#just let cody finish the story

[blbcabelts]

* and they're still finding ways to fuck cody over

[enwoso]

A cute blurb of Lovie having the best time playing dolly’s with all the new youngsters on the team (Katie, Viv, Freya, Michelle) and having the best time

NEW FRIENDS — alessia russo x child!reader

grumpy masterlist

it was pre-season and the team had been spending an evening together. a lot of the girls playing some sort of card game. it sometimes getting quite competitive at times.

but alessia was getting wary, you had been quite for a while. which wasn’t always a good sign as sometimes that would mean you were up to no good. not always but it was usually a good indication.

“had anyone seen lovie?” alessia asked as the round of cards had just finished the girls shaking their heads as the cards were thrown onto the table to be reshuffled before the next game.

“actually i seen her, she was dragging freya along to play whatever she was playing” lia said as she placed her cards back on the table. remembering seeing you pull freya and a couple of the young gunners along.

“oh good god knows what she’s doing then” alessia sighed as she began to stand up from her seat next to codi, “i’ll quickly go and check on her!”

alessia followed the hushed sound of your talking along with the voices of the young grooners voice and as she turned the corner she doesn’t know what she expected you to have roped the young girls into doing but you siting and playing dolly’s with the girls was definitely not top of the list.

she stood at the doorway and watched as you had a full story line going on with the young gunners; freya, viv, katie and michelle all with doll in their hand as they played along with your little imagination.

alessia soon clicked that the storyline you had was of that the dolls were the arsenal girls just with different names. a smile couldn’t help but creep on your mummy’s face before alessia fake coughed to make her presence known to the small group of girls.

“hi mummy!” you beamed as a small hello came from the young gunners too.

“i see you’ve made some new friends!” alessia raised an eyebrow as you nodded. alessia knew she was being a little exaggerate with that, of course you knew of the young gunners the group of them having been on the team that traveled to australia and they’d been in and around the first team for the past season, so of course you knew them.

this was just the first time she had seen any of them properly sitting down and interacting with you instead of a usual hello or little wave every time they seen you in and around the team.

“yes! we playing a game” you explained the game and just like alessia thought, you were playing your own little version of arsenal but with different names.

“this is you less!” viv held up a blonde barbie, “but her name is alyssa. tiny’s idea, all the names were” viv carried on as alessia laughed at the name choice.

“let’s hear them then!”

“this is leanne and you can probably guess who this is by the frown!” katie joked as she held up a barbie again with blonde hair and a bob with two longer bits at the front, one basically identical to leah’s.

another giggle came from alessia as she listened to each explanation, “i love it!”

“this is kacey and she’s loves yellow cards and just the colour yellow in general!” michelle laughed as she held up a brunette barbie dressed all in the colour yellow with a bit of green.

“this is betty and she loves dogs look she even had her own called milo” freya held up another barbie which had a little puppy dog accessorie, a knowing nod coming from alessia as she knew exactly who that was.

“and this is jones! and he tells everyone how to play football!” you held up a male barbie as alessia hummed as she listened a little more to your little fantasy world you’d created with the young gunners.

“well this sounds lovely and i won’t interrupt anymore!” alessia said as she tapped her knees ready to stand back up. “if you need me i’ll be out there with the girls” alessia smiled looking at you but more talking to the group of young gunners as she placed a light kiss to your cheek before leaving you to get back to your own little world with your new friends.

“what is she up to then?” beth asked curiously as alessia joined back with the group of girls she was originally playing cards with.

“oh she and the young gunners have made us in barbie form!” alessia explained as the girls’ faces turned to confusion but also intrigued.

“that’s so- wait, what?”

[famousstatesmanbearroad]

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY PART 2 (CODY RHODES WWE)

• Summary: You made many enemies throughout your career in World Wrestling Entertainment. Some of which you despise so much it makes you sick to your stomach. But the more you two hate each other, the more the sexual tension becomes too intense to ignore.

• Parings: Cody Rhodes X Fem Reader

Warning- Language, 18+ only (minors DNI), Dirty Talk, Smut, Fingering, (READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)

After a week since your last interaction with Cody, you stood before Damian as he looked at you with nothing but anger.

These last couple of weeks, you've been avoiding Cody. And you made it evident to him and yourself that you were avoiding him. It was awkward talking about that night, especially the fact you two couldn't resist for another round.

But you were also avoiding Damian. Only because every time you two were supposed to talk about what Cody said the night the two got into an argument, something came up, and he noticed that every time there was something, he would get frustrated every single time. But he dragged you into the Judgement Day's locker room, kicking everyone out as it was just you two.

"Are you going to keep ignoring me?" Damian spoke as he crossed his arms and looked at you. You rolled your eyes as he said this. "I'm not ignoring you, Damian." You said. "But believe me, the fact that you and I are even having this conversation and that you are mad honestly makes me laugh." You said.

"Laugh, really?" Damian said. "To find out from someone I despise that he slept with someone that I really like honestly makes me sick!"

"Sick!?" you spoke. "Okay, you know he lied to you, right? He did it to get into your head and mind. You're not the only one who hates him."

Damian stayed quiet as he heard what you said. Apart from him, I knew you were right about Cody getting into his head. That's what Cody does, especially to you.

And he has been doing it lately, and you two haven't had a single conversation, or in other words, you two insulting each other, since that night with Damian. It's different.

Cody is one of the best wrestlers in WWE at the moment, whether people like to admit it or not. And as Mr. Money in the Bank, or what people like to call it, Senor. Money in the Bank, Damian saw Cody as a threat, and Cody saw Damian as someone in his way from finishing his story, or whatever this whole thing Cody got going on.

What Cody was good at was weakness. He knew how much Damian liked you, which is one of the reasons why he said what he said to him. You think, however, just by how he spoke to you that night, it was something more that.

Damian crossed his arms, hesitant, but asked you anyway. "So you and Cody didn't sleep with each other?" He asked. You look at him, quiet for a second, before responding with a lie.

"No,"

"I don't believe you," He spoke as he uncrossed his arms and walked over to you. You looked up at him and noticed the way he looked at you. Damian was a handsome guy, which is why you gave in the first place and gave him a chance after trying for the longest even to get your attention. That and you never really had a guy try this hard to even talk to you. I know how much high standards you have for men.

But you shrugged your shoulders, not trying to defend yourself. "Okay."

Damian sighed, placing his hand on his cheek. "I don't want to know if it is true. I like a lot Y/N," He said. "And I'm not going to let anyone, let alone Cody, get in my way of making you mine."

You didn't react to his words. How could you when Cody's words replayed inside your head right after he said that?

"Damian is too soft, too much of a good guy even though he plays this bad guy on camera."

Damian was too soft. If you were in Damian's shoes, you would end this, although not waste your time on someone who made you look like an idiot in front of everyone.

But after that conversation, you knew the two wouldn't work out. And as much as you hate to admit it, it was all Cody's fault.

You left Judgment Day's locker Room, heading back to the female locker room to get your bags. The show was officially over, which meant you were off for the next couple of days, and it was peace to you. You loved traveling, but you also loved to relax, which is why you were so excited to stay in at least one city for the next couple of days.

As you walked into the locker room, you noticed Becky, one of your few female friends, in the locker room. She looked up at you from zipping up her bags and smiled as you walked in. "Hey, Y/N, where have you been?" She asked as she stood up.

"Hey, Becks," You spoke as you headed towards your stuff. "I was with Damian."

Becky smiled, dropped, and rolled her eyes as you mentioned Damian.

Becky hated every single member of the Judgment Day. You and Becky's biggest problem. Rhea Ripley. Becky's problem was much bigger than yours since you were technically seeing her friend.

"I don't mean to Judge, but Damian, out of everyone. You're a gorgeous woman, Y/N; you could do better than that." She said.

You gave Becky a smirk. "Careful what you say, Becks; I may steal you from Rollins." You joked, earning a laugh from Becky.

"I'm serious, though," She said. "And I thought you two were over after what Cody told him."

"Ugh, you heard about that two!?" You sighed in disbelief.

"Oh honey," Becky said, shaking her head. "Everyone backstage knows. What I want to know is if it was true or not."

Usually, you can keep your secrets to yourself. Even your brother doesn't know the majority of your secrets. But Becky, she was like a sister to you, despite the fact her husband and your brother hated each other. She knew all your secrets, to the point where you should have killed her.

But you looked away from Beck as you zipped up your bags. "It wasn't true... at first." You said. Becky's eyes widened, not expecting that kind of answer. "Okay, once I found out what he said to Damian, I confronted him, and we ended up having sex."

However, the reaction afterward was the last thing you expected from Becky. She sighed in relief and held a smile on her face. "About fucking time!"

"What!?" You looked at her in disbelief.

"Y/N, I heard all the way from Alica Fox when she was still working here how much sexual tension you two had before he left, and when he came back, I understood why everyone was saying that," Becky said. "I'm surprised it took him one comment for you two let it out."

You shook your head, not wanting to think about what the hell Becky said. It reminded me of that night and how he spoke to you. "It doesn't matter. He and I are not happening again." You said.

Becky remained silent. But you can see the hint of an "I called Bullshit" expression lingering on her face. You rolled your eyes and ignored it as the two walked out of the locker room.

The two of you continued to chat, talking about today's show and the upcoming show, which was not till next week until going your separate ways. As you go to your rental car, opening the back trunk, your phone rings, and a random number appears on your screen.

You usually get random numbers occasionally, mainly spam callers, which you would always ignore. However, something in you knew that this phone call was different.

Hesitant momentarily, you answered the call and brought your phone to your ear. "Hello?"

You weren't sure if you were going insane, but you swore that the person on the other side of the call had smiled the minute you spoke, which immediately answered your question about who was calling you.

"Cody?"

"Brilliant of you princess, I'm impressed you knew it was me,"

You rolled your eyes, ignoring the typical pet name he always gives you. "How the hell did you get my number?" You asked with annoyance in your voice.

"I have my resources." He said. Only one person came to your mind as he said this.

Sami. And you prayed that you wouldn't run into him because you knew you were going to kill Sami when you saw him.

"Okay, well, I'm hanging up now, goodbye."

You didn't let Cody say another word as you hung up on him and began placing your bags into your car. You saw Cody calling you several times, as you chose to ignore him. He then texted you as he closed your back trunk, hopped into the driver's seat, and read his message.

"You can't avoid me forever, princess."

You did exactly what he said you couldn't do: ignore him. You toss your phone into the passenger seat as you drive straight to the hotel you are staying at.

Upon arrival, you went straight to the front desk to check in, giving the lady your name so you could get your key and enter your room.

However, the lady made a confused face, followed by a realization, leaving you confused yourself.

"Oh, your fiancé was just here not too long ago and checked you in?"

You thought you heard utterly wrong as you looked at the lady and spoke. "My what!?"

The lady was now confused, but by your reaction. "Yeah, your fiancé said you were running late and decided to check on you. I believe he said you would meet him in your room?" She said. "Should I call security? Have I made a mistake?" You Immediately shook your head.

"No, no, my apology; I forgot he told me that we are getting my key for me. I'll call him, thank you."

You didn't want any trouble happening as you walked off with your bags and called Cody's number. You can hear him laughing the minute he picks up.

"Yes Y/N?"

"Give me my damn key Cody!?" You said with irritation in your voice. You didn't have time to play this cat-and-mouse game with, but he was pushing your buttons. 

And Cody could hear it in your voice, which made him laugh even more. He doesn't do anything further as he gives you your room number.

After going up the elevator to your room, you bang loudly at your door, just like you did to Cody's the night in his room. He opened the door, and you looked at him with annoyance as he smirked and moved to the side, allowing you to walk inside.

"Can I have my key, please?" You asked, placing your bags down and phone on the nightstand next to your bed. You turned and looked at Cody as you noticed he was wearing a suit. He probably used his charm and smile to enter your room.

