#this makes me think about danger days and bli a Lot.. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quidfree · 3 years

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can you Please write the scene with bakugou's piercing SGDHEFEH the concept is too funny to me !!!

anon you’re lucky 報復性熬夜 is a concept i am firmly attached to so here i am at 1 am rattling this off instead of getting my beauty sleep. please excuse the standard of writing as a result

by the second day, katsuki is seriously considering agreeing to todoroki’s earlier and ambiguously sincere proposal that they play i spy.

he doesn’t know what it is about this particular job that’s so unbearable. no, scratch that- of course he knows what’s unbearable; it’s sat right next to him on a too-small chair in their too-small room staring impassively out of a too-small window. but he’s been thrown into so much shit with icyhot you’d think he’d developed some kind of immunity by now, the way vaccines microdose you on viruses so you can resist the real thing. call katsuki an antivaxxer, he guesses, because he has overdosed on todoroki ever since he met the asshole and he’s still not ready for how far up the wall he’s driving him when they’re stuck together for two straight days without a breather or any contact with the outside world.

cards on the table: stake-outs aren’t his thing. he does them just fine, fuck you very much, but he doesn’t like ‘em. why would he? they’re some ungodly blend of extremely boring and extremely tense, where nothing happens right up until way too long into it and then everything goes to shit unprompted. it’s rare he ever gets called in on jobs like this- people tend to assume he lacks the temperament for it, for one, and for another he’s too useful to lock away for days on end. it’s only because their suspected target is so insanely volatile and dangerous that it’s the two of them waiting for her to show her ugly face- no one else is even allowed in the perimeter. which is fucking fine, but he just wishes the cops would get their shit together for once and actually have the proof ready by the time they call the pros in so he doesn’t have to wait before he goes in guns blazing. instead they talked some bullshit about how critical of a stage this was and blah blah fifteen years of (obviously mediocre) work had gone into setting this trap, etc etc. the point is that it’s led to katsuki stuck in the world’s most disgusting little apartment, staring out of a splintered window for two-going-on-three days with no one but the world’s most annoying prodigy to keep him company. the place is such a dump they’re sleeping on mats in sleeping bags. it’s like fucking UA summer camp, and at this point he’d take the kidnapping over the waiting.

day one wasn’t so bad, right up until he realized there would be a day two. day two is bad from start to finish. they’re supposed to take turns on watch but there’s fuck all else to do except sit on their phones, and katsuki can only quote tweet so much dumb shit before he gets bored. he can’t talk to anyone outside because of confidentiality bullshit, and there’s no point checking work shit when he can’t do anything from where they are. so it’s either silently watching the warehouse or talking to todoroki, and todoroki is a fucking terrible conversationalist.

the thing with icyhot is this: katsuki doesn’t hate him, okay. like, he hates him, but also not really. they’re, at a push, maybe, sort of, friends. verging on close ones. not that he’d say so, but after the amount of dramatic self-sacrifices and final stands against a joint enemy they’ve endured he can’t really muster the energy to argue otherwise. todoroki’s tolerable, sort of maybe. usually katsuki borderline likes working with him, because if nothing else he’s good at what he does, and they know each other too well to be anything but in sync in the field. if they were doing almost anything else he’d be relieved at the choice of pairing.

they are not, however, doing anything else, and todoroki still fucking sucks at talking like a normal person. when he’d woken katsuki up for his shift of night-watch he’d loomed over him ominously like a fucking ghoul and said, voice belying no humor: “do you think plants can feel pain?”

there’s fucking nothing to talk about. anything interesting is essentially vetoed because it’d inevitably distract them from the whole intent observation thing, and katsuki hates small talk on a normal day but especially when todoroki’s doing his ‘alien attempting earth dialect’ bit and asking him about weather or the tokyo transportation system or whatever. so they just sit in semi-silence and occasionally go on very stupid tangents katsuki is glad no one can witness and remain overall bored out of their fucking skulls.

by day three they’ve already exhausted i spy and also the alphabet game and hangman, and katsuki draws the line at tic-tac-toe. todoroki looks implacable as always but his eye has started twitching a little. katsuki tries to think of literally anything that could plausibly take up their time and not take their eyes off the window, comes up short. twister is not a good idea even ignoring their lack of a board. shop talk is so very tempting, but he’s not losing this villain and wasting two days’ suffering because they get carried away on some long-winded discussion, so that’s not an option either.

“how’s your ear?” todoroki says, and at first katsuki thinks he’s really fucking lost it if he’s started asking after the wellbeing of his individual body parts, but then he remembers the last time they saw each other katsuki was throwing himself into the path of some jackass with a trumpeting quirk who nearly blew out his eardrum, so he guesses half ‘n half’s not entirely insane yet. he shrugs, shifts in his chair.

“fine. couldn’t hear shit from it for like three straight days, though. and my balance was fucked.”

“it hasn’t scarred at all.”

“yeah. lame place for a scar,” katsuki says, flexing his fingers absently. they’re all of them more roughed up than they were at UA, but talent and good healers have kept him mostly intact, give or take a few big nasties like the time he got gutted in first year or his near loss of an eye around graduation. privately he suspects genetics have dealt him a good hand, what with his gene donor’s perfect skin, but then todoroki doesn’t have that excuse and he’s not scarred anywhere ugly except the obvious, though katsuki could point blind to most of the nasties he’s accumulated under his suit.

not that he thinks about what’s under todoroki’s suit. god, he needs to get out of here.

“i don’t know,” todoroki is saying now, thoughtful. “a lot of people have ear-scars, no? from piercings.”

“that’s different,” katsuki says, immediately contrarian, even as he thinks about it. by the warehouse a truck stalls, but then moves on, lessening his momentary excitement. “most people don’t let that shit heal. unless you’re a moron there’s no point getting a hole jabbed through your ear if you’re not sure you want it.”

“would you?” todoroki asks, mildly curious, and taps his ear where katsuki can see him in the window’s reflection. “get a piercing, i mean.”

“what’s it to you?”

todoroki rolls his eyes at him like he’s being pointlessly difficult, which he maybe is a little. “i don’t know. i think it would suit you.”

“yeah?” katsuki sniffs, mollified and trying not to show it. it’s always a mistake to let icyhot know when his obvious ploys are working. “been thinking about it?”

“i can hardly sleep at night for thinking about it,” todoroki deadpans, which makes katsuki scowl and stomp down on the extremely unwarranted flush crawling up his neck in response.

“fuck off. i guess i’d do like one or two.”

“really? you always say no to tattoos.”

“that’s different. i don’t trust some asshole to draw a fucking infinity sign on my knee or whatever. sticking a hole through an ear is hard to fuck up, and you barely register it after. if you get a shitty tattoo you have to think about it all the time.”

“if it’s easy then why don’t you have any?” todoroki asks, but he sounds genuinely curious more than like he’s trying to catch him out, so katsuki thinks about it honestly.

“don’t have the time. ‘s not like i can really afford to pencil in an afternoon to the nearest parlor or whatever just for that.”

“i read you can pierce your ears with a needle.”

“i guess i haven’t fucking thought about it that much, then,” katsuki grumbles, forever irked by todoroki’s smart mouth. problem solver his ass. the guy goes around making problems for everyone.

they sit in silence for a beat, watching the breeze rattle the wooden planks barricading a window opposite them, and then he thinks needle, and does some very quick mental arithmetics to reach the conclusion that todoroki is probably also landing on, judging by the way he blinks when katsuki briefly glances his way.

he thinks about the job, and how close he’d come to throttling todoroki during i spy, and the great dawning nothingness ahead of them for fuck knows how long still. at the very worst, they have to start moving with a needle in his ear.

“pass me your medikit.”

todoroki does, but when katsuki unzips the pack he shifts. “it’d be easier if i did it.”

“it’s not rocket science,” katsuki mutters, considering the needle critically before glancing back out of the window. “'s not like i give a shit about precise location.”

“i’m just saying i wouldn’t have to go in blind. and you can keep watch while i do it.”

“or you can keep watch while i do. same shit.”

todoroki only shakes his head, because unlike some people who shall not be named he is not so incredibly psychosexually attached to offering help where it isn’t wanted. “fine.”

katsuki eyes the window, squints at his ear. tissue’s the best bet- he thinks he could probably manage cartilage fine, but on the off chance they have to drop everything and run he doesn’t want to accidentally snap a bone and start the fight inconvenienced. lobe it is.

“wait,” todoroki says, just when he’s focused, and then reaches over without removing his gaze from the window to press two fingers to the needle, tip going blisteringly red-hot before he releases it. cauterised. their kit’s sterilised anyway, but katsuki grunts his begrudging thanks, repositions himself.

“wait,” todoroki says again, and this time katsuki can’t help but turn to glare at him where he’s still watchfully staring outside.

“fucking what, icyhot?”

“two seconds,” todoroki promises, gaze flickering his way for half a second with something like self-effacing amusement before he turns his eyes dutifully away and reaches his other arm around to pinch his ear, which flares cold so quickly katsuki hisses even as his cheeks heat. fucking weirdo.

“could’ve just said,” he mutters, ignoring his not at all jumpy pulse to refocus on the task at hand as todoroki does that obnoxious lip-twitch thing that means he’s smiling internally.

physics dictates that he keep his wrist at an angle if he wants the needle to come out right, so he does, braces and jabs. it goes so easy he almost doubts his own success, not even the slightest twinge of pain ensuing. he twists for good measure, removes the needle, watches tiny beads of blood emerge from the piercing.

well, that was anticlimactic, katsuki thinks, retrieving an anti-bacterial wipe for the needle, and then pauses, staring at the window.

“motherfucker.”

“what?”

“what the fuck am i supposed to put through this?”

todoroki’s mismatched eyes go gratifyingly wide in the window, and for one spectacularly braindead moment two of the world’s most outstanding pro-heroes stare at one another in a shitty broken window with equal amounts of retroactive dismay.

“um,” todoroki says, or as close to ‘um’ as todoroki will ever say. katsuki wishes dearly he was still of an age where he could throw him through a wall. then his eyes focus elsewhere, sharpening with what could pass as professional focus but is mostly naked relief. “um.”

um in-fucking-deed. by the warehouse, a door has just opened a sliver.

“you owe me a fucking earring,” katsuki declares, but so fast it lacks any aggression, already halfway out the window by the time he finishes speaking, atrophied limbs reviving with an ecstatic chemical burn as fresh air hits their faces.

god. if he ever gets stuck on stake-out duty again he’s sleeping by himself under a parked car or some shit.

they make disgustingly quick work of the fight, in the end, days of pent-up frustration and skull-numbing boredom leaving them so bursting with power that it’s almost embarrassing for the villain, but when the first kow-towing police officer reaches them full of praise and suggestion that they handle another job he has queued up they chorus a ‘no’ so violent the guy actually jumps.

todoroki’s not so bad, katsuki thinks fondly, watching his face slide into frigid blankness with absolutely no idea of how shitless he’s scaring the officers around them. it’s almost enough to make him forget to kick his ass for the enormously shitty banter he’d had to endure vis-a-vis his still-bleeding ear throughout the entire tragically short fight.

almost. not quite. who even knew there was a ‘gay ear’?

