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ak-vintage · 4 months ago

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Quarry - Chapter 22

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, light angst, canon-typical violence and peril, lots and lots of mostly made-up Star Wars technobabble

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

Note: This chapter features events from season 2 episode "Chapter 16: The Rescue." You will notice borrowed dialogue and synced plot points.

---

Of the seven-person team that Din had assembled to rescue Grogu, you were the only one who had never had the experience of waking for the day only to immediately begin preparing for battle. However, as a pale sunrise bloomed over the horizon of this nowhere planet where you had found Bo-Katan, as the inhabitants of the Firespray all began to roll out of their bunks, you could feel the shift in energy like a tangible thing. The comfort and the softness of sleep, the comradery of your friendships, even the tender intimacy of your shared quarters with Din all dissolved as the ship’s lights flickered on and instead were replaced with an intensity of focus you had never encountered.

It was militant and almost entirely silent, the way each party member prepared themselves, and the lack of easy conversation that had become so normal on the Firespray over the last weeks set you on edge. Blasters were wiped down and loaded, armor was donned, and every belt, pocket, and holster was filled with backup supplies and secondary melee weapons. Everyone took turns in the mess, moving around one another quickly and efficiently like a well-oiled machine. They all seemed to favor light, nourishing breakfasts of nutrient-dense ration bars, canteens of water, and – in Fennec and Cara’s case – strong carafes of caf. You, however, could barely stomach your food, so tied up in knots was your body at the thought of the approaching challenge, but you forced down a few mouthfuls anyway at Din’s insistence.

“Epar, cyar’ika. Eat,” he bid you, hitting you with a hard stare through his visor. “You will need your strength.”

You did not have the same arsenal of supplies as the others, but you did take some time to back up your schematics of Gideon’s light cruiser onto a palm-held holoprojector you borrowed from Boba’s supplies. You also tucked a couple of datasticks into your pockets with some cyphers you recalled from your days of installing and configuring starship security and defense systems. Other than that, all there really was for you to do was to lace up your boots, whip your hair into a tight braid, and wrap your beloved scarf around your head like a headband. You didn’t really need it here, you knew, but at this point, it felt almost foreign to dress without it.

Just before you disembarked to board the Lambda shuttle with the rest of the group, Din took you aside and inspected your blaster while Cara Dune fitted you with a slick black leather utility belt from her own wardrobe. She fastened it snugly around the flare of your hips before slipping a matching leather holster onto the strap.

“Safer than keeping that thing in your pocket,” she quipped with a wry smile, nodding toward the blaster Din was currently polishing and reloading for you. You huffed a laugh and thanked her, but not before she slid three additional tibanna cartridges into your belt loops.

“You really think I’m going to need all this?” you asked warily.

The dark-haired woman shrugged, and you noticed that she had lined her deep brown eyes with kohl this morning, giving a fierce, predatory look to her striking features. “Maybe not, but better to have it than wish you did.” You swallowed thickly, nodding, and she clapped you warmly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”

“Cyare.”

At the sound of the endearment, you glanced over at Din and found him extending your blaster back to you. You took it with a murmured “thank you” and slipped it into the holster, feeling the cool, steady weight of it against your thigh. It was already more comfortable than having it shoved in your pocket.

“Are you ready?” the bounty hunter rasped.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Inclining his helmet at you solemnly, he pressed his hand into the small of your back and steered you toward the ramp. “Then let’s go.”

---

Mere hours later, in the depths of hyperspace, the boarding party clustered around the helm of the Lambda shuttle as you neared your destination. The recycled air was thick with anticipation, with the knowing that the moment you dropped out of light speed, there would be no more time for preparation. Of course, this was precisely the kind of thing that everyone had been trained for.

Everyone but you.

Shifting on your feet, your palm fell to the grip of your blaster, and you could feel the sweat on your skin slip against its textured surface. Your heart was hammering against your ribcage, your stomach heavy and acidic in your abdomen, and you struggled to keep yourself present – in the moment rather than in your head, lost in your anxieties. At the heart of it all, however, was frustration with yourself. You had fought for this chance, this opportunity to exercise your skills, to contribute, to be kriffing useful for once, and you refused to throw all of that away out of fear. This team needed you; Grogu needed you. You had to get it together.

And so instead of hyperventilating, as you thought you might have done otherwise, you focused on taking deep, steadying breaths and drying your palms against your boilersuit.

“Moff Gideon is mine,” Bo-Katan emphasized from her seat at the helm, hands steady and sure as she manipulated the controls without even hardly looking. “Got it?”

“He’s ex-ISB. He’s got a lot of information.” Cara adjusted her grip on her heavy-repeating blaster rifle, the butt of which sat propped on the toe of her boot. “I need him alive.”

Bo-Katan smiled icily. “I don’t care what happens to him as long as he surrenders to me.”

At that moment, Boba Fett’s low, gravelly voice crackled through the comm system. On one of the readouts on the console in front of you, you could see the vague outline of the Firespray pursuing you through the hyperspace tunnel. “Prepare to exit jump space.”

“Copy that,” the red-head replied. “Get the hell out of there as soon as they clear us to dock. And your shots have to look convincing.”

“Power up those shields, princess. I’ll put on a good show.” You smirked at the sound of his gentle condescension in spite of yourself.

The expression was echoed on Bo-Katan’s sharp-featured face. “Watch out for those deck cannons.”

There was a brief pause, and Boba sounded genuine this time as he responded, “Don’t worry about me. Just be careful in there.”

On the console in front of Koska, you watched as the glowing icon indicating your target coordinates grew ever larger in size.

This was it. It was time.

On instinct alone, you reached out, took hold of Din’s hand, and squeezed, suddenly desperate for something to ground yourself. All broad palms and long, thick fingers, he gripped you back with a ferocity you didn’t expect from his calm, collected exterior. Somehow, knowing that he was just as strung out as you over this eased your fears even more than the touch would have otherwise.

Koska, however, was the picture of composure as she narrated your approach. “Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one…”

The tell-tale, stopped-time sensation of dropping out of hyperspace tugged at your navel, and then –

Bright red blaster cannon fire lit up the forward viewport, Bo-Katan poured on the acceleration, and you took off at the fastest sub-light speed the Lambda shuttle could handle. Dodging Boba’s attacks with expert precision, you noticed that each round only narrowly missed the long, fin-like wings of your hijacked Imperial shuttle. The proximity of a few of them had your heart jumping into your throat, but each time, she managed to evade them.

Up ahead, looming pale and angular and absolutely massive against the inky blackness of space, precisely as you had pictured her, was Moff Gideon’s Imperial light cruiser. And you were headed straight for her.

Bringing her palm down on the comm controls, Bo-Katan hailed the cruiser and shouted into the receiver, affecting a distressed tone, “This is Lambda shuttle 2743, requesting emergency docking!”

Her distress call was met only with silence, and you couldn’t help but glance around at the others’ faces as the subspace connection remained dormant. Would the cruiser really ignore them? They looked like an ally, why would they not –

“Repeat – requesting emergency docking. We are under attack!” Bo-Katan echoed.

This time, a commanding, feminine voice responded. “Copy, Lambda shuttle. Request received.” Another pause, this one much shorter than the last, and then, “Stay clear of launch tube. Deploying fighter squadron.”

Bo-Katan shot a significant look at Koska, and the dark-haired woman clenched her jaw and nodded once. You realized they must have come to the same conclusion – the plan would need to remain the same even in the face of this new hurdle. In order to board the ship where it was most vulnerable, the Lambda shuttle would be facing down the TIE fighter squadron head-on – at the mouth of the launch tube.

Just as this thought occurred to you, a single silver TIE fighter streaked from the opening of the launch tube, rocketing out into space through the narrow walls of the aperture. Through the viewport, you watched as the fighter drew closer, closer, closer still. Bo-Katan held her course, however, continuing to dodge Boba’s cannon fire while never once wavering in her aim. For a moment, you thought the fighter might not adjust course in time, but then, at the last second, it veered hard to starboard and only barely missed clipping wings with the shuttle.

You swore you could feel a collective breath of relief being released across the room, but the feeling was short-lived as another TIE fighter appeared at the mouth of the launch tube.

If the first of the squadron had cut it close, this one was downright reckless. Blasting at top speeds through the narrow mouth of the tunnel, you were certain you could see the black reflective surface of the pilot’s helmet through his own transparisteel viewport before he finally dropped into a steep dive and ducked beneath the Lambda shuttle.

And still, Bo-Katan and Koska held steady. The aperture of the launch bay glowed bright blue in the distance, visible through the long, thin tunnel right at the nose of the light cruiser. Another fighter was being brought out – you could see it clearly now; another was about to launch, and the shuttle was nearly at the tunnel’s mouth.

You were coming in too hot. If Gideon’s crew launched that fighter, you would meet in midair, trapped in the restrictive space of the launch tunnel with nowhere to go, and no dodging or maneuvering – no matter how expertly done – would be enough to stop a collision.

The crew on the light cruiser seemed to have noticed the same. Bursting through the comm lines with urgency, the communications officer barked, “Request denied! Please clear launch tube until fighters deploy!”

Bo-Katan grit her teeth and responded, a bit of real anxiety beginning to creep into her façade. “Negative! Negative! We are under attack!”

You braced yourself against the nearest bulkhead as the shuttle dodged another volley of rounds from the Firespray, and in that moment, bright green blaster cannon fire joined the red. The two TIE fighters had joined the fray. Your pilots were left then to dodge both assailants and somehow still thread the needle into the mouth of the launch tube.

Gripping Din’s hand in yours even harder, you swallowed the ball of fear that had begun to build in your throat.

You had talented pilots at the helm of your ship – experienced fighters, cunning warriors both with nerves of steel, you told yourself. You had to trust their timing, their skills. Otherwise, you would be a harried mess before you even had the chance to step foot out of the shuttle and begin the mission in truth.

“Clear launch tube immediately!” the comm link commanded, and although she knew they could not see her, Bo-Katan shook her head, red bob dancing along her jaw.

It was miraculous, truly, what the would-be Mandalorian ruler was able to accomplish over the next few seconds. The sequence of events began to blur together, dissolving into one long, chaotic moment, but the next thing you knew, the entrance to the launch loomed directly in front of the viewport. You felt the ship shift with the mechanical vibration of the shuttle’s wings lifting into their vertical position, narrowing the ship dramatically, and just as they locked into place, you breached the mouth of the tube with mere inches to spare on either side.

But you were still coming in too hot, too fast. The short distance between the mouth of the tube and the ship’s shield-guarded launch portal was quickly disappearing, and there was no way the bulky wings of the Lambda shuttle were going to make it into that tiny opening unscathed.

“Hang on!” Fennec warned, seeing the same thing you did. Din dropped your hand and wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you into his side as though preparing to shield you against the inevitable collision. You hid your face in the crook of his shoulder, unable to watch, as the aperture swallowed the shuttle whole.

The impact was immediate and brutal, clipping the edge of the portside wing and sending you, Din, and Cara all flying across the cabin and slamming into the unforgiving deck plating. Din cushioned your fall somewhat, though you couldn’t say the beskar was a much more comfortable place to land. The shuttle trembled violently around you, and bright sparks flew as both wing joints dragged along the inside of the launch tube. The belly of the ship bounced once, then twice, the vibration ringing through your teeth, and finally – after what felt like an eternity but in reality was a mere handful of seconds – you skidded to a stop at the end of the launch tube.

The moment the shuttle stopped rumbling beneath your bodies, Din and Cara were on their feet, and you scrambled to follow. This was the moment – time to execute the next phase of the plan. And time for you to leave the bounty hunter’s side and pray that you would reunite on the bridge unharmed.

Gripping the side of your face in one hand and drawing his blaster with the other, Din yanked you to him and pressed his forehead to yours one last time.

“K’oyacyi, cyare. Come back safe.”

“You, too,” you whispered, breath fogging his visor. “Go get him. Bring him home.”

“We’ve got her, Mando,” Cara assured him as she raised her blaster rifle, pushing her dark, disheveled hair out of her face. “C’mon. Time to go.”

You nodded once, drew your own blaster from your holster, and stepped back as Fennec shouldered her way to the rear of the cabin. With sharp, determined eyes, she did a quick inventory of the room, ensuring that all members of the boarding party were prepared to disembark.

When her gaze landed on you, she said, “Remember the plan, girl. Keep to the center of the formation, wait for clear windows to shoot, and for kriff’s sake, don’t try to be a hero.”

Releasing a huff of laugh, you agreed with a glib “yes, ma’am,” and then Bo-Katan’s sharp voice rang out behind you, the sound modulated by the sudden addition of her helmet vocoder.

“Drop the ramp – let’s go.”

As the ramp began to descend, dense, white coolant steam billowed from the shuttle’s undercarriage, obscuring your view of the bay ahead. In the distance, you could hear a Storm Trooper shouting, “Clear the launch tube! What are you doing? Get that thing out of here – ”

Whatever he was meant to say next, he never got the opportunity. With steady precision, Koska raised her blaster pistol and shot twice through the fog, and instead of more protests, all you heard was a pained “argh” and the sound of two armored bodies hitting the deck.

Then chaos erupted.

Shoulder to shoulder, Fennec and Koska led the charge down the ramp while Bo-Katan and Cara brought up the rear. You stayed tucked between them, blaster drawn, head down, the marshal’s broad form shielding you from the bright red bolts of light that filled the air. In the distance, you could see more than a dozen Imperials charging at the shuttle – some in full Storm Trooper white, others in officer gray, all with blasters drawn, raining fire on your boarding party.

But the women who surrounded you moved as a unit – like one that had been fighting arm-in-arm for years rather than days. It was tactical, the way they divided the oncoming hoard of combatants, and in perfect synchronicity, they cut through the launch bay like a hot knife through butter. The sound of it was overwhelming – the overlapping shrieks of volley after volley of blaster rounds, the whip of a grappling line from one of the Mandalorians’ vambraces, the flare of heat from a jetpack, the echo of heavy boots sprinting across durasteel deck plating. You kept your head on a swivel, your own blaster at the ready, but by the time your party had made it to the far side of the launch bay – leaving a trail of Imperial bodies in your wake – you found that you hadn’t even needed to fire it.

They had eliminated everyone in their path with such deadly precision, your presence had been entirely superfluous.

However, you hardly had the opportunity to feel self-conscious about that fact. Just as you had predicted, just as Mayfeld had warned you as you sat huddled over datapads and schematics in the depths of hyperspace, the moment the ship’s internal sensors detected blaster energy signatures, the launch bay doors slid shut. Emerging from the depths of the bulkheads on either side, two blast doors slammed closed over them, and a series of forbidding red lights flared to life around the metallic doorframe. The control panel to the right of the door also glowed red, and you felt the faintest surge of satisfaction at the sight.

