#because she wants equal control over the common space too bc she spends more time there

[be-good-to-bugs]

i dont even work tomorrow but im filled with dread that i wont be able to just sleep in over and over again the whole next week

[izzyovercoffee]

Do you have any ships in the clone wars/repcom fandom?

DO I

TBH I have a really… really long list of ships. I’m one of those people that could potentially ship anyone/everyone given enough time to come up with at least vaguely acceptable reasoning. 

I mean … I’m the one behind the ship of Mereel and The Stars so I don’t … uh, have a whole lot of requirements for shipping.

My lines are: Everyone is an Adult at time of ship; and any potentially coercive relationships are written with a very clear, honest presentation and understanding of that coercive nature (zero tolerance policy for romanticizing abuse).

Fair warning, though: I do have clone/clone ships, too, and I know that makes people uncomfortable — hence the warning. And for the record, any of the below ships? I don’t expect anyone else to ship it, and I don’t generally expect people to be down w/ it or write it, either. B’)

I also … have Mereel listed kind of a lot in here. He just has so much love to give, okay. B’)

and under a cut bc damn this got long

Republic Commando: 

Mereel and the Stars

Stars. Ka’ra. Ruling Council of Fallen Leaders. 

When Mand’alore die, it’s said they ascend to the stars. Is that where it ends, really, or do they become something more, something greater than they were in life? And if they do — do they interact with the people?

Do they keep favorites? Do they adore and adulate their champions?

And how difficult, exactly, is that relationship for the mortal who can’t quite reach out and touch the one he loves most?

Ordo and Besany

like honestly my OTP for the longest time lmao 

I never finished my ‘Are These For Me?’ 30 drabbles for them … but maybe one day. One day.

Fi and Ordo

Boy meets Boy. Boy compliments Boy’s skirt. Boy hugs other Boy so hard they hit the floor.

#true love

Besany, Fi, Ordo

Besany is the type of person who is so kind, and so considerate, and so understanding. And Fi … he needs that. He needs it just as much as Ordo needs it, and as they need each other, and Besany. 

Some might not find a closed polytriad “normal,” but if it works for them, then it shouldn’t be anyone else’s business. 

Darman and Etain 

My heart constantly breaks for them. They deserved so much better than what they got, and it kills me.

And their relationship was so … so good. So good, in the beginning. Tragic, what Kal did to them.

Atin and Laseema

They were lucky in that they weren’t Kal’s favorites, and so were able to fly mostly under the radar and out of his attention. Kal still held a lot of … really unhealthy financial control over them, but … I genuinely feel that Atin and Laseema could relate deeply on several levels.

They have… compatible demons, for lack of a better term. They balance each other. And Laseema was always an interesting character I wish we could learn more of — and her friendships with the rest of the clan. After all, she seemed to be the one in active communication with everyone. 

Niner and Boss

Listen … I love this ship. I feel like there’s a lot of UST going on whenever they’re onscreen, and it’s an interesting sort of dichotomy that goes on between them — two sergeants of two squads whose trainers viciously hated each other during training days. 

There’s a competitiveness there that can’t really be quashed, but there’s also an understanding that exists between them that’s unique to their experiences.

Jaing and Kom’rk

This is one of those incredibly obscure, controversial ships. 

Full disclosure: this is a pretty fucked up ship, and it’s mostly from the perspective of “wow, that’s kinda fucked up.” I don’t expect anyone else to ship it, and I don’t generally expect people to be down w/ it or write it, either. If they do, the fucked-up part needs to be recognized and recognizable, however obliquely, or it just doesn’t work. 

They’re two very damaged people, there’s no use shying away from that. 

I fell into this ship by total accident, going through all the nulls’ tags on ao3 years ago and stumbled on one fic, and like … since then, I haven’t really been able to climb out this hole.  

Corr, Ruusan, and Jilka

I am not a fan of Corr and Jilka, alone.

That said … I am a fan of Corr and Ruusan, of Jilka and Ruusan, and … of the potential dynamics of this poly combination, with the given that Jilka and Corr remain platonic as opposed to romantic. 

It just feels more … balanced? Also Rev @thesummerstorms and Gena @cassiansfuzzyjacket explain it way better than I do.

RepComm crack!ships:

these are very, very clearly not-canon and not to ever be taken as canon (by me, at least?) but damn. they’re nice to think about, and try to come up with ways in which it might work.

Etain and Mereel

“WHAT THE FUCK IZZY?” I KNOW! I KNOWWWWWW

But more seriously … Mereel was there every day for Etain during a very, very difficult time (the months after her almost-miscarriage). Of all the characters in the series during the course of the series, after Etain and Darman, Etain and Mereel spend the most unobstructed alone time together (about three months?) — and we would never know because, lol, the pacing and timeline of the series is not really presented in a way that makes that noticeable.

