#the fact that people that truly love and respect him can look his violent and “ugly” impulses

[subtlewhirlwind]

My rib bruises are finally coming in! They feel like a warm embrace from an old friend. And they are, in a way.

[shanieveh]

“ forget me not... ”

synopsis: neuvillette, too late to confess his love to you, is drowning from the suffering and regret that came along with it, especially after knowing that you felt the same all along.

tags: gn!reader x neuvillette, depression and low self-esteem, bittersweet ending, mentions of freminet, lynette and melusines, heavily implied reader death and neuvillette also kinda wanting to die

a/n: people want this and i have came to deliver (hopefully) enjoy~ this is my first long fic that i published

How can this be….?

Neuvillette sat in the corner of his office, all your letters in his right hand. How can you say you loved him… how dare you describe the love, the passion, everything you felt for him when he can't even say it back.

How can you love someone so unlovable?

His silent cries can't match up to the violent outbursts of the skies outside. Days went by when he first found out, the melusines were scared to death about who would report it to him. The way you dissolved into water, not even seeing you for the last time—not having the privilege to have a proper funeral.

He failed you… the monsieur wasn't too sure on many things but this one was certain.

Reading your diaries, knowing your thoughts and hopes for the future. It was an invasion of privacy but also in a way… the last remnants of your existence. One such entry was that of three years ago where you first met.

Encountering this, a profuse blush colored his face. The adjectives being used "handsome", "tall" and "kind" for your first meetingwith the chief justice. Far from the truth really, although Neuvillette knew you meant every word.

You always did.

You always were an honest person.

The very first day his lavender eyes met yours, to the very last. There was never a trace of impurity or a hint of a liar. Of course, the verdict went in your favor, because to him a precious rose like you can never steal and the plaintiffs were wrong.

Reading it now, not even a slightly negative comment was made to those who wrongly accused you.

"Maybe they had their reasons, after all, I was also in need of money at that time." you wrote. Adding on that you defended the "Monsieur Neuvillette" when people called "such a man of honor and kindness" a "merciless and arrogant man".

A man of honor and kindness? Your words became running thoughts in the hydro dragon's head. That day was one of the only days he didn't cry after a trial. Neuvillette was just happy that such a person of integrity was cleared of their name.

He turned through the pages of the diary, how you taught him to socialize and even mend his relationship with the hydro archon.

"Monsieur Neuvillette was too adorable! Being with a person of lowly status and treating me with such respect and humility, he truly is the epitome of mercy and loveliness."

How can you be so blind? Anyone with eyes will know that it's a privilege to be with someone so beautiful, especially to be with someone like Neuvillette. A cold and repulsive soul. You make him sound like a good person, when in fact he isn't both good and human.

He was a monster… these words of humanity you always used to describe a monster. Why do they sound so genuine? Why do they look so real? Maybe only you can make him like that, you and only you.

A few pages later he finally saw the words…

Words that should've made him scream in euphoria… tore him to a million pieces. Because even before this he already loved you… because you had so much time to confess but never did… and never will.

"I think I'm in love with the chief Justice."

And after that, he couldn't even get himself to read, he couldn't. His eyes got so blurry to see, his heart became too heavy to feel. Why were you… why you? In a world filled with monsters, they chose an angel. They chose a soul that still wanted to live, love and give. Those demons… despicable.

Remembering his shortcomings, maybe in some way he could've avoided all of this. Neuvillette shouldn't have given you his blessing to investigate the serial disappearance case.

But that glint of adventure in your eyes… he was too soft to reject you.

It was all his fault.

Wiping his tears he looked at the last entry of the diary… Oh.

Oh.

"After this investigation, I'll finally confess to him… I surely hope Neuvillette feels the same way, I even planted some forget-me-nots to give him in the backyard so that he'll know when it rains and he weeps. I will always be here."

The chief justice didn't know what was coming to him but he started running… and only then can he see the state of Fontaine. Many flowers have wilted and only a few people were outside. What had he become..?

"What's up with this weather? It isn't even the rainy season yet?!" A shop owner complained.

"I know! My crops have been drowning these days, at this rate if it doesn't stop we'll have a famine!"

It was all his fault, his running turned to a slow walk taking in all that he had done. This was all because of him. The lonely streets, the lowered morale. This was all because—

"Hydro dragon, hydro dragon, please don't cry!"

He turned to the voice and saw a young boy in the distance. Neuvillette remembered now, his name was Freminet. That child on which you doted extremely, giving him sweets and hushing his tears. The chief justice quickly let go of his gaze and continued to walk.

"You see Freminet, it didn't work... let's go inside."

The response was that of a stoic young woman, but he just continued his legs even if they wanted to rest all to see the last thing you cared for… those flowers. And when he finally was at the destination he saw it immediately outside.

It was in the bushes, he couldn't miss it. Every corner of your house was haunted, every tiny thing was a memory. The chairs you painted, the drawings pinned in the cabinet of you and him with the melusines. It was precious. All of it. Just as you are.

He finally saw them, most were almost to bloom and some were wilted. Picking one he unconsciously kissed it, perhaps mistaking it for you. These flowers were made to remind him he was never alone, but now he is.

More alone than he can ever be in one lifetime. Your scent still filled every corner, a remembrance of the biggest "what if" in his life. Your will stated that every single thing of yours is his just as you were always his. Bittersweet was he when reading it.

Neuvillete forgot that too included your house, maybe he was too consumed with your thoughts to visit this place. He was twisting the poor flower that looked so tiny compared to his hand. Perhaps that's what it's like to be with him. It's a curse…

He continues to caress the flowers, to treat them as if they were you. You were wrong on one thing about this, even if there were no flowers he will never forget you. Never, no way! The love he has for you can destroy nations and can cause millions of sacrifices. Just to keep you, to see your smile again.

But he can't even do that, you didn't give him the privilege to do something for you. If only he knew, he would've… done everything for you. The love that can create the strongest of floods failed to protect the one person he was supposed to protect.

At that moment, he felt the waters, the ocean, his home… you. It made his crying bearable, somewhat. Grief that could surpass a lifetime, wasn't enough. Nothing he can do will ever be enough to have you again. Perhaps he should also leave this world to stop being a burden to the people… and maybe to see you again.

"Neuvillette…"

Now he was even imagining your voice, or was he? Maybe he was delusional but he still followed your voice even if it took him to an unknown path. But the end was in a small pond, where you used to keep the fish, all of which were alive and well.

"Neuvillette…?"

At this he didn't even care if was going insane, your voice sounded like a melody even if it uttered his name. It sounded like a rare jewel, a myth, a prophecy too good to be true.

"Darling?" He replied in a hopeful tone. He looked through his surroundings, no longer was he in a pond but a terrain of boundless water. In the middle was a flying Oceanid, a spirit. Was it—could it be?

"Even I could feel the heavy pouring of rain, monsieur… don't be sad."

It was indeed your spirit, a part of you that remained before that bastard—he'll make whoever did this pay. It wasn't for justice anymore, this one is for revenge.

"How can I not? When I have failed you over and over again, I couldn't even get to say…"

"That you love me?"

His eyes widened, looking at you. Even if it didn't look like you, he knew… he always did. A nod soon followed after that, it was barely noticeable even at this rate the chief justice was a bit shy saying it.

"I just don't know why you could ever say you love me, how you could even think of me so kindly. Why? How? How can you love me back?" He was clueless to what you mean.

"How can I not?"

The reply you uttered was one of a teary-eyed person. Even to this moment you still haven't accepted you had died, not when he was still alone needing you.

"Just as you said… how can I not? You out of all people my dear… know of the sacrifices we make for the person we love."

It was that moment where you took your normal form, you looked beautiful as the day he lost you. As beautiful as the day you met. And as you walked towards him, the clock ticking until your final goodbye, it was time.

"I love you Neuvillette, i always had and continue to do so." For the last time, you cupped his cheek and kissed him.

"I love you, darling from the very beginning and every single lifetime to come." He let go of the kiss and hugged you tight, closing his eyes, until you disappeared not knowing he was hugging his own.

Opening his eyes, the rain was long gone, and what remained were the flowers in the bushes, the ponds, the fish, and him. Maybe… just maybe he will bring you and the other victims to light.

Until then, this one last encounter and goodbye will make him content. He was sure… that finally his love will be at rest.

[rdr2gifs]

''the morning light, when it comes to me, it was there but I could not see''

Arthur’s life was profoundly shaped by his self-hatred, lack of self-worth and disbelief in the existence of kindness in a seemingly dark and cruel world.

I strongly disagree with the statement that Arthur only became a ‘’better’’ man after being diagnosed with tb. His struggle with his true/inner self is apparent as early as chapter one. ‘’You are not who you think you are, sir… which is lucky’’

He has lived a rough life, raised by criminals and surrounded by violence ever since he was born. It was installed in him early that his value lied within being a violent enforcer and he has lived this life since, knowing nothing else. As a highly aware person, Arthur's actions weight heavy on his soul. He accepts that his actions have consequences. He knows that a person who has caused so much suffering is not meant to have happiness in life. His way of life has caused him to believe that he is not worthy of love or redemption. He doesn’t want to believe that a person like him could be capable of any good. (a thing to note here is that imo, Arthur’s actions near his death weren’t attempts at redemption but rather a strong desire to do right and possibly be his true self.) This is why he keeps living as he does as it’s the only thing he’s ever known, it’s the thing that brings him profit, praise from the person he looks up to and he is already damned so he might as well continue living this life anyway.

The internal problem Arthur faces is that this violent, cruel way of life doesn’t align with what I’d call his true self/ideals. He is torn between the harsh reality he has known and an unconscious yearning for righteousness/love. To be able to carry on with his actions he must enforce certain ideals within himself, such as: I am bad, ugly, nasty, ignorant, mean etc. He also decides to see the dark side of reality, telling himself that the world is a grim dark place and this is just as things were meant to be. This is why he feels so uncomfortable being complimented for his good deeds, because a bad rotten person like him should not be able to do good. It breaks the image he has built for himself and he doesn’t want that happening. This can be seen a lot during the ‘’Money Lending and Other Sins’’ missions where he is unusually mean (even for his standards) to each of the debtors. Imo, he acts this way because he must truly convince himself of being a terrible man to be able to carry out a job which revolts him so badly. In the last debt collecting mission with J. John Weathers, it can be seen in his face/expressions how much he is struggling to put on a tough, uncaring, heartless act. He needs to maintain a ruthless persona to survive in the world he knows. He must convince himself of his own cruelty.

''Forgive me, but that's the problem. You don't know you.''

Contrary to Arthur’s beliefs, he is a naturally kind-hearted person who is unconsciously drawn towards kindness. And yes, even before he was diagnosed with tb. This can be seen in the people he respects the most and, in his willingness to help strangers (notice how he often does unnecessary acts of service for total strangers such as: carrying their things, holding out hands etc. even though they had already troubled him). Despite the life he has lived, Arthur does not enjoy violence, he does not enjoy hurting people. He doesn’t want to dominate over others. He thinks mostly about others and not about himself. This fact alone is very telling of his character.

He writes about Charles, a man who he truly respects: ‘’He’s a better man than me. He does not need to think to be good. It comes naturally to him, like right is deep within as opposed to this conflict between GOOD↔EVIL that rages within me.’’ A man who is not struggling with his inner self would not have written this. To me this clearly implies an inner desire to be a better man. He writes about his mentors: ‘’I love Dutch like a father, but in many ways, I love Hosea even more. He’s kind and fair and like a human being. Dutch is something else.’’ Clearly showing a preference for Hosea who is of a more gentle nature and shows genuine kindness. Unsurprisingly, these are the people who see through his dumb/though act and encourage him to drop it.

When he comes across Brother Dorkins for the first time, he writes: ‘’(he)was one of those innocent people who make you feel better about human beings and about yourself a little. Must be odd to see all that goodness in the world. Place always seemed dark and brutal to me.’’ Expressing how he does not see goodness in the world, implying lack of good examples/kindness/good experiences in his life. Yet, the monk leaves an impression and imo, this encounter (seeing genuine goodness) disrupts Arthur’s perception of what the world truly is. ‘’Just as evil begat evil your whole life long, so good may begat good’’ (what strengthens my belief in this, is the following, symbolic scene of Arthur realising the consequences of his actions right after picking up a crucifix. He was aware of them before sure, but is unable to truly ignore them now having seen it right in front of his eyes). If only Arthur was presented with more examples of goodness in his life.

''You have it in you... I can tell!''

His desire to do as much good as possible after realising he won’t live long is instant. This would not be the mindset of someone who did not already possess kindness in his heart. ‘’Know glory and forget about shame.’’ Arthur’s shame and self-loathing caused by his previous actions were what was holding him back from allowing kindness into his life. Knowing that he has limited time left has not made him into someone he wasn’t before. The diagnosis was a catalyst, allowing him to embrace that love/goodness truly does exist and accelerate the process of chipping away from the persona he has made for himself. This was a newfound understanding for him as in the past he was rejecting any notion of kindess. In himself and perhaps the whole existence of it. ‘’You keep hidden all that matters, even from yourself.’’

