#I wanted to write a snippet with this interaction but didn't have time so have it as a prompt instead

[the-starlit-authoress]

Prompt #3

"You blew up a building to ask me out?"

"I blew up an abandoned building." Villain clarified. "There were no casualties. Probably."

Hero pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a harsh breath.

[luxsky]

First of all, Kicking out was amazing! I love reading domestic fluff like this! I would love to see the birth scene and the aftermath/Rhys interacting with his newborn. Rhys is such a simp and is the type who would do anything for his mate and the people he loves so it would be cute to see it in that context especially since we were robbed of it in silver flame.

Again, I love reading your fic and it’s amazing that this was your first one! Looking forward to reading more!

Kicking Out, part 2

Rhysand x reader

Summary: Reader and Rhysand's baby is born, and they revel in the love that surrounds them.

Warnings: Amateur description of childbirth, fatigue, a brief snippet of body insecurity, biological inconsistency – I think that's it, but I could be mistaken.

Author's Note: I procrastinated so much to write the second part until I realized that months had passed since the first part. I truly apologize for taking this long; it wasn't my intention. Thank you for all the love, support, and compliments; my heart warms every time I reread them! ♥️ I promise to try and write more quickly. Again, thanks to everyone who commented, liked, and reposted the first part; I love you all. English is not my first language, so please let me know of any spelling errors!

Madja said that walking would help, the movement would make her body dilate faster, and the baby would be born in the blink of an eye. One detail she might have forgotten to mention is that contractions would also increase along with dilation. In the early hours, you managed to walk with some pauses, going back and forth in the corridor—going down stairs was certainly not an option—with your kind partner by your side, ensuring nothing would go wrong. However, as time passed, the pain radiating from your lower back to half of your leg became so intense that you limited your movements, entering your room and contenting yourself with small steps there.

At this point, the pain was so much that Rhys had to practically guide you, his hand supporting your lower back, while you used the other for support, holding it firmly. Your breath came out in gasps, and for a brief moment, your body was free from pain, and you wanted to feel relief, but after being there for hours, you knew it was only a matter of minutes until the next contraction would arrive and strip away any capacity to think.

"Rhys, I'm tired," you whispered, barely managing to finish the sentence before the pain coiled in your back and flowed down your legs again. A moan escaped your lips, and you bent forward, your legs almost giving way, Rhysand quickly holding you, preventing you from reaching the floor.

"Come, dear, let's get you on the bed," your partner's voice was filled with tenderness and concern. He pulled you towards the large, comfortable bed you shared, and even though you wanted to keep walking, as Madja advised, your energy had long run out. So when Rhys helped you onto the bed, you didn't argue.

Your hands released Rhysand's, leaning on the bed. Before you could put your legs on the mattress, another contraction came, and a strangled scream of pain left your throat just as Madja returned to the room, carrying towels and other things that your mind didn't process.

The position you were in was strangely comfortable, the upper part of your body supported on the mattress. When your partner touched you again, as if telling you to lie down, tears welled up in your eyes. If your body wasn't so trapped in pain, you might have told him that it was okay, that this position was good.

"I know it's comfortable, love, but if you lie down, Madja can examine you better," Rhysand would know what you were thinking. You probably lowered your shields, projecting many feelings to him. You tried to block him, wanting to spare him the pain, but the claws caressing your mind gave you a hint that he didn't want that.

Before another contraction came, you decided to listen to your partner and finished getting on the bed. Rhysand was quick to arrange the pillows behind you, trying to keep you as comfortable as possible.

Madja approached, a gentle smile on her face as she asked for permission and adjusted your legs to examine you. The pants you wore earlier had been replaced by a light dress, shortly after your water broke.

Rhys sat on the edge of the bed, one hand holding yours while the other moved some strands of hair from your face. He did his best to secure it in the best way possible due to your position, knowing well that sweat and loose hair weren't a comfortable combination. He left a gentle kiss on your forehead, and another contraction arrived. Instinctively, you squeezed Rhysand's hand, another strangled scream escaping your lips as your whole body trembled with pain. This time, the tears that came to your eyes freely flowed down your face.

"I see the baby's head," Madja said, her eyes locking onto yours as she explained gently. "In the next contraction, I need you to push."

You nodded, not trusting your voice to respond. You were so tired, and there was still so much left for this to be over.

"It's almost over, dear, you can do it," your partner reassured you for a few seconds, but then your back burned with pain again. Your entire body, even your arms, legs, and back, pushed instinctively as your partner murmured encouraging words.

You pushed and pushed, Madja saying she could already see the head, and it was almost there. Meanwhile, Rhysand talked to you, his voice so close to your ear.

"That's it, love, it's almost there," he spoke again, his hand passing through your forehead, wiping away the sweat that accumulated.

Once again, the pain arrived, and you pushed. Relief flooded you the moment the cry of a baby filled the room, mixed with your own cry as you threw your head back. The pain disappeared, and the only thing you felt besides relief was exhaustion. The warmth of your partner moved away, his hand leaving yours, the baby's cry stopped, and you looked for your child, finding her in the arms of the man you loved. A cloth wrapped the newborn, Rhys's arms cradling the small bundle as he walked, swinging to your side. Madja still hovered at the edge of the bed, making sure you were okay.

When your partner sat next to you again, you adjusted yourself and reached out, wanting to hold the baby. He smiled with so much joy as he passed your daughter into your arms.

"It's a girl," he murmured, and you felt tears returning to your eyes as you watched the little one. All your fatigue was forgotten as the small noise from your daughter's lips touched your heart.

Rhys extended his hand, and the baby grabbed his finger. You looked up at your partner, finding the same love you felt, shining in his eyes. He looked at you, a tender smile playing on Rhys's lips.

"Our little Ciara," you whispered, again mesmerized by your daughter. Rhysand placed a gentle kiss on the top of your head and whispered an "I love you."

Your body started to feel heavy, your eyes almost couldn't stay open, the fatigue from hours pulling your consciousness.

"Rest, dear, you deserve it," was the last thing you heard before sleep took you completely.

When you woke up again, Rhysand had his back to you, rocking and murmuring something softly. Not wanting to interrupt the moment, you silently watched, your body still a bit lethargic from the previous effort.

When he turned around, it took him a moment to notice you were awake. His eyes were fixed on your daughter. He smiled gently when he realized your gaze, calmly sitting on the bed with Ciara sleeping in his arms.

"For how long did I sleep?" you whispered, not wanting to wake her. You sat up, leaning against the bedhead when Rhys offered the baby to you.

Just a few minutes. Madja said you wouldn't sleep much; your instincts would wake you up at some point to breastfeed Ciara.

Your partner communicated, and, sensing the change of location, Ciara began to move when you held her. It didn't take long for her little cry to fill the room.

Remembering the lessons you learned during pregnancy, with a bit of difficulty, you started breastfeeding the tiny baby. Her little hand instinctively grabbed your finger.

Rhys's hand reached for your face, brushing away your hair as his eyes reluctantly left their daughter to observe his partner; his body was relaxed. He rested his hand on your stretched thigh, lips pressed together, trying to contain a smile.

"I can't stop smiling every time I look at her. It's like my body fills with this... sensation, hard to explain, but it's a good feeling," he murmured, his thumb drawing circles on your leg.

You approached him, careful not to disturb Ciara, and planted a quick kiss on your partner's lips. Pulling away, you replied, "I feel it too."

Silent minutes passed; Ciara drifted into sleep on your chest. Rhys left and returned quickly, explaining the reason upon his return.

"I informed the others everything went well. Morrigan and Cassian wanted to visit, but I asked them to give us a few days alone," he said, leaning over to caress his daughter's small arm.

"I put Mor and Amren in charge of the court; they'll handle everything as we adjust to our new routine," he stepped back, heading towards another door in the room—leading to your private bathroom. "I also asked the house to prepare a bath for you. I'll check if everything's ready, and when I come back, I can take care of Ciara so you can relax in the tub."

You stood as he entered the bathroom, carefully lifting Ciara from your chest. Rhys returned silently, taking Ciara from you and planting a gentle kiss on her forehead. He indicated the bathroom with a nod.

"Take your time, and call me if you need anything," he said. You nodded and walked slowly to the bathroom.

You felt strange, Ciara was no longer inside you, but your belly still had a slight protrusion. As you removed your dress and entered the bathtub, the warm water eased some of the discomfort, allowing you to relax.

Your mind easily drifted away from potential insecurities that might arise, although you knew they would return eventually. At that moment, the only thing you had the energy to think about was how cute your daughter was and how delightful it was to soak in the bath with bath salts and bubbles.

You relaxed in the bathtub for a while, washing the sweat from your body and taking a moment to tend to your hair. Your thoughts oscillated between enjoying the magically heated water for a few more minutes and checking on your partner and daughter. However, you didn't need to make a decision because you heard a gentle knock on the door.

Your voice was soft and weary as you signaled for Rhysand to enter – it could only be him, after all. As your partner opened the door, he carried a towel and a change of clothes. The smile that formed on his lips mirrored the one on Rhysand's face. He handed you the towel as you stood up, and the soft fabric enveloped your body for drying. Soon, you were dressed in the warm and comfortable clothes your amazing husband had brought.

"Where's Ciara?" Your curiosity and concern prompted the question. Rhysand placed a gentle kiss on your forehead and turned to grab a hairbrush as he answered.

"She fell asleep after feeding; I put her in the crib," he walked behind you, a murmur escaping your lips, signaling that you had heard his response. His hands were gentle as he worked through your hair, the brush smoothly untangling the strands that had become knotted during the intensity of childbirth.

"I want to stay close to her tonight. I don't feel comfortable leaving her alone in a room on her first day of life," your voice was no more than a whisper, and despite the concern engulfing your body, a hint of embarrassment for not being able to leave her was present too.

Your husband's shortly nasally laughter made you turn around to find his gaze as he finished brushing your hair. He didn't say anything, but one of his hands went to your cheek, Rhys's thumb tracing gentle circles. With the other hand, he placed the brush on the countertop behind you.

"I figured you'd want that," he whispered, his face approaching yours, and your foreheads touched. The soft smile remained on Rhys's face. Instinctively, your eyes closed as he neared, and you brought your lips close to his, planting a gentle kiss.

"That's why I did this," his hand grasped yours, and he pulled you back to the bedroom. A warm smile grew on his lips as he surveyed the scene. The bed linens had been changed to clean ones, and a tray filled with your favorite foods had been placed on the bed. Next to it was the crib that used to be in the small room designated for Ciara, and inside, peacefully sleeping, was your little baby.

You turned to your partner, your eyes moist with unshed tears. Rhysand was already looking at you, the star-speckled eyes of your partner smiling at you, the expression on his face radiating pure love. You hugged him, and his arms quickly embraced you, his warmth enveloping you. Your voice sounded muffled as you whispered a soft "I love you."

The kiss he planted on the top of your head was followed by a quiet "I love you too, my shining star."

"Come on, let's get some food in your stomach so you can watch our little one until you fall asleep."

Following your partner to the bed, you did exactly as he said: indulged in all the food he had prepared, lay on the bed facing your daughter's crib, and with Rhysand's arms around you from behind, watched the little bundle of joy until sleep pulled you into comfortable darkness.

[scarletttries]

Nightcrawler x Selective-Mute Reader Headcanons (X-Men Request)

Pairing: Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner x Reader

Rating: Pure Fluff

Word Count: 1k

Request: "Could I possibly ask for relationship headcannons about Kurt/Nightcrawler with a selective mute human reader please?? Like the reader can communicate only through sign language and also by her very special talent...singing when she feels strong emotions!"

- There's been an endless monologue going on inside Kurt's head for as long as he can remember - echoing prayers and guilt, joy and sorrow, mixing languages that churn in his mind and ensure he never knows peace. He can't imagine any other way to live, the constant thrum of internal noise seeming inevitable, until one day he's been shown around Xavier's mansion and he locks eyes with you.

- He's never felt a calm quiet like it. His soul seems to still for a moment as you offer him a welcoming smile from across the hall, taking a second to offer him the warmest reassurance your expression can manage before seeking refuge in your bedroom before the blush can reach your cheeks.

- From the first interaction the two of you felt drawn to each other, often finding yourself up late at night at the same time and sitting quietly together in an easy silence. Kurt would tell you little snippets of his life before the mansion, and you would teach him a few signs for what he was saying so he could learn about you too. Where others felt fear in Kurt's obvious mutant appearance, you found it only natural to appreciate the undeniable beauty of the blue hue of his skin and the markings carved across it.

- Kurt's heart already belonged to you before he ever heard you make a sound, but that doesn't mean he doesn't adore hearing you express yourself. The first time he heard you he could hardly believe the aching affection in his chest. He was trailing through mansion corridor's late at night as he often found himself doing now that he knew that he was seeking out you, and heard the softest melody settle over him. He knew it could only be you making that noise, the way it lifted his heart from the moment he heard it just the same as your smile always could. He followed each sweet note until he found you alone in the dining room, humming absentmindedly to yourself as you tried to write a letter to the blue mutant you didn't realise was just a few feet behind you. You were lost in thoughts of how safe and comforted Kurt had made you feel, how you wanted him to know how much you valued him, but as your heart sang and a sweet tune filled the air, you hadn't quite been able to put the words down on paper yet.