The first security checkpoint had been activated. No one would be leaving the launch bay without passing a genetic scan and a chain code verification. You had been right.

“You’re up,” Fennec beckoned as the group approached the foreboding door, and you nodded silently.

This was what you were here for. This was something you could do.

Slipping to the front of the group, you took notice of how the other members closed ranks around you, placing their own bodies between you and any potential threats. The room around you was silent, almost eerily so, and you knew that none other than your team had been left alive. But still, they protected you.

For now, however, you shoved all of the warm feelings that realization elicited to the side and instead dug one of your arsenal of datasticks out of your pocket. You gripped it between your teeth to free up your hands, and then, digging the tips of your fingers into the frame of the control panel, you wrenched it open, exposing the inner workings of the terminal. The wires and switches and flashing lights before you might have looked anonymous and random to others, but to your eyes, it was a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Plugging the datastick into the open port, you went to work.

Slice into the internal security system. Access the secondary protocols. Isolate the launch bay terminals, cut them off from the rest of the system. Identify the unique override sequence. You frowned, drawing your lower lip between your teeth in concentration. The press of bodies around you shifted restlessly as the seconds ticked by. You resisted the urge to reassure them – you were close, you were almost there, just one more redirect and –

“That’s it,” you breathed, removing the datastick, replacing the control panel cover. With quick fingers, you entered a series of commands into the panel, and suddenly, all of the lights surrounding the blast doors flickered blue. With a loud, mechanical thunk, every layer of the barrier retracted back into the bulkheads, and the path ahead looked back at you, clear and open.

Behind you, Cara released a breath of relief, and Bo-Katan swept an impassive stare from the bottoms of your boots to the top of your head, as though appraising you. “Well done,” she said, brusque but earnest. “Now fall back.”

You tucked your datastick back into your pocket and withdrew your blaster from your holster as you retreated back into formation. Koska took point once again as the party charged down the open corridor, and you encountered no enemies along its length. After a handful of minutes, you came upon a path that branched perpendicularly to the left, and Koska held up her fist for you all to slow to a stop. Blaster drawn, she peeked around the corner and scanned the area quickly. “All clear.”

Bo-Katan rounded the corner ahead of her, taking in the new corridor for herself. “A little too clear,” she agreed. Beckoning the group forward, she proceeded cautiously, and as you advanced, you realized that you had come upon an open-air catwalk connecting two sections of the ship. Above and below the narrow strip of decking that stretched out before you was nothing but open, vacuous space, and if you dared to glance down, you could see the infinite blackness twinkling back at you from beyond the life support system’s ray shields. Swallowing the wave of anxiety that washed over you at the sight, you kept your eyes on the back of Bo-Katan’s helmet instead.

“Keep your eyes open,” she cautioned as you began to traverse the catwalk. You were back to the center of the formation, as planned, allowing the others to keep themselves between you and the unfamiliar surroundings, but your blaster remained firmly gripped in your hand anyway, ready to defend yourself should you need to.

You made it about halfway across the catwalk unmolested. Just as you were beginning to think that this leg of your journey might prove to be blessedly simple, four Storm Troopers emerged from the open door ahead.

As if they had planned such a synchronous maneuver in advance (which, to be fair, they probably had), both Koska and Bo-Katan fired up their jetpacks and dove off opposite edges of the catwalk, leaving you, Cara, and Fennec to face the oncoming assailants alone. The marshal was quick to dig her fingers into the back of your boilersuit and tug you bodily behind her, but that didn’t stop you from raising your pistol. On instinct alone, you thrust the muzzle of your blaster into the space between the other two women’s bodies, and your fire joined theirs in gunning down the troopers. You couldn’t be certain whether any of your rounds landed, but by the time all of them had either crumpled to the floor or fallen off the edge of the catwalk, the unlucky Storm Troopers had only managed to get off a single round. No one from the boarding party had been harmed.

“Freeze! Drop your weapons!”

A sharp, modulated voice rang out behind you, and your stomach dropped, all of the bravado you had felt mere moments ago slipping away as quickly as it had come. Turning slowly, you found six more Storm Troopers equipped with sleek black blaster rifles spilling onto the catwalk.

“Dank farrik,” you swore under your breath, icy, paralyzing fear gripping your spine for the first time since leaving the shuttle. There had to be too many of them. You didn’t have the element of surprise like you had with the others; these troopers already had their weapons trained on you, and on this narrow walkway, there was nowhere to hide.

Should you surrender, you wondered? Drop your pistol to the floor, put your hands in the air? The idea had your stomach rolling. No, you couldn’t give up, not now –

The distinctive rumble of jetpacks reverberated off of the nearby bulkheads, and a rush of relief so powerful it nearly had your knees buckling washed over you as both Koska and Bo-Katan shot out from their hiding places under the catwalk. From several feet in the air, they rained blast fire down on the unsuspecting troopers, red light and white sparks flying with each impact, and in a handful of seconds, all six of your would-be captors had collapsed into white plastoid heaps on the deck.

You sent the two Mandalorians grateful smiles as they landed smoothly back on the surface of the walkway, and then you were off again, proceeding with haste through the open archway ahead.

---

The deeper into Moff Gideon’s cruiser the boarding party penetrated, the more confident you became. The adrenaline racing through your veins felt less unsettling, rattling on your nerves; instead it seemed to focus you, blocking out all other concerns and fears and narrowing your field of vision to just the mission at hand. Keep your head down. Shoot when you have to. Override every barrier, disable every checkpoint in your path. Trust your comrades to keep you safe, but watch their backs, as well. It reminded you a bit of the Razor Crest’s pursuit of Kevok Teklolq, the way you found yourself able to sink into this role, to concentrate only the task in front of you to the exclusion of all else.

As you made your way across a densely-packed cargo bay, surrounded on all sides by Fennec and Cara’s blaster fire and crumpling white-armored bodies, you felt as focused and in-control as you did behind the helm of a starship. So when one of those anonymous plastoid helmets rounded the corner in front of you, blaster at the ready, you didn’t hesitate, and at this close of a range, even you couldn’t miss.

You shot once. Twice.

The soldier let out a pained grunt and toppled to the floor, and if bile rose in the back of your throat at the sound, you were too focused on reaching the next checkpoint to notice.

Unfortunately, that next check point appeared to be at the far end of an endless series of corridors, and each one seemed to be filled with more Imperial forces than the last. The closer you drew to the bridge, the tighter the defenses. Keeping tight to your formation, the five of you cleared each hall as you entered it, the occasional round bouncing off of Bo-Katan and Koska’s armor as you advanced. It wasn’t until you reached the last turn that the endless wave of combatants became too much to bear.

“Split up!” Cara barked, breaking away from the group. Her massive blaster rifle propped firmly under her arm, she placed herself in front of the rest of you, strong shoulders broad and centered as she took on the oncoming troopers like a force of nature. You tucked yourself behind a support beam, pressing yourself against the bulkhead to steady your aim and did your best to back her up, but next to her oversized rounds, the ones coming from your little pistol seemed to almost inconsequential.

However, as Cara reached the end of the corridor, you heard a distinctive whirring, seizing sound coming from her rifle, and you watched as she quickly found her own support beam to take shelter behind as she cried, “My gun’s jammed!”

Fennec was quick to jump to her aid, yelling, “I got you!” The assassin was nimble, light on her feet, dodging shot after shot as she cut down the corridor toward where Cara had hidden. She was good, great even as more and more Storm Troopers fell at her feet, but it wasn’t enough. The two Mandalorians were occupied with forces approaching from behind, and while the marshal wrestled with her uncooperative weapon, Fennec was outgunned.

A sickening bolt of fear broke through your concentration as you watched yet another trooper round the corner into the corridor, raise his blaster, and take aim directly at the Rebel dropper at his feet.

“Cara!”

Again, you didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. You shot off three rounds, two of which arced wide, but the third one kept true and collided with the trooper’s chest. He staggered back with the force of the impact, a hollow “ugh!” ringing out through his helmet, and then Cara Dune was on her feet once more. Having given up on repairing her blaster rifle, she deftly spun the thing around and wielded the stock like a bludgeon. Lifting the gun high, she shattered the trooper’s helmet in a deadly blow, and white shards of plastoid sprayed through the air as the man collapsed, motionless on the ground.

The marshal shot a wild grin over her shoulder at you, pride gleaming in her dark eyes. “Thanks,” she huffed breathlessly.

You weren’t certain how you felt about that sentiment just now, knowing that you were being thanked for helping her to take a life, even if it had been to save hers. But you could unpack that another time, you decided. Now, your expertise was needed at the doors to the lift that loomed ahead – the lift that would take you to the cruiser’s bridge deck. You were nearly there.

You didn’t wait to be prompted. While the others polished off the remaining troopers, you darted over to the lift, outlined as all the other checkpoints had been in bright red lights. You got to work immediately – peeling back the control panel cover, plugging in one of your datasticks, everything just as you had done for the previous checkpoints. However, as you felt the rest of the boarding party fall into formation behind you, you noticed that each time you thought you had disabled a set of protocols successfully, the effects seem to only last for a moment or two. The layers of security would fall away, and then they would surge back into place, as if you hadn’t just spent long, precious seconds systematically taking them apart.

“Fuck.” The curse came out breathless, and you could feel sweat gathering on the back of your neck and across your forehead as the realization shot down your spine like a livewire. “They’re changing it.”

“What is it?” Bo-Katan asked sharply, her modulated voice sounding just over your shoulder.

“The ship’s crew is countering. The security algorithm has started to vary – they’re trying to stop us from reaching the bridge.”

“Can you compensate?”

You weighed your answer only briefly before nodding. “Yes.”

The new cypher was complex, more nuanced and layered than the first, as though designed to test the limits of your knowledge and see how far you could push them. As you keyed through the terminal, you dug through your memories, your experiences with programs like this one. You pictured your father’s starship database, the endless stores of information, wishing you could remember even half of what you had studied at his side. You had always been more of a hardware girl, anyway; more than anything, you wished you had your plasma torch just so you could see how the security team on the bridge would respond to you simply cutting through the doors they erected in your path.

“Not to rush you, engineer, but if we need to find an alternate way to the bridge, we need to know now.”

“Shh,” you whispered, keeping your eyes on the open terminal before you. You were so close. You could feel it, you just needed to focus, you just needed –

There.

Your hands flew to reassemble the control panel, dropping your datastick back into your pocket once more. One quick command sequence, the foreboding red lights flickered blue, and the lift doors slid open without prompting.

All of the breath left your lungs in one loud exhale, and then you were all piling into the lift car. You input the bridge level number before anyone could ask, and as the car began to rise, you collapsed back against the durasteel wall in relief.

That had been too close for your comfort.

The near-complete silence in the narrow walls of the lift was jarring after the sounds of battle. You could hear the pounding of your heart for the first time since you had left the shuttle, and your own breath sounded too loud in your ears. In the quiet, Bo-Katan turned to you and demanded, “Did you shush me back there?”

Stars, had you? You supposed you had. Perhaps not the wisest choice – to be so disrespectful to the future Mand’alor. It hadn’t been consciously done, but still…

Thankfully, you were saved from needing to answer for this slight by Marshal Dune banging the butt of her blaster rifle on the floor and cursing loudly. “Dank farrik!” She fussed with the action, opening and closing it multiple times, blaster parts clanking against one another in a way no one in the lift could have ignored. “Son of a mudscuffer!”

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Bo-Katan asked wryly.

With gritted teeth, Cara slammed the stock of her gun down once more, this time with enough force that you could feel the vibration of it through the floor. A distinctive whirring sound emanated from the depths of the rifle, and you breathed a sigh of relief as she said, “I think that did it.”

Just then, the lift arrived at the bridge level, and the marshal swung her oversized weapon around toward the opening lift door. “Excuse me,” she muttered under her breath, and then she was leading the charge, teeth bared, pouring a never-ending stream of glowing yellow blaster fire down the enemy-filled hallway.

“Hostiles! Stop!”

The command from one of the Storm Troopers ahead did not deter you. The four of you followed in the marshal’s wake, unleashing every ounce of aggression you had left, and just as before, the dense press of armored bodies fell in the face of your party’s sheer force. However, as you gained ground toward the bridge, which shone in the distance, you watched as one final security checkpoint – one you hadn’t planned for – flared to life around its entrance. Warning lights glared red in the frame, two layers of blast doors slammed shut at the end of the corridor, and you swore you could feel the leaden finality of them reverberate through your bones.

Somewhere off to your right, Fennec shouted your name through the deafening roar of blaster fire.

“Go! Get that door open!” she shouted, her low, warm voice hoarse and strained. “I’ll cover you!”

Wordlessly, you nodded, and then you were off like a shot, sprinting down the remaining distance between you and the door with single-minded focus. You did not allow yourself to look as troopers fell around you at the end of Fennec’s rifle, did not allow yourself to hesitate as you jumped over their bodies, as you ducked their flying blaster bolts. You trusted the assassin. Your teammate, your friend. She would keep you safe as you ran. She had to.

You nearly skidded to a stop by the time you made it to the bridge’s entrance. Bracing yourself with your palms against the durasteel, you curled your shoulders inward and tried to make yourself as small a target as possible as you got to work. There was no four-fighter squadron shielding your back this time. You would need to be fast.

As you sliced into the system, you found even more modifications to the algorithms than you had seen on the lift. Brows pulled low, lip between your teeth, you took deep, steadying breaths as you worked. You kept the peril of your situation at arm’s length, knowing that if you allowed yourself to experience it, to really hear the fight going on around you, you would freeze. Instead, you kept your eyes on the terminal, and you ripped the protocol to shreds.

You were putting the control panel cover back on when you heard it – Cara’s voice, then Fennec’s, then even Bo-Katan’s cutting through the chaos. Your name, repeated over and over. “Get down! Get down!”

You hit the deck on your knees, legs collapsing beneath you.

And three blaster bolts collided with the durasteel blast doors right where your head had been.

You felt as though your stomach had fallen clean out of your body as you stared up at the glowing hot dents in the metal, all clustered together right where you had been standing. Sweat poured down your face, fatigue settling in your bones. Stars, that had nearly been the end of you. Your mind flew to Din and then to Grogu, thankful down to your core that you hadn’t seen the last of them.

So overwhelmed were you that you barely noticed Cara coming up behind you until she hauled you to your feet.

“You’re all right, sweetheart, shake it off,” she encouraged, brushing imaginary dust from your shoulders. “We took care of that guy, don’t worry. Let’s get in this room, huh?”

You nodded gratefully. With the other woman’s arm still tucked protectively around your shoulders, you entered the final command sequence, and the security system disarmed.