After being diagnosed, he writes: ‘’What kind of a man have I been? What kind of a man am I? What world is this we live in? A land of fury or a place of love? Am I being prepared for eternal damnation? Am I past any kind of saving? Is that all fairytales? Man ain’t got much good in him. I ain’t got no good in me… I don’t think and yet I see goodness. I see it. If not in me, in good folk. In Abigail and her love for Jack. In that silly monk. In Downes, I guess. Begging not for himself but for the poor, even though he was near starving himself. Maybe I don’t want salvation. Part of me has always longed for death.’’ This entry perfectly shows how deep Arthur’s self-loathing goes and just how much it has damaged him. As his journal allows a look into his true feelings, he truly does not see a single good thing about himself. He knew for a long time that the way he lives is detestable but he could not let go of it. Not because he didn’t want to, but because it’s all that he has ever known. He didn’t believe in anything else. This sudden acceptance of goodness has allowed him to see clearly, which was obscured from him before, and for the first time, enabled him to act free of past regrets for what is right.

⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪

Arthur’s redemption is not about becoming a good man. It is about finding the strength to change and recognise your true self despite a lifetime of self-loathing and breaking free from destructive beliefs of the past.

In Arthurian legends a stag is a symbol of the unending quest of spiritual knowledge/enligtenment

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Can't get over how much Gideon Ofnir revealed before the DLC that a lot of people looked over.

Like. It just makes you realize how reading Miquella as "The Victim" here actually never truly made sense. Because of the fact that Gideon never describes him as such, and even upon seeing that cocoon, he just straight up is like "Miquella fucking scares me, we might want to destroy that cocoon so whatever he planned doesn't come to fruition." Of course, the destruction of the cocoon would have been counterproductive, as we see in the DLC, but it really does show how fearsome Miquella and his abilities are, and how, even before the DLC, he was clearly both revered, and feared, because as gentle as he wished to be, it's more of a violent compassion. The compassion that strips away people's sense of self, and dignity, and just makes them mere pawns to Miquella's aspirations towards Godhood and his drive to make a new age, HIS age. Also. Mohg beforehand was like, never actually written as an "abuser" or "groomer", so I think those should have been clear signs as well.

Really the DLC makes Miquella an infinitely more interesting character than he was with base game information, and clarifies on a lot of points that people were very clearly confused about. Hell, I thought Mohg was nasty, because the circumstances around him and his palace just appear so shocking! However, the in-game text clearly presents him in a certain way that must be recognized and respected... really I am thankful Ansback is a thing because just. He is the best. Unambiguously. Like. Mohg is one of my favorites as well now because of him. Always thought the "Lord of Blood" stuff was some of the coolest ever, and with the clarifications the DLC brought, I can love it all with confidence!

Also. I find it funny that a big reason for them writing these things in this DLC was probably that they realized a lot of people came off with the reading of Mohg as a groomer and were like "There are a lot of things to clarify on in this DLC, but holy shit we HAVE to clarify on that!!!!"

[recreationalfanfics]

Loki w a Krul Tepes! Reader

She could literally step on me and I'd say thank you-

BUT ALSO, LIKE, I NEEDED TO WRITE THESE DOWN REAL QUICK BECAUSE I'M OBSESSED W KRUL SO READER BEING SOMEONE WITH HER MANNERISMS AND MAYBE HER IMMACULATE SENSE OF STYLE. And Loki being down horrendously.

- While you might not have been a God, you were still a powerful ally to have in the battle against humanity and by that, you were going to protect humanity...After all, you and your people needed the livestock

- This is not the first time he's met you and he's very much convinced that you two are soulmates. Even though it's quite obvious that he kinda annoys you. He reminds you of a certain white-haired progenitor sometimes

- Although you wouldn't deny that when he isn't trying to disrupt your work, you've found his company enjoyable and entertaining in the past and he helped take your mind off of your duties when they felt too stressful.

- Ah, but then Ragnarok showed up and while you detested humanity and their cruelty towards you, you still sadly relied on them to survive so now you stand against the Gods and fight for humanity.

- "You know, you don't HAVE to rely on humanity, you can just drink my blood~" Loki purred, once more trying to convince you to change sides. You rolled your eyes and smiled, "You seem to be forgetting about the REST of my people who need humans to drink from."

- "Think of it as a plus! You wouldn't have to be so stressed and you'll have more time to focus on me!"

- You just walk away while trying to hide your amused chuckle from the God of Mischief.

- PLEASE, HE ABSOLUTELY LOVES TO MESS WITH ARUKANU. He'll steal your little bat creature and either threaten it playfully like how he does with Odin's birds to get your attention or he'll just be all: "If you wanna give it back, you'll have to give me a kiss~"

- Then the next thing he knows, he's on his knees and you're standing behind him, his head turned back and his violent eyes looking up into yours as your sharp nails threateningly yet gently dig them into his throat, warning him that you could rip his head off in a second.

- It's so exciting~

- NO BUT HE DOES GET JEALOUS OF THE MORTALS YOU DRINK FROM. They have the audacity to complain or look fearful and ungrateful (you don't even kill them or take too much from them) when Loki gets shivers at the very thought of you sinking your fangs into his neck.

- UGH, HE LOVES SEEING YOUR FIGHT. The God you go up against was doomed from the start, he knew that from the get go. Especially when they started to mock you and say things like: "Go back underground, little Queen. Just because you're stronger than humans doesn't mean you compare to us GODS!" and it made Loki laugh.

- "What's so amusing, Loki?"

- "Oh, nothing, Lord Zeus.~ Just the fact that I sadly think us Gods are gonna take another loss." He answers, not seemingly to upset at the idea as he watches the irrated look on your face from the words of the arrogant god.

- He also gets a thrill from how sneaky you are♡ No one else truly knows what you're thinking, not even Loki himself, and the fact you were willing to betray and turn on anyone made him absolutely certain you two were meant to be.

- When you actually decide to get into a relationship, no one knows if its because one of you are manipulating the other or if it's genuine love.

- Also, you're the only person he genuinely respects, yes he will tease you but if he's causing a fuss and you tell him to stop, he'll smile and immediately fly over to follow you like the lovesick puppy he is.

- And it is genuine love, just a twisted version of it.

- He is aware of your weakness to the sun without your UV band, so let's say that a God wants to get even with you and tries to rip it off, Loki will literally grab their hand and smile at them but there is only rage in his eyes as he's all: "I wouldn't do that if I were you~"

- People don't think you guys care about each other but if your UV band somehow broke, Loki using his cape to shield you and you're surprised but you thank him. AND THEN HE WRAPS HIS ARM AROUND YOU TO HOLD YOU CLOSE AND IF YOU TRY TO PUSH YOURSELF OFF OF HIM, HE'S ALL: "ah, ah! I'm just making sure my vampire queen is safe♡ I would hate to see you burn up." and you give up and let him use this as an excuse to cuddle you.

- And if a human talks badly about Loki, you just smile at them menacingly before being all: "Hmm, he may be a bit childish but watch the way you talk about him. He is still my lover after all."

- NAH BC AS MUCH AS HE WANTS YOU TO BITE HIM, HE WILL BITE YOU TOO. Like, just love bites that take you off gaurd and he chuckles as his teeth gently sink into your neck but then you sigh and pat his head.

- He's such a needy lover but you suppose that's what makes him endearing.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

So, so tired to see all these “in TSR Aang didn’t care about Katara in the slightest but rather forced his culture onto her” lies.

Aang: The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper. While you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself.

Come. On!

If this is not “killing this man will traumatize you” then I don’t know what proof they want. He’s clearly showing care and concern for Katara here. And then Aang will let her borrow Appa aka the last living part of his culture and Aang will say that Katara needs to take this journey and to face this man and in the end Aang will be more than happy to hear that she hasn’t taken his forgiveness advice because she has her own way… only for some people to tell that he doesn't give a shit and only thinks about forcing his culture or whatever.

And these are the people who constantly brag about being the only ones in the fandom with media literacy. Their “media literacy” is, in fact, non-existent.

They don't care what the real message or context was, they only care about making Aang look bad. If the roles were somehow reversed and it was Zuko advocating for a non-violent solution while Aang encouraged Katara to get revenge, suddenly there'd be questions as to why the hero's got-to response to pain and rage, no matter how righteous, is going for the kill.

But because Zuko was the one encouraging it, there's no room to talk about how this him relapsing into the old pattern of thinking he can only fix things through violence due to how he was raised (and abused).

Or about how it is VERY disappoiting to see the brave prince that once stood up for his soldiers to now be ready to murder one of them in cold blood for the crime of follwing orders (that were cruel and unjust and that basic human decency says he shouldn't have followed), aka the same thing Zuko himself was doing less than a month ago, when he is not currently posing a threat to anyone.

Or about how he did it all because he felt entitled to Katara's forgiveness and only started to truly empathize with her in the middle of their journey.

Or about how, regardless of if killing that fucker was right or wrong, revegence of justice, cruelty or doing him a favor, it was KATARA'S DECISION to go after him, then to spare him but not forgive him - something both Zuko and AANG respected.

It's an episode about the pain and rage that comes from grief, especially from an unfair death that was caused by a cruel coward, and how it's important to recognize those feelings and process them so they won't consume you. It's about Katara as a character, with Zuko, the former imperialist, representing a self-destructive path of continuing the cicle of violence, and Aang, the pacifist, reminding her that SHE IS NOT A MURDERER!

But zutarians only care about Katara in the context of this made-up love triangle, so they force it onto the episode too.

[alicentsgf]

could you please elaborate more on the daemon loving/being interested in rhaenyra because she was the closest thing to viserys?

Yes I can 😌

Daemon suffers from the same debilitating disease as every other man in HOTD - an inability to see (high-born) women as anything other than extensions of their fathers or husbands. The way Viserys relates to Rhaenyra is all about his own selfish feelings, and he so easily accepts Alicent into an advisory role when shes only 15 probably because at least in part he's seeing Otto. Otto basically sees Alicent as an extra limb of his own body, and he likely sees Rhaenyra as an extension of Viserys - he probably ensured Alicent was made her companion for that reason. Daemon also sees Alicent as an extension of Otto and thats why he uses her to taunt Otto at the tourney - asking Alicent for her favour was Daemon all but mockingly asking for Otto's. And in every move Daemon made with Rhaenyra, not just the neck-grabbing scene, you could feel Viserys presence.

This man is obsessed with his brother. He spends pretty much Viserys' whole life desperately trying to get his brother's attention/force himself into a position of trust. He wants Viserys love and admiration so badly he will tear other people apart for it. His violent nature itself is his love for Viserys made manifest, as well as an outlet through which to vent his frustrations over Viserys dismissal. As a second son he stood to inherit nothing, but if he could be the finest warrior... perhaps he could convince Viserys he was worthy of a place at his side. He was the one rallying an army to fight for Viserys throne before the great council /for his brother/. If he kills and maims all the criminals in Kings Landing then (not only does it feel good) but to his mind he's doing a service /for his brother/. Then, when spurned, he fights a war to prove to himself he doesn't need Viserys... only to run right back when he wins in the hope of a pat on the head.

Where he respects Viserys, his relationship with Rhaenyra stinks of grooming and flippant disregard; She's a game. She's a distraction. She's a means to an end. He plays with her because, in her youth especially, she makes him feel powerful and desired, all the while reminding him of Viserys. But she's still not Viserys, and he happily leaves her vulnerable and alone in a dangerous situation on a whim. He gambles with her future for his own gain, and lets Viserys believe he took her virginity just for the chance of being Rhaenyra's consort… because if he's Rhaenyra's consort then Viserys can't send him away from court anymore, not without sending Rhaenyra away too. His place would be at Viserys' heir's side. Who cares if he ruins Rhaenyra's life, if it gets him one step closer to Viserys. And Viserys understood it wasn't (just) lust for Rhaenyra that drove Daemon to do such a thing, but it wasn't the throne he was after either - he only ever wanted to be Viserys' Hand. It's what he's always wanted. He tells Viserys this. He wants to be the person his brother relies on. But Viserys keeps removing him from the council and sending him away… so how is he supposed to prove himself worthy? 

I wonder… why did Daemon run from the brothel? I certainly believe he meant to go through with it, he'd let it go far enough, and there's no doubt he wanted Rhaenyra. It looked like guilt to me. Maybe a hint of confusion? (Maybe he'd just never experienced guilt before lmao). (Edit: Going off what someone just told me in the notes I had an ephiphany: In that moment hes only too aware of Rhaenyra's desire and the fact that she actually wants him. Here is this representation of Viserys in front of him Wanting him which he's never truly experienced and the lack of control over the situation and the guilt and desire and conflict is all just fucking with his mind to the point where he has to run away and drink himself into a stupor.)

Daemon is as Targaryen as they come. His parents and grandparents were siblings. He's grown up in this environment where friendships between siblings of the opposite gender are immediately sexualised. If Daemon had been born a girl, he would have no doubt been married off to Viserys. What does that knowledge do to a person? Especially when Daemon is (according to the cut scenes anway) canonically bisexual.

Whether he "desires" Viserys, or ever did, in any normal sense is kind of irrelevant, because this situation is not normal; we're literally talking about a man pursuing his niece because of a psychosexual fixation on his own brother. It's about the Targaryen sexualisation of sibling bonds. It's about the deeply rooted misogyny present in Daemon Targaryen. He can't fully invest in any partner he has; he's too misogynistic to see any woman as an entire person, and too Targaryen to emotionally invest in someone outside his own family. Not to mention the fact he finds power and having control too sexually alluring to consider what his own brother represents as King anything less than erotically enthralling.

