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stormingfrost · 3 months ago

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Rating ROTG/GOC characters!

I have so many opinions about these guys so I decided to rate them. Starting from the bottom to the top, these are my opinions on each character of this world.

27. Monkey king/ lampwick iddock of the many legs

I hate him. I hate everything he represents. Stinky bastard man. The story doesn’t make sense to me: if he had all his greed taken away from him why’d he be like that? Also his title “The Monkey King” makes me think of Sun Wukong, which is nothing like this character. I also don’t like his redesign of the many-legs thing and I just hate him. Die stinky bastard man no one likes you.

26. Man in the Moon (book ver)

The description of him looking “kind” and “good” makes me want to throw something. Why are we assigning morality to appearance? Also, why is this random guy the unquestionable source of moral goodness? Dude was raised by mice. Other than that he’s really only in the books for like three pages so idc.

25. Mr. Qwerty

I forget he exists.

24. Jack Frost (book ver)

I don’t like him. He’s supposed to be this lonely rebel but he spends the whole book hanging out with socialites and going to pompous parties IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION? like hey man there are starving kids right outside the party you’re at with literal royalty. He’s also supposed to be a teenager (range of age manipulation powers: 11-18) but acts like a 50-year-old man. He does nothing but hang out with a bunch of politicians and old authors. He also only uses ice magic like once in the books and is just self-important. Everything is about him even when it shouldn’t be. Easter being called Easter was Jack’s idea. Katherine has powers because of Jack. Everything is his idea, or because of him, and it’s weird. Also, not everything has to be a thing. The hoodie is apparently just under the nightlight armor the whole time and his adopted siblings embroidered the white patterns on it (again, book!Jack only uses his icy powers like twice) and it becomes a thing (also hoodies being a thing BEFORE it was invented is frustrating to me on a nitpick evel. Did the Golden age have hoodies? Their fashion looks vaguely Edwardian. Where did the hoodie come from?). Jack’s staff is alive (???). The staff also has magic scratching powers (???????). Jack can talk to every tree including firewood, and then it’s not brought up again (???????????). Not everything has to be a thing. The attachment to historical figures is weird as well. It’s not educational, it’s not respectful, and it’s not anyone who kids would recognize. It’s just strange.

23. The Man in the Moon (movie ver)

Revived a random teenager and let him loose like a stray dog without any guidance. Other than that, we don’t know that much about him to actually know what he’s about. We don’t even know if he’s a person or not.

22. Lermantoff Serpent

The thing that hurts most about this character is the sheer potential that goes unrealized. That’s a complex backstory that could lead to so many things, and he dies in his first appearance despite being important and having a cool backstory.

21. Twinetender

Weird concept. The stick is alive. Okay. Sure. He’s like Jack’s personal Jiminy Cricket but 1000 times more creepy. The souls of hundreds of Viking warriors (previously Native American via Instagram post but that was changed thank god the implications of that were horrific.) make up what is essentially a stick that a teenager waves around and acts as a weapon/servant. I think Joyce straight-up forgot halfway through that he was alive because he just isn’t in there anymore despite Jack always carrying the staff around. I like the character design tho, but besides that, I’d rather have the stick not be a person thanks

20. Pitch Black (book ver)

I think the fandom puts so much emphasis on his backstory, reasonably (it’s a good tragedy), but we don’t even see Pitchiner from before, just accounts from other people. Kozmotis isn’t a character - we only hear about him through other’s exposition. The theme of grief that is intertwined with the story is tragic knowing Joyce’s life. Besides the tragic themes, he’s a stereotypical villain who evilly plots. More cliché, but then there’s a line from him that digs into hearts and stabs wounds.

19. Ombric

Wizard man. That’s pretty much all of his character. He’s written as a wise old wizard but just is standing in the background half of the time until he does something overpowered. I also don’t understand why he and Katherine aren’t literally father and daughter. Didn’t he adopt her? Why does she feel like he’s not her father? Why does he act like he isn’t her father? He adopted her

18. E. Aster Bunnymund (book ver)

I love his design and I like nerdy dork characters who repress their feelings but sometimes his dialogue is annoying.

17. Toothiana (book ver)

Oh, Tooth, you deserve so much better. Her character, her book, her backstory, everything was affected so much by Orientalism. Everyone else gets a role, a personality, an in-depth description of their homes and lives but she gets nothing. There are aspects of her character I like (the grief is very heart-wrenching and I just love her as a character in general) but there are just too many things I have issues with. She’s the only POC in this cast and she is a BIRD. She’s Asian but wears white clown-like makeup? The only people to are violent and greedy over magic are the village people. Not the white rich socialites who colonized and maimed for power and money. No, not them, but the village people in India are the only ones who do get greedy and VIOLENTLY KILL Tooth’s parents. She (and the representation that could’ve been so awesome) deserves better.

16. Sanderson Mansnoozie (book ver)

I love his relationship with Emily Jane. But he doesn’t get a lot of time in the books. Just maybe a few chapters? He’s great tho and I like that he was a space cowboy.

