#travel wrapped!

[modernmanblues]

how i rank the places i went to this year:

1. liverpool, uk (that place has officially won my heart. so many wonderful memories there. more importantly, couldn’t help but fall in love with the people. everyone made me feel at home. it’s what they call ‘english hospitality’ i suppose.)

2. manchester, uk (specifically stockport aka 10cc city. quaint little town and the people are just so lovely.)

3. places in england that are my honourable mentions: cropredy, oxford, Lake District , Peak District, southport. england’s countryside was absolute perfection. breathtaking.)

4. dublin, ireland (oh please take me back please please PLEASE. something about that place was just so..romantic.)

3. queenstown, nz (i absolutely ADORE this place. ent bungee jumping here. this place is definitely not for the faint of heart. would love to go back during one of their summers.)

4. cinque terre, italy (can’t believe this place even exists. riomagiorre was my favourite of all 5 villages)

5. san sebastían, spain (gotta love the nude beaches. oh and the pixtos too!)

6. auckland, new zealand (love love LOVE this city. the countryside was pure perfection.)

7. venice, italy (i won’t belabor you on what happened to me there that one night. let’s just say i had my une nuit a paris moment there. something to tell my kids about someday perhaps.)

8. rome, italy (ranking it low because of it being too touristy. Vatican City was lovely tho)

9. florence, italy (same deal as rome. only went here because it was a couple train stops away from the leaning tower of pisa )

10. barcelona, spain (again, too touristy)

11. madrid, spain (didn’t do much here except go to the museum, museo del prado, which was interesting)

12. tokyo, japan (beautiful city. impeccably clean just like Eric describes it in his song ‘Tokyo.’ only ranking it low bc being packed like a sardine on the trains was an anxiety provoking experience for me personally. had a fantastic time otherwise)

13. sydney, australia (ranking low bc it just felt like i was in another major city like toronto)

14. berlin, germany (what a depressing places. i remember learning about Germany for the first time in world history class in high school and given all that i have learned about it and combining it with the experience of being there i can tell you that there was something undeniably eerie about that place. i mean, to think back on the atrocities..i got a bit depressed honestly.

[ghostbsuter]

There was a teen in the cave.

A teen no one knows and looks like he could be a wayne, stands in the cave.

"Actually, I'm a wayne." He says with a shrug.

Bruce, Batman, carefully thinks of the implication.

"Not yet," The teen, Danny, doesn't say anything. Simple smiles. "You're not a wayne, yet. You will be. But not yet."

Then Bruce sighs, dropping the batman mask in order to take in the teen.

"Does future me know of the time travel?"

Dannys smile grows into a grin, deciding to take pity on the man. "You, grandbat, have..." He makes a vague gesture. "Theories, which none of your children ever confirmed."

The bat's mind short-circuits at the choice of words

Dick is sputtering incomprehensibly, there are Baffled expression all around.

Because.

Because that child isn't Bruce's, but one of theirs.

"Who is it?" Jason demands, hand clenching his gun uselessly.

Danny continues to smile, a hint of mischief now peeking out.

The cave is filled with theories, some yell, some sob, yet all eyes leave danny.

All but one pair.

She had known the moment his body language switched just enough for her to read.

She had known the moment he disappeared before the clan.

Had known when his hand found hers, shoulders bumping.

Her heart clenches, throat dry and memories of her childhood flooding to mind.

So she asks, voice soft and hesitant.

"Am I a good mother?"

And danny looks up at cass, adoration and pride laid out plain for her to see and accept.

"You're the best."

And so they both watch the clan together, silent and comfortable.

(Cass doesn't question when she finds him, how and why. All she knows is that she's more attentive when out on patrol, looking and waiting.)

(This is how Cassandra Cain-Wayne returns one night from patrol, a child, barely out of toddler stage and clinging to her form.)

(This is how the Batclan officially meets one Daniel James Cain-Wayne, freshly washed and clothed, a cookie in hand and hiding shyly behind Cass.)

(When they meet, all they say is "Welcome home, danny," and "Good to see you again.", Danny doesn't necessarily get it, but that's okay. Maybe his new mom will explain it one day when he's bigger.)

[amoritasart]

Love the idea of Philip coming into the isles with the same I’M THE HERO mentality as Luz. He never grows out of this fantasy. Well at least one of them got to see it through!

[mwdesiign]

Holiday Spreads ⋆⁺₊❅.

