#i didn’t mean to trauma dump in tags oops

[lilacxquartz]

How do u manage ur work life along with ur passion of writing fanfiction?

i work part time from home as a python & js dev so i can technically never touch grass again if i really wanted to

[nicomoon69]

ignore the slight style inconsistencies, I am tired :3

oc lore dump under cut!!

little background:

the isolated area in which these characters live is about the size of Eurasia. there’s five main islands with littler ones mostly near the bigger islands. two islands belong to the humans and two belong to the elves with the last island being mostly neutral.

there’s been a war going on between the humans and elves for as long as anyone can remember. while they may not be actively fighting there’s a lot of hostility and distrust. no one exactly knows how it started.

elves are split up into two sub races: Sylvestrean elves and Mageian elves. elves specialized in their own type of magic over a long period of time, creating the difference between the sub races. Sylvestrean elves are in touch with nature, their powers based on the elements and all that is living. Mageian elves focus on more abstract magic, usually a something that enhances a skill and is something that they’ve developed and passed down through their family.

regardless of sub race, elves have an increased life expectancy compared to humans and age slower. they worship the moon goddess Ela and worship of any other god is a punishable offense. while they aren’t as developed technically compared to humans especially the Mageian elves are catching up. most of the elven states/countries/regions are ruled by nobility.

humans despite being one race are much more of a mixed bag than elves. some humans live like they’re form medieval times, but on the other end of the spectrum there’s human who live in a sort of steam punk society. they also have no innate magical abilities but can practice magic through other means and are thereby also not limited to one thing. this however is generally frowned upon and will even get you a prison sentence in some places.

humans generally live a way shorter life than elves. they worship the sun god Sol, though there’s also some that will pray to Ela since laws surrounding religion are less strict. humans have all sorts of governments, there is no one way to do it. due to that humans are far less united than elves.

Lavern Levesque (they/he, 24)

pirate captain of ship the Levesque (though if you ask anyone in their crew they’ll tell you he’s usually too busy tinkering to care about what direction they’re sailing). former trust fund baby (parents were no1 wine exporters in the nation) but after their entire family got burnt to a crisp in a fire that may or may not have been caused by the mafia they’ve been homeless and on the run. at some point in his homelessness career he and the rag tag group of friends he collected over the years stole the Levesque from some poor chap who was doing business. that was when Lavern Levesque was truly born. ever since he’s been busy scamming the rich and robbing the snobbiest they can find. (they’re also in a committed relationship with the daughter of one of the people he tried to scam- oops??)

Ida (she/her, 26)

formerly part of the mafia (that’s gonna be a real awkward conversation with Lavern at some point) and currently on the run. with little options she’s been doing a lot of physical labor for whoever will hire her which finally led her to the Levedque. due to the captain’s lack of involvement with hiring she didn’t know who she was going to work under, which led to an uncomfortable realization. ever since she’s been hiding her past and trying to get over her middle child related trauma (imagine having 8 siblings and you’re exactly in the middle, yeesh) as well as living with the guilt that she was in fact a part of the reason Lavern’s family is dead.

Hedvig (they/it, ??)

not much too say about their past since they suffer from heavy memory loss and barely remember their name. it has a suspicious amount of buried combat knowledge though and magic that lets them shape whatever they want into any form as long as the matter is non-living. was found by Eleanor (she’ll pop up later) on her parent’s ship and immediately left a bad impression by being scarred, wet and not speaking the common language.

Finn (he/they/she, 16-18)

he’s honestly just a poor little guy. he was the product of an affair between a human and an elf, which since a young age put a huge target on his back. despite trying to hide it Finn could never fit in with his peers or even his family. his step father resented him and his mother wasn’t in a position to defend him. this all reached its boiling point when he was about eleven years old and was put on a ship to another island. unfortunately, his ship got caught in a storm and he washed up on the shore of a dangerous island. ever since he’s been stuck, the island’s forest having all sorts of dangers. he’s seen countless people wash up, attempt to leave or get resources and get killed by the island’s mysterious forces. his survival has relied solely on what has washed up and what little he could find.

Elanor Sylvian (she/they, 32)

part of the royal Sylvestrean family, she’s the eldest daughter of the king and queen. she was raised to be the next queen, not exactly having a childhood or many friends. as ruler she would’ve been responsible for making sure the nobles under her were doing their jobs well. she set out with her parents to a meeting between nobles which was when she found Hedvig on the ship. due to her having studied many languages she luckily could understand Hedvig, who only spoke in a which was thought to be extinct Mageian dialect.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Choice: Chris

CW: References to past noncon, torture, conditioning, and training. Trauma response including ‘freeze’ response, flashbacks. PTSD and survivor’s guilt.