#qui parle #qui ecrit #anon #todobaku #bnha #tdbk

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alfhildr-the-word-weaver · 3 years

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I would like to present: Pirate Killjoycore! I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to suggest pirates in the Danger Days ‘verse*–after all, we know that east of Battery City, the desert is full of runaways fighting BLI, but there’s all that ocean to the west unaccounted for. Why wouldn’t some ‘joys run off to sea instead of the desert, steal some boats, and carry on the fight on the other front?

So, I wanted to try and capture how the Killjoy vibe might play out on the pirate side of things. I figure some ‘joys steal big yachts and graffiti them up and manage to run them off of the same mystical fuel source cars in the Zones run on. Maybe others who can’t get the magic gas thing to work for them or who don't want to rely on fuel patchwork together sails from scraps of fabric, graffiti those, and cobble together some rigging--and maybe some were lucky enough to grab up actual Tall Ships for that authentic Pirate Vibe.

If you’re a pirate ‘joy, of course, your boat will also be your crew’s home, so I figure they’re pretty cozy and colorful inside, too (and probably pretty cluttered, but in a homey way). As far as Pirate Killjoy fashion, I imagine it’s as bright, chaotic, and colorful as its counterpart Zones fashion, except naturally more pirate-inspired, with long swishy coats and big hats.

I have a lot more Pirate Killjoycore pictures saved that didn’t make it into this moodboard, too, so let me know if there’s something specific you’d like to see more of! I can always make posts with individual pictures, too; my standard moodboard formatting wasn’t working this time since I needed my pictures to be different widths and heights for this one, so I had to make it elsewhere, hence why it’s all one image, but if you want to see one or more pictures closer, let me know.

Seriously though feel free to ask me about Pirate Killjoys and related aesthetics! I am very slow about answering asks but I do have many thoughts about this :)

Sources and more below the cut.

*I thought for sure at one point I’d seen a headcanon post about pirates in the DDverse, but I haven’t been able to find anything in the tags. If you have one, feel free to tag me in it or otherwise send it my way!

Sources: x x x / x x x / x x x

Disclaimer, I don’t necessarily go through all of my sources, I just grab the pictures and links from image searches; that said, I did happen to click around a bit and the image on the flickr account the bottom left picture came from is right next to a picture of a dead person so I felt like I should give fair warning in case you decide to look through that flickr at all. It appears to be some part of a funeral procession in India but the dead person is clearly visible so, fair warning.

Also I did watch the video on La Preciosa (top left, the boat with the smiley face) and that was pretty cool (and had definite Killjoy vibes). :)

Also technically I found the first graffitied tall ship here but I did a reverse image search to find my sources and the artist’s page has more information about the painting. Now that I look at the original post though, you can actually see the details of the painting better there I think.

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robinrunsfiction · 3 years

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Ever so humbly requesting “director’s commentary” for For You (the one where Frank and y/n do a group project together and she thinks he hates her), Frank Iero on the Stage Who Will He Injure, and I Don’t Believe in Luck (Fun Ghoul x reader where y/n thinks Fun Ghoul hates her so she runs away and almost gets dusted) pls and thank you, I love your work so much it gives me life!

For You

So I actually struggle with writing the enemies to lovers trope. I have a tough time coming up with situations where two people can be so at odds and yet eventually fall in love, and so this one is sort of a cop out. The "enemies" angle is just perceived by the main character. Frank never actually has reason to hate her, she just assumes he does. And he doesn't!

This story was one that was written in chunks and scenes that had to be pieced together and ended up getting edited down a lot. There were variations of the dialogue where she was much more... I'm not even sure of the right word... sassy? I hate that word, but I guess that would be a fair assessment. Especially in the scene where he walks her back to her dorm, she does read as sorta defensive, but it's toned down from what I had before.

I had ZERO idea where this story was gonna go after the project was done. That was another part of it that I edited and reworked, trying to make the timeline reasonable. I figured it'd end around the end of the semester, but I didn't know how exactly.

I really like the scene when he comes back and she's able to say all the things that she's been keeping pent up, and just talks right over him, like no, I need to get this out.

“God you’re so soft and cute, I can’t believe I was ever intimidated by you,” just feels like peak dealing with Frank energy lol but I'm really pleased with how the story ended for not being sure about it from the get go.

Frank Iero On The Stage, Who Will He Injure

First of all, how amazing is that gif? lol

I totally dig this request because I'm sort of a slut for hospital bed feeling confessions. I mean in real life I am TERRIBLY afraid of hospitals, I FUCKING HATE THEM SO MUCH OH MY GOD! But in stories, especially ones that I'm in charge of, I know that the outcome is gonna be ok and I just love the vulnerability and the fear, and the comfort and all of it. Ugh yes.

I really like that this one is short and sweet and to the point. There are some funny lines, and Frank being a softie again and the whole thing is just a good time while getting stitches after taking a guitar to the head lol

But I think my favorite part may be this exchange:

“Shit, I think (YN) has brain damage,” Ray muttered from the doorway, as the Way brothers joined him, coffees in hand.

“Why’s that?” Gerard asked nervously before he saw you and Frank making out on the hospital bed.

“I just hope this means he’ll stop throwing stuff,” Mikey muttered.

I Don't Believe In Luck

Another enemies to lovers, and I think it's a bit easier in the context of the Danger Days universe. I think there's a level of I guess you could call it suspicious trust between Killjoys who have just met. You both know you're against BLI, but do you know that they won't blast you in the back and steal your food when you aren't looking?

Anyway, Fun Ghoul's problem with her being the fact that he's actually into her, but he's in denial of his feelings is fun. Like "Oh I hate her and her perfect face" sorta thing. Add in the jealousy factor of him thinking she was with Party, and that's just like ooh yes. You fool, you adorable fool lol

I love that he figures out that she didn't mean to leave because of the necklace. And I love the character development. The fact that he actually confesses his feelings AND apologizes? Yes, we love to see it.

I love the Danger Days universe so much. It's so much fun to play around with and I should honestly write more of it (and not just my OC)

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ghostwriterofthemachine · 4 years

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Purest Expression of Grief {haj dai}

Order 66 happens.

Cal goes quiet, Kanan thinks too much, and Ahsoka can never go back.

(Or; three children and a dying language, after they've seen their people die.) (AO3 link!)

Cal knows the Empire can track people when they use the Force. He hears it whispered about on street corners, broadcasted over the holoscreens in bars.

He doesn’t know how they do it, though. And, more terrifyingly, doesn’t know what else they can track.

There is a screaming, hysterical place inside him, irrational but un-ignorable, which is convinced that the Empire can reach into people’s minds and tear thoughts right out of them. That, if he thinks the wrong thing too loud or too often, he will bring the Empire down onto him.

This is impossible, he tells himself. But then again, he also thought it was impossible to see his friends gun down his Master.

So Cal forces himself to only think in Basic.

It isn’t hard to talk only in Basic, though he misses the curl of his lips over his other tongue more than he thought possible. But to think only in Basic is a constant, conscious choice.

Sometimes he slips up, and he clamps down on his shields and moves away from where he was standing. His heart races in his chest.

The last words his Master said to him echo in his dreams and they are not in Basic. He doesn’t want to think about those words, either. He has other things he needs to worry about.

There are very few kind people, here. And Cal is small and alone.

(He wonders if his Master would have done the same thing he did, had he known there was no one left to rescue Cal. The last thought in his Master’s mind had been of the council sending someone to scoop Cal up, safe and sound, bundle him away someplace warm — Cal can feel that from his lightsaber. But there is no one left to rescue him, and Cal’s Master had thrown him someplace cold and rainy and unsafe. There’s no one left to take care of him, not that Cal needs much taking care of, anymore.)

(Would he have made the same decision, if he knew Cal would be alone?)

His Master’s last words haunt him, in that language-which-is-not-Basic. He doesn’t think about those, either. Doesn’t think about at all.

The alone part makes him vulnerable on this planet, but the small part makes him useful. He’s not old enough to be a full member of any guild, but there’s always plenty of pickup work for the mice, as they’re called, in a scrapyard. Narrow heads and shoulders to fit up into places no one else could fit.

It keeps him fed, and Cal keeps his head down. Days start to creep by.

Today, there's a new worker on their rotation, and his Basic is thickly accented.

And he says Cal’s name differently, rounds out the vowel — “Khal,” he calls, “Little mouse, you are small, come here, get up into tiny spaces, come on, up-up—”

And it freezes Cal where he stands because— that’s almost right. That’s almost how you’d say his name in not-Basic, in that other thing he refuses to think about.

He hears those last words from Master Tepal’s mouth — “ Padawan kat fehl, netana, paikawaji uu dai” — and for a sudden, dizzying moment, that is all he can hear.

He must freeze in place for a second too long, because someone calls to him again.

“Hey, Cal, buddy,” and Cal hates how he jumps. It’s Prauf, with the kind eyes, who seems to have decided that Cal needs looking after. “Cal, you okay there?”

Cal shakes his head to clear it. He can still hear the words whispering, but ignores them.

“Haj dai, Jaieh,” he says, going for reassuring, already moving towards where the new worker pointed him.

Prauf says, “What?” and he sounds so baffled that Cal turns back to him.

“What do you mean, what?”

“What did you just say to me?”

“I said ‘Yes, Prauf.’”

“No you didn’t. You said haz —” Prauf twists his mouth around the words, and then gives up on saying the rest. “And, yeah, you called me something, what’s Jai—”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Cal bites. He sounds strangled, even to his own ears. “I said ‘Yes, Prauf,’ that’s what I said.”

Prauf, to his credit, raises his hands in acquiescence. “Okay, okay kid, that’s what you said.”

The new worker, who Cal doubts understood much of the conversation, chimes in with a high voice and a wave of his arms. “Yes, yes, very good, we all talk Khal out, all friends now, so if little mouse pleases, could he climb up into tiny space?”

Cal turns away from Prauf and pretends his heart isn’t trying to escape his chest as he pulls himself up into the gap between a ship’s wall and what used to be part of the thrusters. He’s got pliers clutched in between his teeth, and is biting a little more than necessary.

He’s expecting troopers to grab his legs, yank him out, put a blaster to his head. He’s imagining the words floating up and dissolving into the Force, of his Jaieh tilting a disappointed eyebrow at him.

He bites down on his language, and schools his thoughts into Basic.

Kanan is working with a decent crew, right now. He signed on for a few milk run missions as general muscle and a gun, which should give him enough credits for basics and some wiggle room. They seem like a decent lot, and Kanan doesn’t mind working with them

Except.

Well, except the Pilot’s name is Caleb . And it is messing with Kanan’s head .

“Hey, pass this to Caleb up on the bridge?” says Maleek, their mechanic and general tech guy. They’re holding a holo chip of something, probably maps.

Kanan hates how much he falters, how his first instinct is to laugh and say, “I’m right here.”

“Sure thing.” He smiles and takes the chip, then starts making his way towards the front of the ship.

Honestly, he’s got no idea how this hasn’t happened sooner. “Caleb” isn’t an uncommon name. It’s one that’s used on so many planets that it doesn’t really have a planet of origin.

But it makes his body feel as if it’s peeling in two, future and past, twisting like soft dough, to hear it spoken in his presence like that.

“Agisti, ” says the laughing Padawan he has buried deep within him, “tumi mikah Caleb!”

“Kanan!” Pilot Caleb says, grinning as he spins around in his seat. “What can I do for you, buddy?”