"Mein Leibe, I knew that sound must be you." He spoke softly so as not to startle you, the joy radiating from both of you as he walked to your side and looked at your notepad full of half-sentences all scratched out and written over each other. "I know how it feels to be at a loss for words."

Kurt said the thought aloud more to himself than you, picturing all the times he had tried to tell you just how he felt, but never having the words to sum up the enormity of his longing for you. He let his eyes drop to the table in a moment of fear. What if he could never tell you what he needed to? What if someone found the words for how special you are before he could manage it? Suddenly the featherlight weight of your hand on his drew him back to reality, and gave him the courage he so desperately needed. "You have been the kindest of friends to me since I arrived here, mein schatz, and I will never be able to thank you enough for that. But I am afraid I must ask even more of you." He watched as your forehead creased and your humming stopped, entirely focused on what Kurt was going to ask of you.

"Do you think you could ever love me? I don't know if that's fair to ask of you, but I also cannot live without finding out if you could ever feel the same way I do right now." Reading the slight disbelief in your eyes he confirmed the heavy truth that hung unspoken in the air. "(y/n) I love you."

- If most of the mansion wasn't asleep you could have sung louder than any choir at his confession, having to settle instead for clasping his hand in yours and singing a sweet repreve that would let him know you shared his feelings in every way.

- From that night you and Kurt would be inseparable, the blue mutant finding any reason to cling by your side. He's such a gentleman he'll constantly be looking for ways to help you out day to day; opening doors, carrying books, and picking you up little gifts like flowers from a few meadows over just to make you smile and sing.

- No matter how many times you tell him he can just appear in your room, he'll still always knock on your door, waiting for you to invite him in, so worried that one day he's going to overstep and this perfect new life will be taken away from him.

- He finds it so special when the two of you steal away for a private moment together and you'll sing to him about how you're feeling. For the times he has to share you with others, he'll learn all the subtle signs to remind you he's thinking of you even when you can't talk together.

- After a difficult and sometimes scary start to his life, Kurt finds endless comfort with you and sees himself spending the rest of his unusual life at your side, confident he can take on the world as long as you can do it together. You truly are the song in his heart.

[mammalsofaction]

Okay so,

A couple of weeks ago, I started getting back into my MARVEL phase, and since I had no intention of letting my Phineas and Ferb phase go in the meantime, it's cumulated into the desire of seeing a crossover. Before I remembered that a crossover existed, and it sucked. I DID end up rewatching it, and I fell asleep thinking about how wrongly it represented my favourite characters from BOTH fandoms. Natasha didn't feature, and they didnt even crack Tony out of his iron shell. They made Candace look like an idiot, and Isabella had such a small role as to be almost completely insulting.

I'm now 3/4ths of the way done, and the only reason it isn't is because I'm approaching the end of my semester, and I just got too. Overwhelmed. I really, really want to share what I have so far, because I had a TONNE of fun writing it while it was still going, and I'm already so so close to the finish line.

Context/Tags: Post Civil War, Prior to Ragnarok, featuring Irondad. Human Perry, selective mutism. OWCA is a bit more competent than usual in this fic, and while Fury doesn't completely LIKE Francis, there is an air of respect between the two of them.

This snippet mainly features the interaction between Perry, Francis, Carl, Fury, Natasha and Clint. Seeing (writing) these spies interact is at least half the reason I wanted to write this fic in the first place.

Snippet under the cut, Enjoy!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *

Natasha liked Perry immensely, the moment she met him.

He stands at attention just a little behind a man she assumes to be his superior; a white haired monobrow-ed man in an olive green uniform. Bartholomew "Perry" Fletcher cuts an intimidating figure, though apparently shorter in person than he seems from afar, just a little taller than Natasha herself. Much like Tony. His naturally teal hair is just as eye-catching as it had been in his profile photo, though it brings out his Australian complexion, and the brown of his eyes.

He’s dressed eclectically, in what she assumes is something of a uniform within the organisation. A brown Kevlar-and-silk waistcoat over a light teal dress shirt, pressed brown trousers and smart, steel-toed loafers, topped off with the ever-recognizable OWCA fedora.

His gaze is sharp, calculating, but not particularly unwelcome. Perry carries himself not with braggadocio, but the familiar confidence of a man who knows his own strengths, and what he brings to the table. A man who knows himself to be good at his job. Natasha should know; it is a look she sees frequently in her line of work, in the company she keeps.

Time will tell if Perry would remain among them.

“It’s a pleasure to meet the esteemed Director Fury in the flesh." Said Francis Monogram, the superior in question, eager and a little bumbling. Natasha could see Perry rolling his eyes, even standing at attention, and Clint hides his chuckle with a well-timed cough.

“I wish I could say the same." Fury says, pointedly ignoring Monogram’s outstretched hand. "You understand this is no social call.”

Francis’ thick mustache quivers unhappily. It reminds Natasha of a fat, old caterpillar. “It never is. We’re glad to be of any service we can, of course. Agent Platypus will be glad to answer any question you have."

“Yes, Agent Platypus." Fury raises his eyebrow. Perry tilts his head when addressed. "Your reputation precedes you. We’ve been told you are OWCA’s finest.”

How someone could look so expressive and professional at the same time, Natasha can’t say. But that was Perry. I do my best, sir. He signs, simple and modest.

His ASL is sharp, quick and fluid, which confirms another point from his portfolio; selective mutism. Clint had been almost delighted to know. She respects that Perry does not pull any punches regarding how well they could understand him.

Nonetheless, a curly haired, freckled child (only a little older than Peter) standing with a clipboard by Francis’ side pipes up. “He said-,"

“We know ASL, kid, that’s not necessary." Clint intercepts gently. He shares a look with Natasha before addressing Monogram. “Sorry, should he be here? Or is he done?”

"Carl is head intern of the organisation.” Monogram answers dismissively, leading the way down from the rooftop where the helicarriers had dropped them off before going their merry way downtown. "I’m afraid he goes wherever I go. He will be responsible for addressing future reports of our meeting.”

Big job for an intern. He shares another look with Natasha, and they both turn to Perry, as if to seek his unspoken opinion on the matter.

Perry gives them a subtle nod.

Natasha chooses to leave it, and follows them down the stairwell.

“I trust you’ve been briefed of our recent little…incident in New York.” Fury starts, as they all make their way through the building. Presumably for Francis’ personal office.

“I’m led to believe it was an accident." Francis says, throwing an indecipherable look over his shoulder. “The Flynn-Fletcher brothers have great untapped potential, and while we’ve had cause to doubt their intentions in light of certain…developments, I am ensured it is not for evil.”

"You think it was an accident.” Fury echoed.

At this, Francis shrugs. "Weirder things have happened in Danville.”

Natasha makes note of the unmistakable coil of tension that grows in Perry’s form with every new mention of the Flynn-Fletcher brothers. Perry clears his throat, loudly.

Francis sighs, as if he had been reminded of an incredibly tedious thing. “Our sources tell us that the boys were only involved peripherally, in any case. The ray in question hadn’t been their fault, even if it had been intercepted and collected in their satellite. The real culprit is a criminal we have been pursuing for years; a Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and his latest Power-Drain-Inator.”

Clint shares another look with her, eyebrows raised. Now this was a new development. “Not the most creative name." He quips.

Francis scoffs. “I assure you, it’s more than made up for in the invention itself, as well as its effectiveness."

Natasha straightens. “So it was effective?"

“Your being here seems tangible enough proof that it was." Francis points out, and she almost hates that it’s a sensible observation. “Doofenshmirtz inventions have a 96% success rate. He is the third most dangerous villain in our database. Agent Platypus, as his nemesis, had neutralised the threat as quickly as he was able-although not quickly enough, as it seems, to fully prevent any harm.”

It is clear that the accusation of failure had been the one to hit a nerve, and Perry looks away, ashamed. Natasha almost felt tempted to reassure him; nothing more upsetting to an agent of their calibre to be accused of failure, after all. But it had a ring of truth-it was only luck that the beam had hit the Avengers after the fight had been done with, and not a second before. Tony, in particular, had been severely incapacitated.

“And where do we find this…. Doofenshmirtz?” Fury asks, as they arrive on the bullpen floor. It is not so busy, but the few OWCA agents lingering don't bother hiding their curious eyes as even when Perry sends a withering glare in their general direction. Carl ushers them all inside Monogram’s office, the largest personal space on one side of the floor.

Inside, the space is decorated with lush carpets and a grand mahogany table, like a high school Principal’s office. There are floor to ceiling windows with a view to the parking lot, as well as a clever viewpoint of the building’s entrances and exits. Not so glamorous, but Natasha could admit it was practical.

Perry closes the door behind them, and clears his throat once again. Carl jumps.

“Yes sir,” He said, adjusting his glasses. “Being a Friday, considering what we understand of his schedule, he should either be at his home address, or shopping for groceries, since Dr Doofenshmirtz gets custody of his daughter on the weekends due to an agreement with his ex-wife in the divorce. However, certain developments were brought to light that it may be…unwise to act so directly.”

Francis, who had been typing away on his computer when they had arrived, swivels the screen around to show them a purple and white themed webpage that is–on closer inspection, turns out to be an encrypted Tumblr account.

“You’re kidding." Clint says. "He blogged about it?”

“He has more professional blogs as well,” Carl says, procuring a tablet from his pocket (Not Starktech. Most networks prefer to use their own developed tech, and Natasha notes that OWCA is much the same) for Fury’s perusal. "It’s almost comically incompetent, but he also knows we stalk him, so we feel some two ways about it. I would like to bring attention to his most recent post, dated this morning.”

"Looks like he’s entertaining company.” Fury agrees, passing the tablet down to Natasha (with Clint looking over her shoulder.) “I assume you have…plans, for detainment?”

"What’s stopping us from apprehending them all at once?” Clint asks, fingers pointing to the background of the picture taken with all of their criminals in frame. "We have tangible proof of their collaboration, written confessions to their criminal intentions, we know where they are-,”

"Doofenshmirtz is a criminal no matter who he chooses to collaborate with." Francis points out. “And we have records of worse collaborations. These aren't confessions–only intentions, not yet acted out. These posts were made nearly an hour ago, where they’ve made plans to tour the Tri-State Area causing general mayhem. By all means, we don't know their plans, we don't know where they are or where they plan to be, especially considering Doofenshmirtz own historically unpredictable patterns and impulse decisions.”

"And apprehending them in public is out of the picture, I assume.” Natasha says drily. Predictably, all three OWCA operatives tense unhappily. "Too much collateral damage, as well as risk of exposure.”

"It’s not like you can do much, without solid criminal charges." Carl mutters. “Not if we detain them in the Tri-State Area. Doofenshmirtz’s little brother is the current mayor, and he’s stupidly well-regarded. His influence is wide-spread. Doofenshmirtz also has an exceedingly amicable relationship with his ex-wife, who owns a very influential legal firm. She even kept his name.”

"So we can’t pin them on jack shit, is what you’re saying.” Clint surmises. “Not until they do something drastic. Not so long they remain in the bounds of the city. And they will remain here. We know they want something from Doofenshmirtz, and they don't know how dangerous he is.”

“And how dangerous is that?" Fury asks.

Francis and Carl simultaneously glance to the side, where Perry had chosen to take position by the side of the door.

"Not much.” Carl says. "Usually.”

Natasha quirks an eyebrow.

Perry coughs, to call attention to himself, and brings his hand up in a see-saw motion with a twitch of his left eye.

He’s unpredictable, Perry signs. We mean that. He’s ambitious, single minded, and persistent, with the genius engineering know-how to walk his talk. But he follows his own rules, and standards of conduct, which are almost admirable. He also has an almost debilitating case of ADHD, prosopagnosia, and PTSD. Trying to follow his sense of logic can be…. difficult.

“I can believe that." Fury defers. "What do you suggest, Agent?”

Perry glances towards Francis, as if to ask for permission. When Francis responds with a brisk nod, Perry wastes no time.

There is a protocol in place. We call it Walking the Dog.

[trippingontheescalator]

Curious about the direction the HP fandom has gone

Okay, so as an old HP fan from way back when the books were first coming out, and then getting hit with the nostalgia and decided to return after years and years of not interacting with the fandom at all, the changes are truly mindboggling and I'd love to get to the bottom of some things.

Like, the disappearance of Blaise Zabini. Blaise was a fan favorite way back when we only knew his name but now I barely hear a whisper of his name. Now, the obvious answer is racism, which I think is the #1 reason why Blaise-pairings have dropped of significantly. Back then we all thought Blaise was a hot Italian girl, and then we found out he's a black man and suddenly people stop writing about him? Hm, yeah, seems the obvious answer (especially considering the popularity of other characters who are just a name on a page *cough*regulusblack*cough*).

