#lmao a blood slave market

[gamerwoo]

[Tales from the Pack] Jeonghan: Sold (Part Three)

Characters: Jeonghan x female reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fantasy, angst, loooots of mentions of the black market/human trafficking, people in cages, shock collars, violence, murder, guns, possible minor character death, just a lot of bad things happening here and it's very chaotic lmao

Word count: 3,253

Summary: If Jooyeon and Baekhyun never went snooping around the black market, they would’ve never discovered the human trafficking ring and wanted to help. They would’ve never discovered you inside one of the many cages full of people, and Jeonghan would’ve never went against the alphas and demanded they help. But for you, Jeonghan would do anything, even if it means bringing back trouble from a past he never knew about.

a/n: things in bold are meant to be in english

Previous | Next | Sold Masterlist

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t do it if it were Jooyeon in there. Or Yeji. Or Soomin. Or any of the girls in this household. You’d see your mate laying in a cage, dirty, exhausted, knowing they were being sold off to a pack of mate-collectors, and you’d just let them go?”

That was enough persuasion for the pack to finally cave and agree to help Jeonghan. Those who had mates understood how it felt. The others could imagine how horrible it must’ve felt to see that, and the determination Jeonghan felt to do anything possible to get you out of that situation. 

Junmyeon’s pack was hard to persuade – well, except for Chanyeol – but they eventually agreed to help.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to overtake whoever’s behind the ring, though,” Junmyeon admitted. “We don’t even know how many people are involved.”

“Hanbin will no doubt help us,” Kyung said.

“I can ask Chris, too,” Cooper shrugged. “At least having Felix or Changbin would be helpful.”

“Either way,” Seungcheol interrupted, “we’re going to plan this from all angles. Whether we have four packs or just two – we’re going to make sure we can pull this off.”

“Our main goal is getting Blue out of there,” Jihoon added on, “but we’re gonna try to save as many people as we can.”

Jongdae stopped the explanation, “Who’s Blue?”

“That’s what Jeonghan started calling her,” Joshua explained. 

“It’s the color of her collar,” the boy in question shrugged. “What else am I supposed to call her?”

“That rhymed!” Soonyoung smiled, pointing to Jeonghan enthusiastically before taking Jihoon’s palm to the back of the head.

“Where are these captives expected to go after they’re free?” Sehun wondered. “Just…wander off into the woods? They’ll just get caught again.”

“Cooper and I worked together with an ally of mine to find some safe housing for them,” Kyung explained. “Her and her partners work under the table as werewolf doctors. Besides, the public already views werewolves as horrible creatures so I’m sure anybody would be willing to take someone in who was almost a part of a werewolf kidnapping.”

“And how long do we have to figure all of this out?” Yixing questioned.

“That’s the problem,” Seungcheol sounded a little afraid and unsure now, “...we don’t know. Which means we have to plan this and execute it immediately.”

-

You felt absolute fear watching the girl be thrown to the ground, blood covering half her face. But you didn’t scream or even move. You learned not to. You did anything you were told to avoid drawing attention to yourself. Anything to not get hurt more than you already were.

“Can you be fucking careful?” one of the other men snapped gruffly at the one who’d thrown the girl to the ground by her hair. “If they’re damaged, they’re not gonna pay as much!”

“They already paid half and it was more than enough,” another said.

“But I want the other half in full!”

You knew about whoever had bought you. The men kept saying you were going to be ‘slaves to monsters’, but you were pretty sure they were the real monsters. You’d heard all the stories about werewolves, but you didn’t feel any fear knowing you were soon going to be shipped off to a den of them. However, you didn’t trust any human anymore. Your whole life, all they’d done is hurt you and betray you. None of them were compassionate. All of them just looked for personal gain, and you were somehow always in the crossfire.

Maybe a life with werewolves would be better.

In the cage next to you, you heard a scoff. You already knew it was Saoirse. She seemed to always be doing something to get in trouble, but she was the only person there that you talked to. She was the only human you’d met that wasn’t completely horrible.

“They’re gonna be in for a rude awakening when these cages are empty one morning,” she muttered.

You scooted a little closer to the edge of the cage closest to her, “What?”

Saoirse was the only person you ever spoke to. You wouldn’t necessarily consider her a friend considering the trouble she got herself in, but she was someone that you could keep at arm's length. She’d been nice to you a handful of times, so you’ve gotten her out of trouble with her language barrier in return. You spoke to each other here and there to pass the time and relieve boredom, but that was really it.

She glanced over at you like she just now noticed you were there before she looked back at the scene in the middle of the tent, “Some creatures showed up here last night. They looked human but their eyes were something else, and they promised to get us all out of here.”

You were both speaking quietly so as to not draw the attention away from the men bickering among themselves, but you still kept stealing glances over toward them to make sure they didn’t notice the two of you talking.

“And you trust strangers to save us?” you questioned.

She shrugged, “What reason would they have to come here and find us? And why would they lie about saving us?”

“What reason would they have to save us?” you countered, looking back at her.

She tisked, “Let me have something to be hopeful for, will ya?”

“Hey!” one of the men yelled, making you jump but Saoirse didn’t even seem phased. You whipped your head around while her eyes just glanced behind you to the three men. “Do you two wanna be next?”

You quickly shook your head.

Saoirse never understood what they said, so she just muttered for them to fuck off like she always did, which then angered the men because they couldn’t understand her. Typically, they’d do something to punish her, but today, the man scoffed and waved the issue away.

“The freaks will have a field day with you,” he spat before the three of them left the tent.

“Guess lunch time isn’t happening…” she muttered with a roll of her eyes.

“You need to stop making things worse for yourself,” you huffed, your voice tired.

Truthfully, you were still feeling quite groggy. You always were, but you’d woken up only a few minutes prior to the girl getting beat for whatever reason the men found to do so. You didn’t want to go back to sleep but it was hard keeping your eyes open.

“I’m not letting shit like this happen to me without a fight,” she scoffed. “If I’m capable, I’ll do anything to stop what’s happening to us. I mean, those people last night wouldn’t have come and offered to free us if I didn’t stay awake.”

“We’re all going to the same place either way,” you finally snapped, sending her a glare. “You’re fighting for nothing and making it worse for yourself – and you almost dragged me down with you. Leave me out of your…righteous bullshit or whatever.”

You rarely snapped at Saoirse, but she still didn’t seem phased by it, “You need to stop letting bad shit happen to you, Girl. That’s why it keeps happening. You don’t do anything to try and fight back.”

“And which one of us have gotten beaten the most?”

Before Saoirse could come up with a snappy reply that you knew she’d have, the tent flaps opened again, and two different men showed up with stale bread. They tossed half a loaf in each cage that everyone would fight over and tear apart like animals. Some hurt each other in the process, so hungry that they were feral for every single crumb they could get, even if it meant scratching and grabbing at each other.

As always, you stayed away in a corner and watched the other six people in your cage dive after the bread tossed in, snarling and yelling and fighting over it. You didn’t get food, but at least you weren’t injured even worse.

“Hey. Girl.”

That’s what Saoirse called you. You didn’t have a name – not that you could remember. So she always called you Girl to get your attention.

You turned your head just in time to see Saoirse tossing something through the bars and into your cage. You quickly cupped your hands to catch whatever it was. A piece of bread half the size of your fist.

You glanced back up at her and she offered you a small smirk before biting into her half of the bread. Nobody in the cage dared fight Saoirse over the portion she’d managed to get because she was infamous for fighting back. They knew fighting against her would be a losing battle because she dared to even fight back against the men holding them all captive.

Maybe it was smarter to fight back like Saoirse, even if it meant worse punishments. But life had punished you so much already, and you were tired of fighting.

As you nibbled on your bread, turning so your back was to your cagemates, you decided one really couldn’t teach old dogs new tricks.

-

The locked gate in front of the flaps to the tent was no issue for Soonyoung before, but the pack needed him focused. So the question stood as the pack planned for the prison break: how to get into the tent in the first place without running into the werewolf traps set around the perimeters?

“Okay…” Cooper began slowly and softly, afraid to speak the plan she was brewing out loud because she didn’t want it to be considered bad or stupid, “what if we had someone on the inside who could unlock the gate? Like…maybe a mouse?”

“A mouse?” Chanyeol had scoffed.

Jihoon considered the idea and shrugged slightly, “I mean, that’s not a bad idea, actually. Small enough the guards probably wouldn’t see him.”

“Where the hell are you guys gonna find a trained mouse?” Baekhyun asked with an incredulous laugh.

Chris simply pointed with his thumb to the boy sitting beside him, “Perfectly trained, right here.”

“Make that two,” Jaesang said as he raised his hand to head-level.

And that’s exactly what step one of the plan was. A tiny gray mouse scurried around the perimeter of the outside of the tent, alongside a dark brown one, going up toward the black iron gate. The outside of the gate wasn’t protected this time, but Felix and Jaesang could see two men inside the gate that were a few feet away from the entrance. 

They shimmied up one of the bars to the latch and together, managed to push it up, jumping down as the gate swung open so they could hurry inside before possibly getting stepped on, knowing they couldn’t see the people who would be following right behind them.

The two guards looked up, their conversation falling silent as the gate swung open seemingly out of nowhere.

“How the hell did that happen?” one of the men asked as they both stepped up to inspect the gate’s latch before closing it. “Did the latch break?”

“No, it looks–”

The man didn’t finish his sentence as his head was suddenly thrown back like he’d been punched in the face. The other guy looked up in surprise, only for his neck to get twisted at an unnatural angle, and with a snap, he fell to the ground. His companion soon met the same fate as a human Jaesang snuck up behind him while he was distracted with the pain in his now bloodied nose.

Seungcheol and Cooper appeared behind the first man’s body, Cooper’s hand on Seungcheol’s back being removed now that they were safe to be visible.

“There’s more guys around the back,” Felix informed them as the rest of the group began rushing in through the front gate. “We’re gonna have our work cut out for us.”

“We’ve got four packs against some humans,” Jinyoung chuckled, clearly feeling good about the odds. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“Just don’t get too cocky,” Hanbin warned.

“Cocky’s his middle name,” Kyung muttered before going off with her group to subdue the men keeping the people in the cages.

-

“Alright, get up! Everybody up! Let’s go!”

It wasn’t the first time you’d woken up to a man yelling for you all to wake up, but this wasn’t a voice you’d heard before. This one was softer, but still sounded urgent. Your eyes groggily peeled open as you tried to sit up, your bones and joints stiff and aching. Your vision was blurry so you thought you were surely just seeing things when you saw someone grab ahold of the metal bars and pull them open almost effortlessly. You sat up completely and rubbed at your eyes, only to see someone with blonde hair, yellow eyes, and a kind smile standing right in front of you, his slender fingers wrapped around the bars. He looked like an absolute angel with his perfect teeth, pink lips, and kind eyes that looked right at you. He made your heart flutter.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said before pushing the bars apart enough to create a gap for the people in your cage to get out.

He was quick to scoop you up before the other six people in your cage trampled you to get free. But as soon as you were too close to the bars, your collar went off with a continuous shock that had you letting out a strangled yell.

Jeonghan was quick to grab the collar by the black box and rip the blue collar from your neck. 

Unfortunately for the wolves, it was chaos trying to free these people. Of course, they were panicking trying to run away and weren’t going to listen to those trying to guide them safely outside the tent and to freedom. Some were guided out and made it to those waiting at the perimeter to guide them toward the safehouses they had set, but others were ignoring all instruction and running for their lives, getting hurt or killed in the process. Some of them ran out, clutching their necks as they were shocked to no end as they tried to make their escape. 

Jeonghan wasn’t focusing on that. His only job was to get you out and get you back to the house as quickly and safely as possible. Once he had you, he was supposed to run for it, and that’s exactly what he was doing, dodging other captives and wolves as he ran for the exit with every wolf he ran passed covering him so he could make a safe escape with you.

As you were being carried out, you saw another man prying open the bars of Saoirse’s cage. She immediately leapt out and followed where the man was pointing to, running to follow after you and the strange man who was carrying you. Her eyes caught yours over his shoulder, and she seemed to brighten a little and give you a knowing smile as if to say ‘I told you so’.

The man jogged through the gates before he bolted for an escape.

“Jihoon!” he called. “Cover me!”

Jihoon stopped what he was doing as soon as he spotted Jeonghan, then his eyes looked behind him to see a guard chasing after them. His eyes glowed to life as he held his palm toward the man before flinging him backward toward the tent, his back hitting the iron bars of the gate.

You looked around, seeing absolute chaos around you as giant wolves tore apart men, and captives ran for their lives or were shot down. Then you looked behind you to see Saoirse still running behind you.

If you weren’t looking at her, you wouldn’t have known the scream that came from her mouth was hers before she hit the ground. You could see blood staining the back of her shirt, the pool of it spreading. 

“Saoirse!” you cried, reaching your hand behind the man.

He skidded to a stop, turning to see who you were yelling for. He looked over at Jihoon again, and the alpha nodded, running toward the girl. 

Jeonghan didn’t wait to see what would happen to Saoirse. He couldn’t wait. He had to get you home. He had to get you to safety. So he turned back around and continued running the way he had been.

While he was focused on your safety, though, you were fixated on Saoirse’s. Sure, she was trouble, but she was the closest thing you’d ever had to a friend. So while Jeonghan ran, you watched over his shoulder to see what her fate would be.

-

The scream cut through the tense air. Everyone had clamped their hands over their ears, eyes closing tight as if it could help drown out the scream. Mingyu’s eyes were watering just from the sharp noise.

Finally, it died off, leaving everyone to look to Eunjin standing in the doorway of the den, hands still holding a plate of food like nothing happened. But her blue eyes were locked on the girl at the end of the hallway, clinging to the back of Jeonghan’s shirt with fear in her eyes. Eunjin’s eyes were glossy and filled with tears, and the two wolves who had been left behind to take care of the mates began to panic.

Eunjin was staring at you.

“What happened?” Joshua asked urgently as he rushed over to her. He stood in front of her, gently gripping her upper arms and searching her eyes, but it was like he wasn’t even there to her. It was like she was still staring through him at you. “Eunjin? Did you hear something? Do you sense something? What is it?”

The three wolves waited for her response, but they knew her scream woke up every single mate upstairs and they would no doubt be down to ask questions soon. Immediately, they feared the worst. One of their own had died. Hell, maybe you were going to kill them. That wouldn’t have caught Eunjin’s attention like that. She would’ve sensed or heard something more significant than that.

And you were even more confused than anyone else because that was the first thing you experienced after Jeonghan opened the door.

It felt like time was frozen until Eunjin’s lips quivered and she said in a whisper, “I have a bad feeling again…”

The small group looked around at each other with a mix of worried and grim looks. They all knew what that meant. It was a feeling she got when she had met Hansol before. She screamed when she saw him, and then Jiung died and things went downhill with Kyung. 

Then three pairs of golden eyes were on you, along with Eunjin’s blue eyes that sent a shiver down your spine for reasons other than her screaming at you.

But Jeonghan didn’t care. He didn’t care if you brought death or something, if he were honest. Maybe Eunjin just sensed death associated with you because of what had happened. He’d make up any excuse in his head for you. He’d defend you in front of his entire pack if he had to. All he wanted was you to be safe, and now that he had you in his arms, he could make sure you always would be. And he’d never let you go.

»»————-　　————-««

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[syndrossi]

If Jon and Rhaegar WERE to sneak out into the city somehow, for some reason, would Rhaegar get them lost again? It would be randomly fun if they ran into, like, a nice Hugh Hammer who thinks they're bastards because of their hair colors and so feels a sort of kinship with these little lost children who are close in age to his own daughter. (Or Ulf, I guess, but I feel like Ulf would care less about protecting lost kids and more about, idk, proclaiming them as his bastard nephews or something, lmao. Silverwing would likely need to pick a different rider in the future in that scenario...) Do you think Daemon would find them because a goldcloak locates them, or because Rhaegar starts singing for the smallfolk (would he have canonically done this already as he was only fourteen?), or because Jon kicks somebody who tries to touch Rhaegar's pretty, pretty hair and thus creates a scuffle/chase/brawl, or in yet another way? I'd be eternally amused if Erryk and Arryk, on their ONE DAY OFF, go out to drink together as brothers, only to see Jon and Rhaegar sneaking through the streets like the little troublemakers they are. And why do you think would Jon and Rhaegar would be motivated to sneak out of the keep at all, when they know that doing so will drive their father's blood pressure up to insane levels? Are they investigating something? Following someone? Lured out? Looking for a birthday gift for their father? Just trying to stretch their legs after being locked in a tower for so long? Literally get lost in the tunnels and can't find their way back into the keep Arya-style?

FINALLY, in the reverberate au, how would this scenario differ? (Toddlers lost in the walls, oh dear.)