Cody walked up to you and handed you your keys. You try taking it away from him, but he quickly moves his hand back, looking down at you.

The two were close once again. He watches you as you look up at him after getting frustrated for not getting the key.

"You have been avoiding me, princess," Cody said.

You realize he was being serious. What kind of startles you? He was bringing that night up.

"What did you expect me to do, act like nothing happened?" You told him. "That night shouldn't have happened."

Cody just stood there, listening to what you had said before walking over to your nightstand on the opposite side and placing your key there. You still didn't understand why he was here, and some of you didn't want him here.

"I agree," Cody said. "That night shouldn't have happened." He said, then walked over to you. "But it happened."

You stepped back every time Cody stepped forward before your back hit the wall. You couldn't even look at him anymore; you were now scared of what could happen now that he's towered over you.

"And as much as you and I went too far last time, I meant everything I said that night." You tried not to react to what Cody said, but he brought his lips to your ears and spoke once again, earning a gasp from you.

"Just because I agree it shouldn't have happened doesn't mean I regret it."

You looked back at him as he moved around and looked back at you. An immediate response shocked in between your thighs at what he was saying. He barely said anything inappropriate, let alone anything, and you hate how he's making you feel.

You already were in some deep shit just from that night, and you couldn't but do what you were about to. It was all on you and can't be regretted.

Your hands up to his tie, and as you played with it a bit, Cody didn't stop you as you felt his go heavy. The two of you thought the sexual tension was forming once again, and if last time didn't change anything between you two,

It will now.

"We can't do this, Cody," You spoke, biting your lips. You can hear Cody Sigh as he looks down at your lips. It turned him on seeing you trying to resist yourself from him, especially when he hasn't touched you at all.

"I know." He said

You shook your head, suddenly loosening the tie off of Cody. "I can't stand you."

Cody doesn't stop you; instead, he helps by removing his jacket and then the tie.

"That makes two of us," Cody spoke.

You gasped when Cody grabbed you by your neck and attached his lips to yours. You never thought in your entire lifetime that you would be missing Cody's lips.

This was wrong. Being in bed with him last time was wrong, and being here now was wrong. And you knew by the next day, you would call yourself stupid for letting your impulsive actions get the best of you.

But right now, you don't care. You desperately needed Cody's touch.

Your hands went straight down his pants, unbuckling his belt and pulling out his shirt, all while Cody pulled your hair back, kissing your neck.

"Fuck," You sighed at the feeling of his lips. You pulled your neck back, allowing Cody more access. You could tell he enjoyed kissing your skin by the reaction of him pulling you into him more than you were before.

With one swift movement, Cody moved you to the edge of the bed. His large hands were on the bare skin of your waist, causing you to shiver.

The two of you fought with each other. He pulls off your shirt and kisses part of your skin. Your neck, chest, collarbone. Your skin was incredibly soft, and his doing this made you feel on fire. You tugged and unbuttoned his shirt, getting impatient every time you felt another button after unbuttoning another. His shirt was fully tugged off, and you pulled him in, almost falling on the bug.

"Easy, princess," Cody smirked by your eagerness. "I'm going to take care of you,"

His voice, the way he spoke to you, touched you. It was all not helping you stop from being so eager and wanting more as you moaned his name, sucking the breath out of Cody as you could feel his member jump through his pants against your hips.

"Holy fuck!" Cody groans and pushes you on the bed. "So fucking beautiful and sexy."

Cody hovers over you as he attaches his lips against yours again. He lays you down fully before spreading your legs apart and unbuttoning your pants before gently teasing you by rubbing your underwear that covers your clit.

"I can feel how wet you are for me, baby; you're so delicate, so soft and pretty."

"Fuck you so sexy when you speak to me like that," you slipped out. You swear you thought you said that in your head, but by Cody's reaction, he heard you loud and clear, and that turned him on.

"Yeah? Do you like that? My voice turns you on?"

Your hips start to buckle as he pulls your panties to the side and inserts two fingers into you.

"Oh my god," you moaned, gripping the man's arm as you enjoyed the pleasure he gave. There was nothing this man could do wrong. He knew exactly what he was doing. A little too much, as he could already feel yourself finishing.

Cody's words slipped out of his mouth. "You're doing so well, baby," Causing you to move your hips against him. You felt like this was all a dream; however, the dream was momentarily over by the sound of a phone, causing you to whine as Cody stopped.

"Ignore it," You told him. However, once you saw the expression in Cody's voice, you looked over at the phone, realizing it was yours.

And it was Damian.

"Why is he calling you?" Cody asked, catching you off guard by his sudden hint of jealousy.

"I don't know; I'll worry about it later." You spoke. However, Cody moved his hand away from you as he backed up and looked down at you.

"No, answer it," Cody smirked. Your face made a confused expression.

"What!?"

"Answer it, and put it on speaker," Cody demands. "I promise I won't say a word," Although you knew this was a bad idea, you took your phone off the nightstand and answered, placing it on a speaker like Cody told you to do.

"Hello?" You spoke. Cody smirked when he heard Damian's voice through the line and began kissing your neck.

"Hey, can I stop by your room for a bit? I want to talk to you." He spoke.

Cody's hand eventually slides right back inside you, circling your wet clit, earning a gasp from you. However, you composed yourself.

"I-uh, now's is not a great time."

"Look at you, talking to another guy while a finger you, so fucking hot," Cody whispered in your ear, causing you to hold back a moan by biting your lip.

"Oh, well, I just have a lot on my mind right now that I wanted to let out my chest," Damian said. "I want to tell you, it is about us."

Cody slid two fingers into you, causing you to gasp again. This time, Damian heard it.

"Are you okay?" He asked. You can feel Cody smiling so hard at this. "Yeah, I'm fine, whatever it is, you can tell right now on the phone, I don't mind."

You had no clue what you were even saying to Damian as your hips thrust into Cody's fingers once again as he sped up. The two of you made eye contact as your lips parted at the organism forming.

"Okay, yeah," Damian said, nodding, although you couldn't see him. "Listen, I just wanted to apologize to you if I offended you in any way earlier. I believe you when you said that Cody lied and that you two didn't sleep with each other."

Damian words immediately made Cody stop as he glanced over at your phone. You weren't listening to what Damian was saying until what he had said came out of his mouth, and when you did, you were taken back.

"I like you, Y/N, and I don't want someone like Cody to ruin what we have so far. And you don't have to say anything right now. I know it's pretty late, so can we talk about this tomorrow morning, breakfast."

Cody's head shaking made you hesitate. He didn't want you to go. But you couldn't say no, especially after what he just told you. You ignore Cody's head, shaking as you speak. "Breakfast sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow."

Cody scoffed after you hung up and got off the bed. "You got to be kidding me, Y/N."

"Are you seriously mad at me?" You asked Cody as you noticed him fixing his clothes onto himself.

"Of course I'm mad," He said. "One you lied to him,"

"I didn't lie to him!" You defended yourself, getting off the bed as well. "And even if I did, why are you upset about it!? You and are not together?"

Cody turned to you. " I meant every single thing I said that night, Y/N." He said, "I meant that, and it's not something I will ignore. And I know that deep down, everything I said minutes before what happened got to you; otherwise, we wouldn't have had sex, and we wouldn't be here right now."

"Right now?" You raised your eyebrows. "May I remind you that you're the one who broke into my room!? You were the one who spread that stupid lie in the first place. I meant what I said that that night shouldn't have happened."

"So what? You're going to continue whatever you and Damian have going on. He's not someone you want, Y/N?" He asked.

"And you are?" You asked, crossing your arm. "Whatever is going on with Damian and me is none of your business. I mean, he's more than a man than you will ever be."

Cody smiled at your comment. Out of anger, however, he clenched his jaw. His eyes darken as he looks down at you. "Fuck you!"

"Fuck you too!" You yelled at him, "Get out of my room!"

"Gladly!" Cody yelled back and grabbed his jacket as he headed towards the door. He looks back at you before speaking one last time. "But when you realize the truth, and when you open your eyes, you're going to realize I'm right."

"I'd rather stay clueless and blind before ever saying you're right." You spoke. Cody shook his head before walking out the door and slamming it shut, leaving you alone as you sat down, trying to process what had happened.

[kintaroworldz]

Cody Rhodes x Husband Male reader

hey guys I haven’t posted in sometime so I thought why not post a short story before I start the | x feminine Male reader |.

Because of Cody winning at WrestleMania why not make a story about him fucking his Husband hard after the match as a special gift for him?.

so with out further of do enjoy this short story

Cody was at his limit Jimmy Uso just superkicked him being in this battle Cody knew Roman would need help to try to beat him so Cody came prepared.

Next thing you know Jey Uso music hits and Jey starts running towards the ring while Jimmy was running towards his brother to stop him which leads to Jey and Jimmy brawling. Jey takes Jimmy to the top of the stage and superkicks Jimmy and Spears him off the stage which leads both of them to crash into a table.

Taking the opportunity of the distraction Cody rolls up Roman for the two count. Roman not happy with this goes and try’s to spear Cody but Cody dodges the spear and goes for the triple cross rhodes while getting ready to hit the third cross rhodes Solo Sikoa hits Cody with the Soman Spike.

Then out of nowhere John Cena theme hits and Cena runs into the ring and hits attitude adjustment on Roman and throws Solo out of the ring and Removes the Commentary table cover off and attitude adjustments Solo through the table.

Then just when Cody thought his troubles were done The Rocks theme hits and everyone goes cold and freezes Cena goes back into the ring and faces The Rock. Cena tells The Rock “ You can’t see me “ which leads to The Rock hitting Rock bottom on Cena.

Then The Rock grabs the Belt that he attacked Cody with weeks ago and goes to hit him with it but then the UnderTaker theme hits and the lights go off. The Rock waiting for him to come out turns and faces UnderTaker The Rock goes to hit Taker with the belt but Taker grabs the Rocks throat and ChockSlames Rock.

The Lights go off and turn back on to reveal that everyone is gone only Cody and Roman left Roman gets Tired of the games and gets ready and sets up for the spear. Roman roars while the crowd follows suit Roman then goes to spear Cody but Cody reverses and knees Roman in the face. Cody then possessions Roamn for the cross Rhodes and hits the triple cross Rhodes on Roman and pins him.

“ One… Two…. Three… “ Cody could not believe he had finished his story he did the impossible and dethroned Roman Reigns

Cody sees all his friends come and celebrate with him. Then his husband theme hits Cody sees his husband come out and into the ring.

M/N hugs Cody and kisses him “ you did it babe “ M/N says.

“ finally I did it M/N thanks for believing in me babe “ Cody says back

M/N leans into Cody ear and whispers “ when we get back home you can have me all you want in anyway you want “

Cody smirks and whispers back “ oh really? Well babe be ready to not be able to walk cause I’m going to fuck you so hard I’ll have you moaning my name and I’ll have you’re hole full of my cum “

M/N blushes. Cody and M/N walk backstage Triple H congrats Cody for his win. Cody holds a party for his win.

It’s been awhile since the party and all that’s being heard in the giant mansion of Cody and M/N Rhodes House is loud moans and grunts.

“ Oh fuc-k-k ye-s-s daddy ~ “ M/N moans

“ you like that huh? My little slut? “ Cody asks M/N

“ Y-Es-s~ daddy ye-s-s~ destroy my hole fill me up with your cum PLEASE~ “ M/N moans

“ yeah you want me to fill you up with my cum? Beg me baby “ Cody says

“ Pleasse~ daddy fill me up “ M/N moans out

“ who’s you’re champion baby? Who is it? “ Cody ask M/N

“ you are you are you are~ “ M/N repeats over and over again while Cody hits his prostate over again

“ daddy I’m gonna cum please let me cum please please please ~ “ M/N moans and begs

“ FUCK~ I’m gonna cum baby you ready? “ Cody groans

“ YES GIVE IT TO ME DADDY~ “ M/N shouts

“ shit here it comes “ Cody says with his final hard thrust into M/N

Cody holds M/N tight while he fills M/N with his cum. They both lay back down on the bed and stay in the same position.

