#otp: nothing could keep us apart

[kipercrow]

A Gassy Roomate

Based on: ​​https://at.tumblr.com/imagineyourgassyotp2/imagine-person-a-of-your-otp-is-apartment-hunting/yktjrcnuqeud

Kevin: 24 (He/They)

Saige: 25 (They/Them)

I stared at the computer screen, scrolling from webpage to webpage. I need an apartment rather quickly. I got a job as a writer for a Pop Culture website. Right now I live with my parents, sure it’s fine but the commute to the office is pretty long, and I need somewhere closer. So, I’ve been spending the past few days looking for apartment listings or roommate offers. So far the apartments have either been too small, not have enough light, and definitely have no room for a goat let alone a dog. I keep scrolling and scrolling when suddenly I see an offer that feels too good to be true. 

Hello! Looking for a roommate to cover 10% of the rent. I will cover the rest of the $1,217 rent and as I work from home I will be able to make any meals to accommodate your living experience. I have a slight medical condition, I am willing to go into more detail about it during our face to face visit. 

If you are interested please send an email through the contact button on top, include “Roommate” in your subject line. 

Saige

The images Saige included of the apartment are amazing. It looks really spacious and Saige has good taste in furniture. The bedroom that they show looks really nice, I think I can feel comfortable here. What’s the worst that can happen? I always send my location to my parents, you know, just in case I go missing. So I decide to send Saige an email.

Hi! My name is Kevin. I saw your roommate offer and I am willing to meet up to see the place and talk to you. 

I write some more letting them know about my job and how much I make. A minute after I send the email, Saige responds. They let me know what time we can meet later today, which works out really well for me since I have nothing else to do today. 

I got out of the train and walked over to Saige’s building. Their apartment is on the second floor and so far everything seems pretty good, no complaints from me. Knock on the door and Saige greets me when they open it. “Hey nice to meet you face to face, come on in” I enter the apartment and it’s as amazing as I thought it’d be. “Wow it’s really nice” I say, smiling afterwards. “Heh, thanks. I tried my best. Of course if you decide to move in, you can add whatever you want. Unless it’s like an animal head. I draw the line there.” “Haha don’t worry, I don’t like that kind of stuff.” “Great! Follow me and I’ll show you your room. Over there is my bedroom and the bathroom is right across the hall from you.” This is great!” The room is pretty spacious, and it shouldn’t be too hard to bring whatever I need over. We walk over to the living room and sit on the couch, past the living room I can see the kitchen, it looks pretty big as well. “So Kevin, what do you think?” “I think this is all pretty great. I mean this apartment is big and spacious. It’s close to the subway-” as I talk I see Saige shifting in his seat, and they look uncomfortable, “- You seem really great. The building is clean. I have a few questions, are there any bugs that sneak in?” “Ahh no, no bugs” “Great! How noisy are the neighbors?” “They’re great, just great.” “Awesome! Okay so, in the post you said that you’re willing to go into your medical condition.” Before Saige could answer we were greeted with a noise that a lot of us are familiar with.

PPPBBBRBRRRBPTTTTTT

Saige instantly goes red. “Oh my gosh I’m so so sorry” I fan the air in front of me and laugh. “No no it’s fine, that was good. My uncle would be jealous!” Saige gets up and opens a window. “Okay so, my slight medical condition is that I have chronic gas, well I’ll go more into it. It’s like related to how my insides work. I used to have a lot of cramps and stuff you don’t want to hear about, but now because I’ve been adjusting my diet and the food I make has let me survive this long. So-” they stop and hold up a finger and lean to the left.

BBRBRRBRRTRTTTT

“-All I have now is gas. Which I totally get if you don’t want to move in with me because of that. I’ve lost so many roommates because of my farts.” I looked back at him. “That’s it? You just fart a lot?” “Yeah pretty much.” “I don’t mind it that much. They don’t smell that bad and I can be gassy depending on what I eat. So I don’t think I have a reason to worry.” “You really don’t mind it?” “Of course not.” “So will you be thinking of moving in?” “Yes! I’m happy to move in.” “Great, we can sign the lease tomorrow and you can move in after that” “That sounds great. Thank you so much” We stand up and shake hands and I go on my way.

-1 Week Later-

A week has gone by since I saw Saige’s apartment and signed the lease. I’ve moved in little by little and have put up most of my things and gotten a dresser for my clothes. I have a box of some pictures I want to put up but there’s no rush. Tonight is my first night in the apartment. I'm kind of nervous, but Saige is making dinner for us. After changing into my pajamas, I walk to the kitchen.

PBPBPBRTTT

“Hungry?” Saige said not bringing the fart to attention. “Yeah, the food smells good. What is it?” I ask.

BRBRPRBP

“Some roasted veggies, salmon, and some white rice. I hope you like it.” “I’m sure I will.” Ever since I moved in, Saige has been farting. It’s true that they do fart more than another person, but thankfully the smell isn’t so bad. The smell of the food they’re cooking greatly overpowers the stench of their gas. I haven’t farted in front of them yet but they don’t seem to mind. “Here, tell me if the rice is done.” they say handing me a spoonful. As soon as I taste it, the rice tastes so wonderful. I’m not sure how they did it, but the rice is different from any other type of rice I’ve eaten before. “It’s amazing. I think it’s perfect.” “Great! I’m glad to hear that.” They turn off the stove for the rice and check in the oven. 

BRAAPPP

“Okay, just a little bit more for the veggies and salmon to be done. Then we can eat.” they say as we walk over by the sink. “So Kevin, how do you like it so far?” they ask me, smiling. “Really great. I feel really comfortable here” I respond. As if to accentuate my point, I feel gas heading on out.

PBRTT

“Hey nice! You finally let one rip!” “I told you I was feeling comfortable.” “I guess it’ll take you some time to match up to mine.” We laugh after they say that. Saige walks over to the oven, turns it off, and pulls out the veggies and the salmon. “Alright food is done, sit down at the table and I’ll serve you.” I sit at the table and watch Saige serve us food. We eat together and talk about what we want to do later, we settle on a movie night. We also set some ground rules about farting at the table. We agreed that it’s alright to fart at the table, unless the other person’s mouth is open and unless people are at the table with us.

Saige and I moved to the living room, sitting next to each other on the couch, resting our legs on foot rests. Saige put on ‘Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase’, I haven’t seen the movie in a while but it’s a fun watch.

PRBRRPBPRBTTTTT

“Sorry about that, my food makes me gassier” they say.

BRRBRBTBTB

BRBRBRBBR

“If it gets to you, you can open a window.” “It’s no problem.” As we sit and watch the movie, Saige lets out a couple more farts, my stomach rumbles.

BBRRRAAPPP

Woah, that was bigger than my usual ones! “Nice one man!” Saige says, extending their hand towards me. I high five him back. “Thanks”

PPBBBPRBRTTTTT

PBRRBRPTTTTPBRTT

PRPBTT

“Guess I’m gassy today haha” “Oh no, is my food having an affect on you.” “Probably not. Must be a mix of my emotions, and so what if it does. That just means I can keep up with you now.” I smile at them. They smile back and then lean to the side and let out another fart.

PRBRBPRBRPBRBTTTTTRBPTBTTTTTRBPTBT

“Oh that’s great! I was nervous that you were going to move out.” “Oh no I wouldn’t, not for a little farting. You know it’s great that at my job we have our own cubicles, so there’s no worry about anyone walking into my farts. I mean the amount you fart is nothing compared to the gas from my boss. Phew! He must let rip like 10 a minute. I think it’s all the protein powder he intakes” I say before laughing. I lean to my right and let out another fart.

RBRBBRBRBRBRBRBTT

“That was a good one Kevin!” they hold up a finger

PRRRRRRTTTTTTT 

BRRRAAPPPPPPP 

PBRBRTTTTTTT

Three farts in quick succession! “You have a talent Saige!” “Heh thanks! I’ve been thinking about heading to the gym more. Let me know what protein powder your boss gets so we can beat him at his own game.” I lean forward slightly

PRRRRRRPRUTUTTTTT

BRPRTTTT

“Will do! You’re pretty muscular Saige. Anyone would love to have a body like yours” “Ha thanks! You have a good body yourself. At least you don’t have my gas!” they say winking afterwards. I blush a little. Saige lifts their leg slightly.

PBRBBRRBRRTTTTTTTTTRBBRTTT

PBRRBRRRRRRRRRRRTTTBTBTTTTBPTBB

We spend the rest of the movie ripping farts when we need to. They put their arm around me, and I put my head on their chest. I really like Saige, they make me feel safe. I’m glad to be their roommate. 

Once the movie ends we head to our rooms to call it a night. I let Saige use the bathroom first, I can see them brushing their teeth.

BRRRRUUURRBTUTTTTTT

When they’re done in there, I head in and brush my teeth. I can hear Saige farting in their room. I head back to my room, once I do Saige pokes their head in. “Hey, just wanna say goodnight. Oh and if you wake up before me tomorrow, the pots and pans are in the oven.” “Thanks. Night Saige.” Saige turns around but stands in place.

PBPBRBRRBRRTTTTT

“That’s my goodnight kiss.” they say before heading off to bed. I laugh and close my door.

BBRRBTTT

BRRRTTT

PBRTTT

Ha..the food did a number on me for sure. I grab my phone and see that I have a text from my boss. “Kevin! Don’t come in tomorrow, we’re doing an online day. Sorry for the inconvenience, take care!” As I get done reading this, I hear Saige farting in their room.

PPBRBRPRRBRRBRBBRBBBTTTT

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day.

[dramioneasks]

hogwarts fics where all of draco’s friends know he likes hermione but draco doesn’t realize it yet

A Little Something New - GreenInk_RedLetters - T, 14 chapters - “Oh? You taking a pledge for my protection, Malfoy?” She teased. He was smirking and hell but it did something to her. “I believe… They call that a knight in shining armor.” He fingered his chin. “Got an opening, Granger?” After a string of bad dates and unexpected work issues, Hermione Granger doesn’t have time for her best friend’s request to set her up on a blind date. She’s done with men wasting her time and bleh having a total lack of ambition. Draco Malfoy doesn’t expect much out of life, and he certainly doesn’t expect the Golden Girl of all people to come barging into his life again. She hates him, doesn’t she? Or is it simply his best friend playing matchmaker again? Dramione story with a myriad of misunderstandings, a matchmaking Theo Nott, alcohol-induced dinner parties, and light-hearted banter.

Friendly Interference By: cleotheo - T, 5 Chapters - When Draco refuses to ask Hermione out his best friend, Blaise Zabini steps in and vows to bring the pair together. Will Blaise be successful in getting the couple together or will he ruin any chance they have of happiness with his interference? Short five part story.

Big Dick Energy by louiseob - E, 9 chapters - After months of successfully keeping Ginny Weasley away from happy hours with her coworkers, Hermione finally relents and allows her to tag along. Unfortunately, her crassest friend wants nothing more than to embarrass Hermione and (hopefully) get her and Draco sodding Malfoy into bed together one and for all.

mischief-makers (up to no good) - riddikulus_puff - T, one-shot - Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had been a couple since the beginning of their eighth year at Hogwarts but spilt up pretty quickly after leaving school because of pathetic arguments between the two of them. But their group of friends had enough of their constant complaining about missing the other person. So, that was how Hermione and Draco ended up forced to go on a road trip to the beaches of Cornwall with Blaise Zabini, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter and Theodore Nott, with Pansy Parkinson and Neville Longbottom also joining them. It was like the plot from a crappy romantic comedy that Hermione had absorbed in the early weeks of her breakup. But, their friends had a plan. Project get Dramione back together! A one-shot for the 2023 Year of the OTP Fic Fest

Blind Date by zarahjoyce - G, one-shot - Harry, Ron, and Pansy - three people stupid enough to set-up Draco Malfoy on a blind date with Hermione Granger. What could possibly go wrong?   

Blue Blouse - Shanxnoir - E, 2 chapters - For fucks sake why did she have to wear that colour? Every week day was a different colour blouse, but Friday’s were different. Something about seeing her in that perfect periwinkle shirt had him coming undone.

Two Desks Apart -  msmerlin - T, 6 chapters - Draco used routine to work through his emotional baggage post-war, using a strict set of rules to regulate his once out of control life. His parents and friends express concern over his stagnant life in the form of setting him up on blind dates in hopes of helping Draco find ‘the one’. Little did they all know, the witch who captured his heart had been just two desk apart from him for the past two years.

-Lisa

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

WAIT UR THE ‘demitri and eli take a gay little road trip to find miguel’ GUY?? I LOVE THAT FIC OMG

YES HI I'm That Guy!!! That's my fic!!! Thank you for still noticing and reading it!!! <3 <3 <3

TBH it hasn't been getting a lot of comments or interaction lately, so I wasn't sure if people were still following it or really thinking about it much D: I definitely am going to continue and I have pretty solid plans up through about Chapter 13, but I got caught up in good old Adult Things (got a car part stolen and had to speedrun finding a job, and by some insane miracle I landed a good one???) and had to sorta get my life together for a while. I was also pretty bummed and discouraged that the Elimetri fandom kinda fizzed out after S5, and the hype that was there after S3 and S4 seems few and far between these days </3 And when someone DOES show up and get hyped about my boys, it always seems like they get bored after like 2 weeks and vanish into the ether again D: I feel like an immortal roaming the ruins of a once great and thriving civilization akjsalksufhdulrh

BUT ALL THAT TO SAY this is really encouraging <3 <3 Love that people are still invested, and now that my life has stabilized a bit, I may actually get Chapter 7 done ^^; The canon Mexico plotline was the most underwhelming thing I've ever seen in my entire life (and Season 5 as a whole and I just...did not really Vibe for a lot of reasons), and it's frustrating because like!!! Why would you introduce this grand epic quest for Miguel to find his dad and learn about his Dark Past™️ and then have it be over in 5 minutes and reveal nothing interesting whatsoever about Hector!!! Like if the point was to have Johnny prove he could be a good father figure to Miguel after all and to cause conflict between Miguel and Sam, then there were like...ways to do that without yeeting Miguel to another country with no ultimate character development or narrative payoff :/

And they really expect me to believe Miguel and Robby sat in petty stony silence the whole several-hour drive home and didn't even try to talk through ANY of their issues??? Didn't have ANY road trip bonding whatsoever??? WHAT A FUCKING WASTE. LAME.

ANYWAYS. I know a lot of people were against the Mexico subplot from the jump (mainly because of the potential problematic directions the show could go with it I think), but I might have been in the minority in being excited for it and thinking it had a lot of potential to see a world outside the Valley. Potential which it...did not fill at all. Like at least show us what sketch-ass shit Hector actually DOES!!! My god!!! Also not Robby being like "I wanna make things right with Miguel!!!" and then...clearly not doing that. Like considering their apartment brawl later was the first time Robby has shown onscreen remorse for what he did to Miguel, Robby didn't even apologize in the car ride on the way back??? Or speak a single word to Miguel about the whole, like...Paralysis Incident??? For all Miguel knows, Robby was tagging along just for kicks ajhdsukhfuyh

The whole thing is a mess tbh. I blame rushed production for S5. Deadass thank god for the writer's strike??? Maybe with more time for the writers to actually do their jobs, S6 will give its plotlines some room to breathe.

SO YES, long story short, I wanna do this plot thread some justice and also have my OTP be gay as shit the whole time <3 And give Miguel the epically dangerous adventure of self-discovery he deserves while ultimately still showing him he is very loved and does not need his shitty biological dad!!! God bless!!!

Thank you again for sliding into my inbox about this fic, I am always looking for motivation to keep going with it :D

(For anyone who doesn't know, the first 6 chapters of the fic in question are posted on my AO3, SummerPhlox!)

[monkeymindscream]

Character breakdown: my main girl Krang Two.

How I feel about this character:

If she came and killed me I'd use my dying breath to thank her.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Just two at present, one's a crossover dreamed up while talking to Wig, the other has been slowly gas station-hotdog-rotating in my mind for the last week or so.

First, Ch'rell from the '03 series:

Because listen to me: Two would beat the SHIT outta this guy. Mr. Big-Bad-"I AM THE ONE TRUE SHREDDER" over here talks a huge game (not without merit, mind you! He's very formidable, especially within his own canon. Even more so when you consider that, according to the wiki, he's supposedly only nine inches tall). But nothing I saw in the '03 series would suggest to me that he'd be able to do absolutely anything against a being that could survive getting a hole burned clean through her face. And then impaled with metal support beams. And then getting a wrecking ball dropped on her. Even in his full Shredder get-up, Two could and would take him apart piece by piece if she so chose.

Now: Imagine that she didn't choose to. Imagine she found his attempts to be threatening/attempt to fight her cute. Imagine she decides she's keeping this one. I implore you, imagine this chihuahua of a space-squid realizing he is, in fact, no match for Two, not even in her ballpark, realizing she could wreck his shit if she wanted, and then realizing he kind of likes that.

