#omigod this just made my whole day!!

[starplusfourletters]

I finally finished the last command

and it was a romp (spoilers)

Chewie spends the whole book on the edge of a nervous breakdown but buddy you very much did that to yourself. Sure, you swear a life debt to a guy who turns out to be One of the People in the Galaxy That Things Just Keep Happening To. Bad luck, bound to happen sometimes. But then you decide that life debt extends to his wife knowing FULL WELL that Even More Things Just Keep Happening to HER, and then they go and have TWINS? That’s on you, bud.

Mara “I still do want revenge on Luke Skywalker yes definitely now hold that thought I need to go risk my life to save Leia and the twins” Jade. Mara you’re embarrassing yourself.

Actual conversation:

Leia: Thanks again for saving my life. Mara: Don’t thank me until after I’ve killed Luke which I still absolutely want to do. Leia: So uhhh why’d you do it? Mara: I’m just opposed to kidnapping. Leia: Were you kidnapped? Mara: I dOn’T wAnT tO tAlK aBoUt iT yes. Leia: ... Mara: YOU THINK THIS IS ABOUT MY TROUBLED PAST?? Leia: … Mara: BECAUSE IT’S NOT Leia: … Mara: Anyway here’s the information only I can provide that will turn the tide of the war. It’s free. Friends and family discount. Leia: Thanks. Mara: I’M STILL GOING TO KILL YOUR BROTHER Leia: That’s nice, dear.

MY KINGDOM FOR GHENT. His dad boss forgets to pick him up from AV Club so he spends two months wandering unrestricted through the capital building and then cracks Enigma because he’s bored

A TWELVE-DAY Character Bonding Hiking Trip??!? Zahn’s really outdone himself this time

WAIT THIS WHOLE TIME MARA DIDN’T KNOW LUKE AND VADER ARE RELATED?? Omigod that’s HILARIOUS. I mean, yeah, I guess it just never came up? And she didn’t watch the OT movies? That’s very funny to me for some reason. I definitely assumed she’d gotten that memo

Oh man it really feels like I should have seen that reveal coming and I absolutely did not. Gawd I love the 90s. Wowowowowowow. Chef’s kiss. I have so many questions about the Bespin janitorial system

“LUUKE” I’m dying

Admiral “It appears to be a trap.” Akbar

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Good vs. Evil Star Wars content to bring you “the two Evil factions getting in each other’s way vs the two Good factions getting in each other’s way until they all realize we’ve hit the end of the book and just start attacking everything indiscriminately”

The Climactic Battle Scene:

Luke: Fighting his clone! Han: Pew pew pew pew! Mara: Psychic defense! Psychic attack! Leia: Dual wielding blaster and lightsaber! Karrde: In the back, petting his doggos and talking on his phone I was legit worried about his safety in this book. But he's not dumb; he knows he doesn't have enough plot armor to take on the Big Bad. He is simply the best there is

Wedge / Aves is the rarepair I didn’t know I needed

RUKH!!

Oh thank God the doggos are okay

So as far as I can tell Thrawn made one mistake that wasn’t just bad luck and it was doing a shit job of getting Mara out of the way. The dude really should have had MORE of his enemies killed

Thesis statement: Aww Themb! <3

Now I just need to watch someone explain this series to Ep9-era Palpatine. Preferably in the style of Worthikids.

[69-toojay]

I used to love BBC Sherlock so fucking much when I was like fourteen or something and it kinda got me into the Sherlock Holmes universe so when I watched the finale I was actually legitimately overjoyed because omigod fucking god they're living together no wives or girlfriends and raising a baby together and the whole finale was about Sherlock rescuing John. I thought everyone perceived it as canon Johnlock but then I found out how violently homophobic the actors and everyone involved in the production of the show were post finale. And how derisive the straight fans were, it was a specific brand of potent hostility I'd never encountered before up until then and have never seen since in such intensity. The thing is I still maintain bbc johnlock was not even queerbait, it was just textbook gaslighting at that point. They made a pair canonically queer then called us every name under the sun for seeing that it was queer. Anyway that was just one facet of it that made the show age badly to me.

I also hate shows with a white male protagonist who uses his " neurodivergent genius intellect" as an excuse to be an absolutely garbage person, because it attracts a specific kind of male demographic that try to emulate this condescend whilst completely missing the irony of the purposeful character flaw.

Despite everything I did love that show with my whole heart as a kid, and I missed it so much, I loved Andrew Scott's camp as fuck Moriarty, Lara Pulvers Irene made me go wELL fuCk If I wasn't Gay BeFoRe. But after everything that particular adaptation has perhaps permanently soured for me. I hoped one day I could go back to it without wincing at the scene where John hits Sherlock because he blames him for Mary's death because I read some sort of meta internalised homophobia into it. But I realised even though I'm grateful to bbc johnlock for making me fall in love with the ship it's just an adaptation. There's millions of better ones out there, bbc doesn't have be an end all be all and I've also only read one acd canon book. So not all is lost and maybe I will go back to Johnlock just not through that door.

[goodolme]

Hello!! Omigod I just found you! I really liked your cuddles and touch! I want to request if you don't mind! Can I have a flirty rise!Raph? With a usually bubbly chubby reader but gets really shy and flustered when he compliments/flirts with them?? IDK JUST THE THOUGHT OF IT IS FUNNY TO ME. like it boosts Raph's ego cus he's the only one can do that lmao. Thank you if you do this! The big boy needs more attention tbh😭

♡ love you awkward boy ♡

Pairing: Rise! Raph x Reader

Pronouns: none used.

Warnings: None.

Notes: I literally just woke up and started writing this. I'm sorry if it's not the best.

Also Hi! Glad you loke my stuff even though it's of questionable quality!

Also yeah yeah I know I'm sorry I haven't uploaded anything for like the past week and a half it's just that believe it or not school was the only thing keeping me updating my writing regularly.

Masterlist

When he asked you to be his partner (technically you did) he was basically paralyzed almost the whole conversation.

His fear stink didn't exactly help eather.

But after you popped the question he probably hugged you the rest of the day, not leaving your side for a second.

One day he went and asked Leo for help and of course he said he should try to be more like him.

And oh boy did he try.

He tried to flirt with you several times but each time he would just freeze or freak out.

At the end Leo probably made fun of him and would make fun of him as long as he remembers.

It didn't bother you thought, you liked your big awkward boyfriend.

You two would eventually work it out and he would become more confortable with that stuff around you.

But I do feel like his love lenguage would be cuddles.

This guy loves cuddling you.

Doesn't matter when or where he likes it either way.

[stevenbasic]

GITJ Post 337: Saturday at Melissa's, p12 (10 PM: Melissa)

<bong. bong.>>

That clock, that silly clock of my mom’s in the great room, was chiming for ten o’clock. 

<<Bong. Bong.>>

I was walking downstairs, in the cute new outfit and heels I’d picked up at the mall this afternoon, after changing in my bedroom while he napped again downstairs. This evening was going so well we were doing so good with him by Monday I’ll have his brain trained just right haha I’m kidding. 

<<Bong. Bong!>>

Even me myself, after my nice talk with Shanette and seeing how good the girls were treating him, I had been able to take some time for a new manifestation in my bedroom mirror, still wearing this poor bikini. A manifestation to make everything I wanted real. Something that was going to help me, I thought, take Jay and me to the next level:

<<Bong! Bong!>>

That’s so weird, the foyer’s chandelier shaking like that with the chimes, the picture frames that just rattled on the wall. It’s like the clock was making the whole house sh-….oh wait. That’s not the clock haha. That’s my footsteps omigod. Anyway, my manifestation a few minutes ago was:

Manifestation: I am his protector, big and beautiful and strong. He looks to me and my girls for everything, everything he needs. He is happy to depend on me, for safety and for love and warmth. And for everything. With my girls and with what is happening to me I can provide for him and keep him safe and haha okay that’s enuffff..!

<<Bong!!>>

I was getting so excited, as I came to the bottom of the stairs. My footsteps were fucking making the house shake. And, it’d been a perfect day so far and he was here. This new knit sweater, and this big ol' bra, could barely contain my beating heart which was oh gosh so loud. That and the sounds of my heels on the hardwood - these crazy big heels that Shanette made me buy - almost now completely drowned out the clock’s chime as I rounded the corner to find him on the couch with the girls, waking right up as soon as I appeared and his eyes going super wide-

<<BONG!!>>

Ten chimes, and here I was, back again in the big big room of my mothers big big house looking at my little little guy among all my big big friends. The lights were still kinda down, but flickered a little when I arrived. He had just jumped out of Josie’s embrace. After he came last - his eighth of the day they tell me haha - he’d passed out right there on my lap. I’d left him to go change, and gave the girls the new jammie’s I’d bought for him at Hera’s. As he slept they’d gotten him into them - he looks so cute…but is that a new hickie? - and Josie cuddled him up into her on the couch, with all the pillows. She and some of the other girls had brought their pajamas too and were now out of their swimsuits. Josie wanted to make sure the first thing he saw when he woke up was her cleavage; I know that feeling, that’s such a great feeling. But, even though he woke up with his face in her chest his eyes - those big, shell-shocked eyes - were now on me. 

Good. 

Jay would definitely remember this weekend, what happened this Saturday…eventually. He’d remember it for a looonnngg time, but not right away of course, no. He would, for a while, feel like it was just a long, sexy dream. After tonight was over it’d slowly come back to him, his afternoon, the time in the pool, in the hot tub, with the sushi and on the couch during the movie. He’d start to recall how the girls grew, right in front of his eyes. Someday he’d realize that it wasn’t a dream and that he was a little smaller than he was when he came in through my door on Friday night. He’d begin to remember it all, eventually, and I’d be there for him if he got scared. I got warm just thinking about it. He’d remember, and he’d need me - but tonight I was going to show him how he needs me for other things…

We’d tuned down our perfumes a bit. I had to ask the girls to, so he could come back to us not so mushy. I needed him to remember at least a little of tonight, and be able to speak in semi-full sentences haha. So now, as he was sat up straight, woken by the sound of my heels, I could tell he was confused. He was turned on the couch looking at me as I ducked under the door frame into the great room. Everyone was so big and tall to him. Especially me. 

“Hi sweetie,” I purred, feeling my voice go deeper than normal as I immediately soaked  in the goggle-eyed stare he was giving me. The poor thing, I can’t blame him. In this new thick, wide-striped sweater of blue and green my boobs looked huge, my abs and tiny waist showing just a bit underneath it. In this short, white pleated skirt I picked off the racks my tanned legs were huge and bare and I was sure he could see the muscles bulging, thighs and calves. But it was probably those heels, those crazy white platform heels that Shanette insisted I buy, that brought on the dumbfounded, open-mouthed reaction I was getting from him when I appeared in the doorway. My head would have hit the frame, if I hadn’t ducked. “Stand up, sweetie,” I told him, as he sat next to Josie and Lakshmi and Katie, “You heard the clock. It’s ten. It’s past your bedtime. Come on, let me take you upstairs.”

The girls giggled, and the ones around him stood. Others watched, either from up on the balcony, out in the kitchen, or on the couch painting one another’s toenails and watching an episode of the Bachelor on TV. The new season was all female bodybuilders. 

“He has a bedtime now, does he?” Amelia drawled, from over on an overstuffed chair. She was looking into her phone, filming herself, sometimes pointing her camera at Jay. Was she streaming?

“All little boys should,” Shanette answered, meeting my eyes with another shared smile. She was wearing those cute red-heart pajamas of hers, and had been such a good friend to me today, getting me ready for tonight. Omigod I was so excited for this!

Lakshmi and Katie had taken him by the arms in support as his weak legs tried to find their balance. He seemed overcome by some funny look on his face, all open-mouthed; I think they’d call it awe. In these heels I was 7’5��. I knew! I checked! I’m a size 15, now, and these are platform stilettos. Can you believe they even carried them? Haha I don’t think they ever expected anyone to buy them. The shoes gave me ten inches, and I couldn’t believe how tall I was. And him? Him?! They told me they measured him at under five feet earlier today and omigod as he stood up I knew I just freakin’ knew he’d gotten smaller still. Omigod omigod omigod, look at him. He looked…tiny. With the girls’ help he took his first step, slowly, shyly towards me just like I nnnngh… just like I’d asked him to, he looked like a little boy in his cute new blue polka-dot pj’s, matching bottoms and top, all buttoned-up. Flannel and perfect and mmmhahannnyessss. Holy crappp I was getting so excited, so so so too excited I haha I had to calm down. Breathe, Missy, breathe!

But omigod, as the girls let him go, to walk on his own, I started to realize how really short he was compared to me. His nose was, like, at my belly-button! Goddddd all the feelings. I shhould have maybe taken my meds that night haha. 

“How does she look?” Josie asked him, as he took another step, but then froze.

His eyes, his eyes went up me, from my big feet, up my long massive legs, over my breasts and finally to my eyes. I smiled at him, waiting for what he was going to say, but he didn’t really seem able to talk. I knew we’d toned down the perfumes, so this must just be a man’s natural reaction to seeing an Amazon with hips above his shoulders and a 57-inch bustline haha. 

“You look like a cheerleader on steroids,” Amelia commented. Haha the outfit probably did do that. 

“Do you like your giant cheerleader?” Randi prodded. 

“Poor thing’s speechless, I guess,” giggled Katie. She was probably 5’10” at this point, and was still in the old blue bikini of mine she’d borrowed. “Are you speechless, hm?” she asked. 

I saw him struggling, embarrassed, and part of me wanted to just scoop him up and take him right away. But I knew this was important, and haha it was fun. So, I just cocked my head and waited for him to answer Josie’s question. Yes, honey. How do I look?

“It’s important that you say it, Daddy,” Josie told him, from where she stood behind him. Even she and Lakshmi looked so tall compared to him.

“How does she look, Dr. J?” urged Lakshmi. She was so cute in her casual PJs, but she’d say her butt looked too big in her soft white shorts, her boobs bulging too much out of her blue tank.

Finally, he found his words. “B-big,” he answered. 

The room giggled, loving that answer. I did too. But Josie pressed on. “Big, yes. Very big. And how does that make you feel?” she continued. 

“L-like she’s…” His voice trailed off. 

“Like she’s what?” Aubrey asked, from where she sat in the couch’s corner, curled up like a cat. Speaking of, where was..?

“Like she’s very strong,” Jay answered, his eyes locked onto mine. 

I nearly sighed, and definitely shivered, hearing him say that. Yes, I am strong. I am really, really fucking strong. 

“Strong? So she can do what?” Josie asked. Good girl, good Josie, doing this for me.

His eyes saw mine gleaming, sparkling I’m sure. He knew what I wanted him to say. “P-protect me?” he managed. 

“Very good,” Josie said. Yes, good boy. 

“And, it turn you on?” came Katarina, sitting next to Aubrey in my mom’s soft terry cloth robe, “seeing twoja żona, you wife so much bigger than you?”

Holy shit. 

“M-my wife?” he asked, gaze breaking from mine to look back at the girls on the couch. They were all watching him - the whole room was, really - with intrigued interest. Somebody took a picture, and Amelia was definitely live-streaming. My own heart had fluttered with the word - ‘wife’. Oh jeez, I just felt myself gushing, so wet. Just a slip up in Katarina’s English but haha. 

“‘Wife’’, Kat?” Randi echoed, in her smoky voice, “Maybe you meant ‘mommy’?” 

Omigod that was even better!

The girls giggled all around us. On the TV, the bachelor was being shown up by his hulking blonde date at the gym.

My eyes found Shanette again. Having Jay say it, admit it in front of all the girls would be amazing, awesome, especially since he hadn't really talked about his own shrinking too much. But awww omigod the poor thing I knew how humiliating and even dangerous to our relationship it might be if this all happened too fast. And, haha, it was so unlike me but I really wanted to put his - a guy’s - feelings first. I was already working to keep my energy under control, trying and struggling to keep my emotions haha normal. I’ve been taught tricks, techniques, how to relax and I needed them now. Breathe like they told me. Breathe and focus. Breathe and…what was it? Oh yeah…focus. Ahhh. Good. I knew that if I let loose things could go off the rails and no one wants that. Shanette, in fact, saw something in my eyes and stood up from where she’d sat, and started coming towards me. 

I can do this, I can keep it together. I looked down, and saw the framed pic of me from sophomore year, on the coffee table. The girls had told me what they caught him doing with it earlier this afternoon, that they had to clean him up. “I hear you’ve seen some of the pictures my mom has around the house of me,” I said, as I stepped over to pick it up, now standing right in front of him. Omigod I’m a fucking giant. “You liked this one?” I began, studying the young girl in the picture, in her schoolgirl outfit and already growing into her boobs. I cleaned off a smudge of something crusty from the glass with my finger, and remembered the moment when the picture was taken. I looked so bored! And I had been. I was never very good at those things my mom used to teach me, not nearly as good as my sister. “I was 15. I’ve grown up a little since then…as you can tell.”

At that, I stood up as straight as I could. In my heels, and with my new height I was almost two feet taller than the girl in that picture. And compared to him? Here, now? I towered over him, ridiculously. I could barely see him under the shelf of my big boobs. He was a small, small man that even 15 year-old Missy Monroe holding her mom’s books would have dwarfed. 

“Jesus…look at you two, Missy,” Josie marveled. Yes, look at us. All of you…look at us.

“Yeah, in those heels?” Lakshmi followed. 

“It’s amazing you can even stand in them,” Aubrey added. 

“Oh, I'm very comfortable in heels,” I said, as much for him as in answering Aubrey’s comment. I peered down at him still over my tits, feeling so good like I was growing even as I stood here.  “The higher the better,” I continued. 

“High heels give girls power,” said Katie, petting the back of his neck, “They move differently, feel differently, even speak differently. Don’t you think, sweetie?” Yeah. When did my voice get so deep? I liked it. 

“I think he’s afraid of high heels,” Randi offered, “But the styles keep getting taller and taller. Little men like this one here will just have to deal with it.”

I noticed he hadn’t answered my question, of course - I’ll have to work on that with him, soon. But now that Shanette was standing alongside me - no slouch in the height department, but in bare feet she seemed short to me too - I caught him looking up at her. She smiled, with those crazy cute dimples of hers, down at him. Josie and Lakshmi were closing in on him from behind to join Katie.

