#its been saved dor later...

[bunnyteller]

i see amazing art. i 4eblog it.I REALKZED AFTER ITS SPOILER ART!!!!!!

[outofangband]

Rambling Morwen thoughts, more in my houseless for exiles tag, sorry for aforementioned rambling

“Rashness, lord! If my son works in the woods hungry if he lingers in bonds, if his body lies unburied, then I would be rash. I would lose no hour to go to seek him.”

-Chapter 14, The Journey of Morwen and Niënor

Everything in this exchange is so important to me, but it’s specifically the if his body lies unburied that really gets to me because I think it speaks a lot about  Morwen’s trauma from the Bragollach, and Húrin and Rían’s vanishing

Just have so much of her pride is in twined with her grief so much of her grief is so intertwined with uncertainty, and not knowing.

Her father and uncle, and a lot of her male relatives who died with Barahir, she never got news of their death.  If she did, it would’ve been decades after it happened when she finally came to  Doriath, if Beren’s full history was known there. Her mother may well have died in the Bragollach too*

And then her cousin, the last of her people there also runs off, and she never gets any news of her, and she never learns at least presumably never learns what happened to Rían’s son**

And of course Húrin! Húrin Rides off for war and never returns, and no tidings from any of his people who fought in the battle come back either. She doesn’t know if he’s dead, or captured, or simply prevented from returning as she says herself.

I have a couple posts in my houseless for exiles tag about this but also leaving Hithlum behind, knowing that she would never see it or its people again, and would likely never know of their fate, is yet another grief. She would have left Aerin and anyone else she was close with, knowing the circumstances they would be in and knowing the parting was a permanent one.

Which leads to my main point

Morwen is willing to drown crossing the Sirion (as she tells Mablung) or be murdered by Morgoth’s most dreadful monster (as she nearly is) trying to get news of Túrin, or save him or even just to bury him! She’s willing to risk that just to make sure he gets proper burial and so she knows what has become of him.

I’m sorry to bring this back into my thoughts about those words and traits that  are always associated with Morwen; her pride, her grief (and also her inability to grieve!!,)  and severity and stubbornness and resilience but I think it’s all so fascinatingly connected. She has been denied closure for decades. She’s willing to do pretty much anything to make sure it doesn’t happen again

And that’s part of what makes that last interaction at the grave of her children so heartbreaking

And this should be a post in itself I’ll make later but I also think about how for those who knew Morwen, they suffer this same uncertainty

…but Morwen also was lost. Neither then nor after did any certain news of her fate come to Doriath or to Dor-lómin.

(Also, I love her being able to tell the difference in the members of the party and to be able to tell that there’s one more member that there should be when these thousands of year-old fully trained elven scouts didn’t notice that it’s both awesome and very funny to me! And the part about Morwen refusing to be led back to Doriath by Niënor! It’s the second to last mention of her pride and resolve in the novel and it’s part of the last description of Niënor as Niënor!)

Anyway I love Morwen very much and I will do an entire post on the whence came he! Scene

* Neither the mother of Morwen nor her parents or any other maternal family is mentioned in canon. In The Shaping of Middle Earth, Tolkien originally had the mothers of Morwen and Rían as being of the house of Marach, his original reason for them having survived the Bragollach and ending up in Hithlum. He discarded this however, making Morwen and Rían refugees of the Bragollach but never saying anything more about their mothers.

** kept this part short as I have several post specifically about this aspect of their relationship and their relationship and general, which are very important to me, I’ll link one of the more recent ones just for my own organization here

[theromanticrationalist]

Foundation 1x02 Preparing to Live: My Thoughts

Well, I think I might have to take back some of my earlier praise - however minimal it was. I do not understand why they are overcomplicating matters. Yes, Hari is obviously Dumbledore-ing it in regards to that whole scene with him and Raych. (They hinted at his taking pills, AKA he is already dying yadda yadda.) But why, tho? Why are they doing this? Why did Raych catapult Gaal into the void?? I am just confused why any of this happening.

Yet even this I am willing to suspend my judgement, but really - the whole Demerzel reveal? COME ON. WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS TO ME. My only vain hope at this point is that she isn't Daneel. Just PLEASE don't let her be Daneel! Although I am still upset that they A. made the character a woman and B. are adding the robot angle of the storyline without, apparently, even understanding Asimov robots. Or at least this is my first impression. She neither exhibits Daneel's temperament nor of an Asimov robot.

*pulls up a chair like Captain America*

Let me school you on a few things, my friends, if you aren't familiar with Asimov's work, but Asimov robots are the best robots, the greatest of robots. There is a very simple reason for this, which is, they are governed by the Three Laws of Robotics (although there is a secret 'Zeroeth Law' that we will get into later.)

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These three laws are what make Asimov robots so wonderful, in that they can do no harm. They are pure, absolutely. Any damage they might cause always happens because of human error (a major theme of Asimov's robot stories), but a perfectly functioning robot is without flaw. They are an entity unto themselves, a beautifully constructed form of sentient life. They are distinct from all robots that have been in science fiction since. Data is actually the closest to exemplifying what an Asimov Robot is truly like - and we all know how awesome Data was.

I get no sense of this from the Demerzel in the show. She comes across as very cold, very aloof, and unsympathetic. Asimov robot's don't exhibit any emotion (on the surface - they are HIGHLY nuanced) but they exhibit a strength of character, an altruistic attitude, and an all around goodness. Her being gentle with the littlest Cleon doesn't make up for the fact that she serves a cruel despot of a leader - which makes no sense. Demerzel served Emperor Cleon in the books, but Cleon wasn't dark, evil, and cruel like Lee Pace's portrayal - who is going like way out there in the evil department for sure (while looking beautiful, of course). No Asimov robot would align himself with such a man, even for the greater good - which brings me to the fourth 'secret' law.

Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

This is the law that enables Daneel (in the books) to be able to do less than savory things for the purpose of saving humanity. It is actually a law that he formed himself - it is a long story - but the point is, yes, Daneel is now able to "harm" humans or witness the harming of humans, but what this episode exhibited - to me - is taking this concept much too far. I am not pleased to say the least. This WILL break the show for me for sure, but I will keep watching for now. Because I am a masochist apparently.

Right now I am only finding respite in Jared Harris. He is such a perfect Hari, I love him so much. I am pretty sure they are hinting at Dors entering the picture, which makes me sad because Hari and Dors' romance is one of my ultimate favorite things about the Foundation series. Yet with everything going on, can I trust that they will give this the attention it deserves?? Probably not, but Hari and Dors!!!! 😩😩😩

Look how stink'in adorable he is. This nerd. 😊 This has strong, 'how do you do fellow kids' vibes.

Another interesting thing of note, is Gaal's intuitive moments. In the first episode, she sensed something was wrong with the Star Bridge, and now in this episode she sensed something was wrong with Hari. In the first episode I thought it was just bad writing, but I am sensing a pattern forming. This kind of sixth sense, intuition becomes a BIG concept later on in the Foundation series, but in a very specific way and for a very specific reason. I do not understand why they would be bringing this up now, but I guess we can only find out.

My only question right now is, did the creators of this show even READ Asimov's books at all??? I am beginning to wonder if they did.

[what-the--curtains]

Alliance

Chapter 2 – The Decision

(Mando x f!reader)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summary: The child taken, his ship destroyed the only one who can help him? A woman he sold into slavery several months earlier.

Notes: Wow wow wow! Thank all for the likes im glad ive gained some interest lets hope I can keep it! Comment or message to be added to the tagged list!

Tw: mentions of dubcon/sex, depictions of violence and coarse language

Tagged list: @crazycookiecrumbles

Word count: 3.7k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

7 months later

Mandos POV

Using all his wits and a touch of charm the Mandalorian had managed to make his way to a nearby town. Once there he’d likely be able to hitch a ride or win some kind of ship in a game of cards. He didn’t need a good one, just something to get him to Navarro. He makes his way to a more upscale bar, hoping its clients would be more lucrative with their belongings. Scanning the gambling hall he chooses his target carefully, opting for a rich looking idiot who had been trying to impress the man next to him since the Mandalorian had walked in. He takes his seat at the round wooden table amongst a variety of lavishly dressed characters. He had to find the child as soon as possible. If he wasn’t with the empire yet there’s no doubt he would be soon.

“Deal me in” He says, taking a seat between an Iktotchi and an Ortolan.

“Not so fast, what's your buy in?” the dealer asks.

“How about that helmet?” The Ortolan pipes up.

“No.”

“The creature then?” the Falleen across the table ponders reaching out to touch Anya, who had been at his side when Grogu was taken and has refused to leave it since.

“No” he says, batting her hand away and tapping on his shoulder piece “Will this do?” The dealer nods and they begin. In the second hand he ends up winning a ship from his target who was seemingly unbothered by the loss as he nonchalantly tosses Mando the keys, before leaving the table.

Twirling the key on his index finger he makes his way to the bar, hoping to gain some insight on how to go about finding Grogu.

“Quite a game, didn’t know Mandalorians played cards.” The older humanoid bartender stated, shining off a glass. With no response he speaks up again. “Can I help you with something , give me something to tell the kids if I helped out a Mandalorian.”

“If someone was looking to find something lost where would he go?”

“You have any idea what this thing is?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea where it is?”

“No.”

“Tell you what, there was a woman, from a forest planet somewhere on the outer rim. Hair as white as snow, an old language on her body, a face that’s hard to forget. She helped me find my youngest after she was taken by smugglers.”

“Vryssa?” The Mandalorian says slowly, causing Anya to perk up.

“Aye that’s the place. You’ve been?” the barkeep ponders.

“Thank you, here” he says handing over a portion of the credits won in his game of cards to the speechless keeper.

Exiting the bar shaking his head in disbelief, of course the one person who could help him track the kid was someone with a personal vendetta against him. At least he knew who he had to find and where to start looking. Opening the doors to his new ship he gives it a quick once over. It was roomier than the razor crest, but not by much, too fancy for his liking in all honesty. Nicer amenities though and a decent sized bed which Anya had made her way onto, it would be a better place for when he gets the kid back. It had an armoury, but nothing in it, at least not yet. He closes it and makes his way up to the ship's cockpit. Decent enough system, more of a flashy ride than a functional one, made for a decently skilled pilot by the looks of it. Locking in the coordinates for Coruscant he begins his search.

For two weeks he attends black markets around the galaxy until one day he sees him, the man who had bought you. He follows him cornering him in a nearby alleyway.

“What do you want Mando?” The Kel Dor responds.

“I’m looking for a woman.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“She was bought by you a few months ago. Not jogging your memory? White hair, eternal blood.”

“Oh. Her difficult one, had to break her in a bit.” The choice of words was less than favourable to the Mandalorian, but in favor of time he brushed by it.

“What happened to her?”

“ Sold her.”

“ To who?” He says getting impatient

“Gladiatorial ring on Geonosis , she was a big hit, sold her for twice what I had paid, moved into the big arenas quickly. I’ll take you if you want.”

“No, give me the coordinates.” Mando says

“Should be easy enough for you to get her. She's been broken in well, nice and obedient if you know…” He knocks the guy out before he can finish the sentence.

R-16, Geonosis, Outer Rim Territories

Stepping out of the ship it doesn’t take long for him to figure out where you are. Large projections of posters with you line the street, apparently you were fighting today. The sounds of the arena increase as he gets closer, as does the crowd of people awaiting the show.

“A Mandalorian, you here to see the fight? Gonna be a good one. Fan favourite tonight the huntress.” A native geonosian exclaims.

“Is she the girl in the picture? The white haired one?”

“ Yes, and if you like what you see I’m sure a piece of that armour will get you a night with her, I’ve heard the trainer sells her off after fights.” The Mandalorian nods and heads off “How much for a ticket” he ask the seller,

“100 credits”

“For a fight?”

“For today’s fight? Yes.” Begrudgingly he pays the fee and enters into the dome. It is enormous, the revenue it brings in must be astronomical he thinks as he takes his seat.

Your POV

It hadn’t been an easy few months, but you were still alive. The handlers knew if they bled you all at once the value would decrease, and after having you fight and win over the fans, keeping you alive became more economically sound than killing you. Your most recent trainer, an older Duras named San Korliks, had gotten you into a slightly more dubious but very lucrative business. Turns out the rich love nothing more than spending the night with a victor. Between the fights and the suitors you’d have enough saved to live comfortably once you were out. Yes you were close to buying your freedom, 12 fights and a few more rich idiots and you’d be out of here. You’d find a planet with plenty of sand and water and settle down living out the rest of your days in peace. You could hear the crowd cheering from your cell, San would be here for you shortly. You stand up smoothing out the red tunic that had seen better days. It was shorter than you’d like and impractical for fighting, but your handler was right sex sells and it had kept you alive thus far. You move to the drawer of the cell, though tightly watched it was decently large and relatively comfortable. More wins meant better quarters. You pull out the gold plated armour clipping the chest plate, arm bands and shin guards into place before lacing up your worn down brown leather boots. Moving over to the small mirror you dip your hand into a bowl of burgundy paint smearing it down your face and onto your neck then around your well defined biceps. You're admiring your work when you hear a knock on your cell door.

“C’mon darling let’s give them a show” San says, he was nicer than your previous trainers, probably as you were bringing in the big bucks. You walk over to the cell door, he opens it and guides you to the enormous door that would soon open up to the arena.

“Try to let a little blood get spilled tonight, we need to sell some.” You nod, cracking your neck and stretching out your arms. “I also have some suitors lined up, high payers.”

“How many more till I’m out?” you question.

“ Just a few more darling, promise.” He says squeezing your shoulder. You hear the crowd chanting in the background as San leaves. You grab the spear left out for you, tossing it from hand to hand to gage its weight. You bounce up and down on your toes shaking out your body and calming your mind and preparing for whatever they were planning on throwing at you tonight. You repeat the number of days until you're free in your head. You could do this, you’d done it a hundred times now. Not that the killing gets any easier, but in order to survive you had to forgo morality. The doors open and the crowd erupts in applause as you enter waving to the adoring fans.

