#can’t find the source for that quote so i’m just going off memory don’t @ me if i got the details wrong

[future-crab]

Okay but IMAGINE being high as balls hanging out in the studio while your favorite band records their first album and hearing the exchange, “Yknow, if you added another guitarist you could play this live,” “The only person we’d consider is too stoned to get off the couch.” Insanity.

[gaiuswrites]

King of Cups || Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Tower

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | two

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: You’re apart of the Refugee Relief Movement, an intergalactic organization providing aid throughout the systems, and you find yourself assisting at a resettlement camp in Lothal when disaster strikes, changing your life forever, intertwining your path with that of a certain Mandalorian bounty hunter.

Word count: 3.7k~

Rated: Mature

Warnings: descriptive violence, blood/injury mentioning, danger, mature language

Notes: Hi y'all, welcome. This fic is going to be set during Season 2 of The Mandalorian, and will be what I like to call ‘canon adjacent’. ALSo, this chapter is very much so Reader focused, setting up the scene and the general pacing of the story, but naturally, Din will be more and more featured as things progress. I’m a sucker for backstory and a slow burn, so ye be warned. Please feel free to reach out to me. :) I’d love to hear from you lovely little beans. Be safe out there, friends.

Lothal was a planet all too familiar with occupation.

You remember seeing a quote somewhere that read ‘Look no further than Lothal if you want to see what happens when the Empire takes control of an entire world’; and although the Imperial chokehold had loosened when the Empire fell, the planet, even all these years later, still found itself gasping for breath. 

Off world migration from the Core Worlds had been popularized since the expansion of the Imperial government bureaucracy, which brought booming business opportunities for the fortunate few, but as the rich became richer, the poor grew poorer. The Lothalites were forced out of their homes, off their own lands—refugees on their own planet; forced to resettle and relocate with nothing but the clothes on their back and the possessions they could cram into their pockets. The only heirlooms passed on from generation to generation were that of poverty, tall tales of former splendor, and the greatest of ancestral traumas: disillusionment.

The truly desperate turned to crime, and what couldn’t be solved by back-dealings and blaster fire was managed with fear mongering and the bitter flair of xenophobia. There was always a species to blame, and it was always the one who seemed to be doing better off, no matter how slight the margin. 

Greed. Fear. Despair. These are the currencies in which the galaxy trades. 

And so it was then, and continued to be, cycle after cycle. History, always finding clever ways to repeat itself.

On bad days, pollution still loomed heavy over the atmosphere—remnants of the fires from the Imperial occupation still clinging on to Lothal’s weary bones. She had been stripped during that time; gutted and strung up by her feet to dangle from the Empire’s meat hook, exsanguinated slowly, drop by drop, until she had nothing left to give. Her resources and minerals and ore and water and seed, robbed. Pillaged.

She’s free from it now, but the scars remain— the planet remembers. Her people do not forget. Like muscle memory, they all ungulate to this synthesized rhythm they can’t seem to shake, day in and day out, wandering. Forever unsettled.

The planet had always had a diverse population and had become something of a safe haven for other abandoned people fleeing their home worlds, determined to find somewhere - anywhere - for them to survive. Lothal provided that for them. It wasn’t rich or bountiful by any stretch, but it was simple and safe—safe in the way hidden things in plain sight are. One could blend into the crowd of many, unique faces, of all races and backgrounds; you could be anonymous, if you wanted. You could be free.

That’s how you’ve found yourself here in Jortho. You had been with the Refugee Relief Movement for the better part of what felt like forever, and they had transferred you to this planet not six weeks ago. You were out on rotation; the RRM sends someone new twice a cycle for the span of a month or two to varying locations to supply rations, aid with the influx of refugees, organize resettlement lodgings, and generally be of assistance when and where you could. However, your tenure on this temperate planet was coming to a close, and soon you’d be flying back to the headquarters on Coruscant before being bounced to another post somewhere out among the stars. 

You love your job. You know it’s unpopular to say, but you do. It’s fulfilling and impactful and indescribably special. The individuals you meet, the stories you hear, they’re invaluable— priceless and precious, like handmade trinkets crafted by the fingers of a child; you press them all to your heart, holding them there. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t get to you— the weight of it; the plights of all of these people, all of these lives, burdening your conscience. It isn’t always painless— you aren’t immune to it. Even so, on most nights you manage to sleep easy, tucked away aboard the transport freighter you flew in on with the batch of settlers newly assimilated into town knowing Maker, at least you were doing something— anything— everything you could.

And really, to call Jortho a town would be an insult to all towns everywhere—but ‘town’ has a certain charm to it that ‘refugee camp’ simply did not, and it gave the people hope. Pride, even. That they belonged somewhere.

You suppose that’s all anyone wants. To belong. 

A feather soft gust of wind tickles the golden blades of prairie grass as the sun, bleary and tired, starts dipping from the sky. The crickbeets begin their song early, trilling, sensing Lothal’s moons still coyly tucked away, hiding somewhere along the horizon. A smile adorns your face, private and serene, as you bring a bowl of broth up to your lips, humming when the warm liquid meets your tongue. You sigh, contented, taking in the sights before you; how the dusk blurs the aromatic air, making it opaque, the shuttles docked across the way from you casting long purple shadows onto the flat plains, the snowcapped mountains in the distance bordering the cant of the planet’s surface, nestling Jortho in a shallow valley.

You feel calm, at peace, and take another sip.

An easy moment passes, and it’s the last one you get before silence stalks up from behind you.

You don’t notice it at first, like any patient predator, it goes undetected: the white noise, the nothingness— until finally, you do and then suddenly it’s everywhere. On top of you. Smothering you. Goosebumps stipple your skin and you bristle. The insects have stopped chirping. The breeze has stilled. The air hangs dead. 

And then—

Chaos.

You’re hit with a blast of crushing heat, the sheer power of it picking you up off your feet and onto your side, sending your body careening into a nearby structure. Your shoulder takes most of the blow, but your neck still snaps backwards unnaturally, the back of your head colliding with the stone wall behind you with a dull thwack. You let out a groaned cry at the impact, the wind knocked out of your lungs as you crumple to the ground.

For an instant, your vision goes white, stars popping and fusing out in front of your pupils, and it’s like you can feel everything and nothing all at once, hollow but overwhelmed, and all you want to do is close your eyes and drift asleep— Maker that would feel like a luxury, just right here on the damn dirt. And you almost do, you almost let yourself slip under and sink— until you hear a piercing scream from somewhere close. 

Immediately your eyes shoot open, desperately blinking away the blurriness that threatens to over take them, and you try pushing yourself up by the heels of your scraped hands, failing once - twice - before finding your footing. You’re shaky at first, uncoordinated and dizzy and redownloading bipedalism, before that sweet drug of adrenaline starts to course through your veins and finally, finally, you take in your surroundings. 

The ships that once stood across the field are gone, obliterated, and in their place only metal ribcages remain—empty carcasses like dead birds splayed on their backsides, imploded from the inside out, their bits strewn all around you. 

Your breathing comes hard and heavy, fighting down panic, and cloudy eyes search through the thick black smoke billowing up in stacks, trying to pin point the source of the scream you’d heard just moments ago. You cough a strained wheeze, sputtering against the charred air, and wade your way through the debris— it’s only then that you realize the magnitude of the explosion. It’s not just the landing bay, it’s half the kriffing village. The buildings that neighbored the airfield had been decimated, burning roofs and crumbling fixtures, homes collapsing onto themselves, scorch marks and shrapnel branding the outsides of the shanties left standing.

It looks like a battlefield. You’ve seen holovids of this—what war can look like, how it can ruin a people… But you’ve never had to stand in the middle of it, head on. 

Your heart drums against your chest as you break into a hobbled run, desperately scanning the area for any signs of life, up and down, left and right, straining against the waning daylight. It’s then that you hear your name, urgent and frantic, and you whip your head in it’s direction, knees nearly buckling in relief. You immediately recognize your friend Hareem, brandishing her arms at you, waving you over to her. 

“Thank the Maker, you’re alright!” the Balosar cries out, trembling hands finding purchase on your shoulders, bracing you. You don’t know if its for your benefit or her own, but either way you’re grateful for the grounding pressure; for the first time since the initial blast, you feel solid, like you won’t just float away, atomized and weightless. Worried, you look her over. A sliver of fresh scarlet blooms from her scalp, a small line trickling down past her temple, but she otherwise looks relatively unharmed. You grasp onto her wrist, squeezing firmly.

“What the hell happened?” You ask, voice low and pitched, wide fearful eyes drilling into her.

“T-There was a man-” And she shakes her head, mouth clamping shut, deep wrinkles framing her face.

“Hareem,” you reassure, giving her another squeeze. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.

She tries again with a steadying inhale, “I-I saw him. A-a man. He had a device with him, and he set charges, and Maker I don’t know— I don’t know— it went off a-and he ran towards the center of town!” The Balosar is in hysterics, tears spilling down her dirty cheeks, and it takes your brain a moment to catch up, to wrap your mind around the words she’s stuttering out. 

A man. 

Device. 

Charges.

A bomb. This wasn’t an accident; this was an attack—and he’s still kriffing here. You cup her cheeks, thumbs rubbing against the pale skin, smearing away the blood that’s nearly dripped to her chin. Your friend’s gaze is flighty, everywhere and nowhere, and you try giving her a smile, but you’re not quite sure you manage it.

“Hareem? Hareem. Hey, shh, you’re okay. You’re alright…” You peel your eyes off her to glance around hurriedly. “We need to find cover.”

///

You’re holed up in one of the few remaining homes on this side of the encampment, crowded into the small space with three other survivors. All four of you, packed in and silent and petrified. Unsure of any further threat, you stay completely still. Helpless. Laying here, idle, for whatever awaits you behind that feeble, wooden door. You feel like prey for the wicked, just passing the time.

Minutes inch along like this—or maybe its hours; time moves eerily different when you’re attempting to become invisible—and eventually, you almost begin to relax.

Almost.

But a new sound breaks the din, hard to recognize at first, indistinct from all the commotion outside their hut, but you hear it. You all do. The youngest of you, a teenaged Devaronian, grips onto the hem of your shirt, knuckles creasing with anticipation. You tense, spine going rigid. Footsteps. They’re slow, guarded, but they’re getting closer. You bring an arm up, for all the good it’ll do, creating a human shield in front of the boy at your side. Closer. Someone behind you muffles a whimper. Closer. A Bardottan you hadn’t even met until today let’s out the faint whisper of a prayer, lips barely ghosting over the phrases. Closer- 

and then, nothing.

They’re here. You can sense him, see his shadow sweep across the gaps in the entryway. You all hold your breath, as if the air is being syphoned out of the space… And the door is flung open, nearly breaking off it’s hinges as it slams into the inside of the house, shuttering the rickety walls with a jarring bang. 

You don’t know who looks more astonished: you four, or the Mandalorian before you, dripping head to toe in silver plated armor, pointing a blaster directly at your head.

“Where is he?” He asks, hard edged and modulated, and it’s more of a demand than a question—but he lowers his weapon all the same, holstering it at his side. You gape at him, guppying wordlessly. “Volcur X’elo. The bomber. Where?” He hasn’t moved an inch out of the doorframe but he’s still managing to loom over you, completely filling up the archway, shoulders set and impossibly intimidating.

You gulp, finally finding your voice. “In town, i-in the center of town…” Kriff, you had not idea if that intel was good or not, but it’s all you think to say. Seeming satisfied with your answer he turns on his booted heel, cape whipping behind him, leaving just as soon as he arrived. The dust barely has time to settle as the door teeter’s on its hinge, its rusty squeaks filling the void in the Mandalorian’s wake.

“Fuck,” you hiss, exhaling a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, doubling forward, propping your palms up on your knees.

///

After deliberating it with your group, you all come to the agreement of braving it outside. Better to be out under the open sky than die under a concaving apartment, clambering over each other to get to the exit. After all this, at least your dignity was still partially in tact— normally, you reckon you’d chuckle dryly at that. But you don’t. 

Can’t. 

You lead the pack through the mazelike streets. The sights that once seemed so familiar after weeks of living here become like strangers to you, and you sleepwalk through Jortho, snaking down paths marred by rubble and fallen wreckage— you haven’t seen any bodies, but maybe that isn’t true. Maybe you’re just too scared to notice them. Maybe they’re there, hovering just outside of your peripherals, haunting the corners of your vision… 

You keep your head fixed forward, jaw clenched.

Your feet move on their own like this, only vaguely aware that the red-skinned boy still hadn’t let go of your tunic. You forge on. Have to. You have to. Your only purpose on this kriffing planet was to help these people, to bring them aid, and if that means simply planting one foot in front of the other, then so be it. You take side alleys, double backing here and there, ducking under canopies, looping around yourself, only stopping when you catch a glimpse of beskar, the orange setting sun glinting off the surface of his helmet.

And he’s not alone.

You freeze suddenly, as do the rest, and the Devaronian bumps into you, stumbling under his lanky legs. Some paces in front of you, the bounty hunter has the other man, this Volcur X’elo, by a punishing grip on his shoulders, shoving him forcefully out in front of him; his wrists are bound and he’s fitful without the stabilization of his arms, his feet staccatoed and flailing wildly beneath him as the Mandalorian marches him forward. 

The wind shifts, and on it you can hear the bomber rant madly, only catching snippets of the vile nonsense that spews from him.“- like swine, they are a plague to the system! And they must be purged from this planet, and the next, and the next— every last filthy one!” You spare a glance to Hareem, to find her watching the scene in hypnotized horror, but your eyes snap back at the sound of something maniacal, drawing your attention. It’s laughter. The zealot begins to laugh a twisted, mocking cry that makes you want to vomit. “You might have me in binders Mandalorian, but you’re too late. You’re too late. This isn’t over!” He’s practically giggling, gleeful and demented. Disturbed. “You’ve only found one.”

Your blood runs cold. 

Only one? Oneoneoneone, one what-

The realization hits you with a punch to your gut. He’s only detonated one of his bombs. Somewhere, nearby, there must be another.

Without another word, the Mandalorian whips the smaller man around, pulling him sharply by his collar to collide with his breastplate, completely dwarfing him with his beskar frame. “Where is it, X’elo?” Nothing. Only laughter. High pitched, terrible roars. He tries again, patience ebbing. “The bomb. Now.” X’elo’s head tilts back and he howls another crowing shriek, keeping private his own sick joke, as if clutching a secret to his chest with slimy hands. 

The bounty hunter had heard enough. He clearly wasn’t getting anything more out of him, and with a quick strike, he rears his blaster and pistol whips the terrorist with it. The body drops. Volcur X’elo crumples, unconscious, blood streaming from where he was struck. You hear the Bardottan behind you stifle a cry with her fist. 

And with that, Lothal’s sun disappears completely, stealing away the last of it’s light as it furls into itself, shrinking out of sight. The dark ushers a new wave of dread, creeping over Jortho like a miasma, poisoning the very air.

The Mandalorian wheels around, searching for his heading in the labyrinth of the town. Others have gathered now, poking their heads around corners, stealing glimpses through windows. He turns, his head on a swivel. “Where is your power generator?” he demands, addressing the small crowd, but you’re all too stunned to speak. “Anybody. Generator. Now.” There’s something new in his voice, something muddled, and it takes you a moment to interpret it. It’s desperation, you realize, tinny and deep through his vocoder, and with a surge of adrenaline you move forward, furthering yourself from your group. You swallow. “I-Its this way.” Upon hearing your voice, he spins around, his visor latching on to you, and with a nod you both set out. 

“Watch him,” the Mandalorian growls past his shoulder, stepping over the bounty’s limp body.

///

You’re still not really sure how he knew where it’d be, you wonder to yourself, gravel crunching under foot as you both trudge on, an eery quiet settling over them. You’d say it was a lucky hunch, but judging by the way the Mandalorian carries himself, you doubt luck had much to do with it. 

You had led him to the power generator hub on the other side of the sad excuse for a city, traveling in tense silence, and when you came upon that tall, bulky machine he sprang into action, circling it until he found what he was looking for. The bomb. You stood back, rooted there, and after some grunting and rewiring— or maybe he just hacked at it with a vibroblade, you had no idea; his wide frame engulfed his work and you couldn’t tell what he was up to, all you knew was that his methods proved successful— the man managed to disarm the second device. You had thought you noticed his shoulders release, slumping with relief, after the red flashing lights on the rudimentary interface flickered and then went dark.

And so here you are. The two of you, bathed in the bright light of Lothal’s twin moons, their bellies hanging full in the blue-black night, illuminating the trail of blood staining the dirt beneath your boots as the Mandalorian roughly drags the body by his ankle behind him— through the exploded rubble, through the fragmented lives of the people around you, already displaced and estranged. They’ll all have to move, you think, pack up their lives, or what little is left of them, and relocate. Again. The thought sinks in you like a stone, sobering you. 

Even with the weight of a fully grown man to lug, the bounty hunter is still a few long strides in front of you and your eyes are trained on the unconscious form, taking in the way his mouth lolls open like an animal, his hair matted with thick blood, eyes rolled back into his head. You’re talking out loud before you even realize it.

“How sick do you have to be,” you mumble, transfixed. Your voice, it’s not angry; no, shock has effectively robbed you of that— it’s not anger, but bewilderment. Quivering, broken bewilderment.

“H-How hoodwinked and warped you’d have to be, how disturbed... For you to think like that. To do all... all this...” 

“Hey,” his gruff voice shakes you from your trance, and you blink up at him, tearing your eyes off the body. “Focus,” he urges, and you can only nod dumbly back at him, suddenly feeling a ripple of nausea slither through you.

The ramp to his ship is lowering as they come upon it and you plant yourself at the base, feet seeming to stop on their own accord, and frankly you’re not really sure why you’ve even followed him this far in the first place— always a step behind him as he hauled his bounty all the way through the vestiges of Jortho, across the arid prairie to where he first touched down. Maybe it’s because you feel untethered, unmoored, and all of his steeled surety is like a lighthouse, a beacon, guiding you away from the rocks. 

He heaves X’elo up the ramp and you’re left standing there, staring unseeingly into the durasteel, becoming more and more aware of the ringing in your ears. The longer time passes, the more it’s as if you’re underwater, the background blurring into the foreground, sound gargled and far away. A high pitched buzz pinches your ear drums, and it takes you a moment to realize the Mandalorian is calling out to you, trying to get your attention.

“— Dala.”

Does he sound annoyed? Kriff, you think he might... If you had your wits about you, you might be able to recognize it. But as it stands, you don’t. You’re not here, not all of you. You’re splintered. Suspended.

“Hmm? Sorry, what..?” Your mouth is as dry as Jakku— parched desert tongue darting across your cracked lip, tasting soot and ash and something metallic. Brow furrowed, you touch a shaky finger to the flesh and when you pull it back, crimson red dots your skin. 

Oh, you think, numb. Huh. 

Your eyes skitter back up to the Mandalorian, towering over you, nearly at the apex of the incline, and his stance is broad and his fists are clenched. You’re almost positive he’s glaring down at you through his visor, and you don’t even know the man, can’t even see his damn face, but you can tell he’s peeved— Maker, just how long had you been ignoring him?

A scratched noise comes through his helmet’s vocoder and his next words are clipped, punctuated. “I said, do you have a way off this skug hole?”

[wondersofdreaming]

Show Night

Characters: Henry Cavill x female reader

Word count: 1.446

Warnings: Pure fluff. Competitiveness. Blurting. Hidden relationship. A little teasing. Embarassment. 

Author’s note: This is a prequel to Game Night

Thank you @radaofrivia​ for your inspiration, motivation and for guiding me <3

Go read her stories here: Rada’s Masterlist

Divider by @firefly-graphics​

I do not own any characters in this short story, except the reader who is a figment of my imagination.

MASTERLIST

Feedback is appreciated.

“Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special treat for all of you. We have the entire Justice League here with us. Please give a warm welcome to Gal Gadot, Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher and Ezra Miller.”