The party made quick work of the few Imperials left on the bridge when the doors opened. Fanning out across the room, it took only a handful of quick, efficient shots to have the entire bridge crew on the ground.

Koska charged straight for the security station, withdrawing an abandoned code cylinder from the console. “Weapons systems disarmed,” she said. “Secondary security protocols also disabled. Everyone should be able to move freely now.”

Thank the Maker. All that was left now was to wait for Din to rendezvous with you all, and with any luck, he would have Grogu in tow. Your relief was all-consuming, and you found yourself sinking into one of the officers’ chairs with a sigh.

However, there was one member of your party who did not seem especially pleased with the results of your efforts. After taking a full tour around the perimeter of the bridge, Bo-Katan Kryze came to stand in front of the viewport, confusion and fury pouring from her in palpable waves even through her impassive helmet.

Shoving both of her blaster pistols into her holsters with force, she hissed, “Where’s Gideon?”

You glanced around at the bodies that littered the floor, seeing a handful of troopers, a couple of officers in gray... But no one in command black.

Moff Gideon wasn’t here.

---

Mando'a Translations:

epar - eat k’oyacyi - Cheers! Hang in there! Come back safely. Literally, "stay alive"

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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be-my-ally · 1 year ago

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Paradise: Old Army Uniform Style

A late midweek (although I suppose it’s the end of the week now) treat for everyone - finally; my fill for the prompt “Army Elvis”.

pairing: fem!reader x 1964-6 Elvis.

summary: reader walks in on Elvis trying on an old outfit in the midst of his struggles with his body image - she takes the initiative to try and convince him he’s still hot af.

I tried, i really tried. I wrote 156 words for an ‘army elvis’ fic where he’s actually in the army but I spent the whole time thinking nope I hate it I can’t get the words right, I don’t know enough…etc etc. Maybe one day I’ll finish the alternative fic I had started but for now, please enjoy how I managed to fit late 1964-6 Elvis into this prompt.

warnings: 18+, use of the term ‘fat’ as both an adjective and a derogatory term for elvis to describe himself, but briefly and very gently. Insecure Elvis, oral (p receiving).

wc: for how long this took me to get out - an embarrassingly small 3.2k

as always thank you for the help + encouragement to the girlies @whositmcwhatsit, @thatbanditqueen, @vintageshanny, @missmaywemeetagain, @ellie-24, @from-memphis-with-love, @powerofelvis

“Fuckin’ hell.” You can hear a clamour from the dressing room off the side of the bedroom when you walk in, clothing strewn about and Elvis swearing. What the hell is he doing.

“El?” You tentatively creep around the doorframe, he’d stormed up here a little while ago, furious about something that had been said to him on the phone during a ‘business meeting’ - shouting that he was “Gettin’ ready to leave - gonna leave y’all here if you ain’t ready when I come down.”

He was meant to be getting ready for the Memphian, like he had been every evening this past week and you’d wondered what was taking him so long since, despite his warning, he’d been up here a while. Of course, you’re in no hurry - the shows don’t start until Elvis turns up whatever time of the night or morning that may be and the boys were happy (and expected) to entertain themselves downstairs until he reappeared.

You round the corner, blinking at the sight in front of you, trying to make sense of the trail of clothing, the mismatch of the fabrics surrounding Elvis in the centre. Your eyes finally manage to focus on him and you wince a little as you see what he’s found. He’s staring at himself in the large mirror, twisting and turning. You try not to draw attention to yourself, yet, wanting to try and decipher his feelings before making yourself known.

You know he’s struggling at the moment - to find the right things to wear. It hasn’t helped his confidence none being shafted by the wardrobe departments. The worst offender being that god-awful brown shirt and pants he has to wear for Hawaiian Paradise; the beige supposedly slimming but everyone seems to be aware it’s having the opposite effect. Any attempt at suggesting a different costume had been put down - arguing that the costuming reflects the character, it’s apparently integral to make it clear he's a pilot. Regardless of the fact that the plot makes it clear Rick has limited professionalism and would, therefore, as a private pilot be unlikely to wear such a thing. It’s worse than that too - you know, Elvis knows, Larry knows, wardrobe knows, hell everyone knows that that outfit, and the way he’s being purposefully shielded from the cameras topless, how even swimming they refuse to film him from the front is all on orders from on high.

Orders that revolve around ‘the state’ of him at the moment, of his ‘hefty weight’ as that one Variety reviewer referred to him. Scarcely could you read a review without some discussion of his recent weight gain or the word ‘pudgy’ being used to describe some part of him. Elvis himself has become a little preoccupied with these comments - he wouldn’t allow them to film him naked from the waist up even if they’d tried in what he felt was his ‘current condition’.

You think - just for a second, looking at him now, that he’s in that uniform although why he’d have brought it home from set and all the way to Tennessee you couldn’t imagine. Before you realise that it was in fact the tan of his summer chino uniform. One of his old army uniforms - perhaps the oldest judging from the badge on his arm. You can see, as he twists and turns in the mirror, tugging at the fabric, that the pants gape at the waist - too tight to zip closed, and the shirt buttons are closed but faintly straining. It’s immediately clear it doesn’t fit. But it’s also clear that it’s not far off, and you dread to think how you would look trying to fit in a dress from five or six years ago - the difference between your very early twenties and being basically thirty seems like quite the jump.

You can see he’s miserable. His hair’s undone and flopping forward - a relief from his recent desire to have it gelled into an unmoving coif - working to hide his face from yours in the mirror, but with every jerking pull of the fabric, accompanied by the swearing spilling out of his mouth, you can tell he’s feeling awful. You repeat yourself from before, interrupting him this time -

“El? You alright?” He stills, glancing up at you in the mirror. There’s a pause that feels longer than it probably is as he makes eye contact before looking away, a flush creeping up his neck.

“‘m fat.” He mumbles it, almost as if not wanting you to hear it, you can’t help but roll your eyes - you appreciate he feels this way but it all feels a bit ridiculous considering you’re looking at him all day every day, and sure there is a difference but hardly to the extent he’s claiming.

“You’re not fat.” He whirls around to look at you properly,

“I am.”

“You’re not. And if you are, god only knows what you’d call me.” You gesture down yourself, he winces - if there’s one thing he’s learnt it’s to never comment on a women’s weight -

“Well it’s, it’s not the same thing at all. It’s different for you - w’men are meant, meant to be soft, ‘m ‘m not. I’ve got,” he gestures to his hips, “handles” You frown, resting your hands in the soft dip of your waist on top of the swell of your own hips.

“So do I.” You flare your fingers out to illustrate your point. He throws his hands in the air, as high as he can with the shirtsleeves too tight on his armpits.

“Don’t know why I bother trying to ‘splain - you ain’t listenin’ to me -“ He sounds it out, “You’re. Meant. To.” You take a deep breath, reminding yourself that he’s just upset and that’s why he’s behaving like a bit of a dick.

“If you weren’t meant to be - You wouldn’t be.” You believe that for him and yourself - wholeheartedly. He huffs,

“Don’t know why I even tried.” He starts angrily unbuttoning the shirt and you wince at his roughness - it might be useless, and it might be impossible to wear but it still feels emblematic of a part of him. “Stupid idea. This is why all ‘m doing is them shitty films. Won’t be getting any Jimmy Dean comparisons lookin’ like this.” He starts to tug at the pants, it would be comical the way he has to attempt to wriggle them off of his, admittedly thick, ass if you couldn’t see the waistband scraping him on the way down, little red marks being left.

“You’re being overdramatic. I promise, babe, no one cares whether you can fit in your old uniform.” He lets out a hollow laugh, sitting on the occasional chair in the corner, shoving the pants to his thighs.

“No honey, they do. That’s what - what the Colonel was ringin’ about, wanted to tell me they won’t be using me as I am now on the albums for the film - gonna use, use some from Acapulco ‘stead.” He can’t get the pants down any further and you have to stifle a laugh - you feel sorry for him, you truly do, but he just looks so ridiculous sat there with his pants bunched around his thighs, shirt open, pouting.

“Babe - I, I don’t know why this bothers you so much - they’re assholes!” He shakes his head, crossing his arms and looking to the side.

“They might be, but they’re right. Soon enough no-one’s gonna want to buy anything from me. I’ll be a fat old man. ‘s just like Germany all over again, ‘m terrified everyone’s gonna move on without me.” He looks affronted when you do laugh at him this time,

“Sweetheart, you’re not anywhere near old yet, and uh, well, you might have put on a little bit of weight, but you’re not out of shape and you’re not - honestly it’s ridiculous I’m having to tell you this. You’re not unattractive.” He sighs at this, like he thinks you’re just placating him, thumping his arm on the chair like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Want me to go grab a couple of the girls from outside?” You giggle, he kicks a foot out. “Bet they’d show you how you still are.” His eyebrows are still pulled together, but you can see his frown relaxing, as if he wants to laugh but still refuses to.

“Or, you just want me to make you feel better? Show you how much I want you still?” He looks you up and down, as if assessing the offer, you smile at him when his eyes linger on your bare thighs for a second. He goes soft for a second, quiet,

“I just thought maybe, maybe I’d fit and-and it would prove that I wasn’t getting all pudgy - hefty. Like they keep puttin’ it.” You don’t know what to say, it’s not altogether untrue - it would just be untrue to say that he doesn’t look good, that the few extra pounds haven’t gone straight to his meaty thighs and stomach making you want to sink your teeth into them, haven’t rounded some of his clean lines to look even better than before; manly, rugged. Even with the hollywood styling.

“What,” You pause, worrying that this is going to be the wrong thing to say, that it will make the spiral worse, “What made you try that particular outfit though?” He huffs again, frown back on his face. Before he seems to come to some sort of decision and sits up, leaning forward,

“I dunno, I just felt real similar to how I did then, and I know I looked good bythe time I was meeting with Sinatra, I was fit and, I don’t know really. I jus’ wanted to be home the whole time I was over there… and now, now I’d do anything to go back.”

“Hmm.” You’re non-committal in your response, you know he wouldn’t like to go back to Germany, back to the army, at all. You remember vividly how homesick he was, how much he hated being away, how miserable he was for those first few months after Gladys’ death. You’re pretty sure he’s just had a bad meeting that’s weighing heavily on him - and that if you can cajole him out the door for a night of fun he’ll be, not fully okay but, at least more balanced or rational about it all by tomorrow. You take a step forward, he’s forced to tilt his chin up to maintain eye contact with you. “I think maybe I just need-ta show you how gorgeous you are?” He frowns, but this time you’re not letting him distract you again, cupping his face in your hands.

You have to bend to meet his lips, and he has to strain up a little, his hands coming up to grip your thighs. It’s like a switch has been turned on. You swear you can feel his pulse through his fingertips, spreading from where he’s gripping your skin, travelling straight up to meet your own heartbeat that’s starting to thump between your legs. By the time your lips even touch you’re openmouthed, practically begging him to lick into you. You kiss him, soundly, controlling the movement in a way he very rarely allows unless he was feeling particularly vulnerable. You can feel in the way he sinks into you that you made the right choice, the way his cheek rests heavy in your palm, the feel of his eyelashes as they flutter against your cheekbones.

“C’mon Sergeant let’s get this off of you,” You tug at his shirtsleeves, pleased when he shrugs the shirt off the rest of the way while still trying to chase your mouth. “Now these.” You push at his trousers, they’d been stuck before, only a hint of the dark thatch of hair appearing just above the open waistband, but with your insistent motion they start to come down further, he lifts his hips to allow for them to come fully off and you can’t help but smile as you’re faced with him in total nakedness. “There now. That’s better.” He looks up at you, from under his lashes, where you’re still hovering over him. “Now. Where was I.” You start to sink down, between his thighs, your hands trailing over his shoulders. He grabs a wrist,

“Don’t - you don’t gotta do this, don’t, don’t want you to pretend none, honey,” You pull your wrist out from his grip, situating yourself firmly on the floor but kneeling up far enough that your head was at chest height. You look up at him,

“I’ll do whatever it takes to convince you. I’m not pretending, I swear baby,” You brush your fingers down his chest, skimming the side of his tummy, poking a little at his waist, he jerks away, ticklish, and you giggle as you can’t help but do it again,

“No-oo! Honey, no, not,” He’s laughing himself now, unable to stop as you jab your fingers into the soft sides of him, “Not there, stop!” You ease off, stroking where you’d been prodding, at the faint flush of red from the rough contact.

“I love this.” You prod him a final time for good measure, leaning in to kiss the fat on the side. “Love this, my perfect man.”

“Don’t -“ He flinches, turning his head away from you again, tucking it into his neck.

“Don’t what? Don’t tell you the truth? Don’t tell you that I like the look of you any which way? Don’t tell you that I think anyone who says otherwise must be blind. Don’t show you,” You let your hands continue their journey down brushing over his hips, over the dimples just below before coming to rest on his thighs. “How much I love how you look?” You look up at him, sinking back onto your heels, “Let me show you Elvie baby, let me show you how much I love all of you.” You make eye contact, waiting for him to nod, before turning your full attention to what had really brought you to your knees.

He’s still only half-hard, and you pause, looking at him considering for a moment. “Watch me baby.” You take your hand under your dress, pushing into through the leg band of your panties, gathering some of the growing slick wetness onto your fingers, just enough for them to be a little slippery. You pull them out, watching Elvis track you with burning eyes, never moving from your fingers. You reach up to gently grasp his cock, your slick providing just enough lubrication. It jumps when you touch it, and he throws his head back as you move your hand gently but firmly, playing with him until he’s fully chubbed up. Only then do you remove your sticky hand, resting it on his thigh. You look up at him, determined to keep eye contact as he turns back to face you. You sink forward, lapping at his head, little kitten licks as you allow yourself to fall into the blue of his eyes. His hands are staying on the arms of the chair, as if he can tell you’re in charge right now even without you having to say it. You feel his thighs clench after a moment, and you take that as invitation to sink down properly.

The warm wet heat of your mouth causes him to swear violently, and when you glance down at his lips they’re open, parting as he pants a little. You push yourself on, taking him as deeply as you possibly could before pulling back and sinking back down. He can’t seem to still his hips completely moving then back and forth forcing you to chase him back down - to have to try to ensure he doesn’t slip all the way out. You start to pull out all of the tricks, your spare hand coming up to stroke his balls, a gentle encouragement of sorts, while you begin to hum any tune that comes into your mind, causing his hips to circle, a “Goddamn baby.” to spill out of his mouth and his hand to come to rest on your head. You open your throat, pushing all the way onto him, forcing you to break eye contact with how your nose bumps his famous pelvis once he’s fully situated. He’s making little breathy whines and moans as you rock your throat back and forth on him, swallowing occasionally to clear your mouth of his precum and because every time you do you can feel him twitch. You pull all the way off, circling his head with your tongue on the way, he whines as you do, a bereft noise, while you take a few deep, gulping, breaths.