Mando’s POV

The loud speaker blares out over the crowd “ Tonight a special event, the huntress will take on not one, not two, but four opponents! Now to make it a fair fight, only one will be allowed to challenge at a time, but we have a lovely admixture of beasts and an extra special surprise for you all. The return of another fan favorite. Hang onto your seats folks, this is going to be a night you won’t soon forget” Four versus one, Mando thinks, as he watches you enter the arena, the odds definitely weren’t in your favour. He was prepared to jump in and get you out himself if he had too, you were his only chance at finding the kid after all. He hears a rumble of applause as a door across from you opens revealing a Rancor. He watches you closely, noticing how unphased you seemed by it. In no less than a minute he sees the spear fly from your hand hitting the creature right in its jugular killing it instantly. Not bad, he thinks, but it was just a Rangor, yes they were big, but they weren’t known for being strategic fighters. You pull the spear out of its neck, the crowd cheers seemingly alerting you to the presence of the Nexu that had appeared from the door behind you. It leaps towards you and he watches intently as you tuck and roll out of the way, spear still in hand, thrilling the crowd even more.

He wonders how much of the fight is a performance and how much of it was real. You and the Nexu circle each other, seeing you plant your feet he finds himself curious as to what your next move will be. You kick the dirt up causing the creature to charge again, as it leaps you take a knee lifting the top of the spear up, slicing the creature open causing its guts to fall down on you earning more zealous applause from the arena. He sees you stand up lifting your arms to get the crowd chanting, more showmanship. “What can you tell me about her?” he asks the couple sitting next to him. “Never lost a fight, and she’s beautiful, you need anything else?” They reply. He sees you wiping the creature's guts off your face when a door opens and a Terentatek appears, where the hell did they find one of those things the Mandalorian thinks. He sees your shoulders deflate, more so in annoyance, than fear based on the look on your face. It’s obvious you weren’t expecting a creature so large. After a few dodges and spear swipes the creature has you cornered, he sees you look side to side searching for an out, but there isn’t one, at least none he can see. Its mouth descends on you, seemingly engulfing you whole. The crowd is silent, it’s only then he notices he’s out of his seat. When had that happened? A glimmer suddenly appears from the creature's head as it gets brighter; he sees the spear had sliced through the Terentateks thick hide. The creature collapses and the skin on its head separates as you appear victorious. He sits back down observing you closely as you walk back towards the door from whence you came. The announcer's voice starts up again.

“Now for an extras special treat we’ve brought a fan favourite out of retirement, the demon slayer!” Just then the door opens and a Deveronian in head to toe black armour emerges wasting no time in launching his attack. He throws a dagger which catches you in the arm, the crowd erupts, the sight of your blood enticing them. He watches you intently as you bend over retrieving the knife off the floor and tossing it to the audience. Your opponent’s armour was thick, with very few openings in it. The crowd was getting excited, noticing that you had lost the spear to the Deveronian who had thrown it behind him.

You were the more skilled fighter, but the demon slayer was larger and stronger. He watches you try to make a pass. He thinks you’re in the clear but the opponent grabs you by the hair pulling you back into him as he brandishes another knife bringing it up to your throat. You bite down on his hand giving you just enough time to wrestle the knife from him no doubt slicing your hands open in the process. He doubts that this part of the fight was showmanship, both you and your competitor were evenly matched. It was anyone’s game. Your stunt had given you enough time to retrieve your spear. Just as he thinks you’ve gotten the upper hand he sees a mace extend out from one of the slayer’s sleeves, it sparks with electricity. If it so much as hit you, that would be it. The Mandalorian can feel his heart pounding finding himself wrapped up in the atmosphere of the arena as the creature approaches you swinging the mace. It wraps around your spear, the crowd is silent, they think it's all over, but looking at a nearby screen Mando makes out what appears to be a small smile on your face.

The mace wraps the spear and you pull back on it, hard, drawing the Deveronian in closer. As the electricity hits your arm you release the force from the pulling causing the spear to plunge up in-between the opening between the Devaronians chest plate and helmet killing him instantly. He sees you drop to your knees catching the falling opponent whispering something before laying him down on the floor. The crowd erupts in cheers, flowers and money are thrown to the ground, before picking it up he sees you circle back to each opponent kneeling on the ground for a few seconds before rising and moving on to the next.

“C’mon Mando” the people beside him say “blood auctions this way”. He follows them, but half the auditorium seemingly had the same idea and he was too far back to reach you. He sees you standing with your trainer as the blood spilled during the fight was sold to the highest bidder, the crowd intermittently grabbing at you. You’re quickly shuffled out the room. The Mandalorian exits through a back door, as he does he sees your trainer speaking to a Sephi. He hangs back, close enough to hear the conversation, but far enough away so as not to be noticed.

“Room 801. She’ll be ready for you in a half hour.”

“Perfect, makers, where will I go when she’s free? No one has ever compared to her” the client laughs.

“She’s not leaving, at least not for a while. Far too good for business at the moment. Hope’s what keeps her keen though. I oblige in her fantasies, so she can oblige yours ” The Duro gives the man the key and heads back into the arena. The man exits the alley bumping into the Mandalorian.

“Watch it Mando.” The Sephi says, pushing by him. As he pushes by, Mando snatches the key and makes his way up to room 801.

Your POV

“Hey San, how'd the rest of the auction go?” you ask, wiping off as much slime as you could in the small sink. “Good. I’ve put your cut in the bank for when you’re out. We have a client room 801, penthouse, he knows you apparently.”

“Half the galaxy knows me” you murmur “Do we have to tonight?” you ask, wanting to get out of your gear and go to sleep.

“C’mon he’s rich and not bad looking.”

“Fine” you sigh, not like you had a choice anyways. He chains your hands together and leads you up to the penthouse suite, at least you’d get to sleep in a large bed, maybe get a shower with decent water pressure. He unchains you and ushers you into the room, closing and locking the door behind you. You rub your wrists and crack you back stretching out your arms, you hear a cough. Weird, you think, clients were usually brought up after you’d had time to settle in. “I'm sorry I wasn’t expecting...” you say in your sweetest voice turning around. The tone is quickly dropped. The client was none other than the very person who had landed you in this situation.

“YOU” you shout, not thinking twice before charging at him, slipping a knife out from one of your arm bands and lunging for the Mandalorians neck. He grabs your wrists before they can make contact with him, bending them back causing you to drop the knife on the floor. He tries to restrain you causing you to panic accidentally using the force to throw him back against the wall. He crashed into the wall landing on the floor with a soft thud probably wondering what the hell’s just hit him. His hands quickly shoot up in the air, as you pick up the knife again pointing it at him.

“If you think for one second I’m going to sleep with you, you have another thing coming you stupid tin can, you’re lucky ...” you start but he cuts you off

“That’s not why I’m here.” He says quickly.

“ What?” you say, lowering your knife, but not your guard.

“ I’m here for your help.”

“ YOU want MY help? Makers you’re funny, you know I didn’t know Mandalorians could tell jokes.” you say sitting down on the bed across from him as he cautiously stands up, hands still in the air.

“I’m here to get you out” He offers.

“Why? what do you want from me?” you question

“Your help, the child he was taken I...” he pauses, you feel the sadness emanating off him, but you hold the knife true. “I need to find him before the others do, they’ll kill him.”

“Well should have thought about that before you lost him.” you say snarkily. Standing up you make your way to the door.

“Please, I can get you out of here.” He starts, you turn on your heel.

“Newsflash, I’m making my own way out of here just…”

“ ...a few more fights” he finishes for you. you look at him confused. “There never letting you out of here I heard your trainer he’s not letting you go. Something about being too good for business.” Was he telling you the truth? With the helmet covering his face it was hard to tell. From what your grandmother had told you, Mandalorians rarely lied, and deep down something was telling you to trust him.

“Bastard” you mutter moving away from the door. “Well i'll find my own way out.”

“Please” he says, taking a step towards you, causing you to lift the knife up again. “You wasted your money coming here, leave.”

“I didn’t pay”

“What?” you respond and he looks over to you . “You’re not the client?”

“No” he says dryly, as if the answer was obvious. The tension is cut by a sudden knock at the door.

“Shit, you have to hide” you say dropping the knife and pushing the Mandalorian in the direction of the bed.

“Where should I hide behind a curtain?” he deadpans

“I am not in the mood for jokes right now, get under the bed” you say lifting up the bed skirt.

“No”

“Yes” you say pointing ferociously under the bed.

“No”

“Fine, but you have to go somewhere or we're both screwed.” You say turning around to get the door. As you open it you start “look I can explain.”

“ Explain what?” The Sephi asks, pushing past you taking a seat on the bed. “You’re performance out there was almost as enticing as you” you turn back to close the door looking around the room in an attempt to locate the beskar clad man. “We’ve met before, remember?” he asked, as if you would.

“Hard to forget such a lovely night.” You lie, sitting down next to him realizing you were going to have to talk your way out of this one. “Listen, tonight’s been rough, and I want to be at my peak performance for you, we can reschedule for another night” you say stroking his cheek. The Sephi grabs your wrist, harshly. “ No, I paid for it now so I’ll get it now” . Just then you hear a blaster go off and the guy drops. The Mandalorian appears from behind the curtain

“Seriously.” you say, “I was going to deal with him”

“And I wasn’t going to sit and watch it happen,” he responds re-holstering the blaster.

“They’ll use this to keep me here forever” you say, more sad than angry.

“They were doing that anyway” the modulated voice says. “Come with me” he says reaching his arm out, “now or never”.

Standing up, you push past his hand and walk over to the dead client laying on the floor. Kneeling down you rummage around for his wallet before throwing it to the Mandalorian.

“Let’s get out of here” you say

“Here” he says, taking off his cape and offering it to you. You wrap it around yourself.

“I look like a goddamn Jawa” you say, making note of how long it looks on you.

“Come on before your handaler comes back” he says. The two of you make a swift exit, creeping through the back alleys until you reach his newly acquired ship.

[koyacyi-vode]

For the prompt meme, maybe #4 with Wolffe and Plo? Or #49 with Fox and Rex?

[On Ao3]

I bet you thought I forgot about this. || Prompt from this post from forever ago

Prompt 4 - “We’re designed to be disposable.”

Characters: Wolffe and Plo

The rest under a readmore!

>CT-4113. KIA. 13:10:17. Abregado System. Enter.

>CT-6719. KIA. 13:10:17. Abregado System. Enter. 

CT Number. Date of death. Enter.

Wolffe typed designations and numbers into his datapad, trying not to visualize the faces that accompanied them. The task was as monotonous as it was painful. But Wolffe tried not to think about that. He had to keep going, keep serving, keep on task.

The words on the holoscreen were starting to blur. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting at his desk typing number after number. It was a task that had to be done, logging the dead. He'd just never had to do it for so many at once. He'd started to feel completely numb from it.

>CT-0159. KIA. 13:10:17. Abregado System. Enter.

CT Number. Date of death. Enter. 

Wolffe heard the distant hiss of the door to his quarters, but he didn't look up, his gaze transfixed on the seemingly endless stream of numbers in front of him. From the nearly silent entrance he knew it was General Koon. He really should stand at attention to greet him. It was disrespectful to ignore him. He didn't look up. 

"Commander?" the familiar soft and muffled cadence of his General's voice made Wolffe's fingers stutter on the holokeys. He picked back up a moment later. 

CT Number. Date of death. Enter. 

"Commander, you're working in the dark," Plo pointed out gently, and Wolffe heard the soft swish of the General's robes as they swept across the floor. Wolffe chose not to respond. He didn't know what to say. "Would you like me to turn on your light?" the General asked. Wolffe swallowed roughly, glancing quickly up to Plo before back to the holoscreen, continuing his typing where he left off.

"No. Thank you, General," he said, his voice hoarse and scratchy from disuse. He'd meant it as a subtle dismissal, but he wasn't surprised when Plo made no move to leave. 

"You'll hurt your eyes staring at a holoscreen in the dark, Wolffe," and there was a thin thread of admonishment in Plo's tone. 

"I'm fine, Sir," Wolffe assured, even though he was undermined by the raspy edge to his voice. "I need to-" Wolffe swallowed with difficulty, his throat dry, "uh, I need to finish this report in order to send our troop replacement requisitions," he explained.

CT Number. Date of death. Enter.

The General was quiet for several seconds, but Wolffe heard a barely-there shuffling as he walked across the room. When the General remained silent for longer than Wolffe expected, he finally ripped his gaze from his holoscreen and froze. 

Plo was standing in front of Wolffe's armor storage, turned slightly away from him with one hand pressed gently to the side of Wolffe's empty helmet. Wolffe had received his replacement armor in the last shipment to the Resolute, which was where the remainder of the 104th was stationed until their replacement cruiser arrived. It had felt a bit like a hard punch to the face to see his mended armor, shiny and new and perfect. He hadn't been able to put it on yet. Each time he'd tried, his chest had constricted to the point where he couldn't breathe. The last time he attempted it, he'd ended up stripping his kit off in such a rush that he'd hurled his vambrace across the room. He'd left it in storage ever since. Plo ran a careful finger down the deep maroon markings that Wolffe had once worn with pride and then lowered his head. 

"I'm sorry," Plo said, an audible strain in his quiet voice. "I have failed all of you as a General. You put your trust in my leadership, but I led us directly into a trap I could not forsee. I brought forth this destruction, and you and your brothers paid the price. It is an irreplaceable loss. It is not a mistake I will make again," he said with a surprisingly hard edge to his voice that Wolffe hadn't heard before. Plo's hand dropped from Wolffe's helmet and joined his other under the sleeves of his robe, his head bowing forward slowly in a gesture Wolffe recognized from their few months working together as the Kel Dor's acknowledgment of grief.

Wolffe had been surprised the first time the General had mourned for one of his fallen brothers. It was something his training had not prepared him for. He placed the lives of clones over the completion of a mission, something Wolffe had learned after failing to capture the Nexus during the siege of Hisseen. It was a quality that perhaps didn't make Plo Koon the most effective General from a tactical standpoint, but was what had earned him Wolffe's deepest respect nonetheless. Wolffe was also well-aware that his General's compassion was a considerable weakness in the tragedy of war. Because loss wasn't something they could avoid. 

"We are designed to be disposable, General. We are cogs in a machine, and like parts, we can be replaced," he said, even though he knew that Plo had heard this sentiment before. It was a saying they were taught from their youngest days of training. As clones, they were part of a much larger whole. The individual was not worth more than their collective duty.

"You are people," Plo insisted, just like Wolffe expected he would. It made a rueful smile twitch at the corner of Wolffe's mouth. Plo turned to him a bit more fully and it was hard to tell his expression in the dark, the blue glow from Wolffe's holoscreen casting a ghostly silhouette on the General. "You are not broken machinery to be cast aside and forgotten. We can replace the numbers of our troops, but we cannot replace the individuals we have lost. Do you really believe what you just said, Commander?" 