“Well, he looks tired, Missy,”  Shanette said, reminding me without flat-out reminding me what my goal was here, “But there’s something he needs to do before he goes to bed.” I didn’t know exactly what she meant but everything became clearer as she tapped her cheek with her index finger and then bent closer to him. “Give Auntie Shanette a kiss goodnight,” she said, and waited for him. 

He glanced up at me, and I nodded. Immediately he got up on his tiptoes and planted a quick kiss - <<smack!>> - right on Shanette’s right cheek. Omigod he wanted my approval. Good. 

“Auntie Josie wants one too!” Josie sang, suddenly spinning him by the shoulders and leaning in, too, to offer him her cheek. 

<<smack!>> He kissed her too.

“And Auntie Lakshmi!!” Kiki laughed, crouching down. 

“And me!” called Katie, white smile beaming. Soon the whole room was descending on him, lining up and surrounding him, awaiting their goodnight kiss as if from a treasured little prince. Some girls were still in their bikinis, and boobs were everywhere! He was in little man heaven, for sure.

But, coming in for her turn, Randi’s brows knotted a bit and she paused. She saw how confused and nervous he looked as he was giving out his kisses. “What’s the problem, shorty? Why so shy?” she asked him, “Don’t you remember making out with all of us, just an hour ago before your little nap?” 

Oooo the poor thing. I saw the confusion just double all over his face, and weirdly I could read him like I was reading a book. He thought it had all been a dream haha. His mind was clearer, I could tell, than earlier this evening, probably because the girls were being good about keeping themselves and their perfumes in check. I needed to make sure I did the same! We needed to have a talk, I needed him listening to me, and I needed him able to remember. But being good was hard! I just had such a strong urge to overwhelm him, right as we stood here. Breathe, Missy, breathe!! I reminded myself, trying to, uh…focus. 

Anyway, his confusion passed after a little bit, and he doled out all his required goodnight kisses. Aside from Emily and Bianca still standing on the balcony above, watching in the funny way that they do (Sammi, now with pink hair and freckled nose, had joined the crowd, gotten her kiss) the whole crowd of my bunnies was around us, giggling. He looked up at me, expectantly. Oooooo god! I looked calm, but my heart was pounding and my head was racing. I needed to breathe, focus…but being near him made it so hard!

“We’ve had such a good time together,” someone said. 

“Yeah we’re going to miss you,” said another. 

I smiled, feeling the affection they had for him redouble my excitement. “Ready for bed, mister?” I finally asked, and the sea of girls began to part, opening up a path out, in the direction of the stairs. He looked that way, and then back up at me. He could have stepped, himself, towards the upstairs, but he didn’t move. He just looked at me cute and helpless. 

You want me to pick you up, don’t you?

“C’mere, honey,” I said, crouching down so I could scootch one hand to his side, the other behind his little butt, “I’ve got you.” 

And then I stood, easily picking him up and holding him against my left shoulder. His head rose above the crowd, and though they all cooed and clucked and buzzed his name he looked only at me. He was focused only on me. Good boy, don’t look away.

“Goodnight, ladies,” I said, now taking my first step towards the stairs with my little lover boy in my arms…

==============================================

thanks again to my editor-in-residence ResistanceIsFutile for elevating this one to a higher level on lots of fronts.

Check out my Patreon

[onedivinemisfit]

2022 Creator’s Self-Love Extravaganza

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2022. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love!

Tagged by @bubblesthemonsterartist tho I daresay I am fashionably late at this point, more than two weeks into the new year. Did I forget? Maaaaybe. Which brings us right to the main problem;

I barely remember. Like. 2022. At all. Things happened, I’m sure, but it’s as if there’s a fine layer of mist atop my memories, stopping me from really seeing them. Last year wasn’t really very kind to me. For every up, three downs followed, and between two failed surgeries, a bout of covid, and then whatever the hell kind of flare happened in the autumn… yeah. Idek. It is what it is.

As such, I can’t really comment on my art as like, a whole process, this year. It just existed in the ‘now’, which is presently the ‘then’. I know I beat my submission record from last year, but it felt like a meaningless victory. Despite everything, I can feel it in my hand now, when I draw, that some progress has been made. Subconsciously perhaps, but it’s there.

Onto the ranking then! (I just had to pull up the archive cuz fuck if I remember what I posted, and when)

1.

*deep sigh* we all saw this coming, didn’t we? As much as I love, I curse this image, for in hindsight it felt as if all my creative energy for the entire damned year went into this one piece! Like how dare! But yes it is one of my best redraws ever, and more so than the characters, I feel like I added to the background something even better than the original. There, I said it.

2.

Omigod this entire thiiiiiing. Were it not for the redraw, this would be the top spot. I can’t explain, so many ideas are left in the brain for countless hours, days, months, YEARS. This was two years in the making, and never before did I manage to recreate something that had the exact same vibe as it looked in my imagination. Especially because I’m not a comic creator, hashtag compulsive disclaimer lol. Also while I was drawing it, seeing people go from “hmmm what’s this?” to “wait is that-?” and then “ooooooh it is the lead-up to The Thing” was priceless.

3.

A last-second outlier comes in third. I admit to making this in a hurry, just to have something really nice to show for december (a month which is usually a highly productive month to me, but 2022 didn’t let me have that either) and as such, since I was struggling, both with a deadline, and a lack of real inspiration, I feel like. I managed to improve, somehow. Call it magic, but this looks noticeably different to many of my other colored pieces.

4.

To be perfectly honest, this was a sketch. People might not think it one, for it has details, a color scheme, and even effects - but at the time I posted it, this was just a colorized sketch in my mind. Tumblr disagreed. And I was left in awe watching this first get reblogged within the fandom, then beyond, then go through a hanfu appreciation blog, and finally reblogged with a truly tender chinese poem attached that said person felt gave them the same vibe as what I had drawn. The people spoke, and I was both awed and humbled, and I learned a valuable lesson in humanity relating to art.

5.

Unlike the others, this was a conscious attempt at something different. I can’t really say why it should go in the fifth spot, but it does; i spent a lot more time than usual on composition, colors, and most importantly, mood setting. And putting characters so solidly into the middleground can be a challenge in itself for me, as I run the risk of getting storybook-ish. Which would’ve been disastrous for a scene like this.

Honorable mention;

Coping through art. @bubblesthemonsterartist has the honor of inspiring this, or like, being the one to “give me” the go-ahead to channel some of my experiences through the characters and story-telling in general. Back pain is something I know all too well, and it was well and truly therapeutic. I also got to do another test of “can I retell this scene, even if I switch part of the cast and premise?” And it seems I did. I will always remember @what-plant-metaphor-am-i ‘s tag; ‘# I feel like I just watched an entire episode XD’ <- never has my inner storyteller been more validated.

There, that wasn’t so hard! Sometimes I’m really thankful for the internet, and timestamps, and kicking my memory back into gear etc… anyway, since I am so woefully late to the party, I’m not tagging anyone specifically; if you wanna be fashionably late too, you know who tagged you~

[bookofkatherine]

ECHO | A Thor Love Poem

The supreme Thor variant not only rocked my world, he fucking washed my hair - washed. my. hair!!! afterwards in the shower. Omigod. I just had to write him a love poem. But it won't be enough. #blessed

Tuesday October 1, 2024 3:30 p.m.

Dear Thor,

I feel like you've turned me into some bright star that simply cannot stop shining in a blinding iridescent glow. The pain feels like it is far away across some unknown distance - banished by your love, your touch, your wild wind that has swept into my sore and tired arms.

They have been outstretched for so long, searching for you. Waiting for you. Waiting for today. Waiting for us to be whole once more- open, honest, vulnerable - with an unabashed ferver - united and tied once more into our loveline that stretches out over the millennia behind us, where we are written over and over and over again.

Alas, I must move into a poem. For I will never be able to tell you just how happy you have made me this day - how full, how complete, how grateful - how joyous! yes joyous! I am now, after you held me in your arms and woke up our first vows.

So here is my poem, my love, that I wrote for you today - to say thank you and I love you in some small way.

ECHO

Thunder claps with a rounding bang, And I look up and see you again.

You are fresh and you are wild. You bring with you a taste beguiled.

I stare and wonder as you smile, Epochs etched in every mile.

My heart, once shuttered, battered and torn, Flutters and shifts with hope once scorned.

Could it be? I wonder and play. Could it be? says the hope I kept at bay.

And you smile down, down at me, Never shifting your gaze so I can see--

It's happening. It's happening. It's happening. Come and see!

Come and see! dear Hope, Come and live and breathe! It's happening, happening-- As you climb over me.

And the world shifts. And the world tilts. As you slide in one knee Between me.

It's really, really, happening!

Roaring comes the storm. Shining comes the sea.

And you crash your story into me.

Your pages wash over and seep deep, Wrapping my heart in healing heat.

And the ages turn their faces to us, As you plunge over, inside and under, free.

And, God, the wonder - the majesty! The array of emotions as we glow, grin, celebrate -

I feel the snap. I hear the pull. Time rushes in with an ancient bell.

I look up into your eyes aglow, And I can't help it.

I unfold.

It happened. It happened. You and me.

And the angels echoed, Our chorus of ever-present destiny.

It happened. It happened. You and me.

And our echo, Was heard, In the halls, Of Love's history.

___

I love you, Thor. I always have. And I always will.

Until tomorrow,

Your Daffodil, Katherine

[itsanerdlife]

I REACHED 4K FOLLOWERS OMIGOD!!

[jichew]

(*^▽^*)

[eclairia-monarch]

Being Shiratorizawa's Manager HC

I'm going to admit that Shiratorizawa isn't my favourite team (I'm SORRY-) but I love them. Toshi’s “i’m counting on you” to Shiki got me GADKGALSKHKJLASHF 

warning: mentioning of their lost against Karasuno (because jezuz any team crying makes ME CRY DAMNIT). this is a long HC omigod 

Haikyuu Masterlist | Haikyu Series Masterlist

imagine a beautiful swan 🦢 surrounded by an aerie of eagles 🦅

that's you and your volleyball boys wherever you go

as someone who was offered a scholarship, and slightly far from home [with you coming from Hokkaido Prefecture], you decided to just join a club to create a temporary family

the only slot left was the manager position of the boys’ volleyball club, oh how lucky (ヾ;￣▽￣)ヾ

it was a difficult position to apply for due to various reasons

firstly, they are a prestigious team that represent Miyagi as a volleyball powerhouse, and of course, that meant that even the manager must be up to their standards and prestige

secondly, have you seen how scary coach Washijo is?? ＼(º □ º l|l)/

you had the privilege of seeing this demon coach yelling at his players in the middle of a match for a minor mistake and that memory resurfaced when you realised you might run into this old man in your dream school

nonetheless, knowing you had to quell your loneliness, you grew some balls and applied

thankfully you were accepted on the spot and Coach Saito was the one teaching you the basics

being a very competent student, you were able to get use to the routine. fast and efficient, you even got Coach Washijo to say you are a very good manager. that’s a whole ass achievement right there what the fuck- Σ(□_□)

but you also set a whole new standard as a volleyball manager in Shiratorizawa so now you can’t find new managers to take over your duties in the past year because the pressure was too high

you are just the manager but your time in the gym sometime lasts longer than the players themselves because you went back and forth making sure every equipment was functional and well taken care of

dumbbells that were not arranged properly accordingly their weight? you rearrange them perfectly

machine unclean? you take out your cleaning supplies and began to sanitise it to the best of your abilities

so now as a third year, you have to really juggle between your studies and club activities, but the team is always there to share your burden because you are their precious manager that stuck with them no matter what

first and foremost, we have the ambitious and sweet Tsutomu, the only first-year that made it to the regular roster

looks up to you like how he looks up to Ushijima

although you are no ace or whatsoever, your ability to take care of the entire team without breaking a sweat is just as impressive to him

he always finds a minute every day to express his thanks to you and that he will become a better ace than Ushijima, and for you to keep watch

contact name for you is “[y/n]-senpai 🥺🦢”

always compliments and compare you to a beautiful swan, leading to the team teasing him again for being a simp

but it didn't matter because he only speaks the truth!

of course you found him to be very sweet. even if he is taller than you, you still treated him as a team baby

he is easily scared about paranormal things ( : ౦ ‸ ౦ : ) so when they have late night trainings, you tend to look out for him more and makes sure he doesn't freak out when cleaning up dark areas

which then leads us to Kenjiro, who always scolds Tsutomu for causing trouble for you, especially if the first year ace-wannabe asked for you to tutor him 

the team main setter also holds tremendous respect for you too, and is very impressed that despite being so busy, your grades remained at the top percentile and even tutor your fellow third years during busy exam periods on top of everything

Kenjiro might be serious most of the time, but the blush on his face when you give him any physical attention and the little sparkle he has in his brown eyes when you speak to him was not hard to miss

might have a teensy-weensy crush on his manager senpai ( 〃．．)

how can he not? you are beautiful, has the kindest smile, understanding and willing to stay late at night with the team when they had night training

he would make sure you weren't exhausting yourself in school and club activities

but instead of actively getting your attention, he is the type to take away others from your line of sight. to Kenjiro, competing for your attention is a lot harder since there were so many others trying to get close to you every single second

don’t bother asking his day, he will somehow let you know because he just wants to be part of your routine 

might get a little pouty if you stop him from scolding Tsutomu because it made him look bad in your eyes

if you are lucky, you might be able to catch him staring at you with a tiny smile (*ﾟーﾟ*)

As for the other second year regular, Taichi, he might be quiet most of the time but it’s not difficult for you to converse with him as the manager

he appreciates you and how you take care of the team. you also encourage him during his play since he was still uncertain of his strength and how well he can play

your words help him before matches, because you were not one to sugar-coat to help the players gain superficial confidence, so he trusts you a lot 

but he is still uncertain because now he wonders how you would view him if he had a serve miss, a miss blocked or whatever that causes the team to lose points

the trust you placed on him was more of a heavy burden at the beginning but over time he will come to learn that it was because you saw his potential and since then, he will be more confident in his plays, and might try aerial attacks even if he wasn’t sure about scoring a point

and finally, the beloved third years, your fellow pillars

Reon might be laid back and easier to approach but even his first impression was just “fierce” in your eyes

in the beginning, it was Reon that helped you to get used to the oddity of this team

he helped you with communications between yourself and Satori before you finally understood how the red head operated

in the end, you and Reon ended up being the parents of this group and humble them when they get too full of themselves

Hayato was similar to Reon, but he was more so protective of you and acts as your mentor in volleyball

also the guy who saved the most balls from hitting your face and always nagged about how you had to be more careful but he does it

૮₍ ˃ ⤙ ˂ ₎ა shwoftly because he cares about you a lot 

will turn around and asked the one responsible of spiking to practise their damn aim 

because he keeps misplacing his phone, he ended up having to keep it with you 

lmao me too Hayato, me too

With Satori, you two actually managed to get along despite how blunt he could get at times because he was just genuinely interested in your life in Hokkaido 

he calls you his miracle buddy since you seem to be able to pull off the impossible at times for the sake of what you want to achieve ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

every single time he succeeds in his guess block, he will turn to you and just

v(´∀｀*v) -- “look at me, [y/n]-chan!”

and you will always clap for him to boost his mood 

pls talk to him about Shonen Jump, even if it means letting him ramble on and on 

he loves to pull you into random conversations, especially when either Wakatoshi is around 

because you two are so diametrically different and Satori wants to hear you two’s answers to his questions for amusement

or if he was with Eita, because for some reason, their third year setter gets less agitated about his “semi-semi” nickname 👀

Satori smells ✨tea✨ 

Wakatoshi and you took the longest to actually get along because of how tactless he can be when speaking, often gaining criticism from his teammates about how he shouldn't’ scare off their manager 

you learn to not take anything personal because his honesty and bluntness helps you to improve 

he actually cares about you a lot but he just shows it in a different way  

he always reminds you to take good care of your health. might send you random care packages with a note that says “i heard this is good for x y and z”

he will wait for you and escort you to your next destination if time permits. will always ask how you are for the day

might just stand behind you and stare ಠ_ಠ at whoever speaks to you rudely, even if it is mild, because hello? manners?? you speak to your loved ones with that mouth??

will think you are a weirdo for thinking he is weird (in the most affectionate way ever)

but he appreciates you for thinking his left-handedness was cool, it reminds him of when his father plays volleyball with him in his childhood 

with Eita, even tho he is known to be serious and stoic most of the time, his competitiveness is very apparent when it came to you and Kenjiro

boi is madge because he wants to spend time with him too

of course you will talk to him. even if he is stoic, it doesn’t mean he won’t smile when he speaks to you. 

i mean have you seen his smile? its so cute and nice to look at i mean- hdsakhfgalkhe 

he visited his other third years’ dorm room once asking for fashion advice because he became a little self-conscious about his casual clothing after Satori said he looked bad in them

he just wants to look good for you in any outfit oKAY- dun judge him (∥￣■￣∥)

you once pointed out about his lip licking habits and he just

B L U S H E S like a damn fool in love

he took it as a sign of you being observant about him, which is true because let’s be real, he is one of the more handsome students in Shiratorizawa

will ask if you need help with the laundry but will just do it with you because it was a whole load of jerseys and misc that you alone had to handle 

while you don’t usually have to worry about guys coming up to you for your number whilst you are in Miyagi 

Tokyo is a whole different ‘jungle’. Shiratorizawa might be a powerhouse but that doesn’t mean those in Tokyo’s main stadium are weak either 

over the course of three years, you’ve learnt to reject people asking for your contact but the boys will always materialise to whisk you away

“I strongly advise that you do not put our manager in an uncomfortable spot again. We shall see you in court,” Wakatoshi will warned 

those people better look out because Shiratorizawa is there to put them in their place in court

they better recognise where they stand and realise Shiratorizawa’s manager is waaaaaaay out of their league

the lost to Karasuno was definitely something you didn’t expect

they team gathered with tears in their eyes, looking at you after the coaches left, apologising for losing

( ^^)/(･･､) “why are you sorry? i’m not angry, and i’m proud of you guys” 

as per usual, you greet them with a smile because you have never felt disappointed in any of them. you are, like always, proud that they played so dedicatedly till the end

that was the enthusiasm and love for volleyball that you admire 

the team knew your smile was genuine as well, and thanked you for supporting them all the way

(.づσ▿σ)づ. please give them all a hug, it will help them with the tears i promise 

when the third years step down, you surprised the team with a new manager that you are able to find not too long ago

but don’t worry, you are the only one that will forever remain known as the white swan manager

although you stopped coming to club activities, you still stop by once a week to make sure your boys and the new manager are able to pull through because you just know Washijo is back to his demon mode again

pls save them from this old man

[inphront]

Hello, I'd like to ask about one other skull paint in the books, The one that Nonius wears when he is invoked in HtN

Would it be named? Reserved only to soldiers? I don't see the modern ninth approving of it, curious to see what do you think of it

omigod omigod omigod ok

so first of all, i’m like. honored by the fact that you are coming to me with questions about this omfg. second of all AHHHH NEW LORE FOR ME TO YELL ABOUT i’m gonna spend WAY too long answering this. anyway, i think you’re absolutely right about the modern Ninth not really approving of paint in the style of Nonius; Harrow made it pretty clear in GtN that any deviation from the very specific paint she laid out would be looked at strangely (and yes, she *is* even stricter than most of her house, but i’m willing to take her mostly at her word). i think it’s likely that a thousand years back, the tradition was a bit more lax. after all, we see the Ninth double down on its ultra-penitent stick-in-the-mud reputation even in the short time Harrow spends running it, and i think it’s safe to bet that she was following in the footsteps of her ancestors. i ALSO think that once upon a time, there was a much wider range of paint designs. that sort of cultural practice often erodes with time, as does literally anything that’s 10,000 years old. the modern Ninth is extremely dedicated to preserving the tradition and has therefore decided to be really uptight about the Right way to apply the base designs. in so doing, a whole lot of variations on each skull have fallen out of use, some of which would still have been around in Nonius’s life.

anyhow, with Nonius being the best swordsman in the history of the house, he could probably wear just about whatever the hell he felt like and not face a lot of complaints. no one’s gonna nitpick his paint choices unless he commits a Very Serious faux pas. we don’t know Nonius well, but we have at least a little implication that he was way less flowery than his poetry-induced revenant. My guess is he just didn’t fucking feel like spending forever on face paint every day, and he probably went with the simplest and least time-consuming option available to him. with the description above, it would’ve looked vaguely like this:

to fit this into my paint headcanons (both the ones i’ve listed above and my designs found a few posts down), i’m going to say he wore a simplified variation on the Novenarian (common paint for soldiers and cavaliers), which can be found on the GtN cover art.

thank you so much for your question! i had a blast with this and would LOVE to keep adding to my extensive development of Ninth religious history.

