#ik this is not new the worms just wanted me to make a post about it

[givehimthemedicine]

[bluebellhairpin]

Hey! It’s me again (your new fan of smth, anyway). I really enjoy your small posts and saw the one abt chatty mood so.

I see so many fandoms on your page. Do you maybe have a list of your personal loved characters, like your all time favourites?

If you don't wanna answer it's fine, I don’t want to burden you anyhow. I just felt like getting to know a writer that I like and who is a tad bit more active.

idk if you're prepared for the can of worms you've just opened, but considering you asked, I'll try not to hold back. I've got my top 5, plus a few honorable mentions - just for you <3

HONERABLE MENTIONS;

Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan) - I had such a phase for a while (one that lasted about 25 fic oneshots). As with most, he was the reason I got into aot in the first place. The rest is history.

Poe Dameron (Star Wars) - Again, huge phase (14 fics long this time). What can I say, I really liked that spunky pilot.

Thorin Oakenshield (The Hobbit) - Proud owner of my longest fic series (both in word count length, and how long it's taken to write - I started it in hish school, and I've been out of school for four years now. smh.)

Kenny Ackerman (Attack on Titan) - Like nephew, like uncle. I just think he's sexy.

Number 5 spot is held by our one and only BMI hero - Taishiro Toyomitsu! (My Hero Academia) (art by @/fittsythesnail)

I just think he's neat LOL. He's so soft, and he makes me so happy - tbh he's such an underrated fave of mine. He'd make sure I was always well fed, not just full but full of good food - something I often lack. He's very loverboy coded to me <3

Number 4 spot is taken by - Ser Harwin Strong! (House of the Dragon) (art by me)

Harwin is running in circles in my mind right now. He's the only selfship I've got with such an intense storyline. idk if it's something you can get behind, but hey if not you might be by the time I'm finally able to write anything for him.

Number three is our commander - Erwin Smith! (Attack on Titan) (art by @/veggiebr0th + @/54prowl)

Erwin is probably the character that's truly stood on this list the longest. And hardest. I love him a lot. Probably too much. I definitely find writing for him fun, especially when it comes to darker, grittier themes.

The newest character on this list takes out spot Number 2, no doubt aided by how fresh the love is - Kyojuro Rengoku! (Demon Slayer) (art by @/fittsythesnail)

What can I say. He set my hear ablaze.

And our last spot, Number 1, is taken by the one and only - Arthur Morgan! (Red Dead Redemption 2)

I just love him so so so much. So much that I can never sit down and write anything I'm happy enough with to publish. I hate how I can't write anything for him, because that mean's I can't really enter the community - ik it's not the only way, but it's the way I know best. WHICH THEN MEANS I can't really make mutuals to talk to. ABOUT HIM. Honestly that might not be a bad thing, because I probably wouldn't shut up.

[lambheartedgirl]

@godspetdog mwah thank u for tagging me!! tagging @momhorror @saintflint @hauntanelle @onlinepig and anyone else who wants to do it :-)

Do you make your bed? every few days when I obsessively clean my whole room

What's your favourite number? I hate numbers

What is your job? unemployed

If you could go back to school, would you? only to delay growing up a little longer + I miss pissing myself laughing on the walk home with my friends. now we only piss ourselves laughing in the comfort of the house we have to pay rent for :-(

Can you parallel park? I cannot even drive

A job you had that would surprise people? humbling but I have never had a job

Do you think aliens are real? definitely but they're probably microscopic or otherwise visually underwhelming

Can you drive a manual car? no and willing to bet I never will

What's your guilty pleasure? I don't feel guilty about my joy (just kidding it's all my morally reprehensible kinks)

Tattoos? none! I've been hearing the siren song of cybersigilism lately but ik I mustn't heed it

Favorite color? maroon/ blood red

Favorite type of music? hard to say overall but I love me some new wave, post-punk, femme punk/ riot grrrl, cold wave and indie rock

Do you like puzzles? no but it must be said I do fuck with a hexa-stack/ water sort mobile game situation

Any phobias? terrible thalassophobia. can't even swim in regular pools cause if I close my eyes I freak out

Favorite childhood sport? picking up worms and putting them in safe places. slowly walking around the perimeter of the playground. shouting at ppl much bigger than me

Do you talk to yourself? constantly

What movies do you adore? ginger snaps, sanctuary, super dark times, fresh, pearl, lisa frankenstein, the vvitch, carrie, superbad, school of rock!

Coffee or Tea? chai latte :3

First thing you wanted to be when you grew up? princess

[tractorbeamofwoe]

Hi do you think you’re done with writing or do you think you’ll ever come back to it? If you do pick it back up again who would you write for?

Hey, thanks for asking :)

This is gonna be a long ass answer so strap in lol. I’m not done with writing at all, or at least I don’t want to be done. There is still so much I want to say and get out there that I want to share with you guys. I still have so many WIPs and I’d preferably like to finish them before I die lmao even if you have to wait 40 years. Ik I’m kind of on a hiatus rn as far as writing goes (or at least writing for catfish anyway) but actually I am still writing behind the scenes. I do try and add to WIPs and chapters and I’m still having so many ideas. But it’s a long slow process and I just never feel like I can get these WIPs to a good enough standard to post them, or find the motivation/inspiration to finish them. You have no idea how much I’d love to continue Tyrants and the things in my head I have planned for it, but I’m just finding it super difficult and I feel awful for kind of abandoning you guys and abandoning all these projects for months at a time. I mean hell some of my fics haven’t been updated for at least a year. Maybe I need to bring back WIP weekends, if that’s smth you guys would like?

So to answer your first question, no I’m not done and yes I absolutely would love to come back to it when I’m in a better place. I’m also super super busy rn with final exams coming up and I’m starting uni in a few months too so lots of preparation going into that as I’m moving into an entirely new city. I’m just super tired all the time and I really do not write well when I’m tired I have all these thoughts but I get two sentences in and I’m out like a light.

To answer your second question, I truly don’t know tbh my fandoms have changed so much since I started this acc there’s so many people I would have loved/would still love to write for but I feel like obviously I have followers from a specific target audience it’s very hard to move into something else. Like I don’t wanna make people unhappy by writing other stuff yk? Basically I just don’t know what sort of reaction my writing will get (I mean the interaction on my fics are already bad as it is, I dread to think what it would be like if I posted something that appeals to absolutely none of my followers lol).

Ik I said I’d write some Stranger Things stuff and I actually have been! I’ve written a good chunk of the first chapter of a series I wanted to start, but again I just struggle to find inspiration anymore to finish it, but once I do I’m really really excited for people to see it. I’m still really into britpop too and I’m sure some of my mutuals absolutely wouldn’t object if I wrote about damon 😂 but I’ve just never really committed to getting any ideas down in writing yk? But I also kind of wanna move away from rpf sort of only because I find it kind of limiting with what you can do because there’s like an unspoken line you shouldn’t cross yk? Whereas fictional characters can kind of have endless possibilities. Especially ones that have their own universes and rules etc. And ik there’s nothing stopping me from writing AUs cause I’ve done several but idk it’s just not really quite the same. I kind of struggle with making original characters too which is not a handy weakness at all when writing series.

But ya then there’s the part of me that’s like hm I would’ve liked to have done some resdogs stuff, some bullet train stuff cause god knows there’s not enough fics of my fave films out there it would just be purely self indulgent tho.

but I also have like Leon Kennedy brainrot and my mate’s just gotten me on the mf wilbur soot/mcyt hype train which is a whole other can of worms I won’t get into in this post

But obviously I won’t do any of that until I finish all my old WIPs and requests for catfish, inhaler and Sam 💀💀

So basically if I came back it would be more of the same for a while and then suddenly just go completely off the rails. If you made it to the end I admire your patience I hope this wasn’t too boring to read. Love ya <3

[sydneyshipsstuff]

answering both of the recent tag games in one since im lazy (so scroll for the questions below the bingo)

tagged by @professional-benaddict (sorry for responding so late lol) and because i dont have too many mutuals, tagging anyone who sees it & wants to do it!

I chose my baby Spider-Man/Peter Parkee, with a focus on the starker fandom!

1. How did you discover your fave?

spider-man movies -> video edits on insta/tiktok -> irondad fanfics on wattpad -> ao3 -> looking at starker in disgust -> becoming a part of the fandom

2. How long have you been a fan of your fave?

since homecoming! when it first came out but it took me a while to start interacting with the fandom

3. Do you write for your fave? (E.g. AU's, Drabbles, Fan Fics.)

sorta! i don't actively write, just kinda drabble sometimes and i mostly dont post that, plus helping others write, i do have drafts that have been in my docs for years though

4. Do you like what is canon about your fave?

i do but i feel bad for him! poor guy has nobody :((, but before endgame i was in love with canon.

5. Tell some of your headcanons of your fave.

•his spider abilities on top of the originals like purring, cant have peppermint, hibernates, etc

•his love of animals, always stopping on patrols to say hi to them or trying to keep the strays he finss

•being worthy of mjolnir and picking it up without knowing the significance

•that he worms his way into the hearts of everyone he meets

6. Do you draw for your fave? (E.g. Fan Art)

no i dont, but i love seeing others fan art obviously!

7. If your fave/s are portrayed by several actors, who are your fave portrayers?

basic, ik, but tommy.

8. Are you more into Books/ Comics/Films when it comes to your fave?

mostly the fanfics then anything, but the movies and comics are so entertaining.

9. Quote anything about what your fave has said.

this ones weird but when i went to new york i went out of my way to go to moma because of him mentioning it to tony

10. Quote your favourite line of your fave!

basic but the "When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you." because even though its sad/semi unhealthy to put that pressure on yourself, i relate to it in a way and uphold myself to helping whenever i can.

11. Ever made a edit for/of your fave?

i dont think so? maybe photos but that would have been a while ago

12. Songs you associate with your fave?

anything to do w new york really

13. If your fave was real, do you think they'd like you?

i think so, if we meant in a natural way lolol, i try to be social and i think id be able to joke with him

14. Amongst your fave/s who do you think are you? (E.g. You have 5 faves, amongst the 5 of them you think of yourself as fave no.3)

skipping because i only am answering for the one

15. Do you know your fave origin story?

yes i doo, radioactive spider bite, yada yada, parents dead, yada yada, uncle shot, rip, grew up in queens & stayed there

16. In 1 word describe your fave’s aesthetic.

akward

17. Is/Are your fave/s famous on A03?

yes very much, but mostly for irondad

18. Ships that you like with your fave?

i do like irondad if thats even considered a ship, peter w tony, harley, steve, stephen, and bucky, either seperate or at the same time, and im open to other pairings too

19. Is/Are your fave/s well known?

yes very well

20. If your fave/s have a fandom, what do you think about the fandom?

i like them, idk if theyd like me now that ive gone to the dark side lol

21. Describe yourself using something your faves have said

oops kinda did this already for another question but, "I am Responsible. I…Oh crap. My backpack’s gone." I try to be responsible but i am very clumsy and forgetful lol, and i do a lot of stupid shit

22. If you would feed your fave/s something, what would it be?

as big of a meal as i could possibly make, very carby, probably pasta, get some meat on those bones and feed the super apetite

23. How do you see yourself in any of your fave/s?

i see the optimism/ akwardness in myseld as well, we are semi-close in age so i think that contributes to it

24. Ever taken a break from your fave/s?

sorta, it was very short and it was mostly in between going from irondad to starker as well as small breaks i took from everything lol

25. If your fave/s were to have a crossover, who and which character would they have a crossover with?

well they did have one with stephen and the other spidermen but i think it would be cool to see him really interacting w the women of marvel, aka kate, yelena or natasha (also rip), pepper, captain marvel, america chavez, etc.