Oooohhhhh dear. Rhaegar would probably be able to successfully lead them out into the city without an issue--the main problem is that some passages within the keep seem either inaccessible, differently accessible, or not built/finished. (There are also a handful that didn't exist by Rhaegar's time!)

They would have to go out in disguise, however, because pretty much anyone who looks at Rhaegar in one of his princely outfits is going to assume he's the king's son, Aegon. (It's not an uncommon misconception even within the Red Keep, since he very much acts the part of a crown prince. Just don't let Daemon catch you making that mistake!) And Jon might be mistaken for Jace, for those who aren't quite sure how old Rhaenyra's son is!

I love the idea of them running into the Cargyll twins who cannot escape these troublemakers. The reeeeaaaal question is: do Jon and Rhaegar make a run for it?

If not the Cargyll twins, Ulf or Hugh would definitely be putting their lives on the line interfering with the twins, even in a "nice" way. 😂

Really, it all comes down to which section of the city they venture into. Flea Bottom is, uh, dangerous. Especially for two pretty little boys in finery wandering around. (And even not in finery! No one to miss them, and there is a healthy black market slave trade pipeline to outgoing ships headed to Essos.)

If they are closer to the Red Keep, aka where the nice shops and houses are, they're probably more likely to run into Erryk and Arryk, and less likely to encounter trouble. Just as likely that a Goldcloak who's seen them before in the Red Keep barracks recognizes them and tries to gather them up before Daemon realizes they're gone and goes ballistic.

At present, they're quite aware of the dangers they face, especially with their kidnapping still so recent, so I don't think they'd sneak out intentionally of their own accord just yet. This would have to be a few-months-down-the-road deal, when guards are lowered.

There are still a few circumstances I could see them finding themselves out in the city:

They are worried about Daemon and are trying to help him in some way, and sneaking out is the only way to do so.

A situation like Aegon trying to sneak out to the Dragonpit, and they tag along to keep him safe.

As you suggested, they're lured out in some way.

They are on a supervised excursion and separated in some way.

The real question, of course, is just how large the blast radius of Daemon's panic-fueled explosion ends up being.

[drovenna]

Fallout 4 OC Game

From this template from @portergage.

I realised I haven't posted this drawing lol.

[IDENTITY]

Full name: Ruby Lennox

Gender: female

Pre-war job: Head of the marketing department at Hubris Comics

Date of birth: 2051. November 17.

Place of birth: Norfolk, Virginia

Current age: 26 (238) (in 2289)

Biology: human /synth / ghoul / robot / super mutant / other

Current living place: Nuka-World overboss quarters and Spectacle Island

[ALIGNEMENT]

Chosen factions: BoS / Minutemen / Railroad / Institute / Nuka World Raiders

Role: Overboss

Allied factions: BoS / Minutemen / Railroad / Institute / Atom Cats

Enemy factions: BoS / Minutemen / Railroad / Institute / other

[PERSONALITY]

Alignement: lawful / neutral / chaotic / good / neutral / evil

(From Arthur Maxson to Nate Carter , how chaotic is Ruby? A strong 6)

Main qualities: Her anger doesn't make her clumsy or reckless, more like sharp as a predator. She can good at managing, and arranging things to come out on top, and talk people into almost anything.

Main flaws: Denying emotions, especially feelings towards other people. Attachments? Are those armor modifications? This can cause some onwanted situations.

Fears: Anything that is cold, and closed places, that she cannot move away from. She refused to sit in the Memory lounger in the Memory Den. It took Dr Amari 2 weeks to convince her, that no, she is not gonna trap her inside it. But the Power Armor, it feels like a second skin to her, she can move around in it and it saved her ass more time she can count.

[RELATIONSHIPS]

Status: single / pining / taken / engaged / married / divorced / widowed / open relationship / other (It took Gage and her almost a year to figure out what is going on)

Sexual orientation: bi / gay / lesbian / pan / straight / other (Magnolia was truly a night stand lmao)

People closest to them: Porter Gage, Old Longfellow, Rowdy (Atom cats)

People they hate: Marcy Long (from day 1), Arthur Maxson (hate but respect), Vault Tec rep (She hunted him down just to have him as a slave, yep I know, she is one cruel raider)

Family: The Nuka-World Gang leaders are the closest to family. I headcanon she could actually keep up the peace, and all 3 gangs stayed. (Yeaaa 'bout that, she made a deal with Mason in the beginning ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )

[PHYSICAL]

Height: 171 cm / 5'7"

Weight: 70 kg / 154 lbs

Build: Muscular (like a figure skater, not that obvious until they are in action , this is the only example I could think of lmao)

Hair color: White (Light brown originally)

Eyes color: Green, sometimes a little brownish, sometimes venom green, depends on the lights

Tattoos/scars/markings: I have a whole sheet for this

Body/facial hair: None

[ABILITIES]

Spoken language: English

Strengths: Good with engines. She used to fix her own car when she had the time.

Weakness: Terrible at dancing and dealing with pets. (Mason doesn't count) She hates computers, you can't hack that with a big smash, or you can't see inside it what is actually going on.

Favored weapons: She can handle herself well with different weapons. Mostly she uses her revolver and spiky knuckles for close fights. But for doing business she is in her power armor with a gatling laser.

[RANDOM]

Favorite piece of clothes: "No Ruby, it doesn't count. I know I know that power armor looks good with skulls and flames on it, but still it's not a piece of clothes."

Favorite food: Blood of the innocent, Fried Fog Crawler, and any other food made on Far Harbor really.

Favorite beverage: VIM and Nuka-Cola Quartz

Favorite season: Summer ofc, she loves the heat.

[nellygwyn]

BOOK RECS

Okay, so lots of people wanted this and so, I am compiling a list of my favourite books (both fiction and non-fiction), books that I recommend you read as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I’ll be pinning this post to the top of my blog (once I work out how to do that lmao) so it will be accessible for old and new followers. I’m going to order this list thematically, I think, just to keep everything tidy and orderly. Of course, a lot of this list will consist of historical fiction and historical non-fiction because that’s what I read primarily and thus, that’s where my bias is, but I promise to try and spice it up just a little bit. 

Favourite fiction books of all time:

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock // Imogen Hermes Gowar

Sense and Sensibility // Jane Austen

Slammerkin // Emma Donoghue 

Remarkable Creatures // Tracy Chevalier

Life Mask // Emma Donoghue

His Dark Materials // Philip Pullman (this includes the follow-up series The Book of Dust)

Emma // Jane Austen

The Miniaturist // Jessie Burton

Girl, Woman, Other // Bernadine Evaristo 

Jane Eyre // Charlotte Brontë

Persuasion // Jane Austen

Girl with a Pearl Earring // Tracy Chevalier

The Silent Companions // Laura Purcell

Tess of the d’Urbervilles // Thomas Hardy

Northanger Abbey // Jane Austen

The Chronicles of Narnia // C.S. Lewis

Pride and Prejudice // Jane Austen

Goodnight, Mr Tom // Michelle Magorian

The French Lieutenant’s Woman // John Fowles 

The Butcher’s Hook // Janet Ellis 

Mansfield Park // Jane Austen

The All Souls Trilogy // Deborah Harkness

The Railway Children // Edith Nesbit

Favourite non-fiction books of all time

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman // Robert Massie

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King // Antonia Fraser

Madame de Pompadour // Nancy Mitford

The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach // Matthew Dennison 

Black and British: A Forgotten History // David Olusoga

Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court // Lucy Worsley 

Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Katherine Howard, the Fifth Wife of Henry VIII // Gareth Russell

King Charles II // Antonia Fraser

Casanova’s Women // Judith Summers

Marie Antoinette: The Journey // Antonia Fraser

Mrs. Jordan’s Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King // Claire Tomalin

Jane Austen at Home // Lucy Worsley

Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames // Lara Maiklem

The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth // Anna Keay

The Marlboroughs: John and Sarah Churchill // Christopher Hibbert

Nell Gwynn: A Biography // Charles Beauclerk

Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the Primeval Monsters // Patricia Pierce

Georgian London: Into the Streets // Lucy Inglis

The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart // Sarah Fraser

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match // Wendy Moore

Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from the Stone Age to the Silver Screen // Greg Jenner

Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum // Kathryn Hughes

Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey // Nicola Tallis

Favourite books about the history of sex and/or sex work

The Origins of Sex: A History of First Sexual Revolution // Faramerz Dabhoiwala 

Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Paris // Nina Kushner

Peg Plunkett: Memoirs of a Whore // Julie Peakman

Courtesans // Katie Hickman

The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in mid-Nineteenth Century England

Madams, Bawds, and Brothel Keepers // Fergus Linnane

The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital // Dan Cruickshank 

A Curious History of Sex // Kate Lister

Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire // Eric Berkowitz

Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray // Barbara White

Rent Boys: A History from Ancient Times to Present // Michael Hone

Celeste // Roland Perry

Sex and the Gender Revolution // Randolph Trumbach

The Pleasure’s All Mine: A History of Perverse Sex // Julie Peakman

LGBT+ fiction I love*

The Confessions of the Fox // Jordy Rosenberg 

As Meat Loves Salt // Maria Mccann

Bone China // Laura Purcell

Brideshead Revisited // Evelyn Waugh

The Confessions of Frannie Langton // Sara Collins

The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle // Neil Blackmore

Orlando // Virginia Woolf

Tipping the Velvet // Sarah Waters

She Rises // Kate Worsley

The Mercies // Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit // Jeanette Winterson

Maurice // E.M Forster

Frankisstein: A Love Story // Jeanette Winterson

If I Was Your Girl // Meredith Russo 

The Well of Loneliness // Radclyffe Hall 

* fyi, Life Mask and Girl, Woman, Other are also LGBT+ fiction

Classics I haven’t already mentioned (including children’s classics)

Far From the Madding Crowd // Thomas Hardy 

I Capture the Castle // Dodie Smith 

Vanity Fair // William Makepeace Thackeray 

Wuthering Heights // Emily Brontë

The Blazing World // Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

Murder on the Orient Express // Agatha Christie 

Great Expectations // Charles Dickens

North and South // Elizabeth Gaskell

Evelina // Frances Burney

Death on the Nile // Agatha Christie

The Monk // Matthew Lewis

Frankenstein // Mary Shelley

Vilette // Charlotte Brontë

The Mayor of Casterbridge // Thomas Hardy

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall // Anne Brontë

Vile Bodies // Evelyn Waugh

Beloved // Toni Morrison 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd // Agatha Christie

The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling // Henry Fielding

A Room With a View // E.M. Forster

Silas Marner // George Eliot 

Jude the Obscure // Thomas Hardy

My Man Jeeves // P.G. Wodehouse

Lady Audley’s Secret // Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Middlemarch // George Eliot

Little Women // Louisa May Alcott

Children of the New Forest // Frederick Marryat

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings // Maya Angelou 

Rebecca // Daphne du Maurier

Alice in Wonderland // Lewis Carroll

The Wind in the Willows // Kenneth Grahame

Anna Karenina // Leo Tolstoy

Howard’s End // E.M. Forster

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 // Sue Townsend

Even more fiction recommendations

The Darling Strumpet // Gillian Bagwell

The Wolf Hall trilogy // Hilary Mantel

The Illumination of Ursula Flight // Anne-Marie Crowhurst

Queenie // Candace Carty-Williams

Forever Amber // Kathleen Winsor

The Corset // Laura Purcell

Love in Colour // Bolu Babalola

Artemisia // Alexandra Lapierre

Blackberry and Wild Rose // Sonia Velton

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories // Angela Carter

The Languedoc trilogy // Kate Mosse

Longbourn // Jo Baker

A Skinful of Shadows // Frances Hardinge

The Black Moth // Georgette Heyer

The Far Pavilions // M.M Kaye

The Essex Serpent // Sarah Perry

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo // Taylor Jenkins Reid

Cavalier Queen // Fiona Mountain 

The Winter Palace // Eva Stachniak

Friday’s Child // Georgette Heyer

Falling Angels // Tracy Chevalier

Little // Edward Carey

Chocolat // Joanne Harris 

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street // Natasha Pulley 

My Sister, the Serial Killer // Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Convenient Marriage // Georgette Heyer

Katie Mulholland // Catherine Cookson

Restoration // Rose Tremain

Meat Market // Juno Dawson

Lady on the Coin // Margaret Campbell Bowes

In the Company of the Courtesan // Sarah Dunant

The Crimson Petal and the White // Michel Faber

A Place of Greater Safety // Hilary Mantel 

The Little Shop of Found Things // Paula Brackston

The Improbability of Love // Hannah Rothschild

The Murder Most Unladylike series // Robin Stevens

Dark Angels // Karleen Koen

The Words in My Hand // Guinevere Glasfurd

Time’s Convert // Deborah Harkness

The Collector // John Fowles

Vivaldi’s Virgins // Barbara Quick

The Foundling // Stacey Halls

The Phantom Tree // Nicola Cornick

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle // Stuart Turton

Golden Hill // Francis Spufford

Assorted non-fiction not yet mentioned

The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World // Deborah Cadbury

The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History to the Italian Renaissance // Catherine Fletcher

All the King's Women: Love, Sex, and Politics in the life of Charles II // Derek Jackson

Mozart’s Women // Jane Glover

Scandalous Liaisons: Charles II and His Court // R.E. Pritchard

Matilda: Queen, Empress, Warrior // Catherine Hanley 

Black Tudors // Miranda Kaufman 

To Catch a King: Charles II's Great Escape // Charles Spencer

1666: Plague, War and Hellfire // Rebecca Rideal

Henrietta Maria: Charles I's Indomitable Queen // Alison Plowden

Catherine of Braganza: Charles II's Restoration Queen // Sarah-Beth Watkins

Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses // Helen Rappaport

Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 // Stella Tillyard 

The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of the Jamaican Slave who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir // Michael Bundock

Black London: Life Before Emancipation // Gretchen Gerzina

In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793-1815

The King’s Mistress: Scandal, Intrigue and the True Story of the Woman who Stole the Heart of George I // Claudia Gold

Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson // Paula Byrne

The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England // Amanda Vickery

Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding School, 1939-1979 // Ysenda Maxtone Graham 

Fanny Burney: A Biography // Claire Harman

Aphra Behn: A Secret Life // Janet Todd

The Imperial Harem: Women and the Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire // Leslie Peirce

The Fall of the House of Byron // Emily Brand

The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough // Ophelia Field

Night-Walking: A Nocturnal History of London // Matthew Beaumont, Will Self

Jane Austen: A Life // Claire Tomalin

Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton // Flora Fraser

Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the 18th Century // John Brewer

Henrietta Howard: King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant // Tracy Borman

City of Beasts: How Animals Shaped Georgian London // Tom Almeroth-Williams

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion // Anne Somerset 

Charlotte Brontë: A Life // Claire Harman 

Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe // Anthony Summers

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day // Peter Ackroyd 

Elizabeth I and Her Circle // Susan Doran

African Europeans: An Untold History // Olivette Otele 

Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives // Daisy Hay

How to Create the Perfect Wife // Wendy Moore

The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough // Hugo Vickers

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn // Eric Ives

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy // Barbara Ehrenreich

A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie // Kathryn Harkup 

Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II // Linda Porter

Female Husbands: A Trans History // Jen Manion

Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day // Anne Somerset

Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country // Edward Parnell 

A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles // Ned Palmer

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine // Lindsey Fitzharris

Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages // Ann Baer

The Husband Hunters: Social Climbing in London and New York // Anne de Courcy

The Voices of Nîmes: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc // Suzannah Lipscomb

The Daughters of the Winter Queen // Nancy Goldstone

Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency // Bea Koch

Bess of Hardwick // Mary S. Lovell

The Royal Art of Poison // Eleanor Herman 

The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte, and the Hanoverians // Janice Hadlow

Palaces of Pleasure: From Music Halls to the Seaside to Football; How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment // Lee Jackson

Favourite books about current social/political issues (?? for lack of a better term)

Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power // Lola Olufemi

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker Rights // Molly Smith, Juno Mac

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race // Reni Eddo-Lodge

Trans Britain: Our Journey from the Shadows // Christine Burns

Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism // Alison Phipps

Trans Like Me: A Journey For All Of Us // C.N Lester

Brit(Ish): On Race, Identity, and Belonging // Afua Hirsch 

The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution // Dan Hicks

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living // Jes M. Baker

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot // Mikki Kendall

Denial: Holocaust History on Trial // Deborah Lipstadt

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape // Jessica Valenti, Jaclyn Friedman

Don’t Touch My Hair // Emma Dabiri

Sister Outsider // Audre Lorde 

Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen // Amrou Al-Kadhi

Trans Power // Juno Roche

Breathe: A Letter to My Sons // Imani Perry

The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment // Amelia Gentleman

Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You // Sofie Hagen

Diaries, memoirs & letters

The Diary of a Young Girl // Anne Frank

Renia’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust // Renia Spiegel 

Writing Home // Alan Bennett

The Diary of Samuel Pepys // Samuel Pepys

Histoire de Ma Vie // Giacomo Casanova

Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger // Nigel Slater

London Journal, 1762-1763 // James Boswell

The Diary of a Bookseller // Shaun Blythell 

Jane Austen’s Letters // edited by Deidre la Faye

H is for Hawk // Helen Mcdonald 

The Salt Path // Raynor Winn

The Glitter and the Gold // Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough

Journals and Letters // Fanny Burney

Educated // Tara Westover

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading // Lucy Mangan

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? // Jeanette Winterson

A Dutiful Boy // Mohsin Zaidi

Secrets and Lies: The Trials of Christine Keeler // Christine Keeler

800 Years of Women’s Letters // edited by Olga Kenyon

Istanbul // Orhan Pamuk

Henry and June // Anaïs Nin

Historical romance (this is a short list because I’m still fairly new to this genre)

The Bridgerton series // Julia Quinn

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover // Sarah Mclean

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake // Sarah Mclean

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics // Olivia Waite

That Could Be Enough // Alyssa Cole

Unveiled // Courtney Milan

The Craft of Love // EE Ottoman

The Maiden Lane series // Elizabeth Hoyt

An Extraordinary Union // Alyssa Cole

Slightly Dangerous // Mary Balogh

Dangerous Alliance: An Austentacious Romance // Jennieke Cohen

A Fashionable Indulgence // KJ Charles

[starculler]

Whumptober 2021: Day 3

Word Count: 6341 || Read on Ao3

Tags/Warnings: Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker, Boba Fett, Time Travel, Alternating POV, Violence, Injury, Blood, Slavery/Tatooine Slave Culture, Death Mention, Hopeful Ending

Inspiration: Family is more than Blood by Quillfeet

Got this one in by the skin of my teeth lmao. Did my best to handle any sensitive topics as carefully as I could under a time constraint, but feel free to let me know if any issues crop up.