Mereel also does something with Etain he doesn’t do with anyone else, ever, that we see in the series: admit vulnerability. He’s genuinely vulnerable with her, in a way that he is not with anyone else. That means something — especially given the context that he doesn’t open up with anyone else, not his brothers, and never Kal. 

Someone that Mereel can be genuinely vulnerable with? That he must trust, implicitly, to share that vulnerability? 

And then you have Etain, who is isolated after the mess of pregnancy news blows up. She’s someone who doesn’t have anyone she can trust, or depend on, who isn’t looking to use her in some way — or someone that she can be equally open and honest with — in those months … right up until Mereel (and Rav), when she’s evac’d to Kyrimorut.

And when she is, she’s treated like a whole person. Not someone who’s just a vessel for a potential, not someone to be used or leveraged for misogynistic reasons. A genuine, whole, person who is highly intelligent, highly capable — and treated as an actual equal. She was not given that respect since the conclusion of Hard Contact (except, briefly, when hunting with Vau).

The whole situation, as terrible as it all is, allows for the foundation of genuine, real, trust to form between them.

There’s a lot of … well, there’s a lot of potential there. A lot of room for complications and conflicted feelings and angst — UST and one-sided pining and mixed signals and confusion and just raw feeling — and it’s all things that don’t necessarily need to be resolved negatively (or right away, or at all), that don’t have to end in heartbreak, that can be just as it is: complicated feelings that begin during a difficult time and, given room to grow, become something else or something more many, many years down the line.

Mereel and Boss

Don’t even look at me.

So this ship came as a result of SW RP (bc of course it did) and, tbh, they have a lot of … difficult commonalities and clashes of personality. Boss is a difficult man with a lot on his shoulders — a lot of responsibility, a lot of stress, just … a lot. And Mereel? Mereel is someone good at managing stress — out of necessity, and practice, and effort.

And the thing with Mereel is he’s fun, he’s easy, and he demands nothing. Boss doesn’t need to take care of him, because Mereel can take care of himself — and sometimes Mereel can take care of Boss, whether he likes it, or not (or likes to say he doesn’t when he does).

Boss certainly needs someone like that, especially after long days and hard nights with other people always needing him, depending on him. It’s good, it’s necessary, to have someone for whom he can truly relax and let his guard down around — that he can trust implicitly, and be allowed to be vulnerable, to have his ugly parts exposed, and still be loved unconditionally, because that’s just what Mereel’s best at doing.

Parja and Mereel

“SERIOUSLY?” LISTEN

This also came as a result of SW RP, and mostly takes place in an AU where … Parja and Fi’s relationship inevitably crumbles, and they split — but they split amicably, and remain friends. Parja remains a mechanic and never is forced to give up her shop because of (poor misogynistic writing and) Kal. 

Mereel and Parja and Bardan are all particularly good friends and get up to all kinds of nonsense and pranks, and prank wars.

And … sometimes, late nights spent tinkering on separate projects in the same space, late nights working on the same projects, late nights spent together — and sometimes Mereel can’t quite come clean that he needs someone, that well after the conclusion of the war he needs physical contact in order to sleep.

And after the end of what Parja put too much stock and energy into what she hoped would be a sure future, a sure thing — maybe it hurts too much to sleep alone, but it’s too much of a risk to fill that empty space with romance when she’s not ready. Why not someone she trusts, that she knows would never, not ever, not in a million years, ever cross that boundary — someone who would never violate that trust, never take the invitation to share her bed as anything more than just that: a mutually beneficial way to get some rest.

Sometimes feelings happen. Gradually, and slow, and sneaks up on even the most vigilant. After a while, it becomes expected. After a while, it becomes wanted. After a while, they become needed.

other ships I’ve fallen into that I don’t have time/want to explain:

FI AND SEV

Atin/Sev

Sev/Boss

Scorch/Sev

MAZE/ZEY

Jaing/Sev

Fixer/peace of mind

Uthan/Mij (but way more hostile on Uthan’s part)

Walon/his star-crossed princess (literally, a real thing. I can’t get over how this is an actual thing)

Clone Wars:

admittedly, it’s been a while since I watched the series all the way through, but … repeating the warning for clone/clone bc that’s a thing in here, and the explanations are shorter bc, again, it’s been a while.

Marshal Commander Cody and Captain Rex

Their personalities mesh so well together, and honestly they’re just … so compatible ??? They also work so well together, went through training together … if there’s anyone Rex can really trust implicitly, it’s Cody.

