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allgirlsareprincesses · 4 years ago

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A Saga in Ruins: How the sets reflect the empty nostalgia of the Sequel Trilogy

To the great surprise of many fans, the Skywalker Saga ended in the ruins of the Lars moisture farm on Tatooine. Perhaps this was intended to be circular, to be a coming home of sorts, but it was an odd choice for many reasons. Why would the youthful heroine find herself in an old, empty home to which she had no real connection, instead of on a verdant green world that she had so clearly craved earlier in her journey? Wouldn’t a place full of life be more fitting for a young woman starting a hopeful new chapter?

Of course, the dirty little secret is that there is nothing hopeful about the end of the Skywalker Saga. In fact, if we look across the Sequel Trilogy, we can see the theme of destruction, aging, death, and decay in many of the settings. Notably, the only sets that look truly new are the interiors of the First Order ships, and the rich luxury world of Canto Bight, but these sleek structures actually contain a moral rot.

It was appropriate for the Prequel Trilogy to be filled with shiny new sets as the Republic and Jedi were at the height of their power. The beauty was intentional, both so that we would appreciate the civilization that would be lost with the ascension of the Dark Side, and so that we would see it as the deceptive shell hiding the moral destruction within. In the Original Trilogy, the sets have an older, worn appearance, but are rarely what could be termed “ruins.” Given that the Sequel Trilogy takes place 30 years later when the galaxy has presumably been rebuilding since the Galactic Civil War, why then are SO many of the events set in ruins, or in places that become ruins?

Ruins in The Force Awakens

The first movie of this final trilogy started on Jakku, a ruin of a world home to the destroyed imperial fleet that made a last stand at the end of the Galactic Civil War. In the first scene of the film, new ruins are created when First Order troops destroy a village. Not long after, Poe and Finn crash-land into the desert, the ruin of their TIE fighter swallowed up by the sand. Later, we meet Rey, a lonely scavenger who is picking at the guts of a downed Imperial Star Destroyer. The shots in this sequence emphasize the scale of these ruins, along with the utter emptiness of the desert. Next, we see Rey in a little trading outpost cobbled together from disparate parts. She gazes dolefully at an elderly woman working the same task that she is, clearly seeing in the aged woman her own barren and lonely future. Finally, she travels to her own home, which turns out to be a collapsed AT-AT Imperial Walker. In an endearing but somewhat macabre moment, Rey dons the helmet of a Rebel X-Wing pilot. In a parallel scene, Kylo Ren is seen talking to the charred helmet of Darth Vader, beseeching his grandfather to speak to him. It’s nostalgia, yes, but for a past that is ruined, destroyed, and dead.

She next escapes Jakku in the Millenium Falcon, which might not be considered a ruin since it still (barely) flies, but it has clearly seen better days. Rey heaves the decrepit freighter through yet more bones of downed starships, finally escaping Jakku only for the Falcon to malfunction again. Han and Chewie, elderly yet vigorous as ever, join Rey and Finn and they all travel to Takodana, where Maz Kanata lives in a castle. From there, they witness the destruction of the Hosnian system, and then the First Order arrives and completely destroys Maz’s castle, creating yet another pile of rubble. The group next travels to D’Qar, a Resistance base nested in an old Rebel Alliance base from the Galactic Civil War three decades prior. Again, everything is old, aging, and recycled; nothing is new.

Starkiller Base is shiny and new, but it is also a tool of destruction, and before long it too collapses into space debris like Alderaan and Hosnian Prime. Meanwhile, we learn that the Skywalker-Solo family itself is in ruins, with Han and Leia split up, their son Ben fallen to the Dark Side, Luke missing in exile, and Han soon killed by his own son. Rey then travels to Ahch-To, where stand the ruins of the first Jedi Temple, to find the aging and bitter Luke Skywalker.

Ruins in The Last Jedi

On Ahch-To, Rey comes to find that the Jedi religion itself is in ruins, with their ancient texts abandoned and their one avatar, Luke, having cut himself off from the Force itself. In the course of her stay, she shoots a hole through the wall of her hut, slices through a large rock on the island, and emerges from the ruin of a hut that Luke explodes when he finds her with Ben Solo. Though Ahch-To is teeming with life, death is equally present, with Luke chatting with Force Ghost Yoda and watching the Jedi tree burn.

Further, Luke is a ruin of his former self, his moral certainty destroyed by regret. In the series of flashbacks to his last encounter with Ben, we see the hut collapsing, Luke rising from the rubble later, and his training temple in flames. Luke’s legacy, his relationship with his nephew, and now the physical manifestation of both is in ruins, as well. Even his X-Wing, once a symbol of his daring, sits submerged in water, presumably unusable and possibly scavenged already for parts.

On the Supremacy, the shattering of the Skywalker legacy is made visible in the breaking of Anakin’s lightsaber in the destroyed throne room. The ship itself lies in ruins after the battles that have raged across the ship and Admiral Holdo’s brave sacrifice, and even Ben and Rey’s fledgling relationship has been shattered by the end of the sequence.

Meanwhile, after the destruction of their fleet, the Resistance escapes to Crait, to yet another old Rebel Alliance base in the hope of escaping the First Order. Their speeders are so decrepit that Poe manages to punch a hole through one with just his foot, and the remaining forces are decimated before he makes the decision to pull back. With their massive laser cannon, the First Order punches a hole through the blast door to the base, effectively destroying it and rendering it unusable as a defensive position. By the end of the Crait sequence, the Resistance, their fleet, their base, and the central relationship of the movie between Rey and Ben are all in ruins.

Though destruction and ruins abound in The Last Jedi, the framing is notably different from the other two films because the purpose of all this imagery is to show hope for the future springing from the rubble. Rey states this theme explicitly when she’s meditating for Luke on Ahch-To, saying she sees “death and decay that feeds new life.” The breaking of Kylo Ren’s mask and the legacy lightsaber are intended not as endings but as steps in the cycle of rebirth and renewal. Luke manages to shed his broken shell and become the young hero he once was, later achieving transcendence as he passes whole into the Force. Despite the massive wound dealt on Crait, the salt cleanses and covers the carnage, suggesting rebirth with womb-like imagery. Ruins in The Last Jedi tend to serve less as nostalgic settings and more as visual symbols of brokenness that must and will be healed.

Ruins in The Rise of Skywalker

As the final film of the sequel trilogy opens, we see Kylo Ren fighting a group of cultists, whom the TROS Visual Dictionary tells us are Vader loyalists. Leaked images from the art book and cut scenes suggest that this scene actually takes place in the shadow of Vader’s castle, also now a ruin in the absence of its dark master. Using the Sith wayfinder, Kylo flies to the Dark Side planet of Exogol, entering what appears to be an ancient temple of the ruined Sith culture. There he finds the resurrected but still deathlike Palpatine, who is clearly such a ruin of his former self that he must be kept alive by machinery and dark arts.

In returning to the forested, hidden Resistance base, Finn and Poe nearly destroy the Falcon yet again, with the old ship catching fire as she lands among a small collection of similarly ancient ships that appear to be in questionable flight condition. While running her Jedi training course, Rey uses the same pilot’s helmet and training remotes that Luke used over 30 years earlier to practice her skills, and cuts down a number of trees in the process, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Not only does the continued use of old, OT-era objects confound logic, but the wanton destruction of the natural world seems at odds with the Jedi philosophy’s reverence of the life which creates the Force.

Rey’s vision leads her to the barren desert world of Pasaana, where she meets the now-elderly Lando Calrissian, then finds the wreck of the ship that pursued her family when they were fleeing the resurrected Emperor. In the ruin of Ochi’s ship, Rey finds D-0, a broken and abandoned droid who yet again mirrors all the broken and abandoned characters (literally, ALL of them) in the Sequel Trilogy. When Kylo Ren appears, Rey first destroys his TIE Whisper, then when he crawls from the wreckage, the two have a Force tug-of-war over a transport ship which ends in Rey destroying it, as well. Of course, it later turns out that Chewbacca was not aboard that transport, thus continuing the pattern in this film of laying waste to the new planets, ships, and characters that were created for the sequels, while those from the original trilogy are miraculously preserved.

The gang next travels to Kijimi, where they apparently need to destroy C3-P0′s memories in order to unlock his ability to translate an ancient Sith language. As with Chewie, this is merely a temporary “death,” and Threepio’s memories are restored later. Kijimi, unfortunately, is not so lucky, and it is rather unceremoniously blown up, like Alderaan and Hosnian Prime. It seems that even with their allies, the Resistance heroes leave nothing but destruction in their wake.

Rey and friends next land on another moon of Endor, and the poor Falcon takes another beating. While her friends work yet again to repair the old ship, Rey escapes alone to the most imposing ruins of the entire film, collapsed shell of the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi. Calling back to not only Luke’s ordeal there, but also Rey’s own origins scavenging in the carcasses of Imperial Starships, the partially-submerged battle station serves as the backdrop for still more violence and destruction. When Ben Solo arrives, Rey engages him in another duel, which ends with Leia dead and Ben mortally wounded. Though Rey heals Ben, she next flees to Ahch-To, abandoning him and taking his TIE Whisper with her.

On Ahch-To, Rey burns the TIE, standing before the flaming ruins and attempting to throw her lightsaber into the fire. Luke stops her, then leads her to an abandoned hut to find Leia’s lightsaber, a remnant of her aborted Jedi training. Lastly, Luke raises his X-Wing from the water, offering it to Rey inexplicably space-worthy and no worse for the wear having been underwater for the better part of a decade and being at least 35 years old.

Finally, all the characters converge on Exogol, where they continue to engage in as much destruction as possible, including the apparent annihilation of an entire Sith civilization who lived on the planet as part of Palpatine’s Final Order. Ben Solo also arrives on the planet to help Rey (in another OT-era fighter that is miraculously space-worthy and moreover made it across the galaxy WITHOUT A HYPERDRIVE), but Palpatine sucks the power from him and then throws him painfully down a chasm, leaving his body broken. The climactic sequence ends with thousands dead, ships destroyed, and even Rey dead (or something) on the ground. Ben drags his broken body up and across the wreckage of the arena, and dies after resurrecting her, thus ending the Skywalker line.

After a celebratory hug with her friends, Rey flies the Falcon to Tatooine, to the literal ruins of the Lars Homestead. This is the place we last saw belching smoke as Owen and Beru’s charred remains splayed grotesquely across the scene of Luke’s destroyed childhood. Recalling again Rey’s beginning scraping a meager and lonely existence from battle wreckage, she slides down a sand dune on a loose piece of debris, and precociously explores the place. Finally, she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers (further cementing this place as a graveyard since Shmi is also buried here along with the Lars), and declares herself to be a Skywalker, the heir to these ruins.

Nostalgia as Love of a Dead or Imaginary Past

So, what does it all mean? If the Sequel Trilogy relies on ruins as a setting more than the other two trilogies, why does that matter? Isn’t it just paying homage to all the stories that led to the saga’s conclusion? Doesn’t it simply tie everything together?

Most critics and fans agree that the Sequel Trilogy relies heavily on nostalgia. In particular, JJ Abrams is often criticized for using nostalgia to such a degree that many of his films are direct copies of the stories they’re referencing: Super 8 is a mash-up of films like E.T. and Stand By Me, Star Trek: Into Darkness is a copy of The Wrath of Khan, The Force Awakens is nearly identical to Episode IV: A New Hope, and so on. Nostalgia is defined as:

“A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”

Most of Abrams’ movies succeed in creating this feeling because they rely on a shared cultural childhood memory. We fondly remember iconic moments from the films we loved as children, so seeing those moments again creates a feeling of remembered happiness. These movies encourage the viewer to recall how they felt the first time they saw certain images by repeating those images.

The first problem with this approach is that nostalgia is for the audience, not for the characters. The believability of the characters’ actions suffers when they are forced to act out scenes from a story that is not their own, from lives and perspectives that are not theirs. The audience might love seeing a lightsaber battle because that’s quintessential Star Wars, but if the two (or more) characters have no logical reason to fight other than as a spectacle for the audience, then the scene will lack any emotional depth. Likewise, a character revering someone whom they either barely knew or openly loathed makes no sense. In the case of settings or props, characters must respond to them in a way that is believable based on their actual history (or lack thereof) with the place or object. If the main characters of a story function only as a sort of modern Greek chorus, mirroring the nostalgic reactions of the omniscient audience, then they fail to be characters at all and become the most reductive versions of a self-insert.

This video explains the problem well, from 7:09 to 10:58 (the whole video is good but fair warning that not all of his takes align with what I believe about Star Wars, especially as regards Kylo Ren/Ben Solo):

youtube

Another problem with this reliance on nostalgia is that in order to speak to a shared childhood experience, everyone in the audience must have had similar childhoods, or at least belong to the same generation so that they all fondly remember the same things. This is necessarily exclusive, as different generations have vastly different collective experiences and memories. The members of the audience who were children at the time of the Original Trilogy’s release or shortly after grew up in a very different world than those who were children during the release of the Prequel Trilogy, or from the generation living through childhood now. Some things that older generations remember fondly carry uncomfortable or even traumatic associations for younger generations, so something intended to be nostalgic will not impact all audiences in the same way.

The legacy saber is a great example of this: an older Original Trilogy fan might be delighted to see Luke’s inaugural lightsaber from the very first Star Wars film being passed on to the new generation, but a younger fan who grew up with the Prequels might see it as a tainted symbol of Anakin’s fall to the dark side and a weapon stained with the blood of innocent younglings. A family sword meant to press the nostalgia button in The Force Awakens instead invokes a feeling of dread and horror in fans with different associations. While Rian Johnson mentions deliberately referencing the Prequels in his creation of The Last Jedi, JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio make no secret of the fact that they don’t acknowledge those films, and it shows.

Lastly, Star Wars has always been a story of youth, of coming of age, growing up, and becoming one’s own person. Luke’s story in the Original Trilogy was about him learning who he was independently of his father and mentors. He is merely a boy, young and defiant, and through his own mistakes he learns how the elder generation was wrong, resolves to do better, and thereby redeems them. Anakin’s story was similar, except that he was unable in his youth to learn the right lessons from the failures of his mentors, his defiance taking a more destructive form. In contrast to both of them, Rey learns.... that all her mentors and parental figures were right all along. In the end, she defies no one, discovers no new and better way, and ultimately brings nothing new and different to the galaxy. She brings no peace or renewal, adopting a legacy of death and destruction to cap a life that has featured only the old, dead, and destroyed.

This is where Disney and Abrams tip their hand and the true philosophy underpinning the Sequel Trilogy is revealed: in an effort to appeal to the nostalgia of older Star Wars fans, they fail to tell a story of youth and instead offer an orgy of death-worship and aesthetic decay. Rather than having the Star Wars conclude with Star Peace, the final trilogy seems to say “Weren’t those wars great? Don’t you miss them? Don’t you want to be reminded of all those wars?”

In her book The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym defines the term a little differently than the dictionary:

"Nostalgia (from nostos - return home, and algia - longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but is also a romance with one's fantasy."

Boym points out that memory is often faulty, and that fond recollection is often a reaction to current despair. If things are bad now, it is natural for us to imagine a more comforting past, as with popular references to “the good old days.” In fact, another translation of the root algos is “pain,” thereby associating the return home with pain. Is it pain that prompts our longing to return home? Pain that creates the fond memory of home in the first place? Perhaps home itself is a source of pain, and so our minds construct an imaginary home that is better than the reality. In any case, it is typical that our rose-colored glasses distort the truth of what we long for, so the danger of nostalgia is a disassociation from truth.

One of those truths that we might deny in our fantasies is the ephemeral nature of human life and experience. All things age, decay, and ultimately cease to be. They may be evergreen in memory, but in a contiguous timeline like the Skywalker Saga, every location, object, or person must inevitably show the passage of time. Thus it is that the youthful heroes of the Original Trilogy become wizened and less vital when they reappear in the Sequels, that old ships break, and symbols of better times shatter and burn. As Boym states, however, the nostalgic lives in denial:

“The nostalgic desires to obliterate history and turn it into a private or collective mythology, to revisit time like space, refusing to surrender to the irreversibility of time that plagues the human condition.”

Nostalgia cannot hide the steady march of time, which is why most stories look to the future and the creation of the new. Not so the Sequel Trilogy. At no point in the story does there appear to be a goal outside of “defeating the latest bad guys, who are identical to the old bad guys.” There’s no vision of the future toward which the characters are striving, neither on a galactic level (achieving peace) nor a personal level (starting a new family on a vibrant living planet). As such, with nothing to look forward to, the story can only look backward, trapped in nostalgia for a past that appears worse the closer you look at it.

This is why the Sequels are filled with characters, objects, and places from the Original Trilogy that are revered in spite of their violent and even traumatic pasts, not to mention visible signs of age. Ultimately a story that has nothing new to say or offer, only weak attempts to recreate a half-remembered childhood feeling of an aging generation, can ONLY logically end in a graveyard. Viewed in this light, it makes sense that the young protagonist builds her life around fond memories that for her are only imaginary, surrounded by the visible evidence of death and decay to which nostalgia blinds her.

If this is all the fan in the audience is looking for, a faded echo of their favorite memory, then perhaps that is enough. But for those who do not share the reassuring memory, or those who look forward to the future and how things might change for the better, the ending of the Skywalker Saga offers only knowledge that all things fade and die. Without the lens of nostalgia, the Sequel Trilogy is merely an empty tale of death.

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bexterbex · 5 years ago

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A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 71

Warning: 🥵🥵🥵

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. | Tag lists are closed | INBOX OPEN

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother, but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 71: The Answers You Were Seeking

The ship came into the hangar, so you were finally back on the Supremacy. You attempted to get up, but your legs were failing you. This amused your guard dog. He came face to face with you, “Does Kitten need help?” He seemed to enjoy teasing you.

You just held your arms out in a silent demand. Enjoying the feeling of him picking you up in his strong arms. Inhaling his natural scent as you tucked your face into his neck to hide from the outside world. You wanted to stay in your little bubble with him for as long as possible. “If I am an Empress, shouldn’t I be carried everywhere, always?” You imagined him carrying you.

He chuckled, “That can be arranged if you want it, but you other royal carriers might disappoint you.” You felt his hands shift, holding you more securely against his chest as he entered the hallway.

As much as you tried hiding your face and avoiding the people you could hear them shuffling out of the way and saying “Supreme Leader” and “Empress.” You just wanted him to look at you, him alone. You were his, and no one else’s. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding when you entered your chambers.

Instead of heading directly to the bedroom, he brought you into the dining room where dinner was waiting for you. It was at that moment that you realized that you had worked up quite an appetite. Your nerves from before your consummation had completely dissipated. He set you down, in front of a glorious-looking feast. “I thought that a little Kitten like you would be hungry after playing with her guard dog.” You could hear the smirk in his voice as he teased you.

You tried to put a poker face as you teased him back, “We didn’t exactly play.” No, you didn’t play, not per se.

“Didn’t you have fun,” it was more of a tease than a question. He knew the answer, but you two were just in a rather flirty mood.

“Oh, I had more than fun.” It’s true you did have more than just fun.

He leaned forward and scooped you up into his arms and onto his lap, “You’re too far away. You’re a Kitten that is meant to curl up on my lap.” He buried his head into the crook of your neck, delicately kissing the bruised skin there.

You chuckled at his neediness, “And who set me down there, hmm?” You buried your face into his chest. For the next hour, you spent time feeding each other, slowly with many kisses exchanged for bites of food. Once finished his hands roamed your body while your arms were wrapped around his neck. A hand made its way down to your bruised heat, testing the delicate flesh. You winced and whimpered at the feeling, still sore from you earlier escapades.

You could see Kylo contemplating your reaction to his touch. “We’ll have to get some bacta on that if we want to have any more playtime tonight.” He grazed his nose against you affectionately. He then carried you into the bathroom and set you on the vanity where he untied your dress, exposing you to him. He reached behind you and into the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of what you assumed to be bacta. It was a warm liquidy, gelly substance that he carefully applied to your bruised cunt.

You thought the sensation to be rather unpleasant. It wasn’t like lube, but more like aloe slathered everywhere down there making you feel rather gross and not quite sticky. “When should I be healed enough?” You had no idea how this worked. This was an entirely new concept for you.

He thought for a moment before responding. “An hour to two max. You aren’t bleeding and as far as I can tell you haven’t torn anything, just bruised and overstimulated. It’s best to let it work undisturbed so, for now, we will have to do something else.” He then carried you out of the bathroom with your dress still hanging open. His eyes seemed to dance across your marked flesh as he took you upstairs to the lounge where you both settled down on a couch.

His arms wrapped around you keeping your against him, hands teasing and ghosting over your bruises. Almost as if he was silently worshiping you, appreciating the offerings he had left all over your body. You had a couple of hours to kill before you went back to your rounds of lovemaking. “Can you tell me why you didn’t tell me that making me Empress meant that we were going to get married? Because you just up and left before explaining that.” You wanted some answers, you just hope you could tiptoe around him so you wouldn’t ignite his anger.

His fingers wrapped themselves in your hair, his palm against your skull, and his lips against your temple. “Because I thought you might say no, so I didn’t ask. I was worried you would leave me Kitten, and then I would have no one to guard.” You could hear the hint of fear and sadness still lingering in his voice. You were the only thing he truly had in this galaxy. You knew it would devastate you as much as him if either of you left. It was better to be bound to each other than to live without the other half to your soul.

You turned your head and tilted up to kiss him, “I’ll accept that answer.” More kisses before asking, “How did your fight with the scavenger go? I watched the transmission, but I want to know how you thought it went and what your feelings are.” You knew there was much more to the fight than what you saw in the transmission. You knew there was a bit more to their ‘relationship’ in general that he hasn’t told you yet.

He let out a deep sigh as he turned to look away from you, to look at the ceiling while lost in thought. “It wasn’t easy trying to find her. Her friends tried to stay one step ahead of us and it worked until it didn’t.” You now fully turned to face him.

“The fight itself wasn’t that difficult until the defective stormtrooper shot at me and distracted me. She stabbed me, but she did not hit any vital organs thankfully. Managing to impale me between my liver and stomach. But as you can see I am alright…” he then trailed off as if lost in thought.

You brought a hand up to caress his face, trying to bring his attention back. “But what about her motivation? She wanted you to join her, to leave me.” You almost wish the vision in front of your blaster was actually her, so you could have killed her instead of him. He has already seen lifetimes of battles and death, and you just wished you could take just one away from him, to save him from that pain.

His voice became slightly agitated, “Yes, its true she wanted him to join her, but I didn’t want to. The only person I want in the universe is you. She believed she knew Ben Solo, but she didn’t because he still wanted you, he would have never have gone with her if it meant losing you. She was lost in her own delusion. I, Kylo Ren, have always wanted you, and just you.” His confession made your heart soar. You rolled onto your side and rested your head against his chest. Showing him how much you cared.

“I’ve always wanted you too. It’s why I am here, it’s why I have stayed. I don’t want anyone else.” You felt his hand rub up and down your back, making you feel all warm inside. You hated that you needed to break this tender moment with another heavy subject, but if you didn’t do so now, you don’t know when you would be able to get the chance again.

“But what about your mother? She just wanted her son to come home.”

You could see his demeanor shift, this wasn’t a conversation he really wanted to have, “In the end, it was something I would always have to do. It was always going to be Ben Solo or myself. She knew this too. She lost her son long ago, this was just the final act. In the end, I think she realized that I am still her son. She and Han Solo may have been gifted Ben Solo, but Kylo Ren is the man they made.” You could hear the anger and hurt in his voice even if you weren’t looking at his face. The man lying next to you had killed both of his parents, to be with you, to make Kylo Ren triumphant.

Your memory recalled her words, her warning, “But what was she saying about this not being the last of it? What is coming?” To say you were worried was an understatement.

He peered down at you, his eyes were like black steel with his brows furrowed and his lips hard in a solid line, “I do not exactly know yet, but I feel it in the Force. Something powerful has awoken, and I need to stop it, to protect you.” His hands grabbed your face, “I will protect you. I had a feeling on Mustafar that a key might be there, I will find it. I will find out who it is, end them and I will protect you.”