The entire audience clapped. There were whistling, some were screaming at the top of their lungs. You were cheering just as loud. Watching your handsome boyfriend walk out and wave to everyone. A relaxed smile spread on his lips when his eyes landed on you.

You were at the Graham Norton show. Sitting on the front row. No one knew who you were except the man who owned your body, heart, and soul, and now also Graham Norton and his crew. The producers had wanted you to stay backstage, but you had been adamant on wanting to sit in the audience and watching the show live. They had relented in the end if you promised not to cause a ruckus, which you had sworn.

Graham starts asking questions about the Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and at some point the engagement ring for Amy Adams’ character ‘Lois Lane’ comes into the conversation.

“Did you in fact choose that ring yourself, Henry?” Graham asked and motioned to the monitor behind him, showing a closeup of the ring.

“I didn’t. I actually have no clue where it comes from,” Henry chuckled, his eyes searching for you. You could see he was a little nervous, as he was fiddling with the hem of his suit jacket. You put your hand on your chest and crossed your fingers.

It was your secret sign for him. A sign of your devotion to him, as you had promised to always be there for him. The idea came to you while watching your favourite anime show ‘Fairy Tail’.

“If you ever become nervous or need a reminder, then look towards me or the camera if I am not there. I will you show you this sign,” you had crossed your fingers over your heart, “Even if you can’t see me, no matter how far away you may be, I will always be watching over you.”(1)

It had been a day where Henry had had a long day filled with interviews right at the beginning of your relationship. He hadn’t wanted to ask you to come, which was the reason why you hadn’t attended, thinking he wanted to work in peace. He proceeded to come home and went directly for your lap, falling asleep in 0.2 seconds, and you had asked him to bring you with him to work, as you, an author, could work anywhere.

“… I think it is about time he finds himself a girlfriend, a woman to spend his life with,” Jason’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts. You looked up to see Henry squirming more than before. His jaw was tense as he was forcing a laugh. You felt his pain and wished you could sit next to him and squeeze his hand in yours.

“I have a lot of single friends, Supes. Say the word and I’ll introduce you,” Jason smacked Henry’s thighs with the biggest grin on his bearded face. It may have sounded like a joke to the audience but Henry knew that Jason wasn’t teasing.

“I don’t think my girlfriend will like that you’re playing matchmaker, brother,” Henry smiled. All the actors’ faces fell, even Jason was gobsmacked as his jaw dropped to the floor.

Then Henry noticed what he had just said. His head turned towards you with a look of utter shock. He had just blurted out that he wasn’t single anymore, without having consulted you. Your heart was racing, your secret had been revealed. In some way, it felt like a heavy stone having been lifted from your shoulders.

You didn’t know whether to scold him for not asking you to make your relationship public or to laugh at the horror he was sporting on that handsome face of his. You opted for the second choice, the people around you followed suit and started laughing and cheering.

“Well, you heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen, Henry Cavill is officially off the market,” Graham announced to the camera. “Now, Henry, you have to tell us how you two met.”

“We… eh… met through mutual friends. They were having a game night, and we ended up being paired together for charades,” Henry smiled at the memory. Looking at you, making you fall even more in love with him. Jason and the others noticed where Henry was looking and started shouting for you to join the group.

“Oh yes, please she must join us for the next part of the fun,” Graham pleaded.

Ray and Ezra both stood and went to stand at the edge of the stage. Each man gallantly offered a hand, which you took and was led towards the sofa. Jason moved to make space for you and was wearing a big grin, his eyes shining with glee.

After the rounds of introduction and you told what your occupation was, Graham went to introduce the little quiz game he had conjured. You were each given a button that made a sound. Yours sounded like a pig snorting, while Henry’s was a howling wolf.

“So, the winner gets to take home whatever is underneath this piece of cloth,” Graham said after he had told you the rules. He motioned to the covered box next to him.

“Everyone ready?” he asked. All the actors and yourself said yes. Henry was leaning a little forward, to be ready to push his button.

“First question: Who are the original members of the Justice League?”

You pushed your button faster than anyone, while Henry pushed his so hard it nearly flew off the table.

“Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Superman and Green Lantern,” you told Graham. (2)

“Go girly,” Gal cheered for you. She leaned forward and raised her hand for a high five, which you returned.

“Correct! Question number two: What is the Green Lantern oath?”

*Oink oink*

Again you were the fastest. Everyone watched as Henry let out an annoyed huff, but his face showed nothing but absolute happiness.

“In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight.

Let those who worship evil’s might Beware my power, Green Lantern’s light. (3)” You quoted.

You felt the other actors starring at you. Jason gave you a side hug and told you that Henry had found not only a beautiful woman but also an impressive one and that he was damn lucky to have you. You had smiled back and felt yourself being pulled back towards Henry’s side. He held a protective arm around you the remaining of the show.

“Seriously, Cavill. Don’t want to compete with your girl?” Jason asked teasingly.

“I’ll gladly just lean back and let her have her time in the light. Besides, I’m already winning because she’s with me,” Henry smiled proudly at you. You heard the entire audience all go ‘awwwwwwwww’, so did the actors and Jason went between you and Henry to hug both of you.

“Third question: In what year was the first Justice League comic book published?”

Again you were quick to push the button.

“Depending on whether you’re talking about the first time they appeared all together which was in The Brave and the Bold #28 (4) and published in 1959, while their very first own comic book series was published in late 1960.” (5)

Henry raised his eyebrows, clearly dazzled by your vast knowledge. 

“Correct again. Seems you know more about the Justice League than the Justice League itself,” Graham joked.

“I didn’t expect anything less from Superman’s girlfriend,” Ben said with an appreciative grin.

You felt Henry moving closer to you, hugging you tighter to his chest. It was the safest you had ever felt, and even though Henry hadn’t gotten one single point, he was still oozing happiness. Happy to have you by his side forever and ever.

“Here is what you’ve won,” Graham handed you the box and removed the cloth. Inside was Funko Pop figurines of every Justice League member.

After the show, you made sure that every single actor signed their respective figure, and you had pictures taken with them to remember the evening.

At home, you arranged the figures with how they look on the poster you had hung on the wall of your office.

“Another win for the team,” you said out loud. Henry walked in and hugged you from behind. He wrapped those big arms around your middle and whispered seductively in your ear:

“I’m the real winner here.”

1. This is a line from Fairy Tail episode 48 by Makarov Dreyar. I changed it a bit to fit the context.

2. Source https://ew.com/books/brief-history-of-the-justice-league-in-all-its-incarnations/ 

3. Source https://greenlantern.fandom.com/wiki/Lantern_Oaths_(Disambiguation) 

4. Source https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Brave_and_the_Bold_Vol_1_28

5. Source https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League_of_America_Vol_1_1 

[bunnieresources]

miscellaneous movie quote sentence starters pt. ii.

“ you’re not death. they are. “

“ it wouldn’t mean much for me to kill you. when you love someone, it’s easier to do it. “

“ i killed ____. i wanted him to die. “

“ love doesn’t mean anything in your life. you think you can turn it on and off. by pushing a button like you do a light. “

“ i’m bad. you said it yourself. well, i was born that way, see? and what’s more, i don’t care. i like it. “

“ nature is mysterious, but never sad. “

“ i tried to love you. but now i know love is not enough. “

“ maybe i want to feel badly. maybe i’m tired of pretending that nothing bothers me, that all i care about is myself. “

“ i don’t want to be worshipped. i want to be loved. “

“ i’m afraid to turn around. i’m afraid i’ll see nobody. that i’m alone here. “

“ you must destroy us both with that weakness you call virtue. you must keep me tormented with that cruelty you think so pious. “

“ i don’t think i belong in heaven. "

“ be with me always. take any form. drive me mad. only do not leave me in this dark alone, where i cannot find you. “

“ i am different. i don’t even vaguely resemble others, any of them. “

“ whenever a woman has a problem, men always presume it’s love. “

“ i don’t want to pierce you, but how else will i get free? “

“ try as i might, i can’t ever forget. “

“ i do not love you. i love nobody. “

“ i feel nothing for no-one! “

“ i can’t love, i can’t! don’t you understand that? “

“ i have no feelings. get that into your head. “

“ our love was a dream. never lived, only a fantasy. an emotion transparent like smoke. “

“ i will always be hiding in a corner of your mind so you can find me. “

“ there is always something watching me, following me, controlling me. “

“ you didn’t look human. didn’t have any emotions. or rather, you looked cruel. very cruel. “

“ i wish you could stay here forever. just the two of us, isolated from everything. “

“ i’ve been feeling something so strange lately. it’s hard to explain. it’s like a constant state of panic, of anguish. “

“ when the night comes, all that’s left is the anxiety. “

“ you’re the source of all this evil. “

“ i respect your pain. but don’t forget that i’m also in pain. “

“ i’m insane but, sometimes i’m wise. “

“ wise women know well enough what monsters men make of them. “

“ i departed this world without ever having known love. “

“ it grieved my heart to see your sorrow. “

“ the ocean as my companion, the sky as my friend. seagulls... and silence. a great silence. “

“ they say i’m sick. very sick. “

“ i try to find out what’s wrong with me, but i can’t. “

“ everything scares me. sometimes, my whole body trembles. “

“ you seem to distrust me. you think i’m an enchantress... don’t you? "

“ you’re mine now. from now on... you must devote your whole life to me. “

“ there is no good in me. where should it come from? “

“ i can’t cry. why can’t i cry like other people? “

“ now i’m broken, the toy that god didn’t want. “

“ you’re afraid. i feel you’re afraid. “

“ i want to feel their bones breaking between my fingers. i want to overpower them, drink their blood and wounds. i’ll smash them with my heels and you’ll be there to see it. “

“ the cruel animal is always reading to snap up the innocent who come too close to her she-wolf jaws. “

“ do you think the dead come back and watch the living? “

“ not as good as blood. but it’s stronger. “

“ we women must defend ourselves... or they will bully us. “

“ i’m alive. i’m still alive. i’m here. “

“ men are tricks. they are so simple-minded. “

“ i’m still here. i won’t go away, ____. i’ll never go away. you’ll never get better. i;m still here, i’m in your blood. “

“ dreams or nightmares. madness or sanity. i don’t know which is which. “

“ i can feel with your body. i am you. “

“ a new wickedness is coming, i feel it. “

“ love is about craving. our craving for transformation. and all transformation, all movement, happens because life turns into death. “

“ where is reality? where is the dream? “

“ i’ve always been fascinated by death. the feel of it, the smell of it... and the stillness. “

“ we will return, ____. we will be the wind and the rain. we will be the elements that men fear the most. “

“ i am you, and you are me. “

“ you smell of blood. you’re the statue of a goddess. “

“ how i crave to sink my teeth into your pink flesh. “

“ i wanted to be alone! alone! free! “

“ maybe i should’ve followed the dark voice in my heart, maybe i should’ve run away. “

“ that’s the only truth... being alive. being blood, flesh. “

“ you cannot live in isolation from the human race, you know. “

“ they should’ve known i’d always love you... even if you are different. “

“ there’s so much blood all around me. “

“ you shouldn’t ask questions that are bigger than us. “

“ the pain will fade in time... but the memory will remain for as long as i live. “

“ you’re beautiful like that, with blood on your mouth. “

“ ____, i am your death. “

“ i feel sorry for you and your lack of soul. “

“ i’ll never be like you. i change all the time. “

“ you can do what you want. you won’t get to me. “

“ sweet flesh cannot live forever. “

[santigarcia]

Blue Book 📘

Human Touch Part Five

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

word count: 1.6k

rating: T for sexual references, one mention of daddy kink, drunk Nathan

summary: You tell Nathan you love him and his reaction isn’t what you expected. 

a/n: thank you all so much for reading this series! let me know what yall think! thank you to @punkpascal and @sergeantkane​ as always!!

It’s rare for you to wake up in the mornings and Nathan be beside you. He’s almost always up early and working, picking up from where he left off the night before. He works hard, and you’re not entirely sure what he’s working on. Just lots of code and then he’ll disappear into his lab for hours at a time.

So, when you wake up next to him, you can’t help but smile. You curl into him, his body warm in the chilled room. He stirs from your movement and you whisper an apology. His eyes peel open and there’s a soft grin on his face.

“G’morning,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

“Good morning,” you smile and lean up to kiss his cheek. He smiles into the kiss, but his eyes have closed again. He’s still very sleepy.

He’s so cute like this, so relaxed. It makes your heart hurt how much you love him.

And it slips out.

“I love you, Nathan,” you whisper. His once sleep heavy eyes open. You say it again with him looking at you, a little louder this time. But he heard you the first. He sits up and reaches for his glasses. He mumbles something and disappears into his computer room and closes the door behind him.

And it stings.

Every question now comes into your mind. Does he not love you back? Does he love you but just didn’t say it? Did you say it too fast? Was it the wrong time? Is he not interested in love? What if he breaks up with you?

You stay in bed for longer than you should letting these thoughts repeat over and over in your head.

What if he’s not capable of love?

You sit up and shake your head, as if trying to shake the thoughts out of your mind. You decide something to eat will help for a moment at least. But when you make your way to the kitchen and take a bite of something, your stomach lurches.

You go sit out in the living room with a glass of water. You curl up on the couch and you feel cold. It’s not cold in the room, but cold from memories. What if they mean nothing now?

You need something to distract yourself. There’s a book on the coffee table. It’s always there. The cover has fallen off from being read so many times. The actual title of the book is lost on you because it’s been blocked out by a black marker. The book is full of notes, you can tell it’s Nathan’s handwriting. Blue ink in tight capital letters are etched across the pages. You start reading but soon you just start to read Nathan’s notes.

It’s somehow a diary of his mind mixed with quotes he likes from whatever book this is.

Near the book in the middle, you see a note he’s written at the bottom. It says, “I love her, but I can’t tell her.” When did he write this? Is it about you? You’ve seen him write in this book before. Did he ever think you’d pick it up? It’s always on this table in plain sight.

You get the feeling you weren’t supposed to see this, and you put it down.

A shower, that’s a good idea. Clear your head. You’re doing your best to avoid Nathan. You’re too embarrassed and scared of what he might say.

You decide to shower in ‘your’ room. The room that has all your stuff in it, but you never sleep in. You shower, and then decide for a nap.

But you can’t sleep.

You reach for the remote and turn the TV on. Which is something you’ve never really done. The TV channels are all camera feeds throughout the house. And you gasp to find this discovery. You land on the channel of Nathan in his lab. He’s leaning against the counter and he’s drinking heavily. There are several empty bottles scattered around him.

You can’t help but feel guilty.

He downs the contents of one of the bottles, and he drops it on the table. You watch in horror as the glass shatters. He slams his hand down on the table, and you quickly see red. You won’t watch this anymore.

You weave your way through this maze of a house and bang on his lab door. Surprisingly, it opens, and you run inside. Nathan, in a drunken stupor, is holding onto his hand, not sure of what to do it seems.

“Come on,” you grab his arm and drag him away from the shards. You take him to a bathroom. You close the toilet lid and make him sit down. You reach for a first aid kit under the sink and start to clean off his hand.

“Ow! Damn it!” he yells when you run his hand under water from the sink.

“Nathan,” you scold him, “Let me do this.”

You know he’s still drunk because he starts to ramble. He’s spouting off poetry and slurring the lines.

  Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake.

So, fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom and be lost in me.

You hold his gaze for a moment, and he sighs heavily. You know what’s on his lips. You can tell by the look on his face what he wants to say, but he can’t find the words.

“Nathan.”

He breaks. His voice falters and he nods, “I do, I love you.”

Your throat feels tight and tears well up in your eyes. You can’t help but let out a small giggle, of course him telling you he loves you couldn’t be normal. He’s drunk off his ass sitting in the bathroom while you pull a glass shard out of his hand.

Luckily, it was only the one piece. And when his hand is wrapped and cleaned, you make him go to bed.

He’s out like a light and lightly snoring the second he hits the pillow. You kiss the top of his head and leave him to sleep. You return to the living room, feeling giddy with your new information. You grab the blue inked book again and find the page where he’d written that he loves you. You smooth your hand over the ink. Something about touching the words makes them sink in deeper, he’s written them on your heart.

You must have fallen asleep because you jolt awake when you hear his voice. He’s drinking one of his green health shakes and has a towel around his shoulders.

“Hi,” you greet him and sit up with a yawn. The book is still in your hands.

“Hey,” he chuckles softly and sits down opposite you. He takes a drink before setting down the glass on the coffee table. “I’m sorry about earlier. That you had to clean up my mess.”

“That’s what you do isn’t it? Help out the one you love?”

His eyes hold yours for a moment, his lip twitches. He reaches up to scratch his beard, and he rubs the top of his head.

“Did you mean it?” you ask him, suddenly worried now it was only a drunk confession and not one he meant to slip out. “That you love me back?”

“Of course, I meant it,” he leans forward and takes the book from your hands. He sees what page you’re on and he taps the words with his finger. “See?”

“When did you write this?”

“Don’t remember.”  A lie.

“When did you write it? Nathan!” You laugh, you know his tells.

“Look, shit, I wrote it like two days after I met you. But I thought it was just a high from the fucking. But it wasn’t. You came into my mind and never left. You know, I’ve started a sticky note wall for you now.”

Your heart hammers in your chest, and you feel the tears back in your eyes.

“Can I read them?”

“Maybe,” he chuckles, ears tinged pink again. “I mean maybe, cuz my handwriting it shit.”

You share a laugh for a moment before it falls into a comfortable silence. You stand and curl into his lap and he sighs with content wrapping his arms around you.

“How’s your hand?”

“Stings a little, but it’s fine. It’s my head that’s fuckin’ killing me. I got so shitfaced. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“I knew, or well I hoped. But I wanted to know.”

“Crazy as it sounds, I’ve never done this. Not like this.”

“The day drinking clued me in,” you smile. And he groans a little, touching his head.

“I used to drink all night to turn off my mind before you came here.”

“So, I’m your alcohol?” you tease and snuggle into him deeper.

“Bustin’ my balls tonight damn,” he kisses the top of your head. “You’re my source of calm.”

“What is this book anyway?” you ask flipping it over, still trying to find out what it is.

“Oh, it’s 1984.”

“And you’re Big Brother, right? Or maybe….Big Daddy?”

“Oh, fuck I like that,” he purrs. You can feel him writhe under you. He’s getting turned on.

“Wait, hold on,” you laugh, “can I eat first?”

“If I can eat your pussy under the table.”

“Works for me,” you smile and kiss his lips. “I love you. I love you.”

“I love you,” he sighs, still tasting the words on his tongue. He decides it’s a good taste.

Before you get up to eat (and be eaten) you pick up the blue pen next to the book on the table. Nathan watches you write “I love you” next to his confession. You lightly blow on the ink, so it dries before you close the book. A new chapter of your lives has begun with three simple words.

xx

tagging: @pascal-isaac, @wasicskosgirl, @velvetmel0n, @huliabitch, @shadow-assassin-blix, @writefightandflightclub, @aellynera, @softboywriting, @veuliee2, @spider-starry, @mylifeliterally, @millllenniawrites, @ntlmundy, @foxilayde, @writingletterstothefire, @mandoplease, @anetteaneta, @feelmyroarrrr, @artsymaddie, @shakespeareanwannabe, @poedameronsbeard, @deanfanatic67​, @magicsuperheroes​, @phoenixhalliwell​, @that-one-weird-one​, @mariesackler, @yourbucky084​, @woakiees​

[nikosheba]

The Mystery of the Vanishing Elf

First of all, this is not my meta; I’m posting this on behalf of Azh, who wrote it and wanted it on tumblr. (They did say I could take credit for bothering them to write it, and for helping kick around ideas, so I will :D)

Link to the meta on AO3

[all page numbers from the 2007 HarperCollins edition of The Children of Húrin, ISBN 978 0 00 724622 9]

Thanks to starlightwalking for beta-ing!

