#which is not only incompatible with canon but it's also very silly to imagine an au where that is the case | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dingoat · 4 years

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HEY. I wanna know more about this alternative universe plot! Can you summarize what it is, what's going on it, and specifically who these ~tortured love birds~ are?? Only if that's fun for you. I'm curious!!

HEY MY DAWG

So the whole thing is really the brainchild of @askshivanulegacy who as far as I can tell has a PhD in Angst Narratives majoring in Sci Fi and Magic, and had concocted an alternate Star Wars universe where the Empire’s Ministry of Intelligence (aka the bad guy spy club) developed a procedure that effectively turns their top agents into werebeasts, all the better to serve the Empire and go about their evil spying business. In this universe, their main OC - one Cipher Agent Omega Blakk - is thus a werefox, specialising in stealth operations, loyal to his cause to a painful degree.

NOW, we’d chatted OOC back and forth for a while because hey, I guess at some point it became obvious that I like werewolves and star wars too (who knew, weird right?), and through a bit of silly back-and-forth we let our main characters get to know one another in the ‘canon’ universe. Eventually I sent a single fateful writing prompt one fine October day, from which a little drabble was born. And we loved it, and decided to keep going with it, and it… kept going, and going, and backstory kept getting filled in and possible futures kept getting screamed about, and now we’re in so deep and loving every minute of it hahaha.

So that’s where it came from OOC! Narrative wise, holy heck, I could go on forever, but I’ll try to be brief for everyone’s sake. Actually I’m gonna stick the rest behind a READ MORE because I get the feeling my attempt at brief isn’t going to be very brief at all!

So Blakk is a loyal Imperial werefox spy, and my girl Ahuska is a werewolf. SHE was afflicted with her condition some time earlier, being stolen away as part of a secret Imperial military project that basically turned civilians into sleeper soldiers/Jedi killers. They have their memory messed with so that they don’t remember a thing about their time as animals, and the full moon is their trigger. So every now and again she’d be ‘placed somewhere by work’, not realising that at night she’d go off on a murderous rampage after being strategically positioned to take down a target, and then return to life as usual none the wiser. But the project messed up baaad and was shut down, with all subjects terminated; except Ahuska, who was rescued by ex-Agent Nines (one of @humanrevolt‘s characters, written by me in this au with blessings!) in the nick of time. She lived and traveled with Nines, who revealed her condition to her but not all the details; Ahuska felt obligated to stay with her, with the promise that Nines would help resolve her memory issues and let her gain control, meanwhile Nines had the security of a monster wolf who could help her with her own agenda. (At one point Ahuska met one of Nines’ old comrades and started crushing hard, oh no.)

Fast forward to the drabble written above that started this whole mess; one night, transformed, the werewolf meets the werefox. Blakk has had a malfunction with his cybernetic implant that controls his shapeshifts and winds up stuck as a fox with an injured leg; Ahuska protects him as a wolf and then wakes the next morning as a Bothan. He knows exactly what she is, she thinks she has a cute wounded fox to tend to. Things are adorable and awkward and innocent, then bit by bit things are revealed and shared and miscommunicated. Blakk accidentally leads Imperial soldiers to Ahuska and her crew; there’s a showdown after which he’s re-captured, now known to them as an Imperial Agent, and she feels horribly betrayed and confused. Nines tries to torture him for information and at first Ahuska is ordered to help but then her werewolf half takes over (knowing instinctively that what they’re doing is wrong), and she turns on her crew. She’s eventually subdued (gassed!), Nines tortures Blakk further (with Ahuska shut away this time) and he manages to antagonise her enough that she slips up, he makes a run for it, and takes Ahuska hostage into an escape pod to make his getaway.

THEN THERE’S A LOT MORE ANGST and mistrust and hating one another while they stumble through a swamp with one set of clothes between them. But every time one storms off, the other eventually comes to find them, and bit by bit they work through their differences and misgivings and realise neither ever actually wanted to hurt the other. Shaky trust starts to build again, but Blakk’s injured arm (between being caught in a trap, having shapeshifting malfunctions, and being flat out tortured) develops a hideous infection and he becomes deathly ill. Still miles from any settlement, Ahuska finds herself hopelessly worried and desperate to help him and without having a clue what she’s doing, manages to connect to him and heal him through the Force, and without realising it they develop a Force-bond. By the time they make their way out of the swamp, they trust one another, and matter to one another, and their eventual parting to resume their totally incompatible lives is heartbreaking.