Can you imagine the emotional fallout on Ch'rell's part. He'd rapidfire through the five stages of grief in five seconds and then blue-screen before he could process "acceptance." The ERROR.exe messages his brain would have to sift through to get up and running again would be insurmountable. It'd be so fun. I'm obsessed.

And then the second that I've basically been microwaving in my head: Ms. April O'Neil.

Obviously, insert a series of events that lets them move past the "hey, we tried to kill each other!" aspect, but just try to tell me it wouldn't be a blast to watch their personalities play off each other. Or - and I'm admittedly getting a little sappy here - how satisfying it would be to see Two's murderous tendencies turn protective? Someone's messing with April (already a bad idea, considering the family she's canonically been adopted into/her own record of kickassery), but then they're quickly made to regret their choices. Even if I doubt they'd be allowed to regret them for long.

(Also, frankly, I can't pass up a good Enemies to Lovers ship. They're basically each others' nemeses throughout the film, or at leas April becomes Two's. April's the one who burns out Two's eye, and the one who basically defeated her. That's the good shit.)

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Her brothers!! They are a SET how dare canon separate them!!

My unpopular opinion about this character:

For as much as Splintz was like "you have no character development!" I'd like to point something out: Her character archetype is the crazy, violent "all I want to do is kill!" villain, right? Think back to every other instance you've seen this type of character. If they're working for another character, who for some reason or another doesn't want them to behave violently (or at least not as violently as they'd like to be), what's their relationship usually look like? Typically pretty vitriolic, right? The Crazy-Violent character usually resents the character holding them back?

Two wanted to rip out Raph's tongue for the insult of speaking to her. She stops and backs down the second Uno enter the room, and instead immediately moves to do a little bow to him. Which, okay, the Krang are the bad guys after all, and Uno's clearly the strongest of the lot. Maybe she just fears him more than she wants to kill, and doesn't press her luck?

Except we have literally zero evidence towards that. Not only does Uno never so much as raise his voice at her (at either of his siblings, actually), but whenever she speaks to him, she's actually incredibly polite. (Again, to both her brothers - "if you two don't mind" as she excuses herself to viciously eviscerate things.)

Anyway, put it all together and I just don't feel that "psycho-killer" really encompasses all Two is. She's got layers! (Even if it's only one layer, and that layer is literally just "she likes/respects these other two guys.")

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I really just would've like more time with her, y'know? Like I know the movie could only be so long, and it was definitely more important to spend the time they had on our protagonists, but I really really would've liked to just watch her do more of her thing. Interact with her brothers a bit more, y'know?

[somin-yin]

Gihun? 💜

Thank you so much for the ask @metoskohatipoglu, I really enjoyed talking about Gi-hun ❤️

Sexuality headcanon: Gi-hun is bisexual and I'll stay on this hill, Sangwoo and him had something, I just know it ❤️😂

OTP: SANGIHUN, SANGIHUN, SANGIHUN (my Sangihun brainrot has awakened since I talked about Sangwoo again)

BROTP: Ali and Gi-hun, let's face it Ali gives major big brother vibes, and Saebyeok and Gi-hun, they're like father and daughter ❤️

NOTP: Gi-hun x Saebyeok in a romantic context but I don't judge if someone ships them 🤷‍♀️

First headcanon that pops into my head: I have no doubts that Gi-hun loved Sangwoo even more than his own daughter, I realised this because he was willing to sacrifice the money for his daughter just to go home with his love, I mean with Sangwoo. Gi-hun has ALWAYS had a crush on Sangwoo since they were kids. ALWAYS, throughout these whole years. So if they really were together in the past then it was like a fever dream for Gi-hun. In Gi-hun's head there was no logic as for why someone as smart, genius, skilled and handsome as Sangwoo would be with someone like him, in his eyes Gi-hun sees himself as good for nothing, some nobody with no chances to thrive in life. But Sangwoo did have those chances to thrive in life, he was full of potential and Gi-hun could only confirm it when Sangwoo got accepted into SNU. So at the beginning Sangwoo didn't want to go because he didn't want to get away from Gi-hun but Gi-hun encouraged him to go and reassured him that nothing would change between them. So Sangwoo went to SNU and time passed, since at that time there was no internet, it was impossible for them to keep a long-distance relationship but Gi-hun used to go visit him to SNU whenever he could. Whenever he visited he realised all the opportunities Sangwoo was missing because of him, and he didn't want that, he didn't want to hinder Sangwoo's future, someone as brilliant as him deserves the best, not a nobody so they started to fall apart, time passed and they lost contact, Gi-hun heard Sangwoo had started dating (which was a not true, that was just a rumour Sangwoo's mother spread because she misunderstood what Sangwoo told her) and Gi-hun thought "well, this is it, he has moved on, I should move on too" and he met his ex wife and got married but he never loved her, he always loved Sangwoo, that's why his marriage failed, for him everything was more important than his wife and Sangwoo will always be the love of his life 🤷‍♀️❤️

Favorite line from this character: "Smart ones never eat too much" (he said this when Sangwoo gave Ali his food 😂 I like this line because it's so silly and it made me laugh when he said it 😂)

One way in which I relate to this character: Gi-hun is the one character to whom I don't relate at all, I've been thinking and thinking if we have something in common but I found nothing 🤷‍♀️

Thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: When he can't help but tell every person he comes across that Sangwoo went to SNU and that Sangwoo is known as the pride of Ssangmun-dong, please Gi-hun, I know you have good intentions and you're lovely but that's uncomfortable, please stop ;-; (I'm kinda projecting my issues here not going to lie)

Cinnamon roll or problematic fave? Cinnamon roll all the way ❤️ I kinda know that people like Gi-hun wouldn't survive in the games if they existed irl ;-;

Tagging @moonlitdayy because you asked about Sangihun so here's the Gi-hun part!

[sketchguk]

Hi this is prev anon! Thanks for answering 💜💜 Soonyoung not having anything serious to be annoyed with mc is so endearing ..... Everything that upsets him is just endearing or petty or because he cares about her . :(((((((((

I love the scrunchies around his wrist omg 😭 why is he so in love 😭 he just keeps it as a reminder of her !!!!! He really adores her so much ahhh these two are my OTP !!!!

About the request, it doesn't have to be a fleshed out drabble or anything, although i do miss your writing so much and it would be so great to read some dialogue between my two favorites. I'll be happy with headcanons like you've been doing too ! Whatever you feel like ! even if you don't wanna write it it's fine, because I know what they fight about and stuff! I was thinking about something really serious, or something that starts out small and ends up in a serious argument, because even the best couples have arguments and fights and that just helps them get stronger in their relationship! It would be so refreshing and different to see how that get through a major argument!! Becouse soonyoung is so open , and mc not so much, so that might be an issue when fighting right?!?!

In the end , I'm happy with whatever you choose! Thanks for listening to me 😻💜

hey hey I reread your answer and realized there is much more i want to say uoyipuouop sorry for the spam! what you said about the cold hand things .... i cannot deal with how adorable they are ahhh !!!!! I want to protect these two so much LOLL soonyoung immediately reaching for her hands please thats is SO CUTE !!!! And about mc spreading herself too thin .. that makes sense !! Soonyoung just wants her to let go a little bit. But it could be reverse too! Maybe soonyoung takes lots of stress about being the best at quidditch , just like how he is stressed to perform the best as performance leader! and he can be scary too the members say right??? so maybe he gets snappy and annoyed when he's in the zone, and if mc tries to joke around at that time, he may react badly .... Then one more thing i thought of was , you mentioned soonyooung is insecure before. especially since there was so much push and pull form mc before! If the smallest thing happens , he might need reassurance from mc! but he may not say it out loud , and that an lead to misunderstandings too. Like you said , maybe she brings up mingyu in passing and he would react way too serioulsy ... or she may say no to hanging out with him and his friends a couple times , and he would get worried thinking HOW she can stay away like that? if she liked him she wouldnt spend time apart right???? this goes with what you about soonyoung being more clingy and mc wanting more space ! ahhh okay i think this is all i wanted to say! ehhheee sorry for spamming again !

When you're in love, you're in love !!! What more can I say?!! We all need someone who can adore us the way gryffindor soonyoung adores ravenclaw mc 😔 I love them dearly, and they just live rent free in my head !!! Unfair !!

Ehehe I'll see what I can come up with for the argument (hopefully this weekend!!). I definitely would love to see them interact considering I've been talking about this universe for over a year, and nothing has really rcome to fruition (in terms of a drabble or even a smidgen of a chapter - oops)

Girlies with cold hands 🤝 (And me who refuses to wear gloves because it's an inconvenience T_T). Soonyoung is literally the embodiment of the guy I want :-( I'm projecting everything onto his character because I will never craft a slowburn fic that is as extensive as this universe lol. If I can't find or believe in true love irl, I'll just have to make my own otp 😭

Omg yes yes Soonyoung is definitely hard on himself when it comes to quidditch because he's their star player. Everyone looks up to him, so exceeding their expectations puts a huge burden on him. That's exactly how he is irl !!

DID YOU WATCH THE SUCHWITA EPISODE?? He told yoongi that the tannies always put on such grand performances, and he felt as though he had to push himself just so he could be as good as his idols :-( He's a perfectionist for sure, and he would definitely be the type to overwork himself

If he snapped at mc during a stressful time, she would distance herself and reflect a lot !!! She would have been super pouty because Soonyoung was being unreasonable !!! Why did he have to be so mean? :-( Surely, his words weren't cruel because that's not the kind of guy Soonyoung is. His tone sounded aggravated, and it was unusual because it's very rare that he does that. Besides, it doesn't feel nice when you can sense someone is annoyed with you, right? So mc ends up a little hurt over this

But she still gave him the space he needed. After a day or two, she probably notices that something's missing in her life. She's not used to it being so quiet !! And she doesn't like it !!! She finds herself looking at his empty desk during class or the empty space across her from her at the lunch table

Soonyoung will eventually apologize of course, and he would feel great remorse. He didn't mean to snap at her. She'll give him a piece of her mind because she's never been one to shy away from that. But next time, Soonyoung will think twice before acting the way he did!!

Ahh yeah I did mention that Soonyoung gets insecure because of how their friendship even began!! Besides, unrequited love is a BITCH !!! It really messes with your self esteem for a while. Soonyoung is certainly an overthinker because he has so much time to himself aha. It's the way he lives his life. He's not necessarily concerned with school or his career. It's just him, his closest friends, and the girl of his dreams. (Oh and of course quidditch because Soonyoung is the definition of himbo <3)

He needs a ton of reassurance from mc!!! But at the same time, he doesn't want to seem like the pathetic guy who constantly needs comfort (that sounds harsh, sorry). He wants to present himself as the confident guy that he is. So, Soonyoung would tend to keep quiet, or at least he won't verbalize his insecurities much. You can definitely see the hurt in his demeanor, especially the pout on his lips. His words always sound like he's second guessing himself, and he's hesitant with what he wants to say. But mc is the fiery type, so she has to coax him for a bit

I think their relationship would have been rocky in the beginning because mc isn't the most vocal about her feelings, and she doesn't reassure him that she loves him often. It's typically shown through her actions, but Soonyoung would still really appreciate the verbal validation. So it takes a bit of talking and a bit of practice before they can build it up to a healthier relationship

Of course that's all okay because couples do fight ! And each party will always have their insecurities ! It takes communication to make sure everyone is at the same level. Plus, since they've only ever been friends, they have to learn how to be lovers as well. It's not a quick or easy process. There are always bumps in the road when it comes to these two, but what's important is that they will continue to fight for their relationship at the end of the day

[muppetmusings]

[geminixevans-stan]

Yess so excited for Mafia!Steve & Pippi day! i have too many thoughts lol so I'll just leave one (fluffy one) here: the twins' first day of school? I imagine Steve would try to hold it together for Pippi but we see he's capable of being a huge softy. Congrats on your blogaversary~

Thank you so much! This request made me so happy!

Pairing: Mafia!Steve x Pippi

Words: 826

Warning: None. Pure fluff.

From Liar Liar OTP

The day that you’ve been dreading had come too quick for your liking. You boys — your babies were standing in front of you, backpacks on their shoulders as they get ready to leave their parents sight for eight hours. 

You tried to keep it together but when your precious Santino, clung on to your leg, you couldn’t hold on any longer.  The tears start wet his chubby little cheeks it took everything in you to not snatch him up and put him back in the car. 

“No wanna go mama,” his trembling voice tearing you apart. 

But your big guy, Salvatore was just like his father, nothing could scare him. He pulled lightly on this brother’s backpack, giving him a small smile, “Come on Fratello (brother)!” 

Santino clung harder, choosing to make your leg his home, “No! Wanna go home wiff mama!”

Oh how you wanted him to…

“Figlio (Son)…,” Steve’s soft voice coming from behind you. He only used that voice for you and his boys. But as you look up at your husband, you can see his cheeks tinged with pink and a unspoken glassiness to his eyes. 

Steve lowers to Santino’s height, staring back at the spitting image of him. He didn’t want to say it or even show but… This was ruining him in the worst way possible. 

He wanted nothing more than to scoop both his boys up and take them home. They were growing up too damn fast for his liking. 

Steve still remembers the day that you two brought them home. He wanted to go back to that day so bad. 

Santino’s eyes that match with Steve’s look at this father, his fingers still clutching onto yours. His lips tremble at Steve, wanting nothing more than to forget school altogether. 

Salvatore looks on at the interaction, bouncing on his feet as he watches the many kids enter the school. “Come onnnn we’re gonna be late!” 

“Shh, you’ll get there prince,” you assure him, passing your hand over his hair to smooth it.

“But I wanna go now!” he shouts, stamping his foot on the hard concrete.

Steve glances over at his little spitfire, a small mighty version of him, “Mind your mama, Sal. You don’t raise your voice, understand?” 

“Yes Papà,” sighing as he looks down at the ground. 

Steve reaches out to softly bring Salvatore over with his brother as he looks them both in the eyes, “Are the Rogers scared of anything?

Both boys look at Steve and shake their head from side to side. 

“I know it’s… scary to do new things. Trust me, the day you two were born, my whole life flashed before my eyes. But it all worked out right?”

Salvatore and Santino shake their heads, your precious boy’s hands loosening its grip. 

“Santino bambino, no matter what, you are going to be fine. Wanna know why?”

“Why Papà?” his voice filled with wonder. 

Steve gave him a soft smirk, keeping his eyes on his son, “Because you’re a Rogers, Figlio. We’ll always be fine. Just like your Fratello. Have each other’s back and no one can touch you okay?”

Salvatore puffs out his little chest with pride, “Got it Papà!” 

Steve chuckles, lightly ruffling his son’s hair, “Atta boy! Be your brother’s keeper in there know that me and your mamà well be here when you get out.”

Santino looks up at you and then back to Steve, “You promise?”

Steve nods, “Cross my heart bambino.”

With reluctance, Santino pries himself from your leg, you leaning down to give both your boys a kiss on the cheek, “Be good… okay?” the crack in your voice evident. 

Both boys nod giving both you and Steve hugs before walking off towards the school entrance. 

With your own reluctance, you turn around ready to get in the car when you see something that you normally don’t see. 

One tear slides down Steve’s cheek and you knew then that he was keeping it together for too long. 

He doesn’t stop looking at the twins until the door closes behind him and finally his gaze is distracted by you holding his hand with yours.

“Come on…” you whisper, taking your emotional husband back to the black SUV.

The moment that the car speeds off, Steve’s head is immediately in your lap as he lets out a huge breath. 

Your hand slides over his scalp, making him relax with your touch, “S’ not fair Pippi… They were supposed to stay babies.” 

You let out a watery laugh, “I know daddy. Still see them as those two tiny newborns that we brought home.”

The ride was silent as you two reminisced on the younger boys. Life wasn’t fair and you boys growing up was the most unfair thing in the world.

“….. I want more Pippi.” 

You look down at Steve, with a furrowed brow, “More what?”

“Babies. Gimme more babies Pippi.”

As if he had to ask… 

Join the Celebration!

[renaerys]

Don’t take this the wrong way cause I’m just curious and this is my first time on your tumblr account lol (I’ve been following your blossick fics). I’m familiar with Naruto since I was young and I was wondering about how you got into the sasori and Sakura ship cause for me it’s very random. What made you ship them instead of the canon ship? You’ve probably answered this before so sorry if I’m asking!

Not at all! That's a really good question. I'll put it under a Read More because 2014 fandom ptsd re the end of Naruto taught me too well.

The tl;dr for why I don't like the canon SS ship is that I thought they had nothing positive in their foundation, which was only made so much worse in the final chapters. There were plenty of opportunities for Kishimoto to show us that they had chemistry and actually cared about each other in a meaningful, non-superficial way over the course of the manga, but bizarrely he did the complete opposite in a way that felt not just careless, but downright malicious at times, especially in the final war chapters. It was honestly offensive to read, even as an anti-shipper, and I found myself feeling really bad for the people who like that ship in the end. What a shit way for their OTP to become canon.

