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deniigi · 4 years ago

Note

A fic from Boba’s POV as a babysitter seeing Din’s family dynamics isn’t self indulgent it’s indulgent to your readers - fuck, that sounds like the best, most hilarious thing ever?!? (With peppered in bits of Boba’s identity crisis/diaspora feels)

I say you release babysitter boba fic ;) It sounds hilarious

Ask and you shall receive, anons. Beware. It’s like 11k of world building lol.

(I will post here and not on Ao3 because I’m not ready for that level of commitment rn lol)

Title: in the plains of Zeffo

Summary:

“I don’t like him,” Karren told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

(Din’s original finder’s old crush on the Armorer is rekindled after he helps her reunite with Din. He tries to win her favor, but keeps getting tripped up by Din who knows she’s not interested. Boba Fett’s POV.)

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

There was little more entertaining than watching Djarin snap.

Boba ten years ago would have spat at the very idea that such meagre fare would suit his humor, but he was getting old, man. You had to take what you could get, and Djarin’s bared rage was a sight to behold.

Currently, he was locked in combat with Urro Bojzka. The Urro Bojzka. The one who even Boba had heard of, growing up on Kamino.

Dad had had some pointed feelings about Mr. Bojzka. Mainly, they revolved around how it was unfair that everyone called him an opportunistic traitor when Bojzka continued to exist and thrive in the universe at large, but Dad also had more specific feelings about Bojzka that bordered on jealousy.

Urro Bojzka was said to be the ideal Mandalorian man.

He was big. He was strong. He sounded like he’d smoked six different kinds of spice for forty years, and nothing and no one could take him down.

The cherry on top was that he was notorious for rescuing kids. The man had snatched nearly two hundred up out of smoking ruins and battlefields. A good twenty or thirty had become foundlings and then Mandalorians themselves, and counted among their number now, to Bo-Katan’s absolute glee, was their sweet, precious Din Djarin.

They should have known. Din was the epitome of Mandalorian; it figured that Urro Bojzka himself would have picked him up as a child.

Din however, had little appreciation for this fact beyond that which was only polite. He made it very clear that he’d already thanked Bojzka for taking him out of his childhood hellhole. He’d done that bare minimum and so no one could ask anything more of him.

Bojzka had other plans.

It turned out that Urro Bojzka had a thing for Din’s covert’s Armorer. God, did he have a thing. And not only did he have a thing, but he’d had it for decades.

Apparently, a thousand years ago, when Boba and Din and all the others around them had still been rolling around on dirt floors trying to eat beetles and shit, Bojzka had attempted to court Din’s Armorer. He’d gone as far and wide as a young Mando could. He’d tried flowers, perfume, credits, displays of strength and courage. He’d tried gifts of food and offers of travel. He’d even stooped so low as to read a book.

None of it had gone well for him. And that was probably because Din’s Armorer had recently proven herself to be no less than one of the heiresses of the Katzkai clan.

The Renda Bears. Those people were hard-fucking-core.

When Bo-Katan found out that Din’s ‘Goran’ was, in fact, Nomri Katzkai, the second daughter of Lanlee Katzai and the official apprentice of Fii Katzkai, the imperial Armorer himself, she threw up her hands and declared all endeavors hopeless now.

Din was one of them; he just didn’t know it. And his buir, who had removed herself from her family to be even more hardcore than anyone would have thought possible, didn’t seem overly excited to start explaining shit to him anytime soon.

So here they were. With Din about to kill one of the most famous war heroes in recent Mandalorian history over a crush that wouldn’t quit.

Bojzka smiled at him with dark eyes with scars through both of his eyebrows.

“Just a message,” he lobbied. “One letter.”

Boba would’ve fucked him. Yeah, why not? Just look at him.

“She’s busy,” Din said. “You’ll have to submit it to Eegang Quodo. That’s E-e-g-a—”

“Yeah, see. Here’s the thing, kid. This letter’s gonna be kinda personal, if you catch my drift—”

“Q-u-o—”

“—probably not great for the eyes of anyone who ain’t, you know, in on this whole relationship—”

“—d-o. He’s usually busy, too. So you probably should submit it to Paz, instead. He’ll lose it for you forever. That’s P-a-z—”

Fennec hid a razor-sharp grin behind a clenched fist. She flashed it at Boba.

‘I love him’ she mouthed, pointing at Din’s hiked-up shoulders. Even his cape seemed to have gone stiff in Bojzka’s presence.

“Din, honey. Listen to me,” Bojzka crooned. “I know you’re protective of your mama, but—”

“She’s not my mother. Don’t you fucking dare call her that, you hulking piece of—”

“Ah-ah-ah. You’re not listening. Come on. Chin up. Ears open.”

Bojzka tapped at the bottom of Din’s helmet like a CO with a teenage recruit, and Fennec just about screamed when Din went completely still and silent.

Bo-Katan met Boba’s gaze out of the corner of her eye. She mimed a syringe. Boba shook his head. If this fucker got bit, he deserved whatever infection it brought.

“Atta boy,” Bojzka said to Din’s rigid silence. “Here’s how it is: your mama and me go way, way back. And you know, after your touching reunion the other week, she even went and had a drink with me, and we got to talkin’ and started to reconnect, the old folks do. And I could read her body language, Din-Din. She wants a man. And that man’s me. So instead of actin’ like a child over all this, why don’t we—”

“She wanted Naseem,” Din snapped. “But Naseem died. Twenty years ago, he died. You just wear similar boots.”

Get ‘im, Djarin. Get ‘im.

“I—who?” Bojzka snapped.

“Naseem,” Din repeated like he was an idiot. “Traditional, bantha-sized, green armor. He worked all the time to keep all the kids in the covert fed.”

Bojzka processed this.

“Naseem what?” he asked stiffly.

“He’s dead,” Din said. “And Hajka left. So no. Goran needs neither a man or a woman, and especially not you. What she needs is a break and for Karren to stop fighting people on sight.”

Bojzka backtracked like a champ.

“Karren, that’s her youngest, right?” he asked. “Well, I bet Karren could use some sisters. I bet he’s lonely over there on, uh.”

“Zeffo,” Din gritted out. “And no. He’s not. He has three sisters. One of which is still at the covert, terrorizing him left and right.”

Even Bo-Katan could only empathize so much with Bojzka, war hero or nah.

“Why’re you all up in arms, Din? What’d I do to you?” Bojzka finally asked. “Don’t you want your buir to be happy?”

Din’s shoulders finally came down from his helmet.

“Of course, I do,” he said. “Which is why if you set so much as a toe on Zeffo, I’m taking both of your knees with me to Yavin.”

Any parent would have been proud to have Din as their child. He took family honor to a level that even the Katzkai clan would have had a hard time sniffing at.

He had to have learned this from the wayward heiress. Although, if Boba was honest, he didn’t really think that the wayward heiress was all that wayward.

She’d come to visit Din on Tatooine. She was short and stocky and not terribly interested in the court or anyone outside of Din.

She wasn’t nearly as hostile as Bo-Katan expected either. She didn’t appear to love anything that she was looking at, no, but Din had explained that that was mostly because she wasn’t really a fan of him having become Mand’alor to start with.

When she came to visit, anyways, she was far more interested in getting a good fuss in to give herself peace of mind that Din was okay. That way she could then go back to dealing with the apparently endless series of crises at the new covert.

She was a great parent in that way. She even brought along her youngest, so that he could see his big brother.

That kid was fuckin’ adorable. Maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Barely, barely, barely in armor. He was strapped into his leathers so tight, he looked like he was stuffed with straw.

He had medium-brown skin with yellow undertones and huge, nearly-black eyes. Coarse black hair poured into his face and curled around his ears—and if he thought he was going to stuff all that in a helmet one day, he had another thing coming.

He bopped after his buir when they entered the palace and stopped occasionally to stare up in awe at the palace’s high ceilings. Upon realizing that he’d lost his escort, he scampered along to catch up and did the whole thing again and again until buir had enough and snatched his hand.

He didn’t like that. He was fourteen-fifteen years old. He was too big for hand-holding, buir.

Never too old to be ignored, though.

“Goraaaaaan.”

“Hush,” the Armorer told him. “Keep up.”

He was handed off to Boba outside Din’s personal quarters, mostly because he was making such a fuss at the Armorer that she began contemplating leaving him at the palace forever. Din intervened and the kid latched onto him instead until Din convinced him that he’d be available talk just as soon as he and their buir were done speaking.

The kid’s name was Karren.

He and Boba were now best friends.

“—so Goran said, ‘I’m not having that idiot in my rooms.’ But then Eegang said, ‘we already have Paz in these rooms,’ and you’re not supposed to laugh, Mr. Fett, but we all did because we’re all stupid. So we had to do like, a thousand chores for eavesdropping.”

“So she’s not into him, then?” Fennec clarified. “He’s really into her, you know.”

“Of course, I know,” Karren lamented. “But Goran’s picky and the last person she was all close with was Hajka and we’re not allowed to talk about her anymore or Din’ll make you do two hundred push-ups while he watches.”

Amazing. Say more about Din’s oldest-child syndrome, little one.

“No, I like Din,” Karren sighed. “Now that Digo’s gone, he’s even nicer.”

Oh?

“What happened to Digo?” Boba asked as Bo-Katan joined them in curiosity.

“Digo’s a jerk is what happened,” Karren huffed. “She wanted Goran to give over the forge and join the elders, but Goran isn’t even that old. So when she said ‘no,’ Digo got mad and said that the only foundling Goran respects is Din. Which is bullshit because everyone knows that Goran has always been the nicest with Digo and Nasif—she made all sorts of excuses for them, Mr. Fett, like when they went out and got caught stealing parts like Jawas, she did four whole hunts to raise their bail. When Din gets in trouble, he takes care of it himself. He doesn’t ask Goran to do that kind of thing. And me and Shimmol just don’t get in that kind of trouble to start with—but no. Digo had to be all ‘if you don’t treat us as equals, then we’re gonna leave and start our own forge.’”

“No kidding,” Fennec said. “So they left?”

“Yeah, both of them ‘cause Nasif does anything Digo tells her to,” Karren said, kicking his feet. “And good riddance.”

Too many sisters, this one had. Boba felt for him.

“So Goran’s still recovering from that betrayal, I take it?” he asked.

Karren frowned and chewed a lip.

“I dunno,” he admitted. “No one tells me anything. I think that Goran’s been more worried about Din than them after all that happened. We thought he got crunched by the jedi—or at least I thought he got crunched. Paz says that Jedis compact Mandalorians into cubes of armor and Din’s got the best armor.”

Do not laugh at the child. Do not laugh at the child.

“I don’t think Jedis crunch Mandalorians,” Bo-Katan said generously, having snuck into the bare antechamber while everyone was distracted with the kid’s story.

“Well, I do,” Karren countered, with zero conception of who he was talking to.

Fennec beamed.

“Do you like this Urro guy?” she asked.

“No,” Karren answered immediately. “He’s sent Eegang four messages and they’re all gross.”

Yep.

It was gonna be a late puberty for this one.

“What makes them gross?” Bo-Katan asked.

“The mush,” Karren said expertly. “Bojzka calls Goran ‘Nomri.’ That’s a bad word at home. No one says that word. Goran is ‘Goran.’ The only people who call her anything else are the elders.”

“And you and your siblings, no?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karran cocked his head at her.

“Yeah, and ‘buir’ I guess, if we aren’t in trouble,” he said.

Bless him.

“Are you in trouble a lot?” Bo-Katan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I got a temper or something.”

“Is Din in trouble?”

“With buir? No, not like me and Shimmol. He’s too old to be in that kind of trouble. His trouble’s like ‘help, I fell a hundred feet off a cliff’ kind of trouble. He gives Goran indigestion, but she can’t make him reflect on falling a million feet out of a ship—Eegang says that’s called ‘rehashing trauma.’”

The covert on Zeffo sounded like it was holding itself together through sheer force of will and that alone.

Where did Boba sign up? It sounded like a fantastic experiment to pass the time.

“Are you a foundling, Karren?” Boba asked.

The kid lit up.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been with Goran for five years now. Six in a few months. My dad’s a piece of shit. He killed my mom, and Goran got him arrested for that and for what he did to my auntie.”

Well, fuck. That explained a lot.

“And you like it there—on Zeffo?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karren shrugged.

“It’s cold and wet,” he said. “I liked Nevarro better. Din was home more on Nevarro.”

Awww.

“Aren’t you proud of Din for becoming Mand’alor?” Bo-Katan asked as gently as she could manage.

Karren’s frown eased up finally.

“No,” he said. “Din should just come home. He doesn’t need to be Mand’alor or married to some jedi. He should just come home. It’s stupid; his foundling should have stayed with us from the start. We always have room for more foundlings. I dunno why he had to leave with his foundling at all.”

Bo-Katan sat back and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If it helps, I think he just wants to come home, too.”

“So let him,” Karren blurted out to her.

Tough tits, kid. That wasn’t how it worked.

“I think we should perhaps focus on one thing at a time,” Bo-Katan said. “What do you think, Fett?”

What did Boba think?

Boba thought that he had a great idea to distract this kid from missing his big brother.

---

Karren was perhaps a little too small still to reach the brakes in the crawler, but you know what? So was Fennec sometimes and she did just fine.

“Gas,” Boba said, pointing. “Neutral. Brake. Park.”

“Gas, neutral, brake, park,” Karren repeated to him with his hands on the wheel and his knobbly wrists peeking out from the gap between his gloves and his leather braces.

Bo-Katan had refused to be present or responsible for this. Fennec had told them to wait while she went and took a shot first. ‘For safety’ she said.

“What’s neutral for?”

“You’re about to tell me,” Boba said, adjusting the rear view mirrors down to kid-height.

The sound of Fennec throwing herself onto the back of the crawler rattled through to their compartment.

“That’s our signal,” Boba said. “You ready to jam?”

“Jam?” Karren asked him.

Hm.

Punch it?

“Punch what?”

The fuck kind of slang did they use at the covert?

“Rock?”

“OH. Yeah, I’m ready.”

There we go. Onward march then.

---

An hour later, Din sighed with Karren whining under his arm.

“There is a reason he’s not trained yet, Fett,” Din said as Karren started chomping on the bunched-up flightsuit in his elbow.

The Armorer pressed both palms into the forehead of her helmet.

The crawler had perhaps seen better days. But it had also seen worse days, and Fennec was still going through little loops of cackling at the memory of having to chase after its open tailgate. Boba didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The kid had done amazingly well for his first time at the wheel.

“I’m leaving all of you,” Karren grated out, trying miserably to escape Din’s elbow-prison. “I want to be Mr. Fett’s foundling.”

Bless him.

“You don’t,” Din told him forcefully. “Fett can’t handle a foundling.”

Ay, Boba would drink to that. He was happy to be a foundling-sitter and borrower, though.

“Buir,” Karren pleaded.

“You make me tired, child,” the Armorer told him. “Say goodbye to vod.”

“NO.”

Din sighed. The Armorer sighed. Karren, in a beautiful 180, latched onto Din’s ribs again.

“Come hooooooome,” he pleaded with Din.

“I caaaaaaan’t,” Din drawled back at him in a delightfully uncharacteristic tone.

“These people don’t need you. We need you. Shimmol took your bed and if you don’t take it back, she’s gonna keep it.”

Din’s shoulders dropped.

“I told Shimmol that she could take my bunk, Karren,” he said. “I’m not using it—”

“BUT YOU COULD BE.”

Boba took it back. He could take on a foundling. Fuck it, why not? This one was great.

“Come here,” Din said, dragging the kid up to his toes. He knocked the front of his helmet against Karren’s forehead with enough force that the bump was noticeable. That made the kid shut up and stand up straight on his own volition again.

“Soon,” Din told him forcefully. “Behave for buir.”

“Promise,” Karren demanded.

“Ehn.”

“Din, promise.”

“I dunno, kid. I’ve got a husband and all these damn kids to worry about.”

“Bring them. All of them.”

“No room,” Din said without missing a beat. “You have no idea how much space the husband needs to thrive.”

“Well, if you don’t come, then Urro’s gonna try to move in,” Karren snapped.

Din actually paused at that. The Armorer shook her helmet.

“Territorialism becomes neither of you,” she said. “If Urro wishes to join our covert, then we will treat him as we treat any other who wishes to.”

Din’s helmet seemed to squint at her. Karren glared outright.

“I don’t like him,” he told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

“Carry on with your work and give my best to the jedi and the child,” the Armorer said with an air of dismissal. “Come, Karren. Thank you three for looking after him. Apologies for the vehicle. Come.”

Boba missed that kid already.

--------

Bojzka, Boba had to say, really had no shame and he could almost appreciate that. Either that, or Din’s buir was a catch that the rest of them were failing to appreciate.

“How bad can it be?” the guy mused at Din’s stiff, furious hands mere days after the Armorer and Karren’s departure. “It’s a helmet, right? You can take it off with the people who matter, no?”

“We do not take it off,” Din said from between clenched teeth.

“Right, I got that. But there are exceptions for kids and spouses,” Bojzka said. “Or did I misread that part?”

Din was going to start shaking at any minute now. Bo-Katan assigned Boba the task of making sure he didn’t commit War-hero-homicide while she went off to find a calming device. It was only polite. It wasn’t Bojzka’s fault after all that he’d come in right after a tense meeting with a dissident group from Mandalore itself that made even Bo-Katan’s jaw jump.

“I think the rule is more important than the exceptions here,” Boba pointed out on Din’s behalf. “Joining the Children of the Watch isn’t something to take lightly.”

Din pointed at him wordlessly. Bojzka lazily followed the finger and then pointedly ignored Boba.

“What I’m hearing is that if we marry first, nothing changes,” he said.

Din’s index finger curled in with the rest of his knuckles until it was a fist.

“She is not looking to marry,” he said.

“What, so you speak for her now?”

“She is not looking to marry.”

“I can repeat things, too. Wanna see? You don’t speak for Nomri, Din.”

Boba was getting the feeling that Ms. Katzkai sort of did let Din speak for her in these types of situations. He was, after all, her oldest. And it sounded like he was the most loyal of her foundlings, too. If she shared anything personal with anyone besides her second in command, then it was going to be Din. That was just how these things worked.

“Did you call Eegang?” Din asked.

“I did,” Bojzka said. “He’s not especially helpful, I have to say. He keeps sending my missives back to me with grammar corrections.”

No. No. Keep it in, Boba. Keep it stoic.

“Eegang is the second CO at the covert,” Din said. “If you won’t take my word for it, then you’ll take his.”

Bojzka arched a fucked-up eyebrow.

“Eegang, the same guy who is allegedly secretly married to his partner? That Eegang?” he asked.

Din balked. Boba felt like electricity had just rocketed through him.

“Eegang is—” Din started.

“Nomri told me about him,” Bojzka said off-handedly. “She seems to think that he’s bitten off more than he can chew with taking on his last kid.”

“Eegang—”

“Something about baby being blind? Funny, did you not think that she trusted me enough to talk about her people?”

Any more of this and steam would start rising from the lip of Din’s helmet.

Thankfully, Bo-Katan returned with the jedi, AKA the calming device. Skywalker even came equipped with Grogu. They both appeared very confused and innocent, what with Skywalker drowning in his formal robes. They looked like they were going to absorb Grogu at any moment.

A+ distraction work, Kryze. Well done making yourself useful.

“Who’s Eegang?” Skywalker asked.

The line pulled taut across Din’s shoulders began to loosen.

“A comrade,” he said sharply in Bojzka’s direction.

“Is he nice?” Skywalker asked. Grogu chirped at him and resumed trying to dig into his multitude of collars.

“Very nice,” Din confirmed, staring deep into Bojzka’s eyes.

“He’s got foundlings, too?” Skywalker asked.

“Two,” Din confirmed. “Who he adores. Regardless of all challenges.”

Ah. It wasn’t just Eegang Din was protective of. It was the baby. Bojzka had really stuck his foot into that one.

“I’m sure the foundlings are fine,” Bojzka said. “It was just Nomri’s concern that—”

“Stop calling her that in my presence,” Din said. “In fact, let’s drop the whole thing now.”

--------

Boba wanted to meet secretly-married Eegang. He sounded like he had a rich interior life. Din gave him a strong look and said that if the Armorer had left the covert, Eegang would not. One of them had to be there at all times.

Bo-Katan asked what Eegang’s speciality was.

Surprise, surprise: it was diplomacy.

Kryze was now invested. She followed Din around on his heels and suggested that if the Armorer gave words to Eegang to deliver during a formal meeting with the Mand’alor, then Bojzka might finally get the picture that Katzkai wasn’t interested in him.

Din thought about that.

He asked if this was not just a ploy for Boba and Bo-Katan to rally his covert comrades against him.

And it honestly wasn’t until he phrased it like that.

-----------

Eegang was tall, sea-green, and in Bojzka’s face without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Three tests,” he threatened Bojzka with a baby on his hip. “One: stop sending transmissions. Two: get Elder Fayrz to approve your presence. Three: make even one of Goran’s foundlings like you. If you pass all three, your admission will be taken into consideration.”

The baby was very pink with curly hair so pale it was almost white. Its blue-gray eyes moved rapidly back and forth as it cuddled into its buir’s teal armor. Bojzka glanced from it to Eegang’s chipped helmet.

