#Eden; They Were only Two On The Planet

[lieutenantfloyd]

CRAWL - Feyd Rautha x Reader

[A sequel to Creature]

Word Count: 1.5k

Rating: Mature

Summary: A journey marred with horrors is reaching its divine conclusion. Now, you must reemerge and claim what’s yours.

Warnings: Major character deaths, blood, violence, torture, religious themes, domestic violence, implied Stockholm syndrome, heavy canon divergence, pregnancy, psychopaths in love. Feyd and reader very much a match made in hell. (This is a dark fic. Please heed the tags!)

Authors Note: I'm making it known that I never write more for my oneshots, but this story has literally had me in a chokehold for two months. Because of that (along with the fact that Creature is my most popular fic to date) it only felt fair to give it an official ending. This fic was also heavily inspired by Take Me Back To Eden by Sleep Token.

Read on AO3

The time since your ceremony has been counted using your instincts alone. 

Days on Geidi Prime are many hours longer than on your home planet of Kaitain. The blackened sun distorts shadows in a way you have yet to get accustomed to, seeing as you’d only seen the world outside the Harkonnen palace twice since your arrival.

With his sexual vulnerability made obvious to you on your first night together, Feyd-Rautha had taken it upon himself to re-correct the dynamics of your union. He has conducted this in the only way he knows how—frigid isolation punctuated by crippling violence.

It didn’t take long for the cracks to appear in your mental state, and it was an even shorter time until he broke you completely. Laying alone in a featureless room, you wished you were somehow stronger. Able to fight back physically, or at least shield your mind from his attacks. Nothing in your life was left up to chance, and you couldn’t help but begin to wonder if the skills you pleaded for were purposefully left out of your lengthy Bene Gesserit training. Even if this wasn’t the work of careful planning by The Sisterhood, the visions soon made clear to you how this agony was the only way forward. The sole path towards destiny.

It was only as the nature of his punishments shifted that you realized your apparent weaknesses were truly a gift in disguise. Each bloodied mark laid on your skin was now a wordless promise. Feyd-Rautha had brought diligent ruin to who you once were, working in blessed tandem with your visions to quiet even your smallest urge to resist.

Time moved faster after this, if only because it now went uncounted.

Your days were spent lurching in and out of consciousness. The pain inflicted by your demented husband brought forth more forbidden knowledge, and together they took complete hold of your body and mind. It was only a matter of time until reality became wholly indecipherable.

-

You come back suddenly. A shiver jolts down your spine as definitive reality forces the horrors out of your mind. No longer inside that desolate room, you languish in the silks of Feyd-Rautha’s bed.  Your senses have heightened greatly in however long you’ve been away, and your palms have grown ravenous for a blade. It was all clear to you now. Endless possibilities take the form of paths, the fate of the Imperium lies in which artery you choose to follow.

You reach outward with a newfound steadiness, waking your fated groom from his rest. His skin—porcelain in both pigment and temperature—scorches your own as he pulls you atop him.

He’s molded you in his image. A perfect creature with teeth that will tear flesh from bone with a mind as sharp as his blades.

Now, only pleasure remains.

-

The busy air is still like an ocean suddenly devoid of its moon. No longer waking up with ringing ears, you’d nearly forgotten what mournful screams filling silence sounded like. Behind you, Feyd-Rautha’s blade is buried deep in Paul’s beatless chest. The remaining members of the reemerged House Atriedes were subdued while you granted his most fanatical followers the gift of joining Paul in death.

Your sharp eyes barely grace your sister Irulan before she steps behind her father with a loud gasp. You wished for nothing more in that moment than to see yourself through their eyes—the ones widened in total horror.

It was after your reawakening that you learned how your visions of clandestine conversations and plans within plans were not just mere visions at all, but memories of before and prophecies set ahead. You weren’t sure how much your kith and kin knew about what you’d become, but you couldn’t wait to deliver your sermon.

“I’m sorry to hear about your Baron.” The emperor voices carefully. Testing the waters with a question directed towards House Harkonnen’s infamous brothers. You don’t miss his slight—how foolish it is to pretend as if surrendering his own blood to the monsters didn’t turn you into something even worse. When neither Feyd nor Rabban answer, you take the floor.

“Like Paul, it was a quick death brought on by his own shortcomings. Both deaths are unworthy of sorrow, especially from someone in your—position.” you taunt.

For those outside of Geidi Prime, The details regarding the Baron’s last moments are muddy and confusing. You see questions of who and how dance across the Emperor's eyes but you don’t answer. When one wretched being is divided between two bodies, the action of one is the doings of both.

“Well, congratulations on your ascension to the throne, Baron Feyd-Rautha.” The Emperor responds curtly. It's another slight towards you, but this time you yourself don’t bite.

“Don’t placate us.” Feyd-Rautha threatens as he steps in front of you, purposefully mirroring Irulan’s and Shaddam’s stance.

“With his death, my uncle has given me what’s always been mine,” he starts “and now you must do the same,” you finish. Another gasp escapes Irulan as the Bene Gesserit cry out. The Emperor doesn’t flinch.

"Do you want to commence the honors, or shall I?" Feyd asks as you step past him. Your knife already coated in the blood of your father before his sentence draws to a close.

-

Irulan, in exchange for her life, agreed to a transition of power and self-exile on Kaitain. There’s no ceremony when signet rings stamp decrees, just as there’s no theatrics when you and Feyd-Rautha receive the titles that grant you joint control of the known universe.

When her part is done, Harkonnen soldiers are quick to usher Irulan away. Whatever happens to her now is at their discretion, but you still hope they’re gentle. A thought that confirms the small soft spot for your older sister as the last remaining remnant of who you once were.

You board the Guild ship with one thing on your mind. A competing mix of adrenaline and relief threatens to throw you off balance with each step. Still, you march onward. Smiling as Feyd-Rautha instantly appears at your side. He places a firm hand on the small of your back while his dark eyes scan you over. You welcome his touch, the months of pain and agony brought on by his hands now heavily distorted in your mind. As such, both large and small displays of affection had become common between you both. Though the intensity of his affection had grown greatly since your personal physician informed him you were in the early stages of carrying an heir.

Hesitantly he removes his hand. allowing you to ascend the final steps alone. You sink into your father's throne only seconds before Feyd takes claim of the empty floor space in front of you.

Instantly the same vision from the night of your ceremony comes back to you, only this time it’s stitched together with your own memories. 

Staring down at Vladimir Harkonnen as he lay dying on the concrete just beyond that disgusting tub he dared to invite you into. The look of overwhelming horror in the eyes of each member of your former great House as you reunited today. Your current view from atop these gold steps.  

Each aspect blurs into one complete image. Feeling you shudder, Feyd-Rautha finds your hand and guides it gently to his chest. You share only the briefest look, but you see in his eyes that he recognizes this moment as well. You place a kiss to his temple, and after a steadying breath, he motions for the last of Paul’s fighters to be brought before you.

Your soldiers stop a few steps down from you, but Feyd beckons them closer so the man is abandoned to the right of Feyd and directly in front of you.   Leaning forward, you tilt the fighter’s head upward with the tip of your blade until his eyes meet yours. Beyond his teary heartbreak, a fire is still smoldering. You smile at this sign of a true fighter. Crimson blood catches the light, glistening against your ink-colored teeth.

"Stilgar..." you breathe, your voice turns each syllable to nothing more than a hiss.

You and Feyd move in tandem, allowing you to stretch further forward, though he ensures your soft hand never leaves his chest. Your blade digs further into the underside of Stilgar’s chin until you're given enough purchase to run your sharpened teeth across his neck. He doesn't flinch as you nip the rough, tanned skin laid across his jugular and carotid artery.

This one is strong. Feyd could make such a beautiful example out of him.

Pulling away from Stilgar, you only briefly consider keeping him as a pet before catching sight of Feyd-Rautha. He stares up at you with adoring eyes, though the rest of his striking features are twisted as he snarls in jealousy. Never one to deny Feyd even a single one of his desires, you offer him your blade’s handle.

"Do you want to commence the honors, or shall I?" you purr into his ear. 

Your question is answered only by the heavy weight of the knife easing away as it's taken from your hand.

[kidasthings]

Echoes of Eden by Kida

Noa x Mae - #thatcampfireisnttheonlyslowburn

Chapter 2: https://www.tumblr.com/kidasthings/750737651564478464/echoes-of-eden-by-kida

Next Chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/kidasthings/751482584388829184/echoes-of-eden-by-kida?source=share

Chapter 3

They didn’t make it back to the village that night.

The small group of apes and the single human amongst them decided to set up camp before proceeding further into the midnight woods. The apes were tired; they had traveled many hours by foot, had a rather tense, life-threatening confrontation, and found the return trip too arduous to complete overnight.

The navy sky was littered with a splatter of stars, each winking in and out like fireflies. The group stopped at a tree-lined grove, the symphony of crickets and frogs serenading the night world. A breeze stirred the fingers of the trees overhead and leaves whispered secrets.

Noa gave the signal to stop, a welcome relief to Anaya. The poor ape was still shaken from the encounter with the Fort Wayne five and wanted time to recuperate. Soona gave a long, contemplative stare at Noa before her dark eyes darted to Mae with an equally dark look. Mae had trailed behind, following the simians like a sad shadow. The whole affair gave her a flashback to the time she spent on the heels of Raka and Noa before they had ascertained her intelligence to be that of more than a mere animal.

And now the creatures she considered beasts once-upon-a-time began to nest, gathering sticks and branches from the forest floor to create a few widely-spaced fires. Mae found Noa offset from the others, throwing dry tinder into a cluster as if he were waiting for her.

For a moment, she was brought back to the far-flung moment when he first gave her the blue blanket as she hovered, freezing, as close as she dared to a fire attended by a strange orangutan and distrustful chimp.

Raka.

She allowed herself to feel a bright burst of pain, sharp as a supernova, and then suppressed it. It was her fault he was swept away, after all.

He wouldn’t be gone if Sylva hadn’t been searching for her.

He wouldn’t be gone if she had found them another route besides that old bridge.

And he most certainly wouldn’t be gone if he hadn’t tried to save her life.

Yes, Raka’s death was on her. Two years ago, she would have said good riddance. One less ape on this planet was one more chance at humanity regaining a foothold within it.

And now? She felt nothing but regret she would never, ever admit to. Her fingers drifted upwards, their calloused tips running over the embossed pendant still hanging over her neck.

Noa looked up then, his gaze catching on the placement of her fingers over the necklace against her heart.

“Cold?” he inquired gruffly.

Fighting back another memory, Mae just nodded silently. She crept closer to the campfire, just as Noa ignited it in a burst of hungry flame.

“Why are you … traveling back with us?” he asked nonchalantly, as if he were only discussing the weather with an acquaintaince. There was a stick in one of his long-fingered hands, and he used it to stoke the fire and send up a spray of sparks.

“We need to talk,” she told him, settling down in a cross-legged position nearby. Noa leaned against a tree, not too far away, but Mae still felt there were miles between them.

Probably for the best.

“About?”

Staring stonily at the flickering light before her, Mae swallowed thickly. “I’d like you to let me look through their supplies.” Her eyes slid sideways in their sockets, assessing his reaction carefully.

Noa stilled. A few seconds skated by, and then he snapped the stick he was using as a poker in two and threw both halves into the fire. “I can’t do that.”

“It doesn’t belong to you.”

It didn’t belong to the apes. The same old, tired argument between them.

“Will you ever trust anyone?” Noa asked suddenly, sharply. His stare could cut glass.

Mae jerked her head up, jaw tense at the reprimand. She gritted her teeth, then jerked her head sideways and shuttered her eyes. “It’s not that kind of world that we live in.”

“It could be.” His voice is horrifyingly gentle.

Mae returned her attention to him again, the bright highlights in her wide, blue eyes jittering. The reflection of the fire danced on her face, creating an intense interplay of light and shadow.

“Raka…”

“Raka is dead,” she drilled back, cutting Noa off.

He nodded quietly, agreeing on that number. His light eyes were distant, a glazed look on his furred face. She hated seeing it that way.

“Please, let me look through the things you confiscated from them.”

“Why, Mae?” Noa’s features were calm, serene even, but his voice contained a dangerous edge. She caught a rustle of fur and realized he had stood up. He prowled closer, leaving her to crane her head back as he loomed over her. “What is so … important to you, to them?” His voice had something like heat in it, a nearly seductive slant she had never heard from him before.

She was imagining things. Certainly he wouldn’t…

The brunette found she couldn’t trust her own body’s responses. Her heart sped up, pounding in her ears, and she broke out in goosebumps as he stooped before her and crossed his arms so that his palms rested off his knees. He was so close she could probably breathe him in if she wanted to.

The two watched each other, spellbound, and then the dark downward slash of his mouth kicked up a little. “Well?”

“I think..” she began, completely at a loss of what to think. She could see the erratic pattern at the center of his iris this close, the burst of amber that bled into green. His eyes were really beautiful; the thought shattered her focus entirely.

Sputtering nonsensical noise, she scuttled backward on unsteady hands. “It’s nothing to you, trust me. It’s important to us.”