I'm not going to get into the dirty details here because that ship fandom is fucking demented about anti sentiment, even when it's delivered in a respectful way. Frankly, I don't have the time or patience anymore to debate online about a fictional couple in a manga that ended years ago. If people like the ship, cool! I hope they have fun shipping it and making good content for it. I happen not to like it, and I'm extremely comfortable in that camp and always will be.

As for SasoSaku, go re-read the manga where they fight! It's the hottest villain/hero encounter I have EVER read. There are some very compelling takeaways from that fight:

They have diametrically opposed world views, and yet they both demonstrate a willingness (and even a desperation) to understand something about the other's point of view. And they actually accomplish that, to different degrees, in the end. Sasori lets the last attack hit him because Sakura got through to him and made him acknowledge that he had failed, that he had made a mistake, and that he was never truly alone. I think he realized in that last moment that the "life" he was living was no life at all, and that he maybe could have made different choices if Chiyo had done a better job being there for him and if he had let her. It is so staggeringly beautiful that I literally cry. When she yells at him "why is that the only way you can see the world?" and is so angry and so emotional because it feels so personal to her now, I just completely fall apart. If only he could have seen and done things differently, what kind of life could he have led? I think she mourns this in a way, and I think not a single person has ever shown him that type of empathy before now (that he was willing to listen to) and it totally destroyed him.

Sasori is the second person aside from Tsunade to have ever acknowledged Sakura's real power and capabilities--and he is a villain trying to kill her! And he's a rude, entitled, unspeakably selfish person who would rather get stabbed than not get the last word. If that's not a show of the humanity he still has even if he doesn't want to admit it, idk what is. And then he rewards her for killing him? For a dude who keeps berating her about doing pointless things their whole fight, he sure does feel okay doing something completely pointless for her in the end (not for Chiyo, btw, but for Sakura). He took her seriously in this fight, and we saw her feeling so thrilled about showing off her strength and her abilities and how she'd beaten his poison. Sakura was living in this fight, it's all over her face in the panels, and Sasori was living right alongside her as she visibly impressed him each time he thought he'd gotten her and she got right back up and kept going. They were held up as equals in this fight, not necessarily based on shinobi skill alone, but as people with goals and feelings and a violent desire to be seen in the eyes of another they consider truly worthy. I mean, how is this not art and also super fucking hot?

SasoSaku is the first real ship I ever shipped. It was my shipping awakening. I will never forget when that fight first happened in the manga, waiting each week to see what would happen next, and realizing holy shit, this is what the foundation of a real enemies to lovers romance is supposed to be? Go re-read the manga chapters and pay attention to those points I made. I hope it completely blows you away like it did to me!

[muppetmusings]

@reinhartroleplays

[kashimos-hajime]

darling, dearest, not quite dead | o.k.

summary: twenty years. you have loved obi-wan for twenty years and the minute he comes back from what seems to be the dead, he wants your help to kill the supreme chancellor. then again, it seems almost like him to ask you to do this with him.

WARNINGS: swearing, brief death, mentions of injuries, sexual tension, angst, fluff, obi-wan is being annoying and y/n is being annoying right back, matching energies for our otp ❤️, questioning morality, crying men, happy ending!!! pairing: sith!obi-wan x fem!jedi!reader word count: 15.5k

a/n: i have no excuses ndklnsf i love him :) crossposted on ao3!

contritus | latin: broken, crumbled, worn down, crushed

Master Windu always said that a single moment defines a battle.

The moment Obi-Wan sinks his lightsaber through you, you realize that this is that moment.  

It’d been a mistake—the marauder had thrown Obi-Wan forward and you’d been in his way. The Masters were too far, they were caught between giving up a Jedi holocron or their lives.

You had begged him not to give up the holocron. Your life was nothing—nothing—

It’d been a fatal mistake. You know it the moment he spears right through you.

“Obi—Obi-wan?” Your voice, soft as a whisper as you grab onto his wrist and his eyes, so very blue even in the light of his saber, widen as your fingers dig into his skin.

It’s a peculiar sensation, glowing, blinding, yet curiously numb as he chokes out your name and retracts the lightsaber. The hunter lets go of your shoulder and you fall forward, gasping at the shrivelled fabric melded to your skin as arms take you and you realize it is Obi-Wan who holds you tight just as the whomsh of another lightsaber swings overhead. Craning up, you see a decapitated hunter, Master Windu, and Master Qui-Gon.

The body falls and so do you. Your friend falls to his knees, cradling you close and you shiver as he keens over you.

The Masters look down upon their Padawans and Obi-Wan’s tear-stained face raises wretchedly to glower at them.

“Master, I—Do something—“

Oh, sweet Obi-Wan. Pleading as he holds onto you and you simply turn your head into his robes. You don’t feel any pain but you are shivering as he grabs onto your hand, holds it against the burns on your stomach. 

“Bring her to the ship, Obi-Wan.”

“I’m so sorry, darling,” He looks down at you, at his young face, and you smile. Maker, you love him. “I didn’t—“

“Oh, hush, Obi,” you breathe, reaching weakly for his face. Your fingers barely brush his smooth chin before the strength leaves your arm and it falls back again. He catches your hand, gently lowering it to the ground before twisting and scooping you up with an arm underneath your knees. “You’re always so dramatic.”

“If it takes my dramatics to keep you awake, I will do what I must,” he says as he follows their Masters back to the ship. Master Windu speaks into his comlink and Obi-Wan’s grip on you only intensifies when the Padawans catch him calling for medics to be waiting when they land back on Coruscant. 

They catch ‘critical condition’ and ‘uncertain odds.’

“You’re going to be alright, dearest” Obi-Wan whispers and you look up at him. Then, you smile again—he’ll be the last thing you see, won’t he?

His arms are so warm and you feel your eyelids growing heavier as the gentle sway of his steps begins to lull you to sleep.

You can hear him calling your name. 

You do not wake up until both Obi-Wan and Master Qui-Gon have both disappeared.

.

You wake up and everything changes.

They tell you that Obi-Wan left the Jedi Order and Master Qui-Gon had offered his life to save you. It’s an ancient Force skill with the ultimate price.

The guilt is what eats you alive, and without your other half—Obi-Wan was more than a friend and just shy of a lover—you want to leave the Order yourself and find him.

But you don’t.

You persevere. You had forgiven him. It is, you believe, what Obi-Wan would’ve done. 

What Obi-Wan would’ve wanted for you.

It is… the Jedi way.

You become a Jedi Knight in his and Master Qui-Gon’s memory. The Council trusts you, believes in your strength to return after what should have been your death. You become their top agent, true above all else. 

You escort the Queen of Naboo, you land on Tatooine, you find yourself a Padawan. You do everything you can to keep his memory alive in your heart.

You do not speak of the dreams.

In your sleep, you feel the lingering presence of Obi-Wan Kenobi, his terrified screams, the untamed rage in his swings. Instead of blue, everything flashes red, and when you reach for him, he pulls away.

He’s out there… somewhere. You wonder if he knows you’re alive or if he left before he could know.

You are on Coruscant in your rooms when you get your answer. The Clone Wars are beginning to wear on them all, you are a Jedi General with an old Padawan who’s found himself an apprentice of his own, and life seems… not easy, but not complicated. There is no time to think of much besides the war and although you barely sleep these days, it’s better being so exhausted you can barely even dream.

“So he was right.”

Every inch of you stiffens as you whip around, pulling out your saberstaff from your belt with a practiced flourish and activating it. The yellow plasma hums and you narrow your eyes at the intruder.

“Jedi Sentinel, one of the youngest-made Jedi Knights in the Order, yet, held in such high esteem,” he continues. His eyes, glowing yellow in the shadows, pin you down and your grip on your saberstaff only tightens as the Sith steps out into the light and your breath catches when you stare into the face of a man you thought you’d lost. “Master Windu must love you, dearest.”

Obi-Wan, older, with his strong jaw covered in a beard and long hair raked back, stands in front of you with a smirk. A scar fractures his face, crossing his nose and digging into his cheek, but it only serves to amplify his looks. He’s handsome, still. Handsomer, even. 

Mature, civil, cold.

You remember Master Windu once said he could’ve been the greatest negotiator the Jedi Council had ever seen and you, the greatest fighter.

He, the calming hand. You, the fist.

Now, it seems, that they each are both.

In black armour and a hood tugged over his head, he regards you as he descends down the small flight of steps into your sitting area and you swallow, twirling your staff so it points down along the length of your arm—a show of peace, for now.

He hasn’t pulled out his own lightsaber you see hanging at his hip. It makes you uneasy.

Is it still blue? Red, now? 

All you know is that he is everything you swore to fight against.

“Sit.” You don’t even recognize your own voice when you speak, quiet and rasping as you deactivate your saberstaff and join him at the couches. Sitting across from him, you watch as he smoothes his hand over his robes and does so, pulling the hood off his head. “Is there any name by which you be called, or are you still Obi-Wan?”

His eyes snap to yours at the name and you meet him head on, your chest swelling in pain. How desperately you want to touch him, make sure this is all real, you cannot even begin to describe. 

Obi-Wan, a man you had loved since they were mere children in the Jedi Temple—childish love that had matured in something wretched, something forlorn—lives in his eyes. You see it then, for a split-second, when you had said his name.

But then, it had been swallowed up by whatever sits before you now.

“Darth Contritus.”

“Catchy.”

“Hm.”

“I won’t use it.”

Silence. You look out at the balcony and note that the door is cracked open before glancing at Obi-Wan before you again. He looks at you intently, as if he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, and you sense something stirring with him—it’s powerful, negative—and you clench your jaw, hands folded in your lap.

“What’s true, then?” you prompt after a while of his glaring. You feel bare before him after all this time and your stomach flips as he blinks, looking up from where he’d been trailing his gaze down your body, to your scarred hands, you know. 

You can feel him everywhere.

“That you live,” says Obi-Wan—Darth Contritus, you should say, but you refuse. 

“I do,” you agree. “And you would’ve known that had you stayed on Coruscant.” With me, you want to add but he hears it anyway. You know he does. “It’s been a long time, Obi-Wan. What is it, twenty years? More?”

“Obi-Wan,” he echoes wryly. “It’s been just as long since I heard that name. You should watch yourself lest you say that in front of the wrong people.”

“Well, you’ll always be Obi-Wan to people who loved you, hm?” Your chest tightens and you find his eyes again. His eyebrows furrow inquisitively as his hand brushes over his chin. You want to scream.

You want Anakin to barge in here, ask for advice from his former Master. Or, maybe, have the Senator of Naboo herself summon you. Have anyone demand your presence as they have for what feels like the past year with late night meetings and delegations. 

But there won’t be. You know this.

On this nights of all nights, Obi-Wan Kenobi finds you alone and your heart wilts in your chest.

Love. It weighs like a bantha between your shoulders. You once felt like you could fight a dragon with love, and now, it tears you apart slowly, limb from limb.

Loved.

You cannot linger. “Why are you here? If you were here to kill me, you would’ve tried already.”

“Only tried?” he mocks, leaning back into the sofa. Your arms stiffen and he smirks. “Dearest, I would’ve succeeded.”

“And there’s that signature Kenobi smugness. It’s a relief to see that some things don’t change,” you shoot back. “I’m not the same girl and you…” You laugh weakly. “You are not the same boy.” His hands shift on his knees and your eyes dart to the movement. Long, agile fingers dig into his knees and when you look at him, your gut clenches. “What do you want from me, Obi-Wan?”

“I need your help.”

That surprises you. Your chin jerks up to meet his eyes and he has that arrogant smile, that faint smirk that makes your stomach flutter even now.

You can’t remember the last time you felt this way—

Stop. You can’t think of that, you chastise to yourself. He is everything you are fighting against—everything that a Jedi cannot be. He isn’t the Obi-Wan you love anymore.

Except he is. 

He always will be.

“With what?”

The fact that you do not outright deny him is proof enough.

“If I told you I know who the Sith Lord orchestrating this whole debacle was and wanted to destroy him with your help, what would you say?”

“I would say that you want something in return for my help. I would say it’s been years since we’ve last seen each other and the first time we discover the other is alive”—your voice is dangerously bitter—“all you want to ask is a favour.”

He chuckles. There is a trickling trail of cold dread in your stomach. “Oh, dearest, you haven’t lost your wit.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Call you what, darling?” He’s playing coy, but the predator in his eyes does not falter as he rests an arm along the back of the couch. 

“You know what.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Obi-Wan—“

“Darth,” he cuts you off coldly, “Contritus. Obi-Wan is dead and I am finished entertaining the thought that he is anything otherwise.”

“I refuse to believe it.” You stand, smoothing a hand over your overtunic and turning your back to him. It’s foolish, you know, but you want to know if he will attempt to strike you down for refusing him—if there is a list of people he wants to turn, wants to help him achieve more and more power. Walking around the couch, you step up out of the small pit. “Find someone else.”

You take not one more step before you feel the faintest rush and your hand shoots to your saberstaff, activating it. Whipping around, you block his swing, their blades clashing in blinding white. Red meets yellow and you feel the hum of plasma in your bones as you stare up at Obi-Wan. He pushes down on you and you grit your teeth, digging your feet into the ground and shoving him back, your boots sliding along the floor with the force of his own strike. Energy fizzes in your bones and you’re breathless.

Just his presence so close to yourself again makes your nerves burn. Your senses are overloaded, memories flooding your brain and you stiffen when he lets out a soft laugh.

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

His lightsaber is burning so brightly you feel tears spring to your eyes and there is a swelling in your throat as you snap apart your lightsaber into dual blades, reversing the grip with a twist of your wrists. Obi-Wan’s eyes widen nearly imperceptibly and you raise a blade up in a defensive position. 

You had spent years training in Niman and the Shien variant, convincing Master Windu to train you in Vaapad despite the temptation of the dark side, mastering them to fill the void inside you. 

You’re not about to let the man who caused it to strike you down.

“A lot has changed. My answer is final.”

“You don’t even know what I want.” Curse him for being so relaxed, red saber burning and hissing and crackling yet loose in his experienced hand. “Dearest—“

“Stop it.”

“Darling, is finding the Sith Lord not the Council’s priority?”

“I won’t work with you.”

“Why?” The question is abrupt, and your eyebrows furrow together quizzically. It’s genuinely asked, you realize, and your grip laxes as he deactivates his lightsaber and clips it. “You can clearly match blows with me. I won’t get the jump on you as easily as some of the other fools in the Order.” You wonder if that’s difficult for him to admit. The Obi-Wan you’d known didn’t find it hard to admit, but…

But still. Still, everything’s changed.

“Is it, I wonder, because you care for me?”

Your stomach rolls and you don’t know if you should be ecstatic or terrified that he’s right.

“Obi-Wan—“

“Or because you still think of our time together?”

“There was no time. We were Jedi—“

“Temptation frightens you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Now, now,” he says, walking over to you smoothly and tilting his head. He offers a crooked smile and your lips part as you suck in a sharp breath. You drop your own guard unwillingly, lightsabers shutting off with a whomsh and he gently pushes your arms down. You let him—you do.

You can feel every molecule of his being coming closer, the smell of soap heavy in your nose as he stops before you. Maybe it’s because your heart is racing as he nears and you don’t even know if you’re breathing, or if it is because the love you once felt for him is roaring to life, consuming you until you are nothing more than starfire. Either way, you don’t want to know.

“We both know that the memories we share still… haunt you here…” His fingers brush over your temple and your eyes flutter shut. His touch is so soft, so tender, that you feel a part of you break. His hand trails down your jaw, down your neck, fluttering over your tunic and exposed collarbones and you know he feels you swallow. You know that he can feel every inch of you as intimately as if they were the same being. “And here…” He presses fingers to your sternum, right where your heart is. “Here is where your true desires lie.”

“I have no desires,” you grit out, pulling back but he grabs your arm before you can escape from his reach. Your head snaps up from his firm hand to his burning eyes and you are incinerating from inside out. “The Jedi—“

“—don’t give a damn about what you are or what you want. They only care about what you can do for them—“

“And that’s any different from the Sith?” You rip your arm free and immediately regret it for a flashing moment. “Get out of my sight.”

“Or what?”

“What do you mean ‘or what’?” you snap, holstering your lightsabers with twitching snarl at your lips. “You said it yourself, you are no longer Obi-Wan Kenobi, I don’t love you, and I am done with this game.” There is pleasure in the way his facade seems to crack then before attempting to repair itself and there is a surge in your bravery as you shove your face into his. He can’t quite fix the breaks you’ve smashed in his mask. “Go. Or this time, I’ll cut you down.”

“Hm.” His eyebrow quirks as he stares at you intently, curiously. Those eyes are nothing like the blue you had once known. “I’d like to see you try.”

Your eyes burn but you do not blink. 

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

“My, my. Such anger from the Council’s prized hound,” he murmurs mockingly into your ear as his fingers brush your jaw again and there is that cocky, sickening smile in the blonde of his beard. Your lips pull into a snarl and you jerk your head away, turning around. You detest this new man before you, yet you can’t even bare to see him go. You feel like everything inside you is peeling. “Anger suggests feeling, dearest. Temper that the next time you wish to convince me that you no longer care for me.”