“Where did you find him?” he asked.

“Please give confirmation of your understanding,” Eegang said mechanically.

“He’s kinda cute.”

“Please give confirmation of your understanding.”

“Are you a droid or somethin’?”

“Please give—”

“Alright, alright. Fuck. This is confirmation of my understanding.”

“Excellent. This conversation is over,” Eegang said. “It is your responsibility to contact the elder and earn the approval.”

Bojzka jerked.

“Wait, what?” he said. “How am I supposed to do that if y’all won’t even let me through the door?”

Eegang’s helmet tipped so daintily to the side that Boba could have shed a tear.

“That sounds like a you-problem,” Eegang said.

-----------

Eegang thereafter blocked Bojzka out of his mind and heart. He introduced himself with a dipping motion to Kryze and Boba that probably would have been more dramatic if he’d opted to wear a cape, which he did not. He revealed himself to be exceedingly polite and very fond of Din, though—if the gentle armor tapping and the use of the word ‘little brother’ was anything to go by. Din was usually receptive to gestures like that, Boba had learned, but not this time.

No, no. Din cared not for his ‘big brother.’ He cared only for the attention of Eegang’s baby.

“His name is Mesa,” Eegang explained after Din had kidnapped said baby. He introduced Mesa to Grogu who was stationed nearby, stuffed in the sleepy jedi’s shirt this time. . Grogu waved from Skywalker’s chest, but Mesa didn’t register the motion.

“His grandmother was quite ill, and it was her dying wish to see the child placed into the care of someone trustworthy. I have to admit, though, I may have made the decision a little rashly,” Eegang hummed as he watched Grogu lean as far as he could out of Skywalker’s clothing to try to make contact with his fellow foundling.

“Is he your first?” Bo-Katan asked.

Eegang winced.

“No, uh. I’ve got another,” he said. “She’s a huge fan of certain someones.”

“Me,” Din said without hesitation.

“And Paz,” Eegang said. “Which is a deadly combination.”

“She will be a mighty warrior,” Din informed Mesa and Skywalker. Skywalker twitched awake and didn’t understand anything that was happening. He noticed the baby, cooed, and waved with his gloved hand.

“She’s declared this one goat her nemesis and I cannot—I cannot—get her to just leave it alone,” Eegang said.

“A goat clan in the making,” Din said with approval.

“I’m hearing unnecessary commentary,” Eegang said without looking at him. “Please rephrase or shut up.”

Din seemed to gloat at the scolding. Skywalker glanced between him and his tall, teal comrade. He made his move and carefully came in to extract baby Mesa from Din’s arms to add him to his ever-growing collection. Grogu cooed again, closer now. He offered Mesa a hand, and this time, Mesa perked up and tried to grab at it clumsily.

“You manage the covert in the Armorer’s absence?” Bo-Katan asked Eegang. “You must be very dedicated to the Children of the Watch.”

“Define ‘manage’ and then ‘dedicated,’” Eegang said. “I prefer ‘accidentally charged with responsibility one too many times’ and ‘in too deep to turn back now.’”

“He’s being humble,” Din said. “Eegang has brokered peace between our covert and locals on numerous occasions.”

Eegang’s shoulders started to raise.

“Stop telling people that, they’re going to expect things from me,” he said, then popped back up like flipped switch. “Oh, I totally forgot why I even came. Jedi?”

Skywalker looked up from the conference of baby talk happening in his arms all wide-eyed, as though he’d been caught in the act of stealing imperial property.

“We did not welcome you into our covert,” Eegang said, “You must allow us to present you with a gift of welcome and entry.”

Oho. Very formal. Boba folded his arms and watched Skywalker for his reaction.

“A what?” Skywalker asked.

-------

Bojzka was somewhat justifiably upset at the double standard going on here.

Skywalker was a jedi and yet welcomed into the covert with open arms and no admission requirements. He was, in fact, measured against his will for a set of armor. This was what Din’s buir had actually been after when she’d sent Eegang along to say hi.

Boba found that he enjoyed the reciprocation of ulterior motives that they were getting from Din’s covert. Kryze had never been happier. This was a game that she knew how to play.

“Wait no, hold up,” Bojzka interrupted. “I deserve a chance. Din, at least give me the name of one of your siblings so I can track them down with the elder.”

Din didn’t want to; there were foundlings happening and another meeting soon, but eventually even he had to give the guy something.

An honorable battle required at least two willing bodies.

-----------

Din and Karren’s remaining sibling at the covert’s name was Shimmol. According to Din, Bojzka had next to no chance of gaining her favor because she did not leave the forge and therefore Bojzka had no access to her. Eegang corrected Din and said that Shimmol did, in fact, leave the forge, but never on her own volition.

She was preferred the dark. She hated social interaction.

To circumvent that, the Armorer had refused to induct her into the trade until she proved herself able to coexist with others. But Shimmol was eighteen, that fun age where no incentive or punishment was effective and digging your heels in was far more preferable to doing a damn thing your elders mentioned.

She’s announced that very weekend that she was officially becoming a recluse. Her present aspiration in life was apparently now to become a forge spider.

Bojzka, along with everyone else, had no idea how to receive this information. Kyrze took it upon herself to pat Bojzka on the shoulder and tell him to start with the elder. He might actually have some luck that way.

-------

It took two weeks for Bojzka to re-emerge from whatever hellhole he’d had to walk a tightrope across to locate the covert’s elder Fayrz. He climbed in through Din’s personal quarters’ window and interrupted him and the Jedi in a moment of infrequent intimacy.

The sound of a body being throw over a bannister had a special kind of thud to it. Boba was up on out of his quarters in an instant.

Din flung Bojzka’s helmet after him. Skywalker had the grace to cover Djarin’s face with his shirt and walk him back into the room before anyone caught sight of it, telling Boba and Fennec, who had also emerged from her bed, prepared for drama, that all was fine. There was just a misunderstanding.

His bare torso was covered in scars. Boba found himself somehow surprised and impressed as the jedi unsuccessfully wrangled his furious husband back in the direction of bed.

He and Fennec peeked over the banister to see what had become of Bojzka. He was fine.

Fennec informed Boba that she was claiming part of his bed ‘in case anything else good happened’ since he was closer.

-----

In the morning, Din was in marginally better spirits. Skywalker was to be found at his side, walking backwards and tripping over his cloak every four paces. He truly knew how to hit all Din’s ‘endeared’ buttons. If not to the earnestness and the near-miss of a disaster on the stairs, it would have looked like manipulation.

Bojzka attempted to rectify the peace by breaking into the court through one of the windows high up on the wall outside the second floor’s conference room. This time, to ensure that he had Din’s full attention, he removed the jedi from the equation. Or he tried to anyways.

The jedi, in a split second, decided that, all joking aside, today, he would not be moved. His green saber managed to glow even in the sunlight pouring in to the hall.

“Do not touch,” he ordered, with both feet planted and Din and Grogu securely at his back.

Bojzka cocked his head at the saber pointed right at his nose.

“That’s a fun trick,” he said.

“Do not touch,” Skywalker repeated. “Me, him, or the child.”

“I’ll think about it,” Bojzka said. “Stand down before you regret it.”

“Luke,” Din said testily. “He’s not worth it.”

“Make me regret it,” Skywalker said to Bojzka.

Bojzka’s eyes widened slightly in interest. He used the back of his wrist to try to nudge the saber’s tip away and snapped his hand away from the burn.

“Do you expect me to be afraid of you, jedi?” he asked, trying to play it off.

Skywalker’s eyes reflected the light of his saber.

“Ask him what the glove’s for,” Fennec called from the far hall. Bojzka scoffed. Skywalker didn’t move.

“What happened to your hand?” Bojzka asked.

“My father cut it off,” Skywalker said. “But not to worry, I got a new one. Now step back. Sir.”

Bojzka didn’t move for a long time.

“Does it feel good to walk in the presence of these people?” he asked. “Is it a kink for you the way it was for your master?”

Boba had officially lost the plot. These were old politics now. Kryze would know what Bojzka was talking about, if only she deigned to come out from wherever she was hiding, which she wouldn’t. Of course.

“Does it offend you? My presence here?” Skywalker asked back without emotion.

“It doesn’t,” Bojzka said.

“I’m glad. That’s very convenient for me. I’d feel terrible if you bled out on these tiles,” Skywalker said. “So move.”

And goddamn. The mountain finally yielded to the sky.

-------

Skywalker spent the rest of the day on high alert, with one hand on the hilt of his saber and his full concentration tied up with making fierce eyes into the palace’s corners to keep Bojzka at bay. It was really something to see. Din looked about ready to lay his fingers on his heart and swoon, and that was more than fair. If Boba’s spouse threatened to kill a man for looking at him wrong, he’d be touched too.

Fennec told Boba that she’d protect him from a man the size of a bantha but no larger, and it just didn’t have the same kind of ring.

She apologized and he told her it was fine. It was just in the delivery--and also, he’d murder anyone so blinked at her wrong, too.

She was pleased. Boba was glad they were on the same page.

“Let’s go find Kryze to negotiate,” Fennec said, “I need to know why Old Faithful’s back.”

--------

Kryze’s commanding voice wrang out of Bojzka the real reason for his presence. The truth of the matter was that, War Hero aside, he was having a hell of a time getting the covert elder to grant him a second look.

Din told him that that was the point. Elder Fayrz was like that all day, every day and he’d change for no body, spiritual or physical. He bothered people when he wanted to bother them, and the rest of the time, he liked to pretend he was senile. He only really ever showed up if someone was buying a round or their life was in the balance.

Skywalker said that he sounded a lot like his late master.

Din agreed and said that Elder Fayrz had dedicated his life to two things: the covert children and fungi. Somehow, he made those two interests overlap. Din recalled being twelve and being taken out on a ‘mission’ by the old man who had informed him that he required his nose.

Elder Fayrz had no sense of smell. For a man with a fungi interest, he called this ‘very dangerous business indeed.’

Kryze demanded to know if all the weirdest Mandalorian elders still living had congregated at Din’s cohort which he quickly confirmed. Bojzka, however, demanded to know what would make this elder look him in the eye.

Din told him to go find a deathbed and lay on it.

He remembered belatedly to add ‘nearby Elder Fayrz’ to that statement.

----------

After about a month of this kind of back and forth, the Armorer decided that she’d had enough. She did not come to the Dune Sea. She sent a missive to Din informing him that he was coming home.

‘To talk,’ she said.

Boba vaguely remembered Karren saying something along the lines of ‘Din doesn’t get into trouble anymore,’ and was pleased to find that that was not the case. Din already knew what awaited him at his home covert and anyone with slightly more than a rock for a brain could see that it wasn’t going to be hugs and kisses.

Bojzka volunteered to accompany Din as a guard when the jedi made himself conveniently unavailable. Kryze and Boba flipped a coin while Din resisted stabbing him, and of course Boba won. Kryze flipped it again to be sure, and Boba told her sweetly that he’d send her a postcard.

“Have fun with the schmucks lounging around this place,” he gloated at Bo-Katan’s rolling shoulders.

She gave him two naughty fingers.

Whatever, girl. Sucks to suck. Bye, bye, now. Come on, Fennec. There’s adventure to be had.

---------

It was a ways to the new covert on Zeffo. Several hours, in fact, many of which were spent playing ‘I spy’ with Fennec while Bojzka gritted his teeth and asked them if they were always like this.

Fennec got Din to join in at that comment.

Eventually they ran out of white dwarfs and capes to identify and settled down into silence until the ship declared landing to be imminent.

Karren remembered Boba and the second he set foot inside the curiously constructed covert entrance. The kid came hurtling up to tackle him and wrap arms around his middle. It was endearing. Boba checked the doors to see if a guard would notice a kidnapping.

Fennec reminded him of child-based expenses. Her wisdom was invaluable as usual.

Karren scrambled away from Boba and, for a moment, made like he was going to attach himself to Din’s armor, but instead wriggled past Din to go tearing down the hallway. He skidded, crashed, and then clambered into a different room at the dead end of what appeared to be a row of barracks. Seconds later, Eegang exploded from one of the rooms adjacent wearing no armor but his helmet. He flung himself through the same doorway Karren had vanished through.

Din tilted his head.

“It’s fine,” a voice said behind them.

Their small party turned to see a woman wearing a cool purple helmet with only her flakvest on. Eegang’s pale baby was sat on her hip, pawing at her chest, trying to find purchase in the vest.

“Sotra,” Din greeted.

“Welcome back, brat-child,” Sotra said. “We missed you.”

This had to be Eegang’s secret-wife; unless she’d stolen that gurgling foundling in the night or something.

“Electrical?” Din asked, pointing at the far room.

“Loft,” Sotra said. “There’s hay, so of course all the kids have to be in it.”

“Just hay?” Din asked.

“And goats,” Sotra said.

Ah.

“We raise goats now?” Din asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Sotra said, sashaying past him towards the room her husband had abandoned, “It’s either coexistence or war, I’m afraid. The forge is past the hangar, keep going through the kitchens. Voxie knows you’re here—he’s awake, by the way. Welcome home, Din.”

“Thanks,” Din said. “This is my advisor, Boba Fett and our friend Fennec.”

Sotra splayed her whole, tall body into the doorway of her and Eegang’s barracks just as a fearsome battle cry sounded out on the other side.

“Hi,” she said.

“RELEASE ME,” a child in front of her about hip-height with serious bedhead shrieked in Mando’a.

Fennec’s eyebrows launched up to her forehead. Boba felt like he needed to record this so that Kryze understood what she was missing.

“Vod Din is home,” Sotra told the child.

“DIN.”

“Shhhh.”

“RELEASE M—mmf.”

“Shhhhh. It’s quiet time,” Sotra said with her free hand over the child’s mouth. “We’re being quiet.”

Din chuckled.

“Hey, Samo,” he said.

Samo let loose an ear-piercing scream behind her buir’s hand and ducked under Sotra’s legs. She ran at Din like there was a bomb behind her. Din caught her and swung her up to perch on his arm and she kicked relentless at his tassets in excitement.

“Shhh,” Din said. “People are sleeping—”

“YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE—”

Doors started opening all down the line of barracks. A few curious, hazy, and lopsided helmets poked out from some of them, and from others, calls of ‘EYYYYYYY’ and chats ‘ALL HAIL THE MAND’ALOR’ started up, to Din’s immediate mortification.

This, Boba was delighted to realize, was not a cry of honor.

These half-asleep fuckers had been waiting months to embarrass Din. And he’d known that this would happen.

“Be quiet,” Din snapped all around him. “The elders are sleeping, you’re going to—”

“Well, well, well, look who’s finally home,” a taunting voice rang out on top of the rush. “If it isn’t the Mand’alor himself.”

“Paz,” Din sighed. “Not now.”

“When could there possibly be a better time, your liege?” a huge Mandalorian wearing full blue armor despite the early hour drawled from the doorway he’d attempted to casually lean in. Samo’s braids flew as her round cheeks snapped his way.

“Paz, don’t be mean,” she told him from atop Din’s arm. “Or it’ll be to the goats with ya.”

“Fuck me, the goats, what ever will I do?” Paz scoffed.

“BUIR, PAZ SAID A BAD WORD.”

“I heard him,” Sotra said scathingly, right at Paz’s visor.

“To the goats,” Paz’s neighbor hissed at him.

The hissing was taken up just as quickly as the earlier ‘all hails’ had been. Paz told everyone to shut up and mind their own asses. He was publicly booed until Eegang emerged from the loft room with Karren stuffed under an arm and demanded to know why people were congregating in the halls. He reminded everyone that that shit was a fire hazard, and in doing so, his tone changed completely from easy-going to Commanding Officer and the effect was immediate.

People scurried back into their rooms like frightened mice until there wasn’t a single open door left in the whole line.

Eegang huffed and traded Karren to Din for his daughter. Samo happily climbed onto his shoulders and held onto his chin. Karren grinned mischievously up at her, winked, and then thumbed back to the goat loft.

“Not the welcome you deserved, but the one you got. I’m afraid nothing has changed here,” Eegang told Din compassionately, wrapping his fingers around Samo’s ankles. “I see you brought friends.”

“And foe,” Din said, gesturing at Bojzka who beamed.

Eegang’s visor contained a grimace that would otherwise have wracked his whole body.

“You got in,” he deadpanned.

“Sure did,” Bojzka said. “Lovely place you have here.”

And honestly? Yeah. It sort of was. Maybe a little ramshackle, what with all the scaffolding and haphazard support beams thrown into the walls to keep the wet earth above ground from crushing everyone below it, but for all the unsteadiness, it was oozing with comradery. Family.

Behind each of those doors was a little unit like Eegang and Sotra’s or perhaps a tired body, barely extracted from its boots, taking comfort in this honeycomb of tunnels and rooms.

Boba couldn’t help but wonder how he and Dad would have done in a place like this.

“We try,” Eegang said flatly. “I’ll let the Armorer deal with you herself—if she’s awake, I mean. Otherwise, you’re condemned to Shimmol. I’m going back to sleep. Vok is waiting for you, keep going straight through the kitchens, Din.”

“Thank you,” Din said. “Sleep well, Vod.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, Monster. No goats for now.”

Samo waved at Boba and Fennec with a smile as bright as the sun. She ducked expertly as Eegang passed through the doorway to their quarters. He closed the door behind them.

------

“You don’t see families like that much anymore,” Bojzka hummed as Din led their troop down the hallways, through a series of ladders into a kitchen and then from there into a surprisingly neat, up-to-date hangar with concrete floorings. Six crafts were parked inside, tucked into the tight space like fish in a barrel.

“We have a few,” Din said. “I don’t know how many people are living here now, though.”

Given the size of the place? Maybe fifty or so, if Boba had to take a guess. There had been several sets of boots lining the wall outside the barrack doors.

Din picked his way through the crafts to two tarps covered in piles of spare, rusting, and grease-covered parts. At the end of the aisle between the tarps was a rectangle bordered by wooden benches and to the left of that was a little box that a mechanic presumably operated from. The box, however, had no windows. Its door was slightly ajar.

Din knocked and a snort and a slurp answered him.

“Jus’ a mo,” a thick voice said inside.

Fennec looked at Boba with intrigue.

“Tool gnome,” she said.

No, friend. Just a grease-monkey.

“Tool gnome,” Fennec insisted.

The door opened and a man at least six feet, two inches peered out of it.

“Tool giant,” Fennec amended in a whisper.

“Is that you, Din?” the mechanic asked. His helmet was rusty red and gray. Its visor had a yellow tint to it.

“It is,” Din said. “It’s been a while, Vok. These are my—”

“Forget them. Goran told me what you did to Razor.”

Din cringed.

“I—”

“AH. No. I don’t wanna hear it,” Vok said. “I just—I’m glad you’re safe, but you ain’t touching any more of my children, you hear me, boy?”

Din sunk into his shoulders in shame.

“I hear you,” he said.

“You’re damn right you do,” Vok said. “Man, I had a whole speech written out and shit, and here you are, early as the fuckin’ dawn. Did you miss Paz?”

“We did not,” Din said.

“I tried to have him do an inventory, I did,” Vok said sympathetically. “But he wasn’t havin’ it. Took an IOU and everything.”

Din sighed.

“Thanks for trying,” he said. “Is the forge...?”

“That way,” Vok said, gesturing to the far end of the hangar, where a series of scaffolding led up to a dark hole in the wall. “Mind your step. Stairs are next on my list. Who’re your friends?”

Din introduced them. Vok considered Fennec and after a moment of thought, saluted her. She tipped her jaw to the side and gave him a once-over.

“Din’s got my number if you’re not busy,” Vok said.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Fennec said.

“I hope you do, my darlin’. You? Boj-whatever? I heard about you. You can go fuck yourself.”

“Thanks, Vok, we’re going now,” Din intervened.

----------

Fennec said nothing on the way up the scaffolding. She didn’t need to. Boba applauded her.

---------

The forge was the least finished part of the covert, and Boba could respect the Armorer’s dedication to looking after the flock before her own needs. Not that the forge wasn’t a comfortable place. Upon entry, Bojzka whistled at all the equipment inside. There were steel beams crossing in hatches along the ceiling. It appeared as though someone was working on a ventilation mechanism up there. Ropes and pipes hung down from the beams as though a pulley system had been recently removed.

The forge itself was a huge circular structure with a high wall around its exterior. It was built of a slick-looking black material. There were three water troughs set up in a line behind it and two rudimentary wood blocks with anvils set on them. Benches littered with iron tools sat next to the anvils.

Din appeared very at home in this place, despite not having even been in it. He wove around the accoutrements of the room towards a wooden door that had been placed on hinges on the far side like an afterthought.

He knocked.

“We don’ want any,” a sleepy woman’s voice drawled.

Boba jumped as a something brushed his elbow and discovered that Karren had followed them all the way down to the forge. His soft boots had hidden his footsteps, but, like Din, he was now in a place that he knew like the back of his hand. Din grabbed the scruff of his neck as he went for the door with both hands.

“You’re supposed to be in the nursery,” Din told him. “Shoo.”

“Shimmol, Din’s home,” Karren said through the door. “Goran, Din’s home.”

Very cute. Karren wanted to be the one to shared the news. Din pulled him back as shuffling started up on the other side of the wooden door.

It opened to reveal a fluorescent pink helmet with floral patterns painted down the edges in white.

