#and shisui. my sweet stupid beautiful boy. my dumb prince.

[astoldbygingersnaps]

⭐ Star trek au

Lovers alone wear sunlight

Oh Hell YES

let's talk about star trek au, aka "the love of my writerly life," and What The Fuck Happened in part three, chapter three:

from the very beginning, my goals for this chapter were simple: a) i wanted to push shisui, as a character, to his absolute breaking point; and b) i wanted to make such a significant change to this crew and inflict such obvious damage that you knew these people and their relationships would never be the same. y'know, fun stuff!

Plot Beat #1: How Shisui Uchiha Broke Bad

let's start with shisui. every plot beat in this chapter is specifically designed to jerk shisui around and back him further and further into a corner via luring him into a false sense of security.

your klingon peace talk is going scarily well? just kidding, you're going to get eviscerated!

your starfleet mentor is alive and well after months of radio silence? actually, he's going to give you a horrible mission and nearly force you to your death for some freaky bio-weapon that makes you a huge target!

the douchebag politician you've been scheming against is going to go quietly into that good night? oops, it's a trap and he's coming to fuck all your shit up and murder your crew!

over and over again, shisui's hopes get raised and then are almost immediately dashed. the best example of this is when, after months of being skittish and guarded and fatalistic, he finally lets his guard down around asuma and allows himself to imagine a better life. and less than twenty four hours later all that gets him is covered in the man's blood as he bleeds out and dies.

and we know, and have known for a while, that as good a person as shisui fundamentally is, he does have a dark side and some nasty instincts that have been, for the most part, kept in check by his loyalty to and affection for his crew along with his sincere belief in the federation's goals. but danzo's attack and asuma's death, along with the shitshow that his relationship with itachi devolves into, completely throws shisui off his axis, and it will certainly be interesting to see who--or what--he's become when i finally get off my ass and publish chapter four. all i can say is that for shisui, things are about to get Dark, and they won't clear up for a long, looooong time. which leads me to...

Plot Beat #2: Itachi And Shisui Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together (Like, Ever)

Look.

we all knew it was coming. considering that the series literally starts with itachi fucking off and leaving the corvus seemingly for good, it's clear that their time together was never destined to last. that in mind, my sincerest hope is that i've deepened and strengthened this relationship enough that when the two big bombs went off--namely, shisui's danzo-related betrayal and his being in love with itachi--everyone is attached enough to them and their bond with one another to be like. bummed about the inevitable.

given how Big the emotions that were destined to be involved are, i felt a lot of pressure about making sure i really nailed that final scene between shisui and itachi, because in a lot of ways that is the last scene they will have together as the characters we once knew them as. that easy, affectionate intimacy that existed between them in part two is gone, and it's not coming back for a long time, if ever. again, it was about pushing these characters past a point where we could have another ~*~wacky adventure in space~*~ and reset their dynamic after a mission of the week. there just is no coming back from this, for them.

i think i'll have more to say about the collapse of the itachi/shisui relationship in this au once part three is finished and the dust has settled, but basically the last third of this chapter is the perfect illustration of why, as much as i love them and they love each other, itachi and shisui are just. not right for each other at this moment in time. because shisui, as a captain, placed the safety of one person in his command over everyone else, and countless other people--including the one he was trying to protect--paid the price. because as long as they serve together, things like this will just keep happening, and eventually enough has to be enough.

in the same way, ino, chouji, and shikamaru will never be the people they were before now that asuma is gone. and even anko, for all that she's Like That, is going to be a changed character because of the, like, twenty-five batshit crazy things that happened this chapter. by the end of this chapter, the fun times on the corvus where they explore the universe and lovingly insult one another are long gone, and all that's left is to see how these people pick up the pieces (or perhaps fail to do so.)

i could talk about this fic for literally the rest of my life, so i'm just going to quit while i'm ahead and warn everyone that this next chapter, when it drops, will be a doozy, so stay tuned!