#what happened on the death star

[cantsayidont]

October 1978. The first appearance of the bounty hunter Valance, who has recently made a comeback in the modern STAR WARS comics. Created by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, Valance is a cyborg, a former Stormtrooper officer who had been grievously wounded by a Rebel air raid and who now expresses his self-loathing through a pathological hatred of Droids and automata. (His secretiveness seems merited in these stories, which indicate that cyborgs experience a high level of mistrust and social stigma. I assume this is something Goodwin extrapolated from the "We don't serve their kind" stuff in the first movie, although the degree of prejudice and outright loathing Valance faces when people know he's a cyborg isn't really borne out by later SW media.)

The next issue box is a bit misleading; THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK wasn't released until a year or so after this issue appeared. Also, the story to which the box refers (which is indeed called "The Empire Strikes!") didn't actually appear until issue #18. The issue following this one ended up being a fill-in story about Luke and Biggs prior to the events of the first movie, with art by Herb Trimpe and Al Milgrom rather than regular penciller Carmine Infantino. The delay probably had something to do with the juggling act required to produce the U.S. and UK versions of the comic — the stories that ran in the U.S. monthly color series were published more or less contemporaneously in eight-page B&W installments in the British STAR WARS WEEKLY, a logistical nightmare that necessitated the use of two distinctly different inkers and a number of fill-ins to make the math work.

[bloodybellycomb]

I cannot fix him and he will make me worse, sorry

[cogentranting]

Strange New Worlds answered the continuity issue of "if Spock and Uhura served alongside Sam Kirk for years, why didn't either of them react in TOS season 1 when Sam dies?" by saying "because neither of them could stand Sam. Next question."

[yuesya]

There is music, echoing elegantly into the silent darkness. Solemn and magnificent, countless notes rising and falling to blend into an ethereal melody.

It has been quite a long time, since the Choir’s song of Order last resounded through the stars.

Penacony, the Land of Dreams, no longer remains beneath the jurisdiction of the Harmony. For Order has been established, and from it, an intergalactic Paradise will arise. Is already on the rise, weaving together the blissful dreams of its inhabitants under the iron grip of a watchful conductor who is determined to see their ideals become reality.

“This is just the worst.” Three words, grumbled lowly in an unhappy voice, discontented. Silver Wolf grits her teeth mulishly, hands curling into fists. “Penacony’s gone. Firefly… didn’t make it out this time.”

A slow blink of eldritch blue eyes. The white-haired girl standing beside the youngest Stellaron Hunter remains unmoving. There is no change in her outward expression at all.

“… Firefly?”

“She’s gone,” Silver Wolf’s voice is louder this time. A little more fierce, too. Gloved hands come up to wipe roughly at her eyes. “Firefly is dead now, Shiki. That –that was her third death!”

“Third death. Penacony.” Shiki is silent for another moment. “… It’s Order that killed her.”

“We need to go.” Silver Wolf sucks in a deep breath, and sets her shoulders. “Any longer, and we won’t be safe here, either; Order is actively subsuming everything around it into its Choir. If this is part of Elio’s script, then–”

“‘You will draw your blade.’”

“… What?”

“My script from Elio,” Shiki’s voice is infinitely soft. “… He told me, ‘You will draw your blade.’”

Then, she proceeds to do so.

One hand grips at the sheath of the sword at her side, while the other closes around the hilt. Shiki draws out the entire length of the thin blade in a single smooth motion. Careless, almost, and unhurried. There is no particular strength behind it. It can’t even be considered a proper swing, but–

But beneath the tip of her blade, there is a distortion in space. Something –something that parts beneath the edge, a thin line that swiftly stretches into a yawning chasm that blooms into the world around her, tearing through the space and stars and Order Itself like an unstoppable tidal wave–

That just keeps going and going–

Red. No, black. Looking into the emptiness left behind in the path of the tear in reality is something that hurts, is actively painful, but blissfully calm at the same time. There’s something that’s almost alluring about it. No, repulsive. Radiant sunlight, and the darkest shadow.

