#?!?!?!WHAT THE HELL I WROTE ANOTHER ESSAY

[arsene-ee]

Omg, actually a shit take 🩷

yes, you are right in the end it's just people smashing their dolls together, the issue however comes in when you consider that Wyll cannot be interpreted as anything other than black (I know that Karlach and Minthara are PoC coded but racists will obviously interpret them as white) and is the origin character with the least amount of content surrounding him.

...not that I assume you would know that since I assume Astarion is one of your favourite characters considering the essay you wrote defending his racism while simultaneously invalidating the feelings of what I assume is a romani person because they haven't played the game AnD kNoW nOtHiNg AbOuT iT. (I wouldn't want to play a game either if I was a minority and a character that was activley racist towards my culture was praised and everyone's babygirl, hell I wouldn't want to interact with that fandom in the first place) (Also this is not hate towards Astarion fans in general this is hate towards a certain flavour of Astation fans)

Wyll is already considered 'boring' and people usually just put him in the time out corner in camp and never interact with him again, some would even entirely skip him if they didn't find Karlach so hard to find or really had the hots for Mizora.

Wyll only has a handful of romance content, the dance scene being one of them, which perfectly fits his character. Now I don't care what you do in your private game that you do not post or talk about in any way shape or form. I care about when you post it because then it's not your private Dollhouse anymore and you're open of criticsim (?).

If it becomes normalized to just modelswap that scene for another character it might erase Wyll from his own romance scene, although this might just be me overthinking it because I was raised with the "what if everyone started doing this" mindset, I still want to acknowledge that the modelswap just because you like another character more than Wyll is a real shitty thing to do and might contribute to the erasure of PoC characters (especially since Larian just ignores Wyll entirely as seen with the last Patch, they really gave Wyll a patch that broke him even more than he already was)

It just sucks how little Wyll is acknowledged in the fandom and then to see people replace him in the like 3 scences he really got going for him sucks even more because that means he's getting pushed out of the frame even more.

[sirompp]

[tenok]

.

[legoflowers]

the thing about shopping for a coat is you have to be at the exact right temperature. if you’re too hot you’ll feel overwhelmed and won’t want anything but if you’re too cold you’ll settle 

[shiny-kaibernyte]

Arven Headcannons (Romantic)

No warnings: Just pure fluff

There are a few general headcannons in here and a couple of how i think him and Nemona's friendship would be. But its 90% fluff. I actually wrote WAYYYY more than what's in this post but i didn't think people would want to read an entire Essay. So here are a selection!

This man cannot bake for anything. Give him a grill and bread, he will give you a 5 star meal. Give him a whisk and a cake try he will burn the house down. So don’t expect a homemade cake on your birthday. Or at least don’t expect one from him.

He was Smitten with you the moment you agreed to help him on his Titan Quest. Reluctantly or joyfully, hearing you agreeing made him fall head over heels for you and he didn’t even know it. Maybe that's why he tried extra hard on those Sandwiches. 

Arven and Nemona used to fight over the best friend position, You’d usually have to stand in the middle of them to prevent their Pokémon battles from spilling into personal ones. Arven would later claim the Boyfriend card once Area Zero was dealt with, Nemona was very pleased to cement the best friend spot.

You are the only other person who's allowed to take Mabosstiff out on walks. You're his person, so you get the puppy. Nemona and Penny both tried, it resulted in Arven throwing a tomato at Nemona and Penny slowly backing out of the room. He did mourn the tomato though… he wanted that tomato.

Arven isn’t necessarily Protective, but he is observant. He will defend your honour and voice with every ounce of his being. But he also isn’t a violent person, that's what Pokémon battles are for. 

That being said, if something did happen to you, especially if you fell ill. He would go to hell and back to find some way of helping you. He already proved that much, just don’t bail on him if he needs you most.

Love Language: Gift Giving + Quality time.

If he can, he will SPOIL you. He never had someone love him the way you do. Show him the kindness and compassion that makes his heart sore. If he could give you the world. He’d hand you the Galaxy on a silver plate. But until he can find a Cosmo. A plushie will have to be done for now.

He is not a morning person at all. The only reason you will ever find him up before midday is for one of two reasons: A teacher told him off for being late and he’s only got 1 more warning before another suspension OR Mabosstiff dragged him out of bed by the ankle and forced him to go outside. There is no other reason.

Terrible at video games, absolutely horrendous. Dude can’t even play Minecraft without throwing the controller. Penny tried to teach him how to play Stardew Valley, he got angry at Pierre for the backpack price and hasn’t picked up the game again. Though he’s happy to watch you play and will hold down a button if you get tired. Never ask him to play though… unless you need to laugh, then ask. 

One time you tried to put a bow on Mabosstiff ‘s head. With no recollection how or why, it somehow ended up in Arven’s hair. You have now learnt Arven can rock a manbun and a sparkling pastel pink bow. 

When you first stayed the night, dude slept like a board. He did not move a single cell in his body. It wasn’t until you were resting your head on his chest that he actually moved. He has since loosened up, but it took a while for him to trust himself enough to even touch you when you slept. 

He cannot Flirt. You cannot tell me otherwise.

He bought you both onesies to wear on movie nights. Yes he has to have a Saturday movie night with you or he gets grumpy. 

Sometimes Arven will bring you lunch or make you breakfast so he knows you have eaten at least something during the day. Plus he also uses it as an excuse to see you smile but he will never say that to your face. Only Mabosstiff.

Dude is terrified of Cetitan. Ever since the "mountain incident" Cetitan is his greatest enemy. Arven tries to act tough and unafraid to impress you but, Grusha has and will continue to use this fear to his Advantage any time Nemona drags Arven to the Mountains. You totally didn’t make a deal with Grusha and Nemona, that isn’t something you did… Wink wink.

You don’t borrow his clothes, he donates them. There have been numerous occasions you have opened a drawer or wardrobe to find one of his numbers, jackets, vests, anything! Just something new of his somewhere for you to have. He will even buy different sizes if you prefer baggy shirts or snug shirts.

He remembers everything and yet nothing at the same time. You ask him what day it is, he’ll look at you like you just asked him to explain calculus to a class of year 1’s. Ask him your favourite movie!? Arven will go into excruciating detail about everything to the point you’d think he directed it. Nemona and Giacomo once held a quiz night on Arven just to test how much he did remember. Dude remembered nothing about anyone else, except birthdays… he’s good at that. But you dude could write your autobiography. 

Dude has zero fear of heights, once Miridon learnt how to fly, anytime Arven would join you, he’d always sit behind you so he could hold your waist. It’s been a little thing of his ever since Area Zero, he can’t not do it. Even if he’s the better driver; Dude will sit behind you as an excuse to just hold you.

Almost No PDA he is a private person. He does lean on you though or will stand behind you almost like a bodyguard. If he does touch you in public it's usually a reassuring hand on the shoulder, on the small of your back to guide you somewhere or your arm locked into his. He isn’t a hand holder, he usually is carrying something or needs his hands free so he does subtle stuff instead.

[ghost-proofbaby]

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

"NIGHT TIME RELIGION"

EXTRA CONTENT- "BEYOND THE HOURS"

→ pairings: modern!college!eddie x college!fem!reader → warnings: strong language, upside down does not exist, minors dni → wc: 2.3k+ → a/n: just a simple, sweet glimpse into what our favorite idiots' nighttime routine is like. probably got a little too poetic with it, as always <3

enjoy the main story's masterlist here

“You fell asleep again.” 

It’s not a question, just a mere observation. Eddie doesn’t even put any emphasis on the key word there, that it had happened again, as he glances up on you sprawled out on his couch. 

“Nuh uh,” you childishly rebuke, ironically squeezing your eyes shut tighter as you let your cheek nuzzle deeper into the page of the textbook you’d been taking notes on, “I’m… I’m wide awake.” 

Every word painfully slurs with your next, voice mostly muffled. If he hadn’t been so close to you from where he was sitting on the floor, he probably wouldn’t have been able to make out what you’d just murmured. 

It only makes him laugh softly as he focuses back on whatever piece of equipment he’d brought into the apartment that belongs to his bike, “Sure you are, sweetheart.” 

The coffee table is spread with hand towels and paper towels alike as Eddie fiddles with the hunk of metal. You hadn’t even prodded him about what it was he was fiddling with; you were too busy, knee deep in your studies as you’d made yourself comfortable in his living room. 

It was a normal routine now – something cozy, something domestic. Instead of being holed up in your dorm these days, you found yourself occupying apartment 2C far more frequently than you’d ever admit to anyone else. Half the time, the two of you didn’t even have plans. It wasn’t about elaborate date nights or purposeful hangouts anymore; these days, the two of you simply enjoyed one another’s presence. It was enough to just know he was there with you, in the same room, as the two of you were occupied with your own individual tasks. Sometimes, he would be reading a book as you wrote your essays. Sometimes, he’d steal your laptop to shop for new bike parts and accessories online as you caught up on your favorite TV shows. There had been plenty of phone calls with Nancy in which Eddie had let you simply rest your head in his lap, hands mindlessly carding through the scalp of your hair as he tried to offer assistance to his best friend’s daily troubles and rambles. 

It was nice, and it was normal, and it was something the rest of the world would have to pry from your cold, dead hands. 

The apartment could have easily become something akin to a prison after the bet, but it hadn’t. Instead, somehow and someway, you and Eddie had turned it into a proper sanctuary.

You no longer spent lectures daydreaming about returning to your dorm; your mind much preferred longing to return to Eddie’s room, to picture falling face down in his bed, where the pillow on the right side had begun to smell of your shampoo rather than his cologne. 

“It’s getting late,” he sighs when he hears you go silent again. He’s not annoyed by any means. If he had it his way, he’d probably curl up on the couch with you for the rest of the night, content to fall asleep to the view of your face smoothing out in peaceful rest. But he knows if he leaves you be, you’ll wake up with an aching back and an attitude that makes even Harrington cower. He puts down his project for the night, wiping his hands on a damp paper towel before he reaches blindly behind himself to give you a few taps on your rear, “C’mon, we need to get ready for bed.” 

You swat his hand away, and it only makes him grin, “It’s not that late. Plus, I’m comfy.” 

“It’s half past eleven, baby.” 

And oh, do you shoot straight up at that. 

Your eyes are finally wide open as you look at him wildly, face struck with confusion, “Excuse me?” 

“I said, it’s half past ele-”

“When the Hell did it get so late?” you fumble with yourself as he slowly gets up, making a show out of stretching all his limbs. You don’t even grow distracted when his arms reach well over his head and tug up his shirt, exposing that sliver of stomach that would normally entice you, “I swear to God, it wasn’t even ten like…. Ten minutes ago.” 

“Ten waking minutes ago, maybe,” he teases, holding a hand out for you, “Time flies when you’re napping instead of studying.” 

It’s hard for him to not smile so softly down at you right now, even as he watches the defeat take hold. Your entire outfit is compiled of his clothes, yet another t-shirt you’d snagged from him along with a pair of sweatpants that he can’t even remember the last time he’d worn them. Your hair is messy, falling out of the convenient style you’d fashioned in it hours before when you’d declared you needed to focus. Your shoulders sag, the corners of your mouth inch downward, and all he really cares about right now is getting you in bed so he can wrap himself up around you. 

Your eyes dart between his outstretched hand and your textbook, still open on a page that you’d embarrassingly drooled on, “I know we joked about celebrating when I aced my finals, but can we still get milkshakes when I absolutely flunk them?” 

The way you manage to melt his heart is impeccable. He doesn’t even have it in him to be snarky, or to make another menacing jokes, “Of course we can.”

That seems to make your decision. You finally reach out and take his hand, clearly trying to be dramatic as you pull on him with the entirety of your weight, almost as though your end goal was for him to actually end up beside you on the couch rather than to be standing beside him. 

If your goal is the former, you fail miserably. He doesn’t budge beneath your drag, only leaning forward to grab your other hand and properly haul you off the couch. 

“Oof,” you huff out as you collide with his chest from the force, letting your face smash into him and making no move to pull back, “Can’t you just carry me to bed? Is that an option?” 

He almost says yes. Almost. 

“We won’t even make it down the hall,” he chuckles, taking slow steps back, guiding you right along with him, “I may or may not have also dozed off at some point. Jury’s still out on that one.” 

“Is it?” 

You’re hardly lifting your feet, shuffling your way along, letting him walk you deceiving to the bathroom rather than the bedroom. He has no idea if you’ll be capable of doing your full skincare routine, but at the very least, he has to get you to brush your teeth. If he didn’t, he’d never hear the end of it. 

“It is indeed,” he finally stops walking backwards, deciding it might become more dangerous rather than just dragging you along, “Probably won’t get a ruling until morning, so we might as well brush our teeth now, doll.” 

He’s trying to sweeten the deal. Coaxing you with adoring pet names to keep you in motion. 

“Ugh, effort,” you crunch your nose as you say it, and it’s clearly more for show than anything now. You’re fully conscious, capable of getting yourself to the bathroom sink where both your toothbrushes now sit side-by-side in a glass cup, but you don’t let go of his hand just yet. 

His palm is warm, and right now, all you really wanna do is curl up in that heat. 

Eventually, though, you let go. The two of you stand in the mirror as you go through the motions of wetting your toothbrushes, applying the toothpaste – all the boring, mundane actions that are more habit than conscious choices. But interspersed in the habits you’ve gathered over your years of life are new ones, minimal but vital after the amount of time spent together. Proof of the way this nighttime routine had become something of a religion between the two of you, something to be offered and to be shared rather than simply going through the motions. 

The way Eddie carefully rolls the end of the toothpaste tube before passing it to you, simply so it’s easier for you to get your share of it. The way you leave the water running after you’ve wet your own brush just so Eddie can also do so. All the sneaky glances caught in the mirror as the corners of your mouths foam up. Every ridiculous face, every nimble bump of your hip to his, the way he sticks out his very white tongue at you before he spits out into the basin – new things that have all become the normal, but still settle warmth in your chest.

Things that water a garden of vinery and blooms that no longer only belong within the confine of your bones, but his as well. 

A shared garden of memories and comfort. Growing, flourishing, nurturing one another. 

You lean down to spit right before him, and when you take a second too long, he tugs on a strand of your hair, trying to move you. And even as tired as you are, you find it within yourself to be a little shit as he so lovingly mumbles out around his toothbrush, lingering until he’s bumping you with his hip with purpose. 

Passing the floss back and forth (or more like you shoving the floss into his hands before he can try to argue against it), using the same paper cup to sip mouthwash out of – something so bland that you used to do it alone, now something to enjoy with him. 