You watch how Little Elvis is left rosy and standing at attention, how when you exhale he twitches from the force of your blow. You capture him in your mouth again, returning to the task at hand. It’s not long, with you using every trick of your tongue that you have, before his grip tightens on your head, hand fisting in your hair. You swallow, and he moves your head himself once, twice, before his hips stutter and he spills down your throat. You glance back up at him, peering past his tummy as best you could, watching his face contort as he grunts out an “Oh f-f-fuck.” His pouty lips parted, eyes shut. You pull back, licking his tip clean, before pressing a kiss to his thigh.

“That make you feel any better?” He smiles as he opens his eyes and you get to see the sparkle in them again.

“God, Jesus. How’re you so good at that.” You shrug, kneeling back,

“God-given talent for me to use on pretty men I guess.” He chuckles, stroking a finger down your face, this time he’s the one cupping your chin.

“`Thank you darlin’. You’re gorgeous baby.” You tilt your head as if conceding, lifting up a finger to poke him again.

“Even so, regardless of all of this, it’s whats on the inside that counts.” You mean it earnestly but he looks back at you, a glint in his eye as he traces a finger over your lips,

“Certainly is doll. What’s inside that counts.” He winks, and you gulp almost choking on your own spit in surprise at his double entendre. He grins, standing up to grab the pants on the back of the chair, finally actually getting ready to go out. You sit back on your heels content to simply watch him go about his routine.

You giggle a little, watching him tuck his shirt into his pants. A thought pops into your head - one that you’re not willing to say out loud and spoil his newfound good mood, remind him of his status that should, somehow, ease the human insecurities he feels, you know he’d hate it. But you can’t stop yourself from thinking it; I can’t believe I’ve just had to spend half an hour telling Elvis Presley he’s a stud still.

#elvis fanfic #elvis smut #elvis x reader #be-my-ally #elvis x you #elvis presley fanfiction #elvis presley x reader #writing prompt game

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yellowocaballero · 1 year ago

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ok so im not very far into trigun (which. you convinced me to read/watch) but ive seen you talk about vash as a christ/messiah figure which. means im kinda obsessed with how you described his impact on the world in no name on the bullet (christ healing the lame, christ feeding the thousand... christ delivering his people from evil.) did you have any specific biblical references you kept in mind while writing?

i also think its super interesting how the fic seems to focus more heavily on healing as opposed to how (what ive seen of) trigun is a lot more gunman focused - is part of that influenced by how knives is a pacifist in a "cold turkey" way, or a choice on your part? i think it makes an interesting dichotomy, christ the gunman and satan the physician

I've gone my entire life without recommending Trigun to anybody, because I always felt it was too weird and ultra-violent and love-it-or-hate-it to actually ask people to watch it. Look at me now. Getting at least 3+ people into it. Boo boo the fool. Also I'm sorry that this response is so long skull emoji.

I'm ex-Catholic so you have asked the right question lol. Vash is very inspired by the Old Testament God. I have a strong mental image of him obsessing over the Noah's Arc story in his cute children's Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah is brought up again much later, in an extremely important way. Garden of Eden and Paradise, as the show does. The Plagues where every firstborn son dies. These is all imagery that Vash specifically evokes on purpose. Vash...uses the Bible to understand his own experiences and feelings and desires (that's the most neutral way to phrase it), but like a lot of people he uses the Bible/God partly as justification for his actions. God destroys cities for being sinful, and Vash is the closest thing to God this planet has, so he's entitled lol. God Complex McGee up in here.

And Vash's cult has no Jesus, because there is no forgiveness for humanity, and no way for them to be saved. Which is how you know that Vash's Jesus-ey actions as described in the story are very deceitful on a lot of different levels. Kind of like regular Vash lmfao - as I said earlier, he's VERY much also a messiah deconstruction. Vash is a pacifist partly because he needs it - he needs to be believed that people can be saved, that the world can be good, that nobody has to die, because otherwise the world is nothing but an endless parade of misery and death and his own suffering. It's about saving his own soul, and the memory of Rem.

For me, on a writing level: Cain and Abel, obviously. 'My brother's keeper'-ass mofo lmfao. It's more themes for me, though - redemption, salvation, forgiveness, original sin, sin in general, guilt, fate. Knives is pretty obsessed with all of these topics. I make fun of him for it. None of it's healthy. But Knives embodies a few other Christian ideals that I don't make fun of him for, such as the importance of good works and good actions, and dedicating his life towards helping others without the desire for a reward. There's also some subtle 'shepherd and his sheep' stuff going on later.

Re: the gunfights: can you IMAGINE Knives carrying a gun. He is WAY too proud of his own #biologicalsuperiority and #ultimatelifeform and #impenetrabledefense (literally Shadow AND Gaara-ass mofo) to rely on cheap human trinkets like guns lol.

The plot has more action than my usual (yay! - that was what I was working for lol), but it's based off the skeleton of the Stampede plot, which is genuinely a lot more space opera than Western and as such its action looks different. Turns out that when you remove the Gung Ho Guns from a story, there are a LOT LESS gunfights, lmfao (I don't know what kind of errands Vash sends the GHG out on, I am afraid to find out). So partly there's less gunfights because a) Stamp plots don't require too many gunfights, and b) without a Gunman (TM) there's no reason for the group to use guns to solve their problems if at all possible.

It's also just that, basically, Vash's plots are partly man vs self and partly man vs other. When a character is level 99, the tension of the fight scene isn't if they'll win the fight - it's if they'll win the fight under their self-imposed conditions. In Vash's case, the Q in every gunfight is 'can Vash win the fight and save people without compromising his principles?'. For Knives, he is so ridiculously OP that it's impossible to write a fight scene with genuine tension, and he doesn't care nearly as deeply about casualties. So the most engaging plotlines for Knives are entirely man vs self, which tends to shake out into a lot of trolley problems lol. That's the answer to your Q from a writing perspective.

So it's mostly a choice for plot/writing reasons. But YUP the dichotomy is SUPER JUICY, and the fun part of the story is reading the Ultimate Killing Machine be forced to do literally anything else than Ultimate Kill - to do the only thing he wasn't meant to do. Because doing what he was meant to do reduces him to a biblical figure instead of a person - it makes him just a devil, who's never exercised the free will God gave him, and as such can't be called sentient. It's not what Rem would want. And it's a very juicy juxtaposition to somebody who interprets his own meaning in life as a Christ figure as a divine compulsion to brutally murder orphan.

#my writing #AH SORRY FOR LONG ANSWER AGAIN....#this story's actually a bit more drama and Things Happen-ey than my usual #which is a lot easier when you're following the beats of another person's story F #but its good practice for writing scenes that aren't just 'A and B talk in a location'#I need my stories to be more active AGH #im working on it but improvement is such slow going....#part of the reason why I avoided writing Trigun my whole life #is because a Trigun fic that was entirely talking seemed dishonest lol #sitting down I was like 'it's Trigun I need as much to happen as possible'#succeeded I think but I feel like I cheated.#also still wish it had more gunfights you're so right anon

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cherry-valentine · 1 year ago

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Spring 2023 Anime Season

Here’s what I’m watching!

Dr. Stone Season 3 was probably the series I was most looking forward to. The basic setup is this: a mysterious green light spreads over the entire world, turning all human beings into stone. Thousands of years later, teenage genius Senku awakens from his stone prison and decides to save all of humanity, bringing them back to the modern scientific age in the process. Unlike most popular shounen series, the focus of the story is notably not on fighting, action, training, chasing a dream, or even “the power of friendship”. It’s very much centered on Senku and his allies rebuilding society, recreating important scientific inventions, exploring, etc. There is some action, even some fighting, but the long stretches without either manage to be entertaining and, at times, thrilling all the same. The show also makes a point of telling us that physical fighting ability is definitely not the only thing that determines how strong or useful a character is. Senku himself is physically rather weak, especially when compared to the characters who can fight. But he’s super intelligent. There are characters who are good at lots of various things and are considered strong and important even if they wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight. I feel like this sets the series apart from other anime that focus so strongly on power levels and such. This season’s plot focuses on the characters exploring an island with a different village of people living on it, ones who might hold the secret of the petrification beam that swept over the earth thousands of years ago. The animation is great. The male character designs are great. The female character designs… not so great. I’m just not crazy about how the mangaka draws women. They all have enormous eyes that are drawn way too far apart. It’s a strange visual. But that’s a minor complaint. The music is fantastic, with my favorite ending theme of the season. If you haven’t tried Dr. Stone yet, you owe it to yourself to fix that mistake.

Hell’s Paradise is a series I was very excited to try. I’ve had the first few volumes of the manga on my Amazon wishlist for like two years now but never went ahead and bought them. The story is about a mysterious island that’s said to hold the elixir of immortality, but no one has come back from it alive. A group of dangerous death row prisoners are offered pardons if they can go to the island, find the elixir, and return with it. They’re accompanied by members of a clan full of government executioners who are highly skilled with the sword. The main character is Gabimaru, a notorious ninja assassin who was betrayed by his village and just wants to make it home to his beloved wife. This simple desire to be with the woman he loves makes Gabimaru easy to root for. The secondary protagonist is Sagiri, the executioner assigned to Gabimaru, and she’s where my main problem with the series is most clear. In the first episode, Sagiri is a stoic, badass swordswoman who is unfazed by Gabimaru’s seeming immorality and is so skilled that he’s legitimately afraid of her. She was quickly shaping up to be one of my favorite characters of the season. But then episode two comes along, and suddenly Sagiri is weepy and frightened and being derided as weak by her peers. We also get several of these shots that are supposed to represent her fear but are just images of her naked body being clawed and groped. I’ve never seen a character get nerfed so fast. Episode three restores my faith in her. Episode four has her being weak again. And so on. It’s a bizarre roller coaster that creates a very uneven experience for viewers who were excited to have a badass heroine. There are other female characters, though most of them are also used for fanservice. As it currently stands, Sagiri is back to being badass, so who knows how this will turn out? Aside from that issue, the show is pretty good. The animation and design work are gorgeous. The opening theme is easily the best of the season. The creature/monster designs are unique and interesting. It’s definitely worth watching, but I still wish Sagiri’s character had been a bit more consistent.

Kimetsu no Yaiba Season 3 is, as I understand it, the second movie broken up into tv episodes the way the Mugen Train movie was done last season. I haven’t watched this movie so this is all new content for me. As usual for this series, the production values are sky high, with breathtaking animation and incredible music. I’ve said it many times before, but Kimetsu no Yaiba’s strength really is in its gorgeous presentation. The story isn’t bad by any means but it is fairly standard shounen fighting anime fare. But it’s not just the animation and music that elevate the show. The design work, for the characters as well as the various demons and weapons and settings, is fantastic. The fight choreography is top notch. It’s all the little details, it’s the voice acting, it’s the beautiful colors, it’s everything coming together to make this series so damn watchable. To explain what I mean, the first episode of this season was a double length episode, but I watched it and had no idea until I later skimmed the comments. It was double length and it still felt short. That’s how you know something is highly entertaining. High on my watch list.

My Home Hero is a compelling cat and mouse game. It follows Tetsuo, a seemingly average middle aged father who finds out his daughter is dating an abusive yakuza thug and decides to take matters into his own hands. He ends up killing the boyfriend, and the rest of the series is about his attempts to keep this fact hidden from both his daughter and the dangerous yakuza family that is searching for answers. What follows is a tense, thrilling roller coaster. Tetsuo is a kind and caring father who looks like an unassuming salaryman, but he has a ruthless, cunning side to him that comes out when he needs to protect his family. He’s physically weak but incredibly intelligent and armed with a lifetime of reading mystery books. His only true ally is his wife Kasen, who is just an absolute delight. She never questions Tetsuo’s motives and doesn’t even bat an eye when he tells her he killed someone to protect their daughter. She just rolls up her sleeves and gets to work on helping him dispose of the body. She proves to be a strong asset, as her creativity and fearless nature get them out of trouble several times. The way the couple works together as a team is honestly very heartwarming. Even if they’re working to cover up a murder. The show has one major flaw, however, and that’s the animation. While it’s definitely not the worst I’ve seen, it’s certainly not good. I’m assuming it had a low budget. But it says a lot about the quality of the writing that this is one of my favorite shows this season despite the subpar visuals. Highly recommended.

Skip to Loafer is a sweet and gentle palette cleanser after all the intense shows I’m watching throughout the week. It’s a high school slice of life series about a country girl named Mitsumi moving to Tokyo to go to a better school and meet new friends. Mitsumi is well meaning, smart, and ambitious, but she’s also easily distracted and a bit clumsy (not in the usual cutesy way, but in the accidentally puking on her teacher on the first day of school way). Her life could be summed up as one of those “expectation vs reality” memes, but a big part of her character arc is understanding that things not going according to plan is not necessarily a bad thing. The supporting cast is made up of interesting characters that manage to be unique without being exaggerated caricatures. Most important (narratively) among them is Shima, a handsome and popular young man who seems aloof and carefree, but of course there’s more to him than that. His relationship with Mitsumi is one of the main plot points of the series. It’s also worth noting that Mitsumi lives with her aunt Nao, who is a trans woman. From what I’ve read/heard, Nao has been well received and counts as positive representation. She’s a funny, cute, engaging character who is never reduced to a stereotype. The show overall has a calm, soothing feel to it, with pastel colors and peppy music. Recommended.

