#there is a pattern i think with brain rotting ships

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

i'm not even gonna give context for this just know i love all binnie bromies for being better than i ever will in the hear me out on these two conversation because at least they actually like each other without using olympics style delulu to deduce that they mayhaps do

[writing-for-life]

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

[tamelee]

Okay, I personally ship SNS and think that it is THE best written relationship in Naruto, even if one doesn’t want to view them as strictly romantic. I even think there’s fairly strong evidence for Naruto and Sasuke being purposely written as… non-hetero, is what I’ll go with.

However, there is one part in the manga/anime which possibly conflicts with this idea, and was hoping you could offer an explanation (I’m reallly liking your posts btw).

In the arc where Naruto is with Sakura, Yamato, and Sai, there’s a part where they stop at an inn and hots springs/bath place. Sakura goes to the women’s section by herself, while Naruto goes to the men’s bath section with Yamato and Sai (and Naruto also seems embarrassed and oddly flustered? Which is weird because I thought that bathing among other men isn’t weird in Japanese culture, but maybe Naruto he just doesn’t feel comfortable around them?) and at some point Naruto decides to peep on Sakura before being strongly discouraged by Yamato.

My question is, what’s up with Naruto apparently being attracted/still having a crush on Sakura? How does this fit into a SNS reading of the manga?

(Btw I also find that moment weird because (A) Naruto’s “crush” is basically nonexistent immediately before and after this scene, and (B) I thought Naruto didn’t approve of peeping because he always called Jiraiya out on it?)

Anyway, thank you for your time

Hi @rosencrantznewblue ! ♡ thankyou for your ask (ﾉ´ з `)ノ

"Sakura goes to the women’s section by herself, while Naruto goes to the men’s bath section with Yamato and Sai (and Naruto also seems embarrassed and oddly flustered? Which is weird because I thought that bathing among other men isn’t weird in Japanese culture, but maybe Naruto he just doesn’t feel comfortable around them?)"

Exactly. So you kind of answered your own question there. It's weird isn't it? Why would Naruto be so awkward bathing with Sai and Yamato? Well, at the time these two aren't his favorite people, sure. But this is a pattern with Naruto.

Let's examine the scene first.

He hugs his knees, barricading himself almost hiding underwater. This, while Yamato expresses that "guys being together naked makes them feel like companions!" Naruto who kept blushing throughout the scene, very much doesn't feel that way.

In fact, Sai decided to comment on his..

It makes Naruto shout really loudly mentioning, well "penises". He went from being awkward to pretty much hysterical. Naruto overreacts despite Sai overstepping boundaries.

This makes all the ladies laugh.

This is important because he already looked nervous. And now he embarrassed himself in front of his new teammates. -'Totally uncool what would they think of this behavior?'- It is realistic. Well.. this is clever writing because Naruto's story and how he comes to deal with his own feelings and understanding them is a huge part of it. How does he deal with this awkward situation?

Of course when he hears the woman laugh he gets an idea and grins. He's seen Jiraiya do it too many times after all. Peeking at the woman's bath. It is complete deflection. Naturally, Yamato stands up when he figures out what Naruto is about to do.

"My question is, what’s up with Naruto apparently being attracted/still having a crush on Sakura?"

He doesn't. It has nothing to do with Sakura. I think, if I remember correctly, the Anime did make this scene about Sakura but that wasn't the point. Kishimoto is such a damn genius who depicts Naruto's struggle brilliantly in subtle and obvious ways. There is another one-shot where the exact same pattern with Naruto in the Onsen appears. It isn't Canon but made by Kishimoto anyway.

Naruto lies when Sakura and Sai see him brain-rotting over Sasuke. Instead he says he was planning a date with Sakura.

When Kakashi tells Naruto he likes him Naruto yet again overreacts. He tells him to "not say weird shit like that you friggin idiot!" and "your creepy ass threw me off!" even though very obviously Kakashi didn't mean it like that. And Naruto's reaction was completely uncalled for.

And during the Bell Test(? if I remember), Kakashi said he liked Naruto as well. This isn't the first time at least. Yet when Naruto is older and struggling he gets awkward and flustered about it. When Sai pulls an arm around Naruto he gets mad. On the other hand.. When others insult Sakura by calling her ugly or a bitch (Konohamaru) he doesn't care. Naruto didn't see any difference in her appearance after the time-skip she "looked fine!" and "didn't change at all!" even though Sasuke looks " カッコイイ" (cool, attractive, good looking) and again in Gaiden (handsome). Even Haku was cuter than Sakura. He has no problem calling his mother beautiful either.

.. okay there are too many moments. The point is, just take Naruto's confession under the bridge, his thoughts during VotE1 and confessions VotE2 and his patterns make sense. Peeking at the women after that awkward situation is part of it. (As is lying.) Kishimoto slow-burned his way through Naruto realizing that his feelings for Sasuke weren't normal and tried to hide it with the help of Sakura, because it is convenient. And I think it is so clever- Imma stop now.

[macabremoons]

Not me just suddenly realizing that #benodora is their ship name and not just a recurrent typo you keep making when tagging your posts LOL

I was like, if I had a nickel for every time Moon makes this exact typo with the B... I'd have sooo many nickles. And then I was like, hang on this is a pattern. There must be a more logical explantion...

Menodora + Ben = Ohhhhhh...

Alas, it all makes sense now. Hahaha

THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD. Yes! That is their ship name. Funny thing is sometimes I do type benodora instead of Menodora when I'm writing her name :,) But her character tag has the project moniker in front! p. d: menodora. Always has, always will!

You'd have many nickles though because they rot my brain. such a great ship. Speaking of them, have some early benodora crumbs:

“He what?” Trove says agasped. “Didn’t you guess that he was part fae before? Menodora, that’s a big deal.” “Do you think I care?” I grunt. “He’s an underachiever and too eager to banter. He’s nothing to me. A decent fighter, maybe, but I don’t think he has any other skills. He knows nothing of poetry. He doesn’t understand the war he’s in.”

:D She fucking hates him rn. Iconic!

[lexisism]

🥰 😡 🌦️ ❤️ 💞 ☕️ & 🛌 w/ both verily & kavexis ^^

TY FOR ALL THE QUESTIOJS MI LOVE 🥰: How would someone who loved you portray you? 

— genshin : probably a tragic comfort character? ^^ a hopeless lonely romantic, ADHD representation and someone they can relate to in that aspect.

— star rail : tragic art piece full of references and appreciation. A good representation of how grief feels and looks like as well as well as mature.

😡: How would someone who hated you portray you? 

— genshin : annoying, loud, adhd toxic stereotypes tbh. Clingy and desperate too probably… Also probably poke fun at issues.

— star rail : childish, immature, hot-headed and narrow-minded. Annoying, rude, also fake asf 💀

🌦️: Would you be accompanied by mostly fluff or angst fanfics? Both? Explain why.

— genshin : hurt / comfort. I can’t lean on one because I’m definitely feeling both. though, since in general my genshin s/I is a reflection of my healing process, it would be a lot of hurt then being comforted. ( “just let her be happy!!” )

— star rail : oh for SURE angst! I mean alexios is canonically dead and most of their friendships to the audience seem one-sided. There’s a lot of angst you can do with both their relationships, thoughts of their death, how the death actually played out, aftermath. But I also think there’s some fluff stuff defying canon LMAO!! ( actor au )

❤️: How popular is you x your f/o? Are you a rarepair? 

— genshin : definitely assuming we are not already together, I think we’d be pretty popular? While definitely not above haikaveh, I’m really the only other Kaveh ship focused on? People live for parallels, and working through trauma we share is delicious ship content.

— star rail : rare pair! There’s a shit ton of reading between the lines, hidden analysis, and side stories to get content of it, alexios / veritas are not handfed to the audience so much! The avid lore readers are the main ones into it., also overshadowed by ratiorine .

Pain of self shipping with two of the most popular pairings (good thing I love both characters in these pairings) LMAO

💞: Aside from with your f/o, who else would you commonly be shipped with? Why? 

— genshin : there’s so many character options, thinking Childe just because we’re both from snezhnaya, and it could create a juicy plot, or alhaitham cuz of the brain x heart stuff. Expanding on alhaitham I think of being an extension to Haikaveh.

— star rail : sampo / sparkle for delicious masked fools x mourning actors crossover.. or aventurine (ratiorine extension?) because he’s the most outwardly close, and there’s a good parallel as well. (Trailblazer too cause’ they are also one of the only people to outwardly care)

☕️: What are the most common plots of shipping fics between you and your f/o?

— genshin : healing !! Over coming our shared trauma together and ridding the loneliness through each other. Also random domestic stuff, and creating a pattern, a life with one another

— star rail : between alexios and veritas specifically I think it’s grief, and how veritas handles the death. A very character study couple. Similarly I think there’s a lot of “what if” fanfics. 

🛌: What tropes show up in fics involving your ship? 

— genshin : hurt/comfort, dorks in love, love at first sight, pining, -au, old married couple, tooth rotting fluff

— star rail : hurt/no comfort, enemies to lovers, canon major character death, arranged marriage, unrequited love

[karouvas]

ask game:

tsc (i’m sorry i always ask about them, my brainrot is strong and i love hearing your thoughts)

and community

don’t apologize pls lol I also am brain rotting hard and have few people to talk about it with so it’s appreciated :)

The Shadowhunter Chronicles

M/F OTP: there are others I really like or love in a more normal way, but Emma/Julian Will/Tessa and Jem/Tessa are the ones that hit on another level for me emotionally, I’m clinically insane about them. Also it’s a bit hilarious to think about, since this was formative media for me (I first read TID in late elementary/middle school and TDA as they were coming out in high school) how my taste in ships generally speaking was shaped… like if you look at pairings I gravitate towards in other fandoms since there are def patterns xd. The impact!

Other M/F ships I have love for (including this category because ik i don’t talk about them as much and in another fandom where I had less dynamics I’m super fond of to choose from I could have placed them in that first category think of them as like second tier Otp’s for me ): Mark/Cristina, James/Cordelia, Simon/Isabelle (last one also was formative they were thee hot girl/soft boy nerd ship to me in middle school. But it has been a while so unsure if they’d hit the same on reread, they are the tmi couple I would most like to see in the better in black collection though!)

M/M OTP: Jem/Will! And then follow up Kit/Ty Surefire ways to get me invested in a ship: they do necromancy together, meet cute with a knife to the throat, they break up without ever dating. Triple check.

F/F OTP: along those lines it’s Lucie x Grace literally the main reason I want to reread TLH (well I do also just want to see how it reads back to back and not broken up and I have other reasons but like. Those are less important) is to be able to properly write fic about them, like it genuinely pisses me off this fandom is so boring and tasteless I can’t believe I actually miss the legacies fandom they were annoying as hell but at least they understood that when women do dark magic together it’s polite to write detailed analysis of how gay they are 😭. The way I know cc has seen Buffy too like flop. Also it just fits archetypes of antagonistic femslash I tend to love in general see: Julia/Marina Aria/Alison Elena/Rebekah and more

OT3: Herongraystairs and then Kierarktina

Friendship OTP: Tessa & Magnus + Will & Magnus! And for familial relationships I adore all The Blackthorn siblings in TDA and their dynamics but especially Julian and Mark’s relationship is v compelling to me and I also love Cordelia and Alastair’s relationship v much it was my favorite overall development in TLH. And then for psuedo familial dynamics I Love Charlotte’s relationships with Tessa Jem Will and Jessamine. her relationship with Jem might be my softest spot overall especially because they have moments in CP2 that make me go 🥺 but as a documented Tessa lover I adore how having Charlotte as a mentor figure effects her arc. So those are my favorites Ik I failed at picking just one. Oh I also adore Emma and Cristina’s friendship although I also sometimes ship them romantically

Canon OTP: Blackstairs Wessa Jessa like I said

Crackship OTP: what even counts as crackship? I will admit that during my CP reread I did look up how many Will/Magnus fics there are on ao3 although I did not read them (there are 12 for inquiring minds).

Anti-OTP: The worst ship to me is Jordan/Maia but it’s been a long time so the vitriol has worn off and I don’t have another solid notp besides them but the other canon pairings I’m #unimpressed with are Clace Ghostwriter and Gracetopher … Lucie/Jesse probably irks me the most these days because I actually want to like them because the concept is so good but the execution falls flat for me and I really like Lucie and want someone more interesting for her (like Grace lol.)

Community

M/F OTP: ultimately when I’m actually watching the show it’s Jeff/Britta love their emmaxknightleycore vibes. But I did get really into Abed x Annie at one point and even wrote some fic about it over quarantine (when I first got into Comm) so I have a soft spot for that concept too

M/M OTP: Troy/Abed. They of course are The otp of the show.

F/F OTP: not really otp status but well I did write this Annie x Britta Carmilla Au: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728689?view_adult=true

(I orphaned that account post quarantine)

OT3: Troy/Abed/Annie

Friendship OTP: I mean all the study group dynamics but I especially have soft spots for Annie and Troy + Abed and Britta moments

Canon OTP: Jeff/Britta

Crackship OTP: what even counts as crack …

Anti-OTP: I just don’t like Jeff/Annie I used to viscerally hate it these days I’m just like. It’s not for me lol.