His reassurances were sexy, something about his need to keep you safe was something that aroused you. Which wasn’t a great feeling at the moment, as your wetness mixed with the gell and made you uncomfortable. You whimpered at the feeling, your belly warm but your brain disgusted. This caused Kylo to reach between your legs, testing the tissue there and it seemed to pass inspection as there was no more pain. Only a pleasured gasp escaped your lips as his fingers stroked you. “Hmm, it seems like you are ready to go Kitten. Shall I go clean you up so we can play again?” You let out a whimper in response, as his fingers still roamed your heated flesh.

He picked you up and carried you down to the bedroom instead of the bathroom. He set you down on the bed and left you to walk into the bathroom. Your body did not like the separation from him, as you whined as he left you. He turned on a switch in your brain which caused you to be needy for his touch. He returned with a damp washcloth and proceeded to wipe away the bacta, his stokes and attention to detail caused your slick to almost gush out of you at the attention. You rolled your hips up trying to cause friction, this caused him to chuckle. “Needy aren’t we Kitten?” You heard a wet slap as the washcloth was abandoned on the floor.

He quickly lifted you, ridding you of the wrap dress entirely before his fingers began to massage your clit in circular motions. Your hips attempting to follow his rhythm. “Can we try something Kitten?” He seemed to be the coherent one between the two of you. All you could do was nod in response, words failing you.

His touch ceased on your clit, on your cunt all together, which caused you to cry out in frustration. But then he brought your wrist to his lips. His name was now being kissed and sucked like the many, many love bites that littered your body. Suddenly it was if your body didn’t need anything else. You cunt seemed to pulse in pleasure at the sensation. Reacting as if the most wonderful touches were being performed on you, but they weren’t. Kylo was just nipping and sucking on his name on your wrist. It was like the ultimate key to getting you to orgasm as it didn’t take long before you were seeing stars. Your back arching as you came, Kylo’s name on your lips. You felt like you were going to blackout again, but Kylo’s lips on yours brought you back from the edge of it.

It took you a few minutes to regain full consciousness again, full coherence. When you did you threaded your hands into those dark raven locks and deepened the kiss rolling your hips up to meet his, which somehow were now completely bare. In your lack of awareness, he stripped down to his nakedness and your hips rolled up to meet his hardening cock. “That was amazing,” you said rather out of breath.

A smirk graced your lover’s face, “Mmm I could tell.” His hand reached back down to your now messy cunt, “You are absolutely sopping wet Kitten.” He kissed you hard, as one of his fingers entered your wet hole, earning a moan from you. “I guess we shall have to do that often. But let’s see if you can return the favor.”

He flipped you both over; you were now straddling his thighs, his cock in front of you. You saw its angry red, swollen head, and the shine of pre-cum on the tip. You wanted to eat it rather than ignore it, but he brought his wrist to your lips. You were supposed to mark your name as he did his. And you complied.

Kylo hissed in pleasure at the sensation, his hips rolling up, his dick bouncing. You continued to lick, nibble, and suck on your name. You even went as far as tracing the letters with your tongue. If you thought you were a mess, then he was a disaster. Moaning and panting your name and nickname. His hips trying to find fiction for his cock. It didn’t take long for his hips to stutter and his cum to shoot out in pulses as he orgasmed. Your name a shout on his lips, his voice haggard. His cum painted both of your chests with the splattery aftermath.

You decided to be a lady and clean his semi-soft cock with your tongue before you traveled up to his chest, rubbing your breasts against his, smearing the milky white substance. When you were satisfied with the completion of yours and his painting you licked up the evidence from his chest before flopping down next to him and beckoning him to do the same. He took his sweet time as he licked up and down your breasts, making sure both nipples were absolutely glistening with saliva.

One of his fingers tested your hole again as he positioned himself over you. “Mmm Kitten, you will be the death of me,” he said as he pushed his index finger into you, to his knuckle. He hooked into you and teased your walls.

You moaned back. “Death by sex doesn’t sound so bad to me,” you mused as he plunged another finger in you, trying to get you ready to fully take him again. Without this prep, you would surely tear right in two.

You heard him chuckle, the sound you loved so much, the sound you were pretty sure you were the only one who got to hear it on such a regular basis. “I suppose you’re right. If I had to choose how to go out. Dying with my cock buried in your tight cunt would be the best way.” His voice was sultry now, a velvety sort of sex that could get you to do almost anything.

It didn’t take long for him to get you ready. Your body responds quickly because he was right, you were made for him. He lined himself up once more, teasing you with his engorged head, just pushing your flaps around and only putting the tip in. “Please, just fuck me Kylo. I can’t take it anymore,” you whined earning a quick deep thrust from his hips, fully sheathing himself in you. You threw your head back in pleasure and released a loud moan.

It didn’t take very long for him to pick up a steady rhythm of his hips snapping consistently. You attempted to help him by meeting his thrusts, but he was buried so deep inside you it didn’t really matter. “So… tight..” was what he struggled to get out as his thrusting deepened. You could feel his cock twitching between your walls of pleasure. Enjoying the feeling of being fully engulfed in your heat.

You attempted to respond to him, “So… BIG,” you shouted as he found that spot, your g spot. The head of his cock relentlessly pounding into it, causing you to see stars. His pace and power only picked up as he was locked on target. The sounds of skin slapping and panting filling up the room.

You could feel the orgasm starting, “Kylo…. I’m…” you couldn’t even get the words out. Your brain was a solid clump of mush. He was almost literally fucking your brains out.

His thrusts causing the bed to quiver. “Cum with me,” his voice was thick with ecstasy. You followed orders as your walls clamped around him, his hips stuttering. His panting and moaning almost overriding yours as you came together. Eventually both your hips stopped as you both exhausted your energy, reveling in the orgasm together. Kylo collapsed on top of you, keeping his dick inside you, something you didn’t know you liked until he did it the first time. Your cunt being very happy at not being left empty. Loving the feeling of the weight of his dick inside of you. You also enjoyed the post-sex lazy kisses that he seemed to give you. A silent thank you for giving him his orgasm like you were a goddess blessing his fields with rain.

The next few days were filled with work and plenty of sex. Adlez and Olivia-Rose were rather pleased and horrified at the state of you in the morning. Kylo and you had another few wonderful rounds of sex. Your body looked more bruised than alright, but you assured them that it was fine. Three days after your wedding night, Kylo got a call to return to Mustafar, something there needed his attention. Something you wished would just disappear.

A/N: So....I take it y’all like smut?

#kylo ren #kylo ren smut #a soul to mend his own #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order

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rwmhunt · 4 years ago

Text

Leviticus, Chapter 22

1. Lo, for That I cannot prosecute my thoughts; I needst here cultivate caution- Then put a hold unto my options, That I cannot challenge him. Any source of information, That be of an admixture truth, And of an admixture untruth, is of a danger, Did you know that? Humbly needst I move toward diamonds and gold's Otherwise-useless demarkation on worth; My face must stay its specter in clay, For it is my career; That I can say: It is mine.

2. Thus, to Aaron, gold and diamonds Bringeth ignominy and unwarranted power; Strewth, they are only much use for The rings of your finger; So let alone the past, Which you mark As a messed up place, How then, is this the valid Strategy for the future? Lo, let us divide and game.

3. Increase the paywall; Holy things are ringing in changes; You are the visitor here- I'd like to take the time To consciously consider you so, for We have reached besmircher's cutoff. It's me, mark it; and Either I am a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And you are a little golden bull, Or you are a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And I am a little golden bull;

4. But know that I shall not give you the word For the thought-track down which You might draw the line Of asymetry, such, That you wouldst know How to rend a perfect opposition To go between. And whosoever soweth dead seeds Among young female researchers Hath faileth the épreuve- It shalln’t do for thy running issue, Moreover, those women who are of Quite senior position and are doing it Unto the coercive nature of such a power's New destruction of ability to focus, As unto the camp's commander, With how Peleg begat Reu; Well, it might be enough to get you pregnant, But wait, where am I going with this?

5. Worm touchers, Creepy pressers, Come, come, observers, Keep from that strange creature; Don't be giving unto me None of thy screaming abdabs; I think on you, Pig dressed as a clown, Eructing unto, then drawing forth A near-entire white, plastic fork; And know you not how this came to me- Lo, it came up with a sequence of items that appeared Not unlike balls of meat, Furred, wistfully, in a grey cowl of reactionary mucus; A kind of veil, a barrier, in effect, Penetratable, at any point, But equally real as a barrier, Gainst our otherwise passive environs, Such as be the diffusion of inert thoughts, or spores, murky, and maintaining of a human resource, I liked to thrill it- The direct and immediate livid relationship Between a font of funding and a media event, O, harmless dalliance of the stationary cupboard- You are knowingly walking, As against your will, A wrong into the carpet, Within the tent of meaning.

6. Looking up to see God's face in the moon, Or whatever it was That can't be drawn, And I won't be drawn; His hands he filled with moisture and His own was sent for ablution Into the improvised basin. So denieth all such allegation Through the washing of thy soule, Clean off; so sloughed away, Away with the diminishing liquid.

7. Sundown with the unseen Woman's leverage on the situation- if you should find a way to redress balance, So she gaineth a bit more power in some manner, Then so what? it was no loss. A new deal, And the bill shall embolden survivors.

8. Positions of power shall have of a hard time In recognizing the coercive nature of that power Within an unbridled relationship; Things that die 'Of themselves', Or are yet rent by nature's horn, Are defiled; while I, a malign influence, lie with my soul distracted; Oh lord, but I've been swallowed by narrative, And tried to keep it communal, Inside and outside; As you are.

9. Pit stop- The horror is the fact; The horror it unfolds Through legions of would-bes Without a meter, like me, Who have applied, Will apply, in perpetuity; Just do it, Or die; if then, As I am still.

10. The individual is always Hedging toward A private business model. Attention-seeking shalln't be of sin, no! Tis sensible, keep with a forward optioning- That's why i tell you, Soujerners and servents, Who art sent to the concession to collect me my messages- My tutu is a Fendi, And my codpiece is a Bosch. We live unto a roaring attention economy. But you're not up to it. I've given them a tomato one, And also I gave them a spaghetti- We struggle to attune to where I'm compelled- Ourselves, as groups, who feel of themselves As blunted against their lack in deserved attention, Because it is a powerful, a dangerous feeling.

11. So eat souls As paid for with a priest's money, On escrow, attention Has always been currency Though rendered unimaginable Since the falling-away of the gold-standard, As was borne unto the tent of meaning, Where every page has a piece carved out, To house an advert's grab For égards; No space is secure, For security hath put an advert thither.

12. Jade lock, To knock the donald offline, So unto a stranger, Gone off to scavenge, The framers that frame themselves As refuges for free-expression Shall be rent at the fringes, forcing A redirection, away from my personal kingdom.

13. But should she go prodigal, Whosoever you are, Howeverso you might express thyself, You may now have a crack at a global audience, With incentives and disproportionate benefits Offered unto the most shameless, The demand of each to pay what scarce attention Might be rendered unto others, To get some fraction of this nominally limited resource, As unto yourself alone. Such are these poor weapons, An oversharing, That, essayed to the personal, Stretcheth my nancy stories To breaking.

O Marigold, I was bad At that, in the territories of fandom, As forced to return Unto the track over and again- Such was my leaky comprehension; Only apparent to me in the afterward, And now, I cannot say I am better.

14. Whence, Enroute from the concession Shouldst be eaten of the item Without, thence, So anguished in the relish, Thou giveth a fifth Of the holy thing; So that the leg shall grow A starfish, whole . Then let us bend our dark tubers towards, And look the knot, as in at an eye-

15. What's gold and glitter, But to mock a toom, And maketh of myself A symbolic same, Wrought as an aesthetic echt; Where diplomacy is weak, The aesthetic be yet The sole portal unto The conveyance of meaning; Verily, here, that I keep within The aesthetic of thought Whereby action is always y, You are i, and The antagonist be markated x; Where holy might only Fall down to one's discretion, You should've known That I wouldst be so solid.

16. Or suffer them to bear the enquiry of trespass, Felt as an information glut, Whilst eating of their holy orders, Found relishing within the anguish, And those who want it, Want it as much as they can get it, And there is more access than can be vaunted, For, in an attention economy, one is never not on. Yes, me. O the guilt.

17. Attention is akin to the spirit; That it be vital but conventionally invisible, And thus, think not very much upon it, But unto whom, being unable to share A simple encounter with it, Wouldst soon become an artifice of torture.

18. Tell Aaron et al ensundry, To take up of stock with sarcastic markets, Sarcastic markets and I, impunity; The sacrifice of your own will I hand you freely; or no; T'was never yours to oblate, But sacrifice thy quasi-will, As will thee, Which is mine, against The short hedge, Thus maketh me of a currency exchange.

19. And an haut stud dost thou, unto me, weasels? By your whimsically free-will sacrificing? How charmingly lame. I sense Actors at play, in a very long game Of grooming the disaffected- Call me my boys in- then Send a lie to the long deceiver, To use the ruse, in turn, like poison, For to wish you that which upon may be Enabling unto the benefit of thine enemy.

20. It's no hambone, No hobbling billy- If he tells or interferes I'll fill the well in; its Prophets in stocks and neck-irons time, Else tolerate such increasingly radical agendas Of such gleefully uninhibited platforms as Where followers might laugh At biblical memes and opine such as- 'I'd rather do drama than a play, where, You can't say, really, What you want to say.' Go long, my cowhands, go long.

21. And peace is a sacrifice Of the streaming platform, while Attention has always been currency, Same. Our abilities to pay heed are limited; Not so our abilities to theoretically receive of it; No need to adequately substantiate If you can bamboozle With all the time in the world, Ka-pow-ka, ching-ching, da-da, Badoo-daboo-baday; Trust-modesty, yay, verily. Humility is hard to sustain In an attention economy. I only see me accelerating.

22. Blind, broken, maimed; Cankered, scurvied, wan with the wen, Thus, by my lights, The fault shall be displaced, Be it cleaned or weeping, Tis a no-no, get me another. Such was The schism that fractured the donald, Sent out to extend a tortured metaphor, Became too much of a liability To be held in high office- But if the stranger doesn't come, After all the things I’ve done for him,

23. Well, it's alright for a free-will offering Which you feel compelled to go along with, But it's not good enough for a vow offering As be brought unto online-influencer culture, And it might be enough to get you pregnant But it shan't be enough to stir my interest- I require an extreme case of humility, Whereby a person giveth his all to a presence so completely selfish As to serveth no other purpose. It's me.

24. But the reality is far less complicated than Moses, Hiding his damage behind a veil of linked-up back-channels, Recoiling at what his fellow hardcore moderators attempt to oblate; Too engrossed within the tents to consider anything outwith While hoping the whole doesn’t spin out of control.

25. Corruption is in them, strangers, Bethinks, flooding an affiliated image board So thoroughly that it becometh abomination. Here increaseth the shamelessness of wanton Allegation, terror co-option of a social platform, which struck with the rise of a reality magik-vision, Alike as came unto a mid-80s index of abundance, Shewn running away whilst attempting to make focus On the ever-deterioratingly indistinct Object of the distancing, that It’s only when, at stopping to think about it, That the understand can be ascertained as to quite how rife it is.

26. Here, he left a passing message for Those who might collectively commandeer: Abide by life; that, if, then, I wouldn't be here.

27. Debates about amplification And attention-hijacking form a Siege mentality Of the corrupted Federal Apparatus- For seven days beneath the dam, As then a fire spiralled further Toward a more outlandish means Of unconstitutional civic theatre,

28. Whereby a calfling must be made to last The night and know it's mother As having died before slaughter; So the community Moved in after it went dark, Enjoining, then modulating, then killing off, And now Your complexes are all cooked in, Deeply infringing upon the weirds of others.

29. So must you make sacrifice To your very free will, As to common patriotic causes, Or else be sieged Within the corrupt Federal Apparatus.

30. The fundamental thing is: You cant escape my attention economy; Eat everything now, For nothing shall be saved, And this same day shall be Until tomorrow; when again, it's me.

31. Lo, and you must; it's me, remember? But by now all this blood and all this law Was affecting them, as had long been within their dream, Where they have their own rules, quirks and cultures, Which they ignore at your peril; Where environments play out upon a knife-edge, And attention might simply be a lens Through which to read the events of the moment While running away.

32. Herein, power shall not be trusted To recognize affiliated abuses of power; Yet, check, however, before Redirecting such missives from my personal kingdom, For lo, there shall be nonesuch insubordination, As might mitigate against, for I shall be hallowed; Me me me me, So you;

33. Thus, I lay my notional claim Unto my servant-leadership- as bang, That brought you out of the land, Didn't it? Akhenaten to me. So Leviticus stood at The simply-inflated Size of Capitalism, To whom, hereto, On a bench they'd built Between themselves, Be here, thisway, is addressing- 'Imagine; You have been wrong For a long long time now.'

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apriki · 5 years ago

Text

RISE OF SKYWALKER

IT HAS BEEN SEEN MY FRIENDS... LET’S GO

IT WAS A LOVE STORY ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU. GUYS. I AM SO... ALIVE RIGHT NOW I

okay that opening scrawl i laughed so hard... THE DEAD SPEAK!!

‘supreme leader kylo ren’ will never not be funny

OKAY OPENING WITH KYLO I SCREAMED.... HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU.... HOW MUCH

okay and his ruthless hell bent search for this silly macguffin.... we love a demonic legend

and ALSO his determination to kill the past!!!!!! HE HAS LITERALLY BEEN CIRCLING THIS THE WHOLE SERIES

look, i am biased because kylo is my favourite and he has been the one thing that’s been consistently written and done across this trilogy and i’m very spoiled because i got everything i wanted here

but KYLO REN. KYLO REN!!!!!!!!!!!

laughed my ASS off at the snoke in the tube and palpatine being like ‘surprise bitch.... bet you thought you’d seen the last of me’

laughed decidedly LESS at ‘i’ve been every voice you’ve ever heard in your head’

look this isn’t going to be a review.... just my thoughts really and this decidedly isn’t a comparison with the last jedi which it seems like everyone wants to do in a weird victorious kind of way

but kylo killing snoke/his abuser in tlj was a terrifying powerful moment to watch and i loved it fiercely and still do, and for kylo to see that he hadn’t done that at all.... and that evil still abides.... fucking nightmare, honestly

and that’s when i started getting a feeling in the back of my head because look he is so determined to kill the past

(let the past die)

that he will kill himself as well to do it. that has always been kylo’s character since the very beginning. SO!!!!!

also the structural integrity of palp’s hideaway.... not great

palps: kill rey heh heh

kylo: i am absolutely not gonna do that but okay

omfg when kylo was like ME AND MY KNIGHTS OF REN ARE GOING HUNTING

i cannot explain to you how HILARIOUS the knights of ren are to me

they do nothing! they say nothing! they just stand around and look stupid in their stupid helmets..... i laughed every single time they were on screen

it’s like kylo’s uselessness manifests into what 6? 7 more useless things. the Knights of Ren

‘we’re going hunting’ are you TWELVE YEARS OLD

this film felt like it was going a million miles an hour, all the time, and that started for me in that first scene in the falcon which was going all over the place? for some reason?

anyway THERE’S A MOLE IN THE FIRST ORDER and i know it is hux but i kind of wanted it to be kylo on the side.... though i know he is not capable of any such subterfuge. about as subtle as a wrecking ball... and my SON

loved the comraderie with poe and finn. i liked the lived-in feeling of the relationships between the rebellion characters this time around

felt like they had that new alien dude in the falcon for no reason and for two seconds like... why

(to sell toys, of course. the same reason why they have a new tiny droid)

but that of course is just the first in a long line of new and underdeveloped characters in this movie. but you know what? i can accept this because the core emotional story was strong and also, it’s star wars? a big sprawling mess is what it has always, always been. ANYWHOMST

REY IN THE FOREST LEVITATING!!!!

the white outfit!!! how at one she is with nature??? SORRY IT WAS BEAUTIFUL

and okay the specific framing of rey and rey’s power in this movie as not only a part of the force but so specifically as a woman using the force... like the power of empathy! the power of healing!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL WHATEVER

when she called leia her MASTER? MY HEART

THE POWER OF WOMEN!!!

on the flip side, doesn’t it kind of feel like poe has a problem with women?

like as soon as he started riffing with rey i was like GET A JOB STAY AWAY FROM HER

but in hindsight i feel kind of better about them and their interactions... more on that later

FINN! finn in this movie was WONDERFUL

(except it annoyed me how they had the whole ‘there’s something i want to say to you’ and never had him say it... like even if he was going to say he loved rey okay just don’t leave it hanging like that?)

FORCE FUCKING SENSITIVE!!!!!!

look i really think they did they best they could with a really difficult job in incorporating leia and previous footage into this movie. it wouldn’t have felt right without her and the scenes were a bit clunky but again, a very very difficult thing to do

LEIA AND REY’S RELATIONSHIP..... MY HEART HURTS

i love that rey’s storyline has depth and motivation and kylo’s storyline is literally revolving around rey like she’s the sun

like i literally love this. MORE OF THIS!!!

FORCE BOND STILL EXISTSSSSSSSS

KNEW IT CALLED IT CLAIMED IT LOVE IT

the soft gasp rey does whenever kylo is about to show up for forceskype i love this song

the knights of ren standing around while kylo’s helmet got fixed omfg they are the stupidesttttt

kylo: maybe i don’t want to wear the helmet

the knights of ren: maybe shut the fuck up

Let’s Go To Burning Man

i actually kind of liked seeing these people doing their own cool cultural thing. like again this movie went at lightspeed but i did enjoy that. what’s better than this? just aliens being dudes

when rey talked to that little girl and she asked her last name i was like LOLLLL HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

as soon as lando showed up it was like ‘oh it’s lando’

‘i offered you my hand’

‘I’LL OFFER YOU MY HAND AGAIN’

WHY DID HE SAY THIS... LIKE IT WAS A PROPOSAL

I WAS SCREECHING SORRY... WOW.

i have never really found C3PO funny but um he was going off in this movie... when they all looked at him and then he looked away I CACKLED

and the mind wipe like whew man... one day we’re gonna have a conversation about Droids And The Uncomfortable Conclusions About Droids in these movies

but also, i wish they’d had the guts to stick with it and not restore his memory because, what a symbol for the past dying and the end of a saga? like 3PO has been there since the start!! the star wars live in his memory banks ???? and R2 as well i suppose

don’t think too long about this cause then you realise that for some reason they’re still using like 80 year old iphones and R2 and 3PO should be decommissioned for scraps

WHEN HE TOOK THE NECKLACE OFF HER I FOUND IT HOT I FOUND IT SEXY I FOUND IT UMMMM

the sand was a cool visual thing but then THE SNAKE

it felt so GREEK HERO MYTH but then rey stops the script!!

AND DOESN’T FIGHT IT

AND SHE HEALS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as soon as rey healed that snake i was like

‘kylo ren is that snake’

blah blah dagger blah

the sith language and being forbidden actually interests me. i want more proper sith lore

basically i want a revan and bastila movie. make it so

keri russell was WASTED in this movie

but that one scene with her and rey where they had Mutual Respect was so much better and more important than anything she did with poe

poe is like... sure i guess. i mean i liked him better in this movie than tlj and i liked him more as the movie when on but hmmst

but hey if i get to have a kylo then the poe people can have i poe. i begrudge no one

except, uh.... hux people. y’all really got done this movie huh. ouch

double as bad cause there was literally no point to the new general character. should have just been hux and then had him die in the final battle?

but i laughed when he was like ‘i don’t want you to WIN. i want kylo to LOSE’

THAT’S KING PETTY

omfg when kylo was like ‘where are you’ and then saw the vader mask and was like ‘oh you’re in my room’

SCREECHED

KYLO’S EVIL BOARD MEETING

LAUGHED MY ASS OFF

WHEN HE SMACKED THAT DUDE TO THE ROOF

sorry the first order is a startup. not even an ‘evil’ one especially because they’re all just a bit evil

when kylo reacted to that guy saying ‘we should take more children’ and the small thread winding through this movie about children being indoctrinated and rey and ben stopping THAT cycle.. important to me and i wish it had been bigger but i was glad it was there

all kylo did in the first half of this movie was chase after his girlfriend and tell her how they were meant to be together and that he wasn’t going to kill her even though he should. i love one stupid man

kylo flying his ship at rey deliberately wanting to ‘push her’ and her jumping over it and crashing the whole damn thing

and then him just getting up and walking out of the wreck not a scratch on him

like some kind of hero in a romance novel in his stupid cape lmfaoaoooo... you love to see it

THE PUSH/PULL WITH THE TRANSPORT?

