#and i had figured that there was a cultural difference there

[backofthebookshelf]

It's not a controversial take necessarily -- it's just that the particular environment of AO3, where you can see how many times your fic was loaded in a browser window and where the little heart button has a different meaning than it does on every other social media site, is uniquely bad for the human brain.

For the VAST majority of history, both the history of making art generally and the history of writing fanfiction in particular, you did not get to know how many people gave your work a cursory once-over, or how many people checked your book out from the library and never read it, or how many people overheard a line of poetry and thought "huh, neat" and never did anything else. These interactions were, as they should be, completely anonymous and uncountable. Even in the pre-AO3 days of fanfiction, there was an understanding that page hit counters were kind of crap (for one thing, they would count you every time you loaded the page, and you had to load the page to check the counter, so that was incentive not to look at it that much).

Even in other artistic contexts where you do now have page hit counters on everything, they're contextualized through marketing research, not consumed as a raw value. Marketing talks about conversion rate, which is the % of people who saw something who then went on to do the thing you wanted them to do - for a business that's probably buy the thing, for a nonprofit it might be donate or sign up for a volunteer session, for a fanfiction writer it's leave a comment. At work I work with multiple major companies you have definitely heard of who spend half a million dollars and 1-3 full time employees every year on something that increases their conversion rate by 1-2%. They do this because the conversion rate on our emails is 5%, which is INSANELY high.

And yes, leaving a comment doesn't cost money, but it does cost time and energy. Writers overestimate how easy it is for people to write comments--my coworkers are out here using chatgpt to write boilerplate work emails, I can't imagine ANY of them ever leaving a comment on a work of art they enjoyed. Verbally, yes--and "in a friend discord is much closer to verbally than in a comment form--but in writing? Absolutely not.

As for kudos, I can't help but think that the "likes don't do anything, you have to reblog" culture of social media like twitter and tumblr affects that too (and yes, by the latter days of twitter I was seeing people saying that on there, because the algorithm was so broken). Kudos is essentially a like button, and like the like button on twitter that used to be a favorite button before they changed it and some people never stopped treating it like one, it has meanings for people you'll never understand. "It's just a click!" It is a symbol with vague connotations but no specific universally agreed upon meaning; it tells you how many people clicked on that button, and that's all.

So yes, actually, I guess I am saying that as a writer, you are supposed to assume that many more people liked your fic than you will ever hear from or even know about. And that's a good thing! You have the chance to touch someone's life even though they have no idea who you are and don't think of you as a person so much as a semi-mythical figure called "the author". And that's part of the magic, to me, of creating things. You pour yourself into a thing and then you set it loose into the world and you hope it means to someone else as much as it meant to you. Sometimes, very rarely, someone will tell you so, and that's amazing, I'm not going to pretend it's not, but you have to have enough faith in yourself to believe it happens whether you hear about it or not.

I really don't understand how "without getting kudos or comments a fanfiction author is going to assume that people who clicked their fic didn't like it" became a controversial take.

I don't know why some people think an author should imagine, or guess that people who click their fic enjoyed it it when nobody is telling them that.

If you're re-reading a fic constantly, or leaving it up in your tab so that it re-loads every day for a hundred days the author is not going to know that unless you tell them. They'd love to hear it. It would make their day.

And if you don't tell them you liked their fic, there's no reason for them to assume you did.

[luvst4rc0r3]

hi!! could you write jinx with a reader who’s an international student and like. severely homesick? a fluff comfort kind of situation thank you, i love your writing :)

“Homesick food”

Jinx x Reader

You stared blankly at your phone, thumb hovering over your messages. The last conversation with your family was still open. They had sent pictures—home-cooked meals, your siblings goofing around, the neighborhood you knew like the back of your hand. You had smiled when you saw them, but now, the ache in your chest felt unbearable.

Jinx plopped down on the couch next to you, snapping you out of your daze. Her knee knocked against yours, and she peered at you with those sharp blue eyes, head tilting. “Alright, spill. You look like a sad kitten, and I don’t like sad kittens.”

You sighed, pressing the heel of your palm against your eye. “I just… I miss home.”

Jinx softened instantly. “Oh.”

Jinx’s teasing expression softened instantly. She tapped her fingers against her thigh, thinking. “Oh.”

She didn’t tease or make a joke, which only made the lump in your throat grow.

That was it. No teasing, no trying to brush it off. Just a simple oh. Like she got it.

You had been trying so hard to keep it together, but it felt like everything was piling up at once. The exhaustion from constantly switching between languages, the loneliness of not having anyone who really understood your culture, the small, simple things—your favorite snacks not being in stores, the way people here didn’t say things the way you were used to, even the weather being different. It made you feel like you were floating, unanchored, like you were here physically but some part of you was still stuck at home, desperately trying to reach back.

And the worst part? You couldn’t just go back. You couldn’t teleport to your family’s kitchen table, couldn’t walk down familiar streets with your best friends, couldn’t hear the background noise of your home city. You had to stay here and push through it, and right now, that felt impossible.

The lump in your throat grew. “It’s just—I feel so out of place. Everything here is different. The food, the people, the way things work… Even when I try to have fun, it doesn’t feel right. And I know I’m supposed to be grateful for this experience, but—I just want to go home.”

Jinx tapped her fingers against her thigh, thinking. “Homesick, huh? Yeah, that sucks.”

You nodded, swallowing hard.

Jinx watched you for a second before suddenly jumping up. “Alright! You need a distraction. C’mon.”

You blinked at her. “What?”

“No time for questions, foreign exchange baby! We’re going on a mission.”

Before you could protest, Jinx was dragging you out of the apartment, practically vibrating with excitement. You half-expected her to take you somewhere chaotic—maybe a roller rink, maybe a rooftop where she could throw fireworks into the street. But instead, she led you through twisting alleyways and side streets until she pulled you into a tiny shop.

The smell hit you first—familiar. Your eyes widened as you looked around, recognizing the ingredients on the counter. It was a small, homey restaurant that sold food from your country.

“How did you—?”

Jinx grinned. “I did some research. And by research, I mean I asked people annoying questions until someone told me where to find this place.”

“Found it place a while ago. Figured you’d need it eventually.”

“How did you—?”

Your chest tightened, but this time, it wasn’t from sadness. It was warmth. Jinx practically pushed you toward the counter, nudging you forward.

“Order everything, babe. We’re about to drown your homesickness in food.”

You laughed—actually laughed—for the first time in what felt like weeks. And as you sat across from Jinx, sharing food that tasted like home, you realized something.

You still missed home. But maybe, with Jinx, you weren’t so alone after all.

If you can’t tell for the reading I’m HUNGRY

I WANT FOOD

[dallasgallant]

Time period post: going steady v. Casual dating

Figured this would be pretty helpful in regard to some ship stuff but also generally the attitudes of the time period. Now this will be largely straight and a lot more Soc leaning than Greaser (I’ll bring up some differences later in the post) so be aware but I hope it’s useful regardless.

Going around-

In essence, I want to tackle the difference between “Going with” and “going steady” and the steps in between of 1960s dating culture. Giving a necklace or a ring is a huge deal that wouldn’t happen once you start dating officially, it’s a big symbol of your relationship. It is earned.

You have casual dating, where you’ll go on dates with several people on occasion, you may have someone you see the most often but it’s not an exclusive thing. Hand holding, kissing, sometimes even beyond that depending on who you are and what the feeling is, but it’s more a traditional date/hang out of a nice walk or getting a Coke or seeing a movie.

Then you have dating, you make it official boyfriend/girlfriend and it’s just each other. There’s still flirting, but not going on dates with someone else. This is where you’re going together.

Going steady is a step above, hard exclusive for each other. The kind of dating where you’re expecting a future together. You’re not engaged but it is very likely you eventually will be. You give jewelry to show this commitment and this change in your relationship. From here you’d have engagement, marriage etc if it makes it that far.

It’s like an extra step or an extra trial period before full on engagement. There’s a fluidity to it that isn’t fully there in modern dating in a way I can’t explain? Sort of that there was a lot more general flirting and almost inherent jealousy. Tests to be had?

Bases and rings-

Some of this may have its basis in the “courting” of the real old days, where it was a period of going together, absolute exclusive and then being married. No real “dating” just that engagement trial period than marriage, it wasn’t casual it had to be with the intent of marriage. Very stuffy and serious and chaperoned.

Now of course that definitely changed with the introduction of cars and by the 1940s…

But aspects like asking the father, curfews, the “base system” (first base, kissing , second base, touching over clothes and so on...) and things like having that “going steady” period of showing off that commitment can be seen as remnants of the older practice. And of course courting never fully went away, more extreme religious sects still practice it today.

Difference-

Now, things like “curfew” and “bases” are much more of a middle class and Soc thing to dating, all that structure and “proper” way of doing things. Now, don’t mishear me Greasers will still give jewelry and go exclusive but they’re much more— physically passionate without that social restraint, for a lack of a better way to say it. More kissing and touching and putting out without this whole song and dance of the right order. This isn’t to say that Soc’s always do what’s expected or told either but, Pony does note how Greasy girls are much more touchy (which is a bit misogynistic but you have to keep in mind it’s the 60s. Girls are supposed to almost tease or deny once or twice and act proper™️ than just want or be down for something. But also keep in mind this is a “expectation” and image more than a reality)

[makingspiritualityreal]

The Sun is the positive inheritance from our family line. It is the natural, inborn glow, our effortless legacy and instinctive shine.

For example, someone with a very strong Sun placement can go into the same business as their father, or they inherit a well functioning family business and their father can be a positive authority in their life.

Saturn is the opposite of the Sun. It is the area of your life, where you need to correct things by doing them differently than what you were given, but in a proper way. As a result, Saturn becomes a constructive, realistic critic.

The reason why Saturn is an enemy to the Sun is that you don’t want criticism to obstruct your natural glow and shadow your self expression. You don’t want to have to correct your natural legacy, so you can function. The other issue is, with such an aspect you lack positive role models, as the authority figures in your life did not perform the area of a given house placement correctly. So you need to figure everything out yourself, from scratch, do a lot of psychological digging and make sure you don’t attach to anything incorrect. It becomes your soul’s mission to clear your family karma and it is not a joyous one, and it hampers your spontaneity and delays your natural self expression, as it needs to be researched first to be performed correctly.

To give you an example, I have Saturn in the 4th aspecting my 1st house Sun. Technically, this is not its strongest aspect, and I’ve seen that aspect play out way worse in case of a conjunction or an opposition. Yet, since it’s the only aspect my Sun receives it still impacted my life.

