flirting.

///

Your eyes are blown wide, gawking at him.

“I’m not a medic, Mando—I’m not a fucking surgeon!”

Mando crashes through the Razor Crest, red dollops trailing in pools behind him. He grunts, hand pressed to his side, blood pushing out of the gash that’s torn into him— a canyon down his unplated body, spewing angry and insistent with each spasm of his heart.

With a broad stroke, he sweeps the clutter off the table and onto the floor, spraying across the deck.

“Medkit,” he barks, hoisting himself up to lie, hulking and pained, out on the slab. You scamper to it, ripping it off the wall, and return to his lumbering body. His breathing is labored—he’s forcing it, seething it out.

Mando’s legs bend off the table at an uncomfortable angle and he rasps when you crane them up by his booted ankles – fuck, he’s heavy – to situate a small crate under his feet. They drop with a dulled thud— without muscle, without resistance. The languid weight of a dying man.

You’re stationed beside him, medkit spilled open. “W-What now, what do you need?”

“I need you,” you heard him say, deep and bassy, as he ascended the ramp. With a colossal drum of your heart, you spun around - I need you - a blush stippling your jaw. The pregnant expectation built behind weeks and weeks of stalemates and stolen glances - I need you - all rearing to a head here and now and finally, finally something—until you saw him, doubled over, bracing himself on the wall, a line of blood smearing behind his palm.

“Bacta-“ Mando wheezes, “bacta shot.”

You rifle through the supplies, littering them as you dig through the box.

Sure, you had gotten your first aid certification with the Movement—it was required, and you retook the courses every few cycles. But that was gauze wrappings and mouth-to-mouth and anti-inflammatory tablets—that was not this, and this is fucking surgery. You’re out of your depth—and Mando must be out of his damn mind.

“I nee-“ He inhales sharply, and his body spasms, gripping the ledge of the table like a vice. “My chest plate—take it off.”

He’s told you bits and parcels of the Mandalorian way—of his Creed— and you aren’t under the impression that this would be strictly sanctioned.

“M-Mando, I thought— are you sure?”

“Yes I’m kriffing sure—do it. Just do it,” he snaps. He hates this—he fucking hates this. Soft. Weak—weak weak weak, he’s so fucking weak. Laandur.

You fumble over the armor, uncoordinated as you unclasp it from his cuirass and Mando strangles out a sigh as soon as it leaves him. At last, you fish the shot from the medkit and hold it up to the light, the medicine like venom as it whirls in the tube. It’s uncomfortably large—simply holding it makes you squirm.

“W-What is that?”

Your eyes flit over the needle and then back to the bounty hunter. “What do you mean ‘what is that’? It’s a shot.”

“That’s a lance,” he growls.

“It’s ebacta-”

“It’s green!” he hisses out incredulously.

“It’s all they had!” you bite back, panic skipping through your veins.

You’re practically yelling at each other, the tension winding and coiling tighter and higher as the seconds tick by. You feel each one, tapping along your vertebra like a metronome, keeping time, keeping time, wasting time—all this back and forth is a waste of time and—

You’re nervous—you’re fucking terrified—and Mando doesn’t frequent this position either—this vulnerability. He doesn’t know what to do with it, where he belongs in it. I need you, he said. He hadn’t needed anyone before and now look at him, bare breasted before you, wounded and mewling like roadkill.

You rap the needle with a knuckle, banishing the air pocket, and test the plunger. Droplets of liquid spurt from the tip, and he begins to rile.

“Dala,” he warns.

“Mando,” you mimic.

“Nu draar-”

“Do you want my help or not?” you spit out, and he shrinks, visor trained on the jab, that unnatural chartreuse swirling inside the glass vial. “Okay. Okay, on three.”

“Wait, wait-"

“One..." You try to sound firm - competent - but you’re a fucking mess. Your breathing is erratic, tunic soiled with sweat, and you’re trembling.

“You don’t-“

“Two...”

Mando huffs exasperatedly, “Ah, fuck it-”

“Three.”

You drive the syringe down, stabbing into him. His body seizes—flexing rigid—as soon as the viscous gel is injected, oozing oozing oozing until it’s pumped empty and spent.

And then— nothing.

All that whirlwinded frenzy, that raging tempest, and now silence— dead silence. He lays there motionless, fidgeting ceased, that ungodly needle pitched like a flag pole from his chest.

… Shit.

“Hey,” you touch a hand to his shoulder.

The smug bastard could be having a laugh under that helmet and you’d have no idea. That’s what you tell yourself—that’s what you’d prefer to believe anyways; it’s better than the alternative, better than—than than than fuck—

“Hey, this isn’t funny...” A little rougher now, you jostle him. He doesn’t react.

“… Mando?”

His head lolls to the side.

With a whistle, the room goes mute. Sound and oxygen alike, it all gets vacuumed out, and your senses invert. You can hear every tick of your body: the bone of your jaw as your teeth mash together, the pulse at your wrist, your stammering heart beating beating beating in your inner ear, the bob of your trachea as it grates against your neck.

Kriff. You killed him—you killed the Mandalorian.

Oh Maker, oh shit-

You press down around the puncture site with a wide palm before yanking the syringe out, flinging it away. You’re shaking him now, wrestling with his limp body, and you’re shouting—croaked with worry, with fear.

“Fuck, Mando—Mando!"

The sound is like glass shattering.

He gasps wildly, gulping down air as if he’d been drowned, writhing like the undead from your operating table. You buckle over him, fatigued and slumped, and cry out in blessed relief.

Your instincts, those poor frail nerves, tell you to smack him—but given that he’s bleeding out, you refrain.

“Don’t do that to me!” you exclaim, breathy and strained.

“Don’t do that to you?” Mando retorts, panting. You let out a weak crackle of laughter and he moans. It’s like he’s been hit by a speeder - twice - forward and then reversed over again.

“Maker, what did you give to me?”

“I got it on Vohai. They uhm- they said it was good quality-“

“And you believed them?”

Your mouth twists shyly. “I-I wanted to believe them,” you correct him.

It’s his turn to laugh now, tired and raw. Oh, you sweet little thing.

You swallow, saliva coating your ragged windpipe. “I’m sorry—Maker, I’m so sorry, a-are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he scoffs, gargled, “but remind me never to have you save my life again.”

That earns him a light slap to his arm. If he’s well enough to dole cheap shots, you figure he’s fit enough to take yours too. He’s spliced open, whole chunks of him missing, and he still has the wherewithal to be an ass.

“Well, you’re not out of the woods just yet.”

///

Regrettably, Mando might have been spot on about the bacta—in fact, you’re starting to question whether it’s really bacta at all.

A delirious grunt ripples through the bounty hunter’s modulator as you cut open his ripped flight suit, careful not to slice him with the vibroblade. His black undershirt is matted to his gaping wound, the blood bubbled over and through the rough material, and you have to peel the fibers out of his coagulating flesh to get to it. You toss the fabric into the bucket next to you with a sloppy, wet plop.

It didn’t even occur to you. You were so swept away by the state of him—by the dizzying carnival of it all as soon as Mando breached the Crest—you didn’t consider the fact that you’d be seeing him. Touching him.

You have to mask your expression when you meet his skin for the first time. He’s golden—he’s golden everywhere—like desert sand dunes sizzling under ripe, afternoon suns—dappled with memories of violence, branded into him.

You’ve never heard him like this. He keeps noising these feverish little nothings— gasping, moaning in a language you don’t recognize—and you do your best to distract him. It’s one of the tenets you recall from your aid training: keep them talking, keep them sharp—engaged.

“Do each of these have a story?” you ask, eyeing the marks that riddle and pucker him.

“Some of them.”

“What about this one here?” You touch a faded ribbon of scarring. It’s older than the others—paler. Your fingertips are cool and he blazes beneath them.

He tries not to twitch. You try not to notice.

“Fell out of a tree when I was a kid—haven’t thought about that in a while,” Mando pants. “B-Broke my wrist, got scraped to shit— my buir, m-my mother, she chewed my ear off.”

“Mm, I bet she did,” you smirk—you can relate to the feeling.

“I-I remember the lines around her eyes. H-Her eyes— they were green, bright green— jade.”

He lets out a wince as you swipe a disinfectant soaked rag over him. You cringe and flash him an apologetic look.

“Sounds beautiful,” you muse, a quiet smile pulling at you as your deft fingers work. “Did you get her pretty eyes too, Mando?”

Something is caught in his throat— a chuckle, or a cough more likely. “No, they’re brown. Just brown.”

Your whole body locks.

Just brown.

Two words - just brown - and suddenly you’re rich— full to the brim with him.

And fuck, if it doesn't feels like a gift. Like he gathered something precious and laid it in your arms and said here, you can have this now. We can share. Sometimes you forget that there’s a man under all those layers; a man— a warm blooded, tanned skin, brown eyed man. You hadn’t often wondered what the Mandalorian was hiding under his armor—he was so finite, so unmovable, the mask he wore became him. He was beskar - indistinguishably - through and through.

But that was before. And now you’re blinded with him— with all the details you cannot unsee.

“S-She was the last person to take care of me—like this.”

It comes over you so suddenly, you’re taken aback by it: that knee-jerking gut wrench. And not because there’s heartbreak in his voice, but because there isn’t. Because he’s had to be so invulnerable—so unyielding and invincible for so long—that he doesn’t even realize what he’s without.

And you, if only for a silly, naïve moment, wish you could give it back to him. Every little ounce of goodness that he’s been deprived of—to dip into his time stream, and rewrite.

To plant but a seed of it there, even if you don’t stay long enough to see it’s harvest.

“Tell me more about her,” you say.

And beyond expectation, beyond reason, he does.

///|||///

This—this is wrong.

He feels pulpy - soggy - wrong. He’s more liquid than he should be—there’s nothing solid about him now. He’s swept away in the tide of it—this green current charging through him and he let’s go - what is there to hold onto anyways? - floating belly up on his back.

Din spills—like the aperture split into his side, he gushes. Whatever dam he’s forged around himself, the beskar and duracrete there, cracks.

The stream trickles until he floods and like any good story, he starts from the beginning.

He tells you of home—his first home. Aq Vetina.

You’re plucking spikes and nettle from his side, and he barely feels it—all he has is this sinking, unending wet—and they hit the tray with dull plunks, punctuated and staccatoed.

He tells you of the adobe dwellings and the domes and columns. Marketplace canopies and caravan bazaars.

plunk

The oak trees, the willow bark, the spires he’d climb until the sun set.

plunk

The tall mountains and the dry, rubbled earth. Of the nameless neighbor children he played with, kicking a ball through the dirt. Red robes trailing, fraying.

plunk

His mother. The shawl she wore. The copper of his father’s ring. The herbs she grew by the light from their kitchen window. How he held her hand while they sat by the fire.

plunk

His tongue doesn’t belong to him—it wags numb and supple. He’s lost his sense of direction, unbound by north or south, and these words are simply happening to him. They keep happening and happening and escaping and—

It’s not just the off-bacta speaking for him, making him pliant. He wants this. He wants to bend—he wants to bend for you.

And now there’s no stopping it—there’s no breaking this, no halting it's downhill momentum. Din describes the attack, the heat of the fire as his town - his world - burned down, of his parents concealing him—a child, abandoned and bunkered away in a cellar to live or die with or without them— being rescued by the Death Watch and raised as a Mandalorian himself.

Your bandaging has long since finished, but you remain, hovering over him as you listen—listen as the jigsawed shards of his life stitch themselves together. Like a moth to a flame, you are drawn in and in and in, until you’re butted against the wick of it. Inseparable.

When the well of his words runs dry, neither of you go to move. Pin-drop silence envelops you. Your hands still on his chest, palms like a weighted quilt—warming him, securing him. He feels-

He feels safe.

“Mando,” you murmur, and the epithet has never sounded so fucking sacred, whispered from you like a prayer. You cripple him; the web of concern along your brow, the sheen in your eyes, the breathy part of your lips.

His throat has gone dry and he shakes his head left right, beskar grating against the makeshift gurney. Mando. No. No, that’s not right—that’s not who he is, that’s not who he wants you to know.

He draws his hand up—it’s so fucking heavy, he can barely lift it—but he tries, he tries, he wants to. You’re right here, you’re touching his chest and you’re healing his body—his mind too, if he’d only let you—and if he could just get to you. If he could just lace his fingers with yours—would you let him? Should you?