“It’s a bold claim that I could care for someone who is everything I fight against.”

“One you didn’t deny,” he replies evenly. “Goodnight, Jedi.”

You wait until you’re sure he’s gone—when you can on longer sense his presence and your heart comes down from your throat.

You crawl into the bed and bury your face into the pillow before screaming out against every injustice in the world.

If Anakin notices anything the morning after, he does not say it. Instead, he simply says “Master” in his cordial tone as he always does and you, for the first time in a very long time, since he was a boy even, look at him and your bruised heart is listless in your chest, a puppet with cut strings. You hold his face in your hand and look at the man you’ve trained, raised from the ground up, and truly feel the life that’s passed you by.

“Are you alright, Master?”

“Fine. Just tired,” you murmur quietly. “I’m just… I’m so proud of you, you know that?” Your old Padawan regards you and you know what he sees as he nods against your palm and you let him go. He sees a mother, a sister, family.

You can only hope that he knows you feel the same way. Your son, your brother, the one thing left you know you can rely on.

“I know. I promise, I won’t let you down.”

“You could never,” you assure with a gentle sigh and when he looks at you with that hope in his eyes, it reminds you torturously of Obi-Wan when they still had hopes for their own future. Together. Together. The word aches everywhere. “You know you could tell me anything, Anakin, and I would never care for you less.” Anakin’s expression flickers and your eyebrows twitch together before he gives you a tiny, boyish grin.

“Of course. And you, as well. I am here for you, Master.”

You give him a plastic facsimile of a smile before squeezing his elbow. “I know. Come on. The Council is waiting.”

.

They send you to a warm moon that reminds you of Naboo. Yavin 4, outer rim. 

At least it isn’t Hoth, or Maker forbid, Alzoc III.

There’s a Separatist chapter lodging in the jungles of the moon, causing enough trouble to warrant the Jedi’s attention.

You think your old Master notices your distracted disposition and sent you somewhere easy to work out whatever’s bothering you with a good droid slicing. Master Windu has always been attuned to your emotions, long before everything with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan happened. It’s why you were his Padawan.

He had sensed the darkness in you the moment he first saw you, or maybe he foresaw it. 

You don’t know.

You land your starfighter in the brush where it’ll stay hidden enough before jumping out and landing in the soft dirt quietly. You’ve shed Jedi robes for a sleeker outfit more fitted for the jungles. With tan sleeveless tunic tucked into darker brown pants, your boots shift in the soil as you skirt into the fronds and head in the direction of the fortress.

There is nothing complicated about this. 

It’s arduous, yes. Dangerous, monumentally. But it isn’t complicated. Training Anakin is more complicated than destroying a Separatist branch. Deciding between sleeping in Obi-Wan’s quarters or your own when they were just mere Padawans was a harder choice than deciding whether or not you swing left first or right. 

It’s all instinct, second-nature and nearly your first. Soon, the fortress stops screaming from blaster fire and droid whining. You slash the head off the last droid, let its head roll at your feet and whirl around when you sense another presence behind you.

And there he stands again, a ghost you can’t shake.

It disrupts you to your very core. There is the smell of smoking metal and something worse as he tilts his head, amused. You clip your saberstaff with a practiced twirl, kicking a droid’s head away with a swift swing of your boot. 

He’s leaning against the wall, all sleek and handsome, you’re sweating with oil smeared across your cheek.

How romantic.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

“And I knew you just couldn’t stay away,” he retorts. “I wasn’t aware you’d be here until I heard you destroying those poor droids.” His voice is dripping with scathing sarcasm. “My, my, Jedi, you’re a sight.”

Joining him by the wall, you tentatively lean back against it as he turns onto his shoulder, regards you with a keen interest.

“You’re infuriating,” you admit quietly, refusing to look at him. You instead stare at the black leather of his boots, the way he’s crossed his legs at the ankles as he did when he was still by your side. Just more proof Obi-Wan’s there, torturing you with those tiny glimpses. “Why were you here?”

“There’s a factory here, over in Massassi Valley. I arrived to check in on their progress before I was alerted of a gorgeous Jedi with a yellow saber. Hm.” Your eyes flutter to his face and he smiles faintly. “Three forms.”

“You noticed.”

“How could I not, dearest?” He pushes off the wall with a smirk and, against your own will, a smile begins to pull at your lips insistently. “You’re just oh, so talented.”

Stubbornly ignoring the twitch, you follow him. “I told you not to call me that.”

“Oh, I apologize. Sentinel, then. Formalities, and such.”

“And I know you didn’t mean that apology.” They step over a droid body and make their way through the fortress, following the trail of droid bodies. You’ve rigged the place to explode and you know you could leave him to rot if you wanted but…

But he wants something from you, and if you can convince him to give you the Sith Lord without something in exchange—

“And I still wish to talk to you about our negotiation. We never finished before someone lost her temper.”

“Don’t test me, Obi-Wan. I don’t need to remind you the importance of warming up before a battle,” you warn and he lets out a sharp exhale, a hint of a laugh, and your smile grows as you lower your head, trying to hide it away from him. “And I think losing my temper is fair when I’m around such atrocious company.”

“Oh, now I know you aim to wound me.”

“Am I hitting my mark?”

“Not even close.”

Jumping over the railing of the building, they traverse in silence up a short hill before you turn around and pull out the detonator. With a simple press of a button, it goes up in flames and debris, caving in from the inside out and destroying any droid not alerted already by your little dance with your saber. 

Job done. And there’ll be a million more like it in differing sizes and magnitudes. Dropping the detonator to your feet, you smash it to bits with a sharp stomp.

How many more factories can they blow up? How many droids can they kill?

All of it means nothing if you don’t kill the mastermind behind it all.

Eyes closing, you curse whatever deity pulls the strings and tell yourself that it’s just what you have to do. There are no clean hands in war. Just dirty ones and dirtier ones.

So be it.

Turning to Obi-Wan, your eyes flutter from his dark robes to his face.

“You wanted my attention, you have it.” His eyes squint a bit at your choice of words and you lift your chin up, refusing to back down in his overwhelming confidence. “Talk.”

“Now you want to listen to me?”

“Don’t waste my time.” Your boots shift in the soft dirt, leaves bending beneath the ball of your feet and you look at Obi-Wan, really get a good look at him for the first time since he’s thrusted himself back into his life. You wonder if you look at him the same way he looks at you. Then, you ponder if he notices that he stares at you like he’s seen a ghost or if he believes that no one can read him anymore.

But you still can.

You can rip the pages out of a book, but it does no good for someone who has memorized every single page and simply flips through for the memories.

“The Sith Lord, his name is Darth Sidious,” he says, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “He rules the Republic secretly, taking senators under his control with a simple word. The apprentice, on the other hand, was Count Dooku.”

“Count Dooku? The Jedi who retired.”

He nods. “The same. That is, before I killed him and took his place.”

“Killed him,” you repeat. “You killed a Jedi.”

“A Sith Lord,” he corrects.” It was of no consequence. He would’ve caused you more trouble sooner or later.” It’s the flippant way in which he speaks that sets you back as he turns to head deeper into the forest and you follow him for lack of nowhere else to go. This is the way to your starfighter, something he seems to realize.

“Obi-Wan, you can’t just say that.“

“How many times do I need to remind you that—“

“Well, I refuse to use that name.” You plant yourself right in front of him and his eyes widen, eyebrows rising as he looks up at you. Clenching your jaw, you wish you could somehow reach into him, pull the Obi-Wan you know out so you could just hold him again— “It’s cursed, and wretched, and wrong.”

“This again?” He tries to walk around you but you grab his arm. He freezes, rigid, under your grip and you try to pull him back.

“You know I’m right. You only correct me when I start questioning your morality—something I thought Sith don’t exactly doubt.” Your eyes narrow. “I thought you all believed you were evil and relished in it.”

When he rips his arm out of your grip, he tears a piece of you with him. “Don’t make me regret my decision to come to you.”

“Regret it, then. See if I care.” You start to walk back down to the wreckage of the building and you hear a loud sigh.

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere where the air isn’t tainted with your presence. I’m not wasting my time when there is a war going on.”

“Tainted?” His voice rises as he walks down the hill after you. “If I was aware that the Jedi have made you so marvellously childish, I wouldn’t have come at all.” Stopping in your tracks, your eyebrows shoot up your forehead and you whip around, pinning him with a glare.

“What do you mean come? You said you were here already.” Before you know it, his mouth opens to argue but no words come out and you know you’ve caught him.

So you get under his skin as much as he gets under yours.

Good.

“You were following me.”

Dryly: “An astute observation. Now, will you help me kill a Sith Lord or not?” He stops in front of you and you tilt your head. His lips are twisted in an impatient scowl as you look over your shoulder at the ruins of the Separatist chapter.

Then, you cross your arms and sit down on the hill. You glance up at him, cock your head as a silent invitation for him to sit next to you. The sun is just beginning to set on the horizon, painting the sky a wondrous purple-orange. When you look at Obi-Wan, the orange ignites the gold in his eyes and sets his hair aflame. He stares out at the sky, legs crossed and hands on his lap. The perfect meditation posture.

“You haven’t succumbed to the dark side, have you?” you ask quietly, voice cracking, and he blinks, looking at you.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Then, his eyes are on the sky again.

You search his side profile. He seems so normal. So… like himself. It scares you yet brings you relief.

“Never mind.” You draw your legs up to your chest, rest your arms atop your kneecaps. “The Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. He taught you… whatever it is that’s so enticing about the dark side.”

“Oh, if only you knew, dearest,” he sighs. “But yes. I’ve no interest in seeing his reign continue.”

“But… shouldn’t your goals align?” you ask, confused. “It is the goal of the Sith to destroy the Jedi.”

“Not all Jedi,” he corrects. “Perhaps some exceptions can be made.” Again, his eyes flicker to yours and your eyebrows knit together. A delicate frown mars your face. “You. Your old Padawan. You join me and together we can rule the galaxy ourselves. We could keep him because I know how much he means to you. Personally, I find him endearing.”

Shock shoots through you like cold fire. “What? No. No, that’s not how this works. We do this for the Republic. Not to replace one dictator with another.”

“Why not?” he laughs. “We’d have no rules, or, perhaps, it’d be by our own design. We could have the power to shape the galaxy however we wish.” He leans over. “I know you want that as much as I do. I don’t see why we shouldn’t take the Senate for ourselves.”

“Because that’s wrong! Because democracy—“

“—has worked so well?” he asks dryly. “Look at the Trade Federation. The Separatists. Your democracy has failed you twice in the past ten years on a scale tantamount to the largest volcano on Mustafar erupting.”

“Then we amend what goes wrong. That’s how this works. We try and try. We do it until we get it right, even if we never do.”

“That is a fool’s play.”

“I’d rather us be the fools than the king,” you snap. “At least fools know where they stand.” You get up, turn to ascend up the hill again and you dust off your pants, dirt flecking off the fabric. “As for us…” You scoff, shaking your head and you can hear him getting to his feet as well. “I can’t believe I ever humoured the idea that there could ever be an ‘us’ again.”

“That idea could become reality if you would just join me.” His voice is harsher than a serrated vibroblade as he falls into step beside you. You hate how easily he catches up but you refuse to acknowledge him as you stride back to your ship. “Think of it. There wouldn’t be a single thing separating us again. Not death, not the Sith, not the Code. We could finally be together. I’ve thought of nothing else since I learned that you were alive.” You bite your lip, eyes resolutely staying forward despite his words seeping into your conscious. “I know that’s what you want. Without the Code, we could flaunt our love. I could cherish you as you deserve, darling. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be with me, too?”

And something—something about how brutally honest those words are just hits you like a speederbike and you stop in your tracks for the second time that day. Obi-Wan stops a few paces ahead and you pin him with a sorrowful stare. 

“So. That’s what this is about.” You let out a short, incredulous breath. “Not… not power. Not even some delusion that you can rule the galaxy better than the Senate. You just want me.”

His eyes widen before they narrow into a glare and he storms down the hill, shoves his face into your space and you swallow the rock in your throat.

“Yes,” he growls, nose-to-nose. “Is it so wretchedly inhumane of me to desire you?”

Your heart stops in your chest and you cannot answer right away. 

Can’t. Won’t.

There doesn’t seem to be a difference. All you know is that you can’t breathe.

And when you remember how, all you can smell is him, feel him so close to you that you can’t imagine ever forgetting him.

“No.” The word, so fragile, so short, flutters past your lips and Obi-Wan reels back like you had punched him. “No, I don’t think it’s inhumane at all to love.”

“It is all I do this for,” he whispers furiously as if you hadn’t spoken, eyes searching your own. You reach to touch his tunic but he grabs your wrist so tightly that you can’t break out of it. “Let me make that very clear that it is because of you that I am like this.” His lips twist into a snarl. “You haunt me and I let you because I take a sadistic pleasure in wanting what I cannot have. Do with that what you wish.”

Your heart drops into your gut as you wrench your wrist out of his grip and their eyes meet in dark, ferocious anger as they linger in the heat of it. 

Then, before you can question what he means, he draws back and all that anger, rage, grief, melts to a mask of diplomacy. No tension in his face, no feeling. He’s a blank slate as he clears his throat, regards you with an impassive gaze that somehow hurts more than his ire.

“If you do intend to help me,” he finally says icily, “join me on Coruscant. You will receive specific details on your terminal.” 

Shaken, you watch him disappear into the jungle. Your legs give in before you can follow and as you fall to your hands and knees, you wonder if you cry for him and the fate you’ve tied him to or cry for yourself and the guilt that begins to eat you alive.

.

“I’m so glad you made it back safely. As for the Council hearing, that couldn’t have been easy.”

“Thank you, Padmé, and it wasn’t, but… we made it through. What’s done is done when you’re dealing with the Sith. Now that we found the name of the Sith Lord, maybe we can narrow down our serach.”

“Master Windu must be pleased with your work.”

“Have you met him? Nothing pleases him. Ever.” You sip on your tea politely but it tastes like nothing on your tongue. Padmé frowns faintly at your tone, not besmirching her beauty in the slightest as Anakin walks in. Looking up, you set down your cup. “Anakin.”

“Ahsoka told me I could find you both here. What are you doing on the terrace?” he asks with a glance at you, then a softer one at the Senator. Concern masks his features. “It’s cold at night.”

“You know, sometimes ladies need moments to ourselves,” Padmé teases, standing. You lean back into your chair, watching in amusement at the way Anakin’s expression completely melts when she walks past him. If he couldn’t be any more obvious. “How’d the research go?”

“Fine. Ahsoka asked me something that I couldn’t answer so I just wanted to ask you about it, Master.”

“Me?” You sit up. “What could I possibly know that you don’t?”

“Well, she heard of a name and it was before my time, so I thought you could help.”

“Calling her old when you want something, Ani?” Padmé calls from inside as she sets something down on the table. You get up yourself, letting the droids take care of their dishes as you join your friend inside. “Now, that’s classy.”

Stifling a laugh, you enter the apartment and glance over your shoulder at your old Padawan learner. “Ask.”

“Well, she was looking through the libraries and came upon a name. It’s popped up in our database now that we know the name of the Sith Lord. The Rule of Two demands an apprentice, and if we’re right, it could be him.” Your heart drops in your throat as you sit down and Anakin clasps his hands behind his back. His eyes are solemn, his lips set in a frown. Padmé’s eyes rest on you in concern and you know that your silence is just as troubling as anything.

“What name?” you ask, so quietly you’re not sure you’re audible. 

“He was a Padawan at the same time as you, Master.” Your throat tightens and you pray to the Maker he doesn’t say what you think he will— “Obi-Wan Kenobi. He simply… disappeared. Not even the Council could trace him.”

“Anakin…”

“Did you know him?” Padmé asks curiously and your eyes dart to her.

“I did. He was… he was my best friend. His disappearance…” Broke me. Killed me. What else is there to say? “It was a great loss to the Order. He was the best of us. I wasn’t even aware that he was alive.” The silence that follows nearly chokes you and you sweep your gaze from Anakin to Padmé until you realize you can no longer bare their interrogating stares. Standing, you bow to the Senator and excuse yourself. “Goodnight, Senator. Forgive me but the war means little sleep for me. I must meditate on this.”

“Goodnight,” Padmé calls, the frown evident in her voice as you turn, leaving the apartment as quickly as you can.

You reach the elevator and step on just as Anakin catches up to you and you flash him a false smile, stepping aside to make room for him beside you. He lets out a breath, glancing at you. The doors close and he looks at the buttons, clasping his hands in front of himself before pressing the ground floor just as you did with a decisiveness one can’t fake.

That Skywalker swagger. Must be.

He steps back into line beside you. “Are you alright?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“In all my years under your tutelage, I’ve never seen you so affected. You’re steadfast, Master.”

“Did I miss ‘Compliment Your Elders Day’ in the calendar?”

A scowl. “And you deflect with sarcasm.”

“As all the best do.”

“Master.”