When Nines wants to continue her persuit of the fox-Agent who is clearly her new nemesis, but Ahuska tries to stop her and insist that he won’t hurt them, Nines is livid and kinda loses it, thinking she’s being controlled somehow. Ahuska realises she can’t stay with Nines any more if she wants to maintain any sort of personal freedom, and makes her escape.

Blakk, meanwhile, has been reassigned to a new handler, (as his previous Watcher had been killed in the original altercation courtesy of the Dice Gods). I had the dubious honour of creating the New Watcher who rapidly evolved from a generic Imperial Bad Guy into a truly terrible, absolutely nasty piece of work, a manipulative control freak with depraved appetites and horribly unconventional training methods.

At this point, Ahuska and Blakk can only see one another when they dream, through their Force Bond, and those sequences are beautiful and magical and full of love (which they’ve finally admitted to one another) and hope (mostly, maybe some nightmares and seeping in of waking-world problems), where they’re exploring their feelings and one another and even what it means to trust and know their animal selves. Problem is, while Ahuska, very in tune with the Force (if unknowing), can remember everything that happens in their dreams, using them as fuel to push on through a world that is suddenly otherwise huge and lonely and dangerous, Blakk’s Force connection is broken and stunted and he doesn’t remember a thing once he wakes. He’s developing a relationship that he spends more than half his life unaware of, and in his waking life he’s being slowly but surely molded into Watcher Five’s perfect, obedient, unquestioningly loyal little fox-Agent-pet.

SO AS YOU CAN IMAGINE there is an AWFUL LOT of terrible times and amazing times in store, and honestly all that up there doesn’t even come close to touching on everything that’s been going on and fleshing out the world around them. I did my best to just whittle it down to enough basics to given an idea of just what exactly our poor characters have been through, and I hope it’s not too rambling ahaha. I’m sure it’s more than you needed to know but I will ALWAYS WELCOME MORE QUESTIONS as I’m sure will @askshivanulegacy (yo feel free to elaborate on any points here, I mean I haven’t even given Thirteen a look in 8) ) so ahhhhh yes. Ahh. I’m also NOT GONNA PROOF READ THIS so sorry if it’s awkward as hell to read I’M TIRED XD XD

It is specatcular fun and I’m so glad we decided to just run with it!

#character asks #werewolf au #not a very good summary #i tried XD #but I love that you asked!!!#<3 <3

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touchmycoat · 4 years

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fic titles meme

@hergan416!!! okay so 15 titles, search for patterns

3 out of 15 are bullshitted 9 out of 15 were thought up after fic completion 8 out of 15 reference song lyrics 10 out of 15 use punctuation 7 out of 15 use Chinese but that one’s obvious

I think i conceptualize titles as... something that has certain evocations that may or may not be explicit at first glance, but once you’ve read the fic, you can go back to it and see that it identifies the heart of the story.

ever wondered why the fuck my titles are what they are? under the cut dnfjdndkf

Carmine / 一點也不稀奇

central to the fic was the corset piercings strung with red thread ==> the color red is important ==> carmine is a sexy shade of red ==> carmine sounds like carmen ==> pulled a chinese lyric out of the carmen song that zhou shen covered on Our Song ==> lyric means “not peculiar at all” ==> in kind-of-cheeky reference to the unexpected foursome in the fic, also the four of them dealing with nonnormative things in a very normal way, like sex work, erotic photography, aspec & body-shyness within the context of that, eroticizing pain (specifically the scenes of their canonical pain), etc.

Study Close (Real Close)

this was one of the bullshit titles ‘cause it’s just a line from suit & tie ksdjnfsd and this is the suit kink fic so

Saussurea / 美麗的緣

central to this fic was xxc wandering alone without song lan ==> Sa Ding Ding’s song “Free-roaming flower” ==> lyrics refer to the “snow lotus” ==> Latin name Saussurea ==> another lyric is the chinese portion “beautiful serendipity” ==> ‘cause they still meet! and save mxy!! yay!