… It doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t need to. For the stars themselves are meaningless, and in the end there is noThINg thAt matTeRs in wAke of HeR SILENCE–

…

…

…

… Elio stares blankly up at the familiar blank panels of the ceiling. It has already been several long seconds since he’d roughly pulled himself out of his last simulation, but the harsh thud-thud-thud pounding of his heart has yet to begin calming. The sharp, distressingly poignant headache in his skull shows no signs of easing anytime soon, either.

What he’d seen just now… was not a desirable scenario. Not at all. Something definitely needed to be done, especially in regards to Firefly’s ‘third death’ in the Land of Dreams.

“Elio?” Kafka’s face appears in his field of vision as she leans over him, waving a hand in front of his eyes. “Everything alright?”

… Hopefully, they will be. As long as Elio can work things out and direct them on a better course of action.

“I’m fine, Kafka.”

“Hmm.” The woman stares at him for a moment. Then, smiles teasingly, “Maybe you should take a break. Wouldn’t want you to start stress-shedding now, would we?”

Elio sniffs, even though the vertigo of the sudden motion makes the room spin dizzyingly. “If I lose all my hair, then you and the other Hunters are most definitely to blame for it.”

[chimerahyperfix]

This loop has to be the one. Nevermind that you said it last loop, and the one before, and the one before that, and most of the ones before that. THIS was the one you'd stop the King in his tracks. You push a few of your many potions to the side to make room on your desk. None of them worked to stop him, so they were useless. He's still about twelve, fourteen? hours away, so you have enough time to make the bomb, eat and take a fat nap before you go pick a fight. Maybe this time, it'll work! It has to!

You've gotten better at making the Craft Bomb. It hasn't blown up on you before you intended to use it in... a long time. You can make it fast enough, now, for it to still be light outside! You've become silent while you work, which Mirabelle has told you is ''worrying'', but you don't see why it is. Are you really that loud? (Yes. You are.)

It's hard work. Soft light bathes your desk, your work, you. You reach out, past your potions, and grab your water bottle. Take a big swig, and

Hmm. That's not water.

How. HOW do you keep making this mistake. You look at the bottle in your hand, and sure enough, it’s one of the potions; your water bottle is shoved in the back of the collection of other containers. The taste is caustic, your throat begins to burn. You shouldn’t be this calm for having just drank something that’ll kill you in a handful of minutes, but it’s happened before. Despite the pain you don't bother trying anything. Just push the finished bomb to the side and lay your face against the wood of the table. Feel the blood start to pool in your mouth and dribbling out, staining the wood. Mirabelle, or Euphie or whoever comes in next, they can use it this loop. It's not the first time you've drank one of the many, many dangerous potions on your desk, and it's probably not the last. Maybe you'll actually clean the crabbing thing off before you work.

Whatever. You have next time. You have all the time.

Perhaps a bit too much, actually.

[robotsandramblings]

[inspo] [Crosshair version]

[steakout-05]

apologies to my followers who don't watch Star Trek but i still cannot get over the way Data enters the bridge in episode 2 of TNG after having just boinked Tasha. look at him. the style. the lean. the confidence.

this is the fruitiest android i have ever seen!

[luminous-orb]

been slowly working my way through Star Ocean 2 The Second Story R. Guess who my favorite character is (it’s Rena) (I love you Rena)

[rawbin-hsr]

Aventurine x reader

You die.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

TW: DEATH, heavy angst, gore, blood, kind of disturbing, a bomb explodes, derealisation/disassociation, graphic, I'll be so honest this fic is kind of fucked up

Lmk if I should add any more specific warnings!

If you're sensitive to violence and dark themes, you probably shouldn't read this.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

This mission had gone terribly awry. 

It was only meant to be a routine checkup. The IPC was planning on allocating resources from this planet, something the locals had not been pleased about. Aventurine understood. He would not be particularly happy to have his planet drained of all that made it worthwhile either. (He had not been happy. But all things considered, he thought he was being generous. Nobody was being directly killed, the IPC merely wanted a cut of the many materials the planet offered. The Avgins on Sigonia had all been very intentionally exterminated. He was not doing that to these people.)