Or the rise in Snape-hate. Like, Snape used to be the fan favorite. Everyone loved Snape. The meaner he was, the more we liked him. Being mean to children was a plus, not a negative lol. And this was back when we all thought he was a pureblood who came from a wealthy family like the Malfoys. Now by the time the 7th book came out I had pretty much moved on and so I didn't really see the fallout of readers discovering his actual background, so I don't know if his drop in popularity is classism and learning that he isn't a palette-swapped Lucius Malfoy or not, but honestly I would figure his impoverished background would be a plus in these times. Like Snape is obviously one of JKR's least favorite characters, and considering how she-who-must-not-be-named has destroyed her reputation with her increasing radicalization you'd figure the poor, abused, author-hating character would become more beloved instead of the rich, white, heteronormative bullies who barely even show up in the books. Like with our increasing knowledge of social injustice, I just don't understand why the fandom would want to latch onto the Marauders? And I just can't believe Snape's handful of snippets with Lily is the cause of his downfall (like what's there is barely enough to fill up a few pages, and there are certainly more toxic relationships in the series that are still beloved), or the fact that he was a Death Eater or that he inadvertently caused the deaths of the Potters (we already knew that in GoF and HPB respectively and he was still beloved, and this was when we assumed he didn't give a shit about the Potters or if they died when he went snitching). Draco is still popular. DRACO who doesn't give two shits about slinging around the word "mudblood," as opposed to Snape who actually changed for the better.

Am I just too old to understand? Is this like 90s fashion coming back in style (no, I won't do it again, I don't care if it's cringy I'm sticking with my millennial styles, I did the platforms and the slip dresses and the cargo pants in high school and I'm not putting myself through that again lol you gen z's can pry my comfortable mom jeans from my cold, dead fingers, I don't care if it makes me look old, that's the point, I AM old). Like, in addition to 90s fashion, has the 90s obsession with luxury athletic fashion like Lacoste come back in style? All those fashion ads of rich white people on yachts with popped collar polos? Are people starting to obsess over the Marauders because nouveau riche conspicuous consumption is coming back in style? It can't all just be young kids who have only read AtYD and have never actually opened one of the books, can it?

There also seems to be a trend of treating characters as if they're real people. I mean, we've always done it (Snape Wives, I'm looking at you), but now it almost feels as if the crimes characters commit are treated as if they're real crimes and that liking them is somehow a moral failing on the reader's fault. If you were to say "I don't like Snape, his douchy actions anger me, I'd rather skip all the parts he shows up in" I'd say, cool, I get that. That's normal. But "Snape is an abuser, a racist, and an incel and if you like him you're probably those things too" is fucking weird. Like, Harry and Hermione are not real children. Snape is not a real person. The things that happen in this book have as much influence on the real world as me imagining ninjas breaking into my workplace on a slow day. And that "media does not exist in a vacuum" pisses me off because it's blatantly misused. The pieces of media that have had serious consequences? Jaws, The Birth of a Nation. One resulted in the culling of sharks, the other helped restart the KKK. Do you know what those two pieces of media have in common? They're not about fucking wizards and magic schools. They instead paint a target on real groups. After twenty years nobody has ever tried to hurt a marginalized group of people because of a harry potter book (except for JKR herself).

Anyway, these are just some random thoughts, feel free to chime in with your own.

[hashimasims]

Absalom: I brought you breakfast.

Elucea: I'm not hungry, that's why I didn't stay to eat.

Absalom: Please eat, just a little?

Elucea: You don't care that I came back in here.

Absalom: Is that a question or a statement?

Elucea: Statement. Sorry I didn't mean to rummage through your head.

Absalom: You're welcome any time, that's why I leave the door open. Everyone knows you're a bit overwhelmed right now and don't expect you to interact with them. Well, except Kan anyway, he's being a bit of a grump-fish. What are you doing?

Elucea: Just checking things on the internet. The news you told me not to look at. I just want . . . I don't know what I want. Draining and drowning that woman sounds too merciful. And come look at this! I got an email from someone named Devin Villareal asking me to join them in Tartosa for a reality show: "Changingplumbob's Dating Deanna". Hey isn't that the one Kaye was telling us about?

Absalom: I think it is, not as a contestant I hope.

Elucea: No, as a guest judge. I don't think I want to go. There's too much going on here I . . . I don't think I could handle it right now.

Absalom: Go. Kan and I can hold down the fort here for a little while. It looks like the dates they need you are after the School's birthday so you wont miss it. If it would make you feel more comfortable then take them with you and hire a nanny for while you're there. I know you don't like the idea but it's only temporary. You need to go. Unwind, have some fun, decompress and get away from the Llamashit going on here right now.

Elucea: Kan wont like it.

Absalom: Woohock him! He and I need to have a chat anyway about last night and I'm mentioning how he makes you feel like a possession. I think I need to talk to Paka'a as well, some things were said that don't sit well with me. I don't like the idea of you being away either but you need it. Give Devin a call and then I would like to speak to her, see if she'd be willing to boost security for you. I'll pay for it of course.

Elucea: I don't need any security

Absalom: After last ni-

Elucea: It was all in my head remember?

Absalom: Don't care, I'll feel better if you had it.

Elucea: You really think I should go?

Absalom: You're not a prisoner here El, and I won't let you stay locked away. You promised to talk to Hypnos professionally and I will hold you to that but maybe getting away for a while, away from us, will do you some good too.

Elucea: OK. I'll call her right now

Absalom: When you're done Nitäl has a surprise for you downstairs

Beginning|Previous|Next

BTW: Thank you @changingplumbob for giving me a reason I didn't have to think of myself to send El off on her own for a little while! She was eventually going to end up in Tartosa (on her own preferably but I did write snippets to work off of in case that didn't happen). I knew it was going to be after the children had their birthday but between "story boards" for the future of the Glynnan story and writing (and rewriting) the flashback pieces I never actually figured out the reason for her being there besides that's where she meets a couple new characters or the actual time table of her adventures there.

[captain-mj]

Absolutely begging for more of the jealousy trope you just posted. That was so good holy shit. Even if its just headcanon or something, thats such a fun snippet you posted. (If not thats ok but figured it was worth a shot since I adore your writing sjekdwkdkdk)

I can deliver that!

Soap wasn't sure when his crush on Ghost started. He didn't really have a moment where it suddenly appeared. It was a very slow build that he could see throughout his journal.

Ghost himself was a good man. Kind to animals, even if he was a bit more prickly with people. Funny. Good listener. Strong. Attractive.

Soap adored him. Everything about him. His little quirks or problems. All of them just made up Ghost.

Recently, he had been avoiding being alone with him for too long. He had some... rumors. The idea of Ghost being with someone else drove him batty. He didn't own the man, though he certainly wanted to. They had known each other long enough though that Soap knew how to get Ghost on a topic.

Soap was lamenting that it had been a while since he got laid. It was just the two of them, with Price being elsewhere in a meeting and Gaz with the recruits. it was good, meant he could test the waters with Ghost. Right now, he was trying to gather intel over the rumors. He found if he was open about something, Ghost was a little more likely to be open back.

"Try harder." Ghost gruffed. "Plenty of willing bodies around here."

Soap paused. "Got someone on the side, Lt?"

"No." Soap bit the inside of his cheek as hard as he could to stay normal over this. Yes, there were rumors but this was close to a confession.

"Keep your mask on?" He prodded.

"Don't even get undressed." Ghost sounded amused, making a startlingly direct amount of eye contact with Soap.

Soap laughed. "What? You just take your snake out of your trousers there and go at it?" He was seething. All internally of course. He went through everyone Ghost interacted with in a day to day basis. Scanned through every interaction to see who made it clear what they wanted from Ghost. God, they weren't like Soap. There was no way they appreciated it enough. Soap would.

"Pretty much."

"Not much of a romantic, are you?" What a shame. He was sure he could convince Ghost to give him the chance.

Ghost narrowed his eyes at him. Soap realized he must've hit a nerve. "No one here wants romance. Least of all with me. They want to get off and get me off and that's where it ends." He looked down at Soap's clear hard on in his pants. "And I can see you're no different. Wanted me to fuck you, Johnny, you could've just asked."

Soap can feel his cock leaking in his pants. "Yes. Please."

Ghost rolled his eyes. "Fucking slag." He got up and walked away with Soap following right on his heels.

Soap couldn't help the grin on his face. After a round or two, he would convince Ghost to do it again with him later. He was sure he could play Simon like a fiddle.

"Oh, God please, Simon." Johnny had his face buried in the pillow as Simon thrust back into him. "You're so big." He was wrong. This man was a demon of some kind. He had come here to swallow Soap's soul and replace it with his fucking cock.

"I love flattery." Simon purred, pulling him back again. Johnny came hard, body tensing so much he worried he'd snap.

"Fuck, fuck, it's so good are you even close?"

"Nope." He popped the p at the same time he thrusted in deep, grinding a little.

Soap groaned. "Don't know how much longer I can take it."

"It's okay. Lot of people can't. I can always-"

Johnny arched his back and clenched tight around him. "No. No. Come on, you want to finish in me don't you?" He didn't want him to go to anyone else. No one else.

"Jealous aren't you?" Simon whispered before leaning down and sinking his teeth into his shoulder.

Johnny came again. And he teetered on a third. Everything shifted until all he could feel was Simon. Simon. Simon. Simon.

The stretch. His fingers. God, the way he smelled.

Simon thrust in hard and came finally. His hips rolling against him until he dragged every ounce of his own pleasure from Johnny.

"I haven't had sex in two years." Ghost informed him. "You never had anyone to worry about."

Soap glared at him.

"Those rumors were fake, love. But I promise, I'm all yours." HIs mask hit the floor with his shirt following shortly after

[gulliblelemon]

Sunday Snippet

So I've been writing something new for the past couple of weeks. I've been really enjoying the process. It's a challenging project for a couple of reasons, but it's been fun so far. I've written... a lot in the past week, so it'll definitely end up being something. Timescale undetermined. Here's a snippet in the meantime!

It’s from a user that Simon hasn’t ever interacted with, someone called it_is_enough_to_exist.

Before reading the message, Simon clicks through to their profile. They have the default image as their profile picture, and no information in their bio. Both are red flags. Although the existential username suggests a human rather than a bot behind the account.

Simon heads back to the DM and tentatively starts to read.

Hi. I hope you don’t mind me contacting you by DM. I didn't feel comfortable getting involved in the discussion earlier about tropes in genre fiction. But I just wanted to say that I really liked what you said. 

Simon rereads the message two more times before huffing out a disbelieving laugh. There he was, fighting the cause all on his own, when this person was just sitting there watching? 

You could have said something back there, he replies.

[noodlesoup1819]

HI. IT’S ME AGAIN. DOES THIS COUNT AS CHEATING?? IT SHOULD BE FINE, RIGHT? ANYWAYS, IM BACK TO BOTHER YOU. CONSORT TO THE MOON PRINCE PLEASE!!! also i ADORE the alliteration in most of your titles — such a cute touch!!! 💓💓💓💓

kshdfhshfksh ITS NOT CHEATING!! pls bother me whenever!!

And titles are probably my favorite part of the writing process!! I love coming up with something that sounds fun or interesting or pretty!!

This one is an Apothecary Diaries AU that I've yapped a lot about in this tumblr post. (yikes I didn't reread that for grammar issues at all before posting it 💀)

Maomao is raised by Lakan and Fengxian but gets curious about the deaths in the Rear Palace so asks to be sent there as a consort. Overprotective Lakan doesn't want to give his baby girl to the emperor, so instead, he sends her as a consort to the shut-in moon prince, that's currently pretending to be a eunuch in the rear palace so he can't reasonably visit her.

Chaos then ensues as Jinshi and Maomao both live double identities (Jinshi as 'Jinshi the eunuch' and 'Zuigetsu the Moon Prince' and Maomao as 'Kan La Mao the consort to the moon prince' and 'Maomao, La Mao's lady in waiting') During which, Jinshi is falling madly in love with the lady he explicitly promised their relationship would just be for show

snippet:

Jinshi watches as a woman draped in fine silk walks over the moat and through the gate into the rear palace. La Mao is beautiful. That much is clear from a distance. She is not the most endowed woman in this garden, nor is she the warmest or any of the other things the emperor tends to prefer in his flowers. No, La Mao’s beauty is much quieter. Her dark hair holds an almost emerald hue. Her face is carefully blank, as though it’s made of porcelain. She wears almost no makeup, just a hint of rouge around her eyes and lips. But her eyes— her cold, intelligent eyes. Jinshi thinks that they are probably the most captivating part of her. It’s a shame she won’t be visited, he thinks. Because she will not be visited. La Mao does not contain the things the emperor prefers in his flowers— because she isn’t his. She was given to Jinshi, or rather, to the moon prince. And Jinshi wants absolutely nothing to do with her.

Poor Jinshi has no clue what's going to hit him 🤭

This fic is absolutely fighting me every step of the way. I've rewritten the first part like four times and I'm struggling to figure out how I want to write Maomao's characterization since she's had a different upbringing in this AU. I have a pretty good handle on their canon characterizations and I like how I've handled their interactions in the past (fun fact, my most popular fic is from this fandom) but deciding where I want to take them in this world is giving me Problems™️

But I still love the concept, so we persevere.