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions, @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump, @oops-its-whump

“Chris?”

It’s only when Mari speaks that Chris even realizes he’s stopped. She and Ben are a few feet ahead, the three of them heading to the little ‘food court’ in the Student Center to grab some lunch that wasn’t meal-plan food. Mari’s hair laid over her shoulder and caught the light just so in way that she always claims is accidental, but Chris has seen her put enough time and effort into her hair to know it really, really isn’t. 

Except right now he can barely see her at all.

His heart is suddenly still inside his chest, held there through some endless eternal second, and he’s startled into a gasp when it starts beating again. Adrenaline floods his system at the same time and Chris opens his mouth to say I’m just fine but nothing comes out. 

No words. How can he make words happen?

He knows how to speak, except sometimes, when he’s scared or the world is overwhelming the connection was broken.

He can think the words, we need to go I need to go I can’t be here with him but nothing happens when he tells his mouth to move. Only breathing, nearly silent, like an animal hiding under a bush and hoping the predator wouldn’t find him.

“Chris, what’s up?” Mari moves back over to him in a swish of long flowery skirt, putting a hand on his shoulder. When Chris flinches back and away from her instinctively, she pulls her own hand back like she’s been burned, then turns to look at Ben. “Hey, Ben?”

Ben had initially stopped to look back at Chris, too, but now his eyes were moving - not lingering on Chris’s pale face, the bright red spots in his cheeks the only color other than the faintest, faded smear of freckles, but instead following Chris’s gaze to a series of booths set up down a side hallway. “Oh, I forgot all those career guys were here today.”

“Yeah, they come every couple of months, my sister said. She used to go here. What’s up, Chris?” Mari reaches out again but this time, she hesitated before touching him.

He can feel the pressure of her fingers before they reach him, the way they part the air around her. He can feel the weight of the fluorescent lights overhead, hear the soft high buzzing sound they make that sometimes it feels like nobody else can hear but him.

There’s a part of the Student Center he can’t even go in because the ventilation system makes a squeak and he’s the only one in his friend-group who can hear it and it drives him crazy and none of that matters because he’s right here, he’s right here, he’s here and Jake’s not and he’s here.

Chris’s foot feel rooted to the spot even as he desperate to run, staring at a single one of the booths, having to remind himself to blink. 

Can’t run. Have to be still. Have to be so still.

Chris’s left hand drops down to the outside of his thigh, tapping there, half-hidden simply by how quietly and quickly he moves. Have to learn to hide it, have to hide it, can’t let anyone see, stillness is better than what I do-

Help. He can think the word but can’t say it. He’s here. How to explain who ‘he’ is? How to even start. They don’t know, nobody knows, he can’t tell anyone. He can’t tell anyone why he’s scared of the WRU booth.

The logo is cold water down his back all on its own, but he’s seen the logo enough that it’s not the scariest part. He doesn’t feel suddenly terribly small because of the heavy white drape hung with the WRU design printed over it in a vibrant, bloody red. 

The table has the same kind of fabric over it, covered with brochures and paperwork that Chris knew about but had never tried to read, himself. It wasn’t worth giving himself headaches just to see-

Fucking lies, Jake had said, bringing home a stack he’d found to shred and soak in water and then dump in the trash can to be perfectly useless. Lies and lies and fucking lies, and those rich assholes buy every single one because it’s easier than looking any of you guys in he eyes to see that you’re people.

None of that is what holds him still.

What freezes Chris isn’t even the familiar black uniforms of the two men who stand by the booth shaking hands and saying friendly hellos to anyone who paused to take a look. 

What freezes him is one of the men wearing the uniform, a man he knows so well that even his bones go cold just at the sight of his profile, the straight line of his nose, rounded chin, angular jaw. The blond hair graying around the edges is a little grayer, now, but no less recognizable. 

His smile is still branded in hideous fire along the inside of Chris’s mind, along with a trainee’s shaking need to do whatever it took to make him smile, because that’s what it means to be good-

“H-handler.” It’s the only word he can remember, in that moment. It’s the only word he knows, the only person in the entire world is his handler who will come to unlock the door and bring him his food and take him for training or showers or all the other terrible moments that will never stop being etched in Chris’s memories and running like soft fingers down his spine and gripped onto his hips-

“What?” Mari’s voice breaks the moment. “What’d you say?”

