#It has given me new perspective on things like: not getting wet

[completeoveranalysis]

[3]

FISH AND RAIN FANTASTIC

THANKS xxxHOLiC THIS IS EXACTLY THE MOOD I CRAVED

[littlelovelyra]

The First Move. (Pt 2 of The Change)

Astarion x F!Tav

This time she will not get away. This time Aurelia will pay for helping him. You want to hear her scream.

3,344 words.

Part 2/? I’m thinking of making this a series leading up to C*zador’s demise. I’ve switched perspectives a few times here because there were certain moments I wanted from Astarion’s eyes and not Tav’s, I hope it’s easy to follow.

Part one here

Mature themes Minors DNI

Summary: It has been a few weeks since Cazador turned you into a spawn and returned you to your lover in the hopes of destroying him. He was so sure Astarion would leave you behind and give up. Instead, Astarion has embraced you and your changes, providing you with all the love and care that you had given him. He has seen how hard it has been for you to get used to this new way of living, as you haven’t been yourself. To distract you, he has taken you out for a lesson on hunting. However, it seems there are other plans in store for your evening.

Warnings: Fluff, cuteness, sappy, mentions of Cazador/abuse (I try not to do this too intensely), suggestive flirting/language, death, Tav gets called a wh*re so there’s a warning for that too.

Tav:

As you sit on the balcony of the Elfsong Tavern, you hear his voice lingering in the back of your mind, “I have big plans for you”. The sun sets across the sky, painting it a beautiful pink and orange, and you catch yourself savouring the view, knowing that once the tadpole is gone, you will not have the luxury of witnessing such beauty again in person. However, your thoughts keep returning to Astarion. You imagine him all alone, going through these changes with nobody by his side, and your heart aches for him. How much pain and loneliness he must have experienced all these years.

The nightmares are always the same. You find yourself in a cold, wet cell as Cazador throws you around like you weigh nothing. It all happens so fast. Panic and fear take over your entire being as he bites down on your neck. Once he leaves the cell, you look down at your hands, only to realise they are not yours. No, these hands belong to Astarion. Shortly after, you are transported out of his body, looking into his cell, watching him cower in fear, his soul breaking repeatedly. That’s when your screaming begins.

“So my sweet, what do you think?” He asks you, taking both your hands in his and dropping his gaze to meet your eyes.

"What do I think about what?" you ask, looking confused. Concern floods his features instantly. "Sorry, I've done it again, haven't I?" You squeeze his hands and offer him a small apologetic smile. A feeling of shame courses through you. He's been so good to you since your change. He never lets go of you during the evenings, holding you through the nightmares just as you held him through his. You want to be more present for him, but your lingering thoughts betray you. Every good thing he does to support you, you just can't help thinking how he had no one.

His hands gently cradle your face as he leans in, resting his forehead against yours. "You never have to apologise to me, my love. I understand what you're going through. I'm here if you want to talk about it," he says softly. He brushes his lips against yours, kissing you slowly. A tear escapes your stinging eyes and trails down your cheek, meeting your lips. He pulls back for a moment, wrapping his arms around you in a warm embrace. His body no longer feels cool to the touch, you had always wondered what it would feel like if the two of you ran at the same temperature, and now you know. At first, you mourned the coolness of his skin, but this warmth, this closeness, makes you feel his love even more deeply.

“I had asked you if you would like to come hunting with me this evening?” He’s moved back again and watches your face cautiously, you see he doesn’t want to pressure you, his eyes filled with unwavering love and patience. 

“I would like that very much, Star.” You reach your hand up and stroke his cheek feeling your heart swell as he closes his eyes, leaning his lips towards your palm and breathes out a sigh of relief. 

“Come on then.” He takes your hand in his as he stands and leads you to the ladder back down to your private quarters.

________

Astarion:

 “First, we need to get changed into darker attire, to blend into our surroundings easily so we don’t draw any attention to ourselves” You shift out of your shirt and move towards her, gently removing her blouse, running your fingers down her arms making sure you stop to hold her hands and kiss her cheek. 

Turning to the cupboard you retrieve two long-sleeved leather tops, two hoods and two black trousers. As you hand her one set she arches her eyebrow and looks at you with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Matching hunting outfits?” A short soft giggle escapes her mouth and you spring to life at the sound. 

“Do that again, little love.” You say wrapping your arms around her. Your skin feels warm against hers, Gods it’s been weeks since you have heard her laugh. You would give anything to hear it again. “So loved. You are so loved. You don’t even realise how much of my heart you have.” Your thoughts press into hers, you rarely use the tadpole but there are moments such as this where you make exceptions. Words that are only meant for her, you send them straight into her mind filling it with as much love as you possibly can. She buries her head against your bare chest and you feel a small smile spread across her face. 

“I can feel you smiling darling, that's not very nice of you to keep such a beautiful thing hidden from me.” Your words are an exaggerated whine. She doesn’t budge as soft giggles start bubbling from her, sending small shivers down your spine at the sound. “Would it surprise you to know that not only did I get us matching hunting outfits but I had also purchased us matching lacy under clothes, bows and all. Bright magenta even. I thought It may accentuate my wonderful figure.” Your tone is playful as you step back giving a little playful twirl. 

She pauses for a moment then laughter erupts from her while a wide smile spreads across her face and you feel as though you just might die at the sight of it. You meet her gaze with your smile plastered across your face as you make your way back to her. Swooping her up, you kiss her deeply and gently place her back onto the ground. “As much as I love being your personal clown, my love, time is of the essence here and we have some hunting to do.”

You both change into your hunting clothes and set off hand in hand.

****

After a short walk just outside of Rivington, you find yourselves perched behind a boulder carefully tracking a bear that is lazily moving through a clearing heading right towards you. For a brief moment, you wonder how your friend Halsin may feel knowing what your choice of cuisine has been as of late.

“Okay, my sweet, the trick here is to wait for the right opportunity to attack. Patience is key, if we move a second too early or late that could cost us our meal.” You have chosen to communicate this through the tadpole to ensure that everything goes according to plan. She needs a decent meal and this bear could fill you both easily.

“What’s with the berries we placed? Is it really going to fall for that?” She sends a mental note back, you sense a bit of doubt coating her words. You simply turn to look at her and raise your eyebrows acting offended, she silently raises her hands in surrender.

Just as you had planned the bear spots the berries and cautiously approaches them, scanning its surroundings. “Hold absolutely still, do not breathe. Once it lowers its guard it will drop its head and start eating. The very moment its mouth touches the berries we flank each of its sides and I’ll make the move. Understood?” You look at her and she nods her head ever so slightly.

The bear dips its head to eat and you take your opportunity, the two of you flanking each of its sides and before it even has a moment to react you are at its neck, swiftly and mercifully bringing it to its end.

“You first, my love. Drink till you feel satisfied.” You watch a she slowly approaches the bear, whispers something in its ear, strokes its face, and sinks her teeth into the creature. Moments later she steps aside for you and you take your fill.

The two of you find yourself lying in the clearing staring at the stars. You can’t help but feel somewhat reflective of the first moment the two of you found yourselves alone in a clearing. She was so trusting, so soft, you close your eyes offering a silent thanks to whatever gods brought her into your life.

She shifts turning on her side to face you and you turn on yours moving closer to her. You extend your arms and wrap her into an embrace breathing her in. She smells of cinnamon and petrichor… cool, refreshing but also warm and homey. The moment is interrupted as you feel her body stiffen beside you.

“What is it, my love?” You watch her gaze staring behind you. Slowly you turn yourself and you see Leon approaching you and your beloved. Again. Just like the night in the tavern. You both spring to your feet and you hold her firm behind you.

“One more fucking step and you will not live to see another day.” You hiss out as you ready yourself for a fight.

“Come, brother, you have proven your point. Bring her with, he will forgive you.” Leon speaks slowly as he inches forward two steps.

“Ignis!” You fling out a firebolt landing right at his feet. “I said don’t. Fucking. Move.” You growl through gritted teeth. You know Aurelia will be somewhere nearby, they never travel alone.

As if on cue she steps out into the clearing to your side and you feel Tav shift her attention to Aurelia, her body begins to shake as your arm stays protectively in front of her. She starts to step out from behind you, and you notice her hands moving in a fluid motion, a pale purple light emanates from them. You know this spell. She is going to cast a hold on Aurelia.

“Going somewhere?” She cocks her head to the side, with a small smirk, her voice is soft and menacing as she extends her hands outward successfully trapping Aurelia in place. Reaching into your boot you retrieve a dagger and expertly throw it straight into Leon’s chest, just missing his heart.

“If I were you, brother, I would be running now.” You start stalking forward as Leon disappears in a cloud of red ash, leaving Aurelia trapped by the hold spell.

“Darling, how long can you concentrate for me? I would love to have a word with my beloved sister.” You kiss her cheek as she walks with you toward the trapped spawn.

This time she will not get away. This time Aurelia will pay for helping him. You want to hear her scream.

_____

Tav:

As you focus on Aurelia, your eyes never waver from hers, your concentration unbroken. The rage building inside you feels like it could set you on fire. In the background, you can hear Astarion rummaging through his backpack.

“What are you looking for Star?” You call out to him.

“Don’t worry about me, just, hold her there. You’re doing great my love… AHA! There it is!” He walks past you, places an amulet around Aurelia’s neck, and grips her wrists firmly with his hands. “Alright, you can drop the hold now, she won’t be able to go anywhere. I… “obtained” this amulet from some weirdo in an alleyway back in Baldur’s Gate. The wearer can't use any form of magic and yes before you ask I already got Gale to fact-check this. It will work.”

You release the holding spell and watch as Aurelia tries to teleport herself and Astarion from the clearing. Her eyes widen in panic as she realises that she cannot move. "Why can't I move, Astarion?! Let me go, brother!" Her voice rises in fear.

“Hah! Haha! Leaving so soon sister? I thought you were up for a little family reunion?” He says twisting her arms as he drags her to a nearby tree. “Tav darling, please be a dear and get the rope from my backpack. We need to secure our guest.” His eyes meet yours as a sly grin spreads across his features. You simply nod, retrieve the rope and help him tie her to the tree.

You watch as he pulls another blade from his boot and lifts it, running the sharp edge slowly down her cheek. She wails in pain as blood trickles down her face.

His voice is low, the words coated in venom as a growl forms deep in the back of his throat: “You dared to show your face near me again? Near her?" The sound sends a cold chill down your spine. “You have made a grave mistake finding us again, sister. And this time… I am afraid you will not be returning to your Master. No. Your little part in this game ends here.” He takes his dagger and thrusts it into her side, a blood-curdling scream erupts from her mouth.

“You can kill me brother, but he will find you and your little whore of a pet. He will take her you know? His most beautiful spawn. Heard it myself” She spits the words in your direction as you watch Astarion’s body become tense.

_____

Astarion:

Whore? Rage fills your body, causing your hands to tremble. His most beautiful spawn. You level your gaze with Aurelia and breathe out “I’m going to fucking kill you… and then… then I’m going to kill him and ANYONE ELSE who even looks at her the wrong way.” Before she can retort you swiftly thrust the blade upward and end her sorry existence.

You wipe the blade clean on the corpse’s attire and retrieve the amulet from its neck. Slowly you approach your lover, cautiously placing your hands on either side of her arms. Her eyes have grown distant again and you pull her against your body. “Come, we’re done here. That will put a few obstacles in the way of the ascension.”

**

You arrive back in your room at the Elfsong Tavern and guide her to sit on the bed. She hasn’t said a single word since leaving the clearing. You prepare a warm bath for both of you, dropping sprigs of lavender in the water. As the scent slowly starts to fill the air, you inhale deeply. Walking back to the bed you kneel before her, assisting her with her boots and carefully start to undress her. Taking her hand in yours you lead her to the tub and gently lift her over its edge. She slowly sinks into the water, and her muscles begin to relax, releasing the tension they’ve been holding.

You undress from your bloodied clothing, chucking them in the corner of the room, grabbing a washcloth to wipe off the blood on your skin before you climb into the tub and settling yourself behind her. You grab the soap and sponge and you start slowly working the soap into a lather on her back. Her head drops forward slightly and she exhales a shaky breath as she brings her hands to her face. Her body begins to shake with soft sobs that make your chest feel like it’s caving in. Saying nothing you tenderly rotate her to face you as you wrap your arms around her, bringing her against your chest in a cuddle.

Your head rests atop hers “Shhh little love. I’ve got you. You are safe.” You run your hand up and down her back and place a soft kiss on her temple.

“He won’t stop will he?” She says quietly into your chest.

“I’m afraid not my sweet. He might be all the more furious now since he’ll need to replace Aurelia for the rite.” You know she needs to hear the truth, it’s no use sugarcoating the situation. “We will get through this. You will get through this. You will adjust to this new life, I know you didn’t choose it, not many of us do. But, you are not alone and I will be here when you are ready to talk about it. I can see it eating away at you.” You press the palm of your hand against her cheek as she looks up at you she presses a soft kiss to your lips.

“Astarion… it’s not that I don’t want to talk about what happened to me. I… I have accepted it. The reason I have been so silent is because all I can think about is how you had no one. You went through all of these changes, alone… I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like.” Her eyes scan your face as she continues, “The support you have offered me, I can’t stop thinking about how you never had this and it breaks my heart. It makes me hate him more than anything I have ever hated. I have never felt this much hatred towards another being in my existence. I’m scared of him getting his hands on you. I will do anything, anything to keep you safe. I thank the gods it was me they grabbed that night.” Her eyes glisten with the tears that are making their escape down her cheeks.

Incredible. You think to yourself, her life changed overnight and all she can think about is you over these last few weeks. How lucky you are to know a love like this. Never in your 200 years did you think you would be out of Cazador’s grip let alone finding love and feeling the most seen you have ever felt.

“Little love… you are… so selfless.” You scatter tender kisses over her face. “You have shown me a love that I never believed existed. You make me feel seen, heard and safe. With you, I feel like I can take on the nine hells themselves. You don’t need to worry about what I went through. Although it was… difficult… it led me to you, to this and I would do it all again if it meant you were waiting for me at the end.” You bring her lips to yours and kiss her deeply, feeling her body melt into yours as she wraps her arms around your neck. She rests her head on your shoulder, and you both stay there, enveloped in the warmth of the water and your embrace.

“I promise you this, Cazador will die by my hand and it will be a painful death.” You whisper into her hair breathing in her scent.

“As long as I am there to watch you do it.” She whispers back her breath cool against your neck.

“As you wish, darling.” Your smile spreads softly across your face. You know, and you believe that even he knows… Cazador is on borrowed time.

You are coming for him.

***********

Part 3 here

[moon-buggg]

Outside perspective

a bit of a look into how the townsfolk view YN and their curious new companions. I... may have gone a bit overboard with making it read like a classic gothic horror story lmao. eventually I will get an ao3 account up and running and start posting these there.... someday

word count: 1113

content warnings: brief mentions of grave robbing, Sun and Moon are referred to as 'it' by the narrator who doesn't know them

I do not know what drives a man to madness, what seed of evil must be planted to allow one to turn his back against all that is right and moral. Men far smarter than I have argued since time immemorial over the root cause of evil; whether it is some inborn trait, a dark miasma that consumes one whole, the work of devils, or simply the nature of free will. I know not from which deep recess of hell such wickedness sprung forth, but I know that I have seen its face. It is a face that haunts my dreams- my very being. A face that looms over the night and seeks to destroy all that righteous men hold dear. A face that is impossible to forget. A face I cannot possibly begin to describe here, for fear of calling it forth to haunt me further.

Should such evils have a singular origin, it is whatever dark corner spawned that wretched doctor. 

I still remember the fateful day they first appeared like a grim specter over our small village. The veritable calm before the storm. It had been raining heavily for several days, the roads transformed into a dense mud that threatened to consume any unlucky enough to be forced out of shelter. That day the rain had given way to a cloying fog, out from which stepped a stranger, cloaked in what might have once been a pristine white coat but was currently stained with the evidence of their struggle with the muddy roads.

I wish I could say I had sensed something was wrong the moment they stepped foot into my tavern, but truthfully I had felt sorry for the wet, muddy thing slumped over my counter looking for a hot meal. I know now the error I made welcoming them not only into my establishment but our town.

They were moving into the old manor in the woods, and, unable to locate it in the fog, had resigned to seeking warm shelter and a meal, both of which I was readily able to provide. They avoided talking about themself as much as possible, simply stating that they had business which was to be tended to alone. I assumed they were a melancholic artist or poet looking to escape the woes of city life. It was not until much later I learned they were a doctor, of all things.

They did not leave their name.

Fed, rested, and provided with the best directions I could manage, the stranger was gone. I had tried to offer them board for the night seeing as the rain was picking up again and was sure to make their trek all the more difficult, but they were adamant they did not mind the weather and would rather settle in sooner than later.

I was left with the distinct impression they were an odd sort, an eccentric type, but largely put the stranger out of my mind. Little did I know at the time what would come of that fateful meeting.

Soon enough, a routine was formed. The first of every month the doctor would emerge from their isolation, buy barely enough food to last one person a month, and pick up an order of all manner of strange tools and supplies imported on their order from the grocer, purchase one sweet pastry from the baker, and return on their lonesome to the woods.

No one has ever seen them in town on any other occasion, for any other reason.

No one has ever seen who digs up the graves, no matter how many souls take watch over the graveyard.

So, needless to say, people were unsettled when this familiar routine was so completely altered one spring morning. When on their monthly entrance into town they were shadowed by two towering automatons. The metal jesters, for they were curiously fashioned after circus clowns, followed after their master like loyal dogs.

The first, whose face was fashioned after the sun with large bronze rays that reflect the early morning light in pale imitation of the real sun, moved most jovially down the street, practically bouncing with each step in a manner most discordant with the confusion and dread slowly spreading amongst the townsfolk. As if for an invisible crowd, every movement was performed. For what reason had the doctor fashioned such strange creations, and what fresh terror would they unleash upon our town? It strayed from its companions as the group continued into town, moving its face as if taking in the streets for the first time, its face an unnerving grim permanently etched into painted porcelain. Though uncanny in face and movements, this first jester seemed almost welcoming when compared to its twin.

As if a dark mirror to its solar companion, the second automaton seemed to soak up shadows like the night itself. It hovered just behind the doctor, its face a tragedy mask warped into lunar shape. Rather unlike its brother, this jester seemed to take no interest in observing the town, simply following its master with movements far too fluid and precise to be of man. Whenever a concerned bystander would stare too long or stray too close, the lunar automaton would, without a face capable of expression, turn and stare at the offending party, leaving the distinct impression that it was glowering at you. A most unnerving effect best compared to an overzealous guard dog.

I watched as the trio disappeared into the store, and, as if the spell keeping me in place was broken, remembered my purpose in being out so early. I could not linger and gawk at the mad doctor and their metal entourage any longer, though I was later told by the grocer that the solar automaton was quite chatty. I went about my day, resigned to putting the strange occurrence out of my mind until late at night, when solitude and darkness draw out the shadows of one's mind.

I could not help but ponder the nature of these frighteningly human automatons, and I am sure many of my peers laid away doing the same.

Bodies are going missing, that is the only thing we know for certain, and it only started once that doctor came to town. No one knows what they do sequestered in their manor, isolated in the woods, until suddenly they appear with strange creations that move and talk in a pale imitation of man. Laying awake, staring at my ceiling and overcome with a dread that seeped into my very bones, the nature of these beings haunting me. What wicked deeds mar their creation, what secrets are hidden in their metal exteriors.

[leomoon65]

Your first time with Dina

little info for you preference: afab reader, she/her perspective, wlw based but has a bisexual undertone just no men sexually.

summary:

you've liked dina for a few years now but never wanted to ruin your friendship but what happens when dina invites you over and a game of truth or dare turns sexual?

warning: virginity taking, p*rn categories mentioned, smut, , strap, teasing, edging, slight degradation, sexual tension, light language, mention and small affects of weed, 18+ minors dni, semi slow burned, idk im probably forgetting some this was written at 5am

a/n: i never wrote anything like this, let alone posted. this is proofread (update at 5am, it barely is) but im known for having spelling/grammar errors due to personal reasons so pls go easy on me. also, dina and the reader are in college to make everyone legal. i apologize for this being so long, i really wanted to add detail and make it the best i can. please enjoy (:

*a little background*

dina is your childhood best friend, she's a year older than you so you have always looked up to her and she protected you. you've had your ups and downs, complained and cried over various ex partners, came out to each other and have been through thick and thin. she is your person and you are hers.

*dina texts you*

"hey y/n, wanna come over, smoke a bowl and chill tn?"

you smile at your best friend's text responding "yes ofc idiot" as you make your way back from your last class of the day. you are glad you don't have to work another shift at the local retro video game store that mind you, dina always stops to bother you almost every shift. you can focus on the weekend and just have a night with your best friend.

you make your dorm, change into a white cropped shirt, jeans, your campus hoodie (go longhorns) and a pair of vans. "i'll be out for the night" you tell your roommate nancy. "oooo are you finally going to get laid?" nancy giggles to herself. "shut up, no it's dina, we are just going to smoke and i'll probably end up staying the night, text me if you need anything" you say with a smile and you're off. since dina is a sophomore she's in a different dormitory then the freshmen like yourself. making your way to the sophomore dorms you excitingly knock on dina's dorm room. the infamous "808", which happened to be your lucky number that dina was filled with joy when she was given her new dorm earlier this year.

dina: "y/n!" dina says eagerly as she pulls you into one of her famous dina hugs. "how was class?" "how are you?" "is anyone bothering you, i can stand up for you if you need me to?" "do you have enough money in your lunch account?" dina's proceeds to ask more questions before you giggle and reassure that everything is well, no one is bothering you, no you did not set your dorm on fire, and yes, you are good with money. dina reminds you she asks these questions out of love and it's her "best friend responsibility" you just stick your tongue out and make your way to her couch.

dina is wearing the university t shirt but cropped, some gym shorts and socks since she's at home, you notice her stummy poking out of her shirt and can't help but blush and think about what her shirt would look like off and on the floor "hey you!" she says snapping you out of your mini wet--- daydreaming session. "huh?" you say nervously. "can you turn some music on, grab the bong, and our favorite blankets?" "i'm making us some chicken with rice for dinner and i need to watch the oven so the rice rises properly." (she's quite the perfectionist) "sure thing"

you get up, go into dina's room, grabbing her childhood blanket off her bed next to her childhood bear "Mr. Dinaworth" she named when she was 4. dina's blanket consists of ladybugs on sunflowers, it was the blanket that she slept/sleeps with/ has around whenever she is at home. you grab another big blanket you too use when you come over, just a grey and white blanket that is pretty thick and big enough to warm the both of you. you come back put the blankets down, grab the bong from the bathroom since dina just cleaned it out before you came and had not had the time to grab it earlier. you finish by lightly plopping yourself on her couch. "alexa, play vibe music" "playing trust issues by drake on amazon music" the music is low and you smell the amazing food dina is making, you make your way over to her. "can i help?" dina smiles, "yes, you can help by sitting pretty on the couch it's done, it just needs plating". your face gets red from the "sitting pretty" phrase making your way back to the couch. dina is back five minutes later. "for you" she says handing you her famous chicken, white rice with soy sauce and broccoli on a plate. "you do too much for me deen" you say as you start eating. dina responds "what, i have to make sure the pretty girls in my life are fed". there it is.. those damn butterflies in your stomach... "no no you think to yourself , dina is a natural flirt she doesn't mean it like that let along towards you". you sit your food and catch up with dina as every other hangout goes.

about an hour later, dinner is all cleaned up, the music is going and you and dina are buzzed off of the hits you've taken but this is nothing new for you two. "hey let's play truth or dare" dina says. "what are we? thirteen?" you giggle as you start to feel the affects of the weed. dina laughs and puts her hand on your thigh "casually" you feel yourself start to get wet and tingly, "no it's the weed, it's stuff she got that's why i feel like this" you think. "no we are not thirteen but i wanna have some fun, not just smoke our brains out to frank ocean, drake and kehlani all night" she giggles again, ahh you could hear that giggle all day and never get sick of it, it's the same giggle she had when yall were kids, never changed but you love it regardless. "fine, this better be fun" you say noticing dina hasn't moved her hand form your thigh. "sweet" she smiles with intentions that you don't notice.