“M-My name-"

A warbled wail from the kid’s alcove rips through the cradling hush, and you both react immediately, lurching up to tend to the child. Din forgets—he hears his foundling and his reason leaves him—and he flinches with a grimace. You urge him down, steadying him with a pointed look.

“Rest.”

It’s a command, there’s no question to it, and it’s teeming with all of these unrecognizable concepts— care and assurance, worry and compassion. So impossible to disobey in the way that gentle things are—too soft and too right to say no to. He relents - gives - helmet thudding when it connects back with the table.

Din, he pleads, desperate for you to read his mind. Like a mantra, his subconscious rambles it on a drug addled figure-eight, coming around only to repeat itself again, infinite and wanting. Din Din Din-

Only when the child’s cries muffle into hiccups and his hiccups slur into coos does he let his exhaustion get the better of him. There was too much—it was an assault from all fronts. The blood loss, the drugs, his life like a monsoon as it crushed him open. And all it took was a wound, a brush with his mortality, for him to surrender it to you.

He turns his head, searching for you through the blur of his vision. You’re there in the doorway, rocking his boy in your arms, haloed with light.

I need you, he said. I need you I need you I need you I need-

Din’s eyes shut.

He doesn’t dream. He sleeps like the dead, blissful and undisturbed.

///

You spend hours scrubbing the deck on all fours, spine hunched and aching, cleaning scarlet off silver steel. It got everywhere, the splatter of it—even on the surfaces Mando didn’t come in contact with. The smell of blood, that nickel musk, it lingers long after its welcome—long after the stain of it, the stain of him, has vanished from the Crest. From your skin.

At some point during the night you nod off next to him, curled over a crate, and when you wake Mando is gone—presumably back to his quarters but gone all the same. All traces of him gone - expunged - and the ship feels hollow and gaping— a sterile Mando shaped hole in his absence. You follow his lead, retreating to your bed for a few more hours of sleep.

The next morning doesn’t go as you’d like.

You weren’t sure if he would remember any of it—of what he confided, of what he almost confessed— but by the way the tension ferments between you, you can only assume he does.

They go through their routines, stilted as they are.

He’s up early— unnecessarily early. Mando goes to the cockpit to rouse the ship, plugging in the coordinates from his tracking fob to chase after the escaped bounty. Thrusters set. Repulorlifts and auxiliary engines engaged. Deflector shield generator on. Weapons check. Atmospheric pressure regulator switched.

He’s slower, you note— his movements are crawled—with only half the feline agility he typically possesses and you want to tell him to sit, to take a break—to get off his damn feet and to let you help him—that it’s okay if he rests. That he can take time for himself. That it doesn’t make him any less of a Mandalorian—any less of a man.

But, you can’t.

And so the day is pulled taut like this—a bowed string ready to snap, chalked full of false starts and tinny stoicism. A sharp, intentional air of avoidance with every action. They were out of step, out of sync, and it reminds you of the first days you’d spent on the Razor Crest, orbiting each other—planets apart.

Because he’s shared too much. You knocked, Din answered. He opened the door and he let you past and now he has nowhere left to go but inwards. He’s cornered with no exit strategy - no option - but to close back up again and furl in on himself like a fern in the dark. Curling - evaporating - until he’s nothing but armor—nothing but mirrored edges and metal plates.

But—

you still made his breakfast and he still washed your dishes—and maybe that is enough.

///

You pass each other in the corridor, as you have done before.

You smile gently—soft as sin— and it breaks him, like it always does.

You have a hand on the rung of the ladder when he calls your name, and you turn to him, bright eyed.

“Thank you,” he rasps, “I never thanked you.”

He’s so strikingly sincere— standing there, arms dangling stiff by his sides. He looks different now, somehow— different, but the same. Fuller, bigger—smaller, too.

Human, you realize.

Your heart flutters in your chest. “Of course, Mando-“

“Din.”

You forget to breath. Time forgets to move.

“My name is Din.”

///

Din. Din Djarin.

It takes you almost a week to say it—to even utter the syllable aloud—and you only ever risk it when he’s gone on a hunt and you know you’re alone.

“You like it when I touch you like this?” you hear him say, the fabricated echo of his voice in your skull. He’s got two fingers in you—you can envision them now, clear and potent, the golden hide of them—and he moves slow as he takes you right to the edge, dancing dastardly along that cliff side before retracting himself and backing off. You can’t see his face, but you know he’s smirking; you can feel it in his fingertips, how they mock you—how they scorch into you and leer.

Even in your fantasy, he’s a prick.

“You like it when I make you cum on this filthy fucking cot?”

You keen into your hand, whimpering into your bitten raw lips. The scene is playing on without you now, writing itself. All you can do is lay here and take it, succumb to it, starved and desperate and vile as you thrash on your bedroll.

You rove your palm over your chest—

He snakes up your shirt, twisting your nipple until it’s peaked and perked under him, until you yelp with that muddled jolt of pleasure and pain. He’s lazy and fitfully unhurried, each movement sauntered and proud. He’s coaxing it out of you, this orgasm, as he kneels over you, your vision flooded with the cold menace of his beskar. Finally, tortuously, he traces his thumb over your clit, toying with you in small circles until you’re shaking—vibrating, every molecule of you—like you’re going to burst, incinerate there in your bed. He’s urgent now, demanding, and thrusting into your swollen cunt and the pressure mounting in your heat swells until, until, oh my st-

You fuck your fingers until they prune, drenched with the thought of him teasing you, stuffing you full with anything he’ll give you; his hands, his cock—Maker, his tongue. You let it roll around your mouth when you touch yourself like this in the dark belly of the ship—heels digging into your thin mattress, knees steepled together—and you’re panting, wanton and velvet, before a fist shoots up to muffle the moaned name wafting from your lips like smoke.

“Din”

@girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @miranhas-art @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin #mando x female oc #mando x you #mando x reader #mandalorian smut #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x female oc #din djarin x female oc #din djarin smut #King of Cups #pedro pascal #fanfic #mandalorian fanfic #slow burn #smut

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vennilavee · 3 years

Text

starry eyes

pairing: levi x reader (moon/stars universe) ft kaiya and rina!! summary: some moments through your pregnancy with baby Peach. warnings: pregnancy, cursing, details of a difficult pregnancy, c-section delivery, blood mention a/n: for this drabble prompt req “give me more picking out baby names, painting nurseries, and cradling their children. For moon and stars please”. but it ended up being 2.6k. i didn’t include the part about painting nurseries bc i want that to be it’s own drabble/part of another part of the story!

“Do you think we should have Peach share a room with Kaiya when she’s old enough?” You muse, “We only have our bedroom and Kaiya’s…”

Levi hums and scratches his chin. He absently places a hand over your growing belly- you’ve only started showing in the last week or two.

“Kaiya will be five years older than Peach,” Levi says, “She will need her own space.”

“Then we need more space,” You say with a raise of your eyebrow, “We only have two bedrooms, baby.”

“What shitty timing,” Levi sighs, throwing his head back against the headboard of the bed, “Is this a good time to move into another house? We haven’t even started looking-”

“We can either do it now or when Peach is a few months old,” You say, leaning your head on his shoulder, “You and Erwin spent so much time decorating Kaiya’s room and painting the walls…”

“We can do that at the new house,” Levi says, “And Kai can do it with us.” He kisses your forehead and continues rubbing your belly absently.

“Are we making this decision too quickly? Shouldn’t we think about it more,” You wonder out loud.

“We need more space,” Levi says simply, “We got a baby coming. Or did you forget?”

“How could I forget?” You roll your eyes, “You knocked me up. Again.”

“Shut up,” Levi rolls his eyes and pulls you in for a kiss. And then flicks your forehead.

House hunting was a much quicker affair than you had anticipated it to be- Levi had a sixth sense for this type of thing (and it had long begun to rub off on you, too). You had been looking at houses with Kaiya for about two months now, without any luck of a space that you could truly see yourself living in with your family.

Kaiya dutifully holds your hand as she explores the new kitchen, peering into the glossy, light green cabinets and giggling when she sees her reflection in a small mirror.

She gasps when she sees the size of the backyard, bouncing on the balls of her feet excitedly. “Mommy, look ousside,” She whispers, “Pwetty.”

“It is, isn’t it?” You reply, giving her a smile.

Levi has a mental checklist of questions to ask, and you do too, but he can see you falling in love with the house already. It’s cute and has charm- he can tell you’re already envisioning where Kaiya and the currently unnamed baby would play in the living room, where you’d set up your sewing materials…

Because he’s thinking about the same. He’s thinking about what Kaiya might want to paint her walls and how to set up the new baby’s room, about where his wine collection might go and his favorite leather chair.

Sometimes when you know, you just know. He has a good feeling about this place and the more the real estate agent tells you both, the more you subtly fall in love with the house. You feel like you’re a character in a small fairytale when you climb the staircase and get a view of the yard from the bedroom.

“Honey,” You say softly, tugging on his sleeve.

“Hmm,” He says and scoops Kaiya in his arms when she lifts her arms up.

“Daddy, mommy say she like it,” Kaiya whispers. Or attempts to.

“Oh, is that what mommy said?” Levi says, eyes lit up with amusement.

“Kiki, tell daddy that mommy loves the house very much.”

“Daddy, mommy say-”

“Daddy likes the house, too,” Levi says and you beam at him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really!” Kaiya exclaims, her arms outstretched.

And that’s that.

Moving and settling the paperwork had taken another month despite Levi’s attempts on speeding up the process. You had insisted on helping with the physical labor of moving, despite Erwin, Hange, Eren, Jean, Armin, Connie, Sasha and Mikasa volunteering to help you and Levi move.

Kaiya sat on one of the boxes that Jean and Eren carried out of the current apartment with a yellow hard hat on her head, directing them outside of the apartment to stack the boxes by the elevator.

“Baby,” You mumble, tugging Levi’s hand, “A house. We bought a house together.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, “Guess I’m stuck with you now, huh?”

You ignore him and peck his cheek. Your eyes have been watering on and off all day, memories of this apartment and of the initial stages of your relationship blossoming hidden in the spaces between the walls, between each shelf and cabinet.

“We fell in love here,” You say thickly, “We created love here.”

“We did,” Levi says softly, rolling his thumb over your hand, “Kaiya started walking right over there-” He points to the empty space of the living room, “You broke a wine glass over here-” He points to the space where the small dining table used to be, “And Kaiya’s birthdays were here…”

“Stop,” You complain, “I’m gonna cry again.”

Levi lets out a soft chuckle, “The new house is gonna have all of that and more. With this kid.” Levi palms your belly and kisses your temple.

Your second trimester, as it was with Kaiya, is relatively easy in comparison to the first trimester. You and Levi take the ease that comes with the second trimester to plan out what the nursery in the new house will look like when the baby is old enough to sleep alone.

The new house is a cozy four bedroom house (complete with a guest room) and plenty of room for play and relaxation. You had converted one of the rooms on the first floor into a small office for Levi, as he was able to work from home more often than you were.

Kaiya had demanded that her room be space themed. So you and Levi had painted her bedroom a pretty pale blue, decorated with glow in the dark stars and planets across her ceiling and the walls. A grey full moon hangs on one of the walls, along with frames of the planets, galaxies and Kaiya’s own drawings of the solar system (and really whatever else she wants).

She had even painted some stars on the side of the wall where her bed is, with Erwin’s help. Her bedding is navy blue with gold stars printed on it and of course, she has her stuffed elephant, her stuffed sun and her stuffed moon on her bed. A galaxy projector sits on her nightstand, and she loves to turn it on when Levi reads her a bedtime story.

Seeing her reaction made you cry, too.

Now was the hard part. Determining what to paint the walls for the growing peach in your belly. You and Levi go back and forth on muted yellow, olive green, and pale green-

“Do you want Peach to think they’re in a forest?”

“But green is such a calming color!”

“So is yellow, yellow is happy-”

“You think a newborn baby will know that?”

“We should create an atmosphere of relaxation and happiness-”

In the end you and Levi decide on a yellow and green theme, with accents of grey. Compromise. You both decide to hold off on painting the walls, until Peach is a little older to decide on what they want to accent the walls. Kaiya’s old crib sits in your bedroom for when Peach arrives, which somehow feels like it’s creeping up on you but still so far away.

Your second trimester is when you can’t get enough of Levi- every small action he does, whether it’s cooking dinner, putting things away from unpacked boxes or giving you a foot rub- makes you want to jump his bones every chance you get.

You’re glad your man can keep up with you. And Levi makes it well known how much he loves you and loves your body. He always has a hand on your hips, your waist, your chest whenever he can.