Thank you so much for the ask!!! Much less TWO asks 🥹🫶💖

[kevindayscrown]

The Golden Raven first impressions review (no spoilers in the first part, will warn ahead when I add specific spoilers)

I'm going to tag it as spoilers just in case, but I can't help but put my thoughts out there.

My heart is so full after reading this. It also grew fonder and fonder for Jeremy and Jean to the point I felt almost suffocated by it. We got so much new lore and so much character depth. And Laila and Cat. Oh my god, did the found family go hard on this one. I've not been one to have very vivid reactions while reading but I spent the last ten minutes crying.

The character growth and depth, the ups and downs, the progress. I want to kiss Nora's creative brain. I'm so happy she decided Jean deserved a chance to have his story told. I'm so happy Jeremy got the time to shine he deserved. And boy did he SHINE. To see these characters that I've spent so long speculating over, so many years of wondering and imaging and dreaming of what they might be like grow and become fully fleshed, beautiful personalities with tender and raw interactions is making me stupidly emotional.

The romance. Ah, the classic Nora, burning slow but burning bright. How can I wait for the third book, having seen Jean and Jeremy interact in such a manner? Knowing they are already so important to each other? This dynamic, this love and care between them it's something so so raw and so so good. The sexual attraction, but also the want behind it. Stop me or I won't stop talking about it.

The Trojans shone through, but Cat and Laila, Xavier and Cody stole the spotlight on multiple occasions. Nora just knows how to hit you with that found family until it hurts. Laila and Jeremy and Cat and Jean and then all four of them together, I'm afraid that dynamic is unmatched and unlike anything Nora has ever written.

Of course, who would I be if I didn't comment on Kevin and his scenes? Just enough to feel like a treat, and all the interactions between him and Jean and him and Jeremy gave us so much insight from so many different angles, I feel spoiled.

Of course, all the foxes cameos where treats, all the little snippets we got to see with their continuation. Sometimes it felt a bit much, but I have a feeling I know where Nora will be going with this in the third book.

Despite the length of the book, I didn't really feel as if it was too long. I'll let my recency bias settle and probably write another review with more spoilers and details but until then I couldn't help but add my own dime on this.

Jeremy and Jean had my heart from the beginning of this journey, hell from even way before that, but now I'm absolutely ride or die for them.

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

Some of my favourite moments jumbled up (ill add later):

• Obviously, learning more about Jeremy, about now messy he is and how much he is struggling to stay in control. About how lowly he treats himself and his own happiness but how quickly he jumps to defend others'. Jeremy learning French with a Marseille accent for Jean. Jeremy who wants to please everyone, who makes a mess of his own personal life and yet stays a devoted captain. He wants to treat people with kindness, to crawl away from the dark place he'd been in. Who doesn't realize how much he is worth and how shitty he has been treated.

• Jean slowly progressing into acknowledging more and more of the cruelty of the Ravens. Jean "I deserve to get better" Moreau. Jean who will choose Laila and Cat and Jeremy over anyone. Jean who called Rhemann and Wymack his fathers, who saw the fireworks and added them to his little mantra. Whose favourite colour is brown because it reminds him of all those he is growing to love. Jean who keeps the promise he made to Kevin to keep on living. Jean, who was quick to jump to Jeremy's defence at any given moment that the other needed it. The little kiss on the cheek, the touches, helping each other, eyeing each other, pining from a distance.

• Laila who sees Jeremy as her brother, who would do anything for him. Laila who lost everything she held dear and yet she chooses to move on because she has her family around her. Cat who lifts everyone spirits, who encourages Jean to embrace what he loves, encourages him to get a bike, is always there to check if he is okay. Both of them helping him with his eating disorder. Doing their best to help him adjust. Doing their best to protect Jeremy from his self-destruction.

• Kevin with his tough and harsh love. Kevin and Jean who deny being friends but doing so much for one another. Their little shared touches and their banter and their old man arguing. Kevin who bought Jean a postcard the moment he saw Jean's was ruined. Kevin and his friendship with Jeremy. How open he was with him, how much they were both trying to understand each other, how much they were trying for Jean.

• Jean tackling his sexuality over and over again. Slowly breaking free because "whose rules? The dead kid's?". Jeremy proving his worth time and time again despite his past, despite how people kept using his sexuality against him.

• Jean's sass and retorts, Jeremy and Cat's jokes. So many little diamonds in those quotes. Their teasing and their banter and their inside jokes.

• Adopting Jabberwocky and how happy it made them, how its going to bring this family even closer. How silly and stupidly excited it got Jeremy. Ugh, my heart.

[jo-harrington]

Luminous Beings - Episode 4: Order 66

Art by @monologichno || Beta Read by @undead-supernova Part of the @eddiemunsonbigbang

Summary: The Dragonborn is plagued with tension and uncertainty as Thalia's secrets finally come to light.

Word Count: 9.8k

Pairing: Eddie Munson x OFC (Thalia Trieste)

Warnings/Themes: Star Wars AU, Fluff, Budding Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Torture, and Death, Miscommunication, Distrust, Minor Canon Inaccuracies/Adaptation, Galactic Politics, Criticism of Government and Authority, Criticism of the Jedi, Betrayal, Depictions of Order 66 and the Jedi Purge

Note: This chapter made me nervous, I'm not gonna lie. There have been so many depictions of Order 66 in so much Star Wars media but when you fold such a huge canon event into a fic like this...UGH. I truly hope I did it justice. Thanks to @courtingchaos for giving me a second look at that little snippet and giving me some extra courage, I feel so much better. And yes, if I ever decide to write Thalia's story, I will be pulling a Dave Filoni and writing it again.

Thanks again to everyone for reading.

Luminous Beings Masterlist - Jo-Harrington's Masterlist

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy!

Hyperspace, 10BBY

The atmosphere in the Dragonborn was tense.

No one said a word once they'd gotten off Outpost 86 and jumped to lightspeed.

None of them knew what to say, least of all Eddie.

They'd all witnessed what happened—the Guavians had too—and Eddie knew that he should have said something to his crew at least. He knew he should have gone and said something to Thalia. But as soon as the boarding ramp was shut, he had stomped up to the bridge, barking orders to his friends to get to their stations so they could get the hell out of there.

Now, safe and sound, Eddie’s mind began to race as quickly as the streaks of stars and nebulae that soared past them. He kept flipping switches and turning knobs to keep himself from facing the inevitable. To keep himself from facing the truth.

Thalia saved his life.

Yeah, that was one thing.

And she was a Jedi.

That was the other.

He was almost hesitant to think those words, but once he did, all of the pieces seemed to fall into place. All of the odd things about Thalia that he noticed suddenly made sense. The feeling of calmness that surrounded her, the connection he felt with her.

Did that mean she had read his thoughts? Or manipulated him in some way?

No, that wasn't it. Was it?

He would've known. Wouldn't he?

However, those realizations, those answers, seemed to raise new questions.

Because...she wasn't really a Jedi, was she? She was around his age, if looks were anything to go by; she must've been a Padawan at the time of the Clone Wars. He remembered seeing the names and faces of Padawans on the Holonet, wanted by the newly-formed Empire, and how horrified he'd been when he realized the implication that they'd be hunted down too.

She couldn't have been accomplice to any sort of treason against the Republic then. But there was suddenly no wonder why she had a negative opinion about the Empire now.

If she was a Jedi Padawan, that is.

And if she wasn't?

He'd been around the galaxy a few times. He'd heard whispers of Force-users in hiding, ones who weren't Jedi. They'd been hunted down by the Empire, too. Maybe she was one of them?

He'd never know unless he asked.

He rose from his seat and ordered G'areth and Dayv to keep an eye on things. Then he made his way down to the medbay.

Thalia, of course, wasn't alone when he got there. While he’d rushed off to the Bridge, Jeff had gone to tend to his blaster wound.

Admittedly, the guys didn't know much in the way of medicine. Bacta, stimpacks, and synthskin bandages. That was what they had, what they felt comfortable using. Anything requiring more than that, they could go planetside and seek medical attention.

That was the extent of healing that Eddie expected Jeff, who was a notorious crybaby when he was hurt or sick, to receive. But there was something to be said about having someone take care of you, instead of injecting yourself with a hypo-syringe.

Eddie leaned against the entrance to the medbay and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched D5-TN pass kolto patches for Thalia to apply to Jeff's injured leg. All while Jeff softly, but animatedly, told a story that Eddie—and Dustin, for that matter—had heard a thousand times.

"...and then I said to him, 'Strono, I know I just made you the best cup of Caf you've ever had, but you cannot propose to me. You can have the recipe though.'"

Thalia snickered at the tale Jeff spun, but kept working.

Even from a few yards away, Eddie could feel the calming energy emanating off of her, which caused the bitterness to rise within in him.

The story telling continued, along with hums and beeps and the ambient roar of hyperspace, until Thalia announced, "Alright, you're set." She clapped her hands together as Jeff swung his legs off the bed. "How does it feel?"

"Good as new," he grinned, attempting to jump to his feet, only to falter and nearly fall. She grabbed him as he gripped the edge of the bed tightly, and they worked together to haul him back upright. "Ok, maybe not as good as new, but close enough."

"To be fair," Eddie piped up, startling Jeff and D5-TN but somehow not Thalia. "You weren't in that great a shape to begin with. I've put you in the crosshairs enough times."

Then, for some reason, Jeff turned his attention to Thalia when he said, "Ed gets us into all sorts of trouble, but we've all made mistakes. Ask G'ar about the time he broke his wrist."

"I'm the reason G'ar broke his wrist," Eddie insisted.

"You tell yourself that, captain," Jeff scoffed. "Hey Dusty, you mind helping me up to the bridge?"

D5-TN whistled and honked; he teased about running Jeff over if he fell, which earned a deadpan laugh from Jeff.

Before long, though, they were gone.

And then Eddie and Thalia were finally alone.

The medbay hadn't ever really felt like a sterile place of healing, but it had come a long way since Eddie and his friends had taken their first excursion across the galaxy. If Thalia complained about having kolto over bacta now, she would've had a conniption back then. They barely even had a bandage and a bed to their name.

But now the small medbay had taken up a new purpose since she'd been onboard. It had only been a few days, and she didn't have much by way of luggage or belongings, but the room held the same energy she did.

A cot was set up in the corner, one she insisted on instead of the medibed, and a few changes of clothes set out atop a nearby cabinet. A datapad, a small commlink that he didn't realize she carried, and a handful of credits that, even from a distance he could tell, were a mix of old republic dataries and new imperial ingots.

The pack she'd brought with her to the Outpost lay on the floor by her cot, slumped and misshapen; with everything that was strewn about the medbay, Eddie wondered what might still be inside.

"Is that why you don't carry a blaster?" he asked once he finally found his voice. "Because you have a lightsaber?"

"No." She shook her head.

"So you don't have a lightsaber?"

She paused as she cleaned up the supplies she used for Jeff, then glanced up at him. She inhaled slowly. Pensively. 

"Now you're just putting words into my mouth."

Any joy or excitement that the child that still lived inside Eddie might've felt at the prospect of there being a real lightsaber aboard his ship was immediately extinguished when he began to demand answers from her.

"Why didn't you just tell me? Us," Eddie questioned desperately. "We're outlaws too. Criminals. It's not like we'd have delivered you to some imperial labor camp on a silver platter."

"Ignoring how...absolutely idiotic you sound to even suggest that," Thalia began with a scoff. "Say I did trust you not to sell me out; how would that conversation have gone? 'Hi, it's nice to meet you. I'm in need of your services and, oh, by the way I can use the force and need to hide it from the empire?'"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then how would you have liked to find out a secret that countless beings need to keep in the name of self preservation? Because I think saving your life is a pretty appropriate method. You're welcome, by the way."

He took an involuntary step back at the venom in her words, but recovered quickly.

"Thank you," he said softly, then pivoted back to the original topic. "I don't know another way that wouldn't have made me question everything, but some kind of indication that I was working with a fugitive Jedi would've—"

Thalia immediately squared her shoulders and crossed the distance so she could press a finger into his chest.

"I want to make one thing clear," she said, practically through gritted teeth. At this distance, her eyes even looked glassy with unshed tears, and Eddie felt his stomach drop, knowing that he was the one who caused them, in one way or another. "I am no Jedi."

Wait.

"What do you mean, you aren't a Jedi?" Eddie scoffed. "Of course you are. You just said you had a lightsaber...and you saved my life...and there's that feeling of—"

"There you go again, Moonsun," she said, voice more lighthearted than it had just been, as she poked fun at him. And she quite literally poked him again, prodding the same place that she'd jabbed him to get her point across just moments ago. "Putting words in my mouth. I didn't say I had a lightsaber. And I didn't say that I didn't have one."

"Do you have a lightsaber?"

