#(specifically certain lines and physical gestures)

[my-current-obsession]

To be fair, the whole, “I’ll come back to you even if you don’t promise to wait,” is a line pulled directly from OG FFVII. It’s mentioned late game by Cid (who hilariously went to see a showing of loveless in Midgar but fell asleep then woke up just in time to view this ending scene 😂). But if you wanna deep dive on the meaning of this line, it’s worth noting that a version of the line is used in FFVIII in reference to the main ship of that installment — Rinoa and Squall — who also happen to be another mage/swordsman pair. And if you wanna go big brain square enix energy, there’s also the famous, “I’ll come back to you; I promise…I know you will,” between Sora and Kairi in Kingdom Hearts when he goes off on another journey while she awaits his return. If you go down those rabbit holes, it seems square really has a type for their main pairs, no?

I don't remember that line in OG FF7, but it's been years since I played it so I'll take your word for it. But you're right that similar lines/sentiments pop up frequently in other FF and KH games, so yeah, Square has a type. I still think the conversation between Cloud and Aerith in KH2 is the quickest and easiest parallel to make here though, considering the same pair can have basically the same interaction, in an entirely different game. Yes, Cloud could also have this conversation in the play with T or Y. But only Aerith's would have the added depth of being a potential callback/reference to another moment the pair shared.

And considering this game liked to callback to several moments between Cloud and Aerith in the previous game (him remembering their first meeting being what snaps him out of Sephiroth's control, the "will you be okay getting back", "if I said I wasn't" in the ending...) I think it's totally reasonable to assume that Square might have subtly referenced at least one Clerith moment from outside the compilation.

[slotmachines-fearofgod]

As per the poll results...

Alpha-17 hated taking care of the cadets. 

They were loud, unruly, undisciplined, and cocky little sons of bitches. The Kaminiise that interrupted his and Fordo’s training session had said something about the CC batches needing mentors now that Fett was determined to get back to bounty hunting. Every Alpha ARC was to take on a batch as a trial run, regardless of the fact that Fett was never much of a mentor to them. 

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that his batch was a fucking mess. Maze had even patted him sympathetically on the back when they were given their official assignments. In their first week, two of them, apparently the twins of the batch, had already managed to get themselves into three offices they weren’t supposed to be in, and snuck out of the barracks almost every night. 

Alpha made them run suicides for hours for it. 

He didn’t care for his batch the way some of his brothers did, with soft gestures and words like “ad’ika” or “vod’ika.” They were clones, and they wouldn’t find any sort of soft spot in the middle of a battlefield. He’d raise them the way he was raised, with sharp tongues and extra training, and they’d come out the other side better for it. 

That doesn’t mean he didn’t care at all. 

CC-2224 was standing guard outside their barracks, which was a bad sign, especially considering he’d been the first to learn that if they got in trouble, they got in trouble as a group. He was usually the most effective at dissuading the rest. 

Not tonight.

“Cadet,” Seventeen greeted sharply, “sitrep.”

CC-2224 didn’t look him in the eyes, another bad sign. It had been one fucking month, and he was already having to put up with shit like this. 

“B - CC-5052 is experiencing residual discomfort from the training exercise today, sir. My batchmates are helping him with recovery.” Only three years old, six standard, and CC-2224 was already the best soldier out of all of them. But he was shit at covering for the rest. 

“Why are you guarding the door?” Seventeen crossed his arms over his chest, looming over the kid. If it was really what he said, he’d been in there helping with whatever cramp 5052 was feeling. 

The day’s training hadn’t even really been that difficult from a physical standpoint. It was Seventeen’s least favorite type of resistance training: the mental kind. The Kaminiise had them start it early so their minds automatically built up resistances to-

Oh. 

“CC-3636 asked that I remain outside so as not to crowd CC-5052 and explain to any who may be monitoring the barracks what is going on.” Seventeen knew enough to read between the lines of that statement. He was there to discourage any particularly nosy Kaminiise from looking too closely for flaws. They would be monitored closely for the next few days for any defects, a fact that had been made clear to them before the exercises had taken place. 

CC-2224 still wasn’t meeting his eyes. He looked exhausted now that Seventeen was actually looking for it. He had a certain deadness to his face that Seventeen had seen many times both in the mirror and on others. If he remembered correctly, today had been the first day this specific crew had to undergo this type of training. CC-2224 was probably the best off if he was well enough to stand guard. 

Seventeen breathed out slowly, for the first time unsure what to do with the cadets. Usually their problems were solved with laps in the rain around the compound, or latrine cleaning duty. Emotional issues were more Fordo’s thing. But Fordo had his own batch to tend to. 

“Step out of the way cadet,” Seventeen ended up saying, trying not to make it too gruff. The quick, quiet knock against the door signaled that he didn’t quite manage that. Nonetheless, CC-2224 let him pass, albeit a bit slowly. Probably trying to buy his batchmates time. 

It was apparently enough. 

5052, 3636, 1010, and 411 were all in their bunks, with 1010 just barely managing to reach his as Seventeen opened the door. 5052 was turned away from him, taking the furthest bunk in the corner, while 411 and 3636 took the closest. 1010 and an empty bunk stood in the middle, with 5052’s pressed up against the wall. He assumed one of the two empty bunks, above 5052 or below 1010, was for 2224.

“5052,” his voice rang out across the eerily silent room. It felt heavy in their room tonight, not light or even charged with an air of mischief like he was accustomed to it being. 5052 raised his head blearily, and Seventeen ignored the fierce ache in his chest at the sight of his red, puffy eyes. “With me,” he ordered, ignoring the subtle sharp looks 1010 and 3636 were exchanging. 

5052’s eyes watered briefly, before his face smoothed out. He was already learning the importance of a blank face, which was good. He shouldn’t be using it with Seventeen, though. 

5052 climbed out of his bed, his posture rigid in a way Seventeen had never seen before. Were it not for the situation, he would’ve applauded this cadet for his professionalism, something they’d all been lacking ever since he met them. 

“Sir,” 411 called, and Seventeen spared him a brief glance, “I was wondering if-”

“Later, 411,” Seventeen said sharply, training his gaze on the kid who was approaching him like he was a death sentence. “5052 and I need to take care of something.”

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew what effect his words were having on the cadets, especially 2224 who stood guiltily in the doorway. It was fine. Maybe they’d finally understand he was in charge, or learn they weren’t as invincible as they believed themselves to be. 

As 5052 reached him, Seventeen held out a hand. The cadet looked up at him, then back at his hand, almost confused. Seventeen sighed, grabbing 5052’s hand with his, practically dwarfing the kid. He tried to keep his posture open and non-threatening, but he got the feeling the look 5052 cast at his brothers was him saying goodbye. As he tugged the cadet out the door, he noticed 2224 make a move to grab his brother, before 5052 shook his head. 

2224 watched them go with tears in his eyes. 

Fucking aiwha-bait Kaminiise demogolka. 

He could hear the soft crying before 5052 and he had turned the corner down the hall. To his credit, the cadet didn’t shed a tear. He may have cried it all out earlier, but one look at the kid proved otherwise. He put on a brave face, but it was just a face. Any clone trooper would be able to see right through it. 

He pulled 5052 along in silence until they reached his office. Seventeen punched in his keycode with his free hand, keeping a tight grip on the kid so he didn’t try to bolt. It was only once they were inside that Seventeen dropped the hand and sat in his chair. 5052 stood at attention directly in front of him, just how they were taught. 

“What happened?” It was less of a request, and more of a demand. 

5052’s voice barely shook as he spoke, “I suffered the after effects of today’s training, sir.”

Seventeen leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his desk, “Symptoms.”

5052 pressed his lips together, tears shining in his eyes once again, before answering, “I-I felt a shortness of breath, tightness in my chest, numbness of limbs, hand tremors, and tunnel vision.”

“You had a panic attack,” Seventeen summarized for him, nodding along with the conclusion. 5052 gave one sharp nod, like it took all his courage just to admit it. Hell, it probably did. If any of the longnecks found out, he’d be decommissioned. Just like with the Alphas, they wanted this first batch of CCs to be perfect. 

“Yessir,” he whispered, his lower lip wobbling slightly. 

Seventeen sighed, “At ease, 5052. C’mere.”

5052 fell back into parade rest, but didn’t move, eyes darting between the wall and Seventeen’s face. Seventeen raised his eyebrow, and sat back in his chair. He could play the waiting game. 

Eventually, the cadet caved and rounded the desk before he stood at Seventeen’s side, still looking past him instead of at him. 

“I know 2224’s been going around giving out names, so what’s yours?” Seventeen asked gently. 2224 was practically asking for a decom with that little scheme, but he couldn’t help but admire the sheer bravery, or maybe stupidity, the cadet showed.

5052 shook his head just slightly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Drop the sir, it’s just Seventeen for right now.” It would be easier if he put them on even footing. 

That got 5052 to look at him. 

There was a long pause where his mind was putting the pieces together, the fact that Seventeen took him to his office and not a long-neck, the gentle tone, the hand holding, the dropping of rank all beginning to click in his head. 

“I’m not - am I in trouble?”

Seventeen shook his head and 5052 sagged in relief almost immediately. This time, the tears did start, wracking his little body as his head dropped to his chest. Seventeen did the only thing he could and yanked the kid into his chest, calmly running a hand through his short curls and breathing in and out, getting him to match the pattern. 

It took a while, but 5052 began to calm down. 

“It’s alright, kid,” Seventeen said lowly, “You’re not the first vod to lose it after one of those training sessions and you won’t be the last.”

“Vod?”

“It means brother,” Seventeen said. He’d forgotten that less exposure to Fett meant the new generations wouldn’t likely have the chance to learn Mando’a. He’d have to talk to the other Alphas about fixing that. 

5052 nodded, before taking a moment to collect his thoughts. Seventeen allowed him that, just offering physical comfort like his batch was probably doing before he intruded. As much as they got on his nerves, they needed to know they were his vode, and he wouldn’t turn them in for something so little as a panic attack. He didn’t have to like them to treat them with some base decency. 

“My name is Bly,” he answered eventually, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

Seventeen chuckled, “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He gently disentangled them, before bringing him into a keldabe. “Do you know what this is?” 

He shook his head no. 

“This is a keldabe. In a fight, a keldabe can be a useful tool in getting your opponents disoriented and putting some distance between you and them. It’d be a bit rougher than this, and probably leave you with a bruise if I really put some effort into it.” He held eye contact with 5052, even as the slightly caged look came back into the cadet’s eyes, “But between family, friends, or partners, it’s a sign of affection. A sign that we’re here for each other, through all this blood and fear. Something so brutal, so painful, turned soft and loving in the presence of those you trust.”

“Oh,” the kid breathed out, and Seventeen could tell the exact moment that he understood what he was telling him. 

“I’m not letting those demogolka get their hands on you, even if your brothers are assholes,” the small laugh was almost happy, “I can’t go easy on you, vod. If I do, we’ll both be slated for decomm. Do you understand?”

The kid - Bly nodded, a very small smile beginning to form, “Thanks, Seventeen.”

Seventeen pulled back and nodded, hiding his laugh at Bly’s sudden yawn. It was getting late, and these kids hadn’t gone through sleep deprivation training yet. It would be best to let them rest while they could. 

—

“Again,” Seventeen called, grinning smugly as Fox snarled at him. A year into their training with him and this batch had quickly shot to the top, with the exception of the clone in front of him. Fox’s scores had been dropping lately, though the little dickhead refused to tell him what had been going on, so they were doing this. 

Sparring until Fox either dropped or spilled. 

It was looking more and more like Fox preferred the first option. 

Usually, when one of them was being difficult, he had them train until their legs gave out on them and they could do nothing but talk. Sometimes it took a little more or less work, especially when it came to Fox. Bly was happy to talk to him since that first night he’d shown he was safe, though he’d caught comments from Wolffe or Fox about the baby of the batch getting special treatment. Kote and Ponds generally folded as soon as they were physically exhausted, and Wolffe just had to get angry enough to spit it all out in quick succession. 

Fox was different. He was smarter. 

He didn’t take training laying down, and was clever enough to keep his cool even when Seventeen could tell he wanted to do nothing more than scream. He’d never dream of talking about his issues to anyone outside his batch, and even then Seventeen was pretty sure he’d only talk to Ponds or Wolffe. He hadn’t even wanted to tell Seventeen his name until Wolffe nagged him enough to make him stand, red-faced, in front of the older clone and spit it out. Seventeen pulled him into a quick keldabe, before repeating the name and telling him it suited him. 

Right now wouldn’t be solved with nagging or a keldabe. At least, not the gentle kind. Fox needed blood, he needed to gnash his teeth and give and receive a little pain. Seventeen understood that just fine. 

“Fuck you,” Fox spat, before lunging again. He was getting sloppier, more tired, and Seventeen was able to pin him in under a minute. He held the struggling kid there for a few seconds until Fox realized he wasn’t escaping and went limp, tapping out once again. 

“Again,” Seventeen repeated once Fox had caught his breath. This time, it was less than thirty seconds before Fox quit fighting, just lying quietly on the mat. 

“You know,” Seventeen huffed after a few moments of stillness, “You’re supposed to tap out.”

Fox tapped lightly, and Seventeen let him up. He grabbed his shoulder before Fox could get too far back into position to go again. 

“Your flight time went up again.”

“I know.”

“You gonna do anything about it?”

Fox’s glare was enough to make almost anyone else back down. But not him. 

“The fuck do you care?”

Seventeen stepped back, getting into a fighting position, “Again.”

Fox didn’t have buttons to push like Wolffe, nor did he give up when he should like Ponds or Kote. He needed a little of both, a little more push than most would have advocated for a kid, to get him to crack how he needed to. 

They danced the familiar dance a few more times before, maybe the fourth or fifth time Seventeen pinned him, Fox let out a frustrated yell. That was close to what he was looking for.

