#kind of like star wars but more beaten up

[wolfythewitch]

Hmm what vibes does Ulysses (UDAD) give. Long hair,,, short hair,,, beard,,no beard,,,,

[system-to-the-madness]

Heart to Heart - Zuko x Reader

Word Count: 2 870 Warnings: mentions of war and death Summary: Zuko and you share a quiet moment at the Western Air Temple A/N: Can be read as a oneshot; Part Five of the series Perfect (10 times Zuko thought you were perfect and the first time he told you)

“So, you decided breaking into a Fire Nation prison would be a good idea, huh?”

Zuko sat at the edge of the ruin of the Western Air Temple, looking out into the valley, his feet dangling in the air. At the sound of your voice, he looked up.

“Well, perhaps not a good idea, but we ended up with pretty good results, I’d think,” he answered, watching as you sat down next to him, your knees pulled up to the chest as if you were cold.

“True, I’ll give you that,” you admitted with a smile. “And I think it’s definitely gotten you some sympathy points from Katara.”

“You think,” Zuko asked hopefully. “I desperately need those. She hates me!”

“Give her time,” you said nonchalantly. “To her you embodied pretty much all that is evil, topped probably only by your sister and your father. She’ll come around.”

“How about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I embody all that is evil to you, too?”

You turned to look at him, taking in his appearance for a good while, making him self-conscious under your intense eyes.

“For a while you did, I guess,” you answered eventually.

Okay, not the answer he had hoped for, but what had he expected? That you confessed you had always known he was good at heart? Hardly. He had tried to capture or kill the Avatar and his friends a few too many times for that.

“But Katara didn’t see you put yourself in danger to free Appa,” you continued. “It made me doubt the things I knew about you. The conversation you had with your uncle did, too.”

Zuko nodded, turning to watch the sky. A few clouds drifted past, thousands of stars lighting up the night.

"I made a lot of mistakes," Zuko admitted. “I can’t blame any of you for not trusting me, for not wanting to trust me.”

“Things are changing, you know,” you told him, reaching over and gently nudging his shoulder. His breath hitched at the soft contact. “You helped Aang to gain his confidence back about Fire Bending. He still has a long way to go, but it’s amazing that he agreed to try it again in the first place. And it’s kind of reassuring that you’re drawing your power not from anger anymore.”

The last sentence made Zuko smile a little.

“It feels different now, my Bending,” he explained. “Before it always felt violent, and… sort of hard, I guess. Like volcanic glass. Even when I trained it always felt like with each shot I fired, I was kicking or punching against a wall. Now it feels like it’s flowing, somehow. Like the heat and the fire is not some wild animal I have to force out, but a power that bends to my will.”

“That does sound like a big difference,” you agreed.

Zuko shrugged. “I’m still not as powerful as Azula though,” he mumbled. “I had hoped that with the new technique I might gain some ground on her, but it still feels like she’s miles ahead of me.”

“Right, you encountered her when you went ‘fishing’, right?” You drew quotation marks into the air, making Zuko roll his eyes in amusement.

“Yeah, she almost would have caught us, doubtlessly to put us in a snug little fishbowl where she could tease us the whole day.”

“This might sound like a stupid question, but,” you hesitated for a moment, “what would you do if you were more powerful than her, powerful enough to easily best her.”

Confused Zuko turned to you. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… would you try to kill her? Capture her? She’s your sister after all. Even with all the messed-up things she’s done, nobody here expects you to kill her.”

Zuko turned back to look out over the valley. You were right. All this time, for years, ever since childhood, ever since she had first beaten him in training, he had wished he would be good enough to overpower her. But then what?

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “I don’t know what I’d do.”

For a moment he just looked out into the canyon. In the starlight he could faintly make out the other buildings hanging from the ceiling into the abyss. What had it been like when the Air Nomads had still lived here? Every window of every tower must have been lit up, thousands of lights like a mirror of the sky above. Had Sky Bisons roamed between the houses? Drifted slowly through the night? What other animals had populated these temples? Had it truly been as peaceful as he imagined it now to have been? Zuko inhaled deeply.

“The thing about Azula is… I was always chained to her in a way.” He could see you furrowing your brows at him questioningly from the corner of his eyes. “There were no kids my age living in the palace, but Azula had two friends, Mai and Ty Lee. And I was always expected to play with the three of them. Often, I thought it was stupid, they made me feel stupid. I was older than them, and had other interests, but it almost seemed a game to them to find something I hated or would humiliate myself doing… Mai was the only one who would speak up for me sometimes. But only when it was about smaller things; she was too scared of Azula. I can’t blame her. Actually, I ended up dating her for a while.”

“You had a girlfriend,” you asked, but Zuko didn’t notice the hesitation in your voice.

“Yeah, we were together for a while after… after I betrayed my uncle. But I ended things, to join you. She saved our lives, on Boiling Rock. She stopped the guards from cutting the line to the gondola.”

“She sounds like a good person, and brave,” you said quietly. “You must miss her.”

Zuko stayed oblivious to the unasked question in your statement.

“I don’t know… not really. If I’m honest, I’m not even sure why I was together with her,” he shook his head. “It sounds cruel, but the only reason why I got together with her was because it felt like the right thing to do, after returning home. I knew she had always liked me, and somehow, I thought if I were dating someone, it would stabilize the life I was hoping to live. I like her, yes, but not the way you’re supposed to like the person you’re dating. I’m just sorry I was selfish enough to hurt her without a second thought.”

“You’re young, all of us are. I think it’s inevitable to make mistakes when it comes to things like love. Only the luckiest ones can claim to never have hurt someone,” you tried consoling him.

“The thing is, I knew it was going to hurt her. But I kept doing it anyway. Maybe I was hoping my feelings would catch up eventually, but they never did.”

They couldn’t, Zuko thought to himself. Not while the idea of you had taken root in his heart. The thing that made him feel almost the guiltiest, was that even though you were hardly anything like what he had imagined you to be, he still felt enchanted by you. Glancing at you from the corner of his eyes, he only felt his sentiment confirmed. You were sitting there, wrapped in a thin coat to protect you against the chill of the night air, hair dancing slightly in the wind, face glowing from the fresh air and eyes reflecting the stars above. You were beautiful like this, perfect and beautiful. He was sure to never have seen anyone who was as beautiful as you in that moment.

“As I said,” you interrupted his train of enamoured thoughts, “we all make mistakes.”

“Some more than others,” Zuko frowned.

“That’s not what I meant,” you quickly denied. “I didn’t mean-”

“I know, don’t worry,” Zuko sighed. “I’m just upset with myself. I think some things were inevitable along the way. I mean, everyone grows somehow. But breaking Mai’s heart really wasn’t necessary. I could have avoided that if I had been a little more confident in myself.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” you agreed, clearly not sure what else you were supposed to say.

“I’m just hoping, Mai somehow knew we wouldn’t last,” Zuko continued absentmindedly. “We fought, quite often actually. I know I can be difficult, but it also often felt like she didn’t even try to understand me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I know I can get jealous easily, so her anger at me for those instances was probably justified but… sometimes I just need time to think, you know? Not about something specific but… for example there was this war meeting and Azula was invited but I wasn’t. I was upset, because it made me feel like my father was rejecting me all over again, as if I weren’t good enough for him. I was upset and Mai… I know it wasn’t easy for her to see me like that, but it felt like she was trying to distract me so hard. Every time I had a problem or was concerned or worried about something, she tried to cheer me up and distract me, instead of allowing me to just give those feelings space.”

“I know what you mean. Sometimes you just want to give those feelings time, to process everything. Even if it’s difficult. But like you said, it probably was really hard for her to see you unhappy,” you offered your own thoughts, making Zuko nod.

“I guess you’re right. But we ended up getting into disagreements over things like that more and more often. Even if I would have stayed, I don’t think we would have been together for much longer.”

For a while silence settled over you, as you watched the night sky. Zuko wondered why the hell he had just shared all his relationship problems he had had with Mai with you. Maybe because he hoped you would understand him better if he did, would see him more as a human with emotions than the antagonist he had been for you over the past months.

“How about you,” he eventually asked, not sure if he even wanted to know the answer. “Do you have anyone special?”

You shrugged as if it wasn’t somewhat weird for him to ask that.

“Not really. I mean… being on the run from the world’s most powerful army makes it kind of hard to form any meaningful relationships outside of the group,” you answered. “And I don’t mind, really. I’m not like Sokka, who can just flirt with every girl he sees. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with someone who I haven’t fallen in love with.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“No,” you shook your head, “you?”

Zuko turned to look at you again, taking in your form sitting beside him, knees still pulled up to your chest, chin resting on them, eyes fixed on a point far away.

“No, I mean… maybe once,” he answered. Was he in love with you? He certainly didn’t know you well enough to be in love with you, right? Maybe he was?

“If you don’t know, you probably weren’t,” you chuckled, turning your head to meet his eyes. “I think you’d know when you fall in love.”

“It’s difficult, okay,” Zuko defended, making you laugh quietly.

“Or maybe you’re just bad at figuring out your own feelings,” you offered with a teasing glint in your eyes.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Zuko grumbled and turned his head away embarrassedly. Another gentle shove against his shoulder made him look back at you.

“I’m teasing,” you told him, with a soft smile that made his heart melt. “I’m sorry if I-”

“No, I know, don’t worry,” Zuko took a deep breath. “I’m just not used to being teased without it being with some kind of ill intentions, I guess.”

“Well, Sokka’s gonna get you used to that real quick,” you laughed. By all the spirits, he loved your laugh. “He’s brilliant when it comes to making plans and coming up with ideas, but he’s also the biggest goofball I’ve ever met. He cares more than he tries to let on and is one of the most reliable people I can imagine when things go south.”

“We fought my sister together,” Zuko recalled. “It was weird, a few weeks ago we would have ripped each other apart, but when we went up against Azula together, he really had my back… he makes it very easy to trust him.”

“He does, doesn’t he,” you agreed. “He might not outright say it, but he really appreciated you going to look for his father with him. Thank you.”

“I’m just glad I was able to help. There have been enough families that got torn apart because of me. Knowing I could help reunite at least one is… it feels good.”

You grinned at his side. “It was a brave thing to do, to break into that prison just like that.”

“Brave? More stupid than anything, but thanks.”

“Bravery and stupidity are not as far apart as some would like to believe,” you chuckled, making him smile.

“My uncle would like you,” he confessed, watching your smile shift into a questioning expression. “He’d probably share his wise phrases with you all day long.”

“Your uncle sounds like a good man,” you said, and Zuko nodded.

“I think, I understand him better now than I did before. He lost his son in the war, and he was never the same again. I think, he developed a strong dislike for any kind of conflict and when my father exiled me, he decided to come with me… I don’t know why, maybe to save me from the fate Lu Ten met… I think Uncle Iroh was more a father to me than my own father ever was. It’s strange seeing Sokka and Katara with their father, seeing what normal parents are like with their children. It makes me mad at my father, that he wasn’t like that. Mad and… vulnerable, I guess.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” you mumbled. “I don’t remember much of my father, but even my stepfather was always caring towards me. I’m sorry you didn’t get to experience that.”

“I guess, over time I’ve gotten used to it. Which didn’t stop me from begging for his approval, I’ll admit that. But now… I just hope I can see my uncle again and apologize to him for all I’ve done. After all these years that he accompanied me… I don’t know how I can make up for all the support he has given me, and how I betrayed him.”

“I’m sure when the time comes, you’ll know what to say and do. I think your uncle would be proud to know how you finally stood up for yourself.”

Zuko nodded thoughtfully. He just hoped your words would come true. He didn’t even know where Uncle Iroh was right now, whether he was even alive. If he ever got to see him again… how was he supposed to make up for all his uncle had done for him? How could he ever earn his uncle’s forgiveness after that terrible betrayal?

“Can I ask you something?”

Zuko perked up at your question but nodded.

“Earlier you said… you said your father exiled you,” you carefully asked. “I’d understand if you don’t want to talk about it but…”

“No, it’s fine,” Zuko shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

“Mostly just… what happened?”

“It was… foolish, both of me and my father. It started over-”

Before Zuko could even really begin telling you his story, Toph’s voice carried through the night.

“Katara made hot milk with honey for everyone!”

“Let’s talk another time,” Zuko offered, getting off the ground. His feet felt strange, standing on solid ground again after dangling in the air for so long.

“Another time,” you agreed, taking the hand Zuko had offered you and let him help you to your feet.

Your hand was small and cool in his, and he had to resist the urge to keep his fingers closed around yours, just to feel your skin against his for a short while longer. When he hesitantly let go of your hand, it felt like a wave of ice was spreading from his heart, and he immediately ached for any sort of contact with you again.

He really was an idiot, wasn’t he, he wondered as he followed you past some rubble back to the others, who were sitting around a campfire. Seeing all these people, who so willingly had adopted him into their group, another ache, the warm and gentle kind, spread through his body. After all this time, for the first time in his life, he felt like he truly belonged somewhere. He had earned his place in this group. And when you motioned for him to sit down next to you and offered him a cup with steaming hot, sweet milk, he couldn’t help but think that he didn’t want it any other way.

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[kanansdume]

Andor is honestly one of the only pieces of more mainstream Star Wars media (so none of the little comics and very very few of the novels) I've seen since the Prequels that REALLY encapsulates the themes of non-attachment and everything that means in the way George Lucas truly intended. The only other thing I've seen that is its equal is the Obi-Wan Kenobi show.