Anakin bounced on his toes, eager to see the stranger who’d drawn so big a crowd long after the suns had set, but unwilling to leave his mom’s side. Not when he could practically feel the tension in the air, thick enough to cut through with even the dullest, poorly-made shiv. Still, impatience and curiosity burned through him and his admittedly small well of patience had already been wrung dry after an unbearably long day of having to behave in front of Watto, his customers, and the other masters in the market.

He tugged on his mom’s warm, calloused hand and she squeezed his, her grip tight but not painful as she peered over another slave’s shoulder. She frowned at whatever she saw, brow pinched and her mouth pursed in the way it sometimes did when she tried not to look worried in front of him. Anything that worried his mom like that should have made him nervous. It didn’t. He practically vibrated out of his skin at her side instead, his need to know turning to a prickling itch that crawled up his arms and down his back.

“Mom,” he said, low and in the tongue only Tatooine’s slaves knew, the word drawled out into an almost-whine he was nearly too old for.

His mom only squeezed his hand briefly, a reprimand and warning, and Anakin’s shut his mouth before any of a dozen question slipped through his chapped lips.

One of the slaves, a twi’lek near his mom’s age, on his other side turned their head just enough to make it obvious they’d heard him. He flushed, embarrassed until they winked and shifted so there was a a small gap to see through between them and the human blocking most of Anakin’s view. He wasted no time leaning over, putting most of his negligible weight on one foot so he wouldn’t pull his mom’s hand while he snuck a glance and give himself a away. Not that it mattered.

He gasped, all the breath stolen from his lungs when he caught his first glimpse of a scene seemingly pried free from some of his worst nightmares. Funny enough, the first thing he saw wasn’t the stranger body, but the sand beneath them: wet like someone had spilled water on it and dark red, almost black in the low light of old, flickering lamps made of more rust than metal — most of which he’d helped his mom fix more than once. Eyes wide, his gaze trailed up from there, from the soles of the stranger’s ratty boots to the top of their head for just long enough that the image of them burned itself into his memory.

Too soon and not soon enough, his mom pulled roughly on his arm, tugging him close against her side and hiding his face in her skirt. He clung to the dull, brown fabric and soaked in her familiar warmth even though it did nothing to stop the way his body shook. She squeezed his shoulders, but did nothing to scold him for looking. There was no sheltering a slave from horrible things. Not really.

Anakin had seen a lot of bad things in his terribly long eight years. He’d seen slaves beaten bloody and others blown up, some so violently that there was almost nothing to give back to the sands when they were mourned. He’d watched his mom scream and bleed and, once, beg to take his punishment when he’d been even younger and taking it himself might have killed him. He’d seen slaves in chains marched across the market and put up for auction. Others he’d watched be chased out of Mos Espa entirely, out into the sea of sand never to be heard from again.

This, however, was new. A cruelty his mom had so far kept him safe from, laid out on the sands of the slave’s quarters for all of them to see. The stranger’s face had been the most visible without any of the tattered bodysuit in the way. It almost looked like some master had at least taken a vibroblade to their face, carved him up bad enough that they were missing a good amount of dark, curly hair on one side of their head. The rest of them, he thought, looked a bit like a krayt dragon tried to chew them up only to spit them out halfway, leaving them worse for wear but just functional enough that they hadn’t just left them out on the sands to die.

Whoever they belonged to, Anakin hoped he never found out if only because not knowing might keep him and his mom safe from being sold to them too.

By the time he’d calmed down enough to pry his hands free from his mom’s skirt and shuffle back around to see, the bulk of the crowd had drifted away — off to sleep or work or wallow until the suns rose on another grueling day. The only ones left were him and his mom, a few adults rushing soiled and new strips of cloth back and forth, and the three grandmothers kneeled beside and working on the stranger. His mom squeezed his shoulders again, half distracted by a conversation with another mother about infection and recovery and the fact that they had no water to spare for the stranger bleeding on the sands as aged but experienced, sun-weathered hands stitched the worst of their wounds closed.

Anakin leaned back against his mom, watching. Without anyone to block his view, he could see more of the picture than his first glimpse had allowed. A red and tan bodysuit torn to shreds that might have been white before the blood and the sand had gotten to it. Strips of cloth ripped by experienced hands to be used as bandages. Green armor whose paint looks like it had been half-dissolved rather than properly stripped off, carefully pried away from the body and set aside with all the gentleness something so obviously expensive deserved. A not-so-small arsenal of blasters, grenades, a rocket and rifle, and more knives than Anakin cared to count all set just as carefully aside with well-deserved fear rather than reverence.

And pain. He saw it in the twitch of the stranger’s lips and the furrow in their brow. In the way they seemed to flinch at the grandmothers’ not-quite-gentle touch despite how he was sure they couldn’t be awake. He saw it in the ragged, uneven way their chest rose and fell, like just breathing was so hard it might as well have been crossing the dunes in a sandstorm.

He frowned. He remembered being so sick once he could hardly breathe — how much his chest had hurt and how his mom had helped soothe it by rubbing something gooey and awful-smelling into his skin. Remembered being punished, ten stinging, throbbing, bleeding lashes on his back, and how he’d cried while his mom held his hands, whispering in his ear to comfort him while another slave had stitched the worst of them closed. He wondered if the stranger had someone like his mom to hold their hand and help them breathe before they’d wound up with whatever awful master had done this.

It made his stomach twist itself into knots to know that they had only the grandmothers to help fix him and an audience to watch and fetch supplies, but no one to help make the worst of the hurt go away. And Anakin…

Anakin felt a tug, deep in his stomach and behind his navel. The kind that urged him to be silent, to run, what people to avoid, or what he needed to do to fix up a droid or appliance just right. He didn’t think before he moved, ducking out of his mom’s loose grip and ignoring her startled cry of “Ani!” as he trotted forward until he stood next to the stranger, deliberately slotting himself into place where he knew he wouldn’t get in anyone’s way.

One of the grandmothers, Amiya who Anakin knew his mom still called auntie even if she’d only ever been grandmother to him, looked up at him as he approached. She slanted a glance at his mom and for a second after she looked back at him, he thought she was going to send him away. Instead, and to his surprise, she only pursed her lips and waited, her work paused mid-stitch and her one scar-split brow arched as she waited. Anakin complied hastily, though the words come out tongue-tied and clumsy despite how he’d spoken the slave’s language just as long as — longer than, even — he had Huttese or Basic.

“They need someone,” he said, soft and suddenly too aware of how quiet the quarter was at night. “To help. Like mom does when I’m sick or hurt.” He stopped, floundered for a moment before adding, so low he almost doubted she heard him: “There’s not a mom to help them, but I can. I want to.”

Amiya watched him, her gaunt, wrinkled face the even and placid mask most of the adults like her and his mom wore where they might catch a master’s eye — a mask Anakin would also wear one day when he was older and had to hide his feelings from whoever would own him. After a long, almost uncomfortable moment she nodded. He flashed her a bright smile and kneeled in a patch of night-cooled, mostly blood-free sand. For a long time after Amiya turned her attention back to the stranger, Anakin just stared. The damage looked so much worse up close and the smell of the gore alone was nearly enough to make him sick. He didn’t realize he’d started to shake until a gentle hand pressed against his back, slick with blood that would stain his shirt as it rubbed comforting circles between his shoulder blades. The white-haired grandmother the hand belonged to smiled, thin and sad, when he turned to her, and he offered his own much wobblier one back.

“Breathe through your nose,” she advised, voice cracked and croaking from long-healed damage, and he did. It helped, but not much. Still, she patted him twice more on the back and offered up a firm “good boy” that sounded prouder than he thought was warranted.

Anakin sucked in three bracing breaths, shallower than he would have preferred, before carefully — more carefully than he’d ever done anything else — picked up the stranger’s larger, brown hand to cradle between his own smaller palms. He didn’t squeeze. Didn’t pull. Barely even breathed. He just rubbed his thumb over their split, scabbed knuckles and pushed safety and comfort and the other warm things he felt when his mom chased away his pains and nightmares at them. Imagined them flowing down from his thoughts to his arms, pooling in his hands to be poured out from his palms and into the stranger’s rough hands, absorbed through the skin like the first sip of soothing water on the worst days.

Whether it worked or not, he wasn’t sure, but he thought that maybe some of the tension in the stranger’s brow and the stutter in their chest eased just a little bit. He stayed there, holding their hand and sometimes babbling, soft enough it almost counted as a whisper, switching between all three of the languages he spoke and even into brief bouts of untrained Bocce in the hopes that they knew at least one and would find it comforting. It could have been minutes or hours before his mom came to collect him, his head bobbing and eyes threatening to close as exhaustion swept over him. She crouched behind him and ran her fingers through his hair a few times before she spoke.

“Time to sleep, Ani.”

“But mom—” he started, voice more of a brief mumbling slur for all that he didn’t get to say more than those two words before Amiya cut in.

“Mind your mother, Anakin.” He ducked his head, chastened. “You’ve done good tonight, but it’s past time for little ones to rest. This one’ll be here come the suns’ rise and you can sit with them then until you and your mom are off to your master’s.”

Anakin nodded, mumbled a tired “Yes grandmother Amiya,” and patted the stranger’s hand twice before setting it down with a quiet promise that he’d be back as soon as he’d woken up. He stumbled when he stood, grateful for his mom when she put her hands back on his shoulders and steered him back home all the way to his flat pallet. Sleep claimed him easily that night, too tired to even dream.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

The world was pain. Burning, stinging, cutting pain day after night after day for what might as well have been a small eternity trapped in the wet, writhing darkness where only his own nightmares provided grim relief until he clawed and rent and tore his way out of that hell and into another. He gasped and dragged himself forward, burning from the heat of the suns above and the sands below until he felt he’d boil away entirely.

Death would have been a mercy, but mercies had never existed for men like him.

He crawled and shoved and pried his way through the sand with the same desperate, all-consuming determination he’d relied on all his life. A legacy left to him by his father. A curse when giving up would have been a kindness to his battered body.

Time was nonexistent. Unimportant to him in his struggle. Day or night mattered little in the suffocating, sweltering heat when he knew the desert would swallow him whole at any moment. Should have swallowed him whole, but didn’t. The desert, for once, was kind and he hated it for that.

He hated it for letting him live, tortured and weak and pitiful enough that no one he knew would have looked twice at him. There were voices and hands, reaching and gentle and alarmed. He hated this one act of kindness — not mercy, this could never be mercy — the desert had granted him and he fought, battered and bit and snarled in the vain hope they’d leave him for dead when he proved too much trouble. They took it as challenge instead and won.

Defeated, he let himself fall into his exhaustion wondering if he might slip away in his sleep instead and prove their efforts useless.

His nightmares weren’t welcome, but they were familiar to him by then.

He watched his father’s head fall from his shoulders a half dozen times as his body was dragged, unconscious, through the desert.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Anakin sat with stranger the next morning like he’d promised, all but sprinting out the door of their tiny home as soon as his mom had told him he could go. He stayed until his mom called him back and worked with her in Watto’s shop until the toydarian let them leave just as the first of Tatooine’s suns had touched the horizon. When they returned, the stranger had been moved into one of the few empty homes in the quarter — the slave who’d lived there recently sold and a replacement yet to be found — to avoid the worst of the day’s heat. He sat with them again after late-meal, holding their hand and talking, helping with any small task he could until they shooed him off to bed.

His mom stayed with him, longer sometimes and well into the night. She helped whoever else was there keeping an eye on the stranger teach him how to change bandages, spot the signs of infection in a wound, to decide which remedies and medicines were critical and which could be spared and saved for later, as well as how to make a few of the most basic ones.

“There isn’t much we can do for them,” Amiya had told him, grave but gentle, on the third night, “except wait and watch, and ease some of the pain if we can.”

He’d nodded, feeling tears prick at his eyes even as he bit his lower lip to help keep them from falling. His mom brushed her fingers through his hair, pulling him close to her side while he worked to breathe through the tangled knot of emotion pressing on his throat.

“It’s not fair,” he said, voice thick, and his mom clucked her tongue, not unsympathetically.

“Life rarely is, Ani.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, then leaned her cheek there like she could drape herself over him — a blanket to blot out the world’s cruelties. “Sometimes, your feelings won’t matter,” she said, sounding wretched as the words settled heavy in the air between them. “Sometimes — most times — all we can do is live in reality and accept that it might be cruel no matter what we do, knowing that denying it will do us no favors.” Anakin sniffed, pulling his knees in towards his chest. “And we will live, knowing this and knowing that being kind in the face of this cruelty is the bravest choice we can make.”

“Are we?” he asked after a long stretch of silence, feeling small and miserable. His mom hummed a question against his hair while Amiya stared at him, dark eyes seeming to peer right through and into the core of him. “Kind, I mean. Is. I mean. I heard some of the other adults — I didn’t mean to listen, really, but they were talking about. About…” He trailed off, but Amiya picked up the thread as seamlessly as if she’d read his mind.

“About a mercy.”

He nodded. His mom stiffened, hugging him tighter. He knew there was mercy in death on Tatooine. He’d heard slaves beg for it before, beaten half to death and left, bleeding and wheezing on the ground. He’d watched one new mother walk out into the sands with her baby one night and come back alone in the morning. He’d even seen a grandmother, withered hands bloody and holding a shiv as she walked out of the house of a slave who’d lost most of their arm when their chip detonated and survived, only for the wound to grow infected and the slave so weak they could hardly drink a sip of water.

He didn’t like it, but he knew.

Amiya sighed, leaned back against the night-chilled stone, and looked at the ceiling.

“Let me tell you a story, Anakin,” she said, and he thought she sounded older then than she ever had before.

“Okay.”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

The nightmares had no end. They played on loop — his worst and his best memories twisted together with things that had never happened at all until he couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. He lived them. Was them. Played his part in them until he was sure he really had died out there on the sands and this was hell.

If it was, he wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of seeing him beg even if all he wanted in the worst of it was to wake up, ten years old again before everything had gone to shit.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

The stranger woke with a groan on the fifth morning, just as Anakin had turned his back to follow his mom to Watto’s shop. He gasped, nearly tripping over his own feet as he rushed to spin back around.

“You’re awake!”

They blinked up at the ceiling, stiff as a board the second Anakin had practically shouted the words before slowly, probably painfully, turning their head to look at him. Anakin rocked back on his heels, mouth open and the words just about ready to burst out of him when they beat him to it.

“What?” they asked in Basic, voice a rough, crackling growl that could have been natural as much as it might have been from a parched throat or their injuries.

It was Anakin’s turn to blink then, uncomprehending for a moment before he realized he’d spoken to them like he would have any of the other slaves in the quarter. He flushed, fumbling for a moment from embarrassment before managing to wrangle together the right words.

