#jacob coe

[stymshots]

Coe Red

[atonalginger]

Snippet Sunday

thanks for the tag and reminder @therealgchu! It's been quite the week as I recover from last week and....just everything...but I did get some writing done on Reclaiming Home and so I have a snippet to share. I'm in the home stretch with this fic, and then it's off to...whichever fic I have juice for...probably back to RatD but who knows? Only time will tell...

Anyway this is a chunk from the next chapter in RH

--

Sam’s comms buzzed in his pocket and his posture deflated like a disappointed balloon. He dragged it out and stared at the cover display, a sour expression on his face.

“It’s Gramps, isn’t it?” Cora asked, “Don’t deny it, I know that look.”

His expression softened slightly, “can’t get anything by you.” Sam flipped open the comms and answered the call, laying down the device on the table so everyone could hear, “I had heard you were in town.”

“Yes, it wasn’t a secret,” Jacob said. The sounds of songbirds and moving water indicated he was outside, likely near the lakeside in the Embassy district, “I was asked to help with some negotiations, nothing special.”

“Here I thought you were retired,” Sam glanced across the table at Jamie.

She could see him yearning for her to be closer. She reached her right leg out under the table and rubbed his leg with her foot. He smiled and reached down, touching her calf and rubbing up her leg before letting it drop.

“I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t consult.” Jacob paused and the sounds of nature got quieter, “Look I know you’re wondering why I’m calling so I’ll cut to the chase: I heard about what happened out in Alpha Andraste with Lillian. Everything. Daniel is understandably trying to keep it under wraps but he looped me in because this will likely get uglier.”

Jamie saw Cora’s expression shift, a fire burning in those soft brown eyes. She was keeping quiet, clearly not wanting to cause more drama with the call, but the wheels were turning. She reached out to the young teen and offered her a hand to hold.

“Uglier how?” Sam asked.

“Lillian mentioned parental alienation to Daniel. Claims she’s at wits end because you won’t let her see Cora. I told him that was bullshit, I know about the past few missed meetings and let him in on them. But that’s the story she’s going with right now. She swore to him that she wasn’t going to plant the contraband, despite how Diego found her, and her digging through the cargo manifest was her searching for anything to pin on you two. And she seems to think she has something too: she says she found a concerning amount of hallucinogens onboard in cargo. Daniel thinks she’s going to try and take you to family court, Sam.”

Sam was quiet, just staring at the empty tray of cinnamon rolls. He rubbed his face with both hands and mumbled, “great.”

“Don’t stress too much, I have people preparing for it as we speak,” Jacob said calmly, “and I requested a copy of Jamie’s cargo manifest from the spaceport. The concerning amounts line up with standards set by MAST for survey collections, which makes sense considering my understanding is you three were doing a planetary survey?”

“Where did you hear that?” Sam asked.

“I spoke with Julien this morning,” Jacob replied, “I asked him to meet with Daniel, give him his account of what happened. So it’s in records if she actually follows through. He was receptive to the idea.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Sam said quietly.

“That woman picked the wrong family to fuck with,” Jacob said. “I will not sit idly by while her tantrums put you three at risk.”

“Us three?” Sam raised an eyebrow, “Cora told us about your message to her this morning and it only included her and Jamie.”

“I planned on calling you so I didn’t see the need to include you there,” Jacob explained. Everyone at the table could hear a touch of embarrassment in his tone as he spoke, “and maybe I didn’t want to worry her. I know you try to wear a brave face for her, I didn’t need her questioning whether you could handle it.”

Jamie and Cora shared a look as Jacob spoke, both surprised by his admission.

Jacob continued, “But since we’re talking about it, how are you holding up? And don’t feed me a ‘I’m managing’ or ‘I’m fine’, be honest with me, Sam.”

Cora started to scoot from her chair, trying not to disturb anything as she picked up the empty tray and plates, and moved for the door. Jamie tried not to laugh at the teen’s awkward retreat because the action was thoughtful and selfless. She knew Cora would love to know the answer but her dad would never open up with her sitting right there. So she gave him space to speak freely.

Once she was gone Sam sighed and replied, “I’ve had better days. I’ve had worse days too but…it’s been better. It wasn’t just the message she sent to the ship or the fact that she appeared to be trying to set us up, it was the petty jabs she tossed at Jamie, the way she made Cora fume and wail during the encounter. If she felt she was being alienated she could have just gone to the courts, she didn’t need to do all that.”

“You and I both know that’s a lie she’s selling to cover her absence, Sam.” Jacob said with a gentleness that further surprised Jamie. She’d never heard him speak so kindly toward his son.

“I know,” Sam sighed again, “Cora told me last night she thinks Lillian just wanted to disrupt us because if the three of us are seen happy and doing well it’ll make her look bad.”

“That’s our Cora, smart as a whip,” Jacob chuckled, “Do you need anything, Sam? Any of you? I’m done with business so I’m available to help in any way I can.”

[milezryn]

i feel like my biggest complaint with sams plotline is that i cannt be angry enough at jacob 😭😭 where is the option to yell at him forever where's it at

[shatinn]

Starfield 34/?

[thatsgoodsquishy0]

I haven't done one of these in a while. With the flood and various fuckery going on, there's really been no time for Tumblr. I mean, no proper time. No sit down, blog, and write time. But here, I suppose there is. I was asked to share if I had something, so here is something I'm re-working on since my hiatus. A snippet from Chapter 3 of my Young! Ranger Sam Coe x Reader fic --- soon to be renamed.

summary: just a father and son catching up + Sam remembering his momma

tagging: anybody who sees this and hasn't participated yet (since I've seen most already)

Sam pushed the door open, leading with his palm against the wood as he welcomed himself inside. Six years. Nothing new. Dust swirled in the dim-light of the living room. Photographs of happier times sat on shelves caked in thin layers of grime. His mother’s vine plants -- Baby Tears --- cascaded down like spotted green waterfalls from the ceiling into the walls of the dining area.

The trance of memory overwhelmed him. His breathing slowed. 

His mother stepped out of the house and his father busied himself in his office, leaving Sam practically home alone. He was about as tall as the counter tops in the kitchen and he liked to grab anything he could, just because he could. Little rebel. He'd grabbed some rocks off a book stand. Played pretend on the floor of his bedroom, when a voice echoed faintly, like the call of a ghost. Sam paid no mind. The voice boomed louder than before.

Sam. Sammy!

His heart leapt. He knew that voice. It traveled from the deck into his room, into his ears, once more. Abandoning his geo-rocks right then and there, he rushed to her. Curiosity and eagerness carried his little legs across the living room as he tumbled outside. The sunlight blinded him immediately, but painted his mother in a golden shadow. Her hand was smooth and warm, like beach sand, as she gently took his own and shared her pride, pointing to the potted plants. He remembers peering up at her. His little eyes wide in awe as she spoke their names. He could hear her now. How the words rolled off perfectly, as if she'd practiced over and over on her way home. Pilea Depressa, she told him. Otherwise known as, Baby Tears, from Old Earth.

As far as Sam was concerned, the planet and the Coe Estate were one in the same. Both lived with color. With life. Once.

Black coffee and eggs permeated his nostrils. Some routines never died. Sam’s nose scrunched as he shut the door.

“Hello?” His voice rang out.

A figure dressed in official’s wear emerged from the kitchen holding a bowl of yellow bits. The man’s eyes were wide, as if he’d been up for hours, expectant. “Sam Coe,” He paused. A sudden chill whipped through the room. “You didn’t knock?”

“I did. No answer.” He traversed towards the table without so much as a glance to the other and settled Cora into her high chair. From out of the corner of his eye, Jacob loomed. Weren’t his eggs getting cold just standing there? 

“Keeping your boots on?”

Sam bobbed his head, sternly. “Can’t stay long,” he added, “They’re clean. I ain’t gonna mud up your floors.”

“Rangers more important than having breakfast with your family, huh? Don’t gotta tell me twice.” Jacob disappeared into the kitchen. leaving Sam in an air that was clogged and stuffy. He felt as though he were on the cusp of a cold.  

God damn. It was too early.

