#too many questions to tag

[umblrspectrum]

hi heres art so you pay attention to me now go read the tags

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

You ever have those moments where an idea just... won't leave your head?

[94erz]

j-hope & Boogaloo Kin dancing to Still Life by RM (feat. Anderson .Paak)

(cc. QDEOKS)

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[zara-renata]

Not my type | ao3 | part 8 of this series

a tragicomedy starring Sylus and his clueless crush

Summary: Sylus pesters you on your day off while you're at the arcade until you agree to "lend your talents" to him for the evening. So of course you show up at the designated location only to discover it's a nightclub, and you're dressed for a murder, but not on the dance floor.

Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc This story contains: slow burn, angst, grief, banter, stalking (Sylus), an ongoing one-sided misunderstanding that will be resolved in the next instalment in a way that hopefully won't destroy the romantic tension, mc with self-esteem issues, mentions of self harm, Kieran and Luke and some ocs that hopefully you'll like.

In the days following your utter humiliation at the hands of the Hunter Association’s most wanted criminal, you’re doing fine. Really. You are Fine.

You had a great time at the bookstore with Xavier, who kindly said nothing about your state of dishevelment or the glaring human bite mark on your shoulder when you answered the door that morning. You both lazily wandered between the bookshelves, leisurely reading summaries and showing each other finds that you thought the other would also enjoy. You stopped at the bookstore café and loaded up on sugary iced coffee.

“Here, try this, I think you’ll like it,” you offer your iced mocha with caramel drizzle and whipped cream to Xavier as you begin walking back home together, each carrying a shoulder tote full of manga stuffed with hot guys and big swords, after having spent probably half of this month’s paycheck in one impulse-fueled spree.

“Okay, but then you also have to try mine,” he smiles, holding his own cup out to you. You look at it dubiously, recalling from hearing him order that it had some sort of peppermint flavor in it.

“No way I’m drinking sugar-flavored toothpaste,” you grimace, shaking your head.

“What? Noo, it’s really good, I promise. The peppermint is really subtle. You can’t only just consume chocolate and caramel in your desserts. You’ve got to be a little more adventurous, or you might miss out on something surprising,” he earnestly advises, blue eyes wide, a little pout on his lips.

You eye the offending drink again, and then figure, why not? You’ve gone through much worse, recently, in terms of unpleasant experiences. You should try new things, of the food variety. Because you’re done trying new things of the people variety.

You take his cup and hand over yours, and you both quietly sip for a moment. Your eyes meet again, and both of you grin. “That’s really good!” you admit, and Xavier gently knocks your shoulder with his. “I told you so,” he smiles serenely.

“All right, all right. I’ll listen to my partner more from now on,” you exchange drinks again.

It was nice. Back at his place, you both lazed around on his soft couch and bean bag chair and read until the sunlight drifting through his windows was the golden-tinge of the setting sun, and his persistent yawning was so frequent that you decided to put him out of his misery. You couldn’t punish him by overstaying your welcome simply because you didn’t want to go back to your empty flat with all of your racing thoughts.

“Thanks for today, it was a really nice break,” you tell him as you’re gathering your manga volumes and slipping them back into your tote bag.

“It was,” he yawns again, tears forming at the sides of his clear bright eyes. “We should do it again soon. But I’m going to be out of town for a little while, starting tomorrow.” He gives you an apologetic look.

“Hey, no worries. I wasn’t going to demand you spend all of your leave entertaining me,” you smile, genuinely. You always miss him when he disappears mysteriously, but he’s gotten so much better at telling you when he plans to be away compared to how he was when you first partnered with him.

“I know. I just…” he pauses. “If you need me. For anything. Just send me a text, okay? I’ll come back as soon as I can. I don’t like the idea of you being left to your own devices for too long.” He gives you a teasing smile. “Who knows what other strange companions you’ll pick up if left alone for too long,” he continues, obviously referring to how you stumbled upon him in the no-hunt zone so many months ago. However, the only thing that comes to mind when he says “strange companions” is the image of narrowed scarlet eyes, a laugh that warms you like a shot of whiskey, and big, big hands.

You chuckle, totally naturally, and not nervously at all, mind racing, trying to figure out if he somehow knows that Sylus was at your place last night, and if so, if he knows who Sylus is exactly. Shit. Shit. Nope. You’re not doing this. Xavier is making an innocent joke about how the two of you met, and Sylus does not get to bulldoze into your thoughts while you’re having fun with your partner.

“I’ll be the paragon of caution, I promise,” you say solemnly. “I promise I won’t talk to any shady strangers while you’re away.” You nod firmly to him.

He smiles, seemingly reassured. “Good. Try to get some rest over the next few days. The Captain is right, you need some R&R. Even I couldn’t decipher your reports, and I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at translating your … particular style of writing under most conditions.”

“Hey, at least I use actual words when texting,” you roll your eyes, pointing at him. He snorts softly, and you wave and make your way back to your apartment, where you proceed to spend the next few days manically cleaning your apartment and researching online for advice regarding acting, bluffing, the subtle art of reading micro-expressions and how to control your own, and in general all things you tell yourself are useful for your undercover work, and not because you anticipate having to lie to everyone you know and care about for as long as a certain hooligan continues to insert himself into your life when you least expect it.

But as the days pass, you don’t hear anything from said hooligan. The only crow feathers outside your window are of the normal variety, swaying in the branches of trees whose leaves are falling as autumn encroaches on the last days of summer in the city.

You decide, once again, to grab the memory of him by the throat and shove it down deep, with all of the other things you refuse to examine too closely. You’re probably close to running out of storage room, but that’s a problem for future you.

For present you, it’s time to hit the arcade. You haven’t been in a while. So that’s what you do, enjoying the cacophony of games music and sound effects, people laughing and shrieking as they win and lose, the too-bright lights, the scent of fried food. The wall of sound and lights and other people just having a simple, entertaining weekend afternoon is enough to drown out any overthinking you might otherwise be sucked into.

It works for a while. You spend some time beating teenagers at some 1 v 1 fighting games, beat some younger kids at your favorite motocross simulation. You manage to not make anyone cry, although for one poor kid it seemed like a close call for a minute or two, before his buddies dragged him away to get some soda as a consolation drink for being beaten within an inch of his pubescent life by the adult weirdo who demolishes children in video games.

You’re finally trying your hand at getting a few new plushies to bring home when you realize you’ve managed to go a couple hours without missing your grandmother, or Caleb. The only people who knew you, really knew you, as a child, and were therefore the scaffolding holding up the unfinished architecture of the adult you, with all of its missing floors and windows, and all the storage rooms hidden behind walls with no doors. But that scaffolding is gone now, and you can’t turn to them and reassure yourself: I am still me, right? I am still the me who I always have been, despite the scarlet voices in my head that come to me in frightening dreams, despite the endless hunger, the exquisite drowning I felt the one time I resonated with Sylus…I’m a good person. I’m a kind person. I’m a loveable person. Right? You loved me, right?

There’s no one left to ask, now. Just you, looking at yourself in the glass reflection of a claw machine, in a noisy arcade filled with people having fun. You haven’t been able to win even one plushie yet.

You take your hand off the joystick, suddenly exhausted. You will not cry in front of the stuffed llamas and penguins. They don’t deserve that.

Your phone dings.

You fish it out of one of your cargo pants pockets, and scowl when you see the name of the person texting you.

Not My Sy: I feel that Ive been more than generous in giving you sufficient time to draft your little rules, but Im starting to get bored waiting for you to send them.

You just stare at your phone, as the door of the basement that you had just slammed closed where you stuff all of your unwanted thoughts bursts open, flooding you with feelings you’re trying so hard not to feel. Just the sight of the nickname he gave himself in your phone fills you with a rush of anticipation—a thrill that aches. And that is exactly why you hadn’t sent him the rules you had insisted on imposing on his surprise visits to your place. One, because you refuse to reach out to him first and therefore lose. Lose what, you’re not sure, but you’re tired of feeling like you’re losing to him. If he wants to talk to you, he knows your number. Two, there is no longer any point to sending him the Rules. He can’t come to your place if he wants to talk to you, because the deal’s off. He can find some other place to recuperate from headaches and papercuts and someone else to manipulate and to… kiss, and bite.

You will not allow him to affect you like this anymore. You stuff your phone into your back pocket and decide to save all the tokens you still have for another day. Time to pick up some tacos and go home to binge watch a series of films that make you yell at the screen because no one can get shot that many times and not fucking die, what a load of bullshit, but you’ll keep watching anyway because the gunplay choreography is pretty badass even if it’s completely nonsensical. There’s also a dog in it. You’ve never been able to resist an anti-hero with a soft spot for animals.

Your phone dings again. You tell yourself that you won’t look. You have plans, dammit. Ones you just made, granted, but you’re not going to get roped into whatever little scheme Sylus thinks he can run on you today.

You wrap your hoodie tighter around yourself in preparation for the rush of cool autumn air as the arcade’s door swings shut behind you. Your phone dings again. You grit your teeth and reach into your pocket to flick your phone to silent.

Almost immediately, your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket. And it doesn’t stop. It just… keeps going. You jerk to a halt and just stand there, feeling it vibrate against your ass, over and over and over again. What the fuck is this lunatic doing?!

Finally, you reach for your phone again and angrily open his messages as you start moving again.

Not My Sy: Hmm, I see youve been busy in your phone settings. Cant say Im fond of the change. Allow me to fix it for you.

My Sy: Much better.

My Sy: Oh, I see how it is. A certain kitten thinks I can be left on read without any consequences. Are we feeling a little sullen today, sweetie?

My Sy: Hmm, I see that you decided not to wear one of my gifts out today on your little jaunt to one of my establishments. Probably for the best. They fit you perfectly, but expose enough skin that theyre not very practical for a brisk autumn afternoon at the arcade. Good call.

My Sy: I also dont think the teenagers you just slaughtered at the arcade could have handled the loss and the gorgeous view.

My Sy: Ah, would we prefer vibration as stimulation this afternoon? Im happy to help with that.

My Sy: Pick

My Sy: Up

My Sy: Your

My Sy: Phone

My Sy: I

My Sy: Can

My Sy: Do

My Sy: This

My Sy: All

My Sy: Day

My Sy: You

My Sy: Look

My Sy: Adorable

My Sy: When

My Sy: Youre

My Sy: Mad

My Sy: Like

My Sy: A

My Sy: Fluffy

My Sy: Little

My Sy: Kitten

My Sy: Back

My Sy Arched

My Sy: Fur

My Sy: Puffed

As the wall of messages load, you stop so quickly on the sidewalk that someone bumps into you from behind. You barely resist the urge to launch them into traffic with a one armed shoulder throw. Two more messages pop up.