And this makes me want to discuss Timm Karlo.

Yeah, Timm, the character everybody remembers most from Andor right?

That's what I thought.

This is Timm. He was Bix's boyfriend in the first three episodes of Andor. He seems to be pretty normal but he gets jealous when Cassian shows up because Cassian and Bix used to date and he can tell the two of them are cooking up some kind of secret together that he's not involved in. He decides to cover up his jealousy with fear for Bix's safety because Cassian is clearly in some kind of trouble and eventually ends up ratting Cassian out to PreMor security behind Bix's back. This results in PreMor invading Ferrix and getting Bix captured and beaten. Timm himself is murdered when he tries to help Bix.

All we ever get to see of Timm is that he's an insecure little asshole whose actions nearly get Cassian and Bix killed. He's an antagonist in this story.

But Bix loved him. He seems like a fairly average dude before this and presumably treats Bix fairly well outside of this particular incident. He's not a villain, he's just... a dude who lets fear of losing the woman he loves consume him to the point of making a REALLY stupid choice and it costs him everything. But that choice turns him INTO a villain for Cassian. Cassian will now always remember Timm as the man who betrayed him and wanted him dead. Cassian will always remember Timm by the selfishness of his final choice. That's the legacy Timm leaves behind in the end. Bix mourns him, but even Bix recognizes that Timm fucked up and nearly cost herself and Cassian their lives.

And if any of that sounds kind-of familiar, it's because it should. It's Anakin. Timm makes the Anakin choice. He wasn't a villain by default. He wasn't a villain his entire life. He was a normal dude who made one really awful choice out of fear and it ended up being the choice that defined him. He had the capacity for both good and bad in him and he chose to act on the bad and it was the last choice he ever made.

And this choice is what really screws up Ferrix, it calls down PreMor security on them which is what causes the massive screw-up when they try to capture Cassian and Luthen and that gains the attention of the ISB agent in charge of Ferrix as well as Dedra Meero who ultimately brings an entire battalion of stormtroopers and officers to occupy Ferrix. Ferrix gets far far worse as a result of Timm's one choice made out of insecurity in his relationship.

But it also ultimately leads to Ferrix realizing that enough is enough and they rise up and riot and throw the Empire out of their home. It helps push Maarva into joining a rebellion at the end of her life and making that recording that inspires the people to fight back. Maarva says that the Empire has been creeping in like a disease while they slept. And if Timm hadn't made the choice that took their situation from tolerable to intolerable, maybe Maarva and the people of Ferrix never would've bothered to fight back. If Cassian had been able to just silently slip out of town with no one being the wiser, Ferrix would've just kept going on as it had been.

None of this means Timm gets to claim credit for Ferrix and Maarva's own choices, obviously, but much like Anakin, the selfish choices he makes lead to unintended good things happening down the line, too. Anakin's selfishness leads to his relationship with Padme which ultimately creates Luke and Leia who, together, are the ones that manage to bring down the Empire for good. Anakin doesn't get any credit for how Luke and Leia turned out obviously, or the things they do that cause the Empire to fall, but they wouldn't have existed without Anakin's selfishness.

Timm's choice makes Ferrix worse, it calls down the Empire, but it also leads to the push that ultimately pushes Ferrix into rebellion.

Timm makes Anakin's choice. He's the villain of Cassian's story, but he is not WHOLLY a villain because Andor tells us that no one is ever JUST a villain or JUST a hero. People will always be people and that means they all have the capacity for both selfishness and selflessness within them. Timm loses himself to his fear for just long enough to destroy everything he cared about. Maarva chooses to stand up rather than run. Bix chooses to persevere in the face of impossible odds. Luthen gives up his morals to try to create a future for the rest of the galaxy. Mon Mothma sells her family for democracy. Cassian has to give up his dream of a normal happy life and settle for taking control of his own life.

And this is what makes Andor one of the best pieces of Star Wars media I've seen in a LONG time. It doesn't have any Jedi in it, it doesn't have any Mandalorian super soldiers, it doesn't have any Sith or Inquisitors or witches. It's just a group of people from different walks of life all having to figure out what matters most to them in the end. Some of them make the selfish choice and some of them rise above and make the selfless choice. It takes all of the themes that we've gotten from Star Wars via the Jedi and Sith conflicts and applies them to the little people, too. It's not JUST the Jedi and Sith who have to abide by those thematic narrative rules. Everybody else does, too, actually. Timm would never have become a Sith because of his choices, Dedra Meero and Syril Karn are never going to be Sith, but they can still become villains in someone else's story everything they claimed to care about can come crashing down as the result of one selfish choice.

THAT'S Star Wars. THAT'S what it's all about. THAT'S why Andor feels like Star Wars should to me without a single Force user showing up while something like the Ahsoka show feels like the opposite of a Star Wars story despite all of its fan service and nostalgia bait. Andor gets it. Andor took the time to understand the core of Star Wars even when telling a Star Wars story in a very different way.

[n7cloacadestroyer]

"ACAB applies to Garrus"

I've heard this independently 3-4 times over the past week, and it strikes me as such an odd thing to say. Not because it isn't true--we know Garrus wasn't above working a suspect over if he thought it would make them talk. Like, he wasn't just a cop, he was kind of a dirty one. Not in the same way as someone like Harkin, but definitely in the "you better hope his hunch doesn't lead him to you or you're getting beaten with a rubber hose until you tell him what he wants to hear" kind of way. Which is arguably just as bad, if not worse.

No, the reason it's such an odd thing to say is that ACAB honestly applies to about half of the characters in the visible universe of Mass Effect. It's a very "save us, military industrial complex," sort of narrative in many respects--up to and including the part where all the politicians and diplomats basically have "beta cuck," or "dick dastardly's understudy," tattooed on their forehead with very few exceptions.

That's just something you have to accept if you want to enjoy the series. It's a star war, not an insightful commentary on power structures and the abuse of the people therein.

If you want to evaluate it as one, then there are quite a few bigger fish in this particular pond. The Citadel Council alone is one of the most abusable legislative mechanisms conceivable, and admission to their ranks is predicated solely on approval by the current Council. The council whose individual votes would be weakened by adding another member. Not to mention that the idea of an individual speaking for their entire species is bananas on its face.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but Shepard is a fed. Like, a "clandestine intervention and special operations" kind of fed. ACAB absolutely applies to them too.

The Point™: The Mass Effect universe was created solely to facilitate a role playing game in which the player had more narrative freedom than was typical of AAA titles at the time. If you apply any degree of knowledge regarding sociology or political science, the thing falls apart faster than the M-44 Hammerhead. Basically anybody who has spent more than five minutes thinking about it could tell you that. Anybody can also tell you that if the game mirrored an effective and equitable political process, there probably wouldn't be much call to splatter some faceless space pirate against a wall with your dark energy mind powers. If you want to be all cinemasins about it, that's your call, but I don't think you would make a very good action game going about it that way.

I'm not trying to say that you're wrong if you don't like Garrus. It's a matter of opinion, first and foremost. There are valid reasons to dislike him. Like his elevator conversations, for example. But it's more than a little disingenuous to pretend he is uniquely or egregiously problematic in his abuse of power while we control Commander Shepard--the literal avatar of abusing their power with little to no consequences.

[antianakin]

Didn’t get a picture but I saw someone on the internet claiming that

a. Ahsoka, unlike Obi-Wan, was actually good enough at combat to defeat Anakin properly at Mustafar and should have gone instead. (and just that she’s the best at combat out of all the Jedi or something along those lines) b. because of her training and goddess-ness it means she’s the Most Powerful Jedi now. I feel like your blog is a good safe space to express my complete annoyance with everything going on here. why. Why. I am so tired of this (and all the anti-Jedi people in the fandom as well.)

and also, I love all your analyses on Star Wars and they always brighten my day! Thank you!

Lollllll this is a VERY safe space to express annoyance at these takes.

For one, Ahsoka literally DOES go up against Anakin and she FAILS. Anakin punts her off the side of a cliff (it's technically a battlestation but they're very high up so whatever, I'm calling it a cliff) and she only manages to snag off a piece of his mask because she runs up behind him while he's distracted with Kanan and Ezra rather than because she's genuinely able to overpower him through skill alone. She gets LUCKY.

People seem to forget that Ahsoka does NOT recognize that he's Anakin for the beginning part of that fight on Malachor. Like technically, deep down, she probably DOES know, but she's convinced herself it isn't true and Anakin confirms that at the beginning by saying he's the one who destroyed Anakin, so Ahsoka can just... go at him with everything she's got with zero conflict at all. There is literally NOTHING holding her back here, this is Ahsoka at FULL FORCE and she fails pretty epically.

She doesn't really do any better once she DOES know it's Anakin because she's immediately refusing to go on the offensive at all, she's JUST defensive because she doesn't WANT to kill Anakin. And more than that, she REFUSES to kill Anakin. She feels guilty for what's happened to him because she's decided that it's her fault for having left him behind. That's the whole arc she's gone on in Rebels, it's why her line to him once she can't deny that it's Anakin anymore is "I won't leave you. Not this time." That's not the kind of thing you say to someone you're prepared to defeat and/or kill. Ahsoka is prepared to DIE here because she'd rather die than abandon Anakin a second time and killing him would ABSOLUTELY be counted in that category for Ahsoka.

So not only is she just not competent enough to have beaten Anakin, I don't think it's reasonable to argue she would've even WANTED to. If Ahsoka had been on Mustafar, Anakin probably would've killed her, and then he would've been able to capture Padme and the twins and who knows what he would've done if he'd been able to do that.

And even within the Ahsoka show, she goes up against Baylan more than once and loses EACH TIME. Baylan literally tells her that she CAN'T beat him. She just isn't good enough. And this is a FILONI-RUN SHOW, there are zero other writers on this show, so if Baylan is telling Ahsoka that she isn't good enough to beat him, then presumably Filoni himself believes that that's true, at least for now. I imagine that she WILL beat him eventually, but it may end up similar to her win in season 1 where she's relying on distractions from other people or assistance or something. Who knows. But either way, she can't even beat a regular Jedi like Baylan, so how the fuck is she supposed to have beaten a major powerhouse like ANAKIN when he would've been hell bent on her death and destruction?

Obi-Wan DOES defeat Anakin properly on Mustafar, he just can't full-on kill him because the narrative sort-of requires Anakin to survive. He does LEAVE Anakin to die, though, and if Yoda had succeeded against Palpatine, Anakin WOULD'VE died. Obi-Wan CHOPS OFF THREE OF ANAKIN'S LIMBS AND LEAVES ANAKIN TO BURN ALIVE, I'm not sure how much more properly defeated it is possible to get.

Also, the reason Obi-Wan defeats Anakin is almost never due to power levels. It's a combination of being centered/balanced in the Force and knowing Anakin so well that he can predict his moves extremely well. His win in ROTS on Mustafar isn't because Obi-Wan happened to be more powerful than Anakin, he's not. He just is aware enough of his surroundings to take advantage of an opportunity when he sees it and lasts long enough to be able to find it. The stunt choreographers also have explicitly stated that they intentionally choreographed this fight sequence with Obi-Wan consistently GIVING GROUND to Anakin in an attempt to give Anakin time to calm down and come to his senses. So not only is he just good enough to take advantage of an opportunity when he sees it, he's good enough to hold BACK for a while and still live through the fight. And if he's explicitly holding back in the fight, it means that there's even more power he could've been exerting and it's entirely possible that he might've been able to end the entire fight much earlier had he chosen to do so. There's never any kind of indication that that's true for Ahsoka during her one fight against him. She doesn't let herself get tossed off a cliff on purpose lol.

And of course in the Kenobi show, Obi-Wan wins in the flashback scene due to being SMARTER, not more powerful. In the final confrontation he wins because he's more BALANCED and is more willing to put everything he's got into his attacks and changes up his fighting style so he can take Anakin by surprise, so when he slashes off a piece of his helmet, it's not just because Anakin was distracted, it's because Obi-Wan genuinely fought Anakin down enough to make that hit.

Obi-Wan might genuinely be the ONLY person who could go up against Anakin and WIN by the time you get to the Rebellion era. And it isn't because he's more powerful than anybody else, he just happens to have an advantage against this particular opponent which means that the disparity in power-levels is canceled out by Obi-Wan's knowledge of Anakin and the fact that he is just straight up smarter in a fight than Anakin is.

Ahsoka, by contrast, was taught by a dude who tends to rely on brute force to win his fights, and so that's often ALSO how we see her win her own fights. Most of the fights we see her winning are against opponents who are far weaker than she is, like Inquisitors or Mandalorians. Occasionally she fights someone like Maul and has to be a little smarter about it, but most of her major victories are against weaker opponents. She's a brute force fighter, not a smart fighter most of the time, because she CAN be. But she's not more powerful than ANAKIN, and she'll never be able to brute force her way through a fight with him, and she's not smart enough to outwit him, even if she WAS willing to hurt/kill him.

I'm not sure what "training" this person might've been referring to, either, because Ahsoka gets 1.5-2 years of official Padawan training MAXIMUM and some of that would've been Anakin's bullshit blaster blocking training which isn't exactly going to help Ahsoka against ANAKIN HIMSELF. As for the goddess thing, while it's definitely sort-of in there and implied, it's not technically confirmed and so far nothing has really been shown about it that makes her exponentially more powerful than anyone else. She has to flee a fight against Baylan, she'd have died fighting Morgan and the zombies if Sabine hadn't stayed behind to help her, she'd have died on Malachor if Ezra hadn't jumped in to help her, etc. She doesn't seem to have any super special goddess powers that we've seen so far, so it seems a little early to be counting that in her power levels.