“ just wait a minute babe I want to stay in you still “ Cody says

“ Alright it’s ok babe “ M/N

Cody and M/N kiss and finally Cody pulls out watching as his cum leaks out of M/N.

“ damn that’s hot babe “ Cody smirks

M/N kisses Cody again and looks at him “ congrats on finishing you’re story and becoming new undisputed champion “ M/N says.

“ Thanks babe and you know if it weren’t for you motivating me to not give up I probably wouldn’t have had that match “ Cody says

“ no problem champ anyways we should probably shower and go to bed? “ M/N says

“ let’s just stay like this naked in the bed cuddled together “ Cody says to M/N

“ and plus who says I’m done yet? “ Cody smirks at M/N.

| OMG GUYS I promise I’ll get the feminine male reader story stared soon I just didn’t want to lead you guys hanging with no post so this little smut story is a little filler till I do the first chapter of the feminine male reader story thanks for you understanding and I’ll see you guys soon bye bye 💕💋 |

[kiwikipedia]

Uhhhh have this old draft from a long fic that will never get published or finished about Cin taking in the Corries and becoming the ultimate Guard Dad ™ with two Guard groups under his lead 🫡

A single man stood outside, arms held loosely behind his back as he waited.

At a glance, the Jedi appeared to be human and older than Prime— but definitely younger than the Chancellor. An exact age was difficult to pinpoint, and Fox can't exactly place the Jedi among the ones that he had seen before— the files only held the ‘important’ Generals who were out on the field so far.

With long hair partially tied back and robes much more streamlined than the ones Fox had seen on several other Jedi, this was not one of them within the database— not yet, at least.

Upon catching sight of him, however, the man simply bowed slightly at the waist— something that caught Fox off guard for a moment before the Jedi seemed to lock eyes with him.

Uncanny.

Fox was wearing his bucket, there was no way that any normal man would be able to lock eyes with him through it so quickly— but then again, Fox had never been in contact with a Jedi before, he had only heard stories. Which made it all the more uncomfortable.

The Jedi’s eyes were a dark shade, possibly brown, but there was something… green there too, seen only when the man straightened up and the light caught in them.

And then all at once it was gone and Fox was pinned in place by irises as deep and dark as the oceans on Kamino.

“Apologies for pulling you away from your duties so abruptly,” the man spoke, pulling Fox from his thoughts “I am Jedi Master Cin Drallig, the current Battlemaster and head of Security of the Jedi Temple here on Coruscant. I take it that I would not be remiss to assume you’re the Leading Commander of the Coruscant Guard?”

The temple on Coruscant? Were there other Jedi Temples? Other sects of Jedi? Should Fox be worried about his brothers being flung far out in the corners of the galaxy and not returning to Coruscant because they were placed under the command of a Jedi who didn’t call the Temple here on this planet their home?

Furthermore, Leading Commander? It wasn’t like it was a damn secret that there was more than one Commander Ranked Clone among the hundreds of thousands of Soldiers in each army sector, but he had never heard of anyone calling a Commander a “Leading Commander” before.

Not even when it came to ones like Cody or Wolffe or even that group of Alphas that Fordo and Stec had gathered together— and all of them were Commanders.

(Part of Fox couldn’t help but feel a curl of pride in his gut. Leading Commander. It was a good title, it held the weight of responsibility with it. Marshall Commander was fine, but there was just something about Leading Commander…)

Shaking from his thoughts, Fox simply nodded before snapping into a salute.

“Yes sir, CC-1010,” he confirmed, tensing slightly when Drallig raised a hand— only to stare at the slight flick of the wrist that was almost universal for ‘at ease’.

Drallig didn’t want him in a salute.

He hesitated, but lowered his arm— though he didn’t dare relax.

“1010…” Drallig mused, moving his hand to rest under his chin slightly, head tilting to one side. “Is there a specific name that you would prefer to be called, Commander? Granted, if you prefer to go by a number, I am in no place to judge, but, well… I’m afraid to say that you might end up being called ‘Toes’ by some of the initiates who associate the number ten with them. Humans and many others have ten fingers and ten toes, after all, Commander.”

Behind him, Fox knew that his men who had ventured out to see what was going on were most certainly staring at the Jedi General in bewilderment— he knows this because he’s doing the same thing.

No one had asked for his name before, not the senators, not the chancellor, not the nat-born soldiers or the Senate Guard who the Coruscant Guard were supposed to work alongside— none of them had bothered to learn his name, let alone the names of his brothers.

Fox took a breath before he nodded, just slightly, cautiously.

“Fox, sir,” He told him, keeping his tone even and void of any wariness, but not at all letting his guard down.

The Jedi had not been mocking, at least, he hadn’t been so openly, and if he had been mocking him at all, the man hid it well.

As far as Fox could tell, Drallig was sincere, if not a bit amused at these ‘initiates’ for some reason.

“Commander Fox, then,” Drallig repeated, almost instantly and a heady feeling began to seep into Fox’s bones.

His brothers among the Commanders had spoken about how it felt to be addressed by a Jedi, addressed by name, addressed like a person. Bly had said that it was a bit intoxicating, and Cody had mentioned something about the warmth of the sun— even the ever conservative and wary Wolffe had mentioned that his General, Plo Koon, had an effect on his men.

The Kel Dor’s mere presence seemed to relax them now, though not enough for the 104th, let alone the Fourth Systems Army, to dull their fangs and let their guard down.

Or so Wolffe said.

Regardless, Fox got it now. He did.

And such a thing was dangerous if he wasn’t careful.

[todayontumblr]

Tuesday April 4.

Let them fight: WrestleMania 39.

Because nothing quite beats the complexity and drama of a good father and son storyline. Just take your pick: Henry and Indiana Jones, Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Mufasa and Simba, Marlin and Nemo, Vito and Michael Corleone. Only there is a new myth in our midst: that of Cody Rhodes and his father, Dusty. Because for this year's #wrestlemania, Cody faced off against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39 at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, where he swore to "finish the story" by defeating Reigns and winning the title that always eluded his father.

It was a big big night, with far more going on than just this one, admittedly big fight. Rhea Ripley, Bad Bunny, Seth Rollins, and, of course, the sale to Endeavour. If you're into very big people theatrically beating one another, set to compelling narratives, Tumblr is your place to catch up on all things leather, sweaty, and #wrestlemania. 

[gethooked]

To be young and in love ~ HOOK imagine

Hook story where he confesses to reader - requested by @brideofinfamy

You joined the AEW roster the same time as Top Flight and Anthony Bowens. You guys created the og Lads. After a while of being signed there was a new guy that was around Taz and the rest of Team Taz. You just thought he was another person that Taz was training and that he was going to leave after a while because he couldn’t handle the training. Little did you know that he was actually Taz’s son who was training to be a wrestler.

You found this out at the same time as everyone else did. You found out he was Taz’s son after Taz and Cody’s promo and after Taz choked Cody out. And out came HOOK. The first time you saw him on the monitor it was like you were in love with him already and Dante caught on. He thought he would help you by starting to hang out with HOOK and getting to know him so somehow you and HOOK could hang out or at least talk.

After him trying for 2 months for something to happen, it finally happened. The Lads decided to go out for a late night dinner after dynamite, they asked you to come and you did because why not. Throughout the dinner HOOK and you would exchange glances here and there. After that dinner you knew you had to get to know him more. It was like wherever you were, HOOK was right there with you.

You went to go train in the ring with some of the other girls. HOOK ws in the crowd with the other Lads watching you and talking to the boys. As time went on HOOK and you would spend more time together without anyone else being with you guys. You knew you wanted a relationship but didn't want to screw things up so you kept your feelings to yourself. The night he finally confessed to you he liked you was a late night movie marathon in your hotel room.

You guys took turns picking the movies. Of course it was during the movie you picked that he confessed. You picked a cheesy romantic movie and the main characters just confessed their feelings to each other. This either gave HOOK motivation to confess his feelings to you or he had this planned out for a while now. But he paused the movie.

“Y/N, I need to tell you something. The very first day I actually met you and talked to you I fell in love with you at first sight. I don’t know if you feel the same but will you be my girlfriend? If not, let's just forget what I said and finish watching the movies.” HOOK said. You didn’t say anything and that scared him. What you did do though was give him a kiss on the lips. “I feel the same way. I was scared you didn’t. I would love to be your girlfriend!” You said. After hearing what you had to say he gave you a kiss also.

From that day to now, you guys have been together for almost four years. And you couldn’t ask for anything else in the world.

Taglist: @99hook @carlybow

[somestorythoughts]

Protective Rage Obi-Wan Fic

So. @fanfic-obsessed has this cool Protective Rage Obi-Wan story idea that yall should check out because it's really good and they've got a ton of cool AU ideas. And I had an idea about an apology scene for it and then the plot bunny that makes you do things like overcomplicate worldbuilding said "you know you could do a whole fic" and now I have 4000 words. I was thinking of splitting it up into parts cause that's a long post but frankly I'm tired and should've been in bed like 90min ago cause I have work tomorrow and mornings suck so it's staying a one shot with the paragraphs spaces cause I am NOT reformatting that now. Enjoy.

            Usually, when Quinlan’s pushing himself to finish a mission through this much pain, he’s running on determination, maybe some spite. This time it’s desperation.

            He’s not sure if the shouting starts before or after he hits the door panel – or maybe it’s been going on the whole time – but he can see Obi-Wan through the spots in his eyes and that’s good, that’s good, he can’t finish this and maybe his friend can –

            “Quin!”

            It’s like leaning on stone, Obi-Wan’s mind wonderfully shielded under the worry in his voice and Quinlan holds up a datachip for the hands around his arms. “Coded. Please.”

            “I’ll take care of it. I promise.”

            He’s staring up at the ceiling now but that’s alright. Obi-Wan has the data. Quinlan can break now.*

Ahsoka isn’t panicking, but only because she’s had a lot of practice keeping her head and she’s not friends with Master Vos. She’s met him though, and knows Obi-Wan and he are close, and she’s scared for him.

            “That’s an order Marrow!” Obi-Wan snaps and the medic someone called hisses in frustration from where Ahsoka’s holding him back. She isn’t sure why Obi-Wan’s so adamant that no one get closer to them, but she knows it’s serious. For all Obi-Wan hates the medbay he’ll work with the medics, let them see him elsewhere, and he knows better than to keep serious injuries from them.

            “General his leg is gangrenous if he doesn’t get immediate treatment he could lose it! As the head medic-”

            “Quin has to be seen by a Temple healer anyone else will make it worse. I don’t like it anymore than you do Marrow.” He’s resting a hand on Master Vos’ head and is holding his hand with the other, trying to sooth his mumbling friend.

            “Can you explain why while we wait for Healer Eerin?” She asked.

            Obi-Wan frowns, the look he gets when he’s trying to figure out how to explain something Force-related in English. “Marrow. The troopers who have trouble with excessive sound. If they were injured would you treat them in a noisy medbay?”

            Marrow scowls, but he stops splitting his attention between Master Vos’ leg and how best to get around Ahsoka and says, “Of course not. Not if there was any way to avoid it.”

            “Quin’s psychometric. It’s a useful skill, but sometimes it’s like Force hypersensitivity.”

            Cody interrupts as Anakin enters. “Healer Eerin just arrived. She’s being escorted here.”

            “Any idea what happened?” Anakin says. He’s waiting by Ahsoka, whether because he already knows approaching is a bad idea or because he got the gist from the way the medics haven’t gotten closer is anyone’s guess.

            “Have to keep them safe.” Master Vos mutters and Obi-Wan’s face tightens, though his shields are still rock-solid.

            “Who Quin? Who do you need to keep safe?”