“Take this off my hands.” He slumps himself into Kanan, gunslinger, wanderer, shit-talker. He flips the chip to the pilot whose name he didn’t want to think of, and ducks out of the cockpit as fast as possible.

The community on this ship is incredible. Or, maybe, it is average, and Kanan has been alone for long enough that it seems incredible.

And, even more surprising, they all seem to actually like him. Maleek fixes his blaster without being asked and Pilot Caleb keeps trying to get him into games of cards, the other guns and muscle jostle him in a friendly way when they pass him in the halls, and the captain says things about needing to help Kanan upgrade his armor, as if he’s going to stick around.

Kanan bites his tongue and pretends he doesn’t want to stick around. He can’t.

He can’t trust anyone. He can’t rely on anyone, can’t get comfortable anywhere. He needs to keep moving.

Trust is easily shattered. Nothing is certain.

He remembers his Master telling him about how important that was, how important it was to remember that nothing was certain, except the Force. That even their word for ‘yes,’ so concrete and decisive in Basic, gave room for ambiguity— “Force Wills,” the Jedi said.

He can hear the giggling of younglings in the creche — “Will you clean up the paint, little one?”

“Haj dai!” Force wills.

“So why aren’t you doing that now?” “Force says no!”

Then squealing laughter, as the child is picked up and hugged and tickled. For being clever enough to make that connection, but silly enough to not help.

Nothing is concrete, nothing is certain, except the Force. And now Kanan doesn’t even have that to believe in.

“Will I ever see you again?” he shouts to the woman in her dreams, who commands him to run, who saves him and condemns him and gives him his new name.

“Force wills,” she says, and it’s a lie and isn’t. Because she doesn’t say yes.

So Kanan cut his own braid and renamed himself and soldered ( ha ) on.

He needs to walk away from these people, he realizes. He can’t stay, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t bring danger on them. He can’t let them be killed because he is found.

In a ten-days time, the Pilot Caleb and Maleek and their caption will say, “Stay, Kanan.”

And he will want to say “ Yes .” Haj dai.

Force wills.

He will run away again.

(ibli kanan )

Ahsoka has gotten here too late.

There aren’t that many Jedi left to rescue, though that’s something Ahsoka tries not to think about too much. Most of the ones who escaped the initial purge were hunted down in the very, very early days of the Empire, before there was enough structure in the Rebellion to even think about helping them. Ahsoka survived it by not being a Jedi. Well. That and Rex.

They’re always too late, with Jedi, if they even know at all. The Empire and the Inquisitors, always a step ahead. Always.

As Fulcrum, Ahsoka’s jobs keep her away from the front lines. She works in intel. She works in running messages. She works with refugees.

She’d been closest, when they heard the distress call. And, though Ahsoka would never admit it, part of her jumped and stood upright at the idea of saving a Jedi. Seeing another Jedi. Speaking to them.

But she’s gotten here too late.

The crumpled form of a Duros is all that is left of the Inquisitors. A Duros with a hole through his chest, bleeding sluggishly, twitching the last bits of life out of himself.

The Force wraps around him and weeps. Ahsoka knows that feeling. That’s what the Force always does, when a Jedi dies.

Ahsoka falls to her knees next to the form. She cannot judge the age of this being, she thinks in a panic — she’s always been awful at judging age in Duros, Barriss used to tease her about it — but she’d guess a few years older or younger than herself. Ahsoka’s hands hover uselessly. There’s no healing this wound. She knows it.

Had she ever met him? In the Temple, all those years ago? Had they passed in the halls, handed each other food, shared friends?

Helpless to do anything else, Ahsoka gets the Doros’s head onto her lap. Off the ground. Some measure of comfort.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when his eyes slit themselves open. When he stares up at her, eyes hazy, barely coherent.

She nearly passes out when a rush of warmth and relief swells through the Force between them, and the Doros smiles at her.

“Jaieh Tabris ,” he breaths out. The name is spoken as if it is comfort given form. His voice is achingly soft. “Jesara, Jaiah. Henelru...foh keelak.”

Ahsoka goes cold, because she recognizes the name. It conjures an image so old she thought she’d forgotten it. A Togrutan Master, maybe 10 years older than Obi-Wan. A soft-spoken and gentle woman, who liked to help teach children how to read. A woman who now shared Ahsoka’s coloring and build almost exactly, from montreals to face markings.

She knows the tone of voice the Doros just spoke to her in. She used to use it every day. (Wishes, often, that she still could.)

She’s holding Master Tabris’s Padawan. He’s dying in her arms.

The relief in the Force twists a bit, and he repeats, “Jaieh?” with a little more uncertainty. The fear creeping back in. Of letting down your Master, letting down your people. Of dying alone.

What else is Ahsoka supposed to do?

(Because if it were her— if it were her and Anakin, she’d want— even if it were pretend, she’d want—)

“Haj dai, Padawan ,” she says. She keeps her voice soft and even. “ Tamah foh bika. ” The words fall off her tongue as if she never stopped speaking this.

His eyes focus a bit more on her face. He tries to smile. “Jaieh,” he says, actually to her this time. And Ahsoka—

Ahsoka—

Ahsoka remembers a time in her life when all she wanted was to hear someone call her that. Being 15 and imagining a future where she was doing the training, instead of being trained. Her head on Anakin’s knee and a campfire warm on her face, imagining a future in peacetime, Anakin cutting her silka beads off and her rising to her feet a Knight, embracing him while Obi-Wan embraced them both. She remembers the future she used to imagine for herself; solo missions, growing and improving, always returning home. Finally being taller than Anakin. Obi-Wan going easily, gracefully gray.

She remembers imagining bringing her own Padawan to their lineage dinners, Anakin teasing them both, Obi-Wan resting and smiling. Imagining being in a position, one day, when a little Light would be hers to teach, and look up at her and call her “Jaieh.”

But Ahsoka never got to grow into that title. She never even got to be a Knight. She left her home a Padawan, and never got to return enough to become anything more.

And now she never would.

But Ahsoka cups the face of the person on her lap, whose name she would never know, and lets them both pretend.

“ Rakaah foh wungak,” chokes the man on her lap. “Jaieh, sooah foh enoctak.”

“Leoah foh, Padawan. Leoah foh. Tamah foh bika, tamah foh bika.”

His hand, nearly vibrating in effort, moves up to grasp hers. Ahsoka covers it with her other hand. She can feel the pain coming off him in waves, but she can also feel the peace. The knowledge that he is safe, now.

And in some ways, Ahsoka thinks bitterly, she supposes he is. Even if he isn’t in the arms of his Jaieh . Perhaps he soon will be.

The fingers in hers tighten. The Padawan’s eyes close.

“Komlah foh keelak, Jaieh. Komlah foh…”

And he stops moving.

And Ahsoka doesn’t move for a long time.

TRANSLATION NOTES:

Padawan kat fehl, netana, paikawaji uu dai: My Padawan, remember, trust only in the Force. -"Kawaji" is "trust," in the future tense, and "pai" is our consequential prefix, which means that the action will have lasting consequences. This takes the place of the "only" for denouncing how important this piece of information is. -"Dai," the word for the Force, never has an article before it.

Haj dai, Jaieh: Yes, Master. -Haj dai literally translates to "Force Wills"

Agisti, tumi mikah Caleb!: Hello, I am called Caleb! -"Agisti" is a greeting you would give someone who has the same rank in the Order as you, who you are equals with-- Padawan to Padawan, for instance.

ibli kanan: Little runner

Jesara, Jaiah. Henelru...foh keelak: Hello, Master. I...missed you. -"Jersara" is a respectful greeting; Padawan to Master, Master to Council member, ect.

Tamah foh bika: I am here

Rakaah foh wungak. Jaieh, sooah foh enoctak: I feel pain. Master, I feel pain. -There are different words for feeling physically and feeling mentally, as well as different words for mental and physical pain. The first sentence is declaring he is physically feeling (raka, here in present tense) physical pain (wung, here in accusative case), and the second that he is mentally feeling (soo, here in present tense) mental pain (enoct, here in accusative case).

Leoah foh, Padawan. Leoah foh. Tamah foh bika, tamah foh bika: I know. I know, Padawan. I am here, I am here.

Komlah foh keelak, Jaieh. Komlah foh...: I love you, Master. I love... -"Koml" (komlah here, in present tense) refers specifically to familial/platonic love

#star wars #my fic #sw #conlang stuff #dai bendu #did you know that there are people who remember to put fic on tumblr right away?

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always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years

Text

Coming Home Chapter 2

Hello fuckers I know I promised this chapter yesterday but then I fell asleep because I was incredibly exhausted. So I'm posting it today because I deserve it Also, the song for the last chapter was Revolution Radio by Green Day, which no one guessed! I'll give you a hint for this chapter- it's very far off from Green Day or My Chemical Romance.

Title: Coming, Coming Home

Chapter Title: Cause I’m with you this time

Chapter Wordcount: 3333

Chapter Summary:

Cherri Cola settles into living with Dr. Death Defying and White Lily, figures out that someone actually cares about him, and makes some reckless decisions.

Warnings: implied/referenced past abuse, referenced past misgendering, light panic/anxiety attack, non-graphic/canon-typical violence and injury, uhhh i *think* that's it? (If you want to know what parts to skip, go to the end notes on AO3- I also put a brief summary of any important info in those parts. Stay safe!)

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen @no-braincells-here @piratecherricola (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

Chapter 1 AO3 Link

Chapter 1 Tumblr Post

(Actual fic under the cut)

It took a few months for Cherri to really settle in to living with the other two. He was younger than them, and lacked the shared experience of fighting in the Helium Wars. But all three of them had the shared understanding of having grown up too fast, the pain and weariness in the other’s eyes mirroring his exactly. Not to mention that running a pirate radio station and attempting to spark a rebellion did tend to bond people. Having each others’ backs in firefights, fixing the radio equipment together, and eating their meals as a group only aided that process.

So 109 WKIL slowly got off the ground, heading into the sky just as promised. Their transmitter was fairly decent, and so their range was large even if few listeners were tuning in right now. But the rebellion grew daily, neutrals and Battery City folk abandoning a more peaceful life under the hand of Better Living Industries for the wild world of a killjoy. White Lily spoke over the radio at least weekly, encouraging them to fight, to not let themselves be squashed under bli’s heel.

“Power is not given, but taken. If you hate oppression, you better be ready to fight against the oppressor and give it everything you’ve got.”

Cherri was sitting in his usual spot under the broadcast desk, making sure that all the equipment was running smoothly as White Lily spoke above him. Her voice didn’t have the deep, gravelly weight of D’s, but the fire in it was inspiring. There had always been something about White Lily that made people want to follow her, D had told him. Some spark in her spirit that kindled fires in others, bringing them together under her leadership.

“Better Living may have bombs, and gas, and more ray guns than we can dream of getting our grubby little killjoy paws on. But we have something they can never replace: spirit. You can’t make a fiery heart with pills and white walls. They can take our bodies, shoot us full of plasma and throw us to the wolves. But they can never touch our spirit. Never. We will rise again, as many times as they try to throw us down.