“Kote took top spot for blaster modules this week.”

“I fucking know, okay?” 

That was what he was looking for. 

“I know Kote took top spot and I know Wolffe beat my fly time and I know Gree and his batch are taking over strategy mods! I fucking get it, so fuck off with whatever the hell this is!” Fox wriggled out from under him, and Seventeen let him go without a fight. He stayed facing away from Seventeen, but that was okay for now.

“I just…I hate this stuff! I hate being trapped in those rooms with those demogolka and fucking Fett watching over our shoulders like he ever did anything except leave and you acting like you give a shit when we both know you’re only here because we’re another assignment for you. I hate you pretending like we’re brothers or everything’s gonna be fine and we aren’t all gonna die soon or-or like any of us matter in the long run,” his rant was beginning to slow, and Seventeen approached slowly. The small break in his voice told him all he needed to know. 

“I don’t get the point when it doesn’t fucking matter if I die here or on a battlefield because death is death, and either way no one’s gonna care,” if he had to guess, the tears started about thirty seconds ago. 

The worst part is that Seventeen gets it. He’d lost one of his batch to the same thoughts. In the end, it hadn’t been the long-necks or a fight that did him in. Just a missing blaster and too much time alone outside. They all understood why, even if they never forgave him for it. 

It was because he understood that he placed one hand on Fox’s shoulder, forcing his vod to face him. 

“You’re right,” Seventeen rumbled, not leaning over and making himself small like he would for the others. Fox had always appreciated the truth above all else. 

“What?” He was right, tear tracks were carved down his vod’s face, and the small breathy disbelief looked like it might break the younger clone. 

“Fett’s a fucking asshole, don’t know why Kote likes him so much. The Kaminiise are indescribable in their cruelty, and I’m a dick. Doesn’t mean nothing you do matters, though.”

Fox scoffed and pulled away, trying to twist his face into that familiar hard sneer, “And what would you know about that?”

Seventeen shrugged, “Not sure. You don’t want me to know you. But I see the way Kote and Bly light up when their ori’vod is around. And I know Wolffe would never survive without you, and that Ponds would kill himself if you did what you’re talking about doing.” He looked this kid - his kid in the eyes. He needed him to know he understood. “You’re trying to get the Kaminiise to do it for you, so you don’t have to take the coward’s way out. I get it, vod’ika. But you know every single one of those little assholes in your barracks would hurtle themselves off the edge just the same if you died, by your own hand or not.”

“Wha-”

“Don’t do it for me,” Seventeen added, gentling his tone a bit as fresh tears sprang to his vod’ika’s eyes, “Don’t do it for Fett, and don’t you fucking dare do it for the long-necks. Do it for the brothers waiting for you back in the bunks. The brothers that would beat themselves up if they knew that you were even thinking about this. The brothers that are going to force you to cuddle with them even if they have to drag you kicking and screaming.”

Yeah, okay, maybe Seventeen liked to linger outside their door when he was done with his duties that didn’t involve five nightmares running around and making his life hell. Maybe he wanted to soak in his brothers’ laughter once in a while. So what. 

Fox looked at the floor, desperately trying to hold back tears. 

Seventeen sighed and knelt in front of him, opening his arms up and waiting. 

It took Fox less than thirty seconds to decide that yes, he did want the offered hug. Seventeen kept his laugh to a low rumble, a little closer to soothing than teasing. Fox squeezed him like he’d never been hugged before, even though Seventeen knew damn well that was a lie. It didn’t matter. 

“We don’t do it for ourselves,” Seventeen said lowly, “We’d never make it if we did. We do it for each other, or we don’t do it at all.”

Fox sniffed, and Seventeen didn’t even care that he was probably getting snot and tears all over his blacks. His little brother was going to be okay, and that’s what mattered. 

—

It took the Kaminiise two years to figure out who had started naming clones. Who started giving them just a little agency and independence. And when they found out, they made sure to make an example out of him. 

They came during the sleep cycles, when Seventeen wouldn’t be around to stop them, and took Kote from his bunk without a word. 

Two years in, one year after Seventeen had begun to call the littles his vod’ike, he found himself kneeling at the feet of the man he hated most in this place, begging for mercy for his charge. Fett was cold, he knew, but not so cold that his second favorite cadet would be left to rot. 

Kote had been in isolation for almost a week, and nearly every night Seventeen had a visitor from the batch crawl into his bunk with shaky hands and red eyes. A decomm would’ve been easier on them, but knowing their second-youngest was alive and alone, trapped and left at the hands of the Kaminiise, was breaking them.

Ponds and Kote had always been the anchors of the group. Ponds was the oldest, and the automatic go-to for most things. But Kote named them all, and every single one of them adored him for it. 

Fett was unyielding when Seventeen entered with accusations on the tip of his tongue. He was prepared to yell, to scream at the man who started this, who refused to leave them alone even after everything he’d already done to hurt them. But one look at the man had him falling to his knees, a single tear escaping his eyes as he pleaded with his head bowed. 

Fett said nothing, and Seventeen left feeling humiliated and angry.

Which was why, when Seventeen heard Kote had been let out and was currently in the care of Fett, he’d sprinted across the compound to collect his vod. 

He got there just in time to see Kote leave, tears dripping down his little face, crumpling against the wall outside of the dar’manda’s room. 

Seventeen said nothing, but knelt in front of his vod’ika and scooped him up, carrying him away from that place. 

As they walked, Kote’s hands fisted in Seventeen’s blacks as he tried to muffle his sobs into the older man’s chest. He clung to Seventeen like they were the last people alive on this planet, and Seventeen made sure to hold him just as tight. They made it to the Alpha barracks, which were thankfully empty, and laid down together on Seventeen’s bunk. 

Kote wailed for hours once he realized they were somewhere safe, away from long-necks and cold-hearted bounty hunters. Seventeen just held on, running a hand up and down his vod’ika’s back to comfort him, and whispered apologies into Kote’s hair. 

“Why didn’t they just decommission me?” Kote kept asking through tears, sometimes screaming and sometimes whimpering.

“Why did Prime have to name me?”

“Why didn’t I listen to him?”

“Why didn’t he find me sooner?”

So many questions that Seventeen had no answer to.

When the tears finally slowed, Seventeen spoke. 

“He tricked you, vod’ika. He’s a cruel and callous man and he tricked you.” 

Seventeen had always hated how Fett dug his claws into this kid. He didn’t care how it would hurt Kote, he didn’t care what would have happened to him. Seventeen was a violent man but even he didn’t understand why Fett would do this. 

“They couldn’t even say my name right,” Kote whimpered, “They kept saying ‘Cody’ and when I tried to correct them they - they just -” he broke off, burying his head into Seventeen’s chest and letting out another sob. 

“They will always hate you for the freedom you’ve given your brothers,” Seventeen rumbled, “And I will make sure they cannot deny your strength.” 

A plan was already forming in his head. He’d put Kote through extra training, make him into the best of the best. He’d make him good enough to rival an ARC. The Kaminiise couldn’t throw him out if he was useful enough, sharp enough, strong enough. 

“He named me Glory, Seventeen,” Kote cried, “Why? I don’t understand!”

Seventeen didn’t have an answer for that question either. 

“You have to stay away from him, Kote,” Seventeen said. He said it firmly, like it was an order, and not a plea, though they both knew better. Fett could easily take Kote away from Seventeen, away from his batch, and none of them except the kid crying into him could make it stop. 

“He - he loves me,” Kote wailed, “I’m his ad, he loves me! I can’t just-”

Seventeen cut him off harshly, “Kot’ika, if he loved you, I wouldn’t have had to beg him to interfere.” It was harsh, but his vod’ika needed to know. “He didn’t come looking for you. We did.”

Kote cried for a long time after that. He kept trying to make excuses, telling Seventeen about all the times Fett had supposedly cared. 

It just made Seventeen angrier. Fett had manipulated his kid into thinking he was more than a paycheck, more than food for a war that hadn’t even begun yet. Seventeen briefly entertained the possibility of killing him for it. 

Out of all the tools they’d been given, hope was never one of them. The kid screaming into the pillow was proof as to why. 

Kote eventually tired himself out enough to pass out on the bunk, and Seventeen sighed in relief as his breathing finally evened out. 

Both Maze and Fordo poked their heads in, for once not laughing at the sight of Seventeen curled around one of the kids he’d once told them he’d never call his own. They told him Kote’s batch had been alerted to his release, and they’d immediately demanded answers from the older ARCs, meaning Seventeen would probably need to make an appearance soon to ease their fears.

Seventeen just nodded along to the debrief, a wave of exhaustion hitting him as well. He eventually gathered himself enough to sit up, taking Kote with him. The kid just shifted sleepily, his face scrunching up in dismay even though he didn’t wake.

“They’re going to be looking for an excuse,” Fordo said quietly after a moment, “He needs to keep his head down.”

“I know,” Seventeen murmured. 

“Seventeen,” Maze said, “He’s terrified. Whatever you’re planning, leave him out of it.”

Seventeen just sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. 

“I’m serious. He needs to stop making ripples, good or bad. He’s already too individualistic for their tastes.”

Maze was right. Kote had always been headstrong and stubborn, just like the rest of his batch. They all relied on each other too much and not only had it taken Kote down, but the rest of them either refused to or simply couldn’t pull themselves together in his absence.

“You boys remember our training on Rishi?” Seventeen asked after a moment. 

It was a stupid question, of course they did. They’d been dropped off on that moon, all in separate locations, with no comms or supplies to help them except what was expected in emergencies. They had to survive like that for a month before they were picked up again. It was the worst experience of any of their lives. 

“We need a program like that for them,” he said after a moment, ignoring the twin glares sent his way. Every single Alpha had become incredibly protective over their batchers in the two years the program had been going on. 

“Not exactly like that,” Seventeen assured them, “But their training is a lot more strategy and team focused. They need something closer to the way the ARCs were trained.”

Fordo snorted, “ARC training is a hell of a lot more brutal than what they’ve had to do so far. And it started a lot earlier.”

“It would make them indispensable,” Seventeen said after a moment, and he knew the silence following that statement meant he’d won. 

Still, he sighed and stood, clutching Kote against his chest, “I’m gonna get him back to his batch. I have a feeling they’re about to come looking.”

—

Wolffe was smiling, which immediately put Seventeen on edge. Wolffe had a few kinds of ‘smile’. There was the genuine one, which was rare but always rewarding, the smirk, which was the most common and meant he’d just kicked someone’s ass in hand to hand training and was about to get far too cocky about it, and then his grin, which meant he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to. 

Like now. 

Seventeen folded his arms across his chest, giving his best glare at the cadet. They were six months into ARC training, a year out from the event that kick started the idea, and all it had done was make his batch harder to handle. 

Not only were they trouble-makers, they were now troublemakers with all the strategy and training of their older counterparts. 

“It wasn’t me this time,” they’d finally hit that funny age where their voices no longer matched their faces, and all of them grew at different rates. It was maybe the one time in their lives they would look genuinely different from each other. 

Seventeen added an eyebrow raise to his glare. 

“Kote found him first.”

Him?

“It was his idea,” Wolffe was beginning to shrink back just a little under the glare, “But he’s not making any trouble.”

Seventeen snorted, “The day you di’kuts don’t make trouble for me is the day you’re all dead and buried.”

Wolffe flipped him off. 

“That’s ten extra suicides, cadet.” Seventeen smiled as Wolffe’s face immediately dropped and he started whining. 

“It was just a joke, you’re mean to us all the time,” Wolffe argued, not helping his case in the slightest. 

“I’m keeping you assholes alive,” Seventeen shot back, “Now what did you do?”

Wolffe scowled, replying, “Come on, old man,” before turning and marching down the hall.

“And that’s twenty,” Seventeen called after him.

Wolffe kept complaining the whole way there, even when Seventeen cuffed him on the back of the head for it. He led them to the CT barracks, which was new. To his knowledge, his batch never really came down here. There was no need to.

The experimental ARC babysitting program had gone well enough that when the CT clones were produced and of age, several Alphas had been relegated to managing these cadets, whom he’d been assured were either much less or much more rowdy than the CCs, depending on the batch. 

Alpha had just been assigned his first case, though it was a curious one. Two of the batch had been decommed almost as soon as they came out of their tubes, and the other three didn’t get along the way most batches tended to. They were first generation CTs, so some defects were expected, but the vitriol with which they treated each other certainly was not. 

It had been a jarring change from the crew he’d been taking care of for almost four years now.

Wolffe led him to a supply closet off to the side in the barracks, chattering all the way about how this was Kote’s fault. Seventeen ignored him in favor of looking around at the empty bunks, internally sighing about whatever scheme his vode had cooked up this time. 

When Wolffe opened the door, however, the cadet inside of the closet threw Seventeen for a loop.

“7567?” He asked, surprised. He was one of the batchers Seventeen had been assigned to take care of, the one that got picked on the most, actually. What really surprised him, however, was the state he was in. 

His usual obvious blonde head of hair had been shaved carelessly almost completely off. He could see a few cuts dotted across the kid’s head, and the kid himself looked like he’d lost a pound or two since the last time Seventeen had seen him nearly a week ago. 

He’d thought the kid was avoiding him, but there was obviously something more going on. 

“You know him?” Wolffe asked, sounding surprised and completely ignoring the sharp glare being thrown his way from the kid hiding in the closet. 

“He’s one of mine,” Seventeen responded, still searching for any more visible wounds or changes to his newest charge, “Haven’t been able to find him for a week.”

“Oh, uh, that may have been our fault,” Wolffe said, looking back at 7567, “What? Why are you glaring at me?”

“I told you not to tell anyone,” 7567 bit out, the harsh tone being somewhat off put by the higher pitch of his voice. He was just a bit younger than the CCs, and wouldn’t hit the growth spurt that truly mattered for another year or two. 