So I just finished reading the Children of Húrin—which, let’s be honest, I was mostly reading to get the expanded version of the Túrin and Beleg content.  So at first when I started reading the second half — after Beleg’s death — I figured the reason I was less drawn to the text was because, well, Beleg was dead and therefore was less present in the narrative.  After I’d finished the book and put it down, though, I realized it was a little more than that.  Beleg wasn’t just less present. He was completely absent. This is no exaggeration: between the last mention of Beleg’s name in Chapter IX (“The Death of Beleg”) and Túrin’s death, when Gurthang asks to forget the “blood of Beleg my master” there is a single mention of his name, and it’s only a passing description of Gurthang itself as “the Black Sword of Beleg” (pg. 237).

Túrin never says his name again.

What’s going on here?  This is, quite frankly, bizarre. The entire first half of the narrative pivots around the relationship between Túrin and Beleg.  Beleg is the one who finds Túrin when he’s just a child his mother is sending to Thingol in Doriath. Beleg is his friend when’s growing up on Doriath — one of two really mentioned, the other being Nellas — and when Túrin is grown and goes off to be with the marchwardens, “Beleg and Túrin were companions in every peril” (pg 86).  When Thingol and Mablung and everyone else are ready to assume the worst of Túrin, it’s Beleg who shows up with Nellas to tell them what really happened, and it’s notable that this means Beleg didn’t see what happened; he just implicitly trusted Túrin and was the only one to do so.  They care about each other a lot. There is a brief portion of time while Túrin is with the outlaws that they aren’t together (that’s a whole nother post in itself) but Beleg returns to Túrin on Amon Rudh, “in this way, Beleg came back to Túrin, yielding to his love against his wisdom.  Túrin was glad indeed, for he had often regretted his stubbornness; and now the desire of his heart was granted…it seemed to [the outlaws] there had been a tryst between Beleg and their caption.” (pg 139).  These boys are in love. It’s textual.  There’s only one other character Túrin is described as loving in a similar way, and it’s Níniel (Niënor), whom he marries.

In fact, it’s staggering that Níniel is the only other one (pg 218 “Turambar restrained himself no longer, but asked her in marriage”), because there is a very big elephant in the room, and it’s the person whom Níniel is occasionally compared to, Finduilas.  Finduilas is mentioned three times in the text after her death, including twice by Túrin himself in direct quotations:

- “Then Turambar who led the men started back and covered his eyes, and trembled; for it seemed that he saw the wraith of a slain maiden that lay on the grave of Finduilas.” (pg. 214, when Túrin first finds Níniel)

- "But even as he spoke, he wondered, and mused in his mind: 'Or can it be that one so evil and fell shuns the Crossings, even as the Orcs? Haudh-en-Elleth! Does Finduilas lie still between me and my doom?’” (pg. 229, when Túrin is preparing to fight Glaurung for the last time),

- “Therefore he arose and went to the Crossings of Teiglin, and as he passed by Haudh-en-Elleth he cried: 'Bitterly have I paid, O Finduilas! that ever I gave heed to the Dragon. Send me now counsel!’” (pg. 253, after he’s killed Brandir and is desperately trying to deny that Níniel was Niënor, his sister)

This is huge. And it’s huge, because Túrin is not in love with Finduilas. This, again, is explicit, and textual, "In truth Finduilas was torn in mind. For she honoured Gwindor and pitied him, and wished not to add one tear to his suffering; but against her will her love for Turin grew day by day, and she thought of Beren and Luthien. But Turin was not like Beren! He did not scorn her, and was glad in her company; yet she knew that he had no love of the kind she wished. His mind and heart were elsewhere, by rivers in springs long past.” (pg 166, ”Túrin in Nargothrond”). So.  Túrin never falls in love with Finduilas, and, in fact, the reason he doesn’t fall in love with her is that his “mind and heart are elsewhere”.  Hmmmm. I wonder where his heart is?

Okay, so then why is it that Túrin repeatedly refers to Finduilas but not to Beleg?  It’s really obvious based on the quotes I’ve given so far that he was in love with Beleg (and for god’s sake, the man doesn’t talk for a YEAR after Beleg’s death), that he was not in love with Finduilas, and that he was (or thought he was, at least) in love with Níniel, enough to ask her to marry him.  So where the hell is Beleg in his thoughts for all this time when he’s falling for Níniel and thinking back to Finduilas?

For the answer to this, we need to consider the dual nature of Níniel’s relationship to Túrin, and what its source is.

Yes, Túrin loves Níniel, as his wife, but we know he also loved his sister Niënor, as a sister, and part of the reason he kills himself is that he can’t handle that he’s driven his sister to her death via incest (albeit accidental incest).  It’s notable that Túrin loves Finduilas as a sister,

“Then Turin spoke freely to [Finduilas] concerning these things, though he did not name the land of his birth, nor any of his kindred; and on a time he said to her: 'I had a sister, Lalaith, or so I named her; and of her you put me in mind. But Lalaith was a child, a yellow flower in the green grass of spring; and had she lived she would now, maybe, have become dimmed with grief. But you are queenly, and as a golden tree; I would I had a sister so fair.’” (pg. 164, “Túrin in Nargothrond”.)

So these references to Finduilas make a narrative kind of sense — in addition to it mostly happening as Túrin is passing her grave, it’s a textual reminder of a hidden truth: Níniel is not just Túrin’s lover, but also his sister.  He even finds her upon the grave of someone he loved as a sister.  But there’s another truth hidden in the text as well, and it’s related to Níniel’s nature as Túrin’s lover.  Because let’s be real, if he found her on the grave of someone he loved very firmly in a non-romantic way, why does he become romantically interested in her?  She’s his sister—obviously he doesn’t know that, but the narrative is saying it very, very clearly.  Well…there’s a confounding factor.

Here’s how Túrin finds Níniel (pg. 214): “Now it chanced that some of the woodmen of Brethil came by in that hour from a foray against Orcs, hastening over the Crossings of Teiglin to a shelter that was near; and there came a great flash of lightning, so that the Haudh-en-Elleth was lit as with a white flame.”

And here is how Túrin discovers that he has killed Beleg (pg. 155): “But as he stood, finding himself free, and ready to sell his life dearly against imagined foes, there came a great flash of lightning above them, and in its light he looked down on Beleg's face.”

The narrative does draw a parallel between Níniel and Beleg, an extremely strong (if subtle) one.  It uses literally the same phrase to set up the scene: “there came a great flash of lightning”.  So there’s a pretty clear answer as to why Túrin might associate Níniel with romantic love—he doesn’t just find her on his as-it-were sister’s grave, he finds her in a way that hearkens strongly back to the last time he ever saw his lover’s face.

So why doesn’t he think of Beleg now?

Why is the thought of his lover—whose loss cut him so deeply he didn’t speak for a year—so far out of his mind at this moment that his name isn’t even mentioned, even when narratively there’s no way he shouldn’t think of him?

Okay, I’ve drawn this out enough, so let’s cut to the chase: Glaurung. Glaurung, who is responsible for the first hidden truth that I mentioned, the more textually explicit one, that Níniel is Niënor, Túrin’s sister.  He bespells Niënor upon Amon Ethir, “Then he drew her eyes into his, and her will swooned. And it seemed to her that the sun sickened and all became dim about her; and slowly a great darkness drew down on her and in that darkness there was emptiness; she knew nothing, and heard nothing, and remembered nothing,” (pg 209, “The Journey of Morwen and Niënor”) causing her to lose her memories and with her memories her name and therefore any way for Túrin to know who she is.  Glaurung earlier bespells Túrin as well, “Without fear Turin looked in those eyes as he raised up his sword; and straightway he fell under the dreadful spell of the dragon, and was as one turned to stone.” (pg. 178, “the Fall of Nargothrond”)  The first, obvious result of Glaurung’s spell (and the only explicit one) is that he leaves Finduilas and rushes off to try and find Morwen and Niënor.  Now, we’re meant to believe that this is all that the spell does, since in “The Return of Túrin to Dor-Lómin”, pg. 166, the text notes, “And suddenly a black wrath shook him; for his eyes were opened, and the spell of Glaurung loosed its last threads, and he knew the lies with which he had been cheated.”

But I don’t think this makes sense.  I think Tolkien is being poetical here and the “last threads” he’s talking about are specifically the lies about Finduilas.  A number of Túrin’s conversations with Níniel point towards the fact that he’s forgotten something really important and that in that regard the dragon’s spell is still intact.  For example, when Túrin tells Níniel what to call him (pgs 217-218, “Niënor in Brethil”):

“Then she paused as if listening for some echo; but she said: 'And what does that say, or is it just the name for you alone?'

“’It means,' said he, 'Master of the Dark Shadow. For I also, Niniel, had my darkness, in which dear things were lost; but now I have overcome it, I deem.’”

“My darkness” is eerily similar to the repeated motif of Níniel’s darkness, which explicitly refers to the spell cast on her by Glaurung.  

“Behind her lay only an empty darkness” (pg 213, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seem to her that the darkness that lay behind her was overtaking her again” (pg 214, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seemed to her that she had found at last something that she had sought in the darkness” (pg. 215, “Niënor in Brethil”); and the two most relevant quotations, “And at that name she looked up, and she shook her head, but said: 'Níniel.' And that was the first word that she spoke after her darkness, and it was her name among the woodmen ever after” (pg 216, ”Niënor in Brethil”); and “when at length she had learned enough to speak with her friends she would say: 'What is the name of this thing? For in my darkness I lost it.’” (pg. 217, “Niënor in Brethil”)

So here it is: Túrin has lost “dear things” in “his darkness” (Glaurung’s spell) and he thinks that Níniel is what he has lost, but she isn’t—or she isn’t the only thing that’s missing. Glaurung has ripped out of Túrin’s mind the memory of the only person he’s ever had romantic feelings for—Beleg—and because he’s confused and trying to find something to fill that gap, Níniel gets cast in a dual role—not just sister (with her ties to Finduilas) but also lover (with her subtler ties to poor, missing Beleg).  

This theory also has significant implications for Túrin’s death, since that’s the only time that Beleg is mentioned again, apart from a tangential sidenote.  When Mablung finally confirms to Túrin what he’s already beginning to fear is the truth, that Níniel was his sister Niënor, he runs up to the Cabed-en-Aras, from which Níniel has thrown herself, and he asks his sword to kill him. His sword is Gurthang, which was Anglachel, made by Eöl, the sword that Thingol gave to Beleg and that Túrin used to accidentally kill him, and the response is somewhat unexpected, since up till now we haven’t had any indication that it’s a talking sword,

“‘And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: 'Yes, I will drink your blood, that I may forget the blood of Beleg my master…I will slay you swiftly.’” (pg. 256, “The Death of Túrin”)

Interestingly, this is after the sword has been reforged, and there’s no particular reason it should refer to Beleg as its master — after all, Túrin has been wielding it for years, and it was made by someone else entirely.  So then, why?  And why does it ask to forget his blood in particular?

Because Túrin has remembered, finally.  Whether the sword is picking up on the mood, whether it’s a narrative device, or whether it isn’t even really talking and it’s just Túrin’s mind playing tricks on him in his last extremis, I don’t know—though I favor the latter interpretation, particularly because Túrin himself is referred to as “the Black Sword” on numerous occasions.  But the important point here is Túrin has remembered, because Glaurung is dead, and his memory spells die with him, “Then Nienor sat as one stunned, but Glaurung died; and with his death the veil of his malice fell from her, and all her memory grew clearer before her, from day unto day, neither did she forget any of those things that had befallen her since she lay on Haudh-en-Elleth.” (pg. 243, “The Death of Glaurung”)

So Túrin knows by now exactly what he’s done—not only inadvertently marrying his sister but betraying the one great romantic love of his life.  The one he has probably just remembered accidentally killing in great detail.  It’s probably quite present in his mind when, rather than throw himself over the waterfall as Níniel did, he flings himself onto the very same sword that killed the only person he was ever in love with, whose name he has finally, finally been able to bring to mind…

In sum, Glaurung erases Beleg’s memory so thoroughly from Túrin’s mind that only tiny, hidden glimpses remain, even in the text.  This is the solution to the mystery of the vanishing Elf; it explains why Beleg vanishes right up until the very end, and it ties together the sense I had when I was reading the second half of something missing, something hidden, something incomplete.  It is, I imagine, the same way Túrin must have felt after he awoke—as he thought, completely—from the spell that Glaurung laid upon him the first time they fought.

[A/N: I also wrote a fic based on this premise: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980519 ]

[oldfritz]

I'm genuinely curious and don't want to start something! Just wanted to ask what you make of the 'Old Fritz might've been asexual' take, I don't know much about him and I feel you're one of the best people to ask esp since you lean towards 'he was probably queer in some way' too

Hey there! So, first off, don’t ever worry about me interpreting you asking me a question as starting something. As much as I love making dumb jokes about the guy, I love nothing more than doing this kind of stuff and defending or explaining my points. There’s two degrees I want to get over the next decade: first my JD and then my MA in Prussian history. I live for this stuff! Always have! Second off, I’m very sorry for not getting to this sooner. Things have been incredibly stressful for me for a variety of different reasons which have made answering your question, until now, rather difficult. Putting this under a cut because, holy shit, it got long!

My personal reasoning for why I think he’s bi (which, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m assuming is what you meant instead of ace and could be a different post entirely since some historians have tried to argue that) stems more to do with some of my lingering questions about the nature of his relationships with certain woman, rather than that of his relationships with men. To me and my modern, queer eye, Fritz’s relationships with men like Hans Hermann von Katte, Francisco Algarotti, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, and (much to my personal vexation) one Monsieur Voltaire are either outright homosexual/homoerotic in nature or very, very easily lend themselves to that interpretation rather than strictly romantic friendships (which Wikipedia does a fairly good overview of and, if you’re coming to me from AmRev perspective, uses Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship as a familiar example). While I’m avoiding those relationships in this ask, I’d be more than happy to elaborate upon one/all of them in a different one. 

Before I go into the big pauses that Fritz’s relationships with Madame von Wreech and Countess Orzelska give me, I want to deny the use of Fritz’s wife as an example of Fritz’s attraction to woman. While this, admittedly, may sound odd, we have ample evidence of how turned off and repulsed Fritz found Elisabeth Christine. Before he had even met her, Fritz was complaining about how she was ‘not very pretty, speaks but little, and acts like a blockhead’ (Asprey, 87) and, later, admitted to Grumbkow his plan to ‘keep my word,...get married, but afterwards it will be a case of that is that, and goodbye, Madame, and fare thee well’ (Jones, 52). For Christ’s sake, the man pitied her knowing how his treatment would leave her as ‘one more unhappy princess in the world’! Which is little consolation when you remember he also referred to her with such romantic terms as ‘this unpleasant creature,’ ‘the abominable object of my desires,’ ‘the person,’ and claimed to have preferred to marry ‘the biggest whore in Berlin’ (Asprey, 87). And while we (fortunately? unfortunately?) know quite a bit about their sex life, Fritz largely regarded it as just another duty - to quote him, ‘I will only have the duty to fuck’ (Ibid, 87). And while Seckendorf heard - first, presumably from Count von der Schulenburg and, later on, Count Friedrich von Wartensleben, a close and intimate friend of the then-crown prince - that Fritz would ‘fuck and refuck’ Elisabeth Christine and that said act occurred in the afternoon, it still was out of a sense of obligation (Bely, 481-2). When reminded that if he wanted more money for frivolities, he’d need to produce an heir, Fritz bemoaned that he ‘cannot sleep with my wife out of desire, and when I do sleep with her, I do it out of duty rather than inclination’ (Clark, 50). All this in accumulation, as well as the myriad of other quotes and incidents I’ve left out, makes one wonder why his relationship with Elisabeth Christine is sometimes used by historians to prove any sort of heterosexual impulse in the man when she’s the woman with the weakest supports for that argument.

That being said, now we get to the women with a more muddled places in his romantic escapades, if you will. What exactly happened between Orzelska and Fritz during his trip with his father to Dresden in 1728? The main source for everything that occurred during this trip is Wilhelmina, who didn’t attend and without anything about this specific incident coming from Fritz or Friedrich Wilhelm I, make it rather hard to use as concrete, irrefutable proof. Now, if her recollections were contemporaneous - like coming from a diary or journal she kept at the time - that would be one thing. But it comes from her memoirs which, while a delightful read 10/10 recommend, are written decades after this trip took place and, memory being a finicky thing, can’t be taken to the bank. All those disclaimers, here’s the story as told by her:

‘One evening...,the King of Poland [note: Augustus II] insensibly led the King of Prussia to a very richly decorated room...The King of Prussia, delighted with what he saw, stopped to contemplate all its beauties, when [all of] a sudden a tapestry was rolled up, which procured him a very novel sight. It was a lovely female in a state of nudity [note: Countess Orzelska, the Polish king’s daughter], carelessly reclined on a couch. Her beauty excelled that of the finest pictures of Venus and the Graces; her body seemed of ivory, whiter than snow, and better shaped than that of the Venus de Medicis at Florence.

...Scarcely had the King cast his eyes on the fair one, than he turned about with indignation; and seeing my brother behind him, he rudely pushed him out of the room, and left it immediately after in a violent irritation against the trickery they had attempted to practice on him. ...In spite of the King’s vigilance, [Frederick] had had time to contemplate the Venus of the closet, who did not cause him so much horror as she had done to his father. (Wilhelmina’s Memoirs, vol. 1, 107-6)

Wilhelmina then goes on to claim Fritz had fallen ‘passionately in love’ with Orzelska and that the illness Fritz experienced upon returning home was simply being lovesick. Pinning the accuracy of this story is incredibly difficult because, again, we have only one source relayed decades after the fact and from two volumes of memoirs known to have inaccuracies. While I, personally, would love if he had had a tryst with Orzelska (who is such a badass in her own right and deserves more recognition than as a footnote in this guy’s story), there’s no one way to say with more than 30% confidence. I am inclined to believe something along these lines happened because if someone told me a story like this, lord knows I wouldn’t forget it for the rest of my life. And, with Wilhelmina being so close with her brother, it lends a bit more credence but as to the actual emotional or physical response Fritz had to it, well, without my time machine, I can’t and don’t want to say.

With Madame Eleonore-Louise von Wreech, things are a little more concrete. For starters, Fritz actually talked about her! In written correspondence that survived! We even have seven letters between the two of them that survived, which is a bigger win! As Blanning says, they’re ‘ardent but light in tone, ironic, almost flippant, and highly stylized’ (Blanning, 58). Their relationship was known to those close with Fritz at the time that Schulenberg felt compelled to visit and warn the crown prince against devoting himself to women because ‘the slight pleasures gained cause a million displeasures.’  Fritz’s response? To tell the poor guy that he may have ‘the gift of continence, but I assure you that I do not’ (Asprey, 83-4). Firtz even went so far as to send a letter to her mother, waxing poetic about Louise’s ‘beauty, her majestic air, her bearing, and her entire department.’ It’s worth noting that Louise eventually broke off the affair due to being bored by how he ‘loved [her] too much and often annoyed [her] with his clumsy love’ (Ibid, 84). Contemporaries, including Friedrich Wilhelm, believed Fritz had impregnated her with a daughter who her ‘cuckolded husband would refuse to recognize’ (Blanning, 58). Blanning is the only source I’ve seen dispute this due to this news coming from Seckendorf, who didn’t reveal how he came about this information; that Fritz and Madame von Wreech’s correspondence doesn’t indicate a physical relationship; and on the fact that she was not pregnant. I haven’t been able to find the birth dates or any sort of records for Louise’s two daughters to figure out where their conception could’ve been in the timeline and if it matches with the likely dates for the affair, but I also don’t have the resources Cambridge would afford Blanning. Either way, while the physical nature of the affair is in dispute, the emotional aspect certainly was there. Especially when taking into consideration the fact that she’s the woman Fritz was likely referring to in the 16 August 1737 letter to Voltaire where he claimed she had taught him how to love (and also inspired him to write poetry, which we shouldn’t be thankful for). Specifically, all these years later, he stated how ‘this little miracle of nature possessed every possible charm, together with good taste and delicacy. She sought to transfer these qualities to me. I succeeded well in love but poorly in poetry. Since that time I have very often been in love and have always been a poet’ (Fritz’s Oeuvres, vol. 21, 96).