Chris doesn’t look at her. He can’t.

He can’t, because Handler Petrus turns and looks right at him.

Kneel. Kneel. Fucking kneel get on your knees show him you’re good Position Two Position Two Position Two-

His knees start to buckle but he catches them, rocks forward and then back just once to remember that his body is his own, he can move it however he wants. If he doesn’t want to kneel he doesn’t have to kneel but the handler’s eyes lock on his eyes and they’re cold, so cold in his friendly smiling face.

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it, 223499? Get up, there’s mouthwash by the sink.

Hold position, or you’ll get another day without food.

Good boy, there, see, you’re a quick learner when you want to be-

“I, I, I don’t want to be,” He whispers. But it doesn’t matter. What he wants is irrelevant, Handler Petrus always gives you choices, you can choose to be good or choose to be bad and get disciplined, and there’s a choice but both of the choices mean you do what he wants because what the trainee wants is irrelevant.

Doesn’t matter.

You’re not a person anymore, so stop the sniveling and hop up on that table.

“Hey, Earth to Chris.” Mari snaps her fingers in his face and the moment breaks, all at once. Chris jerks in a breath only to realize he stopped breathing at some point, dizzy with lack of oxygen, blinking rapidly to get water back to eyes that had gone painfully scratchy and dry from no blinking. “We’re gonna be late to class if you keep just staring at nothing.”

“Lay off, Mari,” Ben says, and Chris wonders if it’s accidental or on purpose when Ben steps between Chris and the handler’s gaze. “He does that sometimes. Come on, Chris, do you need a sec? We can go to the basement, nobody ever goes down there. If you just need some quiet.”

“Um. I... I, I... I d-don’t-... I-I-I-” He looks around Ben, and realizes that Handler Petrus isn’t looking at him. The older man has turned away, is shaking someone’s hand, giving them a brochure with a friendly welcoming smile. 

Chris wants to run and grab it out of the pretty boy’s hands, yell at him that it’s a lie it’s all a lie and it’s going to hurt and it’s hell-

but they’re not here to pick up new pets, are they? No, that boy Handler Petrus is talking to isn’t going to be a pet. He’s going to be a Handler. 

Going to learn to hit and terrorize and torture and train people just like Chris. Is he in it for the hitting, the hurting? Handlers enjoy it, mostly. They like that part, they’re supposed to like that part, and it’s only the pets who would do anything to make it stop-

Anything, whatever you want, please I’ll do whatever you want I’ll sign your stupid paper just please let me out let me out let me out

Handler Petrus isn’t looking at him anymore. That moment of what had felt like eye contact, the paralyzing realization that he was right there and he could walk over and say kneel, pet and Chris would and then everyone would know what he was and is and will always be... it’s gone.

Handler Petrus didn’t know who he was.

He’d just seen someone staring, he didn’t see a pet, he didn’t see 223499, he didn’t see the scars where his barcode used to be so carefully hidden by his long sleeves. No... no, he’d just seen a gawker. Some college kid taking a moment to look. 

He didn’t know him.

The relief Chris feels realizing that his long blue hair and his narrower face, without the hint of puppyfat roundness he’d still had when he went to Sir’s, went unrecognized, nearly knocks him off his feet. He grabs onto Mari just to steady himself and she smiles, puzzled, but holds on.

“Hey. We can go somewhere,” Ben repeats, softer this time, but more serious, too. “If you need a minute.”

Chris turns back to Ben and gives a thin, frightened smile. “I’m okay. Let’s... let’s, let’s go get l... get, get lunch. I, I just-... maybe I’m j-just hungry.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Ben shrugs, and Mari links an arm in his, and Chris lets them lead him away.

He looks over his shoulder only once to see that Handler Petrus is still talking to the same boy, who is writing something down on a piece of paper. There’s another boy, in shabbier clothes, clutching an old backpack and watching but not moving any closer, not yet.

Chris knows what he’s looking at because Jake would know what he’s looking at.

One boy talking about taking a job... another watching and wondering if becoming a pet would solve whatever problems were roiling around inside him.