The question being turned on him made Wolffe stiffen in surprise. He'd never been asked that before and so openly. Plo must have known from how he had said the phrase that it was something Wolffe just repeated, but didn't truly believe. He's not sure he ever really believed it. It was one of the few teachings the kaminiise attempted to instill that they never could get to stick. The bonds between vode made it impossible to treat each other with the same coldness their creators regarded them with. They would parrot the phrase when needed, but few clones truly felt that their vode were disposable. Fox, in a private conversation far away from prying ears, had even called it 'a manipulation tactic to make the nat-borns feel better about us dying in droves'.

But it was one thing to harbor such feelings in private or among brothers, it was another to deliberately renounce one of the core factors of their designed purpose to others, particularly a superior officer. So Wolffe stayed quiet. Plo waited patiently for him to respond, and when it was clear he wasn't going to the Kel Dor sighed. 

"I understand your hesitation in voicing such an opinion. And I apologize for asking that of you," he said with a small bow of his head. "If you could Commander, I would like for you to get some rest. Please forward me the report you are working on and I will finish it for you," he gestured vaguely to Wolffe's forgotten holoscreen. General Koon made it to the doorway before Wolffe finally broke his silence.

"I can't put on my armor," he burst, voice cracking. "I can't even look at it without seeing them. I've input over two-hundred numbers into this casualty report. Two-hundred brothers who had names. I can't- I've never-" Wolffe pulled in a ragged breath, clutching at the sides of his head. He flinched when he sensed the General's presence at his side. Plo telegraphed his movements so Wolffe was aware of precisely where he was, and laid a single clawed hand on Wolffe's shoulder, squeezing lightly. Wolffe choked back a quiet sob, biting heavily into his lip until he tasted blood, his eyes screwed shut. Plo knelt so he was closer to Wolffe's eye-level.

"Your burden is heavy, Commander. Heavier than most and weighed by your strong sense of duty," Plo said gently. 

"I've never felt so useless, Sir," Wolffe whispered, voice brittle and broken. "I keep thinking, if I had been better prepared, or if I’d had my armor and could have helped I-" he cut himself off with a wet sob.

"You did the best you could, Commander, and the men you saved are alive thanks to your efforts in that pod with keeping our signal alive," Plo reasoned, his brow furrowed together with honest sincerity. Wolffe struggled to steady his breathing, taking several shallow breaths before finally managing a full inhale. His chest burned and his cheeks were wet and Plo was looking at him without an ounce of judgement. Wolffe looked up at the ceiling, tilting his head back.

"I don't want them to be forgotten, Sir. They're the 104th. They can't just... disappear. They can't be erased like that," he pleaded weakly. 

"As they live on in our hearts and the Force, they deserve to be honored; I agree Commander," Plo stood in a slow, fluid motion and made his way back to Wolffe's armor storage. Wolffe watched as he quietly took a vambrace from its resting place and brought it back to Wolffe's desk and offered it to him. "What do you see here, Commander?" Plo asked in that vaguely leading way that Jedi do when they're teaching some important philosophical lesson. Wolffe hesitated before taking the vambrace carefully from Plo's hands, turning it around in his own as he examined the painted markings. 

"My vambrace, Sir?" Wolffe asked, not entirely sure where the Jedi was heading with this. 

"You told me your armor reminds you of our battalion, tell me why," Plo encouraged, unhurried. Wolffe swallowed painfully, his fingers brushing over the fresh, unscuffed paint. Just looking at it made something painful spasm in his chest.  

"It's our colors, Sir," he answered, voice far away. 

"Your colors are as much a part of your battalion as the men are. Perhaps then, this shade can honor their memory. They were the 104th who wore red, it is theirs," Plo suggested, because he was compassionate and cared. He knew how much their armor and their colors meant to clones. Their colors represented their aliit, their family, their closest brothers. They wore their colors with pride and honor. Painting their armor meant being woven into a clan and protecting one another. His clan, his brothers, his 104th was gone. Their colors would remain with them. Wolffe's fingers tightened around his vambrace as his voice caught in his throat. He spent several seconds just trying to get words past the lump in his throat, his hands trembling.

"Tha-thank you, Sir," he stammered out, his voice shaky and uncontrolled. But Plo had always encouraged the expression of emotion, and to not feel shame for the feelings that flowed through them. Wolffe had still always kept a tight lock on his own emotion around the men, because he had to stay strong as their Commander. But he was the lowest-ranking officer in the room at the moment. So he didn't hold back the grateful tears that fell from his eyes or the sobs that cracked from his throat. And Plo kept a steady, gentle hand on Wolffe's back as he cried through his grief. 

---

Wolffe woke the next morning feeling like his eyes were glued together. He groaned and sat up rubbing at the uncomfortably tight feeling on his face. He didn't remember going to sleep the night before, or finishing his report. Belatedly he realized he must have passed out from exhaustion and the General must have carried him to his cot. 

Fox must never know.

He scrubbed once more at his face before getting up. It was a bit later than he normally woke up, but he still had some time before the refectory started serving breakfast.

He stepped into the 'fresher, glancing in the mirror and scowling at how red his eyes were. He supposed that was expected, but he wouldn't be caught dead looking like this to his men or the men of the 501st. He pivoted in the small refresher and turned the water to his shower to just-under scalding. He washed the remaining tear tracks off of his face and let the water try and loosen some of the overly-tight muscles in his shoulders and back. He let his mind go blank and empty, deciding not to examine anything that happened the night before just yet. He stayed only a minute longer than his regular routine, then got dressed in fresh officer's greys. He opted out of shaving the now more prominent stubble on his face, but he was technically on leave, so it didn't really matter. 

He checked his chronometer and decided he had about two hours until he would be considered 'late' for breakfast, and sat down to finish the Abregado casualty report, or at least get further with it. He tapped in his passcode and the report popped immediately on screen. Except, it was finished. Wolffe double and triple checked and scrolled through the hundreds of designations multiple times before coming to the bottom of the report again to see his name along with the General's scrawled signature. A warm rush of gratefulness spread through his limbs and Wolffe had to fight to keep his composure.

Wolffe sprung up from his chair, grabbing his holster (habit) and practically ran from his quarters to search for the General. It was still early in the rotation, so there were just a few lone troopers and the stray group or two, each giving him a rushed salute as he barreled past. 

He finally tracked the Jedi down in the barracks, sitting on one of the cots with Boost and Sinker squished together across from him. Whatever he was saying, they were completely focused on him and didn't look up until Plo himself turned to acknowledge Wolffe's arrival. 

"Good morning Commander," be greeted serenely. 

"You finished my report, Sir," Wolffe said, wincing when it sounded a bit like an accusation. "You didn't have to do that," he added to soften it. Plo nodded his head solemnly. 

"I wanted you to get some rest, Commander. You needed it," he said, his hands curled in on each other, relaxed. 

"Yeah you look terrible, Commander," Boost grinned, but Wolffe let him have it since that was how the kid coped. 

"I think we should do it, Sir," Sinker said, looking at Wolffe with steely, sad eyes. "If there's any way we can honor them, it's that," he smiled tightly and couldn't hold eye contact. Wolffe looked at Plo, realizing that he had gone to ask them their permission to change their colors, because he respected their opinions. 

"I agree, Sir," Boost added, the humor gone from his voice. "It doesn't feel right, wearing their colors," he looked to Sinker and grimaced and Sinker nodded, gripping his vod firmly on the shoulder. 

"You got a color in mind, Wolffe?" Sinker asked, looking back at him. He was giving Wolffe the choice. Wolffe thought for a moment and then cleared his throat, not trusting his voice not to crack again.

"I think grey," he said carefully. Because every clone knew what grey armor meant. They'd gleaned their roots from Mandalorian culture, and color could speak for itself. Grey was for mourning. Because by acknowledging their loss and their grief, Wolffe and the little remainder of the 104th was saying 'we are not disposable and we will not forget'. Grey was their mourning, but also their defiance. 

Plo nodded approvingly at him. Wolffe didn't know if the Jedi knew about the color meanings they were utilizing, but he must have felt the gnawing, determined conviction rise in Wolffe's chest at the declaration. The General scooted over to the side of the cot, gesturing for Wolffe to sit down. Wolffe nodded gratefully and sat next to him. 

Sinker grinned fiercely, tears in the corners of his eyes as he grasped Wolffe's hand in a tight grip. Wolffe reached out and held Boost's hand as the trooper tried to keep his composure. They sat in their isolated circle, holding each other together. 

"Grey it is, then" Sinker said, eyes bright. 

"Grey it is," Wolffe agreed.

[arofili]

Line of Elros Edit Series: Appendix D

Continued from Appendix C. This section will contain information on the Princes of Dol Amroth and the Chieftains of the Dúnedain.

~~~

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Appendix A: Royalty of Númenor Appendix B: House of Andúnië, Royalty of Arnor Appendix C: Royalty of Gondor Appendix D: Princes of Dol Amroth, Chieftains of the Dúnedain (you are here!) Appendix E: Stewards of Gondor

~~~

PRINCES OF DOL AMROTH

Note: The names of most of these characters come from Adûnaic, but after using a lot of Adûnaic in the Royalty of Númenor section of this project, I was running out of vocabulary to use. Instead I repurposed the fragments of the (often untranslated in canon) Adûnaic names canonical to the House of Dol Amroth and scoured through this Adûnaic dictionary for other words that might be useful. For untranslated words, I made a guess based on the meaning of the word or a similar word in another language, which I excuse because Adûnaic is sort of a language cobbled together from a bunch of other languages.

Following is a brief glossary of the terms I used to make most of these names. If a name element does not appear here, I probably borrowed it from one of these namelists.

GLOSSARY adra || “crossing” || meaning derived from Gnomish adros (related to Sindarin athrad) agla || “brilliant, glorious” || meaning derived from Adûnaic aglar alêth || “city” || canonical meaning ang[a] || “iron” || meaning derived from Sindarin ang / Quenya anga asdi || “hope” || a canonical Adûnaic word of unknown meaning; I made up its meaning batân || “road, path” || canonical meaning êluk || “past” || a canonical Adûnaic word of unclear meaning; I derived its meaning from Adûnaic t��idô, meaning “once, then” and supposedly a later form of this word had || “to hurl” || meaning derived from Sindarin hador, “thrower” hil || “son, child” || meaning derived from Sindarin [c]híl, “heir” hir || “lord” || meaning derived from Sindarin hîr imra || “valley” || meaning derived from Sindarin imrath karasa || “red” || canonical meaning limir || “chain” || meaning derived from Quenya limil rûkh || “to shout” || canonical meaning zâbath || “humble” || canonical meaning zâira || “yearning, longing” || canonical meaning zôr || “fire” || canonical meaning

~~~

Adrahil I ft. Adrahil I, Zâbathasdî (OC), Imrazôr The history of Dor-en-Ernil is mostly canon. Adrahil’s involvement in Ondoher’s campaign is canon, but his fate in that conflict is unknown, and everything after his retreat to Ithilien is headcanon. Tolkien Gateway has a footnote I find somewhat amusing that emphasizes that we don’t know For Sure that Adrahil was Imrazôr’s father, because even though all the dates line up for that to be true Tolkien never explicitly said that, soooo..... I think there’s no reason he wouldn’t be Imrazôr’s father, but I guess it’s canonically possible he’s not.

Imrazôr ft. Imrazôr, Mithrellas Nimruphêr, Galador, Gilmith Amroth’s story is canon, though we don’t know that it specifically was Imrazôr who named the hill after him. All we know about Imrazôr and Mithrellas is their origin story about Mithrellas being lost in the woods and Imrazôr finding her, and that after Mithrellas bore Imrazôr two children she disappeared into the night. I’ve seen lots of varying interpretations of this story, including some where Imrazôr forced Mithrellas to marry her, but in my opinion nothing in the text confirms that theory. We don’t know for sure that Gilmith and Galador are twins, but since they were born in the same year and elf pregnancies are usually exactly a year long I think it’s the most likely scenario. Mithrellas is said to have left after her children were born, which usually I see interpreted as right after their births, but again nothing in the text says her departure was immediate so I think it makes more sense that she stayed until they were grown, at least. Galador does become his father’s heir (see the next edit) but we know nothing else about Gilmith, so their differing fates (mirroring Elros and Elrond’s) are entirely my headcanon. A while back I made an edit about Gilmith and Mithrellas reuniting, if you want to check that out (though I did go with the “Mithrellas leaves immediately” version of events there).

Galador ft. Galador, Zadnazîrî (OC), Minlubên (OC), Inzilkaras (OC) The distinction/transition between Dor-en-Ernil and Dol Amroth is never explicitly described in Tolkien’s work, but since the land was not called Dol Amroth until after Amroth’s rule (during Imrazôr’s reign) and Galador was the first prince of Dol Amroth specifically, I think my version of events fits into canon. He was not the first prince of his line, rather the first prince of that specific place-name. Everything about Galador’s choice of mortality and his reasoning behind it is headcanon. His wife, naturally, is unnamed and thus entirely my own creation. Here we get to the first of many “unnamed princes” - we know how many there were between Galador and the next named lord (Aglahad), but nothing else about them save the dates of their lives and rule. Which is still more than we know about the Lords of Andúnië!

Balakân ft. Balakân (OC), Avradizimril (OC), Zâinabên (OC), Imralêthî (OC), Angahil (OC), Abrazân (OC) Everything here is entirely my own invention. I realized after making this edit that the line of Dol Amroth was “unbroken” between Galador and Imrahil, meaning there was no uncle to nephew inheritance like this, but tbh that’s a minor detail I’m not fussed about contradicting.

Abrazân ft. Abrazân (OC), Zâirahirî (OC), Bawbuthôr (OC), Karbazîrî (OC), Avalôzîr (OC), Narakarî (OC), Gimlibên I (OC), Asdiphêl (OC), Zôrahad (OC), Agathilî (OC) All the events that occur in this edit are canonical, but everything to do with the involvement of anyone from Dol Amroth is my headcanon. All information about the Princes and their family is my own invention.

Alêthir ft. Alêthir (OC), Zâbathinzil (OC), Karsalimir (OC), Adrabatîna (OC), Gimlibên II (OC), Zimrasdî (OC), Rûkhir (OC), Batânaglar (OC), Zâirêluk (OC), Ûrîzôrî (OC) Same note as previous. Don’t worry, we’re getting back to semi-canonical stuff soon! The name “Karsalimir” is derived from “karasa+limir”; I shortened the first element for a better flow of the name. Adrabatîna’s name is glossed as “fortunate meeting” but literally means “crossing paths.”

Karazôr ft. Karazôr (OC), Zâiralêth (OC), Asdihil (OC), Lômihirî (OC) The 15th and 16th Princes did canonically die early; the 15th Prince was “slain by the Corsairs of Umbar” and the 16th was “slain in battle.” We don’t have specifics on either event, so an isolated skirmish with the Corsairs is plausible enough for the 15th Prince’s demise. The 16th Prince died in 2799, the same year as the end of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs that sent orcs fleeing to the White Mountains in southern Gondor, so while there is no proof I think it’s likely that is the conflict in which he perished. Karazôr’s name comes from “karasa+zôr”; again, I’ve shortened the first element for aesthetic purposes.

Aglazôr ft. Aglazôr (OC), Gimilzâirî (OC), Angharas (OC), Nîlubêlî (OC) The Battle of the Poros happened during the rule of the 17th Prince; it is conceivable he and his son would have fought in that conflict, but all information about them is entirely headcanon. Once more I have messed with the word “karas” as a name element: Angharas’ name comes from “ang(a)+karasa,” but in pushing those two elements together Angakarasa becomes something like Angharas.

Aglahad ft. Aglahad, Karasaphêl (OC), Angelimir, Minalzôrî (OC), Adrahil II Finally we get to actually canonical characters!! Although we don’t know anything at all about Aglahad or Angelimir other than their names and the usual dates. This is the time Ithilien was deserted and Henneth Annûn was founded, though Angelimir’s involvement is entirely my own speculation.

Adrahil II ft. Adrahil II, Branniel (OC), Ivriniel, Finduilas of Dol Amroth, Denethor II, The basic details of Finduilas’ story are canon, though I have embellished a bit (including Imrahil’s resentment of Denethor). Everything about Adrahil, Branniel, and Ivriniel is headcanon.

Imrahil ft. Imrahil, Malleneth (OC), Elphir, Erchirion, Amrothos, Lothíriel All of Imrahil’s deeds are canon, though they have been somewhat embellished. He was even canonically bros with Éomer! However, everything about everyone else in his family is headcanon, except that Lothíriel did indeed marry Éomer (though we don’t know how exactly that came to be).

Elphir ft. Elphir, Idhrenes (OC), Alphros We know nothing about Elphir and Alphros except for their names and relevant dates; all of this is headcanon.

