#but make them actually have sense and yearning but understand they cannot abandon duty

[certified-anakinfucker]

“Hurt” for the WIP ask?

oh boy let's see where my most ancient wips are, because i've realized now that none of my wips are..... concrete real wips. i just kinda start writing shit and drop it in a channel and forget about it. whoops. but i can search and see the last time i said "hurt"???

Satine only softens her gaze and “This is why I had to leave. You still love me, and this hurts you.”

(context under the cut!)

So, this comes from me looking at the story between Satine and Obi-Wan and being entirely sick of it. SO I'm throwing most of it right in the trashcan.

Satine, for starters, is no longer erasing Mandalorian warrior culture in the name of "peace and prosperity"; she was born and raised Kalevalan (which I can only assume Kalevala has long-since held royalty > war standards but at their core remember they are Mandalorians) as well as Bo-Katan, and the two brothers they also share. Blah blah blah, their father is assassinated, and their mother employs a divide and conquer plan to keep her children from suffering the same fate.

In short, Satine is sent to Coruscant to learn diplomacy where there are more guards to deal with and less opportunities to kill her. She meets Obi-Wan when Qui-Gon insists they need to go on a field trip to escort her safely, and yes - Obi-Wan and Satine fall in love. They're both well aware that they're two stupid teenagers in love with the last person in the galaxy they should be loving.

But once things uh. Ahem. Get a little steamy, Satine suddenly breaks things off with him and disappears. She does not contact him for roughly fifteen years. They do not see each other again until Obi-Wan, now a Jedi Ambassador to his Master's Jedi Diplomat, and realizes oh. He never stopped being in love with her.

(And to be fair to Obi-Wan, here's his deal - yes Qui-Gon was murdered on Naboo by Darth Maul. But the following events were greatly altered: - Obi-Wan was not appointed as Anakin's Master. Grandmaster Windu did not give one fuck about what Qui-Gon's dying wish was, because Obi-Wan is a 25 year old Padawan who has not had a lick of proper training and has been abandoned on a battlefield multiple times in his childhood. Anakin was given to another Master able to properly help him hone his power while Obi-Wan was checked into therapy and also given a new Master, who very effectively dads him and helps as best he can.) So he's seeing her again for the first time in fifteen years, and with Mandalore choosing neutrality - he had heard very little news besides a Duchess being appointed alongside the Mand'alor Bo-Katan Kryze. He could have only guessed that the Duchess was Satine, but was never strong enough to go looking for answers. He also saw a fourteen year old child doing some very familiar :thinking: poses..

She's still initially very cold and curt with him, because through her visor she can see how he lurches forward and wants to run right to her. She holds up a hands and tells him "business first", and runs the meeting with Master Drovaddal (Obi-Wan's new Master and the Diplomat) before dismissing everyone at its adjourning and summoning Obi-Wan to her side.

And there's the moment when he's wanting to ask a million questions, all of them racing behind his eyes, but one look at Satine answers them all. When she removes her glove and places a hand to his cheek, her heart breaks a little more when Obi-Wan moves into her touch. Because they're both still in love with one another, and both wish that things could have been just a little different in their favors.

But, they both have duties they cannot abandon. Satine had to leave and keep him in the dark or else Obi-Wan would have abandoned the Order and left no one in his place.

PERHAPS I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THEM and obligatory tags - @chiafett @purgetrooperfox @keys-to-the-stars since you all like me fixing this shit

[dottiechan]

ICEBREAKER Pt. 1

Read on AO3 (link in bio)

Part 1 | Part 2&3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Pairing: Crosshair x Reader x Hunter; Tech x Reader (platonic)

Wordcount: 2389

Summary: Tech watches on helplessly as his brothers' affection for you threaten to ruin the squad.