Still, he couldn’t afford to take risks, hence the many IPC assigned bodyguards he had brought along. Deals like this, where the clients were undeniably on the losing end, were bound to go wrong in one way or another. Often violently so. 

He just had not expected the bombs. He had not expected the mass amounts of guns. The people were more capable and vengeful than he had assumed, then. Ultimately, it was his own fault.

Most of his goons were dead. Most of the government officials were dead too. It made sense they’d want to go out in such a loud and proud way. A declaration to their people they wouldn’t lay flat before the otherworldly corporation that had come to essentially take away what made their planet their home. Bold to be ready to kill so many of their own, but he could respect it. 

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be very angry. It was fair, all things considered. He’d had this long coming; being killed by the people whose lives he was ruining. In their positions, he’d love to kill him, too. The only issue was that this hadn’t happened under normal circumstances. 

No, you were with him. You’d been just a bit away from him when they opened fire, when they set off the bomb. 

It was so stupid. It was so, so unbelievably stupid that he’d let you come with. It was your job, yes, but he should have reassigned you to some other mission. Something safer. Something that didn’t involve visiting planets to drain them of all their worth. Something that didn’t bring about rage from the clients. 

He could see you. He’d been saved from the brunt of the impact, and his luck had once again protected him from serious harm. He had only been slightly grazed by a bullet, had only been slightly burned by the heat of the explosion. Nothing serious. Nothing he couldn’t walk off within a week or two. You had not been so lucky. 

Your arm was outstretched over your head, body lying limply on the floor. Missing the other arm. There was only a gaping, red hole where it had once been attached to your body, a little bit of bone sticking out of the gory mess. The blown off hand with your engagement ring lay close enough to him that he could touch it. Maybe intertwine his fingers with it for the last time. The pinky was missing.  

He pushed himself onto his feet on unsteady legs. He could barely feel his own body at all. One glance down at it told him he’d been right in his initial assumption, though. No parts of him were missing. He was intact. 

He stumbled over to where you lay, your expression calm, almost peaceful. No pained pinch between your brows, no worried frown on your lips. Were you unconscious, or were you dead? Though he knew it was unlikely you’d leave this place alive either way, he hoped desperately for the former. 

He fell to his knees next to you. Something was buzzing beneath his skin. Something was buzzing in his vision. Had the world always been so blurry? Had there always been such a loud noise ringing in his ears? His hands trembled as he carefully reached out, a hand tenderly cupping your cheek. Your face was red, slightly burnt in places. Your hair was singed. You felt hot to the touch. 

No, not hot. Warm. Warm as in alive. He couldn’t hear you breathing, but warmth meant life. Warmth meant life. You were alive, surely.

He brushed his thumb under your eye. Tried to find something to say, but he found his mouth refused to open. Carefully, so carefully, he shifted you onto his lap. He stared at the dust from all the debris that had settled onto you. He couldn’t breathe. 

(He thought back to a time when the dust had been sand. He thought back to the red that had painted the ground then as it did now. He thought back to another body he had pulled closer, with hands much smaller and weaker than the ones he had now. He thought back to the taste of salt as tears fell in an endless stream from his eyes to cover his face and hers.)

He moved his free hand to your neck, gently pressing a finger to where he knew he was supposed to find your pulse. It wasn’t there, but only because he wasn’t searching hard enough. He carefully felt around, and though he couldn’t find it, he knew it was still there. He just didn’t dare press down hard enough to find it. The same applied when he felt your wrist. He was just bad at finding things today. 

(He stupidly hadn’t found a good enough reason to put you out of this mission. He stupidly hadn’t found anything that happened before the explosion suspicious enough to leave early. He stupidly hadn’t found his way next to you quickly  enough to save your life.)

When his hand landed on your chest, absent of a heartbeat, tears started falling from his eyes. But why was that? You weren’t dead. In fact, the longer he looked at you, the more sure he became this couldn’t be you. Your skin wasn’t this hot. Your arms were both still attached. You did not have fresh burns covering your face. Most importantly, you were alive. Alive and well and happy and safe from this little mishap. He had misremembered, you had stayed home during this mission. The hand he’d been so sure belonged to you had been someone else’s, he’d merely mistaken the ring for yours. It was such a bland ring, after all. He’d have to buy you a new, much prettier one once he came home to you, and apologise for his oversight in giving you such a boring design. 