Daemon has this sense that he was always meant for Viserys and he just can't shake it. On some level he knows that in another life he would have been Viserys' Queen, but in this life he can't have that. He tries to get as close to that reality as he can, but Viserys denies him. So he focuses on Rhaenyra; if his brother won't take him on as Hand or keep him as his heir then he can be Rhaenyra's consort, he can be Rhaenyra's Hand, he can give Rhaenyra heirs. He spends so much of his existence using Rhaenyra to desperately grasp at all the pieces of that other life with Viserys he might still be able to reach. Is it any wonder that when Rhaenyra reveals Viserys thought even less of Daemon than he believed, he lashes out at her - the person he's always seen as a substitute for the man he really wanted.

[beevean]

I think I can finally pinpoint what bothers me so much about the Lenector ship - not even how it was treated in the show, but the very idea of making it "nuanced".

Long story short, I found an author that promised to flesh out the Lenector storyline in the show, including getting a better insight into Lenore's thought process and rewriting some of the dialogue (I appreciated that they fixed the "interrogation" in S3 to make Hector specify that he never cared about a reward, it made him look less stupid)

Author never rewrote the rape scene, which disappointed me but oh well, but they did write Hector and Lenore finally talking about the ring, a discussion sorely missing in S4. It was more or less what I would have written: Lenore swearing that she had no choice and it was for his own good and protection, and Hector lamenting that she still tricked him and made him into a pet and she could have been honest because he would have agreed to work with them.

... but he's still in love with her. He kisses her gladly. And his "conflict", his anger at the betrayal, is framed as something in the way of his love, an obstacle that he'd have to get over it.

And there it is.

Even with the acknowledgement that what Lenore did was horrible, there is the assumption that Hector, after a good talk, is bound to forgive her. That it still makes sense that he'd be attracted to her. That it's okay, because she meant well. That it's okay, because she didn't technically lie, only twisted the truth to wear down his mental defenses (already worn down by imprisonment and abuse)! Oh, I guess I must have dreamed Lenore saying that she wanted to run away with him before kissing him :) to be fair, it was a terrible piece of writing. Good thing it wasn't real, apparently!

Yes, Hector's forgiveness should have taken time, but it should have happened. Because Lenore is not a bad person and they deserved to be together. Because what she did, which was deliberately push her prisoner in a delicate mental state into having sex with her so that she'd put an enslaving ring without his consent, was just an honest mistake and doesn't speak at all of her morality.

She's the best he got. She's nice to him, because she makes cute dick jokes and goes to whine to him. She's better than Dracula, who lied to him (Lenore never did), and better than Carmilla, who was violent with him (Lenore never was). This is not to be taken as a sign of how horribly this man has been treated in life, and how he'd be happy with the smallest of crumbs because he has been broken that badly. Lenore is the happiness he deserves. Ignore how "your life could be worse" is literal textbook abuser logic, it's true in his case.

The problem with S4 is not that it excused Lenore's rape by deception. It's that it rushed the forgiveness that was due and didn't allow them to be together. Lenore's suicide was Ellis hating this character that completely overtook Carmilla's already established role and was treated far more magnanimously than the similar Japanese not-twins, clearly!

And this is the impasse I cannot get over. Every time, every damn time, even when fans agree that S4 was a disaster, all arguments funnel to this one part: Lenore raping Hector for her plans is not a moral event horizon. Hector loving her makes perfect sense and it is a tragic, "nuanced" romance that should have ended with the two kissing in the sunset, finally having in their arms someone who truly respects them.

^ the face of someone who only wanted to protect and take care of the prisoner whom she tricked into sex. She should have been happy with him forever and ever, really 🥺

I'm not judging the shippers' morality, obviously, I don't know any of these people. But the arguments they use make me sick to my stomach, which is made even worse by the fact that the show itself pushes this narrative, just in a way that was so shitty that even the fans were like "bruh".

I won't bother rewriting this trash, because I can do better with the gameverse. But if I ever did, I'd only ask for Hector to at least be conflicted until her sunning (which is not as nonsensical as fans seem to think lol, it just needs to be worded better). Like he recognizes that she did improve his life, but she used unforgivable means for no good reason. You want a tragic romance between two kindred souls? Remove that despicable, cruel act. The Lenore of S3 and the Lenore of S4 are irreconcilable and trying to do so always degenerates in rape apologism whether you mean it or not.

[2n2n]

hi!! i have two questions, i apologize in advance that theyre about mitsuba and kou, but theyre also about the yugi twins, so i hope u can forgive me...

first!! i see a lot of ppl complaing/being sad that hanako and kou dont really have any moments interacting together anymore, posting screenshots, mourning their lost early series friendship ... and i dont really get it? to me, hanako never really liked kou, he was more "playing pretend" to appease nene, he doesnt seem to value him as a friend... theres the "kid"(<deragatory) he does, to emphasize that he is the Older, Experienced Guy in this relationship and kou doesnt have anything of value to add... but then again, ive never really sat down to reread everything in one go, so i might be missing something... do you have anything to say on hanako and kous relationship and how/why it developed?

second question!! i noticed that mitsuba and kou both have a favorite twin who they are friends with and a twin who they think is an evil, violent, perverted psychopath, and those twins are swapped between them lol

so i wanted to ask, do you have any thoughts/opinions on mitsubas and kous outsider perspective on the yugi twins? who has what aspects of them right/wrong? could a fight over who the better yugi twin is cause a rift large enough to stop their budding romance?(<hyperbole)

im sorry if this got really long, and these are less concrete questions and more me pondering things and then presenting my half-baked thoughts to you for examination, but i always really enjoy your interpretations of anything tbhk so i thought id do it anyways >.<

Ohhh its fine haha, there are no characters I truly hate (I JUST JOKE...) & I like talking about everything in the manga, as everything has some sort of place in the themes or story! And I do care about all relationships from character to character, even if I might find that character annoying on a personal level HAHA. I like the entire 'voice' of JSHK!!! It's all a part of the beautiful web c:

I would say, Yes, I agree 100%! I've talked about it before myself. I don't see Hanako and Kou as best friends, and I'm not sure what incredible moments of pure friendship people are remembering (probably mostly... ch9?). Hanako both creates distance by using 'kid' (indeed making Kou always out to be more ignorant or childish than him…) and even Kou creates a distance by using only 'Hanako' (no honorifics-- Kou is actually generally quite deferential and polite to people he respects like Nene-chan or Akane.... he is a 'good boy'! When he meets Hanako, of course he thinks he is a monster, so he doesn't use honorifics… but he also doesn't correct this, later. While dropping honorifics can also be a sign of intimacy, that only counts if the other person has given you some kind of permission, or after knowing someone a long time … Hanako never uses honorifics for others himself, because he sees himself as above everyone, and wants to impress distance … and I'm sure because he is 'nanaban-sama'. He only really uses honorifics when menacing Nene or Akane about "Aoi-chan".)

I think in reality, most Hanako and Kou interactions point to something contentious between them waiting to snap, as I've discussed before.

In fact, we now know explicitly that Hanako loves his little brother & sought to save & protect him, so for sure a wedge was driven between Kou and Hanako the moment Kou declared revenge on Tsukasa. Hanako's blank stare, [... ...I see.] should make sense when looked back on! Quietly logging that Kou might become a problem for him, later.

At the very least, you have to imagine he is more loyal to his yorishiro than he is to this ugly kid. If push came to shove.

We see plenty of Hanako resenting Kou.

On top of that … he's competing with Kou for Nene-chan, not only her time & attention but even the right to influence her life or save her. Both in Picture Perfect & Severance, Hanako expresses this VERY directly.

Despite initially being OK with Kou making efforts to save Nene-chan, he completely walks that back in Picture Perfect; his sense of possessiveness and jealousy cannot in fact handle it at all. Sometimes people get attached to a particular older manga scene, and see it as inconsistency or random when that aspect has changed, but honestly, I think it's always a realistic character beat. Hanako once welcomed Kou to try to save Nene-chan, back in volume 6,

but .... as he got closer to Nene-chan, he instead pursues Picture Perfect & then the Severance as his own aggressive, forceful solutions, which no longer factor in Kou as anything but an impotent annoyance. Hanako once, incorrectly, 'thought he wouldn't care', but he in fact does! This is a form of character development I think a lot of people refuse to acknowledge, in Hanako (... maybe people think 'character development' can only mean positive traits or improving, and not something like becoming more aggressive or possessive? <- but being more attached & true to himself IS'positive' development for Hanako. Becoming yandere isn't a bad thing in AidaIro-sensei world </3). Over 20 volumes in, there's no need to cling to perceptions of their dynamic which they have evolved away from.

So.... you have Kou shounen protag shouting "I'll save everyone!" while Hanako is being a yandere like "nobody can ever touch Yashiro's lifespan but ME". This isn't a recipe for best friends.

I remember when ^ this ^ chapter came out, some people were upset/shocked that Kou could still talk easily about destroying Hanako, but I have no idea why. Hanako has only repeatedly proven himself unstable and untrustworthy since those early-manga moments (if a friendship stems from ignorance, what is it worth?). It is only Kou's dedication to Nene-chan that makes him help Hanako in the Far Shore ... Nene-chan is pure of heart so, perhaps so long as she doesn't see him as a lost cause, or as long as Hanako doesn't hurt her, he will try to believe her, and stand by her.

The thing Kou does have going for him, is his faith in Nene-chan to bring out the best in Hanako, to reach his heart. I think ultimately Kou himself isn't sure about the truth lying within Hanako, & he knows it won't be him that draws it out. To him, it could end up that he's completely crazy & dangerous & has to be shot like a rabid dog lol, or that there's something good in there. He's fence-sitting between Teru & Nene's extreme positions.

My favorite very earnest, honest Kou moment among them, is this... when he is approaching Nene-chan, after the meeting with Teru & Akane, during the Severance.

Kou checks in with Nene-chan because he's not sure where SHE'S at with all of this.

The actions he takes in the Far Shore are less "to save Hanako, as his friend" but "to save Hanako, for Nene-chan".

meanwhile, for your second inquiry:

Didn't a fight over Tsukasa already interrupt their relationship? Mitsuba relies on Tsukasa constantly,repeatedly,and this very fact made Kou cry, feeling jealous & inadequate, LOL. Kou's whole complex is that he wants to be trusted & relied on, and Mitsuba instead running to Tsukasa every time he is in trouble, racks up Kou's resentment towards Tsukasa. Isn't it so funny…MULTIPLE ARCS OF THIS!!!!

I would say neither Kou nor Mitsuba really trust the Yugi twins, or understand them, any of them, despite each being allied towards one in some flimsy sense. I think Mitsuba is correct that Hanako is a psycho pervert... uhhhh all of their interactions are SO terrible LOL

and uh....

(^I love this moment SO much ^ completely unnecessary out of pocket Hanako moment!!!!! No reason for you to look so crazy!!! DID YOU HAVE TO CAST SHADE??? lame weak Mitsuba .... haha... I love Hanako ahhh </3 Mitsuba is so pathetic & stupid to him.... such disrespect in PP!)

^ KouMitsu fans should love this protective Mitsuba moment, him staring at Hanako like this while clinging to Kou...

In mmmany ways I guess I don't think Kou or Mitsu are loyal to the Yugi beside them, wouldn't necessarily come to their defense any more than Mitsuba does in the Aquarium chapters (which only really argue a necessary dependency; though I think it's really interesting that in PP, Mitsuba defends his CHOICE to ally with Tsukasa, not WANTING to be seen as only Tsukasa's victim or helpless.)

Kou holds Mitsuba's loyalty to Tsukasa against him, but for some reason as we've seen thus far, Mitsuba does not hold Kou's loyalty to Hanako (or Teru, who tries to kill him) against him. I'd say Mitsuba is actually more humble/gracious & a little more self-aware than Kou-- and also devalues himself, wouldn't ask Kou to give up anything for him, because he is worthless (the entire point of his willing attempt at suicide in the Aquarium chapters). Kou screams & throws lightning around when he feels anything Bad, so more disquiet is expressed at Mitsuba. Kou feels more demanding & holds more uhm.... ambitions for what he 'wants' their relationship to be (one where he is depended on, is Mitsuba's hero). So there is probably more likely to be more conflicts surrounding Tsukasa....

I wonder if Hanako will ever do something so directly terrible that it would cause Kou to loosen his allyship to Nene-chan, and increase his allyship to Mitsuba. I would like that tbh, and it would bolster their dynamic to me, & I could respect Kou's stance more. As it is, it's hard to say much about his loyalty to Mitsuba, which is kinda only simultaneous to his loyalty to Nene-chan .... I would like Kou's fence-sitting about the Hanako situation to finally really hurt Mitsuba maybe, some day. If I had to have an opinion on it.

I wonder what Nene-chan coming to like/defend Tsukasa would do to Kou's stance against Tsukasa? What if everyone but Kou liked the little bugger in some way.... haha. That would be idealistic for me.

I would also find it interesting if Mitsuba actually had to do something meaningful to defend or protect Tsukasa. Curious if the vague ghost memories in Mitsuba's head in the recent chapters will culminate in any kind of reaching out to Tsutsu. Ultimately, is Tsukasa someone who tormented Mitsuba, or someone who saved & comforted him repeatedly? His active mind rejects the concept, but maybe his subconscious would feel otherwise. I dunno. A lot is ambiguous.