~~~

CHIEFTAINS OF THE DÚNEDAIN

Aranarth ft. Aranarth, Lorneth (OC), Amathim (OC), Arahael, Idhrion (OC) Aranarth is implied to have a younger brother, as the ROTK appendices indicate he is the elder son of Arvedui. He also had at least one other child, since Dírhael is “said to be a descendant of a younger branch of Aranarth.” I came up with a different version of Dírhael’s ancestry that I like better, interpreting “younger branch of Aranarth” to just broadly mean “a younger branch of Aranarth’s house,” but I decided I liked the idea of giving Arahael a sibling. The bit about Aranarth’s tracking ability was borrowed from Middle-earth Role Playing. Arahael was born decades after his father’s inheritance (unusual for the Dúnedain, but Aranarth was particularly young when Arvedui died); technically Aranarth gave the heirlooms of Arnor to Elrond shortly after Angmar was destroyed, but after reading this excellent fic by @nikosheba I’ve adopted the headcanon that instead that happened when Aranarth’s wife arrived in Rivendell. The circumstances of Arahael’s birth are mostly headcanon, though he was born and raised in Rivendell, as were all his heirs after him.

Arahael Arahael, Avorniel (OC), Aranuir, Bellassamdir (OC), Aravir, Daerís (OC), Aragorn I, Galadil (OC), Araglas, Aeneth (OC) We know basically nothing about everyone in this edit, except that Aragorn I was indeed killed by wolves. Everything else is headcanon.

Arahad I ft. Arahad I, Silivreneth (OC), Aragost, Alphalas (OC), Aravorn, Sírdhem (OC), Arahad II, Ellother (OC), Arassuil, Glórineth (OC) I’m not sure if it’s clear in the caption, but Celebrían was wounded during Arahad’s rule, not Aragost’s; however, Aragost was a grown man at the time and I imagined him taking an active role under his father’s jurisdiction. The Rangers as a group canonically fought back against the invasion of orcs into Eriador at this time, though Arassuil was not mentioned individually. All the major events in this edit are canonical, but any involvement of the Chieftains and their families is headcanon.

Arathorn I ft. Arathorn I, Dravoriel (OC), Argonui, Eithiar (OC) Arathorn was indicated to have died violently, but we don’t know the specifics of this death, and it happened near the end of his natural lifespan anyway. The War of the Dwarves and Orcs did happen at this time, which affected the politics of the area, but any involvement of the Dúnedain is headcanon.

Argonui ft. Argonui, Theriel (OC), Arador, Malríneth (OC), Arathorn II The events mentioned here are canonical, but most of how these characters reacted to them is headcanon. Arador’s death is canon, though the reason he was out in the Coldfells is unknown.

Eithiar ft. Eithiar (OC), Farion (OC), Dírhael, Gilbarad, Ivorwen, Gilraen Argonui having a sibling is entirely my idea; I decided it would be interesting if Gilraen and Arathorn II were more closely related than simply both being descendants of Aranarth. Everything about Gilbarad is headcanon except for his name and relation to Ivorwen. The story of Dírhael and Ivorwen’s disagreement over Gilraen’s marriage is canon, but has been embellished; the story of their own marriage is headcanon.

Arathorn II ft. Arathorn II, Gilraen, Aragorn II This is mostly based in canon, but the details have been embellished. Aragorn and Arwen are the only characters in this series that I used movie faceclaims for, just because I think they work really well.