I’m a tall woman, and I always had a naturally strong, glowing physique. I always joke that if I was raised in the USA, I would be the white Beyoncé. However, I was raised with my elderly family members from Poland (although I wasn’t born there) and until my Saturn return, I was bombarded with criticism relative to my natural strength and radiance. Poland has a more patriarchal culture than other western countries. It is now changing very rapidly, but it has been tough on me growing up. My body and my natural buoyancy was always criticized, and people tried to squeeze me into the traditional, diminutive standard of femininity, that is not only outdated but completely contradictory to who I naturally am. As a result, I didn’t get any opportunities to develop my self expression and charisma on a physical level and I wonder if I ever will. Consecutive traumas from other areas of my life and years of unfair shaming from both male and female figures have taken a toll on me. I can’t say I regret it, because I would have never discovered my spiritual gifts without it, and after all someone has to fix things and challenge the status quo, and I’m delighted that my very presence does so, yet it has brought me a lot of pain and made it hard for me to fully find my place in life. I can only feel the difference now, after I got married and have experienced feeling unconditionally validated and desired in my body through marriage. I still know I did not fully bloom into what is possible and I look forward to it.

With tighter Saturn aspects, this process is delayed even further, even into one’s 40s.

To continue with my example, I dress in an alternative way, with a lot of boho elements. Any tall woman with a larger shoe size knows how hard it is to find anything good for yourself. Completing a basic wardrobe that would fit both my taste and my body, complementing myself through that instead of feeling like I should change who I am took me years. For instance, I am gonna be 33 this year and I have just recently completed getting a decent swimsuit collection that I actually enjoy. So with that Saturn aspecting the 1st house of physical body, it took me over 30 years to find decent swimwear.

This was a lot of personal experience exposure, but I hope the level of detail will help you relate to your own experience, relative to your house placement, especially for those with Saturn aspects.

[aialsposts]

Absolutely LOVING the use of Mabel’s slang and Ford’s slight hesitation but willingness to adapt because like. Those kids talked like old timers in the show (likely just from being around one for a while)

so you KNOW they came back when in high school with Dipper saying stuff like “I’m about to absolutely crash out on Robbie this time. MABELLL?? WHERE’S YOUR GRAPPLING HOOK-“

And Mabel saying stuff like

“Slay the house down mama!!” And “you better WALK that DUCK” and even Dipper is like,,

“So from what I gather this is… a way of her saying essentially you’re doing really well and your outfit is so good it could…kill her??? I think??”

And it’s also a lot of Ford finally caving and begging for a presentation from Dipper about their generation’s Slang. Mabel has to be Dipper’s project partner; while he initially didn’t want to drag her into this, unfortunately he hit a wall in his research where he fully couldn’t see the connection, and Mabel was completely overexcited to oblige.

First half of the presentation:

Very well put together slides, including graphics here and there introducing a timeline for when said slang started taking off, Dipper’s theories as to *why* certain slang rose more popularly/had longer “staying power”, and even some older slang from Ford’s generation that roughly translates to something modern. “I’m gonna crash out on ___” roughly equals “you’re cruising for a bruising, pal”

While the other half was essentially:

*disorganized bright colors and really hard to read print over graphics that don’t really technically go with what’s being talked about?? From what Ford can gather??*

The first presentation is an absolute disaster, but after finally setting aside their differences to create a better, much more comprehensive presentation, it ends up with Dipper learning a lot more lingo, too (for better or worse, you decide lmao), and having Mabel do more of the sort of explaining to Dipper (he did the graphics and visuals this time, it hurt his SOUL to see his sister’s side of the presentation BDJSVDJ) and Mabel helped Dipper grapple with the connotations of lingo a little more. For some reason the worse it sounds it seems to mean?? Something better?? It confuses him just as much as it does Ford, and Ford really starts to see ‘tism signs in Dipper as he slowly realizes how much Dipper is just like him growing up (like. Dude’s REALLY trying to understand “slay” “yass” “queen” and he gets that down and Mabel’s like “alright, beginner level over, now, what does, “slay the house down boots mama!” Mean?”

Even adding her extravagant gestures to the slang, which, to his credit, surprised Dipper because normally body language helps but like. Mabel body language and “what the culture’s feeling” aren’t exactly the same thing. He couldn’t, for the LIFE of him, figure out whether or not the gestures were actually included— as in, used by anyone other than just Mabel— and he was in fact wrong because it turns out the gestures ARE important, but there’s also varying LEVELS of importance.

Like the more emphasis (more ‘cartoony’/fluid/exaggerated the movement, the more the person REALLY fucking means it, no matter how little or how much emphasis they put into their voice (kinda going against his autism’s way of learning because like. Tones are?? So important I thought??? Why does this not apply here??)

Genuinely once they’ve presented all the information, and Ford gets a better idea of it, they’re all ready to just end this information exchange,,, until Stan walks in and overhears Dipper say to Mabel, “I think we slayed this presentation”

To which the twins simultaneously face palm as they realize they have to do the presentation again,

and Ford gets The BIGGEST grin, because, you see, Ford’s ability to process information is largely dependent on setting, generally, the mystery shack is… not a place he’s overjoyed about being at, but with others around it can sort of quell that sick feeling he gets and such.

So while he *mostly* understood the presentation, he didn’t want to have the twins repeat themselves (especially after learning what “unc status” means) so when his brother, Stanley, has to endure the same chaos but WITHOUT the prior understanding Ford’s now working with, all he can do is pull the twins aside and whisper, “how about we add something to your presentation, I think it might help Stanley understand this one term better-“

After a few slides where Stanley hardly seems to be paying any attention, Mabel clears her throat, Dipper stifling his laughter as Mabel announces loud and clear that a “new term” “just dropped”. She points the clicker super professionally, and as the slides turn, it’s the most abhorrent neon slide to ever disgrace the earth. Glitter. Fairies. Graphics that actually DO work this time though, she made sure to give more accurate visuals.

Introducing: GRUNK STATUS!

“It’s like Unc status but even more archaic!” Mabel enthusiastically declares.

Dipper is giggling so hard he’s having a full out asthma attack on the floor, and Ford finally can’t contain his laughter either. Mabel starts to laugh along and Stanley looks absolutely miserable for a moment.

“Aw, c’mon they’re just kids,” Ford laughs.

“You put them up to this. I don’t know how to prove it but I KNOW you did this. That stupid fucking Pun has YOUR NAME written ALL OVER IT-“

*cough/mumbles something about it being Stanley’s name, legally, last he checked which IMMEDIATELY Started a fight, until Mabel slams her fist down.*

“Ahem. Gentlemen. The presentation isn’t OVER. Sheesh, talk about Crashing out,” Mabel says, SO calmly that both grunkles sink back in their seats a bit like kids in trouble for causing a ruckus at school. (Mabel and Dipper do a lil thumbs up bc hey, that was a great way to give an example of a Term, Mabel! Good job!)

“Ohh… I get it, Crashing Out means you’re cruising for a bruising!” Stanley declares (sort of under his breath). To which Ford replies, voice equally lowered, “wasn’t that a few slides back? They already said that,” as if he hadn’t had the EXACT same epiphany earlier on, and was merely able to contain it before sounding “even more unc” (he tries, but the grammar with the slang is slightly off sometimes).

This essentially causes another argument.

This third run of their presentation took them 2 hours to get through due to Stanley and Stanford’s arguing.

Their first two runs with only Ford took maybe 45 minutes max (not including their needing to fix said presentation).

The twins put up with Stan and Ford’s fighting because they realized it’s probably essentially exactly how they looked when they were bumping into each other the first time they were trying to create this presentation.

Some things never change.

Sibling Rivalry? Absolutely timeless.

I was thinking about how he did not have to include this photo of himself in TBOB and how it really looks like it had to be taken by someone else.

[makoredeyes]

Hey, have you ever found yourself wondering how characters like the Iron lords would react to most modern day tower guardians, if they just suddenly found themselves in the present? Because from what I can tell in the lore, light bearers in the dark age were very different to most average guardians.

In fact it's even stated in the Electronia shell that Guardians canonically dance a lot more than a civilian would expect. It's even stated in things like the War Mantis Greaves and Cloak that guardians mapped the entire cabal war net by having a dance off which is also a reference to the Japanese launch trailer for vanilla D2.

So while I imagine that older light bearers are use to strange things occurring from time to time I also can't help but think they would be utterly astounded by the sheer absurdity that tends to happen around most present day guardians. As well as the fact that they tend to walk around with the weaponized corpses of space gods like they're collectables.

The whole thing just makes me laugh thinking about.

Well yeah I think about it a lot I've been spending the last year and a half writing an entire series aimed at, among other things, bringing a handful of these guys up to the present timeline after all. Which finally Just Happened by the way.

But what I think you're getting at here is kind of the "medieval peasant is shown tiktok and mind is blown" kind of joke and tbh... people's minds are more flexible than that. Humans have been dancing, making weird fashion, experimenting with science, culture, sex, weapons, humor, art, storytelling, etc., since the dawn of time and they will continue to do so until the Vex have their way and they are the last of anything standing. Saladin has adjusted just fine after all. And we have further evidence of his social and cultural flexibility by how he's shown evidence of integrating in with Caiatl's legion. He merrily references Cabal culture now in his dialogues as often as he does the ways of the Iron Lords. He mingles with the remaining old guard, Coalition aliens, and New Lights just entering the Crucible with equal ease. If his brethren were to be fast-forwarded from the Dark Age to the modern City Age, I don't think they would struggle at all. Oh, there'd be an adjustment period: the City has grown. The outlook on the use of Light and Darkness has shifted. Our enemies and allies have changed somewhat. This would be the same for anyone who went back to a place they'd been away from for a long time. I don't think cultural things like dancing and fashion would bother anyone. Either they'll adopt these changes or they won't. There are people living in the tower that are tens of centuries old: Figures who have lived through literal epochs over and over who have not changed and have no need nor intention to, and are not bothered by what brings fleeting joy to others in increasingly darkening times. Actually, the only person I can think of at all that expresses any discomfort at all is Lightless: Hawthorn, who subtly implies in some ways she is uncomfortable being in the City versus the wilds...but that is different as well. As for the age-old Guardian tradition of repurposing our enemies into tools of war... that kind of malarkey was born from the Dark Age as a means to an end in a time where survival was harder than ever and you did what you had to do to get by. Sometimes that included ugly things. I'm going to point at how ostensibly heinous the act of entrapping a half-dead Ghost in your own armor is but aside from a feeble protest by a few of the Iron Lords prior to bringing him into their number, nobody bothered Felwinter about this ever. They'd be fine. They're smart, powerful, and the people who survived the Dark Age are some of the most adaptable out there by definition. If anything I would think they'd be buoyed to see the newer generations finding scraps of levity and joy amidst a war for survival. That's the reason Jolder was so treasured, after all, was her joyful outlook. Everyone who's survived all that will say times now are better. It's good.