"truth" you say as you two start the round. "pussy" dina says finally removing her hand from your thigh, you're a water fountain at six flags by now but you never admit that to your best friend, that would be weird. "what is your favorite season" she asks with seriousness. "are you fucking with me?" you laugh, ask me something better than that. "oh? you want a challenge huh? you think you can handle it? she smirks at you. "come on deen, bring on" you think she'll ask you something pg-13 of what boy/girl do you like on camp--- " "what porn do you watch?" woah holy shit, you weren't expecting that. "don't challenge me pretty one without expecting some heat back". there you go, looking red as bob the tomato himself. "umm umm, usually lesbian but i get some straight just for... strap affect" *as you giggle. dina raises her eyebrow... "your virgin ass knows what a strap is?" you laugh again, "yes dina i wasn't born yesterday". dina's mind really races, she has a strap in her room that she wanted to use... "no no dina, play it cool, you can't scare her off now"

"dina truth or dare" you ask snapping her from her thoughts. "dare" she says with confidence. "hmm i dare you to do a flip" you say nervously not wanting to push any boundaries. "really? that's sooo easy, you know i was in gymnastic as a kid" she gets up behind the couch with enough room and flips backwards with ease. "oof im not as young as i used to be" she giggles. "okay okay my turn lets kick it up a notch" she sits and gets oddly close to you, "who, on campus is the prettiest girl to handsomest guy on campus?" you sit and think, "well i don't really talk to many guys but adam is kinda cute and helps me with my math homework but i would never sleep with him, girls... mmm... *the weed and confidence booster kicks in a little*

"i know a girl, she's jewish, looks a lot like you" *you giggle highly. "Talia?" she says mentioning her older sister who is eight years older than you and seven to dina. "no no silly, i'm talking about y---" reality hits "shit shit, i gave myself away, fuck this new weed, fuck why did it say that, she's gonna hate me, she's my best friend". you are interrupted again by dina saying "do you like me y/n". fuck, dina can be intimidating to others, she scared off your ex girlfriend once, friends who have wronged you and even your own mother when need be, but this intimidating stare was filled with passion and soft eyes but confusion over all. "y-- yes, i do, fuck i didn't wanna ruin anything because we have been friends for years and i didn't wanna fuck anything up... shit i should g---"

a/n: woah, sorry this super long, i had to split it into two parts, it'll be up on my page as well. i hope you all enjoyed reading my first smut fic. i'm sorry if things aren't your tea, i wrote it from personal reads to personal ideas. if you want anything else that i'd be comfortable reading let me know. you don't see too many dina stories but i hope this once you enjoyed.

- c

[joyflameball]

*Please* tell me what don't starve is about I wasn't even aware it had characters

OH GOOD I GET TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU. YOU WILL REGRET THIS

let me be clear upfront: i don't know everything. i'm just neurodivergent as fuck please correct me on any misinformation. And any DST fans in the tag right now, hi prepare to see me infodump about Don't Starve lore and I am so sorry this is so long

So lemme start at the very beginning. The year? 1901. The man? William Carter. Moving from Liverpool (becuase of course there's a british man named william in an indie game who does crimes against nature) to New York City. He's doing magician shows and he just he sucks so bad at it. No one visits his magic shows. He's in literal debt. He gets no wins. He was born in a wet cardboard box all alone etc etc

Anyway in 1904 Willy Boy tries to go to Cali gets in a train accident and dies. WHOOPS the end

Okay that's a lie. He did not in fact die unfortunately (/j). However, he did get in a train crash and was pinned under a train car, but was saved in part by a strongman named Wolfgang, who really desperately wants to be the strongest he can be (he'd recently had an embarrassing failure at the circus).

But, well... I say "in part." For there's more to how Wolfgang saved him.

See, somewhere around this time, William had found a book. The Codex Umbra. This book was filled with secrets about a land known as The Constant. And more than that, it allowed William to use magic. Not the cheap magic tricks he'd been doing up to this point, the ones that'd given him nothing. Real, actual, tangible magic. Summoning shadows creatures from this mystical realm, ones that would linger for a moment before vanishing.

This was power. True, actual power. And to a man as rejected as William had been by the world, a man as desperate for fame, attention, power... well, who wouldn't be bitter? Spiteful? Who wouldn't be tempted by the allure of unfathomable knowledge?

Of unknowable, uncontrollable power?

What'd happened during the train accident was William had briefly imbued Wolfgang with strength from dark magic, allowing him to throw the train car off of him. William had fled with the Codex Umbra shortly afterwards, and was presumed dead. However, he wrote a letter to his brother, Jack Carter, basically saying "Hey, I'm alive, I found this weird book, I'll cya soon."

(Side note, Jack Carter has two daughters, Wendy and Abigail Carter. We'll revisit them soon.)

William continued deciphering the Codex Umbra, learning more shadow magic. And in San Francisco, he reentered showbiz, reinventing himself into someone new. A new act, and a new name. The Amazing Maxwell.

This time, his shows were appreciated. Adored. His magic acts were magnetic, and horrifying, and beautiful. After all that failure, he had finally managed to get something for himself.

(additional note: maxwell really likes referring to people as "pal." this will be important remember this)

Around this time, he put out an ad to hire a lady assistant for his magician shows, wanting someone with "a curious demeanor and a keen interest in the mysteries of the universe."

And he got her.

Let us snap our attention now to two sisters in the dreadful state of Ohio- Winona and Charlie. Winona was, to at least my knowledge, a fairly tough little girl who was always a bit boyish (take with a grain of salt i'm a bit silly). She loved tinkering from a young age, and she loved her little sister intensely- maybe too intensely.

There's a thing in the game I'll go into more later that shows Charlie's perspective on everything, and from it we can glean that Charlie felt like Winona was, to use a metaphor Charlie uses herself, putting Charlie into an unbreakable suit of armor so heavy she was unable to move. Overprotective to a suffocating degree.

We're not completely certain on that, but it's quite likely and incredibly interesting.

And Charlie... we know painfully little about her. Most likely she fit the description Maxwell wanted. She'd go camping with her sister. She may have been annoying, as a lotta little siblings are. She had a flair for the dramatic. There's a line implying she used to playfight with Winona. And Charlie loved roses.

Charlie was scared of the dark.

So Charlie became Maxwell's assistant. And they were more than coworkers, they were also good friends. They'd hang out and laugh together. Charlie at least may have had a crush on Maxwell, as in her letter to him she writes a heart after her name, and she always calls him "Maxy." Maxwell cared a lot about Charlie- I don't personally see it as romantic on his end, due to my epic aroace swag and belief in the importance of deep platonic bonds, but he did care for her, deeply. They had a sweet friendship, both caring about each other intensely.

But of course, it couldn't last. It never could.

It's 1906 and Maxwell's doing fantastic mentally. Just kidding he's losing his fucking mind

Maxwell was losing control. The Codex Umbra was driving him insane, little by little. He was losing control over the book, over the powers of the Constant. It was growing too powerful, too angry. He was taking too much from it, and it wanted something back. He started pulling away from Charlie, growing snippier with her. And fucking understandably, she was concerned.

One night, after she hadn't seen him in days, she visited his apartment to get his costume for their last performance. He wasn't there at the time. So she investigated, desperate for an answer as to why her friend was drawing away from her.

She discovered a secret room in Maxwell's apartment- the room in the image above. With all those scrawls. And... we think she discovered something else.

I personally think she discovered Them.

I'll explain Them later.

She was terrified, and fled the apartment. Maxwell later discovered she'd been there, and was clearly fucked up over it. Evidently, he didn't want Charlie to discover all this.

She left him a letter, basically begging him to communicate with her. Saying they could take a break after their final show, her older sister had a cabin they could go to if they wanted to get away. Charlie wanted answers, and she wanted them to take a break.

They never got that, though.

April 17th. 1906. The Amazing Maxwell had his final show.

Maxwell's final act was meant to be pulling shadows out of the Codex Umbra. It was meant to be simple. A last trick before they take a break. Neither of them expected it to go this horribly wrong. I don't see how either of them could have. Especially not her.

Maxwell reached into the book. Something reached back. They reached back.

They tried to grab him, tried to drag him into the Codex Umbra. He fought back though, for a moment, clearly weakened by it. Charlie tried to help him, to ask if he was okay, not understanding what was going on, desperate to help, to know how she could help.

She couldn't.

Shadowy hands erupted from the book, grabbing them, pulling them in, and Charlie and Maxwell were gone.

Let's snap our focus away for a while. We're remaining in the real world for now. Don't worry, we'll come back to them.

In due time.

Let me introduce to you a hugely important player to the plot, Robert Wagstaff. Now he's frustrating, because we (or at least I) know very little about Robert Wagstaff. He was studying the Constant, he founded Voxola and created these radios that Maxwell later communicates through (i'll explain later), he bears a suspicious resemblance to Wilson, he may have met Maxwell at some point, and he may have intentionally sent himself to the Constant to investigate it. He's currently a hologram and may be SOMEWHERE. God knows where.

Anyway forget about him because it's time for MY FAVORITE NONBINARY ROBOT WITH REPRESSED TRAUMA AND EVIL PLANS

Meet WX-78, an automaton with a fairly vague backstory who I love so so dearly. They're evil. They're canonically nonbinary (Maxwell even refers to them as "Mx" which makes me very joyful). They lack empathy. They love bees. They love the moon. And somewhere in like the very early 20th century they became a robot and chose NONBINARY VIOLENCE

What exactly happened to WX is left vague, but here's what I believe happened. WX and Wagstaff were working on a consciousness transference experiment, which turned out to be successful. WX transferred their consciousness into a robotic body. Yaaaaaaay :D

Well hold your horses there, not "yay" yet. Because it turns out transferring your whole mind into a robotic body has negative side effects. Namely, the way WX sees themself has become... fractured. Sometimes they see themself as who they were before, their human self, but sometimes they see themself as what they are now, their robotic form. A comment under the short described it as their entire body being basically a phantom limb.

WX started wanting to create more automatons, possibly roboticize humanity, but without the heart (it's called an empathy module in canon but i'm calling it a heart because it's designed with a heart on it, and it hits harder if i call it that). The heart, where WX's memories as a human reside, where hypothetically their emotions are. Take that out, there's no pain related to once being one, right?

Wagstaff was completely against this. Consciousness transference for a single scientist is one thing, but this? To roboticize everyone in the world and take out their heart, their memories, their humanity? Absolutely not. It'd be too dangerous. Leaving humanity as cold intellectual machines would destroy everything, removing a beautiful piece of humankind. He and WX had a fight over this, and Wagstaff ended up burning all of WX's research and sending them into the Constant.

Somehow after that, WX's heart module was disconnected, and the memories were gone. They became a spectacular evil little gremlin of a thing and I love them so much

This whole explanation comes from this excellent comment under the short:

I usually resent these sorts of "explanation comments," since they try to intellectualize horror, but this one doesn't it centers it all on the EMOTIONS and also is correct

And by the way, the short where this is revealed is SO UNBELIEVABLY DISTRESSING TO WATCH (POSITIVE). See, Winona repairs the wiring to WX's heart module, causing WX to suddenly remember everything, having flashbacks to what all happened, and it's horrifying. WX flashing between who they were as a human and who they are now, the snippets of whatever happened, the vagueness, the BANGER MUSIC, it's all so hard to watch, and yet so hard to look away.

And at the end of it, after remembering Wagstaff sending them into the Constant, WX lets out this agonized wail and RIPS OUT THEIR FUCKING HEART, before they just SHATTER IT IN THEIR HANDS. They fucking HATED remembering what happened, hated it so much that they RIPPED THEIR HEART OUT AND BROKE IT so they could STOP FEELING. Whatever exactly happened HURT and they didn't want to FEEL.

And evidently, IT DIDN'T WORK. Wagstaff appears as an NPC later in Don't Starve Together, and every single quote WX has related to him is full of this raw, painful, intense rage. It's genuinely heartbreaking.

WX fucking DESPISES Wagstaff for what he did to them. For sending them to the Constant. And like- they say a LOT they have no emotions. But very clearly, THAT IS A LIE. IT'S FUCKED UP. IT'S HORRIFYING.

It's the opposite of so many robot emotion narratives- a robot who wants to feel real emotions, who wants to be human. But with WX, that is the last thing they want. They're illustrated to have at least had distaste for organic life before their roboticization, they don't want to be human. And very obviously, they don't want to feel real emotions. They don't want emotions.

They hate being human so much, they hate the connection to human pain so much, they hate their memories of being human so fucking much, that they rip out their FUCKING HEART and SHATTER IT just so they can shut off the painful emotions of their repressed memories. They don't want to be human, they want to be a cold unfeeling machine, but they clearly can't be that even though they're trying because despite everything there's a part of them that's clearly human and just- JUST WATCH THIS SHORT IT'S SO HORRIFIC

GOD I LOVE EVIL NONBINARY AUTISTIC ROBOTS WITH REPRESSED TRAUMA

Aside from that horrorshow of a backstory WX is very silly. They love bees and the moon. They hate humanity and all organic life. They say shit like "NOW THE OUTSIDE MATCHES THE INSIDE. EVIL" and "[name] IS CAUSING NEEDLESS DESTRUCTION. GOOD." I love them so much I can't believe I just slept on how funny they are when I was a young lad hyperfixated on DST

Okay let's go down the list of characters. Remember I mentioned Jack Carter has two daughters, Wendy and Abigail? Let's focus on them.

Wendy was more cautious than Abby was, preferring to live in the world of books and fantasies. Meanwhile Abigail was an adventurer, loving to spend her days climbing rocks and jumping around. Despite their differences, the twins were inseparable. The best of friends, with a love so strong it could transcend death.

And it did.

We're not quite sure how it happened. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that somehow, one day, Abigail died. And this death absolutely shattered Wendy. She became morbidly depressed, obsessed with death and tragedy. She refused to move on from her sister, believing if she did, her memory would fade. (There's specifically a few lines that really fuck me up /pos but it may be triggering so i won't bring em up.)

Wendy turned to the occult to try and get Abigail back. To try and at least talk to her. She tried everything to communicate with her again, and nothing was working. And she was just about to throw in the towel, to give up, to accept that maybe she would never see her beloved sister again, to fall into complete, total despair, when...

A ragtime tune started playing, and a voice on the radio began to talk to her.

Meanwhile let's snap our attention to WILLOWWWWW WILLOWWWWWWWW MY GIRL MY BELOVED I LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE"S INSANE AND I LOVE HER

Willow had a rather difficult life. Her parents either died or left when she was incredibly young, and she was left in a cruel orphanage with caregivers who hated and mistreated her. And understandably, this took a toll on her mental state, and this attracted shadow creatures.

What exactly shadow creatures are is unknown- they're what Maxwell was pulling out of the book and using for his magic tricks, and they appear in game when your sanity is low, so my personal hypothesis is that shadow creatures are drawn to misery, insanity, or in Wanda's case, Women's Wrongs. also misuse of magic

Anyway, when Willow was a little girl, shadow creatures fucking wanted to kill her, drawn to her declining mental state. Willow took comfort in her teddy bear Bernie, the only thing that seemed to drive the shadows away. But one night, after being nearly killed by one of those things, her caregivers, upset at her being awake in the middle of the night, confiscated Bernie and locked Willow in a closet.

And while she was trapped in there, shadow creatures approached again, with the intent to kill her. Willow was backed into a corner, about to die, with no defenses...

Except for a lighter.

That night, Willow burnt down the entire orphanage, managing to save herself, and left with just her lighter and her Bernie.

This moment defined every fibre of her being. From that day on, Willow became completely obsessed with fire. Flames became calming for her, letting her breathe and relax. She's burnt her life down to begin again more than once, like a phoenix with more collateral damage. Fire protects her from the monsters in the dark, lets her stay sane. And- there's this one line from her that implies she's embraced a type of nihilism.

"Why worry about the past or future? It'll all go up in flames eventually."

That quote's actually really interesting to me you could use this for a character arc about her learning to embrace one place/one group as home and her accepting that unfortunately the survivors are her found family and she loves them and- GOD I love her so much she's a menace

Alright, who's next? Ah yes, Wigfrid. This one's really tragic.

Wigfrid was an actress whose debut role was as a noble badass Valkyrie warrior, slaying monstrous beings, being a true hero. And she embodied the role, capturing the public, being launched to stardom with just that.

But after that? Nothing she did seemed to capture anyone like the Valkyrie had. Every performance she had after that fell flat. She was completely rejected by the public.

(this could be a maxwell parallel oh my god)

And so, she retreated into that role- the role of the Valkyrie. She fled into fantasies of being her, taking comfort in them. It consumed her life, her very being. Whoever she was before was destroyed, completely lost. She would give anything to be the Valkyrie Wigfrid again.

And one night, a shadowy figure told her she could get to be that role. Forever. Her name in the newspapers again. Everything she'd ever wanted.

"What do you say, pal?"

...A few weeks later, she was in the newspapers as the latest in a string of disappearances.

Who next? Ah yes- Webber. THIS ONE FUCKS ME UP.

So when Webber was a little lad, his father, a scientist, received a gift from Wagstaff, something for his experiments. And whatever it was, Webber's dad was incredibly fascinated with experimenting on it.

But as a result, he sorta started... neglecting Webber. Webber wanted his dad's attention, wanted his dad to spend time with him and play with him, but his dad just... wouldn't. He was completely absorbed in his work.

Over time, Webber became furious that his dad was ignoring him. He started acting out, trying to get his father's attention in any way he could.

And one night, Webber broke into his dad's workshop, again trying to act out for his dad's attention. And when there, he tipped over the glass case holding whatever his father was experimenting on, shattering it on the ground.

But as it turned out, this thing was a spider- a massive one too, one from the Constant. And it was radiating with dark energy from its experiments, and it lunged at Webber to eat him.

But he survived.

Instead of being devoured by the spider, Webber was fused to it. Its consciousness may be in there somewhere (#system), but Webber's definitely is. But he's been turned into a humanoid spider thing.

This is the most fucked part to me. When his dad saw him, he didn't recognize him as his son. Why would he? As far as he knew, the spider had mutated. So his dad fucking chased his own son out into the night, under the assumption that he was a monster.

In the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, Webber (who btw is like ten) broke down sobbing, promised he'd be a good kid, and desperately wanted something to fix it, no matter the price.

That was when the shadowy figure started talking to him.

ANYWAY TIME FOR WOMEN'S WRONGS WITH WANDA

Wanda is an INCREDIBLY interesting character to me. Her whole conflict is basically- do you ever think about the fact that everyone is going to die one day? That no matter what we do, the passage of time will storm on, and eventually everyone you know and everyone you love will just die? That even if you don't get killed in an accident or by medical problems or through society's neglect, your body will eventually fail and crumble away? That time will eventually claim you, as it claims everyone, and you can do nothing to prevent it? That everyone and everything is already running out of time?

Sorry for giving you that existential crisis! Because Wanda's CONSTANTLY going through that. She's been running from her future for god knows how long, creating timepieces to make herself younger and prevent herself from dying of old age, and doing. Legitimate time travel!! Good for her!!

However, this doesn't come without a price. See, we've learned from Maxwell that toying with dark magic will get the Shadow Creatures hunting your gay ass down. And with how much Wanda fucks with time, she is CONSTANTLY being hunted by shadow creatures that want to kill her and take her away, to the point that her death animation has her body be pulled into the ground by shadow hands.

And one day, she was cornered. One of her timepieces was broken, the others recharging, she couldn't get away. And so she made a split second decision, trying to on the fly repair it, and what did this result in?

SHE BROKE THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM AND WAS SUCKED IN TO THE CONSTANT

(and the music in her short at that moment gives me chills don't starve together's music is so banging)

Wanda is a rare case of someone being sucked into the Constant not through someone/something tricking her or dragging her in, but through her own actions. From what we know, only one other person has done that. And he did it intentionally. But Wanda did it by complete mistake.

And her mistake resulted in her past starting to "catch up to her." Thanks to her time fuckery, she now ages twelve years every single day, and has to constantly fuck with time and deage herself in order to stay alive. She's spent years most likely terrified of the idea of aging and dying, and now she's been cursed with aging at a horrifically fast rate. It's incredibly interesting. God I love her so much she can do anything she could commit war crimes and I'd support her. Wanda Did Nothing Wrong

WANDA ALSO HAPPENS TO BE REALLY REALLY HOT LIKE UNBELIEVABLY GORGEOUS

HNHGNHBHGHBGHHHH PLEASE GOD JUST GIVE ME ONE CHANCE I WOULD TREAT HER RIGHT

Anyway who's next to talk about? Ah yes IT'S WORTOX TIME

Note, I'm gonna kinda start going through these faster because I'm close to the image limit and wanna tell you everything

Wortox is actually FROM the Constant. He's basically a little imp man who was best friends with. uhm. Krampus. And they'd go around playing silly pranks together! However eventually, Wortox started to realize that. Hm. Krampus's pranks are actually kinda mean. Like genuinely malicious at times. And Wortox really didn't wanna be mean, didn't wanna hurt anyone. He just wants to be silly and goofy. The prank's no fun if it actually hurts someone. So he tried to put his foot down and stop Krampus, but ended up whoopsiedaisy taking his soul and fully becoming an imp. And now he eats souls and is still silly but has just. Guilt. So much guilt.

Next up: WURT! Wurt, too, is from the Constant, and SHE'S JUST A LITTLE BABYYYYYY. SHE'S ADORABLE. I LOVE HER. She's a little Merm (fishy creature from the constant) and is pretty small and scrappy, and she hates pigs, and is vegetarian, and loves the swamp, and loves candy, and loves fairy tales, and wants to be a Merm princess. I love her she's adorable my beloved little guye

And now, WORMWOOD! Wormwood is basically a piece of rock fell down from the moon and gave a bundle of plants and vines life and he's the cutest little plant ever. He's ADORABLE. I LOVE him.

That's everyone FROM the Constant. Now let's speedrun through those who aren't from the Constant!

WICKERBOTTOM: To be completely honest she doesn't interest me that much lol. She's basically a librarian with a lotta knowledge, including knowledge of the CONSTANT, which she REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE. Anyway Willow burned down her library at the request of the Nightmare King and Wickerbottom got pulled into the Constant. By the Nightmare King

WOLFGANG: Brought him up earlier- we're not sure how exactly he got into the Constant, but he's just. He is a himbo. The quintessential himbo. He's a silly man. He loves his friends so much. He has the brawn, but no brains. No thoughts. Head empty. Pure of heart, dumb of ass. I love him.