Not to mention that in the "Most Powerful Jedi Alive During the Mandoverse" competition, she doesn't have a shit load of competitors she's up against here. The only other options to compare her against that are currently confirmed to be alive post-ROTJ are Luke, Leia, and Grogu. All three of them are shown to be pretty powerful in the Force, but Leia likely isn't super well-trained and Grogu is still a child, and therefore it doesn't seem fair to compare them to Ahsoka at this point. But Luke? I have a hard time believing Ahsoka is MORE powerful than Luke. Close, perhaps, we know she IS supposed to be fairly powerful in general, it's why she was able to be a Padawan so early, but possibly not MORE powerful.

And power alone does not actually guarantee a victory. She could be more powerful than Baylan, but if he's a better fighter, he'll still beat her. As shown with Obi-Wan and Anakin, power alone won't win a battle if your opponent is smart enough to simply outwit you. Obi-Wan can beat Anakin, and Baylan can beat Ahsoka. Ahsoka can be an extremely powerful Force user and still not be able to beat someone with better training than her.

I'll also note at the end here that Ahsoka isn't even canonically a Jedi at this point. She's never once claimed to be in the Ahsoka show and she explicitly says she isn't one in Rebels. She makes comments about how there's more to being a Jedi than using a lightsaber, but that isn't confirmation that she CONSIDERS herself a Jedi or that she'd call herself a Jedi. So she can't be the most powerful Jedi if she's not a Jedi at all. Same goes for Baylan, Grogu, and Leia.

Which leaves us back at Luke as the most powerful Jedi in existence within the timeline of the Ahsoka show because out of all of our options, Luke is the single person alive willing to actually identify as a fucking Jedi.

[willowthewiisp]

Lore points in the dlc that piss me off and make no sense

The greater will going AWOL after sending the elden beast breaks so many lore points I'm inclined to just straight up disregard it altogether because it makes no sense. The beasts were given intelligence presumably by the greater will. The elden ring existed during the time of the beasts we know that because of farum azula and the elden ring depiction there. The greater will not being around during that time makes no sense. It would make much more sense that the greater will left during the beginning stages of marikas rule and most certainly cutting ties when the elden ring was broken. But to straight up say god wasn't there from day one is so...? Bad??? I can accept the mother of fingers making shit up after the greater will cut her off but there are things that only a god like the greater will can do. what about the eternal cities being banished underground by the greater will??? If GW wasn't around for that time who did it then? What could possibly have that kind of power. It just makes no sense?????

Also the outer god of rot being written out is so bad too because what the fuck did the blind swordsman seal under the lake of rot then??? Was that just bullshit? Malenia wasn't a candidate anymore because she was an empyrean being used as the vessel for the god of rot because it wanted to imprint its age of rot on the elden ring. It literally makes no sense if Romina is the creator of rot if she's not an outer god.

and another thing, if all the numens in the shaman village were supposedly killed off by the hornsent or maybe even sacrificed by Marika (who knows) who were the black knife assassins and how were they numens associated with Marika if supposedly they were gone.

Why is rellana in the land of shadow have I missed something.

Why is there one crucible knight here.

If Marika was so traumatized by the saint jars why did she fucking allow living jars and why did she allow the jars in general to feed the erdtree. I don't believe this whole narrative that Marika is a tragic baby hurt by the evil hornsent for a second. Her entire backstory and foundation reeks of white colonizer to the point I bet those fuckin numens came here and tried to start shit. Anyways.

I know this horse has been beaten to death already but why on earth would radahn agree to be a consort to a god who wants an age of peace if "war suited him". He held the stars in place to probably protect ranni (and sellia) but also to help the golden order because we know the golden order wasn't a big fan of reading the stars and shit. He was a huge fan of Godfrey, and saw his father as a hero and wore his red hair with honor ( in contrast to radagon who hated it). Look I have no idea if radahn is just as fucked up as miquella or not but you cannot deny him being this consort is bizarre and left field. I would have genuinely accepted godwyn of all people over radahn. Godwyn was a powerful warrior he defeated the dragons but he was also kind and compassionate because he befriended fortissax to the point that dragon bro was ride or die and allowed himself to be eaten alive by deathblight. Also hello miquella literally calls him lord brother. Godwyn being revived was literally miquellas big plan other than curing malenia. So why the fuck was radahn chosen??? It's not like godwyn was dead when miquella was born and shit???? Also?? If mohg had to be used it would make kind of sense that he was used for godwyn since they share the same mother and father rather than radahn who didn't share either Godfrey or Marika (yes I know radagon is Marika). It would have probably been easier for godwyn to sink into mohgs body since they shared actual blood.

If marika was so very traumatized and hated everything having to do with the crucible and the hornsent why the hell would she allow Godfrey to have crucible knights as well as other crucible vestiges.

There's more but I'm just flabbergasted by the lore direction in general. It's almost like two different writing teams are at work.

[alittlehurtwithyourcomfort]

The Dragon Prince Whumplist

Character: Callum (voiced by Jack DeSena)

Age Rating: TV-Y7 (FV)

Show available on Netflix

Genre: Animation, Found Family, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Synopsis: In the magical land of Xadia, magic comes from six primal sources: the sun, moon, stars, sky, earth and ocean. When human mages create a seventh kind of magic -- dark magic -- they start capturing and harvesting the unique magical creatures they need as ingredients, which sparks a war between Xadia and the Human Kingdoms. Three kids from opposite sides of the conflict -- two princes and an elven assassin sent to kill them -- discover a secret that could change everything and decide to join forces and go on an epic journey. That trek could be their only hope of ending the war and restoring peace to both worlds. (Via Google)

Notes: This show is GOOD. If you like ATLA, you'll enjoy this. It gets progressively darker and more violent as the show goes on, so fair warning for that. The relationships between the characters are amazing, and there's also great diverse representation! I highly recommend.

TW's: Violence, mild blood/gore (audio/visual gets worse in later seasons), death, child abuse/neglect, child endangerment, emetophobia (very mild), mild torture

List Key:

bold = most whump, best whump, or favorite whump scenes

~ = a scene break

THIS LIST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

1x01: sparring ~~ upset, argued 

1x02: teary-eyed, emotional goodbye ~~ knocked around, holding his head ~~ threatened

1x03: betrayed, stressed ~~ manhandled, restrained, voice taken (by magic), heavy breathing ~~ scared, gets voice back and coughing ~~ terrified, shocked and teary-eyed, out of breath

1x04: stressed ~~ held at swordpoint 

1x05: stressed

1x06: extremely worried, scared 

1x07: emotional conversation, stressed 

1x08: scared

1x09: scared, stressed 

2x01: sad, stressed

2x02: extremely emotional, sobbing ~~ grieving

2x03: grieving, worried, teary-eyed ~~ sobbing, comforted ~~ betrayed

2x04: stressed

2x05: grieving, stressed

2x06: crying

2x07: glowing eyes, passes out, concern for him ~~ helped to stand, weak

2x08: helped to walk, delirious, weak ~~ in pain, delirious, unconscious ~~ terrifying dreams ~~ concern for him ~~ struggling to breathe, concern for him

2x09: still struggling to breathe, held, concern for him, wakes up gasping

3x01: stressed

3x02: none

3x03: stressed

3x04: stressed

3x05: stressed 

3x06: emotional

3x07: out of breath, almost passes out

3x08: frustrated 

3x09: stressed ~~ choked, gasping for air  ~~ crying, terrified, almost falls

4x01: stressed ~~ startled ~~ solemn, crying 

4x02: stressed, startled 

4x03: angry ~~ solemn

4x04: angry ~~ scared, choking, half-collapsed, possessed, body puppeteered, glowing eyes ~~ still possessed, concern for him, collapsed, unconscious, held

4x05: crying, choked up ~~ emotional conversation 

4x06: stressed

4x07: emotional conversation, "i need you to kill me", talking about possession

4x08: stressed ~~ sleeping spell, weak, collapsed unconscious 

4x09: rough awakening, scared

5x01: stressed 

5x02: stressed

5x03: stressed 

5x04: terrified, worried about his aunt 

5x05: stressed 

5x06: none

5x07: half-collapsed, magical exhaustion, struggling to breathe, helped to stand, supported, concern for him ~~ tired ~~ hands chained behind his back, chin grabbed/manhandled

5x08: unconscious, chained to a pole, shaky breathing, slowly waking up, scared, threatened, electrocuted/beaten (off-screen)~~ slowly waking up, still chained, blood and bruises on his face, heavy breathing, in pain, chin grabbed/manhandled ~~ scared ~~ manhandled, hands chained behind his back, stumbling, collapsed/forced to his knees, concern for him, weak ~~ extremely worried, yelling, angry, knocked out ~~ chained, struggling, pained voice, collapsed ~~ weak, "blood freezing", choked, gasping in pain, struggling, dropped, struggling to breathe, concerned ~~ sad, concern for him, hugged, guilty 

5x09: concerned ~~ slammed into the ground, restrained 

[look-at-the-soul]

Straight to the heart

Tommy Shelby x reader (Nurse)

After spending day and night for two weeks with nurses in the house while taking care of my grandma I couldn’t stop this idea running around my head.. this is set around S3E6… sending love and blessing to all the medical staff out there! Edit: Granny is doing so much better now, she can’t wait to go out already lol and now she says she misses us being with her all the time 🥺

Please note I’m not related to the health department, just what I read/watch.

Gif credit to @thesoldiersminute thank you for always keep up with my ideas!!! ☺️

Walking into the intensive care unit, Y/N was asked to immediately attend a new patient who arrived recently, she would only cover the night shift. He had surgery a few days ago and the doctors didn’t know yet how his body would react.

Y/N felt bad for the poor man, he was severely beaten, the damage in his brain still unknown, he was under high doses of medication. Most of his levels were out of proportion.

Right there he looked so helpless, vulnerable even. And even though the bruises and lightly swollen skin, she could see he owned some kind of privileged looks; thick lashes fanning over his cheeks, sharp cheekbones made him look like he was sculpted by a generous Greek God. If it wasn’t for the metal helmet on his head, she would swear he was only sleeping.

Sighting, she wrote down his records, adjusted his medication and left to attend her next patient. For the rest of the day, Y/N repeated the same actions without anything extraordinary or out of normal happening.

“Good luck on the night shift, Y/N” Jackie wished as she picked up her belongings.

“Why would I need luck?”

“You don’t know about that man at the 32?” Jackie squinted her eyes at her colleague.

Y/N shook her head as she organized the paperwork of the day. How would she know? She barely knew this area of the hospital. She wanted to stay out of any gossip or saying that was going around, but Jackie still decided to share the piece of information she heard in the hall. Letting Y/N know he was the infamous gánster from Birmingham known for cutting people’s eyes.

“His sister said he’s a war hero, but I know he’s a criminal, he deserves it.” Shaking her head she added; “his family requested a private room.”

But to Y/N all patients deserved to be treated equally, not taking into consideration their past, mistakes or anything else.

“Have a safe walk back home.” Y/N wished Jackie, hoping the other nurse would leave soon so she could resume the night visits to every patient, she had a long night ahead, starting with a young boy who had an accident at one of the factories.

Walking into Mr. Shelby’s bed close to midnight, Y/N noticed him sweating, shaking a little. Touching his forehead, she realized that he had a high fever. Rushing back to her unit, she grabbed towels and a bowl that she then filled with water.

Checking on his temperature, the thermometer showed 40ºC, so without wasting any more time, Y/N proceeded to provide medication to bring down his temperature. With a damp cloth, she pressed his neck, chest and forehead.

He was mumbling something she couldn’t understand, it was probably something that didn’t make sense, or another language she didn’t know… but as she moved to wet the washcloth one more time, his words were clear;

“Don’t leave me.” His hands got tense. “I need you.”

His frown grew deeper and when he opened his eyes abruptly, one of his hands accidentally hit Y/N above her right eye.

Y/N removed the covers from his body, as well as the upper part of the hospital gown.

Pressing the wet cloth against his hot skin Y/N got lost in the freckles on his chest, it reminded her of the previous night full of shining stars.

“Mr. Shelby, you’re alright, take a deep breath for me.” His breathing was erratic, his gaze lost, nothing he was saying made sense, he was talking about saving his mother and a Prussian boy, he then mentioned the name Charlie. “You’re at the hospital Mr. Shelby, take it easy.”

As Tommy looked around, he took in his surroundings, the pale skin of the nurse attending him contrasted deeply with the small crimson river of blood coming out from her eyebrow.

“There you go, that’s it, deep breaths.” Y/N smiled relieved that the fever was going down. Checking his eyes, his reflections seemed to be perfect, as well as the rest of his vitals. He tried to touch the metal around his head, but Y/N moved gently his hand down.

She helped the man to sit up slowly in the bed and after adjusting the pillow in his back, she offered him some water, to help his system fight the temperature.

“Are you feeling better?” Y/N asked after a few more minutes.

Tommy nodded, still altered by the mixed nightmare he just saw, his mother asking for help, she was dangerously close to the river and when he tried to grab her arm to move her away, he saw Charlie drowning, as he was about to save his son, the Prussian boy appeared from nowhere and sent him to the ground.