My Sy: Oh I like the look on your face now

My Sy: Makes me want to grab you by the tail

The person behind you has the good sense to just keep going without saying anything to you, but that may have something to do with the fact that you’re now spinning in circles, eye darting wildly in an attempt to locate Sylus, or Mephisto, or the twins, or some security camera, so that you can take out whatever eyes are feeding Sylus your image right now.

You: where is it?

Instead of an answering text, your phone begins to vibrate in your hand, and … a picture you did not take appears on the screen along with Sylus’s incoming call.

In the photo, Sylus is leaning against your pillows, one arm leisurely bent behind his head, his bare bulky chest on full display as he lifts the phone with his other arm. You are fast asleep on top of him, face turned so that all that is visible in the picture is your hair—bedhead on full inglorious display. It is clear from the photo that you have your face smashed between Sylus’s man tits. He is smiling wide, the laughter clear in bright eyes that stare straight into the camera lens and now into you, with your mouth agape at finding this as his contact picture on your phone.

He must be texting while letting the call continue, because the notification of a new text pops up over his contact picture.

My Sy: I can work with this facial expression too.

You shut your mouth so fast and hard that your teeth click.

My Sy: While I love your teeth most of the time, well need to work on that bite.

Before your brain melts from imagining what he could do with your open mouth and how he’d handle your sharp teeth, you slam your thumb on the end call button, power down your phone, stuff it back in your pocket, and begin marching toward the metro station to get home. Fuck him. Fuck the tacos. You’ll go to Xavier’s apartment with the spare key he gave you for when he’s out of town, order takeout, and hide for the rest of the night.

Suddenly, your phone begins vibrating once again. You stop again, this time startling a pair of teenage girls who take one look at your face and cross to the other side of the street before continuing in the same direction. Great, now you’re not just pummeling children at video games, but scaring them as well. You open your phone and see Sylus calling again. You stare at the one nipple you can see in the picture. Your mouth waters. You’re not even surprised that he has fucked with your phone to the point that he can simply turn it back on remotely if you decide to turn it off.

My Sy: I told you kitten, I can do this all day. Some friendly advice: might as well accept the inevitable and pick up. Im used to your attention now. I don’t like being ignored.

The phone keeps ringing, vibrating in your hand. You let your hands hang at your sides, and tilt your head to look up into the crisp, sunny autumn sky.

You wonder if you’re strong enough for this. You can eliminate wanderers in your sleep. You can outmanoeuvre, outfight, outgun and outlast most hostile humans. You can even outsmart and outplay most people you meet when you’ve had a proper night’s sleep. But you’ve never met anyone like Sylus Qin. You can’t hide in Xavier’s flat forever. No matter how friendly you’ve become since you first partnered with him, he’d probably throw you out the window if you tried. And eventually, Sylus will come to collect what he thinks you owe him for allowing you to shoot him through the fucking heart. Wouldn’t it better to pretend to be on good terms with him, to make it as painless as possible? Instead of being a stone wall, trying to keep him and all the ways you know he can already hurt you out, you can be like water. Let him and the pain he’ll bring simply… pass right through you. Water is resilient. And if he burns you, well. You already saw it coming, right? You’ll simply dissipate into a puff of steam and float away. With enough time, you’ll heal—you’ll re-coalesce in the atmosphere, and you’ll fall back into yourself like rain. You can survive him, if you can adapt quickly enough.

You lift the phone, dig your earbuds out of one of your pockets and put them in your ears, and then answer his video call.

“Took you long enough,” Sylus’s beautiful voice flows directly into your brain.

“Sorry, I was a bit busy. Can I help you with something?” You close your eyes and will your face to relax, let your shoulders fall. You breathe in, the earthy scent of dying leaves filling your nostrils. You are water. You open your eyes.

He’s staring at you through the phone, a slight frown on his severely handsome face.

“Sylus?” You hold the phone a little closer to yourself as people flow around you on the sidewalk. When you look back, he’s still just… watching you.

“I have to admit, sweetheart, that this is not the greeting I was expecting when you finally picked up.”

“And what were you expecting?” You decide to keep walking. You’ll be fine. This will be fine. Multitasking is good. One foot in front of the other, and Sylus’s face, so distant, but still in the palm of your hand, in a small way. You can be satisfied with this.

He takes a moment, seems to choose his words carefully. “A little more life,” he responds. You let your hand holding the phone fall to your side for a moment. It will take a little while, to fully get into the headspace where whatever he says, can’t affect you. You just need a little more time. You breathe, you breathe, you breathe.

You bring the phone back up to your face, make your way through the crowd on the sidewalk. People must be scrambling to enjoy the last few bright days of the year before the long slide into the dark fall. You hadn’t expected so many to be out and about on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

“One would think you’d be used to me disappointing you by now,” you say, shrugging. “Can you tell me why you called?”

Sylus suddenly looks angry, and you resist the fear-fueled urge to throw your phone. You haven’t seen him look at you like that since… well. For a while.

“Sylus?”

“In what universe have you ever disappointed me?” he asks, voice even, controlled.

You can’t help it. You laugh. The kind of laugh that can spiral into something unhinged, if you weren’t water. Instead, it sinks into you like a stone. “Oh, I dunno, maybe this one, when you literally said ‘How disappointing’ and sneered that there was something wrong with me when I couldn’t resonate with you,” you say drily. You are water. Whatever he says next will simply ripple through you, and then fade into stillness.

But he doesn’t say anything. You peek at the phone screen. He’s looking away, his hand covering his mouth. You can’t tell what expression he’s making. Maybe Luke and Kieran are doing something silly offscreen.

In the end, none of it matters. “Okay, well, if you don’t want to tell me, I’m about to head into the metro. You can send a text if you change your mind.” Your thumb hovers over the end call button.

“I need your … particular talents this evening,” he answers right before your skin makes contact with the screen.

Oh. He really did have a reason to call— he needed your help with something dangerous.

That’s fine. You hadn’t actually had the fleeting thought that maybe he was calling because he just wanted to hear your voice, the way you never, ever found yourself feeling. Even in the past few days, since the Unfortunate Event of the Other Morning.

“And Kieran and Luke are unavailable this evening? Or anyone else from your hoard of henchmen who you can order to come back you up?” You’re being herded in a mass of other bodies into the metro station. You notice for the first time that Sylus is dressed really nicely—some sort of vest over a button down shirt. You find yourself trying to hold the phone discretely to minimize other people being able to see what you’re seeing.

“Kieran and Luke do not possess your particular talents. And besides, why would I want to see them this evening? I have to look at them on a daily basis, the last thing I want is to have to see them on a Saturday night.”

“I see. Had enough of a break from seeing me that you can stomach it again?” You smile, smooth as ice. Ice is just frozen water, right? You can ask Zayne to help—pick his brain to figure out how he stays so calm, in the face of so much chaos, not revealing a damn thing.

Sylus is just staring at you again, silver brows furrowed.

“So is it like, bring a gun to a knife fight kind of thinking? Do you really think that whatever situation you want my help with is too dangerous even for your minions?”

He just continues staring at you, and if anything, looks more displeased. You have no idea why he seems so pissed off. Maybe he’s rethinking asking for your help. You might be able to watch those movies after all.

“I see now that I've made a grave miscalculation,” he finally answers, rubbing his forehead. He suddenly sounds … tired? Or sad? You're so bad at reading other people.

You have no idea what you’re supposed to say to that, but you feel bad that he seems to be so exhausted and it sounds like your fault. You decide that you’ll help him tonight, with whatever he needs. And then maybe you will have finally, finally balanced the scales between you. And then you’ll be free.

After a few moments of you just awkwardly watching him in silence, he seems to come back to himself. “Why bring a gun to a knife fight when you can bring a grenade launcher?” He adjusts the buttons on the deep red vest under his tailored black suit jacket. The black shirt underneath the vest has its first few buttons undone, exposing his pale throat and collarbone. He’s also wearing a black leather collar, and you once again imagine a cute, bell on it, chiming with every one of his movements. You do not think about slipping a finger under the thick strip of leather and pulling him down, down to your level.

You shake your head. “I’m the grenade launcher in this little metaphor? What about you?”

“Do you even need to ask?” He pulls a watch over his hand, something antique and mechanical that probably ticks loudly when its quiet, and it clicks heavily as he fastens it on his thick wrist. You suddenly think of the night you spent searching for his brooch, the handcuffs around those same wrists, how he let them hold him there for you as your hands ran along his arms, under his soft silk robe, across—

“Then I think you’ll do just fine on your own tonight,” you clip out, wondering how much it would hurt if you slammed your face into the metro car’s heavily smudged, reinforced window in an effort to dislodge the intrusive thoughts that have become alarmingly frequent the longer you let this man stay in your life.

“Violence should be used strategically, sweetie. I would prefer to reserve the nuclear option for when it’s actually necessary. And isn’t it your job as an upstanding citizen to de-escalate conflict? Having you by my side will not only be useful for me, but is actually a public service for any bystanders.”

“I serve Linkon City, not the N109 zone.” You don’t know why you’re arguing. You had already made up your mind to help him. But the return of this familiar, smug and argumentative Sylus seems to pull you back into the pattern that is so easily repeated between the two of you.

“What an appallingly shortsighted response from someone who I know has gone to other cities and even other countries to fight wanderers in order to protect non-Linkon City citizens. Are the people of the N109 zone not also worthy of your devotion?”

It’s hot in the metro car, and you’re relieved as your stop approaches. You wait until you’re able to shoulder your way out of the mass of bodies and can breathe fresh air in order to respond freely.

“For shit’s sake Sylus, how did we go from hesitation about whether you actually need me to serve as your bodyguard tonight to me failing my duty to protect innocent people?”

“Is that honestly the only thing you can imagine when I request your talents? When did I ask you to be my bodyguard?” he asks, but before you can respond, he continues, “You’re the one who insists that you aren’t available to help people in the N109 zone tonight.”

“You, Sylus. Not people, you.” You step aside to allow a man with an adorable tiny fluffy dog move past, but it stops and sniffs you instead of moving along. You glance at the man, who’s actually quite handsome in a Finance Guy kind of way, which means he’ll be handsome to you up until the point he opens his mouth, but you can’t resist asking “May I pet this cutie?”

The guy’s face lights up. “Go ahead! Cricket loves pats.”

“Aww, Cricket is such an adorable name for such an adorably doggy!” You kneel down and offer your hand for Cricket to sniff, and then run your hand along the dog’s soft fur. It preens and arches its back, and then curls its hips around to ensure that you give it scritches near its tail.

“Aren’t you a good doggy,” you murmur, feeling the tension melt from your shoulders. You would love to have a pet, if you only had the time to take care of it. You give Cricket one final pat, and then stand back up. “Thank you, I really needed that,” you smile at Cricket’s dad.

