#for me to rotate it in my head

[eelclaw]

skimmed the star spoilers thread. these books fucking suck lol

[ministarfruit]

day 15: haunting ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[totally-here]

3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up

One

Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help. 

Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long. 

Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned. 

Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity. 

The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room. 

Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up. 

“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”

“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender. 

“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”

“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark. 

Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?” 

Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”

“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”

Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times. 

“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?” 

“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.” 

“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”

Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life. 

“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes. 

Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.

They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.

Two

Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.

But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that. 

So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it. 

When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone. 

Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders. 

“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost. 

Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead. 

“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?” 

Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?

Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.” 

Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”

Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.” 

Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.

But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?

But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him. 

“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?” 

“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!” 

“You what.” 

The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg. 

Three

Tim may be in a…Predicament. 

It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead. 

So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl. 

Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker. 

“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?” 

Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”

“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes. 

His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing. 

Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.

Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”

Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body. 

“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches. 

“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly. 

“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker. 

They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?” 

Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”

“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that. 

Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably. 

Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”

“Not the same one.”

They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car. 

Plus one

A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything. 

Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out. 

No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile. 

Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions. 

“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.” 

“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.” 

“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible. 

“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies. 

He gets a resounding no in response. 

Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else. 

Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it. 

“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula. 

“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?” 

Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?” 

“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!” 

“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”

“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame. 

“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?” 

Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”

“Only because I’m here now.” 

“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest. 

It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”

Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds. 

And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head. 

“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”

“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring. 

“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”

“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”

“Well, yes, but–”

“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.” 

Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest. 

Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused. 

The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.” 

Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”

Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.

[stark-lord]

Dead Boy Detectives (2024)

1.02 — The Case of the Dandelion Shrine

1.04 — The Case of the Lighthouse Leapers

[snarkspawn]

Let There Be Light

[birrdify]

oh smg4 fixation how far ive fallen for you ............ hhi smg4 fandom waving nervously

[cubedmango]

cherry magic AU for @alnstgforgaza anon with impeccable taste 🍒✨

(info on how to send in your own prompt is over here! please consider donating 💜)

[chiricat]

[photo added to the archives!] 🍡

[thebrainrotsreal]

When I tell you I am still so speechless over this episode.

When I tell you I am thinking about Mark who we know really ingrained Nolan's speech back in s1, only see that Nolan looks like he meant every word. That Mark was replaceable, his mother was just a pet. When I tell you I'm constantly thinking about Mark, who only saw his father cry over a planet he's only known for months, and not the family he's had for years. When I tell you I'm thinking about Mark finally calling Nolan 'dad' again only to be immediately choked and yelled at. When I think about the parallels of s1's fight and this one.

[cryptidinlaw]

[tofixtheshadows]

Hot take: Laios wouldn't actually mind an arranged marriage. Obviously "reluctant royal being pressured into marriage" is very fun for shipping purposes. But I have harlequin blood, so bear with me. Join me on this journey of character theorizing/shipping nonsense that makes it abundantly clear I have a Scrivener document I'm neglecting.

Laios was promised to someone from a young age. He and Falin both were; it's probably how their parents ended up together. They both broke it off by leaving their village, but it didn't seem to be a factor in Laios's own decision. And when Marcille, presumably, asks about his hypothetical love life (bicorn chapter), he not only brings it up readily, but actually seems kind of flattered? lmao

I love when smug Laios comes out. Underrated factor of Laios's personality for me is how much he enjoys being seen as cool. I think you'd expect Laios to be embarrassed or uneasy over this line of questioning, and the fact that he isn't is fun to me.

So when Yaad and his other old advisors bring up his need for a wife, Laios is ready to go along with it. Not necessarily thrilled by the prospect, but he was raised to think of marriage as a business arrangement you do because it's beneficial for your household/bloodline (as was often the case historically). He's already made the big step to claim a throne, and the idea of becoming village chief after his father seemed to have been vaguely in the back of his head all his life. Besides, if he has to do it anyway, I think he'd take comfort that there was a formalized process for an otherwise socially messy undertaking.