[schrodingersauthorii]

In honor of Salvage Ch. 18, I have prepared the first chapter of my Phoenix Salvage AU. @muffinlance , there’s one scene that’s 100% an improvement in my overall writing structure I pulled from you, and I bet NOBODY can tell which one it is.

—————————

The young soldier must have somehow heard the blade coming. He didn’t have time to cry out, but the panic stains his face. Not quite the easy death Hakoda wanted, but unavoidable, and still far kinder than leaving him to the sea.

Two years of fighting had left many too-young Fire Nation soldiers dead on this deck, but this was different than a battle. Different even than a mercy kill, back when they thought maybe Fire Nation prisoners would simply accept a fate other than death.

The soldier wouldn’t have left them any choice in the end. But he hadn’t forced their hands. Not yet.

One of the men murmured a prayer, a simple benediction for the journey to the next life. This wasn’t the clean up after a battle, and there might not Fire elders speaking rites for the kid somewhere across the sea. The soldier might only have what they give him, and they're pragmatic people- not cruel.

The Fire Nation burns their dead. That would be kindest, but if they could safely build a pyre, then they could have safely kept a firebending prisoner. The young soldier have a sea burial.

The corpse vetoed this. Violently.

Akake and Tuluk yelped, dropping the suddenly burning body onto the wooden deck.

Fire shouldn’t be green and purple, Hakoda barely had to think, and the fire disappeared. He blinked the sparks out of his eyes, and the deck was as clear. No fire, purple-green or otherwise. Just a vaguely soldier shaped mound of ash.

Hakoda reached down to touch it: barely warm, and not so much as a soot mark beneath it.

Something stirred. Something tiny. Hakoda grabbed it without giving himself time to think about it. Whatever it was squirmed frantically in his hand.

Hakoda looked down, expecting- something. A still beating heart, perhaps. A reptile or worm, at the very least. Something repulsive and macabre. But a tiny, down-feathered bird trembled in his hand. He brushed ash off of soft, orange wings. Even filthy, the fledgling glowed like sunrise.

“It’s a bird,” Hakoda said, dumbfounded.

“A bird,” Tuluk repeated.

The bird cheeped in distress. Hakoda started to pet it, but it nearly fell to the deck in its effort to escape his hand. He quickly cupped it with both hands instead. The bird pecked at his fingers.

The entire deck stared in stunned silence. What were they supposed to do with a bird?

————————

Tolko presented a box hastily stuffed with hay from the albatross-pidgeon coop. Hakoda carefully dropped the chick inside. It burrowed down into the loose “nest,” still cheeping incessantly.

“He’s so cute,” Tolko gasped. “What are we going to do with him?”

Tolko stared at the bird with love already in his eyes. The bird stared back with… suspicion. At the very least.

Hakoda’s temples begun a warning throb.

“Ask Kustaa if he can… find anything,” he finally said.

Tolko cooed at the bird as he walked away.

Hakoda felt a dreadful portent hum in his bones: this would not end well, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

------

“What is that?” Kustaa asked.

“A bird,” Tolko said. And held the chick up to Kustaa’s face, as if not seeing the puffball was the problem.

“Which might also be a Fire Nation soldier. The Chief wants to know if you can find anything.”

“A soldier.”

“Yeah. He was drifting past, we fished him out, but he was. You know. A Fire Nation soldier. And he said he was a firebender. So.”

“So what?”

“He kind of...died. And spontaneously combusted. The bird was in the ashes. See?”

Tolko brushed the bird’s head and held up a sooty finger. The chick couldn’t really floof in anger- it was already at maximum floof- but it gave its best impression of outrage anyway. Tolko hastily placed it on the table before it could tumble out of his hand.

“This is a bird,” Kustaa said. “I’m a healer, not an ornithologist. Or a shaman. All I’m qualified to say whether or not YOU have brain rot.”

“Umm…” Tolko mumbled.

“Any headaches? Blurred vision? Acute pain in your arms or legs? Motor difficulties?” Kustaa asked as he prodded Tolko’s arms.

“No?”

“Then we’ll work with the assumption that Spirits were involved, not Swamp Fever. Hopefully, a minor Spirit.”

Kustaa leaned down in front of the bird.

“Can you understand us: peck two times, then three.”

Low and behold, the bird did… then stared at them and pecked a deliberate pattern of some sort.

“I don’t understand that,” Kustaa said.

A storm of outraged peeping.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Are you a Spirit, one peck for yes, two pecks for no.”

Two pecks, and more outraged peeping.

“...Are you a bird?”

In hindsight, it was incredibly bold of them to assume Zuko knew more than they did about anything.

--------

Tuluk entered Hakoda’s office after a single knock, and Hakoda’s temples immediately resumed pounding.

“Apparently, the bird insists he is the soldier, and NOT a Spirit,” Tuluk said.

Hakoda pinched the bridge of his nose. And resolved to make an offering soon. There were stories about shapeshifting Spirits who forgot they weren’t human.

“Keep an eye on him,” Hakoda said. “We’ll head to the nearest port and find an Earth Sage. This is exactly the kind of trouble we don’t need.”

Tuluk nodded grimly.

A thought struck Hakoda. “How did…?”

Tuluk sighed. “Lots of questions. Lots of patience. Kustaa is positively charmed with the little menace.”

“He’s a bird.”

“A mean one,” Tuluk agreed. “But he’s warmed to Kustaa and Tolko, for stars knows why.”

Hakoda didn’t like the idea of a Spirit getting… attached to his crew, but he liked the idea of an upset Spirit on his ship even less.

“Keep an eye on them, please,” Hakoda said.

Tuluk nodded, understanding in his eyes.

“I’ll do my best, but that’s a conversation you need to have with Kustaa and Tolko. Probably the rest of the crew, too.”

Hakoda’s headache sharpened with knife-like intensity. Tuluk eyed him with concern.

“Chief. Nobody will blame you if you need a drink before that. Kustaa’s almost ordered a shipwide medicinal order.”

Hakoda sighed.

“After,” he promised. And didn’t clarify after what.

—————————-

Their youngest crewman tucked the surly creature into his parka, from where it eyed everyone and everything with deep suspicion. Tolko kept up a mostly one-sided commentary, which the soldier-bird seemed surprisingly engaged with.

“Do you know his name?” Punuk asked as Tolko showed the bird their snack break offerings.

“No,” Tolko said through a mouthful of salted fish. “It’s the character for ‘righteous rule,’ but we couldn’t figure out the pronunciation. So Birdie it is.”

“Birdie” cheeped aggressively enough to attract the other crewmen’s attention for the first time in hours. There was still work to be done, and his constant noise quickly faded into the background.

“That’s terrible. How about… Sparky? Ember?”

“Blaze.”

“Inferno.”

“Red.”

“You can’t call him red, he’s pink.”

“He’s definitely more orange than pink.”

“Orange still isn’t red.”

Ragnalok tossed an empty water skin at the pair.

“Stop torturing the poor guy. He already died once today.”

The trio went quiet.

“Way too soon, man,” Panuk said.

Birdie was… worryingly quiet for several hours after that.

-------

Tolko roused in the middle of the night, awakened by a faint stirring of downy feathers and soft cooing. Birdy was awake. Tolko couldn’t see it, but dawn must be on the horizon.

Birds liked dawn. So did firebenders, presumably. It was early, but Tolko wasn’t tired-tired, so…

Tolko scooped Birdy up in one hand and slid out of his hammock. “We’ll go top deck,” he whispered as he tucked Birdy into his collar.

Birdy cheeped in a maybe grumpy, maybe affirmative way. But it was soft, so Tolko didn’t think he was upset. Birdy was very, very good at communicating when he was upset, bird or not.

It still seemed uncharacteristic. And Birdy was slumping on Tolko’s shoulder in a way he hadn’t yesterday.

Tolko scooped Birdy back into his hand, and Birdy just… cheeped quietly. Cheeped once and fell silent.

Okay. It was early: Birdy might just be tired. It was a Thing, that birds got sleepy when it was dark- even if it wasn’t actually night. They’d go topdeck and watch the sunrise, and if Birdie still seemed off he’d come back and wake Kustaa.

Tolko climbed the last stair just as the sun broke free of the horizon. Birdie chirped softly again, and Tolko held him out into the light.

“It’s beautiful,” Tolko said.

And Birdie once again caught fire on the Spirits damned deck.

[elmundodeflor]

A LEVIHAN SPECIAL SURPRISE - PART 2

So, as I mentioned before, a little while back I wrote the forest scene from Hanji's POV (which you can read here). Today, to celebrate this special moment in the fandom and close things full circle, I'm bringing y'all Levi's POV!

Hope y'all like ittt❤️❤️❤️

.

.

When in the forest...

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To Hanji,

I don’t know what to say. Sometimes, I feel like I never know what to say. That words disarm and dissolve, just when they’re hanging from the tip of my tongue. That syllables bleed crimson red inside my body in a non-stopping hemorrhage. That every second spent in silence rots me more and more from deep within, inside out.

Maybe that’s why I choose to stare. Why I hope that, in my eyes deep grey, you’ll know how to read what my mouth keeps shut. I draw signals, trace a secret path laid between tangled sheets and the morning tea. I let my fingers cling to your warmth and color you into my touch and hug you close to my heart. I let my hands paint you into the night, and my voice name the constellations along your back and my kisses tell you a story written only for you to recite. Sometimes, when I hear my name turned mantra sliding past your lips, I allow myself to think that you understand. That if I make a home out of your skin, then silence won’t hurt as much.

In the early of dawn, when golden sunrays bathe you naked by my side, I tangle myself in between your hair, I pretend I find patterns in the rhythm of your steady breathing. I dream, even when inevitably awaken, that there will come a day where chances will make us permanently possible.

I guess, that turns me into a reckless fool, makes me blind for jumping to a soaring future we can never reach. But then I hear the question bloom, blossoming from the depths of your subconscious, and my soul knows, stubbornly, that naivety it’s worth believing. Because your hands stitch me back together into sanity and the bonfire burns pink tinted in your cheeks and stars shine wide tucked inside your eyes. And there, for an agonic moment trapped inside every forever, we’re turned tangible. We’re the improbable made real, the irony of having lifted ourselves over the most unstable of grounds.

Maybe that’s why I limit myself to taste the sounds of your voice, to swallow the innocence that remains sweet in all of our doubts. That’s why I decide I’ll break myself again with all of what I can’t say aloud, that I’ll spare us the bitterness of the ache. Because I can’t permit war weaponize my words against me. I can’t permit the world steal the only certainty I can still hold on to. Because I don’t wanna spit out another disappointment. Because, even when life has made me bound to lose, I don’t wanna imagine a universe where I lose you too.

I assume, however, that you already know my answer. Even when my silence squeezes it tight against my chest, tries to protect it from the demons haunting hidden in the shadows. My irises are grey drizzle dripping transparent, and tragedy plows my every feature and, right beneath the crepitating fire, fear beats predator to our only hope. Because there, in the stillness of dusk’s embrace, we both can tell escaping condemns us. That running away from the irreversible is being traitors to ourselves.

So, I stare, again. And my conscious brain forces me to watch you make the choice for the both of us. If I speak, I’ll be damned weak. If I say it, there will be no ship to sail us safely to the shore.

Because all is fair in love and war. And I love you too much to let war drown us in the raging storm. Even when I’m aware that we can’t stay, and that we’ll break with the rising sun and that time is only sand slipping through our fingers. 

I love you. With every ounce of my faltered being. And I assume, irrevocably, that you know that, too. Your lips hang from mine in an unspoken confession and I spill myself inside your body. And, as my heart cries for you in secret, I can only pray that our love suffices, that our love’s enough to pull us intact out of this burning hell. 

Because when war explodes and everything crumbles into debris around us, only love will remain. Because when not even the woods can set the world free of its sins, and trees come tumbling down into the earth, only love will remain. 

Because life and dreams and promises are reversible and fragile. And when we have no choice but to bury them into oblivion, underneath the brown of withered branches, only love will remain.

Only our love will remain.

[assortedfruitsnacks212]

Sick with COVID and trying to find ways to amuse myself 😔 So I found this old post from years ago and decided to redo it!

Fanfiction Questions

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Lord of the Rings in middle/high school! I was obsessed with it, and it was the first time I had reliable enough internet access to get involved in forums 🥰

2. What is your latest fandom?

Stranger Things!

3. What is the best fandom you've ever been involved in?

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. I contributed work of my own for the first time and got a GREAT response. And that was before antis made fandom a warzone 🙄 so I wrote whatever I wanted and never got hate for it.

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

😬 I'm not gonna say I regret getting involved in Stranger Things fandom. But it's definitely the most annoying one I've ever been a part of. You can't turn around without bumping into an anti or some kid screaming about p*dophilia. It's so fkn cringe lol

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

Donkey Kong, Super Mario, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Gladiator, X-Files, the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Stranger Things

6. List your OTP from each fandom you've been involved in.

Atton/Exile (SW:KOTOR2), Mulder/Scully (X-Files), Reylo, Bileven

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you've been in.