You. Us.

Other.

Noa grimaced. “Always back to that,” he sighed wistfully, turning his head back to regard the fire in moody contemplation. He seemed to mull over his next words, and then he spoke up when he was ready. “I will … make a deal with you.”

Mae forgot her unease for a moment and leaned closer, the damp soil shifting beneath her. “Yes?”

“You can look through … their things…”

Mae visibly brightened, an eager look painting her features.

“But…”

The hopeful expression vanished. “But what?”

“You cannot take anything. You will be … watched.” With a soft grunt, Noa moved back to his prior spot next to the fire.

Mae struggled to speak, and it took her three tries before she could formulate something coherent. “That won’t work. I need it!”

“Explain,” Noa retorted, exhaustion creeping into his rough tone. He seemed weary of the same, circular arguments.

“It’s...” Mae gave into an attempt to make him understand in a context he could comprehend. Noa was intelligent, yes, but he hadn’t been exposed to human technology, much less trained on it, like she had been. “We were expecting them.”

“We?”

“There are others like me. Sort of.” Mae made a frustrated motion with her hands, wringing them before her. “We made contact with that group and they travelled here to find us. They have something that will help us.”

Noa shot her a startled look over the tops of the licking flames. “How will it … help you?”

This is where Mae grew mute. She could not possibly verbalize the very thing that would not be beneficial to Noa. Instead, she took up a cross-legged position again and basked in the bobbing heat of the fire. “We used to be intelligent. We could speak. All of us.”

Noa blinked. “We came across books … in the vault,” he began slowly, like she might spook. “There were symbols in them. Ape..” He touched his chest, then pointed to her with two fingers and an extended arm. “Echo.”

Mae nodded encouragingly.

“The apes were trapped. Echoes watched the trapped … apes.” A gusty sigh followed and he shook his head, trying to dismiss the recollection of that time in that damnable metal hell hole. “No paradise … for apes.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Mae agreed, brooking no argument.

Noa scowled into the fire, and then shifted closer to Mae. “Echoes kept apes in pens.”

“You were like the humans are now, back then,” the woman provided carefully. “Something terrible happened and we became like animals. We deserve to reclaim our technology, our things, our lives..”

Our place.

“Will the things those humans came with … help you do that?” Noa queried, ever observant. “Will you find an … answer in their supplies?”

“A solution to help us, yes.” Mae grew quiet. It was no solution that would benefit Noa, but he did not need to know that just yet.

“How should I trust you and yours … not to harm us?” Now that the tables were turned, Mae found she had no answer. She watched him gloomily, her eyes narrowed. He came closer again, the long digits of his hand reaching for the pendant around her neck. “Caesar would want peace, so Raka would say.” Noa’s eyes burned holes into the diamond-star symbol of the pendant as he turned it thoughtfully with his hand.

Unbidden, Mae’s hand reached up and encircled his across the back of his hairy knuckles. They remained like that, her cross-legged before the fire with Noa leaning all of his weight on the closed fist of one arm while the other held Caesar’s medallion.

Her touch burned.

Their eyes met over the length of the chain, and once again neither could look away.

“Promise me,” he entreated huskily, his eyes darting desperately over her too-human face. “Promise me you will … look, not take.”

Mae wasn’t even sure what they were talking about anymore. She found herself giving in all-too-easily.

“I promise only to look,” she affirmed, lips half-parted in wonder. Breathing became a difficult thing.

Noa nodded slowly, an incline of his head. He seemed mollified, if partially, and leaned closer still as Mae trembled. He was so close, he could --

“Noa?” a female voice cut the moment like a sharp knife, cleaving it in two.

Two pairs of heads swept sideways to take in the unexpected speaker. Mae broke away first, pushing herself backward while a bright red bloom stained her cheeks.

Noa was less reactive. He gave the human woman a long, telling look before dropping into a crouch and turning to Soona. “Yes?”

“Would you like to join us … at our fire?” the female ape asked. “Anaya has finally fallen asleep.” Notably, her invitation only seemed to be extended to Noa. She did not look once in Mae’s direction.

Noa seemed to turn it over in his mind, examining all angles. Mae dropped her gaze and concentrated on the fire instead, shifting her expression into careful lines.

“No, not now,” she heard Noa tell Soona with no small measure of finality.

There was a poignant quiet, and then Soona must have acknowledged him through sign or a nod; Mae heard the female ape move off, the dead leaves crackling beneath her feet before fading away entirely.

“Mae,” Noa said simply.

She glanced up at the sound of her name.

“We have a deal.”

Mae pursed her lips, watching Noa's inscrutable face for a small eternity before she gave a lift of her chin.

Raka might be gone, but perhaps his influence wasn’t.

[aethon-recs]

23 Tomarrymort Recs for 2023 (One-Shot Edition)

Happy birthday to Tom! 🤍 Here's a round-up of some of the most interesting one-shots that I came across in 2023. I tried to include a broad range of tropes and themes and ratings, but I haven't read everything published on AO3 in the past year, so feel free to suggest any others in the comment section or in my ask box!

Criteria for this list: one- (or two-) shot, complete, published in 2023. Can be read in 1 sitting. The 2nd part of this list (23 longfics updated in 2023) coming soon. Happy reading!

*

23 Tomarrymort Recs for 2023 — One-Shots

A Deathly Visit by @purplewitch156 (E, 7k, complete)

There once was a wizard who feared Death more than anything.

a dream is a wish by @funkyatheart (E, 5k, complete)

Harry is no stranger to wet dreams. Nightmares too, of course. They mingle, and blend together in all the wrong and most alluring ways.

A Total Absence of Light by @crowcrowcrowthing (E, 8k, complete)

My name is Tom Riddle, and I am the Boy Who Lived. Something happened to turn Harry Potter into the Dark Lord, and I will do whatever it takes to learn his secrets. I don’t care that he killed my parents. I don't care that he stole my childhood. All I want is to earn the right to call myself his apprentice.

and you'll forget who i have been by @apodius (M, 3k, complete)

Tom hugs you, and for a second you relax. And then you feel a sting on your bicep through your shirt, and the world goes fuzzy.

Anniversary by @vdoshu (E, 4k, complete)

There’s a feather-light touch to Harry’s scar, one that lingers before trailing around the side of his face, coming to rest over his lower lip and tugging it slightly. Harry steels himself, then opens his eyes. “Hello, husband,” he says, facing Voldemort’s hungry gaze. “Happy anniversary.”

Apotheosis by @duplicitywrites (M, 7k, complete)

Growing up side by side with Harry Potter, beloved prophecy child, Draco learned two very important things: One, Voldemort was a god, terrifyingly monstrous and more powerful than any wizard on the planet. And two, Harry Potter was his.

Banish Me to the Garden of Eden by @contrarywiseizybel (M, 7k, complete)

Harry Potter had expected the green of the killing curse, not the red of a stunning spell. He couldn't have guessed that Voldemort would discover the truth first, and chose to trap his wayward horcrux. And in his new cage there is a very simple rule: behave and be rewarded, act out and be punished. He had been asked to die, never told to live.

Cicatrize by @noumena-writes (T, 5k, complete)

When hit with Voldemort's killing curse, Harry awakens in King's Cross. Only thing is, Dumbledore is not the one waiting for him there.

Frigid by @mrviran (E, 3k, complete)

In which one of Voldemort's Horcruxes is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Game On by penn_and_paige (T, 13k, complete)

Tom Riddle didn't pay attention to Harry Evans — that is, of course, until Evans tried to kill him.

haunt me, then by i_am_a_tree (M, 5k, complete)

"Death," Potter says, an inexplicable expression on his face that Voldemort instinctively does not like, “is quicker and easier than falling asleep."  Voldemort does not deign that statement with a reply.

Honeyguide by @cannibalinc (E, 7k, complete)

“I need an Alpha," Tom states. "Someone older. Someone already established within the Ministry with strong connections. Someone kind, a bit stupid, and rich. A Pureblood, ideally. Someone who will soften my image.”

I'm Starving, Darling (Let me put my lips to something) by @winterdeath81 (E, 1k, complete)

Harry thought for a long time he didn't like kissing until he finds that he doesn't mind doing it with Voldemort.

Insatiate by @vdoshu (E, 2k, complete)

Voldemort stole both Harry and the Philosopher’s Stone, and doomed Harry to live a half-life. That was ten years ago.

it's kind of tripping me up babe, i've got it bad for you by @limonium-anemos (E, 3k, complete)

This could've been prevented if they were paying attention, Voldemort thinks. In which they get isekai'd into a cursed erotica book.

liquid luck by @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger (E, 12k, complete)

Harry is a mermaid who happens upon sea monster Voldemort, who has nefarious plans for her.

Love, Murder, Horcrux by @moontearpensfic (E, 8k, complete)

Tom makes Harry his Horcrux on the night of their wedding anniversary.

Ouroboros by @loneamaryllis (E, 5k, complete)

Red eyes followed Harrie wherever she was, in his class, in the Great Hall, walking down the corridors, out on the grounds. She could feel the weight of his gaze upon her, like scales sliding across her skin, cold, smooth, and prickling every defensive instinct she had.

Research and Development by @cannibalinc (E, 6k, complete)

Primary Objective: Establish with certainty that Subject IS or IS NOT a living Horcrux. Captured audio sample from Subject: You can’t keep me in here forever, Voldemort! Why don’t you come in here and face me, you COWARD! I’m not scared of you! Dumbledore will find me and—

Right in Front of My Salad? by IceLynx (T, 2k, complete)

In which Draco Malfoy is dead in the kitchen, Harry is regretting moving in with his boyfriend, and Tom has never been more in love.

Plains of oblivion by @milkandmoon-ao3 (E, 3k, complete) 

Trapped in the past with no way home, a disillusioned Harry executes a plan to make an ally of the rising Dark Lord and reshape history.

That's Money, Honey by @dividawrites & @duplicitywrites (E, 10k, complete) 

Tom is a dear friend to many beautiful older women who love to treat him like their beloved son by spoiling him with presents. It is the perfect gateway to the perfect lifestyle—one full of frequent spa days, free holidays abroad, and all of the latest fashions. When Auror Harry Potter claims to be investigating Tom's 'inappropriate' relationships, Tom decides the best course of action is to instigate some 'inappropriate' behaviour of his own.

The Boy With the Green Ribbon by @meles-merrivale (T, 6k, complete)

In another world, what Sirius Black finds when he sprints into Godric’s Hollow that Halloween night is bad enough. In this world, it’s so much worse. It’s James—his best friend, his soulmate, the rest of him—dead in the doorway, and vibrant, warm Lily cold on the carpet, and there, standing in his crib seeing things no infant should see, is little baby Harry. And next to him, lying on the crib mattress, is the baby’s screaming head.

Would You Still Love Me? by @chiocchi (M, comic/artwork, WIP)

"Harry, would you still love me if I was a snake?" Harry knows how this question works. No matter how deranged and unreasonable it is, he has to say yes. A notion he may come to regret once Tom's questions start to get darker and oddly specific.

*

[racefortheironthrone]

BOE, the Messenger(s), and the Trillionaires

Introduction

I’ve been doing a re-read of the Locked Tomb - although technically it’s a re-listen, because I like the audiobooks - and I stumbled across a particular passage that hadn’t stuck in my memory before that made me rethink my understanding of the origin of Blood of Eden. Ever since Harrow the Ninth and especially since Nona the Ninth, there’s been this common interpretation that the BOE are descendants of the trillionaires who abandoned Earth and that’s why John is at war with them. I’m not so sure that’s true any more. 

Here’s why. In Nona, when the whole business with Crown/Corona infiltrating the barracks kicks off, there’s an interesting exchange between Camilla and We Suffer about the Oversight Committee that includes this statement:

“Hect, what you must understand about Blood of Eden is that we own things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. She could have moved these resources at will...but I must make one move at a time. And above all, I must place the safety of...Blood of Eden’s continuity...even above the mission.” (Emphasis mine.)

This took me aback somewhat, because the emphasis on militant communal ownership doesn’t really fit with the idea of “descendants of trillionaires.” I suppose one could say that it’s been ten thousand years, cultures change and drift over time...except that, as I’ll get into later, the BOE seems very very insistent on cultural preservation, so it would be a bit out-of-character if they changed that stance on this one particular issue. 

And that’s what made me think: what if the BOE aren’t the descendants of the trillionaires? What if they’re the descendants of the non-trillionaires on the FTL ships?

East of Eden: A Theory About What Happened After the FTL Ships Jumped

So here’s the question that’s been percolating in my mind: once you’re out in space, why keep listening to the trillionaires, especially about the vital question of who owns the precious resources brought from Eden and who gets to decide happens next? There would probably be some residual cultural deference to the visionary disruptors, but the traditional answers of property law backed up by the state or men with guns paid to enforce the orders of the capitalists kind of break down when you consider that:

In John’s chapters (and verses) in Nona, we get an account of what happened leading up to and during the Resurrection: according to John, the trillionaires pulled a con job on the planet with their FTL ships, pretending that a fleet of twelve ships, each carrying a few thousand people (made up of “hand-picked guys” and “two hundred nominated people”), was merely the first wave of a planetary evacuation. As Mercymorn and others worked out, there were no future waves, no plan to come back and pick up more, the trillionaires had liquidated their cash and financial assets in favor of buying up material resources they’d need in space, and everyone else was being left for dead.