"Not with me." Eddie clapped his hands together and just about shoved his finger in her face in triumphant mockery, but she continued. "But that doesn't mean I am a Jedi. And I have never been one either. I know...in the lift, you said that you'd always dreamed of becoming a Jedi...and I'll admit I had that dream fed to me once...but I don't understand how anyone would have dreamed of that life.

"The Jedi were the heroes of the galaxy...and I'm no hero." She held her hands out in front of her and then clenched them into fists. She looked back into his eyes. "But I'll do what I must to keep people safe, Eddie. To keep people alive."

If Eddie had been demanding answers from Thalia in the medbay the night before, his friends were absolutely relentless come morning. It seemed like the chance to let their thoughts and feelings simmer meant that they didn't carry the same chip on their shoulders as he did; they'd not only had time to process what they'd witnessed on Outpost 86, but also what Eddie had told him when he'd returned from confronting Thalia.

To be fair, after they'd parted ways, Eddie also cooled down and cleared his thoughts.

And Thalia answered their questions good-naturedly, as she had before. As if they were still asking about simple things, how the weather was on Dantooine, instead of questioning the workings of the force.

"Can you float things?"

"Sometimes."

"And can you read minds? What color am I thinking of right now?"

"Blue."

"Woah."

"But that's because you're staring at my hair, Dayv."

"Oh, kriff, you're right."

"Have you ever met Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

Even Eddie looked up from his bowl of oats at Jeff's question.

Thalia was frozen in her seat, spoon just inches away from her mouth; her eyes darted around the table to each of the guys as they stared expectantly back at her.

"Eddie has a great impression of General Kenobi," Jeff added, as if the context would help. Thalia's eyes drifted to Eddie and she lifted a single brow in question. "Uh...well...he used to. When we were kids."

"I probably do a better impression of the Emperor now, to be fair," Eddie snickered and ducked his head back down to his breakfast. Still, curiously, he glanced up at her through his bangs. "So...did you ever meet him?"

"I'm..." she put down her spoon and ran a hand through her hair nervously. "No. I didn't."

The questions became more rapid fire after that, especially from Eddie as he picked up where they'd left off before.

"Who did you meet?"

"What did you do?"

"If you weren't really a Jedi, did you live in the temple?"

"If you weren't really a Jedi, how do you have a lightsaber?"

"What really happened when the Jedi betrayed the Republic?"

That seemed to be where the line was drawn for Thalia though, because she slammed her cup of blue milk on the table. She sat back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest.

The galley went silent, save for the shameful coughs and scraping of utensils along the bottoms of bowls. None of them were brave enough to meet her scathing gaze, especially not G'areth, who'd uttered the fated question in the first place.

D5-TN, who'd been sitting at his charging station in the corner of the little galley, was the first to pipe up. His blunt binary beeps questioned why Thalia looked about ready to murder when the Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers. That immediately cooled her down.

"Supposed to be, is the key phrase there, Dustin." She let out a dry laugh. "Everyone is supposed to be one thing, and then they turn out to be something else. I'm the living proof of that. I'm supposed to be hiring you guys to haul something to Coruscant for me."

"Does that mean we can dump that container right into hyperspace?" Dayv chuckled.

"Does that mean we're not getting paid?" Eddie added, much more seriously.

"The Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers,” she continued, ignoring their questions. "Not soldiers for the Republic. But that's exactly what they became, little by little. The Clone Wars were a catalyst for the downfall of the Order, but it had been a long time coming. Hundreds of years, not just over the past few decades. And this wasn't the first time in their history, either."

She got a faraway look in her eyes, and a bitterness in her voice.

"What made a good Jedi was that you could be a good soldier. That's how younglings were chosen as Padawans, even before the Clone Wars. Even before the possibility of war was on the galaxy's doorstep. And I wasn't fit for being anyone's soldier."

"So you weren't chosen?" Eddie asked. "And then you...what'd you say? You worked at a diner on Coruscant?"

"No." Thalia's brow furrowed. "No, that...came after. If someone didn't pass the Initiate Trials or they didn't get chosen as a Padawan, most of the time they got foisted off into the Service Corps to keep them useful. Education Corps...Medical Corps—"

"Well, we know you're not Medical Corps," Jeff interjected and then patted his leg. "You did a better job than any of us could've but, uh, if that was your job, I would be concerned."

The mood in the room lightened as everyone laughed and returned to their meal.

"No," Thalia continued serenely. "I was in the Exploration Corps. We would travel across the galaxy, scouting and surveying planets. Transporting Knights and Masters to different temples."

"So you've always been a sort of flight attendant," Dayv noted, along with D5-TN whistling his own question about what in-flight snacks were served aboard Jedi Order transports.

"You know," she snorted, "now that you mention it, I guess this was my destiny after all.” It got a laugh out of everyone. “I was assigned as an assistant to the researchers looking into ancient secrets of the Force. I'd always been interested in the history of the Jedi...in the deeper meanings in the ways of the Force. That's why I was shocked that you'd gone on a trip to Moraband. It's a forbidden planet."

"Forbidden?" Eddie smirked and leaned back in his seat. "Sweetheart, nothing is forbidden when there are credits to be had. Moraband is an untouched goldmine."

"It's full of tombs," she argued. "Corruption. Relics connected to the Dark Side of the Force. Even now, the Empire forbids travel there."

"Some senators love their tchotchkes." Eddie shrugged. "They buy, we'll fly."

"It's the ancient Sith homeworld, flyboy."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

Thalia let out a noise of frustration before pointedly turning in her seat so she faced the others more than she faced Eddie.

"Anyway, shortly before...before the fall of the Republic, I got partnered with a Jedi Master named Eno Cordova, who'd been researching ancient force-sensitive civilizations. It wasn't much in the way of travel, so, yes, I still lived in the Jedi Temple to access the archives."

"And your lightsaber?" Jeff scooted closer in his chair. Everyone leaned a little closer, even D5-TN, who rolled off his charging station so he could join the others.

"Was the one that I built as a youngling, ahead of the Initiate Trials," Thalia explained. "It's back on Coruscant. Someplace safe."

"Wait a minute," Eddie butt in again. "Hang on. You're a former Jedi whatever, with a functioning lightsaber, who's in hiding from being hunted down by the Empire...and you live on the Capitol? Right under the Emperor's nose?"

The others made noises in agreement and concern.

"Hidden in plain sight," she offered as an excuse, along with a shrug. "It always made the most sense."

She got a faraway look in her eye then, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

"The Empire..." She squinted her eyes a little in thought. "They might be looking for whoever they can to make an example of now. But back then? After…” She trailed off for a moment. “Well, they weren't interested in someone like me."

Before the others could ask anything else, she excused herself from the table and practically ran out of the galley.

"You know there's nowhere you can hide that I won't find you. This is my ship."

"I could try."

"Well, you happened to pick the one place in the ship where I go to practice the guitar alone," Eddie explained. "So you didn't try very hard."

The escape pod was small, and if Eddie was honest, it probably wouldn't do much in the event of an emergency. It's why they weren't too concerned with blocking it with their cargo. He'd had D5-TN run diagnostics on the life support systems and controls many times, to no avail. And they'd always been so eager to move onto the next job or planet that there hadn't really been time to test it in the safety of a spaceport.

But it was a small little space, away from the rest of the ship, where you could be alone. And they'd all taken advantage of that more than any of them cared to admit.

G'areth had even come to have a little personal time once, back in the early days. That's when the "no jerkin' it in the escape pod" rule was enacted.

It was astounding how quickly Thalia had acclimated to the habits of everyone on the ship, though, if she was here. Either that, or she'd scraped the idea of it from one of their heads with her Force abilities.

"It doesn't work like that," Thalia spoke, as though he'd said the last part aloud, earning a skeptical look from Eddie as he sat on the small seat across from her. "You were projecting that one, Nerfhead."

"Hey," Eddie scoffed. "Bantha brains? Yes. But nerfhead? Absolutely not."

He grinned at the little laugh she let out.

He waited for her to talk, to say anything; usually, he'd be the first one to pry, especially when that thousand-parsec stare that she currently had, appeared on one of his friends faces. He took a different approach this time, though. More along the lines of something his uncle Wane would do when he was lost in his thoughts or his worries.

Usually, for him, it had something to do with his dad.

For Thalia, though, it seemed like the Jedi were the sore spot that sent her into a deep spiral of thoughts.

They sat silently for a moment before Eddie hoisted his guitar onto his lap and began playing a soft trill of notes. A lullaby Wane used to play for him when he was little, right after his mom died and his dad ran the first time, so he could sleep without nightmares.

He closed his eyes as plucked at the strings. He let the sound flow through him, resonate with the space around him. One note after another, time passed slowly but surely, and suddenly Thalia was humming along with the slow melody.

He opened one eye and glanced at her as she watched his fingers move, humming in anticipation of each note to come.

"Do you know this song?" he asked softly as he continued playing.

She made a non-commital noise in response and then shook her head. "I'm not very musically inclined either. Don't ask me to sing. But...there are echoes...in the force. Usually they're tied to objects. Sometimes they're tied to people. Your music amplifies your ties to the living force. It's hard to resist."

Eddie wasn't sure what most of that meant, but knew that he wouldn't try to cheapen it by making a joke about how irresistible he was.

Instead, he said, "That must mean I am a pretty good musician, if the force likes my playing."

She cracked a small smile, but stayed silent as he continued strumming.

"Do you want to know why I find it hard to trust people?" she asked, unexpectedly, after a beat. Eddie was about to answer, but she added, "I would've told you. Eventually. But...do you want to know why I couldn't, at first?"

"Because I don't seem the trustworthy type?"

"Because I've been betrayed by people I thought I could trust before." She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. "Because even I've betrayed people who've trusted me before."

"Well, I'm not a snitch. None of us are. My friends have kept quiet about worse things than someone being a Jedi before."

"I told you, I'm not a Jedi."

He ignored her, and instead chose to joke with her. "So who did you betray? Do I have to worry about you giving us up to the Empire, instead of the other way around?"

There was a sadness in her eyes when she looked up at him.

"G'areth asked what really happened," she stated, "when the Jedi betrayed the Republic. The Jedi failed the Republic, and were betrayed in return. Which only led to more pain, more betrayal."

"That's cryptic," Eddie whispered. He winced and stopped playing, setting the guitar aside. "Sorry, that was insensitive of me."

"It's ok," Thalia assured him.

She offered her hand out to him, palm flat and facing upwards.

He thought it was just a gesture of peace, so he placed his hand in hers.

And suddenly Eddie wasn't on the Dragonborn anymore.

He was in a library, surrounded by rows upon rows of shelves containing glowing holobooks. Thousands of them.

The last time he'd seen a library of this size...well, he couldn't recall. The Academy on Bracca had a small library, and he had always liked to read, especially when he was younger and looking for escape from his mundane life. But anything he wanted, he could load onto his datapad from the holonet. There was no need for holobooks and no real space for them in his and Wane's flat.

Whoever had amassed this collection must've been very interested in knowledge. Or power.

But how did he get here?

He spotted movement in the corner of his eye, the flash of a shoulder disappearing down one of the aisles.

"Excuse me," he called out. "Could you help me? I think I'm lost."

He tried to take a step forward, but through his body, another body emerged. As though he was made of mist. A phantom.

The figure, decidedly human, took a few steps forward and then stopped and looked back at him.

His heart stopped.

It was Thalia, but younger. Much less worry on her face, lips upturned into a gentle smile.

Her hair wasn't blue, instead an unremarkable, muddy brown and it was longer, pulled into a thick braid that fell over her shoulder. She wasn't dressed in the travel attire he'd gotten used to seeing her in, or the traditional robes that would immediately bring a Jedi to mind. She wore something that was a marriage of the two—a tunic with an unfamiliar emblem emblazoned on the breast, and fitted utility trousers tucked into boots.

"Come on," she nodded her head in the direction she'd been headed. "Keep up."

"Wh-where are we going?" he demanded, but followed nonetheless.

Suddenly, there were more figures around. Jedi Knights and Padawans, he realized as he saw the lightsabers attached to their belts. Thalia had a lightsaber on her belt too.

They weaved in and out of the aisles, sitting at the tables in the middle of the room. The library, which had previously been silent, was suddenly consumed with ambient sounds of whispered conversations alongside the beeping and whistling of droids whirring around.

Was he...was this the Jedi Temple? On Coruscant? It had to be.

He was filled with that deeply-buried giddiness that he'd been trying to hold down since the truth about Thalia came out.

He was in the Jedi Temple. This was the place where the heroes of his adolescence walked and slept and ate and lived. Being able to witness inside the temple walls was everything he’d ever dreamed of. 

He couldn't wait to tell the guys about this.

He tried to take it all in, but was quickly disappointed when the details, the faces, were all blurry. Unfocused and unimportant here.

In this memory, he realized.

Since exploring on his own was futile, he caught up with the younger Thalia, who spoke with an elderly woman in a set of decorated brown robes.