[commanderquinn]

meta: sam coe - post-campaign analysis

allllrighty i am officially post-campaign so time for first thoughts. since im still collecting my feelings/opinions on the main quest i dont want to go super into that. i wanna wait and consolidate into a deep dive on that one. BUT i am a fic writer with a fixation on socioeconomics, intergenerational trauma, and more specifically the phenomenon of atheists clinging to their religious parents morals because they haven't taken the time to evaluate their biases and the reasons they still hold them

translation: the silver spoon space cowboy is an interesting concept. poory executed in the case of starfield, sadly, but great framework for fandom to chop the head off of and bring to their own individual comfort interpretations.

this meta will include spoilers for the following:

-sam's questline and the npcs involved

-his romance

-cora, the safety storyline around her, and how she's the best part of the space game

-why bethesda was fucking stupid to turn the cowboys into cops when they have the perfect opportunity for not that. i went in hoping for retired/reformed army rangers fed up with war looking to defend their home from fascism given the "han solo simulator" marketing, but all i got was this lousy ass rendition of the texas rangers, which i for SURE did not want

-i WONT be going into detail about the main plot for this post, just fyi. i wanna save that, and sam's relation to it, for its own essay. id still recommend not reading meta's until you finish the game tho

-i miss obsidian's writing. this game made me want to play outer worlds for the 100th time. that will probably come up a lot

this is probably gonna sound more than a bit scattered and off the fucking plot for the first section, but bare with me, im making a point eventually i promise. gotta make sure we're all on the same page first.

now that ive done a majority of his content, it's clear what the intent was for sam and i applaud it. i like it when good hearts in bad systems spot the fundamental flaws and decide to abandon it entirely, or work to change it. i hate perfect characters. i hate characters that have no growth to find. sam is a great character for showing the awesome power of a perspective change. but damn. what a waste when you're talking about a format where a writer is constricted to:

-an exact conversation trigger (bethesda games have always relied on interrupt & player approach, and i didnt notice any variation on game engine front but i wont know until they release the ck so)

-word limit on all responses (yes, you can make long dialogues in engine. but those words still have to be f u n d e d from a dev standpoint. words are not free in video games. capitalism sucks for art.)

-multiple conversation branches that ALL have to circle back to the original topic (they have to follow a set pattern of establishing a subject, then the players possible responses to that subject, the npcs responses to those responses, AND provide a seamless, one dialogue tie-in path to the next branch. it sounds super easy until you're the shmuck writing it, and then it doesnt feel so easy anymore)

-get approximately two personal quests with, what was it, 12 motion scripted scenes? (im watching other peoples pts now so ill try to remember to count, but it was. hmm. lack luster imo. im not saying quantity is vital. im a bioware fanatic, i know the power of quality when its actually delivered. i didnt have any moment like that for sams quests and it was kind of crushing. ill get into it.)

-appeal to a wide enough audience to obtain profit by holding back eXtReMe ViEwS (id like to point out that there is, at this exact moment in time, an active pr campaign (and a few scattered gaming content creators) surrounding starfield talking about how pronouns are politics and should be left out of gaming. over a setting flag in a save file. you literally dont even have to press a button about it. like, you pick your characters body. masc bodys are auto assigned m pronouns. fem bodies are auto assigned f pronouns. you literally dont even have to SEE the button, and it never gets brought up. the only purpose it serves is so the game knows what voice lines to fire. that. is. it.)

im not going to humor the "thats dumb, bethesda makes political games" contribution to the argument.

i get straight people think they're being super helpful and witty on that one, but i think the world would collectively benefit from allies taking just a few extra seconds before standing on that soapbox to maybe consider that calling existence "politics" might be, gee idk, insulting. maybe more than a lil dehumanizing. maybe super easily solved by just NOT giving into their parents obsession with playing devils advocate. i think if maybe allies could shut the fuck up for a minute or two at a time and go look for voices of authority within the communities they're defending instead of trying to talk over them, that'd probably work out better. might help cut out the completely useless middle man their parents taught them to be when they drilled home "you have to respect everyone's opinion"

no the fuck you do not, actually. i, as someone on this earth attempting to be a compassionate person, owe people a chance at understanding. i do not, under any circumstance, owe someone any kind of respect WHATSOEVER if they cannot respect me as a human being. full stop. i dont owe it to them, i dont owe it to their religion, i dont owe it to the government they try to establish. i do not owe respect to people attempting to oppress me. i never have and i never will.

but remember. there is context to be found in the passing of time. yes, you need to tell grandma to stop being racist. no, you do not need to banish grandma to the nursing home if there's still a chance that she's willing to sit and listen. a chance that she'll empathize with social perspectives that the racist society she was raised in never allowed her to have. breathe and give grandma the chance. then send her to the home if she's still racist.

(yes that was an analogy for how i imagine a perspective conversation with jacob would go. i do not have high hopes of that man finding self awareness given. well. who he is as a person.)

now. if you've played through sam's content, you already know why im bringing all of that up, but lets put together a list of all the things that Make Sam Coe Who He Is before we wrap it all up in a pretty bow that hopefully reads a lot less scattered than this "yo society got some trauma actually" lead up ive dumped on you

quick interrupt just for me: i love that im back on tumblr where i dont really have to give all that much of a fuck about making sense. any audience i could find here is equally unhinged so mostly i just have to format it in a way that makes your brain not hurt. sorry if you dont have adhd <3

1: lets talk about cora's hair.

im going to make the race observation because its bothering me from a dev standpoint AND the gamer crowd is already starting to make cuck memes which sucks to see.

i get that this doesnt matter in a colonialism scifi future where a service like enhance exists and we're talking about two rangers that apparently went under cover regularly, but it matters in the context of how sam was handled in a 2020 era commercial, creative environment. im just going to MENTION that cora coe's biological mother (that jab was me not liking her as a person, not me giving a shit that she's white) is paler than pale, and sam does NOT look like some of his earlier promo images. bethesda as a company also has a very long history of making characters arguably tan to avoid this shit.

9/16 edit: was asked for source, heres the exact image im referencing, which is still his set image on the starfield wiki to date:

(im going to preemptively warn any white artists building the urge to argue over this: you DO NOT want to die on a hill about lighting for this one, fucking trust me. thats not what this conversation is, and if you dont understand that as a White Artist, you need to sit this one out until you understand the full weight of the conversation and the profound effect of media treating skin color like a rare diversity accessory. bethesda has a very very long history of this. their last major story title, fallout 4, (76 was a money grab made in the other studio and i barely want to call it a game) had a whopping total of two black characters in its main cast, and both of them acted in subservient roles so please. please please please just. stop trying to defend bethesda on this one. its dehumanizing, cowardly, and malicious in this day and age. i promise im not trying to bite anyones head off here, im just Old And Tired when it comes to suburbanites in fandom.)

i think having solomon be canonically black would have been a really important aspect. i think it would have given the opportunity to show white people why its fucked up that they get SO EXCITED to save war mementos (or in the case of starfield a nasa memento) and will go on and on about how vital it is to save that piece of history, but when you bring up memorializing the importance of race as it pertains to human history and cultural history/pride, they suddenly start getting Very Uncomfortable and throw out phrases like "what does it matter we're all human" while standing next to the gun their grandfather smuggled home from the war

there is no brightness slider on pc and i havent gone reshade tweaking so everything is still washed out on my end (dont worry, as an rtx user, imma be makin a rant post on that) b u t. cora coe has a pale as fuck mother and a vaguely tan father with blue eyes and straight hair, meanwhile my precious angel has a darker complexion and curls that look like they're closing in on the 3c range so like. im getting vibes that sammy boy mighta been whitewashed during game dev, and thats about as far into THAT topic as im gonna bother to venture for this post.

2: his dad

were we supposed to have more daddy issues content??? istg it feels like there was the initial map talk and then nothing. im not saying that i cant pull blood from a stone and give you an entire essay on that glimpse of family trauma just from a few lines of dialogue, but still. feels like thats maybe something that should have gotten more detail.

"no forgiveness between me and my old man. it's uh... coe tradition."

oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy. what a line to start his personal quest

before we go ANY FURTHER im gonna drop a reference to one of my favorite aaron sorkin scenes of all time. its from the movie he did about the chicago seven, and i think it fits VERY well when having a conversation about how sam is shaped by his father

unfortunately the exact scene i want to show isnt clipped anywhere easy i could find, so here's an article that talks about that scene specifically if you want more context but dont want to watch the whole movie. what we're really focused on is this:

which is a scene where a fictional account of bobby seale, the leader of the black panther party at the time of the chicago 7 trial, said that above quote to a fictional account of tom hayden while they were having a conversation about how the stakes of this trial are life and death for him as a black man, but little more than a family dispute and a dark spot on their records for the (all white) chicago 7.

its a GREAT continuation of sorkin’s fascination around father son conflicts (he covered it a time or two during his writing days as west wings original creator, which is a great political show id strongly rec) and it really really works when used in comparison to those rebellion days sam had that he still flagellates over

sam was a privileged kid without a foundation of emotional support or a safe environment to vent to. he didnt have the words needed to communicate what he was feeling and thinking and experiencing. he didnt have the means to express himself in a way that wasn't immediately criticized by the people in his life. it doesnt take a degree in psych to figure out that sam first ran for the stars to run from his father. and it sounds like that was tradition

from the MOMENT YOU MEET HIM, jacob is full stop "my way or the highway" until you hit him with the good ol bethesda persuasion and his disposition pulls a 180 to hand you the next plot device

sam: "you know why im here."

jacob: "oh? and what's that? you come to your senses? realize where you ought to be for once?"

w o w

i wonder why sam never felt safe in his own home. i wonder why he doesnt feel safe leaving cora there. i wonder why that miserable fucking attitude and guilt has sam convinced that jacob will be the worst possible thing for his curious daughter's self esteem.

yes, grandparents sip a different kind of koolaid when it comes to their grandkids. no, that is not enough to protect that child from that much intergenerational trauma. sam's made a bad choice keeping cora in space, but he's made an EXCELLENT choice keeping her away from jacob.