WARLY: ohhh boy more tragedy. Cw for this point: dementia. yeah. Warly's mom had dementia, and she didn't recognize him most days. So he'd play her favorite music and cook her favorite foods in hopes that she'd recognize him. And she did, occasionally. But only occasionally. And he was so desperate for her to just know him, to remember him, to get that spark of recognition in her eyes... And around that time, he started to hear the voice on the radio.

WALTER: BABYYYY HE'S JUST A BABY HE'S JUST A LITTLE GUY AND HE HAS A DOGGY AND A SLINGSHOT AND IS ALLERGIC TO BEES AND DOESN'T CARE ABOUT FASHION AND I LOVE HIM SO SO MUCH

WOODIE: Woodie is an enigma. He's Canadian. He has a curse. He turns into a goose sometimes. He was forced to eat logs when he was 32. His beard might not be hair. He's canon objectum and is in a loving and healthy relationship with his axe Lucy. I love him.

here is him and lucy he goes with stanley and the bucket for number one objectum couples

If you're noticing a theme with the names: Congratulations! We've noticed it too. We have no fucking idea what it means either. Charlie's last name might start with W. Maxwell's name starts with M (upside down W) and his previous name was William. If you have a name that starts with W in the DST world you're completely fucked lmao

Anyway thatsss everyone! So I think we can move on and cover the plot! I mean, surely there's not someone I'm leaving out. Surely I have covered everyone. Surely I've talked about everyone. Surely we can move on and have full context. Surely this is not an overly long gag in order to make the inevitable person I'm leaving out's reveal hit harder.

Yyyyeah let's talk about Winona.

On April 17th, 1906, Winona's little sister Charlie vanished off the face of the planet, along with the man she was working with, the mysterious Maxwell. And Winona is three things: stubborn, determined, and willing to do anything for her family.

And so she searched for her. She refused to let Charlie's mysterious disappearance fade into obscurity, to let Charlie just vanish without a trace. She searched everywhere for her. She pulled on every thread. Tracked down every tiny clue. Questioned anyone who may have the smallest connection to the case.

For over ten years.

Finally, it started coming together. Everything was pointing to Voxola and its secretive, genius founder, Robert Wagstaff. If anyone would know anything about whatever had happened to her sister, it'd be him. So she started working there.

But not for long. Fairly soon after she did, an accident happened at the factory- a fire breaking out, and a malfunctioning portal. Wagstaff vanished that day, vanished into the Constant.

Winona refused to let him. She had searched for over a fuckin' decade for someone who could have a connection to Charlie's disappearance, and her biggest lead was right there, and she was not gonna let him just vanish like that. So armed with duct tape and her knowledge of engineering, she singlehandedly managed to repair the portal, turning it on, and-

...Whose face would appear but her beloved sister's?

Barely aged a day. Drenched in shadows. A rose in her curls.

She was disappearing into the portal, but Winona grabbed her hand, started trying to pull her back, trying to save her. She had been searching for over ten fucking years for her baby sister, and she wouldn't let her go now, refused to let her go.

But... Charlie was different. Horrifically different. And something took over her. Something with ink-black eyes and hair that moved like a shadowy flame. The monster of the night.

She pulled Winona into the Constant. The portal fell apart. Winona was presumed dead.

...

And now. I will answer a question you must've had for a while.

What the hell happened to Charlie and Maxwell?

In 1906, they were pulled into the Constant by the Codex Umbra. And Maxwell was placed on The Nightmare Throne, and given full power over the Constant. He became the Nightmare King, all-powerful ruler, chess master of the world.

Whether he wanted it or not.

Once he was sat on the Nightmare Throne, he was trapped. He couldn't get up, couldn't move from the throne, couldn't move to turn off the gramophone sitting so close to him.

He was simply sitting on the throne. Unable to be free. For eternity.

In his final speech in Adventure Mode, Maxwell says there was barely anything there when he arrived. "Just dust. And the void. And Them."

What exactly "Them" is is unknown. My personal theory, given a play telling the story from Charlie's perspective, is that "Them" is the power of the Constant. And Maxwell constantly using that power for himself angered Them. So They pulled him in, and imprisoned him on the throne. He took from Them. And in return, They now trap him.

From there, the throne- or maybe Them, or maybe the Constant itself- compelled Maxwell to pull more people into the Constant. Trap them, use them as playthings, force them to go through the wringer of everything the Constant had to offer, and eventually watch them break under its barrage of dangers and finally die.

That's what happened to everyone. How they got into the Constant. Maxwell's strategy was to communicate with someone in the real world, usually through a Voxola radio, and make a deal with them so they are dragged in. Usually they're at a low point in their life and desperate for a solution to their issues, and he gives them that.

(Interestingly, he does follow through with his promises. Just neglects to mention the whole getting-dragged-into-Constant part.)

And everyone he drags in serves their purpose, they all serve as fun playthings for a while, providing him some level of entertainment.

But he's not happy. How can he be? He's trapped in an eternal game that he cannot end. Bound by its rules that he can't bend or break. He's tried everything. Nothing has ever worked. He's trapped, for eternity. In his own words, "Even a King is bound to the board."

The Constant demands a ruler.

And he serves that role. He must drag more people into this world's trap, let it spiral in on itself forever and ever. He can't put the game to an end. He can't get off the Nightmare Throne. He can't even turn off the gramophone right next to him.

All Maxwell can do is sit on his throne, and observe whatever survivors remain, and listen to that little ragtime ditty. Forever, and ever, and ever.

And Charlie...

God. Charlie.

One heartbreaking thing about what happened to Charlie is that we still don't know exactly how it happened. With Maxwell, we can make a very strong guess- he was stuck on the Nightmare Throne, and became king of the Constant, and dragged people down with him from the real world.

But with Charlie... we know how her fate ended up. We know what she became after that. But we don't know how she went from the sweet young woman she was to... to that.

From how she tells it (in her biased view, but it's all we've got), after being dragged into the Constant, she was either grievously injured or straight-up died. But she was brought back by Them. Back to life, but not as herself.

There was something new inside her.

Now, the way canon has it, it's a split personality pop-culture-Jekyll-And-Hyde thing. However, that's fucking dumb and pretty ableist. So here, my explanation diverges from canon, because I feel it's better, and stronger writing-wise, and I am better than Klei. Here's how I personally see what happened to Charlie.

It was like a garden being taken over and destroyed by an invasive species. Like black ink seeping into a bright and colorful shirt, spreading outwards, hiding- no, destroying the colors underneath.

They gave Charlie immense power, but at a great cost. Something dark grew inside of Charlie, transforming her from the sweet young woman she'd been, into something... monstrous.

The way I see it, it wasn't a split personality thing. It was more like a virus, infecting every cell of the body and multiplying into infinity until there's nothing left. Slowly erasing who she was before, destroying her humanity and turning her into something else.

Something more.

More powerful than Charlie had ever been, than she could've ever dreamed.

In every dark shadow, Charlie is there. In every pitch-black cave, she watches you. When dusk falls, she begins to awaken. And when the moon has risen, when the stars are out, when you can barely see your own hands in the dark, she is there. Everpresent. Watching. Waiting for you to walk into her arms.

There are shadow monsters all around the Constant. But most of them can only hurt you when you've lost your mind. Charlie, though, Charlie is different. No matter how much of a grasp on yourself you have, no matter how much sanity you've held onto, she will still be able to kill you, if you're outside at night with no way to see her.

Charlie is the most powerful shadow monster of all. She is everywhere. She has been everywhere. She can be anywhere. After all, there is nowhere the dark will not eventually be. And where the dark is, she is.

Charlie is the night.

Charlie is the darkness.

Able to kill a human with a few swift blows. Unfathomably strong, unfathomably dangerous, unfathomably powerful. It's hard to believe her humanity has held on this long, considering her omnipresence. It's incredible that her mind hasn't collapsed yet.

Because her humanity has held on. The virus in her mind has consumed so much of her, yes. But she's held on. Her humanity is surviving.

However long that lasts.

You wanted to know what happened to Maxwell and Charlie.

This. This is what happened.

Maxwell was imprisoned on the Nightmare Throne. Charlie was turned into the Night Monster. Both gained unfathomable power.

And both are trapped by it.

AND NOW. AFTER ALL OF THAT. WE FINALLY GET TO THE ACTUAL PLOT OF THE FUCKING GAME.

The year? Somewhere in the 1920s. The man? Wilson Percival Higgsbury. Lover of puns. Hater of spiders. Has a skeleton under his floorboards for some reason (skeleton might be wx-78's old body). Guy with the weirdest hair ever. Wannabe scientist who's terrible at science. The very first shot we see him in he blows himself up

He's a complete dumbass and he has stupid hair and he makes dumb puns and he's pathetic and he's in his thirties and he knows how to do amputations (according to him). What more could one want in a man. He's insanely confident in himself and has this attitude where he can do anything, when really he's kinda in over his head. He's a bit of a fool and he's got a good heart and a cheerful spirit. Not to mention he's wearing a vest, which in the rule of fiction means he's trans according to me and me alone.

So he's sad about his experiments always going wrong and he also sits down on a chair that looks like a throne hope that's not foreshadowing anything. Anyway Wilson's just like "Oh Voxola radio I'm just feeling real low" and his Voxola radio is like "SAY PAL I CAN GIVE FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE" and Wilson's like "Oh shit for real???" This is exactly what happened don't fact check this

So Maxwell hijacks his Voxola radio to be like "Hey hey hey you wanna do science shit right. Well guess what I can give you knowledge if you think you're ready." Wilson, of course, jumps at the chance, and Maxwell instructs him to create a machine of sorts. And Wilson works tirelessly away at it for some time, including SLICING HIS WHOLE HAND OPEN TO GET ONE DROP OF BLOOD, BECAUSE HE'S SO UNBELIEVABLY DRAMATIC I LOVE HIM

Anyway, Wilson throws the switch, thunder crashes, Maxwell laughs evilly, and

OH NOW YOU'RE JUST SHOWING OFF ANIMATORS

(seriously the don't starve animation and artstyle is so charming i love it. i think the framerate of the characters' animation should be lower again and the sketchiness should be more visible tho it was so much more charming than ultra smooth in my opinion)

Anyways, Wilson gets dragged into the Constant and cements himself as the greatest isekai protagonist of them all. Somehow he keeps his fairly cheerful attitude even when going through The Horrors, which is so very silly of him. He makes dumbass puns. He calls evergreen trees "piney." He hates spiders. His one perk is growing a magnificent beard. I love him. So much. He's not the deepest character, but god DAMN if he isn't endearing and lovable and so very silly.

So that- ALL OF THAT- is the setup to Don't Starve. From there on out, the plot goeth thusly:

CHAPTER ZERO, SANDBOX MODE. Maxwell greets Wilson like "Say, pal, you don't look so good," and proceeds to fuck off to watch Wilson go through it. Wilson however is a stubborn bastard who refuses to die and will literally make meat effigies of himself to not do so.

...actually that's really interesting. Hey wait that's really interesting. HEY DST FANFIC WRITERS ARE YOU UTILIZING WILSON'S STUBBORNNESS TO NOT GET KILLED TO THE POINT WHERE HE BUILDS EFFIGIES OF HIMSELF TO REVIVE HIMSELF IN YOUR FANFICTIONS BECAUSE THAT'S REALLY INTERESTING. "BUT IT REFUSED" LOOKIN ASS

UHHHH ANYWAY. THAT'S A PRETTY INTERESTING INSIGHT INTO WILSON I JUST FIGURED OUT. GO USE IT WRITERS.

So eventually, Wilson finds the scattered pieces of a portal Maxwell has, and activates it, getting dragged into Adventure Mode. LET'S GOOOOO

CHAPTER ONE, A COLD RECEPTION. And I should note here- the chapters are not in order, the order can get shuffled around. I'm gonna present them all though because it's funny.

So Maxwell is like "Wow :/ you're a dumbass :/ you REALLY think you woulda learned your lesson about activating mysterious portals :/ Anyway the seasons will be changing very fast now good luck" which is prrobably a nightmare for the ecosystem but what ever Anyway Wilson's stubborn ass doesn't die.

CHAPTER TWO, KING OF WINTER. Maxwell sends Wilson into eternal winter because he's being annoying. However, Wilson's stubborn ass STILL REFUSES TO DIE. And thus he continues.

CHAPTER THREE, THE GAME IS AFOOT! Maxwell is like "Uhm. Pal. Buddy. Why are you still alive. Please stop going onwards" and tries to feed Wilson to hounds. Wilson's silly ass is not fed to the hounds though because he is too silly.

Now. In Chapter Three, there's a chance you may find a strange setpiece, where there are these clockwork statues, trapping a strange mime. Creatures and gentlemen, allow me introduce you to the FUNNIEST FUCKING CHARACTER in Don't Starve. Wes.

Now, where do we begin with Wes? Well, let us begin with his backstory. His whole life has been plagued by a hilarious string of bad luck. He's French. He has the worst luck. He would get pied in the face. When he bites into a crepe all the filling falls out. He was born in a wet cardboard box all alone. He is a silly and sad clown mime man. And yet, he simply dedicates himself to making everyone happy.

Now, how would a silly little failure such as Wes get into the Constant? Hilariously, of course. You see, he was buying a crepe one day and gave half of it to a silly monkey guye when he saw a little girl drop her doll from a window and tried to return it to her with a balloon but the wind blew the balloon away and he chased it all throughout the town and saw it'd gotten stuck on a clothesline and managed to balance on the clothesline to get it but unfortunately the clothesline snapped and Wes fell down though he managed to grab the balloon and save a falling nest of eggs and was chased by crows while trying to get the girl's doll to her and he ran into an alleyway where he accidentally knocked someone else out of the way of getting dragged into the Constant and Maxwell accidentally getting Wes pissed him off SO MUCH that he put him in a special prison just for him and Waxwell's quote upon seeing the imprisoned Wes is "He displeased me."

I mean it when I say that Wes is one of the funniest characters in the entire game. In fact, you go through all the trouble of saving him from the prison, and when you do, he immediately DIES, and you unlock him as a character, and he has the WORST STATS IN THE GAME. His hunger drains hilariously fast. His attacks are laughably weak. His only special power is balloons that do nothing but cost him sanity. He was born in a wet cardboard box all alone

okay anyway you free wes and go onwards

CHAPTER FOUR, ARCHIPELAGO. Maxwell is like "UM. BITCH. PAL. TURN BACK. OR I MAY HAVE TO MURDER YOU TO DEATH EVEN MORE." However Maxwell has clearly not realized that Wilson is so stubborn that he will BUILD MEAT EFFIGIES OF HIMSELF SO THAT HE'LL JUST REVIVE FROM THE DEAD. GOD THAT'S SUCH A FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO HIS CHARACTER MAN JUST REFUSES TO DIE

Anyway Wilson goes onwards. CHATER FIVE, TWO WORLDS. Maxwell's actually nice to Wilson for a sec like "Heyyy :) Say pal :) Friend :) My best friend Wilson Percival Higgsbury :) Let's make a deal :) Here :) I made you a lovely little island :) Special for you :) It's got food :) And pigs :) And gold :) And whatever you need :) You can settle down here :) Have a life :) Just PLEASE :)) you ANNOYING BITCH :)) can you GIMME A TRUCE :)) and PLEASE :))) STOP :))) GOING :))) ONWARDS :))) I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD :))) :)))"

Wilson does not stop going onwards

CHAPTER SIX. DARKNESS. Maxwell is PIIIIIIISSED, like "BITCH. YOU BITCH. YOU TINY PITIFUL INSIGNIFICANT BITCH. I AM GOD. PLEASE DIE." And so he sends Wilson into a world he will surely not survive- a world of eternal night. Surely, with Charlie all around, with Charlie being the literal night monster who I feel an immense sense of grief over, surely Wilson will not survive this. Surely Wilson will die of darkness. Surely.

But as I have been stressing, Wilson is stubborn. He refused to give up on his dream of doing science even when it was clear he was bad at it. He refused to sit back and let Maxwell win by staying in the world Max made for him. He is so stubborn he refuses to die, making effigies of himself so he can resurrect from death. Wilson is the most stubborn bastard you've ever fucking met.

If Wilson decides that he will make it through something, then by god, he will make it through.

And he does.

Epilogue: Checkmate.

After all his struggle, Wilson finally, finally gets to Maxwell, to the man who's tormented him this whole time.

Only to discover him. Trapped on the throne. The all-powerful king, and he is weak. Pitiful. Listening to a hellish ragtime melody that won't stop repeating, over, and over, and over.

You can turn off the gramophone. He thanks you, saying he's been listening to that song for an eternity.

Maxwell has this honestly excellent speech about what happened to him. How They changed him over time. How he's completely powerless, despite being in control of everything. He mentions how time moves differently in the Constant, which is a really nice touch- it's not specified how it moves differently, letting the soft magic of the Constant stay soft. We just know it moves differently. How so is left up to us.

Wilson takes pity on the Nightmare King, and unlocks the Nightmare Throne. And Maxwell stands up, stands for the first time in an eternity, pure happiness on his face, free of the Nightmare Throne, getting up for the first time in god knows how long-

...And he screams, his body rotting away into a skeleton, before he crumbles to dust.

After everything, he just fucking dies.

...The Constant demands a ruler. And well, it's got a lovely candidate right there.

Shadowy hands erupt from the ground, grabbing Wilson. Lightning strikes where the Nightmare Throne was, building a new one, and Wilson is dragged onto it as the gramophone resumes. The new Nightmare King of the Constant.

Ruler of everything, trapped forever, with no control, listening to that hellish song.

Honestly, watch this playthrough of Checkmate. It really captures how just amazing this end is. (amazing = horribly fucked)

There's something so utterly horrific about how Wilson is dragged onto the throne after watching Maxwell rot into a skeleton and turn to dust, only for the ragtime melody to resume.

This end is already horrifying to watch. But the music resuming, refusing to stop, is what turns it into a pure nightmare for me.

A melody of eternal torment, never to break. No matter what.

The cycle continues. More will be dragged into this trap, right? And Wilson has become trapped. He can't move. Can't turn off that stupid fucking gramophone.

Doomed to the same fate as Maxwell. To sit there for god knows how long, as They watch him, until someone else frees him and he dies, trapping them.

Right?

..................

SO TURNS OUT YOUR BODY ROTTING AWAY INTO A SKELETON AND TURNING TO DUST IS LESS DEADLY THAN ONE MAY HAVE THOUGHT, BECAUSE MAXWELL IS STILL ALIVE. SOMEHOW. APPARENTLY.

Anyway so Maxwell's alive. Falls out of the sky into the Constant, still got the Codex Umbra, but is no longer all powerful. He learns this upon getting ambushed by a gang of Creatures and realizes he is powerless, and immediately does the brave thing and runs away like a little baby

Anyway night is FALLING and Charlie will wake up soon. And Charlie fucking HAAAATES Maxwell. She HATES him. DESPISES him. And honestly? GIRL'S VALID. Maxwell turned her into The Shadow Creature, hating him is completely fair. And yeah Maxwell's got guilt over the fact that he did that to her. BUT LIKE. HE STILL DID DO THAT TO HER.

Anyways, Maxwell sees smoke in the distance. And where there be smoke, there be fire, which he needs if he is to Not Die. And so he makes his way over.

btw this part is told through a fantastic comic here it is

So he gets to the fire and OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

BITCH JUST. DOES NOT DIE. MAN GOT OFF THE NIGHTMARE THRONE. SOMEHOW. STUBBORN FUCKING BASTARD. THIS GUY MADE MEAT EFFIGIES TO CHEAT DEATH, PERSISTED PAST SEVERAL HORRIBLE TRIALS TO TRY AND GET TO MAXWELL, GOT STUCK ON THE NIGHTMARE THRONE, AND IS STILL KICKING. KING SHIT. FRISK KINNIE. DETERMINATION SOUL. UNDERTALE

Anyway Maxwell is like hmmm maybe it is best to not approach the guy i tried to feed to hounds and tries to leave but the idiot steps on a branch because of course he does. Wilson assumes it is a Creature and grabs his axe to Kill, only to discover it is not a creature and is instead Maxwell. (who ig is a type of creature)

AND UPON DISCOVERING IT IS MAXWELL, HE ROLLS UP HIS SLEEVES AND STARTS TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HIM. WHICH IS HILARIOUS GOOD FOR HIM GO WHITE BOY GO KILL HIM

Anyway shadow hands put out Wilson's fire which freaks him out because of The Creature (charlie), so they run over and get the fire started up again. And unfortunately, the two must team up in order to not die. Look how thrilled they are about this arrangement

Anyway there's these panels that together are absolutely HILARIOUS of Maxwell and Wilson just sitting there glaring at the firepit over several time periods. I understand it's probably meant to show several days passing, however I find it funny to interpret it as "they just sat there glaring at the firepit not saying anything to each other for a whole day" because it's objectively hilarious.

Anyway Wilson offers Maxwell food since they're stuck together they should make sure neither of them die and he's like "Hey didn't you Die. You Died. Like turned to dust. In front of me. I saw it" AND MAXWELL'S PRETTY MUCH LIKE "death is a social construct. how did you get freed from the scary throne and how come i didn't think of it sooner"

And so Wilson explains. See, Wilson was freed from the Nightmare Throne, but he didn't manage to get off of the throne through his own sheer force of will (shockingly enough for this stubborn bitch).

He was freed by Charlie.

For her own reasons, she let Wilson out of the throne and let him free. But she also took all the powers he might have had as the Nightmare King, rendering him the ordinary survivor he was before he was trapped (though many people give him claws and/or blackened hands as a result of the nightmare throne which i find to be very cool and awesome). Charlie sent Wilson back to the Constant and Definitely Nothing Happened With Her And The Throne Afterwards Please Believe Me I Would Never Lie About Anything

So a little bit later, Wilson and Maxwell start trying to build a portal, most likely to actually get out of the Constant, since GOOD FUCKING LORD. That, or to connect to the other survivors in the Constant, which also makes sense! Pooling together the knowledge from the Codex Umbra and Wilson's own blueprints, they manage to build said portal.

The survivors manage to get to them.

Before the portal is destroyed and reshaped.

Shadow hands erupt out of the ground, pulling pieces of it into the ground, black thorny vines wrap around it, the wood is replaced with marble, shadowy flames erupt out of it, red curtains on top, making it resemble a stage.

And all around it grow roses.

The Florid Pastern is created, and above all of them, they see a strange apparition in the sky.

The Constant demands a ruler.

And Charlie, absorbing Wilson's power as the Nightmare King, became that. The monstrous part of her, the part that is cruel and dark, the shadow monster of the night that demands to be fed with hot blood and flesh, fused itself with whatever scraps of her humanity and kindness that'd not been fully consumed.

She became the virus in her mind, fused with it, merged into a whole being, rather than a fractured one.

The Shadow Queen of the Constant.

also here's an exhausted looking Wilson good lord when was the last time he SLEPT

ALSO. BEFORE I FINISH OFF. LET ME TALK ABOUT CHARLIE'S SILLY PLAY.

In Don't Starve Together, you can find a stage, with costumes for you to act in. If you put on the right costumes and choose to start acting, shadow hands briefly control you, and you start acting out a story that is pretty obviously a thinly veiled allegory for the events of Don't Starve.