Best of Season:

Best New Series: My Home Hero

Best Opening Theme: Hell’s Paradise

Best Ending Theme: Dr. Stone

Best New Male Character: Tetsuo (My Home Hero)

Best New Female Character: Mitsumi (Skip to Loafer)

#seasonal anime #anime reviews #anime recommendations #spring 2023 anime #dr stone #kimetsu no yaiba #my home hero #skip to loafer #text

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biff-adventurer · 4 months ago

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i'm sorry i had too many thoughts i'm done now tho bai

i agree that the logic of the writing suffers in favor of showcasing a philosophy. i think part of this is a lack of understanding how these conflicts play out and why they occur in the real world on the part of the writing team. i feel it's been demonstrated in previous expacs through other valid criticisms of plot points that undercut the ideals showcased in the game itself (acceptance, compassion, etc).

i also think that yes, it was due to a lack of space/time in the expac that we didn't explore the issue properly. i do wonder if the devs will explore it. there are a lot of hanging threads left for story fodder, and it could well be the team leaving room for themselves to focus on those issues later in the story. the expac was, of course, meant to set various conflicts into motion so we would have more stories to follow.

the way these tend to go is that the writing team is focused on what they want to say in the expac--that is directly the showcasing piece. but their arguments (story threads supporting the themes) are weakened b/c it DOESN'T make sense why the people living in the dome aren't more affected by their condition even thirty years later. (that ain't how trauma works lmao). i suppose some of this is because they've forgotten people they've lost in the last thirty years, but their soul cell devices can't exactly erase the trauma of being uprooted from your home and suddenly belonging to a nation that thinks it's okay to commodify the souls of the dead once their memories are erased from the soul "body".

the fact that wuk lamat wasn't more disturbed by the alexandrians "culture" really highlights the writing team's lack of distinction between what counts as culture and what counts as crossing the line. we go from offering to help the mamool ja overcome their system of suffering only to accept alexandria's monstrous mode of existence as a show of good faith and gesture of showing their desire to understand. it's highly contradictory, and i believe they could have solved a lot of problems if they had a better idea of what they're actually saying.

i mean, this is coming from a writing team in JAPAN. when you put their culture and history next to these stories, you can see where the bias and where the blind spots are. so yeah, part of this is because they're humans and the other because they need to reflect more on these things. wuk lamat said all the right things in part 1, only then to undermine them with her actions in part 2. (and i LOVE wuk lamat. lyse hobbled so lamaty'i could walk!!!) that conveys the disparity between aiming for something versus understanding what it means right there.

i also feel there is an argument in there somewhere that the survivors who lived thirty years in the dome slowly became as pacified as the alexandrians b/c of sphene's well intentioned but poorly executed plan to shield them from all harm. she is disturbingly pleasant when we first encounter her, unnaturally easy going while trying to show us that her kingdom is, essentially, paradise. but for who? what kind of lives do they live? and at what cost?? (we know the cost!!!) it wasn't a stretch for me to believe that she gently molded their thoughts and attitudes into those of compliance, particularly because it's easier to live without pain rather than carry it to keep your memories.

there's an npc for one of the aethercurrent quests who is upset about the graveyard and "nameslates" business, but he is also wearing an alexandrian device!!! it kind of undermines the whole "we should take care of this memorial to these people's lives" thing. my wife was the one to point that out, i didn't even see the guy's device b/c i was zoomed all the way out during that exchange.

these discrepancies might also just be there because the team has to create a complex story within too limited a time frame. it's hard to say without personally seeing their end of things. maybe they prioritized some things over others in the interest of time. this is an mmo after all, not a closed title like most FFs have been.

in the end, i just feel like yeah, there is room for more story to be told, but some of the gaps left behind require a degree of suspending disbelief that i'm unable to achieve. some of the logical breaks push me out of the logic of the story. while there are smaller contradictions that i've certainly overlooked, the second half of dawntrail contained much larger ones that took away from the overall impact of the story. part of storytelling is persuasion, to allow your audience to follow without falter the reality of the world you build. so yeah, ultimately, i'd count it as a weakness in the writing. i can think of a few pieces i'd shift around to feed my own hunger for sense in a story that primarily rides on the beautiful, chaotic wave called Rule of Cool.

DT spoilers

I was thinking about it yesterday and... Am I the only one bothered that Wuk Lamat (and Koana by extension since she speaks as one of the Dawnservants) is all "don't worry, Alexandria is still your country" when it sits specifically in her kindgom?

Like... they're invaders. The citizenry of Alexandria might not have asked for it but that's what they are nonetheless.

And people died when the dome appeared—unless they were magicked away when the buildings dropped right where they were, which I doubt.

It literally destroyed more where it hit than the Calamity did in most places in Eorzea. Why is no one more bothered by the gravity of the situation?

(If this post gets reblogged: please don't use it as an excuse to shit on Wuk Lamat. My problem is with the writing of the second half of the expansion, not just hers.)

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healpeony · 4 years ago

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Love Story

Levi Ackerman x reader

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲; Levi's and Y/n love isn't accepted by many specially Y/n's parents, an Eldian and a Marleyan? a great represention of Persephone's and Hades love.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬; profanity, angst, scene of smut (not explicitly described), violence, blood, being called whore (by her mother), homophobia (also used by her mother), spoilers.

Taglist; @icedkoffees

Note; she/her pronouns used for the reader as well as female anatomy. Also I'm using what Isayama said about how Levi would act shy around his crush and him being uncomfortable with sexual intercourse. And I also want to add that I don't know much about what happens when the Marleyans invaded Paradise, and I also added my own thing to help with my plot so this could be call a cannonverse!au.

PERSEPHONE a young women who's innocence was taken from her the moment she was kidnapped by her uncle, who fell in love with her. Despite her mother's (Demeter) attempts to fully get her back right away from the hands of her brother, it was too late that wasn't going to happened not after Hades persuaded Persephone to eat four seeds of pomegranate, which forced someone to have a connection with their captor, making them come back to them.

Each spring time Persephone would be living with her mother on earth, while in winter she was with Hades in the underworld.

Levi was the Persephone to Y/n's Hades, she being the one who used him and their love for each other was the pomegranate making Levi come back to her.

It's ironic how their love story started with y/n getting taken away from Marley, a place she called home.

Even though she wasn't necessarily kidnaped, she was sent away to accomplish a mission in a place called Paradise, she found it ridiculous how it was named that way when that land was full of devils.

Y/n was shipped to Paradise along with the warriors. She was going to infiltrate into the Survey Corps where she would hopefully sabotage every expedition without getting caught.

Her mission was to make sure none of the warriors get too cozy in the foreign place, and to focus on their mission, but it was impossible to do so when all the people who were described as devils, were actually just like them. Humans.

She was older than those kids being 22 when they were still 15, y/n loved them, they were like little siblings to her and it hurt when they lost Marcel, the jaw.

"Oi brat! Stay focused" the voice of her captain took her out of her train of thoughts

Captain Levi, he was called humanity strongest and was also what everyone called their only hope. At first Y/n didn't understood why he needed such a big tittle, but after being in his squad and witnessing him showing his skills and his hatred towards titans, she got why.

"I'm sorry captain" she saluted, which was dismissed by him

"You called what you did back in the kitchen, cleaning?" he asked pointing towards the place he just mentioned "There is dust everywhere, go and clean everything again, I don't want to see any dust in there again. That's where our food is made, you idiot"

Without another word he left, and when she felt like he was out of earshot, she kicked a chair, breaking it. He might be Humanities strongest, but he was soo irritating, so obsessed with cleaning. That's what they always did for the most part of their time.

"there is dust everywhere my ass" she mocked Levi's voice while looking around the kitchen she just finished cleaning minutes ago

She had made sure everything was left without a spot of dust, how in the world did Levi saw dust anywhere.

After she had cleaned the kitchen area, Levi had send her to clean the stables which took a lot of time since he told her to clean alone. It was already sun down when she had finished.

She was exhausted, her clothes were pooled with sweat and glued to her skin making her uncomfortable, she really needed a shower.

"Go take a shower" the sudden voice of the raven man scare the hell out of her

"Fuck Captain!" y/n yelled, putting a hand on her chest as if that would calm her speeding heart beat

"Go now, and then come to eat dinner with us" he continued, the blank stare he gave her when they made eye contact given her chills

"Yes, sir" she saluted, before leaving

The mess hall was well a mess, the cadets eat like animals. The same soup and bread they always eat, Y/n found it extremely annoying how the Military Police get all the meat when the Survey Corps were the ones doing the only brave work inside the walls.

"Y/n if you're not going to eat your soup can I have it?" Sasha asked

Oh, how much she wanted to say no, but she had a reputation to hold and she didn't want the soup anyway.

Y/n faked a smile, (one that everyone thought that was genuine) before saying "of course, Sasha" passing the bowl full of hot soup to the girl

"Thanks!"

Y/n felt how eyes were burning through her skull and turned her head to look down the table, just to see Captain Levi staring at her with a suspicious look in his eyes.

Oh shit, if he in some way found out about who she really was, she was fucked. The young women tried her best to stay seated, but her nerves didn't let her making her stand up.

"I'm exhausted, I think I'm going to sleep"

It wasn't a lie she was tired from all the cleaning, but she didn't want to sleep, she just needed to desperately get out of there.

When she was finally outside, y/n leaned against the wall, sliding down while taking a deep breath.

"You know, it isn't good to fake smile to your friends"

Y/n immediately turn around at the sudden voice of her captain, he did it again, he scared the living shit out of her.

"Captain!, Stop doing that!" her face felt warmer than usual for some reason

Was she blushing?

"Why did you do it? Are you sad?" Levi asked putting down a handkerchief on the ground before sitting next to her, looking over at her examinating her face

"Oh it's just stress" Y/n replied, praying that he would just believe her

"I see.." he turned towards the sky where the moon shined brightly along with the stars

What Y/n thought that would be a awkward silence, turned into a comfortable one. They just stared at the sky above them, it remind Y/n that she had a family waiting for her outside the walls and she was not going to disappoint them by getting comfy with the captain, even though she didn't know what his intentions were.

"I'm going to take a nap" she stood up, and called over her shoulder "Have a good night, captain" before proceeding to walk towards her room

"Good night, cadet..."

Y/n didn't know when it happened, was it when they continued sitting together and looking at the sky in complete silence, or was it when in some of those same nights they spoke more and more about each other's personal life (in none of those conversations she mentioned Marley, but still talked about her family). She didn't remember how her feelings for him changed, but they did.

Right now she was there, in the same spot on the wall with Levi next to her. They were even in first name basics with each other.

The raven man cleared his throat catching her attention, turning her head to the side to look at him she noticed how he was blushing.

"I.. I think is pretty obvious what I feel for— about you by now"

A surprised noice escaped Y/n mouth, she expected to have that talk with him some day, but not today or Levi being so straight forward with the subject.

The women could only nod, her brain still processing what he just said.

"I was wondering, if you felt the same.." his voice dropped to a whisper, while he looked down

"No" she shaked her head, making Levi looked up at her eyes widened with embarrassment at the rejection "Look, Levi.. it's just that I have done terrible things that you're not aware of. You don't want to be with me"

"Then tell me what terrible things you have done and let me be with you after your done" Levi said

"No, Levi you don't understand" tears pooled in her eyes, y/n didn't even remember the last time she had cry "I can't be with you"

"Why? Is it because of the terrible things you have done? Well guess what everybody has their own flaws, everybody in this world is an angel, at least until they get tired of the cruelty in it and let the demons take over" Levi grabbed her face between his hands, wiping the falling tears from her face "I want to be with you, wether you have let your demons take over or not"

Y/n felt the man lean in to place his lips to hers, they stayed pressed together without movement, before Levi pull away and kissed her again this time letting his emotions be known through the kiss.

Passion. Love. Care.

This is a moment in her life she would never forget not even when hers and the warriors mission is over.

Retaking of wall Maria

"I let you. I fucking let you in!"

Levi stood infront of her heartbroken, she told him, now he knew everything..

"Levi-" however she wasn't able to continue speaking since she received a kick right in the face making her fall on her side

She looked at Levi surprised, he had kicked her. Y/n knew she deserved, but it still hurt to have someone you loved hit you.

"You lied about everything didn't you? For what, to get information?" his voice was cracking slightly with each word he said "Was it necessary to use me for your stupid plans?"

"I didn't use you!, What I felt for you was real" y/n said defending her feelings

"I don't even know what is real about you anymore, is Y/n actually your name? Or is it just another lie?"

"It is my name.." she weakly murmured tasting blood in her tongue, she figured that her lip might have been split open from the impact

"Oh good to know"

Sarcasm tried to cover his hurt voice, which actually didn't work, since Y/n could clearly hear his shaky breath and it made her feel soo guilty.

"I hate you"

Those three little words were enough to make her world come crashing down, he hated her. Of course he did, it hurt so much but she had seen this coming, and she still didn't felt ready for it.

"I'm sorry, Levi"

That was all she said to him, before she was grabbed by a titan being controlled by Zeke, taking her away from the place where she meet someone who meant so much to her.

One thing that she was sure of was that

She will never forget Levi Ackerman.

Screams, that was what was heard everywhere. Kids either with their parents or alone were running desperately trying to find shelter, and that broke Y/n's heart.

She was tired of all the fighting, she was tired of pretending to be stronger than she felt. For once she just wanted peace and happiness, something that she didn't quite have the past four years.

How did they got here? That was one of the many questions going through her head, but one that she paid more attention to was the most important

Was he here too?

"There you are, piece of shit."

That voice, it was him. It might have changed, but she could recognize it everywhere, the same voice who used to startle her everytime they saw each other, the voice that bought her comfort, the voice of the man she fell in love with.

It was Levi.

Slowly she proceeded to turn around, the fear for what might happen next running through her veins. She was ready to be killed by him.

Finally she look up and saw the same man she fell in love with, the only change that she saw was the uniform, apart from that he still seem like he had the same height as before and from the look on his face he still had the same temper.

"Nice uniform, I like it" she told him quietly not knowing what to say

Levi scoffed at her statement, taking his blade out. So he was going to kill her.

"You can go ahead and kill me, might as well add another ghost to haunt you"

Did she felt fear? Yes she did, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

"Shut up" that was his response, before he connected his blade with her cheek leaving a long but not deep cut "You're going to come with me"

"I'm not going anywhere!"

The last thing he told her was that he hated her, why would he want her to come back to Paradise?, Was it to use her for information? Or because he missed her? It was stupid to think of the latter question, but she was still hopeful.

"I'm not asking, you brat"

That was the last thing she heard before he knocked her out.

"How could you be with a devil?!"

Her mom's scream hurt her eardrums, Zeke had told them about how she had been in a relationship with a so call devil. That seem like the only thing Zeke could do apart from throwing rocks, snitch.

"You were send there for a reason Y/n! No child of mine should've or should be with one of those devils!"

"Mother, I'm so sorry it's just that it would be easier for me to get the information about them that I wanted"

That was a lie. She loved Levi, even though she didn't get the chance to say it to him. She did, and that feeling wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

Her father stood next to her mother quietly looking at her with disgusts as if she was the trash people get rid of because of the smell, she hated that, it hurt to have your own parents hating on you.

"So what? For a piece of information, you had to go and whore yourself in there?"

Y/n gasped looking at her mom shocked "What? No mother, I didn't do anything like that with him!" she argue

That wasn't a lie, Levi was uncomfortable with sexual intercourse, since his own mother worked in a brothel and he had been the witness of how much that act hurt his mother, he had trusted her enough to tell her that.

"Good, you still have your purity." her mom nodded, before letting out a sigh "At least it wasn't with a women, you would've been completely kicked out of this house young lady"

"Now go take a shower, make sure to wash away every memory in that land while doing so." her mom smiled softly her hand reaching out to touch her cheek, before hugging her "My poor baby, having to live with those devils for so long. Don't worry you're home now, you're safe with us"

What once was her home didn't feel like home anymore, her house was just a place, her home was the person she left behind in Paradise.