Aragorn II Elessar ft. Aragorn II Elessar, Arwen Undómiel, Eldarion, Erthoril (OC), Eliominal (OC), Evrindil (OC) Everything about Aragorn is canon. This guy did a LOT of stuff. Arwen did indeed make the Standard of Elendil, but it is a headcanon (that I think I first got from @jaz-the-bard) that she reforged Andúril, and also that she was waiting to find the right people to be mortal with (that was also from Jaz, lol). Naturally, everything about their kids is headcanon except for the most basic information about Eldarion. Aragorn and Arwen canonically had several daughters; I made one actually be nonbinary because I felt like it. Eliominal is derived from elia “to bless” and menel “heavens”; it should properly be Eliormenel but I changed the spelling for aesthetic purposes, and also a nod to the common tongue (minal is the Adûnaic version of Q./S. menel). “Evrin” is an alteration of “Ivrin” which I translate as “crystal.” Tolkien Gateway says that Eldarion had at least one son but I went through their sources in Peoples of Middle-earth and found no mention of this. It is stated that it was prophesied he would rule a great kingdom that would last “a hundred generations of Men after him,” but the same text admits that it is unknown if that is true, and even that statement is not necessarily indicative that those “hundred generations” would be his direct descendants. It is equally likely that his kingship passed to a child of one of his sisters and that he himself was childless. Personally, I ship Eldarion with Elboron, so I’m choosing that version of events instead.

~~~

CONTINUED IN APPENDIX E

[laryna6]

Aaah, going through old comments reminded me of my Xanth fic and the Xanth worldbuilding I didn’t have the energy to use.

For those who don’t know it: Xanth is a long-running fantasy series that starts out a Death World - the way things are at the start of the first book, Xanthian humanity is going to be extinct in a few generations, and there’s a whole other book about all the work it took to get the human population’s precarious survival even that stable. 

Later books are in-universe justified ‘absolutely certain to be a happily ever after and everyone knows that’s how it works’ basically because... well, spoiler for the first book, but basically the MC of that book’s magic talent is Magnificent Bastard Plot Armor. 

After this is revealed at the end of the first book, in the second book the MC, who is a Very Good Person + Badass Normal bc his talent made sure he’d grow up that way to be able to harness the Power of Friendship, is fucking pissed at his talent because it made the love of his life get impaled in order to save him; his best friend/the new king Trent loves Bink dearly but is a student of history who was deliberately raised in the paradigm that magicians kill each other for the throne and since Bink is stronger than him Bink is morally obligated to kill him so Xanth can have the strongest king/protector and to make matters worse the last time a magician with a power like Bink’s went after the current king Xanthian humanity was utterly fucked, like, more so than by the usual genocidal invasions that happen every so often there; and one of the three personalities of the love of Bink’s life Chameleon is fucking pissed because Bink and one of her other personalities decided to get pregnant despite the fact she’d talked with Bink about the risk of children inheriting her mutation and thought he’d agreed not to risk having kids. 

So like, Bink gets sent on a mission where the ambient magic is so high it’s considered a region of Madness and fucks around with the local Demiurge, as you do. Amazingly, this ends well for in-universe reasons and it’s pretty jaw-dropping. It ends so well that it’s revealed later that it’s the shit Bink’s talent pulled here that over the course of over a dozen books causes Xanth to go from Warhammer to light, fluffy airy romps where everyone knows bad endings don’t happen.

Tl;dr Bink’s Talent/Fanchon OTP ‘my love is scared for her baby... don’t worry dear I will immediately go and fuck around with an eldritch being of unfathomable power in order to reshape the fundamental nature of reality so that nothing bad can happen to your baby ever’

Fanchon is very right to be worried, because it’s spelled out that Chameleon is the first of a new species, and if you think for five minutes about what kind of fantasy creature Chameleon’s traits match?

Yeah. It would be very bad if any other members of that species were born because the species in question is God. Unleashing Greek/primordial gods full of humanity’s flaws on the setting is literally the one thing that could make early Xanth more hellish.

The godmode magician married a literal Goddess in a setting where ‘the strong kill their way to the top and rule over everyone else’ is enshrined in the actual legal code as a matter of survival. If Xanth hadn’t been forcibly genre shifted their children would have been terrifying.

Instead Dor is born with a talent that seems kind of eh and not at all OP at first glance, but according to the tactics of combat between magicians as laid out in the first book, is actually invulnerability... but only if you’re a nice person. A jerkass with that power is going to fucking die. Bink’s Talent made sure Bink grew up into a paladin type bc of the advantages that gave and clearly gave Dor a talent that’d force the same thing. It’s also a power where if you want to use it to be op you need to exercise those braincells, but Dor is a moron compared to his dad because he grows up surrounded by Castle Roogna’s protective enchantments and doesn’t develop proper paranoia/get traumatized by nearly dying multiple times before he hit double digits the way his dad did... in the largest and most secure human settlement in Xanth at the time. 

One of Bink’s formative memories is dying of poison gas over and over again as his dad desperately rewound time until someone could help. This was when he was younger and his talent hadn’t gotten as good at its job yet. It’s a thing in the second book that staying inside Castle Roogna’s protective enchantments is making Bink’s talent sick because it’s adapted to the death world environment to the point it can’t deal with Bink not being surrounded by stuff that can kill him.

This explains why Bink goes from being very smart and observant about threats in the first book to deliberately putting himself in the most dangerous situations possible and just chilling when characters encounter him in later books. His talent made Xanth a much safer place for everyone, but that means that Bink has to periodically go to the top of a mountain in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shout ‘all gods are bastards! (except my wife, who is a bitch and I love her!)’ for the sake of its health.

[abraxos-is-toothless]

Undercover- Throne of Glass AU (5)

This one starts with a bit of Manon’s POV from last chapter when she and Dorian goes upstairs.

WARNINGS: Manon speaks about things such as suicide, rape, abuse and human trafficking. It’s nothing that’s in detail, it’s just mentioned. If I have missed a warning, please do let me know so I can change this!!

Full Masterlist.

Undercover Masterlist.

-------

Manon knew Dorian was in the room with her, he would always be by her side when she got like this, but still, part of her felt alone, cold, empty and dead. She was sitting at the foot of their bed and was vaguely aware that he’d come to crouch between her knees to clean off her hands, but she didn’t want to look at him, she didn’t want him to see what was going on inside of her head.

They’d met about a year and a half ago on Tower Bridge. It was the anniversary of her Thirteen’s- her best friends in life, the ones who had always been there -death and she'd been ready to jump that night until he’d showed up. It wasn’t particularly busy considering it was around three in the morning, only a few cars passing her. Of course they’d passed though, she was half dressed and stumbling all over the place, a bottle of vodka in hand as she stood on that ledge. The jump may not have killed her she knew, but it was extremely cold that night and that freezing water would have. People probably thought she was a drug addicted prostitute that deserved what she was about to do. It was almost true, she wasn’t drug addicted but was most definitely a prostitute but after all of this time, she’d accepted that what happened wasn’t her fault and dying wouldn’t change anything. One car had stopped though, very suddenly, sometimes she could still hear the tyres screeching. There was a woman’s voice, shouting, telling someone to get back in the car and then there was a soft, melodic voice saying “Ma’am? It’s quite cold out tonight, how about we get you down and somewhere warm, huh?”

His voice sounded like heaven and she’d found herself turning towards it, her foot slipping on the edge slightly causing her to lose her balance. Much of it was a blur after that and hard to piece together, but she remembered crying out and having arms wrapped around her. Dorian, or mystery man as he was, looked beautiful back dropped by fuzzy streetlights and she couldn’t help the words that had dropped from her mouth. “Are you my Prince Charming?” And then she’d blacked out, waking up hours later with a dreadful hangover and a woman telling her that she could have a home if she wanted it, she could have a purpose. It would have been dumb to say no, considering her circumstances if she had, and the rest was history.

They had never really talked about that night, not really, but the prince thing was an ongoing joke between them. Dorian brought it up whenever she wasn’t feeling the best, saying that ‘her prince had come to save her.’ He was ridiculously dramatic, loving and sweet, she hadn’t realised she’d fallen in love with him until it had crept up behind her.

Manon was brought out of her reverie when there were three gentle taps to her knee, and then Dorian had pushed himself up onto his knees so that his face was directly in front of hers. She tried to look away, but his hand cupped her cheek, pulling her back until her gold eyes met his blue ones and he started speaking in soft tones. “Don’t do that. We stopped hiding from one another long ago, sweetheart. Let me in Manon, let me help.”

She took several deep breaths before pushing forward a little and pressing her forehead against his, linking their fingers together and taking her comfort from the feel of his skin on hers.

“They knew they were about to die and so I think they were taunting me, hoping that somehow I’d end their lives fast. It didn’t work; it just made me go slower. I took out the one Aelin carved up first, he was the rapist. He said things, horrible things about the girls he’d...” She didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to, had to tell him or the thoughts would eat her alive. His face hadn’t changed, still the soft and loving expression he’d worn since she’d come home. “It reminded me of the things those bastards would whisper into my ear, about what they’d do to Asterin, to the others if I kept fighting them.” Her breathing turned ragged and her hands shook a little; she hated talking about what was done to them.

“Hey, shh. It’s alright, I’ve got you, I’m right here.” He whispered the words into the space between their lips and Manon wanted nothing more to fall into his arms, just letting him hold her close but she had to push forward.

“I took out the trafficker next. He sold girls and boys off to whomever paid the highest price. Fucking prick sold them. How can you do that? They were children.” She could feel the tears building behind her eyelids but she blinked them away. “The last one, the one who gave Aelin the information, he was an abusive bastard. He said that women like me held too much power, that we should be beaten into submission. That all men need women for was to use them as some broodmare for breeding.”

She really did start crying then, at the onslaught of memories the pieces of shits had brought back. The sound of her friends’ screams and the sound of Asterin’s final words to her before she’d pushed Manon through that door. We will meet again, in a better world.

Dorian’s arms wrapped around her as he leaned back, pulling her down and onto his lap, cradling her against his chest and tucking her head into his neck. She cried, cried, cried until they turned into broken sobs and from there, just small, hiccupping sniffles. The whole time he just rocked back and forth, murmuring soothing words into her ear whilst he rubbed a hand up and down her back. They stayed together in the peaceful quiet of their room Dorian occasionally mumbling how much he loved her, until a voice, Chaol, called out from downstairs.

“Manon! Dor! Boss wants everyone downstairs.”

She pulled back from Dorian’s neck, staring up into bright blue eyes as he tucked a strand of her white hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to come down love, I’m sure she’d understand if you want to stay up here. You could shower and sleep, it would do you good.”

Manon shook her head before reaching up and holding his hand to her cheek, revelling in the warmth it gave her. “No, I’ll come down, it could be something important.”

He nodded and leaned in to brush their lips together, a soft whisper of a kiss that held promises of what later would bring when they were finally alone. Dorian stood, holding his hands out to help her up and she tangled their fingers and tugged gently, unable to stop herself from saying, “Let’s go then, my Prince.”

She would savour the chuckle he let out as they walked through the door until her last dying breath.

oOoOo

Aelin waited until everyone was inside of her office until she finally answered the phone. Elide, Lys and Lorcan had finally gotten back, Elide saying she’d fill her in on everything later. Manon seemed to be in better spirits, her face no longer dead and blank. As for Rowan, she didn’t know what to think of him. Visibly he looked better when he stepped through the doors, but she knew that was just what he was showing on the surface. Their moment in the garden had done something to her and she couldn’t quite figure out what. He’d basically pulled his heart from his chest and handed it to her. She wasn’t meant to get attached to people like this and yet, deep down inside of her, she knew it was inevitable that she would.

As soon as she tapped accept on the call, she gestured for Elide to start tracing it, everyone holding their breaths as she said, “Sardothien. What do you want?”

There was a slow, lazy drawl from the other end of the line and it made Aelin’s spine go taut. She could see that Lysandra was just the same; neither of them had heard that voice in years. “Now, now, is that anyway to speak to an old friend?”

“We were never friends, Arobynn, we were never anything. Now tell me what you want.”

He laughed gently, as a lover would, making her blood turn cold. Aelin met pine green eyes from across the room, and watched as they went hard and unfeeling at the sound.

“You know what I want, what I’ve always wanted. We could have everything, if only you let yourself realise what you truly want in life.” She couldn’t help the sneer that settled over her face, hands clenched into fists. Aedion received a glare when he moved as if to comfort her; she didn’t need that right now.

“I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again. I will not be your Queen,” she spat the word out, tasting like ash on her tongue, “I will not give you heirs. There will be no us.”

There was more laughter and it made her want to stab something.

“You will come to see that it is what’s best soon enough. How’s the pregnant one by the way? I heard my men were unsuccessful but no matter, I left you a present, hoping you might come around. If not, you know I’m not above forcing you to come home, Aelin.” Son of a fucking bitch. Everyone’s eyes widened around the room, the newbies clearly confused by the name, but she couldn’t focus on that right now, she’d deal with it later.

“What present?” She forced the words through gritted teeth, knowing it was most likely a trap for something but she had to know.

“Out in your dingy little apartment in Poplar, yes I know about that one, I left it there. I do hope it’ll persuade you to change your mind. All of my love.” And then the line went dead. She turned her head sharply to look at Elide, the other woman shaking her head saying that she couldn’t trace it. She upturned her desk, sending its contents flying and making a few of the others to let out sounds of shock.

“I thought I was fucking done with that pile of shit! It’ll get worse now, if I accept this ‘gift’ and don’t go home. He’ll say I’m being ungrateful and go after all of you.” Aelin sighed and rubbed her hand across her forehead, wishing for the headache that was now brewing would just fuck off. She looked up when Lysandra spoke from the other side of the room, voice steady and determined.

“You aren’t going back to that hell hole, Ace, you aren’t going back to him. We’ll go see if there’s actually anything at the apartment and then we’ll deal with everything else. Do you understand me?”

She sighed and nodded at her friend, wanting to get this over with so they could finally sleep. Her plans and schemes were better after she rested and she could think rationally. Slipping into their boss, their leader, she ordered, “Blackbeak, Havilliard, Salvaterre and Whitehorn. You’re all coming with me. We move out in ten minutes so get all of your gear together fast. We have to be prepared for everything.” They all nodded in consent and everyone began filing out of the room but not before added on, “Keep your wits about you, just in case he knows about this place too.”

Aelin went to start cleaning up and jumped slightly, realising that Rowan was still in the room. He was looking at her weirdly, but she didn’t have time to think about it before the look disappeared and he walked over to stand in front of her. Tentatively, he brought his hand up in front over her face, hesitating a little and searching her eyes for an answer. Words weren’t working for her and she could feel the heat of him in the space between them, and so she simply leaned into his hand. Rowan let out what seemed to be a sigh of relief, cupping her jaw and rubbing a thumb along her cheekbone. “Are you alright? What he said, what he was asking for, that was...”

He trailed off knowing that what Arobynn had said could only be taken one way. “I’m alright, I promise. You didn’t have to stay, you know, I won’t break.”

His smile was soft, happy and his eyes were full of something she couldn’t place, looking as though they sparkled a little in the dim lights of her office. “I don’t think anyone could break you, Aelin. What’s up with that anyway?”

She rolled her eyes at him, raising a hand to hold his wrist, squeezing lightly. “I’ll tell you, but later, we have things to do. Now go.”

The backs of his fingers stroked down her cheek, sending shivers down her spine before he pulled away. Her eyes fluttered closed at the touch but when she opened them again he was gone. Gods, he was making her feel things she’d never felt before, not even those days with Sam had made her feel like this. Aelin shook her head to clear it of the thoughts of silver hair and green eyes. She would deal with all of that another time.

Right now, she had to go deal with the wannabe King’s bullshit. By the end, she’d make him pay for every last atrocity he’d committed, and then revel in the aftermath.

------

Oooo Arobynn his being a little fucker... If you want to be added/removed from the tags then just give me a shout! I’m not sure iff all of the tags are working so if not I’ll keep trying to fix it:) More insight on the boys next week!!

Tags: @bryaxisthefaceofnightmares @fancyclodpaintercookie @empress-sei @acourtofterrasenandvelaris @tswaney17 @queen-of-glass @thesirenwashere @awkward-avocado-s @b00kworm @http-itsrebecca @eatmysandwiches @poisonous00 @flowersinvegas @julemmaes @mu-si-ca-l @spyofthenightcourt  @sis-it-dont-add-up  @mad-madeline-ace @df3ndyr  @jesstargaryenqueen @notyournymphetish @carbconnoisseur @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln

@superspiritfestival

[capricornus-rex]

Old Friend, New Family (2)

Requested by: Anon | Prompt:

Hey I was wondering if you’d take a prompt where the reader is an ex-padawan who’s master died pretty early on in order 66, and was instead saved by a clone that removed his inhibitor chip. Then maybe they get separated, and years later when the reader is a crew member on the Mantis, they come across the clone again? How would the crew, especially Cal and Cere, react to meeting a friendly ex-soldier clone who’s close with the reader? Could you make it full of angst then fluff? Love your writing!

Tags: Defected! Clone Trooper, Jedi Survivor! Reader, Order 66 Survivor

Also posted in AO3

Previous: Part 1 | Next: Part 3 | Masterlist

2 of ?

The Kel Dor master used the Force to open the door and at least five Clone Troopers clustered together at the door, blocking your only exit out of the room, and it’s only the two of you against them. Taking cover from their fire behind the office desk, banking their shots was the only possibly strategy if you want to get out of the office and to the Starfighters.

Mere minutes ago, you were guarding against blaster fire from droids… and now you’re trading them with your own clones—the men who you thought were your most trusted allies.

This can’t be happening! What went wrong?!

The distress in your mind was loud enough for Master Karos to take notice.

With your backs pressed against the desk for cover, Master Karos could only afford a few seconds to tell you a compressed version of his plan within less than twenty words.

“Padawan, listen to me very carefully. The clones have betrayed us. The Starfighters—we have to get to the Starfighters. It’s our only way of escape!”

“I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are they trying to kill us all of a sudden!?”

“The Council must have an answer for this. In the meantime, we have to get out of this palace and get to the landing pad. We have to get rid of those at the door. Ready?”

You nodded and followed your master’s lead. It appears some of them hugged the wall and blindly fired from where they hid. The last Clone Trooper standing in your way of the exit fell lifeless to the ground.

“The exit’s open! Go, [y/n]!” the Kel Dor bellowed.

You leaped over the pile of bodies that blocked the door from ever closing. The corridor is seemingly empty, but you’re half-anticipating that there would be more. Master Karos clutched your shoulder and bent down so his eyes are level to yours.

“Stay close to me. Keep running and don’t look back. Understand?”

You were stuck between catching your breath while fighting back sobs as you’re scared and confused all at the same time. The only reply he got from you is a nod, but it was an answer nonetheless. He stole a moment to look at you—suddenly, he remembered that small, bright-eyed child in the Temple and he stroked the back of your head before standing up.

Perhaps, this is the first time you saw him genuinely smile past his protective mask—and apparently the last.

“Now, [y/n]… Run!”

Keeping up with your master’s running pace, the clone troopers came from all sides of the halls. There was no need for close combat, though you had to deflect their blasts in quick succession—some ricocheted against the walls, others met its mark on the clone troopers’ bodies.

“Almost there, [y/n]—keep running!”

The more you both ran, the little you did in protecting yourselves from the clones in using your weapons, it was more evading their fire when it was only two of three of them—you only whipped out your saber when there was more of them waiting for you to show up in the next turn.

In bigger groups, Zal Karos would simply incapacitate the clones with his Force push and shut the door by destroying the panel. Later on, you ended up running ahead of him while he covers you from the flank. You went ahead in the next turn, but you were too eager to escape that you didn’t look the other way.

“I found the child!” the clone shouted and pulled the trigger on you.

Your last-minute deflect was flimsy, resulting to the projectile grazing the corner of your shoulder. The next shot was better and you returned fire to the clone trooper who injured you before continuing on.

“Master, I see the landing pad!”

“Good, [y/n], come on!”

By the time you got to the entrance of the landing pad, the clone troopers at your tail have increased in numbers. Master Karos could only hold them off enough for you to reach your objective. You’ve returned to the scene of the carnage from the siege that transpired mere minutes ago, but you and your master have been outnumbered by the clone troopers closing in on you from behind.

“Nowhere to run.” One of the clones snarled with a sinister persistence.

Indeed, it seems that there is nowhere to run. The Jedi Master saw only one last possibility for survival—and he wasn’t in it. However, he knew that perfectly well, and he made peace with that just now.

“[y/n], my Padawan, whatever happens… Survive!”

“What…?!”

The clones raised their rifles in full unison and their fingers curled against the triggers; a second’s notice was all he can afford but it was all Master Karos needs—he lifted you high up with the Force, he tossed you away to a distance far from the circle of clone troopers that surrounded you. From where you lie, you could barely see him over the clones’ shoulders that stood in the way, with your limited view you can see that he continued to fight even when it was a dozen to one.

The beams of the projectiles illuminated the circle of troopers and then you watched his body falter and jerk for every shot he took. You saw Zal Karos’s body fall flat to the floor but the clones continued to fire at him.

He fell down with his face turned to you, even with such a long distance, you can tell that your eyes meet.

“NOOO!!!” you screeched.

There was nothing you can do about him now.

SURVIVE, [Y/N]!

You heard his voice in your head, and that was enough to snap you back to your senses. Seeing that you were back outside in the city proper, you sought for a place to hide, stealing some detonators from fallen clones’ utility belts along the way for extra protection.

In the distance, the troopers exchange questions and orders.

“Where’s the little one!?”

“I don’t know, she can’t be far ahead!”

“Sweep the area! She can’t do much against us!”

You slipped into the wreckage of a LAAT gunship and hid in the cockpit for an indefinite time, despite its destruction, your size was enough for you to keep yourself out of sight. You curled into a ball, hugged your knees as you wept for this disaster and for your chaos. An ocean of questions flooded your little mind as the trauma slowly devoured your willpower.

Is it over?

Am I going to die here?

Please, anybody… help.

In a time that felt like days have passed, the thunders of war seemed to have ceased. You crawled out of your hiding spot and attempted to return to the scene where you saw Master Karos for the final time.

Master, did you die because of me? Because you had to save me? Did you really think I was helpless or useless or both?

Your feet dragged through the body-strewn streets of the city, careful not to step on any of the fallen clones’ bodies, you looked around and saw their lifeless eyes peeking through the broken portions of their helmets—you felt a chill crawl down your already-weak spine—but continued on.

Eventually, you found Master Karos’s body left to rot in front of the city gates. The dust has settled on his robes as he remained in the last position you saw him. You knelt down and gently rolled him over with the remaining strength you have in your body right now. His skin has paled, his head bobbed to your direction, and knowing that there is nothing you can do anymore, you clutched his cold, dead hands and hunched over his body to weep.

“It’s over…” you sobbed. “We lost… I’m sorry, Master.”

The wind has picked up, the inferno crackled from the distance, and you remained there with your master on the ground; you stayed there until you could regain enough strength to bury him. It’s the only honor you can bestow to him. Even though you’re stricken with grief, you can sense someone approaching you; you feigned, pretending that you don’t anticipate the stranger coming to you, the click of the safety prompted your ear to twitch.

What good can fighting do, anyway? I’m as good as dead.

You slowly raised your arms while still hunched over your master’s body.

“Oh, hey… Kid, are you okay?”

You’re startled by the compassion of the voice behind you—it was obviously a clone’s voice. Slowly lowering your hands and then glancing over your shoulder, you were correct when it was a clone but he didn’t behave hostile and trigger-happy like the others. The first thing you noticed is the motif of a horned creature with fangs painted above his helmet’s visor—from that, you knew which clone this was.

“Strig?”

He took off his helmet and revealed his face, confirming his identity—his head was shaven but growth had begun to show, a faint stubble traced his jaw and ended with a goatee, and the same motif was tattooed on one side of his head.

He was cautious with how he approached you, knowing that you’re obviously terrified with what transpired mere hours ago. He noticed the way you scoot closer to your master.

“Are you hurt?” he asked you again.

He slowly reached for your jaw, but you avoided him, apparently there was a cut that you must’ve gotten when Master Karos tossed you out of the line of fire; and then his hand hovered to your shoulder, pointing to where the blaster graze is.

Your fingers absentmindedly tapping the wound with the dried blood. “Are you going to kill me now?”

The clone’s eyebrows furrowed together, “No, why would I do that?”

“Because everyone else tried to.”

The clone sighed, seeming to be in the same page of confusion as you are—the only difference is that he has a better inkling about the manslaughter that happened hours ago. The seemingly-defected clone offered you his hand and helped you back up on your feet.

“Strig… what’s happened? Why did the clones tried to kill us?”

“That’s… look, it’s a bit complicated, [y/n],”

“Believe me, I’ve seen more complicated things to understand,”

Strig sighed when he knew you’re going to persist for answers. He sidetracked you on offering to help you bury Master Karos’s body.

“That was what you’re planning to do, right?”

“Yeah, I just… I was just too weak to move.”

“Okay, kid, let me give you a hand.”

The clone helped in digging the hole, in the meantime, you tore off the pauldron bearing the insignia of the Jedi Order, and then used the Force to gently put Master Karos along with his lightsaber in his final resting place. The pauldron acted as a marker.

“I’m sorry if it’s not much, Master. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to save you. Still, I hope you find peace—for you are now one with the Force.” You prayed on your knees.

After your prayer, Strig helped you again on your feet, “Come on, kid. There’s nothing left for us here. But you don’t have to be alone anymore, you know. I got your back—as long as you promise you have mine!”

[bennybentacles]

Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven

Pogo

Pogo, our father's right hand man. pogo is a fixed figure in our life, as he was already residing our house even before we were born. our father trusted pogo with a lit of responsibility, from picking our our nannies to handling our father's business.

pogo is more of a parental figure in our life than our father was. pogo was the one who discovered and identified my siblings' superpowers, maybe its because he spent ta lot of time playing with us and taking care of us since we were toddlers. pogo was also the one who taught us most of the basic life skills we have like walking and talking and later on even cooking and cleaning our own rooms. pogo couldn't walk very well so he had to use a cane ever since we were little kids and i have realized that hearing his cane thumping down the hall made me feel safe even as a child.

as we grow older and we started requiring to attend lessons pogo was the one who became our teacher, adding that to his never ending list of responsibility. pogo tried to make the lessons fun but as there are only seven of us and we tended to have the shortest attention span pogo almost always ended up scolding all of us and making the lessons a tad bit uncomfortable in the end, with him struggling to control his anger and us feeling guilty. pogo encouraged us to learn whatever our minds wanted to latch on and this had resulted in him smuggling forbidden lessons to our class like the art class that we had for a whole year because all of us wanted to learn how to paint or in the sèance's case, sculpt and that lesson only ended when our father has known about it.

pogo tried to make us feel like children, with him letting us play in the class as ling as it doesn't disrupt the class, which unfortunately is an almost impossible fest with the kraken and the horror somehow always managed to disturb our lessons. pogo had also found out about the television that we my siblings had smuggled in and to this day i still wonder why he hadn't told our father about it, and he even smuggled in a few vhs in so that we wouldn't watch the same videos all over again. i believe that pogo also knew about the times that we used to sneak our for donuts and the forbidden sleepovers that the sèance and the horror had because he is the one that manned the security room and somehow our father has never knew of our activities.

as we grew older, my siblings required trainings and pogo never really assisted our father in those and that resulted in pogo having a lot of free time and since i also had a lot of free time, pogo and i talked a lot. pogo has been my source of a lot of news that i had of my siblings and their well being up to this date. i feel as if pogo only talked to me because he knew how lonely i was and he must've felt as if it is his responsibility to fix that issue, just as how he fixed everything else in our house. i will admit that having him to talk to brought me a lot of comfort, and even if he only wanted to fix the problem that he saw he really helped me.

when the boy ran away, our father didn't allow pogo to come looking for him and pogo never tried to defy our father. i remember how pogo looked at the rumour while our father has forced her into using her powers until she couldn't use it anymore and pogo can only stand on the side and do nothing because he is powerless against our father. i remember how pogo used to patch up the sèance whenever he fought back to our father to the point that our father used violence against him and i remember pogo telling the sèance to just obey our father so that he wont get hurt anymore. i wish the sèance listened to pogo more because it seems as if pogo knew the best course of action.

pogo spent nights consoling all of us whenever we cried from the harshness of our father and i still treasure the hugs that i received from him because growing up we didn't get a lot of physical affection and every hug that i received never really left my mind, a secret treasure inside my head. pogo has spent hours telling all of us that everything would be better, that the boy would come back home and for the first time i felt as if pogo was lying because nothing was ever fine and the boy never really came back

pogo and our mother were the one who tried to save the horror, with both of them spending hours trying desperately to make sure the horror makes it. pogo was the one who convinced our father to let the rumour use her powers to ease the horror from the pain he must've felt because the painkillers weren't doing much to him. pogo had spent hours sitting by the horror's side and comforting the sèance, and i have heard pogo begging the horror to fight for his life because he doesn't think the horror would make it through the week.

pogo was right, the horror didn't make it through the week, with him dying two days after his accident. when our mother declared the horror's death, i saw pogo cry for the first time. pogo has been the one who arranged for the horror's funeral and i remember how he cried while filling up the horror's death certificate, a moment that i had to witness because our father required me to help pogo with the arrangements. i had to pick the horror's casket because pogo has told me he couldn't bear to pick as casket for the horror, who he treated as his son his whole life.

when the horror's statue was put on our courtyard, i remember pogo telling our father that it may be to early dor it because we are still mourning but our father only brushed hin aside and that had been the end of the conversation. pogo didn't stop the kraken when he started cursing our father and he also didn't try to stop the rumour when she started rumoring our father. perhaps because he was to shocked about the turn of the event or maybe because he wanted us to escape our fathers clutches

my only regret when i moved out of the house is that i never had the chance to bid my farewell to pogo, to the one that helped me cope in our house that felt more of a prison and the one that felt more of a father than our own father. i hoped he could've run away from our father too, wished that pogo and our mother could've left our father all alone but sadly they couldn't leave our home, with spaceboy still being there.

pogo treated all of us as his own children and the demise of two of his children affected him more than it ever affected our father. i wished that pogo could've been our father instead, then maybe the boy wouldn't have run away and the horror wouldn't have died and i wouldn't be pushed away all my life. pogo did all that he can to make our life less miserable, and sadly he can't do that much because like all of us, our father controlled his every move.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Ellison’s Law

Even for the early 1960s, Burke’s Law was a silly gimmick show.

The gimmick?  Millionaire Amos Burke, despite inheriting fabulous wealth, always wanted to be a detective so he joined the LAPD and worked his way up to captain of the homicide bureau.

Basically Batman without the trauma or costume.

And like Batman of a few years later, an exercise in camp.

The show was rigidly formulaic, but for practical reasons.  It relied heavily on stunt casting celebrities as suspects or witnesses and as such it had to be flexible enough to handle rewrites and re-castings in the middle of production.

The typical episode began with someone found murdered or shown getting killed in some unusual manner, cut to Amos Burke flirting with a lady only to be called away by his police duties.  Cue the opening title as Burke and his driver hurry out of his relatively modest Beverly Hills mansion to his Rolls-Royce (actually producer Aaron Spelling’s car which he rented back to the production) as a sultry female voice incants:  “It’s Burke’s Law” then after the first commercial break Burke arrives at the scene of the crime and finds clues pointing him to four or five suspects.

Said suspects are the celebrity guest stars, recruited either to give them some manic scenery chewing time or -- more rarely -- an intense dramatic scene.

After three more commercial breaks, Burke intones one of his “laws” (“Burke’s law:  Never ask a question where you don’t already know the answer.”), pulls a rabbit out of his hat / solution out of his butt, and fingers that episode’s duly appointed murderer.

The problem with the series as a whole is that it could never quite decide on what tone it wanted to take and stick with it consistently.  The British series The Avengers found the perfect balance of tongue-in-cheek / derring-do but Burke’s Law bounced all over the spectrum, frequently in the same episode.

So why bring up this mediocre TV show at all?

Two words:  Harlan Ellison

. . .

I’ve posted many times before on Harlan’s career and the impact of his writing and friendship on me.

He was in the mid 1960s at his zenith as a TV writer, and while his writing career as a whole encompasses so much more than that, his brief run as one of the meteors streaking across the Hollywood sky only lasted 4 years.

Oh, he kept writing for TV after that, but the old zing was gone.  He supplied stories for other series, created and fought hard to keep The Starlost on track but eventually had to walk away from that heartbreak, adapted several of his own short stories to a Twilight Zone revival, as well as numerous development deals that went nowhere (including two great ideas for The Name Of The Game, another Gene Barry series, that would have fit perfectly into that show’s oeuvre).

If you find his second book of TV criticism, The Other Glass Teat, check out his first draft for “The Whimper Of Whipped Dogs” episode of The Young Lawyers (not to be confused with his short story of the same title).