You bask in the attention. Your skin glows, your hair is healthy and your nails full.

And then the third trimester comes, and it’s possibly the most difficult experience you’ve ever had to stomach. The third trimester is complete with backaches, frequent heartburn, varicose veins and mood swings that give Levi whiplash.

Your mood swings weren’t this intense with Kaiya. But he knows every pregnancy is different. You’re uncomfortable in your own skin and distressed and so tired in the last few months.

In the last few months, you and Levi settle on a name- you’d found out that Peach was in fact a baby girl, and Kaiya was upset that she wouldn’t be able to refer to her baby sister as Peach any longer-

“Let’s name my sissy ‘Berry’ then.”

“That’s not any better than Peach, honey.”

In the end, after a few weeks of deliberating, you decide on Rina Ackerman. You had tossed around the idea of naming her after Levi’s mother, Kuchel, but Levi shot it down. He didn’t want his kids to have the burden of living up to a legacy that they knew nothing about.

You could understand that.

Levi and Kaiya help where they can. Levi holds you when you cry and he rubs your belly and your back when it gets to be too much. You tell him that this baby feels different, that you’re scared. So when you start having contractions about four weeks too early, you’re not surprised.

You scream and you cry, terrified that something’s gone wrong when you spot blood pooling on the bed. Levi looks at you with wide eyes before jumping into action quickly.

He holds your hand tightly, grateful that Kaiya is with his mom and Kenny for the day.

Once you reach the hospital, you’re a mess, almost refusing to let the doctors look at you. You’re terrified that something awful and terrible has happened, and Levi looks you in the eye with your hands tight in his-

“You can do this. You have to do this. For Rina. She needs you.”

“She’s too early, Levi, I can’t-”

“She’s strong. Like her mother.”

In the end, Rina is delivered via an emergency C-section. Levi only sees and holds her impossibly tiny body for a moment before she starts to cry and she’s whisked away by the nurses and doctors. You’re still sedated in the hospital bed.

He sits in the blue plastic chair in your room and holds his head in his hands.

It’s hard for Levi to believe that that melancholy morning in the hospital was a little over two years ago. When he sees his youngest little girl, strong and quick on her feet, being chased by her older sister, he can’t believe that she came out into the world in such a difficult manner.

You like to joke and say that Rina is a troublemaker and she liked causing a scene right from the first breath of air she took.

Levi feels like his heart stops whenever he sees Rina fall or nearly injure herself. It’s different than it was with Kaiya- maybe because he was the only one who saw her struggle to breathe during her first moments. It’s hard for him to lose the overprotectiveness he has with Rina that didn’t necessarily exist with Kaiya. Of course, he was protective over his oldest, but it just feels different.

He doesn’t want Kaiya to feel like Levi has favoritism over his two best girls. But he can’t shake this feeling.

You recognize it in his eyes even if he says nothing. You see it in the shine of his grey irises, the way they’re panicked only for a millisecond when he hears Rina’s first cry whenever she falls.

The Ackerman family is currently in the backyard, on a nice summer evening. You’re sitting on a picnic blanket with your legs outstretched and a small smile on your face as you watch your babies run around and chase each other. Rina is still clumsy on her feet, almost waddling after Kaiya before she gets distracted by a patch of grass. She immediately plops down and pats the grass under her and pulls at the grass as hard as she can, throwing the pieces up in the air and squealing happily.

“Kaiya!” Rina exclaims, “Kaiya!”

Kaiya sits across from her with a beaming smile and her hands outstretched and Rina gently places the pieces of grass in her hands.

“Hey, thanks, ‘Ina,” Kaiya smiles and Rina bashfully hides her face. She crawls to her big sister and sits in her lap, playing with the flowers and pointing to the small garden that Kaiya and you had been working on.

“Let’s go to the flowers,” Kaiya says and holds her hand as they both waddle to the garden patch.

“Mommy’s growin’ fruits and veggies here,” Kaiya says, pointing at cucumbers and okra, “I pretend like I don’t like them, but I do.”

Kaiya laughs and Rina giggles, too. Rina watches Kaiya with identical eyes, wide and grey and full of wonder. She catches sight of her daddy and lets go of Kaiya’s hand to waddle to Levi.

You nudge Levi’s foot and he stretches his arms out for her. Rina concentrates on Levi, smiling as he gets closer and closer as she walks towards him. But she’s small and she’s clumsy, so she lands on her fresh overalls, knees in the dirt.

Levi is about to jump to his feet but you stop him with a hand to his chest. Rina only stands up with wobbly legs before resuming her walk to Levi.

She nearly jumps into his lap and bounces in his arms when he holds her close. Levi adjusts her sparkly purple headband and Rina just beams at him, standing on her feet and tugging the strands of hair that fall into his eyes.

“Daddy,” Rina whispers and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a few pieces of grass and shoves it in his face. “For you, daddy.”

Her fingers are dirty, coated in soil and dirt and Levi winces. But how can he focus on that when his baby is offering him the gift of the earth?

“Thank you, Rina,” Levi says quietly and kisses her forehead. Rina smiles, satisfied, before settling in his lap and giggling when you pull funny faces at her.

Levi hugs his youngest close, gesturing for Kaiya to come join him. She immediately plops down next to him and Levi wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“You’re getting too tall,” Levi says to Kaiya, who takes it as a compliment.

“My teacher says I’m tallest,” Kaiya beams at him. He pats her head affectionately.

“Come here, mommy,” Kaiya calls. Not like you were too far, anyway. Rina is busy playing with Levi’s long fingers and clutching them in her chubby hands. She gasps when she sees you approaching, outstretching her arms for your attention. You come bearing freshly cut fruit and juice before sitting down next to Levi and pecking his cheek.

“Mommy has melons,” You chirp and Levi snorts.

“Yeah, she does,” Levi says with an upturn of his lips. Only you catch the teasing bite of his tone.

“Mello!” Rina chirps happily, eyeing the watermelon in your plate.

“It’s for you Rina,” You say, and cut up the piece into smaller pieces.

Levi lives for quiet summer nights like this- nights with his girls with the setting sun and a light breeze. Nights with you in a cute sundress, Kaiya and Rina smiling and laughing.

He doesn’t think he can ever get used to how his girls’ laugh makes his heart swell.

tags: @simpingmaize @captainchrisstan @kentobean @alrightberries @puredivinity @regalillegal @castellandiangelo

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi x you #levi ackerman #aot x reader #snk x reader

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togglesbloggle · 3 years

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How We Decided

The day after tomorrow- that is, February 18, 2021- the Perseverance rover will attempt to land on the surface of Mars. It will enter the planetary atmosphere at an acute angle, giving it as much time as possible to experience drag and slow down from orbital velocities. Because Mars’ air is so thin, and the rover is so heavy, this will fail- in the best case, Perseverance would still be going almost a thousand miles an hour when it impacts the surface. To help save itself, the craft will deploy a parachute of advanced design, seventy feet across and able to withstand supersonic velocities. This, too, will fail. Even with a parachute, there is simply not enough air between Perseverance and the Martian surface to slow it down all the way. So this is where the rockets kick in. Once air resistance slows the rover to a bit less than two hundred miles per hour, the heavy heat shield will be jettisoned, and a system of secondary rockets will fire against the direction of motion until it slows to near-hovering. In a final flourish, the rover will descend from the rocket-boosted frame on coiled springs, until it touches down in the western part of Jezero crater in the northern hemisphere of Mars.

As it happens, Perseverance’s destination was one of the very last things we decided about it- not until the craft itself was fairly thoroughly engineered and designed. Formally, the decision was made by the mission directorate. In practice, they follow the consensus of the scientific community, which in turn hashes things out at a series of open-invitation workshops. Things began with a call for white papers- an open suggestion box, basically. In 2015, the first workshop narrowed things down from thirty serious proposals to eight candidates. In 2017, the second workshop further winnowed the list down to three. And in October of 2018, after three days of presentation, debate, and discussion, the final workshop selected Jezero Crater from these final three candidates using a simple vote of all attendees, and passed on the recommendation to the mission leads.

I haven’t been in the business for very long, so the final workshop was the only one of these where I actually participated. It wasn’t a close vote as such, and I didn’t break any ties, and technically we were just making a strongly worded suggestion. Nonetheless, my vote is one of the reasons why the Rover will be going to Jezero Crater instead of Syrtis Major or Gusev, and I think I’m entitled to feel ownership of this mission choice, just a little bit.

(This is, of course, terrifying.)

Having gone through the experience, there were a few surprises worth noting. The first was how small some of the numbers are here. The conference was not very large: only thirty proposals, debated by just a few hundred attendees. I’ve seen book review contests with more entries, and that are read by a wider audience. Which is to say, this is a situation that was, and is, extremely responsive to individual effort. In that small a room, populated by people that are philosophically committed to changing their minds when they see good evidence or a good argument, one person can stand up and change the future in a very real way.

The second surprise was the attendance requirements. Or rather, the lack thereof. The project is public, paid for by American taxpayers, to whom I am profoundly grateful. And one way the process reflected that public-spiritedness is that this is not a walled garden. A small attendance fee (iirc, $40?), and you’re in. You get a vote, if you want to use it. A few non-scientists even took us up on this; there’s one retiree (a former schoolteacher, I think) that’s attended every major conference I’ve been to in the last few years, and sets up a small table in the back with his home mineral collection just for fun. In practice this open-door policy is limited by the obscurity of the event itself; if you don’t move in research circles, you have to be something of a space exploration superfan to hear about it. Still, as symbols go, you could do worse.

And now that we’re coming up on the day itself, the same kind of public-facing mindset is making me think about why I was persuaded to vote for Jezero Crater, what it means to explore there, and how I’d justify that choice to those of you that made the ongoing discovery of Mars possible in the first place.

If you want to know what Perseverance is like, and what you can reasonably do with it, start with Curiosity- the two are built, more or less, on the same chassis. That means you have a mobile science lab about the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. Add some mechanical improvements (no more wheel punctures!) and a few bells and whistles (microphone! helicopter for some reason!). Trade out some of the scientific instruments- raman spectroscopy instead of a mass spectrometer, for example. And it’s got these:

That, dear reader, is a sample return canister. Not to be returned immediately, alas, but to be returned nonetheless. One of Persevereance’s primary directives is to find interesting rocks, collect them, and leave them in place for a sample return mission in the early 30s. There’s a ton of work we can do in situ, but there’s even more we can do in a clean lab back home; things like isotopic analysis really need a much more controlled environment than you’ll get in the field. And so a major, major consideration is to optimize Perseverance’s landing site for cool rocks that we’d like to take back home.

The other thing that Perseverance is really good at is astrobiology. There’s no such thing as a life sign detector as such, but this rover represents an attempt to approach that ideal: instruments like SHERLOC and SuperCam are adept at finding organic compounds and fine-scale mineralogy and chemistry that might be influenced by microbial metabolism. This is a natural extension of what we’ve been learning so far: Spirit and Opportunity showed us that Mars formed under the influence of liquid water. Curiosity showed us that this was not just wet, but actively habitable: lakes and rivers at a neutral pH under a rich and temperate atmosphere. The next question along this line is the hardest, and the scariest: we know it was habitable, but was it inhabited?

If you’re like me, that question makes you feel weird. Collecting rocks is one thing, but a fossil? The mind rebels. We’ve spent the last two generations of space exploration tempering our expectations, reminding ourselves that the other worlds in our solar system are largely barren and dead, learning again and again how precious life is in the cosmos. It’s hard to get in the mindset of people back in the 40s and 50s who could, somewhat reasonably, imagine that Mars might not just host life but multicellular life, vegetation and robust macroscopic ecosystems. We look back at the science fiction of the era, swarthy soldiers hopping from planet to planet in silver rockets, and laugh at the naivete. A smile at the exuberance of youth, if we’re feeling generous. When we were first beginning, we may have imagined ancient canals on Mars and crystal cities on Venus, but that was when space was a blank canvas for us to paint our fantasies. We’ve learned so much since then, and if it was less fun, at least it was true. We did the hard thing and accepted reality over fantasy. We accept that extraterrestrial environments are hostile to life- cratered, silent, and still. We’re grownups now.

Unless…

Unless.