Charlie is cast in the role of the Doll, and later The Queen. Winona is in the role of the Blacksmith. Maxwell is cast in the role of the King. We THINK that Them is cast in the role of the Mirror. And Wilson- I'LL GET TO WILSON.

What's interesting about this play is how obviously biased it is. The King is cast as an obviously evil man, hoarding magic to himself, shattering the Mirror and taking its power away. I mentioned this earlier- the Blacksmith loves the Doll dearly, but loves her too much, and puts her in a suit of armor that is protective, yes, but is so heavy she can't move, which god damn if that's not an effective metaphor for overcontrolling overprotective siblings.

The insight into Charlie's motives is also interesting- it's shown that the reason she didn't take Maxwell off the throne (aside from maybe spite and wanting to see him hurt which good for her) was because she legitimately didn't know where he was. And she sorta followed Wilson as he traveled so she could find the throne.

And more interestingly- Charlie is an unreliable narrator here, so her perspective is to be taken with a grain of salt, but- according to her, Charlie's motivations are to heal Them. They're broken currently, according to her, and They gave her the power she has now. And she wants to repay Them for what They've given her. Which is INCREDIBLY interesting.

AND. THE FUNNIEST PART ABOUT THIS PLAY. IS WILSON.

So, everyone's cast in different roles, right? Charlie's the Doll, Winona's the Blacksmith, Maxwell's the King, and the Mirror is probably Them, right?

WELL. WILSON. IS CAST IN THE ROLE OF "THE FOOL." HE'S CAST AS SOME FUCKIN DUMBASS WHO ACCIDENTALLY KNOCKS THE KING OFF HIS THRONE AND KILLS HIM BY MISTAKE. AND IT'S ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

What's funnier is that WILSON HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. Winona comments on the scene where Charlie casts her as suffocatingly overprotective, saying "Is there something you wanna tell me, sis?" Maxwell comments on the scene where the Doll finds the Mirror, asking if this is how she really sees him and remembers what happened.

BUT WILSON. HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT BEING CAST AS "THE FUCKING IDIOT DUMBASS WHO TRIPPED OVER HIMSELF AND KILLED THE KING ON ACCIDENT WITH HIS MERRY FOOLERY." Meaning either he DOESN'T realize that's meant to be him, he DOES realize and is just silently fuming, or he DOES realize and just ACCEPTS IT. Like "okay yeah fair." No matter how you slice it, HILARIOUS.

Anyway, here's the play, it's an interesting watch and the video's only 15 minutes long.

god the fool costume even looks like wilson if his hair was looser

Aaaaand that's the lore thus far! There's other stuff that's happened- Charlie got a new outfit and became EVEN MORE beautiful, Wagstaff is a hologram, Maxwell teamed up with Charlie as a double agent which I think was a stupid writing decision because I don't feel it makes sense for Charlie but Fine Whatever I don't care Encore isn't canon to me I'm resisting a full rant about this, Wilson has a skeleton under his floorboards, something else may be trying to get people into the Constant, Wilson looks tired as shit, WX ripped out their heart because feeling emotions was painful I'm not over that short I'll never be over it ever and don't get me started on how Don't Starve feels like it has this intense unending grief woven throughout it and

Uhm. Anyway. I'm normal. I'm SO sorry this got this long my beams got me. This is 8k words long and I spent the whole time listening to Ragtime (the song that plays on the gramophone that maxwell had to listen to for eternity)

[kisaraslover]

Do Mokuba and Kisara have any activities that they like to do together? Is Kisara more of a gal pal to him, or more like a big sister?

hello! so sorry for the late reply, if its any consolation i opened it on my phone and hallucinated my response multiple times before going "ill reply on my laptop later"

to me its definitely a case of "you cant just slap on Traditional Family Dynamic on all platonic relationships" Kisara the woman isnt motherly or nurturing, i know most people want her a "big sister" figure to Mokuba but her themes are social outcast, benevolent yet lonely, angry yet merciful, self sacrificing but hard to connect, shunned and worshipped woman of unknown origin. shes pretty much a wet pathetic meow meow on the surface. that much is impossible to miss so no matter how or when they meet Mokuba would be the one looking out for her. in the soft ways a young boy who grew up too fast tries to care for someone older than him.

think about it. shes scaredgirl core even when all the logical signs in her speech and her actions point to her being calm, coldblooded, levelheaded person, her body language is caving into herself, turtlenecking, backing out until she hits a wall, her self preservation hard to miss. Mokuba would immediately take notice of it (he used to too. though now its Fake It Till You Make with the kaiba bros) and regardless of how calm she might seem i can see him very subtly caring for her in small ways. he'll be more animated and loud if shes embarrassed, he'll step in front of her in a crowd so she can follow, in all joke fights or general seto bitching, him and kisara are a unified front. tho their win rate against him is crazy high theyre never NEVER above dramatically hugging each other, sinking to their knees, begging this tyrant to stop abusing his two very soft and kind family members (guilt tripping older siblings on how they used to treat you is always morally correct. im the older sibling its fair ok)

from there its easy to see him turning to loving her really deeply. while her connection to seto is significant and mokuba is happy for it, kisara herself is a fun, strange little lady, always down for his shenanigans, easily excitable about trying new things. mokuba, as the self proclaimed jack of all trades kaiba brother needs to try out many hobbies, learn about all subjects on earth, taste all arts he can and kisara is a wonderful partner. shes down to earth and humble in a way that puts things into perspective (she has that effect on both kaiba brothers lol. world wont end if you lose this game. there there) and mokuba would enjoy the chilled out nature of her because the kaibas are EXTREME.

anyway so the boyish ways he carefully regards her go both ways, she would be very attached him (dragon!) but she'd not care for the ages at all. she'd be like "OMG MY BEST FRIEND MOKUBAAA!!!" in her mind whenever she spots him. if all goes well and she is given a happy ending, she only enjoys companionship later in life. i like to imagine her having meaningful and rich relationships with different types of people as an adult but it WOULD be missing something important. monkeying around. silliness. and the eternal youth swagTM of mokuba kaiba would be her precious childhood silliness she missed out on. she would get to experimentally Commit To The Bit. her smart humor and his sharp wit, when they get together, leaving behind only the dumbest bits... their chemistry.

best trios are ones where all the members feel like the thirdwheel and knowing how seto-kisara and seto-mokuba are its only fair kisara-mokuba is LINKED for life.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Shattered Identity

Chapter five: Pizza party at Vlad's! And gross horrors, lots of gross horrors.

Chapter one. Chapter two. Chapter three. Chapter four.

"Jeez, you two almost gave us a heart attack!" Tucker halfheartedly scolded the half-ghosts in the hallway as he texted Danny the message that the two broke off their fight on their own. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad things didn't get uglier than this, but next time, at the very least, yell for us if something happens instead of just turning the office into a haunted confetti storage room."

"Sorry Tucker, I didn't know you and Sam were here in the first place."

Danielle sheepishly twiddled her thumbs while her new little brother tapped on the bandages on his neck with an annoyed huff in response.

"Oh.. right, no vocal chords, my bad..." The geek winced. "Maybe we can get you an airhorn later."

"Or he could just scream without words." The technically older clone offered. "You two heard the ghost speak, right?"

"Huh, I always figured that ghost speak would sound... creepier and less like random animalistic noises?"

"♓︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ⬥︎♋︎■︎⧫︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⬧︎□︎◆︎■︎♎︎ ♍︎❒︎♏︎♏︎◻︎♓︎♏︎❒︎," [if you want it to sound creepier,] Jack cracked his neck at an unnatural angle, the sickening sound followed by the squelches of wet ripping noises reverberated through the mansion and the action left the bandaged head dangling limply, giving the impression it was only attached to his body through the bandages on his neck themselves... "♓︎ ♍︎♋︎■︎ ❍︎♋︎🙵♏︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ⬧︎□︎◆︎■︎♎︎ ♍︎❒︎♏︎♏︎◻︎♓︎♏︎❒︎..." [i can make it sound creepier...]

"Gah! Never do that again!" She shivered and punched the older halfa's arm, who let out a raspy chuckle as he reattached his head and opened the office door.

An uncomfortable silence fell as the destroyed state of the office was discovered, much worse than how the sparring spirits left it, large globs of bright magenta ectoplasm had grown(?) all over the office, globs that weren't just the messy aftermath of the brawl, they were writhing and squirming as if they were alive, some of them even had developing eyes and teeth..

"❄︎◆︎♍︎🙵♏︎❒︎, 💧︎♋︎❍︎, 🙵♏︎♏︎◻︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎❒︎ ♎︎♓︎⬧︎⧫︎♋︎■︎♍︎♏︎..!" [Tucker, Sam, keep your distance..!]

The two humans, while they didn't understand what the ghostly host said, understood the unknown nature of the threat at hand as well as his body language and backed away from the scene while the mansion's owner took a slow, hesitant step into the infested office, trying not to catch the attention of the strange creatures, their unfocused eyes instead drifting over the room itself as the bandaged ghost gingerly searched through the rubble looking for the most important items to salvage from it.

"...What are these things..?" Danielle's voice stayed small to not catch any unwanted attention from the unknown ghostlike entities as she followed him, her fist alight with a charging ectobeam as she kept an eye out for sudden movements from them.

"I_D-O-N-T_K-N-O-W" He spelled out on the recovered Ouija board "I-V-E_N-E-V-E-R_S-E-E-N_A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G_L-I-K-E_T-H-I-S_B-E-F-O-R-E"

Sure, from their perspective, 'Jack' not seeing anything like this was a given, he hadn't existed for very long, but Vlad had genuinely no idea how he had done this. A failed copying attempt that he didn't think through during the fight? Maybe a mishap with etco-barriers? ...Something else entirely..? All he really knew was that this was his ectoplasm everywhere and that it was alive.

Cheese curds! He should've known that he was biting off more than he can chew!

How was he supposed to handle this on his own?!

His powers were useless like this at best and detrimentally unstable at worst,

he couldn't get across how important this was to Danny without telling the truth,

but he can't tell Danny the truth!

Let alone Dani!

If they know that he's the real Vlad and he has all his memories but almost none of his powers,

they're going to take advantage of his weakened state and kick his butt!

and

at this rate all of Amity park is going to be enveloped in whatever this horrific ecto-gunk was before he even had a chance to carry out his plan-

and

Maddie is going to see it-

and

use it as a reason to make MORE of those horrible guns-

and

use them on the gunk as well as every single ghost in her sights-

and

she'd naturally set her sights on the ghost zone itself-

and

there wouldn't be a war between humans and ghosts,

and

except that it would be a genocide that he couldn't stop-

and

and

and

and

and-

Snapping out of the downward spiral of negative thoughts, Vlad felt the familiar lab coat being draped over his shoulders as well as two people touching him, one hugging him from behind (the person in question being small enough that people might mistake it for a piggyback ride), and the other who was awkwardly patting his shoulder.

Ugh, was he crying..?

Well, now he had another reason to keep his true identity secret from Danny and the others.

He would die of embarrassment if they knew that he wasn't a clone, still had his memories intact, and yet was still reduced to this weak, pathetic, over-emotional wreck, either they'd find it hilarious or worse, still pity him despite everything.

Part of him wanted to break off the hug to preserve the tatters of his pride and dignity while another part of him just wanted to stay like this a bit longer.

As humiliating as it was for him, it was also kinda nice to be held, to be reassured (albeit clumsily), to be comforted, to be loved.

"Uh, guys, hate to interrupt something but I just wanted to let you know Sam's ordering pizza, what flavors do you want?"

Both saved and damned by the pizza orders, the three halfas broke it off and Vlad put the lab coat on properly.

"Uh Pepperoni?" Danny shrugged.

"Also Pepperoni" Dani nodded.

"E-X-T-R-A_C-H-E-E-S-E_P-L-E-A-S-E"

"Got it" Tucker gave them a thumb's up and turned to head back to Sam before popping his head back in. "Will the cats try to attack the pizza guy?"

"NO_I" He fumbled with the planchette in an attempt to cover up the slip. "V-L-A-D_D-I-D-N-T_O-R-D-E-R_T-A-K-E_O-U-T_O-F-T-E-N_E-N-O-U-G-H_T-O_W-A-R-R-E-N-T_T-H-A-T_T-O_M-Y_K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E."

"Okay, thanks!"

The tech geek left for real this time, leaving the three to their own devices.

"So Danny, have you met my new little brother?" The physically youngest ghost gestured to the tallest.

"Jack? Yeah, he showed up at my house and named himself after my dad."

"You named yourself after someone you just met?" Dani snorted in amusement.

"T-H-E-R-E-S_W-O-R-S-E_N-A-M-E-S_T-O_G-I-V-E_Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F_A-N-D_B-E-S-I-D-E-S_H-E_S-E-E-M-E-D_P-R-E-T-T-Y_N-I-C-E" Vlad shrugged nonchalantly.

From the dishonest ghost's actual perspective, it was something done because he named himself after the first thing he saw (that being the giant oaf) and he stuck with it because in foresight, 'Vlad naming his son after him', would break Jack Fenton that much more during both the reveal of Vlad's death as well as the funeral, in which he and Maddie would either figure out on their own or he'd tell them in his speech that he never had the chance to meet his father before his untimely tragic fate. And Maddie would feel all the more guiltier when she finds out that her horrible gun has taken a human life, one that, while she didn't care very much for, was important as well as cherished by many...

"So how did you know how to find Danny's house so quickly? Or did he bring you there?"

"H-E_F-O-U-N-D_M-E_I-N-J-U-R-E-D_A-N-D_T-R-I-E-D_T-O_H-E-L-P" The bandaged spook explained, being honest yet vague. "A-N-D_I_C-A-M-E_B-A-C-K_I-N_T-H-E_M-O-R-N-I-N-G_T-O_P-R-O-P-E-R-L-Y_I-N-T-R-O-D-U-C-E_M-Y-S-E-L-F."

"Well that's my super-cool cousin for you!" she playfully punches her gene-donor's shoulder. "Always willing to help!"

"Heh, yeah..." Danny gave a nervous smile to his clone and a concerned to 'Jack'. "Hey, speaking of which, you and I need to talk about your... 'issue' in private."

"G-I-V-E_M-E_A_S-E-C-O-N-D_T-O_G-R-A-B_M-Y_T-R-A-N-S-L-A-T-O-R"

Danny nodded and waited as the lanky spirit visually followed the charger to the discarded aid and cleaned the non-living ectoplasm off of it before putting it on his neck and giving him a thumb's up which Danny gave back.

Following the fourteen-year-old out of Dani's presumed ear shot, the lab coat wearing specter nervously picked at his hand's bandages wondering what 'issue' Danny was talking about, his mind almost imminently racing towards him asking 'did you get your memories back?' or something similar.

"Okay, so, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that you and Dani aren't fighting with each other anymore, but right now, we're playing with fire with this cover up. You might not remember, but she's been through a lot because of you- er, Vlad, I could not care less who else does and doesn't know the truth, but she needs to sooner rather than later."

Unbeknownst to the two of them, the clone was eavesdropping out of their sight. Her concern for her new little brother turning into intrigue.

"I know." he nodded somberly. "I plan on telling her everything after the funeral itself. I agree that she does need to know soon, but right now there's too many moving parts to keep track of and I don't know how she'll react to it."

Danny crossed his arms as he frowned at the taller halfa.

"Look, I might not know what I've done, but I get that I've done a lot before waking up and that there's no amount of verbal apologies that would undo all of it. However, this is for her safety too. Like it or not there's two problems that take top priority: Your mom's gun that will cause ghost zone genocide if nothing's done with it, and the power vacuum Vlad's death will inevitably cause. If you think that it causing genocide is just a hyperbole, think back on it, all it took was one hit to reduce a fully-grown, powerful halfa down to just a damaged core desperately clinging onto life, a core that would've shattered if left on its own, so tell me, what do you think would happen if you or her got hit with it?"

"...We'd instantly die..."

"Exactly, and your mom, a competent ghost hunter, knows how powerful that thing is and if it doesn't have any drawbacks from her end, she most likely wont stop using it until every ghost in her sights is dead, yes, even the good ones as well as the not as good but still likeable ones. As for the power vacuum, there are a handful of ghosts who know Dani's origin other than us, ghosts who would be more than happy to kill the only known heir to Vlad's estates while she's none the wiser. But if I handle the funeral *just* right, I could kill two birds with one stone, keep your mom from using the gun ever again and seal up the power vacuum. I know that she'll hate us-"

"Us? Where did you pull 'us' from?"

"Danny, she'll hate me for obvious reasons and hate you because you knew this big secret about me this entire time and never told her. But it'll be okay because she'll still be alive when she hates us, alive and safe. Which in a messy situation like this is the absolute best possible outcome."

"...Right..." Danny sighed.

"Hey," Vlad put his hand on the teen's shoulder reassuringly "she might hate me forever, but not you. Either someone she knows and trusts other than you will talk some sense into her or she'll cool off on her own and realize that you're not the bad guy in this. That in some cases, there isn't a bad guy when there's a bad situation and that sometimes, bad things just... happen and good or neutral guys are bad at handling it."

"Yeah... Thanks, I needed that..." he softly smiled.

Assuming that the conversation was wrapping up, Dani flew back to the office with new secret information to chew on for herself as well as keep hidden from her cousin and brother.

She already knew about Vlad's death and some things were self-explanatory, like the new gun being a big problem, but just how much did Jack Masters know? What dark secrets did the clone of Vlad hide that he shared with Danny and yet were so horrible that she'd never forgive him if she knew?

Was his original purpose not to tie up the loose ends Vlad's death left behind like he said but instead he was made with some of his gene donor's memories intact so that Vlad had pseudo-immortality only for Jack to betray his 'father' by living a different and new life?

Did he try to hunt down Danny and his parents just like how she originally tried to capture him?

Maybe even something worse..?

At the very least, they weren't worried about his malnourished frame meaning something bigger than it was, or Vlad's disease being fatal for Jack, or even the living ectoplasm he created was dangerous like she originally assumed the talk was about, and she could find some comfort in knowing that he valued her safety and well being over their bond as family. Her new brother might be shady, but he had a heart somewhere in those shadows.

"Oh hey guys! How was the talk?" She innocently greeted them as they approached the office.

"It went well."

"Yes, it was rather... informative." Jack picked at the bandages on his forearms while looking around the destroyed office for a distraction. Wait, where did the living ectoplasm go?! "Oh right! I can't believe I almost forgot the records!" He blurted out to keep the two from panicking as much as he was.

"...Records?" Danny raised an eyebrow at the pair.

"Yeah, fake marriage certificates, divorce paperwork, birth certificates, Social Security Numbers, school documents, passports, a not-fake-but-still-legally-questionable death certificate, maybe a fake death certificate for a woman who doesn't exist or two..." Jack listed off on his fingers "My job's more than writing the death certificate and will and calling it a day."

"Woah, woah woah! What do you need all that for?"

"Daniel, the days where someone can just pop into existence as the ages we are without any records of existing prior without drawing suspicion are long behind us. Sure, we could get away with not having them if we intend to live as a state-crossing nomads for a couple of weeks or months if we're lucky, go feral in the woods and let the public come to the conclusion that we were raised by animals while our bio parents abandoned us, or live in the ghost zone where there's a lot less organized existence trails, but we can't live like the average human person without this stuff, not in the long term in the human world. Sooner or later, the government is going to catch up to us and when that happens, we at least have something to shoo them away."

"Huh..."

"Wait, going feral in the woods is an option?" Dani asked her two-day-old physically older brother.

"Yeah, but it's not a good one. Trust me, I tried." Vlad waved off without further elaboration and shuffled the documents.

"Guys, pizza's here!"

Saved by the pizza yet again, the three changed back to their human forms and followed the geek back to the Mansion's foyer, where Sam was waiting for them along with several boxes of pizza and cans of soda were set down, almost enough to feed a frat party rather than a small group of teenagers who happened to have different diets. ...He had a strong feeling that they paid for all of this with one of his debit cards.

"Here you go." Tucker handed the bone-thin halfa five boxes. "I figured you could use it."

"Thanks..." Vlad stared at the boxes in his hands and gestured with his head. "...I'm just gonna, eat these in the other room..."

"No! No! You can stay, we won't judge!" Dani tugged on his sweater sleeve while giving him puppy dog eyes.

"Fine, but all of you get ONE question each, so use it wisely." He set the boxes down and sat on the floor next to them, crossing his legs while opening the top box

"What makes you think we're going to ask questions?" The goth raised an eyebrow "Everybody but Danny already saw your gross ecto-oozing fa-OH MY GOD!"

Everybody but Dani stared at the sight of Vlad's scarred, almost mangled-looking face in horror as the eldest teen just rolled his eyes at their terrified expressions, pocketed his face mask and munched on a slice of cheesy pizza while the others gawked at him like he was some sort of monster.

"...Does it hurt?" Dani was the first to break the awkward silence. "To eat, I mean..."

"Nope, I don't have any working nerves in my face." He lied nonchalantly between bites, not wanting them to know how much pain he was actually in. "Regardless of if its supposed to hurt or not, I can't feel a thing."

"..So if I punch you in the face, you wont feel it at all?" Sam was the next to ask.

"Yes, and you wasted your one question on that, so now you can't ask if you can test it." Vlad immaturely stuck his tongue out at her while she rolled her eyes out of annoyance and took a slice of her cheeseless mixed veggie pizza.

Tucker sat down near Jack and subtly studied his face while opening up the box of meat lover's pizza, if he was only going to get one question about this clone of Vlad's abnormal medical condition, he wanted to make it count.

From what he could tell, the marks on his face were less like acne scars like he assumed they should be (given that the clone probably had ecto-acne at one point, just like his gene donor with a chronic condition) and closer to... either really severe chemical burns or someone pouring boiling acid on his face. Closer, yet not identical to.

He couldn't tell how damaged the upper half of his face was due him having band-aids covering up some of the damage, but even then it was clear that the disfigurements around the clone's mouth were the most intense.

Whatever was used to scar his face ate off his lips and chunks of his cheeks, giving his left-side profile a ghoulish, too-toothy grin regardless of if its owner felt like smiling or not while the right side had a half-inch wide strip of flesh ending the 'smile' while also creating another hole in his face, and if he looked closely enough, he also seemed to be missing a part of his tongue in a way that made it look like there was a bite taken out of it...

"...Can I help you?" Jack asked without bothering to hide the irritation in his tone.

"O-oh uh... I just wanted to ask..." Darn it Tucker, think! You can't waste this question! "I couldn't help but notice that the lower half of your face seems more visibly damaged than the upper half, and that part of the inside of your mouth was partly eaten too, I don't mean to sound insulting but was that just random chance or was your... ...illness on the top half of your head focusing primarily on eating chunks of your brain instead of your face? Again, I don't mean this in an insulting way..."

Sam burst out laughing while Jack's expression went from annoyed to mildly intrigued, he opened his mouth to answer, paused, thought it over, and his mild intrigue turned to dawning horror...

"I... I might have to get back with you on that because I don't know either." Jack cleared his throat in an attempt to hide his nervous voice crack. "Oh Calzones, if he's right and I really am physically losing my mind... Oh Bread Sticks..." He muttered under his breath while holding his head between his hands. "...It explains so much, too much..."