            But Master Vos never stopped talking, only just loud enough to be heard. He’s shivering too, voice breaking with groans. Whatever he was doing to walk on that leg – Ahsoka is very determinedly not looking at the swelling or the white that might be bone – he clearly can’t keep it up anymore. “Gotta keep them safe from the people and the senators and the Chancellor gotta do something useful with my unnatural powers what good are we if we can’t keep them safe apparently nothing I hoped I hoped I wasn’t gonna get my heart broken again I Obi they deserve better than this-”

            His words are cut off by the sound of the door opening as Healer Eerin and a Padawan healer sweep into the room in unfamiliar robes and go instantly to the downed Jedi. Marrow scowls heavy as thunder at not being able to treat a patient on his ship as they do, Healer Eerin passing something to Obi-Wan as she takes his place by Master Vos’ head. Obi-Wan squeezes his hand and stands, moving in line with the troopers around them so that he can slide the chip into the device and examine whatever Master Vos was so desperate to bring him.

            “Pop quiz Padawan Lele. Why do we use special gear for Master Vos?”

            Padawan Lele didn’t stop what they were doing as they replied: “Because his psychometry is super strong and the pain has seriously damaged his shields. Without the robes or equally strong shields he’ll feel too much of our minds and memories as well. This could delay his healing or damage his mind.”

            Marrow goes stiff and Ahsoka thinks that’s the first time she’s seen him look sheepish.

            For a few minutes, the room is a quiet tension, little sound aside from the Healers working or Master Vos’ delirious mumbling, fading in and out of hearing. Cody’s giving him the same worried look Ahsoka is, Master Vos sounds like his heart is as broken as his leg and she knows enough about how people work to think that the amount of self-deprecation she can hear isn’t a new thing.

            The rage, when it comes, is sudden as a lightning bolt and just as sharp. It’s gone just as quickly too – almost before Ahsoka and the other Padawan finish whipping around to stare at Obi-Wan who looks perfectly calm. Cody’s looking at him too, narrow-eyed in suspicion.

“Excuse me.” He says, still perfectly calm, and Ahsoka thinks of the weight of a sky prepared to burst and wonders if she should follow him, but the door is closed before she can decide.

“Been a while since I saw Obi-Wan get that angry.” Healer Eerin remarks.

“Huh?” Several of the troopers say. Anakin does too and the day has not been nearly overwhelming enough for Ahsoka not to role her eyes at how her oblivious master can lift a tank but not read anger when it’s shoved in his face.

“A little after Anakin first came to the Temple one of the teachers decided he was a poor fit for the Order and was trying to sabotage his work along with bullying him in class. Obi-Wan found out, asked Quin to watch Anakin for an evening, and went after the teacher. The man landed in the Halls of Healing with several broken bones and left as soon as he was cleared to move left for the furthest jedi outpost he could find. If he ever taught again I will be very surprised. Commander he’s safe to move but it would help if we had a clear path to the door.”

“You’re gonna catch flies Skyguy.” Ahsoka says faintly as Cody taps his comm to pass on the message. When he’s finished they all hear the trooper on the other end say, “By the way sir General Kenobi just left for Coruscant’s surface, said he had some business to attend to at the Senate.”

Cody nods, wearing the expression of concern and exasperation he gets whenever anyone he feels remotely responsible for does something dangerous without explaining why. “Check and see if there’s a way to find out what they’re doing.” He orders Crys as the Healers begin to maneuver Master Vos through the door.

“It’s one of the sessions journalists are reporting live sir.” Crys answers, pulling up the feed without needing to be asked, and they all group together to watch it.

*

Obi-Wan is, to put it bluntly, really fucking pissed. The anger in him pools like water, building and building, and he wills himself to keep calm control as he strides through the Senate building. If he gets too angry to think, things will go wrong.

Quinlan came to him because the things that had already gone wrong were even worse than any of them had been allowed to see, and he couldn’t fix it himself. He came to Obi-Wan for help putting things right.

Obi-Wan will be damned thrice over if he fails that mission.

He’s already sent the information on the datachip to the Council (though he doesn’t know when they’ll be able to see it), to all of the Commanders he has the contact information for (he’s not sure which of them made those particular lines of contact so secure but he trusts Cody’s view of them), and Madame Nu. They can’t afford to let this stay between the two of them, they need the backup. He knows the Council cares, is struggling as much as he is under the weight of the war, and the Commanders deserve to know and can keep their secrets. He includes Madame Nu because he doubts anyone would expect it, and the few interactions he’d seen between her and her single squad of troopers made him certain she adores them.

Plus, she studies Sith Temples. She’s gotta be more dangerous than she looks.

He walks into the rotunda where the Senate are debating the (very reasonable he’s read this one) Clone Rights bill, sees Palpatine, and allows his rage to fuel his leap for the podium.

“Tell me,” He says, cool as can be, as he smashes Palpatine’s face into the stand and kicks Amedda away when the asshole tries to interfere, “what the fuck the jedi did to you that you want our children murdered in their cribs?”

Order 66. Kill all the jedi. All of them.

“Who the fuck gave you the right to have an army bred and implant them all with control chips so that they couldn’t disobey, couldn’t be allowed to even think?”

Control chips that would wipe out the troopers’ minds, take away every thought and feeling and every piece of self that they’d fought to keep, chips that would turn the troopers his friends into the flesh droids senators liked to claim they were.

Palpatine snarled and shot off lightning. Obi-Wan deflected it and continued to ignore the screaming as he mused that perhaps Palpatine had decided there was no point in hiding when Obi-Wan was broadcasting these secrets to the Senate. Then he punched Palpatine below his sternum and then his ribs.

Ah, red lightsaber. There it is. He ducked and broke Palpatine’s arm.

“And while we’re at it, who the fuck allowed you to use those chips to control the Coruscant Guard and make them do your dirty work? Or withhold rations and bacta?”

It’s entirely possible he shouldn’t have included the information about the blackout missions and the extent of Palpatine’s control over the clones. That might have been the kind of thing they’d want to share themselves. Unless they couldn’t say anything?

“Even for the Sith you’re an exceptionally twisted shitstain.” He ducks the other lightsaber and wonders why this asshole had to learn to fight with two.

“You forced my family at blaster point to lead a war you orchestrate from both sides, forced our friends into slavery and now you want to take away everything our friends are when you use them to kill us and frankly Palpatine, I think the fuck not!”

The red lightsaber screams in his hand as he slices Palpatine’s head clean off.

*

Obi-Wan frowns as he takes in the scene. Huh, Amedda’s still here and oh that’s Master Windu and Master Yoda in the audience. He supposes some Jedi witnesses are a good idea. He grabs Amedda by the front of his robes and uses the Force to help him hold the heavy asshole over the edge of the podium with one hand, just to make sure he gets the point.

“Now you may have gathered that I’m very concerned about the clone troopers’ lack of rights. What about you?”

It turns out that Amedda is also very concerned about the clone troopers’ lack of rights. Good. “Full Republic citizenship and Senate representation that they elect instead of someone who make money off their bodies would be good too.” Obi-Wan adds, looking the Senator from Kamino dead in the eye. He’s pretty sure she’s calculating the distance between him and her pod when she nods.

If Obi-Wan had known all it would take to get his friends their rights was the public murder of one of his least favorite people, he’d have done that at the beginning of this thrice-damned war. The bill is passed very quickly and unanimously, and a couple Senators add a bit about backpay they’d had in the works as well and make some noise about allowing the clones to settle a moon or planet once they have the time to look the uninhabited ones over. That gets less enthusiasm but it’s not being shouted down and they can work with that, so Obi-Wan grins with all his teeth on display and says “I’m glad I only had to kill one politician today.”

The fear that ripples through the Force is unmistakable.

He puts Amedda down and heads to the Senate floor where the Coruscant Guard are waiting. Their shields aren’t bad but there’s awe shinning through them like sunshine in the dessert, bright and warm and painful with the twisting of old griefs and pains and shocked relief, and Obi-Wan says “I assume I’m going to be arrested?”

One of the men, who wears the rank of a Commander, takes of his helmet and asks, “Permission to speak freely sir?”

“Granted, forever and always.”

The man beams, and answers; “Then with all due respect sir, there is no way we’re going to arrest you.”

“Are you sure? I did just beat the Chancellor of the Republic to death.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely. Everyone on the Guard wants him dead within their first week here.”

“Thorn put your helmet back on, we’re not safe unless that law’s enforced.” Someone snaps and a different Commander approaches, leading Master Windu and Master Yoda. His shields are beskar-strong, but judging by his voice Obi-Wan would bet he’s glaring at Thorn.

“I’m feeling a bit spiteful.” Thorn grins and Fox gives that familiar huff that usually means the trooper in question is rolling their eyes underneath their helmet.

“Don’t look at us like that we’re not locking you up either.” Mace says dryly when Obi-Wan looks at him. “I will however, make sure your Padawan gets mindhealing sessions if I have to drag him there kicking and screaming myself. He’s overdue anyway.”

Obi-Wan winces but agrees. Quin hadn’t found solid proof of Palpatine grooming Anakin to be his Sith apprentice, but the information he had found made him suspicious. And once he read that, Obi-Wan can see a lot of things that support it.

Windu pulls him into a hug, startling Obi-Wan. The other Master doesn’t often want a lot of physical contact, and for him to initiate hugs is unusual. He sinks into it.

“Do you know how Quinlan is? Bant had to take him to the Halls.”

Windu shook his head. “I’ll ask.”

“To the Temple we will go after, inform everyone, and let you see your friend.” Yoda adds.

“Vos?”

Obi-Wan blinks at the stern commander. His shields are still thick but every single one of the other Guards are radiating concern and Obi-Wan wonders if Quinlan started this investigation because it was the Guard he wanted to protect.

“He found the information on Palpatine and brought it to me. He was seriously injured and delirious when I left him with the Healers.” The Commander twitches, just barely visible, and Obi-Wan asks, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name?”

“Commander Fox.”

“Vos looked out for us.” Commander Thorn adds when it’s clear Fox isn’t going to continue. “He did his best to keep civilians off our backs, brought us bacta, snacks, and sweets when he could, tried to make us laugh. He’s our jedi even if it wasn’t official. But we haven’t seen him in weeks.”

Obi-Wan nods in understanding, then turns as Mace looks up.

“He’s in a coma. I can tell you more on the way, I trust the Guard but I don’t want to say this in the open.”

“I’m coming.” Commander Fox states and Commander Thorn nods.

“And perhaps a couple of the men. So we know how he’s doing?”

“I was going to ask one of you if you wanted to come. One would probably be best for now, I don’t know if the Healers are allowing visitors.”

“Just Fox then. I’ll watch out for our vode.” Thorn knocks his forehead gently against Fox’s, murmurs something none of them can hear, and leads the rest of the Guards away. The Jedi and single Commander push through the crowds and pile into a transport.

“Details Mace.”

It’s a sign of how serious it is that Mace doesn’t respond to the tone with a raised brow or eyeroll. “The gangrene is too serious; they have to amputate his leg at the knee. They aren’t sure how far he fell to break it that badly, but they know it’s been untreated for days. Best guess is he was running from someone and couldn’t find a place or the time to take care of it. He’s got some bruising and infected cuts on top of that which makes things worse, but they’re pretty sure they can deal with those. However. He’s not responding well to the healing. It’s not physical, it’s something mental. They aren’t sure what happened.”

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. Mace grips his shoulder till he stops quivering and asks slowly, “Do you have any idea what exactly happened the past few days?”

“He was almost completely out of it when he got to me.” Obi-Wan murmurs. “He, he said a lot of bad things about himself and a few things that reminded me about how some people talk about the Force. You know, when people call us or our skills unnatural. He wanted to protect someone, I’m not sure if it was the Jedi or the Coruscant Guard or someone else.”

The rest of the ride is quiet and tense.