[melodythebunny]

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆WELCOME to my dreamscape!⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

(also known as my blog)

｡ﾟ..｡(っ ᐛ )っ 𝖍𝖎

i'm Melody! You can call me Mel if you want. o₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎

-Please read through this before interacting!-

I draw....like...ALOT. No seriously! I can fill up an entire notebook in a short time period. both traditional and digital art...though I tend to have my time to post my digital works.

I also write and love LOVE LOVE! To read. Pretty much a book worm also.

I have a sweet tooth and occasionally I love eating savoury foods.

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼 𓋼 𖤣𖥧 𓋼𓍊

My hyperfixtations can be and not limit to:

Wordgirl, Eddsworld, Adventure Time, BATIM, Cuphead, DHMIS, bee and puppycat, and undertale/deltarune

I like to make ocs. Be for a fandom or original work! („• ֊ •„)੭

Speaking of original works...

Im hoping to turn one of my ideas into an animated series someday!

i really post most of my original content on my side blog @the-mis-adventurers (it means alot to me if you do look at my original work) ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ഒ

𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

(ˊ•͈ ◡ •͈ˋ) is okay to ask/do

-art commissions! Only if you want and have the money. Message me about commissions.

-art trades (depends on how busy I am tho)

-collabs/crossovers yes plz!

-rp (also long as it isn't that creepy stuff or adult rps like NSFW, that stuff makes me uncomfortable)

-Art requests are for FRIENDS only. Bc I trust that they will repsect my limits u-u (don't friend me just so you can Free art. (•ˋ _ ˊ•) I AM A PERSON WITH FEELINGS TOO!)

-share headcanons, rant about each others ocs

-tone tags helps with jokes so no one gets confused on anything

❌❌❌ Things I DONT LIKE/accept or have limits with

-venting (venting is OK as long as we KNOW eachother. And we both feel comfortable venting to each it other, keeping in mind that neither of us are professionals/therapist and everyone's experiences are different)

-NSFW, fetishes (this include jokes, asking for me to talk and draw it, rping that, showing any of that to me. ILL BLOCK YOU WITHOUT SECOND THOUGHTS)

-hate talk/speech

-please don't harrass me for art

-trying to bring drama. (I got enough drama to deal with irl )

-Pro shipping and incest (EDIT: including selfcest. Its confusing to me and I don't get it)

keep in mind that if I feel uncomfortable its in my right to block you.

shipsss. Yeah I have ships... (No hate. I understand some of these are considered mid by the vast majority but idc/pos) and I'll update the list over time bc I'm always joining new fandoms.

Experimental cheese (two brains x oc)

star crossed cheese (two brains/Steven x oc)

Bigslie ( Mr. Big x Leslie)

Quesibrent

Plasmarope

whatever the ship between the butcher and dupey is called

tobecky

Whatever the ship between violet and scoops is called

Starco (yeah ik it's mid but I could have written them better)

Jantom (aka the ship between Janna and Tom.)

cherry oreos (if you know you know)

Cherry soda (same with this one)

Dancing portraits

Randy x Theresa (Rc9gn)

edd x coco

Edd x honey(the ship has grown on me)

Eduardo x laurel (depends on the fanon version of they're exes or not)

Eduardo x Claire

(Ik almost nothing about My hero academia but I have two ships) dabi x miruko and izuocha

fluttercord. (I may have fallen out of mlp but this is my forever otp for that fandom)

Sonamy

Silvaze

Tailsmo

Knuckles x Rouge

cherry pie (bob x oc)

Sugar crash (Kevin x oc)

pastel gothic (streber x oc)

deadly love (patty x friend's oc)

inner reflections (Dexter x friend's oc)

Some cool friends/mutuals to check out!

@crazywolf85 @wordgirl-reboot-eva @nyxcharliechaos @animation-is-my-jam @ninjastormhawkkat @drtwobrains @drtwobrainsstuff @professor-boxleitner @oddedd @kagurafernandes @lartmacabre

@earth-420-69. @liloskull343 @pantakichi @bloodthirstypigeon @kadiwright @notsosw3et @peanutbutter-doodles @fluffytimearts @hibiscus-candy @soupsy-daisy @misscreativity94

@luckykaix @spaaceeboyy @lauritanaomystery @sfcabanasstarcgs

Andd A BUNCH of other cool peeps too! 😊

[star-puff]

announcement !

i've been drafting this post in my head for months tbh but i'm just gonna start it off & get straight to the point: i'm leaving tumblr!

well, i (meg, of tumblr user star-puff acclaim) am leaving tumblr, more specifically, haikyuu fic tumblr. this probably does not come as a surprise to a lot of you considering my past activity over the past few months (or lack thereof), but like i said before i'd been thinking about leaving tumblr ever since june of last year. the original plan was to leave at the end of summer 2021 because i'd Assumed i would have finished at least One of my series by then but . but well :") turns out it was more difficult than i thought to meet that deadline :"")

(skip the end of the post to get the important @s and links to where i'll be next :) )

why i'm leaving:

there were a lot of reasons why i wanted to leave back then, and i won't really get into it in This post; i feel like what i felt back then was a common sentiment in the community and digging into that can of worms unwarranted is a bit . yknow, lmao. but if someone is still curious i'll still answer, because to a certain degree what i felt back then is a reason of why i'm leaving Now. the real reason i'm actually leaving though is because i've just lost all motivation for writing haikyuu fic. call it the loss of hyperfixation or me just becoming too busy to write and be online like i used to, or just me being tired of it all, but at some point writing for this blog started to feel less of an outlet and more like an obligation or a chore. it didn't really help that a good chunk of my friends & mutuals on this corner of hqblr had already left and my interaction as a whole was just looking a little ... 🤕, and it didn't really show signs of getting any better with all my time offline either. i'm saying this as objectively as possible, but i feel like there just isn't really a place for me here anymore, at least a place that anyone would really care to visit or stay at anymore, so i'm just going to cut my losses and not overstay my welcome more than i already have :) /gen

what about strawberry marmalade?

i really am sorry for those who were looking forward to seeing me finish strawmarm, but the way things are looking ... </3 i'll probably be uploading all of my long fics over to my ao3 and see if i ever come back to writing and finishing strawmarm, because i really Did have it all planned out,,, but well . you know where we are now :") long story short, strawmarm is discontinued unless i miraculously get hyperfixated on haikyuu and that embarrassingly stupid strawberry man again

okay? what now 🤨🤨:

i'll be leaving this blog up as an archive! i honestly thought about deleting it but after thinking it over i think i'd end up missing and regretting it if i did, so i'm leaving it up for the memories (i'm sentimental and sappy like that ... cringe ik :/). i'll probably leave another post before i leave giving the same links in an easier to read format without all this ... [gestures above] LMAO but you can find my new tumblr @togeqii and my ao3 @/togeqi :) if any mutuals want my discord feel free to ask too!

in any case, this was star-puff's meg!

i'll stay until next week to say my goodbyes and answering any asks that get sent in (if they get sent in 🤕🤕) before i log out of this account for good but yeah! thank you for indulging in my brainrot and word vomit for a year and a half, thank you for those who stuck with me since the beginning and thank you to those who joined along the way. you all really did make me smile through the toughest times <3 thank you to all of my mutuals, those who were stayed Friends On Dash and those who became more than that :) and this is sappy but yuren if you end up reading this, thank you for writing fic that inspired me to make this blog in the first place :) you're a real one for that <3

lots of love, always, even till the end <3

[palbabor-writes]

KDJDJSLSKS OK SO- ik it’s widely accepted for Tomura to be kind of an asshole to y/n, but what if 😌 he had the kinda “asshole to the world but never to your girl” thing going on? 😌😌😌😌 I live, I love 🥰

Hey, hi, hey ✨

So, I pretty much exclusively write Tomura with that idea in mind. For me, it’s just a...if I can say this, a canon compliant concept.

Moar under the cutttt + spoilers for post Overhaul arc & MVA arc.

You opened a can of worms nonnie. I’m going to answer the ask, but imma hop on my soap box first ✨

Tomura I would argue, is less of an asshole and more of a sassafras. He is snarky, snarky & I love his attitude.

I feel like early Tomura is the main font of this “asshole” misconception within the fandom. Horikoshi wrote him very differently in the beginning of BNHA. Pretty much everyone who met him called Tomura a “man child.” And he kinda is. He’s impatient and short tempered, but not once did he react to these slights with what I would classify as asshole behavior. Even when his life is threatened, he’s being a little sassy boi.

He’s annoyed in these panels. But he’s not like, hey, you fucking dick, get off my nuts before I kill you. If anything, he elaborates on his thoughts and is challenging Stain to pick up the crappy pieces of his own shoddy “theories.” To Tomura, killing heroes is only breeding MORE heroes. He feels Stain’s plan is flawed & he tells him so.

Tomura is also easily able to slip into different roles. He can fit in with others and make himself part of the crowd. He’s got mountains of self control. When he spies Izuku in the mall he doesn’t come at him with some angry outburst, instead he reverts to snark:

Look at his voice bubbles! They’re a little wavy, but they’re nothing like his usual bubbles. This man can modulate and control how he sounds. He’s going for something open and friendly, albeit, his general demeanor is creepy, but he still manages to get close to Izuku and catch him off guard.

This is the worst outburst we see from Tomura. He’s not spewing vitriol or degrading dialogue, if anything, he’s controlling himself. He’s not wanting to kill these guys anymore and he’s scratching out some space for himself. He needs time to process. He’s a little rude, I guess, but who hasn’t told someone to shut up? It’s a normal piece of conversation when you’re annoyed.

But ken, what about asshole behavior that is visible in the manga? I gotchu, don’t worry.

This guy? Dabi? Yeah, this guy is an example of an asshole. He’s abrasive and confrontational from the GET. Tomura only responses to his aggression, he doesn’t project his frustration until after Dabi has called him fucking GROSS. You talk a lotta shit when you look like THAT king. Like, the morgue called, and they want their burn victim BACK.

Again, Tomura is snarky, but he only calls Toga a freak after she spouts some nonsense about loving Stain so much she wants to kill him. These people are wild and he is not pleased. His ad in the paper asked for COMPETENT villains, not teens, tweens and anything in between.  

Plus, Mr. 3rd Degree Burns keeps ignoring his questions. I’d be peeved too, y’all.

Dabi is the asshole in the LOV. He goes out of his way to be nasty, especially to Spinner:

How does Tomura deal with Spinner? He treats him as an equal, even asks his opinion on battle strategy when they are in Deika City.

Tomura has changed a toooon over the course of this manga. Horikoshi has deepened his growth and created a very well rounded and complex character. He cares about his people and he hates being disrespected. Hell, he hates when his people are taken advantage of.

This man, if you are on his side, will fight for you.

So, I don’t write him as an asshole. To me, that is fanon and not canon. Now writing him as blunt, snarky and impatient? Sure. Because, to me, he IS all those things and we can see him being all those things.

ANYWAY. If you made it this far, here is the Drabble:

“They haven’t checked in for two days. Should I call them? I told Toga she needed to-“

“Don’t bother. If it exposes our hand, then this whole mission is a waste.”

“But if they-“

“Why do I need to repeat myself? Like I said, if our plan is revealed then Mange’s death, and your fucking arm, were sacrificed for no reason. Don’t call them, Compress.”

You’re perched on the edge of a large box, watching the tense exchange. Tomura has been quiet the last few days, even keeping you at an arms length. He’s upset, and he’s been brittle, jagged in his recent conversations and movements.

Compress tosses you a quick glance and shrugs, his light brown eyes darkening. “All right, I suppose we can go off of the old saying that: no news, is good news. However, I am going to ask Toga to maintain regular check in’s the next time she calls.”