All this to say, there’s a bit too much evidence of some degree of opposite-gender attraction in Fritz to completely write off the possibility that he could’ve been bisexual. While it’s undeniable he held a preference for men and that’s whose company he typically enjoyed, I still do find it interesting the two exceptions (one potential and the other with a fair degree of certainty) to this. And, while I would never want his attraction to men be minimized in favor of that to women, it still remains important to note to get the most comprehensive picture of the man.

[daily-douma]

Demon With No Name

An analysis on Upper Moon Two: Douma

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba spoilers!!

Hello! ❤ I wanted to discuss the significance on Douma’s real name never being revealed to us in the KNY story.

I'd love it if you guys could share your thoughts on this with me please!

Before I start:

Disclaimer: I do not speak Japanese at all, I’m basing all quotes off of the first manga site i could find. Translations may vary depending on the source. Also I may not be aware of alternate meanings of words that may have been lost in translation for the most important quotes! So please forgive me if I misinterpret something!!

A lot of the demons in KNY’s story are either nameless, or go by an alias that isn’t their real name. Examples of the former include most minor demons, such as the Temple Demon, Swamp Demon, Older brother/sister, Mother, and Father Spider demons, etc. Examples of the latter are mostly are more relevant Upper moon demons-- Daki, Akaza, and Kokushibou, whose real names are Ume, Hakuji, and Michikatsu respectively. The other upper moons, Nakime, Gyokko, and Hantengu, however, don’t have their human names revealed, along with Douma. However, these 3, did not hold as much story significance as Douma.

Then in addition to that, there are some demons who go by their human names still, such as Rui and Kaigaku. I assume it is because they are young enough relative to other demons age that they haven’t forgotten it (or maybe they just like their human names lol).

(I don’t know if Gyutaro’s name is his actual name or a fake name and, if it is a fake name, I don’t remember if his real name is actually given, which is weird because his sister’s was. But that’s a topic for another day.)

However, Douma, who holds the rank of Upper Moon 2, is one of the most relevant demons in the story, yet his real name is never disclosed. Even in the Kimetsu Acadmeny chapter extras, is stated that his AU version’s real name is unknown.

So, why is that? Douma even said so himself that he has great memory. He remembered many details of his life but he failed to ever disclose to us his name. Was that one thing he did forget? Was it not important to him? Did he simply not have a real name before becoming a demon? (Maybe his parents thought he was above having a normal human name?) And most importantly, was this intentionally done by Kyoharu Gotouge?

Before I continue, first we should know the meaning behind Douma’s name. His name is officially 童磨. According to the Kimetsu no Yaiba wiki,  童 ( dō ) means “child,” and 磨 (ma) which can mean “polishe,” “grind,” or “improve.” (Someone also said it can mean magic but I don’t have the source im sorry :( ) Based on these, Douma’s name has a meaning somewhere along the lines of “magical child” or “polished child.” This is most likely to reference how his parents thought he had divine powers at his birth.

For most people, your name is one of the most significant aspect of one’s identity. It’s the first bit of information you to give to anybody upon introduction. However, Douma’s unknown name is a demonstration of his own lack of personal identity.

If we take a look back at Douma’s childhood, he’s been put on as the figurehead of the Eternal Paradise cult from the day he could even sit up. His entire life he was put on a pedestal for an identity he did not make for himself, but one manufactured and forced onto him by his parents. In chapter 142, Douma admits that he can’t speak to the Gods or have any spiritual connections that his parents believe he has. In fact, he doesn’t even believe in any of it. If that’s the case, why does he seem so fixated on the idea of bringing his troubled followers to “paradise” as his sole reason for being born?

Earlier I mentioned that one large aspect of identity is our name. However, another important aspect in defining our identity is the personal relationships we have around us. Who we value and surround ourselves will shape our own individual perceptions of ourselves. However, Douma, who has admitted to having limited capability in feeling emotions, is unable to form meaningful bonds with people around him. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is story where most, if not all, the main themes revolve around love, family, and friendship being the main motivators to drive characters in the pursuit of goals. However, here we have a character who serves as a direct antithesis to of all these themes. He has nobody he loves and nobody who loves him.

In chapter 157, Kanao calls out Douma in their fight, telling him she can see through the fake persona he puts on. She then proceeds to question him: “Why were you even born?” (damn....) Douma gave clearly visible cues that he was not pleased with what she had to say. The important observation to take from this scene is Douma’s reaction. The man who was just revealed to not feel any emotions, who is usually unbothered by harsh words thrown at him from demon slayers and other members of the upper moons alike, showed an emotional response to the cutting words of a child questioning his existence.

Based on this reaction, I think there is reason to believe Douma has an innate dissatisfaction with his own identity, or moreso his lack of identity. From his childhood, he’s been more than aware of how he cannot feel emotions the same as others. Even in his dying thoughts in chapter 163, he thinks back on how he was “always been this way.” He thinks about how human emotions to him were nothing more than  “mere dreams.”

I think should we take a close look at the word choice used here. He could have simply said something along the lines of “I’ve never felt emotions;” however Gotouge specifically phrased it as a metaphor comparing it to dreams. This word choice conveys a sense of longing associated with the idea of being able to experience emotion. This suggests that there is a chance he did wish for a better understanding of emotions. After all, like Kanao said, what’s the point of living if one can’t truly indulge in all of life’s pleasures associated with the emotional bonds we build with one another?

However, what does all this of this have to do with Douma not having a name? Douma not having a name is symbolic of his entire character. He is a man with no true identity of his own. He was unable to maintain any close, meaningful, interpersonal relationships with anyone around him in the hundreds of years he lived. He lived every day with a false persona knowing deep down inside of him knowing he was different from everyone else around him, but not in the “spiritual way” that was expected of him. And in his own Nihilistic opinion, he felt his own life was pointless. But as a direct contradiction to those beliefs, he continues to lie to himself, telling himself the people need him to save them. It’s ironic--Douma, the man who mocked demon slayers’ efforts to do whatever they can to achieve their goals, is doing the most to do whatever he can to mask the emptiness he feels inside. His boastfulness of his cult, his over-acting of emotions, and his insistence of friendly and polite conversation even in the face of insults and attacks from opponents all demonstrate this. While he may not be able to process and understand emotions like most people, there is one thing that Douma appears to have in common with many people: wanting a sense of purpose and meaningfulness in life.

While Douma’s reason for becoming a demon is never explicitly disclosed in the manga, I think we have reason to suspect him of becoming a demon for the purpose of finding an identity to call his own. Muzan Kibutsuji is notorious for taking advantage of humans who are at their lowest points in their life. They have lost everything that mattered to them and have no one else to turn to. However, it was a different case with Douma--a man with no loved ones, no purpose, no real identity--already had nothing to lose to in the first place.

Despite all Douma thought he though he “dedicated [...] to people and made contributions to the world,” in the end, his choice to become a demon never brought him the sense of identity and purpose he sought out by the time of his death. Unlike even other demons, who had family members they could happily reunite with in death, he would simply be forgotten from the rest of the world. Sure, maybe the demon slayers will remember him as Douma, one of the strongest demons. However,there was not a single person who knew the real Douma, the real name behind the man who served as Upper Moon 2 under Muzan. He will just continue to remain nameless even in death. A cruel reminder of how any way Muzan’s involvement in any other demon’s life did nothing to improve any of their lives, if not worsen it.

I don’t think I worded this well but I hope it still makes sense to everyone 🥺

[bedlamsbard]

Putting aside aesthetics and characterization (inasmuch as I can), I have been trying to logic out why Mando Ahsoka feels so different from Rebels Ahsoka (to me, personally; I know many other people feel fine about it), especially in terms of having a character who’s known in Rebels for her “I am no Jedi” line going to a character who is specifically introduced as “The Jedi” in The Mandalorian.  (And who is identified as “Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight” on merch -- merch is merch, it’s essentially meaningless, but it’s still a choice that was made somewhere along the line.)

“Shroud of Darkness,” Rebels 2.17

“Twilight of the Apprentice,” Rebels 2.21

This is strictly Doylist and not Watsonian; I don’t care what went on in the character’s life in between Rebels and Mando; I’m trying to guess what was happening in the writers room.

I was noodling through this on Twitter, in case it looks familiar.

My first thought was Dave taking a cut scene from Rebels as canon going into Mando, something he shared on Twitter back in the lead-up to S4.  Looking at this again I’m not sure this was a cut scene or a scene that he wrote that never made it into the actual script. (Certainly I can’t see how it would have fit into the episode.)

Here Bendu specifically identifies Ahsoka as “former Jedi Knight.”  This is also obviously not canon, because Twitter posts aren’t canon, Dave.  (Though that doesn’t mean that he might have taken it as part of his working backstory for the character anyway.)

I was then thinking about TCW and the unused TCW arcs as they existed in 2016 when this aired (with the rough guess that Rebels S2 was probably written in 2014).  There are three Ahsoka arcs that were written and existed in 2016 in some form (”scripts and some artwork” is what Pablo Hidalgo says, and some pre-viz and recordings from the original Walkabout arc that were shown at a couple Celebrations), but which hadn’t made it into S6 (which came out in 2014): Ahsoka’s Walkabout (in its original form with Nix Okami instead of the Martez sisters), the Siege of Mandalore, and an arc which would have taken place between those two, “Return to the Jedi.”  We know about these because of a panel from Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2016 called Ahsoka’s Untold Tales -- I was actually at this panel, but I haven’t thought about it in a while.  Here’s the SW.com liveblog of it; here’s the video.

I remember hearing somewhere that the TCW team had nine seasons or so written, but can’t find the source for that number now.  When S7 was made, there were obviously a lot of compromises made that we’ll never really know about, minus a tell-all memoir or documentary, which probably isn’t coming any time soon.  Knowing that this Return to the Jedi arc existed, I wondered if at one point Dave had tried to get all three Ahsoka arcs into S7 before having to give one up for the Bad Batch arc (especially as we now know there’s going to be a Bad Batch TV show); it’s also entirely possible that at one point in the production process there was the possibility of a full 22 episode season floated, which would have made three Ahsoka arcs in one season less unbalanced.

I went to go look up what the Return to the Jedi arc actually was, since 2016 was a long time ago and I haven’t really thought about this panel since.  My guess is that it had been intended for one Ahsoka arc per remaining season (7, 8, 9).  Pablo Hidalgo says that after the Walkabout arc, Ahsoka would have stayed on Coruscant as “an under-city vigilante of some degree, helping people who can’t help themselves,” and Dave points out that he talked about this with George Lucas, as well.  The Return of the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka finding out about a nefarious plot targeting Yoda and working with the Jedi to figure out what’s what with that -- this revealed that below the Jedi Temple was an ancient Sith shrine. (Some details of this were revealed at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015.)

Ahsoka would have been protecting the holocron vault from Darth Sidious, putting her lightsaber blade through the door while Palps shoots Force lightning up the blade.

“The whole purpose of that particular arc would have been to bring Ahsoka back. She’s not a Jedi, she doesn’t change her decision, but she gets involved in Jedi business again.”

The next Ahsoka arc and the final arc of the series would have been the Siege of Mandalore arc, which “reunites Ahsoka with the clone troopers, with Anakin.”  My guess is that the end of the Return to the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka making the decision to go to Mandalore because the Jedi themselves couldn’t get involved in that conflict at the time (especially the emphasis in the panel that Pablo and Dave put on Ahsoka as being “a responsible person” who couldn’t ignore that the war was still going on, and because Ahsoka knew Satine).  (It would be interesting to know when if this arc would have fallen before or after the Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir comics, which are based off another unmade TCW arc.)  This would probably have put as much as a season between this arc and the final arc -- given TCW’s funky timeline that doesn’t mean much, but in terms of audience expectation it helps.

(also, damn, the context of the beginning of Siege of Mandalore in the original concept vs. how it actually happens in S7 is very different -- like, on the surface identical but the emotions involved are totally different.)

Before going into the next part of the panel (post-war), Pablo Hidalgo adds “We consider it to have happened and that’s how we inform the writing in Rebels, because that’s the history that these characters carry in their heads.”

So going into Rebels, the writing team was working with the background that Ahsoka had not only left the Jedi Order once, in “The Wrong Jedi,” but had reinforced her decision not to go back to the Jedi by not returning to the Order during the Return to the Jedi arc.  That explains why in Rebels she’s so adamant about not being a Jedi or being in the Order; it’s a decision that she has made not once, but twice.

Fast forward four years to 2020, where we have the Siege of Mandalore arc in S7.

It’s heavily implied that Ahsoka was planning to go back to the Order after the end of the war, and in fact Yoda treats her as such.

Now, there’s no way to know if this exchange was in the original Siege of Mandalore scripts short of those being released at some point (which is possible but seems unlikely when the character is still in play), but because of the way S7 plays out there is no way to put the Return to the Jedi arc back into the story, which means all the emotional context and Ahsoka doubling down on not returning to the Order is thrown out of the window.  That’s a fair chunk of backstory to take into the Rebels writers room.

(It should also be noted that presumably E.K. Johnston wrote the Ahsoka novel with the assumption that that arc was still part of Ahsoka’s working canon, though she may not have seen scripts for it; I feel like I read somewhere that she had seen scripts for the original version of the Siege of Mandalore, which changed quite a lot between original concept and the eventual 2020 version, as is evident from the novel vs the show.)

Going into The Mandalorian, then, Dave Filoni is not only working without a writers room (as Mando has only had two writers, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau), but working with an entirely different continuity than what the Rebels writers room was working with.

Trying to backtrack when various scripts were written is an exercise in futility to some extent; I usually guess anywhere from a year to two years out from when the shows air.  (I seem to remember that around this time in 2016 it came out that Katee Sackhoff was doing something for Disney, which ended up being the recording for Bo-Katan in Rebels S4, which wouldn’t air for another year, but don’t quote me on these dates.)  Dave ends the panel by saying that “After the season 2 finale for Rebels I was very adamant that that was it for Ahsoka...in Rebels...but after this reaction it might just be possible...it might be possible to see her again. She might have something to do. Maybe.”  (For those trying to run dates in their heads: the con was in July 2016, the season 2 finale aired in March 2016, WBW aired in February 2018.)  My guess is that they hadn’t recorded for that part of S4 yet (and S4 is so weirdly paced that I have questions about how it was made), but that the initial scripts for S4 had already been written at this point.

Looking back at the Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 TCW panel where Ashley Eckstein talks about getting the news about TCW S7 from Dee Bradley Baker (rather than from Dave Filoni, and hoo boy is this uncomfortable to watch knowing that the script for “The Jedi” had almost certainly been written and Dave may have already made the decision not to talk to Ashley about it), there’s still not like...a clear way to tell when that happened.  Except that Dee talks about “wine tasting with the Rebels,” which likely puts it back when Rebels S4 was either still actively airing (2017-2018) or before it had wrapped filming (2017).  (I actually vaguely remember seeing pictures from this wine tasting but I can’t remember whose twitter it was on and going to look feels creepy.)  Probably the scripts weren’t fully revised at that point but they may have been -- still, this was certainly after S2 and could potentially be before S4 had been fully finalized.  We got the TCW renewal announcement in 2019, but the animation wasn’t fully completed yet so didn’t get more than that teaser trailer.  This is only important insofar as it involves which set of backstory was being used for WBW Ahsoka, an episode that Dave Filoni wrote and co-directed.  (Honestly? I think Mando Ahsoka matches okay with WBW Ahsoka but is a little off Rebels S2 Ahsoka, but that’s off my memory of WBW, an episode I refuse to rewatch.)  Certainly with the epilogue he knew he was setting up for something else.

ETA: I FORGOT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS TIMELINE AND THAT’S THE RISE OF SKYWALKER because I try not to think about TROS, frankly, but as we may remember Ahsoka is included in the “be with me” scene in the final confrontation.  This always struck me as weird given the “I am no Jedi” thing from Rebels, but she’s the most well-known female Force-user so I had just mentally written it off as easy shorthand and JJ Abrams being lazy about it. HOWEVER, presumably JJ talked to Dave about which prequel era Jedi to include (there’s a note in one of the previous SWC liveblogs about Rian Johnson being in the Rebels writers room at some point).  TROS came out in December 2019, I can’t recall exactly when they did the voiceovers for that scene (if anyone has ever mentioned it), but it was probably fairly late in the process since I believe that there were still edits being made up until fairly soon before the premiere.  (I have a completely different theory that the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special from this year was written off an earlier version of TROS.)  If Dave had already moved towards making Ahsoka more inclined towards the Jedi, with a full-on return to calling herself one regardless of the existence of the Order (as Mando implies), then her inclusion here makes a LOT more sense than it did a year ago.

Anyway this is all very conspiracy theorist, but it does explain something that was puzzling me: Rebels S2 Ahsoka and Mando Ahsoka (as well as TCW S7 Ahsoka and potentially Rebels S4 Ahsoka) were written off slightly different backstories which differed in one very key thing: how committed Ahsoka was to no longer being a Jedi.

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in anything with an ongoing continuity; obviously TCW makes major changes to how viewers might read or write Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader in RotS or the OT.  I was just trying to narrow it down in this particular case because until I started thinking about it I had assumed that it was all being written off the same assumed backstory. And many people read Ahsoka differently in Mando than I did or found her perfectly in character, this was for me to track references down about something that was bothering me in hopes of an explanation that would satisfy me.

[sunshineandcybertronians]

I Care - Starscream x reader (TFP)

Word count: 2,002 Warnings: Starscream being threatening A/N: I actually wrote this after watching Shrek and being somewhat inspired from the  quote, “I’m not the one a problem, okay? It’s the world that seems to have a problem with me!” It ended up straying away from my original idea and the quote, but it’s still good.

"What a fine mess you've got yourself into, (Y/n)" you sarcastically said to yourself as you climbed over a rotted log.

Since you had nothing go to do, you decided to take a hike with lovely Mother Nature. Life was getting hard to bear, so you took off without telling anyone. In hindsight, you should have brought someone with you, but the time you didn't particularly want to be around other humans. Well, you got what you wanted, because here you were: in the middle of nowhere, no one else around for miles, no cell phone reception, and utterly lost.

"It's okay," a whisper found its way out of your mouth, an attempt to calm you down. You undid the lid to your water bottle to take a sip. The water was slightly warm, however the wet liquid running down your throat and quenching your thirst was most welcome. To your dismay, when you screwed the lid back on, you noticed you were running low on water.

Grunting, you shook your head. "Everything will be alright in the end," you gasped. Yeah right. You will magically be fine, a negative voice in your head snapped.

Sighing, you pushed back the other voice. You needed to stay positive, being negative wouldn't do anything except put you in a bad mood. Staring up at the gap between leaves, you observed it was past lunch. The sun was beginning its descend through the sky after reaching its peak. Thankfully, the sky was clear and blue, save for occasional puffs sprinkled in the endless void of blue. It wouldn't rain. That was a good thing. But the trees stood tall above you make me feel small, insignificant, and hopeless. all you can do is pray for miracle to get you out...

 Grunting, Starscream held the scanner out and waved it around. "Why is it that there is so little energon on this wretched planet? And when I seem to need it the most?" he growled.

Scouting for Energon had become a regular activity. Fortunately he wasn't terribly low on Energon yet. That's why the seeker would constantly search for it, to prevent that event from ever occurring. The trees around him made it difficult to move around. Starscream didn't want to exhaust his energy knocking down trees in his way or cause any unnecessary attention. Humans were not typically in that area as far as he was concerned. Although he couldn't never tell with that planet.

Suddenly the device in his servo began beeping, signifying Energon was near. In his excitement, he turned a little too quickly. The Cybertronian's arm hit the a tree he was standing next to. A cracking sound ripped through the air as a branch was torn off and crashed to the ground. Starscream flinched at his mistake. Anyone in a two mile radius would have heard that. Then he relaxed when he remembered no humans were around even hear it.