[anghraine]

I felt like writing the femslash Spirk version of one of my absolute favorite scenes in TOS, from my beloved "Balance of Terror", so I stayed up until 3:30 AM doing it :D

S'paak regularly pretended not to understand the idioms of Federation Standard when she comprehended their meaning perfectly well. She preferred a more exact use of language, and reminding those around her of their imprecision prompted them to speak more directly and clearly. None of her crew mates appeared to notice the small deceit, but then, their prejudices so often did her work for her. Also, it was funny. Captain Kirk's arrival had made S'paak's pretended ignorance still more enjoyable. It soon became apparent that the captain was not deceived—but she was amused. She rarely challenged S'paak's assumed confusion, but just smiled and shook her head while responding as if she believed her. It became a game, of sorts, a silent understanding between the two of them that required nothing further and went nowhere. From all that S'paak could see, the captain did not actually wish her different: and she couldn't remember the last time she had interacted with anyone who did not wish her something other than what she was. Most likely she had never done so, in fact, and this was one more way in which Jessica Kirk had turned out to be entirely unique. Now and then, though, S'paak encountered some niche phrasing or metaphor she mostly didn't have to pretend to find strange—something she could interpret with effort, but had to consider first. Back at the Academy, she'd overheard other cadets talking about how someone had angered an instructor and you could just about feel the room temp dropping. S'paak had been puzzled until she remembered encountering similar figurative language in literary and cultural texts of her mother's people that she had read as a girl, novels that spoke of atmosphere or air chilling as a result of some tension or rage felt by the characters. The wording might be different, but the concepts were evidently the same—even though anger naturally had no effect on external temperature, and she found the metaphor awkward and poorly conceived. Both their peoples associated anger with heat, whether the consuming flame of unrestrained emotion for Vulcans, or the more endurable but still hot, intemperate fury so natural to humans, their skin ruddy with its warmth as they whirled towards each other, gestured violently, shouted, sometimes turned to aggression and even violence. Anger was hot; indifference was cold. She had long known this, and she knew it until the day the Enterprise pursued a ship filled with humanity's old enemies, the Romulans.

The humans had never actually seen a Romulan. Neither had S'paak when they managed to capture some of the video footage of the enemy ship and display it on their own screens. With the disagreeable clench in her stomach that always accompanied unexpected emotion, she gazed at the faces of the Romulan crew—faces that could have belonged to her uncles, cousins, any number of kinsmen. This, she had not foreseen, and her brows had already risen before she controlled the jolt of surprise.

Embarrassingly, the captain revealed less of whatever she thought or felt than S'paak had.

"Decoding?" Jess asked, as if the obvious relationship between S'paak and Starfleet's enemies meant nothing.

"Cryptography is working on it, ma'am," said Lieutenant Uhura, in her usual crisp way.

Stiles, the unpleasantly irrational navigator manning weapons, was not so professional. He muttered in a clearly audible voice,

"Give it to S'paak."

S'paak turned to look at him. She was used to distrust from her peers—had rarely known anything else—but not barely-concealed insinuations of treason, and felt no need to hide her distaste. Stiles glowered at her, not even slightly trying to modulate his contempt.

The captain, standing not far away from him with a hand on her chair, straightened a little.

"I didn't quite get that, Mr. Stiles," she said.

S'paak didn't believe her. But she didn't think anyone did. Or that anyone was meant to.

"Nothing, ma'am," he mumbled.

Without a twitch of expression, Jess walked further away from them, stepping around the far end of the helm panel controlled by Mr. Sulu, and dropping her hand on the panel itself. Stiles stiffened where he sat, very obviously nervous as Jess strolled towards his station on the other end of the panel, her hand trailing after her until she lifted it to tap a nail on the weapon controls immediately in front of him.

Her posture was not visibly tense. Her voice had not raised in volume. The literal temperature of the bridge had not altered in the slightest.

"Repeat it," Jess said softly.

In that instant, S'paak understood that foolish old figure of speech. She could feel an almost palpable chill settling over the bridge, her skin cooling well beyond the usual as everyone except Stiles, the captain, and S'paak glanced at each other uneasily.

Jess hadn't stopped moving. Locking her hands behind her back, she wandered right past S'paak without a glance at her, over to the rear of the bridge, where Uhura stood with the tapes. Her fingers weren't clenched. She betrayed no sign of human temper.

Jessica was not merely affronted, S'paak realized. She was angry. Very angry.

Stiles exhaled, still rigid with the kind of smoldering, resentful fury S'paak found more familiar among his kind. It would have struck her as pathetic and trivial in any circumstance, really, even without the icy disapproval of the captain. But the contrast between his impotent tantrum and the quiet but unmistakable menace emanating from Jess certainly did him no favors. S'paak watched them, unwilling and perhaps unable to speak, some part of her feeling little but distaste for the man before her, another part illogically thrilling at the scene unfolding before her eyes.

Staring at the weapons controls, Stiles said,

"I was suggesting that Commander S'paak could probably translate it for you, ma'am."

Jess retraced her step back towards the panel, standing beside Stiles's station with every appearance of calm, her hands still loosely joined behind her. She didn't even look at him.

"I assume," said the captain, her voice still very level, "that you're complimenting Commander S'paak on her ability to decode."

Commander S'paak. Her. Beyond all logical concern with what all this signified—the facts that the man operating the weapons on this ship could so easily question her integrity, that the Romulans would not have looked out of place in Shi'Kahr, any of it—she felt anxious, excited, light-headed, uneasy, more things than any Vulcan should feel at any time. S'paak bit her lip.

This was for her.

"I'm not sure, ma'am," Stiles said sullenly.

At last, Jessica turned to look down at him with something of her usual expressiveness, regarding her own crewman with more contempt than S'paak had ever seen her direct at anyone. Her hand reached out for the back of his chair and spun it, hard, forcing him to look right into her eyes. Even in profile, there was no missing the implacable intensity in her face.

"Well, here's one thing you can be sure of, Mr. Stiles," Jessica said, leaning slightly down, her hand still gripping his chair and preventing him from turning away or evading her stare. "Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." Her clear voice hardened. "Do I make myself clear?"

Stiles at least had the sense to realize his danger. He looked afraid, as well he might.

"You do, ma'am," he managed to say.

Without so much as a reply, Jess released her grip on his chair and headed back towards her own. Stiles returned his attention to the weaponry—at least, they could only hope he had, though by his manner, S'paak wouldn't have been surprised if he had relieved himself.

Se turned back to her own station, somewhat relieved that its position forced her to turn her back to everyone else, even the captain, and shielded her expression from view. She forced her breath to its normal pace, ignoring the thundering of her pulse throughout her bloodstream, thinking about the glimpse they had of the Romulans, what the source of that raging, ruthless violence must be, and about Stiles's folly, and how many might share it. And she thought about her lingering sense of a very different kind of rage, right here on the bridge, far colder and more dangerous.

Jessica, thought S'paak, would never cease to surprise her.

[gingermaybel]

Clones, Cocktails, and Common Senses (or lack thereof)

Decided to post it here too since I spent like a thousand hours translating it into English.

中文版在这里（0人在意）：https://archiveofourown.org/works/63547516

Good news: you’re in Star Wars

Bad news: you’re in the Clone Wars

Worse news: you’re no Jedi, clones, or politicians, but a (graduated) social&humanities student. which means you get to work the most boring job in the lamest place stuck with the most annoying customers

(May works at a hopeless bar underground Coruscant, today’s customers are a lil different—or a lil too same?)

1

A group of men was laughing in the bar. May stared at them.

No, nothing like what it sounded like. Sure, they did look good, but they also looked like they couldn’t scrape a single credit for a tip out of pockets-not that they even had pockets to begin with. Their armours were made out of plastic, nothing like the Mandalorians in holomovies but more of a bunch of suck cosplayers. The total eight of them ordered five of the cheapest drinks on the menu to share, and had been sitting there chatting loudly for two hours. No extra orders, politely declining refills, not even asking her for the toilet code. May was a little sad. She needed tips-with the bar's base pay, she could only afford a plastic shack propped up by two wooden sticks 3600 levels below the surface of Coruscant. But she didn't need medical bills, and if she told these muscleheads to either tip or leave, that might be the only thing she'd walk away with.

The downsides of working in the lower levels.

(Not that there were any upsides.)

They were the only customers in the bar. It was midday cycle in this district, only these men and May’s business-illiterate boss would think this was the best time to grab a drink. Even the two Zabrak bouncers—whose salaries were slightly higher than hers—were nowhere to be seen. Have to be when they’d actually be useful for once! She sighed and remained sitting cross-legged on the bar counter, waiting for them to leave.

Seemed like they’ve started an argument at some point when she lost concentration. Then, a man with two odd yellow markings tattooed on his cheeks waved at her. “Sir—Ma’am, may I ask you something?”

May rolled her eyes internally but still put on her best work smile as she hopped down and walked over.

“This thing,” the next man to speak had a white eye and a scarlet scar running across it. There was a picture of a Corellian rose just as red in his datapad. “Is it a war declaration sign for you natborns?”

“Uh, no?” May blinked. “If you mean the Twi’leks, we usually see Corellian red roses as a symbol of romantic love. That’s pretty universal across most cultures.”

“…Which means?” The man with a jagged scar curling around his left eye asked.

“One of you received roses?” she asked. “Someone wants to bang you.”

All eight of them—whether had spoken before or not—burst into cheers all at once. Someone’s wolf-whistling when the rest of them took turns slamming the back of the guy in red armour, almost knocking him into the level below.

May’s lekku twitched nervously at the noise. The scene was oddly familiar, anyone who grew up in a big family could easily tell the resemblance-

“Are you brothers?” The intrusive thought left her mouth before her brain could stop it.

Silence. They turned to her in sync with the same strange look on their faces.

“I—I mean, uh—it’s just you guys look kinda alike. And my cousins act the same way when they—”

“We guys look kinda alike.” The man with a “58” tattooed on his left temple repeated flatly.

“I’m not good at telling human faces apart, sorry—”

“I don’t think she’s making fun of us, brothers.” The man with two red stripes of hairs murmured.

“Wh-why would I be?” May asked incredulously. “What else am I supposed to—”

“You don’t keep up with the news much, do you, ma’am?” The bald man with some stubble asked.

She was getting dizzy from looking back and forth figuring out who’s talking.

“Are you busy, ma’am?” The one closest to her scooted over, patting the spot next to him. “Wanna sit and chat for a bit? If we tell you what we are, could you tell us more about this Corellian red rose?”