These twelve ships (possibly minus one, it’s not clear whether John managed to destroy the one he grabbed before it jumped) and the 20-odd thousand people on them must be the ancestors of exo-humanity as it exists in the myriadic year. But we know that of those 20-odd thousand people, only a “half-dozen” were the trillionaires. Everyone else was staff they’d selected to do the work of planetary colonization, plus a tiny group of people chosen by the governments of Earth Eden. 

other than 200 randos who are likely to be recruited from the ranks of elected officials and upper management bureaucracy rather than Special Forces, the forces of the state are not only light-years away but also just got eaten by John Gaius.

it’s a bit harder to pull off the Jay Gould method when you’ve turned all of your cash into raw materials, there’s nowhere to spend cash in space, and it doesn’t take long for men with guns in that scenario to decide that the resources belong to them actually, because they have the guns. 

While we know that some form of a market economy exists on New Rho and the other exo-planets, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an oligarchical ruling class based on ownership of capital. Rather, we see a state of anarchy where there is no hegemonic entity but duelling centers of power. This suggests to me that the trillionaires’ power did not last very long after human settlement outside the solar system, possibly due to a (potentially bloodless) revolution in which the only surviving members of humanity just decided not to listen to six old (white) men and took their shit in order to survive.

In that scenario, I could see it being the case that the collective memory of communal ownership of property in the midst of a crisis could linger among a certain sub-population and provide the origin for this aspect of BOE’s internal culture. 

So where did BOE come from?

Well, in large part it emerged as an organic response to John Gaius’ imperialist campaign against exo-humanity. As I noted elsewhere, John’s revenge against those who abandoned Earth in her hour of need is essentially a re-enactment of colonialism - the Cohort shows up with their overwhelming military might, forces the local population into subjugation with unequal treaties, imposes its language and customs, destroys the natural environment in a drive for short-term resource extraction, and then forces people into an endless cycle of being resettled on reservations over and over again - which makes a certain sick sense, in that it’s probably the worst thing that a Kiwi of Maori heritage could think of doing to their enemies. 

He even goes to the extent of modelling the Cohort uniforms on 19th century British Army uniforms with the colors reversed, and coming up with his own gloss on the Christianity that was imposed on indigenous populations in the name of “civilizing” them. This campaign is only mystifying to outside observers like Augustine and Coronabeth because they don’t have the cultural context to know what John’s up to (in no small part because he’s used his necromantic powers and political position in order to suppress all knowledge of that context). 

And thus, it’s not that surprising that John’s imperialism provoked anti-colonial resistance: when his Empire made contact with exo-humanity, to the extent that anyone still remembered him, it was as the horrific necromantic cult leader who murdered the ten billion and destroyed Eden, and now he’s come to finish the job in the name of collective punishment for the sins of six dead men, and by the way he’s bringing death and the defilement of the dead and the destruction of everything you’ve ever built with him. There probably have been dozens and hundreds of resistance movements - some local, some planetary, some multi-planetary - that rose up and got crushed over thousands of years. 

So what makes BOE different from all other resistance movements?

The Messenger(s)

I want to go back a few thousand years and talk about what happened when the FTL ships managed to escape the solar system. While interplanetary colonization would always be an incredibly stressful experience even without a revolution, the fact that all of this was happening in the wake of John nuking Earth and killing the ten billion, then devouring the solar system, and their narrow escape from his wrothful grasp would have added an entirely different level of terror to the event - but also a new sense of responsibility. 

Because - regardless of whether people on the FTL ships knew about the trillionaires’ supposed plan to abandon humanity on Earth or believed John’s accusations - they were now the sole survivors of humanity, the carriers of all culture and history. The ao3 author Griselda_Gimpel has a really good series of fics imagining the development of exo-humanity from the FTL ships onwards, and in one scene they mention the enormous sense of cultural loss that people on those ships would have felt when they realized that the internet was gone forever. 

And this got me thinking: what if some nerds on those ships had that kind of profound reaction and decided to preserve as much of Earth’s heritage as possible? How would you do that with limited access to computer storage and humanity potentially scattering across multiple planets, and knowledge being lost forever with the march of time as the original settler generation died off and was replaced by new generations born outside the solar system? I think the answer is:

Oral tradition. See, one of the things that fans of the series have been talking about for a while is the implications of the myriadic duration of the Empire, what that would have done to language and culture in the Nine Houses and among BOE, how is it that people can still be speaking the same language or reading the same writing as from the time of the Resurrection, let alone remember memes and cultural references from the 21st century? This is a fair reaction from a Western perspective - after all, ten thousand years ago would be roughly 8000 BCE or smack dab in the Early Neolithic. Surely it would have been impossible for the memory of Earth to have survived that long. 

But, as people have said, Tamsyn Muir is writing a very Kiwi series. And one of the things that is very distinctive about the culture of Aotearoa is the oral traditions of the Maori and Pasifika cultures more generally. While Maori oral histories go back to the 13th century CE when Aotearoa was settled, Australian Aboriginal oral tradition goes back as far as potentially 30,000-40,000 years. Oral tradition is not perfectly reliable, it undergoes drift and change over time, it can experience loss and disruption (from colonization, for example), but it can endure across millennia. 

My theory is that these nerds on the FTL ships or their descendants dedicated themselves to the mission of cultural preservation through oral tradition, and thus the Messengers were born. And at some point, the Messengers met up with Blood of Eden and explained that John Gaius’ colonial campaign wasn’t just an unjustified act of aggression and imperialism, but an act of cultural genocide stretching back 10,000 years:

“I charge you with...the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations, by use of-”

“...they’re dead words--a human chain reaching back ten thousand years...how did they feel?” (Harrow the Ninth)

Somewhere around this point, then, BOE took as its mission the preservation of the Messengers, which is why they are given BOE bodyguards, why discharging a weapon in their presence is grounds for execution, and why they are both deeply respected and honored by BOE but kept away from sensitive missions and not necessarily kept in the loop on critical intel. 

Why AIM is “They”

This part of my theory suggested an explanation for why AIM is called “they” by Blood of Eden, and why Palamedes Sextus sensed a necromantic implant when they “stumbled” into AIM at the school. We know that the Sixth House has been in contact with Blood of Eden for a very long time, and that Cassiopeia was not only responsible for the Sixth’s “break clause” but also was BOE’s “Source Gram.”

My theory is that Cassiopeia and the Sixth, being a bunch of librarian nerds obsessed with the preservation of cultural knowledge, would never have been entirely comfortable with taking John Gaius’ word for what happened during the Resurrection and what life was like on pre-Resurrection Earth. The natural place to look for an alternate source of documentation would be exo-humanity, and I think she/they went looking clandestinely and came across the Messengers and BOE. Somehow, they avoided killing each other and came to a modus vivendi.

I think part of this modus vivendi was an offer by Cassiopeia/the Sixth to provide the Messengers with an improved means of preserving their oral tradition: namely, a necromantic implant that would preserve the ghosts of dead Messengers and let them communicate with their successors, ensuring that the oral tradition could be passed down perfectly from generation to generation. After all, not only are the Sixth House spirit magicians, but they are specialist psychometricians who know better than anyone else how to pull information about and from the past from material objects, and it was Doctor Sex who gave Palamedes the idea for preserving revenant spirits after death by giving them a physical anchor. 

Hence, AIM is they because they are a collective “human chain” of all the Messengers who came before them - they have the voices of hundreds of cultural preservations in their heads, telling them of all that was lost with the fall of Eden. No wonder they want to play school teacher and be “she” for a while. 

Conclusion

TLDR: BOE aren’t trillionaires, they’re commie terrorists with a fetish for cultural preservation. So I guess this makes the whole war a case of leftist infighting, considered in the long run?

[obiwan]

Hi! I just started watching the Star Wars prequels and I want to read some obikin fanfictions but I don't know where to start so if you have any recommendations for me I could really asappreciated.

Have a good day/night!

Hii! I keep saying I'm going to do this because I have so many messages like this - and what I usually try to do is leave the most "famous" ones out of reclists, because most likely everyone has read them, but they were also the first ones I've read. So I will try to do a combination of both new and old fics which I consider "classics". Also a reminder that I have already posted this this & this before. And oh boy this got long.

✰(Explicit, Complete) When the Abyss Stares Back at You  by skyl_tales

Pausing the holovid, Mace looked from Anakin to Obi-Wan. "This holovid was taken on planet Revoran two days ago."   In the holovid, the golden-eyed Anakin looked at something just out of frame. There was something distinctly hungry and possessive about that gaze. It made a shiver run up Obi-Wan's spine--because he recognized that look. He'd seen Anakin look that way at Senator Amidala.

But it wasn't Senator Amidala who stepped into the camera's view. It wasn't Senator Amidala the Sith yanked closer and kissed.

It was Obi-Wan.  [Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent to investigate the sighting of a Sith Anakin, who appears to be in a relationship with an older version of Obi-Wan.]

This is one of my favourite Obikin fics, and if you enjoy time travel shenanigans chances are you will enjoy this too. skyl_tales wrote some of my favourite fics for this fandom, so if you enjoy this, I suggest you check their other work as well!

✰(Explicit, Complete) If I only knew by wanderlove

Newly knighted Obi-Wan Kenobi and his padawan, Anakin Skywalker, have been sent to Ryloth on a simple diplomatic envoy. While there, an unsettling incident causes Obi-Wan to look at Anakin in a new light and re-evaluate…everything.

The Galaxy will never be the same.

aka: "come for the obikin, stay for the tzai and deep emotional discussions that dismantle every single misunderstanding in the prequels."

Beautiful story!!!! This is honestly one of the most wholesome and "fix-it/what-if" kind of canon obikin fics I've ever read. I really really recommend reading this if you're just getting into Obikin and the SW-verse in general.

✰(Explicit, Complete) Moonlight Serenade by Lemon (@renlyslittlerose)

“Glad you came,” the man said. He pushed away from the lamppost and approached Anakin, his hand held out for him to take. “I realized I never properly introduced myself. I’m Major Kenobi, but you can call me Obi-Wan.”

Anakin took his hand and shook it, their touch lingering for just a little longer than was normally acceptable. It felt like holding on to fire. “Flying Officer Skywalker. But most call me Anakin.”

An accident in 1944 over the fields of France puts an end to Anakin’s flying career. Discharged and sent back to Canada, Anakin must confront the ghosts of his past and find a new path forward.

This is a WWII AU - so beware of that in the first place, but I have always enjoyed historical AUs, and this is very beautifully done. It spans over a long time (my favourite) and does it so well.

✰(Explicit, Complete) To Eden by Unfortunate17

Accused of masterminding the Jedi Temple bombing, Obi-Wan is expelled from the Order.

Anakin is left to pick up the pieces.

This fic. THIS FIC!!!! I don't have anything to say about this - read this fic (in fact read everything written by this author - they have a bodyswap fic called Gray Matter) I really enjoy their characterization of both Obi-Wan and Anakin and the story telling is amazing. Truly love them.

✰(Teen, Complete) Don't be Afraid. by spqr

Tainted by your encounter with the Sith, you are, Obi-Wan imagines Master Yoda saying. Fix you, we cannot. To the AgriCorps, you shall return.

“Padawan Kenobi,” Yoda says, after a moment. “Complete your training, Master Skywalker will.”

Another reverse AU! I realise this is one of those 'either you love it or hate it' tropes, but I do love it, so I include it in my recs. I enjoy imagining the scenarios of Jedi Master Anakin and Padawan Kenobi, so if you think that's something you would also enjoy, give this a chance!

✰(Explicit, Complete) Fearless and the Negotiator by @zimriya

Anakin Skywalker is a superhero. He spends his nights roaming the streets of Coruscant alongside his superhero partner—a man called the Negotiator whom he has never seen without a mask, and yet whom he loves desperately all the same. By day, Anakin works an uneventful nine-to-five at Jedi Inc., doing his best to remember that he cannot murder his coworkers—even if they are called Obi-Wan Kenobi and are the literal worst.

A superhero AU!!! I love his au because it's so well done and so well thought out (the details in this!!!) and I love enjoying Obi-Wan in white spandex. Like that's my bread and butter right there. Either way, if you enjoy marvel-esque superheroes and Obi-Wan and Anakin is the usual idiots they are, give it a go <3

✰(Explicit, Complete) if you love me, let it remain unnamed by @tennessoui

Obi-Wan Kenobi is grappling with his failure to protect his padawan from Dooku's blade. As the galaxy around them plunges into civil war, he overcorrects and refuses to allow Anakin's Knighting ceremony in order to keep him by his side where he will be safe.

His padawan is less than pleased.

Only trying to help, the Force overcorrects Obi-Wan's overcorrection and pulls them into an alternate universe where they run into a different version of Anakin Skywalker altogether.

But Obi-Wan Kenobi is also grappling with new, sudden, and insistent feelings for his padawan. He overcorrects by following the older version of Anakin into bed.