A bit of a tangent I guess there... so theorhetical. Well, nobody really likes the Yugi except for each other & Nene-chan.

[aleksanderscult]

I have loved your other metas. Can I make a request too? I wanted you to analyse the Grisha vows with respect to Aleksander and Alina. No problem if not. Good day.

Of course you can!

Literally anyone can ask me anything and there's nothing to be shy about. ❤️

So. We're finally doing this, huh?🥲

We're going to analyze THAT scene?🥲

I'm assuming you mean Aleksander's and "Alina's" funeral (if that's not the scene you mean then please tell me!😭) and I'm not gonna lie, I was avoiding writing a meta about it because it's SO painful🫠

But at the same time I've got some things to say here as well.

(Btw, I had already made two drafts about this scene commenting on some things. HOW DO YOU GUYS ALWAYS KNOW WHAT I'M SECRETLY CREATING??😭😶‍🌫️. But now that I'll write a meta about this scene, I won't post them until many, many weeks later)

Okay. Not gonna stall anymore. Let's do this.🥲

Gonna start from here because I don't have anything to say about the previous lines (but if there's something in particular you want me to analyze before this, dear anon, then just say so❤️).

This line by itself is extremely sad.

The imagery that comes to your mind.

After four hundred years of existence full of war and battles, the Darkling is dead.

And Alina could easily say "You know what? Burn his body somewhere else. Not beside mine."

No, she wanted their bodies to burn side by side.

That says a lot by itself.

When a fan asked Bardugo who truly tended to the Darkling's body, the latter refused to answer saying that she's leaving that for the readers to guess.

My personal guess, after what happened in Nikolai's duology, is Sankta Elizaveta. If the duology never existed then I would say a random otkazat'sya woman. I don't know, it just fits.

Apart from this, it's really heartbreaking how here the Darkling is described neither as a powerful Grisha nor as a cunning warrior. But as a handsome boy that fell in battle and now in death he looks so innocent. So peaceful at last.

And Alina wants to know. Cares to know. Who treated him so gently?

Just like I said before, Alina decided this. Not for the people, not for Nikolai, not for Mal.

But for herself. And I bet for the Darkling too. Perhaps she didn't want him to be alone in his funeral pyre either. 🥲

The crowd was complaining 'cause for them the Darkling was the villain, the man that frightened them and put them through too much.

What did an evil man do to deserve a funeral pyre beside a Saint that was so beloved and revered?

But for Alina (right now) he is just the boy Aleksander Morozova and he deserves this funeral alongside her body.

I'm kinda confused here.

I understand why the Soldat Sol attended the funeral since they were devoted to the Sun Saint but I expected for the Grisha to be mentioned more here.

Two of their leaders are dead.

The Darkling, that was their General for God-knows-how-many-years, and Alina, who also led them from a point afterwards.

I'm not saying that I expected them to mourn the Darkling. But where are the Etherealki? The order that the late Aleksander and "late" Alina also belonged to? They should be at the front lines, right?

Why aren't the Grisha mentioned at all in this scene?

(I swear Leigh created the Grisha, gave them a sad, violent history and then threw them into the bin😭)

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some Grisha really felt sad about the Darkling's death. For some he really represented an end to the constant Ravkan wars and bloodshed. The man that would give them freedom from all of these. He was their safety, their leader, a guardian even. And the fact that so many (supposed) Darklings existed for centuries now, that feeling of safety was only enhanced 'cause he was a constant presence to the Grisha's side.

It's kinda cringe to me that these people mourn Alina even though they had never truly known her. They had touched her and prayed to her name but they didn't know her truly. As a person. They mourn an idol.

Also, the fact that Alina doesn't want to be recognized particularly from the Apparat. If she still had her powers she would use the Cut to him LMAO Those bitter feelings haven't left her. (And I agree with her, he was a creep and a jerk).

(Also, how the FUCK is Nikolai immaculate 24/7?? NIKOLAI WHAT'S YOUR HAIR AND SKINCARE ROUTINE??😭😭)

It's kinda sweet how Nikolai searches for Alina and her approval to begin this.🥹

These two🫶

The crowd is weeping and yelling for Sankta Alina. The polished, idolized version of her that they created. For them she was a Saint that they considered a legend.

But with Alina here it's different. She's mourning for a person that she truly knew. Not a Saint. Not an idolized person created by dreams and fantasies, no. But for a boy that she knew and loved and killed out of mercy and that no one else mourns but her.

It's that contradiction for me.

The crowd mourns a holy person that they never knew but glamorized in their mind.

And Alina mourns for a flawed human being that she knew, loved and felt pity for.

The crowd also showed their grief loudly. While Alina did it in her own quiet and private way.

Alina's name was chanted again and again loudly in a showy manner.

But Aleksander's was whispered with genuine care by a girl that loved him. She said it as a final goodbye to him. From a girl that the Darkling trusted to give his name. And she, in turn, respected it by keeping it a secret and paying tribute to it one final time.

Now she's the only person in the world that knows that name.

(UNTIL "RULE OF WOLVES" CAME OUT AND FUCKED THIS UP BUT LET'S PRETEND THAT NEVER HAPPENED, SHALL WE??😀😀)

I love that scene so much but at the same time it just hurts.so.much.

But just like I said I loved the contradiction between the devoted followers who grieved loudly about a woman that they barely knew and a girl who cried soundlessly, mourned in silence and paid tribute to a boy that she loved and he loved her in return and made sure to honor all his final wishes even after he died.

"No grave. For them to desecrate" = She burned his body.

"Someone to mourn me" = Mourned him in his funeral.

"Speak my name once more" = She did in his funeral as well.

"Don't let me be alone" = He didn't let him be alone in his funeral pyre either.

Gonna go cry now.✌️

[9leaguesofmirrors]

Things Nobody Knows About Lisgoe (a Ross Gaines x Joseph Lisgoe fanfic)

So, fun fact, this fic is a two-parter! This one centers around Lisgoe and the second part, you guessed it, centers around Ross - very simple, I know, but that's not always a bad thing

Things nobody knows about Lisgoe:

He's actually incredibly knowledgable. People look at him and expect nothing more than a violent whackjob, but Lisgoe does have his moments of cleverness. Though he isn't good with rationality and certainly not reasoning, he has extensive knowledge on all things dark

Ross has lost count of the number of times he'd reference something, only to then have to go into an in-depth explanation of a cult, serial killer, or torture method in order for him to understand whatever joke was just made

Although he often ended up disgusted by the mini seminar, Ross had to admit that there was something very attractive about Lisgoe's confident delivery and shocking level of intellect

He has a high spice tolerance. This irritates Ross slightly, because he can barely handle 4.5 chilli fries without needing a considerable gulp of water. Meanwhile, Lisgoe once mistook hot sauce for ketchup and didn't realise until halfway through his meal, then took a swig of it and asked "is this a different brand?"

That man can take on any amount of chili powder without breaking a sweat, and it's a trait that Ross, though he'd never admit it, is wildly jealous of

I mean, what's more embarrassing than having to hide the fact that your insides are slowly dying while your partner complains that the curry you're having "isn't even that fucking spicy"

He's practically nocturnal. Is it because of his job? Is it just him? Ross doesn't know, all he knows is that Lisgoe seems to prefer being awake until the early hours of the morning

This should've been a bit of an issue due to Ross liking to be up no later than 6am everyday, but it means that he gets to wake up to the sight of Lisgoe asleep. In a rare state of complete peace and even gentleness, a sight that nobody in the whole of Royston Vasey has ever gotten close to

And Ross can't help but feel smugly satisfied with that

He mutters to himself a lot. If he's doing something in the room next to Ross, he'll be able to hear him going over things under his breath. Whenever he brings it up, it's denied, but it won't be long until it starts up again. Usually it's a string of curses and insults; at first, Ross assumed it was aimed at the situation or whatever object had caused the irritance

And it does start that way, but then it changes - that's when Ross realised something else about Lisgoe:

He's incredibly hard on himself. That's not to say he isn't confident and can't be an arrogant bastard when he wants to be, but Ross notices that Lisgoe isn't forgiving towards himself when he fails or things go wrong. He's angry, and his muttered swearing and insults quickly aim themselves directly into his own chest. Ross has lost count of the number of times phrases like "you stupid fuck" and "god, what a twat" have escape Lisgoe's mouth in sharp whispers

He wasn't sure when, but one day something clicked and he realised something:

Lisgoe doesn't think that highly of himself. That's not to say he's insecure, Joseph Nigel Lisgoe is not an insecure man at all. No, what Ross realised is that Lisgoe doesn't think he's worthy of a lot of things

Truly, Ross respects Lisgoe's self-awareness - he doesn't pretend to be a perfect, righteous person. He knows he was a bastard and wears it like a badge on his chest

But there was something in the way he replied to compliments with an eyeroll or "fuck off", as if it were a big joke, and the way he refused to accept help even when he truly needed it, that made Ross realise that Lisgoe doesn't hate being treated with a shred of decency - he doesn't think he deserves it

Ross has found out a lot about Lisgoe; the fact that he shows his love through touch rather than words, that he's obsessed with true crime and the macabre. He also knows that Lisgoe is fiercly protective over those he cares about, and nothing will pull him away from the few people he considers important

Everyone knows who Lisgoe is. They see Lisgoe in the street, open their doors to Lisgoe, the whole of Royston Vasey knows Lisgoe

But, little by little, Ross is quite happy that he got to know Joseph. Lisgoe stays outside as Joseph enters. Joseph is the one pressing a kiss to the corner of Ross' mouth and Joseph is the one he bickers with. Joseph lies beside him, their conversations quiet and isolated from the world. It's Lisgoe that Ross met, and it's Joseph he cares about

And what people don't know about Joseph is that he's the one thing Ross truly can't imagine life without

[sailforvalinor]

Joker and Ace: Jester's Privilege

Chapter 1

(Note: I didn't make this clear when I first posted it, but this IS a Doctor Who fic, albeit with completely original characters and in terms of plot, 70% independent of DW's main plot. But this does begin roughly during the events of NuWho Series 1.)

Bath, England, May 183-

Despite the fact that it was only an evening in mid-May, the air in Lord Ace’s grand ballroom was hot and stuffy. Perhaps it was because due to the excessive amount of people in the room, but Theodore Ace observed that, to him in particular, it seemed to be only exacerbated by the fact that he was stuck listening to his sister prattle on about another of her unlucky suitors.

Emmeline huffed. “If you were a good and attentive brother, Theodore, you would at least pretend to take a mild curiosity in an admirer of your sister.”

“Oh I do take a curiosity, truly,” Theodore said drily. “Though I cannot advise that you marry him.”

Emmeline’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? But I have not even told you his name.”

“There‘s no need. I can already tell you that a gentleman so gullible as to be fooled by your charms is not fit to govern your household, he’ll be robbed blind by his own servants and not even notice until he has nothing to pay them with. Why, you wouldn’t have any silver for the wedding supper.”

Emmeline’s face flushed red with anger. Theodore knew he had likely gone too far this time—but he had forgotten in his time away how quickly her shallow flippancy angered him.

The arch of her eyebrows threatened a storm at any moment, but to his surprise, she showed an unusual display of restraint and calmed her brow. “Angeline,” Emmeline said instead, “I fear our brother has been studying the art of shrewishness while away at university.” She giggled. “Hardly a trait appropriate to his sex.”

“Or his office,” Angeline said. “Clergymen are meant to be amiable, Theodore, and that’s a quality that you have hardly displayed in the past ten years.”

“A quality I’ve hardly displayed to you,” Theodore corrected. “Just because you have never witnessed my amiability doesn’t mean I don’t possess it.”

“Then prove it,” Angeline said. “Stop moping in this corner and go ask one of those girls to dance. There is a lack of partners and you are a tolerable enough dancer—and, after all, this is our ball.”

Theodore took a sip of his wine. “Mm. I think not.”

“Surely you cannot stand to converse with us for the entire ball.”

Theodore gave a wry smile. “I think you’ll find that my tolerance for pain has only increased since you saw me last, dear sister.”

Emmeline huffed, fanning herself. “If you’re going to disgrace your family, Theo, could you at least be less boring about it? Run off with a duke’s wife or throw away all your allowance on betting on the races. Get discovered black-out drunk in an alley somewhere, I don’t care. I forgot how tiresome you are.”

“Emmeline,” Angeline hissed. “Mind your tongue.”

“Yes, Emmeline, heed your sister’s counsel,” a light, tittery voice concurred. Theodore looked up and hid his wince at the approach of Mrs. Ida Ace, formerly Ida Clemence, the most decided flirt and infamous socialite Bath had seen in the last three seasons. Her recent marriage to his oldest brother, Cecil, seemed to have hardly deterred her tendency towards flamboyance—he’d heard his sisters call her costume that night “perfectly lovely,” though he himself thought the violent shade of green of the feathers adorning her hair rather garish.

“If you’re going to snap up Sir Lambton as I advised, you can hardly let the knowledge get around to him that accomplished, respectable ladies such as yourself know of the indulgences some gentleman of their acquaintance partake in,” Ida said, while taking it upon herself to fix an ornament in Emmeline’s hair, which he could tell even Angeline found patronizing. “Even these walls have ears—isn’t that so, Theo?”