forget "showing respect" to his son's choices, jacob won't give them the time of day. he brushes off constellation and wont go meet them for himself, he insists that cora being "in her family home" is the only priority (isnt THAT telling) and, as if that wasnt enough to prove he's incapable of empathy, the fact that he outright, direct fucking quote during that first scene with him, says to sam's face

"the only mistake im seeing here is you"

fuck anyone who walked away from that scene of a parent saying that to their own kid and had the response of "i dont understand why sam wont let jacob take care of cora." fuck you, genuinely from the bottom of my heart, if that was your reaction.

i looked for opportunities to get sam to talk about what the rest of those "30 plus years of experience with the man" really looked like after that. the fact that it was used as a plot device without any (from what I COULD FIND in my first pt, if i find any ill edit this) kind of dialogue discussion about that trauma around his father's behavior/mentality and the terrible influence it had is such a waste. chances are!!!!!! id fucking agree with him!!!!!!!!!! SO TELL THEM TO ME BETHESDA!!!!!! give me the chance to storm back into that house with the full story and let that geriatric fuck know why he will not be allowed back into my daughters life (yeah we're gonna be calling cora our daughter on this one bc, again, she's the best thing in the game) until he can learn to be a safe emotional environment for her

and THEN, at the end of the romance, the wrinkly mf drops a "hey can you go over sam's head and make the parenting decisions now" 20 minutes before your vows get exchanged in his living room (WE'RE GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT MESS OF A WEDDING LMAO ITS A LOT but im probably gonna save it for another sam post where i talk more in depth about why packing a complicated romance in that tightly just Dont Work). like wow. wowowowwow. if that doesnt perfectly sum up how he views the dusty's (shhh i really hope that name catches on pls i keep seeing ppl use captain instead its heartbreaking) role in the family now, and confirm how he's always viewed his own son, idk what does

3: lillian "i can abandon my kid and demand she be taken care of in the same breath" hart

i was originally going to go into hella detail on his relationship with his ex but honestly i think im just gonna leave a few paragraphs and not touch on her again bc its bad for my blood pressure.

okay, here's the deal. im biased in the sense that i had a mother with attachment issues and lets just say that his ex is worth about as much to me as a pile of dogshit. it'd be one thing if she had that moment of "oh. sam and cora bond really well and i dont fit" and decided to look at that and evaluate if she wanted to continue trying to be a parent.

but she didnt have a moment of reflection. she didnt talk to a therapist. she didnt have a discussion with sam. she went back to work and decided "oh well, my kid doesnt like me" and then left her daughter with an open wound and no shot at closure. which is just. wow. that's active abandonment. she WALKED OUT of cora's life because she couldn't stomach the idea that she didnt immediately win over her daughter without any effort to connect to her.

then she has the nerve to yell at sam for not doing the best for cora. like bitch, you cant even consistently answer the phone??? what are you on??? she's REPEATEDLY broken cora's heart with false promises, and clearly made no effort to truly atone for that given just HOW angry sam is ALL the times he brings it up.

and she does it all for what????? a beat cop reputation and some shiny medals????? like shut the fuck up with that righteous indignation piglet, you're killing smugglers under someone's made up authority to protect COMMERSE, not creating galactic peace. the idea that THAT SHIT is worth more to her than her own daughter having a mother who's around for all her life milestones is inFURIATING and id fucking deck her if i could.

the fact that there's zero chance to call her out other than one single "thats a pretty awful thing to say" option is a real cop out from bethesda. they realized they put a woman in a position where she could be really, truly yelled at for something like child care, and chickened out on following through with it so they wouldnt take any heat.

thats gross and should piss you the fuck off, by the way. that sure the fuck isnt what equality looks like by any measure. you don't empower women by acting like they're infallible creatures you cant call out for being flawed. and you sure as shit dont empower the next generation of women by forgiving their abusers.

4: cora's safety

which brings us to the big sticky: sam is a disaster and i DONT think that keeping cora on a combat-active spaceship is right. i think she'd be much better off living in constellation hq (aside from the main plot obvsly) with a constant open comm to her dad and the ability to bring her to outposts and secured sights.

the problem with the biomother's abandonment isnt the distance. its the lack of attempt to connect. its the lack of forming a bond. its the fact that she had zero desire to understand her child once she figured out her child didnt "love her the most" when thats literally not a thing. the problem was never the physical space, and it wouldnt have to be in sam's case, either.

he's a dad that's there for cora day in and day out, he just never got the chance to grow out of the panic stage of a parent worried the first fever is going to kill the baby. he didn't have his dad because he had to get out to protect himself, he doesnt have a mom because of how long she's been dead, and lillian checked the fuck out at an early stage apparently. so sam was left to be the nervous wreck trying to keep history from repeating itself. the man's flying blind in the face of all the combined generational trauma of himself, his father, and his ex, all while trying not to fuck up shaping a human life.

you're damn fucking right he keeps cora glued to his side, i legitimately do not think his own ptsd would allow him to do otherwise without someone like the dusty to come and and go "hey dude, maybe its time we read some emotional intelligence and trauma books so we can start getting cora into a stable environment for literally the first time in her life? also im going to teach her gun safety for my own sanity because you keep letting her walk all over you and its scaring the fuck out of me thinking my daughter is going to try to raid a pirate ship at 15 because no one taught you proper boundaries."

5: his morals

its been 30+ years and his father wont let go of arguing and micromanaging long enough to try to understand his son. lillian is a workaholic who believes her only inherit value is what she can provide to an organization that views living, breathing human beings as occasionally expendable while screaming about its pursuit of freedom and equality.

sam coe is a man who got told what he was supposed to be his entire life, tripped into drugs and crime in an angry, sheltered act of rebellion, and walked away from it all with a very skewed, very flawed interpretation of morality as a result.

lillian and his father are the clear moral compasses in his life. like yeah, sure, he'll talk about how cora is his driving force until he's blue in the face. and he's not lying!!! he's not even technically wrong. she is his active motivation day in and day out. but she is not his Morality. she hasn't developed enough as a person to be able to be that kind of beacon. she's a kid rushing herself through childhood because she thinks that will make her better and no one in her life recognizes it enough to stop it. she shouldnt have to be the moral guide for someone who's supposed to be guiding her

sam cant let go of the ranger envy. he couldnt stomach being around it, but he cant look at that discomfort long enough to identify why. he can walk into a bank and plain as day go "ah, don't you hate the smell of capitalism," but he can't bring himself to blink the stars out of his eyes long enough to ask why the rangers are so willing to put smugglers to death without trial. sam has enough awareness to identify the system is flawed, but he doesnt have the guts to really stare that down

he'll make cracks about walter having too much money and influence, but he wont actually mention how he and his wife are the root cause of an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering and perfectly avoidable manslaughter as a result of their business. i get that constellation runs as a dont as dont tell organization, but if sam's going to give me shit about nabbing a paper weight from a guy's desk, i think we should talk about how he doesnt display anger for walter's business practices.

sam coe, at his heart, is a dreamer who doesn't want to look too close at things. he was taught that some things just Are, and looking for too many answers will find you trouble. he's got the spirit of an explorer dampened by a lifetime spent under cops.

you can hear it in his voice whenever he talks about how proud he is of cora for being a goddamn prodigy. you can hear the wonder and the excitement there. you can hear the curious kid in him that probably got pushed out of the way while he was trying to shape himself into a Proper Coe

i think sam coe is a dreamer who was forcibly taught to fear learning as a child, and thats the real tragedy of him.

so let's start to tie our bow here.

sam is a man who, in a way that only a privillaged kid can, stumbled into neon's life of drugs and smuggling and self harm through destructive behavior with both eyes firmly shut.

he didn't fall into drugs after a lifetime of being submersed in the culture of it. he didnt take them because he grew up surrounded by people that just knew that's all life was ever going to hold. he didnt get into smuggling because he was starving. he didnt take on his first "criminal act" because there was a life and death battle going on somewhere in his life.

this man was drowning in guilt and shame centered around not "being a proper coe" by the time he was free of his father's control, by all accounts. you can hear how much self hatred he has over the memory of that time in his life. look, im not going to say that age and recovery doesnt come with regret, but he talks about it like degeneracy and something to be guilted about rather than just... living life. like so what you did some drugs?? so what you did a capitalism no no?????

corporations arent people. you shouldnt steal from them because itll put YOU at risk, but under no circumstance should anyone hold onto any guilt for stealing from them. money is fake and capitalism murders people every hour of the day. fuck the system, its fucking rigged, look out for you and yours while capitalism is stealing your natural resources and making private homesteading prosecutable (translation: in our actual, real life here, the government can throw you in jail for building a house without a permit. go look up at the sky and think about the moral journey humanity had to take to get us to that point, and then come talk to me about how i shouldnt encourage people to steal from corporations)

anyways back to the video game, as far as the "what if he was unknowingly smuggling something like organs or weapons" argument, there's no desire for me to defend it, tbh. i dont view crime as a personality brand the way cops do. someone being convicted of a crime doesnt make me see them as lesser, it makes me see them as a person who did a bad thing. i do bad shit all the time. we all do. we're human. sometimes there's an excuse for the behavior, and sometimes there isnt. that's not the end of the world. you own up to your actions, you apologize, and you put in the effort to make amends that fit the situation. end of story. the obvious exception to that being when someone you have victimized tells you to fuck off because they dont want your further involvement.