Danny lightly tapped the older teen's shoulder. "Have you ever tried to eat by sticking food through the hole in your cheek?"

Vlad let go of his head and stared at him blankly, seemingly gone through the five stages of grief in five seconds and left so perplexed by Danny's question that it seemed his mind was catching up with the second halfa's words.

But you know what? He hadn't tried before, before, his time was too swamped with hospital trips and robberies to afford the hospital trips to mess around with the odd yet neutral characteristics of his condition. He should fix that while he could, for science.

His index finger idly traced part of the hole to make sure it wasn't bleeding while his other hand picked up and rolled up a slice of pizza, and he stuck the entire slice through the hole, chewed it for a bit and swallowed it.

"I have now, and the experience isn't different enough from eating normally to warrant switching to the hole."

Danny blinked at him, processing what he had just witnessed. "...Okay, I know you said one question but now I have to know; do you have two sets of jaws?!"

"I'll... Also have to look into that." He nervously smiled while screaming internally.

[lolexjpg]

dts s5 e6-8

e6: -having flashbacks of having to defend oscar to my mom for this why does the show try to lean into otmar's perspective so heavily GROSS -nah im full tinhatting i do not remember this whole bit where everyone hypes up oscar in interview before he has his lil chat with mark netflix u slimey lil bitches -oh if i was here when this news broke summer break 2022. i would've been inconsolable. i'm sure it was nuts, ballistic. maybe it was good i wasnt there. idk if i could've handled it akldkfjadslkfjasdkfj -lando saying "i already am (leading the team)" was not that rude it was just the TRUTH sorry -daniel speaking italian is so important actually -"ive been in this sport for 25 years i know what im doing" king that only makes the fumble THAT much more embarrassing COME ON -otmar talking abt how well oscar took all the shit we offered aren't we owed a contract? reminds me of timeshare schemes like actually just u paid for xyz if you dont have a contract in place he doesnt owe u anything maybe do contracts better next time :) -unfortunately zak brown is right!! its a pr disaster is the 5 million worth it!!! and they didnt even get the 5 mil!!! how do lose ur job speedrun masterclass here!! -i do wonder how much netflix inflated daniel's chances for the alpine seat, bc from what i've heard it wasnt really in the conversation. idk i wasnt there but it would make sense for netflix to lean heavily into this narrative -did not realize liam was sitting Right There when pierre was askin abt the gossip aldfjaslkfjaksjdf -the way how in season 1 its like NO DANIEL DON"T LEAVE RED BULL i feel the same way abt pierre going to alpine. like ofc it made perfect sense at the time and you cant fault him for it but like no babygirl its bouta implode PLEASE -rip all the tiktok edits that were muted in the umg purge that paired "good luck to oscar" with "if a man talks shit then i owe him nothing." thank u taylor couldn't have said it better myself -"do you regret anything that's happened?" "um. no :)" U TELL EM BABY

e7: -i'm sorry but geri seemingly getting boiling water from a tap to make tea is so fucking insane rich person cursed -was originally gonna include this funny shot of christian standing looking out a balcony like sharpay evans in high school musical in my s5 gifset but due to recent events i will not :) -i just think. that including this whole bit abt how much checo loves his family in the same episode as the monaco gp where he allegedly cheated on his wife was a CHOICE. interesting. -lewis's monaco 2022 outfit is one of his best outfits ever. its so iconic 2 me -HI ALEX -so many cinematic parallels to discuss. s1 max putting it in the wall in practice and ruining his race to prove he was faster than daniel. known parallels to brocedes ALLEGEDLY trying to sabotage eachother by crashing in that corner in monaco. hmm hmm hmm. much to think -im sorry the sainz collision is just so goofy. i remember watching the replay of this quali and being bamboozled. befuddled. deeply amused. what a stupid fucking sport -'for fucks sa-........okay this is typical monaco isnt it" MAX GETS IT -i honestly dont mind wet monaco races just bc by nature of the track its on average slower therefore less dangerous. i'll take a wet monaco over a wet spa any damn day -ferrari's double pit fuck up is PEAK embarassing ferrari strats. like to do a bad strat is one thing but to just mess up the strat ur trying to do. peak biblically cursed charles leclerc moment

e8: -god i wish i got more into yukierre. i see the appeal. unfortunately they just dont give me brain worms -many thoughts. um i think focusing on yuki's temper is just. unfair. like sure he should work on it but thats an issue with many young drivers its not a unique failure on his part -i have given thoughts on japan '22 before i'm not rly gonna rehash but i really wish the didn't gloss over it on dts. i think it was an important moment in the sport to have a big conversation abt rain safety. -oh this nyck supercut is gonna be painful knowing where it goes :/ -god remember when ppl thought nyck was gonna lead the team? leave yuki in the dust? even /i/ had him above yuki in my preseason predictions isnt that insane? -"im happy, i'll take that, that you'll miss me at least 2 or 3 minutes" god forgot the most romcom ass shit since sebchals we'll start by holding hands -nando n lance having this crazy crash and now a year later they're fucking on the reg. happy 4 them

[rahleeyah]

d. c. anon saying hello!

I’m very curious to see if the finales this season (or maybe early next season?) bring together all these little nuggets of wisdom we have been getting all season from benson or if it all was just how it was written, with no connection/complete coincidence, and we were all reading too much into what she has been saying?

Or if we will know what m meant by saying “it’s not like it seems” or something like that. I know I’m getting the quote wrong.

With that being said, im loving this arc. Oscar papa bring brought in was purely for the fans 😂😂 however Amanda? Was she always this amazing profiler? Genuinely asking bc why else would she have been brought in? Like to serve the purpose of highlighting that Amanda clocked Elliot for leaving Liv? Again for the fans?

welcome back anon!

if we were still under wet lettuce's reign of terror, I would not be able to say with any confidence that I think there would be payoff for all the threads that have been woven so far this season, and Olivia's nuggets of wisdom in particular (physician heal thyself indeed). however. the premises are under new management and that new management has so far done a much better job of telling a cohesive story across episodes, and so I am cautiously optimistic that Olivia's lightbulb moment is incoming. it feels, very much, like somebody over there knows what they're doing, and the fact that the last couple episodes of both shows were left in the same hands gives an even greater potential for a satisfying payoff, tho I continue to remind myself of how s14 ended - we may very well be left on a cliffhanger. which like, that's a solid way to insure a big audience for the premieres, whenever they may be. so we shall see.

oh, Amanda. so Amanda's thing has always been psychology - she has, in a few episodes scattered across her decade on the show, expressed a particular interest in getting inside the minds of the most deranged killers. it is her thing, tho it's always bothered me; I am thinking of the machine elves episodes now, and Amanda's interest in and defense of alternate theories of consciousness, an interest which has always seemed at odds with her intensely narrow view of the world (for example, "abuse victims deserve the abuse bc they allow it to happen" is a theory she has espoused more than once, which, lol).

so the thing is, right, is that it isn't out of left field or anything, her wanting to do these things, it sits right inside of the characteristics they have given her. the thing is, I've never seen any reason to believe she speaks with any authority on the subject. she took point on a few interrogations - the Henry Mesner fiasco comes to mind - and has attended lectures - as they all have - but like. My girlfriend has spent a lot of time learning about serial killers. no one is calling her to be a profiler. I feel like Amanda was brought back not for her skills but for the Drama(tm). Some fans like her very much, bringing back a familiar face for a finale is a good way to boost ratings, allowing us to see Olivia interact with Amanda after we have watched Liv grieving her absence is compelling from a character perspective. and that's the thing, right, is that this is entertainment, so it doesn't matter if Amanda has any skill as a profiler - just like it didn't matter that Nick's pivot into science seems super weird. it's a "willing suspension of disbelief" moment, I think, and I may fuss about it on occasion but I'm not like. mad about it lol

I did want to see Elliot and Amanda acknowledge that they have something in common in leaving Liv, so I'm glad we got that, though "I left bc I'd killed a teenager about the same age as one of my own daughters and the brass were going to make me do a number of things I personally find intolerable and even then I might not get my job back and I can't risk my pension and I have a toddler to raise and I can't talk to Liv about it bc I'm in love with her and if I see her face I'm gonna throw everything away for her" and "I took a new job and then never called her again and made my husband, who is her friend and sees her very often for work, promise not to tell her I'm pregnant for reasons as yet unspecified" are not exactly the same thing.

[despairing-disaster]

16, 20, 23,28 for whit n david?

Gonna combine these for convenience and since it’s a lot of the same characters. Also sorry this took a while, it was a lot of numbers and I'm a chronic procrastinator - -;

David

3. A song that reminds me of them

Save Yourself by Stabbing Westward. I definitely think it fits a different character slightly better, but it works with the idea of him being a motivational speaker who hates his job.

12. Sexuality hc!

Gay

Not really much else to say on that.

16. A childhood headcanon

He was really quiet as a kid. Like, insanely so, to the point that him becoming a public speaker was something nobody really expected from him. 

20. A weird headcanon

David absolutely cannot handle spicy food for the life of him. It’s like a nuclear warhead for his entire GI tract. Given what the creator has said on food preferences, it kinda makes me wonder how he’d react to Xander’s cooking.

23. Future headcanon

I don’t think I can see David surviving the killing game. I see him as a character who isn’t really intended to “grow” so much as reveal more about themselves, and it’s really difficult to keep these characters interesting enough to justify leaving them in the story for 6 chapters (unless you’re linuj). I could realistically see him dying any time between chapter 2 and chapter 4, but I’m leaning more towards chapter 3. I don’t think he’s secretly evil or something, but it’d be the point where, if anyone is gonna just snap (again), it’s gonna be then, and it really seems like David in particular holds a lot back. 

28. The most unnecessary thing they ever did?

It’s not even the fact that he accused Teruko of killing Xander, it’s the fact that he pressed it so hard for so long when everybody else already moved on. I understand that every trial needs its skeptics in the face of new evidence, and I will say that the writer did a pretty good job at not making him hair-pullingly irritating with it, but like... it was pretty unnecessary from a watsonian perspective. 

Whit

So glad you asked me about him bc I love him so much.

2. When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you've sent me a character I don't like)

I think the moment he had with Teruko in the laundry room where he said he just wanted to see her smile. I didn't really think much of him beforehand beyond him being a fun-loving jokester who didn't really take things seriously, but I think that scene really added a much-needed degree of depth to his character. Gonna absolutely shit my pants if he starts getting even more character development at the beginning of chapter 2 tho.

5. My favorite ship of them

Hate to be literally every other person in the fandom, but lets be real here, it's him with Charles. They've had really good chemistry thus far and Whit's interactions with him are where he really seems to shine as a character. Despite being a hardass, Charles really seems to bring out the best in him. Although I'll also throw in whitruko, charwhitruko and whitrei in as honorable mentions.

7. A quote of them that you remember

"Charles, you *do* know what sex is, right?"

Idk. It just kinda came outta left field, even by Whit standards.

16. A childhood headcanon

Whit was one of those kids who asked a million questions. “How do planes fly? Is water wet? Why do male seahorses give birth?” or merely the simple “why” over and over again until whoever he’s talking to realized he’s fucking with them.

20. A weird headcanon

Ik I’ve joked about it before, but he wears those heart-print boxers you always see in cartoons. Not always, but he has quite a few pairs of them.

23. Future headcanon

If Charles doesn’t kick the bucket next chapter, it’s gonna be him. Otherwise, I could easily see him making it to chapter 4, but not likely further than that. I said this with Charles, but I think these two are going to get more development and interaction with each other going forward (and I mostly say this based on speculation around the ch2 previews) though I’m curious to see where it goes from there. I mark chapter 4 as his maximum longevity since it seems that’s the chapter where the characters who get put in the role of being uplifting seem to go to die and that seems to be his role to at least someone in the cast.

28. The most unnecessary thing they ever did?

I don't know how much Whit really did that was unnecessary beyond his typical in-character teasing. It could be argued that he pushed his limits with Charles a few times, but I personally feel like he made up for it later. A lot of his jokes in the first class trial were also a bit questionable given the circumstances. Not that I hate humor in a class trial and all, but having that super serious moment with Charles followed immediately by Whit implicating himself (and Charles) and then not just joking about it, but running that joke into the ground was peak "can you just take things seriously???" for me.

30. The funniest scene they had?

Hard to say since being the funny guy is kinda his schtick. I think his intro was pretty amusing and did a really good job at setting him up as a character, what with all the jabs he was making towards Xander. He had a lot of other good moments, but many of them were followed immediately by more serious ones or involved someone not reacting super well to him in some capacity.

[wickedsniffles]

Trouble that I Always Find

Masterlist

Anonymous requested Ahsoka falling ill either on one of her missions or shortly after the Clone Wars, and a concerned Rex taking care of her! I got a ton of ideas for this prompt -- hope you enjoy! 😊 AND I’M SORRY I TOOK SO LONG 

Title is from this song, which has always given me the biggest Ahsoka vibes. 

Summary: They both know that Ahsoka’s been pushing herself too hard. Does that mean that Ahsoka will actually take the time she needs to rest? Nope. Does that mean that Rex is going to let her keep working through whatever illness she’s managed to pick up? Of course not. 

Set not long after the end of the Clone Wars -- Ahsoka is 19. In an AU where Rex and Ahsoka *don’t* immediately split up to go their separate ways across the galaxy. 

Pairing: Maybe a hint of Rexsoka, if you’re looking. Third Person Ahsoka Perspective. 

Rating: Teen

Tags: PTSD mention, post-Clone Wars, light whump, sickfic, Togruta biology, hunting for food, headache/migraine, working through illness, sneezing, buildups, congestion, caretaking, self-neglect, light angst, fluff, hint of feelings

Word Count: 5.3K

If Ahsoka never sees this miserable, soggy forest planet again, it'll be too soon.

Her growing sources across the Outer Rim have informed her of soldiers in white armor gathering at the edge of the mountains, far beyond the local villages. According to the hearsay, they’re stamped with the insignia of the new Empire, and Ahsoka’s intuition tells her that that can’t be anything but bad news.

She can’t do much on her own, but she has to see if there’s a way to help these clones. She’s still haunted by the day the 501st turned on her, on their own brother. If there’s any chance they can reverse it for more of them, they have to try.

The nightmares she wakes to are filled with Rex pointing his blaster to her head, repeating the same hollowed-out phrase. Good soldiers follow orders. He knows by now when she's had one. Ahsoka is sure he can hear her gasp awake, her arms thrown out to deflect a blast that never comes.

It's almost impossible to fall back asleep after that happens, even after he insists that she's safe. Sometimes the two of them sit through the night til morning together, simply taking comfort in the fact that they're still around to remember. Other nights see them begin to talk about the past, in broken bits and pieces -- any longer and the pain of it would be too much.

Rex has insisted on coming for this recon, too, but there’s no way he can go anywhere near this. They both know it’s risky for him to be seen, no matter how good of a disguise they can manage to scrounge up. That had sparked an argument -- him insisting he wouldn’t be seen at all, so it wouldn’t matter, and Ahsoka pushing back that they couldn’t take the risk. Period.

Ahsoka’s status as a former Padawan might mark her as valuable if she’s caught using the Force. But as far as a good portion of the galaxy knows, she’s just any other disgruntled young Togruta woman. Though if Rex is seen at all, it's game over. She won't let that happen. She knows it frustrates him -- staying with the ship or the camp, and only coming out under the cover of night.

She would rather do things the hard way than not have him around to worry about at all.

Wonder what Skyguy would say right now, she thinks, squinting down at her datapad. It’s an instinctual thought, though that doesn’t stop her stomachs from sinking with sadness. Anakin loved the rain. Scruffy little desert dork. He never seemed to mind getting wet. He’d shake his head like a shaggy bantha and laugh when the water landed all over them -- her and Master Obi-Wan.

Kriff, Master Obi-Wan always looked so mad! It would take everything she had to keep from dissolving into laughter at the look on his face, no matter what kind of situation they were stuck in. And then he'd try and insist that he wasn't angry, only irritated or disappointed. Right.

But it’s just her now. And that’s something she can’t think about, no matter how the feeling of it always lingers there, in the back of her mind.

He’d tell me to quit moping and get on with my mission, she relents, rubbing at a sore montral.

The edges of her cloak are soaked through with rain, as hard as she's tried to keep out of the downpour. The plainclothes she wears in exchange for her long-retired Jedi garb do little to dull the chill of the air, though they cover her from neck to ankle in an effort to disguise her as much as possible.

From her perch in this ancient tree, Ahsoka fights not to shiver, to call on the Force to keep her warm and centered. She has to concentrate on the task at hand. She’s here for a reason, she can’t afford to let her thoughts go fuzzy the way they want to. If only her head didn't ache. It’s cutting into her usual clear concentration, annoying more than anything.

She’s not even sure that the Empire is out here. Gangs have sprung up since the death of the Republic, doubling and even tripling in number with no reasonable law to keep the peace. Maybe that’s all it is, stirred to the point of hysteria with rumors and gossip. At the very least, Ahsoka knows that she’s been sitting stock-still in this tree for hours, watching the supposed meeting place for this group. Not even a stray animal has passed by in that direction.

Kriff it.

It’s getting late, and the suns will set if she stays up here another hour. If they’re operating at night, Ahsoka’s going to come back and watch for it tomorrow, when she has some energy. Right now her stomachs feel like they’re beginning to eat themselves. Her body is sore from sitting so long in one place, and she’s eager to inch down, to stretch and move and hunt.

Casting one last listen around the perimeter, Ahsoka makes sure that she’s alone before opening her comm. It’s a good thing that the tech is waterproof.

“Hey,” she says softly. No name greeting, no code word. This channel connects to Rex and only Rex. If anyone but him were to answer, they’d have to destroy the encryption, starting all over to create a new form of secret comm link.

He picks up almost immediately, the crackling feedback of the comm making her flinch. “Hey. Any luck?”

Ahsoka sighs, watching a little flit-wren sail past her. “Not at all. If they’re here, they’re either working by night, or not in the location the villagers said they would be.”

Rex hmms his own disappointment, hesitating before speaking again. “You coming back, then?”

“Give me a minute. I’m starving.”

And not for crumbly kriffing ration bars. Even the ones that are supposed to be meat-flavored aren’t. The artificial taste coats the roof of her mouth for hours after she eats one, waxy and unappealing. Every time she peels the wrapper, she’s taken back to the mess hall of Anakin’s Star Destroyer, faced with an apologetic serving droid. Rations are low, it would beep out. Rations were often low. She doesn’t give a damn if the things are packed with a day’s worth of essential nutrients. Right now, she’s in a forest, and she’s going to get food.

It’d felt so peculiar that first time, to give into the hunting instincts always bubbling so close to the surface. Slinking low into a prowl, cornering an ash-rabbit on Andelm IV, she’d felt like an idiot. Though every breath it took echoed loud in the hollows of her lekku, its every slamming heartbeat multiplied by the thousands with her ultra-sensitive hearing. The longer she concentrated, the calmer she felt -- like she was meant to do this.

She’d locked her eyes onto the quivering black creature, her bare feet moving in the grass, soundless. This was the way of the Togruta -- to be close to the land. To feel the very pulse of it in the soles of your foot. The ash-rabbit was unaware of her until she was practically on top of it, her body tense before the pounce. Its one startled squeak before going limp between the sharp curve of her canines was its only tell.

And she had felt sorry for them in the beginning, despite it all. Despite all the war and death already sitting on her young shoulders, the first fade of life from their eyes -- from the Force -- still punched her in the gut. As she’d carefully skinned the animal, the words of old Master Eeth Koth came back to her. We cannot control the way we are born, he’d told her once. Only how we choose to carry ourselves. Be proud of who you are, Padawan, both Togruta and Jedi.

She feels much better about what she’s doing after that. For every successful hunt Ahsoka makes afterward, for herself and for Rex, she takes a small moment to thank the animal for giving them the nourishment they need to push forward in their journey through the galaxy. Her confidence soon grows, as well.

Now, though, she’s not sure she’ll be able to make the flawless kill she’s used to.

Ahsoka works her way down from her perch in the tree, wincing as every motion jostles her full-feeling head and montrals. She wants to go faster, to avoid the potential of being seen in a vulnerable position, but there’s no way she can move at normal speed without stumbling over with dizziness. Even if she can’t sense anyone around her, her survival instincts tell her not to waste any time. So the compromise is a nauseating but manageable pace, until there’s ground beneath her feet at last.

Even when she’s level, it takes a second for Ahsoka to stop seeing doubles of the trees and bushes. It’s been hours now since she’s moved more than to ease the ache of sitting in one spot, and the adjustment isn’t kind. She has to close her eyes, taking a few deep breaths in and out, wishing she’d had the foresight to bring bacta to at least numb the headache. Nothing to do about it now. At least when she’s done with this, she tells herself, she can get back to the camp with Rex and settle down for the day.

Concentrate. Listen.

If she wants to get to camp, then she’d better hurry and find something to sink her fangs into. Straightening her back, Ahsoka slowly tilts her head, letting the sounds of the forest reach her lekku. There are tiny mice scurrying under the leaves, hurrying to reach their burrows to get out of the damp. Overhead, the rustle of wings as birds cut through the rain, going back to nests or doing their own hunting. Not much of a meal, even between just the two of them.

But wait -- there. The tentative step of hooves over damp soil is a giveaway. As Ahsoka zeroes in on the sound, she can see the outline of a squat, dull green body making its way through the trees. As she holds her breath, three more emerge, moving in a pack. They’re several yards away, with their short snouts pressed to the ground as they graze.

Bingo.

Ahsoka drops her supplies at the base of the tree, moving in a low crouch toward the family of creatures. In this instance, she’s glad for the ongoing drizzle; it’ll mute her scent, and the lack of breeze is a bonus, too. She moves from tree to tree, her feet never making a sound. Ahsoka keeps her eyes on the creatures the whole time, excited at the prospect of bringing one back. They’re about as tall as her knee, stocky with short knobbly legs. Her mouth is watering at the idea of living off of real meat for a whole week, maybe even two --

A twig snaps beneath her foot, and the entire group looks up in alarm. Ahsoka freezes, becoming a statue. She can feel her pulse pounding in her head, a dull blow every time, as she tries to keep still. Blend in. Blend in. In her plain garments, she shouldn’t stand out to them. No doubt they have less-than-ideal eyesight, only alerted to motion and scent. Sound. So if she’s stock-still and quiet –

Her nose itches. Ahsoka ignores it, keeping her gaze focused on the herd. One by one, they lower their heads, turning their attention back to the ground. Good. She’ll take the smaller one then, the adolescent still sticking close to its parents. It’ll have a false sense of confidence once she closes in for the kill, something that will quickly fade one her fangs sink into its throat. Ahsoka will be sure to make it painless.

Sinking into a crouch, she eases forward, squinting a little. The hunger tearing at her stomach is impossible to ignore now, she needs to make this kill. But the itch in her nose is growing, too, frustrating beyond belief, making her eyes water. To Ahsoka’s immense annoyance, she’s going to sneeze, forced to stifle the harsh sound into the back of her palm. The gasping buildup is followed by an abrupt squeak, no louder than a mouse. Her cheeks flame with embarrassment, though only the grazing creatures are around to hear.

Her attempt at silence still isn’t quiet enough. They’ve heard her, spooked again, still anxious from her first slip-up and not content to stay in one place any longer.