Their conversation meant nothing to Eddie, really, but he tried to keep up with unfamiliar names, places, and titles of books. Zeffo, and The Tales of Light and Life, and something about Master Cordova. Hadn't that been the Jedi that Thalia said she'd been assisting? Did this all have to do with him?

The older woman seemed to get irritated by the end of the interaction, though, as a tight tight smile stretched across her wrinkled face. She still kept her voice peaceful as she offered, "Perhaps if Master Cordova needs all of this information, he could be bothered to return to Coruscant himself, but I'll see what I can do, Miss Trieste."

"Thank you, Master Nu." Thalia bowed respectfully and then turned and continued on her way. Eddie figured that he was undetectable, but he also felt the urge to clumsily bow to Master Nu before he followed after Thalia.

They walked out of the library and out into a wide atrium with marble walls that stretched upwards for hundreds of feet to a domed glass ceiling.

"What did I say about keeping up?" Thalia questioned impatiently a few feet ahead of him.

"Excuse me for wanting to get a good look at things," Eddie scoffed, but closed the distance.

"You'll see more soon enough," she insisted. "We just need to get there first."

They walked through endless halls and down winding staircases. Eddie noted how Thalia would nod and greet certain Jedi respectfully, and how most of them ignored her outright. Only a handful had stopped for a word of greeting, most of them as young as she was—Padawans she must have trained with as a youngling.

"Why don't the others say anything back to you?" he asked.

"Because I'm nobody," she explained. "At least, it felt that way."

"But—"

"W-will you shut up?"

As the words spilled from her lips, a feeling descended upon Eddie, like an inescapable wave from an endlessly deep ocean. A rumble of building anticipation, like boots stomping in tandem, and then a sudden crash of emotion that nearly brought him to his knees.

Pain, fear, panic, despair.

Death.

An explosion as bright as a thousand supernova, then nothing, as uf it was snuffed out in an instant.

Ripples of catastrophic energy hit him again and again. Suddenly the vastness of the Jedi Temple that he had been in awe of began closing in on him as this world attacked him.

Then came the blaster fire.

Thalia seemed to have quick reflexes, and she was able to duck behind a pillar as that first bolt was released from the blaster of an approaching clone. But others weren't so lucky. Eddie, in his incorporeal form and frozen with the assault of his senses, remained in the middle of the hall.

He witnessed the relentless approach of the clones from an intersecting hallway, the flurry of sizzling blaster bolts, and the ignition of at least a dozen lightsabers as their owners quickly sought to defend the onslaught.

It didn't help though, and bodies fell quicker than Eddie could really keep up with. One mis-timed slash of a lightsaber, and suddenly a new wave of pain shot through him. One blaster bolt deflected, ricocheting off a wall, and found its way into the poorly protected neck of a clone trooper, and he was assaulted by another wave.

Screams and cries echoed around him, not just from Thalia or the surrounding Jedi...but from all directions. Every hallway, every corner of the temple.

Every corner of the galaxy.

It was a barrage of the mind. Of the soul.

And Eddie realized that he wasn't simply confronted by his own emotions, his own fear and despair, over witnessing all of this, but also those of beings surrounding him.

His eyes finally shifted from the massacre, to Thalia who was also frozen in fear as she cowered behind that pillar.

No. He wasn't the one being hit with those emotions.

Thalia was.

He only felt it because he was here in her memories.

Blaster fire, clones, and an attack on the Jedi Temple. He had a memory of this night as well, the horror he felt at the news. But his memory of this existed in the safety of his datapad screen. Thalia had lived this firsthand.

She had to survive.

He finally found the courage within him to move. He took several steps towards her and knelt down to her level to offer a hand.

"Come on," he urged. "Let's go."

She ignored him. Looked past him.

"I said let's go."

Her eyes followed every blaster bolt that passed until they slowed, and then stopped.

Eddie could feel the barrage of emotion start to lessen as Thalia took deep breaths and waited. After a few beats of silence and stillness, coldness was all that remained. Emptiness.

And an echo of fear.

"There is no fear," she whispered to herself. Or maybe to Eddie, as her eyes finally focused on him. "There is only peace."

"Well, I'm plenty scared," he whispered back to her.

She hoisted herself to her feet and slowly stepped back into the center of the hallway. She tip-toed over the bodies where Eddie just walked atop them. Through them. She didn't have the luxury of being a ghost here; this was real to her.

Thalia's booted feet toed at lightsaber hilts that fell from limp hands, and she paused in consideration, before she reached the first clone that had fallen in the hallway. She knelt down and pried the blaster from its hands.

"I thought you didn't like blasters," he commented.

She took another deep breath and began, lip quivering. "The force is everywhere. It binds us. Surrounds us. If we focus on it, it can help us find the answers we seek."

She pointed the blaster at him, through him, down the way the clones had arrived. "There are more of them down there." Eddie turned his head and then looked back at her.

"It doesn't take a Jedi to figure that out," he deadpanned, but she ignored him. Then she turned and pointed in the direction they came.

"They're also that way," she explained. "I can feel them. Can you?"

"I don't know, I'm not—" He stopped short as there was the slightest tickle in his mind. Outside of the cold emptiness, he felt the looming presence of danger. The despair, the pain that had assaulted him earlier. Not just the individual feeling of the clones themselves as they attacked, but the carnage they left in their wake.

Yes, if he and Thalia doubled back the way they came, towards the library, they'd encounter clones. But not as many as they would if they soldiered ahead.

"Lead the way, then." He gestured forward to young Thalia, and then followed her as she began to navigate through the sea of corpses. "Why don't you use your lightsaber?"

"I'm out of practice," she explained. "Members of the Service Corps still wear them, but they're more for show. I'm not a soldier, remember?"

"But you'll fire a blaster."

She ignored him again and kept creeping further down the hall. Until she came to a crossroads where several living Jedi ran past, scrambling for their weapons as they fled. Or maybe ran towards the attacking clones to try and defend...

Their home.

"Was this your home?" he asked Thalia.

"That's a stupid question." There was obvious annoyance in the way she flicked her braid over her shoulder and held her blaster at attention.

"There are no such things as stupid questions."

"Just stupid people." It felt like an insult. It was probably meant to be one. "Don't try to distract me."

They kept walking, confidently. Thalia was able to take out a few clone troopers as she came across them, but she had been right. She wasn't a soldier. She was sloppy with her aim, but she was quick to anticipate their movements.

"Why don't you use the force?" he asked as she ducked behind another pillar.

"It doesn't work that way!" She shouted at him.

The momentary distraction led to a blaster bolt hitting the pillar, close to her head, and she fell to the ground as it exploded in with shards of marble and dust.

Eddie felt as disoriented as she was, heard the ringing in his ears that she must've heard. But when it cleared and she sat up, she was immediately alert and attentive.

Especially when she spotted the two figures dispatching of the troopers that had taken the shots.

"Steev! R'sshekh!" Thalia shouted and scrambled to her feet once the coast was clear. They both turned towards her—a young human man and a trandoshan, both with disheveled robes and lightsabers drawn—and started in her direction.

She pivoted, blaster in hand to make sure the coast was clear, before she ran to join them. The human padawan deactivated his saber and pulled Thalia into a relieved hug.

"You're alive," he said, words muffled by the shoulder of her tunic. "They...the clones...they're killing everyone."

"I know, Steev. I saw Master Pace try to seal off the East Wing. There was only so much blaster fire he could deflect."

R'sshekh said something in Dosh, unintelligible to Eddie, but Thalia and Steev seemed to understand. They parted from one another.

"You're right," Steev nodded. "We need to get to the hangar. Get a ship, go to the senate."

"Are you crazy?" Thalia practically screeched. "I'm sure they'll have the hangar guarded. And the senate? The clones aren't acting alone; someone ordered them to attack. We need to get out of the temple as quickly as we can."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Steev asked impatiently, hands falling to his hips.

R'sshekh spoke again, but Thalia talked over him.

"The service ducts," she said. "The ones we used to explore. If we find the right one, it'll spit us out into The Works."

Steev wrinkled his nose in disgust and scoffed. "Those dusty old tunnels are full of the rotting husks of ancient droids. I'm not going down there again."

"Then do you want to take your chances trying to go out the main entrance?" Thalia asked, voice laden with sarcasm, as she gestured down an adjacent hallway. "I'm sure the coast is clear."

Steev and R'sshekh glanced at each other and then gestured for Thalia to lead them onwards. She looked past them at Eddie and then tilted her head to get him to follow as well.

As if he even could wander off on his own.

The journey was a blur. More winding hallways and stairs, more troopers firing, but Thalia could trust one of her companions to defend her. Especially that Steev kid, who'd jump to her aid and then scold her for being reckless.

At one point, Eddie skipped ahead and tried to whisper in her ear, "Is he your boyfriend?"

"Jedi aren't allowed to form attachments," she snapped at him defensively, then paused. "But yes, he was my friend. And R'sshekh. We were all from the same crèche."

"Well, Steev kind of seems like a jerk."

Thalia looked over her shoulder at Steev, and then sighed. "Yeah. He was."

Eddie noticed her use of the past tense, and he felt a pit open up in his gut.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"No!"

"We've been walking forever."

"The kid has a point," Eddie piped up from the back of the group, earning a scathing glare from young Thalia. "We have been walking forever."

R'sshekh seemed to agree with Eddie and Steev as well, if their intonation was any indicator, and Eddie gestured at the Trandoshan in an "I told you so."

"Thank you, Thalia, for getting us to safety," Thalia said, deepening her voice to match the timber of...well, truly any of them. "Thank you for having the good sense not to follow us blindly as we got ourselves killed." She made a crude hand gesture to them all to punctuate her point and then kept going.

Eddie had lost all sense of direction by this point. Up, down, left, right. They were in a hallway that didn't seem like a hallway anymore. He wasn't even sure they were even in the Jedi Temple, but the distant sound of blaster fire and the ignition of lightsabers assured him that, yes, they were.

The three older teens had picked up some stragglers along their stealthy escape from the temple. Another padawan with a wounded shoulder, her arm now stabilized and tied to her torso with a ripped piece of Steev's robe. They’d also found two younglings cowering behind a pile of twisted trooper bodies. R'sshekh took to holding each of the small children's hands as they continued on their way.

Eddie felt aware of every step he took, felt each of their weariness and the sting of any injuries, because Thalia felt them.

And when fear suddenly gripped her, he felt it too.

"Go on ahead," she told the others as she stopped in her tracks. "The old tunnels start up ahead. And then we keep going until we hit the pipeworks. We can take a break there."

All the kids groaned but kept going.

Until it was just Thalia and Eddie.

"You wanna show me something?" he questioned.

"Not specifically," she responded with a sigh. "But I had noticed something then...so you need to see it, too, now."

She waved him over and revealed the vent she had hidden behind her. It was a small grate, big enough for one of the younglings to crawl through maybe, if that was the reason she noticed it. But as he got closer, he saw that it overlooked, what he believed to be, the vast Great Hall of the Jedi temple.

He couldn't even enjoy the majesty of it—the towering statues or aurebesh carvings that lined the ancient walls, or the way that the rising sun streamed in and made the marble pillars sparkle—because it was full of the dead. Jedi and Clones alike. And there was a whole legion of clone troopers spread throughout the hall, armed and ready for any living Jedi to be taken care of as they attempted to escaoe.

"Turns out these tunnels weren't such a bad idea, after all," Eddie stated lightly.

"Watch," Thalia hissed.

Two cloaked figures strode through the hall then, from the far threshold that led into the depths of the temple, back towards the steps that led out to Coruscant.

A cloud of darkness seemed to follow them, as dark as the cloaks that they wore. Eddie could feel it, even from the distance, with half of the Great Hall and the thick marble walls separating them. It slithered up his throat, grabbed him, choked him.

But he couldn't look away.

One of the figures stopped and surveyed the devastation, and they toed at the leg of a nearby body, before cackling. Twisted hands raised towards the sky in vile jubilation, and then returned to their limp position before the hooded figure.

"Good, Anakin, good," the familiar, rasping voice echoed through the hall. The other figure dropped to one knee, and dropped their head in deference. "You have done well, my new apprentice. Now, go and bring peace to our Empire."

Eddie felt a chill in recognition. He knew that voice. Everyone knew that voice—

Chancellor Palpatine...The Emperor.

—And he knew that name. Or maybe he didn't, not really. Not at all.

Anakin Skywalker, one of the greatest heroes of the republic.

Eddie recoiled from the vent and shook his head.

"No," he forced out through gritted teeth. "No. It can't be."

"I thought so, too," Thalia said sadly, and when she finally turned to look at him, he saw tears dripping down her cheeks. Kriff, he felt his own tears begin to sting the corners of his eyes. "But it was true."

Anakin Skywalker. General Skywalker. The poster boy of the Republic. The Hero With No Fear. How many interviews had he done on the HoloNet, how many times had Eddie and his friends hero-worshipped Anakin alongside his fellow Jedi? How many times had Eddie considered spending the few measly credits of allowance he got from Wane on a war bond just because Anakin's face had been plastered on every screen in the Terrace?

"He wouldn't betray the Jedi."