[p5headcanonhellhole]

Anonymous said to p5headcanonhellhole                                             

Hey this quarantine has made me touch starved, so I was hoping for some imagines of the phantom thieves with a team mate/future SO that gives the best hugs and aren’t shy about being affectionate to their friends. Victory hugs, comforting hugs, whatever the reason if they want/need a hug SO is at the ready. Ofc! I’m in the same boat as you and I’m a very affectionate person.and I love to give hugs to everyone in my circle,,, and I give vry warm bear hugs yesyes

I did all the dudes first but if you also want the females just lmk with another ask!

Reader is Gender-Neutral for all audiences

Akiren   

This man is literally so fucking touch starved give him more  

I must preface that you have absolute fucking bear hugs like oh my god

Vry warm n strong would get again feels vry safe in your arms

On that note, he literally gets addicted to them

He’s been in danger for the entire time he’s been here

Risking his life against a pervert teacher, the fucking mafia, otherwordly beings in the metaverse

So finally having the feeling of being given what he dishes out as the leader of the phantom thieves... it feels really fucking good you have no idea im

The first time was when you were hanging out and you just gave him a big hug as greeting

Let me tell you-- mans fucking broke

Akiren.exe stopped working

He took a moment to process what was going on, then he just,,,, s o b b ed

“Omigod Akiren! Are you okay!?”

Akiren, through a waterfall of tears; “y-yeah,,,,,”

Baby boy baby

He keeps it calm in front of the others but he genuinely melts from them   

Doesn’t help his affections towards you have grown for a while   

He’ll return the hugs tenfold whenever he has the chance to   

In private, he’s such a teddy bear oh my god   

He will always ask for hugs when you’re both in private, LeBlanc is slow or closed, and just cuddle with you til the next day   

This would cause you to get tangled up in the mornings sometimes  

Long ass limbs got damn  

He usually tries to return it with head pats but,,,,, man   

Feed him these hugs he’s hungy

Ofc he’d have his moments of jealousy whenever you’d give the others hugs for a bit too long or high fives (he wanted one...)

But they were soon brushed off when you gave him his hugs accompanied by the innocent ruffling of his hair and your laughter

You are forgiven

Ryuji

He’s equally as affectionate so he adores the affection

If you’re female or female identifying/presenting he *will* get a little flustered though

You two always group up to wrap the whole group into hugs

You are both on a high affection drive and everyone must suffer the wrath of it

You sometimes compete on who has the tigher, warmer, safer hugs which you always somehow get everyone involved in and it even sometimes gets you two to try and hug the ever living shit out of each other

Everyone (except Futaba and Yusuke) has to pry you two from each other

But it’s all in good fun

If you’re not in a relationship(yet), you two usually platonically cuddle which of course leads to everyone assuming you are

You explain it’s nothing like that (yet) and that cuddles are just really great even between friends

Hugs hugs hugs give him hugs

Yusuke

Besides Akiren I’d assume Yusuke is also very touch starved

Like

Have you *seen* this mans background

I honestly doubt this man has really ever had a hug in his life

So the first few times he was deathly confused

He knew the concept of hugs just

Never had one or understood it

So he just

Stood there, awkwardly patting your back

“Yusuke are you okay?”

“Yes of course. Why do you ask?”

“You’re kinda just... standing there.”

Silence

“Am I supposed to do something?”

Oh my god

You basically have to teach this man the basics of affection

“Oooh. I understand now.”

He gives you a hug as a thank you

Or just-- a hold in attempt to be a hug?

Progress I guess?

Eventually he gets there

His long arms help a lot in how good his hugs feel

Vry good yesyes

He doesn’t give hugs very often but loves every hug you give

Tries to see how to insert how it makes him feel into his art--

Believe it or not, very addicted

It gives him a very good feeling and motivation

Give the starving artist some love pls n thank

[stevenbasic]

GITJ Post 319: Lunch with Abby

“So one of my girls, Lakshmi, tells me he’s all upset that I didn’t let him help me move,” said Melissa Monroe, Office Manager at what would soon no longer be a specialty geriatric medical practice on the city’s outskirts. She sounded a little frustrated. “You know I couldn’t, right? For, like, obvious reasons?”

“Yeah,” laughed Abby, her friend of several years and the sales rep/handler assigned to this project which - to an increasing number of people - was maybe becoming a little far-reaching, “Are they still mad about that? Your, uh…��� Though increasingly bold these days, Abby still had to be a little concerned about prying ears. “…landlords?”

“Yeah sorta. My mom is too,” answered Melissa, spearing an artichoke heart from her plate of salad, “But she’s away for a while. I’ll deal with her when she gets back.” The two women were sharing lunch at a local restaurant that Thursday afternoon, and Melissa was glad she had Abby to talk to. Things had been a little funny with him these past couple of days, and it’d be nice to have a fresh perspective. Abby was a few years older, in her early thirties though she still looked so pretty, and Melissa had come to value her wisdom. Abby just seemed to…get her. Plus - she dressed so nice, so professional! Melissa always tooked to her as an example of how even a girl with a figure can dress for the corporate world. Abby was great. 

Knowing this about her ‘friend’, how Melissa respected her, made it a bit harder for Abby to say what she’d needed to say, and sometimes do what she needed to do. Melissa was a sweet girl, but she’d developed a little bit of a rebellious streak, and not everyone was happy with the way things were starting to proceed. Abby had, through this whole assignment, been tasked with keeping the course straight, the waters calm. “I also don’t know if it was a good idea,” she offered, choosing her words carefully, “You had everything you needed at your old place.”

“Yeah, I guess, I know. They’ve been so nice,” Melissa agreed, allowing that fact to her friend and doing her best to sound grateful, “I just wanted to be somewhere, even just for this little while, where I felt like I wasn’t being watched all the time.”

“I get that,” Abby conceded, forking a morsel of tortellini from her own plate. She understood it must be hard to be a girl in Melissa’s unique situation. But she also knew how they needed to keeps tabs on her, and him. “And it’ll be, what, a month or so before your mom gets back?”

“So I hear,” Melissa replied, “and by then the new places should be ready for us, if, like, all the construction keeps on schedule.” She bit her lower lip, took a moment as a waitress came by to refill her water glass. “But in the meantime it’s just that, well, when I want to be alone with him, I wanna be alone with him.”

After the waitress had left, Abby Solowicki smiled at her charge, knowing she needed to appear warm and supportive, “You really love him don’t you?” she asked. Of course she’d seen the reports, the EEGs, the bloodwork. There were quantifiers attributable to all this, and Melissa’s readings was off the charts.

“Omigod you have no idea,” gushed Melissa, immediately, a throb of wetness causing her to clamp her thighs tight, “I can’t…I can’t even describe it.”

This is what they hadn’t planned for, Abby surmised, watching the wave of emotions light Melissa’s face. She’s getting so caught up in this, much more than they thought she would. “I’m so happy for you guys,” she offered, smiling genially but knowing the answer to her next question before she asked it, “And he’s told you he feels the same way?”

Ugh, no. But the idea of it, imagining his quivering face looking up at her and professing his love made Melissa squirm again. “No…he hasn’t,” she breathed in exasperation, but able to actually hear his stammering little voice speaking those words: ILY. She wanted that so bad!! But…but…she understood, what he’s been going through.  “I’ve had guys tell me a lot of things,” she said to Abby, in explanation, “and I want him to…like…mean it, when he finally says it.”

Abby nodded.

Despite logic, despite the fact that it all made sense, him taking it slow, Melissa Monroe felt her blood start to simmer. She’d told him she loved him…why didn’t he feel the same?! Was there something wrong with her?!? Her friends were supportive, telling her that she was imagining it, his reticence and distance, but she’d definitely felt it this week. Had she gone a bit too far? Over the weekend, on Tuesday night? Been too much for him? Too aggressive? She knew he was fragile…

To Abby, to her friend, Melissa described her nights with him. How she’d manipulated him with her body, and with what she knew to be his weaknesses. She described her shows of physical strength. And then: “I was there, in his bed with him yesterday morning, and I just, y’know, with my perfumes. I pretended I was asleep but I  made him do…whatever I wanted. It just feels so good to play with him! But now maybe I feel a bit bad.”

“It’s okay. You’re just experimenting with your power,” Abby reassured her, knowing the course she had to take, “You’re growing, you’re growing stronger every day. It’s all so you can be better for him.”

Melissa nodded, taking a sip of her water and feeling acutely the weight of her chest, the musculature in her arms, back, shoulders. She could sense the ever-filling ocean of ultra-potent pheromones just barely held back by the floodgates under her skin, along with the hint of other budding abilities. She was becoming more powerful every day, and she knew it was true, she could feel it was true…it was all for him. The thought brought her a new wave of wetness, and she nearly sighed.

“Listen, Tits,” Abby began again, using the playful nickname she’d adopted for Melissa, “Men are all nervous, they have been for a while, but especially now after the election. They’ve been in denial but lots of them have seen it coming.” Abby, herself, had to control her voice and the excitement in it. “Imagine how he must feel, now. All that he’s lost, how he’s…like you said…getting smaller. He’s been surrounded by women all his life, and you’re surrounding him with even more, women who are bigger and stronger and smarter. Like all of them he’s worried about losing his rights, his independence. Don’t you think he’s nervous? That he’s scared? Maybe he sees his life slipping away and doesn’t know what the future is going to be.”

Oh godddddd, Melissa groaned, privately. Why was this so thrilling to her??

“So this is my advice,” Abby spoke, smiling seeing the effect she was having, “show him that you can be a comfort, that you can be protection for him now that things are changing. Did you watch the camera feed from his apartment last night, with him and that girl…what’s her name? Lilly?”

“Lakshmi,” Melissa answered, in correction, “No. I figured it was, like, a private moment for them.”

“Well I read the transcript, quick,” Abby explained, “He’s looking for it - comfort and protection. You’ve seen some of the notes on him, right? The history? He really wants a mother figure. And, jesus, Melissa…look at you.”

To that, Melissa blushed. It’s not that it was a surprise, the more…maternal aspects of her appearance being pointed out. She’d been called “mommy” by online admirers more times than she could count.

“I’d say soften up on him, calm his anxieties like only a woman can. It will get you what you want. If he’s scared, afraid that things are changing? Use that. He likes your boobs as much as you say? Great. You guys are supposed to be going out this weekend? Don't go out, stay in. Give him a night with your breasts.”

Melissa snorted. But then pictured it, how she could steer the evening, what she could wear. Omigod I could make him melt. “Like, a date with my boobs?”

“Haha sure a boob date,” Abby laughed, “that’s, like, every man’s dream, these days. He’s been nervous about you being strong with him, when you get excited? Show him how gentle you can be. You already take care of him in so many ways. Show him just how much of a mother figure you already are, and what things could be like.”

Melissa giggled, again, with the thought of it. She pictured herself in an apron, pumps and a beehive, pulling a tray of cookies from the oven. He was sat at the table like a little boy, a glass of milk - strike that, a bottle of milk - on his…haha omigod…high chair. 

“You know what I’m talking about, right?” Abby asked.

“Sure, yes, right,” Melissa answered, biting her lower lip in the arousal she was already feeling. Was it getting hot in here haha? “Lakshmi says he’s feeling a little ignored. I didn’t want that. I had just wanted to give him some space, let him process things, not freak him out by being too…me,” she continued, “but maybe…”

“I think what he wants is for you to be the most ‘you’ you can be,” Abby pressed, seeing how she could salvage this situation, “He doesn’t want to be ignored? You have a lot of love for him? Smother him with it. Drown him in comfort. Show him he’ll never be ignored again.”

“Oh wow, Abby,” Melissa breathed, fanning herself with her napkin, “I could drown him so good…”

“Yes you could,” Abby encouraged.

”And he likes me big, he wants me bigger, I can tell,” Melissa added, “And now…I want to do it for him. Grow. Grow more.”

“You know what they’re saying in the labs, right? About you?” Abby spoke, leaning in and dropping her voice, “You have the potential to grow much, much bigger.” This was starting to work out really, really well.

“Yes oh god yes Abby,” Melissa replied, caught up in the plans, “He’s nervous, about the changes? I can show him that he needs protection. I can show him how nice it could be for him with women in charge.”

“You’re so sweet and caring…”

“I can be sweet and caring. I can be kind, gentle, considerate…”

“Yes,” Abby continued, “You’ve already proven you’re big. You’ve proven you can physically dominate him so easily. But looking after him, protecting him, caring for him? That’s what he needs right now. That's something you must constantly show.”

Melissa forked forcefully into an olive, a slice of pepper, and thought back to gentle moments with him, how hard and quivery she’d made him. “He likes it when I´m kind…very much…” She then thought to herself, as she imagined his face: You like it kind? Then I´ll give you kind. She chuckled to herself, finding how aggressive she’d become with her salad. “I want to be a comfort to him, I do,” she said, “but I think he kinda likes it both ways.”

“Sure sure,” Abby encouraged, “men can be funny like that. We’ve all got to realize that the old stereotypes are breaking down, roles are reversing. Men now like us to show them the rough, take-charge lovemaking. They want to be dominated, they want us to toss them around like rag dolls. Men are at the gym less, women more. Secretly they want to be, like, brutalized, made to feel small and weak and terrified of us. But then, they’re needy and - you’re right - then they want us as Mommy to comfort them.”

“Oh godddd Abby,” Melissa laughed, “stop you’re going to make me burst. I just want to boink him.”

“Haha nothing wrong with that,” Abby replied with a glimmer in her eyes, “When you’re in a relationship it’s just important to understand the other persons feelings. He’s like all men these days. What he really wants and needs is a mommy girlfriend.”

She knew this. 

“He needs the comfort, the protection. But also the guidance, the discipline. He needs someone to tell him what to do, reward him when he does what you want, and sometimes punish him when he disappoints you.” 

Abby watched her friend nodding, absorbing her advice, and continued. “I do it with the guy I’m dating, ” Abby said to Melissa, “Like, when we’re alone, just at home, I make sure to praise the little things he does, cleaning up after himself, wearing an outfit I like. It makes him feel good and it helps, it helps solidify our roles.”

“Jay does like that sort of thing too…” Melissa offered, nodding. 

“And I make sure he feels dependent on me, too,” Abby continued, deciding to allow herself another slice of the bread on the table, “Like, I make more money then him, and I want him to know it. When we go out in public, for example. Usually, I’ll either pay for whatever we plan on spending money on that day or make him pay for his stuff with my money if we are buying little things for him.”

“ooo yes I can do that!” Melissa giggled, remembering how good it felt to pay for his dinner. 

“For instance, a shirt that we just bought for him. We were at Hera’s. He carried it all around the store and all the way up to the register. I let him do that all by himself,” Abby began, “When we went to check out, I opened my purse and handed him my card, the cashier standing right in front of us, people watching. That part’s really

important, that he knows others are seeing it happen.”

“Was he embarrassed?” Melissa asked, feeling like she should be taking notes. 

“A little. But I talked him through it, how to slide the card into the machine. And I signed for it of course, telling him he’d done a good job. He liked that.”

Melissa giggled. She hadn’t met Abby’s new boyfriend yet but he sounded like a keeper. 

“And so,” Abby continued, shifting herself in her seat on the leather bench, “it all looks innocent enough to the person behind the register, the other people in the store, but him just knowing what was going to take place with that shirt and having to buy it with mommy’s money was really powerful. It’s just little things like that.”

“God I want to drive back to the office and take him shopping with me right now,” Melissa laughed. 

“Haha yeah I loved every minute of it,” Abby conceded, “and I think he did too.” At that, she leaned in, over her plate of chilled pasta and crusty bread, to commiserate with her asset. On cue, Melissa leaned in too. “And then, in the parking lot, after getting him seated, fastening his seatbelt for him, I gave him a quickie.”

