#which is very unusual for me

[captainkirkk]

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

Clone Wars/Star Wars

The Sun Swings East by kj_feybarn (+ podfic)

Over and over, Obi-Wan woke up and wished he hadn't.

Palpatine wouldn't stop until Obi-Wan had Fallen, wouldn't stop until Obi-Wan gave Palpatine a shattered galaxy in payment for his release.

He couldn't save himself, Obi-Wan had come to terms with that.

What he hadn't realized was that didn't mean there was no way to be saved.

broken surface by qigiined

"The water is not talking to you, Obi-Wan,” Feemor says without chastisement in his tone. “That’s the force you’re feeling, from the trees maybe.” The clippers turn back on. “Or a fish.” “Bones,” Obi-Wan says. The clippers turn off again. “Bones,” Obi-Wan repeats. “I want to be bones.” “You’re already bones. Where’d you get that idea?” Qui-Gon steps quietly closer to the door. “You’re scaring me, O’Ben,” Feemor says softly.

(Obi-Wan suffers from a genetic and force-based condition that makes him want to drown himself in a bog. And sometimes that bog is the shape of a sink.)

cultural ed by qigiined

PDS: so Kenobi would have been 23? 24? When the padawan came along?

WLF: so probably around 22 for conception. They need time to bake.

PDS: no one can make natborns that young.

FOX: I’m telling you all. Natborns are REALLY good at making other natborns that young. It’s their specialty.

(Cal is assigned to do some cultural education with Obi-Wan on board The Negotiator for a few days and Cody and his batch come to some understandable conclusions.)

and through the spaces of the dark by blackkat (+ podfic)

Jon's attempts to avoid a war he wants no part in are ended when Dark Woman drags him to Coruscant and straight to a posting with the Guard. He intends to keep his head down and do his work, but the mysteries around the Guard - and Fox - immediately have him in out of his depth and on uncertain ground/

Nine Worlds series (Victoria Goddard)

An Impossible Dream by SunInGlory

His Radiancy makes a proposal to his secretary. It probably isn't a real proposal...or is it?

an honorable and enviable role. by mage-pie (looselipssinksubs)

"Get up get up get up!” Something heavy landed on Varro’s stomach. He sat up just as Zerafin turned the lights on. “What?” Zerafin was grinning. The thing he’d thrown at Varro was a duffel bag. “We’re going on vacation! Get up, start packing, we’re leaving at dawn!”

That’s right, iiiiit’s… Vangavayen Vacation Time! Featuring our very favorite captive audience and peanut gallery, the highly trained and extremely professional innermost members of the Imperial Guard! Please give them your applause and moral support; they’re going to need it.

Privacy by Penguinity

Rhodin sipped his coffee. “Are us roommates cramping your style?”

“No,” Conju demurred, in a way which clearly meant yes. “I value you all deeply and am satisfied with a . . . laissez-faire . . . living situation in our retirement.”

Ludvic stirred his coffee. Rhodin peeled a banana in a desultory way. They waited.

Conju sighed. “It’s just–“ Ludvic and Rhodin leaned forward as Conju continued, “– why does he have to be underfoot all the time? Overnight?! I came down for a drink last week and nearly broke my neck tripping over a middle-aged aristocrat. It’s undignified."

Disobedience by alfgifu

You glanced down at the new paper with mild concern and felt your emotions congeal into cold terror.

It was not a standard Council paper, though it came with the usual cover slip.

It was a warrant for Cliopher’s execution.

A touch of home by alfgifu

I might have felt extremely boring coming back to the Palace through the front door in all our finery, but as Kip had pointed out, there was really no need to alarm the guards by climbing in a window when we could shock the world simply by showing up as ourselves.

[mangaka-neko-chan]

The hands that desire.

I was granted a vision about my Corsair Prince Neh'edi and had to draw it immediately.

[eri-pl]

Slim Advent calendar 23: Goldsmith

Warning: sad, or dark, or however to call it. Sauron is having the worst day of his life and we're in his PoV. No particular triggers except some fire. hmm, is self-gaslighting a warning?

Also, fire (visual)

He laughed at the sight of the puny army of so-called free peoples. They weren't peoples, just a remnant of once much greater nation. Which he'd utterly destroyed. And they still owed him for the price he had to pay for that. And they were not free either, just insubordinate. But not for long.