“Anakin,” you censure. “I’ll be fine. It is you who can confide in me, not the other way around.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s fair,” he replies stubbornly. “I hardly know anything about you and I’ve known you far longer than I haven’t.”

“Oh, that makes me feel great about myself.” The sarcasm drips through your words. “We work well together, Anakin. That’s all that’s mattered.”

“Whether we work well together or not isn’t the point. I’ve know you for years and you’ve never told me anything about yourself.”

“Well, you know I was born on Corellia. I like flying. You know how I fight, which is far more intimate than most people know me,” you list off the top of my head. “You know how I take my caff, that I drink often, even though unofficially, the Jedi don’t condone excess consumption of alcohol.” At Anakin’s skeptical gaze, you sigh. “Look, it’s not just you I refuse to speak of it to. No one except the Council knows about Obi-Wan. He’s… he’s not supposed to exist, in a figurative sense. He was supposed to be wiped from the databases.” Anakin’s expression scrunches up in confusion and you drop your gaze. “There was a situation. It was handled, but there was a whole mess that came along with it. A Jedi died—“

“I saw. Ahsoka showed me the death certificate of a Master Qui-Gon Jinn a few days after Obi-Wan Kenobi’s recorded documentation regarding him leaving the order. The reports speak of a mission with you and Master Windu, as well as Obi-Wan and Master Qui-Gon.” Hearing the Jedi’s name makes your guts twist and you look up at the elevator lights signifying their level. They still have so far to go. “What happened that day?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Master, trust me. You know me better than anyone. If Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Sith Apprentice we’re searching for—“

“Anakin, I am warning you. Do not mention Obi-Wan’s name again.” Your cold tone knocks him off and you know it’s because you never use that tone against him. You instantly regret your words and you sigh, eyes fluttering shut. Chewing your lip, an apology already works its way into your mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”

The doors open at last and you begin to leave.

“I’m starting to sense he was more than your friend, Master,” Anakin murmurs, grabbing your forearm, stalling you, and you look at him wretchedly. A mirthless smile works its way onto your face and your heart wilts in your chest as you gently pull out of his grip. Anakin’s eyes widen and you can only look at him in apology.

“Anakin… what lies between you and the Senator?” you ask and he jerks back as if you’ve slapped him. 

You might as well have as he stammers, “Nothing more than friends.”

 Your smile only grows unhappily. “Then apply that ‘friendship’ to what was between Obi-Wan and I, Ani, and you have your answer.”

.

You sit on top of the building, knee jiggling as you wait. You could meditate, eat, pass the time any other way besides watching the speeders, but you don’t. You feel nauseous, cold. 

You hadn’t told anyone of your meeting here, as Obi-Wan requested and yet, you fear Master Windu might’ve caught on to your lies.

The Jedi Council actively search for the very man you’re meeting and you can’t help but feel like sniper sights are aimed at your back every time you leave your apartment.

“Hello there.”

You whip around to see a cloaked figure emerge from the shadows. Obi-Wan stands there, dressed in black and a dark bloody maroon. His hood off and his hands in open display, he stands there until you face forward again, taking that as an invitation to come closer.

“I trust you’re well?”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries,” you utter quietly, clasping your hands. He climbs over the railing, sits beside you on the balustrade with a quiet sigh. Their feet dangerously close to the edge of the roof, he glances at the traffic and you stare at your boots. “Let me make something very clear: I want to help, no matter your own motives. I swore to keep the peace and that is what I’ll do, but after this, our arrangement is done.” Your eyes find his and you hope the coldness in your tone is mirrored in your gaze. “I never want to see you again. Let me be a ghost and you can be mine.”

Obi-Wan’s lips curved into a handsome frown. You look back out at the skylanes.

Quiet.

He must know you mean it this time. That there is no coyness, no game—you aren’t out to play hard to get. You aren’t acting like you don’t know what you’re saying. No, you’re well, and truly, done. Sick of it. Finished. Whatever synonym that can be concocted, it is what you are. Even if you do love Obi-Wan, you wish you had died that day. It would’ve been much better than this.

An odd twenty years later, and sometimes, your stomach still aches from old scars.

“Am I understood?” you finally inquire softly.

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, let’s get to work.” You draw your hands up your thighs, set your spine straight and look at your new partner-in-crime. “What’s our first move?” He stares at you for a moment, pale yellow eyes searching your face, but when you merely arch an eyebrow in prompting, he blinks and pulls something out of his pocket.

“Well, considering my Master hasn’t recognized that I intend to murder him in cold blood yet, we must move quickly. Have you deduced who Darth Sidious is?” You look at him and he sighs. “Who has always rubbed you the wrong way, no matter what everyone else said?”

You roll that question over in your head for a moment. “I’ve never liked how Chancellor Palpatine has attached himself to Anakin,” you confess. “If anyone, he’s painted himself the saviour of the Republic and the Council don’t trust him.”

“For once, the Council is right.” You frown at his bitter tone. “And your intuition never fails.”

“So the Sith Lord is Chancellor Palpatine, the most well-guarded man in the galaxy.”

“Yes.”

“And you do realize that a Jedi killing him portrays a certain… image, don’t you?”

“Oh, I know. I’ll do it. What I need is for you to get me access to his rooms.” Eyebrows shooting up, you rest your chin on your clasped hands, your elbows digging into your knees. “You said it yourself: your old Padawan learner is off mingling with the Supreme Chancellor himself. I assume you’re close with the Skywalker boy.”

“I am.”

“He’s powerful in the Force, that one,” he comments.

Quietly: “I know.” Sighing, your eyes find Obi-Wan’s. “So you want me to manipulate Anakin to let us in.”

“Manipulate is a strong word.”

“Didn’t realize you had such an aversion to using people to your own means.” The light of the city reflects off his eyes, cloaking his face in half light, half shadow. It only amplifies the arrogance of his smirk, the arrogant cock of his eyebrow. Your gut clenches and your thighs press together as he leans over.

“I have a strong, strong inclination for the consensual, darling.”

“So witty, as always,” you breathe. “As if the last time we spoke had no consequence.”

“Oh, it doesn’t. Not for me at least. For you, on the other hand…” He clicks his tongue. “I can feel the guilt inside you, twisting your every thought.” He chuckles. ”It’s funny, really.”

“My torture is your amusement?”

“Ah, no, never,” he corrects. “It’s a bitter delight that you never realized your hand in all of this. This situation, this war, this… conundrum of the heart. It’s… sick,” he acknowledges, “but after years of my own guilt consuming me, it’s almost… comforting to see you suffering like me.”

Your gut convulses at his words. “You think I didn’t suffer in your absence? That I didn’t dream of you every night for years?” His eyes study your face that begins to crumble underneath his stare. 

“I think we are alike in our agony.” He flips the device he pulled out earlier over in his hands, activating it with a simple press of a button. “Do you know why I want to kill the Chancellor?” A soft voice begins to emit for the device and he hands it over to you with a faint smile. “Take it.”

“What will you do? Spin your tragic tale?” you inquire without any bite. You mean it—tales are tragic when it comes to their lives so interwoven with one another and as they sit on the edge of the balcony, overlooking a city still alive despite the war raging, the night edging in on all sides, you hold the device to your ear and swallow when you hear Darth Sidious’ voice, vile and old. It sends a shiver up your spine.

“She hangs in the balance, young one. Join me, and I will ensure that she lives.”

“A tragic tale,” he echoes. “Yes, perhaps it is.”

The recording scratches, skips forward. “She’s dead, Obi-Wan. I’m sorry for your loss but you can avenge her. Use that lust for vengeance for more than grieving a girl dead before her time.”

You lower the device from your ear. You don’t want to hear any more of his manipulations. Those brief glimpses had been enough to make your stomach churn. “You don’t need to say any more.”

“He cloaked you from me. For years, I kept seeing your eyes,” he continues distantly. He leans forward on his knees, almost leaning into the wind and you clutch onto the cylindrical device tighter. “I remembered what it felt like, feeling your lifeforce ebb and disappear by my hand.”

“But you found me,” you try and he chuckles darkly, looking out at the skylanes. Two speeders nearly collide and his lips twitch into a mirthless grin.

“Indeed. When I was looking for the boy.”

“Anakin?”

“Hm.” He looks at you again. “The Chancellor wants to replace me with him now that he’s all grown.” Then, his eyes drift, rich in drive, zeal, the spirit of a warrior, the soul of a man who refuses to falter. “I suppose that’s another reason why it’s time to deposit the tyrant. I don’t intend to die so easily.”

In a moment of irrational, or perhaps even lack of, thought, you reach for his clasped hands and hold onto him. He doesn’t rip himself away immediately and in fact, his eyes seem to fixate onto yours deeply as you slip your hand between his.

“I’ll be there,” you promise him, not daring to look away, not wanting to for a second. It isn’t the most romantic thing in the world—you could’ve promised that you’d protect him, that he won’t die because you’re there, that he won’t ever be harmed again, that ‘it’ll be okay’—but you’ve always been practical, just as Obi-Wan was. Is. The only thing you can offer is the truth: “You won’t be alone.”

Then, he lifts one of his hands and rests his palm on your knuckles, and your heart, thudding like thunder in your chest, hitches. You suck in a cold, clear breath and squeeze his hand gently.

“Thank you.” His fingers brush over your skin and electricity dances up your arm as he watches you softly, gaze falling from your eyes to your lips. The gauzy glow of Coruscant softens his features and a shuddering sigh leaves your lungs as he leans forward.

It’s a moment where you think no, I shouldn’t, I can’t, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t before your heart, screaming to meet his, shuts up whatever rational voice echoes in your head and you close the distance. The instant their lips meet, a hand lifts from yours and shoots to your jaw, cupping your face and deepening the kiss. You set down the device blindly, holding onto his neck. Their hands spring apart and your other hand rakes through his hair, fingers twisting in auburn locks as he holds your face, burns himself into your mouth. 

You barely remember when your eyes closed. 

All you know is that the smell of him, the taste, it’s all so familiar yet there is the hint of something darker, smokier leading you deeper into his influence. One of his hands spreads across your neck, thumb brushing over the front of your throat and the underside of your jaw as you scoot closer towards him and he chuckles, nose wrinkling at your insistent kisses but submitting all the same.

Your mind is blank, razor-focused on one thing and you don’t even remember your own name before your lungs screech for air and you suck in a deep breath through your nose, tearing yourself away despite their lips nearly refusing to part. Your mouth opens and inhale sharply, hands pulling through his hair. His chin tilts up and you blink, looking at him through the fuzzy dots in your vision and the gleam of his golden eyes, arrogance and tenderness in its very definition, douses you in cold water. 

Jerking back, your hand flies to your lips, fingers brushing where he had claimed you moments before. Your thoughts are a scattered whirlwind and you swallow. Your breaths come rapid, your heart beating everywhere at once as you spin around, climbing over the balcony and back towards solid ground. Obi-Wan twists, confusion marring his face as he gets up and you whirl around. You feel like he’s set you on fire after a long winter left out to the elements and you’re incinerating. 

You’re burning from the inside out. You’re thirsty, yearning for something to feast on. Your fingers itch to rip off clothes, slash apart a droid, do anything to work out the energy that’s beginning to fizzle in your chest.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” you whisper, voice cracking, and you look up at him forlornly. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Why not?”

“Because—because—“ Yet with every second, you find your logic failing as you look at him. His hair is dishevelled—your doing—and he runs a hand through the golden strands as he waits for your answer but you’re starting to think you don’t have one.

After all, no one will ever know besides them.

That’s what you told yourself when they were Padawans. You fail to think of any difference now.

Obi-Wan stands there expectantly and your hands rake over your head, glancing around. There is no one but the sound of late-night traffic and the night.

Eyes sliding shut, you feel something inside you give like a fragile foundation finally slipping in the sand. 

His kiss is like a toxin, still scorching through you, and something inside you tightens as you open your eyes again and see him standing there, expression so much like the old Obi-Wan that your heart aches.

Your hand drops. You look at Obi-Wan in his dark robes, and decide.

You can’t take it anymore. You will love a ghost. You’d rather do that than die lonely.

Walking over to him with a decisiveness you feel like you’ve lost since he’s crashed into your life, you take Obi-Wan’s face in your hands and pull him into your kiss. 

He kisses back immediately, his hands finding your jaw and your eyes squeeze shut as your hands slide down his neck, find his shoulders and their lips meet again and again, drunk off the mere touch of their bodies. You find the buckle of his belt, undoing it with ease and the clank of his lightsaber hitting the ground along with the rest of the leather makes you grin against his persistent mouth. He kisses the corner of your mouth before nudging your chin up with his nose. His hands slide down your shoulders, hooking on your robes and sliding them down your arms with a slow, seductive intention that sends shivers up your spine. 

Letting your arms drop, you let him guide the robe to a pool around your feet before breaking the kiss to look down at your belt but he grabs your jaw, tilting your head up and their mouths slot together again. With his free hand, he undoes the buckle with practiced ease and your lightsaber joins his on the ground before they sink to the floor in unison, their knees against cold stone, their lips never parting. A fire scorches between their mouths and you know that you have never felt more at home than the moment Obi-Wan’s hands find your waist.

His hand slides to the small of your back, scooping you up and lying you flat against the pavement as you find the waist of his trousers, tugging down insistently. Their breaths mix in desperation as their foreheads press together. Their lips part just enough for you to look down and he kisses your brow, your cheeks, cranes his head to find your ear as you run your hands over the front of his pants, feel something warm and hard against your palm.

A quivering sigh against your neck makes your stomach flutter as the hand on your back slides to your hip, squeezing the flesh there. Boots sliding along the ground, you let out a tiny whimper when soft lips suck on the flesh of your throat, teasing you with tiny nips. His hand goes under your long tunic, finding the hem of your trousers and a warm index finger traces the rim, tip gently brushing along the sliver of bare skin there.

Your breath hitches in your throat. Your hands trail up his sides and wrap around his back. 

Their foreheads are still pressed together when his eyes flicker from your body to your face.

“Are you sure?”

You bite your lip and nod. “Yes. I’m—I’m sure.”

“Stop me. Don’t be afraid,” he whispers. Your fingers dig into his shoulders as his cold skin meets the warm flesh of your thighs.

“I’ve never been afraid of you, Obi-Wan,” you murmur achingly, eyes beginning to sting. His eyes flash to yours and you smile to yourself, slithering a hand to his face and cupping his jaw. Your thumb brushes over his lips. “Even after all this time, I’ve only loved you until I’ve hated you and… I have never stopped caring about you. I became a Jedi in your honour, you know? I did what I thought you would’ve done, because you are good, Obi. I know it.” You tilt his head against yours. Their noses clash and their lips brush, and you can’t help but close your eyes as your fingers card through his hair. “You’re still in there and I will never be afraid of you, but I am afraid for your future. For ours.”

“Ours?” he echoes and you nod against him.

“Ours.”

“What—what do you mean?”

There it is. That split-second of hopefulness in his voice, the sound of the first sun after the darkest winter. You’d give anything to pull the sun out of the shadows. Even the Jedi Order.

“Ours if we make it through this. Ours when I renounce the Code and join you.” Curling your fingers in his hair, you feel your heart splinter into two, wilt like a flower in the winter rain and when the first droplet lands against your nose, you know he’s struggling to hold his tears in. 

Your eyes open. Pressing a brief, soft kiss against his mouth, you gently brush his tears away. 

“I will leave the Order for you if you leave the Sith for me. When we kill the Chancellor, we will disappear and live the life we deserve. That’s what scares me.” His eyes search yours and you smile, his beard tickling at your palms. He raises his arms until his elbows are by your head and he props himself up, lacing his fingers atop your head and shielding you from the world. His body pressed against yours, you can’t help the tentative smile on your face.

“Why?”

“Because we’re so close to it,” you tell him. “Because, for the first time, it seems so real. We’re just within reach.” You sigh, studying his face, his scar, the shape of his eyebrows. All tiny things, yet they mean the world to you.

“What happened to never seeing me again?” he asks in a faux smug airiness and you wrinkle your nose, wrapping your arms around his neck as you sniff, trying to ignore the burning in your eyes but when you look at Obi-Wan, you swear you can see the first hint of blue in his eyes. The first hint of day breaking through the night.

“A kiss or two changed my mind.” You tilt your head to the night, letting the bracing wind take your tears away. You think nothing of this night has been romantic, from what’s been said to what’s happening now.

Yet, you wouldn’t change a thing from this.

You’d rather have this mess than a fantasy—have this broken man silently letting tears slip down his face than anything else.

Tears smeared all over his cheeks, Obi-Wan sniffs and tries to clear his throat but fails miserably as you draw your hand across his face. He cradles your face in one of his own hands, swiping a thumb beneath your eye and you smile.

“I love you,” he whispers hoarsely, quietly, and you lift your head up to kiss him softly, again, assuredly. “Please. Please don’t wake me up.”

“I’m alive, don’t worry. This isn’t a dream.” You tilt your chin up to kiss between his eyebrows and the delicate scrunch of his brow makes you warm. “And I love you, too.” His hands holding your face begin to tremble as if he’s afraid that one moment, you will disappear like a ghost but you let your hands drop, press palms against his knuckles so that he steadies and smile up at Obi-Wan. “I’m here.”

