#more like three of crows

[ineffablelvrs]

"three tickets for the barbie movie, please"

[axel-tiredstudent]

Sneak peak! 1 of the 10 characters I've done (so far)

[july-19th-club]

seven or eight times now ive watched the episodes in which they take the andromache and this is the first time ive realized that during the initial battle, after they board, every time the camera is from dufresne's perspective it's blurrier than otherwise because. he took his glasses off for the fight

[wylanslcve]

The piano scene in S2E3 is somehow talked about SO MUCH but also not enough, and I know that doesn't make sense but hear me out. Wylan has been in the Barrel for how long with nothing from his life before, only the decency he stubbornly clings to (hence why he initially refused to make bombs for Kaz, but his desperation got the better of him) and, if we use the information from the books, his flute. And we know the significance of music in Wylan's identity: he used it to hide his disability by setting whatever was read aloud to him to a melody in his head; the music room was the only place in his father's house he was ever happy in; and, in Crooked Kingdom, he recalls sitting at the piano bench with his mother, and it's one of the few memories he has of her because she "died" when he was young, so of course his memory of her is going to be a bit foggy.

Music wasn't something he got so good at to win his father's approval the way science and maths were - music was always his. It's what makes him Wylan and not Jan Van Eck's son, and being in the Barrel has tried to separate him from that part of his identity. Yes, he plays his flute in S2E1, but he plays it out of desperation. How long has it been since he's played music because of how connected he is to it, not because he needs money? It's something he yearns to do, and so when he and Jesper break into Pekka's country estate, Wylan doesn't take his eyes off the piano when he notices it - not even while Jesper is talking to him. He yearns to feel the press of the piano keys beneath his fingers, for the comfort playing music always gave him, and I think this is beautifully signified in that frame where presses the broken piano key: he so desperately wants that comfort and security, but can't have it.

Even though it looks like he sits at the piano to encourage Alby to keep playing, it's more so because he couldn't pass up the opportunity to do what he's yearned to do for so long. It's only 30ish seconds, but he loses himself in the music he plays, in that security he's sought since he first arrived in the Barrel. He's reliving sitting at the piano bench with his mother, and a show headcanon I have is that this little piece of music was something Marya taught him or wrote for him or something he wrote for her. Either way, it's made him lose himself in those happy childhood memories of him playing the piano with her.

Then that momentary peace and comfort is snatched away from him as he snaps back to reality. He's not at his father's house playing piano with his mother: he's in the Barrel, wrapped up in the company of literal criminals, and his mother's been dead since he was eight (well, we know she isn't dead, but he doesn't). His guard goes back up, and he goes back to being Wylan Hendriks, the demolitions expert keeping a privileged past and childhood traumas close to his chest, the boy who was desperate enough to start playing criminal with a band of thugs and thieves.

(gif by me, scene credits go to @/autumnspacks on ig)

[matchamabs]

idk where i chatted abt mama joining the layton crew for an adventure n i cant believe i havent drawn it sooner. i was gonna draw mama and emmy fighting but why pit two bad bitches against each other??

mama assistant abilities include: feeding luke, punching policemen, driving without a license

[levi-venn]

Tech and Crow

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 (Final) Available also on AO3)

On Eriadu, statistically speaking, humanoids died more often from unnatural causes than old age.

Seventy percent perished from animal attacks.

Ten from disease.

Eighteen percent from venomous plants. 

One-point-ninety nine percent from the Empire.

The remaining zero-point-zero-one percent were given to those flinging themselves from a moving monorail car to save their siblings from death.

Eriadu is not an ideal place to die, Tech thought, midfall. But it’s preferable to dying on a fool’s mission for Sid.

For a few treasured seconds he seemed to be floating rather than falling, the cloud cover making it near impossible to orient himself in any direction, though his stomach was telling him his back would meet the ground first. It would be a painful, but hopefully quick death.

The trees, however, had other ideas, both on how Tech would land, and whether he would survive or not.