You kind of love it. You kind of love him. 

“Should I wash my face?” you question, leaning in closer to the mirror and poking at your cheeks, checking your skin for any blemishes you can find. 

Eddie only moves behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and making the entire ordeal far more difficult as his chin rests on your shoulder, “Not if you don’t feel like it. Besides, it’s gonna make your nose cold, and then you’re gonna press it all over my damn neck and-” 

You cut him off with a joking glare, reaching up to flick at his nose, but he’s quick to pull his face out of your reach. Smiling widely, showing off those fresh and minty pearly whites. 

“If my cold nose bothers you that much, I could just stay on my side of the bed tonight,” you scowl, even though you were already taking his advice and calling it a night, twisting out of his hold to flick the lightswitch and exit the bathroom. 

He’s still stronger as he keeps his arms in place, only twisting himself around to face the door frame right with you, whining in your ear, “No.” 

He drags out the ‘o’, his voice slowly growing more quiet the longer he draws out the vowel. At some point, it’s less than Eddie has ended the protest, and more that he’s just run out of breath. 

His arms only leave your waist for the two of you to get dressed in proper pajamas. Well, what you both consider proper pajamas. 

You, left in only his shirt and underwear, and Eddie simply in his boxers. 

There’s no more sarcastic comments or lazy banter, although you certainly expect it. You’re almost holding your breath for it, right up until Eddie’s lifting his comforter and eagerly motioning for you to climb into bed first. Not one smartass remark about ladies first that could easily backfire on him as you shoved him into the bed before you. 

No, he waits until the two of you are lying on your sides, facing one another, not quite touching when his face breaks into a radiant smile. 

“What?” you ask, narrowing your eyes at him, overly suspicious of his random burst of happiness. 

“You call it your side of the bed.” 

At first, you don’t get it, “What?” 

“You called it your side of the bed,” he repeats with the utmost emphasis, finally throwing his hand out in search of your own, pulling it up to eye-level so he can toy slowly with each of your knuckles. 

“Is it not?” you’re whispering like two children at a sleepover, your feet finally drifting to toe at his calves. If they’re too cold for his liking, you don’t know. He doesn’t flinch or complain, only spreads his legs ever so slightly so there’s a space left for you to fill as you intertwine limbs. 

“It is,” he confirms, nodding a little, finally slotting his fingers between your own, “Just nice to hear you say it out loud.” 

And suddenly, you get it.

It’s your side of the bed. It’s your toothbrush resting beside his. Your textbooks and laptops are still on his couch, you have a sticky note with a reminder for yourself to buy more milk  put up on the fridge, there’s now a space for your shoes at the front door right beside his daily boots – slowly but surely, you’ve whittled out spaces for yourself here, with him. 

Even when you’re not here in this apartment with him, your presence remains. Someone could walk in, and they still see traces of you. You exist here, constantly, right along with Eddie. 

“Yeah,” you whisper back, finally scooching closer. He immediately shifts so that you can cuddle into his side, your head resting against his chest and your ear pressed to listen to his thrumming heartbeat. A perfectly carved out space for you even here, between this sheets, against his skin, “It’s nice to say out loud.” 

Not a routine, but a religion. Something to worship in the quiet hours between the sound of quiet snores and a noisy coffee maker you already have plans to replace as a Christmas gift to Eddie. An apartment turned altar, with offerings from both of you, to all that has and could become. 

You whisper your final prayer, just as you do every night, even when you think Eddie might already be fast asleep, “G’night, Eddie. I love you.” 

He’s not already asleep. 

“I love you, sweetheart.”

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[hidden-poet]

Professor Snow

1/1

Summary; Coriolanus takes a position at the university teaching military theory where he develops an unhealthy crush on one of his students.

Warnings; unethical behavior, teacher/student relationship, stalker behavior, coercive control, dubish consent, reader is not very smart, obsessive behavior, kidnapping, reader isn't described or named.

Editor: @hotline-to-hell

After studying under Dr. Gaul, he took her place at the University. 

She was only looking for a successor, and now that she had found one, she no longer wanted to waste time there. So Coriolanus became the University's military theory professor, in addition to his Gamemaking duties. 

He hated the first year. If the pest of the day wasn’t some annoying boy who had never seen war talking about how he single-handedly would have defeated the districts, it was a young girl wanting to single out his attention.

But in his second year, an infatuation started to soften his days to something close to enjoyment.

She always sat alone, at the front, but rarely took any notes. At first, she jotted every word from Professor Snow, but by the end of the first month, her note-taking had stopped and she drew flowers upon the pages instead. 

When Coriolanus put up a slide depicting the horrors of war he had witnessed, she winced. She was a delicate flower ready for debasing, and Coriolanus found himself protective of her. 

He would catch a young boy staring at her occasionally, innocently or not, and would proceed to make an example out of him. 

He would save her homework assignments to the end, eager to see her opinions and problem-solving. They were both terrible, but he passed her anyway. Her analysis lacked any original thought, she only regurgitated what previous men in power thought. Her disinterest in the class was evident, but he still wrote ‘great job’ on her papers only to see her smile. 

It occurred to him, however, that if he kept passing her, he would no longer have her in his class. She was set to graduate at the end of the semester, and he might not see her again. So he began to fail her homework assignments and even essays that were worth a pass. 

 He watched her face as it sagged when she received her first fail. He hated to disappoint her, but it was for her own good. The longer she was in his class, the more she would warm to him. 

She was embarrassed, hiding her paper in her book bag. 

She began taking notes again in class. Their eyes would meet and Coriolanus could feel himself turn into putty every time she would glance up to look at him. 

It happened twice, he would get so lost just staring at her that he forgot where he was going with his sentence or tune out a student asking him a question. 

Twice was enough to decide that his little blossom had to come home with him, where he could give her the appreciation she deserved. He hated to see her so stressed out over these assignments. He wanted to kiss her brows as they furrowed trying to understand the content. 

“It didn’t matter, darling. Don’t worry about it,” he wanted to say, but instead he put a red line through her work. 

One lecture she did nothing but stare at him. 

“Professor Snow?”  She approached him timidly with her paper in her hands.

“Yes, honey?” It was not an appropriate way to address a student, but she was more than that. 

“I was wondering if you could take another look at my paper?” 

He took it from her soft hold and pretended to review it. She stood so close, he could smell her perfume.

“What about this deserves a higher grade?”

“I got nearly a zero, sir. I met all the criteria.”

“No. Hobbes and Rousseau met the criteria and you copied them. Philosophers I taught about in this class, so I have very little interest in re-reading them in your poor and clunky paraphrasing.” 

Her shoulder dropped and tears welled in her eyes. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” He stood up from his chair and took her into his arms, yet another thing that would be disapproved of by the school board. 

“I am sorry.” She sobbed. Her tears felt so good upon his shirt. He would have kept her there longer but she pulled away, embarrassed. 

“I am sorry. I am being silly. It just seems like no matter how hard I try, I keep failing.” More tears run down her cheeks, making Coriolanus want to pull her back into his arms. He was left with no choice but to cross them over his chest. 

“I tried so hard. I spent weeks on this assignment only to get four percent more than a person who never turned it in at all!”

“I understand, blossom, but I asked you what you thought about the constant state of war. Not what Hobbes thought.”

She nods her head looking defeated. Her body shifts to turn back to the door. He couldn’t let her leave upset with him. 

He pulls her back by her arm and lifts her head up to his level, tipping up her chin. 

“Hey, what do you think? Are people in a constant state of war with each other?” 

He doesn’t remove his hands, liking their place. 

She shrugs her shoulders, her voice small and meek, giving away how much she wanted to leave him.  

“I don’t know. Hobbes said-”

“Forget Hobbes. What do you think would happen if we didn’t have laws governing us?”

He, for one, knows that he wouldn’t be wasting time asking philosophical questions that went over her head. He would pin her to the floor and have his way until his name was the only one she remembered, and then take her home to safety. 

“I think people look for order. We would naturally form some type of governing system that would work for all.” 

God, she was foolish. 

“All people look for order? You don’t think anyone would hurt you if there were no repercussions?” 

He could see he was scaring her so he backed off a bit. Letting his hands fall to his side. 

“We live in the Capitol, sir. There’s no guarantee that they would be met with repercussions here.” 

It was the first original thought he heard from her, and it wasn’t all the way incorrect. Corruption was prominent within the Capitol.

“I think people are good. Mostly. A few bad apples but…” she shrugs again, finishing her sentence before completion. 

“And what should we do with the ‘bad apples’?” 

What would she do to him? 

Another shrug and her eyes go floating around the room. 

“Help them, I guess.” 

A grin spread across his face. She would comfort the wolf that ate her. 

“Well,” he reaches across his desk for the paper and a pen. Although she was undeserving, he wrote a large A across the top. “I must say I disagree but the assignment is based on your perspective.” 

He hands the paper to her who stands shocked, but with a great big smile across her face. 

He would do anything to see her smile, even if it derailed his plans.

“Thank you, sir.” 

His mind raced with ways to keep her close but the next class needed the room soon. 

“You need extra help,” he takes his satchel off the floor and leads her to the door, “Come see me in my office on Tuesdays at 6.”

“I couldn’t sir. I wouldn’t want to be a burden.” 

Coriolanus felt as though he might die if she didn’t agree to come.

“My measure as a teacher is based upon my worst performing student.”

He knew his words stung her and he hated to do it but soon he would only speak sweet words to her. Coddling her from the world they live in.

“I would be more than happy to have a one-on-one with you.” 

—-------------

He dreamt of the upcoming Tuesday. The staff at the University were out for drinks and dinner so the office was always empty. He was completely alone with his girl. It made the long day worth it.  

He sat next to her, too close, as he helped her complete his homework on his office desk. 

She had asked him a question but it was lost upon his ears. 

“Hm?” He hums absentmindedly, before clearing his throat and trying a harder and deeper ‘hm’. 

“I am stuck on question 8.”

He leans over her to check the question. 

“It’s C.” 

“But why is it C?”

The question was simple, and Coriolanus was through with teaching for the day. 

“The answer is just C.” 

He gets up as she fills in the bubble. 

“Are you hungry?” He asks. 

“No, sir. Should I leave? I didn’t mean to interfere with your dinner.” 

She goes to get up but she had only been there an hour. He wanted more time.

“Sit,” he told her, rushing over to hinder her chance of escape. 

She doesn’t fight him, sitting down and dropping her homework back down. 

“I’ll order something in. Finish your homework.” 

He returns from his phone only to find that she had finished all her work. 

Disappointment filled him. It would only take a few seconds to check it and then she would leave. He tries to act indifferent. Essay homework would now be given. 

“Right, let's take a look.” With his guidance, the answers were all correct so his brain worked to make a reason to prolong her stay. 

“Very good, angel,” he praised and she glowed under him. 

“Now, your reading notes. I want to see that you picked up the right ideas.” 

He holds his hand out. Praying that she had no notes to give him. 

Her reaction told him she had not. Her shoulders shrunk, and her nose reddened. 

“You did do your readings, did you not?” He teases. 

“I was going to do it tomorrow morning,” she admits quietly. 

He fakes disappointment. “Oh no, petal. That won’t do. I need to see that you are understanding the content. Readings are crucial to your learning.” 

“I am sorry. I didn’t know you wanted me to have it done.” 

He shakes his head although he could laugh giddily. 

“Take your book out and begin.” 

She looked like a kicked cat as she started her readings. 

He remains close, marking other students' work next to her. He takes a break to retrieve the food when it arrives but her eyes never stray from the page. 

The food was lukewarm and nothing special but he acted as if it was the best thing he had ever eaten. 

He holds his fork out to her, hopeful but she politely declines, stating that she isn’t hungry. 

“You’re going to make me eat alone?” He asks, already opening all the containers on the desk. 

“I should really finish and go home. My parents are waiting for me.” 

“You don’t live in student accommodation?” He knew this already but confessing he did could seem obsessive. 

“No. My parents don’t live far so it's easy for me to commute.'' 

He hands her a plastic fork now that she is distracted from her work and she takes it. 

“What are your plans after graduation?”

He imagined her in his home pregnant. 

“I am not sure. My father wants me to take over the family business, but I’m not sure it’s for me.” 

The family business sold high-end jewelry. She was always adorned in it. 

“Why?” he pushes. 

She avoids his eyes again as she speaks. 

“I would like to do something that helps people,” she admits. 

“But you chose a business major?” Under a normal student/professor relationship he would not have known that without her telling him. But he spent hours going over her academic record. Her grades were not great, but they didn’t need to be. He would look after her.  

“My father chose a business major, I just completed it.”

She pushes her food away and brings back her textbook, “Well, almost. This class is the only one I have to complete to graduate.” 

“Better get back to studying then.”

He cleans up the food. He had no appetite either.  

It was good to know that she was susceptible to influence. If she did what her father wanted, as her husband, she would cause him little trouble. 

She yawns and he supposed he had kept her long enough. It was only a full workday before he could see her in class again. He wondered if he could devise a plan to see her on weekends. But for now, he bid her goodnight and saw her off in her car. 

They continued their Tuesday nights. Coriolanus even managed to get her to come in some Saturdays before a big test. He helped her not only with his class but all she signed up for. Coriolanus was blessed with an academic mind and found her business major incredibly easy while she struggled with proposals and understanding key learning criteria. It worked well for him seeing her nearly three times a week. He was beginning to think he would be able to pass her after all. The sooner she graduates, the sooner their student/teacher relationship ends and something more could bloom. 

When he entered class on Thursday, she was talking to another student. Another male student. It ruined his good mood completely. 

He barked at everyone to sit down, and the other student, who Coriolanus never bothered to learn the name of, thankfully went back to his usual seat up in the stands. 

He couldn’t help but glare at her during his lecture, along with slamming papers down on the desk too hard and manhandling University equipment. 

Did she know of his affections for her, and was now using them against him for a passing grade? Coriolanus Snow would not be made a fool. 

He spoke too fast for her to finish taking notes, leaving her to try to absorb information as much as she could. He dismissed the class after handing out the week's homework assignment, stopping by her desk last.

He places a hand up on her desk. “Stay,” he demands. 

She leaves her packed bag by her feet as her classmates exit the room. The boy had the gall to wave goodbye but she only smiled back.

He knew he had no reason to be mad. Classmates talk. But he is mad. He is so furious. 

He waits until the classroom is cleared before leaning closer with a fierce glare. 

“Is my class a joke to you?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Then perhaps you can tell me why after hours of wasting my time with you, you still manage to hand in something I can barely read, let alone pass?”