15. The Spirit of the Woods

Underrated! I love her! She tries so hard and I just love her so much. I love her description and her personality, even if she’s only a minor character. (The day William Joyce makes art of her is the day my life will be complete)

14. Nicholas St. North (book ver)

North slays in the sleigh. I like that he has a little redemption arc and has to figure out what he wants in his life and what he wants to be. For me, it makes the movie scenes where he’s taking a mentor figure role to Jack even more meaningful, because he was in Jack’s shoes at one point, despite now being sure and confident in himself. Despite me not connecting the books to the movie, this one is the closest for me to being a part of the movie’s ‘canon.’ North is very consistent and I like his character a lot.

13. Katherine

Teen girl protagonist with a knife! I do wish she had a little more agency as a character because it seems like every decision she makes is about the male characters. I like that she sees herself in Pitch. In the fifth book she gets older (25 yrs with kinda age manipulation with a range of 12-25. I’d say it’s closer to regression than true manipulation as it only happens under certain conditions) and she and Jack are soulmates and then she is defined by him? Even her powers are because of him, or at least the ones that are talked about the most. Second to those powers, the mythosphere was a cool concept. But what her character represents is the most significant thing about her. She is a ghost in a book, living again within the words and text every time the book is read.

12. Nightlight

Wish he didn’t turn out to be Jack. Or at least in the way that it is. I’m not opposed to Nightlight being Jack but I just don’t like book!Jack so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ he’s a little adorable critter I love him and his relationship with Katherine is adorable

11. Pitch Black

My least favorite character from the movie. I don’t like his design (or any of his canon designs really. He looks like a bull terrier to me. I think the one in the comic is the best) He’s interesting as a selfish villain who is conceited and doesn’t like to share. He’s more interesting as a terrible person who likes hurting people. I love how he’s a foil for the Guardians, especially Sandy, and how he’s a mirror to Jack. I don’t get the fan interpretations of him where they woobify him and make the guardians ‘big bad bullies’ the man says with his mouth what his motives are. why are we pretending he said anything about fear being necessary and balance because he is not doing any of those? He is actively trying to take over the world with darkness. He doesn’t want balance. I’m not trying to judge anyone having fun, you do you, but I just don’t get it. I do think he’s a bit of a cliché, but it works for the movie. I also think he’s ugly (bull terrier looking mf)

10. Emily Jane

Oh, the drama! The tragedy! She’s great, and the build-up to meeting her character is masterful. I do wish we got to see her being just chaotic like how she’s said to be. Joyce tells a lot, rather than shows.

9. Skreeklavic Shadowbent

Unironically this funky werewolf guy is my favorite character from the books. He’s got so much potential for more, the potential man! He and Pitch should’ve had more beef. Shadowbent knows all his secrets (that’s why his hair is so big) but is never utilized.

8. Jack’s sister/Mary/Flee

I wish she was given a name. We see so much of her character and personality just from the flashbacks and she��s just so underrated. She’s more careful and nervous than her brother and needs a gentle push to have fun. She does only exist for Jack’s development which sucks. All the other kid characters get names, even if they aren’t said within the dialogue, but we never get one for her. (I’m not counting Joyce’s words as he isn’t consistent with them) However, this part of the story looks back on Jack’s past life is way too idealistic for what is a literal colonization. Her, Jack, and the rest of Burgess are literal colonizers. They weren’t good people. They were vile people who stole and maimed for land and money. While I adore this movie and its characters, this is one of my main issues with it. (Along with the weird racial coding of Bunny+Tooth, and the sexism and ignoring of female characters. The romanticism of colonization within the fandom is also worth discussing and criticism)

7. Burgess Believers

I debated on putting Jamie in his own category but decided against it (they are tied). Jamie himself is this stalwart little believer who fights for light and hope and refuses to stop believing in goodness. They all have a battle with darkness and all win. We see their personalities! They’re great. They all have names too, even the ones that don’t have them said in dialogue.

6. Baby Tooth

Shes so sassy I love her. I like the fan theory of her being Jack’s sister, or at least somewhat related to her. It’s fun. She’s incredibly passionate and such a fun character in this story.

5. Bunnymund

He’s a grumpy dork with a heart of gold. I really like how they made him this gruff and badass guy who is nurturing and proud of making pretty and delicate things. It’s such a wonderful angle for a ‘gruff and rugged’ male character. He also looks up to and respects Tooth, the Smurfette (ugh) of the movie, and it’s truly one of my favorite ways this movie subverts common tropes I see in movies all the time. He’s a dork. I love him.