“Yeah, well, suck it up. Kote’s been going crazy trying to hide you from your batch and the Alphas,” came the nonchalant reply, and Seventeen furrowed his brow. Why would Kote be trying to hide 7567 from his own brothers?

“I figured he could help,” Wolffe continued, and Seventeen ignored the brief flash of warmth at the statement of trust. 

Now it was his turn to be glared at, and Seventeen took a second to admire the size of 7567’s balls before matching it with his own sneer. 

“You’ve been skipping training, cadet.”

“I didn’t want to,” he replied sulkily, “Kote said it wasn’t safe.”

Seventeen hummed, “And why would he say that?”

7567 hesitated for a moment, before quietly admitting, “He caught them doing…this,” he gestured to his head, and a sick moment of realization came over Seventeen, “He scared them off, but he didn’t want me to go back with them.”

Batchmates teasing each other was one thing, but hurting one another?

That would have to be dealt with. 

Seventeen sighed as he moved in front of Wolffe and crouched in the doorway of the closet, “So Kote, being the di’kut he is, hid you in here.”

7567 shrugged, “‘S not terrible.”

“You eaten recently?”

The cadet shook his head no after a moment, and Seventeen turned back to look at Wolffe, “Why exactly did you boys think this was a good idea?”

Wolffe crossed his arms, “I didn’t know until yesterday, ask Kote.”

“Not helpful,” Seventeen grunted, before turning back to 7567, “Since you and Kote are so tight, I assume you’ve got a name.”

7567’s eyes widened comically at him, giving him away in an instant. Of course Kote did, he’d always had a soft spot for the littles. 7567 still looked at Wolffe first, who must have given an affirmative.

“Rex,” he said quietly.

Seventeen nodded, “Alright Rex, with me. Wolffe, you too.”

Rex looked at him with slight suspicion in his eyes, and Wolffe let out a small noise of complaint. 

“Come on boys,” he tried again, adding a little bark to his voice that had them both scrambling to follow him out the door, “Medics first, then food.”

Once they reached a medical droid, Seventeen sent Rex off behind a curtain with it, and sat down next to Wolffe, giving him the ‘you’d better start talking’ look. 

Wolffe grumbled for a bit before admitting, “His batch are assholes. Too aggressive with him. He learned how to bite back, but Kote said it was pretty bad when he found them. Kid was bleeding like crazy and scared the shit out of Kote, who tried to take him here. He didn’t let him, on the grounds of his mutation, and wouldn’t budge.” Wolffe ran a hand through his hair, a tick they’d all begun to pick up from Seventeen, “He’s with us until further notice.”

Seventeen sat back in his chair, absorbing the information for a moment.

“Good,” he said simply, ignoring the look of confusion and surprise Wolffe sent his way. 

“Sir?” Wolffe asked, and Seventeen shifted in his chair, keeping an ear out for Rex. 

“He needs a batch,” Seventeen responded, “He’s too skinny and too short, probably from lack of nutrition, and his hair is going to make him stand out. He keeps going the way he’s going, his batch will kill him before the Kaminiise get the chance.”

“Oh,” Wolffe said, a little quieter this time. 

“You boys got lucky,” Seventeen continued, still keeping an eye on the curtain, “You got each other. He doesn’t have that.”

“He’s stubborn,” Wolffe said after a moment, “He’s apparently been fighting Kote every step of the way. Doesn’t want anyone to think they have to take care of him.”

That was good. That showed spirit. If Rex had allowed himself to be cowed, to back away without a fight and shrink into the shadows, Seventeen would have had a lot more work to do. As it was…

“He won’t be around his batch if I recommend him for ARC training,” Seventeen suggested quietly, “Of course, he’d need some older vode helping him out, the way I did with you.”

Wolffe snorted, “Not sure you helped us out so much as put the fear of the Manda into us.”

Seventeen grinned down at him, “Got you moving, didn’t it?”

Wolffe rolled his eyes and settled back into his chair, now eyeing the curtain in an equally curious and concerned way, “Think he’ll make it? He’s a CT.”

Seventeen shrugged, “Don’t know. Didn’t know if you boys were going to make it either.”

Wolffe eyed him critically, “What do you mean you didn’t know?”

Seventeen chuckled, “You’re smart and strong, but it takes more than that to complete what you’re being put through. It’s only been six months, and you’ve yet to hit the worst of it.”

Wolffe groaned, “Why are you so cryptic?”

Seventeen looked back at him, a gleam in his eye, “Because it pisses you off.”

Wolffe opened his mouth to say something that probably would’ve earned him another hour in the gym, when the curtain swung back, revealing Rex looking even grumpier than earlier. His head had a few small bacta patches on it, and he promptly ignored the droid in favor of marching over to where Seventeen and Wolffe were sitting.

The droid ignored Rex’s obvious unhappiness and followed him over, this time addressing Seventeen.

“A-17,” it began, “I believe this CT-7567 has a serious defect that must be looked at. Chromosome number-”

“I’m aware,” Seventeen growled at the droid, “We’re all aware. Now fuck off.”

The droid paused for a moment, unsure what to do with itself. 

“I must report this to Nala Se,” it finally concluded, and Seventeen just huffed in response. 

After a beat of silence in which the droid scurried away, a small voice behind Seventeen spoke, “Is she going to decommission me?”

Seventeen almost laughed. Almost. 

Instead he said, “Kid, she knew about your hair the second you left your tube. If you aren’t slated for it yet, you won’t be any time soon.” He turned to face his cadets, hiding his smile at the way Wolffe acted like he wasn’t just wrapping Rex up in a hug. 

“C’mon,” he said, “let’s go get you boys some food.”

—

Today was the day.

His batch was going to take and pass the final test, and become honorary ARC troopers. Two years after they started on the shortened ARC modules, and they’d all become so much more than the Kaminiise ever believed they could be. He’d stood in front of all of them before they marched off for their tests and told them he was proud of every single one, no matter the outcome. 

Rex sat with him, both quietly pretending they weren’t shitting their brains out with anxiety, and they waited. 

Fox and Wolffe came out together, wearing twin grins, and Seventeen knew without asking. He wrapped them up, squeezing the life out of them and ignoring the groans of embarrassment. Kote came out thirty minutes later, having completed and passed his own exams and combat trials, followed by Bly soon after. 

They all sat and waited for Ponds. 

There was an air of anxiety coming from his cadets, and he knew why. 

They were supposed to graduate together, to be the first full batch to make it across the finish line. They’d worked hard for this, studied and trained together for years. They knew the manuals inside and out and had personally tested themselves against every single ARC and trainer they could coax onto the sparring mats. 

Ponds’ absence sent a shockwave through that steady confidence. 

An hour later and they were still sat there, all uneasy, all rhythmically bouncing their knees in near unison. 

An hour and a half later, the doors opened, and they all tensed, prepared for bad news.

What they were unprepared for, however, was a bloody, limping Ponds to walk through with the biggest grin any of them had seen on his face. 

“What the fuck,” Wolffe was, of course, the first to speak. “What the fuck!” He repeated, louder and more worried. 

This sent all of them into a frenzy, rushing toward their injured vod and checking him over, all shouting over one another and demanding to know what happened. Ponds just laughed at their concern, though Seventeen caught the slight wince at the movement.

After a few moments, he convinced them to quiet, and breathed deep, still grinning like a maniac.

“We passed,” he said after a slight pause, and the whole bunch erupted in cheers. They pulled themselves into a circle, Rex and Seventeen watching fondly from the outside, and congratulated each other, giving out hugs and keldabes left and right. Seventeen was fairly sure Wolffe and Fox hit each other a little too hard, and he smiled at the resulting stumble from the boys.

They were nearly seventeen standard years, which meant as soon as the war they were being bred for started, they’d all be shipped out without a moment’s hesitation. It was that thought that made Seventeen allow them to celebrate loudly, noisily, and unashamedly despite the attention it might have drawn. 

Eventually, they calmed down, and Seventeen muscled his way to the center, planting himself in front of Ponds. They were too tall now for him to need to kneel and get on their level, but still short enough that he could loom adequately. 

“Vod’ika,” he began lightly, settling a comforting hand on Ponds’ shoulder, “What happened?”

Ponds’ grin shrank slightly, but his answer was steady, “What do you mean? I passed!”

Seventeen allowed himself to smile at the no-longer-cadet’s enthusiasm, “I know, and I’m proud, but why are you hurt?”

“It was part of the test,” Ponds furrowed his brow in confusion, looking around at the others, “Didn’t all of you…” he trailed off, for the first time taking in the lack of injuries around him. Seventeen could see the moment realization dawned on his face, as well as feel the rising fury coming from the brothers behind him. 

“No,” Seventeen said gently, shaking his head, “That wasn’t part of the test.”

“Oh.”

“Ori’vod-” 

Seventeen cut whoever it was off with a short look behind him. They all looked equally scolded. 

He hated this was happening during their moment of triumph, but he knew if he didn’t address it, no one would. 

“Pond’ika,” Seventeen tried again, “What happened?”

Ponds stilled, his face becoming blank as he processed what was going on. Seventeen squeezed his shoulder a little tighter, becoming a grounding point until his vod’ika was ready. 

“I was going into my counter-insurgency exam and Ward was in the ring. He said he and I would spar and that I had to be prepared for anything,” his voice and expression remained steady, even as Seventeen’s grew concerned, “He flipped out a knife at one point and…” Ponds looked down and gestured to his leg and torso. 

“Why weren’t you wearing armor?” Kote asked from behind Seventeen. 

“He told me to take it off,” Ponds replied simply. 

Seventeen sucked in a breath. Ward was a grade A asshole, every ARC knew this. His ‘counter-insurgency’ fighting was just an excuse to fight dirty, to scar up troopers and taunt them for their lack of skill. 

Skirata should have been in charge of this exam, not Ward. Skirata had always been the kindest of the Cuy’val Dar, and by the looks on the rest of the batcher’s faces, they were thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” Seventeen said simply, “Take off the armor and let’s take a look.”

Ponds shook his head, “Can we do this in the barracks?”

Seventeen nodded, and immediately Wolffe and Fox were at Ponds’ side, helping him take the weight off his injured leg. Rex gave a quieter congratulations to Kote, his obvious favoritism not quite overshadowing his worry as he constantly looked back to check up on Ponds. Bly fell into lockstep with Seventeen, and their little crew easily made their way to the barracks. 

As soon as they got inside, Kote grabbed the medical kit and presented it to Seventeen, who began to set things out on the floor. He knelt in front of where Wolffe and Fox had sat Ponds on Wolffe’s bunk, but gave them enough space to help Ponds remove his armor. 

Bly settled in next to Ponds when Fox vacated the spot to go lock the door, and sucked in a breath as Ponds unbuckled his thigh gauntlet. Blood rushed from the wound, which had previously been pressured by Ponds tightening the straps to keep the wound secure, but it wasn’t deep enough to hit bone, for which Seventeen was glad. 

His torso was a little more complicated, the unnatural shift of skin telling Seventeen that one of his ribs was likely broken. If it had punctured a lung, they would’ve known by now, and he breathed a little easier with the knowledge. 

“Kote,” he called quietly but firmly, “Comm Aven, tell him we’re gonna need some help.”

Ponds opened his mouth to protest, but snapped it shut when he received several glares from around the room. 

“Can’t believe you passed with this,” Seventeen mumbled, “You should’ve tapped out when he flipped out the knife.”

“We were all supposed to pass,” came the answer Seventeen had already guessed. 

“I know,” he sighed, “And this just proves how much you deserve it, but next time, you tap out, got it?”

There was no nod or sign that he agreed, which Seventeen had also expected. Ponds was just as stubborn as the rest of them, no matter how much he hated to admit it. 

He heard Kote talking quietly in the background and got to work, Rex occasionally pushing certain supplies his way and Wolffe and Bly talking calmly to Ponds as Seventeen went about patching him up. 

They didn’t want full batches to graduate ARC training, because then they could prove it was a waste of time and money. He’d known that the second he and a few others proposed the idea to Fett, the Kaminiise, and the Cuy’val Dar and nearly every single one of them had soured. 

Well they could take their elitist dar’manda bullshit and shove it up their asses. His batch had passed, regardless of Ward’s best efforts, and shoved it in every single one of their ugly faces. 

Ponds’ injuries had luckily not impacted the general mood after the initial shock, and soon they were all sharing details and comparing experiences in their different tests. They all laughed at Bly for forgetting to fill out the last digit of his number during one of the written tests, and Fox followed it up with how Wolffe was so nervous he forgot to load his blaster during the firing range exams. That was followed by a smack, which was followed with an insult, which was followed with Seventeen having to reach out and grab Wolffe before he made a move to tackle his brother. 

Nearly nine years old and they still acted four. 

Aven came in a few moments later, taking over the medical side of things for Seventeen, who took the opportunity to give the eldest a keldabe. Ponds smiled into the hold and relaxed a little further. 

They were no longer cadets, not as of that afternoon, and Seventeen knew he would have to let them go soon. 

Still, he sighed as Rex ganged up with Wolffe against Fox in their bickering, and turned around to scold his vod’ika.

—

In the years the war dragged on, Seventeen saw very little of his batchers. Rex and Kote, who was going by Cody in front of the natborns, visited when the war came to Kamino, and introduced him to vod’ika of their own. Wolffe called after what happened with Ventress, showing off his own scar from his encounter with the Sith acolyte. Bly commed often, asking mostly about business, but he’d once let slip something about him and his general. And Fox…Fox he never really saw. 

But they’d all gathered, either on a call or in person, to say goodbye to Ponds. 

Rex had sent him a message saying the batch had already had their night of grief, wallowing in each other’s arms. He was glad they’d taken the time for themselves, but even happier they still trusted him with this. 

They’d all formed little batches within their battalions, as they should, but he’d never really been able to take care of another batch like he did with them. There were too many cadets on Kamino now to focus on them one group at a time. 