Warnings: cursing, yearning

You’re just as cold on the inside as the ice is under your boots. It crunches with every step you take, and your heart seems to beat along with the fall of your boots, aching. You feel unsteady, almost enough to miss the tracks running in the snow right in front of you. You pause and crutch down, gloved fingers dipping into the indentations as you grumble to yourself. It’s not even your turn to scope out the area where you’re setting up camp, and besides, there is a literal tracking genius in your squad - it really shouldn’t be you who’s out here in the snow and ice, eyes straining against the blinding white of the planet, fingers freezing off as you set up perimeter alarms. And yet you just volunteered for the less than ideal task without explanation, not understanding your own decision either.

At least Tech offered to tag along, but you suspect he’s simply had enough of his brothers for a while. Not that you can blame him.

“Fascinating.”

You sigh, internally begging him to stop talking as you stand, abandoning the tracks after deciding they most likely belong to a lone whitefang. You have enough on your plate right now, with Hunter still being pissy and Crosshair avoiding you like the plague, and silence would be much more preferable right now to listening to one of Tech’s rambles.

“Did you know that this moon’s surface is almost entirely composed of water?”

“No.”

“Despite the subzero surface temperature, there are subsurface oceans underneath the ice that are warmed by the moon’s internal heat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wish we could stay long enough for me to study the subsurface flora and fauna. There might be plants underneath the ice that-”

“Tech.”

“-that use chemosynthesis-”

“Tech!”

“What?”

He has the decency to look flustered, one hand gripping the datapad tightly, the other flying up to adjust his goggles as he peers up at you. You didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but sometimes you just can’t help it. Sometimes, the confinement of the Marauder is enough to turn you into a ticking time bomb, irritated by the slightest seemingly innocent things. And you’ve had more than just mere sparks to flare your temper as of late.

...

His rifle is spotless, and yet he’s still scrubbing it as if his life depended on it.

Maybe it does, because if he jumps up and lowers his guard for a second, he’s out the ship and off to find you and Tech. Maybe you’re a fool sometimes, a god damn nuisance, a person he still couldn’t grow used to, but you belong with them now, you’re theirs, you’re his, and that means something to him. You frustrate him beyond reason, and he often grows callous and agitated because he refuses to allow himself to feel the emotions you elicit from him whenever you’re near him.

Even now, on an ice planet, the mere thought of you infects him with a sweet, sweet jungle fever that knocks him off his feet.

And he’s supposed to be angry now, Crosshair reminds himself. After all, you almost gotten yourself killed on Bracca, and almost broke him in the process.

“They’ve been gone for too long,” Hunter grumbles as he paces up and down like a caged nexu craving to run free. But lately Crosshair began to suspect that he craves something else, someone else, and the thought has his throat tightening in jealousy. He’s been watching, and he convinced himself that he’d misread the signs until he saw the same agitation reflect in his brother’s eyes that he himself has to wrestle with every day.

If it ever came down to your choice, he knows he wouldn’t be it, and he hates living with this knowledge.

Hunter has all the things you seem to like - unlimited kindness, longing looks, smirks that turn a little too soft when directed at you, broad shoulders he caught you staring at more times than he can count. Deep down, he’s still hoping it will never come to you having to choose, but it’s impossible not to wish to be in the centre of your attention. You drive him insane, but you also make him want to commit and stop fighting and lay down his weapons for once in his god damn life.

“Relax. They’re probably fine.”

The screen to their left lights up, and Hunter rushes across the ship in long strides before exhaling in relief. “The proximity alarms are online. They should be heading back soon.”

Crosshair sucks in a breath, worried about seeing his own emotions sitting behind Hunter’s eyes as well.

...

You were assigned to assist the Bad Batch for an unspecified period of time some months ago. You’re a versatile field agent, specialising in both stealth and combat casualty care, one of the few volunteers who were qualified enough to join the GAR. Oh, and you’re also clearly mistrusted by your new squad as they flip out the very moment you risk yourself in the line of duty. You’re not stupid, you weighed the risks carefully, and you trusted your abilities to see you through the job unharmed.

But ever since the incident on Bracca, you’re given the cold shoulder by most on the squad, and for once, the scenery matches your mood.

And yet Tech deserves better than to be cut off like that. He deserves to be listened to, and appreciated as the good man he is. You’re friends, but in moments like these, you think you don’t deserve his friendship.