“I said: you’re awake. You’ve been asleep for five days! Well, four, but today makes five. So, five days.”

“Oh.”

They stared at him, blank except for the obvious signs they were in pain — their pinched brow, their thinned lips, the pallor of their skin, better than it had been but still noticeable — and Anakin fidgeted in place until his mom called his name. He looked back at her, to the stranger, and briefly to his own feet before turning a bright grin on them.

“I have to go now, but Mom and I’ll let someone else know you’re awake. They’ll give you some of the water we all helped save up just in case you did really wake up. Which you did!” he added, too excited to keep himself from pointing out the obvious.

“What?” they asked again, but Anakin had already turned back to his mom with a cheerful “bye” thrown over his shoulder.

The day passed in an agonizingly slow haze of nerves and excitement that had cooled briefly after Watto yelled at him some time close to midday, and reignited when he and his mom started the walk home under the violet-orange lit sky of late-evening-nearly-night. She steered him home and forced him to eat his late-meal before setting him loose with a small smile and a firm warning to be careful. He grinned at her, nodding even as he practically tumbled through the door and back out into the quarter to make his way to where they’d been keeping the stranger.

“Hi,” he said, peeking through the tattered fabric hung up in place of a proper door.

The room was almost empty, lit mostly thanks to the three moons peeking up over the horizon and the last traces of the twin suns falling on the other side spilling through two windows, little more than a pair of squares cut out of solid rock, and the open, arched entrance. The stranger was the only person inside, propped up to sit against the wall furthest from the door, and mostly hidden in shadow except for the light cast from a neat little device about as big around as the palm of Anakin’s hand that they’d put down next to them. On their other side was a pile of their green armor, all but a pauldron which they’d been turning over in their hands until Anakin had poked his head in.

Their small arsenal of weapons, however, had been moved to the corner of the room furthest from them. Not that he faulted anyone for that. Every slave in the quarter would be in trouble if anyone found them, whether they’d actually helped the stranger or not.

“Hi,” they replied, suspicion all but dripping from the word as they slowly lowered the pauldron down to rest in their lap.

Anakin smiled and took the attention as permission to step inside, settled down with his legs crossed on the room’s sandy floor. Even from a few feet away, he could tell they looked better than even that morning — still battered and bandaged and a little paler than they probably should be, but whole and alive in a way they hadn’t been while asleep. Unconscious, technically, but technicalities rarely mattered to an eight-year-old. The silence stretched between them, both of them staring at each other until he chose to break it.

“How do you feel?” It was only polite to ask, even if it wasn’t what he really wanted to know. A dozen questions burned his tongue, but his mom hadn’t wasted time teaching him to be rude so he kept a tight leash on them and waited. Thankfully, not for long this time.

“Fine,” they said, curt if not a bit gruff. They sounded better, he noted, than they had earlier. “You’re the kid from this morning.” They furrowed their brows, speaking slowly like they weren’t quite confident about being right. Anakin nodded even though it hadn’t quite been a question. He knew that feeling well, after all. “What’s your name?”

“Anakin. What’s yours?”

“Boba.”

Anakin cocked his head to one side and asked, shameless: “Just Boba?”

“Just Anakin?” they drawled in return, their unbandaged brow arched. Anakin grinned, all teeth and excitement. He liked Boba.

“Anakin Skywalker,” he offered, expecting to get Boba’s surname in response only to be disappointed when all got instead was a a slow blink and a huff of breath that could’ve meant anything and nothing at all.

“What’re you doing here, kid?”

He pouted, watched Boba’s lips twitch up into a smirk, and pouted harder. He wondered, somewhere in the very back of his mind, if it was smart to be there, alone with someone who wore armor and had weapons and as much muscle and healthy bulk as Boba did. There was a danger to them, in the way their eyes never quite settled on Anakin in favor of scanning their surroundings again and again. It was there in the way they sat, too. At ease, like even injured and newly-woken they knew they could fight their way out if needed. Anakin wondered, but stayed, knowing his mom wouldn’t have let him come if anyone had mentioned they were dangerous.

“Rude,” he said, still pouting but also a little joking. Testing. Boba rolled his eyes and waited for a proper answer. “I come here every day. I even did the bandages on your arm.” He gestured to Boba’s left arm where they’d been sliced from elbow to shoulder, jagged and sloppy. It had needed stitches in three different places where the cut ran extra deep — the wound too long to spare enough thread for the whole thing. “Mom had to fix it the first three times, but I got it right this morning. Before you woke up.”

“Shouldn’t you be out doing … kid … things? Fun things?” Boba asked, sounding suddenly awkward, their gaze sliding away from Anakin after the clumsy question and looking for all the world like they hadn’t really meant to ask it.

“Maybe.” Anakin shrugged. “Watto’s been in a bad mood though, so mom and I have been getting home really late all week. Even if I wanted to, all the other kids would’ve gone home by the time he let us go.”

Boba’s gaze snapped back to him as he talked, focused instead of awkward, and only offered a low hum in response. He felt a little like a piece of meat in front of a starved massif, but did his best to channel a bit of his mom’s unwavering calm. Not the mask she used in front of the masters so much as the air she adopted in front of some of the new slaves brought to the quarter, scared and alone.

“Any siblings?” They sounded almost hopeful when they asked, only to scowl when he shook his head.

“Nope,” he said, popping the p. “It’s just mom and me. Do you? Have siblings, I mean.”

“No.” Boba sighed. “Sort of, but not really.” Anakin wrinkled his nose.

“How’s that work?”

Boba didn’t answer, only waved a hand at him in a vague gesture he took to mean it was complicated. He nodded, understanding. Slave families were always complicated, and he’d learned not to ask about complicated things when they didn’t want to be talked about. Instead, he changed tracks and poked at one of the many other threads he’d wanted to pick at since Boba had woken up earlier.

“How long have you been on Tatooine? I’ve been here my whole life, but my mom wasn’t. She got sold to Gardulla a long time ago before she lost a bet to Watto and he won both of us.” Anakin’s lips tugged up into a grin and he leaned forward, excited despite himself. “Before that she said she was in space, on a real ship and everything. I’m gonna go up into space one day! Get on a ship and fly right off Tatooine and see all the stars up close.”

Boba leaned back, drawing one of their legs up so they could rest their left arm against the knee as they listened. It made it harder for him to read their face, but not impossible. And Anakin was nothing if not good at figuring out how people felt if he concentrated hard enough.

“Sounds like a good goal,” they said, amused. When they said nothing else, Anakin frowned.

“Aren’t you gonna answer?” Boba tipped his head just slightly to one side, and he huffed, shoving as much exasperation into the breathy sound as he could. “My question? About how long you’ve been here.”

“Long enough.”

He nodded, humming a little in response. It made sense, he mused, that someone with a master as mean as Boba’s might not want to keep track of how long they’d been with them. That thought, though, brought up another very important question that Anakin wasn’t sure anyone else had thought to ask them yet. He hesitated, mouth suddenly dry as he shifted in place, and picked at the hem of his tan shirt to buy himself a few seconds more.

“Have you—” He stopped. Pressed his lips into a thin line so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to lick them. “Terrin and Bhan found you out in the sands behind the quarter,” he said, carefully picking his words. “Mom said they brought you back here. And. Well, uh.”

“Spit it out kid,” Boba said, not unknindly but not kindly either.

“It’s just, five days is a lot y’know? And-and some masters’ll wait a few, yeah, if they hurt you bad enough, but. But five is a lot, ‘specially for a slave, even if you look really well fed and have cool armor and get to actually hold weapons. But five is a lot of days! And I was really scared I’d wake up or-or come back from Watto’s and you’d be blown up ‘cause your master didn’t wanna wait anymore and—”

Boba moved, faster than someone that hurt should have been able to, and leaned forward, almost crouched, with his hands up, palms out. Anakin’s mouth snapped shut on instinct and he sucked in a huge breath of air, relieving the ache in his lungs he hadn’t noticed in his rush to get all the words out even as the rest of him tensed. They waited until he wasn’t practically gasping, their already dark eyes almost black in the shadows.

He’d thought Boba felt like danger before, but now they looked it, balanced on the balls of their feet with their hands out in front of them. For a moment, it was like seeing double: Boba as they were, bandaged and hurt, and another Boba clad in green, well cared for armor, crouched much like they were now except they held a blaster in one hand and a vibroblade as long as Anakin’s forearm in the other.

Just then, Anakin thought, a little hysterical, they looked like the predator they could be.

As quickly as it had come, the moment passed and he was left with only Boba as he knew them: unarmored, unarmed, dressed half in the remains of his once-white undersuit and the ratty strips of cloth they’d used to dress their wounds. He breathed, long and slow, until his heart felt a little less like it wanted to beat its way out of his chest, and forced the rest of his body to loosen up at least a little, not wanting to look too much like an animal about to run.

“You think I’m a slave,” Boba said, almost a whisper, but Anakin couldn’t find it in himself to nod or speak. Not yet. “Thank you,” they added, a lot like they were trying not to spook him, “for the concern, misplaced as it is.”

It took a few tries, but Anakin finally found his voice for long enough to ask, soft as he could: “If it wasn’t a master, then —” He swallowed even though his mouth felt drier than the desert. “Then who did this to you?”

They didn’t answer right away, taking a moment to lower themself back down with a groan half-muffled behind gritted teeth. Anakin felt small under their gaze if not quite scared, but did his best to keep himself upright rather than cowed.

“I did,” Boba answered, strained, with a weight to the words Anakin didn’t understand. They did nothing to make him feel any less small, no bigger than a single grain of sand. “I was stupid. Wound up in—” They paused, squinted at Anakin, and then quickly amended what they’d meant to say. “Wound up in trouble with no backup.” They shrugged, the dark circles under their eyes looking suddenly so much bigger. Heavier. “I remember a little of how I got out, but not how I wound up here in … Mos Espa I think someone said.”

Anakin opened his mouth, not sure at all what he wanted to say, if anything, until his mom’s voice at the entrance startled him.

“Anakin, time to sleep.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, eyes firmly set on Boba, but Anakin nodded anyway.

He stood, brushing sand off his pants for a moment before looking back at Boba. He smiled, dimmer than before, and said: “Goodnight, Boba. See you tomorrow,” he added and waited until Boba’s lips twitched up again — not quite a smile, not quite a smirk, but an invitation back all the same. He did grin then, offering up a little wave before turning on his heel to follow his mom.

“ ‘Night, Skywalker,” he heard Boba say, as the cloth in the doorway settled back in place.

Anakin took his mom’s hand when she held hers out. She squeezed his fingers briefly, then tugged him close. He breathed in. Out. And listened for the little notes he sometimes heard on the wind — the tug in his gut and the pull in his bones that sometimes pulled him closer to one decision or another. He felt it, faint but there. A warmth like good, hot food in his belly or his mom’s hugs after an awful dream, and for a single second, the scrape of fingers on metal ringing in a way he’d never heard before but made him think of Boba regardless.

He let his mom hold him all the way to his room until he kissed her goodnight. His last thought before he fell asleep, curled up on his pallet and tucked under his thin, scratchy blanket, was of the stranger named Boba and the pleasant notes plucking a tune inside and around him, whispering to him even on the edge of his dreams.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Boba watched Skywalker — Anakin Skywalker — leave, nothing but a kid smaller than Boba ever remembered being: naive and vulnerable and dressed in all the inadequate trappings of a slave and so damnably bright that it hurt to look at his little, hopeful face. Not so much as a hint of the Jedi knight he remembered from his youth — most of it propaganda he’d caught glimpses of in prison and a few jobs before the Empire erased everything — remained in the child except maybe in the edges of that smile, confident if not yet cocky, but innocent. Painfully innocent.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, the skin on his palm still a little raw from the acid in the sarlacc’s stomach. Maybe, he thought desperately, he was still there, being slowly digested to death because surely, surely, that made more sense than what every other conclusion he reached for pointed to. He had to be dead or dying, not—

Not 36 years in the kriffing past, if the date the woman who’d told him where on this godsforsaken planet he was had given him was right. It made no sense. He wasn’t a Jedi — little gods no — and he had no connection to their Force or any other magic. He didn’t think the sarlacc had anything to do with it either, but that still left him with no answers and a galaxy’s-worth of questions.

“Fuck,” he growled, as much a helpless sound as it was a curse to whatever or whoever had caused this. He’d wring their neck as soon as he found out, even if it meant figuring out a way to strangle some magical cosmic thing that a dead order of damned wizards had believed in. For now, though, he was stuck. Injured and healing, without a ship or a credit to his name, no reputation to speak of, and Anakin fucking Skywalker who apparently helped nurse him back to health and had promised to come back in the morning.

And a father who was alive somewhere in the wider galaxy.

The realization came slow and with all the strength of an imperial star cruiser hurtling forward at full speed. He swallowed, blinking back a wave of stinging tears as something thick and pitiful welled up in his throat. He breathed, deep and slow, and forced himself back into order by sheer force of will. He was still stuck on Tatooine, tucked away in the slave’s quarter by some idiotic sense of communal good-will that would do nothing for their self-preservation, but he had time. He had time, if not a lot, to find his father and… Do something.

“Fuck,” he said again, but it was tired. A thick and bone-deep weariness that threatened to suffocate him if he thought about it for too long.

He sighed and wondered, for just a moment before he let sleep drag him back down into the darkness and nightmares, if his father was the man who’d raised Boba already, or someone else entirely. He hated that he didn’t know which one he’d prefer if he woke again tomorrow and found that time travel really was the answer to where — when — he was.

[misterbitches]

hi! this is long as shit i’m sorry. i hope it makes sense. i ahve adhd and like 5 million learning disorders so this is just word vomit cos there’s so many words in my brain. my b.

i’ve had such a tough day so thank you for replying and sharing! @yeedak​ 

i was thinking about what i wrote and i meant to clarify that as well. some cases are fine for both parties and it’s not like you weren’t consenting and it seems like you were happy! same with my friend who was dating a 20 yr old. if they’re happy you know i’ll clown on ‘em but yea. so for anyone that sees these posts your relationship with your partner who is older or whatever. i’m some dumb girl on the internet okay. ill side eye older ppl tho

i think a lot of people feel the same way you do now (me included.) it feels really good at the time but alter we can see the dynamics playing out. i’m 29 now and i think aging is just such a huge process. it’s wild how you at 31 are a totally different person, right?

and the US racism is probably some of the worst ever in its iteration because of slavery which started from europe etc but USA is so fucking unique bc of columbus bringing slaves here and displacing indigenous peoples or hispanola and because america is so influential the way it views race, particularly with black people as objects, has so deeply permeated into the current historical psyche globally. it’s fascinating to track how necessary anti blackness is to the flourishing of america but also the world at this point. also want to point out how fuckign scary sinophobia is here especially for covid. one is a straight historical line (black ppl + the US) and the other had to be manufactured and to continue to exploit the non-white americans and keep antiblackness in tact.i could go on about this all day. the pain of this place is immense.yet as bad as it is here, this is still the only place i truly feel safe as a black person. because of the unique experience we have in america and through the diaspora especially because we are veyr much ocncentrated here. it would be nice to like move to norway and have some alleviation financially or get free healthcare it’s just not feasible if no one looks like me. it’s fucking tough. 

i hope you don’t hate it here though and people treat you with respect. but as you know being a woman and jewish and an immigrant....shit is tough. the USA is a hellhole. :( america is so deeply tainted and desperately bad because it was founded on strife and blood and there’s no way to reverse that and what this country did in turn when it gained enough power and could capitalize off of the colonial forefathers. this is why we hsould all luv revolution!!!