Free and indirect an afternoon / 諸公聽

this fic was conceptualized as a snapshot, a preview to the larger story ==> the chinese portion of the title is one form of address to the audience from Chinese opera that’s literally a call to listen ==> “I will tell you a story” ==> oh there’s a narrator’s voice suddenly popping up oh it’s free indirect speech ==> uh this takes place during an afternoon ==> oh there we go a very staged & preview-like title to frame the whole piece

Sounds of Surrender / 勝有聲

sexy sexy sexy eheheheh ==> sounds are sexy ==> chinese title came first, from Zhou Shen’s cover of “有可能的夜晚”/”a possible evening” on Singer 2020 ==> the lyric actually means “victory has voice” ==> but juxtaposition is also sexy ==> so is alliteration ==> Sounds of Surrender it is

Courtside Company / 卿卿

fluff & tropey sweetness ==> chinese title is a... kind of old term of endearment for married couples? ==> double repetition ==> alliteration in the English title ==> ah okay English side refers to SL’s friendship with NMJ ==> Chinese side refers to SL’s smitten nonsense with XXC

Handy / 巧手

named the chinese first because 巧 is one of my favorite adjectives in Chinese, meaning “skilled & agile & dexterous” ==> English part is pretty much a direct translation ‘cause I didn’t want just a Chinese title ==> also hand sex

Sword of the Yi Maiden / 義女劍

spin-off of Jin Yong’s “Sword of the Yue Maiden” 越女劍

Easy does it

bullshit title #2; got horny ==> wrote porn ==> had to publish it

We built our own house (out of sweat and dust)

finished the fic ==> gathered important thematic elements ==> the coffin house and fucking dust ==> filled out the rest to my ideal fic title length & parenthetical aesthetic lmfao

That's the Kind of Love

wrote a gangbang ==> wanted sexy lyrics title ==> hozier obv ==> Edie was like “Dinner & Diatribes” is peak Hozier sexy ==> and she was absolutely correct ==> also wanted “love” in the title ‘cause sex lol ==> but it’s a rough gangbang full of tender feelings so the title is happy

Bright Black

this fic is about Katakuri, bound by family circumstance, struggling with his disallowed desire to keep marco by killing marco repeatedly right? so “bright black” was the image in that moment, where marco’s dead eyes come back to life (because marco’s immortality is the mechanism that makes Katakuri’s “keeping” possible at all in the first place). Obviously I liked it so much i made it the title lmfao.

Erotic Poultry Stuffing

Shanks stuffs a chicken erotically. It’s a fisting fic. ‘Nuff said.

(you made me a you made me a)

from imagine dragon’s Believer ==> this fic was part 3 in the series with shanks & benn breaking marco down or—alternate reading—helping marco work through his own shit through fucking ruining him, because they’re the only ones strong enough to manage it ==> they’ve managed it by the time of this fic ==> the full lyric goes “pain—you made me a you made me a believer” ==> obviously marco and every version of faith he has revolves around pain ==> losing his old faith (whitebeards) is pain ==> it takes pain to shuck that pain and reclaim his body from the broken ties of family ==> i didn’t want to be too on-the-nose tho so i took out “pain” and “believer” ==> and i slapped the rest in parentheses because this character development/catharsis is the opposite of explicit ==> (also it evokes the question, what exactly did shanks & benn make marco into? which is the question vista comes into the scene with)

wishes and fishes

final bullshit title ==> okay well i wanted something that reflects the dual piece right? ==> the fic is “I wish I could hate you” spoken in two different contexts or something ==> hence the rhyme ==> then y’know, “if wishes were fishes we’d all swim in riches” ==> the fic is about their ultimate incompatibility but nevertheless the lack of ability to hate each other ==> plus the kiddie careless silly kind of rhyme reflected the vignette style pretty well ==> short & inconsequential, which also describes the tragedy of their relationship

#personal #people don't comment on titles so i never know what works or not skdjfnksdjnfsd #....note to self #start paying attention to people's titles #DO YOU BELIEVE I ACTUALLY PUT THOUGHT INTO (most) OF MY TITLES SKDNFKSDJ #i swear they're not just esoteric impressionist bullshit #......okay fine they kind of are kjnaksdjfnlasdf

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