This dovetails neatly with my personal headcanon that Laios is gay but unaware of it. He comes from kind of a repressed culture- or at least I can imagine he does based on context clues- and has spent most of his life being ostracized in one way or another, feeling like he's on the outside of humanity. So he doesn't realize that his lack of attraction to women is unusual- he assumes that nobody really enjoys romance that much. It's not like his own parents married for love. It's just something people play up for stories, right?

It's all tangled up with his fraught desire for human connection and platonic companionship anyway. Meanwhile he's blithely unaware that the things he says about Toshiro are not normal bro things. Oh you'd totally marry Toshiro, Laios? Tell me more.

I see this in Marcille too. Firstly due to her unstable development, which has only recently allowed her to reach maturity (I headcanon her as somewhere between 20-22) and secondly due to her being a half-elf (infertile+a too-long lifespan), I think she has the expectation that she's simply not destined for love. The half-elf character she relates to in her favorite books says as much. So she, too, confuses a genuine lack of heterosexual attraction with the belief that this is just because of her half-elf status distancing her from it. Plus, she spent over a decade as a student/researcher in a nice little sheltered academic bubble, at an all-girls academy populated by adolescents. She's the most sheltered of all the characters: she's only spent the past year in the "real world", and she still focuses all her romantic attention on living vicariously through her favorite characters or her friends (except for Falin, conveniently!).

And Marcille would absolutely want to live vicariously through Laios and his future wife. She would not want him to go through a dispassionate formalized process: she wants her bestie to have a fairytale romance! What is the point of being a heroic king in a mythic castle if you can't even get a love story for the ages out of it?

This would result in a lot of Laios meeting with eligible bachelorettes at Marcille's urging, looking to Kabru for help the entire time and being grilled by Marcille afterwards about what he liked best about each girl. "She had nice, um, teeth?" They're both so close to getting it.

Kabru, meanwhile, is agitating for Yaad and the other advisors not lock the country into a hereditary monarchy, they have the chance to do something radical here, to break away from the systems that the elves and dwarves uphold. At the very least, let Laios marry for love, or formally adopt an heir and name them his successor if he wants, he's already sacrificed enough for the sake of Melini. Don't make him jump through these circus hoops for the chance of some trade agreements, we can get those without a royal marriage. And even if Laios was willing to go along with it, he does look at Kabru like he's his hero for sticking up for him.

The vague unhappiness Kabru feels at the idea of Laios being married off is easy for him to ignore. Kabru didn't actually get better at honoring or even recognizing his own wants just because he's moved past the dungeon. And Laios hasn't gotten the hint about his crush on Toshiro and is still 50/50 on saying casually shocking things, so when he remarks that he doesn't need a wife anyway when he has Kabru, he has no idea why that gets him the looks it does. After all, where he's from, men marry women to run their households, but Laios has castle staff for that, and Kabru is handling the rest?

That comment alone ticks one month off their collective gay awakening countdown.

Anyway. How many repressed gays in their twenties does it take to run a country?

Answer: Yaad can tell you.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

ISAT & Dungeon Meshi swap!

[yashley]

“I scream when I see Opal is taken out.”

[gojostan-doodles]

Dorks 😞💕

Amari in normal lighting, since her markings glow in the dark! Also, she's holding a Californian Rabbit :3c

I LOVE HER SOOOO 🥹🥹😭🩷

[izzystizzys]

When the 212th collaborates with the 501st, chaos is sure to follow in their footsteps. This has been largely true of every engagement since the start of the war, in Cody’s experience. Had he even an ounce more of a rebellious streak, he might question why and whether the success rate is worth the feral instinct for mayhem his battalion and Rex’ awaken in each other - as it is, he simply fills out the after action reports and then screams into his pillow, which is hard as durasteel and doesn’t warrant the name.