...That's what he believed until click later when human girl came stumbling in.

The seeker was shocked to see you. Humans weren't supposed to be out that far in the forest. Could he ever get away from the species? Your eyes scanned around to find the source of the loud sound. He didn't have enough time to hide from you, nor did he have anywhere to hide.

“Whoa,” you let out, eyes shining with amazement when they landed on Starscream. It was a moment of silence and just staring at each other. You took a hesitant step out from behind the tree.

Starscream snapped out of it. Appearing startled could be considered a sign of weakness, and the last thing he wanted was to appear weak to one of your kind. He had to put on the act of being intimidating to scare you away, to gain respect and before you could take a picture of him and show him off like a freak like every other human did.

“Well,” he chuckled, “Look what I found here. Are you lost little girl?” He took a large step closer that shook the earth.

Temporarily, your face was filled with panic. Your mouth opened, but no words came out. After letting out a breath and licking your lips, you began again. “Yes. I wasn’t exactly expecting you either. What are you anyway?” Your inquisitive nature seemed to chase away any fear.

This answer surprised Starscream; that you so casually spoke as if this was normal. He tilted his head in confusion. It only lasted a nanoklick. Maybe the human was simply dumb, he concluded. Or brave, one of the two, however he suspected the first one.

“That doesn’t concern you,” he managed to answer. A thought came to him, if he tried to grab you, you were sure to run. He smirked sinisterly as he kneeled down and reached out “You shouldn’t have stuck your nose in others’ business.”

Instead of running like he anticipated, you simply moved out of the way and pushed his talons aside with the back of your hand. The feeling of a humans skin was foreign. It was soft and warm, nothing like metal, yet still firm.

“No thank you.”

His servo flinched back, taken aback by your behavior. “Strange,” he remained perplexed, “most fleshies run when I do that.”

“Well I’m not like ‘most fleshies’,” you replied with your hands on your hips.

A brief smile played on his lips, a sweet, happy one. Then he remembered that this was an inferior species he was speaking to. His grin turned into a scowl at the slip. Although you were… different, in a positive way.

“Well, that appears obvious,” he started marching away, following the temporarily forgotten trail of energon.

Overcome with curiosity, you began following him and asking questions. Moving your legs as fast as you could to stay beside him at the same pace. “Who are you? What’s that beeping thing?”

“The great Starscream.” He couldn’t resist answering the first question. Another tree was in his way that he had to swerve to avoid. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to whatever you humans do?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know how to get back, and I’m not in a hurry to either. So, are there others like you? Why are you here? Your wings look cool. Can you fly?”

Your fascination shocked him. No one ever wanted to know more about him or was genuinely impressed by him.

That definitely wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning of something that would last a long time, whether either of you wanted it or not.

 After you helped him collect energon from the cave in the forest, you decided to stay with him. He seemed to not be pleased when you asked, but let you come. Maybe it was because he enjoyed your praise and amazement. For that reason, you were more open with compliments whenever they came to mind.

When you heard the tree branch crack before, you were thinking that the sound could mean people, people that could rescue you. Although you didn’t feel like interacting with humans, it was better than being lost. Never in a million years would you except to find a giant robot, yet that’s exactly what you found. Strangely enough, you welcomed this more than you would if it was what you did expect. When you saw him, you were suddenly filled with curiosity and wanted to talk, which was a large comparison from your previous mood. In fact, you were a lot more talkative and cheerful around Starscream.

Now you were lived within the Harbinger, happy in the crashed ship with Starscream. It had been several months since you met him and everything was more than you could ever ask for. You should have made friends with a Cybertronian a long time ago. You learned more about the ex-Decepticon and grew closer to him every day.

Currently, Starscream was talking, leaning against a wall, sitting on a box with you on his shoulder. You managed to coax him out of working. He needed a break. It was fortunate you were there; otherwise he would have fried his processor several times by now. It was healthy and necessary for him to rest.

"I was simply so tired of being their punching bag, literally in Megatron's case. Airachnid betraying me was just the last straw," he recalled the reason he left the Decepticons. "That's when I found who I was, Starscream, servant to no one." His chassis puffed out slightly from pride.

"Yeah, I'm glad you left them. Forget about them," you waved your hand out to emphasize your point. "You don't need their approval and it's their lost that you left. You're amazing, cunning, and determined."

"Yes," he sighed, "But the others didn't seem to see that. I could never quite gain the same respect from the vehicons that Megatron had." Sadness filled his optics at the memories resurfacing.

"By not beating them up?” You sat up and leaned forward to stare him in the optics more effectively. “Judging by how it sounds, you were nicer. Megatron would throw someone out the airlock for failing, but you wouldn't. Megatron's mean. You're better. You'd make a much better leader."

A happy smile lingered onto his faceplate, but the remorse hung in his optics. "Thank you. Still... they treat me as if I'm a fool, mocked me. What if that were because I’m a piece of scrap? I've made many mistakes, and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to succeed. Maybe that's the universe's way of telling me it wasn't meant to be. That I'm simply... a mistake. No one likes or appreciates me. I have no friends nor companion." In a normal situation, he would never tell this. He either trusted you, or held in the insecurities for so long that they now flowed out. "No one cares about me."

"Then what am I? A potato?" The seeker looked confused and lifted an optic ridge. Before he could question it, you continued, "Look, I know I'm only a stinky human. If I could become a Cybertronian, I would. But I would do anything to help you accomplish your goals or make you feel better. You’re my favorite person in the world.”

"Really? You think so?" Starscream perked up. "I'm not a failure?"

“You’re not a failure, you’re amazing. Sure, you’re not perfect, you have flaws. But I love you anyway. ” Before you could chicken out, you wrapped your arms around him in a loving hug and planted a kiss on his cheek.

The feeling of his cool metal against your lips was something you immediately decided that you loved. Why hadn’t you done this a long time ago? That thought made you remember why. That’s right; because he might get irritated and either avoid you or kick you out. With that returned memory, you pulled away to reduce the chances of him becoming disgusted. It was also to prevent Starscream from reacting and smacking you away while you were still in the action. What would he think if he assumed a human was attracted to him? Wait, were you attracted to him?

You sat straight with a smile on your face, pretending you weren’t at all embarrassed or afraid of what he thought. If he inquired, you’d claim it was just on the cheek. It didn’t count if it was on the cheek, right? It was obvious he was still in shock at this and hadn’t processed the show of affection. His grin grew, in happiness and awkwardness. Flustered, he heated up and you could feel the heat radiating off of him. He opened his mouth, yet it hung open as he were lost for words. You laughed at this. However, you believed he actually liked it.

“If I knew you were going to react like that, I would have done it more often,” you teased. It was now official; you were definitely going to kiss him more often.

[duelistkingdom]

you’d come back to me

chapter three: anew

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Summary: Seto Kaiba has been presumed dead for four years after the events of Dark Side of Dimensions. His return causes both unresolved feelings of grief to be brought to the surface and the past to be dragged right back up. In hopes of helping Seto move on and reintegrate back into society at large, Mokuba asks Yugi to work on Spherium II with Seto. Never one to leave a friend hanging, Yugi agrees. Over the course of the project, Seto and Yugi both come to terms with their mutual grief and grow towards a better understanding of each other.

Rating: T

Ships: Yugi Mutou/Seto Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba/Rebecca Hopkins, Katusya Jonouchi/Mai Kujaku

Warnings: aged up characters, grief, references to suicide

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“I sold the mansion.”

That was the only explanation Mokuba gave when they drove the wrong way home from the hospital when Seto was eventually released. He supposed as far as explanations go, it was a good one. “Then where do you live?”

“In a one bedroom apartment in downtown Domino,” Mokuba said, texting someone. Whoever it was was labeled as ‘loml’. Who was Loml? The person’s grasp on Japanese was shaky and substituted English words in quotes, leading Kaiba to believe Loml was probably foreign. Mokuba had texted that he had picked up Seto. Before Seto could read further, Mokuba pulled the phone out of his line of sight. “Stop reading my text messages or I’ll drop you off at a hotel.”

“Maybe I’d prefer a hotel,” Seto grumbled. He was annoyed that it had taken so long to discharge him. He wasn’t sure why they felt the need to keep him for observation for almost a month. “I don’t see why I have to sleep on your couch.”

“The doctor thinks that you would heal better under supervision from family, since your concussion didn’t heal as well as it should have,” Mokuba countered, exchanging a glance with Isono briefly. Seto still thought the doctor had been off base for insisting that his concussion was still persistent. As far as Seto was concerned, he’d already healed. He felt great. He was certain Mokuba was keeping something from him, but he didn’t know what. “Plus… I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“And as for why I can’t drive?”

“Your license expired while you were gone,” Isono interjected, another shared glance with Mokuba that frustrated Seto. “You will need to get a new one, Mr. Kaiba.”

“Things like that tend to happen when you’re gone for four years, bro,” Mokuba said, the word “bro” sounding a little strained. Seto hadn’t wanted to notice before that Mokuba seemed a little stiffer than he used to. He noticed now. It was impossible to not notice the way Mokuba was trying so hard to pretend like four years hadn’t disappeared. Every time the missing years were mentioned, Mokuba tried to change the subject. Mokuba forced a grin. “Means you got a lot of catching up to do!”

He didn’t know how to respond to that so he didn’t.

The apartment complex Isono drove them to was clean and modern. It was also a lot more vertical than he would have thought when Mokuba had mentioned living in a one bedroom apartment. He wasn’t certain what he’d expected, but the building looked more like a skyscraper than a place of residence. “I’ll take care of making sure Mr. Kaiba’s things get here,” Isono said to Mokuba. “For now, you should make sure he gets settled.”

Mokuba nodded. “Thank you, Isono,” he said as Isono parked the car in front of a set of elevators. “Come on, bro. The elevators will take us right outside my door.”

“Is that safe?”

Mokuba laughed as he pulled out what looked to be a key card. “You can only get to the floor if you have a key,” he said. “I’ll have Isono get you a key later.”

The elevator doors slid open and Seto was taken aback by how industrial it looked. He followed Mokuba’s lead, though. It was strange to think of Mokuba living in a place like this by himself. Why did he sell the mansion? Was it just too tied to bad memories? Had he always wanted to sell the mansion? A bunch of questions that Seto had no answer for and had no intention of voicing aloud. Mokuba swiped a card that had “home” written on it in someone else’s handwriting and pressed a button for the fifteenth floor. That was high up. It was also… Seto pushed the thought aside.

The entranceway to Mokuba’s front door was grandiose, too. A couple of plants surrounded them on slick marble tiles and a picture of the Golden Gate bridge existed to his left on linen white walls. To his right, a bunch of pictures of various horses were all over the wall with gold placards underneath that he didn’t bother to read. He noted the source of light - a glass chandelier with gold trim. A couple of photos of Mokuba with Yugi and his friends, a couple pictures of a blonde girl that looked a lot like Rebecca Hopkins with her arm thrown around Mokuba… though… When did Mokuba start to like horses so much? Has he always liked horses? He didn’t have long to process the photos when his brother opened the door to the foyer. Natural light from the windows drifted right into the foyer, illuminating that the place was spotless.

It opened right into the living room, which had a massive L shaped couch in front of a large TV. The TV had a lot of game consoles hooked up to it, Seto noted. Another thing he noted was that it seemed like the place was designed to entertain guests. The foyer opening into the living room was just the start of it. The only thing that separated the living room from the kitchen to the left was a bar that had fresh cut flowers and bar stools lining it. Wine glasses hung above the bar and seemed to have a lot of light sources. There was a spiral staircase by the kitchen that led right up into a lofty area above them. “The room’s upstairs,” Mokuba said quietly as he hung his key on a rack. “There’s a guest bathroom over there,” Mokuba remarked as he pointed to a hallway to the left. “But it doesn’t have a shower, so you’ll have to use the shower in my bedroom. Don’t use the bathtub.”

A strange request but Kaiba felt no need to pry. “So you don’t often have people stay the night?”

“Wouldn’t say that,” Mokuba said. “C’mon, I’ll show you where the shower is.”

Once again, he was following Mokuba. There was a series of framed photographs on the wall on the way to the bedroom. One appeared to be a picture of Professor Hopkins and Sugoruko Mutou but… maybe a few years younger? Why would Mokuba have this? A photo of Mokuba with Rebecca Hopkins from the KC Grand Prix was prominently framed in the center of the hallway. In fact, it seemed like all the photos were designed to draw the eye to this one photo. Perhaps his friendship with Rebecca was much closer than Seto had originally thought. Then again… he hadn’t really been paying attention.

Mokuba opened the bedroom door and once again, natural light streamed everywhere. An ornate desk sat in front of the windows with a stack of engineering books and sticky notes that seemed much taller than he would think possible. A bookcase was next to it with thick, heavy textbooks that had pieces of paper sticking out of each of them. One of the shelves had multicolor binders in no particular order that Seto could see. In the middle of the room was a large, ornate, king sized bed with two oak nightstands on either side. One was just as messy as the desk, with a leather bound journal resting on top of the mess with a cup of pens near it. He was surprised the lamp on that nightstand hadn’t been knocked off by the mess. The other was neat with a single lamp on it. Seto frowned as he noted the size of the bed. “Why would you need a bed this size?”

“I mean,” Mokuba said, looking a little awkward before turning away to lead Seto towards another door, “it’s not just me sleeping there.”

Seto frowned, following Mokuba through the new door into the bathroom. Once again, it seemed a little bit much. Two sinks. One sink free of clutter, the other with a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and an eyelash curler left out. “Who else would sleep here?”

“My girlfriend,” Mokuba said as he gestured towards the shower. “Here’s the shower. Towels are in there,” he remarked as he pointed towards a plain white cupboard. “There’s also extra toilet paper. Don’t use her towels. You’ll know they’re hers because they’re all monogrammed with her initials.”

“Right. Those photos of that Hopkins girl.” Seto frowned. “It must be serious if she’s living with you.”

“It is rather serious.” Mokuba seemed on the verge of saying something else but shrugged it off. “Rebecca’s rather finicky with her things. Don’t use them. Anyway, I'm going to leave you to take your shower cause I should get back to work. Isono will be around to check on you and Rebecca should be home when she’s done with her classes. Be nice to her.”

 “I see you decided to come back.”

Seto glared at Dr. Reiki. It wasn’t that Seto had decided to come back. “My brother seems to think that before I can be cleared for work, I need to attend these sessions,” Seto said, crossing his arms and glancing out the window. This time, he did not care about whatever game Reiki was playing. He wanted to make it as clear as possible that he did not want to be here. “Thus, here I am.”

“So the only reason you are here is to be cleared for work?”

Once again, the doctor had taken to making this seem like a game. It was impossible for Seto to tell how Dr. Reiki felt about his statement. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond. “Tch,” Seto said as he looked away from the therapist. “I suppose so.”

“I see. If that’s the case, then tell me about your relationship with Mokuba,” Dr. Reiki said, leaning back in his chair. Seto hated that Reiki always seemed so at ease within these four walls while Seto struggled to find his footing. “I know I’ve spoken with Mokuba already but…. I am curious as to how you’d describe it.”

Seto arched his brow at the doctor. “Fine,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “When our parents died, we were shuffled around from relative to relative. None of them wanted extra mouths to feed. They were more than happy to spend our inheritance, however. They kept that but dumped us at the orphanage. I knew it was my responsibility to look after Mokuba because  no one else would. I… made mistakes in raising him. I know that now. I regret how harsh I was. I… only meant to protect him.”

He cut himself as he registered Reiki taking notes. Reiki looked up when Seto stopped talking. “Don’t worry about the notes, Seto,” he said. Kaiba squashed down the desire to demand that Reiki be more formal. “This is part of the standard procedure to clear any patient to return to work. Please, continue.”

“Right,” Seto said, glancing up at the degree that Reiki held again. It was from Harvard. He supposed it made sense that Reiki went to a western school for this line of work. This did, in fact, relax Seto a little bit. At least his therapist was the best. “It was just Mokuba and I after my adoptive father died. Only Mokuba really knew the truth of what happened while everyone else…”

“Everyone else…,” Reiki prompted when Seto trailed off. Seto glared at him and glanced around. “This is a safe space, Seto. Nothing you say will leave these four walls.”

“Everyone else believes I killed my adoptive father,” Seto admitted, leaning back, leaving out the fact that there were days when he wished he had. He doubted that would help in his quest to be cleared to go back to work. “Mokuba knows that isn’t true. Still, he knew it was true that I could be, can be… Ruthless. Some people considered me to be cold and calculative, so the rumor persisted. Still persists, truthfully.”

Seto trailed off again, wondering if he was saying the right things. It was difficult to strike a line here. He still had no idea what Reiki was after to  clear him for work. The therapist offered no hints.

“It makes sense that you were ruthless. Public record states that you became president of Kaiba Corp when you were only 15,” Reiki remarked. “You must have had to be cutthroat. I would imagine there were plenty of people seeking to take advantage of your youth and naivety - something you more than likely couldn’t afford. Tell me, how did you feel about those rumors?”

For a moment, Seto was dangerously close to answering. Before he admitted to anything, Seto caught himself. “What does this have to do with me getting cleared for work?”

Reiki’s mouth twitched into a smile. “In order to be certain you’re ready to return, I need to get a feel for what your work history is. How you see the company and how it affects you,” he said and Seto resented that he sounded like he was trying to coax a deer to him. “After all, the concern is that work might do more harm than good right now.”

Seto considered this for a moment. Finally, he gave a soft “tch” before crossing his arms. “I didn’t appreciate them,” Seto admitted. “It seemed like everyone was more concerned about the potential soap opera than the fact that I’d been orphaned again. My adoptive father was not a good man and do not misunderstand me, I am not saddened by his death. However… no one seemed to care that I was fifteen and without a father again. That left me, to be a CEO and president of a multi billion dollar corporation, and a father to my younger brother.”

“You considered yourself to be the parent?”

“I had to,” Seto sniffed. “There was simply no one else who would. So I had to step up to the plate to make sure Mokuba was taken care of.”

Reiki frowned as he glanced over his notes. “I will admit that makes sense as a motivation,” Reiki said slowly. “What I’m having trouble understanding is why did you abandon him for four years if you felt that it was your duty to be a father Mokuba? Could it be that perhaps you were following the only model for a father you had?”

Seto bristled. “I did not intend to leave him for four years,” Seto hissed. “That was the result of an error in programming. I was supposed to return mere moments after I left.”

The therapist nodded again and jotted something else down. Again, Seto longed to know what the therapist was writing. He badly wanted to correct anything Reiki may have misunderstood. “Well. I think we have made some decent progress today,” Reiki said. “How about we meet again in two weeks?”

As much as Seto wanted to argue, he wound up agreeing instead.

 Yugi had been staring at the code for the AI for the past few hours now. He’d clipped his hair up earlier in a desperate attempt to keep his bangs out of his face. They still liked to land in front of his face. He’d figured it was safe to work on this project now because Mokuba was out picking up Seto. From what, Mokuba never said. He wasn’t expecting Mokuba to come back to work.

It’s why he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard, “So you know about the AI project Seto was working on before he left.”

For a moment, he wanted to ask how Mokuba knew about it. It was a stupid question. Obviously Mokuba knew more about what Seto had been doing before he left than Yugi ever did. Yugi sighed and nodded. “I stumbled across it a few weeks ago,” Yugi admitted, leaning back in his chair. The code was more complex than he was used to. “Why did Kaiba make it so you have to duel it to leave that room?”

Mokuba sighed, resting against the wall. Yugi thought it was greatly unfair that Mokuba shot up to six foot while Yugi was still stuck at five foot eight. He remembered when Mokuba was only barely shorter than him by an inch. Then again… he also remembered when Seto was willing to die for Mokuba. Willing to traumatize him to save Mokuba. It seemed to Yugi that a lot had changed in Seto. “He was obsessed,” Mokuba said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to shut it down… it was the last thing Seto made before…”

When he trailed off, Yugi couldn’t fault him. Mokuba had managed to deal with the fact that Seto had vanished off the face of the Earth for the past four years. The cracks in Mokuba’s facade were easy to see through but Yugi didn’t want to press. As much as Yugi wanted to help, he knew that it would be better to let Mokuba come to terms with his feelings before unpacking them. “It’s okay,” Yugi said. “I imagine it wasn’t supposed to be easy to find.”