HOWMEVERRRR 

boy oh boy oh BOY OH BOYYYYYYYY. well wlecome to the world of BL lmao especially as an adult with some obviously deep perspective just given your background. it is a fucking mess and it’s a hard mess to like but it pulls you in. i approach it like i do with soap operas since these are essentially telenovelas, you know? just like the drama at a billion. but the tricky part of that is like....what parts of it do we understand for critiquing? because so many of the shows are so bad at being like good pieces of things to look at just production wise and story wise. but i feel like these shows ask us to take them seriously, so why shouldn’t we take the content seriously? and this is being primarily peddled to young girls. 

i bring this up often but i read this thing about yaoi and the interest younger women/girls have in BL and its fascination with pederasty essentially. this component i think is key when we talk about who gets affected by these things the most. society in general is bad 4 girls bla bla we know lmao but in “more sexually conservative” societies it may be harder for these girls to feel safe even expressing normal emotions romantically and sexually and particularly with guys. some people hypothesized, and i think i agree with this hypothesis, that they can live through the casualness of BL. they don’t feel threatened because they can put themselves into the shoes of the other character. oftentimes, the more feminine or the younger. this was in conjunction with the age gap aspect (they say pederasty as well because there’s unethical age gaps that r gross and that is indeed what we would at least call a touch of sexual abuse if people dont feel like calling it an obsession with youth and power and uhhh young ppl and perhaps kids) where maybe girls could see themselves in these situations as the person being saved, loved, taken care of, and sadly also sexually active and penetrated. 

i think that’s just one aspect of it but i do think there’s validity in who gravitates towards it. i cannot imagine seeing this stuff and not getting enough information as a young kid, i sure as fuck know i didn’t!, and seeing these things and you look at it with 0 critique because you’re young and you may have no interest in it or you simply cannot understand what is wrong. no one is teaching you these things and these shows confirm it. and it is wild how intrinsic patriarchy is to BL although in its existence it also can’t be in line with patriarchy given the nature of two [cis] men!

it begs the question about the replacement aspect. is it just so girls can put themselves in these characters shoes? if so then that means we believe that gender is so interchangeable within our relationships and interactions and that doesn’t seem right. there’s more to lgbtq+ than just existing; it’s finding ways to communicate, finding a family, safety, your people, being a free person. there’s a lot to gain and a lot a lot to lose. and a gay man is also not a woman because those are also two distinct experiences.  especially in societies that have a more hidden aspect to sexuality (idk how to word this bc the BL industry would NEVER survive in america but in a way there’s a more “progressive” look at homosexuality but it’s still fucked up because we live in a Society, you know? at the same time look at what we are doing to trans kids. literally waging war so it’s bonkers how we all collectively have some real progress happening but at the same time not at all. the concept of ‘ladyboys’ and the frequency we see trans people in thai shows is wild and something that we absolutely do not see here in the US. still, none of these groups feel safe or are getting better material conditions in either place. we just show the ways we can try and tolerate oppression witout eliminating it imo)

to me it is clear: it’s money. which most things exist to make money so. but also who is the audience for these shows? and they have to market towards them. all that said all hope is not lost there are some decent shows. it’s just like regular media on TV though where it’s so fucking saturated as an industry that it’s literally sifting through garbage. and there are some days when you can handle the trash and others where it really fucking hurts to watch the violence, the rape, the manipulation, the violations, the stupid messaging. i have never seen more people trying to do mental gymnastics and seeing if things were “technically rape” than in teh BL fandom and that is so fucking sad.

i came into these shows at 28 with almost 0 clue of what as media BL was like esp as media that countries can use as soft power with the revenue. but i realize like...i’m 29 now and so many people don’t have a sizeable, though not huge, amount of life experience. and i wonder for people on the internet who are usually searching for something if they spend so much time on it like what a 15 year old girl thinks. what a 20 year old girl thinks. 

it is incredibly problematic and so awful but there’s also some rewards. if you haven’t i would definitely watch i told sunsset about you which i don’t think i’m going to finish and i doubt i’ll watch the second installment (watch this be a lie) but when i say some fucking impeccable storytelling and art? phew. now that is a fucking piece of media that works. it takes from moonlight heavily and you can see like...the artistic dedication is there and the story makes its world and sets up its stakes extremely well. 

i think because this is marketed towards much younger people too they know they dont have to try as hard. but they SHOULD because then you can have a fucking masterpiece like that. i think even this prolific gay thai filmmaker (who is like solidly against the government) who is so respected (and who i like a lot! if u wanna know i can tell u lmao but the films are very uhhhhhhhh “artsy”) would like i told sunset about you. i wish more people had budget like that and also just cared about the stories. it’s the fucking magic of art to figure out what you can do but there is very little incentive honestly. idk i am very pessimistic. there are days when it’s really a great pick me up and distraction but it is never a place i would love for to feel seen or heard but i’m more of the mind of i never trust the mainstream until they prove me wrong ;) 

or i never trust the mainstream and i still buy into it anyway and then cry when i don’t like what i see adn i yell “BOO GET OFF THE STAGE!” when an old man won’t leave a teenager alone

[floatingfish626]

MC Server ಥ_ಥ

Me and a group of friends made our own MC server. Unfortunately, the server was abandoned. Me, being the person I am, still feel the server has potential, so I still play/write lore for it. This may be wayyyy out of the usual for my page but lets be honest, who actively stalks my tumblr page? This is mostly gonna be a place for me to dump the failed server ideas/backstories. So, here goes nothing. If you wanna read them, random stranger, feel free to! I wanted this server to last a while, and we made it almost 2 months with about 12 people in total. So, enjoy!

Word Count: 2,603  (11,679 Characters)

**ALL ORIGINS ARE WRITTEN BY SEPERTE PEOPLE, ALL EDITED BY ME, NONAME**

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Character Origin 1, Seven: Seven was born into a life of poverty, shortly after he was born, he got sold to work as a slave on a sea village, quickly being transferred to a sand village outside of a prison. He did is work as a farmer to a small, yet kind and caring family, who adopted him as their own. His name, Seven, coming from a number tattooed on his neck while in the market. During Seven’s time at this small village, they had a fatal accident, having a berserk enderman ruin the home he had grown custom to. He rebuilt the fallen Village, only to have a Piglin army slaughter whomever remained. Seven only escaped with his life, befriending a Guardian named Marvin, who became his best friend (RIP Marvin, we miss you <3). The Guardian helped Seven grow stronger, and learn to fight. A few years later, he came across two children, Tex and Rox. Seven, taking sympathy for the two, took them as his own. As the revenge grew further from his mind, his children grew older. As they grew, he taught them what he knew about farming and combat. His kids grew older and left him, a crazy old man in a dirt hut with the guardian, forgetting the revenge he wished for many years.  On a normal day, Seven had witnessed something unforgivable happen. He had met Oxlo, Void, and Levi. After spending every waking moment together, the three ended up falling for each other, having adopted Levi and marrying the other two, Seven had have a happy life, with his 3 stolen adopted kids and poly relationship. (End Seven.)

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Character Origin 2, Levi:  Levi was born into captivity from a hybrid mother. By the time he could walk, he was taken from his mother, and raised like a solider. Levi had large, beautiful wings, that got removed as a child, leaving him scared and unsure of who he was all throughout his ‘childhood.’ Being he was a hybrid being, he was used on for testing, by horrid endermen. Having experiments done constantly, he had mutated a mouth (basically Venom from the movie Venom) that he had grown to hate. As Levi grew older, he became rebellious against the unfair people. He gained many cruel and inhumane (lol) punishments. During one of these ‘rebellious moments,’ he had expected to be caught. instead, he was left alone to do so. He heard a loud crash and began to investigate. He had walked outside to see 2 large entities trying to fight against the endermen, and winning. Levi took this as an opportunity to escape. He left the end before the two closed the portal to the end. He blacked out and woke up to a short, sandy blonde man and 2, really tall men, resembling endermen, staring at him. After many, many years of building trust and learning how to communicate, Levi became one of their family.  He Moved out many years later, only to return to his home town to find everything left barren and abandoned. (End Levi.)

Looks: Light blue, messy hair, dark blue eyes, scarf covering his mouth/nose, unhinged and slimy mouth, white and blue tshirt, black jeans  (you can tell this one is my, NoName’s, OC cause he is a lot more detailed LMAO)

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Character Origin 3, Tex:  Tex is 15-17, a strider hybrid. He comes from a Nether village called Riften, but now resides in Toadstool Field. He works as a dealer and supplier for the Midnight Mafia. He can easily build and mine, and is also good at navigating the Nether and finding gold (piglins wanted gold all the time so he grew accustomed to getting it) he's obsessive and goes into a blind rage near piglins, and gifts objects and builds often. Tex was a runt in his village, so when it was attacked by piglins when he was 6-8 he was left behind for a offering, after years of being with piglins he came to despise them. He escaped around 11-14. (He isn't good with remembering his age) He had multiple siblings, but cannot remember them very well. He assumes they are dead along with the rest of his village and now only is comfortable around Seven, Void and Levi Tex has pointed ears, and scars from water/staying with piglins. He has sharp teeth. He cannot see well, water is hurtful to him and his memory is bad but he can easily swim in lava/fire resistant. He is twitchy and quick, he has curious movements and is very touchy and talks quickly and mumbly. He wears a magenta sweater, black overalls, purple flowers scattered about and no shoes Tex wants to be renewed in his new family's eyes, he wishes not to be known as a runt he thinks everyone sees him lower bc of him being a runt. Tex doesn't understand human feelings/ striders don't have many emotions, his anger was very new to him he is scared of Piglins/hoglins and hates water

Looks: Messy, dark hair, pointed ears, black eyes, fangs, darker, loosing fitting clothes

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Character Origin 4, Amber:

So amber was born in a town called Fransin in the nether and lived there with her single mother, she was bullied a lot as a kid because she didn't have spare money for the nicest clothes or shoes she stayed there until about 15 when her mother had kicked her out because it's the same as her mother did when she was younger, she stumbled upon a portal and went through which lead into dark woods and after wandering around for a bit she came upon Toadstool Fields. She was a bit scared, but after meeting the town's folk she adjusted to the overworld, yes she had a few bumps along the way (especially when her friends suggested they go swimming, as she’s part blaze), but she has grown more and made more friends, plus they even let her build her own home! She has always been grateful because they've always helped her and given her everything she needs, especially since she grew up kinda rough

Looks: Light brown hair, Golden eyes, ash colored freckles, Bee striped shirts

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Character Origin 5, Rox: When Rox was young around 4, she was made as a science experiment, (hence the endwalk state that will eventually happen later) she was later sent out to the street after all of those tests (for over 3 years), that she hated so dearly, After about one week on her own in the world, she was soon adopted by seven. She was taught how to fight and defend herself. As she got older, he became smarter and was filled with anger from the past. (hence chaotic good and neutral evil yknow?) So yes, around 16, she married milly and has been with her for a year now, she is just trying help people with her bakery and fight people if necessary (Since she’s in the mafia clan thingy).

Looks: short, pink hair, glasses, blue eyes, dark clothes

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Character Origin 6, Void: Void was born in the end, to a noble Enderman, though they don't remember that. They don't remember their original name, or their parents, or anything about their life. All they know is that they're not welcome in the End anymore, being ostracized after a series of unfortunate events in the End. Their first interaction with the Overworld wound up in them in a village and slaughtering everyone in it due to someone making eye contact with them, shortly afterwards picking up the masks to avoid eye contact and avoid looking at the scars on their face. They fled the premises with their sister Redacted and hid deep into the woods, starting on making a mansion for themself and their sister, where they would be safe. They want to keep all those dear to them safe, bordering a bit on possessiveness with the protectiveness. They have a lot of secrets, and in general are an unknown entity to those around them. They're extremely morally ambiguous and run a mafia, with their pet as their right hand man. 

Extra: -Redacted is not Void's blood sister. -Void has worn their masks for so long they don't know what they look like. -Void only takes their mask off to threaten people. -They have such a love of birds because the first mob that didn't run away from them was a parrot. -They hate government because one tried to kidnap them once and study them as an Enderman, using water torture against them. Void escaped and killed a few people, grabbing two masks off the wall as they went to hide their identity.  -Void's eyes are different from fellow Enderman, and if you look into them it's an unpleasant experience for you both. -Void is a peaceful entity until provoked, just like Enderman. -Void has an immense hatred for sand. -Void likes gazing at the stars because it reminds them of gazing into the void in the End, which is where they got their name from. -Void has a dog named Spark because shortly after they found him they were struck by lightning, which they found hilarious.

Looks: Tall  (height unspecified), Dark, fancy clothing, Mask (smile, no he isn’t dream), dark, messy hair)

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Character Origin 7, Milly: Milly is a neko hybrid, she's part feline, part human. Her existence came to be when her mother, a neko, and her father, a human, fell in love. She grew up in a small town which wasn't very popular, she wasn't picked on but she did get pushed around by some people growing up. Despite bullies, she had a normal upbringing; her parents were nice and supportive, teaching her everything they could. Her mother often told her how horrible the world can be, teaching her how kindness is a must and how no matter what, she should always help people in need and keep up a smile if she could. Milly followed this advice the best she could. While her mother taught her things through talks, her father tried to teach her things physically: he told her how he agreed, how the world was horrible, so he taught her to fight- to defend herself and protect others with her fighting skills and feline abilities. Although Milly loved her parents and the friends she had, she grew adventurous when she turned the age of 15- she wanted to explore, to see and meet more than she has. Her parents respected her wishes since they loved her dearly, they gave her all the supplies and advice they could before they hugged her goodbye. It wasn't long after that she met Rox, an enderman hybrid who she grew to cherish being around. So, her and Rox got married at 16 and  She moved in with Rox, in the smp she loved living in for all her days. Hence where the story starts. 

Headcanons: -Milly has about five cats she keeps, she loves cats. -She likes to draw, collect flowers, bake sweets, and help out people. -She's a lawful good person and pacifist -She likes dogs but they don't like her :( -She has special feline characteristics: she can jump two blocks higher than a normal person, she can purr, she will take random naps sometimes during the day, she has fangs, and she gets distracted by cat toys sometimes

Looks:  Long pink hair, light pink eyes, collar (it has a bell), white shirt and a pink skirt

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Unmentioned Characters (ones without backstories): Sammy, Oxlo, Will

this took me an hour. JUST EDITING- (ó﹏ò｡)

[bxthharmon]

White Butterflies, pt ii. || Hvitserk Lothbrok x Reader

Words: 2209

Warnings: Arranged marriage, mentions of murder, violence

Summary: Bad luck comes in threes, then disaster

A/N: Quarantine means i’m writing so much lmao, enjoy!

i | ii | iii | iv | v

This story doesn’t follow the plot, so you don’t have to know the story to understand it.

You sat in front of a mirror, plaiting your hair carefully, but losing the plait halfway through. You picked the strands of your hair up again, and began to plait, weaving the strands together until once again, you lost the plait. Frustrated, you let your hands drop into your lap, glaring at yourself in the mirror.

“You need to be more patient.” Hvitserk explained, having watched you fail the plait numerous times, “Keep practicing though, you’ll get it.” 

You turned to face him, “Do them for me?” You asked, and he grinned, taking your hair in his hands, plaiting and weaving the strands away from your face. “I look more and more like a viking every day,” you joked, “though it wouldn’t be without you.” you stood up, face to face with him, and he kissed your cheek, “Hvitserk, there’s no one around, you don’t have to pretend.”

He drew back, eyebrows pulled into a light frown, “Pretend?” he whispered, he looked away. “But of course, no? Of course this is pretending - you can’t love me, I am a heathen, a savage. My Princess, how could you deal with such a person?”

“That’s not how I meant it,” you felt your throat stick, and your eyes begin to fill with tears, “The people at my old court, they-”

“They what?” he walked towards the door.

“Hvitserk,” you called, and he paused, “I have never met a couple who truly loved each other until I came here, and my parents… they hated each other, my father had mistresses and slaves, my mother was bitter.” He faced you, and you were inches apart, “My mother told me that I should expect nothing from this, that my only job would be to give you sons. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“Y/N,” your mother grabbed your chin and pulled it up to look at her, harsh and unlovingly, her face tight and angry, “Do not cry in public. Do not cry in front of anyone you do not trust completely. Do not make us look weak.”

You wiped your eyes, “Mother, will it be terrible?”

“I tried, with your father. I was young, your age, and I was naive. I expected too much, and I can see that you do too.” she closed her eyes for a second, but when they opened again, she was stony-faced, “Give him sons, and you will manage. That is your one job, a son and our enmity will be truly over. You could at least be civil with him, but don’t hope too much, you’ve seen his… kind. You won’t love him, but you will love your children, that’s the one thing I know to be true.”

“Mother?” your eyes were dry now, but you felt more hopeless than you had ever felt, “What if they hurt me?”

“Y/N,” she drew your face up again, “You are a princess here, and you will be a princess there as well. They cannot hurt you without facing unimaginable consequences - from us, but also from God, and I’m sure from their false ones too. You are Princess Y/N, and you have brought peace to our nations, so don’t ever think you don’t have power.”

You stood at the end of the boardwalks, the sea stretched out before you, people passing past you, bringing supplies and food and furs. You looked at the people of your future nation, and at your fiance. You looked at your castle, at your brothers and father at the other end of the boardwalk. “Goodbye, Mother.”

“I doubt I’ll ever see you again, so I suppose I should say this; you will be missed.”

“You were scared of me then, when you first arrived,” he said, “are you still scared of me?”

You couldn’t answer that.

He picked up the first thing he saw and threw it straight at the mirror behind you. You shielded yourself as shards of glass fell over you, and watched as the floor below you mingled glass and blood and tears. You looked up at your husband, who stood, in shock of his own actions. You were dazed, but you heard him leave the tent, leaving you sitting in the broken glass.