The first branch shattered against Tech’s pauldron sending him spinning. Another branch broke against his shin guard. There was a nest of twigs, cotton, and unfertilized eggs that slammed into his helmet essentially blinding him.

As he continued in this downward spiral he attempted to quantify how many branches were needed to slow his fall and increase his survival rate. The fact he was hitting branches once every half second told him the odds were in his favor. Evidently, the Eriadian redwood forest was an ideal place to free fall from a considerable height.

Good to know.

While he couldn't control the rate in which he was falling, nor the amount of branches he was shattering, he did manage to land on his back. And in doing so, he jettisoned the remaining breath from his lungs.

He lay there, very still, unfortunately awake, and gasping for air that wouldn't come. Darkness crept around the edge of his vision. He struggled to stay awake. Struggled to breathe. Panic was rising within him.

There is no need to panic, he tried to remind himself. This is just a reaction to present trauma. There is no immediate danger. Breathe...breathe...

Even as the breath returned to him, a new problem arose. He couldn't slow his breathing down, nor calm his heart rate, and the anxiety frayed his nerves as if he were still falling. 

He tried a different tactic: He recalculated the unnatural death toll on Eriadu:

Seventy percent perished from animal attack.

Ten from disease.

Eighteen percent from venomous plants. 

And now two percent from the Empire.

As a youngling, Tech's exceptional mind had mastered every intellectual acuity test presented to him. However, no amount of brilliance would help him when it came to combat training. All altered clones had a defect in one form or another. His came in the shape of bowed and twisted legs, not suitable for a soldier.

It was logical that the Kaminoans broke his legs to reset them. Logical and agonizing. Tech was bed-ridden for weeks. 

They gave him a datapad filled with as much reading material as he could absorb, but even then there was no distracting him from the pain nor the panicked episodes that came with it.

He didn’t want visitors. Didn’t want to appear weak to his brothers. Soldiers weren’t bed-ridden. Soldiers didn’t cry from fear of an uncertain future.

Crosshair ignored Tech’s request for isolation. He appeared every day, three times a day, always for meals. He claimed he was just there to steal Tech’s bread roll, but he only ever took a bite and stayed long after Tech ate the rest of the meal.

Crosshair wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he would sit on the edge of Tech’s bed, cleaning his beloved DC-15A cadet blaster rifle, and casually ask Tech questions. 

“Why do Kaminoans have such long necks?”

“Who would win in a fight? A Jedi with a vibroblade or a Mandalorian with a lightsaber?”

“How many B1s would it take to equal the power of Jango Fett?”

Tech stared up at the Eriadian sky, mostly obscured by broken branches and his cracked and smudged lens. 

He’d give anything for one of Crosshair’s thinly veiled questions to distract him from the pain and panic.

And truly...he’d give anything to see Crosshair again, regardless.  

***

It took fourteen days and seventeen hours to find Mount Tantiss on the planet, Weyland. It would have taken half that time if Tech had his goggles, a working datapad, and (admittedly) his siblings. Fourteen days was plenty of time to heal his body from its fall, but even at peak condition the climb up the mountain was arduous. Tedious even. Slower as he had to make camp and find food and disarm Imperial sensors the whole way up.

Seventy-eight hours later, he found himself at the base of the Imperial science facility. 

He also found himself exhausted.

“Come on, Tech! You can do it!” Hunter had cheered all those years ago as young Tech clung to the middle rung of the monkey-lizard bars high over the training grounds. The platform might as well be located on another planet.

Tech’s legs had been reset the previous year. He was fully healed. There was no excuse for this fragility. Yet his muscles shook with effort, sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes.

“I’m gonna get him,” Wrecker said.

“No!” Hunter pulled his brother back. “He can do it!”

“No, he can’t! Look at him!” Wrecker whined, face full of worry. 

“C’mon, Tech! A little further!” Hunter looked worried too, even as he cheered his brother on. 

Even as Tech’s grip began to slip.

To this day, Tech didn't remember Crosshair's reaction to his failure that day. What was the point of recalling it, anyway?

Utterly meaningless, he always told himself when he'd try to recall. And he would attempt this often.