“Din?” the young woman, who could only be Shimmol, asked.

Din’s brain stuttered.

“Uh?” he said.

Shimmol’s flightsuit was once white, but it was burned and smudged to gray all over. Her heavy gloves were half-burnt on both hands, too. She surged forward into Din’s chestplate. Din hugged her back awkwardly.

“Hello, sister,” he said. “This is, uh.”

“Do you like it?” Shimmol asked, pulling away from him to touch the edges of her helmet. “I thought it was cute. Wait til you see the pauldrons. They match.”

“They’re hideous,” Karren said.

“Did anyone ask you?” Shimmol flung at him. “No, I didn’t think so. Get gone, womp-rat.”

Wow. No wonder Karren was desperate for Din’s attention.

“I’m not a womp-rat,” Karren said. “I’m a Tooka. Goran said so.”

“You know, what you actually are is a ‘nuisance,’ so it doesn’t matter what—”

“Children.”

And lo and behold. The lady herself. Gold helmet and everything.

“Din,” the Armorer said, placing a hand on Shimmol’s side to move her. “Welcome home.”

Din accepted the helmet touch with grace.

“Bojzka,” the Armorer said next. “I didn’t expect to see you in my home so soon, or at all.”

Bojzka beamed.

“You’ve grown a beard,” the Armorer noted. “It does not become you.”

Boba coughed into his elbow to hide the bark of laughter screaming to escape his throat. Fennec thumped at his back.

“Let’s move somewhere with more light,” the Armorer said. “Karren, Shimmol. You’re dismissed for the next hour. Go eat breakfast.”

“But—” Shimmol started.

“Up, up, up,” Karren chanted, getting behind her and shoving hands into the small of her back. “It’s people-time.”

“Leave it. I hate people-time,” Shimmol said. “I thrive on darkness. It sustains me better than food.”

Din looked desperately into the Armorer’s helmet. The Armorer ignored him and told Shimmol that she knew this to false and to stop whining. Upstairs, now.

The kids relented and left the forge. Din pointed after them.

“I know,” the Armorer said. “Let her work through it.”

Din pointed even more insistently.

“No, no. It’s true,” Bojzka said. “Mine went through the same thing.”

--------

The Armorer sat them all down at a ‘u’ shape of benches on the far side of the forge. She turned on some overhead lights. They lit up the forge and threw its equipment’s shadows harshly against the floor.

“Thank you for coming,” she said lightly. “It takes a long time to get to Zeffo, even in the Outer Rim.”

“It suits you,” Bojzka flirted.

“It does not,” the Armorer countered unrepentantly. “And your flattery remains aggravating.”

Bojzka didn’t seem to process the meaning behind those words, too busy he was with basking in the Armorer’s presence. She ignored him to turn to Din.

“Eegang tells me that you have been aggressive towards Bojzka, ad’ika, is this true?”

Din hunkered down into his shoulders. He didn’t want to answer. The Armorer didn’t make him.

“This is unnecessary,” she said. “Bojzka does not bother me.”

Bojzka rounded a gloating grin at Din.

“He is delusional, but I’m afraid that head trauma does this over time,” the Armorer said lightly. “There is no need to defend my honor—I’ve already had this conversation with Eegang, so know that it is not only you who I’ve spoken to about this. And Bojzka.”

“Yes, dear?” Bojzka hummed.

“I would appreciate it if you ceased in antagonizing my foundling and second.”

“I’m not trying to, Nomri.”

“I know,” the Armorer said. “And that is where I believe this tension arises from. Din, you and your advisor may leave. I’ll handle this. In future, know that it is not your place to speak on these matters in my stead, yes?”

“Yes, Goran,” Din mumbled.

The Armorer waited.

“Buir,” Din corrected.

“Thank you. The last thing I need is the Mand’alor becoming invested in old-standing relationships. You may go.”

Din stood and Boba and Fennec stood with him.

“He is not Naseem,” Din said right at the doorway.

The Armorer’s helmet turned slowly his way.

“No one will ever be Naseem,” she said. “It’s okay. Go.”

-----------

Boba need the full story on this Naseem guy approximately yesterday, but all he had at his disposal in the kitchens where he, Din, and Fennec had been banished was a collection of foundlings all staring up at their party looking guilty as hell.

In the midst of their group was a ten-year-old holding a glass jug absolutely brimming with frogs.

Boba had never seen this many foundlings together at once before, and he had to say: these traditionalists knew exactly what they were doing. There was nothing quite like a whole mass of youths to shift the mood.

The kids made a break for it.

Fennec was the fastest of all of them, but even she was not as fast as the bodies that popped their heads out of the rattling back room and launched themselves without warning over the few rows of tables set out in the main space.

Din’s covert collectively looked after the little ones, he explained when one of these bodies returned with the wrist of a shrieking Twi’lek child in their grip. The shrieking cut off when the nurse dropped down into a crouch and flattened both of the child’s hands against their helmet so that they left splotchy prints behind.

Two of the folks who filed back into the room covered in mud did not wear helmets. Din didn’t recognize them until they spoke and said their names. They’d removed their helmets back on Nevarro, apparently, and they had not to put them back on. Now, they wore veils and headscarves—neither of them comfortable with their whole heads and faces on display.

One of these was a woman named Madda. She saw Din’s helmet and froze by one of the long tables.

“Din, I’m so glad you returned,” she said with hitching breath. And then she took her newly-acquired jug of frogs and went tearing back down the hallway towards the covert’s main entrance. Din watched after her, confused.

“Is the transition difficult?” he asked one of the other Mandalorians next to him.

Their helmet showed zero emotion, and yet Boba gleaned from it everything he needed to know. He put a palm on his forehead.

“Djarin, come here,” he said.

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

Din chased after Madda to apologize for fucking up what was probably a years-long infatuation at this point. Fennec watched after him with a sly grin. But the Mandalorian with the flat helmet turned to Boba with far more open shoulders.

“You got through to him like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

“It’s his secret talent,” Fennec told her.

“What was your name?” the Mandalorian asked.

“Boba Fett,” Boba said. “And yours?”

“Jhuvac.”

“Nice to meet you,” Boba said politely.

“Aren’t you the clone-guy?”

Welp.

“I prefer ‘Fett,’” Boba said.

“Nah, I feel that,” Jhuvac said, tossing her scarf over her shoulder. “Paz calls you the ‘clone-guy’ is all. That shit’s wild, by the way. But you can’t help your dad’s decision now can you?”

What was this? Understanding? From a traditionalist? Kryze would lose her shit.

“I can’t, although everything after that was totally me,” Boba said.

Jhuvac glanced back at him.

“Including the Solo stuff?” she asked.

Boba lifted a brow.

“Is there something you would like to know?” he asked.

“No,” Jhuvac said. “I know everything I need to. But you know what’ll make Vok’s life miserable?”

---------

The mechanic was a huge fan of Han Solo, and he had a list of reasons why Boba should cease hunting the man about as long as one of his lanky arms. He listed them out one by one in his hangar full of metal scrap. Jhuvac was very correct when she said that the mere mention of Solo meeting his maker would cause Vok immense misery. Boba could see how it could be entertaining.

Fennec made it even more entertaining by poking holes in each of Vok’s carefully laid out arguments.

He kept asking her why she was hurting him like this. Was this a domination kink?

Fennec asked him if he wanted it to be.

Vok walked it all back and told her to do her worst.

Jhuvac decided that she suddenly had other things to do and invited Boba to accompany her on these things. Boba assented and left Fennec to her business.

----------

In the end, Boba found himself outside in a group huddle with a handful of covert people, two with no helmets, watching the feud between the foundlings and the local wildlife. The covert, he learned, broadly did not like Zeffo. They hated how wet it was. They hated how cold it was. 90% of them had grown up in desert climates, the remaining 10% in ice climates.

Zeffo, as far as they were concerned, was a backwater hellhole that they’d had little choice in selecting.

“It was this or breaking up and forming two coverts,” Sotra explained, removing Mesa’s captured snail from his face area for the third time. She gave the snail to the guy next to her who got up and took it down to the edge of the nearby river. He stooped to set it in the grass, then froze in shock when a fish’s wide mouth erupted from the water and encapsulated his whole glove.

It left the glove wet and empty.

“But you didn’t want to do that?” Boba asked.

“No, if we separated, it would be Eegang at the head of the new covert,” Sotra said. “And that’s just not in the cards for us right now.”

Gotcha.

“The children didn’t want to be separated either,” one of the Mandalorians with no helmet said. “Goran gave them the option, but things were frantic, you know. They cling to each other when they’re young like this.”

More than understandably, in Boba’s humble and correct opinion.

“What do you all think of Bojzka?” Boba asked them.

“Who?”

“The bull with no helmet? Beard?” someone said.

“The one trying to court the Armorer?” Sotra asked.

Everyone clambered back onto the same page in the face of this descriptor.

“He’s supposed to be some kind of hero,” Jhuvac said. “But I dunno, man. He seems a little, uh.”

“Goran’s too good for him,” Sotra interjected simply. “Imagine stooping so low after a life of respect and service.”

“He’s not ugly,” the Mandalorian who’d lost the snail pointed out. “I’d bang him.”

“You’re not a good bar, Ban.”

“I could be.”

“You’re the lowest bar, Ban.”

“Can’t be disappointed if your expectations on the floor.”

“Go bang him for Goran then,” Jhuvac said. “I can’t tell if she thinks he’s kinda cute or if she wants to stab him in the heart.”

“For the good of the covert, I will endure this hardship,” Ban said.

He was unceremoniously yanked back down when he started to stand.

“Din mentioned some guy named ‘Naseem?’” Boba asked.

The name alone sent the group into titters.

“Naseem was so nice.”

“Naseem was great, you have no idea. So respectful.”

“He wanted to take Din on so bad, it was almost heartbreaking. He and Goran were perfect for each other. He was so happy around her; I don’t think he ever talked in front of anyone else.”

“God, when he died, I cried so hard. I cried for days.”

“Same.”

“Kind of a tough reputation to beat, then?” Boba asked.

“Oh definitely,” Jhuvac said. “I mean, there was Hajka after him, but she was just so explosive. Like, she made Goran laugh a lot, I remember that, but she was kinda awkward, too. There was a battle on her home planet and she left everyone here to defend what was left of her people.”

“Goran collects the awkward ones, they’re her favorite,” Sotra said.

“You can’t judge her, you collect Eegangs,” Ban pointed out.

“There is only one Eegang.”

“Girl, we know.”

There was a pause while Sotra handed off her child so that she could beat the shit out of Ban on the lumpy grass. Jhuvac handed Mesa over Boba’s lap to the quiet person at his right. They took the baby without question and laid him on their chest.

“Where did you grow up, Boba?” Jhuvac asked. “Sorry, Fett. Do you like Fett?”

Boba was taken aback. It had been ages since someone had called him by his first name—and a Mandalorian no less.

“Boba is fine. I grew up on Kamino,” he said.

“With a covert?”

No, no covert. No anyone, really. Boba was what people in white coats tended to call ‘under-socialized.’

“That’s sad,” Jhuvac said. “It must have been lonely.”

It was, actually. Especially after Dad had died.

“That’s so sad, I’m gonna cry,” Ban said. “Join our covert.”

All helmets and eyes rounded on Boba and he felt like his collar was suddenly digging into his neck. He shook his head.

“I’m not really a Mandalorian,” he said. “It’s not right—”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Jhuvac, let ‘im talk.”

“No, that’s bullshit. Listen, Din has ‘don’t trust people’ syndrome. If he trusts you enough to bring you with him here, then you’re Mandalorian enough for us,” Jhuvac said. “And anyways, being a Mandalorian is about what you do, not who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re clone-guy so long as you follow the Creed in a more or less northernly direction.”

Boba stared at her and realized that everyone was staring at him again. He cleared his throat but found that he didn’t have any words trapped back there like he’d thought.

“Or easternly,” Ban offered to break the awkwardness.

There were still no words on Boba’s tongue. He struggled to say at least something.

“I—th—that’s kind of you,” he eventually managed. “I don’t think I could cut it here, but that’s really kind of you.”

The Mandalorians exchanged looks and shrugs.

“Know that the offer stands if you feel any pull towards it later,” Sotra said. “We have a number of reformed who converted and who move in and out of our covert. Not recently, but when we were children, there were more. Goran, too, was once a reformed Mandalorian.”

“My buir, too,” Jhuvac added.

“My ba-buir was reformed,” Ban said. “But she might have caused a public riot. Or two. Or three.”

“Speaking of which,” Sotra said. “Elder Fayrz has emerged from his cave.”

“I’ll get him,” Jhuvac sighed.

Boba frowned and looked from them out to the hill the foundlings had selected to gossip on. A Mandalorian in black and white with a green cape was, indeed, now kneeling among them. Every face was turned towards him in wonder.

“I’ve heard of this guy. He looks fun,” he noted.

At least one hand from every body came up to clutch at their face.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Ban said.

------

Din rejoined Boba in the midst of Elder Fayrz’s attempt to recruit him into the covert. He somehow knew Dad. That in itself was a little disarming. At first, Boba hadn’t believe that the elder was speaking the truth, but then he started up with alarmingly specific training corp numbers and mentioned off-handedly that he used to work in the corps, training kids from six to fourteen.

It made sense now why, in old age, he was considered the most dangerous person in the covert to have around the foundlings.

Grandpa was a serial spoil-er and mischief-instigator. The children saw in him everything they wanted out of life and were loathe to be separated from their most favorite old man.

Din got between him and Boba and informed the Elder that he’d just gotten married.

The Elder’s attentions went rocketing in the opposite direction. He wanted pictures, he wanted to know all about the reception, he wanted to know why Din hadn’t brought his partner home with him, what color their armor was, where they were presently based—the whole barrel of spotchka.

Boba appreciated the save.

He also appreciated the moment when the Elder fully realized that Din had, in fact, married a real jedi.

“YOU STUPID BOY.”

There it was.

The children bustled and whispered.

“This is what happens when we do not teach them to read—where is your buir? I told her, I told her that you needed more lessons. Always with the dogs, I knew it would have some effect—”

Din couldn’t even argue. He and Kryze had been over the very same deficit about sixty times. If they were lucky, Bo-Katan gave him a day or two off in between scoldings.

While the old man was outraged, Din signaled to Boba that they would be leaving soon.

--------

Bojzka joined Boba, Din, and Fennec at the ramp of their ship about ten minutes late. The Armorer personally showed him out of the covert and told him to return only if the galaxy began to collapse in on itself. She was at least cordial about it, which, in hindsight, was probably why Bojzka was having a hard time reading the glaring ‘please desist’ sign flickering over her head.

“Be safe,” she told Din while Karren made sad sounds behind her.

“Will do,” Din said. “Next time, I’ll see if Luke will come.”

“We would like to have him,” the Armorer said.

She dipped her helmet to Boba and Fennec and they returned the gesture.

“I hope you were well-received by the others,” she said. “Bojzka, good bye.”

“Talk to you later,” Bojzka hummed.

“We shall not,” the Armorer said.

---------

Back in the Dune Sea, Kryze was waiting in one of the conference rooms. Din avoided her and all her probing questions. Boba did not. He was in a sharing sort of mood and Fennec had a ‘thanks for the lay’ message to compose to Mr. Vok.

Kryze crossed her legs and gestured for him to join her at the table.

He did and crossed his legs right back.

“So?” she asked.

“Shocking peaceful,” Boba said. “Violent mostly towards their own members. Tried to recruit me at least three times.”

Kryze’s eyebrows did a little dance.

“Surprising,” she said.

“Not very,” Boba corrected. “Din is one of the more reserved members. He resembles his buir more than I expected.”

“And Bojzka?” Kryze asked.

“Soundly rejected, but somehow optimistic about it,” Boba said. “The good news is that Din’s been forbidden from trying to kill him.”

“That is good news,” Kryze agreed.

There was a long pause.

“Are you thinking about it? Joining, I mean?” Kryze asked.

“No,” Boba said, “But it is nice to occasionally be around Mandalorians who don’t have sticks up their asses.”

“Unicorns,” Kryze said.

“A whole covert of them,” Boba told her with a smirk. “Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you all.”

“I beg to differ,” Kryze said. “If the issue is resolved, then I suppose we’ll have to move back on to official business.”

That was no fun.

“Why is Fennec so smug?”

Oh, that was more fun. Sit back down, Lady. This is going to be a bawdy one.

#the mandalorian #the armorer #din djarin #boba fett #dinluke #ficlet #don't mind me I just need answers #and in their absence I make them myself

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kyle-valenti · 3 years ago

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burnout only feels like burning

2.7k / Summary: kyle valenti doesn't have the same quarantine as his friends; an exploration of kyle's trauma during covid as a doctor. (tw depression & other triggers you’d imagine with this subject)

read & comment/ ao3

A little like the virus itself, Kyle’s relationship with his mask begins with worry, annoyance, and then pain. He’s more than happy to have the proper N-95 mask as they begin to get their first case at Roswell General but then a couple more patients trickle in and within a few days his skin is irritated and itching. Maybe it’s the news, maybe it’s the texts from his friends that he’s increasingly missing, but when the Regiment starts spouting off about how COVID is a joke he thinks it might be affecting his nerves too. By week three his former red mark left by the mask has become a permanent feature to his face and by week five it’s not a mark but a bruise instead. Blisters and cracks in his skin litter his hands from over-washing. His feet become so overused the pads of his feet feel numb and bruised and he wears through an entire pair of shoes.

Positivity has fled from his life by week seven and now he’s inside of a survival mode he’s never experienced. He thought after last year he’d be used to anything the world (or universe, rather, given all these aliens) could throw at him. Now what feels foolish, he had believed that there was nothing that could be worse than the previous pain of losing a patient or finding out his father had experimented on people’s lives.

When he’s out of ventilators and CPAP machines because Albuquerque needs them more and he has to choose whether or not to save the life of an eighty five year old or a thirty two year old he remembers from high school, he breaks.

Guilt is one thing, grief is another, but the pure rage he feels knowing that Max Evans is out on the town patrolling as some fucking cop and not someone who could heal most of this hospital makes him want to commit actual murder. Maybe trading the blood of an alien on his hands would feel less heart-wrenching. But no. Max had brought back Rosa and had paid the price. Quelling his anger, he went back to work.

He slept at the hospital most nights in the height of it. Sure the couch was rough, but it was better than the other on-call doctor beds down the hall. Three twelve hour ER shifts of a usual work week doubled to five days of thirteen hour shifts. Soon there’s a week where he pulls double shifts for an entire week when one of his nurses is urgently hospitalized herself. Hospital directors had left them with no PPE except contaminated masks to reuse. Maria, Isobel, and Rosa are in the forefront of a drive to make and donate masks to his hospital after some social media posts that he doesn’t even see until the cloth masks arrive and his medical assistants give him their handwritten note. It makes him smile, but smiling feels so foreign that he almost wants to break from that.

Visitors are no longer allowed which means Kyle isn’t allowed to use his bedside manner to comfort the family of patients. He has to facetime mothers, spouses, and children and hold the phone over a patient who can’t breathe without machine assistance and pretend that everything is fine and that there’s still hope despite the hypoxia and lack of rising vitals. Ignore that if the patient goes into cardiac arrest more than once, the kindest thing to do given prognosis is to let the patient pass. Resuscitation and DNR (a patient’s begging request to not be resuscitated) becomes a word he uses in his daily work and not simply for intense surgeries.

Exhaustion isn’t a deep enough adjective to describe the fugue state he goes into. File to file, room to room, ventilator to next… he isn’t surprised when his body starts to wear down. When he no longer feels hunger and instead feels all too hot and dizzy. Telling himself it’s just because of how much he’s exerting his body while covered in layers and layers of protective clothing doesn’t help the fact that he’s starting to have more trouble breathing as he walks the hallways at a fast pace. When he begins to cough, he does what he promised himself he wouldn’t do and drives out post-shift to the desert cabin of Max Evans.

Part of him is too desperately tired to knock, but when he arrives on the property with the cop car idle and the house dark and at peace for the night, his fury greets him with the embrace of a long-lost friend. Knuckles pound at the wood and Max answers the door with surprise and a general look of defense, and Kyle tries not to immediately punch him in the face at the fact he looks like he had woken up from a comfortable sleep.

“Heal me.” Kyle manages to spit out.

“I—what’s wrong?”

“Beginning stages of respiratory distress, fever, nausea—what do you fucking think?”

“Kyle—,” Max starts to say, the hesitation deepening, and that does it.

“No. I have not asked you for anything in all of this, Evans. Anything!” He shouts, voice hoarse. “Not when people got sick, not when they started dying, not even when we started having to let people die on purpose. And you know what? I wasn’t going to even come and ask you now, but I can’t get sick when I’m the one here fucking saving lives out of the two of us and you’re just cruising the streets handing out goddamn traffic tickets.”

Max’s face isn’t stony like it usually is when Kyle’s yelling at him; this time it’s crushed and guilty but not nearly enough. “What kind of hours you work this week, Evans? A nice 8 to 4? Did you get facetime with Isobel or your mom, maybe binge through a few books and movies after you’re home? Did you sit down and eat a nice dinner and or go over to drink a few beers with Guerin since you can’t get sick? Even get a nice eight hours of sleep in your own bed in your nice quiet home?”

No response.