Kylux, Finnr3y, Harringr0ve, M1leven (I see a pattern here lol)

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Billy Hargrove brain rot, July 2019

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

The source material can be really fun 💕 I also met a couple of my bffs because of it.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don't write in?

Not currently, but in the past I've read fic for the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Trek, Phantom of the Opera, The Office, Labyrinth, and probably more I've forgotten.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Bileven baby 💖💕

12. Who is your current OT3?

I don't have any, though I could see myself getting interested in Bileven + Eddie at some point.

13. Any NoTPs?

See answer to #7

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Too many 😆 I love the entire Hopper-Byers family dynamic, so that's several broTPs right there. Also El and Max.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Bileven is pretty damn obscure, so 😆💀

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

See answer to #7

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Bileven is my only otp for the fandom. Still going strong after nearly three years 😌

18. What ship have you written the most about?

Bileven for sure. I think I've written over 200-300k about them so far.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don't feel them?

I kinda wish I was more into J0pper? I mean, I do like them, but not enough to really feature them in my fic. It would add a lovely dimension to my giant AU though.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Not really? My tastes are very well established by this point 😂

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

A long, rambling fic for Donkey Kong at like, age 9-10

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Nope! It was all necessary to my artistic development ☺️

23. Name a fic you've written that you're especially fond of & explain why you like it.

My current Billy Lives AU! It's the first fic that feels truly raw and heartfelt, like it springs straight from the essence of who I am. Working on it has also taught me a lot about the writing process, honed my writing voice, and helped me unlearn limiting beliefs.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

My Billy Lives AU. I've written a lot of material that I haven't even published yet. I'm rewriting/editing it as we speak 😆

25. What's your most popular fanfic?

A short A/B/O fic I wrote for Reylo. Over 10k hits, good god. That fandom was so horny lmao

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

Song titles and lyrics, phrases from the text that have thematic significance.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Writing summaries 😖 I've gotten better at it, but it's still annoying trying to condense a big ol' story into a paragraph lol

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

I would like it to be from my Billy Lives AU, which I think has lots of illustration-worthy moments. Hell, I've got a list of illustrations I'd make myself, if I could just recover from my art burnout...

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

Not really. If I genuinely need help with something, I have a couple friends I can ask, but usually I just wing it on my own. I'm too impatient to wait on someone 😂

30. What inspires you to write?

Powerful emotions, resonant themes and symbols, yin/yang and Hades/Persephone pairings, sad grumpy men who are practically begging for redemption arcs, music

31. What's the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I've gotten several lovely comments that I hoard like a mound of crack. My favorite ones lately say things like "your writing is poetry," "it's so visceral," "cuts you right to the bone." But my top favorite has to be this one:

"I love how you write Billy, because it's so LEGIT. Everything you have him do or say just feels so accurate and true to his character. Like, I can imagine it all happening and playing out in front of me."

I work hard on his characterization, so hearing that had me buzzingggg!

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Oh hell yeah. I draw from a variety of genres depending on the scene I'm writing. For my Billy Lives AU, I've used ambient, heavy metal, all flavors of rock, TV/movie soundtracks, '80s pop, and more.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All three! I've written a lot of oneshots lately to explore ideas outside of my giant AU, which def counts as a huge epic (rip me 💀). I also have a multi-chap in progress.

34. What's the word count on your longest fic?

Over 100k. Only half of it is published right now.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I used to, but I don't anymore.

36. What's your favourite genre to write?

Sci-fi horror, romance, drama

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Both depending on my mood. My default is third person, but sometimes I switch to first to shake things up and/or internalize the characters' voices.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I usually go for canon characters, but when I sense a gap in the story I'm not above creating an OC to fill it. I'm never gonna stop bragging about how one of my OCs seemed to anticipate Eddie Munson 😆 (mostly in style and backstory, less in personality).

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

I make my readers feel a lot of things. Also I've been told multiple times, "I can see it happening so clearly! 😭" So... good descriptions??

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Perseverance. I tend to come up with complicated epics that would take years to write. To this day, I've yet to finish a single one. Goddammit though, I'm gonna do it someday 😠

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

None. The fanfics I want to read right now are so incredibly specific I doubt I could find them anywhere 🥲 so I'm just writing them myself.

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

I'm too lazy to link anyone 😅

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

Everyone who's left a kind comment on my work, and fellow Billy fans who can tolerate differences in opinion (a VERY small number 🥲).

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Bileven for sure

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

To this day I still remember some creepy Phantom of the Opera fic I read years ago...

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Worship The Flame, which has the most material to read (50k published so far) and really demonstrates my skills imo.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

AO3 by far. It's clean and organized, I get more interaction there, and hate comments have been easy to deal with. Ff.net is just useless now. Tumblr is okay, but it's extremely hard to get views, and hate comments are more common.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Sometimes! Depends on how strong my reaction was to the work and how much energy I have that day. I haven't read any fic lately though.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

Oh, yeah. I care a lot. A single good comment can lift me out of a writing funk and give me the motivation to keep going. It literally just happened last week 💕 (Thank you kind commenter ��💕)

Also, reblogs are the only way to get views here. The fics I'm most passionate about tend not to get reblogged (1. they involve a rarepair, so they're niche to begin with; 2. people are too scared to reblog Bileven content). So I cherish every one I get.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

Idk, I just fell into it in elementary school. It felt natural. Still does!

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Gush: I love the incredible creativity of fandom! Also, I LIVE for taking back stories from white male creators who have no idea what they're doing. And from corporations who shoot for the lowest common denominator. (Capitalism kills art, tell your friends)

Rant: STOP HARASSING FAN CREATORS FOR MAKING STUFF YOU DON'T LIKE. Oh and let's NOT do the whole censorship thing. We tried it and it was awful. Thank you.

[catilinas]

do you ever think about how pando is literally the ship of theseus in clonal colony form where different trees in the colony die off but since theyre all genetically identical theyre like the same and one singular organism.

ive been hoarding this and also thinking about Trees like i read "pando is literally the ship" and didnt even register "of theseus" bcs i was thinking about thetis in iliad 18 when she's like [paraphraseish] achilles grew like a sapling that i planted in an orchard on a mountain and then i sent him to troy in a boat AND LIKE. maybe catullus 64 rotted all the way through my brain BUT you don't just. talk about Trees Growing On Mountains and then Not talk about them being made into boats? im obsessed w this metaphor a normal amount. achilles is a tree that has to be cut down to be made into a warship to transport achilles (his ghost? he;s v much proleptically dead at this point) to troy so the rest of him can die. so let's take off the body! and i knOW there are other Doomed Warrior As Tree Death Metaphors in the iliad bcs they're in alice oswald also but idk if she notices this one? but she should like it;s part of a Pattern. anyway pando. lowkey achilles Is a fresnel lens that spins and spins and spins somewhere on the coast like Yes put that guy on a beach one of the most liminal places to be. actually it's kinda weird that thetis does use the tree metaphor for him and esp a tree on a Mountain (it's up) when she could have done smth more watery? idk.

[insomniamamma]

Greenhorn: young!Ezra x F!reader

A/N: This was inspired by @opheliaelysia and our conversation about how Ez wouldn't be able to resist squishing an aurelac pod, but it ended up turning into something more. ALSO, though reader and OCs refer to Ezra as "the kid" I am picturing an early 20s Ezra. None of these people are minors.

Warnings: Language. Canon typical violence. Death. Slight gore. Angst. Hurt/comfort. A lil bit of fluff. Implied may-december romance. No beta.

___________________________________________________________________

This is a bad idea, you think, as your drop-ship hits atmo, small squarish windows limned in fire, deep vibration that thrums up through your spine, the ship trying not to tear itself apart, and the kid is still talking. No one can hear him above the vibrations and the scream of superheated molecules shredding themselves apart against the heat shield. Del sings out

"We're at max pressure--" "Copy--" "There was this one time--" "No one gives a fuck, Greenhorn---" "All of you shut the fuck up--" "We're through," says Del, "Drogue deploy in 15--' 'There was a whole fuckin nest of em--" "Oi! Shut it!" "3-2-1, deploying drogues." Del punches the button at his right hand and the drogue 'chutes fire out and the drop-ship does a sick lurch, its pace slowing from suicidal to absurdly dangerous. You've got the ability to soft-land, but so long as Del lines it up right you won't have to, the bog should cradle you. Fuel saved on the way down makes the lift safer. "Deploying mains," you say, and flip the toggle, a loud thump and another jolt as the main chutes deploy, sprouting out from the top of your lander, like the days of Apollo on Old Terra. And still the fucking kid is yapping. In writing the kid seemed half-decent, a big, raw boned boy with a rakish, dimpled smile. Had his own suit and kit and filters. Was polite enough when you asked questions of him, all yes Ma'am and no Ma'am, and three bags full Ma'am. Never would have considered his green ass if Marko hadn't bailed, or, more precisely, if Marko hadn't gotten himself in trouble with the locals and run with his  tail between his legs, well, so now you had the kid, who could not for the life of him seem to shut up for two seconds. At first you thought it was just nerves, but he's been yammering away since you requested release. An uninterrupted, stream of consciousness narration. You are wondering if he is, indeed, brain damaged somehow.

"The thing about channel rats--" "For the love of Kevva no one gives a sweet jewel encrusted crap--" "Ezra! For the love of all that's holy, if you do not shut up I will shoot you in the face," you snap. "Clear?" He gives you a little wounded look. "Clear," says Ezra. And, for a brief, miraculous moment, there is silence. The drop ship lands, lurches in the boggy ground and is still. "How we lookin, Del?" "Nav dropped us right on the button," says Del, "We look great." The tight quarters fill with the sound of bodies unstrapping from the crash-couches. "Alright people. Let's suit up. Sooner we get our pull, sooner we get back up to connection orbit." You walk through the Green in loose formation. Del put you down not 3 clicks from the dig site, but the Green is tricksy and, lately, full of dangerous people. Del and Big Pete have rails. You and the kid have your throwers strapped to your hips. Del takes point, you and Big Pete hang back a hair. The kid is supposed to be bringing up the rear, but a look over your shoulder shows him entirely transfixed. This is probably his first time off whatever backwater sprung him, all shiny and new and dropped into the Bakhroma Green, his big brown eyes all agog, trying to look everywhere at once. And you feel this keenly, a spike in your chest that recalls your first time dirtside, the great, broad blue arc of the sky was enough to fuck you up, after only knowing smoothly curving station walls and blunted angles. You recall your wonder, setting foot on this lush and deadly ground, never had you seen so much life, never seen life that wasn't controlled and carefully cultivated. The Green is a truly wild place that obeys no rules but its own. "Is it all like this?" he asks, "So verdantly forested?" "Yep," says Del, "Once in a while you get a soft-spot like we landed in, but most of it's trees and roots." You slog along. The site is close, but it's already warm. And by the time you get there, the kid is mostly silent and that is truly a blessing, likely the effect of slowly poaching in his suit, not accustomed to the heat like you and the rest of the crew. "Should be getting close," says Del, brow furrowed, peering at a battered topographical map, a red x inside a red circle. You stop a beat and peer through the patterns of shadow and trees, the haze of winkling purple dust. "There," you say, hand reaching out to point without even thinking about it, a patch of dark, slightly sunken earth, devoid of brush. Plants don't like to grow over aurelac nests. You don't know why and it doesn't matter. "Right. We set up here. Trade me the rails, Del, you get to play teacher. Listen up, Ezra, Del is one of the best harvester's you'll meet. You listen to him, clear? You do what he says and nothing else." "Clear," says Ezra, grinning all big through his fishbowl helm. "Um...boss?" Says Big Pete, "Why we bothering with this boy?" "What if Marko can't get himself out of the shit this time, huh? We'll need another set of hands...we'll--" "PUT THAT DOWN!" Del's voice squeals loud and offended over the comms, "The fuck are you doin?" And before you can even think, you and Big Pete are running for the dig and would you look at that, there's the kid, gloves pulled out of their ring-seals and piled on the mossy ground beside him. He's got an aurelac node husk cupped in his bare hands, not even safely cut yet, it's umbilicus disappearing into the black dirt. "EZRA! WERE YOU BORN THIS STUPID OR DID IT TAKE YEARS OF RIGOROUS PRACTICE?" And, look at him, the kid smirks at you through his fishbowl helmet. "Sorry, Ma'am, " he says, "It seemed uncannily squishy. I just had to find out for myself--" You close the distance between you and grab his wrist, hard enough so that his idiot smile fades and you actually see some fear prick in those big brown eyes. Fear is good in the Green. Fear is your friend. Unlikely this kid has ever had cause to be afraid, but, by Kevva, you're going to give him some cause. You pull your knife from your belt and press the business end into Ezra's palm, right between the heart and head lines, just enough to dimple but not enough to break skin. He tries to jerk away, but you know how you hold him, grind those wrist bones together like marbles in a sock. "Ezra," your voice is soft, yelling does no good, this kid's probably been yelled at for most of his formative years, and it's obviously made no impression. "You see all this purple shit floating through the air? Pretty, isn't? Looks like fairy dust--" "Ma'am--" he tries to pull free. "Shut it, fool," you push the knife tip just a hair harder, feel him flinch, flinching is good, might save his idiot hide someday. "I break your skin, I give your the faintest kitten scratch of a wound and the spores will get in there and fest black. These spores will eat you from the bones out. You rot from the inside, clear?" "Clear." You let go and he scrabbles his gloves back on. "Fuckin hell," says Del. Big Pete just shakes his head.