*

The ointment on your back had stung, but it wasn’t so bad as the cut on your arm. The glass had impaled itself into your right forearm, and it had taken twenty minutes for the healer to stop it from bleeding. The bandage had been wound tight around your arm, and you couldn’t grip anything properly due to the way it had been wrapped. The thrall had had to redo your braids to get the glass out, but when she had redone them they had been different, but you didn’t ask her to redo them. The braiding this morning seemed so trivial to you now, you would never be a true viking. You had dressed well for supper, which apparently was going to be a big deal, but you were wondering what it would take for you to get out of it.

As you walked down the market street, you realised you had no friends, or allies, in the town. You knew no one who you could talk to, or who you could pass time with. After noon had long passed, so you wandered back down the coast, towards the docks, and then on to Floki’s home. When he saw your approach, he walked to you, curious, but restrained, he greeted you.

“Princess,” he said, with an air of mocking, “How can I help?”

“I just,” you looked at your feet, “I don’t know anyone here, and I thought you could offer me company.” 

“Well,” he said, “I am busy, but I’m also not allowed to refuse. My company shall be you watching me build a boat.”

“As long as it means I’m not alone.” you sighed.

You watched carefully as the boat began to take a resemblance to the boat, the process intriguing and foreign to anything you had ever seen, but as the sun set, a slave came to find you, calling you back for the feast. You followed her path, but stopped when the hall came into view.

“Princess Y/N?” she walked back to you, “are you okay? You look pale.”

You gathered yourself, Do not cry in public, “Of course, just a little tired, is all.” 

“You were not at the feast.” Theo said, sitting down beside you, and you looked at him from your bed.

“I was not.” You agreed, sitting up, “I feel ill, and Mother told my servants I was not to come, it would look bad in front of the Lords.”

“It was terrible without you,” he grinned, “Arthur threw a fit because he got insulted by this little twelve year old girl. He was insufferable the whole time, and Geoffrey’s betrothed insulted the family.”

“Why does this always happen while I am not there to see it?” You wondered, and Theo rolled his eyes.

“You’re the only one who Arthur won’t insult, and everyone likes you.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” you laughed, “It’s because when it’s just you boys, no one can keep you in check.”

“You make us sound bad,” Theo laughed with you. “Come on, Geoffrey’s getting married next week and you need to be well enough. Let’s get you to the Doctor.”

You could almost feel how Hvitserk and his brothers were staring at the bandage. For the first time since you’d arrived, you felt no need to pretend - anyone could see how your relationship really was, it was plain by the cloth around your arm. Bjorn, on your other side, looked like he wanted to talk to you.

“Prince Bjorn, how are you fairing?” you asked, a fake smile adorning your face.

“I am well, but how are you?” he asked, and you decided he was kinder than his brothers.

“I am as well as I can be.” You lied, you could tell he wasn’t convinced.

“But, how are you and my brother?” he eyed the bandage.

You blinked, knowing that he would never have gotten away with such a question in your old home, but also knowing that this was a very different place. “I must be the happiest newly wed ever.” You glanced at your arm, and he swallowed.

“Listen,” he whispered, and you could feel Hvitserk staring at the back of your head, “I’ll talk to him. It’s not okay that he took his temper out… like that. I don’t know how your old culture felt about it, but here, it is a crime to do such a thing.”

“I think we both know how different our cultures were.” you reminded him, turning back to your meal. Back home, no one would have noticed, or if they did, it would be improper to do anything about it. “Bjorn, don’t do anything, it’s fine.” 

You reached for the salt, but your inability to grip meant that it tipped, spilling onto the wooden surface of the table. The small crystals spilt over the edge, and you tried to tidy it up, so no to hassle the servants, but realised that no one had even noticed. You looked up, and Ubbe was staring at you across the table. You smiled politely, and tried to continue, but he stopped you.

“You don’t need to clear it up,” he chuckled, “we have servants for that.”

“My mother always believed that spilling salt meant bad luck,” you explained, “it’s a weird superstition, but she was never wrong about stuff like that.”

“Your mother was a very suspicious person,” Ivar interrupted, “No?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” you nodded, “My family don’t always have the best of luck.”

The room was silent, watching the conversation. You felt Hvitserk touch your hand, but you pulled it away. “And how do you mean that?” Ivar inquired.

“When there’s an opportunity for power, my family are the kind of people to take it.” you said, holding his gaze, “It’s not a habit that results in long lives. We have a habit of mysteriously disappearing or falling fatally ill.”

“And…” Ivar swirled his ale in his cup, “Would you say it iss worth it?”

Was getting poisoned worth the success of your family? “Absolutely.” you smiled, “After all, it was my family’s ways that brought our families together, was it not?” You stood up, and looked around the room, at the Ragnarssons, Torvi, the thralls and friends of the Lothbroks. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

You were interrupted by the sound of the hall’s doors bursting open, revealing two soldiers. “King Ivar,” the first said, “a body was found, hanging from a tree outside the town - it looked like one of the thralls.”

Bjorn stood up, “Hanged?”

“Yes, Prince Bjorn,” said the second, “but there was a symbol, the mark of a-”

“Red deer?” You asked, and the soldier nodded. You saw everyone in the room, once again, focussed on you. Hvitserk stood, and put his hand on your arm.

“Y/N,” he frowns, “What do you know?”

A red deer - the sigil of your family. A warning. This could mean only one thing - the truce made by your political marriage was over.

“Have you had any contact with my family, any plans against them?” you asked, and the Lothbroks all looked uncomfortable, shifty. They were sharing glances. They were terrible actors, you decided.

“We haven’t spoken to them, no.” Ivar said, but you could see, plainly, they were hiding something.

“Ivar,” you walked around the table to him, “Maybe not so much in your culture, but in mine, spies are sent to enemy camps all the time, so I’ll ask again, are you planning anything that might cause enmity between our families?”

“No.”

*

You sat on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands as Hvitserk busied himself with the fire in front of you. You had come up with a few reasons as to the warning, but none seemed to add up, each suggestion contradicted by the facts known to you. You sighed loudly, and watched Hvitserk poke the fire with a stick, causing sparks to fly out, the embers scattering around the floor. You looked at the man, and thought of your mother, and how she told you of her naive attempts to charm your father. You had come to Kattegat with a similar naivety, the difference being your wariness of the culture and Gods. My mother found herself in an unhappy marriage, you thought, but I’ll be damned if I do the same.

“Hvitserk?” you muttered, and he came and sat in front of you.

“Yes, my love?” he said, softly.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, “I was naive, but I don’t want to end up like my parents.”

“How do you mean?” he tilted his head so he could see you better, and you took your hands away from your face, propping your elbows on your knees and leaning towards him.

“I want us to be happy,” you said, and he smiled lightly, “and I know you do too, you said so while you were drunk.” you took his face in your hands, “So let's try to be happy, okay?”

“Okay, my love.”

*

If you want to be tagged, let me know :)

Tag(s):

@soleil-dor

[the-cookie-of-doom]

Just for fun, I decided to add a table of contents now that I have everything fully copied over, and. Dude. My ToC alone is 7 pages

I’ll post it below the cut to give you guys a lil sneak peak about what’s to come ;)

January 2019

Strings of Fate 9

Crimson Peak AU 21

Southern Gothic AU 21

ABO Angst (First Fic) 32

Genie/Demon Slave AU 40

Maker AU 40

Construction AU 41

A/B/O & Teen Parents 42

Nude Modeling/College AU 44

Vampire Academy AU 45

Gym AU W/Emily 47

Mitch/Peter Canon Meta 57

Panther AU 59

Stiles/Mitch/Peter Void AU 69

Drifter/Amnesia AU 70

Point Break AU 71

A/B/O Spy AU 72

Single Dad AU W/Amelia 74

Siren Highschool AU 77

Werewolf AU (Mitch Goes Missing) 79

Mob/Panther AU (Peter/Mitch) 81

Criminal Minds AU 83

February 2019 83

Reincarnation AU (Stiles/Peter/Mitch) 83

Exorcism AU 85

Dorian Gray AU 87

Mini AUs (Mitch/Derek) 91

Priest AU (Steter) 93

Siren/Selkie AU 95

Angsty Band AU 96

Babysitter AU 97

Stiles Gets Sick 98

Runaway AU 99

Teen Angst 102

Undead Mitch (Mitch/Peter) 132

Southern Transfer Student AU 133

Professor/Stripper AU 134

Eichen House AU 136

Psychic Mitch AU (Mitch/Peter) 137

ABO Escort AU 138

Faerie Ring AU 140

(Lame) Bartender AU 140

Prohibition AU 141

Time Travel AU 141

Umbrella Academy AU 142

Stripper/Hitman/Runaway AU (Katrina/Mitch/Stiles) 142

Online Relationship AU 145

Mitch/Nogitsune/Stiles AU 145

John Wick AU 148

March 2019 148

Pornstar AU 148

Drifter AU 149

Drifter/Hooker AU (Sterek) 149

Hometown AU 150

Void Stiles AU (Steter) 151

Post-Nogitsune Body Horror AU 152

Country AU 153

Diego/Klaus Meta?? 156

Mitch/Chris Casual Sex AU (Ft. Interdimensional Travel) 158

Equilibrium 158

Survivor’s Guilt 159

Summer Roadtrip AU (Stetopher, Mitch/Katrina) 169

Massage AU 170

Conspiracy Theory AU 173

That Time They (Almost) Fucked* 176 *note for readers, it’s part of the Conspiracy AU

Stardust AU 178

Mitch/John AU 179

1500s(?) AU 181

Mitch Raised Little Brother Stiles (Platonic) 182

Snowed In AU 182

Camboy AU 183

Opposite Time Travel AU 183

Family Fight (Mitch/Peter) 185

Mitch/Void AU 188

Fantasy AU w/Dragons 194

House AU (S. 6 Ep. 4) 195

House AU 2.0 Single Dad w/Sick Daughter 197

Chronicles of Nick AU 198

Game Designer/YouTuber AU 202

April 2019 202

Peter’s Anchor AU 202

Hunter Mitch AU (Mitch/Peter) 203

Eichen AU (Mitch/Peter) 209

Teen Angst But WORSE 210

MMA/UFC AU 214

Restaurant AU 215

House AU 3.0 Stiles Gets Sick 216

Neighbors AU 217

Supernatural AU 219

Magic Mike AU 220

Hunter AU (Mitch/Peter) 221

Misc. AUs 222

- Elemental AU 225

- Angel/Demon AU 225

- Doppelganger AU 225

- Sordid Catholic Happenings AU 226

- Stoner AU 226

- Yogi/Body Builder(?) AU 226

- “I don’t love you” AU 227

- Avian AU 227

- Supernatural Detectives AU 227

- Mini Cyberpunk AU 228

- Domesticated Crptid 229

- Katrina Tops AU 229

- Mitch Being Abused (& Adopted by Hurley) 229

Death AU 230

ReplicantCloud Atlas AU 231

Serial Killer/Psychologist AU 233

DID/Nogitsune AU 234

Chambers AU 236

May 2019 246

Parole AU 246

Talia Takes Peter’s Memories (Meta) 247

Forced to Mate AU 247

What You Sow (ABO) 248

Service Dog AU (Peter/Mitch) 249

Victorian ABO AU 251

Beyond Reasonable Doubt 253

Accidental Puppy Acquisition 254

Mitch/John AU 257

Night Angel AU 257

Trafficking AU 258

Demon/Witch AU (Mitch/Katrina & Stitch) 259

Post-Apoc (Original) 259

Speech Counselor AU (Mitch/Peter) 261

Medieval Cult ABO 262

HS/College AU (Spin the Bottle) 265

Single Dad w/Bailey 266

June 2019 

Roadtrip AU 272

Werewolf War AU (Mitch/Laura, Stiles/Derek) 273

Lake Siren/Monster AU (Original) 275

Neighbors AU (Mitch/Stiles, Allison/Scott) 275

Stardust AU 276

Cyberpunk Post-Apoc AU 277

Highschool ABO 278

Priest/Sinner AU 279

Crossdressing/Historical Convention AU 282

Love Sacrificed AU (Mitch/Stiles/Peter) 284

Fake Dating AU 285

Devil AU 285

YouTuber AU 286

Vintage Porn AU 289

Prohibition Porn AU 289

WW1 Prostitute AU 290

Artillery 290

Stiles Kills Someone 297

Morning After AU 298

Captured By Hunters AU (Mitch/Peter) 299

July 2019 299

Necromancer AU (Stiles/Peter) 299

Rape Recovery (Mitch/Peter) 301

Vampire AU 303

Altar Boy/Sinner AU 304

Emissary Mitch AU 306

Agent Provocateur (Original) 308

Post-Nogitsune Wandering 308

Hippie/Punk AU 309

Mom’s Roadtrip Horror Stories 311

Renaissance AU (Stiles/Peter) 312

Harem AU (Mitch/Peter/Stiles) 312

The Hobbit AU 315

Buzzfeed Unsolved AU 318

Ice Skating AU 319

Non-Serious BDSM 320

August 2019 321

Dad Fic/Child Abuse* (Mitch/Peter) 321 *note for readers, Mitch and Peter aren’t the ones doing the abuse, they adopt the kid being abused and kill their dad. 

Unstable (Stiles/Derek, Mitch/Peter) 328

Christmas AU 334

Hunted 338

GoT Inspired/Birthday Fic 340

AHS: Coven AU 342

Stiles Kills Donovan 346

Stranger Things AU 349

Allison Angst (Wings of a Butterfly) 352

God/Mortal AU (w/Reincarnation) 353

Crimson Kiss 355

Mitch Saves Peter (Unrequited Love, Peter/Stiles) 356

Jigsaw AU 358

Kid Fic (Inspired by that one PtV Song??) 359

Blood Drive 360

Summer Camp AU 361

Succubus/Cupid AU 364

Human/Sex Demon AU 365

Rescue Me (Mitch Saves Stiles from Rogue Werewolves) 366

September 2019 367

AHS: Murder House AU (Mitch Sees Dead People) 367

Disney Cast Members AU 368

Winter Soldier AU 368

Definitely Not Haunted 369

Elemental AU (inspired by a Steter fic) 369

Fever Dream 370

Halloween Pumpkin Carving (Mitch/Peter) 373

Mitch Raises Cora 373

Naughty Bits 386

Dad Mitch (Not sure which au??) 396

Kill Shot/Strip Club AU 396

Sims AU 397

Mercy 404

Ghosts Katrina & Mitch 410

Musician/Long Distance AU 413

AA Girls/Lydia 416

Marionette Meta (GoT) 417

Cold War AU 419

Unicorn AU 419

Mitch Sleeps With An Informant (Jack Ryan-esque) 420

Vampire AU (Museum Edition) 422

Snowed In AU 423

Medieval Tourney AU (Peter/Chris) 423

October 2019 429

Crown Prince AU (Mitch/Peter) 429

Peter Has A Kink For Being Picked Up 431

Creepy Boarding School AU 431

Damaged Bois 435

Dracula AU (Mitch/Katrina/Stiles) 436

The Last Time 437

Worst Fears AU (Stiles/Peter, inspired by Jae/Allistair) 440

November 2019 444

Eichen House (Political Prisoner Mitch) 444

Dragon AU 444

Transfer Student Mitch Usurps Jackson 446

Locker Room Slut Stiles 447

Petopher AU 447

Rebound 448

Princess and the Pauper AU 467

Rival College Sports Teams AU 481

Teen Dad/Lawyer AU (Mitch/Peter) 482

Childhood Best Friends AU 487

Culinary AU 489

Rival/Married Teachers AU 490

Angel/Demon AU 491

December 2019 492

Christmas Fake Dating/Wedding AU 492

Vikings AU 495

Artist/Muse AU 498

CIA Escort Agency 498

Mitch Can’t Die 499

Hooker Mitch/Act of Treason (?) 500

Long Live the King 500

Mitch Gets Wrecked (Triathlon Aftermath) 504

The Mirror’s Curse (Original) 504

Angel/Reaper AU 505

January 2020 508

Bystander Effect 508

Melting Point 509

Vampire AU "I'll bet you're hungry." 512

Vampire AU - Katrina Turns Mitch 514

Witch/Incubus Bookshop & Sanctuary AU 517

Cottagecore Wish Fulfillment (Fae Stiles) 518

Ace Mitch 520

Monster Menagerie 521

Vampire Venom Black Market 523

Florist/Tattoo Artist 524

Gentle Angst AUs 524

Counselor/Praise Kink 526

Hanahaki AU 527

There is something bitterly funny about the last idea I told my ex about, being a Hanahaki AU, only for her to break up with me a month later bc I’m aromantic...

When I realized that last night while looking at this, it really made me see hanahaki AUs in a different light lmao. Maybe there’s a reason they’ve always been one of my favorite.