“Fine,” Tomura grunts, following Compress’ line of sight, his eyes lingering over your seated form. “Is that all?”

“Yes, yes,�� Compress nods, his gloved hand waving in the air beside his head. “That’s all from me. I’ll check on the van. Giran said it would be available this afternoon.”

Tomura continues his silent observation of you, barely lifting his chin to acknowledge Compress’ statement.

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Compress continues, letting out a soft chuckle as he turns on his heel, closing the heavy door behind him.

“You think they’re ok?” You ask, your voice soft.

Tomura removes Father from his face, his long white hair falling around his cheeks. “I told them I trusted in their abilities. It’s not sending the right message if I pester them for intel and their whereabouts every few days. Don’t you start up, too.”

You laugh and hop off the crate, your feet padding you over to him. “I’m not, it’s just...it’s so soon after...I mean, Mange’s death was...”

“Yes. Chisaki is an idiot if he thinks one lackey of his is equal to our Mange. This has to work.”

You lift a hand, pressing your fingers across his jaw, cupping his warm skin. Tomura leans into your touch, his vermilion eyes slipping behind his hooded eyelids.

“It will,” you confirm, pulling him down to your lips.

∩(・ω・)∩

Sorry for the lecture. It was a fun ask to answer! 

Bonus!

[spoondrifts]

long post ahead I'm sorry-

crack au where Jonah Magnus is a good guy but everything keeps going wrong and he spends all of his time running around trying to stop his employees from diving headfirst into their Fuck Up™ of the week

in this au Jonah is almost entirely incompetent but he's got the exasperated parent thing down enough to make up for his lack of braincells

he's also at least 7% dumber than he is in canon

s1 Jon: please call pest control there are so many worms

s1 Elias: I already did

Jon: and??

Elias: they ate them

Jon: the worms?

Elias: the pest control guys. the worms ate them

Elias spends the entirety of season 2 desperately trying to convince Jon that none of them killed Gertrude (in this au Gertrude just had a stroke or something in the tunnels). Elias stops Jon from destroying the table but a week later something heavy falls on it and the NotThem escapes anyway. Elias bashes in Leitner's head with a pipe after mistaking him for the monster and Jon gets framed.

now Elias has to convince this hunter that Jon is innocent while Jon runs around and harasses various fear avatars (who are all very amused with Elias' wayward Archivist). Jon assumes Elias knows nothing about all this bullshit because Elias is just his weird and uptight boss who accidentally killed someone, he can't possibly know that there are literally fear gods ruling over them

olive ⚰ has named the group 'Avatars ✨'

JMagnus 👀: Jude please don't hurt him. I'll explain everything when he gets back to the Institute.

🔥: too late

JMagnus 👀: What?

🔥: too late

🔥: burned him

[JMagnus 👀 is typing]

JMagnus 👀: Where is he now.

🔥: going to mike

JMagnus 👀: Mike Crew???

🔥: ya

Elias RACES to Mike's house but he. he fucking misses them. the Beholding helpfully tells him that they're all going back to the Institute so Basira and Daisy can interrogate him, which isn't ideal, he'd really like to not go to jail, so he drafts up an employment contract on the way back and barely manages to escape the whole thing with his life intact.

then he explains everything to Jon because if Jon is going to end up being the Archivist, being uninformed won't do. Jon becomes the Archivist completely on accident and Elias is desperately trying to make all of this work because, haha, the Unknowing is coming up, and Elias is not in the fucking mood to deal with clowns.

olive ⚰ has named the group 'all that is terror uwu'

spidey🕸: lmfaooo jonah how do you make an archivist on accident

JMagnus 👀: He stumbled into it. All I can do now is ensure he doesn't die.

JMagnus 👀: Or get further injured by the rest of you.

🔥: woops

🎭: hEy gUyS lOnG tiMe nO sEe

🎭: gEt iT eLiAs

🎭: sEe

JMagnus 👀: Beholding puns are not amusing from a manifestation of the Stranger.

🎭 has named the group 'eLiAs bE niCe tO niKoLa cHaLlEnGe'

🔥: haha

spidey🕸: I'm sure Nikola will be on her best behavior

🎭: yEaH i wOnT kiDnAp yOuR aRcHiViSt

[JMagnus 👀 is typing]

mike n ike: hey guys what'd I miss

🔥: arent you dead

mike n ike: yeh but I came back

JMagnus 👀: NIKOLA ORSINOV WHERE IS JONATHAN SIMS

🔥: can't you see haha

mike n ike: heh "see"

JMagnus 👀: NIKOLA

spidey🕸: wow he must be pissed

spidey🕸: he left out the punctuation

JMagnus 👀: I WILL BREAK ALL OF YOUR PLASTIC BONES WHERE'S MY ARCHIVIST

🎭 has left the chat.

JMagnus 👀: what the FUCK

since he's still a coward Elias sends Michael to go fetch Jon, only finding out after the fact that he very nearly almost signed Jon's death warrant. Elias is now speedrunning Jon's development because fuck the Unknowing is coming up really quickly and Tim is a self destructive mess and Melanie keeps trying to stab Elias and Martin is a pining idiot and goddammit he didn't sign up for this

Elias prepares Jon the best he can for the Unknowing, because even though he knows the ritual will fail, the Circus can still cause a considerable amount of damage and he needs them out of the way.

the Unknowing happens. Jon ends up in a wack ass coma, Tim is dead, Daisy's in the coffin, and Basira is starting to look like the better choice of Archivist because jesus christ Jon has no self preservation instinct. Elias doesn't get arrested this time around but his ex husband starts coming by the Institute and fucking with all his employees. and the Flesh is attacking. jesus. goddamn.

olive ⚰ has named the group 'bully elias'

JMagnus 👀: Why are you all so mean to me? I'm arguably the nicest one here.

🔥: ur joking right

Peter Lukas: you're not nice you didn't buy me an anniversary gift 😢😢😢

JMagnus 👀: I was busy.

Peter Lukas: doing what

JMagnus 👀: Stopping the Flesh from destroying my Institute. Besides, you didn't remember my birthday.

Peter Lukas: you're 200 years old how could I remember 😓

helen!!!!!: We All Know I'm The Nicest One Here!!

JMagnus 👀: How did you make your text that colorful?

helen!!!!!: IDK

JMagnus 👀: Liar.

helen!!!!!: That's Literally My Job

olive ⚰: hey eli your archivist just woke up I think

🔥: ew why

helen!!!!!: How Delightful!! Maybe I'll Throw Him A Glad You're Alive Party!!

olive ⚰: should we invite him to this chat since he's an avatar now

Peter Lukas: no 🙅 🚫❌

Peter Lukas: I hate archivists 😤😤

olive ⚰: still mad about gertrude huh

🔥: were all still mad about gertrude

🔥: but jons fine once you burn some manners into him

JMagnus 👀: Can you all please stop hurting Jon? Or talking about hurting him? I would like my Archivist to not acquire any more scars.

🔥: damn

Peter Lukas: damn 😔

Elias keeps trying to teach Jon how to pick certain victims to feed off of because personally he has no qualms about feeding from innocents but Jon!! actually trusts him!!! so Elias doesn't want to push Jon into making decisions that will offend his moral sensitivities.

things are actually going okay for a while. Elias starts going home at a reasonable time in the evenings and Jon is actually getting some sleep. and then-

Elias is having a nice dream about Peter trying to fish Simon Fairchild out of a sky filled with eyes when he abruptly sits up in bed, wide awake.

"Ah, fuck," he says to Peter, who is laying on the floor where it is Lonelier™. "Jon's doing something stupid. I Know it."

Peter's mumbled "isn't he always" goes unnoticed as Elias hurries to the Institute, where he finds a fucking rib on Jon's desk and the coffin in the middle of the room.

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'archivists ruin my sleep schedule and my sex life'

JMagnus 👀: What the fuck do I do?? I can't go into the Buried! Why is Jon so stupid? I didn't know he had zero braincells when I hired him!

🔥: ngl why havent you fired him yet

JMagnus 👀: Beholding won't let me. We're all bound to the Institute.

🔥: F

JMagnus 👀: Why are there no Buried avatars in here? Please someone help me.

mike n ike: lol the buried is gross why would anyone go down there

spidey🕸: does he have an anchor?

[JMagnus 👀 sent an image]

🔥: is that a fucking rib

spidey🕸: wow that's not a good anchor at all

spidey🕸: he needs someone he loves

JMagnus 👀: Thanks. Gtg.

spidey🕸: np

🔥: are we not going to talk about his rib

🔥: how the fuck did he get that out of his body

🔥: yall

🔥: YALL

it takes three days for Elias to find Martin.

"Please tell me why the fuck you're dabbling in the Lonely," Elias says as Martin steps sheepishly out of the fog.

"Ah. Well. Jon can't See into it very well and sometimes we like to spice up our se-"

"Stop before I have to gouge my eyes out again."

"A-Again-?"

Elias drags Martin back to the Institute. Martin starts setting tapes on the coffin because "Jon loves these" and Elias starts bashing his head into the wall.

Jon climbs out of the coffin with Daisy and Elias almost considers locking Jon in his office so the damn archivist can't do anything else ridiculous. instead, Elias very calmly takes Jon by the shoulders, and shakes him like a rag doll.

"Stop fucking with entities, you stupid, stupid man," Elias says, shaking Jon more viciously now.

after several hours of breathing exercises Elias returns to his house and doesn't take his Sight off of Jon for the rest of the night, which is a fun experience for Peter when he wakes up and finds Elias' bloodshot eyes staring directly at him in the morning.

JMagnus 👀 added Daisy to 'archivists ruin my sleep schedule and my sex life'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'archivist hate club'

JMagnus 👀 has named the chat 'shut up peter'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'you love jon more than me'

JMagnus 👀 has named the chat 'I don't love either of you I'm heartless'

Peter Lukas has named the chat 'I want a divorce'

spidey🕸: jeez take your marital dispute elsewhere

spidey🕸 has named the chat 'lonelyeyes dni'

Daisy: wtf is this

mike n ike: it's a chat for avatars

mike n ike: and ex avatars ig

Daisy: didn't I kill you

mike n ike: yea

JMagnus 👀: Hello, Daisy. Welcome to the group chat.

Daisy: why is Jon not in here

Peter Lukas: because I hate him 😁

spidey🕸: Elias talks mad shit in here and Jon would get offended

Daisy: if you talk bad about Jon I'll rip your throat out

Daisy: :)

JMagnus 👀: Noted.

mike n ike: he's kinda rude tho

Daisy: I've killed you once

Elias' only goal now is to keep Jon and his assistants from pulling any more wild stunts without his supervision. his renewed involvement with the archival staff results in a few things he'd hoped to avoid: drink invites, physical contact (Martin is surprisingly quick to start hugging Elias once he realizes Elias won't stop him), and- shudder -feelings. because Elias genuinely cares about his staff and doesn't want any harm to befall them. especially Jon. Jon is his Archivist, the only one to ever succeed like this, and Elias will be damned if he lets anything happen to him.

"Why do you care?" Jon asks, once, compulsion thrumming like static on his tongue. "About us, I mean. I would've assumed you'd want to perform the Beholding's ritual."