So even if it was over a call, he was relieved to see their faces, and ached when they all looked to where Ponds usually stood during these video conferences.

It was quiet at first, and Seventeen took the opportunity to drink each of them in. They were all so much older, so much more exhausted, then he remembered them being. Fox and Wolffe in particular looked like hell, and though he knew it was a combination of grief and whatever osik they’d been handling recently, it didn’t look right on them. 

Kote spoke first, telling Seventeen what happened and declaring Boba dar’manda with vitriol hidden behind his teeth. He and Rex were in person together, as were Bly and Wolffe, and Seventeen appreciated Rex putting a hand on his shoulder to ground his ori’vod. Bly went next, starting to tell a story about Ponds during a fairly recent fight that brought small grins to his brothers’ faces. Wolffe joined in, as did Rex, and soon they were all at least smiling. 

The one vod that never spoke was Fox. 

It puzzled Seventeen how quiet he was. Fox had always been the first to speak up, the first to step in, the first to very loudly give his opinion. But now he was silent. He looked almost like he was disassociating. 

“Fox’ika?” Seventeen called, “You alright?”

Fox looked up once he noticed all the attention was on him and nodded quickly, “‘Course,” he assured them, his tone still sounding off, “Just…reminiscing I guess.”

There were a few murmured agreements from around the table, before the conversation turned back to Ponds. Seventeen caught Wolffe looking over worriedly a few times. He idly wondered how many of them made the effort to keep up with each other. He hoped all of them, but knew better than to assure himself of it. 

The call went on for a long time, most everyone having a good cry at some point. Seventeen was the only one that left with dry eyes when it was said and done. 

He sighed as their blue forms flickered out of existence, and looked across his desk. It was scattered with paperwork, test results, security reports, all the paperwork he’d been relegated to once his leg made it so he could never fight again. 

He unlocked the lowest drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle of moonshine Spur had snuck to him once Ponds’ death had been officially reported back to Kamino. He poured himself a drink and sat back in his chair, scrolling through old comms. There weren’t many with Ponds, just little questions his vod’ika had here and there, and a few scattered conversations about life in the thick of things. 

They were clone troopers, which meant they didn’t get holos or recordings of kids running around just being kids. They didn’t get keepsakes or days that could be spent talking and catching up. He’d known he would have to let them go eventually, and that when he did, there would be nothing to tether them to him.

It still hurt. 

Three glasses in, he picked up his comm again, and pulled up his conversations with Fox. 

It had been nearly six months since they last talked. 

A-17: I’m being sent to Coruscant soon for an escort

A-17: We should catch up

He waited a few minutes, then put his comm down. Fox was a Marshal Commander now, he’d respond when he could. 

Until then, Seventeen was content to drink to the memory of both Ponds, and the boys his batchers used to be.

[vadersassistant]

For My Adventures Clark, what about head-cannons and/or fanfic on what he does to make his girlfriend laugh & smile?

Gender neutral headcannons! How Clark comforts you, cares for you, tries to show love, and cheer you up.

Clark is observant, that much is clear. From X-ray and enhanced vision to super hearing, he uses all of his Kryptonian abilities at his disposal when it comes to you.

He could be halfway across the city stopping an entire robbery. All of the sudden you say something along the lines of being in pain and he's moving at unregistrable speed to get to you as soon as possible (of course after quickly finishing what he was doing). And yes, you are the only person he willingly listens in on.

Clarks always alert with how you're feeling, even if he's far away, he prioritizes your well being like you do his.

Feeling overstimulated/overwhelmed? Clark helps you get away from all of the commotion. Whether that's going up above the clouds and flying for a bit, or finding you a secluded spot to cool down and leaving you be.

He pays attention to your habits, along with common expressions you make when you're feeling a certain way. Especially when zoned out, Clark gently tries to get your attention to keep you grounded and helps in any way he can.

If he's really busy he might text you something random like 'look up'. You do, and suddenly you see a massive heart drawn into the sky, watching him wave to you from far above before going back to saving the city.

Clark loves to leave you notes too, things hidden in your office drawer, or in the lounge room fridge with a small sticky note attached.

He always gets you fresh flowers from a florist that gives him discounts. The thing is though, they're always hand picked, with different combinations and thought out reasons for as to why he chose those specific flowers. Maybe it reminded him of your eye color, or that specific flower stands for something. Whatever it is, the vase that sits on your desk always gets exchanged frequently, and is always taken care of.

Clark also loves picking you up, spinning you around and hugging you. He's very careful not to hurt you though, but those moments are often filled with mutual laughter.

A major part of Clarks love language is understanding and accepting his partner fully due to his own circumstances as a Kryptonian. While he may be aware of habits and or disabilities you have right off the bat, he wants you to tell him yourself when you’re ready, but he is your number one supporter.

He always tries to make you feel more comfortable in your skin, knowing what it’s like to be rejected and out of place in his own. You each teach one another about your different culture, and Clark takes it upon himself to do a good amount of research if it means getting to know you better!

Clark also loves physical touch, especially small gestures like hand holding. Even if you two had argued, or if you're upset, he always tries to reassure you by softly squeezing your hand, thumbing your skin, etc. His hands are quite large, and I like to think holding his partner's hand grounds him just as much as it grounds you.

I love writing for him, please feel free to request more!!

[thedustyleaves]

hi bendix! any tips for drawing/ lighting backgrounds? yours are so gorgeous and cohesive, is there anything specific you think about when planning the layout and props?

Thank you for the question! I'll do my best to answer it, but if something doesn't make sense, feel free to hit me up with some follow-up questions, because sometimes I just end up rambling, hah!

There's a couple of things I keep in mind when I do my bigger illustrations. I always want certain things or characters to be in focus, so for my cowboy illustration, I wanted the four characters from my comic to be the main focus of the piece. I used a couple of different techniques to emphasize this, whereas one of them is lighting.

The background is overall a lot darker and has more contrast between dark and light, than the foreground. To further separate the group from the background, I used the window in the back to add a rim light (that honestly makes no physical sense but it looks neat so...), to make them feel more cohesive as a group.

The second thing is balancing the amount of details I put into it. While there is a lot of stuff, the background has broader, bigger and clunkier shapes than the group in the foreground does.

To keep the feel of the details to a minimum, I kept them within those shapes, so the paintings still feel like single boxes, with stuff in it.

This helps the foreground pop with all the smaller details I've added there.

The next thing is colour. The overall colour scheme is very reddish and brown, but to connect the four characters in the foreground, I added blue to them.

Kain, Christie and Dakon all wear bits of the blue and Raki is holding playing cards with the same blue, while his entire outfit is tinted blue-ish, so even if it's black, the cold tones match with the blues.

This also puts them in contrast to the background characters that are exclusively red/brown and stays within those colour groups.

The details on the table are only 3-4 colours as well; I like to keep my palette to a minimum so the things I want to stick out, actually stick out, and so it doesn't get too busy.

The final thing I like to do, is direct the gaze of the viewer, and use contrast in shape and gestures.

The background and the background characters has very straight lines ...

... whereas the foreground characters are more curved by leaning towards each other, and by sitting around a small round table, that forces them closer to each other as well.

To further direct the gaze of the viewer, I use the eye-lines of the characters. We tend to follow eye-lines in pictures, so I always make sure that my background characters (or some of them) are looking at the thing I want to show off, and that the main characters especially are doing the same thing.

When all is said and done, whenever I start a new illustration, I can basically picture it in my head because I have hyperphantasia. When I sit down to draw, I nudge things around until the idea fits as an illustration, so don't be afraid to just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Winging it will take you far, hahah!

I hope this was somewhat helpful :)

[mothwithapencil]

Vegaryuken is something that can only be understood with a certain degree of autism and a very specific thought pipeline. That pipeline being "Vega very obviously has an incredibly gay one-sided Thing for Ken (mentioned in my last vega art dump). What if it wasn't one-sided though. Well Ken cannot exist without being in love with Ryu. Ryu is a big sweet baby and his giant baby cow eyes and gentle soul are hard not to fall in love with though, so maybe I can make this work. Maybe I should look through all of their quotes to each other to see if there's anything there (there's a japanese line where Ryu tells Vega that he hopes their meeting will be a chance to get to know each other btw). Upon looking at the quotes I've decided that Ken and Ryu could easily take Vega in like some kind of fucked up shivering blood-soaked stray cat. Ryu can teach him that physical beauty is ultimately irrelevant and that A Beautiful Soul is what really counts. A single kind gesture would change him. They can fix him."

[amhrosina]

Little Talks (Namor x f!Reader)

MASTERLIST // JOIN MY TAGLIST

A/N: It's currently 20 degrees in Texas with a windchill that makes it feel like it's below zero. SOS y'all, Texas wasn't made for this weather. Also patiently waiting for Wakanda Forever to come out on streaming platforms so we can all be blessed with HD gifs of Tenoch as Namor <3

Request: Hii can you please write a namor x fem avenger reader where he’s yelling at her for being reckless during missions and he’s doing this because he cares and worries for her safety

Summary: You get hurt during a mission with SHIELD, and Namor is pissed at you for putting yourself in danger.

(Warnings: nothing crazy, minor descriptions of bruises/cuts, Maria is reader's unofficial adoptive parent, angry Namor, but he's only angry because you're an idiot and not taking care of yourself, fools in love, fluffy Namor, etc.)

Translations: 

in yakunaj – my love 

in ch'ujuk – my sweet 

The sky shook with thunder, and you braced yourself against the sides of the hangar as it began its slow descent towards Avenger’s headquarters. Every muscle in your body ached with fatigue and you were sure you’d be covered in bruises the next morning. You weren’t injured anywhere specific, but it hurt if you breathed too deeply and every time you tensed your jaw, you were reminded of the teeth-rattling punch you’d taken to the face earlier in the evening. 

Everything went according to plan, sort of. You weren’t technically supposed to be in the line of fire, but you realized halfway through the plan that it would never work if you remained hidden, so you’d moseyed your way right into the den of thieves you were supposed to be quietly subduing. It wasn’t like you were an amateur. You’d been training all your life for situations like that one, and you’d be lying if you said the thrill of a physical fight didn’t get your blood pumping in excitement. 

Unfortunately, the aftermath of your hasty decision had left you completely spent, covered in cuts and bruises, and if you twisted your body a certain way, a bone-deep rattling ache would claw its way through your ribs. You were alive, though, and you’d completed the mission, so you were content with calling it a win.  

Agent Hill, on the other hand, had begun ranting in your earpiece about safety and backup the moment you’d stepped onto the hangar, and she wasn’t anywhere close to being finished. You listened intensely, unable to get a word in to defend yourself even if you wanted to.  

The clang of the hangar hitting cement rattled through your body and you tried not to tense up too much as the aircraft landed. The sudden whir of the rear hatch opening had you moving, albeit slowly, towards the exit, eager to wash the dried blood from your skin. Agent Hill’s voice carried on through your earpiece, and when the hatch had fully opened, her voice flowed both in your ear and in through the air in front of you. You slid the earpiece out of your ear and watched as she stomped up the ramp, stopping in front of you.  

“You’re lucky to be alive, girl.” She pointed her finger at your chest, grazing the material with the curve of her nail. Her tone was vice-like, a certain finality flowing through it, but the furrow in her brow revealed what she was trying so hard to hide – concern.  

“Maria, I-” You lifted your hands in an innocent gesture as she cut you off. 

“You not only jeopardized yourself, but also the mission. And for what? So you could get a few punches in? If you’re itching for a fight, I can get an intern to go a few rounds with you in the training arena, but you cannot just rush into dangerous situations with no backup. I trained you better than that.”  

You nodded, agreeing with her in the hopes that she’d let you go shower and get the much-needed rest your body was screaming for. It probably should’ve bothered you that Maria treated you so differently than the rest of the Avengers. You were just as trained as they were, more versed in hand-to-hand combat than any of them, and you’d been smack dab in the middle of the battlefield when the Avengers had fought Thanos. But Maria hadn’t unofficially adopted any of the other Avengers when they were toddlers, so it didn’t bother you when she expected more from you. Maria had saved your life, raised you to live with honor, and personally trained you to be one of the most skilled Avengers on the planet. Letting her yell at you when you messed up was the least you could do for her. 

“Go clean yourself up.” She muttered, shaking her head.  

You stepped around her, intent on doing just that when her voice stopped you.  

“He’s waiting for you over by the river.” 

You swung around, studying her figure as she tapped away at her tablet, no doubt arranging the next set of missions you’d be sent on.  

“You told him?” You groaned, palming your face. The ache in your jaw made you wince and rub the area more gently.  

“He overheard mission control when you decided you wanted to go all Mission Impossible on those guys. I didn’t have to tell him anything.” 

“Shit.” You shook your head. You’d thought you’d heard the last of it from Maria, but Namor knew what you’d done, and you knew he wouldn’t be happy with you. You slumped towards the elevator, realizing you would not be getting that rest you so desperately needed anytime soon. 

After you scrubbed your skin raw in the shower, cleaning up the dried blood and dirt that had quite literally gotten into places it should never be, you stared at your reflection in the mirror. If you were being honest, it looked worse than it felt, but even you couldn’t ignore the steady drum of adrenaline that had yet to leave your body. Your jaw was slightly swollen, a purple bruise blooming from its underside. A cut along the line of your cheekbone was sure to leave a small scar, and you could physically feel the ache in your ribs every time you inhaled. Everything would hurt tomorrow, and you were not eager to feel the consequences of your ridiculously stupid actions. 

You glanced toward your bed, so perfectly soft and comfortable and warm. You ached with desire to jump in it, to ignore the world for a few hours, but you could feel his call, deep in your bones, and it was something you’d never been able to ignore. He was waiting for you, and he would not leave until you showed yourself. 

Come to me, in yakunaj. Show me what I almost lost tonight.  