If Theodore had harbored any hopes of his brother having the taste to bring a sister into the family at least slightly more tolerable than the ones he had already, he had been sorely mistaken—Ida was everything his sisters admired and envied, and thus everything he despised. But while Angeline and Emmeline were merely shallow and petty, Ida was truly dangerous—the daughter of one of his father’s “business associates,” she had been working as an informant since she had come out into society when she was seventeen, knowledge he was only privy to due to some careful digging of his own. Given her jibe, she apparently had discovered (or his brother had told her) of the secret passages and panels behind the walls of this house—and of the time Theodore had spent in those walls as a child, playing what his father called “games” with a water glass and scribbled shorthand.

Theodore knew that rising to her bait was a terrible idea—so he rose to Emmeline’s instead. “If I am to be a disappointment, Emmy, I’ll do so on my own terms,” he said shortly. “Any entertainment you get out of it will be purely incidental on my part. I’m not a strung-up marionette dancing for your enjoyment.”

“Aren’t you?” Ida suddenly fixed him with a piercing, curious stare. “Why, that’s not what your dear brother tells me. Of course, he can be the most wicked liar—he loves to tease me—but I’m certain I’ve learnt to read him by now.”

Theodore felt his mouth go dry. He set down his wine glass on a nearby table for fear of snapping the stem.

He was luckily spared from giving a response by Emmeline, peering over the balcony’s railing, suddenly exclaiming, “Who on earth is that?”

“Who do you mean, Emmeline?” Angeline said, joining her.

“That girl, right there!” Emmeline nearly raised her hand to point, Angeline slapped her hand down.

Ida’s gaze snapped away from Theodore. “Oh yes, that’s what I came up here to tell you.” Her voice lowered into a confidential whisper. “That girl down there—“ she indicated someone below with a tilt of her head “—I didn’t recognize her, so I made some inquiries, but no one seems to have any idea who she is. And—“ she raised her eyebrows, eyes glittering with the anticipation of the shock she was about to instill in her audience “—she’s here without an escort.”

Both of his sisters whirled around and gasped.

“She’s here without a--” Angeline repeated dumbly.

“--what?” Emmeline exclaimed.

“Waltzed right in, bold as brass,” Ida said.

Emmeline leaned over the railing again. “Who is she?”

“Emmy, stop staring,” Angeline scolded, as she stared down into the ballroom with eyes rounder than porcelain saucers.

At any other time, Theodore would have blocked out this sort of chatter, but tonight he found his ears pricking. There were no strangers at his father’s balls, even if some of the guests thought of themselves as such. These gatherings were a dance in more than one sense of the word--a carefully constructed production of meetings, alliances, silent wars. There were no mistakes, no striking deviance planned or accounted for other than what color gown or the embarrassing amount of rouge Miss So-and-So was wearing.

So, a stranger, a young lady that no one recognized, and an unescorted one, at that, was more than just an item of gossip, it was something completely unheard of in his father’s circle--an anomaly.

As subtly as he could manage, Theodore edged forward and peered over his sisters’ heads down into the ballroom. He’d expected to have some trouble finding the lady they spoke of, but he spotted her immediately--a girl walking along the edge of the ballroom, well out of the way of the dancers whirling in the center of the floor. It was impossible to miss her, for she cut a broad swath through the crowd, those around her backing away from her and attempting to hide the way they gawked at her with varying degrees of success. They did not stare for her beauty--though she was most certainly very fashionably dressed, wearing an elegant, champagne-colored gown with the lowered waist that had become so recently popular of late and pale flaxen curls piled on her head and tumbling over her shoulders--no, they stared because they all knew what he knew, that she did not belong here. She hardly seemed to notice how they gasped and whispered behind unfurled fans, hands clasped demurely in front of her and gazing at her surroundings with delight and curiosity.

Theodore took all this in at a mere glance, but as if she could feel herself being watched, the girl stopped in her tracks--then, slowly, curiously turned her gaze to the balcony where he stood.

Theodore nearly jumped back out of view, a jolt of electricity running through him that he did not quite understand the source of. Of course she could not have known he was looking at her; that was impossible. He didn’t even know that it was he she was looking at. He swallowed, astonished at his own confusion.

Slowly, the voices of his sisters swam back into focus. “--you wrote all the invitations yourself, didn’t you, Angeline?” Emmeline was asking.

“Of course I did, but I assure you, I did not invite her--whoever she is.”

“Well of course you didn’t,” Ida said condescendingly. “She’s likely some little village girl on her first trip to Bath who thinks she can walk into any ball she wishes as long as she’s passingly acquainted with someone in attendance. Shocking, to be sure.”

“Or maybe she’s a servant who has stolen her mistress’s clothes,” Emmeline said. She turned up her nose. “That gown is much too fine for her.”

Their voices began to sound like nails on a chalkboard, his annoyance reaching heights he’d never thought possible. He resisted the urge to grit his teeth.

“She walks as if she believed she waltzed straight off of a fashion plate--”

“--if you’ll excuse me,” Theodore interrupted, bowing with his last scrap of his composure and heading towards the stairs.

“Oh? Where are you off to?” Angeline asked.

“Didn’t you want me gone?” Theodore snapped back over his shoulder.

“Yes, but where are you going?”

Tonight was supposed to have been uneventful. He was supposed to have stayed out of sight, dance with the required number of ladies to avoid being considered rude, avoid getting into spats with his sisters, keep his own irritation with the proceedings down to a low simmer, and, above all, avoid attracting his father’s attention.

Well. To the devil with all that, he supposed.

“Nowhere,” he said, heading down the stairs.

“Oh, let him go,” he heard Ida tell his sisters condescendingly. “One of Theo’s greatest joys in life has always been to be clownishly contrary, and since as a clergyman I’m sure those joys shall become few and far between, we shall let him enjoy them while he can.”

--

When Theodore entered the ballroom, the girl was still standing in the same place, now studying the frescoed ceiling with great interest, her head tilted to one side.

Theodore knew he was being childish, exceedingly so. The exceedingly rational, careful side of his brain was telling him he would come to regret what he was about to do, but so great was his irritation with his sisters, this charade of a ball, and the very fabric of his life, that in that moment he could not bring himself to care.

So, Theodore Ace, third son of Lord Ace of --shire, without prompting, the proper decorum, or any means of introduction, and with the knowledge that every eye in the ballroom watched him, walked up to a lady he did not even know the name of and made his bow.

“Good evening, miss,” he said.

She turned, and at the sight of him her eyes lit up with such an unguarded, radiant delight that he felt a sudden sense of vertigo. A slow, broad smile spread across her face. “Hello,” she breathed.

Theodore froze for a moment at the strangeness of her reaction. There was something about the intensity of her gaze, the way she seemed to be taking in every line of his face, that suddenly made his cheeks go hot. But he would not be deterred.

He swallowed, determined to plunge on. “Would you dance with me?”

Chapter 2 ->

[ddejavvu]

Personally, my perception of the movie has changed majorly from when I was 12 to now, at almost 21. Idk if the same happened to you, please let me know how it has or hasn't for you 🙃

When I was 12 I was obsessed with Dally and the bad boy appeal, I think maybe it had to do with Matt Dillion... probably a lot. The line soda says about dally at the end of the film was lost on me then. I thought he was cool and I envied being looked up to like that.

But now as an adult, a big girl if you will, I have such an admiration for all of the other characters. In fact, I've basically done a 180. I fear Dally in a way that I hope I never become like him. I hope that there is always something to live for and that my life isn't to keep up an appearance. I admire Johnny so much more now because I am almost so alike to him (the same thing happened with Frodo from lotr). I admire darry's commitment to his family. Soda's... everything :). Pony's brilliance (i can't even explain what I truly mean here in a concise way so I won't sorry). Two-bits protectiveness. Steve's love for chocolate cake and his devotion for friends. All of these kinda sum up to the fact that I have lived life on my own, and that I have found the importance of all of these. I respect life and I value the things they represent and value within the movie/book.

If you can't tell I also sent you that ask about darry and it seems I still cannot figure the art of asks out yet... sorry :D

To paraphrase that all... how has your perceptions of characters changed as you aged and gained life experiences?

that's so totally okay!! asks can be awkward to figure out at first but i love the opportunity you've given me for analysis :)

my perspective has definitely changed as I've grown. My home life growing up was rough and still is, but thankfully it never got as physically violent as many of the characters in that novel. however, i did feel connected to a lot of them through that abused, isolated upbringing, and I chose to channel that into broodiness instead of finding friends that could help me out. I isolated myself even further and pushed away connection, which really only made things worse in the long run. i'm still dealing with the effects of that: I struggle immensely with connection from how shut-off I made myself.

I read the novel in middle school and thankfully my saving grace came to me on the first day of freshman year. she helped immensely with my feelings of hopelessness and isolation and where i'd previously viewed myself as being more like characters like dallas and johnny and ponyboy (the loneliest ones who were more outward about their struggles and especially dallas who was completely overtaken by them), I grew and changed and began identifying more with the other boys. I let good things into my life instead of keeping myself holed up with the bad. the bad was and is still there of course, but now that I'm capable of being more independent I make an effort to center my life around my loved ones instead of letting the bad overtake me.

i admire darry's hard work and dedication, his sort of 'no way but through' attitude because a lot of the time i feel like blowing stuff off but i admire his strength a lot. he's the one that i admire the most, and he's the one i'd love to be like overall. he's my favorite because I hope I can build my life and contribute to other peoples' lives in that meaningful of a way, even if it's not luxurious or glamorous.

also he's dreamy and i wanna marry him okay thanks for asking me this

[varian-secretportals]

What makes a good Varian love-interest?

For my upcoming coming-of-age adventure story for Varian I have plans to give the adorable alchemist his own love story. While I'm certainly not implying that he needs a love interest to be happy, it's something I imagine he does want someday.

I imagine that Rapunzel and Eugene are an example of the kind of romantic love he wants, e.g. a best friend, partner and someone to grow old with. Even his father's undying love for his (supposedly) late mother gives him hope that maybe it could happen for him. At the start of the story I imagine he has a lot of insecurities when it comes to love, partly as result of Cassandra rejecting him (though he's accepting of the fact they'll always be "really good" friends) and the other part because he wonders if he's deserving of it. While he's mostly forgiven himself for his past sins, there's still a scar there and it still stings when he faces rejection from anybody who is not willing to forgive or trust him (I imagine Nigel is one of these people). So throughout my story I imagine he's still learning to forgive and accept all these parts himself and learns how much more he could be.

While I certainly don't ship Cassandra and Varian, I do admit I found Varian's unrequited crush to be very cute. Plus, their friendship was very cute as they truly have a mutual empathy and understanding of each other. Plus, I loved their amazing duet.

I kind of wish we saw more interactions between these two in the series finale. It would have been good to see them apologise to each other for attempting to hurt and/or kidnap the other in order to get to Rapunzel. While they clearly didn't hold grudges against the other, I just wish they could have had a moment like that. 😔 I'm certainly writing a flashback moment like this into the story for the sake of showing they forgive each other and that they want to build a healthier friendship.

I know a lot of people believe Varian was attracted to Cassandra due him being an Amazon Chaser, e.g. is attracted to strong, warrior women, but @o0whiterabbit0o made a good point that Varian's attraction to Cassandra began as a result of her "choosing him" in choosing to save his life. He was attracted to her because she kindly and selflessly made the effort to protect him, and therefore he felt she was really something special.

While I'm certainly not against this headcanon of Varian being attracted to (or at least strongly respecting) strong women, I think it's safe to say he's attracted to selflessness, kindness and loving devotion in potential partners as well.

I also think intelligence would be an attractive feature for a potential partner. She doesn't have to be at Varian's level of intelligence or even have an interest or skill for alchemy. Still, I think having her own intelluctual interests and hobbies would certainly make her stand out as a potential romantic candidate.

No offence to Varigo shippers (Varian and Hugo V&7K AU ship) but I personally imagine Varian with a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend. I certainly think we need to be respectful of each other's opinions on the subject of Varian's sexuality, but in my opinion I think he's interested (or at least more interested) in women romantically in canon. Therefore I plan for his love interest to be a girl.

So far some of my favourite Varian love interest OC's include Lashanie by @o0whiterabbit0o and Instagram and Cara writer/artist dlimpy's (Links to her accounts can be found below) OC, Danielle. I love their designs and the fanwork these amazing artists/writers have done. Both girls sound like well-rounded and likeable characters with very different but nonetheless fleshed out relationships with Varian. I hope my own OC love interest will be as fleshed out and likeable.

dlimpy's Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/dlimpy?igsh=MW52OXlpZ3R2ZzJlNQ==

dlimpy's Cara account:

So far I have two OC's that I am considering as potential love interests for Varian, though I'm currently trying to flesh out their character and story arcs for the sake of making sure they don't fall into the Mary Sue or Satellite Love Interest territory. I want them to be their own person and have other goals to simply being Varian's love interest.

I will eventually introduce you to my OC's in spoiler-free character profiles once I'm done writing them. Maybe eventually I'll share more fleshed out spoiler profiles with backstories once I actually get to writing and publishing my story.

For now I am curious as what you think makes a good and fleshed out Varian love interest? Do you think Varian has a type or least an idea of what he wants in a romantic partner? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[galacticwildfire]

found.

Twenty Five

Pairing: Kenobi!oc x Din Djarin

Summary: Satine and Obi-wan’s daughter fought in the war against the Empire and lost her faith when she lost Mandalore. Until she found him. A lone Mandalorian searching for a Jedi.