Anyway, this was the smallest and weakest army he'd ever seen. Good. His forces attacked and soon everything would be in order, everything in accord—

A blinding scream in the world unseen, in—

No. Not there. Anywhere but not there.

Why? Why couldn't anything ever work right? Why was there always—noise? Why was there always someone to disagree?

It had cost him his face already. Wasn't that enough?

He remembered falling and water, and his beauty, his name torn away, the sheer terror when he had seen — had seen the end of himself and realized that it was for the better and yet, it had not come.

It had not come.

So why did it come now? It made no sense. But nothing ever did.

Falling, ever falling. Anything he did had failed, even though probability and common sense said he should be winning. But what else was he to do than try again? Surrender to the chaos of small, noisy people who couldn't make up their minds about anything?

After the war had been lost, Melkor, in his usual unoriginality, had cursed him, not unlike Eöl had done to his son. So maybe he shouldn't be surprised now?

Anyway, without Melkor there was even more chaos, because nobody cared to repair anything (don't think about that wave, it makes no sense, it couldn't have happened as you remember because then you'd be dead, don't be a fool, you're being dramatic about it).

He didn't even remember much of how it had all started.

There had been conflict. And conflicts ended quickly when the stronger side had more advantage, so he had joined the stronger side.

Somehow, it did not work.

Maybe it was not the stronger side, after all? But again, this made no sense. And what would he do now anyway? It was long beyond anything— all that they would do was to destroy him— which they managed to do without his help anyway— did this mean that finally some order would be achieved?

It wasn't his problem anymore, but that was a funny thought, so Sauron laughed as he wept, until his body was broken with his falling tower and his will melted in fire.

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

working on something rn and just. There are zero thoughts in four’s head

[sergle]

got flagged down today on my walk to get hit on

[buwheal]

How is your hand doing? Is it still bleeding, at all?

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Our non-marine heroine Karleeen McQueen

You know what, you already know lots of stuff about Ahti II, I’m now going to tell you about Karleeen the spidergirl, Ahti’s best friend and the protagonist of a story I’m writing! A quick information sheet:

(+ Art reference)

Karleeen (with three e’s)… well, who doesn’t know about Karleeen! Probably not by looks, but you could read all about her on the papers some years back. It’s been a while, you'd hardly recognise her if you saw her now! Especially among the other jolly beachgoers, joggers, shoppers and summertime tourists; Karleeen lives in Naantali after all, with her single father on the coast of southwest Finland. In the summer it's busy, in the winter it's very quiet, all year round it's a very appropriate place for Karleeen, she thinks.

Now in her mid-teens (the Sirpaverse “starting point” is 2021), Karleeen is a most open and jolly girl! She loves socialising and chats with just about anybody she has a chance to interact with for more than five minutes. She’s always planning outings and looking to spend time with her best friends, too! She enjoys being silly, making wordplay and coming up with puns with ridiculous set-ups. Karleeen is a sensitive soul, she feels all of her emotions very strongly and shows them strongly, too. She sometimes has trouble regulating her emotional reactions and has a tendency to spiral. It's very difficult for Karleeen to lie, her feelings will be very clear from her facial expressions and body language no matter how hard she may pretend to feel otherwise. Not that she'd even lie! It would make her feel too bad.

Karleeen has loved nothing more her whole life than making "thingamajigs" — you know, machines, things that move, little inventions! It's so fascinating to her, how pieces that are little more than scrap on their own weave together into intricate creations that are far more than the sum of their parts. When she was a young kid she'd make things out of twigs and rocks and rope, but in her teens she's now moved onto more sophisticated methods, legos and actual robot-building sets. She's also dipping her toes into coding, so far it seems fun and it offers an additional medium for making things (only digitally this time). Karleeen would love to study mechanical engineering when she's old enough to go to a university, but it'll be a while until then! Besides for robotics Karleeen enjoys hiking in the outdoors, climbing trees, basking, collecting fun and/or useless trinkets of various kinds and strawberry-themed items, playing platformers and action-adventure games and doodling.