You trembled with anticipation. His voice, usually so soft and caressing, boomed with anger as he beckoned you to the river. You were left with no choice but to head down the elevator and out the door, towards the man who had stolen your heart and soul. 

Namor met you on the riverbank, storming out of the water at a pace that would’ve been alarming to anyone else. His hands cupped your jaw tightly, and you winced when the ache in your jaw increased to an unbearable throb. He immediately moved his hand to cup the back of your neck, resting his forehead on yours. An apology, even though you didn’t feel like you deserved one. 

He was quiet for a few minutes, homing in on the steady drum of your pulse beneath your skin. You leaned into his hold, wrapping your fingers around his wrists in a fierce hold. 

“Do you not understand the depth of my love for you, in ch'ujuk?” He asked, pulling his head away from yours to look into your eyes.  

“What?” You stuttered, unable to comprehend where he was going with his question. 

“I have dedicated my life to protecting you, and you repay me by playing the fool?” 

“Namor,” you furrowed your brow, shaking your head in confusion, “my love, what do you mean? I know that you love me. I don’t underst-” 

His tone turned fierce, laced with a rage you had rarely seen before. “Then why do you throw yourself into such reckless situations? Do you not understand how terrifying it is to hear you struggling when I am so far away? When I cannot help you?”  

An annoyance sparked in your chest, and you couldn’t help the anger from seeping into your tone in response. “It is my job to eliminate the enemy, Namor. I can take care of myself.” 

Namor shook his head, clucking his tongue in anger. “Do not act like my anger is unwarranted. You made a reckless, stupid, decision tonight, and you could have died. Did you stop and think about where that would have left me? Without you, I am nothing.” 

“You cannot ask me to give up the Avengers, Namor.” You jutted your chin out in defiance.  

“I would never ask you to do that.” He replied in a hasty, ferocious tone. “But you cannot act like you are immortal, in yakunaj. You bleed like every other human being on the planet. You could have died, and that would have destroyed me. And Maria.” 

“I’m fine,” you groaned, suddenly so sick of being coddled that you felt like screaming. “I wish everyone would stop treating me like I’m some fragile little flower. I am more than capable of handling a few bad guys who, I should add, didn’t even have guns!” 

“In yakunaj,” Namor’s voice had cooled to a gentle caress, “You misunderstand me. I know, more than anyone, the power you hold. You are strong and you are used to being independent, but you cannot behave so recklessly when you have a family waiting for you at home.” 

“A family?” You blinked back tears as the realization washed over you. Namor considered you his family, and you suddenly felt like an idiot for rushing into your mission so blindly. 

“I love and protect you. You love and protect me. Is that not what makes a family?” He asked, slightly grinning. 

“It is.” You murmured, leaning into his hold even further. You nestled your cheek against his chest where you could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” 

Namor wrapped his arms around you and rested his chin on your head. 

“You are my life, in yakunaj. I would never forgive myself, or you, for that matter, if you got hurt.”  

A laugh stuttered out of you, but it quickly evolved into a wince when you realized just how sore your ribs were. Namor wrapped his hand around yours and tugged you towards the water.  

“Come, in yakunaj. The water will heal you.” 

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” You giggled, kicking your shoes off. 

“Don’t argue.” Namor grinned, watching as you stuffed your socks into your boots. “At the very least, it will soothe the ache for a while.” 

You couldn’t help yourself. Before he could make it any further in the water, you jumped into his arms and planted a kiss on his lips. Your toes barely scratched the surface of the water as he held you up, smiling into the kiss. Your family was small, and rather unconventional, but you wouldn’t trade it for the world.  

Tag List:

@thatlesbosimp @legocity2 @softclue @violet-19999 @uwiuwi @omgsuperstarg @purpleetou @Raeluvsbloodline @historygeekgueen @kneelarhmstrung @euphoricjupiter @ethereal-athalia @quackson03 @messymissy @husherstan @quackimilktea @certifiedhunter @shoxji @dazecrea @layazul @bontensbabygirl @jasmihine @brookiecookiez0 @bakulova @alexxavicry @hallecarey1 @km-ffluv @chiaraxtargaryen @trulylavandedarling @D0wnbad @deliciousfestsalad @lilyevans1 @imagineadream @22carolina08

[t4tpumpkinduo]

OK not to be guy who's once again annoying abt lore and fanon misinterpretations but. ok v mild nsfw warning under the cut. it's just a critique of a very popular fanon ctnt dynamic that pisses me oawf so bad and i don't want to be misinterpreted in the process of critiquing it. ok.

-----

y'know how i always complain abt like...how cq is v susceptible to being reduced to a "hot dom role" so much?

the thing is. i actually do think he is largely a top. a lot of his character straight up lines up w it. he's a pouncer, he's eager to please, he likes indulging his partners that's just like. true. that's not the probble, however. 🤚 it's how it's being talked about, WHO it's being done by, and WHY. things of that nature.

first off, cq isn't like. a violent guy in the specific way fanon tends to portray him as.

the thing is. he's Ruthless. he's more than willing to take drastic measure, but outside of those situations, it's mostly just mc mechanics? he swats people playfully, he chases people w axes, but none of it is ever treated in any kind of different way, and especially not in a way unique to him. many, if not most, other characters do this as well, to him, to eachother. everyone on the dsmp is kind of annoying, and most enjoy a little minecraft coded rough housing, but to code it a certain way, towards THIS character, especially in lnv where he's explicitly trying to come across as more perfessional, and therefore ditching most of that rough housing and the inherent playfulness that it holds...

if you turn this specifically brown character into a domineering hair trigger physically violent freak at the expense of explicitly shown and stated character traits of his... all in service of sm white guy getting off about it.... do you like get what i'm saying....

another point i must mention: the fundimental misunderstanding sm ppl have abt las nevadas in the first place.

q is like 😭. not having a good time there. las nevadas in the first place, while objectively a labor of love, was also a gesture of desperation, same with him getting engaged to karlnap as quickly as he did. he wants to settle down w them as soon as possible so they won't leave him. that's what it is.👍 and then he gets left behind anyways. and with the compounding of everything, the gesture turns into a grave like immediately. it's shitty, it's bad, cq explicitly starts recreating the actions of actual shitheads (ctech cdrm), and ppl who warped his pov, even if unintentionally (cwilb cschlatt), because he doesn't know what else to do with himself. that's the reality.

but he also doesn't like doing it. 👍 that's the reality too, that's the wholeee. fucking point. he doesn't LIKE torturing dream, he doesn't LIKE manipulating people to the extent he does, he doesn't LIKE being alone and isolated. and while there are parts where he does find a twisted senses of catharsis about things sometimes, being the wielder for once instead of the guy being attacked like. it's still cornered prey animal trying to kill you swag. and the reason he's even be able to be pushed that far in the first place. is because he wants to and is actively planning on killing himself. legacy this, i won't be around long anyways. she sunk on my cost, this is all i have left to try, what's one more repulsive thing. my final stand.

so to then frame all this as like. actually super hot and super cool and. uuwgrurgrurgrueuURGRURYRGH. ok. hold on.

to make it abundantly clear: I DO NOT THINK CSCHLATT IS AN ABUSER. 👍 i never will. he narratively is not. he's an asshole, sure, and makes some terrible mistakes but. it's very very much not some unique evil. everyone on this server is an asshole. he wasn't an abuser to the cabinet, and especially not to cquackity.

i think to interpret this addict character, who has over and over shown to be sympathetic and more complex that ppl want to engage with, is still liked and vitally important to sm other characters, doesn't lay his hands on ppl in any way different than others do, as being a behind the scenes violent disgusting freak abuser is reductive and shitty and. bad. (and ableist. but yk.)

and even if somehow you want to interpret him as something else, despite the everything in the show telling you it's not true, you don't get to then turn around and make hypocritical handwavey arguments for cwilb when he and cschlatt are the exact same. they are direct narrative parallels, unignorably so. the pit = the festival. they're both deeply paranoid, deeply suicidal people who were genuinely psychotic for most of their worse actions, and if you can understand that cwilb doesn't deserve condemnation bcs of being put in a shitty situation and lashing out about it then you can very easily understand the same for cschlatt. 👍

i bring both of these points up to make my next point even clearer. cschlatt is *not* an abuser, but many ctntduoers are more than willing and happy to interpret him that way. and it's 👍 uhm. well. to layer on that point of lnv and its direct ties to self harm.

i like. very often see not only the complete dismissal of cq's issues with that. and. ugh. if you somehow see cschlatt as abusive. if you can get that cq's replication of behaviors in lnv are self destruction he doesn't actually like in pursuit of being "enough." why do i so so so often see. him replicating behaviors you're interpreting as abusive. specifically to get this white guy off. in his self harm context. completely uncritically. do i really need to explain. why that's not like. cool. lmao.

and even under the benefit of the doubt, the thing is, i never see exploration for it. i never see anything about how doing something like that would affect cq, how his mindset would lend to things, what he feels or thinks. there's no "reclamation", no restitution, there's no thought to him at all. this character who had direct issues with hating being treated like an object if he doesn't ask for it, being treated like an object. but don't worry guys it's actually ok this time. because i get to see my blorbo on the ground at the expense of everything this character stands for. i won't unpack the like obvious glaring bigotry rotting it's way through everything abt it too btw dw abt it dw abt it. it's fine lol.

idk. i hope i'm making sense, that i am explaining clearly and thoroughly enough. it's just so. tiring and deeply alienating and frustrating, and the absolute insistence to reduce poc to nothing but violent sex object caretakers and extentions to white characters is sooo i need to rip my hair out core. and to reiterate, i do think cq is largely a top, i don't think there's anything wrong writing certain dynamics or whatever the hell, it doesn't have to be a big deal. but can we. for once. with the brains that we have. try to think abt how things come across sometimes maybe. thanks.

[stephofromcabin12]

Any art tips for artists just starting out? I’m struggling big time to find my style 😀

Sure.

It got kinda long. Bc when have I ever been a person of few words?

There is no trick to finding your style other than drawing a lot, and setting a, more or less, loose goal. When I was young it was old school Disney and Don Bluth. That was my holy grail, ideal style. But it evolved to be something else, because that's how style works. You'll put your own twist on things, in time. But first focus on practicing and don't narrow yourself down to just one thing. You'll also probably develop multiple styles out of convenience. Sometimes I prefer the cartoony, simpified stuff. Sometimes I'm more into fully rendered pieces.

Experiment. Make bad art a lot. The more you expose yourself to the inherent let-down of sucking at something, the less it stings. The key is asking yourself why something didn't turn out right.

You can't get good at All Art at once. Start with something you're most interested in learning. Maybe it's anatomy, or gestures, or expressions, or colors. Start with that one thing and practice is with a specific goal in mind. Fx: "I want to get better at drawing faces and expressions, so I'm going to do an expression sheet of a character once a week, and do a little practice every day if I can" – That sorta thing. Everyone is different, though. My old music teacher used to say 30 minutes a day. If we couldn't do 30; 15 mins. So on. As long as you do a lil doodling every day that's still progress.

Learning art is sometimes frustratingly non-linear. Somedays I still 'forget' how to draw a certain thing I've had down since I was 14. Other days I bang out something I've always struggled with on the first try, then fail the next day. It's not a linear progression, it's a damn roller coaster. Best you can do is throw your hands up and try to enjoy the ride. The pipe line for me is usually: First attempt (sucks ass but I've learned to laugh at this stage, just throw ideas at the wall) -> getting comfortable (this is where you think to yourself you have a concept down but you really don't) -> Getting good (you start to draw with more ease, you're not having to 'remember' how you wanted something to look, it's just muscle memory by now) -> Actually having it down (and still having more growth to go. But this is where you get to look back on the comfortable phase and go: 'wow I really had a long way to go')

In fact, having fun is by far the thing that's made me progress. More than tutorials, more than fancy equipment. If I'm not having fun, I have no motivation to keep going. If it's not fun, try and make it so.

Get into the habit of stepping back (whether physically or more metaphorically) and really looking at your art often while you draw. When you add a line, or color, or background element etc. Ask yourself "Does this work?" And adjust accordingly. It seems like a lot of work at first, but eventually it becomes a natural part of the process. I don't really realise I'm doing it but most of the patreon screen recordings I have show the way I zoom in and out of the canvas constantly lol.

Make the things you want to make. Even the most self-indulgent stuff. We have a million artists already doing their thing, but we don't have you yet. Show us what you got! There's room for everything.

Get used to people expressing mild envy/annoyance when you're drawing near them. I've gotten the 'wow I wish I could draw, I can't even do a stick figure!' comment from waitresses, cabin crews, classmates I'd previously never spoken to, teachers, strangers on trainstations, etc etc etc. But! Learn to say 'Thank you' when people compliment your art.

Don't ask for critique if you don't really want it. Don't let people critique you if you didn't ask for it.

You! Don't! Need! Fancy! Equipment! Save your money and get the version of a medium that's affordable and comfortable for you. Look at Stardew Valley's creator's old setup. It's really not about how the tools are set up or the price of them. It's how you make use of them. Didn't FNAF's creator build the models in a moving car on a laptop?

Art takes time. There is no short cut to make it take less time. But the more fun you have the more it'll feel like it's faster. If you're miserable the time will drag on and on and on.

Look at a lot of art. Take in and analyse. I wish I could go back a few years and tell myself to analyse paintings I liked, rather than just going "Oh I like that! Nice!" and then moving on. Why is it good? Why does it move you? What captured your attention? Be the person at a museum leaning forwards to see the paintstrokes, you learn more that way.

Don't feel ashamed if you want to take inspiration from others. Everyone takes inspiration from somewhere. If you see something cool another artist is doing with their rendering or lighting or whatever, try and do a drawing or two emulating it! Maybe you'll discover a new favorite technique, or you'll not really jam with it. Either is good. Both teach you something.