“A handjob?” Melissa laughed, catching herself snorting too loudly. 

“Yeah a little reward, for being so good,” Abby smiled, leaning back again with a satisfied smile, “just like you’re going to reward him, this weekend, for doing everything mommy says…”

===============================

yes I have one

[deniigi]

hi I have something for y’all called a disaster.

I wrote an Inimitable!Spiderman/Modern Star Wars AU because no one can stop me, not even myself. it is like 47 pages long. I am handing it tenderly to y’all.

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

Title: impossible scenario

Summary: Peter runs into some drunk assholes arguing, calling each other Han and Luke. He lets it roll off him until he can’t anymore and eventually finds himself for the first time on the other side of someone more chaotic than himself.

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

There was an argument happening under a fire escape. Peter knew about it because a concerned dude wearing a fuckin’ Yankees cap had flagged him down with waving arms and told him that someone needed saving, Spiderman. Some tall asshole was kidnapping a young blond dude, the guy  and his too-cool-for-him girlfriend explained. They’d heard the two scuffling.

Peter maybe stared for a beat too long at them because the gal pointed two blocks behind him and said, “That way. I think the blond guy might be drugged. He’s slurrin’ something strong.”

Peter liked her shoes. They looked like Miles’s, but blue.

“Spidey?”

Miles told Peter all the time that he wasn’t cool enough to wear Jordans. MJ and Johnny had agreed. Such sad times.

“Spidey.”

“I got it,” Peter sighed.

The gal tsked.

“Man, you’re too young to be this jaded,” she said.

Peter sighed.

“You’re the third person to say that this week,” he said. “You think I should go back to therapy?”

There was a pause.

“You know that answer, dude,” cool-gal said. “Go save the twink.”

Twink. Got it. Thank you, citizen.

“There are websites for that shit, Spidey.”

Bye now.

“Apps, even.”

Bye, bye.

“BetterHelp or Headspace or somethin’—”

“Two blocks, you said?” Peter asked.

 --

 Two blocks away, there was indeed a man with dark hair trying to lift a violently intoxicated twink up onto the first steps of a fire escape. Peter examined his options. There were many ways to ruin a potential kidnapper’s day. His favorite involved coke and mentos, although he’d received feedback that that was a waste of perfectly good food. Down the list was also the option to walk over and scream bloody murder so that the kidnapper shat themselves and dropped their target.

That was good, but Peter was tired and the thought of mustering up the energy to scream at a noticeable volume made his thighs turn to Jell-o.

That left snark and violence.

Today, he would not choose violence. Only for today.

He strode out of his dark temporary residence between two dumpsters directly towards the tall dude and his mark. The mark was a messy one. Bless his heart, he was unwittingly making himself the most noncompliant victim to have ever victim-ed. Every time the tall guy got him almost vertical, he gave up his corporeal form to become drunk slime and ooze back to the ground with various moaning sound effects.

It would have been funny if not for the kidnapping context.

The fact that Peter had been standing there under the beams of two separate side-building security lights and neither of those two had noticed yet was also objectively funny—or would have been, if Peter had the capacity for processing humor at the moment.

Alas. This was what he got for telling Tony that he’d evolved beyond the need for sleep. He got caffeine-pilled. And there would be no true rest until that shit wore off, exhausted as Peter’s body yearned to be.

“Kid, work with me here,” the tall guy said.

“I can’t, I’ll die,” the shorter one moaned.

“Luke.”

“I’ve done my time—thirty years in AZKA—”

“Keep your voice down, oh my god.”

Peter was just standing here, fellas.

“Luke.”

“Why’s it always me? Why’s it always gotta be me? The hell did I do to piss off the whole galax-galaxy? HA. My bad, my bad. The whole universe?”

God, what a mood.

The tall guy dropped his grip on the smaller one and loomed over his puddle of ooze with poison in his gaze.

“People are going to die, Luke,” he said.

“So what? They’re always dyin’. Everywhere I go, people’re dyin’ and when it’s not them dyin’, you know who is?”

“Kid.”

“ME.”

“So you’re just gonna wallow there, feelin’ sorry for yourself?” the tall dude snapped.

“Sure am,” the puddle of ooze hummed.  

This was not a kidnapping. This was a come-to-Jesus in the back alley of a bar. Peter was not needed here. He turned around on his heel and stopped when he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Is that?” someone whispered.

“Don’t mind me, pal, just your friendly neighborhood—” he started.

“Look what you did,” Tall and Handsome hissed at Ooze-Man. “Someone went and called Spiderman on us.”

Peter lifted a brow as Ooze-man ripped its chest up from the asphalt and composed itself back into a human shape with fluffy blonde hair and huge wide eyes.

“Omigod, it’s Spiderman,” the guy said. “Wait, no. Gimme a hand. No, not that one, fuck off, nevermind, I don’t need you.”

He drew himself up to standing, only leaning slightly on his buddy there and gave Peter as lopsided smile.

“Hi, there,” he said with a twang that Peter couldn’t place. “Were you lookin’ for someone, handsome?”

Ah, they had reached the time of night when all the drunks needed to tell Peter things he already knew about his ass. He loved this time.

Not to mention that this dude looked eerily like Johnny. Scarily like Johnny. So much like Johnny that Peter almost wanted to take a picture of him to send to Sue so that she could print up some lost and found posters.

“Just lookin’ at you, babe,” he said. “This guy botherin’ you?”

The tall guy blanched and then grabbed at his face in horror. Peter swallowed his laugh.

“He sure is, hon. You got time to rescue me?” Blondie crooned.

“Luke, please. Please.”

“Because I’m in real distress,” ‘Luke’ said with a pout mighty enough to fell Thor.

“You sure seem like it,” Peter said. “C’mere. I’ll walk you home. Leave that tool, he ain’t worth your breath.”

He held out an elbow like proper gentleman and was pleased at the hand that Luke laid over his heart in response.

Peter could imagine Johnny’s face in six different expression of jealous horror at a selfie taken with this look-alike. Each was beautiful in its own special way. As payment for being referred to counseling by the public, he at least deserved to receive at least two of those faces.

“You mean that?” Luke asked him.

“He doesn’t,” his tall companion said.

“I sure do, where do you live? I’ll walk you,” Peter said.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna cry, he’s gonna escort me,” Luke said, all choked up and fanning his eyes lightly.

This tall friend grabbed him before he could escape, though, and pulled him back behind his own body.

“Listen, Spidey, this is a misunderstanding,” he drawled. “I know this idiot—he is technically my idiot— and I’m the one escorting his ass home. Thanks, though. You’re a real menace. Beat it.”

MMMMMMM.

And here Peter had been planning on being jaded and miserable this fine night. How could he now when this dude was ticking every box that made him feel alive?

“What’s your name, dollface?” Peter asked across the short distance.

“None of your business,” Tall Guy answered abruptly.

“Luke,” Luke said around him. “Are you gonna save me?”

“In just a minute,” Peter said, striding forward with a hard roll in his shoulder and deep drop in his knees.

It was amazing how Tall Guy wanted to take some steps back all of the sudden. Peter couldn’t help but let a smirk widen his face as he advanced.

“Okay, hang on now,” Tall Guy said with both palms out in front of him. “You don’t know what this is about, Spidey. You don’t want to get involved with this, trust me. He’s just bein’ dramatic. No need to get testy.”

“You sure do a lot of talkin’ for your friend there,” Peter noted through his grin.

“Yeah, Han,” Luke said.

Ha.

Han. Han and Luke. Ned was gonna be enraptured when Peter told him about this later.

“Luke. Back me up.”

“Why should I?”

“Because,” ‘Han’ finally snapped. “I’m not doin’ this because I want you to suffer, alright? I don’t want nothin’ to do with it either, okay? No one does. But it’s this or—”

“Or everyone else,” Luke finished for him in a strangely toneless voice.

Han sighed.

“It’s always everyone else,” Luke said.

“Not here.”

“Why’s it always everyone el—No, no, here. Why not? We’ve got fucking Spiderman in our midst, how much more surreal can this moment get? No. You listen to me, Han—”

“I’ve been listening to you all damn evening and you know what I’m hearing?”

“—I lost my life for this. I lost my home, my aunt, my uncle, my hand—”

“I’m hearing you making this about you.”

“—everything I ever knew, and I tried to make it right, didn’t I? I made the school. I gathered the kids—”

“And it’s not just about you this time, kid. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, or Leia, or Chewie or—”

“—I lost my kid and the love of my life, and I finally get a second chance at finding them and giving them the goddamn happy ending they deserve, and the next thing I know—”

“Luke, you’re the only one,” Han said.

“I WAS NEVER. THE ONLY. ONE, HAN,” Luke roared out of absolutely nowhere, sober as a saint. “I was never the only one. EVER. Ahsoka. Go find her. She’s everything that I’m not and more. She’s the real—”

“Luke.”

“Stop saying that name. I HATE that name. I would do anything for twenty goddamn seconds where I didn’t have to be him.”

“You don’t mean that,” Han said quietly. His shoulders had rounded out and become black and heavy under the weight of their shadow. Luke’s eyes, however, looked like topaz.

“I mean it,” Luke said.

Oho.

So shit had gotten real tense, real fast, so Peter about to make a decision that was gonna make Shelley so proud of him she would weep when he finally slunk back in through her office door.

He was leaving. He was turning around and taking a wee jog. Maybe turning a corner, having a little jump over a fence, up a wall, to a place as far away from this one as superhumanly possible.

Bye, bye.

“This galaxy needs you, Luke.”

Peter stopped five paces away.

“They need you,” Han repeated. “And I need you.”

Peter slowly looked back to see that Luke’s face had twisted sharply out of the light, towards the alley wall.

“I’m sorry that we met again like this,” Han said quietly. “I’m sorry it’s always you. You don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.”

“Shut up,” Luke said.

“But if you don’t do something, then it won’t be just me and you and all these random others sliding back into that cesspit we all barely crawled out of.”

“Stop.”

“You’ll never find him if things go back the way they were.”

“You—you don’t know that. There—maybe—”

“Luke. Listen to me. Please.”

“Maybe there’s a chance—”

“Luke,” Han said reaching out and putting a hand on Luke’s shoulder and clenching it hard enough that Peter should see the bunched fabric, “Do you want Din to live through this shitshow a second time? Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

Peter shivered. The pressure at the base of his neck was building. The Spidey Sense wanted to hiss in his ears like white noise. It pinned him where he was, staring over his shoulder at those two solid shapes, one digging a hand into the flesh of the other.

His stomach turned.

Luke said something that Peter couldn’t hear. Han pulled him toward his own body by the grip he had on his shoulder. At first, Luke seemed to stagger, like he was walking on black ice. He stopped a single step away from Han’s body, still with his face angled severely away. Han said something to him.

There was a long pause, then Luke seemed to fall forward. Han caught him and crushed his head into his shoulder, lowering his own until it was almost touching Luke’s ear. They clung to each other.

Luke was crying.

The Spidey Sense started to crackle and pop in Peter’s ears.

“I gotchu, kid,” Han said in a rasp. “I gotchu. We’re gonna get through it.”

Peter blinked once and finally unlocked the muscles in his neck. He wasn’t meant to witness this. He held out a wrist and fired a line.

  --

It was weird.

It was just weird.

Something wasn’t right. And Peter couldn’t make his stomach not writhe about it.

Luke.

Han.

An offhand mention of like, characters. Character names. They were character names. Leia, Chewie.

Peter had heard of people who lived their lives honestly believing that they had been other people—fake people—in past lives, but like, damn man. Why would you put yourself in a position like that were you were moved to actual tears for some elaborate street-drama?

Maybe it had been a joke? That was the only thing he could think it could be. Maybe the universe had gazed upon his hubris at work and gone ‘ah yes, I know what this young man needs: emotional confusion at midnight on a Thursday. That’ll fix him.’

If that was the case, then yeah. Good job, universe. Good job, larpers. Y’all are equally sick.

But if not—and Peter no longer lived in a world where he could rule out any possibilities—then he had just witnessed—Dude, he’d just witnessed—

He couldn’t even think it. It was beyond him. It was so far beyond him that like he might have a real stroke taking the thought seriously.

There was only one person who could hold that kind of information unscathed.

Only one.

  --

PP: Ned. I need you to listen to me and tell me I’m not crazy.

NL: no promises but go on

PP: I think? I just saw? Luke Skywalker? And Han Solo? In an alley behind Kitty’s?????

NL: fascinating

JS: Say more

PP: who let you in here?

JS: you?

PP: SECURITY

NL: Peter say more

PP: I can’t there’s a nerd in here and it’s vibrating at the wrong decibel. SECURITY???

MJ: yeah?

PP: I’m trying to have a breakdown. Can you remove Matchstick please?

MJ: what kind of breakdown

JS: he thinks he met Luke Skywalker

PP: Security has failed me. God?

NL: Peter can you name three things you can see.

PP: I am not manic. I am in touch with reality. I’m just having anxiety because I just fucking saw two people calling each other Luke and Han fighting behind Kitty’s. Like real fighting.

JS: nicknames?

PP: I—

PP: oh my god nicknames

PP: Johnny I’m so sorry I ever doubted you. never leave my side

JS: 😊

MJ: wow that’s cringe. Imagine naming yourself after SW characters

NL: does kitty do a cosplay night now????

PP: idk it was wild. People thought that ‘Han’ was trying to kidnap ‘Luke’ but when I got over there, Luke started flirting with me and then shit got real and they started arguing over like him hating his name and not wanting to do something and losing everything or some shit

NL: that’s a lot. I’m sure it was nothing, though, peter.

PP: yeah it was. My SS has been going nuts ever since I left. You think they bugged me?

JS: yes I will come search your body imminently

MJ: my job storm, back off

JS: after MJ has finished prelim checks, I will then search your body for you out of the kindness of my heart ❤

NL: that’s weird, the SS doesn’t usually freak out about cosplayers

PP: ikr?

NL: lol imagine if they were serious

MJ: don’t say that

JS: well now we have to lean in. thanks ned

JS: they were definitely real. God they were so real. You hear that Fate? You got us. They’re definitely real.

PP: BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE?

MJ: cue breakdown

NL: that would be so fucking funny. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo trying to save the world from the hellscape of nyc. The rats alone would thwart them.

PP: ned I’m freaking out

NL: oh you mean you’re actually freaking out?

PP: deeply

NL: oh shit sorry. I’ll be over, have you slept yet?

PP: NO

MJ: on it

JS: can I join?

NL: no johnny

MJ: no johnny

PP: 😭

JS: one day our love will build a bridge, peter. In the meantime I am stroking your ear comfortingly from midtown

  --

Need and MJ’s weight pinning him to a mattress brought sleep but not necessarily comfort. They both thought that this was a sick joke someone had played on him that was now destroying his psyche. They thought that the couple pointing him back towards the cosplayers had been in on the joke.

Peter would have agreed with them if it wasn’t for the Spidey Sense. Everything else lined up perfectly.

Ned sighed in the morning and told Peter to go talk to Wade.

 --

 Wade’s hallucinations were, by far, more auditory than visual, but he stayed quiet while Peter talked his ear off over the phone in his locked office. He waited until Peter had run out of words to describe the feeling of impending doom and then huffed a bit of a laugh into the receiver.

“Them Star Wars people are unreal, Pete, you know this,” he said. “Look at Ned.”

Ned was perfect.

“Take off those rosy shades, hon. Now, look again.”

Ned had perhaps memorized the entire scripts of the first three movie and 90% of the spaceship names and the jedi lineages.

“Uh-huh. Keep going.”

Peter didn’t want to.

“We all gotta do shit we don’t want do.”

Fine.

Ned’s goal in life was to go to his wedding in a stormtrooper suit.

“Keep going.”

Every Lego project they’d built together since 13 years-old had been a Star Wars-related one. When Ned had decided to move out of his parents’ place, he’d shed actual tears over MJ and Peter mutually suggesting that he sell some of his memorabilia.

“Will this delightful buffet before our very eyes, what is the likelihood of your two pals being drunk larpers in too deep to quit?” Wade asked.

73%.

“Uh-huh.”

“Thanks, Wade.”

“No problem. Although, now I gotta see this. You said they were behind Kitty’s? You think I can get a stormtrooper costume in 8 hours?”

“They’re not still gonna be there, Wade,” Peter huffed. “It’s 10 am.”

“You ain’t know that. What if Luke Skywalker’s a useless drunk, huh? You ever think of that?”

No.

“What’d he look like?”

Peter groaned.

“He looked like Luke Skywalker,” he said. “Blond hair, blue eyes—sort of like a chipmunk that forgot its stripes.”

“I’m onto you, Skywalker.”

Peter hung up to Wade’s cackle. He slouched low and tapped his pen against his desk. Then against his fingers.

He stared at the edge of his keyboard.

“What’s the weirdest thing you could imagine, Pete?” he asked himself.

 --

 PP: sam

SC: yeah?

PP: do you like star wars?

SC: nah

PP: you’re perfect

PP: do you believe in past lives?

SC: like spiritually or culturally? I know I was a cult-kid for a min there but before that we were Buddhists and like, past lives are part of the package

PP: that’s cool. What do you think of people being reborn as themselves again like, 500000000 years later? From a galaxy far far away?

SC: I don’t think about those people

PP: okay well, hypothetically. Let’s say that you were going to imagine someone who embodied that whole spirit. Who would it be?

SC: Buddha

PP: not buddha

SC: is this a riddle? Is it Jesus?

PP: THOR. Thank you this has been helpful ily bye

  Mr. Stark asked him over a cup of viciously black coffee why Peter was seeking out the demigod of his present nightmares.

That usually meant that he and Thor had disagreed on basic physics principles again. Peter took that also to mean that the demigod was still in the building. Possibly loose.

“He’s with Banner,” Mr. Stark said scathingly.

“Thanks, you’re amazing,” Peter said as he sailed out of the room.

 --

 Thor was sitting on Dr. Banner’s lab table, despite Dr. Banner telling him to get off no fewer than two times in the five minutes that Peter was in there, schmoozing and making pleasantries. He warmed Thor up to the home-run hit by asking him all about past lives and present lives and what the soul was on Asgard. Thor was only too happy to explain a load of nonsense that made Banner roll his eyes and poke at his muscles with a thermometer.