If there’s an AU that sparked your interest, feel free to ask me about it! I love talking about my fics : 3

[poemsforpersephone]

The third and final book rec list for fans of The Last Sun!

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen has really cool empathy powers which, although not the two way bond Brand and Rune share, does remind me of the emotion reading aspect in TLS. The m/m relationship in it is also super sweet. 

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee. This one I’m recommending because the protagonist is a snarky asshole just like Rune, and the writing style is so well done. It’s m/m and genuinely such a fun and quirky book. Also the cover art is gorgeous!

Silver in the wood by Emily Tesh. This is an LGBT novella where a wild man called Tobias lives in a place called “Greenhollow,” , where, and I quote, “Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.” So im recommending this one simply because of the involvement of secrets and troubled pasts haha. 

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. The front cover of this one gives me The Hanged Man vibes like, all the way to the bone, which is initially what prompted me to rec it on this list. But also: “Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.” Idk about the dirty magazines but the rest of it scREAMS Rune. and the main character is a lesbian!!! yay!! 

The Black Veins by Ashia Monet. “In a world where magic thrives in secret city corners, a group of magicians embark on a road trip—and it’s the "no-love-interest", found family adventure you’ve been searching for.” It’s like someone looked into my heart and picked out my deepest desire and then wrote it and gave it life. This book is super diverse and super awesome. 

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a f/f take on Dracula basically. I’m recommending it because the main character and her sister go through a traumatic event similar to the loss of the sun court, when men come and burn their home to the ground along with their people and they’re captured and taken as slaves. It’s about family, friendship and survival, and it’s beautiful. 

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco. An LGBT book where climate change deniers are the villains? ... you have my atttention. 

Prosper’s Demon by K.J. Parker. This is about a morally questionable exorcist!  It’s a satirical, interesting take on the topic of possession with a kick ass cover. 

The Wishing Heart by J.C Welker. An LGBT fantasy novel where our protag, Rebel, finds a jinni’s vessel and is thus thrust into a whole new world of trying to keep said jinni from everyone else and find a way to free her! The world building is awesome and so are the characters.

Tarnished are the Stars by Rosiee Thor. “A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher's chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws.” i have the hardbook version of this and the cover??? is so?? beautiful.

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum. TALKING OF PRETTY COVERS. “Ryann Bird dreams of traveling across the stars. But a career in space isn’t an option for a girl who lives in a trailer park on the wrong side of town. So Ryann becomes her circumstances and settles for acting out and skipping school to hang out with her delinquent friends.”

Predatory by Brooklyn Ray. WERELEOPARDS FRIENDS!!!! god damn wereleopards im?? so happy. m/m 

The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta. FOUND FAMILY QUEER WITCHES. need i say more. 

Portraits of a Faerie Queen by Tay LaRoi. The fey run amok in this one! f/f with a gorgeous front cover.

Unbroken by Brooklyn Ray. step 1: rent haunted house. step 2: fall in love with witch-turned-demon who inhabits it. step 3: profit???

The High King’s Golden Tongue by Megan Derr. This one is lovely! Nice world building with an emphasis on languages and kingdoms, and a lovely m/m romance that builds from kind-of-enemies-but-not-really to lovers. the audiobook of this is great. 

Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch. SORRY YOUR BOOK IS SET WHERE? MY HOMELAND? MY COUNTRY MY COUNTY MY HEART? we never get any attention imma go cry in the corner. its a historical fantasy m/m romance in YORKSHIRE gosh im here for it. And let me tell you... this is one fantastic book. I really, really enjoyed it.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. fantasy, m/m, lotsa swords!

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst. f/f fantasy with a princess who has fire magic in a kingdom where magic is forbidden! 

Freedom’s Fate by Jennie Taylor. SPAAAAAAACE i love books in space.

Pegasi and Prefects by Eleanor Beresford. “Charley's final year at Fernleigh Manor is complicated by a runaway pegasus, unwanted Games Captainship, a dangerous new rival and, most of all, falling head over heels in love with another girl. What is a reluctant Senior Prefect to do?” catch me while i swoon.

The Necromancers Dance by SJ Himes. m/m vampire/necromancer romance, urban magic and fantasy, very fun and smooth read, a little bit insta love but not totally. 

The Star Host by F.T. Lukens. “Ren grew up listening to his mother tell stories about the Star Hosts – a mythical group of people possessed by the power of the stars.” a m/m fantasy book set to a sci fi fantasy background.

Empty Vessels by Nicholas Williams. “Lucas Mahler babysits clones all day, but he's trapped under the legacy of his body-builder father and his genius girlfriend. When Lucas tries to rise above, he's murdered. Waking up in the body of a clone, Lucas embarks on a mystery full of blood, old friends and lost loves.” idk the whole clone thing in this just always reminds me of lord tower making all the different fake versions of people he knows lmao. 

BOOKS NOT YET OUT

So, the thing is. 2020 is very close friends, and some awesome books are even closer. These below are books I’ve not read yet, since they’re not out and I am a poor ARCless girl, but they’re books you definitely want to keep an eye on.

Witches of Ash and Ruin by E. Latimer. Bisexual OCD protagonist who is a witch D: its everything i could want. 

Wild Sky by Zaya Feli. LGBT fantasy with dragons! It sounds so, so fun.

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust. “A captivating and utterly original fairy tale about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch, and who discovers what power might lie in such a curse...”

The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos. “The Raven Boys meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, about an openly gay high school senior in small-town Georgia.” m/m fantasy which looks super sweet.

Cemetery Boys by Auden Thomas. “Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.” THIS SOUNDS SO COOL oh my god. Yes PLEASE. 

When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey. “A sly, witchy dark comedy about four teens whose magic goes wildly awry.” Magic, darkness, comedy, what’s not to love for fans of the tarot sequence??

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune. I absolutely love T.J.  Klune’s writing so I can’t wait to get my hands on this. m/m superheros!! friends!!! get excited!! I think anyone who likes how witty K.D. is will enjoy this writing style. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. YES ANOTHER ONE this looks so good too we are BLESSED. “A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.”

Fragile Remedy by Maria Ingrande Mora. “Sixteen-year-old Nate is a GEM—Genetically Engineered Medi-tissue created by the scientists of Gathos City as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population. As a child, he was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and into the Withers—a quarantined, lawless region.” The idea of the Withers kind of reminds me of the westlands.

The Fell of Dark by Caleb Roehrig. UHM im always here for lgbt vampires in young adult fantasy fiction. The author says that “this book is gay and filled with monsters” which also fits the last sun so i figured it belongs on the list lmao. 

Ruinsong by Julia Ember. “In a world where magic is sung, a powerful mage named Cadence is forced to use her power to torture her country’s disgraced nobility at her ruthless queen’s bidding.”

[snootysith]

The Mark of a Good Sith (1/?)

@fluffynexu This is way overdue. So overdue. 

Title: The Mark of a Good Sith Words: 4269 Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters/(Pairings): Darth Vowrawn/Lord Cytharat, Darth Vowrawn/Darth Gravus, Lord Haresh, Overseer Harkun  Rating: Mature (for now) Warning: Age Difference (it’s huge), Power Imbalance (also huge), Vowrawn’s Ego (astronomical)  Summary: Darth Vowrawn spies promise in young Cytharat.  A/N: I haven’t dedicated this much effort in writing in actual years lmao but Vowrawn is worth it. I’m trying to pace myself and drop lines here and there to expand in future fics. Hopefully. Story under the cut.

Korriban was exceptionally frigid today.

Darth Vowrawn would call it bracing.

After having spent the last few hours rattling off the annual budget plan, he needed something to lift his spirits. The attendance of Dark Councilors tended to flounder this time of year. It was practically a holiday and he would have been happy to treat it as one himself if Darth Marr wasn’t so insufferably diligent.  

Always present, always punctual, and never asleep behind that mask. Definitely not. Never the great Darth Marr.

Vowrawn gave a snort, startling an acolyte who hadn’t noticed him standing in the shadow of the statue. Amused, he watched her bow her head and quicken her pace. Fifty years and the novelty still hadn’t rubbed off. He enjoyed the attention. It came with being a social magnet and not a terror like Ravage whose temper evoked hysteria more than deference.

Unseemly. Where was the panache?      

Vowrawn spotted sleek, silver hair bobbing up the steps. Why, here he was.

Vowrawn pressed himself closer to the statue and carefully blanketed his presence, waiting until his quarry passed him. He propelled forward. “Surprise!”

Darth Gravus didn’t so much as bat an eyelash as he latched to his arm. “Still beating that dead horse?”

“If it worked once…”

Gravus raised his eyes upwards praying for strength as Vowrawn cheerfully rattled on about their academy days-- how Gravus nearly gutted him like a fish the first time they crossed, how the overseers had to keep them in separate dorms following the incident, how the two of them had been rivals until a compromise was made inside a second-floor utility closet, and how the overseers had to keep them in separate dorms again for all the racket they made—

“Are you proposing we recreate our first time?” Gravus interrupted. “I’ll have to disappoint you. I can’t lift you up without killing my back.”

“Nothing so pedestrian,” Vowrawn huffed. “You could at least try to play along. I’ve had a dreadful day as is.”

“Ah, Darth Marr was in attendance again?”

“He’s doing it to spite me,” Vowrawn said peevishly. “He thinks I’m up to no good in my free time.”

It was truly a mark of their bond that Gravus made no attempt to take the bait. Disappointing.

“You never relax,” he replied. “Even when you sleep. Business is your pleasure. You capitalize your time and effort. Which begs the question: why else are you here?”

“Can’t a man spend time with his oldest and dearest friend?” Vowrawn asked innocently.  

Gravus gave him a long-suffering look.

Vowrawn chuckled and leaned heavily on his companion. “I’m in the market for a new apprentice if you must know,” he said.

Gravus’s mouth twitched. “As am I.”

“What are the chances! I hear there’s a promising batch of acolytes this month. I wanted a sneak peek.”

“What are the chances, indeed…” Gravus said, narrowing his eyes. “You still have Qet, don’t you? He could just as easily do this for you. There’s no reason to get your hands dirty.”

“I might as well stamp my name on his forehead,” Vowrawn drawled. “They all know who he serves. It’s counterproductive. Besides, I thought you could use the company.”

Gravus raised an eyebrow. “I should be so lucky.”

“How is dear Thana?” Vowrawn simpered. He gave Gravus’s hand a brief squeeze before those brown eyes could harden. “I’m only teasing.”

“She’ll be back,” Gravus said dismissively. “Until then, an extra pair of hands would not go amiss. I don’t have time or the appropriate people to run other operations.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“Really?”

They stopped short in front of the ancient obelisk that dwarfed the room but they might as well have been standing beside rubble for all the attention they drew. Overseers and acolytes alike stared at them as they passed. Whether it was out of curiosity, awe, or fear it mattered not. No one, not even a fresh initiate, could be heedless of their power.

“You’ve always spoke so highly of Qet,” Gravus continued. “I thought he was more than capable.”

“He’ll never lack in enthusiasm,” Vowrawn said. “But I want someone with more finesse. More guile. Someone able to move about without riding any coattails. Chiefly, mine.”

“An assassin.”

“Of sorts.”

“A glorified errand boy.”

“You’re so sure it’s going to be a boy.”

“You have a track record. And a predisposition.”

Vowrawn pulled a face. “Sith in glass houses should not throw lightning.” With that, he broke away to head down the lower hallways.

“And just where are you going?” Gravus caught up to him and grabbed him by the elbow. “The acolytes are upstairs with Cestus.”

Vowrawn shook off his hand. “The academy has more than one room, you know.”

“There aren’t any ‘rooms’ where you’re going. Only slave pens.”

“Semantics.” “Slaves, aliens, and Harkun’s ilk.” Gravus sneered as though the words left a bad taste in his mouth. “They are not worthy of your time. You shouldn’t be seen with them.”

Ah, there it was. Rearing its ugly head again. Always so quick to discard diamonds in the rough.

Vowrawn made a dismissive noise. “By all means, head upstairs if the muck scares you. I have other robes and a strong stomach.”

He really ought to stop baiting the man but he wanted his company and a second opinion once they got around to reaching the training room.

Good student that he was, Vowrawn had done his homework before coming to the academy. The subject had changed but the principle was relatively the same. Analyzing class rosters, weighing each potential’s strengths and weaknesses, predicting the likelihood of improvement—he had done so in his youth to help cull his competition early. Now, it would help in preserving where it mattered.  

But numbers and secondhand information only painted broad strokes. Something like this required a deft hand, a critical eye, and—

Vowrawn paused briefly as he was hit with a potent smell of battle and musk.

— apparently, his nose too.

His interest only intensified when he slipped into the training room amidst the fracas of clashing vibroblades and curses. He leaned against the doorjamb right beside a ragged training dummy while Gravus lurked just out of sight near the doorway, clearly too proud to step further inside but apprehensive about letting Vowrawn out of his sight.

Darling man.

There was suddenly a ferocious snarl and Vowrawn was immediately drawn back to the other occupants in the room.  

A Zabrak with dusky orange skin and a web of black facial tattoos had launched himself at another acolyte, nearly toppling them both. The strength of his attack belayed his lanky form. There was no technique in his attacks just raw instinct. This clearly wasn’t his first fight though. His response to the other acolyte’s flurry of swings was almost immediate, weaving side to side, managing to dodge all attacks— save one.

The Zabrak stumbled back with another curse as the vibroblade landed a blow on his upper arm. Tricked by a clever little feint by a surprisingly proficient swordsman.

And, hello, what a dashing swordsman it was.  

Vowrawn’s nose twitched as he scented the air again. There was no missing a fellow Sith pureblood, especially one battered, bruised, and drenched in sweat. There were deep shadows beneath his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and long training hours but in the heat of the duel, those yellow eyes shone bright as gold.

His steps were more certain than the Zabrak’s, more practiced and quick, but there was a pattern to his movement. His eyes kept darting to the position of his blade, he constantly corrected his posture, and his lips moved soundlessly to form… encouragement? Or was he reciting instructions? Right foot forward, lunge, disengage, parry, advance, retreat, advance, advance.

The footwork did look pretty if one ignored how much ground he lost for it.    

“What is he doing here?” Gravus muttered. “Blood as blue as he is red… what is he trying to prove pitting himself against slaves?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Vowrawn said absently. His gaze remained fixed on the young Sith pureblood, admiring his lean but strong figure as he pressed another attack.

“Beg—oh.” Comprehension flickered in Gravus’s eyes as he reexamined the young Sith pureblood more closely. Tailored robes. Perfect posture. A fondness for jewelry.

Vowrawn’s eyes crinkled in amusement when Gravus gave him a sidelong look. Why, yes darling, the similarity was uncanny. It tickled his interest and, admittedly, his vanity too.

“A boy like that doesn’t accidentally find himself in a slave pen,” Gravus said slowly. “A fall from grace?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

“How far up?”

“Very.”

Gravus clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Politics.”

Vowrawn stifled a laugh and crossed his arms. “Politics,” he agreed. Such was the capricious life of the Sith aristocracy. Hosts of houses could be made and unmade over mere trifles. The pretense, the promises, the scandal—it always upset Gravus’s nouveau riche sensibilities. Ho hum.

It was disappointing but perhaps it was for the best. Politics, while entertaining, demanded the highest stakes for the greatest rewards and he was not ready to surrender his favorite just yet. He’d invested so much in him, after all. He had aged so well and was clever enough to keep him amused after all these years. Losing him would be a terrible waste.

The duel carried on a great deal longer. Neither acolytes would yield despite the toll it was taking on them. Their footwork became less steady, every swing seemed to shave a week off their very lifespan, and drawing breath was its own labor. So wrapped up in wearing each other down, they still had yet to even notice their audience. Incredible.

“That boy.” Gravus indicated the Sith pureblood with a raised chin. “Caught your eye, has he?”

Vowrawn raised his brow. “Perhaps.”

“I heard Malgus has designs on him already.”

Vowrawn finally tore his gaze away to give him an odd look. Darth “Gossip is For Spinsters” Gravus?

“You aren’t the only one who likes to know things,” Gravus said dryly. “Besides, do you really want to make an enemy of that man?”

Vowrawn smiled. “I love it when you fuss over me,” he said. “Have no fear. I know what I’m doing.”

He waited until the Zabrak pressed an advantage over the Sith pureblood, virtually throwing all his weight behind one last desperate attack. The Sith pureblood stumbled down to one knee, chest heaving, arms trembling, and he seemed to brace for a blow that would knock him clean out.

Which, no doubt, would have been his fate if Vowrawn hadn’t chosen that precise moment to loudly clear his throat.

The Zabrak gave a start and whirled around—only to trip on his opponent’s vibroblade and land face-first into the sweat soaked mat.

Gravus wrinkled his nose.