Their friendship grows over the series and expanded (Legends) materials, and just … it works, in the way they need it to work.

Echo and Fives

Just punch me right in the chest.

really any combination from Domino Squad

because we all need tragedy in our hearts

General Aayla Secura and Commander Bly

You know … for the most part, I’m a little leery on ships like this where there’s a clear and obvious potential for really serious coercion. Most Clone/Jedi-who-are-their-direct-superiors tend to fall into this category.

but I’m just a sucker for Bly-post-war angst, for the conflict of fraternizing with a superior, with trying to navigate that Aayla really did have his life in her hands, and then the conflict of navigating those feelings surrounding killing her at the end of the war.

I’m a terrible person.

Duchess Satine Kryze and Obi-wan Kenobi

let me just like … repeat the above. My one thing about this is that I hate how Satine was killed off for Kenobi-man-pain, and generally only want to know stories that you know … fix-it, lmao, or give her a more respectable death that was written with better care to her character and her arc

Ventress and Obi-wan Kenobi

All of that flirting went fuck and nowhere. What a hugely missed opportunity — especially when Ventress was trying to work towards being better, or making a life for herself, turn over a new leaf or whatever.

I mean, we all know she hangs out in the kind of tapcafs Kenobi loves to get drunk in, let’s be honest with ourselves.

clone wars crack!ships :

I’m sorry in advance lmao

Captain Rex and Lieutenant Mereel

“What the hell.” Listen.

“Did this come out of SW RP?” HOW DID YOU GUESS.

Much like the other ships with Mereel, it’s all contingent on … Mereel operating as a free agent — a solo operator. Mereel pulling strings and favors across the GAR to make things just a little bit easier for Rex, for clearing up or speeding up administrative bull shit so that Rex can focus on getting what he needs for his men in a reasonable amount of time — or free up some time for himself.

And with the way Mereel’s … operations tend to go, paths sometimes cross that didn’t before. 

Anyway, who doesn’t like camping?

Quinlan Voss and Obi-wan Kenobi

Listen … they have a kind of fun playfully antagonistic thing going on. I don’t know if I could ever seriously ship it, mostly bc everyone who falls in love with either of them straight up die, so we come to a “unstoppable force vs immovable object” impasse if this ship ever actually came to fruition.

that and fandom can be kinda … gross w/ this ship sometimes so I’ve been avoiding it lately for that reason.

Senator Padme Amidala and Duchess Satine Kryze

how can anyone watch the episodes where they’re together and not see how good they are together. and like, the men in their lives, cause their deaths. so why not just … leave their men for each other?

Everyone wins.

not exactly clone wars honorable mention:

Ahsoka Tano and Kaeden Larte

I ship it so hard. if only !!! if only they didn’t meet when they did, when Ahsoka wasn’t as wounded, still, from the fallout of the end of The Clone Wars. and all of that tragedy. i just.

I just !!! ugh. they’re so good together.

aaand I think that’s all of them, or at least all that I can remember off the top of my head for now.

[ravenvsfox]

(100 years later I finally got to your prompt, mac-noa ! I wasn’t explicitly lovey dovey bc I didn’t want to be ooc and it’s only actually from Matt’s POV, but I hope it works for you!!!)

Matt and Dan walk in late, strung together by the hands, still flushed from kissing in the car pre-practice. They go sheepish when they see the unimpressed look on Wymack’s face. Renee smiles brightly at them and Allison gives them a brisk nod, but the monsters are in more disarray than usual. Bits and pieces of their group are missing, and it leaves Matt with the peculiar feeling of looking at a familiar photograph that suddenly has the faces scratched out.

Their ringleader is absent, for starters, couch conspicuously empty beside Kevin — who looks unmoved and stoic and nauseated as usual.

It’s not unusual for Andrew to do things just because it’s inconvenient for others, but it’s a little weird for Neil to skip out as well. It’s a lot weird that he’s late at the same time as Andrew when Exy hangs in the balance. 

Any association between them feels like something Matt has to fix, like he set something bad in motion by meeting Neil later than Andrew did in the fall. They’re probably off having one of their weird, close, angry looking conversations that always end in agreements Matt doesn’t understand.

Wymack waits thirty seconds past Matt and Dan’s arrival, and then he looks at the couch like it’s causing him pain, and starts delegating tasks for the day. He only asks once where the missing links are and there’s a lot of shrugging and staring straight ahead before he gives up.

They’re less rowdy than usual, and Matt thinks they’re all individually trying to solve Neil and Andrew’s absence in their heads. (As soon as they get up to move to the court, Allison starts whispering numbers for their betting pool until Dan bats her away.)