Or, on some days, he steps into the training rooms to work off some nervous jitters only for his foot to catch on someone’s armoured shoulder and faceplant straight into what looks like the entirety of both battalions piled together in a massive cuddle pile.

“What”, he manages between gritted teeth, heaving himself up with one hand supported on Crys’ arm and the other planted in places that make Boil jackknife up with a strangled yelp, “the kriff is this?!”

“We’re watching the Corrie Reality Special, sir”, his own voice calls from somewhere across the room. “The 91st is passing by, so we have satellite access to the Coruscant Broadcast network for a few hours, and we couldn’t settle on a specific show -“

“- so we decided to watch them all”, Rex finishes, sheepishly, where he’s fought his way through wiggling piles, hoots and badly imitated monkey lizard noises. The thought that he shares DNA with these degenerates is enough to drive Cody to the brink of a nervous breakdown some days. “Spopcorn?”

Ah. The Corrie Reality Circuit. When Cody first heard of it, he’d thought it was a prank. Then, they were deployed to the middle of bumkriff nowhere on the edges of Midrim space edging on Outer Rim, with a connection so spotty even classified military intel only got through about half the time, and the whole idea got shelved in favour of clankers and keeping his General’s lightsaber in his General’s hand where it belonged.

Now, a gaudy, glittery monstrosity of a logo announcing a Coruscant Rotational special appears on a rigged up screen, which means one of two things: either Fox is pulling the Galaxy’s greatest long con on all of them, or he’s been murdered and replaced with an evil clone (ha!), because there are no circumstances in which he would agree to star on Coruscant Reality TV.

Cody tilts his head consideringly. Rex smiles at him sheepishly. Tilts the spopcorn bowl at him, invitingly.

“Oh, dank farrik, sit your shebs down!”, someone (Fives, probably) yells out, fed-up…ly.

Cody sits his shebs down.

“Good morning and welcome all of Coruscant to the Great Coruscant Rotational Special: Our Boys in Red Edition!”, a bright red Twi’leki man announces on the screen amidst cheerful jizz music and loud hooting from the training room. “My name is Braham Horton, and I will be your exalted host for this fine, fine late night cycle!”

“And now, gentlebeings of the metropolis, I present to you the images that have driven us all to laughter, joy, and even tears at times over these past few weeks - whodathunkit, that the CSF media project would enthrall a whole Galaxy of viewers and cause the largest recorded peaceful civil protest of all time?!”

“The sorry what now”, says Cody, suddenly thinking back to the urgent meeting General Kenobi was currently in with Generals Windu and Yoda - passing by on the Venator in orbit. “Uhm”, says Rex. Braham Horton, unfazed by the commotion he’s causing lightyears away, chatters on.

“- many hours, so we’ve compiled an introductory little best-of for you, exalted viewers! And what better best of to start off on than the hottest entry of the most explosive bombshell into the villa - please give it up for Commander Thorn and how he stole all of our hearts on Love Island!”

A garish, club-tech jingle Cody has so far only heard buzz through the walls of establishments that generally didn’t allow clones thrums through the training room, followed by what can only be described as the sort of noises spiced up banthas might make. Thorn appears on screen, more oiled up and half-naked than Cody remembers, though just as bleach-blond, hair slightly longer than regulation and smile blindingly perfect.

“I’m Commander Thorn, baseline twenty-four years humanoid - during daytime I might be the scourge of Coruscant’s criminal underworld, but at night I don’t mind playing good cop for you!” He punctuates it woth a sleazy wink and fingerblasters that have Rex honest-to-god gagging, and Cody seeing his life flash before his eyes. If Alpha-17 finds out about this…

Suddenly, Thorn’s smile drops in favour of what might almost be called a scowl on even his handsome face, and the music cuts out. “There, got your soundbyte. Can I go back now? I’m supposed to be on shift.” Indistinct, off-screen chatter and a captioned oopsie… appear in a shower of glitter. Thorn’s face does something complicated. “For HOW MANY MONTHS?!”