yes. yes there are people in the world that are genuine monsters that spend their time and energy looking for ways to do the cruelest shit imaginable to their fellow human beings. but those are fucking outliers, so no, im not going to let a conversation about morality be derailed by a fraction of a percent of the population

but people (like the rangers) who aren't ready to look at the whole picture of context, who would rather hyper focus on the unbending rule of the land, don't see that. they see a "type" of person once a crime has been committed rather than "a person who found themselves in this scenario"

sam was raised by cops. he fundamentally does not understand how biased his own view is. he'll sometimes make a vague mention of crime being a necessity, but you can hear how many strings are attached there just from the way he talks about it. he truly views crime as a black and white subject with exceptionally few slivers of grey to be found. you can hear the "law and order is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom" in his voice whenever he talks about how the rangers are "good people" he just "didnt fit anymore" and it's heartbreaking

he'd be so much better off if he would take a moment to reevaluate his priorities and look a lot closer at that guilt he carries and why he carries it. i think it would even help him better connect with cora in the long run. it would for sure give him a better handle on why letting his daughter take on college courses this early in her life isnt something to brag about. its a bad sign that she's pushing herself to Be Something in the exact same way he used to. he just doesn't recognize it because her way is "healthy" by society's fucked up view of child prodigies

tl;dr

i don't need to fix sam coe. he's stubborn, traumatized, and sheltered, not broken.

give that man good enough head and i'm absolutely sure he could be talked into reading some -clutches pearls- marxist literature

[knitpurlgoal]

gotta show your goalie love

[doe-writes-stuff]

A/N - My love for the cowboy space dad, Sam Coe, has eclipsed to the point where I am now writing him fanfic...what a time to be alive, y'all. Anyway, enjoy the results of my brain rot, and let me know what you thought of it >.> More may be to come if he continues to plague my every waking thought

WARNINGS: Some angst on poor Cora's part, thanks to Lillian. Some Lillian bashing, thanks to reader. It's not specified if reader and Sam are fully together at this point in the story, but it's implied. Post 'Matters of the Hart' mission.

The bay of the Razorleaf slowly descended with a hydraulic hiss, finally clanking against the tarmac of a landing pad. From the bottom of the ramp, you watched as the dusty, endlessly sun-bleached landscape of Akira came into view. The first unfiltered breath of the atmosphere hit the back of your throat unpleasantly. How anyone tolerated such a low humidity every single day, you couldn’t guess. Akila was kind enough not to be a sweltering wasteland on top of it all, so…small victories there.

You’d not been much impressed with the sight of the planet the first time you’d landed on it, and it still gave no better impression now. Sand-swept walls and buildings rose from an equally monotone environment. It wasn’t hard to picture the planet might one day just swallow the city whole and leave nothing after to show there’d been civilization there. Perhaps through sheer stubbornness and pride, the Akila City citizens kept their place in the galaxy.

A long-suffering sigh and a set of muted footsteps approach from your right. Sam stops beside you and gazes across his home planet with equal apprehension. His arms cross and he levels his hometown’s ‘Welcome to Akila City’ archway a woeful stare.

“Never gets any easier…”

You’re not surprised by his reluctance to return home. A visit to Jacob Coe was never an occasion to celebrate, and this one would be particularly disappointing, given Sam would also be relinquishing his daughter to Lillian for that long-time-promised week vacation Cora mentioned every opportunity she could. You didn’t fault the almost-teen for being excited to see her mother, but it wasn’t hard to miss Sam’s lack of enthusiasm for the whole affair. He loved his daughter above anything else, and letting her go for such a length of time wouldn’t be easy.

This stop was a ‘two birds, one stone’ of all of Sam’s least favorite activities. His less-than-cheery mood was understandable, and you couldn’t help but share this feeling. After months of the inquisitive girl aboard your vessel, you’d gotten so used to the random questions and cringe-inducing jokes that the impending silence was admittedly quite daunting.

Akila just so happened to be the closest planet to where Lillian had finished up a month-long assignment. With the promise that she had time-off to spend, Sam had agreed to have the Ranger pick Cora up here, and it would ultimately be where you and Sam retrieved her after their time together. It ate the cowboy up inside, you could tell. But he kept quiet and put on a facade of support if only for Cora’s sake.

“I don’t see Lillian’s ship.” He added, sweeping his gaze past the entrance to the city and across to the other landing pads. Concern began to overtake the displeasure of being on Akila, and you could instantly follow where his internal thoughts were leading.

“We did get here earlier than planned.” You finally say, laying a calming hand on the man’s jacketed arm and earning his attention. It’s not like you were were defending the woman, but it was a little silly to assume anything when the Razorleaf had just touched down almost 2 hours before you’d agreed to rendezvous with the Ranger. You might dislike Lillian Hart, but you weren’t that petty. “Give it some time.”

“Yeah, yeah…you’re right.” After an affirming deep breath and a weary shake of his head, some of the tension in his shoulders eases. Some, but not all. “I’m just…not too optimistic about this.”

“I know.”

“She’s flaked before, and this one means a whole lot to Cora.” He went on, as if you weren’t already aware of the meaning behind it all. “I can’t help but worry she’s not gonna show.”

“We’ll handle that if it comes to it. For now, just take a breath.” You say, flashing him your best reassuring smile. Even he could tell it was a little forced, but he did return the gesture with a muted one of his own. At the very least, you made sure he didn’t have to face whatever might happen by himself.

Razorleaf’s airlock releases behind you, and Cora’s beaming smile leaves the ship before she does, her small suitcase of belongings in tow behind her. You’re willing to bet there are more books than there are clothes in there, but hey, you wouldn’t judge. She blunders down the ramp with an energy you’d never seen before, curls bouncing atop her head the whole way, finally coming to a breathless stop next to her father.

“Is she here yet?” She questions, eyes already darting around the spaceport before receiving an answer.

“Not just yet, string bean.” Sam gave her hair a good-natured rustle, smile regaining some of its warmth as he addressed his daughter. “I’ve got some business with your grandpa first, so we arrived a bit early. I’m sure she’ll be touching down soon enough.”

You don’t comment on the edge of uncertainty that accompanies that last part. And thankfully, Cora doesn’t ask to go with her father for a family visit. Sam always preferred her to be as far away from Jacob as possible. At some point, you assume Cora understood why, though she’d never directly voiced it.

Sam pats his daughter’s cheek affectionately. “I shouldn’t be too long. Y/N’s gonna keep you company until your mother gets here. Don’t you go anywhere until I get back to say goodbye, alright?”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

Cora gives an exaggerated little roll of her eyes, but her smile is ever-present. “I promise, dad."

“That a’girl.” He says, leaning down to place a gentle kiss against the top of her head. Then, his attention turns to you. “You two gonna be alright?”

“We’ll be just fine.” Is your reply, promising through unspoken word to keep Cora safe and sound while he was away. The reassurance is what he needed most, and you were more than happy to provide it. “We’ll make sure to have way more fun than you will.”

“Heh. Yeah, well…that won’t be too hard.” Sam’s head tilted a little, eyes squinting, already picturing the impending encounter with his own father. “I’ll comm you when I’m done.”

You wave your companion goodbye, watching him disappear past the protective walls of Akila City, then turn to the girl practically buzzing with excitement beside you. “We’ve got a bit of time to kill. So…where to first?”

This earns you an amused laugh, and the two of you begin walking towards the entrance of the city. “Do you even need to ask?”

“I figured today might be the day you just surprise me.”

You’re not sure how much time you spend standing around watching Cora browse the many books in Akila City’s—woefully small, in your opinion—selection. Seeing her over the moon at each new title, eyes scanning the summaries and even skimming the inner pages never got old. Her enthusiasm for the first new book she’d laid eyes on was just as exuberant as what was possibly the 18th book that afternoon.

The girl was a talker, chatting up the bookstore owners with the passion of a scholar. You could tell the women weren’t used to having someone so forthcoming with their love of literature in their store, but they quickly joined Cora’s wavelength and discussed their favorite volumes at length.

More than content to stand off to the side and let the girl have her fun, you interjected where appropriate, but for the most part just let the conversation go without you. Cora could talk for two people, anyway.

Eventually, even she had her fill of the bookstore, stomach grumbling with the need for food. You walked out of the store only a few hundred credits poorer—a miracle if there ever was one—and headed off to the chunks establishment just down the way. Akila was a maze at the best of times, but for once you managed to navigate the streets with little trouble.

You stood in line and debated with the young bibliophile what the best flavor of chunks was, but couldn’t come to an agreement. Your own favorite was completely out of stock when you managed to get help from the attendant, so you went with Cora’s favorite instead. 