Matt squeezes Dan’s hand until she looks at him, and they have a brief conversation in smothered smiles.

They split up to change, and Matt straps into his gear feeling vaguely ill at ease. He keeps glancing at the door between straps and tugs of his uniform, and he notices Nicky doing the same thing. He smiles awkwardly when Matt catches him, and Matt feels a rare pulse of kinship for him. Both Andrew’s lot and the upperclassmen seem equally confused, so they have something in common for once.

The strange feeling follows Matt all the way to the court and through the first set of drills before Neil finally shows up, looking harried and flushed and all sorts of things Matt doesn’t usually associate with Neil.

He pushes into the court straight past Wymack’s blustering reprimand, and Matt catches the tail end of a flippant apology before Neil’s sprinting to centre court.

Matt stares at him. Neil waits, twisting his racquet in his hand, shoulders tense like he expects someone to toss him into the gameplay by force.

“What?” Neil asks, annoyed.

“You’re late,” Matt says stupidly.

“Twenty minutes late,” Kevin interrupts. “Almost like you’re trying to get worse.”

“He was with me,” Andrew says suddenly, breezing past them towards goal looking impossible to have spent twenty straight minutes with. Neil sort of jolts at the sound of his voice, and Matt eyes him narrowly.

“Well what the hell were you doing,” Matt asks, “at four pm on a Thursday?”

Andrew stops to stare at the cluster of his teammates, unblinking. “Irrelevant.”

There’s a general roar of disapproval, and Dan starts in on responsibilities and crumbling teamwork. Andrew gets bored halfway through her speech and turns back towards the goal, settling into position. Dan throws her hands up, frustrated, and Matt kneads her shoulder.

“We’re just losing more time,” Neil says. “Catch me up. Let’s go.”

“You don’t get to disrupt our practice and then tell us we’re wasting time,” Kevin sneers.

“Just did,” Neil says, and he bangs the butt of his racquet on the floor impatiently.

“Neil, we have to rely on you,” Dan says urgently. “This was a misstep. I’m counting on you to listen to me, not the monster.”

Neil considers her, and then his gaze bounces beyond them to where Andrew is lounging in front of the net. Kevin looks with him, frowning like he always does, like he’s trying to solve a riddle written in another language.

“Jesus,” Matt says. Neil doesn’t even look up. “You’re all obsessed with each other.”

Neil stays silent, like maybe he doesn’t disagree, and when Matt looks towards the goal, Andrew’s looking steadily back at Neil.

_____

It’s almost too weird to consider; that flinty, unusual Neil with his clumsy friendship and his hard-won smiles might be in any sort of relationship with Andrew. Matt spends most of the time after that topsy-turvy practice oscillating between complete denial and incredulous acknowledgement.

Dan’s betting against him, but he knows she thinks there’s something up, because every time Neil does something obvious, he looks over at Dan and she’s already looking at him.

Andrew is impenetrable as usual, but the act of slipping away with Neil and tugging him down to sit with him and taking excessive revenge on anyone who so much as insults him — it’s the most Andrew’s ever shown an interest in a person. More active than his all encompassing deal with Kevin, his obsession with his twin, and his weird, twitchy friendship with Renee.

Weirder still, Neil seems to spend more and more time getting distracted from practice and conversation. He’s always done it, gotten this anxious, itchy look in his eyes, nervous hands running over his own body like he’s checking it’s still there. But now he does it while whipping around trying to find Andrew, he looks completely outside of reality until he finds Andrew’s gaze and locks into it.

It’s unnerving to watch. It’s unnerving to see his best friend becoming reliant on something so volatile. Like if your friend clearly trusted a land mine more than he trusted you. He keeps wanting to tell Neil that he doesn’t know Andrew, really, doesn’t know about half the shit he’s done and destroyed. But he catches Andrew talking, really talking to Neil on the bus, and he thinks, fleetingly, that maybe he’s the one that doesn’t know him.

The foxes are a little stumped about the whole thing. It’s not like they’re obvious in the traditional sense — they’re not acting lovesick and secretive in a way that Matt can really explain, but for them, for Andrew and Neil, it’s obvious. It’s unstoppable like everything Neil does is unstoppable.

And whatever it is, it’s pulling Neil’s facade apart like tender meat, getting under his skin and scattering his focus.

Matt walks into the change room to find them standing close, not an unusual distance to be having a conversation at, but definitely inside each others personal space.

He’s supposed to be grabbing Neil and heading off to Betsy’s for their semiannual appointment, but he stops short in the doorway. Andrew’s hands are fisted in Neil’s sweater.