“Anytime! Do you live in the neighborhood? Maybe, if you want—”

Suddenly you hear a loud crash on the other end of the phone, and the shock makes you wince.

“Or not,” the man rushes out. “It was just a thought.” He waves awkwardly, and then continues along his way, having to pull on Cricket's lead a little bit as the dog only reluctantly moves away from you.

You’re left standing there, wondering what the hell just happened. You look back down to your phone, where Sylus is looking somewhere off screen with a bored expression on his face. “The fuck, Sylus?”

“My apologies for interrupting your little interlude. It appears Mephisto knocked my phone off my nightstand,” he shrugs. “He’s not as well-behaved as… Cricket, it would seem.”

Interlude? What interlude? Petting a dog? “Uh, okay? I thought Mephisto isn’t a pet.”

“Correct.”

You wait for him to elaborate, but he remains serenely silent. “So why are we comparing Mephisto to a random dog on the street?”

“We’re not,” he lies. You stare at him. He seems to think for a moment, eyes moving back to the screen, taking in whatever he’s seeing on your side. Probably an unflattering view of your chin disappearing into your neck as you look directly down at your phone, still trying to weave through people on the sidewalk to get to your flat. You lower your head even further, trying to give him a good view up your nostrils, as a treat. There is no universe in which you care about what you look like to him. None. Certainly not this one. Finally, he speaks. “In any case, back to business. How about I make you a deal?”

In your happy break petting Cricket you had forgotten about the world, including what Sylus is demanding of you.

“If you come to me… and lend me your talents tonight, I’ll owe you a favor.”

You snort. “You already owe me for every day I haven’t delivered your head to my employer.”

“Then I’ll owe you a favor that I actually acknowledge owing to you,” he responds calmly. “Because I think you benefit just as much as I do from not delivering any piece of me, including my … head, to the authorities.”

You do not imagine any pieces of him. Delivering them, or doing anything else with them.

You’re finally within sight of your building. “I see. So you’ll owe me a favor. Any restrictions? Or are you actually offering me anything I want?”

“Anything you want. No restrictions, no conditions.”

“What if I told you to turn yourself in?” you ask, genuinely curious if he actually has no limits on this so-called favor.

“Done,” he says easily. Your feel your eyes widen, and he continues. “But again, for the same reasons that you haven’t already betrayed me, I don’t think that’s the favor you’ll call in.”

“And you’re really willing to place all your bets on that? Maybe I just haven’t turned you in out of laziness.” You watch him slip a pair of gloves on one big hand, and then the other, the supple leather gliding over his hands like a second skin.

“I’m all in on that bet.”

“And why’s that?”

“You are the furthest from the definition of laziness that I have ever encountered,” he says gravely. “And let’s just say, aside from the aforementioned benefits you enjoy with me walking around free, I think you’re more fond of me than you care to admit, even to yourself.”

You make a disgusted noise. “Let’s hope for your sake that your confidence isn’t misplaced.”

“Oh, there is no question that my confidence, in all things, is justified,” he smiles, one corner of his mouth quirking.

His arrogance is so thick, even through the phone, that you could gag on it. “Ugh,” is all you can say.

“Excellent. See you at 23:00. I’ll text you the address. I advise dressing appropriately and to bring the toy I left you when I had a headache, kitten.” And with that, he disconnects the call, leaving you standing in your elevator, wondering what the hell you just agreed to.

And now, here you are. Black leather pants, combat boots, a semiautomatic with red flames engraved along the hand grip in your side holster underneath your black leather jacket, various knives strapped along your forearms and in your boots. You brought two duffel bags with you. One is full of toys that might be useful if things get really ugly. The other simply contains something of Sylus’s that you’ve been wanting to return ever since he left it at your place. As you were getting ready, it occurred to that this might be the last chance you have to give it to him.

You’re standing in line in front of some upscale nightclub, waiting for your turn to be judged by the bouncer and either admitted or refused. Likely the latter, if Sylus doesn’t show up soon.

You showed up at exactly 23:00, approaching the long line with trepidation. You hadn’t realized when Sylus sent the address that it was actually a nightclub called Amnesia—a rather exclusive nightclub, with a selective policy regarding who they allow in. You hadn’t realized this until you saw the subtle sign glowing softly in the N109 zone's perpetual gloom and did a quick search on your phone. Most of the club goers are dressed in surprisingly tasteful club clothes—tightly tailored pants, artfully low necklines and backless tops, sensual dresses, except the sequins—so, so many shiny sequins. You squint and wonder how the hell you’re going to get in dressed like you’re ready for a biker rally with an arsenal big enough to stage a small coup. Mission objective number one, adequate renaissance of the target location: failed. But it’s your bedtime and you don’t even want to be here in the first place, so this is Sylus’s problem to solve. You wait. And you wait. The line inches forward. The longer you wait, the more irritated you get. Where the fuck is he? You glance at your phone, but there are no new messages.

So you dutifully stand in line, which continues forward at a very slow pace, quickly outpaced by your anger. You notice that the group of women in front of you have clearly been pre-gaming pretty hard. They’ve noticed you, and are side-eyeing your outfit. You’re worrying they’re going to say something mean, when one of them glides over to you effortlessly on very tall high heels. You straighten your spine and prepare yourself. I am a role model for the Deepspace Hunter’s Association, I will not punch a civilian in the solar plexus for saying something mean to me about the fact that I am a fashion disaster. I will not—

“You look so badass,” she grins, tossing her silky brunette hair over her shoulder. One of her friends sidles up behind her. “For real, and like, really hot. This whole look is a vibe.” She waves one beautifully manicured nail in front of you, to encompass the whole of your outfit.

You squint again, wondering if they’re making fun of you, but the entire lot of them are nodding and chattering amongst themselves. “Is it like, a cosplay event or something? Did we miss the announcement on Amnesia’s socials? I want to dress like I can murder someone with a look too!”

“Hey, I think most of our heels are sharp enough to count as weapons, right?” the first one says to her friend, and then looks at you hopefully for… confirmation? Approval?

“Oh, definitely,” you encourage her, because she really does seem earnest. “You can stomp your opponent on the foot or go for the groin! And you know, if you hold your keys like this,” you say, fishing your motorcycle keys out of your leather pants and holding the long, narrow part of the key between the knuckles of your index and middle finger while clutching the wider base in your palm, “you can use them as an improvised shiv! Just go for the eyes! Or the throat!”

You’re met with a chorus of “Ooooohs,” and wide, perfectly winged eyes. You’re feeling like a pretty good teacher when your phone dings. You fish it out of the inside of your leather jacket.

My Sy: Youre late.

You glare at the screen.

“Can you teach us that look, too? You look like you really want to end someone,” one of the women asks hesitantly. You nod.

You: no, you’re late. i’ve been standing out front since 23:00.

You look back up to your new friend and point at your eyebrows, lowering them to an exaggerated degree. She nods and tries to mimic you. Her gorgeous, perfectly plucked brows form a scowl. You nod and look back at your phone.

My Sy: Youre standing in front of the club?

You: huh, mr. sylus qin’s not as omniscient as he likes to pretend. looks like you should fire mephisto.

My Sy: No such luck, sweetie. Ive decided to put him on permanent kitten observation duty after tonight. Why are you standing out front, instead of going inside?

You point at your chin now, and lower your head so that you’re looking at the club girl like a bull about to charge. She gives you a thumbs up and lowers her head, and then stomps her foot for good measure.

You: because there’s a line. which you’d know, if you bothered to show up.

My Sy: Of course. I should have known youd obey the rules and refuse to jump the line. Another miscalculation on my part. Stay put.

You roll your eyes. Of course he expects you to just keep waiting. Maybe he needs to find a parking spot. You turn to your friend. “Yeah, you look really intimidating now! Do that to the next person who hits on you and won’t take no for an answer.” You grin at her.

She laughs and you two proceed to try to out-glare each other, until you see her eyes go wider than previous attempts. You tense when you sense a large presence behind you, but calmly turn, hand drifting to your jacket holster containing the gun Sylus gave you.

It’s just the bouncer. Or at least, you think she’s the bouncer. She’s tall, muscular, and has a tight black t-shirt with Amnesia written in small, tasteful letters in the middle, right under the collar.

“Are you…” she pauses, and checks her tablet again. “The boss’s ‘sweet little hunter?’” she intones, clearly reading the words against her will, but she manages to keep the look of disgust that you’re pretty sure is trying to fight its way onto her face from appearing with admirable professionalism.

“By boss, you mean…?” You already know the answer. Of course you do. Your anger ratchets up another notch.

“Mr. Sylus Qin,” she says. “So are you the hunter, or not?”

You nod. “All right, follow me.” She lifts the velvet rope, and your new friends wave enthusiastically and cheer loudly for you as the bouncer leads you past the crowd and into the club. You stare at the bouncer's back, where her shirt reads ‘security’ in large block letters. She has an obvious pistol harness crisscrossed over her strong shoulders with two semiautomatics strapped into each holster. This is the N109 zone after, all. It doesn’t surprise you that Sylus’s bouncers are well-armed.

Once inside, she gestures vaguely towards the back of the huge space and says “He’s waiting for you in the Lethe VIP lounge.” And then she’s gone.

You quickly scan your surroundings, assessing threats, noting exits and bottlenecks. The atmosphere is completely different than THE BOOM BOOM ROOM, the only club you’ve visited recently. This place smells expensive. No stale beer and stale sweat, but probably diffusers hidden along the walls that emit the scent of sandalwood and other subtle spices. The music is full of reverb, heavy, with slow beats, sensual—specifically composed to make the listener feel reckless and sexy after a few strong drinks. The décor is a blend of vintage details and modern sleekness, and somehow it works to create the impression of tasteful decadence.

A long, dark wooden bar lines one wall, with standing tables and booths filling the space in front of it. Vases of fresh, dark-petaled flowers sit on each surface. Beyond the seating area, the dance floor spreads out in front of a slightly raised stage, where a DJ is playing to coordinated LED lights. Acrobatic performers, faces painted to resemble crying jesters and theatrical masks, hang suspended by hoops from the ceiling above the dance floor. They slowly twist and arch their bodies through, over, and off the hoops, spinning gently over the heads of the surging dancers.

If nothing else, it has been worth coming tonight to watch one in particular, with curly ginger hair, lean chest bare, arching gracefully through a sequence, bowing their back until their foot touches the top of their head. You wonder what kind of mobility exercise routine is required to attain that level of flexibility, and make a note to do an online search—but you’re here on a mission. Although the longer you look, the less you understand why Sylus asked for your help tonight. The place is crawling with security. He has a small army on staff. Why does he need you?