2

Bly, Gree, Monnk, Fox—May didn’t even bother to list all their names. These guys multiplied like cockroaches, if she had to remember all of them, she might as well grow a third pair of lekku as a new brain. The clones met each other at the bar whenever they had the chance, but that classic eight-man group never gathered in full again. There always had to be someone not on Coruscant but on the latest battlefront being broadcast on the holonews. May was still having a hard time to believe that these clueless beans were what the senators on the surface called the fist of the Republic. In fact, when you think about it, putting all your hope of not getting kidnapped to serve gasolines in some droid bars in the hands of a bunch of idiots who thought grandpa was a genre of holomovies was a pretty idiotic thing to do itself.

They brought in new guys, and those guys brought in even more newer guys. That was when May realised that the same people who had spent hours pestering her about natborn courtship rituals were actually some sort of officers in their field. It felt weird watching one group of identical dorks following after another group of identical dorks calling them commanders. Unlike their COs, these captains, sergeants, and privates were stiff as hell, standing at attention like making mission reports when they ordered drinks. As long as they weren’t passed out drunk, they would even clean up the tables and take out their trash before leaving. May wanted to tell them to loosen up a little before they scared off the other customers, but there were no other customers left to be scared off before she could realise it. The Humans, Trandoshans, Ithorians, and all other sentients you’d expect in an underground bar had started avoiding this place entirely.

At least May’s boss was happy enough. The Republic didn’t pay its troopers, so they were still sharing drinks and never tipped. But they also had no sense of time, the bar was now always crowded with armoured men no matter time. Little money added up, and their revenue shot way higher than before. The boss had been advertising around to hire stuff for the early shifts, but just like the customers, there weren’t many bartenders eager to share their space with clones. May had been working crazy lately, slept for eight hours in the past three days. However, as the lucky one who had made the OG eight decide to stick around, she got a fat raise out of it. So she decided she could tolerate them.

“Ma’am.” Ponds grinned and flicked two fingers in greeting, Cody tilted his head at her. Four clones she’d never met sat down beside them, all wearing those lizard-like dumbass collars. It meant they were at least lieutenants? May hadn’t figured out the logic behind the troopers’ limited fashion choices yet.

“Evening.” She smiled back, tossing her lekku behind shoulders and pulling out the datapad from her apron. “Bakuran bitters and bloody rancor.” Ponds and Cody both nodded. “And for the new guys?”

“Uh.” Said the green trooper with slicked-back hair. His collar-buddies snickered.

“Get him the most expensive shit you have here, ma’am.” The trooper with ridiculously complex tattoos smirked widely. “Howzer’s getting promoted!”

Across from him, a clone with a blond buzz cut reached out to point at the price on top of the menu. Tattoo guy winced.

“I got this, you useless di’kute.” Sitting beside the blonde was a silver-haired trooper with the same shade of orange as Cody’s painted on her armour. Their heads were gleaming under the disco ball light like two credit ingots. “Made a killing selling titty pics on the holonet.”

“You what?”/“Thanks, Judith!”/“Cool, can I buy some?” Blonde, tattoo guy, and May spoke at the same time.

“I think your ears are working just fine, Rex. You’re welcome but I’ll make you pay me back someday, just wait for it, Keeli. If you stick one of those tiny paper umbrellas in my drink like they do in the holoshows, I’ll give you a discount, sweetheart.” Judith answered them one by one. Cody buried his face into his hands. She winked at him.

“Captain Howzer will take his first assignment on Ryloth.” Ponds flicked the green trooper-Howzer’s collar as May returned with a tray of drinks. He looked awkward. “Can’t say too much, but any dining etiquette we should learn about? Can’t have the kid embarrassing the GAR.”

“I wanna learn too,” said Keeli. “General Di always say Ryloth’s a good place. Should pay it a visit when the war’s over.”

“Oh, so you see a random Twi’lek on the street and just assume she’s from Ryloth?” May shifted her weight, setting a hand on her hip.

“Uh, no, it’s just that your accent—” Ponds spluttered.

“What about it?” She raised her eyebrows.

“I think what he means is—” Cody stepped in, but May burst out laughing before he could finish. The both of them looked thoroughly confused and disturbed.

“I am from Ryloth, trooper.” She grinned, revealing all her canines, Ponds curled up a bit. “This is payback for last time. I’m petty.”

“Gimme your frequency, I’m giving you a lifetime membership.” Judith suddenly declared in the stunned silence. Rex elbowed her in the armpit.

3

Keeli never came back. He and his General Di died defending May’s homeworld. One of May’s cousins said she had seen him fighting side by side with the Syndullas. Cody said Judith wouldn’t be returning either. She didn’t wake up after 18 hours in the bacta tank. The senators on the surface signed the Disposal Confirmation of Damaged Properties.

Cody was sitting alone in the corner, holding the last half-bottle of Chandrilan Blue ’439 that Judith had kindly paid for last time, when he told May that. His eyes bloodshot. Ponds had already headed to the next battle.

May cried the whole night in the shared bathroom of her broken-ass apartment 200 levels underground at the not-so-dignified videos Judith had sent her in the chat.

4

Four rookies sat stiffly in a row at the bar—May now knew that only troopers freshly off of Kamino would wear such shiny white armours. And they sure acted that way: eyes darting around fidgeting in their seats, looking like they might jump up and start saluting at any moment.

Across from them inside the bar was their own rookie, purple little thing with hoofs called Melina. May’s boss disappeared several weeks ago. Sitting in his office now were a smug Senate aide and a red-armoured clone. The former had barely stepped inside the bar before pinching his nose and barking orders for the staff to deep-clean it, muttering about the two billion allergens floating in the air; the latter awkwardly nodded at everyone who waved their mop at him asking him to move over. They’ve taken over the bar—clearly by order of the Senate. May didn’t ask where the boss had gone. He surely was alive and well somewhere in the galaxy—what kind of Weequay would he be without survival skills? Then arrived Melina, stepping in as the new bartender when Jakoian followed the boss away. Rumor had it she was from Kamino, homeworld of all clones, though she clearly wasn’t a trooper. She even had flapping furry ears. Some monk from the Jedi Temple had slipped her onto the payroll, which May found a little unfair—she and most of other staff had to go through an entire round and a half of interviews to get hired, and every drink made by Melina came with this weird shade of purple!

Good news was the troopers didn’t care about such details. There was nothing they wouldn’t drink. May suspected that even if it was massiff piss in the glass they’d just wonder why today’s stuff’s a bit stronger than usual. 79’s had officially become the lowest-barrier-to-entry workplace in the galaxy. Now, watching the rookie bartender and the rookie troopers yelling I don’t understand whatcha saying at each other with the same accents, she just wanted to sigh.

One of the troopers fished the celery stick out of his dragon juice and gave it an experimental lick. She actually sighed.

What was worse than the rookies were the rookies getting picked on. Other troopers kept kicking their stools as they passed by, snickering as the purple drinks spilled onto their chests.

“Who let the Wanker Squad in? Can’t escape their pathetic whines even here at the bar, it’s making me sick,” one of the other rookies pretentiously covering his nose as his friends smirked maliciously.

“Kriff off, ’32. We can go wherever we want,” one of the pathetic rookie squad members—even the lengths of their flat tops were identical, May honestly couldn’t tell any of them apart — flipped the bird.

“What did you say, weirdo?” ’32 bared his teeth. “I say you don’t even deserve to leave Kamino. General Ti must’ve been out of her mind. Who knows if you two weren’t—”

The four pathetic rookies and one Melina jumped up at the same time. May nervously turned to call for the bouncers, when two clones in blue armours squeezed past her.

“Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.” The trooper with a goatee grinned widely as he casually draped an arm over ’32’s shoulder. ’32 glanced at his lizard collar and his face paled instantly. “What should we do now? It’s our holy saviour that you’re disrespecting.”

The other trooper stood next to ’32. Same lizard collar, same skirt, a blue handprint emblazoned on his chest. The dark visor staring ominously at him.

“S-sirs!” ’32 snapped to attention and saluted. “I didn’t mean anything by it—”

“Oh I don’t think that’s didn’t mean anything by it,” the goateed clone patted his cheek. “What does the reg say about disrespecting superior officers, Echo?”

“3G.A.R.C.47, Article 89,” Echo recited, “Anyone who shows disrespect to superior officers shall be punished according to a military tribunal’s ruling.”

“Ha! That’s the one. But I was magnanimous enough to stop you from saying something irreparable.” Said the goatee guy. “I want you to run 79 laps around 79’s, and then, with all your gratitude to me, head back to the barracks and don’t let me see you here again for a week.”

“Yessir!” ’32 saluted again before starting walking away dejectedly.

“Double time!” Goatee guy shouted at his back. “You’re not taking a vacation!”

’32’s friends also saluted, scrambling to follow him.

“Wow, thanks, sirs,” said the brave rookie who flipped ’32 the bird.

“Buy us a drink and we’re even,” goatee guy waved dismissively, “I’m almost having flashbacks. Standing in the corner watching the Bravo Squad show off their balls feels like just yesterday, and now we’re sirs. Where did all the time go, Echo?”

Echo took off helmet, revealing his own standard-length flat top. His thick eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. “You should’ve written a report to his CO instead of punishing him on your own, Fives.”

“Who would’ve thought this ARC armour would be so intimidating?” Said Fives, “Who would’ve thought I’m not a saint who doesn’t abuse his power?”

His friend rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.

“I’m Titmouse,” the brave rookie said, taking the chance of the conversation. “This is Frank, Chamber, and Ranter. What can we get you, sirs?”

“Nice to meet you guys. Grumpy dude here’s Echo. I was going to say just call me Fives, but on second thought, I really enjoy being sir, so please, feel free to say it a few more times,” Fives said as he sat next to Ranter, who took an excited breath. “Get me a Captain’s Special. Who knows, maybe it will get me promoted again to captain and move into Rex’s en-suite.”

“Where should Rex sleep then?” Echo asked him.

“En-suites come with private freshers, what kind of monster you think I am?” Said Fives. “Now, which shiny wants to hear the story of the legendary Domino Squad and its saviour?”

5

Four troopers lined up in front of May like a wall, all wearing sweaters that were bright pink in an oddly familiar way she couldn’t quite place. She had to crane her neck to look up at them, the sequins on their sweaters sparkled blindingly in her peripheral vision. Never heard of social distancing, these clones.

“Ma’am,” said their leader, “do you have a booth that can accommodate a repulsorlift chair?”

Like a pair of doors swinging open, they stepped aside to reveal a fifth trooper behind them.

Sitting in the repulsorlift chair was another clone with two streaks of red hair, half his face covered in words tattooed in a language May didn’t recognise, his legs were missing from the knees down. He was in his armour, but over it was the same sweater as his friends, embroidered with “SURVIVOR” in Aurebesh. He gestured a few signs to May that she couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Survivor says he doesn’t want to… cause any inconvenience?” said the trooper with a faint scar under his left eye that was only visible from this distance. His sweater read “RANTER.” “If you have a foldable… bird… toilet—what?”