"The spirit of the desert is something they can’t kill with any amount of laser beams. Any size of bomb, any number of exterminators. None of it will squash our spirit, and that’s what makes us invincible. As long as a single killjoy rises to fight, Better Living Industries cannot win. So get out there, crash queens! Get your vehicles, motorbabies. Angel kissers, grab your med kits, and kerosene saints, your matches. We’ve got a corporation to overthrow, and we’re not stopping at just nipping at their heels. Killjoys, it’s time to make some noise!”

She clicked off the radio. “How was that?”

“Good,” Cherri told her. “Inspiring. Makes you want to fistfight an exterminator.”

“Oh good, that’s what I was hoping for.” Lily paused. “No fistfighting exterminators though, that’s a bad idea.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Oh yes I can,” Lily laughed. She was still grinning as she reached to help Cherri out from under the desk, a grin both achingly close and achingly far to one he remembered. There were days when she looked so much like his sister it hurt, not in her features but in the way she laughed and her teasing grin as she and D bantered back and forth.

Cherri tried not to think about it as he pulled himself to his feet. “And how do you plan on stopping me?”

“Hmm…I think I shall tackle you.”

“Then what?”

“Make D lecture you nonstop until you fall asleep.”

Cherri laughed as they headed back into the house. "Good luck with that."

So far, they hadn’t had to move the van from its position in front of their home in Zone Four, but all of them knew it was only a matter of time before bli would be breathing down their necks.

“We have some time,” D said that evening. “Our signal will be hard to track, and we don’t have a wide enough reach to be a threat to Better Living Industries yet.”

“We’re getting there, though,” Lily commented, digging around for the last bit of power pup in her can.

“True, we’ve got a lot more listeners now than we did before.” Cherri was already finished with his, playing with his dented spoon and reflecting the sunlight across the room idly. “It’s going to be hard to stay hidden for long, not when the other killjoys whisper about our station and spread the word between themselves.”

“The more people who know, the easier it is for Better Living to find us,” D agreed. “Of course, we need people to know so they’ll tune in, but we’ll have to be careful as we get larger.”

“Careful, careful, you’re always careful.” Lily leaned back in her chair, setting down her spoon. “I’m not saying we abandon all caution, but there’s going to be risks running a rebellion. A lot of the time, we’ll just have to decide if they’re worth taking.”

Cherri nodded, still examining the spoon. “And a lot of the time they will be.”

“Didn’t know you were such a daredevil, Cher.” He made to glare at Lily, but she went on. “You’re right though. Everything’s a risk, and we’re going to have to take a lot of them.”

“I don’t like that,” D put in.

“None of us do, except maybe Cherri the daredevil over here. But we’re doing it.”

“We’re doing it,” D agreed tiredly.

“I’m not a fucking daredevil,” Cherri muttered. That was….mostly true. Risk for the sake of risk wasn’t exactly his thing, but risk for any other sake was. As long as only his life was at risk, it was a risk worth taking. He figured, at least.

“You’re pretty fucking daring, Cher.”

“Only risks that are worth it, though.” He pretended not to see the two older ‘joys exchange glances.

True to their predictions, the rebellion grew. Their radio was a contributing factor, Cherri hoped. It certainly seemed to have grown in popularity as more killjoys entered the desert and more neutrals lay down their peaceful ways and took up arms alongside the killjoys. WKIL was something whispered about in killjoy circles, told to the newbies, the undergrads of the desert.

Cherri knew because he was the one who went and talked with them, the lesser-known face. Everyone recognized at very least the voices of D and Lily by now, the two radio speakers who rallied the rebels, but Cherri Cola was not a name whispered in legend yet. He was just a sixteen year old with a shitty ray gun and a bad haircut, which had advantages and disadvantages.

One of the advantages was the ability to go talk to random people and be seen as relatively harmless, just a teen with a bright pink mask. There was nothing about him to suggest that he was an incredible shot with a ray gun or a dangerous fighter, not in the slightest. He wore oversized clothes and perpetually looked disheveled, so he had been told. And if you didn’t look too closely at his eyes, you wouldn’t even see the fire in them.

So Cherri used that hidden advantage, appearing perfectly harmless to anyone who didn’t know him well. It was helpful for White Lily and Dr. Death Defying, since neither of them could go anywhere where there were a lot of rebels without being recognized.

And the rebellion grew and grew. Their voices were growing louder, their colors brighter even as Better Living Industries tried to squash them down. The spirit of the desert truly was rising, and a faint sense of hope had started to permeate the air. White Lily never promised that they would win. But she promised that Better Living Industries wouldn’t, so long as a single killjoy stood, and that was enough for most of the desert.

They were teenagers, mainly. The bulk of the force that was forming the current rebellion was either teenagers, running from their pasts in Battery City, or twenty-something former soldiers of the Helium Wars, running from what they had done or trying to put it right. They were young and invincible, so it seemed. The reality that they could easily die doing this hadn’t sunk in for most of the younger population of the desert, intoxicated on freedom and the thrill of the desert.

D and Lily knew that reality all too well, Cherri knew. He knew they knew what all of them were up against, had watched death in their own right in the Helium Wars, had wrought it with their own hands.

He knew what the consequences were too, a memory of bli employees in clean white suits coming to respectfully ‘recruit’ the person he loved most hovering behind a door in his mind. That door would remain closed, Cherri had decided. The past was the past- but he fought because of it anyways, knowing the horrors Better Living Industries had done.

Cherri might have been young, but he was no fool. He knew quite well that he could die, and he couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck, as Lily would put it. There were things more important than living to some grand old age, and this rebellion was one of them.

He would be lying to himself if he said that some part of him wasn’t in this for revenge, maybe a larger part than he was willing to admit.

“If you take away someone’s world, they might just burn yours down,” Cherri muttered to himself, aiming his shitty old ray gun at the empty cans Lily had set up that day. Despite how long he had already been out here, they still hadn’t managed to locate him a better weapon. That was fine, he thought, he was deadly enough even without one, but D and Lily both insisted that it would be a lot easier for him with something that wasn’t outdated by at least three years.

“What?” Cherri jumped as D came to stand next to him, aiming his own black and blue ray gun at the cans. “Did you say something, Cherri?”

“Oh, uh. Nothing.”

D shrugged, tilting his head to take aim. “You don’t have to tell me, I just figured I’d ask in case you were trying to tell me something.”

Cherri lowered his ray gun, glancing down. “I said if you take away someone’s world, they might just burn yours down.”

“Ah. True, and insightful.” Cherri didn’t have to glance over at D to know his face would be gently concerned. “Somewhat dark though, you could say.”

“Guess so.”

They were silent for a moment, apart from the zap of ray guns.

“Pasts are something to be forgotten here,” D said finally. “But if you need someone to talk to about yours, Lily and I will support you.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it, you know.”

Cherri fiddled with his ray gun. “Yeah.”

“Just putting that out there.” D turned back to their target practice.

Despite D’s words, there was a silent agreement amongst the three of them that pasts were not to be spoken of or asked about. Occasionally, D or Lily would tell a few stories, mainly from their childhood. They rarely talked about the Helium Wars, only occasionally with each other. And Cherri said nothing about his past. Instead, he pretended not to notice the days when the other two flinched at any loud sound, and they pretended not to hear him cry out in the night, when everything was silent and there was no buffer against the memories. It was a courtesy more than anything, a way to keep each other from having to speak about their darkest times. Usually, Cherri appreciated that, finding it easier to deal with any hurt alone than worry about burdening the others.

Tonight, however, was different. No matter how much he tried to calm himself down, his breath kept coming too quickly and he couldn’t drown out the voices of his past. Worthless, never going to amount to anything…should be more like Samantha…your grades are slipping again…never going to be a boy…

Cherri shivered violently, even though the blanket was tucked safely over him, and climbed off the window seat he had been using as a sort of bed, picking up said blanket. It was cold in the desert at night, no use leaving it behind.

It took him more rests of leaning against the wall and trying frantically to draw a single breath than he wanted to admit before he was down the hall to the room D and Lily had claimed. Their door was cracked open, but Cherri pushed it open a little bit further to see both of them seemingly sleeping peacefully as he stood in the doorway.

“Cher?” That was White Lily, lifting her head a bit from the mattress. “Everything okay?”

He managed to shake his head, and she gestured for him to come sit.

“What’s going on, friendo?”

“Bad dream,” Cherri whispered.

“Ah. Those are no fun. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Lily nodded as if to say that didn’t surprise her, and she looked dreadfully like someone he used to know in that moment. “Come on then, lay on down. D won’t mind if you elbow him, he gets up at ass o’clock in the morning anyways.”

Cherri was quite certain D would, in fact, mind, but he did as she asked anyways, settling down on the creaky mattress. Lily put her arm out in what was clearly an offer, but didn’t touch him until he rolled over towards her. When he did, she wrapped her arm around him fully, pulling him closer, and Cherri felt like he could breathe for the first time since waking up.

Lily didn’t say ‘I love you’ or anything of the sort, but she did ruffle his hair and give him a quiet “Goodnight, Cher.”

And Cherri didn’t say ‘I love you’ either, but he leaned into her embrace. “Goodnight, Lily.”

True to Lily’s words, it was, in fact, what Cherri would qualify as ‘ass o’clock in the morning’ when D woke up and proceeded to wake the other two up while getting out of bed.

“Is it even light out?” Cherri questioned as Lily gave a massive yawn.

“No, which is why D’s being an asshole.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you up, Lil. Or you, Cherri.” He didn’t question why Cherri was there, much to Cherri’s relief.

“You did anyways,” Lily grumbled, but she released Cherri and sat up. “I guess it would be time to get up soon anyways.”

“Exactly,” D huffed.

Lily just yawn-laughed as she got up, and Cherri reluctantly followed the others downstairs. They had quick breakfast in the predawn light, followed by a bit of fussing around as they got ready for D’s morning broadcast, organizing all the news and things that had come in yesterday. Killjoys had started to send them news of the desert, to the point where they got almost as much from what people sent in/dropped off/radioed to them as what Cherri found out on his almost daily runs. It was starting to pass what he could find out on daily runs, really. But he went anyways because they still needed his info, and they needed to eat.

“Bye, Lily, D!”

“See you, Cherri,” Lily hollered back. “Be careful!”

“I will!”

The three of them split the tasks that living in the desert and running a radio station required. Today, D and Lily were taking the radio station van to drive around and talk to people, encourage them to join the cause. Cherri was taking the motorcycle to get any news and see if he couldn’t grab some power pup from a supply truck.

He sped down the road, getting in position to raid the supply truck. A one-killjoy raid was a dumb idea, for sure, but Better Living Industries hadn’t started to arm their trucks very heavily yet, and Cherri was confident enough in his ability to think he could pull it off. This was a small one, anyways. The initial raid went off without a hitch- the driver and few accompanying dracs were dead before they had time to see the teenage killjoy who hurried down from the dune to pull out as much of the contents of the truck as would fit in the sidecar of the motorbike. It was afterwards that became the problem, as a full two cars of bli employees came rushing towards the site.

“Fuck,” Cherri hissed under his breath. He quickly assessed his odds. One teenager with a shitty ray gun and a motorcycle against what must be at least one scarecrow and probably at least eight dracs was not good odds, but he doubted running away would be any better. They would chase him down, and then he wouldn’t even have the advantage of his higher vantage point. Hiding wasn’t an option either, given that dracs would search the entire area, so Cherri crouched behind the motorcycle and got ready to fire.