Chris tells himself he can’t do anything to stop it, not without putting everyone he loves at risk, and he lets Mari and Ben lead him away. He doesn’t think about the boy with the backpack through his lunch. He doesn’t daydream through all his classes about finding him and telling him what it’s really like. He doesn’t think about him at all.

He definitely doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that night about the boy with the backpack signing his contract, and pad out to the end of the hall to be alone.

He doesn’t clutch his phone like a liferaft.

He doesn’t call Jake at 4 AM and beg him to say it’s okay if he can’t save anyone else but himself, if he can’t be the one to help other people be saved, that it’s okay if he’s too scared to ever have his handler’s eyes on his face again. 

He doesn’t ask Jake to remind him it’s been four years and he never has to go back.

He doesn’t.

Except he does, and Jake says all the right things, and then Chris hangs up the phone and hugs his knees to his chest and rocks and rocks and rocks and cries for the boy with the backpack, looking at the WRU booth and thinking he sees a way out of anything, when all he’s looking at is a way into something worse than whatever hell he’s living through.

Chris hopes and prays to nothing and no one that the boy walked away, that he didn’t make the choice.

Maybe next time he’ll be strong enough to risk the handler’s eyes and be as strong as Jake is and ignore his own fears to stand up for someone else. Maybe next time. Maybe-

Chris is still there when the sky goes grayish pink and the sun starts to rise.

[theoriginalsuki]

Because if you like what I write, we probably have the same taste!

There’s a glut of well-written, well-crafted post-TROS Star Wars fanfiction out there, from fix-it to AU’s – not that I’m complaining! – but I’m-a just throw out some of the ones that have hit my sweet spot.  Please reblog!  It keeps the fic life cycle going.

Complete

The Ocean: A TFA Divergence by Journeying_Jane

I’m a die-hard TFA Kylo Ren fangirl (it’s my favourite of the trilogy, I know), and this divergence tugs the threads unravelled in the interrogation scene to a very satisfying conclusion, re: Rey and Kylo see their shared future a lot sooner, before the elevator scene in TLJ, and start to understand what they mean to one another.  Soooooo good.  (Rated G)

Air and Water by Flaignhan

The tender and thorough examination of Ben and Rey’s relationship, what it is, how it completes her, and their wholesome being-together that we ache for across three films.  Better than cozying up with a hot cup of cocoa on a rainy day.  (Rated G)

What She’s Worth by g_girl143

If Rey had been taken in by the Jedi Academy as a child and basically raised by Ben Solo.  Hear me out.  This love story is innocent and organic and is so well navigated that by the end you’re just like, yeah, of course, there was no other way that could have happened.  The *potential* is what it gives us.  I need to read it again, slowly and to savour, and happily await the sequel!  (Rated T)

Dead Space by Solia

Kylo Ren sacrifices himself to save Rey when they are stranded in a malfunctioning ship.  If you’re like me, and you like angsty grand gestures of love more than sexy times, this one is gourmet Reylo.  I’m so into the not-looking-directly at their feelings and extending that sweet pain for as looooong as possible.  Because, one brain cell!  (Rated G)

Paradise by englishable

Post-TROS, the only epilogue I will accept (except for Cleave, also by englishable).  Ben is brought to trial; Rey stands by him throughout; they figure out how to go on together.  It’s so wholesome and satisfying.  Let the healing begin!  (Rated M)

Near Kinsman by englishable

In post-Civil War America, Rey answers a bachelor ad and the most classically romantic love story since the Brownings unfolds.  (Rated T)

Delicious Ambiguity by Juulna

Some people like smut.  I like dangerous male-types harnessing their aggression toward protecting women and their unborn children.  That’s hot.  Some good TFA Kylo Ren being inexplicably soft with Rey and her Force-conceived twins.  Both of them have issues.  Both of them really, really love those babies.  It earns the happily ever after, which you know I appreciate so much in a fic.  (Rated M)

until you return to me by lovefrompluto

Rey accesses the WBW and looks in on every incarnation of Ben, all the lives they live together.  Such a cool meta on fanfics with a satisfying ending, giving Rey the agency she was denied in TROS.  (Rated M)

Killing Me Softly by AlbaStarGazer

I’m not a big AU person but the premise of this is so good and works really well with the characters as we know them in canon.  I also really appreciate a fic that isn’t afraid to look at the work of love.  

Ben and Rey, childhood sweethearts, married, are put to the test for three years after Ben gets in a terrible accident and forgets Rey.  She’s won’t give up on him, but she’s too hung up on the past.  He’s in love with her but afraid that all she sees is a memory, and not the person he is now.  Some really good character study and hurt/comfort with a happy ending.