It’s one of the most powerful / gut wrenching things you’ll ever read…

…but by the time the studio and the network got through with it, the final product was virtually unrecognizable…and unwatchable.

Such was Harlan’s fate after 1967 in Clown Town (as he referred to it).

But from 1963 to 1967, he was golden.

. . . 

Harlan’s rocky personal history went through many highs and lows before coming to Hollywood in 1962.

Harlan’s first breakthrough as a writer was with his series of stories and essays on juvenile crime in New York in the early and mid-1950s..

Drafted in 1957. following his discharge, he settled in Chicago with his second wife and her son, editing Rogue magazine, a  Playboy imitator.

Feeling his personal life becoming untenable, he called in favors from a friend, drove out to California with his soon-to-be ex-wife and stepson (aware the marriage was over, she also wanted to relocate away from Chicago), made his first sale to TV (his short story “No Fourth Commandment” to the TV show Route 66), then briefly found a sweet spot with Burke’s Law, writing four teleplays for their first season.

Burke’s Law is a good crucible for examination because of its silly, gimmicky nature and rigid format requirements.

These scripts represent a pivotal point in Harlan’s writing career, but more importantly, they mark the only sustained run he enjoyed on a non-anthology show, and as such make a good benchmark in comparing his growth as a writer and how his unique perspective played out in in relation to the constraints of episodic television.

While a couple of Harlan’s better science fiction / fantasy stories were written before 1963, the meteoric rise of his career in those genres began with his classic short story “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said The Ticktockman” in 1965, followed by a host of other groundbreaking short stories and novellas, and his original anthologies Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions in which he recruited other science fiction and fantasy writers -- many of them already well established pros -- to follow the path he blazed in the genre.

His experience on Burke’s Law occurs squarely between what he once was to what he was becoming, and as such is worthy of attention.

SPOILER: There are no great hidden gems here.

There’s a lot of amusing writing, and a few flashes of the emotional intensity Harlan could provide, but by and large this is journeyman level stuff:  Better than most, but not the best.

. . .

”Who Killed Alex Debbs?” was his first script for the series, and he pitched it to producer Aaron Spelling at a cattle call after a screening of the show’s pilot episode.  

Harlan jump started the pitch process by improvising an idea off the cuff at the end of the screening, and Spelling took him to his office to hear how Harlan planned to resolve it, then hired him on the spot.

It’s unclear if Harlan was actually a staff writer on the series or simply hung out at the studio a lot, but he used his skills as a quick study to start working his way up the food chain.

His first script fulfills all the requirements of a Burke’s Law episode and shows off two of Harlan’s main strengths:  An ability to hone in on intense emotion and a keen eye for the culture around him (in this case, very specifically Hollywood of the early 1960s).

On the downside, logic gaps render this story more implausible than most -- and as noted, Burke’s Law as a series wasn’t famous for its plausibility.

A flaw of almost all Burke’s Law episodes is that the victim is typically found dead under mysterious / bizarre circumstances, and the impression we get of them is constructed entirely through the words of suspects and witnesses.

It’s not an unworkable approach, but not the best suited for episodic television.

In this instance. victim Alex Drebbs is a Hugh Hefner-like men’s magazine publisher and monarch of a mini-empire of key clubs ala the Playboy Clubs of the era.  Harlan captures that milieu well but here’s where the logic gaps hit hard:  There’s no way a Hefner-like figure would be alone long enough for someone to kill him without being noticed, there’s no way his disappearance wouldn’t be immediately noticed by employees needing his attention, and it sure as hell wouldn’t have happened in a deserted club on the afternoon of its big opening.

On the plus side, there are some great character scenes including Arlene Dahl as a bitter ex-investor in Debbs empire now reduced to licking saving stamps to keep her decay mansion in repair, Burgess Meredith as a men’s magazine cartoonist who is nothing but a  bundle of neurotic twitches and tics, and finally Sammy Davis Jr as Cordwainer Bird, the humor editor for Debbs’ magazine.

This was at the Robin Williams stage of Davis career, when all you had to do was point a camera in his direction and let him go.  Harlan supplied the corny gags but Davis launched them over the top with his antics, and while he brings the proceedings to a complete disruptive halt, his brief scene is the most entertaining in the entire series.  (Harlan later used Cordwainer Bird as his WGA pseudonym when he wanted to indicate displeasure at what had been done to his scripts.)

By his own account, Harlan had less luck with Diana Dors -- “the British Marilyn Monroe” -- and treated her condescendingly during the shoot.  (By comparison, William Goldman in his memoir Adventures In The Screen Trade shows a much more sanguine / roll-with-the-punches attitude, and that might explain part of the reason his screenwriting trajectory was far different than Harlan’s.)

All in all, an uneven example of both the series and Harlan’s abilities.

. . . 

”Who Killed Purity Mather?” was Harlan’s second script for the series and one of the few that played with the rigid format of the series insofar as the victim is seen alive for a few moments before being killed in a rather sadistic and spectacular manner (splashed with acid then trapped in a burning house, and the high angle shot used to show her demise must have been incredibly risky -- and thus costly -- to film).

It also drops a very subtle clue that I’ll reveal in the footnote.*

This is Harlan going so far over the top he emerges on the other side.  Plotwise it features more logic gaps than his first script, but the whole thing is so silly it’s pointless to complain about it.

Purity Mather is a professional witch (!) who speeds up the investigation into her own demise by mailing Amos Burke a recording saying she’ll be killed along with a list of five possible suspects (that she doesn’t mention them by name in the recording reflects the show’s desire for standalone scenes, enabling them to recast and rewrite plotlines more easily; the scene where Burke reads the names to his team was doubtlessly shot after the guest cast was locked in).

Burke & co. start shaking down suspects, including Telly Savalas as Fakir George O'Shea, a Muslim holy man / cosmetics chemist (!!); Charlie Ruggles as I. A. Bugg, an eccentric elderly millionaire who likes to chase -- but not catch -- prostitutes around his apartment while dressed in lederhosen(!!!); Wally Cox as Count Carlo Szipesti, vampire for hire (!!!!); and Gloria Swanson as Venus Hekate Walsh a fright wig bedecked self-proclaimed goddess of free love (!!!!!).

The episode might as well have had a laugh track.  It’s amusing with several daft touches only Harlan could provide, but the daftness comes from his take on Hollywood culture of the time.

I’d go so far as to say elements of Cox and Swanson’s characters were based on real life people living in and around Hollywood at the time, in particular some science fiction fans Harlan had come in contact with.

It’s a romp but a disappointing one.  The logic gaps are too big in this one (case in point, if you’re the captain of the homicide bureau and you come home to see a masked figure climbing out of your second story window in broad daylight, you don’t simply shrug and let them run off) and the ending is one of those annoying ah-yes-now-that-you-caught-me-I-will-admit-everything-even-stuff-you-don’t-know cappers that Joe Ruby and Ken Spears would have rejected for Scooby Doo.

In short, a script whose parts are better than the whole.

. . .

”Who Killed Andy Zygmunt?" is another slight story that pays off with an insight into Hollywood pop culture of the era.  The victim is “a pop artist” (no, he’s not; he an assemblage sculptor) impaled on his own artwork.

He’s also revealed to be an extortionist who acquires embarrassing evidence that he affixes to his assemblages then blackmails his victims into buying the art to keep their secrets safe.

Once again Burke is conveniently handed a list of suspects, in this case the people who bought the last five pieces of art from the exhibit.

This is one of the few times the series had more than one suspect in the same scene as there’s a big gathering in Burke’s office midway through the story (it also includes Michael Fox, a semi-regular on the series playing the coroner, so it represents a pretty sizeable filming day for the show).  The suspects include Macdonald Carey as Burl Mason, the star of a popular TV detective show (Harlan gives his scenes what we would now call a meta-fiction touch by playing off Barry’s fictional TV detective dealing with a fictional fictional TV detective); Jack Weston as Silly McCree, a kid’s show host who destroys his career with an on air anti-child rant; Ann Blyth as Deirdre DeMara, a rival “pop artist” who creates her art by spraying women with paint and having them roll around on giant canvases (a gimmick later used in the bizarre 1966 Ann-Margaret comedy The Swinger); Aldo Ray as Mister Harold, former pro-wrestler turned poodle groomer; and Tab Hunter in a surprisingly well done scene as a sky diving playboy.

Hunter’s scene in particular shows Harlan getting his hyperbole under control, much more laconic and evocative than other characters he wrote for the series.  As mentioned above, Burke’s Law occurs just on the cusp of Harlan’s huge success in print; he’s beginning to harness the lessons learned to maximum effect.  (He would have some setbacks, too, in his screenwriting career, and to be honest part of that can be attributed to his failure to consistently apply the lessons learned, part of it can be attributed to his reputation preceding him, and part of it can be attributed to just bad luck.)

The motives this time are fairly edgy for a 1963 TV series, and combined with the slices of Los Angeles life Harlan provides give a fair example of the cultural zeitgeist of the era.

. . . 

”Who Killed ½ Of Glory Lee?” can be explained as Benjamin Glory, half owner of Glory Lee Fashions, with Gisele MacKenzie as the other half, Keekee Lee.

After breaking the budget with his spectacular demise of Purity Mather, Harlan staged this murder as an inexpensive off camera elevator plunge.

This time the plot is a wee bit more plausible, with control of a profitable business being the apparent motive for the murder.

But Harlan loaded up this episode with a more powerful emotional punch than most of his others, and while the dénouement may feel a bit farfetched, it certainly rings true emotionally.

He certainly gave Nina Foch and Anne Helm plenty to work with regarding their characters’ complicated mother / daughter relationship, yet at the same time found room for a playful scene in which Buster Keaton pantomimes his answers to Burke’s questions.

Yet at the same time one senses an impatience behind the keyboard.  The opening scene has a squad of female elevator operators (yes, once upon a time there needed to be somebody in the elevator to push the buttons for you) discussing pop culture references of a generation before -- Harlan’s generation.

And while the key emotional conflicts are played out well, several of the other scenes feel rather perfunctory…yet at the same time this is probably the most cohesive whole of any Burke’s Law script, whether written by Harlan or not.

It’s as if after a brief but profitable run on a network series, Harlan realized he’d absorbed as much of the practical end of the business as he could and his next moves should be into broader, edgier territory.

   © Buzz Dixon

   * SPOILER: Purity Mather is the murderer; she connives a career nudist (!!!!!!) to participate in a magic ceremony then disfigures and kills her, leaving evidence that she hopes will convince the police the body is hers.  The subtle clue Harlan drops is the victim, wearing a long black negligee, complaining about how she doesn’t like the feel of the clothes.  A nice touch, but undercut by Purity then going to the nudist camp her victim operates and waiting in the buff by the front gate for the police to show up and question the career nudist -- whom Purity has mentioned as a suspect in her faked murder.  While it works insofar as Purity doesn’t try to pass herself off to anyone else at the camp as the career nudist, it doesn’t scan that she would know when the police would come to investigate or if they could be easily convinced at the gate and not come in to question other patrons.

[outofangband]

from this headcanon ask game here! I got a few without an accompanying character so I decided to do them here with my own choices!

I tried to do both favorites and some new ones 

Childhood headcanons:

Morwen has a burn scar on her side from the fires of Glaurung during Dagor Bragollach. I mentioned that before but I wanted to go into more detail. She doesn’t remember the actual injury which she’s told later is a mercy but which causes her significant agitation. The actual burn wasn’t from direct contact with open flames and might not have been so severely bad had there been access to proper treatment but there wasn’t during the chaos and the injury becomes a permanent scar branching from just above her left hip to under her shoulder.

Rían used to love to watch the lizards that emerged to bask on rocks on hot days. When she was little she was very jealous of Morwen who could always manage to stay quiet and calm enough to get closer to the lizards than she could.

Quirks/hobbies headcanons:

Turgon enjoys painting landscapes and architecture. He does it very rarely after leaving Valinor but when he has the supplies and time it’s something incredibly peaceful to him. He does still draw out architectural plans and drafts but does less painting for pleasure

For Friendship headcanons I decided to do some of the animal companions of my favorite characters (not counting canon creatures or my AUs). Some of these I’ve mentioned before but I thought a short list was good for the prompt until I make an in depth one

Húrin saved a hawk with a minor injury when he was a teenager. It wasn’t exactly a companion but he could recognize it by its markings and enjoyed seeing it after it recovered

Aerin: a goat she raised from its birth. The Hadorians don’t usually raise goats and this one was born to goats belonging to a nomadic group who were temporarily sheltering during a particularly vicious Dor-lómin winter. They let Aerin, then nine, keep it.

Nellas has a huge variety of creatures she recognizes on sight and considers friends, including many who’s ancestors she has been watching for generations.

Maedhros spends years in Himring befriending a few snow leopards who can occasionally be seen closer to the fortress. This is for practical reasons as much as anything.

[casualcatte]

Journal : 08/02/2020

Kugane is such a beautiful place; it’s as if the very cobblestones of the streets exude serenity. As soon as my feet hit the Airship Landing upon my arrival, a feeling of peace washes over me unlike any city I’ve ever been to, even home. There is a part of me that already loves Kugane, but my heart forever belongs in Tailfeather. I’m a simple girl of simple needs, Kugane feels lavish, almost decadent in its beauty. I find myself missing the caelumtrees and the soft kwehing of the chocobo. 

[ Courtesy Cut for Length ]

Still, I’m not here for light-hearted purpose, there are hunt marks to serve and reputation to earn. Or so I like to tell myself. I was still pretty happy when Lorrendor Hauland arrived, as promised, eager to leave behind the troubles of Ul’dah and looking forward to a good hunt. We settled him into the inn, then let him recover from the journey with some drinks and food at the Shiokaze Hostelry. It was a welcome while just catching up, apparently others among Lorrendor’s friends had gotten into trouble and fighting, all of it combined to put the elezen at his wit’s end. As time pressed onward, he seemed to become much more relaxed, laughing and enjoying his Kugane escape.

After the meal, I took him on a tour of the city, showing him all the places I know best. From the Kogane Dori, to the gardens over by the Thavnairian Consulate, along the upper paths over to the Rakuza District, and back to the Bokairo. All along the walk, we chatted about everything and nothing, a flirtatious comment or two from him, though I know better than to put any consideration to them. He doesn’t mean them, only teasing me with them since he knows how Edgard always is around me. He got very dismayed when I climbed onto the railing along the upper paths, though, fearing I might fall off down into the canal. As if!  I’ve walked caelumtree branches thinner than that rail. The worry on his face, though, was enough to coax me down. I hadn’t meant to cause him to fret, the railings in this city are built for tall people, not small miqo’te, even if I /am/ tall for my kind. 

When we got back to the Bokairo, Lor was relaxed and content, though a bit tired. He spoke of how much he enjoyed the tour, needed this break from Ul’dah, and reveled in my company. He hugged me. I wasn’t expecting it, so it caught me somewhat off-guard. There wasn’t anything in it, he was just grateful for a day well-spent. Lor has expressed a number of times that all he’s interested in is friendship. He, too, has some tragic past, some lost love, and it left scars on his heart like everyone else it seems. He has no interest in romantic pursuits, which is honestly just fine by me. I’ve written in this journal a number of times that I still don’t think I’m over Tristane.

It wasn’t long after, in a turn I doubt anyone could have predicted, Edgard Beaumont came sauntering into view. Lor excused himself, intending to have a nap before exploring the Kogane Dor proper later in the evening. So, it left me alone with the elder Beaumont who was back in his usual brazen, flirtatious form. I like to think that I gave him as good as I got this time around, although that seemed to delight him far more than was prudent. That wasn’t the core of his conversation, however, only the diversion as is his usual wont to do.  He’s a master of deflection, Edgard. He spoke of his feelings for the au ra woman from the Quicksand, how their -- complicated story was making him uncertain. It’s strange to think Edgard uncertain of anything. Yet… here he was.

I asked him what he wanted for himself, if he could be satisfied being second, third, or who knows what number on down the line of this woman’s playthings. He said he couldn’t, that he didn’t want to be second to anyone. Whatever allure this woman has, though, must be a powerful thing, because I could see the conflict in him. 

I would’ve spoken to him at length on it, but the silly fool forgot his money pouch on the airship, so, in true dragoon style, he launched himself to the Airship Landing in the hopes of fetching it before anything happened to it.  By that time, it was close to when I was due to meet Lor at the Kogane Dor for some light shopping, so my footsteps carried me that way. 

At the market, I couldn’t help but laughingly tell Lorrendor that Edgard admitted that he was jealous of the other elezen.  Naturally, Edgard wouldn’t have meant it, he might find me interesting, perhaps an entertaining toy to bat around like a cat with a mouse, but there’s no true jealousy in him.  I even told Lorrendor that I’d told Edgard he had no right to be jealous when he was smitten of another woman, even with her complications. It led into a conversation about Edgard, how he was married before, and what had subsequently become of his wife. Lorrendor felt that he’d misjudged Edgard, but that the man’s mannerisms and general lecherous air were still contemptible. 