Imagine that we were born just a bit earlier. Say, three and a half billion years or so. We raise our telescopes to the sky, and we see a sister-planet. Not red, but white and blue, with an atmosphere full of clouds and multiple large bodies of water scattered across its surface, prominent ice caps and snow-capped highlands, rivers tracing their way down to the lowlands in the north. (Maybe the water is all under the ice, not open to the air at the surface; maybe the liquid pools are small and limited to craters, not feeding a large ocean.) Sober scientists might have suggested we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much- after all, the gravity is much lower, there’s no tectonic recycling, and there’s no protective magnetosphere. But is sterility really the default assumption we should be making here? Is ‘we are alone in the cosmos’ really the most sane conclusion to draw from this situation? Is it not worth, perhaps, sending a rover to go see?

We’ve adapted our sensibilities to a dead solar system because in the moment we’re looking, it kind of is. We’re hopeful for the icy moons- and the evidence keeps mounting there as well- but the terrestrial planets are a grim reminder of the fragility and contingency of our own world. The thing is, the more we learn, the more we discover that we’re a bit late to a very, very interesting party. Venus is a hellscape, but it probably didn’t start that way. Mars is a desert, but once it was an oasis. What makes Earth special among the terrestrial worlds isn’t that it developed a temperate climate, but that it kept a temperate climate for more than four billion years. Stability, not habitability, is the party trick that makes us unique in the solar system. And if we’re really committed to being grownups, to accepting what’s real instead of what’s easy, we have to learn that lesson too.

And life does not need four billion years to begin. Not even close.

That brings us to Jezero Crater. The most interesting feature here is a large river delta- based on some clever geology, we’re pretty sure that a large river emptied into the crater during Mars’ wet period. When the rapidly-flowing water hit the still water of Lake Jezero, the loose sediments being carried along the current all fell out of suspension at this place, forming a large pile of detritus at the mouth of the river that accumulated over the lifetime of the system. Even more interesting, check out this geologic map:

See those tiny teal deposits to the right side of the image? Those are also river delta deposits. Which means the thing labeled ‘delta’ on this map isn’t the original extent- it used to be much, much larger, at least twice as wide. Which also means that the outer edge of the ‘delta’ that we see here in this image is actually an erosional surface, and we get a natural cross-section of the thing with the oldest deposits at the bottom and the youngest at the top, just before Mars lost its hydrosphere. By climbing the outer edge, we can move through time across a large fraction of the habitable period.

Here’s another image I’d like you to see:

The crater I’ve been showing you is the small circle in the lower right- color is elevation, covering a span of about 5 km. The black line is the watershed of that river, the region of Mars that channeled water to the delta. In other words, the river delta collects sediments- and potentially, biosignatures- from a region hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and gathers them all in one place, neatly sorted by time.

For this reason, ancient deltas on Earth are a favorite of paleontologists. In addition to being comfortably wet and active itself- plenty of access to biologically important nutrients, fresh supplies of liquid water, and a nice dynamic environment- deltas do the legwork for us. Rather than exploring a huge fraction of the planet with a tiny rover, hoping that we stumble upon an ancient life sign, we can position ourselves at the mouth of the proverbial fire hose and let life come to us.

This does come with some tradeoffs. Most importantly, whatever we find, we won’t know the original geologic setting. If we find an unambiguous fossil of some kind- a microbial mat, perhaps- then we’ll know less than if we’d found it in its original home. And if we don’t find life, then the samples we take will be similarly uncertain. They’ll be defined in time, at least relative to one another, but not in space. In the case of life signs, this is an important caveat, but the bare fact of proving that extraterrestrial life exists is sufficiently monumental that it’s still a secondary concern. But if we’re just talking about geology, that’s a hard thing to lose; that terrifying multi-stage descent isn’t the only risk we’re taking. We’re leaning into the astrobiology mission hard with this one.

And the search for life is, in itself, fraught. That’s putting it mildly. There’s every chance that any evidence that’s even slightly marginal is going to touch off decades of debate, rather than being some kind of slam-dunk. As it should! Life is such a fuzzy concept, and such an important concept, that it should absolutely be held to the highest degree of scrutiny we can muster. This is why it matters that Perseverance includes sample return- in the highly likely case that the findings are disputed, we’ll hopefully have the chance to subject those samples to the highest degrees of scrutiny. So it feels like the right time to go hunting.

On top of that, there’s the ‘evidence of absence’ problem. Strong biosignatures update our priors very hard in the direction of life on Mars. But what is the correct amount of evidence necessary to convince us that Mars never was alive? I’m not sure, but failure to find microbial mats in Jezero probably isn’t enough. So the search for life can succeed, but if it ‘fails’ that doesn’t necessarily teach us much; the best experiments teach you something no matter what, and ideally a commitment this large would meet that standard. This is, more or less, baked into the search for extraterrestrial life, and there aren’t too many ways out from under that problem.

That said, Jezero in particular has some compensation. As I mentioned, we’re collecting a lot of good data regardless; and even without the gologic context, there’s a ton of opportunity to sample different minerals and how they formed, and get a nice broad sample of the Martian surface over time. And, even better, here’s the location of another interesting potential field site, in northeast Syrtis:

Note the proximity to Jezero crater! And Syrtis is also a fantastic candidate for a sample return mission. It has exposed mesas with layered outcrops going all the way back to the earliest days of Mars, and extending (potentially) through many of the most interesting periods. Now, these are not ideal for the search for life, although they’d give us a ton of technical data about surface chemistry and the behavior of the atmosphere during the early, wet periods; it would go a long way towards resolving arguments about the temperature of the early Martian climate, for example, or tracing the early destabilization and loss of the magnetosphere while teaching us loads about the planet’s core.

Those mesas are still pretty far away. Too far, probably, for a sensible rover lifespan to make it all the way there. But there’s a plan- called the ‘Midway’ route, as a nod to the compromise nature of it. See, halfway between Jezero and these mesas, there are a lot of banded rocks that look suspiciously like they’re sourced from the table mesas in Syrtis. And those, we can get to, maybe. If we call a specific deadline on looking for life in Jezero, then we can pivot to Midway and hopefully take a really deep look. So, in the end, we’re going hard for astrobiology research, but we’re not going all-in.

The importance of the search for life is… well, there are a lot of people out there, and we enter the world in a lot of different ways. Most of us agree that the existence of extraterrestrial life would be a Big Deal, and we tend to have a lot of different reasons for that. It’s not a bad subject for a future post or three, in fact. But there’s one thing lurking in the back of my head that’s a non-obvious reason to go looking. This wasn’t discussed at the workshop particularly, but it fed into my vote somewhat. Check the logic of this for me, see if it makes sense:

Worrying about existential risks, we sometimes talk about the ‘great filter’. That is, the mysterious phenomenon which explains the lack of extraterrestrial civilizations reaching out to us. Now, maybe we’re in a zoo or a preserve or something, and intelligences are out there watching after all; maybe the Earth really is the center of the cosmos, because of the simulation hypothesis or the various religious explanations. There’s no real way to know for sure at this point. But consider the space of very real possibilities where the universe actually is material, and actually is mostly barren. Why?

Stepping through the sequence, it might be that abiogenesis is really hard- going from a temperate world to a living one is almost (but not quite) impossible. Maybe there’s some hurdle to clear between genesis and encephalization. Maybe, given encephalization, civilization and tool-use are almost impossible. Or maybe there are many civilizations like ours, and the great filter is ahead of us- it is almost impossible for technological civilizations not to self-destruct or turn in to lotus-eaters before they reach interstellar civilization. There are a lot of possibilities for the filter, and for present purposes we’ll divide them into two categories: those which we would have already passed, and those which are in our future.

And here’s the thing: for each possibility we can exclude from the great filter, all the other possibilities increase commensurately, becoming more likely in our estimation. (Assuming the exclusion is ‘clean’ and doesn’t favor some other possibility, that is.) Given that the silence continues, if we could somehow prove that technological self-destruction isn’t a big risk, that would commensurately increase our guesses about how hard abiogenesis is.

Life on Mars, especially if we could be very sure that it evolved independently of Earth life, would be a strong argument against the difficulty of abiogenesis. One biosphere in the solar system, and nowhere else, might be down to luck. The one biosphere has to be somewhere, right? Two in the solar system, and nowhere else, is a good bit less reasonable. If we find a second genesis on Mars, then we’ve learned that life is not rare. That the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way are likely host to many billions of different living (or at least once-living) worlds.

And as wonderful as that news is, as much as it makes me so happy that I literally had to take a second to cry on my bed for a bit, it also makes the great silence much, much scarier. Today, we can reassure ourselves by saying that life may be rare in the universe. But what if it isn’t? If the cosmos is full of life, but not full of thought, then…

If this is the case, we need to know. We need to know as soon as possible, and we need to know it while we’re engaged in the great project of technological development and moral progress. It’s easy to imagine that this particular mission is one that can be framed in purely positive terms- the joy of discovery, the vastness of truth, the love of how things might be. But I do also have this sense of civilizational fragility, you know? And understanding the risks that we face and the chances we’re taking- that’s not idle curiosity. That’s genuinely urgent.

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myloveforhenrycavill · 3 years

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Devastated | Clark Kent x Reader

Pairing: Clark Kent x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: cancer, angst

A/N: Hey guys! Really hope you enjoy this fic. It’s super angsty. I revisited an old fic that I wrote many, many years ago for a different fandom, but it felt right to rewrite it with stuff that’s going on in my life right now with my dad. Please let me know what you guys think, but please be gentle (me fragile). This is my first fic about one of Henry ‘s characters, but I look forward to getting back into writing. Xxx much love -Stina

My Fic Recs

_______________________________________________

Clark stared at the ceiling of his room listening to the clock hanging above his door. To anyone else, this would have been dull background noise, but to Clark it sounded like thunder roaring. It had been a painfully long day working at the Daily Planet and he was beyond glad it was over. Perry had been breathing down his neck all day about a story and his approaching deadline. Relief washed over Clark when he walked through the doors of his apartment building, but something was still missing. All he wanted to do was go see you.

Oh, how much he wanted to see you. You always brightened his day no matter what he had on his mind. The two of you had a complicated relationship. You were technically just friends. However, you tend to do things that only couples do. You've kissed once or twice after a night out and constantly cuddled each other whenever the chance arises, but it never progressed further than that. Neither of you brought up the subject, afraid of the others reaction and afraid to ruin whatever it was you had. Clark wanted to, god he wanted to, but you’ve never been in a real relationship and he hasn’t wanted to scare you away. He cares about you way too much to let that happen. Clark wants to protect you from ever being hurt no matter the cost.

It had been hours since Clark got home. He’s tried texting you around 10 times and has called you five times. This wasn't like you. You practically lived on your phone. You both always update each other throughout the day. Thank god for unlimited texting or else you would both be royally screwed. Clark was starting to get quite worried. What if something happened? Is she okay? were the only thoughts running through his head. He knew you were off from work today and you would have texted him if your job called you to come in. Maybe she's just asleep. She rarely has her volume up ever. Yeah, that has to be it. Clark was tempted to fly over to your apartment to check on you, but decided to text your sister before doing anything rash.

C: "hey, y/s/n. Is everything alright? I've been trying to reach Y/n for the last couple of hours and she isn't responding to me."

Y/s/n: "Clark, can you please go over to her apartment? She's an absolute wreck. I've heard her like this. I'm really worried."

C: "I’m on my way… what happened?"

Y/s/n: "our dad got his results back..."

The text was longer, but that was all Clark had to read before he flew over to your building. He didn’t care if anyone saw him. The whole world could have been burning and he wouldn’t have stopped. Your dad had cancer when you were younger, but he was doing well and had been in remission for quite some time. Recently, he had started to feel the same symptoms as the first time and went to get some tests done. Y/s/n's text only meant one thing. The cancer was back.

If this was true, then it made perfect sense why you wouldn't contact him. You would be devastated. Your dad was the most important person in your life. You loved him unconditionally and looked up to him like he could do no wrong.

Clark reached you within seconds. He knocked on the door and waited. He could hear nothing but silence which surprised him. When you did not come to the door, Clark retrieved the spare key from the top of your door frame. When he didn’t see you on the couch, he made his way to your bedroom and slowly opened the door, careful not to startle you. You laid there on the purple comforter sleeping. You looked utterly exhausted from crying. Your puffy eyes were singed pink. Your cheeks looked wet and sticky from what surely was hours of countless tears flowing. It truly pained Clark to see you in such a state.

Clark climbed into the other side of the bed just like he'd done numerous times before, but this time was different. You looked so broken. He carefully reached over and wiped a few stray tears off your cheeks and placed a gentle kiss underneath each of your eyes. They slowly fluttered open and acknowledged Clark’s presence. You sniffled a few times, but didn't cry.