WIP’s

The Argent Coda by BetweenTownleys

A deeply involved and well thought-out fix-it that makes me soft.  It’s not happily ever after (yet) and I am 100 percent okay with that.  The Force bond intimacy between Ben and Rey hurts soooooo good!  (Not Rated)

Conversations by acowlorsomething (suchlostcreatures)

Takes place after TLJ and moves effortlessly into the kind of interaction we want to see between Maybe-Ben and Rey.  Okay, what *I* want.  Nothing too easy, nothing too sexy, more of the same of the tender conflict we got from The Last Jedi, playing out in a believable way.  (Not Rated)

Bride of Fortune by SharKohen

Cute arranged marriage AU.  Rey is supposed to be a lucky bride.  So Leia Organa-Solo brings her into the household as her son’s wife.  They’re only young, so will they have time to chose one another before the age of consummation?  (Rated T)

Chains by Veggieheist

Rey is a slave on Jakku.  Kylo Ren picks up on her Force sensitivity and “buys” her.  Cue side comments from everyone that he just wants to sleep with her,  to which he is bewildered and frustrated.  Kylo doesn’t understand why someone so powerful would act so lowly, but when he pushes Rey hard, he finds out there’s more to her than he bargained for.  Or did he see it all along?  (Rated M)

hear my plea (and come save my life) by nouveaulove

Rey finds Ben alive but with amnesia.  I’m so soft for pining and protective Rey having to woo back Ben.  (Rated M)

Halfway, Between The Black and Grey. by PunkForTheMoment

Anakin helps Rey go back in time to the interrogation scene in TFA and she is anything but smooth.  Inspired by that meme.  Very promising!

My Fic

Epilogues by TheOriginalSuki

My initial self-help fic in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker.  Kinda dream-like with a hazy plot that is basically me just making myself feel better.  Maybe you too?  Some mature content, I don’t think it’s smutty, though.  (Rated M)

Rey goes into self-imposed exile on Tatooine.  After refusing to let Ben go, they break the laws of physics to be the family to one another they never had.  Healing can at last begin.

Battlefield by TheOriginalSuki

After The Rise of Sywalker I could see things getting worse before they got better.  If Kylo Ren had buckled down on the darkness after soul-crushing rejection from Rey and the trauma of seeing Luke again, how in the world would he walk back from that?  I’ve got it tagged “dominant Kylo Ren” but I’m not into abusive stuff, so don’t expect that!  I do however love the angst.  (Rated T)

Kylo Ren took the galaxy, and Kylo Ren takes Rey.  There’s nothing left for him to accomplish, Vader’s vision is complete – only he’s still in pain.  And no matter how he manoeuvres around the scavenger girl, it’s not easing up.

what stars are made of by TheOriginalSuki

Me trying to make a place to dump one-shots and dead-end ideas and probably failing.  Every time I pull a thread of “how things could have gone” in this universe, a whole world unravels!  Oops!  The tone of this one is completely different, inspired by the adorkable Ben Solo we got a glimpse of in TROS, and how he and Rey’s relationship plays out afterward.  (Not Rated)

Rey has a minor objection to being abducted.  Good thing Ben didn’t ask her, then!

The Stray by TheOriginalSuki for itsinthestars

Written for the RFFA fic exchange.  A modern AU!  (Rated T)

Rey moves in across the hall from Ben; a former foster kid alone in the city, aspiring to be an actress. Ben is a ladder-climbing white collar businessman with a horrible boss and zero social life. Which is just the way he likes it. So why in the world has this insufferable creature made it her life’s work to adopt him? From sharing her dinner to doing his laundry, she seems determined to make a connection. In the end, it’s easier for Ben to just let her. But opening up means letting your heart be vulnerable.

Hiraeth by TheOriginalSuki

A passion project.  I even have a plan!  Bonus – there’s Tai!  (Rated M)

Rey crosses over the World Between Worlds and finds herself in a time before Kylo Ren.  it’s been twelve years since her Ben dies, and she’s achingly in love.  But he has no idea who she is.

Beatrice by TheOriginalSuki for englishable

Illustrates the principle that good art generates good art.  Rinse.  Repeat.  (Raged G)

A brief character study from Ben Solo’s point of view, encompassing the three films and then a positive resolution.