His padawan is less than pleased.

The Force….lets them figure this one out on their own.

OBIWAN GETS TAG TEAMED. OBIWAN GETS DOUB- [gunshot] Look, this fic is hot but beyond that, I loooove time travel shenanigans, and Anakin being pissed off at a future version of himself is so delicious.

✰(Explicit, Complete) Lex Talionis by @intermundia

The ancient Galactic Republic is dying slowly—an ugly death of corruption, sprawl, and decay—with the sin of slavery hanging over its every triumph. The beleaguered Jedi Knights are too few to adequately patrol and police the entire Republic, and are faced with complacency and greed at every turn. Born into a crumbling and stagnant galaxy, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are faced with the greatest challenge of all: themselves.

Obi-Wan likes rules and control. When the galaxy around him stops playing by the rules, what is a Jedi to do? Anakin needs rules and restraint. When the galaxy around him conspires to set him loose, what is his Master to do? Falling slowly or falling fast, falling through lust or falling through wrath—it all leads to delusion and moral decay. What can be born from the ashes?

Or, how Obi-Wan and Anakin fell to the dark side, obtained their revenge, and saved the galaxy in the process.

An insane canon-divergence AU, this is so intricate and could truly be a movie of its own lol. It features (eventually) sith! Obi-Wan and sith! Anakin, so beware of that, but I don't want to spoil that story. Also that I would never rec any story that has a sad ending :)

✰(Explicit,A/B/O, Complete) i shouldn't cry (but i love it) by blahzarry

Obi-Wan knew alphas that liked to be taken existed. He knew it was possible. But not once in his life had he felt even tempted to try it.

...It's exactly what it says on the tin. Once again one of those: either you will love it or hate it kind of tropes I think, omegaverse is what it is. If you're familiar with it and the idea of an Alpha Obi-Wan growing to enjoy submission sounds like up your alley (it is mine,) then by all means!

✰(Teen, Complete) that mouth of yours looks like it gets you into trouble by @tennessoui

Obi-Wan Kenobi inhales a powder that compels him to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Good thing Obi-Wan doesn't have any secrets.

or,

by god, Obi-Wan Kenobi is forced to talk about his feelings. It's, on the whole, regrettable for everyone involved. Or it would be once everyone stops laughing about it.

Fairytale tropes! I've always loved truth serum/truth spell trope where one party is obliged to tell the truth. Add one repressed Obi-Wan Kenobi into the mix? Perfection. I looooove this fic so much, it's wholesome and touching at the same time.

✰(Explicit, Complete) The Bottom of the Ninth by @ragnarlothcat

"No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball." - Casey Stengel

Obi-Wan Kenobi is the veteran catcher of the Coruscant Jedi, a talented baseball team that have been down on their luck. The addition of rookie pitcher Anakin Skywalker might be a sign all that's about to change.

Especially for Obi-Wan.

Lmao anyone who knows me a *little* bit knows that I have an obsession with sports aus. This is no exception. Granted I know *nothing* about baseball, but this was a perfect balance of actually explaining the sport without getting too heavily into details and making it a perfect obikin story. WE 👏 NEED 👏 MORE 👏 SPOTS 👏 AUS 👏

✰(Teen, Complete) the sound of your voice (helps me find peace) by izazov

It was a promise to Qui-Gon Jinn that had allowed Anakin Skywalker into Obi-Wan Kenobi's life. But it was Obi-Wan Kenobi who had allowed Anakin Skywalker into his heart.

OR (more accurately):

Five times Anakin had to ask for a story. And one time Obi-Wan offered it freely.

Ahhh this author, this fic. It's so beautifully written, canon compliant au, and it just hurts (in the most beautiful, gut wrenching way). It's beautifully melancholic, I always love their works even if they leave me with a pang in my chest.

✰(Explicit, Complete) Conceal Me What I Am by @himboskywalker

Separatist Propaganda is turning the Republic against the Jedi Order and the Senate sees no choice but to join in a political alliance to fight dissent on a unified front.An alliance is proposed through an arranged marriage,between a Jedi Knight and Republic Senator. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are chosen as representatives of the political union by Darth Sidious, meant to bring ruin to the marriage and the public's support of the Jedi,for Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the Beta he claims. But even Sidious does not know of the secret Anakin Skywalker keeps, that he is not the Alpha the galaxy believes him to be.

Another omegaverse fic!! This time with omega Anakin and alpha Obi-Wan in disguise. I read this fic eons ago (read: when I first got into the fandom) but it always stuck with me, because I love sneaky stuff like this - also it's plot driven! It's an au but within the same universe, so again, if you don't have anything against omegaverse, give it a read.

✰(Teen, Complete) we should run after each other (and be with one another) by Resacon1990

Even though he’s still full of anger and rage, he pushes it all aside to force a smile and squeeze Anakin’s shoulders.

“No, Anakin,” he says quietly, “I could never blame you for his death.”

It’s the first time Obi-Wan ever lies to Anakin.

or

Five times Obi-Wan lied to Anakin, and the one time he told the truth.

Another 5+1 fic!! I love this fic, also semi canon compliant, and very much gut wrenching. I love this kind of story telling where we get to see the span of their lives throughout 5+1 thingies. This is a beautiful story <3

✰(Explicit, Complete) Swear On It by dirkygoodness

Anakin lets his feet take him a good ways from camp before he actually stops, breathing fast from the memory of his dream.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight against it and holds his breath for a moment, trying to get himself under control. Tonight it doesn’t seem to be working, though, because the images of people he knows and loves hurt and bloody and dead just won’t get out of his mind.

YOOO - this is one of the first fics I've read in this fandom and oh my god. It's kind of PWP - but the characterization, the feeling, the EMOTION. It's all there. It's a two parter - read them both, it's so good, it's one of those fics where I read it and I was like. Oh yeah this happened in canon.

✰(Explicit, Complete) Bare grace misery by @thedunesea

Anakin let out a pained sound. “I failed my men, I failed you, and now… and now this. Could you, Obi-Wan? Could you come from this humiliation?” His voice broke, and then he was weeping, hot tears streaming down his face even as he kept stroking himself, his sobs of shame intermingling with his whimpers of pleasure. The mixture was so unbelievably erotic Obi-Wan felt his head spin.

Or: Anakin gets poisoned, and the antidote that saves his life has some uncomfortable side effects.

Ahhh, gorgeous fic! Have to say the only version of Dom!Obi-Wan I enjoy is Gentle!Dom Obi-Wan and this fic does it justice! It's such a nice read - I love some self shaming Anakin and Gentle! Obi-Wan guiding him through those feelings.

✰(Explicit, WIP) toss overboard what is too heavy to carry by @tennessoui

In the aftermath of the Clone Wars, Palpatine dead and untold tragedy averted, the Republic struggles to heal and rebuild itself.

Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi attempt to do the same with their own relationship, riddled as it has become with betrayal, distrust, and hurt. It's not going too well. Desperate and unwilling to accept that maybe their friendship is ruined, Anakin finds a counselor they can talk to, one that specializes in healing "teams."

Or, as the counselor would probably put it, married couples, which they are decidedly not. Not that she knows that though. And not that they know that she thinks they're in a romantic relationship either. What a silly assumption to make. It's not like they're more intimate than lovers or anything.

I know I recced this before, and I'm usually against that but lol. This fic, this fic truly holds such a special place in my mind, it fits in SO WELL with the headcanons I have of Obi-Wan and Anakin, the little questionnaires they answer in the end of each chapter - the EVERYTHING. I'm not even exaggerating this fic is what's keeping me tethered to the obikin fandom atm. I really get a bit stupid when Kit's fics are involved, she is probably the author who got me hooked on obikin, so I would suggest checking out her work in general. I could rec anything and everything from her.

✰(Explicit, Complete) You can call me baby (You can call me love) by @lilredghost

Four times Anakin calls Obi-Wan an old man, plus one time he realizes how much it bothers him.

I love Sub!Obi-Wan who loved being called baby and who is also a bit insecure and this is why this fic is here sue me.

✰(Mature, Complete) Fringe believers and hopeless wanderers by iiscos

A Jedi falls in love with a kind, but poor mechanic aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.S.C. Terranova.

A Star Wars/Titanic AU

A titanic AU!!! I love this so much, (it does have a happy ending) and the premise is so intriguing, (as someone who has never seen titanic) I love this fic greatly)

Look - this is OF COURSE not a comprehensive list. I tried to compile somewhat of a combo of new and old fics, of course of the ones I've loved. Please do check out the author's other fics if you like their fic you've read! That's a sure way to discover more fic you'll most likely enjoy. Hope you like this, I wish I could do more, but it takes up more time than you can imagine, so, until next time!!!

[d-apperc-adaver]

FORTUNE

Green. Viridescent. It was the first colour his eyes saw and even if we were to take arbitrary guesses, it would be the last he’ll see, for he surrounds himself with green.

At first, it wasn’t ‘bout money. Truly, you could say it was never. It was about the riches of the old farts creation! it was helping and giving, and making art of trees that could conquer even the most steepest plains, that could grow tall and proud, plants of a million kinds each one of them strange or beautiful and birds of the paradise that flew like phantasms whisperings songs of holy news. It was Eden.

He always got attached to objects. I mean, if your parental figure would overlook your help you’d try harder, but cope in the lost moments of loneliness, with what you have left.

He loved his vast forests. But what he loved the most was the big dirt patch the geezer conjured on the more neglected, lower side of the planet, and he made sure that it would get the same treatment as the rest of the creations. But what was most curious about this, is that the objects he got attached to were usually of his own making. Not that he couldn’t accept gifts back then, but he just knew he didn’t deserve them.

And when he got to hell he made the greed ring in its image.Just like the Great Architect did with those humans. Of course he couldn’t replicate it or even get close to the creativity he had back than, his mind was far decayed by insects now.

He used to hate the fact that whatever he did he could not get rid of his siblings teases of how he was acting by the patern of the old geezer, take Fizzarolli and the clown pageant for example. But now he just doesn’t care anymore. He ruined one more bond, no, two. And he could care less.

For now, I can only give you a question, which the answer for might be in this very text :

“What does greedy man want?”

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AHOY HOY! authors notrs! Genuinely dont know how to feel about this. So I got my inspiration from “A fallen Family“ by Anglotorn on ao3 (which got recomended to me by a lovely person in the comments of a post here on tumblr) which WAS GREAT (possible bias cause I have an oc that lives in the envy ring with a scottish accent which ties into the respectives story choice to make Leviathan have a scottish accent :] )

But ANYWAY!! Having the sins come out of the mob spawner at the beging of hell is kinda boringgg.🤑🤑🤑 i mean man. Wheres the real deal, ANGST. No owl soap opera melodrama.

And tbh Im a firm believer in “every character should have a reason“ on big choices (like not something out of your control, or talking without thinking, ehich usually has a resosbn too, despite unconscious)

ANYWAYE HOPE YOU ENJOYD GUIZ!!

[ruddyhotelau]

Since Eve is Adam, is it possible of you explaining how the whole garden of Eden part went in this au?

The Eden event

Our AU will not follow 100% of the events in the Bible but will only rely on a small portion. The rest will come from ideas that we think would be suitable for the AU. Note that everything we write is a product of our imagination and is inspired by the Bible combined with what little scientific knowledge we know.

To get to the event of Adam eating the forbidden fruit in this AU, we need to go back even further, to when God first created one of His experiments: prehistoric humans. These prehistoric people still had imperfect shapes, moreover their brains were still flawed. Although God was not satisfied with this creation of His, prehistoric humans still had the potential to develop further, so God sent them to Earth to live with other animals that He and the other angels had created.

Prehistoric people lived and grew up on the fertile and prosperous land that God gave them. After some time in Heaven, God finally created Adam and Lilith, the first perfect human couple. To God, they were among His most perfect creations, Adam and Lilith perfectly matched what God had envisioned for humans. Because he loved the two of them so much, God specially allowed his two creations to live in the Garden of Eden filled with light and joy.

But Lilith and Adam were not as compatible with each other as He thought. The couple soon broke up and went their separate ways. A short time later, moved by Adam's request, God created Eve to accompany Adam to share his joys and sorrows. Fortunately, the relationship between Adam and Eve progressed quite smoothly, and the two even developed feelings for each other. However, the happiness did not last long when Adam learned information about the forbidden fruit. An extremely interesting one, too... Finally, unable to contain his curiosity, Adam went against God's words and broke the only rule in the Garden of Eden...

Ultimately, due to Adam's actions, evil found its way to Earth and polluted that peaceful world with many disasters, epidemics, and more. As punishment for Adam's act of disobedient, God decided to banish him to Earth - the beautiful planet that is now tainted because of Adam's action as well as forbid him from ever setting foot through the Pearly Gates ever again. Adam's appearance on Earth brought incredible evolution to prehistoric humans, helping them accelerate the pace of evolution.

The Gates of Hell also opened because of Adam's tragic event, welcoming those with cruel and wicked natures. At the same time, it also imposes on the sinners a horrifying curse, an eternal curse that will always torment them, forever unable to escape the fear and pain...