“I am not asking to sequence your DNA like Liz. All I am asking is for you to let me heal people since you don’t want to.”

A night breeze is all that makes noise for a moment as Kyle catches his breath and glares at Max, who stands quietly but is staring down at his boots before he finally looks up and nods. Max steps forward then, and Kyle sees that his eyes are actually filled with tears. Temper deflating, but still not subsiding entirely, given that not much else is able to be done; Kyle lets Max place a hand on his shoulder and feels the extremely weird feeling spread throughout his body. Something more electric than anything else, which God knew made a lot more sense concerning his powers and how the body operated with electrical nerve impulses, but that is a train of thought better left for another day. He wants to just walk away, and he almost does, but he still mutters a “thank you” before he does so.

When his nurse dies a few days later and he watches as the staff double bag her body to take to the morgue, he escapes to his office and crashes on his couch with sobs. There’s no one here to support him. He can’t go to his mother’s home and collapse into one of her comforting embraces without risking infecting her. He can’t get wasted at the Wild Pony with Maria when it’s closed. He can’t visit Rosa or Arturo at the Crashdown. Keeping his friends and family safe meant keeping them away from him. Keeping them safe meant he needed to stop pushing his head into his hands to try and control the sound of his crying and get back to work at saving the lives around them.

He gets put on leave by the hospital administrator when he’s almost arrested for decking Wyatt Long in the hospital parking lot as the idiot stood outside with a sign rallying Regiment members to make sure the hospital was told it was killing people on purpose for the election. If Jenna hadn’t been the officer on duty he would have been cuffed and put on record, jeopardizing his license, but there was some self-preserving part of him that desperately wished for his practice to be over anyway. He’s not even sure how Jenna handles it, honestly, all he remembers is her dropping him off at his house from her patrol car like she had been nothing but an uber. No matter how angry and adamant he gets, his boss refuses to bend, saying it’s for his own good given the connections the Long’s have in the town and how Kyle has worked almost 74 of the past 76 days.

Alex is the first to visit him, unannounced. When the doorbell rings Kyle is mindlessly pretending to watch some tv show in his living room that’ll distract him from his consuming thoughts about patients, so he doesn’t get up to answer. He checks his silent phone to see if he was forewarned of a visitor but sees nothing. Unsure if it’s his boss or a patient’s family, he forces himself up onto his sore feet and opens the door after grabbing a regular mask off the coffee table. Black face mask on and standing further out from the door on the porch is Alex, the usual gruff hello turned into something soft. “Hey.”

Kyle heaves a sigh. He had wondered when the pity visits would begin. “Hey. You really shouldn’t be around me, you know.”

“I’m clearly a minimum of eight feet away in an open space while masked.” Alex smarts back. “Either way, I’m worried about you.”

Scoffing, he shakes his head. “Don’t fucking worry about me. Worry about getting sick, because if I have to see another person I care about die, I--,”

“Kyle.” the other says too kindly, the sort of pacifying voice Alex reserved for only the most dire situations. “I have no idea what you’re dealing with in specifics, but my experiences do overlap with yours in some places.”

“And?”

Maybe it came out a little too rude, because Alex raises a brow, but then sighs instead. “And I’m just checking in to make sure you know people care about you.”

“Thanks, Manes.” Kyle huffs in return, managing not to roll his eyes because focusing on being blunt and abrasive was so much easier.

“Just be careful.” Alex interjects before Kyle could close the door and turn back to his show. “Dealing with the trauma of what you’re dealing with gets dark very quickly.”

“Because I punched Wyatt Long?” he spits back sarcastically.

“No, because the suicide rates for healthcare professionals are drastically increasing along with the rates of PTSD diagnoses.” Alex says flatly, ever one to be unfazed by sarcasm. “And I’ve lost more active duty members to suicide than I have combat.”

Kyle pauses, caught. Maybe Alex had known he would be, because there isn’t some way he can give a smile and reassuring wave with him like he could his mother or Liz. While Kyle hadn’t actively thought of a plan, he couldn’t pretend he had noticed signs of depression the second he was alone in his house.

“The quiet is the worst part, right?” Alex says, all but reading his mind. “Not always because of the flashbacks, although those are horrible, but because if things are quiet then--,”

“--people are dying.” Kyle finishes, his voice raspier by the end of the three words. “Yeah, well, mine still are.”

“They’re going to.” Is what felt like a cold response, but somehow gave Kyle the understanding he’s been craving. “They’re going to die and because of your profession you’re going to be able to save some of them. Which will make you think you’re responsible to save all of them and because you’re a good person you’re going to feel guilty in ways that no one will understand for being human and failing to.”

“Failing is all I do lately.” Kyle replies. “Usually the wins feel higher than the losses as a doctor, but with this-- and no one outside of it cares. They go outside and yell about how this is about a fucking election and when it’s not the patients, it’s the hospital pretending they don’t have enough money to buy us proper protection. Or the government saying this will all go away and that it’s just a light cold.”

Alex gives a small nod. “I know. I also know telling you the same advice that you’d give another doctor of trying not to burn out and instead taking a small rest is useless. So I’m just going to drop off these dvd’s and make you report back to me the difference when you’re done.”

Star Trek and Star Wars. Kyle finds a smile tug on his lips. Alex leaves with one on his as well.

When he gives a response to Alex a few days later on how Star Wars is better not more than a few minutes later Deluca is texting him with recommendations on joining her Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch. There’s something sweet about the fact that people have been clearly talking about him, even if definitely borderline creepy with how nosy his circle of friends can be, but he sighs and lets Maria add him to the group chat she has with Rosa and Liz where they review each episode after the fact and even chimes in every now and then. Isobel gets added not long after due to an Instagram story Maria shares and then the group has moved onto Friends after everyone shoots down Liz for suggesting Grey’s Anatomy on behalf of Kyle. Alex is also in there, even if it’s rare he chimes in with an opinion, but once they start Friends his commentary about how much he hates Ross that gets the entire group riled up does tend to make him laugh. Even Kyle agrees with Forest-- whose opinion had been shared by Alex-- that Chandler had all too many queer-coded scenes with Joey.

His mother facetimes him daily, which given how they both don’t exactly go out much starts to become monotonous, until she begins to give in and talk about memories she has of their father. Tidbits she never would have shared with him about their adult life when he was a child or teenager. He in turn facetimes Rosa and shares some of the memories of their father as well, which as much as she tries to pretend she doesn’t want for Arturo’s sake she clearly does with the million questions she asks every single time and the small smile she gives him at the end of their calls.

Liz updates him on her work which is a nice reprieve from everyone’s normalcy and lack of medical jargon sometimes, especially when she gives him inside info on covid vaccine studies not yet published to the general public yet. Everything in him wants this more than anything else in the world right now and he texts her almost every day asking if she’s heard more news even when he knows things take time. She’s a good sport about everything, even when he shares in a very angry rant about Max Evans and how they could have helped so many more people so much more quickly with his DNA-- however selfish that might have been.

When he goes back to work, he feels refreshed, even when it makes things hit like a freight train once more. Lost in a sea of inadequacy, his feelings extend past the pandemic. Even when things return to a level of normalcy and the cases subside he gets alien medical drama thrown in his face once more, and he starts to wonder if he’ll ever recover. If he was wrong to choose this calling. If the fact he can’t help Max or Maria is a sign from above or his father that it’s time to make some career move or change location like his mother and Liz. But, like he tells Michael Guerin. He can’t think he can face his future children and say he walked away from this. Or let people die by quitting, just like Rosa warns. And so he stays and tries to heal both other people and himself.

#so yeah this was the lighter version #i had to stop before things got to dark for my own mind #also genuinely feel like the mentions he gives to rosa about feeling lost #should stem from this if the writers aren't cowards #kyle valenti #rnm fic #kyle valenti fic #roswell new mexico #tw covid #tw depression #my fic #my post

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spockandawe · 4 years ago

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So this morning, I tripped across this excellent post about Xue Yang and classism, and it shook something loose in my head. Specifically, it got me thinking about the idea of Xue Yang taking revenge for ‘only’ losing a finger. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say anything as directly dismissive as saying he only lost a finger, but I do think that is at least partially the way that Xue Yang takes the argument.

And I’ve thought a lot and said a lot of words about the way Xue Yang feels hurt and betrayed and frustrated as he tries to explain himself to someone, for once, and that person completely misses his point. And I’ve said words about how in the three years in Yi City, Xue Yang gets hooked on the quiet comfort of domesticity, even if he and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing are still, objectively, poor. But I’d never thought about this particular angle of their last argument before now.

This is going to be long, I can tell, so let’s throw a spoiler cut in here

Now, I do think it’s important that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say directly that it was only a finger. I think it would have been cruel of him to say that. But I also think that his upbringing and position in the world make him a bit… oblivious to the implications of Xue Yang’s story, and what he’s trying to communicate, and that leads to him saying some things that are more insensitive than he would have chosen to if he’d realized.

From a very early point, he knew that Xue Yang grew up without parents or money.

Unhurried, Xue Yang began, “Once upon a time, there was a child.”

“The child really liked eating sweet things. But because he had no parents or money, he could rarely eat them.”

And he was told how that child was exploited, and how hard he was beat up and used even before things reached the point where he lost a finger

[The huge, brawny man] took over the paper and looked at it, and he gave the child a slap so hard that his nose started bleeding. The man pulled the child’s hair and asked, ‘Who told you to take such a thing over?’”

[…]

“[seven-year-old Xue Yang] felt scared and pointed the direction. The man went to the liquor shop, carrying the child by pulling his hair.”

[…]

“The store was in a mess and the waiter was feeling quite cross. He slapped the child a few times, so hard that his ears were even buzzing, and chased him out the door. He crawled up and walked for a while.”

[…]

What do you think happened? Just a few more slaps and a few more kicks.”

(It’s interesting to me that he dodges even mentioning his hand being run over in this version of the story, but later goes into a lot of detail about his hand later with Xiao Xingchen, even though Xiao Xingchen has completely turned against him)

And, something that I hadn’t really noticed until I went to collect these quotes, is how Xiao Xingchen reacts to this story.

After Xiao XingChen tucked her, he walked a few steps, then asked, “What happened afterward?”

Xue Yang, “Guess. There was no afterward. You didn’t continue telling your story either, did you?”

Xiao XingChen, “No matter what happened afterward, since right now your life is fairly adequate, there’s no need for you to dwell too much on the past.”

That’s… a very high-minded approach to take, where I can see the good intentions, but I’m also kind of wincing at the accidental implications.

And then, to mix it up, let’s have some screencaps for the second half of the story, because these actors seriously knocked this scene out of the park

“The wheels of the cart milled over the child’s hand, one finger at a time. He was seven!”

And then another book quote, because it’s fascinating to me how directly he begs Xiao Xingchen to empathize with the child who was used so poorly and lost a finger in the process.

“Is it that, since the fingers weren’t yours, you guys were incapable of feeling the pain?! You guys didn’t know how horrifying screams sounded like out of your own mouths? Why didn’t you ask him why he decided to amuse himself with me without a single reason?!”

Only, right after he does this, Xiao Xingchen talks about how disproportionate Xue Yang’s revenge was. This really kills me, honestly, because this is the point where Xue Yang stops trying to appeal to him and explain himself, and takes a sharp turn towards losing control over his emotions instead.

Xiao XingChen spoke as though he couldn’t believe Xue Yang’s words, “Chang Ci’An broke one of your fingers in the past. If you sought revenge, you could’ve simply broken one of his fingers as well. If you really took the matter to heart, you could’ve broken two, or even all ten! Even if you had cut off an entire arm of his, things wouldn’t have been like this. Why did you have to kill his entire clan? Don’t tell me that a single finger of yours was equal to more than fifty human lives!”

I always just accepted that this was enough to hurt Xue Yang that much. But also… Xiao Xingchen knows that Xue Yang was a poor, parentless child, and he’s heard about how this child was callously exploited and mistreated by three separate adults. And there’s a couple class-related details in here that I want to touch on.

One, Xue Yang was again, a poor, parentless child, and I imagine he was living on the streets in a situation like that. Chang Ci’an broke (amputated) one of his fingers. And ran over the whole rest of his hand, which I have to imagine did other significant damage. Okay, so he wrecked this seven-year-old child’s hand. Now…. how much did this child have? What did he have besides his body? Did he even have a home to retreat to and recover? Because I have to imagine he didn’t. He didn’t have money for medical treatment, it’s not even clear if he knew anyone he could go to for basic medical help. Let’s not even talk about setting the bones in a shattered hand, did he even have access to anything to prevent infection? If he had any means of making a living (at age, again, seven), it would almost have had to be either begging or stealing. Having one ruined hand would have done awful things to this parentless child’s ability to survive. He made it through, clearly, but god.

And Xiao Xingchen isn’t approaching this from a position like most of our main characters, who grew up wealthy and privileged. He’s not approaching this in a way like how Jiang Cheng scolded Wei Wuxian for breaking his arm, because he had to get it all plastered up and spend weeks recovering, and that was super inconvenient. Xiao Xingchen was never wealthy, and he grew up as a feral mountain child with Baoshan Sanren. But that means that he wasn’t subject to the same social forces as a city child like Xue Yang. Even if he was injured as a child, even if he was badly injured, it wasn’t probably an act of cruelty or callousness on the part of an adult. And if he was injured, he might not have had access to formally trained doctors, but he had a teacher who was highly trained spiritually, and who would at least care for him.

In a way, I think that makes it all hurt… more for Xue Yang. Because Xiao Xingchen isn’t gentry, he never was affiliated with the great cultivation sects, and he and Xue Yang and A-Qing have been living together in a city in fairly poor circumstances for three years now. But Xiao Xingchen is an adult, and one who’s used to making his own way in the world. He has no personal understanding of what it’s like to be a powerless child in similar circumstances, without anyone. And in this moment, he’s not able to understand how awful and how serious this was for a child like Xue Yang to experience.

Like, compare and contrast. When the Wens are starting to move against Lotus Pier, there’s half a moment where Wei Wuxian makes his peace with losing a hand. He’s like ‘yeah, that sucks, but i’ll deal. i’ll just learn to fight with my other hand, whatever!’ But just imagine how serious that would have been before Jiang Fengmian found him. Without money, without a home, without anyone to care for you, without access to any real medical care, how dire an injury would that have been? Xue Yang might not have lost his hand altogether, but the cart ran over his whole hand, and hands are just full o’ bones. The consequences of that injury were significant.

And Xiao Xingchen’s initial reaction is ‘okay, so this wealthy cultivator broke your finger. why didn’t you just break his finger?’ and then he manages to escalate his way up to ‘idk, you could have even cut off his arm???’

In retrospect, it’s completely unsurprising to me that this is the moment where Xue Yang totally shuts down and starts asking why Xiao Xingchen even got involved, if he wasn’t capable of understanding.

“You shouldn’t have meddled in other people’s business. Right or wrong, kindness or hatred are not clearly distinguished, so how could an outsider possibly understand?”

“Your martial mentor, Baoshan Sanren, was indeed insightful. Why didn’t you listen to her and obediently cultivate in the mountain? If you couldn’t understand the human affairs and this world, then you shouldn’t have come!”

It makes me wonder what would have happened, if Xue Yang had leaned harder into what kind of suffering and hardship an injury like that meant for a street child, but considering how reluctant he was to share in the first place, I’m not exactly surprised he didn’t go there.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to me that when Xiao Xingchen calls Xue Yang ‘disgusting’, that’s when Xue Yang pivots into really trying to hurt him. I think it would hurt, coming from Xiao Xingchen, no matter what, but I have to wonder if he takes it extra hard in light of the way he’s just been trying to explain his history as a mistreated street child.

I’d been idly wondering if I was reading too far into this dynamic (not that that was going to stop me, but still, wondering :P), but this last addition to the conversation really caught my attention

“The people I hate the most are ones like you who say they’re righteous, who think they’re virtuous. Stupid, naive, dumb idiots like you who think the world’s better just because you did something good!”

And then I was like no, I’ve been right this whole time, haha :V

Xue Yang’s anger and hurt sense on a purely personal level, especially with the extra pain of trying to explain himself, for once, and Xiao Xingchen missing the point. But the extra frustration on behalf of his younger self makes so much additional sense.

Xue Yang likes Xiao Xingchen, he likes living with Xiao Xingchen, or he wouldn’t still be there three years after a chance encounter. It would be a whole other meta to source this claim, but it very much feels like there are things he admires about Xiao Xingchen, even if it’s kind of a condescending, indulgent fondness for his foolish, naive innocence instead of a straightforward admiration. Until it tips over here, and becomes personal.

And I think there were a lot of ways where he was prepared to disagree with Xiao Xingchen on a deep, fundamental level. They have very different values. But I don’t think he was prepared for Xiao Xingchen to be so oblivious to the class-based aspect of Xue Yang’s history. I don’t think Xiao Xingchen intended to be cruel, and I also think he had other significant things on his mind, but the seriousness of this incident doesn’t seem to occur to him. For someone with money, for someone with a skilled martial family, for even someone with a family, period, this would have been a traumatic experience, but one that could be dealt with. But then Xiao Xingchen equates the finger of this wealthy, purposefully cruel cultivator to the finger of a poor, parentless street child, and Xue Yang begins to lose control.

I already didn’t blame him for how upset he gets in this conversation, but now, even more than before, I find his reaction incredibly understandable. I mean, yes, their whole relationship is built on a foundation of sand, but he thought that he and Xiao Xingchen… supported each other, at least. They mattered to each other. And when Xiao Xingchen rejects him in the present, well, sure, that was going to happen if anyone was stupid enough to tell Xiao Xingchen the truth, that was understandable. But when Xiao Xingchen casually brushes aside the suffering of little innocent seven-year-old Xue Yang, that hurts Xue Yang more than he could have ever anticipated.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #xue yang #xiao xingchen #long post/#meta #xue yang: is it that since the fingers weren't yours you were incapable of feeling the pain?!#further speculation: xiao xingchen and lack of experience with *untreated* injuries #i really want to do something more with xue yang and bones that didn't heal right and an amputated finger that got infected #but heck if i know what

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sonnetthebard · 3 years ago

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can you do a oneshot with peip spy paul and secret ccrp boss melissa? (yeah this is cause of the stuff sent to hatchetfieldtheories so what lmfao)

Um hell yeah I will! I have read the original theory, but you're also going to get my take on it because I got ideas just by reading the prompt lol. Apparently @hatchetfieldtheories and I are now getting lumped together and I am perfectly okay with that.

Genre: Action/ Thriller kinda?

Words: 2727 (once again... perfect)

TL;DR: Paul's cover as a PEIP agent is blown, and he finally gets to meet exactly who he's fighting against.

TW: Swearing, Guns, Violence, Murder, Blood.

______________________________________________________

Paul sighed, reading over his report before he sent it in. Was the report work related? No. Well... yes and no. Not for his job at CCRP technical. But as an agent of PEIP? It held information that could be absolutely crucial to the work they were doing. So it kind of had to be perfect. One mistype, a spelling mistake, could change the entire context of how it was read and how his superiors reacted. Perfection was key. Especially with what he had found. God, had he found out a lot.

Paul hadn't originally worked for PEIP. No. No, it was a bit of a long story. But... to sum it up, Paul had been caught dead in the centre of a world-ending event. An attack from what had looked like aliens at first but was actually an entity named Pokotho- or Pokey. Paul had very nearly died. He'd almost caused the end of the world. He had almost thrown a grenade dead into the centre of the meteor that was playing host to Pokey and his hivemind formula- which would have simply spread the spores. Luckily, one PEIP field agent- a Xander Lee- had managed to keep himself safe while his unit was infected, and he was able to stop Paul before he made a world-ending mistake.

Xander, through a lot of science Paul did *not* understand, was able to send Pokey back into his own dimension. The world was saved. It still kind of felt like a sci-fi fever dream. Most days, it still didn't feel real. The Hive had healed those it had destroyed, so... most people came back. Not Charlotte or Sam, because they weren't technically killed by the Hive. But Ted, Bill, Alice, Deb, Emma, and even Hidgens were back completely unscathed. Paul and Emma had actually gotten a chance to go to that movie. They were dating now. For three months, to the day. Paul had a bouquet of roses ready to surprise her with after work. He knew she wasn't usually big on the sappy romance stuff, but... he kinda was.

It was about a week after what was now widely known as the 'apotheosis' had passed when Paul got an email from Xander asking a favour. A very classified favour. Since Paul knew about PEIP and what it stood for. Apparently, they'd been picking up suspicious activity from CCRP for months, and they'd been trying to figure out which of their agents to send undercover. But every alias they'd made up had been rejected for an interview. So Xander got the idea that since Paul worked there, maybe he could keep an eye out for them. And as dangerous as it seemed... Paul said yes. The work PEIP did was too important to risk delaying. He was briefed through text, and he learned his job online in a matter of days. Ever since, he had been PEIP's agent in CCRP. And PEIP was more than right to be concerned.

Paul hummed, satisfied with his report. It was concise, precise, and detailed everything he'd seen. Which was a lot. This week... this week, he'd finally made his breakthrough. He was able to sneak to a higher level. Sylvia's level. She was talking on the phone about temporal breaches, trans-dimensional fluctuations, and lots of other jargon he didn't even come close to understanding. He'd bugged her office with a microphone PEIP had sent him so that they would understand more clearly. And when he'd snuck to the lower level, he was finally able to get past that second level of security. And what he'd found there was... eerie. He hadn't gone in. He just looked through the window. But it appeared there were hundreds, if not thousands, of... himself. Just standing there. He'd left a camera. Needless to say the report was more than full of information.