Jonah Magnus attempted the Watcher's Crown once, when he was young and new. he'd brought his patron close, but not all the way through, and the backlash of power killed all the inmates at Millbank and severely crippled Jonah's connection to the Eye for months afterward. he grew to assume that the Beholding simply preferred the world as it was--ripe with fear for watching. it didn't need a ritual.

he instead dedicated himself to growing stronger, cultivating his Institute of knowledge, his stronghold. if he tore out a few people's eyes when he got too old, then, well, collateral. but he doesn't want the world to end, and knows now that no ritual will ever succeed unless it brings in all the Powers at once. and he doesn't want that either.

it's concerning to him that Jon seems to be collecting marks regardless. the only ones he's missing are the Dark and the Lonely, and Elias is determined to keep it that way.

he explains all of this to Jon who, to his credit, takes it pretty well. Jon is fascinated with historic life and Elias spends some time simply recounting tales of his youth, when he still bore the name Magnus.

they bond. it's good.

and one day Basira does a little too much research and discovers the dark sun waiting in Ny Alesund. she insists they need to go and see what's left of the People's Church, they need to ensure everything is taken care of. Jon is rather insistent too. and Elias wouldn't have been inclined to let them go, except Peter was finally home after weeks at sea, and it wasn't like Jon was defenseless, he could call Elias if anything went wrong...

so, very reluctantly, Elias gives them the all clear. Basira, Jon, and Martin head north, and Elias almost forgets they've gone when he arrives home and Peter already has dinner prepared.

Jon comes back marked by the Dark.

Elias curses himself, over and over, for being foolish enough to let them go, for not keeping a closer eye on them. he knows the ritual won't work unless a certain incantation is spoken, so he'll just have to keep world-ending written chants away from Jon. easy. and it's not like Jon will even get marked by the Lonely. Peter wouldn't.

(but Martin doesn't have the same level of control, and sometimes...)

it's an accident. Martin and Jon are testing it, pushing the boundaries, when Martin pulls them both into the Lonely. Elias threatens divorce until Peter caves and fetches them, but it's too late. Jon has been marked by all fourteen Powers.

Elias tells him, and warns him to check everything he reads.

helen!!!!! has named the chat 'apocalypse babey'

JMagnus 👀: How are you doing that?

JMagnus 👀: And the apocalypse is not imminent. I have the situation under control.

olive ⚰: ha yeah

JMagnus 👀: What do you mean by that?

olive ⚰: nothing

JMagnus 👀: Well, now I certainly think it's something.

olive ⚰: it's just

olive ⚰: don't you think it's kinda weird that @spidey🕸 has been offline for so long

🔥: thats weird shes always online

JMagnus 👀: Oliver, what are you implying?

olive ⚰: idk

olive ⚰: just weird, that's all

🔥: never good when the spiders are quiet

olive ⚰: hear hear

Elias gets a sinking feeling in his stomach, and beside him, Peter looks alarmed. meanwhile, in his flat with Martin making tea in the other room, Jon has a statement clutched in his grasp.

Hello, Jon.

I would apologize for the deception, but I'm afraid that's quite what I'm good at. I'm not one to monologue, that's more Jonah's shtick, so shall we get on with things?

I admit I underestimated Jonah Magnus. He's still remarkably easy to manipulate, but when he abandoned the Watcher's Crown ritual I knew I would have to take a different approach. The Mother is not so satisfied with the world as she may have insinuated. It is our turn to rise, Jon.

At the age of eight, you were marked by us. We sent you to the Magnus Institute in the hopes that a new Archivist would rekindle Jonah's desire to end the world. Unfortunately, it seemed as though he grew fond of you, and so we brought in a new plan. We marked you. One fear at a time. Jonah gave an admirable attempt at protecting you, but ultimately, he is an incompetent old fool, and I am a Weaver. Even Jonah Magnus dances to invisible strings.

Everyone underestimates a spider until it bites. Poison is poison, Jon, regardless of the medium in which it is served.

You will be safe in this new world. Martin, too. Perhaps even Jonah and his Lukas, if the Mother deems them worthy.

Now, please repeat after me...

Jon reads the ink scratched words, eyes welling up with tears and hands trembling, as thunder crashes outside and a howling gale picks up beyond the windows. Martin is shouting something, there's the crawling press of Elias' gaze as it rests heavy behind Jon, a silent observer. He can feel Elias' soothing presence, cool and calm in the raging storm.

Elias is still watching out for him.

Strings are wrapped around his wrists, jerking his arms up in a poor mockery of religious regard, strange hysterical laughter clawing out from his throat.

Jon's tears run red. Somewhere, Elias is still watching.

The door opens.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

BTHB: Touch Starved (Danny/Nate)

@badthingshappenbingo​ request answered! Anon requested: Would you be willing to write the ‘touch starvation’ prompt with Nate and Danny? Thanks!

I had initially thought I’d do a post-rescue piece, but this ended up going in a during-captivity direction, so if that isn’t what you wanted, Anon, I’d be happy to write another one, just send me an ask and let me know! Timeline: Late October the year Danny turns 25, so post-Happy Birthday.

Tagging the Danny people: @bleeding-demon-teeth​, @spiffythespook​, @special-spicy-chicken​!

CW: Implied/referenced sexual assault/rape, implied/referenced/visible evidence of torture and violent abuse, discussion of harm to animals (no animals harmed in this fic). Brief suicidal ideation (just a mention)

“How long is he going to be gone?” Danny asks, stopping by a large fallen log, dropping into a crouch to look at some mushrooms that were growing out of the decaying bark, a hint of green moss. He pulls at the rough leather collar around his throat, wincing at the always raw or half-healing skin underneath that stings when exposed to the air.

There’s a little padlock on the buckle now to make sure Nate won’t take it off before Abraham gets home. He used to, and Abraham caught him, once, when he was trying to rub antibiotic cream on Danny’s throat and Abraham came home earlier than they expected.

Now it’s padlocked on.

“He s-s-said three to f-four days this time,” Nate replies, standing a few feet away with his own eyes watching a little moth that had settled itself against a tree trunk, nearly invisible with wings the exact shade of the bark, with the same appearance of rough texture.

“Good. I like when he goes for four days.” Danny just watches him for a moment, looking at the older man with his black hair a little shaggy, hanging down to his eyes, the stubble he lets grow on his face when Abraham doesn’t care if he shaves today. There’s a focus in those green eyes, as they watch the moth close its wings and then open them again, that Danny loves.

He wants that focus on him, but he can’t have that, because Nate belongs to Abraham and Danny’s not a person anymore. He’s not allowed to have things, to want things. To want people. He’s not allowed to want Nate.

He doesn’t even want Nate, does he? He just wants… someone. Anyone who isn’t Abraham Denner. Someone to care about him, to love him, to touch him.

No, it is Nate. He wants Nate to love him.

He wants Nate to care about him, because he can’t remember what it was like to be cared about in a way that didn’t involve… all of this.

I wish you would touch me, he thinks, and then banishes the thought and turns back to the moss, trying not to be all too aware of Nate’s shoulders beneath the warm, dusky blue cable-knit wool of his sweater, the way he stands in the loose-fit heavy khaki pants, the way Danny knows exactly how well they fit around his hips.

Walking traps is hard on Nate the last few weeks, the whole circuit takes a few miles when you do it all at once and having to step over the logs and tree branches and other things, following the marked trail from snare to snare, leaves him limping by the end, teeth ground together, jaw set. Danny’s not sure what happened exactly, only that Nate and Abraham had some kind of fight when Danny was last in the cellar, and Abraham came away with scratches on the side of his neck and the first bruise Danny has ever seen on him and Nate came away with a leg that got hurt, somehow, someway.

So the trail is harder for him, now, while it heals. 

But Danny’s not allowed to go alone, and he’s not allowed to help Nate walk, either, because that would mean touching him. No one but Abraham touches Danny now, except when Abraham thinks it’s funny to have Nate hurt him.

When Abraham laughs at his protests, looks right in his eyes, and then Nate can’t say no, just like nobody can say no, after a while. Nate turns white as a ghost after and drinks until he passes out and he probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Danny anyway, it’s just that they’re the only people here who aren’t Abraham, they only have each other.

But Nate stopped touching him at all, after the last time Abraham made him do it. He thinks months ago, but Danny doesn’t know time as well as he used to, he forgets. Not too long after Abraham said it was his birthday, that he’s twenty-five now.

Not long after that, one night it was really bad, and Nate hasn’t so much as brushed against him since. Hasn’t snuck out at night to watch movies with him, invite him onto the couch, touch his fingers while they work together in the garden.

Nothing.

Nothing but Abraham’s hands.

It’s been so long and Danny just wishes, just for a second, that there was someone to touch him where it didn’t end in something else, something worse. He wants touch without shame, touch that isn’t forced on him or part of a barter, touch that doesn’t end in a knife or demands or orders or that barking high-pitched laughter that worms into his head and won’t stop.

He wants someone (Nate) to put a hand to the small of his back, just rest it there, and remove it again without having to trail fingers up his neck to the carved-in scarring of who he belongs to. He wants a hand in his hair that doesn’t pull until it hurts. He wants touch without pain, without the guilt in Nate’s eyes, without crying or exhaustion or being told what to do.

He can’t have that, though, and all he wants - all he wants in the whole world, now, a world that is narrow and caged-in - is just to hold Nate’s hand, maybe, just for a goddamn second.

No. Not allowed.

Wrong thoughts.

(who do your hands belong to? is this body yours, or mine?)

Y-yours, it’s yours, it’s not mine anymore, not my body.

(good boy)

He’s not going to think about Nate’s hands, calloused from when he chops wood, too, from the work he does alongside Danny in the garden during spring and summer. The way they went from looking almost delicate and meant for opening books, taking annotations and typing lectures, to roughened and coarse outdoorsman’s hands. He won’t think about the way Nate had brushed sweaty hair back from his face when he was sick and sometimes slept beside him on the floor.

He’s not going to think about the sweetness of Nate’s eyes on his, sometimes, when Abraham isn’t looking. He’s not going to think about how that stopped, too, after the bad night where Abraham had had a new idea and made Nate carry it out.

He’s not going to think about what he wants and cannot have.

He’s not going to think about any of it because it’s not for him.

He’s not going to think about how sometimes it’s not just his stomach that’s hollow, but his skin. His scarred-up worthless skin that feels hungry, for someone, for anyone who won’t hurt him. Right down to the tips of his fingers. He’s carved out into a yawning nothing that can’t stop craving someone, something else, something more, something better.

There is nothing better.

This is the best life will ever be again.

Don’t think about his hands.

Danny squints at the half-decayed hollow log, trying to distract himself. Did he read in one of the books they make you read in school that moss mostly grows on the north side of things? He feels like he might have heard that, once upon a time, in the life that he never lived, that doesn’t exist, because there was never anything before Abraham.

The mushroom cap gives a little under the touch of his finger, and he wishes he could feel it better, that his hands weren’t rough and calloused and half-numb after so long, the only part of him that never notices the cold. He wishes it was someone’s (Nate’s) skin. The moss he can kind of feel, a sort of soft brush of texture, and he looks at the deep dark green of it, smiling faintly. 

Moss only grows on the north side of trees. Wasn’t there a character in a book who got lost, and they remembered that trying to find their way home? Which would mean if he walked the other way, the way the moss didn’t grow, he would go south. South and south and south, walk out of the woods one day, cross the border, go home. Take Nate with him and then maybe one day ask if he wanted to, if he could-

Stop it.

This is home.

Don’t think about that, that belongs to Abraham now.

(you’re here until I’m done with you, little Red, and let me reassure you that you don’t want me to be done with you)

Besides, he didn’t know shit about moss. He’s not allowed to read the navigation parts of the survivalist books the body left behind in the cabin, Abraham ripped those pages out (“H-how fucking d-d-dare you, Bram, that’s a book, you c-c-can’t just r-rip apart books l-ike that! That’s like a fucking s-s-sacrilege!”) and left him only the cooking and the ways to make your own medicine. Danny only knows what he’s allowed to know, what it’s okay to know. He only knows what Abraham says he should know.