“If you have a spare storage room, he can park the chair there,” the trooper with three yellow stripes tattooed on his scalp (“CHAMBER”) translated quietly.

“Survivor’s trying to blend GAR tactical hand signals with basic sign language, Ranter hasn’t been paying attention,” their leader (FRANK was literally the most boring clone name) ruffled Chamber’s hair approvingly as he spoke.

“I missed ONE session because I was helping the general!” Ranter protested indignantly.

The names sounded familiar. May glanced at the “TITMOUSE” on the last trooper’s chest and things suddenly clicked. “Wait, you’re that rookie squad from last time! The ones almost got bullied!”

“Owie, that’s harsh,” Titmouse clutched his chest and the letters on it. “Rookies? We’re now the core members of the 29th Thunderbird Company!”

“More like the only members,” Frank rolled his eyes. “Ma’am, about the chair…?”

May looked at Survivor, whose brown eyes gazed back at her with heartbreaking innocence. A sudden unease crept up her spine.

She had never seen a clone this badly wounded before. Troopers like him usually just disappeared on Kamino, left behind them a number on the property disposal lists and the tears of their brothers after three bottles of Corellian Whiskey. That was how they had lost Judith. Maybe that explained his name: the unfortunate survivor of this massive slave exploitation operation.

Neither the previous owner nor the current management had ever considered installing accessible facilities, as it was never necessary. And now these troopers who were made to die for them were asking her for space for a wheelchair. The elegant professors on the surface would be clutching their pearls over this barbarity, she thought, and a flash of anger surged in her chest. Her classmates were scattered across the galaxy talking justice into people’s heads, while she remained in the same spot, doing nothing and completely helpless against the most urgent yet unspoken problems of the war.

She suddenly wanted to scream, to collapse onto the floor, to storm into the senate building and strangle every one of those high-and-mighty politicians. But the troopers were still waiting. Smiles growing stiff, the awkwardness deepening with every passing second.

She rubbed her face, turned around, and shoved a booth’s seating aside to clear the space without a word. The softie uni graduate version of herself from one year ago could never have done this, but an entire year of tray carrying had injected some strength into those noodle arms after all. She wiped the greasy feel off on her apron. “Please have a seat, honoured not-rookie-anymores.”

Titmouse let out a cheer and slid first into the booth, the others following in succession. Ranter carefully maneuvered Survivor’s repulsorlift chair up to the table before turning awkwardly to Maybel and handed her a card.

“Miss Mayia-zyondennurravayblex, General Bou gave me this. She said she’s covering our tab tonight.”

“Bou?” May yelled. “My great-aunt is buying you drinks?”

“What’s a great-aunt?” someone whispered.

Ranter shrugged, equally confused. “I asked the same question, she didn’t answer. But she did spend half an hour training me to pronounce your name correctly, hope I got it right.”

At least May solved one problem: she finally figured out why that pink of their sweaters looked so damn familiar.

6

A year into the war, May had met enough clones to confidently call herself a kinda-expert on the GAR. Sure, she didn’t know the difference between battalions and regiments and she still wasn’t sure if that deecee17 was just a curse or an actual weapon. But 365 standard days of seeing what was essentially the same man in slightly different variations over and over again had forced her to start noticing the patterns.

Wolffe’s boys were both fierce and artistic at the same time. You could find the most unhinged bastards that were best at pretending to be normal in the 212nd. The red-armoured Coruscant Guard looked more like clones of their commander than of Fett himself—same attitude, same perpetual scowl, only ever appeared in packs either early in the morning or late into the night as the other clones whispered behind them. For all their attempts at individuality, the lifelong barrack life had already shaped them into some kind of collective personalities—and nothing had ever truly separated clones from one another, after all. They bared the same numbers of teeth when laughing, curved their brows at the same angles when brooding; same slang spread across every legion, same batch of rookies always chose similar armour patterns. After 365 days of all this, May started staring at her reflection in the mirror, suspecting her own brows were growing into those square, thick shapes too.

That was why she immediately noticed something was off about the boy sitting in the corner—not just because he was a boy.

Judging by the clone growth rate, he couldn’t be older than six (why did she automatically calculate in clone standard? She really needed a vacation), tiny enough to be lifted by the armpits and shook for a few times. He would have been kicked out on Ryloth or any of the other thousands of planets, but he’s now in Coruscant’s underground levels, and the bouncers at the door would only think he was a particularly overgrown adult Anzellan.

May had heard that some outstanding clone cadets were selected to leave Kamino early and get a firsthand look at the galaxy they would defend with their lives one day. She didn’t think he was one of them. He had the face of a clone, but was wearing Mandalorian armour. He had been silently judging everything around him for hours, wary eyes flickered over every trooper that passed by and then snapped away; features twisted in a way that was just…wrong, something between smelling fart and sorrow. May had never seen such complicated emotions on a clone before. Other clones, they could only process about 1.03 kinds of emotions at a time, saying them out loud immediately unfiltered.

If she had to guess, May would say he wasn’t a clone at all. Thire’s second cousin, maybe, definitely not someone who grew up in a sterile lab. But he didn’t seem to have any bad intentions either. May didn’t get paid enough to make it her problem anyways.

“You did at least give him non-alcoholic stuff, right?” May asked as she passed by Melina.

A while back, under her oh-so-kind-it-was-almost-unsettling insistence, Melina had convinced May to move out of her tiny brokenass apartment and into the dorm she converted from a storage room behind the bar. It wasn’t much better—she had to fight hoofs for blankets, bargain early morning unisex ‘fresher use with seven Coruscant Guards who never seemed to leave, and stare at the Fives graffiti someone from the 501st had left on the door panel every time she took a piss. But at least she no longer had to deal with the lingering smell of death sticks in the turbolift or the corrosive liquid her idiot neighbours kept dumping into the pipes. Their relationship had progressed rapidly as a result. May would sometimes bring ice cream back to their now-shared little dorm, where they’d lounge on the bed watching Nar Shaddaa’s Ultimate Culinary Battle: Carnivore Edition while Melina complained about the first boyfriend of her goat life. It also meant they started to chat with each other during shifts, instead of May standing at a distance watching Melina make purple drink after purple drink

“Ah, that’s Boba Fett,” Melina said the name like it’s the answer to every mystery in the galaxy. “He could spit acid out from his mouth, alcohol’s nothing compared to that.”

“Fett?” May echoed. “As in Jango Fett?”

This wasn’t the first clone she had known with a last name—the Skiratas had been in the bar before, and the legend passed by word of mouth among troopers, some Cut Lawquane. But a clone named Fett felt as strange as a Wookiee named Scaleback.

“He’s basically Fett’s son,” Melina mused. “Followed Dad around everywhere, pressed up against the glass staring at us lab clones. Heard he disappeared after Fett died, guess he ended up on Coruscant. I knew it was him the second he opened his mouth.”

The clones’ Prime was beheaded in a desert arena by Ponds’ general. They spoke of it with awe as if it were ancient Tusken tribes taking down the great krayt dragon, even though according to Davijaan, the clone army arrived a full thirty minutes after Fett’s head hit the ground and none of them had actually witnessed it happen. However, if the man’s kid was there, May couldn’t think of a worse kind of childhood trauma.

That explained the way he looked at the other clones.

“Sounds like he needs a social worker, not a drink,” said May. “But I feel like if I said that out loud, he’d bite my nose off.”

Melina shrugged noncommittally. So May turned back to work, leaving Boba Fett behind her mind.

But the boy kept coming back. He always took the same spot in the corner, ordered the same drink, never spoke to May or the other servers, and glared at anyone who so much as glanced in his direction. The older clones had already recognised him and were dedicated to avoiding eye contact; but the younger ones who were freshly off of Kamino still believed he was some runaway cadet, and every once in a while some of them would come up and try to ruffle his hair, congratulating him on how well he had mastered the survival skills. That was when he’d freeze up before snapping, baring his teeth and snarling them off.

May was 95% sure he was trying to grieve his father by being around his clones, but it wasn’t working out. She had never met old Fett, but judging by the way clones talked about him, there wasn’t much in common between he and his three million carbon copies. Young Fett was clearly starting to realise that, too. He grew desperate and restless, more and more frustrated with each passing day; that rage, unmatched by his age, carved deeper lines into his face, weighing down his young shoulders.

May felt bad. She didn’t know why he looked like he was on his way to some death mission everyday, just like she had no idea where he went after leaving the bar each night. Monsters ready to swallow people whole hid in the shadows of Coruscant, she just hoped she wouldn’t see his dead body lying in syringes on the street. Finally, after five days in a row of Boba’s brooding presence, May made up her mind to ask if he needed help. She knew several good doctors, the kind who wouldn’t piss people off with candy-box psychology tests, and a few qualified social workers. Even if it meant getting her nose bitten off, she figured it was worth a shot.

But she was caught up by a group of troopers who suddenly started projectile vomiting after drinking something God knows what. By the time she finished dealing with the mess, she turned back just in time to catch the moment the boy switching off his comms. A flash of blue light flickered, he put on his hood and left in a hurry. That was the last time May saw Boba Fett.

Half a month later, one evening, May sleepily walked into the work area for her night shift. Her steps came to a halt after passing three groups of clones huddled together whispering to each other, hands still tying her apron as her numb brain finally processed what it had just heard.

They were all talking about the same thing: the death of Commander Ponds. He was killed by Prime’s son Boba.

7

Sometimes May felt like the universe was laughing at the clones.

A week after Ponds’ death, Judith was back.

Three rounds of drinks in—sponsored by May’s Jedi great-aunt—the core members of the 29th Thunderbird Company had poured their hearts out to May, lamenting their greatest fear in painful detail: their new CO and the rest of the company were set to arrive soon. As the last five survivors of the now-defunct 934th Attack Battalion, they had always thought that Survivor stuck around simply because he had no other choice. The moment new options became available, he would abandon them without hesitation, join the normal soldiers who weren’t weirdos like them and leave.

“A toast to our last moments together! May Survivor not roll his eyes too hard when he sees us outcasts in the mess hall in the future.”

By then, Survivor had already been fitted with metal legs and a vocal implant, yet he still instinctively talked through sign language, gesturing frantically on the side aggrieved. As the other poor bastard frequently slandered by Ranter for not being much of a talker, Chamber gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and slid the glass into his hand.

The next time they showed up, no one would have called them outcasts. Quite the opposite—Wanderer Squad entered into the bar right in the middle of a big crowd, their bright pink armour still stood out jarringly in the dim light. May glanced at them once. Then again. Then she realised the silver head leading them from the front looked familiar.