Thank Kevva for small favors, the kid is a quick study. Those big hands are surprisingly clever, and even Del is impressed by his ability. The idea licks around your mind that maybe it's time to cut Marko loose for good, Ezra has plenty of raw talent even if he can't shut up. Your time in the Green is almost done, a half cycle to button up the dig, break camp and lift. You've given Del back the rail-gun, traded for harvesting. The thrill of splitting open those strange membranes has never gown old for you, the finicky work of dissecting the carom blisters away from the inner sac, the fizz of the fazer and then your prize revealed, in this moment your mind is fully on the pull, you don't notice anything off until you feel something thump into the back of your helmet, and hear the whine of a primed thrower. A voice crackles ever the common channel. "Drop your weapons boys, or this stupid cow gets one right through the brain pan." Big Pete already has his hands in the air, Petey always was a softy, Del still has his rails, looking at your face for a sign and you shake your head. Take the shot, you think, you try to think it AT him, but you see the rail-gun slide out of his hands. God Damnit.  You would have expected them to act selfishly. You always expected you'd die out here and the business end of some thrower. And, of course, the kid is nowhere to be seen. Probably wandered behind a tree to take a leak or already caught a blast to the skull. "Right then," Your assailant says, he's got your air-hose doubled over in his free hand, "You open up that case so I can--" The thrower discharges and you pitch forward, there is no pain, just pressure,  and suddenly you can breathe easier. You heave against the dead weight on your back, scrabble back down into the slick of dead leaves and needles and then the pressure is gone and you sit up. The dying man crawfishes over the loam, peering out of his helm with wide eyes and blood spattered lips, eyes that plead until they are obliterated. Ezra stands with his thrower smoking, his face pulled up into a rictus of fear and rage. "Del. Petey. Circle back. Comm channel zero. Anything flinches you take it out. Clear?" Big Pete :"Clear" Del: "Clear" "Ezra. Get his filter," "huh?" "Did I stutter? You get his filter and any other kit that's any good." You stand, but your legs want to betray you. You take a couple shambling steps and plant yourself on a fallen tree, watching the kid strip the corpse, peels the filters and o rings and hose like he's done it a million times. Your breath comes hard and ragged. Nausea grips you. All your time in the Green and you never get over that feeling of almost dying, the taste of it on your tongue like hot smoke, and here's the kid gripping your shoulder, helping you up. "We going back to camp?" "Yeah," you say, "Thrower out. There might be more of them."                                                                                                                                                                                         "I didn't want to--" You know where this is going. You remember hearing the same arguments spill out of yourself the first time you had to use a thrower, "I mean, he woulda--" You stop so you can look at him through the foggy business of his helmet. "You did right." You say, "he meant to take our whole pull." Ezra nods, but his eyes are still white-rimmed and shocked. You reach for him and give his arm a little shake. "Let's go. Eyes peeled, clear?" "Clear."

You keep expecting that shaky, nauseated feeling to dissipate on the walk back to camp but it does not. The suit seems suffocating, and you practically bolt for the tent, in and fumbling with your suit before Ezra can even turn on the scrubbers. You reach to doff your helmet, something you've done daily for years, but your hands shake and you fumble the catches, two attempts and you feel like you're drowning in your own exhalations, you need this fishbowl off your head right now, but your hands won't stop shaking. "Here," Ezra pushes your hands away and does the catches himself, lifting the helmet away from your face. His own fishbowl's gone, his sweaty hair sticking up in crazy quills, that little blond streak screaming up from his scalp like an exclamation point, and before you can properly process what's happening, Ezra pulls you into a hug, his arms wrapped tight around your shoulders. Your hands, which, by all means, should be shoving him the fuck off of you, turn traitor and creep around his middle. You're still shaking, but you feel him shaking too, the two of you vibrating with spent adrenaline like plucked guitar strings. His warm palm grips the back of your neck and nestles your head into the space between his neck and shoulder. You let out a watery breath. "Fuck. I'm getting to old for this shit." Ezra makes a dismissive sound. His fingers dig at your nape, pressing into the tight, cabled muscles there. You let yourself lean against him, lean into his warmth. You can't remember a time you've been this close to someone without expecting a backstab. Ezra murmurs. It's okay, we're safe, I've got you, we're safe, reassuring himself as much as you. "Ezra?" "Yes, Ma'am?" "Don't make this your life," You lift your head and look up at him, his brows are furrowed. "I'm afraid I don't understand."  You poke his belly. "Get yourself maybe three solid pulls and then you get the fuck out of here," you say, peering into those big, dark eyes, "Get out and don't come back." "Ma'am?" "The Green changes people," you say, "And generally not for the better." He gives you a hard squeeze that you return and then he releases you, but only partially, one arm still slung over your shoulder. "You know," he says, "I have among my personal effects a bottle of Kanvian fire-water. Once we lift we could find a quiet place on yon freighter and share it." "Kanvian, eh?" You turn up your arm to look at your chronometer. "We boost in, what, a third of a cycle? Manage not to do anything catastrophically stupid between now and then and I'll consider it." His lips pull into a smirk, his dark eyes glittering, crinkling at the corners. He raises his hand to his head in a mock salute. "Yes, Ma'am." "Del and Big Pete should be done with their sweep soon. Start system checks on the ship, then help break camp." "Yes, Ma'am." He scoops up his discarded helmet under one arm and heads for the entrance. "Oh, and, Ezra?" "Yeah?" "You say anything about..." You gesture vaguely, "Whatever this was that just happened--" "Not to worry, fair maiden," he says, grinning, "No word of our tryst shall pass my lips, because I know that the second I let things slip you will undoubtedly shoot me in the face." "The fuck outta here, smooth talker," you laugh. Ezra jams the fishbowl back on his head and steps out into the sticky heat of The Green, zipping the tent behind him. He's a fool, you think as you set about grading and stowing the day's pull, he's a fool and likely to get himself killed. You just hope you're not the one who has to see it.

[samswinchesters]

something just doesn’t sit right knowing that today marks the two year anniversary of detroit: become human and the main actors who played crucial figures in the game, jesse williams and valorie curry, are excluded from such celebration. their characters, markus and kara, have never been truly embrace by the fandom and many forget their significant impact in DBH. 

without kara, you wouldn’t even have a game. valorie was the one who set the precedent, she is the one who kickstarted this whole thing. without her short film, this game wouldn’t even be possible. without markus, you wouldn’t have a plot. you wouldn’t have a revolution to which the story lines of kara and connor are contingent on the consequences of this revolution. to be honest, the way the response of the game was centered around connor and his story shouldn’t really come as a shock to me or anyone because in our society, we are made to pay more attention to white people than people of color. that’s the plain simple fact: our implicit biases are shaped by the racist society that we live in.

the fact of the matter is that to have connor and bryan (along with his wife) at the helm of marketing for dbh, to have people care more about connor than the black character? to only care about a white cop in a game that is exploiting the traumas and profiting off of the painful history of african americans during the civil rights movement? in a game that bases elements off of jewish history from those triangles and armbands to help differentiate androids from humans to literal fucking concentration camps? that’s just good ole racism (and bias) that’s sugared as “look at this cute connor character! his story line is written well because the writer and director doesn’t know any other plot to write!” as an easier pill to swallow.

you all choose to only “stan” the white character because they’re more “interesting” and you “empathize more” with them? don’t even start with that bullshit of “markus was boring” or whatever anti-black reason you got because there isn’t a good reason for you to only focus on connor and not markus and kara. the way y’all lack empathy for black and brown folks is racist (and unsettling) and unless you unlearn and actively choose to fight against your implicit biases brought by your racist environment/upbringing then you are going to continue to exhibit racist behaviors.

like, i DOUBT y’all couldn’t find a SINGLE interesting about markus, the black main protagonist, throughout his entire narrative arc bitch i FUCKING doubt it. i’m sorry to be te one to tell you but if you’re white, you’re racist and all your white faves are racist. even if you are person of color and want to defend white people by saying “i’m not white and I find markus boring and I stan connor” then i got some news for you: please check your anti-blackness. if you find a character of color bland once, that’s okay. if you find out that you often find characters of color as plain and boring, then it’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern of your own biases.

bryan and amelia dechart are racist because they enable their fandom’s (it’s essentially their fandom name manifest destiny teas) racist behaviors. david cage is racist because he chose to write about a game as a civil rights allegory and made androids as placeins for people of color, specifically black people, and made us feel as be viewed as anything but human. if you are a gavin reed stan and/or ship reed900, you’re racist because you have this man the WORKS for a minor white character that spoke less than ten lines yet consider markus as monotonous and dull...youve could’ve put that energy into fixing his character but y’all didn’t. if you are a rk900/nines stan and create fan works like fanfiction about a white character with no lines and is found in the worst ending where the revolution fails and millions of androids die? that’s racism. before y’all say anything, yes, i did contribute to this behavior but i learned from it. the way that the fandom continued to foster this culture of paying more attention to connor to the point where the only works that gained attention were of connor is to blame. we must all step back to think about it, learn from this experience, and to do better next time however the more i watch the fandom from a distance, i know it’s hopeless optimism because racism has consumed the DBH fandom whole.

the exclusion of markus and kara is the direct result of the brain rot within the DBH community. there is no excuse for y’all not to include them when you talk about Detroit because they put in just as much work as bryan did. just because they don’t engage with the fandom as bryan does, it doesn’t mean that you should blatantly erase them from the narrative. how dare you put community engagement as some sort of requisite to be given attention? in y’all’s clouded minds you forget that these are actors who have other projects that they’re passionate about and want to explore instead of staying stagnant by continuing to promote and talk about a shit slavery simulator game that has very little redeeming qualities to it? where they have personalities not built around a character they play in a game from two years ago? it’s one thing to acknowledge you were in this project and humbly respond to stans, praising their fanart and showcasing them from time to time and it’s another to continue to profit off a game that is not rightfully your own.

markus and kara were let down by the fandom.

jesse and valorie were let down by the fandom.

[djxrxn]

contact

din djarin x reader

warnings: some curses used, some run-on sentences used, pretty soft over all !

word count: about 3.7 k, slightly less

a/n: first time posting my writing, i haven’t written anything in a while lol  - enjoy ! :)

“And that…” You paused, racking your brain for the name of the planet. “Is Geonosis, I think?”

The Mandalorian tilted his helmet up. He glanced away from you for only a minute. The stars twinkled almost as bright as your eyes had when he agreed to accompany you to star gaze. 

The latest quarry had been handled and the Child slept soundly in its pod when you had approached Mando. He had almost made it up to the cockpit before you spoke up. He faced away from you as you fiddled with your fingers, eyes not even leaving the ground as you asked if he maybe, if not, that was totally fine, but maybe, if he wanted to, go look at the stars with you. 

He almost said no. The next bounty was across the galaxy - a bond-skipper hiding out in the underbellies of the Inner Rim. Other bounty hunters would want the high reward. Time was of the essence - not to mention the Crest would need more fuel and Maker knows that wasn’t going to be cheap. This bounty would insure the ability to collect more bounties, as well as medical supplies and food portions. 

But it was the way you asked him that made him pause before he made the final step up the ladder and into the cockpit. Normally, when you made requests, there was a sureness to your voice. Never a confidence, but you weren’t afraid to tell Mando that more meal rations were needed, or that the bacta-kits were close to their expiration date. You would clamber up behind him with your report. He would give a nod, and the Crest would be off. 

This request - there was a timidness, a shyness to it. Whatever you wanted out of him - whatever the implications were of you asking him to spend this time with you was - he knew it was gentle and fragile. You would be disappointed if he said no. 

He had looked back at you. Your eyes finally looked into the visor and the Mandaloian felt his chest tighten. How was he supposed to say no to you when you looked that sweet. 

“Well, one of them is Geonosis, the other is Tatooine.” 

He said nothing, only waited for you to continue to speak.   

You usually didn’t speak this much around the Mandalorian. You had tried to speak only when spoken to way of communication, but when you realized that meant you would never speak, you decided that only speaking when absolutely necessary would have to be fine. 

Truth be told, you just didn’t want to annoy him. You wanted to talk to him (you really wanted to talk to him). You wanted to tell him every thought in your head. You had at least a hundred questions about space travel and how the Razor Crest operated and where the next quarry was and was he okay, was he hurt?