With sated stomachs and a few new books for Cora in tow, you return to the spaceport to wait on the ship until either Sam or Lillian arrive. One glance around at the other landing pads confirms that Lillian’s ship had still not touched down. Sam still hadn’t comm’d you after an hour and a half, which meant his meeting with Jacob probably wasn’t going well. Regardless, you knew he’d make his way back to the Razorleaf in time to see his daughter off, even if it meant leaving business unfinished with his father.

You hid your worry behind a carefully neutral interest in whatever Cora had been talking about while you walked back to the Razorleaf, but that pit of dread began to dig its way into your stomach. Anger simmered right behind it. Cora didn’t seem to notice your rapidly worsening mood, which was all the better. If your fears turned out to be unwarranted, no need to rub it off on the girl.

When the ship’s communicator finally chimed with an incoming transmission, both yours and Cora’s heads jerked up. Being closer to the cockpit, you slid into the captain’s chair just as Cora ran by your side. Immediately, you knew it wasn’t Sam reaching out, and instead the woman you were meant to be meeting in…28 minutes. Cora’s face lit up with the prospect that it was her mother calling to tell them she was almost there.

You couldn’t bring yourself to be that optimistic.

One touch on your control panel accepted the transmission. Before you could even issue the standard greeting, Cora chimed in with a bubbly, “Hi, Mom!”

Hearing her daughter’s voice had caught the Ranger off guard. There was a pause before she responded. “Cora, angel…how are you?”

Her tone of voice made you stiffen in your seat, mouth pressing into a thin line, but Cora didn’t notice. She leaned forward against your chair’s armrest.

“I’m great! Are you almost here? I’ve got my bag all packed, so as soon as Dad comes back from Grandpa’s we can leave.”

“Ah, I was actually hoping to speak with your dad. Do you know how long he’ll be?” 

Figures she’d try to speak with Sam instead of breaking her daughter’s heart directly, you think bitterly. You wondered if she even realized how selfish it was to put the responsibility on her ex-husband to break this crushing news.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon. And I found a few books we can read together while we travel to wherever we are going. I know you’ll like them.”

Your heart broke further with each new word the curly-haired pre-teen spoke, knowing what was about to happen. The taste of your chunks packet earlier was overshadowed by the bitterness of anger as it bubbled hotter under your skin.

“That’s great, sweetie, but…” Lillian’s voice trailed off, guilt or embarrassment or some equally fitting emotion coloring her tone. Perhaps she’d realized that there was no softening the blow she was about to deliver. “…listen. Something came up that I have to take care of. I’m so sorry, Cora. I’m not gonna be able to make it this time.”

A full second, maybe two, of silence passed, Cora processing what her mother had said. Seeing the girl’s face morph from elation at hearing her mother’s voice to something akin to confused betrayal tore at the deepest parts of your heart. If you could have saved her from this, you would have. But Cora being in the ship meant that she’d hear every word spoken no matter where in the craft she was.

“Oh.”

That one word, uttered with such devastating resignation. Cora straightened from leaning across your armrest and stood there with a carefully put together mask. You could see every crack and fracture in the young girl’s facade, but she put up a valiant effort to appear unaffected.

Lillian must have heard the same, and continued again before you could interject anything.

“I know how much you were looking forward to this, and trust me when I say I was too. I’d love nothing more than to take you away to a little paradise together and just spend the days hangin’ out without a care in the world.” Lillian’s attempts at smoothing over the hurt did nothing at all to fix anything about this. “I promise you, we’ll get together and have our week-long vacation, do or die, one of these days.”

Cora didn’t say anything. So unlike the chatty pre-teen. She looked down at her shoes, before quietly taking a hold of her suitcase you now realized she’d dragged with her in her rush to the cockpit.

“It’s alright, mom. We’ll figure it out someday.” Dear God, she barely sounded like Cora…all color was missing from her voice. So little life.

“I love you, you know that?”

“I know.” And with that, she turned and padded her way back to the cot at the back of the ship. Perhaps she didn’t want you to witness her misery, because she went so far as to close the hatch to the cockpit, leaving you by yourself with Lillian still connected. Even with the hatch closed, Cora might still hear the conversation, but given everything that had happened, you no longer gave a damn.

“What is it this time, Lillian?” Your voice is full of barely restrained venom as you lean forward in your chair. You can’t see the woman through the audio transmission, but you were glaring anyway. “What’s so important that you couldn’t keep your promise to your daughter?”

The sweetness present when she’d spoken with Cora was absent, replaced by cold indifference when addressing you. The contrast was so stark, if you hadn’t already known her, you’d say they were two separate women. “You talk like this doesn’t hurt me just as much as it does Cora.”

“Because it doesn’t.” You say, reminding yourself to restrain the worst of your emotions. It wouldn’t do Cora any favors by cursing out her absentee mother from the other room. That wasn’t what the girl needed right now. Your head shakes with a rueful scoff. “If you could only see, Lilian…the way that girl’s face shattered. Then maybe you’d understand just how much more she’s hurting. But no, instead you do this over comms where you don’t have to look her in the eyes. Hell, you were going to put it on Sam to break the news, weren’t you?”

Lillian, perhaps smartly, doesn’t rise to that particular insinuation. “I do what I can, when I can to be there. It’s unfortunately a lot less than I’d like, but my duty is to protect the people of Freestar Space. I have obligations I can’t just ignore.”

“You seem to have forgotten your obligations as a mother in the process.”

“I’d give anything to be there with my little girl. Don’t ever imply I wouldn’t.”

“If that were the case, you’d have found someone else to handle whatever ‘came up.’ When it comes down to it, you don’t give anything, and you need to. Each missed visit convinces her that she’s another step further down on your list of priorities. What do you think happens when she believes she’s at the bottom?” You retort, already exhausted over this whole conversation.

“Cora knows how much she means to me, how important she is.” Funny, you think Lillian almost has herself convinced.

If it kept going at this rate, you were likely to start yelling, and that wouldn’t end well. Besides, Cora needed someone to be with her right now, so things needed to end quickly. 

You let out a heavy, exasperated sigh, voice growing much quieter as you reigned in your fury. “Look, Lillian…Sam already explained this to you. You can’t keep doing this. Cora can’t. She’s already 12. 13 in just a few months. Before you know it, she won’t be a child anymore. At this rate, there will come a point when she decides waiting for you to bother isn’t worth the heartache. There will come a day when you retire, when the need to fulfill a duty is over and done, and she will not be there. Because in the moments when it mattered—really mattered—you weren’t there for her. You realize that, right?”

You hear the woman sigh, and deep down, you know she hates that this conversation ever had to take place as much as you do. You know, really, that Lillian had good intentions with her promises. And that’s what made it all the more frustrating when she failed to deliver. She was well aware of how important this all was. Her damned chronic workaholic personality and inability to set aside the needs of the many just wouldn’t allow her to put anything else above it. Even at the cost of her daughter’s trust and happiness.

“You sound more like her mother than I do sometimes…” The Ranger admits tiredly. “I don’t know whether to be angry or grateful.”

“Honestly, I don’t care how you feel about it.” You say with a shrug. “She needs someone to be there for her. Sam is a wonderful father, and always there when it counts, but that girl needs a mother too. I know I’ll never replace you in her heart, it's not something I'm trying to do anyway. But I’ll fill whatever role she needs me to be, if it keeps her smiling.”

You hear a muffled beeping through the transmission, followed by Lillian’s muttered curse. “Damn it…looks like I’m about to have company.”

“Spacers?” You weren’t really concerned, or even cared, and asked only out of obligation.

“Crimson Fleet, I think.” There’s a pause, and you know that the conversation had come to an end. Nothing had resolved, but you knew Lillian wasn’t likely to change who she was after a short talk. “Listen, tell Cora I love her. I expect I’ll hear from Sam later on about this. He has every right to be angry. I am who I am, and that’s exactly the reason we never would have worked out in the end. I only regret Cora is suffering because of it. But for now, duty calls.”

Always duty with this woman. “Be safe, Lillian.” You bid, already reaching for the console button to end the transmission.

“You too.”

The audio cuts off abruptly, and you lean back in your chair with a slow inhale. Dragging your hands down your face, you release the last of your anger in a harsh exhale. Best to get rid of it now, so it wasn’t obvious when you went to see Cora. Not wasting anymore time, you stand from the chair and open the hatch.

You find Cora sat on your cot, a thousand-yard stare fixed at some point on the floor in front of her. Her smile was long gone, replaced instead by the remains of whatever facade she’d crafted to appear put together and ok. The little suitcase she’d packed with all her belongings sat a few feet away. It was zipped halfway open, as if she’d began to unpack, but then thought better of it.

A sad sigh leaves your lips. For a moment, you just watch her, calculating how best to approach this conversation. Sam was much better equipped to handle something like this, but you weren’t sure how much longer he’d be, and it pained you having to see her in such despair. You couldn’t just sit back and let her stew in whatever thoughts might be dragging her further down.

You slowly approach the still-silent Cora, electing to sit at her side just a few inches apart. Whether she wanted physical comfort, or just someone to be nearby, you weren’t sure. But you were close enough that, should she need you, she didn’t need to go far.