“You know, all the people that had been working on it thought it was supposed to be of you,” Mokuba said suddenly, a light smile as if this was deeply hilarious. “One of them asked me why he didn’t just go down the street and ask you for a duel. Another asked if you were actually that ripped.”

Yugi laughed, shaking his head. “I mean, if they want to believe I look that good,” Yugi said, trying to keep the conversation light. “I was just… noting the differences between how the AI acted and how Atem… actually acted.”

“Seto insisted it was perfect,” Mokuba said, folding his arms over his chest and closing himself off. Turns out, there was little difference between the Kaiba brothers when they were distancing themselves from him. “It was based on his memories of how the Pharaoh acted.”

“Atem,” Yugi corrected, a knee jerk reaction. “That explains why it’s not… it doesn’t act like Atem,” Yugi said with a sigh. “Kaiba never saw Atem outside of a Duel. I did. He… he was conflicted. Complex. He carried a lot of guilt with him. He…” Yugi trailed off as he noted the look on Mokuba’s face. While there was little chance he’d shown his hand, Mokuba still looked sympathetic. Yugi’s face burned as he realized that no matter how much he moved on, the fact remained that he still loved Atem and it must have shown in how he spoke about Atem. Yugi was certain that some part of him would always love Atem. It was unimportant to this conversation, however. “It was just a lot to see something look so much like Atem and almost act like him but… not quite him.”

“You could fix it,” Mokuba noted, a cautious note in his voice. The statement hung in the air before Mokuba added on, “However.... It would be smarter to just leave it, right?”

Yugi nodded thoughtfully. He could, indeed, work with Mokuba and learn the coding behind the AI. He could certainly adjust the AI so it acted more like Atem. All these things were absolutely possible. However… “If Kaiba duels this AI again,” Yugi said slowly, an idea forming in his head, “I could change its deck. I mean, it’d be more like Atem in that sense. Atem and I always built our deck together. So the real way to start fixing how the AI acts is… for me to build it a new deck. Right?”

A grin split across Mokuba’s face. “Yugi, are you suggesting that we fuck with it?”

Yugi turned to look at the AI’s code before nodding. “I am absolutely suggesting that we fuck with it.”

 Seto was trying to figure out what he should do since Reiki had refused to clear him to work again. He browsed a few Dueling sites to kill time. He knew that things had to have changed since he left. He knew that the meta for Duel Monsters most likely was different and if he wanted to keep up, he’d have to look into the new strategies.

This was, of course, just a distraction. He didn’t want to check his email. His old burner account had to be worthless by now so he set up new burner account. He was annoyed to discover the user “saggithedarkclown” was taken and the person who owned it wouldn’t give it up without payment.

After a minor argument with himself, he bought the username while mentally cursing them for taking the username in the first place. He supposed the real joke was on him for actually paying for it, though. From there, he was able to poke around at the current meta and see what had changed.

As much as the format of the game had changed, it would seem that Yugi was still the undefeated champion. Still the King of Games. There were a couple photos of Yugi at previous exhibition matches with similar determined expressions and the same leather pants he remembered Yugi wearing at Battle City. Or well… the other Yugi, anyway. Additionally, it seemed like people now paid money to view Yugi’s various decks. Seto didn’t know how he felt about that.

He noted the new support cards for his deck and was disgusted to see that Pegasus had reprint the Blue Eyes White Dragon cards during his absence. It felt almost mocking. As if the minute he turned his back, Pegasus took advantage. He knew it was a ridiculous reaction. They were, after all, the intellectual property of Industrial Illusions and Pegasus was free to reprint whatever he saw fit. It still did not make Seto feel any better about it.

There were also new methods of summoning. He’d found a couple videos of Jonouchi, Yugi, and Mai all using the new summoning methods. He’d have to figure out how they worked. Synchro vaguely reminded him of ritual summoning so that might be the easiest to pick up. As for XYZ and Link, however, Seto couldn’t exactly figure them out. As far as he could tell, special summoning was now a major component of the game.

The deeper he  dove, the more he learned about tournaments in the previous four years. It seemed that somehow Jonouchi managed to become a competitive giant. Another thing Seto didn’t know how he felt about. Jonouchi, when Seto had left, was merely a mild irritant who was not as good as he or Yugi. He’d missed seeing a former annoyance climb his way through the ranks. It was a strange thing to realize.

He also noted that Yugi’s last real tournament entry was two years ago. His victory was a surprise to no one. Seto noted that Yugi seemed a little distracted when he won. He wondered what Yugi was thinking at that moment.

Seto was fixating. He wanted to know why Yugi had stopped entering tournaments. Did he think himself too good to Duel? If Seto entered a tournament, would Yugi enter? Did Yugi feel he had nothing left to prove? That would make sense, after all.

A ping pulled him out from his distraction. A message from someone using the handle “kc_blimp” was left on one of his posts about wanting to get back in the game after a three year break . He was surprised to see that the user had left a long and in depth explanation about the new summoning mechanics. He’d have to test them out himself. He was also surprised to see the user noted that Duels tend to be faster with ten turns being “long duels” by modern standards and to expect stall techniques to not work as well as they did four years ago. How much had the game changed in his absence?

Unfortunately for him, there was only one way to have some of his questions answered. He sent the user a private message,

He got a phone call from Pegasus, which he ignored.

 For the past few months, Seto had not once seen Rebecca. He knew she came home occasionally because every single time Rebecca had been in the apartment, there would be a messy table left behind. Rebecca had no concept of how to keep a room clean and it was slowly driving Seto crazy.

The door unlocked and Seto expected to see Mokuba enter. He was not expecting to see a blonde woman that was wearing a denim skirt, a bright blue shirt, and a blue headband walk in. She seemed to be carrying dozens of paper bags and had a heavy looking backpack slung on one shoulder. “Oh, hi, Seto,” she said, kicking the door closed with one of her sharp looking heels. “Are you going to just stand around or are you going to help me with the groceries?”

At first, Seto was appalled by the gall of this woman to just walk into the apartment and address him by first name. It took a moment for him to realize that yes, this was indeed Rebecca Hopkins. She… expected him to help? “Why didn’t you get Isono to take care of that?”

Rebecca sighed as she dumped the bags on the dining table and tossed her backpack right at him. It hit him in the stomach and he nearly doubled over. How did she carry this? The bag felt like it weighed as much as she must. “Unlike you, I do not expect others to take care of me,” she said as she began unloading one of the bags. He was surprised to see so many processed snacks. There was no way Mokuba ate that crap, right? “Seriously, are you going to help or what?”

“Why did you buy so many chips,” he said, alarmed as he set the backpack down then headed over to examine the groceries. At least one bag had vegetables and another had fruits in it, thankfully. The next bag was full of sweets, however… “You don’t need this much sweets.”

“How the fuck do you think I’m going to get through this bitch of a thesis paper,” Rebecca retorted, looking at him as if he’d asked her if Luster Dragon was a normal monster. “Not all of us get handed a company at fifteen, you know. Some of us actually have to work for what we get.”

He was surprised at how blunt she was. This was the girl that Mokuba was dating? She seemed a little rude. No, that was putting it too nicely. Rebecca Hopkins was an absolute nightmare. Had she always been like this? He answered his own question when he remembered that of course she was nasty - she was American. He was surprised at how well she spoke Japanese, however. “Since when did you know how to swear in Japanese,” Seto asked. The last time he’d seen her, her go to choice of swear words was ‘goddamn’ in English peppered into badly spoken Japanese. “Why are you here in Japan?”

“I’m getting my PhD in Engineering from the University of Tokyo,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes as she put the chips in one of the cupboards.

Seto had never opened any of the cupboards in the kitchen. He was surprised to see they were organized. He was even more surprised that Rebecca was following the system the kitchen had.

“I have to know how to speak Japanese in order to attend,” she went on, “considering all my professors speak it. And Mokie taught me.”

Mokie? Did she refer to his brother with a cutesy nickname? Seto was appalled by her. “Sorry, did you say your PhD?” Seto asked as realization set in “Aren’t you nineteen?”

“I started college when I was thirteen.. And I’m actually twenty, so show some respect,” she said, her bright blue eyes glancing up at him sharply and rather dismissively. “Seriously, if you aren’t going to help put things away, why are you here? The meat goes in the fridge, the sweets go in that cupboard, the dips go over there, the wine goes in the wine cooler. Hurry up!”

Since she clearly wasn’t going to let this go, Seto took the bag full of fish, chicken, pork, and what appeared to be a well-marbled steak. Did she cook? She didn’t seem like the kind of person who cooked. He opened the fridge for the first time and noted it was neat. Considering how Rebecca’s desk and nightstand looked, Seto could only deduce either someone was hired to cook or Mokuba cooked. He didn’t know if Mokuba could cook. How could he not know if his brother cooked or not? He made a mental note to avoid mentioning this to his doctor during his next check up, lest they subject him to more tests again. “You do all the grocery shopping?”

“Sometimes Mokie does it since he does all the cooking,” Rebecca said as she started putting away the wine. “But since he’s busy with work, I thought I’d make life easier for him and pick up the groceries. Plus… his birthday’s coming up! I wanted to do something nice for him.”

Mokuba’s birthday was coming up? Had he been back in this world for that long already? He hadn’t bothered keeping track of the days. If Mokuba’s birthday was coming up soon enough for her to be thinking about it… it would have to be June, right? He didn’t want to ask. “So what are you doing for his birthday?”

“Don’t worry about me, worry about you,” Rebecca said, her hands planted on the table as she glared at him. “What did you get him to make up for what you did?”

Seto was taken entirely aback. He wasn’t expecting to meet Rebecca today, much less be confronted about what he’d done. He was nervous now. Were Rebecca’s eyes always this icy? He didn’t know it was possible for one person to look this cold. “Er,” Seto said, stumbling over himself. He looked away from her harsh gaze. “I didn’t get him anything.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “You can pick up the cake, then,” she said, as if it wasn’t up for discussion. He certainly wasn’t about to interject that he didn’t know how to pick up a cake from a bakery. He always had Isono deal with that sort of thing. “I’ve been planning Mokie’s birthday for the past three months and you are not about to ruin it by showing up empty handed. I’ll email you the information about the bakery and where to go.” With that, she’d finished unpacking the rest of the groceries. Seto had barely helped at all but that didn’t seem to matter. She picked up her backpack, tossing it over her shoulder, and moved toward the stairs. “I’m going to go do my homework. Don’t bother me.”

He wouldn’t dream of it.

 For the most part, Mokuba really was okay. He swore it up and down to anyone who asked. But there was a strange feeling in his heart when he looked at his brother. It was like he was being ripped apart to see him looking exactly as he did four years ago when he told him “you’re in charge, Mokuba” before leaving him. He wiped away the tears.

He was okay. He would make himself be okay, he thought idly as he glanced at the mirror in the private bathroom attached to his office. Kaiba Corporation CEOs did not cry, he reminded himself. They did not let things like this tear them down. He held himself high, adjusting his tie. 

He knew what Yugi would say.

That it was okay to cry. That it was okay to be upset. Well, Yugi was wrong. Mokuba couldn’t let anyone see that this rattled him. He’d seen how Kaiba Corporation CEO’s were supposed to act and he would follow it to the letter even as it ripped him apart. He left the bathroom, striding with purpose. Showing weakness would be the same thing as death.

Rebecca knew something was wrong. She always seemed to know when Mokuba wasn’t okay. Thankfully, her classes kept her busy and he never had to face how he really felt for too long. If she was around more often, she might have demanded that he actually go see a therapist again. He’d been doing so good that he hadn’t needed it. Though, to be fair, he’d already insisted prior that Kaibas don’t go to therapy. He almost grinned thinking about how she’d reacted to that.

Despite this, when Yugi had discovered the AI, it changed a lot of things. For one, he now spent extra time trying to pick apart the code with Yugi in Yugi’s office. It was far more complex than anything he’d ever seen and he was amazed Yugi could even keep up.

Yugi had already proven himself an intuitive coder, though. He supposed it would make sense that Yugi would be smart enough to figure out the strange lines of code. “I think this right here is supposed to be based on one of the Battle City duels,” Yugi said with a frown as he examined a complex string of code that seemed to be its own thing. “Kaiba doesn’t like to organize his codes, does he?”

“I think it is organized,” Mokuba said, sitting down in one of the chairs in Yugi’s office. He ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to work through lines. The flags for the reactions seemed to change on their own, as if the code itself was alive. Or maybe Mokuba was finally going crazy. He and Yugi had already spent so long trying to figure out how to adjust just one facet of the AI’s personality that Yugi had noted was off. “It’s just in a way we haven’t figured out yet.”

“So the solution is to think like Kaiba,” Yugi said with a defeated sigh. Mokuba didn’t get why that seemed to be a problem for Yugi. There was once a time when Yugi could easily dissect his brother and accurately deduce what he was thinking. Unless… unless maybe he was mixing up Yugi and Atem again. “If I were Kaiba and I wanted to build a complex AI that could think for itself while dueling… I might…” Yugi’s brow furrowed. “Hm… what if the reason that’s off is because…”

Yugi did something and strangely, the code jumped down several lines in response. Mokuba sat up straighter as he examined the new spot they were in. “He attached that reaction to that,” Mokuba remarked, a little stunned. “Why would he do that?”

“Same old Kaiba,” Yugi remarked. “I think he may have put a lot of important flags behind the Dueling operation. He really did only intend to use this as a Dueling simulator, huh?”

“Before he left, he was planning on creating a virtual world in which Duelists could enter and challenge virtual Duelists. The project was basically complete but never went past the beta stage,” Mokuba remarked, fiddling with the code just a little bit more. He didn’t know if  what they were doing was wise but he knew that if they could make improvements… maybe they could follow up on a project Seto left behind. “A way for everyone to enjoy the game and get better at it. Do you think that it might be a problem if we…”

“Probably,” Yugi said with a shrug. “But if we’re going to give it new decks to play against Kaiba, we need to make sure that the AI can play them optimally.”

“And you don’t think this code could do it?”

He felt offended on behalf of his brother. Yugi had to know that Seto had poured everything into this program. It was supposed to perfectly replicate Seto’s memories of Atem. He was annoyed when Yugi shook his head. “This code’s missing what made Atem such a good Duelist,” Yugi said, a light grin across his face. “A bit of me.”

“This code is designed to perfectly replicate Atem as Seto remembers him and Duel with his exact strategies,” Mokuba said, well aware it wasn’t the best defense of the code. After all… he had to admit that no one knew Atem like Yugi did. “Are you saying Seto doesn’t remember how Atem duels?”

“No,” Yugi said, an odd look crossing his face. “Kaiba dismissed me as a potential rival, remember,” Yugi said, and Mokuba vaguely remembered that. “He probably didn’t think that I contributed much to those Duels, I guess. But we can fix that.”

Mokuba figured that if anyone could fix the AI, it would absolutely be Yugi.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

dance

Written for Day 4 of @aangweek! Read here on AO3.

~*~

4. dance - if you hit a wall, climb over it, crawl under it, or dance on top of it

What year did Fire Lord Sozin battle the Air Nation army?

The Air Nation army.

What army? The ashen remains of bones that littered the Air Temples? The memories of a past erased and rewritten by the conquerors? The whispers and cries of voices drowned out by roaring flames? That army?

Aang shuddered, pulling his knees to his chest. Was that how his people were remembered? As part of a history reformatted and reworked? As aggressors instead of defenders? As casualties, no, as soldiers instead of victims? Was that how the world had chosen to immortalize his people?

Aang sighed, releasing his legs before slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. He wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon. And besides - he could see the sun inching upwards over the horizon. Daybreak had almost arrived, which meant it was only a matter of time before everyone woke up and they continued travelling. There was no point in him trying to catch an extra hour of shut-eye.

Maybe he could meditate for a bit. While he waited for morning to come. It could help him clear his mind, he supposed, of… of those more painful memories. Of false knowledge force-fed down his throat.

But as Aang stood to find an open place for meditation, he was distracted by the presence of Sokka. His friend was already awake, hunched over and scribbling away at his lengthy schedule.

“We can shorten our stay here,” Sokka muttered, “and taking this route shaves two hours off our total travel time if we only take one break instead of two -” He stopped when Aang joined him, the airbender plopping down on a patch of grass. “Good morning?” He paused. “Uh… What are you doing up so early?”

Aang gave his friend an amused smile, folding his legs criss-cross. Considering he himself was usually the first one up, Aang couldn’t help but find Sokka’s question rather hilarious. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Sokka shrugged. “Just trying to rework our schedule. I have to take in account the extra days we stayed in that cave if we want to arrive at the meet-up point for the eclipse invasion on time.”

Aang flinched at the reminder. Of the upcoming eclipse or the additional days he’d encouraged his friends to stay in the city, he wasn’t sure. When Sokka glanced at him, Aang looked away. Down at his feet. “Right. Yeah. I guess we do need to make up for that… lost time.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow, at first not commenting. He rolled up his schedule and placed it aside. “So, why again did you say you were up so early?”

Aang hadn’t.

He sighed, leaning backwards to stare up at the arrival of dawn and bracing himself with his palms. Clouds of orange and red and yellow burned before Aang. Hues not dissimilar to fire. “Dreams.” Memories.

Sokka nodded. “Nightmares?”

“Kind of.”

“Want to talk about them?”

The Air Nomads didn’t have a formal military.

Aang shook his head. “Not really.”

Sokka nodded. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.” He tucked the group’s schedule into his bag. “Want to talk about something else?”

Aang didn’t answer immediately. Stuck on some twisted loop, his mind traced over and over and over the surprise, the shock, the disbelief of every kid’s face in the cave as he’d danced before them. They, too, had been robbed of their childhood. Not in the same way, no. Not at the same price. But it had been stolen from them all the same.

“Do you think I helped them?” Aang finally whispered. His fingers dug into the dirt beneath his palms, collecting behind his nails. “The Fire Nation kids, I mean.” He sat up straight again, this time making eye contact with his friend. “Toph told me I helped them to be free.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Do you… Do you think she was right?”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Uh, what are you talking about?” Aang opened his mouth to explain, but Sokka continued before he could get a word out. “Of course she was right.”

Aang’s voice disappeared into his chest for a full ten seconds before resurfacing. “She was? But it was just a dance par-”

“It wasn’t ‘just’ a dance party, Aang,” Sokka interrupted, giving him a wry smile after his use of dramatic finger quotes. “You gave those kids their first moment of independent thought. I know I called them ‘depraved little monsters’” - Aang snorted at the reminder - “and while I don’t think I was too far off with that assessment, I’ve come to the conclusion that…” Sokka pursed his lips. “Well. Deprived might be a better word.”

Deprived.

Yes, that was fitting.

“I still can’t believe they didn’t know how to dance,” Aang said after a pause. “A hundred years ago, the Fire Nation was - was the place to be for dancing!” He learned everything he knew from Kuzon, after all. “And now…” Aang sighed. “Sure, I gave them a taste of fun, but they’re all going to be punished for it.” If they hadn’t been already. “Was that - Was it even worth it for them?”

“I think it was,” Sokka answered, a thoughtful expression crossing his features. “Like I said - it wasn’t just a dance party.” A beat passed, and he winked at Aang as he held a finger over his lips. “It was a secret dance party.”

Aang laughed. “What are you talking ab-”

“You taught them to challenge authority!” Sokka continued, throwing his hands in the air. “You taught them that sometimes, to learn the real truth, you have to think outside the box and track down other sources.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Aang, you showed them that adults can be wrong. That people in power are not infallible.” Sokka grinned at him. “So you didn’t just teach them to be free. You taught them how to find their own freedom, too. And in a brainwashed, messed-up country like the Fire Nation?” He snorted. “Spirits know they need that.”