You'll go through more eras than Taylor Swift. Sometimes you gotta do a lil Eras Tour of your own and go back through the catalogue. I'm currently working on reviving several projects I made when I was 13-14. Keep everything. Don't delete; archive.

Get good storage. Like, seriously, wish for a harddrive your next birthday or christmas or whatever. If you're working traditionally wish for some good ringbinders and the good plastic sleeves. Much nicer than running out of storage and having to delete things. Never delete!

You are already an artist. You became one the second you picked up a pen and put it to paper, and then decided to keep going with that. So don't compare yourself. When you find yourself jealous of someone, it's because they have something you want. Figure out what it is, and make it for yourself.

Deadass? Tracing helps so much with learning forms. But it's only helpful when you also practice drawing the same things freehand.

The trick to coloring is just that everything looks good shaded with purple set to multiply, and that if you're ever in doubt go in an L shape on color wheel. Down in brightness, inwards in saturation.

People who say you can never use white or black in drawings are jerks and you should not listen to them. You can do literally everything you want. Sure, experiment with other ways of using white and black. But art advice is just that: It's an option, not gospel. As a wise prophet of our time, Justin Bieber, once said: Never say never.

People will say you should be your own biggest critic. But fuck that. Be your own biggest cheerleader. Love what you make, even when you hate it, find something that works. That stepping back I mentioned in point 6? Sometimes that's zooming out and saying "Damn! That looks really good!" – People will often make art out to be something that should be suffering and painstaking. It's not though. In my honest experience, I've made just as much good art when I was happy and content, as I did when I had severe depression and anxiety and burnout. You're not an artist because you suffer. You're an artist because you can't just sit in that suffering all the time. You know there's beauty besides your pain, and so you'll remind yourself in the act of creation that there is always something more.

Once you realise you have the power to draw truly anything, you'll start having a lot more fun. "Oh but I've never done it before" or "Oh I tried and it just didn't work" Okay. So?

In case of frustration to the point of throwing your art supplies out the window: Take a breath. Go for a walk. Sometimes it's just not your day. Sometimes the rollercoaster gets stuck in the middle of a loop or right at the top of a hill. Wait it out. Try again.

You have absolutely got this. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with.

[jaynovz]

John Silver Recovery and Hurt/Comfort Rec List

Hi there! Another rec list? -surprised Pikachu face-

These deal specifically with Silver’s post-amputation struggles and recovery. Often deep character study, heavy on hurt/comfort, wound care/medical discussion, wrestling with his disability and body image type stuff, so mind the tags on individual works. 

These are all Silverflint because, well, you know why you follow this blog.

--

What It Feels Like Not To Hurt by robotboy

Summary: So. This is a 9k slow burn watersports fic. That's a thing that now exists in this fandom. But it's mostly about Silver recovering in the warship cabin and working out how much of his humanity is tied to humiliation. To echo my esteemed colleague purplecelery: 'I'm gonna gently suggest that anyone who's not usually into this take a gander anyway because you might be surprised.'

The Salt and the Sea by x_etoile_x

Summary: John Silver was always able to make the best of a situation. If this particular situation had started to feel complicated, well, a vast fortune ought to prove clarifying. Whatever he might have imagined he'd seen in Flint, the reality was they had used each other. And he had been set to walk away on top.

Except now he couldn't. Now he was trapped.

_______

The gap between the end of s2 and the start of the raids - Silver's early recovery and eventual decision to stay.

i’m discarding pieces of myself in the dark by coffeeandchemicals

Summary: Silver swallows and fights the urge to run his tongue along his dry, chapped lips. It’s been awhile since they were in the Doldrums, but they were in cages after that, and Silver still feels stretched too thin over his bones. He knows his eyes are shadowed and cheeks are hollow; he can see the same in Flint’s visage, and on the faces of the remaining crew – he can’t let himself think of the ones they’d lost. They all bear more than just the physical scars of their most recent misfortunes. Silver’s are just the most evident.

Or: Flint tries to help Silver during the events of 3x07

His Heart Is Already Mine by queerpyrate

Summary: When Silver collapses aboard the deck of the Walrus, overcome with fever from an infection in his leg, Flint immediately alters their course to return to Maroon Island.

after the winnowing by princesskay

Summary: After Charles Town, Silver convalesces at the governor's mansion in Nassau while Flint chooses what happens to the gold - and their futures. Flint tries to take care of him, but are the kind gestures what they seem?

The Soft Animal of Your Body by x_etoile_x

Summary: Silver has a problem. Flint has an interest, as it turns out, and tells a story.

no daylight between you and i by inwardphae

Summary: What’s it all for, anyway? They’ll take and take and take until there’s nothing left of him. Not his leg, not his name, not his life. And there’s nothing he can do about it.

But then, something happens that surprises him, even in his frantic state, even as he feels his grip on himself slide away. And as it always happens as of late, he finds that the edges of his world begin and end with James Flint.

missing moments during and after charles town

Taut by Thiebes

Summary: Silver did not make it to dinner.

He awoke with a jolt to a dark room. How did he get on the floor? He didn't remember sinking down any more than he remembers falling asleep. The noise outside his door had faded, only a few distant laughs punctuated the sound of crickets in the night.

Let me try to pull you free by ember_firedrake

Summary: Following the loss of his leg, Silver can't stop thinking about the last night he spent with Flint before Charlestown, and what will happen when Flint learns the truth of the gold.

Follows "My heart is under arrest again." 

Set between 2x10 and 3x01.

Forestay by Farasha

Summary: Forestay: A line of rigging which keeps the mast from falling backward.

After Charleston, certain truths come to light that have Flint and Silver's relationship hanging by a thread.

Truce by lostinafictionalworld

Summary: “Would you like me to do it?” Flint offered quietly.

Silver’s head snapped up to glare at him, his usually warm eyes icy. He would have been shocked by the offer if he weren’t so busy being furious.

“I am painfully aware that I can scarcely take a piss without assistance,” he snarled, “but I am perfectly capable of brushing my own hair.”

After returning to Nassau following the events of Charlestown, Silver and Flint manage to set aside their differences for an evening.

vigia by doomcountry

Summary: That’s his talent. That’s what he offers him. That’s what he is, before he is quartermaster or lover or friend: the tempering flame, the relief.

A Holier Thing Than Hell or Highwater by swampslip

Summary: “This is… A difficult thing,” Flint says slowly.

“I’m not saying this to be-”

“I know.”

“I just can’t seem to… Move on.”

“Why should you?”

“What?”

“Why should you move on?” Flint asks quietly, gestures at the pinking, slowly healing end of Silver’s thigh, “This isn’t a moment that will fade into the oblivion of living. You won’t forget this, nor should you.”

--

As always, hit me up if you feel I’ve missed a vital inclusion, and I will give it a read. Mwah.

[beecanons]

Soundwave Stim HC

again i dont have much, these are mostly audio and physical but i really like these

Physical

tap tap ocasional 'nail' tapping, tapping fingers rhythmically on surfaces, etc usually isnt an active or noticed stim because instead hes typing and tapping away and keys and controls on the ship however can and will do this on occasion as a mindless stim

minor movements sort of just moving small joint/limb a tiny bit, head nodding or tilting barely noticeable tiny movements, almost stiff but still very much something he does. appears still especially when someone's looking at him but when not being perceived or doesnt notice eyes on him (or around someone hes more relaxed and comfortable around like perhaps starscream) hes doing little movements.

flexing not like humans showing off muscles kind of flexing but more like opening and closing his hand(s), raising and lowering his 'shoulders'. sort of goes in hand with the minor movements only these ones arent as small and a bit more noticable sort of does "clammy hand" gestures when uncomfortable, anxious or nervous. definitely picked up some of the physical stims from humans, we all know hes tuned in online 24/7

Audio

beat drop listening to heavy bass, electronic, synth or something more specific like daft punk if its too quiet and hes alone or starscream doesnt mind, music will be coming from him to fill the silence. will pull up something from the human's archives like youtube or spotify or tune into a radio station and find something that can work as background noise keeps the volume a little low though, hes still gotta be listening to coms and such so there cant bee too much noise all the time

repeat replays recordings of things he heard and likes. someone said something funny or that just sounds nice? hes got it saved and replays it when hes bored kinda like having a laugh track on hand if starscream slips up, he's got all the best vine references and tiktok audios. all the meme clips. this also really helps him express things better.

listener avid listener, talk to him, not so much interact hes not exactly the responsive type, he just listens. yes he may be recording but its mostly just so he can listen again later usually its starscream hes listening to yap away but truly doesnt mind, its something to listen to may prefer certain peoples voices over others though, specifically some cons voice over others filling the silence.

Visual

namesake watching things like literal sound waves, the thing of his namesake, can be really relaxing watching the lines and/or bars rise and fall with the pitch of a noise or voice is soothing almost always has this displayed on his screen, at least when hes playing a recording or something but if hes got his back turned to someone whos talking to him or they arent looking directly at him hes watching the sound waves of their voice while they speak. (yes hes still paying attention to the words)

Data Collection to quote another purple, logic-oriented, neurodivergent headcanoned character. "Data collection calms me down" loves just collecting data especially on something that hes become fixated on like view counts or like to dislike ratios on youtube videos. (he spends a lot of his past time on the human web) this is just something he likes looking at, watching numbers and lines change is amusing, simply put.

a lot of these are constant stims, he is chronically understimulated.

[iamacolor]

At the end of the day this was an epic love story and I genuinely believed that these two people would and did do anything for each other however I still felt the show focused a lot more on sunjae being in love/romantic than sol, they gave him all the clinginess (that's not a word lol)/whipped "looser" in love behavior , all the sweeping romantic speeches and declarations (just in the last 2 eps he had at least 3 and we didn't get that from Sol) and I wanted more of that more Sol because sometimes it felt like it was 80% more focused on what he was doing in that regard. Their actions were offset by each other, she traveled time to save him and he loved her for decades and died for her multiple times but otherwise I wanted her to talk about her time spanning epic love for him like he did, I wanted her to be as clingy as him and as prone to dramatics sometimes when it came to their relationship, I wanted them to give her as much as they gave him.

hi anon! that's a really good point actually and i do think some of it is in part due to this specific story (which i liked) but some of it is also due to the genre (romance/kdrama) that has its limitation in how it portrays the dynamics between men and women and often has this imbalance between the leads (that often annoys me).

kdramas often tend to portray men as more proactive in their declaration while the women (who are often supposed to be more emotional because well...they're women :))) ) are reacting to these declarations or grand gestures - it might be because romance as a genre still mostly cater to a female audience and they're trying to make it "dreamier" for the women by having men saying swoony lines etc (which is a shame because as a viewer i love seeing a woman actively in love, loud about it and proactive, it's fun, it's touching. I support women being stupid in love. and being in love isn't just about having someone tell you romantic stuffs and kiss you in the rain it's also about feeling in love and getting to share that and to love someone anyway i'm getting sidetracked) and it might also be because a lot of the times women are "used" as a plot tool to chanel a man's journey and emotions. (same with "skinship" for which a similar dynamic is mixed with how korea seems to value a certain idea of modesty for women and how most of the time the man is the one initiating it no matter who fell first and the women tend to shy away from it in a lot of dramas and don't really get to show that they're excited about it...).

in regard to that i felt that lovely runner kind of was a nice change because although you can see these patterns of writing and storytelling in it like you said and how sunjae is definitely written to be dreamy and make people go "omg what an ideal bf who wouldn't want a man who's so devoted and so overwhelmed by his feelings he acts stupid", sol gets to be a very romantic lead with her own version of several grand gestures, her own sacrifice for the good of the man she loves, her love for him is driving the plot, she defends him from bullies directly and killers more indirectly, she has much more agency than a lot of female leads from the beginning to the end (a lot of the time the female lead's storyline just gets sidetracked or forgotten around ep12 lol), she literally writes an entire movie about him and once she's free from the fear of driving sunjae to his death she is actually much more like him in her behaviour (and also more proactive with physical touches!!). and the moments when sol is like that are some of my faves! i was watching ep16 like omg i love this sol so much why didn't we get more and well the answer is because before she thought if she did something as simple as talk to him he'd die so that kind of dampens the mood.

but then i would say there is an imbalance inherent to this very specific story that i don't mind since it makes up for more angst - and i love that - because a) sol was just his fan at first so it took a while for her to even get in that mindset while he was already crushing on her hard - like when he tried to confess when inhyuk threw the petals and she was like ok maybe we can't be fan and athlete anymore but we can be friends! because in her mind she was thinking about how to stay close to him so she could save him for sure while he was like sol please be my gf b) and then sol was never free from the burden of what she saw as her duty (ie. saving him) the whole time they interacted until ep16 and so she never could let herself be too clingy (clinginess is a word i think btw and if it's not it should be!) or super romantic (although she did allow herself some very cheesy puns) because most of the time she was either trying to make big changes in his life or trying to stay away from him as much as possible and so she had to show restraint constantly (and that's actually a very common trait in a male character in romance - not just kdramas but also like romance novels which i read a lot of lol - they're always like no i have to stay away because i could bring danger to my loved one, because i have a dark past or i'm not good enough for them, too dangerous or tainted to say i love you and to shackle them to me and my fate etc gosh life is so hard when you're a romance lead) while sunjae was literally just a guy standing in front of a girl he liked and trying to make it happen most of the time, he didn't really see anything else at stake lol and even once he did you could tell he was just a 19 yo trying to cheer his girlfriend up knowing she's also trying to save him and he kind of walks into his big gesture without really planning it.

and that to me is what truly created this imbalance because she did her sacrifice but unlike his that was very visible (he literally got stabbed in front of her and still made sure to not let go until she was safe) her own sacrifice was to make sure he never saw her (which obviously plays into the less proactive type of representation because her grand gesture is to walk away but also that makes it all so tragic because she choses to endure her pain knowing it's going to last rather than risk death which stops everything ). And all of that meant also she could only say she liked him - either "too late" (but thankfully not really because he still liked her) when they were already adults or "before it's too late" when she prepares to say goodbye to him at the seaside and she doesn't want him to feel too entangled with her, she doesn't want him to be too sad this time - or when she made speeches about her love for him, how big and strong it was, how steadfast she stood in her desire to see him safe before anything else, how much she loved him...(and especially in those last 2 eps - and to me that cound as declarations) but she had to say them indirectly by pretending she was either talking about her character or someone else because she couldn't tell the truth directly to sunjae. so technically sunjae heard her say (and also read her) that she loves him very much, that she's ready to sacrifice her own hapiness for his live etc but it was all retroactively which is quite bittersweet. i do wish we could've had her say these things directly to him but at the same time i understand that once he remembers everything and understands she was talking about him and they can finally be together, they prefer to focus on their future rather than on their multiple pasts.

also i like that by the end they both waited so many years before reuniting - because when it was just sunjae who had done the yearning from afar and who still had feelings it made him stand out in a way because wow look at the sheer size of his feelings no wonder he gets a little stupid when she comes back into his life and clearly he's the big romantic once between them. and now they both did the waiting, the yearning, the let me sacrifice my life (or at least life as we know it) for you, the "omg what do i do now that they're back!!!!" and that kind of eases the differences between them.

all this to say i mostly agree but also if it brings more romantic angst i quite like it dghjdfgqsjk

[ziggysgender]

Me searching sam beckett autism in AO3 and Tumblr pulls a frightening zero amount of content talk to me here

its genuinely upsetting Yes............. ik one of my mutuals is working on a sam autism fic im not too sure when thats dropping. BUT. in the meantime,, lets discuss

long post beware 👇👇👇

extracted from the DSM-5 autistic criteria.

> Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions. 

2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understand relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.

sam does indeed struggle with social cues and communication. he does blend in, but not entirely well. his constant attempting to adapt to different people and personalities, both in his leaping, and also in his canon backstory, is noticeably lacking. that being said, he is VERY empathetic. people are very drawn to him. more often than not either in a "what the fuck is wrong with you" way. or a "hey lets have sex" (he does not want to have sex) way. he is also frequently fixated on learning languages outside of english. not that he plans to communicate in these languages, he simply wants a base connection to other people and this is how he does it. learning is his love language.

> Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history.

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).

3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

4. Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

i mean. any episode can show you easily sam stims OFTEN. usually due to negative input, he will make certain gestures with his hands or entire body. you've got al frequently reminding sam to calm down. sam's reaction to being overwhelmed is usually either to become angry and lash out (emotionally or physically) or to shut down completely. he has had entire meltdowns such as going quiet and running away to cry. this didnt make al bat an eye, then knew exactly how to correct it. if you wanna talk about fixated interests, man has 7phd's...

ALSO. JIMMY.

jimmy is the one leapee sam has encountered the MOST. he leaped into him twice (not encludinb shock theater), met his older brother three times. he connected the MOST deeply to him. he even made an appearance in the last episode. and every time he has encountered jimmy, he instantly became ecstatic; running to wordlessly hug anyone he knew he could trust with his disabilities.

in the actual episode "jimmy" sam has a meltdown over how he is treated. he cries to al about how different he's acting in this body. to which al responds he is actually acting exactly the same as normal. sam doesnt understand completely, but the conversation progresses to al's sister.

sam is also embodying jimmy in "shock theater", yknow, when his mind is slipping away and his most important past leaps take over. yeah that one.

jump to "runaway". sam has a longwinded conversation with his leap's mother about how he feels like a "non-person". how he doesnt feel real or connected to anyone.

now jumping to the NOVELS. theres several examples here but specifically Prelude. where we get this insane page of text:

um. anyways. sam beckett is autistic ;P

[vacantgodling]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMON !! What about Ghost, Hunt, Torture, and Wound 👀👀 ?

THANKUUUUUU!!!!! AMON DAY!!!!!!!!1!1!1!1!

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

honestly, there aren’t many Specific People who haunt amon because he is such a “the dead are buried guy” — even in his quest for revenge against what happened to him; his mother died on that day too (she was killed, he was very lucky to be alive) but he doesn’t really mourn her at all; he doesn’t have much attachment to her or anything like that even though generally speaking he knows it’s fucked up. he’s more concerned with how it fucked HIM SPECIFICIALLY up, if you know what i mean. so in that vein i guess the only ghost that truly haunts him is the child he used to be. and he’s made it his life’s mission to avenge that child so 🤪

hunt: Who or what is your OC hunted by? A person, a feeling, a past mistake? Is your OC able to let their guard down, or are they constantly alert?

amon thinks of himself more as the hunter than the hunted. even if someone were to try and hunt him (such as a rival gang or smthn, even the keeper), he twists his narrative around it; you can’t hunt someone who’s trying to meet you out on the battlefield; that WANTS to be found. now, what does pose an issue is when he starts to care about hya, and it becomes clear that the keeper wants to do harm to hya and not him (only him by proxy because he’s potentially in the way Of harming hya). it terrifies him once he learns this, and he not only doesn’t let his guard down but he starts trying to get more and more into the line of fire to protect hya;;;;

torture: Has your OC ever been tortured? Would your OC ever torture someone else?

yes and yes. gang rivalries before the locks fully took over halifax were a bit wild (so his late teens and early twenties). and he’s definitely never above doing what he has to to make someone talk, keys or other gangs alike. his favorite torture method is always finger breaking because a little freak.

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

worst physical wound: *gestures to the scars i won’t shut up about for obvious reasons* — i also remind you that amon was like 12 when this happened to him so….

worst mental wound: hahahahahah hya did it :) (it may be silly but hya rejecting him does crazy shit to amon’s psyche)

in general amon takes physical punishment like a pro; he’s literally gotten to the point where he can find pleasure and sexual gratification in it to certain extents. outside of hya’s narration, he’s constantly compared to a “mad dog” or a “tiger” or anything like that because he’s just like. not hinged. and i would say that it’s a 50-50 split between his wounds being emotional or physical, but he does handle emotional/mental wounds worse ;;

[batsplat]

follow up to this post that provides the context of the donington 2008 race, and also some photos with more than three pixels of valentino and casey with their arms around each other

so. *cracks knuckles*. let's talk about jorge and valentino. if you want to understand the texture of the early years of that dynamic, there are worse places to start than checking out the bit of jorge's biography where he talks about valentino attempting to calm down the crowd at misano 2009

the post about that rivalry linked to above doesn't go into much detail about this passage, mainly because that thing was quite frankly getting long enough as it is. but the passage really does capture some key elements that give you a sense of what the vibe was like back then - including jorge loving the donkey ears and needing the world to know how much he loved the donkey ears. you've got jorge's desire to learn from valentino, acknowledging the skill with which valentino bounced back from a disastrous weekend, talking about how he can orchestrate a crowd. jorge's professed belief that there is nothing wrong with the crowd reaction as they are simply backing one of their own. this intense preoccupation with public personas, with fan perception, with what constitutes acceptable standards of conduct within a rivalry, how to engage in honourable combat, man to man and all of that... the air of pompousness, of earnestness verging on self-seriousness that is so central to young jorge's whole deal. and on valentino's end, it is important to pay attention to how he is willing to make gestures in the name of keeping the rivalry civil. in truth, he knows that he can still rely on the public sphere to make jorge's life rough. let's not forget, after all, that the way-too-online jorge was far more affected by spaniards talking shit about him on the internet on valentino's behalf - italians just don't matter as much because their partisanship is essentially already factored in. unlike at certain other stages of his career, however, valentino can throw in these little symbolic acts to calm the waters, to show he doesn't actually want to be jorge's enemy. they're just rivals, after all; they can behave respectfully towards each other. below all the sturm and drang and drama, valentino's approach to managing rivalries in that era involves a general reticence to allow things to get too nasty between himself and his new rivals. that will not always mean that the non-valentino side of those rivalries perceived valentino's behaviour that way - but obviously they are not applying the same standards. valentino's points of comparison are fist fights and curses. what feels excessive to him is rather radically different to where some of his younger rivals would draw the line

while jorge will at least outwardly claim he takes no issue with the hostility of the fans, casey takes a rather different approach. it is one of the biggest themes of his rivalry with valentino: casey having an awful time with the public and resenting valentino for it. valentino will not have been the only reason for how poorly the fans received casey - there are elements of casey's personality that would probably have always made him a tricky sell to the fanbase. still, the extent to which the public adored valentino and wished him to win above all others obviously and undeniably contributed heavily to the vitriol with which casey was met. (to return to jorge, he is the more clear cut example where his lack of popularity was a combination of different factors - plenty of fans already hated him for his antics in 250cc well before he was anything approaching a threat to valentino.) abusive fan mail, fans physically assaulting him when he was riding around on scooters, booing... the main country casey associates with that hostility is england. italians specifically don't actually ever really come up - probably in large part because there were plenty of ducati fans in italy who supported him even when fighting valentino. but the english fans? no such conflicting loyalties whatsoever. obviously, they loved valentino - and the sports culture in that country being what it was... well, that love could easily get ugly for anyone who posed too great a threat. (not to get into the ins and outs of british vs european identity but it is funny sometimes how casey talks about english speakers in the paddock As Good - "I only speak to english-speaking riders" he says in 2009 - and also european fans As Bad, but then the only specific european fanbase he ever properly complains about is the english. casey radically pro-european in essentially separating out the concept of 'english-speaking' from The English and also then treating The English as like... quintessentially european. anyways.) and for whatever reason, they had it in for casey in a way they never quite seemed to for any of valentino's other rivals. there's obviously also the deeply personal element where he has family in england, he moved there directly from australia as a teenager... on paper, this should have been a country that offered him support, or at the very least didn't actively hate him. it felt more like a betrayal - it's a similar dynamic to why jorge was particularly frustrated by the spanish fans not backing him. the english fans being so unkind to casey was a particularly bitter pill to swallow because he never would have expected it from them

casey obviously feels quite strongly that valentino should have done something about this behaviour and didn't. depending on how much stock you put into certain write-ups of races in britain over the years, it is at least possible that valentino quite deliberately made casey's life more unpleasant in britain. all of which would make it particularly interesting if valentino did go for a little bit of a symbolic gesture with casey too, like he did with jorge. during the race weekend of donington 2008, casey was having a rough time of it (well, outside of the actual racing, where he was slaughtering the field lol) and was as ever outspoken in his irritation. he tended to have plenty of complaints about donington whenever he went - not just with the fans but also the track and just, like, the vibe being off, wasn't really ever enthusiastic about the place. none of this stopped him from winning the race by a country mile, of course. back then there were still track invasions after races, which is a safety nightmare at the best of times - but it was worse for casey, who talks afterwards about the "abuse" he got from the crowd on that lap. which does make you pay closer attention to how valentino catches up, darts ahead of casey, and basically leads him quite closely through the worst bit of the crowd to parc fermé; it's something that is remarked on in the commentary, how valentino has essentially gotten casey to follow him on their 'shaky' cooldown lap

here you have the traditional post-race thumbs up and shake of hand

and then a few moments later, the densest part of the crowd

deliberate gesture to ward off the worst of it by essentially providing a line to follow to casey, or just a coincidence?

then you have the podium, where... well, you can barely ever actually hear booing on the broadcast for any race lol, dismal sound quality, casey definitely complained about it after the race so we know it happened. but having turned up the volume all the way, in the process permanently damaging my hearing - I'm fairly confident I can hear something that sounds vaguely like jeering and boos turn into what is definitely louder cheers when valentino puts his arm around casey, as depicted at the top of this post. I have watched way too many valentino podiums over the years, and I will say that a full arm around the shoulder isn't exactly common from him. amateur body language analysis corner, but there's something interesting in how valentino doesn't actually meet casey's eyes while he's doing it, looks straight ahead at the crowd while putting his arm around casey - there is obviously something quite performative about it, something quite pointed, something the crowd immediately picks up on and responds to... hold, hold, hold as they get the photos done, pat pat on the back, and then valentino lets his arm drop. casey of course reciprocated with his own arm vaguely around valentino, and he does also bust out the full grin right at valentino at the end there (you can see it if you lean really close to your screen). which the amateur body language analysts might conclude indicates appreciation for the gesture

now, look, I have fuck all reporting and only a few forum posts to back up what essentially amounts to squinting at footage of a race you've watched for the nth time in order to induce motorcycle racer-themed hallucinations. I'm about 50/50 on the cooldown lap, that might just be reading too much into it, but the podium does feel a lot more clear cut - and the combination of the two (plus jorge's testimony establishing that this sort of behaviour might be something valentino is vaguely inclined to do during this specific time period) is JUST enough to make me buy there's something deliberate there. your mileage may vary. also important to note that valentino's actual response in 2008 to casey's english fan situation was a big old shrug - aka some talk about how casey did complain rather a lot about everything to do with this race and also rumination about the ancient hatreds still raging between the anglo nations of the world to this day. he certainly was not willing to go on the record and admit to any responsibility for the animosity. given that valentino is not an idiot, he did obviously know that partisanship in his favour was in large part to blame for casey's reception in britain - not something, at the end of the day, he's going to be losing too much sleep over. still, he's aware of it, which is why the arm around the shoulder works the way it does, right? because he knew the crowd would respond to it. and it's just... these little symbolic touches that do matter when establishing the tone in 2008. valentino was willing to use pretty much the whole toolkit against casey to crack the toughest of nuts - hell, give him two more races and he'd bust out a hithertofore unseen couple of tools - but it was not quite the ugly fervour of past feuds at their peaks. instead, here we have someone simply playing the game and trying to judge how far to push things at any given moment, when it made sense to twist the knife and when it was better to play nice. valentino didn't actually want casey to hate him. given what valentino was willing to do to win motorcycling competitions (including not stepping in more firmly against his own fanbase, yes), casey coming to hate valentino was very much the end result of valentino's actions in those few years. which still does not mean that this was the intent behind valentino's actions; there are feuds of his where he is actively attempting to provoke his rivals, but this was not one of them (during the years where they were meaningful on-track rivals, which is just a blanket caveat I'm applying to the rest of this post). if casey came to hate him, then of course that was a price worth paying - but given a choice, valentino would generally opt for the cordial approach