“Look, I’m... I’m sorry, okay? But right now, I have too much on my mind to think about, umm, chemo...”

“Chemosynthesis?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I think I understand,” he nods, satisfied with your half-assed apology for the time being as he goes back to scanning the vast icy desert stretching as far as the eye can see. The Marauder’s lights blink in the background, orange against the dark blue of the growing darkness that surrounds you. It’s like a beacon, a sign that promises warmth, and you gaze at it longingly until you remember that you’ll have to go back to Crosshair’s scowl and Hunter’s disapproving frown and Wrecker’s awkward little smiles. Somehow, the ice is preferable once more, and the snow that just began to fall in soft flakes is little more than a mild annoyance.

“Well, aside from a few distant life forms-”

“Whitefangs.”

“Yes, most likely whitefangs - aside from those, we should be quite safe inside the ship for tonight.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “You might be. I’m not the most popular with the squad right now, remember?”

“You are a valued addition,” Tech declares, and the certainty in his voice releases inside you the emotional equivalent of a sucker punch. All you can do is stand, and fight the sting of tears in your eyes. You’re confident, but you never in your wildest dreams imagined how difficult it would be to live up to the expectations of a special unit. You also know your worth, but it’s hard to keep on believing in yourself steadfastly when the rest of your squad doubts your every move. “Which is why the prospect of losing you elicits a rather severe emotional reaction in us. It is rare for regs to warm up to us as well as you have, let alone volunteers. Aside from the obvious tactical disadvantage losing you would mean, I believe it is a little more personal than that.”

...

Hunter knows something is off even before one of the alarms is triggered - whatever it is, it is within five clicks of the ship, making you and Tech plenty exposed before he could do anything. He was straining his ear simply to keep you all safe - so what if he accidentally heard your muffled voice, or the soft crunch of snow underneath your boots?

But now is not the time to be idle, and he knows it. He would never forgive himself if something happened to his squad. And to you, he corrects himself almost softly as he grabs his helmet and checks his weapons quickly. Despite the fact that he’s still angry about your previous carelessness, he cannot deny the forbidden yearning coiling in his stomach whenever you’re on his mind, making him just as nervous as hopeful. And to be fair, it happens more and more often as of late, which is both alarming and exciting as he never thought he’d ever have the luxury to feel this way about someone else. Sure, he knows love, he loves his brothers with all his heart even if he isn’t very vocal about it, but this is different. New, scary, exciting different, an effervescent and persevering tingling blinding all his senses.

Crosshair is beside him in less than a second, rifle in hand, silent, and they share a nod before lowering the ramp and rushing out into the freezing dusk.

When he picks up on your muffled voice, he seems to ignore everything as he breaks into a sprint towards you, hoping to reach you in time before you’re in danger. He almost misses the way Crosshair’s heartbeat picks up, the usually stoic man reeking with genuine worry as he looks through the scope of his rifle.

He can deal with this later, Hunter promises himself as he pushes down this uncomfortable feeling. But then he sees you and Tech, and he seems to forget about anything and everything - you have that unfortunate and awfully distracting effect on him.

...

“But Hunter yelled at me for being reckless for a solid hour. And Crosshair said he didn’t care if I wanted to get myself killed, but I should do it in a way that didn’t interfere with the mission. Seriously, what an asshole.”

“Nevermind what they actually say,” Tech waves his hand in mild annoyance. “Hunter was worried sick. Crosshair almost went after you. And they’re both too pigheaded to admit the real reason why they’re so worked up.”

“Which is?”

“Obviously they both view you as a potential romantic partner.”

There’s a moment of pause as you two stare back at one another before you snort and chuckle, shaking your head and crossing your arms over your chest as a futile attempt at staying warm. “Tech, you need to work on your sense of humour.”

“And you need to work on your observational skills and situational awareness.”

“My observational skills are exceptional,” you defend yourself, a finger held up in the air defiantly. “And my situational awareness is-”

“Lacking, as you didn’t seem to notice the whitefang return. I suggest we head back to the safety of the Marauder.”