“So, hypothetically speaking,” Peter drawled in a very casual lean, “With the infinite galaxies and universes, etcetera, there could be one where Star Wars people exist. And so hypothetically, they could get reborn into a universe like ours.”

Thor blinked at him.

“You remember the laser swords?” Dr. Banner deadpanned.

Thor lit up.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he told Peter indulgently. “But if that was the case then it would be a long tragedy, no?”

…yes…

Say more, Thor-man.

“Well,” Thor said with a big, happy smile, “The series of events that unfolded in that story seemed to me to be one of triumph and tragedy. With one would come the other—that’s how these stories work, yes?”

…yes.

“So if Master Luke Skywalker and his companions arrived into our space here, then they must experience the same in order to be themselves,” Thor said, bobbing his head in pity. “Perhaps what would look like a new start for such people would result only in terror and disappointment until the same conclusion was reached.”

Peter felt his own grin twitch.

“So it’s not impossible?” he asked.

Both Thor and Banner looked at him quizzically at the same time.

“Peter?” Dr. Banner asked. “Is this coming from somewhere?”

Peter’s grin twitched so violently, it turned into a grimace that even superstrength would not let him maintain.

“Can I borrow one of you?” he asked.

 --

 Wade was not happy to be met outside of Kitty’s in the middle of the day, especially because his stormtrooper outfit, in his words, ‘did no justice for the size of his balls.’

Peter was ignoring that. He dragged Thor past Wade’s righteous anger until he was standing on the place where the other two had stood the night before. Thor stood there gamely.

“There,” Peter said. “Any like, energy signatures?”

Thor glanced around and shrugged.

Wade scowled at him and hounded him off the spot so that he could stand there instead.

“I feel nothing,” he said, devoid of emotion.

“Same,” Thor said.

Damnit.

“Perhaps you are—”

The Spidey Sense smashed through all of Peter’s sense and screamed at him to get to the street.

Get to the street. Get to the street. Get to the—

There.

Across the way. Chipmunk, no stripes.

That was the guy from the day before. He was on the opposite sidewalk smashed in with the crowd, dragging a hand through his hair and laden with a backpack and two separate totes. He was wearing a strange set of clothes—a mash of casual and formal—and seemed to be in a hurry, the type of hurry that involved pushing past folks at a half-jog and not stopping at streetlights.

“Got ‘im,” Peter hissed.

“No shit?” Wade asked over his shoulder.

Thor made a sound of interest.

“I see him, too,” he said. “What incredible energy, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Wh—

Peter whirled on him.

“Don’t you fucking say that,” he warned. “I’m gonna go distract. You two, on my six.”

 --

 Peter broke four traffic laws on his way around the block. He swung himself around a corner and fucked up the collar on his labcoat and counted to four before stepping out right into ‘Luke’s path.

They collided. Luke stumbled back and dropped one of his totes.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Peter blustered. “Are you okay?”

Luke swore and dropped down without answering, collecting the odd ends of metal that had clattered out from his bag and now rolled loose over the pavement. Peter stooped to join, gathering rings and pipes of all sorts of sizes in his hands. Oncoming folks gave them a wide berth.

It took a moment for Luke to realize what Peter was doing, but when he did, his shoulders went stiff as a board.

“DON’T TOUCH THOSE,” he snapped, just as Peter made to pick up a little plastic bag with a wad of tissue inside it.

Peter froze.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said.

This time, Luke finally met his eye.

“Oh, Jesus. No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Luke blustered, “Thank you. I’ll—I’ve got them. Thank you, though. It’s okay.”

He took the metal out of Peter’s hands and stuffed them back into his bag. He snatched the plastic bag before Peter could touch it and put that on top.

“Excuse me,” he said as he stood. “Thanks again.”

And just like that, he hurried off past Peter down the pavement.

Peter watched him go.

“Catch?” Wade asked softly from the corner.

“Negative,” Peter said, reaching into his sleeve and holding up the thin aluminum tube he’d hidden up there by the edge of his shirt-sleeve.

It was shiny and longer than he’d expect for any plumbing project. The inside appeared to be coated with some sort of heavy, non-reactive material, and half of the outside had grooved bands carved into it.

“Someone’s building something,” he said.

“Mid-century sink?” Wade asked, taking the tube.

“Nope,” Peter said.

 --

 NL: That is a lightsaber hilt

NL: where did you get that? It’s like mega accurate. Was it etsy?

PP: I stole it

NL: give it back

PP: I can’t I stole it from Luke Skywalker.

NL: Peter.

NL: we talked about this.

PP: He’s Luke Skywalker. I swear on the grave of my mother

MJ: this is a problem. This is now an intervention.

PP: I will prove it. If he’s Luke Skywalker, then he will do ANYTHING to get this thing back.

NL: and if not?

PP: then I will wait two days before politely tracking down his home address and then I will return it via wall crawling

JS: UM

JS: SORRY

JS: PETER CAN YOU CALL ME?

PP: no

NL: no

MJ: no

JS: are

JS: are you sure??? Because there’s a guy in Reed’s lab right now talking to him and Sue, asking SUPER politely for access to—I shit you not—the crystals we picked up from that space trip the other day???

NL: …

PP: …

MJ: …

PP: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

MJ: fake

NL: no way

PP: WHAT’S HIS NAME, JOHNNY BOY????

JS: I can’t

PP: nope you gotta

JS: I can’t I’m gonna cry I didn’t ask for this

MJ: out with it

NL: please say it’s obi-wan

JS: HHHHHHHHHHH

JS: nope

JS: just a guy named Ben 🙃

PP: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

PP: I told you motherfuckers

JS: right. So like. Awkward. But you uh, know that hilt thing you have?

PP: …is Obi-Wan Kenobi about to beat my ass, Johnny?

 --

 There was something about putting the hilt into the palm of someone more famous than Captain America that made Peter’s knees weak.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker had flirted with him the other night.

It did not help that Luke Skywalker didn’t recognize him as Spiderman.

Nothing helped, really, especially when those big topaz eyes lifted and Peter could see that their rims were red and raw.

“Thanks,” Luke Skywalker—the embodiment of hope itself—said in a soft, defeated rasp.

Every alarm in Peter’s head said to save him. Save him from what? How? Who knew.

Ned and MJ seemed to feel the same way, if the pressure on each of his arms was anything to go by.

“Well, that’s all cleared up, then. Thank you so much for your help; it is deeply appreciated,” a stupidly pleasant gentleman with a perfectly combed beard and lovingly coifed light hair said to the room at large.

Obi-Wan Kenobi—pardon, Ben Kennedi—was far more handsome than any movie could ever dream to make him. What they’d done to him in the 1970s, Peter saw now, was a fucking crime. He watched as this beautiful human being set a warm hand on Luke Skywalker’s—pardon, Luke Naberry’s—shoulder and used it to steer him towards the Baxter Building’s front entrance.

He watched as the two of them, like true Master and Padawan, stepped out onto the landing and opted for the stairs. For one fleeting, unbelievable second, Luke looked back over his shoulder at all of them before taking the next step after his Master.

He was right the other night.

He wasn’t the only jedi. Not anymore.

“So that just happened,” Sue acknowledged for everyone after the door had clicked closed and the sound of footsteps had faded off to nothing.

“I’m going to cry,” Reed announced.

“This is single-handedly the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Ned said.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi walked into our kitchen,” Reed told Sue like she hadn’t been there right next to him.

“The empire is trying to establish itself under our very feet,” Sue said back a little viciously.

“The real empire,” Reed whimpered.

Wait.

No, go back.

“For real?” Peter asked.

Sue and Reed looked back at the rest of them and then exchanged a look.

 --

 Peter was sad now. Depressed and laid out on his side staring back at Valeria’s huge eyes on the floor while Ned and MJ and Johnny asked Reed and Sue two hundred clarifying questions.

Peter didn’t need the specifics. He was thinking back on the conversation that he’d witnessed between Luke and Han Solo—Han Solo who was tall with dark hair and dark eyes and an accent straight out of New Jersey. Solo who had probably been charged with forcing Luke to face the facts in front of all of them because he was the one who Luke trusted most.

But it had shattered them—both of them.

The New Hope had given up everything. He was tired. His heart was torn. He was jaded just like Peter had been that same night. He’d been avoiding the tightrope that Peter had already started crossing, though, probably looking for every possible way to not have to set the first foot on that wobbly line.

He’d walked it before.

Valeria reached out with a chubby, round hand and touched the side of Peter’s face.

“Spiderman,” she said with terrifying understanding, “Someone needs help.”

He wriggled in close enough to bonk heads with her.

“Baby Storm,” he whispered, “I think you’re right.”

  --

MJ thought that Peter needed to leave things alone. She pointed out that he had plenty of problems without getting involved in universe-saving. She gestured to Johnny and volunteered him for the job.

Johnny refused on account of needing to be the prettiest blond in any room. He claimed that if he wasn’t, he had to fight for dominance.

Ned was on the other end of the spectrum. He had 43 reasons why Peter should get involved with things, and 40 of them ended up in the same place which was ‘it would be cool.’

One of Ned’s better reasons, however, involved pointing out that Peter had already stolen half of a lightsaber. He was good and involved now, whether he wanted to be or not. And that was enough for Peter to decide to go on a hunt to give a formal apology.

He recruited Ned to help him locate Luke Skywalker.

That didn’t work.

They tried Luke Naberry.

That didn’t work either.

They ended up going through every possible iteration of every Star Wars name they knew and then filtered out the people who’d been named by exuberant parents and then filtered out anyone who didn’t live in New York and they ended up with fat lot of still nothing.

It was like Luke Skywalker didn’t truly exist in this world.

Until MJ found his Instagram by typing in ‘guys who look weirdly like Luke Skywalker.’

She held the phone aloft in triumph and they all gathered round to gape in awe at her intelligence and research skills.

Luke’s Instagram was nothing but pictures of coffee.

He had one selfie and this selfie was enough to have gotten him onto a BuzzFeed article. In it he was holding—you guessed it—coffee. Iced coffee. One in each hand.

He was shaking them, and one had been labeled with his name—hence the public connection made.

“Someone needs to tell him that coffee is not a food group,” Johnny observed.

“Maybe he works nights,” MJ said.

Ned lifted an eyebrow.

“Maybe this is his job,” he said.

There was a pause.

Some snooping revealed that Luke was an honest to god food website editor. He was a cameraman.

Repeat. Luke Skywalker, cameraman. He filmed all the food hosts for his company’s Youtube channel. He edited videos. He more or less blended into the background of everything, while having his finger prints on damn near everything.

This was a man after Peter’s own soul. They were kindred spirits in hidden identities, content creation, and suffering under a boulder of responsibility too great to cope with.

He had to find him now.

And after they had his Instagram it wasn’t too hard. He seemed to hang out in various parts of the Bronx and Peter just so happened to know some folks out that way.

 --

 Louis told Peter that he would never speak to him again if he found, befriended, and then didn’t share Luke Skywalker (the man, the real man, I’m not fucking with you, Louis). But he also recognized a place on Luke’s instagram that he seemed to be working his way through the menu of. He sent along an address and told Peter not to forget his promises.

Angel asked why he was looking for Johnny Storm in the Bronx.

Peter left Louis to rattle sense into her.

He took a walk on Saturday morning. A long walk. A long train ride, then a walk, then a half hour of squinting, and then, lo and behold, he found a blond guy banging his head into the center of an out door metal table across from a woman with heavy braids trailing down the sides of her neck. She was much older than him and drummed white-painted fingernails across her cheek as she thought.

Peter hid and called Ned and MJ for an ID. He peeked the phone’s camera out enough for them to see the other two and then snatched it back.

Ned was about to flip a table.

“That’s clearly Ahsoka Tano,” he said. “She—the braids, dude. Dead give-away. And she put ribbons in them, like what even is discretion?”

Peter didn’t know that person. He continued not to know this person, even as Ned dragged him through a trainwreck of Star Wars lore.

“So she’s a friend,” he said.

“She’s like a jedi, but not like a jedi, she was a jedi, but then she said ‘fuck the order’ and—”

Great. Peter was approaching.

Ned held his face in his hands. MJ told Peter to report back on his findings. Peter ended the call and inched closer, weaving through the crowd and slipping into the coffee joint to see what nonsense they were selling.

It was nonsense with lots of syrup. He could never say no to syrup.

He watched the two outside while waiting for his order. Luke gesticulated to his friend and she spoke, giving reasonable gestures back. He stopped her and dug out his phone and that little plastic baggy full of fluffy material. He answered his phone. His friend took the little bag and held it up to the light.

She frowned at it.

Luke pushed away from the table and walked away to take his call. Peter’s order was called. He grabbed it and swerved out towards the patio.

“Hello,” he said at the edge of Luke and his friend’s table. “Is this seat taken?”

Luke’s friend stared at him.

“It is,” she said. “Move along, hon, you’re ten years too young.”

Wow.

“For your friend?” Peter tried. “Could I leave my number?”

He had this lady’s attention now. She was looking him up and down, appraising. Peter tried not to flex. He stayed cool. Matt-levels of cool. He smiled winningly.

“Alright, why not?” she said, digging through her bag for a receipt and a pen. Peter beamed as he leaned down to scrawl his number down on the back. He got halfway through before he heard a step stop nearby.

“Look alive, kid,” Luke’s friend said. “Hey, Luke, this guy was just—”

“You again?” Luke said.

Peter lifted his head and brows.

“Hi,” he said. “I just wanted to apologize.”

There was a long silence.

Luke’s friend looked between them and then gave Luke a long, judgmental stare.

“You don’t have to,” Luke said. “Thanks, though. How did you find me here?”

Mmm. Beginner’s luck.

“Here,” Peter said, offering his number on the receipt. “If you ever need someone to talk to who gets it.”

Luke’s friend bit her lip and looked away in secondhand embarrassment. Peter ignored her for now.

“Thanks,” Luke said. “You don’t and you won’t. But you’re very pretty.”

Nice.

“You’d be surprised,” Peter told him. “Gimme a text. I’ll leave y’all alone now. Enjoy your coffee.”

He left. But not before hearing, “but that ass, Luke.”

 --

 Ned told him that there was no way that Luke was ever going to text him and he was disappointed in Peter’s hostage-taking skills.

But he was proved wrong two hours later and, for his crimes, had to admit Peter’s brilliance publicly.

 LS: hi sorry. This is Luke. This morning when you stopped by our table, did you happen to see a little plastic bag on it?

 Why yes. The one in Peter’s pocket right now? That bag?

 PP: hi!! I did, actually. You guys aren’t very subtle 😏

LS: it’s not coke

PP: I’m not judging

LS: no, it’s not coke, I swear. It’s something INFINITELY more important. Did you happen to see if it had fallen on the ground?

PP: ah, no, sorry. I didn’t see it

PP: OH NO

PP: oh my god I’m so sorry, I think I took it with me when I accidentally took your friend’s pen.

LS: I

LS: what’s your name?

PP: Peter ❤

LS: Peter, you have a fucking problem

LS: I’m starting to think that you want something from me. And listen, you’re a handsome guy, but I’m not available and my type isn’t kleptomaniac. What do you want for it?

PP: well you got me

PP: to talk

LS: about what?

PP: mostly about why you look like you’re a wet phonebook in a bad gutter

LS: a phonebook???? What era are you even from????

PP: I could say the same to you, sir.

LS: I

LS: wh

LS: alright touche. The point is that I’m not going to talk to you. I just need that bag back. It’s a life and death situation.

PP: what are they? They aren’t coke crystals.

LS: how would you know?

PP: what are you, a cop?

LS: NO. This is going nowhere. What. Do. You. Want?

PP: To. Talk.

LS: I’m not going to talk to you.

PP: then why did you ask me to rescue you?

 He held his breath.

 LS: I didn’t

PP: you did

LS: I didn’t ask you for shit. This is it. What’s your last name.

PP: Man 😊

LS: Man what

PP: That’s my last name.

LS: Peter Man.

PP: oop, nope, sorry. That’s someone else.

LS: …so I’m calling the police, now. That’s what we’re saying?

PP: depends. Do you still need to be rescued?

 Come on, Skywalker. Come on, remember.

 LS: I never asked you to rescue me.

PP: You did. Think back.

LS: I didn’t

LS: I just made a joke to

LS: WHAT AFAJSDFA DTTH E FUCK

 Peter cackled and let himself fall onto his back.

 PP: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ❤

LS: YOU’RE

PP: Just your friendly neighborhood guy ❤

LS: YOU

LS: you

PP: me

LS: THAT’s how the storms knew you

PP: yep 💋

LS: I don’t even know what to say

PP: it’s okay, you don’t have to say shit. The main thing I wanted you to know was that I hear you. And if you need it, I’ve got you.

LS: You’re literally trying to rescue me??

PP: it’s my job

LS: IT ISN’T. How have you never been arrested? how did you find me? Did you track my phone? Is it some kind of spider thing???

PP: yes

LS: I am legally obligated to kill you with the force now

PP: harder daddy

LS: ADaaSDASFSDFSdd

LS: oh my god Han is going to lose his gourd

LS: I’m sorry I just I can’t believe you of all people stole my damn hilt

PP: I’ve got……………………..sticky fingers

LS: go die

LS: no I didn’t mean that sorry that’s a thing with me and my sister. I mean, okay. You got me. Hero of NYC.

 Peter’s cheeks were starting to hurt.

 PP: I’ll bring them back to you.

LS: Please do, Ben’s about to have a stroke.

PP: you mean obi-wan?

LS: he’s convinced his cat ate them. There’s a staring contest happening. No one has blinked in two minutes and I don’t want to be here for the internal investigation.

PP: where do you live?

 Luke sent an address. Peter held his phone high and walked it into the living room where Ned was bitchily composing an Instagram post. He and MJ looked up at the same time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Peter said. “Luke Skywalker and Co. live in a cemetery.”

 --

 It wasn’t a cemetery. It was a funeral home, but close enough.

Luke was waiting outside on the stoop in a cardigan about four sizes too big for him. It was there probably to protect him from the equally large ragdoll cat in his arms.

Peter smiled. Luke stared at him and then shook his head and went through the screen door. Ned gave Peter a biting look.