“What?” Her voice quivers. The grades were not released yet, so her hope for a pass was still standing. 

“Maybe if you spent less time flirting and more time studying I could have my nights back.” 

As an only daughter, she was unused to being spoken to harshly. So the words of an authority figure upset with her quickly made her eyes water. 

He wanted to pull her up from her seat and kiss her tears away, but she needed to know what she did was wrong. 

“You’ll have to redo it.” 

There goes her weekend and any plans with any boy, he thought. 

She nods her head, “Yes, sir.” 

“I want it on my desk by Monday morning.” 

She nods again. Thinking it was over, she reached for her bag. 

“Well?” He snaps. “Say thank you. I shouldn’t be giving you another chance.” 

“Thank you, Professor Snow.” She mutters. 

“What? Speak up,” he pushes. 

“Thank you, Professor Snow,” she says more loudly. 

“Go,” he flicks his hand towards the door and she rushes out. 

Coriolanus didn’t want to leave for the week with her still mad at him, he had to make amends. So he waits in the multi-level parking garage. It took him a while to find her car, relieved that it was still there. 

He waits for an hour, sitting on the hood of her car. When she does arrive, her eyes are red and puffy from crying. He felt terrible that he had caused her to bawl her eyes out for what was sure to have been an hour and a half. 

“Professor Snow?” She questions, making her way to the car. 

“Oh, precious. I am sorry.” She stood far enough in front of him that he could reach out and tug her forward into his hold. 

“I just want what’s best for you, darling.” And it’s not that boy. 

He proves he is stronger than her when she fails to break free from his hold. 

With his grasp, he uses his right arm to stretch over her and pull her jaw up to look at him. His left arm wrapped around her shoulders keeping her pressed against his chest. A loose curl fell over his forehead and across his eyes. 

“You were doing so well. You need to refocus, angel. We can study more together, you’ll get there.”

“You fail me for no reason”. Well, there was a reason. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, honey.” His grip suddenly turns painful, causing her to squirm but he keeps her face still up towards him. 

“Is he your friend too?” 

“What are you talking about?”

The sound of footsteps echoing through the concrete building forced Coriolanus to release his hold. He would have trouble explaining to the school board why he thought this position was appropriate. 

Another female student in tall heels makes her way up the slope. She had large headphones on that quieted the awful sound of her heels meeting the concrete floor, but it drowned further conversation between the two. 

With Coriolanus off her, she unlocks her car, throwing her bag into the passenger seat. 

“I won’t waste any more of your time, Professor Snow. Thank you for your help.”

If the other student had walked any faster, Coriolanus would have thrown open her car door and yanked her out. But even with the students' large headphones if she decided to scream it would be heard. So he steps out of the way, watching the sleek car go. He was left with an empty feeling and a quiet rage. 

—---------------

He taps his pen against his desk while his other hand is pressed against his lips, propping him up. He had expected her to make her way to him by now. He had sent her a reminder message that their study session was still on. 

He knew she would be here. She told him she hated studying at home. Her parents always distracted her. They loved their daughter and never put too much value on her schooling. Their money would take care of her before her husband came along. Her father would be happy for her to never marry and stay in the home, but he knew that he wouldn’t be around forever, and there would be a need to have someone else to look after her. 

Coriolanus knew that they only bothered to send their daughter to University as a hunting ground for eligible bachelors. While not the intended fish, Coriolanus was certain he could win over her parents. But first, he had to win her over. And she was making it very difficult by not keeping their plans. 

She was at the library, he was certain. Only 100 yards from his office. She would sit there until her assignment was done. He was sure to fail it again. 

His chair scrapes against the floor as he pushes it back. He storms through the University without coming across another soul. It was late Saturday, and students and academics had long started their weekend. It was perfect for him. He wouldn’t mind if everyone else in the world died, so long as it left him and his girl. It was a sunny day, the temperature warm enough to stay outside in it. Once he found her, he would suggest that they lay a blanket on the field. 

The library was dead. Capitol students were more interested in the social life of the University rather than the academic. He had expected that it was only her there, head burrowed into a book with her usual perplexed expression.

But through the book stands, he could see her sitting next to the boy from his class. They sat close together with books, coffee, and pens scattered over the table. 

“Trust me, he wants you to write more formally. Try this-” she transcribes his words onto her paper and Coriolanus makes himself known. 

“This is academic misconduct. You both could be expelled from the University.” 

Maybe that’s what she needed. Her family would surely shun her and with no earning potential of her own, it would drive her into his arms. 

“I was just helping.”

“You were just completing her assignment for her.” 

She shook her head, going to speak, “No-”

“Shut up,” he spat. 

He points to the young boy, “I want to speak to her alone. Leave.” 

They both wait until the boy is far enough so their conversation won’t be heard. 

She looks at Coriolanus with hopeful eyes. 

“Sir, I-”

“You fucking slut.” 

“Excuse me?” She asks, shocked. 

“Whoring yourself out for an assignment. What would your parents think?” 

She stands up behind the table, scooping her things into her arms. 

“How dare you suggest that. He was helping me because you suck at your job.”

He crosses the table and grabs her by the arm to stop her from leaving. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home.” She tugged against his hold but she was only a young woman, barely an adult, and he was a full-grown man. 

“We are going to the Dean, and you can explain to him that the reason you cheated is because he hired me.”

He doesn’t let go of her arm, using it to lead her to his car. She doesn’t fight him. She was too stupid to realize that the Dean wouldn’t hear concerns of academic misconduct on a Saturday. Or that Coriolanus had darker intentions than penalizing her for colluding with another student. 

He drove too fast through the city. Her hands clenched his leather seats but she said nothing to him the entire journey. When they arrive at his skyrise and the gates open to his carport, she sobers to the idea that she might be in danger. 

“Where are we?” She asks as he parks the car.

“Get out of the car,” he demands, unclipping his seat belt. 

She follows him willingly into the elevator and up to his penthouse. 

“Professor Snow, why are we here?” 

He slams the door shut behind her and uses the solidified door to push her up against it. 

“You are so fucking dumb, you know that? I’ve never seen anymore more undeserving of a place at the University than you.” 

He had his hand on her neck to keep her there but added no pressure to hurt her. 

“What was your plan with that boy? Use him to graduate and then get knocked up by him? Force him to marry you?”

“No! I didn’t have a plan. We’re just friends.” Her small hands go up around his wrists. 

“Well, I don’t like you being ‘just friends’ with him. You’re never to see him again.” 

She nodded as much as she could in her position. 

“Okay, sir. Just please let me go. My family are expecting me home.”

Now that she was here, he didn’t like the idea of any other place being her home.

“Take your phone out of your pocket and tell your parents that you’re spending the weekend at Sophie's.” 

Sophie was her best friend. She spoke of her often but Coriolanus had never met her. 

She does as she was told, and Coriolanus leans in closer to watch her type the message on the family group chat. She was an adult and could stay where she pleased, so long as it was a preapproved place by her father, and Sophie’s was. 

He takes the phone, pocketing it and releasing her from the door. 

Her hand reached back to open it but the lock sprang up. 

“Why did I have to tell them that?” She questions. 

He knew now, and forever more, he was going to have to spell things out for her.

“We’ve had a terrible fight and now just need time to regather ourselves.” 

He walks towards the open kitchen expecting her to follow. 

“I am sorry. You can tell the Dean. I’ll be expelled for misconduct.” 

“You think I care about academic misconduct? What do you think we were doing these past few weeks? I was doing your homework.” 

She followed him to the kitchen now, and he could feel her presence behind him as he reached into the fridge for one of the fizzy drinks she liked. He stocked up in case she ever did decide to come over. 

“What are you doing? Let me out then.” 

He cracked open the tin and took a sip. It was sweet and too bubbly for his liking. 

“Your parents sent you to school to find a husband. I think it’s time you found one.”

“I told you, I wasn't flirting with him!” She protested. 

“Me, you dumb girl.” 

She looked taken back. She steps back away from him, her eyes wide and frightened. 

“You? Professor Snow-”

“I think given everything, you can call me Coriolanus, sweetheart.” 

She retreats to the living room to create some distance. 

“I am sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.” 

He scoffs at her, placing the can on the kitchen island and following her to where she stood. 

“I won’t tell anyone about this,” she offers, “Just open the door.”

He chooses to sit, pulling her down on top of him. Her dress rises up to her thighs and he takes a second to run his hands up and down them. He helps her position her legs around his waist before holding her down by her hips.

“You don’t find me handsome, is that it?” He asks. He saw the way she looked at him when she thought he couldn’t see her. He knew she wasn’t immune to his natural good looks. 

“Please, Professor Snow. I just want to go home.” 

“Oh, love. You’re going to be staying here now with me, darling.” 

“No. No I can't, I have to go home.” 

Coriolanus shakes his head. “This is your home now, beautiful.”

He really hated to see her cry.

“Everything’s going to be fine, sweetheart. Don’t cry.” He reaches up and wipes the tears as they fall. 

Her jewelry jingles as she runs her hands through her hair. For the first time, it bothered Coriolanus. It felt as though the jewelry was symbolic of her father's hold over her. She was Coriolanus' property now. Her chains belonged to him. 

He began by sliding her gold bangles off her wrists and unclipping the delicate bracelets that hid in between them. He let them fall around him, unbothered. She doesn’t stop him as he reaches for her necklace and earrings. 

He smiles up at her now that she is bare from her jewelry. He slides his hands up to the back of her shoulders and pushes her to rest on his chest.  

—-------------

Coriolanus took the week off work to help her settle. He woke up early this morning next to her and went to get her favorite breakfast sandwich from a nearby café. 

The line was long so when he returned home, he knew she would be up. 

“Are you hungry, petal? I got us some food,” he calls out.  

He places the food on the table, upon hearing no reply. 

“Petal?” He calls. “Sweetheart?” 

He searches his apartment to find her sitting by the door to the greenhouse, crying. He crouches down next to an expensive marble statue that she had used as a battering ram. 

“Well, why did you break it if you didn’t want it broken?” He spoke to her as if he was speaking to a child. 

“It wouldn’t break,’’ she sobbed. “I couldn’t get it to crack open.”

He taps against the reinforced glass that has only minor cracks. 

“It’s tough,” he consoles. If anyone else would have broken his things, he would have gone berserk, but she had free reign to smash and destroy what she liked. 

“Come here,” he picks her up by her arms, forcing her to her feet and back into the bedroom. 

“I want to go home to my parents,” she cried. 

“I am not keeping you from your parents, petal” he says, placing her back into bed, “We’ll go visit them when you feel better.”

She curls into her side and he places himself behind her, halfway on top of her so he could speak gently into her ear. 

“Don’t you want me to take care of you? Make your father proud of the man you’ve chosen? All your parents want is for you to be married. You could give it to them and never have to worry about a single thing again.” 

She uncurls herself slightly, encouraging him to keep going. 

“I’ll make sure you pass all your classes. Have the finest things. All you need to do is be my good little girl. So easy, even you could do it.” 

He knew she had deep anxiety about the future. He could offer her a world, where all of the if’s were disintegrated. She was interested in it, flipping on her back to look up at him. 

“We’ll wait until you graduate to announce our relationship. We’ll tell your parents tonight.” He wanted to strike while she was still in a deluded state. “You’ll move in. Become my personal assistant after graduation. You said you wanted to help people. Help me. Your dad will be so proud of you.” 

He clouded her mind. It was an easy way out from everything that troubled her, offered by a man who she had crushed on but never thought she could have. 

She nods her head, even before she was aware of it. Only the crushing feeling of his lips against hers brought her head movements to attention. 

They both returned to the classroom on Thursday for the final exam. Her mind knew that Coriolanus was not right in the head. That he couldn’t love like a normal person. But it was too late. Her parents approved of the relationship. Her father was glad that it was an older, successful man rather than an immature young boy. And her mother was glad that he was handsome and rich. It would disappoint them, despite the circumstances of the relationship, to break it off. Coriolanus had already promised them a wedding by the end of the following year. Coriolanus acted indifferent to her in class, not even looking at her as he placed the exam paper down in front of her. It was already filled out with the answers. All she had to do was sit there for an hour pretending. Nevertheless, that night they celebrated her achievement. Coriolanus told her how smart she was, and that her grades placed her at the top of his class. And his work ensured that she at least passed the rest of hers. The rest of the school year was spent organizing a graduation party while Coriolanus handed in work with her name on it. This life was easy, but came at a price. Her life was no longer hers. Coriolanus played with it like a doll. 

Everything was done together or not at all. He considered her his, and as such, expected everything she did to be run past him first. 

“Yes, Professor Snow.” She would tease him when he gave her an outright demand, instead of dressing it up with sweet talk. 

He left his position at the University to his successor, much like Dr Gaul did. He had bigger things to focus on. His presidential run and growing family took precedence over teaching military theory and the likes of Hobbes and Rousseau. He laughed at her when she failed to remember the ideas of Hobbes. His dumb, naive little girl never had to worry about the state of warre that plagued mankind. He would protect her from humanity in its entirety. 

[urrockstar-xe]

starstruck - p.parker x fem!reader

posted nov 7th, 2023 10:15 pm

my silly little imagine i wrote today just for you silly little guys

summary: after a nasty run in with the Rhino, Spidey goes to his favorite civilian, who happens to be good with bandages, but not great with science.

reader is implied to be bad at science and thinks Midtown High is a nerd school, reader is also implied to know spidey fairly well atp

part two :)

masterlist

wordcount: 1.2k

the sound of "thwips" and wind coming from outside your window mixed with the usual city noise that served as your own personal lo-fi as you studied.

A sudden knock on your window caught your attention, grabbing you away from the task at hand. a bird, you assumed, turning back to your laptop and trying to find the point you left on, right, essay, you begin typing again,

in the early- thump thump Thump

three more rapid knocks on your window. Okay, not a bird.

but a spider.

you groaned, moving your laptop to your nightstand and standing from your warm bed, hissing at the cold hitting your bare legs, and cursing yourself for not doing laundry when the sun was out.

You walked towards the window, opening your curtain to reveal the familiar mask of New York's very own superhero. 

“spidey, we talked about this” you spoke in a sing-song voice as you pulled your window open, another hit of the cold wind hitting you as Spiderman stumbled into your dark bedroom. Laughing quietly and breathlessly as he did so. “Need your assistance,” he groaned once more, sitting on your floor and watching you through his mask as you closed the window. 

“You're hurt?” you moved to turn on the lights, cringing at the sudden brightness and then wincing at the sight of Spiderman’s side, “what the hell did you do?” 