4. North

#1 dad of the year (and all years since 2012) without ever actually (technically) becoming a dad or a father figure to anyone. I adore this version of Santa. In a lot of Christmas/santa movies there is this… emptiness that I see. Because they aren’t given a reason as why they are Santa. Why did they deliver presents? Why do they care? With North, the why is answered: because he cares and loves the children of the world and wants to help protect their wonder. I think North, Klaus (2019), and L. Frank Blaum’s Santa are probably the best examples of a good Santa. (Tim Allen’s the worst. The beef I had with that man as a seven year old was insane.) They are all properly shown to why they do what they do and how important it is to them. I love how they made him crazy and sincere and caring and badass. The way he immediately steps up and becomes a mentor towards Jack is just ahshdiifska

3. Sandy

He’s such a cutie patootie. He would beat anyone up at the slightest opportunity to. I love him. I do wish he got more screen time. He could’ve came back when Jamie touched the dreamsand for the first time, or “died” later in the movie. I love how he’s characterized. The jumbled ‘words’ when he gets excited, the playfulness and gentleness. I think he’s neat and I do blame him for my insomnia.

2. Tooth

I love her! She’s so badass and cool and awesome! I love her character design! It’s so fun and unique (although it would not hurt if they actually committed to her being Asian - there was an edit of what she would look like with darker skin and oml she looked so gorgeous). She’s kind and sweet and a bit of a manic pixie dream girl but then punches people and tears her enemies apart with her wings!!! (Unpopular opinion here but I genuinely love that she uses her wings to fight that is so cool - much cooler than a sword - I like that she is the brawler. Yes punch him!) She’s also unabashedly weird I just love that she gets so excited about teeth of all things. The sweet moment of her realizing that being out ‘in the field’ is what she’s been missing is just so great. She does tend to get ignored within the movie and the fandom, which sucks bc she’s such a great character, and she’s the only female character so it’s a big yikes (although the books nearly ignore her completely. She does like two things across the whole series) I may or may not have the tiniest crush on her.

Jack

I may or may not have based my entire personality around this little shit. He is ultimate Blorbo. He’s sensitive and annoying but genuinely cares and loves what he does. I love how resilient he is as a character (if I was in his position I’d go crazy) and how he’s just so genuine about what he cares about. His character arc was super relatable (where’s that interview Ramsey did where he said autistic kids related heavily to Jack?) and I just adore this version of Jack Frost. I love how even from the beginning, we see who he is- a fun loving guy who loves what he does. He genuinely cares about the children and wants to make them happy and loves his role in the world as winter. He’s such a goofy little guy I love him.

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rae-gar-targaryen · 4 months ago

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darling, how could i fear any hurricane? [qimir/the stranger x force sensitive!reader]

Summary: Neither the backwater planet you’d chosen for yourself, nor the sanctity of your own mind, is safe from the nightly visitations of your dream stranger. Is he real, or just another trick of the mind? And what of the power he promises? Desire, he’d spoken of. Desire, desire, desire…

Pairing: Qimir/The Stranger x Force-Sensitive!reader [my reader is written ambiguously, but as with all of my reader inserts are written with a Latina!reader in mind]

Warnings: 18+ please – fingering, dry humping, the brief mention of choking, Qimir being a seductive motherfucker, relatively minor smut, all things considered. The briefest descriptions of violence; reader has female anatomy.

Word Count: 5.7k of sinful soliloquy and definitely no manipulation. No, you want this power, don’t you??

A/N: Breaking my writing drought with this. I don’t know if it’s any good, and no one asked for it. But I’m glad to be sharing my writing again. Please be gentle!! Also, if you’ve ever read my Mandalorian x princess!reader fic, there’s an easter egg in here for you!

The verdant planet of Vorduun was known for very little – A small, outer-world, far from the shiny Core planets that boast chrome, progress, and bureaucracy. Lush plantlife, a fertile place with brimming riverbanks, and jungles teeming and thrumming to life with flora and fauna at the turn of the seasons. Off the edge of the map. Off the edge of the world. A perfect place to hide.

To lose yourself.

And the night is stifling, to say the least. Of all the Vorduunian summers you’d endured in your self-isolation, this one had to be the worst. The months’ long deluge of spring rains had made for a stiflingly humid summer, the green jungle steaming with sticky heat. If a saving grace was to be found in the swelter, it was that the night skies were unlike everything you’d ever beheld – a far cry from the fluorescent pollution endemic of your years on Courscant.

Tonight's Vorduunian sky is no exception – a clear expanse of rich velvet, stars like diamonds crushed into the smooth folds of the expansive sky. Twinkling and winking richly down at you through the gaping slats of the shack you now called home.

You twist, a serpent in your own threadbare bedsheets, attempting to find comfort in the sticky summer heat of the planet, chasing the elusive promise of coolness as you flip your pillow to the other side with a huff.

Kind of a sick game, if you thought about it. That if you weren’t running from something, you were chasing something else.

At present? Chasing a good night’s rest. Preferably dreamless, if you were honest. Your dreams of late are plagued with all sorts of incomprehensible flashes, feelings of being watched, feverish and hazy. Your subconscious’s foreboding certainty that if you’d only just turn around, you’d be met with a face that was not your own -– the disquieting sense of something, or someone, lurking just around a corner. Sprinting down echoing hallways with promises, greatness, a warrior's oath, all just out of reach, certain that if you’d slowed your pace, whatever was pursuing you might just snatch you, an unseen stranger.