“Made friends, I see,” he said.

“We’re doin’ great,” Peter told him, hopping up the stairs. “Look at us, totally—”

“Insidious.”

Peter stopped and turned nervously to see through the screen door where Obi-Wan Kenobi had seized both of the cat’s cheeks. Luke continued to hold it with maximum doneness levels.

“Where have you been?” Obi-Wan asked the cat seriously.

“We have guests,” Luke said. “Take your beast.”

Obi-Wan snatched the cat out of Luke’s arms with contempt all over his face.

“You are a villain of the highest order,” he told it.

“Ben. Guests. Please evacuate. I am hosting negotiations,” Luke said.

“We should have named you ‘Sith.’”

“Ben.”

Peter was not going to laugh at Obi-Wan Kenobi. That was too surreal.

“Come in,” Luke said, returning to hold open the screen. “I hope you’re not allergic. There are two of them.”

T-two?

“The other one is Junior.”

Peter stepped over the threshold and found himself in a room that looked like a human birdhouse. It was full of surfaces that were almost completely empty, as though an enrichment object had once lived there but had been removed as punishment. Luke waved Ned and MJ in and accepted their apologies on Peter’s behalf.

Peter ignored them to lock eyes with a creature more stunning than any he had ever encountered. It sat on the kitchen counter by a single clear jar labelled ‘Not Spice.’ It blinked grumpy green eyes.

“Oh, it’s these people again?”

They all looked behind them to see Obi-Wan peering around a doorframe with the first cat draped over his shoulders.

“Kleptomaniac,” Luke said, pointing at Peter. Peter waved.

“Huh,” Obi-Wan said simply. “I will distract Ahsoka.”

He vanished. Luke grimaced after him.

“Let’s go talk in the back,” he said. “There are no bodies, I promise.”

 --

 The funeral home had a little deck and a yard small even for this far out in Queens. It was crammed full of plants that appeared to be in a competition to bloom. Luke invited them to sit and then left to make coffee.

Coffee, yes, how had Peter forgotten.

He peeked over the side of the deck down where there was a large stone set in the center of the garden.

“A seeing stone,” Ned whispered to him.

“Oh, how did you know?”

They all jumped.

Peter swore that Obi-Wan hadn’t opened that sliding door. How had—what—

Ned was at a loss for words in the face of one of his greatest heroes.

“I—uh. M-movie? I mean, sorry. It was in The Mandalorian, second season, with the—”

“Yet more television,” Obi-Wan said derisively.

They all stared.

“Can you teleport?” MJ asked him.

“I thought you were bothering Ahsoka?” Luke asked, from inside. He squeezed past the man and his cat with three glass mugs in hand. He set them down on the little square table off to the side of the desk railing.

“I was, but then I got curious,” Obi-Wan said. “And I lost Junior.”

Luke stared at him.

“I’m going to lock you in the basement,” he said.

“Try, try, and try again,” Obi-Wan told him, petting his beloved cat’s head.

“Do you even know who Spiderman is, old man?”

“More television.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Peter had to keep a conscious watch on his jaw, lest it fall open in the face of the most handsome, clueless man on the planet. He watched as Obi-Wan, disgusted with all this ‘television’ nonsense skulked back off into the guts of the home. Luke shut the door behind him.

“So,” he said, holding out his hand. “We’re talking. Fork ‘em.”

Ah.

Fair was fair.

Peter produced the plastic bag from his pocket and handed it over. There was a shout somewhere inside followed by someone going ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

“Ben keeps our home ghost free. He terrifies all the wannabee haunters,” Luke said simply. “Thank you for these. I imagine it’s somewhat of a shock to learn that it’s all real.”

It was, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing Peter had encountered by far.

“How long have you lived in New York?” he asked conversationally.

Luke gave him a weird brow.

He seemed smaller than before in that enormous cardigan. Certainly smaller than the movies made him seem. His face was a little thinner too, and his lips seemed to slope into an almost permanent pout.

“About twenty years,” he said. “We were born in California, but Anakin moved us here when we were eight.”

Anakin? Like, Darth Vader, Anakin?

“’Luke, I am your father’—yeah, that guy,” Luke said with a scoff. “Except, you know, he ain’t dead. And he’s the only one who can make Ben remember that tea isn’t a meal, so we keep him around for that and to scream back at Leia.”

Peter was already completely lost to the dynamics of this household. It wasn’t like the books and movies—Ned’s twitching for his phone to take notes was proof enough of that.

“That’s awkward,” MJ said. “So did y’all do like, collective counselling for the past life shit?”

Luke deflated and moaned into his hands.

“It’s not past life shit if your damn name is the same,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

It sounded like it.

Imagine growing up with your apparently-Star War-obsessed father and uncle who’d built a home and a business (presumably) around that shit, only to find out later that they’d done it because it was literally their religion.

What a trip.

“When did you find out?” Peter asked gently.

“Oh, you know. Last week,” Luke said with a bitter grin. “Quit my fulltime job. Dumped my ex. Broke my lease and now here I am. Once again. Back at this place.”

“Do you want a hug?” Ned asked into the awkward silence.

“You’re very sweet,” Luke said. “If I touch another human, I will start crying and never stop.”

Yikes.

Barely holdin’ on by a thread there, buddy? How’s the hyperawareness going?

“Why does it matter, is my question. For you, I mean,” Luke said with a suspicious squint. “You fought a goblin guy, didn’t you? With a hover board?”

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, yeah.

Yeah, Peter sure had done that.

“And like, the bird dude? Didn’t you down a plane?”

Perhaps.

But Luke had blown up the Deathstar, no?

“These things are not equivalent,” Luke said flatly. “I joined a rebel alliance. There were loads of us.”

Mmm. Perhaps so.

“God, how old are you even? You look 22.”

Peter gawked.

“I’m 27,” he said.

Luke did a double-take.

“That’s a lie,” he accused. “Tell the truth or be compelled.”

“By the Force?” Ned asked hopefully.

Luke blinked at him. He pointed at the glass sliding door which revealed Obi-Wan holding Junior the cat above his head by the kitchen sink.

“The Force,” he said.

Ned’s face fell.

“Do we not have the Force, here?” he asked.

Luke flinched.

“Listen,” he said abruptly, “We’re workin’ on it. This isn’t our original galaxy. The rules are all different. The only one who’s managed to make even a spark happen is Obi-Wan so far, but as soon as we find Master Yoda, it’s over. We’ll already have won.”

“You lost Yoda,” MJ mused.

Luke stammered and caught himself.

“We lost a lot of people,” he snapped. “It happens when you shift galaxies. Anyways, that’s what the stone is for.”

MJ glanced back at the stone and then leaned her forearms onto the small table.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said. “You jedi folks all popped up over here by some cosmic accident. You don’t have the Force. Most of you don’t even remember who you are. You lost your most experienced Master, and you’re going to fight the Sith?”

Peter stirred his coffee nervously.

Luke’s eye twitched.

“We don’t need the others,” he said. “We only need the Force. To fight the Sith. Yes.”

MJ frowned deep and held her chin with both hands.

“So you need the thing you for sure don’t have the most,” she said.

Luke opened his mouth, but not before the window by the door snapped open and Obi-Wan leaned out to say, “We always have the Force.”

Luke covered his face in despair.

“I was listening from the kitchen window,” Obi-Wan told him lovingly.

“GO FIND CODY ALREADY,” Luke roared at him.

“I did, he’s right here,” Obi-Wan said soothingly, stroking his angry cat.

“The other Cody.”

“Oh, I am trying, don’t you worry.”

“Ben, so help me God—”

“Force.”

“SO HELP ME FORCE—”

Star Wars had really left out the part about Luke’s explosive temper. Peter winced, but Ned laughed and the sound seemed to have a calming effect on Jedi-on-Jedi crime about to take place in the kitchen. Obi-Wan appeared pleased with this development and emboldened. He wove past Luke out onto the desk and came over, cat and all, to point down to the seeing stone in the middle of the garden.

“Others who feel the Force’s energy will be drawn to it,” he told Ned fondly. “It’s how we got Luke back home.”

“It’s not,” Luke said. “You called me.”

“And so others will also come,” Obi-Wan said with confidence. “The most important thing is that we believe in the Force. And from that, we will find guidance and power and—”

“He means Yoda,” Luke translated. “He’s been putting frogs on it as an offering, even though me, Ahsoka, and Anakin told him that this is a human’s world. A human’s world, Ben. Even if he did eat them, he’s not eating them raw.”

“Don’t be discouraged by Luke’s attitude, he is very stressed,” Obi-Wan told Ned and Ned only affectionately. “I told him not to be, you see there are four of us here already, and the Chosen One is among us.”

“Anakin told you to stop calling him that,” Luke moaned, massaging his temples.

“He was the first to be aware of our present situation,” Obi-Wan said.

“He took a hallucinogen and had a paranoid breakdown,” Luke pleaded. “Ben, please. Go inside. Think of your blood pressure.”

“Perhaps, but it was a useful breakdown, was it not?”

“I am so sorry for him, he’s getting senile,” Luke said to the rest of them.

“Your energy is different,” Obi-Wan informed Peter out of absolutely nowhere. “Are you also Force-sensitive? Were you drawn to the stone?”

Er.

No.

Sorry?

“He’s Spiderman,” Luke said, gesturing pointedly. “Remember Spiderman?”

Obi-Wan did not. Peter suspected, actually, that Obi-Wan still used phonebooks, if he used phones at all, that was.

Luke took a deep breath and let it out.

“Okay, let me just lay it out,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with what we have. You don’t have to get involved with this. We appreciate your help, but what would help us even more is if you stay out of it, alright?”

Yeah, okay. Sure. Peter could respect that.

“Amazing. And don’t tell other people.”

Understood.

“Unless they’re Force-sensitive,” Obi-Wan said. “In which case, ask them how they feel about rocks.”

Luke just stared at him coldly this time.

“You didn’t used to be like this,” he said dangerously.

“No, I used to be stressed,” Obi-Wan told him. “But you and Ani are doing that for me, so I have resolved to be a free spirit. Nice to meet all of you. Have more coffee. I don’t like this one; I will have it out of the house by sundown.”

He left, and possibly for good this time. No one knew what to say in his absence.

“So,” Peter tried, desperate for something to break up the tension. “You said a few days ago that you were looking for someone?”

Luke finally stopped making growling faces towards the sliding door. He lit up like a bulb.

“I am, actually,” he said.

 --

 Luke was looking for a very particular person named ‘Din.’ He described him as ‘six feet tall and covered in armor.’ He asked if they knew of such a person.

Peter had to shove a hand against his mouth in case he made an unwanted connection between this description and Obi-Wan behavior.

“Haven’t,” MJ said. “Who is he?”

“My husband,” Luke said.

Ned choked.

Peter choked.

MJ tilted her head.

“You have a husband?” she asked. “I would have remembered a husband in that series.”

Luke leaned his chin on his palm and gazed sideways over the city. He seemed to sigh.

“I don’t know why he isn’t connected to me in the media created here,” he said. “It’s probably because he’s always been very shy.”

Oh, aw. Peter loved that. The contrast between them was heart-warming.

“We had a son together,” Luke said. “His child. He brought him to me. One of my students, at first.”

Hang on a minute here.

Peter exchanged a glance with Ned. Ned tried very hard to pick a way to approach this sensitively. He landed on asking, “What was his name again?”

“Din,” Luke said. “Din Djarin.”

Ned cringed.

“He was a Mandalorian,” Luke explained. “Very, very, very shy. Like, he would rather chew off his own leg than make small talk with a stranger. I think, before I knew all this, I was still subconsciously looking for him. All my exes are the same type.”

That—

Okay, so like.

Did these people own a TV?

“Do we look like we own a TV?” Luke deadpanned. “No. If Ben senses anything bigger than a datapad happening in this place, he’s driven to madness and breaks it.”

UH?

“He doesn’t actually break it,” Luke sighed. “He just finds a way to make it unusable—putting clothes on it, disconnecting the monitor, that kind of thing. He thinks they waste electricity.”

What a guy. Peter wanted to put him and May in a room and see what conspiracies they could spin together.

“Why do you ask?” Luke asked.

Ned cleared his throat.

“Do you have a, uh, datapad, then?” he asked.

 --

 “DIN. That’s DIN. He’s got his own show. Oh my god, that’s—stay right there. Don’t move.”

Bless this man. Peter wanted to hug him so bad. They’d lost him to the staircase leading up from the second floor to the attic. Peter wondered who he was showing the tablet to.

Maybe Obi-Wan?

“I told you this already,” a voice up there said.

“LOOK AT HIM.”

“You’re killin’ me, smalls. We had this exact conversation last week. Did you forget?”

“You knew where he was.”

“Alright, alright. Downward march.”

Anakin fucking Skywalker came down the stairs with a handful of Luke’s shirt in one hand and the tablet shoved under his other arm. He paused and frowned at the three of them in the kitchen frozen in shock, and then apparently decided that that didn’t matter. He carried on dragging Luke with him towards the kitchen counter. He dropped the tablet onto it and Peter realized that the lower half of his sleeve on that side was empty.

He watched as the guy let go of Luke and chased the not-angry cat off the counter, cursing.

“Alright, this?” he said, tapping on the tablet. “Is the link I put here.” He rapped the same finger on what Peter now saw was a whiteboard covered in rows upon rows of symbols that he’d never seen before.

“Din here? Din here. You see?” Vader told Luke with untold patience.

“I can’t read that,” Luke moaned. “You lied to me.”

“It’s up in the kitchen, Luke.”

“You’re a liar and a cad. Do it in Basic.”

“This is Basic.”

Oh, dear. All that fanfic about Luke meeting Darth Vader and having a breakdown was looking real embarrassed now, wasn’t it?

“If it’s Basic, why can’t I read it?” Luke demanded.

“Because, like I told you last night, the night before, and the night before that,” Vader said painstakingly, “It doesn’t all come back at once. It’s going to take time.”

“We don’t have time,” Luke snapped.

Vader leaned his head back with half-lidded eyes. Luke didn’t look even remotely like his kid, even with him looking all pre-quels-like now.

“We talked about this, too, remember?” Vader asked.

Obviously not. Luke was distressed. He had eyes only for the tablet now.

“No, of course not, silly me,” Vader said. “Why are humans here?”

“Ahsoka went home,” Luke said.

“Thank you, that was not my question.”

“What was your question?”

“Why are non-order humans here?”

“I told you, Ahsoka went—”

“Son, I will kill you if you continue to act like Obi-Wan,” Vader said without missing a beat.

“You can try,” Luke said offhandedly. “But only one of us has two handed grip.”

There was a long stare.

“It’s Obi-Wan,” Vader told him. “Why do we have living guests?”

He gestured back to Peter, Ned, and MJ like they were flies on a set of blinds.

“Oh, because that’s Spiderman and he stole your kyber crystals,” Luke said.

Vader rounded on Peter, and Peter actually felt fear.

Vader blinked once.

“This may as well happen,” he decided somehow placidly. “I’m going back upstairs. Where did your grand-master go?”

“Into the mist,” Luke said. “Can you feel Din?”

“Negative, ghostrider.”

“When the Force chooses you first out of favoritism, can you feel for Din?”

“Ah yes, can I feel for your Force-repellant life partner with all of the Force energy that I do not have? Yes, I sure can.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, primary monstrosity of my loins.”

UM?

This felt a little hostile for Peter’s tastes. Not that it wasn’t earned. Clearly it was earned. It was just horrifying.

“Guests, you are dismissed,” Vader said in their direction. “Unless you’re drawn to the rock outside, in which case, you may stay. Otherwise, do not darken this doorstep again, or else we will leave you with the other dead in the morgue.”

“Thanks for bringing the crystals,” Luke said from behind him. “And for talking. I do feel better, actually.”

 --

 They left the funeral home. Obi-Wan was outside by the mailbox as though waiting for them. Peter wasn’t sure he had any emotional energy left to approach him with.

“Thank you for speaking to Luke,” he said as the three of them attempted to pass unnoticed. “It’s good for him to talk to others his own age.”

Uh-huh. Good night, sir?

“Good night, Peter, Ned, and Michelle.”

They hadn’t given their names.

They definitely hadn’t given their names.

 --

 Ned wasn’t sleeping for two years. He made this clear with a lot of clapping gestures and then rolled around on the floor, talking about all kinds of shit that Peter couldn’t decipher. MJ watched him and flicked her eyes up to Peter with concern on her forehead.

“That family is cinematically dysfunctional,” she said.

Correct.

“They’re barely their own characters.”

Correct.

“What now?”

Peter wasn’t sure. The best he could think of was to just keep an eye on the situation. Maybe check in every couple of weeks?

“If you say so,” MJ said. “I think you made Ned’s life, by the way. Good job.”

 --

 Peter tried checking in every two weeks. It started because he happened to hear of a tunnel collapsing in Queens nearby the funeral home. He texted Luke to ask if he needed a save and all he got back was a ‘well, not anymore.’

After that, Peter kept a close eye on happenstances occurring around the city. There were more than he bargained for. And when he glanced at Luke’s Instagram after the first week after the tunnel collapse, he noted that two of the nails on the hand Luke held his coffee to the camera with had gone completely black.

That was worrying.

Peter was used to be the danger-prone asshole in his friendgroup. He did not like this role-reversal. MJ asked him sarcastically what the problem was.

He texted Luke again.

 PP: how many nails do you have left bro?

LS: we put a hole in one to release the pressure

PP: that don’t sound great bro.

LS: it’s fine. Oh, but good news

PP: oh?

LS: the most predictable thing ever has happened. The Vader has regained force power

PP: that’s worrying

LS: ? why?

PP: won’t he go dark?

LS: ah, no. He fucked up and raised me and Leia with Ben this time after our mom died. He had his chance to go dark and traded it for 8 consecutive hours of sleep instead.

PP: I truly don’t know what to say

LS: It’s fine we did 12 years of family therapy after the accident so we are no longer on the DSS watchlist

PP: I know less what to say

LS: he won’t find din :/

PP: is that your priority right now?

LS: aren’t you supposed to be spiderman or something? Don’t you have chaotic things to say?

PP: you know normally I do, this is literally out of character for me. but I think you also might be absorbing my chaos.