The new CO of the 29th Thunderbird Company was Judith. She had lost an eye, face now covered in tattoos. One half of her armour was blackened with scorch marks, as the other was also painted pink. One of her vambraces was missing, the uncovered right arm gleamed with the sheen of metal.

She looked like a scrapped battle droid crawled back straight from hell.

The pink clones pushed a few empty booths together and crowded into them shoulder to shoulder. Judith sat down on Frank’s lap. As May walked over with her datapad, she noticed that almost every one of them had at least one cybernetic part attached to their bodies. She could never figure out exactly what great-aunt Bou got up to in the temple upstairs—but this time, she thought she had a pretty good idea.

Judith looked up at May. Her once long silver hair had been shaved into a mohawk, burn scars faintly visible beneath her blue tattoos. May and Frank beneath her blushed at the same time.

“Wow,” said May. “No idea what happened, but happy rebirth.”

“Thanks.” Judith smiled. “Hope you didn’t change your frequency, I’ll start updating again next week.”

The Thunderbird Company’s party lasted all night. May glanced back one last time when she clocked out at dawn, just in time to see Rex and Howzer remove their helmets and sit down beside Judith.

8

A massive search happened on Coruscant.

Such thing happened frequently enough here that it should not have caused much of a stir, but dozens of fully armed shock troopers stormed into 79’s, holding stun guns and a wanted poster for a specific clone. Never had a clone committed a crime grave enough to be wanted, all the clones who weren’t on the poster were terrified.

All the staff was gathered together to identify whether they had seen the guy in the holopic that night. May froze at the tattoo on his temple and the goatee on his chin.

It was Fives.

She shook her head in denial, but out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a staggeringly similar goatee heading toward the ‘fresher, sneaking glances around nervously. She had no idea what Fives had done this time, but it must have been something much worse than public nudity. But he was also the one who knocked out the junkie who had been whistling at May in the alley. For some reason, May turned around and pointed to the other side of the bar, saying she knew he liked to dance over there. That part was true enough; she just hoped Fives wasn’t that crazy to slide into the dance floor with his posters all over the bar. The troopers thanked her and headed in that direction, not noticing her trembling lips and knotted lekku.

May hoped they didn’t catch Fives.

9

No one ever heard from Fives again. But no news is good news, right? May asked Melina as she stirred the drink she made her absently. Melina buried her face deeper into her red scarf without answering, so May shut up too. Selling a lie that even herself wouldn’t buy felt stupid.

She remembered Fives’ favourite drink was Naboo Sunset, because, well, the sunsets on Naboo are really beautiful, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. She remembered Fives’ brother, he died two years ago. So many had died. Keeli, Ponds, Echo, Thorn. Legends say that Twi’leks born on Ryloth become spirits after they die, wandering the sands of the Jixuan Desert. May wondered where would clone spirits go. They didn’t even have a place they were willing to call home. May chewed her straw gloomily.

Not that she was slacking off; it was just the bar had been much emptier lately. Clones were being recalled to the upper levels, Kamino, and all sorts of places, standing by for orders, because the war was over. Thousands of systems were celebrating on the holonews from millions of lightyears away; people cheering, fireworks bursting, music playing for the rise of the new government and the arrival of the promised peace. But Coruscant had never truly experienced the war. Kidnappings and terrorist attacks happened in daily basis, never decreasing in frequency or increasing in intensity because of the distant threat of the Separatists. The capital people had always been too busy with their own business to worry about anything else, so the latest development barely made a ripple. A few nearby shops hung up Imperial banners, and that was it — and even that was just to curry favour with those Senate aides who had recently started making sudden visits, rather than the newly crowned Emperor Palpatine himself sitting comfortably in the throne upstairs.

The new Empire wasn’t a fan of Jedi — that much, May knew. The Jedi Rebellion has been crushed, read the headlines, accompanied by images of the Temple billowing with thick smoke. Senate aides, flanked by the Coruscant security force and clone squads, swept the entire planet for any remaining insurgents, kicked into 79’s five times within a week, rounding up all the staff for questioning. It was because the Jedi brats used to love this place. The older Padawans would sneak down to the lower levels in packs, getting a taste of the worldly pleasures forbidden by the Jedi Code. And ever since the clones had taken over the bar, 79’s had become one of the few spots their masters were willing to turn a blind eye to. The bouncers threw their hands up in surrender at their braids, the bartenders happily accepted their meagre tips, and the clones crowded around them, competing to see whose little commander could down the most Calamari Xinphar in one go before forming volunteer escort squads to make sure they were safely back at the Temple by midnight. But those days were gone. May hadn’t seen Zett Jukassa in ages, or that always gloved Kestis. That’s exactly what she told them. She never could have imagined snot-nosed little nerds like them taking part in a rebellion. Nobody knew how deeply the Jedi had rotted. We were all deceived, said the aide.

As someone personally placed in the bar by the Jedi, Melina was taken to separate rooms for questioning every single time, scratches and anger all over her face when she came out. Then one day she just disappeared. No words, no notes, her luggage was still there, the only thing missing was the scarf she always wore. May had no idea if she had finally been arrested, and there was no one to ask. She tentatively sent a few messages to Bou but received no reply, nothing to do but nervously deleting the chat, couldn’t even let the thought of her being dead cross her mind. The clones she was familiar with stopped visiting either. All of May’s friends were gone.

Grey finally reappeared at the bar several weeks later. She hesitated for a while, but still asked him about his commander, that Dume kid who always followed him around. He sharply interrupted before she could even finish her sentence, “Discussing the Jedi is an act of treason, ma’am.”

The entire room fell silent at his words, dozens of identical eyes staring at May, silent and alert. She swallowed hard, for the first time in her life understanding why other natborns found that face creepy.

“Sorry, I didn’t know,” she replied awkwardly. “He also participated in the rebellion?”

No one answered, and she fled in panic. The newly formed Imperial Security Bureau knocked on her door just a few hours later. Suspected of maintaining contact with a fugitive, deliberately concealing the fugitive’s whereabouts, and openly discussing treasonous topics, with every word her eyes widened further. The absurdity of the accusations was almost hilarious, and just before she could start to argue, they slammed her against the wall, cuffed her, and shoved her into the enforcement shuttle.

“There must be a misunderstanding, Stone. Which one of your men is being dramatic? Should try their hand at the Galaxies Opera House when they retire,” she shook her head as she spoke to the clone in front of her, still trying to maintain her professional server smile. “You know me, I mess up everything, no one would trust me to join even if I actually wanted to rebel.”

“Are you admitting to having treasonous intentions, Miss Gin?” Stone’s tone was as flat as ever, the only constant in this entire shitshow, though it offered no comfort whatsoever.

“W-what?? That’s not what I said! What the kriff, Stone?”

Stone scoffed, turning his face toward the viewport without responding.

May hadn’t been on the surface in a long time and had forgotten how blinding natural sunlight could be. Her eyes watered the moment the shuttle ascended out of the tube, and then the tears just wouldn’t stop. The helplessness of losing contact with friends and the regret of not having resigned and gone home earlier flooded her heart. She sobbed pathetically, asking Stone for tissue to wipe her nose. But he simply stared at her without saying a word, so she started wailing.

She was thrown into a drunk tank in Coruscant Police Department, where she was felt up by two dizzy Zeltron women, followed by two whole days of enduring the annoying singing of a hyperactive Pa'lowick choir. Then she was isolated in a more heavily guarded cell in a neighboring building. No one came to interrogate her. And honestly, even if they had, she wouldn’t have been able to answer a single question. There was nothing in the cell but a surveillance camera and a toilet. The meals were delivered in trays by guards holding guns, and she could only track the passage of time based on this. They had no personal markings on their armours and never respond to anything she said, so she had no idea if it was the same two people every time. A week later, she had gone through the all five stages of grief, overcome her fear of having her nails pulled out during interrogation, and began shaking the bars of her cell, shouting for someone to bring her a magazine.

No one answered, naturally. But she realised the camera was turned off when she woke up on the cold floor on the tenth day.

May stood up and pressed her face between the bars, trying to get as close as possible for a better look, unsure if she had finally started to have hallucinations after being caged for so long. The gate in the distance opened with a clank. She jumped back to the corner, afraid that the guards who came to deliver food on schedule would interpret her weird action as not only treasonous but also an escape attempt.

But today, the guards didn’t have trays in their hands. Before May could start worrying if she was finally being taken to her execution, they removed their helmets, revealing silver hair and black tattoos.

“General Bou gave you 60 seconds to make a choice,” Judith said. “Do you want to squeeze into a ship packed with 127 rogue clones and 1 traitorous Jedi and leave Coruscant, or rot here until they catch her?”

“Stone’s holding me as bait to draw out my distant great-aunt? He might as well try Chamber instead,” was May’s instinctive answer.

“55 seconds left. Titmouse can only keep the surveillance access for this long,” Survivor reminded her.

“What? Okay, okay, I choose the first one. Get me out of here, I never want to eat that nutrient paste anymore.” She eagerly clung to the bars again.

“Tell me about it.” Judith smirked, skilfully taking off a familiar-looking silver cylinder out of her gunstock. “Bou lent me this. Move back a bit, I’m still getting the hang of it.”

May complied, running toward her future of a fugitive.

Melina belongs to @lepplum and Chamber belongs to @vale24601

[chaoticevilspacewitch]

When I, an American born speaking English, was living in London, where they famously invented English, I bought a bottle of what I thought was fruit juice.

It tasted disgusting. I figured it was just some cultural difference thing. Kept drinking it.

Eventually learned it was concentrate. I had been drinking pure juice concentrate.

just had a convo with my friend. she mentioned she doesnt like sake cause its sparkling.

“wait, sake is sparkling? what have i been drinking?” i said. because i also dont like sparkling stuff.

i look at the sake bottle ive been drinking from for fun events for the past year. its vinegar.

i’ve been drinking strawberry flavored vinegar.