***

A carrion crow visited Tech the morning after he collapsed from fatigue a kilometer from the science facility. 

The corvid landed on his back, then proceeded to hop in little circle as if Tech was his own personal, albeit ineffective, trampoline.

Tech hadn’t noticed he had become an amusement ride for the crow until it cawed rather rudely and directly into his ear.

Jolting awake at the caustic alarm, Tech jumped to his feet, pulling his blaster and pointing it at...a few feathers that had been jostled from the startled bird. The crow landed on a nearly smooth boulder nearby, croaking as if flabbergasted by the audacity of Tech’s reaction, then flew off in a cackling rage.

The day was spent doing recon of the area. The sheer density of this side of the jungle kept troopers away, and by nightfall Tech had made a decent, albeit temporary, base.

That evening Tech dreamed.

“You remember ‘C’, don’t you?” Tech asked the small boy sitting beside him. It was a very real memory, but his subconscious twisted timelines, making him a fully grown adult sitting next to a small, gray-haired boy hunched over the datapad, stylus awkward in his little fingers.

“I remember,” Crosshair said, stubbornly, stylus making a vertical line.

“C is for curved,” Tech recited the pneumonic, smiling to himself as Crosshair quickly readjusted his stylus, making a shaky but clear C.

“Now an ‘R’.”

Crosshair hissed in frustration, stylus lifting and lowering onto the screen making little angry dots on the workbook page. “I don’t want to.”

“Shall we do it together?” Tech asked.

“No,” Crosshair insisted, even as he sat closer to Tech and leaned against him. Tech put his hand over his brother's to guide him. “Up, and around, and down to the ground.” Tech said.

“I can do ‘O’ by myself,” Crosshair said, pushing Tech’s hand off of his own, though he still leaned against Tech as he drew a mathematically perfect circle. 

The dream had taken liberties, but the scene was more or less how Tech remembered Crosshair writing his name for the first time. The dream neglected to recall Crosshair asking Tech not to tell their brothers that he struggled to write his own name.

But Tech was allowed to know. Only Tech. And Tech kept his word to this day.

“Let’s see how you did,” Tech said, in this more or less accurate dream.

He picked up the datapad and read in perfectly block letters.

[H E L P  M E]

Tech startled awake. 

He told himself it was just a dream. Memories and information and out of context stimuli colliding together into something nonsensical.

Utterly meaningless, he told himself, even as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.

It was still night. The moonlight punched its way through the canopy of trees, offering illumination that only helped to remind Tech just how alone he was on this mountain.

Actually, Tech corrected, the moon doesn’t illuminate anything. The light I’m seeing is a reflection of the sun. 

This factoid did little to alleviate the situation. 

But he felt better acknowledging it.

***

The crow returned the next morning holding something in its beak: a small pinecone, young and green. The pinecone had no nutritional value to the corvid, nor was it proper nesting material.

Crows have been known to offer gifts as a sign of gratitude for an agreeable exchange or action.

The gift was obviously not for Tech considering he had pulled a blaster on the corvid upon their first meeting.

Who are you giving your gifts to? Tech wondered. A bored trooper? A sensitive officer? A desperate prisoner?

“A desperate prisoner wouldn’t sacrifice food for trinkets,” he concluded to the crow.

The crow hopped around the boulder once, twice, then flew directly at Tech, who ducked just as the crow smacked a wing against his head mid-flight. Even with the pinecone in his beak, Tech swore he could hear a throaty cackle.

Tech continued his recon of the science facility as best he could without being discovered. Getting close to the building wasn’t an issue, it was getting near anything resembling an entrance that was the issue. He had one blaster against an unknown amount of guards, which meant all he could do was recon. And then he would fill his siblings in when they arrived.

It never occurred to him his brothers and sister wouldn’t eventually come to the same conclusion as he. They would find this planet. They would find Tech and receive his very useful intel, and then they would save Crosshair. The squad would finally be reunited.

It would all work out. It had to.

He couldn’t afford to think of the alternative. Worrying about it was useless.