Other nights, the dreams were different – the unflinching and unchanging grin set in a mask of metalloid teeth, baring themselves at you . Of ever-watchful eyes judging, as you forced yourself through training drills. The disapproving shake of your Master’s head, his disappointment palpable and always, always directed at only you . The seizing terror of being dropped into combat with no saber – of being skewered through by an unseen shadow with a red plasma blade. Of walls closing in on you. Of the Knights whom you had once considered your friends turning their backs on you while you fought tooth and nail. Of your lungs filled with your unreleased screams – of terror or frustration, you weren’t sure – pulling you down beneath the surface of your failure until you drowned in the disappointment of others’ unfulfilled expectations. Of hands on an unseen body tinkering with phials of something, producing poisonous concoctions of sickly green that the unseen stranger dripped down your throat, pouring them past your lips with sure, warm fingers pressing on your tongue. You swore you could feel the poison upon your waking, the phantom feeling of liquid shredding your veins with horrific heat, your heart thundering.

Other nights the dreams were different yet, still. Of shadows shedding their inky cloak to reveal hands that caressed. Of hands that held you and wiped your tears. Of thorns falling from vines – leaving what once had pricked and scratched you to now soothe with velvety softness as the vines wound their way around your wrists, tugging you into an unseen embrace with whispers of promises humming in your ears like the tufty wings of insects. And you would go willingly. Of the warm breath of another in your ear, their body warm behind you, distinct in its softness from that of the sunwarmed cliffs the two of you would watch the sunset from, just you and your unseen stranger. Of those same metalloid teeth melting into a radiant smile of brilliant white, beheld in a sharp jaw – the critique of disapproving masters replaced by his balmy, sublime approval.

Of the tease and taste of his cinnamon lips brushing your own, the fluttering fan of lashes along the peaks of your cheekbones. Of warm, wan whispers of want , desire , soothing your ears. Of warm, fine-boned, assured hands atop your own, guiding yours in a sensuous glide along your own skin. Promises of m ore, more, more as silken lips slipped their way along the column of your throat – your hitching gasps met with his rumbling hums of satisfaction that lasted in your ears for the duration of the following day. Of the gentle lapping of water over smooth-rocked shores, a hand grasping yours with a promise of power. Yet again of more, more, more, if you’d just … Well, you weren’t sure.

What you were sure of was that it had been weeks of these dreams. Your exhaustion was tugging at the corners of your reality, manifesting itself into silly mistakes – a slipped knife while cutting your meals, or the prickling feeling of someone watching from the dark corner of your room. At times, you weren’t sure what was real and what was dreamscape. A slow descent into madness, torment that felt justified, somehow –-

This purgatory was clearly your penance for your failure. To atone for the fact that you could never be more than what you are now – a former padawan cast out of a renowned Order, thanks in part to her own passions and propensities, roiling rages, and lilting lust. A warrior stripped of all pomp and credential. A blistering reminder of something never to be, of someone you could never be.

And so here you were. Piteous and exiled in the jungles of Vorduun with no one other than your occasional unseen dream stranger for company. And what of tonight? Had you slept? Were you asleep? The hazy jungle heat made it impossible to tell. When your days consist of the same, tedious routine maintenance to your little corner of jungle, purely isolated, save for irregular treks to the nearest settlement to barter … And when you tossed and turned your nights away in fitful fugue states of half-awake melded with oppressive dreams – well, who was to say what was really real?

The ghost of a touch along your exposed shoulder didn’t merit a response … Until it happened again. Causing you to sit bolt upright in bed, eyes tracking the room for any disturbance – seen or unseen.

That prickle, so like static rippling across your skin couldn’t be the Force. No, no. It was the trickle of sweat down the back of your neck, and nothing else. What reason would you have to feel the Force here, now?

Just another heated night, just another heated dream….

And now, were your eyes deceiving you, or were the shadows in the corner of your room were moving, swirling into shape as a well-toned arm emerges from the darkness, raised in a gesture of … peace? And the rest of him follows, stepping into the muted illumination from your single gaslamp that sputters in the corner of your room, casting his shadow along the opposite wall, sinuous and slinking as he slowly approaches.

You spring from your bed, eyes darting to the loose slat in your floor where you housed your ill-used saber, quickly considering the relative size of your room and how many steps it would take him to reach you, arms outstretched, to snuff the life from you before you could call the blade to your hand .

His eyes track yours, clocking the floorboard, before placing both hands up in front of him now, a plea –

“You don’t need that,” he murmurs, taking a tentative step toward you. And whether it was the room that shrank around you both, or that was just his presence in your space – so unused to anyone but you – you weren’t sure.

“Need what?” Play dumb, and he won't have any reason to harm you, leaving you an opportunity to strike. Your favorite trick, a minor deception for a tactical advantage.

He steps into the dim, flickering light of the gas lamp, a mild smirk blooming along his full lips, the lamplight warming his skin.

“Your Jedi weapon.”

You glance once more between the loose floorboard and the man slowly approaching you, cocking your head as his features became revealed to you, your mind tickling with recognition as you noted the sharp angle of his jaw and the baleful, syrupy darkness of his eyes –

“You,” you breathe. “I know your face.”