Warnings/tags: Trigger warnings for flashbacks: suicide attempt, violence, gunplay, trauma. For the rest of the story: near death, jealousy, violent impulses, threatening, descriptions of ptsd and injuries, mentions of miscarriage, angst angst angst, Din and Lando united against Boba

Word Count: 7.9k

A/N: it gets worse before it gets better but the next chapter is angst to the extreme. I have the proceeding fight between her and Boba written but it would have pushed the chapter to 10k words so expect it in the next one. I wanted to spend some time in Boba's pov exploring the other side of their story from his eyes. Also one scene is very much inspired by the "we don't like him do we" one from ginny and gerogia,

ALSO THAT NEW EPISODE. NOW THAT IS MOTIVATION TO WRITE.

~

~

~

Boba Fett

From the cockpit I can hear the Mandalorian talking to her as if that alone could undo a missile impact. He loves her. Not that I can blame him. Once I was in the same state as him after pulling her out of that rubble after the oxygen in her lungs had been replaced with chemicals, not that she was conscious to see it. Much like now, but something tells me she'll know.

She always does.

Perhaps I said the things to the Mandalorian that I did out of spite, perhaps I respect the man, maybe I want to kill him, maybe it's the fact it was easier to voice the hate in my heart than to look at her dying in another man's arms. 

He's terrified, I was as well when I saw the missile impact.

But I was right when I told him she's both too stubborn to die and too hard to kill. A trait the rest of the Jedi didn't share, one I attribute to her sheer spite more than Mandalorian blood, but what keeps me calm is knowing I've seen her perform stranger miracles than surviving a direct hit from a missile. 

Fennec and I sit in silence as we enter the system until she finally breaks it.

"You neglected to tell me the woman who had your armour was formerly pregnant with your child."

There is frustration in her voice, almost repulsion, not that I can criticize it when she heard the whole of it. "Was. A long time ago."

She is hardly one to judge, but she does. "That information would have been valuable before engaging."

I scoff, forgetting most aren't familiar with warriors like Kyra "How so?"

"I hadn't accounted for a vengeful Jedi," she says and shakes her head, touching her throat from where Kyra strangled her. Her willingness to use the force to commit violence is something I had not accounted for, but I should have known threatening her would only make her snap. 

"Well it seems she is the only one of those left in the galaxy," I say, glad to know at least one of us has not changed. 

"We owe them Boba," she says stiffly. "For the child."

"I know," I say quietly. I owe her. If she has claimed this child as hers, whether as a padawan or a foundling, or more likely both, it's my duty to return it to her. "And we will help them if she lets me live long enough."

Physically I know she can kill me, she may be one of the few people still alive who can. I haven't been on the receiving end of an attack from her, not truly at least, but I've seen enough to know what she is capable of, it's only ever been her heart and damned code that's held her back from committing massacres. 

I've heard the rumours, that her and Skywalker walked into a room with Vader and the Emperor and only they left alive. I hope she killed them, with Skywalkers strength and her skill they are they only people in the galaxy who could. 

I'll never forget the day I stood in that throne room on Mandalore when Viszla challenged her, a hulking man with a full foot on her and still he ended up beaten. 

And that was without her Jedi tricks.

"Mando filled the space you left in the guild after the Sarlaac," Fennec warns me, I'd done my research and came to the conclusion that Kyra would only find herself in league with a man who could rival her. "I can assure you that he's just as likely to drop you once she's safe."

"Great," I find myself saying. He's taken my woman and my reputation without even realising it. "He can take what he wants, but there is no other bounty hunter like me. Only me."

"Except for the fact you're in love with the same woman," she says, more frustrated I withheld important information from the mission than anything else. "That you had also neglected to inform me of."

"Fucking the same woman," I correct. "I never said anything about love."

"I'm not deaf," she shortly, no doubt having heard the conversation below. "I thought living with the Tuskans was what made you soft, not her."

"She did," I force myself to admit. "And it got me all but killed."

"Better not make the same mistake twice then," she says and that's the end of the conversation, yet for just a moment I remember what it was like to have Kyra beside me in this cockpit, remembering it all too well. Right from the first time we met, when she paid me to smuggle her to Mandalore after her mothers death, hiding behind a veil and giving no name.

"First time dealing with a bounty hunter?" I asked her, having picked up on the fact she was some aristocrat but I never could have known the Mand'alor herself was sitting beside me.

"Something like that," she answered. "I sat in that Cantina for hours, I approached you because of that armour you wear, those who follow the old ways have a code of honour about them for the most part."

"Then why are you suspicious of me?" I asked her, her body cues obvious enough.

"Because suspicion has kept me alive."

I was almost impressed although cautious when I realised I had a refugee onboard. "Would I be right to assume you aren't quite friends with the Empire?"

"No one is friends with the Empire," she said, and there was a regal yet frustrated tone to her voice that should have alerted me to who she was as it was all too similar to the Duchess Satine's. "We all live under their rule, for some that is more difficult than others."

"We all do what we must to make a living," I told her, just wanting to make my way through the galaxy with some credits in my pocket. "Why make life more difficult for yourself?"

"That's a good question," she said, she was a young woman but spoke with a self righteous wisdom that felt too familiar. "Some of us are born into difficult situations, it's all we know."

"With the wealth you have it can't have been that difficult," I dismissed. "You sure have enough beskar to keep yourself comfortable."

"Blood money," she replied and those words sparked my intrigue.

"What money isn't blood money?" I asked her, but she knew that and still judged it with the true hypocrisy of a Jedi. "Did you forget who you hired?"

"A bounty hunter," she answered simply. "And from the price you charged that man on Tatooine a very good one I suspect, expensive enough for these parts anyways."

"If you've lived your life on Tatooine you would know it is the rate for Bounty Hunters of my experience, it's in the outer rims where blood money runs thick," I said and tilted my head towards her. "Unless that is just another part of your story."

"You doubt I'm Mandalorian," she said and then left me stunned as she spoke in Mando'a. "I am more than most who claim to be."

Oh little did I know just how much until we were entering Mandalore's atmosphere and she was telling me to fly past Imperial ships straight for the palace and I felt like the greatest fool in the galaxy realising I was sitting beside the spawn of a Mandalorian duchess and a Jedi, a Jedi I'd once tried to kill. 

She'd kept up her game of disguise all the way from Tatooine until that moment, even after I'd found the bodies of the stormtroopers she'd left on a layover planet the moment I'd let her out of my sight. I'd sat here in this very cockpit dumbfounded at having been blindsided for one of the very few times in my life, that the aristocratic woman I'd agreed to smuggle was a very capable killer and I didn't even know it. That I didn't know I was sitting beside someone who moved like a ghost and shed blood without blinking an eye.

I think that was the very moment I knew I was fucked.

Maker knows I still am and she might not even make it to Cloud City. But I can't afford to think like that, after all she's endured she won't die today. She can't. Not like this. 

She's older now, closer to the age I was when I met her, and with age has certainly come both beauty and bitterness. She's no longer a girl shouldering the weight of Mandalore and the Jedi on her shoulders, but a battle scarred woman who has lost more than most could ever fathom. Something I did not understand, not until the murder of the Tuskans. It is easy to blame those with a responsibility until you are the one carrying it, and having failed. 

I went to her on Tatooine not just for the armour, I didn't beat Cobb Vanth just for beskar, but for her. That was when I discovered the Mandalorian and knew something had changed.

All those years during the war, from retaking Mandalore after her mother surrendered it to that day on Tatooine, we found our way back to one another. No amount of hate or betrayal could ever change that. Even that last night together no matter how much she hated me it didn't stop her from pulling me into bed. 

I tried to convince her to abandon it all, but she wouldn't. Even so, after Cloud City I turned on Vader. She can scoff at me and deny I'd ever draw a blade on him, but I did when he told me he knew she was pregnant when he tortured her but it was too late to undo the damage that had been done. I never knew she'd lost the child then.  For months I tried to get back to her until I lured her to Tatooine, expecting her to be half a year or more pregnant and there she stood as I'd last seen her with such rage in her eye that I believed what Vader told me she would do and she let me believe it.

Vader twisted both our minds, and now I know the truth all I feel is shame. Shame that the one good thing in my life, my one chance at a future to be a good man as my father was, I ruined it.

I ruined her.

And yet I can't accept what is right in front of my eyes.

That she loves this strange Mandalorian in a way she did not love me.

All those years of running around the outer rims together so her family would never know about us and now this Mandalorian seems to know them all. That was what told me all I needed to know in my questioning. She loves him, I knew that when I watched her find him bleeding out on Tatooine, but here she suddenly is with a child and a man she'd brought to meet the people she loves most. The two things her and I never had, the two things that were impossible for us despite how close we came to having it.

Everything I wanted for us, the freedom to travel the galaxy with just her and our child, a life together without the war or the Empire or the Rebellion. Just us.

Everything I wanted, everything I spent years fighting for, suddenly she has with another man.

That wounds me more than any words she could ever say.

I would have done anything for it, but she would never abandon the Rebellion for anything, not me, not Mandalore, nothing.

We were in bed together in an inn on a world where no one would know us, it was the unspoken condition of our arrangement following our reunion after Mandalore. We were each others secret.

My arm was around her shoulder, tired smiles on both our faces as I watched her inspect my new blaster. She was warm in my arms, the only soft thing I had in my life.

"It's expensive," she said, despite her insistence that blasters were uncivilised in comparison to a lightsaber she had no problems wielding one.

"I'm expensive," I reminded her, not that she needed it.

"Oh I know," she assured me and it earned a low chuckle. I watched in quiet amusement as she lined the blaster up with a decorative plate on the wall, making blaster sounds with her mouth.

I raised an eyebrow at the display "It sounds a bit more sophisticated than that."

"Yeah alright shut up," she laughed and I reached around to put a hand over hers. She didn't need any instruction with a blaster but I knew she liked it and so did I.

"It's silenced," I told her as I watched her face. "Yet still able to penetrate the thickest of armour. It's a smooth design, not bulky. Perfectly rounded edges."

"Hmm," she hummed as her already naked body warmed and I ran the barrel along her jaw knowing how she liked it, and there was nothing more erotic than watching her face as I fucked her with my blaster. Nothing. She bit back a moan as I ran it over her lips, getting her just how I wanted her as she tilted her chin up towards mine, her eyes fluttering closed as she murmured my name "Boba."

"Princess," I said, liking how she melted with a single touch and tried in vain to get her to leave that damn inn with me when I had her in the only state I could ever get her to beg in "You should come with me for a while, wherever you want to go."

Her eyes opened and that lovestruck look was gone. "You know I can't."

"You can, you just won't." With that she sat up and held the blankets to her chest and I sighed as I tried to bring her back "Kyra-"

"Don't," she said harshly as I broached that one subject that was sorely off limits.

"Is it so wrong to want you with me?" I asked her and pressed my lips to her shoulder. "Would anyone know if you disappeared for a few days..."

"Yes, considering I'm leading an attack in a few days they would," she revealed, always in anger giving more than she would otherwise and sighed "Boba, you know I want to."

"Then what's stopping you?" I asked her, bit by bit trying to get her to see what she was too stubborn to admit. "The rebellion will survive without you."

"If you want me that badly then come with me," she countered, as defiant as ever.

"That would make things more complicated than necessary," I said, by then she'd had to have known what I was doing and who I was working for, how couldn't she when I was running into her rebel friends in the field.

"You're the one making things complicated by hunting down my friends," she finally snapped and I leaned back in defeat knowing it was only a matter of time before she brought up the last altercation. "Fuck Boba, of all the targets you could take-"

"Solo pays the most," I said and the way she shook her head in anger spurred something in me. "Why do you care?"

She said it as if it was obvious, painfully in denial Solo would fuck her if given the chance and she was far too defensive of him for my liking. "Because he's my friend."

I scoffed "Why are you fucking him too?"

Her eyes widened and I knew I'd certainly hit a nerve in the way she slapped me hard without a moment of hesitation and I grabbed her wrists, pinning her down beneath me despite how she struggled and spat out "Fuck you Boba."

"Are you?" I repeated and saw a sick pleasure in her eyes at riling me up how she did despite how deeply the accusation angered her.

"Why would you care if I was?" she countered, and this time it was her who crossed one of our many unspoken lines. "Don't tell me you love me?"

It had been two years since she'd found me in that cantina, since she'd paid me in beskar to take her to Mandalore and had somehow convinced me to stay as her commander. She was arrogant enough not to take no for an answer and for some reason I allowed it. Of all the work I'd taken, being paid to fight for her and then fuck her every night was far from the worst of it.

Until it became more than that.

I never expected to want to stay, I never knew how invested I'd become until she decided to give it all up to return to the rebellion and left Mandalore in the hands of her aunt. Being the daughter of a Jedi and a pacifist the vengeful temper was a surprise I couldn't place, not until I met Bo-Katan Kryze. They both knew that Bo-Katan was everything Kyra could grow to become, while Kyra was everything Bo-Katan could have been.

Bo-Katan had been defending the palace with the darksaber Kyra had handed to her upon pointing her regent whilst Kyra fought on the front lines against Darth Vader and his legion before the bombs came. They both survived, I don't know what words were exchanged but it was enough for Kyra to bring down the ruins of the palace upon herself while her aunt and her Nite Owls lived. 