Beyond angry at herself, Ahsoka decides to lunge in at the herd. Kriff this. She’s desperate, she feels like shit, she wants something to show for all the effort she’s gone through today. They scatter in all directions, lowing out their aggravated calls. Quicker than lightning, even off-balance and miserable, Ahsoka snares the smallest by its back leg. It shrieks in protest, writhing, knocking her to the ground.

The unexpected blow sends pain up her shoulder and side like a flash of light. With a strangled curse, Ahsoka grapples for its thick throat, tearing through flesh until she can feel – and sense – its life Force ebbing away. Breathing heavily, she gets to her feet, aware that she’s made a complete mess of herself. Sloppy, Anakin might’ve chastised. C’mon, Snips. You know better.

“Be quiet,” she mutters to no one, lifting the creature to carry back to camp. Now isn’t the time to be talking to ghosts.

—------

Rex blinks at her when she returns, doing a double take to hide his surprise at the state she’s in. Ahsoka knows she’s dirty, and must look as exhausted as she feels. Half of her outfit is covered in mud. Her lekku are still swollen and aching, hanging full and thick at the sides of her head, aggravating her migraine. It’s all she can do to trudge into their little camp and deposit her conquest at the fire, thankful that at least it’s stopped raining.

“Well,” he says finally. “That was more than a minute.” Then Rex is on his feet, still looking so strange in his ordinary clothes, inspecting what she’s brought back. “Impressive kill. Feed us for quite a while, I expect. How about I start on this while you get changed?”

This is what she values about Rex. He’s about as practical as they come, and not about to tease her when she’s already down. Since her day has already been long and disappointing, there’s nothing she wants more than to struggle out of her wet clothes and into something dry and clean. The fire looks welcoming, stoked with care at Rex’s hand. She knows that by the time she’s done changing it won’t be long before he’ll have enough of the creature ready for them to share.

“Sounds great,” she says through a thick sniffle, trying to pass it off with a smile. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

His response is casual enough, but Ahsoka can feel his eyes on her as she ducks into their little passenger ship. Suspicious. After knowing one another for so long, it’s hard to keep secrets. Surely he knows that she feels awful.

Closing the ship’s hatch behind her, Ahsoka sighs in the privacy of the ship, shedding her soaked garments. She redresses into some of Rex’s old blacks, comforted by the familiar material on her skin. There’s enough water left in the reservoir to splash her face clean and to rinse her arms, and she looks at her face in the small fresher mirror with a grimace. There are circles like bruises under her eyes. She looks like she’s taken a punch – and lost about three days of sleep. No wonder Rex is worried.

“Ugh…” she groans, leaning down to the med cabinet.

With any luck, some bacta smeared on her forehead and montrals will help to numb this god-awful headache. But to her disappointment, there’s only one tube left. A small, paranoid part of her doesn’t want to waste bacta on something like a headache when she doesn’t know when they’re picking up supplies again. Images of Rex injured flash in her mind, his blood slipping beneath her fingers – all because she’d wasted the bacta.

Biting her lip, she slides the drawer shut again. She can manage.

As she'd predicted, Rex is spearing portions of the animal over the fire to roast by the time she returns, and the smell is mouth-watering. He hands her the first one finished, and she sinks her teeth into it gratefully, groaning as another sharp hunger pain lances her through. Ahsoka doesn’t even care that she’s burning her mouth; it’s so good she was so hungry oh my goooooood.

Rex is watching her with an expression stuck somewhere between amusement and concern as she finishes in messy bites and gulps, tearing strips of meat from the skewer and licking her fingers clean.

“Was that…good?” he asks, suppressing a smile.

“Mmfyeah,” says Ahsoka, wiping her face on the back of her sleeve. A little voice in the back of her mind that sounds suspiciously like Obi-Wan admonishes her for eating in such an uncivilized way, but she tries to ignore it. "Starving."

"Pushing yourself too hard," Rex comments. He keeps his tone light.

Ahsoka does her best not to pout. Because according to everyone she's ever spent an extended amount of time with, she does pout. It's not as if she has a choice, does she? Neither of them do. All there's left to do is push, and push, struggling through day after day. Even when she was a Padawan, during the war. At least then, she knew there was a whole legion of Jedi out there that would protect her. The clones, too, taking her under their arms. Her ori’vode.

Now all they have is each other. They can't afford to relax.

"You look awful," he continues, digging in with flat honesty. "Don't tell me you don't feel awful, Commander."

At least he'd delivered the truth with her old title, now only a nickname. Ahsoka frowns, still refusing to answer. Stubborn. Caught somewhere between confessing just how right he is – she wants to lie down and cry – and holding her ground, to prove him wrong. Because some part of her always has to be the brave one. The Padawan who endures everything. Anakin's protege, soaring past all the others. To excel you need to have ambition along with talent and luck. And some part of her doesn't know when to give up.

"Fine," she says at last, the word hardly distinguishable through her stuffy nose. It seems to echo through her lekku, her whole head feeling stuffed. She drops her face to her hands, deflating. "I feel awful, okay? Is that what you wanted?"

Rex's face changes at once, his brows furrowing in soft concern.

"What –? No, of course I – 'course I don't want that."

He gets up from his seat on the fire, careful not to overturn the empty storage crate he'd been perched upon. Rex crouches beside her, narrowing his eyes, placing his outstretched hand to her montrals. Ahsoka winces at the touch, shutting her eyes even though he's being very, very gentle. His fingers feel nice on her skin after a moment, cool.

"Hey," Rex prompts quietly. "You feel so bad, why didn't you use some of the bacta?"

She heaves a sigh, chewing at her lip now. "S'the last tube and I didn't want – you know."

He nods. "I get it."

Relief blooms in her chest. That irrational fear refuses to leave, the sight of him hurt with no way for her to help. Ahsoka curses herself for never learning how to Force heal much more than a scraped knee, knowing she'd be no help if his life was in danger anyway. Too panicked. Too afraid. She really would've been a lousy Jedi.

"Doesn't mean I'm gonna let you be miserable, though."

"What?" She sniffs.

"Sit tight," Rex says, getting to his feet. "Don't eat all our rations while I'm gone," he adds with a teasing grin. "Gonna find you something to help."

"You can't!"

Ahsoka shoots to her feet in protest, immediately seeing double and then triple of their camp around her. Rex lurches forward to steady her, his hands supporting her shoulder and side, always there when she needs. She curses this weakness, this temporary need for his extra support. Why can't she just go back to being healthy? Why did her body decide to slow her down? She's so frustrated.

"You can't," she repeats, gingerly settling back on her own crate. "If someone recognizes you, Rex, you know we're done."

"Then no one will," he says simply.

As if it’s that easy. Knowing she can’t change his mind, all Ahsoka can do is sit there and watch him go. She couldn’t stop him if she tried, couldn’t win if it turned into a fight. Not in the shape she’s in. Long after Rex disappears from sight, she reaches for him in the Force, clinging to that familiar mind, until that too is out of reach.

For a long while, she sits and watches the fire burning itself out. She, too, feels as if she’s purposefully exhausting herself by sitting upright, waiting for Rex to return. It would be better for her to lock herself inside the ship, safer. Still she can’t seem to peel herself away until the fire is nothing but embers, her headache pounding dully in every part of her skull.

Trembling and exhausted, Ahsoka trudges to her feet. It takes her no time at all to fall asleep once she hits her cot, surrendering to a dreamless and heavy slumber.

—---------

When she comes to, Ahsoka instantly knows that something is wrong. The tiny window above her area in the ship is filled with sunlight, instead of shaded with the colors of early dawn.

Oh my god. Rex never came back.

Ahsoka stumbles to her feet, still weighed down by her sinuses. If Rex had come back, she would’ve heard him open the hatch of the ship, felt his footsteps echoing across the durasteel. Instead she’s spent hours here undisturbed, and that can’t be a good sign. She’s truly alone without him now. Cold dread starts in her chest, filling her heart like drowning waves, until –

Until she senses Rex outside, very much alive and well. Lowering the ship’s hatch with a curse, Ahsoka hurries to join him – and finds an odd sight. From the rucksack he carries with them on occasions where they have to travel afoot, Rex is pulling out handful after handful of long, dark green leaves, setting them in a pot of water over the rekindled fire.

“What the kriff are you doing?” Ahsoka says, testy.

Of course, she doesn’t manage to sound intimidating at all. Her voice doesn’t even sound like her own at this point. Rex straightens, setting his bag on the ground, and gives her what she knows is a pitying smile. Ahsoka loathes pity. Even standing here sicker than she even wants to acknowledge, she detests it.

“No bacta in the village,” Rex says by way of answer, poking the leaves further down into the water with a fork. “Least not that we could afford. Found these instead.”

Defeated, Ahsoka sinks onto a crate to watch him poke at…whatever it is he’s brought back. Her relief that Rex is even here to argue with outweighs her need to give him the third degree. Besides, she doesn’t think she has the energy to. All that matters is that he’d come back, like he’d promised, safe.

“And what are they?” she croaks.

Rex settles to sit across from her. “Natives called it pommwomm,” he says with a shrug. “Apparently the Togruta and Twi’lek travelers that pass through use it for a lot of ailments, and taught them how to use it, too.”

“Oh.”

She feels so tired and achy. It’s hard to concentrate on watching him stir the leaves in their little boiling pot; Ahsoka’s eyes keep slipping closed. She lets them, resting her chin in her palm, instead using the Force to pay attention to their surroundings. Stars, when was the last time she was this sick? She can’t remember. There wasn’t time for this in the midst of a war. Maybe, she thinks, this is her body’s way of catching up. Repaying her for all those years of never resting.

“‘Soka?”

Rex’s inquiry makes her blink back into awareness. It had been strange, at first, for him to call her anything but Commander. Now, though, she enjoys hearing her name in his voice.

“Got ‘em ready for you.”

There’s a faint menthol scent coming from the water between them. Later when Ahsoka tells Rex she can barely smell the stuff, he barks out a laugh – she must really be sick, he muses, because even he knows the smell is strong.

Fishing out a clump of boiled leaves, Rex offers it to her with an apologetic expression. “Here.”

She wrinkles her nose. “What do you want me to do?”

The faintest smile crosses his face. Amusement flickers in his life Force, as if he’s expecting her to have a negative – and entertaining – reaction. “Well, you’ve gotta – you chew ‘em. Then you spread the stuff on your lekku. Helps with colds?”

Oh. My. Stars. That’s disgusting.

“Reeeeex,” she whines. “That’s kriffing nastyyyyy.”

He clamps a hand to his mouth, but she can see his shoulders shaking with laughter. “I know,” he answers after a few moments trying to get a grip on himself. “Yeah s’not – ideal. But the people I talked to said it works great, and you – well. Ahsoka, you don’t look good. You really don’t.”

Ahsoka scowls, staring at the bowl of clumpy leaves as it cools down beside her. She knows she’s being a youngling about all this, but chewing weird plants and smearing the paste all over her head-tails is the last thing she wants to do. But if it’s the only choice she has, then so be it. Fishing one leaf out between two trembling fingers, she opens her mouth and begins to chew.

The consistency is terrible. Soft and soggy, making her hurry to shove down her gag reflex. But…the taste isn’t so bad. Sweet and minty on her tongue, spreading quickly up to her sinuses and into the hollows of her lekku. With only slight reluctance, Ahsoka fishes another leaf out, not looking forward to spitting it into a paste in front of Rex.

Conveniently, though, he seems to find himself distracted by a loose panel on the exterior of their ship. She smiles, watching him crouch down to get to work on it.

The leaf-paste is thick and sticky as she spreads it over her swollen lekku, though the sensation isn’t as unpleasant as she’d imagined. Mostly there’s relief as the cooling effects of the plant get to work on her fragile skin, and Ahsoka finds herself sighing at the welcome change. She can feel her airways clearing, the headache beginning to ebb. She’s so grateful to not be completely alone in the galaxy. To have Rex watching her back in times like this. (Or not watching her at all, in this case, giving her a little privacy for this less-than-normal course of treatment.)

Of course, that means that all the congestion is only going to drain out of her, making her sniffly again. Even by the time she’s chewed and pasted her way through the leaves, feeling ridiculous, her sinuses are unstuffing themselves.

Ahsoka squints down to catch a glimpse of her reflection in her wrist comm – yep. She looks as awful as Rex had implied. The leaf paste has stained the white stripes of her lekku a dark purple, and the shadows under her eyes refuse to budge. With her headdress left inside the ship in her hurry to see where Rex had gone, she feels strangely naked, atop it all. Usually no one sees her without it, and yet she hasn’t even thought about Rex seeing her this way until this moment.

He’s still tinkering away at the panel, leaning it against the side of the ship and inspecting a small bend in the durasteel. The last thing they need is another one flying off during a hyperspace jump. Normally Ahsoka would do it herself, but even with the pommwomm paste soothing her head, she doesn’t trust herself to work without seeing double.

But she has to get up. There’s still surveillance to be done on the suspicious area of this planet. Ahsoka knows neither of them will be content until there’s not a shadow of a doubt that there’s no Empire activity going on. A few more days of watching ought to rule out the possibility. There’s no way she can sit around moping here. Whatever’s wrong with her will pass.

“How’s it goin’ over – heyyy where d’you think you’re going?” Rex stops mid-question, almost dropping his magnaspanner in surprise. Ahsoka only gives him an innocent look, righting the wobble in her step. “Don’t even think about going back to the surveillance point today. Nope. Sorry, you’re staying put.”

Damn. He knows her too well, doesn’t he?

“Rex, you know we can’t just sit here.”

She swipes at her nose, irritated even further with the growing itch. In answer to her stubbornness, Rex stops what he’s doing and crosses his arms, prepared to be a barrier if he has to. Ahsoka narrows her eyes, rooting herself in place. She doesn’t want this to become a physical spat, but –

Her scattered thoughts of ways to disarm him vanish as she sneezes quickly into one elbow. Another embarrassingly squeaky sound, a tight breath of air, leaving her flushed dark with a blush.

“Jate jahaal,” Rex mutters, one eyebrow raised. As if he’s proving a point.

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t be if you keep pushing.” Rex sighs, his life Force filled with concern. “Think of it this way, then. Would you let me do it, if it were me? Would you want me out there?”

Ahsoka bites her lip. “Well…no.”

In fact, she’d be livid at the thought of him risking his health like that, on top of all the other risks they already have to take. She’d be worried and restless waiting for him here alone, and – oh.

Guilt lances at her heart. Has she really strayed so far from the Code? Has she forgotten that in order to care for others, she has to first care for herself? Ashamed, Ahsoka stares at her boots, wishing she’d realized what a mess she was making of things sooner.

“Come and sit back down,” Rex says softly, voice light with persuasion. “Rest. Let me fix you something.”

She hesitates for a long moment. Would it be so bad to spend the day here with him, doing nothing but napping in the planet’s sun? Something in her melts; that sounds divine. That simple joy would be a pleasure she hasn’t allowed herself in so, so long, maybe ever. Just…rest. Here with a friend, enjoying each other’s company. Maybe they could spend time talking about the good old days, when there was time between the fighting. The jokes and the laughter spread between the sorrow and pain.

“Okay,” whispers Ahsoka, and it makes him smile.

Something tugs on her heart to see it, and in that instance, she has another realization. But for now, it’s something that she’ll keep to herself, a little thing to ponder in the quiet of her mind for weeks and even months to come. For now, it’s enough to be together, to have the soft morning light. For Ahsoka to complain about looking so silly with the stupid pommwomm paste, and Rex agreeing with a light chuckle. For him to get the softest blanket out from the confines of their ship, and for her to fall asleep propped up against his shoulder.

They have one another. Through this. Through everything.

[wickedscribbles]

Trouble That I Always Find

Masterlist

Anonymous requested Ahsoka falling ill either on one of her missions or shortly after the Clone Wars, and a concerned Rex taking care of her! I got a ton of ideas for this prompt -- hope you enjoy! AND SORRY I TOOK SO LONG 😭 Title is from this song, which has always given me the biggest Ahsoka vibes. 

Summary: They both know that Ahsoka’s been pushing herself too hard. Does that mean that Ahsoka will actually take the time she needs to rest? Nope. Does that mean that Rex is going to let her keep working through whatever illness she’s managed to pick up? Of course not. Set not long after the end of the Clone Wars -- Ahsoka is 19. In an AU where Rex and Ahsoka *don’t* immediately split up to go their separate ways across the galaxy. Pairing: Maybe a hint of Rexsoka, if you’re looking. Third Person Ahsoka Perspective. 

Rating: Teen

Tags: PTSD mention, post-Clone Wars, light whump, sickfic, Togruta biology, hunting for food, headache/migraine, working through illness, caretaking, self-neglect, light angst, fluff, hint of feelings 

Word Count: 5.3K

If you like what I write and can afford to do so, please consider buying me a coffee! It would be much appreciated.

If Ahsoka never sees this miserable, soggy forest planet again, it'll be too soon.

Her growing sources across the Outer Rim have informed her of soldiers in white armor gathering at the edge of the mountains, far beyond the local villages. According to the hearsay, they’re stamped with the insignia of the new Empire, and Ahsoka’s intuition tells her that that can’t be anything but bad news.

She can’t do much on her own, but she has to see if there’s a way to help these clones. She’s still haunted by the day the 501st turned on her, on their own brother. If there’s any chance they can reverse it for more of them, they have to try.

The nightmares she wakes to are filled with Rex pointing his blaster to her head, repeating the same hollowed-out phrase. Good soldiers follow orders. He knows by now when she's had one. Ahsoka is sure he can hear her gasp awake, her arms thrown out to deflect a blast that never comes.

It's almost impossible to fall back asleep after that happens, even after he insists that she's safe. Sometimes the two of them sit through the night til morning together, simply taking comfort in the fact that they're still around to remember. Other nights see them begin to talk about the past, in broken bits and pieces -- any longer and the pain of it would be too much.

Rex has insisted on coming for this recon, too, but there’s no way he can go anywhere near this. They both know it’s risky for him to be seen, no matter how good of a disguise they can manage to scrounge up. That had sparked an argument -- him insisting he wouldn’t be seen at all, so it wouldn’t matter, and Ahsoka pushing back that they couldn’t take the risk. Period.

Ahsoka’s status as a former Padawan might mark her as valuable if she’s caught using the Force. But as far as a good portion of the galaxy knows, she’s just any other disgruntled young Togruta woman. Though if Rex is seen at all, it's game over. She won't let that happen. She knows it frustrates him -- staying with the ship or the camp, and only coming out under the cover of night.

She would rather do things the hard way than not have him around to worry about at all.

Wonder what Skyguy would say right now, she thinks, squinting down at her datapad. It’s an instinctual thought, though that doesn’t stop her stomachs from sinking with sadness. Anakin loved the rain. Scruffy little desert dork. He never seemed to mind getting wet. He’d shake his head like a shaggy bantha and laugh when the water landed all over them -- her and Master Obi-Wan.

Kriff, Master Obi-Wan always looked so mad! It would take everything she had to keep from dissolving into laughter at the look on his face, no matter what kind of situation they were stuck in. And then he'd try and insist that he wasn't angry, only irritated or disappointed. Right.

But it’s just her now. And that’s something she can’t think about, no matter how the feeling of it always lingers there, in the back of her mind.

He’d tell me to quit moping and get on with my mission, she relents, rubbing at a sore montral.

The edges of her cloak are soaked through with rain, as hard as she's tried to keep out of the downpour. The plainclothes she wears in exchange for her long-retired Jedi garb do little to dull the chill of the air, though they cover her from neck to ankle in an effort to disguise her as much as possible.

From her perch in this ancient tree, Ahsoka fights not to shiver, to call on the Force to keep her warm and centered. She has to concentrate on the task at hand. She’s here for a reason, she can’t afford to let her thoughts go fuzzy the way they want to. If only her head didn't ache. It’s cutting into her usual clear concentration, annoying more than anything.

She’s not even sure that the Empire is out here. Gangs have sprung up since the death of the Republic, doubling and even tripling in number with no reasonable law to keep the peace. Maybe that’s all it is, stirred to the point of hysteria with rumors and gossip. At the very least, Ahsoka knows that she’s been sitting stock-still in this tree for hours, watching the supposed meeting place for this group. Not even a stray animal has passed by in that direction.

Kriff it.

It’s getting late, and the suns will set if she stays up here another hour. If they’re operating at night, Ahsoka’s going to come back and watch for it tomorrow, when she has some energy. Right now her stomachs feel like they’re beginning to eat themselves. Her body is sore from sitting so long in one place, and she’s eager to inch down, to stretch and move and hunt.

Casting one last listen around the perimeter, Ahsoka makes sure that she’s alone before opening her comm. It’s a good thing that the tech is waterproof.

“Hey,” she says softly. No name greeting, no code word. This channel connects to Rex and only Rex. If anyone but him were to answer, they’d have to destroy the encryption, starting all over to create a new form of secret comm link.

He picks up almost immediately, the crackling feedback of the comm making her flinch. “Hey. Any luck?”

Ahsoka sighs, watching a little flit-wren sail past her. “Not at all. If they’re here, they’re either working by night, or not in the location the villagers said they would be.”

Rex hmms his own disappointment, hesitating before speaking again. “You coming back, then?”

“Give me a minute. I’m starving.”

And not for crumbly kriffing ration bars. Even the ones that are supposed to be meat-flavored aren’t. The artificial taste coats the roof of her mouth for hours after she eats one, waxy and unappealing. Every time she peels the wrapper, she’s taken back to the mess hall of Anakin’s Star Destroyer, faced with an apologetic serving droid. Rations are low, it would beep out. Rations were often low. She doesn’t give a damn if the things are packed with a day’s worth of essential nutrients. Right now, she’s in a forest, and she’s going to get food.

It’d felt so peculiar that first time, to give into the hunting instincts always bubbling so close to the surface. Slinking low into a prowl, cornering an ash-rabbit on Andelm IV, she’d felt like an idiot. Though every breath it took echoed loud in the hollows of her lekku, its every slamming heartbeat multiplied by the thousands with her ultra-sensitive hearing. The longer she concentrated, the calmer she felt -- like she was meant to do this.

She’d locked her eyes onto the quivering black creature, her bare feet moving in the grass, soundless. This was the way of the Togruta -- to be close to the land. To feel the very pulse of it in the soles of your foot. The ash-rabbit was unaware of her until she was practically on top of it, her body tense before the pounce. Its one startled squeak before going limp between the sharp curve of her canines was its only tell.

And she had felt sorry for them in the beginning, despite it all. Despite all the war and death already sitting on her young shoulders, the first fade of life from their eyes -- from the Force -- still punched her in the gut. As she’d carefully skinned the animal, the words of old Master Eeth Koth came back to her. We cannot control the way we are born, he’d told her once. Only how we choose to carry ourselves. Be proud of who you are, Padawan, both Togruta and Jedi.

She feels much better about what she’s doing after that. For every successful hunt Ahsoka makes afterward, for herself and for Rex, she takes a small moment to thank the animal for giving them the nourishment they need to push forward in their journey through the galaxy. Her confidence soon grows, as well.

Now, though, she’s not sure she’ll be able to make the flawless kill she’s used to.