Everything else is buried in the pain, and he lets it stay there, down in the muck, like the animals in the tar pits Dad took them to see when they were kids (no he didn’t, you never did that, you’re making it up). Abraham is always telling him his memories are wrong, full of holes, fucked up beyond repair. That he shouldn’t try to use his mind or think, because thinking isn’t what he’s here for, is it?

(you’re here for me)

Yes, Abraham, for-… for you, I’m here for you.

(good boy)

Danny bites his lower lip, and thinks about the bruise on his hip, still aching and made of dark purples and blacks today, teeth marks in perfect half-circles on each side of where the bone stuck out under the skin, slightly scabbed. Abraham had drawn blood, last night, a gift to remember him by, since he was going on a supply run and leaving the two of them here.

A reminder, but it was still better than it used to be. He used to chain Danny up in the living room for supply runs, take the key with him. Nate would bring him food from the kitchen and he could reach the bathroom on the chain, so it was really okay, he didn’t mind, he didn’t.

Especially because when Abraham was gone, Nate would sleep on the couch out in the living room, or next to him on the floor, just a few inches away, and sometimes when he woke up Nate’s hand was warm on top of his.

Once - just the once - Nate had said he could sleep on the couch, too, and they’d taken the cushions off the back to make it bigger and crammed themselves onto it, Danny’s long body meaning he had his feet up on the arm of the couch with the chain running off the side, but Nate had been warm next to him underneath the blanket they’d stolen from Abraham’s bed, and he’d almost felt safe.

And Abraham never knew about those wrong thoughts, about that disobedience. He never knew.

Abraham didn’t chain him up any longer, because he knew Danny wouldn’t run away anymore. Where would he go? They were so far in the woods he couldn’t possibly know how long to walk to find another person, and he couldn’t really remember his directions any longer.

He’d tried to run away a few times, and the punishments when he was caught - and he was always caught - had made him shy away from even thinking about trying to run ever, ever again.

He didn’t need to think about anything but Abraham. What Abraham wanted, what would make Abraham happy, how to be good enough for Abraham. That was all he should think about, it hurt too much to think about anything else.

(nothing should live inside your head, little puppy, but me. what I like, how I take my drinks, what I want for dinner, whether or not I’m going to cut you up today, how to make me pleased enough that I don’t need to.)

Yes, Abraham.

(there is no life before me. just our family, Nate and I and our puppy)

Just our, um, our family.

Danny twisted his mouth into a mean little smile and stared fixedly at the moss, made himself think about before.

It might be the smallest rebellion, but he had been here for years and he had almost no rebellions left, and he had to cling to even the smallest unpunished disobedience to try and remember that he’d ever been anything other than this. It felt like defiance, like waving some kind of flag, just to let himself question whether or not moss only grows on the north side of trees.

Maybe Ryan read it in school, and told him, and that’s why he can’t remember the book. Danny’s throat catches, a drift of an image of his little brother’s face the night before he’d gone to see Nate and lost everything. They’d played video games all night long, just hanging on the couch in Danny’s apartment playing Halo and drinking, bitching about the way Halo 5’s storyline went, the way their parents had acted at Christmas around Ryan’s newest boyfriend (who they didn’t like, but not because he was a boy. At least Corrine and Patrick never gave a shit about that, because if Danny had to add being in the closet to the laundry list of bullshit he had to do because of his parents, he wasn’t sure he would even have made it to adulthood). He and Ryan had spent the night being absolutely perfectly normal people with no idea they’d never see each other again.

I wish I’d hugged him before I left the next day instead of telling him he was too sweaty coming back from the gym. I wish I’d said ‘I love you’, or something else nice, just anything, anything better than ‘I’ll be back late, wish me luck’ what the shit was that, like I was a fourteen year old with a fucking crush-

No, stop it. No life before Abraham. I’m a good dog.

Besides, who even knows if that happened? Maybe you didn’t play video games at all, maybe you had a fight and you just don’t remember it, maybe you did something to deserve this and that’s why it happened, maybe you’re making this bullshit happy memory up.

I’m a good dog, I want to be good.

Maybe you just don’t remember what you did to deserve this.

(you let this happen because you knew you were born to be mine)

Maybe Ryan knows what you did to deserve this.

Abraham always says they’re not looking anymore.

(don’t you ever fucking forget)

Maybe they know why this happened to you, and that’s why they’re not looking.

There is so little sleep, never enough to eat, sometimes Abraham puts stuff in his water or just lays a pill on his tongue and he doesn’t really know, anymore, what happened and what didn’t, beyond the days and nights Abraham wants him to hurt. He’s so good at hurting, is the thing. Abraham is always telling him it’s irresistible, finding someone like him. That you can’t just put a starving man before a buffet and tell him not to eat.

He’s good at jamming himself down deep into the tiniest places he has left, and Abraham turns the rest into Red, and Red is so good, Red wants to be good, to be try harder, to be a good boy…

Danny presses at the moss again, thoughtfully, and he almost asks Nate if he knows what direction moss grows, but then he keeps is mouth shut, because… what if it’s a stupid question? What if he’s wrong? What if it’s another memory that isn’t real, just like all the others? Danny remembers a lot of false things, now, and forgets most of the true ones.

It’s safer, that way.

(up above your head. perfect, that’s perfect, that’s my good boy, trying so hard for me. oh, don’t look at me like that, puppy. you’re the one who chose the knife)

“We’re g-going to be late coming b-back from traps if you k-k-keep staring at logs,” Nate says after a long pause. Danny jumps a little, startled out of his thoughts, and turns back to him with an apology on his tongue before he realizes Nate’s voice was teasing, not upset, that he’s smiling down at Danny with that odd look he gets sometimes, where he looks at him like Danny’s a book he’s always wanted to read but he doesn’t know how to open it.

He tries not to think about that look in his eyes too often, but sometimes it follows him everywhere he goes, makes him feel like he used to feel when he was a person, shivery and awkward and a little too big for his own skin.

He tries to stop himself, but sometimes Nate’s face, with that slight half-smile that pulls at the little scar in his lip, is all that sticks in his mind at all.

“Sorry, Nate. We’re almost to the first snare, let’s, um, let’s go ahead and get to it.” Danny jumps back to his feet, towering a little over Nate when he stands all the way up, rolls his shoulders, straightens his back. Being tall, though, means opening himself up to the breeze and he shivers a little as the autumn air cuts right through his T-shirt and pajama pants, the thin sneakers he’s allowed to wear already damp around all the edges, the wet soaking into his socks.

He’ll get sick again, and as long as he can keep doing chores it’s okay, but if he gets too sick for chores, Abraham will lock him in the cellar. Danny gnaws on a bit of chapped skin on his lower lip, rubbing his hands together. He has to not get that sick. As long as he can still do his chores, it’s okay, Abraham just laughs at him when he sees his brother and talks to him through the kitchen window, just laughs because if the dishes still get done, if dinner still gets made, it’s okay.

He won’t get hurt if he can still do his chores.

He makes elderberry syrup and fire cider, takes some of both every single day. There isn’t enough food (yes there is, there’s plenty, it’s just not for you) but Abraham doesn’t care if he drinks the medicines he makes out of the survivalist book, he doesn’t care how much he has of those. Sometimes he drinks the fire cider until the acid in the vinegar makes him sick, because at least then he doesn’t feel hollowed out and light-headed from hunger.

None of it helps the sense of emptiness under his skin, the wish for something gentle, and sweet, and soft in all the violence.

Danny can’t help the twist of sadness in his chest when he finds the rabbit in the first snare still alive, but exhausted and worn out from trying to get free, little chest heaving, just lying on its side. “I’m sorry,” He says, softly, under his breath, as he crouches next to it. Nate stands close by, hands in his pockets, watching him. “I get it, you know. I get you.”

(don’t tell me you’re apologizing to the goddamn prey, little puppy)

He always apologizes to the animals they catch, and Abraham laughs at him, laughs and says dogs hunt and only the dumbest puppy would stop to say he’s sorry before doing what comes naturally. But this doesn’t come naturally, it never has, he always worries about what the little animals think of him before they die.

Sometimes he wonders if they recognize him, if they see that he’s prey, too, that he’s in a snare like theirs, the leather around his neck just like the rope.

Danny shivers hard enough to rattle the little tag that hangs off his collar, then takes a deep breath and says, all at once to Nate like the whole sentence is a single word, “Please let me have your knife for a second.”

Nate pauses, then slips the little knife he’s allowed to carry out of his pocket, opening it up. It was one of his birthday gifts from Abraham, and it’s got a black handle with silver tooled into it in the shape of vines and a deer (it’s a fucking stag, puppy, get some goddamn culture - when I was little, I met a god with a stag’s head, you know) and even Danny could admit, when he saw it, that it was gorgeous.

Before Abraham forced Nate to cut him with it to show how sharp it was.

Nate’s a person, he’s Abraham’s true love and best friend, Nate is real and Danny isn’t - so Nate gets knives. Not that knives would do them any good, here, not with Abraham. And Nate doesn’t like the knives, anyway, because he gets cut with them, too. Once he was done cutting up Danny, after all, Abraham had cut him.

“F-figured you’d w-w-want me to slit its throat,” Nate says softly, the offer still there in his voice if not in his words, the compassion in his expression. He knows Danny hates having to kill them, to take the little lives away when all they did was be born in the wrong forest at the wrong time. Abraham always makes Danny do it, laughs at him when he hesitates, or hurts him if he refuses.

“I don’t want you to do it,” Danny says, fighting the urge to pat its sad, tired little head. It’s probably crawling in bugs, honestly, and it wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, but Danny wishes someone would pat him on the head with understanding sometimes, and not just because he’s the dog.

If only someone would touch him and it didn’t hurt. That used to happen, didn’t it?

(no life before me)

“I kn-know it’s your j-job, Red, but he’s gone, for f-f-four days, so it’s n-not like he’ll know. You kn-know I n-n-never tell him any, anything like that, about y-you.”

“I know, but I still don’t want you to do it.” Danny shakes his head. “This is mine, to do, this is my job.” He takes a deep breath, my name is Red, counts to five, exhales slowly I belong to Abraham Denner.

Then he takes the knife with a murmured thanks (be grateful for every gift you are given) and reaches out, cutting the rope and not the rabbit. He cuts the rope again a few inches further down, and then again. Again and again and again, until it can’t possibly be tied back together this way.

The rabbit doesn’t run. It just lays there with the broken shreds of the snare around it, too tired to escape, staring at him with one wide eye while its little body heaves with its breath. Danny reaches out one hand, slowly, and then pulls it back.

“R-Red, wh-what did you do that for?” Nate asks, his voice slightly faint. Not angry, not upset, just… curious. “Why did you cut th-the rope? If you c-c-cut them all… we’ll have to redo th-th-them before B-Bram gets back, you… you know that, right?”

“Don’t tell him I cut the rope,” Danny whispers, hugging himself, it’s so fucking cold already and it’s only going to get colder. “I’ll fix it later. Don’t tell him.”

Did the rabbit remember a family? Are there rabbits born in little burrows in the spring to this one rabbit, that grow up and then leave and does she (or he, he supposes) remember them? When they’re gone, are the babies remembered by someone? If they disappear, or they die, does someone know that they were ever around?

Do other rabbits look for the rabbits that disappear in the woods?

“I w-won’t, Red, you know that.”

Danny just watches the little rabbit breathe, the way it lays so still you’d think it was dead except for the occasional movements of its eyes, the quick, shallow, panicked little breaths that start, gradually to slow and to settle.

Do rabbits touch each other? They must snuggle up in burrows, right? And it doesn’t have to be anything more than that, more than being warm together, reminding each other they’re alive, still here, that they made it through one more day without the wolves getting tired of playing with them, without the jaws closing around their throat.

(how much blood do you think you can lose before you black out, puppy? let’s find out)

Wh, whatever you want, Abraham, I can do whatever you want-

(I know you can, and you will, because you’re my good boy, aren’t you?)