“So many of my nightmares end like this.” His voice breaks as he ducks his head into your chest, forehead to your heartbeat. “I don’t want to wake up. I never do.” You wonder if he hears the distinct shattering of your heart at his words.

Folding your fingers over the spaces between his, you draw his hands away from your face and press a long kiss to his fingers.

His grip only tightens as he lifts his head again and rests it on your shoulder. Their hands part only for you to wrap your arms around his chest and for his to bend around your head again, sheltering you from the world around them. 

The traffic is quieter now, nothing but your heart and his beating in tandem and the soft breaths that come only after tears are shed. His weight is suffocatingly warm and you bury your face into his neck, let his beard tickle at your eyes. 

“This is real, Obi-Wan.”

You never want to leave him again.

.

“Anakin, let me begin by saying that you cannot interrupt me in the middle of me talking.”

“Do you think I’m six?”

A levelling look. A loud sigh.

“Okay, fine. I won’t interrupt you.”

“You better not.” You slip your hands into your sleeves, perching on the balustrade of Padmé’s balcony. It’s the only place you can think of that you trust to be completely absent of eavesdroppers. “First: Obi-Wan’s alive.”

Anakin’s eyebrows shoot up and he frowns faintly. “I thought we established that.”

“And I know for certain he is the Sith apprentice we’re searching for.” Guiltily, you lower your eyes to the ground as Anakin approaches, the frown ever growing. ”I met with him. Multiple times, actually.”

“Master—“

“He came to me first,” you say, holding up a hand. “I didn’t know until he came to me and I met him again on Yavin 4. Again, he followed me there.”

“Sounds like you have a fan.”

Sending him a wry look, you sit upright. “Funny. But I met him two nights ago.” Because all of yesterday was spent in my own apartment, trying to reconcile the possibility of a future with the man I’ve been in love with since I was sixteen. But that’s neither here nor there. “He told me what he wanted.”

“Which is?”

“Anakin…” You raise your gaze to your old apprentice and sigh, standing up. A thoughtful expression is etched onto his face. At times, you can’t help but think maybe you should’ve exercised or demonstrated more patience with him. It seemed like you only exacerbated his natural proclivity for recklessness. Other times, like now, you think you did a pretty damn good job. “Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord we are searching for.”

Anakin’s countenance drops and his mouth opens, trying to argue but you quickly continue.

“No one can know better than his apprentice,” you tell him. Reaching out for his shoulder, a cold feeling settles in your gut when Anakin jerks out of your reach, brushing past you with a stony expression. “Anakin—“

“How do we know you can trust this Obi-Wan?” he points out. “He could easily be using you, manipulating you to get what he wants.” Turning to watch him go, your eyebrows knit together. “Master, whatever you think he feels for you, he could be lying.”

That stings. It stings more than you thought it would and you saw it coming from miles away.

“Have you not stopped to consider the same thing applies to the Chancellor? Anakin, I know you and the Council have never seen eye-to-eye regarding your relationship with Palpatine, but Obi-Wan isn’t lying.”

“How do you know?” he repeats.

“I just do.”

“That’s not good enough! Have you told anyone else about this?”

You shake your head.

“Oh, great. So we’re going off the Sith Lord’s apprentice’s lead. That’s real trustworthy.”

“Anakin, if you don’t trust him, trust me.”

“I do trust you, Master. I’m just afraid that your mind is clouded.” Anakin’s eyes meet yours and a lightning current shoots down your spine at the graveness in his face. He looks much older than his years and you’re more than aware that the longer this war continues, the more exhausted they both will be. 

“Anakin…” Then, you remember the weight of his secret. You wonder if that adds to it—if the burden of carrying the love for a certain senator drags him by the ankles. You understand that. You just wish Anakin knew that you would understand.

“I’m sorry, Master, but what does he want? This can’t be out of the goodness of his heart.”

“He wants to kill the Chancellor. That’s it. The Republic won’t fall beneath the weight of this war.”

“That’s it? That can’t be right. He must want something in return—“

“In return, I leave the Jedi Order,” you cut him off quickly, trying to rip the band-aid off. It doesn’t work because the colour drains from Anakin’s face and your heart wilts in your chest. Regret knots in your chest as he walks up to you and opens his mouth to argue, hands reaching for your shoulders. You raise your hands, stopping him. “It’s a done deal. I’m leaving on my own accord.”

“Master… you can’t. You can’t just—“

“You and I both know it’s more than possible,” you shoot back. Your words come out cold, flat, and you wish he could’ve found out any other way, but life is rarely, if ever, perfect. Anakin’s blue eyes search your face for answers you do not have and it must be something in how you say it but realization soon dawns upon him.

“You love him.”

“He loves me, too,” you reply quietly. “It is, I assume, not dissimilar to how you feel for Padmé.” You smile faintly and reach up, cupping his face. “I’ve never been blind to that, Anakin.” Sputtering, your old friend tries to come up with some excuse but you merely shake your head. “Once this war is over, Obi-Wan and I will leave Coruscant. That was our deal. And we need your help to do it.”

“My help?” The words come out strangled and you nod. “How?”

“The Chancellor trusts you. Get us into his office, and we will do the rest. You can leave the room, deny responsibility, do whatever you need to. The Council must not connect you to this.”

“But—“

“Anakin, you have the potential to be a great Jedi Master, if not the greatest. With my spot on the Council opening up, who knows? Your part in this may push you in the right direction.” Glossy azure eyes fix on yours and you hold Anakin’s face in your hands before resting your palms on his shoulders. “I’m more than willing to do this if it means this war ends and don’t worry. You’ve grown into a great Jedi. Greater than any other I’ve known. There’s no more I can teach you that you won’t learn yourself.”

“It doesn’t feel like it, Master.”

“It’ll always feel like that. We never stop learning, but that’s how life is. Don’t worry.” You squeeze his shoulders. “There won’t ever be a goodbye between us, Ani. Only a temporary parting.”

“But you’re leaving.” And just like that, he is nine again and you are twenty-five, crouching in front of a young blond boy from Tatooine as you tell him you will be his Master, prove your own Master wrong. Newly made Knight and desperate to please, you were determined to give Anakin a life he didn’t have to worry about never seeing his mother again, nor money, nor hunger. Pain, anger, fear.

You know you failed.

Still, you tried. That, you decide, must count for something.

“And you are staying. I have never, never, wanted to leave you Anakin, but I believe in you. I know you are the change the Order needs and if I can’t be here to see it…” You hum thoughtfully. “Maybe one day. One day we will return and I will see you as the Master I know you can be.”

A weak attempt of a smile on Anakin’s part.

“I’d welcome you back with open arms, Master. No matter what.” 

You force a grin onto your own face and pull him into your arms. Immediately, he embraces you and you hold him tight, eyes closing. His face buries into your neck and you cradle the back of his head like you did when he was younger, a boy tainted by nightmares, and you know soon, you won’t be able to do this again. Hug your family… hug someone who has become your son when he’s scared.

“I’ll help you,” he finally whispers into your shoulder and your arms tighten around him. His voice may be muffled but it doesn’t manage to stop the everflowing sadness. “Just tell me when and where and I will be there.”

“Okay.” You draw back and hold his face in your hands, smiling still. Your eyes refuse to shed the tears burning there so instead, you just… stand in his presence for a moment longer until they have to part.

.

“Darling.” Obi-Wan stands when he spots you approaching their meeting spot on the roof again and you stop in front of him, pulling your hood down. “And your old Padawan?”

“He’ll help,” you murmur. “He’ll alert us through the comlink when he’s in position, then this assassination attempt will go through.” Disgust curls at your tongue and you shake your head. “I still don’t like this plan.”

“Why?”

“Because it seems too easy.” You cross your arms over your chest. “We just go in there, you cut off his head, and what? How do you explain this death? The fallout of this will be torrential.” Looking out over the city, you sigh. “What will we say?”

“Say that I was his assassin,” Obi-Wan says, joining you near the edge of the roof. “The Jedi tried to stop me but were too late.”

“That still paints us as failures.”

“Then what will you have me do? There is no alternative that doesn’t paint the Order as murderers. I know that isn’t what you want.” His eyebrows rise. “Is it?”

You scowl. ”No.” Thinking, you add on, “Couldn’t we say we struck you down? Eliminate the threat all together.” Eyes lighting up, you look at Obi-Wan. His eyes, a strange mixture of gold swirling with blue, squint in confusion. “Obviously, you won’t actually be dead, but I think people won’t think twice looking at you if you’re supposed to be dead. The Jedi Council said so.” 

Realization: “Ah. Faking my death.”

You nod. “Exactly. If we settle on some planet and someone recognizes you, well, that’s impossible. You’re dead. The Jedi are very rarely wrong.”

“You’re quite clever, you know.”

“It’s honestly a wonder you haven’t thought of it yourself,” you reply. He smirks and you roll your eyes as he gently takes your shoulders and places a tender kiss upon your forehead. Something inside you melts at the touch. His nose presses into your scalp and their eyes close before you pull back and take hold of his hand. He’s warm to the touch.

Raising your other hand to flit over the scar crossing his face, you feel the sunken edges carefully. His eyes flutter shut and you run over his nose. It’s caused a small chasm in the structure of his face but you find that you can’t fault him for it. It’s become a part of him—a mark of his history. It may be a mistake in some eyes—not fast enough, not strong enough, not good enough—but to you, it’s simply a reminder that Obi-Wan is human. That he’s alive.

He’s alive. You still marvel at that. “You’ll have to tell me the story of this some day.” 

He smiles and the scar stretches with it. It’s somehow endearing. “Some day,” he agrees. “As well as many others.”

“Sounds like a date.” You squeeze his hand just as the comlink beeps and you grab it from your pocket. “Anakin?”

“I’m ready. Ahsoka’s speaking to the Council as we do.”

“Ahsoka?” Obi-Wan questions. 

“His Padawan,” you explain quickly. “Good. Keep your link on. We’ll mute ourselves from here on out.” Sending a nod to Obi-Wan, the two begin the plan. Clipping the rope to their waist, you wrap the end around a pipe, giving it an experimental tug as Obi-Wan looks over the edge of the building. Soon, they’ll be scaling down to the maintenance room and managing a way into the ventilation system.

“You know, if I thought we were speaking to the Council of this, I would’ve packed my fancy robes,” he calls dryly and you shoot him a glare to be quiet but he merely tips over the edge of the building and you suppress a groan,. The height makes you a bit woozy but you turn your back to the ground, grabbing onto the rope and slowly lowering yourself until they’re scooting down the side of the building together.

“Master Windu trusts my judgement, and better than we tell them when they can’t stop us,” you retort. Swinging out of the way of a window, the two glance at one another. “Sorry I didn’t tell about that. Didn’t think it was quite so imperative, what with the fact that we’re overthrowing a dictatorship tonight.”

“I don’t mind. At least I found out before Master Windu showed up out of the blue and decided to splice me in half for being anywhere near your vicinity.”

You barely contain a retort as they continue down.

Are you really doing this? Are you about to assassinate the Supreme Chancellor with a man you long thought dead?

Yes, a quiet voice replies, you are. And then, you will run.

.

They manage to crawl into the vent, him first, you second, and you’re stuck trying to avoid staring at Obi-Wan’s ass as they inch forward towards the Chancellor’s office. It’s not the most dignified position to find a Jedi and a Sith apprentice in, but alas—one must do what they do to rid the galaxy of tyranny.

Besides, you’re pretty sure the arrogance radiating off of Obi-Wan means about a million jokes will stem from this. 

They stop when they are just above the office, Obi-Wan crawling over the tiny gap and turning around so they can both peer down the vent. You manage to unhook your saberstaff, breaking it into the two separate sabers, clutching each in tight hands as you listen in on the conversation below.

You aren’t even aware that your nails are digging into your thumbs before a gentle hand brushes over yours.

Relax, Obi-Wan’s voice orders gently in your mind. Remember—I do all the dirty work.

That doesn’t omit my part in this, Obi-Wan, you shoot back but your fists relax anyway and his hand withdraws. Everything inside of you is tense when you hear a voice.

“Anakin, what a surprise. What brings you to my office at so late an hour?”

“I wanted to talk to you about these dreams I’ve been having. I… I trust you and I’m not sure if it’s real or not.”

Just a little more.

Obi-Wan, are you sure he’s the Sith Lord?

Why are you having doubts now of all times? Your eyes flash to his and he glares back. I’m sure. I wouldn’t lie to you.

A sharp nod.

You spot Anakin’s figure approach and then the Chancellor, meeting just below and your fingers tighten around your sabers.

“What dreams?”

“Dreams of the Sith Lord that caused this war.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I believe I know who he is.”

The Supreme Chancellor’s eyes shoot up and he regards the Jedi Knight with a strange mix of confusion and suspicion.

“I’m sorry, Chancellor Palpatine.”

Anakin’s eyes flash up to the vent and Obi-Wan sends you a nod. You send your sabers into the grate, melting it off its hinges and letting the metal clamor to the ground before Obi-Wan jumps out, landing behind the Sith Lord who whirls around.

Activating his lightsaber, Obi-Wan stares at his former Master with a cruel snarl to his lips. You jump after him, twirling your yellow sabers as you stand behind him. 

The contrast is near blinding.

“General Y/L/N.” The Chancellor has never sounded more unforgiving as he looks from you to Obi-Wan. “I believe you have a job to do. Kill this assassin.” You stare at the man who’s feigned warmth and kindness to the entire galaxy and you wait for his head to start rolling but when Obi-Wan doesn’t move, frozen, knuckles white as he clutches onto his saber, your eyes dart to his form. 

“Obi-Wan,” you whisper. His gaze snaps to yours and for a moment, you don’t even recognize the man behind it. His golden eyes peer at you curiously and then he twirls his saber with a practiced motion, turning back to the Chancellor.

Palpatine frowns.

The vibrating hum of another lightsaber igniting joins the buzzing symphony and Anakin raises his blue lightsaber with a harsh, cracking expression upon his handsome features. 

“By Jedi law, you must arrest me. Surely you won’t let him murder me in cold blood, Anakin,” Chancellor Palpatine says, glancing back at your old Padawan and hesitation flickers across his features. “Surely your Master taught you better.”

Anakin’s eyes flicker to yours. You are silent in return.

“This is treason.”

“What you have done to the Republic is treason,” you correct icily. “You do not deserve the luxury of a fair trial.”

It happens so quick. Palpatine reaches into his robes and there is a flash of red before the smell of burning flesh rises. A hand drops to the floor with a sick slap and a lightsaber rolls. Anakin sticks out a hand, letting the hilt fly into his hand and he deactivates it with a quick flourish as Palpatine keens over, clutching at his stump of a wrist.

Obi-Wan raises his lightsaber from the Chabcellor’s arm to his neck.

“I am finished with your manipulations, Sidious,” he murmurs lowly, and then, with one great, unfaltering swing, he decapitates the Sith Lord and lets the head roll.

There is no blood. The lightsaber burns too hot for there to be any and you can only smell the shit and piss as an old man dies.

Obi-Wan’s harsh pants are the only sound as the body drops and you deactivate your lightsabers. Anakin does the same as you step forward, placing a hand on his shoulder and another on the trembling fingers that wrap so tightly around the hilt of his saber.

“Obi-Wan.” His name passes by your lips softly, like a caress, and he drags his gaze from the dead Chancellor to your face. “It’s over.” Eyes fluttering shut, he lets you pull him tight against you, their foreheads knocking together as his lightsaber deactivates with a whomsh.

Your name passes by his lips in a soft breath and he cups your face just as doors open and he springs away from you. You grab his hand, tugging him behind you just as Master Windu and the rest of the Council walk in, and his hand tightens around yours as Anakin pivots around.

Ahsoka steps out, panting, her eyes wide.

“I tried to stop them—“

“Ahsoka, please.” You step forward, letting go of Obi-Wan’s hand but he tugs you back. Glancing at him, you smile. “Let me handle this.” His eyes search yours and you give him a nod of assurance before he finally lets go and you step towards the Council, past Anakin who wants to speak but you grab his arm gently, stopping him. “Master Windu.”

“General Y/L/N. Would you care to explain why the dead Chancellor’s body laid at your feet?”

“He was the Sith Lord orchestrating the war. Doubt there’s any other reason.” You meet your old Master’s eyes. “Master Windu, know that this is all my doing, and mine alone. Anakin had no part in this and neither did Ahsoka. She just found out and told you about our plot. I don’t want them to be punished.”

“That remains to be decided.”

“‘Our’?” Kit Fisto inquires.

You sigh, eyes fluttering to the floor. “Obi-Wan and I. It was our plot, together.”

“With the Sith, you conspired?” Yoda questions and you open your mouth to argue but you catch Ki-Adi’s shaking head and something inside you sinks.