*

Cody meets his general and general Windu at the hanger and finds himself, once again, relieved he’s wearing his armor. He’s not sure he’d survive his general finding out about the highly inappropriate reaction he had to the sight of his General beating up the Chancellor of the Republic on behalf of the troopers. His only consolation is the fact that he’s absolutely sure all the vode that aren’t asexual had the same reaction.

He is surprised to see Fox there, he hasn’t spoken to him in too long, and when he had Fox had been exhausted and tense. He’s been getting worried. He falls into step beside Fox as Obi-Wan updates him on the situation and waits till there’s no one near their group and murmurs, “You can take off the helmet if you want Fox. I promise they’re safe.”

Fox pauses, then yanks off his helmet almost violently. There’s more grey in his hair than there was last time, and a pair of scabbed-over cuts on his cheekbone. He looks like he was tired to the bone last week and hadn’t gotten any sleep this week.

“Fox-”

“Shut up.” Fox snaps, almost quiet enough to be missed by the generals, and Cody hesitates but thinks of Fox coming here to check on a severely injured jedi and decides to wait.

The Healer tells them that they can see Vos, but that they must be quiet and keep calm. The handful of Cody’s men that followed him wait so it’s Cody, Fox, Obi-Wan, and Windu that follow the healer into the room, Cody to offer moral support to his general as needed.

“Commander!” The healer yelps in alarm as Fox pushes past her, stripping off his glove and reach for the General’s limp hand, and Cody thinks of Obi-Wan using a rare order to keep Marrow at a distance and wonders what the hell Fox is thinking before Vos twitches, bare fingers curving towards where Fox has his fingers laid gently on his palm.

The healer scowled and examined the machines Vos was hooked up to. “The rest of you, no touching. Keep calm. You,” she pointed at Fox, who ignores her, heartbreak plain as day on his face “don’t move.”

Cody stays near the door, watching. Obi-Wan’s eyes have flicked towards Fox a couple times, but mostly he’s focused on General Vos. Windu is the opposite. The healer finishes examining the machines and holds her hand above Vos’ forehead, before making quiet excuses and leaving.

She comes back with Healer Eerin who preforms the same examination. “Anything wrong?” Obi-Wan asks.

“I don’t think so but I’m staying for the next 20 minutes to watch.”

It’s twenty minutes later that Healer Eerin kicks all of them out to eat except for Fox, who she brings a chair for. “I don’t know why, but your presence if helping him heal. I’m sure you have things to do but if it’s possible for you to stay a little-”

“I’m not leaving him.” Fow states, and Cody thinks of General Vos’s words on the bridge and heartbreak that hasn’t left his face and thinks oh.

They leave the door open when they go just for a bit, and Cody can tell Obi-Wan had the same idea as him because there’s concern and something that could become anger on his face. General Windu’s as inscrutable as always but Cody’s heard enough from Ponds to know the man takes threats to the jedi seriously. He shushes his troopers outside and waits.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s enough time that Cody had wondered if Fox was gonna stay silent and the shaking in his voice alarms him almost as much as the words. “I didn’t mean it I promise Quinlan. It was just a bad day and I snapped I’m sorry. You force-damned idiot it must have been days to find that and get so injured you know the Guard would’ve done anything they could for you even if I was being an asshole, you think Thorn didn’t smack me around the head when I told him? You’re our jedi Quinlan and we need you to wake up, I need you to wake up I can’t apologize properly if you’re sleeping, please, the Guard’s lost too many people please don’t let us loose our crazy jedi too.”

Fox is crying by the end of that, shaky sobs that scratch his throat, and Cody hits the panel to shut the door and turns to the two jedi.

“Well that answers that question.” Windo states. “I think the Commander will be there a while.”

“If it helps Quinlan heal I can’t speak against it.” Obi-Wan muttered. He slumps into a chair, exhausted. “It’s been a day. Who wants to eat?”

“I do.” Cody says. “And then I want to head to the barracks and make Thorn tell me what’s been going on with Fox, because I feel like I’m missing something important.”

*

Things get better after that, some slowly, some quickly. The Separatists decide it’s in their best interests to surrender to General Kenobi, and the war wraps up quickly with some planets staying separate and many arrests in the leadership (interestingly, a lot of crime groups that deal with jedi more than they would like to also decide to go clean after that footage. Who’d’ve thought?). The troopers learn about their new home with glee and throw themselves into learning how to be things other than soldiers with a mix of joy and apprehension. It takes time for the Coruscant Guard to be fully comfortable with their other brothers, but it’s something that the rest of the troopers work on furiously when they learn how hellish Coruscant had been for them. Anakin gets so much therapy (as do many other people) and the Jedi use time they have now that the war’s over to start distancing themselves a bit from the Senate, trying to ensure that they can’t be forced to lead an army again.

Fox is there when Quinlan wakes up, asleep and holding Quinlan’s hand and there are tears and apologies and promises. The Guard cheers when they get their general back because they love their crazy jedi as much as the other battalions. And the clones and jedi start to heal together.

[vodika-vibes]

What I Wish I Knew

Summary: When Master Yoda makes it a requirement for all Jedi Knights to take a Padawan, it means a lot of very young children end up on the front lines of a war. Plo Koon ends up with an eleven year old padawan, and he turns to Commander Wolffe to explain the realities of their situation to her.

Characters: Commander Wolffe, Plo Koon, Young F!Padawan Reader (all platonic)

Word Count: 761

Warnings: Wolffe has a heavy conversation with the reader

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: Is a lot of what Wolffe says pulled directly from this song, yes. Yes it is. But it works.

“Commander,” General Koon walks over to him, a pensive look on his face, “I’m glad to see you. I was hoping to get your advice on something.”

“My advice, General?” Wolffe is, understandably, confused at the very idea, “I’m happy to help, of course. But I’m not sure what kind of advice I can give you that you don’t already know.”

“It’s always important to get multiple opinions.” General Koon says lightly, “And this is a matter that you might be better equipped at dealing with than myself.”

“Alright,” Wolffe replies slowly, “Go ahead.”

“You might have noticed,” General Koon starts slowly, thoughtfully, “That my Padawan is very…young.”

That might very well be the understatement of the century. She’s hardly the youngest of the new Jedi Commanders, that particular honor lies at Cody’s feet, who has an 8 year old Jedi Commander and it bothers him a lot.

“She’s not terribly young, sir.” Wolffe says awkwardly.

General Koon chuckles, “True. She’s at least old enough to be a Padawan on her own merits, but she is still very young, Commander. Too young for War. Too young to understand the realities, I think.”

“General, what are you asking me to do?”

“Talk to her. Help her understand.”

“Shouldn’t that be your job?” Wolffe asks.

“I think the lesson will stick better coming from you.” General Koon replies quietly, “Can you do this?”

Wolffe sighs and rubs the back of his neck, “Yeah. Yeah, alright. Just…send her to my office when she finishes with her lessons for the day.”

“Of course…and, Commander, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Wolffe remains standing there as General Koon walks away, and then he sighs.

Great. How do you explain war to a Cadet who actually has to take part in it? His training did not cover this.

With that thought in mind, he turns on his heels and heads towards his quarters. Hopefully the short walk will make the words magically appear. He’s not hopeful, though. Odds are he’s going to be winging it.

Half an hour later, there’s a knock on his door, and then it slides open, and a small face peeks in.

She’s…young.

So young.

Too young.

Her hair is tied in twin tails. Twin tails that she needs help putting up still. And her face is still rounded with baby fat.

Wolffe knows, logically, that she’s inching towards puberty. He knows human biology after all, but he can’t help but look at her and see a cadet rather than a jedi.

“Master said that you wanted to see me, Wol-...um, Commander.” She asks as she steps into the room and shuts the door behind her, “Did I do something wrong?”

Wolffe opens his mouth, and the words start coming, “I was younger than you are now, when I was given my first command.” He says, and she turns wide, baffled eyes towards his face, “I led my men into a massacre, I witnessed their deaths first hand.”

Her hands curl around her robes…robes that are too big for her.

“I made every mistake.” Wolffe continues as he stares at her, “And even now, to this day, I lie awake knowing that history has its eyes on me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” She asks, her voice wavering slightly, her eyes even wider.

Good. She understands.

Wolffe circles his desk and kneels in front of her, “Let me tell you what I wish I knew, what I wish someone had told me.” He sets his hands on her shoulders. She’s so small, too small. “You have no control over who lives, who dies, or who tells your story at the end.”

She sniffles and her wide eyes fill with tears. 

Wolffe smiles, and tugs her into a light hug, “I know that we can win.” He says quietly, “I know that greatness lies in you. But you have to remember, from here on out, that history has its eyes on you.”

She hastily wipes her eyes, and she blinks up at him with eyes that are a little more haunted than they were moments earlier. A little less innocent. “...Yes Commander, I think I understand.”

“Good girl.”

She offers him a quick bow, and then she scurries out of the room, and Wolffe leans against his desk. Only time will tell how this chat went, but, hopefully, he got through to her.

Hopefully she’ll understand what he meant.

Hopefully General Koon won’t be too mad about what he just taught her.

His head tilts back, history has its eyes on you indeed.

[literallyjustanerd]

Clone Wars Hospital AU Headcanons

Forgive me my shameless indulgence, but years of working in a hospital has given me Thoughts™ so just for some stupid fun: Welcome to the GHR: the Grand Hospital of the Republic! Where the Jedi are doctors, the clones are nurses, and the padawans are interns

501st battalion: Paediatrics

212th battalion: Maternity

104th battalion: Gen-Med

327th battalion: Orthopedics

Corrie Guard: Emergency Department

Headcanons below:

Paediatrics: Ward 501, Paediatrician Dr Anakin Skywalker

The ward is split on loving or hating Anakin, there's no in between

He's great with the kids though, the patients love him

Rex is the unit manager who has more experience than Anakin despite Anakin “outranking” him

Has to gently steer Anakin back on track and wearily remind him not to make orders just to spite other doctors

Constant happy music playing in the ward, everyone has fun accessories and brightly coloured scrubs

Fives and Echo are the most senior nurses and also the worst influences

Together they can cannulate a kid without them even noticing but also they're the ones shit-talking the annoying/unhelpful parents in the nurses' station five minutes later

If the kids are extra good, Jesse lets them colour in his tattoo

Dogma and Tup are the new grads - Tup is great with the kids, gentle and always gets them smiling, Dogma makes them cry no matter how hard he tries

Kix is NICU-trained and somehow still remembers every single piece of anatomy and physiology from training. Unparallelled medication knowledge. He’s the one all the student nurses want to be paired with

Ahsoka is on her paediatric rotation under Anakin's instruction

She's the intern the nurses give their feedback and requests to when they don't want to talk to Anakin, because they know Anakin will listen to Ahsoka over them

Maternity: Ward 212, Obstetrician Dr Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan works closely with Anakin, refers most of his clients there for their child’s care

Anakin did rotations with him in training, Obi-Wan sometimes forgets that he's now a fully registered doctor and will still try to instruct/encourage him

Obi-Wan has borrowed Ahsoka for days in clinic or in the birthing unit, during which time the nurses will spend their entire shift trying to convince her to come to their unit instead

Obi-Wan is beloved by the nurses because he actually asks them for their input, unlike SOME doctors who just give orders (Anakin)

Did you catch him talking to the unit manager after handover this morning?? Hardcore flirting at 7:05am?? Cody was definitely into it

Cody is one of the most involved unit managers - he’s on the floor with the other nurses most days, always staying overtime and pulling double shifts to help keep things running smoothly

Waxer and Boil are considered bad luck charms - whenever they’re rostered on the same shift, things will always go to shit

God forbid either of them mentions it being “nice” or “quiet” on any given day - that just guarantees that three minutes later they’ll have five labouring people come in actively pushing 

The two of them once delivered a baby in the parking lot outside because the mother didn’t make it in time - the parents still bring Numa in to visit sometimes

Their nurses have the best stories, sometimes even more gory than ED

General Medical: Ward 104, Physician Dr Plo Koon

Has Dr Plo been here forever?? Nobody at the hospital can remember a time he didn't work here

The best doctor, agreed by all nurses and patients

Keeps offering free check-ups to the nurses on the ward

Brings snacks for the nurses' station

Wolffe is the scariest unit manager there is - grads and students are terrified of him

The unit is the most efficient in the hospital because of it

God help the pathologist who loses a sample from them. He will not hesitate to riskman you

*Over the PA* “Visiting hours finish at 1900. It is now 1902. Get the fuck out.”