He ignored the repeated whispers of ‘not again, not again’ going through his head. Nothing was happening ‘again’. This was not Sigonia. This was not a person he loved, or even knew. He couldn’t understand why his body curled over the stranger’s, sobs wracking his frame as he pulled them close, soft apologies tumbling from his mouth. He nuzzled his face into your- their hair, hand carefully cradling the back of their head as the other supported their back. 

The body smelled like you. The body felt too similar to yours in his arms. The body had your face, even if your features were a little damaged. The longer he stared, the more he could feel his gut sinking. So he shut his eyes and reminded himself that there was no possible way this was you. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t. The universe would not be that cruel to him, would it?

Then again, maybe he had deserved this. If it was real. He was not a good man. He had not come to this planet with good intentions. Losing the thing most precious to him, the only thing precious to him, after taking away so much from so many others was a befitting punishment. 

But you hadn’t deserved this. Wouldn’t have, if it was real. You were so kind and generous and perfect and lovely, so different from him, so different from the position your job wanted you to be. You didn’t deserve to die. 

Die. Dead. 

Dead. Dead. Dead. 

You were dead. 

(Aventurine had seen so much death in his life. He should have been used to it by now. He was used to it. He had just forgotten how much it hurt when it is someone he loves.)

He held you tighter. If he held you tightly enough, could it piece you back together? If he held you tightly enough, could he replace the parts of you that were missing with his own? The sobs that escaped his lungs were violent, and quickly, some morphing into gagging. He felt sick. He had to turn himself away from you briefly to throw up, not wanting to soil what was left of you further, before he desperately held you again. Would it be the last time he held you?

Maybe if he took you back to the ship quickly enough, something of you could be salvaged. Maybe he couldn’t piece you back together, but he could find someone who would. There had to be something he could do. This couldn’t be it. He couldn’t lose like this again. 

He could barely stand. His body was already weak and your added dead weight made it even harder to balance. He picked up the parts of you strewn about on the ground he could quickly spot. Your hand, your shoulder, what he thought might be your bicep. He couldn’t find your forearm and he didn’t have time to properly search for it. Maybe someone could put all of you back together? Maybe you’d be whole again. He wanted you to be whole again. 

(He couldn’t save his people. He couldn’t save his mother. He couldn’t save his sister.)

(But things had to be different now, surely. He was a different person now. He had power, he had wealth, he had everything. What would it all be good for, if he couldn’t save you?)

Other IPC personnel met him outside the building as he stumbled out, and Aventurine’s mind was so hazy he couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening. He was pretty sure his own, now dead, workers had sent a distress signal. People rushed in to find anyone else from the wreckage. After, Aventurine found out he was the sole survivor. (He always was.)

(You had not survived.)

He demanded you be taken into surgery. That the medical staff on board had to get you to breathe again. For some reason, they had been hesitant. He threatened to have them fired or killed if they didn’t get to it. He set you as first priority, putting the best doctors they had on hand to work on you. 

They sewed you back together as best as possible at his insistence. They got your heart pumping blood again, they hooked you up to machines and forced your lungs to breathe. The surgery lasted for four hours.

It did not change the flatline on the screen signalling your brain activity. 

He could find the best doctors in the whole galaxy, but he already knew the line would remain flat. Nothing was bringing that back.

He stared at you for hours after your surgery. Interlaced his fingers with yours, feeling the artificial warmth of your hand. It did not feel like you. The temperature was wrong. The look on your face was wrong. Your body was wrong. Everything about what remained of you was wrong. 

He eventually laid his head on your chest, and then he cried.

He cried until the black spots in his vision grew so numerous he could no longer see, until everything faded and he could no longer hear the beeping and humming of the machines keeping you hollowly alive. 

(Why did he ever let himself love again?)