"He did."

"He was a hero."

"He was seduced by the Dark Side."

"He wouldn't do that...the Jedi were his family. His friends."

Then there was an echo in the air, as Thalia spoke to him through the Force.

"Anakin betrayed his friends. And so did I."

He was about to ask for clarification when was thrown from the tunnel, and the world swirled around him. Images flashed before his eyes of the ragtag group of kids climbing out of a filthy pipe in The Works on Coruscant. Their slow trek across the city to CoCo Town where they found refuge at a diner. Dex's Diner. The days and weeks that they stuck together to care for each other.

He felt like he was going cross-eyed at the sheer speed and volume of the information being filtered directly into his mind; it was almost painful, and Thalia was in control. He didn’t understand what she was trying to convey, until he followed her younger self through the day her world changed.

The moments leading up to it were deceptively quick. A day as uneventful as any, as she volunteered to venture out alone and find supplies. But she’d made a stupid mistake. Sympathetic to the cries of the younglings who missed the only home they’d ever known, she’d ventured back to the Temple through the tunnels they’d escaped through to fetch belongings that couldn’t be replaced. And upon her return? She was chased down winding streets by the Coruscant Security Forces and captured.

Then he was in a room, lit by only a faint, red light emanating through the grated floors. He couldn’t move, no matter how much he thrashed and shook. His arms and legs were locked in place; he could see Imperial interrogation droids floating in his peripheral vision, and a scan grid hanging menacingly overhead, waiting to be lowered onto him.

“Let me go!” He tried to yell, but the voice that came from his mouth was not his, but Thalia’s. “Help! Help me!”

A blast door opened and clone troopers filed in, along with a ghastly figure dressed in black and red. A Pau’an male who looked sickly and monstrous, but grinned menacingly as he approached. 

“You’ll tell us where they are,” he droned in a terrible voce. “It. Is. Inevitable.”

More images flashed before Eddie’s eyes, of this same man. Healthy and friendly, Hen-ri, a Jedi Temple Guard that had known Thalia and her friends; how had he become…this thing? Corrupted by the Empire? A slayer of the Jedi, instead of a protector of them.

Just like Anakin had been.

“You’re gonna have to kill me,” he…Thalia…spat.

“If that’s what it takes,” he droned and waved to the troopers.

He couldn’t dwell on his emotions for much longer because pain was the only thing he felt. Shocks and burns from the scan grid, injections from the floating interrogation droids. 

They starved her, beat her.

Until she begged them, whimpered for them to stop.

Until she gave them the location of her friends.

Eddie felt the hot, burning pain in his heart as he felt the words fall from her lips; for a second, he couldn’t blame her, as his head drooped weakly and the world went dark.

But when his eyes opened again…there stood a beaten and bloody Steev standing across from him. Across from Thalia. He was being held back by troopers, Jedi robes drenched in blood, as he thrashed and screamed and bared his teeth.

Thalia blinked once. Twice. And then her gaze shifted back down at the ground, and saw the bodies of the children–the younglings and R'sshekh–strewn about the floor. Dead.

There was a flash of light, burning and hateful and shockingly red.

And Eddie was thrown from her body as she screamed, as chaos reigned as her control of the Force became untethered. The sight of the walls of the room caving in on themselves was last thing he saw before he returned back to the real world.

He gasped for breath as he was shoved back into his body in the escape pod. Back with Thalia, the real Thalia, older and wearier and with blue hair. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he immediately rubbed his eyes to get them to stop.

He felt sick, the images of those kids burned into his eyelids. The sound of Steev and Thalia’s screams echoed in his ears.

"What was that?" He barked out the demand, voice scathing and viscous. "Why did you show me that?"

Thalia pulled her hand back to her lap; she cradled it in the other hand, as though she was protecting it from further harm.

Maybe she was...but not harm to herself. Harm to him. Harm that she caused him; he still felt the phantom pains of her torture. And he didn't want to snap at her again, after feeling the barrage of her anguish, but he did.

"Thalia!" She jumped at his bark. He demanded answers. "Why?"

"Because you had to know!" She snapped back at him. "I betrayed them."

"You...you survived." He shook his head incredulously. "You had to survive, you were just a kid too. But why would you show me that way?" he questioned. He got to his feet and stood over her. "Why would you take me though the day that the order fell...and then..."

"How else could I tell you about the most shameful days of my life?" she asked, getting to her feet as well. "I've relive those days enough. Constantly. My mistakes. My weaknesses. You think I just survived? I…I chose to survive rather than die for those kids…for my friends. Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't die for your friends?"

She breathed heavily and stared directly into his eyes, daring him to lie to her. When he didn't answer, she grabbed the front of his jacket desperately.

"Your friends trust you. Just like my friends all trusted me. And I let them down."

"It's in the past," he muttered. "You have to move on. You can't fix it...can't change it."

"And that's exactly what I'm doing," she nodded. "It's what I do next...how I fix those mistakes...that's important.

"I showed you that day because I needed you to...to know. You found out what I am before I got the chance to tell you anything, Eddie. I wish...I wish I could've told you the truth but I needed to know I could trust you with all of it. You're still...you're still angry, still confused abut why I couldn't; I can sense it in you.

"But I need you to understand that the capability for betrayal lies with more than simply trusting someone. I betrayed my friends…I brought them to certain death, even though I said I would die for them. Which is why I did it this way, why I had to make sure I could trust you with my secrets before I revealed them to you."

Why would she do that? Why would it matter?

He was not a jedi. He was just a smuggler. He was nobody, nothing, a stranger. He wasn’t a part of her journey, wasn’t a part of anything. And she'd deliberately put him and his crew in danger. Even more danger, now that he knew that she'd escaped...not only the purge of the Jedi Order, but the clutches of the Empire itself.

So why had this experience shaken him as badly as it did?

He took a breath, swallowed, and steeled himself; he still wasn't comfortable with Thalia being able to read him as easily as she was able to.

"Well, thanks for trusting me with that," he said dismissively. "It's been nice to meet the real you, Thalia. It'll just be a few more days until we'll arrive on Coruscant and you'll be on your way."

"Eddie, please—" She stared at him with pleading eyes but he refused to look, refused to understand what it was she was trying to convey.

"And you don't have to worry about me or any of my crew keeping this a secret. We know how to keep our mouths shut."

"But that isn't enough," Thalia snapped.

"What do you want then?" He shook her hands off of him and stomped out of the escape pod. "Do you want...absolution? Is that what you're looking for? You can't forgive yourself? Well newsflash, I can't forgive you either; I don't even know you. You know what? You want my help? I've heard there are cults in the Unknown Regions who do things like that. We can change course right now."

"I need you to listen to me!"

"I think I've heard enough!"

There were aggressive beeps and the sound of footsteps walking down the ramp to the lower deck.

"What's going on down here?" Dayv demanded.

"It sounds like you let a bunch of Rancors fight," G'areth added.

D5-TN rolled over to Thalia and questioned if she was ok through a series of gentle whistles.

"If she's ok?" Eddie scoffed. "What about me? I'm your captain."

"Hey." Jeff crossed the short distance and slapped a hand on his shoulder then shook him a little bit. "It'll be ok, just take a few breaths. Why're you so upset?"

"Let Miss Mind Meld over there take you on a journey across time and space and you'll understand why I'm upset," Eddie scoffed and threw a hand out at Thalia. "But I'm sure if she did, you'd all want to toss her out into deep space. I think we were better off when she was still keeping secrets!"

"Did she tell you what's in that container?" Jeff asked.

"No!"

"I was about to, actually," Thalia cut in. Her brows were raised expectantly and she had her hands on her hips in a stance that, Eddie recognized, mirrored Steev's.

"Well, I wish you wouldn't," he told her weakly. "I can't deal with anymore...emotional turmoil today."

She muttered a few choice words under her breath and then began walking down to the cargo bay. D5-TN was hot on her heels, and Dayv and G'areth were soon to follow.

"C'mon," Jeff urged Eddie lightly. "It can't be worse than...whatever that was."

"Somehow, I doubt that," Eddie grumbled, but let his friend push him forward.

"The day the Republic fell," Thalia recounted as she stepped around the container, pressing seemingly unassuming panels at random intervals until a small panel slid aside and revealed a Datapad. "I led a bunch of younglings and initiates to safety. And a few weeks later, I was the reason they were captured and killed by the Empire. I would've died too...but...you know, when you witness something so harrowing as your friends dying...something inside of you dies, too."

She tapped the screen of the datapad over and over, typing long strings of code into it.

"I escaped and I honored my friends by surviving. But I vowed never to use the Force again. The thing about that is that the Force has other plans for you sometimes. So, a year ago...I was presented with a new...opportunity. Not only to live, but to do some good. To protect force-sensitive individuals, the way that I couldn't do when I was younger."

The front of the container hissed and then popped open. It slowly creaked forward, like a door.

"And so, I smuggle things...along with a network of other freelancers," Thalia continued, striding towards the front of the container. "Taking precious cargo, like this cargo, someplace safe."

She stopped at the opening and waved her hand towards herself.

"It's okay," she said softly. "You guys can come out now."

The crew of the Dragonborn stood frozen as almost a dozen figures emerged from the cargo container.

Two adults, a short togruta woman and a towering Nikto male. And then...kids.

Two adolescent togruta boys who hovered behind who was obviously their mother. And a little Zabrak girl who held the Nikto's hand. A twi'lek boy and girl, obviously siblings if their coloring gave them away; the older sister held the boy back when his eyes lit up at the sight of D5-TN. After them stomped out a short Theelin female with bright red hair and an awful attitude if the expression on her face was anything to go by.

And then humans. Run of the mill humans. A brother and sister who seemed to be bickering. And a tall girl who was probably more of an adult than a child, but her gangly limbs and round cheeks gave her more of a childish quality.

They all stopped and stood under the scrutiny of Eddie and his crew as Thalia went to each of them and reassured them that everything was safe and they were going to be ok.

"They have food and other supplies in there." She then turned to the group of smugglers. "And they've all traveled a long way, along this...thing...called the Hidden Path. To keep surviving Jedi and other force sensitives safe from the Empire. They could've been sent anywhere but they, unfortunately, got stuck with me for the last leg of their journey."

She held her hands out beside her, as if to say Here I am, take it or leave it.

Everyone turned and looked at Eddie then, who stood there in silent shock. He, of course, was a mess of conflicting emotions. Anger lingered, confusion, relief that this was what they were hauling across the galaxy, and then, deep down, fear. Because, as he had pointed out earlier, they were heading to Coruscant.

The seat of the Empire.

Teaming with Stormtroopers and, oh yeah, The Emperor.

And suddenly he wasn't just faced with the reality that Thalia was the one they had to keep safe from possibly being found. But all of these people, too. People he hadn't even realized had been on his ship.

People who were packed into that container like a can of burra fish.

He couldn't put any words to what he was thinking, so he simply raised a hand to cover his mouth, and he shook his head...confused.

"I have some friends and a ship waiting for me on Coruscant to take them to their final stop on the journey," Thalia explained. "To this planet...Bogano. It's an abandoned planet that Master Cordova had...rediscovered. Before the fall of the Order. Before the Purge. The only others who knew about it were his assistant...and his datapad. Both of which are conveniently on this ship."

She smiled a cheeky little smile at her own joke, then went somber.

"Master Cordova...well, he's one of the Jedi who are still unaccounted for. But...I have hope."

The gangly girl laid a comforting hand on Thalia's shoulder and gave her a shaky smile.

"We have hope, too," she said softly.

Thalia patted her hand thankfully and then looked back at the guys.

At Eddie, specifically.

"It's not much," she said with a sense of finality. "But it's a start to fix what it is I did...all those years ago. I have a list of people that can be saved, and I will do everything in my power to save them. To honor the ones I couldn’t."

"Wait a damn minute," G'areth piped up, voice laden with confusion. "If you had another ship...a crew on Coruscant, why couldn't they have just met up with you and the Assob's on Nar Shaddaa? Taking these guys straight to this...Bonago."

"Bogano," Thalia corrected him.

"Whatever." G'areth rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, and does this really mean we're not gonna get paid?" Jeff added.

"You're going to get paid," Thalia assured him.

"Then I don't see why we need to ask anymore questions," he joked. "We're on course to Coruscant, end of story."

"Well, I wanna know," Eddie finally spoke. He stepped out of the group with his friends and eyed each of the newcomers—if you could call them that—aboard the ship, then at Thalia. "I want to know why you needed our help with this. Why you sought me and my crew to help you haul a bunch of...runaways halfway across the galaxy, incognito. Instead of using your own ship. Your own crew."

"They're not really my crew," Thalia argued, but Eddie's brows jumped as high as they could and he grit his teeth impatiently as he waited for an answer. "Alright. I did my research, I sought you guys out. I sought you out, Eddie, because these kids...are not the only people I'm trying to keep safe from the Empire. They're not the only Force sensitives I'm trying to save."

She took a step closer to him, putting them practically nose to nose, and dropped her voice low.