"What are you doing here, Clark?" you whispered as if just that was taking all your energy.

"Your sister texted me...what happened, y/n? You know you can tell me anything," Clark inquired knowing that she needed to let it all out.

"You don't have to do this, Clark. Go somewhere and have fun. Don't waste your time on me. I know you'd rather be out with your other friends right now. You probably had a rough day and don’t need me to unload my baggage," you spoke immediately biting your lip and blinking your eyes in order to fight back the tears that were already pooling.

"Listen, love. You know that there is nowhere else I would rather be. I'm here for you and I always will be. No matter what happens, I'll be right here by your side. I care about you, Y/n. I care more than you could ever know, just tell me what happened." Clark cupped your cheek as he gently wiped the traitorous tears away with the pad of his thumb.

You broke and told Clark everything that had happened since he spoke to you last. You were a trembling mess laid on the bed next to him. Clark tightly wrapped both his arms around you, never wanting to let go whispering comforting words into your ear trying to make it even a little bit better.

You grabbed his white t-shirt with two fists and sobbed into it which would surely be ruined with your leftover mascara running from your eyes. It didn't matter to Clark though, not even a little. It was worth it. You were worth it.

Once you calmed down hours later, Clark pulled back slowly still holding you securely and stared at you. You looked up at him through your lashes and had the faintest smile across your face.

"Thank you, Clark, genuinely. For everything. You didn't have to lay here with me this entire time. I'm not worth it..."

Clark stopped you instantly. "Don't ever say that, my love. You deserve the moon, the stars, and the sun. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. I would go to the end of the earth for you and it still would never be enough. I care about you, Y/n. More than I can even put into words. The past few months that this has been going on have been the best of my life. You make me feel whole. Like something has been missing all this time and I'm starting to realize what it was. "

The dim smile that you once wore turned into a full-blown smirk. "I don't see what you're getting at Mr. Kent."

That's it. There's my girl. MY girl. God, I love the way that sounds. That sarcastic idiot is my world and I intended to spend the rest of my life proving that to her.

"Shut up," Clark muttered as he slowly leaned in, meeting you in the middle. Your lips collided and the feeling of his lips connected with your soft ones felt like nothing he could ever describe. He would never get sick of this feeling. The way you made him feel was like he was floating high through the sky (which he had plenty of experience with, but this was a million time better). The best high that no drug could every give him. If you were a drug, Clark was happily addicted to your sweet intoxication.

You both pulled back and Clark rested his forehead on yours cupping your face with both of his hands. "Let's get some sleep, love. We can discuss more of this tomorrow if we need to."

You sluggishly nodded with your head still spinning and placed your head on his broad chest curling into the position you had assumed many times before. Clark loved nothing more than cuddling with you. It felt like home. She is my home.

You placed one hand across his chest as he dropped both of his arms comfortably around your waist not letting you go anywhere. Tonight, she is all mine and I can live with that.

One day you would take the next step closer to each other, but not tonight. You were still vulnerable from the news of your dad’s health. Clark wanted your decision to be with him to be a clear one, not just because he was the only one there for you. Tonight, Clark was simply a shoulder to cry on and he was perfectly content with that. Someday, Y/n. Someday, I will have the guts to tell you how I really feel. How I'm quickly feeling that four-letter word that every guy is so afraid of. But the thing is, I'm not so afraid anymore.

#clark kent x reader #clark kent #henry cavill #superman #superman x reader #clark kent angst #clark kent fanfiction

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avintagekiss24 · 4 years

Text

Night Shift [3] > Andy Barber

PAIRING; Dark!Andy Barber x black!reader

WORD COUNT; 4,349

WARNINGS; SMUT, SEX, SHOWER SEX, MENTIONS OF MURDER, PANIC/ANXIETY ATTACK

► PART FOUR | SERIES MASTERLIST

NOTE; Another Sunday, another story. Hope you like :)

Gif credit goes to captslock

It’s dark. The moon bleeds into the room through the curtains covering the windows, splashing over the bed. Andy lays on his side, blinking slowly, breathing easy as he watches you sleep. His eyes wander over your frame, tucked in underneath the blankets. You’re a wild sleeper - flipping from your back to your stomach, then to your side facing away from him, and then facing him. Arms above your head and then crossed over your stomach before shoved underneath your body as you flip onto your stomach. He wonders if you’ve always had trouble sleeping; or if it’s something new. Something he brought on.

He inhales deeply as his eyes drift down your body - those long, slender arms and delicate hands and fingers. You’ve moved so much the sheets don’t even cover most of your torso anymore. Your nipples are hard from the cool air kicking on minutes earlier. Your flesh jiggles with each little movement, each hard breath, each little murmur as your lips part and you turn your head. You’re supple, and soft - everything about you is just so soft. Your skin, your thighs, your hair, your cunt. So damn soft.

He’s not used to soft anymore. He’s forgotten what it’s felt like, even the definition. But now, lying here, watching you, feeling you - he remembers. Laurie’s body folding into his at night was soft. Jacob’s hair when he brushed his hands over it in the morning was soft. That was so long ago. So long.

He blinks again, pushing all the thoughts of them away, returning them to you. This sad girl laying next to him in his bed. He feels bad he’s been so rough, he doesn’t mean to be, it’s just - it’s hard to be trusting. It’s easier to just sink inside of himself and lash out. It’s just easier.

Maybe you’re lashing out too? In your own way? Against that invisible force that brought you back to Boston. Maybe that’s why you’re with him right now, in his bed. Maybe you don’t sleep at all when you’re alone in your apartment. Maybe he’s helping you sleep? That could be why you’re tossing and turning - you’re not used to sleeping anymore. Same with him.

Andy reaches out slowly, so slow that he’s not even sure his hand is moving. His fingers hover over your mouth, centimeters from your plump lips. He can feel your warm breath on his digits. His lips part when he rubs your bottom lip softly with his index finger. So fucking soft. He drags his fingers across your chin, down your throat and across your clavicles, his touch so gentle. It soothes him - brings him a little peace as he touches you. You’re so nice.

He pulls his hand away from you and tucks it back underneath the pillow that he rests his head on. He inhales again, deep, and pushes it out through his nose as he blinks at you. He’s not sure when he falls asleep.

----------

It’s light. The sun creeps into the room through the curtains that cover the windows. You blink over at Andy as he sleeps. He’s on his back, his arm crossed over his torso, his hand resting right in the middle of his chest, rising and falling with each breath he takes. His pink lips are slightly parted, his long, dark eyelashes spread out over his cheeks as he snores very gently. He looks peaceful - something you aren’t really used to thinking about him. Sure, you’ve spent all of two nights with the man but he’s been erratic during both - unsettled. Seeing him calm for longer than a few minutes at a time is slightly scary.

Your mom’s boyfriend was erratic. He could go from the nicest guy on the planet to a raging maniac within the blink of an eye. Maybe that’s why you’re still here - with Andy, in his bed. Maybe it’s comforting for you? Because you’re used to it. You actually slept last night. That’s… new. You try, of course, but after about an hour, you’re awake again, your eyes fixed on the ceiling. You usually try and catch a nap in the afternoons, finding it a little easier to sleep in the daytime, but even still, just a few hours is all you can manage.

Last night was different. It was like the past ten years of being tired just finally caught up to you. Is that because of him - Andy? Is that… a good thing? You blink as your mind races. It can’t be a good thing, he’s.. He needs help. You’re not in the position to help anybody, shit, you need help.

He feels so good though. So strong and masculine - it’s nice. His large hands sinking into your flesh, his hard kisses, his dick - spreading you open, spearing you deep. The connection, no matter how strange, is nice. It’s been a while since you’ve had something like this.

You reach out and place your hand on top of his, the one centered on his chest. Yours looks so small in comparison to his. It makes you smile a little - but then you get a thought, a glimpse of whose bed this used to be. How maybe she used to do the same thing, watch him sleep. Then you think about the teenage boy who would be moving around in his, getting ready for another school day just down the hall. Then you think about your mom - where she’d be, what she’d be doing right now.

You pull your hand away.

She would get up so early in the mornings. You could hear her in the kitchen, humming along with the radio as she started the coffee. You’d hear the laundry machine kick on, and then start to smell her pancakes and eggs as the radio got just a little louder so she could dance.

You inhale sharply - your eyes darting around the opposite wall as the invisible, overwhelming sadness suddenly fills your body. It starts at your toes and spreads through you quickly, so fast in fact, you have to sit up to keep it from choking you.

You close your eyes as your body gets shaky, and you try and push the thoughts away. Goddamn it. Today started off so nice. You whimper as the tears start to fill your eyes, your chin shaking, and you throw your legs over the side of the bed, standing quickly. You rush into the bathroom, covering your mouth with your hands to try and stifle the sobs that threaten to escape. The tears start to fall, hard and fast as you slam your eyes shut and squeeze your hand over your mouth.

Embarrassment flushes through you next, adding to the sadness. Here you are, in a strangers bathroom having a complete meltdown that came out of thin air. Fuck, why can’t you just be fucking normal? Don’t let him hear you, fuckin’ freak. You run into the shower as your brain scolds you, turning the knob before you fall to the floor. You bring your knees into your chest, wrapping your arms around them as you drop your head and just cry.

Today started off so nice.

----------

Andy stretches out his limbs as his eyes start to flutter. The sun is harsh, making him cover his face with his hand as he drags his brain out of it’s sleep state. He rolls over, wanting to block out the intrusion, but to also get another look at you as you sleep. He opens his eyes only to find you gone. His face falls. Maybe you-

He hears the water running in the bathroom and then, sobs? Crying? He sits up, staring into the bathroom as he tries to really make out what he’s hearing. His eyes shift to the floor, still finding your clothing and shoes scattered around. He throws the sheets back and swings his legs over the side of the mattress, moving quickly into the bathroom. He stops at the threshold.

He swallows as he spots you on the floor in the shower, the water cascading over you. You’re curled into yourself, your head cast down as your shoulders and back shake with the emotion flooding from you. His lips part as he looks away, half tempted to just ignore it. To put his pants on and just go downstairs and act like he didn’t see a thing. Something won’t let him leave though - something pulls at him to stay, to even comfort you. He’s been there. In that exact spot on the floor, with nothing but the warmth of the water keeping him alive.

He moves deeper into the bathroom, his steps soft. He kneels down at the edge of the walk in shower, glancing down at his feet before he lifts his eyes to your small frame. You don't even know he’s there. He reaches out slowly and slides his hands along your shoulder - slowly - not wanting to scare you. You turn your face away from him, twisting your body so that he can’t see you, but you don't stop crying; you can’t, it seems.

Andy stands and moves into the shower, right underneath the water. He reaches for you again, hooking his hands around your slumped shoulders and lifts you from the floor. Nobody was there for him, but he can be there for you, even if it’s just to be a body to lean into as you cry. That means something, right?

He pulls you into his chest and wraps his arms around you, running his hands up and down your back as you push your face into his chest. He rests his head on the top of yours and stares at the wall as he just lets you cry.

“There’s people that think I did it, you know.”

Your voice is small - scared. Andy glances down at you, “Did what?”

“Killed her. My mom.” She answers flatly, sniffling, “There's a website, a forum about me, about the case.”

“You shouldn’t look at that stuff.” Andy says, shutting his eyes as the memories of him finding the Bloody Barbers chatroom one grim afternoon, “They’re fucking sick, all of those people.”

“They think that I seduced him and talked him into killing her so that we could be together.” your voice breaks, and he hugs you tighter, “I was fourteen years old. How could I-”

“Listen to me,” Andy says, pulling your face into his hands. His eyes bounce back and forth between yours, “You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? You were just a kid.”

Your eyes fall from his but don’t really focus on anything. You just blink and stare, your head twitching a little every now and again as you zone out, sinking back into yourself. Andy rubs your cheeks with his thumbs, his eyes moving back and forth between yours. He wants you to come back.

“Come back.” He whispers, tilting his head as he runs his thumb over your bottom lip, “Come back.”

----------

“Come back.”

You don’t really hear him, but at the same time, you do. It’s like you’re in a tunnel and someone is screaming at you from the other side - you hear it, but you can’t make it out until they start moving closer. You only hear him, really hear him, when his lips start to press against yours softly. Your eyes flutter when they press again, a little harder this time as his hand slips around your side, flattening on your lower back.

“Come back, I’m here.”