When the first person hopped out of the car, Cherri almost swore out loud. Not a scarecrow. An exterminator. He was so fucked.

Cherri’s hands shook slightly as he lifted the ray gun and aimed. He had to take down that exterminator as soon as possible, or he was dead. The shakiness proved his undoing, as the shot whistled past the exterminator, missing by barely half an inch and causing the Better Living operative to turn.

Fuck it. Cherri got out from behind the motorcycle and ran directly towards them, firing off shots indiscriminately. His best shot now was to overwhelm and confuse them. It seemed to be working, given that one thing they did not expect was a teenager in a bright pink mask to come running directly at them. In fact, most of the dracs froze, enough that he was able to get in a few good shots before they realized what was happening. One shot even hit the exterminator in the shoulder, but unfortunately not their shooting arm, leaving them perfectly capable of raising their gun to retaliate.

Retaliate they did, and Cherri screamed as a shot hit him in the side. “Fuck! Fuck you!” He was shaking too hard to shoot back as the exterminator held up a hand, quite calmly.

All the dracs stopped, and the exterminator strolled casually towards Cherri. “Greetings, rebel.”

Cherri spit at their feet.

“Rather rude of you, wasn’t that? I’m tempted to kill you here, you ill-mannered rebel scum.” They reached out and tilted Cherri’s chin up to look them in the eye, letting him see the cold fire that lingered there.

“Get fucked,” Cherri spat out as they took his ray gun from a shaking hand and tossed it over their shoulder.

“I do appreciate the suggestion, but I suggest you keep your mouth shut if you want to live.”

Their ray gun was positioned at his neck, and Cherri knew he had a low chance of surviving even a stun shot to that spot at such a close distance.

“I would kill you now, ill-mannered rebel, but I think I’ll let you live for one reason and one reason only- I want you to go to that ‘Doctor D’ and his friend White Lily, and tell them they will not win. We will find the radio station you killjoys speak of, we know your precious leader is hiding out in Zone Four. So go, tell them. And pray you survive that shot.”

They shoved Cherri, and he stumbled away, ignoring the pain in his side as he climbed onto the motorcycle. He revved the engine, throwing it into action and barely caring if some of the supplies fell out of the sidecar.

The exterminator watched him go with a cruel smile.

#cherri cola #dr. death defying #ttlofk #coming coming home tag #auri writes #ask to tag #white lily #killjoy oc #sometimes a family is a 21 y/o rebellion leader her tired best friend and the feral 16 y/o they picked up along the way

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demolover · 4 years

Note

ive seen ur posts mentioning u have thoughts on queer perspective towards death and how mcr fit into it so. if u ever decide to share other ideas on the topic id love to read it! (i think ur really good at getting your thoughts accross) (u dont have to answer btw i just wasnt sure abt shooting a dm abt this)

it’s been so long i’m so sorry um i have a lot of thoughts idk if u still want them here’s an attempt at a short version...

edit: changing this to under a cut cuz it’s insanely long. if u don’t feel like reading almost 1.5k words probably don’t read it.

basically i think that mortality and death are very common things for all humans to think about and make art about because we’re kinda... obsessed with and extremely afraid of death. which (i think) stems from how death is one of the few things we know is going to happen to us, and yet we can’t understand it really. we know it is the end but we cannot know anything about it because it is the end. so that intrigues us (and makes us afraid) and then u can add in how we see other people in our life die before we do... basically it all adds up to us being obsessed with understanding and defying our own mortality somehow.

we can see this theme in mcr a lot, the interplay between mortality and defiance and hope... i call it hope vs inevitability and i think it’s especially noticeable in bullets and danger days, because in the other two they’re not really fighting so much as existing side by side... i wrote in notes once that in those albums, the hope is in the inevitable...

in black parade it’s pretty much totally like this; after you die you join the black parade, and your memory will carry on. there is fear going into it, but it very much feels like an album accepting and even embracing the end, not fighting it. accepting it and embracing it with this crazy tone... come one come all to this tragic affair. wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair... (note: i used to think that line was what sin is despair and i still wonder if that was on purpose). revenge is a bit more complex but i have always thought that beyond the hope of getting the girl back, of bringing her back to life (against the end, against death and mortality) there must also be some relief in death for the guy demo lover... if you would kill a thousand men to get your lover back from the dead, would you die to meet them there? <- maybe i’m wrong; there is still hope vs inevitability here.

in danger days and bullets, though, is where i feel like we see those things ultimately fight; in bullets we have this desperate desire to be immortal and mean something, coupled with the strong feeling that you will die with nothing. that you will die. (i have a post on this theme in the song demolition lovers). then, in danger days we see this theme come with this absolute denial of mortality (killjoys never die) coupled with this intense fear of death and being remembered wrong or not at all. and of course this culminates in them dying. (here is my post on this theme in danger days it’s kinda a mess but so is this post so whatever).

right so we’ve established mcr (and humanity in general) is obsessed with mortality we already knew that though. what does it have to do with queerness.

basically there’s a couple things.

1. the connection of both otherness and love with death (note: this also applies to a lot of minorities but queerness is what’s really applicable to mcr specifically). the extent to which mcr intertwines narratives of love and otherness with death and violence is.... a lot. we see it in every album, i believe; it’s most noticeable in bullets in drowning lessons and demo lovers, in revenge in so many songs i’m not going to try to list them, in black parade in cancer, wttbp and my way home is through you, and in danger days in save yourself, only hope for me, and scarecrow. this was just off the top of my head; there’s probably more songs with examples of this.

this is very queer (at least when done by mcr; as most of mcr is white the issues that come with things like the history of interracial marriage, etc. don’t really apply) because of how for queer people our identities and love can be deadly to us... the history of queer love and identity is obviously marked with violence against the people displaying that love and identity.

straight cis white guys don’t usually talk about death with the connection with love at the forefront, at least not that i’ve seen. every once in awhile they do, i guess, if they’re talking about grief, but otherwise, no. demo lovers is my favorite example of the connection of love with death; especially in the first couple verses, the two seem so linked. the first 2 mentions of death or the end in the song are immediately followed by “with you”... “i’d end my days with you in a hail of bullets,” and “i would drive on to the end with you.”

in the whole demo lovers arc, through bullets and revenge, the themes of death and love are so intertwined it’s impossible to untangle them. if i tried to make a post of all the times in revenge death and love are talked about in the same lyric, as if one thing, i would be screenshotting lyrics all night. of course, if we bring in gwgt theory, and start thinking about how the girl and guy demo lovers are a metaphor for gerard’s relationship with his gender, we can go way further with this too. the simultaneous love story involving these parts of himself, and intertwined violence and death. the fear present... the lyrics that talk at the same time about hurting yourself and being hurt by others... but that’s a different post, really. i’m gonna try to stay more surface level. no speculating on metaphors (today).

in black parade i think we see the connection of otherness with death a lot more than the connection with love, although they’re both still present... in danger days the concept of otherness when associated with death is super clear: killjoys defy the city and become something “other,” which is scorned and hated by BLI/nd, and they get killed for it. love is also a pretty common theme in danger days songs, often intertwined with death, though less obviously than in revenge.

2. just... the extent to which this idea of mortality and death and immortality and memory is talked about is interesting in itself i think. this obsession with our legacy and our mortality is present in a lot of stuff, not just queer stuff, but it’s just everywhere in mcr’s discography (and a lot of the subsequent groups of music related to/associated with mcr, which are also often known for being queer). they constantly talk about how they’ll die, and how they’ll die sooner rather than later, and can they live forever anyway, what does immortality mean after all, will they be remembered, what will their legacy be... etc.

memory and legacy is something i haven’t really talked about, but i think it’s also essential to the conversation. for obvious reasons queer people (and people of a lot of other minorities but i’m only talking about the queer part cuz it’s the most/the only applicable thing here) have a more complicated relationship with how we’ll be remembered and whether we’ll be remembered than cishet people do. how mcr talks about this reminds me a lot of the sappho fragment tumblr passes around ever so often... “someone will remember us / i say / even in another time.” (comparison/parallels post of mcr lyrics and that quote by @milfygerard (and added onto by me) here.)

and that brings us back around to the theme of hope vs inevitability... as i mentioned earlier, this theme isn’t necessarily totally queer on it’s own, but as with talking about memory and legacy the way mcr does, if you talk about it so much that it becomes a core theme in all of your albums it ends up feeling a lot more queer than before. hope vs inevitability in mcr’s work connects to love and death and both at once and is just everywhere. and it ends up connecting to the way a lot of queer people think about our death and our mortality and our hope. and how the future and the past are thought about in connection to these themes i think is kind of queer too — when your history is barely spoken and your present is in hiding, of course you look to the future. despite that that means looking towards the ending. and maybe you embrace that ending, because what else is there to do?

i’m very sorry. this was not short. if you have questions, or want to tell me how i’m wrong, or have your own thoughts, do not be afraid to dm me or send me asks please... fascinating topic.

#long post #nonsense #love and death #mcr thoughts file #gender hours once again #asks #hangernhigh #i like ur profile picture!!#death mention #violence mention #ask to tag ???#natasha writes #q slur

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ghouliethejoyboy · 4 years

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Kyle/Kara 100%

So, I’ve long held the theory that BLI, or now, B.T Global, doesn’t believe in homosexuality, and that they solve it by forced transition. Even in my own personal D.D server, one of the key things BLI does is just assume people are trans and make them transition, even at a young age, or they force homosexuals to transition so they can help be “productive” to society and have kids. And holy crap I lost my shit reading issue 3 seeing Kara. First of all- only trans character we’ve gotten so far in ALL of the Danger Days versions, from albums, to videos, to the original comics, to now. And I was so excited at first. But then I saw the one panel that changed my thinking on all of this. In the comics, there is a panel where Kara is shooting at the Controls, an enemy squad fallen for Mom and Dad, and channels pain from her childhood, and we see her being beaten by her father and called the f-slur, told no son of her fathers could ever be one. This leads me to believe that Kyle/Kara was forced to transition by B.T Global when she fell in line with their society. Now, I could be wrong, but I also think about the fact that desert is where you’re supposed to be free, to be able to live as your true and honest self. And they were happy living as their loud and proud gay self, as a cis male, out in the desert. I really think that this brings a lot more depth to the story than just the token trans-women being the token trans-women for this set of comics. As a disclaimer, I am a trans man, I am no way trying to say that Kara should just be a gay cis male, and if their character is trans and chose to transition with the help of B.T, then live your truth queen. But that’s just my thoughts! Anyways, loving the deep lore with the new comics.