As your assessing gaze continues to wander, you see two familiar figures at the far end of the bar. And a third, unfamiliar person standing with them. From across the darkened, tastefully lit room, you see a beautiful woman. She’s wearing a tasteful suit, dark hair coiled in beautiful braids. She’s laughing at something one of the twins has just said, her slender hand on his shoulder. They have the easy familiarity of people who have known each other for a long time.

She looks like who you had imagined, as Sylus told you that you had the sophistication of a cactus. You look down at your scuffed combat boots. The clunky duffel bags clutched in your gloved hands, in this beautiful nightclub full of beautiful people. You look back at Sylus’s associates. One of the twins has his masked face turned towards you, but you have no idea if he has noticed you. You turn away.

You are water. You can drown in yourself, before anyone can drown you first. You won’t give them the satisfaction. You focus on the dancers again. The handsome ginger catches your eye, and smiles. Your heart hurts, they’re so pretty.

You haven’t heard shit from Sylus since he told you to sit tight. He didn’t bother to give you proper intel about this night at all. And he clearly already has all the security he could possibly need in this edgy, sensual monstrosity of an establishment. You’re suddenly so pissed you can hardly see straight. You could be watching John Wick 16: the Penultimate Chapter right now, but instead your heart is drowning in your chest and the person he was probably dreaming about the other morning is in the same damn room. You make a fist and pound your chest, once, hard, right over your heart.

The pain brings you back to your senses. You turn away from the dancers, find a staircase leading to the upper floors of the club, and take two steps at a time, relieved that the rooms on the top floor have elegant nameplates, each named after something in mythology regarding memory and the psyche. You stop in front of a black door with the plate reading ‘Lethe’, and kick open the door. What? Your hands are fucking full.

Inside, the room is as over the top and beautiful as the lower floors of the club. You have an impression of deep maroon walls, black leather furniture, low-slung and perfect for fucking, for an orgy really, your intrusive thoughts tell you. There are people: the twins, the woman. Huh. They must have slipped upstairs while you were staring at the dancers again. And there are two men, but you only catalogue the men long enough to determine that they are not visibly armed. No threats. All you can see now is the relaxed man straight ahead of you, at the back of the room, his arms stretched wide across the back of the black leather booth, manspreading as usual.

You reach down, fling the duffel full of weapons over your shoulder, and unzip the other, incredibly full one as you stride towards the smug asshole who summoned you here.

“Finally, I was starting to—” Sylus’s voice hardly penetrates the fog of rage coursing through you.

“I have a present for you,” you interrupt him, and he perks up, a subtle smile lifting one corner of his beautiful mouth, but that’s the last you see of him before you expertly launch the absolutely stuffed duffel bag at him. It lands on his lap, where you aimed it, and the feathers he left on your bed the other morning explode into the air and gently rain down on him, covering him from head to toe in a thick layer of black. At least the landslide that has spread from him to the booth are hardly distinguishable from the leather.

You were right. The only thing you can hear in the ensuing silence is the tick of his fancy fucking watch.

You close your eyes. That felt good. You open them. He’s still sitting in the same relaxed position, but now there are black feathers caught in his silky silver hair, dusting his shoulders, filling his lap. He makes no effort to brush them off.

“You really didn’t have to, kitten,” he says peacefully into the ticking, shocked silence. "You already had my attention without launching another aerial assault."

“I know. But I couldn’t bear the thought of how sad the feathers would be, separated from you. I couldn’t just leave them to suffer on my bed.”

As soon as the words are out of your mouth, you slam your hand over it. Oh shit. If that woman really is his actual object of interest, you just made it sound like something is going on between you and Sylus that most definitely isn’t. You glance at her. She’s watching you from between the twins, and has a grin on her face. Maybe she didn’t hear…?

Someone clears their throat. You turn again, this time sweeping your gaze over the two well-dressed, handsome men, one seated next to Sylus and (you wince) who caught some of the feather fallout, and the other seated across the low table from Sylus. They’re dressed sharply, but not like they’re going clubbing. Almost like this is a… business meeting. But the dude who got caught as collateral feather damage is seated like, really close to Sylus. Now that you're actually looking at him, you realize that he’s really beautiful. Like, as pretty as Xavier. He's looking at Sylus, grinning from ear to ear. His teeth are blindingly white. Maybe it’s not the beautiful woman who Sylus was dreaming about, but this guy?

Why do you even care? You are a waterfall, drowning out any inconvenient feelings about this wanted felon. You are not a psycho who assumes that everyone who breathes the same air as Sylus is a potential romantic rival. Not even a rival, because you’re not competing. This is not a competition, you have no horse in this race, this is neither your circus nor your monkeys, you were just the hired help for the evening and it’s clear that there is a surplus of staff in the security department tonight so you’re going to go home and watch a man murder a football stadium worth of humans because of a puppy.

“Well, I’m so sorry to have interrupted,” you say, as if you had just accidentally peeked into the wrong room, instead of careening in here like a cannonball and launching a full scale feather assault on the owner of the establishment like a lunatic. “I will get out of your feathers—I mean, hair.” You bow slightly, because why the fuck not, tighten your hold on your remaining duffel. Sylus can just keep the other one—you definitely do not want a souvenir from this night. You then stride back the way you came.

You refuse to turn and look at Mister Toothpaste Commercial sitting next to Sylus again as you go. But as you approach the twins, you can’t help but take one last look at the woman since she’s standing next to your exit. You’re just curious. Nothing else. Just a curious little… lake. Because you’re water. And nothing can hurt you if you’re just a placid lake in a serene forest.

Yikes, after getting a better look at her face, you realize she is young. Like, teenager young? Okay, age gaps are fine if both parties have a certain level of maturity. Who are you to judge? You hope if she is the one he wants to bite that they’re happy together. Really. You’re just the bottom of the ocean, and you can survive great pressure.

“Are you just going to leave right after giving me such a considerate gift, without allowing me to even thank you?” Sylus’s sardonic voice seems to fill the room.

You stop, but can’t bring yourself to turn around. “No thanks necessary. It's not even a gift. Just returning property to its rightful owner.” You take another step.

“What about our deal? You still haven’t given me what we bargained for tonight.”

This time you turn your head. “I’m pretty sure you have enough security for your needs tonight. Let’s just call everything off, okay? No one owes anyone anything, and you can offer that favor to someone else.” You look at the girl, but she’s not smiling anymore—rather, she’s looking at you with… confused disgust? Fuck it’s hard to read people. Maybe she’s suffering from intestinal gas. Maybe Sylus carries around lactase tablets for both the twins and his girlfriend.

Someone clears their throat behind you. “Sir, perhaps I should return another time when you’re not so entangled in… domestic strife,” a respectful voice sounds behind you. You whip around. The man seated across from Sylus and wearing a nicely tailored blue suit is glancing between you and Sylus.

“Oh no,” you say, holding up your gloved hands. “No, sorry, this isn’t .. a domestic anything. Like, we are not like that.” You shake your head. The man suddenly looks relieved. You feel encouraged. You don’t want Mister Toothpaste Commercial or Miss Jailbait to get the wrong idea. You’re nobody.

You look at Sylus. He just looks steadily back at you, as if waiting to see what the next spectacle you have to offer will be. Why isn’t he saying anything to deny such an absurd allegation?

“So you are not the partner he wanted to introduce to me tonight, is that correct?”

He wanted to introduce his partner to this guy? Who even is this guy? You know what? None of your business. All you need to know is that he does, in fact, have a partner, and that partner, is in fact, not you, and it doesn’t matter that he helped you fall asleep a few times and touched you like you were precious, because he has a partner and that partner is not you and might be the child bride over there in the corner or the teeth whitening product model on the booth next to him. You are water so deep that you’re the Marianas trench. You’re so deep, no life can survive at all. You ignore the fact that you think you read somewhere that little weird volcanic tube worms can survive down there. Because where there’s no life, there’s no pain: the only solace of death. You’re fine. No tube worms at all.

“That’s correct. Just ask him! I mean, I’m not his type. And honestly, he’s not mine.”

The man looks alarmed for a moment, like he is afraid for you to keep going. But you do anyway. You try really hard to think about why Sylus wouldn’t be your type, when everything about him is gorgeous and intelligent and fascinating and when he wants to be, so, so sweet. “I mean, I’m only interested in someone who is tall. And who clearly spends enough time in the gym. Like, ripped. And who’s actually incredibly bright, who can make running multiple businesses look easy. And someone who seems really scary at first glance, but is actually heartbreakingly sweet when he feels like it. And funny! Who can honestly make me laugh on the worst day of my life.” You trail off. Clear your throat. “So no. Sylus is not my type.” You snap your mouth shut. You rub your heart—it must still ache from when you hit it earlier. That’s all this pain is.

The man, who has nice dark hair, and nicely trimmed facial hair, and nice shoes that may be oxfords or brogues but you have no fucking clue which, nods slowly, as if what you just said isn’t wildly awkward. “Oh, so when you said you wanted to introduce us to your partner,” he looks back curiously at Sylus, then at the woman standing with the twins. “Are you who he meant?”

Okay, is this guy just going to ignore Mister Toothpaste Commercial as a potential love interest? Maybe he’s bi-phobic. You don't know where Sylus's tastes lie. Again, not your business. You’re going to stomp your phone to smithereens the second you get out of here, you’re not going to stay at Xavier’s, because it’s too close to home. You’re going to Rafayel’s, and you’re going to sell your place. You’re going to apply for a hunter position in the arctic. You will be surrounded by snow there, all the frozen water you could ever want, and you’re never going to find yourself in such a fucked up situation ever again.

“I’m afraid not,” Sylus says. “She's not my type.”

You pause, just for a second. You don’t actually want to hear why she’s not his type, because in the end, it’s not your business. And even if you thought she was his partner there for a few minutes, you don’t want to hear him say things that might hurt her feelings. Because you know how it feels to be on the receiving end of Sylus's disdain, and it sucks.

“I’m only interested in someone who is effortlessly surprising." He looks at you. "Who uses their strength to protect the weak, instead of exploiting them. Whose tongue is sharp enough to match my own. A tongue I don’t mind surrendering myself to, to be shredded on again, and again.”

Again, there’s only the ticking of that insufferable, sexy watch on his insufferable, thick wrist.

Your heart doesn’t hurt at his description. At all. You must have just really hit it a little too hard earlier. You're a raindrop. It's your job to splatter all over the ground. You're just doing your job. You've always been very, very good at doing your job.

The person he’s describing sounds fascinating, and the perfect match for him. He'll never get bored with them, and maybe their goodness will rub off on him. Good for him. You had wanted to be friends with him, right? Before you realized that you might actually have feelings beyond hate, beyond wanting to fuck his brains out and then never speaking to him again. This is good. Your friends deserve people they can care about the way he just described caring about this person. Everyone should get to experience that in their life, at least once.