“Do you?” His eyes meet yours, searching.

Yes. You had a good memory for faces, and his you had seen a few times before. Your trips to the nearest settlement every tenday for the open-air market to barter what you had cultivated from the land around your ramshackle home for fruit, thread, and other goods you didn’t often come by on your own. You had seen him at a stall selling tinctures and other apothecary-type goods. You’d never approached, of course. Hadn’t had a need for burn creams or toxins. But there was no denying the swooping lock of hair that would curtain over his eyes, the sharp angle of his features. The way his eyes would track the movement of the market, hawkish, despite the seeming ineffectual haze in them…

A minor deception, you now realize. But for what tactical advantage?

“The chemist from the bazaar,” you reply.

His lips quirk at your realization – the bud of the smirk now unfurling into a full smile.

“You’re more observant than I gave you credit for, warrior,” he stands before you now, hands still lightly held up in a gesture of peace. “That’s good… A nice surprise ,” his voice taking on an almost-purr of satisfaction.

You pause, lips parting lightly. What could he mean by that?

“Qimir,” he gestures to himself by way of introduction.

Qimir. Likely not his real name. Still, you ponder, an interesting choice. Qimir. Like Chimaera, something ancient and unknowable. A monstrous creature signifying the parable of illusion – the promise of something only too impossible to achieve. You wonder if he knew what his “name” sounded like when he’d picked it.

And you hope your face hasn’t betrayed your whirring thoughts as you continue your assessment, hoping to keep a sweep of neutrality across your features as you address him again.

“If you say so. Business must be slow if you’re here to rob me, poisoner. I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed,” your eyes flit around the relatively bare bedroom, gesturing with your chin to the equally Spartan main room of your little ramshackle cabin. “Not much here of value.”

He crosses one foot over the other as he takes a step to orbit you, almost swordsmanlike. As though he were preparing to duel. You mirror his step, your back to your bed now, facing your doorway. His body between yours and your exit.

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” he brings a finger to his chin as if in ponderment. “You’re here, after all. And why would I give you my name, show you my face, if I intended to rob you?”

“Why you do anything means nothing to me,” you bite, “and you’ll have to forgive my manners if I don’t feel like giving you my name. Leave, now , while I let you leave, Qimir.”

His eyes sweep your form, note your weight on the balls of your feet, bracing for a fight. You probably have weapons other than your laser sword stashed away, if he had to guess . He takes a tentative step toward you, a low chuckle escaping him at the fire in your eyes, trying not to smile any wider than he has already, to give away his pleased impression of your fury.

“I know who you are,” you blink at his statement, trying not to let the surprise show on your face. “You don't have anything to fear from me, little Jedi.”

“I am no Jedi,” you snipped, rolling your eyes at the insolence of the man before you. If he cared at all about your rude display, Qimir said nothing.

“I am more than aware of that, too,” he murmured, his voice like silk in your ears as he takes yet another small step toward you, invading your space, close enough to breathe your air, a hair’s breadth from touch.

Too close. You flex your fingers, calling your lightsaber from its hiding place under your loose floorboard into the palm of your hand in a flash, the cool metal meeting your palm like an old friend, a sense of relief. You surge forward into Qimir’s space, pressing the hilt of the saber into his abdomen.

“If you know so much, then you also know you shouldn’t have come,” you snarl. “I don’t know if you didn't take the hint, here at the edge of the world, but I don't take kindly to uninvited guests.”

“You did invite me, little viper,” he insists, his voice never losing its even, dulcet quality.

At your furrowed brow, he gently brings his fingertips to brush the bare skin of your wrist that’s pressing the hilt of your lightsaber into his stomach. A familiar, prickling ripple bursts across your skin, causing goosebumps to stipple your arms. So familiar. So like the feel of lips from your unseen stranger. So like the Force.

The dark eyes that met yours in the low light of your room were familiar for more than just an observation in passing at the market.

“Y-you,” you gasp, the realization causing your chest to seize, to clench your teeth in the wave of seething anger. “You’ve been … in my head … for months …”

He cocks his head at you, watching the emotions process along your face. He had seen your fears and failures, your heart’s greatest desires. He had seen it all …

“The quickest way to your heart,” he reasons. “Through your head. So you’ll have to forgive my intrusion. I wanted to know you.” Sweet words meant to soothe.

You aren’t sure if that makes it any better. Perhaps the reasoning makes it worse.

“So like a poisoner,” you level his gaze with a steely one of your own. “To try to slip through the cracks unseen. But I know the quickest way to your heart.”

“You do?” He seems surprised at your rejoinder. As if he hadn’t expected you to play. To be so quick of wit as you were of reflex.

“Between your fourth and fifth rib,” you hum, your voice taking on an almost-seductive tone – a contradiction to the reminder of you pressing the hilt of the saber into him, precisely where you mean to.

