#i love my son so much its unreal

[muffinmoonn]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ICHIKA USAMI!!!!!

[kieranthropy]

here it is finally! the updated ref for my beloved Obie, my little cleric-barbarian that I’ve had the pleasure to play in @filmatra ‘s DxD campaign for the past 3 years! crazy to think i first drew him in 2019 😭

[starryeyedstray]

my thoughts on dbh as someone entering the fandom in 2024

so just got into the dbh fandom like in aug 2024. i have watched too much gameplay, read the wiki extensively, read an obscene amount of fanfics on ao3, and am in the process of writing my own. here are some of my thoughts (that no one has asked for):

every fanfic writer who started in 2018 and is still updating their works in 2024 are literal saints and some of the best damn writers i ever did saw and the dedication is fucking unreal. one fic had almost 2 million words??????? like BRUH. some are still ongoing and updated this year?? the dbh fandom in ao3 is not thriving as much as it was in 2018 (i say this purely as someone who's looking at the hits/kudos/comment ratios on older v. new works) but they are still alive!!!!

i am puzzled with the obsession with gavin reed. there are like a million fics that feature him and rk900. i am confused bc he did not seem like a redeeming character at all in my opinion and idk, i think he's just an asshole. i like the redemption arcs some ppl write for him but i just can't with him. i mean you ship who you wanna ship but i am not a reed fan and i am confused how he became so popular when all he did was bully our poor boi connor.

i personally don't ship hank x connor bc they give strong father-son vibes in the canon. however, i am obsessed with how jolli_bean writes the pairing on ao3 since its usually a canon divergence or an AU so the pair meet later in life. there are some fics that follow the canon and do a pretty good job with the pairing, but i just tend to keep it familial between them in my head. (but like i said, ship who you want to ship)

i am glad there's a vague consensus that we all wished alice stayed a human bc i feel like that lends itself to a more interesting narrative post-game. tho i guess her being an android is fine bc now kara, luthor, and alice can live as one happy family in canada forvever lol

i am literally obsessed with bryan dechart's acting as connor. like if you haven't seen him play connor in real life for the interactive #detroit2038 premiere event, then you gotta watch some of the live stream. like he doesn't break character the whole time and his physicality just screams connor and i just really appreciate how much effort he put in as an actor to really embody the character. just so impressive and i wish there was more bts of him acting as connor bc its just so nuanced and ugh *chef's kiss* if they ever made a live action dbh it would be impossible for anyone else to play connor

i love the 28 stab wounds meme. when i watched that scene for the first time it was so jarring lmao

i also love how everyone is like yes, we all know connor likes dogs but he also likes fish bc of that one fish you can save in the very first minute of gameplay hahahah. (his name is dewey and it is vitally important you save him). i also appreciate how the "i like dogs" line will undoubtedly find it's way into every fic possible lol

i think the love for simon is very good and well and amazing but i think josh deserves more love in fics too

it bothers me that when north tells markus "i love you" at the church, MARKUS DOESN'T SAY IT BACK??? LIKE BITCH SAY YOU LOVE HER BACK DAMMIT DON'T JUST WALK AWAY

i love how the fandom just latched onto rk900 and rk800-60 and fleshed out their personalities and i love reading ppl's interpretation of these characters and how they incorporate them into their stories. it's funny they only show up like one time and ppl just ran with it and it's so fun and creative and i love it.

i love the hc that chloe deviated when connor chose not to shoot her. that's the best hc. like it's canon in my heart idc

bless all the fic writers who have mastered the art of explaining how androids mind and bodies work bc there are so many gaps and possibilities left open in the lore and it's incredible to see what ppl come up with or interpret based off the canon. (i still feel 50/50 about when they make deviants feel pain cause like androids not feeling pain is such a big part of the canon and yeah i'll give it a pass if the fic does it for the whumps and the angst but i prefer when a fic finds a canon-compliant reason for deviants to feel pain, even if its just like they got a chip or software installed that makes them feel pain or something)

every pairing that i find in this fandom, i tend to be like... "yeah i can see that." (with the exception of hank x connor for reasons i stated in #3). i'm still like ehhh on reed900 or even gavin x connor bc i just don't think it makes sense in the canon but if it's written well i just shrug and say yeah i guess i could see that. some rarepairs i ended up absolutely adoring were chloe x north and rk900 x north (i realize they're both north but she has such good potential for character dynamics)

idk if it's just me bc i specifically look for fics centered around connor, but i feel like there's not a lot of love for kara at least fic-wise. ig it's cause she kinda just leaves so it's easy to not include her. tbh, i am quite well-versed in markus' and connor's stories but i haven't really explored a lot of kara's. i plan on playing dbh with my partner when i see them again in a couple months and i wanted us to take turn playing different characters and i wanted to play kara's storyline so i've been avoiding it for the most part so i can be surprised with my options. plus, in my wip fic, kara is in canada so she's not really relevant to my story which is why i have in depth knowledge about markus and connor and less on kara.

the music in this game fucking SLAPS. 10/10 kara's theme makes me wanna cry.

okay, there is a common trope in the dbh fanfics where connor loses his memory and that shit gets me everytime. i'm always bawling and anxiously waiting for him to fucking REMEMBER and i hate and love it and eat it up every. single. time. usually, the memory loss happens early in the fic and it's pretty expected but sometimes i get blindsided and i'm like FUCK not this shit again but i can't stop reading it and the angst is so palpable.

i think it's so interesting how ra9 is just like this mystery in the lore that never gets entirely explained in the game. it's like something you can totally kinda ignore but it does have interesting lore implications if you decide to really think about it.

i adore all the characters in dbh equally except for connor who is the certified best boi and my absolute favorite (no one is shocked by this declaration). and the characters on my shit list are zlatko, todd, and sometimes reed.

this is an obnoxiously long post and i apologies. i haven't been on tumblr in years and i just had so many thoughts about dbh and i have no friends to talk to so i decided to dump it all here. i still have more thoughts but those are the ones that come to the forefront of my mind.

tldr: i love dbh and its fandom and i have many specific thoughts about it and you should just really read my post if you care about any of it

[mvltisstuff]

Evan Buckley & female reader - a fic where instead of the firetruck crushing buck’s leg, it crushes the reader’s leg instead and the reader is in the firetruck when it explodes and Buck & reader have been engaged for 2 years. Buck is worried and scared and panics when he sees the reader underneath the truck. He helps her through the physical therapy of getting back her leg strength and helps her through how she is told she may not be able to be a firefighter again.

lots of angst, heartbreak, sadness, anger, fluff too 💙

love ur 911 fics so much ❤️‍🩹

are you with me - e.b

summary: request

evan buckley x reader

a/n: i’m so happy you guys like my fics, i have plenty coming your way soon 🩶 btw this started off pretty strong and idk what happened toward the end w the quality

it’s never realized how much calamity one person can cause in such a large city. people get in their cars to go to work, they order a package, they stop at the store, and the last thing they expect is an explosion right at their feet.

over three million people in los angeles, and one forced 30 tons of weight onto y/n’s leg. it was just work. something she does every single day. of course, nothing in life ever remains the same, but this is really something you can never expect. you watch it in movies, or you hear about it in the news, only until it happens to you.

she knew the bones in her leg were crushed upon the impact, the engine thrown on its side. buck watched from a distance, being held back by the police. he would do anything for her. he wanted to tear this kid to shreds. he saw y/n’s broken leg under the truck and her head weakly lifting up. he could almost hear the pained gasps and whimpers from her lips. y/n, on the other hand, felt like she was in the center of the ring, the joke of this kid.

all the bystanders watched the scene unfold, the boy trying to summon the captain of the 118. it felt unreal. the noise and the truck shaking the ground they walked on.

buck thought he hallucinated the sparkling ring on y/n’s hand, somehow managing to remind him of the fight he was about to do. he vividly remembers the day he got down on his knee, bargaining the rest of his life to her and crying when she said yes. the whole team had been there, watching from a distance as her hand covered her mouth and lifted him from the floor. their wedding was being planned, every last detail needing to be perfect for the couple.

most people’s instinct would be to run away, but buck wanted to run toward the chaos. if y/n was there, so was he. his life mission has been to keep her safe, and knowing someone went out of his way to hurt her makes him go crazy. the exact moment that freddie was taken down with his overcomplicated vest, buck found himself running to her. he instantly fell onto his knees, seeing the ash and tears on her face close up.

she wished she couldn’t feel it, but she felt every part of it. she didn’t know anything. was her leg even connected to her anymore? buck moved himself closer to her so she could hear him over the murmuring of watchers.

“hey! hey, y/n,” he starts.

“it h-hurts so bad,” she whines, making him grimace himself.

“son of a bitch, ok. we’re gonna get you out of there, yeah?”

“please,” she begs, almost inaudible. buck stands up, calling for anyone he can to lift the truck off her, which was almost impossible with a few people around. hen was on the ground, connecting machines to y/n’s harmed figure.

“hang in there, y/n/n,” she says softly. “we’ve got you.”

despite his entire body weight being used to lift the ladder engine, it didn’t budge once. the only thing it did was echo the raw screams from y/n, poisoning bucks ears making his heart speed up. the adrenaline pumping through his system was making him think he could do it.

“do you have anything on the truck we can use for leverage?” eddie asks to a panicked bobby, trying to save one of his workers and best friends.

“it’s too heavy, it wouldn’t work,” bobby says as a light goes off in bucks head.

“more people,” he mumbles. “we need more people! hey! all of you, get over here and lift this!” he shouts at the mob of people observing the accident. not hesitating, the civilians sprint over and grab onto any part of the truck that they can.

y/n was in grievous pain, dreading the agony that would come when they finally lifted it. she was right, it was tormenting, releasing shrieks she didn’t know she had. before she could rethink everything, she was tugged from under and flipped onto her back. buck couldn’t peel his gaze away from the blood that has completely stained her pant leg and the parts of her leg that should be inside of it. complete shock and fear took over his body, but not enough to stand there with her the whole time. he watched chimney and hen bandage up her leg and move her into the ambulance, where buck sat next to her. hen was in the back with him, chim being the designated driver. unfortunately, y/n had been awake for the entire experience. from the second the engine flipped, to the second she was lifted into the ambulance. as much buck was grateful that she was awake, he almost wanted her to pass out. she wouldn’t have to endure this much pain, despite the morphine kicking in.

y/n’s hand twitched in bucks, “buck?” she grumbles out.

“y/n,” he makes note of her panicked state. “i’m here, you’re ok. i’m not going anywhere, honey.”

“someone should tell the city that we need a n-new truck,” buck laughs at her mind and how it works before running a hand through her hair.

“you don’t have to worry about that,” says buck. “you have no idea how relieved i am that you’re ok.”

“we’re getting married soon,” she realizes. “shit, we were supposed to get married soon-“

“shh, it’s all gonna work out, ok?” buck reassures. “i’d marry you no matter what, broken leg or not.”

“promise?”

“i promise.”

the hours sitting in the waiting room were grueling. maddie had left to be with buck, watching the entire scene go down on the news. even her heart ached, watching someone she already considers family have to face something like this. the whole team was anxiously waiting for the surgeon to come out and say she’d be ok. she held them together like a true family, being the most stable relationship they had. she was the part of the station that made their bond unbreakable. watching her vulnerable condition under that truck was almost intolerable. the time that she wasn’t in work felt like a missing puzzle piece.

weeks had passed since the bombings of LA, and buck had been there every single day. in sickness and in health, he hasn’t said the words out loud, but he swore to that since the day he met her. he knows that she would do the same exact thing for him, and he would spend every single day helping her.

y/n felt completely isolated in their small apartment, barely being able to leave the first floor. she craved work, she desperately awaited the day that she could return, but the injury in her leg hadn’t resolved. no matter how many times she tried to convince herself, she didn’t know if she’d ever be a firefighter again. at some point, she almost envied her fiancé for being able to go to work. he felt so bad for her, just wanting to give her her life back. the weekly doctors appointments were draining her of almost everything she had, every single one proving nothing. nothing that meant anything. the situation was completely out of anyone’s control, and she had consumed so much anger about it. anger at the doctors, the therapists, the kid, the 118, everyone around her.

buck was forced to sit back and watch, to act as a shoulder to cry on. he was the third crutch, the person she leaned on when she couldn’t stand on her own. there was no way in hell she could’ve done it alone. buck was the one to drive her to every appointment and helped carry some of the burden.

at the end of the day, there were two things that scared y/n the most. losing buck and losing her job. the two things that got her out of bed and the two things that gave her a true meaning. as time passed and every request to be back at work was denied, she swore her heart hurt more than her leg.

“y/n?” buck called out after arriving back home. she had been on the couch, watching another drama series about firefighters. “hi, how are you doing?” he asked when spotting her in the living room. she didn’t respond, just looked at the television with the volume low. he went and sat next to her.

“what’s wrong? did something happen?”

her eyes had already been bothered from tears of anger and frustration, and he could clearly see that with his own. “they called again.”

“wasn’t the answer you wanted?”

“i have been pushing myself every day for approval, and i have not gotten anything for it,” she says, dryly. “i have been killing myself to go back to what i love and why am i not getting anything?” her voice cracks.

“listen,” he tries to distract her from her own negativity and forces her to look at him. “i know you’ve heard this a million times, but you have to let yourself take the time to heal. if you go back too soon, you’re going to make it worse.”

her nose scrunches at bucks words, causing her to sniffle as he continues. “i know, it sucks, and i am so, so sorry. it’s just that none of us want to see you do more harm than good. we need you back as a firefighter, but i need you back to normal first. you’re worth so much more than this, and this injury is not going to take you out, we all know it.”

y/n opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out besides the small beginning of a word. she knows he’s right, but having to come to terms with that is the hardest part of it all. she begins to cry lightly again, her face in her hands as she leans forward. buck slides over, wrapping his arms around his distressed fiancé.

y/n took bucks advice, and now, she stands in the entrance of the firehouse. she walks in to see her uniform waiting for her in her cabinet, her gear untouched, and it feels like she was here yesterday. she feels at home here. buck follows her in, grabbing her hand and they restart the rest of their lives.

[spacebarbarianweird]

Kid falls asleep somewhere and the caretaker finds them, bringing them to their bed

This is probably one of my favorite childhood memories 🥺❤️

Synopsis: Astarion is carrying his daughter to bed for the last time in her life.

Tags: dadstarion, dhampirs, fluff

This is the fluffiest thing I ever written. And since you all like reading about Astarion's daughter's future - I've written the whole part with adult Alethaine POV as she takes care of her own child centuries later.

Alethaine's age (1st part) - 17-years-old

Alethaine's age (2nd part) - 316-years-old

Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Astarion is drunk with blood and night. His body is warm but his head is dizzy with happiness. Here, deep in the woods of the Unicorn Run, he can be truly himself.

A predator. A hunter.

A vampire.

He is free. He is fast. He is dangerous. Animal blood satiates him and he feels like the shadows of the past are leaving him.

There are still nightmares. Sorrows. Sometimes he is so angry he smashes things against the wall or tries to tear at his hair. 

But it doesn’t mean anything, after all. It all ended. For good. 

He will never be hungry again. He will never be tortured. Or forced to sleep with strangers. No more pain, no more misery, no more rapes.