✸ Saved some wrapping paper to try something new in my journal and love how it turned out. .𖥔 ݁ ˖⋆ ˚❆

[lilolilyr]

~ Lilo's 2024 Star Wars recs ~ (another Ao3 year in review)

This is specifically the star wars edition of my reader year in review, the rest & more info can be found here!

Descriptions/summaries by me, click the links for the ones from the authors.

The Good Sith by sonnyrain - Obi-Wan Kenobi and all of the Vod'e time travel and end up on a Sith planet. Obi-Wan, now 'Aranar', turns to the dark side, swearing to protect his men no matter the cost. Over a million words, lots of plot and character developments, fix-everything, still ongoing as of mid last year but you can read the first part(s) on their own.

I love this fic a ridiculous amount, I read several parts at least twice, and I'm thinking about it constantly. Like, when I think up my plotless little fluff piece fix everything bedtime stories I think up to fall asleep (and sometimes when something's good have to forego sleep to write down immediately because I know I won't remember fuckall come morning), I think of the versions of the characters from that 'verse just as often as I think of canon star wars characters or ones from any other fics. It fits into my headcanon 'verse really well because I always work with multiverse settings, and I love the kid characters especially little Sithling Aurek and his twin Soul.

Knives and Spices by argentee, mikaiyawa and others: A whole group of humans from earth is kidnapped into the Star Wars world, and separate fics follow separate characters. One becomes Mandalorian, one a pop star, yet another befriends some pirates and travels to lands we've never seen in canon. 280k, ratings and warnings vary, series still ongoing, parts can be read separately

I love and adore all kinds of self insert stories but this one is just extra levels of amazing - it's basically humans are space orcs meets Star Wars, and humans are all a bit force sensitive - the ending of the series summary describes it perfectly: "how much trouble can a few humans cause? All of it. All the trouble." and I love it all to bits!

Like a Tree by the River by @bairnsidhe - at Galidraan, Komari has a vision of the canon future and decides that she'd rather leave the Jedi behind than be a part of that massacre. Somehow, this ends with her and Dooku being adopted by mandalorians, and her in turn kind of adopting teenaged Obi-Wan at Melida/Daan? 20k T

Idk, this isn't even such a long one and I mean all of BairnSidhe's works I've read are great but somehow specifically this one with Dooku being the 'a bit old' ad and Komari therefore the bu'ad of a random coruscanti Mandalorian just stuck with me and I sometimes randomly think of Dooku being all confused and have to smile xD the plot&writing is also really good!

How a Romance Novel Saved the Galaxy by @arianaderalte: The mandos get their hands on a novel that describes a romance between mandalorians and jedi, and just how perfect jedi really are as partners for mandalorians... This changes things when both groups interact irl. 200k, rated T, Violence

This series has Everything. Jedi, Mandalorians, action, relationships, all kinds of queerness, and excerpts from a romance novel about the ancient Sith wars. Honestly, this fic just couldn't be better! I binge-read through it in one go even though I should have done a million other things at the time and I didn't regret it one bit xD

All the Amavikka stories: the slaves on Tatooine have a separate secret culture with language, myths and names, and Anakin, coming from this culture, reacts to Palpatine being his newest slave master

I think this idea of Tatooine slave culture and of Anakin's characterization is so interesting and I love reading it, from long Double Agent Vader by @fialleril, which I think is the original fic creating the Ekkreth lore, over the ongoing series Biting His Own Tale by @adragonsfriend, to the short story I can't find anymore about depur erecting a tower, a song-fic to Babylon by Dirt Poor Robin and the reason for my obsession with that band - please, if anyone has a link, send it my way! - and all other fics, I love this trope so much!

I think Ekkreth Skywalker was one of the first trope rabbit holes I stumbled into when I got really into Star Wars longfics in the middle of 2024, and I'm always excited to see references to it in fics mainly about other characters as well, like Breaking Chains by @jehanneargentee, and I went back to (re)reading fics about the trope on purpose several times as well :)

The last fic leads neatly into the next trope I really loved this year, Time Travel stories, more specifically Obi-Wan Kenobi time travelling and meeting mandalorians :D

I don't really have more specific stories for this one, I read so so so many of them that they just blur together in my mind. I marked a couple with the Ao3 rec function so I assume I liked those especially much, but going through them now I still don't really remember much, but I do recognize a couple fic author names as authors I read many good fics from, Ariel_Sojourner AppoApples @batshieroglyphics @roosjem LeeTheHobbit @triscribe cjwritesfanficnow @laurabwrites y'all's are awesome! Everyone, go check out all their fics!