And for awhile, the two of you just…sit there. Words fail you, and try as hard as you might to find the right ones to say that might heal some of the hurt in Cora’s heart, nothing feels good enough. But eventually, you hear the girl sniffle. The first sign that her careful hold on her emotions was beginning to crack.

“Mom is a good Ranger. She’s out there saving lots of lives and making the galaxy less dangerous.” Cora’s wavering voice says, and you nearly want to cry yourself hearing just how hard it was for her not to shed those tears. Perhaps this was something she told herself each day as justification for her mother's constant absence. “I know she’ll make it up to me one day. She always does, eventually.”

You bite your lip. “Cora-“

“But…just once,” another sniffle breaks through, and then the first tear slides down her cheek, “I was hoping that…that it would all go right and we’d be a-able to see each other for a whole week. There’s s-so much I want to show her and talk to…to her about.”

More tears follow the first, and you lift your sleeve to wipe them from her face gently. But they keep coming, now that the floodgates had opened, and Cora openly wept as she sat beside you, her true feelings spilling over in bucketfuls. You did your best to keep up, but it only takes minutes for her to be shaking with the overwhelming sadness.

“I just want my mom…” She sobs, covering her eyes with her hands to try stopping the flow. “That’s all.”

A sharp cry has you reaching for her shoulders and pulling the girl in close, and your heart leaps when she forcefully wraps her arms around your middle and buries her tear-stained face in your shirt. What you wouldn’t give to drag Lillian here by the hair and force her to be here for her daughter…

With soothing ‘shushing’ noises, you gently rock her back and forth, one hand patting her back and the other holding her head close. You don’t know what to say to her, truly. Finding the words to tell Lillian how much you thought she failed her daughter constantly and consistently was easy. Finding the words to tell her child that she deserved so much more than what she was being given? That was much more difficult.

You sat there while Cora poured her heart out. Through the sobs, she mumbled muffled and incoherent sentences into your shirt. You’re not sure what half of them were, but if she just wanted to get it all out and vent, that was fine with you. Your shirt was damp with her tears, but that was alright too. Nothing would pull you away from offering whatever support you could while she worked her way through the many emotions.

Eventually, Cora’s sobbing began to ebb, the shaking becoming less pronounced. Her breathing evens to something less stuttered and shallow, and before too long you realize she’d managed to cry herself to sleep against your side. The poor thing…you continued the gentle rocking motion just in case, not wanting to wake her up.

A dull beeping noise caught your attention, and you look up towards the cockpit where it emanated from. Your communicator, you realized. That was probably Sam, wanting to let you know that he was done with whatever him and Jacob had needed to discuss. Part of you thinks to get up and answer, but the thought of jostling Cora awake was too much. You sat there, figuring that Sam would return to the ship to look for the two of you.

If you had to guess, it was about ten minutes before you heard the footsteps coming up the Razorleaf’s ramp. You didn’t move from your spot, listening as the airlock hissed open. Somehow, the noise didn’t wake the exhausted Cora, who barely moved from her place next to you.

Sam nearly walked past you sitting on the cot, but his peripheral vision caught your presence, and he stopped. He took in the sight of his daughter curled into your side, her posture clearly indicating that she’d been crying. You met his gaze with a stony, cold fury, one he understood wasn’t directed at him personally. That one, silent stare was all he needed to figure out what had occurred while he’d been away. 

The inquisitive expression he’d worn coming in vanished, jaw setting tightly. Clearly agitated, Sam stepped a few paces away, hand rubbing along his jaw in an effort to remain calm in the face of what Lillian had put his daughter through once again. He looked like he wanted to throw something. His breathing was more pronounced, though came through in slow, methodical inhale and exhales through his nose. Truthfully, you don’t think you’d ever seen Sam so angry.

In time, he finds himself again, stowing away the anger for the sake of his daughter. He could vent his feelings to Lillian later, when Cora wouldn’t hear it, but for now the important thing was making sure his daughter was alright. That was something you would never grow tired of seeing; Sam’s absolute dedication to his little girl, no matter what.

He moves to sit on her other side, and leans down to kiss the top of her head. It didn’t matter to him if she was still sleeping. You slowly move to shift Cora’s weight over to Sam, and somehow manage it without waking the sleeping pre-teen. She stirs, but her eyes never open.

Sam takes off his cowboy hat and sets it next to him, leaning back and holding Cora closer to him. He settles in to sit there for awhile, unsure how long she’ll be out for. Then, his eyes glance up to meet your own, holding them with a look so full of…something, that you can’t look away.

“Thank you. You were there for her when she needed it.” He says, his voice raspy and quiet so as not to wake Cora. And while you know he couldn’t have heard your conversation with Lillian before, it’s eerie how similar his words were. “I appreciate that beyond words.”

You give a little shrug, eyes drifting back down to the girl in his arms. “She needs her dad now.”

“And you, Y/N.” He says, drawing your attention back up to him. He offers the smallest of smiles. “She needs you too.”

Unsure of what to say, you simply sit back and make yourself comfortable, waiting for Cora to awaken. Your hand rubs along her back, hoping that the two of you would somehow be able to fix some of what Lillian had broken.

[eridanidreams]

Snippet Sunday

Tagging: @bearlytolerant, @silurisanguine, @aro-pancake, @fangbangerghoul, @atonalginger, @aislingdmdt, @fshenkoescape, @ninjaofnaps, @lisa-and-shadow, @a-cosmic-elf, @thatsgoodsquishy0, @hockeydemon42, @fomagranfalloon, @violenceandviolets, @therealgchu, @staticpallour, @artemis-crimson and @constellation-2330

Yes, I have a snippet today! While I work on finishing up the current chapter of stars through my fingers like grains of sand, here's something I was inspired to write the other day, from a future chapter.

Sam put his hand to the door and hesitated, reluctance rolling off him in waves. Cait laid a hand on his arm. "Love," she said softly, "we don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"I don't," he admitted. "But... gettin' married here is kind of a Coe tradition." He let out a little huff. "Which is why I _didn't_ marry Lillian here." He gave her a wry little smile. "Bad luck, that. Or so goes the family tradition."

Cait couldn't quite keep the skepticism out of her voice. "You think that's why..." she trailed off, aware she was treading on shaky ground; fortunately, Sam just chuckled.

"No, darlin', I think things didn't work out with Lillian because it was never meant to be. You, though—" he wrapped his free arm around her and gave her a quick kiss. "Feel like I used up all my luck finding you. Not sure I want to push it any further." He let out another sigh. "Might also be nice to make some _good_ memories here. Make it feel like a home again."

"Okay, then." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "I've got your back, you know?"

"Always," he reassured her, and pushed the door open.

Jacob was truculent as ever. "I wanted to see my granddaughter, not your... latest fling." his growl trailed off as he saw Sam's arm wrapped around Cait.

"Latest fling?" Cait said lightly, before the stress fracturing Sam's spirit could flash into anger. "That's nicer than 'Constellation lackey,' if not by much." She looked up at her lover as if Jacob weren't even there. "Sam, what does a lackey do anyway? Sarah didn't cover that in my orientation."

"'Cause you're way too much of a smartass to make a good lackey," Sam replied, just as lightly. The tension inside him released enough to let him find a semblance of his usual good humor. His arm tightened briefly around her waist as she sensed his brief flash of gratitude.

"Well," she said cheerily, "that just makes me perfect for you, doesn't it?"

Sam chuckled again, but quickly grew serious. While he wasn't as acidly angry as he usually was when talking to Jacob, there was no give in his voice or face. "The phrase you're looking for is _future wife_."

Shock flashed through Jacob, a bolt of lighting that burned through his usual sour resentment to wake something colder, sharper. "I would hope," Cait said gently, in an attempt to divert his usual vitriol, "that whatever else might lie between the two of you, you could be happy for Sam."

"Happy?" Jacob's eyes widened incredulously. "You expect me to be happy to see *my son* tricked into wedlock by some half-alien tramp?"

Sam's jaw set; his whole body tensed, and his rage roiled down her tie to him in a molten tide. Before he could say anything, Cait pivoted to put herself between the two men. She met Sam's eyes—whatever he saw in hers sent a shock of worry through the anger. She took his hand and squeezed it lightly. "Sam," she said, as levelly as she could manage, "Why don't you go meet Cora down at Sinclair's, maybe go for some Chunks? I'll call you when I'm ready to head back to the ship." Sam didn't argue the point; he paused in the doorway just long enough for her to pick up the complicated knot of emotions—anger, frustration, resignation, even a little savage satisfaction—then let the door fall closed behind him. Cait turned to face the room's other occupant.

"Don't think I'll spare your feelings just because he's not here to run interference for you," Jacob growled. Despite the assurance in his voice, he was anything but confident. She smelled his uncertainty like an ashta scenting blood.