He has a home. He has a family. He even has friends who pretend they don’t know he is a vampire. 

He has everything, and no one will take it from him.

Astarion comes back slowly, enjoying every step he makes with his bare feet. His ears twitch in anticipation – he knows he is being waited for at home. Tiriel will welcome him with her genuine smile, asking how his night walk was. Alethaine, their daughter, is probably somewhere else – she is seventeen and Astarion knows she has her own life right now, and he will know details of it only if she decides to tell.

Though, there is one problem.

Somehow Alethaine isn’t interested in relationships. Neither girls nor boys. Once she admitted to him she just didn’t get what all this fuss was about and the only person in the whole town who tried to ask her for a date ended up with a broken hand. Astarion refused to punish Alethaine for violence (“It’s your son’s problem if he can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, not mine.”), but it surprises him how little someone could care about love, relationships, and sex. 

Alethaine read the Necromancy of Thay at fifteen and she understands it much better than he ever will, but boys and girls? Absolutely unknown and weird.

Astarion decides to take a long path to the underground part of the town to enjoy the surface at least a little bit more. It takes him to the town’s cemetery – its old part almost forgotten by humans and halflings whose lifespan is so short that elves and dwarves don’t have enough time to get used to them.

And then he sees a familiar black leather bag with books.

He turns left and sees Alethaine curled on someone’s century-old grave.

It seems like she was reading and then decided to take a nap putting the book aside. Astarion picks the book up. Dragons, wyrms and drakes. The study. Probably one of the books she got from a traveling merchant a month ago. Astarion remembers how she came home with a huge pile of volumes proudly saying that she’s spent all the money she earned by working in the tavern and fortune-telling. 

1000 Poisons and Antidotes, A Field Guide To Fey, Thirty Ways To Skin a Dragon, Myth and Legends of Calimshan and also a few books in Infernal she got to “practice”.There was something else but Astarion doesn’t remember. 

Astarion reaches out for her shoulder to wake her up but then stops. There is something so precious and unreal he can’t take his eyes off Alethaine. 

She is beautiful. People say she looks like him, but he can’t be sure. Pale skin, elven ears, hair as silver as the moonlight. She is delicate like a fey and looks as fragile as a porcelain doll.

Astarion concentrates and hears her heartbeat. 

So alive. So real. So precious.

In moments like this, he can’t believe she is his child. When she was a baby, he mostly adored how cute she was. But now— 

It’s probably the first time Astarion realizes his daughter is almost an adult.

She is a beautiful and smart woman, her very own person, so different from both him and Tiriel. Damn, Tiriel is often asked what crypt she found her daughter in!

Astarion smiles looking at his baby – she will always be a baby to him. No matter how many centuries will pass, he will never forget a tiny dhampir who constantly cried to get his attention. And whom he carried to bed if she fell asleep playing with her dolls.

Astarion feels an itchy sensation on his skin. The sunrise. 

When exactly was the last time he carried his daughter in his hands?

Astarion takes the book on dragons, puts it in the bag, and then lifts Alethaine up.

She grunts something but doesn’t wake up.

“Come on, let’s return home. Days are merciless and cruel for the creatures of the night,” he chuckles.

Alethaine feels almost weightless in his arms as he returns to the underground part of Daggrerlake. Soon Alethaine will leave them, he knows that. She is already preparing to become an adventurer, though he suspects she will spend another year under their roof. Seventeen years is such a short amount of time. 

But it’s her whole life.

Tiriel welcomes them in the yard and chuckles, seeing Alethaine fast asleep in his arms.

“Oh, I thought she was way too adult for that,” she smiles, opening the door. “Where was she?”

“The old graveyard.”

“Well, her favorite place in the town,” she whispers. “Right after the tavern where she frauds travelers with her fortune telling.”

Alethaine lacks any fortune-telling abilities except for good intuition. But strangers who stay at the inn owned by a family of dwarves don’t know that. They just see a very pale and mysterious-looking elf who is advertised to them as a witch. 

Once, a fighter who Alethaine told he would get a wife soon, returned to her angry and pissed because his attempt to matchmake a princess ended up with him being whipped in a town square. It’s probably the only time Astarion had to show up in the tavern during Alethaine’s shift. When he got there, Alethaine was crying and the fighter was threatening her with every awful thing a man can do to a young girl.

The fighter was deliciously scared when a vampire threw him against the wall and broke his dominant hand. Alethaine then told Astarion, no, she wasn’t crying, no she wasn’t afraid of that dumbass, she just got offended by all those mean words he told her.

But Astarion knew she was scared. She was scared like any girl her age after being threatened by a much larger and older man. The fighter begged Astarion to forgive him and he threw the moron at Alethaine’s legs, forcing him to beg her and, if she accepted his apologies, he would let him go. 

Alethaine didn’t forgive him (maybe she was just paralyzed with shock and fear) and that night Astarion dined on his blood. Besides, if the man could approach someone that young and casually tell her he was going to assault her, it probably meant he’d already done it to someone else. Or would in the next village.

Astarion puts Alethaine to her bed. He bitterly smiles, noting that there is no plushie toy or doll anymore that she liked so much barely a few years ago – only books, candles, and animal skulls she collects in the woods.

He also bitterly remembers that, in the very recent past, he could easily help her change clothes into the night dress. But this thing is forever out of reach for him. So, he just puts her boots off and places them in front of the bed.

“Sleep well, princess,” he murmurs, leaving the room.

“Heavy-sleeper!” Tiriel jokes standing in the inner yard. She cuts the wood for the fireplace and Astarion adores the sight of her wielding the ax.

“She is,” Astarion looks away.

She is seventeen. She will soon leave their home. She will live for centuries – and her childhood will be such a minor part of her life that it makes Astarion upset. He cherished every single day since she was born: her first step, her first word, the first time she saw the snow, the first time she went somewhere alone (she was five and Tiriel sent her to pick up herbs from the healer). The first book she read by herself. The first letter she wrote.

And now, there are also the last things.

The last time she slept in her parents’ bed – he remembers how she took her pillow and left them to return to her room. The last time he bathed her – and she looked so innocent and cute in the wooden tub full of soapy water. The last time he read her a book – it was a novel about unicorns and fey. He expected she would bring another one to read the next day, but, instead, he found Alethaine reading by herself. 

The last time he played dolls with her. The last time Tiriel brushed her long hair. The last time they played hide-and-seek in the woods. The last snowball fight.

All these things didn’t seem like the last when they did it, but they became one.

And Astarion knows that the fact he carried Alethaine to bed this day was a miracle. He will never do this ever again.

“Astarion, my love, what happened?” Tiriel’s fingers play with his hair. “Don’t tell me everything's right, I see you are upset!”

“Alethaine grew up too fast,” he admitted. “It’s not fair that elves live so long and yet their childhood is just slightly longer than humans.”

“I know, love. But she is an adult – and we need to see her like one, unless she wants to be occasionally treated like a child.”

Astarion places his head on Tiriel’s shoulder.

“I just… Damn… We both were children. Your childhood was hell and your mother was a bitch, but I don’t remember mine. You know, I just thought—” Astarion would sigh if he breathed. “There was a moment when I was carried to bed for the last time, too. And I can’t even remember who did it.”

Tiriel kisses his forehead — it’s a motherly gesture, not a lover’s one.

And then Astarion suddenly finds himself in Tiriel’s arms ‘bridal style’.

“Tiriel, put me back!”

“Why would I?” she laughs, holding him as if he were a young boy.

“I sometimes forget how strong you are,” he mutters, hoping no one sees them.

“It’s just your hollow elven bones. Though, I can lift human males up too!”

“I hope you don’t do this often because, otherwise, I will start getting possessive!”

“Or throw them in the mud after, don’t worry,” Tiriel kisses him, still holding Astarion as if he were weightless. 

“Ok, then, now you need to carry me to bed,” he pouts.

“I will gladly do that. And then, you will tell me how you want me to love you.”

“I will think on the way to the bedroom, my love.”

They both burst out in laughter.

**

A drake the size of a cat sneezes and burns the dandelions. Then, it looks up at Alethaine with guilt as if apologizing. 

“And can I ask where your owner is?” Alethaine murmurs. 

The drake sneezes again. Aurix – gold in Draconic – demonstrates its tummy to the dhampir and stretches like a kitten.

Alethaine takes a few more steps and finds herself in a beautiful green field full of grass and flowers. The wind makes waves on its surface and Alethaine feels that the night is slowly approaching.

A red-haired elf lies in the grass. Her red hair is messy – she’s been hunting the whole day. Her bow lies at her side. The freckled face is a bit suntanned and her ears twitch a bit as their owner wanders in her reverie.

“Tiri,” Alethaine leans to her sixteen-year-old daughter. “Let’s go home, dad worries you got lost.”

Tiri mutters something incomprehensible. She is young and her reverie is deep. As someone with very few memories to re-live, Tiriel Goldernoot, the only daughter of King Elren and his “witch-queen” Alethaine, probably sees only glimpses of her past lives mixed with human-like dreams.

Besides, her grandmother and namesake was half-human. So, Tiri’s dreams are much more vivid.

“Tiri, get up. If you don't, I will carry you myself.”

“It’s a manipulation, mum.”

“It is, so I see you are awake. Get up.” 

Tiri sits up, numb and dizzy after a reverie and she looks like someone beaten with a bag of sand. Alethaine helps her daughter to stand up and the drake immediately sits on her shoulder.

“Tired?” Alethaine asks.

“Ughm. I’ve been to Corellon’s grove.”

The biggest temple on the isle was ten miles away from Leuthilspar – the capital and Alethaine’s new home – no wonder the girl was so tired.

“I didn’t get inside, I just wanted to see the place from the hills.”

“Come on,” Alethaine takes her daughter’s hand and takes her home. 

“Mum,” she tells her, and Alethaine feels her daughter’s embarrassment. “May I ask— Though no, don’t bother, it’s stupid.”

“You want me to carry you?”

Tiri blushes and nods. They are the same height, mother and daughter, but Tiri is far from being a dhampir, and Alethaine can carry much heavier things than a young High Elf ranger. 

“But as long as no one sees us!” Tiri quickly adds.

“Don’t worry, no one will,” Alethaine promises and lifts her daughter up.

They walk like that for almost an hour. Tiri is exhausted and barely talks and Alethaine enjoys her loud heartbeat and deep breathing. When Tiri was born, Aletaine was suspiciously looking at the newborn baby. Was she a dhampir like her? Did the quote of vampiric blood affect her? Did Alethaine’s obsession with dark arts and demonic studies somehow hurt the child?

And then she remembers the realization. Tiri is as normal as possible. Just an elf. She wouldn’t grow fangs, she wouldn’t want blood, she wouldn’t accidentally reanimate a dead kitten and the druidic circles would never harm her. That moment Alethaine grabbed the newborn girl from her cradle, she came straight to Elren who was meditating in one of the many gardens of the elven castle and pushed Tiri into his arms. “Look at her!” Alethaine laughed as her half-asleep Thiramin was trying to realize what was going on. “She isn’t a creature of the night! The dark magic didn’t hurt her! She is normal! Like you!”

Alethaine catches the scent of other elves and puts Tiri on the ground. Now they walk through the streets like mother and daughter. Even though elves have different ideas of nobility and social structure than humans, Alethaine is still married to the king and she senses respect and fear from other elves (besides, they all know if it wasn't for her none of them would have made it alive after the demons had taken a hold on Faerun).

They needed the dark witch to deal with demons because druids don’t know what real darkness is.

“Hungry?” Alethaine asks.

“Like a vampire.”

“Interesting choice of words, Little Fire,'' Elren says sitting on the floor with yet another book about the ancient history of elves. Elren couldn’t care less about his status (“I’ve never asked to be crowned.”) and usually behaves as if he were still a ranger in the High Forest.

Tiri proceeds to tell her father how she marched through the hills, how Aurix almost ate a fey, and how she didn’t lose a single arrow while hunting birds. And then, she also saw portals to the Feywild but didn’t dare to approach them.

Alethaine walks up to the ceiling and stretches her arms – night is calling her. But she also feels the storm coming and decides she won’t leave the warm walls of the elven castle tonight.

When Tiri goes away to have dinner, Elren stands right below Alethaine. He is way taller than elves usually are and sometimes Alethaine feels very small in his presence. 

His hair is almost as long as Alethaine’s, but it has a golden shade. His eyes are light-blue and he wears intricate ear-cuffs as his only jewelry.

Elren reaches to rub her ear and Alethaine smiles like a content cat.

They met eighteen years ago, almost yesterday considering they are both older than three centuries. Alethaine hates all these sentimental and “star-crossing” things but, to be honest, she fell for the ranger elf the moment he showed up in her witch hut asking her to help him deal with the demons in the High Wood. Probably, the funniest thing for Alethaine is that Elren is so lawful, good, brave, kind, and generous, and is so much to her father’s liking he threatens to turn inside out anyone who wants to harm Elren.

Alethaine smiles, remembering their first encounter – Elren was captured by Drows and held in their torture chambers for a few weeks. Astarion got him out from there and by the time Aletaine found their small camp in the Underdark her father and husband-to-be were sharing stories of their adventures and laughing at the dumb Drows who didn’t expect a vampire to ambush them. 

Maybe Astarion saw Elren as a part of the world he once belonged to. Maybe, he just cared about him because Alethaine did. Maybe Astarion, despite his cynicism, still adores and respects people like Elren because they can do things he can’t. 

Besides, Alethaine knows her father fell for her mother. And Elren has a lot in common with his long-deceased mother-in-law. The same heroism. The same faith in the best. The same belief that says you should always negotiate first, but there is often a greater evil you should fight. 

“Elren, salen thiramin” Alethaine whispers.

“What?”

“Watch out.”

Alethaine relaxes her legs and falls from the ceiling right into her husband’s arms. 

“You know, one day I won’t be able to catch you, my queen!”

“Nonsense, my king, I trust you with my half-dead heart.”

They burst into laughter and their voices echo through the sun-lit rooms.

--

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[lovemadethemdoit]

Hangster FIC RECS (complete fics only!) 🤠💘🐓

There are some high-quality long fics in this fandom and I’m sharing my faves with you because I’m nice (and selfish and want these authors to write more fics, duh.). Promise me one thing though? If you read a fic off my list and love it? Leave a comment for the author. They’ll be PSYCHED and write more. Possibly.

Okay, let’s go. More than 30 hangster fics for you to read. 😍😍😍

Under the cut. Feel free to reblog this post far and wide to energize this fandom, too!

********* wanting (18641 words) by bottledyarn

Additional Tags: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Unrequited Love, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Internalized Homophobia, Pining, Banter, Slow Burn, Getting Together, First Kiss, Suicidal Thoughts, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Needs a Hug, Canon Timeline, Canon Compliant, POV Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Emotionally Repressed, 5+1 Things, Sort Of, 6+2 things, Jake can't emote and I can't count, Character Study

Summary:

Six times Jake Seresin assumes Bradley Bradshaw is something he can want but can't have, and how he learns the truth.

--

Jake Seresin is very good at a few things. Flying, obviously. Pissing people off. Wanting things he can't have.

But he's never been very good at dealing with Bradley Bradshaw.

During the mission, Jake is just trying his best to be better.