Paul heard the click of heels behind him and he quickly pressed send, closing the tab. He faked looking through his analytics before the clicking stopped. Paul could practically feel the presence looming behind him. At first, he just kept working as if he didn't notice. But... then it started to bug him. Because whoever the heeled coworker was who had stopped behind him was, they hadn't moved yet. He slowly turned, trying not to show any nerves. But he was a terrible liar, so he had a feeling that wasn't working. In front of him stood... oh good, Melissa. He sighed in relief.

"Hey Melissa. How's it going?" Paul asked.

"I need to see you for a moment... in Mr. Davidson's office." Melissa told him shyly.

"You need to see me?" Paul asked, still getting up nonetheless. This was Melissa. She was a sweetheart. She probably had a computer problem.

"Yeah... don't worry, it won't take of your much time." Melissa bit her lip, walking away. Paul followed.

"Did Davidson's computer crash because of that solitaire again?" Paul guessed.

"Um... no. No, this isn't about Mr. Davidson's computer." Melissa chuckled nervously.

"Uh oh... Paul's getting called to the principal's office!" Ted taunted teasingly.

"Shut up, Ted!" Bill groaned. "I'm trying to finish my report! Can I not have peace for five minutes?"

"You can... if you move to another department." Ted smirked. Paul only knew he was smirking because Ted had popped his head over the cubicle to watch him go by.

"I'm not in any trouble." Paul rolled his eyes. "Go back to what you were doing."

"Alright, alright!" Ted snickered, raising his hands defensively and lowering back into the cubicle.

"Sorry about him." Paul sighed, seeing the way Melissa blushed. "I swear he's not as much of an asshole as he seems most of the time."

"Oh, it's fine." Melissa shrugged. She walked into Davidson's office. Suddenly, her demeanor completely switched. "Ken, I'm going to need this office for a minute."

"What?" Paul blinked, his heart immediately sinking to his stomach. There was a pit in his stomach, and it was growing by the minute.

"Sure thing, Mel." Mr. Davidson nodded, getting up and walking out of the office.

"What's going on?" Paul asked, though there was no one specifically he was speaking to. He was just very confused.

"Why don't we sit?" Melissa offered, confidence oozing off of her as she took Davidson's seat behind the desk.

"Um... okay." Paul nodded warily, taking a seat. "Melissa..."

"Let me do the talking for now, Paul." Melissa sighed, leaning forward on the desk.

"Alright." Paul blushed, already intimidated. Yeah, he was totally agent material.

"You probably think you've been pretty slick, don't you?" Melissa chuckled lowly, looking at the cowering bundle of nerves before her. "Slipping bugs all over the facilities, sending your little reports while you're supposed to be writing reports for us... quite the secret agent, aren't you?"

"I... don't know what you're talking about." Paul lied.

"Paul, you're not that bright." Melissa scoffed. "In all your stealth and espionage, you seem to have forgotten that we have security cameras."

"On those floors?" Paul blinked. "I... didn't see any feed from them when I checked."

"Well we're not going to stream it to where anyone can see it!" Melissa rolled her eyes. "And you know exactly why."

"Yeah... yeah, I probably shouldn't have just assumed..." Paul sighed.

"So you admit it then? You're a spy?" Melissa checked.

"Well... yeah. Yeah I am." Paul sighed.

"For PEIP?" Melissa clarified.

"Who?" Paul tried to lie again.

"Paul, you used our network to send your files." Melissa rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but I followed their..." Paul muttered.

"Which we're well aware of here, and well aware of how to overrule." Melissa sighed. "Really, Paul... you're sloppy."

"I'm not trained." Paul blushed.

"I figured as much." Melissa scoffed. "So they pulled you over to the dark side?"

"They saved my life during the apotheosis..." Paul shrugged. "When they told me something might be up here, I knew I had to help. And they were right, Melissa. Stuff is going on here."

"I know." Melissa smirked. "I oversee it all."

"You?" Paul raised his brows, a bit taken aback.

"Me." Melissa smirked. "You're probably thinking it's a bit weird... me, being in charge, choosing to take on the role of a secretary."

"I'm honestly just trying to wrap my head around you being in charge in general." Paul muttered.

"You want to know why?" Melissa asked. It was, of course, rhetorical. "It's actually pretty simple. The CCRP Technical department had some good cloning candidates. I wanted to be close to the action. Hand-pick who we used. And who would ever suspect anything of the shy, sweet secretary? You certainly didn't."

"So you hand-picked me?" Paul blinked in shock. He was doing a lot of that.

"You're a good size, amiable personality... smart enough, though evidently no genius." Melissa reasoned. "You, in mass, would make a great crew of workers for the Moon Project."

"Moon Project?" Paul asked.

"Oh, you've barely scratched the surface on what we're doing here, Paul." Melissa chuckled darkly. "But you won't be getting any further."

"What are you going to do to me?" Paul shrugged, a faux confidence in his tone. "There are people out there who know me. If I just go missing, they're going to get suspicious."

"Oh... Paul, you think I would tell you?" Melissa started to laugh. "You're so sweet! No. No, we won't be doing anything to you right now. But... let's just say PEIP won't be getting any reports from you in the near future."

"You brought me here just to tell me that?" Paul asked apprehensively. "To gloat?"

"Just to let you know that we knew, yes." Melissa sighed, she pulled out a cellphone, diverting most of her attention to it. "I like to deal with things myself. Handle things face-to-face."

"What are you doing?" Paul asked, a pit growing in his stomach as he watched the way she tapped at the screen.

"Wouldn't you like to know..." Melissa mumbled. "Go home, Paul. Take the rest of the night off. Go to your girlfriend's coffee shop. Bring her the flowers. Happy three months, by the way."

"I want to know what you're doing." Paul stated firmly. Melissa looked up at him before starting to laugh.

"Well isn't that just too fucking bad!" Melissa snickered. "Go. Before I call Ken back in and make you go."

"Okay..." Paul relented, getting up. He looked her dead in the eyes. "If PEIP is concerned about the work here, so am I. This isn't over."

"Yes it is, Paul." Melissa sighed. "Have a nice life."

"Life?" Paul blinked, freezing in the doorway.

"Sorry, did I say life?" Melissa chuckled. "I meant night."

"Right..." Paul bit his lip, admittedly uneasy. He tried to walk silently back to his cubicle... but with Ted Spankoffski around, there was no way he was getting out of this unscathed.

"So, did you get fired?" Ted popped up.

"Nope. Everything is fine. Davidson just needed a bit of help with his computer." Paul lied.

"Shit, he told me I'd be able to fix it next time!" Ted grumbled. "Is he giving you a bonus for it?"

"Nope. It was just a favour." Paul sighed.

"Damn... you fucking pushover." Ted snickered.

"Yeah, I get it, I let people walk all over me." Paul rolled his eyes. He picked up the bouquet of flowers from his cubicle, continuing to walk for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" Ted furrowed his brows.

"As a thank you, he's letting me off early. So I can surprise Emma." Paul smirked. "We've been dating for three months to the day."

"Yeah you have... give her butt an extra squeeze for me, horndog." Ted teased. Paul blushed.

"Fuck you!" He called back, making his way out the door.

Paul felt something off the minute he stepped outside the CCRP building. Something deep in his bones. He physically shuddered under the weight of it, but... what could he do but keep walking. Yeah... yeah, it was probably just him feeling uneasy after the conversation he'd just had, right? Right... he was okay. Everything was okay. They were probably just gonna put a block on his communications with PEIP. No biggie. He'd survive it. He'd figure out another way to spy, and to get his findings to Xander. Everything was going to be just fine. He was going to be just fine.

He rounded a corner, walking across the street to Beanies. Just as he was about to reach for the door handle he felt a hand cover his mouth and another wrap around his waist, pulling him back. He tried shouting and screaming, but it was muffled. He resisted as much as he possibly could, but this person was stronger than him. Finally, they stopped in an alley, and the hand was removed from his mouth. Paul took a few deep breaths, setting the flowers down and raising his hands in surrender. At about the same time, he felt cool metal pressed to his temple. What a time to be mugged.

"I don't have anything on me to give to you. I used all my cash at lunch. All that's in my wallet is my driver's license." Paul stated levelly. "Believe me. You've got the wrong guy."

"No, Paul... I haven't." An almost identical voice sighed behind him. Paul blinked in confusion. He made a very, very stupid move and turned in the man's arms while his grip was a bit looser. He found himself staring dead in the eyes at... himself. His eyes widened. "You have everything I've ever wanted."

"You..." Paul breathed, before becoming suddenly very aware of the metal on his head. He took a sideways glance, seeing that it was a gun. He had thought it was, just... best to be sure. "Please. Please, you don't have to do this."

"Yes I do. It's either this or the moon, and... I don't want to go to the moon." The other Paul told him, voice shaky. He moved his finger to the trigger, hesitating. "Thank you. For the memories. For giving me the life I'm about to live."

Bang! There was smoke, and then a thud. Paul- the original one- fell to the ground, limp and lifeless. The death was almost instant, just as Paul 23 had predicted that it would be. He'd let go at the right time... and he hadn't gotten any blood on himself. It really had been his day! His cell malfunctioned and opened for him. Then he found the gun just... hanging there on the rack. He was free and armed, and ready to carry out everything he had fantasized about since he was made! It was like the stars had aligned for him! And as a cherry on top... Paul had even brought flowers. If the memories planted in his head were any indication, it was his and Emma's three-month-iversary. These would be absolutely perfect!

He stepped over his lifeless counterpart, rushing to get to the flowers before the puddle of blood forming by Paul's head got to them. he picked up the flowers tenderly, grinning. He took a look one final time at the original Paul, the the flowers. He set the flowers down, picking up Paul and propping him on a dumpster. He pulled out a small chip, slipping it in the appropriate place under his tongue. The finishing touch to his plan. Now... they would think this Paul was him. That he'd managed to erase his tattoo. He tossed the Paul in a CCRP marked dumpster, sighing.

He picked the flowers back up, walking out of the alley. God, this was great! He was about to finally step into the life that was rightly his. His brothers, the other clones, would kill to be him. But of course he wasn't actually going to let them kill him. No, unlike the real Paul, he knew to always be on the lookout. He knew he would never be safe. But for now... was it ever going to be worth it. He walked up to the door at Beanies, walking in. He saw Emma at the counter, and... he couldn't hide his excitement. He beamed, grinning widely. Like a small child. He walked up to her, holding the flowers out for the love of his life.

"Hey, Emma... Happy Three Months!"

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thethistlegirlwrites · 3 years ago

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I've seen a few people do your character asks for a lot of people, and I wanted to know if I could too? Or does it get annoying to answer for so many characters? 🍵for all of them, if you don't mind, and I totally understand if you do mind

OH PLEASE ASK AWAY!!! I am happy to go wild over all my OCs! Honestly trying to focus on one WIP is like trying to pick a favorite child lol. 🍵Half Tea & Half Lemonade: what is a goal your OC is working towards? Do they have smaller goals as well as something large? What progress have they made? Are they open to revision or adamant about what they need to accomplish? Magic & Silver Robin - Robin wants answers about what happened to his father. That's the overarching goal that's driven the rest of his smaller goals. He wanted to become a vampire hunter to try and investigate his father's disappearance, and he stayed in the job even when things got bad because he didn't want to lose his chance at getting answers. Robin isn't very open to changing that goal, and he insists on staying in the field when he changes agencies, because he swore a binding fae oath to find out what happened to his father and he literally can't change that. John - John wants to protect his fellow hunters the best he can. He feels responsible for the others he works with, and he's a very protective person at heart. He's changed how he chooses to do that, switching from an active field role to a training one, but he still does his best to make sure his trainees will have the best chance of surviving the job. Kira - Kira got into the hunter world trying to track down the vampire who attacked her and her mother. Even though he's since been staked, she's stayed on the job because the hunter research facilities have given her a huge opportunity to make scientific and technical breakthroughs. Her goal now is to improve the lives of both hunters and ordinary people with her work. Cody - Cody wants to be an author. He's currently a librarian to pay the bills, but his end goal is to get one of his myriad manuscripts published. He's a storyteller and he wants to share his stories with the world. Maira - Maira wants to make sure the human and vampire communities live in peace with each other. Her goal in her whole career has been to mediate disputes and try to find ways of bringing disparate groups together and getting them to see past conflict. Partnering Robin and John is an attempt at that on a small scale. Emma - Emma wants to make sure no one else goes through what she did, being unwillingly turned into a vampire. She keeps a close eye on what happens in her club, which she promotes as a place humans and vampires can mix, so that curious kids will come to her club and not go looking in more dangerous places. She also uses her position as the owner to gather information and pass it on to John. Arion - Arion wants to enjoy his un-life. His philosophy of the world is very hedonistic and self-serving. He doesn't care who else is damaged along the way, but he wants to have the things he enjoys. He's willing to sacrifice to get those things, which can sometimes make him appear to enjoy an austere existence, but he has specific goals, and his current one is to capture and enjoy a part-fae and their unique blood. Between the Trees Brooke - Brooke wants to keep her family together. The only people in her village she can count on are her adoptive father and brother, so she doesn't want to lose either of them. She'll do whatever it takes to hold onto the only people who haven't treated her as sub-human because of her vitiligo. Aspen - Aspen wants to heal people. He's never forgotten that he would have died as a child if not for the village healer who helped him, and he wants to pass that on to someone else. He feels like he was saved for a reason. Will - Will wants to protect his kids. He's a soldier at heart, and he will defend them however he can. He's tried to do that by adopting them and keeping them away from the main life of the village, but that's no longer enough, and he's been forced to try and find another, and more permanent, solution to keep them from being dragged into the dangers of the life they all lead. Written in Ink Jesse - Jesse wants to find a way to get humans to rethink their perception of the fae, so they will roll back the incredibly dangerous fae registration laws. He thinks his best chance of that is to take a job in the human world, and the idea of being a hunter appeals to him because he was rescued in the past by hunters and would like to be able to help someone else like him.

Amy - Amy wants to do the most good she can while she's still alive. She used to want to be a highly decorated hunter, but being bitten and infected by a vampire changed her perception. Now she's firmly aware of her own mortality, and she wants to do things that matter, because she has no idea how much time she has left. Tina - Tina is a healer, and she wants to not only physically heal people, but heal the rifts that have opened between the humans and fae. She doesn't like seeing pain of any kind and she wants to do what she can to relieve that. Who Fights Monsters (Doing the ones I know for this, there's a HUGE cast of characters and not all of them are speaking to my yet) Joe - Joe wants to keep his family safe and living in harmony. As the pack leader, he sees his role as keeping the peace between family members and presenting a united front to the rest of the world. He tries to make decisions that have the best chance of keeping the family together and alive, and the loss of Abby has made him a bit more cautious in his perspective. He can't stand the thought of losing another member of his family right now, be that to an unsolvable difference in opinion, or to something happening to them from the outside. Tom - Tom wants to make sure his family is safe. He values family loyalty above all else, and he will do whatever it takes to protect his pack, no matter the cost. He trusts his family to be in the right, and he will defend them even when things look bad. Maya - Maya is a bit torn between what she feels is her duty and what she finds to be her heart. She feels that her gift is meant to be used to bring people closure and find answers for them, but with a family to raise, she has to balance that perspective with looking after her own family and being what they need. While registration laws were in place, she stayed away from the city life in order to make sure she wouldn't be taken away from her family for being unregistered, but now that that's changed, she's once again trying to find a balance in her life. Kate - Kate wants to make sure people are treated with fairness and honesty. She only takes cases she truly believes are just. She has a stronger than usual sense of the fae value of honesty, and people twisting the system to get away with things they should pay for infuriates her. She wants the right thing to be done, and that to her is the highest importance. She has a strong sense of right and wrong and her morality is more black-and-white than the rest of her family. Erin - Erin wants to be a valued part of her family. She feels like an outsider, since she struggles with her shifting magic. While her family doesn't treat her differently because of that, she still feels as if she's somehow lacking some important feature of what it is to be a Phelan, and she wants to find a way to be herself and still be a good member of the family.

#asks #magic & silver #between the trees #written in ink #who fights monsters

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arlingtonpark · 5 years ago

Text

SNK 126 Review

TFW you know you’re going to die.

Just…where to even start.

God damn this chapter.

Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Everything about this chapter was rushed. I don’t know what Isayama’s final destination is, but he sure pulled out all the stops to get there as fast as possible. Every possible chance Isayama could cut a corner, he took it. In every possible way.

People are speculating that we’ll get flashbacks that’ll sooth the sting of this chapter. I doubt it.

Attack on Titan has been pretty flashback heavy this past arc, but that was an artistic decision that served the story.

There was a three year time skip and that time needed to be filled out. We jumped ahead three years and suddenly Eren is AWOL and working with Zeke.

Showing events unfolding on Paradis interspersed with flashbacks to key moments during the time skip was a storytelling device.

Firstly, it allowed Isayama to control how much we knew about our character’s motivations.

Stuff happened in those three years, and those events have shaped the character’s actions in the present. Through strategically placed flashbacks, Isayama was able to slowly reveal new, relevant information about everyone’s motivations.

Secondly, flashbacks also allowed Isayama to build suspense. Again, flashbacks are strategically placed to reveal only what’s relevant.

When it seemed Eren was working with Zeke, we only saw stuff that made it seem like he was working with Zeke. Now that we know Eren was always working against Zeke, we’re seeing stuff that more directly deals with his true motivations.

And finally, having flashbacks helped keep things interesting. There’s a lot of political maneuvering during the post-Marley Arc chapters, and while well told, it could easily have been boring. Cutting between past and present was a way to break up these sequences of people mostly just talking with each other with something most would find interesting.

Having flashbacks actively improved the story.

Now think about chapter 126. What purpose would flashbacks serve here?

The answer is none. No artistic purpose, anyway. There probably will be flashbacks, but that’d be damage control, not artistry.

My hunch is that the gaps in the story are more due to rushed pacing, or even worse, Isayama just not caring. I think this becomes clear when you look at the totality of…whatever this chapter is.

True, we don’t see when Hange and co. made contact with Armin and co. and when they hooked up with Jean and Mikasa.

And it’s true we also didn’t see important beats like why Annie decided to join up, or why Magath and Pieck joined, too.

But we also didn’t see a lot of smaller stuff that we, nevertheless, *should* have seen.

Falco said he heard Connie mention Ragako Village while they were camped out. That didn’t happen on screen, but Connie was shown talking out loud, briefly. We are apparently supposed to take it as a given he mentioned Ragako, too. At some point.

When Armin and Gabi confront Connie in Ragako, they ride in on horseback and stop when Connie threatens Falco. But towards the end of the scene, we see that Armin and Gabi are standing on the ground. At some prior point, they dismounted their horses off screen.

Falco loved his brother. Then Colt died and Falco had a role in that. He died in Falco’s transformation. Hugging him. Crying for him. Falco never knew before now. His brother was dead and he never even realized. Now he learns it.

Off. Fucking. Screen.

He’s crying with Gabi and at first it seemed he was just overwhelmed by what happened.

Then I saw his speech bubble.

Falco [sobbing]: Colt.

Are you fucking kidding me.

Things reach peak IDGAF during Onyankopon’s execution scene. In one panel, Jean is standing to Onyankopon’s back right. Next panel, he’s teleported to the back left. Then Jean points his gun at Onyankopon, and he’s on the back right again! When Jean pulls the trigger, he’s back to being on the left.

I doubt there’ll be flashbacks to any of this shit. These moments were obviously skipped because Isayama dropped the ball.

Maybe the homebuilder will go back and add that much needed support beam, but considering they seemingly forgot to fireproof the chimney, they probably aren’t.

I call it the Principle of Brown M&Ms. Whenever Van Halen played a concert, they stipulated in their contract that their dressing room be furnished with a bowl of m&ms, no brown ones.

If there really was a bowl with no brown m&ms, they could be sure that venue management was diligent and on their game. If they cared to fulfill a small detail like that, they could be trusted to care about crew safety, etc.

Van Halen should trash Isayama’s house I will crowd fund the money.

I have little trust in Isayama to do this right. Looking at the totality of the chapter, it’s clear these are mistakes rather than decisions.

The through line of this chapter is suicide.

They’re all going to die. All of them. And they know it.

Just look at their faces in the final shot. Expressions range from stone-faced (Armin) to shitting the bed (Gabi). They all know this means death.

No one is doing this because they think they can win, except maybe Annie.

Connie’s logic was that he wanted to be a soldier his mom would be proud of. Fighting Eren is where this logic takes him. No plan for actually winning is brought up, he just decides fighting the good fight is what makes a mom proud.

Hange is doing this for the sake of not running away. They consider doing what Shadis rejected: living the rest of their days shitting on a mountain. The reason they’re not currently doing that is just what Levi said: they don’t stop.

Magath admitted last chapter that they couldn’t win, but that informing the world of the apocalypse was better than waiting to die. Fighting Eren against all hope isn’t far from that, so that’s probably their primary motivation as well.