"He doesn't need to worry about what you might do to me," Cait said dismissively. "I can handle a bitter old man like you in my sleep." She looked around the living room with the air of one who found it distinctly wanting. Just to make sure she'd seen what she'd thought she had… and the confirmation shredded the leash of her temper. She whipped her head back around to face him. "Tell me," she snarled, "what kind of father goes to these kind of lengths to make sure his son *forgets his mother's face?*"

"He needed to see the reality of the situation," Jacob said dismissively. "Better that he didn't have any unnecessary reminders."

"What you mean," she hissed, putting words to the emotions that writhed serpentine beneath his skin, "is that you didn't want to be reminded that she betrayed you. She left you alone. And you gave up *so much*. Respect. Influence. Power. After all, the government needed a Coe at the helm, didn't it?"

"That's right." He got up in her face, trying to stare her down. "Not that you would *understand* that kind of responsibility. God knows my son never did."

"He was never a son to you," she lashed back. "He was just a vessel for your ambitions. Grooming him to be your successor without a thought or a care as to what he wanted."

"It wasn't his *place* to want!" Jacob's face reddened. "I am his *father*. It was his job to sit down and do what he was told. Just like I did when I was his age."

"Lucky for you Sam doesn't think that way." Cait met his glare, knowing that her eerie gaze disturbed him—for once, she was not at all upset by it. He was the one to look away. "The *only* reason you've been getting time with Cora is because she wants it. And you have me—yes, the 'half-alien tramp'—to thank for that." He opened his mouth to say something; she just kept going. "Don't bother—I know just how much you'd mean it." She lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "Make no mistake, Jacob Coe, if I even get a *whiff* that you've done something to hurt that little girl, Sam won't find out about it, because I will take you apart myself."

Jacob paled and took a step back. "She's my *granddaughter*. I wouldn't—"

"I've seen what you did to your *son* because he wasn't what you wanted him to be. Forced him into a mold that didn't suit him. Belittled him with every breath. Made sure he *knew* he would never be good enough for you." Cait advanced on him. "I've stood right beside him, multiple times, listening to you spit your bile right into his face. You treat him like ashta crap, and you still expect him to lick your boots."

"If you can't show your worst side to your family, who _can_ you show it to?" he sneered.

The dark, dangerous part of her coiled up from the back of her mind at the thought of how much, and how badly, this man had damaged her Sam, and the barest wisp of it seeped into her voice. "Try the mirror." He actually flinched away from her. "Understand this, old man. You are not dealing with just Sam anymore. So keep a civil tongue in your head." Her eyes bored into his; he stared back as if caught in a basilisk's gaze. Her voice was deadly soft. "You don't want me to think you're a danger to my family." Before she could be tempted to say anything worse, she pulled her eyes away from his.

Jacob half-staggered back with the sudden release. "Is—is that a threat?" He tried to regain his usual bluster, but it was a threadbare cover over his sudden fear.

"A promise." Cait gave him a thin, ironic smile. "And a soon-to-be-Coe keeps her promises."

His hands curled into fists at his side, impotent fury sizzling through him, replacing the fear on his face. "I don't know what you did to get your hooks into my son, but—"

"I love him." Cait cut him off. "That simple." She laughed, but there was no real humor in it. "You have no damned idea what a gem you threw away." She tilted her head at a sudden thought. "Of course you wouldn't. You may have sired him, Jacob, but in every way that matters, Sam is *Solomon's* true son. You? You're just a petty, shriveled bureaucrat coasting on the laurels of your famous ancestor."

She turned and walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. Over her shoulder, she said, "Détente, or war to the knife. Your decision." Without waiting for his reply, she stepped out into the Akila rain.

[booburry]

Sam Coe Headcanon 3/??

SFW but this is going to be about Lillian and their dynamic so...read knowing you are probably going to hate her more after this.

100% Spoilers

As I am sure y'all have been doing, I have been watching Lillian like a hawk and wishing my dusty could actually give her a piece of MY mind. But it also had me thinking a lot of what type of person she is and what their relationship must have been like...

Lillian is 100% a narcissist with a capital N, A, R, C, I, S, S, I, S, T!

I truly think the reason she took Sam 'on' and 'saved him' was so that she could have the accolade of 'Saving the Last Coe'

Or because she saw how weak and vulnerable he was at that time she knew he would be an easy man to manipulate

She definitely gave false support only to get the noose around his neck tighter

I truly think she is the main reason Sam and his Dad couldn't manage to reconcile at all, even a small part, as with him moving further away from the 'Coe' name and dynasty he had in mind, the more spiteful he became of his 'ungrateful and unworthy child'

Knowing how much Jacob manipulated Sam made it really easy for him to see what he had with Lillian (atleast at the time but not in reflection) as love. He had never really known much else except for the few memories he has from his mom

She gaslit every fucking emotion he had

She would use 'logic' to diffuse any concerns or valid upsets with Sam

She kept them focused on the job, to the point where I see Sam not really knowing true details of her life--mostly just how she is/was as a ranger and surface level information (ie only child)

I think she used the promise of a family 'some day' as a carrot on a stick for Sam, keeping him tethered to her even when he was starting to become unhappy.

She 100% did not want Cora. Not only is she a confirmed unplanned baby, but given how Sam was the main caretaker, she refers to her daughter as a 'puppy' crawling after Sam and her 'closest ranger bud from Neon' has to ask her if her name is Cora. So...fuck her.

When Sam tells you that he just hit a wall one day and that is why he left, it just screams to me how she just constantly dismissed him, didn't care for his needs or upsets or discuss ANY of his emotions

It's also crazy cause in all the dialogue I have seen and experienced with her, she never talks about her emotions. The only one is jealousy towards Sam with how attached Cora is to him, which is just upset that someone could see Lillian as lesser than anyone or anything.

She would 100% hate the P/C and, outside of canon dialogue, would do everything in her power to put a wedge between them and Sam

I think every few months she crawls back to Sam only for intimacy cause that is, truly, the only way I can justify Sam still being hung up on such a bitch

Like she truly must have broken him if he can't see the vile person that she is

Pleeeeease Bethesda - let me kill her. Accidents happen in a gun fight, okay?

Okay????

[milezryn]

sorry to be starfield posting but damn something about sam coe living his life shouldering the pressure of an overwhelming legacy he feels both proud and bitter towards only to beat the cycle of expectations by bringing cora with him to explore the galaxy and giving her the freedom to choose what she wants to do with her life without the weight his father put on him to do the family name right just hits different

[carrieowens]

So I’m playing Bethesda’s Starfield and I’m romancing Sam Coe. I love that space cowboy.

I just got the part of his romance where your character and him get married, and just finished talking to his dad, Jacob. And I have one question, why the fuck is his ex-wife there and why the fuck does it make me, the bride, go pick her up from the spaceport.

And don’t give me the “Oh, well, they’re friends”, I don’t give a damn if they’re friends. Unless your ex is related to the person you are marrying, then they really shouldn’t be at the wedding. Now, I know everyone has their opinions and I’m not saying you can’t have your ex at your wedding, but at least make sure both the bride and the groom (or both brides. Or both grooms. Or whatever you identify as) are completely okay with it. And secondly, don’t make the person you are marrying go pick your ex up from the fucking airport.

I know this may not be important to some of you, but I just wanted to know why Bethesda didn’t give you a choice whether or not to invite her. I mean, I know she’s the mother of Sam’s daughter but that doesn’t mean she should invited to his wedding. I mean, he hates his father and still invited his father but that makes sense cause he’s his father. But inviting his ex-wife makes absolutely zero sense.

That’s it if my weird rant about a video game, I have had too much caffeine.

Also, why the fuck can’t I invite any of the other companions? I mean, they’re probably just on the ship like, “what’s taking them so long?”, then we get back and we’re married. I mean, if you’re gonna make me invite Sam ex, then at least let me invite our other friends.

[therealgchu]

Snippet Sunday - The Pilot

notice the new graphic? this is the start of the new fic series that'll go up friday. tagging @eridanidreams, @atonalginger, @fangbangerghoul, @@esorydoolb, and @sailor-kaiju (c'mon, show me what you're working on!) and anyone else that wants to put up a snippet or art.

it's part of the anamnesis series, and goes into how sam became one of the best pilots in the settled systems. it starts at age 6, and goes till he joins constellation. much of the themes will be about generational trauma, and how we break out of it, and fly away.

also, a reminder that Chapter 2 of Spooky Action at a Distance is up on ao3.

my other stuff on ao3.

sneak peek

Jacob had his hands full navigating re-entry with a rambunctious six year old on his lap who kept trying to pop up to see out of the cockpit windows. Truth be told, the man was a serviceable pilot, at best. And, at the moment he was regretting his decision to let Sam sit on his lap as he adjusted the nose to tilt upwards so the heat plates would take more of the brunt of the friction from re-entry. But, Jacob knew that when Grace looked at him like that, he couldn’t say no. 