Y/n didn't remember how many days have passed or what was going on outside of her cell. She didn't know in what prison she was in, but just a few days ago it had seem like there was a whole damn war going on outside.

She hasn't seen Levi since he put her into the cell, and she was scared that something might have happened to him. She heard the door of the corridor open, Y/n stood up walking towards the bars to see who it was, it was Hange.

"Y/n" Hange nodded at her as if they were saying hi "He said your name, so we think it would be good if you saw him"

"Who are you talking about?" Y/n asking looking at them confused

"Levi"

Her heart immediately speed up, something happened to him. Her anxiety grew each passing second as she took step by step through the halls, Hange having a hold of her arm to make sure she didn't try to run away.

"What happened to him?" Y/n questioned scared for what the answer might be

"Explosion" was all they said, before entering a room that seems to be Levi's, there was only a nurse sitting in a chair probably just there just in case Levi needed something

"Thanks, you can stand outside. We would call if we need you" Hange told the nurse who nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her, but not before throwing Y/n a look of disapproval about her being there.

Y/n ran to Levi's side as soon as the nurse was out, he had bandages in one side of his face, and on his hands. Tears started sliding down the young women's cheek while Hange looked at her with pity, but also cautiously not wanting her to do anything that might hurt Levi.

"Levi.." she whispered, even though

y/n felt bad about disturbing him from his sleep knowing how difficult it was for him to do so, she wanted to hear his voice, reassuring her that he was going to be ok "Everything it's going to be fine, right Hange? Tell him"

“Yeah, I agree with you y/n”

She didn't knew who she was trying to convince herself or Levi, but that didn't matter, because she felt a squeeze in one hand and immediately look down to see that Levi was the one holding it. Y/n look back up to his face seeing how his eye was open and he was staring directly at her.

Y/n smiled "Hey darling, you're okay now" she let out those word between sobs "— I'm sorry for everything Levi, for not telling you where I was really from, for letting you fall in love with me when I knew how it was going to bed. I'm so sorry for every misery that I have put you through"

Levi squeezed her hand again "- 's ok, I f—orgive you" his words came out has a whisper and he struggled to speak but she heard him clearly

Hange watched the scene playing out infront of them, they could see how much those two loved each other. They were like a puzzle, that could figure each other out, knowing each piece of themselves like the back of their hands.

It has been a month and a half exactly since Y/n had seen Levi in the bed witnessing how helpless he looked, she had never seen him like that and wasn't planning to anytime soon, since then she hadn't left his side.

He was currently touching her bare back leaving kisses down her neck, their naked chest pressed together, hot and sweaty.

"Levi..." she moaned softly

This was their first time being intimate, and she didn't want him to feel pressured into anything.

"I know what you're going to say, and I want to how much as you" he said before continuing marking her, claiming her as his

Each move of his hips against hers, reminded her of who she was with. The gentleness in his touch making her forget about the world around them. The softness of his lips against hers taking her breath away.

It wasn't just the pleasure that made Levi take the decision of doing this with her, this was his own way of showing how far he would go just to be with her, to come out of his comfort zone just to shower her with intimate kisses and touches that he and neither would she forget.

“I love you Levi”

Her skin was the canvas, and his lips was the brush painting each part of her body.

“I love you too...”

“You will come back with us immediately young lady!" her mother said trying to remain calm infront of the devils

The rumbling was over, Eren Yeager was killed. Paradise and Marley were allies, but that doesn't mean they have forgiven each other for what each have done. Many Marleyans and Eldians from Marley came to visit out of curiosity, while people from Paradise went to explore the world (if we are talking about visiting the outside world and finding new things as much as possible), but they never want to visit Marley afraid that they might get turn into titans and angry for what those monsters have done to other people.

"I'am old enough to make my own decisions, mother" Y/n had answered, wanting to remain as calm as she could

"His manipulating you isn't he?"

"How dare you!—" Y/n yelled, before regaining her composure, her voice going back to calm but being loud and firm at the same time "I love him, he didn't manipulate me into anything. It's bold of you to assume that, mother"

"We're your family, your place it's with us!"

Some of the Military Police who were there scoffed along with some of the scouts, they have warmed up to Y/n already, but the Marleyans didn't seem to accept that one of themselves loved an Eldian, specially from Paradise.

"You're my family? Then where were you when I needed you the most?, All I needed when I returned to Marley four years ago was my mother!, The one who an illusion of my mind created, a sweet mom who would love me for being her child, and not see me as an object" Y/n couldn't remain calm anymore she needed to let everything out "— The time I spent with him, I got to truly know what comfort was, what being loved and being needed felt like! And you—" with tears in her eyes she turned to her father who was quiet, like he always was "You're so afraid of mom that you don't even dare to speak for yourself!, You did nothing to help your own daughter!, You just watched as she was raised to be something she didn't want to be!"

She spoke out her mind finally letting out those built up words that haunted her, needing to be said "— I thank you for everything though, despite not given me the love that I needed, your own choices took me to where we are now. Without those decisions, I wouldn't have met Levi so I thank you, for what you both did" she smiled at them

Her mom stood there quietly, before turning around and walking towards the door, her father following close behind "Don't bother returning home" was all her father said

"I won't"

She was already home, she was standing next to it. Holding his hand, Levi Ackerman was the safe place she will always and forever need.

“— And they lived happily ever after”

Y/n closed the book, looking at the twins, her daughter and son who had fallen asleep half way through the story.

“Please tell me you didn't read to them the explicit parts”

The voice of her husband scared her and she turned to him, who stood by the door leaning into it.

“Of course not you idiot!”

She stood up turning off the lamp and given both of the children kisses on their head, before going out of the room with Levi.

“I still think we should publish this book” Y/n smirked, a mischievous look in her eyes

“Absolutely not”

Yeah, their Love Story had a happy ending after all.

This was so much fun to write! I wrote 4k words and I'm proud of that! I feel like my writing has improved in the past few days, and this might be one of the works that will show it, and I hope future ones show the progress too! Also I want to punch y/n's mother in the face.

Thank you so much for reading, you can support my work by hitting reblog or liking! But don't repost to other platforms!

#levi ackerman angst #levi ackerman x reader #aot oneshots #shingeki no kyoujin #snk spoilers #attack on titan #levi ackerman fluff #levi ackerman #blood #homophobia #profane #aot angst #aot x reader #levi ackerman smut

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linkspooky · 4 years ago

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Eren’s Dissocation

This month’s chapter has a lot of people confused on Eren’s actions. Why would Eren choose the worst option possible? Why force himself to do something he clearly doesn’t want to do? Why, when he’s given options to back out, does he instead double down on the bad decision making? Why, when no one is holding a gun to his head does he pick the worst available choice?

The narrative obviously isn’t sympathizing with Eren so we’re meant to question his choices. So let’s get into Eren’s headspace. A place where clearly even Eren doesn’t want to be.

1. Other People

Eren displays a lot of paradoxes in his reasoning this chapter. His every action is a contradiction. He goes out of his way to save a child, and then crushes them later without lifting a finger to help. He says he wants to do this all for the sake of freedom, and yet he’s espousing ideas like a fixed future, and acting helpless to his eventual fate. Eren begs and cries for the child to forgive him for what he must do... when nobody is actually forcing him to do anything.

It’s not only that Eren makes bad choices, but he also acts like he’s the victim of his own bad choices. He acts like he’s completely helpless to do these things. Eren says one thing, and then deliberately does another to contradict it when he DOES NOT HAVE TO. It seems like Eren is going out of his way to ruin everything and people are questioning what pushed Eren to this point of deliberate self destruction and acting like he was all out of options when he very, clearly wasn’t.

Eren’s motivations make no sense. Yeah. They make no sense because Eren is trying to reconcile two irreconcilable ideas. The ideas of predestination and freedom are complete and total opposites ideas that cannot coexist in Eren’s mind. Eren can’t reconcile them. So he doesn’t. Rather than try to justify himself or struggle to find the right answer Eren settles for the wrong one. Rather than try to justify his actions Eren avoids any confrontation of his actions all together. Eren distances himself - from his actions, the consequences of his actions, and his role in everything that happens.

It’s a simple idea, but also a complicated one which I will do my best to explain. How does Eren do this? How does Eren end up in this very contradictory mindset, where he just keeps making things worse, on purpose. And it starts with the way Eren sees other people.

There’s a reason that Eren is made out to be so childlike and petty in this chapter. It’s because he is. This line is very vague, but if I were to explain it I would say.

Eren is very bothered by the fact that other people exist.

What I mean is, other people have thoughts, feelings, and entirely different opinions from Eren and Eren doesn’t really want to deal with that. While yes, it could be a line about how Eren saw the same oppression outside the walls as he did in Paradis, I think it’s a lot pettier than that. Eren got really, really, bothered by the fact that the world he imagined as empty was in fact crowded with other people besides him.

In child developmental psychology there’s an experiment called the “Three Mountain Problem.” In the experiment a child is shown a model of a mountain from one perspective and asked to draw what it looks like. They’re asked to draw what they see.Then, a doll is placed behind the mountain looking at it from a completely different angle. The experimenter then asks the child to draw what the doll sees. The doll would see something completely different - but the child doesn’t comprehend that. They draw the exact same picture the first time. Children lack the ability to imagine that other people don’t. A child only sees the world from one point of view.

You know what’s really frustrating? Arguing with other people. Sometimes even if you know you’re right, even if you state your argument perfectly and show the facts that person still won’t agree with you. It’s frustrating to deal with the fact that you can influence, but you can’t really control the opinions of others.

Eren is fundamentally, unable to see, and deal with other people as people. By that I mean, their perspectives, their feelings, he can’t really see or understand those things outside of his own perspective. Other people ask things of him, require things of him, that he can’t give. Other people disagree with him, fight with him.

Eren’s not an eco-terrorist. He’s not bothered by the fact the world isn’t a natural paradise outside the walls. It’s the people themselves, that Eren finds disappointing.

Eren can’t deal. On a micro-level. Let’s forget about the plot at large and just focus on Eren for a second. Who are the people that Eren has chosen to surround himself post-timeskip.

If Eren’s ultimate ideal is freedom why does he choose to trust Floche of all people? A sycophant, and someone who is practically begging to have all of his choices taken away from him?

It’s also because Floch is also someone who won’t disagree with him, or question him the way his friends might. Eren just can’t deal.

Eren claims that everything he does is out of love for his friends. He fights for his friends, sacrifices for his friends. He has to be the one to die so his friends can live.

But, when Eren hears that Mikasa has the exact same motivation for him. That Mikasa wants to protect him, and fight for him the same way he wants to fight for her. When Eren hears that Mikasa might love him and show that love by always fighting for him, which is the exact same way Eren tends to show his love for his friends he doesn’t... get it. He can’t accept her feelings in any real way. He can’t even really understand them.

Eren wants to love Mikasa, he wants to love his friends, but he either can’t accept their feelings, or he just doesn’t want to. He’s allowed to love Mikasa, Mikasa can’t possibly love him back. Even when Zeke just straight up tells him to his face, Eren dismisses Zeke and says what Mikasa feels for him doesn’t even matter because he’s going to die in four years. Eren avoids her feelings, otherwise.

That’s the key word here. Eren’s avoidant. In every single person he deals with, he’s avoidant. That’s how his very contradictory views of people are maintained. There’s a lot of examples I could list of this. Eren wants his friends to be free, but he goes out of his way to lock them up. Eren says he’s doing this for the sake of his friend’s happiness, and then antagonizes them as cruelly as possible. The reason he’s able to do these things, is that he avoids truly looking, or confronting his actions, and also the people he’s surrounded with in any real way.

Not only with Mikasa, you can see it in his interaction with Historia.

Eren and Historia grew close because Eren said he wanted to get to know the real Historia. But, then he specifically asks Historia to do something that is the opposite of everything she stands for. When she disagrees with him, because she wants to live as an individual with her head held high with pride and make her own choices, do what she thinks is right as Ymir told her. When Historia tries to assert herself as an individual who doesn’t completely agree with him, Eren then switches tactics and tries to browbeat her into doing what he wants of her.

Eren’s view of the world is very isolated, and insulated from others. Whenever somebody challenges his view, he makes the choice to retreat back inside of his own head rather than try to change.

That’s also a natural consequence of Eren not seeing people as people. Because he avoids the thoughts, feelings, opinions of others it means his own thoughts never really change. He deprives himself of the ability to see things in a different way. Eren is stuck in a rut, but also Eren doesn’t want to leave that rut he wants to bunker down.

2. Eren Himself.

Eren’s head what a terrifying place to be inside.

Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memory and sense of identity. Dissociation seems to fall on a continuum of severity.

Dissociation is a defense mechanism of the brain. So is avoidance. They are both learned defense mechanisms that the brain uses to protect himself, and they are also behaviors that people fall into to protect themselves.

This is why Eren is depicted as a child over and over again. This is why Eren is shown constantly flashing back to his mother’s death. It’s because Eren never really got over that initial trauma, Eren has been stunted and never grew or developed from that point.

Eren’s a big old manchild, and that makes sense just from what he’s been through. It’s easy to forget that Eren is a child soldier who like, never had a stable environment after losing his home. The reason he hyper focuses on his mother, and that initial incident is because that was the start of everything all the insecurity of his life. Eren adopted all these mechanisms to cope in a situation where he was truly helpless, and yet even after the situation changed, Eren’s internal mechanisms never truly did change and he kept on coping in the same broken way.

Dissociation, and Avoidance.

Dissociation is when a person divorces themselves, from their actions, from their own body, from their thoughts and feelings.

Avoidance is when Eren deliberately goes out of his way to avoid any kind of real conflict with other people or having to deal with their feelings because he’s not equipped to handle them.

Eren is hopelessly stuck inside of his own head right now. I don’t know what’s a better metaphor for that, then Eren literally... just being a head. It almost lapses into solipism. Eren has distanced himself from other people so far that he has... literally become a brain in a jar.

Eren’s perspective is the only one that exists to him. But he also disagrees with himself.

Eren wants the freedom to do whatever he wants. But he also, doesn’t really want to be doing what he’s doing right now. So, why does he use his freedom to do these things?

If Eren distances himself, both from the thoughts and feelings of other people, but also his own thoughts and feelings, where is he?

He’s god.

Eren imagines his ideal world as one where he’s above the clouds, in an completely open sky. These are the symbols associated with the idea of god in most religions. Somewhere distant. Somewhere far away.

Eren’s key operating word is distance. He is distancing himself from both other people, and his own actions at the same time, because he can’t really bear or even process the guilt of dealing with both.