THEIR POWERRRRRR

and then rey with her fuckin LIGHTNING

as soon as that happened i was like, oh lol rey palps then....

but also, THE LOOK OF WONDER BUT ALSO VICTORY ON KYLO’S FACE

ADAM DRIVER SIR

okay to be honest the whole soujourn to the like space swiss village is kind of a blur to me

keri russell was wasted, did i say that already?

although okay that bit when poe was like ‘were you a stormtrooper? were you a scavenger?’ maybe give him his rights

when kylo said WE’RE TWO PARTS OF THE SAME BEING

A DYAD

TWO WHO ARE AS ONE

two? WHO ARE? AS ONEEEEEE

NEITHER WHOLE WITHOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING OTHER I

‘i never lied to you’ AND HE NEVER HAS AND NEVER FUCKING DIDDD!!!!!

all the stormtroopers getting knocked back and kylo steadying himself with the force lol... it’s these little things ok

JODIE COMER?

rEy PaLpAtInE

I LAUGHED MY ASSSS OFFFFFFF

like... sure jj. sure

look, i have always understood and respected the choice to make rey ‘nobody’ (like anakin was! the force just makes who it needs to create the balance!) but if rey was going to be anyone i guess.... this is the best choice?

and i think there IS merit in the story going from ‘person burdened with legacy vs person with no legacy’ to ‘person with a legacy of good turning evil and person with a legacy of evil turning good’

i gotta think longer and more about this but. besides its inherent silliness i do not hate this ‘twist’

this movie jumped from planet to planet like a ping pong ball! it felt a bit jarring but my mum pointed out that the galaxy IS big and they’ve never really done this before and i was like hmmm Points Were Made

THE FIGHT ON THE OLD DEATH STAR

KYLO DODGING REY’S SWIPES AND NOT EVEN PULLING HIS SABER UNTIL HE HAD TO

THEN ONLY FIGHTING DEFENSIVELY

and her DESPERATION

ALMOST LIKE SHE’S FIGHTING HERSELF

BECAUSE THEY ARE TWO HALVES! OF ONE WHOLE!

and then oh my god

‘you can’t go back to her (leia). just like i can’t’

and the VICTORY in his eyes and the acknowledgment of the truth in hers

because THEY ARE THE SSSAAAAAAMMMMMMMMEEEE

when rey SCREECHED and force threw finn back.... oh fuck

(sidebar the way finn was so determinedly THERE for rey this whole movie... even when she said about the sith throne... his faith in her didn’t waver im verklempt)

WHEN HE DISAPPEARED AND REY LOOKED BACK HORRIFIED

because he can’t go! because the fight is what they have and what she’s clinging on to!

AND THEN HE WALKED UP OUT THE WATTTTEERRRRRRRRR

absolute romantic nonsense.

AND THEN

SHE KILLED HIM

SHE KILLED HIM!!!!!!

SHE KILLED KYLO REN WITH HIS OWN DAMN CRUCIFIX SWORD

I COULD NOT

BE LEEEEAAAF

THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM ENDGAME SINCE THE START AND IT’S HERE TWO THIRDS THROUGH THE FUCKING LAST MOVIE?

A GIFT. LICH RALLY A GIFT TO MEEEEE

leia gave her LIFE for her SON I...

this was the only moment in the movie where i started to get some tears cause like... IT WAS JUST SO MUCH

AND REY.... TOOK LEIA’S ENERGY THROUGH THE FORCE...

AND SHE PUT HER HANDS ON HIM

AND SHE HEALED HIM

SHE’S A SCAVENGER

SHE FIXES BROKEN THINGGGGSSSSS

HE DIED BECAUSE SHE KILLED HIM

AND HE LIVES BECAUSE SHE HEALED HIM...

WHEN. WILL. YOUR. FAVES?????????

‘I WANTED TO TAKE YOUR HAND. BEN’S HAND’

take my hand? take my whole life too

IIRENGOWENRGKLJEWNGFKJBKJBKJBKJLB

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT CLOSE UP SHOTS OF KYLO’S BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT FACE IN THIS MOVIE. I WAS BREATHLESS

KYLO STNADING ON THE EDGE OF THAT SEA WITH THE WIND GOING AND HIS LEG OUT LIKE THE STUPID BYRONIC HERO HE IS

HEATHCLIFF? HEATHCLIFF ON THE MOOR?

HAN’S HAND ON BEN’S FACE

HE CALLED HIM. DAD

‘kylo ren is dead’

OHHHHHH BABBBBYYYYYY

look i loved the crossguard saber but i understood why it had to go

and like ben shedding the persona he had built as a defence mechanism... rey killed that part of him? powerful too powerful

i know i have rose coloured glasses because i care about the core story of kylo/rey enough and i’m passionate enough about it but okay the way they are entwined with one another on the journey to identity is the greatest thing a silly blockbuster series has maybe ever given me

it’s tam lin. IT’S FAIRY TALE NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT

i 100% know in my bones they wanted the scene with han to be leia but they obviously couldnt have that so that was fine. when ben turned his head around and heard her and felt her.... DONT LOOK AT ME

the most emotional moment in this movie was when chewie heard about leia and broke down and collapsed and screamed

us too buddy. damn

rey stealing kylo’s ship and yeeting away lmfao

and when she went back to ach-to and burned it and was like IM STAYING HERE 4EVA >:(

she’s literally the exact same stupid reckless as kylo and i love

rose was wasted in this movie. very annoying

i DID laugh when they said ‘we should pull a holdo manoeuvre’ like of course that’s the one thing jj took from tlj. ohhhh jj

loved finn meeting the ex stormtrooper lady. i always felt like the one weakness of tlj is that it dropped this thread of finn’s indoctrination that i thought was being woven alongside rey and kylo’s issues with their childhoods in force awakens. the look of wonder on his face when she said that the whole battalion defected.... and saying the force lead them to do it like it lead him... and you could see john boyega feeling that with his whole heart!!!

i laughed at palps’ fleet of star destroyers that like all have death star capabilities now? so dumb

and also, a star destroyer is basically an aircraft carrier.... do you think the people who make star wars realise the empire is america? no...??? alright imma head out

missed opportunity for a shot of jar jar or a gungan when the galaxy fleet showed up like those towboats at dunkirk. to be HONEST

where did sheev palps find that stadium of goons? are they on retainer?

yeah so palpatine’s lair is the underworld and rey is eurydice and ben is orpheus. YEAH. YEAHHHHHHHHH

LEIA WAS TRAINED AS A MFING JEDI

THAT FLASHBACK WAS EVERYTHING FUCK

LEIA’S SABER!!!!!!!!!

i have Questions about leia ‘seeing her son dying at the end of her journey’ like ?

BUT HER PUTTING AWAY THE SABER TO PROTECT BEN!!!!

THIS FAMILY

fuck. benjy solo in that jumper.... USING A BLASTER LIKE HIS DAD.....

THE X WING AND THE TIE FIGHTER PARKED NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!

PALPATINE CALLING THEIR BOND ‘AS POWERFUL AS LIFE AND THE FORCE ITSELF’

NOT FOR GENERATIONS HAS THEIR BEEN A DYAD LIKE THEM!!!

FUCKING

DESTINED

BITCH

THEY ARE EACH OTHER’S DESTINY? WOW SORRY.... WOWOWOOWOOWOWOOWOWOW

ben versus his idiot knights of ren.... yeah i love my son

sorry rey had a vision of her AND kylo sitting on the throne but the throne is.... one seat? what are the logistics here? her on his lap? him on her lap? both of them sitting on an armrest like awkward kids taking a photo with santa?

I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES COMPLETELY DISTRACTED

THE LITTLE SHRUG BEN DID WHEN HE GOT THE LIGHTSABER AND WAS LIKE ‘YEAH SORRY NOW YOU’RE GONNA DIE’

I SCREAMED. IM LOVE HIM

rey giving ben the saber through the force bond!!

ACROSS SPACE??? LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS THE WORLD

palpatine taking, SPECIFICALLY, the power of rey and kylo’s BOND to strengthen himself because it is THE STRONGEST THING IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE???????? CANONICALLY????????

REY AND BEN FIGHTING WITH LUKE AND LEIA’S SABERS

FUCKING... I FUCKING....

when palps like flicked ben away sorry i laughed... i mean i was like REALLY? FOR THE BIG FINALE HE’S GONE? but i understood why and that rey is the hero etc etc

THE JEDI SPEAKING TO REY! OBI WAN! QUI GON FUCKIN JINN

yoda is there too

AND THE POWER OF THE JEDI FLOWING THROUGH HER!!!!!

god her power.... SHE AMAZES MEEEE

(initially i thought ben was gonna kill palps for rey because of the whole The Sith Live in My Killer thing and then she’d have to kill him but HOISTED ON HIS OWN PETARDDD)

palpatine:

and the power was too much and it killed her ooooof

(the power of being a legacy... of channeling all that has some before!!! these movies get so ridiculously meta sometimes. best believe we’ll talk about THIS)

BUT HERE COMES BEN

BENJY BOYYYYY

his hair JUST long enough to be scraggly and devastating

literally dragging a broken leg

ADAM DRIVERS PHYSICALITY IN THESE MOVIES (WELL ALWAYS) (BUT SPECIFICALLY IN THIS ROLE)

and he knows

WHAT HE HAS TO DOOOO

HE FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING HE LOVED ENOUGH TO DIE FOR

I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THIS

when he held her body holy shit... HOLY SHIT, GUYS

FULL CIRCLE????CVMSDFJNVDSLKFJVLDKJFVLKJDBFV

A PIETA.... A FUCKING PIETA

OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

and his heartbroken face.... stumbling back to her... oh my good goddd

and then

‘I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO BUT I’M AFRAID TO DO IT’

HE DIED FOR HER

HE GAVE.... HIS LIFE..... FOR HER.....

I CANNOT BE LIEVE THISSSSSS

HE GAVE UP HIS LIFE!!!!! HIS FUCKING LIFE!!!

he fought.... his whole life.... and he gave it up....

THAT’S LOVE? THAT’S FUCKING TRUE LOVE HOLLYL SKDJBVDKBF

REVAN AND BASTILA!!!!! REVAN AND BASTILA!!!1

and then she was alive again!!! ROMEO AND JULIET OKAY WOW

AND

THEY

KISSED

I’M SORRY I DID FREAK THE FUCK OUT

HIS SOFT EYES

(super spoilery shot coming up here but)

OH MY GOD

FOR FUCK’S

SAKE.

i’m sure people will be mad about how little kylo like... talked in this movie but like sorry this was perfect

she saved his life! and she saved the world! and he quietly gave his life to her, for her?

this humble act of love? PURE LOVE?

WHAT WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE THINGS THEY ARE CAPABLE OF.

THAT THEY PUSH EACH OTHER TO

THIS TRILOGY WAS MADE FOR ME AND ONLY ME. THERE’S NO OTHER EXPLANATION

and her look of JOY and she said, ‘BEN’

look. i have been on the record for YEARS as saying my dream endgame would be for rey to kill kylo and for him to be forceghost with her always

AND SOMEHOW UMMMM THIS IS BETTER?

1. SHE DID! KILL HIM! AND THEN BROUGHT HIM BACK

2. AND THEN HE WILLINGLY DIED FOR HER?

3. AND NOW SHE CARRIES HIM WITH HER ALWAYS??????

when his body faded and leia’s did too..... wo OOOOOOOOOOWWWW

SHE TOOK

HIS FUGGIN

LAST NAMMMEMELRKNWELKJBNLKJBFLKJBFKLRBJKLERJB

I’M SORRY THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME. KYLO REN WAS BREWED UP F O R MEEEEEEE

listen. there is a video game where a lady’s boyfriend gets killed and his soul goes into a sword and she carries the sword around with her

THAT IS THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

I CARRY YOUR HEART I CARRY IT IN MY HEART BITCH??????

THE FUCKING ORANGE SABER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and look. ben’s story is allowed to be just about rey and rey’s is allowed to be bigger than just him. that’s EQUALITY. that’s JUSTICE

look i know it’s very douchey of me but i wrote this paragraph about a character of mine in a book i wrote and it is like..... LIKE IT’S JUST KYLO REN OKAY

he was never gonna be someone who could settle down and live like a quiet life of monkhood or whatever luke was doin on ach-to....

okay when finn poe and rey hugged at the end okay I DID FEEL SOMETHING IN MY COLD DEAD HEART

FINN JUST LOVES THEM! SO MUCH! THERE IS SO MUCH LOVE IN THAT BOY’S HEART

and probably up until that moment i hadn’t really cared about having a Trio in the new movies like we had han and leia and luke but that hug had me feeling like... okay... Friendship IS Great

okay back to kylo, i tweeted this but i’ll repeat here: my favourite arc in media has always been snape’s, to me it is the perfect ‘redemption’ arc (and yes this will make people scrunchy-nosed angry, so i will point out: redemption to me has always meant redemption in the eyes of the reader/viewer, not in-world, this is true for anakin/vader too, who also has a nearly flawless ‘redemption’ arc) but now it’s kylo solo ren ben

I LOVE HIM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CAN’T STAND IT A LITTLE

HE FELL IN LOVE? AND IT SAVED HIM

HE WAS LOST AND HE FOUND HIS OTHER HALF

AND HE DIED BECAUSE SHE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY IT ALL

CARRY THE LEGACY WHEN HE COULDN’T!!!

IT’S JUST SOSSOOSOOSOSOOSSO

i want a funko pop of ben in his comfy jumper running to fuck sheev palps the fuck up

i don’t even LIKE funko pops

naboo has a lot to answer for. literally all of these problems come from naboo

sure this movie was a big ole mess and i surely can’t wait for the good old disk horse

but i’m riding this high for as long as i can

because it was always about LOVE! LOVE CAN IGNITE THE STARS

so sure, this movie pandered terribly. but i am one of the people it pandered to and i am HAPPY INDEED

remember when maz kanata was like ‘your parents aren’t coming back but there is someone who still could’ YEAH IT WAS BEN!!!!!

#star wars #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker spoilers #SPOILERS

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elmidol · 4 years ago

Text

Harmony Precarious :: Death is an Art

Three Blind Tooke Part Two Precarious Harmony

Read on AO3

Warnings: some death

Three Blind Tooke

Part Two: Precarious Harmony

Chapter Forty-Two: Harmony Precarious :: Death is an Art

No matter what anyone else said, you viewed life, and death, through a scope. That was not to say it was your ideal method of connecting with others. War demanded that people adapted, however, and so you had. How many possible outcomes were there if Rey were to return to the Resistance? There were three ways you could tick off the top of your head that resulted in her demise. Two possibilities that you hoped for. Many more that passed through your head even as you whispered to her once you were absolutely certain that no one else would hear your words. It was through a scope you had witnessed Kylo Ren on the battlefield, and it had been through a scope, while on a mission, that you had seen it—he had her becoming just like the monster he had been. You did not explain it to her quite so bluntly. Instead, you kept the focus on her ensuring Finn and the others were safe. You stressed that Master Skywalker would be able to provide training that Kylo Ren would not. The jaded Jedi Master would aid Rey on her journey in learning of both herself and the Force.

Rey barely listened to you. Her eyes glazed over, her mouth pinching tight, and she stared sightlessly at the far wall of the room. She was struggling with the darkness. You saw it; it was the same power that tempted you. The power that granted strength, which you required in order to save those you loved. That was the ironic thing. Sometimes, to save what we love, we destroy ourselves. To bluntly tell her that she wouldn’t be able to save you would have put an end to the conversation.

You knew who you were more than she knew who she was. Strange. Ironic. You had been destroyed in a variety of ways, however you had had the privilege of being raised by two strong parents that had assisted you in your very first journey of self-discovery. She hadn’t. Rey had waited in limbo for all those years. Waited for her family to return when they would not. She had survived. It was not the same as living. You? You had lived. Now you were focused on surviving, on aiding others in surviving. But you had had your chance. Rey hadn’t.

That was who you were, a part of who you were. You were someone who wanted those you cared for to succeed, and you cared deeply for this young woman who had for so long now been your hope. You wanted to pay Rey back for the burden you had placed on her. To put someone on a pedestal was a sure means of pushing them over the edge, of watching them crack. People were not objects. They were flawed. All of her insecurities, cracks for her mind. To fail you was to increase the crack that symbolized her self-doubt.

You also learned that you were a liar. With the best of intentions, you touched her leg and whispered, “This is the only way you can protect my mother. Hux will find her here.” It was a lie because your mother going to the Resistance would increase her risk of being discovered by Grand Marshal Hux. You waited there with bated breath, wondering if the young woman would realize this as well.

“Master Skywalker will be able to protect her. I can try to ask him—”

“And if Kylo somehow hears you through the bond?” you asked, a tad bit harsh though also growing gentle near the end. You sucked your lips into your mouth, bit down on them, and shook your head. “You would lead the entire First Order to them. And if my mother’s there when they arrive, she will die.”

The close proximity of the fallen Supreme Leader Snoke’s ashes to your heart may have darkened your soul. It was far too easy to say a lie when you believed it was for a righteous cause. A part of you knew the wrongness of it. It made your stomach ache. You felt nauseated for an entirely new reason that had nothing to do with the medication that had been helping your body mend.

There were reasons that she hesitated that had nothing to do with the dark power offered to her if she remained active in Kylo Ren’s plans. Those two members of the Knights of Ren that had continued to grow close to her. To propose to them that they defect offered an opportunity that the plan would amount to nothing. For her to not offer had the reverse possibility; if they would have gone with her and she failed to ask, she was damning them to forever remain her enemy.

“Rey,” you said quietly, pulling one last trick from your bag. “After I kill Phasma… Grand Marshal Hux will know. He will look for any way to retaliate at that point if I do not join him by betrayed Kylo. Please help my mother.”

Cruel. Manipulative. You swallowed thickly, and hoped that she did not see how your body was reacting. Rey rose from the end of the bed, informed you that she would think things over, and walked out of the room. You did not mind that there was a delay in the answer. You hoped that it meant she would figure out a way to safely remove your mother from Naboo, that perhaps she would know how to address the Knights and have them join her.

Staring at her retreating form, you wondered how the former scavenger would fare if Grand Marshal Hux had given her the ultimatum. Kill Kylo Ren or lose everyone she loved. Because, just like it had been with you, there was no winning. You would both lose in the end. The people you loved were either in the Resistance or simply rejected the First Order and its ideology. The former general knew this. He would attack where it hurt. Always. As each person changed, they developed a new weakness. Grand Marshal Hux would find and exploit that weakness. Rey had shown that she was compassionate by remaining behind with you.

You did not for one second doubt that Hux would not use that to his advantage. He was the destroyer of worlds. He, along with Kylo, had forced your ally to break in an interrogation by hurting you in front of them. Rey had the Force while the Grand Marshal did not. That would not stop him. According to the stories from other Resistance members and your parents alike, the Jedi had not been hunted only by Force users—not only Darth Vader. The Force got one only so far. The mass arsenal at his disposal and the merciless nature that would allow him to kill innocents, that was how Armitage Hux would break Rey’s spirit. Unless she returned to Master Luke before the redhead could verbally deliver that ultimatum. That lie that was worse than yours. That he would spare someone if she worked for him. She would be torn in two by that decision.

How am I different by using my mother to make her leave?

You wrapped your arms around yourself, and looked at the clock. It would not be long until dawn, at which point the ship for you would arrive. Aside from having the young Supreme Leader act as bait, there were other factors in your plan that would lure Captain Phasma to where you wanted her. Armitage Hux, whether intentional or not, had dropped far too many hints for you to not have realized that he was responsible for the death of Brendol; more than that, that Phasma had played a part. She would not allow this information to sway the minds of those loyal to her. Thus you had had Kylo Ren plant the seed by mentioning the elder Hux in passing, and he would have followed that up with the death of Han Solo. Patricide, both of which solidified one’s place in the war. Armitage as Grand Marshal. Phasma as Captain. Kylo Ren as Supreme Leader. The chrome-armored female would collaborate with the redhead. To what extent, you were not certain. The only thing you knew was that she would see to matters with Kylo personally. She could not trust another to attempt his murder. Could not chance him walking away alive.

There was no more time for you to attempt to convince Rey to leave and rejoin the Resistance. You had offered the suggestion. The rest was up to her.

A smaller scope provided you with view of your husband. A slightly larger was necessary to track Captain Phasma’s movements. She had surprised you by arriving with what could amount to a tiny army—army may not have been the correct term given its size, however it would do. These ‘troopers had to know what Phasma’s end goal was. In certain respects, you had expected as much; that there existed officers and stormtroopers alike not content to serve under Kylo’s rule. Snoke had not exactly passed the torch willingly. If the female was spinning a tale that Kylo Ren had betrayed the First Order by killing Snoke—which, yes, he technically may have, to an extent—there were those loyal enough to her that they would risk their lives now to try to right that wrong.

This very much complicated your mission. It was a reason you had only rarely gone on solo missions when with the Resistance. You were assigned a target, and your comrades had worked to remove other obstacles. Somehow you would need to eliminate Phasma as well as these troopers before they could do whatever it was they planned to with Ren. Kill him obviously, your mind shot back. The unknown method was the issue. Numbers alone would not ensure a victory.

Maker, for all you knew, they could be sporting thermal detonators. Given that Phasma would have no death wish, you doubted it. She would sacrifice all of those stormtroopers in the blink of an eye, however she valued her own life. Maybe that was the plan instead. Use the stormtroopers as fodder—if they had smaller explosives on their person, the chrome-armored woman would be able to shoot them, detonating an explosion, and rid herself of Kylo and witnesses alike. Or else she would kill the stormtroopers later. It occured to you suddenly that she may not have revealed every ounce of information she was holding to those in white. There was no need to do that.

It made you absolutely sick to your stomach. The First Order treated people like fodder. The casualties of war had always refused to sit well with you. That was one of the reasons you preferred the scope. The limited view.

You estimated the length of time it would take them to reach the designated area where Kylo was waiting. Captain Phasma would have to make something of a production for the stormtroopers to work with her, even if she planned on killing them. You could not risk a transmission to the Supreme Leader being intercepted, and so you had to wing it while hoping that he could sense the presence of the stormtroopers. This was more akin to when you had been hunting Kylo Ren than when you had been given officers as marks. You could not chance a shot not hitting its target.

Once more switching to the other scope, you observed the man you had married making adjustments to a device in his hand. If memory served, this was a recording device that he would use to prove Phasma’s duplicitous nature. Depending on what was caught, the footage would have to be edited. These stormtroopers might make it difficult. Unless Ren could sway them.

If Hux had come with Captain Phasma, would I be hesitating at all? Or would I hope for a thermal detonator? Shoot it myself? All three members of the triumvirate gone in one attack.

If Kylo Ren had complicated you, Rey had added a new layer of complexity. She had ingrained in you a sense of hope that people could be changed. Even with all of your feelings for Kylo Ren, for the Ben Solo he had been and could have been, you had been prepared to kill him. The moment Rey had entered into the equation, it stopped being so simple.

You wished that you could return on a temporary basis to the Resistance to ask General Organa for advice. Perhaps Luke Skywalker as well. They had faced the Emperor and Darth Vader in the Empire, and now faced the entire First Order. Imperialists had turned. Some in the Resistance had told you the story of Han Solo, how at one point, prior to becoming a smuggler, he had been on the track to becoming an officer. People changed every day. Some atoned for their sins, or at least tried to.

Kylo Ren would never be able to undo the deeds he had done. He could not take back off the murders, the ordered executions, any of it. Rey’s influence on you had you imagining a Kylo who did good instead. Someone who helped others with what life he had left.

Behind the scope in your hands, you were crying.

You thought of the families of the officers that you had killed. Colonel Riggards. Widowed with two children. Orphans now, tooke. Those children would grow to despise the Resistance with a bias that you could understand. You had robbed them of their father. The deeds they went on to commit, if they chose to join the First Order and kill members of the Resistance, you were their reason. It did not make you fully regret your mission; you knew the reason Colonel Riggards had been made a target. His needs had helped to create you. That was the endless, vicious cycle. An eye for an eye until the whole galaxy was blind.

And there Rey was, a young woman with the ability to have mercy and compassion for her enemy.