Cut to a montage of what Cody can only describe as beaches, oil and abs galore, Braham Horton narrates and extremely close-up shot of what Cody tries very hard not to identify as Thorn’s crotch. His own crotch, in a way. Oh no, that’s weird, stop that train of thought immediately-

“Although our favourite bombshell’s entry into the villa wasn’t without its hitches and hurdles-“, emphasized by a zoom-in on Thorn’s form in a speedo huddled away from a partying crowd of softcore-kriffing contestants on a yacht, “- as well as all know, he would soon find his place in the villa - or places, rather!”

Two crying humanoid women appear on screen, with eyeliner smudges down to their knees. A hoot goes through the room. Cody watches with a sense of impeding doom. “You slept with her after I chose to match up with you instead of Chad?! How could you!”

Thorn, still oiled up with both blasters out for the world to see, winces. “I didn’t me-“

A hysterical gasp, a camera swerve. Three more people stand by the doorway, all clutching their chests with wide eyes. A broad, green Twi’leki man raises a finger to point accusingly. “You were sleeping with them too?! I thought I was the only one!”

“Dear Force”, Cody murmurs, unable to look away from the building speeder wreck on screen. Braham Horton laughs good-naturedly at his misery. “Ah, good times! And who could forget the all-out brawl of the following matching night, where a record number of every single other contestant attempted to physically fight the others for the right to match up with Commander Thorn! Including a somehow returned Chad, who nearly won thanks to the element of surprise. I wish we could show the footage, but then we’d have to slap several warnings on it and probably still get taken off the air.”

“I didn’t know Corries kriffed like that!”, someone (Fives, let’s be honest, it was definitely Fives) calls out into the room, receiving snickers and a well-aimed pillow to the throat for his trouble. He goes down with a choking scream.

“Someone who was less impressed by the hot’n bothered beach weather was Commander Thire, who found himself Less than Impressed by his co-contestants inability to keep it in their pants on Too Hot To Handle!”

Thire’s face, identical to Thorn’s in every way except the ones that matter, appears on screen. His black hair is cut in a cropped mohawk, arms folded over a button-up he’s carefully pieced together with… safety pins? Where are the buttons on it?

“These people are pathological and pathetic and I will spend not a second longer on this farce of an attempt at ‘entertainment show’”, says Thire, air-quotes so sharp they could cut stone. His scowl might be permanently etched into his face, Cody can’t tell. “Unlike literally everyone else, I have an actual job to do. Now move.”

A brief pause, in which cheerful jizz music plays over what is obviously a producer begging off-camera, followed by an eyeroll so hard it hurts Cody’s brain to watch. Thire throws his hands into the air in defeat, marching off into the sea behind him still fully clothed.

“When they didn’t find him until the last episode, I’ll admit, I thought he’d died too!”, Braham Horton cuts in cheerfully. “But would you look at his little lonely island lair - now that’s a fulfilled man, and too many coconuts for my taste! We’ve had to blur his hands out as he discovered the cameras just moments before these holos were taken, unfortunately. And, dear viewer, who could forget this exit-interview for the ages!”

A considerably more clothed Thire appears on screen, eyeing a microphone like he’s about to use it to stab out his own eyes. The reporter clears their throat in audible anxiety. “C-commander, how would you describe your reality experience in one word?”

“Demeaning”, says Thire, blandly.

Silence.

“Um, o-okay”, squeaks the reporter.

“Would you like some more words?”, asks a dead-eyed Thire.

“No, um, I think - I think we’re alright.”

“Because I have many words. Mostly for whoever the *bleep* thought this was a *bleep* good idea, and *bleeeeeeee-*”

“We’ve had to censor most of the Commander’s on-screen appearance, dear viewer, for your sensibilities”, says Braham Horton, eternally and painfully cheerful. “And speaking of sensibilities, who could forget Commander Stone honouring his name in several challenges on ‘I’m A Holostar - Get Me Out Of Here!’”