“It’s late, you might want to have some rest.” Y/N announced gently changing the pillow since it was soaked.

“I can’t go back to sleep.” He murmured after a few seconds. “My head ‘s pounding.”

“I can give you something for the pain.” But his hand stopped Y/N’s intentions to walk away. Gently and in a caressing motion, she placed his hand between hers, one on top and one under. “Is going to be alright.”

“Can you stay here? With me?”

And with that Y/N was able to see the bluest eyes she had ever crossed paths with, so transparent, so full of fear, so vulnerable. He locked his eyes with her and she got lost in a deep ocean, soft waves crashing against her.

So broken.

Empty even.

In the war she had seen endless horrors, men without a leg or an arm, people who lost their eyes, but nothing compared to what Y/N saw in this man’s eyes.

“Right, just let me call the doctor and I’ll stay here for a little longer, all my other patients are sleeping.” Y/N took the empty chair resting close to the door and brought it closer to the bed.

“Lucky they can.”

Y/N chuckled and in the process, she found the ghost of a smirk in his lips.

“I could give you something to sleep.”

“Oh, so you don’t have to deal with me?”

Y/N looks at him scandalized. “No, I meant it so you can rest.”

“That’s for the weak.” Tommy stated taking a deep breath.

“Are you sure you don’t want something for the pain?” Y/N tried again suppressing a yawn.

“I’ve the heart of a horse.” Tommy winced as her cold hand came to circle his wrist, she looked at her watch and then wrote down something in a chart. She then checked again his temperature. “How long have you been a nurse?”

Her features turned into a bittersweet expression.

“I volunteered as a nurse during the war, to be close to my husband.”

Tommy fixed his gaze on her. “The Somme?”

Y/N nodded. “Blackwoods, but he never came back.”

“Sorry for your loss.” Tommy offered Y/N his handkerchief, which she found on top of the cabinet with the rest of his clothes.

“Thank you, I hear you’re a hero.”

Tommy chuckled tilting his head.

“That’s overrated, I saw more men dying than I saved. Now you, on the other hand are a real hero, Miss?”

“Y/N Y/LN.” She smiled gently.

“Pleased to meet you, Thomas Shelby.” He extended his hand with a groan.

“How did you end up here with an injury like that?”

“I stumbled.”

Y/N didn’t believe that for a second, but she was glad to see that even in a situation like that, he felt like joking, it was a good sign.

“The door must’ve been heavy.” She joked, immediately regretting her own words. ”Sorry.”

“Bad choices brought me here.” Tommy admitted, his hands instinctively looking for a cigarette. “Can I have a smoke?”

Y/N stood up to take a cigarette and light it for him. “Hopefully you won’t make those again, you were very lucky this time.”

“You’d be surprised, sometimes I think trouble simply enjoys following me around.”

“You’re like a magnet then.”

She then decided to stay silent as she saw him with his eyelids closed, maybe tiredness took him finally in, that would be good, because then she would be able to close her eyes momentarily and…

“Has anyone came…?”

His deep voice pulled her from snoozing. Y/N nodded and informed him that his sister visited the previous day. And his aunt the day he had the surgery.

“Do you want me to let someone know?”

Tommy shook his head at first, closing his eyes. Who would give a damn about him?

“Jeremiah, Jimmy he’s a preacher.” He whispered after a few minutes.

“I know him, we’ve worked together helping people in need.”

Why that didn’t surprise him?

“That tells me I’m in good hands.” He ran his cigarette over his lower lip, while a light shade of pink covered her cheeks and neck.

“Thank you for helping me keep my eyes open.”

Tommy then winked. “Anytime love, you know where to find me.”

Y/N told him she would get him a new gown and take a quick look at the other patients, but she would be back before he could realize she was gone. In her absence, a doctor entered and after evaluating the information in his chart, asked a few insignificant questions and left him alone. Tommy wondered if she would be back soon.

“How was your round?” Tommy asked eyeing her by the corner of his eye.

“Fine, most patients are fast asleep except for one.”

“Sorry to keep you up, it gets boring here.”

Y/N’s eyes sparkled. “What are you talking about? The fun has just begun, you need to stay for a few months.”

But Tommy being Tommy, he had another ideas.

“I’ll be out of here this week.” He stated firmly.

They stayed in a comfortable silence, until Tommy saw the nurse leaning forwards, at the end of his bed, close to his feet, within seconds, he realized her breathing changed and she was fast asleep, forehead resting on one arm, at some point, she turned her head to the side, so her features were facing him, and he finally noticed the mole close to her lips…

The following morning, Jeremiah entered the hospital room, a beaming smile on his face, Tommy motioned him to be quiet, pointing at the sleepy nurse.

The poor thing worked the previous night taking care of a patient at home, then her regular shift at ER and finally she was asked to cover the intensive care unit as well.

Looking at the feet of his bed, Y/N was peacefully sleeping in an uncomfortable position that would probably hurt her neck and back, she assured him over five times she wasn’t tired first, then that she didn’t need a pillow, she wasn’t going to fall asleep, but in the end, her body claimed some rest. Her lips were partially open, her features relaxed, she exuded calmness through every pore.

A peace he would kill for.

“Looking good Tom.” Jeremiah whispered, walking around the bed, to the opposite side were the nurse was sleeping.

“Now everyone will shave the side of their head too.” Tommy joked.

Before Y/N fell asleep, she got her pocket mirror, helping Tommy to take a look, it disgusted him to see the helmet, and the dark circles under his eyes, paler than he usually was, but Y/N assured him, nothing of that mattered, he was alive.

But Jeremiah couldn’t hold back the laugh at Tommy’s comment, and Y/N woke up.

“I’m so sorry I fell asleep!” Y/N quickly apologized and walked out from the room, returning a few minutes later after a quick trip to the bathroom to refresh herself and as she walked over to the bed to check one more time for Mr. Shelby’s vitals, she overheard a conversation that concerned her.

“Jimmy, I need you to bring me some papers, the keys to the first drawer are on-”

“Mr. Shelby you can’t work right now.” Y/N looked between her patient and his friend, her whole body protesting for sleeping in that position.“You need bed rest, physical therapy and nothing that stresses you.”

Tommy chuckled and his head hurt from the effort.

“I’m sure Polly can manage for a while, you need to follow her orders.” Jeremiah stated before touching Tommy in the arm, followed by a wink. “He’s a bit stubborn, just so you to know.”

He thanked then Y/N for taking care of his friend and left them after that.

“I didn’t mean to sound bossy, sorry Mr. Shelby.”

“Call me Tommy, please.” Making an effort to look at her, he found a deep frown. “What’s the matter?”

“The doctor prescribed Morphine to your own judgment?”

“It’s for the pain.”

She knew this kind of high dosis could represent a big threat for the patients, it should be administered by someone who knew what they were doing, but it wasn’t her place to discuss that, so she only shook her head.

“Thank you, for not letting my nightmares hunt me last night.” Tommy whispered. “And sorry for that.” He then pointed out to the now clear cut on her eyebrow.

Y/N smiled brushing it off and left to do a quick check on her patients. Later, when she returned, she found Tommy sleeping, and just like he did the previous night, she let him sleep, hoping the nightmares would leave him alone.

***

When Tommy woke up again, he didn’t found Y/N back, no, there was a rude and grumpy, old nun making noise, disturbing the small peace he was able to reach.

After a heated argument, Tommy didn’t hesitate to point the revolver at her, he just wanted to scare her though, in that condition he wouldn’t be able to shoot properly, but it worked, because she mumbled he would be burned in hell and left. A doctor came in shortly, sweating, worried he would kill him there.

“Where’s Y/N?” Tommy asked cleaning his weapon with the sheet covering his lap.

“She has the day off, until tonight, she covers the ER Night Shift.” His apple bobbed up and down. “I’ll ask the nurse to check on you.”

“I don’t want anyone but Y/N.” Tommy resisted the urgent feeling to press his forehead, the headache was unbearable.

“She attends the emergency un-”

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, Doc… Y/N is from now on my personal nurse.” He removed the security button of his gun. Feeling dizzy, he could see the doctor moving towards the door.

The intensive care unit looked oddly quiet that night, she shouldn’t be here without permission but there was no one to ask around, so she’d only stay for a couple of minutes and go to work at the other side of the building.

“Ah, I see you��re awake now Mr. Shelby, I brought you some tea that will help you with the pain, is strong so I added some milk and sugar.” Y/N smiled.

But the smile soon was followed by a shock, when the Director informed her she would now work as private nurse for Mr. Shelby, but she didn’t even try to gainsay against the new instructions, she just asked a few minutes to move her belongings over the intensive care unit.

“I hope you understand, the other nurse didn’t think I was a nice patient.”

Y/N couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. “You pointed a gun at her, Tommy.”

“Yeah, yeah, she mentioned I was going to hell.” He retrieved the cigarette case and match from under the blanket, motioning for her to light it for him.

“How are you feeling?” She noticed the helmet was gone, and he could move freely now, slow but better.

“Like shit.”

Y/N looked at the cigarette between her fingers, Tommy cleared her she could smoke in her shift now. “Last night, when you had that nightmare… you mentioned someone… Charlie.”

Tommy ran his tongue over his lips, blinking at the thought of his son.

“I was trying to save him, he’s my son, now it’s just the two of us… his mother passed away.”

The air abandoned her lungs, her heart sank down, the worst pain this man was going through wasn’t for the head injuries, the emotional felt deeper.

“Everything I do, is for him, ‘cause I don’t want him to suffer what I went through.” He admitted.

Tommy threw the covers to the side, determination in his eyes.

Scandalized, Y/N rushed to his side, “what are you doing?!”

“I can’t stay in bed, have things to do.”

But her hands on his chest, held him firmly.

“You need to take it easy, it takes time to heal and recover.” Shaking her head, Y/N covered him again. “You hired me to be your nurse, and as such you’ll have to follow my orders.”

With an evident groan, Tommy allowed her to adjust his pillow, taking the revolver in the process.

“And I’m keeping this somewhere safe.”

“Fucking hell.” He scoffed.

***

Of course, he wasn’t out in a week like he said, Tommy needed medical attention and professional equipment to monitor his progress, the doctors didn’t even care he was using his pipe when the pain was too much.

During the following days, Y/N stayed by Tommy’s hospital bed day and night, helping him to stand up once the doctor cleared him out to walk around, she read out loud endless books and news to him, somehow she was his eyes and ears.

She earned completely his trust, he talked to her about things he didn’t dare to say to anyone else. And never complained about how difficult and headache he was as her patient, he lost all his dignity when she had to clean him up in the beginning when he couldn’t move, and kept his nightmares at bay some nights.

Staring into the ceiling, he didn’t even remember what day it was, memories were a bit blurry, but he had enough time to plan, to think, to realize things.

In the loneliness of those cold walls, it was all silent. Just him and his thoughts.

Where was his family? He had gave them all; everything they needed, everything they wanted… money, stability, power, luxuries, properties.

And they had only be around a few times for short and sporadic visits.

No one offered to spend the night with him, just in case he needed something during the night. All he heard was excuses to leave as soon as possible. They had other things to do.

The obscene amount of money he spent with whores to warm his bed for a moment and for what? They wouldn’t even dare to look a man ill in a hospital bed. They were empty, it was nothing more than a chore for them.

Not a single whore was appealing enough the effort now.

Deep down, he felt disappointed.

And heartbroken. If he ever had a heart.

All of the people he helped down the road, weren’t able to pay him a ten fucking minutes visit.

A knock on the door pulled Tommy away from his thoughts.

Y/N entered brightening not only the room, but his life as well.

“Good morning sleepyhead.” She chirped.

“You kept snorting, I had to recover my sleep-hours.” He lied.

“I did not.” Her voice faked indignation towards his words, touching his arm playfully with the package of the gauze.

“Why do you keep sleeping in the chair, when I asked them to bring in a couch for you?” He smirked accepting the biscuits she made for him.

“Trust me, if I take the couch, you’ll never wake me up.”

As she leaned to clean the spot of his surgery, Tommy turned his head and stared into her beautiful eyes, straight to her heart and soul. Wondering if she would allow him to kiss her, almost asking for permission. His hand came to rest to the side of her head, fingers intertwining in her hair… closing his eyes, he let his lips fan over hers, barely touching, teasing, burning and waking up every nerve in her body.

And when their mouths finally collided, time stopped and the fucking world could’ve exploded and they wouldn’t have noticed.

“Just what the doctor ordered.” The corner of his lips turned upwards and small lines formed around his blue eyes as he pulled in his nurse for another kiss.

“Tommy…” she whispered trying to catch her breath, easier than trying to ask her heartbeat to normalize.

“Tell me this isn’t a one side feeling?”

The feeling of his hands cupping her face close to his, made ir harder to shook her head. “No, it’s not that… is just that this isn’t professional. I’m your nurse.”

“Perfect, you’re fired then.” He joked, pulling her down for another kiss.

He would be forever grateful with her for those days when she was all the company he got, for the long talks, and making his most miserable time feel lighter. For encouraging him to walk again and do his exercises.

For being there for him.

He never imagined tragedy would take him to the place where he would meet love and compassion in the same person. He would get his head smashed a hundred more times just to be with her.

After getting more kisses, because he swore the doctor prescribed them, Tommy gave her the envelope with her payment and she almost fainted she saw it. It was more money than she could expect to see in months of working non stop.

“This is too much, I can’t accept it.”