[talesfromawannabejournalist]

History rewritten

"Once upon a time, there lived a glowing city protected by golden gates known as Heaven. It was a city that was inhabited by beings of pure light and goodness who maintained evil and worshipped all good. One of these angels was called Lucifer. He was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation, and beloved by many of his brothers and sisters, especially his father. However, he was seen as a troublemaker by the elders for they believed his ideas were dangerous to their order. So, he was forced to sit and watch as the elder angels began to expand the universe in their ways.

From the very dust that came from the planet called Earth, they created Adam and Lilith. From the moment they opened their eyes, they were told that they were made for each other. To be by each other side through thick and thin, through the good and bad times, until death do, they part. Unfortunately, the first two humans couldn't be more incompatible than they were. Lilith was headstrong and fiercely independent while Adam was incredibly loyal to Heaven and simply wanted to make them happy. However, they both had one thing in common, they both wanted respect and love.

They simply couldn't get that from either.

And it was like that until one day when everything changed. Lucifer had come into the gardens curious about the new humans. When he came across the first man, he couldn't believe what he was before his very eyes. A beautiful human crying his eyes out by a pond. Drawn in by the captivating creature Lucifer comforted him and the two spent their days in Eden falling deeply in love.

One day in the Garden Lucifer decided that on that day he wanted Adam to know what true free will was like. So, he offered the fruit of knowledge as a gift to him, which Adam gladly accepted. However, this gift came with a curse. For with this single act of disobedience, sin had entered the world with it a new era of evil came with it. And the order Heaven tried to maintain was shattered. As the angels came down to punish Lucifer but Adam stepped in and told them that if they were going to punish his love then he demanded that he be given the same punishment.

With heavy hearts, they did as Adam wanted and cast him and Lucifer into the dark pit that was created by the reckless act. Never allowing either of them to see the good that came from free will only the cruel and the wicked. That did not dismay the couple in fact it only brought them closer, while Lucifer lost his will to even have that dream, he had found a new one in his family. For soon after they established their home, they were blessed with a baby boy, Cain. and then soon after their son Able, and then finally a baby girl named Charlotte. Lucifer focused all his being into keeping them safe and happy.

As for Adam, he thrived as the Queen of their kingdom empowering any and all demons with his voice and his music, and as Hell's population grew so did its power. Adam's hope still remains to this day and hopes that his dream will one day be passed on to all of his children."

Adam closed the book he was reading to his daughter, saw her tired expression, and chuckled before getting off the bed, placing the book on the nightstand, and tucking her in. As he kissed Charlie goodnight his daughter asked him,

"Mama, what happened to Lilith?"

Adam paused and thought about what to say to his little one who was giving a sleepy questioning look with her adorable curious eyes. He sighed and said.

"I honestly don't know Hun, but from my understanding, Lilith eventually died and was placed in Heaven. Or at least that's my conclusion since we've never seen her down here."

Adam shakes his head before giving his daughter a comforting smile and continuing, "It's best not to think about it, now get to sleep, my little princess." Adam gives her one last kiss before turning off the lights and heading out of her room. Closing the door, he turns and sees his husband leaning against the wall with a contemplated look. As he stared at the other side of the walls. Adam cleared his throat and Lucifer looked at him before giving a shaky smile.

"Hey, honey I just came in to kiss Char-Char goodnight. Sorry I couldn't be there for story time, but paperwork can truly be a bitch to deal with ha-ha."

"Are you ok?" Adam asked while raising an eyebrow. Lucifer tried to reassure his queen but only sighed as he looked away, guilt eating at his insides like a parasite.

"I, I heard the story you told Charlie, I heard everything, and I... (sighs) You know that's not how it exactly went right?" "Yes, but I don't plan on ever telling them the truth, the full truth, because even though you were a selfish asshole then doesn't mean you're that same person now." Adam gives Lucifer a small smile before placing a hand on his cheek and turning his face gently towards him. "Now you are the gentle and kind father and husband who'd do anything for his family, including saying goodnight to our daughter quickly so he can give his queen a goodnight kiss as well" Adam winked before turning and walking away to their bedroom.

Lucifer smiles at the retreating form of the human-turned-demon and quietly makes his way into his daughter's room. he tiptoed toward Charlie who was fast asleep. Bending down he gave his little light a loving fatherly look while gently petting the top of her head. "I'm so thankful that you are my daughter more than anything Charlie. That goes the same for your brothers, and the same for your mother, I'm thankful for this family more than anything, and I'll do anything to protect this family through whatever means necessary." Lucifer said his voice barely above a whisper. Conjuring up one of Charlie's many stuffed animals he places it right in his daughter's arms causing her to subconsciously smile and hug the toy tightly. Lucifer stood up and with one last look teleported his way to his bedroom where his queen waited patiently for his arrival.

[rocketyship]

BE’s Angel’s + the world idea

The Seven Trumpets

Okay so super simplified there was a war and the world was devastated, only coming to an end when an Angel came from heaven, bringing seven stars with her and slaying the beast that had ravaged the earth. Following the war, the angels declared that humanity is incapable of taking care of itself and needs them to rebuild the world. Thus came the seven gardens and heaven’s monolith.

Each Angel governs a one of the gardens which are as follows (featuring pictures from Pinterest to convey an idea)

Meadow

Governed by Doir. The meadow is one of the smaller gardens, mainly consisting of the humans who had been the least injured in the battle and are mostly young adults. (Humans only began living in the gardens 100 years after a stasis). This Garden is much like a small country side village, with the sole goal of keeping the humans as happy and healthy as possible. Doir herself typically appears like holograms around the area, and personality wise is kind of a valley girl stereotype all be it she is incredibly intelligent and very knowingly putting on a show for the humans she watches. To those who were saved by her during the conflict actually know her to be more brutal than she lets on, although they know better than to say anything.

The two of the humans here: Evan and Tiffany

Paster

Governed by LAMB, the general area is very similar to that of the meadow, however the main difference besides the bizarre amount of sheep that wonder the area, generally houses children and contains educational facilities also ran by LAMB. LAMB herself is soft spoken, small, and seemingly harmless and childlike herself: however she is in fact one of the eldest angels and simply takes on a form that she believes to be the most comforting to the children under her care. She is the most protective and because of this entering the Paster is near impossible from any one or even the other angels to do so.

Naomi resides here

Eden

An area where the flora and wildlife of the old world returns. A large area, and least populated, mainly by biologists and other experts. Eve is a silent creature, however she is ever watchful nicknamed the eyes of the heavens by the humans around her. Eden is ever growing, getting bigger and bigger, its plant life and animals (all biologically altered by Eve) are shipped to the other gardens constantly and has the end goal of repopulating the endless snowy surface of the earth in the lush greenery of the past.

Labyrinth

All the humans (with some exceptions) here are currently still in stasis. Paige the most robotic of the angels. Cold and calculating, he has a goal to create rapid human evolution and study to create the perfect humans to repopulate the planet. He is not the most liked amongst the angels but he doesn’t really care. As whilst he does love the humans like the other angels, he goes about it in very questionable ways.

Becky resides here.

Sanctuary

Guarded by Uriel, this garden is a large industrial city, built over the ruins New York, this area is the most populated. Its geography being that of a dense forest that gradually fades into the main city. Its lower levels are flooded, full of marine life of all kinds. Although it’s up for debate which are real fish and which aren’t. During the war Uriel was the main combatant against the machines destroying the world. She is large, ruthless, and constantly policing her city to ensure the best possible outcomes and work ethics. This garden has the largest population.

Gloria resides here

The Crypt

Behold the Mercy of night, where the calamity at last sleeps.

No humans rest here. No soul ever seeks. The crypt is there for a reason. Marah must stay in her chrysalis. No matter the cost

Gone

He’s gone. An angel ripped from heaven. The Garden missing, its inhabitants lost.

[aboxthecolourofheartache]

box- youve got me interested in trigun but alas i have no idea what it is, pls help me understand

Oh god, my sincerest apologies ^^;;;

Trigun is a space Western and a thinly veiled allegory. It’s about a pair of twins, Knives Georg and Belts Georg, who are ideological opposites (except when they aren’t; they’re both extremists). This would be fine, except they are also insanely powerful interdimensional biological generators/space angels, making their conflict one between essentially minor gods. So they make their trauma Everybody’s Problem. One of them (Knives Georg) has set himself up as a cult leader with the intent of obliterating the human race because humans keep other, less independent, interdimensional biological generators/space angels captive as tools somewhere between Star Trek replicators and batteries. He gives this several goes, first by sabotaging humanity’s fleet of spaceships and crashing everyone onto a barren planet without resources in a painfully obvious reference to the expulsion from Eden/fall from Heaven, then by making his brother blow up a city, and lastly by stealing as many of the dependent generator angels as he can and trying to kill humanity via depravation and war crimes. His brother (Belts Georg) is a pacifist gunman who has internalized his trauma differently and does not want to obliterate humanity. In fact, he wants to stop his brother doing that, so he makes multiple badly-planned attempts to end the conflict until one of them sticks. He also lives on the run as a reviled, hated outlaw and a legend after Knives Georg made him blow up a city. The story is one long, intense interrogation of pacifism as an ideal, the consequences of taking or sparing lives, and answers the age-old questions: if nuclear bombs were sentient and afraid of exploding, could/would they love us? And: what would a traumatized angel do with a gun?

Come for the aesthetic, stay for the blatant biblical references and the gut-wrenching tragedy.

And yes, there are, in fact, three guns. One’s a species of Colt (.45 Long Colt?? I do not remember off the top of my head) or the bastard offspring of a Colt and a cinder block, the other is a prosthetic arm, and the last one is a flesh arm that’s actually a biblically inaccurate angelic energy-missile launcher. (OR they are two matching Colts and a spiritual bazooka with a bonus prosthetic arm gun. Depends on the version. As of now, Stampede (2023) only has two guns. The third is much anticipated.)

There are three versions of the story, too. The manga (personally my canon of choice, explains nothing and yeets events at you, incomprehensible fight scenes, emotionally devastating in ways the other two cannot even begin to touch), the 1998 anime (very good, made while the manga was still being written, has its own thing going on, suffers terribly from 1990s anime-itis aka bizarre sexism), and the 2023 anime (very good, mix-and-match canon that turns the timeline into pretzels, suffers from 12-episodes-long-itis with too much happening and not enough time to explore things).

[nonagesiiiimus]

eden's tlt reread: GTN, chapter one (pgs. 15-24)

before i really get into it, there's a few things i'm going to try and track throughout this reread (with some color coding, ooh): for right now, i'd like to start with words i had to look up, references to threes or other significant numbers, physical structure of the settings, and foreshadowing. i'll probably add some more things to track as i go.

interlude: on the Ninth House's layout

briefly, i want to talk about the description and structure of the Ninth house. we get some descriptions on pgs 15- 17, and 23 in the first chapter, with more peppered throughout the book. Gideon says that "this late in the equinox no light would make it [to the Ninth] for months", which puts the Ninth on the far reaches of the solar system (pg. 15). based on the rest of the description: no atmosphere of its own, rocky, freezing cold, it's easy to say this is Pluto. there's a quote later in the book when they are on the First and Gideon is confused by the nighttime that confirms this: “Griddle,” she said, “this planet spins much faster than ours.” At Gideon’s continued blank expression: “It’s night, you tool” (pg 86). one day on Pluto is equal to a week on Earth, so it makes sense for her to be confused about this new circadian rhythm.

now, for the structure of the ninth: it's pretty straightforwardly a tunnel down the center of the planet, with offshoots and balconies facing inward of the tunnel: "the Ninth was an enormous hole cracked vertically into the planet's core, and the prison a bubble installation set halfway up into the atmosphere where the living conditions were probably a hell of a lot more clement" (p. 23). clement = mild, merciful. there seems to be a first floor/ main bottom layer, where the "cold white doors of Castle Drearburh" are set (p. 16). we can assume as well that the tomb is also in the Castle Drearburh, along with the church. there seems to be different tiers cut into the tunnel that are living quarters and other rooms, and a splitoff point that leads out towards the landing pad: "Leaving her cell and swinging her pack over one shoulder, she took the time to walk down five flights to her mother's nameless catacomb niche [...] then came the long hike up twenty-two flights the back way [...] heading to the splitoff shaft and the pit where her ride would arrive" (p. 15). they must be pretty significant structures built into the surrounding walls of the drillshaft. this is emphasized by a later quote that says "They hadn't managed to cozen [Giden] inside Drearburh for a good two years", meaning Gideon must have had no reason to go into Drearburh for all that time- her living quarters and spaces are all separate of the castle (p.36). the landing field for the shuttle seems to be up the splitoff shaft really high up, on a terrace above all the living quarters (but not above the snow leek fields, which must be on the highest terrace?)

back to regularly scheduled c1 thoughts

~ chapter one ~

a wee bit of foreshadowing here: "Gideon never ran unless she had to", first appearing on the very first page of GTN, only to reappear later when Dulcinea/Cytherea faints at Canaan House!

the use of would instead of could in this quote: "her mother hadn't been in there since Gideon was little and would never go back in it now" (p.15): idk if this is anything, but to me it emphasizes Wake's willfull spirit.

first mention of frontline titties of the fifth on pg. 18 in talking with Crux!

the interaction with Crux is so sick and twisted and gross but also some of the first we get to see of Gideon's banter and personality. i also personally love the descriptors tamsyn uses for Crux's speech: bubbles, croaks, gurgles. it's gross and perfect

Crux says, "one day we will use your parts for paper" (p.19). this brings up one of my biggest and most longstanding questions: what is flimsy, and what is the deal with organic material in the Dominicus system? tamsyn muir has confirmed that flimsy itself is an oil-based paper akin to a plastic film, but this topic is deserving of its own post later on because i have a lot of thoughts. however, harrow later has a journal that has a cover of "tanned human leather" (pg. 146). yuck. maybe both are used? maybe the oil that flimsy is made of is derivative of humans fat? ew.