Karleeen’s a smart girl, but she struggles a lot with languages. Or, well, don’t let me entirely misrepresent her: she does have the achievement of knowing some ASL signs. Still, Finnish is the only language she speaks fluently and it’s her own mother tongue! She can’t quite get anything else stuck to her brain, speaking Swedish or Surish or even simple English feels like a chore. Like stated above Karleeen’s body language is very clear, one of the more common actions Karleeen does when she’s nervous, scared or sad is holding her hands and arms close to her chest.

Karleeen's favourite genre of music is classical, but she can't listen to it casually because it makes her very emotional. She likes pop, rock and soundtracks when it comes to just playing music in the car or with friends. Her favourite animals are elephants, and her favourite fish is the electric eel. Her favourite meal is minute beef steak with seasoned butter and chanterelles, but her actual favorite singular food item in general and favourite snack is wild strawberries. Her favourite drink is tap water. Her favourite flower is fireweed.

(Nowhere else to really mention this but Karleeen is also asexual and biromantic, it took a long while for her to figure out because her relationship with having human connections is rather complicated and unusual but she’s comfortable in that identity and doesn’t really overthink it, she has a lot of love in her heart for so many things so it’s only natural she would have a lot of love for many people too, she thinks)

[courfee]

Good evening :) For the colour pallete + character thing, may I propose to you: Jehan Prouvaire in 43 <3

what a beautifully happy colour pallete... would be a shame if something happened to it.....

send me characters and a colour pallete to draw

[mbirnsings-71]

You know when you have a fanfic idea, have it all nice and plotted out and everything, but haven't written it yet, yet specific scenes are stuck in your brain already? Yeah that's me. and my artist curse is that I had to draw the scene or I was gonna implode! So you guys get zero context except this is for my wedding planner au-

[mariocki]

Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, 1971)

"You dream of having an affair with this woman who lives next door. To you, that woman represents sin, moral degradation. The house next door is a symbol of vice. From what you've told me, Mrs. Durer is not exactly respectable."

"No... she certainly is not."

[waugh-bao]

[perditus]

Antivan Crows - Talon/Guildmasters/Houses Dynamics

Talons & Guildmasters are the respective leaders for their Houses. A Talon and a Guildmaster are basically the same within their House, the only difference is Talons are in a leadership position for the entirety of the Crows as opposed to Guildmasters who only control their specific House. Keep in mind though that despite all being in the same organization, Crow Houses are NOT aligned with each other and it's very common for in-fighting to occur because of this. Even the Eight Talons themselves are not allied with each other for the most part - it's actually quite rare for TWO Talon Houses to ally - THREE is unheard of before Dellamorte - Cantori - De Riva. Being apart of the same organization in the Crows is NOT the same as being allies - many of them are enemies of each other. 

Alliances

Now, you do have two types of Houses : Talon Houses & Cuchillos. Talon Houses are the eight (only eight) Houses that are in control of the Crows as a whole. However, they are specifically allied to THEIR Houses first. A lot of their decisions are often made with THEIR Houses in mind and rarely is anything done across the entire organization. For the most part, Houses operate by their own rules and guidelines outside a few specific ones. So you will find Houses that are nicer - Cantori - and really awful Houses - Arainai. Talon Houses do not have control over each other’s Houses and their relationships are often tenuous at best. 

Cuchillos are all the lower Houses that do not hold a Talon seat. There are many of them, some with as few as three members. A lot of them are actually aligned with Talon Houses for their own benefit and to gain protection in some form due to their lack of funds. It’s a beneficial alliance for both the Talon House (or just bigger Cuchillo House) and the smaller Cuchillo House as there is often an exchange of some kind. Usually its in the form of services or goods, with the stronger House receiving said services/goods and the lower one receiving coin. 

Talon Houses are considered the best of the best - or the richest. Some of their seats are occupied by Talons who have not done a contract in a very long time and hold their seat purely through connections & money alone. House Cantori is actually a huge exception - they gained their seat through Teia’s talent alone and it caused a lot of controversy. Another thing to consider is that Talon Houses are not permanent - a House can fall from a Talon seat easily. House Arainai actually fell all the way to the Eight position - I believe they were second at some point? I cannot remember which at the top of my head but they had a higher one. 

Benefits

The perks of being in a House are basically protection and access to money & supplies. As a Crow in a House, you’re given supplies and money in order to support yourself as well as a home to stay in. Several of the larger Houses actually have multiple homes all across Thedas that their assassins can stay in as needed. You get access to different connections that the House may have established over the course of its tenure, from information brokers to more basic tradesmen. Not to mention they often have some of the better Heirs to train their Fledglings, resulting in assassins with a higher skill ceiling than those outside of a House. 