***

hold me through the shakes (7477 words) by spiritsontheroof

Additional Tags: Hurt Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Mentally, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Canon, Pining Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Exes, Getting Back Together, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Nightmares, Canon-Typical Violence, it's like. lightly discussed, Angst with a Happy Ending

Summary:

Bradley spills hot coffee on his hand three days into their post-mission leave.

It’s not until he can’t get the bandage over the blister that he realizes his hands are shaking.

***

I Long For You (To Hold Me Ardently) (10265 words) by perishablealex

Additional Tags: POV Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Canon Compliant, Light Angst, Pining, Kinda?, Smut, Getting Together

Summary:

“We don't have to talk about it.” His eyes dart away from Bradley’s face, afraid that they will betray just how much he wants to talk about it, that they will reveal the vulnerability Jake feels in that moment, caught in a momentary suspension of time. The moment feels unreal with the golden light pouring over piano tiles long forgotten in his childhood, the man at his side that feels close enough to reach but not quite hold, the way that time stretches like molasses, sweet yet torturously slow and thick.

“I think we should, don’t you?”

Or: Rooster and Hangman sleep together after the mission without realizing that it may not have been meaningless for either of them.

***

No One Can Find The Rewind Button (71073 words) by FabuMazX

Additional Tags: Mpreg, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Slow Burn, Accidental Pregnancy, Mentions of miscarriage, IceMav are the best granddads

Summary:

It was only one night. But that's all it takes, isn't it?

Bradley and Jake are on good terms since the mission. Friends even. But they're not together, not like that. So why the universe decided to force them together with an unexpected surprise is anybody's guess.

***

something to be sheltered (19075 words) by MayWilder

Additional Tags: Found Family, Post-Mission, Meet the Family, Beau "Cyclone" Simpson is a Softie, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Needs a Hug, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Has Daddy Issues, Married Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Temporary, no beta we die like goose, Father-Son Relationship, Light Angst

Series: Part 2 of Feels Like Home

Summary:

“My wife has asked that you join us for dinner tomorrow night,” Beau says carefully.

“Your wife, sir?” Jake’s brow furrows. “Why would she like to meet me?”

“She thinks its important that my mentee sees a healthy work-life balance.”

“I’m your mentee?” Jake teases, smirking lightly. “And you talk about me enough that your wife wants to meet me?”

“You can continue to be a pain in my ass,” Beau sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “Or, you can take the offer of a free dinner with a beautiful and intellectually stimulating woman.”

“Oh, I definitely want to see this side of Cyclone,” Jake grins. “Domesticated.”

“You’re bordering on impertinence.”

“Me? Never.”

“Let’s go back to when you respected me and my position.”

Jake appears to settle down, but only slightly. He clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “I’d be honored to attend dinner with your family, Admiral. Just tell me a date and time.”

*** or, Beau Simpson didn't mean to adopt a fully grown naval aviator, but, you know; shit happens.

***

flames look beautiful (if you forget what they can do) (8359 words) by Ravens_Words

Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Protective Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Protective Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Protective Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Idiots in Love, Getting Back Together, Background Relationships, Hints at IceMav, Hints at BobNix

Summary:

Bradley Bradshaw returns to consciousness with a gasp, hand going to his side, where a searing pain makes itself known.

  "-ster, hey," Jake snaps, holds his face in both hands and forces him to look his way, "breathe."

  Bradley does as he's told, as painful as it is, and his vision clears somewhat. Jake's crouched beside him, concern etched on his face, and what happened comes back to him in flashes.

  The mission going sideways at every possible turn, seeing Jake's plane get shot down in the sky, the less than smooth emergency landing in the woods that followed.

***

Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away? (48614 words) by LoveMadeThemDoIt

Additional Tags: Jake Seresin Has Daddy Issues, Homophobia, Emotional Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Found Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Jake POV, Bradley POV, Protective Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Protective Javy “Coyote” Machado, Protective Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, Self-Denial, Jake “Hangman” Seresin Needs A Hug, Threats of Violence, Blackmail, Homophobic Slurs, Dissociation, Training Accidents, Jake is in the hospital at some point but he’ll be fine, Bradley makes sure Jake gets sleep, navy inaccuracies, Closeted Character, a dusting of IceMav, Beau „Cyclone“ Simpson is a softie, First Time, Anal Sex, Bottom Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Post-Canon, Gay Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Bisexual Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Has Bad Parents, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Self-Worth Issues, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, the movie plot is maybe three paragraphs at the beginning but this is POST-CANON

Summary:

Jake has no illusions he’ll come back from this mission. He’s the best fighter pilot the Navy has got on staff and this is not his ego talking. He’ll fly the mission, and it’ll be a shit show, because none of them have even managed to fly the simulation in the way they need to.

In his weaker moments, Jake wonders if his father is how he’s gotten this gig.

***

baby, I'm howlin' for you (87473 words) by hangmanbradshaw

Additional Tags: Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Supernatural Elements, Full Shift Werewolves, think teen wolf meets twilight meets vampire diaries, Vampires, Witches, Werewolf Hunters, it's got all the things, they can shift but any romance stuff happens as humans fyi, Slow Burn, POV Alternating, Protective Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Possessive Behavior, also there's alphas and stuff but it's not abo, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Arranged Marriage, kind of, Also this takes place in like a medieval setting a la game of thrones, rut but not the sexy kind more the cuddly kind, Hand Jobs, Smut, Mating Bites, Accidental Voyeurism, Kinda, Top Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Bottom Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Summary:

His smirk widened. He may not have been happy about this, but he could appreciate that Bradley gave as good as he got. “I am good, Rooster. I’m very good.”

Bradley stared at him, expression battling between annoyance and what appeared to be a slight amount of amusement and intrigue. Jake continued, “Say, how does a werewolf get the nickname Rooster anyhow?”

Bradley raised an eyebrow. “That’s none of your business.”

Or

The Wolves & Foxes AU

***

When you're ready (45445 words) by The_Splendid_Wren

Additional Tags: I know you all saw it too, Idiots in Love, Hangman is actually not a dick, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rooster POV, Father-Son Relationship, Maverick is just trying to make Goose proud, Phoenix is a bro, Lots of staring into the scenery, Eventual Smut, Finally I have a reason to obsess over Top Gun again, References to Canon, Post-Canon, did i mention Hangman is a momma's boy?, not beta read we die like men, Slow Burn, Homophobic Language, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Smut, Therapy is good for everyone

Summary:

After the suicide-mission-that-wasn't the pilots of TOP GUN go their separate ways to enjoy a much earned week of leave. Rooster is set to spend his time with Maverick in an attempt to rekindle their familial relationship but it gets complicated when unresolved trauma from nearly dying keeps him from truly opening up. With a host of other issues like his unknown next assignment and his feelings for a rival paralyzing him, he truly has no idea how he ends up at the Seresin ranch house in Austin, Texas with the object of his desires right in front of him.

Or, Rooster is suffering PTSD and his friends and family try to help him. Whether that's getting therapy or confessing his very deeply buried feelings remains to be seen.

***

I will love you, dear, forever (17574 words) by FlowersOnMyMind

Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Alpha Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Explicit Sexual Content, Jake loves Bradley so much, Dagger Squad, Found Family, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Pining, mentioned icemav - Freeform, brief bobnix, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Pining Jake

Summary:

"Do you have someone to take care of you?" Jake asks.

"Are you offering, Seresin?"

"Are you asking, Bradshaw?"

or

Jake and Bradley help each other through their ruts and heats.

Jake pines.

***

You Love Him, and No One Else (50269 words) by Sceld

Additional Tags: Pining, LIKE TOO MUCH, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, just a collection of tropes because I Am Cringe, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mostly Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, oh yeah and lots of it, very gay, derogatorily, Family Issues, Idiots in Love, idiots in general honestly, i hate it too don't worry, First Dates, but unofficially, Bad Cooking, Meeting the Parents, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Past Child Abuse, not graphic though, Slow Burn, First Kiss, Baking, Hopeful Ending

Summary:

“I’ve got it,” Jake offers, holding his hand out, but Rooster only tuts disappointedly.

“What kind of host would I be if I made you carry your own bag?”

Jake blanks on a response, his mouth twisting into a smile without his permission. Rooster turns to where Jake can now see the Bronco. Its engine is still running, and it’s warm inside when Jake closes the door behind him, clicking on his seatbelt by feeling along while he stares intently at the glove compartment in front of him, waiting while Rooster puts his bag in the boot. He doesn’t feel as weird as he thought he would, as he probably should. Every conflicting feeling from the F-14 is returning in waves. He’s helpless to resist the pull of the tide. It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

 or;

Jake's apartment floods and his only other option is to stay with the last person in the world he wants to spend time with. Shenanigans ensue.

***

there's money for the taking (and the happiness we all deserve) (64769 words) by thegeckbros

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Age Difference, it's 10ish years, Past Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Power Dynamics, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Casual Sex, author built a very elaborate world for like no reason, Tags May Change, Humor, or at least i like to hope, Explicit Sexual Content, Daddy Kink, like it’s a sugar DADDY au so it comes w the territory but still it’s there and it’s heavy

Summary:

“So, what, one of the richest dudes in New York wants to be your sugar daddy?”

“Kinda?” Jake sits back up, straightening up and turning his body towards Javy. “He doesn’t want like sex or anything. He just needs someone to pretend to date so his uncle and PR team get off his back about his reputation.”

or

a sugar daddy au in which jake is a struggling law student, bradley's a billionaire, and they weave a tangled web

***

Speak Softly, Love (67000 words) by Renai_chan

Additional Tags: Mafia AU, Iceman is a Mob Boss, Bradley is his heir, Icemav adore Jake, goose and carole are alive because i said so, Violence, Blood and Injury, tags to be updated as I go, Tattoos, Suit Kink, Lingerie, Rimming, Polyglot Bradley, Gun Violence, Revenge

Summary:

Jake leaves behind his crappy life in Texas and moves to California. There, he meets Bradley, a gorgeous man who works at a charity helping the homeless. They fall in love, and everything is sunshine and rainbows until he learns that Bradley is, in fact, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, heir to the empire of his godfather, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, who rules the underbelly of Los Angeles with ice-cold ruthlessness. Suddenly, Jake find himself embroiled in the dangers of the LA Mafia

***

Forever your begonia (17576 words) by MerielTLA

Additional Tags: Idiots in Love, Enemies to Lovers, Secret Crush, Secret Admirer, Flowers, Language of Flowers, Jake "Hangman" Seresin is a Little Shit, Texan Jake "Hangman" Seresin, no beta we die like goose, Jake needs some romance in his life, Rooster is bad at feelings, unrequired required love, Emotional Constipation, This came out of nowhere, don´t blame me, Ice is alive, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives

Summary:

“This is not for me.” Mickey grinned like a fucking maniac as he held out a small envelope for everyone to see, pointing at the signature in it.

Jake.

The blond felt his world tilt as he frowned at the offending four letters of his name. What. The. Fuck. He pulled the card away from the other´s hand as he looked at the fancy lettering in horrified amazement.

“Oh my GOD! Bagman has an admirer?!” Paybay yelled

or

Jake Hangman Seresin had never gotten flowers...until he did.

***

hanging on to ambiguity

(34033 words) by

haridwar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Lifeguard Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Surfer Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, First Aid, Head Injury, Mutual Pining, Protective Javy "Coyote" Machado, Protective Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Miscommunication, they're bad at talking again, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV Multiple, Breaking Up & Making Up, Implied/Referenced Sex, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives, Married Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Drunkenness, drunk Jake is a mess, Natasha "Phoenix" Trace is So Done, Hurt Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Has Daddy Issues, Parental Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Unhealthy Relationships, you might not like Bradley in this one (but you can still love him), Hospitalization, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, everyone gets therapy

Summary:

an accident on the beach, a lifeguard to the rescue, and the repercussions of an unexpected reunion

***

it seemed so natural, darling, that you and I are here (20181 words) by haridwar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Pilot Bradley Bradshaw, Las Vegas Wedding, Accidental Marriage, Drunken Shenanigans, Memory Loss, the inherent awkwardness of having a crush on the guy you're married to, Javy "Coyote" Machado is a Good Friend, Bradley gets his own Javy to hang out with, Sexual Content, Jealous Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, POV Alternating

Summary:

“Did we really do this?” Bradley asked. It was the first thing he had said since Jake’s brainwave and Jake was not a fan of how upset he sounded. “Are we- did we get married?”

or: what happens in Vegas...

***

you were almost too much for me (9648 words) by haridwar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bodyguard Bradley, Past Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw/Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Returning Home, Post-Break Up, Love Confessions, Jealous Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Wealthy Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Arguing, Reconciliation, Hopeful Ending

Summary:

Jake’s ex works for his father and that complicates things when he heads back home after The Mission ***

Men Like Us (41265 words) by DancingDisaster

Additional Tags: Breaking Up & Making Up, Getting Back Together, All aboard the Bradshaw-Seresin Shitshow Extravaganza, Idiots in Love, Ice Lives By Popular Demand, A romantic dramedy about two Idiot Flyboys

Summary:

Seresin men love with reckless abandon. It’s put every man before him in the ground.

Jake refuses to be buried.

He flies like he has nothing left to lose (he doesn’t), a one man army (he is), leaving everyone else in the dust (so they don’t leave him). Admiral Kazansky claps him on the shoulder, says he expects great things from him, and Jake’s smile is feral as the rest of his flight school cohort looks on in disbelief.

Hangman, they all say, like Jake’s entire personality was a long con, and he ranks first in class.

Rooster doesn’t look at all.

(They've got history spanning the better part of a decade and they are absolutely, positively not over it.)

***

like shooting stars (12737 words) by bottledyarn

Additional Tags: Fluff, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Anxious Jake "Hangman" Seresin, POV Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Texas, Texan Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Getting Together, Soft Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Post-Canon, Just a little pretend relationship, as a treat, Only One Bed

Summary:

“Well," the gate agent said. "Only uniformed military members and their spouses can board priority, but—”

“That works out,” Bradshaw said, his voice tinny and distant in Jake's ringing ears. “Because this is my fiancé.”

If Jake hadn’t been able to choke down a piece of toast this morning, he thought he might be light-headed enough to just pass out right then and there.

--

Jake is trying to fly home for Thanksgiving and not have a panic attack on the airplane. Bradley is trying to skip town and spend the holiday in a mountain cabin to distract from another Thanksgiving alone. Between the two of them, they might both get where they need to go.

***

learning steps (20530 words) by vannral

Additional Tags: Friendship, Getting Together, Oblivious Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Idiots in Love, Pining, POV Outsider, Instructor!Bradley, Teaching, Protective Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Students, Reunions, Eventual Sex, Happy Ending

Summary:

”So, an instructor?”

A straight hit. Bradley shifts uncomfortably on the leather seat and clears his throat. ”… Yeah.”

In which Bradley becomes an instructor after the mission, Jake keeps showing up to his classes and his students are very curious about their dynamic.

***

unsportsmanlike conduct (16871 words) by ginnydear

Additional Tags: alternative universe, NFL, Enemies to Lovers, Bickering, Minor Injuries, Sexual Content, tweets as a plot device, everyone's alive because I say so

Summary:

He didn’t expect there to be highlight reels of him and Jake Seresin arguing and jawing at each other after their first game against each other. His Uncle Mav’s recorded it, saying it’s the beginning of his long, successful career - to have a rival.