But in the end, we all just become monsters.

You shoved aside the scope to eliminate the view of the man who was the catalyst for your transformation. Lifted the other to once more assess the speed of Phasma and her stormtroopers. That was the moment you noticed an inconsistency. The contact that you had had with Captain Phasma was limited. Yet the figure you observed in the armor there moved differently than the woman you had seen in the throne room of the Supremacy. You ran a calculation through your head to include the distance and how tall you knew Phasma to be. This person was not her.

Panic seized you. A cold sweat broke out across your entire body, and you could hear the chattering of your teeth. This was far too similar to that fateful day that you had become Kylo Ren’s prisoner. The hunted becoming the hunter. How had you not seen it sooner? You had been far too wrapped up in your own thoughts.

You whipped the scope, your view, back in the direction of the shuttle that they had arrived in. Nothing. Back and forth across the plane in futile attempts to locate the missing woman. Not that you had any idea as to her appearance. If you spotted a random female, you could not say with certainty that it was her. Would you hesitate to pull the trigger?

Relinquishing hold of your scope, you patted the ground beside you in search of the comm device. That was the moment you felt searing pain. All air knocked out of your lungs, your body convulsing. You rolled onto your back.

There. How had you not heard her? She was in her element; a miscalculation on your part. She could have slaughtered you if that had been her intention. Which meant that you were in for far worse. Another flashback to Kylo Ren taking you alive. Death would be an escape. You began to slip your tongue forward between your teeth.

Her lips curved upwards. The short, blonde hair slicked back with gel in a similar manner to how the Grand Marshal wore his. There was the possibility that it was his hair product that she used. Both so merciless. She wore First Order regulation slacks coupled with a tank top. So calm. The weapon with which she had pierced you remained in her hand. A thin, needle-like spear. The wound was not deep enough to kill you; she had avoided anything major. You were a pawn to her.

“You do your homework well,” she said, complimenting you in a way that also mocked everything you had worked for. It was apparent to both of you that you had not done your homework well enough. The hand not on the spear dropped down to a sack secured to her hip. She patted it. “So do we all.” It was large, and something within it moved. “Myrkr.” The smirk widened into a feral grin as realization dawned upon you.

He had always called you a weapon, a tool. Armitage Hux sprinkling what information was convenient for his plans. You had misstepped in the past. Always doomed to repeat your failures, you had stored away knowledge of the ysalamir and refused to mention it to Kylo. How many did they have? So do we all. Every one of those stormtroopers and the fake-Phasma were equipped with the creature. Multiple, when grouped together, could expand their Force-neutral bubble sometimes by kilometers. Ren did not stand a chance.

“Do they think they’re hunting Rey?” you shot through clenched teeth. Your hand felt along your back, at the wetness gathering in the material of your shirt. If you made an attempt to grab your weapon, Phasma would have you pinned by the shoulder. What you wanted to say was that she was not going to get away with this, but she very well could. The Resistance would not be intimidated—it was so ingrained in you to say that. You held your tongue, and waited for her to answer.

Her smirk faded away. Now the passive exterior revealed just how commonplace betrayal and death both were to her. She lowered herself onto one knee in unison with setting the tip of her spear against your shoulder in the exact spot you had believed she might. It bit through the material of your shirt and nicked the first layer of skin. Phasma’s free hand grabbed hold of your weapon. All the while, she did not break eye contact with you.

“You can save those stormtroopers. Kill him yourself. Think of the lives you will save.”

A challenge. It did not matter one way or the other to her. She simply wanted to see if you were able to set aside your humanity to kill your husband—all to save your enemies. They should have both been considered your enemy.

“It was your mission, wasn’t it?” A taunt, yet also genuine. Her eyes swept up and down your countenance. “Everything he did to you.”

So many things. Countless wrongs. Every fracture into who you had been morphing you into this person. All of that bringing you to this exact moment.

That she wanted you to pull the trigger, you understood this. The Knights of Ren would retaliate if they could say with certainty that she had been the one to kill him. The seed of doubt. The same game that you had played on her. She could blame Rey. Anyone who was not her. If Rey did choose to listen to you, if the female Force user left now to go to the Resistance, it did not matter what you did. The Knights of Ren would believe that you had killed their Supreme Leader.

Grand Marshal Hux had played you, had played Kylo Ren, had possibly played Rey. The three of you blindly trying to do what you each believed was right. All the while he kept Captain Phasma in the loop. When you had failed to express more interest in the ysalamir plot, he had chosen to go a different route.

They needed you alive for their plan to work; currently they were not in possession of a planet destroyer that could take care of the Knights of Ren on Naboo. Although, that was also the issue. Not all of the Knights were there.

You pulled in the muscles of your abdomen, which became more concave. “Very well.” The hard metal of the spear shaft whipped to the side, knocking against your head. You saw pops of red and black. Another smack.

It was through a scope that you would have watched the look on Kylo Ren’s face when the stormtroopers turned on him. Unless it had been Captain Phasma to cut through her own men and women after the fact with that red blade. Their bodies littered on the ground. The chrome armor damaged, albeit not beyond recognition. The Knights of Ren would believe her dead. Any argument or contradiction that spilled from your lips would be meaningless. The same plasma blade that had dealt death blows to the armored corpses had been used to cauterize the wound on your back.

The pouches containing the ysalamir were missing. That would have been damning evidence. A weak chuckle from the body beside yours, and you turned away from the dead. “Personal interests… You were the death of me, tooke.” There were pauses between several of the words. And you could not figure out what he was feeling. Even a warrior as mighty as Kylo Ren was no match for a shot he could not detect. You recognized the size and shape of the wound as belonging to the weapon that you had brought with you to kill Captain Phasma. She had dragged you here while you were unconscious. Your hands so red from all the blood.

There had been no need for her to kill you. Your head throbbed where you knew an egg had formed. You forced yourself to fight through the nausea, and touched the man’s chest. Despite the presence of the ysalamir, you could tell that he had been able to use the Force enough to lessen the blow; just like what he had done with the bowcaster shot. Only this time it had not been strong enough.

You rested your forehead over his heart, turned your head, and listened to his heartbeat. For so long it had been just the two of you. You knew what you should have been hearing. It wasn’t this. This? It was too weak.

You should have been happy. He had been your target for so long. What. Then. Tooka? You felt numb. Alternately, you experienced a sense of loss, of sadness. You were who you were because of him. Even before your imprisonment, his existence had assisted in shaping you. That was fading away. Which was hard to believe—he was too strong to die of this, wasn’t he? Had it always been this easy?

It had not been easy. You had lost yourself along the way.

Shifting onto your knees, you tugged him backwards, his head resting on your lower stomach so that your hands could lay splayed over his chest, one atop the other to where you could see the pair of tattoos. Is this what he had felt when you had died? Your lips were moving in a silent plea. Please. Over and over again. Although you were not certain what you were asking for. For him to die? For him to live? For someone to explain to you how you had gotten it all wrong?

The two who had conspired to put Kylo Ren into this position, they would be leading the First Order. Merciless. Willing to sacrifice so many people, so many worlds for their cause. They would destroy a planet to kill Luke Skywalker. They would use the ysalamir to void his powers, just as they had done with Kylo Ren. They would hunt down Rey the exact same way.

“Please,” you said, managing to vocalize the word. “Don’t leave me alone.”

Kylo weakly lifted one hand away from the wound in his stomach. A gut shot. A slow death. Maybe he would have found a means of finding a way off of this planet if Phasma had not taken the comm devices. If she hadn’t cut through his face, blinding him. That was the strange thing. He could not see you, though he had seen you. He felt you in the Force, with the Force. He was the only person who truly knew who you were. All of those times inside of your head; the one person in all of the galaxy who had truly known the person you had become. He had known the girl you used to be, and the woman you now were.

You did not want to die. You did not want to be alone either. The hand he had raised touched the backs of yours. “Blinded by sentiment.”

“Shut up,” you whispered. He was smirking, amused at the irony. You attributed that to the bloodloss. He should have been angry. His breaths were more shallow.

“You won, tooke.”

“Shut up.” This was a victory and a loss. This was the shattering of that precarious harmony you had started to rebuild your life around. Where did he end, and where did you begin? Your vision swam. Gloved fingers touched the two digits that held the tattoos. It had never mattered if he lived or died; he would always be a part of you. You wanted him to live. Then, thinking of everything he had done, you thought it might not be bad if he died.

He might not die, you thought, feeling his breathing become softer again, understanding that he had lost consciousness even as you heard the ship. Two ships. To ensure that her plan worked, Captain Phasma would have had to contact Grand Marshal Hux, who would contact the Knights. They would arrive before you could leave. If he holds on…

If he held on, the war would not be over. If he died, the war would not be over. You had wanted to make a difference in this galaxy. That was why you had joined the Resistance.

What. Then. What happens after Ren is dead?

You had never allowed yourself to form an answer. There had been countless ways that Kylo Ren could die. All of those scenarios… Did you return home? Did you find yourself?

Undoubtedly, Kylo Ren had been a monster in many respects. That only meant that Grand Marshal Hux and Captain Phasma were soulless beasts by comparison. You hunted monsters.

Leaning forward, you stared through blurry eyes at the hand atop yours. A droplet of water hit the leather. Tears. Only five. The numbness returned in a fresh wave. He remained breathing. The ship had touched the ground, shouts meeting your ears. You could not decipher what was being said. They spoke Basic, yet you understood absolutely nothing. Could hear them drawing their weapons. That did not register immediately though. Your heart hiccuped in your chest then pounded with such ferocity. His, on the other hand, had stopped.

You were grabbed away from his body by just one of the Knights. The bruising grip threatened to jerk you back to the present. Instead you stood there, the numbness stronger.

Something about Rey… She was not there, which meant she had heeded your advice. Should have known...her mother...gone… They thought you had killed Kylo Ren—hadn’t you, though?

Was there a part of you that had willingly overlooked all of those variables? They seemed so obvious now. Had there been a part of you that hated Kylo Ren that much, that wanted him dead so badly?

There was a weapon at your throat. A different Knight shoved its owner away, locked you in cuffs, and roughly steered you towards the second ship. You understood the necessity in these actions. There were medics present, grabbing hold of Kylo Ren’s body and bringing him to the other vessel. The Knights followed, no doubt to berate the medics for any misstep. Blood still poured from the wound.

He’s already dead. It’s too late.

You knew this by the utter emptiness you felt. The Force was in all living beings. It connected everything. You ached at the loss of that connection.

The ramp to the ship you were on started to raise as the Knight hit a button then pressed you into a seat. He strapped you in restraints. They would torture you, interrogate you to learn how you had fulfilled the task of killing Kylo Ren. Would press to know if Rey had been involved—her absence from Naboo meant that she could have been there on this planet with you when things had happened. She had already assisted in killing Snoke, why not the next Supreme Leader?

“Why did you do it?” the Knight asked. You did not turn to him, although you recognized his voice. He had bonded with Rey the most out of them all. “She told me to bring you to her after the mission ended...to be with your mother.” He had been willing to betray the Knights of Ren, but not kill them. “He kept your mother alive. Why didn’t you spare him?”

It was such a human thing to ask. It was what you knew Rey would ask you as hurt flashed across her face.

You should have seen Phasma through your scope. Instead you had seen a ruse without realizing it.

You won, tooke.

You remembered what it felt like when your father had relinquished his hold on your hand, had returned you to the world of the living. This was sort of like that. The feel of Kylo’s heart stopping as you held him in your arms.

“The Resistance will just love you, won’t they?” The bitterness in his voice was also so human. The sense of betrayal. Rey had left the Resistance temporarily, but that did not mean she would allow them to be killed. You could see just how this man was able to grow attached to her, enough that he would walk away from the First Order. He had, like Rey, hoped that Kylo Ren could change.

You did not understand why, if he hated you so much, he wouldn’t simply return you to the First Order like his fellow Knights were assuming he would. You did not understand why the Knights were taking the body to the First Order; it did not matter how much the medics worked on him. His heart had stopped beating. Grand Marshal Hux desired that it never restart.

The ring fingers on either of your hands twitched.

You did not want to die.

It felt like, along with him, you had.

#kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #three blind tooke #kylo ren smut #kylo ren imagine #elmidolfanfic #precarious harmony #end of part two

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worstfruit · 5 years ago

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GOBLINS

Ok-- this setting focuses on a small continet, a bit smaller in width than australia, but longer (think the stretched greenland we see on globes). To the north, past a mountain range that crosses the land, lay and endless expanse of pete bogs and moors and thick, thonry shrub forests: here live the greenskins and barbaric humans of lore: free creatures and beasts and even men, who pay no mind to the settled empire that exists just south. Focusing on one of these races, I will be talking about my favourite! The goblins (sometimes called the ‘Moors Goblin’ bc i published this on dnd beyond so i could use it as a homebrew race). I’ve borrowed a lot from Warhammer and 40k but as I work on world building I hope to separate these fuckers from both dnd and warhammer.

What differentiates your Moors Goblin from their more classic fantasy cousins is primarily their culture and disdain for sunlight (ok since writing more...unsure if i want them to be light sensitive!! will have to stew on this). Even Moors Goblins who live outside of cave networks don't see too much direct sunlight due to the cloudy and rainy climate of the northern highlands, and so they're prone to sunburn and blindness during prolonged exposure. Likewise, dryer climates greatly weaken their immune system, and so they rarely travel far enough south to mingle much with other races. The Moors Goblin is unique in that their genetic makeup is closely linked to that of fungus, making them incredibly hard to kill despite some of their more glaring weaknesses. They bleed viscous, green blood, thick with spores that, when the time is right, allow for the birth and growth of new goblins. While they do possess many organs similar to most mammals, like cold blooded reptiles, Moor Goblins can survive seemingly impossible amounts of tissue loss and internal damage, as their green bodies generate oxygen through photosynthesis and their central nervous system operates as a networked inlaid along their vascular lines. For this reason, many tribes take to the belief that it is actually impossible to kill them without the aid of fire or acid, and will chant some iteration of 'no burial mound can hold me' as a warsong. Even if a goblin is crushed beyond recognition, a new goblin may soon crawl from the dirt below the sight of his death due to the spores released upon his body's destruction.

Your typical cave Goblin may not know how to swim very well or see all too well in the sunlight, though some tribes do make a living off fishing the river ways in which they reside or travelling large, flat plain lands during daylight hours. Your average Goblin lives a simple lifestyle with a group of their own, and while some clans may be open to trading and friendly relations with other native races such as orcs or humans, Goblins are known for being isolationists and rather...tricky. They've had many altercations with more southerly dwarves and wood elves(? -- unsure if ill use elves in this manner as ive yet to expand on them). If asking any Dwarf about them, you'll likely hear that they are all cutthroats and petty thieves (largely in part due to land disputes within the mountains), whereas an Empire Elf would likely have little to no experience with them whatsoever.

In general, the world does not know too much about Moors Goblins and the inner workings of their society, as the race enjoys keeping to itself, and for the most part, other, more dominant races tend to likewise keep away from goblin controlled regions.

Older Goblins hold no higher rank in society, though they are allowed more relaxed roles due to their age and resulting feebleness. What does elevate their standing is their outward apperance: namely height and scars. A goblin tends to form welts, pockmarks, bumps, or discolorations after being wounded. Goblins who don’t see much warfare or even friendly sparring tend to be smooth, and as a result, assumed inexperienced, whereas more seasoned goblins tend to be more disfigured or even missing limbs (this implies that they have reached the age and status to breed, though sometimes old goblins may be smooth skinned, and young goblins with a rough early start may appear older than they are). Though more muscular goblins may bully their way through the nest, this doesn’t affect their social rank, though muscle build tends to correlate with height, and height a prized trait within Goblin society. The tallest Goblin is the defacto leader, but this tends to lead more diminutive individuals to ‘augment’ their height through unnatural means (stilts, hats, and even magic). The chieftain of a tribe often wears some sort of elaborate mask made of animal bone that helps to augment his height, and also represent the clan's culture through color, symbol, etc. If a tall goblin is entirely smooth, he must rely on his wits and magic knowhow to gain a reputation worthy of leading. If a very muscular but short and scarred goblin arises, he may fight for the title-- though this is rare. It seems instinctual for these creatures to flock to the tallest.

The Moors Goblin generally has very large ears, useful for detecting sonic frequencies within the earth.

They tend to have more angular facial features, larger noses and chins, hollow cheeks, and large, eyes with yellow sclera and slit pupils. Irises vary in color, from those ranging normal to humans, as well as rarer shades of red, purple, black, or even white. Goblin eyesight is exceptional in the dark, making them adept at living underground and scavenging for food at night, but making them poor day time hunters. Their sense of smell is keen like that of a dog, helping tunnelers to seek out anything from fungal food sources to rare minerals and dangerous sulfur deposits. Claws are large and thick on both hands and feet, and the front teeth are sharp, with pronounced incisors and canines and a set of flat, crushing molars at the back of the jaw.

Cutting open a goblin will reveal a startling lack of any apparent major organs! They possess spider-like booklungs, a network of bladder like muscles that have thousands of little capillary rivulets expending from within and connect the tissue to itselve. Cutting into muscle reveals a sort of crystalline pattern, made of a meat like, gooey substance similar to the consistency of what inside an aloe leaf. These fluids range from a watery, yellowish-green, to more viscous forest greens and even dark browns. Although any surgeons in this world would not be able to discern this easily, the goblin does posses a CNS, it is simply spread through the entire body. Likewise, there is no apparent heart organ, but it seems that electrical impulses force a reflective twitch from this network of innards that compels the goblin body forward. The closest thing to a brain can be found along what resembles a spinal column, where more obvious veins stem from to attach to the eyes, booklungs, and multiple small stomach like sacks. Their skeletal system is composed of a highly resilient and flexible cartilage made of keratin, similar to beetle shells. The goblin’s capacity to heal is astounding and quicker than that of your average mammal, though their springy ‘bones’ and soft flesh do make for easy wounding. Some older, stronger goblins develop a thick callous and scar tissue that makes for excellent, natural armor, and is sought after as a source of leather by some dwarvish tribes.

Eating goblin meat is ill advised, however. It appears to be toxic to pink skins, and no known predator relies on these creatures as a food source.

For this reason, as well as their reproductive nature, goblins are seen as a plague amongst some northerly dwelling empire races. Cut one down, multiple eventually appear. Many have learned to burn goblin bodies rather than cutting up their remains; the more green blood spilled, the more likely they are to return from the earth! Infant goblins can be surprisingly strong and viscous towards perceived threats, and in a great number, they can do a lot of damage.

To an outsider, it may appear that all Moors Goblins are male. In reality, there is only one sex, or rather, in goblin terms, there is no sex or /really/ gender. Moors Goblins have no native terms for 'he' or 'she', though in Common they are typically just referred to as male due to their physical features. Moors Goblins have no need for more telling indicators such as breasts, but do coexist with races that do recognize a binary sex and gender, so they are somewhat familiar with the concept and may navigate it according to their preferences, if they have any. Many are fine with just being labeled an it, a they, or a he/she, though some more involved with humans may chose a set of pronouns.

Moors Goblin society is collectivist at its core; this may be confusing to outsiders however as Goblins are extremely easily distracted by anything they might consider valuable–– be it shiny, aromatic, tasty, dangerous, or just large and heavy. While this kleptomaniacal behavior may seem individualistic on the surface, Goblins operate similar to a termite or ant mound, or even beehives in that they collect food and goods to add to a collective hoard. It’s an animalistic sort of instinctual partnership a Goblin has with their clan, wherein they gather and fight as a collective, for the collective good, in exchange for food and protection. It could be looked at as a primitive form of taxation, but don’t let their demeanor fool you. Many aspects of Goblin society differ so greatly from human culture that it would be easy to mistake the creatures as mere beasts.

Their written language only exists in pictographs and simplistic glyphs, though someone unlearned in their ways may not be able to decode their cave scrawlings. If something must be written for delivery, Goblins utilize clay tablets (much like ancient Sumerians) and rarely take part in record keeping or history. Only the immediate now, and the looming future, really concern the Goblin folk. Oral tradition is common though mostly for religious purposes, and the orator role seems to be taken by older Goblins who have survived wars and skirmishes to tell the tale. In spite of this, Goblins are highly intelligent; though they lack long attention spans and tend towards the hyperactive and impulsive (and greedy) nature, they are adept magic users as well as rogues, druids, rangers, barbarians, and fighters, even bards, and a few exceptional individuals often leave their home to pursue training with other races. Goblin clerics, wizards, monks, and paladins are almost nonexistent, though it is certainly possible for exceptional individuals to arise and take on these roles...just, unheard of. Medicine men are often looked at as Shamans and revered as mystics. If a Moors Goblin has the capacity to learn, or the natural ability to use magic, he will often become a Shaman; as such many 'Shaman' are either sorcerers or clerics, though goblins do not differentiate between the two much, aside from designating some shaman as healers and others as battlemages. Healer shaman are typically alchemists and herbalists.

Religion is not at the center of Goblin culture, though it does play a significant enough role that it merits mentioning. A Goblin may worship any number of deities from a polytheistic pantheon of old, elemental gods; they take their beliefs from oral traditions passed on from generation to generation. Mining and tunneling act as the fulcrum for many folk lore and urban legends, using cautionary tales of careless tunneling practices and unearthing unspeakable evils of the deep. Mentors will often tell these tales to their charges to keep them in line, mostly. As creatures composed of plantlike matter, Moors Goblins tend to feel a kinship with the earth, moss, lichen, and the sort. Shaman, like clerics, draw their powers from the elements and deities who represent them, and on occasion may use their abilities to aid in battles, though primarily reserve them for healing and supplementing their oral tradition.

Goblins will pair bond with one or multiple partners throughout their lifespan, though a coupling for the sake of childbearing is useless in their society. A single goblin may have multiple litters of children in a lifetime, depending on anything from the availability of food to a need for more goblins in a clan. The collective cares for newborns, with a little focus on the biological parent as authoritative figures, though many young goblins may bond with a particular elder and chose to spend more time around them. Many older goblins may mentor or teach younger ones in their trade if they take an interest, though rarely is a goblin forced into a role. It varies among tribes, but is generally a very organic process where any given goblin simply does whatever he is good at. This is how names are given: first names are mostly what matter and are derived from telling characteristics that arise as the goblin child ages. Surnames exist as well, however, and are assigned later once a trade is selected or perhaps a deed done that awards merit. This helps differentiate goblins with more common names, from seperate tribes, or from a proud lineage: fore example, let’s say two Dweezles exist in the same clan for whatever reason. One may become a hunter, the other may become a bard of some sort. The hunter may be named Dweezle Lantz whereas the bard may be called Dweezle the Yox, or in common, Dweezle the Merry. (I am using a very bastardized patois as a basis for a lot of goblin names simply bc i like the idea of Goblle being derived from Orc lowspeak, which I base off a very bastardized French! For no reason other than shits and giggles).

Goblins are often 'born' as twins or triplets, though the mortality rate is somewhat high due to disease and accidents. Goblins share a distant ancestry with that of fungus, and as such their reproduction involves a gestation stage wherein the parent blood lets beneath mushroom caps in a central breeding chamber within the cave networks he may inhabit. From here the spore-filled fluid takes to the dirt and develops into fetuses, which gather further nutrients from the rich soils and the other fungal and plant life found in the cave floor. It continues to grow until a full formed Goblin baby is ready to crawl free from the earth. Infants will possess exemplary motor skills once unearthed and instinctively know to crawl towards older goblins and the scent of food.

Your typical Moors Goblin dwelling is found around the base of a mountain, rolling hills, or within the nooks and crags of a cliff. The tunnels are narrow and warren like but lead to a number of different caverns, both natural and goblin-made, that are much more open. The central chamber has many interconnecting tunnels and can range from large to massive in size. The larger the tribe, the larger the atrium. Often, tribes will seek out pre-existing caverns to make as their atrium, which is similar to a plaza or the town centre of a human village. Here, cave paintings and banners decorate the walls, Shamans will set up shop to offer medical aid or entertainment and education in story telling, the chieftain will make his rounds or sit atop a central throne and hear reports from foot soldiers or settle disputes amongst tribe members, and children will run about and practice battle or play. Beneath the atrium lies the food storage, and below there lies the brood. If a cave network has lava, blacksmiths and cooks may conduct their business around these pockets of magma, but will otherwise carry on outside the tunnels. Individual goblins may seek out and dig their own rooms for sleep, though many will seek others to sleep in piles. Goblins live both within these tunnels and on the surface around the outside of the area. They guard the territory around the mine for miles, sending out patrols of hunters equipped with war horns and using wolves as watchdogs to alert them to intruders.