Emergency Department: Corrie Guard, lawless wasteland

Boost, Comet and Sinker knew him in training and are immune to his glare, they use this power to constantly fuck with him

Caffeinated to the point of medical concern

Lectures drunk uni students about the dangers of alcohol before finishing night shift at 0730 and going home to drink wine straight from the bottle

If Fox has to triage one more belligerent idiot demanding immediate attention for a stubbed toe he's going to come through the plastic window and throw hands

Take the turkey sandwich and shut the fuck up

Constant arguments with the ward over whether or not the patients are stable enough for ward transfer

Just take the fucking patient Wolffe, they've got enough to deal with down here, they're bed blocked and there's a line out the door

Orthopedics: Ward 327, Orthopedic surgeon Dr Aayla Secura

They all started in sports science

The most jacked nurses

Group gym sessions before or after shifts

I don't care if you're tired. You're getting out of that bed whether you want to or not. Use it or lose it. Mobilise, bitch.

They’re the ones who keep stealing the bladder scanner from gen med but won’t admit to it

If you witnessed the incident between Dr Secura and the unit manager Bly at the last Christmas party, no you didn't

Bonus:

The Bad Batch are agency nurses, they go where they're needed and everyone hates them because they make more on the hour for it

Weird mish-mash of different skills and background knowledge

Will go eat dinner in their car instead of in the break room with the other nurses

Tech will not stop correcting people on the wards he’s put on, he is not popular for this despite mostly being right

“You can’t nurse-initiate that drug.”

“That phone order is invalid. We need to call the doctor for another.”

“The patient’s blood pressure is 135/82. This is technically outside normal parameters.”

Crosshair openly shit talks the other nurses with his patients because he knows he won’t be there tomorrow to catch the fallout

[chiwwydawgdraws]

AAAAAYYYYY WE FINALLY MADE IT!!!!!

Six years later, and Lost Souls is in it's final chapter (and will be completed before the year ends YIPPEEE!!!) and I realized that I hadn't made good on something I said I would do: frequent comparisons between appearances of the characters to show how my art has changed and improved throughout the comic's run. Completely forgot. Oops...

So I figured what better way to celebrate how far we've come than to visually SHOW how different the start and the end are! Here we go! (LONG POST AHEAD!)

PROLOGUE

Not much to say about the first chapter--other than it shows its age. 💀 At the time I really struggled with contrast and color theory, because everything is muddy and blends together.

I found all the Fazbears challenging to draw, but I especially remember struggling with Chica the most SOLEY because of her beak--I was having difficulty wrapping my head around making it look the way I wanted it to. Once I let myself treat Chica's beak less like an actual beak and more like a pair of extra thick lips she became one of the easier characters to draw.

CHAPTER ONE

Its so weird seeing where my blood children started and where they ended up design-wise. Cody's hair is a lot more tamer in style in these first chapters, and it took a while to get the hang of how I wanted to depict Bridget's wavy hair.

CHAPTER TWO

UGGHH MORE MUDDY COLORS GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY

Back during this chapter the fog looked more like actual fog than a manifestation of all the animal souls Gold had collected and tenuously tied together with sheer force of will. All I can say is I guess I was still figuring out the art direction I was going.

CHAPTER THREE

I was REALLY proud how I subverted expectations by not letting Cody or Bridget faint upon meeting the Fazbears. XD

I also did this dumb thing where I would block the farther limbs in shadow to try and save time (you can see it most notably on Halo and Bonnie's ears.)

This did not in fact save much time and ended up looking kinda dumb and making people think characters were missing limbs. >_<

CHAPTER FOUR

Character designs are notably more consistent.

Here was where I dropped using Photoshop Elements 7 for my drawing and used Krita. I still used Photoshop for finishing details etc.

CHAPTER FIVE & SIX

If I had to pin a chapter in which character designs were pretty much solidified, it would be these chapters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The only major characters here are Cody and Regan.

I made this chapter during the height of 2020. So naturally I was in the throws of a MAJOR depressive episode.

I took a lot of short cuts in an attempt to just get this chapter DONE. Don't know if it's noticeable or not, but yeah it was rough.

I didn't include the Bidibabs and Minireenas because there's too darn many if them, and they're not always grouped together for the most effective comparison shots.

CHAPTER EIGHT & NINE

Grouped because eight wasn't particularly noteworthy.

Other than it's where I made the switch to Clip Studio Paint.

I had experimented with it when I made the prior Crybaby chapters and fell in love with the program before I even finished the free trial.

CHAPTER TEN

Ooh I was SO anxious for this chapter, because here was when the story would reach the point of no return--it was literally all downhill from here and I wouldn't be able to just drop the comic if I lost interest.

(But I didn't! )

Point being, lots of anxiety surrounding this chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Here is officially past the event horizon. At this point I had no idea how much farther I had to go in spite of the fact it was the start of the final night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

We officially enter the labyrinth here, and it is here where I officially decided I HATE the color green.

I really don't know what it was, but there wasn't many things I could do to make the characters stand out from the sheer GREEN of the vicinity, and it muddied up a lot of the colors of the characters.

Thankfully I had more experience under my belt to balance it all out (I hope 😬)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

More green.

So much green.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Which is why when Cody's group went into the mirror maze I switched it up and went more aquamarine/turquoise to make it more bearable for me.

Making the light emit from the glow-in-the-dark floor panels was a happy accident--I wad playing around with layer modes and the Add Dodge (Glow) layer mode in CSP caused an interesting effect that I took and ran.

Markiplier cameos here. (And dies. Sorry Mark.)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The double uploads started here and OH MY GOD I can't believe I managed to survive it. I really put my pedal to the metal here, and I came out on top!

(It was a race against myself really but HOT DAMN I WAS ON FIYA.)

Side note: this chapter went through SO MANY rough drafts guys it's not even funny.

The vibes weren't jiving, the pacing was all skiddly-wompus, and at one point the chapter was FIFTY PAGES LARGE (HELL NAW)

Its a miracle I'm alive man

Do your stinkin thumbnails guys--they saved my life

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

This was the hardest chapter to finish, if you can believe it.

It took the longest production-wise, because after SIX YEARS of non-stop comic work I was definitely burned out. Thank god I had already solidified the script and thumbnails beforehand because with that guide rail in place I could drag myself across the finish line by my fingernails because if there was ONE THING I DIDN'T WANT IT WAS A FRICKIN RUSHED ENDING. >:[

(Burned by too many unsatisfying webtoon/webcomic endings that basically went "and we lived happily ever after 😌")

Visually this is my favorite chapter. I love how the colors turned out, and all the characters felt truly "mine."

And that's that!

Man I started writing a whole paragraph and I realized that I should PROBABLY save it for the Afterword, when the comic is well and truly finished. So I'll hold off on that big ol' schpiel until then, but I will say:

THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH US THIS FAR!

💖💕😘💕💖

[child-of-of-the-sunshine]

Dance Her Home

Summary: One of Tyler's favorite stories to tell is how he met his wife Y/N, and his crew couldn’t get enough and Javi and Kate had never heard the story

A/N: lyrics that are used as dialogue will be italic 

Here she comes a walkin' in, cotton dress a swishin'

Smoke is thick and the lights are dim and she sure got me wishin'

For a little bit of time out on that ol' dance floor

If she gives me half a chance at romance I'm gonna dance her home

He was sitting in a bar outside of Fayetteville his first week of college was done, the smoke was thick and the lights were dim, and she came walkin' in cotton dress swishing, he watchedher order the amber liquid and sit down, and sip it. He watched her light up when a George Jones song started to play “Hey bartender see that girl, ask her what shes drinking and if she looks this way can you tell her. I’ll be the one winking.” He smiled at the man pointing at the girl “Yeah.” the guy smiled, she looked over and saw Tyler wink at her

Well hey bartender see that girl ask her what she's drinkin'

Tell her if she looks this way I'll be the one a winkin'

'Cause I saw her light up when the DJ played a little George Jones

If she gives me half a chance at romance I'm gonna dance her home

He watched as she walked over to him and sat down “So you buying.” She asked him “Yeah if you want me too.” He grinned at her, she grabbed his hand and tools him out onto the dance floor

'Cause if we got to two-steppin' we could come up missin'

And find a corner booth of our own

Just a huggin' and a kissin' like two lovers reminiscin'

Man this feelin's comin' on strong

If she gives me half a chance at romance I'm gonna dance her home (we can dance her boy)

She found them a corner booth, after they two stepped across the floor, they were laughing and having good time like two lovers reminiscing, Tyler’s eyes kept flickering to her lips as she spoke to him, she caught him doing it “You know it’s okay to kiss me.” She said, he could feel how close they were in the booth “If I do I think I might have to dance you home.” He laughed shaking his head “Dance me home cowboy.” She giggled, she got up to go get them another drink and Tyler watched, ‘What the hell is wrong with me’ he thought, how hard could it really be for him to tell her what he was thinking, that he wanted her in that moment to take her home to momma, settle down with her. He sound crazy to him thinking that about a girl he only met a couple hours go

What the hell is wrong with me I feel like I'm sinkin'

How hard can it really be to tell her what I'm thinkin'

That if we got to two-steppin' we could come up missin'

And find a corner booth of our own

Just a huggin' and a kissin' like two lovers reminiscin'

Man this feelin's comin' on strong

When she came back Tyler took his chances and pulled her into a deep kiss that she returned “You going to dance me home cowboy?” She asked against his lips “If you’ll let me.” He mumbled against hers “Yeah I’ll let you.” She smiled into the kiss

If she gives me half a chance at romance I'm gonna dance her home

If she gives me half a chance at romance, no I won't be leavin' here alone

'Cause If she gives me half a chance at romance I'm gonna dance her home

I'm gonna dance her home

Tyler finished the story as he felt arms come around his shoulders and kiss to the side of the face “What you talking about?” She questioned him “Oh how I danced you home.” He smiled looking up at her “You want to dance me home again cowboy?” She asked giggling “Darlin, I would do anything to dance you home again.” He said before her lips

[flanaganfilm]

Hey Mike! First off, it makes me so happy to see you out there fighting with your writer friends to ensure they receive a decent living wage for the amazing work that they do.

As for my question, I would love to hear about some of the inspiration for making Before I Wake. It and Absentia were the last two of your films that I watched, and BIW just absolutely destroyed me. No other movie, including and especially a horror flick, has ever made me bawl like a baby like that. The entire tone of the film is so spot-on, and the climax of the nightmare monster “dissolving” from its evil form after being embraced…. To me that scene just perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a parent, and human; sometimes we just need someone to hold us and let us know things will be all right. We spend so much of our time making sure that our children feel loved and cared for, that sometimes we forget about ourselves. And you just fucking nailed it, my dude.

Like I said, I would LOVE to read any backstory or inspiration that you have for this film! It’s so beautiful and underrated.

On the WGA front, don't be too impressed with me - I mean, I'm a professional writer, I've been a member of the WGA since Absentia, so I'm out there fighting for myself as much as everyone else.

But on the Before I Wake front, you know I very rarely get asked to talk about this one, so I'm happy to... fair warning for another long post!

Before I Wake was originally titled Somnia, which is latin for "dreams." It was part of an unofficial trilogy of sorts, comprised of Absentia, Oculus and Somnia. All three of those movies were meant to work together as a thematic triptych.