 Bradley thinks it’s a pain in the ass.

 or - the hangster nfl au

***

one foot left, and then we're going down swinging (15944 words) by SaintClaire

Additional Tags: Dagger Squad, I put Hangman through the washing machine, but he's fine he comes back out, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives, this is my sand pit, Found Family, life affirming kissing but everyone's pants stay on, for now, attempted abuse of barnyard poultry (not by Hangman), the horse lives, uhhh I don't think this is whump because I kiss it better, but if not let me know, damn good piloting skills, everyone has emotions

Summary:

“I’m still here.” he says, because it helps Bradley to be reminded sometimes. For all he’ll mouth off about Jake never shutting up, the sound of Jake’s voice can get him to drop the rigid set of his shoulders and relax, sit a little easier in the cockpit. “Still on your wing, Roo, just a little further away than normal.”

Jake gets shot down on a mission, tracker blown to smithereens and on his own in enemy territory. The thing about Hangman is that he might be a damn good pilot but that means he comes with the bloody-mindedness to see his shit through. He's got a family to get back to.

***

all my roads lead back to you (17094 words) by liadan14

Additional Tags: Secret Relationship, Secret Marriage, nonchronological storytelling, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw Needs A Hug, Jake Seresin Needs A Hug, Communication via interior design, Accidental Marriage, the inherent romanticism of joint financial decisions, Alternate Universe: they weren't exes during the movie, they were just very bad at being a couple, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Size Kink, Jake pavlovs Bradley into having a size kink, just trust me on that last one, outsider pov, Relationship Reveal, Polyamory Negotiations, implied threesome, Implied past Icemav, Current Mav/Penny, Maverick about extremely unhealthy relationships: it was acceptable in the 80s, Penny and Bob are vying for the only braincell in the team championship

Summary:

“Where does this leave us?” Bradley asks eventually.

Jake snorts. “In what way?”

Bradley shrugs. “I don’t know. Emotionally, physically. Legally.”

Jake thinks he might be dizzy. He hasn’t drunk that much tonight, but he has been wondering about the answers to that question for a long time. Finally talking about it…it barely even feels real. “Let’s start with the last one,” he says. “That sounds like the easiest part.”

“Well,” Bradley says gamely. “Legally speaking, I think we’re, like, one piece of paper away from being married.”

***

never had a heart to mend (3735 words) by un_familiar

Additional Tags: Miscommunication, Cheating, (but not really i swear), Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, sorry this took a month to write thats embarrassing, Post-Canon, what do you call pining when youre already dating them, sorry about this (lying)

Summary:

Bradley won’t stop looking at him with concern, laying kisses on his bare back and asking softly, “Are you okay,” until Jake wants to scream You know what you’re fucking doing to me, but he can’t or he won’t and he’s never felt this helpless in his life. The best he can manage is a soft, “Just tired,” turning back into Bradley’s embrace and thinking God, just let me keep this.

***

of a feather (2501 words) by lilgreyarea

Additional Tags: Kid Fic, Halloween, Trick or Treating, Fluff, Post-Canon, Getting Together, (kinda), idk it’s just cute fluffy nonsense

Summary:

jake and his three-year-old daughter, sophie, run into bradley while trick-or-treating

***

The death of piece of mind (27595 words) by MerielTLA

Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives, Rooster is bad at feelings, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Amnesia, I blame the title song, Protective Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Injured Rooster, no beta we die like goose, Miscommunication, Fluff and Angst, Fluff, It was supposed to be heavier but it evolved on its own, Hangster, sereshaw, IceMav, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon

Summary:

Last time he had seen Jake, had been fourteen months ago. More than a year since Bradley had escaped, like a coward, and had completely lost contact with the man his body missed with a strength that terrified him. The man that had been there for him as he had woken up, disoriented and scared. The man that had taken care of him, as he fought against his ruined leg and a fucked-up mind.

The one he had abandoned, at the first chance he got.

The man that was his husband, the one he didn’t remember.

 Or Bradley left after losing his memory and forgetting his relationship with Jake, but now he has begun to remember and it's time to get his hubby back. ***

How do you like your coffee? (23355 words) by WaffleToaster

Additional Tags: Memory Loss, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Accidents, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, Fluff and Smut, Sex, Established Relationship, Developing Relationship, Injury Recovery, Tooth-Rotting Fluff

Summary:

Javy receives the first call after Jake makes an emergency landing on the tarmac and Bradley has to deal with the complications that arise.

“Do we get along now?”

“We do, yes. We’re.. good friends.”

“That’s good. Cause you seem like a nice guy, Rooster.” ***

lover be good to me (18920 words) by haridwar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Baker Bradley, Long-Distance Relationship, Birthday Fluff, like literally so much of it, this one is super birthday centric, Strangers to Lovers, Married Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, as per usual, Parental Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, POV Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Soft Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Sex Toys, Relationship Reveal

Summary:

Jake picks a random coffee shop to go be pensive in when he receives a birthday card he doesn't want and things turn out better than he ever could have imagined

***

you hang me up, unfinished (with the better part of me no longer mine)

(13140 words) by un_familiar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Getting Together, Romance, Eventual Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Character Study, javy is the best friend ever, POV Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Jealousy, eventually, complete and total abuse of italics, Pining, the absolute minimum research went into this, do not look too closely at it!, Jake Is A Menace All Of The Time, javy and natasha are sick of them!, Miscommunication, Eventual Fluff

Summary:

There are a million things standing between Jake Seresin and his soulmate–gender, Jake’s tendency to overthink and run his mouth, the fact that his soulmark is high up on his ribs, hidden, the bruises his dad leaves, but the biggest one is probably the simple fact that he has no idea how to love. ***

Got to Make It on My Own (14196 words) by Renai_chan

Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Bradley, Omega Jake, Alpha Javy, Accidental Bonding, Drunk Sex, Ex-Somethings, One Night Stands, The Inherent Dubiousness of ABO, Platonic Sex, Javy is the BEST Bro, Marking, Biting, Bonding, Being an asshole as a coping mechanism, Jealous Bradley, Knotting, Idiot Men who Don't Communicate, Angst, Happy Ending

Summary:

Jake and Bradley spend one night together under the heavy, heavy influence of alcohol. It does not go well. But it goes worse for Jake than it does for Bradley because he wakes up with a bonding bite and his new alpha nowhere to be found.

When they're recalled for a special training detachment eight years later, Jake finds out that Bradley doesn't remember giving him the bite at all and Bradley finds out about it for the first time.

It still does not go well. ***

the long way home (5982 words) by nocturnelight

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Canon, Parental Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Parental Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky & Pete "Maverick" Mitchell Raise Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives, Married Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Needs a Hug, Healing, Therapy, And love communicated through scrambled eggs

Summary:

Jake and Bradley had come in late last night and settled into the guest room of Maverick and Iceman’s beach house. Jake had driven them both up at Pete and Tom’s insistence after Mav’s voice on the phone and Jake’s hand running up and down his back hadn’t been enough to get Bradley to stop shaking when he’d woken up screaming from a nightmare.

He's hoping being there will be good for Bradley, maybe finally get him to talk about how he's been feeling. Because Bradley's the one who's bottling everything up.

And Jake is perfectly fine. He swears.

ENJOY READING! LEAVE COMMENTS FOR THE WRITERS. WOHOO!!

[fatallyaddictedtofiction]

Im just gonna allow myself to yap about supernatural and see where destiny takes me. SIDENOTE IF U WANNA TALK ABOUT THIS WITH ME LITERALLY PLEASE I WANT TO PLEASE INTERACT WITH ME.

Okay first of all im starting with the start (s1+2). BEST LIGHTING TO MOOD EVER EVER EVER. Like you want dark scary monsters??? ITS THERE. I remember there being a reason they changed the lighting (smugly: yes i listen to the podcast) but i CANT REMEMBER. The characterisation of the macho eldest son coded scared eldest daughter Dean is unreal and parallel in epicness to repressed queer allegory something is inherently wrong with him little brother. The brief moments of emotional vulnerability. Dont get me STARTED on Dean's monologue in the s2 finale i'll start crying. It's crazy how rude john is to Dean like excuse me he raised your kid and now ur bitching about him? Try saying thank you for once. I think the only reason john actually said im proud of you was because he realised when azazel said it dean was like "ur not my dad" and to john it was a little "oh shit" moment. Sam has every right to be angry but every time he gets angry at dean something in me shatters a little because deans trying so hard for himself and sam and sam doesnt know who or how to lash out (emotional dysregulation baybee) so aims for deans jugular like nooo honeyyyy noooooo. This era was the best sam in my opinion.

Rest of the show down here:

Onto S3-5. Cant remember jack about season 3. Season 4 CASTIEL MY BELOVED MY LIGHT MY LIFE MY REASON FOR LIVING. Absolutely loved everything about Weird Cas and i wanted more of him why did they have to domesticate him. His and Deans dynamic was impeccable and yk something??? I wanted to see Dean in hell torturing people i wanted to see it on his face how much he hated that he enjoyed it and i wanted to see Cas' face at watching the righteous man lose. Like the best we got was Yellow Fever GOD I LOVED THAT bit when he was hallucinating the book and it said "you gonna cry?" Like so many people think thats a funny episode but it makes me so sad because he is DYING and from such a young age hes been told to stow it away, lock it down to the point hes HALLUCINATING IT. Cas falling for dean. Im sorry i just. They are the best love story. LUCIFER. He was scarier back then, but i do love later seasons lucy too. Something about the peeling skin and the "we will always end up right here" just slapped. ENDVERSE EPSIODE god so good can we just take a moment to think about it. Okay cool thanks okay. Demon blood Sam arc was fun but had unfulfilled potential. Cant give you specifcs rn its late and my brain needs to get this all out so if you know you know. The whole meta stuff with Chuck was eh until he was confirmed as god and then i was like duuude the faint strings of marionettes are glistening in the sunrise like how do we know --- im getting ahead of myself.

S6-11. I know, its a big chunk. But basically the whole thing could be renamed "Crowley's unrequited love story". Cas and crowley were the best duo i almost forgot like they are genuinely so funny together and i bet it would be great to be tortured by them UMM THE BETRAYAL i honestly loved Cas' episode the only thing i didn't like was how the reveal itself was done like... Idk just a bit... Kryptonite???? Anywho i Loved the tension between Dean and Cas DEAN LOOKED BACK. Um leviathans were my favourite monster but they became so dumbbbb after washing up liquid killed them. BOBBYS EPISODE ALWAYS MAKES ME SOB MY EYES OUT "i raised two boys and they became heroes" allow me to DIE. Also damn impressed a shot to the head didnt take him down but it was lovely to see Deans first world, first solid rock properly crumble around him (forgetting john okay he wasnt a healthy rock) . PURGATORY DEAN JDJSJDJDJD kill me please his fight or flight mode was SO. So sad we didnt get more of purgatory like i would pay to see more i would kill probably but we'll overlook that. Benny my beloved. They definitely all got together Cas included like who wouldnt at that point. Smth i didnt like is how wheneer they went back to purgatory, unlike how dean described it "360 battle 24/7" or some shit like that it was EMPTY. Like please,, i know the plot needs convenience BUT PURGATORY ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE CONVENIENT. But dean recrafting his own memories to make himself believe that he failed to save Cas rather than what he perceived as Cas giving up on him- hang on i dropped my jaw somewhere, gimme a sec i need to go find it-- LIKE. HHHH. The whole mind control shit going on with Cas because his ties to Dean had been severed (saw a post about that and loved it but cant rmb it) and HIM BEING THE ONE TO BREAK IT. The crypt scene mmmm i love. Want more. Mark of Cain dean was literally my favourite. A violent, mentally unstable man who also has bad mental health and is often covered in blood? Yes pls. Cas being with him every step of the way. I havent mentioned Sam in a while. Hes just kind of been there. Hate that he slowly became 2D. Far away in the background hes got his worried expression and is rocking, saying "Dean? Dean? Cas? Jack? Dean?" Like writers why did u strip his personality except for worry. Do Not get me started on the whole Amelia thing ill stab someone. But yeah cas saying he'll watch dean murder the world is my universe :). If someone said that to me id say "omg really?" And develop a huge fat crush (somehow). CHARLIE DYING WAS AN ABOMINATION When they brought back Eileen why not charlie like. Dont bring characters back at this point because theres all sorts of issues grr. Amara was cool af but i didnt like the whole amara x dean stuff because it was just weird. Luciferrrrr hes so girlypop i love him DEAN DIDNT KNOW IT WASNT CAS but thats only because lucy purposefully wore less clothes around him to distract him.

S12-14. Im running out of steam. MARYYY. It hurt to see Sam get along with Mary becsuse he never knew her as anything else while all dean wanted was a mom and that wasnt who she really was anymore. He loved her so much but couldnt break through that barrier of "it wasnt the perfect marriage until after she died" vibes. God that scene in s5 where its suggested dean saw +/ smelled what happened to Mary and he was literally backing himself into a corner BROKE me. Havent mentioned the Wayward sisters but please know they are so important to me they are my everything. Jack is also. Loved Kelly, very sad she had to die. Wanted Jack to be a baby but thats not good for television is it. But i love Jack so much hes such a sweetie who can kill with a thought. Alternate universe michael and Michael!Dean was epic af but michael dying like that was so anticlimactic gonna be honest i think they were just reaching for ways to lose Jacks soul. Garth GARTH!!! Hes so cute. I loved all those "hand recorded" episodes btw like ghostfacers and that one teen wolf type stuff. Dean hiding in his room is so me. Free Will Theory is so fucked up at this point ur sat there saying gods been pulling the strings this whole time and i supposed to be okay with it?? I so get why deans angry but i definitely think thats something Chuck emphasised (crappy excuse for crappy writing) to an extreme level because WHAT. Like dude. I cant even describe how out of character he felt at some times.

S15. Currently rewatching and cant rmb much of it. 3 characters dead in the first 3 episodes. They either kill off all side characters or we dont hear from them at all to tie up or shove away loose ends. I cant even talk abiut the finale please i cant rn im way too tired. It straight up didnt need to exist, it could've only been 19 eps. Cas. Castiel. He did want you my darling.