“Y/N you stayed with me when I needed it the most, didn’t ask questions… no amount of money could ever really pay what you gave me.”

He was determined to go back home, promised the doctors he would take it easy and after watching his health improvement, he was discharged earlier than expected. But of course he was planning to have someone taking care of him.

***

Y/N couldn’t believe this was the correct address she was given. Taking a double look at the mansion before her, she swallowed hard.

But the address written on the paper Tommy gave her, was correct. After finishing her shift at the Hospital that day, she would be joining him at home.

Knocking on the heavy door, Y/N waited smoothing her uniform a petite woman in a black and white uniform opened the door. The look the woman gave her up and down made Y/N feel uneasy, worried there was something wrong with her.

“Mr. Shelby hired me to.-”

“I know who he is, I don’t understand why they sent someone lik-” shaking her head, she moved to the side as Polly approached them.

“Thank you so much for showing up earlier, he has been asking for you, I’m Polly.” She gave the nurse a candid smile and looking then at the maid, she added; “Mary please prepare her something to eat.”

“That won’t be necessary Mrs. Gray, I had breakfast after finishing my shift, but thank you.”

Polly guided her around the house, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Thank you for taking care of our Tom all of this time…” Showing her where was the kitchen, the bathroom, everything she might need.

“Is alright, don’t worry about that.”

“I’ve work to do, but I’ll give you a phone number where you can find me if anything urgent comes up, there’s also a driver and a car outside in case you need to use it.” They both walked a long hall, the house was decorated immediately. “My nephew has been talking about you.” She gave the nurse a knowing look. “Something changed, but not something physical, something inside, you gave him his heart back.”

As Polly opened the door to Tommy’s bedroom, Y/N found him playing with his son in bed, bare chest moving the child up and down in the air, his small giggles echoed through the room.

The image didn’t only made its way through her eyes, it went straight to the heart.

*******

And sorry it got long! I couldn’t stop writing for these two… your feedback is always highly appreciated and treasured ♥️ it means the world to me! Thank you for reading.

Master list

Tag list: @lyarr24 @runnning-outof-time @cillmequick @gypsy-girl-08 @datewithgianni @cloudofdisney @gretelshelby @lespendy @onlydeadcells @fastfan @stevie75 @prettylittlehoneyeyesxoxo @esposadomd @strayrockette @the-forest-witchh @elenavampire21 @forgottenpeakywriter @zablife @peakyscillian @moral-terpitude @babaohhhriley @ange-thoughts @shelbydelrey @shaddixlife @sloanexx @cilliansangel @rangerelik

[shadow4-1]

Heart Eyes (Love At First Sight AU/Imagine - Reader x Price) - Captain John Price Edition

We've all had that feeling when we see someone attractive. Of course it depends on the person. Some drool, others get shy or hot in the face. Our pupils dilate, but not enough to notice unless you're unnaturally observant. What if you could see it? What if it was obvious a person like-liked you on first glance?

(Trigger Warnings: SFW, Slight Body Horror, Mild Discomfort)

John had seen more things in his life than most people ever would.

He'd seen war, death, famine, but also hope and kindness. He'd seen love too. He'd seen how it sparked into existence, how it could fizzle out or burn into something more. He'd never actually experienced it for himself, never figured he would to be honest. He was getting older. Most people found their lifetime match in their twenties. He'd seen it happen too many times to count. He'd seen too many recruits or sergeants passing in halls, locking eyes, and never being the same after. Love could do terrible, wicked things to a person, twist them into knots with obsession. Or, if they were lucky, make them better for it. Love was not in the cards for Captain Price, he decided. And of course, just when he was deciding to get comfortable with his fate, love decided to kick him squarely in the chest.

He hadn't felt this weak in years. He doubled over, coughing, his heart beating so hard he felt as if it were going to burst. He went from standing to kneeling, to laying face down on the dingy linoleum floor. He could hear shouts, shoes squeaking, worried murmurs. It was as if his body was slowly giving out, all of his strength being used to keep his poor heart beating. He tried to right himself, tried to get his arms underneath him but it was no use. He wheezed, trying so desperately to suck in a well needed breath. He was having issues seeing as well. Everything was hazy and too far away save for the minute grout lines in the flooring. He spied a pair of white, beaten up tennis shoes in the corner of his eye. His voice wouldn't work, his ears were ringing. Was this it? Was this the way John Price was meant to go out? A goddamn heart attack in the middle of a veteran's hospital?

A couple male orderlies managed to hoist him up into a wheelchair. He felt like a drowning fish, sucking in air that burned all the way down. A doctor began yelling, nearly unintelligible, something about his heart rate. What a fuckin' genius, he could've told them that if he had the ability. His heart hurt, it burned, he clapped a weak hand over it. Why? What happened for him to feel this way all of a sudden? He'd only come to the hospital to visit a recovering team member. He'd been waiting for so long and then a nurse came out to greet him. She was going to take him to the room-

He looked up, finding her standing off to the side, watching the chaos slowly unfolding around her. She clutched onto her clipboard for dear life, tears welling in her eyes. She then glanced down at him. Her eyes met his. 

It was an immediate relief. 

He could suddenly breath again, his tight lungs expanded and he gasped. He grabbed onto the edge of the wheelchair, pushing, struggling against the orderly who was trying to read his pulse. The pressure surrounding his heart suddenly ceased, making his head spin with white stars in his vision. They danced around her face. He felt as if he'd been socked square in the jaw. He hadn't felt this kind of knock out since his first fight as a teenager. 

A light flashed across his eyes and he jerked back, putting his arms up defensively, his nerves finally coming back online. The doctor flinched back with a soft grumble. He made a comment about how John would be perfectly fine. He had apparently just suffered from a heart eye attack, something that no healthy person had ever died from. A heart eye attack? Heart eye? He looked around for a shiny surface. The only one he could find within reaching distance was the aluminum bar of the wheelchair. He forced his still blurry gaze down into it, spreading his upper and lower eyelids apart with shaky fingers. Sure enough, despite his instability, he noticed his pupils had shifted in size and shape. He huffed in discomfort. He'd witnessed the change in other people's eyes, but never expected to see it on himself. He watched in stunned silence as the heart shape of his pupil slowly melted back into its normal, circular shape. He blinked, once, then twice, his vision had retreated back to a perfect 20/20. He swallowed the excess saliva in his mouth and let out a shuddery sigh.

A heart eye attack? Him? But that would mean-who? The last person he'd looked at had been the nurse with a-

Slowly, he turned his head back in the direction of the woman. He let his gaze slowly ascend up from her dingy white shoes, across her scrub bottoms and up towards her belly. He steadied himself, then finally looked up at her face again. She was still watching him with a mix of emotions. His vision went blurry around the edges and yet focused in the center. It was as if his eyes had turned into one of his favorite scopes, blocking out everything else but the warm body of his target. He noticed every little thing about her in vivid detail, down to the individual flutter of her eyelashes. It was as if time had slowed, she'd become his world. And by God, she was gorgeous. He let himself get lost in the beauty that was her face…until reality blocked his view.

A black wall separated him from his new love. It took everything in his willpower to not stand up and swing on the person standing in front of him. A firm hand placed itself on his shoulder. His tunnel vision faded (as well as what he assumed to be the heart shape of his pupils) and he was greeted to the sight of his lieutenant. Simon didn't need to say a word, his grip was enough of a warning. John needed to choose his next actions very carefully or risk ruining whatever future might be in store for him. 

"M' alright." He breathed out, patting Simon's hand. "M' alright."

The doctor asked to check his vitals since he'd started to calm down. He let the doctor finish before shakily standing up from the wheelchair. John had never been one to walk around with his head down, but in this instance he found he had to. Looking at anyone's face felt too wrong, he quietly thanked whatever God out there for Simon's propensity to wear masks.

Despite the scene he'd just made, apparently all was well. The doctor asked the nurse to escort them to the hospital room as she had attempted to before. He refused to look at the nurse's face as she awkwardly greeted both him and Simon again, then led them down a long hallway filled with numbered doors. Door 1367, John MacTavish.

"You go on in." John huffed to Simon, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll b' in n' a minute."

Simon looked at him with his usual, emotionless expression. John could make out the disbelief in the gaze despite it. He gave his lieutenant a sharp nod, letting him know he was being serious. Simon entered the hospital room, closing the door behind him with a click.

John sucked in a breath, quietly hoping the nurse wouldn't be standing there. It would hurt more and yet so much less if she'd wise up and run off. Much to his chagrin, she was still there. 

"Look…m' sorry, for what happened back there." He cleared his throat. "I'll admit, 've never had this happen to me before."

"Never?" She asked incredulously. Despite his best efforts John had to look at her face again. Once more, he was lost in her eyes, the set of her cheekbones, her sweet, sweet lips. Even the slightest imperfections of her skin were stunningly unique, like the formation of clouds in the sky.

  "Never."

[goingrampant]

Performative Stormfront Haters

I've complained a few times about what I call "performative Stormfront haters", and I want to highlight them for a moment to explain what I mean and why they should be considered a social problem tied into other social media harassment problems that get talked about more frequently. In 2020, during the release of The Boys season two, a bunch of keyboard warriors decided it was their moral obligation to harass actress Aya Cash for her role in the series as Stormfront.

Stormfront is a superhero/-villain character, who is introduced as someone who appears to be a likable feminist but is revealed to be a mass-murdering racist, ultimately revealed as a literal Nazi from WWII as a metaphor for fascism enduring to the modern day. It's generally a more serious take on the general themes surrounding the Hydra reveal in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Cash portrays the character in a compelling "love to hate 'em" way, brings some nuance to the character where Stormfront is somewhat sympathetic at the same time she's hateful, and is largely responsible for how cathartic it feels to see the character get beaten up at the end of the season. Cash did her job as an actor well and brought life to season two's main villain. And then a bunch of dorks decided it was a good idea to send her hate for portraying a Nazi in a television show.

At the time, antifa was a big pop culture trend with both supporters and detractors really making themselves known. Some of the George Floyd protesters were visibly antifa, and the right-wing media ran with that to fearmonger. Choosing a side and making it known who you support was popular on social media, a bit like competing football teams. Some people who admired antifa decided to act as antifa by taking what they saw as direct action against platforming of Nazis by harassing Aya Cash for playing a Nazi. This is not what antifa typically does (because it's stupid), owing to the lack of direction and effective propagation of ideology. They were just kind of aping antifa tactics observed second-hand instead of following examples taught in antifa groups. There was a bit of a runaway golem problem, where everyone just jumped on the bandwagon, becoming online haters because it's easy, and ended up acting more like Nazis in harassing some innocent person whose sole crime was participating in the performance of a story they didn't like, as with the online white supremacist harassment of the actors of color who performed in Star Wars.

What their actions ape at is antifa identifying actual white supremacists--people who actually truly believe in white superiority and try to promote it--and get them fired from their jobs, evicted from their apartments, and kept out of the public eye. They're going after actual, real Nazis and fighting the good fight in keeping them from rising to power. What the performative Stormfront haters did was encounter a Nazi character on a television show, feel angry at Stormfront's reveal because that's how the drama was written, then look up who played her on IMDB and treat this random actor like she's a real Nazi that they managed to track down, and subject her to harassment to get her to back out of portraying Stormfront--a character in a season already shot and being released--which is not remotely helpful, actively makes the world worse, and points at extreme confusion over what was actually going on. They were probably a bunch of children (in spite of the show's mature rating), jumping on a bandwagon, thinking they were crusaders for justice fighting the good fight against Nazis, while really acting like a violent mob harassing someone who was actually acting in an antifascist capacity for portraying a Nazi villain in a narrative designed to show how the character was evil.

Aya Cash's response was to publicize being ethnically Jewish, something that she clearly wouldn't have done if she hadn't been called a Nazi by this mob of haters. Though Reform Jews would accept her as patrilineal Jewish because she was raised with the religion and most people would accept her at least being ethnically Jewish, she doesn't practice the religion as an adult and didn't claim the label until she felt she needed to do so defensively, to stave off the mob. It was ultimately this, as well as support from co-star Antony Starr (Homelander), to stop the haters' momentum. Calling a Jewish woman a Nazi and trying to get her to quit acting in the name of fighting Nazis does tend to make you look more like the Nazi, so it worked... but it also put Cash in an awkward position where she now casts herself as Jewish when she's uncomfortable with the label, saying in an interview, "I guess I'm Jewish now," with an ambivalent gesture.

This is strikingly similar to cases in which closeted actors and creatives are harassed by queer audiences for being straight and daring to portray queer characters, often causing them to come out before they're ready. The only thing that will stop the mob is declaring an identity they're cool with. In fact, only a few months before the harassment of Aya Cash reached its peak, another Jewish woman, Becky Abertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, posted a Medium article, "I know I'm late.", in which she came out as bisexual and described how painful it was reading thinkpieces about how she never should have portrayed queer characters because everyone could tell she was straight and inauthentically rendering the characters through a straight woman's distorted lens. Of course, Abertalli was always bi and authentically representing the characters as queer, even if no one recognized it.

Aya Cash, meanwhile? Kind of obviously ethnically Jewish, which points at the performative Stormfront haters just plain not understanding what was actually going on. I mean... look at her.