The Moors Goblin spoken language is quick and sharp on the tongue, spoken in fast fragments meant to quickly convey information. Moors Goblins of old were purported to operate as a literal hivemind, not needing verbal language to communicate with one another, though the modern Moors Goblin has lost this telekinetic ability. The influence of such can be seen in how they work in groups. Pheremone signals and bodily gestures (such as ear twitches or stance) carry nonverbal information throughout the entire brood; attacking one goblin in or near their mound can result in a full fledged, hive-wide retaliation. For this reason it is highly advised to isolate enemy Goblins, or to use crowd control measures when dealing with multiples.

Goblins will align themselves with orcs and humans in times of war, making them an intimidating force to be reckoned with. Even a single tribe can be difficult to battle, though, as they attack in droves and rely on their sheer numbers to viciously bring down any enemy. Shamans and bards will aid a fight using berserker elixirs and spells, AOE heals and buffs/debuffs, and providing chants that both invigorate their soldiers and deter the enemy. Bards typically play animal bladders fixed with a series of tubes, much like the real world bagpipes, war drums, or brass oboe-like instruments that sound off a deep resonance (similar to a didgeridoo). Hunters and rangers will lead a charge on wolves or other tamed beasts, while the chieftain leads the foot soldiers. Tribes at war have a high turnover rate for their leaders.

When teamed with orcs, it is common for goblins to serve as a replacement for pack animals, even during hunts, however it should be noted that goblin slavery is not a common practice among the northern orc tribes and seems to be a willing symbiotic relationship between both races.

The Goblin diet consists of local fauna and flora that is relatively easy to hunt or gather. Goblins don’t participate in much agriculture aside from a few species of mushroom and various moss or lichen, and do not partake in domestication or cattle rearing of any sort, though a variety of rats, bats, small reptiles, amphibians, and insects coexist alongside the Goblin people in a similar manner to humans and domestic dog and cats. Granted, these creatures are also often on the menu. Many rangers will capture wolves and ride them to hunt, as well, though this is less common for goblin groups that live deep within cave systems.

Due to the lack of sunlight, Goblins get their vitamin D through both photosynthesis of available, diffused light and a hearty diet of fatty meats and protein based foods, supplementing it with small rocks and precious gems, nuts, berries, roots, grasses, and leafy greens. Some minerals may actually imbue a Goblin spell caster with certain heightened abilities for a short while, ranging from increased sensory capabilities to hallucinogenic effects. Contrary to popular beliefs, Goblins do eat a number of root vegetables and fruits, gathered and bartered from surrounding forests and towns. Shamans enjoy brewing powerful elixirs and even moonshine that aid in battle or serve as poison to coat their weapons in.

Relationships with other races are mostly dependent on trade, though due to border conflicts, Goblins have an adversarial relationship towards Dwarves. The Goblin’s inclination towards stealing and eating gemstone and ore, as well as collapsed tunnels and collisions have put the two races at odds with each other.

Many tribes align themselves with Barbaric human clans or nomadic tribes of neighboring orcs, and will fight or even live alongside these different races in relative harmony.

i think that’s it for now!!!!

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bluerosesburnblue · 6 years ago

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Tagged by: @wilhelminafujita and @batgirl-87! Thanks, both of you!

Tagging: I was tagged by both of the people I would’ve tagged for HPHM, so I challenge anyone to do this, for any OC (or fan character in any fandom) they have if they want to! You might be surprised by how well it turns out. I sure was!

Original Template: (x)

I guess as a bit of a prelude I’m going to mention that I wanted to incorporate Jacob and Seren’s Siren heritage and their Animagus forms in equal measures, but I didn’t want them to just... have the same stuff in different colors, so I divided them up so that both get decent references to them.

Seren Aisling Dwyn

Hair: A darker brown than her dad’s, but lighter than her mom’s. Wavy when long, which translates to spikes that flare out and do whatever they want when short

Complexion: Pale as hell. “How are you not a vampire?” pale. No freckles, just Pale™

Wardrobe: I can only really describe her normal style as casual, comfortable, and shades of pop punk. Tends towards short-sleeved shirts with jackets on top. Has a mild thing for vests. If it’s simple to put on and comfortable, she’s wearing it. Doesn’t really try to coordinate nice outfits, but since all of her clothes tend towards “blues” and “neutrals,” they generally turn out fine. Her work clothes as an adult are more “goth and feathers” than anything

Element: Water. Besides the fact that she’s part-Siren, water is an element known for great change and adaptability. It can be a calm pool, unbreakable ice, or a storm and waves more dangerous than anything. I thought it fit her pretty well. Seren is usually pretty composed and accommodating, but is capable of becoming stubborn as ice or dangerously wild as a storm when pushed to it. There’s also water’s healing connotations, befitting someone who constantly goes out of her way to help others

Season: Winter. It’s a very quiet season. Understated, but like water it can be completely unforgiving if you find yourself on the wrong side of it. It’s a season of rest and sleep, which is the thing Seren probably looks forward to most about finding Jacob. And, most importantly, it always follows right behind Autumn, and finishes up the transitional work it started

Animal: Raven. It’s her Animagus form. A bird that’s far too clever for its own good. A scavenger that can take whatever it’s given and use it to survive. In some cultures it’s a trickster that doesn’t care for conventions. In most cultures it’s associated with death and ill-omens, befitting a girl who’s believed by many to be cursed, with danger following her every step. In Celtic mythology, ravens are a symbol of warfare and fate in battle, and Seren is very dangerous in combat. Ravens also tend to travel in pairs, so no one would bat an eye when she travels with Jacob (assuming they find each other)

Accessory: It’d be a mistake to not include Seren’s iconic scallop shell locket, inside of which is an enchanted photo of herself and Jacob from their childhood. She always wears it to keep him close to her heart. The scallop shell is because they grew up right next to the sea (and from a meta perspective, it’s a hint to their Siren heritage)

Texture: Feathers. She’s a bird. And also really likes birds (especially Augureys). They’re also soft to the touch, but much stronger than they appear. While most feathers can repel water, if the oil on them runs out they can get clogged up with it. Seren tries to just let problems go, but they always end up wearing her down and sticking to her

Home: I didn’t go with a specific home or anything, more just her kind of decorating style. She really likes having plants around and the fresher air they bring. She has a lot of things that she won’t get rid of, but it’s all organized and arranged with purpose. A big fan of having light-up objects in her room. Her sheets are chosen due to their Softness Quotient™ and I promise you that there’s a ridiculously thick pillow top on that mattress. Her interior decorating sense is where her Hufflepuff nature really shines through

Jacob Caradoc Dwyn

Hair: Got his mom’s dark brown, almost black, hair color, but the patented Dwyn unruly curls. He tends to keep it shorter in the back, but not short enough to be an undercut, and longer in the front

Complexion: Pale™. “Hello, Jacob, have you heard of this wonderful new invention? It’s called the sun”

Wardrobe: I was very tempted to go with his mid-Vault Hunting “couldn’t even be bothered to put his pants on the correct way” attire, but decided to just go with his general fashion sense. Like Seren, his casual wear mostly consists of things he finds comfortable, though he does put more effort into looking cool than she does. Hence, a leather jacket. Probably elaborate leather boots that take an eternity to put on. Would totally wear tighter shirts to show off his physique. The “goth and feathers” work clothes were 80% his idea

Element: Wind. A reference to his Animagus form being a bird, but also very suited to his personality. It does what it wants, when it wants. It can be fickle, much like how Jacob’s mind is always wandering around from place to place. Generally unassuming, but it’s easy to get swept up in its whirlwind of chaos when it really gets going. In some cultures it’s used as a symbol of discovery and uncovering the truth, much like the great detective he wants to be would do. And, like Jacob, wind can be there one moment and gone without a sound the next

Season: Autumn. It’s a season of constant, deliberate steps taken in preparation for one, ultimate goal, much like Jacob’s single-minded pursuit of his ambitions. It could be said that Autumn sets a lot of things up that it will never finish, since all of its preparations only get their payoff in Winter. Though, you could argue that whatever it does, it does so that Winter can do what it needs to do properly. And I couldn’t pass over the death connotations of the season since Jacob is, well... Jacob

Animal: Raven. It’s his Animagus form, just like his sister. And for the same reasons, too. He’s far too clever for his own good, and ridiculously resourceful. He’s much more of a trickster than Seren, and every bit as much of a bad omen to others, but he isn’t nearly as creative in a fight as she is. Trouble has always followed him around, and death has come to at least one person he was close to

Accessory: His partner to Seren’s locket is a pocket watch with a frame inside that has the same picture in it as her locket does. The watch is to keep him on task in class, where he could easily get distracted by the actual research that he’d prefer to be pursuing (but from a meta perspective it’s a symbol of his impatience). It only works because he’s constantly opening it to look at the picture inside. He’ll keep it in his breast pocket if he has one, to keep Seren close to his heart. If he doesn’t have it in his breast pocket, it’s in his jacket pocket

Texture: Fish scales, in reference to the fact that he’s part-Siren. They’re also just as tough as the feathers I picked for Seren, but scales can be smooth or rough depending on which way you touch them, just like Jacob will return the kindness or aggression of others depending on how they treat him. Water runs right off of them. Jacob is far better at shrugging his problems off than Seren is

Home: Like Seren, I went with something that symbolizes his decorating style more than any specific home he’s lived in. He likes low lighting, and everything is a mess literally always. I can guarantee you that there’s no such thing as an empty space in Jacob’s room. He’ll find something to put in there. Generally it’s a photo, one of the books he’s reading for research at the time, or a souvenir that he picked up from travel. It is his goal to travel the world, after all. In the same vein, his walls tend to be covered in photographs that he took. He had a pin board, but all of the space on it got used up so fast that he moved to just putting pictures on the bare walls. Now it’s basically pointless, but he’ll never take it down

I know that typically people just use a font similar to their character’s handwriting, but I wanted Jacob’s signature to really show off the fact that his handwriting is a nigh-unreadable disaster, so I made both of their signatures myself. I signed their full names above just so that people could get a feel for their handwriting style, but personally I’d say that neither of them typically sign their full name unless it’s on legal documentation. Normally both of them sign things (First Initial) Dwyn. So their actual signatures tend to be more like this:

#harry potter series #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm jacob #jacob's sibling #jacob dwyn #seren dwyn #the dwyn family #not to toot my own horn here but i think both of these own #i was so picky with my images and it was so worth it #i intentionally chose those raven pictures so that they'd be sideyeing each other across this post and i'm so glad it worked #yo the guy i picked for jacob's hairstyle would be the perfect faceclaim for him if he was clean shaven not gonna lie

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monstrosibee · 6 years ago

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@blood-shepherd OKAY here it is, i went in to edit and i wrote an extra 600 words accidentally

"She's so...squishy." The organic shifted in his hands, her soft fabric outfit catching on one of his joints and causing every cable in Bumblebee's frame to pull tight as a drum. It unhooked easily as the purple skinned baby rolled against his chassis panel to curl into the heat pumping out of his fans. With a delicate touch, he adjusted the clothing out of its uncomfortable twist. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the purple though, because..."

"It's a good color!" Misfire finished for him, lounging on the couch with a glass of Bumblebee's most expensive spiced energon in his hand - perfect for colder mornings, but without the engex as he knew how to be a Responsible Babysitter. "Not as good as fuchsia or magenta, but still pretty good."

Bumblebee was not used to this many people in his little apartment in Iacon, and even when there were that many people, it was mini-bots; Aileron and Rattrap and a pair of Divisiunians named Weld and Rotor. Even the smallest one was at least as tall as Starscream, and there were six of them. Grimlock on his own took up the entire of the space in front of the TV, in alt mode and curled up to be more comfortable on the floor.

The yellow bot gently hefted the baby in his single hand, shifting in his position against the kitchen counter that faced out towards the media suite, and laid a palm on her stomach, feeling how warm and soft she was in comparison. "I mean, I guess. Not as good as yellow, but it's pretty nice. The Decepticon symbol's a bit heavy handed though, don't you think?"

Krok shrugged where he had his legs and stabilizers thrust over Spinister's lap on the floor between the couch and Grimlock. He had energon as well, but Bee thought he could see the heavy glass of an engex flask tucked beside his hip. "Wasn't our decision. Her father thought it was clever. I think it's a bit tacky to be honest, but hey, it's not my face."

Connie yawned wide, showing her toothless gums like a newborn kitten, and Bee seized up again, afraid of waking her. Misfire caught his expression and slid off the couch, bouncing gracefully over where Crankcase had fallen into recharge on the floor taking selfies for his boyfriend. "Bee-buddy, no reason to be so tense! It's just a baby, they don't bite." He popped his arms up under the baby and took her, cradling her like an expert nurse. "Your bud Roddy said you were a pro with the little organic protoforms. Thought that's why he turned us away at the door; figured you'd be psyched to see her."

Rodimus had probably turned them away from the Lost Light because the last time Misfire had boarded, he'd taken the newly reconstructed Rod Pod on a joyride and totaled it again. Bee didn't say that though, choosing instead to lean over Connie cradled in Misfire's arms, tucked in her little outfit that looked oddly like some kind of many legged Earth creature. "No, I love kids...it just would have been nice if he had called before five strange Decepticons and Grimlock showed up on my porch with an abnormally large purple baby. War's over, but I'm still half the size of the average Cybertronian and a little paranoid."

"Your personal frequency changed." Grimlock's voice was deep enough to nearly shake the floor where he lay. His mouth didn't move as he spoke, but Bee could see his optics now focused on the baby and him instead of the TV. "Whatever they did to bring you back, your whole body's new. Not the same frequency. Had a couple bots try to call, and all of them got an empty signal back."

Frowning, Bee accepted the baby back from Misfire, who was eyeing Crankcase's abandoned energon. "I'll have to give out my new frequency...I forgot that no one on the Lost Light has heard from me since I woke up."

The hand off must have been too rough, because just then Connie whined, then burst into tears. Crankcase woke as well, flailing his arms in his usual expressionless surprise and managing to knock Misfire off balance and to the floor. Grimlock watched Bee dodge out of the way with a slightly amused expression, rumbling softly as the yellow mini-bot jumped to the side and out of the way of flailing jet wings and angry 'Con limbs.

The baby wailed again in Bee's arms, and he nearly jumped out of his kibble. Her little face scrunched and wrinkled in displeasure, her fingers grabbing out in the air for something. Unsure of what else to do, he carefully slid the end of his index digit into her tight little grasp, but it only quieted her for a second. Misfire had been effectively distracted by Crankcase, and they tussled on the floor, the former trying to grab the latter by his guns. The other Scavengers looked on in mild interest, as though the two thrashing bots on his floor weren't knock stuff over and making Connie cry even more.

Wheeljack had been somewhat pressed for time when he put all of Bumblebee's parts together. The body had been grown from sentio metallico into his shape, like a forged bot, but because of the hurried nature of the construction and the...strange way the spark was lit, it had some interesting idiosyncrasies, almost like some of the early experimental MTOs he had known during the war.

Some of them made his life a little more difficult - his knee injury had apparently become spark printed, so even now he walked with a cane on his worst days - but some were just strange. His optics would flicker different colors if he drank certain kinds of energon, loud noises could make his cooling fans start regardless of temperature, and...

As his engine kicked in from the stress of having a crying child in his arms and the two mechs fighting on his floor, a high pitched droning buzz filled the air. It vibrated hard enough to shake his plating and rattle his denta, and he sighed and bit down so they wouldn't shake out of his head; Wheeljack had told him there was no way to fix it, since it was caused by the irregular pulses of his spark, but Primus if it didn't make him want to tear his engine out some days.

Connie, on the other hand, seemed quite pleased. Her crying slowly eased as Bee's chassis and arms vibrated against her until it went silent, and she stared up at him with eyes a red so bright they were like tiny pools of nucleon. He paused, looking down at her in surprise, then smiled with his denta still clenched and cooed, "You like that? Little squishy 'Con likes the buzzy Bee?"

Her giggle tinkled like Praxian crystal chimes, high and soft and sweet. Being so much bigger than her human base, her voice was different and lower, but it didn't have that echoing tinny quality to it that Bee had never noticed Cybertronians did until he traveled off world and spoke to organics. Amusement pulled her face into a different set of creases and wrinkles, crumpling her nose and squinting and squeezing tighter on his digit.

"Slagging Pits!" Misfire was suddenly hovering over Bee's shoulder, watching Connie grin toothlessly at the mini-bot's boxy face. Crankcase was still on the ground, wiping spilled energon off his legs. "Her pops said she'd been laughing, but I thought he was lying cause he wanted to make it look like she was some super baby! Damn, now I owe that slagger Scorponok fifty shanix. I'm never babysitting for him and that Cybertronian orange Julius ever again, they just take my money."

Bee laughed, still staring down in sudden spark shuddering adoration at the baby in his arms. "I thought you said you didn't know much about organics? For all you know, she should be up and walking already." Then the name the Scavenger had dropped processed, and pried his gaze off the baby to look up at Misfire. "Did you say Scorponok?'

He nodded nonchalantly, waving a digit at the baby. "Yeah, him n' his little Autobot conjunx cooked her up in a test tube." He paused, biting his lip. "Well, I guess he's not little, he's actually only a little shorter than me but EVERYONE looks short next to Scorponok of 'Built like a damn combiner"..."

Misfire chattered on as Bee felt his processes slowly detach from his physical brain module. His vision was unfocused as he looked back down at Connie, gummy mouth still clamped around his digit. In that moment, she felt smaller and even more delicate than before, and his engine buzz hitched with a touch of nerves.

"Well, no one will ever mess with you," he muttered into his arms, loosening his grip so she could lay more comfortably. "But damn if that isn’t a big legacy to live up to.”

#maccadam #transformers #tf bumblebee #tf connie

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arrogance-is-my-middlename · 7 years ago

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Walking the Old Paths (And Charting the New)

Ideas on the new subclasses, how each class reacts to it, what they mean, all that jazz.

“The Light, you shape it, you tool it, that’s what a Hunter does y’know? Everything is about efficiency and necessity when you’re out in the wilds, and nobody knows that better than a Hunter.”

There was a time before the Dancers. Before Arc was remade to become a blade so sharp it hurt to touch, it was crutch to lean on. They say the Arc Light is Life, you know? Every living thing has a spark or two of Arc in it, even the Planets. And yes, the Planet lives you idiot, don’t question it. You’re still wet around the ears, stop asking questions and just listen, ok? Look, back in the old days, when we were all Risen and the Iron Lords were the only thing keeping people from slitting each other’s throats, we weren’t assassins. Traveler knows we had enough killers roaming wide, and subtlety wasn’t an art anyone but the Nightstalkers had any idea of. Naw see, back in the day we used to pull up these great big staffs, cross the field in a second and show the Fallen and their gimpy little spears what close quarters really meant. We would get refugees to towns with just the Arc light alone, just our staffs and that tingly pretty blue Light keeping the darkness at bay. And when the City was starting to come together? Take a hot guess who it was who brought in all them people. Cus it sure as shit wasn’t the Titans, they couldn’t move fast enough to get to the poor sops who were so far out into the Dead Zones they hadn’t seen anything but hostiles in generations. Warlocks were too busy trying to build every Golden Age defensive precaution back into action so we weren’t all killed before the Walls were built. So it came down to the Hunters. The Nightstalkers, especially Takanome and her Rangers, they would scout miles ahead and mark the safe paths with these flowers and tether anything that looked at ‘em funny. Gunslingers would walk in, talk the talk, get as many willing people on board as possible. When it was time to dust off and leave, the Arcstriders would pick up their staffs and lead the way. I remember one guy, he took one swing with his Arcstaff and sent 10 Fallen flying. Kid he saved held onto his cloak the entire way home. Imagine that huh? A kid clinging to an Arc Hunter. Yeah, those were some days, Greenhorn. After that though, wasn’t much need for the wandering protectors. There weren’t any crazy mass exoduses like that for centuries until… well, you know. Bladedancers came about right around then. Gunslingers and Nightstalkers have always walked the same path, probably always will. But Arcstriders were protectors of the travelers too weak and too tired to protect themselves. No more travelers, no more Arcstriders. The Dancers came in, and Arc Hunters get the big ol’ scary assassin title slapped on ‘em. Slip into the shadows, reappear halfway across the room with a knife full of arc and boom everyone’s dead and Zavala is calling it a wrap. Those were the Dancers. They knew all the dirty tricks that came with wet work. They could Blink better than half the Warlocks in the Tower, hide as well as any Nightstalker, and their knives made Strikers think twice in the Crucible. Different style for a different time, you know? But now the Red Legion is here making a fuss and you know…. I haven’t seen a Dancer since Ghaul reared his ugly mug. All them Arcstriders came right back, like they never left. Changing times, kid. Just remember, whatever you pull out of the light when you finally do figure it out, you’re a Hunter. Whether you fill a crowd with Solar bullets or tie em down with Void, or hell, if you’re full of Arc and pull our staff, just remember: it isn’t the stupid glowing ball in the sky you’re fighting for. You’re protecting all those people behind the Wall, and that is why we’re here. Don’t let the wilds make you forget that, Greenhorn.

“Complacency is every strategist’s worst nightmare. You get lazy, you get stupid, and soon your impeccable strategy is crumbling to bits and the rug has been pulled out right underneath you.”

You understand why we have the Shield now, right? A lot of it has to do with the Firebreak Order. They had a single rule, the Firebreak Calculus. It asked, how much good would I do if I find the right place to fight and die? I’m sure you can see where this is going. It optimizes the efficiency of a Guardian, of a Titan, up until their dying breath. They were fearsome for it, moreso than any of the rest of us could ever hope to be. Even the Pilgrim Guard, with all their fire and fury for those outside the walls could not hold a candle to the Firebreak Order. It was why we failed so spectacularly when the Red Legion swept through our City, and it is why we carry a Shield now and forever. We thought ourselves safe in the City, on top of our walls with all our guns and a host of battle-tested Guardians who had held off so many invasions for centuries. If six of us could slay the Taken King in his own throne room, what could an army bring? Hubris. There is no other name for it. We fell to our own arrogance. Zavala himself sought to stand his ground and he faltered. Ask yourself this: why? Very few times have the Defenders ever let their dome of Light, the ever-present Ward of Dawn, fall. So how could it now? The very symbol and definition of a Guardian’s protection simply fell to pieces on that bloody day, and now we carry shields. The Defender Titans failed, we failed because we stood our ground instead of taking a step forward. We thought ourselves brave for standing upright against the Darkness, but we never once dared for a foothold beyond where we stood. Every single Titan Order failed and died that day because none of them did what the Firebreak Order truly dared to do: step forward and fight for what was ours. We had grown comfortable in our small corner of Earth. The Ward of Dawn, the Defender, never thought to step forward. The Sentinel does. We raise our shields and we step forward and we fight Guardian, we will fight till our dying ragged breath and then we will come back and fight some more. Sol is our home, and never again shall we make the mistake of simply watching our invaders step all over it. The only path to victory is to continue onward and refuse complacency at every turn. Learn this lesson well, Guardian. We all took the hard fall for failing to do so, and I pray you never see it repeat.

“We told ourselves the Light wasn’t a tool, it wasn’t a weapon, it was a force unlike any other. Pure, unadulterated energy in its rawest and most primal form. We sought to be a conduit.”