When you don’t have a House? You have to supply yourself and bid on contracts as opposed to having them assigned by a guildmaster. Houses actually often have clients that contract them directly as opposed to the Crows in general, allowing them to hoard the more lucrative contracts while the House-less basically fend for themselves. Talons/Guildmasters are in charge of assigning contracts but there is often a negotiator on the Crow’s behalf as well to ensure the Crows gain the most from said contract. 

Expectations

Crows inside Houses do have expectations based on their specific House - Talons & Guildmasters can develop their Houses however they want as long as it does not betray the Crows themselves. So it's always different depending on the House you’re in. When it comes to contracts, a portion of the coin earned from the contract is taken by the House in order to benefit the House as a whole. It is the main source of income for smaller Houses while larger Houses may have access to additional funding through businesses they may own. 

Punishments are also normally based on the House and dollied out by the Talon/Guildmaster depending on the severity. If it affects multiple Houses, the slighted House may become involved depending on negotiations. This usually doesn’t happen if its something between two normal assassins but the higher up you go…well..the deeper shit you’ll find yourself in. It is not uncommon at all for a House to give up their assassin that caused the offense in order to maintain peace between the two Houses. Wars have been started between Houses over incidents such as this.

[callizinc]

Is it just me or is it weird how... normal froggy is? His first words is talking about how insane dratula is, who by the standards of everyone else is pretty average in weirdness.

Then he doesn't seem to know what a genie is, despite that being very common knowledge! Coral, who is about as normal as he knows, knows what a genie is. Why doesn't he? He keeps referencing the concept of genie in quotation marks and seems to only have heard of the concept by stalking our convo with the receptionist.

It can't be because he doesn't recognise the word genie, because the only person we know not to recognise the term is Kane, who only knows the genie as the bathroom, and we know froggy doesn't know about the bathroom

Then, when he talks about the bathroom, he seems to think it is a normal bathroom, tho tbf ena also when hearing about the bathroom from Kane seems to not recognise it, but she does make the connection that the bathroom is the genie, unlike froggy who throughout the whole game does not make that connection, which might just be because of ena's weird speaking style but still!

Why does he seem to be so unknowable about these things? And how did ena and him come to work together?

ANON THIS IS. INSANE. TIMING CAUSE JUST THE OTHER DAY I WAS THINKING ABOUT + DRAFTING A POST BEING LIKE "Why is Froggy literally the only person in this entire game who doesn't know what a genie is when they are VERY IMPORTANT ENTITIES THAT LITERALLY EVERYBODY ELSE NEVER SHUTS UP ABOUT??????" LIKE????? WHAT????????????

It's insane too cause Coral knows what they are, meanwhile like you said she's not only surprisingly normal But also Specifically "not from around here" so She already knew what genies were, or just caught on very quickly, Meanwhile bro over here. Just doesn't 😭😭

EVEN LIKE The suspicious man???? They weren't lying That man is Suspicious. He's just hanging around where Froggy works being weird and suspicious and yapping about Piero the Genie AND FROGGY STILL DOESN'T KNOW?????????

I do feel like there's Maybe a chance this discrepancy is possibly an oversight?? like maybe it got left in as a way to try and encourage you to like, go get information from the Receptionist..... BUT. Idk. No way of proving any of this either way 😭😭😭😭

IN ANY CASE ANON. LET ME TELL YOU. Opening my inbox to multi paragraph ena analysis and musings Was like opening the door to my home and being greeted by the heavens parting above me and shining down a heavenly glow , And i am so serious about this comparison .

PLUS the other day when i was playing with a friend they noted that like. 😭 Other than being shaded artistically He looks a lot like just a normal fucking human man just in a weird frog suit 😭😭 ...Which. Doesn't inherently mean anything The Humanboard is also an entire human man BUT STILL

[amelikos]

Spinel's reaction after Zygarde leaves Gibeon.

[maraschinotopped]

ive been staring at the naqtube channel page just doing analysis thoughts in my head for like 15 minutes and ive just been hit with the realization that Damn this is not normal. normal people dont do this. either the mental illness or the mild sickness is doing something to me right now.