LS: that’s fair. I have that effect on people. Hey, is your buddy Ned available to chat? He knows more than I can remember about my old life. Can I borrow him?

 That sounded like a horrendous decision.

 PP: yeah let me get you his number.

LS: thanksssss

  --

Ned reported a few days later that his services were needed at the funeral home. He was leaving them all now to befriend Luke Skywalker as was his true destiny.

He came back a few hours later and reported that his services had been helpful and he was pleased to say that Darth Vader was now the official herder of ‘wans’ in the house. This included all Obi-Wans and padawans.

He seemed to be the only guy there who could like, retain information given to him for some reason. He accepted this as his lot in life and went around repeating the same things to the others ad nauseum until they finally stuck for them.

Peter wondered if that was his personal hell.

Ned didn’t think so. He thought the guy was pretty chill about it and had probably been doing it for a while now. He did it more for Ahsoka Tano and Luke than he did for Obi-Wan. Although that was probably because Obi-Wan appeared to be on a hunt that made all non-relevant information given to him slip off his back like water.

 --

 Another two weeks. Another text.

 PP: hey luke, I saw you drowning on the news. You okay?

LS: GOD my ex-workplace keeps calling welfare checks on our house. We’ve had more cops here then flies these last few days.

PP: ex-workplace is one way to refer to your old job. Sounds like they cared about you. What did you do?

LS: preschool teacher.

 Peter was going to lose his shit right here on this bed.

 PP: was that your calling?

LS: that was Luke Naberry’s calling. Luke Skywalker’s calling is to make the lightsaber go vrrrrrrm

PP: you honestly terrify me

LS: thanks han says the same thing. OH. HE FOUND CHEWIE.

PP: no shit??

LS: yeah I told Ned, not you. But yeah. He found him lugging boxes for a bodega. And now they both work at the same bodega. Which like, objectively, is a bad thing because Han was a UN translator.

PP: I’m

PP: sorry

PP: what?

LS: I know he was all respectable and shit. It was awful. I can look at him again without feeling like I’ve failed in every part of my life.

PP: dare I ask what your sister does?

LS: lawyer

PP: not senator?

LS: we’re not old enough to be senators.

PP: every moment becomes more concerning than the next. You fascinate me. This is why they put you in like, all the films.

LS: because I’m sexy yeah

PP: that too

LS: not to you. I’m off-limits bub. I’m married.

PP: how’s that going for you?

LS: Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

PP: I see. So no Din yet?

LS: I will find him if it kills me

PP: that’s so romantic. Hey you should watch that series. They gave him a little green yoda in it. Really cute.

LS: that’s my son you piece of shit

 There was no winning here.

 --

 MJ asked him a few weeks later if he was still keeping up with the Jedi drama since the whole city had recently decided that Peter was a snack.

Obviously he hadn’t.

She told him not to worry, Ned had. She told him to talk to Ned, so he went and talked to Ned with a heatpad in one hand and a coldpack in the other.

Ned patted at him sympathetically and informed him that Luke had reunited with the Force. It was going poorly for him, mostly because the Force wasn’t used to people being in touch with it in these parts of the universe. It kept telling each of the jedi that there was a disturbance and then luring them to each other to fight to the death.

Luke described it as the Force-equivalent of an auto-immune disease.  

They’d taken to gathering in the living room of the funeral home to meditate in a circle, as though to calm the Force’s anxiety while scenting each other for protection.

It had a 40% success rate. Everyone was sleeping in locked rooms for the time being, just in case someone got compelled to do something rash.

Peter asked Ned if he’d finally lost his crown as King Chaos of NYC.

Ned patted him on the knee more firmly than before and said that he could regain his crown by introducing a calming element into the jedi household.

Peter had his pride to defend, so he asked what that element ought to be.

  --

Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, the leader of all Mandalorians, was bound to have a name that looked nothing like the one they had for him. Luke nearly exploded when Peter approached him to asked him (and his taped fingers) more about who Din Djarin was outside the name.

They proceeded with caution, however. So far, Peter and Ned had discovered only dissonance between Luke’s account of his life partner (his ‘heart, stars, sun, and sand’) and the guy on the screen for the tv show. That was to be expected, given that they had met Luke now and learned of his somewhat explosive personality.

But even still, Luke’s description of Din Djarin as ‘kind, compassionate, tender, shy, emotionally stable, dependable, sweet, caring, and hunky’ seemed slightly biased.

Peter just wanted to know how tall this guy was. Hair color. Eye color. Skin color. Blood type. That kind of shit.

Luke said that Din had brown hair, brown eyes, Type Who Knows What blood, and was about six feet tall. He had no idea how much he weighed. He’d never had need for that information. He knew that Din was human, which was probably helpful in a galaxy far, far away. He knew that he spoke Mando’a as his first language, then Basic, then a whopping fifteen others. And he knew that Din was probably looking after their son.

Vader asked Peter over a mug of coffee (also labeled in the funeral home’s cabinet as ‘not spice.’) if Spidersenses could overcome a dearth of information. It took Peter a few moments to realize that he was sympathizing with him.

“You’re not going to find Din,” Vader told Luke. “You need to look for the kid. You’ll find the kid first, you always have.”

Luke took his coffee and poured it down the drain.

Peter decided that he didn’t want to get in between that burgeoning battle. He told Luke to text him if he remembered anything else.

  --

Wade was pissed that Peter had been meeting and ‘cavorting’ with Luke Skywalker without him. He claimed ownership of the Din Djarin mystery in order to cram himself into Luke’s good graces. But quickly, he ran into the same stumbling blocks as Peter.

Din Djarin was six feet tall with brown eyes and brown hair.

That was what they currently had to go on.

Wade would have torn out his hair if he had any, but he stopped himself and accepted the challenge. Peter watched over his shoulder as he chicken-pecked his way into a list of social security numbers held by the NYC State ID issuing department and started methodically filtering names that did not sound like ‘Din.’

He started broad with all ‘D’s and then narrowed it down further and further and further until he was left with a shitload of Daniels.

He stared at the screen before him and vibrated.

Peter massaged his shoulders before he cracked.

It helped. Wade started filtering by height, then by eye color. Then by hair, and only ended up with several hundred people.

He vibrated again, but this time, Peter couldn’t help him.

He sighed. Wade said that there had to be a better way to do this. He got up.

  --

Wade made about four thousand missing posters with the name Din Djarin on them which he recruited the whole team to plaster up around NYC. This was not a request.

Miles asked him why they were doing this for a tv character and had to be let in on the gig.

He lost his shit.

Louis tried to retain his shit.

Angel still didn’t know how the whole jedi thing worked.

Dave hummed and haw’ed and took his time in calling bullshit. Wade asked him to look deep into his eyes and ask if he was entertaining bullshit that fine evening.

Dave changed his opinion and took a stack.

  --

There was no way that shit was supposed to work. There was just no way. A) because Wade had the worst ideas of all mankind and B) because Peter had the worst luck of all mankind. So the two of them together should have destroyed all the prospects of success for that job.

But instead, while they were hatching a new plot involving setting up a sham sociological study for people who responded to Star Wars names, Wade’s phone went off.

He grabbed it and opened the message and lo and behold right there was a note that read,

“I hope you are not a reporting body because this is going to sound certifiably insane, but I think I might be the guy you’re looking for?”

Wade screamed.

Peter scolded him not to get too excited too soon. They had to see the man first.

Wade texted furiously, asking for a picture and got a message back that said, “please do not dox me.”

They got no answer until Wade promised not to dox the guy.

And then they got an image of a man with brown hair and brown eyes with olive skin. His face was remarkably square. The picture wasn’t just him, though, he had in his arms a little boy with a head covered in tight ringlets. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black and he was maybe two years old.

The caption said, “apologies, my son needed to be in the picture.”

Wade cooed and entered Dad Mode to ask how old the baby was and what he liked to do and Peter lost the fathers to that small talk for a while before Wade oh-so-casually asked, “So you feel like you’re from outer space?”

“It sounds strange,” the guy on the other said wrote back, “But I do. Like every day I wake up and look in the mirror and something is wrong. I feel like I’m always forgetting something when I leave the house. I watched the tv show of the guy who’s name was on your fliers and the kid in it reminds me so much of my son. It’s eerie. They make the same sounds. He made the same sounds before we even watched that show.”

Wade whistled.

“I think this is him, Pete,” he said. “He called Baby Yoda a ‘kid’ not a yoda.”

Peter stared. He hadn’t even caught that. That was smart as hell.

“So what now?” he asked.

Wade sniffed.

“Get Skywalker to send you a selfie,” he said.

  --

PP: Luke are you pretty right now?

LS: My face is intact

PP: take a selfie and send it to me

LS: cannot do that. Face is intact is a baseline situation. Let me find an old one. Oh, they all have my ex in them. This is awkward.

PP: it doesn’t matter I can crop it.

LS: no I have to be cute or I’ll perish hold on

PP: are you sure you’re not Johnny Storm?

LS: yes, he’s got loads of muscles. Sent.

 Selfie acquired.

Luke looked very smiley in it. His eyes were blown out from the lighting, but it showed his sloping smile and his low, back-set dimples. Peter sent it to Wade. Wade sent it to his new friend.

They waited.

They waited five minutes.

Then ten.

Then half an hour.

Then nearly two.

And finally, Wade’s phone rang. He picked it up and set it on speaker so that Peter could hear.

“Hello?” Wade said.

There was a long pause.

“Where did you get that picture?” a low, almost smoky voice demanded on the other side.

“A friend,” Wade said sleazily. “You know him? He’s a cute little thing, ain’t he?”

It took the dude on the other side of the line worryingly long to respond.

“What do you want?” he finally asked.

Wade brought his head down in interest.

“What’re you willing do to?” he asked.

They waited. Peter didn’t know what was taking this guy so long to—

“Anything.”

Ah.

Okay. That.

That sounded about right.

Wade cackled.

“You know his name?” he asked.

“I do,” the man said.

“What’s his name then, pal?” Wade asked.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

Holy shit. Holy shit. Peter clutched the back of the couch. Wade was grinning so hard, Peter could see it through his mask.

“You want him, you need to show me that you know who he is,” Wade said. “I ain’t got ‘im here, but I know where he is. Come on, big boy. Who is he?”

Peter could hear the man take in a deep, shaky breath.

“His name is Luke,” Din fucking Djarin, the Mandalorian himself, said.

  --

Din fucking Djarin’s name at the moment was Danny Jabaran. He stood six feet tall with a medium build and that baby of his in his arms.

He was not afraid of Wade.

He was not afraid of Peter.

The suits didn’t scare him; this man was a space warrior. The leader of the space warriors. Peter was humbled to stand in his presence, old jeans and tattoos and all.

“Vigilantes,” he acknowledged.

“Deadpool,” Wade said, offering a hand. “And this is?”

“Grogu,” Djarin said.

Baby Yoda lifted his big liquid eyes up to Wade and blinked twice. Then he wriggled around and hid in Djarin’s neck. Djarin put a hand on his back and didn’t drop eye contact.

“Tell me everything,” Djarin said.

  --

Ned screamed. Michelle screamed. Peter reminded them that he had neighbors and invited Mr. Mand’alor to sit on the couch for a bit while he called Luke.

Michelle claimed the spot next to Djarin and asked Baby Yoda Grogu for his little hand. He studied her and hid again, making a prolonged sound of distress that Djarin cut off by saying, “Hey. Manners.”

This somehow made baby Grogu turn back to Michelle to stare at her offered hand.

He took it. She shook with him and then took hers away.

Grogu perked up and reached for it again.

“You’re the Mandalorian,” Ned said.  

Djarin looked right at him.

“A Mandalorian,” he corrected.

Ned blinked back tears.

“You’re so cool,” he creaked.

Djarin frowned.

“You...are too?” he tried.

Ned wept into a fist.

Peter left them to call Luke in his bedroom. Luke picked up on the third ring with the start of an ingrained greeting that sounded a whole lot like a customer service recording. He caught himself, though.

“I have someone I’d like you to talk to,” Peter said. “I think you might want to sit down.”

Luke’s unusual quiet on the other side made Peter grin.

“Are you sitting?” he asked.

“I’m sitting.”

“Alright, one moment,” Peter said, walking out into the living room. Djarin had edged far, far away from Ned, as far as he possibly could without being rude. He looked up when Peter came over and sat down on the arm next to him.

“Say hi,” Peter said.

Djarin frowned at him and then the phone.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Peter waited. Djarin lifted his head over to see the phone’s screen.

“Hello?” he tried.

“Din?”

The Spidey Sense crashed through Peter like a tidal wave.

Djarin had gone completely still.

“Din? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

“Shit,” Djarin said, lifting a hand to cover his eyes. “Goddamnit. Jesus.”

“DIN.”

“Dank Fucking Farrik.”

“Oh my god.”  

Baby Grogu’s face snapped toward the phone with huge eyes. He grabbed at Djarin’s collar, then his jaw and started bouncing a little in his arms.

“Bu?” he asked.

Djarin couldn’t make himself move.

“Grogu?” Luke asked. “Hey, baby, is that you, bubba?”

Grogu grabbed Djarin’s face urgently, so that he couldn’t hide his raw eyes anymore.

He pointed at the phone.

“Yeah, I hear ‘im, kid,” Djarin said.

“MMMMM. Gib.”

“Ah. That’s not ours. We don’t grab. We ask,” Djarin reminded as Grogu pleaded for the phone. Peter snickered and gave it to him. He just held it, staring.

“Do you wanna see him?” Peter asked. “Luke, can we maybe video chat?”

“Y-yeah,” Luke said. “Hold on. Oh god, my face. Uh, hey Din are you still near-sighted, hon?”

Djarin huffed a laugh that turned into a whole-body tremor.

“I got contacts,” he said a little hysterically.

“You got WHAT?” Luke yipped, “Okay, no. No, I gotta. Be still, this heart. Okay let me just take off the butterflies. On moment, Grogu, Daddy’s just gotta dunk his face in the damn sink.”

MJ bounced her eyebrows at Peter as he gently took the phone back from Grogu and tapped on the camera. He offered it back the kid and received a deep gaze of wonder in return. Djarin turned the screen right-side up in his hands.

Luke finally turned his camera on and revealed himself to be very swollen in the jaw with damp hair and a cut very close to the rim of his left eye.

Grogu screeched.

Luke laughed.

“Look at you,” he said, “I’m gonna cry. Oh my god. Where’re your ears, pal?”

Grogu analyzed this reaction for 2 full seconds and then shoved the camera right into his dad’s forehead. Djarin took it from him and liberated himself so that he could see Luke who was clutching at his face, absolutely already sobbing, bless him.

He looked up to see Grogu and instead got Djarin and finally just broke right in half.

Peter swallowed back the growing lump in his throat. His eyes were starting to warm a little.

Djarin found a watery smile in himself.

“I know you’re not cryin’ because of me,” he said gently.

“Where’s your helmet?” Luke sobbed, wiping viciously at his eyes. “People are watching, you harlot.”

“I know,” Djarin said. “I lost it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Luke.”

“This is all my fault. I should’ve—I should’ve—”

“Luke,” Djarin said again, full of warmth, “You died for us.”

Luke shook harder than ever.

“There is no greater sacrifice a warrior can make,” Djarin told him. “I was honored for you to have made it for me and our son. This has always been the Way.”

“This is the Way,” Luke stammered.

“I missed you,” Djarin said. “Where in God’s name have you been?”

“I was a preschool teacher in the Bronx, man, I dunno what happened,” Luke said tipping his face up to force the tears back in.

“In the Bronx? Where?”

“Uh, off Allerton and Lurting?”

Djarin started shaking with laugher.

“I work off Laconia and Mace,” he said.

“You what?”

“We’ve been blocks apart this whole time.”

Awwwwww.

“I’m going to stab myself,” Luke moaned. “I’m going to stab myself in the arm. I was right there and I sold out for my part-time gig barely weeks ago. Oh my god. I’m going to—move, old man, I’m suffering—Wait. Din, did you find your parents?”

Djarin stood up and held the phone out straight.

“Where are you right now?” he asked.

  --

Look at all these people hugging each other.

Look at them crying all over. There was a baby in there, wailing because he was so happy to be back in the arms of his other dad.

Aww. AWWWW. Peter was getting emotional again, he was going to see himself out.

“Wait. Peter.”

He looked up to find Luke holding a hand to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “You really are a superhero, you know that?”

Yeah.

Sometimes, he did.

 --

 The city had plenty of problems as it was, yeah, more now with a bunch of jedi running around, linking up with each other and spreading memory like mushroom spores. But it didn’t feel that much different.

What it felt like now was Ned showing Grogu how to hold his hand at the seeing stone in the funeral home’s back yard to make the Force happen while Obi-Wan reported cheerfully that the cat perched on it was still not levitating.

It also felt like watching Luke freak out over text to Ned and Michelle about his ex losing their mind at him dumping them after two years to marry this random mechanic within a week of getting together.

Peter got to see this from new angles, too, one of which was the bottom of the funeral home’s attic stairs, which Anakin Skywalker liked to sit on while his grandkids—both Grogu and Han Solo and Leia Organa (pardon, Leia Naberry)’s son—came over to show him things that he was very well aware of. These were stolen from him by Auntie Ahsoka and her friends who Ned knew and Peter did not.

And there was something warming about how even these folks—people from a galaxy far, far away, occasionally needed a Spiderman.

   --

[tothemeadow]

Pillars reacting to the reader who is shorter than Muichiro and Shinobu? 😭They tease her c o n s t a n t l y 😭

I’m thinking this is how I’m going to do my “reactions” format. Do you like it?

‘what a tiny bean’ / Pillars x Reader Reactions

Giyuu

On the outside, he seems indifferent. On the inside, though, he finds your small stature to be cute. His protective side kicks in whenever you’re around. He’s never made fun of your shortness and actually gives you a head pat from time to time.

Kyojuro

Must! Protect! You! 100% takes on the big brother role. Yeah, he teases you here and there, but it’s all in fun. Don’t doubt for a second that he won’t immediately jump to your rescue!

Gyomei

This poor guys bumps into you so much! Compared to his monstrous height, he’s scared of accidentally stepping on you or kicking you! He feels bad about it all the time, so he spends most it apologizing to you. Whenever he knows you’re around, he steers clear as much as possible.