[hella1975]

HELLA HOW DID YOU LIKE UNREAL UNEARTH?? FAVORITES??

finally finally FINALLY listening to this album im literally sat here laptop open finger on the play button genius page up ready to just spew out any thought i have in real time. let's go!

de selby pt1 - i forgot how much i fucking love hozier's lyricism. he just gets it. he's a master at his craft it's truly an honour to exist in the same time as him. this song is so calm but in a haunting way, like the stillness of fog on a lake in the morning. your reflection cant offer a word to the bliss of not knowing yourself. okay!!! OMG THE IRISH!! absolutely adore how vocal hozier is about his culture and even just how much his accent comes through on this album compared to earlier tracks. also love how the intensity builds in this part of the song this whole thing is stunning

de selby pt2 - THE WAY IT SLIDES RIGHT INTO PART 2! LOVE LOVE LOVE! very different vibe but it works. i love how there's always so many layers to hozier songs. like de selby alone has the actual song meaning AND the references to the third policeman AND its relevance to the circles of hell that we keep throughout the album. as far as media consumption goes hozier has never once failed to deliver an entire banquet. also love the whole 'becoming each other' of it all with de selby. ouroboros love. hannah have u seen this

first time - this feels like he's singing in a pub somewhere u love to see it. the liffey would have been softer on my stomach all the same! unearth without a name! some part of me must have died the first time you called me baby! this is v classic hozier imo just the most gorgeous love song u ever heard. also i love the themes of light/dark he's weaving into all these songs. girls when there are themes and symbolism <333

francesca - YEAHHHHHH i could talk about this song for HOURS there's so much going on it is so far my fave of the album ID TELL THEM PUT ME BACK IN IT! insanity. if a man sang about me this way id throw up blood

i, carrion (icarian) - insane song name. hello. what the fuck. is this about icarus. did hozier himself actually write a song about icarus. one sec. OH MY GOD HE DID WHAT THE FUCKKKK. "this song has tried to imagine that he was so enamored and so breathless and so ecstatic in the moment that he felt the air rushing by him, that he never knew he died" THEY HIT THE FUCKING PENTAGON. beautiful gorgeous im inconsolable cheers for that

eat your young - LETS GOOOOOO. cuntism off the charts. i listen to this at least once a day

damage gets done - circle of greed time! 'we had nowhere to go and every desire for going there' 'being blamed for a world we had no power in' god :')) the HARMONIES!!!! this is exactlyyy what being young is like good and bad. this is such a car song

who we are - I JUST HELD IT TIGHT SO SOMEONE WITH YOUR EYES MIGHT COME IN TIME TO HOLD ME LIKE WATER OR CHRIST HOLD ME LIKE A KNIFE WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK NO ONE FUCKING TALK TO ME. the uncertainty of growing up that he tackles in this, finding purpose, grappling with the fact there isn't always one. the last verse going soft and gentle. what was the NEED for this

son of nyx - another mythology reference! im crawling up the wall. ohhh it's instrumental! just looked at the meaning behind this and wow. this is beautiful

all things end - ADORE this song and the message of it. literally if there was anyone to ever get through this life with their heart still intact they didn't do it right!!!!!! and all things end!! and we begin again!!!! i just know zukka nation is going to go crazy with the parenthesis titles after this one

to someone from a warm climate - this is such a cool idea for a love song. like being from somewhere cold so you know how to stay warm, and saying to someone from a warm climate that it's okay if they don't know those things because you'll do it for them. the domestic, casual affection of that. it's not a bold declaration it's just confirmation that i'll keep the bed warm for you. that's all there is. that's all there needs to be

butchered tongue - ive already read some stuff about this one and ive been really itching to listen to it. the way he alternates between singing about the violence of the english against the irish (particularly the wexford rebellion) and the loss of culture there to how it relates to violence and loss of culture experienced by natives of countries on the complete other side of the world, how he's able to identify with that while still acknowledging that his language at least has a written history that can be recovered, while many native cultures dont even have that. there's no translator left to sound a butchered tongue still singing here above the ground. this whole thing is just. haunting and the fact such a big singer like hozier is taking so much time and care to talk about and spread awareness about ireland is very very cool to see

anything but - VIBE CHANGE! THIS MAKES ME WANT TO DANCE OMG! more water themes too omg i love this 'if i had his job you'd live forever' DAMN 😭 me personally i wouldnt have that. also the repetition of all the things he wants to be sooo true that's the human condition baby!

abstract (psychopomp) - ive been thinking about making a post for TIME about like. the desensitisation to death that you get from growing up in a rural area so listening to this is sooooo. like yeah. you remember the first animal you saw die don't you. you know the smell. the look in its eyes. see how it shines. see how it shines. this is an insane thing to write a song about. and to tie it to love? humanity? and the ongoing undercurrent of the circles of hell? CRAZYYYYY. this song is religious. to me. it's also very coldplay sounding actually? which is only ever a good thing

unknown/nth - HELLOOOOOO YOU KNOW THE DISTANCE NEVER MADE A DIFFERENCE TO ME!!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW I COULD BREAK BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF THE GOODNESS LOVE I STILL CARRY FOR YOU???? THAT ID WALK SO FAR JUST TO TAKE THE INJURY OF FINALLY KNOWING YOU?????? lyrics of all time. caving my own skull. top 3 songs on the album

first light - light themes again!!! dante surfacing from hell!!! the end of a journey quite literally!!! he can't keep getting away with this!! i love how... heavy? this gets in places. like it's got all the instruments and backing vocals all going at once with his voice overarching everything it's amazing. this is a perfect end song <3

[just-some-guy-joust]

Just Some Guy OC Tourney - Side B: Round 1

Rules:

do NOT be mean to anyone or any characters in these polls. you MUST clarify if you are joking/teasing or you will be blocked. if you are someone who entered an oc into this and you are mean to other contestants you will be disqualified

do NOT claim a character doesn't deserve to be here. yes including your own. be nice

if you are posting propaganda you have to tag us, including if your propaganda is in the reblogs. it is difficult to tell when something is or isn't propaganda. anything not tagging us will likely be missed

please don't hesitate to let me know if i messed something up!

have fun, hype each other up <3 thank you

Lilly | She/her | @pocket-ghostie

CW: Child death

Lilly is a ghost who has found other ghosts and is hanging out <3 Almost all of the plot is happening around her. Thats actually a major plot point in the story, things are happening to the people she cares about... but nothing is really happening to her. She is simply hanging out and doesn't know what to do about the plot, but it keeps going without her doing anything. I don't have much to say about her, I only have things to say about the people around her.

Promos: Toyhouse link: https://toyhou.se/21226516.lilly

~

Cobblestone Mason | He/him | @splatoonmaster69

CW: Unreality

A regular human fighter youve seen a thousand times. I promise. NEURODIVERGENCY JUMPSCARE.

~

Full images and descriptions under the cut!

Minor spoilers for the story <3 Lilly finds out that her brother accidentally murdered her and she freaks out bc that's wild. But then she forgives him and everything is fine. She finds out that her dad has turned into a monster and she does nothing about it but avoids him. Her mom starts trying to control her, and she just waits for her friends to help her because she knows they will. She is so so tired of The Plot and doesn't know what to do about it. So she just... doesn't deal with it. She is hanging out, she is simply a lovely litty girl who is going through the horrors <3 Her friends don't even know that much about her, except for her family. She doesn't even know that much about herself. She knows she likes flowers, and having fun... but she doesn't quite know what fun is to her. She kinda gets left behind by the plot in a sense, even though shes the main character. (But I still love her very very much, she is my baby and no one can hurt her <3)

[no image provided]

A "regular" "human" "fighter" NEURODIVERGENCY + "NEURODIVERGENCY" JUMPSCARE. So. By all accounts he really is just some guy i promise. In his head he is just a human fighter, boring as possible, average guy. Sure he has schizophrenia but hes not gonna let that stop him! The only issue is that he lives in a fantasy world, so his doctor really shouldve checked whether it was schizophrenia or mind reading. Yeah most of the time its the formor but if it isnt your kindof fucked And since he already hears voices, theres no way he'd understand that the new threatening voice in his head was his cool new sword that he found at a digsite. and that the little dragon following him around is his familar, not the dragonborn party members son.

As for the human part. he very well could be but im not gonna think about it too hard

anyways if you ignore all that other stuff hes basically just a regular guy for real. he has a passion for archeology and studying long dead civilizations, he likes animals, especially dragons. he collects trinkets that remind him of people he loves and wishes the voices in his head werent so mean because he knows his friends care about him and doesnt want to doubt that. Hes a regular ass guy!

[bonesandthebees]

ch9 nice

no one is handling this well at all. its interesting to see how different people cope with this, but also that Phil notices that Quackity and Niki are affected most, most likely because Wilbur got caught up in this as well, though who knows if some of it might be for Tommy as well. whether it be anger or resentment in some way.

but Sam. wow he doesn't seem fussed at all, despite treading carefully with his words knowing that others are affected. perhaps Tommy was simply a desperate grasp at power and control and he might just find another way to do it

aw man you're right he can't express them emotions but is still suffering like everyone else awwwww

and the suspicion has fallen on Schlatt. niki sure has some evidence but yeah not watertight but at least some evidence to speculate on. it goes both ways, in that niki is providing some evidence to us that she's either good at covering her tracks (unlikely given her relationship with Wil, but likely because of ruthlessness) or not the perpetrator at all as well as pointing at someone else. AND vouching for quackity damn you're handling all our suspicions

meanwhile, the Bonding Adventure continues. well, not really but at least a turn for the better. i wonder how Phil will react to their relationship now? especially with the parallels with stars, knowing how that turned out with a similar royalty situation but not quite the same. nice that theey're back and now Phil can get right to being the bane of those who hurt his son, whomever that may be

Anyways, have fun on your trip! It sounds super fun, where in the Mediterranean are you going? tbh i've always wanted to go to greece but never been able to. Have fun! - :D

I'd say for the most part quackity and niki are both dealing with their grief for wilbur, but there is definitely some emotion there reserved for tommy. more so for quackity who had a bit more of a soft spot for the kid compared to niki.

sam is... not great at expressing emotions in a normal way. he's also trying to keep things as normal as possible because he doesn't really know what else to do here. stick to the routine, stick to the rules, wait for more answers. he's just really bad at trying to make casual conversation.

niki's evidence is definitely weak, but phil and techno were already looking at schlatt as a likely perpetrator so it only adds further evidence to their theory which is helpful. the big mystery more so surrounds quackity right now. but niki is incredibly confident he didn't know about this and keep in mind, she's one of the only people who actually understands wilbur and quackity's relationship, at least to a certain degree. those outside their close personal circle aren't even sure if wilbur and quackity are close. niki knows they are, and knows that quackity does deeply care for wilbur, so her word holds a lot of weight.

bonding adventure kind of got worse but now they've been rescued! now you guys have to wait and see what phil thinks about wilbur's developing ideas towards tommy as a potential ruler

thank youuu I'm very excited for my trip!! we've been planning this for a long time now and it's so close it feels a bit unreal. I actually am going to greece! athens and crete to be specific. I've never been before and I'm so hyped for it. we're also going over to italy afterwards and we're going to hop around some of the major cities there which I'm also so so excited for. I've been to rome once but it was only for a few days and I loved it so much, so I'm thrilled to be going again

[garfieldbussys]

clo this isnt funny anymore.

arthur is deteriorating in front of my eyes and i dont like it what is happening right now i dont know if i can handle this its so sad

what does campbell have against this poor policeman hes always having a go at him its unreal

ALSO wait hang on whats poll doing also tommys found her kids OH NO HER DAUGHTERS DEAD POLL IM SO SORRY ☹️

ANYWAYS i cannot WAIT to finish this cause that means i can go on a rampage of reading fics SO excited

poll ily but put the gun down babe ik youre hurting but babes anyways they’re opening the garrison again since it was blown up last ep ALSO finn is SO grown up its crazy

finns talking to arthur i have a feeling this isnt gonna go well NO NO NO FINN NOT DRUGS PLEASE FINN DO NOT I SWEAR YOURE KIDDING ARTHUR NO

oh no hes fucking high off his tits isnt he 😐 ffs

why do i have a feeling another bomb is gonna go off idk i just feel like smth really bad is about to happen- hes got graces letter out hes burning it good to know i wont be seeing her again then

ADA BABY YOU MADE IT 🫶🫶

i think shes come to speak to poll shes so drunk i LOVE drunk poll shes so funny shes dancing with some guy

could you imagine if this guy ended up being her son that would be HORRIFIC cause it looks like they just had like 4 rounds tbh

why are blackcurrent soothers so good like???

HAHA POLLS DOING THE WALK OFF SHAME

ITS HER SON

hang on is that- IS THAT ERIC BIRLING FROM AN INSPECTOR CALLS OR AM I BUGGING

anyways thats it for ep 2 onto ep 3

i love ada so much and i love in fics where she’s like the best big sister ever i just can’t

and you finally watching arthur like crumble in front of your eyes is so upsetting i actually hate season 2 for him it’s so upsetting

no because finn is like 14 why is 6foot ?!?! what have the shelbys been feeding him??

LMAO THE UNIVERSAL experience of watching eric birling appear on your screen as the iconic polly gray’s son 😭😭

[clownhunterbebop]

Unreal Unearth postcards

track list + lyrics compiled

1. De Selby (part 1): (here)

At last,

When all of the world is asleep

You take in the blackness of air;

The likes of a darkness so deep

That God at the start couldn’t bear

2. De Selby (part 2): (here)

What you’re given

What you live in

Darling it finds a way to live in you

And your heart, love

Has such darkness

I feel it in the corners of the room

3. First Time: (here)

Remember once I told you about

How before I heard it from your mouth

My name would always hit my ears

As such an awful sound

And the soul, if that’s what you’d call it

Uneasy ally of the body

It felt nameless as a river

Undiscovered underground

4. Francesca: (here)

If I could hold you for a minute

Darling, I would do it again

I would not change it each time,

Heaven is not fit to house a love

Like you and I

5. I, Carrion (Icarian): (here)

I’ve reached a rarer height now

That I can confirm

All our weight is just a burden

Offered to us by the world

And though I burn

How could I fall?

I am lifted by every word you say to me

If anything could fall at all

It’s the world that falls away from me

6. Eat Your Young: (here)

Come and get some

Skinning the children for a war drum

Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns

It's quicker and easier to eat your young

7. Damage Gets Done: (here)

You and I had nothing to show

But the best of the world

In the palm of our hand and darling

I haven't felt it since then

I don't know how the feeling ended

But I know being reckless and young

Is not how the damage gets done

8. Who We Are: (here)

Darling, we sacrificed

We gave our time to something undefined

This phantom life sharpens like an image

But it sharpens like a knife

We’re born at night

So much of our life

Is just carving through the dark

To get so far,

And the hardest part

Is who we are

It’s who we are

9. Son of Nyx: (here)

...

...

...

10. All Things End: (here)

All things end

All that we intend is scrawled in sand

It slips right through our hands

And just knowing

That everything will end

Should not change our plans

When we begin again

11. To Someone From A Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe): (here)

'Uiscefhuarithe'

The feel of coldness only water brings

There are some things that no-one

Teaches you, love

That come natural as a dream

You didn't know you were in

And darling, all my dreaming

Is only put to shame

And darling, all my dreaming

Has only been given a name

12. Butchered Tongue: (here)

So far from home

To have a stranger call you ‘darling’

And have your guarded heart

Be lifted like a child up by the hand

In some town that just means

‘Home’ to them

With no translator left to sound

A butchered tongue

Still singing here above the ground

13. Anything But: (here)

In a shot I’d swap my body for a body of water

Worry the cliffside top as a wave crashing over

I’d lower the world in a flood

Or better yet I’d cause a drought

If I was a riptide,

I wouldn’t take you out

14. Abstract (psychopomp): (here)

The poor thing in the road

Its eye still glistening

The cold wet of your nose

The Earth from a distance

See how it shines

See how it shines

15. Unknown (Nth): (here)

You know the distance never made

A difference to me

I swam a lake of fire, I’d have walked

Across the floor of any sea,

Ignored the vastness between

All that can be seen

And all that we believe

So I thought you were like an angel to me

16. First Light (here)

The sky set to burst

The gold and the rust

The colour erupts

You filling my cup

The sun coming up

Like I lived my whole life

Before the first light

[fateheartblog]

“You’re well-read, Ezra,” Mirabel remarks, sliding down from her perch.