In modern America, pale Ashkenazi Jews are typically considered white. The only exceptions come from contrasts with white supremacists, who at most ever consider them "lesser white" and usually as some variant of Asian race "infiltrating" whiteness, with strong influence from Nazi ideology. In this case, Nazism is present as a pervasive theme evoked but not literally rendered with actual neo-Nazi involvement, so Aya Cash kind of floats at the boundary of white and non-white. She was essentially harassed for being (too) white, so she argued that she was not, in fact, white. And that was effective, so "I guess [she's] Jewish now." In theory, she's a white-passing Jewish woman under the perception that Jews are a separate race. It all just points at how stupid and arbitrary racialism is.

I'd argue that her harassment is somewhat of an inverse of the harassment of the Star Wars actors of color, Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega. In that case, Nazis induced insecure racists to harass them to try to get them to quit and keep Star Wars white-centric. In this case, wannabe antifa members harassed who they perceived as a white woman portraying a Nazi to keep television Nazi-free in their warped understanding. It points at a similar psychological phenomenon of mob justice surrounding racialism. In a way, it represents a midpoint between the harassment of Star Wars actors of color and closeted queer creatives.

That, and also anti-shippers, who don't have a firm grasp on fiction vs. reality. Antis, who are largely young teenagers who consider themselves progressive warriors for justice, harass people who write edgy fanfic under the belief that it points at dangerous identities behind the writing. They think--or profess to think--that anyone who writes non-con is the type of person who would rape someone and that it is their duty to harass them off the Internet and engage in antifa-like actions of getting them fired, etc. for what their activities in the development of fictional narratives are thought to indicate about them being a danger to society. The harassment of Aya Cash is similar to this phenomenon but with a more racialized bend.

To be quite clear, it wouldn't matter if Aya Cash were the Aryaniest Aryan to ever Aryan, as with Charlize Theron's portrayal of in-universe film Stormfront. Cash portrayed a fictional character, and it should have been understood as mere fiction. The narrative can be critiqued, and there are a few things in the portrayal of Stormfront that I find deeply flawed, but fiction should not be taken as a 1:1 indication of the creatives' viewpoints. Otherwise, every actor who portrays King Lear would be investigated as a psychopath gouging out people's eyes, right? This is not a recognized aspect to criminal investigation because it's silly. I believe literal children absorbed a distorted understanding of what antifa does and misapplied it to feel good at being bullies. Like, does any of this make any sense at all when you really dig into it?

Performative Stormfront hate has had a lasting impact on the The Boys fandom. People are compelled to make a big show about how much they hate Stormfront. People who express liking the character without peppering their descriptions with hate for what she actually does in the story are viewed with suspicion as potential Nazis. Most tellingly, there's an Emperor's New Clothes attitude where people are extremely hesitant to describe the character as hot when the show goes to great lengths to portray her as such. Of course, she's hot. They cast Aya Cash, who's known for her erotic role in You're the Worst, gave Stormfront an enhanced bust and emphasized bush, and showed her having sex in every position, including in midair with her superpowers. You find her hot because you watched a television show portraying her as hot, not because you're actually a Nazi. Learn some media literacy, my God.

This is fandumb to the extreme.

[anony-man]

Of all mechs, Starscream found himself dreading any and all interactions with Optimus the most.

Much like Soundwave, the Prime had a way of slipping past his defenses, peeling away at the many layers Starscream put up. Optimus was much gentler compared to the communications officer, however, and knew when and where to draw the line. But given his authority, his role as a Prime, the inherit role model for their planet, Starscream couldn’t deny the resentment he felt.

For a mech with such unlimited power and access to the laws of their land, Optimus should have been taking advantage of it all. He should have sucked their world dry of freedom and rights just like all of Cybertron’s former rulers. He should have struck fear into the hearts of everyone beneath him, taken what now belonged to him, made a show of humbling the rest of his kind.

Had Optimus done any of this, Starscream would have felt justified in his hatred of the mech. As it stood, he was merely another victim of war, desperately searching for meaning in the ruins that had become his day-to-day life.

Optimus—such a kind-hearted mech, too kind for his own good—seemed to catch onto Starscream’s inner dilemma. Unlike Megatron, who would have beaten the truth out of him by now, Optimus remained quiet and non-threatening.

“Ratchet has been a close friend of mine for a very long time now,” he began, scooting his chair closer ever so slightly. “But he sometimes becomes blinded by his own experiences in this war. You can believe me when I tell you, Starscream, that while you reside here in this base, you are safe.”

“Safe,” Starscream echoed, his lips curling into a sneer. “I’m afraid I don’t know the meaning of the word, Prime.”

*****

This is just a small snippet from my story, Your Memory Lives On. If you’re interested in reading more, you can find me on Ao3 under Earth_2_Cinnamon_Roll, or on Quotev under Timberheart. I’ve got lots of Starscream angst to share if anyone’s interested. Making Star suffer is basically my hobby.

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Gul Dukat

By Ames

Last week we expanded our spotlight series to include villains, and like our focus character Kai Winn, this week’s villain is so compelling he deserves his own post. It’s no secret I’m a big fan of Dukat (both my favorite Cardassian and my favorite DS9 villain), but what is it about him that’s just so entrancing? Is it the swaggering charisma he exudes? Is it all the justifications he makes for his clearly villainous actions? Clearly it’s the mile-long neck, right? Well A Star to Steer Her By is going to get to the bottom of how such a bad man makes such a great character.

Did Dukat do nothing wrong? Of course not; he’s a monster, after all. But as a character, he gets so much right, and his performance by Marc Alaimo is so devoted that, every so often, you let your guard slip and root for the guy. He has the sheer audacity to pull off some of the schemes we’ve highlighted below, so scroll on down, listen to us whispering in your ear on this week’s podcast (jump to 1:15:10), and swagger up the place.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Favorite moments

Won’t someone please think of the children? One of the most impressive things about Cardassians is their ability to scheme for the long term. And Dukat is particularly skilled at scheming. His war orphans plot in “Cardassians” to undermine Gul Pa’dar sat dormant for eight years before it emerged! How many other schemes is he sitting on, waiting for them to hatch into something nefarious?

I spent the last few years building up an immunity to mind melds When Sarkonna tries to mind meld Dukat to extract information, she learns the hard way that Dukat’s mental discipline somehow surpasses hers. And she’s a freakin’ Vulcan! And then Dukat spends the rest of the scene in “The Maquis” sassing at his Maquis captors about how terrible they are at handling their prisoners and how the Cardassians are so much better at it.

Attention Bajoran workers It is downright badass for Dukat to beam in during “Civil Defense” and snark at the crew in Ops about how naive they were to set off the counterinsurgency program… all while standing in front of a ball shooting lasers! We also see more layers of trademark Cardassian scheming when even Dukat’s program is supplanted by yet another directive from Central Command!

I thought the Obsidian Order didn’t have any ships I find it amusing that, while normal Romulans acquiesce to the Tal Shiar in “Face of the Enemy,” the Cardassian Central Command and the Obsidian Order seem to loathe each other. In “Defiant,” Dukat has teamed up with Sisko to get the Defiant back from Tom Riker, and he manages to gleefully expose the Obsidian Order’s illegal ship-building plans on the way!

Cue the fireworks! Cardassians are nothing if not petty. When the Siskos have proven it possible for Bajoran lightships to have traveled to Cardassian space in “Explorers,” Dukat is there to congratulate them. Turns out the Cardassians have beaten Sisko the punch by “discovering” wreckage of a Bajoran lightship right before Sisko arrived. Coincidence? I think not.

You’re my number one dad, give or take Okay, so Dukat was fully planning on killing Ziyal in “Indiscretion,” and it’s the lowest bar for a man to not murder his progeny, but he manages to clear it! Leaving his bastard daughter alive ends up ruining his position and his marriage, but Dukat can’t bring himself to harm his daughter when he finally confronts her. And damn does he look good in a Breen uniform.

The first Klingon Bird-of-Prey ever to be captured by Cardassia Marauding Dukat may be my favorite Dukat. Sure, he lost his status after the news about Ziyal spread, but in “Return to Grace,” he just goes with it! He uses his dinky little freighter the Groumall to actually capture a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which is all kinds of impressive. And he even has a good rapport with Kira this episode, trying to tempt her over to the privateer life.

Remember to rate your Uber driver While Sisko, Odo, and O’Brien are dressing up like Klingons to infiltrate the Order of the Bat’leth ceremony in “Apocalypse Rising,” Dukat is flying around with his stolen Klingon Bird-of-Prey. He’s even magnanimous enough to bring our DS9 friends to the ceremony, likely as an excuse to show off his spoils and how damn great he looks in a Klingon baldric.

The enemy of my enemy, twice removed If there’s a theme to many of these favorite Dukat moments, it’s the sheer audacity he displays. If nothing else, he always picks the ballsiest moves, which makes for the most entertaining developments. And it’s nothing short of audacious when he reveals that he has allied Cardassia with the Dominion in “By Inferno’s Light” while the DS9 crew picks their jaws up off the deck.

A graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! Just everything about “Waltz” is spellbinding, which is a testament to Dukat’s character because a majority of the episode is watching him go slowly (and then quickly) absolutely insane. He reveals to Sisko with relish how he believes he was right in how he treated the Bajorans and how he deplores that they never so much as said “thank you.” Ingrates.

Yo Momma jokes, Bajoran edition Is it contrived that “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night” establishes that Gul Dukat took Kira’s mom as a comfort woman during the Occupation? Yeah, a little. And I’ve already given both Sisko and Kira guff for their actions this episode. But you’ve got to appreciate the gall of Dukat, ringing Kira in the middle of the night to drop this bombshell on her for no damn reason.

How do you fight a god? Dukat turns a new leaf when he gets really into Bajoran religion. And sure, all his leaves are evil, but this one is still new! In “Tears of the Prophets” he lets himself get possessed by Kosst Amojen so he could take on the Prophets, and subsequently hit the Bajoran people where it hurts: right in the religion. Sadly it results in Jadzia’s death, but Dukat was just that committed.

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid Another “Oh the audacity” moment from Dukat comes in “Covenant” when he establishes the Cult of the Pah-wraiths. Rather successfully too, I might add! He’s got a decent and devoted little cult going, so brainwashed that they don’t bat an eye when he knocks up [at least] one woman, and even convinces them to go full Jonestown to cover his ass.

A little more than a neck lift If other Cardassians thought it was audacious to jump feet first into bed with the Dominion in “By Inferno’s Light” or watch a Pah-wraith possess him for reasons in “Tears of the Prophets,” imagine how Damar feels when he finds Dukat has gotten cosmetic surgery to try to infiltrate the Bajorans’ ranks in “Penumbra.” This guy. Always upping the ante, he is.

I’m just a simple man of the land By the top of the next episode, “‘Til Death Do Us Part,” Dukat has weaseled his way into the good graces of Kai Winn. And an episode after that in “Strange Bedfellows,” he’s weaseled into her bed. We covered all this in the Winn Adami spotlight, but Dukat’s skill at deception and persuasion are rivaled by none. He plays Winn like a fiddle and she loves it!

Feel our love: the love of the Pah-wraiths Okay, the Prophet stuff at the end of the series treads too far into fantasy for me, but what’s perfectly on the nose is both Dukat’s and Winn’s characterization. Dukat so seamlessly plays Winn into the hands of the Pah-wraiths by “Strange Bedfellows” that it is a work of art. And he gets her to read from the Book of the Kosst Amojen in “The Changing Face of Evil,” sealing their fates and bringing the whole series toward its conclusion. Praise be!

—

What a truly audacious journey! That’s everyone from Deep Space Nine I felt like covering in these spotlights, so next week we start revisiting some of our friends from Voyager! Boy, are we missing them during our watchthrough of Enterprise, for which I hope you’re humoring us by following along on SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. Summon the Pah-wraiths with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and see what schemes transpire!

[gayandfairycore]

Nothing is as clear as the clarity of death.

Warning: major character death! Not proofread, Voldemort, blood, slight gore? Violence? All that jazz? Pretty angsty? Readers a selfless girlie, mentions of Lucius cause he’s a warning 🤮

A/n (this is also my first time writing for James so! Aaaaaaa that’s exciting! Also peep the twilight quote in the summary lol)

Characters: James potter x reader, mentions of the marauders, wolf star,

Summary: you never spent much thought as to how you’d die. But dying in place of someone you loved seemed like a pretty good way to go.

Dying was not at all what you had expected, not like this anyway. You didn’t think you’d greet death like an old friend, but then again it was a war. And Wars were never kind, any idiot knew this. Tho it didn’t lesson the sentence of war- of death- it was a tension that hung itself in the air like a branch of a tree, or a sword hanging over your head. Death was the stench that wadded through the air, it was always a matter of who, or why Did it really matter who died in this war against Voldemort? Someone would still give news to grieving families, they’d still say the same thing every time.

“They were very brave in their last moments” or “their sacrifices were not invane”

It was infuriating who gave Voldemort the right to dictate who got to live and die, he was not god.

But It was lucky that you didn’t believe in a god. Because gods relied on beliefs to make them real, you didn’t believe in a god, you were your own in a way.

It safe to say James potter believed in a god, and that was you, he worshipped the ground you walked on, ever since your time at hogwarts together

James potter wasn’t used to anyone caring about him, aside from the marauders but he still felt a yearning for someone to care for him as much as he cared for them, the way the marauders loved was strange but gratifying. But his friends couldn’t fur fill him fully.

There was always a lingering loneliness that etched at the back of his mind, when the laughter and the excitement of the moment died down.

When the day ended and the moon begun to rise and the world began to sleep, did that loneliness sink in, he wanted to have someone love him as much as he loved.