Vowrawn smothered his chuckle with a cough and scampered out the room, shoving lightly at Gravus to pick up the pace before the young Sith pureblood could catch sight of them.

It wasn’t until they were both entrenched in the second-floor library that Vowrawn allowed himself to laugh. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“The boy.”

Gravus rubbed his chin as he mulled over this. “He’s pretty,” he said at length. He suddenly glanced at Vowrawn. “He looks like you when you were his age.”

Vowrawn’s lips quirked up into a playful smile. “You thought I was pretty?”

“There were other things that came to mind when I thought of you.”

“Disgusting,” Vowrawn crooned.  

Gravus smirked. “Truthfully,” he went on. “His pedigree is plain. He must have come out of preparatory school with high marks. If not, I wonder how he hasn’t choked on the silver spoon in his mouth yet. It must be small then if he’s still sorted with aliens. Politics. Everything to lose and little to gain. But then…” He gave Vowrawn a sidelong look. “You already know all this, don’t you?”

Vowrawn only smiled.

“Is this you testing my good sense again?” There was a touch of annoyance in his voice. “Or do you really intend to make the boy your apprentice?”

“Perhaps.” If anything, the demonstration today also kindled an interest in the Zabrak but Vowrawn kept that thought safely to himself. Gravus had a limit in tolerating his eccentricities.

“What is his name? The boy.”

“Cytharat.” More a title than a name. Much like Vowrawn had inherited his from his own father.

Gravus wrinkled his nose. “My condolences.”

“It’s from the Old Tongue. It’s lovely.”

“As I’m sure you’ll describe ‘it’ once you’re through with him.”

“Cestus is calling,” Vowrawn huffed. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Gravus answered with a knowing smirk before departing. Vowrawn chalked this up as a tie.

Despite all the unsavory rumors of his private life, he seldom dabbled with men as young as Cytharat. Youth had its advantages but when it came to romance, they tended to fall in love too easily and it was more trouble than it was worth disentangling from them. Qet was evidence enough of that.

But that wasn’t to say he couldn’t indulge himself once in awhile.

With a little skip in his step, Darth Vowrawn made his way back downstairs, acolytes scattering in his wake.

--

Cytharat held Harkun’s stare in the thundering silence that followed.

He had already taken a sound beating in the training room. His pride could withstand a little more.

After dragging themselves to the nearest refreshers to scrub off the worse of the grime, he and Haresh were immediately summoned to Harkun’s office. More acolytes had huddled in the closed space before but their numbers had dwindled in a matter of weeks. Now it had come down to just four of them.

Haresh was a formidable rival, more so because he prevailed despite the deck stacked against him, and Cytharat respected him for it. The feeling was not mutual. Harkun had seen fit to drive a wedge between them at every turn. He was intent upon driving Haresh into the ground and considered Cytharat’s predicament with little more than a sneer.

There was no honor in being handed someone else’s accolades but Harkun had done so time and time again. It wasn’t even out of favoritism so much as ease. Cytharat just happened to be the nearest receptacle. He had tried to explain it to Haresh once the Zabrak had dragged himself out of the lower wilds.

Haresh had glowered at him. “You never turned them down.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Haresh’s laugh was devoid of humor. “Right, because you know how that feels more than me.”

No. They’d never be friends.

The Sith Academy was a treacherous path to navigate alone. Cytharat endured but he had his limits.

Haresh was stone-faced as Harkun’s hurled insults at him, while Cytharat stood to the side watching with a tired detachment.

“—any wonder why I have to suffer when you can’t amount to anything more than an animal,” Harkun snapped. “Even against the lowest Sith, you fail. What good is being an animal if you can’t even hold your own against a few swats—”

“No.” Cytharat could not stomach the indignity.

A terrible hush fell upon the room.

Haresh was giving him an odd look. Harkun had gone tightlipped with anger as he suddenly turned to glare at him.

“No,” Cytharat said in a low voice. “Haresh would have won.”

Harkun’s eyes narrowed. “Modesty will get you nowhere.”

“It is a fact.”

“Then it is a wretched lie. Are you a liar, boy, or just a fool?”

An insult sat heavily on Cytharat’s tongue. It pressed tight behind his teeth. He need only open his mouth.

Harkun stared into his face expectantly. “Well?”

Cytharat stared back at his overseer and felt his disapproval bake on his skin. Foolish. One step to completing his trials. One step to breaking free of the humiliation. He had inherited a legacy of soul crushing shame, what was a little more? It was only temporary and—and mother. To disappoint her would… to have come so far, to have sacrificed what favors they had left for nothing—  

Cytharat lowered his eyes and swallowed.

Harkun’s smugness was almost palpable. “I thought so.” He turned his back to him. “Spineless like your old man.”

Oh no.

Bile rose in his throat. “And are you spineless, overseer, or just a fool?”

Harkun went ramrod straight as though he were hit with a bolt of lightning. He turned back ever so slowly, his eyes brimming with murder. “What did you say to me?” he whispered.

Mother was going to skin him alive. “Haresh would have won,” Cytharat said. “He is strong, he has potential to be Sith, he is an asset. We stand to gain nothing from squandering power.”

“You dare tell me how to do my own job, acolyte?”

“Someone must.”

Harkun reddened. His knuckles audibly popped as his hands curled into fists.

Cytharat resolutely held his gaze and braced for the brunt of his rage. He was only distantly aware of Haresh stepping to the side. Out of firing range.

Smart.

His tongue swiped out to wet his cracked lips. He wondered if his punishment would be greater if he threw up his own protective barrier.

The tension was thick and crackled with energy—or perhaps that was just the lightning between Harkun’s fingers.

There was suddenly a smattering of applause.

Harkun glanced towards the doorway and his face fell. The tension bled from his body and he seemed to curl inwards. He was as pale as a sheet, looking for all the world like a lost child.  

There was no time to relish the moment. Not when Cytharat’s own mind stalled when he turned around to look at their visitor.

“D… Darth…” Harkun seemed only capable of wheezing.

“Darth Vowrawn…” Cytharat breathed.

The elderly Sith leaned against the doorway with a crooked smile. He wiggled a few fingers at them in a half-hearted wave. “Have you considered being an actor?” He smiled at Cytharat. “Playing martyr wins you many hearts.”

--

No. The novelty had definitely not worn off.

Harkun’s face alone could cheer him up for several rainy days.

The Zabrak—Haresh— looked at him warily but uncomprehendingly. An fresh, off-world slave, no doubt, if his name invoked such little reaction.

Ah, but Cytharat recognized him in an instant. Interesting.

“So sorry for the intrusion,” Vowrawn said. “All the excitement piqued my curiosity. It is always a pleasure to see an acolyte take his education so seriously, no?”

“As you say, my lord,” Harkun said weakly.

“Might I borrow him?”

Harkun’s mouth audibly clicked shut and he glanced back and forth between Vowrawn and Cytharat. Did the man have the stomach to swallow all that pride and answer a smile with a smile?

A grin—a grimace really—split Harkun’s face. Close enough. “He is yours, Dark Lord. May you find him as agreeable as I do.” Well, well. Bold move, overseer.

Vowrawn’s gaze drifted to Cytharat’s bald faced astonishment and then briefly on Haresh.

Resentment bled from the Zabrak like an open, festering wound but he wore his mask well enough. Such potential there, too. Quiet and insidious and familiar to Vowrawn as his own limb.

“This won’t take long,” Vowrawn said once Cytharat fell into step. “As I’m sure you’re eager to join the fray again. I take it introductions are unnecessary?”

“I… yes, Darth Vowrawn. It is an honor.”

“The honor is entirely mine, dear boy,” Vowrawn purred. “I am rarely afforded the time to mingle with acolytes but it is always refreshing to find one with such passion and avant-garde. Between you and me…” He lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “The empire could stand to have more of you.”

The young Sith cracked a smile and Vowrawn counted it a victory.

He led them further down the hall and into to the academy’s cantina—empty, always curiously empty— where they settled comfortably on a couch. Or he did anyway.

Cytharat carefully put distance between them and kept his spine perfectly straight. He kept his eyes lowered, deferential and attentive, while Vowrawn’s mouth started running on autopilot.

Such a dutiful, well-mannered son of the empire.

A dime a dozen. How droll.

Where was the initiative he saw?

Cytharat chuckled softly at something he said and—

What was he saying? “—cient history, of course. You should thank your stars Overseer Ragate only administers the rite. The mortality rate of Sith purebloods increased under her tutelage no thanks to me.” Gossip. Hmph. Gravus was right. He could write an entire series of holomagazines.

“You know, it’s positively criminal that we haven’t been acquainted yet,” Vowrawn said abruptly.

Cytharat blinked the glaze from his eyes. “We have met before. Once.”

“Oh? I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

“I was only a boy then,” Cytharat said. “It was at a party celebrating Darth Ananta’s sixtieth birthday.”

Vowrawn stifled a laugh. His dear aunt had been celebrating her sixtieth birthday for almost four decades now. He’d be hard pressed to pick one face from swarming partygoers—not least because he’d been blind drunk more often than not.

“Cytharat, Cytharat, Cytharat…” Vowrawn hummed as he racked his brain. The name had come attached to someone that was certainly not a child then. Someone of note. Someone he had bothered to remember, fuzzy outline notwithstanding.

His eyes drew to the intricate gold bar clamped to the bridge of his nose. There were stories in the bits and baubles a Sith pureblood wore and it was a mark of pride that Cytharat stubbornly kept his.

Trying his best not to ogle, Vowrawn managed to translate bits of the High Sith he could decipher—something, something, valor and honor and… “to live is to serve”… the empire? No, that term represented a more abstract concept—ah! “the greater good”.

Yes… he’d heard that before. Not spoken at him precisely but… whispered against his skin. He remembered the brandy fogging up the air between two bodies. Hands clumsily navigating through robes while he laughed, head full of fluff, at how clever this man was calling him his greater good while he sank to his knees, pulled down his trousers, and—  

Oh. Oh.

“Yes…” Vowrawn dragged the word out into two syllables. His eyes flicked away from Cytharat’s jewelry. “That’s right. Your… father was there.” Doing very unfatherly things in dark corners.

“You knew my father well?” Cytharat asked, giving a start.

Vowrawn regarded him with a tight smile. “We were well-acquainted, he and I.”

“I see.”

“Surprised?”

Cytharat’s eyes dimmed. “My father was dedicated to his work. He was a man of solitude who lived as he died in glorious servitude to the Empire. I am honored to carry on his legacy. Acquaintances were… rare.” There was as much passion and candor in his voice as a loaf of bread. He might as well have been reciting a dictionary. His father must have been a complete stranger to him.

A terrible shame. Such raw intellect and strength deserved to be honed by the best. Cytharat should never be left wanting.

“Socializing with the unsociable happens to be a gift of mine,” Vowrawn said. “Perks of being an extrovert.”

“As you say, my lord.”

Oh dear. He hit a nerve.

“Forgive me but I should return to my training.” Cytharat suddenly rising to his feet. “My trials…”

“Of course, of course. You’ve more important business than listening to an old man natter the day away.”

Cytharat looked utterly thunderstruck. “My lord, you more than that. You stand amongst the greatest Sith. You are a pillar of the empire. It is wisdom you speak and it is honor that I feel in attending to you. I am yours. I am—”

Vowrawn pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him before he could draw breath.

Mmph. He could stand to hear that in a more private setting.  

“I think I can squeeze you in somewhere,” the older Sith purred and pressed a kiss to the corner of Cytharat’s mouth.

Cytharat’s eyes went comically wide and his mouth moved soundlessly for a minute.

Vowrawn watched him carefully, patiently waiting to see how his message would be received.

Another minute passed and Cytharat remained unresponsive.

With a heavy sigh, Vowrawn rose to his feet to leave but a hand suddenly closed around his wrist.

Bemused, he looked at Cytharat who immediately let go of him and clasped his arms behind his back.

“If… if you will have me, my lord,” he mumbled.

Vowrawn chuckled.

The young man beat a hasty retreat to the door and Vowrawn waited until he was out of sight before he followed, a skip in his step. He was pass the door when someone behind him spoke.

“‘Well-acquainted’? Is that what you call it now?”

Vowrawn tipped his head down with a smirk. “It’s poor etiquette to tell someone you’ve fornicated with their father,” he said without turning.

“I would have told him.”

Vowrawn laughed and faced his companion. "Of course you would. You’re beastly.”

Gravus’s lip curled and he pushed away from the wall. “Going to send him a dinner invitation?”

“You’re not invited,” Vowrawn retorted.

“Yet.”

Vowrawn held his knowing look for all of five seconds before he relented with a smile. “Yet,” he amended. For now, Cytharat was his and his alone to enjoy. Nothing stimulated intellect like a generously spiced meal.

And if the night took them out of the dining room and into his bedchamber…

Well.

It wouldn’t be the first time he served dessert there.

[arodrwho]

dw liveblog below

“do you have stretchy arms like mr fantastic” lmao she’s such a N e r d, i love her

“who’s that?” “mum” lm a o

“i’m not a slave for any human” w ELL, nardole my dude, chill it perhaps

“past or future?” “future?” “why?” “why do you think? i wanna see if it’s happy” oh gosh

she’s takin pictures!!

“a long time ago a thing happened, as a result of the thing, i made a promise, because of the promise blah blah blah” b uddy i’m disappointed in you, i thought u might explain more to her than 10 did to martha, pls don’t treat her like martha

“typical wet brain chauvinism” is that what they said?

“well, seeing your own mood might affect your own mood” huh

jellos?? why jellos??

“i’m not that fond of fish” food issues. an autistic twelve. good

“i met an emperor made of algae once. he fancied me” twelve u dork

“is there gonna be food sexism in the future” lmaooo

anSWER HER QUESTION U NOODLE. she wants to know about the hearts, tell her maybe. FINALLY

“does that mean you’ve got reaallly high blood pressure?” “really high” lmao

they found a thing!

“i’m smelling home!” :D she’s so delighted i love it

oh dear. literal skeleton crew

RAPTOR HANDS DR WHO. AN AUTISTIC

they ate the structure thing?

ohhhh RUN my buddies

“we’ve only just escaped” ohhh bill, my buddy, have u got some things to learn

SPEECH. SPEECH. SPEECH.

“can’t you phone the police? isn’t there a helpline or something?” “and stay away from my browser history!!” is that meant to be a joke abt porn. why was that necessary. ANYWAY dr who looks up rly weird creepy science stuff, probably, or else?? something silly embarrassing

sup my dude. oh. it’s a video message thing kind of?

o, smiley twelve. oooo him had an idea?

bill!!

“why are you scottish” [suddenly remembers “how comes u sounds like ur from the north”; anticipates 89 gifsets of comparison]

“you like that” “you never pass by in your life!” bill oh my g od u know this nerd so well

thAT’S THE REAL TWELVE SMILE. them excited

“wet brains/dry brains” o, i like that as a distinction

“i’ll hear you through the thingamabob” what a dork

“i’m on a spaceship! like, for real. a proper one” are u dissin the tardis bill. rude xD

“what do you mean allowed? it’s a moral imperative” “all traps are beautiful, that’s how they work” i likea these lines

“you’d already memorized it, hadn’t you?” “yep” “stop trying to keep me out of trouble!” u tell him bill!

she’s so delighted by everything, i love it. look at her, all interested

A PERSON? AN ALIVE PERSON? .....no. sadly no

oh wow, a cool book. human history? oh no, bill. what a sad thing to see. and with a robot on the way...

HAND WIGGLE. twelve handwiggled

oh gosh. [hugs the bill] she feels so much? how do u hold so many emotion bill

A KID. A CHILD. help the child. thank u bill

“where is everybody?” oH my GOSH. PEOPLE !!!! a Lot of people. so many people

there’s gonna be a bad time if u don’t stop it

yEAH. fix it, save it

“and if they don’t smile about that, it’s going to be the end of the human race” a mild yikes?

yOU LOST TRACK OF THE KID. HOW. WHAT THE HECK. FIND THE KID

“not bad, not good, just different” o

NOW U REALIZE U’VE LOST TRACK OF THE KID. NOW? AFTER 80 YEAR. i mean in fairness y’all have been busy, but. u know, still. how do u lose an entire kid

well no shoot they’re alive????? why is this a surprise????????????

what’d u just do?

“a scary handsome genius from space” what a nerd

“he turned it off and on again” thank u for translating bill

“you’d best make friends with them, because there’s loads of them”

“would you like me to discuss rent” LMAO

“i’m definitely not a policeman” “you live in a police box”

“exactly as we left it” lmao you sure? “maybe i do need a steering wheel” yA THINK?

elephant??? hi!!

oooo a trailer for next ep during class. sweeeeet another reason to watch i guess. clever marketing

ANYWAY THAT WAS COOL & GOOD, I LOVE