“I’m well-mythed,” Zachary corrects. “When I was a kid I thought Hecate and Isis and all the orishas were friends of my mom’s, like, actual people. I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever.”

-The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, Book III: The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor, 4th Zachary section

I think this quote is the single most important piece of characterisation for Zachary Ezra Rawlins in the whole of The Starless Sea. Or at least it is for me (though I appreciate that there is a distinction between what you might value as a reader-for-pleasure and a reader-with-hellbent-ulterior-intentions-to-write-this-man-into-a-corner-watch-me-gooo). I kept coming back to this line as I wrote Fateheart (my fan-sequel to The Starless Sea - you can read it here on Ao3), and it has become the lynchpin for a lot of my thoughts about who Zachary is - especially as the story of Fateheart unfolded in front of me and I was trying to keep up with what was happening and grapple with why it felt inevitable.

Here are some of those thoughts, for any of you who are interested in thinking this much about Zachary Ezra Rawlins (and his relationship with Dorian, which is ever central to who he is), about myth, and about The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

One of the reasons I ended up writing my fan-sequel to The Starless Sea was a desire to continue following the story of what had already begun in Morgenstern's book, which is Zachary's descent into myth - and I don't mean his passage through the wonderlands beneath the world - I mean becoming one himself.

This quote captures what I love most about Zachary and what I find most powerful about him, which is something I came to think of whilst writing as his "belief in the real and the unreal". He is deeply post-modern, and has an acute grasp of myth (gonna define 'myth' in a truncated but convenient way here as a type of story which offers a moral or identity truth, alternative to a history, which gives you facts and assumes the 'truth' is implicit through them).  The combination of these two things is very potent, and has allowed Zachary's sense of what is true to develop separately from and at times directly in opposition to what is factual or historically, empirically verifiable. Simply put, when it comes to making sense of his reality, historical truth does not interest him. Stories interest him ("He believes in books, he knows that much" - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, 3rd Zachary section). Not only does a rationalist presentation of value or truth not have any of the significance that it would in a modernist worldview, it is almost irrelevant to Zachary. He does not navigate the world according to its empirical qualities but according to its stories, and he is very adept at reading them, because these are the paradigms by which he got to know the world in the first place.

The blurring of reality into unreality which happens in the quote - he thought that the goddesses were friends of his mother's - "actual people" - tells us possibly more about Zachary's mother than about him. Or perhaps tells us so much about him by telling us about her first: Madame Love Rawlins raised her son in an environment which valued stories, and specifically myths, above all else. Zachary does not gain his sense of identity or context of self whilst growing up from integration into a historical narrative or a sociological connection to his own time or place - even his sense of a wider family context and adult society was defined by a profound connection to a global pantheon of myths. You can imagine how Madame Love Rawlins must have spoken about Hecate and Isis and the orishas - how effortlessly, personally, and often - to create an environment where they seemed this real. And you can conjecture that she herself was not in the business of drawing a distinction between her regular old human friends and the more divine voices of influence over her life. So why should Zachary?

But that blurring of reality with unreality is not nearly as telling as the other blur that happens in the quote above, which is, "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever."

This is three things happening in quick succession, and I think they are all equally fascinating, and they all delight me equally.

The last and least of them is in the word "whatever": it implies that Zachary is not interested in firmly deciding whether or not he thinks they are 'real' people. "Whatever" is applying to the question of past or present tense, but in its dismissiveness it waives any of the gravity of his placing his blurring of reality in the past. Yes, he's identifying that perception as a younger, past version of himself, but then he brings it forwards, catching himself: "I suppose in a way they were" reasserts the belief; "Still are" updates it, identifies it in himself now; "Whatever" carries it beyond what he feels the need to define.

The second thing that's happening is the "Still are." There is some ambiguity, but not much, in the quote - is Zachary supposing that these mythical figures may actually have been real? That's how I'm primarily reading it because that's the most obvious reading. But one could argue that he's equally supposing that they may well have truly been his mother's friends, and possibly still are - that he's not questioning their actuality so much as the familiarity of their role in one's personal world. They still are friends of his mom's. Or they still are real in some way. Either one is compounded by the "whatever", and "Still are. Whatever" is a telling rhythm of Zachary's thought process here: he is comfortable with indistinction. The factuality is not relevant.

But the most important and the first thing in "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever." is the supposing itself. That these myths are people who have had an impact on his life relationally, emotionally, interpersonally, and truly. Voices he has known and names he has called and referenced in conversation on the same level as any other. His almost throwaway acknowledgement that this blurring of the line between real and unreal is very much still part of his internal system says a great deal about how deeply foundational this sense of myth and truth is to him: the indistinction is not a problem with the thing, but the thing itself.

And never, in all his academic travels and independent adult life away from his mother (his independence of identity and situation is well established) has Zachary found reason enough to redraw the lines - to reassess this post-modern prioritisation of myth over history - to anchor himself according to what is real, regardless of the value of its truth, as opposed to what is unreal but true. And his wider characterisation as an academic at a good school and a devotee of stories in all forms tells us it is not for lack of self-awareness or intelligence. Assuming he has interrogated his own beliefs before, he clearly has not seen reason to dismantle his worldview. In fact, we possibly see the first thing in his life which really does force him to consolidate his beliefs, and it is not the real challenging the unreal, as must have happened to him and has not left a mark, but the unreal suddenly encroaching upon the real. The moment he assesses this internal balance of the real and the unreal is in the same chapter I quoted above (Book I: Sweet Sorrows, 3rd Zachary section), as he reflects upon seeing his childhood encounter with his door written in Sweet Sorrows and thinks upon what the book is telling him about what lay beyond it:

"He wonders why he believes it because someone wrote it down in a book. Why he believes anything at all and where to draw mental lines, where to stop suspending his disbelief."

Zachary is aware that he primarily operates in a territory where all disbelief is permanently suspended: this is not him asking whether he should start believing that this door did in fact lead to a Harbour - this is him wondering if he ought to believe this much that it does - and what it means for anything real if he carries that belief forwards as he intends to. Questioning whether the space he holds within him for the powerful truth of myth is now starting to truly consume the concrete, factual world in a way which is leading him into new territory. And it is. The mythical does in fact start to consume the real world for him. That is what happens to him in the rest of The Starless Sea. And this is the moment we see that crossover: he chooses to remain faithful to the unreal, and to pursue a story. He asserts what he was raised believing, which is that the unreal is more true and more valuable than the real, and therefore ultimately must be more real. Only someone who is intimately familiar already - from their earliest childhood - with the blurring of these lines - would react the way Zachary has to finding himself in a book - running with it, and allowing it to envelop him completely, as he is ultimately enveloped by the door, the Harbour, and the Starless Sea itself.

And what I love most about this passage is that we see it happen - we see him interrogate himself, we see him follow his internal logic, and we see his belief in the unreal win:

"Does he believe that the boy in the book is him? Well, yes. Does he believe painted doors on walls can open as though they were real and lead to other places entirely? He sighs and sinks below the surface."

To be fair he is in the bath in this scene, but also: "he sinks below the surface": he submits to the authority of myth over fact. And - crucially - to him, myths are real not as accounts of an abject moral value or a history, which is still quite abstract - what's real to him is myths as people.

Writing Fateheart was an exercise in loyalty to characters I fully believed in deeply, and for different reasons. I could write this much again about Madame Love Rawlins (and might/probably will) and Kat (might/probably won't) and don't get me started on Dorian (will/definitely will), but Zachary led the way for me here. I was fascinated - absolutely, devotedly transfixed by the process we get to see the start of in The Starless Sea, which is Zachary becoming part of a myth. He is the close of one story and then the beginning of the next, stepping from the periphery of one myth to the heart of the next.

So that became the paradigm for Fateheart: how do I take these characters, all of whom start as human, and draw from them a new myth? A story which is at once human and deeply personal and realistic in the sense of being true to human experiences of feeling and danger and cost and wonder and love, but is also more than itself - is broad and vast and contains profound, elemental gestures towards values and archetypes and fundamentals of what we are and choose and love as people?

And Zachary made it so easy. Because the myths are already people to him - real, breathing, blooded people. So his passage into that role was intuitive.

I find it wonderful that in the title quote here Zachary is correcting "well-read" to "well-mythed" - the difference is not one I was immediately tuned into, but one which turned out to be vital. He is able to navigate stories so cogently not because he knows them as books, but because he knows them as people. There is a reason he understands Mirabel the way he does - and loves her. He is used to relating to mythical, archetypal powers as close personal friends: he's been doing it since he was a child. Maybe meeting Mirabel forces that mental pathway out into the open - and cements it for him - but it was already there.

It is also the reason he is able to love Dorian the way he does - deeply, intuitively, and uncompromisingly. This relationship was a joy to explore for a number of reasons (most of which are bleedingly obvious hello i am a fanfic writer) but the most captivating dynamic (for me) is their respective positions with stories. Dorian tells them, carries them, gives them - Zachary receives them, loves them, and keeps them.

There's a language that developed organically for this as I was writing Fateheart, and actually grew from Morgenstern's own imagery: the deep night sky within Zachary - which in terms of vernacular I extrapolated from the details of Allegra's painting ("Zachary’s chest is cracked open, his heart exposed, the star-filled sky visible behind it"), developing into a way of referring to that space of pure and certain belief in the unreal - a vast constellation of myths, points of truth which connect across empty space to make sense of the world - which is Zachary's internal landscape.

When Dorian sits in the Gryphon bar and watches Zachary he cannot read him - though it is made clear that he can read just about everyone and everything else, and has been able to do so most of his life. What, then, is Dorian seeing? Most people are reducible to stories, but myths do not reduce to stories - they reduce to truths. Stories, at their best, might extrapolate to myths, which in turn reveal true things, but people are not usually myths - or if they are, they are myths first, masquerading as people (there are plenty of those in The Starless Sea.) And in Fateheart, I try to push this the other way by having three people slowly begin to masquerade as myths. And Dorian sees it first - long before there is language for it - or need for language for it, because, admittedly, there isn't need until you get deeper into the narrative of Fateheart. But Zachary is not a series of facts that build a narrative: he is a constellation of personal relationships with myths. He is a system of beliefs which merrily crosses the boundaries between the real and the unreal in a superb tangle of truths.

Dorian cannot read him because he is not a story. Nor is he, at that point, a myth - but he is a man whose grasp of the world hovers over the edges of what is real, prepared when push comes to shove to fall straight down the rabbit hole. Dorian cannot reduce him because he is already more than himself, hovering in the doorway of the unreal, beginning to follow his age-old belief into territory Dorian has been living in for a long time: the borderlands. Walking the face of the real world but allegiant to the unreal one.

How must Zachary have looked to him? An academic, operating within the structures and annals, the very factual, papery, process-laden architecture of the strictly real - yet relating to it as if it is one myth amongst many. Post-modernity in action: the historical, the rational, the empirical is just one more story. No more or less real than all the others he met at his mother's knee.

And how must Dorian have looked to Zachary? A man who clothes himself entirely in stories - who weaves between the language and the embroidered details of fables and legends and books - moving too quickly to be framed as either fact or fiction. Comfortable presenting the truth in a myriad of ways - with any name he chooses, in any shape he wills.

Dorian presents himself as a story - not just to Zachary, but to the world. Because it is an extraordinary position of power and an acutely slick one: in a world where most people think stories are not real and value them accordingly lowly, being a story allows him to control how he is perceived. From his name to every farthest extrapolation of his position and occupation he presents as fictional. Which is a very guarded way to walk the world. But Zachary draws absolutely no distinction between the people in his life who are stories and the stories in his life who are people. So Zachary is able to simultaneously accept that Dorian is a story and that he is a real person - able to hold the real alongside the unreal, and able to love it entirely as a self-contradictory package deal. Which must have been deeply disarming for a man who has mostly found that his ability to tell a story makes for a good way to present a false identity. Dorian is very good at being a story, but stories at their best extrapolate to myths, and Zachary knows how to love myths as people. He's been doing it all his life.

And this is where I watched them go in Fateheart. Zachary is more equipped to understand Dorian than Dorian is. He readily opens to him the space he holds within himself for stories - the well-populated night sky of the mythical, the unreal, the wondrous, the true. Zachary is a very, very good reader - which I am asserting by my own metrics, but I'll define it as this: if you can hold in perfect conjunction that a story is not true yet contains truth and is therefore more true, then you are a good reader. You can get more out of a truth if it's told in a good story than you can if it's presented as clean fact: a clean, dry bone of a fundamental is very clear and easy to handle, but you can see best how it moves when it is part of the dancing flesh of a living body - even though on one level you cannot see the bone anymore at all.

Zachary sees all the dressing and falls in love with the truth of who Dorian is - not in spite of the stories he hides within but because of them. He offers Dorian a way to make sense of himself - a way to make sense of his entire life, which has seen him caught over that boundary between the real and the unreal - serving a Harbour he never sees, hunting those who cannot be killed. Hiding in plain sight, operating beyond the limits of the real world without ever being free to cross into the unreal. And that grey area is very familiar to Zachary - he is unbothered by it and comfortable there.

And in return Dorian is the consolidation of Zachary's belief in the real and the unreal: he is at once a person and a story of himself. He is blisteringly close to being only the stories he tells and is told, and existing primarily as a way of delivering and performing those stories - and Zachary perceives him as an entire constellation: taking the stories he has become and focusing upon the truth in them. Seeing the bones in him even as they dance. Loving him as myth and human at once without drawing a distinction - and without needing to.

Writing Fateheart was an opportunity (or really a shameless excuse) to explore Zachary and Dorian's relationship with each other. They are just on the cusp of their lives colliding at the end of The Starless Sea, and there is enough substance there, enough tantalisingly unconsummated (ahem) chemistry, that it is a legitimately fun exercise to carry it forwards and see what happens. And I was delighted over and over again in writing them to discover the myriad ways in which they work together - ways they understand each other and overlap and seem stronger for it than they did on their own - all of which is full credit to their original characterisation. I had a distinct impression of following events that had already been set in motion - and rather than developing what an active, steady relationship looks like from scratch, revealing the outworking of what it promised to be from the off.

The blurring of these boundaries between the real and the unreal is literalised in their passage through the caverns of the Starless Sea: the two of them cross into fairytales, into stories and the settings of fables Dorian has told and memorised and had tattooed into his skin. But I do not think that their respective motions are in mirror image - for all Dorian is already living in the unreal, I think it is Zachary who carries the two of them into the territory of myth. In The Starless Sea they each traverse a wilderness of literary and mythical realities in an effort to find each other, but it is Zachary's trajectory that shapes the language surrounding him and his increasingly mythical identity in the book:

"And so the son of the fortune-teller does not find his way to the Starless Sea. Not yet." - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, chapter three - To Deceive the Eye

Zachary's process of heading down the path of fully embracing the unreal is his journey to the Starless Sea. The story hits its climax - and the old Harbour finds its breaking - when he finds it - but his actual passage into it is through the death of his physical, actual self.