He had given his everything everyday for the past two years asking lily evans out, everytime she said no. He brushed off the hurt but soon it started to fester, the loneliness, the feeling of rejection?

So when he had met you, a transfer student sorted into gryfindor and a fast friend of lily did he finally start to realising there were more people in the world then lily evans.

From your frirst interaction with James feelings began to rise, and sooner rather then later did you get together. James thought the world of you!

He thought you to be the most bewitching person he had ever met, not only were you kind and funny, and could take a joke but you were a fucking badass!

James swore he’d never forget the time you punched lucius in the face for making a younger student cry. He’d never forget the wolf look in your eyes when you witnessed what Lucius was doing.

You weee on your way to potions James by your side, as you indulged in conversations about everything and nothing simultaneously, did you notice a particular group of snakes sneering at someone in the middle of a circle and the sounds of soft sobbing.

Did you break from James’ side, “so, both Remus and I had decided-“ James had cut himself off turning to the spot you previously inhabited before calling a confused “y/n?”

Looking around the halls he watched the back of a h/c girl walk with such furosity towards a large group and silence them all with one look.

Anger roared in your eyes as you walked towards the group your nose flaring with each step your heartbeat loud in your ears.

Before a sharp ringing in your ears had drawn you back into your senses, it had felt like no time had passed but apparently it had. You were standing above a beaten up looking Lucius.

Blood caked his blonde hair, his nose sitting crooked in its place, ever drying blood littered his face as his eyes began to purple. Looking around you at the horrified stares from slytherins who had just witness you pulverise lucius Malloy it had felt oddly gratifying?

Your knuckles busted, skin split, you didn’t come down from the high until halfway through potions. James hadn’t been able to stop gawking at you the whole time you fought Lucius.

He thought it was the hottest thing he’d ever witnessed. He decided then and there that he was going to put a ring on it, and eventually he did.

The potters were a happy bunch of people, despite the war that raged outside, both you and James had both ensured that despite your circumstances you’d always enjoy your time together because you never knew when it would be your last.

You had watched films, and read books, and baked cakes with your small family, you had stayed up late sleeping in the living room in a pillow fort you had built, the first had lush pillows and fairy lights strung up! It had brought a nice warmth to the cool space.

Baby Harry crawling around clumsily had brought such a soft smile to your face, you had always known you’d do anything for your family, that included dying for them.

so when that fateful day came in goddricks hollow, you were prepared to die when your husband had cried out to you “it’s him! He’s here! Voldemort is here! Take Harry and go!”

You couldn’t bring yourself to do it, reconvening with James at the top of the stairwell, the fairy lights strung in the living room had felt like a punch to the gut, the light they exhumed suddenly didn’t feel so warm. It dawned on you You’d never be able to make a fort with your boys again.

And it stung but you knew, you knew you could die happily knowing your boys were safe. Tears welling in your eyes as you glanced at James, placing a hurried kiss on his lips.

As resting your forehead on his, you let out a teary smile, as realisation dawned on James. You were not going to let him sacrifice himself and leave Harry without a father.

It was then and there did he realise that it was always going to be you, no matter what he’d try, you’d always outsmart him you always did. You knew you were going to die for him, the minute he walked into your life.

Whirling you both around you pushed his body into Harry’s nursery, casting a teary eyed glance towards him a sad smile on your face

‘I love you’ you mouthed, as you turned to look down the stairs gaze hardening as you let out a battle cry, surging head first down to face the dark lord.

your expression hard as you stood across from the him, eyeing him with a murderous gaze, you both circled eachother. A cold smirk on his face, you both knew you weren’t winning this fight. Hell, you didn’t even have your wand.

The sound of James appirating was the final straw, you knew they were safe, that that sword that hung over your head had finally snapped. you had protected them and now you could die. but you were not going to die without a fight. You knew it was hopeless but you didn’t care.

The green light that cut through the air like a knife embedded itself in you it’s force spinning you around, as your body hit the floor with bruising force your eyes began to glaze over. The warm fairy lights reflecting in your iris’ as you exhaled a ghost of a smile on your face they were safe.

James had only realised after he had apperated, to Sirius and Remus’ shared apartment did he realise you faced Voldemort alone, and wandless.

He didn’t even realise but cruel sobs broke from James tear streaks drenched his cheeks as he stared up at his friends through his eyelashes, Harry girpped tightly in his arms.

The couple had been taken aback having had their friend just apirate in the middle of their living room Sirius’ paper had dropped clean out of his hands when James appeared. The couple rushing forward to meet James slumped over figure sobs spilling from their cocky friend, They shared a concerned look before beginning their questioning

“What is it mate?”sirius asked-

“What’s happened?” Remus exclaimed-

“where y/n?” They continued-

“She’s-“ James called his voice breaking as he spoke they halted their words, James couldn’t bring himself to say it saying it made it even more real.

“She’s…dead.” He declared bitter resentment for himself clear in his voice. Both Sirius and Remus had felt like they were just stabbed through the heart.

There was silence in the room, the quiet radio that played classical music had even seemingly stopped with the tense mood of the apartment

Before Sirius chuckled

“She can’t be!”he scoffed “I mean cmon? She’s y/n! S-she can’t be…” the black haired boy didn’t want to accept the woman he saw as a sister was dead.

Looking at the faces of his lover and practical brother in hopes it was all a wind up. That she’s just pop up from the cupboard and exclaim

April fools! I’m not dead! This is just a whined up like the good old times!

When there was no response Sirius’ smile dropped his pale hands began to shake.

“She’s? dead.”Sirius spoke,

James barely looked up.

“Shes dead.” He reiterated.

[neteyamb]

ashes to ashes: chapter three

pairing: loak x f!omatikaya reader

summary: as a healer, y/n had taken an oath to treat every patient with their best interests in mind. this hadn’t been a problem, until loak’s petty injuries become a routine. she has to swallow her pride and feign concern, feign kindness, and face the ugly hate that has been brewing between them for years. 

tags: enemies to lovers, slight angst, best friend kiri, mentions of blood, mentions of war, language

word count: 2.2k

notes: you know exactky as much as i do what will happen next. its a secret to the both of us, babe!

⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

billie bossa nova

love when it makes you lose your bearings / it might be more of an obsession / you better lock your phone / and look at me when you're alone / won't take a lot to get you goin' / i'm sorry if it's torture though / that heavy breathin' on the floor / i’m yours, i'm yours 

nova – a star that suddenly increases its light output tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity

when the RDA returned to pandora six years ago, young and promising navi warriors got beaten to a pulp left and right. some of them never made a full recovery. now familiar with human weaponry, the omatikaya were able to push back in the war significantly, but this didn’t come without the help of maiya. she was swift to open the doors of an additional healing hut. moat, as tsahik, had hers located centrally in the village while maiya placed hers on the outskirts; readily able to patch up any injured that limped in from the forest by foot. 

the raids became even more frequent, and maiya was quick to recruit new healers. you were seventeen, and roaming aimlessly with empty hands. while you were capable enough to be a warrior, she had convinced you it was better to have another healer than another soldier in the battlefield. at the time there were–what, three or four healers? and thousands on the frontlines? the ratio wasn’t effective, and she urgently needed help. you promptly agreed.

✶✶✶✶

humiliation twisted in your gut as she spoke. “i will not accept this behaviour in my own hut, y/n. you are too old for this.” you look down at your feet, ears ringing as her sharp voice filled the silent room. “do you know how bad it would look if my own apprentice was the cause of our soldiers’ injuries? i cannot allow it.” she rubbed her temple, sighing in defeat. you choked on the air in your lungs as if you were suffocating under the weight of her disappointment. “fix this,” she muttered, “don’t come back until you do.” 

✶✶✶✶

loak thunders into his family’s hut, arm bloody and face pinched. kiri eyes him from the corner, placing her yarn down carefully. “what happened? you’re walking like an orangutan, i can practically see the stream leaving your ears.” he didn’t appreciate the joke, instead flopping onto his hammock with a defiant grunt. “so broody! loak, c’mon. fess up.” he tries to swat her off his conscious like a bug, but she wasn’t having it. “i can’t weave if you’re gonna be mumbling and grunting every few seconds.” he rolls over to face her begrudgingly, and she raises her eyebrows. her words are firm, and he sighs, giving in. “y/n and i got into a little spat. i’m sure maiya’s getting her good right now for it.” he winces, awaiting her response. he knows how it sounds, but you were a little too good at aggravating him. everytime you’re within his eyesight, his gears start grinding like an explosion in slow motion. you were electric, equal to him in emotion as well as verbal combat.

kiri’s eyes fall on his wounded bicep, and she points. “is this the result?” he’s quick to ease her alarm. “no–no, this is unrelated. that’s actually why i went to see her.” her shoulders relax and she takes her seat again. “grandmother’s hut is far closer. you could just go there.” kiri picked up her yarn once more, fiddling with it as she spoke. loak’s gaze lowered and he chewed his lip, hoping that stubborn silence would end the conversation. “you know, if you just pulled your head out of your ass, she might actually like you. she’s cool like that.” loak suddenly felt restless. he abruptly got to his feet, heading out as quickly as he came. “yeah, yeah.” he muttered under his breath, trying to brush her observations off in vain.

✶✶✶✶

your eyes swelled in frustration as you left the tent, but you were too embarrassed to cry. this was your own doing. your feet padded on the dirt, steadily increasing their speed as you travel deeper into the forest. after running for what felt like hours, the air was bitter in your lungs and they heaved with effort. you crumbled beside a small creek, throat still tight like a vice enveloped it as you dropped your feet in the water. you were unmoving for several minutes. a flat stone flies past your arm, and you look in the direction it came from with trepidation creeping into your muscles. loak follows the flying stone with his eyes as it skips over the water’s surface, face stoic. you don’t relax at the sight of him, instead rigidly turning back to the creek as you anxiously run your tongue over your teeth. 

loak stands still for a moment, staring at the tension in your shoulders before apprehensively sitting down a few feet away from you, letting the water lap at his calves. eyes glued to the folded hands on your thighs, you ask, “why are you here, loak?” with quiet defeat in your tone. he begins absentmindedly moving his feet in the water. “i probably shouldn't have done that back there. it crossed a line.” you scowl at your hands, uncomfortable with his pity. “i don’t know what you’re talking about,” you bristle. there were never apologies, never any outright confrontations like this. not with loak. he throws his head back, sighing through his teeth at the clouds above as a silent plea for the virtue of patience. “cut that shit out. i know she yelled at you.” his eyes drop, watching as you twist your hands. “thanks for the pity, you can be on your way now.” you snap, challenging him as your narrowed eyes bore into his own. 

loak huffed exasperatedly, laying on his back as his feet swayed in the cool water. “when my dad found out the RDA was back, he really grilled us with training. more than before. i got yelled at left and right,” he licks his lips, aware of your now attentive gaze on him. “and it fucking sucked. i’m just saying, i get it.” you hummed lowly, pursing your lips and pinching your brows together. “you probably had it coming,” you inhale sharply through your mouth, “but yeah. it fucking sucks.” this was uncomfortable; toying with an unspoken boundary. you didn’t like the vulnerability that hung in the air. 

you bite the bullet. you knew you had to have a word with him eventually, for maiya, but you didn’t expect it to happen when you were still licking your wounds. “maybe i shouldn’t be beating people up in a healing hut.” laughter rolls through his torso, hands on his stomach. “you did not beat me up, y/n.” you allow a small smile to play at your lips, cautiously shuffling closer. if he noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. 

the two of you sat awkwardly by the creek for some time. loak confided in you about how he felt he didn’t belong in his father’s squad, and you did the same. the conversation was timid, unsure, but wholehearted. as you spoke, his eyes fell to the dip in your cupid’s bow before snapping back up to your bright eyes. it happened so fast, he was sure you weren’t aware. to put it plainly, loak was nervous. your closeness made his heart pound in his chest, and he struggled to control his breathing. he didn’t know where to look; your eyes felt too intimate, but if his were to wander it would be moreso. he restricted himself to watching the gentle breeze rock the water, but still your voice infiltrated his ears, your scent filled his nose. you were overwhelming, everywhere, and it made him uneasy. 

✶✶✶✶

loak had walked back with you to the village, tail stiff behind him. you now stood outside of maiya’s hut, fretfully alternating your weight on each foot as you listened to her soft hums inside. you were close to chickening out, but before you dejectedly turned back, you hear her sigh. “come inside, maite.” you suck in a breath before lifting the entrance flap, looking sheepish. “i am so sorry, maiya. it’s been resolved. please forgive me.” the words are escaping your mouth like vomit. she rests a heavy hand on your shoulder and rustles your hair with a soft smile on her face. “all is well. come, i need a second opinion on this paste.” she turns back towards the counter, mixing peacefully. you’re rooted to the ground for a moment, processing her words slowly, before stepping to her side. 

the sky had grown dark, and you put your fingers to your forehead to bid maiya farewell. as you walked home, something curled in the pit of your stomach. you were sure you had overshared with loak, and regret was creeping its way into your mind. only when you climbed into your hammock did it begin to unfurl. it was unlike him to reach out to you like he had, and you feel skeptical about the unfamiliarity of the situation. hopefully, it was a misnomer you could write off.