Pl-please, please, I don’t want to die, please, please don’t kill me, please

(you’re not going to die. not tonight, anyway. if you die, you stop being my good little pup, hm? so let’s hold still and focus on staying alive tonight, there, just like this…)

Eventually, the wolf’s jaws are going to close around his throat. Eventually, he’ll be just like the rabbit, and there’s no one here to cut him loose from the snare.

It’s just Abraham and Nate, a family all their own, with their puppy.

“H-Hey.” Nate shifts from foot to foot - his leg is probably already aching, it takes nearly a third of the marked trail to even get to the first of the snares. “R-Red, we need to get moving-”

“I-I know, I know we do, I just… I just don’t want to kill them anymore,” Danny says softly, and he doesn’t move from his crouch on the ground. “I don’t want to kill the things like me, I just want to let them go. I just want them to go home.”

“Red…”

“I know, I know how it sounds, Nate, I know. Just let me be sad, okay, just for now, while he’s gone. Let me, let me be, um, be D-… be, um, me.”

That’s not your name anymore

(this body doesn’t belong to you)

Stop trying to remember the old name, it’s not yours

“Just let me not be Red, for just a second,” Danny says heavily. “While we’re alone.”

Nate is quiet, then, for so long that Danny can’t stand it and jumps up to his feet, stalking back and away without looking at him, forcing himself past the markings along the trees, not even trying to be quiet. A bird flees his noise in a flutter of wings, and he stomps on the fallen leaves, the red and yellows rotting to browns and giving under his feet, the cold damp sinking further into his feet through these stupid fucking canvas sneakers and the socks.

That was stupid, don’t tell him you think things like that. That’s dumb. Rabbits aren’t the same as you, rabbits have a fucking chance to run away. Rabbits don’t wear collars, rabbits don’t get tied to the bed, rabbits don’t, they don’t, they don’t have to-

“Fuck!” At the sudden outburst, more birds light up and squirrels shift in the branches up in the trees, leaves falling down around him. He kicks at a bush, shoves a low-hanging branch that nearly snaps back to hit him in the face, stomps as loudly as he can.

Be good, god damn it

(puppies don’t get to be angry)

Stop it, Red, stop it!

(bad dog, Red)

I’m good, I can be good, I can stop

(very bad dog, Red, now you’ll have to be fixed again)

I can do better, I’ll try harder, I can stop

He can’t. He can’t stop it, it’s boiling up inside of him and it all comes out too quickly for him to stop it, and his heart starts to pound as he kicks again, kicks at nothing but leaves, watching them float uselessly into the air and back down, bashes his foot against a tree. He’s not allowed to be angry, but he can’t stop.

Somewhere, Abraham is driving, somewhere he’ll feel it, he’ll know Danny had wrong thoughts, and when he comes back the muzzle will come back out and Abraham will lick up the blood running down his neck and laugh in his ear.

(I know everything about you. I know everything inside of you. I know every thought, every feeling, every neuron that fires inside that pretty, useless, broken little brain)

Abraham will come back and he’ll know, and there will be more hands, there are always, always hands but they never, they’re never hands that just want to hold him, it’s always hands that hurt. He’ll put the muzzle on and the headphones in so he can’t go away, so he can’t be someone else, so Abraham can watch him cry.

(god I wish I could bottle those fucking tears, puppy, you taste so good)

He screams, wordlessly, an animal sound of fear and rage and his hate for himself, the shame that he can’t run anymore, he doesn’t even want to. Where would he go? There’s nowhere, no one is looking for him, no one will ever find him here. Abraham is right, he’s right about everything, people like Danny were made for this. Only this. Forever this, until Abraham gets tired of him.

He screams, and he screams, and he screams because when Abraham comes back he won’t be able to scream anymore. He screams himself hoarse and Nate doesn’t stop him, doesn’t even move, just watches him and Danny can feel the eyes on his back.

“What did I fucking do?” He screams into the woods, his voice ragged and broken, and the trees don’t answer, and the birds don’t answer, and the animals don’t answer. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve this, but it must have been horrible, it must have been worth hell, because hell is what he’s living in, and he’ll be here until he dies.

When Nate grabs him by the elbow he spins around too fast and makes himself dizzy, stumbling to try and catch his balance. He wants to hate Nate Vandrum - the person, the true love, who gets to sit on the couch and sit at the table and eat all the food he wants, Nate who gets to be human - but he can’t, because what he wants more than to let the anger inside of him take over is for someone, anyone, to help him stop it; to stuff it back down where it’s safe, where Abraham can’t cut or burn or bleed it out of him again.

“R-Red,” Nate says, softly, and his grip on Danny’s arm is firm but it doesn’t hurt, and it’s been so long since anyone but Abraham touched him, really - even when Nate does it’s because Abraham tells him to, and that’s not the same, that’s just an extension of Abraham’s hands, wearing a different face. “Red, please-”

“I’m sorry I did that dumb thing with the rabbit,” Danny whispers, throat aching, eyes hot with tears but they don’t fall, he won’t let them, he keeps them glittering against his eyes, blurring the vision of the older man watching him, so he can’t see his face. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not allowed to be angry, I know I am, I know… I’m so sorry-”

“N-No, it’s okay, I, uh, I l-liked that you d-d-did that thing with the rabbit. That you let it go.” There’s a note to Nate’s voice, something he knows but doesn’t know, it’s been so long since he’s heard it.

Danny rubs the back of his hand against his eyes and blinks, looks at Nate more closely. The green eyes are warm, on his, and he swallows hard against a sudden awareness that Nate’s eyes are always warm when they look at him, aren’t they?

“You did?” He doesn’t mean his voice to come out so soft, barely above a whisper, but it does. Nate’s other hand moves, jerks a little, like he wants to do something with it but he doesn’t know what. “You’re not mad that I got angry? Puppies aren’t allowed-”

“I’m not mad. And you, you’re, you’re n-not…” Nate loosens the grip on his elbow, and he doesn’t want him to but he has no idea how to say it. Please, you haven’t touched me in weeks, please, I need touch that doesn’t hurt me. “We h-h-have plenty stored up. It’s f-f-fine. You’re right, th-they should get to go home… the rabbits.”

“I want them to go home,” Danny says, a little miserably, and sees the depth of understanding in Nate’s eyes and he clings to it, to the shred of being a person that Nate still seems to see in him. “I don’t want to see them in the snares anymore. I just want them to go home, where-… where there aren’t any people like, like us - like him - where there aren’t any… hands, that won’t stop, I just…”

I want to go home.

There is no home but here.

I want to go home.

“I kn-know,” Nate says, softly, and he takes a step closer, and then another. Danny can feel him, almost, the way he’s warm when everything else is cold now. “I know. I w-w-want them to go h-h-home, too. Y-you can go back to the cabin, if you w-want, I can walk the traps the r-r-rest of the way by myself.”

“No,” Danny says softly, and he can’t stop looking down at Nate’s hands, which he’s not supposed to think about. How they’ve changed since they got here, gone all rough and so have Danny, just in a different way “I don’t want to be by myself right now.”

“A-Are you sure? You c-c-could sit on the couch. He wouldn’t know. You kn-know I don’t tell him anything ab-about you, or what you say to me.”

“Does he ask?” Danny takes a breath, watches Nate step even closer, close enough that Danny can smell his cologne, the bottle Abraham buys him for Christmas each year. The forest around them seemed quieter now, just the usual rustle of leaves in the slightest breeze. “What I tell you, what I talk about?”

Nate pauses, watching him thoughtfully, and then he nods. “He d-does.”

“You tell him anything he wants, when he looks right at you,” Danny says, but it’s without a hint of blame. He was angry, at first, that Nate gave up and gave in so easily. He understands, now. You can’t do anything else, if Abraham looks at you long enough. You can’t do anything but what he wants, what he tells you to do.

He’s close enough now that the change in the air is real, the hint of another person’s presence, someone he isn’t afraid of. The only person left he isn’t afraid of. Nate swallows hard, in a way Danny can see shift the muscles of his throat the faint lines of pale circled scarring there from his time with Abraham before. “I d-don’t have to tell him about y-y-you.”

It’s an admission, Danny thinks, some kind of confession, but he’s not sure to what.

“What does that mean?”

“I d-don’t know. Just that it… doesn’t always w-w-work, when it’s about y-you.” Nate looks him over again, licking at his lips nervously, pressing them together in this habit he has that Danny has seen, over and over again, while they’ve been here. “It d-doesn’t always… I’m sorry.”

Danny laughs, bitterly, hands slowly going up over his face, blocking out the world around them. “I’m fucking sorry too, Nate. I’m so goddamn sorry, and maybe when I’m dead I’ll get to say I’m sorry for whatever I did to, to earn this, to make this happen to me. Maybe when he gets tired of me and I’m dead-”

“You w-won’t die here.” Nate grabs him by the arms, and Danny stumbles forward until Nate is holding onto him, arms so tight around him, and Danny’s knees nearly buckle. “N-not you, Red, n-n-not you, I won’t let you die h-here…”

He hasn’t been touched in so long like this, just held, just hugged and held onto, and he drops his head down, curving over himself until his head is on Nate’s shoulder.

Scratchy sweater fabric against his cheek, against the itching, healing muzzle scars, and Nate’s hand is in his hair, and Danny doesn’t cry but he feels the scream still bubbling in his throat, trying to make its way out.

“You n-never did a single fucking thing wrong, Danny,” Nate whispers, fiercely, and Danny’s eyes close at the name, the name he only thinks to himself sometimes just to try and remember that he used to have one, a person’s name, a people name, that he was something better than this, something more.

“You h-h-have to c-call me, call me Red, Nate,” Danny whispers. There’s a pause, and then he puts his arms up around Nate, too, slides them around his waist, and he knows this waist so well for so many terrible reasons but for just now, right now, he tries to know it for a good one.

“I don’t. I can c-c-call you whatever I want, r-right now, when he’s not here, and I w-w-want to call you Danny, so please, please l-let me, just for n-now, just for r-r-right now, please,” Nate whispers against his ear, and holds him like he’s real, like he deserves it, and Danny can’t let go of him.

“Why did you stop touching me?” He asks, and he keeps his head buried against Nate’s shoulder so he won’t see his face at the question. “It’s been weeks, I can’t live with only him touching me, why did you stop?”

“He m-m-makes me hurt you,” Nate says softly back. “I, it’s so hard to, to think that I h-h-have to hurt you all th-the time, and then I thought you m-m-must hate that someone who h-hurts you would be anywhere near, near you, I just… I just th-thought you wouldn’t want me to.”

“I do want you to,” Danny says softly, lips moving against the fabric of his sweater, feeling the warmth of it, the warmth of his body through the fabric, the strongly muscled shoulders, the rough hands that slide up into his hair but that’s all they do, they don’t pull, they don’t hurt, they’re just… there. “I want you to. I want something good, too, I can’t-… I can’t be in the snare alone, I can’t, I n-need you with me, too, Nate. Please, please, please don’t stop touching me, don’t, don’t make his hands be the only ones I remember anymore, please…”

“Sssshhhhhh. I’m right h-here with you.” Nate presses a kiss to the side of his head, just something gentle and reassuring, and Danny moves back to look at his face. Nate swallows, hard, taking the movement as rejecting the kiss, as not wanting it, and starts to pull back from him. “S-sorry, Danny, I’m sorry, I sh-shouldn’t have, I-”

Danny leans down and kisses him, all at once, a press of his cold lips to Nate’s warmer ones, the barest brush. When he pulls away Nate doesn’t go after him, doesn’t force him back down, doesn’t get angry. He’s not going to be hurt for that, or by it. That kiss was… safe.