Ultimately, Before I Wake was brutally sabotaged by its own studio, who drastically undermined it creatively and then destroyed any hope of a meaningful release. It remains a particularly heartbreaking chapter of my career... but a film I have and will always have tremendous affection for.

A lot of people think that Somnia was made after Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil, just before Gerald's Game, but this is entirely incorrect. It was actually the second "real" movie I ever made, and was actually shot before Oculus was even released.

The basic premise of Somnia focused around a little boy whose dreams manifested physically in the world around him, and was an original concept I carried around for a few years before Oculus got picked up by Intrepid Pictures. In fact, I've talked about my first meeting at Intrepid, where I pitched a few ideas that were rejected... Somnia was the first one I pitched. Trevor Macy opted to pursue Oculus that day, but he ended up producing Somnia right after.

This unofficial "latin trilogy" seemed to fit together well. Absentia was a somber and bleak look at the loss of hope, Oculus was more thrilling dive into the labyrinth of past trauma, and Somnia was meant to take that loss and trauma and end the triptych on a note of hope and healing.

In fact, the script for Somnia was written before Oculus was greenlit. On the page, it was my favorite of the three. I was very taken with the story of little Cody and his personal boogeyman, and of the revelation at the end of the story... that with understanding, even the most monstrous of our fears can lose their destructive power.

Cody's birth mother had died of cancer, and he had seen her just before her death. That final image of her, as well as a misunderstanding about the pronunciation of the word "cancer" had led to the creation of a monster in his mind, who he called the "Canker Man"... a gaunt figure who took away people that he loved. When he finally learns the truth about his monster, and about his mother, he begins to understand it all... and the monster loses its awful powers as empathy and understanding take root.

While Absentia finished its festival rounds and Oculus inched its way toward production, Somnia was my first script taken out to market by my new agency. I had signed with APA just as Intrepid engaged me on Oculus, which was my first studio writing and directing job. Jeff Howard and I finished our first draft of Oculus and turned it in to Intrepid, and immediately turned around and started writing Somnia.

The script got some interesting attention. While some of the more mainstream horror companies balked at the emotional ending and preferred a story that was "more about a boy and his monster" than the emotional wrap-up we insisted on, others understood it right away.

Elijah Wood and his producing partner Daniel Noah sought me out when they read the script. We met for drinks in Venice and I was absolutely starstruck, and we've remained friends ever since.

Jada Pinkett Smith was another big fan of the script, which led to a surreal afternoon at her stunning home where we talked about the story at length and watched an early cut of Oculus in her home theater. Will Smith joined us toward the end of the meeting, and I had a difficult time speaking.

I've written before about the drama surrounding Oculus' premiere and eventual sale to Relativity Media, so I won't rehash that now, but as Oculus raced toward release, Trevor Macy at Intrepid made an offer to produce Somnia for Relativity and I eagerly accepted. My first "real" movie was going to be released wide in theaters, and the same studio was going to double-down on me - Somnia was greenlit by Relativity for a big domestic theatrical release. We'd pre-sell our foreign territories on this promise, and they eagerly snatched the movie up. This was my own Hollywood dream, coming to life.

It wouldn't work out that way. In fact, Somnia would turn out to be the first nightmare of my career.

It started well enough. We had filmed Oculus in Daphne, Alabama, taking advantage of an aggressive tax rebate. We would do the same with Somnia, bringing back a lot of my Oculus crew and shooting in and around Fairhope. We began shooting in the fall of 2013, less than a year after we'd wrapped Oculus.

We hit the ground running. Very little time had passed since we wrapped Oculus, and the movie hadn't come out yet, so at first it felt a lot like we were just picking up where we left off.

Bruce Larsen, who also carved the Oculus mirror, working on a prototype of the Canker Man.

We had casting challenges. I was still a relatively unproven director, my first studio film hadn't been released, and this was an ambitious script. After a lengthy search (driven by foreign pre-sales, a process I knew nothing about and now quite detest), Kate Bosworth signed on to play Jessie, and Thomas Jane - who I admired greatly from his recent work in The Mist - joined the production as Mark. (Funny story - Tom arrived with hair down his shoulders, and vehemently didn't want to cut it. That disagreement put us off on an awkward foot, and I ultimately conceded the point to him... though I do regret that now.)

The major discovery was 7 year-old Jacob Tremblay as Cody. Jake had only made one movie before this, he had a small role in The Smurfs 2. His self-tape audition came out of nowhere and we knew was a a phenomenal talent. Right after we wrapped, I got a call that he was being considered for a movie called Room, and we shared some footage to help him get the part (that movie would establish him as one of the biggest and most sought after child actors in the world... but we had him first.)

We were committed to practical effects wherever possible, and creating a striking suit for our monster. It all felt like it was going to work. But the shoot would prove to be much more challenging than we anticipated.

The shoot itself was challenging for the typical reasons. There was a little creative tension on set with particular actors, we didn't have enough money to pull off our more ambitious visual moments, and we were forced to remove several production days at the last minute, throwing our schedule into a bit of chaos.

But none of these issues were particularly unusual for a lower budget film, and while it was more challenging and frustrating than Oculus had been, overall the shoot was just fine. I felt that our third act was pretty drastically under budgeted, and what was scripted to be a deep dive into a child's imagination was stripped down to a few vines on the walls and some moths... but other than that, I don't really have much to complain about.

(Fun fact: it was also the first time I would work with Annabeth Gish. We were fast friends, and though she was only with us for a few days, I knew we'd end up working together again.)

We wrapped the movie, I got to editing, and all seemed fine. It was a unique story, much less horror-centric and much more of a fairy-tale. This was, of course, by design. There was a delicate vibe to the whole thing, anchored on Jacob's arresting performance, and a shadowy magic. It felt innocent, wondrous, and ultimately cathartic.

Then, Relativity got their first look at the cut, and the problems started in earnest.

We had been clear (and aligned, I'd thought) about what kind of movie this was. But almost immediately, despite these conversations, the studio began to push the film more and more toward being a traditional horror movie.

We had designed a practical monster in the Canker Man. Our creature was tactile, practical, and - we believed - appropriately simple. After all, it was meant to have come from the mind of a child.

The studio kicked hard, and the directive came down to try to make the monster "much scarier."

There wasn't a lot we could do; we'd shot what we'd shot, after all. The decision was made to take our footage of our practical monster and drastically alter it using visual effects.

The Canker Man would be digitally warped and molded into a skeletal, grinning creature. The visual effects artists would be using footage that wasn't captured with the intention of being altered that way, so a lot of the artifice would be obvious. He'd become a little rough around the edges. We told ourselves that this would be okay... it was a dream, after all.

Early camera tests of our practical Canker Man suit

The final VFX-enhanced monster This began to nudge our monster away from our core concept. While our practical suit would always need some help from VFX, this was now tilting into an area that strayed from the true identity of the creature.

Another major sticking point was the plot itself.

In the movie, Cody's adopted mother Jessie is shocked to find a physical manifestation of her deceased son, Sean, after Cody sees his picture. She then goes about trying to "rebuild" her dead son in the imagination of her new foster child, hoping to see and interact with him more... "I just want to hear his voice."

This morally questionable exploitation of Cody was, to put it mildly, the entire point of the story. Jessie goes too far, and when she finally resorts to drugging Cody to force him to sleep in the hopes of seeing her lost son, he is unable to wake up from a nightmare and her husband is killed.

Jessie spends the rest of the film clawing her way back to redemption, and having to atone for what she's done, all while finally focusing on Cody's past and healing instead of her own.

As a character, Jessie does things we do not agree with, and they have serious, permanent consequences. And the moral murkiness of this was, frankly, the point.

The studio was flinching hard. "It makes her unlikeable," they argued. There was a push to try to back off of this, and to pull the punch... sure, she could exploit him somewhat, but they wanted to pull it back. Kate Bosworth's performance began to be altered in the cutting room, flinching away from some of the more decisive choices in favor of a more watered-down, morally generic heroine.

This middle ground would prove to be ill-advised.

As we were battling over the edit, something else happened. Oculus was released in theaters in April 2014.

If the movie was a huge hit, it would mean I would likely win more of these arguments, and Somnia would be restored to something closer to my vision. If the movie bombed, the studio could (and likely would) run ramshot over Somnia, twisting it into a more generic studio horror story and jettisoning things they didn't quite understand.

Ultimately, the movie performed... moderately. It was kind of right in the middle. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't a hit either. Both sides dug in. And suddenly, Somnia was being twisted into something between two tones.

Citing the "disappointing" performance of Oculus (which, frankly, did just fine), the studio insisted that we write and shoot some additional "scares". Among them was one of the worst studio notes I'd ever receive (well, at least until I started working for Netflix.)

The entire premise of the film was that, when Cody slept, his dreams would manifest physically. When he woke up, they would vanish. This was, to put it bluntly, our only rule.

The note came in: "We need a scare set piece to occur when he is awake."

Now, I can't understate how nonsensical this is. It defied the entire premise of the movie. Their rationale (such as it was) was that the audience wouldn't ever be frightened when Cody was awake, because they knew the monsters only came when he was asleep.

"Well yeah," I said. "That's why it's important that the movie isn't just about scares."

But they were insistent. If a monster showed up while Cody was awake, that would be "truly thrilling" and "catch the audience off-guard."

It was the equivalent of saying "the shark in Jaws only attacks people if they're in the water. We need an attack to occur on land." I mean, that would really catch the audience off-guard.

I had no idea how to address this note.

It was early in my career, I didn't have a theatrical hit under my belt, and I didn't have the ammunition to fight it. So I had to address it somehow, and it had to satisfy the studio, or else we may not get our theatrical release after all.

So I ended up writing a scene where Cody is wide awake, only to be attacked in his bed by the specter of a deceased bully (a previous victim of one of his dreams).

How the fuck were we going to make this make any sense? Well, we had to write a whole other scene - much earlier in the film - where a therapist explains the concept of "waking dreams." Jay Karnes (who was a lovely person and one hell of a good sport) had to randomly say "you know, some people can dream while they're awake" to Bosworth, desperately trying to set up this moment.

It doesn't quite work, to say the least. Cody looks under his bed, sits up, and is attacked by this eye-less specter. Then, he's dragged screaming under his bed, until the attack just... stops, for some reason.

We filmed it, and I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever shot (it wasn't, though - the stupidest thing I've ever shot remains the on-screen stalking and murder of a cat in the pilot of Midnight Mass, a truly braindead scene that Netflix insisted on adding.)

Along with this scene, which would become the crux of Relativity's trailer, we shot several other random scares that were peppered throughout the movie. Now, this wasn't enough to tip the film entirely into being a horror film... just enough to make it exist awkwardly in between two genres.

It got worse. The addition of all this new "horror" material made the film longer (go figure), so the directive came down to begin removing other elements to make room. Those elements were character development and context.

The cut began to get bumpy. The fairy-tale tone of most of our original footage was at odds with the overt horror tone the studio was insisting upon. Every time we tested one of these cuts, the audience was understandably confused... they really loved the concept, they really loved Jacob, and they all loved the ending revelation - but along the way, what was this movie? Was it a horror film? Was it a drama? A fantasy?

Even with this, our test screenings were actually pretty good. We were testing in the high sixties and seventies - which is, infuriatingly, right in that middle zone: not good enough to kill the studio interference, but not bad enough to let them take over.

So we kept fighting. And we kept cutting. And we kept testing. And with each screening, the studio forced it further and further into this no-man's land.

There were a few victories, though. Danny Elfman came on board to collaborate with the Newton Brothers on our score. Some of our non-horror sequences, like a scene involving Christmas-light butterflies, were being called out by our test audiences in the best ways. But the tug-of-war over the basic identity of the film was tipping decidedly toward the more horror-centric approach.

Finally, the studio came after the title. Somnia was too confusing, they said. Nobody knew what it meant. So, we added a scene where Jay Karnes - once again having to naturally sell force-fed exposition - literally defines the world "somnia" during a therapy scene (these therapy scenes were basically being used to spoon-feed material to the audience.)