“I appreciate a good threat. Clever,” he smiles, placating. “But there’s no need for that, little warrior. After all… I wouldn't leave you to the dark, not like they did,” he assures, brushing his fingertips against the bare skin of your wrist, so lightly you would’ve thought you’d imagined it. Using the contact to connect to you through the Force once more – your shared memories dancing behind one another’s eyes. Of your fellow Padawans succeeding while your Master only saw failure. Of the dazzlingly white smile of your classmate with the bronze skin and twists in his hair, his yellow lightsaber flashing as you drilled together, his smile fading to frown with the rest of his features as you had used the Force to push him away a bit too hard – rage bubbling to the surface – in direct violation of your training ordinances. Of your departure from Coruscant, no one to bid you goodbye, not even your training partner who had once called himself your friend.

You make to turn your head, to break contact with his dark, glimmering, all-seeing eyes. Like tar pits, drawing you ever deeper. His other hand catches your chin between thumb and forefinger, drawing you back to his gaze, an orbit you cannot escape. Would you even want to?

“And do you believe you would have belonged? The Jedi are deceivers. They deal in abandonment … cloaked in empty platitudes,” he trails his index finger along the curve of your jawline, an almost illusory brush of his skin against yours – the whisper of a touch, as though to illustrate the point. “The wisp of a promise, like spun sugar. Sweet, but false, their promises of righteousness. Of importance.”

Your lips part, catching the barest bit of his thumb as it does so, your eyes now searching his, seeking motive.

“And what do you offer instead? That's what this is, right? An offer?”

He smiles wider now, nodding in the barest acknowledgment. As though you’ve finally asked the right question.

“I … make the intangible tangible.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning …” his hand leaves the curve of your jaw to touch his fingertips to your temple, pressing, rendering a vision to your mind. And what Force magic was this? To make you see beyond your own eye’s sight. Foresight? An illusion? A vision? A memory? A promise or a deception?

Whatever it is, you see it so clearly – an uninhabited plant roaring with ocean as far as your eyeline can perceive. Waves lapping gently along grey-stoned shores. Moss-covered alcoves where you sit with him, your stranger, the sunset warming your skin as he caresses your face, your hair, whispering praises just beyond your mind’s own comprehension into your ear – the tone sinful, syrupy. His arms securing you in the night as you rest, no more dreams of abandonment.

Warmth, endless warmth… as his lips trail the shell of your ear, down your neck, bestowing belief of besotted brushes of lips. Adroit affection aimed right at the heart of you.

“Hmmm … meaning …. Your feelings, your power, your talent all working, to manifest toward something real. Something you want.” His hand leaves your temple and rests on your shoulder, taking advantage of your state of ponderment to gently guide you, ever mindful of the still-unlit lightsaber pressed to his stomach, leading away from your bed to the wall just next to the adjacent doorframe, the patient waltz of a waiting predator. He brings his hand to rest on the wall, next to your head.

“Something I want,” you reply dreamily, coming back to yourself just enough to realize what he’d said, exhaling through your nose in an indignant little huff. “In exchange for … ?”

“Tell me something,” he replies, lithely lilting around your question with one of his own, flexing his fingers where they rest on the wall. “Why are you no Jedi?”

“I … abjured,” you admit, a bit too primly, the lightsaber now feeling like an unbearable weight in your palm at your words, the weight of choices – both your own and those of whom purported to teach you. To guide you to something greater. Was it as he said? Were their promises so meaningless? “Broke my oath,” you suck your lower lip between your teeth, pausing before daring to meet his gaze again. “I couldn’t … suppress how they wanted me to. I didn’t want to fail anymore. I was so tired of failing. So, I … abjured. I was weak.”

Your eyes meet his once more at your admission, yours shining with unshed tears waiting to fall like stars. Shimmering promises to slip down your cheeks, unkept and unchecked. Your fingers fumbled, seemingly of their own accord, unwilling to hold the weight, the threat, of the saber against him any longer. The hilt clattered to the floor, a clanging finality to punctuate your words. And when was the last time you had been so honest, so vulnerable with another?

How … unlike you.

“Not weak,” he cups your cheeks with both hands, fine-boned thumbs tracing the peaks of your cheeks, as though to wipe away your unshed tears. “The same as me. Power searching for its other half. An unwaning, unflickering flame.”

Your unseen stranger, now seen, takes your hands in his, the buzz of the Force still tingling across your skin at his words, at the recognition of his power.

“You asked what I want. You want the same as me, and I the same as you. A companion . A partner. Unlike them, I won't judge you for your feelings. Won’t judge you for your power … You want – I can feel it rippling across your skin,” he closes his eyes, cocking his head, shivering as though to illustrate the point. “... Mmm, and I want, too. We can want together. If you'd let us.”

The flickering light of your room seemed to dim in tandem with his syrupy words, cloying and dripping like honey into golden nettle tea. The swirling honeytar of his eyes appraising you as the Force connection prickled with hazy heat between your bodies and the damnable musk of the jungle air.

You press yourself further into the wall he’d leaned you against, tilting your chin to appraise him in kind, searching for veracity in his words. Something more substantial than the “spun sugar” he’d accused the Jedi of weaving.

As though he could sense your trepidation before it could cross your face, he placed a hand on your hip, the contact searing you through the thin fabric of your tank top.