“Look, he was manipulated. He’s not Sith. Not anymore. That man”—you point at Palpatine’s body— “was the Sith Lord we were all searching for and Obi-Wan led us straight to him.” Stone-cold silence. Your shoulders fall and the adrenaline that had burned through you drains away, leaving you oddly exhausted. “I understand if you wish to charge me with any crime against the Republic. Sedition or otherwise.”

“Obi-Wan is the one who killed the Chancellor, Master Windu. Master Y/L/N had nothing—“

“Anakin, don’t,” you cut him off quietly. “It’s not worth it to pretend otherwise.”

Anakin’s frustrated glare meets yours but you only smile at him and shake your head. Facing the Council again, you wait for one of them to speak. Master Windu’s unimpressed glare goes from Palpatine to you, and you only look at your former Master with raised eyebrows. 

“What proof is there?”

“Nothing more than my memories, Master Windu, and a few recordings,” Obi-Wan speaks for the first time and eyes dart to the man as he steps forward into line with you. “I will submit those if you need them. Attempt to arrest me, however, and I will not go willingly. I’ve renounced the Jedi Order, as well as the Sith way. That, I can assure you of.”

“Master Yoda, your thoughts?” Master Windu asks, turning to the Grandmaster. A hand presses against the small of your back and you turn to Obi-Wan who watches with a stony glare. However, when he turns his gaze in towards you, something softens and you step closer to him.

“Upon the former Padawan, the dark side still lingers. Unsure of what to make of it, I am,” he admits and your hand finds Obi-Wan’s back, your other hand hovering by your lightsaber. No matter what, you are not leaving him alone in this.

“However this looks to the Republic is my greatest concern,” Ki-Adi murmurs. “To see a Jedi Master conspiring with the Sith—”

“Then manipulate the truth,” you argue. “That has never stopped the Jedi before. It didn’t stop them from completely erasing what happened twenty years ago and it can happen again.” Your hand drops from your saber and you send Master Windu a pleading look. “Say Obi-Wan was struck down, say he escaped, say anything but what happened. The only truth that needs to come out is that Chancellor Palpatine orchestrated the Clone Wars and with him gone, we might be able to find some semblance of peace again.”

The Council look at one another. Anakin and Ahsoka, standing side by side look to you.

War is rarely that simple.

.

“I forfeit every right, privilege, and rank I have achieved in the Grand Army of the Republic. I renounce my status as a Jedi Master.”

“You understood that you are barred from the Jedi Order henceforth?”

“I understand.”

Master Windu’s expression softens for his old Padawan and you could’ve sworn there was something darker, something breaking, as if he himself felt for you turning to someone else for the help he could not give.

You want to tell him it has never been his fault.

You don’t. Instead, you ask one last time for your own sanity: “And Obi-Wan? What of his records?”

A bitter, coy smile resides on his face: “Who?”

Satisfied yet curiously empty, you walk out of the Jedi Temple, to where Anakin, Ahsoka, Padmé, and Obi-Wan await. There are tickets and bare necessities for them to make a fresh start in a bag slung over Obi’s shoulder. There’ll probably be a speeder waiting for them at the base of the steps, waiting to take them to their new transport arranged courtesy of the Senator of Naboo herself and then… then who knows where to next. 

You suppose that’s part of the excitement of it all.

You feel naked, stripped bare. You no longer wear the tan neutrals of the Jedi. Instead, a leather vest covers you, a shirt tucked into brown pants and paired with Obi-Wan, they look nothing more than smugglers. A cloak is draped over your shoulders and clasped at your throat, one you tug closer around yourself as you approach. 

Obi-Wan extends a hand to you and you take it numbly, letting him kiss your knuckles.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.” You squeeze his hand and he nods. “Wait for me at the bottom?”

“Always.” He lets go and his eyes turn to the others. “I appreciate your aid.”

“Thank you, Obi-Wan.” The words sound strangled coming from Anakin’s mouth. The two look at one another and you think, in another life, they could’ve been good friends. “Take care of her. Please.”

But that is not how it is now. Instead, Obi-Wan merely dips his head again, once to Anakin, and then to Padmé and Ahsoka before climbing down the steps of the Jedi Temple.

You watch him go until he is out of sight, your eyes lingering even after, before you turn around to feel Ahsoka launching herself into your arms. Eyebrows shooting up, you embrace the Padawan tightly, eyes closing shut and then two more bodies pile in closely.

Shaggy hair and floral scents—Anakin and Padmé.

“I’m going to miss you all so much,” you whisper, raising a hand to cradle the back of Anakin’s head and another to hold onto Padmé’s shoulder. “You don’t understand how much you mean to me.”

“If it’s anything close to how much you mean to us, I might have some idea,” Padmé says. She kisses your cheek, a tiny blush on her cheeks. “Stay safe, Y/N.”

“I will. And you, too. Make sure this one over here protects you,” you say with a sharp nudge to Anakin who winces, running a hand through his hair with a brash grin. Ahsoka, with her arms still around you, looks up and you rest a hand on her shoulder. “And you, little one, make sure you take care of your Master. He’s a lot. Make sure he’s not too in over his head.”

Ahsoka laughs much to Anakin’s irritation and even Padmé breaks a smile, poking the Knight teasingly. “I promise, Master.”

“I think,” you correct with a sombering smile, “that you should get used to calling me Y/N. I’m not a Jedi Master anymore.” Ahsoka’s expression falters and you squeeze her closer, cradling her head against you. Anakin’s downcast face catches your eye and you look up at him, finding blue eyes watching.

“You will always be my greatest teacher,” Anakin murmurs. “I just wish there was another way.”

“But there isn’t, and I’ll miss you more than you know, Ani,” you reply. “You will never fail to make me proud.” Letting go of Ahsoka, you reach forward, hugging him tightly once again. His arms wrap around you and he seems to sink against your frame, shoulders dropping, head buried into the crook of your neck and you close your eyes, knowing the torment that rips him in two. Patting his hair, you let him hold you as long as he needs to. 

It’s not until Padmé touches his arm gently that he remembers to pull away and you cup his face, brushing your thumbs over the apples of his cheeks. Then, looking into his face, a face you’ve seen everyday for the past decade and now a face you don’t know for how long you’ll have to wait until you see again, you can feel two hands take your heart and tear it like paper, into uncountable bits. 

Tilting his head down, you press a kiss to his brow. Then, with one final squeeze to Padmé’s hand and a squish of Ahsoka’s cheeks which she takes only because you don’t know when they will see each other again, you pull away. 

“I’ll be okay, guys.” Trying to joke, you force one last smile upon your face. “You can at least look like you’ll see me again.”

“We’ll see you again,” Ahsoka decides. “The Force wills it so.”

“I hope it does.”

You pull your hood over your head and turn around, descending down the steps and leaving your old life behind.

.

They nestle between two ginormous crates. The captain’s paid to turn a blind eye in exchange that they take up minimal space and don’t cause problems. That’s easy for them—they’re heading to Tatooine and from then, who knows? Maybe somewhere cooler, wetter, snowier. They’ll decide when they want to.

You rip apart a piece of bread and hand it over to Obi-Wan, resting your head on his shoulder. Your arm is looped through his and he takes your offering, swishing it down with spotchka. You chew on your own piece, their fingers interlacing and their boots knock together playfully.

For some reason, it makes you feel like a Padawan again—stealing moments, sharing secret smiles. In the darkness only fractured by a sliver of white light, the two are lost in each other’s eyes. 

Raising your head from Obi-Wan’s shoulder, you look at his side profile again, the sharp lines of his jaw, the fine ginger-blonde of his beard. His nose and his eyebags and that scar—

“You still need to tell me that story,” you murmur, and he turns his head, swallowing with a quirked eyebrow. “Of your scar. We could trade.”

“You have scars I don’t know about?” he asks mischievously, and you roll your eyes, struggling not to laugh as his lips sneak a kiss. Reciprocating, you can’t help but wrinkle your nose at the taste of spotchka on his mouth. Maker, the stuff is not your cup of tea. Obi-Wan seems to note your reaction because he pulls away, kissing your eyes and between your eyebrows before pulling back. “Not a drinker, are you?”

“Oh, I am.” You try not to pull the face that’s so desperately begging you to come out. “Just… not something I’m used to tasting.”

“Well, we still have time.” He blinks, returning to the rest of the food they have laid out in between them in their tiny tin containers, and you sigh, just watching him. With every passing moment, you just see more and more of the Obi-Wan you think he could’ve grown to be. The fissures are barely covered by dry jokes and thin smiles, but still, you can see where the dark side had shattered him in to pieces.

No matter. You suppose that this is where their life together begins. Building each other up again.

He catches you staring as he pulls a grape off its stem and pops it into his mouth.

“What is it?” he asks curiously, amused, and you say nothing, brushing hair out of his eyes and marvelling at the gentle blueness that stares back at you. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” you whisper. “Not at all. I love you.”

He smiles. “I love you, too. This isn’t a dream?”

You shake your head. “This isn’t a dream.”

And he kisses you.

[katesharmawrites]

Hey, I think I have the right person but I think I was following your old account and you were a pretty big Beaujester fan back in the day. Did you end up watching until the end of the campaign and what did you think?

Hey there! I definitely am a pretty big Beaujester fan to this day. I love my blue girls and always will. I didn't make it until the end of CR2, I got up until the Lucien nonsense and then just gave up. As much as I loved Beaujes though, it was not my reason for quitting. I made peace early into shipping them that they may never have been canon but they always would be in my heart. I honestly didn't mind Beauyasha for most of the campaign, I would have preferred both Beau/Reani and Beau/Keg but it was fine. Just personally not the stuff otps are made of for me but I was never an anti. I shipped Jester more with both of them and I honestly think Beauyashter would have been the ideal. It brought a lot of much needed conversation and softness to both characters.

The big problem with everything was the timing hands down. We picked up again after the hiatus and something just felt...off. Everyone changed their characterizations just a little bit and originally I thought it was because they were rusty from the break but it just kept going.

Looking back, they decided to start Campaign 3 at the same time as the animated series. It makes sense, I got into CR when Campaign 2 had like 50 episodes and it took me 3 months to finish those and then another month and a half to catch up with what they'd put out since then. By lowering the number of hours people would have to invest, they maximized their potential growth from a business standpoint.

From a campaign 2 standpoint it was...messy at best. They did jump ship on Beaujester in a rush to endgames, which was fine and their decision. However the phrasing in Beau's conversation to Fjord was incredibly bad and it did hurt me as someone who has heard my feelings played off that way. I am never going to apologize for our fandom being hurt by that or say it was unreasonable, especially when at the time everyone was jumping into our tag as a means to celebrate their victory and kicking us while we were down.

It also felt like they just jumped away from plots we all wanted to see: Yasha going home and finding out about Zuala herself and maybe avenging her death, laying those flowers. Caleb taking down Trent and trying to see if he could save Astrid and Eadwulf. Beau trying to break her family's curse to save her beautiful little brother from the same unhappiness she was plagued with. In general the Hag? Matt made it clear that the Hag was going to figure out Jester was fucking with her. UKATOA. The gentleman's whole thing.

There were so many loose ends, the campaign could have easily gone on another year or two. We could have seen a nice slow build up been Beau and Yasha where they comforted each other over their bad upbringings. We could have seen a nice payoff where Nott couldn't keep a secret even if ultimately nothing ever came from it. We could have seen Fjord slowly come to respect Jester for who she was, instead of the kid he treated her as in the beginning. WE COULD HAVE SEEN CALEB AND ESSEK KISS.

Overall I loved Campaign 2 more than Campaign 1 but I hurt for the missed potential. I miss the moments that came from the relaxed pace and they will always be my favorites but the way everything kind of just fell apart in the end was just...not it. And I definitely have just lived in a canon where nothing after 100 happened and there was less metagaming because the campaign was ending. It was my least favorite thing about the feel of Vox Machina and I was disappointed when it reemerged.

[dangermousie]

Hello !

I was wondering whether you could rate and tell us of your top 5 favourite webnovels/cnovels of all time ?! (Sorry if this has already been answered lol😅)

Thank you, stay safe and have a nice day🖤

Awww, thank you and that is such a lovely ask!!!

From n1 to n5, here they are (they happen to be all danmei.)

1. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) - my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.)

Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!)

Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated.

Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love.

Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

3. Qiang Jin Jiu - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train.

In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs.

Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

4. Wu Chang Jie - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet.

In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever.

And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on.

If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in.

There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!” But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify.

Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

5. OK, this is hard and switches between Sha Po Lang, Heaven Official’s Blessing and The Golden Stage depending on my mood. So what the hell, I am gonna write about all of them.

Sha Po Lang - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (TCGF) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

The Golden Stage - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

I guess I didn’t write as much for the three n5 candidates as I did for 1-4 but my brain is beginning to curdle so...

[dendrite-blues]

Given the events of today, this seems an appropriate time to tell an embarrassing story about myself.

Me, 2 me:

It’s about Loki, and 2012 fandom, and growing older. In retrospect, I suppose it’s not actually that funny, but the irony is pretty strong.

The first MCU movie I saw was Avengers 1. I had never read a comic book or seen a super hero movie. I just happened to be in the common room of my dorm when a bunch of nerd bros were going to see it, and a good friend insisted that I had to see it.

I was ENTHRALLED the entire time. Start to finish. Every joke, every fight seen, all the characters being introduced and meeting each other. The hot ass villain that stone cold just WHACKED a guy with his cane and drilled some motherfucker’s eye out. Like WTF?!

My mind was blown. I opened AO3 on my phone in the car ride back, I couldn’t even wait to get home. Mind you, AO3 had only been started like... a year before that. It was baby. I got it so I could comment on some BNF’s Sherlock fics in 2010, but stopped using it until 2012 because there weren’t any fics on there. For real! there were like, maybe 100 fics on there when I joined. I remember telling my wife it was a cool idea, but it’d never work. No way would they get the whole fandom to leave FFN. LOL!!

But there were stories already popping up on premiere night. There were stories from visionaries who’d written shit before the movie even came out. Bless them, they made my entire week!

I thought Tony Stark was fucking incredible, so I looked up his ships. Fell into Science Boyfriends. Didn’t so much like Stony. Fell even harder for team fic and found family stuff.

I remember when Howard Stark’s A+ Parenting was first used. I vividly remember Tony Stark Has a Heart being coined and abruptly being tagged on EVERY SINGLE FIC for a week. Fun times.

Anyway, time passes. I moved into an apartment with 2 roommates and my (now) wife. We were all fujoshi, and conversation in our house would have be completely indiscernible to someone who didn’t know the fandom lingo.

We all go to see Age of Ultron together. It was a great time, but as a Tony/Bruce shipper I was understandably distressed by the sudden yeeting of Bruce from planet Earth and essentially removing my OTP from the entire 2nd Phase of the MCU.

“What the hell am I supposed to read now?” I wondered. 

I still don’t feel any flutters for Steve, Tony doesn’t know Bucky exists yet, and I’m still living with some intense internalized misogyny that prevents me liking any straight ships.

So my roommate, quite reasonably, mentions Frostiron.

And this is where the story gets embarrassing, because I immediately wrinkled my nose in confusion and went on a five minute, idiotic rant about what a dumb, weird-ass crack ship that was. Tony and Loki? Excuse you? What, is that some kind of “ship the two hot fandom heart throbs even though they have nothing in common” ship? He threw Tony out a window FFS? He’s a VILLAIN.

Queue the laugh track.

And my roommate, bless her, she was a total champion and a good friend and she just completely let me get away with it.

She shrugged and said, “Welp, sorry I mentioned it.” and life went on.

FLASH FORWARD SEVEN YEARS AND TWO EXISTENTIAL CRISES LATER

I’m now a 27 year old Hollywood washout whose lost my career, my apartment, and all of my friends in a matter of months. I’m back home in the Bible Belt with my homophobic parents and experiencing the most intense depression, self hatred, and gender dysphoria of my life.

I’ve been so busy working to keep my head above water as a film worker that I haven’t seen a movie I didn’t help make for six years. I have no fandoms, I don’t even know what’s popular anymore. I go looking for anything familiar, anything that can reconnect me to a time in my life when everything didn’t royally suck.

I go to the MCU.

Now, it’s important to note that when I was into MCU before I did not know I was on the trans spectrum, or the autism spectrum, or the asexual spectrum. I thought I was just another slash loving lesbian that really, really liked to cosplay men, and maybe felt a bit sad that I couldn’t be like that all the time, and also kind of wished I could be masculine without going through scary, expensive surgeries, and OH MY GOD I’M NOT CIS OH MY GOD.

Ahem. So. I was processing that at the same time as my life was utterly imploding.

And I found intersex Loki. I can’t overstate how important to my recovery Loki fic was at that time. They felt my struggles, they felt my confusion, they embodied gender in a way I could only dream of, physically changing genitals and all, AT WILL! Whenever they wanted! It was a powerful fantasy, and an escape from the reality of being gender non-conforming in a conservative state.

But I’m sure the irony has already occured to you at this point, you see my dillema. 

Because the options for intersex Loki shipping are, by and large, Frostiron and Thorki. 