The silence and your thoughts are shattered when Miss Child Bride snorts. “Thank fuck. Cause we already went over why that would be gross.” She turns to Kieran and Luke. “Now I see what you mean. What a shitshow.”

“Right?” One of the twins responds. “So are you in?”

“Yeah. But I see your two weeks and raise you two months.”

The other twin fist bumps her. “You’re on.”

Sylus pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Clear the room,” he commands.

Kieran, Luke and Miss Jailbait all do little lackadaisical salutes and turn to leave. As the girl walks past you, she waves her hand in front of your face. You jerk back, hand instinctively going to the knife strapped on your thigh.

“Woah there, hunter. No need to get defensive.” She grins at you.

You suppress the urge to see how big she'd be smiling if you swept her legs out from under her sensible heels and then did a diving elbow drop onto her prone form as punishment for invading your space. She might be Sylus's partner and thus owed some respect because you respect him, but you don't like when people you don't know get in your space. “What the fuck was that for?” you ask instead, because you're polite.

“Just trying to see if you're blind.”

One of the twins puts his hand on her shoulder. “Rule number four: refrain from teasing boss’s pet hunter, or else he will get angry.”

“Yeah, cause he likes to do it himself.” The other twin chimes in, putting his hand on her other shoulder. “Let’s go get you to Linda before you're fired before you’re actually hired.” They guide her out the door.

You just stand there. You feel like what just happened is really offensive, to someone, somewhere, but you have no fucking clue why.

The two men have also gotten to their feet and are now moving past you, and Mister Toothpaste Commercial is grinning at you like you just made his night for some reason. Why is everyone in here a nutcase? you wonder hypocritically. You tighten your hold on your duffel and start trailing after them.

Only to be lifted in the air by the scarlet-ink tendrils of Sylus’s evol, its energy making the hair along your arms stand on end. “Not you, kitten.”

Against your will, you find yourself being carried gently to the booth and deposited onto the surprisingly soft leather, right next to Sylus. The feathers puff up, and then settle around you again.

Wordlessly, Sylus slips the duffel’s handle from your shoulder and with a little surprised grunt of effort, sets it on his other side. Yeah, it's heavy. You brought a lot of hardware in case things went south tonight. Which they did, just not in the way you anticipated. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him sweep a look from your head to your toes. “I tell you that I need your talents and to dress appropriately, and this is what you show up wearing?” he asks, as if all of the weirdness that just happened is of no significance. He sounds genuinely curious.

“Well, yeah. I can't wear my hunter gear into the N109 zone, and figured the leather was better than my usual cargo pants and harness. If we had to fight our way out of a group of assailants, or jump out of a window onto say, a gravel surface, this is still a lot more practical than…” you pause, eyeing his attire in turn. The black suit with the scarlet vest he is wearing is clearly tailored to fit him like the gloves stretching over his huge hands. You refuse to look at his hands. The fabric of his suit lovingly embraces his broad shoulders, nips in at his narrow waist, and leaves very little to the imagination regarding what he’s… packing, on both sides of the whole package. You will not think about what he is packing. What you felt against you, the other morning—

“I see. So this is what you consider your talents?” His voice mercifully interrupts your not thinking about bulges and the ‘Is that a billy club in your pants or are you just happy to see me’ dumpster fire in your head.

“This? What do you mean by ‘this’?”

“The ability to be prepared for any violent scenario and meet it with competence, in the service of someone else.” His blood bright eyes bore into you, and you know he’s not using his aether core on you, but it kind of feels like it.

“What else could you have meant?” you ask, genuinely confused. You eliminate wanderers. You fight, apprehend and on occasion, have had to kill humans who would have killed you if you had hesitated. You can’t think of any other talents you might possess that Sylus would want. Or any other talents, at all. Even if you could remember who you were when you were a child, you’ve been a hunter long enough now that it’s hard to remember who you were before you put on the uniform and dedicated yourself to defending those who are unable to defend themselves.

“Yes, what indeed? Good question, kitten.”

“And you didn’t tell me that you wanted me to meet you at one of your nightclubs,” you mutter, the irritation surging again. “If you didn’t want me to show up and embarrass you, ready for a fight, you could have just said so.”

“Is proper intel gathering before going on a mission not part of your hunter’s handbook?” Sylus asks, running a finger along your leather-clad shoulder.

“Of course it is.”

“Then why didn’t you investigate the location of our rendezvous tonight before heading out?”

You look away from him, staring through what you now realize is a one-way mirror. The room looks out over the two floors below, each with dance floors and bars, pulsating lights, tables adorned with those strange beautiful flowers. The undulating bodies of dancers are lit dramatically from the light show pulsing to the rhythm of the music.

You frown. “Since it was you, I just assumed it was some shady warehouse or something.”

Sylus is quiet, but you feel his finger continue drifting along your shoulder until his hand comes to rest on the back of the booth near your other shoulder. “That’s an unfortunate habit you’ve had, since the first time we met.”

You turn to look at him, only to find his face so close to yours that you can count the dark striations in his red, red irises. They’re all you can see for a long moment.

“What do you mean?” you whisper, because anything else would feel like shouting in the quiet of the room, with his face so close to yours.

“Assuming things about me.”

You’re alert enough to know that he’s not just talking about your assumption that tonight would take place somewhere dangerous. Your thoughts flit to your assumption that he had… that he had been responsible for the house explosion. For your grandmother and Caleb. Your assumption that he wouldn’t have a plan for dealing with his enemies at the auction. Your assumption that he would take advantage of your nudity in the hallway of your home by looking his fill. What else have you assumed about him? You remember his bite along your shoulder, and the assumption that it was meant for someone else. “You only tell me what you feel like telling me. How else am I supposed to fill in the blanks?” you ask.

Sylus’s hand along the back of the booth drifts back to your shoulder, over the collar of your jacket, up the sensitive skin along the back of your neck. His fingers find their way into your hair, and he gently runs them through its locks. It feels so good, you have to stifle a groan of pleasure.

“You could always ask me,” he says.

“Would you even answer me? You have a habit of answering questions with other questions,” you sigh, giving in to the temptation to let your head fall back into his big palm, his fingers gently massaging your scalp. You try to let your hands rest at your sides, but jerk a little when one of them lands on his big thigh. You move it, but he grabs it with his hand that isn't busy in your hair, and rests it back on his thigh again. He’s so warm, as always. You shouldn’t want to let him touch you like this if he has someone else. You can’t bring yourself to move.

“Well, you won’t find out until you try, will you?” he asks. You let your head roll in his hand, so you can see his face.

“Who was that man sitting next to you earlier?” you ask. Maybe if you start simple, you’ll lull him into telling you the truth when you ask him what you really need to know. What you don’t want to actually know, because then the illusion of Sylus treating only you like this, the illusion that you’re special, will dissipate like mist under sunlight.

His fingers pause, but then he continues caressing you. “That’s Aidan.”

You wait. He stares at you steadily. “You’re really going to make me ask detailed follow up questions, instead of just answering the question fully?” you scowl at him, but don’t move. His hand in your hair feels too damn good. He smiles, clearly amused by your frustration.

“I don’t give away intelligence for free. I need something in return for providing you thorough responses to all of your burning questions.”

You sigh. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

“What do you want, Sylus?” you ask. If the price is too high, you’ll somehow stand up and walk away, and live with wondering for the rest of your life about who these people in his life are, and if he belongs to someone else.

“The price will depend on the quantity of intel you request tonight,” he gently tugs on a fistful of your hair. You are boneless. You are melting into the couch from the pleasure, despite the negotiation.

“I could always use the favor you owe me for even coming out tonight,” you remind him.

“I think not. You haven’t earned that favor yet. The only thing you’ve done tonight is show up late and assault me with plumage.”

“Excuse you, I was here at exactly eleven. It’s you who were late in realizing that you didn’t exactly tell me where to find you. And as for my present, just think of it as me contributing to a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. I could have just trashed them, but instead I re-gifted them. Now you can stuff a fleet of throw pillows or the body of an enemy to display as a warning to others.”

Sylus laughs softly. “What a delightful image.”

“I'm fucking delightful,” you sniff.

He hums in agreement. You both sit there in companionable silence, with only the distant sound of the club below and his hands moving in your hair filling the space between you. After awhile, he says, “So what will it be? Are you willing to buy now, and pay later for the opportunity to interrogate me?”

You want to know. You don’t want to know. You follow the sharp lines of his face with your eyes: his panther eyes, his aquiline nose, his generous mouth, the cut of his jaw. You’re so tired of making a decision, only to fold and abandon it in the face of his indomitable will. You want off this roller coaster ride already. You need to decide whether you’re in, and want to be a part of Sylus’s life, in whatever form he’ll have you, or out. And then, once you’ve made your decision, you need to have the steel resolve that he so effortlessly displays—if you’re in, you’ll bury your affection and misplaced hope in him, and treat him like any other friend. If you’re out, you will destroy your phone. You will move. You will ask for a transfer that will put you out of his reach for a long enough period of time that he’ll finally lose interest in toying with you. You sit up, and his hand falls away from your hair.

“Do you have a coin on you? The one you do that little villain bit with when your mind is racing?”

His eyebrows lift a little, as if he’s surprised that you noticed that he tends to fidget when he’s thinking hard. The corner of his mouth tilts up. “Villain bit?”

“Do you have it?” you repeat.

“I do.”

“May I use it for a moment?”

He stares at you, amusement fading. Whatever he sees on your face has him letting go of your hand and reaching for his pocket, but suddenly your own arm is jerked forward.  

“What the—” you try to pull away, but only succeed in slightly pulling Sylus’s arm back toward you. You look down and find the scarlet-golden glimmer of the energy shackles linking your wrist to his. You haven’t been linked like this since the one and only time you managed to resonate with him.

“The fuck, Sylus?”

Sylus looks down as well, and then scowls deeply. “Why are you asking me? I was wondering what was on your mind, but was willing to let you keep your secrets for now. However, now I must insist on knowing what’s going on in that busy brain of yours.” He lifts your linked hands and gently taps your forehead with his index finger.

You try to pull away again, but he just grasps your hand in his, tightly.

You glare at him. He stares at you.

You stick your tongue out at him.

“Careful, kitten. Don’t make offers you’re not ready for me to accept.”

You look away. The club below is fascinating. You will not let him win. Finally, you hear him huff. He brings your clasped hands to his trouser pocket, slipping both into it. You feel his strong hip along the back of your hand through the cloth of his pocket. He pulls your hands out again and releases yours. And then, coin held between his index and middle finger, he solemnly offers it to you.