Nate looks dazed, like maybe the book he wanted to read opened all on its own, and he’s not entirely sure what he’s going to find in there.

“Don’t stop touching me,” Danny says softly, and grabs Nate’s sweater with both hands, pulling him close, leaning down to kiss him again.

This time, Nate’s hands go up to his arms, curve around his shoulders. Danny moves in stumbling steps until his back’s against a tree, and Nate’s chest and stomach are pressed to his, the pressure of hips against his own is safe and nothing bad will happen to him here.

Nate’s mouth is gentle against his, the hands don’t move from around his shoulders. They don’t roam. They stay right where they are, and the buzzing despair and Abraham’s voice in his head goes quiet, goes silent, and all he hears is the birds and the breeze in the trees and Nate breathing, the soft sound of their mouths together.

“Danny-” Nate whispers against him. “Danny, is this r-r-really what y-you-”

“Shut up,” Danny whispers back, slides his hands up behind Nate’s head, kisses him again and again and again, and none of it hurts. “Call me Danny again.”

“D-Danny,” Nate whispers, and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Danny,” and a kiss to the scar along his cheekbone. Another whisper, another kiss to his cheek, then one to his jaw, then one to his neck just above the red skin rubbed raw by his collar, back up to his mouth. Everywhere his mouth skims Danny's skin it lights up - the way it used to feel when boys kissed him, when he kissed them, when it used to be something he wanted. It's something he wants, now. “Danny. You’re sure?”

“For now I am,” Danny says softly. “While he’s gone.”

“Okay,” Nate says, and presses one more kiss to his mouth, looking up into his eyes. “For now. Wh-wh-while he’s g-gone.”

Danny gives him a lopsided grin, slides arms up around his shoulders, and holds onto him for dear life.

This is the best life will ever be again.

[twilightofthe]

I found a totally legal way to watch The Mandalorian!!!  Gonna do one of my first live-blogs of it, here’s Chapter One! (tag is “liveblogging the mando show” if y’all wanna block it)

Ooooo I really like the helmet flashing new logo (tho still curse you Disney)

OOOOOH THERE’S BEEPING THERE HE IS HE’S HOLDING A BEEPER I CAN’T HANDLE THIS

Ew gross don’t molest the guy you’re beating up my dudes

EW GROSS LEAVE HIM ALONE

Yayyyy Mando Man’s here!  He gonna help this dude or?

Wait how’s he supposed to drink through his fancy mask

I love how they’re going back to Huttese omg the nostalgia

YUS BOI GET EM GET EM GOOD

Aaaaaand back to business as usual typical bars

This guy’s gonna get captured too lol I know it

Ahaha I knew it

Welp at least Mando Man’s gonna be probs a bit nicer about it

OOOOOHHHHHHHH I FREAKIN LOVE THE TITLE MUSIC

Wait did we even know what planet this was?

So he doesn’t like droids or they’re easily tracked or????

Can’t be the opening of a Star WArs movie without a trashy old Uber driver of some sorts

Also cannot be proper Star Wars without someone calling another person’s ship garbage ahah I love this

Oh dinosaur monster walrus worm cool

Ya know this guy is surprisingly nonchalant about being taken in for a bounty

Shock staff or bug zapper?  A two in one deal!!!

Oh NOW you like his ship

Pfft I know like exactly zilch about ships, I’m not one of those SW nerds, can someone tell me if Razor Crests or anything are supposed to be important or not?

Vac Tube?  Huh, I thought “fresher” was the word for “space potty”.  Guess there’s more than one lol

Ooooo weapons

C’mon this guy really thinks he’s getting out?  Pfff

Oh so Life Day is canonically a galactic holiday then, not just another word for “birthday”.  I mean I kinda knew cuz they use “birthday” for Ezra in Rebels but this confirms Life Day too

Ooooo new planet!  I wish they told us the names like Rogue One did

Aaaaaand yet another bar

OMG RECOGNIZABLE LUCAS ALIENS THANK YOU FAVREAU I’M GONNA CRY THANK YOU

*Pokemon theme* Catch em’ alll

heck yea boi stick it to the Empire

Omg I’m hopeless Pedro Pascal has such a nice voic aaaaaaaa.

“I’ll take them all” Cocky bastard

his VOICEEEEEEE AAAAAA.  

I’m already intrigued, but I really want to see more of his character behind just “cool armor fighter mask man mystery”.

Ik ik I’m being impatient this is only the first ep but still

Also his cloak game is On Point and I love it

HEY IT’S SOME OF THOSE TRASH CAN DROIDS I LOVE THOSE

*Obi Wan voice* Hello there stormtroopers xD

Hmm so who’s the doctor?

That metal old dude’s wearing, it’s not Rebel Alliance, is it Empire?  It makes sense if he’s hanging out with Stormtroopers

Wait shoot Old Dude could be another Mando, if he’s got beskar and all

BAHAHA ROASTED MONKEY LIZARD AND THEY’RE TRAUMATIZING THE LIVE ONE XD ANAKIN WOULD BE PLEASED HE HATES THOSE THINGS.  SO WOULD POE HAHA

I’m adoring the Western-style soundtrack

Oooo more Mandos

And color me wrong but that curvy fleur-de-lis thingy on the wall is the Mandalore symbol right?  I forget, don’t kill me

Head of his guild here I guess?

What is the Purge?  Ooo so he doesn’t have legit beskar armor cuz it’s rare, so he’s trying to build a 

new suit?

I like the design of the armorer’s mask

What’s a Foundling???

Ohhh his traumatic backstory I guess?

Bahaha I just thought he’s got the same tragic backstory as Kung Fu Panda pffffttttt

I Love The MUSIC

Another planet, this one sandy.  Tatooine?  The rocks look right and I know the show was going there 

Aight this looks right Imma say this is Tatooine for now, the planet likes to pop up in people’s scanners Tusken-style and attack you like Space Australia does

I recognize this alien guy’s (Ugnaught? Gah I can never keep species names straight ik I’m horrible) voice from somewhere

Vaporizers, another point towards Tatooine

Oooo sassy “idk if I want your help”

Omg bluurgs, those were on Rebels!!!

Bahaha animal taming time!  I’m glad they’re keeping some Star Wars Humor in here, it wouldn’t feel quite right if it was too serious

*How To Train Your Dragon theme plays*

The CGI my dudes!!!!!!!

At least Mando Man is polite

“I have spoken” That’s gonna be my new answer for whenever I don’t know anything and someone calls me on my BS

Weequays!!!!!!!

Oop now they dead

Guess someone’s got competition

He just doesn’t like droids then :(

Wait what can a droid do with credits?

I guess every SW protag needs a trusy droid sidekick lol

Bahaha “do not self destruct” me @ me

I love him he’s got that “done with everything” attitude

Wheeeeeeee spinny gun!!!!!!

Yay they’re friendly!

Aw he’s nice for a bounty hunter!

Omg old-timey door sparky explosions THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Another trash can lol

Omg they put the freaking Baby Yoda in the trash can pfffttt it’s a literal trash baby gremlin

Awwww he likes children!!!

Ok good he protected the baby over the droid

THAT LITTLE FINGER

AND FILONI DIRECTED IT OF COURSE HE DID

AAAAAAAAAA

STILL REALLY LOVING THE WESTERN-STYLE MUSIC

I can’t watch the next one quite yet cuz busy, but omg omg omg omg I really liked this!  I know Filoni and Favreau know probably the most about canon Mandalore between the two of them (Favreau played Pre Viszla on TCW) so I totally trust them to do this well.  I’m liking Mando Man! (I shall call him Mando Man until they give him a real name and No One Can Stop Me)  I haven’t learned much about him yet, but so far I see that he’s a dedicated hunter and kinda a crankypants, but he cares about children!  He has a moral compass!  I’ll stan for now!!!!

I’m really really happy they brought the old Star Wars aliens back into this, I haven’t seen any live-action ones for so so long now ;_;  

I’m interested about the Great Purge, but I’ll go more into that on a separate post lol

[caraidean-fics]

First Swings Anew

Characters: Ike, Mia, Mist

Setting: Radiant Dawn, Post Part 3 Chapter 7

Words: 1,700

Summary: Direct sequel to Clarity. Ike and Mia have their first spar after accepting their relationship, and Mist discovers them. 

"I'm not going to be holding back just 'cause it's different now, you know."

Ike raised an eyebrow at Mia at those words, as if he'd ever questioned it. Mia just chuckled, carefully walking in circles around her commander with a wary eye on his form. She was both trying to figure out his guard, but also attempt to piece together his health. He'd been out of bed far earlier than Rhys had suggested, but for the most part he seemed perfectly healthy.

"I thought we said we didn't want it to be different." Ike said after a long moment, getting a small laugh from his sparring partner. She shook her head, taking a few paces back in case it was a trick.

"Sure. But I don't know, maybe you've been listening to some of Mist's stories and letting them get in your head." She chided gently, sliding back into an offensive stance. "You know...treating your women right, chivalry, all that-"

She blurred forwards into motion, words vanishing for the twenty seconds as they clashed. When they separated, no real change in who was 'winning' - the bout had been nothing but judging each other's strength, gauging weaknesses for the next real attack - she picked it up as effortlessly as she'd started, as if nothing happened.

"-rubbish." She finished with a grin. Ike blinked, trying to focus on her stance instead of what she was saying.

"I'm pretty sure that this is treating you right." He said, slightly confused. Mia just laughed, shaking her head in amusement.

"Aw, babe. You know all the right things to say." She teased, before diving forwards. This clash was more serious, blades barely touching each other as she tried to worm her way around his guard with feints, Ike's own counterattacks sliding in and out of her guard as she danced away. The feeling of Alondite's ranged attack had her paranoid, but her wits were about her enough to not over-commit to a dodge.

Ike didn't even have Ragnell right now. She didn't need to worry about that. Eventually, however, she made a mistake - like she always did - and the heavy flat of Ike's blade smacked into her side, knocking her to the ground with a gasp. Groaning, she clutched her side for a second - before pushing herself back up to her feet and nodding at him.

"Zero to ninety-one." She said, cheerfully. Ike laughed, bemused, and the two went back to work on each other. Any fears Mia'd had about his injury keeping him down were allayed by his bladework, which was as strong and confident as ever. Mia decided to use a new tactic - a form she'd picked up during the Mad King's War, and trained a little more in whenever she'd had the time to corner Marcia and worm it out of her. While she used a lance, this was apparently a style that Tanith used on occasion when forced to dismount. She stepped inside his guard when he slashed, but rather than going for a normal attack grabbed her sword by the blade, half-swording and keeping as close to him as she could.

Ike was caught off guard, but only for a moment - Mia was clumsy with it, and it showed. He managed to turn the first few blows aside, glancing off the leather of his armor before adopting an unusual tactic. One arm wrapped around her back, pulling her into a tight hug with her sword trapped between their bodies.

"Not fair."  Mia mumbled in protest, Ike laughing and tapping the side of his blade against her thigh to end the bout. Mia sighed, backing off and letting them get back into their starting stances, mumbling the updated count under her breath.

"I think your new style has some problems." Ike said after a moment, getting a shrug from Mia.

"Honestly, it was worth a shot." She replied, and then they clashed again. A violent dance of steel, the swords sparking as they collided, the two having silently agreed to stop holding back for the third bout of the morning. They'd long since stopped using training swords, more than trusting their partner to be able to pull back any truly lethal blows - although it still freaked Rhys out something awful, which Mia was more than happy to tease the healer about.

"Ah!" Mia gasped in pain eventually, Ettard finally sliding past her guard again and opening up a long gash on her arm. Wincing, she dropped her sword - not really having much choice in the matter - and pouted a little at yet another clean set of defeats, as Ike took a step forward to inspect the cut.