There is no Guardian prouder than we Warlocks, and not without reason. Within our number hold some of the strongest Guardians to ever brave the Second Death, and of all the orders, only Warlocks thought to use Light as light and not as a tool. Hunters make bows and pistols and blades, they craft Light. Fitting, for a Hunter scavenges what he can get from the Wilds and never wastes what he finds. Titans create a point, a focus for their Light. They form a fist, a Shield, a Hammer, all with their indomitable will. A Titan makes her light a weapon and stands stronger for it, for she is never unarmed and never unprepared. Hunters are the blades that carve Light into a shape of their choosing, and Titans are the spear-tip that makes Light a weapon to defend any and all. Fearsome and cunning warriors both make, but they fundamentally fail to know the Light like we Warlocks do. We do not force or shape the Light, we become one with the Light. We are the conduits through which the Light flows, and from our fingertips we wield power like no other. Stormcallers were forces of nature, the epicenter of a storm without end. Voidwalkers saw beyond the veil, they walked with death and shadows and called both friend. And once, Sunsingers, did what no other could: they defied the Second Death. Even without a Ghost, a true Sunsinger could use the Solar light to form themselves from nothing and burn like the phoenix of old. We thought ourselves mages and scholars without equal, we fancied ourselves as dragons, especially after we faced true dragons that whispered deals and whose bones gave us strength. Knowledge and understanding was our gain, our true purpose, and Osiris and Toland both would agree wholeheartedly. We drank of strength and Light till we forgot who we were, and when Ghaul came we crashed back to earth and broke ourselves on the ground we thought ourselves too mighty to touch. And would you like to know how we recovered, young Guardian? We changed. Our songs of the sun turned to screams of vengeance, and we lit our blood on fire just to rise again. No Sunsinger will ever rise again, not in this life or the next. The Dawnblade has replaced that particular fantasy, and with good reason. A conduit cannot tear burning vengeance into he who stripped us of our home and friends. We thank him, for reminding us of our humanity. Our gift back to Ghaul was a blade of sun-fire buried deep in his chest, and a vow to never lose ourselves in the stars again. Our folly was pride, our lesson was loss, and our strength is bound in a blade of Light we would have once scorned. We learned the lesson that Titans and Hunters had already so long ago figured out: that Light is ours to use and wield to protect that which we love. The how matters very little when all the chips are down, only that you succeed. Of course, it helps that Hunters are jealous we can fly and don’t have to pull our sword from the hands of a dead Captain, but you didn’t hear that from me.

#Destiny2 #Destiny the game #subclasses #destiny hunter #destiny titan #destiny warlock #my writing #fanfic

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bexterbex · 5 years ago

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A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 51

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

MASTERLIST

Chapter 51: Receiving Answers

You step out of your dressing room. You look to the right, you see the living area is a mess, furniture tipped over, glasses and bottles from the bar shattered everywhere, it looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster. You ushered both of your ladies-in-waiting out of your chambers. Olivia-Rose’s eyes were wide looking at the state of things, Adlez was unfazed.

You took a deep breath and turned back down the hall, to the bedroom. You paused in the open doorway watching Kylo pace back and forth. When he noticed you the pacing stopped.

You were the first to speak, “You will answer me this. Who is she?” Your voice was even but your tone was flat. You tried to make your face a stone mask, unmoving and unwavering. Your eyes burning into him.

His fists clenched and he resumed pacing. “I told you she is nothing,” his jaw clenched.

“Clearly that isn’t the truth, I will ask again. Who is she? Clearly she means something to you if it causes this reaction. And before you answer I want you to think about something. If you don’t answer I will not sleep next to you and you will not be able to touch me.” You were holding your ground, trying to channel some higher being to assist you in your efforts in this standoff against a demi-god.

“She is no one. She means nothing to me.” His voice was breaking, you couldn’t tell if it was from anger or something else. His eyes said he was guilty.

“If you continue to lie to me, I will leave. I will leave and I won’t come back.” Tears fell down your face but you held your ground. “When we first met you asked me to stay. You told me you were a broken man, that you were a monster. I am willing to fix you, but I can only do that if you let me. If you lie to me about her again. I will leave. I will not stay. I can not stay with a man, a monster, who continues to treat me like a songbird in a cage.” Your voice was breaking. “I will not stay. I can not stay with a man who does not care for me. I cannot love a man who… who continues to treat me like this. I will not stay.”

You said it, you said the four-letter word. The one that could cause your heart to shatter into a million pieces to never be put back together. The one word that could break the strongest of men, reducing them down to nothing. You loved him, but you feared that he did not love you back. That the same place that you had in your heart for him, was taken--taken by her.

You were shaking but you did not falter, tears freely streaming down your face as you waited for an answer, any answer. The suspense was killing you, and was causing fractures to spread across your delicate heart.

You watched him, he was frozen in place, his eyes were large cauldrons of dark water, with currents spinning so fast you had no idea what was in them. “She is a scavenger. From Jakku. She is strong in the Force. She is the only person to ever fully beat me in battle.”

“What is her name?” Part of you did not want to know, but all of you had to know. Your blood was churning from ice cold to boiling and back again, for each second you had to wait.

“Rey,” he said finally as if it was the first time her name had ever graced his lips. Those fractures were becoming full-on cracks now. Your heart swayed in the waves of your emotions, losing the battle of the storm. His voice saying her name was the wind that broke the sail, soon your ship would sink.

It took every bit of sanity you had left to ask, “Rey who?”

This time he answered quicker, “Rey, just Rey. Just a scavenger from Jakku. A no one.”

You bit your lip, your eyes clenched shut, resisting the urge to wrap your arms around yourself. Your voice small as you asked, “And what does she mean to you?” The ship was frozen in time, a large wave threatening to come crashing down. You needed the answer like you needed oxygen to breathe like you needed water to drink like you needed love to hope.

You felt a hand on your cheek, prompting your eyes to meet his, “She means nothing to me compared to you. She is nothing.”

Your face crumpled with disbelief and confusion. “Don’t lie to me. She means something to you.” You paused for a few seconds. “What does she mean to you?”

His other hand came to your face, he was now holding you. In another life, this would be comforting, but it was only slowing down the inevitable crippling wave that was about to sink your ship with his next answer. “She is but a formidable opponent for me in battle. A weakness that I do not know how to fix. She. Is. NOTHING. Compared. To. YOU.”

You pulled away from him, bracing yourself for the crash that will end your maiden voyage. “Why is it that you speak to her? Why do you hide her from me?” You dared your eyes to look at him, waiting for the answer.

“The Force connects us, I do not know why. She uses it to taunt me, to lash at me. A weapon in my own mind. I hide her from you as I hide you from her. It is the only way to protect you. She uses my mind like a weapon against me, imagine what she could do to you. I would never forgive myself if I were to let that happen. You are mine. I will not let her take that from me. She and her friends have taken so much from me already. I won’t let them, have you. I will die before that happens,” you could see his confession was true. His eyes told you so as did the trembling of his lip.

Your body swayed under the weight of his answer, you came crashing down into his chest. He was solid. Your broken and battered ship came into the safety of his port. Your hands bracing yourself on his broad strong chest. “You will not hide her from me anymore. I do not want secrets between us. I promised to fix you, to mend you, but I can only do that if you are truthful to me. I will only stay if you are truthful to me.” Your hand traced along his sternum.

“I will try, but you must know that I must protect you. You are mine.” He brought your hand up to his lips. “Mine.” And he kissed your knuckles.

Your heart froze, the cracks seemed to start ever so slowly filling in. Your eyes meet his. He leaned you back and kissed you. Both of you crave each other like oxygen. The kiss deepened as he bent down to wrap your legs around his waist to carry you to bed. Your back hit the mattress and your hips crashed and rolled together. Both trying to find some semblance of friction, him more so than you.

He sucked hard on your bottom lip causing you to moan into the kiss allowing his tongue to slip in and do its usual dominating dance. His hips trying to find more and more fiction. The passion that always burned after your fights, was ablaze.

Between pants, you mustered, “We can’t.”

His voice was just as breathy, “I know.” He groaned and started to almost violently buck into you, finding as much friction as possible. “You said above clothing, so that’s what I am doing.” His pelvis ground down hard into yours.

You let out a breathy laugh between kisses, “Clever bastard.”

This earned a smile from him, one that was being hidden by snogging, but one that was there nonetheless. His lips found their way down your neck and onto your clavicle finding a new spot to mark. His teeth scraping, but failing to break skin. Once he was satisfied by his new declaration of ownership he resumed feasting on your lips. You stayed that way for a good hour or more, his hands occasionally groping and caressing different parts of your body. He gave one good hard roll of the hips before breaking your kiss. “Now Kitten I think that is enough for tonight,” he groaned climbing off of you.

You watched him stumble into the bathroom. You climbed back up to your spot on the bed and laid on your side. It took you a minute or two to realize that he did not close the bathroom door behind him.

You heard the shower running and after a few moments, you heard his loud moans and grunts. Your name was peppered in with his animalistic sounds. It was rather erotic. You clenched your thighs together and rubbed them together causing some friction. You threw your head into your pillow and bit down, trying to resist the urge to do something about your growing desire. You did not want to give him the satisfaction of your reaction to him. After a few minutes, you heard your name as almost a shout and then nothing. The water continued for another few minutes before you heard it shut off.

You were not expecting him to exit the bathroom in only a towel slung low on his hips, threatening to fall even lower. He started to walk towards the bed. You shot up, “Don’t you even think about it.”

A smirk plastered across his face. He turned around and walked towards his closets. He opened one and looked over his shoulder at you, meeting your eyes before he dropped his towel.

Your face was hot. He was more of a man than any you had seen or been with before. You could tell by the way he bent over to get out a pair of lounge pants that he was trying to put on a show. He grabbed them and stood straight once more, he then looked over his shoulder with a smirk on his face and turned around. Giving you an eyeful of what he had to offer, before you averted your gaze.

He bent down to pull up the pants, but out of the corner of your eye, you could see that he fully had to tuck himself in, instead of the usual it went on over the first time. You returned your gaze to him, your face and body flushed. You watched as he tied the drawstrings at his waist and then in a show like fashion he adjusted himself. Your face was on fire. Your mind also screamed at you that he liked going commando. Just him and his pants, the only thing separating him from the rest of the world.

He fully swaggered back to the bed, shirtless. “Did you like what you just saw Kitten?” His tone and face told you everything you needed to know. He was putting on a show. This whole thing was a show. The shower. The towel. The lack of a towel. The him. Was all just a show, a private one for you.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” You turned to face the wall, back to him.

He crawled up next to you, his hips to your ass as he swung his arm over your middle. “Well, I guess next time I will have to just do what I was going to do, and crawl into bed naked. After all, do hands really have to stay above clothing if there is none?”

You didn’t even have to look at him to know he was smirking. And that smirk made its way to the mark behind your ear, the one that you knew was going to be forever branded into your skin, his own personal badge of ownership over you.

The waiting game was going to be hard, especially when the man lying next to you looked like something the gods carved out of the purest marble. A gift to mankind. A work of art. A masterpiece that the old masters could only dream about but never achieve. A god amongst men. Your own personal image of perfection. Waiting was going to be hard, but apparently not as hard as him. But boy did you have something to tell the ladies in the morning.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order #a soul to mend his own

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cursewoodrecap · 3 years ago

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Session 19: Hunters and Haunts

It’s time for some proper horror movie monsters, y’all.

Before leaving Mornheim, we ask Aubrey about the scroll in her mother’s writing. She’s baffled. “I mean, plenty of my ancestors dabbled in magic. The castle had plenty of secret rooms. But…my mom? As far as I knew, she was just a very talented gardener. That’s how my parents met! She was the castle gardener, he was the son of the lord, but she looked past that…”

She laughs nervously. “My mom wasn’t a druid. They don’t live in big fancy houses! They live in the woods and make friends with badgers! I mean, why would there even BE a druid in Mornheim?!”

“That’s a good question,” Gral admits. “Maybe to guard the old tomb in the Trollstones? If I understand correctly, it was a place blessed by one of the woods spirits they revere.”

“So you’re tellin’ me that MY MOM, Rosalind von Mornheim, was the secret mystical druidic guardian of a magic tomb that’s been on family property for, well, longer than it’s been our property?!”

“I mean, maybe? Skelbjor told us there always had to be a troll in Mornheim, maybe it’s like that?”

“I guess? Skelbjor’s been the local troll since Dad was a kid. He knew about all this?”

“Oh, nah, he just knew there’s always supposed to be a troll.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right, he’s a big galoot. Just tell me I don’t have to worry about this immortal troll demigod getting up and causing trouble. I have enough problems.”

“Don’t worry, he didn’t even get up for a direct summons from that dybbuk creep.”

Aubrey shudders. “If you ever wanna figure out a way to kill that guy for good, you have my help.”

Clem grimaces. “Believe me, I’d LOVE to.”

“Anyway. You folks cleaned up the water, stopped my people getting so sick, heck, maybe this’ll even slow down the undead situation. I owe you a lot of thanks. As the ruling lady of Mornheim, I can offer you…a bottle of hard cider or somethin’? I don’t have a lot. It takes all the money we have just to keep this place running. I’m sorry I can’t do more to reward you.”

Valeria smiles, the picture of a chivalrous knight. “I’m just glad to know there won’t be so much sickness. Hopefully things will improve for your people.”

“Thank you, I mean it. And, uh, sorry for glassing you in the face, Shoshana.”

The sorceress shrugs. “It’s water under the trollbridge. We all have family members who we would both hug and cry, and glass in the face. It’s chill.”

To everyone’s surprise, Valeria nods in commiseration.

“You’re welcome to stay if you want – I mean, things are crowded, the food sucks, and every night we get undead and penitents waking everybody up, so I understand if you don’t want to stick around. Can I treat you to breakfast?”

We get breakfast, though the offerings are meager. Mercedes is cooking, and Aubrey scowls at her. “I’m mad at Mercedes because she’s a morning person. Also she lit me on fire yesterday.”

Shoshana nods. “Okay, I understand lighting people on fire, but being a morning person is a capital offense. I know this, because I live with THIS ONE.” She points at Valeria, who shrugs in acknowledgment.

“As ruling lady of house of Mornheim, I hereby banish 8am from my lands,” Aubrey grumbles. “My house is now renamed Midafternoonsheim. Like, 2pmheim. Especially if I spent the last day and a half chasing some regenerating superghoul through the tunnels.”

Mercedes and Aubrey tell us about taking out the superghoul they fought last night, bickering the whole time. “Okay, you don’t speak Goblin, but if I shout words in Goblin it only ever means one thing. I don’t cast buff spells. It means there is about to be fire, get out of the way.”

“If you ever find a cloak of fire resistance, I could use it,” Aubrey deadpans at us. “I might smother her with it.”

Gral chats with Mercedes – apparently she’s a skilled chef as well as a mage! “Yes, it is part of pyromancer training. To learn to respect the gifts of Brother-in-Flame, all students must take up a fire-related trade. Pottery, blacksmithing, cooking. That way if you wash out of pyromancer school, you have a trade! And you have respect for flame and know how to commune with it. Working with non-magical fire gives a natural guidance toward using Brother-in-Flame’s gifts. I will say, cooking contests at pyromancer school can get rather intense. If you burn the food, you have to burn your jacket.”

“Would you say they get…heated?” Shoshana quips, shooting finger-guns. Mercedes ignores her.

Gral considers. “Did you ever meet an orc who went by Firesong?”

“Oh yeah! Orc bard, wore a mask?”

“Uh, all orc bards wear masks.”

“Yeah, she’s why we can’t have the chili cookoffs anymore. She had to leave the Republics under, uh…circumstances.”

“She told me she has fond memories of her time there.”

“Oh, so do I! Passions were already high, and a professional orcish bard providing background music did not lower the emotional intensity. And, well, we’re pyromancers. We thought we were far enough from the swamp gas wells! If it hadn’t been for that damn bird – oh, one second.” She cuts off what was promising to be an excellent story to open the window and hand a sizable plate of eggs outside to Skulbjor.

“The first time I saw him, I jumped out of my skin,” she confides. “Have you ever met a swamp troll? They’re the reason we’re so good at fire.”

“The pyromancer school was originally founded to defend the Republics against trolls. So it was, you know, a liiiiittle bit awkward. Horrible creatures, swamp trolls. YOU’RE GREAT, SKULBJOR,” she calls out the window. “But I did almost light him on fire, until Aubrey stopped me.”

Gral murmurs an aside to Clem. “Is it just Valdian trolls who are weird, then?”

“I dunno, maybe bridges calm them down?”

After breakfast, we prepare to get on the road. Valeria resummons Aethis, and Skulbjor gives our good chomper some quality scritches. Already, the waters flowing into the town appear clearer, less foreboding somehow. Everything else is still, honestly, super Tim Burton-y, but we’ll work on that.

We head out, traveling the now familiar path to Three Oaks Junction. We’re glad to see the bloody chain banners have been taken down. The locals have even made new banners, featuring a shield with a chunk taken out of it, symbolizing they’re under the protection of Duke Shieldeater!

Business has resumed as normal. Some of the outriders are guarding the gate to provide a more visible presence. Not a lot, but they stand out. It’s more of a visual reminder that more orcs are coming and town has agreed to be under protection.

Gral’s pretty psyched his diplomatic master plan is working. Meanwhile, we’ve got trading to do. We manage to sell our old Aquilian coins to Pierre the furrier, who says they’ll be popular in the Demish court. Valeria keeps one of the coins as a collectible.

We’ve got enough stuff to carry and traveling to do that we decide to buy a cart. Clem, familiar with travel from her drow caravan days, heads over to the Used Cart Lot out behind the cart repair, where a guy named Sal shows her around. Looks like these guys do good repair work, with a line of apprentices and masters dating back to Three Oaks himself. Maaaaybe they might get a lot of business from selling carts which will shortly need to be repaired, but Clem uses her know-how and also her impressive guns to intimidate the guy into showing her the good stuff instead of the junkers.

She picks up a nice solid dark oak cart, secondhand, repaired recently. Clem checks it over and it seems pretty sturdy; seems like scavengers found it at an abandoned farmhouse. We also pool funds to buy two draft horses, a shaggy pair that came as a team package. The chestnut one is named Pierogi, and the bay one is named Chestnut. Shoshana attempts to have a Horse Girl Movie moment, but rolls a nat 1 and gets ignored.

Valeria, of course, buys a map to Hoska.

Clem checks her mail – she’s received a form letter thank you from the embassy in Schotzengrad – and sends 200 gold back home to her caravan, along with an update letter. Valeria writes a letter reporting back to Order of the Rose.

Clem gets busy decorating the cart in drow fashion to make it look presentable. She makes a start; a proper drow cart is decorated and redecorated over years and years. She encourages the rest of us to add our own designs, because in drow culture it’s important to have everyone in the caravan participate. We’re not at all familiar with the symbolic language used in drow art, but we’ll give it a try during a few long rests on the road.

Now we have a cart and horses and money and we bought some potions! We roll a mediocre enough survival check to meet the DC, so we head to Hoeska without issue.

Clem’s heard about Hoeska, which stands high in the collective memory of the czar’s military. During the Kevan occupation, it was said that castle was haunted. It was built 400 years ago by Gottfried von Hoesk, a Valdian warlord who wanted to become the first king of a unified Greatwood. He failed, but his descendants have occasionally tried again, and this is their ancestral seat of power. The elves, knowing its significance, took it as one of their first targets and stationed a garrison of 500 elves there. When the Valdian rebellion kicked into high gear, one of the big things that convinced the elves to leave was that the entire garrison vanished without a trace.

Shoshana, well, she’s heard plenty of stories about Hoeska. Every time a Valdian ghost story needs a mad wizard, or a ghost, or a vampire, or generally anything that lives in a big spooky castle, it takes place in Hoeska. Most of those stories are tall tales and urban legends, but on the other hand, there’s been an awfully long history of vampires and ghosts and mad wizards in Valdia, many of whom originated from or occupied the towering, dark castle on its isolated mountain.

Merchants who have been there say it’s a sprawling fortress; every inhabitant since Gottfried von Hoesk, from his descendants to various nobles to the elves, has added something else to castle, so it’s a big mismatch of styles. Some parts are a grim fortress, some are a luxury palace. The castle’s changed hands, but the von Hoesk family is still around and more often than not they ride in and reclaim their ancestral home. A couple of mad wizards were von Hoesks; when something truly evil goes down, usually a bunch of knights ride in and clear it out and some other von Hoesk descendant moves in. Rinse and repeat.

When the Cursebreakers were founded, their first move was to clear out Hoeska and take it over as their headquarters. It’s the Usual Suspect of spooky stuff in Valdia, but if the Cursebreakers found anything relating to the Curse there, they didn’t tell anyone.

Shoshana tells some ghost stories about it. Valeria eats them up. There’s a long Valdian tradition of “having a cousin” who worked at Hoeska as a servant and totally saw something spooky.

With the cart it takes like a day and a half to get from Three Oaks to the edge of Hoeska territory. As we approach, we see a guard house sitting on the road. Gral can see from a distance that the squat stone building appears to be abandoned. That’s not normal. We consider: should we avoid it because it probably has monsters in it, or should we go clear out the monsters and see if there’s loot? We’re gonna go see if there’s loot.

We get out of the wagon and approach, weapons drawn. The small stone building, just big enough for a couple of guards to keep an eye on the road, looks like it was abandoned in a hurry. We case the place quickly; there’s dried blood on the ground in the back storeroom. Maybe someone was killed here, or injured and brought here to get patched up? There’s not a body or anything. Gral’s keen eyes pick up a recent set of footprints; someone came in, after the guards had left, did something here, and then headed out into the woods.

The woods? In the Cursewood? Near the haunted castle? DEFINITELY full of dangerous monsters. But we’re PCs, so we want go investigate the mystery. Aethis stays behind to guard the cart, mildly weirding out the horses.

We follow the tracks into woods. Clem hears something behind her, and as she turns, a furry something whips out of brush and spears her for minor damage. She looks down and sees a scorpion stinger emerging from her torso. She barely has time to register it’s glistening with poison when she’s accosted by massive slavering jaws. This thing looks like it was once a huge wolf, but now has mutated into something far worse, and its teeth are buried deep in Clem’s armor.

Clem goes pale under her ash-dark skin, and must save against the panic and flood of memories brought up by the sudden sight of an attacking wolf.

How in the HELL did that thing get so close without us noticing?! Hell, we were following humanoid tracks – where did this monstrosity come from?!

Valeria immediately smites the hell out of it, and it does enough extra damage we suspect it’s some kind of fiend. Unfortunately, it’s immune to being Frightened, so Gral’s plan to Dissonant Whispers it past two tanks fizzles.

The wolfbeast uses the same tactic on Valeria as it did on Clem – as Valeria’s distracted by deflecting the stinger, it strikes in with its massive jaws, for a huge amount of damage.

Dammit, it’s resistant to Shoshana’s lightning, too. We’re in trouble.

As we’re barely fending this thing off, we can hear snarling and barking coming toward us from another direction. It sounds like wolves or dogs, smaller than this thing tearing through us. And Gral can faintly hear booted humanoid footsteps hurrying alongside them.

Clem misses on her first panicked swing but catches it on the upswing, Great Weapon Master letting her drive the blade deep. Valeria slices it good too, vines tearing through its corrupted flesh. Gral tries to Phantasmal force and fails) It swings its poisonous tail, and Valeria goes down, unconscious. Then it chomps on Clem. Clem is down – except, hold on, not so fast. She uses Last Gasp to use her Second Wind as she falls, in accordance with the Deal she has made with the Pale King.

Panicking, Shosha deals it thunder damage which it does not resist. BIG BOOM THO. That was dumb of me.

Shoshana, panicking, hits the thing with thunder damage. It doesn’t have resistance, but now everything in the forest knows we’re here. As Valeria passes her first Death Save, Gral shouts a Healing Word to keep her alive.

Three large hounds burst from the trees snarling and howling. A voice in Elven shouts “Alexei! Kill! Go for legs!”

Gral can’t understand Elven, so he goes for the neck with his sickle and draws a nasty gash across its throat. The thing glances around, snarling, furious at being deprived its meal, but it recognizes it’s in danger and withdraws, sprinting away into the forest.

A large wood elf wearing a tattered Cursebreaker coat steps out of woods holding a club and a heavy blunderbuss. He whistles sharply, and the hounds abruptly stop their pursuit. “No further!” He gestures, and the hounds spread out and form a perimeter.

“I do not know you,” he says in Valdian, though with a thick elven accent. “You fought the Shusva.”

“…The what?”

“That thing, the Shusva. At least, I found name in book. Seemed similar to this, yes? I am Ser Boris, of Cursebreaker Knights. What brings you here? Is dangerous territory.”

“Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service! We’ve been working with Ser Quentin Morozov.”

A grin breaks across his thickly bearded face. “Ah, Ser Morozov! I know him. The grumpy one! He talks to people, finds what is in hearts and minds. Goes to towns, finds cultists. As he is to the people, I am to the beasts.”