You blink furiously, focusing in on his eyes as your mouth falls open. Your breath starts to rush faster as the water from overhead falls on the two of you - down his cheeks and chin, down to his chest and through the thick, dark hair that’s splashed over his pecs and stomach. You spread your fingers out on his chest, pushing them into his flesh a little, watching as they cause indentations. I’m here. He’s here. Right here, in front of you, trying to pull you back.

Come back. I’m here. Come back.

He kisses you again, this time deep. This time, you respond. You let him kiss you, let him drag you back into the present. You wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him back, moaning into his mouth as your tongue breaks through his lips. You’re lifted from your feet with ease. Your legs are wrapped around his waist as he holds you to him, one hand spread out on your back, the other cupping your thigh.

You pull away and stare at him as he stares back at you. You watch as he swallows and then drops his eyes from yours, his head falling a little, “I miss them.” He says suddenly.

You nod quickly, acknowledging his pain - and yours, “I miss her too. It doesn’t go away.”

“It doesn’t.” He answers. You run your hand down the side of his face as he shakes his head, “It won’t.”

I’m here. Come back.

You kiss him this time. This time, it’s needy. It’s a fast, messy kiss - all tongues and lips and loud smacks. You push your body into his, rocking your hips against his lower half, sliding your clit against his skin. You press the side of your face against his as his mouth travels to your neck. You hold onto him tightly as you let out a hum when his tongue slides across your clavicle. You keep pushing your hips against him, rubbing your clit against his slick, wet skin, getting a buzz.

He’s hard. You can feel it pressing into you and you want it. You want him - inside of you, around you, suffocating you, blinding you, taking you away. You want it all. You want it all from him. You wrap your wet hand around his cock and stroke him, your eyes wandering the side of his face as a purr rumbles against the back of his throat. You suddenly want to make him feel good too. Maybe he wants you around him, suffocating him, blinding him - taking him away.

Maybe he wants it all from you.

He presses your back up against the cold wall of the shower. You jump from the stark contrast of heat and cold but are soon distracted by his lips and tongue sucking your nipple and breast into his mouth. You rest your head against the wall and arch your back, pushing your chest into him as you whimper.

He pushes his cock through your folds, teasing your slit - poking at your entrance, “God,” you groan as you push your hips along his length, “Andy, please.”

He releases your breast and rests his forehead to yours, “Tell me what you want,” he pants, “Tell me.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you answer, your voice breaking again as a new onslaught of tears rush down your cheeks, “Please, I want.. I want you to take it away. I want it to go away.”

“I’m gonna take it away,” he groans, grabbing himself in his hand, “I’m gonna,” he slams into you and you both let out a noise - him hissing, you shrieking, “I’m gonna take it all away. I’ll make you feel good.”

You start to slide up the wall as his hips start to move. You dig your fingernails into his back as you bounce with each of his thrusts, “Ah- fuck! Take it all away.” You slur, “Please. Baby, please.”

You bite down into your lip, closing your eyes as he fucks into you against that cool wall. His head falls to your shoulder. Quick nips and kisses against your skin from his teeth and lips. His muscles flex beneath your fingers as he pushes into you, all the way to his hilt before he drags back out of you again. He grunts as your cunt envelopes him, your muscles clamping down on him as you clench your body tight. You want him to feel good too.

His large hand snakes up your side to clasp over your mouth. You love how large his hands are - how just one can cover your entire face and then some. His fingers find their way into your mouth and you welcome them. Sucking, licking, nibbling on them as you grab handfuls of his wet hair to pull on. He sounds when you pull on it, grunting as pain ripples through his scalp. You love those too - love that you can draw them out of him.

He pushes into you again, but instead of pulling out, he pushes deeper, wiggling his hips so that you can feel him in the innermost parts of your body. He kisses your neck. His tongue sweeps over the sensitive skin before he sucks. You hear a hungry moan, feel it rumble against your skin, and you shudder. God, it feels good to be full of him.

You sink your fingers into his hair again and pull, craning his head back so that you can bask in those blue eyes again. You cup his face in your hands, tilting your head just a little as the hurt and the pain, the sorrow, the sadness in them register with your own hurt. You bounce your eyes between his as you sweep your thumb underneath his right eye before you let your fingers drop down his cheeks, to that little brown beauty mark just above the start of his beard.

His lips part, his pupils dilate as you lean in and kiss the spot, the small brown one. It’s tender - understanding - the kiss. One that surprises him. You can see it in his eyes when you pull away. He looks at you like he doesn’t deserve it, the understanding, the tender.

You pull him into your chest again, wrapping your hands around his neck, hugging him to you. You nuzzle your face against his and pull your hips back before you sink down on him, wanting him to move once more. He follows your lead, but it’s different now. Slower, sweeter. He pushes a hand into the wall, grounding himself as the other arm slinks around your waist, grabbing your flesh, digging into it with his fingernails.

You hook your ankles together, your heels bouncing off of the small of his back as he fucks you against the wall of the shower. Your wet skin slides against one another, the heat from the water steams up the glass walls and the large mirror that hangs over the dual sinks. His lips are on yours again, pulling, sucking them into his mouth before his tongue skims along your bottom one.

He rests his forehead to yours again - your noses rubbing along one another - your mouths stealing each others breaths as you push them out. You feel that dull ache in the pit of your stomach as he starts to massage it, coaxing it out of hiding. Your toes start to curl with each shove of his hips. Your thighs start to shake. You feel him feel it too - his muscles tense suddenly, his hips hitch unexpectedly.

Within minutes, you’re writhing against him. It’s so close, like a name that is right on the tip of your tongue. You almost have it. You are loud - panting, mewling, damn near crying as your heart thumps in your ears and throat. All you can hear is your blood rushing through your veins. All you feel is his rippled muscles flexing, straining in your hands and that wonderful sting at your clit.

You slip your hand between your wet body and just the slightest touch from your fingers against that little bundle of nerves sends you right over the edge. You throw your head back as you come, your body tensing and jerking with each ripple of your orgasm. You scream out, your voice muted by the water as you drag your nails down his broad back, doing all you can to push your hips into his for more, more, more.

Andy grows louder. His body, unable to take the heat of your cunt, your clenched, convulsing muscles around him any longer. Then you’re hot, your insides, as he ruts into you hard and fast, spilling his seed into you. You take every spurt, every pump of his hips, letting him fill you up. You love being full of him, all of him. You kiss him, eating every grunt, every hiss that leaks from his perfect, pretty mouth.

Then, it’s over. You’re just heavy breaths, heaving chests, closed eyes, and pruned skin. He doesn’t pull out of you right away like you expect him to. He stays buried inside of you for a while, until his breathing has calmed and the rush and adrenaline of it all is gone. Only then, does he retreat from your tight warmth to stand you on your feet. The water starts to cool but it’s welcomed as the humidity starts to make you dizzy. Andy keeps a hand around your waist as he steps behind you and reaches for his loofah. He squeezes a dollop of body wash onto it and starts to clean you.

You lean back into him, resting your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes as he washes you - taking his time. Every inch of your skin is cleansed - stripped of yesterday’s dirt and grime. Underneath your breasts, the bottoms of your feet, the back of your neck - nothing left untouched.

You return the favor. You take the loofah from his hands and turn him around to start with his back and shoulders. You feel him physically relax, watch as his shoulders slump a little as you brush over them. Reaching around to his chest and stomach, you press your lips into his shoulder blades, kissing him sweetly as you wash yesterday away from him. You rest your free hand to his chest as your wash the thick hair at his navel and below, paying special attention to his now soft sex. You didn’t realize how long his legs were until now. How firm his thighs are. He’s beautiful.

No words are exchanged between the two of you as you finally exit the shower. Andy wraps you up in a fluffy towel before he exits the bathroom, rubbing his own towel over his wet hair. When you move out into the bedroom a few minutes later, your jeans, t-shirt and hoodie are laid out on the bed, along with an old, faded college t-shirt.

You glance over at him as he pulls a shirt over his head. He shrugs, “If you want to wear it. You don’t have to.” He clears his throat as he pulls his eyes from yours, “I have some boxers too, if you don’t want to-”

“Thank you,” you offer gently, holding out your hand.

He plucks a clean pair from his nightstand and hands them to you before he moves back around the bed, brushing past you to move into the bathroom. You dress quickly, slipping into his underwear and shirt before you pull your jeans up, having to jump a little to get them over your butt. You feel his eyes on you from the bathroom, but you know why. He probably used to watch her dress in the morning too.

You move into the bathroom with him. There is a brand new toothbrush, still in the packaging sitting on the counter. You don’t make eye contact as you rip the thin cardboard open and turn on the sink, wetting it quickly. You brush your teeth as he runs his fingers through his hair and trims his beard. Once you’re finished and he’s finished, you both move down the stairs and into the kitchen, where you lean against the counter as he moves around.

“Hungry?”

You shake your head, “Not really, no. You?”

“Not a big breakfast guy.” He clears his throat again, “Do you um, do you have school today?”

You nod, smiling a little as you keep your eyes cast towards your feet, “Yeah.”

“Okay. Do you want me to uh, do want me to take you, or do you feel more comfortable getting an Uber or something.”

“You can take me. That’s fine.”

“Now? Or-”

“Yeah, I need to hit the library. Didn’t get to study last night.”

He chuckles at your dry joke. You smile at the fact that you made him chuckle.

The drive is quiet, neither one of you being big talkers. It’s okay though, you don’t need to talk, not after what you shared. The emotion. The understanding. If you never see each other again, it’ll somehow all be okay.

He stops right in front of the library, in the exact spot he plucked you from the day before. You don’t get out immediately. You sit together, twirling the strap of your bag in your fingers before you turn to face him, “Thank you, for the ride and for um, last night and this morning.”

“Don’t thank me. You had a lot to do with it too.”

You laugh a little, “Yeah. Maybe um, you know, maybe we can-”

“Sure. Sure, sure.” He nods quickly, “You want my number or?”

“Yeah, I don’t need you stalking me anymore.” You smile, making him laugh again.

You program his number into your phone before slipping it back into your bag. You open the door and go to step out before he grabs your wrist, pulling you back into the car. Before you can speak, he crashes his lips to yours in one long, sweet, sweeping kiss - taking the air right out of your lungs.

He pulls away, leaving you yearning for more, your lips swollen. You stagger out of the car, swallowing hard as you try and catch your breath. He pulls off without another word or even a second glance. You stand there, almost stupid from the culmination of the last twelve hours or so, watching as his tail lights get smaller and smaller and then disappear. A breeze whips around you as you turn your head to the side, blinking slowly. What is going on?

#dark!andy barber #andy barber #andy barber smut #andy barber x reader #andy barber x you #dark!andy barber x reader #dark!andy barber x you #andy barber x black!reader #dark!andy barber x black!reader #defending jacob #defending jacob smut #dark!fic #dark!#andy barber fic #andy barber fanfic #andy barber fanfiction #defending jacob fanfiction #avintagekiss24

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sunlightandsuffering · 2 years

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You get it actually , it’s like that. You know the cover of plastic love? Where the singer iust have this sweet smile that’s infectious and makes you smile too whenever you see it? Like that. And how the smile just frames her face and features perfectly, same with her eyes just shining with pure innocence

like these!!

one

two

three

four

funny thing is, the poses are literally your typical asian mom in the 90s

Yes!!! omg yes!!! I love this 90's aesthetic, like it's awesome. GOD I WISH WE COULD HAVE IT BACK LIKE POLARAOIDS AND MINIMAL MAKEUP, OVERSIZED CLOTHING, BUTTON DOWNS!!! AHHHHH!!! the first one, the girl with like the white shirt and the comb over part I love her, she's got model energy AND MIKASA VIBESSSSS!! Yes i love it. When she's not murdering people she moonlights as the most adorable, beautiful human on the planet and Eren loves her. Ppl always stop him like hey does ur gf model? And Eren proudly tells them no, she's just so beautiful. Spends like 10 minutes mooning over her.