I’m not sure, entirely, what happened at that point. Something… shifted in Lorrendor.  He seemed very cross, frustrated and annoyed. We returned to the Shirokaze where he drank a fair amount of sochu, speaking in a way that I’ve never known Lorrendor to speak. He said no one needed him in Ul’dah, he spoke of leaving people he’d helped, possibly even considered friends, abandoning them to fates that he’d salvaged them from. He insisted on joining me on the hunt for the Saurotaun, which I adamantly refused. When I told him that my search might possibly lead me to Garlemald or Ilsabard, he insisted that he go with me, forsaking everything he’d built in Ul’dah. I made the jest that maybe I’d give it all up, stay in Kugane, and just be a bounty hunter for the Night Raid Bounty Call, so he figured he’d move to Kugane and join me here.

Again, he insisted that his only interest was friendship, which I don’t doubt, but I couldn’t understand where all these thoughts that seemed very un-Lor-like were coming from. Surely it wasn’t the drink, strong as it was, I wouldn’t have imagined Lor the type of person to drink to excess. I was at a loss of what to think, to do, to say. Thankfully, I was saved from it when Lor finally proclaimed it was time to find some rest for the hunt tomorrow. I’ve never been so relieved.  It was a confusing set of bells and even now I’m still not entirely certain what happened or what prompted the shift.

I can only hope that it’s gone by tomorrow. I’ll need Lor clear-headed for the hunt, otherwise the bara and its pack will have us for breakfast. 

[the-outer-topic]

El Coyote

Introduction for non Spanish readers

For a quick summary, use a web translator to read the wiki article, for my own description, read on:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Coyote

As the name suggests, this was a postwar long series, of pulp western novels numbering about a hundred issues, by a Spanish author, a remake of the Zorro character of novel and film, in fact in the story the hero draws the inspiration from the example of the earlier hero and moved forward in time to the Far West times of the California Gold Rush and later decades (1849-1879). In fact they are the best Western novels I have read, and told from a Spanish perspective. El Coyote starts as a defender of the local Californian Spanish and indians against the abuses and violence of the American gringo invaders and criminals in the wake of the Gold Rush, and later on becomes a crime fighter, as law and order are established and the native Californians get equal status as US citizens, often helping  American people and not just the Spanish speaking Californians, up to the point that despite his sympathies for the Confederacy, he strives to keep California loyal to the Union, if only to spare its population the ravages of civil war, and later on at one point renders a good service to President Ulysess Grant.

For a hack writer, Mallorquí, the author, was a very good writer with a great culture, knowledge of the history of the West and California, and a flair for character relationships, and a wide variety of plots other than the usual topics of Western films, including action packed shootouts, murder mistery, courtroom drama, and political intrigue to name a few. Since he wrote so many novels to pay bills, the quality is uneven. Some are great, others formulaic, and most of them just a entertaining, pleasant reading, in itself not a mean achievement.

About the character, the merit of Mallorquí is about making the Coyote a more complex character than the Zorro, and his  public persona, that of wealthy, peaceful if not downright cowardly, bon vivant, and cynical landowner César de Echagüe and his family life as interesting as his heroic exploits as a masked avenger, combining in one man the duality of the Spanish character with its virtues and vices, half Quijote, half Sancho Panza.

Don Diego de la Vega is a fop, but it’s just an act to avoid suspicions while Don César de Echagüe, while also pretending to be a weakling,  is a highly intelligent man, that makes him a hard realist and he sees the futility of the struggle against the new American order, but he fights injustices and abuses as El Coyote anyway out of a sense of justice and Christian morality but also as a thrill seeker in his youth, and driven by a death wish in his mid-life crisis after the death of his first wife while giving birth to his son.

Had Mallorquí been born in the USA he would have became famous, as it was, in his lifetime his books were published in other European countries and were very popular, of all places, in Finland.

These wonderful covers are from a reprint in the 1980s for nostalgic middle aged people that read them in their youth in the 1940s, and to save printing costs, they combined two novels in each volume. As a teenager I found the artwork gorgeous and the books mind blowing, and highly inspirational as they presented for me a Spanish hero as a counter to the American Hollywood culture that steamrollered over Europe, and on a personal level I was fascinated by one female character that appeared as one of the various lovers of El Coyote, an  American adventuress that pretended to be a Russian princess made me feel intrigued and interested in that far away country and among other things lead me later in life to meet my Russian wife, who by a coincidence has the same name as the fictional princess.

It took me about twenty years to complete the collection as my older brother hadn’t bought them all when they were first reprinted, and I had to find them by chance  throughout the years in flea markets and found the last ones thanks to the internet. Reading them in maturity, they don’t have the same impact as when I was impressionable uneducated teenager, and a few of them are formulaic and trite, but I still find them great reading, though I was shocked by the casual killing and the grisly realism of depictions of death, even though it doesn’t indulge in sadism, though torture is often mentioned as a matter of fact. Just like violence in the American Western movies, come to think of it.

Looking back, I must have been a bloodthirsty psychopath in my teens (so what has changed you may think). On the other hand these novels were written in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War for a generation that had gone through war and mass political murders and repression so I guess readers, children included, were desensitized to killing and brutality back then. Though one thing that makes them apart from the American films and novels, is the strong moral values throughout. Not the American values of law and order and the Protestant work ethic, but Catholic values of justice and equality. El Coyote is a violent man that takes justice in his own hands, but also a Christian and there are strong injuctions against social divide, racism and exploitation of the poor by the rich.

And that’s all I can think of. I will try to scan and post more of these covers if there’s interest.

PS: dor some reason and due to the vagaries of color printing, the Mexican "charro" costume of the Coyote appears in these covers in a range of shades from purple to blue and with gold trimming. Actually both in the novels and the original period covers the suit is black, with silver piping, wich makes sense since the Coyote, as an outlaw usually acted at night and the black color made him a harder target. One has also to bear in mind that a eye mask and a sombrero were enough disguise at  a time when there was no electric lighting and nobody could get a good look at his face.

[liathgray]

I think Damian is misunderstood on such a fundamental level that it kind of hurts me when people say he’s a bad character, or unsympathetic. And that’s coming from someone who still finds him, at times, super grating. He’s not a favourite of mine but I think it does a disservice to the quality of his character and to those who have similar behaviour patterns. When people call him arrogant and a brat they are not entirely wrong but they are painfully oversimplifying a really complex individual.

He was raised in an environment which violence, aggression and intimidation was rewarded and any form of affection or positivity was punished. He, LITERALLY FROM THE WORD GO, was conditioned to feel entitlement and away washed was any semblance of his own identity; he was the heir to the shadows. Not a person, a contingency. A replacement for an immortal ruler. He felt useless and sought any type of approval available.

Because of this he has, and will continue to have, an understandably hard time adjusting to a setting wherein compassion and free thought are the appreciable factors.

A setting where the people around him love him unconditionally and do not base his worth off of fighting skills. When he argues, fights, yells, bullies his friends and family, it is not out of malice. It is the only way he has ever been taught to show emotion and it’s his way of trying to earn respect and love. Damian grew up with affection being withheld as a punishment, and suddenly its readily available with no prerequisite to attaining it.

Talia didn’t love him.

And I know it seems obvious to say that but really think dor a minute.

She used, abused and manipulated him into doing what she wanted that went directly against any semblance of caring for her son whom she assaulted another human to create. Think about that for five seconds and tell me it’s a surprise Damian is so opposed to feeling anything that could possibly be condemned as weak.

His mother treats him like an object. A means to an end.

He was her tool, and was expected to act as such.

That is bound to give someone emotional whiplash. He bleeds a desire for acceptance and approval but only knows one way to get it; combat.

No one save Dick (pre-52 at that) thought to explain or show this severely traumatized kid that emotion was a good thing to have.

Now kindly consider the fact that upon being brought into Gotham, people don’t react in the same way to how he would normally prove himself. They don’t give him the praise he’d normally received for that behaviour and thus, understandable, he pushes it harder because to him, it must be because he has yet to prove his value.

Even after he does start to learn that his fighting abilities are not his person, his worth, its still gonna be hard to cut those habits away. Think of it this way: we’ve all grown up being taught to smile when we’re happy. Now imagine suddenly you’re not supposed to do that. That suddenly a smile is akin to a death threat. It would be awful hard to regulate that instinct since it’s been there literally forever.

Damian suffered betrayal after betrayal from his own family, even after dedicating himself wholly to them in every way possible.

And they abandoned him. And I don’t just mean Ra’s and Talia.

Bruce fucked off into another era, Tim practically rejected him out of spite, Jon left and Dick faked his death.

How the hell can people say that he has no right to be angry, or reason to jump to aggression?

No one can erase the damage done to them as children.

And it will never go away.

There are times when, on a mental level, one needs to surrender themselves to a base instinct or overwhelming amount of fear will rise from some buried trauma.

People fail to remember that Damian IS the legacy character.

He’s a combination of Al Ghul and Wayne families; powerhouses of skill and control.

Hummmm.... wonder what that could lead to, the kind of expectations a child forced into adulthood from the second he could speak will place upon himself.

Hey here’s a thought maybe binaries are a dumb idea especially in fiction whose purpose is to explore the gray zone of humans; nothing is ever simply enough to split in two.

Emotionally conflicted while later unsympathetic to the status quo that ruined his sense of humanity Damian Wayne is a character built from selfishness and cold indifferent yet manages to be disarmingly powerful and magnetically entertaining in the moments that matter. Heroes are gray sometimes. Keep up.

[capricornus-rex]

Hey I was wondering if you’d take a prompt where the reader is an ex-padawan who’s master died pretty early on in order 66, and was instead saved by a clone that removed his inhibitor chip. Then maybe they get separated, and years later when the reader is a crew member on the Mantis, they come across the clone again? How would the crew, especially Cal and Cere, react to meeting a friendly ex-soldier clone who’s close with the reader? Could you make it full of angst then fluff? Love your writing!

Hello there, Anon~! Sorry if you had to wait a bit because I took a break after writing the sequel fic (and then new JFO update came in the middle of it lol), hope you understand! Anyways, I hope you’ll enjoy this fic 🤗💖 Also, thank you! 🥰💕✨

“Old Friend, New Family”

Tags: Defected! Clone Trooper, Jedi Survivor! Reader, Order 66 Survivor

Also found in AO3

Next: Part 2 | Masterlist

1 of ?

HOURS BEFORE THE EXECUTION OF ORDER 66

A pair of Jedi Starfighters zoom back and forth in gracefully in the sky of Plardel—a peaceful planet in the Gorio system plagued by the vermin that are the Separatist and their droid army—cutting through clouds and leaving smoky trails in their wake. From a bird’s eye view, you and your Master, Zal Karos, watched the battle on the surface. It was only a matter of time when the two of you have arrived into the planet after departing from the Republic command ship, Ultimatum, flanked with a company of pilots to aid the aerial assault.

A hologram of the admiral in the Ultimatum crackled into both your comms.

“General Karos, the blockade has been cut!”

“Just in time for the relief convoy!” the Kel Dor responded enthusiastically.

“We better start cleaning house then, Master!” you chirped through your radio.

“I was about to say the same thing, my Padawan!”

Zal Karos began instructing you to already engage in the standard operating procedure for the ejection sequence, programming your own astromech droids to override the ship and activate auto-pilot, flying lower and closer to the surface.

“Get ready to eject, [y/n]!” Master Karos radioed you through your ship’s comms.

“Ready when you are, Master!”

You pulled the lever at the bottom side of your seat and sent yourself flying out of your own starfighter. Using your Jedi reflexes, your landing was smooth—the same goes for your Master—now you’ve caught yourself in the crossfire between the 89th Legion and the droid army keeping the capital city from you.

The troops drew the droids’ fire while you and Master Karos charged onward, keeping up with your own vanguard, aiding them at the same time. Battle droids of all types—B1 battle droids, droidekas, and super battle droids—poured out of the city.

Just how many are they keeping in there!?

You continued deflecting the projectiles of the lanky battle droids back and forth, advancing as you thinned the numbers of their frontlines together with your Master, the Kel Dor looked over his shoulder and beckoned the troops to break through.

“Onward, child!”

You wanted to show Zal Karos how much you have learned from him, you applied every technique from close contact to long range combat, you were side-to-side with your Master. He saw that you’ve become more skilled with the lightsaber than before.

“Keep it up, [y/n]!”

“The Jedi have breached the city gates!” one battle droid reported through its built-in commlink but wasn’t able to request reinforcements in time. Your lightsaber had severed it into half before it could do so.

Once broken through, Master Karos barked orders at a handful of troopers to secure the locals held hostage in the residential areas and the central business district.

“The rest of you, keep pressing on!” the Kel Dor barked through his mask. He then turns to you, softening his commander-like bark into his normal voice while retaining that firm tone. “We’re heading straight to the Prime Minister’s Palace, child. That’s where the Separatist leader will be. Be ready!”

“Yes, Master!”

More battle droids marched to your general direction and there was no other alternative but to fight. Their numbers are significantly smaller, although they have deployed more super battle droids than the generic ones, the opposition was also accompanied by walkers.

Normally, your side would be overwhelmed as you’re only accompanied by ARC troopers and regular troopers.

“We’re outgunned!” a trooper, faceless in the crowd, cried in despair.

“Not if I have anything to say about that!”

Using the Force, you carried a metal beam large enough to sweep-kick the walkers off their feet—consequently crushing the droids in its path and thinning the herd altogether.

“Exemplary thinking, young Padawan!” Karos commended.

You smiled back at him as thanks and with the big problem out of the picture, the tables have turned for the droid army. The sniper troopers have finally reached their vantage points in the ruins of the city and took down the droids as the army cut through. Eventually, you’ve reached the Minister’s Palace and arrested the Neimoidian Separatist leader after taking down his small dispatch of guards outside the office.

Although you’ve secured the Palace and rescued the hostages, resulting to this campaign’s victory, something doesn’t feel right. The master and apprentice stayed in the office room watching LAAT gunships filled with reinforcements and medical support arrive.

“I sense there is something troubling you, Padawan [y/n].”

“I’m sorry, Master. I’ve been sensing something since this morning, though I can’t exactly say what it is—it feels ominous,” you shake off the thought. “I’m sorry again, that is quite pessimistic of me to say.”

“Not at all, child. Likewise, I thought I was the only one having that sort of feeling. The Force is unpredictable, but never mischievous,”

“Something tells me there’s a gloom lingering about this victory, Master,”

“You have become more insightful of your feelings and visions of late, Padawan. It seems to be serving you well. Not many have reached that point, especially in your age. I don’t think you should be apologetic about it.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I strongly believe it is. To see beyond plain sight and looking ahead are vital aspects of a Jedi’s wisdom.”

A smile played along in your face, even through your master’s mask, you can feel the warmth of his compassion for you. The master and his apprentice continue to watch the gunships dot the sky as they approach the city. From behind, the office door could be heard opening, a clone and his commander let themselves in.

“General Karos, the reinforcements have arrived for the troopers and the refugees. We’re just conducting a clean sweep of the palace in case of any stragglers—whether droid or Separatist.” Reported the commander.

“I leave it in your capable hands, Commander Pollux.”

“Thank you sir, this is another victory of the Republic!”

“Hey kid,” the Clone Trooper called. “Nice fighting out there!”

“Thanks Wade!” you beamed.

Wade dismissed himself out of the room whilst Commander Pollux remained in the room, he was Karos’s guard after all. Meanwhile, you and the master began conversing on the subject of the supply convoy.

“Do you think there are enough for the refugees?”

“About ten transports are deployed, I think it will be more than enough for the—agh!”

Suddenly, the demeanor of your master fumbled, he back hunched as he pinched the space between his brows, fighting back a burdening sensation in his head.

“Master!” you cried out, startled with his abrupt disoriented state. “Are you hurt?”

Within Commander Pollux’s earshot, his holodisk beeped. Upon answering, a cloaked figure crackled into existence.

“The time has come. Execute Order 66!”

“It will be done, my lord.”

“Padawan… there’s something… wrong…” the Kel Dor struggled to speak.

In the corner of your eye, you saw Command Pollux raising his rifle right at Karos’s heart.

“Pollux, what are you doing!? NO… WAIT!!!”

Albeit weakened by the violent pain in his head, the Kel Dor’s Jedi reflexes never betrayed him. He banked the shot from Commander Pollux’s blaster, killing the clone in the process. Everything happened so fast you didn’t even know what to make of it. From the other side of the door, the clones’ distant voices echoed across the corridors of the palace. Karos glanced once more at the office window and found your Starfighters sitting by the recently-arrived LAAT.

“Master! Pollux… he…!”

“There’s no time, child. Get ready to fight!”

Drowned in your own confusion, you don’t know where to put your finger on it. Relying your master and him alone, you did as you were told—you ignited your lightsabers in unison, Karos counted to three before opening the door.

One…

“The Jedi are in there!”

Two…

“They’re both trapped in the office!”

Three!