“They kicked you out because you feel. I'd never do that. I want you to feel … to feel power. To feel what you’re capable of. Of what it can become. Rage. Fear. Loss. Desire. Train with me, you’ll feel it all. I want you to feel it all … to feel me.”

Desire, he had spoken of. The gentle roll of his low voice over the syllables echoing perfectly in your ears. Desire, desire, desire. That desire, so like venom snaking its way through your blood, hot and purposeful. An all-consuming burn through your blood, befitting of a poisoner as he.

“You felt it, didn’t you? When I came in,” he iterates, somewhere south of a plea. “All. That. Power.” The hand not resting on your hip comes to cup your face once more. “I can teach you.”

You had read somewhere once, in the Archives, about creatures on long-abandoned planets with the ability to draw their prey in through vanity. The flash of feathers. Or shiny scales. Big, baleful eyes, perhaps. Only to sink their teeth in once their intended had come too close.

You draw in a breath, searching his pleasing face for any sign of a tell. Of the flicker of eyes that would signify deception. Of hidden fangs beneath his beautiful, full lips. Of anything that would bely his true intentions behind your Force connection. You swept your eyes across broad, defined shoulders, down toned, muscled arms exposed through his sleeveless shift. A warriors’ weapon wrapped in a pleasing package, to be sure. But … with no discernable hint of false suggestion.

You shift your weight once more onto the balls of your feet, away from the wall and into him . Continuing your appraisal as you tilt your head, allowing the scent of his skin – the tang of sweat from the humid jungle air commingling with something sharp and clean – to wash over you.

You invade his space now, leaning into the hand that grips your hip and the other that cradles your head, boldly brushing your lips along his with the barest hint of touch, feeling his lips smile against yours.

You whisper, your lips silken against his, “Tell me, poisoner … You seduce me with lies, is that it? You wish for me to call you Master? Forsake all else to worship at your altar?”

You catch the flash in his eyes as the word “seduce” leaves your lips.

“I haven't lied to you,” his voice is a hum. An attempt to provide reassurance as he couples them with what he hopes is a comforting gesture. His fingers travel from your hip to trail your ribs, a partial embrace.

“Do you consider not telling the entire truth to be a lie?”

“Have I shown you any lies? No. Just dreams. The promise of what could be. What I –,” he pauses, “– we could be. I cannot fabricate the Force, little warrior. Everything you feel tonight is you . It’s me. What more could you want? ”

Your once-steely resolve is crumbling under the weight of his insinuation … "everything you feel tonight” – the honey in his words sweet to your ears, you wonder fleetingly if he'd be even sweeter on your tongue.

And he knew you, didn’t he? By his own admission, he’d seen your faults and flaws for months … your desires. And he had shown you promises, premonitions, predilections… a future of power. And if there is power in two hemispheres – one of sweltering heat, one of blistering ice. Which were you? And which was he?

Together you would surely melt…

“No more rules, little warrior,” he sighs, “just the power of two.” He slides his lips across yours, purposeful, before capturing your lower lip between his teeth, nipping once before releasing, admiring the way your expression flickered from defiance to desire before surging forward, pressing you back into the wall as his lips capture yours.

He swallows your gasp, bringing his fingers to wrap loosely around your neck while his other hand slips beneath the hem of your shirt.

You break from his kiss with a gasp between swollen, bitten lips. But he gives you no reprieve, his lips trailing to your neck, where he sets about pressing hot-mouthed kisses. Molten lava flooding the column of your throat, chased with the scrape of nipping teeth. Soothe and scrape. Push and pull. Give, give, give, take.

You thread your fingers through the silken hair tucked behind his ears, tugging him from his ministrations on your neck and forcing him to meet your eyes – to see if the blaze of want you felt scorching your skin was reflected in the liquid coal, ready to ignite.

His lips twist into a smirk at your insistent tugging; if he was at all surprised, he didn’t show it. His face the perfect picture of pleasure.

“What would we do with it?” You inquire, “This power?”

“Hmmm,” he pretended to ponder, suddenly scooping you, a brief lift as he crossed the short distance to your bed, seating himself with you on his lap. No concession of dominance; merely placing you precisely where he means to. To allow you to feel him beneath you.

“What would you like to do, little warrior, hm?” His fingers flicked the thin straps of your flimsy sleep shirt, exposing your shoulders, leaning forward to trail his lips along the now-bared expanse of your shoulder, your collar bones, your neck, his eyes glancing up to watch your face as he went. “Make them pay? Take what’s yours?”

His hands feel their way down your form, down your sides, along your hips, the skin of his palms rasping against the smooth expanse of your thighs has his fine-boned fingers make their way beneath the loose fabric of the cropped pants you sleep in, dangerously close to the precipice of your desire , urging you to move. Guiding your hips in a rhythmic glide in his lap.

You gasp at his attentions, at the combination of his promises and the heady feel of his skin along yours, bringing your hands to grip his biceps – desperately seeking a way to anchor yourself.