The last thing you wanted to do was be such a pain in the Mandalorian’s ass that he dumped you back on your backwater homeworld, never to be seen again.

Because you would miss the travel, obviously, and not just Mando. There were other things you liked about being his companion besides just him. You would miss seeing new planets and new people. You would miss the Child, the way it cooed and giggled up at you. And even though she wasn’t the most comfortable, you would miss the way the Razor Crest had become your home almost overnight. She was always just enough. 

Okay, maybe you would miss her pilot too. 

You took a step back, almost to admire the fact that you named almost every star in the sky. The Mandalorian was closer to you now as you stood shoulder to shoulder. You tried to focus on the stars again.

“What about that one?” His modulator crackled as he pointed out something you had overlooked. He wasn’t ready for you to spot talking. He wanted to memorize every syllable you uttered, to know your speech pattern like he knew his blasters or the control panel of the Crest. You were always so quiet around him. All he wanted was your voice to fill his ship. “Or two.”

He was right. You overlooked a distant binary star, its light barely visible to you. 

His hand dropped the same time as yours lifted up, and -

Contact.

You touched his hand. 

Your hand bumped into his, collided into his. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t think as his arm went rigid. He felt his shoulders go stiff. 

You faltered for a second, pausing and glancing up at his helmet (you were looking at him like he put every star in the galaxy just for you, just so you could pretend to know the names of the stars so you could spend a moment alone with him, like you would give anything for a moment alone with him, look away, stop looking at her, she’s not looking at you like that, stop looking, she doesn’t need you, stop looking). Then you looked back to the heavens. Pointed out the two stars and said their names. 

Mando didn’t hear you. 

His heartbeat rattled around in his head. It was louder than his hazy thoughts, louder than the hum of your voice. His face felt warm, and for once, he was glad he was wearing his helmet around you. His eyes were glued to you. He watched your lips move as you rambled about the sky. He wasn’t listening. He wanted to listen. 

He swallowed and tried to focus on what you were saying. A binary star, right. It’s actually

a two-stared system, okay. In the Outer Rim, that's why it's so hard to see, sure. 

You cleared your throat. “So, y-yeah, that’s - that’s the star.”

You turned your attention back to him. “Stars,” you corrected, barely louder than a whisper. 

You hadn’t realized that his visor was so intensely focused in your direction. You tried to form a thought, or even the semblance of a sentence, but all you could think about was him. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you. 

“Y-ou know, uh,” you started, throwing your gaze directly back at the two distant stars, twinkling around each other, basking in each other’s warmth and comfort. You tried to rack your brain for anything interesting. The sentence died in your throat. You had nothing - all you wanted to do was keep talking to him, keep saying anything to him. This was a rarity, this moment alone with Mando, and you had nothing. 

You sputtered for a few seconds before you let silence settle around you in defeat.

The Mandalorian clenched his fist (the fist that touched you, bumped into you, made contact with you, he wants to touch you again) and didn’t bother to ask what you were going to say. It wouldn’t have mattered to him, anyways, not when he couldn’t even form a single fucking thought. 

He needed to breathe. It was an accident. It meant nothing. He should just forget about it, and move on (when was the last time anyone touched him). 

You cleared your throat, your breath visible in the cold air (when was the last time he touched her).

He knew instantly. 

Two days ago. You were climbing up into the cockpit to take care of the child. Halfway up, and your foot slipped off the rung.

You caught yourself immediately. But that didn’t stop the panic from spiking up in the Mandalorian. His palm flew to your lower back to steady you. He let out a soft, “Woah.” 

You both stopped moving, stopped breathing for a moment. 

He could feel your heartbeat under his hand, even from your back, as it started to race. He hoped that you couldn’t feel as his did the same. 

“Easy.” 

He pushed up ever so softly. He guided you up the ladder, his hand leaving your back when he couldn’t reach high enough anymore. 

It’s not that he avoided touching you. He just couldn’t justify it. There was never a way to touch you without it feeling clunky and awkward, out of place. 

Now though…

Now was probably as good of a moment you were ever going to get. The twin crescent moons in front of you climbed in the sky - the planet’s cycle moved faster than most. You were running out of time here. He shifted beside you - his movement stiff and awkward. You blinked, trying not to get upset. There was still time, there had to be more time. 

But you knew. Mando needed to move onto the next quarry. You needed to act or…

You needed to move on. 

It was probably for the best that your moment with him was drawing to a close.Your little crush on the Mandalorian was getting out of hand. Every single thought you had revolved around him. You wanted so badly just to touch him, just to be as close to him as possible. 

He wasn’t a safe man. The closet of blasters, the chinks and chunks missing from the Crest as a result of firefights, everything about him attested to the fact that he was dangerous. Asking for him was asking for a lifetime of looking over your shoulder. 

But it was Mando.

Any danger he got the three of you into - 

Well, maybe less all three of you, and more himself, but he always came back in one piece to the Crest. And the two firefights you had endured with him resulted in the other party’s ship floating around space in bits. He kept the Child and you safe from the hazards of his occupation. You never felt safer than at his side in the co-pilot seat. 

It was when he left the Razor Crest that you felt vulnerable. 

The Child did have… abilities, but it was just that. A child. It was so small and helpless, and any large task completely exhausted the little thing.

What were you supposed to do if someone tried to board the Crest? 

What were you supposed to do if Mando didn’t come home?

You couldn’t think about it - you’d make yourself sick thinking about it - the second he closed the hatch and disappeared, you turned to the Child to occupy your time. 

And it did a great job at that - but even the Child needed rest eventually. That just left you alone to picture every way your Mandalorian could die. Alone to rot on some unnamed back alley or in a vast jungle, never to be found again. You would have no idea that he was gone.

Everytime he came back, you considered telling him about how you felt. But the idea that he didn’t want you as much as you needed him? It would destroy you.

But here was an opportunity to tell him, to say anything to him. To show him even a fraction of how much you wanted him needed him.  

You let out a huff. It sounded shaky in your ears. You wondered if Mando heard it.

He did. He chalked it up to the weather (you were cold, you both needed to get inside the Crest and go, and you were cold, she’s cold, Maker, do something). 

And then you moved. 

You let your hand bump into Mando’s again. You almost pulled back, unsure of your movements at first, but you let the back of your hand rest up against his.

Contact.

You paused for a minute, waiting for him to react. He had gone completely still. 

The two of you were in limbo, waiting for the other to move first. You didn’t know what to do - or say - next. 

So you just looked at him. You searched the helmet for anything - you peered into his visor looking for any signs of a man underneath it.

There was one, and he was on fire.

Your movement was so sudden and small. You weren’t even really touching him (you were, you actually fucking were). It barely called for this kind of a reaction but the Mandalorian felt like his whole body was vibrating. 

He never realized how small your hands were compared to his. 

He never realized how much he wanted you, how much he needed you. How you were always there in the Crest when he came home. The Child was taken care of, the ship hadn’t caught fire - everything was in tip-top shape. You took care of everything when he left.

You didn’t even realize how much you took care of him. Always checking on him - never pressuring him or hovering too close, but always leaving meal portions where he could easily find them and save to eat later. You left bacta-kits in the hull of the ship, right next to the hatch, in case he needed medical support. You never pushed him about his religion or his beskar. You never even asked. 

But you asked about him.

Without fail, you asked if he was okay as soon as he entered hyperspace, once they were settled into the Crest after a bounty had been secured. 

It was one of the only times you spoke to him - not requested or reported - no, you asked him if he was okay.

It meant the whole galaxy to him (you meant the whole galaxy to him, you and the child were everything he had left, he would let the galaxy burn to keep you two safe, he would burn a thousand galaxies to see you smile, see you happy, look at him like you needed him all the time, to need him like he needs you, to need him like he needed you, he needed you).

What did he have left? Who stayed after a few months - bounty hunting with a Mandalorian was far more dangerous occupation than farming on your Outer Rim planet had been. He didn’t expect you to stay for as long as you had. 

He wouldn’t know what he would do without you, now. 

When you looked at him, he stumbled over his breath. He flexed his hand. Even through his leather glove, he felt your hand tremble. 

He reached for your pinky with his own, wrapping his larger digit around yours. 

Your lips parted, a little gasp escaping you. The shade of your cheeks reddened, and you felt your eyes go wide. You had wanted him to do something - to do anything, really - but you hadn’t expected it. You could stop the soft smile creeping onto your face. 

The Mandalorian felt greedy. He wrapped another finger around yours, then another -

You finished the job, wrapping what remaining fingers you had left around his. 

Your hand fit so perfectly in the Mandalorian’s, your fingers clutching at his own. His heart swelled, his whole face felt like it was burning off of his bones, even his ears felt the flames. 

Not that he would have it any other way. 

You pressed your lips together. You missed him - you always missed him, but this time - 

This time, he didn’t contact you over the comlink about the quarry. If it took longer than a few days, he would tell you. A simple message, always saying to stay safe and to stay in the Razor Crest. Always saying that he would be back.   

This time, for two weeks, you hoped you wouldn’t wake up to local reports of a Mandalorian bounty hunter that was found dead.

“I… I didn’t think you were gonna come home, Mando,” you whispered. Your throat felt tight just thinking about how worried you were about him. Every fear and anxiety came roaring up, threatening to overwhelm you. “You - you didn’t use the comlink, a-and I thought something was… was wrong.”

He paused - hesitated. “I...I was gone longer than I wanted to be.” Two weeks longer. The quarry had a lot of friends on this planet. He slipped in between secret alleys and sewer systems, and with no one willing to fess up about his whereabouts, it took some time for the Mandalorian to find him. 

But of course he found the quarry. Of course he came home. 

“I get so worried, a-about you, I-”

You tried to swallow the lump away to no avail. 

He didn’t need you to finish the sentence. Mando understood. You hung around his mind on every hunt - every time something went wrong, every stray blaster shot he narrowly avoided, and all he could think about was how you would wait for a man never coming back. All he ever wanted to do was come home to you and the Child. 

“I’ll always come back to you.”

You could feel it - your emotions were clawing up your throat, burning your chest. You could tell him, he was right here and it would be so easy just to tell him. To just tell him - 

You squeezed his fingers, and then completely let go of his hand. 

“I-”

The Mandalorian leaned in slightly, and you pressed your lips together. You didn’t know how to say this, you didn’t want to ruin this, you didn’t want - 

He reached for your hand again. Your eyes stung, but you jerk your hand away. 

“What’s wrong?” His hand gripped your arm gently. You looked upset (he hated when you were upset, he just wanted you to be okay, he could fix it, he could, just tell him what’s wrong).

“I’m - Mando, I’m… I just-”

“Say it,” Mando breathed.

“I just - stars, I just want you, Mando. I… I - I need you.”

A soft smile found its way to Mando’s cheeks, as he basked in your confession. How simple - it was devoid of embellishments, and yet Mando felt drunk off your words. You wanted him, needed him. You sounded so hurt, so worried. No one had ever been so worried over whether or not he would return. It was always just… expected of him. He would return - he was the Mandalorian. 

But you still looked so upset. So severe, like you had just told him you were dying. Like the whole world was going to end in a fiery explosion, instead of a soft declaration of your affection (for him, for him, for him). 

He brushed your hair away from your cheeks. His touch was so light - you barely felt where his gloves grazed your face, but you could feel your cheeks burn (the white hot, the devastatingly warm and bright kind of burn that you would feel for days after the initial injury, he always did this to you, made you burn, Maker, he always made you feel like you were on fucking fire, you wished you could breathe, just breathe).

You managed a quick breath when the Mandalorian cradled your face in his hands. He rubbed his thumb across your cheeks for a moment before he tipped his head forward and-

Contact.  

His helmet rested against your forehead. You gazed into his visor, only seeing your own eyes in its reflection. Mando breathes, too soft for the vocal modulator to pick up on, but loud enough that you could absolutely hear. Soft and quick, in and out. Like he was just as shocked to be this close as you were.

After a moment, you heard a soft, “Oh,” and the Mandalorian cleared his throat. 

“We- we’re, uh… this is- I’m kissing you, by the way,” he stuttered. He nuzzled your forehead with his, almost to emphasize his point. 

In truth, Mando had never shared a kiss like this with anyone. Affection was not something he was familiar with - he was perfectly content with quick encounters, or even simple comradery. 

But to share something with you - so tender and sweet, so Mandalorian with you (a part of his culture, a part of him) - it was such uncharted territory. It almost made him nervous. What if you wanted more (he was willing to give everything he had, everything he could ever gain was for you, but what if it wasn’t enough, what if it wasn’t enough)? What if you didn’t want him (what if he wasn’t enough for you)?  

“Wait, what?” Your voice sounded giddy and high, and whatever nerves Mando felt, they were gone - evaporated. 

“It’s a kiss.” He pulled his helmet away for a moment, only to gently tap your forehead again. “A Keldabe kiss. It’s- it’s how mandalorians kiss.”

Your nails scraped along his chest plate as you leaned forward and planted a kiss on his helmet. His hands lowered to your waist, bringing your body closer to his. A soft hum rumbled from the back of his throat. 