"You told me on Outpost 86 that you'd always dreamed of a day that the Jedi would come and tell you that you belonged with them. That they'd take you away from your miserable, boring life," she whispered.

His heart dropped into his stomach, anticipating what she might say next.

Still, he had the audacity to whisper back, "I don't think I used the word miserable."

Thalia, of course, scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Then she said, "Eddric Reckless Moonsun. Consider yourself rescued."

Next Chapter: When Ambush Comes to Shove

The Tag List for Luminous Beings is currently open; please comment/ask/DM to be added.

[capesch-arts]

THE PARKER X NOEL CONTENT!!! AAAA I WANNA WRITE IT SO BAD!!! I'm gathering every little snippet you're posting just wait till I have time to write-

I've been trying so hard to come up with a ship name for them and honestly this sort of thing has never been my strong suit but so far I've got:

Kings Ghosts (both of them have had interactions with the king, both could've died many times over - but this is also reminiscent of holy ghosts so-)

Smoking Gloves (Noel smokes, Parker boxes, a bit simple and also reminiscent of smoking gun - potatolord tag in you're really good at coming up with ship names-)

Warped Peace (a play on war and peace, both of them have found peace in each other after dealing with kiy bs)

Loyal Charm (they're both so loyal I wanted to come up with something but I can't think of a good second word, both of them are charming so I put it as a placeholder...)

Brains and Brawn (A CLASSIC but also used a lot)

Buff Guns (Parker is buff, Noel has a gun - this one is I admit a bit silly)

last one that's super silly Lighter Weight (like weight class like boxing classes like lighter it's ridiculous I know-)

I didn't even think about how much combining their names sucks as a ship option: Narker, Poel, Charker, Cheter, Neter, Yinley, Yowd, Fang and Dang like those are all so unappealing

Anyway if someone with more brainpower comes up with something please tag in I love a good clever ship name!!!

Oh mah gawd. Loyal Charm is my favourite out of them all skdndmd. And for the name combo I feel you. Theirs kinda suck 😔. Poel and Yinley sound passable lol.

Yknow, let the people decide ladnskd.

[3thirtyonethirtyone1]

Stereotypes- SMAU

Jonathan Bailey x male!reader

SUMMARY: Idk what to write (sorry)

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‼️All the pics are not mine ( thank God for Pinterest)

❗ English is NOT my first language so be kind.

❗Every interaction is (sadly) purely fictional.

A/N: I know Jonathan doesn't fit a "gay stereotype" (if there's one). It's just for this work of FICTION. FAN FICTION

A/N: V= Vogue

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arianagrande ✓ posted a story

REPLIES:

y/n✓: girl the song's not even out. be so fr

arianagrande✓: it doesn't matter. I can feel it

y/n✓: whatever

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kendricklamar✓: maybe you can convince him to create more than features. I've been trying for 5 years

arianagrande✓: "I don't want to leave you all employed"- y/n

kendricklamar✓: is he lying though?

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jbayleaf✓: why his back looks so attractive?

arianagrande✓: wait until you see the front

jbayleaf✓: maybe you can help with that ;)

arianagrande✓: yeah, not happening

jbayleaf✓: why not? isn't he gay?

arianagrande✓: yeah, among being your no. 1 hater

jbayleaf✓: why would he hate me?

arianagrande✓: I don't know. he just does.

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y/n✓

♥by arianagrande, beyoncé and 1.204.876 others

caption: 1. me when I found out @arianagrande wanted to jam; 2. me and ari in the "the boy is mine" M/V

comments:

sza✓: since when do you write about a man you like?

→y/n✓: since I can't actually be with him

→sza✓: he straight boo?

→y/n✓: worse

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dojacat✓: men ain't shit anyway, let's party

→y/n✓: that's the spirit

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jbayleaf✓: such a great song!!

→y/n✓: thx

→user1: not y/n drytexting THE Jonathan Bailey

→user2: no fr. I'd make anything for him to acknowledge me

→y/n✓: he's just not my type

→arianagrande✓: but you're sure his

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vogue✓

♥ by kehlani, sza, jbayleaf and 10.097.543 others

caption: Famous songwriter and occasional rapper Y/N spoke on this number of Vogue about his life, upcoming projects and how it is to be in a industry in which men of his sexuality are looked down upon.

REPLIES:

user3: well hello there

user4: hi (louder than anyone)

user5: heyy(louder than everyone)

user6: heyyy(loudest)

user7: guys who's y/n

→user8: in case you didn't know, Y/N is a songwriter (mostly rap). He collaborated with Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion and more. He doesn't exactly write songs for them, but if you want to make a concept album, he's the guy you need to call.

———————————————���——————————

*Snippets from Y/N's Vogue interview*

V: What do you do in your free time?

Y/N: I like to read, shocking I know. I also started to watch true crime documentaries. They make me feel alive, I don't know why.

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V: If you could collaborate with any singer, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Y/N: Brigitte Bardot, because she had her charm who...I don't know...made you know she was there even if she'd wear a paper bag on her head.

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V: What opinion do you have on Jonathan Bailey?

Y/N: On who?

V: Jonathan Bailey, the actor. He's been cast in Bridgerton, Fellow Travellers and recently in Wicked.

Y/N: Oh, that guy...Well, I feel like I must have a good opinion because we're both openly gay men in the entertainment industry, but I personally cannot relate to a man who says being gay put his career in danger when he got more exposure because of it. You cannot say you're being ostracized when every time you pop out on a screen, everyone wants you carnally. He's just like every stereotypical gay man in a Hallmark movie. Nobody's against him and lives at peace with everyone.

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y/n✓ posted a private story

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jbayleaf✓ posted a private story

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The End

[iatrophilosophos]

Not to be like. The thing i love is something everyone else should be obsessed with too. But it's honestly kinda wild how much like ppl I even agree with generally are missing out on medical history. Like. Every anticiv i know is so on it abt contemporary medical autonomy & the construction of a common medical knolwege & has a good take on medical epistemology but very few people actually talk abt like, thr construction of an alienated & regulated medical class and public health as a thing civs do when it's like, rlly important to how i understand these things

Part of the problem is. There ain't good books. We got good books abt other stuff. But there's not actually a good medical history with like, the set of lenses that are important

I've tried to write this thing a number of times but historical scholarship is just incredibly fucking hard to do at the level that feels like. Responsible? Like idrc abt academic standards but it is generally good to have sources instead of being like "just trust me bro this is what happened" + the purposes i would want a piece like that to serve kind of, require, not just asking for trust, and I just like...didn't learn in a way that's very conducive to being reproduced like I'm just Insane and have read/listened to a buncha stuff that's incredibly bad and annoying and I'll look into Any historical medical anecdote that crosses my path and I know a lot about united states medical history & licensing history bc herbalism + international western & ancient history also bc herbalism (western herbalism does a lot of like, pulling sources from anywhere in the past 2-3000ish years w snippets of context to hold in conversation, it's a really cool way to deal with info verification; Ayurveda and TCM do this too, it's the main way written-word-based big medical systems pre or w/o scientific studies do this thing...it's a lot less reliable now that everyone and their grandma is on a prescription medication we gotta deal with possible interactions for but otherwise, big fan! I could go on a tangent here abt non-written-word societies going harder on common knowledge medicine as a different way of accomplishing similar goals but yeah)

And uh yeah every time I try to.talk abt it it becomes this multi threaded pile of word vomit because there's so much and it's so interesting and the basic public understanding of Most of these ideas, down to how to taxonomize medicine beyond "the legally dominant one (good)" (not actually super cohesive but WHATEVER) and "the other ones (bad)", is basically zilch

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for telling a guilt-tripper to knock it off?

I'm part of a Discord server for authors, both aspiring and published. We chat about life, discuss story ideas, share snippets, look for beta readers, give each other feedback on our query packages—the usual. We're from all over the world, so sometimes time zones don't match up, and inevitably there are members who are more active and, thus, get a bit more attention

There's this one user—let's call them Kat—who used to be fairly active and had decent interaction from other users. Around December, Kat shared a bit of their writing to a critique swap—basically a Google Drive where we could look over each other's stuff and provide feedback. They uploaded a bit late due to their schedule (GMT) and didn't get as much critique as they'd hoped, which made them a bit disheartened and they commented as much in the server. I can't blame them, since feeling ignored sucks, but I feel like complaining about it in the general channel (we have a dedicated vent channel) was a bit gauche.

Regardless, Kat continued to be active, albeit posting less frequently. Notably, most of their posting seems to be either responding to group prompts or talking about their own writing. Rarely do they respond to someone else's comments—or, hell, even replies to their own! I've seen people inquire more about stuff they've brought up, and then they just never respond. People do interact with them; they just don't interact back.

About a month ago, they messaged the server talking about recovering from illness and coming up with a story idea, asking for people to look over their first few pages. Two people responded with sympathy and interest; as far as I'm aware, Kat never got back to those people. Usually in interactions like this, someone asks for feedback, another person replies to tell them they're interested, the OP asks to DM, and the conversation goes there; Kat straight up left them hanging. After that, they only sent a few messages—a couple of replies to group prompts (those rarely have interaction from other users, though I've made an effort to react or reply to interesting responses, and I've seen a few others do the same), and another passive-aggressive comment about being ignored.

Tonight, Kat sent a message to the chat in the general channel (again, not #vent) that started with, "Whatever I've done or not done that's made me a social pariah in this group to people I thought were friends who now ignore my questions or posts, at least have a modicum of compassion and heart this message..." They then continued, talking about losing someone close to them. I do sincerely feel for them, but I can't bring myself to interact with that message in any way. Not even the heart they want. Worse, I'm entertaining the notion of telling them that while I am genuinely sorry for their loss, guilt-tripping people isn't an effective way to garner compression.

Why I WBTA: Literally they're grieving, that's such a shitty thing to do right now. Besides, they are right in that people haven't interacted with them as much ever since they asked for feedback on their work that one time. I doubt this will help anyone, let alone them.

Why I might be a JAH (I know for a fact there's no world where I'm NTA): Responses have dipped because they aren't posting as much, and moreover, since they rarely respond to people at all, it's likely that we've all learned that it's not worth it interacting with them. Besides, if I ignore them, they'll just keep guilt-tripping even more, which also isn't helpful to anyone. And again—we have a vent channel. Why they came into the place where we chitchat about our weekend plans vexes me somewhat.

I dunno. It's a very damned if I do, damned if I don't situation. WIBTA?

What are these acronyms?

[lichenes]

I loved it! (I’m the same one who asked for the slow mornings) I swear I need more of your writings, they make something to me,,, I can’t explain it, but please keep doing your magic 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Awwhh thank you anon<33 (feel free to dm me btw... I'd love to talk to youuu) This is my attempt at portraying touchy Vincent cuz of the "shh baby... they're coming back" snippet that's been circling the internet because- lord have mercy. CW: slight mischaracterisation (sorry!!), physical contact, SFW wc: 474

_____✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿_____

The first time you met, you felt a touch on your shoulder. "Excuse me miss?" You turned to face the silver haired man, struck by how bold he was. You looked at him questioningly. "Would you happen to know where the nearest ATM is?" You thought for a moment, cautious of your surroundings hoping this wasn't a kidnapping attempt.

"Uhm... I'm not sure... oh! I think one is just around the corner?" He thanked you and bid you goodbye. The interaction was so quick you didn't even register it fully, as did he.

The second time you met, he came up to you and gave you a hug. You turned around confused and angered at his forwardness. His features draining of colour when he realised his mistake. "Mon dieu- I- I'm so sorry I thought you were someone else-" He was honestly and truly sorry nevertheless, you giggled at his attempts at an apology.

"I was supposed to meet with a friend here and- and you two look incredibly similar and-" You cut him off before he managed to dig his grave further. "It's fine, don't worry about it." Happens to the best of us, he thought when you parted ways.

You didn't take him for the easily embarrassed type but giving the fact that he left looking like a freshly cut beetroot, you imagined he had something else on his mind, he wasn't telling you. You shook off the thought, assuming that this was just the way he reacted to awkwardness.

This time, he remarked the way your demeanour changed when you turned around and saw that it was him. Maybe... you actually remembered the interaction, maybe next time, he thought, he would actually talk to you. You weren't on his mind particularly often, but he kept telling himself... third time's the charm?

The third time you met, he didn't waste any time. You were just taking a stroll through the park, enjoying the frosty morning when you met him again. "Hey! Sorry!" You turned around, recognising his voice by now. He smiled in your direction, beckoning you to sit by him. "I'm Vincent." You told him your name and the conversation, as if it was the wine out of a barrel, started flowing.

"Oh that's lovely!" He laughed at your joke. He actually found it funny, you thought. He grabbed your hand in the moment and your heart stopped. He was a touchy person, clearly. He looked at your panicked expression and wanted to stammer out an apology, which you quickly refuted. "No, no- I'm- I'm okay with it..." He grinned at that, the red of his cheeks coming from the cold - deepening.

You never thought you could still act like a teen in love but his demeanour was quickly proving to be irresistible. You wondered what would come out of it... _____✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿_____ masterlist