#the true lives of the fabulous killjoys national anthem #danger days national anthem #danger days theories #danger days national anthem theories #danger days national anthem headcanon #danger days national anthem headcanons

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cruelangelstheses · 5 years

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louder than the maker’s revolver (and twice as shiny) - chapter 1: look alive, sunshine

fandom: dragon age rating: M characters: isabela/f!hawke, bethany/merrill, anders/fenris/m!hawke words (total): 6.5k words (this chapter): 6.5k additional tags: fabulous killjoys au, post-apocalypse, twin hawkes, slow burn, mutual pining, angst with a happy ending, canon-typical violence description: in which an eight-person gang of rebels living in the desert pisses off the government, firefights are lost and won, homoerotic wound-dressing is commonplace, bonds are forged and broken and reforged, feelings are hard, fighting a powerful and corrupt institution is slightly less hard, and everyone is just trying to survive, to heal, to find their way. (or, “the da2 killjoy au nobody asked for”) a/n: ITS STILL 2019 OUT WEST I MADE IT!!! ok so. [cracks knuckles] this is an AU fic based on the universe created in my chemical romance's album “danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys” (and gerard way's subsequent comics) about rebels in the desert fighting a corrupt government post-apocalypse. the album starts/takes place in the year 2019 which is why i wanted to get this fic out before the year ends. while the general setting and terms are the same, no characters from the killjoy universe will appear and everything else is a more loose interpretation. you do not have to be familiar with my chem or the killjoy universe to read this. (for those who know the story, this fic takes place in the year 2030, so after the original “fab four” have died but before the events of the comics, during a sort of “lull” in the action you could say)

a key feature of the killjoy universe is the usage of “killjoy names,” usually one or two-word phrases that relate to the person, and often the person created the name themself - the original four are party poison, fun ghoul, jet star, and kobra kid. i've given each member of the crew a killjoy name (see below) that the other characters will usually use in dialogue (except for characters who knew each other before they became killjoys and got names), but i will use their real names for the most part in narration so you don't forget who's who

ANYWAY i've been planning this fic for a whole year now and it's gonna be a FUN RIDE !!!! i've left a guide at the end for the killjoy names (not all of them are mentioned in this chapter though). i tried my best to explain what certain terms mean in this chapter but they will all be expanded upon more throughout the fic!! ALSO some of characters might end up aged down a little bit because people in the zones tend not to live very long and someone in their early to mid 40s is considered like, ancient in the comics. bethany and carver are still 19 though, the others might just be adjusted in proportion

thank u for reading, i love ensemble casts and da2 and mcr and rebellion and also being gay. fic title and chapter title come from “look alive, sunshine” (by mcr of course lol)

read it on ao3

—

Bethany has never been one to complain, but she has to admit, her knee hurts like a bitch.

The rest of the Birds take down the remaining Draculoids fairly easily, so she doesn’t feel as bad about having to hide crouched behind a crate on the ground. If there were more of them, or if there was a Scarecrow, she’d probably try to keep fighting despite her injury, but this is just a small, unlucky group of Dracs, leaderless and mindless in their pursuit of one of the biggest gangs in the Zones. Perhaps a Scarecrow would have ordered them not to try to fight a group of eight fairly seasoned Killjoys.

When the guns stop firing and the Dracs lie dead in the desert sand, Isabela’s voice floats over. “You know, Blondie, a smoke bomb would’ve helped.”

Anders sighs. Bethany can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “Those things don’t grow on trees, you know. And even if they did, it’s not like we have many trees out here. You think I want to waste them on a group like that? We got rid of them just fine.”

Bethany peers out from behind the crate just in time to see Isabela shrug and gesture to her. “Well, at the very least, it might’ve saved Sunshine from being shot.”

At that, Carver seems to snap to attention. “Bethany’s hurt?”

Now it’s Bethany’s turn to sigh. Gingerly stretching her leg out and trying not to wince, she says, “It’s not that bad, Carver.”

Marian huffs, shoving her red-and-black ray gun back into its holster. “‘Not that bad,’ my ass.” She sounds angry, but there’s an edge of worry to her voice that Bethany knows like the back of her hand. “A few more shots like that and you’d have been dusted for sure.”

“But I wasn’t,” Bethany replies. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Anders rummaging through their supplies for the first aid kit.

“But you could’ve been,” Carver adds, crossing his arms and glaring at Marian as if she had something to do with the injury.

Marian scowls defensively. “What are you looking at me for? I was killing Dracs! Maybe if you weren’t so busy trying to show off at every opportunity, you could protect her better!” She sneers out the word protect.

“Maybe if you actually thought before you acted for once in your life—”

“Hey!”

Garrett’s voice rings out above everything else, so loud and firm that for a split second it feels like the whole world stops. These are the moments when Garrett Hawke is at his most serious and his most powerful: when he’s breaking up an argument between Carver and Marian.

“How about instead of blaming each other for Bethany’s injury,” he says, his hands held up in an appeasing manner, “we set up camp here and rest for the evening?”

Marian and Carver exchange glances. After a pause, it’s Marian that says, “Fine.”

The place in question is an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Zone Four, not so remote that it’s off the map, but remote enough that there aren’t a whole lot of Dracs crawling around (and even fewer now that they’ve taken care of this group). A few empty crates and barrels litter the ground surrounding it, some knocked over or zapped from previous firefights. Other than that, there are no recent signs of life—which means it’s a perfect place for the Birds of Passage to recuperate.

Bethany pushes herself to her feet, using the top of the crate to balance herself. Her knee hurts even more when she tries to stretch it out or place any weight on it, but she’ll be damned if she lets anyone help her.

“Are you alright?”

Well...almost anyone.

She lifts her head up at the sound of Merrill’s lilting voice. The girl’s black hair is plastered to her tattooed and sweat-covered face, not long enough to pull up into a ponytail like Bethany’s, but just long enough to get in the way. “I can help you get inside, if you want,” she says, holding her hand out. “Then we can take a look at it, get it all wrapped up.”

For a moment, Bethany just stares at her, searching her face for any signs of pity. Instead she finds only sincere concern for a companion, the same as it would be if any of the others were injured. With a nod, she lets Merrill wrap an arm around her shoulders and guide her slowly into the warehouse. She can feel the eyes of the rest of the group on them, some more subtle than others, but she knows deep down that they’re just making sure she’s okay. Like it or not, she and Carver are the youngest, and though he tries so obviously hard to act like he isn’t, there are still moments where the others look at him and remember that he’s only nineteen, too—moments like right now, as he paces agitatedly across the floor, looking like he’s never been more stressed in his life.

“Carver,” Bethany calls as Merrill helps her sit up against the wall, her legs stretched out. “I’ll be fine.” She laughs a little despite the stinging pain. “It’s not like we’ll have to amputate it or anything.”

Anders kneels down beside her, first aid kit in hand and a good-natured smile on his face. “We might.”

Merrill smacks his arm. “Don’t scare them!” she hisses as she sits down next to Bethany.

Garrett turns to Carver, cool and composed. “She’s fine,” he says matter-of-factly, a playful smirk on his face. “If it were really that bad, none of us would be joking.”

Carver snorts. “You might.”

Garrett puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Dear brother, you wound me.”

Merrill giggles as she watches them, her gaze soft. “Your siblings remind me of my family sometimes,” she says as Anders begins cleaning and dressing the wound. “Well-intentioned, but sometimes they need to be reminded that you’re an adult, same as them.”

Bethany nods. If there’s anyone that understands her, it’s Merrill. “To be fair,” she says quietly, “sometimes I need to be reminded of that, too.”

Merrill turns to look at her, pushing a few strands of hair out of her face. “Then I’ll remind you,” she says. “You’re a grown woman. You don’t have to always agree or go along with them. You can stand up for yourself like anyone else.”

Bethany nods again, unable to stop a faint smile from breaking through. Anders doesn’t say anything, but she can see the blush on his face, as if he’s just witnessed something he feels he wasn’t meant to see.

—

The Hawkes are only on the run for a month or two before they meet their first recruit (and fifth member).

Well, perhaps “on the run” isn’t the right phrase. All Killjoys are technically “on the run” from Better Living Industries—it comes with the whole “openly rebelling against your corrupt government” thing. But it doesn’t really feel like running. It feels like surviving. Every Killjoy knows it’s dangerous to stay in one place for too long.

Still, they’re traveling a lot more than they did when their parents were both still alive. Growing up in the Zones outside of Battery City, away from BLI brainwashing, the Hawke children learned how to thrive in the desert fairly quickly, which meant that their family was able to more easily live off the land for longer periods of time.

Now, though, after selling most of their belongings, they live out of their car, a black 1969 Chevy Camaro convertible, spray-painted with two red stripes down the sides and a red bird symbol on the hood (courtesy of Garrett). In honor of their surname as well as their living situation, they’ve christened themselves the Birds of Passage.

For obvious reasons, one of their most common pit stops is one of several Dead Pegasus gas stations littering the Zones. The siblings usually draw straws to determine which one of them has to pump the gas.

“Damn! Again?” Carver says, staring at the short straw between his fingers in disbelief. Frowning, he starts to open the left-side car door. “Just my luck.”

In the driver’s seat, Marian reaches into the back and pats Carver on the shoulder, a smirk on her face. “You’ll live. Now go.” With that, she gives him a light shove out the door. Carver snorts.

As he starts pumping the gas, Marian absentmindedly surveys the area, not really expecting to see anything out of the ordinary. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she spots someone she’s never seen before at one of the other fuel pumps: a petite girl filling up a black and forest green motorbike.

Bethany seems to notice her at the same time. “Who’s that?”

Garrett strokes his beard, like an asshole. “No idea.”

“Let’s find out.” Before anyone else can respond, Marian hops out of the car, popping the collar of her black leather jacket. She’s mostly tuned Garrett out at this point, but she thinks she can hear him warn her not to scare the poor girl. He underestimates her ability to be charming rather than terrifying.

The first thing Marian notices is that the girl dresses like a Killjoy. Her brown boots have flowers painted on the sides, and her acid-washed jeans are ripped and dirty. The back of her denim vest features a large daisy with white petals and a yellow center, and in the center is a radiation hazard symbol.

“Nice logo,” Marian says as she approaches.

The girl yelps in surprise, nearly dropping the gas pump in her hands. When she turns around, Marian sees that her face is adorned with branch- or root-like tattoos on her cheeks, forehead, and chin. “Oh!” she says, clearly taken aback. “Uh…thank you.”

Marian can practically hear Garrett’s “I told you so” from the Camaro. Holding a hand up, she says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Somehow, her voice still comes out sounding gruff and vaguely threatening.

“Oh, that’s alright,” the girl replies, leaning against her motorcycle and seeming to relax a little. “I was just filling up Feathers.”

Marian raises an eyebrow. “Strange name for a motorcycle.”

The girl blushes. “Well, I named it after a pet I had when I was younger.”

“Oh,” Marian says, nodding. That makes a bit more sense. “A bird?”

The girl laughs a little and shakes her head. “Oh, no, it was a lizard. I always wanted a bird so I could name it Feathers. But I grew up in the Zones, and there aren’t many birds out here. Lots of lizards, though.” She gives Marian a lopsided smile. “I took what I could get.”

Marian can’t help it; she laughs, though in the back of her mind, she wonders why she’s never seen this girl before, if she grew up in the Zones.

“Oh! I’m so sorry,” the girl says, her green eyes widening. “I didn’t mean to ramble. I didn’t even introduce myself.” She holds out a hand, both of which are covered in long, fingerless fishnet gloves that end near her elbows. “Deadly Daisy. Daisy for short. Or you can just call me Merrill. I don’t mind.”

That explains the logo. “Kitty Hawke,” Marian replies, shaking Merrill’s hand firmly.

Merrill nods and starts to speak again, but something behind Marian makes her stop and narrow her eyes in confusion. “Who—?”

Marian glances over her shoulder and nearly jumps out of her shoes. Not one, not two, but all three of her siblings have decided to join the conversation.