Let me explain Eren’s bad decision making with a simple metaphor.

So spiderman, right. Spiderman gets bitten by a radioactive spider. He has kind of a shitty life. He has no parents, he’s bullied in high school. He’s an average every day loser. Suddenly, he gets all of these super powers. It makes spider man feel special. He has super strength now, he doesn’t need to wear his glasses anymore.

Then a robber runs by him, and Spiderman doesn’t lift a finger to help. Even though he has the special ability to help, he doesn’t take any responsibility for it.

As a result of this choice, his Uncle Ben dies.

Spiderman wanted the super powers, but he didn’t want like any of the added responsibilities of having super powers. In essence until Uncle Ben died, what Spider Man was living out was a power fantasy.

That’s what Eren is in the middle of. He’s always been this very weak and helpless child. He’s always felt like the person who just watched, unable to do anything when his mother died right in front of him. The way he’s dealt with that has always been imagining himself as getting stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

Eren wants power, but he doesn’t want responsibility.

The Sasha scene is literally the Uncle Ben scene. Eren kills a lot of innocent people, he makes a choice to do that, and as a direct result of his actions, someone else important to him dies. It’s a direct story consequence. Eren steps on Gabi’s friends -> Gabi becomes vengeful -> Gabi goes the extra mile to avenge the deaths of her friends sneaks on board and shoots Sasha.

Eren’s mechanism however, is avoidance. He doesn’t want to be at fault. So he’s not. Which means when Eren makes bad decisions. When those bad decisions result in things getting wrose. Eren ignores the consequences of his actions, and is therefore unable to deal with those consequences in any real way.

That’s why we see Eren get worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. Because he’s not learning from any of the choices he is making. Because from Eren’s perspective he doesn’t have a choice.

To summarize the contradiction: Eren wants to kill people, but he doesn’t want to feel like a murderer.

Eren can’t make sense of that, because there is no making sense of that so he looks away. He looks away so he can’t learn, or even really see what he’s doing to people. This causes Eren to spiral. When people have gotten genuinely that bad, when people spiral to the point where it seems like every single thing they’re going to do is going to make things worse what do they start wanting?

Eren’s dream of killing all the titans, is paralleled exactly with Reiner’s urge to just, kill himself so he can be done with everything. That’s the real reason essentially. Yes, it’s extreme, but Eren might be y’know, an extremist? The micro-level informs the macro-level.

Eren has gotten so bad in his mental spiral he’s reached the point where nothing else matters, where he just wants to give up and committ suicide. He wants to make the world disappear. He can no longer deal with the struggle against the world. He sees the only way to escape his problems is to either just wipe everything away, and wipe himself out. That’s metaphorical suicide.

It’s just Eren’s always projected outward.

Rather than deal with his own internal flaws, he tries to change the world around him. Eren has just externalized his own internal conflict to such an extreme extent.

And yeah, Eren is literally just a head right now. Only his own internal conflict, only his own hurt feelings, matter. That’s what Eren does to the child.

The reason that Eren draws the comparison to Eren is because that’s what Reiner did exactly to him.

Eren is the hurt and injured party here. Reiner’s direction actions and choices killed Eren’s mom. However, it’s not about Eren’s feelings, Reiner makes it entirely about his own feelings. His own guilt. His own regret for what he did. How bad he feels about it. Reiner breaks down crying and is so self-involved he forgets that Eren is the one who is hurting here.

Eren repeats the same action. He breaks down crying in front of a child and apologizes again and again. But it’s really about Eren. Eren makes it about himself, and his own guilt and remorse rather than the person he’s wronging.

So yeah. It’s the end of the world and Eren’s just making it about himself. That’s the best way to explain it. It’s easy to kill another person if you don’t see, or truly care about their pain.

Eren is a tool. And by that I mean he wants to take certain actions. Eren is violent, and wants to stir up conflict. He is because he’s a child soldier who has been raised that way all his life. Eren also knows that these things are wrong. Which is why he wants to take these actions, but in no way feel responsible for them. A gun is not responsible for a bullet leaving the barrel and shooting someone. Eren wants to be the gun, rather than the person holding the trigger.

Which is why Eren is now inside of a giant flesh monster that’s bent on destroying everything. He is the mechanism that destroys the world. It’s the extreme result of that line of thinking. But once again Eren’s entire character can be summarized in one line.

“Eren Jaeger is an extremist.”

#aot 131 #snk 131 #snk 131 spoilers #aot 131 spoilers #attack on titan meta #eren jaeger #eren jaeger meta #eren jaeger theory #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot meta

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being-of-rain · 2 years ago

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Some thoughts from my Classic Who watch. It’s the end... (of season 18.)

Warriors’ Gate is a weird one! Sometimes I worry that I’m the audience member that people complain has to be spoon-fed the plot, but I can follow some stories that people call confusing just fine if it dedicates a moment to explain things clearly. I didn’t really feel like I got that with Warriors’ Gate. There’s a void in the place between times, with an entrance to a castle which in the past was home to a space empire, and everyone could move between the times through the mirrors? I don’t know. Oh well. The character writing on the other hand is really good. The crew of the spaceship were great villains. I could tell they’d be fun from the first scene when one crewmember announces “We have liftoff,” and the comic relief guys give the most half-hearted cheer ever. Romana’s exit was even quicker than I remember, literally during a ticking-clock getaway. I’m glad they sort of built up to it with the ‘avoiding Gallifrey’ plot, because otherwise it would be laughably bad. As it is, it’s just a shame to see her and the Doctor part so suddenly after they’d been such a large part of each other’s lives. Also, farewell K9. He left the show as he lived in it: breaking down again.

I really do get a large sense of tragedy, watching The Keeper of Traken when I know how the season ends. Here’s a pretty paradise of a planet where the people are happy and the leader asks the Doctor for help. And within 8 episodes the Master will have destroyed it all. That being said, and though I do love some sci-fi political drama, the politicians on Traken suck. Poor Kassia gets so much shit from co-workers who claim to look up to her as a spiritual leader in one sentence and call her crazy in the next. She deserves a break. And the guy who hastily took up the most powerful role of Keeper at the end was totally useless and should not be in charge of a whole planet, he wouldn’t even be my first pick from the literally two remaining Consuls. Nyssa doesn’t get a lot of focus for her first story, did they even know she would go on to be a companion when they wrote it? One of the first time you see her standing up to someone is when she uses her family’s status and bribery to get some armed guards to disperse a crowd who aren’t doing anything illegal, which she seems concerningly comfortable with. Are Nyssa and Adric going to bond over being in the elite? Is Tegan going to represent The Common Man in the new team? Things I liked about the story: the set and the outfits! It made Traken a great setting. Also, Geoffrey Beevers!! Even with an effect over it, I was excited to recognise his voice. And it’s such a great voice too, I’m so glad he went on to do so many Big Finish audios.

Logopolis is an interesting one. Some interesting sci-fi concepts, or magical concepts wearing thin guise of science, and I do love that. I’m always happy when block transfer computation turns up. I think I followed it all a little better than the last time I watched it- so the CVEs have been opened permanently and there doesn’t need to be a Logopolis anymore? That explains how Romana seems to have returned to Gallifrey in the EU without much difficulty. The story also fits together the pieces of the fifth Doctor’s first Tardis team. Tegan’s introduction is a little strange after listening to so many audios, because she’s so... happy. In her scenes before stepping aboard the Tardis, she’s portrayed as excited, upbeat in the face of her aunt’s grumbling, clumsy, and forgetful. It feels like a very different Tegan than you get in later stories and pretty much any EU content. But I can see how that Tegan comes about. In her first story (presumably piling on top of the stress of getting a flat tire on the way to a new job,) Tegan gets lost alone in an impossible endless maze, then finds herself trapped on an alien planet by a mysterious man who won’t answer any of her questions, and a teenager who will only answer them in an extremely obnoxious manner. Then she finds out her aunt is dead, then she has to work with the man who killed her in order to save the universe. She gets grumpy sometimes and upset sometimes, and honestly that’s better than I imagine I would fair on a day like that. And it makes me a little sad that it’s not her upbeat self, but her grumpy-at-being-kidnapped self that goes on to be her defining personality, in the actual show as much as any fan perception. But all that being said, Tegan also feels like a big part of the weakest aspect of the story, which to me is the emotional realism, or the lack of it. Her character backstory feels like it very much starts and ends with “air hostess,” as almost every situation gets an airplane-related quip or comparison from her, while her function in the story feels like it starts and ends with “another companion,” as she falls in with doing whatever the Doctor and co tell her to do extremely quickly. She bounces between complaining and happily accepting the situation a few times. In short, Tegan gets quite a bit of focus in the first episode, then the script seems to lose interest in her, to the detriment of its believability. Nyssa has a similar issue, what with her whole world being destroyed by a man who stole her father’s body, and her getting not a lot of time or lines to react to it. So yeah, that’s about Logopolis summed up for me. Much more interested in its science and plot than its characters and emotions, which is its strengths and weaknesses respectively. The exception is Tom Baker’s fantastic acting in his final story, feeling the weight of the universe on him, which makes for a great end for his character.

And then I watched A Girl’s Best Friend, which is obviously a mandatory part of the watchthrough. My brother and I joked that the K9 & Company series didn’t continue because Sarah had got almost the entire town arrested at the end. Can’t have a fun crowd in the pub when they’re all in jail. We also found it funny that Sarah’s aunt was thought to be missing the whole episode because Sarah claimed that running off without telling anyone wasn’t in-character for her... only for it to be revealed that that’s exactly what she did do, telling only one random person about it, who decided not to tell anyone else because... well he’s in an evil magic cult, so it would be a bit of a laugh to make others’ lives more confusing I guess.

#my thoughts #four #adric #romana #k9 #nyssa #tegan #sarah #master

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bippityboppitybibuck · 3 years ago

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I’m fucking pissed about how spn ended again

How every fucking character arc and development arc was sent into the fucking garbage chute without a care

How nothing would have been different if the pilot never happened

How Jack wasn’t allowed to mourn anyone, not Cas who he knows died for him, not Sam or Dean like Cas talked to him about in 14x14, not even himself and his lost childhood like imagine if Dean and Jack sat down and talked about what it was like to grow up too fast because it was needed

How Dean wasn’t allowed to mourn his best friend, romantic feelings reciprocated or not (they were)

God I’m just so fucking mad about it all because it went to hell in a hand basket in the span of like slightly more than one episode (ending scene and montage from 15x19 I’m looking at you - you sucked as well)

I hate hate hate that this show ended this way and I know that finale denying is so nice but it doesn’t change that they ruined their show and their characters and their development from mid twenty somethings to middle aged dads by sticking them back in their pilot styles and having their last lines be the first they spoke and undoing a decade and a half of growth by having that happen

I mean what was the point of it all if it ended the same way it always would have if Dean never turned up on Sam’s doorstep. What’s the point? Why should we have cared about any of it if everything, all the friends and family and enemies were suddenly just not at all important?

Why tell us Dean wants to stick his toes in the sand and retire, that he thinks he could be a good dancer if he wanted to, that he has a fucking family John, if you’ve plan on killing him from the start of the season?

Why have witch!Sam and hunter team captain Sam if you are going to stick him in a cookie cutter. Why have him get out of the life just to have his son end up in it?

Why focus a season around the emotional storylines of a troubled yet stubbornly loving family if you are going to destroy it the second you get the chance to?

Why have Jack say it’s the small stuff he’d miss if he was going to die young only to make him god and take away all his chances of being that normal kid with that normal life.

Why have Dean say Jack is their kid in the first episode of the season just for him to say Jack’s not family by the 17th.

Why have Cas’ biggest moment be a queer love confession only to ignore his existence and deny his family a chance to acknowledge a mourning period?

And that’s not even bringing up the plot holes and dropped plots/storylines

I just do not understand how they thought this was an ending worth going with, how they were okay with a measly 30% of the audience enjoying it (a number they predicted before the finale aired). I don’t know who to blame, how high up I should go or how low down I should go, is it the writers? Singer and Kripkie (also adding yourself into the finale my god could you be any more self aggrandizing)? The network? All of the above????

No amount of fix it fics will make up for the fact that causal viewers saw 15x19 and 15x20 as the ending of spn, that 30% (and we fucking know who they are) loved how the story ended for everyone, that they alienated huge swaths of their most dedicated viewers for - as best as i can tell - shits and giggles, that they killed a suicidal man who wanted to live, that they killed an opening queer character only to bring him back to life off camera and mention him once afterwards. That they said the only good ending for traumatized, hurt people was death and a promise of paradise in heaven.

Supernatural was supposed to be about family that was so much more than blood, supernatural was supposed to be about second (or like twelfth) chances and learning to live after the fact, and they did away with all of it. And I can’t forgive or forget that

#spn #supernatural #destiel #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #jack Kline #suicide tw #tw deans death

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disapoitment · 4 years ago

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Am I about to overanalyse another throwaway gag? Absolutely! This time it's from the classic season one episode, Napoleon Brainaparte.

So, towards the very end of this episode, our poor, beloved mice are about to meet their tragic end. They're threateningly informed that an afterlife awaits them, and as they cower in what they believe to be their final moments, the viewers are given a glimpse into their heads...specifically, what they each imagine heaven to be like. This scene surprised me on my first watch, because it was pretty unexpected. And surprisingly...sweet?

Let's start off with Brain's idea of heaven, which is shown first.

Right off the bat we have him surrounded by a chorus of Pinky angels. This is one of the rebuttals I have for people who doubt Brain cares about Pinky...I mean, if I didn't like someone, I definitely wouldn't include them in my idealised afterlife, nevermind multiple versions of them!

Uh, I digress. The thing I actually want to draw attention to here is the fact that Brain actively desires Pinky in his life (or, afterlife, in this case) and can't imagine existing, in any form, without him. We've seen it time and time again, from the episode "Snowball" to that one story from the comics, but this is one of the earliest, most apparent instances of it in the show. This scene alone proves to the audience that Brain isn't using Pinky to reach his goals, but genuinely sees him as a friend and a companion. And maybe there's an unhealthy splash of codependancy in there.

To take this a step further, an afterlife is commonly portrayed as a sort of perfect world; a place of eternal happiness, even. It's safe to assume from this daydream that Brain subconsciously associates Pinky with the same joy and contentment associated with heaven. We can even interpret this scene as Brain viewing Pinky as an angel, which is not only heart-wrenchingly sweet, but makes a fair bit of sense, all things considered.