You rested his forehead against his again. “That’s, um, how we kiss outside of the, uh, outside of your clan.”

“Right.” His smile seeped through his voice. 

“Just in case, you know, you wanted to know.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, moving even closer to him. The side of his helmet rested against your cheek. 

You glanced up at the stars. A comfortable silence settled as you enjoyed being held by your Mandalorian. 

“I didn’t say it, did I?” 

You kissed the cheek of his helmet. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to - I know, Mando.”

He grunted. His arm shifted - one wrapping around your back, one reaching up to tangle his fingers in your hair. You were being completely held - completely shielded, completely protected by him. You've never felt this close to anyone - you've never felt more…

More.

More alive, more wanted, more safe. Mando, in a few actions, and in even fewer words, has rendered you completely and utterly his. 

Not that you’d have it any other way. 

“I need you, too,” he mumbled. “And I’ll never stop wanting you - ner ka’rta.”

His fingers scraped against your scalp, and you swear the stars have never looked more beautiful.

[northcarolinanative]

𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 / 𝙲𝚑 𝟷 𝟻

Description: John B’s Sister comes home from staying with their mom, only to find out that her brother is missing and her dad was murdered. JJ may have just lost his best friend. Her and JJ have to figure out what to do and how to pick up the pieces.

A/N: Hi!! I love this chapter because I think that the relationship between Kie and the Reader needed to be mended and I really wanted the Pogues to be more involved in the hunt for JB and Sarah. I’m hoping that things will pick up soon:) As always my asks/requests/messages are open and let me know ANY feedback that you have for the series or anything that you would like to see:)

Need to Catch Up? Collision MasterList

I pushed open the back door to The Wreck where I saw the rest of the pogues sitting at the wooden picnic table. JJ has his back to me sitting on the picnic table while Kie was looking down at Pope, his face in her hand making him look at her. Their position confused me, but as I got closer I noticed the towel that she had pulled away from Pope’s face was now covered in red. I sped up, jogging the rest of the way trying to assess the situation. 

When I walked up to My eyes scanned over both boys who looked to have been beaten and was bloodied. I looked over at Pope seeing his eye beginning to swell and the blood Kie was wiping from his mouth. Then I turned to JJ, who spit to the side of the table before smiling at me. My stomach dropped when I saw the red that clung to his teeth. “What the hell happened?” I asked the group before handing JJ a bottle of water from my bag. 

Kie looked between the two boys before handing me an extra damp towel and nodding to JJ. He rolled his eyes as I grabbed his face, making him look at me. I pressed the towel across his bottom lip, where the source of the blood seemed to be coming from. I was standing between his legs as he looked straight at me, his hands resting on his own knees but letting his fingers trace the outside of my thighs. There it was again, the constant reassuring touches. After our fight last night we had both missed them. I swear when it came to JJ I was hypersensitive to how close we were, how we spoke to each other, or even now, how his fingers were tracing mindless patterns into the back of my legs as I stood in between his. The moment felt way too intimate to have our two best friends just to the side of us. Us both apologizing without really saying it. I could feel Kie and Pope’s eyes on the two of us. 

Kie was the first to break the silence and push the two for answers. “So y’all just gonna keep secrets now? Rember no secrets between Pogues, what the hell happened?”

I continued to wipe off the blood from JJ’s face till he pushed my hand down so he could speak. “Ward Cameron.” He said, looking at Pope, who just continued to look down, staying quiet. “They had to be working with him, just like the other two groupers were.” He shook his head. 

“Ward Cameron?” I exclaimed. I saw JJ wince slightly at my volume. “He should be rotting in a jail cell along with his son,” I mumbled under my breath. 

“What were they looking for? Did they say anything?” Kie questioned as she looked between the two boys. JJ looked down at the ground, his jaw was clenched and tight. 

“You’re gonna be mad” was all he said. I directed my eyes to Pope, raising my eyebrows at him. 

“They took the maps and stuff that Kie and I saw when we came to the Chateau.” This caused Kie to snap her head in my direction, looking at me with confusion on her face. “The guys had masks on but they didn’t look too old, they definitely weren’t adults. They said something about avenging Peterkin, getting John B for what he did.” This caused my breath to hitch in my throat. I tried to breathe normally as to not alert JJ. “Like I said, probably just a scare tactic from Ward.” 

“Why would they be looking for that?” She said moving to take the cloth from my hand. I let her take it looking to move at JJ. His words ringing in my ears louder than what either of the other two had said. 

I lowered my voice, hoping to give us the slightest bit of privacy in front of our friends. Kie continued to pack up the first aid kit. I knew that they both could hear us, but I did not really care. “JJ look at me, please?” I whispered softly. I put my hand under his chin. I felt my face soften as I ghosted my fingers over the bruising skin of his jaw. Part of me wondered if there would ever be a time that would see him without bruises or scabs littering his body. “I’m not angry with you. I could never be angry with you over something like this, okay?” 

JJ nodded his head. I could see the faraway look in his eyes telling me that he was still worried about it. “They didn’t take anything helpful though.” I smiled at him backing away from the group. JJ looked at me, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as he watched me grab my backpack. I sat at the table, facing the water. I patted the seat next to me, signaling him to sit down. He rounded the table, Kie and Pope taking their seats on the other side of the wooden picnic table, as I pulled out my notebook and laptop. I sorted through, flipping the pages until I found the page with all my research questions. While I didn’t want to involve Kie and Pope or get their hopes up like JJ and I’s, Pope had just got jumped because of this, he had a right to know. 

I pulled the group of papers that I had taken from the Chateau that morning. I handed them to JJ, a smile plastering both of our faces. “You think I needed to use the internet to check my Instagram?” I laughed at him. 

JJ wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. He squeezed me so tight that I felt the air leave my body. I just giggled, “J, I can’t breathe.” 

Pulling back he had his hand on my shoulder, “I stand by my statement, you are a genius.” 

I started to open the computer and typed in my password. JJ began to answer Pope and Kie’s questions about the maps and what we had found so far. Kie was obviously shocked at how far we had made it into finding them. Pope was in deep thought though. I should have known that he would have answers to most of our problems, being the brains of the group. 

The group was invested in different endeavors as we worked for a good amount of time. JJ helped me sift through our notes and codes, when he wasn’t messing around and goofing off with Kie. Kie kept us supplied with baskets of fries and a pitcher of sweet tea, and Pope was working on a scholarship essay. He was upset that he lost the big one, but he was determined to rack up as many smaller one as he could. I was looking up the cargo ships complete path. I typed the number into the freight liners public record archive. I looked at it, seeing that it went to Nassau. I tapped JJ’s shoulder. “It says here that the ship did in fact make it to Nassau. This is the port number.” I said pointing to the screen as JJ. He wrote down the number as fry came flying across the table, no doubt from Kie as we both laughed. 

JJ was in the middle of his story about the night we figured out which ship was which. He had left out the part about our kiss, but his hand on my thigh under the table let me know that he remembered. I had spent the last hour scouring the internet for news articles of the past week on the island that the ship docked at. Looking for any sign of “Two runaway teens” or “Two Americans found onboard cargo ships”. I knew that it wasn’t super feasible, but it was something right? I let my frustration take over me. I unintentionally cut JJ off, putting my hands over my face, letting out a groan. “I’m not finding anything.” I let my head fall to hit the table beside my computer. 

JJ wrapped an arm around me pulling me up. “Don’t do that, you’ll give yourself a concussion.” He laughed, causing me to roll my eyes. 

“You’ve been at it for hours.” Kie started standing up. “Why don’t you take a break and walk with me down to the water? Let JJ actually do some work on it.” She held her hand out to me. I took it as JJ scoffed, fainting offense, but turned the computer towards himself and began reading the screen. 

Kie and I walked in silence away from the two boys, enjoying the walk to the water. The water had always been a calming place for me, something about it helped me to clear my head. I slipped my sandals off as we reached the end of the boardwalk. 

“So,” Kie began. I looked in her direction. The wind whipping our hair around with its harshness. “You and JJ?” She stated, her tone questioning me. 

I shrugged my shoulder. “I have no idea,” I stated. I really didn’t. 

“He’s different around you.” She said as we reached the edge of the surf. The cold water reached us, covering only the tops of our feet before it was pulled back into the ocean. 

“What do you mean?” I asked. I watched her face as she looked out over the horizon of the water. 

“He’s softer with you, more gentle.” She said with a small laugh. “Don’t think I didn’t see you getting all soft either when you got here. Has something happened between you?” 

She smiled at me, causing me to blush. “It’s like we know how we feel about each other, but we haven’t exactly said it. We’ve kissed like twice, but every time-” 

Kie cut me off playfully hitting me in the shoulder. “You’re kidding me!” She laughed causing me to laugh with her. “If we find John B he’s gonna flip his shit.” She said. I felt my smile falter. 

“See that’s it Kie.” She took a step back as my tone changed. “There’s so much going on with him right now between Barry, his restitution, he hasn’t even mentioned his dad, and then us on our hunt for JB, it’s a lot you know?” I let out a deep breath.”What if it isn’t real, and we’re distracting each other or something?” I paused. “I want it to be real though.”  It felt nice to get it all off the chest. 

Kie hesitated before answering. “You know, if it counts for anything, I think the two of you are good for each other. JJ hasn’t done anything utterly stupid since you got back into to town. And you seem happier when he’s around.” I smiled and nodded at her, silently saying thank you. There was a small pause before she started talking again. “Where’d you go after your shift this morning?”

I took in a deep breath, what Topper had told me earlier was weighing heavy on my conscience after what JJ and Pope told me about the ‘groupers’.  “Topper asked to talk to me after my shift. I went out to the parking lot and he was waiting for me. After everything JJ told me about how he helped John B, I figured I’d give him a shot.” 

She turned to look at me and her eyes were wide. “You are full of surprises today, aren't you?” 

“I guess so.” I laughed reaching down to pick up a shell that was rolling across the sand under the surf. “He said that Rafe has lost it. He’s so far in a drug haze that he’s hallucinating Peterkin, saying that he has to get justice for her. He said he believes us and that we need to watch out for Rafe.” 

“Do you believe him?” She asks. We both silently agree to start heading back up the beach toward the restaurant. 

“Partially yes. I don’t think that he has a reason to lie about Rafe, I definitely think we need to have our eyes out for him, but we knew that already.” We both let out a sarcastic chuckle. “He said that he wants to help us find John B and Sarah, but I’m not gonna tell him shit. I think he just wants to find Sarah because he’s still obsessed with her. I think he wants her back and will throw John B under the bus if he needs to.” I sighed as we washed our feet off and slipped our shoes back on. I let my hand slide along the sadly wooden railing as we walked. “I just wanted to keep him close in case we did need something.” 

“See that’s why you and Pope are the brains of this whole thing because I probably would have told him to go to hell and never come back.” She laughed. 

We approached the table to see both JJ and Pope, hunched over the laptop on the table, very focused on the screen. “What’s going on here? You two couldn’t have possibly managed to find something.” Kie laughed as I walked around to look over JJ’s shoulder. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders pulling him close to me, relieved when he leaned back into my touch. 

“Actually, we might have,” Pope said looking over his shoulder at me and JJ, smiling. 

Masterlist

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[schemingbishop]

the things that they became

so i’m finally posting my gvbb fic, which has been a hell of a ride and i’m super happy to have worked with my very talented gang!! Thanks to @grishaversebigbang for hosting!

Materialki: @hayleylmorgan @laisacordeliaart @starstrucksailor

summary:  two years after leaving Ketterdam, Captain Inej Ghafa infamous on the seas, a name that people go running from. Her life in Ketterdam is behind her, and she's found a new family in her crew, a certain Ravkan ex-first army soldier in particular. Yet when Kaz Brekker has another job he needs her for, none of that seems to matter anymore. Inej was less finished with Ketterdam than she once believed

ao3 link is here

chapter one can be found under the cut

Kara always felt most alive when she was fighting. Perhaps there was something terrible in that, but there was no denying something in her loved to hear the crash of her sword against another. Loved the dance that followed, stepping back, forwards, dodge, strike, and on it went. There was less spinning and twirling and elaborate throwing of daggers than the stories would have you believe, but there was a certain grace to it. Yet no matter how much a part of her loved fighting, loved the beautiful thrill of it, she could never bring herself to love killing. She never had and she never would. Guilt always cloaked her whenever she drove her sword through a man’s heart, or put a bullet in his brain. No matter how terrible the person, to take a life was a cruel thing.

Killing slavers, however, was a little easier to bare than killing innocents (well exactly how innocent they were Kara felt was up for debate, but that was hardly relevant). Currently, she was trying to do just that. She was not doing particularly well at it, however. The short, dark haired slaver she was fighting had cornered her in the captains cabin, and taken her sword to boot. The doors had flung shut behind him, and Kara heart leapt uncomfortably as she realized she had hit the wall. There was no where else to back away to now. She still had her guns, one gripped tightly in her hand. Her eyes trained on the long thin sword trained at her heart. It was doubtless she could kill him if she wanted, but there was also a chance he could kill her. Kara was fond of life, she was not keen to die on a rotting slaver ship at the hands of some spineless asshole and his stolen sword.