“Firebird,” Garrett says, bowing dramatically—so dramatically, in fact, that it makes his stupid sunglasses fall off his face. Garrett has a habit of collecting weird sunglasses and goggles and such. This particular pair has bright orange lenses, which Marian is pretty sure do nothing to block out the sun, and flames sticking out on either side.

Marian rolls her eyes. “My twin brother,” she explains. “It seems I stole all his brain cells in the womb.”

Garrett blows a raspberry at her as he picks his sunglasses off the ground and uses his shirt to wipe off the sand and dirt.

Bethany steps forward, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ears, one of her nervous habits. “Midnight Sun,” she says with a tiny smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh! You, too!” Merrill says. Gesturing to Carver, who has yet to say anything, she asks, “Who’s the grumpy one?”

“I’m not—” Carver starts, but he cuts himself off at the sound of his siblings’ snickering. “Fantom Fighter,” he says, his face heating up. “Two Fs.” He turns around and gestures to the two large black Fs painted on the back of his jean jacket. Then, gesturing to Bethany, he adds, “I’m her twin brother.”

Bethany chuckles. “And we’re all siblings.”

Merrill cups her hands over her face. “Oh, my goodness.”

Marian clears her throat. “Anyway,” she says, side-eyeing Garrett, “why are you guys even here?”

Garrett throws his hands up. “Don’t look at me! I am but a slave to the whims of our younger siblings!”

Bethany and Carver exchange embarrassed glances, then both turn to glare at Garrett. Marian sighs. They’re all a mess.

“Oh, well, I shouldn’t keep you,” Merrill says, patting the side of her motorcycle. “Feathers and I can get moving, if you all need to leave.”

That catches Marian’s attention. “Wait, you’re traveling alone?” She hadn’t seen anyone else around, but she’d assumed that Merrill had at least one companion somewhere, perhaps inside the shitty convenience store connected to the gas station.

Merrill nods. “I was raised by neutrals,” she says—people who live outside Battery City, but don’t openly rebel against BLI. “I didn’t become a Killjoy until just recently. I haven’t really found a group yet.”

That explains why Marian’s never seen her before. Neutrals tend to stay out of the way unless they run a business, like their friend Varric.

“That’s dangerous, you know,” Carver says, but he sounds less matter-of-fact and more concerned. “You’re a lot more likely to get ghosted by yourself.”

Merrill sighs. “I know. But what am I supposed to do? Invite myself to tag along with the next Killjoy gang I see?”

Garrett shrugs. “Why not? You could tag along with us.”

To be fair, Marian had been thinking that, too, in the back of her mind, but it still stuns her to actually hear it spoken.

Merrill’s eyes widen with hope. “That would be wonderful, but I wouldn’t want to impose…”

Instinctively, Marian and her siblings all turn to look at each other, none of them saying anything, just glancing back and forth with various facial expressions ranging from embarrassment to uncertainty to excitement. Finally, Marian turns back to Merrill and says, “You wouldn’t be imposing. We’d be glad to have you join us.”

Merrill gasps. “Oh, thank you! You won’t regret it, I promise!”

Bethany smiles. “Welcome to the Birds of Passage, Daisy.”

(At the use of Merrill’s Killjoy name, Marian briefly wonders just how long her siblings had been eavesdropping before Merrill noticed them.)

“We’re headed to one of the outer Zones for the evening,” Carver explains. “You could follow us on your bike until we find a place to set up camp.”

“Oh, perfect!” Merrill says. “I’ve been meaning to head that way. Too many Dracs this close to Bat City.”

When the Hawkes climb back into the Camaro, Marian steals a glance at Merrill in the rearview mirror, watches as their newfound companion unties a green bandana from her belt loop and wraps it around her head to keep her hair out of her face. When Marian steps on the gas pedal and tears out of the Dead Pegasus parking lot, the roar of the motorcycle lets her know that Deadly Daisy is right behind them.

—

Fenris doesn’t sleep well that night.

Granted, Fenris doesn’t sleep well most nights, but for some reason, the night after Bethany gets shot in the leg is particularly bad. Maybe it’s the hard concrete floor of the warehouse, which no amount of blankets or cushions can completely alleviate. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s lying only a few feet away from Garrett, who sleeps like a log and snores like a chainsaw. Maybe it’s the pain in his shoulder from an injury a few days prior.

Or maybe it’s the fact that tonight, his nightmares are worse than usual. Tonight, when he dreams, he is alone, but worse than that: the bodies of his fellow Killjoys lie dead at his feet, glassy eyes wide, their hands still on the triggers of their guns. Draculoids—more Dracs than he’s ever seen at one time—close in on him, zombielike in the way they reach for him, pull at him from every angle, pin him to the ground and snarl in his face. He’d fight if he could, fight with everything he has, but his body is stiff and frozen, and no amount of willpower can force even his mouth to move. For a man with an aversion to closeness and touching, and painful tattoos from BL/ind experimentation, the sensation of being trapped makes him feel like he’s about to vomit.

It’s when they pull out a Drac mask and shove it over his head that he wakes up gasping for breath.

It takes a few minutes for his body to relax and his heart to stop pounding in his ears. Fenris can see the faintest bit of morning light trickling through the windows—he’d guess that it’s around five o’clock—and concludes that attempting to get a decent amount of sleep will probably be a fruitless endeavor. Sighing and forcing himself to sit upright, he reaches into the small backpack beside him and pulls out a Killjoy-made magazine that they snagged at the last gas stop.

The zine is filled with artwork of desert landscape and rebels fighting BL/ind, accompanied by writing—a few short stories and poems, a few articles and essays, all about the highs and lows of revolution. It’s a perfect representation of life in the Zones, every copy made by hand, since few (if any) Killjoys have access to a working printer. However many were made, probably no more than twenty, the artists and authors must have had to redraw and rewrite their work. Two Polaroid photos are taped to the inside cover, one of a Dead Pegasus gas station at sunset, the other of two female Killjoys kissing, with their names listed at the bottom. There are probably different photos in every copy, likely taken from the same photographer, someone lucky enough to have access to a working Polaroid camera (though Fenris concedes that it’s actually not too difficult to find batteries out here, though they might be half-empty).

He’s so focused on flipping through the zine that he doesn’t realize anyone else is awake—at least, not until the sound of someone sitting down next to him nearly makes him jump out of his skin.

“Sorry,” Anders whispers, holding a hand up. Behind him, the orange light of the sunrise creates a halo around his blond head. “I assume you couldn’t sleep, either?”

Fenris makes a noncommittal grunt, enough to give Anders his answer, but curt enough to hopefully get his I don’t want to talk about it message across. He’d rather not have to even think about the nightmares that his subconscious assaults him with, let alone explain them.

“Alright,” Anders says with an understanding nod. He glances over at the zine, skimming the page Fenris has it open to with clear interest.

Fenris holds it out for him to take. “You can look through it.”

Anders hesitates for a moment before obliging. Fenris watches his face as he flips through the pages. The brilliant poetry and detailed artwork seem to fill him with awe, similar to what Fenris felt browsing the zine’s contents, but there’s something else, too, something deeper—something like longing.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Anders says finally, slowly closing the booklet. “I just remembered, and I think you deserve to know.” He glances over at the windows, and the sun shines on his pale face, reflecting off of his gold earring. Without looking at Fenris, he says, “You have a sister, named Varania.”

Fenris blinks in surprise. A sister? Anders apparently knew him when they both lived in Battery City, before BLI wiped Fenris’s mind—or reprogrammed him, as they like to call it. It’s times like these that make him feel like Anders knows him better than he himself does. “And you’re just now telling me this?” Fenris says in an attempt to mask his bewilderment. A sister. He has a sister.

“You only mentioned her once or twice,” Anders says. “It was the last thing on my mind. But something reminded me of it this morning, so I figured I’d tell you.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much else about her. But I know she’s still alive, or she was by the time I left Bat City.”

Sister. Sister. Sister. His brain repeats it so often that it no longer really feels like a word. He knows he’d be angry if Anders had kept this hidden from him, but at the same time, he’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do with the information. She’s probably still in Battery City, which means it’s too late and far too dangerous to go back and search for her, or even attempt to write a letter to her.

Still, he feels like he has to say something. “Well,” he mumbles, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Thank you. For telling me.” Then, tilting his head to the side, he adds, “May I ask what reminded you?”

Anders sighs and pushes a few loose strands of hair out of his face. “She appeared in a dream last night.”

Fenris doesn’t expect it to hurt, but it does, just a little. To think that he doesn’t even know what his own sister looks like, while a man who barely knows anything about her sees her in his dreams.

Abruptly, Anders hands the zine back to him and stands up, covering his eyes with a hand to block out the sun. Fenris glances down at the page he left open: a poem written in an angry hand, calling for revolution, calling for justice.

—

Varric Tethras is what people in the Zones call a “neutral.” He doesn’t wear the flashy clothes, he goes by his real name, and he tends to stay in one spot minding his own business rather than get into fights with Draculoids. He has his own little gas station convenience store in Zone Three and is an expert at aiding Killjoys without giving BLI a reason to go after him. In short, he’s the perfect person to go to when there’s trouble, and there’s always trouble.

The trouble this time has nothing to do with BL/ind, for once; about five miles away from Varric’s shop, the Camaro broke down, so Marian had to jump start it using Merrill’s motorcycle, and now they’re hanging out in the store while she tries to fix the car.

Garrett frowns as he glances out the window at the setting sun. “We might have to camp out here for the night, Varric.” It’s not the first time, and he knows Varric doesn’t mind, but he still feels bad about it.

Varric waves a hand nonchalantly. “Yeah, I figured,” he says from behind the store counter, where he seems to be digging through some junk he’s stored underneath. Varric is a whopping four-foot-eight, so the chair he uses to reach the counter makes most other people who sit in it look like giants. Merrill finds a particular delight in this, and she’s so sweet that anyone would feel terrible asking her to get off of it, even Marian, which has been an especially interesting phenomenon to witness.

As if on cue, the front door swings open, and there stands Marian, covered in grease and wearing nothing but a sports bra and ripped black shorts. “I’m turning in for the night,” she says as she waltzes into the shop, letting the door slam shut behind her. “Round two starts in the morning.”

Garrett watches as she heads into the bathroom to wash herself off. Carver came in from practicing his shooting about a half hour ago (and is currently sitting on the floor eating potato chips), so now they’re all inside for the evening. Bethany’s been drawing quietly, her brow furrowed in concentration as she sits on the worn couch in one of the back rooms, and Garrett and Merrill have been making their own fun out front. The store is Varric’s home, so he had to get creative with the few extra rooms.

Garrett is wandering aimlessly through the little aisles, examining various snacks, all stamped with the BLI logo, when he hears the front door open, and in walks possibly the most gorgeous Killjoy Garrett has ever seen.

The first thing he notices is the shock of silver-white hair, the way the undercut contrasts against the man’s brown skin. The dim light of the store reflects against his leather jacket and his surprisingly wide eyes. When he takes a few steps forward, a chain hanging from his black jeans—yes, jeans, in the desert—makes a jangling sound, and his heavy footsteps suggest combat boots. He looks like he just walked out of a mosh pit, but that’s not what intrigues Garrett the most. No, what really catches his attention is the pale white tattoos that stretch from the man’s bottom lip down into his chest and out to the tips of his fingers—they almost seem to glow. “Varric?” the man calls in a deep voice as he surveys the area.