Which, of course, comes at Dorian's hand. But the action of killing Zachary is two-fold: he frees him from the last traces of whatever he was clinging to of real, rational, folllowing-the-rules-of-a-normal-world life by pushing him entirely out of the world and into the place where the bees dwell - where the old gods are larger than life - where real, rational, following-the-rules-of-a-normal-world business is a vague, dollhouse style, boxy, undetailed approximation - a secondary feature, one worldview amongst a bigger context - and where he eventually drowns in the essence of the story itself, despite his final efforts to escape this. And then the completion of the process is to bring him back to the world - to take his body and replace the heart of what he is with something that is itself a story - a myth.

Dorian and Zachary are falling increasingly in sync with each other throughout The Starless Sea, but it is Zachary who leads the two of them to the shore of the thing itself - the very edge. Dorian is looking for a way to get home, which turns out to be Zachary, and Zachary is looking for a way to the Starless Sea, which turns out to be Dorian.

Dorian giving Zachary the heart - which is the heart of a story - 'of' in the sense of its position at the centre, but also in the sense of 'a heart produced by, having its origins in a story' - is the resolution of Zachary's passage into myth. He has travelled all the way to the Starless Sea - he has submitted to the dismantling of any last vestiges of scepticism in the face of the magic or absurd to such an extent that he has died for it - and then he is brought back.

And for what? To drift on a ship in the belly of the world, out of time, out of the story? Or is the absolution of his identity in that death and resurrection enough that wherever he goes he will bring with him the central, burning core of belief that makes stories like these possible?

At the beginning of The Starless Sea Zachary is in the process of returning to his old favourite books:

He has been reading (or rereading) a great many children’s books as well, because the stories seem more story-like, though he is mildly concerned this might be a symptom of an impending quarter-life crisis. - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, chapter 4, first Zachary section

The eclipse of the mythical over the real, the reconnection with the powerful, foundational truth that what is fictional is just as real as what is physical, is already hinted at here: his instinct to draw closer to what seems like a purer form of story - worlds where the lines are blurred more perfectly, where the distinctions are already eliminated. This is the first sign of his overall character arc in this book - and it ends with he himself becoming a story.

And I love that he's concerned this might be a symptom of an impending quarter-life crisis. And I love even more that he's only "mildly" concerned. Because that's so Zachary: an intuitive sense that something's coming, and possibly something huge - and his response is to turn back to stories. The "mildly" here has the same feeling as, "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever." He is easy with a sense of deep upheaval. Because you can't shock someone with the unreal when they've known it all their lives.

He didn't open the door because he wanted to keep on believing that there was something behind it. He has resisted re-wiring his sense of how real all the orishas are not because he wants to keep on believing and knows he won't if he looks too hard, but because he absolutely believes it but is fearful of what this will mean for his grasp on the rest of reality and his place in it. Because really embracing this postmodernity means accepting that everything ultimately reduces to myth. That to walk truly in the deep places of what it means to be alive does not mean banishing a sense of madness but embracing it - following through to the point of total undoing - death of the real self - and further than that, into a new kind of life.

To sail the Starless Sea is to become the story of oneself. The air is haunted by the death and reformation of what is real. Only the bones of the real things ever return - dancing as part of the flesh they have been clothed in. Truth that is clothed in stories: myth.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins has known since he was a child that stories are true. And maybe his hesitancy to embrace this has been because he knows that if he embarks on this hero's journey he will have to leave behind anything that might resemble his own sanity by the world's standards. He knows that to embrace those relationships with the mythical as closely and as truly as he did when he was a child learning to relate to his mother's circle of friends will be to become himself a story. To relinquish his grip on the rational and to give up, ultimately, his heart.

To go mad, and to return more deeply yourself than you could ever have anticipated.

And you know who gets this? Dorian.

“How are you feeling?” Zachary asks. “Like I’m losing my mind, but in a slow, achingly beautiful sort of way.” “Yeah, I get that. So better, then.” - Book IV, Written in the Stars, 3rd Zachary chapter

That's the second most important line for Zachary's characterisation - in my opinion (and let's face it when it comes to Zachary Ezra Rawlins I have an absolutely absurd amount of opinion). That once he chooses to cross the threshold of the world and walk the halls of a myth he's always suspected he had a part in, he knows that by some standards he is losing his mind - the rational part of his 'self' - his life, by the standards of what the world thinks a life is.

But he's only mildly worried about it. He's never really held much with the sense that rabbit holes ought not to be for falling into. That he should be beyond it. That it shouldn't be real.

The point of departure for Fateheart was a Zachary who has finally, with the aid of Dorian, become himself. A Zachary who has left behind the world and the life that went with it. A Zachary who is so at one with the mythical that he himself is a myth. Zachary at the final, gasping, awakening stage of losing his mind - but in a slow, achingly beautiful sort of way.

"So better, then."

A myth. A story told by someone who loves him well enough to bring him back as exactly what he always was: a heart alive and alight with the unreal, carrying it in the vast night sky within him, bright enough to illuminate the world and reveal all the things in it that have always been true:

[an] enormous, spinning truth, turning like a star in the sky, close enough to be a sun, burning with enough light to illuminate the world. - Fateheart, part two, chapter 16

And Dorian follows him there - is the agent of the final stages of this transformation. Is the hand by which the story is told: one who tells the story, one who carries it.

It felt like the most obvious thing in the world that on the strength of such a pairing one could dream a whole new story - felt, to me, like it was clear that having transcended into myth, the new Harbour could and would form around them - could have at its centre a love story that is at once about real people and about something mythical.

The old myths are completed, and the new myths find their footing at the end of the story. And I wanted to know - was absolutely desperate to see - what the next story would look like, with these two people at the heart of it.

So that's what I wrote.

--BoogleBoot

[im-out-of-it]

I agree with your Kit post so sad to see him done dirty thankfully I found some fanfics where he gets a proper storyline

and what about gabriel not even reacting to his baby being seconds away to die? Why did only Will and James said anything during that moment in the ball?

THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH!!!!!!!! I’ll warn ya, this turns into a rant and it’s hella long. just cautioning ya 🥹 if you find some fanfics, please send them my way if you can 🥰 in my head, kit is alive and well and gets treated like the beautifully intelligent science 🧬 sweet man he is 😭

it’s so sad and shitty that we don’t even get to see Gabriel and Cecily knowing about it!!!!! like they just don’t know about it? and I hate that cc always makes the herondales her top priority. having Will go on about James WHO IS VERY MUCH ALIVE is insane. I get he’s concerned but KIT IS DEAD AND ITS ALMOST LIKE NO ONE EXCEPT THOMAS ANNA AND GRACE CARE

OH MY GOD YOURE TALKING ABOUT LITTLE ALEXANDER AND HERE I AM BITCHING IM SORRY 😭

yes it’s so ridiculous that James and Will basically take over that interaction. you’re telling me that Gideon has lost a daughter because of his sister and Gabriel is about to almost lose a son because of his sister and THEY DONT REALLY DO ANYTHING? and I really hate that CC has Gideon being like “this is ridiculous, Tessa is a warlock and she’s bound to have a demon father but it doesn’t mean she is in league with him.” BRO YOUR SISTER HAS YOUR NEPHEW HELD HOSTAGE. like why did they have to make this whole thing be about Tessa?

you’ve just reignited my hatred for that storyline so thank you so much 👏🏼😌 and what amazes me the most is that Alexander is what three years old and basically gets tortured during this whole time and then they go back to making it all about Will and Tessa? it’s unreal. if I’m Gideon and my sister is stealing my nephew, I’m raising hell. I’ll never get through to her but I’m doing all I can to protect my nephew. like all the shadowhunters there and that’s what they’re going to focus on? ridiculous.

it’s focused on James and will because CC has always focused on the herondales. watch how all the herondales are usually all main characters or at least love interests. the only ones not as much in TDA but jace is still heavily in that series, at least it felt that way to me. instead of making this about you know Gabriel’s toddler being kidnapped and used as leverage, cc makes it all about Tessa being a warlock and being “in league” with belial.

I’ve noticed that CC has an habit of having an idea (Kit dying, Alexander being kidnapped, kit in the first book almost dying) but using another storyline or idea to overlap that and make it a priority over the original idea. aka- James being in Hell and making that the focus, Tessa being in supposed league with a prince of hell, James going to Hell to fight Belial.) I don’t know maybe it’s not as drastic as I make it seem but it always seems like instead of focusing on one idea, cc uses something else and then BAM suddenly theres a new focus and takes more precedence

I think all in all, the fact that Tatiana’s crimes are constantly being overlooked and that it’s never stated she had a hand in Barbara being killed and the fact her brothers are dealing with all this grief and losing a child because of her is wasted potential and material. Tatiana has made hell for her brothers and it’s never really mentioned?????

Tatiana is so mad with revenge that she’s built these thoughts in her head that Gabriel and Gideon are responsible for her grief. she’s so far gone that she thinks it’s an eye for an eye. but she’s the one that had a hand in murdering her own son. I’m sorry but trusting dark warlocks? girl you made your own bed. she should be mad at her father for being a shit father and not training her. it’s not Gideon or Gabriel’s fault that he died or that he killed your husband. a husband who turns out can’t even stand you lmao

I like TLH as a series but I hate how it’s handled. because there are so many characters and storylines we missed out on. I always wanted this series more focused on Thomas and Alastair, and more heavily on the lightwoods because I think they’re more interesting. I feel that there’s a lot that could’ve been done with this storyline. there’s many complex characters but they don’t really get a focus. just so many missed opportunities in my opinion

thanks for letting me vent 💀 I didn’t mean to slightly go off but the writing irritates me so much. but I definitely agree with your statements ✨

[tuliplips]

sorry i just need to vent. the son of a not very close friend of my mom took his life recently. i didn’t know him, but i met his brother who is a very nice handsome kind young man. i knew about the guy who died, and his depression though; and his mother lives nearby, and he worked in a nearby cemetery, and he is/was half dutch and half portuguese like me. so i thought about him often, when i would walk by these places, wondering if he was doing better.

then we got the news. it affected me a lot. from what i heard he was a lovely and kind person. he looked like the exact kind of guy who would be my type. i felt connected to him and his brother because they are both the same two nationalities like me and both speak the languages and are around my age, and i thought one day i would like to date someone like them.. :/ it’s all so embarrassing.

the past week since it happened; i didn’t sleep properly, i have been feeling so sad for his suffering, and for the hurt and the grief his friends and mother and brother and father must be feeling. i thought a lot about how lonely he must have felt. it felt all a bit unreal. then my mom was going to the funeral and i was contemplating if i should go or not. i felt like i should go because it mattered to me, and to support my mom going and also to show support to his family. but i also felt weird to go since i didn’t actually know him and i also felt in my heart that maybe it would be bad for me to go because it would upset me. especially because i’ve been having a hard time lately and i’ve been not really all there ..

anyway i ended up going. there were so many young people there.. so many friends… it was so intense. i didn’t know him but i cried and cried.. i cried so fucking much!! and i feel so pathetic. i can’t get rid of the images of the body laying in the casket. it’s kinda haunting me. i always hated funerals since i had to attend my fathers so young. and especially the body in the casket scares me. i didn’t want to look this time but it was like almost impossible not to look. and now i deeply regret it. it was so weird because he almost didn’t look dead. it looked like he was just taking a nap and could get up out of there any time.

i can’t get rid of the images of all his friends, crying, all the people there, the energy in the room that was so dense???? i really didn’t need something so triggering in my life yet i felt like couldn’t look away, and i wanted to prove to myself that i can face things in life; that i don’t need to keep looking away from everything. i felt like maybe i needed to feel the uncomfortable things because i need to feel more in general. but i’ve been in a low place due to having been very very sick for a very long time, and it has made me so isolated and detached , i actually need things to uplift me, since my energy has been so low for so long.

anyway it’s not about me right now, but i feel so shaken up by this death and this funeral and while i was there i was proud of myself for going but now i regret it. i feel so embarrassed for getting so swept away. i feel also so not legitimate to suffer so much.. it shouldn’t be my hurt… it shouldn’t be mine. it feels like i did something wrong maybe. i also cant stop thinking about the pain all his friends and his mother must be feeling. i want to sleep, its my birthday party tomorrow but i can’t get rid of the images… i’m so tired i haven’t slept well in a week .. i am even scared in the dark now. scared to feel a presence or something. like as if he is near. i don’t know. i feel a little bit insane

[auxxrat]

It's sooner than later that I'll be six feet under/sooner than later that you'll be alone

• one shot • Jango/Shaak

Tags - Angst, Jango's past (comic based) Other Tags - Boba Fett(mention), Clone Troopers + Omega, once again based on my own lore because I'm predictable

Summary :

“I love you, Jedi Master Shaak Ti." The declaration took Shaak’s ability to think, but Jango had more to say; he couldn't leave just yet. “Whatever I do, please forgive me. Whatever I leave behind, promise me you’ll finish it.”  “Jango…” Shaak, utterly and truly, was at a loss for words. Jango had been set on living, especially for his son, but it sounded to her as if this was his deathbed confession.   “Listen to me, Shaak; promise me you’ll forgive me, and that when it’s all over, you’ll understand. You're the only one who understands; we’ve always been on each other’s sides. Shaak, promise me you’ll love them. Promise me you won’t let them suffer because of my sins.” 

The only notice Shaak ever got of his arrival was how loud he could be.  

Jango had never been quiet; his feet were heavy, and his voice was loud. His armor was even more deafening. He wasn't one to waste time either, which didn't help his cause. But Coruscant was even louder than his laugh or arrival at places he had no business in. The city made for a perfect hiding spot for such a noisy man.

The soft clinking of armored boots against marble excited Shaak more than anything; it made her heart race and her chest feel tight. It was a nauseous feeling. The sight of him standing in the balcony doorway felt too unreal—like a living myth was standing in front of her, years of searching finally at an end. He returned ever so often, like an anxious animal coming home with a bird in its mouth. No amount of gifts could make up for his leaving, but it was never worth mentioning—Shaak knew he’d only do it again. 

Every year he came back to her, he looked different. The soft eyes of a boy turned into the tired ones of an overworked man, and the slender arms of a teenage boy turned into muscles with scars to last a lifetime. The curly hair was long forgotten, forced into a military-type cut. It was unnatural for a man whose hair was just as unruly as he was. Jango once had a bright smile, Shaak remembered, so wide that it stretched across his face and made his eyes almost invisible. That charming smile was never present, only saved for times like this. but even then, it wasn't as it was. 

“Welcome home, Jango,” Shaak said, as he’d only gone out for the day, just coming home from a long day at work.  

There had been a time, in Shaak’s youth, when she would have run to him. He jumped into his arms and exclaimed how much he was missed, complaining about his leaving. But she was older now, having grown into a woman Jango had not yet seen.  

If Jango was changing with age, Shaak was even more so. Her head-tails had gotten longer and taller, and her face had morphed into a woman. Her youth was all but left behind; there was no sign of the young girl she once was. She felt no more of that childlike confusion or anger, but her feelings for Jango always remained. It was an emotion that Shaak did fairly well at suppressing, hiding it easily from the Jedi Order. 

But then he comes back and messes it all up again.  