“So this is awkward,” She said with a uncomfortable smile, never taking her eyes of the sword.

“It’s not awkward,” The slaver snarled, stepping forwards and shoving the point of his sword against her chest. “Just because that bitch captain of yours thinks she owns the damn seas – ” Oh but she does own the seas, Kara thought, hastily raising the gun in her hand, Inej Ghafa doesn’t loose. He broke off and scowled at her. The sword was putting fair distance between them, so she couldn’t stab or hit him with anything to throw him off. The sword was sharp enough to already be drawing blood at her stomach, where the slaver was jabbing it. Of course it was, it was her sword. Perhaps if she could shoot his hand, he’d be forced to drop it…

It seemed she would never have to worry about it. The doors were flung open again the man with her sword scrambled backwards to avoid being hit by one of them. Kara flinched too, then tripped and fell as she too tried to step back. She had intended to shoot the slaver, but when she looked across to the desk on the other side of the room she forgot all about him. The captain of the slaver ship was tripping backwards over his own feet, and following was a girl with two shining knives. Inej. One of her knives was quickly pressed to the mans throat. She hadn’t glanced over at Kara, but she knew Inej knew she was there. Saving me again. Kara would have been impressed if it hadn’t made her feel so bloody useless.  

“You’re dead Ghafa,” The Captain hissed, trying, and failing to fight Inej. Kara snorted, at that. People said lots of things about Inej. That she was invincible, the curse upon the seas, a goddess or a saint reborn to enact her justice, they were all lies. But they did say she never lost. Once she set her sights on you, you were as good as a ghost already. That was not wrong. People were often surprised to learn Inej was just a eighteen year old girl, no one was supposed to be so formidable so young. Kara knew a little of why, a few spare details of her time in Ketterdam. The reasons Inej was so dangerous were cruel and unfair and nothing anyone deserved. Using the skills Ketterdam and the dregs gave her for good though? It was beautifully ironic.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Kara said before she could stop herself, and that seemed to revitalize the slaver who had stolen her sword. He had spent the last few moments staring at Inej disbelievingly. As the slaver captain looked over at the two of them, Kara picked up her gun, took off the safety and fired a shot. The slaver slumped down to the ground, and Kara looked back to Inej and the captain. He looked afraid now, no more threats. Inej’s dagger was leaving beads of blood at his throat.

“I can give you money, or a share in profits, or the ship, or – ” Kara didn’t know why he was trying. Everybody knew you didn’t bargain with death. Inej drew the knife across his throat and he dropped back onto the desk, lifeless. She turned to Kara then, a subtle sort of smile on her face, wordlessly offering a hand. Kara looked at it resentfully for a moment, but then she sheathed her guns and took it.

“We won?” Kara asked, as she bent to pick up her sword from the dead man. It was only then that she had noticed it was remarkably quieter outside than it had been a few minutes before.

“Of course,” Inej said, pushing through the door and onto the main deck. Some part of Kara still expected bullets flying and men bleeding out and the ship a wreck. But it was never like that. The former prisoners were being carefully led across to Inej’s own ship by the rest of their crew and any remaining slavers were held a gun point. Some were even jumping ship. The Captain of the Wraith didn’t lose, the rumour carried across the sea, Kara had heard it long before she’d joined the crew. Now, two months after she had, it still amazed her. The good guys don’t always have to loose, it was a nice sentiment and a better reality.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Kara muttered, as she and Inej ventured towards Specht. He was leading the last of the slavers prisoners to the Wraith, and seemingly waiting for Inej to return.

“For saving your life?” Inej raised a brow as she glanced back at her, “I suppose you should.”

“Yeah well, thank you. I had it under control though, I would have been fine.”

“Hmm,” Inej shrugged, and before Kara could protest she was speaking to Specht. Kara didn’t make much of a conscious effort to listen, they were likely only discussing where they would dock to return the freed prisoners to wherever they came from. Kara figured she’d find out soon enough. By the look of it there were only five or six, but she wasn’t surprised. They hadn’t targeted the ship because of who they thought it was carrying. It was part of a larger game, a rich merchant turned slaver who ran a whole business of the illegal trade. He’d taken issue with Inej coming after his ships, sent some after her in return. Once they’d sunk those ships, Inej had decided to take out one of his most prized. The one they were on now. Kara would have pegged it for revenge, had she not known Inej better. It was practical, proof nothing was safe. Hunting slavers wasn’t just about playing the hero.

“Oh, and there’s a letter for you,” Specht’s words finally caught Kara’s attention, and she turned to Inej. Sure enough, he had handed her a rolled scroll of paper, tied with black string. A black crow was emblazoned on the side of the paper. The dregs, it had to be. Specht bore there tattoo, a crow and a cup, on his arm. Inej tended not to speak of her time in the dregs, or her time in Ketterdam at all. Kara couldn’t blame her. She knew a thing or two about troubled pasts, the parts of them she would rather not remember. Inej only ever spoke about the friends that she’d had there, and as far as Kara knew, none of them were still there. Besides, who was desperate enough to send letters to the middle of the ocean?

“Why would they send it to me here?” Inej voiced Kara’s thoughts aloud, and specht just shrugged.

“Some little messenger on a rowboat was sent, wouldn’t let go of the letter til it’d been put in my hand or yours,” He explained as the three of them reached the cabin of Inej’s door.

“Hell of a journey for a letter,” Kara remarked, raising an eyebrow at the scroll. Inej sighed and pocketed it, frowning a little at Kara. Kara couldn’t help but think sometimes the Captain looked at her like she was a mystery to be solved. One piece of the puzzle Inej couldn’t quite place. Inej wouldn’t have liked that, she hated a mystery she couldn’t solve.

“Thank you Specht,” She nodded in his direction, and leant back on the wooden double doors leading to her cabin. It was much nicer than the other, now dead, captains cabin, in Kara’s opinion anyway. The main body had several shelves filled with papers and books and various ornaments, a large desk and two chairs, and an inviting patterned rug. Through a door on the left hand side was a little room where Inej slept. There was something comforting about the cabin to Kara, even if it wasn’t her own. There was something comforting about the whole ship. The Wraith felt more her home than anywhere else ever had. She wondered slowly away from Inej and Spetch, leaving them to sort out whatever they were sorting out. Inej would hardly begrudge her for leaving.

Kara cast a glance to the ship across from them, Valeria and Lia were pulling away the ramp that connected the two boats. It left the remaining slavers alone at sea. An undue mercy, perhaps some would survive. It was more than they deserved, yet less than a different person might have given. She had wanted to ask Inej about the letter. She knew it was probably none of her business, but the thought kept nagging at her mind. If it’s important I’ll find out soon enough. If someone from the dregs was back and asking for anything at all it meant nothing but bad news.

Despite having never set foot in Ketterdam before, Kara had heard of the dregs. Her uncle on her mothers side had been swept up into Ketterdam’s world of gangs and Kara had grown up hearing how terrible they were. Her mother had taught her how terrible a lot of things were – if she could Kara now she’d be mortified. The weapons she carried, the company she kept, the things she’d done. At least I’m not a soldier anymore, She thought, you would have hated that the most. It was laughable to her that her kind, pacifist parents had managed to raise someone like her. You do terrible things to survive, and sometimes the terrible things become part of who you are. That was the story of everyone on this ship.

“Are you gonna help? Or are you just gonna stare at the ocean all day like you’ve never seen it before?” She heard Valeria call from behind her. The other girl was a year younger than Kara, only eighteen, and had almost been killed in the Ravkan civil war. Technically she was a deserter, but none of them saw leaving the service of a country like Ravka a dishonourable thing. Kara understood better than any of them.

“I’m coming!” Kara shouted back, realising that she hadn’t notice the boat start to move. Perhaps she had just become so accustomed to the sea it wasn’t the kind of thing she noticed anymore. But more likely thoughts of her mother had left her mind in another place entirely. Thinking of her family wasn’t exactly her favourite pastime, memories are painful when you know you can’t make anymore like them. She followed Valeria along the ships deck, pushing all thoughts of the letters and the dregs and her family to the back of her mind. Later, she decided, she would ask Inej later. Curiosity always did get the better of her in the end.

[katieskarlette]

Shadows Rising: A Reaction Post

Short, mostly non-spoilery version:  I liked it overall.  I give it a solid B, maybe a B+.

I was disappointed in how little Nathanos and/or Sylvanas content there was, but I think proclamations of the ship’s doom are premature.  

I’m intrigued by the first rumblings of new character development for certain characters, especially Anduin, Alleria and Turalyon.

I was rooting for Talanji so much.  She’s great. Zekhan is a cinnamon roll too pure for this world.  Sira was kind of boring. Fairshaw is so darn heartwarming I can’t stand it. I like Bwonsamdi more now. The lack of Wrathion is unsurprising but unfortunate. Nothing new with Tyrande but she’s already poised for major development in Shadowlands.

Much longer, spoilery version below.

This ended up being more of a ramble than an essay, but there’s a lot of disjointed thoughts pinging around in my head, so let’s dive in.

Overall, I enjoyed Shadows Rising.  Was it the best book ever?  No.  Not even the best Warcraft book ever.  But it was an enjoyable read.  It’s always a treat to get into the heads of characters we mostly know in passing from in-game events.  There are internal, emotional beats that cannot easily be explored in the game, and the books are a way to build the world and the characters in a more introspective, slow-paced manner.  I like that.  (That’s not to say there are no action scenes, because there definitely are.)

Talanji, Jaina, Zekhan, and Anduin were all written well and sympathetically.  Maiev’s only in a couple scenes, but she felt off to me.  Nathanos was very in-character, in all his snide, sour glory.   Flynn and Mathias are great together.

The pacing was fine.  The descriptions were good, and it all felt grounded in the game world (i.e. landmarks, ambiance, the ridiculous amount of stairs in Daz’alor...)  Each of the Horde leaders got a moment or two in the spotlight.  Despite a fair amount of chapters about Anduin, Alleria, Turalyon, and Jaina, it still felt like a Horde-centric book to me.  Not that that’s a bad thing.

Prologue:  Gayness detected on page 8!  And it’s even something I kind of inadvertently predicted.  In my reaction post for Before the Storm I wrote, “ In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend.”  That’s basically what we have here.  I don’t know if they were married, and neither were blacksmiths, but the Westfall moonshiner describes one of the Forsaken slain in Arathi as “the best man I ever knew and loved.”  Tada!  See how easy it was?  Add Jago x Wilmer to the growing list of LGBT rep in Azeroth.  (Even if they’re super minor characters in the long run, it’s still great to see.)

There might be some kind of parallel to be drawn between Alleria failing Anduin (by not finding/killing Sylvanas) and Nathanos failing Sylvanas (by not killing Bwonsamdi) but my brain is too overloaded from binge-reading to articulate it right now.  Both failed their king or queen, but both were also given nearly impossible tasks. 

Alleria and Turalyon are definitely being set up as antagonists.  We are clearly supposed to side with Jaina on this, and be uncomfortable (if not outright horrified) at their torture methods.  It’s especially disturbing how they use their respective void and light powers to accomplish their goals.  I mean, on one hand it’s great that both sides of the great cosmic divide can work together, and their marriage seems stronger than it was for awhile there, but yeesh...can you not torture people?  I know, ends justify the means, slippery slope, greater evil, blah blah, but still...that’s not okay.  It’s yet another sign that the Light is not necessarily good (or the void necessarily evil).

I welcome conflict within the Alliance, though.  That’s been the Horde’s thing for long enough.  Time to see how the blue side deals with its rifts.

In chapter 2 Nathanos is annoyed when a dreadtick flies by his head.  What, was it too similar to a bird for his liking?  Heh. 

All that time in Nazmir, and we didn’t get to see a single crawg!  Harumph.

It took three chapters and 39 pages to finally get something from Nathanos' perspective, and he was much more scarce going forward than I had hoped.  The bits we did get from his perspective were great and in-character, but I wanted to get into his head more.  Most of his scenes were from the POV of Sira or the troll villain instead, and while Apari was a good character I find Sira to be pretty one-dimensional. 

I kind of got paternal vibes from Nathanos toward Sira, though.  He was like, “I’ve been undead a lot longer than you; I know how to handle the bloodlust and such.  Get it out of your system at appropriate times but learn to control yourself.  There’s more to (un)life than slaughtering people.”  She herself, though, was just “Rawr, I hate everything and want to kill anything that moves.”  I mean, I get that she’s been through some traumatic stuff, but I didn’t find myself invested in her at all.

Page 42, as a bunch of trolls are about to be slaughtered:  "Hungry birds circled, expectant of a big meal, and Nathanos so hated to disappoint."  WHAT?  Nathanos wanted to do something nice for BIRDS?  I know, the phrasing fits with his dry, sarcastic sense of humor, but considering the running joke about him hating birds, it still made me go, “Huh?”