“Yes, we had information for him and needed to make a report. Also we were trying to meet up with another person headed this way?”

He grimaces. “How recently? This Shusva has been stalking roads.”

“Um, recent?” Shoshana interjects. “But he’s accompanied by two fuckhuge goliaths, so…?”

“Oh, yes, him. He is fine. Oh! You injured it!” Ser Boris cries, distracted. He pulls out a small waxed pouch and grabs a chunk of flesh off Clem’s blade. “Good! With this, we can track its scent! Not today, though, you are wounded. Must get you two to castle.”

“These are Alexei, Sasha, and Xander,” he introduces his hounds, which have heeled obediently.

“You are – ah! A drow!” He greets Clem in Elven. “You are very far from home!”

“Ah, home is where you make it,” she replies in kind.

He laughs. “Indeed, indeed. Come, we must share stories back at castle! I move here during war, think it would be peaceful.”

“Yeah, bit of a mistake, huh?”

“I do well enough. I have my dogs, I receive employment. And coat! Employment with coat is better than employment without coat, da?”

We go back to our cart, and Ser Boris is immediately taken with Aethis. “Oh, my! A wonderful beastie. Is it Celestial? May I see teeth?”

Valeria’s happy to make introductions.

“Have you cared for such a creature before? They are adapted for warm streams, not cold woods like these, you know.”

“Do they need any further care than occasional spellwork? That’s all they told us at the academy,” Valeria says, puzzled.

“Is gift from Rack, no? Then double important you take good care! It does not need it, but you must. Caring for exotic mount in inhospitable climate is difficult task. I will give you literature. You would not believe poor beasts Dr. Galvan had, I am giving him dietary instructions, seeing if I can create sweater for them to keep warm…”

He goes back to cooing over Aethis. “Nice luster on scales, though that is expected. Feets---oh, you’ve been running on hard road, you’ll get used to that. Very well. Castle is this way!”

He whistles, and the three hounds form a triangle around group. “Do not wander too far off, they may try to herd you.”

It’s somewhere around here that the pun finally hits the players. Ser Boris. Three dogs. …Cerberus.

The path winds up to the dramatic gates of castle Hoeska.

“Now if you look there, you will see castle.” A lightning bolt cracks dramatically across the sky, casting the castle in ominous silhouette.

“It always does that. It is very stormy around here. I do not know why. Impossible to get good sunlight. I worry for Alexei, he likes to frolic in sun, in fields of flowers. I am not allowed to let him in garden. How will Alexei frolic without field of flowers?”

There’s a Cursebreaker Knight at the gates, some kind of battlemage with a big staff. Next to him is a grim figure in full plate, holding a halberd and looking distinctly displeased to see us.

“Do not mind them, the castle guards do not appreciate us being here,” Ser Boris tells us cheerfully. “It is okay, we have permission. They do not like that we do their job better than them. Hello friend!” He waves. “These are guests, please open gate!”

The guard glares.

“Pretty please, open gate for Ser Boris and friends? And Alexei and Sacha! Oh, have you met Xander yet?”

The guard silently opens the gate, his withering scowl not diminishing a bit.

“I do not know what problem is. Must have woke up on wrong side of bed,” Boris chatters as we enter. “Maybe should not leave lunch where dogs can get it. Guard knows I am here with dogs! Maybe dogs have done nothing wrong ever in their life and guard should apologize for making such a fuss!”

We’re past the castle walls, in a large courtyard before entering the keep proper. As we pass our carts and horses off to some stablehands, we notice a familiar cart and two draft gatorbeasts in the stables, with quilted blankets thrown over them against the chill.

Parked incongruously among the carts is a looming metal construct in a hulking, vaguely humanoid shape, with buzz-saw arms protruding from the front and a machined metal owl mask affixed to what might charitably be called the face area. Peeling paint on the front reads “Valdian Tree Company,” and it’s chained to a heavy wagon proudly bearing the insignia of the Sturmhearst University College of Engineering.

Ser Boris shrugs. “Many visitors are here now. One shows up with that thing. I do not like. Not natural, so much metal moving on own.”

We step into the grand hallway of castle, past another set of guards and a big statue of a fine-featured man in armor, labeled Gottfried von Hoesk. Ah, Ingborg and Bjorn are there, drinking.

We hear someone clear his throat imperiously, and turn to see Ser Quentin, regarding us with annoyance. “You’re late,” he bites out pointedly.

“Uh, did we make an appointment to see you? Because I was certainly not informed,” Shoshana snarks back.

He doesn’t take the bait. “So. The Pale King.”

“…Yup!”

“That letter and those words are why we’ve been stuck here. You’ve been escalated to the higher ups, who would very much like to hear what you have to report in person. Follow me. The dogs can stay here.”

Ser Boris grumbles. “Is fine, they do not bite! Well, they might bite sandvich. I could go for sandvich. I get us all sandviches, yes?”

We head up grand winding stairs, into the more palatial section of castle, and find ourselves passing through long dark galleries full of portraits of von Hoesk ancestors. The eyes follow us as we walk by, natch.

The path we take is DEFINITELY a little bit Scooby Dooby Doors. Ser Quentin Definitely Does Not Get Lost on the way there, what are you talking about? “This place was built by a succession of mad architects in an intergenerational argument with each other, of course it’s a damn maze,” he huffs.

Eventually, we are taken into a small, elegant drawing room. Two figures sit in comfortable armchairs in front of a roaring fire.

“Allow me to present Ser Brigid Konig,” Ser Quentin states formally, gesturing to the old woman calmly knitting in the chair on the left.

The other chair holds a tall man with sharp cheekbones, a fine black and red outfit, and rather similar features to the statue in the foyer. “Our host, Ludwig von Hoesk,” Quentin introduces stiffly.

“Hello,” the old woman, Ser Brigid, greets us warmly. “Our dear Quentin has told me so very little about you. Quentin, did you offer them anything to eat? It would be quite rude to let our guests go hungry.”

“I am told Ser Boris has arranged for sandwiches,”

“Perfect. Sit down, everyone, pull up a chair.”

Gral unnatch 20s a perception. That Ludwig von Hoesk – maybe Gral’s gotten better at picking up on this sort of thing since we’ve spent so much time in in Mornheim, but there’s something odd about that fella. He’s a little too still when he sits still, his motion a little too deliberate. And his skin is awfully pale. The old lady? Her, he can’t get a read on, even with a 20. Daaaaang.

“If you would, please, tell us of your travels. Ser Morozov tells us you first worked together in Ovruch; why don’t you start there?” Ser Brigid asks.

We take turns describing the entities we’ve seen, how we’ve fought them, and how they seem to categorize themselves. We produce the Eyegis as evidence of the Key, and explain what the Astronomer told us regarding the concept of Prisoners.

Ludwig, though very reserved, seems keenly interested in Clem’s tale of Mornheim. Once we’ve told our tale, he asks us to produce the tapestry we took from the cultists in the manor. He examines the partially-woven image carefully, tracing a thin finger over the crowned, skeletal figure.

“Well, Luddy, does it look familiar?” Ser Brigid asks smugly.

The aristocrat is too dignified to roll his eyes, but just barely. “It does. If we’re just going to-“

“Oh, we’d have to clue them in sooner or later. They’ve done more in a few weeks than half my agents have done in years!”

Ser Quentin grumbles audibly. She ignores him.

“Ludwig, is that the symbol you described to me?”

“Yes.”

“And the name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you consider that independent verification of what I told you?”

“Yes.”

“So I think you owe me something, old friend.”

He lets out a huffy, aristocratic sigh. “Yes, fine. You weren’t lying, and I was right not to kill you. I apologize for doubting you.”

“Thank you. Oh, the sandwiches are here!”

He turns his attention back to the tapestry. “Yes, this is the thing that appeared to me and offered me a position at the head of its armies.”

…oh?!?!

He rolls his eyes at our alarm. “I refused, naturally,” he sniffs.

“I should hope so!” Valeria says, and removes her hand from her sword hilt.

“I have no interest in submitting myself to some power-hungry usurper.”

Ser Brigid winks at us. “Perhaps I should re-introduce us properly. My name is Ser Brigid Konig. I was on my way to Valdshart when the city went dark, to formally retire as the Duke’s chief vampire hunter.”

“And this is Ludwig von Hoesk. His son built this castle! For the past couple hundred years, my office has been dedicated solely to hunting and killing him. Greetings!”

She rolls her eyes at her companion, who looks a bit miffed. “Really. They would have figured it out eventually. And you are not subtle about it. With the spooky castle? And the red and black outfit? C’mon, Luddy.”

“A few years ago, shortly after the curse manifested, I had a dream. This in itself is quite unusual; I do not normally experience dreams. In it, a creature resembling the figure on your tapestry appeared to me, offering a position as general of its armies. As its power grew, it would gain control of all undead in Valdia, and it would like myself and my followers to be the first and most honored of its forces. Naturally I refused. There is only one king in Valdia, and it is not some strange skeletal specter.”

“Wait, we have a king?” Shoshana blurts. “…oh. You mean yourself, don’t you.”

“Yes. It was my son’s idea. And what can I say, I spoiled the boy. Now, I was wondering what to do about this vision when who shows up but a bunch of angry knights with crossbows? Not that we’re not used to such incursions.”

“Oh, I’ve been trying to storm this place for years,” Ser Brigid agrees airily. “Every time we try, a mysterious new von Hoesk heir shows up with money and a whole court of followers! People buy it every time. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

“She accused me of being behind the Curse,” Ludwig explains dryly. “I argued otherwise, and eventually we came to an agreement. Which is why Brigid Konig, my worst nightmare, HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY HOUSE.”

“Yes!” she agrees, with a beatific granny smile. “This way, if you ARE behind it, I can kill you!” She lifts the blanket she’s knitting just enough to give us a peek at the crossbow hidden underneath. Gral sees runes on the crossbow similar to his heartseeker bolts. “The rules are simple! I get to use his house and money, and his people assist as we try to get to bottom of this thing! And in exchange, I don’t kill him!”

Ludwig sighs. “She removes the monsters. I don’t appreciate monsters in my land, and I genuinely will do anything in my not inconsiderable power to drive out these ruinous Prisoners. Even if it means entertaining a woman who’s been a thorn in my side for the last sixty years.”

“Not a thorn, arrows!” she retorts cheerfully. “And a scythe one time. You got better, you big baby!”

“Of course I got better, I’m a vampire.”

Quentin sighs. “Needless to say, all information disclosed in this room is top secret. Frankly, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have chosen to divulge even this much.”

Ser Brigid turns her level gaze on him. “Please. The orc would have spotted something and said ‘My goodness, Kyr Argent, I suspect something is up with that handsome and brooding fellow,’ and then she would have Detected Undead, and killed several guards, and the castle would be on fire, and we’d be in the dungeons having this conversation, but it would be far more awkward!” She turns to us. “Have I read the situation right?”

“…yup,” admits Valeria.

“See? Now Quentin, dear, eat your sandwich, you’re far too skinny.”

Ludwig is not eating a sandwich. He has a glass of red wine, of course.

They grill us a bit about the Key, specifically, and the Sturmhearst scholars we met who seem rather susceptible to the whole knowledge-seeking lure.

“Hmm, yes. We have several guests here, two of whom are professors. Professor Galvan, whom you’ve met, and a visitor from Sturmhearst. Professor Bjork, from the College of Engineering. I have some suspicions about things going on there. He’s told us a few concerning stories; you might want to pick his brain and get your take on the situation.”

“Such an august institution,” Ludwig agrees. “I gave some of the money to start the place, I’d hate to see it go bad.”

We wonder if he knows Dr. Wendell. But it’s getting late, and while the party discusses their experiences in great detail, we’re going to cut session and pick back up once they’re ready to go meet some other guests of the von Hoesks.

#the cursewood #cursebreaker knights #quentin morozov #ser boris #von hoesk #hoeska #aubrey von mornheim #skelbjor #mercedes the pyromancer #clem haxan #valeria argent #gral omokk'duu #shoshana bat chaya #The Pale King #The Hunt

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esselley · 7 years ago

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Kinktober #14: Role Reversal

Set early on in Kingdom of Crows verse! This is about 0.02% sexy, and idk what the rest is besides dramatic scene setting/Kageyama being extremely in love

They called it “The City”, sometimes.

It was in jest; because it was anything but. The underground maze of tunnels, sewers, and dungeon-like halls beneath Corvus had no infrastructure, no rhyme or reason to the wretchedness.

The Kingdom of Crows thrived upon madness, breathed life into chaos.

Amidst the rabble, Kageyama felt like he could finally make sense of things again. He pulled his hood further over his head, hiding his face in shadows. Suspicious, perhaps, but the more suspicious he appeared down below the surface, the less people would question him. Everyone minded their own business, as long as he minded his own. No one cared about a lanky boy in patched clothes wandering about, when there were so many others just like him at every turn. No one might guess who he truly was.

He wasn’t afraid, down there, despite the dank, unsavory nature of that world. He could more than handle himself in a fight, if anyone had disliked his look enough to start one. Sometimes fights were the fastest way to a friendship, depending on the opponent; and Kageyama, over the years, had made quite a few friends that way. Any of them just might happen to be passing by, to come to his aid if things got messy. The City was funny like that; so many eyes in so many places, and never a clear picture of who was watching who. Like circling scavenge birds, always waiting for an opportunistic moment.

And in dire circumstances, he had one singular friend on whom he could always rely. He liked to fight his own battles, but he knew that even a lion could be defeated by a million stinging ants. So around his neck, he wore a thick signet ring, dangling from the end of a cord. One glimpse of it would send anyone who valued their lives fleeing. They would all know the symbol engraved in the gold—a crown, with the sun carved behind it. It had been a symbol of rebellion, first, and then of hope. The crest of the newly crowned king of thieves.

It was nearly the same design as was stamped on the ring tucked safely away in a chest under Kageyama’s bed. This ring marked Kageyama himself as the crown prince of Corvus, future king—but his was devoid of the sun. That had been a new addition, made by the new thief king; a reminder.

He was as much a king as Kageyama would one day be. But he and his people longed for the light.

Deeper into the maze, Kageyama arrived at a door, wooden and unmarked. He rapped on it, and a small section near the top slid back. Inside was darkness. A guttural voice croaked out of it, “No room for beggars here.”

Kageyama pulled the ring from under his shirt, holding it up in front of the peephole. He knew the password would change every day, but he had his token for passage. Shortly thereafter, the door creaked open, and he slipped inside.

It was pitch black. He heard the sound of the door being deadbolted and shut behind him and waited, unsure of who the guardsman might be. Then someone spoke right in his ear, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“No need for princes, either.”

He knew that voice, now it was undisguised. He turned in the dark as arms embraced him, as hands were laid warm upon his face, and then, even more welcome, a most familiar mouth pressed to his own. The lips were rough on his, and already smiling.

“I can just leave, if you’d prefer,” Kageyama mumbled against them. He caught a glimpse of a golden glimmer in the darkness—eyes, lit from within, looking up at him.

Hinata slid a hand to grip the back of his neck tighter, possessively. Kageyama knew Hinata could see him quite clearly in the dark, a boon of his fae blood. It had made him a good thief and a better spy.

“You know perfectly well what I meant.”

“Mmm.” It meant that here was the one place, where Kageyama didn’t have to play the part of a prince.

“Thought you still might not be able to come,” Hinata said, fingers tracing the outline of his jaw.

He wasn’t normally this soft, and Kageyama held completely still out of habit, afraid to startle him—afraid it would stop. In actuality, it had been years since Hinata had bothered to hide the way he felt, but it was still rare for him to allow either of them such a long moment of vulnerability. Maybe it was the dark, or maybe it was going so long without seeing each other.

Two months ago, the long fight for control of the Kingdom of Crows had finally come to an end, and Hinata had been named its new king. Kageyama had been there that night, but the chaos caused by the upheaval would have ripple effects felt even in the royal city, and so, to be on the safe side, they had said goodbye. Neither of them knew how long he might have to stay away, how long security might be increased and the prince could not be found missing, for fear of raising the alarm.

But then, a fortnight ago, a crow had landed on Kageyama’s windowsill, and a glint of gold had caught his eye. Tied around its leg was the signet ring and a messily scrawled map with a golden X to mark where Hinata could be found.

As soon as he could, Kageyama had snuck out, to go underground, to reach the X, to come back to the pickpocket boy who had become a king.

“You missed me, did you?” Kageyama said, aware he was pushing his luck. “Sending an official summons.”

Instead of growing annoyed, Hinata suddenly kissed him fiercely. “You belong with me,” he said, so fervently it cut Kageyama’s breath short. “If I am king then I would have you by my side.”

Kageyama gulped at air. He had no idea how to respond to this brash honesty. Growing up, he had learned that it was a monarch’s right, to call upon those subjects who were dearest to them. And it was an honor to be called, as his father had impressed upon him so many times, when he’d forced Kageyama to stand with him, to show the people to whom they must bow. It hadn’t felt like an honor, then. But it did now.

“I—I’m here,” he finally said.

“You came when I called,” Hinata emphasized, sounding entirely too pleased. Kageyama knocked their foreheads together, a little harder than was necessary. “Come on—you’re just in time for dinner.”

Kageyama felt at first a slight reluctance, at leaving the dark behind, where all he had to focus on was Hinata’s touch. But the feeling was soon replaced by amazement, as Hinata led him from the long tunnel out into the light.

He blinked, adjusting to the change, as Hinata strode on before him—back straight, head held high. He was not tall, by any means, but he’d always taken up space. It had been too long since they’d seen one another, Kageyama thought, stalled for a moment as he looked fondly upon the flame-red hair, the still slightly narrow shoulders. Two children ran forward upon their entrance, and Hinata stopped, lowering himself to one knee. They put his gold crown on his head, and his cloak on his back—black and torn, like crow feathers.

Kageyama saw suddenly, like a vision, an impression of the man Hinata would grow into. It seemed right, that Hinata should wear a crown, now, and in the future.

They had emerged into a cavernous space, the high ceiling home to an uncountable number of mismatched chandeliers hanging from the rafters; iron, wood, glass—hundreds, maybe thousands of flickering lights between all of them. Some of the flames were mage fire, dancing in all different colors. It made the huge room warm and comfortable, which Kageyama thought might have been intentional, given the people gathered there.

“Hinata…” Kageyama murmured under his breath, “you realize the Tanaka siblings are sitting at your dinner table…”

Hinata flashed him an over the shoulder grin. “They showed up just last week, actually. She said she might like to see what the change in leadership might bring.”

The Tanakas were two of the most feared assassins in the lower kingdom. It was said that they never turned away a client, and anyone could afford them, rich or poor—but might not always like the price they would have to pay. Nonetheless, they’d been instrumental as a part of Hinata’s coup to take the crown, not as killers, but as information brokers. They had more dealings with the brother, who Kageyama had realized possessed a kinder heart than it might be wise to let others find out about. The sister was ruthless, and preferred to observe the outcome from afar, but was protective of her brother to a fault.

Not three seating places down from them, the fire mage Taketora had his feet kicked up onto the table. He seemed to be engaged in a staring match with the younger Tanaka, smoke curling off his shoulders and the top of his head in his agitation. Kageyama felt a slight sense of apprehension—none of them were sure, but there were rumors Taketora was part fire elemental. His temper was legendarily explosive, and paired with Ryuu’s, Kageyama couldn’t imagine it would be long before a fight erupted.

But Hinata only looked amused. “They’ve been doing that for days now, but I’ve never had to break anything up. I think part of that may be because of Saeko. But also, I think they’re just curious about each other.”

There were more people at the table that Kageyama would have never expected to see all sitting in one place, let alone (mostly) peacefully. But it would be a disservice to Hinata not to recognize the reason for it.

“You did this,” Kageyama said. “You… brought all these people together. In just two months?”

“It’s a fragile truce,” Hinata admitted, as he took his seat at the head of the long table. Kageyama sat at his right hand. “But it is a truce. And it will get better. It has to.”

Kageyama nodded. Hinata was always saying that people were stronger together. It was the opposite of what Kageyama had been taught growing up—that it was only his will, standing sure and alone, that mattered. He had been told depending on others would make him weak, but he knew now that wasn’t true.

“So,” Hinata said, as they helped clear plates away after the meal was finished. “You’re impressed, right?” This part was a little different, Kageyama knew; the king rolling up his sleeves to help scrub dishes clean. But Hinata wouldn’t have suddenly become too high and mighty to lift a finger for himself.

Kageyama, who had offered to help dry the dishes, snorted. “That’s what you’re concerned with? A couple months spent restructuring an entire kingdom and you want to know whether or not you’ve bowled me over?”

“Well, yeah, that’s the fun part,” Hinata said shamelessly.

In retaliation, Kageyama leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Come talk to me when you can beat me in a fight.”

Hinata squawked indignantly, pushing him away, before surreptitiously looking around to see if anyone had noticed. The earlier, mature image Kageyama had seen of him was instantly dashed, replaced by the boy he’d known who turned bright red whenever he held Kageyama’s hand.

“You’re trying to ruin my reputation,” Hinata accused him, poking at Kageyama’s belly.

“I ruined that ages ago,” Kageyama said with a grin. Hinata could act like no one knew about the two of them, but it didn’t change the fact that everyone knew. It was another of the reasons Kageyama liked staying down there. It was alright, that everyone knew.

Here, Hinata was king, and Kageyama was nobody (or he was the enemy, blood of the king above running through his veins), but it was alright. Here, it was alright that he let Hinata take him back to his room, to where they would share the same small bed, the same pillows, the same heat under the covers. Here, no one would take Hinata away from him.

“Oh-ho,” Hinata said, propped on his arms over Kageyama, looking down at him in the dim light of candle on the bedside table. “So you were impressed.” He trailed sneaky, practised fingers over the front of Kageyama’s pants and Kageyama arched his back into his touch, needy and irritated and in love, all at once.

“Maybe I care nothing for the crown,” Kageyama said petulantly, as Hinata coaxed his hips up, rid him of his clothes, tickled his throat with the tip of his nose. He couldn’t help but soften, the more Hinata kissed him. “Maybe I just care about the one wearing it.”

“Suit yourself,” Hinata whispered. Once he was inside Kageyama, once Kageyama had buried his fingers in his hair and held on tight enough that he could almost believe he’d never have to leave Hinata again, Hinata told him, triumphant: “Right now, it feels damn good being king.”

That’s because he’s already a great one, Kageyama thought, afterwards, lying facing Hinata, staring at the other boy’s elfin face. He was always so lively that seeing him asleep was slightly shocking.

Hinata had dreamed of this. He’d wanted to seize the crown, he’d wanted to pave the path for his people. For Kageyama, who was used to hating the inevitability of his future reign, this had seemed unthinkable. But the longer he’d known Hinata, the better he’d understood.

It wasn’t enough to want to be king for the crown alone. He had to want more—he had to want something for himself.

He brushed Hinata’s hair off his face and pressed a kiss to his forehead, careful not to wake him.

“If I am king,” he whispered, “then I want you by my side. Always.” He snuffed out the candle and curled up against the little ball of heat in the bed next to him.

Hinata had overturned an entire kingdom to achieve his dream. And Kageyama, if he must, would do the very same.

More Kinktober? If you’re not sure, maybe these will reverse your opinion...

#kagehina #hinata shouyou #kageyama tobio #kinktober #kinktober2017 #kagehina fanfiction #haikyuu!! fanfiction #haikyuu!!#esselle writes #tumblr fic #kingdom of crows #essie's hq fic

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isminchicago · 5 years ago

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Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: Daphne’s Sister

She’s a purveyor of vision, and leads us on a merry chase after, well, ourselves -James Yood, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: An Appreciation, Sorrow of Swans, 2009

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: Daphne’s Sister

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris (b. 1941, Las Vegas, NM. Resides, Chicago IL) is known for her distinctive approach to the figure, almost always women, who perform in dramatic settings. Her women are divas: larger than life, central to the story, and, like all good heroines, troubled by adversaries and circumstance.

Spiess-Ferris’s attention to the narrative body has deep art historical roots. Major influences are the visionary paintings of Hieronymus Bosch; Mannerist and Baroque arts attenuation of form and emotional atmosphere; Symbolist and Surrealist approaches to the fantastic, unreal situation and Feminist thought in the conflation of personal and political realities of women through history. Spiess-Ferris’s work is part of a strong tradition of figurative painting in the Midwest, which includes her contemporaries, Phyllis Bramson, Robert Lostutter, Tony Phillips, Christina Ramberg, and Suellen Rocca, along with modernist artists such as Gertrude Abercrombie, Ivan Albright, and Seymour Rosofsky.