“Which side comes up more often than the other?” you ask as you take it from his fingers with your unlinked hand, careful not to touch him.

“Tails,” he responds immediately. You don’t trust him for a second.

If it’s heads, you’ll walk away from him and the life that allows him access to you.

If it’s tails, you’ll ask him who these people were tonight and whether he has a partner. You’ll be his friend, no matter what, and close off that needy, delusional part of yourself that hopes for more from him, and you’ll never think of it again.

You toss the coin in the air and watch it as it flashes, twisting in the air. You catch it in your palm. You take a deep breath. You open your palm.

You are the water in a bottomless well. All of the things that can hurt you are down so deep, you’ll never be able to access them again. You let the fledgling feelings for this impossible man slip quietly into the well. You’re a serene pond, reflecting an endless blue sky, and there’s nothing underneath at all.

“Who is Aidan?” you ask.

[luna-loveboop]

Wind is not ok

Idk how to pinpoint it. It's something about how since Dawn part four, almost 45 percent of the sentences he's said have ended in questions marks or been directly theorising. How the Link who figured out the most about the timeline with ease hasn't spoken much outside of theorising about the monsters, the postman, the shadow. How he whipped his blade out the fastest and went for the fairy.

It's something to do with how the most expressive Link had tears standing in his eyes when Twilight was ill but never once let them fall. It's something to do with how the most energetic hasn't been the center of attention but has been on the sidelines for quite a few updates. How he told Hyrule it's about being ready for the variety and has seemingly been ready ever since.

It's something with how for the past ten updates (we're at entrance pt 3 now), he has only smiled on ten out of ninety pages. How an extremely reliable Kid appears the most ready outside of Sky to rip the shadows throat out, after being pushed by him in battle like he was nothing. How angry he looks when talking about the shadow.

It's something about how he yelled in Legend's face that they had to help, questioning if Twilight was corrupted or possessed. Something about how this kid sincerely asked his brother if he was feeling evil and hasn't stop asking questions since.

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[lavendarneverlands]

put 5 songs you listen to, post it, then send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers <333

Thank you so much lovely🫶🫶🫶

Oh goodness this is a hard question because I like way too many songs😂 though I am a huge Swiftie & since I’ve on my TOG binge have been listening to a lot of fan playlists so let’s let my history decide🤣 these have been in a heavy rotation:

“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” by Taylor Swift

“Red Wine Supernova” by Chappell Roan

“Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter

“Blonde” by Maisie Peters

“Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo

@impossibelle @iwantavaldezinator @idfendyr @shadowhunters77 @archerons-elain @cheap-spirits @maevecrom @endlessdaydream @somethingsomewhereanywhere @korepio

p.s. as always, no pressure tags :-) 💕

(Heads up for some tags: this is my main account, the side-blog ur probably used to seeing (as I’m more active) is @acourtofquestions I have a terrible habit of mixing up pages/conversations; so if ur going “who tagged me?” it’s just me lol)

[itsblasttothepast]

What are you thoughts of RPF? Do you think the drivers read fanfictions? I have this idea they read fanfics in they're free time and have fun with the ships

Honestly, I never considered I would like RPF... but Supernatural ruined that for me, haha. However, one thing is enjoying fanworks, and another is harassing the actors or RP about their personal lives (like hating their partners and such).

In F1 is the same, I take them as characters in the novela, but knowing is fiction and they have their own private life. As if I think they read fanfics, I like to imagine some of them do, and even enter ships' discourse, I categorize it like this:

Remember, my opinion only, but Alonso would totally write fics shipping himself with everyone.

Also, the rookies (Ollie, Kimi) read fics and enjoy the 'enemy to lovers' tag for the Mercedes/Ferrari/RBR/McLaren drivers.

Edit: Uploaded the picture again because apparently the background made difficult to read the text; hopefully it's fixed now.

[crispyjenkins]

mandalore the young cont.

original post/discussion here! it was just getting really long and i for one hate scrolling so far, so. here's this. have also added this au to my masterlist in my pinned post!

@malcontent-crow

#i had a whole wall of tags and it didnt save! lets try this again#i am loving this. the potential for world building and the consequences of knowing more than you should (literally)

#i had forgotten that DW wasnt in peoples thoughts as a threat during the Clan Wars#and the idea that Pre was so far underground with the movement is a very good thing to remember as well! #on one hand you have this driven and spirited young verd that is inspiring Clans to start reassessing who they are fighting and why#on the other you have this clanless outsider that knows waaaaay too much about all the potential major players and is saying#that this major threat isnt really as gone as everybody thought and hoped. sith parallels out the wahoo for ppor obi#and hes standing there watching them all argue over his head about this threat that he KNOWS needs to be dealt with#he is seeing himself as pretty on par or above with the Old Guard in terms of mental age or prowess or large scale battles#so he sees them doubt him maybe even to his face and knows he'll need to get things started on his own

#and becauae everything in the galaxay has at least one person watching it from the outside... how quickly does the news of a jedi padawan#going off the rails on this mission get out? whos keeping track and who points fingers at the jedi for attempting to control the outcome#of the war of their historical enemies in their favor? the senate (read sith) want mandalore defanged before their war but what does it look#like the jedi want? how does the council answer for his actions? do they condemn or condone him? do they try to stay out of it?

#the world building potential of the Manda and the Ka'ra is delicious.#what does it mean to be a mando or darmanda? can you walk around and have people look at you and know you have failed in your oaths?

#and ouch! Obi-Wan considering the fact that he has never been allowed to be his own person.#from padawan to knight/master and then a general and councilor and sheesh. hes really never had the chance to see who he is as a person#outside of his responsibilities to everybody around him and right now hes a war worn adult in a war worn teens body#hes always had somebody else there. as a battle companion a teacher a student as somebody to protect and guard and guide#and now he has this entire culture looking at him and waiting for his next move. and im guess it still feels like less than a burden than#the care and raising of an entire child on his own. sure he had the temple resources and other jedi to lean on but anakin always looked to#him first to solve any problem or teach him something new or cuddle him after nightmares as hes trying to hide his own dreams#and grief and flounding to find his footing as an independent adult

#so right now hes looking around at the entire mando population and realizing thats he might need to reshape himself again for somebody else#to make himself what others need and knowing he can and will do it if it means saving somebody else

#and when exactly did he come back from the war? did he have satine die in his arms and see the ruin that is madalore after a pacifist reign?#does he see the potential for that ruin to happen right now if he doesnt succeed? where does he see himself in regards to the jedi?#has he considered the consequences of stepping up to be the Mand'alor to this culture he has never seen as his own?#has he let himself think about the choices he needs to make and how some things you cant always come out the other side the same as before?

(following the trend of each of these getting longer, this has hit just under 5,000 words, so just a heads up lol? so much world building is happening in this one)

sorry you had to rewrite so much! that last exchange was cursed, it seems lmao

it's so easy to write Obi-Wan as prescient, or the route I'm going with in Dha Kar'ta, so i think it's a fun change-up to have him knowledgeable for completely different reasons! I'm actually going to avoid visions almost at all for this Obi, but everyone else certainly won't know the difference, and he doesn't tell them otherwise (though he won't encourage it either. I do actually have a Naruto time travel where Nart pretends to be psychic à la Shawn Spencer, so that isn't the route I wanna go for this Obi). the consequences of knowing too much, indeed

hmmm many of these questions depend on how deep into Jedi and galactic politics I wanna go, and I'm not sure it's very deep at all. or at least, not very dragged out. i'll explain in a mo

SO first: yes, this Obi is from after Satine dies, in 19 BBY, maybe a month or so after, but before the bombing of the Temple so before Ahsoka left the Order. He was back on the front, no time to properly mourn, though he was doing his best, and was meditating on the whole war, but especially the Sith and their hand in everything that happened on Mandalore. It went deeper than Maul, he knew, had been going on longer than Maul and even Dooku, and it occurred to Obi-Wan that the Sith either wanted a Mandalore that will side with them but not be too much a threat, or they wanted them not a threat at all. He realised his hand in that, in helping put the New Mandalorians on the throne that led to the demilitarisation of the entire sector. Obi-Wan had practically teed Mandalore up for Dooku and then Maul's interference, and if the Republic won the war, he could all too easily see them doing another excision. won't get too much into it to save it for the fic, but he is mediating with something beskar, and he gets a lil too deep into the Force, and of course this is post-Mortis so...... 👀

so this Obi-Wan, back in time, is helping Mandalore to prevent any more Sith machinations in the future, to change the future for the whole galaxy, but even before he's Chosen, he realises he's also doing all of this for Mandalore. for his own hand in its destruction, for the Jedi's hand in the Excision, for his personal connection to Satine drawing Maul to it. it's for atonement, for reparation, and also because Mandalore deserves to be saved, and Obi-Wan is in a place he can help do that. it isn't just about the health of the galaxy, anymore.

I usually shy away from having Obi-Wan leave the Order, no matter what AU I'm throwing him in because I believe in the fundamental goodness of the Order and the people in it, and Obi-Wan is fundamentally a Jedi, one of the best, one of the best. however, in this case, I don't think he can have his cake and eat it too. if Dooku had to leave the Order to accept his countship, then Obi-Wan would have to leave to become Mand'alor. Jedi are (supposed to be) politically neutral, and Obi-Wan is all too aware he'd nullified his own neutrality the moment he decided to go for Keldabe to find Jango.

one of my favorite... tropes? in time travel fic is Obi using his future fellow councilmembers' access codes to get into things he shouldn't, and he certainly knows how to work the Order's internal systems in his favor, so he

wait so i was gonna have him go in and tender his resignation from the Order directly into the systems, and backdate it for before the Mandalore mission, so that anything he's done on Mandalore so far cannot be blamed on the Jedi BUT WHAT IF he just. deletes himself. like completely. from admin to the Archives to the crèche's own internal systems to the Shadow's private servers, Obi-Wan Kenobi was never a Jedi, was never a Temple bastard, was never Qui-Gon Jinn's padawan. his mission records are all in Qui-Gon's name now, his medical file simply doesn't exist, his crècheling clan is listed as simply having been a person short compared to other clans that year. he goes so far as to delete comm histories with him or mentioning him, it's like Obi-Wan Kenobi just doesn't exist anymore.

he does this first thing after leaving Jango, he spends the entire week back to Mandalore ensuring he's been completely erased from absolutely anything relating to the Jedi, and then uses his future councilmember knowledge (and lessons from Quinlan) to erase himself from Republic systems, too. any planet he'd helped as a padawan will suddenly have no records of him as having been there with his master, so the senate or Order can't subpoena them for the info, though Obi-Wan knows he can't have gotten everything (such as any planet not in the Republic, or who don't have holonet access to their files, or both, like Melida/Daan), but he figures he's done enough to absolve the Order if anyone comes knocking about what he's doing.