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

Sorry that was messy I wrote everything today because I am con-crunching tomorrow and won't be available for like at least 3 days after this (usually I write over the span of multiple days so I can re-read for grammatical/spelling errors and so my language will be a little more varied + I get fresh ideas). Sorry this fic was ?? kind of messed up ??? I think ??? I think my perception of what's messed up and not is kind of weird (I grew up on warrior cats HELP.) so to me it didn't feel that fucked up to write about Aventurine literally picking up your body parts after you died but I've realised upon mentally summarising that part of the fic that maybe that was kinda horrific. Just a glimpse into my twisted mind heh 😈.... sorry

My inbox is open, feel free to send in asks or requests, I'd love to ramble about things <3

[lonestarss]

#boothill as the ballad of jane doe fuck. fuck oh my god.

there's just one lingering fear / oh, my soul, is it here? / or is it rotting somewhere with my head? (...) oh, no soul, and no name / and no story, what a shame / cruel existence was only a sham (...) i hear the anguish of the street / (a choir never complete) / and like an old forgotten tune / a song that no one knows / forgot how it goes (...) and i'm askin', "why, lord?" / if this is how i die, lord / why be left with no family and no friends? (...) when silence falls, does no one care? / (does anyone care?) (...) like john, i'll be, eternally / a forgotten name, some lost refrain / just jane

brb gonna go kill myself!

[scarlettjskipper]

HSR: Spoilers for Penacony's Trailblazer Mission 2.1!

God, the WAY Sunday yelled at Gallagher at end, demanding to know why he killed Robin broke my heart. I wanted to pat his back and hold his hand, dear Lord.

I can't imagine the agony he must be going through. He's reunited with his sister after literal years, only for her to be murdered, then the people who adopted them both force him to pretend that she's alive, try to stop him from looking into her death and who caused it.

AND THAT LIGHTCONE OH MY GOD THAT LIGHTCONE The fact that he kept it securely... After all this time... He looked so young and happy, too. Oh, my heart.

There's a lot of questionable things going on with him (just like everyone else in Penacony) but my heart really goes out to him. He's one of the people who has, arguably, been having the worst times.

[wantonlywindswept]

arla escapes DW ficbit

bit of a slower story than i've been writing of late; will see how far it goes. i don't think of arla as a super popular character in SW? tho that might just be bc her character is so obscure.

but she's basically free real estate imo and i am RUNNING with it

--

Arla spends two weeks in a shitty flophouse on an even shittier planet in the Outer Rim, jumping at every sound outside her door and pulling her blaster on shadows, before she realizes that she might actually have gotten away.

She gouged all three tracking chips from beneath her skin before her escape attempt. The ship she was given for her last assignment will have reached its final destination by now, set on a collision course with a star halfway across the galaxy. The droid that removed the explosive implant at the back of her neck auto-wiped its records, and she scoured her armor clean of bugs and paint in a single-minded frenzy that left her hands caked in blue and black.

It was the first job she was allowed in the Core, after years of faking loyalty and swallowing her pride and fury in order to rise in Death Watch's ranks. They previously hadn't trusted her not to disappear into the massive populaces found on Core worlds, where anonymity was the norm and people had enough that they could afford to be kind to strangers, instead of scrabbling desperately for their own survival. Tracking implants, on-board ship cameras, regular comm check-ins: they held tight to her leash with their grubby little fingers even as they finally allowed her to stray.

They were smart not to trust her--but not smart enough to keep her from disappearing. 

If they haven't found her yet, it's likely they won't find her at all.

When that fact finally sets in, Arla curls up in a corner of the room and wastes a couple hours on a hysterical, weeping breakdown, because why the fuck not?

She's free.

[orithereticent]

Am I funny yet?

[auxxrat]

I’m taking Dooku’s look of absolute sorrow upon Jango’s death as guilt and the knowledge that you just watched the last of something die off. Like looking at a picture of an animal, the last of its kind, just before it goes extinct.

[yoichichi]

SOBBING IN MY FUCKING STOREROOM BC I JUSR ACCIDENTALLY KILLED A MOUSE