this preference is reflected in the way he generally talked pretty positively about his dynamic with dani and casey in 2008, e.g. "the relationship between me, casey and dani is more normal, whereas biaggi was always saying bullshit". it's there in the descriptions of valentino using charm with his rivals, being free in his compliments ("when rossi gets beaten he makes sure to praise whoever has defeated him"). and, look: valentino was skilled at being a gracious loser, he did tend to throw some pretty effusive compliments especially in casey's direction when he lost to him, always preferring to bite his opponents harder from a position of strength etc etc. (still fond of this line from the guardian article about catalunya 2007: '"truly, casey is riding like a god," said the italian, who is rarely guilty of making an understatement.' please allow him. also, what if casey is just riding so well that this actually IS an understatement, what then.) yes, casey felt like valentino wasn't being particularly complimentary, that the compliments had dried up by the end of 2007. that's the thing about this rivalry, right, like you do have to remember that casey obviously isn't able to perfectly read valentino's intentions lol. valentino did still lob plenty of compliments casey's way - and actually said in 2009 that casey had started criticising valentino more when casey started winning after having been more complimentary before that, which is such a lovely example of both of them just being so fundamentally at odds that their grievances perfectly mirror each other. but the problem is that even if valentino was still saying nice things about casey, 1) it's human nature to pay more attention to one insult than nine compliments - and casey is particularly susceptible to this, and 2) what valentino considers 'keeping a rivalry civil' looks completely different from casey's understanding of that concept. (at times casey would probably be better served applying a generational lens than a cultural one lol - there's a reason why some retired racers found it remarkable how nice valentino was about his opposition.) valentino cools off towards casey interpersonally as part of his working process in title fights, doesn't go out of his way to provoke casey but does want to apply pressure wherever possible using all the little tricks he can along the way. which is understandably received as active hostility by casey (who is also still extremely young at this point) - but that doesn't necessarily mean this was actually the intent. when valentino wants to make an enemy out of you, typically you do notice it pretty quickly

see too how both of them are willing to engage in the song and dance of calling a truce at brno 2008, with only a couple of barbed comments attached from both sides. casey had given valentino grounds to escalate the conflict in the aftermath of laguna (including obviously the 'I'm faster than him and he knows it' thing), but valentino more or less refrains from doing so. an arm around the shoulder to get the crowd to give it a rest, accepting an apology without too much fuss... smiles and jokes and plenty of civility in-person... there have been valentino feuds that are considerably easier to spot at a distance, such is the interpersonal rancidity. all this while valentino is concurrently stepping up the on-track intimidation, but to him there is no contradiction there. valentino wasn't provoking casey for shits and giggles - he believed he had to do something not to lose the title that year. and... well, you can find his actions morally questionable, but it's a bit tougher to argue with the actual logic underlying valentino's behaviour. laguna 2008 isn't a case of valentino's need to create enemies expressing itself in attacks on his rivals for no good reason - it's a case of valentino being willing to do whatever it takes to win, even if it ends up making a new enemy. again: valentino is certainly using his entire playbook to exert pressure on casey - but at the same time, casey is not being treated like an actual enemy. at times, casey will have read a little too much outright animosity into valentino's approach... even though by his standards, valentino was trying to keep things reasonably cordial. it's just that he had a comically different understanding of what that looked like from casey. to understand that rivalry, you do have to get that a part of valentino's toolkit in those years was the interpersonal friendliness - a public willingness to perform civility. all you need to do is compare how the pair of them act around each other in the aftermath of that rivalry's biggest flashpoint (aka laguna '08) to how things play out in literally every single other valentino feud. (I know I started this post off talking about jorge and broadly speaking valentino does adhere to the same approach in 2009. but, 1) his relationship with jorge was a lot icier than his relationship with casey right from the start, partly because valentino just flat out disliked jorge, and 2) 2009 might star that rivalry's best duel but does not feature its major flashpoints, cf motegi 2010 and *checks smeared notes* something about a spanish conspiracy? - so it's not quite as notable jorge and valentino keep it vaguely polite.) from valentino's perspective, he escalates only as far as he has to. he's not emotionally invested enough to be all that offended by casey's response to laguna 2008, if anything can derive additional satisfaction from it... the race did what it was supposed to - he'll gladly accept a handshake of apology in its aftermath

sometimes, hygienic rivalry management involves giving off some mixed signals to confuse the opposition, to keep them guessing. it's a more uncertain situation than being outright enemies, one that makes it a little trickier for the opposition to parse how to approach that rivalry going forward, how nasty to be in response... valentino is happy enough to play this game when it comes to casey. the compliments, the public cordiality, the little gestures when he's feeling like it... charming off the track and vicious on it - all while dripping a steady dose of poison into the public discourse, attempting to make casey's life as difficult as possible. casey is the worst victim out of any of valentino's rivals of this two-faced approach, this disconnect between person and character casey himself is well aware of. even when the feud on paper should have been at its worst, valentino does not feel the need to cut casey off entirely. usually valentino does skew more clearly one direction or the other at any given time - usually he's at least a little more willing to show his hand, not mix pleasantries with cruelty quite so liberally. but he does not want casey to be his enemy. what a nuisance, right... can't like him can't loathe him certainly can't get rid of him

[whitehotharlots]

Free Kareem

Kareem Hunt was probably the shittiest MeToo incident of the sports world. It happened over 4 years ago, which is an eternity by the standards of the today’s discourse, so let me recap what happened:

In February of 2018, two of Hunt’s friends went to a club while he stayed behind with his girlfriend in their hotel suite. The friends returned around 3 AM, and they had two very drunk and underage girls with them. Hunt did the correct thing: he told the girls to leave and had them escorted out of his suite.

The girls refused to leave. They stood outside Hunt’s suite for a half hour, screaming, failing, and pounding on the door. We know for certain this happened, because it was all captured on a security camera (full footage of this does exist, I’ve seen it, but Google has a way of burying primary evidence that contradicts popular narratives).

After approximately 20 minutes of screaming, Hunt’s girlfriend comes out of the suite to tell the girls to leave. This only intensifies the screaming and flailing. After a minute or so, one of the girls can be seen shoving Hunt’s girlfriend, who maintains her composure and goes back into the suite.

A few more minutes pass. The girls continue to pound and scream. Hunt himself comes out of the suite. He gestures toward the exit. The girls keep screaming. The same one who shoved his girlfriend now shoves Hunt. Again, he points toward the exit. The girl shoves him again, and he shoves her back, knocking her to the ground.

At this point, all but the most brain-damaged of feminists would agree that Hunt has done nothing wrong. But then he crosses a line: he raises his leg, hesitates, and gives the girl a kick, as if to accentuate that she needed to get her ass up and out of his hallway.

Now, yes, he should not have done the kick. Fine. But if you watch full video, it’s clear that he did not kick with anywhere near full force. It was more of a gesture than anything else. And, well, if an NFL running back were to kick a small woman with anything close full strength, that woman would not be able to get up and walk away.

I hold the retrograde opinions that men should be afforded some degree of dignity, and that random white women are not legally or morally entitled to enter the dwellings of black celebrities without permission. If I were the one to adjudicate this incident, I would have told the girl to go fuck herself. There’s really nothing Hunt could have done in this situation that would have escaped scrutiny. It was clear that the girl was unhinged and fully aware that she could manipulate MeToo discourse to force the black man to bend to her will: “Kareem Hunt Caught With Underage Girls Drunk in His Hotel Room” is also a bad headline, after all.

But, no, the headlines that were printed did not mention the girls’ intrusion, their initiation of physical contact with both Hunt and his girlfriend, or their statements to hotel staff about planning to exaggerate their claims so as to ruin Hunt’s career. 

9 months later, when TMZ released a very selectively edited expert of the footage, the headline read KC CHIEFS RUNNING BACK KAREEM HUNT BRUTALIZES AND KICKS WOMAN IN HOTEL VIDEO. At this point, his goose was cooked. The Chiefs threw him under the bus with alacrity, saying they weren’t going to bother digging into the specifics of the incident because they had already been contacted and Hunt (very, very understandably and justifiably) lied and said he never left the hotel room. This technicality was enough to end his tenure on the team. He was consigned to the living hell of the Cleveland Browns organization, and suspended for the first half of the following season. 

The average career in the NFL lasts just over three seasons. Running backs play the most physically taxing position in all of professional sports. The loss of a half season of pay is a massive, massive fine. But, still, that wasn’t good enough. The Root (a black-focused, Gawker-affiliated website that would have the exact same editorial content if it were owned by the KKK) ran the following headline “Cleveland Browns Sign Kareem Hunt Despite Video of Him Assaulting Woman. Kaepernick Still Banned for Kneeling.” From Vice we got “Kareem Hunt and a Sports World that Ignores Domestic Violence Victims:” a headline confirming the girls’ entitlement to a space in Hunt’s living area, regardless of not being invited and also being repeatedly told to leave. From Yahoo Sports “NFL should leave you feeling sick after recent revelations involving Kareem Hunt, Reuben Foster,” comparing Hunt to a man who appears to have actually committed domestic violence on multiple occasions. When Hunt was eventually signed by the Browns--which, again, is a punishment in and of itself--the President of the National Organization of Women used the occasion to claim that “women do not matter to the NFL,” and once more repeated the bizarre claim that he had committed “intimate partner violence” by shoving and kicking a stranger who had shoved him first. 

This, dear reader, is Intersectionality as it actually exists. It is not liberation. It is not leftist. It does not even provide protection to the groups who supposedly fall under its purview. The only goal of this wretched political movement is to divorce a person’s actions from the judgments of outsiders, to establish a hierarchy of NGO-defined victimhood statuses and provide hack journalists with a simple and unchallenagable means of sorting out the good guys from the bad guys. 

It’s not justice. It’s not an improvement over old systems. It’s a new way of being broken. It is, in short, the entirety of the modern American left.

[neverlearnedtoread]

The Dragon Republic

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐; rin making bad decisions like they’re going on sale at the market, arms full of regrets, guilt, mistakes, and self-destructive coping mechanisms: i can fit in one more

Oh?? 👌😉😏

rf kuang gave us an unflinching exploration on the cycles of violence and oppression, dissected the ever-escalating chain of vengeance, and the good good of eastern-inspired mythology?? like ma’am.....the good food im eating at your feast.....ive been so hungry

the lore deserves its own point. it was so effortlessly woven into the story, especially the way it tied into certain characters’ backstories. i can’t say much more because spoilers but if you like integrated worldbuilding and you like chinese-inspired magic systems get over here!!

the friendships. namely rin 🤝 kitay. miss kuang you know what really matters, and its not 10398 handsome men, its one ride-or-die bff holding you back or yeeting you into the midst of battle as needed

grimdark, but not oppressively depressing? im not sure how to describe it..the story gives you enough adrenaline to power through with the sheer speed of reading to find out what happens next, but doesn’t pull its punches. i think its partly that rin herself ploughs through the narrative like she’s trying to outrun the events, giving the reader the momentum to move with her

No.. ❌🤢🤮

i took a screenshot when my friend and i were planning to do a buddy read together. the trigger warnings took up an entire page. do not screw around with this. there’s no shame in tapping out for any book, but especially this one

some characters die, and i specifically blame rin for it. i mean there were a lot of other factors, but in the spirit of the phoenix herself i am choosing to close my eyes to the rationality of working through my feelings of grief in a healthy way and plunge straight into being pissed off about it, forever. *wipes tear* just like rin taught me

did suffer from a bit of middle book syndrome, at least to me. i mean, i finished an 800~ page book in 8 hours of reading time, so maybe don’t believe me, but the first half of the book dragged more than i remember the poppy war did. i will admit a lot of that was because rin was in no position to be a rational, active protagonist. the narrative needed her to flounder, and she did.

Summary: Rin goes unhinged 2: water dragon boogaloo (ive tried and tried to write an actual summary for this book but i don’t think i can top this throwaway line i wrote as a placeholder)

Concept: 💭💭💭💭💭 Where to start? There are historical influences, commentary on social issues and the impact of violence on communities both physical and otherwise, the slow and terrible descent of a beaten-down protagonist. Basically a checklist of stuff I like exploring in high fantasy settings!

This is the second book in a trilogy - spoilers ahead!

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 Rin doesn’t like politics, and I think that made the narrative drag a lot initially as the moving parts tried to be interesting but through Rin’s jaded lens were stripped of their veneer. Kuang was more than ambitious with her sophomore book, and I know that she was open about struggling with the pacing of TDR while she was writing it - still, I think there’s more than something to be said about shooting for the stars! I didn’t think any part of the book dropped the ball, but the nature of all the heavy topics it was trying to handle became a hefty meal to swallow

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤ Like I said, I read this book over 3-ish days in 8 hours. The library copy I had said it was 800 pages. I felt as powerful as Rin when I finished. The first half was a little dead in the water (which is a pun, yes, how many damn times did someone fall into the water and nearly drown in this book?? smh) but nothing I couldn’t handle with a little exasperation at Rin’s...*gestures* mental landscape. But when we reached the lore about Su Daji, and the Trifecta, and their chosen gods....i broke into a flat-out sprint. I was naruto-running through the plot.

Favourite Moment: it’s a battle to the death between the scenes with the trifecta backstories and the rin 🤝 kitay scenes

Favourite Character: chaghan, because i loved his backstory so, so, so much....also I didn’t know that handholding scene in the mountains was like. canon. and not fanon. rin really looked homosexuality in the eye and said ‘huh?’ with her whole chest.