They had met at a function at the Rock ten years ago, and to this day, he never knew why she asked him out. He wasn’t great looking, and she was beautiful - tall, flaxen hair, blue eyes the color of the Akila sky after it was washed clean by rain, and the longest legs he’d ever seen on a woman. He was just a mid-level civil servant with the FC, working mainly in trade, while she had just finished her Ph.D., dashing off to newly discovered planets to uncover the origin of how solar systems were created. He’d gone to the function because his buddy, Ben, who’d just joined the Rangers, wanted a wing-man. Turned out Ben didn’t need a wing-man, and Jacob was left alone at the bar. He’d been contemplating leaving when Grace walked up to him. Of course he’d noticed her earlier, she had swarms of people around her vying for her attention all evening, yet she arrowed in on him. From that moment forward, they were inseparable.

Sam was a bit of a miracle baby, as Grace wasn’t sure she could carry to term. They tried to conceive again shortly after Sam turned two, but it wasn’t to be. Medical science still could fix only so much, and her pregnancy with Sam put too much of a strain on her body. Instead, they lavished their love and attention on their only child. He might have been a little spoiled, at least compared to the way Jacob was raised, but he was such a sweet, loving boy, that it didn’t seem to make a difference.

Jacob was thankful that Sam took after his mother in looks, the same blond hair and clear blue eyes, rather than him. He also took after his mother in his disposition and brains. He was fearless and open with everyone, just like his mother, and sucked up information like a sponge. Jacob, on the other hand, was by nature cautious and even timid at times; and he knew he didn’t have a great mind. He was built to be the low-level bureaucrat that he was. Grace was reckless and spontaneous; sometimes too spontaneous as there were several times when he had to haul her out of trouble. In all, however, they made a good, complimentary team, smoothing each other’s edges.

Sam, however, seemed to distill the best qualities from both parents. While fearless, he already showed signs of good sense, and he had a kindness and thoughtfulness that his mother sometimes lacked. By the time the boy was three, Jacob felt that Sam was intended for greatness, to bring back glory to the Coe name. He knew that he was never going to; his own father drilled that fact into his head often enough growing up. But for Sam, he was going to move all of the Settled Systems if he had to, to give the boy all of the opportunities to reach his destiny.

[atonalginger]

WIP Wednesday

@therealgchu tagged me earlier today for WIP Wed, thank you for the tag! I've been behind with Wed and Sun updates due to stress, medical appointments, husband getting ready to and starting his new remote job, and more stress. Everything is fine and I'm getting back to a more normal routine which means I have snips to share again!

I decided to dive head first into working on the next Libertatia fic, the one I've been hammering on since like...April? Off and on. A fluff fic really about a little girl's wild west b-day party!

[narrator interruption: it is not a fluff piece. the 'subplot' is full of drama and angst.]

anyway...here's the snip!

--

They sat there quietly sipping their drinks and letting the breeze through the window and door cool them off. It would be another day before Jazz got the power to the indoor spaces running for the fans and refrigerator. A small compromise that took a lot of negotiating with Sophie since she wanted everything authentic. It took getting her to spend one hour in the saloon in an outfit similar to her costume for her to cave, admitting the last thing she wanted was for Bog to get sick from the heat.

Bella watched Cora and Manny walk by with Rokov, everyone loaded up with targets, empty bottles, and clay pigeons for the trick shots show a few of the crew had dreamed up. A question she’d asked Jacob popped into her head, his answer not satisfactory, “Did they say anything about Cora not being the ‘right girl’. Jacob had no clue what the fuck Jimmie was on about.”

Fox groaned and sank in his seat, “yeah and it’s stupid as shit.”

“Oh really,” Bella leaned in.

“The way Mom explained it sounded like some grand conspiracy,” he talked through his hands, “Whoever has been feeding them information spun quite the yarn and…you’re going to make me regurgitate that crazy?”

“Si, habla!” Bella motioned for him to continue.

He mumbled a string of obscenities before tipping his fresh beer back and taking a long drink. He sat the bottle down, took a breath, and shook his head, “it’s fucking stupid.”

“They believed it enough to risk fighting my husbands, I need to know,” she laughed.

“Whoever their informant is told them that Cora, real life Cora,” Fox pointed down toward the range, “is a little girl Jacob adopted to solidify the ‘lie’ that Sam had moved on with Lillian and that the ‘real’ Cora is a seven year old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. They bought it because the Coes are mostly blondes and we have some blondes on the Bakers side so genetically it works out. They were told that was the reason Jay bought the Core Manor years back was so she could have Cora on Akila and let her Dad and Jacob see her in secret. Then two years ago they decided to stop living in secret and got married. Mom even showed me pictures given to her by the informant with ‘actress’ Cora dancing with ‘real’ Cora or ‘real’ Cora was sitting on Sam’s lap while Jay fixed her hair.”

The amusement Bella had felt was gone, burned away by the wrath growing inside of her, “they think Sophie is Cora?”

“Si,” Fox said sharply and took another drink, “never mind that Sophie is a near perfect replica of you, they believe that she’s actually Cora and that Jay had you come live with her to help take care of her so Jacob could keep his cover story going.”

“But that doesn’t make any fucking sense!” Bella shouted, “Sam and Lillian divorced years ago, there was no need to wait until two years ago to go public.”

“Jay was still building her brand then,” Fox rolled his eyes, “I asked them why they thought any of it made sense, why they thought Jacob would feel the need to fake anything since he clearly liked Jay so much or why they would name their daughter the same name as the ‘cover’ and they said their informant told them it was to save face since Jay chose to earn her masters and Ph.D in New Atlantis. He needed the family to look like a strong Freestar family and Jay was a liability at the time. The way she talked it was like the whole of the Core District was in on it.”

“That’s…”

“Stupid? Absurd? Absolutely ridiculous?” Fox opened his arms wide, “and before you ask: yes, I asked them where the informant got those photos. They said that they never met the informant directly, always through proxies, and that they had no idea where they’d gotten them but they were assured they were legit. I took them and told them that I’d be handing them over to the Rock for an investigation because those were wedding photos I took and the only people who have copies are me, Jay and Sam. Which means their informant broke into one of our homes to get those pictures.”

Bella sat slack jawed in her seat, her imagination running wild with scenarios she did not want to think about.

[silurisanguine]

That Necklace of Sam Coe- headcanon

So it looks like a opalised or crystalised tooth with a container embedded within it, almost like a reliquary or perfume bottle shape. So my headcanon is that it is a Solomon Coe relic. An opalised tooth of an Ashta that Solomon found when he first set up Akila city. The metal case contains something precious, either Solomon's ashes or the first bit of soil from the building of the city... or possibly a message. Sam knows this, but it's not why he wears it. See, he stole it from Jacob, when he was younger in an act of spite against everything that was being forced onto him with the Coe legacy that Jacob is so obsessed with. (The reason the museum curator doesnt recognise it is that has secretly passed down from father to son through the years, but Jacob held it back from Sam because he didnt think he was worthy...) But as the years went on, Sam began to appreciate what Solomon did and now he wears it with pride, even though he would never admit that to anyone but Dusty and maybe once he realises he has their support, Cora too.

[spookyspecterino]

MASTERLIST

❤️ NSFW/18+ | 🧡 Mature Teens | 💛 SFW | My AO3

A Quiet Place: Day One

Eric x Reader

💛 "Focus on Me" | GN!Reader

You and Eric share a first kiss

💛 "Try To Live, For Me" | GN!Reader

You meet Eric on the boat. Getting attached is dangerous.

💛 "Together at the End of the World" | GN!Reader

You're stuck in the subway with Eric the day the asteroids hit.

Starfield - Sam Coe/Delgado

Starfield Masterlist

Bullet Train - Tangerine

Bullet Train Masterlist

Far Cry 5

Jacob Seed

❤️ "Out Hunting" | F! Reader

Jacob goes hunting, only to be followed by the deputy. Things don't go as planned, which might not be such a bad thing.

John Seed

🧡 "Unconditional" | GN! Reader

John is caught off-guard by a surprise visit from the deputy and they confess something he wasn't expecting. Will this be a turning point for him?

Stranger Things - Eddie Munson

❤️ "Distracted" | F! Reader

While in class, you and Eddie get to talking. Which quickly becomes something else when certain things come out...

❤️ "I'm With You Till the End" | F! Reader

When Eddie's trailer shows up on the morning news and cops come to your door asking if you've seen him, you panic and go looking for him.

Marvel - Stephen Strange

🧡 "Annoying" | GN! Reader

During an argument you let slip that you may have once had a crush on Stephen Strange, but Stephen doesn't reject you and some interesting things are revealed...

💛 "Is it Worth That?" | GN! Reader

When Stephen Strange tracks you down for practicing forbidden magic you are forced to make a crucial choice.

Encanto - Bruno Madrigal

💛 HeadCanons & A Few Short Blurbs | F! Reader

HeadCanons about Bruno's feelings for you. Blurbs are short stories about Bruno asking you out on a date and Bruno and you getting ready for Julieta's wedding.

💛 "Think About This, Before It's Too Late" | F! Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

When you've loved Bruno from afar for so long and he's never reciprocated, you think it's finally time to move on. But moving on isn't working and you're faced with a choice.

💛 "I'd Like a Vision, Please" | F! Reader

You go to Bruno for a vision, but what he shows you isn't what you expected. Trying to question The Seer only gets you more tangled up.