I’m willing to bet Armin is similarly motivated. There’s a very revealing parallel between Armin and Connie in this chapter, though an underdeveloped one.

Connie wants to be a soldier his mom could be proud of. But, of course, Erwin is Armin’s idea of a soldier to be proud of. Erwin was charismatic, smart, and kept calm under fire.

Connie and Armin strive for essentially the same ideal. Being a good soldier. That means slightly different things to each of them, but broadly, it’s the same.

Mind you, Armin’s idea of Erwin is significantly more sanitized than the real Erwin was, but that’s not the point. For all his flaws, Erwin genuinely was someone to look up to. He showed true leadership, intelligence, and empathy. He was a good person all around.

Armin didn’t even want to think about fighting Eren; he had given up hope on that. Would Erwin have done that?

My guess is that Armin thinks taking down Eren is how he can truly become like Erwin Smith. Erwin never lost sight of the main objective, even if it meant long odds. Save humanity. That meant getting to that basement, so they went to that basement.

Right now, saving humanity means stopping Eren.

Chances are slim, too, but that never stopped Erwin, either. Armin knows that. Once a goal was set on, Erwin never wavered. He pushed towards it.

So you’ve got humanity’s fate on the line and an impossible obstacle to fight if victory is to achieved. Sounds like a classic survey corps mission. No wonder Armin is doing this.

Jean is doing this because of his conscious. Floch tempted him with a chance to peace out. Instead, he chose to peace out and kill Eren.

He could have lived a quiet life. Not just a life he wanted before, but arguably the life he deserves after all the misery he’s endured. He said no.

He let Marco infect his brain and now he can’t not be good.

This is what happens when you huff ashes.

Levi is doing this because he made a promise to Erwin and he stands by that. Killing Zeke was the last order Erwin gave him. Levi promised he’d carry it out. If he fails, he fails Erwin. I don’t think Levi’s ever contemplated failing, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t take that shame to his grave.

Gabi’s already resolved to fight Eren, so she’s just sticking to what she’s already planned.

No idea why Annie is doing this, so don’t ask. >.>

They’re doing this because they refuse to roll over. They can’t respect themselves if they do. Not Hange, not Connie, not Jean.

They can’t take pride in themselves otherwise.

So they’ll march to their deaths, and they don’t care if there’s no hope. They’re throwing their lives away, but they know it’s the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, most of this, admittedly pretty cool, character work happens off screen.

God damn this chapter.

So. Much. Of this chapter was mishandled.

Connie’s subplot resolution was the most blatant example.

I already mentioned Falco hearing stuff from Connie off screen. And Armin and Gabi dismounting their horses…at some point. The BS continues afterwards.

Armin pleads for Falco’s life, but Connie claims Armin is telling him to give up on his mom, and Armin is totally shut down by this.

LOL.

This is the exact same objection Connie raised the last time they spoke. What stopping Connie would mean for his mom was specifically on Armin’s mind when he set out with Gabi.

Like, Armin, bruh, you really had nothing to say to that?

He really, really didn’t think to come up with a response. Armin. The guy who tends to overthink things.

Fine, whatever. So Connie’s objection causes Armin to spiral into self-loathing despair.

The stakes are dizzyingly high.

A child taken hostage.

A deranged man threatens to kill him.

The boy’s girlfriend is there. She’s smart, but still just a kid. And she doesn’t know this man. She doesn’t know how to talk to him, she doesn’t understand his motives, she’s not very emotionally mature herself.

But she’s desperate. Desperate.

Armin is the only one who’s kept his head. It has to be him.

He needs to calm the madman down, convince him killing the kid isn’t the right way, and maybe assure him an alternative solution exists.

Erwin probably could’ve done it. He was charismatic, smart, and calm under fire.

Armin…was not that here. It was genuinely stupid of him to not have come prepared. Like, at even a basic level.

He failed.

So fuck it, at least if the mommy titan ate him, Falco will live, the mom will be back, and Gabi can have her boyfriend.

So Armin throws himself at the titan, and it was only happenstance that everything worked out.

That’s the logic of this scene, but it’s all muddled. The stupidity Armin displayed dampened the drama.

The speed with which he falls into despair was unnatural. Armin’s badly insecure about living up to Erwin’s image, but it’s never been shown to be this bad.

There’s no believable progression to Armin’s feelings. He tried to be a hero, he face-planted, now he wants to die. They sort of skipped a couple of beats here.

Then Connie says maybe the stupidest thing he’s ever said in the manga: that inheriting the Colossal Titan would only have made his mom suffer.

???

So giving her the Colossal Titan would be bad, but not the Jaw?

I just assumed Connie thought turning his mom into a titan was worth it in the end. Did he just now realize how bad that would have been?

The series can’t just not address this. Connie named killing Falco and Armin as the bad things he did. Is he really not going to grapple with almost turning his mom into a titan, which he only implicitly admits was a bad thing?

Next scene is Louise and Mikasa.

Louise is a very devoted person. She cares deeply for Mikasa because Mikasa saved her life, and inspired her to devote her heart. She enlisted in the military, risked her life for her country, and now she’s on her deathbed, mortally wounded in battle. Not many people would speak ill of her like I would.

…

Is there anyone in this manga as pathetic as Louise?

Really, is there anyone?

Louise was saved from a titan by Mikasa. This inspired her to fight for her country.

Ok, that’s good.

She admires Mikasa and dreams of fighting by her side.

Yeah, that’s fine. We all wish we could hang with our heroes.

Then she took the scarf Mikasa threw away for herself. Because she thought it’d bring her closer to her.

Like how a stalker rifles through their victim’s trash for keepsakes.

That’s. pathetic.

It is pathetic how much Louise pines for Mikasa.

Compare Louise x Mikasa to Mikasa x Eren all you like, it’s not the same thing.

Mikasa and Eren were family. Their love is at minimum familial. Mikasa pines for Eren, which she very annoyingly never addressed, but there’s a sense to it.

When Mikasa lost her family, she was a helpless kid who had nothing. The Jeagers, and especially Eren, helped her rebuild her life. They took her into their home and accepted her as a family member.

The scarf matters, but only because it represents the humanity Mikasa was shown when she needed it most. She is endlessly grateful for that.

So of course she’d break the law for Eren, many family members would. Her willingness to do anything to save Eren bordered on derangement, but she’s gotten better at that. And she’s reevaluating her image of Eren in light of recent…happenings, which is good.

Louise is just a goddamn fangirl.

She doesn’t know Mikasa. She doesn’t pal around with her. She just stalks her like a creep.

Maybe they could have been friends. If Louise had just approached her, explained her story, and tried to befriend her, they could’ve become good friends. Certainly, Mikasa would have been flattered to see she inspired someone so much.

But that’s not what happened. Louise chose to be a stalker instead of a friend. I don’t think she was ever really interested in Mikasa as a person, though.

This is the likely last time she and Mikasa will interact, and Mikasa was so cold to her. Louise didn’t care. She got to fight alongside her hero for a time and that was enough. That’s so childish.

She looked up to Mikasa, but never seemed to want to befriend her. She just wanted to fight alongside her. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people like Louise.

If you respect someone so much, why wouldn’t you want to get to know them?

She said she’d die with no regrets because of this.

No regrets over never befriending her hero. No regrets over Floch, who lead her movement, putting people against the wall. No self-reflection. Nothing.

What a sad life to have lived.

She never questioned herself or what she felt. Just stunningly unself-aware.

…Maybe Daz would be more pathetic, but he’s more of a caricature of a pitiable person, so he doesn’t count.

Louise was a perfect fit for the Yeagerists. Louise, Floch, Eren. These people think with their hearts instead of their brains. They act on their feelings with no thought. It’s animalistic.

Eren loves his country, so now he’s off killing everyone else. Floch feels righteous indignation, so now he’s fucking over everyone who opposes him. Louise feels admiration for Mikasa, so now she’s dead.

Floch is holding his Trump rally, and declaring ultimate victory. i swear, Floch talks like a politician giving a stump speech. It’s the same prepared remarks with the same talking points over and over and over again.

“We are persecuted. All hail Eren the Liberator. He will set us free. Make me King of Ape Mountain.”

You can just tell Floch isn’t a very creative person. He’s repetitive as hell, a real one-man act.

Then one of the dumbest moments in the chapter happens.

Mikasa is watching Floch’s speech for some reason. Then Some Guy approaches her, and casually asks if she wants to help lead Paradis.

Who is this guy?

Why is he asking her this?

Why is this guy pointing out Jean for no reason?

Clearly the point is to establish Mikasa’s stance on helping the Jeagerists, and to hint at Jean’s coming betrayal, but, jeeeeeez, was this badly telegraphed.

Isayama’s never been all that subtle, but this is just bad. It reads like the first draft of a story than a finished product.

Next dumb scene.

Connie, Armin, and the kids are eating their way to Reiner, and they just bump into Annie, and even though she admits she’s committed awful crimes, Connie just starts paling around with her.

Huh?

His friends betraying him and killing other friends was, like, a thing with Connie. He had major beef with Eren for this exact reason. He specifically named Annie as an example of this.

Eren, Reiner, Bertolt, Annie. He trusted these people; they betrayed that trust and he was tired of it. Good people were killed by that betrayal. Including Sasha, whom he cared for more than anyone.

Now it’s all good?

This is terrible character writing. Connie’s character was totally shat on by this chapter.

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Hitch. That line about not finishing the pie alone is obvious set up for her searching Annie out and helping take down Eren.

Finishing off a pie is a group effort; the more the better. Also finishing off the zombie savior thing Eren’s become. That, too.

I’ve already talked about Jean, but wow, he’s such a good kid now.

The plan was for the Cart Titan to grab Yelena, Onyankopon, and Jean, and get out. They couldn’t have accounted for everything, though, like Floch happening to be in danger of being crushed as the Cart did her thing.

Floch and Jean do not get along. They’re enemies, politically and personally.

Jean still pushed him out of the way.

That was nice, but it was a critical blunder.

If Jean had held Floch close instead, they both would have been taken. Floch could have been their prisoner along with Yelena.

But, nope, Floch will continue to solidify his power and even if everyone survives, they won’t be able to oppose him.

The future looks super bleak no matter what happens. Eren will destroy the world and Floch will rule the Earth, or Eren will be stopped and the world will destroy Paradis in retaliation.

There is no way this is some gambit by Eren to unite the world. That makes no sense.

The world hates Eldians because they fear the Wall Titans will crush them.

The exact thing Eren’s doing now.

Eren will unite the world, but only in hatred of Eldians. If Eren is stopped, the world will be more committed to eliminating Paradis than ever before.

…Did the dialogue seem worse this time around?

“Titan doctor Hange.”

“We’ll listen before we shoot.”

“You just told me not to say a word, so I’ll show you with my actions.”

“Those burned bones would never forgive me.”

Who wrote that?

This chapter in general suffers from what you could call Season 3-itis. The anime adaptation of the Uprising Arc, in season 3, had a similar problem with rushing important moments. In season 3, part 1 important stuff happens and the characters engage with these events like real people. They react to what’s happening.

In the anime, stuff just happens. There are plot beats to get through, so the characters perform their beats and then it’s off to the next beat. The characters don’t react to what’s happening, they perform the story beat given to their character. It’s a robotic form of storytelling with no humanity behind it.

There is no gravitas.

So it is here. The fast pace of this chapter is unnatural. It breaks immersion and makes the story seem unrealistic.

This chapter was so inexplicable. Isayama just…stopped caring. Some other explanation would be nice, but in a vacuum, this is the likeliest one. He just stopped caring.

Never forget, this is Attack on Titan. A story about everything good in the world getting ruined. Up to and including the quality of the story itself.

So will they succeed?

Eren is apparently doing this to protect them, so if they just stood in a line in front of him, and dared him to kill them…

It might give him pause.

……They’re dead.

#shingeki no kyogin #attack on titan #snk 126 #snk chapter 126 #spoilers

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 6 years ago

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Humans are... Disgusting “Disease”

Hope you all enjoy please feel free to message with ideas and prompts, I don’t want to run out of material for you to enjoy.

Warning: this one is also a bit gross.

Report ID 2241569

Author Krill

Disease

Can we talk for a moment about just how disgusting humans are? And I don’t mean psychologically this time….. I mean like physically. And physically disgusting in a terrifying sort of way. By now we know that humans are excessive in every way possible, and that includes their diseases; the way I see it, there are two types of disease: the kind that start on the inside based on an internal malfunction, or the stuff that comes in from the outside and causes an internal malfunction. Since I will mainly be focusing on these outside diseases, we will be looking at mainly viruses and bacteria.

1. The common cold, this is the human trademark super virus. It is, in fact, so common, that most humans ignore it as a part of life. Most of the time, it won’t even stop them from going to work. ‘But Krill’ you may ask ‘what is so wrong about that? It doesn’t seem so bad’ well I’ll tell you why.

a. Symptoms include dribbling from every orifice like some kind of slimy ooze creature from your worst nightmares.

b. Coughing, a symptom caused by throat irritation that leads to the spread of the virus by spewing it into the air like a diseased aerosol canister.

c. And if that wasn’t enough, sneezing irritates the nasal cavity turning the human body into a disease cannon shooting nasty into the air at around 80-200 mph.

d. The most terrifying part about this? The humans consider it a normal occurrence, and in many places, they will walk into public like that to spread their germs to everyone, and no one cares. Accept maybe in Asian countries, where the humans will wear masks to protect others, or themselves from getting sick, but of course, being lucky me, we are in a western country where no one gives one shit about anyone else catching their nasty.

2. Oh, can we also talk about the human’s yearly epidemic? Yes you heard me correctly, the humans have a yearly epidemic. In fact, it is so regular and so predictable, that the humans have dubbed this viral epidemic “flu season”. Because like fall, winter, and summer the humans have a time of year where they can just go right ahead and die. Who the F*** has a SEASON for epidemics!

a. Symptoms include all previously mentioned ‘common cold” but like times 10

b. Body aches, because nothing says F*** you like a disease that makes your entire body hurt for no damn reason.

c. This pain notably includes the head.

d. And like all infections, the human body has one sure fire way to get rid of it. How you ask? Well the human body makes the executive decision to make itself the most inhospitable enviornment possible. How? By turning up the natural body temperature of the human to BURN the virus away

i. This would be fine and all if it weren’t for one little problem. The human natural body temperature is 98.6, but starting at about 105 degrees the human body stars burning its own brain and may potentially cause irreversible damage

e. Other symptoms include gastrointestinal problems (see section 3)

f. DEATH very probably death, in fact, some years the death toll rises to around 80,000.

g. And does this stop the humans from going about their daily business? NO, NO IT DOES NOT!

3. I know my last two inclusions on this list have been mostly respiratory in nature, but lucky for you, I have a fun little tidbit about gastrointestinal diseases. What is it called? You guessed it. The stomach flu or viral gastroenteritis, or an infection of the GI tract. I would honestly rather die of the respiratory flu that have to deal with this mess.

a. Can cause a low-grade fever. Doesn’t seem so bad you say, well just wait…. Just wait.

b. Headaches.

c. Stomach pain, yes, the humans can feel pain in their viscera. And that fact in itself is the most horrifying thing I think I have ever heard. It turns out human digestion already hurts to begin with, and they just don’t notice, but try getting a human to digest when their insides are INFECTED. Can be so bad, it causes the human to curl up on the ground in agony.

d. Nausea, or the extreme desire to eject all bodily contents out of the mouth.

e. Can humans do that? You ask…… yes…. Yes they can. Oh…. I…. it’s making me sick just thinking about it. So you know how humans have a digestive cavity filled with acid at about a Ph. level of 1-3….. well if they feel sick enough, their body triggers a reaction that causes all contents of the stomach, acid included, to….. shoot back up the esophagus and out the mouth known as throwing up, vomiting, hurling, tossing ones cookies etc.

i. This reaction can have enough pressure to send the stomach contents shooting out of the nose as well as the mouth. And yes, humans tell me that it does burn, its acid after all.

ii. This reaction can actually cause other, completely healthy, humans to preform the exact same action upon sight, sound or smell.

iii. Some humans have no ability to tell when it is coming, while other humans seem to have a magical 6th sense warning them of this approaching issue.

f. If any measure of stomach contents manages to last through the stomach, or was, perhaps, already in the lower directional tract by the time the infection is in full swing, digestion goes haywire, and the only option the body has is to eject internal contents as fast as it can….. out the rectum.

i. …

ii. …

iii. … I hate this species sometimes

g. Both sections 3e and 3f can and will be performed at exactly the same time, and the human has absolutely no ability to control it. So they might just…. Explode, with disease, everywhere. On the floors, on the walls….. everywhere

h. Humans consider this to be another common occurrence, like the common cold.

4. And these are just the COMMON human diseases, I haven’t even gotten into the plagues or most specifically the Black Death.

a. A 14th century human bacterial disease that killed an estimated 50 million people in Asia, Africa, and Europe the latter of which lost up to 60% of its population.

b. Symptoms first appear flulike with the development of swollen lymph nodes and eventually develop into necrosis of the extremities, seizures, and the continuous vomiting of blood.

5. Oh look where we are now BACK TO THE F***ing FLU and the 1981 influenza outbreak of the H1N1 strain, a massive pandemic that killed up to 100 million people roughly 5% of the world’s population, and GUESS WHAT some human scientists think it wasn’t ANY DIFFERENT from the current flu they have today.

a. Granted the flu they have today mutates every year, so this is generally speaking.

6. Ebola….. F***ing Ebola

a. Causes you to bleed to death internally.

b. Isn’t hemorrhagic fever so fun! J L

7. There are generally too many human diseases for me to discuss right here, but I need you to know that there are hundreds if not thousands more that can cause brain damage, disfigurement, blindness, and cause humans not to be able to move…..

a. I learn that most of these horrible diseases actually come from the fact that humans domesticated other species on their planet. Some of the more deadly iteration of these diseases aren’t even meant for the humans, but an interaction with animals passes diseases not meant for humans, onto humans.

8. The good thing is, humans are very good at making vaccines against these diseases. Some of these were even eradicated in the richer countries…..

a. But humans sometimes don’t understand a good thing

b. SOME humans REFUSE to take A LIFE SAVING MEDICATION BECAUSE THEY THINK THE VACCINE WILL KILL OR DISFIGURE THEM! F***ING MORONS! Why the F*** do we talk to these people. SOME humans are unable to take these lifesaving medications cause of other underlying conditions and REQUIRE heard immunity to be safe BUT NO! IGNORAMUSES LIKE THESE HURT MY SOUL!

c. Vaccinate yourselves, as an alien whose planet is about a few billion years older than earth, and of a species who has interactions with other intergalactic races, I know for a fact that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

9. Humans are insane, their diseases are insane, everything about earth is designed to kill you, even the stuff that you cannot see.

10. Earth is a death planet

Article 16 of The Pan-galactic Peace Agreement.

By order of the Galactic Assembly, any species either entering or having already entered into alliance with the Galactic Assembly are required, by law, that anyone leaving their home-world must provide full proof and documentation of a complete vaccination panel including all required off-world vaccinations if they are to interact, visit, or parlay with any out-species factions. Refusal to do so will bar a subject from exiting their own system.

If this law is to be broken, home world-rights are immediately foregone, and punishment will be quickly and thoroughly executed by the Pan-Galactic Penal System. These punishments include and are not limited to, fines, prison sentence, and extradition.

The Galactic Assembly has and enforces this law specifically for the safety of the species, with the knowledge that cross-species disease has the potential to cause planet-wide pandemic and annihilation. It is our desire to enforce this law most strictly, and with full purpose to protect the species under our care.

#humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #earth is space australia

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the-archlich · 5 years ago

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Clone Wars: The Geonosis Arc

This is a big arc. 4 episodes, which makes it more or less equivalent to that “movie”. 5 if you include the Creepy Clovis episode, but the less we say about that the better.

It’s a good one. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot with this show, which is a nice change of pace. TBH I love the way things sound on Geonosis. Their guns make a satisfying noise, their language is fun to hear, and their leader is named Poggle. It is pleasing to my ears.

The first episode is pretty much all fighting, with Obi-wan, Anakin, and Ki-Adi-Mundi trying to secure a landing zone on Geonosis and destroy a major factory. Just a good beat down for a full 20 minutes. An exciting start.

Next episode has almost as much action but more nuance. Jedi master Luminara and her padawan Barriss team up with Anakin and Ahsoka to destroy another thing. They provide a very good contrast; they’re focused, practices, and by the book while Anakin and Ahsoka just kind of figure it out as they go. The episode does a pretty good job of illustrating strengths and weaknesses of both styles, as well as the contrast between Anakin/Ahsoka and more traditional Jedi,

Also I don’t know if it’s just me but Barriss really reads like she’s crushing hard on Ahsoka. Anyone else get that vibe?

The next episode features the adults pursuing Poggle to an oldass temple, where they encounter the Geonosian queen; who has worms that will control your brain. This results in everyone fighting zombie Geonosians, which was...a bit of a weird turn. I’m fine with brain worms reanimating corpses but it seems like it shouldn’t be especially hard to kill them.

Anyway, this episode shows us some more good Contrast, this time between Obi and Anakin. While Anakin is very hot-headed and always trying to rush in, Obi is much more careful and methodical. He’s glib but is still usually a couple steps ahead of most others. Really makes him look good.