Utterly meaningless…

***

The next morning, he awoke before dawn. No crow was waiting for him.

Trying a different tactic, he broke off a bit of plastoid from his cracked pauldron and set it on the crow’s boulder.

He waited.

Just after dawn, the crow landed on the boulder, cawing immediately at Tech, feathers literally and proverbially ruffled at an unauthorized object occupying his boulder.

But then the corvid calmed, eyeing the object properly, pecking at it as if appraising its value.

“I assure you, it is of a high-quality material,” Tech told the crow. “The fact it is broken means it worked as intended. It did not survive the fall so that I could.”

The crow listened, or at least stared at Tech with intensely black eyes, and then decided - perhaps entirely on his own - to take the plastoid and fly off.

This time Tech ran after crow. 

As he hypothesized, the crow flew directly towards the science facility.

Tech kept his goggleless eyes to the sky as he ran, thanking his imperfect genetics that he was far-sighted, allowing him to track the crow in his pursuit. So long as the crow didn't require him to read a datapad, he only needed to worry about the thick underbrush tearing his compromised under-armor, thorny vines scratching his cheeks, and the uneven ground threatening to trip and trap him.

“Come on, Tech! You can do it!” Hunter’s words echoed in his mind. He chose not to think of Wrecker’s face full of doubt. The crack in Hunter’s voice betraying his words.

Actually, Tech realized. I can do it. 

A crow is capable of flying over ninety kilometers an hour. Tech, even at his healthiest, could reach thirty kilometers an hour.

The crow wants me to follow him, but to where?

As if to answer, the crow suddenly dove towards a hole in the fortress and Tech skidded to a stop just below it.

He gazed quietly at the barred window approximately seven meters above him, the crow’s tail feathers twitching and wiggling as it seemed to be eating something on the sill. 

And then he saw it. Briefly. A flash of familiar fingers. Long and callused and always itching to pull a trigger. 

Fingers that used to wrap around Tech’s hand when the lightning was too bright outside. Fingers that would hold soggy bread in the rain, hoping to conjure a bird that would never come. Fingers that could draw shaky C's and perfect circles.

I found you, Tech thought, his heartbeat growing irregular from this sudden turn of events. Now to get your attention.

***

“Where the hell are your goggles?”

It wasn’t not the first question Tech expected, but a fair one nonetheless.

Tech touched his temple reflexively, trying to adjust goggles that clearly weren’t there. “A long story that I can narrate at a later time. Are you hurt?”

Crosshair pressed his forehead against the bars. “What do you think?”

It wasn’t the answer Tech had hoped to hear.

“How did you know the crow was coming to my cell?” Crosshair asked.

“You used to birdwatch when we were children. That combined with the lack of incentive for anyone on this base to feed a carrion bird. It was obvious. So I gave the corvid a message to give to you.”

“His name is Egg.”

“Egg?” Tech frowned up at Crosshair. “Why is his name Egg?”

“He likes Eggs.”

“So, by that logic, if he enjoyed Colo Claw Fish-”

“Does it look like they feed me sushi here?”

Tech raised a finger…then lowered it. “Point taken.” 

“How are you going to get me out of here?” Crosshair asked. His head disappeared from view a few times and Tech assumed it was to ensure they were speaking privately.

“We’re going to wait for our siblings to retrieve us,” Tech answered.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“When are they coming?”

“I’m uncertain.”

“Then how do you know they are coming?” Crosshair asked and the crow - Egg - seemed to echo with an indignant craah. 

“Because they were searching for you when we were separated, and I managed to find you on my own. Given that they are lacking my brilliant mind, it may take some time, but I am sure they will figure it out, find the path to Mount Tantiss and we will be reunited...eventually.”

“Eventually…fantastic,” Crosshair hissed.

It could have been Tech’s impaired vision, but it looked like both Crosshair and the crow rolled their eyes at the same time. 

Tech had missed his brother’s sarcastic wit terribly.

Even if it was directed at him. 

Part 3: Cross and Tech and Egg

[caramelmochacrow]

the girls as text posts (part 2?)