“I fought a giant rhino” his response was too quick to be one of his usual snappy jokes, causing you to give him a confused and mortified look in response as you hurriedly dragged the first aid kit out from under your bed, 

“Don't worry about it- hey, wasn't that in your bathroom before?” he asked, before taking another deep breath and turning his gaze to your ceiling. “yeah, moved in here after you fought that lizard guy” you mumbled back, focused on getting out the proper supplies

or at least what you thought was the proper supplies

“hey aren't you cold? why aren't you wearing pants or like a onesie or-“ 

“Oh, you mean like yours?”

“Alright, touche”

You can’t help but laugh at the stupid word exchange the two of you had as you watched Spiderman peel off the top half of his suit, careful to leave his mask untouched and you respected this as he was vulnerably showing you a different side to the hero already, allowing you to see what most couldn't which was most definitely the rocky side of being New York’s Spiderman and definitely not his abbs (though you appreciated those too)

“By the way, not that I took what you said seriously or anything or that it hurt my feelings but, this is a suit, not a onesie,” Spidey said through small gasps of pain, leaning his head back into the edge of your bed as you cleaned the gaping stab wound in his side. 

“I’m sorry” You're not sure if you meant the onesie or the pain he was in but either way worked at this moment as just his shaky breaths alone made you feel guilty

Spidey stayed unusually quiet as you cleaned him up, so far having avoided stitches pretty well as you topped it off with as much bandaging supplies as you had. 

He groaned once more, before picking his head back up and looking back at you as you stood up and made your way to your desk, carefully picking up the roll of paper towels that you were previously upset at yourself for leaving in your room after cleaning this morning, although now that feeling was replaced with gratitude as you used a few sheets as a barrier to not get blood on your doorknob-

“Hey, where you goin'?” you turned your attention back to the masked vigilante who was just bleeding out on your bedroom floor. “Just to the bathroom, to clean my hands, why? Is there more?” You asked, panicked you’d have to go rummage through every cabinet in your house for more bandages. 

“Just be fast okay? Don’ wanna be alone' ' His voice sounded weak and barely audible which honestly made you panic more as you nodded in response, leaving your room to not only wash your hands but also grab a water bottle and the package of bread from your counter.

Quickly you examined the bread, searching for any sign of mold as you walked back into your room and sat across from Spiderman, setting your new items down and opening the water bottle.

“Let’s make a deal, Spidey, you drink this and you eat some of this bread at least one piece and I’ll turn around so I won’t even see a little of your face” You began negotiating, Spidey responded by lifting the bottom half of his mask to just barely above his nose, taking the water bottle with shaky hands. 

You stilled, watching him take a drink and then quickly looking down and fumbling with the packaging of the bread when you realized you were just staring at Spiderman’s lips.

Thankfully though, he ignored it, instead deciding he had the energy to tease you about something else, “bread? Just plain bread?” 

You scoffed, taking out a slice and handing it to him, watching him to a bite.

“you get what you get and you don’t throw fits” you scolded the way you did the little boy you babysit occasionally, earning a choke in response before another quiet chuckle,

okay so he’s not all lost, good. 

You sighed, putting your hand on your cheek for a second and realizing just how warm you had gotten, “listen, you wanted me back fast and this was the only thing I really had in my kitchen right now so-” He cut you off before you could finish your explanation, “thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you”

I don’t know what I’d do without you, These words that Spiderman just said to you rang in your ears for a few seconds until you sighed once more, nodding. “Although some pizza-” You groaned as he began talking, earning another more lively chuckle in return, a lingering smile on his face, this time you allowed yourself to stare, having never seen even the smallest bit of his face let alone his smile. It's nice.

“What is?” he frowned in confusion, you felt your face heat up once more. “Your smile it’s nice,” you explained, earning a nod of thanks in response as he bit into the slice of bread. He hummed as if it was the best thing he had ever tasted before once more leaning his head back into your bed.

You tried to ignore the way he looked like this, he’s injured, take a cold shower.  “So, what now huh?” you asked quietly, suddenly anxiously aware that other people lived in your apartment.

“Oh, my bad, I’m so inconsiderate- I-I’ll get out of your hair, your family is asleep and it’s school night I- my bad, I’m sorry” You watched as he stood up incredibly unstable as he did so, “hey, you don’t have-” “thank you, for you know, lettin me stain your nice carpet” he joked meekly, letting out a weak laugh as he gasped once more, struggling to put on the remains of his mangled suit, 

“Okay, Jesus, c’mon Spidey, let me help you with that” You mumbled, standing up and doing your best to help him into the top half of his suit and then watching him shove on his left glove while the other hung in his mouth.

He tried to talk, words muffled by his glove but quickly released as you took it from his teeth, causing his attention to fall completely back on you as he stopped his actions. “See you around?” He said, in an attempt to sound normal and not in immense pain. “Be safe, Spidey, don't really know what I’d do without you” You threw his words back into his face in a soft tone, gently pulling his mask down over his nose and mouth. 

“Of course,” he responded in a similar tone, almost starstruck as he put on his right glove, thanking you quietly once more before limping back out onto the fire escape outside your window, not sparing a second look as he swung into the noisy city and out of your quiet and now rather lonely room.

After cleaning up the mess you had made, you quit studying for the night, no longer able to focus with the image of Spiderman’s smile stuck in your head, you settled for bed.

But you didn’t get to sleep for another few hours.

After spending a few unfortunate hours in school the next day you had finally been free to go home and take a nap but of course, not before meeting the tutor your counselor had found for you, a student from the fancy school not too far from yours, Midtown High but of course you and your friends just considered it the school of nerds-

“Hey, You Y/n Y/l/n?” The voice that You had thought sounded awfully familiar took you away from your thoughts as you turned around to see who you assumed was Peter Parker, your tutor. “Peter?” You ask with a friendly smile, holding onto the straps on your backpack.

He looked almost starstruck before he shook his head and gave you a similar polite smile, “Nice to meet you”

[wolfjackle-creates]

Please tell me that with 'Johnny and Kitty pocess Superman and Batman' That they are either on a date or go on a date after a fight? Please this needs to happen

@britcision also asked about this one!

So I was looking through what I wrote of this and...it's not that good. It's based on a prompt from back in Nov 2022 and I was still figuring things out back then and needed to rewrite everything I wrote at least once. It's less crack than you'd expect from the title, I'm afraid.

So I'm gonna do part of that rewrite. Because I'm insane and don't have self control. 🤣

Anyway, the prompt is from @zeestarfishalien and can be found here. Oddly it doesn't have half as many notes as I remember it having. Huh. Guess I thought it had more because I latched onto it so strongly.

Anyway, enjoy!

Word Count: 1.6k

-----

"Danny!" yelled Jazz from downstairs.

Danny froze for just a moment. That was Jazz's something-is-wrong voice. He dropped through the floor to get to her that much quicker. "What happened?" he demanded.

She just pointed to the TV where a news reporter was standing in a city. Behind her, Batman stood next to the open driver's side door to the batmobile while Superman floated in the air a few feet away with his arms crossed.

"Don't look at me like that, baby," said Batman.

"I will look at you however the hell I want. You forgot our date, asshole!" yelled Superman back.

The reporter grinned at the camera. "Looks like quite the lover's tiff we've stumbled upon! Who would have ever suspected Batman and Superman of being in a relationship?"

Behind her, Superman used his heat vision to shoot at Batman who cursed loudly before jumping into his car and speeding off. Superman huffed and flew in the opposite direction. Jazz muted the TV while the reporter continued making speculations about Batman and Superman's relationship. Danny stared at Jazz in horror.

"That was—"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think it was."

Danny closed his eyes and thought about the half finished essay he had upstairs and the history test he had the next day and how his parents would be home in an hour. He wanted to cry.

"I have to go to Gotham."

"I'll take care of our parents. Have you had the flu yet this year?"

Danny's laugh had a hysterical edge to it. "Tuck's been keeping track of my excuses. Ask him. I'll just…" Danny let the sentence trail as he transformed and flew out of the house without another word.

Even flying as fast as he could, he didn't arrive in Gotham until night had fallen. He tried to sense Johnny or Kitty or listen for the chaos that always followed them, but the city was so big.

After over half an hour of searching with no luck, Danny was sitting on a roof with his head buried in his knees trying not to cry. He only had so many hours before he had to be back in Amity for school. If he missed any more days, he'd get a suspension and his parents would be livid.

Just then, the clock tower chimed ten. Danny lifted his head to look at the tall building, one of the tallest in the city. He might not have any idea how to find Batman, but surely the other heroes would. Maybe he could get their attention?

In a matter of minutes, he was floating above the clock tower. With a deep breath, he shot an ectoblast up into the sky. Two minutes later, he repeated the action.

Not long after his fifth blast, two grapple hooks attached to the tower near his feet and seconds later he was facing Batman and Robin.

Danny immediately fell into a fighting stance. "Johnny, I'm not going to let you get away with this. Get out of him. Now."

But instead of calling him a do-gooder nerd, Batman pulled out a batarang and held it ready to throw. "I'm not this Johnny," he growled.

Danny relaxed and sighed in relief. "Oh thank the ancients, you got him out. I'm so, so sorry, Batman! I know you and the Justice League are relying on me to keep the ghosts from escaping Amity. Johnny and Kitty must’ve gotten past me. How'd you get Johnny out? Were you able to help Superman? Kitty is at least reasonable most of the time so I hope she didn't give you any trouble. Where are they now? I'll just collect them and bring them back to the Realms."

Robin pulled out his sword and pointed it at Danny. "What do you know of Fa— Batman's condition? Who is this 'Johnny' you speak of?"

Danny's core stuttered in his chest. The kid couldn't mean… He looked past the blade pointed at him towards Batman. "You… aren't Batman. Are you? You're covering for him while Johnny is overshadowing the real one."

Batman put a hand on Robin's shoulder. "Lower the sword, Robin." To Danny, he said, "I think you owe us some explanations."

Danny buried his head in his hands and tried to bite back the tears. He was so tired. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. This is my fault. They got past me and I failed. I'm so sorry."

“Desist with your groveling and explain!” ordered Robin.

“Right, yeah. Of course. Sorry.” Danny looked up, but the stars were hidden behind smog and lights. He sighed. “I’m Phantom, of course. Responsible for monitoring the portal in Amity and keeping ghosts from coming through and causing problems on Earth. Also for stopping human hunters from hurting any ghosts. Johnny and Kitty, two ghosts, must have gotten past me. I’m careful, I swear. We set up an alarm on the portal so I know the moment someone comes through, but I missed them somehow. I…maybe they came through at the same time as someone else? I’ve had to deal with Skulker and Boxy so far this week. And Queen Dora came for a visit and one of Pandora’s people stopped by to drop something off. So if Johnny and Kitty came through at the same time… Pariah curse it, I should’ve realized. What a stupid design flaw. I’ll be working on a fix for that as soon as I get out of school tomorrow. I’d do it sooner, but I’ve a test you see. And if I miss any more class, I’ll get a suspension, and then my parents really will kill me again.”

Danny winced when he saw Robin’s fingers twitch towards his sword again. “Sorry! No more excuses. It’ll be fixed ASAP, promise. Um, Johnny is generally into motorcycles, but I think he saw the Batmobile and wanted to take it for a ride so he overshadowed Batman. From what I saw on the news, he blew off a date with Kitty to do it so she’s pissed and followed him and ended up overshadowing Superman. Probably so she could use his powers on top of her own to punish Johnny.” He trailed off and waited for the yelling to start.

But they were silent.

Danny shifted from foot to foot. “Again, I’m really sorry. I know you rely on me to keep this from happening and I swear it won’t again. But if you tell me where you think Batman is, I’ll go retrieve Johnny. Same with Superman and Kitty. I need to get this wrapped up by four, maybe four thirty, so I can get home in time for school to start.” He couldn’t hold back a yawn. He just wanted to sleep.

Batman and Robin exchanged a glance and Batman put away his weapon. “I’ve never heard of you or this Amity before. You’re a kid, who is your Justice League mentor? Why aren’t they here?”

“I… What? Justice League mentor? What are you talking about? All of my mentors are ghosts.”

Robin snorted. “Who informed you that it was your responsibility to monitor this portal that allows these ghosts to invade? Why are you the only one preventing attacks such as this?”

Danny bristled. “I’m not alone! Sam and Tucker and my sister help me!”

“Are they kids like you?” asked Batman.

“If by like me you mean ghosts, of course not. They’re fully alive. I’m the only ghost of the group.”

“No,” said Batman after a pause. “That’s not what I meant. I wanted to know if they were teenagers who still go to school like you or if they were adults you worked with.”

Danny shrugged. “Jazz is starting college next year, but yeah. They’re my friends.”

Batman let out a long breath. “Right. And why do you think the Justice League is expecting you, specifically, to monitor this portal?”

Danny threw up his hands. “Because you told me that!” He saw Batman open his mouth to say something and quickly added, “Not you specifically, but, like, the League. This guy Constantine came by a month or two after the portal opened and saw me and relaxed. Said he was glad to see I was already handling things there. Gave me a number and laughed and said if anyone could handle the situation, it’d be me, but I could call if I needed back up.” He shrugged. “And he was right. So far I have been able to handle it. This is an exception and I’ll get it fixed in a few hours tops.”

Robin ground his teeth. “That lazy magician.”

Batman also muttered something under his breath. “Thank you, Phantom. For doing so much on your own. If you tell us how to free Batman and Superman, we can handle it from here.”

“What?” Danny shook his head in confusion. “What are you talking about? You need specialized weapons that I don’t have on me and containment devices and access to a portal to the Realms to get rid of them. Seriously, I can get this taken care of. Just tell me where Batman is.”

Batman sighed again. “We don’t have much of a choice. Fine. But will you be able to get us these weapons and containment devices if we requested some of you? We’ll pay you, of course. And we’d like more details on what you’ve been dealing with. I’m afraid Constantine… did not share the details of your dealings with the rest of us.”

“Yeah, sure. The weapons are made by Drs. Jack and Maddie Fenton of FentonWorks, based out of Amity Park, Illinois. Their son Danny can help you pick out the most useful ones. Some are more torture device than anything, though, so definitely avoid those. Danny will be able to tell you the difference.”

Batman nodded once, jaw clenched. “Thank you. Now, I’ve just gotten an update on the possessed Batman’s location. Follow us.”

-----

Dick is pretending to be Batman here. If they have a "normal" batman out, then they can show the possessed batman is an imposter.