I do also read and enjoy stories where people other than Obi-Wan travel through time, one that really stuck with me is In Good Time by morwen_of_gondor, about the Mandalorian trainers Kal Skirata and Walon Vau time travelling back to their time on Kamino.

All the fluffy h/c, fix-it, everyone lives, no order 66 Clone Wars fics! Pro-jedi, pro-clones, anti-sith (which sometimes includes Anakin, sometimes not), usually focusing on the 212th.

I never watched the series and it's been ages since I watched Attack of the Clones, but somehow, probably on the time travel -> Obi-Wan fics -> General Kenobi pipeline, I ended up reading a loooot of clone wars (fix it) fic, specifically lots and lots of Codywan!

You know that lovely feeling of getting into a new fandom without having any preconceived notions or otps or anything, so you can read All The Fic without any ships or bashing squicking you out? Yeah, that was me in Star Wars several months ago, cursed be the Codywan that got to me xD I can barely read time travel fics anymore without mourning the existence of the Vod'e because changing the past usually means they won't be created (unless they're the ones time travelling of course. Love those fics) and where I used to read just about anyone x Obi-Wan (and also anyone x anybody else lmao), I'm not pretty exclusively into Codywan... That being said, there's a reason for that, and that's the amount of amazing fics for that ship that I came across!

Again, I don't have specific fics that I remember because I just read so many one after the other... I guess I'll have to re-read them all. Which is great actually because me not remembering them much means I can reread them basically for the first time! I did mark some as rec but looking through them now I think they're not mainly recced for the codywan... My shippy bookmark tag might give a better overview.

Another ship I got into was clone troopers Waxer x Boil, I like the thought of the Vod'e being a society of to outsiders identical looking but to each other separate people who only see their immediate batchmates as siblings (which would also psychologically make a lot more sense), and these two are just super cute.

One of the first Waxer/Boil fics I read is also Codywan and it's one of these clones&Obi-Wan time travel fics I like so much :D The 212th Attack Battalion's Guide to Saving the Galaxy by Accident by @antigrav-vector and @quarra, it also has some Dooku/Sifo-Dyas which is another ship I really like.

Another one I still want to continue reading is RCAU: Open Skies mainly by @cacodaemonia, what I've seen of it so far is great and the story is So Long (almost 900k, a honestly daunting wordcount and probably what made me procrastinate continuing it, but also Awesome because So Much Fic), it's cute and shippy and no order 66 but also has plot and interesting characters and ocs and I just love it <3

Also similar but less ship centric, I absolutely love all the fics where Fox gets to kill Palpatine. Just, best trope ever. The Corrie Guard deserves a little Sith Murder. As a treat.

Jaster Mereel and his haat'ade (True Mandalorians), there are a bunch of really good ones where they rescue Obi-Wan and the Young from Melidaan, but also in general all the Jaster fics are great!

While I'm very anti guns irl I just love the fictional Mandalorian culture xD with their cool armor and their codex and the language (per my last count I know 90 words of Mando'a just from fic reading osmosis, send me an ask if you want a list lmao), the vibrant culture created by it being a creed, not one species... and Jaster is just my favorite Mando'ad ever, maybe because he doesn't have much canon attached so fanon just went wild? xD there are also a bunch of jedi shippy fics with him and Dooku sometimes in ot3 with Sifo-Dyas, or him and Jon Antilles like the wonderful 100k wip trade your heart for bones to know by @blackkatmagic, and I think there was one with time travelling adult Obi-Wan as well - edit: yes several, by @roosjem @cjwritesfanficnow @batshieroglyphics <3

Skywalker Family Values by Ariel_Sojourner: Sith-son Luke and senator daughter Leia end up in the same summer camp, it ends in a destruction of the speciist camp, a rebellious theatre performance and the reintroduction of their parents... Aka the parent trap/ Doppelte Lottchen AU that is still somehow perfectly in tune with the Star Wars world! 55k, T for violence.

Can't forget the fic that actually got me into Star Wars! At least I'm pretty sure this is the one? I think there was a tumblr post talking about crackfic ideas for a parent trap AU, and I went looking and found this one, which is actually 100% serious and such a good read. I actually made my mom read it as well xD Das Doppelte Lottchen (German original parent trap book from 1949) was one of our favs for her to read to me when I was a kid, and my mom is always looking for new reading material and as I'm mainly reading fanfic, I'm always happy to find fic she'll also like.