"You talk so loudly for chattel, Nav" (p. 18). chattel= n enslaved person held as the legal property of another, a bondsman

"Gideon was home free. Gideon was gone" (p. 20). this made me laugh because of a joke from HTN: when Augustine tells Harrow that if he wants Ortus the First to go, “he’ll be giddy-gone", which i unfortunately don't have the page number for but is funny to me here when reflecting. gideon, giddy-gone!

"[Aiglamene] simply backhanded Gideon the way you might hit a barking animal" (p. 21). this line breaks my heart every single time. gideon is striving so desperately for agency in this moment, and is so discounted even by the one person who she feels might be slightly looking out for her. aiglamene asking "will you disgrace me?" right after this also stings Gideon and stings me- it's an ask for obedience that i just despise on contact.

"sin of perfidy": perfidy = disloyalty, deceitfulness, a deliberate betrayal of trust. the highest sin in Aiglamene's eyes.

another quote that rips my heart out: : "Nobody had ever loved [Gideon] in the house of the Ninth" (p. 22). brb, crying my eyes out.

FIRST COMMANDER WAKE MENTION! pg. 23 tells the story of Wake tumbling down the drillshaft and landing brain dead in a hazmat suit, with one-day old Gideon in a bio-container plugged into the suit. there's a fabulous quote here that says "she was too far gone by the time the exhausted nuns had tethered her by force, as though death had been the catalyst for the woman to hit the ground running, and they only got one word out of her: she had screamed Gideon! Gideon! Gideon! three times, and fled" (p. 23). not only do we see the foreshadowed antics of Commander Wake's spirit here, but we also see one of our first references to the number 3. threes become pretty important and reoccuring in this book, for reasons that i think require their own post.

one other number thing: this is gideon's 87th attempt at escape. 87 could also be a significant number, which may requires its own post on my part. harrow is the 87th reverend mother, there's gideon's 87 attempts. maybe this is a thin thread, but someone posted in this reddit thread that it could be a reference to Judges 8:7:

Then Gideon replied, “Just for that, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers.

it makes sense with Gideon's name referencing the demise of someone else, as Tamsyn helpfully addended, but it might be too thin of a theory.

this concludes my thoughts on chapter one! super excited to keep rolling on this deep dive.

[wrengrif]

It's Thought Time again

So I've been rolling over this in various posts and reblogs, and I'm finally going to pin down my thoughts and write them here. Some might call this my 'Aziraphale Defense Post', but that's not accurate.

This is my William James take - meaning, everyone's reality is different due to perspective. What is true to me is not going to be true to you, 100% of the time. However, there is a facet of truth in everything we do believe, because we wholeheartedly believe it. That gives us a rainbow of truths from one opinion, each in their own radiant color.

So here's what I believe to be true. 6000 years ago, Heaven and Hell, on two completely different missions, sent the angel and the demon they found the most annoying to Earth. Not the weakest, not the most problematic (not yet anyways), but the ones they all collectively rolled their eyes at. Crowley was too flash. Aziraphale was too soft.

So God plopped Aziraphale in Eden, told him to protect the humans and not let them eat the apple tree that was sitting right there in front of them. Didn't tell him to put up a fence, or wave the flaming sword at them.

Satan booted Crowley upwards and told him to vaguely, 'start some trouble'. Vaguest of orders, no real direction in them. Crowley could have just thrown rocks at Adam and Eve and it would have counted.

We all know what happened from there. However, instead of Heaven and Hell going, 'Okay we're going to really pin down these orders now, sending more troops, let's get humanity really going' ... they basically left Aziraphale and Crowley alone in the office for 6000 years. Oh, the head offices occasionally pop up. Threaten, in their own unique ways. Mostly though, Crowley and Aziraphale were the only immortal beings on a planet filled with human mayflies.

Human mayflies that nine times out of ten would just set fire to themselves, or show greater compassion than either one of them had ever known.

Crowley and Aziraphale were all alone, except for each other. Even among humans, who they clearly understood more than their superiors -- you had to know they both stuck out. Yeah, think on that. Crowley couldn't have been the only one outcast, with his red hair and his yellow eyes. Aziraphale has the most white-blonde, curly hair in existence. Tag along with blue eyes and fair skin and come on. So at the beginning, they only ever really had each other for safe company. As they moved towards Europe, it got easier to fit in but even then you know people were still giving them the side-eye.

They were both transitory - following where-ever a mission went. Probably a home for maybe ten or so years, but then they'd have to move on again. We talk a lot about how Crowley didn't have a physical home until the creation of the bookshop.

That means neither did Aziraphale.

So what happened? They became home to one another. A touchstone in the centuries that passed. Aziraphale never rejected being approached by Crowley, despite being a demon, and Crowley never held Heaven's stupid missions again Aziraphale, so they kept coming together. Over and over again. Think of Rome. Aziraphale is so happy to see Crowley, and it's only been a few decades. Crowley's mood improves the longer the conversation goes on, letting down his defenses, relaxing enough to smirk.

The Arrangement, thought of by Crowley, agreed to by Aziraphale, despite the dangers they both knew they would face, because at least it meant they could see each other without having to make an excuse or just 'happen to be in the area'. Now they could meet up at theatres or in graveyards. They had to be careful - they always, always had to be careful - or the other one could be hurt.

It is the worst thing that can happen to either one of them, if the other one is hurt, or worse, killed. Remember Aziraphale's face in the graveyard, that look of sheer horror when he realizes Hell has taken Crowley.

Remember Crowley yelling as he runs into a burning bookshop.

The bookshop and the Bentley are theirs, but they can lose those and still go on, as long as they have each other. Maybe it is co-dependent, but honestly who else can they depend on, if not each other? That's why I believe Aziraphale begged Crowley to come with him to Heaven, not because he wanted Crowley to be an angel, but because Crowley would be safe - Aziraphale's Home would be Safe. That's why he says, 'Nothing lasts forever'. No Thing.

Crowley is not a Thing, to Aziraphale. Crowley is Aziraphale's Person. His safe place, and he's Crowley's. They both know it. It's why Aziraphale never wants to run away because he knows he's not fighting for a place called home, he's fighting for Crowley. It's why Crowley walks away and always comes back - not because he's weak but because he knows that being with Aziraphale is what matters. It's what makes life worth living.

Which is what makes the Final Fifteen so heartbreaking because they are both saying the same thing, but they're on different wavelengths. Yet, Yet ... as time has passed and I've been able to look at the Final Fifteen with some space, I see that it's not as hopeless as it seems.

Because Crowley came back. Because Aziraphale looks ready to do what he has to do. I don't think it'll be violence, because they've never solved their problems with violence and I don't think they'll start now. I just know that They're Not Talking is not going to last as long as we think, and that anger and betrayal is not going to be the first thing on their minds when they finally see one another again.

Probably going to be that kiss, though.

This why I could never say I can't forgive Aziraphale for his actions, because he did what he had to do to keep his home, his Crowley safe. I know Crowley knows that, too. How is that all going to shape up - how they're going to find themselves in balance again?

Well. I guess we'll have to wait, and see.

[blue-lollipops-and-ice-clouds]

Sleep Token's "The 100 Songs That Changed Our World" Article.

(Source - photos courtesy the lovely jawsofeden)

Transcript:

100 - Sleep Token

The Summoning

(Take Me Back To Eden, 2023)

The meteoric rise of Sleep Token caught us all by surprise. At the start of 2023, the mysterious masked band were one of the metal underground's buzziest names. Led by enigmatic vocalist Vessel, they were a band to watch, for sure, but firmly attracted the niche passion of a cult following.

Then came the song that would change everything. On consecutive days in early January, the band released two singles from their third album, Take Me Back To Eden: the burning, crashing Chokehold, followed by The Summoning - and it was the latter track that would turn them into an Earth-conquering, expectation-shattering phenomenon.

Veering between depraved tech metal, soulful vocals and shimmering electronics, an enormous, hymnal chorus gave way to an Earth-shifting breakdown and screams. Intricate and groove heavy, The Surmoning was more like three songs seamlessly crafted into one genre-fluid modern masterpiece. And it still had its trump card to play: a bendy, thirst-trap, funk outro that went viral on TikTok, turning the internet intoalusty Take1 puddle. Suddenly, Sleep Token were the most talked-about band on the planet.

"THERE ARE HINTS OF EARLY SLIPKNOT THERE."

COREY TAYLOR

"It took me three listens of [The Sumroning] to realise that when they do that whole psychedelic section at the end, that it's actually the same chorus as it was before, only in a completely different way," Evanescence's Amy Lee told Revolver. "And I love it even more that. I thought they just went a whole new direction and wrote a new part, and then I was like, 'Wait, that's the same...but not at all'."

Sleep Token weren't the most obvious choice for a commercial breakthrough. The success of The Summoning, an unconventional, seven-minute, brutal shapeshifter, bucks just about every music industry trend there is.

"It's going to a lot of different places, and I think there isn't any other band out there right now that's able to do that," Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford said earlier this year.

The Summoning set a chain reaction in motion that was unprecedented in modern metal. In just a few weeks, the band saw their Spotify figures jump from the thousands into the millions. To date, the track has been streamed more than 123 million times on Spotify and 19 million on YouTube. On release, Take Me Back To Eden went straight in at No.3 in the UK and was the most streamed metal album of 2023. When the band announced a show at Wembley Arena, tickets sold out in 10 minutes.

Earlier this year, they left the metal-heavy roster of Spinefarm Records for RCA, the home of mainstream megastars Justin Timberlake and rapper Doja Cat.

"In heavy music, or even in just rock, even in the last decade or 15 years, there's so few stories of bands ever breaking through," says Health bassist and producer, John Famiglietti, who supported the band at Wembley and sees Sleep Token's success as proof metal still can resonate on a massive scale. "This is one of the few times I've seen a band go from a fucking club to an arena in six months. And I don't know the last time that happened."

It's worth pointing out that in the social media era where celebrities and artists are more accessible than ever, Sleep Token have achieved all of this on their own terms. To date, they've barely done any press, while their masked mystique is all part of the allure. Last year, fans reacted with outrage when bassist III's identity and birth certificate were allegedly leaked online, seemingly leading to a decision to wipe the band's Instagram.

"There are hints of early Slipknot there," Knot vocalist Corey Taylor told The Allison Hagendorf Show in 2023, thinking back to the early internet days before Slipknot removed their masks. "At first, we were like, 'Nope. You get nothing. This is what you get, you figure it out. We'll let the music speak for ourselves.

Today, Sleep Token are being mentioned in the same breath as potential future Download headliners Ghost, Gojira, and Architects. The only difference? Sleep Token have managed to ascend to the same level as those bands in a fraction of the time. Metal needs new superstars who will push things forward, innovate and keep the scene relevant - and with Sleep Token we have a band we can believe in. DL

[welcome-to-alfea]

Winx Families: Bloom!

You can find my Bloom redesign here! Her Winx redesign is here!

Just like in canon, Bloom has two sets of parents and her older sister Daphne. Both her Earth family and her Dominon family get along very well and work together to be one blended unit.

Mike and Vanessa Hernandez-Carter are Bloom's adoptive parents. Vanessa runs her own flower shop called The Garden of Eden. Mike used to be a full-time firefighter, but he has since retired and is now working in the shop with Vanessa. They're college sweethearts, and Bloom considers them to be relationship goals.

They're both Bloom's number 1 supporters and have taken finding out their daughter is a fairy princess in relative stride. They love all the girls and regularly host sleepovers for the club.

King and Queen Oritel and Marion WyDrak of Domino are Bloom's biological parents. Marion Fairy of Fury is Queen Regnant of the planet as well as the head of Domino's Council of Guardian Fairies. She's also a holder of the Dragon Flame. Oritel is a wizard and served in the royal military before he married and became king. They were 3700 at the time of Domino's disappearance.

They met at age 20 when Marion snuck out of a ball her parents were hosting to have a moment of peace. Oritel found her in the gardens reading a book of poetry. It was coincidently his favorite poet, and they spent the evening reading to each other.

They are a force to be reckoned with, both on and off the battlefield. Marion is famous through the universe for her sharp tongue. Oritel, while more introverted, is well versed in sarcasm and is not afraid to use it. Privately, they are both huge dorks. They love puzzles, poetry, and studying mythology (a trait Bloom inherited).