And if it’s his poison that will bring you to the edge, would you regret it? You were starting to believe you could never regret him , not at the feel of his chest pressed against yours, the toned muscle beneath your fingers. His sharp angles caressing your soft curves, replacing the lonely ache in your bones with the lovely heat of him, both his promises and his attentions.

His mouth was keyed and intentional in its work of you, with pressed kisses like flower petals blooming along the skin of your neck, followed by the scraping thorns of his teeth. Brutish and beautiful, as his fine-boned fingers crept to the inside of your thighs, rubbing along your clothed center, intensifying the ache you felt. He shifts your weight in his lap, causing your legs to spread wider, straddling him lowly as he tugs the offending fabric aside, guiding your hips into a roll over his clothed lap and his growing hardness. Manifesting his delight at the choked gasp you emitted in the form of a teasing little buck of his hips, guiding you down as he guided himself up, delighting in the sharp gasps that met his ears as he continues to sway you to his rhythm.

“Desire isn't a sin, little warrior,” he breathes the words into your mouth, lips a hairs’ breadth apart, the better to swallow your moans. “What we feel feeds our connection to the Force, gives you strength ... If you know how. Let me show you. Touch me.”

It was as though electricity was crackling, popping beneath your fingertips as you took his instruction and began to explore the expanse of his body, slipping your hands beneath his tunic to feel the silken heat of his firm torso, the ache within you mounting at the heady combination of the feel of his skin beneath your fingertips – so long since you’d touched another, been touched – and his hardness between the cleft of your thighs. Smoldering, low-heat burned along your skin and beneath your fingertips. Or was it his fingers that were doing the burning? It was hard to tell where he ended and you began, one arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you bodily into him, an infinite loop of power and pleasure.

As you continue to touch him, you could feel it – his connection to the force, strong, volatile, like lightning striking the ocean – crackling and formidable like the man who contained it.

And Qimir – you had long since given up trying to determine if it was, in fact, his real name – rewards you with a gift of his own, the velvet rumble of a groan of pleasure emanating from his throat at your touch. A sound of syrup and satisfaction.

Pleased that you could garner such a reaction from a being as powerful as he, you smile, boldly meeting his lips with a kiss, opening your mouth with a gasp, allowing him to slip his tongue into your mouth, to taste the zip of power that he had determined in his moths of observation was just you, a torrent of citrus drizzle, bold and sweet.

Reluctantly, he parts his lips from yours, ducking his head to tug the straps of your top down with his teeth, exposing your breasts to the heated air of the room. And if your desire at the repeated rolling of his hips beneath yours wasn’t enough to do you in, you figured this might. Bathing in the celestial feel the press his lips to your nipple, tongue swirling over the peaking flesh. Pleased at the goosebumps that erupt now in the wake of his attention.

While he continues to tease your breasts with tongue and teeth, Qimir guides his other hand along your thighs, slipping his practiced fingers beneath your shorts, delighting in the wetness he was met with, basking in the jolting shiver the motion elicited from you, at the friction of his fingers rubbing along the seam of you – causing you to wiggle, to roll your hips into his touch.

And oh, as he slips his fingers inside of you, your eyes roll back, tilting your head to allow Qimir to admire the curving, elegant slope of exposed throat – prey before a predator, gasping at the pleasure he wrought. Breathless. If you thought he was teasing you before, his fingers inside of you were their own type of mocking punishment, well aware of his effect on you and the way your cunt throbs as he strokes inside of you. You could do nothing but wriggle your hips, whimpering piteously and attempting to roll your hips to follow his fingers as they work you, as this crescendo builds.

“Say you’ll be mine, warrior, and you can have it.” he promises. A new oath. One you’d never forsake. For him, you’d never turn, never abjure. Not so long as his touch made stars erupt behind your eyes, not so long as his lips dripped syrup promises down your throat.

Kissing you once more, golden and slow, molten and revelatory as he works his fingers inside of you, your thighs parting to accommodate him. His thumb rolls repeated brushes over your clit, delighting in the starshine burst as you reached your peak, a broken little moan that sounded suspiciously like the word “master,” passing your lips in a keening sigh.

You regard him through bleary, closing eyes and the warm, citrus haze of your orgasm as he slips his fingers from you, guiding you down to recline in your bed, stroking your hair as he does so, lulling you as a lover would.

“Sleep, warrior,” his velvet voice meets your ears, lyrical and lilting. “I’ll be back for you.”

And like each night before that one, his figure slips from you… as though he was never there. It wasn’t a dream, was it? It was hard to tell after months of this teasing game. After his promises built so much only to guide you to this release.

And in the silvery light of the jungle’s dawn, you awoke with that very question on your lips, met with the sight of your saber placed gently on your little bedside table as opposed to its usual hiding spot. You wake to the sweet afterache of something between your thighs, to the scraped marks of teeth along the expanse of your neck.

And to the promise of something – of a future of power and partnership. If only you’d be so bold as to accept it. As you eyed the saber, you recalled the prickle of his Force power along your skin, increasing with his proximity. And by the time he arrived to meet you again, you knew what your answer would be …

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