Varric pops his head out from the back of the store. “Oh-ho! Long time no see, Wolfy!”

The man rolls his eyes at the nickname and leans awkwardly against one of the snack aisles. “I see you are having a sleepover,” he says slowly as he eyes each of the Birds suspiciously (save for Marian, who is still washing up, thankfully). Bethany walks out into the store to see him better, and Garrett flashes him his best good-natured smile, causing the man to raise an eyebrow at him.

“Their car broke down not far from here,” Varric explains as he walks out from behind the store counter. “And because I’m just so charitable, I let them stay for the night.” That’s his way of saying that they’re friends.

“Hm.” The man makes his way through the store, seemingly on edge, like he’s keenly aware of the way the Birds glance his way out of the corners of their eyes, pretending that they’re not looking at him. Eventually, Garrett gives up on trying to be inconspicuous and plops down in a chair pushed up against one wall, allowing himself to stare openly. He’s never been good with subtlety.

Suddenly Marian’s voice rings out through the shop. “Who’s this?”

Varric clears his throat. “Birds of Passage, allow me to formally introduce you to the Painted Wolf. He’s kind of new, doesn’t have a gang to roll with yet.”

The Painted Wolf looks away, not making eye contact as he wanders into another aisle where he can’t as easily be seen. “I think I would prefer to keep it that way. No offense.”

After a few beats of silence, Merrill says from her place on top of the chair behind the store counter, “You have tattoos, like me.”

Instinctively, almost as if he was expecting it, the Wolf replies, “But you received yours willingly, I’ll wager.”

Merrill blinks in surprise. “Well. Yes, I did. You mean you didn’t?”

The Painted Wolf does not respond, just runs a hand through his hair and takes a breath through his nose.

Garrett frowns a little and stands back up, making his way over to where Marian is still standing in front of the bathroom door, her arms crossed. “Don’t tell me,” she says quietly. “You think we should let him come with us.”

Garrett shrugs. “Well, why not? He doesn’t have anyone. And he’s…intriguing.”

Marian rolls her eyes. “You’re just saying that because you think he’s hot.”

“I do not,” Garrett lies, but his face heats up, giving him away. “Okay, well, maybe I do, but that’s not the only reason.”

Marian shakes her head. “He doesn’t seem too keen on making friends. I mean, he just said he’d rather be alone. Also, what you call ‘intriguing’ I call ‘suspicious.’ The man’s got secrets.”

“So do we,” Garrett says, though at the moment he can’t think of anything particularly damning. If nothing else, he’s sure Carver’s got something embarrassing.

“You being gay doesn’t count as a secret when you gawk at any man that isn’t related to us,” Marian says, a tiny smirk forming on her face.

“That’s not what I meant!” Garrett says. He can feel his face turning even redder. He needs to find a way to get Marian on his side, and if he can’t do it with emotion, then maybe he can do it with logic. “Seriously, I think we should talk to him. He’s a new Killjoy, but he looks way more experienced than most newbies. He might even be older than us. I’d be willing to bet he knows something about BL/ind. I just think he’d be good to have on our side. And it’s not like he has to stay with us forever.”

Marian seems to think it over for a long time. It’s different than it was with Merrill. Unlike the Wolf, Merrill had expressed a clear interest in finding a group to fall in with, and the Birds just happened to be the first ones to click with her. Also, Marian is a lesbian and about ten times more suspicious of men than she is of women as a general rule, which is fair, but it makes these things difficult sometimes. Finally, she says, “Fine. If you can convince him, then I’m game. I can go tell the others.” She cracks her knuckles. “At the very least, he looks like he knows something worth knowing.”

Garrett holds his hands up. “Well, hopefully you won’t have to beat it out of him, so you can stop with the threatening looks.”

Marian snorts. “Just asserting my dominance, my dear little brother.” She reaches forward and musses his hair.

Garrett shakes his head as he starts to head over to the other side of the store, where the Wolf is standing. He doesn’t bother pointing out that she’s only older than him by nine minutes, because she’ll hang those nine minutes over his head until the day they die.

The Painted Wolf looks up from the magazine he’s been flipping through. “Let me guess,” he says. “You want me to join your gang.”

Garrett smiles sheepishly. “What can I say? We think you’d be a good addition to the team.”

The Wolf frowns and puts the magazine back on the rack. “You barely know anything about me.”

“I know you’re a Killjoy traveling alone, and that’s enough for me,” Garrett says, and it’s the truth. Killjoys stick together. It’s the law of the desert. It’s how they survive.

The Wolf narrows his eyes. “I already said I prefer to be alone.”

Garrett folds his arms over his chest, allowing his knowledge of the Zones to give him confidence. “That’s how I can tell you’re new,” he says. “Rule number one of making it as a Killjoy: find a gang. Hordes of Dracs are less likely to target larger groups, and even if they do, you have a better chance of making it out alive when you’re not alone. If you watch our backs, we’ll watch yours.”

The Wolf nods slowly, as if this just confirmed something he already suspected. “You watch our backs, we’ll watch yours,” he repeats to himself. “It’s...a sentiment I am not entirely familiar with.”

“I figured you were from Bat City,” Garrett says, stroking his beard thoughtfully. (Carver and Marian like to make fun of him when he does that. Marian says it makes him look like an asshole.)

The Wolf nods again. “The sense of camaraderie was one of the things that drew me to the Zones, and to the Killjoy lifestyle specifically. But until now, I suppose I have been too wary to actively engage in it.”

Garrett raises an eyebrow, careful not to show too much excitement. “Until now, you say?”

The Wolf gives the softest chuckle, his mouth curving briefly upward. “Perhaps you have a point about me traveling alone. BL/ind knows that I left Battery City; no doubt they’re looking for me. It...would be prudent to join a larger group, at least for a little while.”

Garrett allows himself the beginnings of a grin. “It definitely would.”

The Wolf clears his throat. “I...never got your name,” he says, fingers playing mindlessly with the hem of his jacket.

“Firebird,” Garrett replies, holding a hand out for him to shake.

The Wolf looks at it for a moment before responding. “Well, then, Firebird,” he says slowly, “if you’ll have me, I would like to travel with you and your gang.”

“I certainly would love to have you,” Garrett replies, only realizing how strange it sounds once the words are out of his mouth. His face heats up. “I...I didn’t mean it like—”

Across the room, Marian calls, “Real smooth.” Garrett flips her off.

An awkward little smile forms on the Wolf’s face. “I know what you meant,” he says, but if Garrett isn’t mistaken, he’s blushing, too.

—

A few days later, Varric, whose talents include knowing everything that’s happening in the Zones, says, “So I got a tip that there’s someone after you guys.”

Isabela rolls her eyes and leans against the counter, conscious of the way her ripped white jean shorts ride up her ass—she’s doing it on purpose, and she peers over her shoulder to make sure Marian’s watching. “Someone’s always after us, Varric. This isn’t new.”

“No, like a major someone,” Varric replies. “Does the name Meredith Stannard mean anything to any of you?”

The Birds exchange glances from their various positions throughout the shop. They’ve all heard the name, but only Fenris and Anders seem to know who she is. Makes sense, since they’re the only ones who have actually lived in Battery City and seen BL/ind’s inner workings up close.

“She’s a Scarecrow, right?” Marian says from behind Isabela. She steps forward and takes a large sip out of her Neptune Pop can. “Isn’t that all we need to know?”

“She isn’t just any old Scarecrow,” Fenris says as he examines the shelves for more food. “She is one of the Director’s favorites—very high-ranking, always flanked by six or more Draculoids and sometimes other Scarecrows. I have known a few BL/ind workers who do not wish to kill, but do so because they fear the consequences of disobeying.” He shakes his head, speaking calmly but severely. “Meredith is not one of them. She kills out of hate and nothing less. She views it as her duty, a mission she will carry out until the day she dies. I suggest taking her seriously. She has slaughtered many of you.”

The way he refers to Killjoys isn’t lost on Isabela. It’s been a little less than a year, she thinks, since he left Battery City and joined the rebels in the Zones, but he still seems hesitant to identify himself as one of them. He still refers to them as you instead of us.

His words send a brief chill down Isabela’s spine, but she shakes it off and looks up at Marian to gauge her reaction. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t seem fazed.

“It doesn’t matter how many of us she’s killed,” she says. The piercings in her left ear gleam in the light from the windows. “She bleeds just like the rest of us, and she’ll die just like the rest of us.”

Varric holds a hand up. “Fair point, I suppose. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. My source says Meredith considers you guys one of the most dangerous gangs in the Zones. That means one of her biggest priorities is wiping you out. Just...be careful.”

“Careful is my middle name,” Marian says as she finishes her Neptune Pop, crushes the can in one hand, and launches it across the store, causing Anders to duck because of his ridiculously long bird legs. The can lands in the garbage bin with a loud crash.

Marian grins. It’s lopsided, and her teeth are crooked and stained with soda, but it just makes Isabela want to kiss that alluring, imperfect mouth even more.

“I thought your middle name was Selene,” Merrill says from her designated spot in Varric’s chair. They call it the Tallening Chair.

Marian’s face softens, and her cheeks turn pink as she gently explains to Merrill that it’s a figure of speech. Isabela watches in silence until Marian suddenly turns to her, lightly smacks her ass, and says with a playful glint in her eyes, “Well, back to business.”

Isabela smirks. Works every time.

—

It only takes half an hour for Marian’s nonchalance about Meredith Stannard to come back and bite her in the ass.

“Guys!”

Garrett bursts through the front door of Varric’s shop, his eyes wide and panicked. He’d been outside restocking the trunk with supplies. “I think we’ve got company.”

Marian peers outside, and the rest of the Birds do the same. Sure enough, veering into the parking lot are two white vans with the Better Living Industries symbol emblazoned on their doors.

Shit.

In a flash, they all whip out their ray guns and rush outside just in time to see a horde of Dracs pouring out of the vans. Then, from the passenger seat of one of the vans, a woman climbs out. She’s tall, blonde, and middle-aged, and her eyes seem to pierce right through them.

“Ah,” she says as the Dracs line up behind her, brandishing their plain white ray guns. “The notorious Birds of Passage, or so you call yourselves.” As she speaks, she pulls out her own weapon and seems to aim it straight at Marian. “It looks as though you’ve been expecting me.”

For a moment, the two groups just stand there silently, revolvers pointed at one another, a classic example of a Mexican standoff. It feels like the air has been sucked out of the atmosphere, like the atoms themselves have stopped moving completely. Then Meredith snaps her fingers with her free hand, and the desert explodes in gunfire.

——

killjoy names: garrett - firebird marian - kitty hawke bethany - midnight sun carver - fantom fighter merrill - deadly daisy anders - nuclear blonde isabela - storm chaser fenris - the painted wolf

#SORRY FOR THE LONG AS FUCK AUTHORS NOTE THE REST WILL NOT BE THAT LONG #dragon age 2 #da2 #hawkebela #fenhanders #bethmerrill #hawke #isabela #fenris #anders #bethany hawke #merrill #f!hawkebela #m!fenhanders #male hawke #female hawke #garrett hawke #marian hawke #my fics

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