Daphne Wydrak is Bloom's older sister. She is the Crown Princess of Domino, Guardian Fairy of Domino, Nymph of Sparks, and a holder of the Dragon Flame. She was 200 years old during Domino's disappearance.

Daphne is a magical prodigy, being accepted into Alfea at only 14. Faragonda recognized her potential and began mentoring her. She was the youngest fairy to earn the title of Nymph, doing so at the age of 100. Her magical prowness is what led the ancestral witches to focus on Domino.

Daphne herself is a rather awkward person, having to live up both to her mother's legacy as well as the accolades she's earned. She loves journaling her spare time and has amassed quite the collection of journals. She's aro ace and is very happy to just have a cat as her companion.

[dreamsinmoonlight]

From Eden

(This. Would. Not. Go. Away. I had this pop up in my head while on a bus and then it kept bugging me until I wrote it so here it is.

It is a very weird fanfic I feel but it's for us Master fans and we're weird and they're weird so makes sense. It is not for one Master in particular; it is for the seven most notable ones, as noted in the notes. I apologize if you wanted more of one particular Master, I do want to make proper ones later but this needed to be the whole group of them.

This whole thing is set to "From Eden" by Hoizer, specifically the Mahogany Session version; I recommend listening to that song while reading this

Fandom: Doctor Who

Characters: The Master (Delgado, Crispy, Ainley, Jacobi/War, Simm, Missy, Dhawan), Reader (Time Lord)

Pairing: Master x Reader

Genre: Romance

Summary: It's a dance, through time, through space, through victories and through defeats. There is so few constants in the universe but you are his.)

It started at one.

He smiled at you in that charming, hypnotic way of his and you felt as if you could trust him to the ends of the universe. You knew deep in your bones that you would and as he offered his hand to you, you took it without a second of hesitation. Those burning eyes of his were upon you and only you; the music played around you and the Tardis hummed along but he seemed only interested in you.

You were his companion, the one and only. There were many for that other bleeding heart, the one who stood against him, the one who kept getting in the way, but you were a singular point and impossible to imitate, if your favorite danger was to be believed. You'd met him more than once, both monster and savior, and you found the man with the suave way of trying to bring upon domination far more interesting.

His smile, his voice, the way he held your hands in his as he danced with you, feeling his touch despite his gloves; his movements were playful but in every step graceful and calculated. There was control to it, to everything he did, and you could not help but trust him to take control, to be in command. Though you knew that the end result could only be trouble. At least you'd face it together.

It went to two.

He was broken, burnt, hurting. And there was a desperation that oozed from each and every pore of a dying body. Regeneration, revenge, survival, destruction, you understood and you followed along still.

But even death had time for a dance. His movements were far more sluggish and stiff, a body that could not move as well, as fast, as easily. But you saw still in his eyes the soul of the man you loved, the spirit of one who could not, would not, be held back by anything, not by imprisonment, not by defeat and surely not by something by as silly and unimportant as death.

The world around you was silent and hurting but you knew all the best ways to make music nevertheless. Though neither of you truly needed it when you were the ones doing it; his body might not be willing to do much but you didn't for a second doubt that he could handle any of this. There was nothing that a monster in the dark couldn't do if he truly tried, if he believed, if he persevered. And this monster certainly would continue on. A new life was not so far away you were sure and though some part of you felt sorry for the one who would be losing out, you really only cared as long as it meant that he would be able to smile and be who he always had been before.

The third lasted.

There was something wild in his eyes and you were uncertain whether to blame the planet you both barely survived escaping. There had always been something in his eyes, an edge of madness, a portion of danger that made your hearts beat all the faster because how you could not be allured by the subtleness in his smile.

But feral was never something you attributed to him before and it made this dance all the stranger and exciting. His hands held you like vices, he pulled you close and in that smile were sharp fangs ready to tear flesh and eat you alive. Yet not a drop of fear beat through your body and you held onto him as he led the dangerous movements of this dance, still controlled and elegant in some far more aggressive way.

He may never be the same, you thought to yourself as you noted the gold to his eyes, and he would never be himself again. He'd been changed in dangerous ways and it was a question not a guarantee that regeneration was coming if he faced it.

But death was ever just a small thing and temporary to him. In those bones that knew that you'd always trusted him, too was the knowledge that it didn't much better to you what changes came.

You smiled and followed him through every step of the dance, holding ever tight to him without fear.

Four came with tragedy.

The universe was burning and it wasn't his fault. The universe was dying and he wasn't the cause. These were strange things to think, to feel, and pain and fear finally found it's way not just into you but into him as well. And it colored those eyes in ways you never imagined.

This could be your last dance together and you both knew it so you were going to make it a good one. The song was the same as it had been at every other junction but it burned into your skin as he held you with a desperation that made you hurt so much.

None of this was your fault; if anyone it was theirs, those monsters who called him a monster, those beasts of stagnation that saw the universe as their toys and as worthless all at the same time. It was that bleeding heart who couldn't bring himself to do what was necessary even if it saved them a lot of heartache.

And now you'd lose your favorite and he'd lose you. But not a word of this passed either lips, held back by the taboo of weakness but you needed no audible words, not when you knew each other as well as you did.

He tried for elegance, as he had done for countless lives, but the wish not to let this actually end turned a waltz into something endless. Every time it could come to the last second he winced and forced the song to start again and you resisted the urge to rest your head against his chest. Because you already could hear his hearts breaking perfectly fine as you were, knowing this couldn't go on. It would end.

It revived in five.

An eternity came and went, in it's wake pain and loss. But fate couldn't keep you apart and you remembered the way the strange desperation in his eyes turned to relief as he forced his way into the hideway on the edge of nowhere you'd locked yourself away in. And though you had not recognized him at first, the way he pressed the pocket watch into your hands and made you open it, the way you felt everything you were meant to be return and the way you immediately realized who he was, who he had always been and always be.

Your mad feral monster and when you spoke his name he smiled with everything he had before doing as you always did, always would. He scooped you up and danced with you, he laughed and told you of what you missed, of the bleeding hearts' acts and his own and what chaos and death and suffering he had wrought. Of the pretty blonde woman he had seduced but oh, never fret, never fear, though he'd truly felt something deep in those broken hearts of his, you were still the one and only true companion to the monster. Proven right by betrayal, by pain and suffering, and he'd nearly burnt himself to death again but he'd won and he'd stolen what he needed from those who hurt him, had always hurt him. And then he came for you. Because you, you were the one good constant in his chaotic vicious cruel existence, and he wanted nothing more than to have you dancing with him once more, loving him despite every act he wrought upon the universe. And this made you feel so loved you forgot about eternity.

Six changed the dance.

She was beautiful, like a rose covered in thorns, like a drop of honey full of poison, like death itself. She smiled and she laughed and she danced about, the skirts of her dress twirling as she did so, her hair a controlled mess upon her head, her eyes glittering with the essence of true madness. And you wanted so bad to press your lips to hers because how could you, the monster's companion, ever, ever resist such a beautiful sight.

Her hand reached out to take yours and you held tight, drawing close and smiling warm as the sun to her ad you joined her. The world was in a tizzy, it always was though whenever she choose to make herself known, and the bleeding hearts would find his way there in no time but there was always time enough for a dance. You two had learned that so long ago that it was less a thought as it was an existence.

Yet something in your hearts told you that things were different, because she didn't seem as keen on the destruction as she was on seeing that troublemaker who always got in her way. Because there was a gentleness you couldn't explain or expect but who were you to ever deny your beloved monster the shards of goodness still left embedded in hearts broken over and over more?

Seven.....Seven....

She died. He woke up. And it seemed like everything had returned to the norm. But there was a childishness and playfulness and giddiness that you knew meant only trouble for the rest of the universe. The bleeding hearts had proven not enough, or maybe the monster had been lacking, but you were biased and you knew this to your core.

He took you by the hand and the song continued to be the same as it had been when he'd been elegant and when he'd been broken.

When he'd been feral and when he'd been afraid.

When he found you again and when she had been almost good.

And in this dance you found all of them, mixed and swirling, and in every way him and every way not. His eyes still burned but they burned in ways different than ever before; he laughed and it was cracks and edges. He schemed and he hoped and he acted and he hurt and killed and destroyed and this time it was his fault, every step of the way. He was the same, he was different, he was himself, he was not.

But still you smiled back at him and you reflected back all the ways you'd changed too, every day you'd spent with him, every time you'd found each other, lost each other, fought the bleeding hearts and every other force against you. And every time you danced.

Still you found, as the music continued, as he held you close, as he smiled and he whispered all his plans, as he tickled your ear with his voice, that one thing had not changed:

You still trusted him to the ends of the universe.

[nobedofroses]

The Garden of Eden, Part III

Summary: Din Djarin x sex worker!fem!reader. You aren’t accepting clients on the day celebrating love, but can you really say no to the Mandalorian?

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: reader is a sex worker, discussions of sex work, smut (18+): grinding, nipple play, unprotected p-in-v sex

A/N: part three 10 months later! that being said, this should be viewed as vignettes into some of their interactions with an overarching theme rather than a narrative plot lmao if that makes sense. They just wanna be horny on fake Valentine’s Day, but happy real Valentine’s Day to all of youuu 💘

Part I, Part II, Directory

(self explanatory hot gif)

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The planet on which the Garden of Eden was located had an annual holiday celebrating love. It celebrated any type of love; familial, romantic, platonic, and any other kind you could think of. Not as big as other holidays, it didn’t have planet-wide festivals, but there were decorations, markets, and food devoted to it. 

It also happened to be one of the only days during the year that you elected not to work. You hadn’t grown up with the holiday, but it was so sweet that you adopted it as your own. Besides, you knew all of your clients should be spending it with their loved ones instead of you, the fuckers. 

Some of the other courtesans also took the day off to celebrate and take part in the festivities. But other than getting some of the specialty food and drinks to take back with you to your room, you liked to spend the day by yourself. You treated it as time to get back in touch with yourself and do any kind of self-care that took longer than you typically had time for. Essentially an entire day when you could just love yourself. 

About midday, you were moisturizing after your long bath when you heard a light knock on your door followed by a moor decisive but short one. Thinking maybe one of your regulars had sent you a gift (not unusual), you slipped on a short satin robe and opened the door to find Lilas and Lys standing in your doorway. Lilas looked unsure and Lys the exact opposite; you always found it funny that they had become so close, but Lys was protective and Lilas accepted their infrequent verbal communication, knowing how to understand them in other ways. But they were empty handed. 

Quirking an eyebrow, you leaned your hip against the doorframe, “You both know I’m not taking any clients today. Madame knows too.” 

“Yes, it’s just that…” Lilas trailed off, looking to Lys for assistance, who rolled their eyes fondly and continued, “It’s Mando.” 

Immediately all of the nerves in your body perked up. Whenever you knew he was near you couldn’t help your reaction. Hell, you were already starting to get a little bit wet. But today was your day. The reason you didn’t take clients was your own, and what would it mean if you made an exception? But it was Mando. 

For others, you wouldn’t even consider it, but with him… there was a bond, an understanding there that you didn’t have with any other client. Any other person. 

Since you preferred to avoid thinking about the emotional aspect, your mind wandered to the physical, how he made you feel better than anyone else had. Better than you could yourself most of the time. Maybe letting him visit you, letting him make you feel good was an act of self-love in and of itself. Maybe— 

“We already told him it was a long shot. We can go tell him no,” Lilas rushed out, taking your long silence for a rejection of the idea. 

“No, um, you can tell him yes, but he has to wait thirty minutes,” you shifted, thinking about how you wanted to get ready for him if this was actually happening. 

“Extra?” Lys asked and you met their eyes quickly. There was a small warning in their gaze and you nodded, grateful for the reminder. 

“Yeah, same as the wake-up cost. Can you tell him?”

They nodded and you smiled briefly before the two walked away and you shut the door. You slumped against the door, instantly starting to question whether you should have done that or not. 

But then you straightened. You didn’t have time for that. If you were going to take your time and get ready for him the way you wanted to get ready for him, you needed to start now. 

___

Thirty minutes later, Din was being escorted upstairs and to your room. He hadn’t known about Love Day; it seemed like planets he visited were always having one sort of celebration or another. So he was surprised that you weren’t accepting clients. And then more surprised that you accepted him. If you had taken the day off, he figured you would be spending it with someone special. But apparently you had been alone. Not that you weren’t special all by yourself. 

Times like these were when he was happy he didn’t speak very much because fuck that was awkward. 

When the courtesans knocked on the door, Lilas and Lys if he was remembering correctly, you told them it was open. Lys pushed it open and the two of them gave him a once-over as he walked past. He was used to being the intimidating one with all of his armor and weapons, but something told him those two were to be feared. 

He entered the room and noticed all the differences to how it was normally. Everything was blanketed in a soft, peachy glow, and instead of the larger light in the ceiling, there were a couple lamps dimmed with scarves over their shades and a few candles. 