After all, though Brain himself tends to shy away from explicit displays of emotions and empathy, he's been established to admire these traits in others. In "TV or not TV", he claims to find Princess Diana (who was well-known for her activism) attractive, and he repeatedly praises Pinky's kind nature throughout the series, even when it directly interferes with a plan. He even sabotages his own plots when Pinky objects for moral reasons, eg "Inherit The Wheeze", and then there's the iconic instance of him DESTROYING his own machinery after tearing up over Pinky's Christmas letter. I believe this is why Pinky is an angel in Brain's eyes: he's compassionate, he's pure-hearted, and he's innocent. Well, innocent in the sense of intention, at least. Pinky represents all the things Brain is too afraid to be himself, lest morality get in the way of his goals.

On top of that, Pinky always stays by Brain's side. He's the only person/mouse who has never left him, hurt him, or betrayed him. It's natural that someone so lonely, cynical and self-loathing as Brain would view his polar opposite as a literal angel...or, even more impactfully, a full chorus of them. Of course Brain's idealised heaven has himself as an angel too, but I'd say that's either his ego coming into play (he's both self-hating and conceited) or just to serve as a visual signifier that he's...um, dead. The flock of Pinky angels is what I'm focusing on here, because the sheer amount of them in comparison to Brain highlights them in this miniature megalomaniac's reverie. And also because it's more interesting to take the analysis in this direction! ♡

Honestly, there's not quite as much I can say about this segment of the scene. Brain is on a throne, so presumably he's imagining himself ruling...heaven? Good for you, Brain!

It's very in-character for Brain to put himself as the centrepiece of his ideal afterlife, and as much as I love this little guy, the angel imagery is obviously ironic. Whether intentional or not, this can be connected to his egotism, as well as his belief that everything he does, no matter how severe or morally corrupt, can be justified by the end goal of ruling Earth and making it a better place. I don't believe that Brain genuinely sees himself as an angel when it comes to his purity, but rather that he thinks all his sins can be forgiven if/when he becomes the "benevolent dictator" (his words, not mine) of the planet...or maybe that's just what he tells himself to be able to sleep at night.

He looks noticeably very content and calm as an angel. I would go off on a tangent about how this is a version of Brain who is finally freed from the burden of his never-ending cycle of failure, and that this suggests that he needs to break out of his world domination obsession to ever be truly happy, but...I'll spare you.

Oh, Pinky. Poor, poor Pinky. He's so selfless that it stings :(

It says a painful amount that in his idea of heaven...he's not even in it. I don't think he hates himself, yet he's so good-natured that he ends up neglecting his own desires for the sake of others. In this scene, he has literally forgotten to include himself in his own idealised world. I hate to say this, but this could be a result of his codependent relationship with Brain. He's so focused on Brain's happiness and goals that his life almost revolves around him at this point, and as I mentioned before, they fall apart without eachother. Pinky pours his heart and soul into helping Brain, partly because he genuinely believes Brain will make the world a better place, and partly because he'd do almost anything for Brain's sake. His love for Brain is so strong that he's the focus of Pinky's own paradise.

What I find significant is Brain taking the role of every single angel in the fantasy. He's portrayed as a sweet and wholesome creature wearing a cute smile, a stark contrast to reality. Even just him being an angel in the first place implies that this is how Pinky sees him. A big part of the latter's motivation to help Brain take over the world, though scarcely mentioned in the show itself, is so it can become a happier, nicer place for everyone. As a determined optimist, Pinky shares the desire to improve the Earth, and so views Brain as a sort of hero, someone surely worthy of a halo and wings.

His view of Brain as a good person can be explained further when we consider that he doesn't mind being bopped (and in some interpretations, downright enjoys it), can shrug off any verbal abuse, and clings onto any snippets of warmth he receives from Brain. The things others would raise their eyebrows at are things Pinky ignores or adores. I think it's safe to say that, overall, Pinky is the type to focus on his friend's positive traits and simply ignore most of the negatives, as seen in "Pinky's Plan" when he gives an extremely sugarcoated description of Brain to the world leaders. Because of all this, in Pinky's mind, Brain truly is an angel. It's bittersweet, really.

And here we have it again. Brain on the throne, ruling. This is all Pinky truly wants—for his friend to be happy, fulfilled and at peace, making whatever world he may rule a better place. There's not an awful lot more to say now, since this is just a repeat of the scene from Brain's fantasy, but I think that's the most heartwarming part. These two mice are working towards the exact same goal, and yet their reasons for doing so are quite different: Brain to rule the world, Pinky to make his friend smile. It's almost poetic in its simplistic beauty. The voice actors said it best when they described the show as a "desperate love story", and the little scenes like this only prove that to me.

Welp, that's all I have to say for now! I haven't reached this hard since I tried to get to the chromatica oreos on the top shelf in Tesco. But this was fun, anyway! Thank you ever so much for reading :'D Your patience must be incredible! 💕

#pinky and the brain #patb

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mittensmorgul · 4 years ago

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As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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rotblut · 3 years ago

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tell us about my name queen make us laugh dmdkkdkdk

spoilers so

imagine 2384746 grown-ass men getting beat up one after another by a small and petite looking woman that has superpowers because she heals like no other and is stronger than a bull when it comes to beating the shit out of men. the way she had plot armor. i gotta laugh. not to mention how all the characters get heavily wounded all the time but heal quickly just not when they have to die...............

also ABH’s character... when I say a character was wasting screen time I MEAN THIS MF. he did not deserve a poster of his own. he was the blandest, boring and uninspiring character in recent months. never thought i would say this but even the ML in D/P had more to offer than ABH’s character and i hate the ML in D/P. his CHARACTER WAS NOT NEEDED. this man was useless and dumb and garbage. they tried to make him sympathetic by giving him *manpain* with the death of his sis............i have to laugh. he was there to fuck the FML and then he died like OKKKKKKKKKK at least one man in this that deservingly died. why was he one of the main characters? he added nothing to the story. I really wonder about that. the story would have been the same without him the only thing that wouldn’t have been in it was the unsexy sex scene they had.

a revenge story where the focus and center of the story is a woman. but why was the plot sooooooooooo predictable and why was it done in such a safe/repetitive way? I have seen that same story already in every other way told before. they could have done so much with it but they went the same way that every other revenge story went. just instead of a man, it’s about a woman. also, NIGHT IN PARADISE DID IT BETTER.

you cannot expect me to root for the *good people* when they are soooooooooooo bland and gave me nothing that would excite me or make me root for them. you cannot introduce all these badass fine looking men and make them end the way they ended in this. you cannot tease us about their past and bond and show us bits and pieces of their past and make us care for them and expect me to root for the cops when they did nothing to deserve me hyping them up or being curious about these bland ass mfs. it’s not realistic.

I really enjoyed the first 5 eps a lot, but fuck ep6-8 was really dumb. really fucking dumb. terrible.

you know what would have been way better? if she figured it out (all the lies and the manipulation) and still stayed with the gangster organization. that would have been something else. she should have stayed and once PHS’s character died she could have taken over it. but the way they ended this drama.......making her the bland ass hero by the end of it took away a lot of excitement for her as a character. she turned out to be the basic character that we see in every other crime/thriller drama. just that she was a woman.

ask me about lee/hak/joo and his charcter in another ask i got some nice headcanons there omg i don’t want to talk about him on here

#frage

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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years ago

Text

Fic: Haven (1/50)

Summary: They say Resembool is a haven, and they’re right. Lush pastures, quaint country town, farmers’ markets on Saturdays: a bucolic paradise.

But it’s more than that. Resembool is a haven for the runaways, the deserters, the people who don’t want to be found…

The Resembool community knows there’s something odd about Hohenheim, but they’re not going to let that stop them helping him out. This is Resembool after all, a place where no one has to hide and neighbours help neighbours, be they building a fence, chasing a sheep, or trying to save the country from an evil they inadvertently helped release centuries ago…

Or: A series of slices of life in an AU in which Hohenheim never leaves, and several broken state alchemists find hope and home in Resembool.

Rated: T

Note: These little slices of life are in mostly chronological order and mostly follow the canon manga timeline, but there are various bits of divergence here and there. It's mainly focused on Trisha and Hohenheim and the Elric family in the beginning, but more characters and ships will be arriving later. Each chapter will state the focus characters/ships at the beginning.

Haven

[AO3]

One

Summary: A few months after Van Hohenheim starts to make his home in Resembool, Pinako Rockbell begins to learn his secrets, and to let him know that there is no need for him to hide.

Characters: Hohenheim, Pinako

It’s a well known fact in Resembool that if someone has a secret, it will be common village knowledge within about a week.

This isn’t because the Resembool townsfolk are gossip-mongers or particularly nosy people. Well, they are nosy, but it’s with the best of intentions. If someone in Resembool is trying to hide something, then the rest of the town take it upon themselves to let them know that there is no need to hide in Resembool.

For as long as the village has been standing, it has been a place of safety. Many generations ago, people realised that people usually hide things because they need help but they’re too afraid to ask. The Resembool spirit is that of helpfulness. A problem shared is a problem halved, and by the time it’s been shared with the whole town, someone somewhere will have come up with a solution to the problem.

There is no need to hide in Resembool. Sitting as it does near the Eastern border and seeing the myriad souls coming and going, it’s become something of a melting pot despite being such a small village. It may be small, but the people there are anything but small-minded. They accept all sorts, from all backgrounds. It has always been the ideal place for anyone seeking to hide, anyone with a secret, because although that secret will no longer be secret within the village, the village will keep that secret from outsiders and will take it to the grave.

When the man known as Van Hohenheim arrives in Resembool, he does not at first know the village’s quirks and their well-meaning nosiness. He is a man of many, many secrets, and he picked this place to settle as somewhere as out of the way as possible. He has finally made peace with the souls within him, and he wants to stop in one place to find peace and space to breathe for himself. Not wanting his nemesis to have any hold over him and not wanting him to realise that he is still plotting against him even now, Hohenheim has chosen Resembool as somewhere remote where he can disappear and remain off the grid for a while.

Hohenheim did not count on the sheer tenacity of Resembool’s residents, in particular one Pinako Rockbell.

It is Pinako who discovers Hohenheim’s secrets. Not all of them at once, but it’s Pinako to whom he gradually opens up after that first unintentional reveal.

She learns his story by sheer stubbornness.

Pinako decides that she’s going to befriend her new neighbour, and he doesn’t really get any say in the matter. She can see that he’s a solitary soul who keeps his cards close to his chest. She can see that he’s hiding, and over time, she tries to make him see that there is no need to hide in Resembool. They’ve taken all sorts into their midst; there’s not much that he could have done in his past that would make them recoil and run him out of town. If he’s a hardened criminal or sex maniac then perhaps, but he’s so mild-mannered and so much of an airhead that Pinako really doesn’t think he’s dangerous. Except perhaps to himself.

It’s the ‘danger to himself’ part that reveals his true nature to Pinako, and she will admit that it throws her for six a little. Of all the things that she could have imagined about the very mysterious Hohenheim, being an invulnerable immortal was not one of them. She knows that he’s an incredibly skilled alchemist; everyone in town knows that. She does wonder if the alchemy is tied in with the fact that he just accidentally jabbed one of her screwdrivers through his palm and then pulled it out as if nothing had happened, red alchemic lightning crackling over his skin and healing him up, good as new.

Pinako sees the moment that he realises she saw this happen, and he looks like a deer cornered by a wolf, his gold eyes - such an unusual colour, and yet it looks so normal on him that no-one’s ever questioned his heritage - wide and scared.

“Huh.”

“For a long time, that’s all Pinako can say, because she’s having a bit of trouble processing what she’s just seen.

“I should go.”

Hohenheim is on his feet and almost out of the workshop, and Pinako knows instinctively that when he says ‘go’, he doesn’t just mean ‘leave the workshop’, he means ‘pack up and leave the village immediately by the next train, never to return’. She slides between him and the door to block his path.

“Why?”

“Sorry?”

“Why do you think you need to go?”

He looks down at his undamaged hand, his other thumb rubbing almost unconsciously over the place where the screwdriver stabbed through.

“Seriously, Hohenheim, you’re looking like I’m about to eat you. I swear I’m not going to. You’re way too hairy.”

He gives a snort of laughter and looks at her again.

“You’re taking this very calmly,” he says eventually. “In the past, the reaction to that particular reveal has not been so calm. I find it best to leave before I’m chased.”

“Huh.” Pinako is still having trouble processing it, but she can see why the poor man is so closed off and distant from everyone now. Then she shrugs. “We get all sorts in Resembool.”

“You’ve never had anything like me before.”

“No. Never anyone like you.” Pinako notes the vocabulary, the way he refers to himself as a thing rather than a person. “But that’s no reason for you to leave.”

“I don’t think that the rest of the village would see it that way.”

“Then you clearly haven’t met the rest of the village. For the love of Something Up There, Hohenheim, sit down, stop worrying, and let me get the whisky out. You look like you could definitely use one.”

Cowed under the force of her determined friendship, Hohenheim returns to his seat, eyeing up the dropped screwdriver warily, as if it’s going to attack him. Pinako goes into the house and grabs the whisky and two large tumblers. If her husband is alarmed by this then he doesn’t show it, simply raising an eyebrow.

“Is everything all right?”

“I think our next door neighbour is immortal,” Pinako says, completely matter of fact. “I’m going to try and find out how old he is.”

“That’s nice, dear.”

She’s pleasantly surprised to find that Hohenheim is still in the workroom when she gets back; she had half-expected him to have done a runner and she had visions of chasing him down the high street, still holding the whisky.

“So… You’re immortal?”

Hohenheim scoffs. “I’m a monster.”

“I highly doubt that. No person who is actually a monster ever thinks that they are one.” She pours them both a generous measure. “So… You’re immortal?”

He sighs. “Yes. I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

Pinako takes a hefty glug of her drink. “How did that happen, then? Have you always been immortal? Or was it some kind of alchemy what-not?”

To give him his due, he does laugh at that.

“It was some kind of alchemy what-not. And it wasn’t intentional. But it’s not a story I want to share.”

“OK.” She’ll give him that. She’ll get the story out of him at some point, but considering she’s probably the only other person in the world who knows he’s immortal and has seemingly accepted it without an issue, he’ll likely take a while to open up more. “So how old are you?”

“I stopped counting.”

“Are we talking centuries or millennia here?”

“Four centuries. Give or take.”

“Huh.” Pinako reflects that she probably ought to try and say something slightly more eloquent, but Hohenheim doesn’t seem to mind and she was never one for flowery speeches anyway. “Where’ve you been all that time?”

“All over the place. Like I said, most people aren’t as accepting as you are.”

“Well, you’ll always have a home in Resembool.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but he stays, and he drinks his whisky, and he’s still in Resembool the next day, so Pinako thinks that maybe he believes her.

#FMA: Brotherhood #FMA Fanfiction #Van Hohenheim #Pinako Rockbell #Fic: Haven #canon divergence

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