And, because I turn everything into a tag meme, maybe some of you also want to show your appreciation for the writers who got us through the last year - everyone who sees this, feel free to make your own post (if it's just Star wars fic I guess you can reblog-add to this one, but otherwise seriously make your own post)! and remember to leave your authors some comments especially if they can't be @-ed on tumblr :) tagging all the authors already tagged above and everyone else who sees this!

here's my 2024 rec list for other fandoms

more of my fic recs • my writing • my Star Wars • Star Wars fic recs

[marlynnofmany]

Other Uses for Packaging

I waved goodbye to the customers — other humans this time — then sat back and waited for the trash pickup. I didn’t blame them for not wanting to take all the packing material out into the spaceport. They hadn’t brought a hovercart or forklift, and had been unprepared for the huge crate full of bubble wrap and foam.

Other times, our little courier ship had done deliveries where time was short or regulations were tight, and all we would have been able to do was advise them on where to rent a hovercart or buy a crowbar. Luckily for these customers’ convenience and my conscience, today we could stick around and help them unpack the custom end table or whatever that was.

They’d left happy, with something much easier to carry, and Captain Sunlight had headed for the cockpit to call in the station’s trash crew. (Apparently this was a regular feature at this space dock, which was a nice change from the last few where we’d had to move the ship’s garbage over to the trash area under our own power.)

Zhee looked over the crate that he’d just taken great joy in disassembling. “Wood may be valuable here,” he said with a thoughtful click of a pincher arm. “If not to the station at large, then surely to another ship. I wonder if the captain thought of that.”

I glanced back at the open cargo bay. “Probably?”

“Probably,” Zhee agreed.

We were both silent for a moment while the spaceport bustled around us.

“I’m going to check,” he said, tapping his way up the ramp on his many bug feet. “Make sure none of that blows away.”

“Sure thing.” I looked at the piles. The only breeze in here was the faint wafting of ventilation systems and the occasional gentle landing of other ships at a safe distance, but I understood the impulse to be careful. That one package awhile ago, full of styrofoam beads, had been memorable. And terrible. The darn stuff was almost as bad as glitter, what with the way it stuck to things with static electricity. Nobody wanted a repeat of that.

This set of packaging was much better. The boards made a tidy stack, the foam was in rubbery sheets that didn’t leak bits everywhere, and even the bubble wrap was in long rows instead of individual panels. This was no top-of-the-line cryo suspension or force field generator, but it was respectable.

I organized the mess a bit while I waited. The rest of the crew either had stuff to do on the ship or out in the station, so despite all the ambient noise, things were quiet.

I started rolling up the bubble wrap, thinking someone might want to use it again, but found that many of the bubbles had gotten popped in the disassembly, leaving it only good for one thing.

The first bubble popped with a satisfying snap. By the third I’d pinpointed which direction the sounds were echoing from most, and I enjoyed the different noises I could get by tilting my head. None of the pedestrians were close enough to pay much attention, so I happily worked my way down the roll. I’d seen multiple other types of bubble wrap, some made by different cultures and different materials, and most of them didn’t actually pop. What a simple joy to find the regular old Earth kind again.

Mur’s voice from the cargo bay asked, “What’s making that sound?”

I sighed and turned. “Don’t tell me, this is another swear word in your language.”

Mur waved a tentacle. “No, of course not. I just wanted to know what’s breaking out here. It sounded like a problem.”

Before I could answer, Paint appeared behind him in a rush. “Is there a problem??”

“No,” I hurried to say. “Everything’s fine. It’s just bubble wrap. See?” I held up the section I’d been working on and popped another bubble.

Paint winced. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No, it’s just garbage.” I rolled up the part I’d already flattened, then twisted it to pop the next row all at once.

“Okay, that almost sounded like a swear word,” Mur admitted.

I had to laugh at that. “Of course it did.”

Blip and Blop hurried out to join the growing crowd in the cargo bay. “What keeps breaking?” Blip asked, frills waving anxiously.

“It’s just bubble wrap!” I exclaimed. “See?” I held it up and popped another one.

Instead of nodding and going back to whatever they’d been doing, my alien coworkers remained perplexed. “Why does it keep popping?” Blop asked. “Are you doing that?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“Why?” asked both Frillians at once. Paint and Mur also looked curious.

“Because it’s fun?” I replied, scrambling for an answer. I hadn’t thought this needed explaining. But apparently it did.

Paint asked, “How is that noise fun?”

“Well, it echoes—”

“You don’t need to worry about condensing materials for the trash pickup, if that’s the concern,” Mur said.