In addition to her exploration of the figure, Spiess-Ferris also turns to the natural world for source material and inspiration. Her work is filled with birds, animals, flowers, trees, and water; constant companions and characters that help narrate the intertwined connection of humanity and nature. The questions of what animates and motivates us, as well as the consequence of our actions on the natural world, are central to her work.

This exhibition traces the development of Spiess-Ferris’s distinctive figures over 40 years of painting and drawing, often comparing studies and sketches with her final works. Spiess-Ferris has been drawing from a live model since the beginning of her career; an essential practice for her experimentation with the narrative figure. Her life studies often transform into their mythic selves in the process of a drawing session, shifting from observation into invention through distorting proportions and imposing natural forms as essential elements of the body.

Doug Stapleton, Associate Curator of Art, Illinois State Museum

(installation views: Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: Daphne’s Sister, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL, October 26, 2019 - February 16, 2020)

…[T]he shift we undergo from our world to her world, the immersion into some parallel universe when nature, animals, and humans all exist, just as we think we know them, but now functioning as integers in surprising and evocative narratives of mystery and wonder …’ —James Yood, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: An Appreciation, Sorrow of Swans, 2009, exhibition catalog

The exhibition title Daphne’s Sister references the ancient Greek story of the nymph Daphne, who is transformed into a laurel tree to save her from the god Apollo’s unwanted advances. Spiess-Ferris never names Daphne in her work, but the suffering and endurance at the crux of Daphne’s story resonates through it. Spiess-Ferris’ figures are often depicted as hybrid creatures part human and part tree or bird, acknowledging shape-shifting as a strategy for survival. What is important in Daphne’s story is not that Apollo claims the laurel tree as his emblem, but that Daphne survives and thrives as a new species.

This painting, Fecundity, 2013, is a Daphne-like figure. She is a hardworking woman; balancing twin swan filled pools in a field of pansies while standing on delicate twig legs. She is between being and becoming, harboring life in her hands, but cautiously eyeing two approaching funnel clouds. If fecundity is a powerful productivity, then it is difficult, precarious work. The painting asks how we keep our balance, our sense of right and wrong, in relationship to all that we juggle.

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Study for The Marauders, 1989, Graphite and colored pencil on sketchbook page, gift of the artist, 2018.41.59. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

Figures are the essential storyteller in Eleanor Spiess-Ferris’s work. As such, the artist is more interested in how she can exaggerate her figures, bending, twisting and enlarging the forms to emphasize the emotional content of the work. Likewise, Spiess-Ferris is equally versed in rendering the figure with life-like realism. She has been involved for decades with the Evanston Figurative League, a group of artists who regularly draw from the figure as a means of honing their drawing and observational skills. Throughout the exhibition are examples of her drawings from the figure, which seem to stand in contrast to the exaggerated figures seen in the final paintings. Yet all of these images, from the quick contour sketch to the several hour-long poses from a model, speak to her understanding of how skin and bone, posture and gesture, can carry emotion and meaning. For her, imagination comes from observation, the original form elaborated and stretched into strange, new narrative figures.

Spiess-Ferris’s paintings are allegories of the tides of fortune and consequence played out in often absurd situations. Her cast of characters includes clowns, ghosts, swan women, goddesses, suited skeletons, hobby horses, scarecrows, and crows. Spiess-Ferris’s figures are sometimes the main character, other times they are bystander or victim, pecked at by scavengers or poked and prodded by Picadillos—clownish demons. Who are her companions—these beasts and birds that accompany and sometimes inhabit the figure—and what is their part in the drama? They represent our interconnection, our intertwined fate with the natural world. They accompany the heroine on her many journeys; the birds are her voice; the demons are the embodiment of the consequence of our actions on a world turning uninhabitable.

These characters inhabit various worlds. In her early paintings from the 1980s and 1990s, you find them in stage-like settings with the curtains pulled back, revealing a tumbling operatic scene. In her later work, her figures move out into the world, floating in dark watery expanses or dwelling deep in the forest, more of residents now than actors passing through the scene.

Spiess-Ferris’s earliest figures from the 1970s are rendered quickly, with a strong outline, minimal detail and broad strokes of color. These figures draw deeply on her childhood memories of northern New Mexico, especially the religious processions of the Spanish Penitentes and the ceremonies of the Pueblo Indians. In particular the sacred clown in Pueblo belief, a trickster who uses humor to make social commentary, has had a lasting impression on Spiess-Ferris’s figures. Northern Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch’s narratives scenes of Christian morality, heaven and hell as grotesque, carnival-like spectacle, also informs her work. These influences find bearing in her earliest paintings, such as the rainbow figure of I Met a Rainbow in Argyle and likewise in the drawing collage, Heaven, No Exit.

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Heaven No Exit, 1975, Graphite, color pencil, marker and collage on paper, Courtesy of the artist. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

Spiess-Ferris's figures are rarely whole creatures. They are often depicted as fragments of a body or as hollowed skin or shell. The question of what animates us is central to her work. Is our outward appearance—how we present ourselves to the world—the true reflection of our inner life or just a costume we wear?

In Gray Room, 1980, Spiess-Ferris critiques the difficulty for women in finding their bearing and balance in a world where they are seen as sexual fantasies. The true person is not seen, only her ghost of a form, dressed up outlandishly. As a young artist finding her artistic voice, she used this ghost form repeatedly in her early work as an appraisal of female identity.

The idea of clothes animated to appear like human forms stem from Spiess-Ferris’s childhood memory of seeing clothes blown off a clothesline and caught up in tree branches. The clothes appeared to be alive as they billowed in the wind, as if the trees were dressing up to be recognized as human.

The memory of family from her New Mexican childhood inspire Spiess-Ferris’s Wild Stick figures, which are part of a series recollecting the daring exploits of her Aunt Maggie on horseback as well as her own memories of riding her palomino horse Snake. The memories—faded with the years and informed by pressing issues of adulthood—become ghost women riding hobby horses in a raucous race. Hobby horses symbolize a repeated activity—something we return to again and again—and these figures seem to be endlessly, urgently racing through time and space.

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Study for Wild Hunt, c. 1980s, graphite and gouache on paper, Gift of the artist. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

Birds are a constant companion and inhabitant in Spiess-Ferris’s work; their chorus is its voice and breath. Birds inhabit the figure, nesting and finding protection in the limbs or the folds of the body. In River, 2012, they are an exposed nerve, a life force on a string held suspended above flowing time. James Yood wrote, ‘Birds are almost everywhere in her work as well, preening, pricking, nesting, cavorting, instinctive foils for the humans they abut, in their lust and vanity and hunger to survive becoming just like us.*’

* James Yood, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: An Appreciation, Sorrow of Swans, 2009

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris’s paintings balance absurdity and compassion. At first glance, we recognize their theatricality: outlandish costumes and hairstyles coupled with contortionist poses and dramatic lighting, which give the appearance of high comedy and satire. But the central storytelling brings us back to our own humanness and to the natural world, especially our relationship with water. There is a strong liaison with water—tears, sorrow, and regeneration—in Spiess-Ferris’s work, but rarely is this element single-purposed. In Tears, 2007, weeping women cry into vials that than pour out on the land, flooding the landscape. One woman offers small candle boats as an act of remembrance, while another carries her ancestors floating in her bowl-shaped head. In an interview, Spiess-Ferris explains,” Grief is not just totally bad—something comes out of it. … [S]he creates …by crying …she creates the environment in which the birds and things can exist through her grief. She’s an ecosystem. And she cries and will forever cry, but with her tears comes life.” *

*Gavin Van Horn, 2013, June 7, The Artist Who Would Be Crow, Center for Humans and Nature, www.humansandnature.org

Spiess-Ferris’s figures, armored and constricted in cloth as tight as skin, bristle in quilted or scaled discomfort. Bodies twist and double over or distort to resemble strange bug carapaces, as in A Small Sound, 2016. Deliberately distorted, these figures act as a visceral reminder of how we feel emotions in our bodies. There is something powerful in the contorted figures, which, like clowns and jesters, use absurdity to drive home a pinprick of recognition of ourselves.

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris A Mama’s Tears (study for The Chair, 2011), n.d. (c.2011), graphite on paper, Gift of the artist. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

In Islands, 2002, garland-wreathed heads float as a silent procession in a sunken, twilight world, each person calmly surveying the darkness by the light of a powerful spirit lamp. Are these heads the islands of this title, or is the island our collective humanity afloat in a larger world full of unknowns? Some figures sport elaborate collars or wreaths of flowers around their neck, while another wears a wooden dunce hat full of birds. In the middle, one man balances a single white lily stalk, symbolizing the Virgin Mary—the compositional centerpiece of this procession of hope and mercy. ‘The theme of caretaking strongly transmits,’ writes nature and ethics scholar Gavin Van Horn. ‘There is a guarded optimism in the organic intertwining of human and nonhuman life, in which heads become lifeboats, thoughts become branches filled with song and chatter, and bodies are pierced and re-aggregated into something greater than their parts.*’

*Gavin Van Horn, 2013, June 7, The Artist Who Would Be Crow, Center for Humans and Nature, www.humansandnature.org

I wish there were better words to describe the emotional tenor of a work by Spiess-Ferris, melancholic, brooding, wistful, heartfelt, poignant, tragic, tender, etc., none fully does the trick, but in some combination, help to gauge the psychological temperature that she regularly achieves. The complex Inflated, Egos, 2008, is so diverse and rich, it takes us to a place of dreams and nightmares, fireballs cascading from the orange and apocalyptic sky while, in a sliver of blue water, a few of Spiess-Ferris’s signature actors and actresses float about on or among some very expressive swans. There’s a hothouse and claustrophobic feeling here, we see broad areas of suggestive emptiness juxtaposed with an intense but ambiguous narrative episode. Why are these curiously costumed individuals sailing about, … sporting inefficient and symbolic umbrellas and the like… what is their relationship to one another, are they vulnerable or somehow self-contained? More questions than answers, as is often true in this artist’s work—but images such as this provide that aperture to wonder and imagination that invite us to speculate and fantasize, to question and, finally, to surrender.

James Yood, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: An Appreciation, Sorrow of Swans, 2009

(installation views: Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: Daphne’s Sister, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL, October 26, 2019 - February 16, 2020)

Additional images

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Untitled study (related to Those That Were Left Behind, 2002), Nd, Conte on paper, Courtesy of the artist. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, Untitled (related to figure in The Basket, 1993), 1990s, Conte on paper, 30 ¼ x 44”, Courtesy of the artist. ©Eleanor Spiess-Ferris

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris: Daphne’s Sister was presented at the Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL, October 2019 - Feburary 2020, and at the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, March 2020.

#illinoisstatemuseum #evanstonartcenter #eleanorspiessferris #womanartist #illinoisartist

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laurakinneywrites · 7 years ago

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lazy bios;

RAYMOND STINGER; ((surname tbd lmao))

ok he's not actually super developed cos i just made him today but he's mr ray from finding nemo lmao!!!!

obvi like lisa he's an elementary school teacher??? AND IDK HOW IT WORKS IN THE US OF A like i know obviously over here when you have a primary teacher they're your teacher for all lessons? idk if that's the case in america tho i feel like it might not be???? but he's english!!!! and he's a geography major :) he's super duper into geography and travelling and shit!!!

but when he was like a Teenager he was dead like rock and like thought he was the Bees Knees LMAO like he thought he was SO COOL but he wasn't he was just a massive dork that thought he could start a band but nobody wanted to be in his band cos he's a nerdass so he started this one man band in his garage and held concerts that only his mum and kid sister would go to and he was one of those kids that would try and strap all these diff instruments to himself to make it work LMAO so he had like a keyboard and then he'd blow into his trumpet and strum his guitar and if she was feeling generous he'd get his kid sister to do the *ding* of the triangle or bash some symbols together and he thought he was so rock n roll but he just wasn't LMAO

ANYWAYS in spite of that he's a very talented musician in fairness to him and even tho he had no friends at school and was the big loser he was just rly sweet and nice to everyone???? he just!!! likes people and likes making them smile!!!! he's just a big smiler!!!!!! lmao and at his old school that he taught at they ended up in a bit of a rut where they had no music teacher? so he took on the role to help out while they found someone to fit the position but then they realised just how good he was and how much the kids love him so it kinda stuck and he got back into music and as like oh!!! i missed this!!!!! wow!!!! so now that he's in cherry grove he's like!!! WANNA TEACH THE SMOLS LOVE THE SMOLS THEY'RE SO UPBEAT AND FULL OF WONDER GOD BLESS 'EM!!!!!! and so even tho he majors in geography and excels in music, he teaches everything obvi!!!!

but geography and music classes are his favs and he loves hyping the kids up? and like where lisa sorta teaches her kiddos and is dead hippy and gives them play times where she feels they deserve it and just plays her guitar and sings to herself while they're working n shit he likes to like?? actually teach lessons with music sometimes??? which is super unconventional maybe but he's got that whole like school of rock vibe where he wants kids to know that they can be anything and that any career is viable and that you don't always have to be academic! or athletic! or musical! or you can be! any of those things!! and that's ok!!! and so he has all the fun w music class especially cos he assigns them all instruments and is like YOU'RE IN THE BAND and lets them explore their talents and if they don't wanna be in the band and play or sing he's like that's cool!!! u wanna manage??? do costumes??? what do u wanna do COS I'M SO ON BOARD!!!!! he's just a really cheery bab lmao i haven't given him any angst (YET?????)

but yeah! and he loves the beach and the ocean and stuff like that obvi cos u know he's based on a stingray so, lmao. and he loves taking kids on field trips omg!!! to the aquarium? CHECK!!! to musicals? CHECK!!!! he's a pacifist and he's not one for arguing but he does like to be assertive and get his way if the principal doesn't want him taking the kids on field trips n stuff but he does it in such a soft and mild way that he sorta convinces them that it's for educational purposes and wins people over with his warm smile ^_^

also i like to picture how he dresses and he def goes to work in like really clipped and expensive looking (but tbh probs scavenged from second hand shops lol) suits that are really prim and proper looking but he loves wearing like suspenders and braces and he never wears a tie (the occasional bow tie IF HE HAS TO but he hates wearing ties) and his hair's always scruffy and messy and his shirt's always crumpled w the top button undone so it's that kind of Look(tm) where he's dressed all smart and suave but Not? so basically like every hot dude at the end of a wedding reception after they've discarded their tie and have danced into the night, except that's his every day Look

DINAH CARROLL:

OK SO she’s a childhood best friend of alice's?? and like when bunny sorta lead alice away they drifted a bit? like they're still /friends/ but dinah's not at all on the drug scene and it's just not the life for her and she doesn't rly venture into that kinda territory at all? so where alice fell into a bad crowd she sorta left dinah behind? and they sorta miss one another terribly and think super highly of one another but maybe they don't necessarily have anything in common anymore and it's kinda sad for them cos they can't seem to fall back into old patterns.

i was thinking that like they both kinda chase after the white rabbit but alice falls down the hole w/o dinah? and i was thinking about how alice sorta idolises bunny and maybe dinah did too but got left behind kinda thang?

cos especially in the book and whatnot alice and dinah follow white rabbit and alice falls down the rabbit hole after him!!! but leaves dinah behind!!! and she spends all her time in wonderland talking about dinah and how much she misses her, and there’s a part about where alice talks about how everyone in wonderland hates dinah but she thinks she’s the best cat in the world, so essentially alice and dinah (in the rp) are best friends and alice goes down her route with bunny and dinah feels a little left behind and alone. but she never stops loving and missing alice? and vice versa? alice still thinks highly of her and though her new friends don’t necessarily think very highly of dinah or even like her in the slightest bit, she’ll defend her relentlessly even when they aren’t still talking/hanging out/etc

but i was thinking about like cats and their agility and their love of climbing and stuff!! and i was thinking of making her like really into things like rock climbing and abseiling and shit????? and like free running/parkour n stuff lol.

and she can be soft and affectionate and ^____^ like all cats but she can hold her own and she's got a bitta bite in her too ya know?? like a soft lil feminist kitty. and naturally she Loves Cats lol. and she's scared of dogs? i was thinking about how alice like proudly tells people about how dinah's v good at hunting and catching her dinner (ie mice and stuff?) and thought maybe my dinah could be like into archery or smth? not /actually/ hunting but she's a dab hand w a bow and arrow maybe or smth.

also she's like tomboyish and girly at the same time? so she loves a good flower crown and prettying herself up but she's not afraid of getting herself all roughed up and dirty and looking scruffy? and she likes playing around w her image and just trying new things and dyeing her hair and doing as she pleases :3

she's not necessarily good with kids? not so much that she dislikes them, cos she doesn't, but she's not rly used to altering herself or her behaviour to suit others? like she is who she is with everyone? so around kids sometimes she forgets that she can't just be blunt if it suits her or sarcastic or w/e and that she's gotta be a lil bit softer and sorta adapt and stuff

idk her sexuality just yet but she’s very much into girls and guys and loves kissing pretty girls and has never had a Real or Serious relationship cos most people don’t take her seriously which is okay!!! she’s just coasting through life but once she develops a crush her lil heart is all aflutter and she’s got a bad habit of crushing on girls who won’t like her back and it makes her a bit Sad

her parents own a donut shop called the rabbit hole

she has two sisters named caroline and edith (one older, one younger!) and a little brother named albert

she has two bunnies and a cat! her cat is literally named kitten because she’s unoriginal, and she has a white rabbit named white rabbit (cos unoriginal), and another white rabbit named snowdrop (cos dinah’s kids were named snowdrop and kitten lol)

MOHINDER PATEL;

okay!!!! so mo!!!!! his backstory is a bit topsy turvy til i develop it in its entirety cos i wanna make sure it's all solid lmao but.

BASICALLY mohinder's parents were explorers and stuff? and they travelled the world with mo at their side? they were archaeologists for the most part, but before they set off travelling, ever before they had mo, his father was a professor and his mother was a veterinarian. :) anyways!!!! one day they were travelling and mo was only about 3? they got into a boating accident. they were travelling along the river and the current grew stronger than they'd anticipated, and they crashed into the bank. mo's father was driving and he passed away on impact, but his mother crowded over mo's body, shielding him in an attempt to save him from harm? obviously distraught and terrified, she wanted to stay and mourn her husband but her priority was getting mo to safety, and so she bundled him into her arms and ran to find help. they were stranded alone in a jungle though with no sign of civilisation and she was certain there was no hope until she eventually ran into a small clearing that essentially resembled a tiny village? there weren't many inhabitants but they were willing to help and they took them in, took care of mo, and tried to nurse his mum back to health. sadly she died tho from her injuries as she'd been so shocked and eager to help mo she hadn't taken any notice of how severe her own injuries were.

anyways mo eventually was integrated into this tiny band of people, and lived his life in this jungle, growing up surrounded by the people who saved him. there were only about 20 of them, and they were all men. there were no women and so the only woman that mo ever truly knew was his mother, who he lost far too young? he still has little reminders of his parents, things they scavenged from their bodies/the boat/etc, but not much memory of them.

anyway he grew up in this sorta deserted jungle and had no real basis of human interaction cos he didn't know anybody out of that circle? he was surrounded by nature and animals more often than he was people, and for the first few years of his life there he barely spoke a word, only really opening up around age 6 or 7, finally finding the courage to speak, though still a boy of few words.

he was taught to hunt and defend himself as they weren't near any sort of real town and they didn't have things like tvs or basic coking utensils even? so they had to hunt and fight for their food. mo /hated/ it. he learned archery from a young age and became exceptionally skilled, but he never liked to kill for his food as it didn't feel right. so when he was a little older he started trying to find new ways to feed himself through plants and stuff? he wasn't very clever though so a lot of plants that he picked and whatnot were really dangerous and he got really poorly for a while and was kinda scolded for it and had to revert back to the ways he was taught.

he's a scrappy fighter even though he can stand up for himself and fight there's nothing clean or proper or educated about his techniques in fighting cos it's all based on the hunting and everything hes had to do to stay alive??? so he's a proper savage if he's ever in a fight lmao

he loves animals so much though? he doesn't wanna hurt them cos when you grow up with mostly animals for company they become your family and he works to protect them, not harm them??? he used to put himself in danger a lot by going days w/o eating cos he would just refuse to kill for his food.

he doesn't rly know how to harness and express his emotions cos he's never been taught real, human behaviour? he's never had any basis to learn from either. so he's got no concept of social norms and ordinary behaviour?

he spent all his life just like climbing trees and swinging from branches w the monkeys and drinking from the lakes w elephants and integrating himself w the animals rather than the few humans he Did know?

when he was 15 their little 'village' if u will was raided and uncovered??? and essentially i've not like delved too far into this aspect but bc it was kinda an uncivilised and unethical way of living they were all brought back to civilisation and The Real World, but mo especially bc he was so young he was put into foster care by the system? given this new life and stuff. they tried to track his parents family based on the lil bits he Did have but to no avail.

he was thrown into this big scary world that he didn't understand with cars and boats and plains and television and aksjdlkasjd it was kinda scary for him cos he Knew Of these things but he'd never rly been in big cities surrounded by skyscrapers and stuff? and now that he's that bit older he's growing and learning things but it's still scary. foster families were always sending him back into the system cos they didn't want him? they didn't wanna deal w him and his tantrums and his way of life. he's always walking around barefoot w/o a t-shirt on and raking mud through the house and doing as he pleases and eating w his hands and has no manners or anything aklsjdkalsjd

he's still really into archery and now that he's a bit older and integrated into society he knows what like veganism is and stuff? so he shoots and stuff but never Hunts? and he's a strict vegan just bc that's what He wants and stuff? but he's not like preachy or anything like when people ask him Why he's like 'i don't like tearing animals limb for limb' and they're like UH???? ME NEITHER???? U GOOD????????? lmao but.

anyways!!!!!! being in the real world was scary and he'd never seen a girl before (aside from his mum) SO EMOTIONS RAN HIGH AND WERE CONFUSING AND!!!!!!! so he was just like ok!!!! SCARY!!! but nobody would ever go near him cos they thought he was rabid or some sort of wild animal and they were kinda frightened of him and people picked on him and he was treated like a weirdo to the point he was pulled from school and underwent like private classes and stuff. which for him was kinda weird and confusing cos he was once again being taken away from like civilisation and people after getting used to it to a degree? but yup.

he's quite playful and carefree but he's dead stubborn? dead mischievous and likes playing tricks on people but that requires having friends to trick lmao. and he's got a bit of a temper and can be easily stressed out and gets dead anxious and nervous in loud and crowded spaces sometimes? like really claustrophobic. he's so used to following his own rules too sometimes it's hard to adapt and he attaches himself to soft people who don't treat him like smth of a pariah and don't cringe away from him but he never rly meets people like that so it's not easy???

but the basic human kindness shown to him and he'll attach himself to you and he gets really overprotective and if he sees someone messing with someone he cares for he just Loses His Shit? like he's got a temper and he's not been taught to reign it in and he hates cruel people?? so one time for example he had a foster dad who was abusive and he straight up attacked him and punched him in the face in defence of himself and his foster siblings and he was sent back into the system for it even tho he thought he was doing the right thing? he's tamed to an extent and learned since but he's still a bit wild u know?? one step at a time and all that

but he loves singing at the top of his lungs no matter how bad and dancing barefoot through the woods and doing as he pleases and he's found music really calming so when he was first introduced to like, an ipod and earphones and stuff it was such a marvel for him and he found that just plugging earphones in helps him quiet all the other sounds and calm him down :)

he wants to explore and travel some day just like his parents did cos he does sorta miss the wild and stuff but he doesn't think he's got the social etiquette or common sense of even the intelligence to ever make smth of himself cos of the life he's lead

anyways he's now in cherry grove? essentially he was tracked down by his parents family and he's just been moved to cg to live with his aunt and her husband and it's all scary cos they're Family but he doesn't Know Them and he's in a new place with new people and ahhh!!!! SCARY BIG WORLD !!!! so ya lol there's more on him but my hands are cramping up if we're being honest

#character bios;#c: dinah carroll #c: raymond stinger #c: mohinder patel

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