Ahsoka works her way down from her perch in the tree, wincing as every motion jostles her full-feeling head and montrals. She wants to go faster, to avoid the potential of being seen in a vulnerable position, but there’s no way she can move at normal speed without stumbling over with dizziness. Even if she can’t sense anyone around her, her survival instincts tell her not to waste any time. So the compromise is a nauseating but manageable pace, until there’s ground beneath her feet at last.

Even when she’s level, it takes a second for Ahsoka to stop seeing doubles of the trees and bushes. It’s been hours now since she’s moved more than to ease the ache of sitting in one spot, and the adjustment isn’t kind. She has to close her eyes, taking a few deep breaths in and out, wishing she’d had the foresight to bring bacta to at least numb the headache. Nothing to do about it now. At least when she’s done with this, she tells herself, she can get back to the camp with Rex and settle down for the day.

Concentrate. Listen.

If she wants to get to camp, then she’d better hurry and find something to sink her fangs into. Straightening her back, Ahsoka slowly tilts her head, letting the sounds of the forest reach her lekku. There are tiny mice scurrying under the leaves, hurrying to reach their burrows to get out of the damp. Overhead, the rustle of wings as birds cut through the rain, going back to nests or doing their own hunting. Not much of a meal, even between just the two of them.

But wait -- there. The tentative step of hooves over damp soil is a giveaway. As Ahsoka zeroes in on the sound, she can see the outline of a squat, dull green body making its way through the trees. As she holds her breath, three more emerge, moving in a pack. They’re several yards away, with their short snouts pressed to the ground as they graze.

Bingo.

Ahsoka drops her supplies at the base of the tree, moving in a low crouch toward the family of creatures. In this instance, she’s glad for the ongoing drizzle; it’ll mute her scent, and the lack of breeze is a bonus, too. She moves from tree to tree, her feet never making a sound. Ahsoka keeps her eyes on the creatures the whole time, excited at the prospect of bringing one back. They’re about as tall as her knee, stocky with short knobbly legs. Her mouth is watering at the idea of living off of real meat for a whole week, maybe even two --

A twig snaps beneath her foot, and the entire group looks up in alarm. Ahsoka freezes, becoming a statue. She can feel her pulse pounding in her head, a dull blow every time, as she tries to keep still. Blend in. Blend in. In her plain garments, she shouldn’t stand out to them. No doubt they have less-than-ideal eyesight, only alerted to motion and scent. Sound. So if she’s stock-still and quiet –

Her nose itches. Ahsoka ignores it, keeping her gaze focused on the herd. One by one, they lower their heads, turning their attention back to the ground. Good. She’ll take the smaller one then, the adolescent still sticking close to its parents. It’ll have a false sense of confidence once she closes in for the kill, something that will quickly fade one her fangs sink into its throat. Ahsoka will be sure to make it painless.

Sinking into a crouch, she eases forward, squinting a little. The hunger tearing at her stomach is impossible to ignore now, she needs to make this kill. But the itch in her nose is growing, too, frustrating beyond belief, making her eyes water. To Ahsoka’s immense annoyance, she’s going to sneeze, forced to stifle the harsh sound into the back of her palm. The gasping buildup is followed by an abrupt squeak, no louder than a mouse. Her cheeks flame with embarrassment, though only the grazing creatures are around to hear.

Her attempt at silence still isn’t quiet enough. They’ve heard her, spooked again, still anxious from her first slip-up and not content to stay in one place any longer.

Beyond angry at herself, Ahsoka decides to lunge in at the herd. Kriff this. She’s desperate, she feels like shit, she wants something to show for all the effort she’s gone through today. They scatter in all directions, lowing out their aggravated calls. Quicker than lightning, even off-balance and miserable, Ahsoka snares the smallest by its back leg. It shrieks in protest, writhing, knocking her to the ground.

The unexpected blow sends pain up her shoulder and side like a flash of light. With a strangled curse, Ahsoka grapples for its thick throat, tearing through flesh until she can feel – and sense – its life Force ebbing away. Breathing heavily, she gets to her feet, aware that she’s made a complete mess of herself. Sloppy, Anakin might’ve chastised. C’mon, Snips. You know better.

“Be quiet,” she mutters to no one, lifting the creature to carry back to camp. Now isn’t the time to be talking to ghosts.

—------

Rex blinks at her when she returns, doing a double take to hide his surprise at the state she’s in. Ahsoka knows she’s dirty, and must look as exhausted as she feels. Half of her outfit is covered in mud. Her lekku are still swollen and aching, hanging full and thick at the sides of her head, aggravating her migraine. It’s all she can do to trudge into their little camp and deposit her conquest at the fire, thankful that at least it’s stopped raining.

“Well,” he says finally. “That was more than a minute.” Then Rex is on his feet, still looking so strange in his ordinary clothes, inspecting what she’s brought back. “Impressive kill. Feed us for quite a while, I expect. How about I start on this while you get changed?”

This is what she values about Rex. He’s about as practical as they come, and not about to tease her when she’s already down. Since her day has already been long and disappointing, there’s nothing she wants more than to struggle out of her wet clothes and into something dry and clean. The fire looks welcoming, stoked with care at Rex’s hand. She knows that by the time she’s done changing it won’t be long before he’ll have enough of the creature ready for them to share.

“Sounds great,” she says through a thick sniffle, trying to pass it off with a smile. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

His response is casual enough, but Ahsoka can feel his eyes on her as she ducks into their little passenger ship. Suspicious. After knowing one another for so long, it’s hard to keep secrets. Surely he knows that she feels awful.

Closing the ship’s hatch behind her, Ahsoka sighs in the privacy of the ship, shedding her soaked garments. She redresses into some of Rex’s old blacks, comforted by the familiar material on her skin. There’s enough water left in the reservoir to splash her face clean and to rinse her arms, and she looks at her face in the small fresher mirror with a grimace. There are circles like bruises under her eyes. She looks like she’s taken a punch – and lost about three days of sleep. No wonder Rex is worried.

“Ugh…” she groans, leaning down to the med cabinet.

With any luck, some bacta smeared on her forehead and montrals will help to numb this god-awful headache. But to her disappointment, there’s only one tube left. A small, paranoid part of her doesn’t want to waste bacta on something like a headache when she doesn’t know when they’re picking up supplies again. Images of Rex injured flash in her mind, his blood slipping beneath her fingers – all because she’d wasted the bacta.

Biting her lip, she slides the drawer shut again. She can manage.

As she'd predicted, Rex is spearing portions of the animal over the fire to roast by the time she returns, and the smell is mouth-watering. He hands her the first one finished, and she sinks her teeth into it gratefully, groaning as another sharp hunger pain lances her through. Ahsoka doesn’t even care that she’s burning her mouth; it’s so good she was so hungry oh my goooooood.

Rex is watching her with an expression stuck somewhere between amusement and concern as she finishes in messy bites and gulps, tearing strips of meat from the skewer and licking her fingers clean.

“Was that…good?” he asks, suppressing a smile.

“Mmfyeah,” says Ahsoka, wiping her face on the back of her sleeve. A little voice in the back of her mind that sounds suspiciously like Obi-Wan admonishes her for eating in such an uncivilized way, but she tries to ignore it. "Starving."

"Pushing yourself too hard," Rex comments. He keeps his tone light.

Ahsoka does her best not to pout. Because according to everyone she's ever spent an extended amount of time with, she does pout. It's not as if she has a choice, does she? Neither of them do. All there's left to do is push, and push, struggling through day after day. Even when she was a Padawan, during the war. At least then, she knew there was a whole legion of Jedi out there that would protect her. The clones, too, taking her under their arms. Her ori’vode.

Now all they have is each other. They can't afford to relax.

"You look awful," he continues, digging in with flat honesty. "Don't tell me you don't feel awful, Commander."

At least he'd delivered the truth with her old title, now only a nickname. Ahsoka frowns, still refusing to answer. Stubborn. Caught somewhere between confessing just how right he is – she wants to lie down and cry – and holding her ground, to prove him wrong. Because some part of her always has to be the brave one. The Padawan who endures everything. Anakin's protege, soaring past all the others. To excel you need to have ambition along with talent and luck. And some part of her doesn't know when to give up.

"Fine," she says at last, the word hardly distinguishable through her stuffy nose. It seems to echo through her lekku, her whole head feeling stuffed. She drops her face to her hands, deflating. "I feel awful, okay? Is that what you wanted?"

Rex's face changes at once, his brows furrowing in soft concern.

"What –? No, of course I – 'course I don't want that."

He gets up from his seat on the fire, careful not to overturn the empty storage crate he'd been perched upon. Rex crouches beside her, narrowing his eyes, placing his outstretched hand to her montrals. Ahsoka winces at the touch, shutting her eyes even though he's being very, very gentle. His fingers feel nice on her skin after a moment, cool.

"Hey," Rex prompts quietly. "You feel so bad, why didn't you use some of the bacta?"

She heaves a sigh, chewing at her lip now. "S'the last tube and I didn't want – you know."

He nods. "I get it."

Relief blooms in her chest. That irrational fear refuses to leave, the sight of him hurt with no way for her to help. Ahsoka curses herself for never learning how to Force heal much more than a scraped knee, knowing she'd be no help if his life was in danger anyway. Too panicked. Too afraid. She really would've been a lousy Jedi.

"Doesn't mean I'm gonna let you be miserable, though."

"What?" She sniffs.

"Sit tight," Rex says, getting to his feet. "Don't eat all our rations while I'm gone," he adds with a teasing grin. "Gonna find you something to help."

"You can't!"

Ahsoka shoots to her feet in protest, immediately seeing double and then triple of their camp around her. Rex lurches forward to steady her, his hands supporting her shoulder and side, always there when she needs. She curses this weakness, this temporary need for his extra support. Why can't she just go back to being healthy? Why did her body decide to slow her down? She's so frustrated.

"You can't," she repeats, gingerly settling back on her own crate. "If someone recognizes you, Rex, you know we're done."

"Then no one will," he says simply.

As if it’s that easy. Knowing she can’t change his mind, all Ahsoka can do is sit there and watch him go. She couldn’t stop him if she tried, couldn’t win if it turned into a fight. Not in the shape she’s in. Long after Rex disappears from sight, she reaches for him in the Force, clinging to that familiar mind, until that too is out of reach.

For a long while, she sits and watches the fire burning itself out. She, too, feels as if she’s purposefully exhausting herself by sitting upright, waiting for Rex to return. It would be better for her to lock herself inside the ship, safer. Still she can’t seem to peel herself away until the fire is nothing but embers, her headache pounding dully in every part of her skull.

Trembling and exhausted, Ahsoka trudges to her feet. It takes her no time at all to fall asleep once she hits her cot, surrendering to a dreamless and heavy slumber.

—---------

When she comes to, Ahsoka instantly knows that something is wrong. The tiny window above her area in the ship is filled with sunlight, instead of shaded with the colors of early dawn.

Oh my god. Rex never came back.

Ahsoka stumbles to her feet, still weighed down by her sinuses. If Rex had come back, she would’ve heard him open the hatch of the ship, felt his footsteps echoing across the durasteel. Instead she’s spent hours here undisturbed, and that can’t be a good sign. She’s truly alone without him now. Cold dread starts in her chest, filling her heart like drowning waves, until –

Until she senses Rex outside, very much alive and well. Lowering the ship’s hatch with a curse, Ahsoka hurries to join him – and finds an odd sight. From the rucksack he carries with them on occasions where they have to travel afoot, Rex is pulling out handful after handful of long, dark green leaves, setting them in a pot of water over the rekindled fire.

“What the kriff are you doing?” Ahsoka says, testy.

Of course, she doesn’t manage to sound intimidating at all. Her voice doesn’t even sound like her own at this point. Rex straightens, setting his bag on the ground, and gives her what she knows is a pitying smile. Ahsoka loathes pity. Even standing here sicker than she even wants to acknowledge, she detests it.

“No bacta in the village,” Rex says by way of answer, poking the leaves further down into the water with a fork. “Least not that we could afford. Found these instead.”

Defeated, Ahsoka sinks onto a crate to watch him poke at…whatever it is he’s brought back. Her relief that Rex is even here to argue with outweighs her need to give him the third degree. Besides, she doesn’t think she has the energy to. All that matters is that he’d come back, like he’d promised, safe.

“And what are they?” she croaks.

Rex settles to sit across from her. “Natives called it pommwomm,” he says with a shrug. “Apparently the Togruta and Twi’lek travelers that pass through use it for a lot of ailments, and taught them how to use it, too.”

“Oh.”

She feels so tired and achy. It’s hard to concentrate on watching him stir the leaves in their little boiling pot; Ahsoka’s eyes keep slipping closed. She lets them, resting her chin in her palm, instead using the Force to pay attention to their surroundings. Stars, when was the last time she was this sick? She can’t remember. There wasn’t time for this in the midst of a war. Maybe, she thinks, this is her body’s way of catching up. Repaying her for all those years of never resting.

“‘Soka?”

Rex’s inquiry makes her blink back into awareness. It had been strange, at first, for him to call her anything but Commander. Now, though, she enjoys hearing her name in his voice.

“Got ‘em ready for you.”

There’s a faint menthol scent coming from the water between them. Later when Ahsoka tells Rex she can barely smell the stuff, he barks out a laugh – she must really be sick, he muses, because even he knows the smell is strong.

Fishing out a clump of boiled leaves, Rex offers it to her with an apologetic expression. “Here.”

She wrinkles her nose. “What do you want me to do?”

The faintest smile crosses his face. Amusement flickers in his life Force, as if he’s expecting her to have a negative – and entertaining – reaction. “Well, you’ve gotta – you chew ‘em. Then you spread the stuff on your lekku. Helps with colds?”

Oh. My. Stars. That’s disgusting.

“Reeeeex,” she whines. “That’s kriffing nastyyyyy.”

He clamps a hand to his mouth, but she can see his shoulders shaking with laughter. “I know,” he answers after a few moments trying to get a grip on himself. “Yeah s’not – ideal. But the people I talked to said it works great, and you – well. Ahsoka, you don’t look good. You really don’t.”

Ahsoka scowls, staring at the bowl of clumpy leaves as it cools down beside her. She knows she’s being a youngling about all this, but chewing weird plants and smearing the paste all over her head-tails is the last thing she wants to do. But if it’s the only choice she has, then so be it. Fishing one leaf out between two trembling fingers, she opens her mouth and begins to chew.

The consistency is terrible. Soft and soggy, making her hurry to shove down her gag reflex. But…the taste isn’t so bad. Sweet and minty on her tongue, spreading quickly up to her sinuses and into the hollows of her lekku. With only slight reluctance, Ahsoka fishes another leaf out, not looking forward to spitting it into a paste in front of Rex.

Conveniently, though, he seems to find himself distracted by a loose panel on the exterior of their ship. She smiles, watching him crouch down to get to work on it.

The leaf-paste is thick and sticky as she spreads it over her swollen lekku, though the sensation isn’t as unpleasant as she’d imagined. Mostly there’s relief as the cooling effects of the plant get to work on her fragile skin, and Ahsoka finds herself sighing at the welcome change. She can feel her airways clearing, the headache beginning to ebb. She’s so grateful to not be completely alone in the galaxy. To have Rex watching her back in times like this. (Or not watching her at all, in this case, giving her a little privacy for this less-than-normal course of treatment.)

Of course, that means that all the congestion is only going to drain out of her, making her sniffly again. Even by the time she’s chewed and pasted her way through the leaves, feeling ridiculous, her sinuses are unstuffing themselves.

Ahsoka squints down to catch a glimpse of her reflection in her wrist comm – yep. She looks as awful as Rex had implied. The leaf paste has stained the white stripes of her lekku a dark purple, and the shadows under her eyes refuse to budge. With her headdress left inside the ship in her hurry to see where Rex had gone, she feels strangely naked, atop it all. Usually no one sees her without it, and yet she hasn’t even thought about Rex seeing her this way until this moment.

He’s still tinkering away at the panel, leaning it against the side of the ship and inspecting a small bend in the durasteel. The last thing they need is another one flying off during a hyperspace jump. Normally Ahsoka would do it herself, but even with the pommwomm paste soothing her head, she doesn’t trust herself to work without seeing double.

But she has to get up. There’s still surveillance to be done on the suspicious area of this planet. Ahsoka knows neither of them will be content until there’s not a shadow of a doubt that there’s no Empire activity going on. A few more days of watching ought to rule out the possibility. There’s no way she can sit around moping here. Whatever’s wrong with her will pass.

“How’s it goin’ over – heyyy where d’you think you’re going?” Rex stops mid-question, almost dropping his magnaspanner in surprise. Ahsoka only gives him an innocent look, righting the wobble in her step. “Don’t even think about going back to the surveillance point today. Nope. Sorry, you’re staying put.”

Damn. He knows her too well, doesn’t he?

“Rex, you know we can’t just sit here.”

She swipes at her nose, irritated even further with the growing itch. In answer to her stubbornness, Rex stops what he’s doing and crosses his arms, prepared to be a barrier if he has to. Ahsoka narrows her eyes, rooting herself in place. She doesn’t want this to become a physical spat, but –

Her scattered thoughts of ways to disarm him vanish as she sneezes quickly into one elbow. Another embarrassingly squeaky sound, a tight breath of air, leaving her flushed dark with a blush.

“Jate jahaal,” Rex mutters, one eyebrow raised. As if he’s proving a point.

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t be if you keep pushing.” Rex sighs, his life Force filled with concern. “Think of it this way, then. Would you let me do it, if it were me? Would you want me out there?”

Ahsoka bites her lip. “Well…no.”

In fact, she’d be livid at the thought of him risking his health like that, on top of all the other risks they already have to take. She’d be worried and restless waiting for him here alone, and – oh.

Guilt lances at her heart. Has she really strayed so far from the Code? Has she forgotten that in order to care for others, she has to first care for herself? Ashamed, Ahsoka stares at her boots, wishing she’d realized what a mess she was making of things sooner.

“Come and sit back down,” Rex says softly, voice light with persuasion. “Rest. Let me fix you something.”

She hesitates for a long moment. Would it be so bad to spend the day here with him, doing nothing but napping in the planet’s sun? Something in her melts; that sounds divine. That simple joy would be a pleasure she hasn’t allowed herself in so, so long, maybe ever. Just…rest. Here with a friend, enjoying each other’s company. Maybe they could spend time talking about the good old days, when there was time between the fighting. The jokes and the laughter spread between the sorrow and pain.

“Okay,” whispers Ahsoka, and it makes him smile.

Something tugs on her heart to see it, and in that instance, she has another realization. But for now, it’s something that she’ll keep to herself, a little thing to ponder in the quiet of her mind for weeks and even months to come. For now, it’s enough to be together, to have the soft morning light.  For Ahsoka to complain about looking so silly with the stupid pommwomm paste, and Rex agreeing with a light chuckle. For him to get the softest blanket out from the confines of their ship, and for her to fall asleep propped up against his shoulder.

They have one another. Through this. Through everything.

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

Mandoa translations:

ori'vode -- big brothers, older brothers, special friends

jate -- good jahaal --health (together like a "bless you", but I made that up tbh)

[talenlee]

Story Pile: Bound

Bound is a piece of queer cinema in the Criterion Collection, vitally important in film history, and a movie so significant that there are almost too many different ways to approach a discussion of it. It’s also, and I really, hahah, can’t stress this enough, horny enough that I actually blushed watching it and had to take a moment away from the movie, but also, when that passes, it goes into being a very typical thriller movie where mobsters shout threats at one another while waving guns. It’s great. I loved it. I also found myself kiiiiinda wondering about how I could talk about it without mentioning the hit list of stuff everyone else mentions.

I am going to talk, a little bit about the events in this movie and how they’re told. It’s a thriller set in a small number of places, on a very modest budget, and made by people who did something I think of as really interesting. To this end, I am going to describe some things that constitute Spoilers and that’s a thing worth considering when you talk about a criteron-collection thriller movie. You may want uncertainty when you watch it and may just be curious as to if I like the movie. I do! You should check it out if it sounds like fun to you.

Bound is a neo-noir period piece of a movie set in the 1990s. It’s a grimy New York, it’s dive bars and wall phones. It’s a story of the Mafia that exists before The Sopranos remade the way we treat those stories. It takes place in basically two and a half rooms, there’s no intensely complicated setpiece moments, and everything it does is done in a very cheap — like, ‘doesn’t cost much money’ — tight way.

Cinematically it’s a fantastic movie. There’s use of close up camera, use of wet objects and properties, paint and blood and bullets and all sorts of other things deforming a set in ways that requires a lot of deliberate thoughtfulness from someone who’s just very good at their job and not something you can run through numerous emulated computer programs to test out alternate shots. I’m trying to not be all Kids These Days about movies, but so much of what’s going on in Bound that fascinates me is built on the work of people who, basically, have to be good at making movies, not people who are good at making money.

Here’s the thing I find interesting about a perspective trick this movie does. Of the three main characters, we are most often given the emotional reactions and perspective of our villain, of Caesar. These reactions are important because of what they include and what they don’t include. Like, we don’t get to see Caesar’s intimate moments. The dude has sex, he defends what he sees as his sexual boundaries, and he defintely has opinions about sex and sexuality, based on the slurs we hear him throw around. When we see him naked he’s framed as a little ridiculous, holding a towel in front of his junk while he shuffles around in the midst of the diabolical plot, holding his breath, vulnerable, not safe, and not comfortable.

On the other hand, Caesar commits to acts of violence in the course of the story, and three times we see him do something that reads to me entirely and obviously as a dissociative episode, and a fourth time the story has him describe his experience of a dissociative episode. There’s a helplessness to him, in his most dangerous moments; when he shoots a man in the chest, we don’t see him being cool, we don’t see him demonstrating some power or prowess – instead he’s a helpless baby man, struggling to assert the power he normally claims to have. We see his eyes as the sound drops out, as the gun in his hands is claimed by someone else, and we watch the slow motion, floating collapse of that man, falling backwards, backwards…

Whump.

There’s action in the movie, there’s frantic followup to that, but it’s these moments from Caesar that fascinate me. It fascinates me that a movie about two intensely emotional people grappling with trust, it’s their inner lives that we never see nearly so intensely focal. That makes sense: Part of the movie is about how those characters trust one another whereas we really need to know what Caesar’s truth is. We see him in his weakest expressions.

The way that Caesar collapses in these moments, these are not shown with filmic language that I assume is created here. I don’t think Bound is the source of how we show violent disassociation in film. I think it’s building on familiar visual and audio storytelling tools. What I think is interesting is the choice made to centre his inner life and treat us so closely to the emotional and mental state of the villain, because that’s the safest place to put us as an audience, with something we can rely on and leaving the question of what we don’t know happening in the minds of other characters. He is our perspective character, for the bulk of the film: sure, we’re not cheering for him, but we are seeing his reactions and his responses and the things that reinforce what you kinda already knew the second he showed up: Caesar is a weak, impotent, flailing man, and he is dizzyingly dangerous, because he sucks. Everything about what he’s doing is an impersonation of someone else, and every comparison he invites is an embarrassing one.

And this is where we sit, in this neo-noir story, to watch the things that don’t include him working around and against him, and hope that this guy who sucks doesn’t make things worse.