He hears Neil murmuring something about Bee being untrustworthy, and Andrew steps Neil back into the wall.

“This coming from a professional liar,” Andrew says.

“Not professional if you don’t get anything for doing it,” Neil says, and Matt can see the curve of his rare smile. “So unless you want to start paying…?”

Andrew ignores him. “Maybe if you gave her something to work with she wouldn’t be so useless to you.”

“I’m not giving away secrets for free.”

Andrew flattens one of his hands, so his thumb is brushing the bare hollow of Neil’s throat.

“It’s my turn.”

Neil seems to know what he means, because he dips his head down and says, “ask me.”

“Not now,” Andrew says simply.

Neil looks a little dizzy from where Matt’s standing, like being in Andrew’s space is physically affecting him. “Not now,” he agrees. “I have an appointment to get to.” He moves out of Andrew’s reach and Andrew catches him by the belt loops.

“Don’t go.”

Matt gawks from the doorway. It looks like a slip up on Andrew’s part, a squeak of vulnerability. He’s flat-faced and utterly ignoring Neil except for where they’re tied together by Andrew’s hands.

“I don’t want to,” Neil says quietly. Andrew tugs at his hips and says nothing.

It’s the strangest, charged moment. Matt takes a step backwards. He hears a murmur of something from Andrew and then Neil’s eyes change and his mouth opens and he says ‘yes’ to whatever the question was.

They’re kissing in the next moment, and Matt half knew it was coming but it still manages to shock him almost back into the doorframe. The idea of either of them kissing someone would be impossible to imagine if he weren’t looking at it.

Neil’s hands go up to Andrew’s hair and twist in it, and he lets himself be handled closer by the hands at his hips.

Andrew looks completely unlike himself. It’s unfathomable that it’s actually him with his face furrowed up with emotion and one hand moving to cup Neil’s face. They look like regular people, Matt thinks. They look like a couple at the club who couldn’t help themselves, like two people who aren’t a pin drop from losing control. They look like they’ve already lost their control in each other.

He’s a little giddy with being right, but he’s also awkward, and he knows that Andrew might actually kill him if he knows what he’s seen. He tries to keep his feet as light as possible when he retreats, heart pounding.

Andrew’s face looks so young when Neil palms his hair away from his forehead. They’re so obviously tender with each other, careful with where their hands are and who’s getting boxed in. Matt wonders if they’ve talked about their limits or if they just know them. He can’t picture them having that conversation, but he also couldn’t have pictured Andrew holding Neil’s face with the soft flesh of his palm like this, not gripping or choking or demanding.

He sees a flash of tongue and Neil makes a noise, and Matt’s out of there, turning and half-running back through the hall to the court.

He’s back outside the plexiglass cage before he realizes that he’s supposed to be taking Neil with him to Dobson’s. He’s too preoccupied with the spectacle of his realization to even slow down. He just made 200 dollars. He’s a little sick to his stomach. Wymack shoots him a look that he ignores, searching for Dan’s eyes instead and slapping the clear wall when she doesn’t immediately look over.

He gets all of the foxes attention for his trouble, and he fumbles with the door, leaning in.

“Pay up,” he calls over the expanse of the court. They all look irritated or confused for a beat, and then Dan catches on.

“They’re not…” she starts, looking scandalized. Matt laughs, tension deflating now that he has some distance and he’s looking at Dan’s sweetly shocked face.

“They are. As we speak.”

Aaron’s eyes bulge, and Allison and Renee knock sticks in congratulations. Nicky looks like someone just handed him free tickets to Germany.

“Can you do whatever you’re doing off of my court?” Wymack complains. “Some people are trying to practice.”

“Kevin is, you mean,” Matt says, and laughs at the look on his face. “Sorry coach. We’re having a revelation.”

“If you’re talking Andrew and Neil I could’ve saved you the money two months ago.”

Matt balks at him and Wymack gives him a shove.

“Your appointment isn’t going to make itself. I don’t care if you have to pry Neil off of him, both of you need to get the fuck out of here.”

Matt swallows, tries to speak, swallows again. “I can’t believe you just— knew.”

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” Wymack says, and Matt dodges his second shove, jogging back to the change rooms with his head spinning. He’s starting to feel like he’s running on surprise alone.

He finds Neil by himself, waiting by the doors like he’d never been kissed or even thought about it in his life.

“Um,” Matt says, and Neil cocks an eyebrow. “Ready?”

Neil nods his assent and starts walking alongside him, cool and unaffected. Matt can see two crumpled patches in the front of Neil’s pullover where Andrew’s hands had been, and he looks away, smiling.