"It's not too deep. Should be fine." He said after a few moments, patting her on her good shoulder. They stood, awkward as Mia cradled her inured arm in her free hand, eventually Ike sighing and leaning forwards to press a soft kiss to her lips.

"You almost had me there." He said, the same words they'd exchanged for almost four years now. Mia laughed and gave a rote reply, although there was something warmer to the exchange now, a kind and loving note in what was normally a breezy exchange of words to mark the end of the fight.

"Yeah, and I'll get you next time."

They smiled at each other, Mia resting a splayed palm over his chest as she quietly pressed another kiss to his lips. That had been the intended end of their intimate moment, away from the rest of the camp as they dueled in the rising sun, but a loud shriek showed that any hopes they'd had of keeping the moment private had just been ruined.

"It's Mist, isn't it." Ike said, eyes shut. He'd trusted Soren to keep quiet about it, but considering that Mia and he did this every morning, he should have expected either her or Rhys to show up. Mia winced and, slowly, turned to look over at the source of the sound.

"Yeah." She replied, and then they were swarmed. Mist's babbled questions had only lasted a few moments before she realized that, yes, Mia was injured, and let out a long groan before running her healing staff along her arm.

"Ike! How come you didn't tell me you two were a thing?" She protested, glaring at him as she healed Mia. Ike shrugged his shoulders, a slightly dark look crossing his face for a moment.

"I don't really see how it's any of your business, Mist." He said, getting an offended gasp from Mist. For once able to read the situation, Mia interjected herself, patient as she could be considering the circumstances.

"Mist, we just wanted to keep it quiet. We weren't even sure it was going to work out." She told her, getting an understanding frown from the healer. Once her arm was done she flexed it, checking that she hadn't missed any nerve damage or the like, and nodded in satisfaction. "Wow. You get better every day, don't you?" "Thanks." Mist beamed, before recognizing the clumsy attempt at changing the subject for what it was. "Hey, no you don't! Come on, how long has this been going on for? Two years? Three? Right from when you were on the boat? ...Mia, be honest with me, was duel at dawn a euphemism this entire time?"

"No!" Mia protested, turning scarlet. She tried to defend herself from the questions, until Ike stepped in to save her from his sister.

"Last week." He said bluntly. Mist opened her mouth to say something, paused, and visibly did some date-checking in her head. Then she winced and bowed her head, mumbling an apology.

"...oh. Right. Sorry." She said quietly, before her eyes widened as she realized something. "Oh, wait! Mia, that means that when you-"

"Can we not talk about this?" She asked in frustration, hugging her arm to her side and wincing at the memory of the 'duel'. She took a deep breath, trying to fight off the shakes that had come the last two times she thought about that fight.

She'd never felt so outclassed in her life, nor as close to death as she had in that moment. Even her temporary stare-down with Petrine hadn't felt as...hopeless. Ike hadn't taken the reminder well either, glaring at his sister and putting a reassuring hand on Mia's shoulder.

"Mist." He said, sternly, and the teenaged healer quieted down. She looked like she was about to say something, but the quiet and suddenly somber mood made her think better of it, making her close her eyes and just mumble an apology before leaving.

"Well, great." Ike said after a few moments of silence, rolling his eyes. "Now that she knows, it's only a matter of time until everyone else does. First she's going to tell Titania, and from there..."

"Oh, no." Mia froze at the idea of Titania finding out, eyes wide. "She's not going to lecture us, is she?"

Ike opened his mouth, at first to reply to a negative - before realizing that, in horror, the answer was likely 'yes'. He shuddered, glancing at his sparring partner turned lover and squeezing her shoulder lightly.

"Probably." He admitted, making Mia shudder at the idea. Titania's lectures were bad enough when it was just about her actions on the battlefield, and she could already hear the lecture they'd receive for this.

"...I've got to go do, well...commander stuff." Ike said lamely, not really sure how else to describe it. Mia snorted, glad for at least some kind of way to relieve the tension, and nodded.

"Alright, boss. You go do commander stuff." She said jokingly, patting his hand on her shoulder with a wide smile. "I'll just go and check up on a few things. See you later."

"Right. Later." Ike agreed, removing his hand almost reluctantly. They stood together, awkward for a few more minutes - enough to make them nervous about how the other was taking this, until finally Mia worked up the courage.

"Bye." She said, a slight blush on her cheeks, and they parted. This...was going to take some more getting used to than either of them had initially thought.

[curioscurio]

just saw a post abt coran headcannons and wanted 2 make one :)

yall  think shiro’s space dad but its actually a part time job that he shares with coran

he feed u soup and keeps u worm when ur sick

but when HE’S sick he’ll either work till he’s dying or keep it from everyone. He’ll completely deny he has anything unless it puts the team in danger (ex: lightly poisoned? mamma didn’t raise no pussy. Contagious poison? don’t touch me im sterile) 

sleep is a suggestion to him. Alteans don’t need as much sleep as humans anyway, but coran is constantly awake and ON THE MOVE. basically a cryptid

he’s always around in case any of the paladins have nightmares or insomnia at night or something and makes them sweet root tea or something. :’’-)

eyes and markings glow when super happy or excited (allura too!)

he’s ripped as fuck hes goddamned beefy and when the paladins find out they’re like: ?!?!?!?!

lance: he’s..... thicc

coran has no favorites (lance) but will go the extra mile to make every paladin laugh if they’re feeling down

talks to the lions when repairing them or just hanging around them. he tells them stories and jokes. blue thinks he’s sweet but green nearly falls over laughing bc she thinks he’s so funny. then when he tells a pidge a joke and she doesnt get it he’ll grumble and say smthng like “green would have laughed..”

this guy CAN FLIRT 

seriously, one time they were on a mission and both coran and allura were there for diplomatic reasons and the prince of the alien planet started getting fresh with allura. coran swoops in.gently takes his hands. leads him away from allura looking into his eyes. he’s got the most charming voice and smile ad says something like “ i can see the universe in your eyes” tHE ALIEN IS DEAD HE’S ENDED. 

paladins have memes about him 

“vore me daddy coran” (this is his least favorite)

* pidge goes up to the beefiest alien with the biggest muscles ever* “coran... is that you... how did you get here...”

*lance and keith making out* “you know who’s the best?” “hmm?” “coran” “lance what hte fuck”

they actually love him a lot and when they’re concerned abt him he doesn’t quite get it bc he’s the advisor not a paladin or the princess?? ‘why would you guys worry about me im replacab-” “NO??? FUCK OFF??? YOU’RE THE BEST???”

has TONS of tiny scars on his hands from mechanic work but they’re so fucking smooth and soft like a little baby hand. everytime he takes them off u can hear someone running down the hall “GLOVES OFF” and someone dives to the ground to hold his hand

WANTS TO FIGHT EVERYTHING? 

i mean he’s very diplomacy first and shit but if someones down to fight or threatening the paladins... gloves off. he socks them right in the face and starts a huge fight which he wins. it’s actually a little scary.like he’s all dirty and torn up and wiping blood from his nose with his knuckles and spits on the guy he just pummled. the guy is crying. he turns back to the paladins with a wide grin and and goofy laugh “sore losers am i right ;-)”

allura can beat him in a fair fight and he doesn’t hold back (too much) 

hands shake when anxious and gets real clumsy. ;ike theres a line. normally he has sturdy hands, if he’s nervous or anxious or paranoid they shake like the devil and he trips over stuff and you want to keep him out of the mechanic room (unfortunately thats the first place he’ll go) however he can stitch up your wound faster than lightning, and is very calm in the face of real hardcore danger

Paladin specific headcannons under the cut:

Lance:

would die for coran and vice versa

reminiscence about home planets together

is very gentle with coran, even though coran is usually the rock 

GOD HE GETS SO ANXIOUS ABT HIM SOMETIMES LIKE coran will do something incredibly dangerous like hanging from the rafters upside down (he’s done it so many times) or going days on end without sleep (really it’s for a project) or engineering something with dangerous substances that often can and will blow up in his face ( i s2g i will save u from another explosion)

complains to the paladins about the shit coran makes him go through but also wouldn’t have it any other way

Pidge:

TERRIBLE INFLUENCE ON HIM

both of them will collaborate on a project and then you won’t see them for days.

they live in the Castle Basement where they do experiments and shit. Pidge is worse than Coran about sleep so they have a couch down there that coran will carry pidge to and lay her on if she falls asleep during work.

if pidge is with him, coran makes sure to schedule breaks and snack times so pidge doesnt crash horribly. he brings her food and makes sure they don’t stay cooped up for weeks.

pidge knows this which is why she helps him so often ( that and she really enjoys learning new altean tech and hanging w him) 

will march in and drag coran from a project if she thinks he needs to take a break or a NAP 

Hunk: 

hunk loves to draw and sketch and whittle and stuff in his spare time! coran can barely hold a pencil. hunk teaches him how to draw and paint and coran just loves it so much. “coran what are you painting” “it’s a sworlump” “it looks nice” 

in turn coran teaches hunk how to whittle. hunk has shaky hands so learning this is helping him be more confident with his strokes and dexterity! 

hunk can FIND coran. he’s got a detector. he senses him. if corans sick or smthng or injured but trying to hide it he can sniff it out like a hound dog and is the only one that can actually get him to rest or visit the medbay. usually ends up carrying him there. i love hunk. 

Keith: 

it’s not that he doesn’t worry about coran (he does a lot) he just gets pissed a lot bc he doesnt get why coran can’t see how important he is. 

but also trust coran to know his limits 

wants coran to spot him when he trains bc if he’s training with the other paladins he has to keep a stoic face and perfect form. but since he does it to burn out stress, he gets really messy and emotional and nasty when he does it. like he’ll get so frustrated and cry and tear shit up and halfheartedly swing his bayard until he’s all drained. 

coran doesnt ever judge and makes sure he doesn’t go past his limits or something. can calm him down if he’s super distressed without it feeling patronizing. 

Shiro:

SHIRO HAS A MAJOR CRUSH ON CORAN LMFAOOO

GETS FLUSTERED AROUND HIM ALL THE TIME

coran: *smiles*

shiro: i would die for you

can train comfortably with coran as well as allura! but allura is sometimes too intense for him and he needs someone who is really in control of the whole thing. coran knows how to disable his arm if things get too wack. coran is a really good parter to spar with bc he likes to do funny banter and keeps shiro from getting lost in his head. 

shiro will eat anything coran hands him without hesitation. everyone else is??

turns out shiro has no taste buds but it makes coran happy so

coran once had to carry shiro out of battle bridal style and shiro couldn’t stop blushing for hours 

Allura: 

they’re so mischievous together lmfao

you’d think coran would be the one to be like “no allura you could get hurt!!” but unless it’s a huge life or death situation he’s such an enabler for her and vice versa. “HEY ALLURA I BET YOU CAN’T SHOOT THIS APPLE FROM KETIHS HEAD LL THE WAY FROM THE BRIDGE” “coran you fool i am the strongest one on this ship i can do anything” They’ll both find the most dangerous animal on whatever planet they’re on and ride it. coran used to be against her drinking and stuff but now that theres been a war going on they’ll basically do shots together and talk abt altea. THEY LOVE TO FUCK WITH THE PALADINS 

“oh no!! it seems Lance has caught the.. uh.. Altean stomach worms...”

“oh yes princess... so sad. we will miss you lance.rip in peace”

“princess have you drunken your florppinus potion this month?”

“ ...........OH YES THAT ONE. YES IM ALL READY FOR THE RECKONING. PRAISE THE ALLENIUM”

coran: did you know alteans can breathe pure quintessence?

lance: :O

allura: *holds up a jar of mouthwash* it’s so beautiful