he buries his lightsaber in the deserts of Mandalore, not knowing that in his old future, he'd have done the same on Tatooine.

so as far as the Jedi are aware: Obi-Wan went on a mission with Qui-Gon that (predictably) went to hell, got separated from his master for weeks to months, then suddenly changed, at the same time their Jedi with the highest prescience collapsed due to his visions, which have also changed. Obi-Wan left Qui-Gon behind to hightail it through the Mandalore sector, and Qui-Gon couldn't catch up or find him, and then Obi-Wan disappeared from anyone's radars for two weeks. then Qui-Gon senses him reenter the Mandalore system, right before breaking his training bond with him, and the Order wakes up to Obi-Wan completely erased from their systems like he never existed in the first place. everything is going so so wrong, and yet. and yet.

and yet the Force is telling them all that this is right, that this is the least Dark course of action, that whatever Obi-Wan is doing is indeed the Will of the Force

so the Order mourns one of their own, and tells Qui-Gon to let him go. and then the Order ups their cyber security because what.

i think he leaves an unsigned letter/comm message for a few people. Bant, Quinlan, Mace, Feemor, his old crèchemaster, Yoda, maybe Jocasta Nu. it's short, basically thanking them for their hand in his upbringing (Feemor hasn't even met him before so is very confused by this), apologising for leaving abruptly, but to follow the Will of the Force, he had to leave; the first part of the message is all the same, but ends with little individual notes. he apologises to Madam Nu for fucking with her archives and hopes she can one day forgive him; he asks her to keep her friends close and to mend the tension between her and Dooku, that Obi-Wan should not know about. He tells Yoda that the future is always in motion but they must move with it; he asks Yoda to meditate on his dwindling lineages and learn to accept all that he cannot control. He reminds Quinlan to wear his gloves and asks him to thank Tholme for looking out for him when Qui-Gon wouldn't or didn't; he thanks him for their years together, and asks him to check in on Feemor every now and then. He apologises to Mace for all the shatter-points he likely caused and will continue to cause, and suggests he put a permanent reminder in his comm to remember to refill his migraine prescription that sixteen year-old Obi should not know about. He asks Bant to look out for a young Togruta initiate that will join in seven years, and suggests Bant might like the healer track rather than the knight corps; he thanks her for being his longest and most dearly-held friend. He thanks his crèchemaster for realising his visions were more than dreams (which will inadvertently lend credence to that theory for why Obi-Wan changed so suddenly), for supporting him when Bruck was at his nastiest, and for always being someone he could turn to even after he became a padawan. For Feemor, Obi-Wan apologises that they hadn't had the chance to meet before then, and for the relationship they won't have anymore; Feemor has no idea who this message is from, until he starts hearing the gossip that Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Order again. He too mourns never getting to know his padawan brother.

and Obi-Wan sends Qui-Gon a message, of course, thanking him for his teachings, apologising for "leading him on" as an apprentice, leaving and coming back so many times only to permanently leave this time. he reminds Qui to reach out to his friends and his support system, asks him to at least consider talking to a mind or soul healer about Xanatos (knowing that once it gets out that Obi-Wan is a planetary leader, it will likely badly trigger Qui-Gon), and asks him to at least try and mend his relationship with Dooku, though understands if that's not something Qui-Gon is willing to do. asks him to keep Satine safe, but to deeply think about why the Republic is so intent on helping her faction, and why Qui-Gon had questioned so little of the New Mandalorian ethos.

so by the time Obi-Wan finds the Old Guard, he's broken from the Order completely, has buried his saber, has broken his training bond, has cut his braid. I think he shaves his head entirely to let it grow out at the same rate, because the padawan cut is *Eliot Spencer voice* Very Distinctive. he paints his armour white for, yes, his men, his vod'e, but also for cin vhetin. he can't be the man he was before, nor the teen he was before, neither are who Mandalore needs, and as long as he can stay true to his morals and upbringing, he will be what Mandalore needs him to be.

okay now onto the Manda vs. the Ka'ra vs. the Force. the Force is a scientific concept of an energy connecting absolutely everything in the universe, and the Jedi have a religious view on the scientific concept. for both purposes, the Force just is. I really like the idea of other non-Jedi ideas just being different aspects of the Force, different religions and cultures based on the same scientific concepts. for Mandalorians, their "aspect" of the Force is the Manda, the collective souls of every Mando'ade that's ever marched on. just what it means to be Mando'ade has varied greatly through history, and is varied between different groups even now, but none of that changes what the Manda is, which is an aspect of the Force only Mando'ade can touch. sort of like their beliefs of it being separate from the Force have made it so?

now I haven't really talked about this before, but from the beginning of me writing Mandalorian related things, i've separated Ka'ra from ka'ra, which was a little bit me misremembering there was another term for "stars", and then it became it's own thing. kar, meaning "star", with it's plural kar'e or kare, to me, means physical stars, the way we'd call our sun a star. ka'ra, uncapitalised, is the more poetic and/or spiritual "stars", the way we might say something is "written in the stars", which actually aligns with how jate'kara is spelled; for my writing, i've used this form for Mandalorian Force-sensitives being Star-touched ka'ra-touched. Ka'ra, capitalised, is that "ruling council of fallen kings", the Mandalorian myth and it, the way I've always interpreted it, is a separate part of the Manda made up of specifically the souls of every Mand'alor already marched on. So, Tor Vizsla could have joined the Manda after death, but not the Ka'ra; make sense? all that ka'ra vs Ka'ra worldbuilding was done very early in my writing for star wars, and has since expanded to include the idea of the Manda as something separate, and I would now actually consider Manda-touched over Star-touched to describe Force sensitive Mando'ade, because that's really what I think Mandalorians would consider causes their supernatural powers: ancestors rather than the stars.

so what does that mean for this fic? the Manda is directly influenced by all those that consider themselves Mandalorian, Force-sensitive or not. it is, however, not affected by New Mandalorians, unless they worship the Manda in some facsimile, and I think many, many, many do not, not the way they were raised to. this worship looks different for every clan and every individual, and I've always interpreted it as more of a broad spiritual practice across the whole culture rather than a religion, per se, the way a real-world broader culture might pray at shrines at New Years even if individuals themselves or their family aren't religious. this is what I'm referencing when I say the Will of the People: the alive Mando'ade and their choices and emotions affecting and influencing the Manda, the collective amalgamation of every passed-on Mando'ade, and it's when these two are in tandem that they "pick" a Mand'alor. HOWEVER, such a pick is also up to the Ka'ra, the Mand'alor'e that have all marched on; to one day enter the Ka'ra themselves, a Mand'alor must be "picked" by both the People/the Manda, and the Ka'ra. Tor would be "picked" by a significant part of the People and the Manda, and so would Jaster have been, but (according to me, myself, and i, obviously), only Jaster had been chosen by the Ka'ra. Pre is "Mand'alor" only in name, only in a tenuous loyalty existing in House Vizsla and Death Watch, not even by the Manda; just simple human (et al) loyalty. Jango had a weaker "pick" from the Manda than Jaster did, but was picked by the Ka'ra, meaning if he did not declare himself dar'manda (even just internally; I don't think he's ever said it out loud), he would have joined the Ka'ra after death; if he ever reconnects with himself as a Mandalorian, I like to think he'd have that chance again. Canon Jango, though, who went on to make the clones? Absolutely not.

what does this all mean for Obi-Wan? he'd spent weeks inadvertently drumming up support in the people and therefore the Manda, and maybe most haven't really looked at him and thought "sure I'd follow him as Mand'alor", but they have looked at him and thought "that one has mandokar, that one wants what's best for Mandalore, that one is touched by destiny". I dunno, man, like. Obi-Wan is their hope before he is their leader. That will make all the difference when he does end up uniting them. His searching out Jango had made Jango finally confront that he feels dar'manda, until then he hadn't really lost the Ka'ra's support, but that severs that connection. and now the Ka'ra are without a Mand'alor, but look at that, there's a mandokar'la little idiot right there, already strong in the Manda, already rallying hope and purpose, already so invested in the nurturing and the future of Mandalore, how could the Ka'ra not choose him?

I posed the question previously whether or not Mando'ade can tell who has been chosen to be Mand'alor, and I think I've ironed out what that'll mean for this fic. non-Force sensitive Mando'ade will have this sense when near their Mand'alor, a subconscious and inherent trust in them, and indeed, some will be disturbed by this and fight it. that's alright, that's their right. Some never clock this extra sense, some are aware of it always, some just chalk it up to "gut feelings" and the like. The more spiritual or religious Mandos maybe put a little more stock in this feelings, I think especially goran'e and other spiritual leaders, but the fact that the Manda can technically pick more than one person at a time (like Tor and Jaster, and then Jango), this extra sense isn't a perfect indicator of a properly chosen Manda'lor.

now. what about Force sensitive Mando'ade? Well, the Manda is an aspect of the Force, and is in fact how said Force sensitive Mando'ade connect to the Force, by going through the Manda, first. their relationship with sensitivity is inherently different from others in the galaxy, at least those that connect to it directly. they are the ones that can sense or see if someone is chosen by the Ka'ra, depending on their sensitivity. Some see the ghostly line of previous Mand'alor'e stretched out behind them (like the Avatar cycle lmao), some see a wavering crown of stars around their head, some just sense there is a duplicity (/neutral) to their Force presence that doesn't exist in anyone else. how common is Force sensitivity in Mandalorian space? not fuckin very. Jaster had three in his entire faction of aprox. 2 million (fanon number), at least that were aware they were sensitive. Jango only had a few more, and only because he had gained a couple hundred thousand more followers before Galidraan. so i'll make the nearly-arbitrary number that Force sensitive Mandos are 1 in 1,000,000, across the entire sector. by some calculations, in the whole galaxy at around the time of the Clone Wars the number of Force sensitives is 1 in 5,000,000 but these calculations do not generally include societies and species with a near or 100% chance of Force sensitivity, because we simply don't have the data for it. does this all make Mandos slightly more likely to be Force sensitive than others, by my own numbers? sorta. which i'm making an issue of underreporting, based on Mandalore not being a part of the Republic, and also contention with the Jedi and Sith; they don't consider those Manda-touched to be Force sensitive, and with the way I've built this, they aren't exactly wrong.