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in-superbloom · 3 years

Text

okay so. i never really did a review (feels weird to call it a review tho so let's say a very opinionated essay that's totally the opposite of what college taught me) for wfttwtaf but i never really know how to do that for any album, doesn't matter how much it makes me feel feelings, bc i simply can't write about my own emotions in cohesive thoughts ✌🏻😔

so instead, i let my brain do this thing he usually does when i listen to an album that leaves an effect on me, which is pretty much just creating visuals for the songs bc apparently my feelings translate better into images/vibes rather than words lmao but since i am unfortunately not skilled to drawn/paint/created actual visual stuff, i just wrote them so i'm gonna leave them here bc why not <3

i just really love when music (art in general, but especially music for me) makes your mind run wild & be so inspired that you can't help but create something based on that feeling <3 a great example of that is the amount of art everyone here (on tumblr!sos verse, but also tumblr & the internet in general) create based on other peoples' art & i just *clenches fists* really love that 💜

anyways !! if you're reading this, i hope this makes sense to you & if you wanna chat about the album, my mail box is always open 💜

• track one: starting line – like the mv, but he's running like he's trying to get away from something, always looking behind his shoulder, stumbling on things/people on the streets. also maybe not flying?;

• track two: saigon – then he reaches a tiny but unique/eye-catching door, gets intrigued & enters. he has to go downstairs through a dark and narrow corridor, he hears muffled music coming down there. he reaches the door & the music is now clear, it looks like there are disco balls everywhere ((pink, blue and purple bc ofc)), the place is packed with people dancing & just vibing™. he goes to the dancefloor, but soon it gets overwhelming so he tries to reach a wall or the other end of the club, but he can't. the more he walks, the furthest he feels from the walls. everything has a psychedelic look, also some of those trippy effects he used on motion, and no one seems to notice/ care about him. this goes on until the end of the song, then he finally finds a door ((not the one he came from)) and opens it;

• track three: motion – he expects to find a street, but instead he's inside a room. it's a bit dark, all he sees are shadows, but then suddenly everything turns into an explosion of colors ((when the songs picks up in the beginning)), all dancing in front of him, making him feel lost & dizzy. he keeps walking, but every now and them he stumbles on something ((random things like animals or weird props or stuff that aren't supposed to be alive, but are)). he admires everything with a childlike wonder, touches things and then they turn into something else, or change form/shape/color. in the end, he's distracted looking at something and then falls like the floor reached an end;

• track four: place in me – he fell right there where he is in the mv/visualizer, it goes on like that;

• track five: baby blue – make it look like he fell asleep after the end of place in me, so he's very confused when he wakes up & it looks like the place is falling apart, like end of the world type ((like the lamentis thingy on loki)). things are exploding & he can see another planet very close to the one where he is. it's a bit scary but it's a breathtaking view nonetheless. he's mesmerized, but also kinda already accepted his fate? he's not trying to run to find a shelter/salvation or anything, just watching it all fall apart. at the end, he stops, turns around & looks at the path that he was walking ((full of nature things colored in every shade of blue and also glittery dust)) and he's just admiring it when he's hit by a big rock maybe? or a moon, who knows;

• track six: repeat – he's throw away to somewhere that's not collapsing, it looks like a pathway in the woods? but like, no florest too near, and it's sunny but not too warm, and the path is filled with green grass and flowers. he lands in a place that looks like a field but not quite. and then after walking for a while, he finds himself, but another version of him. maybe a younger one or an older one or both? like, they both just stop and stare at each other and kinda do this lil dance of trying to touch the other & watching the other, both a lil frightened but completely intrigued. maybe the older version of him? ooooh maybe it starts with an older version, but then every time present luke gets distracted by something else or turns around for a second, the other luke is getting younger, until he's just a lil kid. the ending is the mini luke offering his hand for present luke to grab, so he can lead him to a house that was near where they were. ((or maybe mini luke makes him run after him));

• track seven: mum – luke enters the house & immediately recognizes it as the house he grew up in. every step he takes, a wall or an object or a room brings a memory & it plays it out like a hologram. lots of memories. then in the guitar solo part, he finds a guitar in the room where he used to play the most when he was a kid ((maybe some cool&cute effects going around him, representing the sound coming from the guitar)). before the solo ends, you can see a shadow in the threshold of the door, and when he finished the guitar solo, luke turns around and smiles, getting up to hug the person ((it's his mum)) but maybe you never actually see her face?;

• track eight: slip away – he steps out of his childhood house and enters this big dark room. there's only a lil blue light coming from the very center of the room. when he gets closer to it, he sees it's a lil star, who looks very scared. as soon as she notices him ((he tries to reach her)) she runs out of the door on the other side of the room. he's worried&intrigued so he follows her, but when he opens the door, he immediately falls, this time he's in what looks like the clouds ((blue hues ofc but clearer ones, not as dark shades like the ones in place in me & baby blue)), and soon he finds out he can "swim" through them. he does that for a while until he sees the lil star and tries to follow her again. this goes on until he finally gets close to her, but when he touches her, she literally slips from his grasp bc he's being teleported again ((but make it look like she's the portal));

• track nine: diamonds – it starts with a close up on the water maybe? and then the camera keeps getting higher & suddenly he falls into it and soon the camera follows. he's distorted for a bit, especially when he notices he's already too deep into the water, away from the surface. then he tries to swim to the surface, but there's a bunch of things?? or like weird and mean seapeople maybe? trying to drag him down ((kinda like that scene on harry potter & the goblet of fire)). he tries his best to fight them, but what gets him away from them is a group of nice seapeople who came to his rescue. then they all swim away from the place they were ((also maybe slip in some diamonds or things that look like them around there?));

• track ten: a beautiful dream – he reaches a lil city? under water with the help of the nice seapeople & then there's this piano on the ground ((maybe covered in seaweed and stuff like that)) and he's immediately drawn to it. he plays/sings the song ((maybe like the guitar effects in mum, the sounds coming from the piano affect the place around him even tho it looks like he barely notices it)). when the song is finishing, he notices a white light coming from the surface. he looks at it & then follows it;

• track eleven: bloodline – then he's getting out of the water? at some beach perhaps? he's slowly getting out of the water & there's this beautiful sunrise behind him. he's singing along, looking like he just came out of a battle but at the same time he's in peace with himself, looking not exactly happy but relieved. he's walking on the beach, making his way home but he's not in a hurry. then in that lil bit in the end of the song, he gets out of the frame after looking straight to the camera maybe?? and the camera focuses on the sunrise and then everything goes black;

• track twelve: comedown – he wakes up in a bed ((like, this is him waking up from all these dreams)) & he's slightly confused bc the dreams felt so real, but he's feeling better & not so lost anymore. he goes out in a walk that maybe shows every place he was in his dreams? but like, this time you see what they really are bc every place in his dreams was inspired by a real location/thing, just reimagined. but like, he doesn't enter anywhere, he's just walking & you can see the places on both sides of the street. like, it's clearly a set up location but it's just representative. maybe you can see some of his friends/family at some of these locations or maybe they're all together in one place? but they don't look at him, they're just talking&laughing with each other. he looks happy, at ease & he's smiling, wearing a yellow or gold shirt. in the end, he reaches a cliffside maybe? somewhere that leads you to think that he'll go through another portal, but then he suddenly stops, looks down at the cliffside and crouches down bc he saw the lil blue star from slip away but it's now a necklace. he picks it up, with a small&easy smile and then looks at the camera, gives a bigger, real smile, gets up and turns around, going back to where his friends&family are, but the camera stays there, just watching him go.

// now some notes bc i love to over explain myself //

• the "water" one was supposed to be slip away, but alison @bandsanitizer was talking about a beautiful dream these days & said that something about the song reminds her of a sonar-like sound & the idea of searching for something, so that got me thinking about the ocean & relating it to this song and it also makes a lot of sense with what the album represents in my mind, so it made me change that. thank you for that miss alison, it's always a pleasure to read your thoughts 😌💜

• & it also fitted well with the “i can't fight the bloodline living in the seams back home” line from bloodline, so i wanted that one to be related to the water as well bc that's all i can think about when i hear that lyric;

• something in common that appears in every single one: an object or something related to time, since it's the big common theme on the whole album;

• in each song he's wearing the same outfit he wore in the starting line mv (white tee + black pants + converse) but in each one of them, that red shirt is in a different color;

• i had the visuals from starting line to mum very clear in my head on my first listen of the album, but i only truly finished writing all of this yesterday bc i wanna listen to halsey's new album and see if my brain does this thing again, but i wanted to finish wfttwtaf first <3

& that's it bc i already talked too much for a day lmao if you read all of this, you're a true hero & i love you <3 have a nice day 💛

#some trippy and weird thoughts brought to you by my weird brain <3 #with the incentive of the twinkling blue lights in my room that i was staring at when i first heard the album <3 #there's like. a lot of meaning behind these things if you really look into it #& i could probably rant about them but let's not do that bc i feel like this is way too much already #i've literally been formatting & fixing this for an hour now and this was supposed to be quick #so that's another lesson for me about how i truly can't shut my mouth about anything ✌🏻😌#but i enjoyed writing this so. yeah <3 #can you tell i'm a frustrated kid bc i love to create stuff like this & actually make something out of it #but i currently can't so i just write & daydream & cry </3 #*sighs as a sad girl living in a small & very non-artistic town*#lrh + wfttwtaf #anna talks music #wfttwtaf #anna talks luke

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current-mcr-news · 4 years

Text

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material.

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father.

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated.

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff.

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel, he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it.

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine. Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too.

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized. Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening.

#behind the scenes of the umbrella academy #episode 1 #gerard way #gabriel ba #steve blackman #full transcription

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nakuuro1994 · 3 years

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The Fairly OddFamily: Scary OddFamily

By nakuuro & jaxnation15

(So once upon a time on a seemingly ordinary Halloween night in a rather small suburb in Dimmsdale, California. Timmy Turner & his new God-Siblings (Trixie, Chester, Tootie, A.J. & Chloe) are relaxing & hanging out at Timmy’s house while watching the new Crash Nebula Halloween Special “Wrath of the Jackobots” while also getting ready to go out for some trick-or-treating!!!)

~ (Chester): Oh man, this year is going to be the best Halloween EVER!!!

~ (Timmy): Hehe yeah it is!!! We're gonna get so much candy!!! (He said this while grabbing some toilet paper for his mummy costume.)

~ (Tootie): And I finally get to do it with the boy of my dreams!!! (She was putting on her werewolf costume to wear.)

~ (Trixie): I know right!!! But hey, I’m just glad that I can actually enjoy some Halloween fun with you guys for a change!!! (As she tries putting on her rather large “Bride of Frankenstein” wig on)

~ (A.J.): Not to mention that theres a good 85% chance of us getting the maximum amount of Halloween candy around the neighborhood this year as well!!! (He stated as he puts on the finishing touches to his Frankenstein’s Monster costume)

~ (Chloe): And the best part is, everyone's gonna be out tonight! So we're sure to get tons of scares with our candy too!!! (She puts the finishing touches on her Dracula costume.)

~ (Timmy): This is gonna be the BEST HALLOWEEN EVER!!!

~ (Wanda): Alright kids, you all have some fun, but be careful not to get too carried away with the candy now!!!

~ (Cosmo): OH! Relax Wanda, They’ll be fine, plus since it’s Halloween again, we could finally join in on the fun without nobody finding out that we’re actually fairies!!!

~ (Wanda): Oh my gosh, you’re right!!! I almost forgot about that!!!

(So while Cosmo & Wanda change into their Halloween costumes to blend in, Timmy & the gang decided to finally head out to their first stop around the block until they all see a rather bizarre & haunting sight that they all didn’t see coming.)

~ (Chester): OMG!!! I CANT BELIEVE IT!! Vicky is the new leader of the neighborhood watch!?

~ (Timmy): WHAT?! Vicky's gonna ruin our night and everyone else's Halloween night!!!

~ (Tootie): Awww we won't be having any fun at all this year!!!

~ (Chloe): Well what can we do about it?!

~ (Trixie): Well....can we just say something & stand up for ourselves? (she says while her large wig is flopping on one side)

~ (A.J.): I highly doubt it, since she’ll probably just bury us all six feet under if we say anything.

(While they all observe her from a safe distance, Vicky begins her plans for both collecting, confiscating & hoarding all of the neighborhood kid’s Halloween candy for “safety inspections” while also making rather mean jabs at their Halloween costumes as well)

~ (Vicky): ALIGHT, WHO’S NEXT?

(One rather small 6-year old girl in a angel costume soon regretfully hands her only Halloween bucket to Vicky as she just adds it to the ever growing mountain on stolen Halloween candy that she’s been collecting for the past couple of hours)

~ (Trixie): OKAY THAT’S IT, GUYS WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW!!!

~ (A.J): Well...I say that we might actually need some help with this....Y’know....maybe some “magical help”!!!

~ (Chester): OH!!!.....RIIIGHT!!!.....some “Magical Help”.....yeah, I don’t get it!!!