I saw some debate on the original over whether Johnny would possess Batman or Superman. To me, the answer was obvious. He'd possess Batman because he wanted to take the Batmobile for a spin.

Meanwhile, Kitty is the smart one. She'd go for Superman because then she could use his powers and her own to 1) punish Johnny and 2) prevent anyone from stopping them.

Regarding Constantine: He made an oops, but it's not (fully) his fault. Due to time missions from Clockwork, Phantom is shown to be thousands of years old and is known for fantastic feats. If Constantine had known this was some fourteen year old newly dead kid, he'd have acted differently. Instead, he thinks Danny is older than he is with millenia of experience.

This is free for anyone to continue!

[saturnbellfromhell]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS

On today's astrology post I will list my favorite placements, signs and aspects. Now, there are many of them so I'll make a part two next week if this this one is liked by all of you. Hope you enjoy!

🟤 Jupiter in the 1st House

This placement is like finding a pearl in the ocean. These natives ooze positivity, truthfulness and cuteness. Their desire to make others feel content and loved is something I admire about them. They are the wise and thoughtful one of the group and they truly deserve the biggest hug anyone can give.

🟤 Mercury in the 9th house

The dictionary on two legs. These people are so interesting to befriend. They always have new knowledge to spread and are interested in anything from novels, essays, poetry, encyclopedias...they are hungry to learn and spread their knowledge. They also love learning other languages and others traditions. Very open to talk about anything and everything.

🟤 Cancer Moon

I've already wrote about this placement in my Moon saga, but it definitely needs another reminder. The softness, loyalty and nurture these people have is healing, physically and emotionally. They will do anything to make you feel comfortable and safe, always help you with anything you need and never back down from you even if the whole world is against you.

🟤 Lilith in the 1st house

They're just the definition of sexiness. You can spot them from a mile away and the moment you touch them you can really feel this raw energy they give.

🟤 Sun in 8th house

Having such a personal sign in one of the darkest houses can be quite a storm to overcome. Nevertheless these people are so brave and utterly beautiful from the inside. They hold their pain away from the world with a hard shell of humor and sarcasm. This placement is the one which inspires many. They deserve recognition and to be taken care of.

🟤 Mercury in Pisces

They just know how to explain everything in your manner, being that you're a child, teenager or grown adult they are so patient and talented for it. Never wanting to fight, always thinking before speaking and truly an emotional fairy of words.

🟤 Moon in the 12th house

These natives feel everything and anything. They always know how to make your day better of what to get you for your birthday. With a collective sense of emotion and the willingness to constantly heal, these are the witches of the zodiac. The one's always seeking the darkest parts of others and seeing beauty in it.

🟤 Scorpio Rising

They have such a captivating appearance with their fierce look and everylasting eyelashes. They seem scary and creepy to some, but I beg to differ.

🟤 Scorpio Sun

Even though people love to hate Scorpio sun's, I absolutely adore them. I mean I am a Cap, so dark humor, making fun of others, the cold shoulder and sarcasm are nothing new to me. They are very loyal individuals, that's a fact, even though I've never dated one...but the friends I had as Scorpios are amazing people to have around.

🟤Sun trine Moon

What can I say, the harmonius aspect between the ego and the heart. These individuals are the calm one's who always have a wise answer for everything. Down to earth and an amazing support system.

🟤 Pluto in the 9th house

These individuals cam experience some rocky times in school and/or college, but after some ups and downs they are such interesting individuals. I've also met alot with this placement who love anything crime related especially serial killers and looking into their demonior and motives. They are the curious cats and are highly intelligent. Absolutely oppressed with these people.

🟤 Leo Venus

Even though they're not for me, being a earth Venus they are the one's that love showing their partner off and put them on a pedestal. They make you feel like a Hollywood star and being out the red carpet out every other day. They are the one's to spoil the hell out of you.

🟤 Neptune in the 11th house

Having this placement myself I know the struggle of always believing others and getting hurt by their selfishness. You always feel like your peoples second even though ypu try your best. So all my Neptune 11th hoursers, you're not alone. Love you alot!

Xoxo Numa

[cokoweee]

My ass is back, and I'm gonna do another take on analyzing your shit. Take 2 on analyzing things!

So BEAR WITH ME!

First off I know the lyrics of the song literally say what those two feel. But I'm more interested on how your genius mind made Donnie act. So we ignore the lyrics and concentrate on his body language and expression.

Even if that animatic made you feral, there are really good frames. In literally every frame it is clear that Donnie unconsciously or even instinctively searches for Kendra, already in picture one( yeah I call them like that), he is already following, his arm is lifting up. And his face shows wonder and maybe some slight uneasiness because Kendra moves away.

Then homeboy literally starts to turn his full body where Kendra just went, his expression just screams slightly fear, that Kendra leaves(*ahem*like his brothers). Maybe it can already be interpreted that he doesn't want loose Kendra. And he works through that in that dream.

What makes this absolutely great is, Donnie is the one who reaches out. He is the one who stretches his arms to HER. He may looks like he does not want anyone near him, because boy is traumatized, but his unconsciousness doesn't want to be truly left alone. We can see how he also leans his body forward, really wanting to get to Kendra. And again, he reaches out.

In the frame before this, he once again reached out to her, gave her his hands, which she gladly took. What makes this also great, he now PULLS her to HIM. In his dream and maybe in his deep deep unconsciousness he wants to get her closer, wants her to be near to him.

I could add more frames but I think then it would become an essay. What the essential of this shit was is, I like how you made his body language instinctively yearn for Kendra, him reaching out, him walking towards her. Showing that he wants to let her in, but is scared. He knows it is logical to not let her in, because what if she gets hurt again? And what if she doesn't recover like last time? Will she die like my brothers? But despite that he is already deep in, we can see it in the last frame when he wakes up, when he realizes what he just dreamed and what he wants deep down, but doesn't know if he should act on it or just push it away.

Well! That was my analysis now I'm gotta go and hide because who knows what the hell I just wrote👁👄👁

Just woke up so it took a few tries to read this but IK FUCKINNH LOVE WHEN ANSLYZE

Got me lookin goofy all laughin an shit. U a smart cookie cause blah blah at some point during this I was like “subliminal messages” without even knowin wtf it is. YOU THO getting shit that’s hell yeah! Oh damn I’m tired just I LOVE ANALYZE ASKS y’all cool u cool nom nom nom nom

[chubsonthemoon]

Last Binderary book is DONE!!!! This is the incredible Maybe sprout wings, by @moorishflower.

This post is going to be a doozy, so gonna just skip straight to the cut!

INTERIOR

INTRODUCTION

I really wanted to model this bind after my own copy of the Odyssey, (which is all highlighted and bookmarked and annotated to hell from my Great Text courses in undergrad ehe, so this bind was such a fun trip down memory lane!). But beyond just the cover/general aesthetic, I also wanted to give the book a similar feel to these kinds of editions of classics--there's usually an introduction, translation notes, and other supplementary materials, right? Like, a physical manifestation of the work of many, many people, all having conversations with one another across time and space.

So that's what I did! I wrote a short introduction (I will also probably post it to my AO3/my blog as well, in the name of preservation etc. etc.) and began reaching out to folks in the fandom who I knew had created art and meta for the fic. The result? 18k words of analysis, comments, and meta, and nearly twenty pages of art!

And this is what I love most about this bind, I think! This book is the work of several people--truly a collaborative work by the fandom--all of whom I will now be shamelessly calling out below :D

CHAPTER HEADER ART

First and foremost, this book would not be what it is without the gorgeous header art by @fancy-rock-dove! Thank you so much Dove for letting include your work, and for being so supportive and kind these past few weeks about this bind <3 You in particular have contributed so much to this book (which I will be getting more into in the next section ehe), and I'm so psyched I get to hold your art and words, too!

NOTES ON THE TEXT

This section was divided into four parts: Asks and Answers, Meta, Selected Comments, and Chapter Heading Art: Process

For Asks and Answers, I trawled Heather's blog for meta she had written in response to questions and other meta about the fic. Asks came from @fancy-rock-dove, @quillingwords, @kulapti, and myself! (I THINK I got all of them--tumblr's search function is finnicky even on its best days, so so sorry if I missed something T_T) I first got hooked into reading this fic because of one of these asks, so I'm very fond of this section in particular :D

For Meta, I included two wonderful essays written by @pastrypuppy (also known as @kulapti) about Hob as an author figure and the Disrupted Fisher King narrative in MSW. Her analyses were so fascinating and I just had to include them in the book! (And thank you as well for your permission, friend!) (also hello fellow Renegade comrade 🫡)

For Selected Comments, I owe everything to (once again :3) @fancy-rock-dove, whose insights are the epitome of transformative fandom at work. I'd look for their comments after I read every chapter to see what their takes were on this or that element of the story, and every single time I would go "!!!!! I didn't even realize!!!" or "OOOOOOOH I hadn't thought of that!!" It was like being in a lecture hall and always whipping your head around when one of your classmates raised their hand, because you knew they were going to say something fascinating that you hadn't considered before.

Aside from one of my own comments, Dove's comments make up the entirety of this section (for which I owe you my life--your long-form responses to fics are a gift to this world) but GOSH was it also so much fun going through the comments section while typesetting and seeing all the keyboard smashing, yelling, and crying from the other commenters. Communal nature of storytelling and ongoing meaning-making of fanfiction, babey!

And finally for Chapter Heading Art: Process: once again Dove coming in clutch with some wonderful insights into the design of each of the chapter heading art pieces! This kind of stuff is honestly my favorite: meta about art for a fic which is, in turn, a transformation of an existing story (not even to mention that The Sandman is its own kind of fanfiction of existing mythologies and histories)--I just!! Think it's all really, really neat :'D (for more coherent/polished thoughts on this pls see my introduction asjdfkls)

ART

The art gallery!!! A million thanks to @fishfingersandscarves, @honeyseller, @jazzpsych, @doctor-rainbowfoxey, and (HI AGAIN DOVE) @fancy-rock-dove for granting me permission to include all of your beautiful pieces!

As usual for artworks in my binds, I printed each piece out on specialty photo paper to really make the colors pop, then sewed each page separately to the text block! Behold, everyone's beautiful beautiful pieces!

The art gallery also satisfies the certain "oooh shiny" part of my brain that always activates when I see pictures in a book, so am also very fond of this section :3

CONSTRUCTION

And now on to the nitty gritty stuff! I used the German Bradel binding technique again, my second time using it. Even though it's more complicated than the case bind, I really love how it gives you the full board space for the cover designs (~it's free real estate~). Keep it a secret but I kiiiiiiind of made a small goof in the last few steps (I did the turn-ins a step too early and so had to paste an extra sheet of cardstock to secure the spine to the boards, whoopsie), but it's a pretty small difference, aesthetically speaking, so it wasn't the end of the world XD

Edges are once again fake gilded, but this time I tried something new with the colors! I did two layers of acrylic paint--one watered down shade of red for the base, then one metallic gold on top of that. I really like the red/gold effect! I'll have to keep experimenting with this kind of layering:

ALSO. Y'ALL! I think I'm finally getting the hang of endbands!!! Many thanks to the folks at Renegade who hosted all the endband workshops last month--I'm still working through them, but even the few sessions I've seen have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I learned that tension is Very Important, as well as thread thickness, so I tried doubling my thread and keeping a Very Close Eye on how I was holding the threads while doing the beads. And behold! I still have a ways to go (and one day I would LOVE to do the fancier designs), but I'm v happy with the progress I've made so far!

And finally the covers!! ARCHIVAL MOD PODGE MY BELOVED. I printed on the same matte presentation paper that I used for the art, then did several coats of archival matte mod podge + a pass of gloss mod podge over the title strip to make it ~shiny~. Then once those had dried and I'd adhered them to the boards, I sprayed two layers of matte clear acrylic sealer (also mod podge!) to finish it off. I had some issues with the paper tearing when I handled it before it was fully dry, but luckily the blemishes were small enough that it was easy to do spot corrections with my black acrylic paint. And now I know to be more patient next time LOL

(some non-photoshoot shots that show the shine a little better!)

FINAL THOUGHTS

I had a lot of thoughts while I was binding this book--about Sandman fandom, about Dreamling fandom, about the Odyssey, about storytelling, about fanbinding, about Binderary, about Renegade, about my friends--but really what came to mind the most was gratitude!

Simply put, I'm so grateful to everyone I've met both in this fandom and throughout the years I've been active online--this is SO fun, y'all. It's so much fun to love stories together--to talk about them, to write them, and of course to bind them! I hope I've adequately conveyed that gratitude.

But of course, this book would not exist without the wonderful words of @moorishflower. Heather, thank you so, SO much for sharing your stories, thoughts, and time with us--it is always a happier, better day when I get an email notif from you and when I see you on my dash. I love your work so much, and I'm so happy I finally get to put it on my shelf! So thank you so much again, for everything <3

and OKAY THAT'S IT FROM ME FOLKS!!!!! Binderary 2023 is officially a wrap! I had SUCH a blast--will probably write up a reflection post on it uhhhh after I take a very long nap ajslkdfjslk _(:3」∠)_

all my love! <3

[gallusrostromegalus]

The Rubicon, Part 3: Allegory Of The Cave

AKA, the Force-Sensitive-teenager-that-didn't-go-to-the-Jedi-I wrote-flash-fic-of-on-someone-else's-post-and-kept-going-Whoops-AU

Part 1

Part 2

---

The galaxy has had many brilliant philosophers, among them is Platocca, the Wookiee scholar wrote an allegory of prisoners trapped in a cave, shown shadows of objects, people and animals are projected onto the wall by their captors, as a metaphor for the limits of the senses, and how the shadow of a Rancor is not the same thing as a Rancor itself.

-

Her disappearance does not go unnoticed- it’s hard to miss when the chateau of a locally prominent political family explodes hard enough to cause a major power outage and the body of their ‘reclusive’ daughter is nowhere to be found.  A search is organized, and the scent-akks trace her footsteps out of the house and into the desert but lose the trail at the river, like how a vulpire evades the hunt.

The search expands- her holo is circulated on the local planetary networks, The family is interviewed and they, tearful, plead for her safe return. Her little sister’s tears and begging that it won’t Lifeday without her play particularly well. It gets picked up by the regional channels and soon there is a galaxy wide search for the Missing Girl.  

Everyone loves to be a Hero. 

The desert is searched by police flyover and volunteer foot teams.  Hundreds scour the bare rocks for clues. Someone treks a full hundred miles into the labyrinthine canyons in search of her.

Everyone loves a Mystery.