Oh and I suppose I should mention, at some point, that this whole movie is a sapphic neonoir crime story that focuses on Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon as just incredibly attractive, and incredibly attractively shot crime lesbians as they orchestrate a theft of two million dollars from the Mafia, and fourteen minutes into the movie there’s an extensive lesbian sex scene that is shot like, ‘hey, you should like this,’ front and centre, clear and obvious, no ambiguities, no maybes or heybies and characters are represented in ways that are extremely exciting and appealing if you’re already familiar with them from inside the queer perspective while also grappling with something about, y’know, disassociation. It’s like this movie was made by a bunch of intensely closeted queer women or something.

Good movie, pretty cool, I liked it a lot.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

‘Merican who wanted to emigrate until all the great disability schemes over there went bye-bye about a year before we’re lost it too…

are there any good PMs that can come out of this (a vote of no confidence), or is it like how we would have gotten Mike Pence the evangelical AIDS denying robot as president?

(I spent 2019 trying to get that in peoples heads)(he calls his wife mother that is canon!)(that said for a hot second it could’ve be pelosi and when i tell you i don’t use chef’s kiss lightly….)

I mean, the short answer is no. The Tories are, one and all, morally repugnant and appalling wastes of human skin, so the choice is basically to look at their top trumps stats and go 'Would I prefer more evil but too incompetent to enact most of it? Or less evil but competent enough to enact it?'

My husband and I actually disagree on whether Tessie May or Big Dog is worse to deal with. For me, the perils of Big Dog come down to the cult of personality, which were never going to last forever and is now crumbling dramatically. Ultimately, he has always been an inept and bumbling ham. Incompetent and stupid doesn't begin to cover it. His politics are worse than hers, yes, but he's unable to enact the worst of it, or indeed a lot of it.

Whereas May is intelligent and competent and even when she was widely hated by the whole country AND the party, she still managed to get shit done. And unlike BJ, who believes in himself and just wants the adulation, she believes in the party, and what they stand for. A true believer.

So, the long answer, on picking a successor now... Christ, who to choose? I mean from my perspective, I want the Tory Civil War to extend right into the next general election. I want a series of clowns each used as a scapegoat by the others until Labour just forward roll their way into power. Hard to know who would do that best.

I think the most likely four in the running are:

Rishi Sunak reminds me of David Cameron. He delivers speeches that make people say things like 'I don't like Tories, but he did very well', which is a slippery slope (although he's also face-clawingly embarrassing at PR visits). He personally caused 8-17% more COVID infection clusters with the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and he has openly and provably given billions of pounds of COVID money to his friends and family, and he's mega super corrupt. BUT, Tory voters will not want a brown Hindu man as PM, and it's interesting how the Telegraph straight up reported that his 'the PM's tax' comment was a distancing maneuver from his own unpopular work. I suspect they don't want him either.

Liz Truss is a very realistic option? She's an awful libertarian who has the charisma of a tea towel that you got wet and put in a cupboard and now it's not dried and the kitchen smells. Minister for Women and Equalities who hates identity politics and cancelling people and thinks misogyny should not be a hate crime. She loves selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and has even broken international law to do so. Watching her try to appeal to the youth is an exercise in learning the true meaning of 'cringe'. And, you know, Tory voters hate women and love scapegoating them, plus she's been BJ's best mate for a while, so... there's that.

Uh, let's think... Dominic Raab. Current Deputy PM. Human boil. So far his evil has been obscured by Big Dog's, but honestly I think the cabinet crumbles within a month if it's him - and here's the thing! We're going to get him at least briefly anyway. As Deputy, if BJ goes, either by resignation or by vote of no confidence, Raab takes over until a new leader is elected. It will be very funny.

And, last but by no means least, Michael Gove, a national laughing stock who looks like someone tried to play dress up with their biggest toe. He's a walking disaster. He's incompetent in the extreme. He's best summed up by my favourite political comic of all time, which is this classic from 2016:

It's just so accurate. So honest. It strikes so completely to the heart of the man.

So, I hope it's him, but honestly... No good choices.

[hedgehog-moss]

Good day, Mlle. Hedgehog! If it's no trouble, may I ask for science book recommendations around the tune of Merlin Sheldrake's "Entangled Life"? I've been trying to get back into the sciences after feeling shut off from it bc of my aversion to math, but sparse technical language shuts my brain off like nothing else. This seemed like the place to go. Thank you for your time, and a dozen kisses each to the animal denizens of your farm!

Hello! Kisses have been equitably distributed! And your message reminded me of the C.S. Lewis quote, "I could never have gone far in any science because on the path of every science the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you..."

I have not read Entangled Life, but if you are looking for books about plants / animals / the living world, that give you a new perspective and are instructive but use more conversational (or poetic) prose, here are the first ten titles that came to my mind :)

What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, Daniel Chamovitz

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Lewis Thomas

If we had better hearing, and could discern the descants of sea birds, the rhythmic tympani of schools of mollusks, or even the distant harmonics of midges hanging over meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off our feet.

Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Intelligence of Flowers, Maurice Maeterlinck (it has one of my favourite Goodreads reviews ever: someone commented “After reading this book, my body feels mulchier and more vegetal.”)

I shall never forget the magnificent example of heroism given to me the other day in Provence, in the wild gorges of the Loup, by a huge centenarian laurel tree. A bird or the wind had carried the seed to the flank of the rock, which was as perpendicular as an iron curtain, and the tree was born there, two hundred yards above the torrent, inaccessible and solitary, among the burning and barren stones. ... The young stem was obliged ... stubbornly to bend its disconcerted trunk in the form of an elbow ... revealing ... the successive solicitudes of a kind of thought. ... What human eye will ever assist at these silent dramas, which are all too long for our short lives?

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, Carl Safina

The Immense Journey, Loren Eiseley

Every spring in the wet meadows and ditches I hear a little shrilling chrorus which sounds for all the world like an endlessly reiterated “We’re here, we’re here, we’re here.” And so they are, as frogs, of course. Confident little fellows. I suspect that to some greater ear than ours, man’s optimistic pronouncements about his role and destiny may make a similar little ringing sound that travels a small way out into the night. It is only its nearness that is offensive. From the heights of a mountain, or a marsh at evening, it blends, not too badly, with all the other sleepy voices that, in croaks or chirrups, are saying the same thing.

The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben

The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, David George Haskell

Wild animals enjoying one another and taking pleasure in their world is so immediate and so real, yet this reality is utterly absent from textbooks and academic papers about animals and ecology. There is a truth revealed here, absurd in its simplicity. [...] Nature is not a machine. These animals feel. They are alive; they are our cousins, with the shared experience kinship implies. And they appear to enjoy the sun, a phenomenon that occurs nowhere in the curriculum of modern biology.

Dispatches from Planet 3, Marcia Bartusiak

Boundary Layer: Exploring the Genius Between Worlds, Kem Luther <- haven’t read this one yet, but Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote a positive review and I enjoyed her book Gathering Moss, so I’ve added it to my pile!

If you’re interested at all in cosmology I also recommend Arthur Koestler’s The Sleepwalkers, it’s one of my favourite history of science books; essentially it tells the story of humankind’s evolving understanding of the nature of the universe. The chapter on Galileo’s trial particularly stayed with me.

And on a tangent, this is a book I liked about how maths deserves better and how disastrously it is taught: Paul Lockhart’s A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form.

I don’t see how it’s doing society any good to have its members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams, and clear memories of hating them. It might do some good, though, to show them something beautiful and give them an opportunity to enjoy being creative, flexible, open-minded thinkers . . . You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide . . . We’re killing people’s interest in circles for god’s sake! . . . Mathematics should be taught as art for art’s sake. These mundane “useful” aspects would follow naturally as a trivial by-product. Beethoven could easily write an advertising jingle, but his motivation for learning music was to create something beautiful. . . . Mathematics is the music of reason.

[sanghyukstattoos]

SF9's reaction: cockwarming

Genre: fluff-fluff-fluff; smut-smut-smut

Characters: SF9!

A/N: None of the images in the collage are mine, refer to here for more; For more SF9, read here, for iKON, read here and for optional bias writings, read here!

Youngbin:

Plays in pairs

When you first present the idea to him, given that the circumstances are of a light atmosphere, you'll fluster him, impeccably. His cheeks will turn pink and he'll maybe giggle a little and cover his mouth out of shyness but he won't be averted to the idea. He loves it but you just caught him off guard ahaha. When it's under a serious circumstance, like you are describing what you would like to try out, he would seriously contemplate your idea. He won't seal the deal if he doesn't like it the first time around. He'll try for a second to give it a chance. During your first time trying this out, it'll be spontaneous. Like you are watching a movie or a documentary and you or him decide that you want to give it a try. He'll firmly hold your waist as you settle onto him. If you are horny, you wait for a few minutes before you think, 'Enough of this' and rock him out of this world. What could he say? If you aren't, it'll be peaceful. But there's a dilemma. If you are sitting on the sofa, you can't see the screen. But you want to watch (sad). He'll say, ''It's okay'' and switch off the tv and it will resume in the bedroom. Just a beautiful atmosphere where you have deep conversations. He'll listen to your insight and internally marvel at how your perspective and compliment them with some of his own. It's like turn-taking, an essential part of a relationship where you go back and forth, speaking about one topic to the end of it where you have nothing to say anymore and then you'll move onto the next. It'll go on for ages, till the two of you are hungry. When the two of you go the kitchen to make something, he'll do what he couldn't do when the two of you were cock warming. The same thing may happen when the two of you are about to fall asleep, the lack of lights appeal to his other side, love-making.

Inseong:

This one is a funny bunny

It's a routine for you to cock warm after sex just like when he's on the laptop, surfing the net at the dinner table and you are sat on his cock, back to his chest, keeping him warm. After sex, it's a gateway to another round, on the bed or in the shower or to sleep in that position but not cock warm. He would love cock warming in the morning if it's cold then, probably in your balcony or in the kitchen, hugging you from behind and trailing his hands to your tummy and chest every now and then. He would love when you capture when you capture his lips in a sweet embrace, beginning a long make-out session when he's in you. If he's horny, you can bet that he's going to tell you about it. ''Babe'', he places a delicate kiss on your neck, ''tell me'' you moan out. His hands have already found your tummy and trailed downward, rubbing your clit but not to just merely stimulate you, to see if you are wet as he imagines you to be. He loves you. He's going to make love to you, to see those expressions on your face and feel you around him, holding you in his arms till the two of you have exhausted yourselves out which could one round or more than one. I can imagine you and him in the kitchen, he's got you pressed against the counter and that's how the cock warming while horny scene may play out. Another one is when abroad, maybe in a hotel or airbnb, he'll have you in his arms but that's not how it starts. He'll be playful about it, surprising you with a hug from behind, kissing the spot near to your ear, whispering some *interesting* innuendo into your ear, it makes you laugh anyway. A couple of seconds later, he's turning you around, kissing your tummy and inner thighs all the way till he's on his knees, he'll make sure to nuzzle his nose against your panties and lick a stripe at the material, slowly pulling them down. Arousal buzzes through you because he's telling you, ''fuck, baby you taste so good, stay still for me'' or something like that, it's a little muffled because he is preoccupied in drawing you to pleasure and pleasure and then release. He'll eat you out multiple times or till your knees buckle, depending on whether you had sex previously and then just maybe, in a moment driven by passion, he'll carry you to the sofa and that's where you'll cock warm, giggling to one another of what just happened, what you want to do afterwards. Wrap your legs around his waist, press him against the sofa and lift your hips again, he'll start the process again, all while laughing. It's just light-hearted.

Jaeyoon:

Absolute sweetheart/ dream husband

In this scenario, let's say that he is your husband. When you suggest cock warming, he's a little uncertain (by his little frown) but also inquisitive (by his questions), *Frowning* ''What is it about?'' would be the situation, he would look very cute when he asks. Presumably the two of you would be cuddling and you happened to stumble onto this conversation, he would not be shy, just like, 'You have an idea, let's hear it then!', also like an explorer, he's willing to try new things even if it means pushing his boundaries a little bit. But, this does not fall into that category of pushing boundaries. Maybe pushing his patience if he's horny. The latter scenario is guaranteed to occur at multiple points of time. You'll be lying on your side with his cock in your ass, it's a little jerk that alerts you or his hands that begin to wander everywhere like kissing your neck, then your lips and his hands have already begin to stimulate your clitoris. You moan into the kiss and then he knows and he smiles into the kiss while rocking his hips against yours. Everything is forgotten in the background. Unless it's life-threatening. Like food can burn or you could watch three episodes on netflix that you aren't truly watching, he's not stopping till the both of you are tired to the bone and have released multiple times. Quite the sweetheart though, he'll get up and shake himself if he's about to fall asleep the next minute and he'll grab a cloth for you like you protest but he says as he's already getting up, ''no, stay there, I've got it!''. You smile and slump and he cleans you, tosses it away and then climbs on top of you, pulling you into his arms. If he can, he'll try the idea of cock warming and spoon you throughout the night but if he can not, he'll definitely do it the next day. He's committed to the plans he makes or what's going on at that moment. Let's say you have an argument, you are trying to smooth things out, ruffle out misunderstandings and you won't talk it out with sex but communicate to him about it. The night will end in cock warming, to bring you closer and then it's all jokes from there, especially about the argument, it's either you teasing him or the other way around and that's how you fall asleep: content.

Dawon I Lee Sanghyuk:

He has his days.

On a day when he's tired, to the bone maybe, he's come back from work and you want to cuddle, using the idea of cock warming to propose the intimacy you want to feel during the night that you couldn't during the day, I'm sure that he'll do it for you. If he does not fall asleep immediately, he'll caress your backside, admiring the way the flesh conforms to his grasp. He loves all of you. He will pepper kisses along your neck, down your collarbone and to your breasts, sucking your erect buds but he won't touch your centre. He likes to go slow, never stopping these moments with you or he'll take you in the morning. At times like these, he loves when you touch him, just your touch on his skin, turning heated. When you are making out, it would be your tug on his hair, like urgency for more or roaming your hands all over him or tracing his hair from his navel to the band of his underwear would be his favourite save for the best of all, when you direct how everything goes. If he does fall asleep immediately, it'll be after he kisses you. During this time, regardless of whether you were cock warming or not, he would love for you to tangle your fingers in his hair, it lulls him to sleep and even to sleep in your chest, being the small spoon, he would absolutely love it. He has trouble sleeping alone but when he's with you, it's not the case. When he stretches you out after days of not having sex, he tries to hold himself back from releasing, the wait and foreplay was enough to spiral his mind, gasping in your ear. But if you are too tired, he'll take it into consideration, seriously and hold back from lifting his hips off yours and filling you up. When he cock warms just to end the day comfortably, it will turn it into sex if the two of you contain some semblance of energy and are away from that playful and teasing mood, with hours on end before you sleep. It will be just the feeling of his cock filling you up, holding you to the bed with your legs wrapped around his waist, whispering how much he loves and that you are doing well, growling and stilling, your release triggering his, holding you when you are tired or in between rounds decorates the night. He holds your hand when you have sex, always, if your hands aren't roaming his body, feeling it. Otherwise, he'll hold you, preferably with all of your clothes off, no material between the two of you, you two speak about your day, the present and the future. It could even be a tickle session that ensues. The atmosphere will be lively, especially with his jokes and teasing and all the loves he has to offer.

Rowoon I Kim Seokwoo:

Prince of visuals, no?

Since he has such visuals, let's imagine that he takes you on a yacht (ya-ch-ht; hard time spelling that folks 🥵 + why do people go on a yacht? I'm struggling to think of a reason?). Seokwoo's marvelling over your amazement at the beauty of the ocean, the clear blue waters and occasional shade of the fish passing by. He even jokes that he hopes ''no shark gets the two of you'' and then laughs at your expression. Please, he's trying, don't throw him overboard :/. You enjoy the heat some more before he's by your side again, the yacht is paused, it gives you ideas. As soon as he's sat by your side, you take to straddle him, therefore effectively cutting him off. The surprise is evident on his face but his hands are resting on your backside, getting comfortable there. He groans out when your lips touch his neck, nipping the flesh to give him love bites which earns those husky groans of his. They send vibrations down your spine, tingling your core with wetness. With such a beautiful scenery surrounding the two of you, it's easy to fix your eyes on two places and think about how beautiful either are. He intimately hugs you, sucking an area on your breast, removing it from your top and placing the perk bud into his mouth, the act itself is hot and you grind down on him, not holding back your moans because of the silence of the ocean, save for the splashing of waves. You ride him, letting out sweet fucking moans, whimpering in his ears for him that it's so good, you can't get enough. When you are all sweaty, you cock warm in the shade, making out. It's a very soft moment, like sealing the deal? He wants to make you happy and he'll do stuff for you to achieve it. Cock warming is bonding for the two of you, to spoon and gossip about the other rich couples that you saw or speak about your day or just lay there, in each other's arms, enjoying the moment. When it's cooler, he would be okay to cock warming in a public space such as underneath a tree on a beach. You may be a bit far from the sea but you can smell it which makes you happy. It's a very calming day when you are tucked in his arm, leaning on his chest with his cock buried deep inside of you, feeling a little chilly but you are covered by a blanket. All in all, it's private for the two of you.

Zuho I Baek Juho

Cat man 🦸‍♂️

He would love to cock warm indoors, when his cats are sleeping, safely tucked in their beds as you are in each other's arms. It'll be quiet, you can only hear what's outside, maybe the train passing by or vehicles or pure silence which is hard to come but not impossible. If something's disturbing you like traffic, heavy honking, he's not for it and he'll move you two to somewhere else like the bed or on his studio chair. If you are tired and want to cock warm while he is producing, he'll hold you close to him and ignore the cramp in his legs. When he sees you sleep, he'll go soft and admire your prettiness, not forgetting to wrap a blanket around you. When it's silent, a relaxing atmosphere in which you can fall asleep easily, it's where cock warming will occur the most. An example could be in a space by the windows in a high-rise building or if the place was in a non-busy area like the countryside. There are occasional noises, some make you perk up while other's make you laugh, all while intimately spooning with him. You tell him: it's an indescribable feeling but you will try explaining. Don't be scared, he'll love your words. Relating cock warming to something and being subtle instead of explaining outright would prompt his chest to blossom with love from you, it's the feeling you've brought out from him and to in expressing his feelings, he may cry a little and kiss you like 'Can you feel this love I feel for you? I love you'- is what he is trying to say through the kiss. It's a very wholesome moment, your confessions to each other, spoken beautifully. He would also love to cock warm bare, without any clothes so that the two of you can be purely intimate and he loves your body. If you don't or lack appreciation for your fine self, he'll initiate cock warming if you aren't already and kiss your body and squeeze the parts he can't reach like his appreciation for your butt/ breasts/ stomach or whichever one it is that you are conscious of/ don't love as much as possible. And the opposite too! If he's not feeling okay or feels conscious of himself (pressure from people telling him how artists should look?), cock warming would be a way for you two speak about it whilst loving one another at the same time.

Yoo Taeyang:

What a precious guy

May be confused about the concept at first, even awkward the first time you attempt this, it takes him a little while to get used to this scenario: laying on the bed in each other's arms after carefully navigating your limbs around, his cock in you, completely. But he warms up, he'll make sure that you are comfortable and will also love to take this concept elsewhere, like the living room when you watch tv. When he's tired, he may not be able to carry it out simply because he has no energy or he may be horny (head) but not (body), it happens~ When that happens, he wakes you up with kisses, all over your body and he'd do this, regardless of what happened the previous night, it's automatic for him. Another scenario would be when he is bored, laying around doing nothing and fumbling for something to do, he'd initiate cock warming, that little sigh when he slips into you, relief. From there, he may definitely not hold himself back, the two of you would end up having sex. If it's you and he's doing something and you want to sit on his cock, he'll set down what he is doing and let you. As you hold onto him, he'll notice your whimpers, softly decorating his ear, letting him know how much you want him. He'll tease you till you are hiding away in the crook of his neck or playfully hitting him but he'll satisfy your desires all night. It's for you. However, when he does want to cock warm, he'll snuggle into you, nestling his head over yours. Little touches, lingering over your waist will be presented to you, as well as his admiration for your body. He'll cock warm in your sex or ass. When it's in your ass, he'll take his time admiring your ass, your breasts, any place he can place a kiss on really but he's not really kissing, he's looking and telling you how much he loves you.

Hwiyoung I Kim Youngkyun:

Resident cutie

He's got you in the palm of his hand especially because of that cute face, cute expressions, cute mannerisms, overall a very lovable guy. Can be awkward sometimes but it's okay because his loving personality makes up for it. Is also a shy little bean at first which makes you want to shower him with lots of love and praise. Glady accepts your kisses and hugs, gets shy when you first do them but eventually reciprocates them. To the point where it's comfort, safety and that you can be vulnerable with each other. *This is quickly turning into a boyfriend! Hwiyoung*. It's something that he suggests, the idea of cock warming. Really your jaw should drop when you hear it from your boyfriend. After a sex session, when the both of you are all sweaty and won't go for another round, he wouldn't mind if you were on your knees, keeping his cock warm with your mouth. He could be leaning back on the seat, going through his favourite sites while you sit in between his legs, ignoring the ache in your thighs. He would have you cock warming naked, bare for him and only him to see while he himself is fully clothed. That session could have potentially included bdsm, in a separate room that you have specially for it and this time, you could have been flogged, denied your release or being used, whatever your fantasies may be. It could also be the opposite way where you are the dom. In that case, it would be a command or a form of bonding where he will be punished if he moves when he is in your sex or you cuddle and speak to one another about the session, respectively. If bdsm is not included, then he would love to cock warm! To him, he gets to be with you and speak to you- whatever it may be about. For example, it could be deep, philosophical conversations or you both cuddle and sleep. Either way, he likes spending time with you especially in such a quality manner.

Chani:

*insert a gulp and a surprised face*

Remember that SF9 was discussing about mature concepts as a part of planning for their Kingdom stages and the editors used a fish filter to emphasise Chani's round eyes or rather, his innocence. ''HUh!??!'' is his brain, whirring away like an air conditioner at an office, rolling round and round when you propose this concept. He goes blank and you just sit back, waiting patiently. It has come to this moment. But his smile grows and it keeps on growing till he's unexpectedly pulling you onto his lap and connecting your lips. He knows that you should discuss it first but first, he wants to have you as close as possible when you discuss this. At first, he's peppering kisses on your face with you giggling, telling him that you want to continue and then he says, ''one moment baby'' before he swoops in for your lips. You reciprocate the passion, the moment is neither heated nor too soft, just in between and you have a make-out session for a couple of minutes. He doesn't know why, it's random but the both of you are loving it, like an initiation ceremony into a new stage of your relationship. And here were all along, navigating blind (👀🚫). It's planned with enough space for creativity. You are on the bed and you squeeze his shoulders when he presses at your entrance and fills you up. You wait to adjust to him. At first he's like, ''This it?'' and you have to laugh at that, quite true that you also though the same thing. Soon he's kissing you all over, sucking your nipple and the area around it, turning it a shade darker: he's teasing you, taking his time till he's done cock warming. He tells you that he would love to try out cock warming in your ass sometime and then it's all giggles from there. You ask, ''did you search-'', cut off by his fingers that circle your clit and press, drawing a gasp or a hitch of the breath from you. Then he starts to rock his hips and you know that cock warming is over, at least for now. He's hovering on top of you and losing control over his thrusts and spilling into you later on. A common scenario would be when he's playing games and you are sitting on his cock, maybe sleeping or doing something else, unbeknownst to his friends that he's speaking with on his headset.