“I can’t be long” is the talk of a man who never stays in one place.  

"You have never been here long; maybe that’s why this place gathers so many shadows.”  

Shaak was a Jedi; she wasn't here in this apartment often, hidden at the very peaks of Coruscant, but Jango had gotten this place for them. Slowly, it became a place for her. It was true that Jango never stayed put in one place for long; he only found good hiding places for his most precious items, so he could come and go as he pleased.  

Maybe there was a time when they would have embraced each other, but they only moved to the front living room in silence. It was a quiet home, where the love never really died but was beaten into a corner. Jango never talked anymore, never sought out her touch, and right now he looked like there was something serious on his tail.  

There was nothing to speak of, not when their lives had grown so far apart, so they sat there saying nothing. But there was so much to be said by the both of them that Jango simply didn't have enough time.  

He was going to speak, but Shaak beat him to it.  

“You never reach out.”  

“What?’, The confusion was pitiful; even he knew what Shaak was talking about.  

“Even when you’re gone, you never send anything, not even a letter. And this time, you were gone longer than the last,” Shaak knew. Jango was a criminal, completely fallen from honor; she made it her business to never know his.  

“You don’t want to know, Ti,"  Jango stated. And she didn't want to know, because she knew it was only something terrible.  

She felt it in the Force. She felt it between them now; she could feel it in her heart that there was something vastly bigger than the Jedi could even comprehend. She could feel the many lives and the many hearts beating, but the question was where they were coming from. There was this other feeling—the feeling of fear—on the horizon of something. Shaak couldn't bring herself to think of it. She knew that whatever this was, Jango had a hand in it.  

She knew it, yet at the sight of him and everything she’d missed, it was easy to deny. Even after all the heartache,  

And that was only the beginning of her many regrets.  

“It’ll all be done soon." He didn’t sound too reassuring. “Then I won’t leave you.” 

It only took those little words to finally make Shaak soft and formable, like putty in his work-beaten hands. She sighed, turning her head to the side so that the soft blush that did appear would dissipate quickly. Her face was brighter when she turned back, inching closer to Jango. When they were younger, she used to be so curious about the stories he had to tell, about the things he saw and places he’d been. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to wonder now.  

“So? What has the infamous Jango Fett done this time? What adventure did you seek this time around?”  

“I have a son.”  

Shaak stumbled, feeling nauseous as if all the unfairness in the world had fallen upon her. She, a Jedi, and he, a Mandalorian, were too far apart. Even in a normal world, Jango would have been a Mandalorian prince, and Shaak would be just a girl back on Shili. Regardless of the universe, timeline, or the will of the Force, Shaak and Jango would never be able to be together. Yet she couldn't help but think that he still held onto that fantasy—to be with her.  

It was the highest number of betrayals.  

“What is his name?” Shaak swallowed the bile.  

Jango hesitantly moved to the armor surrounding his wrist, messing with the gauntlet buttons until a picture lit up. It was of Jango and a small boy, no more than ten or nine years old.  

“His name is Boba.”  

The boy was quite the spitting image of his father, so much so that it scared Shaak. He had the same nose, eyes, and smile with the sharp side tooth. Even down to the very curls on his head. Shaak felt bad for whoever the mother was. Mostly because Boba showed no sign of having any of her genes, but also because Jango’s heart still so painfully belonged to Shaak. 

“An heir for the Fett line, the exact image of his father. What you wanted, right?” There was an obvious attitude behind Shaak’s words, but Jango was blinded by love—love only a father could experience.  

“He’s perfect… He’s nothing like me." The statement was full of relief.  

“He likes to read." Jango added, pressing a button that consumed the photo back into his gauntlet, “He doesn't know fear; he doesn't need to. He learns so fast, quicker than I ever could. He’ll survive in this universe. I won’t bind him to Mandalore as I was; he doesn't need to win back anything; he’s already so special.”  

Shaak’s heart wanted to scream; it wanted to grow its own pair of arms and throttle Jango right where he sat. She felt cheated, and her stomach couldn't stop turning. Tears must have slipped because, in the next moment, Shaak felt the tip of his thumb at her waterline—he wasn't giving her the chance to cry. 

“I got you something," Jango whispered, her thumb leaving her waterline and tracing the line of her cheek. “But you can’t open it until the time is right.”

Shaak wanted to spit at him; his face was close enough, but she wouldn't. She knew she could never hurt him, even if it was life or death. She wouldn't be the one to do it. Through anger, confusion, and sadness, Shaak spoke 

“And how will I know when the time is right, Jango Fett?” 

“If I know, then you’ll know soon enough.” 

Jango slid a small metal case into her hand. She looked down and ran her fingers along the skillfully crafted box. The design was Mandalorian, but it wasn't native to this box; it was carved on. By the time she was able to pay attention to the world around her once more, Jango was already up and leaving, causing that old panic reflex that came whenever she saw and knew he was going to disappear again. The box was forgotten on the plush cushions of the couch where they once sat, and Shaak was up chasing Jango once more.  

She found herself ensnared in his tight grip, her heart aching to plead with him to linger and explain these cryptic messages that left her feeling scared and uneasy. However, before she could utter a word, her voice was stifled by a tender and longing kiss—a kiss that would ultimately be their first and last. This kiss was the only true, solid evidence of his love. One she could be sure of.  

“I love you, Jedi Master Shaak Ti." The declaration took Shaak’s ability to think, but Jango had more to say; he couldn't leave just yet. “Whatever I do, please forgive me. Whatever I leave behind, promise me you’ll finish it.” 

“Jango…” Shaak, utterly and truly, was at a loss for words. Jango had been set on living, especially for his son, but it sounded to her as if this was his deathbed confession.  

“Listen to me, Shaak; promise me you’ll forgive me, and that when it’s all over, you’ll understand. You're the only one who understands; we’ve always been on each other’s sides. Shaak, promise me you’ll love them. Promise me you won’t let them suffer because of my sins.”  

Shaak’s breathing was labored, and her eyes shot so wide that one might think she turned to stone. There was always an underlying method to what Jango was doing; was the kiss a distraction? Was this all for a confession of guilt?  

“Remember that I love you, if nothing else.”  

And like that, he was gone. 

—

“It’s a transmission from Master Kenobi.”  

Shaak’s heart dropped to her stomach the moment Obi-Wan’s static image came through; he looked like a cold, soaked rat standing out on Kamino. He came bearing information that she had been dreading.  

It was all too coincidental—Jango showing up and then the news of Padme’s failed assassination the next morning. There was no direct link to Jango until now, but Shaak still knew it was all him. She knew him too well, and it made her sick. Shaak was also assigned to look into whoever this bounty hunter might be, at the same time as Obi-Wan; the difference between them is that he tried. Shaak would have covered up his tracks so that it was harder to find him, had she been crazy enough, but even if, all records of him were wiped clean. Whether it was the Mandalorian’s shaming him or it was the Republic forgetting his existence, all of it was gone.  

It seemed the only person who knew Jango was Shaak. But even Obi-Wan found him quicker than she did. Maybe she knew nothing about him at all.  

Time seemed to have stopped the moment Kenobi unveiled the secret of Jango. Shaak was given little time to prepare herself for the war ahead. Kenbobi was going after him in the hopes of catching him and bringing him to the Jedi Temple for questioning. If he could be brought here, she could keep him safe and close. 

Before leaving, the silver box caught her eye, tucked away on a desk in her room, practically calling her name. Shaak figured this was what Jango meant by “right time." She ran her hand down the front of the carved box one last time, recalling every sweet memory of Jango. When she opened it, she was greeted with a Togruta-Mandalorian-styled headdress. It was a beautifully carved piece of gold that was adorned with beads and different wrapped metals, with two strings that hung down on either side. The circle sat in the middle of her forehead, circled with small blue crystals. The top was lined with teeth from a beast she killed long ago, keeping its teeth as a trophy as per Togruta tradition, but... she had thought she lost those teeth a long time ago.  

The blue was to represent Jango; she knew that much about the cocky man that he was.  

It was beautiful. A true piece of art. A mix of both their cultures. 

Maybe it was a symbol of what could have been, but Shaak didn't dwell on it now; she left the contents of the note he left behind in the box—far far in the back of her mind. For now, she had to forget about him and focus on going with Master Yoda to assess the mess he left behind. 

—

Kamino was filled with thousands upon thousands of boys and men who looked exactly like Jango. Suddenly, Shaak understood why Boba looked the way he did.  

They all looked like him, save for some DNA mutations, but even then, they were still noticeable. It was a horrific scene. The past years all made sense now; Jango must have gone crazy here. Shaak could only imagine the mental perils it put him through. Her poor boy...  

The Prime Minister, Lama Su, told Master Yoda that they were an army. Specially made, bred for combat, and more docile and gentle than Jango could ever be after all the horrors he’d seen. But they weren't spared from that. They weren't men; they were children being bred for a battlefield; they were all the possibilities that could have been... Now Jango had put their heads on the chopping block—the same way he had been. Shaak’s lower stomach began to hurt. She looked at all their faces, looking straight back at her. Every version of Jango was staring her dead in the face, searching for some sort of kind hand. Searching for a father or a mother.  

This is what mothers felt when they watched their sons be sent off to war. She understood why parents were so fearful and sad about giving up their children to be raised by the Jedi. She understood what Jango had felt at that moment, looking at the picture of Boba.  

It wasn't fair. None of it. From the moment Jango’s life was ripped apart to the moment he sentenced his children to die, Children will always die in war, and Jango chose not to break that cycle. Instead, he left the responsibility of thousands of children—children that could have been theirs—and cursed her to watch them file out and die. To never come home. For their bodies to be littered around the galaxy. 

Shaak’s body cramped, her hand gripping her stomach, but still she stood tall. 

“Hello!” A small voice piped up behind her, causing her to turn away from the balcony that overlooked the clones. Now starting to file in at Master Yoda’s order.  

She turned only to see a small girl with a mass of blond, curly hair. Now Shaak understood why Jango looked so tormented. Arla had come back to haunt him.  

“My name’s Omega,” she waved awkwardly, giving a small wave. “I heard you're a Jedi and that you’ve come to start working with my brothers.”

Shaak’s throat clenched, and she choked back a sob. The girl, Omega, brought Shaak to her knees, her eyes and heart growing softer and more forgiving. She must have been the same age as Boba, perhaps a twin. Shaak could only sigh and try not to cry. 

“My name is Jedi Master Shaak Ti, and you are the correct little one. The Jedi have arrived.” Shaak tried her best to sound calm and noble, but there was nothing noble about the act to follow.  

She turned around to face the large crowd of sons; there had to be at least millions in this facility alone, and more being made.  This was her responsibility; this is what Jango had meant; it was why he had to be cryptic. He’s created an army, and he’s made sure that his face haunts the galaxy long after his death. A curse she also shares now. Shaak watched as they marched, saluted, gathered their armor, and filed away for war. There was an ominous feeling in the air—something heavy and evil, but just on the outside of it all. Either way, these are her children now. They shared a common sadness as well; Jango abandoned her too. 

Now it was time to confront him. 

—

Shaak landed as soon as the fighting started. They hadn’t even touched the sandy ground, and her squad of clones were already fiercely loyal, maybe... It was just something in their blood.  

From the moment she stepped out of the gunship, Shaak was closed off from her feelings. There was only the force. This was the first battle, and the clones were bred for this battle. Not only by the Kaminoans, but she made it known to them that they were Mandalorians, humans, and warriors. Not science experiments, not clones. 

“You have the blood of conquerors in your veins; even if you can’t be proud of Jango, be proud of the Fett name.”  

War speech couldn’t stop the first son from falling or the second, but they continued to move. Like true Mandalorians. They deserved every title and every ownership of their culture; Shaak would make sure of it. It inspired Shaak enough to move through the battle droids like they were nothing, but even zoning in on battle could not stop her eyes from locking in on Mace Windu’s lightsaber. The purple was visa versa from across the battlefield.  

It was obvious that Mace Windu should be the one to do it; Shaak couldn’t. She would not be able to even raise her lightsaber to him, never mind strike him down. Mace would be the one to do it; that way, Jango would die for good.  

Shaak heard his jetpack over his head; the roar of it was loud and sent a shiver down Shaak’s back. She knew what was to come. Mace is going to kill him. Mace is going to kill Jango, and Shaak can do nothing about it.

‘I know he deserves it, but please, save the boy that was... please give him a break.’ Shaak lay on her knees, her forehead pressed against the floor, tears pooling on the marble below her. She’s been praying to the Force for so long that she doesn't even know if it's worth it anymore.  

‘He’s not lost yet; I know it; he’s just confused... He’s fought for too long; he’s seen too much to forgive... Just give him to me; I will keep him in one place, please.”

She watched one blaster bullet go, then the next. He always thought he could face Jedi head-on alone. 

“Shaak, 

I don’t write letters. I thought you knew that. But I know physical means more to you, and after this, maybe you would want a copy of my writing. One last keepsake. 

I know you’ll be mad at me about the clones, but you’ll understand. Soon. You’re the only one who will, and you are the only one who can justify my actions. That is, if you can forgive me. When the end nears, remember how I taught you to survive. 

I know what you thought when I told you about Boba. But, in truth, I don’t think I could have done it with anyone else. Not anyone but you. I’d make a joke about weird alien children, but you never liked those. You never liked a lot of my jokes, but I guess I was a jackass back then. Please watch over Boba. If he’s anything like me, he’s going to be so angry that you won’t be able to get through to him. Please don’t hold it against them; he’s a sweet boy. 

The clones are yours now. I expect you adopted them the moment you saw them. I’m sorry. 

I love you. In my own twisted way, I wanted to. I was scared. I’ve never been scared. I don’t know if we’ll be in the same afterlife, but I will find you. Over and over again, I will show up. 

You always talked about a normal world. Where you would be, there would be no one, and I’d still be a prince. I still would have found you.

You would have made a fair queen.

With Love,

Jango”

He died quickly.  

Shaak watched Mace raise his saber and slice his head right off. 

Jango always thought he could defeat them head-on.  

“You’re so stupid... you stupid kid.”  

Shaak buried his body with Boba. She held his strong hand one last time, laid her head on his chest, and listened for a heartbeat that wasn't there. She still denied the fact that his head was no longer attached to his body.  

She couldn't look at his face.  

His once handsome face, now stone cold, has been sunken in with death. It didn't look good on him, Shaak cried. He was meant to be in the sun; he was meant to be back on his farm—a King of Mandalore—anything but this. Everything he was, every experience he fought so hard to love through, ended with a quick lightsaber to the neck. Everything Shaak had loved was gone in mere seconds.  

Their time together flashed through her eyes as she lay there with her head on his still chest, crying. He had saved her, and she had done everything in her power to always be there to save him—but not this time. She knew he was up for the slaughter this time and did nothing. She watched. Shaak could feel her heart dying. If this is what love was, if this is what the Jedi meant, then she did not want it. The man who had cursed her to forever watch her sons die in war has died himself.  

The two buried him, an unofficial mother and son, burying the father. It was over. The storm has calmed, and his rage is over. 

“Boba–” Shaak tried to embrace the boy, but he only smacked her hands away.  

He ran. Angry, tears in his eyes, Boba ran. Just like his father.