Muichiro

Two words: sneaky bastard. Initially, you thought he wouldn’t care. Oh, but how wrong you were. He’s the king of teasing you. He even has ridiculous nicknames for you and refuses to refer to you as anything else. Can and will attempt to rest his arm on your head.

Obanai

Literally cannot give a shit. You’re tiny? So what. He’s just amazed that there’s someone smaller than Shinobu. Other than that, he usually lets you be. If the others start making fun of you, he opts out and watches on with a bored expression.

Mitsuri

Omigod omigod omigod you are so cute!!! She’s honestly caught in the mix of fawning over you and teasing you. She can’t help it! You’re so pathetically small it just makes her day! Especially when you wear your haori; the article of clothing practically swallows you whole and she’s nearly in tears.

Sanemi

How the fuck are you so small? Seriously. The very first time he saw you, he thought you were a child. He actually believed you were pulling some sort of sick joke on him. He doesn’t necessarily tease you for it, but be warned. If you really piss him off, he won’t hesitate to punt you.

Shinobu

This sadistic little shit loves it. She makes small jabs at your height on the regular. After initial greetings, she’ll make a show of standing on her tiptoes and looking at you. It no longer bothers you since you’ve gotten used to it.

Tengen

Laughs hysterically. Typically he and Kyojuro gang up and tease you for your short stature, but he honestly cannot get enough. You’re like an angry puppy and he loves it. 100/10 makes fun of you whenever he can.

[gumnut-logic]

Thunderfam Appreciation Post

I’m giving this a new post to prevent scroll city, but the original and several reblogs can be found by clicking the above link. Also, it’s an excuse to post a piccy of Virg cos any excuse, really :D

Many thanks to @willow-salix for writing this question list :D

Before I start, I just want to say that I value every member of this fandom. I’m often hopeless at communicating in group settings so I don’t speak to many peeps, but that is my failing, not anyone else’s. You are an amazing group and you have supported me and each other just brilliantly over the last nearly three years that I have been hanging with you guys. Thank you ever so much for all your wonderful support and encouragement. I’ve had so much fun and created so much stuff…you guys are amazing. Thunderfam rock!

Please note that my memory is pathetic and I will fail to mention everyone. Please do not take any offence if you aren’t listed below. That does not mean I don’t value you, I do, it just means I have swiss cheese between my ears.

-o-o-o-

Your favourite writer of your favourite boy.

@i-am-chidorixblossom  You are a whumper and comforter after my soul. You speak the Virg :D @vegetacide I adore your turn of phrase and your description is to die for.

The person who's stories you will always read.

I try to read most fics that come across my dash, but there are a few that have me jumping up and down. @i-am-chidorixblossom , @vegetacide , @tsarinatorment , @scribbles97 , @the-lady-razorsharp , @janetm74 Of course, I regularly fail at this as some of you write a huge amount of fic and I am often playing catch up, but fic!

Who wrote the first fic you read in this fandom.

I landed on FF.net back in May 2018. I immediately ran into @the-lady-razorsharp who I knew from another fandom ten years prior and she was absolutely wonderful, drawing me in and introducing me around. I gobbled up several of her fics in the process.

Person you can talk to for the longest without a break.

I am hard to get started, persistence is required, but once started, it is usually hard to shut me up. @scribbles97 @vegetacide and @tsarinatorment have all discovered that. Dangle a Virg, a plotline and stand back.

Person you can't be trusted to be left alone with.

Um, @vegetacide and I have plotted out the entirety of Warm Rain together…poor Virg. Add @the-lady-razorsharp into the equation and Virgil ends up with a beard, dressed in leather and riding a Harley – that was a hilarious evening.  Between @tsarinatorment and @janetm74 Virgil gets grey hairs and has to go rescue Scott – because Scott inevitably ends up in the story :D  @scribbles97 gets the blame for Gentle Rain – expand your horizons she said ::headdesk:: But then there was the time I left one random line about Eos visiting Virgil in the shower and went to bed. I woke up to hilarity and chaos as Thunderfam took the idea and ran with it! Love you guys :D

Person whose fic made you cry the most.

I know there were at least two fics that made me cry, but for the life of me I can’t identify them. I did cry writing my own fic – Flannel – and don’t tend to reread it for that reason. Purupuss traumatised me with A Quiet Day to the point I had to put it down and walk away for a bit ::wails::

Person whose fic made you laugh the most.

I have no idea. I know there are fic out there and I know I’ve read it, but without a complete list of everything I’ve read, I don’t have a clue.

Person whose fic made you think the most.

Aaaargh, I don’t have a master list so can’t remember everything. Staring at my paltry favourites list on FF.net (which was mostly gathered three years ago and never maintained), Purupuss’ ‘Brothers in Arms’ and her whole Quiet series has me wanting to write a Scott-Virgil telepathic fic (and she has given me permission to run with the idea, I just haven’t actioned it yet). Counterpoint by Swallow and Amazon is amazing and likely contributed to Sotto Voce.

Person you have laughed with the most.

I’m really not liking this ultimate one person idea. I’ve laughed with a lot of people in this fandom. I’ve candy cannoned a bunch of you as well :P There has been mad plot cackling, evil conspiring, fic written to stir pots and delight on purpose. Hell, I’ve even written fic that was purposefully a giant virtual hug because I’m so far away that even if half the world wasn’t in isolation, I couldn’t hug most of you. Sure, I talk with some of you more than others, and there is laughter in those chats…oh, god, so much cackling, poor, poor Tracy boys. But then there are also so many smiles both vocalised and not. Thunderfam is one of my happy places. Bring on the belly laughs :D

Your comfort fic that you'll go back and read again on a bad day.

I will often resort to my own fic when I’m really down simply because it helps me get to sleep :D and it is kinda tailored to me ::grins::  (and my memory is that bad I often forget what I wrote anyway – yes, it is that bad) But there are also a few on my FF.net favourites list. Mostly hurt/comfort in a Virg flavour. Cheesycheese, nhsweetcherry, A Small Rescue by Nalina, Breathe Easy and Under the Weather by @loopstagirl – several of hers, in fact – the Virg ones :D Pretty much anything that has Virg fainting and being looked after apparently :D Chiddi and Veggie fic, of course.

Favourite piece of fan art.

I have never been so honoured by artists before. This fandom has some amazing skills and I have been gifted some beautiful works. You guys are amazing (I keep saying it like a broken record, but you are).

Again, I’m stuck on having to list one and I can’t. I think Fanart Appreciation Month in January pretty much summed up my opinion.

Who have you known the longest in the fandom.

@the-lady-razorsharp followed by @vegetacide both wonderful peeps. I can’t miss out on @weirdburketeer either for her amazing support almost from day one.

Favourite OC.

I have to say that I really enjoy reading about Ray from @i-am-chidorixblossom ‘s fics :D He is so gentle and kind and just ::sigh:: Virg likes him lots :D Selene by @willow-salix is, of course, a major presence in the fandom and amazingly written. @hedwigstalons ‘ Claire is lovely.

Person who supports your work the most.

The Thunderfam? There have been some wonderful people who support all the time. @hedwigstalons  @cg29 @janetm74 @weirdburketeer in particular have been amazing support liking and commenting on just about everything I write. I honestly don’t know how they do it. Plus several peeps over on FF.net and Ao3 who support me over there.

And then there are the poor souls who put up with me in chat and listen to my wibblies and whining and character checks and field random chunks of writing that get thrown their way. @scribbles97 @vegetacide @the-lady-razorsharp  @tsarinatorment @i-am-chidorixblossom @onereyofstarlight @godsliltippy  @willow-salix @janetm74 all have had random passages thrown at them at all times of the day and night by a crazy me begging for feedback. Does this work? Is this in character? Am I insane? What the hell is Scott doing? Is this John??? I give up, tell me what to do? Virgil is driving me insane! So, um, yeah

Person who's progress you are the most proud of.

I love those peeps who appear in fandom who start off poking around commenting and generally being lovely and then all of a sudden get out their own pens and start writing and they are frickin’ amazing! Both @janetm74 and @hedwigstalons come to mind in this department. Like holy cow – ‘here is my first fic and I’m not sure’ ::reads it:: Omigod! Where did you come from? That was amazing. Sit down here now, keep doing that writing thing, bloody hell! I think being brave enough to pick up a pen and join in is a major thing :D

Person who's story you think is underrated and should be read by more people.

If I find fic I like, I reblog it and shout about it. What I like is definitely skewed in a Virgil direction and this dictates often what I’m going to read first. I can’t reblog what I haven’t read. So, this equation will always be skewed by ‘reasons I haven’t read a fic’ which mostly involves either Virgil or the fact I’m juggling RL. So, my answer to this is if I think a fic needs to be shouted about, I shout about it.

Something you think people would say about you.

She’s nutty.

Silliest 'thing' you do with someone.

I’ve been known to write fic on the fly directly into chat windows to try and distract peeps going through shitty times.

Favourite pairing you now Stan because of someone's fic.

Virgil/Kayo because of @vegetacide for reasons I have blamed her for multiple times. @the-lady-razorsharp and @weirdburketeer were accessories to the fact.

Favourite headcanon from someone's fic.

Um, Virgil and coffee? I got that from somewhere and it has infiltrated my fic…a lot.

Ultimately, though, I feel most people I interact with contribute to my fic and how I’m feeling. This has been a wonderful experience. I try to return the support as much as I can, but sometimes it is a juggle between writing more, my stupid fluctuating mood, the demands of RL and my own creative drive. I hope I’ve helped a few peeps, because you guys have certainly helped me ::major group hug::

And yes, I hug a lot, because to be honest, I have no other descriptor to communicate how I feel, so you get buckets of hugs :D

Tagging the Thunderfam. Feel free to grab these questions and run with them. You’re all part of the gang whether you write, read, art, gif, screenshot, chat, babble, stare at Virgil all day...I know I do a lot of staring.

Nutty

(Thunderfam rocks!)

[terrainofheartfelt]

"It's you, it couldn't be awful"

A Playlist For Dair Appreciation Week, Day 7 - Fave Quotes & Lyrics

I haven’t the faintest idea how to make gifs (seriously I think all of you are witches) so I made this playlist, because there is nothing I love more than scrolling through my spotify library and just projecting all over it.

Track listings and links with opinions & lyrics under the cut, because this thing is long, because I have no restraint.

(Note: I intentionally left off all tswift bc if I didn’t, we’d be here all day)

Section 1: The Bops

Little of Your Love - HAIM

A bop that embodies the energy of the 4b arc, and an energy of “Oh for crying out loud, Humphrey”

You’re just another recovering heart / I wasn’t even gonna try / you wouldn’t even give the time

Stop runnin’ your mouth like that / ‘cause you know I’m gonna give it right back

Hate That You Know Me - Bleachers

It’s “You owe me ten / You owe me twenty!” & “I was hoping it would go away / I was humiliated” & basically all of While You Weren’t Sleeping, tbh

Some days I, I wish that I wasn't myself / No luck! / And I hate that you know me so well

I Like Me Better - Lauv

Heavily featured in all y’all’s gifsets—and rightfully so!!! It’s also like the perfect counter to the previous song.

To not know who I am but still know that I'm good long as you're here with me

Sweet Talk - Saint Motel

It’s about Blair roasting Dan for filth and him being completely charmed by it.

when you laugh / I forget that it's about me / But it's alright / Yeah, cause being your punchline / Still is something

No Reason to Run - Cold War Kids

In the perfect version of the show that lives in my head, this is the end credits song that plays as the two of them frolic in Rome.

I have evolved like a fish growing legs / Woke like a lightbulb clicked in my brain

You Make Lovin' Fun - Fleetwood Mac

The song for the couple that fucked in an elevator. Bless the work.

Sweet wonderful you / You make me happy with the things you do

No Matter What You Do - covered by Jakob Dylan and Regina Spektor

The energy is “I have a lot of affection for you but you are so annoying.” And this is the obligatory post-breakup s6 song.

No matter what in the world you do / Hey, I'll always be in love with you

Don't Take the Money - Bleachers

I see so much love for tswift on this website (valid) but I feel like the world as a whole sleeps on her collaborator Jack Antonoff bc he is brilliant and his act Bleachers has some of my favorite songs ever. Like this one. Antonoff has said before that the title phrase is more metaphorical than literal, like an idiom that means don’t take the easy way and give this up, because it’s genuine. Real “I want to have a sleepover with you” vibes.

Somebody broke me once / Love was a currency / A shimmering balance act / I think that I laughed at that

In the Morning - Nina Simone

It’s about the domesticity! And the “Our relationship is our world”! And the “we’re young and still have so much life to live so everything’s gonna be okay.” did i title a smut fic with lyrics from this song maybeso.gif

Please be patient with your life / It's only morning and you're still to live your day

This Must Be the Place - Talking Heads

This is a canon dair song bc @mysteriesofloves titled a fic after this song, them’s the rules. But for real, this is such a good one. The lyrics are intentionally scattered, a little bewildered, like “how did we get here? how did this happen? who found whom?” and finally “who cares? we found a home in each other.”

The less we say about it, the better / We'll make it up as we go along

Cleopatra in Brooklyn - Frank Turner

Chosen for the title obviously, but the lyrics capture the royal/5b arc pretty well, I think. The narrator carries this tongue-and-cheek comparison of the woman he’s singing to to Cleopatra through the whole song, comparing himself to Marc Antony, and ending with this really earnest kind of declaration. I’m obsessed with this songwriter he’s a genius please give him a listen.

These people are adjectives to your proper noun

I'll come find you when your fortunes fail you / I'll die with you when the gods desert you

Morphing into Section 2: Pure Vibes

Walking on a Dream - covered by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

The original is by Empire of the Sun (and omigod I just realized the coincidence), but I first heard it covered by McMahon, and he’s one of my favorite musicians of ever so I just love his rendition. And this song is sort of like...about finally deciding that the reality of love with someone is so much better than the idea of it.

Thought I’d never see / The love you found in me / Now it’s changing all the time

Wake Me - Bleachers

Jack coming for my life yet again. This song is so romantic but also so melancholy? Which is such a Daniel Humphrey Vibe.

And I'd rather be sad with you / Than anywhere away from you

All I Want - Joni Mitchell

I’m a white girl with a mother who grew up in the 60s, so I love Joni. And this song is so bubbly and joyful, but it’s also about a relationship between two imperfect people and wanting it to work anyway. Big “Despicable B” vibes!

All I really want our love to do / Is to bring out the best in me / And in you, too.

Dust to Dust - The Civil Wars

A friend in undergrad got me into the Civil Wars by showing me their live videos, and they have such incredible musical chemistry - like, the synchronicity of their ensemble is so good that it even comes through on their studio recordings and it makes these simple lyrics hit SO HARD.

You're just lonely / You've been lonely too long

NFWMB - Hozier

Ok, this had to be like the first ask I ever sent @bisexualdanhumphrey bc they wrote this fantastic meta post about Hozier and Derena but I said: “consider: NFWMB is a Dair song.” And they said, “You right.” I stand by it, and that’s why this song is on this list.

If I was born as a blackthorn tree / I'd wanna be felled by you / Held by you / Fuel the pyre of your enemies

Friday I'm in Love - covered by Phoebe Bridgers

This song - especially this cover - gives such Secret Friendship Arc vibes a la the end of 4x16...the inherent romance of eating pizza and falling asleep on the couch together

Always take a big bite / It’s such a gorgeous sight / To see you eat in the middle of the night

A Case of You - Joni Mitchell

Queen Joni again. Like! I am a lonely painter / I live in a box of paints. & The “You’re the star of Dan’s book” of it all in these lyrics!

I remember that time you told me / You said “Love is touching souls” / Surely you touched mine / ‘cause part of you pours out of me / In these lines from time to time.

Longing to Belong - Eddie Vedder

This is my thinly veiled attempt to tell more people about this: a song written and performed by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder on ukulele, that is actually the softest love song in the history of western music.

All my time is spent here / Longing to belong to you

Bones - Josh Record

Okay, so, that Moment on the Couch at the end of 5x02? That’s this song.

And darling, when your feet are cold / Wait up, I'm coming home / And all of you I will hold / My love will clothe your bones

Cinnamon Girl - Lana Del Rey

The song for when you reach the end of plausible deniability - One all consuming paralyzing thought & You need to go back to Brooklyn - and it scares the heck out of you.

There's things I wanna say to you, but I'll just let you live / Like if you hold me without hurting me / You'll be the first who ever did

You and Me - You + Me

You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person

Section 3: Songs for Dancing in the Kitchen with Your Lover at 1 am

Cigarettes and Coffee - Otis Redding

The “Dan and I have a real connection song.” It’s about the romance of commonplace things when they’re with the right person.

But it seemed so natural, darling / That you and I are here

I'd Be Waiting - Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats

It’s “I just want to spend the day with you” but in like, slow-dance, sexy harmonies format.

If you ever get lonely if you never did

Never My Love - covered by Jakob Dylan and Norah Jones

The “Words of Affirmation” love song they deserve, and an underrated love song from Laurel Canyon, imho

What makes you think love will end? / When you know that my whole life depends / On you

Dancing in the Dark - covered by Morgan James

Okay so these lyrics are such Dan lyrics to me, it’s charmingly self-aware and self-deprecating. And this cover by Morgan James turns this staple rock song into something ~sexy~

I'm dying for some action / I'm sick of sittin' round here trying to write this book / I need a love reaction / Come on, gimme just one look

Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You) - Aretha Franklin

They’re literally always making each other laugh! It’s about feeling safe enough to be uninhibited and unselfconscious in your joy.

To make you laugh / I would be a fool for you

I Fall in Love Too Easily - as done by Chet Baker

No one, but no one sounds as sweet or as smooth as Chet. I know it, you know it, Hozier knows it. And this song and it’s titular thesis is so Them, it’s such a central part of their respective characters, and one of the things that makes them compatible.

My heart should be well schooled / 'Cause I've been fooled in the past

For Me Formidable - Charles Aznavour

Due entirely to this fic (Part II of a god tier s4 au) This is the end credits song for their full feature length Nora Ephron romcom.

NSFW Honorable Mention: Dinner & Diatribes - Hozier

it’s the definitive “men get pegged” representation, iykyk