Interviews are conducted with the family, with her mentors, with her caretakers and doctors. People try to reconstruct the final day before she vanished, someone publishes her school essays and more photos are found- of a shy child, cringing in the back of the Science Bowl team, or trying to hide behind a tree in a family reunion photo.

Everyone loves a scandal.

Ten is not that young an age to enter politics in the Galaxy far, far away, especially not for the now-heir to a prominent local political family and the little sister’s announcement that she’s running for the local civic council wouldn’t be terribly noteworthy, save that it’s done at a rally to raise funds for missing children all over the planet in her missing sister’s memory. By that afternoon, medical records are leaked- seven major psychiatric institutions in under five years, involuntary commitments, ‘experimental’ treatments for an ‘undiagnosed’ disorder- she hurt her siblings, it’s said, she was mentally deficient and home alone- abandoned, when the home “mysteriously” exploded and she vanished without a trace. 

Tongues wag, and eventually agree that, best case scenario,  it’s a family capitalizing on the tragedy to further their political ambitions But best case scenarios are rare in the Galaxy Far, Far away, and the idea that a family might try to get rid of a troublesome daughter before launching the career of another isn’t even a terribly implausible scenario. 

Regardless of the situation, the Sister continues to poll well. Or, perhaps, because of it. Everyone loves to think they’re in on a conspiracy, and if this family is ruthless enough to kill a daughter, well, imagine what they’ll do to the opposition?

-

She first becomes aware of all this at a funeral.

She had gone back to the oxbow to bathe- having worked out podes that are durable enough for the desert and dexterous enough for her needs, and a steady, efficient gait to traverse the vastness of her new home, she was now experimenting with skin, and while the latest thick midnight-violet mammalian hide performed admirably in terms of thermal regulation and protection against the spines every plant and half the animals here had, it had a tendency to get oily and she thought a nice roll in the sand and soak might be in order. 

Instead, the far side of the oxbow was crowded with people, all dressed in mourning white and carrying candles.  A pyre was set up on the far bank, and a small, closed coffin sat atop it. 

Oh hell. A child’s funeral.  Who died?  Not one of my classmates? or- no, no there are Sis and The Baby, thank fuck. Mom and Dad too. Front row.  Hell of a crowd too. And reporters? Yeah, those are definitely holocorders, for the news. She squinted at the logos on the vans parked just up from the riverbank, having to switch spectra and focal distance a few times before the characters became clear. Big networks!  We don’t have anyone that famous, do we? Which unfortunate bastard are you all the way out here for?

She stalked closer, using the harsh angle of the setting sun as cover, long ears cocked to listen.  Voices sang monotonously through the traditional funeral dirge, her mother blotting at her cheek with a handkerchief. As the assembled tried and largely failed to reach the final note, The local temple priest lowered the funeral torch, lit the pyre, arthritically climbed both stairs to the podium, and tapped the mic. 

“Blessings upon us all, on this sad occasion.” He bowed his head. “We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of one who was taken from us too soon.”  he gestured to the holo broadcast in front of the pyre.  She had to shuffle through the underbrush, until she could make out the flickering image against the flame. A girl, about her age, in fancy dress, grimacing as politely as she could.

Poor thing. Looks wretched even in the best holo her family could find. Would we have been friends, this girl and I? Maybe I knew her-

 She squinted at the holo, something about it familiar- Gods, they’d even had the same awful bob haircut and itchy, itchy tule dress she’d been subjected to-

Wait.Is. Is that ME?

“She struggled in life, but was beloved by all who knew her-”

What.

“-She was a champion member of the Science Bowl Team-”

They kicked me off the team for ‘cheating’! It wasn’t my fault I knew the questions before they were asked!

“-and her artworks still adorn the walls of our school.”

WHERE? I got told that they were ‘Too Scary’ and ‘Not School Appropriate’!  

“She was always unparalleled in character- you could not find a more, sometimes brutally, honest person, and she clung unfailingly to her personal ethics.”

Oh? Oh, that’s what we’re calling it? Because last month in front of the shrinks you called me ‘tactless and prone to blurting things out’ and said I ‘rigidly conformed to arbitrary standards to the point of insanity’!  She seethed, a low rumble of disgust.

“We are all aware of her unfortunate medical history-”

Oh. Oh no.

“-but we can take some solace in the fact that she does not suffer anymore.”

Her mother took this chance to bawl theatrically. 

There are no words in all the tongues of the galaxy-

“While ultimately unsuccessful, the efforts to find her- hundreds, if not thousands of volunteer search parties, all across the galaxy as this tragedy has brought us all together in ways I no longer thought possible.  She is now one with the Nature she loved so much, and at peace.  May this pyre symbolize the light she briefly brought into our lives, and let us reflect on our memories of her.”  

The Priest stepped back and the line of mourners stepped forward- classmates, muttering about brief conversations in the hall, except a Longtime Bully, who gushed enthusiastically about how funny she was, with her weird turns of phrase and the way she-

She almost retched at the way her Bully imitated the way her hands would twitch when she was frightened, giggling. 

Then her mother stepped up.

“We.  We knew She was special, from the very day she was born-”

YEAH YOU SURE FUCKIN’ DID, DIDN’T YOU? She seethed, claws digging into the sand and tail thrashing. WAITING AT THE DOOR FOR ME, YOU SAID.  BUT NO-  NOT, YOU KNEW HOW TO RAISE ME BEST, YOU LOVED ME TOO MUCH TO GIVE ME AWAY, YOU SAID-

She crumpled, flattening against the ground and sobbing, strained hisses as her mother carried on, trying to hold back the tide of emotion before the Pyre exploded or something.  She stared at the hologram instead. The girl depicted  is a stranger- no really when the hell did Mom even TAKE that??  Fucking. Dress. When was the last time I even wore that thing? Gods, last Lifeday? No, I was back inside for that. It was…  Really? Really? You chose a picture two years out of date? 

She remembered the dress well. An awful thing made of tulle that didn’t itch so much as actually shred her skin where it wasn’t dangerously compressing her lungs and intestines.  She’d been ‘allowed’ home for the holiday, a probation for Good Behavior and the muscles around her mouths ached at the memory of the practiced smile she held for weeks, lest her Mother change her mind about letting her attend the party. She’d made it a full three months before her hand slipped doing the dishes and even though the cut on her hand was small it was just one thing too many and the smile cracked and she ended up throwing the offending knife across the kitchen in a panic.

She looked down at her ‘hand’ now, the scar still there despite the changes. Some landmarks were stubborn like that- she still had the freckles and that one mole, and the scar from attempting to ride a swoop and crashing into the shrubbery instead. Others vanished from her body and her memory without a trace with the shape-change. 

…Not that a more current image would really be more accurate but fucking really? That’s the one you picked?  I guess I should be glad you miss me at all, but-

Her tail thrashes, chewing on this emotion and the air around her. Her mother is bent over the podium, sobbing. Her grief seems genuine, really.  These are ugly, snotty sobs and the air around her cracks and splinters like bone in the Force. 

And yet.

…DID she have more current holos of me? I was usually the one holding the camera, but. No, not from last Lifeday, I was inside.  Not from Sis’ birthday, I was in the kitchen all day. Not on the Baby’s nameday either, all the holos are from inside that packed fire hazard of a temple and i refused to go in. Unless she took something between when my last camp ended and before they left for the mountains on the ‘normal vacation, for once’...

That really is the last Holo you have of me isn’t it?

And it’s not even me, just your favorite role I played.

Her father pulls her mother away from the podium, and she latches onto The Baby, cradling him close. The Priest shambles up to the podium again, and starts the final prayers. For peace, for a happy afterlife. The mourners got up and filed by the pyre, setting their candles around it before shuffling past the family, offering their condolences. 

They lay hands upon her parents, and shake the hand of her sister, wishing her luck with her campaign. 

She watched them file by, shrinking and retreating back, cowering in- in what? Fear? Anger? Grief? Disgust? She clawed at her face, unable to run, unable to stay.

Eventually, the neighbors collect Sis and The Baby, and her parents stay, waiting with the priest for the pyre to blow out, as per tradition. Her father stares off into the distance, mother clutched to his side. 

“You. You’ve done this before, right?”  he eventually stammers, turning to the priest.

“Fifty years of funerals.” the priest nods. 

“And. And children?”  He asks.

“Some of them, yes.” the priest sighed. “Children are always the hardest.”

Her father stared into the flames.

“Is. Is it wrong to feel… Relieved?” 

Her mother wails again. 

“I, I just… I keep thinking I hear her, around the house or out in the yard and I keep thinking she’s not really dead but- but it’s dread. I dread having to be on guard all the time or take her to another doctor or suffer another tantrum. I- I loved her, like any parent would but- but-”

“- We couldn’t live with her.”  Her mother sighed. “Not really.“

The priest nodded slowly. “It’s not uncommon to feel relieved that our loved ones are no longer suffering. Or to feel some relief from being free of burden of care, even as we mourn.” he tried, over-optimistically.

“It’s not something you say to a child but. Oh gods. Oh gods what a nightmare.” Her mother sobbed.

“Her spirit may yet be with us!” the Priest pleaded. 

“Body and Spirit, Holy Father.”

They all looked up.

She stood on the sandy bank of the river, the thin nervous girl from earlier this summer. She held her arms out, silently asking for a hug.

Her father shrieked, and stepped back, her mother cowering behind him. The priest held his own arms up defensively.

Ah. So that’s how it is. 

“Relieved? That’s how you feel? The nightmare is over?”  Voice high and tight as she grimaced at them, smiling like a primate baring its teeth before an eye-gouging, face-eating assault. “You know what? I can’t blame you. I have to say, this last month? I’ve been pretty relieved too.  No white-knucke social events.  No more being abandoned so Sis and The Baby can grow up ‘normal’.  No more ‘treatments’- you know the last one involved electrodes, right? Of course you did. You signed the wavier!”

Her mother opened her mouth, but choked on whatever it was she was going to say.

“But the biggest thing?  No more pretending.  No more playing the sweet, stupid girl for you to pity and be pitied for. No more pretending I’m the crazy one here.  No more being something I’m not.”  She grinned, and began to change again, skin darkening to midnight again, stretching her spine out until she tipped forward, forelegs splashing in the water and making them jump. She stretched to the height and shape that felt comfortable, A deeper shadow of limbs and muscle and teeth and too many eyes, tapetum lucidum glittering above them in the last of the Pyre-light. 

Her mother gagged, her father stared, frozen except for the tears, and the priest crumpled back in revulsion.

“I really can’t blame you.” She rumbled, stereophonic now. “-But I won’t let you delude yourselves. I might be free of you, but you’ll never be free of what you did to me.”  She grinned mouths full of teeth at them, before turning and walking into he river, vanishing below the surface with a flick of her tail.

Her mother’s screams echoed in faintly through the water as she made her way downriver. There was a spaceport there, and nothing for her here.

---

Now, Platocca rather famously got in a brawl with another Philosopher named Ogg who posited that while the shadow of the thing is not the thing itself, if there's a moving shadow shaped like a Rancor, it's being cast by SOMETHING, and there are better things to do than standing around philosophizing about it.  Like finding out what's casting the shadow from a safe distance, on account of the downright-likely chance that the thing casting the Rancor-shaped shadow is, in fact, a Rancor.  You Pedantic Twit.

-

It doesn’t take long for the carrion beasts to come around.

The scandal embroils the galaxy, and the gruesome details of the child’s history are the gossip of the day.  

Some can sniff between the lines, and take notice- if it was any of the more common ailments, something would have worked by now. The details of the ‘explosion’ hit the insurance market- no point of ignition- indeed, no fire at all, like someone had swung a wrecking ball out from inside the home in all directions at once. And they dig a little bit and compare her birth date to the public logs of Jedi deployments and make an educated guess or five. 

The only vehicle available for rent was an ugly yellow cargo vehicle, but a make and model with an extremely reliable engine and good mileage, which he decided was a decent tradeoff for its abhorrent color. Alas, to rent! He's already in hot water with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild for ‘retroactively purchasing’ a vehicle the last time he was chasing a mark and while the work was undignified, being a Sith didn’t pay like it used to.

He can hear her miles before he sees her.  A low, rumbling thrum in the force, sort of crunchy and guttural, but not unpleasant. He stops the speeder in the blazing white light of late afternoon and cocks his montrals, the physical sensation helping him mentally triangulate the noise. It’s constant, steady drone, like she’s meditating.  Or asleep.  Either way, a sensible thing to be doing in this disgusting heat.  Maybe she does have promise.

The bounty hunter’s guild membership is a convenient source of income, but more than that, it’s an excuse to stick his nose into whatever business the Force demands.  Need to get into a secure building? It’s fine to put his boot through a window, he’s after a mark!  Need to make some dubious contacts to keep himself appraised of the movements of his fellow force-users?  People are much more willing to wag tongues about criminal gossip for some coin than snoop on the Sith, but the relevant details are the same.

And now, when he was trekking into the desert after a teenager- he’s just doing some public service, and certainly not looking for an enraged force-user to take as an apprentice!  Besides, if she wasn’t up to snuff, he could always turn her in for the money. 

He drives on deeper into the thrum, and eventually spots her location- a grove of massive cacti in a small, depressed ditch.  If there is water anywhere out here, its in there.  Honestly, did nobody know how to conduct a search these days?

About 100 feet front he grove, he stops, and listens.  The thrum is much louder now, but he can’t pick out a specific point of origin inside the grove, which is… peculiar. He hopped down and instantly, the thrum ceased.

“Oh, so you do have some wits about you!”  he laughed, strolling closer, hands up and saber tucked behind him, hidden by his coat. “Hey, hey- no reason to panic, I’m just a… well, you and I- we’d be kin, after a fashion.”

No response.  No scuttling through the underbrush, no tension from nerves. Cool as a cumcuber fruit, watching him.

“Well, maybe not Kin. I’ve heard all about the bastards that you got stuck with for a family. Most of the galaxy has now!” He shrugged, stepping into the shade of the outermost cacti and squinting into the grove. “They didn’t understand, did they?  The connection, the POWER that flows through you- it scared them!  And honestly, I can’t blame them, if half of what I’ve read about how you blew up a house is true, why, you’d give some of the elders of my sect a run for their money.”

He can feel her gaze on him, taking in every minute movement. No particular direction, almost as though she were circling him. Good, good!  She wouldn’t have lasted long if she was completely without talent, of course.  Still, let her circle.  Let her come to me. 

“My parents never understood either.” He sighed, strolling deeper into the grove. “Always insisting that I was breaking things on purpose, that I was being cruel by telling the truth-  but why shouldn’t I?  They always said ‘Honesty Is The Best Policy’!”  He laughed.