“Yes, I know—”

“Are there food items on your planet that you have to open like this?” Blip asked. “Large fish eggs, maybe?”

“No, ew! It’s just—”

A shadow loomed taller than the Frillian twins. “It is violensssss,” Trrili hissed, making them twitch. (I don’t know how she found a shadow in the cargo bay. Sometimes I think she brings them with her.) “Small-scale, sanctioned violence. These can be destroyed without repurcussionssssss.” She was choosing which words to hiss on, for effect.

“Sure,” I said, spreading my arms and lifting the bubble wrap. “Let’s go with that.”

Trrili wasn’t done. “Each tiny section can be crusssshed individually, with precision, or multiples at once for maximum volume.” She glided forward on quieter feet than Zhee’s, and the others made room for her.

I held out the bubble wrap. “You want a turn?” Her pincher arms didn’t seem suited to it, but I was curious to see where she’d go with this.

“Plasssssse it on the floor.”

“Sure.” I flapped the row out in front of her like a red carpet, and she moved like the predator she was to crush one after the other. With precision. And shiny black bug feet.

It gave me an idea. “Hey, wanna see who’s faster?” I grabbed another section and laid it out to one side. “You’ve got more feet, but my shoes are bigger.”

Trrili spread her mandibles in her favorite creepy smile. “Challenge acssssssepted.” She crouched like a spider and waited for me to be ready.

I glanced back at the others. “Anybody else wanna race?”

Mur spun on his tentacles and scooted back into the ship. “No thanks! I’m going back where it’s quieter.”

“Me too,” Paint said. “But thank you!” She scampered off.

Blip and Blop looked at each other in silence for a moment, fins waving. Then they turned to me. “We’ll judge,” Blip announced.

“All right!” I said. I wrangled my own section of bubble wrap, roughly the same length as Trrili’s, and struck my own ready pose. “Say when!”

The twins chorused, “Start!” and we were off. Pops filled the air along with Trrili’s delighted hisses and my laughter. There were probably people staring, but that didn’t matter.

Maybe I could talk Trrili into a dance-off afterward. On whatever was left when one of us was declared the champion of small-scale, sanctioned violence.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[hangingoffence]

the only possible young joseph and josuke interaction (joseph got beat up by invisible fists)

[whichcouldmeanothing]

Hawk and Tim + dominance and submission (part 8) Fellow Travelers (2023)

[quesocheeso]

In your AU? Did other demons have their young attached to them via the baby sling/wrap or was that just Wukong with MK

I think it’s really adorable if they did and hilarious if like really big beings like DBK had tiny baby slings on for their babies. So yeah it’s tradition💃💃

[calltocupid]

my sweet, beautiful, heartbroken boy.

[bubblewater]

If the twist is that Viktor was the sorcerer all along— it lowkey gives The Time Traveler’s Wife adjacent-vibes when you watch the Episode 2 of the first season?

I genuinely believe it was a different sorcerer who gave Jayce the crystal the first time around— but then Viktor traveled through time and replaced the original sorcerer

It doesn’t make sense for Viktor to have always been the sorcerer— because everything would have been pre-determined yk? I think allowing choice and chance is a better alternative way of looking at it but idk

[amplifyme]

"The most radical thing I ever did was love him, and I wasn't even the first person in this story to do that. But you can get it right, if you try. You will have hope, and you have been forgiven.

Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel."

Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time

[canisalbus]

what part of italy are machete and vasco from? not their birthplace since from what i've seen you're still workshopping that. where do they live? i assume rome?

In the 1500's setting Vasco lives and was born in Florence, his family has lived there for centuries. Machete was born in Sicily, was taken to Naples to serve as an apprentice and ended up living and working in Rome (and more specifically today's Vatican city, which as you may know has been an independent country since 1929 but wasn't back then). They first met when they were both studying in Venice in their late teens/early twenties.

I think in the modern au they live together somewhere in Florence.

[larabar]

hed be so lethargic after everything. all in favor of letting him sleep in the tornado on the way home say aye

[m0nost4tic]

sometimes i randomly remember i am basically yasunori nishiki's #1 listener and i still don't really know what to do with that title

like.. my fmbot and spotify wrapped are NOT PRETTY

on a side note if anyone needs a spotify playlist with all the octopath songs (cotc, both switch games, AND the concerts), here's mine

[oncamelliastreet]

it’s truly a curse that my fav 5sos songs aren’t available on streaming platforms in my country (wrapped around your finger, when you walk away, if you don’t know)