The final episode features Ahsoka and Barris making a supply run, though that gets fucked up when brain worms from Geonosis start infecting the crew.

There’s an important conversation Ahsoka and Barris have about life after the war. It isn’t long but it’s a good one. They’re both learning how to be Jedi in a time of war, when Jedi fight battles and lead armies. They’re learning a very specific style of peacekeeping - what do they do with those skills without a war? They know how to be Jedi when there’s battles to be won, but what does being a Jedi even mean in a time of peace? Ahsoka sure a shell has no idea, but she does comment that even without a war, she thinks Anakin will have someone to fight. (And later in that episode we see him force choke Poggle for information about the brain worms.) Seeing these bits of darkness in Anakin is pretty important, since we know where he ends up. The more breadcrumbs we plant the better.

There wasn’t much nuance to this arc but it was an enjoyable one. Lots of action and explosions, with some pretty great character moments. Obi comes out looking smarter than most people and tough as hell, so it’s a win for him. Seeing Ahsoka’s uncertainty about her future, and these bits of darkness in Anakin, are also really good for them as characters.

#clone fights

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cleverbroadwayurl · 5 years ago

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The Dark I Know Well (Jeremy Heere x Reader Pt 23)

Song: The Dark I Know Well from Spring Awakening

Word Count: 2406

Need to Catch Up? Sneak a peek at my masterlist!

A/N: I’m so sorry about taking so long, I just wanted to make something that I was a little bit proud of posting! I also work 40 hours a week so yikes I’m busy a lot!!

Taglist: @retrogarden @be-more-heidi-hansen @scarsonthecuffsofyourjeans @bluhimaweirdo @catatonic-kuragin @stargirl-murphy @macbookpro-hard-drive @heytheredee-lilah

Trigger Warnings: Implied assault, mentions of assault, mentions of a shitty boyfriend, language, mentions of fear of intimacy, mentions of an abusive ex-boyfriend, mentions of the Halloween party, mentions of previous fic parts, IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW

You had been wronged before, you’d been confused, cheated out of a life that was set for you that was supposed to be happy. Your ex-boyfriend had done wrong. Jeremy wanted to do it right.

By date three, Jeremy swore that he was walking on air.

Between gaming together and eating takeout, something even more magical had sprung up--more than he ever could’ve imagined in his usual daydreams that he’d had a year ago. It was suddenly like everything felt like it clicked into place, the last puzzle piece just fitting into a beautiful photo that he couldn’t wait to show the world--with your permission, of course.

While he thought the consent thing would be a challenge, it really wasn’t. It started as something conscious, something that felt like it took a lot of work. But it ended up feeling normal, even just by the end of date two.

And you were right: you weren’t normal. You were by far one of the sweetest people Jeremy had ever met, someone who took the time to ask him how his day was but was sure to leave space so he could spend some time relaxing on his own. You felt years wiser but somehow stuck in your same body. Jeremy could guess why, but he always left that specific part out of the conversation. It was easier to leave the past behind and focus on the present, or even the future. He didn’t really mean like future future, but things that were happening within the next week or month or so. He thought about the nice things he could do for you, but still keeping your boundaries intact, along with ideas for dates, and sometimes even thought about how he even ended up where he was, and just how lucky this whole thing felt.

You had been much more relaxed by date two, which in turn made Jeremy relax. He could feel it as his muscles stopped tensing while you giggled at his character once again falling off the side of the map during a Super Smash Bros. game. But it didn’t matter. If he could hear that laughter that felt like watching a flame flicker atop a scented candle, losing wasn’t so bad. In fact, he could go as far to say that he preferred to lose. He claimed a reward almost either way.

So when Jeremy showed up for date three and you looked a bit...well...not yourself, he became concerned. It was almost like a switch had gone off, like one day you were fine, but a nervous wreck the next. That can’t be healthy. It didn’t make sense in his brain, unless he’d done something bad like crossed a boundary he didn’t mean to. Although his intentions were good, he’d realized that in the long run, your perception was much more important than his intention. Of course, with a flick of your wrist, and a shaky entrance, Jeremy could already feel himself going through each text, every conversation, every consonant, every vowel, with each passing millisecond, all without looking at his phone. He could feel his face pale and his fists clench, eyes glazing over as he mentally went through each memory of every interaction. If something was amiss and it was his fault, Jeremy wanted to be held accountable--and more importantly, wanted to apologize for it.

You gave a nervous smile to him and casually drifted away. Usually, he’d ask to touch you, but this wasn’t the right time--he doubted it would be the right time until the end of the night. He still needed to apologize, though, even if he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. But before he could open his mouth, you glided across the first story of his house, almost begging him to go down into his basement. A fake smile crossed your lips as your eyebrows knitted. Something was wrong, but he just couldn’t tell what.

So he followed you. That was the best that he could do in the moment.

As he followed you down the stairs, Jeremy became uneasy in his skin. It settled there, infecting him thoroughly as you stepped carefully in the room, sitting in a beanbag that was set in front of the TV. You sat for a solid 10 seconds before shivering in your seat, eyes almost longing to move to the other one for some particular reason. It felt weird, like when someone leaves a light on during a sunny day, weird like the storm in Life is Strange, weird like first hearing about the SQUIP. He tried to let it go, but couldn’t. There was something about you that felt that kind of different that he usually saw in classes months before he met you--like personally--and probably over a year since you started dating officially.

It lingered in the air around him, tension pulling apart everything you two had worked for at the seams. So he inhaled and took one step at a time. “Did you want to sit in the other beanbag?”

“I’m good.”

Your face refocused on the wall, eyes still, unmoving, as if something cold crawled in them and had died. The typical warmth was absent, and Jeremy still wondered if it was something he did wrong. His heart pounded with anxiety as the words almost swirled out of his mouth. “Did I--?”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Your words cut him off, cutting through the shivering silence. He nodded, palms balling, the impulse to wipe them clean causing his fingers to flinch and flip around in the air. Fuck, he definitely did soemthing wrong. “I know this is like… the third date and I just...want to clarify something with you.”

“Uhh sure!” Too jittery, too excited, calm down you wuss, you’re just going to say something that needs to be said, and it probably isn’t that bad. But a part of him started to say goodbye to you, started to let you go. This felt nonnegotiable. This felt like a weight had dropped into the room, tension setting the gravity lower and lower. “Whatever you think we need to talk about, we can.”

“I know what usually happens on a third date and I just...wanted to say that I’m not really like comfortable with doing that right now”

Jeremy felt his face contort into confusion. If you weren’t comfortable with something, he was totally okay with that. He would do everything in his power to make sure he wouldn’t cross that boundary into discomfort, especially with you, who had been faced with that so many times before. So he sat, and listened for what exactly you were referring to. While he wasn’t sure what the fuck this “third date” nonsense was, he made a silent promise not to do whatever you brought up. He nodded, almost prompting you to continue, but he could still feel that uneasy frown on his face.

“Do you know what I’m talking about? Or should I like… clarify more? I know this isn’t like a known thing, but I don’t know, I just want to like...talk about it.”

“I have to be honest, I don’t really know--”

“Oh.” You paused, eyes meeting the floor, hands beginning to fidget with the fraying of the bean bag. You were still uneasy, visibly uncomfortable. You shook a little, and it almost seemed like you were close to tears. But instead of crying, you gave a chuckle as your fingers combed through the loose threads. “It’s kind of a classic trope on like the third date to like uhh…” Your face became painted with red, the crimson pigment something Jeremy hadn’t seen on you, probably ever. Were you...embarrassed? “like have sex, I guess.”

“Oh.”

The world is said aloud, and Jeremy immediately shames himself for it. It wasn’t supposed to be audible, that was the biggest mistake he’d made, and now he was sure you’d kick him to the curb. Your eyes finally met his, a sharp stare invading his personal space as he sputtered out a more acceptable response. “Well to say I haven’t thought about it would be uhh a lie,”--fuck, that’s not more acceptable, that’s the shittiest thing to say-- “but like I wasn’t going to even bring it up unless you wanted to, oh my god I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything and I mean we haven’t even uhh kissed? And I feel like that maybe should come first because I think we both have boundaries?”

“Yeah.” you nod, almost surveying him as the seconds tick past. Silence falls onto the room, and Jeremy can finally get a millisecond of relaxation, or rather, a peaceful moment in the echoing silence. “I uhh feel the same.”

He nods once again, knowing that while it’s probably good to talk about sex, he probably--defintely. Definitely should not have brought it up. “I’m sorry if I like...crossed a line or something, I really didn’t mean to. I just think like...we should probably do other stuff first and get comfortable with one another?” “Yeah me too.”

“It just feels wrong to push it, you know?” You nod again, and Jeremy feels another millimeter of relaxation hit him, his shoulders dropping, hands returning neutral. “And the third date, really? That seems fast. I mean, who even does that, or even pushes it, especially at like, our age and our point in the relationship?”

“You’d be surprised, Jeremy,” you said, suddenly. Your voice felt thicker, like it was flowing through molasses instead of the clean air coming in through the vents. Your eyes kept themselves trained on the ground, but your hand stopped moving.

“What do you mean?” Jeremy asked, still not knowing the answer, not knowing what the heck is causing this. He just said he would not cross a boundary on your third date, or really, try to not do that at all, unless it was something that had been discussed and that you’d consented to, every step of the way. But it was weird you weren’t changing, not getting more relieved at his words that he genuinely meant. This felt like some kind of trauma, that you were telling him about an event that obviously still haunted you. His mind raced back in time to see if he could figure out what could’ve happened, and more importantly, with who, until he reached a familiar subject. “Oh.”

“He didn’t uhh...He didn’t...like...get too far, but--”

“It was far enough to make you uncomfortable and worry about it in the future.”

“Yeah.”

Jeremy’s fists ball up like they haven’t in a long time, and he can feel his blood starting to boil. Sure, the details were vague, but he wasn’t about to push you to tell that story. He would never push you for more information on this subject. He could feel himself see red up until the point of numbness, like everything was so intensely felt all at once. It was like he was exploring the cave in Firewatch again. And the worst part of it was that he didn’t know what to do. He had nothing. He didn’t even know details, and he didn’t want to know them unless you were open to sharing. It was clear that this was personal--of course it was--it’s private, it’s trauma. “And that was on the--”

“Third date?” You’re near tears at this point, fingers stopped fidgeting as he can see your eyelashes flash quickly, trying to suppress tears. “Yep.” You sniffle before he can continue. Coolness now flows through his veins, like your crying was the extinguisher.

“God, I'm so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I mean...at least I’ve stopped like telling myself it was my fault for the most part.”

“It’s not.”

“I know.” You nod, taking another breath. “Even if it’s just something I say now and believe later, I know. You kinda told me that a while ago, too.”

“Because it's not your fault, even if you have history and--”

You crack a watery smile, mouth still wavering. “Yeah. You’re right, Jeremy.” You pause for a second, almost to compose yourself. It’s short, almost too short, as your voice steadies. You continue, and Jeremy can’t help but listen as his eyes look at the floor, taking everything in. “It’s weird. I remember exactly what I was wearing, the time it was at, the date, everything. But it didn’t come rushing back until after the relationship was over and I had to take a proconsent class for my first year at college.” You take another second. He can hear you getting upset again, and he would offer his hand, but that was too much, even for him, so Jeremy instead gives you a look, sparing mercy on you as his eyes trace your figure that still doesn’t have the heart to look at him full on. “I just feel so stupid that I didn’t just leave him right then and there. Why did I stay another two hours, why did I blame myself, why the fuck did I let him get away with violating me and blaming myself? Because he apologized?” You’re full on crying now, your eyes meeting his as tears stream from them. Your face turns bright red, eyes bloodshot, as anger flows through you and stress with pain make their way back into the room. “I still own those clothes because I hope one day I’ll feel different about them, but it’s been so long that I’ve just been staring at them, filled with bad memories, it’s like I can never forget.” You finally wipe your tears and give yourself another few seconds to compose. By the time you’re finished with a few sniffles here and there, your sleeves are wet from tears, and Jeremy feels like touching you would be wrong in this moment. It feels like everything just moved so fast, and you need your space--the space you didn’t get--right now. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry my rant got out of hand, I didn’t mean to just word vomit like that.”

“No, I uhh,,, I’m glad you said it. I’m sorry that it happened, and I just...feel your pain. I know I mentioned Halloween, and that of course was a little similar, but this--”

“I know.” You nod one last time before you finally meet his gaze. For the first time that night, you smile at him, genuinely through the pain and tears as they subside. Your hand reaches out, and he takes it, knowing that for right now, that is all you want, and right now, that is enough.

#jeremy heere x reader #jeremy heere imagine #bmc x reader #bmc imagine #be more chill imagine #be more chill x reader

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years ago

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Technically these trolls fled from alternia to get away from the violence, when Condy was ruling.

mostly notes about this planet !

CD: Don’t worry, I like having a lot of info to work with. *Cracks knuckles* Mostly, when you’re building a new planet, you want to ask yourself- What makes this so different from Alternia that it’s worth writing a story on a different planet instead of a different region? I think you’ve got a lot of interesting stuff to work with in that regard, but it still needs a little work.

(SA Incoming! Plant biology (with a focus in Mycology and Fungal Like Organisms) is literally my bachelor’s. Coming in for the science references.)

“Comantem- blooming in Latin. Represents a new peaceful age for the Trolls species.”

-planet is covered in plant life !!

CD: Plant life is a really vague term. You talk later about the moss and fungus(not plants but bear with me), but that’s about as specific as you get. What kind of plant life? Is it aggressive and hostile? Is it why the planet is so dangerous at night? Or do other creatures cause that? Is it plant life the trolls can EAT and thrive with, or does it represent an agricultural problem for them? Do trolls have to try to beat back the natural plant life on the planet to farm their own food to survive? (Actually, do trolls even eat plants or are they carnivorous?) (I know not all planets that exist aren’t covered in plant life but… liveable planets are. Earth is. Alternia isn’t exactly liveable and it does. Check out where Terezi and Aradia live. You don’t really have terrestrial life without terrestrial plants. Who’s making the oxygen otherwise?)

-Rainbow drinkers are seen as great soldiers for the fleet and other things. RD can live off the blood of their enemies so its good on the planet’s economy.

CD: Jades are rare and Rainbow Drinkers are RARE. Relying on the possibility that a small subset of your already uncommon population for your military is a good way to get blasted to hell immediately. A more likely approach is to rely on golds and bluebloods. Golds tend to have psionic abilities and using them for fighting forces instead of living batteries could be a major advantage. Have them act as long range fighters while the naturally strong bluebloods take the forefront. Jades can still be considered an important part of a team/good to have on a team, but they shouldn’t be central. (I will admit that weaponizing Rainbowdrinkers in a “secret monastery of elite battle ladies” way does appeal to me, though. Given that they don’t need to do AS much of the work given that they don’t need to tame lusii or anything, maybe they can retire to military service?)

- adults stay on planet.

CD: This leads to my next question- how is the planet sustaining its population? Did they steal a mother grub? Mother GRUBS, multiple? Who takes care of these mother grubs and how does the grub-raising system differ? Do they still do the cave thing or does the gov’t regulate grub care to prevent massive death and help the population thrive?

Also, re: stealing grubs and running away: How’d they slip that one under the radar? Does Condy know where they are and is she a threat or are they hiding for now? If they’re hiding, the Sky Hives might be a little riskier. Hell, if they’re KNOWN about the sky hives might be risky. Think of the motivation for this. If they want hives off the ground, then that must mean the risk on the ground is worse than the risk of getting caught. Work with that. What threat on planet is worse than getting caught by Condy? Must be pretty scary.

-there is a government. Government still believes in blood color discrimination. If a lowbloods is elected to be in said so gov, they are respected but risk assassination attempts.

CD: If the government believes in blood color discrimination, why did it leave Alternia? Highbloods certainly don’t suffer as much oppression under Condy’s rule and get more cushy positions even in the Space War than the lowbloods who get treated like cannon fodder. This is like imagining an alternate version of history where rich nobles and religious majorities fled Europe for no reason. Give us a motive. Who is in charge? Is it seadwellers still, who are on the highest end? If so, why did they leave? Or are we playing Landdweller Government. We know that landdwellers and seadwellers are at odds and their nobility has a contentious relationship, so while purples (who are seemingly decently loyal to the crown, even if chaotically) might not be as tempted to leave, blues certainly would have some motive. That can change up the scheme of the hemospectrum, creating a shape that peaks at blue and descends on either side.

Like that.

- the sun is not harmful. But at night it is more dangerous.

CD: What makes it dangerous? I kind of went into this above, but elaborate. Where’s the danger? Is it local fauna? Local flora? Something even more insidious?

- FLARP games are uncommon to play, but still exist.

-gov puts sopor slime mix into consumables. They use this to keep the violence rate in check and low.

CD: Okay, this leads to the question of what you believe sopor is made of. Is it squashed limes, because how’re they flying THAT under the radar?

- The trolls aren’t that much physically violent and their government psychologically messes with them

- lusii are much more aggressive than the ones on Alternia. This resorted to Com trolls to using troll caretakers. Caretakers are often seen as bodyguards than just parents.

CD: What makes the lusii more aggressive? Is there something about the planet that makes them behave that way? This also raises the question of why they would even keep breeding them in that case? Why would they want these aggressive useless animals around? Have they transitioned lusii to a food source? Why don’t they just try to rely on local fauna instead? Are the high ranking officials just being old fashioned and clinging to traditionalism despite it being futile? Or is it an idea you can scrap because it has no actual useful basis?

You also need to think about the implications of trolls who have never had parents before trying to take on a caretaking role. What does this mean for the new generations of trolls? How might their behavior differ? (Lusii are also just aggressive in general. In Friendsim, there’s an entire “battling a lusus” sequence in one of the routes. They’re not like “fun peaceful animal friends”.)

-lusii have naturally growing plants and patches of moss on them. Cordyceps fungus usually affects the lusii and rarely trolls.

(But why tho.) (No. “Aesthetic” is not a reasoning. Nor is “it’s my entire world concept!” Those don’t explain this. Like… how? Why? You make a comment about trolls also getting plant patches? (also nitpick- Moss are plants, they just aren’t vascular plants. They’re not fungus) Why? What has altered troll-lusus biology SO HEAVILY that they are gestalt organisms now? That’s not a thing that just happens.) (I don’t want to be that guy, but: do you know what Cordyceps does? I literally have a degree in this subject so I most assuredly do.)

(Given what we know about troll biology -that they’re insectoid- Cordyceps species would be much more likely to affect them and not the lusii, and would be a bane to wrigglers, who would be the primary hosts of O. sinensis. Even species that are still technically within Cordyceps (like Beauveria) affect insects almost exclusively. O. sinensis killed caterpillars are even eaten as folk medicine!)

(There’s a 99% chance you’re referring to O. unilateralis, the “zombie ant” fungus. Which, as I’ve stated before, would affect your trolls LONG before it would turn Lusii into zombies. O. unilateralis would cause your wrigglers to wander into high humidity environments at a specific height, lock themselves down, and then be mummified as the fungus works its way through their bodies, and then explode into a cloud of spores that could affect other wrigglers. Given how the troll life cycle works (and the fact that you have centralized government and caretaking) this would likely never affect older trolls, and Cordyceps species don’t affect non-insects, and would struggle to burst through in larger bodies, hence why it’s evolved to parasitize ants and not like, monkeys.) (Another point is that even in Ants, the ants can tell when something’s parasitized and will literally move infected members of the community away so they don’t wreck the colony. A thing that your trolls would be able to do with medicine.)

-sky hives !! the government is always focused on moving forward so they have advanced tech powered by plants.

CD: Again like I said, consider the ramifications of Sky Hives more closely. If they’re floating up in space, they’re more likely to be noticed. What’s down there that makes being noticed the preferred option?

-mutants stay underground or in the sky most of the time.

CD: Why is there still mutant oppression? If this is a planet that ran explicitly to flee Condy’s oppression, some more weight might be given to the lives of the mutant folks. Especially because the government doesn’t want to cull them if they wanna keep their numbers up and their people invigorated. Maybe instead of them having to hide, mutants could be the ones the highbloods elevate as political symbols? It can create a unique new sort of oppressive environment for them that isn’t exactly the same as on Alternia.

- conmantemrians have glowing neon teeth in the dark, and their bones are the same as well as their eyes! (but the glow in their eyes are faint.) (Can be any color, depending on the blood caste!) Mostly due to them having adapted to the planet’s environment.

CD: How long have they been on this planet? Because if it hasn’t been a looong time, they probably haven’t biologically adapted this much. And if the planet is dangerous at night, what is the benefit to glowing? Wouldn’t that make them stand out more and be more likely to be hurt? Does the threat hate light and avoid it at all costs or something? If so, why?

-occasionally some trolls have small patches of glowing moss with either fungi or flowers. Usually the lower and mid castes get these. The high castes (Purple to Fuchsia) get stinging anemones (which feel like pinches, used for defense against wild lusii)

CD: My question here is Why. The aesthetic of this is cool and all, but think functionally. How does this happen? Where does it come from? Trolls are bugs, not beds of soil. How will they grow plants on them?

-there are barely any actual teals on the planet. Instead, there’s jade-leaning or olive-leaning. The government believes the teals would attempt to overthrow and take control.