[hereforthecartoons]

Satellite Boys Headcannons

Yusei is a he/they bi, Crow is a transmasc gay/asexual, and Jack is a very loud straight ally.

Aki and Carly and super into horror movies, which really sucks for Jack and Yusei who are really not into horror movies. Yusei can handle most gore, but psychological horrors really mess with him. Jack can't handle gore beyond a stab wound, but he doesn't really mind psychological horrors because he's just like 'nah im just built different (dumber)'

Crow is very superstitious, much like Martha. Knocking on wood, being wary of the number 13, throwing salt over your shoulder (though that one is kinda justified considering spirits are like a real thing in ygo) are all stuff he does on the regular

Crow is the only person in the house who can cook. Yusei has never touched an oven in his life because he's spent half of it forgetting to eat, and Jack is... Jack.

In between the three of them, Jack has caused the most property damage. This is very impressive considering Yusei likes to kick down every door he can't open, regardless of the situation. He can lock pick, he just decides not to most of the time. Crow is usually more sneaky when trying to get into places he's not supposed/allowed to, though he's not above shattering a few windows for fun. Jack just likes blowing stuff up.

Neither Jack or Yusei have gotten their ears pierced (Jack wears clip-ons), because Crow has told them horror stories of what happened when he got his ears pierced in prison and how horribly infected they got (he told them this with a bright smile because he thought itd impress them and has yet to realize the mental ramifications it has had on his family)

Hogan is Martha's last name.

Jack has the most refined fighting style, mainly sticking to hard-hitting punches that can knock you out in one blow. Yusei's is more of a freestyle, mixing both fast punches and kicks to knock someone down as quickly as possible. Crow fights like a kindergartner, with biting, hair-pulling, spitting in your eye being some of his go-to tactics. Crow has nearly bitten off someone's finger before, and is not afraid to do it again.

Crow has only ever served his full jail sentence once. Every other time he's broken out.

All three of them participate in the twin's school activities in some way. Crow and Yusei usually go to the PTA meetings, and Jack usually goes to things like sporting events because he is too competitive for his own good and nobody can stop him.

[kazz-brekker]

my fellow kaz brekker fans while waiting for sab renewal/soc spinoff announcement i IMPLORE you to go read the rook & rose trilogy by m.a. carrick. the first book is called the mask of mirrors and among other things (swashbuckling masked vigilantes, secret societies up to no good, long cons to infiltrate the rich and steal all their money) it also features my other favorite crime lord, derossi vargo, well-dressed possessor of both a sword cane and a pet spider, who is literally always scheming and double-crossing people and is also very tightly wound and secretive and has hidden childhood trauma around disease

[squuote]

hey…anyone know any good tsp fics I don’t feel like searching through the tags to find some…

[the-halfling-prince]

Shawn Hunter fans will look at any line from Round Here by Counting Crows and go "Is anyone gonna turn that into a fic title?" And not wait for an answer

[whimsicallywiddershins]

So who else watched the second season of Shadow and Bone by skipping all the Darkling bits, most of the Alina bits, and instead gleefully hyperfocusing on all the Crows? And then, when the season was over, went back and rewatched all of the Crows scenes?

[kingspuppet]

––––This is for OUR justice! But this isn't you...

(Picrew)

[phonoix]

I-i... I don't know how to feel about season 2...

The more I look at it and the more I'm turning into one of those "well this didn't happen in the books" fans.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE SHOW?

Don't get me wrong I'm excited they're back, I really am. But I just feels like I'm watching a totally different thing and it's really hard trying to concentrate on the show plotline while knowing what I know from the trilogy books.

[tristealven]

my summer holiday is coming to an end

[caramelmochacrow]

thinking abt 3 of my friends from. like. 3 years ago??? (idk anymore) and how they reacted so calmly to me coming out as trans when i was half unsure abt myself. like, !?!?!?!? WHAT. i literally told them i wanted to be a guy and they were chill abt it. like, so chill.

i wish i remembered that before i did some crazy mind gymnastics to make me think i wasnt. but eh im alright w it now.