Now I had always been intensely squicked by Thorki. My family follows a similar dynamic to the Allfamily, with me being the golden child and my sister being the scapegoat. So I was (and admittedly still am) incapable of reading that ship without thinking about my actual sister, and that’s not sexy.

Which left Frostiron.

[pause for reader to laugh at my shame]

I naturally fell into a deep obsession with the ship, reading the top 80 pages of fic in less than two months. I started writing my own when I ran out of the kind of Loki I craved. I projected so much of my pain and frustration and feelings of isolation onto them, and I even got support and appreciation from the fandom community! It was amazing, and not at all something I expected.

...but in my heart I always knew the truth.

I had dismissed the ship outright years earlier. I thought I knew better. I looked down on the shippers as Tumblr hoes that would ship anybody hot regardless of character. I thought that just because characters didn’t get along in canon that there was no reason to ship them. I thought that you couldn’t possibly write a good story based on one scene. I didn’t bother looking deeper into the characters to see their similarities.

So basically, I’m a giant hypocrite!

If there’s a moral to the story, I guess it’s to be suspicious of your biases and that you can always change your mind. Years have passed but I still look back on that conversation and cringe. 

The one mercy is that I didn’t do it on the internet, so there wasn’t a record. I was allowed to leave that childish arrogance in the past, known only to me and my faithful friend who has been kind enough not to mention it.

But in my true heart... in the back of my mind... I know the truth.

I was an anti of the ship I’ve now written 500k about. And now you all know too.

Thanks to anyone who read to the end! I hope it was at least a little entertaining. Let this be a warning to the youngins. Careful the things you say, you never know what the future holds. Don’t be a clown like me!

[themadauthorshatter]

... I just love OTPs, I can't help it.

OTP HEADCANONS: 2020 Edition

These will include the series of Red Queen, Dorothy Must Die, SGE, The Folk of The Air, and Nightmare Before Christmas(I'll throw in the Skellington kids, too, because I love them💙)

MAJOR TW FOR ALL THE EVENTS THAT OCCURED IN 2020, AND THAT INCLUDES QUARANTINE.

RED QUEEN:

At the news of a Pandemic, Mare and Cal are equally confused and scared, but at least they're not on the battlefield.

They hold up in Paradise Valley until the quarantine is lifted.

It starts off fine with them doing puzzles, hiking, and doing some exercises to pass the time. Then 3 weeks pass and both are bored; Mare's bored enough to drink coffee onto of the fridge and Cal's sitting in a chair upside down because fuck court etiquette, he's so bored.

Cal contemplates luring wolves with dinner scraps again.

They had a mini argument that meant nothing because Cal's hair got long and he wanted Mare to cut it, she but only offered to shave his stubble, not cut his hair.

They both get a lot of sleep, and have a lot of nightmares, which they comfort each other from.

They also really enjoy the silence.

Cal gets into poetry and Mare paints. Both are surprised at how good the other is at their new hobbies.

They talk. A lot. It begins awkwardly and ends with the two in each other's arms.

Cal becomes more of a punner, and Mare loves and hates it.

There's tall of getting a dog, but there's one problem: Paradise Valley doesn't have any shelters, and they'll be arrested or forced ro turn back hime, regardless of rank.

Mare grows taller... by 2 inches. She almost killed Cal for how much he laughed.

When they're allowed to go out, Mare often forgets to bring her mask.

Cal's good at remembering their masks.

Mare REFUSES to leave when she hears about the murder hornets.

Cal gets repellent to calm her down.

They also recover some Old Era TV Shows.

ENDLESS quotes from The Office, Friends, and many more shows.

Cal visits Maven's grave more. Mare comes with every now and then, but usually lets him go alone.

They don't usually argue, but those arguments never last.

They tried a bit of ability training, and greed that they should be careful when Mare summoned a bolt of lightning from the sky and Cal almost set fire to everything around them.

They read a lot, too, but Cal reads more than Mare because she falls asleep, usually on him.

DOROTHY MUST DIE:

Nox had no clue what a Pandemic was, or what the big deal was about going outside and not being near people, until Amy explained it.

First day of online school crashed and burned because Nox had NO IDEA what he was doing, which led to Amy 'accompanying' him in classes.

Amy puts her college plans on hold for a little while.

Nox is more emotional and neither of them know how to handle it.

They have more nightmares, since there's nothing to keep their minds busy, but Amy is more reserved about it. Nox prefers to write about what he dreams, anyway.

Nox stays up, from all the nightmares, but Amy sits with him to keep him company.

When Amy heard about the murder hornets, Nox held up a fly swatter and opened all the windows.

Amy does fine, but Nox dies from boredom, when they're done with school. And I don't mean he just sits and groans, he lies face down on the couch as Amy tries to get him up.

They spend A LOT of time in Nox's apartment, and it's literally spotless because Nox is THAT bored.

They binge a lot of TV shows, and Nox falls in love with shows like Peaky Blinders.

They tried watching Game of Thrones. It didn't go well; negative past experiences.

Nox figured out the plot twist to The Umbrella Academy WAY before Amy did.

They watched Heathers and Amy asked Nox what he'd do if she was dealing with trash friends and guys who don't take 'no' for an answer. The look on his face when he asked who it was reminded Amy of who he was before meeting her.

Nox finds YouTube and discovers the guy that makes knives out of anything and makes it his mission to copy each and every video, come Hell or high water.

Amy walked in on him doing this and genuinely wondered if he was okay, and asked if she could help him.

They also binged musicals. Nox isn't a huge music person, but he still loves them; Kansas has its own magic that he finds intriguing.

Amy once found Nox crouching ontop of the fridge while drinking a mug of coffee.

Madison stopped by and dropped off some rhinestones, lash glue, and a tool to apply the stones. Amy spent a lot of time putting the stones on her face while Nox watched, with Madison and Dustin also watching via Facetime, sitting backwards in a chair and wondering what her plan was, even making very Julien Solomita-esque comments, mixed with very 'I used to be a fighter and a spy' comments that made Amy, Madison, and Dustin laugh. Some if those comments:

"I know Glamora told you to lighten up, but I don't she'd expect this."

"If those were real diamonds, you wouldn't need any armor or a weapon. Just headbutt them, and you're good."

"Don't be upset, but it's the beginning of summer, so I don't think winter's coming any time soon."

"Whichever chandelier you made out with, I will find them, damn it."

After a little while, Amy asked if Nox wanted a rhinestone face. He agreed, but only as long as she took out all the red stones. He could handle pink, but no red.

It took them an hour to get the stones off.

Their hair gets long and they agree to cut each other's hair. Nox cuts her hair chin length and Amy tries to be as style his hair. They don't look the best, but they at least look good.

They absolutely watch Unus Annus, and start quoting that.

When they get the news they can go out wearing a mask, Nox got confused and got 3 different masks: a masquerade mask, a normal face mask, and a gas mask, which he wears all the time to annoy Amy.

They do stay in shape as much as possible, but there is evidence that they could have been more active, with their muscles shrinking and both having lost a little weight.

Nox NEVER drops his guard, and quarantine didn't help.

They tried dying their hair, but it didn't work as well as they'd hoped.

SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL:

Tedros worries about Agatha and everyone else, but Agatha keeps him in check.

Crime drops big time, so that's a plus for Tedros and Agatha.

They have more time to breathe, with everyone being inside and avoiding each other.

Tedros hates the quiet at first, but Agatha helps him adjust.

They spend a lot of time wandering the castle and answering whatever call there is, if any.

The SGE is out for a little while, so they don't hear too much from there.

Tedros, without normal king business to distract him, has more nightmares and starts losing sleep because he doesn't want to dream about what's happened to him and his friends.

Agatha has nightmares, too, but she's better at hiding it.

They do talk about it and agree to be more open with what's going on in their heads.

They also agree that they'll help each other through these times.

Tedros helps Agatha with swordplay and Agatha both gets him into reading more and tries to help him with his magic.

Whenever there's something they need outside, Agatha gets it because she's not that afraid of getting sick; she grew up eating frog and lizard soup.

Tedros worries about her, but doesn't really stop her because she's taller, and having fun trying to stop Agatha once she's committed to doing something.

Tedros finds a new hobby: origami.

Agatha doesn't join in, per se, she more watches because she's never seen Tedros be so patient with something.

They play around with each other's hair, as it grows longer. Agatha ties Tedros's hair back and Tedros braids her hair.

They write to Sophie or anyone else, like people who have some sort of report of a crime or complaint duch as infertile soil, so their penmanship improves.

Tedros grows a bit of a stubble and, after some prickly kiss attacks, Agatha threatens to shave it off herself, if he doesn't. It's all in good fun, but she sort of did mean it because his face and cheeks were really scratchy.

Tedros REFUSES to let Agatha go out alone, even when she's masked up.

When they go out, Tedros always carries a sword.

Picnics in the woods.

Star gazing at night.

Agatha starts wearing pants, as an experiment, and her "dresser"/dress designer is APPALLED.

There are times they argue, but they stay together and communicate because relationship goals.

THE CRUEL PRINCE:

At the news of a Pandemic/plague, Cardan ordered all the human servants to get as healthy as they could so they'd be able to go outside. He would accompany them, but they could not let Jude go out.

She's not happy, when she finds out

Cardan asks if she can avoid going to the human world, so she doesn't get sick.

She goes anyway and returns unscathed.

Cardan considers glamoring the human servants to keeep Jude healthy, but Jude almost pincushions him for it.

Anxious? Worried? Psh! Don't be silly. Cardan becomes somethimg if a paranoid maniac because he's scared of Jude getting sick and dying because he's Fae and she's Mortal, so she's more susceptible to illnesses and he doesn't know wnoufh about mortals to get her healthy agaun were she to get sick, but there's nothing wroung with him, really.

Whenever they're not ruling, Jude practices her swordplay while Cardan reads, major plus being that he reads full series to not worry about Jude so much.

Jude helps Cardan with sword fighting, using wooden practice swords not metal, and Cardan helps her try to get into reading, reading to her as she rests her head on his chest when she doesn't want to read read.

Cardan discovers manga and graphic novels and is too confused for Jude NOT to laugh; "He's in armor made if IRON. How is he able to fly!?" "I've seen a lot people different people, and none of them have made this face." "... So is Spiderman THIS one or THIS one?"

Sword practice usually ends with Cardan on the ground exhausted while Jude simply stands and chuckles for him to get up.

Cardan doesn't get beat smd scarred, he gets poked and minorly bruised, which he was not ready for because of how he was treated by Balekin.

One day, while Cardan was reading some Sherlock Holmes, Jude slipped hoop bracelets on and tied ribbons to his tail, at least as many as she could before she got caught; she only realized as such when his tail started flicking out of her reach and curling around her wrist, and saw Cardan grinning at her.

They do visit Taryn and Vivi still, but Cardan only wears a mask to remind Jude, who does not forget ever.

Cardan thinks about his 'friendship' Nicasia, Locke, and Valerian and semi-realizes that Valerian and Locke may have been using him while Nicasia was at least a little genuine.

They talk about Locke and equally wish that they had helped Taryn in killing Locke. If not, then they wish that they at least watched. They agreed that if time travel was real, Jude could help Trayn kill Locke and Cardan could watch, as long as he helped dispose of the body.

They laughed at that a couple minutes later.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS(Featuring the Skellington kids(I'd say Skull Kids, but I feel like Skull Kid(s) was taken)):

Jack knows what a Pandemic is; he lived through one while he was alive.

Sally knew it would happen because she knows one happens about every two hundred years/whenever a year ends in 20.

The triplets know what a plague is, but have never seen one actually happen.

When they explored the human world at night and noticed there were absolutely no humans in sight, Luna reminded her brothers that the humans were told to stay inside to prevent any spreading.

Jacob takes the opportunity to MAKE SURE people actually stay inside.

Pro: he got Instagram famous. Con: Jack and Sally were not happy at all with how reckless he was.

Let's say, for the sake of the story, Halloween had to be cancelled worldwide because regulation and a need for things to get better.

Upon hearing the news of Halloween getting cancelled, Jack was very salty about it; "Why cancel Halloween, if the 4th of July was still allowed to be celebrated?"

All of Halloween Town was very upset; the living are so fragile, it ruins the fun of scaring them.

The Mayor was in deep, DEEP distress, but Jack made it up to him, and the rest of the town, by saying next year's Halloween would be ine no one would ever forget, and it's not because he's 'borrowing' a holiday again, it's because they'll all have a year of scaring shenanigans built up inside them all that will make up for what was missed.

Everyone rejoiced and Jack, once he got back inside his house with his wife and children, sighed and mentally kicked himself for saying no one would forget next year's Halloween; there was one Halloween in particular he sure as hell isn't forgetting any time soon.

Daemon's carving more intricate pumpkins and plans on giving the humans mini-scares so they keep quarantining, hiding a 'surprise' for any entitled Karens he finds.

Luna is the most obedient of the triplets by staying in Halloween Town and instead studying what she calls a 'counter-plague' so there's no need for a Pandemic; she refuses to call it a vaccine because that would imply sje wants to help the humans that shot down and could have killed her dad. She still has a bone to pick.

Jack doesn't spiral out like in the movie, he has Sally to help and the triplets to keep his mind busy.

While Jacob and Daemon keep the humans from leaving their houses, Luna researches the current events and learns of murder hornets that are large, sting like all hell, and cause death to anyone unfortunate enough to get stung.

Jack gets very intrigued and they collect as many as they can and keep them in a jar, but take one out to study it.

They were not impressed; murder hornets? Jack has seen worse.

Since there wasn't a Halloween, Jack decided to walk through the streets, seeing as how Daemon and Jacob already did a lot of the scaring for him(thise little shits). He had to admit, it was nice to walk in the night and only hear the animal sounds and not screams.

Luna did not find a 'counter-plague,' even with Sally's help, but she did discover some poisons she could use against her brothers. Sally made her promise not to do so.

On the Halloween night where nothing happened, Jack took his family out to a picnic/star gazing session. Genuinely one of his favorite Halloweens to date.

HENRY STICKMIM COLLECTION:

Henry and Ellie knew it was going to happen and were more than surprised to also see Charles planning ahead by making a list for what they needed, even admitting he'd been following the news and rumors and stocking up on ADD medicine so he wouldn't have to go out to get them.

The other soldiers weren't worried until they were told to go home and take a break for a little bit.

Triple Threat wasn't really effected until day 24.

On day 1, they just hung out and were relatively calm, working online, doing workouts to stay fit, and just being as normal as possible.

On day 24, all three are more than a little bored. Henry's bored enough to andwer calls from telemarketers and prank them, Ellie's contemplating bleaching her hair with peroxide, and Charles is playing with fidget toys he's bough and collected over the years, though he's doing it more because he's a little stressed than bored.

Henry and Ellie are surprised to this this, but Charles admits he used to bite his nails a lot, but stopped after a LONG while.

Speaking of names, Ellie paints hers and the boys', though while Henry paints his in clear coat, Charles paints one hand black and the other in red, mint, and glittery pink on one nail because try stopping him.

It makes Ellie laugh and pisses off Henry so much.

Ellie gets calls from her family saying they want her to come home, or closer to home, because they're worried and she instead blocks their numbers.

They watch a lot of horror movies as a reason to stay inside.

When they get bored of American horror and try Japanese, Asian, and more western horror movies.

Instant regret.

They watched the movie Audition and Henry looked at a very unimpressed Charles, who said the antagonist was being sloppy, and hid all the kitchen knives, saws, and sharp and blunt objects, including tools(must've remembered Human Piece).

He stopped after a week of Charles being himself and literally shaking at Hannibal Lecter as they watched the Silence of The Lambs series.

All three open up more about their lives. It's ugly, there's yelling, conflicting life philosophies, and even some insults thrown. Henry admits that gotten screwed over by the law enough times while fending for himself to have as little faith in it as possible, Ellie admits she ran away from home and would rather die than go back because of how tight of a leash they kept her on, and Charles admits that while he has thought about quitting on the government and turning to a life of crime, he never did because that would have been to easy of a choice. Training for the military was and still is hard as hell, which Henry and Ellie can tell because Charles can physically do more than them(if they ran a mile, Henry and Ellie would be exhausted and Charles wouldn't even be out of breath), but he's never given up on it because he knew his parents would skin him, if they were still alive.

There were tears at the end, and the team all needing to be alone for a little bit, but they were back together and agreed to be a little more open with each other, since they were a team now.

[muppetmusings]

( ✉ → sms ) fuck your apologies, you can keep them. // ( ✉ → sms ) [ File Attached: 001329jpg ] of all the drunk pictures i have of you, this one is my favorite. mob

1.

( ✉ → sms ) Seriously? That’s how you’re going to handle this? Fine. Be that way Bob. If you want to shut me out, so be it. Just remember that you’re the one who over reacted and pushed the love of your life and kid away. This is all you!

( ✉ → sms ) Seriously fuck you!

2. 

( ✉ → sms ) Oh my god. You can’t keep that. Delete that mess right now! What else do you have on your phone? Whyyyyyy do you always take the worlds world pictures of me. Baaaaaabe!!!!