Sure enough, the wild cat is there lurking amongst the ice dunes, its eyes glowing in the dark as they reflect the light of the ship. It shouldn’t pose a threat to you as it is alone, and relatively small, but you still consider wrestling with it instead of returning to the ship and facing the rest of the squad - somehow, even that feels like a fight more fair than the ones that await you upon your return. So you hold its gaze as it curiously inspects you, wishing to swap bodies and run away and avoid any more conflict. Before you can even think of returning to the ship, you hear quiet footsteps catching up to you.

“I thought I heard something.”

“It’s probably more curious than anything.”

Hunter unsheaths his vibroblade and twirls it in his hand so theatrically it makes you roll your eyes. He glances at you, shoulders all tense, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of danger, and even though his face is obscured by his helmet, you can almost see the disappointed frown sitting on his features. “You want to test that theory?”

“My money would be on the whitefang winning.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tech.”

“Any time.”

“Relax.” The distorted rasp of your commlink is not enough to drown out the smugness of the sniper. The stand-off ends when a single well-placed shot right before the big cat sends it sprinting away into the darkness. You all turn to find Crosshair standing by the ship, his rifle still aimed at the retreating form of the whitefang.

“Well, there goes my opportunity to finally have an interesting patrol,” you mutter to yourself as you all make it back to the Marauder.

“Do all of your patrols end in you staring down carnivores?” Crosshair snorts, clearly unamused.

“Only the good ones,” you fire back, deciding not to wait for any of them as you head inside. Crosshair is hot on your heels, another string of mockery sitting on the tip of his tongue, because fuck, you’re stubborn, but he’s not going to cave in and tell you how it makes him feel to see you in danger. He can’t, however, put up with being away from you either.

Hunter lingers a little outside. He has to set himself straight, to contain all the things he wants to say you that have nothing to do with scolding you about Bracca, to kill all the feelings that suddenly demand to be felt so desperately. He clenches and unclenches his fists by his side, pretending to survey the surroundings of the Marauder. Tech moves in the periphery of his vision, but instead of following you and Crosshair, he steps closer to Hunter.

“I believe the threat’s been averted.”

“Yeah. Good job on setting up those alarms, Tech.”

“No problem. Is there anything else you need?”

“No. You should head back inside. The last thing I want is for you to keel over with hypothermia.”

“That’s not how hypothermia works,” Tech mutters, his voice trailing off, eyes uncertain behind his goggles. He suddenly places a gentle hand on Hunter’s shoulder, making the sergeant glance at him.

“Hunter, I’m only asking this because I care about you all, but... how long do you think this can go on before one of you gets hurt?”

Tech’s words echo in his mind long after he’s rejoined the squad on the ship. And Hunter just stands outside in the snowfall, watching the last rays of light disappear on the horizon, wondering which one of you he’ll have to hurt when the push comes to shove.

[yosoyloqueveo]

1903 - Rainer Maria Rilke with Clara Westhoff, the sculptor whom Rilke would later marry and repeatedly abandon on his vocational wanderings around Europe. 

+ (quite) a few extracts so far from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet...

“To be an artist is this: not to count or to reckon: to ripen like a tree which does not force its sap, but in the storms of spring stands confident without being afraid that afterwards no summer may come. The summer comes all right. But it only comes to the patient, to those who are there as carefree and quiet and immense, as if eternity lay before them. Daily I learn, learn it through my sufferings [to which I am grateful] that patience is everything.

“have patience with all unsolved problems in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, or books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not search now for the answers, which cannot be given you, because you could not live them. That is the point, to live everything. Now you must live your problems. And perhaps gradually, without noticing it, you will live your way into the answer some distant day.”

“Richard Dehmel:  You characterised him very well with the expression: "sensual life and sensual poetry"—and it is undoubtedly a fact that artistic experience has such an inconceivably close connection with sexual experience, with its pain and its desire, that the two phenomena are actually nothing but two different forms of one and the same yearning and bliss. And if instead of sensuality one could say sex—sex in its great, wide and pure sense, free from the suspicion cast upon it by errors of the Church—then his art would be very great and infinitely important. His poetical power is great and strong as a primeval impulse. It has its own independent rhythms, and breaks forth from him like a stream from the mountains.”