The room also smelled like you. Or the fragrance you wore. It wasn’t overpowering, but stronger than it was normally when you had only put it on yourself. Din glanced around the room, finally noticing you on the cushy chair you never seemed to be sitting in. You had been observing him like he had been observing your room. There wasn’t much of an expression on your face, like you were waiting for his reaction and would adjust your response based on that. You were a professional, after all. 

He gestured around the room, “Is this permanent? Or is it for… Love Day?” 

You smiled at his awkwardness and shook your head, “This is what I do when I have a day to myself. Makes it feel different than just where I do my work.” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll pay double,” he told you quickly. 

You smiled again, humming, “That could be good.” 

He was cute, always, but especially when he was being generous and kind. 

You stood then, and could tell even with the helmet and visor that he was looking you up and down. Having traded in your satin robe for a sheer mesh one with lacy edges, he could clearly see the pink lingerie underneath. A see-through corset and a flouncy skirt that did not hide the fact that you weren’t wearing underwear underneath. 

“Is that— is it a traditional Love Day outfit?” he asked, his voice coming out even raspier than normal. It was hard to tell with all the armor and padding, but you were pretty sure you could see his hard-on already. 

“Mmm, maybe more traditional for those that celebrate Lust Day instead,” you said with a giggle, walking over to him to lead him to the bed since he seemed to have forgotten that was where he should be heading. 

Once he was at the edge, he remembered himself and started reaching for the scarf he kept for you. But you put your hand on his arm and said, “I want a different one. You start with the armor while I grab it.” 

He normally didn’t take any armor off until you were blindfolded, but Din reasoned that there was nothing wrong with you seeing the flight suit underneath. While he worked on his vambraces, you went over to a lamp, switched it off, and grabbed the scarf from over top. As long as the light in the room wasn’t tricking him, it was pink as well, but darker than the candy pink of your lingerie. 

You held out the scarf to him and he didn’t bother inspecting it for sheerness, completely trusting that you understood how important it was to him for you not to see his face. 

The familiar feeling of him tying the scarf around your eyes made your body flush with warmth and you sighed, excited for what was to come. Instead of moving to the middle of the bed, though, you just sat on the edge and waited. 

By the lack of armor-removal sounds coming from the mandalorian, you could tell he was confused, so you thought you should enlighten him, “Love Day is my day for myself, so I want to do it my way today.”

You didn’t ask if it was okay or try to negotiate, you just told him what you wanted and waited for his reply. If he really didn’t want to, you would do it his way, but you would be disappointed in some deep way that you didn’t know would mend. 

Three seconds went by before his voice came out clear, “Your way.” 

Relieved and so excited, you couldn’t help but beam and bounce up and down on the bed a little bit, urging him on to, “hurry up and get undressed!” 

He chuckled, amused by your eagerness, and also spurred on by it. While he liked being in control and often felt he had to be to protect his creed, he was excited to see what exactly your way was. 

Once he was undressed, he reached for one of your hands and held it to let you know he was ready. With another smile at the warmth of his skin, you stood and exchanged places with him, briefly running your free hand along his side to feel his muscles and little soft rounded tummy. 

“Get in the middle of the bed, Mando,” you told him, and if there was ever a time that Din wanted you to know his name it was now. But he held his tongue, knowing that would open a door that should stay bolted shut. 

You let go of his hand so he could move and were glad to hear him shifting around, clear evidence that he could follow orders. Once the sounds stopped, you climbed on the bed as well, finding his legs and straddling him at the hips, not quite lined up where you knew his already hard cock was. He could wait a little bit longer, you wanted to drag this out. 

He didn’t move to touch you and at first you were surprised until you realized he was waiting for you to tell him and you were very, very pleased. 

“Touch me, Mando. But only over the lingerie,” you told him in a voice equal parts sweet and stern. 

Din’s hands came to your waist over the corset and he brushed his thumbs in a wide arc, just barely skimming the undersides of your breasts. You shivered and he smiled in satisfaction; he always loved to see how his touch made you feel. 

He could see your nipples harden through the translucent pink and his mouth watered, wanting to hear the little moans you made whenever he sucked on them deep. But he settled for touching them in teasing circles, before gently scratching his short nail over the peak. Your muscles jerked at the sensation and you gasped, your hands moving to his shoulders to try and stabilize yourself. 

His cock was hard between the two of you and while you weren’t touching him he swore he could feel the damp heat emanating from your cunt. The fabric of the little “skirt” you were wearing brushed his cock whenever you shifted and if Din wasn’t careful, that could be enough to undo him. 

He ran his fingers down to the hem of the corset and tugged on it, “Did you buy this?” 

“Why? Are you jealous?” you smirked. But after a couple seconds of him not answering, you kept on since you possibly shouldn’t know whether he was jealous anyway, “I did, wanted something nice all to myself. Can’t wear something this expensive with clients or it’ll get ruined.” 

Din didn’t want to remind you that he was a client and risk you hiding the lingerie away, so he rested his hands on your waist and said, “Did you wear it all day?”

“Mmm, no, I’ve been relaxing, sleeping in, taking a bath. I was just getting ready and was gonna invite some of the others to my room to watch some shows and maybe fool around a bit. Or just cuddle, who knows,” you mused, getting a little distracted by what your plans might have been.

Mando shifted underneath you and you raised a brow underneath the blindfold, “Do you like that? Would you ever want someone to join us?” 

Immediately, Din shook his head, and then told you, “No, I don’t like to share.” 

The steely edge in his voice sent a thrill down your spine and you made a little moaning sound before telling him, “More, touch me more. Anywhere.” 

He used his hands on your waist to pull up closer and then arch your back, leaning forward so he could mouth at your nipples through the fabric. Something about him being too eager or too obedient to take off the lingerie made you very hot and you wanted his cock, now. 

You tried reaching underneath you to palm him, but the way he had maneuvered your body meant your arm wasn’t long enough. But you really didn’t want to stop him from what he was doing to your breasts because it felt so good. Finally, you decided that you could wait for his cock if he was touching your clit instead. 

So you put one hand over his where it was on your waist and started guiding it down between your legs, saying, “Here too. Want you to make me so wet I don’t even need your fingers to stretch me first.” 

Din moaned around your nipple, fingers sliding through your wet folds and thinking you must be nearly to that point already. But he dutifully found your clit with his thumb, the rest of his fingers and palm splayed out possessively over your mound. 

Soon you were moaning in earnest, your hips trying to rock against his hand without accidentally pulling your breasts from his mouth. It was the best dilemma to have, and would have gladly came that way, moaning encouragement and telling Mando how fucking good he was making you feel. 

But when Din felt your wetness drip onto his cock, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He had been hard and leaking precum practically since he had seen your lingerie, and now he needed your pussy. 

He pulled back after one more soft bite to your nipple and used his now free hand (since it was no longer holding your breast exactly how he wanted for access) down to his cock, stroking himself in time to the circles he was rubbing on your clit. 

His breath was heavy, but his tone was determined when he said, “You’re ready now.” 

You could hear the sound of his hand on his cock and got instantly jealous, moving down quick enough that he couldn’t stop you from pushing his hand away when you found it and grabbing his cock yourself. The thick weight of his cock felt just right in your hand, and you knew it felt even better in your pussy. You lowered your hips until his tips brushed against your lips and then started swiping it through your folds to get it wet, your free hand braced on his shoulder for support. 

“Gonna ride— oh fuck,” you moaned as his tip pressed against your clit, “ride you, Mando. Till you fill me with your hot cum.” 

He moaned, his hands on your ass now, squeezing and feeling you up to keep from pulling you down onto his cock. 

“Do you want that, Mando?” 

“Yeah, fuck,” he groaned, hips starting to move up towards your because he needed to be inside of you. 

“T-tell me.” You were torturing yourself as much as him, but you wanted to see just how much he would do whatever you told him. The thought that there might not be a limit made more slick drip down onto his cock. 

He hesitated, moaning instead when you twisted your wrist as you stroked him, but even his pretty moans weren’t enough. “I said, ‘tell me,’” you told him firmly, pressing your nails into his shoulder briefly as a reminder. 

“I want you— dammit,” he cursed as you started lining up his tip with your entrance, hoping you would be able to let him push in if he just said it right, but the soaking warmth distracted him. “Want you to ride my cock.” 

You smiled big and bright, but it quickly melted away into a gasp of pleasure as you sunk down quickly on his cock, taking him all the way to the hilt. 

“Fuck, fuck me,” Din said under his breath, feeling like he was fucking you for the first time again. Which would really not be great since that had only lasted a minute and he wanted this to last forever. 

“I know, just getting, oh, just getting used to how big you are when I’m on top,” you told him, misinterpreting his quiet curse. 

All that did was make him moan again, and he couldn’t help but using his hands on your ass to try and get you to move. If you didn’t move, he might lose his mind.

Now that his cock was fully inside you, you put both hands on his shoulders to brace yourself and started rocking on his cock. Since you were still getting used to the stretch and just how fucking deep he was inside of you at this angle, you didn’t lift off of him very much, just grinding your hips forward and back, fucking yourself about an inch on and off his cock in the process. 

You thought about apologizing for not doing more, but all that came out of your mouth was a breathy moan as somehow his cock was pressing against all the best spots inside of you and the base was grinding against your clit at the same time. You did it again and then again in rapid succession, losing focus on everything that wasn’t his cock. 

Din couldn’t believe his view. Without any guidance or even words from him, you were practically humping his cock, over and over again, letting out these little whines and whimpers that had him throbbing inside of you. He couldn’t see your eyes, but based on the way your head was slightly tilted back and your senseless moans, he would guess that they were rolling back in your head. Oh and fuck, your mouth had been open to make all these sounds, and you were just starting to drool, a nearly overwhelming juxtaposition to how hard you were riding his cock. 

He pressed his lips to the corner of your mouth, an open mouthed kiss to get the spit from your skin, and that was enough to ignite another desire in you. You turned your head to catch his lips and kissed him, and Din was more than happy to absorb all your little sobs. Your kisses were artless, just warm presses of your mouth against his, but Din loved them, loved that you were so fucked out on his cock that you were breaking one of his unspoken rules to only kiss once after sex because apparently you just wanted to that bad. 

After a bit, though, you got too overwhelmed for even that and pulled away to drop your forehead to his shoulder, whining and crying in his ear, “Mando— Mando—” 

With all his attention focused on you, Din hadn't realized how close he was, how fucked out he was too, and before he could even begin to think better, he told you, “Call me Din.” 

Even in your dazed state, you knew what he meant, that Din was his name. The excitement you felt to know it outweighed any coherent thought over whether he should’ve told you, and you said to him, “Oh, Din, I think I’m gonna— Din!”

It was like just saying his real name was enough to make you cum, and you did, fucking yourself with the same short, deep thrusts that kept his thick cock buried inside of you as you clenched around it, covering him in another coat of slick. The pleasure of your high shot through your entire body, sending bursts of heat and desire through all of your nerves and all of your senses until your voice broke and your thighs shook, slowly coming to a stop because you no longer had the strength to keep going. 

It wasn’t until you lifted your head to offer him a kiss and an apology that you needed a second to recover before you could start fucking him again, your body shifting with the movement and revealing a stickier mess between your legs and up inside you that you even realized Din had cum at the same time. You figured out what had happened with a breathy laugh, understanding that one of the waves of warmth that had gone through your cunt hadn’t just been your orgasm, but his. 

That’s when you felt how heavy he was breathing too, and heard his little fucked out moans, your senses too overloaded to have heard the minute before. 

You still weren’t quite back to normal, but you wrapped your arms around his neck and settled yourself more perfectly on his cock, making him whine just a little. You kept from trying to get him to make that perfect sound again by reminding yourself that your legs were absolute jelly, and leaned in to kiss him instead. 

It was relatively short, both you just remembering how to breathe, but sweet and tender like he always was. 

You smiled, kissed his cheek, and said, “Din, I like it.” 

Despite himself, he blushed and grinned shyly, glad you couldn’t see. He tried to think of something clever to say but all that came out of his mouth was, “I like you.” 

A smile unlike any other filled your face and you moved your hand until you found his jaw and brushed your thumb over the grown out stubble that was there, that you loved feeling on your thighs. “I like you too. Can you stay a couple hours?”

Your hope was that the quick transition to logistics would prevent any awkwardness or realizations of being in too deep. 

It seemed to work, as Din chuckled, ducked his head so his nose could nudge at your neck and inhale your scent before asking, “Why? Already want me to fuck you again?”

Your chest got warm with slight embarrassment but even more excitement when you realized his dick was already starting to harden again. You did your best to answer his question, “Well, y-yes, but I also wanted to– oh—” but you got cut off as he deftly maneuvered himself to be kneeling, using the inertia of the motion to get you on your back below him, all the while keeping his cock pressed deep inside you. 

“You were saying?” Din asked, nipping at your pulse point and just barely starting to rock his hips against you. 

“W-was I?” you asked breathily, the smooth slide of his cock fucking away all coherent thought. 

“You were. I think you were about to say that this time, you want to do it my way,” he murmured, his deep, resonant voice washing warm tingles over your skin. 

“Yes, Din,” was your quick reply, earning a snap of his hips into you that made your pussy tighten and breath stutter. You hoped he could stay all day.

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