~ (Trixie): UHHH....Chester, I think he meant asking Cosmo & Wanda for help?!

~ (Chester): OH!!....RIGHT!! Why didn’t I think of that!!!

~ (A.J.): Hey Timmy, where are Cosmo & Wanda right now anyways?

~ (Tootie): Yeah, aren't they always with you?

~ (Timmy): (holds up a pink bag and a green bag, with their faces popping up) Yeah, they're always with me!

~ (Cosmo): Hey kids, anything you need help with?

~ (Wanda): Because whatever it is, we’ll certainly do it no problem!!!

~ (Chloe): We need to find a way to stand up to Vicky and stop her from taking away everyone's candy!!!

~ (Tootie): How can we do that?

~ (Trixie): Hmmm....maybe we can all wish for our Halloween costumes to become “real & scary” so we can pretty much scare her into giving everyone’s candy back.

~ (Chloe): Um....Are you sure that will-

~ (Timmy): (to Cosmo and Wanda) I WISH OUR COSTUMES WERE REAL AND SCARY!!!

~ (Cosmo & Wanda): UHHH...YOU GOT IT!!!

(As soon as the wish was granted, Timmy’s & his God-Sibling’s respective monstrous & spectacular transformation were about to begin along with every kid in the whole city)

(Every kid began to feel strange, especially the main six. That's when they all began to transform right in front of their eyes! From ghosts to barbarians to witches to princes to villains, everyone was turning into their own monstrously spectacular being from the costume!)

(Chester was the first to change as his body began to grow in size while also developing a nice shining coat of green scales all over his body like a suit of armor that encompasses his entire being as he also starts to sprout razor sharp claws, fangs & fish-like gills as a result)

~ (Chester): OMG!!! THIS FEELS SO COOL!!!

(Timmy was the second to change as his body began to grow in size as well. The tissue began to turn into bandage wraps as his skin began to dry up to make him feel like a real mummy. Luckily it didn't make him too dried, just a darker tone with some wrinkles to go along with some added muscle mass on his body to finish off as a result.)

~ (Timmy): AW SWEET!!! I'M LIKE A REAL MUMMY!!!

(Then A.J. was the third to change as he grew out the most as his skin began to harden & darken onto a dark blueish grey as he also gained massive amounts of bulky muscles to compensate for his new massive frame as even his own round head began to morph & change into a rather oblong square flattop with his normally fast speech & extensive vocabulary slowing down considerably)

~ (A.J.): WELL....THIS....FEELS....PRETTY....ODD!?

(Next up was Tootie, as she grew a lot as well. Her skin began to get covered in dark brown fur, with her gaining massive amounts of muscles as well. To compliment her new size, her face began to change in that of a werewolf's face, with some wolf like ears and a massive, bushy tail. Her clothes ripped a bit as her hands and feet turned into claws, her teeth getting sharp to top it off.)

~ (Tootie): (howls loud and prowd to the moon while flexing) I FEEL AWESOME!!!

(Shortly afterwards, Trixie began to change as well, as she soon began to rapidly grow in size & stature as her large wig suddenly began to spark up with static electricity with each jolt amplifying & expanding her normallly slim & slender body into a rather majestic muscular but athletic frame as her eyes began to glow with a eerie luminous neon green light as well as her skin beginning lighten to a deathly & ghastly whitish-light green hue)

~ (Trixie): HOLY CRAP!!! THIS FEELS SO WEIRD & AWESOME!!! I LOVE IT!!!

(And last but not least was Chloe, who was also growing as well. Her body began to turn pale white, her hair began to turn long and black and white streaks, while her chest bursted out some massive breasts, and her butt inflated to the size of a watermelon! Her fingernails got sharp, her teeth even sharper and turning into fangs as she suddenly had a craving for blood, with her eyes turning blood red as a result.)

~ (Chloe): HISSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! WHY DO I HAVE A SUDDEN CRAVING FOR BLOOD?!?!

(So with their respective monstrous transformations finally complete, Timmy & the gang decided to seek out and find where Vicky is so they can all collectively give her the literal fright of her life!!! But when they encountered her, they saw her getting attacked by the other monsters, who were former kids who are now trying to take their candy back. Unfortunately, some of them haven't fully grasped of their new monstrous transformations and....went wild.)

~ (Chester): WOW!!!....Well....that was pretty brutal!!!

~ (A.J.): I...HAVE...TO...AGREE!!!

~ (Timmy): I think half of us should deal with Vicky while the other half deals with....everyone else...

~ (Chloe): Yeah because this is starting to become a massacre...

~ (Trixie): Uhhh...guy's....I think we got another problem to deal with at the moment.....LOOK!!!

(But as soon as she said that, the six god-siblings soon see a group of rich kids rapidly transforming into the terrifying Jackobots from the Crash Nebula Halloween Special they just saw a few hours earlier as the four mechanical monstrosities soon began to wreak havoc all across the city of Dimmsdale as they can only look in sheer horror as they all still trying to figure out on what to do next!!!)

~ (Tootie): Uhhhh....that doesn't look too good.....

~ (Timmy): Okay, one of us deals with Vicky, while the rest of us goes to deal with these Jackobots!

~ (Chloe): And just about every other raging monster in Dimmsdale!!!

~ (A.J.): UHHH.....GUY'S.....WHAT'S....THAT....OVER.....THERE?!

(So as the newly lumbering A.J. points his finger to the sky, a rather massive & familiar alien spaceship soon crash lands into the neighborhood as Mark Chang of Yugopotamia & his nerdy friends soon arrived on Earth to try and "save" Vicky from the horde of angry monsters' that are currently chasing all across town)

~ (Mark Chang): DO NOT WORRY MY LOVE hehe I, MARK CHANG OF YUGOPOTAMIA ......& MY FRIENDS, WILL SAVE YOU FROM THE EVIL MONSTER HORDE THAT CURRENTLY PLAGUES THIS PUNY PLANET!!!

~ (Tootie): Monsters, Jackobots and now Aliens....

~ (Timmy): I'm going to assume that we can't wish for everything to go back to normal yet.

~ (Wanda): I’m afraid not sport!!!

~ (Chester): And where have you two been?

~ (Cosmo): Oh! Well....we just been hiding in the nearby bushes this whole time to be perfectly honest!!!

~ (Chloe): Well....that's a bummer...

~ (Timmy): Does anyone have an idea on how to stop this?

~ (A.J): I......SUGGEST....WE.....SPLIT....UP.....IN....GROUPS..... OF.....TWO....AND.....

~ (Chester): SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!!!!

~ (A.J.): DIVIDE......AND..... CONQUER!!!

~ (Timmy): Two of us deals with the monsters, two of us deals with the Jackobots, and two of us deals with Mark and his crew.

~ (Tootie): Well I'm gonna be with you Timmy, so that way we can save the world together as boyfriend and girlfriend!!!:grin: (she grabs him and hugs him tightly.)

~ (Chester): I’ll guess I’ll go with Chloe so we can stop Mark Chang & his crew!!!

~ (Trixie): And I’ll go with A.J to stop the Jackobots from destroying the Earth!!

~ (Chloe): Now we got our partners, let's head out and save the world!!!

~ (Everyone): YEAH!!!

(So as the six God-Siblings decided to split up and equally divided their roles in teams of two, they all spread out across town in order to save Halloween and the Earth from certain destruction!!!)

~ (A.J.): ALRIGHT......ALL....WE....NEED....TO....DO....IS....TO...COMBINE....OUR.....ELECTRICAL.....POWERS.....AND....

~ (Trixie): And short circuit the Jackobot’s systems in order to shut them down!!! Brilliant idea A.J.!!!

~ (A.J.): THANK.....IT’S....WHAT....I....DO!!!

(While Trixie & A.J. are busy battling the Jackobots downtown, Timmy & Tootie are busy reluctantly trying to fend off the giant monster hoard from killing Vicky!!!)

~ (Timmy): (pulling and punching off one monster at a time.) Man, these monsters are hard to defeat!!! How are you holding up on your end Tootie?!?!

~ (Tootie): (pulling, punching and biting some of the monsters herself.) I'm doing as best as I can to defeat these monsters my future boyfriend!!!:grin:

~ (Timmy): oh brother....

~ (Vicky): Oh great!!! Just what I need right now, MORE MONSTERS!!!

~ (Timmy): Relax Vicky, it's just me and Tootie!!! We're trying to save you here!!!

~ (Vicky): Wait a minute, TOOTIE?!:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

TWERP, WHAT DID YOU BRATS DO?

(As soon as Vicky said that, the whole ground starts to shake as Mark Chang’s spaceship soon takes off as Chester & Chloe soon race towards Timmy & Tootie to help out with@the monster hoard!!)

~ (Timmy): That'll be explained later!!! Right now we're trying to save you!!!

~ (Chester): GOOD NEWS GUYS, we convinced Mark Chang & his friends to leave the planet..... for about two months!!!

~ (Timmy): It's better than 0 months!!!

~ (Tootie): Now let's hurry up and finish the job!!!

(So with the monster hoard defeated, all that’s left to do now is to somehow stop the Jackobots from activating the “Jack-O-Bomb” and destroying the whole planet!!!)

~ (Chester): OMG!! What do we do now!!??

~ (A.J.): CAN....ANY.....OF..... US....FLY?

~ (Chloe): I can fly!!! What do you need me to do?

~ (Trixie): Alright Chloe, all you need to do is to turn yourself into a bat and carry the Jack-O-Bomb & chuck it into outer space so that it could safely explode far away from Earth!!!

~ (Chester): And if case you were wondering if you can actually breathe in outer space as a vampire, don’t worry, you’re technically undead right now so you should definitely be fine!!!:sweat_smile

~ (Chloe): You got it!!! (Chloe turned into a bat and began to flap off to grab the Jack-O-Bomb.)

~ (Trixie): Man I hope this plan works!!!

~ (Chester): If not, it was a pleasure knowing you guys!!!

(Chloe grabbed and carried the Jack-O-Bomb, flapping up as high as possible towards the Earth's atmosphere. When she arrived, with time winding down, she spun around and toss the Jack-O-Bomb as far as possible into outer space, and just in time too! When it passed the atmosphere and drifted off, it created a massive explosion that everyone was able to see from down below.)

(So with the Earth finally saved, Timmy & the gang decided to wish for Cosmo & Wanda to change everything to go back to normal as their equally spectacular transformation back to normal was about to begin!!! So everyone in the entire world, including the 6 heroes, were all turning and shrinking down back to normal!!!)

(Chester was the first one to change back as his entire body began to shrink as his razor sharp fangs, claws & fish-like gills soon disappeared as well as his armor-like green scales started to fade away as well.)

(Timmy was next, as his skin started to turn back to normal, he was shrinking back to his normal size, and the wrappings around him began to turn back into some toilet paper.)

(A.J. soon started to change back next as his entire body started to rapidly shrink back to normal size as his skin started to soften & lighten up again as well as his head was beginning to reshape itself back to its normal round shape as well thus allowing him to speak in full sentences again!!)

(Tootie began to lost all her fur, shrunking back down into her normal size, along with her face turning to it's original self, her tails poofing off of her, her skin changing back to normal and her claws turning into hands and feet again.)

(Then Trixie soon began to change back shortly afterwards as her new muscular athletic body soon began to shrink back to normal as not only did her skin tone changed back & her eyes stopped glowing but even her rather large wig finally came loose and finally fell off her head as well.)

(And last but not least was Chloe, who was losing her fangs and her skin changed back to its peachy color, while her curves and her sharp mails changed back to normal. her clothes shrunk back down to her original size and looked like a costume again.)

~ (Chester): AWESOME!!! We finally changed back to normal!!!

~ (A.J.): But, we didn't get any Halloween Candy ALL NIGHT!!!

~ (Trixie): Ummm....I wouldn't say that, LOOK!!!

(So as soon as Trixie said that, all of the kids from all across the city of Dimmsdale all gathered at Timmy's house so they can give Timmy and the gang ALL of their respective Halloween candy as a way of saying thanks for saving all of them & the whole world from certain destruction!!!)

~ (Literally Everyone): HAPPY HALLOWEEN TIMMY & FRIENDS!!!

~ (Timmy): I knew this was gonna be the best Halloween ever!!!

~ (Cosmo & Wanda): THAT'S ALL FOLK'S!!

THE END

#the fairly oddparents #fop fanart #nickelodeon #nicktoons #fanfic #alternate universe #timmy turner #trixie tang #tootie #chloe carmichael #fop

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