“Bodily pleasure is an experience of the senses, exactly like pure seeing or the pure feeling with which a lovely fruit fills the tongue; it is a great and infinite experience which is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fulfilment and glory of all knowledge. And it is not our receiving it that is bad; what is bad is that nearly everybody misuses and squanders this experience and, instead of storing it up for supreme moments, uses it as an allurement and a distraction at the tired moments of his life. Eating, too, has been turned by mankind into something else; want on the one hand and excess on the other have rendered turbid the clearness of this need, and all the deep and simple necessities in which life renews itself have in like manner become turbid. But the individual man can make them clear for himself and live clearly [or if not the individual who is too dependent, at any rate the solitary man]. He can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a quiet and lasting form of love and longing, and he can see the animal, as he sees the plant, patiently and willingly synthesising and increasing itself and growing net out of physical desire or physical pain, but bending to necessities which are greater than desire and pain and mightier than will and resistance.”

“And those, who come together in the night and are twined in quivering pleasure, are performing a serious work and are heaping up sweetness, depth and force for the song of some coming poet, who will arise to express inexpressible ecstasies.”

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude, and bear the pain which it causes you with euphonious lament. For you say that those who are near to you are far away, and that shows that your outlook is beginning to be wide. And if your foreground is far from you, then your horizon is already beneath the stars and very great. Rejoice in your growth, into which you can take no one with you, and be good to those who remain behind. Be assured and peaceful in their presence, do not torture them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or your joy, which they could not comprehend. ”

“Avoid adding new material to that strained drama which- is ever played between parents and children. It uses up much of the children's strength and consumes the love of the parents, which is always active and warm, even if it does not understand. Do not ask them for any advice and reckon on no understanding from them, but believe in a love which is stored up for you as a heritage, and have confidence that in this love there is a force and a blessedness, which you need never leave behind even in your furthest journeys.”

“I know that your profession is hard and full of opposition to yourself; I foresaw your complaint and knew that it would come. Now that it has come I cannot soothe it. I can only advise you to consider whether all professions are not like that, full of claims, full of enmity for the individual, and at the same time fully imbued with the hate of those who submit dumbly and surlily to monotonous duty. The position in which you must now live is no more heavily burdened with conventions, prejudices and errors than other positions, and if there are some which carry with them a greater outward freedom, there is none that in itself is wide and spacious and connected with the great things of which real life consists.”

“What you are experiencing now as an officer, you would have felt in like manner in any of the existing professions, and even if apart from any position, you had sought easy and independent contact with society alone, this feeling of constraint would still not have been spared you. Everywhere it is the same, but that is no reason for anxiety or sadness. If there is no intercourse between you and mankind, try to get nearer to "things." They will not desert you; there are still the nights and the winds which blow through the trees and over many lands; with "things" and with animals, everything is still full of happenings in which you can take part; and children are still the same as you were as a child, so sad and so happy—and when you think of your childhood, then you live again among them, among the lonely children, and the grown-ups are nothing and their dignity has no value.”

“With the help of conventions, people have solved all problems according to what is easy and according to the easiest side of what is easy, but it is clear that we must attach ourselves to what is difficult. All living things attach themselves to it, everything in nature grows and defends itself after its manner and is an entity in itself, and strives to be so at any price and against all resistance. We know little, but that we must attach ourselves to what is difficult is a certainty that never deserts us. It is good to be lonely, for loneliness is difficult. The fact that a thing is difficult must be for us the more reason for doing it.

To love, too, is good, for love is difficult. Loving between human being and human being, that is perhaps the most difficult thing with which we have been charged, the extreme possibility, the last test and trial, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”

“Love is not at first anything that can be called merging or surrender or union with another, for what would the union be of what is unclean, unready, and still subordinate? It is an exalted occasion for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become a world, to become a world in himself for another's sake; it is a great and even arrogant claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to what is far. ”