for the purposes of this story, there are maybe eight Manda-touched Mando'ade in the Mandalore system at this time, and all but one are goran'e. that single non-armorer is part of the Old Guard. I have the roster for the Old Guard decided, so I'm debating whether the Manda-touched one is Cort Davin (a journeyman protector), or one of the women. Instinct wants Vhonte Tervho, but I have plans for her to be related to the goran Obi-Wan got his armour done by, who I wanted to be one of the seven Force sensitive armorers, soooo. lmao how fucked would it be if Isabet Reau is the Force sensitive one? I like the angst of that, since I definitely do not plan on redeeming her, but I kind of want the only Old Guard that can sense Obi-Wan is Chosen by the Ka'ra to be really quiet and accepting of it, while everyone else is arguing. hmmm I have an unnamed Wren as part of the Guard, that I haven't fleshed anything out for yet; perhaps them?

okay I think I've solidified what it makes a Mandalorian, at least for the function of this fic. it is tied to the Resol'nare, and following it, which does allow those who had Chosen Tor Vizsla as their Mand'alor to technically still be following the Resol'nare, and are therefore not dar'manda. at least not for that. but part of the reason the Resol'nare is even able to determine who has a Mandalorian soul, is because they believe it does. Those alive and those dead influence the functionality and reality of the Manda, which also allows for those pre-Resol'nare to still exist in the Manda. What causes someone to become dar'manda, if they are technically following the Resol'nare?

maybe it's reductive, or over-simplified, or maybe even too broad, but it makes sense to me and allows for many many different types of people to still fail, and this is obviously not the only way to become dar'manda, but one thing that will always strip someone of their Mando soul? treatment of children. caring for children. not harming children. this allows many of Death Watch to still maintain their Mando souls, but still be fucked up awful people in other ways. It allows even True Mandalorians to have lost their souls and not realised it because they otherwise adhered to the Resol'nare, because they'd chosen to interpret "defending oneself and family" and "raising your children as Mandalorians" to not include other peoeple's children. Or maybe they were abusive in the belief they were caring for their children. This would also make every single one of the Cuy'val Dar dar'manda, which I think is a fascinating concept.

to answer your question directly, no, one cannot look at someone and know they're dar'manda, even the Force/Manda sensitive ones. one will only know in death, whether or not they have a place in the Manda.

NOW what does this mean for New Mandalorians?? well, by technicality and the way I've set the Manda up, one can interpret the Resol'nare in ways that could align with New Mandos. Perhaps they interpret "armour" as more than specifically "beskar'gam", maybe they wear armourweave or other protective fabrics. Maybe they interpret "defending one's family" as putting down arms instead of raising them, in order to create a peaceful future for their children. I think there are plenty of New Mandos that technically tick off all the boxes, and believe in themselves and their fellows so much that the Manda is like "yeah sure why not, we'll make that count". I think some tenants are more easily... bent, like swearing to the duchy in place of the Mand'alor, but I think an easy one New Mandos miss, is "speak Mando'a." I think many New Mandos were all too quick to switch to Basic for everything except religious and spiritual ceremonies, and I think those already in the Manda would find that very hard to forgive. I actually get into this a little in Dha Kar'ta very soon, but for this fic, i'll have Satine not outright outlawing Mando'a, but it is socially heavily discouraged. you're not allowed to speak it in the palace unless in aforementioned ceremonies, you cannot fill out paperwork in anything but Basic, you're not allowed to use Mando'a titles (including Mand'alor), you're not allowed to teach it to your children. no outright like. punishments for speaking it in public, but if your kids are caught, there are repercussions, including investigation into how else you're raising your kids, and if you're found to be doing anything else, they can take your kids from you. not every New Mando agrees with this, of course, and go about adhering to the Resol'nare as best they can in secret, but so many do give up the language by convincing themselves it's not as important as the other tenants and, well, the duchy hasn't steered them all wrong yet, has it?

okay so on the subject of what the outside galaxy is seeing. I like the headcanon/trope/idea of like. the one thing all factions of Mandalorians agreeing on is fuck everyone else. oh, the New Mandos will emulate the Core and the Republic, but they aren't the Republic nor want to be, and this animosity extends to keeping as many internal Mandlorian issues just that: internal. no faction can keep news from leaving the system or the sector, obviously, but there also isn't a lot of interest in Mandalorian news? "oh look all the Mandos are fighting again", except that's been the standard for like. actual thousands of years. I like when fic have people outside the sector not evening knowing there are different factions, so I'll be doing that here, too, and I like the idea of non-Republic sectors having their own holonets, separate from the Republic one. so like, if Obi-Wan happens to go a little viral during his mad dash to Keldabe, that would be on the Mandalorian holonet, not the Republic one, so even if Obi-Wan was visibly still a Jedi (and he wasn't), actual news of him wouldn't reach the Mid and Inner Rims until like. possible years after it happens.

could this maybe be expedited by Sith machinations? absolutely, though I'm not sure I want to go that route, since I don't think the Sith are overmuch interested in Mandalore at this point, at least not in any hands-on capacity. I'm unclear on whether them funding Death Watch is fanon or not, but it is a headcanon I subscribe to, and I think they'd have stopped funding DW after Galidraan, to cause worse infighting and prevent DW from gaining enough power to actually restart their imperial conquering days. Palpatine has been senator for about ten years by this point, but has very little political power overall, and Demask would be looking basically anywhere but Mandalore at this point in time, both of them having written it off until they actively need something from the sector. if anyone had clocked Obi-Wan as a Jedi, this all would have gone very differently, news would have spread much further and quicker and I think undoubtedly would have reached Palpatine, but since I have Obi-Wan just... cutting ties to anything Jedi, news of him remains in-sector. is this perhaps unrealistic? maybe, but I kind of want to focus on Mandalore and not worry about galactic-wide politics for once, lmao, actually very much like Obi-Wan is doing. however, he will clock a lack of Sith interference and thinks That's Very Weird.

haven't decided how he finds Palpatine out yet, but I think it'll have to do with his Manda senses being different than his Force ones, maybe the Ka'ra even gives him a few tips or gifts to sense Sith since they've allied and fought with them so much in the past. regardless, that'll be after he's become Mand'alor and united the clans.

now to actual plot progression! Obi-Wan meets up with the Old Guard, they don't know what to make of him other than "he's kriffing weird. and young. and creepy. and probably Manda-touched." whatever other verd is Manda-touched will see him blessed by the Ka'ra, which causes them to look inwards more closely and realise they trust Obi-Wan inexplicably, which means they're blessed by the Manda and the Will of the People, too. they wonder if Obi-Wan has noticed, if any of the other Old Guard have noticed. they are one of a few that notice Obi-Wan sneaking back out while everyone is arguing.

Vhonte Tervho is another. She's at this lil summit to represent clan Tervho, tho isn't the clan head, because her ba'vodu, a Manda-touched goran, had sensed she needed to be at the summit. said ba'vodu is of course the armorer who reforged Obi-Wan's armour (need to find a name for them hmm), who had told their clan they were to cease fighting until their new Mand'alor called on them. Vhonte sees Obi-Wan, realises at the same time as everyone that he's the Kih'Manda, the Mand'ika that the entire system had been gossiping about for weeks, and she thinks of what her ba'vodu said. she looks inwards, like they had taught her to, and finds, yes, she trusts Obi-Wan, just like she used to trust Jango. And, well, her Mand'alor is obviously leaving to go do something, and she isn't going to let him go it alone.

the Manda-touched verd doesn't go with them, wanting to see what comes of this, but they already know Obi-wan is Ka'ra Chosen. they will come when he calls.

[its-wabby-stuff]

Mikey Goes To Oz

<Time spent: 49 hours 17 minutes>

When Mikey takes some time away from a loud family squabble he accidentally ends up getting “flushed” down the sewers. This winds up sending him to the colorful land of Oz where he meets a good witch, a wicked witch, a brainless scarecrow, a heartless Tinman, a cowardess lion, and a powerful wizard, all disguised behind very familiar faces.

A canon adjacent spin off set before the season one finale but after they discover Splinter is Lou Jitsu

I wanted to fit each of the boys into their “you’ve had this all along” category. Leo isn’t brainless, in fact he’s pretty clever with a street smart, people reading ability on par with Donnie’s intelligence. Donnie isn’t heartless, he just has a tough time expressing his feelings. They are complex and unalgorithic but he can get just as excited or sad or angry as anyone, as much as he may deny it. Raph isn’t a coward, but being brave sometimes means admitting you’re scared and that you maybe don’t have all the answers. You dont have to be strong all the time and you don’t have to do it by yourself.

In the movie Dorothy’s journey home is also a representation of her running away. The important thing was to remember there were people who cared about her. Mikey is experiencing a similar phenomenon, wanting the escape the bad vibes in the lair. His “you’ve had it all along” is interesting because it is an object, since the Ruby kneepads could’ve taken him home the whole time. And sometimes getting home means going on a journey only to realize you never left.

I put April as Glinda because Glinda appears as a defender of the weak, and I see April in a similar light. Always willing to help and beat someone up if it is so required. Splinter as The Wizard of Oz represents Splinters own willingness to hide behind different personas, his running from the past and the pulling back of the curtain for Mikey in timeline. The Wizard grows through the movie, albeit quickly, and ends up leaving Oz to go home leaving his legacy with the scarecrow, the Tinman, and the lion. In this case the passing of the baton to his sons.

Meanwhile Draxum as the wicked witch felt much more how Mikey sees Draxum at this time in the show, mostly just an antagonistic force who wants something from them. Fun fact: I imagine throughout this dream, Draxum is uninterested in being the wicked witch but is pressed into it via plot. Hence his disinterest in being “melted.”

Additional characters not pictured: Big Mama as the Wicked Witch of the East (those were her Ruby kneepads!!) and Todd as the Mayor of Munchkin Land. If you can think of more, feel free to leave them in the comments or tags.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

for dca fandom members specifically: have you played and completed security breach?

when i say "complete" i specifically mean "played through it at least once and got to 6am", whether you got all the endings and/or achievements is irrelevant to the question

another additional note is that if you've played other fnaf games but haven't completed those then that still counts as you playing them and you can answer yes to that!

no shame towards anyone who hasn't played the games! this is just to see what the general statistics are among everyone here

please reblog for a larger sample size! thank you ♡

[triglycercule]

mtt therapy moment except dust keeps taking breaks to talk to phantom papyrus and horror just wants this to hurry up so it can get to his turn because he couldn't give two shits about dust and killer's trauma and killer physically cannot discuss his issues and just starts zoning out while crying for some reason during it

and i'm the therapist listening to all of this writing down notes fervently because ITS CANON MATERIAL CANON I NEED TO GET THE CANON MATERIAL

[virgothozul]

I-

hum.

[redthemarten]

This was fun!

(also don't get me wrong, electro characters are super OK. It's just that somehow I don't feel like there's one that quite does it for me yet, you know;;; it felt wrong to put just anyone along my other #1s)

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