Chapter 5 (and later on, as it turns out):  Zekhan having a soft spot for kids is too precious for this world.

Page 51:  Thalyssra's eyes were "sparkling as she gazed across the room at Lor'themar."  Awwwwwww.   There was a surprising amount of ship fodder in this book overall, with Lor’themar x Thalyssra, Turalyon x Alleria, Fairshaw, and Zehkhan x Talanji all getting a moment or two (or more.) 

Chapter 6:  Anduin says, "Turalyon, take Alleria Windrunner and investigate these deaths."  You know, Alleria...YOUR WIFE?  I don't think you need to say her last name there, genius. 

While I’m being snarky about the editing, there were at least two times where the word “grieves” was used instead of “greaves.”  I spotted a couple other little things that a better editor (or one with more time, maybe it was rushed, I don’t know) would have caught.

Chapter 7:  More matter-of-fact LGBT inclusion for minor characters, this time a lesbian troll couple who want to marry.  Yes, thank you Blizzard, keep it up.

Chapter 8:  If you’re going to make the “Zappy Boy” nickname for Zekhan canon, having Bwonsamdi be the one to wink at the camera and use it was a great decision.  I can totally imagine him saying it.

We learn the name of Varok’s wife/Dranosh’s mother:  Remda.  Although I read elsewhere that the vision Zekhan saw of the Saurfang family in the afterlife was just Bwonsamdi’s B.S., it was still cool.

Chapter 13:  Nathanos wearing cologne?  Love it.  And it’s not even to cover up the rotting smell, because apparently his new body doesn’t stink like some undead; it just doesn’t smell like a living person, either, and some find it unnerving.  So he wears cologne.  That’s such a delightful little detail, and surprisingly considerate of him.

Sira complaining about bugs:  "We'll be eaten alive."  Uh no, you'd have to BE ALIVE for that to happen. Tsk.

Nathanos being called "the pale rider" makes me think of old cowboy movies.  Like, “You greenhorns better clear out; the Pale Rider is comin’ to town and there’s gonna be trouble.  Go wake up the sheriff.”  

Sira says that while on the voyage to Zandalar the dark rangers liked to tell the tale of how Nathanos was promoted to Ranger Lord by Sylvanas.  I'm surprised he lets them gossip like that!  His quests in vanilla made it seem he wanted to keep those parts of his past on the down-low, at least from the player.

Chapter 14:  Thrall's second kid is Rehze.  *blink*  Reh-zee?  Rez?  Ruh-zay?  I guess she’s not named after anyone.  After he named his son Durak (sort of after Durotan) I assumed he’d continue the pattern with kid #2.  Maybe she’s named after one of Aggra’s relatives.  (Later I read on Wowpedia that the author actually said she dislikes the “fan service” trend of naming children after other characters so she just picked a random orcish name.  I don’t think it’s fan service, because lots of real-life people do it, but okay.  Fair enough.)

Speaking of orcish names, there’s an orc page helping out the council named Gunk.  Like, what you clean out from under your fingernails after gardening.  Gunk.  LOL

Aww, that’s no fun...Maiev's wearing a cape trimmed in white fur, not daggers.  What happened to her impeccable/deadly fashion sense?

Chapter 16:  Zekhan starting to clap at Talanji's speech and then stopping and shrinking back when he realized no one else was applauding was so freaking adorable.

Chapter 17:  Fairshaw, full steam ahead!!!  Their chemistry is everything I hoped it would be.  Learning a little about Flynn’s tragic past was both fascinating and heartbreaking.  (We learned his mom’s name: Lyra Fairwind.  R.I.P.)

Chapter 18:  Proodmoore keep has a gallery with floor to ceiling oil paintings of the Proudmoore family, extended family, and beloved friends.  It now includes Anduin.  I can’t help thinking that, in a different timeline, Arthas’ portrait would have been there.

Will wonders never case?  Ji Firepaw actually gets to do stuff!!!  GASP!

"Thrall understood that to other humans Wrynn was said to be pleasing-looking, but to the orc, Anduin simply looked like a small, pink boy swallowed by clunky armor."  So it’s canon that Anduin is good-looking in-universe.  But LMAO at Thrall’s description.

Chapter 22:  From Shaw’s POV, "These odds ranked pretty low...  Maybe just above the time he had relied completely on a shoddy network of spies embedded in a cheese business."  OMG leave Elling Trias alone!  He did his best!  LOL

Shaw wanting to hang out in a mountain meadow and whittle bird calls (perhaps even with a special someone) was so touchingly normal.  That’s the kind of characterization that the books are so much better at than the game.

I actually like Bwonsamdi more after reading this.  Not that I disliked him before, but I didn’t have a strong sense of him due to not playing Horde as much in BFA.  He’s a well-done gray character:  not good, not evil, insightful but a smartass, part of the great cycle, out for himself but also taking his duties seriously (saving troll souls from the Maw.) 

I’m not entirely sure that we needed as much from Thrall’s POV as we got.  I mean, sure, he’s a familiar character with ties to a lot of others, so it was easy to drop him into situations, and his ties to Jaina made cross-faction communication easier, but he didn’t seem as relevant to the lore of Zandalar and the Shadowlands as some other characters.

Maiev seemed OOC, especially in the Stockades scene.  I know one of the themes of the book was “people change,” and I suppose I should be happy that she has a more moderate viewpoint nowadays, dialing back the Lust For Vengeance Meter from eleven to maybe a five or a six, but it didn’t feel like Maiev.  Especially because her message of “maybe don’t go overboard with this vengeance thing” was aimed at Tyrande, of all people, someone who Maiev has had quite legitimate reasons to dislike for a very, very long time.  I could see her maybe mellowing out a little in front of fellow Wardens, but Tyrande?  Eh, it didn’t feel right to me.

No surprises from Tyrande in this.  She’s still steely cold, vengeance-obsessed, consumed by anger.  Not that I blame her, but it’s not healthy.  I know we’ll be exploring her situation more in Shadowlands, so this was more of a reminder/reinforcement of where she is right now.  It was kind of funny how Thrall, Baine and Calia tried to talk to her and she just gave them the stink eye and the silent treatment, though.

I’m fine with Anduin exploring his dark side a bit more, as long as they don’t go overboard with it.  I like him as an earnest, good-hearted character.  It’s only natural to test your limits, though, especially in times of crisis.  Power corrupts, and he’s got plenty of it, both politically and magically, so I can understand Jaina and Mathias being a bit uneasy.  Add to that the increasing themes about the Light not being as benevolent as we originally assumed, and there’s potential for interesting plot there.  In the end I want Anduin to stay firmly on the side of good, empathy, compassion, etc., but a deviation into the shadows along the way isn’t a bad thing for the story.

I imagine every single person who read about Anduin sneaking off to the Lion’s Pride Inn in Goldshire smirked about that place’s reputation on certain RP realms.  I was surprised he didn’t find scantily-clad elves and draenei dancing on the furniture.  And then it turns out Jaina was there, too.  Awkward!

Why, oh why couldn’t we have had a scene with Anduin and Wrathion hanging out (incognito, of course) in a tavern?  That was their thing in MoP, and now with Anduin desperately wanting to get away from his duties for awhile and soak up some tavern ambiance it would have been perfect.  Let Anduin show off the best taverns Stormwind has to offer.  Even though Wrathion was as much a guest at the Tavern in the Mists as Anduin was, he acted like he owned the place and Anduin was his guest, so let them turn the tables and have Anduin play host.  There could be jokes about how he better not punch Wrathion again or they’ll get kicked out for starting a bar fight.  They could have still seen the young recruits, ran into Jaina, etc.  But Anduin really needs a buddy to hang out with right now.  

And you can’t tell me after Nya’lotha fell Wrathion just disappeared again and never at least visited Stormwind to tell grandiose tales about how he stabbed an Old God, it was so heroic, and he wasn’t scared at all, and those mean adventurers were so quick to believe he’d been corrupted, but he hadn’t, and did you know Azshara was there?  And then N’Zoth almost won but KERPOW LAZERS and oh Anduin you should have seen it, etc. etc. etc.

I should be used to being disappointed about Wrathion’s absence by now, but there are SO MANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES!

Sigh.  Moving on.

Being exposed to spoilers meant I wasn’t fooled by it, but it was still a deft bit of writing to have the dark rangers drink poison when cornered by Horde soldiers, then mention Nathanos having a vial in his coat, which he drinks when defeated--making the unspoiled reader assume he’s killing himself--only for it to be a kind of liquid hearthstone attuned to Sylvanas.  Had I not known that he survived the book I would have freaked out there.

So, like, was Bolvar just sitting there on the ground awkwardly eavesdropping while Sylvanas and Nathanos talked/argued?  Or did he use that time to sneak away unnoticed?  LOL

Which brings us to the epilogue that’s caused so much hand wringing and wailing from my fellow Blightrunner shippers.  It wasn’t the openly sentimental interaction between them that I had hoped for, but I honestly didn’t read it as the doom of the ship.  A bump, at worst.

[If you’re not interested in the relationship between Nathanos and Sylvanas, or if you’re one of those people who simply hate his character, you can skip the rest of this post.]

First of all, Sylvanas had just broken the Helm of Domination.  That was a hugely significant thing to do, both for her personally and in the cosmic scheme of things.  Her state of mind at that moment had to have been in a turmoil.  So if she was a little distracted and tense, I think that’s quite understandable.

Second, I saw other fans being upset that she threatened/wanted to strike him.  That’s not how I read it at all.  “Sylvanas could strike him, scream and hollow out his soul, but it would not correct the failing.”  She’s not saying she wants to do that, just that she could.  The instinct to lash out in violence is ingrained in all the undead; death knights have to do it or they go mad.  So for her mind to go there in a moment of high emotion seems natural to me.  She doesn’t actually attack him or verbally/physically threaten him.  People say things like “I could have killed my brother for eating the last slice of cake” or “I could’ve strangled my co-worker when she spoiled the ending of the movie” and it’s not literal.

Third, she doesn’t say “go away, I never want to see you again.”  She says “Go where you will, Nathanos, but do not be idle” and “I expect you will return to me with means to prevent [Bwonsamdi’s] meddling.”  So essentially she’s saying, “Fine, go home, regroup, come up with Plan B, and if it’s not possible to destroy Bwonsamdi at least concentrate on countering him.”  Also note that she still considers the operation to be theirs, not just hers:  “This was a blow, but one she felt sure they could overcome.”  That tells me she expects to work with him in the future.

Fourth, and granted this is before she learns of his failure, but she’s clearly happy to have him there when he first arrives.  “’My champion,’ Sylvanas purred.  ‘Your timing could not be better.  Tell me of your victory as we take these first steps together.’”  She wanted to cross into the Shadowlands with him at her side.  Hell, that’s bridal imagery...crossing the threshold together, and all that.  The only reason she tells him to go is because his work isn’t done and she still needs him on Azeroth.  But she explicitly says “I expect you will return to me.” 

Fifth, in the line from her POV about how “the unjust ladder of their lives must be dismantled,” the “they” she’s referring to is all of the denizens of Azeroth, true, but I think there’s also a tinge of bitterness there as she looks back on her own life, and her life with Nathanos.  Destiny has not been kind to either of them.

Sixth, she says “My path lies ahead” as she prepares to cross into the Shadowlands.  It’s a reminder of the scale of the forces she is trying to manipulate.  When faced with the potential fates of all the souls in the universe, her own regrets are insignificant.  She can’t stay on Azeroth any longer, even if some part of her does want to just chill out on a beach somewhere with Nathanos and watch his blighthounds chase seagulls.  She thinks “It would not be easy, but then, her mission required great sacrifice.”  Like leaving him behind.

Even this part can be interpreted different ways:  “She heard the note of hope in his voice, fragile as a fledgling dropped from the next.”  Putting aside the humor of comparing bird-hating Nathanos to a fledgling, we don’t get a value judgment about the comparison.  Sylvanas doesn’t think about him sympathetically, wanting to protect him in a vulnerable moment, but she also doesn’t think, “Geez, what a pathetic weakling.”  It goes back to that bit in Warbringers about how she can’t kill hope.  And she can’t.  Here, again, no matter how bleak things are, no matter how displeased she is at his failure, he still has hope.  And she needs that, whether she believes it or not.

When she “flicked her fingers, as if ridding herself of a speck of muck” that can be interpreted as her thinking of him in a derogatory way, but she was also talking about Bwonsamdi in the same breath so I can choose to believe that’s who she was being dismissive of.

I don’t know.  I get that some of the language is discouraging.  She describes him as having “blubbering lips” and she’s definitely not happy with him.  But these two have been through a lot, and their bond has remained strong.  I’m sure this isn’t their first fight, or the first time he’s disappointed her.  This isn’t the end for them.  Just another bump on a very long highway they’ve traveled together.

...

OMG this has turned into a monster of a post, rambling all over the place.  I hope it’s coherent enough to follow.  I’m just in lore overload at the moment (and enjoying every second.)  I know I’m forgetting things I wanted to talk about, too, but I’m going to go ahead and post it as it is.