I didn't know I loved her until I pulled her out of that rubble on Mandalore, but I couldn't admit it, not to her. I was Boba Fett and she was an inconvenience, one I found myself indulging in every chance I got.

"Don't be stupid," I said but she looked right through me and I hated it. "I don't like other men touching what's mine."

"Last time I checked I'm not yours, not when the only time I can have you is like this." 

"I'd beg to differ."

She pushed against my hold on her but I didn't let up until she said "No I'm not fucking Han you jealous bastard." Maybe I wanted to believe it so I had an out but the moment I released her wrists she grabbed my face and pulled me down between her legs as she told me "I have what I want." Her next words were the closest either of us could come to telling ourselves and each other the truth. "And that's you Boba."

I watched her eyes darken at the feeling of my blaster between her legs and knew I had her as I gave her a single command "Show me."

And even as she sunk down onto the blaster she still believed she was in control, but if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to take what she wanted.

It was that attitude that put her on the throne of Mandalore but it was her loyalty to the rebellion that lost her it, her misplaced loyalty that put us on opposite sides of this war. For a moment I was more than a bounty hunter, I was the right hand of the Mand'alor, an honourable man. I watched her fight every challenge to her reign, I watched as she tamed the clans who would have overthrown her if they saw a moment of weakness.

That was until she received one call from the Princess of Alderaan and she put the darksaber in her aunt's hands to run off to the rebel base with her battalion of warriors. That was when it fell apart, the screaming match in the empty throne room in the dead of night. All because she was too afraid to lose her so called family, all because she was that vengeance mad after her parents deaths. I understood the thirst for vengeance and would have been by her side to take it with her, but not when she thought vengeance meant returning to the rebellion.

She should have been glad she was born after the fall of the Jedi order, or else she would have been cast out for her insufferable heart. Her one and only weakness.

Mandalore would have withstood the Empire under her rule if not for it. If she'd made decisions without it instead of letting her own stubbornness and vendetta against the Empire leave Mandalore unstable and open to attack. She was always too much like her mother in believing through sheer willpower alone she could save Mandalore and they both lost it. In the end her mother surrendered it to the Empire so it would survive whilst Kyra did it so she could avenge her parents.

Now she's running around the galaxy with a Mandalorian who won't take off his helmet and a kid that was one of Yoda's species without a clue in hell what she's doing. 

If I know anything it's that she protects and avenges what she's lost with the fierceness of a true Mandalorian. I left the Mandalorian to die and the kid was taken whilst we had them at blaster point. We enter the planets atmosphere and I know if she doesn't murder me when she wakes up I'll call myself a lucky man.

"Slave I, turn your ship around or be met with force," the air traffic controller says and I just sigh having anticipated no less.

Before I can try to tell them their beloved rebel hero is on board the Mandalorian comes up to the cockpit and buts in to speak into the com.

"This is Din Djarin, tell Lando Calrissian I have Kyra Kenobi on board and she is gravely injured."

There's chatter in the background before being asked "Is Boba Fett on board?"

"Yes but the General needs immediate care or else she will die," he says, sounding how I feel. "Let us land without violence, either Calrissian or Solo will vouch for me."

I can't help but scoff at him being chummy with those two and Fennec gives me a warning look, clearly acquainted with this Din Djarin and not wanting a fight.

"Alright, proceed to land."

And so I land the ship in the same spot where she ran to me upon arriving on Cloud City, not knowing the Empire was already there and it being too late for her to escape.

Perhaps this time I can make things right.

I have to.

~

Din

The moment the landing dock opens I'm carrying her limp body out of that ship, being met with city guards and finally Calrissian who rushes out.

"What happened?"

"She has internal injuries," I say, knowing how is not urgent right now. "She's barely breathing.

"We've got a bacta tank," he says but just as we rush forward towards the building he comes to a stop, only just taking in the ship and immediately reaches for a blaster "Did he do this to her?"

"No," I say, gathering Calrissian knows their history. "We can deal with him later she needs help now!"

I can't keep the urgent edge from my raised voice, not when she's all but dead and we run inside. I'm cradling her head to my chest to keep it as still as I can as he leads me through the halls until finally we reach a medic bay. Calrissian immediately starts giving orders for the tank to be readied while I strip her of her armour to her underclothes without hesitation, this not being how I'd planned on taking it off when I first saw her walk out of that ship guns blazing in beskar. 

Calrissian brings over the harness to hoist her into the tank and the two of us get her inside it, in any other situation I'd cut a man's hand off for touching her in this state of undress but it hardly matters now when she's minutes from death. 

"Be careful, her head-" I begin as the nurses secure the breathing apparatus and it's in the way her limp body hangs as she's hoisted inside the tank for a moment I'm sure I'll be sick and I'm bracing myself on the wall, trying to keep myself from collapsing on the spot now she's out of my hands.

"Sir I need to ask you some questions," the doctor says and I struggle to compose myself as he begins "How did she obtain these injuries and how long ago?"

"Direct missile hit around an hour ago," I answer and watch the colour drain from her face. "She- she's a Jedi. The same missile blew my ship to ashes but somehow she survived."

Calrissian's swearing under his breath and nothing feels real as I'm bombarded with more questions he ends up answering.

"Age?"

"Twenty eight."

"Pre-existing health conditions?"

"Severe post traumatic stress," Calrissian answers as I step closer to the glass, putting a hand on it as if I could touch her, feel her pulse no matter how faint to assure myself she's still alive. "Previous head traumas, long term damage to her organs and nervous system from electrocution." 

My head snaps around towards him at those words, suddenly finding myself overcome by panic at having not known this whilst she was dying under my watch. 

"Force lightning it," he tries to explain but those words don't help. "It doesn't matter how but she's had heart palpitations for years but stopped taking medication for it. She has cognitive processing difficulties, memory loss and disassociation as lasting effects of torture. It's a long list of health conditions but nothing overly out of the ordinary for a war veteran."

Well it's too long for me and I repeat "Lightning?"

"The Emperor," he says and I only tilt my head in confusion. "She hasn't told you about when her and Luke went to kill the Emperor?"

I feel my eyes widen beneath the helmet and I look back at her in pure shock, I knew about Darth Vader but somehow she never mentioned that.

"They killed the emperor?"

"No, technically not but she definitely tried-"

It's then we're interrupted by Boba Fett "She still alive?"

"You can get out!" Calrissian snaps at him and immediately my hand is on my blaster as he appears in the doorway too calm for my liking. 

"In the purge she suffered chemical burns to the insides of her lungs and crush wounds," Fett reveals whilst I stand there ashamedly ignorant of this information, knowing none of it aside from the effects of torture. "She suffocated and I had to restart her heart manually before I could get her help, you'll want to keep an eye on her vitals."

"Noted," the doctor says and hesitantly looks between the three of us before asking "Now before we can do a full body scan I need to ask if there is any chance she could be pregnant."

I freeze beneath my armour, utterly still at the possibility that has not occurred to me before now. I don't know how many times I've been inside her in these past weeks, countless, almost every chance we've gotten away from the kid and everytime I was always as deep inside of her as I could have been when I finished. She never mentioned any protection and I never asked despite knowing I should have, perhaps selfishly wanting the consequences of such an act to happen and silently hoping so did she as she always wrapped her legs tight and held me inside of her after we'd both finished. 

Now after everything I've learned, that she was once with child... there are so many things we never discussed that we should have, so many things I never knew.

Finally I stammer "Yes- she could be."

Boba Fett stays wisely silent, that is until Calrissian awkwardly steps in and says "She has a birth control chip, it shouldn't be expired."

He doesn't look at me and I don't want him to, having tried to forget what I heard in the cockpit when she spoke to Solo after the attack on Tatooine. I was stressed over Fett coming after us when I'd heard Solo telling her they should let off some steam together, I certainly saw the panic that took hold of her and then the frustration when I asked if I'd have to worry about this one coming after us as well after she took off to hunt Fett down in the night.

She told me the truth about Calrissian with little emotion other than guilt, that he wanted to marry her and she ran away. Something that hadn't surprised me after that night. Although I was more than surprised to see him when I met her family, but quickly realised if she deems him family that is something I have to accept. 

And as far as I'm concerned right now he isn't the one I need to worry about.

"Well I'll be damned," Fett says and realise Calrissian can't look at him either. "She let you fuck her after what you did?"

I'm caught off guard, trying to keep an eye on Kyra in the tank to see if she's making any visible improvements, but those words certainly draw me back into the conversation.

"What I did was nothing compared to what you did," Calrissian says but that sparks enough alarm in me that my hand is on my blaster.

"What you did?" I repeat and Calrissian's eyes are on the floor, guilt written across his face.

"Ah, you don't know," Fett says, almost amused. 

"I know what you did," I counter and draw my blaster on Fett, Calrissian quickly drawing his own as well. "I know you're the one who betrayed her."

"I couldn't have done anything if Calrissian hadn't betrayed Solo and the others first by inviting Vader into the city to ambush them." 

I keep my blaster hand still as Calrissian replies "I never invited him, and if I recall you were the one by his side as they laid siege to the city."

"But not before you'd told Solo they were safe here," Fett argues. "She would have never stepped foot in this city if you hadn't betrayed your old friend first."

"I was there that day Fett, I heard her screaming for you to kill her after you turned her over," Calrissian says, repeating what I know from Kyra to be true. "Don't act innocent."

"Oh I know I'm not innocent," Fett replies. "But neither are you."

"Enough," I say sharply, not having the patience for any more of this and tell Calrissian "Moff Gideon took the child and I need to find a lead. He had to take Kyra out with a missile to stop her from cutting through his troopers and I'll need her with me. How soon will she be awake?"

His face falls and he tells me "I'm sorry, I know what that child means to both of you." He looks at Kyra before saying "I don't know how long it will take, but you got her here in time to save her life that's what matters. As for the kid I'll call in the cavalry and we'll make a plan."

I give a single nod, it will have to be enough for now. It has to be enough to keep me from losing my mind. She trusts her family, and I have to trust they won't let any harm come to her child.

"You should leave," I tell Fett and Calrissian points his blaster at him. "Or she won't be the one to kill you."

"Her and I have business," Fett replies and looks at me as he says "I'd say find me when she wakes but I have no doubt she'll do that herself."

He leaves and Calrissian and I stand there, the doctor stands in the corner of the room with her head down going over the vitals and organising the medical droid to run tests. 

"Fett's going to be a problem," I immediately say, not wanting to know what business he has planned. 

"He always is," Calrissian warns. "I was there when she found out he was still alive, I broke the news to her and she went straight to Tatooine to kill him so why is he still alive?"

A good question, one I don't want to answer.

"I've learned she likes to draw these things out," I tell myself, I'd settle for watching her torture him over the alternative.

"You going to kill him?" he asks and I have no doubt he wants to almost as much as I do.

"He tries anything I'll take care of it," I answer, my finger itching over the trigger, the only thing stopping me is Kyra. It's her blood to spill not mine, no matter how badly I want to. 

But what is truly stopping me as much as it makes me want to kill him where he stands is the thought she doesn't want him dead. That somehow she still loves him.

I'd suspected it from the start when I knew she'd come to Tatooine to kill the man that armour belonged to, with every piece of information she revealed I'd suspected it but it wasn't until that night after the attack when I woke to find her gone I realised it went far deeper than I could have known.

Unfortunately something tells me I'm about to find out just how deep.

~

Hours later I'm sitting there alone, the doctor out running the test results and from what I can gather she's confused as well as concerned. She should be dead, but after spending this much time with the kid I know these are things no scientist or doctor could understand let alone explain.

All I can do is guard her body as she rests before me suspended in the tank, as unresponsive as she was when I brought her in despite the doctor assuring me her vitals are growing stronger. 

Despite knowing she will live nothing has ever felt so dark. 

The kid is still gone and nothing will feel real until I have them both in my arms, until I can kiss her and do the one thing I thought I'd have more time to do.

I won't make that mistake again

Calrissian's called Solo to Cloud City since he's in the outer rims, if she's still unconscious by tomorrow morning I can rely on him to get me to Navarro so I can put a team together to get the child back. Time is running out and I need to do it with or without her as much as the thought terrifies me. 

I want to keep her safe, I don't want to put her in the field if she isn't able to fight, but she's the best fighter I've got. She was able to cut through those battle droid looking troopers with her lightsaber when our blasters could barely take out the Death Troopers. If we face the ones who took the child I doubt blasters will do the job. 

I'd dreamed of seeing her in beskar and it was as much of a sight as I'd imagined it to be if not more, having never seen armour in such a design before but considering her fighting style it makes sense. Seeing her wearing a helmet made me want to get down on my knees as much as I'd anticipated it could.

I just never thought it would be on my knees screaming her name in vain.

I eye her saber sitting beside her armour and take it, having only held it to give it back to her and study the mechanics of it, wisely pointing it away from myself as I activate the ignition and the yellow blade ignites. It's lightweight, making a sound as I move it through the air, easy enough to maneuver so simply but nothing like how I've seen her move it. I can't imagine the years of training required for her to be able to wield it how she does with such deadly precision and mastery. 

I disengage it as Calrissian enters the room telling me what I already know "She should be dead but she isn't and the doctors can't explain it."

I find myself repeating Fett's words "She's hard to kill."