Brainwashed… Not an inaccurate term to describe the misinformation - the lies - Aang knew their country had built its new foundation on.

“Thanks, Sokka,” Aang said, giving his friend a soft smile as tension eased from his shoulders. Maybe it was a good thing, then, that he’d stayed those extra days in the cave. Those kids were the future of the Fire Nation. Change would have to start with them.

“You’re welcome, buddy.”

Aang bit his lip. A beat passed. “Can I ask you another question?”

“I mean, you technically just did - kidding, I’m kidding,” Sokka amended as Aang rolled his eyes. “None of you have a sense of humor.”

“Sokka, you know I think you’re the funniest guy in the four nations.”

“And you would be right!” They both laughed, and Sokka continued once their snickering had died down. “But sure, go ahead. What’s on your mind?”

Aang opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated, out of nowhere finding that it was thrice as difficult for air to enter and exit his lungs. How embarrassing for an - the last - airbender.

Deep breaths. In and out.

Well, I don’t know how you could possibly know more than our national history book.

“What… What were you taught about my people?” Aang found himself staring at the ground, at his feet, at anywhere but Sokka’s eyes. “The Air Nomads?”

“Uh… not much,” Sokka admitted, and Aang grimaced. “We knew Sozin massacred them in an attempt to kill the Avatar, which started the war. Gran Gran told us they were a peaceful people, too, and were all really gifted benders.” He hesitated, giving Aang an apologetic glance. “I’m… sorry I don’t know more.”

Aang’s chest ached with an emptiness he sometimes feared would never be filled. But at least Sokka hadn’t been told -

“You know my people didn’t attack first, though?” His voice faltered, and Aang cleared his throat. “That - That they never wanted to fight?”

Sozin defeated them by ambush.

“Yeah,” Sokka said quietly. “I know.”

He forced down the lump in his throat, and when Sokka moved to pull him into a tight embrace, Aang allowed himself to fall apart in his friend’s arms.

When the sun had risen and his tears had dried, Aang spoke.

“After I defeat Fire Lord Ozai… you’re going to dance with me.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “I’m gonna what now?”

“Dance with me.” Aang gave him a small smile. “Come on. Don’t tell me you’re too much of a picken to dance with your best friend.”

Sokka rolled his eyes. “You know what? Sure. Why not. When you defeat Fire Lord Ozai, I’ll dance with you.” He grinned at Aang. “I look forward to it, hotman.”

Aang laughed. “Flameo!”

~*~

i am prepared and willing to throw hands with anyone who says "the headband" ep was pointless filler (it really and truly was not). also, i read something and it said flameo was a curse word, and idk if that's true, but you're welcome to interpret the final line as aang being like "fuck yeah!" if you'd like. thank you for reading, and i hope to see you tomorrow for day 5 - air temples!

[sockknitterporg]

The main bulk of my suffering is directly related to the manufactured "opiate crisis" that has caused untold pain and suffering for so many millions of people for so many, many years. In this essay, I intend to place my experiences in their proper context, as one of a sharply growing series of victims of medical malpractice stemming from the fundamental shift in our society from seeing pain patients as people to be treated, to deriding them as addicts to be suspicious of.

Though it says volumes about our society that we see addicts as fundamentally 'bad' people who deserve homelessness and death instead of as human beings, often times human beings who are suffering greatly and turn to the only thing that makes life even mildly bearable. But that's neither here nor there. (For more information about addiction, see https://tinyurl.com/rat-park )

Our story begins in 1996, when Purdue Pharma (Stamford, CT, USA) released OxyContin, a sustained release oxycodone preparation that is also sold here in the UK. In the US, where such things are legal, it was aggressively marketed and promoted as less dangerous and less addictive than other opiate preparations. (Source & more information about OxyContin's marketing: https://tinyurl.com/oxymarket )

Anyone who thinks a $200 million a year marketing campaign would not spill over to the UK is more than merely obtuse, but likely willfully ignorant. The entire 'opiate epidemic' is an American import, and it started there: with an unscrupulous American company that would stop at nothing to make money.

Lulled into a false sense of security by Purdue's claims of minimal risk of addiction, doctors began prescribing OxyContin much more liberally and for much more than they originally would have. This increased availability set many people up for addiction and overdose deaths.

To most people, that is the bulk of what the 'opiate crisis' is. But there is a secondary crisis unfolding quietly behind closed doors. In the USA, there are "Don't Punish Pain" rallies that at least try to draw attention to the situation ( https://dontpunishpainrally.com ), but here in the UK we are entirely forgotten and buried under the British 'stiff upper lip' mentality. It is completely hushed up, no one talks about the fact that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. (For example: https://tinyurl.com/opiate-pendulum )

The government and/or the NHS have enforced involuntarily tapering of chronic pain patients' medication. Medication we need in order to not spend our lives screaming in agony. The pain management clinic has already warned me that it is, direct quote, "when, not if" I will find my own medication terminated, ready or not.

But there will be no 'ready'. Chronic pain does not get better with time. Chronic pain does not go into remission. If you know someone with chronic pain who appears to be 'getting better', I can promise you it is merely that the sufferer has learned to better conceal it. It's a saying in the chronic pain community, "We don't fake being ill. We fake being well."

We have learned that the average person only has about two weeks of compassion in them, after that you're treated as a freak for not getting better already, or outright accused of malingering. After all, with all of modern science, can't you just go to the doctor and get a pill and be done with it? Our concept of illness is either 'you go to the hospital, get treated, and come out okay' or 'you go to the hospital, waste away, and die'. Chronic pain patients, who never get better, but aren't actively dying, don't fit in to our society's 'concept' of illness.

People who offer to help us out for the social brownie points of helping the poor cripple soon discover that we're not going to die, we're going to continue to need help for the forseeable future. Rather than gracefully admitting that they don't have the ability to help us in perpetuity (which would be perfectly understandable!), most people choose to lash out at us, we must be abusing their kindness, they helped so we must surely be better by now. Compassion fatigue seems to hit every single human being that interacts with us, as if merely existing while disabled is wearing on their ability to remain civil. (Compassion fatigue: https://tinyurl.com/2-week-fatigue )

Doctors have even less compassion than that. In the backlash of the 'crisis', they have begun to treat anyone who complains of pain, unilaterally, as a drug seeker. And those of us already in treatment? Are addicts in need of rehab. (More examples: https://tinyurl.com/drs-no-compassion )

Despite study after study (Studies: https://tinyurl.com/no-taper ) showing that tapering chronic pain patients unequivocally causes severe harm, up to and including death, the pain management team said to my face that I am, direct quote, "addicted to heroin" and "no different from my four year old grandson, demanding a choccy biscuit because he doesn't know they'll rot his teeth. And I have to smack him and tell him NO! And I'll smack you, too, if it'll get you off those drugs!" (Somehow my complaint that a doctor had literally smacked his hands in front of my face to demonstrate that he was sincere in his threat to physically assault me.... mysteriously got lost.)

I have been denied treatment for other (non-opiate) methods of reducing my pain because, direct quote, "it doesn't matter as long as you're on those drugs, opiates actually make you more sensitive to pain in the long run, so there's no sense trying anything else if you won't get clean." They talk to me like taking my medication responsibly, as prescribed, is the same as shooting up black tar. All in the hopes of bullying or shaming me into "voluntarily" tapering.

Honestly just living under these conditions alone would be enough to snap my mental health in half, but you have to remember that I'm not only facing all of this systemic bullying and professional misconduct while also living with pain that has often been compared to late stage cancer and chemotherapy ( https://tinyurl.com/fibro-chemo ), as well as debilitating fatigue, and a shroud of fog hanging around my brain and clouding my memories and judgments (and at times, my ability to speak English). Everyone's first reaction is "did you report them? you should report them. why didn't you report them!" as if I'm too stupid to have thought of that myself. But I don't have the energy for the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare that is dealing with the NHS's administration, especially not when I could have my entire life destroyed by a doctor's bruised ego penning into my file "patient was uncooperative and combative, suspect drug abuse".

It's only a matter of time before I choose suicide over another sleepless night of laying in bed and praying for death. And when that time comes, I hope that my name is added to the long, bloodstained list of people who have killed themselves not out of any sort of depression, but because their entire existence is built on pain and suffering and enough becomes enough for the last time. Drop my body on the steps of the CDC, which is the main driving force behind the opiate witch hunt. Maybe death will at least bring me some measure of peace.

[smuckersblr]

Clueless Part 1

Peter tapped his freshly manicured french nails on the marbled countertop. Italian music was softly playing on the stereo near the fridge, the TV in the living room across from where he stood was playing the muted news. Another attack in Manhattan taken care of by the red robot that everyone is calling IronMan.

Peter huffed and looked over the dieted food for his dad he had just packed for his lunch, and waited for the coffee to be done pouring. “Daddy! Hurry up you’re gonna be late for your meeting!” Peter’s dad, Tony Stark, was a world-renowned businessman/engineer.

And Peter was his ‘infamous child prodigy’, is what Dr.Strange, his dad’s close friend, likes to call him. Peter was the popular kid at school, the one who knew how to dress amazingly enough to be on the cover of ELLE with his famous everyday outfits, the kid that had all A’s and was on the honor roll each year and won many science conventions first place awards; and yet he was still known to be the most liked and admired at school.

Peter bit his glossed lips while examining his manicure, thinking about the dinner tonight that he had to go to with his dad, something about ‘linking up with old friends. Tony came into the room through the arch and was fixing his tie while looking at his watch.

“Pete don’t tell me you made that crap diet food for me today, I’m gonna have a long day of meetings and a burger already sounds amazing for lunch.” Peter scrunched up his freckled nose in distaste at the grease patty his father called heaven.

Peter poured his dad's coffee in a stainless steel coffee cup. “Daddy you know Dr. Strange said that it’s the best way to help if you want to live past fifty.” Tony rolled his eyes and took the packed food and coffee cup anyways. “So now you're going to listen to whatever that man tells you?” Peter pecked his dad’s cheek, rubbing away the gloss smudge with his thumb with a fond smile.

“I’m gonna listen to any man with a Bachelor's degree daddy.” His dad smiled fondly and hugged his son. “That’s my boy.” And before Tony left through the archway to the foyer he turned around and looked Peter up and down.

“You and the girls plan something for after school? Because you know we’re going out tonight kid.” Peter looked down over his clothes for the day. A Versace dual print button-up that reached down midthigh with white shorts. And a white Gucci belt to cinch his waist to show his figure and his white leather Prada pumps with his Speedy Bandouliere 25 to tie everything together.

“We’re matching today and it was Nat’s turn to pick the designer, and I know dad all you’ve been talking about is this dinner.” Tony hummed and sipped his coffee, rolling his eyes at his son’s attitude but, never-the-less hugged Peter and both walked out to the front of their round-about cobbled driveway and both went into their respectable vehicles.

----------

Once Peter rolled up to Natasha’s giant house with the same green patch of luscious grass and beautifully cut bushes around the property with giant gates at the entrance, Peter honked twice, and while waiting he checked himself out in his bedazzled hand mirror.

His curls for the day were in wet-styled auburn curls and his eyes were glossed with a wet shine and blush blended perfectly into his tan skin from his dad’s last business trip in Mexico. Peter smiled at the enchanting memory of mimosas being handed to him on the beach with the sound of waves crashing in the background and oiled pure white skin under the blazing sun and the sound of beautiful Latino music playing at the beach’s bar behind him.

Peter remembered the dream-like Hispanic men lounging around him in swimming shorts and glorious brown skin and bright white smiles. His dad finally enjoyed his time without work or stress at the bar, smiling and laughing with beautiful Latina women.

Peter snapped out of his loving memory when Natasha jumped in the front seat of his white topless jeep.

“Hey Pete, hurry so we can get to Shuri’s house, I don’t want to hear her complain about being late to class.” She rolled her eyes lovingly and looked at herself through the front seat mirror and pushed up her curls.

He snorted at Nat's teasing and pulled away from the curb. “You know that outfit will catch Steve’s eye right?” She looked me up and down with a devilish smirk on her red painted lips, Peter always did admire how she pulled off red so damn well.

Peter looked over at her once they hit a red light. “Every outfit I wear catches that man’s eye, Nat.” Then another burst of laughter came out from both of them.

Once Peter pulled up to Shuri’s house, he already knew she was gonna give them hell for the time.

Peter absentmindedly looked at the time on the jeep, only ten minutes ‘till the bell rings, they’ve got plenty of time. Shuri came in the car with a flourish of the door slamming shut and a huff that came from her lips. While Peter was pulling away from the curb he looked in the rearview mirror and smiled at Shuri.

“What’s got you in a fit S?” Shuri flung a strand of her box braid behind her shoulder in annoyance and sulked in the back with her Prada handbag clutched in her lap. “T’Challa was actin’ lame this mornin’, only because I asked him why he was acting out last night with his friends,” And once Shuri started talking about her brother, both Natasha and Peter tuned in, even when they arrived in the school’s parking lot, the deets on T was always juicy.

“Get this guys I overheard T talkin’ about you Pete and how he’s surprised your daddy hasn’t sent you to a catholic school already because he and his friends think you're easy, then somehow that turned into a convo on how he would totally--and I quote--"Tap that ass".” She said this conversationally while all three of them were walking towards the school with their heels clicking and bags in hand.

Peter gawked and Nat let out a snort. “Okay, but doesn’t he know that Pete is a total virgin?” Nat brought up while Peter was minutely speechless for the first time in forever and then he snapped back to life. “What a skeeze.'' Both girls nodded in resolution and then they split for class once they got into the school’s hallway.

———

At lunch Peter walked to his and the girls' table in the middle of the outside cafeteria with a lime popsicle in one dainty hand, sucking the tip of the icy treat while soaking in the glances he got from his peers. Peter sat with a flourish and waved at the girls in greeting.

“Pete whatcha doing tonight I wanna see if you could go shopping with us.” Wanda leaned forward with her chewing gum on one finger while she chewed on her apple slices.

Peter pouted, “Sorry Wand, I got this dinner thing with my dad and his friends tonight.” Wanda gave a humph and hunched her shoulders. “You know I find it weird how Pete’s dad is an actual DILF and his friends are just as fine.” Shuri brought up, which got the girls around the table nodding in agreement. Peter rolled his eyes and flipped Shuri off when she broke out laughing.

Lunch had just begun but usually, Steve would be right next to Peter with his macchiato in hand. “Looking for your boy toy?” Shuri swirled a baby carrot in the dollop of the ranch she only treated herself to once a month.

Peter grimaced and shook his head indifferently, sucking the treat back into his mouth with an eye roll from his friend's laughter. Peter knew that Steve had it for him and was at his beck and call even if he acted like he was just doing it to be nice.

Peter rarely felt guilty for using his crush to his advantage but he also explicitly told Steve that he wasn’t looking to date anyone. Besides his father would go ballistic on him, he distinctly told him he wasn’t allowed to date anyone, and I quote, ‘until you find a guy who has his own business that I can buy and make sure that I have control over him’.

Peter was drawn out of his thoughts when he realized there was a shadow cast over him. Peter turned and titled his head up, there standing was his saving grace in the hands of his best friend. “One almond milk macchiato with no foam and two shots of espresso for my very beautiful best friend, Peter Stark.”

Sam by Steve’s side made a face and looked at Steve hurt, “I thought I was your beautiful best friend.” Steve ignored him though and smiled beamingly at Peter’s plucked arched eyebrow. “You gonna give me it or are you also my handler.” Nat by his side snorted and shook her head. “Not until you look at my outfit Stark.” Peter rolled his eyes with an apathetic air to him.

Peter didn’t like playing Steve’s silly games, but he still wanted his coffee and he wanted it now. So he let his eyes roam up and down Steve’s body. A Classic Damier Pique polo and nice fitted dusty blue slacks. He wore a smirk on those lips every female seemed to love and his blonde hair was slicked back with a pair of black Gucci sunglasses on his head.

Peter furrowed his brows and glared at Natasha who was pointedly not catching his eyes. “Did Nat tell you we were matching with Louis today?”

“Just took a wild guess, cuz I know she knows what I like on you.” Peter rolled his eyes and feigned a vexed look. “You know I told you I can't have you flirting with me Stevie, I'm not allowed to date.” Steve shrugged his shoulders and handed over Peter’s drink.

“You know you can't keep me away from you, doll.” Sam scoffed next to him and shook his head, walking away from the situation and heading towards the benches where their friends stood.

“You better follow your only source of affection before he decides to not hold your hand anymore when your feelings get hurt.” Peter waved his hand in a dismissive way and turned back to the table.

Steve shook his head, even though Peter wasn’t paying any more attention to him. Sometimes Steve wishes he could just smack the sense into Peter that he would do anything to be with him. Maybe instead of a smack, it’d be a kiss.

----------

At Eleven Madison Park, Peter dined with his father, Rhodey, and Dr. Banner. The bright smiles and charisma felt like second nature to Peter, he was taught great mannerisms by his Nonna and Nonno when he used to stay at their condo in Malibu while his dad was out on business trips.

“Listen, all I'm saying Tony, is that Pete has the credentials to be a part of my branch.” Bruce held his hands up in surrender. Peter sipped the glass of champagne idly, pretending that he wasn’t the face of this conversation.

“Oh trust me, I know my genius son has the credentials to be a part of any big business. But I rather him not work for anyone,” Tony cut a piece of steak with vigor and popped it in his mouth.

“Besides he’s too much like me, he wouldn’t listen to you Bruce, he likes challenges.” Bruce laughed and shook his head, looking over at Peter with a smile.

“The kids gotta start somewhere Tones.” Rhodey pointed out with a raised brow, his eyes going over to Peter where he was cutting a sliver from his seasoned lamb. “Jeez, Rhodes you say it like my son can’t start out big.” Tony lifted his wine glass to his lips with a stubborn glint to his eyes, he always did get protective of his son.

“I never said that-” Rhodey was cut off by a phone's ringtone chiming. Tony grunted and pulled out his stark phone with an annoyed air to him. Rhodey looked over to Peter and gave a pleading look, “I never said that Pete.” Peter laughed under his breath and lifted his champagne flute towards Rhodey in a tribute to his faith in the man. “I know Rhodey.”

Rhodey smiled and saluted his glass back, sipping his white wine and looking over at Bruce trying to not grimace at his meal. “Whoever thought to themselves that, “oh yes lamb's tongue sounds like a great meal to serve” should be in prison.” that got Peter smiling wider and knocked the toe of his heel to Bruce’s shin lightly, playfully.

The rest of the dinner was spent with laughs and more teasing, but soon rolled into business talk like it usually trickled into with every event they go to. But before his dad started going on one of his rants on his current projects, Dr. Banner quickly set his wine glass down from lifting to his mouth and hurriedly said: “Maybe we shouldn’t get into details while Peter is still here?”. The words make Peter stop mid-bite and look up from his plate to see the shifty eyes of one Dr. Banner and Tony Stark. Rhodey seemed just as confused and paused in his own autopilot of taking a sip from his tumbler. But before Peter could try and butt in and demand a reason, the waiter came by and asked if they would like any dessert, to which Peter got distracted by his father shoving a menu of the small assortment of desserts the restaurant served. Tony knew his son had a thing for sweets and got lost in his own world easily once he focused on something else. One point to daddy Stark and zero to the poor spawn of the billionaire.

[rusty-tetanus-nail]

Never Look Away

Summary: Dean and Cas are forced to redefine their relationship as a decade old secret between them finally comes to light.

Dean jumps up, strangely offended.

“Okay, first of all, you’ve seen my browser history. Your true form doesn’t even make my top 10 weirdest things I’ve jerked off to, so that's a load of bull..."

Notes: This is the result of listening to Never Look Away by Vienna Teng for 10 hours gay.

-------

Careful not to wake him, Dean traces the outlines of Cas’s body illuminated by the reddish hues of the morning sun with his fingers. He can hardly believe it’s only been a year since they defeated God and pulled Cas out of the Empty with the promise of a love returned. 