[beemovieerotica]

I think my biggest gripe with Shrek 5 is the changes to Fiona and the difference in style for their daughter. Fiona's eyes got bigger and her mouth also got wider, and their daughter looks a bit too 3d animated Disney for my taste with her big bobble head and skinny anime chin. I do like that she had Shrek's big nose though and those nose ring + curtain bangs are pretty in style and the Shrek movies were usually an accurate parody of the pop culture of the time so idgaf about the Shrektoks

there's a little bit about the OG shrek designs that are uncanny by today's standards since dreamworks was still figuring out the balance between human realism and cartoonism - i don't have a problem with pushing CGI to look more cartoony because then you can do more fluid / unusual movement with those characters because they aren't constrained by realism, but that's just my 2 cents

[bastardlybonkers]

re: ur post about toshiro and laios - i humbly offer this panel of laios completely misunderstanding the way izutsumi eats isn't an 'eastern thing', cuz hes not used to it

a good panel to bring up 👆 laios is a great example of a well meaning white person who ends up making micro agressions and racist generalizations without realizing because hes ignorant and very underexposed to any cultures other than his own. i mean hell both he and falin are extremely racist about 'the mountain people'

and much like theyre racist towards the nomadic people, kabru is racist towards kobolds due to him conflating them with monsters. tbh i think every character in dunmeshi exhibits some sort of racial bias at least once, which can be hard for fans to deal with, as i think most people are unused to racism being one of the major character flaws in their favs. unfortunately, when writing a story that is implied to take place in an earlier time period, or hell even just writing a story period, you cant really ignore racism as part of your worldbuilding, especially if, like kui, youre using it to make a point.

tldr everyone in dunmeshi is kinda racist in one way or another and it is a deliberate choice on kuis part, because she wanted to portray both real-world tensions through a fantasy lense and flesh out her own world with realistic tensions that would build in its history. if you are ignoring that the characters are racist then you are missing the point

also, im saying all this as a white person myself, so please Please do not think that im the only person talking about this. there are many poc, both in the replies/tags of my post and in posts of their own, who have made similar points to me and brought up things i havent touched on and you should absolutely read their takes as well

[wandixx]

GIW made a lot of mistakes and the biggest one was going against Young Justice part 2

part one is here

@whimsicalchaosgarden you asked to be tagged, sorry it took so long

Trigger warnings: mentions of experimentation and dehumanization (tell me if there is more appropriate way of phrasing it)

“So,” Robin started, taking the voice recorder out of his utility belt. “It'll probably be best if we get an explanation while making an accident report. This way we get it all over sooner”

Everyone agreed with this idea, standing in the loose circle in the debriefing area to make it all feel more serious. They had limited time before the next batch of cookies needed to be taken out of the oven and there was no way they all wouldn't devolve into chaos when it happened. M’gann knew from experience. 

To make sure they wouldn't take too long and cookies wouldn't turn on the fire alarm (again) both she and Danny set a timer.

In the meantime they had to learn who actually attacked them earlier.

“Phantom do the honors”

Danny froze for a moment, looking like deer caught in the headlight before he asked in a bit squeaky voice:

“How do I make an accident report?”

“Just say what happened but make it sound fancy,” Artemis explained. 

“Make a mission report and we'll fix it along the way,” Kaldur proposed.

“Answer ‘When? Where? Who was involved? What happened? What have you done about it?’ without excessive use of puns to avoid Bat-lecture” Robin helped, already in handstand.

“Bat-lecture? Really Rob?”

“So it's like lab report lite” Danny said before Robin did anything more than squawk indignantly “Alright, I can do it. Do you have any set phrase to start? And which accident report is it, in the database?"

“44th… How about ‘[Hero name], report’? Sounds serious enough.”

Everyone agreed, so after a moment of silence Kaldur did the honors.

“Phantom, report”

Danny straightened, rolling his shoulders back and locked his eyes in the middle distance. It was a bit eerie how fast he went from relaxed and goofy to almost emotionless statue. M’gann wished to never encounter it again, thank you very much.

“Incident report no. 45 made by Young Justice member Phantom, regarding an attack from earlier today, 26th April 20XX. The Young Justice Team, later referred to as the Team, went on a trip to an amusement park staying currently in the city of Happy Harbour. It was an activity meant to strengthen interpersonal relationships within the Team, previously green-lit by Red Tornado. Every member was in civilian attire as per protocol. Around 3:15 PM, after two and a half hours, the Team were disturbed by a group of ten armed people, recognized by member Phantom as belonging to Ghost Investigation Ward, colloquially known as GIW or Guys In White because of their uniforms. Later in the report the organization will be referred to as the GIW. Two shots were fired by the assailants, targeting but not reaching member Phantom. Members of the GIW were hostile but with use of humor and threat of legal actions, the Team managed to diffuse the situation before it endangered passerbys. Despite direct attack, none of the Team members’ identities were compromised. Assailants left the confrontation with belief that Phantom left his ectoplasmic signature on an unrelated civilian. Agents refused to admit they were working for the GIW since its operations break a couple of laws of the state Rhode Island. Because of that, their appearance was reported to local law enforcement and taken care of. No injuries or damage to the city infrastructure were sustained other than two burns in the asphalt in the place of confrontation. Required follow-up with local law enforcement in civilian attire as victims of assault. End of report” Danny sighed, easing back into a more natural position. “This good?” he asked, with a sheepish smile.

“Perfect”

“How are you so good at reporting? You didn’t even know what to do a second ago? That’s just unfair”

“I used to write my parent’s lab reports. It’s pretty similar in form”

“Lab-”

“Follow-up to the report only, Kid-Flash,” Robin interrupted “Phantom. elaborate on who were the assailants”

Danny stepped back from himself again.

“GIW is a ghost hunting organization supported and accredited by the state government in Illinois, legally operating also in states Wisconsin and Ohio. Their goal is to catch and examine ecto-entities to learn more about their biology and ways to obliterate them. Obviously their plans for experimentation don’t include consideration of ghosts’ well-being”

“Damn, that’s messed up”

“They wouldn't catch a blob ghost if they tried,” Danny shrugged, though something was wrong with the gesture. She wasn't sure though, so she moved on.

“Then why were you scared?” M’gann pressed on instead.

“My parents… are, you know, prominent ghost hunters so when GIW opened we all got a tour around the whole building. The lab was… it made me imagine things I wished I had never thought about”

“They have labs? Like evil labs?” Robin perked up like a kid who just heard that Christmas came early. “How could you hide it from us?!” he added, falling to hang on Danny's shoulder. He twirled a bit to catch the left one even though before he stood on halfa’s right side. Dramatic as always “Conner, we have a birthday gift for you!”

“What does GIW’s lab have to do with my birthday?”

“The potential!” Robin yelled, straightening for a better effect.

Everyone started laughing. Well, everyone other than Conner who just looked at them confused.

“He probably wants to storm another lab, bring up nostalgia of our first meeting,” Kaldur calmed down just enough to explain.

“Tell me you wouldn't like to punch an evil scientist,” Wally added, almost dropping to the floor. 

“This does sound nice”

“And THIS is exactly the reason why I haven't told you all. Thanks for spoiling my surprise Rob,” Danny lied, though he did his best to sound truthful. He even projected some false mirth.

It would take much more to trick M’gann though. She abruptly stopped laughing.

“You're lying. Why actually haven't you told us?” she demanded maybe a little too harshly, but she was worried. Everyone froze for a moment, before turning to look at Danny.

“They're all bark no bite, and aim worse than Stormtroopers’, so I haven't considered them important enough to report”

Other's didn’t know, of course, but M’gann knew just how terrified Danny was during the confrontation and how echoes of that fear soured air around him even hours later.

Everyone did realize this explanation was a tone of bullshit though. 

Apparently incredulous stares were enough of the response.

“You and the Justice League have more important things to deal with than some shitty local laws”

“Bullshit again,” Artemis burst her lips “This is exactly what Justice League is for”

“I already found people to help me lobby against them”

“And why aren't we on the list?” 

Danny fell silent, not looking anyone in the eyes, which was quite a feat considering they had him in a half circle. M’gann considered moving to his side to show her support. Stare down like that had to be quite stressful.

Why not actually. She stepped closer, and drew him in the loose side hug. Danny tensed, which wasn't abnormal for him. He usually relaxed in about thirty seconds, if he didn't, she'd let go.

“I didn't expect them to breach the containment…”

“Each of these lies is worse, you know? Like, insulting our intelligence level of worse,” Artemis interrupted once more, pinning him with her eyes alone “Give us truth or stop talking”

Danny raised his head to look back at Artemis and mimed zipping his mouth shut and throwing the key away. 

“Really?”

Boy just shrugged, not breaking eye contact.

“Alright, let's move on to the next question, how did it get approved in the first place?” Wally interrupted, waving his hand between them. They both shook off like dogs fresh out of water.

“Couldn't you wait five more seconds until I won?” 

“Ha! You wish Artemis. Though you could give us a moment”

“I gave you literal ages”

Danny snorted “Sorry, I keep forgetting how impatient you are”

“Oh shut up, my brain is just faster than yours, you slowpokes”

“Sure, sure”

“He made a good point,” Kaldur said “This shouldn’t even pass. And even if, you’re legally a Meta”

“Normal ghosts aren’t and halfas being a thing is not exactly common knowledge among the living”

“I’ll never get used to this distinction”

“I believe in you, Rob”

“What about ‘Extraterrestrial, extradimensional and otherwise previously unincluded’ Optional Protocol to the ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’?”

“Oh my god Conner, you’re the only person to say the whole name ever”

“Hey!”

“It all comes down to the definition of the ghost and the fact that Alien addition uses sentience and sapience as a ground to give anyone said rights. And also, US signed it but didn’t ratify it so…”

“Isn’t it same thing?”

“Nope. I thought so too, but apparently signing anything means nothing unless it’s also ratified, so I’m kinda fucked. Can’t even get the UN to frown at them disapprovingly, because officially, nothing was agreed to. And you know, even if they ratified it, ecto-scientists conducted enough research to prove we aren’t sapient enough to have these rights anyway. Just most of the states didn’t need to make a law out of it”

“That’s rough buddy”

“Are you really quoting Avatar at me right now? Really Artemis?”

“Yes”

“Wasn’t Avatar this movie with blue people? I don’t think they said that there”

M’gann wasn’t quite sure why human members seemed to be appalled by the question.

“We’re going to fix that later-”

“What exactly is there to be fixed, because I feel like we’re talking about to different things”

“- but for now can we go back to the whole ‘ghosts have no rights in Illinois’ thing” Robin continued, completely ignoring Conner’s questions.

“Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio. There are portals to the Zone in two of these states. GIW already tried to send nuke through one of them”

“How Americana of them,” Kaldur muttered.

“If you have another insane tidbit about them, please share it all now. My mind can’t utilize any more revelations like that”

“I handled it, don’t worry”

“Someone tried to nuke literal Afterlife…”

“Yup, get on the schedule Kid Flash. You’re supposed to be fast”

M’gann knocked her arm into his, kinda as a ‘don’t be mean’ message. Danny kinda tensed, but soon relaxed back and moved his head as if he wanted to lay it on her shoulder. Excitement of the day was clearly catching up to him.

M’gann wouldn’t be mad if he did laid his head there.

“Why do we learn about it just now?”

“I wrote the report, not my fault you haven’t read it”

“Can’t fault us for assuming we’d know every important thing from your endless bitching!”

Danny straightened and laughed, in this horrible humorless way that made M’gann want to claw at her brain until she couldn’t hear or sense any of it.

Instead, she brought her other hand up and just held him tighter.

Thankfully the whole spectacle didn’t last long.