CD: Teals are known for being relatively law-abiding folk thanks to their association with the legislacerators, so you need to establish where this idea would come from. During the original foundation did a group of crown-loyal teals attempt to rat them out? Is that still a story that gets told aroud the planet, causing teals to be associated with betrayal? Also: blood color isn’t a spectrum quite like that in the homestuck canon. Are you doing an AU where the blood colors can blend like that? If you’re trying to use canon hemospectrum rules, there are only 12 colors. There can’t be “jade-leaning” or “olive-leaning” anything. (Also, Mothergrubs don’t choose what color blood trolls have. If so, we’d never had mutantbloods. We don’t really know exactly how troll blood color is passed on, but it’d be strange to assume that this planet just doesn’t have the ability to make tealbloods. If it was 1-to-1 trolls, we’d never get any Fuschias ever, given that Condy geeks them all when they come of age, and a new one doesn’t like… immediately replace them, else there’d be overlap.)

-olives are the face of society. They’re somewhat favourable to the government. They’re treated nicely, given clothes that resembles the Greek gods, and such. They’re usually considered snooty to the other midbloods and lowbloods.

CD: You should probably take more inspo from Old Alternians than Greek Gods. Trolls aren’t going to know what Greek Gods are, after all. And I once again have gotta ask, why olives? What gets them revered? Give a backstory for why besides randomly saying it. Were olives goodluck charms for the original establishing trolls? Is it a Folk Belief that if you don’t revere your olives your shit will get fucked? If not, then it’s probably better to just transition this entirely over to the Objectifying Worship Of Mutant Folks.

-They have caste appreciation holidays but Olive and a couple others are the only ones that are actually celebrated by society

-Olive/Jade-leaning peeps are not well liked but are redeemed bc both olive and jade have good purposes in society

CD: What are the olive’s purposes? You call them revered, but you don’t say what they actually do? Given the history of the olive legacy w/ the Disciple, you cooould probably make them religious figures?

-Fucking freaky weather yo (except it’s good for the plants so w/e) (What does this mean though. Good for what plants? Plants aren’t a monolith. Is it a jungle planet? A grassland planet? A planet of entirely cacti?)

CD: Weather Starts in the sky, usually, so how does this impact the sky hives?

Pro/anti-plant people for the plants on the trolls (arguments on whether growth should be allowed bc not everyone gets them) (I discuss earlier how this concept makes little to no sense, but having political debates about them checks out, given that it’s like… very bizarre and strange for trolls.)

-Secret sopor farms! Sopor factories! Lots of purple-blood overseers

-Sky hives = blood rain on the rare occasion someone dies

-Government made FLARP manuals to show peeps the ‘right’ way to do it and keep them from getting violent in their games

CD: I’m combining the Blood Rain and the Nonviolent FLARP thing because I have an idea. Now… FLARP stands for Fatal Live Action Roleplay. There is NO way to avoid being violent in FLARP. FLARP is, inherently, totally, and completely, a violent game. So if the gov’t wanted to regulate it, what if they did Gladiatorial FLARP instead. Arena Combat Hours. This can make the blood rain more of an EVENT. They blood of the slain players is rained down Intentionally.

A summary; Comantem: a planet filled with lots of plant life and a government that drugs their citizens so they cannot rebel but is generally a peaceful planet compared to Alternia.

Hope this is good enough? This is a new concept that I made like a day ago so yup

CD: It’s definitely a real interesting concept! You’ve got some work to do filling things out and making the world feel living and breathing, but you’re on your way! Thank you for sharing and I hope these comments have been helpful.

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cynder-wolfy · 6 years ago

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here’s me making a really long post rambling abt dragons from a game i play

just to clarify, 0 of these dragons are mine, they all come from an online game called dragon cave. i added links to their wiki page so people can see what they look like (&i can use this as a short cut) and all of their sprite artists are credited there. usually the sprite artists come up with their dragon's description as well

starting off with the list of pygmies or smaller dragons

kyanite pygmy - i really love these lil guys, they're playful & feisty and i could see them being really friendly but kind of fickle wild dragons, like they'll play with kids in the woods but parents try not to let them

mimic pygmy - i LOVE these pygmies, they're friendly during the day but at night they're >:-). i can see them being a dragon people regularly try to kill, cause i dont think they're above killing any humans in the woods at night

mint dragon - there isn't much to this dragon, they're just small & flightless and i can see people using them for weed control in their gardens cause they're herbivores

pipio pygmy - i LOVE these guys!! they're kinda birdlike and probably the 'perfect' pet dragon, but cause of their popularity i can see them being treated like shit a lot by breeders

common pygmy - could definitely be a pet dragon, but i think they'll just be a friendly wild dragons, & if you give them some honey they'll love you for like, a day lmao

red-tailed wyrm pygmy - just a good all round Boy, a wingless worm dragon that can still fly is pretty cool. i can see them as a pet dragon but they wander off a lot so most people don't bother. they're more of a 'around town' dragon than a dedicated pet

and now the normal/ bigger dragons :D

almerald dragon - they're very pretty and weird!! they're basically a mood dragon fdhfdj i like the colour change thing & that they're just kind of lazy, so i wanna add them in as a casual wild dragon that's just kind of indifferent to humans

anagallis dragon - oh i love these ones!! they're friendly and like sun bathing & defening smaller dragons, so i figure they're pretty good friends w humans too

azure glacewing dragons - big boys !!! too big to be concerned about humans but i love them !! i don't think i can find a place to add them but they could be used to background lore purposes

ash dragons - these ones are so cool, they big & have a scary face but they're gentle giants. smaller dragons go to them for protection. i really wanna add one in at some point, maybe towards the start of the story

black dragons - they were an original species on DC so their description is kind of flat, but they're pretty badass, i can see them being dangerous dragons at night

balloon dragons - i have no idea how i'll fit them in but god i love them, just a species full of lads

black truffle dragons- oh god i love these poor dragons, they canonically get exploited by humans so i can see people like. kidnapping them from the wild & locking them up. i think i wanna add them in later at some point, but they're good for lore purposes

dark green dragons - v good 'evil' dragon, i think i'll definitely be using them near the start or when things kick off

day glory drakes - !!!!!! i love this species !!! they're definitely the most popular dragon to own, cause they're about the size of a cat (:D!!!!) and they're so pretty, there's also night glory drakes but they arent as common as pets

daydream dragons - i never read their desc up until now and oh god i love them. they literally just spend their lives zoning out. mood. i think it wld be cute if humans hung out near them when they wanted to sleep well or just have a good think

duotone dragon - two-headed boy! love that! they’ll probably be in the story solely for that reason

floret wyvern - god i love these ones!! they’re so pretty and nice sounding & i wanna be it’s friend. i think the calming aura is really cool & they could be an awesome recurring dragon or even a straight up main character at some point

honey drake - small good boy!! likes honey!! is basically a bee dragon!! i can see them being pets as well or just rlly friendly wild dragons, if you give them some honey

kingcrowne dragon - hhh!! they’re so pretty and v good for more dragon/human history and lore

magi dragons - kinda neat & i can see them being feared by humans cause of how they use magic mostly. i think i’ll include their transport bsa in the story

ochredrake - one of the only few bigger dragons to be considered pets, cause it specifically mentions that they tame easily & also i said so. pretty tight drake

pink dragon - i can see these dudes being luxury pets or a status symbol just cause they’re pink i guess

sapphire dragons - good for lore!! they’re very pretty and i definitely want them in the story at some point

striped river dragons - love!! just some water loving boys. feel like adding them as casual wild dragon, not adding anything to plot just kinda bein there

tatterdrake - just some vicious fun loving boys!! a good ‘evil’ wild dragon, idk if i’ll add them but i think they’re pretty cool

whiptail dragons - love them!! small fast & cool. will proabbly be a wild dragon

gold dragons - god these dragons are perfect for lore. the most hunted/sought after dragons to exist & they are Not Happy about it lol.

neglected dragons - i’m not sure how i’m gonna logic these into the story, but i want to add them for lore & also just to show cruel humans are becoming toward dragons. owners will purposefully mistreat eggs so that the dragon inside is forced to become a neglected dragon, and they loath their owner for doing it but they’re too physically weak and dependant on that owner to be able to leave. it’s considered a huge status symbol to own/create a neglected dragon

uhhh and that’s all the species i’ve looked at so far!! this is definitely Not all of the species on DC but i want to start out the story in a forest, so i only looked at forest dragons for convenience. maybe if i end up writing the story i’ll expand the list as roman goes to the different “zones” in the world

oh and the plot i guess: the main character will probably be a late teen/early adult roman, living in town somewhere on the edge of the forest. he’s grown up in a time where there was mostly peace between humans and dragons but dozens of incidents start happening and the people of the town are slowly turning against dragons. he’s always felt kind of connected to them but was unsure why.

uhhh something Happens at some point & suddenly he can fuckin. Hear dragons talking. and it freaks him the fuck out. he tries to hide it but his mother notices and reveals that she found him as a baby in weird circumstances and had a hunch something like this was going to happen. so roman gets insanely curious about dragons once he can hear them, but he’s afraid to speak to them. only problem is the town is now against dragons and any more interest in them would only bring suspicion onto him.

so he just fuckin. goes out into the woods. and tries to learn by watching them. it obviously doesn’t go so well the first few times but he starts off with smaller dragons like pyymies and just tries to interact with them.

i’m not sure if i’ll keep the story being him just going around & interacting with dragons. i could make it ambreigns like way later in the story once he starts travelling, and i think the first Big plot point would be him trying to convince the town the dragons are ok.

as for the dragons, there’s like a Big Evil dragon queen that has some kind of mana that’s never been seen before, so she’s slowly trying to infect the different dragons species with it to kill the humans who have been killing them.

idk. its messy man!! its messy. but i like talking about it so i am. even if i dont write it its still a good story to play out in my head. i’m not good with fantasy stories so i’d probably screw it up lol

if you’ve read this far I’m Sorry

#dragon story #hoo. boy. this is very stream of consciousness #but i had fun #long post

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sleepymarmot · 6 years ago

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COUNTER/Weight liveblog, part 3

Finale +post-mortem

Am I glad to return to the political big picture! It's such a relief that the finale is in this format! Hopefully it won't devolve into another “fighting a giant robot” scene.

Oh, so the Chime are leading the faction game now! Somehow I completely missed the point of the two previous scenes that indicated Aria becoming the new leader of the Righteous Vanguard – I was very surprised and then 10 minutes later went “Oh that's what it was, time to go back and relisten”

Pronoun update: Austin consistently uses “they”, Art consistently uses “he”. End my suffering…

The sheer comedic impact of seven Makos, Larry and Lazer Ted all in a room together has healed my soul immediately. Can we end on this image so nothing bad happens

I'm so proud of Orth!! “I'm sorry, which one are you?” lmao

Oooh the relationship drama~ But how come Jacqui didn't know Jill was alive? Actually, now that I think of it, back then it was clearly said that Jacqui knows Jillian is back and is sad because Jillian doesn't remember her. This show's retcons…

Look I know shit must hit the fan pretty soon but for now this finale is just. So relaxing. I'm having a lot of fun listening to these squabbles. (The only exception were Mako and Orth – boys, stop fighting, why!)

That Cass & Aria scene was cool but please don't give me world leader old friends sneaking away for secret stress relief sparring sessions when I'm not supposed to start shipping them

Oh hell yeah, I was hoping that since Jacqui went with Jillian, Aria would go with Ibex. (Not very relevant here, but Ibex is from Kesh like Maryland, right? If so, there must be fanart of young Ibex and Maryland in 19th century outfits?)

Stop cryptically saying oh Sokrates isn't here, oh they aren't using their candidate name, like what's up with them?! Are they doing well? I'm worried!

Oh Orth wants to dance with Ibex huh *eyes emoji* Rematch! Rematch!

“I'll take anything” “Anything?” My mind, of course, autocompletes “Then perish”

THIS WAS A LOT and I need to take a couple of minutes to start breathing normally again. Also there just has to be a lovingly drawn fanart adaptation of this entire scene (in, like, fukcing Leyendecker style), come on fandom please say someone has done it

Jacq/Jill continuing with the heartbreaking scenes, I see

Mako doesn't like dancing now…… holy shit this is the most upsetting ball ever… (The cynical part of me must say that it's only Austin who talks about this connection, Keith doesn't and still sounds way less emotional about the whole thing than the others assume Mako to be)

I amend my previous statement, I also need fanart with snapshots of every dance: Orth firmly taking Ibex's hand and receiving a surprised but approving look, Jillian throwing her head back in laughter and Jacqui watching with a pained smile, sullen Mako leaning on a wall cross-armed and looking for an opportunity to slip away, Cass dropping his one-liner with a completely dispassionate face.

Wow Ibex is really getting ready for death. Sounds as if he knows the exact date.

HOLY SHIT THE DIVINES' ORIGIN STORY!!! FINALLY!!! I'm surprised they were all created by the same person…

I'm relieved Mako and Orth are on good terms again!

I love the new Aria as this competent politician who does a lot of swordfighting and dealing with old flames

Have I mentioned I really love the game they're playing? It almost synthesizes the best parts of the game they played previously – as if it was written just for this finale. It's so great how this show and specifically this campaign go through so many games, showing the universe and the characters from different angles, instead of having them be defined by only one game system and its limitations and quirks.

That's some real good mech if it can function for 80,000 years, Divines' body or not!

Okay, I fucking knew Liberty and Discovery would split up at some point (which is what I meant above by my expectations for AuDy's fate), but why is Liberty attacking Ibex?

Mako's robots!!! :DDD Now that's the real finale shit!

I CAN'T BELIEVE Keith missed Tower's brief appearance of all things. It's like a fucking scene from the show on the level of dramatic irony. They were truly not meant to be, even the universe in real life is saying that. Do you ever get rejected so badly that the guy you like runs away from you at the prom, and then lets you fall into a deadly portal with the rest of your planet, and then you get brainwashed, and then you are killed by an ally of that guy, and the person playing him doesn't even witness that?!

I thought Orth was going to challenge Kobus about Liberty…

“I have Liberty contained” *winces*

Every time it is asked what is Mako wearing I just mentally pull out the popcorn

“I welcome anyone to tell Cass that AuDy is a non-person”

Let me restate how much I'm loving how the scenes that in any other show would be minor fluff or short summaries in an epilogue are a legit fully rendered part of the finale

Sokrates & Orth reunion please!!

Aw Ted! It never occured to me that this comic relief character has, in fact, lost his entire planet and almost everyone he knows.

…I think I like Apokine Cass more than Chime Cass

That's a big lore dump holy cow! I'm glad Apostolosians are ex-humans after all, but I wonder how they turned into fish people

So what happened to the idea of Mako hacking Grace?

They just… went and straight up murdered two Divines… If it had happened early in the show I'd probably cheer, and no tears were shed for Grace, but Liberty… Just take a third of another player character and drive it into a sun…

Of course. I knew Sokrates is the kind of character who dies nobly in a grand finale.

I've spent all this time wondering how the piece of Voice in Mako doesn't get infected by Rigor, and it seems to finally happen and Larry seems to die repairing it, but what about all other Makos, aren't they in danger too?

This is way too easy so far, just sacrifice NPCs one by one to win.

This whole time I was assuming Mako saved as many clones as he could, not just his own… If he gets another turn I bet it's submit or die :/

Hello I'm crying over Lazer Ted! Choices in the campaign sound futile now: who cares which guy Mako saved – they both died anyway! All named NPCs did!

Except for Jacqui. Congratulations, the NPC Who Lived! (I mistyped “loved” at first, which is also relevant. And yes, I cried here too.)

How the hell would falling into a sun kill Rigor if it was previously not killed by a bomb that destroys hundreds of suns?

Poor Cass… Not only sacrificing yourself in such a difficult way, but to have a final conversation only just to learn that your friend, a passionate revolutionary further empowered by Righteousness, has deserted… The sheer contempt and disappointment he pours in just three words “Ibex told you”...

Welp. Mako's fate was not tragic like I feared! Good news I guess, but it's still kind of sad. And I think the saddest part is that Mako himself doesn't realize. Because it can just sound like the natural continuation of his character growth – after he had to learn to be the responsible one first in contrast to Larry and then to the other Makos. But it's not that, or not just that, and it's kind of chilling to hear that he never knows it, and never knows peace.

Executive Joie, oh my… It's so strange and cool how Aria somehow continues the legacy of Jace and Ibex at once.

The race is over. It's so strange that now there are no consequences to fear or spoilers to avoid.

I didn't like the final battle as much as the rest of the finale – I hoped for a more clever solution than just throwing bodies at the enemy (but I guess the intro warned me lol…). Especially since these bodies had very unequal impact – I'm not going to care about Diego Rose or Chet Wise or Orth's newly-created lieutenants or as much as I care about Jacqui -- so it felt unfair towards players/characters who had more important or likeable chracters in their faction. I'm opposed on principle to making the big confrontation feel important and emotional just by killing off characters (hi, J. K. Rowling and Russo brothers), I think it's cheap and emotionally manipulative, but in this case the emotional manipulation doesn't even work so it’s doubly disappointing.

If someone's reading this, you can see that what I expected or wanted from the story was not what it gave me, and that was frustrating or disappointing at times. But nevertheless, it was a wild ride.

I've slept on it and it still fucks me up that out of the Chime only Aria gets a genuinely happy ending! Cass is fucking dead, Liberty is dead while AuDy becomes a ghost, and Mako loses everyone and is lonely for the rest of his life!

It's so strange to listen to the opening theme in the post-mortem and think that this is the second-to-last time. (Relistens don't count, it's not the same thing.) By the way, I love that theme – it sounds like a half song with the words on the tip of my tongue, like space, or like city at night. Really atmospheric.

I love how everyone continues to be into that moment where Aria has the opportunity to kill Cass lol (I am too)

Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that coin toss moment for Kobus in the finale, that was so sudden and shocking I was completely losing it for the long few seconds it lasted

I'm glad someone asked whether Jack knew the Big Spoiler in advance – he was so calm about it in the following episodes that I started wondering

Oh so it wasn't my imagination that the players needed the comic relief of the Lazer Ted episode no less than the characters

After a sad talk about Mako's dead friends, Andi, cheerfully: “I love to kill and I love to hurt and I never regretted anything I ever did! :D” which won the least surprising comment of the hour award lol. Honestly, after that one scene with Diego I started to get a bit nervous whenever Andi announced they had an idea… C/w was fun because I now realize the cinnamon roll Aubrey was actually them playing against type.

I love that someone asked about Mako's first kiss and/or Orth's fandom life!!

Keith's answer is sad, though… He “had literally never considered Mako even being capable of kissing someone, like it wasn't something on the table” and that was unexpected to me. I'd mentioned several times that he sounded reluctant to play up the romance, but I was assuming it was the player's preference, not an innate trait of the character whose attraction to someone was a part of his character creation. How do I interpret it? Mako is aro? Mako never had a chance to properly grow emotionally because his youth was fake and for the rest of his life, all emotional connections were sabotaged by Rigour's shadow, and also literally all his potential love interests died? Ugh, I just keep making myself more and more upset.

Holy shit I forgot about Art asking if there's an old Apostolosian mech on September by any chance lmao

Cene always knew?! Holy shit w h a t

It's nice to hear Ali talk about her growth in confidence as a player because she's definitely kind of an inspiration – for years I've thought tabletop roleplaying is too intense and I'll never do it, but when I finally tried out it was not so scary, so maybe there's hope for me too!

The concept that the real challenge of the final battle was that the easier it would be to defeat Rigor, the worse shape would the world be afterwards sounds much better than what that battle actually felt like to me. Instead of paying for victory with the health of society and their faction's political power, in the actual gameplay they paid with NPCs from their circle and that was it; the political consequences came later and sounded entirely unrelated. Maybe if they had to go against their faction's goals or sacrifice its assets – e.g. “use Minerva's Rigor-tech mechs in exchange for the promise to leave them alone afterwards” instead of “sacrifice all Mako clones”… Aria had something similar with Weight, but it was the price of Jacqui's life, not the price of a victorious battle against Rigour.

It's very cool to learn where the sound effects in the theme come from! And god, every line as its own take? My head hurts just imagining that…

Austin getting distracted by the idea of fucking Rigor was hilarious, but I never, ever want to hear the word “daddy” in this context! What's with these jokes this season, ew, please stop.

Excuse me, Ali wanted to kiss Ibex as who exactly, Jace or Aria? Both options are equally crazy!

See, “You wanna say ‘Oh he was just doing what was necessary, he was just doing the thing that's good in the end’, and yeah that's him working on you” is exactly why he reminds me of Dukat! Literally the same mind game on the viewers/listeners!

Why is the link broken, I want to see AuDy in Titanfall!

Listening to team “Fuck Ibex!” and team “Fuck Ibex ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” yell at each other is very entertaining

“Nobody on the Kingdom Come is cishet” is a nice sentiment but I'm kind of confused by which definition of cis Cass is not. Have I missed something about them changing pronouns in-universe? Just because English doesn't have exact analogies for the Apostolosian pronouns doesn't mean everyone who uses them isn't following their own society's conventions. And now Austin also's saying “We never wanted to say these pronouns are equivalent to gender” which is, a, not true, and b, sends the whole problem back to square one – because if that's not the Apostolosian gender then what is? This! Is! A! Mess!

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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