"She is," he says and begins "Her and I... that had finished a long time ago, years ago, I only knew about the chip because we'd slept together a few times since then but that was over well before you two met."

While it's assuring to know she isn't still sleeping with him I don't care about that, not now. Now when she isn't in my arms and someone else is waiting for her to wake up. 

"How much as she told you about Boba Fett?" he asks me, going where I didn't want to. 

"Enough," I answer. She had told me everything important, except for one detail that I've gathered she'd convinced herself wasn't real, or at least tried to force from her memory. "She was pregnant when he betrayed her?"

He gives a stiff nod and lowers his voice "The empire had already garrisoned the city when she arrived. I saw him give her to Vader, saw her screaming for him to kill her and I saw the aftermath." He shakes his head, unable to look at her. "Leia and I found her in the cell after Han was taken away, we'd heard her screaming and trying to break out, there was blood all over the floor and she kept saying to Leia she didn't know." 

I feel sick knowing now the true extent of what the Empire did to her and understand now why she's so fiercely sought to protect the child by any means necessary. I now understand her vengeful streak towards the Empire and know when she wakes I'll be by her side as she takes it.

"In all these years we never spoke of it, I think part of her had blocked it out completely," he says, confirming my suspicions. "I never knew her before that day, I only knew who she was after that but Leia told me she was never the same as what she had been before. Leia was the only one who'd known her before the Death Star. I loved her, but I wondered what she would have been like if not for the Empire."

"She told me you bought her a ring," I say and he nods in confirmation and that dark paranoia in the back of my mind from that night she ran haunts me. "She told me Boba Fett was what caused her to run."

"It seemed like it should have worked her and I, but it didn't. I loved her in one way but in these past years it's been in another, as family," he confides in me, not hiding his care for her. "I would have married her but I was never what she wanted or what she needed. Boba Fett was what she wanted and in her own twisted way she still loved him after she struck him down. That was until you and the kid came along." I still at hearing those words from a man who once loved her, words that couldn't be more different from Fetts. "You're what she needs and I know you're what she wants."

"And I need her," I say and it's then I catch movement out of the corner of my eye from the tank. "Kyra?"

We both stand and what was a movement of her fingers quickly turns into kicking and thrashing as she tries to free herself and I'm yelling "Help me get her out!"

~

Kyra

I stood in the ashes of Mandalore after having escaped Vaders ship. My aunt, the last of my blood, turned her back on me and left me there on my knees. 

The world was dead, and so was I. 

Cold tears ran down my cheeks beneath the beskar of my helmet. There was not a thought in my mind, only the crushing weight of the darkness. Vader had felt it too as he twisted my mind. Death would have been more merciful, but he would not let me die. No. He wanted to turn me, to make me his apprentice in his final act of vengeance against my father.

Everything was still, a wasteland of the life I'd once had and the girl I'd been. 

Vader would come for me again, he was likely already on his way.

For the first time I believed if he finished what he started I would fall to the darkness. That despite my fathers counsel on the strength of those who resist the darkside I was no longer that strong anymore.

And so I slowly removed my helmet in the ultimate act of defiance against the Empire, against Vader. I would not die at his hands like my parents did.

The air was toxic, that much I knew with the first breath and I raised my gauntlet to record one final message knowing Leia would find me. Knowing she was the only person in the galaxy who would understand why I did it.

"Leia," I said, hearing the rawness of my own voice. "I survived the bombings but Mandalore is glass and ashes. There is nothing left." I knew it would break her heart, but she would understand. "Vader won't kill me, he won't stop until I turn and become a monster." My voice broke "I will not let him touch me again." The tears came and I whispered "I love you, and I'm sorry, but I can't let him make me into what he is. I can't live knowing my people are dead because of me. I can't." My voice was a mere whisper, feeling as if I'd broken the sacred vow between us two princesses after watching her survive her own planets destruction and Vaders torture, something I could not do. "I'm so sorry."

I wasn't afraid as I left my helmet in the open so they'd know where I was buried and stepped inside the ruins of the palace, it and I both barely standing. With each step forward I heard my fathers voice telling me to turn around and go to Luke and Leia and that was the first time I cut myself off from the force so all I would hear was silence as I got down on my knees and raised my hands to bring the palace down upon me, channelling the force for long enough I could hear my fathers voice in that final moment.

In the darkness my life flashed before my eyes from the start to an end I'd never seen before and the rubble crushed me, my chest feeling as if it would collapse from its weight and my lungs burned from the inside out. I was all but gone from the world when I heard a ship circling above and then a voice screaming my name as the darkness closed in on me.

"Kyra!"

In my slow death as the last bits of consciousness slipped I fought one final time at the sound of his voice and gasped out with ashes in my burning lungs, choking on the chemicals that replaced any oxygen left in the atmosphere, everything pure agony as I tried to dig myself out of the ruins.

"Kyra!"

 But it was not the voice I remembered. No. It's his.

"Din!" I scream finding the strength to truly fight this time. This time my limp body won't be dug out of the ruins as I barely cling to life, this time my hand breaks through the rubble and reaches for his. "Din!"

"I've got you," he says as he grasps my hand, pulling me from the darkness. "You're safe."

I'm gasping for air as I come to, finding myself weighed down until I'm pulled free, my body falling against hard familiar beskar. "I've got you, I've got you cyar'ika."

"Din?" I gasp out and cling to him as he clutches me in his arms, dripping and shaking with no comprehension of where I am, only that I'm with him. That I'm safe. "Din."

He cradles my head, his own hands shaking as he pulls a blanket around me and I look up at him, hardly hearing Lando leaving the room yelling for someone to contact Leia until the door slams shut and I don't understand the fear, the pure devastation that consumes him.

"Din?" I whisper, my head spinning as I try to make sense of where I am and what's happened, but I don't even have a moment to think before he's pulled his helmet off and his lips are on mine, hard and desperate as I taste tears. 

I'm frozen in bewilderment until he pulls away and orders "Open your eyes."

The request leaves me shaking my head, knowing something isn't right. "What-"

"Please," he whispers so heartbreakingly that I have no choice but to obey and my eyes open to look upon his face for the first time, finding beautiful brown tearful eyes and reach for his face wondering if this too is a dream. "Cyar'ika."

In my dreams he'd smile not weep, and I'm too overwhelmed by his own agony to truly take him in as he deserves to be. In my dreams I'd kiss him and tell him he's beautiful and mine and that I adore him. But in this moment all I feel is fear.

In this moment nothing feels real.

"Din?" I breathe, trembling as I search his eyes and my heart stops knowing only one thing could do this to him. "Where's Grogu?"

He shakes his head and pulls me to him, hand buried in my hair with my face pressed into the beskar of his chest as he quakes "He's gone, they took him."

Those words all but convince me this is a nightmare and suddenly I'm ten years old again, screaming as I was stolen from outside the palace walls of Mandalore except this time I'm feeling my own fathers horror at his child being taken from him.

Pure devastation washes over me as he clutches me tight and my shaking hands come to touch his beskar and yet I feel nothing as my fingertips run over what should be cold and know this can't be real.

But with the sound of a ship flying past it comes back to me in flashes.

Slave I.

Boba.

The child.

The Empire.

The missile.

My body jolts as I step out of Din's embrace, hyperventilating while I search for my saber, my armour, until I find them both nearby.

"Kyra," I hear Din say but the words echo around me, nothing is real. Not him, not me, nothing. Nothing but the cold rage that overcomes me. "My love."

"No," I whisper, my trembling hands moving to arm myself. "No-"

"We're going to get him back," he tells me as I struggle to even hold my armour with the feeling in my hands all but gone. "Cyar'ika-"

He turns me back to him and I look upon his face with cold tears running down my cheeks and he takes my hands in his, bringing them to his lips as I stand there a trembling mess, unable to remember how I got here. Unable to remember anything but flashes.

"We're getting him back," I grit out, looking into the eyes of the man I love as I swear to him "We're taking our son back, now help me with my armour."

He does, but not before kissing my forehead, the weight of what he's done unable to truly sink into either of us in this state and I pull his lips to mine, tasting his tears and mine both before the sound of footsteps has him pulling his helmet back on and helping me dress myself in my armour.

He's pulling my sleeves up and securing my weapons belt when I sense Lando and blink in confusion, it's only then as I truly look around I realise where I am.

Cloud City. Din must have brought me here knowing I'd be safe with Lando.

"Are you alright?" he asks me as he rushes in, speaking too fast for me to comprehend. "Leia knows you're here and the Falcon's just arrived." Still I struggle to comprehend the words being spoken to me until he says "Boba Fett is still here."

Boba.

Still all I remember are flashes, guns blazing and threats made until one sticks.

"I can kill the kid, like you killed our son."

He did this.

And he's going to die for it.

[queenofgravyfries]

I'm so happy people love my rise! Hcs, so I'd figure I'd share my hcs for rc9gn as well.

Randy-

He believes in Judaism like Howard's family, he started to study it and follow the religion because of the weinermens as well. He hasn't told his family yet because they follow a different religion and want him to follow it(the Japanese religion Shinto).

His dad's away on work trips a lot, it's why he brings up his mom so much, she's the one always around.

His mom works as a caretaker for young kids(like Marci did), she's in her own head a lot so Randy can often get away with a lot.

Randy sometimes does dumb crap to cheer someone up(can't cry if you're laughing at him).

I joke about him being blood thirsty but in all honesty I don't think he is, he'd kill out of necessity but even then he be merciful(to people, animals/beasts are free game). And even then he wouldn't like it. A "I did what I had to" kinda situation.

Mature for his age due to his parents being busy most of the time.

Nothing wrong with weinerham as a ship(I just want to make that clear) but personally, I think they'd see each other more as brothers, I think Randy associates the whole weinermen family into his own, AGAIN there is nothing wrong with shipping weinerham! What i am saying is mere opinion, please Don't use this to attack anyone!.

Has called Mort dad before, it was a great moment for Mort.

Considers Mort and First ninja as father figures, in their own right. Not that he doesn't care for his bio dad, they all help him in some parental way, Mort being the comforting force, First ninja the motivating one and his bio dad being fun loving one.

Is very proud of his Japanese culture, his dad would make him study the language, history, and mythology, which was the one type of teaching he liked.

Is Very protective and clingy when he's in love.

Gets physically violent if mad enough (see: Raiders of the lost nomicon scene with bash as that's where I got the idea) which is why he tries to restrain his emotions.

Met Theresa off screen by bumping into her a little before "so you think you can stank?".

Has nightmares about Norrisville getting destroyed, normally he can handle it but sometimes it scares him bad enough he needs Something to shake him back to reality.

Ploplop-

Has definitely got some magic skills.

Grew up with first ninja, the nine took him off the streets when they first found norrisville.

Is actually First Ninja's voice of reason when he gets angry.

Helped the "shadow warrior"nine brother with his magical techniques.

First ninja-

* these are mostly on the idea of him being in modern day

Would absolutely own a dog named something like poopsie or spots.

Leather jackets and motorcycles 💫

Is addicted to coffee, rarely sleeps, and has in fact gotten dragged across his home by ploplop demanding he respect his wish to "sleep when he's dead" lol.

He was the baby brother ™️ of the nine. He looked up to all of them.

One of his brothers created the "Shadow warrior" persona out of "necessity", he truly believed fear would give them the power to stop the sorcerer.

First ninja studied every method, fighting technique, rages etc. From his brothers, he wanted to be as good as them someday.

The dragon fist move he does in "13th century Ninja" is a move only he can do. his brothers had moves exclusive to each of them as well.

It bothers him about his anger, he wants to teach himself to calm down but it's difficult, given the situations he often finds himself in.

Gets as jealous as Randy if ploplop gets other friends, it's like a yandere but in a more platonic way.

Him and Slimovitz would be pals i think.

LOVES SHARP THINGS, WEAPONS, KNIVES, THEY MAKE HIS SQUARE HEAD GO BRRR.

Used to head butt and bite his opponents, until his eldest brother demanded he stop.

The red tie he has his hair tied back with is from his second eldest brother, who was almost like a mother to him.

Booray-

Born in the swamp, parents died while he was really young.

Grigri/swamp spirit is either a witch he knew or his bio mom, either way she dead now 🤷‍♀️.

The creep/Bruce Mcheese-

Slob lifestyle 💫

Is the strongest thing in rc9gn's universe yet doesn't raise a finger at threats because 💖trauma💖.

Isn't from Norrisville, wasn't even born there(my man gotta be from a realm)

Has a mythical gf but they argue a lot.

Is closest to first ninja since they've spent the most time together.

Pacifist in present day, menace in the past.

Theresa-

Wants to become an actress

Needs reassurance a lot

Cries regardless of emotion

Isn't fond of Howard but is more then willing to change that for Randy's sake.

Is being raised by her step mother(she's big, Scottish, and very protective).

Has a parrot(patty) along with the hamster(sammy).

Norrisville-

Everyone lives scarily longer then normal, side effect of the stankings. it's why no one bats an eye at immortals like Ward Smith or Creep.

Tourists often visit to try and live longer as well, or get some footage of a monster attack.

Those "top 5 unsolved mysteries" videos are flooded on Shoobtube, almost all of them talk about norrisville. Norrisvilians watch them to laugh at since there always because of a stanking or robot.

People outside of norrisville are mixed about The ninja, some are grateful he saves at least one town, others wish he would extend his heroism.