“It’s cute that you think I bitch about anything important”

“Phantom…”

“Don’t Phantom me right now. Even if by some miracle they managed to send the missile to the Zone, it most likely wouldn’t have worked. They’re mostly just a joke.”

“They managed to shot you. Right upper arm or shoulder”

“Don’t deny it, we’ve seen you wince when I leaned on you and when M’gann hugged you”

Martian tried to let go hearing that, but Danny held her in place. She stayed where she was but carefully moved her hand away from the slightly damp area on his shirt. She suddenly caught on everything that was wrong with him, now that she knew to look for it.

“I got worse from the hand of my house’s security system”

“You… understand that it’s… like… way worse, right?”

“You don’t know life until you hear threats of dissection against your alter ego after stopping death ray with bowl of cereal,” he said, relaxing more into her side again. He sounded absolutely exhausted.

“Do you want to move in here? Until we deal with this whole GIW and assorted mess?” she said instead. Conner nodded, surprisingly eager to share the space that he considered somewhat sacred.

“Nope, I’m good, I’m needed there”

“You could Zeta- yeah, no, nevermind, it wasn’t good idea. But we could make it work”

“You still should-”

“It’s fine. I mean, I have it handled and it doesn’t affect that many people. And we’re working on it. It’s fine”

“It really is not,” Conner growled.

“You need your arm patched up” M’gann demanded, ignoring previous conversation, with eyes still fixed on the blood that stained her forearm. She should’ve destroyed at least Operative K.

“I bandaged it up”

“It soaked through then. Let’s go to med–”

Loud shrill interrupted her, because of course it did.

“Oh, look, convenient distraction! Let’s take the cookies out before they get burned!”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” M’gann stated in a way that allowed no argument “You’re getting away for now only because I’m holding most of your weight right now”

“Sure we will. And I can stand on my own, thank you very much”

“I’ve heard many lies today and this might be the worst of them. We’re going to Medbay as soon as the cookies are out”

“You’ve got it boss”

[katerinaaqu]

Lol where did I say anyone's opinions is less than another's for that matter? Actually that is literally what you said to me. That my opinion doesn't matter because someone else had that opinion. And I also love the "I am not afraid to" like I feel honored you think someone would be "afraid of me" but that was never part of my profile to begin with lol. No one said you cannot say your opinions. Ironically you came and say to me that my opinion is off. I mention my ethnicity because of your comment about how Greeks look like and I said that I believe I qualify very much to say how Greeks look like. That is not an opinion that is a fact.

I am pretty sure you are being confused. Greeks are europeans. If akin color is not race (which I agre you can find variants to each race group if one can use that) but my comment just in case it escaped you was to show exactly that when you show different ethnicities that also belong to different races or ethnic groups it should be commendable from all sides. And I as a Greek person know that Greeks come in all different shades within the European spectrum. Not in every shade as to every continent in the world. Of we talk about ethnically Greeks that is. If we talk about people with greek nationality that belong to different ethnic groups of course they are as greek as I am nationally but ethnically speaking Greeks are europeans. People in Africa come in many different shades as well. That doesn't mean that I will hire a Scottish looking person to play an African deity nor will I make a historical film about South Africa or Zimbabwe by hiring people from nowadays predominantly white communities just because they are born and raised in Africa for hundreds of years. The same with Greeks. Greeks were moving around in Africa AND Asia. That doesn't give me the right to cast ethnically Greeks to play ethnically African or Asian people just because "different shades" it just looks wrong. And I would absolutely agree to anyone opposing such a bizarre notion.

Like I said the people that I talked with didn't enjoy it. They mocked it. And again I love it how literally double standards is the reason why you attack me in the first place. That for some reason out of the entire bunch voting here it was MY COMMENT about MY CHOICE that erupted this reaction from you or the other commenter but lol

Okay there were a bunch of people who enjoyed racist movies of the past about Africa as well. Does that make whitewashing of Africa right? Of course not. People disrespected the Egyptian history for ages and yet people enjoyed it. Does that mean we shouldn't make it right? Of course not also Greeks laughed at the inaccuracies for a long time and there is always a breaking point for everything or when someone says "maybe it is starting to get too much" the same way that Greeks also complaint about how North European actors are being constantly hired to play greek figures as well. They liked it once they liked it twice but after decades and decades it became annoying and disrespectful.

And I understand and appreciate your opinion but again if it is not so important then why won’t you let people who DO care speak their mind on them and again I wasn't even speaking on the artist whom as I said I deeply appreciate their style and the way they offer effort to the art and all. If it is not important then why did you step in? Again I insulted no one. In fact people came for me with the will to attack me and they have attacked me before for having an opinion for my own culture and its representation and never have I implied that my opinion is the universal truth or truth for all Greeks etc.

I disagree. Like I said Greek gods to me are better depicted as Greeks wanted them to get depicted. The same that Egyptian gods should be as Egyptian wanted them depicted Indian gods should be as Indians wanted them depicted and so on and so forth so the idea that there is no such thing as accuracy to me is wrong. But as I said before that is my opinion.

Redesigned my Athena.

[darthkote]

the beef between hunter and crosshair once the latter returns to the squad lives in my mind rent free forever, and no, I will not elaborate

[laventadorn]

This is half about danmei, which isn't the main or even tertiary purpose of this blog, BUT also half about writing in general, so here I stick it.

I've been reading danmei since 2020 but I've really struggled to write anything for it. If i measure success by just getting something going, the fic I'm currently working on is the most "successful" venture I've had. It took me ages to even crank out the opening scenes. Despite longing to write in the New Hyperfixation for a long time, I just couldn't grok it.

Initially I thought it was unfamiliarity with the background of the culture the media was based in. With HP, for example, there is a whole lot of English culture that's easily accessible to me, and I studied British literature in school for years. Obviously this isn't the same thing as being English, but it gave me enough of a background to fake it that once when i applied to a graduate program in England, they thought I was actually English.

But with china, there is so much I don't understand and can't access in the same way, so I thought perhaps that was the problem.

But now I'm thinking it's more about the literary approach.

The tradition I learned to write in is one of realism. I often cite Jane Austen as my favorite author; she was a writer of realism: people, situations, and style are all as close to reality as possible. She was actually one of the most hard-line realist writers of the time, even meticulously accurate in minutiae such as how long it took to travel between cities, or when you could reasonably expect to receive a letter. The way she renders character is also heavily based in the psychology of real people, especially in the latter half of her career. And I love the psychology of character. Nothing interests me more as a reader or a writer. It's what I use as a foundation for writing: how to render people and their emotional responses within a tradition of realism, so that they feel (as much as possible, given that i also love fantasy) like genuine human beings.

But this is not, in my experience of it, what Chinese BL is about.

Now, the first of my caveats is that plenty of western media isn't, either (though fandom tends to be obsessed with it to the point of mania, where a character's psychology is microscopically detailed, in particular their responses to trauma). But western media often maintains a veneer of it -- my favorite marvel movie is Captain America: the Winter Soldier, which features Steve feeling purposeless and empty in a world he no longer fits in. (And then his internal conflict is symbolically made external with the reappearance of his dearest friend, whose mind has been wiped to forget him.) That whole movie revolves around Steve's psychology. And that's a big budget blockbuster movie chock full of punchy, blow-uppy action scenes. It still finds time to make a character feel depressed and lost.

(They then did absolutely nothing interesting with it, but you know. They had a single moment.)

To a certain extent, if western media is character based, it has to explore the characters' mental state, and tries to do so in a way that enlightens both the audience and the character, opening up their dark parts and forcing them to change. We probably have Joseph Campbell to thank for a lot of this; his Hero's Journey was modeled heavily on the works of Carl Jung, the psychologist. In fact, Carl Jung was hugely influential in English-speaking literary criticism of the 1970's. (I say "English speaking" because that's the only field I'm familiar with.) To give you the biggest example I know of, Ursula K. le Guin's phenomenal Earthsea trilogy is steeped in Jungian psychology, no book more so than the opening novel, A Wizard of Earthsea. The climax of that novel blew my mind, by the way.

My second caveat is this: it's not that the patterns of Chinese BL don't have character work, or that they aren't concerned with the character's interiority. With my fixation on character, if those things were entirely absent, I wouldn't be reading these books. It's more that the media tradition of hyper-focus on the characters' mental state, the delicate unfolding of their psychology, is not what drives the media. The characters do suffer, and they have feelings and desires, but they are often preternaturally strong-willed and able to withstand horrific trauma while still maintaining their sense of self.

(Two characters really come to mind. One is Chang Geng from Sha Po Lang, whose "mother" repeatedly puts him through such intense physical and psychological abuse in his childhood that you wonder how anyone could possibly stay sane. But he's also been injected with a magical poison that will drive him insane, and gives him bloody nightmares every night, and requires him to drink blood -- you get the idea. The other is Gu Mang from Yuwu: Remnants of Filth, who goes through things that are just mind-bogglingly Yiiiikes. Each of them feels the pain, but realism isn't where we're trying to arrive at, because it would be impossible for a real person to hold it together under the things they endured. But neither of them is supposed to be like a real person. Chang Geng, Gu Mang, is supposed to be more.)

Nothing is always. To use the novel I'm writing for as an obvious example toward some measure of realism, Xie Lian spends Book 4 being deeply traumatized; it's part of his character journey and essential to the plot. But his character psychology is still not based in realism. It wasn't designed to be. MXTX herself said in her afterword for TGCF that neither Hua Cheng nor Xie Lian were remotely like real people, because they weren't supposed to be. They were supposed to be larger than life, more than mere existence.

So when I am puttering around with my Psychology of the Individual writing tool, I get a bit wrong-footed because the entire way that I approach writing does not seamlessly settle into this brave new frontier. How can I realistically explore the emotions and mind of people who are not written to be like real people at all? That's what's truly been stumping me.

[prince-liest]

I’m reading Witch King by Martha Wells, and now that I have read more than one (1) series by this author, I have been suddenly brained with a two-by-four sharpied over with “realizing that I really enjoy novels by Martha Wells because they live in the specific niche created by the intersection of casually and thoroughly queer casts and non-romance storylines”

I am as ever a sucker for non-human main characters struggling with their very human feelings, which is why I jumped on Witch King the moment I saw “the author of Murderbot wrote another book with a main character that’s non-human,” but I live in this dichotomy where I can really enjoy reading queer romances but I don’t really identify with non-ace characters (which is not actually something I figured out how to differentiate until I was Last Week Years Old). so there are lots of books out there that I enjoy reading but it’s comparatively rare for me to read something that feels like it was written For Me and Martha Wells does that very well

anyway, give me more ace it-pronouns human-spliced robot main characters and people-eating demons who consider rank over gender when finding new bodies to inhabit