“But my Master?  He understood. He understood how big and cruel the galaxy can be, especially for people like us. And it’s not wrong for us to defend ourselves!  I’ve got just as much right to exist as a vrelt or a tooka!  They can’t make people understand growling, so it’s not wrong for them to bite! So what if I had to resort to force when they couldn’t be made to understand?”  He laughed, stopping near the center of the grove.  It wasn’t that easy to hide in- the cacti didn’t branch much, and the scub wasn’t that dense. She has to be using the shadows, or keeping her nerve to stay perfectly still and pass herself off as a rock.

“..I suppose it’s fair for you to be cautious.”  he nodded, reaching into the pockets of his coat. “I mean, the galaxy is full of hucksters and con-artists that think they know what’s best.  I won’t pretend that I do, but I know what it’s like to suffer for having a connection like we do.  And well, like how I was taken in, I should return the favor to those in need.”  He pulled out a bottle of clean water- still cold even!- and a protein bar. 

“Here, a token of my goodwill!” he said, tossing them into the scrub. “I’ll be in the speeder when you’re ready to talk.”  he waved, strolling back towards the rental.

“...You have The Force too?”  She asked. 

He stopped, and couldn’t help grinning a bit. He squinted at where he thought the sound had come from, but only found a plain cactus, and no sign of the frail little girl from the posters.

“That’s right!” He nodded. “That’s how I knew where to find you- belongs like us, we’re all connected.”  He explained, tapping his forehead and sitting down on the ground, lekku dragging a bit on the dirt.  The circling sensation was back, but he definitely had her interest now. He expanded his perceptions- ah, there it was- she wouldn’t know how to shield yet, of course and he could feel the head-tilting sensation of confusion.

“...Do some people have more Force than others?”  she asked, on his other side now. 

“Yep!”  He laughed. “Good trick, throwing your voice like that!  But yes, there’s a huge variation in the capacity people like us have in the force.  Don’t worry-  it took me years of training to get like this, but with practice-”

A sharp chortle of amusement rang through the grove. 

“...What’s so funny?”  He asked. 

“Years Of Training, you say?”  She snickered, and he felt the scales on the back of his neck prickle. He could feel her, close, and moving now, stalking and coiling like a carnivore, but he still didn’t know WHERE-

He was suddenly struck with a vision of himself- sitting, lanky and small, laughably small from her perspective. All the weapons on his person were highlighted, including a dark red throb of the Kyber Crystal in his saber, along with the ache in his back and knees, and the tinnitus in his left montral and his name and his master’s name and- and-

“SHIT!”  he snarled, instantly on his feet and glaring up at the tops of the Cacti, lightsaber thrumming in his hand. “Rude little bitch, aren’t you?  Sneaking into people’s heads without their permission!” he scolded.

Another amused chuckle. “Better a bitch than a braggart.”  she gave the impression of a shrug. “Because I know exactly where and what you are, but you-”

He felt something around his ankles. Midnight violet tendrils, like stalks of mycelium sprouted from the ground and wrapped around his legs. He flipped the saber around in his hand, plunging it into the ground-

“-Don’t even know where to look.”  She finished and suddenly the cacti all fell inwards on top of him, as the tendrils yanked down, and he was pulled under the sand, choking and flailing.

He could see her now and-

Oh.

Oh FORCE.

She felt like she’d been all around him because she HAD. She was the cacti and the root system that spanned the grove and dug deep into the underground river system, and hell, even the river itself. Any resemblance to a humanoid form was gone, she was now a companion shadow to the environment around her, a branching form more like a plant or subterranean fungus than anything else.

You were right of course, to head to the only source of water.  She conceded, and he felt his skull figuratively pop open like a pocket filing wallet, and the midnight tendrils rifle through his memories with a vague disinterest. But you didn’t know that most of a river is underground, did you?  I don’t think any rational search party would have guessed how I’ve been traveling, really-

So, a Sith with a day job? That’s… He felt the mycelium of her body wince in the soil around him as he began to choke on the sand. Pretty embarrassing, actually.  But, you’re right, money makes the galaxy go ‘round…  memories of The Guild application process, how he’d modified his ID card, His Master back on Korriban, the disciplines of the order, assembling his lightsaber-

His lightsaber!  

He swung through the dirt and she flinched away from the blade.

“Well, if you’re going to be like that, I’m going to leave.”  she laughed, a mouth forming and unforming from the mycelium ad hoc, and she withdrew from around him.  He clawed furiously, reaching up with the force, pulling himself awkwardly up out of the soil, spitting and howling curses as he tried to untangle himself from the roots and the pile of toppled cacti over him-

“So long, and thanks for all the snacks!”  She called and he turned-

…to see the yellow rental speeder flooring it into the distance.

He patted his coat and realized that the speeder keys, his wallet, and lightsaber were all missing. 

Oh.

Oh fuck. 

She was too far to reach now, but he could still feel the crystal in his lightsaber, calling out to them.  It’s fine, all I have to do was trust in the force and follow the crystal-  She doesn’t know what its capable of-

-

She set cruise control at just under the speed that made the cheap speeder shudder like it was about to fall apart, and leaned back in the driver’s seat, taking a swig from the water bottle and unscrewed the bottom of the lightsaber.

It was a simple enough device really- a small rechargeable battery that fed energy into the crystal, which was focused through a series of lenses and a magnetic field to create a looping blade of plasma.  Basically a more refined version of a Plasma Chainsaw, with a magic rock for a laser. 

The magic rock pulsed.

She blinked at it. 

It was a pretty thing, the color of really expensive rubies or fresh blood, and sparkled more than either. Not with sunlight. With… Potential.

There was a lot of power in her, and this would let her focus it, to carve the world around her as she saw fit, to conquer all that tormented her-  Visions danced, of her on a throne, the dismembered bodies of the doctors and orderlies and her mother at her feet-

“Nah.” She laughed, tossing it over her shoulder and out of the speeder. “I don’t want conquest or to cut throats or whatever.”

“I mean, I do.” She admitted. “I absolutely did fantasize about killing her, more than a few times, just to shut her up.  But that’d just leave Sis and The Baby without a parent that genuinely cares for them, and they never did a thing to me.” She shrugged. “It’s a nice fantasy, but it’s not what I want.”

Then what? The natural question followed. I really do have unlimited potential. What Do I Want?

She stared at the shimmering horizon in silence for a while, not so much thinking as listening.

“I want.” She started and paused. “I want to be happy.”

“It’s been a relief, to be away from all the doctors and eggshells, and to be the shapes I want.” She nodded. “But that’s not quite the same as happy.”

“It’s boring too.” She added. “Cacti are all fine and good, but hardly good conversationalists. I want-”  

“I’m lonely.  And sad, and scared about a lot of stuff.” She admitted, and the truth sat uncomfortably on her breast, but it was better than where it had been sitting inside her, aching, before. 

“I want a friend.”

She paused, having picked up a thread in the force.  A thin one, feeling like only the finest spun fiber, barely tying her to-

She saw the Apprentice from the documentary again, babbling excitedly about learning about how to conduct diplomacy and the the ins and outs of negotiation, and all the people she was going to meet, and the places she’d see and-

“She looks like she’d be fun to talk with.”  She mused.

----

Philosopher Ogg got thrown through a window for arguing with Platocca, but was really the ultimate winner because centuries later, when an excitable and somewhat high-strung Jedi Apprentice got up from her afternoon meditations and saw her shadow finish stretching a full two seconds after she did, she did not write it off as a trick of the light or still being groggy from a meditation session that had accidentally turned into an unplanned nap. 

She also, in a demonstration of what an early start learning  self-control in an emotionally supportive environment could do for someone, did not immediately panic.

“Alright.” She said, watching her shadow where it stood obediently against the wall in the reflection of the window. “Next we have Saber Practice, and then Rhetoric and then it’s dinner,” She listed off to nobody in particular. The ‘Royal’ We’ they used to call it. Very handy when you couldn’t specify exactly who or what you were talking to. 

She walked down the hall, watching her shadow in reflections and when it skipped ahead of her as she turned down the halls, keeping a close eye on when it actually met up with her feet as she walked. It was close, within the margin of error between the complex shadows cast by the architecture of the temple and the shadows of other Jedi but…

When she finally stopped at her place in the lineup to do katas, she could swear she heard herself take another step.

“You seem distracted today, young one.” The saber master frowned as she missed her thrust for the third time that day.

“I-  yes, sorry master.” she bowed her head. “It’s going to sound bizarre, but- I don’t know.  Does my shadow look weird?”

The master stared at her blankly for a second, then turned his attention to her shadow, which lay on the floor beside her in the expected fashion.

“...No.”  He spoke slowly, running his chin with concern. “But that’s my perspective.  How does it look to you?”

“Like it’s- lagging? Not quite doing what I am-  I stretch, but it stretches for longer. I walk, and it does too, but with a different gait. It’s not much but- I suppose it could be a problem with my peripheral vision? I have been having a lot of migraines lately.”

“Hm.” He nodded. “Well. I do not see any evidence of your shadow behaving in any abnormal way, but you should tell your master and perhaps make an appointment with the ophthalmologist.  I promise to tell you if I do see anything out of the ordinary, though.”  He smiled gently.

“Thank you master.” She nodded, shoulders drooping a bit. It was, most likely, a trick of the light or her eyes, but it was nice to have an additional perspective. 

Her next thrust landed perfectly. 

-

Her shadow was largely out of her line of sight during rhetoric, mostly cast under the desk behind her, and it was easier to focus, but there was the nagging sensation that the usually-empty seat beside her was occupied with someone who kept fidgeting and straining to hear the lecture. 

“You okay?”  her friend asked, taking her hand as they left class together. “You seem really tense.”

“I don’t know.” the apprentice sighed. “I think I might have a problem with my peripheral vision.  I keep seeing my shadow flicker or think there’s someone standing-”  She stuck out her free arm  and waved it in the air beside her.

“Ick.” Nodded her friend. “Yeah, that’d drive me right up the wall. Hopefully you only need glasses or something?”

“Ugh, glasses.” the Apprentice rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure which would drive me crazier- having to clean the lenses constantly just to be able to see or actually being haunted!”

They laughed, and walked together toward the cafeteria.

“So your master’s away?”  her friend asked grabbing trays for both of them.

“Yeah, Mirial, so you understand why the council sent an all-male contingent to the negotiations there.”  She nodded, grabbing a pair of allpes fruits. “He’s actually probably back by now but messaged me earlier that he’d been up for three days straight so to finish classes as normal and go see friends if I wanted because he’s going to have the mental faculties of a sofa for a few hours once he lands.”

“Oh nooooo-” her friend giggled. “You don’t worry about him?”

The Apprentice shrugged. “I mean, a bit? But this is pretty normal for him- he’s like a loth-cat, slinks away and hides when he’s not well, but he’ll call if he’s in real trouble. Still, I think I’ll finish dinner here and go back to our rooms, I’ve got so much reading to catch up on-”

It was good to talk and catch up on all the gossip for an hour- She’d been one of the first of her class to be picked for an apprenticeship and as much fun as her new freedoms and responsibilities really were, she sometimes missed the camaraderie of the creche. There were the expected interrogations about off-planet missions and OH FORCE THE PADDWORK and learning one-on-one and the splitting of responsibilities between master and apprentice. 

“It’s pretty normal that you don’t go on all the missions early on, I know.” She sighed. “But I did miss him this week.  The rooms are too quiet without him taking random calls or doing the dishes at weird hours, you know?”

“Yeah, it’s weird not having you snoring at night.” her crechmate  nodded, grinning.

“I DO NOT SNORE”!” she yelped, mock-threatening to throw the spare piece of fruit at him. 

“We’re kidding!  You whistle a bit, at most.” he friend patted her shoulder affectionately. “Besides, if you get really lonely, you’ve got your little peripheral vision fairy for company!”

The Apprentice rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help a surreptitious glance at her shadow.

“Your WHAT?”  her crechemate asked.

“I think I’ve got something wrong with my peripheral vision, and it’s faking me out into thinking my shadow is misbehaving or I’m being followed by some sort of sprite that hates rhetoric class.” She shrugged, waving at her shadow, and it waved along with her. “It only gets more boring- tomorrow is Economics, so you should go haunt someone more exciting.” She told it.

“UUUUGH that sounds so annoying!”  her crechmate groaned.

“I don’t know- I suppose it’s not so annoying if I think of it as an invisible friend or something.” The apprentice laughed, and her comm beeped.

>I have returned safely to the bosom of the temple once more.  Wretched migraine, grab me a snack? XD

She snorted and showed her friends the message.

“He texts like such an old fart!”  her friend giggled. “I thought he was like, really young?”

“He’s only a decade older than me, so practically a kid for a Knight, but damn good at it.” She nodded. “He’s Accumulated Great Wisdom For His Years!”  she said in her best esoteric philosopher voice. “So he’s the galaxy’s youngest old fart.”

Her friends cackled as she got up, pocketing the fruit and a few snack bars for him, before waving her goodbyes.

He was curled in bed with a pillow over his head to block the light and noise when she came in, but rolled over and reached out towards her anyway.  Her shadow stretched all the way across the room and onto the wall his bed was pushed against in the slice of yellow-orange light cast through the doorway, like the spectre had already joined her master. 

“Hello Master.”  She smiled, sitting on the bed beside him and pressing a juice pouch into his hand. “I missed you.”

“-and I you.” he replied, slowly sitting up and squinting at the pouch an inch from his face. “Melloon!  You remembered my favorite flavor!” he beamed. 

“You’ll read with less headache with your glasses.” She sighed, handing the small device to him and watching as he unfolded them and blinked, large dark eyes now appearing twice as large through the prescription lenses.  “...How did you know you needed glasses?”  She asked as he fiddled with the straw, trying to puncture the pouch.

“Couldn’t see shit.” He grunted. “Well, actually, it was when I couldn’t distinguish the letters on the board back in my very first formal classes. I’ve had them longer than I’ve been able to read.”  he said, taking a long sip. “...Why?”

“I’ve- all day my shadow’s looked weird.”

He paused, face still scrunched in discomfort. “...shadows in general, or your shadow specifically?”

“-” She opened her mouth to reply, but stopped. “-just mine, actually.  And I thought I could hear someone walking behind me, and all rhetoric class I had the impression someone was sitting next to me-”

Her master was suddenly sitting all the way upright, staring at her with rapt attention.  She winced.

“It’s alright.” he soothed, hand on her shoulder. “But please, tell me everything.”