✶✶✶✶

it was noon, and loak was flying his ikran closely above the treetops alongside his dad, brother, and a handful of other warriors. the raid had gone as planned, but there were knicks from bullets painting his skin and he was almost positive there was blood running down his spine. as they landed, loak removed his queue from the animal and walked wearily with heavy footing towards his grandmother’s hut; the fact that it was closer than yours and he was exhausted was a bonus, but his main concern was the on-edge feeling you had given him the day before. had he made a mistake, allowing himself to be close to you? he didn’t have the energy to entertain that line of thought. loak peeks into the entrance to find his grandmother already working on several of his colleagues, most of which are substantially more injured than he is. moat sees his shadow on the floor and looks up, pulling a tight smile. “tìrol, i am afraid i cannot assist you right now. will you need help getting to maiya?” he grimaced internally, before responding, “no grandmother, i’ll be alright. thank you.” 

he departed swiftly, feeling pain shoot up his left leg with every step. you were prepared with abundant supplies, already tending to one other navi soldier. in the entrance, he watched your brows pinch as you stitched up a deep gash in the man's thigh. maiya wasped around you, analyzing your skill as she prepared gauze for the wound. loak almost forgot why he was here, why he didn’t come here sooner. his eyes drank in your graceful movements; after you expressed your lack of confidence in being a proper healer, he was sure you would go pale at serious injuries, but instead you worked fast and calm. he watched your hands caress the skin with calculated movements, watched as your smooth voice eradicated the fear in the warrior’s eyes. only when maiya took over with the gauze did you see him in the entrance, stricken with grief at your skill. 

for an awful moment, there were flashes of envy in his gut; he had devoted his life to reminding you that he was better than you, but you were here all this time actively making a difference in the clan while he disappeared into a sea of identical soldiers. and the way the warrior looked at you kindly, with blind appreciation–he had never been able to wear that look on his face with you. loak suddenly feels cheated by life; it was really that easy? his gut became heavy. you offer him a clipped smile, motioning him inside. feeling sick, he was grateful to take a seat on the mat, tucking his legs underneath his thighs in earnest. “how are you feeling?” you ask, already bringing an array of remedies to the mat. “tired,” he mumbles distantly. you trip over your words, embarrassed at his blunt misunderstanding; surely asking on his emotional wellbeing was too intimate? “i mean–well, are there–do you feel any pain anywhere?” he feels dumb, a blush beginning to raise on his neck. “my leg hurts,” he admits uncomfortably. you nod, holding your hands out apprehensively in question.

loak understands, unfolding his legs and pushing the left one towards you silently. you feel for any fracture or break in bone, and allow yourself to breath out when there aren’t any. still, you apply a numbing cream and move to his back. your fingers were so light on his spine they almost tickled, and he shifted awkwardly under your touch. he prayed wordless thanks that he wasn’t in need of stitches; he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. tentatively, you fill the heavy silence. “okay, i think you’ll be fine–” your breath hitches as you move around to his front, catching his dazed eyes with your own. your interactions with loak now felt clumsy, full of doubt and hesitancy, and you didn’t like it; you could no longer predict his thoughts, much less his next move. he clenches his jaw and brings a shaky hand to the floor, pushing himself up and moving his eyes away from you. “thanks, i’ll be on my way now.” you share a look with maiya as he walks off, still shaking.

⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

notes: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

taglist: @weasleytwinwheezes

[raevulsix]

Clarification for Death and Dark Troopers; TBB & Mandalorian & Rebels ties + Popular Theories

Disclaimer: This is why shows like The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian were created. To give answers to the mess the Sequels also caused in the timelines. So I already assumed most characters in these shows will result in ultimate tragic fates to explain the creation of certain experiments like Death and Dark Troopers and other kind of unanswered questions in the movies and even certain ties with Video Games and Comics.

I have literally been reading just about every wild theory of what will result in the outcome of the Bad Batch and the later events of the creation of Death and Dark Troopers; as well as the events of the Mandalorian and Rebels beginning to tie to one another. So I want to clarify some things because I know most have been getting a few things very wrong on what is what and the terms used for these guys, as the timelines that parallel with certain shows like the Mandalorian and the Bad Batch, and Rebels. So first things first, Death and Dark troopers are both VERY different from one another. 

Dark Troopers

The Dark Troopers however do not show up until later to eliminate rebel bases during the destruction of the first Death Star. And these were also the next generation of Phase Zero prototypes, so completely more ‘battle droids’ than flesh. 

Now, the first test subjects here were for the project of Phase Zero Dark Troopers. These fellas pop up right about the timeline when Anakin becomes Darth Vader, and experiments begin to unravel below the Empire of what was being done to Veteran Clone Troopers. They were CYBORGS. Part flesh and machine. Not droids.  70% of a clone trooper was replaced by mechanical components. Any missing organ or limb were prosthetics.  

The fate of the Phase Zero Dark Trooper resulted in shut down due to failure because these guys began to defect in ways were most became suicidal due to the fact they were more machine than man, so it was eventually seized.

Phase Zero troopers were deployed around the time of the Battle of Yavin.

[Movies that connect to this is Rogue One after Scarif.]

[We see versions of the Dark Trooper in Live action The Mandalorian, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, and certain other Canon Video Games.]

The one of many Popular Fan Theories regarding The Bad Batch

[Warning to minor Triggers]

Tech. This is why even I along with a few others in the community had joked about a ‘Winter Soldier Tech’ being part of this Phase 0 Dark Trooper theory (mostly also due to denial of his fate & state). To simplify, a fall like the one we sadly seen happen to our beloved Batcher could of resulted in extreme injury even Death.

Falling at such altitudes even with water below will result in Death. I have studied a few forensics to know that falling in a very unprepared state into water is like slapping oneself into flat concrete. You will become pieces and literal mush. 

However, this further theory also comes from the fact that in Season 1, we see fellow Batcher, Hunter, take a fall off the Marauder at a pretty great altitude, that forensically speaking, would have been a deadly freak accident to a normal person. Yet he managed to walk away a bit injured and beaten, so it raised a conclusion if this had to do with any enhancements to his physical state to be able to handle heavy injury upon certain heavy impacts.

Back to Tech—The only way I could see him barely cling to life is noting that the terrain in the background, even if barely visible due to the fog, seemed rigid with mountain peaks and dense forest. The train would had to have gotten caught in these peaks if present below which is not far fetched since the train was pretty large in size. However, this meant Tech, upon impact, because he was held tied to the train by a string, would have swung into those rocks violently a few times hitting any obstacle around. And we know he seems to be the least fragile of the Batch, so this itself could result in broken limbs or heavier injury, and even explain why most of his armor could stay intact or scattered, but scuffed and dented by the impact.

This idea was brought to me by the state of his goggles and I believe because of that, there was retrieval of his body or part of it.  This is where sadly, some including myself theorized, that replacing limbs or organs with prosthetics and mechanical components will signify the beginning of the research and creation of The Phase Zero Dark Trooper. 

(However, this theory also will take years into the making, but not far from the timeline when it does become reality.)

It boggles my mind that Hamlock flew right in like a scavenger to retrieve anything from the crash site. Why? Because Tech is one of the few enhanced clones the Empire had, and this is a prized possession regardless of any state any biological retrieval would be in. DNA can still be extracted from tissue, and better yet if it was in a recent disease state. 

Death Troopers

Now, the

Death Trooper

. 

These were part of a Research Project Emperor Palpatine set to literally retrieve ‘Necrotic Tissue’. In lesser words, kind of bring the dead back to life or certain dead cells to life again.  In other words, nearly a creating zombie-like state troopers.  > However this also came from a NON-CANON Legends novel “Death Troopers”. A gruesome story of a zombie-like lethal disease spread in the “Imperial Prison Barge, Purge”. 

In canon, the Death Trooper is more of an enhanced elite troopers trained to specialize in special heavy combat and weapons like demolition and marksmanship,  and had to meet certain criteria like height, build, intelligence and success rates from their piers . They did also undergo certain “surgical upgrades”, giving them the ability to be nearly super human. Their Lethal rates were high and successful, almost leaving no evidence behind when stationed on their missions. [Note that there were however rumors of these troopers to be the result of a top secret Imperial Military Project to reanimate the Dead.]

[We see these in Rogue One, Rebels, The Mandalorian, Andor, and even certain Video Games and comics.]

Yet another one of the many Popular Fan Theories regarding the Bad Batch

Crosshair. His new armor resembling the popular Death Trooper Armor, and his height, ability, and willing to take lethal measures to accomplish missions all ringed bells to it. Plus, he is a marksman. The many more reasons that tie him to this theory is that Death Troopers specialized in Marksmanship, too. 

It doesn’t have to be clearly Crosshair to also be the one to go into this, any extraction of DNA to create even more clones alike himself can also happen. He is still a heavy needed key subject to do that, though. 

This post can also be updated or reblogged with your own thoughts. Make it a thread, I like to hear more about Theories. If you want me to submit your theory and get tagged to it? I can do that, too. I just like to hear all of it. Even if its to cope with denial after events like The Bad Batch, I like to know anyones takes or if you need Comfort building. Theories are simply conspiracy and not facts, at the end of it. 

[tunashei]

First Impression of Animorphs!

I'm listening to the Animorphs series while I work, through Animorphs Aloud - a fan made reading of the series. Here are my first impressions/random thoughts about them! Spoilers below if you haven't read them.

Book 8: The Alien

OOOOOOH AX POV! Ax Pov! This is not a drill! I am so hype

Oh the mental imagery of Ax watching the space battle above him while sitting alone in this artificial dome is so...so emotional. The strange disconnect of watching helplessly in a veritable garden of eden as your brother and others fight above you in the cold vacuum of space. I'd like to draw it

And then the absolute terror of being ejected from your ship and falling into the ocean of the nearby planet. Stuck beneath miles of water pressing down on you. Chills

Also now I'm really curious what the surface of the sea looks like if you're looking up at from below many miles

Ooooh we got little diary entries! Very amusing! This book is starting off so strong

Loving the amount of planning for taking Ax to a movie, they've learnt from previous times!

One of the reasons I was so excited for Ax pov is stuff like learning all these Andalite words, and bits of biology, the different ways of observing things. Alien perspective is so interesting

Confession time, I listened to this book before Megamorphs 1 which is before this book in the timeline. So I had no idea was a Veleek was and was rather confused they'd beaten one

I love the regular forays into Ax's Adventures with Food. Please don't eat cigarettes baby

I was cracking up at work for this whole sequence. Got some funny looks.

Going to make a prediction. Seerow's Kindness is referring to Andalites helping out the Yeerks somehow. Also Seerow is Visser Three's Andalite Host.

My man eat with he feet

I'm so here for Ax and Tobias best buds friendship

Ax confirmed canonically hetero this is a sad day for us all :(

Ok why after the semi-disaster of the movies would you take Ax to school, that is one of the most stressful confusing environments for anyone. Also schools have registers they're not going to just let you bring in a new kid

Unless maybe the teacher won't care because they've got a bloody Yeerk dying in their head! The book has predicted this predicament!

However, very unrealistic that the kids fled the room instead of crowding around the freaking-out teacher. You'd spend 20 minutes chasing them out the room and they'd still crowd around the door peeping in.

Oh this is...a bad thing to have hidden Ax. Poor Jake. This whole conversation is very tense. Ax bringing up his brother as if to remind Jake he's already lost HIS brother to this war

Ax is always described as blue-and-tan, implying he's more blue than tan. I have a hard time believing people would think he's a deer from a distance considering his colours

Huh...wouldn't it be weird to never have moonless nights? The stars are always brightest on those days, great for stargazing. I wonder how bright the night would be if you had multiple moons. Or would it not be additive?

Fascinating evolutionary implications from a species having a biological clock that makes them war every 62 years. Some kind of mass population cull? Ensuring only the strongest breed?

Ok this is pretty funny but actually made me reconsider how we appreciate stuff?? Actually kind of mindblowing. We really don't appreciate food as an art form. After I'd listened to this bit at work, my boss gave us all a tin of chocolates. Ate them on the way home and took some time to really savour the flavour. My life is being enriched by these books.

'He was a male-as all human fathers are' Implication Andalites can have female fathers??? Maybe. Would be cool.

Ax totally winning at social interaction

Aw Ax, you are being very brave :(

Huh so this Yeerk controller loved another Yeerk? I could have sworn in a previous book it said they were incapable of love, I think the one where Jake gets infested

Poor Ax. You really feel his struggle in being compared to his brother, now having to take the blame

The yeerk just fuckin bailed out the andalite?! I was not expecting this. You beat Visser Three?!

Aight so the Visser's andalite was not Seerow. He's just...some guy. Ngl was hoping for a bit more info on that, I've been very curious how Visser Three got an andalite which no other Yeerk has acomplished

Although...they're on the home world? Maybe there are other andalite controllers. Ruh roh

You guys are absolutely going to regret not putting this andalite out of his misery. He's literally begging for death and you know the horrors of being infested, and will be an incredibly powerful enemy again if you leave him. I mean, you couldn't even try to lug him out of there? How many people are going to end up killed in the future because Visser Three remains an andalite?

Called it on Seerow's Gift being helping the Yeerks. I kind of get it though I'd feel sorry for any sapient species that had to life it's entire life as a slug in a pool

Winced when Ax confessed his fears of giving humans help that would lead them to be conquerors, and Marco brushing it off. Humans would absolutely become conquerors, it's in our history

Wow. This is definitely my favourite book so far. I expected it would be, I'm very into xenofiction (when a book is written from a non-human perspective) but I think the emotional journey was also great in this. The ending was a bit quick and weak. But overall great.