That wasn't enough, though. The studio began workshopping other titles, and they landed on perhaps my most hated of all of the options: the ultra-generic Before I Wake, a title already used by a handful of low-budget thrillers over decades. We conceded after it was made clear that it wasn't really up to me in this case, and we limped into what I consider to be the worst title of my career.

With our new uneven tone, a new and "improved" monster, and a groan inducing title, they finally agreed to stop messing with the movie and honor their commitment to releasing it wide.

You tell yourself a lot of things in this business, and I told myself that the heart of the story - the revelation about where the concept of the Canker Man came from - was still intact, so all would be well. Viewers would be able to look past some of the bumps because the payoff was worth it.

But we didn't know what else was happening at Relativity.

They announced the release date for the film, posters started showing up in theaters, and we were anxiously awaiting our big wide theatrical release... when suddenly everything stopped.

We didn't know it yet, but Relativity Media was having huge financial problems. They were on the verge of bankruptcy, as a matter of fact, and though they weren't admitting it yet, internally they were in a state of absolute chaos.

Without warning or explanation, the studio moved us off our date. The movie wouldn't be released after all. We immediately knew something was very wrong, despite Ryan Kavanaugh's insistence that our date was "just a bad date," and that he'd moved the movie in order to make it "an even bigger success." No, this whole thing stunk. It stunk bad.

They set another date, and we watched and waited. But no trailers. No marketing. And then... that date was pushed as well. Again, they insisted everything was fine. But we knew. Something was deeply wrong with the company, and they were lying to us.

Some of this played out publicly. Kavanaugh and I got into a spat on Twitter when I suggested that the studio wasn't able to release the movie theatrically after all (I still don't regret saying this, and man oh man, was I proven right).

Meanwhile, our international distributors were scrambling. We'd sold a lot of international territories off the promise of our big theatrical release in North America, and they weren't going to wait forever. By the third time Relativity pushed our release date, the whole house of cards fell down, and various international territories started releasing the film haphazardly on whatever platforms they could.

There was no coordinated release strategy. Suddenly, the film was just available in Argentina, for example. Or it was On Demand in Russia. I remember being shocked when a German Blu-ray appeared on eBay without warning.

There was no rollout to critics, no coordination at all. Within a few weeks, it was pirated and available on torrent sites everywhere. And without a proper press rollout, the only reviews available were trickling in from these international markets, or random blogs in other countries. A slew of reviews - many of which were from obscure blogs in Russia and Turkey, not even written in English - hit Rotten Tomatoes. With no counterpoint from any credible critics, we debuted with a 30% rotten rating.

It would stay this way for years.

Relativity finally admitted the truth, declared bankruptcy, and went to court. Our movie was dragged down into the vortex with it. Our abysmal tomatometer score suggested that the movie wasn't released because it was bad, not because the studio had gone bankrupt. This assumption stuck to us like glue as the film languished in bankruptcy court.

Heartbroken, we turned our attention elsewhere. I would write and direct both Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil before the whole distribution saga of Before I Wake was finally resolved.

In the years that followed, very little would be said about Before I Wake, and whatever was said was absolutely not positive... how bad must this movie be, after all, to be so unceremoniously pulled from the release? Some theaters just left the poster up, still saying "Coming Soon." I know of one theater in LA that had it up for over a year.

By the time Relativity finally settled their mess, and the film was unceremoniously given back to us with the most lackluster apology imaginable, and our chances of a domestic theatrical distribution were entirely obliterated. The film was already available online through piracy and a tiny handful of foreign blogs had defined our critical reception. No other studio would touch it.

We were able to arrange one screening of the film once it was unencumbered... we had a single showing at Fantastia in Montreal, a festival I adore. Instead of a huge worldwide theatrical release, the movie would play exactly one time, to one audience.

It was sold out, it played wonderfully, and it remains one of my favorite screenings of my career.

With Mitch Davis, Fantasia's artistic director, Kate Bosworth, and my wife Kate Siegel.

In the years that had passed since we shot Before I Wake, Kate Siegel and I had gotten married. At the premiere, and in the picture above, Kate was pregnant with our son.

We named him Cody, after the little boy in Somnia... the little boy whose dreams came true.

In 2016, Netflix acquired the North American rights to Before I Wake, and quietly dumped it on the service. There was no premiere, no rollout, no screeners sent to critics. One day it just appeared on the service without fanfare, as Netflix does to so many titles.

It didn't even appear on the New Releases tab.

A few critics found the movie on their own, and slowly some new reviews started to trickle out. Bloody Disgusting led the charge, discussing how the film had been wrongfully maligned over the years, and correcting identified it as a "haunted fairy tale" that was being handicapped by the expectations that it was a horror film.

Our tomatometer began to slowly rise. After some time, it tipped out of "rotten" into "fresh"... and today stands comfortably at 66%. Those early, malicious reviews are still there, the movie is still scarred by them... but despite Relativity (and eventually Netflix's) efforts to rebrand the movie as a straight horror film, most critics were able to see it for what it truly was.

Our audience was as well, for the most part. Some viewers yawning their way through the Netflix original horror feature section would find it, and get something maybe just a little more thoughtful than they were expecting. A few people reached out to me to talk about losing their own loved ones to cancer, or about how the sweeter elements of the story impacted them. I've always been grateful for that.

But ultimately, the movie was just brutalized by its studio. I've never again had so much damage inflicted on a project by a creative partner and supposed collaborator. And while Netflix did the bare minimum when it came to releasing the movie, I am still very grateful that that they even did that much... if it wasn't for Netflix picking it up, I think there's every chance Before I Wake would have never been made available at all.

I'm proud of the movie. It's not perfect, by any means - it was an ambitious sophomore effort and I had a lot to learn about a lot of things - but it has some beautiful ideas and some moments that really work. I see its flaws clearly, too, and while I tell myself some were out of my control (like the awkward scares forced on us by Relativity), others were most certainly entirely on me. Not everything works, and that's okay.

But man, Jacob Tremblay is phenomenal in this movie. And I absolutely adore the final ten minutes.

My son Cody is almost 7 now, exactly as old as Jacob was when he was cast to play his namesake. I hope Cody's dreams come true; that's why we named him what we named him.

Sometimes, our dreams don't come true quite how we might expect.

Hollywood is just kinda like that, I guess.

[kintaroworldz]

WWE Male Stars x Feminine Male Reader

Hello guys this is just an introduction to the story I have.

☆ What Happens When Four of The Best Hear about an NXT recruiter Making his way To becoming a professional WWE SuperStar. What Will Happen When They All Meet This Upcoming SuperStar And Who Will Steal His Heart First? ☆

🎀 Character Introductions 🎀

-M/N L/N

-Age: 21

-Birth place: ( Your choice )

-Signature: ( your choice )

-Finisher: ( Your choice )

-Sexually: Gay or ( Anything you go by )

💕 “ M/N likes to say his gimmick/character is very heavily inspired by a mix of Carmella, Tiffany Stratton and Candice Michelle. M/N is the only (male) in wwe that really wears feminine clothing even tho management told him it’s best if he hid his “ Gay Status “ from the WWE Universe M/N didn’t listen. Literally leading to his debut match he literally wore a corset and Short wrestling shorts. “ 💕 ✨ Inspo pics ✨

🌙 “Now M/N Got The Attention Of Four of The Greatest Wrestlers Fighting Over Who Will Get M/N Heart ( Or maybe his hole 🤫 ) 🌙 “

-Roman Reigns 💋

-Undisputed Champion

-Age: 38

“ Paul ima need you to give me some info about that new comer for me he’s peaked my interest “

( DONT COME FOR ME I JUST THOUGHT HE WOULD BE GOOD FOR E STORY 😭💀 )

-Logan Paul ⚡️ -United States Champion

-Age: 28

⚡️“ You know Austin and Greyson M/N fucking hot ass hell I wouldn’t mind tapping that ass of his imagine him full of my cum “⚡️

-Cody Rhodes 🧸

-Finishing his Story With Roman Reigns

-Age: 38

🧸“ You Know M/N we could get to know each other better maybe with dinner? * Rubs M/N Thigh * “ 🧸

-Randy Orton 🐍

-Issues with Logan Paul

- Age: 43

🐍“ I’ve Heard Of This M/N Guy And Soon I’ll Have Him In My Grasp “🐍

Thank You So Much For Checking this Out the story Will start Soon But if you feel like I should replace someone let me know.

| Oh and yes the Story will be Smut so Put that into The Picture

( Also Don’t mind the Bottom my images messed up so 💀 )

[empressdede]

Unpopular opinion

I watched the segment between Roman and Cody. Like… really watched it and while I can agree with everyone that this is a crash out Roman Reigns with nothing to lose…. Are we really going to ignore the twinge of taunting Cody had in his voice?

Roman asking what have you done for my city and Cody replying “Multiple generations of my family have bled for this city and in the city… You played football here. Thank you….. this is your field but this is my home” Is that not condescending???

Almost like he really had a point to prove. And While Roman is still giving those same “I’m the Tribal Chief” vibes; the same kind of Condescending tone, it almost feels like Cody was being…. Mean. Certainly nothing of his American Nightmare character.

Roman telling him he has nothing to lose, they took everything from him and is on the verge to being a man they can’t stop him from being and Cody’s response: “You’re telling me this like I’m supposed to be surprised. I told you that you would be standing here just like you are now. A chief with no tribe.”

ISN’T CODY GIVING US HEEL VIBES? 😭 Is he not reciprocating the energy Roman once gave him?

Cody was once an “I gotta do this and finish my story” and Roman didn’t give a single fuck about what that story entailed because Roman didn’t see Cody was a worthy opponent for WM40

Roles are reversed and it’s giving Cody don’t really give a fuck about Roman’s sad story. 😭😭

• “They took Jimmy, they took your wiseman, they took your Ula Fala.”

• “Take a look around WWE. We already got a Tribal Chief… and it’s not you. We already got a WWE champion… and its. Not. You.”

• “So if you can’t even beat your own bloodline, Who’s standing here right now??”

• “It’s not the biggest box office attraction in the history of WWE. It’s not that guaranteed Wrestlemania main eventer… No. It’s the guy they used to call…. Roman Reigns.”

^^^GO BACK AND WATCH THIS AND TELL ME CODY WASN’T TAUNTING HIM.

Imma get backlash for this but Cody lowkey ate Roman up 🤣

Cody asking Roman for his word but I think we should ask ourselves will Cody Keep his?

Not saying that Cody doesn’t have a real problem with the bloodline but what if Cody just leaves Roman on his own to fend for himself against the bloodline giving Roman the Ultimate babyface turn while he goes Heel?

IS THIS NOT A CONVERSATION WE SHOULD BE HAVING?? 😭

Anyways, I seen everyone giving Roman his 10s. And I also am giving Roman his 10s, this promo was deliciously delivered. But GIVE CODY HIS 10s TOO😭😭 They BOTH ATEEE

Here’s the video. Watch it and lets have a real chat🙂

[tentakrool]

okay. okay. I don’t talk about wrestling much from a in depth perspective, but this stuff with Roman and Cody — like — dawg.

they have squandered this fucking storyline to the point that I cannot stop thinking about what it could have been.

the obvious hook for me would be family vs family — a single man fighting for a legacy that hasn’t seen the light of a wwe ring in years vs a man who has browbeat his literal family and forced them into the shape he wants. a man surrounded by lackeys who serve him out of fear vs a man alone, standing on grit and determination and hope

hello???? it fucking WRITES ITSELF

but nah, let’s bench Cody AGAIN and let Dwayne Johnson “finish the story” to cover up the controversy about Vince McMahon AGAIN, since we can’t actually take responsibility for this disgusting old man who might finally get what he deserves

it’s just insane to me, this is why I say any day of the week AEW serves better fights and stories than WWE on a pay per view.