Soulful violin music fills the gym, overlaid with images of a bald vod Cody surmises must be Stone. Stone stares stonily into the void, glass of bright green something raised to his lips and already half-empty.

“Memorably, he downed a pint of acklay urine within seconds-“

Horrified screams are followed by an image of Stone chewing, yet another thousand-klick stare.

“- or when he ate Tauntaun anus -“

Rex doubles over gagging, and Cody slowly puts his handful of Spopcorn back down.

“- of course the ten minute worm-bath challenge cannot go unmentioned -“

“FORCE PLEASE NO!”, screams someone (Echo) tearfully. Commander Stone, buried to the chin in wiggling orange worms, looks less impressed.

“ - and who could forget his encounter with a horde of ginntho spiders and nests of vexis snakes!”

A remote goes sailing past the screen, missing by a mile, as images of Stone with his whole arm stuck in various boxes fly past. Someone is retching. It might be Cody.

“We would show the infamous butchery challenge wherein the Commander found himself drenched in nexu guts and sandworm brains, but once again, this is family friendly programming and we are not allowed. Nevertheless, a win well-deserved. And now, please welcome the one, the only, the awe-inspiring, the unbelievable: Marshall Commander Fox!”

Another Force-awful jingle, big, blocky letters, and Cody chokes on his own spit when Fox’s scowling face appears on screen. He’s thinner, greyer and angrier than the last time they saw eachother in person. Only the last one is really a surprise.

“I am neither naked nor afraid”, says Fox, arms crossed firmly, foot tapping impatiently on the ground. “I am, however, quickly losing my patience. Explain to me again the point of spending my valuable time undressing in the middle of bum-*bleep* nowhere on the Midrim instead of doing my job as the head of planetary security in the middle of a Galaxy-wide war?”

Several beats of silence follow. Fox grows less impressed with each. Cody knows that look well. Usually, it precedes handcuffs and a cold sonic blast to the face.

“Um… you signed a contract?”, says a producer’s voice uncertainly off-screen. Fox barks out a harsh laugh. “I’m legally classified as military property, my signature holds less weight than if I’d had one of the Guard’s massiffs shit on that contract for me.”

“Ouch!”, calls Crys.

“Gettim!”, adds Longshot.

“But… don’t you sign off military documents all the time for the Senate?”, sputters the producer.

Fox smiles with far to many teeth. It’s also a look Cody knows far too well, and even lightyears away it has a shudder going down his spine.

“Really makes you think about the technicalities of that definitely-not-slave-army, doesn’t it?”, he says, dryly.

“Although considerably less naked and afraid than all other contestants, Commander Fox left us with many memorable moments - such as when he saved the entire crew from an angry Acklay!”

Most of the next holovid is blurred out, though Cody can (unfortunately) guess at the why and how. So can most everyone else, judging by the collective groan.

“Down, boy”, says Fox, flatly, to a hissing Acklay twice his size. It rears its fanged head, and a shudder goes through the room. Fox simply crosses his arms and nails the beast with an unimpressed look. “You are making a fool of both of us. Cut it out.”

Chastised, the Acklay blinks at him, slowly lowering itself back down with a confused hiss.

“No kriffing wonder all the Corrie shinies are such hardasses”, mutters Rex, whom Cody is hard pressed to agree with. “I came from a tube and that look gave me daddy issues.”

“Yes, dear viewer, who could forget these heart-warming moments of good, quality television!”, sighs Braham Horton, dreamily. “Not Coruscant anytime soon, that’s for sure! We are now entering the twentieth rotation of the sit-in protest of a petition to allow the Commanders of the Coruscant Guard to compete on Dancing With The Planets, Coruscant Rotational’s epic dance competition!”

“Dear bum-kriffing Force”, whispers Rex, wide-eyed and awe-struck. “Does Fox know about this?!”

Cody, who’s already dialing the kriffer’s comm-code, wipes a singular tear from his eye. “Not a clue, but kriff, am I going to enjoy telling him.”

[kwoojii]

hot spring adventures