So much has changed in such little time. With the illusion of free will no longer binding Dean to a greater destiny and with Cas and Dean’s own feelings out in the open he finally allowed himself to want all the things he denied himself for so long, always prioritizing other people’s happiness over his own. Now he has it all. A house, a job, a family, a life, Cas. It was so hard at first, to stop looking for hunts and letting go of Sam so he too could start his own life with Eileen by his side, but in the end Dean had been too tired to fight his own desires any longer and gave in.

Fuck the voice of his father telling him his only purpose in life was to watch out for Sammy and fuck the man John wanted him to be. He helped save this world so he gets to live in it in whatever way he wants to and what he wants is to live his cheesy apple pie life waking up every day next to the man he loves.

Cas stirs in his sleep and Dean watches the translucent wings flutter against the light seemingly drinking up the morning sun. They used to be pitch black back when they first met. A beautiful sight, yet not quite fitting the man Cas would eventually become.

Then they burned and Dean could barely stomach to look at them knowing how much the culmination of all of Dean’s mistakes had hurt Cas so irreparably. And now the wings are whole again and even more awe-inspiring than before. Something about Dean rescuing Cas from the Empty or maybe a blessing from Jack has restored them leaving Dean with the desperate urge to touch the intangible. Watching one of the smaller eyes on Cas’ wings slowly flutter open Dean wonders if it would be rude to ask about the colour change and chuckles. The way the wings shimmer with all the colours of the rainbow is just so wonderfully, blatantly gay.

“What’s so funny?” Cas mumbles half asleep as a couple more eyes flutter open searching for the source of Dean’s amusement.

Dean leans over, one hand caressing Cas’ jaw and kisses him softly good morning.

“I just love you so damn much.” He whispers only inches away from his husband’s mouth and rests his forehead against Cas’.

Cas moves back to study Dean’s face questioningly. The familiar stare is so much more intense now that Dean can take all of Cas in without suffering through the burning sensation that always accompanied laying his eyes on something filled with angelic grace. 

Dean swallows hard. Having all of Cas’ eyes so solely focussed on him and him alone is such a major turn on. He must be doing it on purpose. It’s unfair how such a simple action has so much of an effect on Dean.

“I don’t understand how that’s funny.” Cas says, one eyebrow raised.

“Then come and find out.”

Dean’s mind is already too far gone to care for the conversation and he pulls Cas closer by his shirt desperate to embrace the parts of Cas that he can actually touch. Now fully awake, Cas reciprocates the action enthusiastically pressing their lips together earnestly and climbing on top of Dean to explore his body with his hands and mouth. Not for the first time Dean curses his past self for not allowing himself to be loved by Cas years ago. There’s so much time they have yet to make up for. Luckily they’re both more than willing to try.

Dean’s musings are cut short when Cas’ attentions move downward as Dean’s legs get pushed apart and Cas presses against Dean’s growing erection. 

“Fuck, Cas!” Dean groans and sees new galaxies forming inside Cas’ body. Always good to know that Cas enjoys this as much as Dean does.

The prodding stops and Dean lets out an embarrassing whine.

“Not yet.” Cas teases with a grin, all of his eyes’ attention once again on Dean alone. The bastard. Dean has half the mind to hit him upwards with his knee in retaliation, but soon gets distracted by Cas intertwining his hands with Dean’s and leaning down slowly to kiss the sensitive spot on Dean’s neck. He gasps and moves his neck so Cas can take him apart much easier.

In their closeness Cas’ celestial body engulfs Dean in his entirety and he is left again, breathless, by the unfathomable sight of his lover’s true form. Stars and skies in colours not named by men expand and swirl inside the translutient depths of the oceans and galaxies that make up the angels body as the golden halos’ luminescence submerges them both in it’s light. Dean would lose himself in the sight if it weren’t for the thousands of eyes, holding the knowledge of millenia, watching him unblinkingly in a way that is so Cas, so human, that Dean can’t see anything else but his stupid socially awkward self-sacrificing husband.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” Dean blurts out, giving voice to his thoughts.

Cas flinches away as if burned, his true form doing much the same. He wavers back against the bedroom wall as far away as possible from his vessel and curls in on himself. At least Dean assumes that’s what Cas is trying to do. Cas' true form, once taller than any skyscraper, has shrunk significantly with the absence of grace powering him up, but is still far too large to fit completely inside a house let alone a room.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks sitting up.

Cas turns away, his eyes fluttering across the room looking for an escape. Dean gingerly places a hand on Cas’ shoulder and is relieved when he’s not pushed away.

“Hey, Cas, buddy. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I know it’s weird coming from me, but let’s not do this again. No more unnecessary secrets. Please.”

Cas takes Dean’s hand into his and nods. One slow measured breath and he starts talking.

“Dean, I- I know you can’t help seeing me this way, but I dislike it when you comment on my appearance.”

Cas’ vessel is still turned away, but out of the corner of his eyes Dean can see Cas, the real Cas, watching his reaction with interest.

“Well, uh, okay, if it makes you uncomfortable I can stop.” Dean starts awkwardly. “But let me assure you there is absolutely no reason for you to feel insecure about the way you look, you’re-” Dean trails off. You’re mind blowingly gorgeous and sometimes your beauty is so overwhelming that I’m scared I’ll cry if I look too closely.

At Dean's words, Cas finally turns to face him.

“I’m not ‘insecure’, Dean.” Cas bites out emphasizing his irritation with air quotes. “In fact my true form is counted as one of the most attractive among my brethren.” 

Dean raises an eyebrow. No argument there. Cas is by far the prettiest angel he’s ever seen.

“And I am well aware that you find my vessel visually pleasing, but Dean, what you’re complimenting is not me. It’s Jimmy Novak.”

“Uh, Jimmy’s a good looking guy for sure, but the one who’s beautiful is definitely you.”

Instead of being reassured by Dean’s words Cas just sighs resignated.

“It’s kind of you to refer to my inner beauty, but we both know this is not what you meant. You see Jimmy’s face and call it beautiful. I don’t begrudge you for this but don’t like being confused with him.”

Oh Cas definitely has insecurities. How can he even think Jimmy fucking Novak is anywhere near as attractive as Cas himself?

“No, I meant exactly what I said. You, the you you, are fucking hot.”

Cas’ frowns, unhappy with Dean’s reply.

“It’s okay. I understand. It’s hard to keep Jimmy’s body and I seperate. There’s no need for you to backtrack to make me feel better. Let’s just stop arguing about this.”

“Oh no Jon Snow. Not so fast. Let me put this in terms even you and your insecure ass will understand.”

Dean takes Cas’ face into his hands and stares deeply into his eyes. The staring is a habit from back when Cas was still fully juiced up. With the angel grace making it near impossible to look at Cas’ true form without feeling like his eyes were on fire, the vessel's eyes were the only place Dean’s own could safely escape to.

“Your true form is incredibly attractive. Very sexy. Wings and all. If I could hit that, I would. Inner beauty not required.” He speaks slowly as if to a child. Apparently it was the wrong thing to do as Cas slaps Dean’s hands away unable to suppress his irritation any longer.

“Dean, you’ve never seen my true form and I can assure you if you had, its inhuman nature would stop you from ‘hitting that’.”

Dean jumps up, strangely offended.

“Okay, first of all, you’ve seen my browser history. Your true form doesn’t even make my top 10 weirdest things I’ve jerked off to, so that’s a load of bull and second of all…”

Dean grows quiet. What does Cas mean with Dean’s never seen his true form before? Wasn’t the ability to see angels part of being the Michael Sword or something? How could Cas not know? And even if he didn’t, they’ve known each other for over ten years. It must’ve come up at some point. 

Dean rifles through his memories desperate to find the right one, but draws a blank and visibly blanches. 

Cas had no reason to believe Dean could see him. Back when they first met, Cas made some assumptions and Dean didn’t correct him, not trusting the self proclaimed angel an inch. And then it’s always been the vessel Dean’s been talking to, never the one puppeteering it. At first out simple necessity, then out of pure habit. 

Determined to rectify their decade old misunderstanding Dean makes his way through the bedroom and sits down right in front of what Dean assumes must be the angel equivalent of Cas’ face or maybe his hand. Either way the body part has enough eyes to have an honest conversation with and has been observing Dean and the vessel talk this whole time. 

This is Cas. The real Cas. And it’s high time for Dean to stop averting his eyes.

Cas squirms under his stare.

“Dean, childishly staring at an empty wall won’t solve this.” Cas argues from behind Dean and Dean has to suppress the urge to turn around. The voice might be coming from the vessel, but the one talking is the angel in front of him.

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Dean says, looking directly into one of Cas’ bigger eyes. Cas freezes momentarily at the direct eye contact and then his eyes swirl around frantically trying to find whatever it is that Dean’s looking at. Dean's stomach tightens. It hasn’t been fair to make Cas feel as if he’s invisible just because it’s easier for his stupid human brain to talk to the vessel.

Dean reaches out attempting to touch the nervously fluttering wing next to him, but as expected his hand moves right through it. He smiles sadly.

“I’m sorry, Cas. It seems there’s something I’ve neglected to tell you. I thought you knew, but that’s not an excuse.” Dean pauses. “I’ve always been able to see you.”

There’s a storm brewing inside Cas, a tension. One wrong move and a star could explode setting off a supernova that is held at bay by nothing but a shimmering skin made of light and colours. His husband is nervous at the possibility of being seen, Dean realises and has no choice but to confirm Cas’ worry.

“When you were still full of grace I couldn’t look directly at you without fearing for my eyes, so I got used to looking at your vessel instead, but I’ve always known and seen the real you.”

Ever since Dean could remember gigantic and intangible creatures taller than skyscrapers with wings that could pierce the heavens have been watching him from a distance, their countless eyes following his every move. Scary, yet unimaginably beautiful. As a child Dean would try to describe them and ask what they were, but apart from his mom there was never anyone trying to hear him out.

“Children and their imagination.” Adults would say and ruffle his hair whenever he tried to ask about them and by the time he was four he realised that he’s the only one who could see them.

Then his mom died and all his questions and curiosity were left behind in the ruins of their broken home. Dean learned quickly that John had no use for children and their imaginary friends. He needed to grow up and become a soldier for his family’s sake. So he followed the orders, and pretended not to see these watchers following him around.

Later, when Dean was a teen and John was gone most of the time, Sam often dragged him to libraries and Dean would do his own research on the creatures in secret, too scared to ask anyone for help. John made it pretty clear he didn’t want Dean talking about them and Dean feared that if he told someone and didn’t have proof of their existence Dean would be sent off to a mental ward for seeing things that were simply not there. In the end it took dying and coming back to life to find his answers.

Despite having seen these creatures all of his life, when they summoned the one named Castiel, Dean needed a moment to figure out what he was seeing. He’s never been this close to any of them and the proximity was overwhelming. Dean was suddenly acutely aware just how Pamela's eyes could've been burned out so easily by the creature's visage.

In an attempt not to suffer the same fate as her, Dean averted his eyes and spotted a man entering the barn, his body connected with small tendrils to the large creature around him. A puppet, Dean thought, one he could touch and subsequently kill, so without another moment's hesitation Dean took the first shot. And then the second, a third. Neither the puppet nor the creature were faced by his attempts to fight, merely curious. As if Dean was nothing more but an ant trying to fight a giant.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.” The puppet finally said, inhuman in everything but his appearance and so Dean stabbed him as a thanks for the introduction. Next thing he knew, Bobby was down and the guy began claiming to be an angel.

“There’s no such thing.” Dean said, but the voice of his mother telling him that angels were watching over him thought differently.

The man’s body straightened and the creature, Castiel, stood up, his form ending far beyond the barn’s roof and he spread his wings. Bolts of lighting exploded into an array of mesmerizing fireworks and Dean was left breathless before the angel. His terrifying beauty nesting deep inside Dean’s heart and he knew he was lost.

“No, you must be lying.” Cas says as his body trembles under Dean’s stare.

“I’m not.” Dean replies, leaving no room for debate and moves closer to Cas, who seems to be trying to escape through the bedroom wall. “So believe me when I say that you’re fucking beautiful and only thinking about you watching me with your many many eyes is enough to make me hard.”

Cas sputters incoherently and his body changes colours rapidly, eventually settling on a pinkish sort of hue. Oh. That’s new. Dean grins.

“Cas, Huggybear, are you blushing?” Dean teases, taking immense amusement in this new discovery. Cas swirls him around in an attempt to make Dean look at his vessel again, but with a true form as big as Cas’ it’s not hard to find a new part of Cas’ body to focus his attention on.

“No.” Cas growls defensively. “Stop looking.”

“Make me.” The reply is a bit cliché but Dean isn’t trying to win an Oscar. He’d much rather film a porn instead.

In the blink of an eye Dean is encased possessively in Cas’s wings and pushed onto the bed with urgency. Fuck yes.

[idiopath-fic-smile]

an In Defiance of all Geometry coda

another installment in the “donate at least $25 to a BLM-related cause and i’ll write at least 250 words of fic” series, which is still ongoing!

Somehow, even with all of their belongings packed into boxes, even after surviving the arduous project of putting said belongings into said boxes (how do people acquire so many things over the course of daily life? It’s hard to fathom) Combeferre can barely believe they’re moving out of Amis House.

“Well,” says Combeferre, swallowing past a lump in his throat.

“Well,” says Enjolras, placing a firm and reassuring hand on Combeferre’s shoulder.

“Uh hey, can I get through?” says Marius, and Combeferre moves away, feeling a pang of the usual guilt that manifests specially when he forgets about Enjolras’s roommate.

(Usually, this comes accompanied by white-hot embarrassment because usually it comes up when Combeferre fails to recall Marius’s presence for long enough to start getting physical with Enjolras, or occasionally Grantaire. There’s a reason Grantaire, Combeferre, and Enjolras spend so much of their time in Combeferre’s single, and it’s partly just so Combeferre has a place to let his blushes disperse. Marius is a nice enough person to never give Combeferre a difficult time about these little misadventures, but for one thing, it is humiliating to have to apologize to someone so repeatedly, disastrously wrong about the legacy of Ronald Reagan.)

(No, Combeferre is never letting that go. It’s Reagan.)

Grantaire appears in the doorway. “Bahorel’s truck is ready to go,” he announces. Bahorel has agreed to help the three of them move to their new two-bedroom in exchange for a loaf of homemade banana bread and “ten points.” Bahorel has absolutely refused to explain what the points are, or how or when they might be redeemed.

“Oh, you’ll know,” Bahorel had said, which might’ve sounded ominous, except there was a kitten in his shirt pocket at the time, specifically Jehan’s new all-black kitten which Jehan claimed off-handedly was “a down payment in future witchery” but whose name, as far as Combeferre could determine, was Semicolon, and Combeferre is struck anew by the force of how much he’ll miss living with nearly all his friends within arm’s reach.

“Oh hey, are there feelings happening in here?” Grantaire asks with a gentle smile, a smile that laughs with and not at. “Hey Marius.”

“Hey,” says Marius.

“We had so many good years in this place,” says Combeferre quietly.

“True,” says Grantaire, “and think of the better years to come.”

Enjolras shoots him an impressed look, and Combeferre can’t avoid a smile at that.

“Oh, to be clear, I’m not growing as a person,” says Grantaire, “I just like to practice a little something called reverse-nostalgia.”

“How does it work?” Comebeferre asks as the three of them make their first trip out to the truck. 

“Easy,” Grantaire says, straining a little under the weight of his box but gallantly not letting it show. “You say, ‘How can we leave a place so full of good memories?’ and then I say, ‘Hey Combeferre, remember that time the heat broke in the dead of winter and we all had to cuddle together in the common room like a litter of orphaned puppies?’”

“Of course he remembers that night,” says Enjolras, voice a little rumbly and Combeferre ducks his head in a way that reminds Grantaire, oh right, that was when those two crazy kids got together.

“Okay,” Grantaire perseveres, dropping his box in Bahorel’s flatbed. “But do you remember when we had all those guest co-opers and that white dude with dreadlocks was a total asshole?”

“Undoubtedly Enjolras remembers,” says Combeferre, grinning, “because that was when he started to realize he had feelings for you.”

Grantaire is very glad he’s not still carrying a box because all those breakable valuables would be toast.

“What?”

“Have you never heard that story?” Combeferre asks. “We’ll have to fill you in sometime.”

“Reverse-nostalgia is harder than it sounds,” Enjolras observes, giving Grantaire a playful shove and Grantaire has to suppress a smile because he knows it’s a weird thing to be smiley about, but both of them being relaxed enough and confident enough to mess around is still a little new and exciting.

“Okay,” says Grantaire, “okay, but remember the gnarly ant infestation we had last spring? The new place looked promisingly bug-free.”

“Fair point,” says Enjolras as Combeferre shudders. “Reverse-nostaliga has its charms.”

The new place feels gigantic, even once all their possessions are moved in, even compared to the enormity of Amis House. It takes Enjolras a second to locate the emotion: it feels so expansive because it’s theirs. Just theirs. It feels like a betrayal of socialist principles, but Enjolras will not miss, for example, the prospect of Marius walking in at any time.

They all stand there a moment, in the middle of what will be the living room, just taking it in.

“Reverse-nostalgia,” says Combeferre. “Romanticize the future,” and Enjolras can tell by the set of Combeferre’s mouth that it’s a quote, although he’s unsure of the source. He agrees, at any rate.

“Shall we?” Enjolras says, and with that, they start unpacking.

They’ve been at it maybe five minutes when Enjolras finds a box labelled “ART SHIT” and dutifully starts to carry it to the room they’ve designated Grantaire’s studio. It’s not big, but Grantaire has made several approving comments about the light, and then hearteningly few self-deprecating jokes about being the kind of person who cares about the light.

“Hey,” says Grantaire, appearing at his elbow. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure what?” says Enjolras.

“It wouldn’t be that hard to get a futon.” Grantaire’s chewing his lip a little.

Enjolras sets down the box. “Hey Combeferre!” he calls. “Grantaire’s doubting his place in the triad again!”

Combeferre walks into the room.

“He said he wants to sleep alone,” says Enjolras, and Combeferre makes the correct concerned face.

“No!” says Grantaire. “No, no, to be clear that is not what I’m doing.” He pauses. “I just, don’t you think, maybe it should look like two people here are dating and one person is the awkward third wheel, in case any relatives come to visit?”

“You’ve met my mom,” Combeferre says mildly. “You know that the day after your first gallery show she asked if it would be offensive to knit a Christmas stocking for a Jewish person. You’re in.”

Grantaire does that thing where he tries hard to pretend he isn’t glowing and turns to Enjolras. “You have relatives,” he says doggedly. “They don’t sound like they’d approve--”

“They probably wouldn’t,” says Enjolras. Then, “We talked about this. We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and that means we have nothing to hide. If anyone in my life can’t deal with me dating two people I love and who love me, then they’re cordially invited to exit my life.”

“Shit,” says Grantaire, “you’re glorious when you’re like this, you know that? And same, same, you put it well.”

“So then what’s the problem?” says Combeferre.

Grantaire hesitates. “Maybe I just, uh, needed a little reassurance?” he manages, and despite his protestations, he is clearly growing as a person.

Combeferre and Enjolras share a look, and then they’re on him, a tangle of frantically fond arms that resolves into a three-way hug. Combeferre has said before that the three-person hug is a great argument for their particular model of polyamory, and Enjolras has to agree.

“I’m so glad we’re doing this with you,” Enjolras murmurs into Grantaire’s hair. He feels Grantaire nod. “Also, we’re not letting you out until you accept that you will never, ever be the awkward third wheel of this equation.”

“Hey,” says Grantaire, laughing as Combeferre and Enjolras both hold firm, “you know it’s a process.”

“We know,” says Combeferre. “Thai for dinner tonight?”

“Sounds great,” says Grantaire, and Enjolras nods, ready to start goddamn romanticizing the future.