She sighed, slowly recounting- the way her shadow seemed to lag or not quite match her, the ongoing headaches, the sensation that “-I don’t know, like someone’s standing beside me? I mean, I absolutely could be working myself up over nothing-”

“If it’s bothering you this much, it’s not nothing.” her master nodded, still watching her face. “Even if it’s just a flicker brought on by growing pains, it’s not nothing. What was the first lesson you were ever taught?”

“...Trust your instincts?” She tried,

“Trust your instincts.” He nodded, smiling gently. “...Without looking at your shadow-  do you have an impression of what this… companion looks like? Are they tall, short? A sapient being? Or maybe an animal?”

“They’re uh…” She unfocused her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of the person that had been beside her all day. “-They’re… A girl, like me, my age- not me though, she’s… thinner. A little frail maybe? Skittish- no, that’s not right.  Like she’s hanging back.  Not sure when to come into the conversation kind of awkwardness?  And thirsty. Like, dehydrated.”

“Alright.” Her master nodded. His voice had shifted, like he’d sat up more and closer to her. “Anything else?  Do you know what she looks like?  Has she said anything?”

“No.” The Apprentice shook her head. “Quiet. Listening, but not having an easy time of it.  Keeps fidgeting. She-  she has a shape, but it keeps changing. Like- sometimes people don’t know who they are, like they have blurry edges around their sense of self?  She’s got really sharp edges of what is and is not her, but those edges are always moving.  The eyes are the same though. Intense focus, and an eyeshine, like an animal.”  She started to tremble at the feeling of that terrible gaze fixed on her.

Her master shifted his weight, gently wrapping his arm around her and pulling her to lean into his shoulder. 

“...I’ve seen her before.”  the Apprentice realized. “I don’t know where but. I remember those eyes, staring right through me.  Something-  something terrible happened…”

“I’m sorry.” a voice whispered. 

Her head snapped up, staring at the shadow on the wall on the other side of the bed- it had changed- still the same size as her, but they sure as hell weren’t the same species and a pair of holes in the shadow, in the shape and location of her eyes, still staring.  The shadow flinched and the Apprentice’s heart race, but, gazes locked, neither could move.

Visions- the brilliant night sky of the desert, electrodes on her temples, a map tracing the route of a subterranean river, a wound (and the knowledge she’d caused it), the furious screaming of a bounty hunter who had meant her some malice- arced across their connection like lighting.  And visions from her mind- The flowers carved and painted into the bunk bed posts at her creche, the buzz of a training saber, the warp of her Master’s prescription glasses, the weight of his arm across her back- arced back.

“You!” She gasped.  “You’re the girl who- who-” She gasped, tears flowing but she refused to blink, if she blinked she’d be gone-

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!!”  She yelped and whimpered, unable to pull back from their connection, fear and despair and-

“It’s alright.” her Master’s voice settled over them like a thick blanket, and he reached out, touching the shadow’s shoulder, fingers curling around it as she seemed to peel off the wall, in three dimensions now, and became her own being, still a shadowy echo, but herself and not the Apprentice’s shadow. “It’s all alright.”

He pulled her closer, translucent form still trembling, until the Apprentice couldn’t hold it back and blinked, throwing herself at the other girl, wrapping her arms around her strange not-doppelganger, and sobbing- “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have-  that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair-”

The shadow screamed, hugging her back and clinging to both of them, smoke-like fingers digging into her robes and hair. 

“By The Force.”  her master whispered. “Oh no, oh dear-” He stroked their backs as the girls cried in his lap.  The shadow girl began to flicker, and his apprentice grabbed at her, trying to keep her with them.

“I- I can’t stay- please- please!”  She wailed.

“We will find you.”  The Master promised, voice heavy with the seriousness of his pledge. “I don’t care how far we have to go or how long it takes, we will find you.” he promised, clutching the girls close in an embrace, the shadow-girl trying to cling to him hard enough that her fingers drew blood on the side of his face and across the back of his apprentice’s neck, before she succumbed to whatever was pulling her away from them.

The apprentice continued to sob as their connection faded, her Master still holding her.

“...I need to speak to the council about this, and fast.” he spoke, voice still grave. “That- If she was doing what I think she was, he is an immensely powerful force-user.”  He swallowed hard, hands trembling. “-A very dangerous thing to be in this galaxy, especially alone.  She could fall prey to all sorts with ill intentions…”

-

She woke up, screaming and clawing at the cheap third-class cabin mattress pad, sobbing, and could only lay there for a second, whimpering and pawing at the blanket that a moment ago had been a robe-

“So uh.” a voice spoke up from the other side of the cabin, pausing to clear his throat. 

She looked up realizing she’d gone from a plausibly-normal-but-uncommon humanoid to something three times her regular size with horns, long thrashing tail and covered in spines in her sleep. Pressed firmly to the far wall was the tiny cabin’s other occupant, a man that was actually probably not that old, but looked like he had gone through the garburator of life without the sink running, judging by scars covering his torso and his cautious but strangely calm demeanor as he slowly stood up from where he’d been taking cover behind his mattress, which was now covered with spines.

“-Do you usually sleep-shapeshift?”  he asked. “Because if that’s the case we’re gonna need to ask the steward for a lot more bedding.”

“...I was having a nightmare.” She croaked awkwardly, slowly collapsing back to her previous humanoid shape.

He nodded slowly, shaking the spines out of his mattress as they shrank along with her and setting it back on his bunk, opposite hers.

“Not to be entirely self-interested, but that’s an unusual talent you have there, and something I would find immensely helpful in my line of work.” he said, studying her with interest. “Ever considered getting into crime?”

[tonguetyd]

If your wings won’t find you heaven, I will bring it down like an ancient bygone

I’ve always liked this line, but hearing it live made it click in a way it hadn’t before

Feels scheduled ahead

When Ves sang this line in Radio City I had the image pop in my head of the scene from It’s A Wonderful Life. “What do you want Mary, you want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and bring it down for you. Say that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon.”

So another way to look at this line. “If you can’t find your heaven, despite the wings you have, despite the divinity you have been granted, if you just cannot find joy? That’s ok. I’ll bring it down for you. I’ll fight like hell for you. I’ll give you that joy, I’ll sauté those horrors, you postpone that funeral RIGHT now, I am going to find the heaven you deserve.”

I wish I could remember who it was (probably @melit0n ‘s Euclid essay tbh but it may have been someone else) but someone wrote a theory that Euclid is the first song written thru not the character of Vessel’s eyes, but the guy/singer/songwriter/ACTUAL dude on stage Vessel himself. And I thought it was kinda an interesting theory but I think combining that with this idea makes it a little weightier. Because, Vessel the character is very much a part of Vessel the guy by virtue of the fact he embodies the character on stage every night. Just as Vessel the guy is (presumably) in a lot of Vessel the character. They’re the same, he’s not real, hes just some guy, hes acid and alkaline, etc etc.

(Edit I reread my tags, this post from @a-s-levynn is definitely the first time I saw this idea, yes THANK YOU LEV)

So. Point being. If this is Vessel the guy singing to Vessel the character, “despite your wings and all that Sleep has given you, you still cannot find peace. So I will bring it down for you. I will be your mouthpiece, I will write the words and tell your story. And you will find the love you want.”

That’s Ves speaking to himself.

And I think that is incredibly powerful and the most self-romantic thing I have ever heard. I’ll be your my joy and bring you myself heaven and the moon.

.

Recovering from depression and wanting to leave everything behind is a long fucking road. Idk that you ever really stop being on that road. I certainly still feel like I’m on that road even all these years later, but…the biggest thing that keeps you going is for your past self. At least for me anyway. I fight for the little girl that lives in me who thinks she will never be loved and needs to be perfect and ruins everything and is constantly reminded of how unforgiving the world is.

Baby girl, if you can’t find yourself heaven, I will bring it down for you. I’ve got you. I am hugging you so tight and telling you everything will be okay, my love. Look at us now. We’re still here. And we’re just fine. We are doing great. We’re alright and loved. And I will keep fighting like hell for you and to keep you safe and happy.

And so I think this is similar to what Ves is saying to himself. And it makes it that much more of a hopeful song. “Yes, I must be someone new, but moreso…I will keep living.

I will fight, for you.”

The next time you sing that line. Sing it to your younger self. Or to the parts of you that you feel are most difficult to love. Promise to fight for them. Bring down heaven.

And try not to cry

And if YOUR wings won’t find you heaven? I got you, too. ❤️

[waltricia]

Happy Polin Day!! 💛 I accidentally wrote an essay about the lighting in this two second clip. I guess I found my Roman Empire.

Nicola said in an interview that the theme of the first season was passion, the second was longing, and the third is romance, and I fully agree and believe her because everything about this clip SCREAMS romance.

As perfect as they are, I have to put aside costume, hair, and makeup, and just praise the lighting right now bc it really deserves to be discussed.

Anyone who has ever read a romance novel knows that when the leading man looks at the leading lady ~lustily~, his expression darkens and he has a devilish glint in his eye, while she has a soft, open expression and stars in her eyes. That is EXACTLY what they achieved by angling a single soft fill light on Luke from below, while having him kinda backlit/ side lit by the key light (the moonlight), and angling that harder accent light on Nicola from above and back, while having the full key light on her from the front.

In classic horror cinematography, characters are lit from below because it casts sinister shadows on their faces. Hell scenes often have characters lit by fire from below (because obviously). This kind of lighting is also great for portraying lust (see Kanthony in the library, season 2 ep 4, both scenes). Lustiness and the devil go hand in hand (because religion lol), and that’s why this slightly sinister lighting looks so good here.

Colin is every bit the romantic hero, and the way the lighting portrays that is subtle, but intentional. His eyes are shadowed and he has that glint. No doubt he’s about to do something bold and scandalous. Just the way Colin is approaching Pen pretty clearly indicates his intentions, but I really like that you can also derive those intentions from the lighting because it evokes such freakin classic romantic imagery.

And in the same perfectly subtle way, she is also classically lit, but representing the other side of the coin. As he’s lit from hell, she’s lit from heaven. The yellow (😉) light on her has an angelic effect. It’s also a soft spotlight, like how they would light Old Hollywood starlets.

When you combine that light with the key light (the moonlight) that fills her face and makes her eyes sparkle, you really see her, and she is meant to be worshipped. That’s what Colin is seeing. And, obviously, being seen terrifies our wallflower. Which just adds another layer to the significance of Colin’s lighting because not only does the lighting tell us what’s he’s about to do (😘), it also makes sense to have him in the devilish lighting because she’s scared. But it’s the good kind of scary of course.

And what’s so god damn beautiful about the whole thing, is that the opposition that I’m seeing between the lighting of Colin and Pen in this moment exists so harmoniously with the equivalence that I also see between the characters. The feeling of connection between them is stronger than it’s ever been. And I’m guessing she’s literally on some kind of platform, like a doorstep or something, because their lines of sight are more level with each other. So the contrast between Colin and Pen itself contrasts with the closeness between them.

I just love how wonderfully complex that is. I am so impressed.

And that’s just the lighting y’all.

THAT’S JUST THE LIGHTING

💡🤯👏🙌😍🐝🌼🪞💛🩵💚✨

[gadriezmannsgirl]

Nothing's Going On -P.G

Warnings: A bit of mature content, nothing too explicit (IT'S SAFE FOR EVERYONE TO READ)

Summary: Your boyfriend catches you reading fan fictions of him and teases you about it

It had all started as a joke. You knew your boyfriend's fangirls wrote some fictions about him (You knew because you also read in your 1D times, Niall Horan's and Louis Tomlinson's fanfic, you could imagine). One day, you were chilling around watching IG when you stumbled with a reel

It had said *POV: Imagine your boyfriend Gavi braging to his mates about you* and there was this video of him talking with Pedri, Balde and Ansu while the author of this edit, edited what they were saying with subtitles underneath.

You awed, it was cute.

Have you heard that saying curiosity killed the cat? Well, that was you at your best moment.

You went in your laptop and opened Google, by the tags on that video you decided to put in the browser *Pablo Gavi x Reader*. Tumblr inmediately appeared with a hundreds of blogs.

You created an account x and started reading.

You gotta admit, these girls had their imagination on the highest level, inventing these amazing stories, backgrounds, edit along with everything else... And you couldn't even know how to start a simple essay

You laughed at some stories, you fell in love with the majority, you felt lust while reading others, hell you even cried with the heartbreaking ones, or what they liked to call Angst. You even found a PEDRI X READER X GAVI POLY

"These girls are crazy in the greatest way ever" You murmured shaking your head

Being on your world, you didn't noticed when your boyfriend came home from his training and was crunched down behind you

"What are you reading?" You heard his voice ask right next to your ear as you yelled out scared

"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL-? PABLO!" You shut your laptop down as your hand went to your chest "YOU ALMOST GAVE ME AN ATTACK"

"You're reading fictions about me?" He asked with a smile as you looked at him dead in the eye

"...No" Your doubting tone made him laugh a little

"Why are you doing that?"

"OK, I WAS READING FANFICTIONS ABOUT YOU! IN MY DEFENSE... Your fans are really skilled and lots of them like our relationship" You nod

"Is that it?" He asked laughing

"Ok, an edit appeared in my IG feed so I saw it and curiosity got the best of me. I have spent the whole afternoon reading these things, they're fucking amazing and absolutely gorgeous. There are some other that are way to explicit but still they were sent by God because Gavs... They're incredible. And the angsty ones? OMG...! They are a blessing and- hijo de tu mamá, ¿Te estás burlando de mi?" (Son of your mother, are you laughing at me?)

"You know you've the real Gavi one and that you get to experience the fluff, a few fights and the sex, all of that in reality?"

"I do! But they're amazing" You opened your laptop and showed him another fic. This one was fluff and smutty

After some minutes reading it you were the first one to talk

"See?! It's so well written and the structure, their beggining, the middle and the end it's so precious... Some of these would do great as real writers; don't you think so, baby?"

You turned around facing Gavi who's expression was unreadable "Love?"

"You're right they're pretty amazing" He nods "On the other hand, way too explicit, it feels a little uncomfortable reading all those things about myself and at the same time boosts my ego up" You roll your eyes "Good side of this is that, I can try and do all these things they write, to you" You clenched your tights feeling hot all over your body

"Now?"

"Now" He said as you both jumped off of the couch into your shared bedroom. Laptop and fanfictions long forgotten

Yes, it may have been a bit embarrassing for you the fact your boyfriend saw you reading fanfiction of him, but it was definitely worth it.

°°° °°° °°° °°°

Tag list: @gaviypedrisbride